Move

I have decided to move over to Typepad.

You can find the new blog here. I would ask everyone who has been kind enough to link to me to please update your blogrolls with the new url, or you can just use internetcommentator.com which should forward to the new address within the next 24 hours.

Compassion?

What is Andrew Sullivan on about?, discussing Pres. Bush's Gray-Davis-like quasi-amnesty for illegal immigrants:

"The hard right is dismayed that he is showing compassion toward illegal immigrants"

Surely he knows better than that? The "hard right" may well be "dismayed" but I bet you'll find that opposition to this move extends way beyond the "hard right".

Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism

A few discussions about nationalism on Slugger got me thinking about a curious fact. In Northern Ireland there is a kind of shorthand for the range of political views in each "community". For catholics, the moderate strand is described as "Nationalist" while "Republican" connotes the more extreme. For protestants, "Loyalist" describes the extreme element and "Unionist", the moderate. The topic under discussion was the relationship between Nationalism in general and multiculturalism or cosmopolitanism. The logic of nationalism is to promote the interest of one collective culture over the interests of other cultures and the interests of individuals. Anyone who claims to be a cosmopolitan nationalist is axiomatically confused. Clarity on this will be provided when the interests of cosmopolitanism and nationalism collide and this person is forced to choose. One of these areas is immigration.

The curious fact is that, at least theoretically, it is the "extreme" political view of the catholic community and the "moderate" political view of the protestant community which is better placed philosophically to deal with issues relating to immigration and other cultures.

The nominally republican party, SF, is, as it happens, also extreme nationalist in practice - its success over the SDLP is surely due to its perception as a more effective advocate for its community - yet in theory the purpose of republicanism is to promote a United Ireland suitable for those of both communities or none. Meanwhile, the "moderate" protestant political view is, in practice, a kind of British nationalism, retention of the union is often promoted as a cultural, as opposed to utilitarian, imperative. However a "purer" Unionism which simply promoted retention of the union in a culturally neutral manner - I think this is what Trimble was (ineptly) trying to get at when he crudely slandered the Republic of Ireland as "monocultural" - is perfectly consistent with cosmopolitanism.

Tepid Terra

Great article by Melanie Phillips on The global warming fraud, (via Alex Singleton)

"Far from being proved, the claim of man-made global warming is a global fraud. Instead of being drawn from observable facts, it is based on computer modelling which churns out wholly artificial — and eminently manipulable — visions of the world.

Computers can only process the information fed into them. This is an inadequate procedure, not least because climate change is affected by billions of variables which are beyond any computer programme. The sea level ‘rise’, for instance, omits the full influence of certain crucial natural meteorological changes. And if the disaster scenarios of global warming are fed into the computer as a premise, it is hardly surprising that it will then ‘predict’ the disappearance of species as a consequence.

In other words, if you feed rubbish into a computer, you get rubbish out."

Unintentional Anarcho-Capitalism Advocacy

I know it's meant as a joke but: What a great idea!

Mars

Harsh words from Abiola for Mars dreamers:

"Any so-called advocate of small government who is excited by this Mars nonsense ought to turn in his conservative/libertarian credentials and go find some other political home to call his own. Manned space-flight on the government dime, in any incarnation, is a waste of money, of essentially no lasting scientific value, and a trip to either the moon or Mars would be especially wasteful."

I have to (reluctantly) agree. There's nothing to stop private concerns from getting involved with manned space flight, though I'd say it would take the invention of a new propulsion method to make it profitable.

Music for nothing, Books for free

Natalie Solent has an interesting piece about free downloads of books, author Eric Flint notes that this is no different to friends lending books to one another, both of which can help increase readership. Natalie is concerned that once "bad things" (unauthorised copying or sharing of intellectual property) become convenient, it is a short step to this becoming accepted custom.

Even though I don't generally distinguish between physical property and intellectual property I think it is important to retain the distinction between "theft" of either. If you steal my car, I am down one car. If you "steal" my novel/song by downloading or copying it, I still have it. I am just down one potential sale of an "authorised" copy of it.

How bad the latter "theft" is depends on the level of negative effect on potential sales. It is by no means certain that potential sales are affected negatively in all cases. One shouldn't forget either, that production and sale of intellectual property is no less susceptible to market forces than any other activity. If the "bad thing" does become accepted custom, reducing or reorientating revenue, then a market response is likely from artists.

Natalie also makes the classic error of assuming that because one can't imagine something, it is improbable and that everyone else necessarily shares her own preferred reading method:

"At the moment I'd far rather have a book-sized chunk of words as a book than a download. I don't even know what you do with a download. Read it online? Hurts the eyes, or the neck, and for many people you have to sit at a desk to do it. Print it out? Takes a week and probably costs the price of the book in ink and paper. How much nicer to have a snuggy little book that you can take to bed with you. But come the day of the utterly portable 4" x 6" x ½" hand-held computer with a zero-glare screen, ...- then I dunno, mate, I dunno"

You know: the day of the hand-held computer with a zero glare screen on which you can comfortably read books, snuggled up in bed or not, is already here.

I am a big fan of e-books, my only gripe is that so few books are published this way. I would rather buy a book to download to my Clie UX-50 than the paper version. The big advantage of e-books is that, as with the mp3 player, one's pocket can contain an entire library. This is an especial advantage if you find yourself waiting somewhere with "time to kill". A Sony Clie, Palm Pilot or Pocket PC can contain, not only the book you are currently reading, but the next few and, courtesy of AvantGo, several newspapers and blogs too.

Two and a half horse race?

Looks like I spoke too soon. Manchester United's frustrating home draw with Newcastle United sees their advantage over Arsenal at the top of the table reduced to a solitary point.

Miller's Crossing

Ciaran is really annoyed at Liam Miller for signing a pre-contract agreement this week which will take the 22 yr old Irish midfielder to Old Trafford in the summer. His current club, Celtic, won't receive a penny.

I think Ciaran would do well to direct his ire to the club and not the player. It matters little whether the player was offered £11,000 per week, as the Irish Independent claims (pro-United spinning according to Ciaran) or the exact same terms as his deal with Manchester United, apparently £20,000. The fact is, Celtic's offer was only made with the knowledge of United's interest.

This has nothing to do with the player's "loyalty" (and by the way: Miller's nationality has nothing at all to do with it). A football player's first loyalty has to be to himself, his family and his career. Loyalty to a club is very important, but it is secondary and it must be reciprocated. There is no treachery in Miller agreeing to sign for United. He had been put in that position by Celtic who were quite happy for the, now, first team regular to be paid a mere £1,000 a week and let his contract wind down.

They could have shown him a bit more "loyalty" and at the same time protect one of their "assets" by offering a him longer term contract earlier. Instead they took a gamble and assumed he would just sign a new deal when his contract ran out. This was short-sighted. Maybe they wanted to save themselves a few bob on his wages or maybe they thought he wouldn't make it as a first team player. Either way, they hardly showed him much "loyalty".

Czech Charades

"My Czech phrase book inexplicably did not include 'you have an animal on the loose' in it"

William Sjostrom was too modest earlier.

Sullivan's been HD-winked

Andrew Sullivan is heartened by the following statement by leading Democrat presidential contender, Howard Dean:

"From a religious point of view, if God had thought homosexuality is a sin, he would not have created gay people"

I think Andrew has allowed himself be blinded to the fatuousness of this statement because, on this issue if nothing else, he wants Dean to be "on his side". But really, what kind of argument is it:

"If God thought X is a sin, he would not have created people who do X".

This is the acme of circular arguments. According to this credo, nothing which happens can be a sin, as "If God let it happen, it's ok".

Andrew thinks this is better than "a non-controversial mealy-mouthed defense of civil unions". But I can't see the difference: This is "a defense of civil unions", and check this for "non-controversial, mealymouthed", from the WaPo article linked to:

"Dean said he does not consider homosexuality a sin but nonetheless opposes gay marriage"

It is hardly controversial for an East Coast Liberal to state that he doesn't consider homosexuality to be a sin. This statement of Dean's is just a typical politician's weaselly straddle. With his ersatz "religious justification" Dean gets to look religious, compassionate and "Pro-Gay" - if he's fooled someone as smart as Andrew Sullivan, he can probably fool plenty more - and he still gets to oppose Gay Marriage.

[For what it's worth, I'm a committed, though non proselytising, atheist and have come to the conclusion that there is no justification for the state refusing to recognise Gay Marriages]

It's all about the rocks

Dublin Gal cheers the Irish army for an intervention in Liberia, freeing 35 Liberian civilians who had been abducted and raped. However, William can see the sinister side of this "Rabid Irish Imperialism", noting astutely the absence of Irish "peace-keeping" troops in other troubled areas which, by a curious coincidence, don't have any diamonds!

Never mind "No Blood for Oil!", what about: "No Liberation of Liberians for Diamonds!"

Dull?

In the comments of the post below, John complains:

"What I want to know is, why do you care about the Premiership? It's so dull. The European Cup is the only trophy that should matter as far as I'm concerned "

I thought I'd post my reply here as it was getting a bit long:

The European trophy is certainly prestigious. I would even go as far as to argue that a Champions League winners medal is a higher honour than a World cup winners medal. It is a lot harder to predict who the winners will be - although you'd hardly go broke betting on Real Madrid each year - so there may be some excitement there. That said, there are a lot of awful, meaningless, poorly attended matches during the group stages. It is still only a cup competition, perhaps if it evolved into a league it might be different, but you can't beat the long slog of a league programme.

I can't agree that the Premiership is "dull". Of course, following it tends to be a lot more satisfying for a Manchester United fan than for those of other clubs. There are undoubtedly too many clubs in the Premiership but it is much more exciting than any other European league bar Spain.

Have you ever managed to sit through a Serie A match, a whole 90 minutes of elegant defending, without falling asleep? Hey: it's Reggina 0, Chievo 0, didn't see that one coming. Then a shock result as Bologna and Siena play out a thrilling goalless draw. Meanwhile, reports are coming in of a goal-fest over at Lecce as the champions, free-scoring Juventus, bang in a whopping one goal to equalise Lecce's first half goal rush of one goal.

There is also, at the moment, a very congested middle, a mere 12 points separate Charlton, in 4th place, which would see them qualify for the champions league, and Portsmouth in the 18th place, which would relegate them. If you think that sounds a lot, you might note that 11 points separate Charlton from the team immediately above them, Chelsea.

12 points is just 4 wins. If it stays as tight as this, every game counts. For all the teams hitherto content to affirm their mid-table-respectability status, contesting matches of no consequence, and a few who might have expected a title tilt there is now the very real prospect of glory and financial reward via European qualification or misery and possible financial ruin via relegation. For all 16 of them it's a veritable Ancient Chinese Curse: Interesting times indeed.

The Brazilian Bob Dylan

Nelson reworks one of the old grouch's tunes for the 21st century.

Still a three horse race?

I wonder.

I had a feeling before Christmas that the Premiership title race was slipping away from Chelsea and wondered whether, despite their continuing unbeaten run, Arsenal were going a bit stale. I didn't dare mention it but, in the light of Manchester United's 2-1 victory at Bolton while the Gunners were held at Everton, Chelsea losing at home to Liverpool, and probably tempting fate, I wonder if United's newly acquired 3 point margin at the top will only increase in the next few weeks.

Words you never thought you'd read...

Dick O'Brien:

"Frank McGahon has more business being on the opinion pages of the Irish Times than Mark Steyn does."

For once, I'm lost for words!

Sticking up for Steyn

Dick is not at all impressed with Mark Steyn, in fact he's so annoyed with the scribe's latest piece, on why "Events" don't just happen, that he makes the remarkable claim that..

"..Steyn rarely produces work worth publishing"

Now, it will come as no surprise to anyone vaguely familiar with this blog that I'm a huge fan of Steyn. I don't agree with everything he writes - for instance, I think he's wrong on Gay Marriage and I also think he overstates the Islamification of Europe - but his often hilarious, never pompous, Op-Ed pieces put pretty much every other commentator in the shade in style, humour and, as it turns out, accuracy of predictions.

I know better than to think I can persuade Dick of the merits of Steyn's substantive argument. For one, while I share Steyn's opposition to the welfare state from first principles, Dick apparently supports it implicitly supports it explicitly. However, I would like to try and persuade Dick that his annoyance with the Irish Times for hiring Steyn, contrary to his disclaimer, is because he disagrees with Steyn's opinions.

In the course of his post, Dick attacks Steyn's opinions about big government, organised labour and the welfare state and complains when Steyn brackets China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and France as displaying insufficient liberty and self-reliance. Despite the fact that Steyn distinguishes between each country and makes clear that each fails its citizens in a different way, Dick is keen to attribute "clumsy moral equivalence" to Steyn. Yet all of these are opinions, with which Dick disagrees.

So, Dick: by all means "fisk" Mark Steyn. Please don't overreach in claiming he is unsuitable for publication.

What about Vlad?

Jon points to a curious piece by Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds on income inequality. I am very much against equality initiatives and I'm opposed to any kind of concentration on income inequality or relative poverty as I think they are ultimately rhetorical conceits which say little about the underlying problem: If I earn €20,000 a year and you earn €120,000 we have an "income inequality" of €100,000. If I earn €100,000 and you earn €1,000,000, our income inequality has rocketed up to €900,000 but I am patently better off.

I say "curious" because Glenn isn't exactly arguing against income inequality but he has an important caveat: it is wrong for individuals to become so super-rich that, like George Soros, they interfere with the political process. Professor Reynolds is normally astute but this is just plain wrong. To illustrate why, forget about Soros and Bush and look over to Russia. Is not Glenn's argument identical to Putin's?

One Step Away From Common Wisdom

Better late than never: How could I miss The People's Blog's forthright reaction to Saddam's capture which, while graciously conceding that

"President Saddam Hussein was no Mother Theresa",

notes that

"The timing is also suspicious. The third part of the American propaganda flick Lord of the Rings premiers this week. Most likely Saddam's been held for months, (since when did a DNA test take hours?), and intentionally released now to increase the psychological effect. With the "arrest" of Saddam fresh in mind as audiences watch this racist allegory of Middle East affairs, the association between "evil" and Saddam Hussein will be complete and unerasable."

and reminding us

"Some readers claim that I have mixed up east and west here. I won't even honor that accusation with a reply. This is just another example of the pro-American thought police in action. Take one step away from common wisdom and suddenly there are lots of "factual errors" in your piece. It's one of their favourite tactics."

Right on, Comrade Medvedsilnyn!

Nigerian Dilemma

Interesting post by Abiola Lapite on Nigeria's ethnic conflict. Of course, one can't ignore the poisonous legacy of LSE-taught Marxism in Africa's recent history but he makes a persuasive case that the arbitrary delineation of the borders of African countries in general and Nigeria in particular which ignored extant ethnic groups is the significant contributing factor to that continent's woes.

"The real key to Africa's problems.. is ethnicity. Hardly any of Africa's states are drawn along ethnic lines, and the ethnic tensions that have resulted as various groups struggled for power after the Europeans pulled out have led to coups, wars and other manifestations of instability... ..Nigeria, that creation of Frederick Lugard's imagination, arbitrarily divides the Yoruba within its borders from those in Benin and Togo, while the border between Niger and Nigeria splits the Hausa-Fulani along another artificial line...What makes Nigeria's difficulties worse is that there is no one group that clearly outnumbers the rest; instead there are three groups with a rough parity of numbers - the Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo - meaning that there is no possibility that a stable equilibrium will be reached, as whenever any two groups gang up to seize power at the expense of the third, eventually one of the two becomes so disaffected by its share of the spoils that it either defects to ally itself with the previously excluded third, or is itself kicked out and replaced by the third party. In such an environment any act of self-aggrandizement by a member of one's own group at the public expense is easily rationalized away as 'scoring one for the team', the (not entirely unreasonable) thinking being 'If one of our guys hadn't done the looting, one of the other group's members surely would have.'"

What is IQ good for?

The other day, ennui, combined with curiosity, led me to accept the invitation of a popup window to take an online IQ test. Modesty prevents me from revealing my score but I was sufficiently flattered to attempt two other online tests which subsequently endorsed the first score.

I don't deny that I felt a mild boost, yet on reflection my initial impression, that IQ tests primarily measure the ability to do IQ tests, was hardly negated. I was struck by how the tests appeared to favour a particularly "male", systemising way of thinking: It is understandable how some of those with aspergers syndrome or autism have very high IQ scores. It is hard to see how a facility with spatial awareness or an ability to recognise patterns or sequences really amounts to all that much outside of a narrow range of tasks.

I have been involved in a few debates recently over on Samizdata. I really don't want to rehash it all here (you can read it all over there) but one of the core assumptions of those with whom I disagree is that a high average IQ is a "cause" rather than an "effect" and that a high average IQ society is not only desirable but an imperative. This has always seemed to me to be an extremely tenuous assertion. After all, would you really hire Carol Vordeman to plaster your house? If you want someone to design your house, you could do worse than ask me but it would be a very foolish client who wished to expand my services to include actually building the thing with my own hands (let's just say I'm more of a GOTDIFY than a DIY type of person).

So it was with a, perhaps slightly perverse, sense of national pride that I noted before Christmas that Ireland has one of the lowest average IQ levels in Europe at 93.

Out of 50 countries we came 33rd. Below Romania! Meanwhile, the only superpower, USA, falls outside the top 20 with 98.

Pahk the Kah

Striking suggestion from Colby on a possible "late-arriving saviour" for the Democrats.

Surely not the definitive Boston Brahmin?

Diaretirement

It seems that retiring from blogging is all the rage at the moment. Following Emily's announcement of a blogging pause, (promptly recinded) Cinderella Bloggerfeller is on hiatus for 2004. God of the Machine offers a moving Op-bituary

I will miss the inelegantly monikered commentator but it least it gives me an opportunity to invent some even uglier words like Sabbloggatical, Diaretirement and Op-bituary!

Whaddya Know?

I made Samizdata's slogan of the day!

Thanks Perry!

Problems

Seems to be some problems with Blogger???

UPDATE: Fixed now.

'04

Happy New Year, everyone!

Fool's Errand III

Mark relates his adventures in the "leftwing skinhead" swamp of Indymedia.

Our Little Christmas Pudding...

I'd like to introduce everyone to my daughter, Zoe. She was born at 11.02PM on Monday night, timing it perfectly so that she could be here for Christmas! Mother and baby are doing great and back home already.

I imagine blogging will be pretty light over the Christmas holiday period. One irony is that I often have better opportunities to blog when I'm at work, when I'm supposed to be doing something a bit more productive instead like, well, work.

Happy Christmas everyone!

WTC

John wonders what I think about the proposed redevelopment of the World Trade Centre site:

Let's just say I'm underwhelmed by the scheme. I'm not a huge fan of Libeskind's work generally and this scheme is kind of a Libeskind work filtered through several more "commercially-orientated" practices each of which would have been perfectly capable of doing the main job anyway.

In architecture there is a general presumption against reconstructing anything "exactly as it was" as it's a kind of deception but there are exceptions to this rule.

1) The Catalan reconstruction of Mies Van der Rohe's seminal Barcelona Pavilion ("Pabellon Mies") in the 1980s which has allowed us to appreciate what this building really was like. I've been there several times and it is probably my favourite building. This exception would be for a building, preferably small, which was a very influential piece of architectural history.

2) The reconstruction of the historic centre of Warsaw after the war, as an exact facsmile of its pre-war state. This was an important and defiant political act which made the point that however much Germany physically destroyed they couldn't destroy the Polish spirit.

I think it's fair to say that the WTC was certainly not an important building in architectural history so exception 1) doesn't apply. But I think exception 2) does. What better "two fingers" to display to those who would attack America thus than the reconstruction of the Twin Towers exactly as they were. This would not be to pretend that it never happened but to make a statement that America goes on, and the terrorists can't leave a permanent mark of their crime.

Tell us something we don't know

The Economist this week has an article about a study claiming to prove that men lose their fiscal responsibility in the presence of attrative women. In econospeak, the slope of men's discount curve steepens after seeing pictures of beautiful women - they place more value on an immediate monetary amount (less on deferred money). Is this not what a large segment of the advertising industry (not to mention the female population) have known for a long time?

Perhaps Take Thy Lovli Henrietta to a Beheading?

Sound advice from Medieval Jai, Excellent stuff: Qveere Eye for thye Medieval Man

{via Emily}

"Let there be no mistake..

..We are at the edge of the abyss. It is time to move forward."

More from the bould Jimmy Sands, also here.

"Your Mommy Kills Animals"

Not an Onion headline but, as The Daily Ablution notes, PETA's latest campaign: Terrifying moppets so that their pester power can bolster a flagging cause. That scratching sound you hear is the earth beneath the bottom of the barrel.

Caribbean Sinn Fein

I only came across this today. Emily pointed me to Jimmy Sands' invaluable (semi-defunct?) resource for Republicans in the West Indies which includes this very useful Irish acronyms and abbreviations guide for the newbie. Definitions, such as below, are succint, to the point and, of course, scrupulously neutral:

"* Unionism: Political philosophy supporting maintainence of
British rule of the 6 Counties. And eating babies."

Fool's Errand II

I tried to get out....but they dragged me back in:

A Slugger post on a review by the extremist nationalist fantasist Paul Dunne (from before) has seen me engage Mr Dunne in something resembling a debate in the comments. "Debate" might be a bit of a loose description, Dunne mostly hurls insults in my direction, but it is telling to see Dunne's ersatz urbanity - displayed in reaction to endorsement - evaporate in response to any criticism.

Fly me to the Moon(bat)

Emily gives George Monbiot a bit of a pasting after Moronbiot's characteristically sour (not to mention perverse) reaction to the anniversary of the Wright Brothers' flight, an event marked more memorably by Google yesterday.

"We Got Him" II

I find it hard to disagree with Hitch:

"He had all his visitors body-searched and all his food tasted in advance. He was obsessed with hygiene and stray infections. He wore a different uniform every day and built himself a vulgar palace in every city of his miserable country. Nice, then, to see him found like a rat in a hole, covered with grime, sprouting a dirty grey mane, and being shaven and combed for lice"

{via The Broom of Anger}

Fool's Errand

Mark Humprys notes how his attempt to post to IndyMedia Orthodoxymedia was scuppered. Those Saddam-enthusiasts couldn't bear to expose their readers, delicate flowers that they are, to Mark rubbing their noses in it. Freedom of Speech my b*ckside!

UPDATE:, Aaargh! Mark goofed. They did post it! 18/12/03 12:36 PM

Playing The Man

I had mentioned in a previous post that there was a tendency by some of the comment-posters at Slugger O'Toole to ignore the substantive point of an argument and instead state that the author of the argument shouldn't be taken seriously. The analogy often used is "to play the man, not the ball". It is important to remember what is wrong about this.

There is obviously the principle of common courtesy. The problem is: I'd guess most people think this is the only reason why it is wrong and a lot of the time, particularly in the cauldron of NI politics, they are disinclined to be courteous to someone they believe is the enemy, or worse a traitor. The format for these comments goes as follows:

Mick Fealty: Pundit A writing in the Newspaper B makes the case that X is Y

Comment-poster C: "There's no reason to listen to anything Pundit A says, she/he's just a Z.

Frequently followed by

Comment-poster D: "Yes she/he's a real Z, remember when he/she said..."

or

Comment-poster E: "Never mind what comment-poster C or D says, they're both Zs , remember what C said about...."

Now, it should go without saying that not much courtesy is displayed in this exchange. But more importantly, A's assertion that "X is Y" hasn't been addressed. Pundit A might be right or wrong but no case has been made to refute A's position or support it. You may be putting yourself at a disadvantage in convincing people normally inclined to disagree with you of your argument if you are discourteous, but you surely have no chance of convincing your opponent, or more importantly an outsider or someone sitting on the fence, if you fail to make the case for your argument. Anyone who is inclined to agree with Pundit A will be more likely to accept their assertion if the only reaction is the standard blanket denunciation. Thus two phenomena persist: 1) the echo chamber, where received views and prejudices are simply reinforced and 2) "both sides" simply talking past each other.

A related phenomena is to ascribe the views of your traditional opponent to anyone critical of your position.To use a recent example, Michael McDowell's recent comments linking the provisional republican movement with organised crime were referred to as "Taking the DUP stance". It is demonstrably true that McDowell is a voracious political opponent of Sinn Fein but it is stretching credulity to describe him as "unionist". McDowell is actually a pretty strong constitutional nationalist.

