Obama Dishonors Daniel Pearl

In early 2002 Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was abducted and decapitated by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Pearl's last words were: "My name is Daniel Pearl. I am an American Jew from Encino, California."

When Khalid Sheikh Mohammed confessed to the crime, he declared: "I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew Daniel Pearl, in the city of Karachi."

There is no real ambiguity here. We have a hate crime, committed by a leading Islamic terrorist, against a man who is identified as both an American and a Jew.

To commemorate the event the terrorists produced what Mark Steyn aptly called a "snuff film" and distributed it as evidence of their power and righteousness. Clearly, the film was intended as a recruitment tool. Link here.

However clear the point, Congress seemed to miss it. It just decided to commemorate Daniel Pearl's murder by making him a martyr for press freedom. Thus, it passed The Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act.

The bill requires the State Department to monitor press freedoms as part of its annual human rights review.

That'll show them. Does anyone really believe that when Usama bin Laden hears about this law he is going to turn to Ayman el Zawahiri and declare: all is lost; the jihad is over; America has come to its senses and has asserted its abiding belief in freedom of the press!

But Daniel Pearl did not die because he published a cartoon of the prophet Mohammed or because he dared to translate Salmon Rushdie's Satanic Verses. He was murdered because he was an American and a Jew.

And how do you think bin Laden reacted when he heard our president confirm, in Daniel Pearl's name, surrounded by Daniel Pearl's son and father, his own take on the situation: "Obviously, the loss of Daniel Pearl was one of those moments that captured the world's imagination because it reminded us of how valuable a free press is."

Hasn't Obama just missed the point completely. Steyn expresses the outrage we should all feel at hearing Obama's verbal pabulum: "... he's talking about a dead man here, a guy murdered in public for all the world to see. Furthermore the deceased's family is standing all around him. And, even for a busy president it's the work of moments to come up with a sentence that would be respectful, moving, and true."

In other words, Obama's slight was deliberate; he was articulating policy, not commemorating the death of a man who was murdered because he was an American and a Jew.

A president who has expressed outrage against the indignity of asking an illegal immigrant to show his papers when caught speeding has nothing to say about the decapitation of an American Jew.

Effectively, Obama infused the moment with one of what Steyn calls: " ... the all-purpose bromides of therapeutic seduction."

Offered an opportunity to articulate the nature of the struggle against Islamic extremism, Obama's rhetoric was weak, irresolute, and mealy-mouthed. He talked in absurd circumlocutions, as though he was afraid to offend anyone by naming the problem.

All the while he still clings to the idea that he can try Daniel Pearl's assassin in a civilian court in lower Manhattan.

[For further remarks and discussion, thanks to Neo-neocon, follow this link.]

Free the Markets

Did you know that the Dalai Lama is a self-proclaimed Marxist? In a recent interview he explained why. It's because, in his words: "Marxism has moral ethics; whereas capitalism is only how to make profits." Link here. Via Instapundit.

I think we have a right to wonder what he means by moral ethics here. It is no secret the Marxist political systems have murdered and starved more people in a shorter period of time than any other.

So we must conclude that the Dalai Lama is talking about motivation, not consequences.

The Dalai Lama could not deny that capitalism had been good for the people of China. When it came to providing goods and services, to say nothing of food, it was far more successful than communism. Capitalism, he declared: "brought a lot of positive to China. Millions of people's living standards improved."

Apparently, the Dalai Lama objects to capitalists for their motives. Perhaps he read Adam Smith, because Smith famously declared that capitalists distribute more goods and services despite the fact that they are in it for their own self-interest. He also stated, less famously, that people who are motivated by a desire to be charitable do less well at producing economic growth.

According to Smith, the butcher does not sell you the steak because you are needy or because he feels charitable. He sells it to you because he wants to earn a profit.

In my view Smith is simply marking the difference between what motivates people in the marketplace and what motivates them in church. His viewpoint feels like an expansion on the concept of the separation of church and state, or between church and marketplace.

I believe that he is saying that the virtues that pertain to religion produce dysfunctional economies. He might also have said that self-interest is a bad reason to worship.

Once this distinction is made, I see no reason why we should limit our butcher's motives to profit. True enough, he wants to make a profit. He would not do what he is doing for free. And yet, he might also want to do a good job, to support his family, to provide good quality at a good price, and to be an upstanding member of his community.

All of these will make him a better businessman, but it is not entirely fair to reduce him to a profit-seeking animal.

It sounds to me like the Dalai Lama sees the profit motive as morally dubious; Western ethics does not draw as stark a contrast. Wanting to make a profit does not necessarily mean that a butcher will do anything whatever to achieve that goal.

I do not see a dichotomy between good and evil, but one between two different kinds of good.

The Dalai Lama is not the only person to object to the way markets work. And he is certainly not the only person to distrust the motives of market participants.

If you think that people are fundamentally venal, or are being driven by their animal spirits, you would not want to allow them too much freedom in the marketplace. Left to their own devices, you would think, market participants will produce outcomes that are necessarily unjust and unfair.

In their minds the only good markets are regulated markets.

