Archive for the ‘Homeland Security’ tag
From here and from there - 9
Through Maggie’s Farm I found this very interesting essay (PDF) about the origin of the US involvement in the Middle East. It isn’t short, but it is very good reading. And anyway an essay that state the following, can’t be really bad:
“When it comes to making sense of recent history, the American people, encouraged by their political leaders, have shown a demonstrable preference for clarity rather than nuance.”
An interesting discussion about the mixing of economy, as a scientific discipline, and the moral driven political action:
So in response to hatchet-job campaigns like that in The New Republic, or pundits such as David Fraum, we should be prepared because of our failure to prevent the conflation of Austrian economics and libertariansim, and the rhetorical emphasis many have chosen to pursue in presenting the libertarian political philosophy. We must be prepared to respond.
First, to insist that economics is not an ideologically disputed discipine anymore than chemistry or physics are. The basic teachings of economics are in place, it is the implications, and outter edges, that are in contention just like any other vibrant scientific discipline. There is, in short, nothing out of the mainstream of economics to insist that people respond to incentives, that disperse knowledge is coordinated through the price system, that inflation can distort economic activity, that regulation can be captured by powerful interest groups, etc.
Second, to point out what role the economist plays in society (Teacher, Student, Social Critic). Economics per se does not lend itself to advocacy of this or that policy, it does provide wisdom on the spontaneous ordering of society, and technical knowledge on means-ends efficiency. Economics must be combined with some moral sentiments (themselves up for debate) to be transformed into advocacy. But the discipline independent of moral assessment provides us with knowledge that places parameters on people’s utopia. Wishing it so doesn’t make it so, and economics tells us why. So much of political campaigning is about selling wishful thinking to a population that doesn’t know any better. Economics has not only a role to play, but a unique and powerful role in serving as the prophylactic against public fallacies. We need to defend the structural integrity of that prophylactic so it can do its job!
Third, be able to step away from our position as economist quo economist and instead take on our role as citizen and express our libertarianism as a doctrine of empowerment and inclusion. Libertarianism is not a fancy excuse for individuals who want to freely express racism, or bash certain sexual lifestyles, or businessmen who want to smoke dope. Of course, in a free society, just as in any society populated by human beings, there will be those who are ignorant and prejudice. The question is one of minimizing the access to politcal power of the ignorant and prejudice so that whatever repugnant views they may hold cannot be instantiated into policy and must always be confroted with free competition in ideas, in associations, in the market. In short, libertarianism doesn’t promise perfection, it just promises an institutional regime where man’s imperfections are held in check through decentralization of power, and competition.
And last for today is a link for Giuliani’s plan for straitening homeland security. It is interesting to note the classical path for tyranny - the development of external demonized enemies that ambushing in every corner, the siege and the total drafting to fight the “enemies”:
Getting and keeping federal agencies communicating with one another isn’t enough. An effective homeland security plan also has to establish links to, and make use of, the valuable information collected by the country’s 800,000 state and local law enforcement officers. We should view these officers as counterterrorism resources–"first preventers," as the Manhattan Institute’s R.P. Eddy calls them. Even beyond uniformed services, people such as DMV clerks, and even everyday citizens, may notice clues that would help law enforcement identify would-be terrorists. It was a clerk at Circuit City, after all, who provided the key tip that enabled federal authorities to stop the Fort Dix plot. (We should also reform liability laws so that individuals who act in good faith, such as those who report suspicious behavior on airplanes, will not get sued for trying to help their fellow citizens. Fortunately, a law authored by Rep. Peter King was recently passed to protect Americans who do just that.)
The article is full of incoherent arguments, self contradictions and over simplifications - which is perfectly in line with Giuliani’s foreign policy.