In fact, a McDowell type position: "Tough on SF, Tough on the causes of SF" might have given a shot of viagra to the SDLP in the recent assembly elections. That is: taking a strong pro-nationalist community position on all areas of concern without endorsing or glorifying violence and fighting with SF for votes by all means necessary including reminding voters of their unsavoury aspects. McDowell's strong anti-FF position in the election here combined with his ease of working with them in government should have instructed the SDLP how it is possible to scrap for votes while campaigning and still work constructively together afterwards. The SDLP were afraid to hurt SF and it ultimately hurt them. They fell into the trap of assuming that criticism of nationalists was the sole reserve of unionists. SF to their ultimate benefit, didn't follow this prescription and were quite happy to criticise the SDLP.

But I digress, the problem with assuming anyone critical of unionism is necessarily a nationalist -and this is the serious flaw in the unionist's view of mainstream "mainland" opinion - or vice versa is that it impoverishes your argument. The best way to refine an argument is to defend it against criticism. This helps you to see the flaws in your argument and correct them, or if they are uncorrectable discover sooner that your argument is unsound. Assuming your opponent conforms to a narrow description is the easy way out, and assists only in avoiding uncomfortable truths.

In war as in argument, knowing your opponent is crucial. Lee Harris begins his seminal essay Al-Qaeda's Fantasy Ideology with the example of Spain's conquest of Mexico. Spain triumphed primarily because Montezuma didn't understand who the conquistadors were. His worldview didn't have a place for them. Likewise those republicans who, say, dismiss all Irish criticism of republicanism as "pro-British" are making a serious error of judgement, from their own point of view. They misunderstand their opponent.

"We Got Him"

Great Mark Steyn piece in today's Irish Times which explains why, although Saddam was not co-ordinating the Ba'athists still fighting, his capture will surely lead to their campaign petering out:

"In the months since, he's been all but irrelevant to any active co-ordination of the so-called "resistance". But the fact that he was still on the run, somewhere out there, meant that, in theory, he could be behind it and that made it easier for the Baathist dead-enders and the imported terrorists to lean on communities in the Sunni Triangle for support and cover.

The sight of Saddam looking like a department-store Santa who's been sleeping off a bender in a sewer for a week will deal a fatal blow to the ability of Baathist thugs to intimidate local populations.

The insurgency will continue for a few weeks yet, but it will peter out, like the dictator, not with a bang but a whimper.

In the honour/shame culture of the Arab world, it will be much harder now to pass him off as the mighty warrior. He had a pistol, but chose not to use it on himself."

In defence of Cannibalism and Female Genital Mutilation..

..well, not quite "defence", more accurately: perspective on appropriate objections.

The Mark Steyn piece I mentioned below makes a great crack about how the defeatism and self-abasement of many in the west, in the face of Islamic terrorism, emulates the unfortunate Bernd Brande, so eager to be Armin Meiwes' meal. This "German Cannibal" case, I have to admit, disturbed me and I realise that the most disturbing aspect of it was not so much the killing and cannibalism but the fact of Herr Brande's apparent consent. Yet this aspect, if true, is surely what differentiates this from an "ordinary" murder . It also seemed to me that there was an important fudge in most of the reaction to these "wicked acts" and the same fudge is present in the campaign, so favoured by America's "Soccer Moms", against the practice known as "Female Genital Mutilation". This fudge is to ignore the crucial importance of consent.

I think that what Herr Meiwes did was despicable, just as I find goat-sodomy repulsive, but I must differentiate between him and, say, Jeffrey Dahmer. Dahmer's victims were unwilling, not so Brande. There are important utilitarian arguments against widespread euthanasia and they could also apply here. Allowing widespread euthanasia, or indeed widespread "consensual killing", could make it difficult to prosecute murder: cases could get bogged down in defining consent. There isn't, however, a good philosphical argument against either. Surely the most irreducible personal freedom is self-ownership. If you own yourself, you surely have the right to destroy that "property".

Likewise: the practice of female "circumcision", which can range from amputation of the clitoris and labia minora, to suturing the vagina shut (infibulation), is abhorrent and more analogous to male castration than male circumcision. Yet the most convincing arguments against this practice are exactly the same as levied against the widespread practice of male circumcision. That is, no proper consent is given.

Much of the campaign against FGM gets bogged down in whether it is a form of "colonialism" to impose western values (i.e. "FGM is barbaric") on other cultures. Yet this is a red herring. What is most objectionable about the practice is that is carried out on girls who are too young to give proper consent. Let us imagine that countries such as Egypt, Sudan and Somalia initiate a ban on circumcising girls. It is likely that in some of those countries - 97-98% of Somali women are infibulated - many, pehaps most, adult women would voluntarily choose the procedure. What is the appropriate response? However horrific you might consider FGM to be, there could be no justification to use force to prevent such women from exercising their free choice. Thus in seeking to eradicate FGM, the first step should be to seek a ban on performing it on children and then the second step might be to persuade women of the benefits of remaining uncircumcised but not seek a ban.

N.G.O. G.O.N.E.

Another cracking Mark Steyn piece which includes this priceless observation about the many Non-Governmental Organisations who predicted "humanitarian disasters" in Iraq:

"And so it seems to be. After some particularly vicious bombings of the UN and others, the NGOs mostly fled Iraq in late summer. ‘It would be rather sobering,’ I wrote in August, ‘were Iraq to demonstrate it can get along without them.’ And what do you know? It’s remarkable how quickly a problem goes away once the people with a vested interest in there being a problem go away."

Champions League

So: Manchester United are to meet UEFA cup winners Porto in the Champions' League knockout stages, first leg to be played February 25th. Arsenal meet Celta Vigo and Chelsea meet Stuttgart, leaving it probable the Premiership will have three contenders in the last 8. The pick of the draw however is the meeting between Los Galacticos of Real Madrid, 2002 winners, and FC Hollywood aka Bayern Munich, 2001 winners.

Codology

According to the CIA, Ireland is in "international dispute" with Iceland, Denmark and the UK over the Faroe Islands continental shelf boundary.

I knew Rockall was an issue between Ireland and the UK some time back, but didn't realise it also involved our Scandinavian friends (or should that be sworn enemies!)

Thanks to Paul for the link.

Decentralisation and the Flat Tax

I had mentioned before that one possibility for a forward-thinking devolved region might be the introduction of a flat tax rate to encourage investment and in-migration. In the comments of the post below John makes the point about how US states are divided into counties and raise local taxes. I thought I'd repost my subsequent comment up here:

I was thinking about this the other day and I think the ideal way would be for states/counties to have the power to cut as well as raise taxes. I couldn't figure out how to square this with federal spending. It would be nice to think that some states/counties could impose a flat tax. I am a big fan of flat taxes (insofar as I'm a fan of taxes at all). Flat taxes need not necessarily mean a reduction in overall tax revenue (even though that would be desirable anyway) because you should see a tendency towards full compliance and, by eliminating loopholes and complicated ways of calculating taxes, you should see a more efficient form of tax collection. But if there are progressive federal taxes you would lose all the advantages of flat taxes.

So, the solution: No federal taxes at all. Let the states/counties collect the tax whichever way they like and make agreed contributions to the federal exchequer. That way some states could have progressive taxes, some flat and they could slug it out and see which system worked best.

"Replacing U.S. workers with Foreign Labor"

Speaking of "Outsourcing"...

At the risk of..

..turning this into the decentralisation blog, I just wanted to comment on Dick's latest thoughts on this.

"On the issue of wider decentralisation or devolution of government, Frank seems to be under the impression that people outside of Dublin would be content to roll back public services in order to lower the tax burden. While we often hear of the urban rural divide, I'm not sure how popular this may be. Irish voters seem to be fairly consistent across the State in expressing what they want from in terms of state services. Given their track record I can't see any region, no matter how small, adopting the kind of policies Frank advocates."

That may well be the case. What I was trying to show was that competition between regions within a country can be beneficial overall and that sometimes what is in the country's interest as a whole may not be in the interest of a particular region. It may well be the case that a western seaboard region would plump for a tax and spend approach. The problem is that they don't have too many people to tax. My thinking is based on the notion that there are local needs which differ from a centrally imposed conception of "need". Let us imagine several regions:

1) Dublin
2) Within Dublin's commuter zone
3) Outside Dublin's commuter zone

For the purposes of argument (and with apologies to touchy Corconians!) I am ignoring Ireland's other urban centres but similar arguments apply. Now if you were to characterise the needs of each of these regions you might find they are different in many areas. Let us take the conflict between building land and "green belt". In the case of 1) the need for accomodating an expanding population and the effects on affordability of housing means that, while "green belt" is desirable it is better in smaller doses, i.e. parkland, than in swathes of agricultural land. High Density housing is the appropriate solution. In the case of 2) There is pressure to provide housing but the need is not so great that it requires elimination of all agricultural land. Most houses would require access to piped services, the expense of connecting to those services would suggest medium density housing. In the case of 3) there is nothing but green belt and plenty of it, the scattered nature of existing development would suggest that private services are more appropriate than piped services, wells, group water schemes, septic tanks/treatment systems rather than mains water and main sewers. Low density scattered rural development may have downsides and the most significant of these is aesthetic. The point is that those in some rural areas may cherish their unspoilt countryside while those in other rural areas might feel it could do with a bit more "spoiling". In a devolved system they would get to choose. It is the case that, at the moment, local authorities' development plans are prepared locally but they are prepared by technical staff according to central Department of Environment guidelines rather than local demands and simply, often grudgingly, rubberstamped by local councillors.

Another area where needs are different is population. 1) and 2) have no need to attract people to come and live in either region. They are coming anyway. In the case of 3) there is a need to attract people to counter "rural depopulation". More people means more business, means more money, more people means more justification to keep open the local school, local pub, local post office, local church. It may be the case that the need for increasing the local population in region 3) runs counter to the need to tax the increasing population in 1) and 2) to pay for such public services as they consume.

Another example is Co. Kerry's proposal to flout the government's smoking ban. Whatever the rights or wrongs of the ban (Dick, smoker, is for it and I, non-smoker, am against it) it is surely preferable that, if the people of Kerry don't want it, it shouldn't be imposed on them from Dublin.

Dick also comments on John's suggestion (in a parallel universe!) that the civil service could emulate the private sector.

"However, moving public jobs to India would certainly go down a treat with the electorate. People get exercised enough when private firms do it"

Now even I would recoil from this proposal but it is telling to note how most people think of public service jobs, i.e. not that their raison d'etre is to provide the public with a service but that they are a benefit to the public service worker. People are quite happy to buy cars, clothes, food, wine, financial services from abroad. Plenty of things are "outsourced", are public services really so different?

Decentralisation and Dispersed centralisation

More from Dick on this. First on public sector pay:

Criticising public sector pay is one of those lazy op-ed standbys. It usually goes along the lines of "public sector pay is now x million euros, up y percent from five years ago. This is outrageous. Did you know that some prison officers are earning z thousand euros in overtime every year…"

Ok, maybe it is a cliche. There are two aspects to public sector pay levels. 1) The overall burden on the exchequer and 2) Individual salaries. It is clear that, regardless of the precise truth about the latter we have a major problem with the former and this has been exacerbated by the benchmarking fiasco. Dick may feel that public sector salaries are low - and rigid pay grades and promotion structures have a lot to do with this - but the real test of this is recruitment problems. Despite Dick's suggestion that the civil service find it difficult to recruit and retain staff, these jobs are still sought-after, principally for the job security and benefits. Otherwise, we are not too far apart on the unique civil service culture. I find it hard to disagree with this:

As I said before, the problem is often leadership. It's often the people who stick around and fail to find something better in the private sector who rise to the top. In management, there's no culture of initiative and too many routine things are passed up and down the chain of command.

Dick refers to the "old standby, that the public sector should absorb the values and practices of the private sector". I wouldn't put it exactly like that. My view would be that when something can be done by the private sector, Hotels, Airports, Peat Factories, Health, Education, Transport (even roads, toll-roads can be profitable) it should be and the government shouldn't get involved. This is infinitely preferable to a massive, and redundant, public sector play-acting like the private sector. In such a slimmed down public sector one aspect of the private sector should apply: private, confidential employment contracts.

As for Decentralisation or (Federalisation as Dick would have it):

Frank seems to be assuming that Dublin would keep its existing tax rates, whereas in effect the opposite may be true once it ceases needing to contribute towards the rest of the country. Once again, I'd have to ask how local authorities would compete. First of all they'd have to have taxes lower than the new Dublin. Secondly, they're going to have to come up with some sort of revenue to build the infrastructure and services to attract new businesses.

I imagine that Dublin, with its massive government involvement in housing, transport, refuse disposal and various public services, along with the current regulatory burden would retain taxes at current levels. I would hope that other regions might look to attract investment by cutting taxes and regulations. Such tax and regulation competition would be beneficial to all. It is easy to overstate the costs of "infrastructure". Services can be provided and paid for as needed.

What Frank seems to be proposing is a US style federal system for Ireland. The problem is that while it may work just fine in the States, Ireland is smaller than many US states. Breaking the country down into twenty six statelets, each with its own local government and bureaucracy seems rather excessive for a country small enough to be managed as one entity.

Ireland may be smaller than many US states but those same states will still have yet smaller, more devolved forms of local governance. That said, decentralisation need not take the form of 26 statelets, you might have a few regions based on population size. Maybe Dublin, North Leinster (plus Cavan and Monaghan), South Leinster, Munster and Connaught (plus Donegal). Or you could have the South, West, Midlands, East coast (north), East coast (south) and Dublin.

As for the notion of "Dublin's diktat", it ignores that fact that we live in a representative democracy where those outside Dublin do have an input into the way the country is run. Surely the sight of rural politicians crowing about the decentralisation goodies they got for their constituencies is proof enough of this?

Sure, those parish pumps just want government pork. What I had in mind was that for certain problems a locally derived solution is the fairest, such as my example of a liberalised planning system in the West. This goes both ways, Dublin can govern itself without having to cater to the whims and prejudices of those idiosyncratic rural TDs.

"Decentralisation"

More on dispersed centralisation from Dick who makes some excellent points about the practicality, or rather lack thereof, of relocating government departments around the country. He is also quite correct to note that those civil servants who would desire a move out of Dublin usually have a specific place in mind. A Corkonian is unlikely to relish a reassignment to Letterkenny!

I think, however, Dick must have his tongue planted in his cheek when he says, of the "things wrong with the civil service":

"Lousy pay means that younger and brighter people are often lost to the private sector or not even hired in the first place. "

Pay in the public sector generally and the civil service in particular is certainly not "lousy" especially when you take into account the job security involved, guaranteed pension and other benefits. It is only correct that pay be higher in the private sector - the "risk premium" - considering the uncertainty involved. I would turn Dick's "problem" around. The reason it is difficult to attract and retain "brighter" staff and possibly pay them more is that it is so difficult to get rid of entrenched jobsworths. Cutting back the numbers to achieve a leaner, fitter, less expensive civil service and abolishing linked "pay grades" in favour of individual (confidential) contracts, would have the additional benefit of attracting those bright, ambitious prospects otherwise repelled by the existing stale civil service culture which rewards inertia at the expense of initiative.

As for real decentralisation, devolved local government, Dick is unconvinced, holding that, as Dublin "generates the most tax revenue", decentralisation is more likely to see the beggaring of the regions compared to Dublin. I'm not inclined to agree. This would only be the case if you held that redistributionism is a) desirable and b) efficient and that high tax/high spend beats low tax/low spend every time (in fact, the reverse is true).

It may be the case that a lot of tax revenue is generated in Dublin but it is also the case that a lot of tax revenue is consumed in Dublin. The vision John and I have is of local government weaned off subsidies from Dublin and competing with over-taxed, over-regulated Dublin for investment and people by offering more dynamic economic conditions. Maybe a lean, efficient flat tax rate (see Slovakia) or perhaps (and I know that this would be popular in the west), abolishing the requirement to obtain Planning permission, particularly for houses. Such initiatives may or may not be wise. The point with decentralisation is that a locally derived, locally appropriate solution would apply instead of Dublin's diktat. If you look at the issue of one-off rural houses in the west: whatever you think about the desirability of this - I'm not exactly crazy about the prospect of the countryside peppered with bungalows but I live on the east coast, not the west - it is clear that current restrictions on this type of development originate in Dublin and not from local priorities.

Left, Right

Interesting post by Back Seat Driver Jon following up on Irish Eagle John's post on whether Saddam was, as Marian Finucane apparently believes, "right wing".

For what it's worth and in so far as it's useful, I would hold that Saddam was "left wing". This is based on the character of his regime and his foreign policy. Iraq was a Soviet client during the cold war. Ba'athism is a form of Stalinism with added clan-based nationalism and was, as we are constantly reminded, "secular".

I agree with Jon that "sorting your left from your right can be rather tricky", but that is because they are rather crude labels which imply that political orientation is a line, or at the very least a "circle" instead of a multidimensional space. Jon cannot avoid repeating the canard about the extreme where "right meets left". I don't subscribe to this view because I don't think the reason for the similarity between, say, Mao and Pinochet (Jon uses Hitler and Stalin but I would like to return to that) is that they were both "extreme".

As it happens there's nothing wrong with extremism (in moderation!). You can be "extremely" in love with someone, or "extremely" good-looking. Someone might have an extremely good political idea, this shouldn't be dismissed because it is "extreme". There are similarities between "right" and "left" dictators but it is not exactly to do with how "extreme" they are. They are to do with the extent to which they believe their aim (the good of the country or the good of the workers) justifies coercion of their subjects/citizens and how such absolute power facilitates personal enrichment and aggrandisement. This, I would submit to Jon, is an even more important question than the distinction between "Radical" and "Conservative": How much coercion is justified?

An Anarchist - and I mean a proper anarcho-capitalist, not the anti-globo pseudo-anarchists who wish to retain a massive redistributive state - would hold that no coercion at all is justified.

A Libertarian would recognise that a minimum amount of coercion is, regrettably, necessary simply in order to maintain a legal framework to enforce contracts (freely entered into, of course), protect property rights and national defence.

A Socialist requires quite a significant level of coercion. This ranges from property confiscation to fund a redistributive state to regulating and rationing provision of all sorts of services, health, education, transport, industry. Coercion would also have to apply to prevent adults fulfilling voluntary agreements for a range of activities the socialist state considers wrong, from offering your labour at a rate below state-sanctioned minimum to offering a premises where smoking is permitted.

A "Social Conservative" who wished to impose his vew on the rest of us would also require a significant level of coercion to ensure adults conformed to societal norms of behaviour. They would also hold that society's interests should always prevail over an individual's interest. Again, coercion is required to prevent adults fulfilling voluntary agreements such as paying for sex.

Many people probably think that they don't support coercion of others but if they examine their political views they will see that a significant level of coercion is necessary, even to sustain a so-called "centrist" political regime.

As for Hitler and Stalin: Their similarities, outside of simple "extremism", significantly outweigh their supposed differences. Both were extreme Nationalists, both very vain, paranoid egotists. Both were "socialists". Hitler was unashamed of his socialism. He may have opposed "Bolshevism" and today's "Neo-Nazis" may style themselves as "right wing" but there was no dissembling in naming his movement "National Socialism". Hitler's economic policies were hardly those of a "right wing capitalist". Even though it is the default designation, "right wing" is a rather casual, lazy label for Nazism.

Decentralisation

I find it hard to muster up any enthusiasm for the latest decentralisation push. There seems to be a consensus in Ireland that "decentralisation" is A Good Thing yet I cannot share the assumptions behind this. For starters: "decentralisation" as we mean it in Ireland is a bit of a misnomer. "dispersed centralisation" might be a more accurate description. What is proposed is that our burgeoning army of civil "servants" be distributed around the country to a number of provincial towns. It is intended that the taxpayers in these towns who fund the lavish salaries and the generous relocation allowances be grateful for the spending power of the mandarins from the Department of Equality or the Ministry of Compassion, the crumbs from their table. Who is "serving" whom?

I may be able to agree with the first assumption behind the decentralisation proposal: the notion that there are too many civil servants in Dublin. My solution to this problem is to cut back our huge public sector and not pay these bureaucrats to move. The second assumption is that a government department's principal purpose is to distribute government pork. If the department's primary purpose is as stated there is no reason for it not to remain in Dublin. That is, after all, where the government sits. It is only if you see public sector jobs as a method of redistributing income that you would prefer to disperse these government departments around the country. Paradoxically "decentralisation" increases centralisation. Location is the least relevant aspect of central control and scattering government departments around the country may assist in the exponential growth of the public sector . There is little local government or devolution of powers, little real decentralisation in Ireland. Central control administered by dispersed bureacrats is no different to the status quo.

In Praise of Borders

Typically great article by Mark Steyn. It's nominally about Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's remarkable suggestion that US courts ought to be influenced by foreign courts, but contains this ode to borders:

"Let me come at it this way. I love borders, the more the merrier – town lines, county, state, and, of course, national. Borders symbolize one of the few remaining constraints on government: You don’t like the grade school here in town? Move ten miles up the road. You don’t want to pay Vermont sales tax? Drive over the river and shop in New Hampshire. Arianna Huffington huffs against “tax loopholes for fat cats”, but I’d say the ability to rent a post office box in Bermuda or the Cayman Islands is a “loophole” in one of the original 16th century senses – an aperture to let in light and fresh air. The fact that there’s somewhere else to go to is the ultimate limitation on government. Borders give people choices – and, to put it in a bumper sticker, “I’m Pro-Choice And I Vote With My Feet”. When starry-eyed utopians speak of a “world without borders”, you can pretty much guess what kind of a place the one-world one-party state would be, with tax rates starting at 60%, about where they are in Sweden right now."

It's worth considering in the context of Ireland. It's taken as a given across the political spectrum that, whatever the rights and wrongs of partition, it is to Ireland's disadvantage to be partitioned. Even those who are indifferent to a United Ireland or opposed to it rarely consider that there may be prosaic non-sovereignty-related benefits to partition.

This is something which I see every day where I live. Because of the UK's punitive fuel tax regime, Dundalk's filling stations are, er, filled every day with drivers from Newry and South Armagh stocking up. Conversely Newry's UK chain stores are booming every weekend as Dundalk shoppers take advantage of the UK's lower VAT rate and better value. Many Louth builders have become uncompetitive as proximity to Dublin's boom has raised profit expectations. "Keener" builders from Armagh and Newry are winning plenty of tenders here. Cross border choice is also available in education, healthcare and nightlife.

It might well be the case that Ireland could do with more and not less partition. Let us imagine power was devolved to individual counties or provinces. It is entirely possible that a far-seeing local government of the underpopulated west might compete with the east coast for jobs, business and people by offering a less regulated, lower tax regime. This competition might force the east coast to cut back its ballooning public sector and creeping tax and regulatory burden. Win-Win?

Got Your Back (Seat)

Commentary from my old sparring partner Dick who knows the difference between debate and mud-slinging. I think he's right that further debate with Dunne is futile.

Why didn't I think of that?

I have been accused of seeking extra readers by emulating Instapundit and Andrew Sullivan (which by the way suggests that their views are popular). Maybe I would have been better to follow Peter's surefire method to increase traffic!

Needle

I have been thinking a bit more about the Paul Dunne piece yesterday and I will admit to feeling, still, a little needled. It probably serves little purpose to "fisk" the entire piece. I don't mean to "cop out" but such a fisking would be a mammoth task given, not only the many specious assertions made, but the assumptions behind those assertions. Further it occurs to me that it anyone who is convinced by Dunne's rather hysterical screed is unlikely to prove amenable to reason.

I cannot, however, let certain things pass. I would like to apologise to any ex-pats if I gave the impression that Dunne's argument was necessarily weakened by virtue of the fact that he resides in Germany. This wasn't the precise point I wished to make.