But note that regulation is not simply about being the referee or the umpire. Strict regulation will also work to redistribute profits in ways the regulators consider to be more just and fair. Thus, regulation can easily morph into income redistribution and social justice.

Regulation can certainly work to weed out cheats and frauds. But can it also protect the markets from extremes like bubbles and crashes? Do you believe that regulation is necessary because markets are always being manipulated by a venal few? Do you believe that people cannot be trusted to act rationally when they are investing or consuming?

If regulators are keeping everyone honest, they are ensuring that the market's outcomes, its judgments, its distribution of goods and service, are respected.

But that does not mean that the market will necessarily distribute things equitably. A functioning market will not necessarily take from each according to his ability and give to each according to his needs.

This basic Marxist principle appeals to the Dalai Lama. In reality, it demoralizes people, for depriving them of their freedom to excel and to enjoy the fruits of their labor.

It makes little sense to criticize markets because they do not produce perfect outcomes. They were not designed for perfection and cannot be judged ill in comparison to a fictional world where outcomes would be perfectly just.

Markets are not perfect; they are simply better than any other economic system yet devised.

Obviously, many people do not believe in markets. They refuse to accept market outcomes, and believe that their own intelligence is far superior to that of the market.

Or better, they feel that their superior intelligence will produce superior outcomes to those produced by self-interested market participants.

Behavioral economists argue that unregulated markets are prone to extremes of bubbles and crashes because they believe that human beings are motivated by their animal spirits.

Since human beings are subject to emotion, they cannot really be trusted to do the right thing. Thus, their behavior as market participants must be constrained.

A counterargument suggests that the markets are perfectly capable of controlling irrational exuberance, and of making people pay for it. Markets correct; markets correct violently. If they never corrected, then that would be irrational. One might easily argue that correction is a rational process that occurs when people occasionally act irrationally.

But that does not necessarily mean that the markets are irrational beings. Or that market participants cannot be trusted to exercise their freedom. After all freedom involves responsibility. And when you become complacent or irrationally exuberant, a well-functioning market will usually make you pay for it.

That does not make the market an instrument of injustice; quite the contrary.

What happens then if people do not believe in markets. If they do not believe that the free decisions of millions can produce an effective distribution of goods and services.

Among those who believe that markets are corrupt are those who accept the corruption and believe that they can work it to their own advantage. They become market manipulators and cheats, because they believe that someone is always cheating, so why would it not be them.

And those who believe that the market is corrupt sometimes use government to make it produce more just results. Isn't this what caused the housing bubble? How much of the housing bubble and the ensuing financial crisis was produced when the government attempted to regulate the distribution of mortgages.

How many bankers, relying solely on their impulse to make a profit, would have made all of those subprime loans to unqualified borrowers?

Could it be that markets are pushed to extremes by people who do not respect them, who attempt to manipulate and control them?

Do we need more regulation or do we need to free the markets from government interference?

After all, the financial crisis was caused by an unholy alliance between regulated banks and semi-government entities like Fannie Mae. It was not caused by the largely unregulated hedge funds.

More on Spain's Green Economy

Two days ago I posted about two differing views of the value of the green economy. I contrasted Tom Friedman's pie-in-the-sky view that greening the economy would be a win-win situation-- meaning a win for Friedman and a win for us-- with the results of Spain's efforts to green its economy. Link here.

Since the Spanish government report had not yet been made public, I relied on Christopher Horner's preview. Now the report has made its way into the Spanish press, and Horner offers us another post about how bad the green jobs initiative has worked out. Link here.

As Horner points out, Spain's example was Pres. Obama's role model for what he wants to bring to America. We are well within our rights to ask whether Obama will draw a lesson from the Spanish debacle or whether he will continue to ignore reality and push ahead.

Coaching Lessons: Don't Multitask. Focus.

Last summer I posted some remarks about multitasking. Link here. I thought at the time that when people say they are multitasking they are either rationalizing their difficulty focusing, or else, they are creating a situation where they are forcing themselves to lose focus.

You might well enhance your self-esteem by thinking that you can juggle several balls at once, you will be losing more by failing to concentrate on a single problem at a time.

Anyway, Peter Bregman has an excellent post on the topic today. Link here. In it he offers some cogent and helpful observations about the perils of multitasking and the advantages to getting over this bad habit. Once he stopped multitasking Bregman discovered that he had found a way to be more efficient, more effective, and less stressed.

As he describes it, there is so much to be gained by getting over multitasking, that one would be hard put to find a reason to continue it.

Does Generation D Listen to Emotion?

This morning Mike Dorning joined those of us who have been reflecting on the bleak job prospects facing the Class of 2010. Link here.

Now that the Class of 2009 has finally gotten jobs ... waiting on tables, there is not much left for the Class of 2010.

Discouraged and demoralized these new graduates are not just facing a difficult job market. The lost wages and the lost opportunities are likely going to impact their careers for decades to come.

Dorning also raises an issue I discussed in my last post on the topic (link here), namely the extent that the millennial generation (those born after 1980) supported President Obama. In the last election this group went for Obama 62%-30%. Now some of them are beginning to wake up; their support for the president has declined to 55%-37%.