Before I explain what I mean I need to explain a bit about how careful an extreme nationalist like Dunne is with his words. Those who are unfamiliar with the particulars of republican theology might easily miss certain weasel terms and evasions. Dunne's piece, along with his blog in general, is riddled with them. I am very conscious of them and react accordingly. Here are a couple not readily detectable:

1. "The six counties": Ok, this is a bit of an obvious one. The idea is that "Ireland" is the full 32 counties and any lesser is not a legitimate state. This does not only refer to the "six counties" of Northern Ireland but also the "twenty six counties" of the Republic. It is taboo in extremist nationalism to recognise the fact that partition has already taken place (going on about three quarters of a century now). A related term is "the North of Ireland" as opposed to "Northern Ireland". That one is quite easy to miss. It is important to recognise this evasion because when some extreme nationalists say "Ireland", they are not talking about a real place at all but a fantasy. In this fantasy, there is a "legitimate government" which is the 1919 Dail (which devolved its power to the IRA). This is the last time that an all-Ireland election was held. This, according to the theology, was the last democratic government of Ireland. Thus, since 1919, Ireland, as the fantasy has it, is "ruled" by the "provisional government" of the IRA Army council. The fantasy also states that "Ireland" remains at war with Britain.

2. "Green, White and Gold": This is a very easy one to miss. Dunne specifically claims that I'm not "loyal to the Green, White and Gold flag of Ireland" and for once, emulating the proverbial crocked clock, he is exactly right. That's because there is no such thing as the "Green, White and Gold". The tricolour, our national flag, has three easily identifiable colours: Green, White and Orange. It was specifically designed to represent not just the "Green" Catholic tradition, but the "Orange" Protestant tradition also. It may seem abtruse of me to draw attention to this but the use of the word "Gold" is quite deliberate. The idea is that nothing should take away from the perception that the "settlers" of Ulster are an "alien" imposition on "Green" Ireland.

My intention here is to set the context for Dunne's remarks, particularly on what constitutes a "true Irishman" rather than to specifically criticise those who use these evasions. (As it turns out, plenty of people I respect use these terms)

Now, to explain my annoyance at being lectured in Irishness by the expatriate Dunne: It is quite easy to sustain this fantasy image of Ireland when you live abroad. That is not the same as saying that all expats have unrealistic fantasy images of their homeland. Rather that those who already wish to conjure up this "Ireland of the mind" - in which all "true" Irish people share this perception that we are at war with "our enemy" the British, who still "occupy" a corner of our land - will find it easy to avoid evidence which contradicts this view.

I was born, grew up, live and work here in real-world, prosperous, increasingly multicultural, 26 counties, Republic of Ireland, very near real-world, relatively thriving, 6 counties, Northern Ireland. There are plenty of things I could complain about but I am happy to live here. I put my money (including my coerced taxes!) where my mouth is. Thus, in no way is it accurate to say that I'm "anti-Irish". I have no interest in a whose-more-Irish-than-whom pissing contest but Dunne's claim of authentic Irishness is, in his own way, no less ersatz than that of the average lachrymose Boston drunk who has never crossed the Atlantic.

Oh, and by the way: I didn't argue that the famine was all the fault of the Irish, just that I have no patience for the self-pitying line that this was a tragedy inflicted on us by the British in the same way as the Holocaust or slavery. This was a tragic event but not the simple story Dunne would have us believe, (and I don't care how much indoctrination Historical knowledge he claims to possess!). By definition the ancestors of today's Irish people did not die or emigrate. That much is beyond refutation. Thus neither Dunne or I can plausibly claim that tragedy as our own. Whatever claim Irish-Americans might have to victimhood under the famine, it is not one rightfully available to contemporary Irish people.

Suggestions to individual English people that they examine their conscience in this respect, apart from being pompous, are way off the mark. The fact is: take an English person at random, such as the author of the blog who aroused Dunne's righteous scorn. The chances of an individual ancestor of hers having anything to do with the famine are non-existently slim, given the size of the English population and the level of immigration into the country. The chances of an ancestor of Dunnes (or even mine) thriving while others starved, are a lot higher. This is what I intend when I put it back to Dunne and it is not quite the same as relieving the British of responsibility, it is certainly the case that absentee governance exacerbated the problem. If anyone is going to bear responsibility for the actions of their ancestors, and unlike him I don't believe they should, then any random Irish person is more likely to have had a "culpable" ancestor than any random English person.

Beatniksalad has picked up on this discussion and rather misleadingly titles the post "Famine Denial". This is not the case.

UPDATE: One last thing, anyone tempted to dismiss this as a mildly diverting inter-blog dispute, similar to the regular banter I have with Dick, might re-read these sinister words of this deluded fantasist (and indeed Nazi apologist):

"A Jewish version of McGahon would be rehashing "Did Six Million Really Die?" on his little website -- or rather, he would be for a very short while, until he was taken care of. We have in our midst detritus no other nation would tolerate...Why do we have so many of these wretches in Ireland? ... It's pointless simply bemoaning this situation. These cancerous cells within the body politic are a danger to the life and health of the nation, and, just as a man riddled with cancer must destroy the alien cells or be destroyed himself, so we must rid ourselves of the enemy within if we wish to restore our national well-being. In that sense, the West British are unwittingly right in their belittling of the struggle against England: the enemy is also at home, and dealing with them may well now be the more important fight. "

[emphasis added] I think I can say that this is the first time I have received death threats. 1:01PM 2/12/03

Ouch

Looks like I hit a nerve: Paul Dunne has composed a rather sour, flatulent and long-winded "response" to my post below. He rather makes my point for me about the curious mindset of some extreme nationalism. There is this regrettable tendency in Northern Irish politics, frequently evidenced in the comments section of Slugger, to refuse to engage an argument on its merits and instead attack the person making the argument. To use the popular Gaelic footballing analogy: Playing the man, not the ball. Dunne's rambling incoherent screed conforms perfectly to type.

It's rather curious that he upbraids me for putting words in his mouth:

"Nowhere do I say or imply this. McGahon just made it up"

This is what I "made up": "If you are to follow his prescription then you shouldn't learn anything about any historical event unless it is connected to your own "blood"

What Dunne actually wrote: "We can I think safely leave the remembrance of the Shoah to those who suffered in it and to those who perpetrated it; our settler would do well to examine outrages nearer to their self and to their blood"

OK, I don't think my paraphrasing was so far off, but then Dunne commits the precise offense I'm supposedly guilty of in presuming to know my mind:

"Ironically, if Frank McGahon had been alive in the 1930s he would, if we can judge by his general political line today, very likely have been fulminating against the evils of "Judeo-Bolshevism""

Hmmm.

Curious that the test of ethnic purity is never too far from the mind of this plastic Paddy who loves his country so much he lives elsewhere:

"To what flag is McGahon loyal? Certainly not the green white and gold. So in what sense is he an Irishman? By having an Irish name? What of it? Constance, Countess Markiewicz had a Polish name. What of it? And her maiden name was Gore-Booth, a fine double-barrelled English name. Again, what of it? The list of naturalised Irish men and Irish women is headed by Dean Swift, and it is a long and glorious list. Similarly, the list of what might be called the half-Irish, but who proved themselves 100% Irish by their words and deeds, is long and glorious, and Patrick Pearse is at the head of it. Conversely, many possessors of fine old Gaelic names have so degenerated as to be Irish only nominally, in essence thoroughly Anglicized. So it is with this McGahon. Irish by birth -- like Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington; Irish by name -- like Lenny Murphy, the Shankill Butcher"

"Shankill Butcher"? I find myself bemused, rather than wounded, by such hysterical hyperbole.

I suppose it must be difficult to attain perfection in Irishness, so much so that Dunne is bound to be disappointed by ordinary Irish people who don't live up to his lofty ideals. Better to live abroad and conjure up an "Ireland of the mind" than live and work in real-world Ireland and risk contamination by those who are insufficiently pure.

Dunne counsels any of his readers who might be tempted to read Internet Commentator: "feel free to inflict the whole thing on yourself if you've the patience and the stomach for it ". I might offer a similar caveat to you but it's worth reading to disabuse you of any notion that extreme nationalist fantasists such as Dunne are amenable to reasonable argument.

NI

Carrie/Stella Marie links to a piece by Vincent Browne in the Sunday Business Post on why the DUP will do a deal with Sinn Fein. Browne's conjecture is fantastical:

"Ian Paisley said a few weeks ago that Sinn Féin, as well as the IRA, would have to disband before he would enter government with Sinn Féin. Even he cannot sustain that tautology.The party's net position is likely to be that cooperation with Sinn Féin is conditional on the disbandment of the IRA and the complete decommmissioning of weapons. Both these preconditions can be met. In time. "

In keeping with the Dublin media's preoccupation with SF he only offers, as proof for this assertion, reasons why SF will go along with this. It is true that policing and decommissioning have hitherto been seen as virtually unsurmountable obstacles and it is understandable that Browne might wish to examine scenarios where it would prove advantageous for SF to "move" on these. Further, he is correct to postulate that should a deal be done between these "extremes" it is more likely to "stick". The problem is, there is no reason for the DUP to do a deal with SF. There's nothing in it for them. Browne takes for granted that they will do what is necessary to make the Good Friday Agreement work but it doesn't apparently occur to him to wonder why a party which opposed the GFA and continues to oppose it would want to do this.

Meanwhile, as Newton Emerson pointed out yesterday, SF rather relishes its image of Unionism "..not wanting a fenian about the place". Why should it do anything to help alter that perception? As Eilis O'Hanlon notes: SF "would rather argue against bigots than [deal with] democrats".

I was in favour of the GFA at the time, reasoning that any kind of cross-community devolved government would be preferable to the status quo and it might offer NI politics the opportunity to "grow up" and move from sectarian one-up-manship to more prosaic quotidian issues. It is somewhat of an irony, and testament to the uselessness of NI politicians of all stripes, that during the assembly's suspension and for the forseeable future Northern Ireland is more competently governed by, as Tony comments, just two junior British ministers: Ian Pearson and Angela Smith. Unfortunately the effect of the agreement has been to render in stark detail the true extent of sectarian division in this small place. A divide which has, if anything, deepened. In practical terms the GFA is dead: its flaws and internal contradictions have been shown up.

It is often said that the "fudge" over decommissioning was the GFA's biggest flaw. It is true that this issue has poisoned the atmosphere and it has been a substantial obstacle. However the biggest flaw in the GFA's execution was the assumption of static levels of support for the main political parties and the related idea that one could safely disregard the DUP. It is probably true that a deal involving SF, SDLP, UUP and DUP was simply unobtainable, but it was a serious mistake to assume that the DUP would simply disappear as the "benefits" of local government made themselves apparent.

Likewise it seemed to be assumed that SF would remain, and would be content to remain, the junior nationalist party. A thought occurred to me over the weekend: what if there was never a "mainstream, constitutional" nationalism? What if NI Nationalists were always as "green" as they are now. Perhaps SF has always been the "truer" voice of NI nationalism. It might well have been the case that, while the IRA was actively going around killing lots of people and blowing things up, NI Nationalists couldn't condone this level of violence and thus voted for the SDLP instead. Perhaps all they wanted was for the IRA to stop, maybe they don't really care about punishment attacks, expulsions, arms stockpiling. Maybe an "armed peace" is just fine by NI's Nationalists. If this is true, then the reason for the SDLP's demise is a massive miscalculation of their electoral mandate.

Carrie is right to note that the GFA shouldn't have been "just for" the UUP and the SDLP, but in a way it was. The assumption was that Nationalists wouldn't mind sharing power with the UUP and Unionists wouldn't mind sharing power with the SDLP. Nobody thought that Nationalists would have to swallow Ian Paisley as First Minister or Unionists, Martin McGuinness as Second Minister.

Converted

Courtesy of Google, Here's the paper Conor links to below converted to HTML

LibertariaNI

This paper by Edmund Shanahan analyses the history of what's now Northern Ireland in terms of libertarian principles (property rights, freedom of thought and expression etc.) He also contextualises the 1998 Belfast Agreement from a similar perspective. He draws an interesting parallel in terms of the old libertarian traditions common to both Ulster Presbyterianiam and to Irish Brehon law (predating the twelfth century occupation).

Whither the GFA?

Carrie/Stella Marie is optimistic about the future for democracy in Northern Ireland in the light of the predictable success of the "purists" of SF and DUP over the "compromisers" of the SDLP and the UUP. She is quite correct to note:

"Perhaps I am naive but shouldn't the GFA be able to work no matter who is elected? Was it really written for the UUP and SDLP alone?"

..and I think both those parties suffered because they complacently took that for granted. However I wouldn't share her optimism and that's because of the agendas of SF and the DUP. It is in the DUP's interest to show that the GFA cannot work. Indeed it could be argued that they have a mandate not to work the agreement. It is also in SF's interest, if not for the agreement to fail, to show that "Unionists aren't really serious about sharing power with nationalists". This is a line peddled consistently by SF over the last few years, particularly by Martin McGuinness. It may well become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The aim of the SDLP and the UUP was to work the agreement and have some semblance of devolved local government. Neither SF or the DUP have this aim. The DUP are explicit in opposing the agreement and by definition the Local Assembly government. Direct rule by London would suit them fine.

SF are pro-agreement and are prepared to work the assembly but it is simply a means to an end for them. If their "end" of progress towards a United Ireland is served better by illustrating the intransigence they assert is endemic to Unionism well let that be so.

In a strange way, though their goals are diamettrically opposed, both SF and the DUP serve each other's interests. These interests do not coincide with the working of the agreement or the assembly.

Most Oppressed People Ever

Checking by the Shamrockshire Eagle today, I came across a particularly acute example of MOPE syndrome. Anyone who doubted the myopic and parochial insularity endemic to extreme Irish Nationalism would be well advised to read Paul Dunne's piece about English Settlers and the Holocaust:

"I have noticed that some English settlers in Ireland seem to have a regular bee in their bonnet about the Germans and the Jews, in particular the treatment of the Jews by the Germans in the Second World War; that is to say, the Holocaust.

Yes, that "treatment" was awful wasn't it?

Is it not odd, that? Wouldn't you think the English in Ireland would have just the teeniest bit of guilt on their own behalf, perhaps even be too embarrassed to start ranting about the mote in their neighbour's eye, and they strutting about with a beam in their own?

I wonder where this is heading?

"Mass graves for Jews? What about mass graves for Irish? Victims of hunger or disease, bellies bloated from starvation, mouths stained green from trying to live on grass, they were heaped by the hundreds into unmarked common graves and covered over with soil, those graves to be trampled by the herds of cattle their clearance made way for; to be explained away as the result of a "natural disaster"; before long, simply to be forgotten. Certainly, there's nary a thought for them from our "guests".

Yes, the Famine was exactly the same as the Holocaust. The Brits cleverly lured Ireland into potato-dependency and then secretly introduced the potato blight so that the Irish would starve to death. You'd have to admit, this genocide plan was a rather cumbersome, why not just line everybody up against a wall and shoot them? What was especially sinister about the plan was the way the Brits, across the sea, forced the Irish on the ground, who could see the starvation all around, not to help their brethren. Well, coercion must have been used? Otherwise it is hard to see how all of our ancestors would just stand around and do nothing while whole families, whole villages just starved to death. That would be unthinkable, after all: we Irish are victims, dammit, not perpetrators. If it was true that the Irish stood idly by while their compatriots starved to death or emigrated, never to return, you'd think they'd feel very guilty about it afterwards. Maybe guilty enough to want to find someone else to blame for it? Naah, surely not?

"And the Great Famine was merely the worst of many, and of other many outrages committed in Ireland by the stranger. The English were looting and burning and pillaging and murdering in this land long before Adolf Hitler was a glint in his father's eye. And they haven't gone yet: still they strut about in their fancy uniforms in a part of the country, as though they had every right to be there. And that's never minding the "Kapos" down South."

So the Republic of Ireland is just like a concentration camp and the authorities here are nothing but concentration camp guards? It is certainly an unorthodox comparison. If it is a concentration camp, it is a most unusual one in that its occupants are voluntary.

"But opposition to that is, we are told, no more than a type of Nazism itself, hateful, outmoded."

What could possibly be "hateful, outmoded" about blowing up a town centre full of shoppers?

"Here we see the real function of the Holocaust for our settlers. This harping on another attempted genocide -- one so conveniently far away -- is an excellent example of that ancient human vice, hypocrisy. It cannot but remind one of the Pharisee in the temple, praying to God in thanks that he has been made better than others; so full of pride and self-satisfaction, and he nothing but a whited sepulcure, fine without, full of corruption and rottenness within. One must indeed deplore the excesses of the Germans during the Second World War; but, to paraphrase Muhammed Ali, "no German ever called me nigger" (that might be because you're not black --Ed.)."

Ah: those "excesses", surely to be "deplored". If only the Nazis had been more "moderate". 6 million is so "excessive". Why couldn't they have been happy with, Oh I don't know, 2 or 3 million? In Dunne's "Volk" outlook, nothing is more important than ethnic identity. Because the Nazis never had the opportunity to demonstrate their feelings about the Irish, then the Irish need have no opinion about them one way or another.

"We can I think safely leave the remembrance of the Shoah to those who suffered in it and to those who perpetrated it; our settler would do well to examine outrages nearer to their self and to their blood."

Dunne conflates remembrance of the Shoah with learning from it. The rise of Nazism contains lessons not restricted to the innate personality of the Germans. If you are to follow his prescription then you shouldn't learn anything about any historical event unless it is connected to your own "blood". I find it hard to imagine anything more antithetical to everything I hold dear than this regressive, anti-cosmopolitan, grievance-peddling ethnic-determinism.

Here's a little thought for you Paul: I have no idea what wrongs all of my ancestors did and I have no intention of taking responsibility for their deeds or deeds of their contemporaries. Yet you seem to feel that today's English people bear responsibilty for the actions not only of their ancestors but all other English people throughout history. You would have an English person feel "guilty" about the possibility that someone from their country might have done something bad to someone of our country hundreds of years ago. Yet you would applaud someone from our country today who tried to blow up that same English person without a trace of guilt. Here's another thought: how can you be sure that you are personally "ethnically pure"? Should you discover a rogue English ancestor in your family tree will you affect the appropriate humility?

Right back atcha

Happy Thanksgiving to John and everybody else!

Dick still doesn't get it

I think I'm banging my head against the wall. Reading Dick's latest post on Eoghan Harris/Anti-Bush protesters, he claims my summary endorses his own idiosyncratic interpretation of Harris' argument:

"Somewhat bizarrely, it's actually pretty much what I was saying, i.e. that Harris is alleging that anti-war protestors are leftist 'luvvies' taking their cues from 'Islington Trots'. It's an indefensible argument. 68 per cent of Irish people opposed intervention without a UN resolution. 100,000 people marched against it in Dublin. I think this represents a little more than the voices of Islington Trots!"

No, No, No. This is not the point and the numbers don't matter. 99.99 % of Irish (or British) people deciding that the moon is made of green cheese doesn't make it so.

The point is not whether the anti-Bush protesters consciously take their cues from the "Islington Trots" (more accurately "Hampstead lefties") but that they share the same flawed analysis. Remember also that there is a huge difference between opposing the war before it started (argument summary: "This would be unwise") and opposing it afterwards (argument summary: "Saddamite forces should prevail"). Dick conflates both positions to make his point. There is a huge difference between saying that 1) UN approval should have been obtained prior to the war and saying that 2) US troops should immediately withdraw.

Ultimately he dodges Harris' main argument: the moral delinquency of the protesters. Questions about left-right political affiliation or level of support are side issues. Even if you were to suspend disbelief and join Dick in his apparent view that the protesters included rural Fianna Fail cumann members, midlands auctioneers and little old ladies in equal numbers to the typical anti-globo/anti-zionist/student/marxist rentamob: the protesters' argument is still wrong.

Schadenfreude a bit previous?

Looks like I was a little premature in celebrating Arsenal's "demise" in the Champions' League competition. A lazarus-like resurgence has seen them acquire the fluency which had deserted them in Europe, winning their next two games on the trot. Their nervy win over Dynamo Kiev was followed last night by a superb 5-1 away win over Inter Milan. A home win against Locomotiv Moscow in their last group stage game will see them progress to the knockout stage. Incredibly, a drawn game would still see them qualify with a paltry 8 points should Dynamo Kiev hold a jittery Inter Milan in the other game.

Trots or not

More from Dick on the Eoghan Harris piece:

"Frank at Internet Commentator seems to be misreading my post from yesterday. The point was not that 'left wing' (or right wing for that matter) is a slur or an insult, but that left and right has little to do with protesting against the war...Harris's tactic has been to use faulty logic in concluding that if some of the protestors hold a certain set of opinions, then they all do and thus every critic of the war is tainted by the dubious politics of others. Frank's right in saying that Castro boosters were no doubt in the crowd, but it doesn't mean everybody was because of their presence, or indeed that they can be right about one thing and wrong about another."

I think, perhaps, Dick is guilty of "misreading" Eoghan. The thrust of the piece was not to present the anti-Bush protests as a left wing phenomenon (even though that is an accurate characterisation), rather to point up the moral delinquency of those who would either refuse to take sides between Bush and Saddam or worse, support the Saddamite forces. Dick seems to be characterising Eoghan Harris' argument as follows

1. Left wing "trots" are wrong

2. Left wing "trots" are opposed to the war

3. Therefore those who oppose the war are left wing "trots" and are wrong

It hardly needs pointing out that this isn't much of an argument as it says nothing about the merits of the present protest, the problem is: this isn't the argument Harris was making. To summarise the actual argument for Dick's benefit:

1. Upper class British leftists, who are influenced by Trotsky, such as Vanessa Redgrave or Tony Benn, have a particular analysis of the "conflict" between "the West" and Al-Qaeda.

2. This analysis states that all the blame for this "conflict" lies with "arrogant", "imperialist" Bush and specific "root causes" are Iraq and the US policy towards Israel. According to this view, Al-Qaeda is an understandable, predictable reaction from the "third" World to the policies of the "first" world. This "analysis" is expressed most consistently by Robert Fisk.

3. Fisk's "analysis" is unquestioningly accepted by the Irish Media, especially in RTE and the Irish Times and has become received wisdom. The protesters share this "analysis". (this analysis, by the way, is consistent with party lines on Cuba and Mugabe)

4. This "analysis" is wrong. Al-Qaeda opposes not just Bush and the US, but as can be seen from Istanbul, moderate Islamic democracies. Indeed Turkey poses a greater threat to Al-Qaeda's declared aim of a worldwide Islamic caliphate than the US. Furthermore it is likely the 9/11 attacks were planned during "conciliatory" Clinton's reign.

5. The price for accepting this incorrect analysis is that it would appease Al-Qaeda and those who are still fighting in Iraq.

6. As can be seen from 1939, appeasement doesn't work. Yielding to an enemy in the hope that they will moderate their aims is a seductive but ultimately dangerous fantasy.

There is obviously a lot more in Harris' piece but I think this more accurately summarises the point Dick refers to.

It's all about goat-sodomy

Great quote from Perry de Havilland in the comments of this samizdata post which explains a little of the philosophy of libertarianism:

"Although I have no desire to see people prosecuted for buggering goats, I don't happen to think buggering goats is a good idea or something I could care to try"

I think there is often too much literal utilitarianism in political discourse. Thus, those who wish to legalise drugs are forced to make an argument about the "benefits" of marijuana. This flawed argument is easily countered by evidence to show any harmful effects of marijuana. The problem is, it doesn't really matter whether marijuana is harmful or beneficial. There is no moral justification for the government to punish those who freely choose to take drugs. This argument applies equally to "soft" drugs such as marijuana as it does to "hard" drugs such as crack cocaine. One needn't be in favour of (or indeed opposed to) drug use, prostitution or pornography to be opposed to their illegality.

From the Back Seat

More feedback on the Eoghan Harris piece I mentioned below. Jon is, of course, quite correct to note that Eoghan unnecessarily misrepresents Lincoln and Roosevelt to bolster his argument.

I remain perplexed at Dick's stance. He seems annoyed that Harris refers to the "anti-war" protesters as "left wing". In contrast to much of our political elite Dick considers "left wing" to be a slur or insult. If it is such a slur, why is it that all of our political parties (excluding self-declared "centrists" the PDs) call themselves "left of centre"? In any case, left wing is simply a label, a little crude but useful. The fact remains that the vast majority of anti-war protesters are left-wing anti-Americans. This is unremarkable, yet Dick wishes to present this as an outrageous slur.

"Having smeared opposition with the left wing brush, Harris then goes on to evoke 1939 and the reaction to the spectre of fascism. Once again, this wasn't a left/right thing. It was leftists I seem to remember that went to Spain to fight Franco. And it was a conservative government in Britain that vacillated about Hitler."

OK, so what? Eoghan's point was that in Ireland, during the war, there were those watched the war "from the sidelines" and affected a middle distance between Hitler and Churchill. This is analogous to those who would make little distinction between Saddam and Bush.

In any case the fact that some Irish leftists such as my grandfather's first cousin (and namesake) went to fight alongside the communists against Franco and some Irish "rightists" went to fight for Franco against the communists doesn't really say anything about the current situation. Franco won that civil war and Spain remained a dictatorship. It is rather facile to then claim that those who fought against him were necessarily on the side of the angels. If the communists had won, it is entirely plausible that Spain would have become a communist dictatorship and soviet satellite.

"Of course, if you opposed the war, you were a Trot... There still are Trots in Ireland, but if they could muster up 100,000 for their own demonstrations I'm sure they'd be happy. I'm still amused at his notion that so many people could be brainwashed by Trotskyists...Oh, and if you opposed the war you love Castro and are ambivalent about Mugabe. Go figure..."

Come on Dick, throw a stone into the crowd and you will hit someone in a Che Guevera T-shirt who thinks that Castro is doing a bang-up job and all the faults of Cuba are due to Yankee Imperialism. That person nursing a bruise probably doesn't give a damn about Mugabe. Chants and banners excoriate democratically elected leaders such as Bush, Blair and Sharon but you won't see a single person speak out about Mugabe. And if you think the plight of Zimbabwe is irrelevant to an anti-Iraq-war protest, how relevant is Israel or Cuba?

Slogans Run

Driving through Newry at the weekend, I couldn't help but notice the election posters for Sinn Fein and the SDLP. It was interesting to note that, despite the naked sectarianism of both parties' manifestos, their slogans and posters were curiously neutral in tone.

The SDLP's fatuous slogan, befitting an ageing complacent party in possibly terminal decline, is

"Now, More Than Ever".

This decidedly un-stirring clarion call surely confirms Eilis O'Hanlon's characterisation of the SDLP as hopelessly muddled.

The Sinn Fein slogan is the bland but sinister promise:

"Building an Ireland of Equals".

Now, leaving aside for the moment the normal critiques of the party, is there not something appalling about this vision? I have an image of legions of boiler-suited drones toiling to maintain perpetual equality, chanting: "We are not individuals, We are Equals!"

Purloined Punditry

Great article by Eoghan Harris in yesterday's Indo which notes the second hand nature of Ireland's lazy media consensus on Bush and Iraq.

"..the Irish pundits are in thrall to British left luvvies. You will never hear an anti-Bush party line on RTE that has not already been aired on the BBC. Most anti-Bush abuse does not come from working-class mouths. It comes in the cut-glass accents of the upper-class Trot, from a Tony Benn, a Vanessa Redgrave or a Glenda Jackson, gripped by colonial guilt. But if the Irish luvvies take their general line from Islington Trots, they take their particular political pathologies about America and Britain in the Middle East from Robert Fisk. "

I think that our cherished neutrality has a lot to do with the curiously detached view prevalent here. Neutrality is a grubby amoral compromise, yet this "sacred cow" has been burnished over the years so much that it has acquired the illusory sheen of a point of principle. There is nothing moral about a cop-out. Refusing to take sides between Hitler and Churchill was a necessary but regrettable piece of Irish history. Refusing to take sides between Saddam and Bush is contemptible. Worse than contemptible is to present this evasion as a superior, principled position.

Kool Kleb

Ron Atkinson is impressed with United's Brazilian midfielder on his return from injury. I have to concur. United were poor in the second half against Blackburn but were superb in the first half. Kleberson looked very bright and played some lovely one-touch football. He seems to have eradicated the ponderousness on the ball which marred his first few games for United. Comparing, as Big Ron does, Kleberson's short, sharp passes with Veron's less effective "Hollywood balls" it is easy to see why Ferguson was happy to let the Argentine go to Chelsea.

Best and Worst

I have written before about how I can't quite shake the Guardian habit, particularly on Saturdays. This weekend's sporting section again reminded me why I am so keen to find a new newspaper and why I still buy it. Ironically both pieces, the worst and the best of the Guardian Sport dealt with a similar topic: the role of self-deprecation in supporting the English national teams.

There is a common stereotype of the boorish England supporter which has spread from Soccer to Rugby and Cricket and there is a constant (albeit ludicrous) complaint in Ireland about the level of bias and boosterism displayed by British tv presenters towards England's teams. I am not sure what my compatriots think the proper attitude to be displayed by English presenters should be, because our own emerald-bespectacled presenters are equally culpable. Incidentally, I was reminded of this whinge by a typically great Onion piece this week - "Media Criticized For Biased Hometown Sports Reporting".

Ironically, we are supported in our desire for, if not neutrality, at least a more muted, detached manner of British sports coverage by the British broadsheet media. This can take two forms, only one of which is admirable.

Matthew Engels had a characteristically poisonous piece in Saturday's sports section which sought to urinate in the cornflakes of prospective England rugby supporters as they sought to win the World Cup against the holders Australia. Engels exemplifies the rarified metropolitan elitist whose reaction to any hint of patriotism is a moue of disgust. Furthermore, he is horrified that a win by England might somehow retrospectively sanctify Blair's support for George Bush and the liberation of Iraq. Shamefully he compares the UK with Argentina during the military junta

Engels' piece belonged on the Op-Ed, not Sports pages. In contrast to this example of the worst of the Guardian was an example of the best. It is testament to the English tradition of sportsmanship that one of the most celebrated events of English soccer, at least in broadsheet journalism, is England's 1953 3-6 defeat at home by the "Magic Magyars" of Ferenc Puskas' Hungary. It was a game which exposed the limitations of the traditional British approach to soccer, yet is awarded almost equal column inches to England's solitary World cup victory in 1966. In an absorbing extract from his book, Norman Fox tells the story of the Englishman (of Irish descent) behind the Hungarian success, Jimmy Hogan.

"Fifty years ago next Tuesday, English football's castle crumbled. On a dank afternoon at Wembley, Hungary finally ended England's unbeaten home record against continental opposition. But it was worse than that. The defeat was by a humbling 6-3 and not only had the "Magic Magyars" shown themselves to be superior in everything from ball skills to tactics, they opened England's wounds even wider by dedicating the historic victory to an Englishman. "

Strange Logic resumed...

Dick responds with a rather half-hearted half rebuttal on our - Are Anti-War protesters "Pro-Saddam"? discussion -

"there's more from Frank, who wants to present the invasion as a fait accompli. It's a curious position to say the least, since there's plenty to protest about, namely the continuing presence of US troops in Iraq. "

Well, Duh!: Obviously they are protesting the fact that there are US troops in Iraq. The problem with this position is that if their aim is achieved and the US troops went home, this would be disastrous for the Iraqi people and would prove a boon for the Saddamite forces. Stating the aim of the protest as explicitly as this rather proves the point that the protests are "Pro-Saddam"

In any case, my point is not to assert that all the fighting is "over" but surely it is a simple "accomplished fact" that the "invasion" (liberation) has taken place? Is Dick getting all Baudrillard on us in hinting that it hasn't?

More from Tony who makes the claim that the protesters are "Chamberlainesque" appeasers. He has a point, but he correctly predicts that I ("Internet Communicator"?) would think him "too soft".

In fact I also think he's a little hard on Chamberlain. The then British PM was not equipped with either the vision of Churchill or the benefit of hindsight possessed by all of us. It can easily be seen now that appeasement was a disastrous policy and Chamberlain has earned the enduring enmity of all Czechs and Slovaks for abandoning them to their fate. However, his first priority as British PM was Britain's national interests and he calculated, incorrectly as it turned out, that they were greater threatened by declaring a war he felt Britain couldn't win than by allowing Hitler to march in to the Sudetenland.

Had Chamberlain foreseen the consequences of his actions he would surely have disavowed appeasement. Perhaps somebody might correct me if I'm wrong but he didn't maintain an "Anti-War" stance during WWII, demanding that Churchill sue for peace. If he did, then the adjective "Chamberlainesque" applied to today's protesters might be more apt.

Strange Logic continued...

More from Dick on this:

"However, can anyone imagine people at the demonstration yesterday confirming they were pro-Saddam? Nope, me neither.

There might be few who would make that overt claim but it is the ineluctable logic of their position. I think that there isn't enough distinction made between positions 1) prior to and 2) after the war. This is testament to the narcissism of the protesters, their over-riding message is: "We are still right!".

Prior to the war, a reasonable case could be made about the wisdom of going to war against Saddam. This argument might be described as: "Don't get rid of Saddam this way". I think this is probably an unrealistic position but it is defensible. Another argument might be: "You don't know what will happen if this war goes ahead, best be careful". This is a defensible position but rather ignores the dangers of doing nothing. Yet another possible counter-argument would be "The fate of the Iraqis is not the concern of the US and they should be left to their fate". This is callous but has the virtue of consistency and is a defensible position.

Once the liberation took place and Saddam was defeated, none of these arguments make sense as they are about the wisdom of an action which has already taken place. It seems to me that there remains one possible argument which can be made in protest and that is: "Do more for the Iraqi people". This is emphatically not the argument being made by the protesters. Their over-arching protest is against the fact that the war has already taken place and that Saddam was deposed. This is why they are, whether they like or or not, "Pro-Saddam".

"It is possible to dislike Bush and Saddam."

Yes but which do you prefer? Do you really have to think about the answer?

"Regarding the Hitler/Staling metaphor, which probably wasn't necessary in the first place, it was used to illustrate the 'black or white' logic invovled. Basically, it's like saying that because you were anti-Hitler you approved of the Stalin's domestic politics, his campaign of violence and rape in defeating Germany and his empire building following the Second World War. Were the allies pro-Stalin? Not really. Churchill wanted to go to war immediately with the Soviet Union once Germany was done with and had to be dissuaded. In Churchill's case at least, it was possible to dislike both Hitler and Stalin at the same time."

The thing is, what does it mean to be "Anti-Hitler"?. In the case of the allies it meant making common cause with a tyrant. It probably wouldn't have been possible to defeat Hitler without Stalin. There was no other option than to deal with Koba. Thus, he was the lesser of two evils. In the case of Saddam versus Bush/Blair, is it really so difficult to find that Saddam is more evil than those democratically elected leaders? Would you really wish to describe your position as perfectly equidistant between those "extremes"?

Stranger Logic

Dick is annoyed at William Sjostrom's suggestion that the Anti-Bush demonstrators were pro-Saddam and accuses him of "strange logic"

"Applying the same logic you could say that if you were anti-Hitler, you were pro-Stalin. Give me a break."

I'm not inclined to give Dick a break. The gist of the demo was to complain that Saddam had been toppled and support the Ba'athist remnants who still fight. That's about as Pro-Saddam as you can get. Prior to the war, those who protested might expect to receive the benefit of the doubt. It might be unfair not to qualify their designation "Pro-Saddam" with "objectively". No such consideration should apply here.

Dick's analogy doesn't really add up. For starters the allies actually were "Pro-Stalin" during the war. They were fighting on the same side. Stalin was considered to be the lesser of two evils. Is Dick seriously arguing that Saddam is the lesser of two evils when compared to Bush and Blair? because that is the logic of his analogy, a "strange logic" indeed.

Hey Salam,

Great must-read bleat from James Lileks today including Istanbul, the Baghdad Sheraton, The WTC memorial and concluding with a reply to "Salam Pax" following the Baghdad Blogger's smart-arse letter to the Guardian:

"Let me explain this in simple terms, habibi. You would have spent the rest of your life under Ba’athist rule. You might have gotten some nice architectural commissions to do a house for someone whose aroma was temporarily acceptable to the Tikriti mob. You might have worked your international connections, made it back to Vienna, lived a comfy exile’s life. What’s certain is that none of your pals would ever have gotten rid of that “scary guy without the hideous moustache” (as if his greatest sin was somehow a fashion faux pas) and the Saddam regime would have prospered into the next generation precisely because of people like you. People who would rather have lived their life in low-level fear than change your situation."

RTWT, as they say.

UPDATE: Dick resents Lileks' tone:

"Hey James, you conviently ignore the fact that any Iraqi who had the guts to pick up a rifle and face Saddam got a slap in the face from the US. When the Kurds were being gassed nobody in DC wanted to know, becuase Saddam was their guy. Same goes for the Shittes whom Bush Senior asked to revolt in 1991. Could you blame them for giving up after a while?"

The first "slap in the face" (or dive into industrial shredder) would be from the brutal Ba'athist regime and not the US. In any case, I think that Dick rather misses the point. James notes that he would have behaved in exactly the same way as "Salam". He is not accusing him of cowardice, rather he is reminding "Salam" that the simple fact of being on the ground is not the same as holding the moral high ground. 21/11/03 11:58 AM

"A wave of Human Spam"

Cracking stuff from Samizdata's intrepid correspondent David Carr infiltrating the anti-Bush demo.

"It had a 'going-through-the-motions' feel about it. I am sure they are just as enthusiastic about their various causes as they ever have been but it felt as if they were unable to tap into it in any meaningful way. It wasn't really a street uprising it was theatrical event. The actors performed with conviction but there was no getting away from the fact that it was a simulacram and not real life. Like a couple who have decided to divorce but still live together. They sit around the dinner table together and pick up the kids from school all the while knowing that it is sham. It was dutiful and formulaic but passionless and not a little self-conscious. I am sure they all still believe in their visions but perhaps they are haunted by the nagging worry that nobody else does"

Has a certain ring to it, no?

Apparently, my brand is

affinitas

I have often wondered how they come up with these ersatz names. They sound like they mean something but are just simple gobbledygook. You know the type of thing: Arriva, Consignia. There's even a cooking oil called Culinesse. Now I know how!

Numbers

Matt Cooper manages to overstate the number of Anti-Bush protesters in London on Today FM at the moment. The actual protesters only claim 130,000. Matt rounds this up to 150,000, over five times Scotland Yard's estimate. The big story of this protest is that it is a non-event, earlier today protesters were claiming several hundred thousand would turn out. Of course this story doesn't appeal to Cooper so he sticks to the script, wondering at this "massive" protest..yawn.

Ireland or 'Olland

The last line of the email from Conor's sister posted below reminds me of the time I visited Lisbon in 2000.

Ireland, Portugal and Holland were in the same World Cup qualifying group. Although Portugal had just achieved an impressive 2-0 victory over Holland away, they had been held at home by Ireland a few months earlier. They had expected to roll over us and Matty Holland's thundering equaliser still rankled.

On the taxi ride from the airport the driver asked where we were from. My Portuguese is only slightly more fluent than my Swahili but I gathered from his jovial, mocking tone that he mistook my answer: "Ireland" for "Olland" and was teasing me about "my country"'s inglorious defeat to the Geração Dourada of Figo et al. I took the opportunity to correct this misapprehension and reminded him of the frustration his "Golden" boys endured against Ireland. My schadenfreude was shortlived however: after he drove off, I realised he had seriously stiffed us on the change.

Equador - tin pot but friendly

My sister arrived in Equador two months ago. She is teaching English in Cuenca, the third largest city. I think this email I've just received gives a real flavour of the place. I feel I got a lot more about the economy, politics and society in Equador from reading this than I got from various dry sources on the www.


"Here are some things which are a little different here:

the C on the tap doesn't mean cold.

The public buses blast really loud salsa music.

You go to a disco and they mix heavy dance music with salsa.

In order to get your attention in the street the men make noises like "pssssst", this is the Ecuadorian version of the wolf whistle.

Advertisements on tv use a dancing scantily clad, large busted woman to sell virtually anything from chewing gum to washing powder.

You can buy lollipops called "Plop Plop Bum" and your fridge is a "Durex".

In order to buy two red bic biros you must first go to one counter and say what you want, that person will then give you a receipt which you take to another counter. The next assistant is hidden behind tinted glass, you pay them and they hand you a receipt through a tiny hole, they give you another piece of paper which you give to yet another assistant who finally hands you the pens. Communism is alive and well.

You can see spit roasted guinea pigs (they taste pretty good but not much meat) and pigs in the street.

It is common to go into a shop and they can't give you change of a five dollar note. Apparantly the government haven't minted enough coins so change is a constant struggle. They have a saying in Ecuador that a man with only one hundred dollar bills is as poor as a pauper as no one can change them.

You watch a breakdancing competition with no music.

In the pharmacies you can buy pretty much any prescription drug you want over the counter.

People don't like American politics but dream of emigration and living the American dream.

The President interrupts all tv channels every Monday night for half an hour to tell you what he has been up to.

You buy your milk in plastic bags.

The cheese is shite.

The people are friendly and when you tell them you haven't much Spanish they continue to talk to you just the same.

You kiss everyone when you meet and when you say goodbye.

There is no home delivery of post. All post goes to the central post office where you must rent a post box.

You look out your window and see a humming bird hovering next to an orchid.

Everyone presumes you are American, and when you tell them you're from Ireland they think you are from Holland.

Back from the Dead!

Good to see that Peter is back blogging after a six month hiatus

Why Stop There?

William Sjostrom notes how, with the marginalisation of "Old Labour", the schizophrenic LibDems have rebranded themselves as the party of appeasers. Meanwhile Alex Singleton is surprised to see glimmers of free-market-thinking underneath all the pomposity as their small business spokesman calls for the UK's Department of Trade and Industry to be scrapped.

I think this is an excellent idea but I don't see why one should stop at the DTI. There is a conflation of purposes in the selection of Government Departments and allocation of ministers. The official purpose of each department is as it is described. The real purpose is to award a ministerial title to someone it is considered desirable to have within the government cabinet. The problem is that these departments become fiefdoms, either of the minister concerned, or even worse of the mandarin(s) nominally answerable to that minister. Once you have a department of "stuff" it becomes imperative to "do something" about that "stuff". This perpetuates the initiative-driven interventionist government model. Far better to just assemble a cabinet of individuals without specific responsibility and scrap all these departments.

PG-Rated

If anyone wonders why there is precious little "18-Rated" material or language here: This is why.

(Even though this is more like my own experience!)

Not so fast!

I'm going to have to take issue with John about the proposal for additional levies on new houses. Local authorities already use development levies on new planning permissions for quite a big chunk of their income. I have written about this before. John conditionally approves of such a policy:

"The Irish Independent reports this morning that some county councils are so short of funds that they will impose levies of "up to €28,000" on all new houses. If this is the beginning of real local government with local fiscal authority, then I'm in favor of this. The money is supposed to be for infrastructural improvements in the counties."

The problem with - let's call this by its correct name - this development tax is that it disproportionately targets

a) Housebuyers, particularly first-time buyers,
b) Those who want to improve their premises,
c) Startup businesses

and disadvantages those against existing homeowners and existing businesses. There can be no justification for this lopsided tax and that is even before you take into account the effect it would have on house prices.

{I do agree with the rest of his point, particularly on the appalling benchmarking nightmare and the desirability of proper, devolved local government.}

Louth is Lovely

It takes Jon 1 hour & 40 minutes to drive the 27 km from Greystones to Dublin Airport. Meanwhile, thanks to the M1 completed to Dundalk, I can manage it in about 45 minutes!

Leaving Carlingford

I'd been dreading last Saturday for a few weeks. It was the day we were due to move house. It's not exactly because of sentimental reasons - although I can't deny a wrench in leaving the first house we built for ourselves, in which my son took his first steps and with that view - more that I imagined the moving itself would be a nightmare. It wasn't. The house we will be renting for the next year while we build our new house is perfect for our needs in every aspect, accommodation (plenty of space for the three, soon-to-be-four, of us), location (Blackrock, where we are building), except for one: Internet. We still have no land-line, never mind broadband so blogging will be strictly work hours only until that is rectified.

Sheridan of Arabia

Gavin is going to Iraq!. Call by and offer your help/advice/thoughts/financial assistance/warnings!

Abortion

Interesting debate over at Samizdata about abortion. I have to say that it perplexes me how so many normally clear-thinking commentators such as Glenn Reynolds and Eugene Volokh take refuge in the standard comforting evasions about abortion. In professing themselves to be "pro-choice" it is as if they wish to parade their socially-liberal credentials. But abortion is not a simple individual social freedom involving as it does two parties: the mother and the foetus. I am heartened by the more considered views of some Samizdata contributors. The absolutist position of abortion-rights advocates is that a woman should have the right to choose to kill a perfectly viable foetus (partial-birth abortions). This is based on the absurd premise that a foetus only becomes a person at birth. The absolutist Pro-Lifers offer a similarly absurd position, that life begins at conception. It seems to me that a majority of people would support legal abortion in the first trimester and a ban after that point. This may seem to be an arbitrary fudge but on closer examination it's not. All you need to do is accept two principles

1. A person has the right not to be killed

2. No woman should be compelled to gestate a foetus against her will.

Thus deliberate killing of a foetus should never be legal but it should be legal to remove it from the womb. If the foetus is viable and survives those who created it should be responsible for its welfare (at least until adoptive parents can be found). That would be both parents in the case of consensual sex and the father in the case of rape.

Me too

John is against the death penalty but he "doesn't brag about it".

"Probably, because I'm a squeamish, middle-class wimp. Believe me, agreeing with the Irish sanctimonious set doesn't make me happy."

It doesn't make me happy either but I'm not opposed to it because I'm a "squeamish middle-class wimp". I don't weep for the cold-hearted killers who are put to death. My opposition is not based on a point of principle - any Libertarian objection to this undoubtedly intrusive government action is more than outweighed by the requirement of that government to punish those who murder and deter those who would murder - but the impossibility of reversing a death penalty should the conviction prove to be unsafe. It may well be the case that in excess of 99% of those executed are truly guilty but 100% certainty is unobtainable in every case, so it is better to err on the side of caution. That said, I don't share the sanctimonious set's view that the America's death penalty regime is uniquely barbaric. In fact, the British and Irish regimes are arguably more barbaric.

What better example of barbarism and decadence could be provided than the fate of the killers of Jean McConville? This woman was abducted, sadistically tortured to death, buried in an unmarked grave faraway, her reputation rubbished and her family broken up. Her killers were not executed, they didn't serve any time. If by some miracle they were identified and convicted, they would immediately be released and we would be asked to "draw a line under the past".

Now that's...

...what I call below-cost selling!

Deportivo Aye Caramba!

Astonishing stuff last night in the Champions' League as the normally "disciplined", "consistent" Galician side, third placed in Spain's La Liga, just one point behind Los Galacticos of Real Madrid, are humiliated in the Principality, setting a new record.

Result: Monaco 8 - Deportivo la Coruna 3

"Greater Guardianship for all Americans"

The fight for Increased Governmental Protection From Selves continues!

None of the above

I had been thinking about the inadequacies of democracy. That is that 51% of the people can theoretically get to boss 49% of the people around. This becomes more of a concern as government grows more intrusive but it is also a problem when there is an ethnic divide and especially as the numbers in each community approach parity, such as there is in Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland's current territorial status derives its legitimacy from the fact that more people wish to remain in the UK than join the Republic of Ireland. This seems a lot fairer to me than the notion that those residents who favour the Union should be coerced into a United Ireland by a numerically inferior group. Yet it is still somehow unsatisfactory. It seems that whichever way Northern Ireland would go there will be approaching half of its residents unsatisfied with that status. Independence is something neither "community" wants, yet it may be the fairer option.

It occurs to me that NI could be offered a referendum on its future. Options could be

a) Remain in the UK
b) Unite with the republic
c) Independence
d) Re-partition (allowing predominately nationalist counties to secede)

Now if this vote was offered on a first-past-the-post basis let us say the likely result would be in that order

1. a)
2. b)
3. c)
4. d)

However if it were offered on a proportional representation basis, (i.e. first preference, second preference, etc.) it is more likely that independence (or re-partition) would be the favoured option. However much Unionists wish to remain in the UK, independence would be preferable to a United Ireland, and it is easy to see independence as a second favourite option for Nationalists too. Thus, though neither side "wants" independence, neither might they "mind" it certainly when compared to the option they don't want.

UPDATE: Thinking about this further, the weighting of preferences in such a vote would be crucial. You should get the opportunity to support or oppose each option so you could get first preference, second preference support and first preference, second preference oppose. In such a vote it is likely that the first two options , a) and b) would mainly cancel each other out. One advantage of such a plebiscite is that, as the relative size of each community approaches parity, it avoids the tipping point inherent in a first-past-the-post system. Thus it is less vulnerable to small demographic changes and offers, if not the (unachievable) permanent solution desired by many, an enduring stable solution. 5/11/03 12:14PM

A great poet and a great fool

Colby Cosh defends W.B. Yeats' (literary) reputation.