But this leaves the larger question open. If we are going to label this group Generation D, as some have done, what does the D stand for?

Some have suggested that D stands for "digital," since the millennial generation grew up in a digital age and is far more tech savvy than any of the preceding generation.

But maybe D stands for depressed and demoralized, given how depressed these students are at places like SUNY Albany.

This morning, however, I received some anecdotal information, to the effect that Generation D is far more reliant on psychotropic medications than any other groups of Americans. Maybe D should stand for: drugged.

Surely, this is dispiriting. To think that the millennials are the most drugged generation, not in the sense of overusing banned substances, but in the sense of using medicine to control mood and emotion.

We are not talking about someone depressed being prescribed anti-depressants. The members of Generation D use drugs to maintain their moods, to keep their emotions in check, to get to sleep, and even to stay alert and awake. This goes well beyond the proper use of psychiatric medication.

Generation D stands out for having made psychiatric medication an integral part of everyday life.

To its detriment, I would say.

Whatever good these medications do, they can easily be abused. It's one thing to treat pathological depression and anxiety disorders, but it is quite another to use pills to stifle normal emotions.

The irony is rich, indeed. For more than a century psychotherapy has worked long and hard to help people to get in touch with their emotions. Now we are at a point where young people are using medication to repress their emotions, to distort them, and ultimately to ignore their messages.

I cannot help but think that if therapy had taught people how to deal with emotion, Generation D would not be demanding prescriptions for drugs that can repress them.

It is a bad day indeed when people listen to Prozac more than they listen to their own feelings.

Many of you know that I have very little sympathy for therapy that tries to help people to get in touch with their feelings. When I say that we need to learn how to listen to our feelings, I am referring to something else.

When you are walking down a dark street and feeling a premonition of danger, you can either search your memory for a past trauma that might explain why you feel afraid, or you can accept that your anxiety probably means that you are in some potential danger. In the first case, you would introspect and rummage through your past memories. In the second, you would take action to deal with the potential danger.

Therapy tends to favor the first approach; I favor the second.

Emotion is trying to tell you something about reality. Listening to it means directing your attention out of your mind and toward the real situation that might have provoked the emotion.

Emotion may not be telling you what to do, but it does tell you that you probably need to do something.

Normally the members of Generation D would be feeling some considerable despair and anguish over their future career prospects. If they heed their emotions they will be doing something to deal with the problem. If they have repressed their emotions they might feel complacent, to the point of saying that they can move back in with Mom and Dad and wait it out.

Consider this: during the 2008 financial crisis the administration point man was Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. And Henry Paulson was a Christian Scientist, which meant that he could not take medication to deal with the emotional turmoil the crisis provoked in him.

As we know from his memoir Paulson was, at the time, consumed with anxiety, to the point where he would have to excuse himself from meetings in order to go to the rest room to vomit. And we know that he also had trouble sleeping.

There are two kinds of anxiety that accompany a crisis. In the one case you might feel anxious because you cannot grasp the reality of the situation. For many people the financial crisis was simply too complicated and too intricate for them to understand fully. In the other case you might feel anxious because you understand fully what is going on and the situation is very, very bad indeed.

Let us place Henry Paulson in the latter category. His gut reflected his understanding of the danger the financial system and the country was facing. When he proposed the TARP program to deal with the crisis, he was listening to his emotion.

This does not mean that the TARP was right or wrong. It shows someone listening to his emotion and concluding that the crisis he was facing needed quick and decisive action.

"Arlen Specter Goes Out Like a Fool"

Henry Rollins offers what should be the last word on Arlen Specter's political career: "Arlen Specter Goes Out Like a Fool." Link here.

As Rollins puts it, Specter: "...chickened out, bailed on his party, and then got his ass kicked out the door." He adds: "His accomplishments ... are just part of a distant history that will always be eclipsed by the fact that he abandoned his party, his principles, and his integrity."

I could not have said it any better, and will not try.

Some things are a lot more important than winning or losing an election.

The Green Economy: Pro and Con

This morning Tom Friedman proclaimed that he had drawn the only correct lesson from the Gulf oil spill: we need to green the economy, tax carbon emissions, and promote new green technologies. Link here.

Which means that Friedman thinks that the spill proves that we should do what he has always been saying that we should do. It's nice to be smart enough to be able to find evidence that proves you were always right.

In the great debate over greening the economy, Friedman represents the pro side.

For the con side, I recommend that you have a look at Christopher Horner's article on Pajama's Media. Horner has managed to acquire a confidential report, prepared by and for the Spanish government, that analyzes the results of Spain's green economy initiatives. He offers some commentary, a translation of the report, and a link to the original Spanish version. Link here.

Contrary to the gossamer visions of Tom Friedman, Spain's experience with a green economy has been very, very costly. These environmentally friendly policies have produced higher unemployment and have helped send the nation to the brink of bankruptcy.

Thus, Horner and the Spanish government adequately represent an opposing point of view.

In a better world, both points of view would be debated in Congress and in the news media. Alas, we do not live in a better world. But fortunately, we do have the blogosphere to provide us with what the mainstream media finds unworthy of attention.