Michael Howard, PM?

Confident assertion from Eoghan Harris in yesterday's Indo.

"Howard can beat Blair at the next British general election. Most of the British media don't know this yet. Conservative papers hailed him as a safe pair of hands, an improvement on Iain Duncan Smith, a careful caretaker until someone more more charismatic comes along. But none of them had the bottle to say he could beat Blair at the next general election... But he can. Because anything that Blair can do, Howard can do better. Blair convinced the middle class they could trust him to be as conservative as John Major. But Howard can do this even better - and as a bonus he can secure the support of the upwardly mobile working class because, unlike the posh Blair, he came up the hard way. "

I think that a lot of the pundits miss the point about how to "modernise" the Tory party. With the linear left-right model in mind their assumption is that the Tories need to become more like New Labour to win. This may have been true of the route back to power for Labour, they did need to become more like the Tories but the same is not the case in reverse. Much as political pundits might wish it so, the British have not fallen out of love with the Tories because they became, pace Michael Foot's Labour party, too ideological. The irony is that the "ideology" decried by liberal pundits was often closer to public opinion on Immigration, Europe or the Euro. Indeed it could be argued that the Conservatives were insufficiently ideological, jumping on whichever bandwagon, tacking towards Tony, wearing baseball caps on backwards in pursuit of power but with no purpose or consistent philosophy.

Gavin on the smoking ban

Gavin has responded on the smoking ban. I think that he still misses the big point: Regardless of the merits of non-smoking workplaces - I'm prepared to agree that for most workplaces, especially offices and factories, a non-smoking workplace is preferable to a smoking one - this is something which should be decided between the parties involved, i.e. the employer and the employee(s).

"Yes, Frank, smoke-free workplaces are a great idea. But why the qualification? Why is one persons workplace better than another?"

Not all workplaces are the same, that's the whole point about diversity and the free market. If you take up a job, you already know what the workplace is like. If it is so dreadful you may decide not to take up the job, that is a free choice.

"If a government imposed ban is not the solution, then what is?

You rather beg the question here. You assume that a "solution" is required. Trust people to look out for their own interests, they always do. If the market operates properly (If it were easier to open up pubs) non-smoking pubs could compete with smoking pubs.

"God knows the Vintners rant on about 'air-changes per hour', but to anyone who's worked in bars you know that the effect of that is negligible."

The thing is, you either want to work in a bar or not. If it is so unpleasant as things are, get a different job. Or better, open your own non-smoking pub.

"Secondly, there is an argument from principle. I believe that people have a right to work in a healthy environment - most especially where an unhealthy working environment can be changed instantly into a healthy one - as in the case of bars. It is incorrect to say that smokers are all for it, indeed in the polls I read, many smokers were in favour of the ban."

Nobody has a "right to work in a healthy environment", nobody has a "right to work" for God's sake. How could such a "right" be guaranteed? This is nothing to do with a "right to work in a healthy environment" it is about the government tearing up the implicit contract entered into voluntarily between two parties: Employer: I offer you a job in a smoky workplace
Employee: I accept that job.

"Thirdly, damn right I'm a vested interest, as is my health, and the health of all bar workers."

Thus your argument is based on self-interest and is not necessarily a principled position. Arguing "this is good for me" is not the same as arguing "this is good for everyone".

"I'm not sure of the validity of the position that "publicans recognise that smoking on premises attracts more smoking punters than deters non-smokers". Publicans don't care whether people smoke or not; they want them to buy beer."

Yes, and if more people turn up to buy beer, indifferent to the smoking or expecting to be able to smoke, than would turn up to buy beer if no smoking were permitted, publicans will prefer to permit smoking.

"It just so happens to some of the public are addicted to a substance that pollutes the environment around them, badly affecting the health of their colleagues and the staff on a premises. The question is whether a persons right to smoke precedes other people's right to health, and whether that position is voluntary or involuntary."

Again, there is no "right to smoke" or "right to a smoke-free environment". Nobody is forcing you to work in or patronise a smoky bar.

"Fourth, you compare smoking to a hobby. It's not, it's a dangerous addiction. People playing tennis is a hobby, and hey I dont mind people playing tennis - people playing cards in a pub is a hobby, and fine, there's no cards affecting my health."

I don't compare smoking to a hobby, I am trying to get you to look outside your own interest for a moment and imagine a government restriction on something you enjoy. Regardless of the merits of the ban, let's say the government could show that tennis was a dangerous sport (my brother-in-law dislocated his shoulder twice playing it) and that in the interests of health tennis-playing should be rationed. Would you accept that the government had a "right" to regulate your behaviour this way?

"In my view, the government, just like in other employment legislation, has a right to give rights to workers. I have a right to x days holidays, I have a right to a healthy working environment."

What did you think the environment would be like when you took up the job? It obviously wasn't a clincher. Did you ever threaten to strike because of the danger to your health? This is why I say that you would get this benefit "free". It is logical and rational for you to argue in favour of it but that doesn't mean it is a good thing for everybody else.

The problem, Gavin, with your argument as set out is that you take for granted something which most of us who disagree with you don't: That the government has a right, duty or obligation to micro-manage normal social interaction in order to achieve some overall societal benefit. That is why issues about passive smoking health risks, or the merits of various types of workplaces or how easy it is to implement or police the ban are irrelevant. Even if all of those points were as you argue it still doesn't justify the government's intervention.

More tests

Conor is a "soft core" Libertarian, Taking the Libertarian Purity Test I find that, with a score of 88, I'm a "medium core" Libertarian. The test is quite tendentious and assumes a) That a "perfect" Libertarian is an Anarchist and b) Non-"perfect" Libertarian's strive for "perfect"ness in their stance. I'm not so sure if either is right. Some questions are hard to answer without a "depends", such as

50. Is bombing civilians in an enemy country morally equivalent to murder?

The answer to this is: Yes if that is the explicit intention (Dresden, Canary Wharf). No if it is an unforeseen consequence of an attack on enemy target.

I have used the term "Moderate Libertarian" before to describe my views but Minarchist or Social Individualist would probably be more accurate terms. I am neither a Utopian or an Anarchist and would be in favour of a minumum government responsible for the police, the courts and the army. Pretty much everything else can be dealt with less expensively, more efficiently and without any coercion or loss of individual freedoms by the private sector.

But I am still male!

The Gender Genie correctly identifies my sex from about 1000 words of my blog.

Via Andrew Sullivan

Hey, I thought I was Evil!

Irish Eagle is 42% evil but Internet Commentator is only 24%!

My kind of AgitProp

There's some great banners over at Bureaucrash and ProtestWarrior. I particularly like this one!

Balance

This is the Guardian's idea of a balancing op-ed to counter the default anti-american slant of their commentary. Eric Schlosser: Hey! we're not all evil

Regulation 0 Free Market 1

Those forward-thinking bureaucrats of Lucedale, Mississippi have acted decisively to counter the scourge of horses "going commando" in urban areas. Their new city ordinance requires all livestock, including horses to wear diapers in town.

Just as well that the free market can provide horse diapers!

(Via Bureaucrash )

More on smoking

Interesting debate over at Samizdata on the smoking ban. Gavin has chipped in and I see, via Slugger that Leptard has an intriguing suggestion for counties such as Kerry who are reluctant to implement Dublin's Diktat on this: Secede to the North!

More Imaginative Diplomacy

US Defensive Department replies to Lara Marlowe below!

Imaginative Diplomacy

I am rendered (almost) speechless by these weaselly words from The Irish Times' Lara Marlowe, eager to attribute the continuing violence from Saddam loyalists to wider Iraqi resentment at US "Imperialism" and rather too gleeful in mocking American "hubris".

"Imaginative diplomacy could have devised a less catastrophic way of removing the dictator."

"Imaginative diplomacy" is what led us to this path. The fudgers, appeasers and collaborators of Germany, Russia and France, had no interest in removing this dictator.

Whither the Tories

Mark Steyn on the future for British Conservatism has some interesting thoughts on decentralisation (which Samizdata's Robert Clayton Dean has picked up on) but also includes this priceless paraphrasing of John Major's definition of Conservatism:

"Or old maids on bicycles sipping warm beer as they're sideswiped by the Eurojuggernauts on the bypass"

Origins of Zionism

Great piece by Nelson Ascher at EuroPundits on the origins of Zionism and why, contrary to what Tony Judt believes, it is not just like any other European Nationalism:

"Zionism was a second degree, reluctant nationalism born of the impossibility, after having tried to do it, of giving up an identity. A Jew could learn his country’s language, write great books in it, get a Nobel prize, compose operas, lose a limb or two for his monarch, pay his taxes, help develop the national economy, win a gold medal in the Olympics, convert, change his name, marry a non-Jew, take his kids to the church, even become a nun (like Edith Stein) etc. Still, he wasn’t allowed not to be a Jew...Zionism, thus, wasn’t nationalism as a first or preferential option, but as a last resort, and it was resisted by the majority of the Jews until the Holocaust."

Finding Nemo

Nemo, Found!

From Fun with PETA Day

Bo-Jo: Ob/Gyn + Ob/And?

Tantalising suggestion from Boris Johnson of a surprising development in the field of Obstetrics/Androcology.

"You can call me sexist on this point, but there is nothing more sexist than sex, and it is still a more or less invincible fact of nature that women have babies and men do not. "

More or less invincible? do tell more..

Trailer Fabulous

Characteristically humourless Guardian op-od today from one Carrie Gibson who complains about Hoxton trendies (this week) adopting Trailer Park Chic.

"There seems to be some sort of assumption that these unfashionable, poor people have chosen to live in a house on wheels; to drive clapped-out Camaros; to wear tacky clothes; to have out-of-date hairstyles. But here, we choose to don a costume of poverty because we can afford to, and we don't even consider what it must be like for those who can't."

It's just clothes Carrie, that's all.

Bedazzled, Bewildered and Bamboozled

Kevin Myers muses on Sinn Fein's "disarming" charm and its dazzling effect on even the most "ardent anti-terrorists"

"The Shinner charm is carried into negotiations, where it seems to neutralise the most basic instincts of the opposition. How else could David Trimble have given his assent to the Belfast Agreement of five and a half years ago without a fixed timetable for disarmament being the keystone of the entire arch? Not merely did the Agreement not demand visible disarmament before the Shinners got into Government, it contained no penalty clauses if the Shinners had not disarmed by the agreed date for total disarmament, three years ago...Why does nobody remember this? Why do journalists at Shinner press conferences not remind the Shinners of this? Why, when the Shinners go on and on and on and on about bloody Patten, do the hacks not retort: Christ, how can there be full implementation of policing reforms when the IRA is still in existence, still armed, still recruiting, still training?..Why? Because of Shinner charm. It disarms: it makes the cleverest men fools."

The Wrong Type of Leaves on the Track

Rangers' non-caledonian custodian Stefan Klos comes over all British Rail in complaining about Phil Neville's winning goal for Manchester United at Ibrox. According to Klos, the younger Neville brother, after his unlikely Maradona impersonation, hit the wrong type of shot. If Phil had hit the right type of shot, Klos presumably would have saved it. Newsflash Stefan: if it goes in, it's the right shot.

Too Cool for Old Skool

I have to concur with Eoin: the new Outkast double album, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, is a cracker! Definitely not the same-old-same-old.

"The whole room fell silent. The girls all paused with glee,
turning left, turning right, are they looking at me?
Well I was looking at them, there, there on the dance floor,
now they got me in the middle feeling like a man-whore."

(From "The Way You Move") Nice little Deuce Bigalow reference there!

Taheri on Mahathir

Great piece by Amir Taheri on Malaysian premier (and ami de Jacques) Dr. Mahathir Mohamed's recent speech.

"Mahathir says Jews have persuaded others to fight and die for them..Who does he mean by "others"?..If he means the West, let us not forget that Americans and Europeans fought and died to save the Muslim peoples of Bosnia and Kosovo from extermination. Not a single Muslim state provided any help..Mahathir presented Palestine as a religious conflict...Yet he did not apply the same logic to Chechnya, Kashmir, Mindanao, Burma, Cyprus, and East Turkestan, among the many places where Muslims are in conflict with non-Muslims..The logic of Mahathir's position is that Muslim Cypriots, Chechens, Kashmiris, Burmans, Mindanaoans and East Turkestanis are not as worthy as Palestinians. And yet the number of Muslims killed in those conflicts is many times higher than the total victims of all Arab-Israeli wars."

(Via Iberian Notes)

What? Did Daddy Do You in the War?

The Washington Post isn't only about boring stuff like news and politics. This week's "Style Invitational" is a classic: Week 524, Scramble the words of any book or movie, and come up with a new product

Lots of good stuff including:

Who the Man Shot Liberty Valance?: In this sequel, Superfly Valance arrives from Chicago to avenge his brother's death. (Tom Kreitzberg, Silver Spring)

Love Thing: A Many-Splendored "Is": Bill Clinton's guide through the pitfalls of romance and semantics. (Mary Ann Hennigsen, Hayward, Calif.)

and I particularly liked

Big Wedding, My Fat Greek!: The behind-the-scenes story of Jackie's ultimatum to Onassis. (Judith Cottrill, New York)

plenty more too...

You'd have to have a heart of stone not to laugh..

..as Arsene Wenger's insufferable strutting cockerels are shot down 2-1 by Dynamo Kiev. Arsenal may be (just) top of the Premiership, unbeaten and cocky from dispatching oligarch-funded Chelsea but once again their pomp deserts them in Europe. The first European goal in 300 minutes of play for this supposedly "vibrant, attacking" team will be scant consolation as the Gunners' Champions' league dreams lie in shatters. Although they are not "mathematically" out - if they win their three remaining games they have a slight chance - it would be a brave punter who would bet on Arsenal's continuing participation in this competition.

Such sweet sweet schadenfreude, nothing could take this feeling away (not even an upset tomorrow at Ibrox!).

Low taxes and the real economy

Great piece today in The Times: Michael Gove explains to Gordon Brown the benefits of low taxes

"There are always good reasons to reduce taxation. The Government can never spend our money as efficiently as we can ourselves. But there are particularly good reasons to cut taxes when the country is in the position we find ourselves in now, with sluggish growth delivering less wealth for everyone. For cutting taxes, especially from the level we now labour under, will shift the balance of the economy in the right direction. Tax cuts will encourage growth in the real economy, the productive private sector, while helping to bring about the taming over time of a bloated and unproductive public sector."

..and looks across the Irish Sea

"Which is why a recent study of economic performance in the Nineties conducted by the economist Graham Leach for the free market, but non-party, pressure group Reform is so useful....Leach’s work demonstrates that countries that keep the amount of national wealth they take in tax low have grown far and away the fastest. Nations such as Ireland, which cut its tax take from 34 per cent of GDP to 30 per cent in the Nineties grew much faster than those, such as Australia, Canada or New Zealand, that kept their tax take above 30 per cent of GDP. Those countries such as Britain, whose tax burden crept up from 35 per cent to 38 per cent of GDP, experienced even lower growth over the decade. Leach’s work covers a variety of nations, which have all had different governments, but on one point there is no room to differ: lower taxes promote higher growth."

Benchmarking Bertie take note.

Shareholder Power

Following on from our discussion here a couple of weeks ago about "rogue" and incompetent company directors and hitherto supine shareholders there is an interesting story in today's Times: Shareholders in Granada and Carlton successfully prevent Michael Green - closely associated with the disastrous ITV Digital venture - becoming head of ITV Plc.

Tune in, Turn on, Drop out.

Interesting story in today's Irish Times about the level of first-year failure and dropouts for some courses at UCD. Turns out 30% of first year Science students fail and 25% of first-year Arts students fail or drop out. This contrasts with vocational or professional courses such as Law and Medicine.

Not that I wish to re-open my blog-slug-fest with the Backseat Drivers about subsidising third level education but I think there are a few conclusions which could be drawn from this. As the Times piece notes:

"Some academics believe the points requirement for science should be increased to help raise standards...However, since the points must reflect the demand for the course and the number of spaces available, UCD cannot do this."

Of course, nobody said that the number of "spaces available" for Science should be fixed. The obvious solution is to cut back those spaces which are not necessary.

I am in favour of greater scientific knowledge among the public. As can be seen from debates about GM foods, even supposedly intelligent people are scientifically illiterate. I think a better way of achieving this, instead of trying to lure people towards Science courses in University, would be as part of the second level curriculum. When it comes to University, courses should be less general and more specialised and you will tend to see greater vocational interest and "stickability".

Another thought is that while the points system (which aggregates all exam results even in subjects unrelated to the course) is the measure for awarding places and while this is the least-worst method for sought-after courses, it is singularly unsuitable for less desirable courses. Perhaps the basic entry requirements need to be tightened. For example, if you want to do Science, you should have a good result in Maths and Science subjects at the very least, even if you do less well in other subjects.

Whistling in the Dark

Arsene Wenger tries to take his mind off Arsenal's make or break tie against Dynamo Kiev today by, bizarrely, warning Manchester United not to take Rangers for granted.

Don't worry Arsene, we won't.

Meanwhile Arsenal - whose regularly abysmal Champion's league form never seems to deter soccer pundits from tipping them as likely winners - could even effectively exit the competition tonight after just three games if they lose to the Ukrainians.

End of History II

Carrie confidently asserts, on the basis of the IRA's statement today, that..

" If this is the IRA position, that's it for the IRA. The are committed to 'exclusively democratic and peaceful means', 'opposed to any use or threat of force'. The IRA wants to see all guns taken out of Irish society and are handing in a whack of theirs today to prove it. They are going to morph into Sinn Fein now, there's no more IRA"

I hope so.

The End of History?

John goes all Fukayama on us in seeing today's events in Northern Ireland as marking the beginning of the end of his NewsHound service and by implication "interesting" (as in the Chinese proverb) news from N.I.

More smoking

Jon has responded to my post below about the workplace smoking ban.

Maybe I wasn't clear enough with my analogies. I didn't intend to claim that the workplace smoking ban was exactly the same as a hypothetical government requirement to drink 2 litres of water a day. More that both initiatives were, in Tony's words, "beneficial, easy and cheap" and that is insufficient justification for them. Of course ETS is more complicated than self-harmful behaviour. I am not making a direct comparison between an unhealthy diet and smoking. The comparison is between an unhealthy diet and choosing to work in a smoky environment. If someone chooses to work in an environment they know is not smoke-free that is their free choice to do so. I imagine that most non-smokers and some smokers would prefer smoke-free environments and that the market will tend to provide them. For some workplaces, smoking may be an intricable part (a smoking club) for others it may be that the proprietor or some important employees cannot work without cigarettes. If that is the case the market would tend to punish them for not being able to attract non-smoking employees or by requiring them to pay a smoky-environment-premium.

I maintain that smoke-free workplaces are a good idea. My own workplace is non-smoking. I just don't think a crude government ban, and one which treats all workplaces as identical, is an appropriate approach.

What a great idea!

Nice quote from Glenn Reynolds about ESPN sacking Gregg Easterbrook for his clumsy Kill Bill blog post (which many bloggers, including Jon, picked up on) which suggested that Jewish movie executives had a special obligation not to promote violence in film.

"And, yeah, they had the legal right to fire him, I think. But, you know, Disney has the legal right to issue Heaven's Gate: The Extended Anime Version, and bundle it with a claymation remake of Gigli..."

Gobble, Gobble!

Neocon?

Turns out I'm a realist!

UPDATE: Or maybe not, I changed one answer that I had dithered over and now I'm a neoconservative!

Smoking

Tony has amended his position on the smoking ban somewhat, concluding that as ETS (Environmental Tobacco Smoke) does appear to increase the incidence of tobacco related afflictions and..

"..A smoking ban in workplaces, for example, is beneficial, easy and cheap, so why not do it"

Let me try to answer this. A law requiring everybody to wear smart clothes to work may be beneficial, easy and cheap. A law requiring everybody to drink two litres of water a day or eat 5 servings of fruit or vegetable might be similarly beneficial, easy and cheap. None of these would be a good idea. It shouldn't be the government's role to force us to do things that are supposedly in our own interest. Individuals are better are at determining their own interest than the government.

Smoke-free workplaces are probably a good idea but a law mandating this is not a good idea. A smoke-free environment may not be appropriate for all workplaces, for example a cigar smoking club or a "smoky" jazz club. Potential employees for a non-smoke-free workplace can take a view as to whether the risk is sufficiently rewarded by the job (salary, enjoyment, career prospects etc) before agreeing to work there. It is better to let the market sort this out instead of resorting to a crude government intervention.

Faux-Libertarianism

I got a little distracted from blogging yesterday by a discussion on Samizdata following on from Andy Duncan's post about Hans-Hermann Hoppe. Andy has let himself be seduced by Hoppe's forthright rhetoric and has ignored the fact that Hoppe is proposing a level of social conformism that would make Franco blanch and a level of social engineering that Pol Pot would think was extreme. This isn't libertarianism. You can see some of my comments there.

Samizdata is one of my favourite blogs and I usually check it a few times a day. All of the bloggers offer interesting perspectives with a shared libertarian outlook which appeals to me. There are however several regular comment-posters, (turns out they just love Hoppe), who are anything but libertarian, despite their protestations. The only thing they share with libertarians is an opposition to standard New Labour social democrat orthodoxy. Where they differ is more significant, the view expressed is more accurately described as authoritarian extreme nationalism and in some cases white-suprematism in everything but name. If I have to choose between faux-libertarian white suprematism and social democrat orthodoxy, give me social democracy any day, and you know how much I dislike social democracy.

You never know when it might come in handy..

I just can't seem to kick this Guardian habit. In reading newspapers my sequence is as follows: 1) Sport section - 2) Comment section - 3) Glossy Mag. I rarely read the news section, unless there is a particular story about which I want to read more. Perhaps this is an unusual trait for a blogger: not being a news-junkie. I figure that I tend to soak up the news from other sources, radio, tv, conversation. Anyway, my typical reaction to a Guardian Op-Ed piece is either amusement or infuriation. I have tried to wean myself towards the Telegraph or the Times as I enjoy their opinion pieces better but I'm afraid Saturday isn't the same without the Guardian. Passing straight from the Sport section today to the Weekend mag (without pausing to read the pompous posturing) I note that the inimitable Heston Blumenthal is on about microwaves today. He is the proprietor chef of The Fat Duck Restaurant in Berkshire and is somewhat of a genius. He takes a scientific approach to cooking and his column is one of the highlights of the Saturday Guardian. Today's is a classic:

"...we were set the task of determining the speed of light using a piece of kitchen equipment.

The answer was surprisingly simple. Grate some cheese (cheddar will do) on to a plate, then microwave for a very short period of time. Hot spots will appear (as long as the timing is correct) as dots of softened cheese. Each hot spot represents a peak and trough of a wave. Therefore, the distance from one hot spot to another equals half a wavelength (if you are still following) of the microwaves in the oven. Multiply this by two, and you get the full length of the wave.

Finally, note the frequency of the microwave (usually printed on the side or back), multiply the wavelength by this figure and the resulting figure will be, as near as damn it, that of the speed of light.

That's as totally pointless a piece of information as you could wish for, I know, but you never know when it might come in handy."

Tha Boord is leukin tae tak on a boadie for tha follaein jab:

Page 18 of the jobs section of the Irish Times today has an advertisment for "Offis Heid" of "Tha Boord o Ulster-Scotch".

As someone on sluggerotoole remarked some time back - why are the Governments funding the promulgation of Ballymena accents? - for that is all this language appears to be. It is instructive to see samples of this prose out of its usual home in conversation or poetry and being used in an official capacity. Here is a transcription of the equality disclaimer:

The Board "... is leukin forrit tae gettin foarms in frae yins wae tha richt qualifications, nae matter whut kintra leid or race, sex, age or sex-roadit wye the' micht be, or whuitiver their mind is on politics or religion, an gin the' be merried or be leukin efter yins or no. Aa them at haes filled in jab foarms wull be taen tent o on nae ither grun nor whut yin micht be tha best fur tha jab."

Socialists beware!

Via Bureaucrash I see that Cafe Press (a privately held, venture-backed company) has a clever ruse to draw socialists into the bosom of capitalism, by selling them stuff!

Guff na h-Eireann

Further to the Bintifada post below, the link on Dick's site shows a placard on display at the protest yesterday.

Why is it that Irish people are so dreadful at creating banners? Far worse than their lame attempts at drawing letters in straight lines and equal proportion, the mere desire to come up with these inane phrases or couplets is cringe-making and twee. I am not just having a go at the bin protesters. OK, I am having a go at the bin protesters, but those in Croke Park with long and rambling localised slogans are many times more irritating. Guff like "Canavan's Caravan, marching after, the Maguire Sam" or "The (Dr. David) Banner County - The Incredible Hulks of Hurling" etc. (Alright, I made the last one up)

It's all reminiscent of the Wildean wit displayed by those who used "verse" to say hello to all their family and relatives at home whilst on Gay Byrne's Late Late Show in the 1980's.

What is the point of all this, except perhaps for providing Belfast advertising agencies with personnel to work on copy for their Harp TV adverts?

The Bintifada!

Great suggestion from Dick for Dubliners who don't know what to do with their overflowing rubbish, bin-collection having been disrupted by the usual bunch of rentamisfits led by Socialist TD Joe Higgins: Dump it in Higgins' Garden. That would be at 155 Briarwood Close, Mulhuddart, Dublin 15. Alternatively, if you'd prefer to let the Socialist Party know what you think of their protest: they're at 141 Thomas Street, Dublin 8.

Home is where the HSA is

"Edmund Burke" points me to an example of how considerate Ireland's Health and Safety Authority are. They are sending a message out out to rogue householders who continue to endanger the lives of those working in their house - be it childminders, au pairs, even people carrying out nixers, builders, plumbers, electricians - by, yes, smoking in their own home. Apparently, some people really are this reckless!

The HSA's Worker Protection Legislation will outlaw this heinous activity and they will welcome brave whistleblowers who report breaches of the legislation.

I wish I could say that I was surprised to see that the bureaucrats who rule us consider private property as just another workplace but as I noted before, this view was made explicit in the Building Regulations which requires private homes to be "accessible" for all the various agents of the state who assume a right to enter (Social workers, Health visitors, Police, Planning officers, Building control officers etc. etc.).

No Bias Here

Andrew Sullivan draws our attention to a BBC report on the separation of two Egyptian siamese twins. In a piece which later heads a paragraph "Italy Success" (about another separation of two Greek twins) and mentions the failed attempt in Singapore to separate the Iranian twins it is striking that no mention is made of the fact that this latest separation took place in Dallas, Texas, USA.

Drug Cartels?

Tony Allwright is worked up about "The Crime of Protectionist Pharmacists" and seems to believe that drug prices are high here, compared to (subsidised?) Spain, because Irish pharmacists are "shielded from competition". Not so. I have no interest in defending any cartels where they exist but Tony is missing the point here. He erroneously states that

"You cannot open a pharmacy within a certain distance of an existing pharmacy unless,extraordinarily, you can demonstrate that there is a need for it." 

and

"You cannot practice as a pharmacist unless you have the appropriate Irish pharmacological qualification; no other EU (or US) diploma is recognised."

Neither is true. The elephant in the room which Tony ignores is the level of government intervention in the drug market. Something like 40% to 45% of the public are on medical cards. This means that all their drugs are supplied "free" by the government. In addition to this there is a government "drugs payment scheme" which means that those who don't have medical cards but who are on regular medication need pay only €70 per month and the government pays the rest. Given this regime it would be financially suicidal to open up a pharmacy without access to a medical card and drugs payment contract. It used to be the case, as Tony asserts, that such contracts were only awarded when "need" was demonstrated. This typically bureaucratic requirement has been abolished. Anyone can set up a pharmacy if they want. As for the second assertion: It remains the case that any new pharmacy which opens up, and wishes to do business with the government, must employ at least one Irish-trained pharmacist for the first three years of business. While it is true to say that there are barriers in terms of entry to the market it is not the case that foreign-trained pharmacists cannot practice. Such regulations cannot explain the level of drug prices in Ireland. The fact is that, the government is a near monopoly in terms of drug purchasing and actually sets their price. Central planning and the waste which inevitably accompanies "free" drugs have kept this price high.

I am in favour of removing barriers to market entry and don't see why foreign-trained pharmacists cannot open up pharmacies here, but in the absence of abolition or reform of the medical card and drugs payment scheme this will be insufficient to bring Irish drug prices down.

Reflections of a Golden Dream

Putting it out there on E-bay

{Via Jaff's Trumpet, via Stray Toaster}

Vive La France!

Dundalk is hosting a French market until Sunday and when I walked around it yesterday I could almost imagine I was in Nice's Marche des fleurs. Lots of great cheeses, jams, French sausages, smoked meats, shallots, smoked garlic, herbs, olives, pastries, galettes (all with the French prices in euros meticulously overwritten to obscure the 300% or so markup of course!). French politics may stink but there's nothing wrong with their food.

Sin Bin

John has a few thoughts on the recent bin tax protests in Dublin. These have seen two Socialist TDs (rightfully) jailed for contempt of court for defying an injunction to refrain from disrupting bin collection. He makes an interesting and persuasive case for radical decentralisation.

He is, however, mistaken if he thinks that the bin-tax-protesters are "undermining the excessive centralization of power we have in Ireland". Rather they are "overmining" it. As dedicated socialists they are looking for more centralisation not less. What they seek is to have bin collection provided "free", i.e. funded by the taxpayer. Local bin charges, along with local water charges (another thing they object to) are good examples of decentralisation.

UPDATE: More on this from John. He notes that he doesn't believe the socialists are in favour of decentralisation but holds that it is the logical outcome if their campaign is successful. He's rather more optimistic than I am about the prospects for real decentralisation. I would maintain that the logic of abolishing bin charges is that the local council picks up the tab but won't be allowed levy a local tax for it. It seems more likely to me that you would see bin protests taking place in other counties leading to a a creeping nationalisation of bin collection. 10/10/03 5:35 PM

Call my blog

Further to your post on this below, Internet Commentator is now trading at $35.34 on blogshares.com.

I bought 300 at 84c on Tuesday. That's a tidy 4,200% blog profit in three days.

No, I haven't a clue what it all means either.

Yasser Artatak

Dick notes that while the pope's health is receiving a lot of attention, less is being paid to that of Yasser Arafat who is not in great shape. I agree with Dick that Israel would be prudent to resist the temptation to assassinate, or exile him given this. Why risk the (further) opprobrium when nature will do your job for you. Where I differ with Dick is his assertion that:

"While Arafat's perceived intransigence is regarded as an obstacle to the peace process, a Palestine without him may be a very chaotic place, at least in the short term."

I don't know if this is the case. It's clear that Abu Mazen resigned because Arafat wasn't prepared to cede any power. Dick seems to imply that Arafat is somehow holding together a Palestinian public which is ready to explode. I'd characterise things differently. It appears to me that Arafat is prepared to stoke feelings up and encourage suicide bombing as a negotiating tactic. In the event of Arafat's death it is hard to imagine how things can get worse for a Palestinian society which has seen a death cult take root. There may well be a struggle for control between the various factions but what the Palestinians need is a leader who is prepared to tell them the cold hard truth about what is achievable (Hint: not the destruction of Israel), what is required to do a deal with Israel (Israel's guaranteed security) and do that deal. Whether they will get that leader or not is another story.

Iced Land

William Sjostrom has some thoughts on land and high housing prices. The Irish Examiner is suggesting, and the government appears to be threatening, to "freeze" land prices in the (vain, economically illiterate) hope that this will lead to lower house prices. It seems obvious to me that any such "freeze" will have the net effect of encouraging the - as they say - informal economy. As I set out in a comment to William's post, this would be the likely scenario in the event of the government adopting this policy:

a) The bureaucrat instructed by the government to set the "correct" land price performs extensive, expensive analysis and come up with a formula which states that the value of land in County X should be €100,000 an acre.

b) Farmer Y wants to sell his land to Builder Z, they agree a price of €200,000 an acre. Their contract shows the government-approved value of €100,000 an acre and the rest is paid in cash, in a big briefcase if necessary.

William maintains that the reason housing is so expensive in Ireland is because of scarcity of land. That's not quite accurate. The problem is to do with scarcity of zoned land. It is taken as a given that we must have a more "sustainable" approach to development. This conflates two separate phenomena. The so called ecological impact of building: the energy involved constructing it, including transport of materials to site, and the energy involved in running it, heating etc. The second is the use of land. The thing is, the UK and Holland (examples often cited) have population densities significantly greater than ours and there has been this lazy tendency to import discussions about land use from these countries where land is scarcer. The fact is that fields are one thing we are not exactly short of. If local authorities, around the country, but particularly in and around Dublin, just simply zoned more housing land house prices would inevitably come down. This might be an appalling vista for the likes of An Taisce and Frank McDonald but you can't have restricted development and low house prices. It is a straightforward choice.

Whither Israel?

John is depressed about Israel's prospects and makes the extraordinary claim that by 2048 there will be no Israel. I'm less pessimistic even though the current situation is gloomy.

I don't think it's unreasonable to hope that democracy might take root in Israel's surrounding enemies. When you are powerless, indulging fantasies of destroying the hated Zionist entity can quite easily expand to take up all of your intellectual energy. If you have a direct say in how your country is run, and begin to enjoy freedom and prosperity, more prosaic and trivial concerns will take over from the violent fantasies.

A la recherche de "beat"s perdus

Thinking a little bit more about Old School Hip Hop and Jon's impromptu rap in the comments of the post below: It occurs to me that most people born in the late 1960s or early 1970s can probably karaoke a lot more rap than they realise. Just test how you react to these lines. I'll bet that the conclusion of the rap will come to you straight away:

1) Broken glass everywhere...

2) It's been a long time. I shouldn'a left you...

3) Mastercard, Visa, American Express...

4) Yes. Was the start of my last jam...

5) A businessman is caught with 24 kilos...

The funny thing is, I'd be hard pressed to repeat anything Busta Rhymes rapped. It is either the case that Old School rappers enunciated more clearly than their contemporary colleagues or that those under 21 are better equipped to memorise rap lyrics.

(Answers in the comments)

Freedom at Last!

Europe can't get it up

Sometimes you just read something and you can't let it go "unfisked"..

Our Grey Lady, (the one on D'Olier Street Dublin rather than on 42nd Street) today publishes an op-ed by one Andy Storey, lecturer in "Development Studies" at UCD which suggests a "correct approach" to Iraq. (Hint: Europeans are insufficiently Anti-American)

Gerard Baker (October 3rd) thinks Europeans are too critical of US foreign policy. The reality is that they are not critical enough. On the face of it, there might appear to be substantial differences between American and European world views, as has recently been argued by Garret FitzGerald (September 23th). Harvard professor Andrew Moravcsik, writing in the journal Foreign Affairs, claims that there is "a deep European commitment to multilateral institutions and civilian power". Moravcsik argues that Europeans "prefer to deal with problems through economic integration, foreign aid and multilateral institutions" - the instruments of so-called "soft" power - whereas the US prefers to rely on "hard" (military) power. But there are a number of factors that complicate any simple hard-American-versus-soft-European dichotomy.

This is the sort of stuff that drives me up the wall. It is taken as given by these EUro-Boosters that there is a straightforward choice between "soft" power and "hard" power and the (implicitly more "sophisticated") Europeans choose the former while you are invited to make your own conclusions about the Americans who take the latter. This is a false choice. What "soft" power really means is an excuse for inaction. Dr Martin Luther King warned his followers of the "paralysis of analysis": You could spend forever analysing the problem, coming up with reasons not to do anything. Meanwhile the problem persisted. This seems to me to be a pretty apt description of "Soft" power. "Soft" power relies on voluntarily submitting to its edicts. "Soft" power can compel me to pay my outstanding parking fines because I'm willing to comply with the law. "Soft" power against a dictator who revels in flouting international opinion is slightly less useful than the monopod at the proverbial arse-kicking competition. This may appear to be of no consequence but it's not. By deluding and consoling themselves with "soft power" actions the European governments allowed civil war, anarchy and genocide to continue in former Yugoslavia. The transnational charmers at the EU and UN may have been happy to kid themselves that "soft power" would sort out Rwanda. It was rather more difficult to sustain that impression in Kigali.

First is the willingness of the European states to endorse rather than oppose the exercise of US military power. The EU unanimously endorsed the 1999 Kosovo-related bombing campaign by NATO and the 2001 US assault on Afghanistan. Some European states have proved willing to directly lend "hard" support to US operations. Britain is obviously to the fore here, but, for example, Germany has 2,500 soldiers in Afghanistan, and their deployment in the north of that country releases US troops for an intensification of offensives in the south (and for service in Iraq).

I guess what he means is that US bombers should have been shot down on their way to Kosovo. Succeeding in "opposing" US action would mean what precisely? a continuation of Milosevic's campaign. It is remarkable to see how Anti-Americanism is blindly transforming into outright hostility. I say "blindly" because I cannot see the calculation which states that it is in Europe's interest to "oppose" these examples of "exercises of American power". Who benefitted from sorting our Kosovo? The US?, No: Europe.

Even in relation to the war on Iraq, the split between Europe and the US amounted to rather less than it seemed, as Prof Moravcsik has chronicled: "Even in the recent crisis, the vigorous rhetoric of some European governments was balanced by more tempered action . . . is misleading to portray France and Germany as having attempted to balance American power. "Neither state took material action against Washington, nor even proposed multilateral condemnation of the US position . . . (Indeed, Germany and other countries informally aided the war effort)."

There is still this blanket assumption that it is in Europe's interest to "balance" the US. Nowhere is this assertion explained or proved. The reason for the "split" is that even "Old Europe" knows that it is not in its interest to oppose the US, that they should be on the same side against terrorists, tyrants and those who would take away our freedoms but those countries cannot resist the opportunity to simulate global power. Indeed the "Old European" position of rhetorically opposing actions in its own interest is dishonest.

Another complicating factor in any simplistic portrayal of a US-European divide concerns the way in which Europe's (primarily) "soft" power acts, in practice, as a complement to US "hard" power. A very topical illustration of this is the current debate about the roles of the US and the UN in Iraq...George Monbiot, writing in the Guardian, has argued that a wider UN role in Iraq could have negative consequences for other parts of the world, and possibly even for Iraq itself, because a force under a UN flag might be no more acceptable or effective than the Americans and British...An increased role for the UN would allow Bush to pull US troops out and deploy them elsewhere... And if the UN, financed at least partly by the EU, agrees to clean up the current mess, then Bush may well be encouraged to attack some other country (Iran may be next in line) in the expectation that he can later hand over responsibility for whatever havoc he wreaks. Versions of this handover model ("hard" power succeeded by "soft" power) have already been practised in the Balkans and Afghanistan.

Storey apparently doesn't feel the need to explain why he thinks that Kosovo and Afghanistan were failures. It doesn't matter that the Kosovars were freed from genocide, it doesn't matter that Taleban's barbaric rule over Afghans has been broken. Why, the US had the wrong intentions, that's all that matters.


Initially, it suited the US to be in complete charge of Iraq for several reasons, including control of oil, and the disbursement of reconstruction contracts to politically connected US companies. But that calculus is changing (US casualties and costs are the key factors determining this), and the option of an EU-backed UN escape route is obviously becoming attractive to the US.

This is a breathtakingly sophisticated analysis from one who considers himself to be an expert in "Development" and Alex Ferguson's conundrum of who to replace Rio Ferdinand if he is banned will be solved when I step out onto the pitch at Old Trafford as United's new No. 5.

For starters. Surely it must seem odd while writing those words to believe that the US would invade a faraway country in order to provide opportunities to shovel to American companies lucrative contracts paid for by the American taxpayer!. Surely it would be easier to keep the pork barrel at home instead of shipping it overseas. As for oil, I just have two words for those who still think that the US invaded Iraq for Oil (and who probably also think that the CIA has him on their hitlist): Hugo. Chavez. Remember Venezuela is a lot closer than Iraq and has just as much oil. Hell they even have a thug for a ruler.


Under its drafts of a Security Council resolution, the US is proposing that a UN-mandated multinational force operate in Iraq, but under US command and with the US still playing the dominant role in the civilian administration of Iraq. France, Germany and Russia are leading calls for the UN resolution to go further towards a dilution of US military and political control, but differences might yet be overcome and the Europeans may ultimately pitch in to help out the US. This begs the question: why should European governments be even considering options to allow Bush off the hook in this way?

The only begging of questions going on here is Storey's insistence on assuming what he seeks to prove. This is the classic cutting-off-nose-to-spite-face argument. We didn't get our way so we'll wreck things. Never mind the consequences. What an appalling vista, a free prosperous democratic Iraq, but Bush is off the hook?, the horror!

While European leaders talk publicly of the need to reassert Iraqi sovereignty, access to oil revenues and reconstruction contracts for French, Russian and other companies will obviously be at the back (or forefront) of some minds. The French Foreign Minister, de Villepin, has already indicated that exclusive US control of reconstruction projects is one issue for discussion regarding the new UN resolution.

So the French and Russians expect to be rewarded for sanctions-busting and doing deals with Saddam by the Iraqi people having to honour the contracts of the thug who brutalised them for three decades?

More broadly, the willingness of European leaders to even countenance bailing Bush out in Iraq lies in the idea of Europe and the US exercising "soft" and "hard" power in a complementary fashion. In the words of Prof Moravcsik, "Europe needs American military might; America needs European civilian power". ...This is not a model for a just world order. Is a world dominated by a "good cop/bad cop" EU-US alliance likely to promote peace and prosperity for a majority of the world's people? The question has a resonance well beyond Iraq.

This question is the wrong one. The correct question is What is Europe going to do when the US gets fed up providing the muscle to solve its problems?

Just like Proust's Madeline

Eugene Volokh notes that Hugh Hewitt is, er, shocked to hear himself labelled as a "Shock Jock" by NPR and Eugene wonders whether he will ever find himself described as a "ShockBlogger".

The alliteration of these terms brought to the surface, unbidden, memories of the 1980s when my cousin Dermot, enraptured by Break-dancing and Body-popping, temporarily renamed himself ShocRoc II (apparently somebody had already taken "ShocRoc I") and, even though I don't remember ever seeing him or any of his "Kru" practicing their art, I now have this image in my head of B-Boys and Buffalo Girls doing the electric bugaloo to Shannon (Let the Music Play) in Shannon (Co. Clare).

The Good Life

Alex Singleton spells out to environmentalists and anti-globos what the simpler life really means:

"Those who oppose progress probably have an idealistic view of what a simpler life entails. They picture it involving sherry drinking on the veranda without a care in the world. But this is not how simpler societies work. Simpler societies involve the vast majority of people getting up at the crack of dawn for a long day of backbreaking toil, with only a small elite living enjoyable lives."

Irish Times Hacks - Googled

Mark Humphrys points out to me that Google's "I'm feeling lucky" for the words "Lara Marlowe" brings you to Blog Irish While "Eddie Holt" returns Mark's own critique of Ol' "Big House".

Lots of other good stuff at Mark's site.

Who cares about Cubic Expression...

I have to say that I understand little of how Blogshares.com operates so really I don't know what to make of the recent frenzy of trading in Internet Commentator blogshares.

Republicanism, Collaboration and the "Resistance".

Via Slugger I see that Paul Dunne is defending the memory of Nazi Collaborator (see: no scare quotes) Sean Russell and the practice of tar and feathering against some "particularly wretched" (scare quotes appropriate) Irish Independent articles. It is alternately enlightening and depressing to read Dunne's Shamrockshire Eagle blog. Enlightening because he is a very interesting commentator, a rarity in extreme Nationalism, but depressing because he frequently displays the insular parochialism which is endemic to Irish Republicanism.

"SF Euro-hopeful commemorates Nazi collaborator -- so Jim Cusack's article is headlined. What is a collaborator? A person who collaborates -- duh! With whom? With the forces of occupation; or more generally, with the enemies of their country. So, clearly the only collaborators Ireland knew during this time were those collaborating with the continued British occupation of part of our country."

Ok, right off the bat we have the myopia, nothing exists outside of "the struggle" not even a World War. To answer more accurately the question - What is a collaborator? : a collaborator is someone who works with someone else. I am an architect, I collaborate with the structural engineer who makes sure my preposterous proposals stand up. In my blog I collaborate with Conor. It is not inaccurate to describe Russell as a Nazi collaborator, that is what he was: he worked with the Nazis. Paul Dunne's mistake is to assume that the reason there is a negative reaction to the term Nazi Collaborator is because there is something intrinsically reprehensible about the act of collaboration. Not so, what matters is with whom you collaborate.

"The IRA of the period was most certainly not pro-Nazi. Ironically though the Irish Independent of the day was very close to our own Nazis, the Blueshirts. I'd say a dig in the files of that august publication would turn up some hair-raisers. But sure that wouldn't be "news" now, sure it wouldn't? "

It is hard to see how this argument says anything about Russell or whether it is right to commemorate a man who made common cause with the Nazis: the issue Cusack dealt with in the original article. Whether the IRA were pro-Nazi is an interesting but separate question. It is certainly true that there were a number of rabid anti-semites prominent in the republican cause but it is not clear how many shared with Russell the notion that Ireland's interests were served by collaborating with the Nazis. In any case it doesn't shed light on Russell one way or another. The merits of the Blueshirts and any support they received from the Indo of the day is another separate and possible less interesting question. To refer to the Blueshirts as "Our Nazis" is more illuminating of the parochial prejudices of Republicanism than it is of that organisation which certainly took inspiration from European fascist movements but were no Nazis. Jews in Ireland were more at risk from hatemongers like Nationalist, Socialist, Arthur Griffith than General O'Duffy .

"Our intrepid report makes much of the fact that Seán Russell, the main man behind the IRA's ill-fated England campaign of 1939, died while on board a German U-boat,..Russell was not planning to prepare the way for a "Nazi" ... He was planning, as Irish patriots always have done and continue to do, to fight and destroy British rule in Ireland. The other IRA man on that German U-boat isn't mentioned. His name was Frank Ryan. He had joined the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War and was saved from the firing squad by Free State intervention. He too agreed to work for the German Abwehr against the traditional enemy. Was he a "Nazi" as well? ..No. Both men were acting in accordance with the old saw, "England's difficulty is Ireland's opportunity". The phrase was originally coined by John Mitchel, who rather pre-dates the Nazis. "

This is a pretty eloquent exposition of republican parochialism. Following Mitchel's credo requires a suspension of disbelief about all other events outside of this one little conflict. England's difficulty would certainly have been Ireland's opportunity: Ireland's opportunity to live under the Nazi jackboot. Just imagine Britain had been overrun by the Germans as had France. Imagine one is so callous as to be indifferent to the fate of the British. Is it really remotely plausible that the Nazis would have ignored Ireland. Two possibilities: a Nazi controlled Europe, with an "independent" "neutral" Ireland relying on Nazi Britain for the bulk of its trade or, more likely, a Nazi puppet administration in Dublin Castle with someone like Russell at its head. Few would prefer either scenario to the status quo before or after WW2

"Poor Jim had his nose to the grindstone that weekend. Here he was again: Before the Taliban, there was the IRA . 'A number of young women who went out with off-duty soldiers were "tarred and feathered" - had their hair shaved off, were doused in black paint and covered in feathers from a pillow. They were then tied to lampposts with placards hung around their necks proclaiming them as "soldier lovers" for public humiliation. Most of these young women had to leave the areas they lived in and never return..Such images, reminiscent now of the Taliban regime, were almost common place in west Belfast of the early 1970s.'
Indeed. They were also commonplace in France after the liberation in '44. Presumably that's OK, though, because those so punished were "Nazi collaborators" i.e. French girls who had become intimate with soldiers occupying their country -- oh, but wait...

More assumptions from Paul, who imagines we share his view that this vindictive French retribution was "OK". The behaviour of the French towards girls who had become intimate with soldiers was grotesque and reprehensible not least because the girls' attackers had all been, if not sexually intimate, then in other ways intimately connected with the occupiers. Those girls were an easy target and allowed the French to vent their shame at surrendering and assisting in the occupation of their country.

"..But I want to return to this "Nazi collaborators" issue. Since the analogy with the Nazi time has been raised, here's one that I suggest throws a bit more light on the subject. I say that, if the IRA are "terrorists", then so were the French Resistance against the Nazis. Consider: The French government, defeated in war, signed a treaty with Germany which partitioned the country, one part being occupied by the German army and under German military jurisdiction, the other part ("Vichy France") not occupied, and ruled by the French government. A small band in exile, however, lead by an obscure army officer, decided to continue the fight, forming a parallel government and army. All this was quite illegal."

The error here is to confuse legality with morality.

"Many Frenchmen, including the bulk of the police, collaborated with the Germans against the resistance, whom they regarded as dangerous subversives. Indeed, until the Liberation, most of the everyday work against the resistance was done by the French civil authorities. The situation was greatly altered by the German occupation of Vichy France in November 1942, true, but until then at least the comparison with partitioned Ireland is not far-fetched. The Resistance was on the winning side of course, and every victory creates its own legend. The idea that all or even most of the French fought alongside the brave boys of La Résistance is just that, a legend. The war bitterly divided France, and Frenchman fought Frenchman, to the benefit of the Germans. The resistance garnered more popular support as the German position declined, of course; but never did they base their right to fight on popularity. As for their conduct of the fight, they used all the normal methods of a guerilla force, just as the IRA did and do. rough handling of suspected collaborators, from "tar and feathering" to killing shooting of hostages bombs in public places assassination ambushes of police and soldiery If the Germans had won, what would we all think of La Resistance today? Much the same as what most now think of the IRA. Vae victis ."

I have to say that I am completely gobsmacked by this argument. The fact that the French choose to ignore the losing side and venerate the winning side (I suspect that there was only ever a tiny, token resistance) and have been permitted to revise history to place themselves in a more flattering light doesn't retrospectively alter facts or morality. The cause of the resistance, if it ever existed, was noble. Some of their tactics may not have been admirable. The principal reason why this faux conundrum which is perpetually posed - "One man's Freedom fighter is another man's terrorist" - irritates me beyond distraction is that it is a false opposition. One needn't take sides in a political conflict to condemn terrorism. It is possible to say that, say, "resistance" action against Vichy police and army is not terrorism but bombs in public places were.

Deficit Schmeficit

William Rees Mogg is a bit harsh on Arnold Schwarzenegger claiming that Arnie is unique in appealing to voters on the basis, not of his policies but of his "strength of will". This is a cheap shot and one which Rees Mogg obviously thinks we might miss so he makes an explicit reference to Hitler in the next paragraph. (Impatiently he hammers it further home with a Leni Riefenstahl refererence later on).

The fact is that every election is a beauty contest of sorts. Arnie may not be making detailed policy statements (and the governorship of may prove to be a poisoned chalice: California is not easily fixable) but it is not just his "strength of will" that Californians admire. He makes the right noises about a range of issues that are important to them.

But what I really wanted to talk about was not Rees Mogg's characterisation of Schwarzenegger as a Fascist but his description of the budgetary problems facing California and how they relate to the rest of the US. He begins by describing California's budget deficit ($38 billion) and correctly notes that efforts to solve this may be hampered by all sorts of voter directives which require all sorts of expensive initiatives but set limits on tax. This is followed by the extraordinary claim that "One calculation puts the existing public liabilities of the American system at $32,000 billion, or $32 trillion. That enormous sum comes to about three times the GDP of the United States" (you can see straight away that a vague term like "the American System" could include agents who owe money to each other) and the less extraordinary but no more accurate claim that because..

"..The US already has an unsustainable public debt; it has unsustainable budget deficits at every level; it also has a dangerously high personal debt. California happens to be the state in which the shoe is pinching the bunion"

According to this view California is unlucky not in having been managed by an incompetent but simply in being the part of the American system which bears the brunt. This too easily lets Governor Davis off the hook. Rees Mogg then claims that:

"This torrent of public debt has already resulted in an external deficit of $500 billion, which is largely financed by Asian countries, principally China and Japan; they do not wish their own currencies to rise. By this arrangement, the United States seems to be under no immediate pressure"

I'm no economist and I have noted before that my knowledge of the dismal science is dismal, maybe Conor can enlighten me here but it seems to me that Rees Mogg is conflating budget deficit (government spends more than it earns) with trade deficit (country imports more than it exports). While the first is something to be concerned about the latter is something which people get worked up about but, like outsourcing, is only of symbolic importance. For every item that contributes towards a trade deficit there is a corresponding asset.

Super SuperMarkets

Fascinating thoughts on supermarkets by Samizdata's Michael Jennings who explains how it is that they are able to carry a wider range of more desirable goods (it is not to do with taking a gamble on exotic products - the "hit and hope" approach - but to do with complex computing systems) and how, although prices haven't come down, the more tailored range of products increases prosperity invisibly.

Dead Ear

I see that Eoin disagrees with my take on Iain Banks' Dead Air. I'd be interested to see why...

Vacuum of accountable control sounds just fine

Interesting post by Conor below on the challenge faced by capitalism which is, as The Economist noted, primarily from rogue bosses and politicians and not the "window smashing" anti-globos . I think, however, that there is an important distinction to be made between two separate phenomena which Conor has conflated.

The first is cronyism sustained by so called "Pro-Business" politicians. The general emphasis of "Pro-Business" politicians has been to protect existing businesses from competition and not to encourage freer trade. It hardly needs saying that this is not in anyone else's interest.

The second phenomenon is the "excessive" payouts to some company directors, often unrelated to performance. This is rightly to be deplored but is only the concern of the shareholders involved. It is tempting to suggest that the government "step in" and "do something" about this but this temptation should be resisted. Make no mistake, a "vacuum of accountable control" is not a bad thing. The government has no business intervening in privately owned companies and telling the shareholders how to deal with their directors. If shareholders are foolish enough to remunerate handsomely a patent incompetent well too bad for them. The next time they might be wiser.

As for whether we are "better" now than in the "bad" 1980s it is probably true that the effect of the various tribunals is to create this erroneous impression but just as Conor notes that our Catholic culture permits this sin-forgiveness-sin-forgiveness cycle so too does it affect our attitude towards compliance (as I noted before). It would also be a mistake to lump together, as Conor does, "evasion, corruption and non-compliance" as equal ills. Like it or not, and much as we love to castigate those who don't "comply" with all our numerous symbolic regulations, Irish society only tends toward full compliance without ever reaching it.

Missing the Target?

The Economist, on its 160th birthday earlier this year, published a survey of capitalism and democracy over its lifetime. As one would expect, this celebrated and critiqued the success of global liberal capitalism in improving prosperity, extending life expectancy and eradicating poverty. They make the point that anti-globalists/capitalists would choose to represent these achievements as the rape of the planet, a population time-bomb and a widening North-South gap respectively. They also state that “dwelling too long on their (the anti-capitalists) bogus concerns is apt to rot the intellect”. How true.

More interesting is their claim that to focus on the “marchers and window-smashers” is to miss the source of the worst of anti-capitalism. The greatest potential threat to capitalism is the actions of the bosses of companies, the owners of companies (shareholders) and “pro-business” politicians. Really, this is a comment on the corporate scandals of the past couple of years. If bosses reward themselves like owners (without bearing the risk of owners) and the real owners let them get on with it, and “pro-business” politicians regard this vacuum of accountable control as a private matter of no wider concern, or do not crack down when bosses break laws, then these actors actually become the most militant of anti-capitalists.

This has been particularly evident in corporate Ireland. Unaccountability, downright law-breaking and politico-commercial cronyism presents a far greater threat to the future success of liberal capitalism than the half-assed “resistance” of road-painters, street-reclaimers and bin-protesters and could ever hope to. I’m not sure if this is more likely or less likely to occur now than 10 or 15 years ago. Current tribunals into past misdeeds have the great effect of deflecting from the here and now. “Wasn’t it terrible the amount of evasion, corruption and non-compliance that went on in Ireland the bad old 1980’s” is the only conclusion most observers can draw from the output of these tribunals. However, this, by definition makes it appear that as we are in a much better place now. I get the sense that most people, perhaps betraying a Catholic sensibility as regards sin and forgiveness, think that we are going through a once-off purge of corruption. We can get through it, wring hands and shake heads and move forward as a much better, more mature state. Maybe so, but I think there is still a sense that in certain sections of the economy the “bad guys” could still be running rings around the “good guys”. Will we spend the 2010’s trawling through the outrageous strokes that were pulled and favours granted during the greatest economic and property boom in the state’s history?

Efficiency

How Internet Usage affects Productivity, from The Onion.

Bit close to the bone for me!

Toxic Canuck Chronic

The case for small government from Mark Steyn:

"One of the reasons I'm in favor of small government is because there's hardly anything the government doesn't do worse than anybody else who wants to give it a go. Usually when I make this observation, I'm thinking of, say, Britain's late unlamented nationalized car industry. But when the government of a G7 nation can't run a small marijuana sideline as well as a college student with a window box, that seems to set an entirely new standard for official underperformance. Big government goes to pot, in every sense."

Said

Contrasting thoughts on Edward Said. Christopher Hitchens pays a gentle tribute to his friend but rather skirts around the central paradox of Said's career which is, as Mark Steyn and Nelson Ascher note, that it could only have been possible in the despised "imperialist" west.

Straight Outta Tha Garden Centre

Genius behind The Portadown News, Newton Emerson defends Northern Ireland's middle class.

"For in the dreary pantomime that is Northern Ireland politics middle class people are always the bad guys.

Although this society is rife with the same tedious and affected reverse-snobbery that afflicts everywhere the English ever landed, we also tolerate several prejudices against the middle class that are quite unique.

Best known is the Eamonn McCann theory of class conflict in which orange-green politics is seen as a distraction manufactured by cunning middle class interests to keep the workers at each other’s throats, leaving them weakened and helpless before their capitalist overlords.

If only the working class would realise this and unite, goes the theory, they could throw off the yoke of their north Down oppressors and build a bigotry-free tomorrow."

SamizSpamScam

Great Stuff: David Carr receives an interesting offer.

"You reap what you sow" - why the BUMs are wrong.

In the Coen brothers' classic film The Big Lebowski, the eponymous millionaire informs his scruffy namesake, better known as The Dude ("or if you are not into that whole brevity thing: El Dudareno"), that "The Bums lost". Crippled in Vietnam, while The Dude dodged the draft and protested, Lebowski inferred from their respective social positions that his side, The Squares, won. The Dude may be a loser, at least in conventionally understood terms, but Lebowski's analysis was incorrect. The "Bums", those who protested, rioted, draft-dodged, won. Hell, one of them even got elected president. Today's conventional wisdom, particularly in Europe is formed by the Bohemian, Urban-centric, Muddled view of the 1968 generation.

One article of faith among Bohemian, Urban, Muddlers is that, appalling as the events of 9/11 might be, there was a sense in which America "had it coming". Playwright Bonnie Greer visited her hometown, Chicago shortly after 9/11 (having already gone thoroughly "native" in London) and produced a documentary all about "chickens coming home to roost". It almost goes without saying for this mindset that, had "American Foreign Policy" been less "Arrogant", "Unilateral" etc. then 9/11 wouldn't have happened. Some even silently cheered that the superpower's nose was bloodied by Osama Bin Laden.

But they are making a serious miscalculation if they think the reason Islamofascism opposes the US is simply because of its "Neo-Colonialism" or its "Globalisation". Al Qaeda's primary characterisation of American culture is, incorrectly, that it is decadent. It is an irony that the evidence for this decadence is probably just about everything this organisation's "explainers" hold dear. Feminism, Tolerance of Homosexuality, Relaxed attitude towards sexuality and soft drug use, "Transgressive Art", Atheism, Gay Pride parades. They don't seem to understand that Al-Qaeda opposes the Bums equally to, if not more so than, the Squares so here's a short list of people Al-Qaeda would gladly kill given the chance.

• Naomi Klein (duh: Jewish)
• Subcommandante Marcos (Infidel)
• Al Sharpton
• Gore Vidal (Homosexual)
• Reverend Farrakhan (Heretic)
• Germaine Greer
• Barbara Streisand
• Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins and family
• Ralph Nader
• Maureen Dowd
• Yasmin Alibhai-Brown (doesn't exhibit correct behaviour for Muslim woman and is married to an Infidel)
• Jose Bove (Infidel, unclean)
• Joshka Fisher
• Dominique de Villepin
• Jacques Derrida
• Scott Ritter (need I explain why?)
• Hacks like Bob Fisk and Seumas Milne, They're still infidels and there's not exactly a shortage of "useful idiots" to take their place.

Any others?

Dead Ear

I noted below that I had occasion to wonder whether an author's political viewpoint could sufficiently intrude as to hamper enjoyment reading their book.

The first time this occurred to me was on reading John Le Carre's The Constant Gardener. This putative thriller follows a Kenya-based British diplomat's investigation into the circumstances of his wife's murder while on "virtue duty". It has been said of Le Carre that he has laboured to find an appropriate milieu for his novels since the end of the cold war and that impression is reinforced by this poorly plotted simplistic tale lacking any kind of narrative tension or ambiguity and which pits plucky agents of virtue against evil "Big Pharma". It is clear that Le Carre craves the approval of the London literary media which still scorns him as a genre novelist. Perhaps he hoped that by making more explicit his left-wing political leanings he would be better appreciated.

I was reminded of The Constant Gardener, reading Iain Banks' Dead Air while on holiday. Neither novels resemble each other and I have no reason to believe Banks gives a damn what the London media thinks of him. I enjoyed Banks' 2001 novel The Business and Dead Air doesn't suffer in terms of pace or plotting in the same way as Le Carre's novel. It does, however, have two major problems. The first is the many ill-considered political views espoused by the protagonist which one can only assume, given how he is depicted, to be coterminous with Banks'. The second problem is one of tone: the "dead ear" demonstrated by Banks in the depiction of a number of characters and events. There are just so many "bum notes"

To deal with the bum notes first: The protagonist is meant to be a "shock jock" along the lines of Howard Stern and there are also similarities to Chris Evans and Chris Moyles. The catch is that one of his heroes is Noam Chomsky. It appears to be an unintentional irony that his supposedly contrarian views coincide with those of the contemporary British New Labour establishment. I'll get to some of those views later but it is clear that Banks intend this character to "say the things you really want to say" (that is if "you" are a middle class urban leftie). This punchy Scot leftie has a Moyles-like lager lad lifestyle and is drawn as a loveable rogue. It cannot be a coincidence that in terms of location, nationality, class, age and, presumably, political views he resembles the author. It is hard to know where to start with the jarring notes but a lot of them revolve around the character of "Ed". In introducing his characters Banks scrupulously uses secondary devices to describe their race. So when "Ed" first appears it is by an oblique and unnecessary reference to his skin that we learn he is black. This fastidiousness is remarkable given the crude racial stereotyping which later appears.

Banks reveals more about himself than anything else in his depiction of this "cool" club DJ and South Londoner. This cipher, speaking cloth-eared (and intrusively phonetical) dialogue, seems to represent for me Banks' fantasy cool black buddy - this friendship no less ridiculous than one between So Solid Crew's Megaman and Chis Tarrant - and is involved in the most cringeworthy of exchanges. Ed apparently wants to convert this chat show DJ - one sufficiently unenamored of dance music as to scorn the "n-chih n-chih" music which, we are informed, regularly spills from cars driven by "brothers"- to a proper Club DJ. Ed lives in two South London terrace houses knocked together with his extended family because "he hasn't lost touch with his roots". Ed explains to our hero how the words "wicked" and "bad" have been inverted by black people. 20 years after Michael Jackson's hit album, single and Michael Scorsese-directed video it is still apparently novel to a writer of Banks' stature that "bad" can mean good. As for "wicked", it is a long time since the playground replaced the "hood" as the most likely place to hear this word used to denote something desirable. The protagonist's toe-curling "teasingly flirtatious" conversation with Ed's mother suggests that Banks' knowledge about West-Indian women of a certain age is primarily gleaned from Lilt ads. At an outing to the London Eye with Ed's family the supposedly colourblind narrator notes the unremarkable fact that he is "the only white person" in the carriage.

As for the politics: the arguments are just powerpoint-simplistic.

• 9/11 = "you reap what you sow"
• Political correctness is just plain politeness (perhaps, given this shock jock's profession, the only contrarian view he expresses)
• Companies should look after the interests of their workers and consumers, not their shareholders (the economic illiteracy here - aaargh!!!!)
• Shareholding is immoral (ditto)
• Won't visit the US until "democracy is restored"
• Bush is evil and stupid
• Sharon is evil
• Israel oppresses the Palestinians and this leads directly to suicide bombing (in Banks' favour at least one character argues against all this "anti-zionist" posturing)
• Jews and Scots rule the world (this is a kind of "some of my best friends are.." type of argument)

In fact it is veritable litany of idiotarian thinking. Conor is reading Dead Air at the moment, I'd be interested to hear what he thinks.

MattCooperNetwork

Just a thought on MSN closing down their Chat rooms: It is, of course, disingenuous of Microsoft to claim that the primary motivation here is, as reported by the media, to ensure the safety of kids from preying paedophiles. It is clear that hosting a free chat service costs a lot of money and brings no significant benefit or income. However, those, such as Today FM's continually unimpressive Matt Cooper, who complain about this action as if it were an assault on free speech are missing the point: Microsoft is a private company and is under no obligation to continue to provide any service free or paid. If Cooper is so concerned about chatters' freedom of speech there's nothing too stop him starting up his own free chat service.

Ok, I'm back but - after a long over-night flight spent mostly in a cramped seat better equipped to deliver a DVT than a good night's sleep - I'm not exactly in the fittest state to blog. So instead I thought I'd list some of my unpublished thoughts over the last fortnight and perhaps I will expand on each later:

1) Walt Disney World's successful implementation of some aspects of socialism.

2) A related point: The key difference between government funded healthcare and government funded transport.

3) Ireland's Housing "Crisis" and Florida's Real Estate market.

4) The extent to enjoyment of a book can be marred by the political view made explicit by the author - and by this I don't necessarily mean left or right but just badly thought-out stuff - or why I did not like Dead Air by Iain Banks but very much enjoyed And Then You Die and Medusa by Michael Dibdin, Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux and Politics by Adam Thirlwell

Jon at Back Seat Drivers comments on The Dunphy Show and Lara Marlowe's irrelevant (and apparantly incorrect) assertion that only 8% of Americans hold passports. Jon links to a US State department site showing the actual number of passports issued in each of the past 20 years. Although this doesn't tell me exactly what proportion of Americans hold passports, it does raise the issue of comparisons between the EU and the US.

Although it could be argued that the EU, as 15 sovereign states, is not comparable to the US, I have wondered what percentage of EU citizens use their passports in a given year to travel outside of the EU? I have no hard evidence, but I would presume that this figure would not be much in excess of 8% or 10%. Look at the 32 pages of the majority of Irish passports and I am sure you will not find too many customs stamps for extra-EU travel.

Although a small proportion of EU citizens are globetrotters, the vast majority only leave their country to lie on a beach in the Mediterranean or ski in the Pyrenees or the Alps.

Globalisation is Good

Johann Norberg's documentary, aired on Channel 4 last night, had one essential message: that free trade between democratic nations has been, and remains, the key to eradicting poverty and improving the economic lot of all.

I thought it was an excellent synopsis of the argument in favour of liberalism-globalisation, and of how anti-globalists are myopic fools in this regard. (my words, not his) The anti-globalist raggle-taggle are, however, only minor irritants in comparison to the actions of the EU. The Common Agricultural Policy (and similar agricultural tariff and subsidisation programmes in the US and Japan) are one half of the cause of African poverty. They exclude African farmers from EU markets and subsidise the dumping of EU produce. The other half is completed by corrupt African rulers who do not establish or uphold private property rights for citizens, therefore removing the rationale for and means of investing in a farm, shop, factory or business.

This programme was good, but it was shocking and unoriginal. I mean that as a sincere compliment to Norberg. It was shocking because it is rarely you find this line of argument given substantial airtime in the media. It was unoriginal in the sense that Norberg re-presented simple ideas about economic development and trade that have existed for decades, if not centuries. However, he did this in a clear, interesting and compelling fashion.

Kenny slams benchmarking

I stand corrected! FG leader Indakinny has raised the hackles of the unions and his inevitable coalition partners, the Labour Party, by stating that (the next phase of) benchmarking should not be paid and needs to be renegotiated.

Is this the start of a move to the right for FG? Hard to see where this will lead. Alienation from the Labour Party and the Greens as coalition partners? Alienation of their traditional support amongst civil servants and teachers?

Maybe their aim is to replace the PD's as the tail wagging Fianna Fail's dog!

Fine Gael's Enda Kenny today outlined his party's
New Agenda for Irish Business

"Fine Gael's proposals to business are aimed at streamlining the way the State engages with the private sector and ensuring that the manner in which the State manages its finances doesn't undermine the viability of private enterprise"

The key elements of the New Agenda include;

1. Raise the audit level for small business in line with our EU partners to 3 million euro in turnover so as to ease an unnecessary burden on small business,
2. Raise the threshold level at which VAT is collected to 100,000 euro, again relieving an unnecessary burden from smaller businesses,

Can't quibble with either of these suggestions, but they are hardly revolutionary, nor does raising cut-off levels constitute a "New Agenda"

3. Government should be working to freeze charges by profitable monopolistic State utilities so as to ensure that Government is part of the inflation solution, not part of the problem,

The reason price increases were required in VHI, ESB, Bord Gais, An Post is becasue they are monopolistic State utilities. Why not propose competition initiatives and/or privatisation?

4. Revisit the benchmarking process and secure real service improvements before any additional monies are paid out,

I'd like to see you try Enda! Who knows if Fine Gael would have had the required level of fecklessness to introduce something similar to benchmarking had they been in government over the last number of years? Although I would guess that their social democratic pedigree and Labour party coalition partners would have produced a "partnership" agreement at least as serving of the public sector unions interests as that which has been negotiated. Enough of the ex-post ante speculation! Whatever about the required level of Fianna Fail fecklessness, I doubt they would have the political cahones to stand up to the unions and the Labour Party and refuse to pay benchmarking awards.

5. Introducing a system of business "proofing" new legislation to ensure it does not unnecessarily negatively impact on business, and importantly, letting business see the analysis and have their say,

From my knowledge of legislation that affects my area of employment, industry bodies already have the opportunity to respond and consult on drafts of future legislation. Not too sure what the substance of business "proofing" would amount to.

6. Railroad reform in three key areas of the economy: Insurance, Banking and the Professions,

The responsibilities businesses will have to live up to will embrace some or all of the following;

1. Refraining from opportunistic pricing strategies that impact adversely on the consumer,
2. Pursue an open and transparent pricing strategy for your products and services that gives the public all the information they need in a easily understood format,
3. Operating your business to meet all EU and EPA environmental legislation. Failure to dos so shall be met with severe penalties,
4. Ensuring that your workers and your workplace are safe at all times.
5. Investing proactively in the people and communities that your businesses are located in.

Again, this does not appear to be a New Agenda. It is a combination of "best practice" statements and truisms, with a dollop of what sounds like more regulation.

"I recognise the rights that business have to trade and pursue opportunities for commerce without the heavy hand of the State undermining those efforts. Business too must reflect on its responsibilities to the people it employs, the public that they service and the communities that they are rooted in. Fine Gael will play its part if you agree to meet us half way."

Fine Gael's New Agenda consists of "meeting half-way". To my mind, that has been and remains their political problem.

Distributive Justice!

Tom at Crooked Timber links to this site which provides an assessment of attitudes to the political economy of distribution via several tests in the form of questionnaires.

In "creating" my perfect society, I came out as Meritocrat, but with some Left-Libertarian attitudes to distribution.

As with most of these things, it is entertaining, but the structure and style of questions can potentially reflect the bias of the designer.

UPDATE: these links now work! Previously, I had confused my inverted commas and quotation marks.

Ok: I'm going on holiday tomorrow so there won't be any posts from me until about Tue 23 September. See you then!

Blog Irish take down Trocaire and do a great service by compiling a complete chronology of this appalling, yet lavishly government-funded, organisation's politicking and posturing from 9/11 on.

No to the fart tax!

New Zealand's farmers are protesting against the planned greenhouse tax levy on cattle farmers. Whatever your views on the sense of the Kyoto Accord, this proposal would at least seem to be in line with the "Polluter Pays" principle. Methane from cattle are estimated to contribute approximately a third of all "greenhouse" gases produced in Ireland. Will the Irish government consider implementing a similar proposal? I wouldn't hold my breath. (Or maybe I should, given the smell)

Interesting thought by David Carr: The BNP are not, as they are frequently described, "Far-Right". It is more accurate to refer to them as "Nationalist Left" - their policies combining Old style Labourism with racism.

Sinn Fein's Barbara de Bruin is certainly a woman of contradictions. As NI Health minister, her anti-smoking campaign was certainly a striking initiative given the revenue provided by legitimate cigarette taxes to the exchequer which funds her health service and the revenue provided by smu.., well you know what I mean.

Now she must be chagrined to see that she has achieved a 7% reduction in hospital waiting lists.....by not turning up to work. As Belfast Gonzo notes, the credit for this should go to UK Health Minister Angela Smith.

Andrew Sullivan draws our attention to possibly the most inane sentence ever written and published in a major newspaper:

"If all those yuppies can climb Mount Everest, at 29,000 feet, can't we pay some locals to nab Osama at 14,000 feet?"

Who else but Maureen Dowd.

Jon links to an interesting article by Adam Garfinkle about the tendency to view historical foreign policy decisions as if those who made them possessed perfect awareness of every consequence. Regrettably Jon's fellow backseat driver Dick immediately reaffirms this tendency. I have to say: Dick's rebuttal is particularly weak.

Garfinkle: "When the initial decision was made... to establish links with the mujahedeen, the preeminent concern of American decision makers was not the future of Afghanistan, but the future of the Soviet Union and its position in Southwest Asia. ..the consolidation of Soviet control in Afghanistan would have given future Soviet leaders options they would not otherwise have had. In light of the strategic realities of the day, the American concern was entirely reasonable: Any group of U.S. decision makers would have thought and done more or less the same thing, even if they could have foreseen the risks to which they might expose the country on other scores...But, of course, such foresight was impossible. Who in 1980 or 1982 or 1985 could have foreseen the confluence of events that would bring al Qaeda into being, with a haven in Afghanistan? The Saudi policies that led to bin Laden’s exile and the Kuwait crisis that led to the placement of U.S. forces on Saudi soil had not yet happened — and neither could have been reasonably anticipated. The civil strife that followed the exit of the Red Army from Afghanistan, and which established the preconditions for the rise of the Taliban government, had not yet happened either. Of course, despite the policy’s overall success in undermining the Soviet position in Afghanistan, entrusting Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate to manage aid to the mujahedeen turned out to be problematic, but who of the immaculate conception set knows whether there were better alternatives available at the time? There weren’t; a tradeoff was involved, and it was a tradeoff known to carry certain risks. "

Dick: "Of course Iran never fell to the Soviets, something the Garfinkle is giving the Shah credit for. Afghanistan did, which leads to the other issue, the politics of expedience.. In the case of Afghanistan it seems that no consideration was given to the people they were arming. As I said before, it appeared that anyone willing to shoot at the Soviets seemed to get aid. If any thought went into the matter and if people actually took a closer look at what many of the mujahedeen actually stood for, it may have dawned on them that there was the distinct possibility of replacing one autocracy with another."

This seems a perfect summary of the immaculate conception thinking which Garfinkle criticises. Nobody could, as Garfinkle eloquently demonstrates, have foreseen how the mujahedeen could have morphed into Taleban and provided Bin Laden with a home. Dick is using the benefit of hindsight to suggest that with a "closer look" into the eyes of the brave Pashtun warrior one could have detected the glimmer of the future wahaabist demagogue. It is foolish to believe that such powers of prediction are available to anyone.

Garfinkle: "The particular claim is almost endlessly made that it was a terrible mistake for the cia to have overthrown Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953 to restore the shah to his Peacock throne, for that, it is averred, is what brought the Ayatollah Khomeini to power and sired the disaster of 1978-79 (and, one could reasonably add, the disaster of 1979 to present)...American interests in Iran in the early 1950s (the broader Western interest, too; the British had as much to do with the fall of Mossadegh as did the United States) had to do with Cold War geopolitics. Mossadegh was anti-Western by rhetoric and policy disposition. When he came to power in 1951, the Truman administration worried, particularly in light of Soviet behavior in northern Iran after World War ii, that a populist regime of that sort would end up being allied with or suborned by the Soviet Union. "

Dick: "In the case of Iran you have to ask what did they think would happen in 1953? While it may have been impossible to predict the Islamic revolution, it's also hard to predict any positive consequences of imposing an autocracy"

The point is not to argue the merits of the coup which brought the Shah to power but the extent to which that action can have been reasonably assumed to have led to Khomeini's reign. Dick continues to argue in a vacuum, as if there were a range of realistic options from which to choose and the US and Britain were incompetent in not foreseeing the sequence of events which would lead to the Islamic revolution and choosing the "wrong option".

This is germane considering the amended argument of those, such as Dick, who opposed the action against Saddam and maintain their position that there was some "magic formula" by which Saddam could have been removed from power without military action (You know the sort of thing: "I'm not in favour of Saddam, I'd love to see him deposed but not this way") which formula of course we'll never know now that he has been deposed by military action. This stance, they hope, affords a "moral high ground" from which to criticise current efforts to administer Iraq. Unfortunately this moral high ground is a mirage: One may claim to be A) "against" Saddam and B) "against" Military action but if there is no realistic alternative proposed to achieve the implicit aim of "A" without resorting to military action then "B" renders "A" null.

Look out Tom de Paor!: Architect (and regular commenter here) Adam Richards is mentioned in Saturday's Guardian (archives down at present) for his collaboration with Tom Ellis for this exhibition

Great post by Nelson Ascher on European attitudes. He draws a somewhat different conclusion to that drawn by The Washington Post and the International Herald Tribune using the same data and notes that ordinary European public opinion seems to be a good bit ahead of the "elite"

"The survey showed Americans and Europeans sharing as their top five concerns: international terrorism, Islamic fundamentalism, the Arab-Israeli conflict and weapons of mass destruction in North Korea and Iran.

That's much better than should be expected. It means that common Europeans have not lost it in the way their governments, journalists and intellectuals did. They're still in touch with pure and simple empirical reality. In spite of everything.

Think about the following: they do not seem to be worried about Kyoto, the ICC (International Criminal Court), Global Warming, Genetically Modified Food, the absence (for the time being) of WMDs in Iraq, the hegemony of Hollywood, Pop Music and the English language, Arabophobia or Islamophobia, the Jewish/Zionist takeover or world media and finances. In short, not one of the fashionable causes preached by their own establishments has changed the fact that, when it comes to identify real existential dangers, they're still able to see through the ideological fog."

Consumer Activism!

Interesting discussion yesterday evening on Dublin’s NewsTalk106. George Hook had Pat Rabbitte, Labour party leader and Dan McLaughlin, Bank of Ireland Chief Economist as his guests.

They were debating the current state of the Irish economy and assessing what Charlie McCreevy’s options are for the forthcoming December budget.

Rabbitte made the point that the government was making increased use of Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) to finance infrastructural projects. This, he argued, was irrational, given that the government can raise investment finance at keener rates than a private sector entity. This is a perfectly true and irrefutable point. The Government of Ireland has a AAA credit rating, which is better than any private sector company (as best AA, more likely A). Credit ratings are the primary driver of debt costs.

However, McLaughlin exposed the real reason why PPP’s are being employed. It is not as a financing mechanism but rather as a delivery vehicle that PPP is increasingly used. The fact is that the public sector has failed in delivering quality services to the Irish public. The government is outsourcing the delivery of infrastructure services to the private sector, as this ensures a more efficient provision. A premium is to be paid for this in terms of increased financing costs for future years. (the Drogheda by-pass is a good example of this).

If the traditional role of the public sector is to deliver services and some of these have now been outsourced, we would expect to see a resulting benefit in terms of a public service contraction. This we have not seen. The opposite has resulted. McLaughlin posits that this is due to the traditional function of the Irish public service as a Keynesian employment creator, rather than as a provider of quality public services. The public sector became an end in itself, rather than a tool for achieving policy objectives. Rabbitte chose not to respond to McLaughlin’s argument, which turned Rabbitte’s initial point about how PPP resulted in higher financing costs than government borrowing into an indictment of the public service.

It is interesting to see two apparently unconnected op-eds in the pages of The Irish Times today: John Bruton warns that the country is facing a "crisis" because of its ageing population. Meanwhile Vincent Browne rails against Michael McDowell for functionally deporting Irish Citizens.

Bruton, I have to say, baffles me. When in government or prominent in the opposition, his gaffe-prone, Homer-Simpson-esque manner made him uniquely ill-equipped for the modern era and he was regularly crucified by the media. Yet it always seemed to me that he was a smart thinker. In the light of his recent credulous anti-war stance (quoting Scott "Pigtails" Ritter for crying out loud!) I have had to adjust my opinion.

This article provides more evidence of muddle. He is at least correct in identifying a demographic problem: As Ireland ages and the birth rate falls below replacement there will not be enough taxpayers to pay for the current level of entitlements. This is not as acute a problem here as it is in the big European economies (where it is likely to lead to the break up of the welfare state) but is still a problem. He is also correct to note that a number of government decisions have contributed disincentives to procreate, although mistaken if he thinks he can attribute a declining birth rate solely to adjustments in tax allowances or child benefit.

Where Bruton comes unstuck is in his remedies which are

1)" Substantially increase child benefit: Beveridge, the author of the Welfare State, said that child benefit should cover the "subsistence needs of the child" which he estimated to be one quarter of average disposable income. That would mean an annual child benefit of €6,488, almost four times its present level. That would, of course, need an increase in the relative tax burden of those without children, but they could consider it to be a contribution towards those who would eventually be paying their pensions."

This is just crazy stuff. Even if you accept the premise that you should subsidise raising of children to "subsistence level" - and in the vast majority of cases this will mean taking money from their parents by way of tax, filtering it through a generously paid bureaucracy and handing it back to them minus the significant transaction cost - does it make any kind of sense to determine that an appropriate estimate of that level be based on a hunch of some guy over 50 years ago? Take a look at that hunch: a quarter of average disposable income. This is meant to be subsistence which means that any family bigger than four (or four where the parents are significantly hungrier than their children) on the average wage is living below subsistence level. I doubt that that was the case, even back in the immediate post-war era and it certainly isn't the case today. As for the suggestion that the childless could guarantee their future pension by subsidising the raising of a future workforce whose taxes will pay for it: the politest thing to say is that this would be a massively inefficient way of funding your pension and there is no mechanism to enforce the gratitude of the grown-up tikes for this assistance.

2)"Promote fixed-rate two generational (60-year) mortgages to meet today's one-off housing demand. Housing demand is very high at the moment, but it will ease off over the next 15 years...The houses now being built will last two or three generations. One generation, the generation between 20 and 39, which is the only one that can have children, is being asked to bear the entire cost of paying for housing for the next three generations."

Here's a great idea from Japan: The grandparent mortgage! It is certainly a bold assertion from Bruton that housing demand will "ease off" but even if that was the case this would mean that every one of these 60 year mortgages would represent negative equity. In long term mortgages it is a long time before any significant capital is paid off, if housing demand eases off it is axiomatic that prices will come down. Thus it is likely that the amount borrowed will exceed the value of the house. Negative equity is not an insignificant problem, for one it discourages labour mobility. If you are "tied" to your house you will not be disposed to move to a different part of the country to seek work. This, it hardly needs saying, would have a major impact on the economy. But would housing demand actually "ease off"? Maybe in the long run but you can be sure of one thing: if housing supply remains restricted and you make it easier to borrow larger sums of money house prices will only go one way: up.

Meanwhile Browne vents his indignation at the fact that Irish citizens are to be deported: children of foreign nationals born here are not in a position to remain here if their parents are deported. It is clear that immigration, if managed correctly, can help to offset the demographic timebomb which frightens Bruton. My preference is that the "managing" be done by the market and not the government. As I noted before, an open door policy combined with no state benefits available would deter those seeking a subsidised way of life and encourage the enterprising. This would have a positive social effect. It is no coincidence that the most "unassimilated" of immigrants into the EU are disconnected from civil society as a result of public housing and welfare policy.

Blog Irish enter the productivity discussion and to show the "perennial" nature of this issue and the related ones of alcohol consumption, immigration and personal freedom print a letter dated Jan 1905 arguing the importation of "indentured" workers into South Africa.

Incidentally, Bran notes:

"The International Labour Organisation" may be more "American" and less "European" than Frank thinks"

I am not surprised to learn that the ILO arose from the American "Progressive" movement of the early 20th century. It may well be American in origin but it is the European Labour model to which it explicitly aspires and would presumably prefer the US to resemble Europe in this regard.

Perry's back from Slovakia and has some more interesting pictures of the city interspersed with the Bratislavan babes with whom he has become besotted. Of course we all wanted to know how his shaggy dog story turned out. Its particular McGuffin: a mahogany and glass dragon-themed table is pictured chez de Havilland at the end of the post and is, I'm sorry to say, hideous!

Dick links approvingly to a post by Karlin Lillington which teases his fellow Backseat Driver Jon for daring to suggest that European productivity lagged behind the US. Au Contaire replies Ms Lillington, just look at this article in the Irish Times, based on this report.

So I did.

The report was compiled by "The International Labour Organisation". This sounded suspiciously like an advocacy organisation as opposed to a body concerned with objective measurement so I checked out their "about" page.

"The International Labour Organization is the UN specialized agency which seeks the promotion of social justice and internationally recognized human and labour rights......The ILO formulates international labour standards in the form of Conventions and Recommendations setting minimum standards of basic labour rights: freedom of association, the right to organize, collective bargaining, abolition of forced labour, equality of opportunity and treatment, and other standards regulating conditions across the entire spectrum of work related issues.....It promotes the development of independent employers' and workers' organizations and provides training and advisory services to those organizations." [emphasis added]

It is clear from this mandate that their purpose is to promote the European social democratic, corporatist model which relies on "partnership" between Unions and employers and implicitly oppose the American, flexible, entrepreneurial model. Seems plausible to me that the figures are massaged to reflect this agenda.

Karlin suggests:

"So the world turns. I'd take more vacation, more life, less productivity, slightly lower salary any day"

And this option is available to those in the US who wish to take it up. Most don't. The problem is, as Irwin Stelzer notes, the reverse option: to trade vacation time and low working hours against better salary, is not available to the typical European worker.

UPDATE: More on this from John at Irish Eagle 2/9/03 4:09PM

When I read these words (from the ILO report) "European and other industrialized countries - while achieving slightly lower productivity growth rates on average than the US" and then read that the difference is that the US experienced 2.2% productivity growth over 7 years compared with 1.2% in the EU I have reason to suspect the rest of this press release. Considering the size of these two economies (US & EU) and that we're talking about a 7 year period, the difference between 2.2% and 1.2% sounds massive to me.

That's true, 2.2% growth over 7 years equals 16.45% while 1.2% comes to only 8.7% over the same period. I guess that means my VW Passat is "slightly" less expensive than a Porsche!

FURTHER UPDATE: 2/9/03 6:04PM

Dick challenges me to "prove" my assertion that the figures may be massaged to suit an explicit agenda to promote European style "social partnership" model. I'm no economist and I'm not in a position to provide a forensic dissection of the figures but on further examination of the report it seems to me that it is Karlin Lillington who is doing the most massaging. The ILO - which is quite happy to describe itself as "promoting social justice" - states that:

"The report says output per person employed in the US reached a level of USD60,728 in 2002, up from USD59,081 in 2001. In major EU countries last year, average labour productivity growth in per person terms was 1.1 per cent, yielding an output per person employed of USD43,034."

That still seems to me to a significant gap. I'd guess that US productivity figures are underplayed here too. Figures are based on output per person employed and GDP is based on PPP (Purchasing Power Parities) and not a strict Dollar equivalent. PPPs may offer wiggle room for a subjective judgement. Anecdotal evidence would suggest that there is a far higher standard of living in the US than Europe across the board. Irwin Stelzer, in his article, listed just a few areas where this is true and this is obvious to anyone who has been to America. This would suggest to me that the PPP "basket" is adjusted to ignore areas where most Americans' spending goes a lot further, for example housing, or motor fuel.

EVEN MORE: 2/9/03 8:11PM

Jon chips in and notes that even taking the figures at face value the US outperforms the EU's top economy (Belgium, if we are to believe the ILO) by a factor of 10%. Further he suggests that "Presenteeism" may be a factor in the US - Career prospects depend on your jacket being over the chair even if there is no work to do - and it is possible that Americans overreport their working hours while Europeans may underreport theirs. This would imply an even bigger productivity gap. I'm sceptical on the last point - While Jon's wife, like many Irish (and British) people, may be prepared to do business outside working hours, I doubt if that is the case for the German factory worker - but it is certainly plausible.

Following from a piece by Paul Murphy on the contrasting cultural impacts of Nationalism and Unionism, Slugger O'Toole's Mick Fealty wonders if Unionism's resistance to cultural unification hampers its political progress.

"It has certainly been important to Northern Irish nationalists; increasingly so within a state that until very recently rarely reflected the cultural markings of their own internal and communal lives. But, there does not seem to be the same demand for a unifying cultural revival within the Unionist community. If anything there is a continuing demand to simply be allowed to dissent.

Earlier this year, I asked a focus group of Unionists whether any of them consider jumping ship and joining a nationalist party - the SDLP for instance. 'I might' said one 'But if you went to meetings, you'd find everybody else went to the same church, and had many more things in common than politics. Whereas in the Unionist parties you find people from lots of churches and no church.'

It is this diversity that seems to me to lie at the very heart of unionism's protestant/dissenter identity and which is deeply averse to being unified or codified in the way nationalism has perhaps had to be in order to achieve its goals."

I have to say that there are a number of premises here that I cannot share, not least of which is the idea that Unionism represents "cultural diversity". The second is that a pre-requisite for "success" is cultural unification. In many ways what hampers political parties on all sides in Northern Ireland from breaking out of narrow ethnic advocacy is the precisely exclusive culture Mick applauds. It may well be the fault of the SDLP, and not those individuals interviewed, in being so culturally specific that it cannot embrace those of a potentially similar political view but of a different cultural background.

There is an important point about how difficult it is to present a political message which is all about a negative to a wider constituency. In the same way that Republicans depicted in TV series The West Wing shooting down all sorts of well-meaning (but possibly disastrous) initiatives cannot come across as favourable neither have those outside NI warmed to Unionism which necessarily doesn't have a bold rhetorical vision for the future of Northern Ireland. This, however, is not the same as assuming that Nationalism has achieved its goals through a cultivation of cultural unity or even that it has achieved its goals at all.

More on Charity and Overseas aid: Tony calls for a boycott of Irish NGOs (and apologists for brutal and corrupt dictatorships) Concern and Trocaire. If you want to contribute, he suggests, try Goal instead.

A bit more from John on emigrants' voting rights. He amends his argument slightly and dangles a carrot in front of me:

"Frank's feelings and my instinct are no real measure of how emigrants might vote. Where those emigrants chose to go to may provide some indication as to how they would vote if they could. I would be surprised if the emigrants who went to the US would vote for greater government intrusion in peoples' lives and/or further European integration, but that's just my own instinct."

I guess this is designed to appeal to my cynical side. If the franchise is extended I might get the type of government I'd prefer. Unfortunately this particular "end" doesn't justify the "means". A more American style government would be a definite improvement on our social democratic consensus but, if it arose as a result of votes from non-residents, it would still be anti-democratic. It is true that I used the example of my own personal nightmare: big "gesture" government to conjure up the type of government which might be elected with significant support from non-residents who get their vote "free" (i.e. they don't have to pay the "cost" of living with it) but one could just as well use this argument about a rhetorical right wing government even though I think the prospect would be a lot less likely.

Samizdata's Pervy Perry de Havilland reports from Bratislava (part 2 here) and, in between salivating over all the sleek Slovakiennes, describes a fascinating city.

Sustainability Schmustainability II

I wrote before how the phrase "sustainable development" grated on me (more here too). Mark Steyn has a great article today on Labor day and explains why...

"There's no such thing as 'sustainable' development. Human progress and individual liberty have advanced on the backs of one unsustainable development after another: When we needed trees for heating and transportation, we chopped 'em down. Then we discovered oil, and the trees grew back. When the oil runs out, we won't notice because our SUVs will be powered by something else. Bet on human ingenuity every time."

Amen to that!

Mark Hennessy - on the smoking ban - unembarrassedly champions the "gesture" approach towards legislation and regulation on which I commented before:

"The world will not end if the ban comes into effect on New Year's Day because, Ireland being Ireland, it will be ignored in large swathes of the country for many years to come. In itself, this should not be necessarily seen as a disaster for Martin. Laws requiring the use of seatbelts were brought in over 20 years and are still ignored by many. None of us would credibly try to argue today that the seatbelt order should be withdrawn because of this. Instead, efforts are made to increase usage year on year."

Blog Irish skewers a disgraceful piece of agitprop tendentious article by Hugh O'Shaughnessy on Colombian terrorists "Peoples' Army" FARC in thursday's Irish Times.

John has more on emigrants' voting rights

"Frank is opposed to extending the franchise to emigrants. He believes that there should be no "representation without taxation". A nifty twist on the American revolutionaries slogan , but a poor definition of what citizenship is.

OK, permit me some pedantry: My key problem is "representation", not citizenship. I don't wish for Irish citizens to be stripped of their citizenship while living abroad but I don't want to be ruled by a government created by or beholden to an absentee electorate.

"First of all, many emigrants do contribute to their home country's economy. When they return on visits they spend their money in their home country, paying VAT, etc."

It hardly needs saying that this is pretty weak. I have been to Spain a number of times and, though Spanish VAT rate is charged at a much lower rate than here, have still managed to make a not insignificant contribution to the Spanish exchequer. It wouldn't occur to me that this entitles me a vote in Spanish elections.

"However, citizenship is about more than taxation and money. Citizenship is tied to your national identity - who you are. Denying an emigrant a vote is nearly the same as denying him his national identity."

At least John recognises that it is not the same as denying national identity. His argument, however, still remains rhetorical and is not grounded in either practicality or fairness. The emotional "wrong" suffered by those who "feel" their national identity is "nearly" denied cannot compare to the wrong suffered by those of us who live here if forced to endure the type of high-tax, intrusive government which makes the emigrant "feel good". Emigrants can often have a very simplistic idea what life is like "back home".

"For that reason, regardless of what party here is endorsing the concept, votes should be extended to all citizens wherever they reside. {NOTE: I doubt the Labour Party would be a big winner if votes were extended to emigrants. My experience is that the number of residents from rural Ireland is disproportionate to their relative population strength here and labour is not as strong in rural Ireland.}"

My feeling is that those who will bother to vote will be those keen to "make a difference". Parties like the Greens, Labour and SF will benefit proportionally and those emigrants who would otherwise vote Fianna Fail or Fine Gael are more likely to stay at home.

"As for Frank's assertion that emigrants don't have to live with the consequences, that's not entirely true. I'm an emigrant from the U.S. If I want to remain a citizen, I have to be willing to serve in the armed forces if called (gets more unlikely by the day). I have to abide by all the laws of the United States with regards to foreign travel (e.g. I cannot go to Cuba without explicit permission). There are taxation laws covering Americans living abroad. All of these laws have consequences for me. I live with those consequences as the price for remaining a citizen. I am entitled to vote in the US. I cannot see why Ireland should be any different."

There is a significant difference between voluntarily complying with the obligations of citizenship while living abroad and actually living with the complete tax and regulatory apparatus at home. Also, by the way, John is surely aware that he cannot be stripped of his US citizenship as it is not within the power of the US government to do so. There is also a major practical distinction between the US government's extension of the franchise to expats: This is a "low-cost" rhetorical gesture on its part. The proportion of US expats to residents is still tiny. The proportion of those who would qualify for Irish citizenship compared to Irish residents is much higher.

Extending the vote to Irish emigrants would actually be more of an exercise in reaching out to that mass of ambassadors and letting them know that they're still valued.It can only foster more good feelings for their home country."

This is meant to be an argument in favour? I have very little sympathy for "therapeutic politics"

"There should be more for emigrants than the chance to cheer on the national football team every few years.

If they really want to make a difference, come home and do it on the ground.

Could it be that Dick and I agree on something? In the course of explaining how he inadvertently enjoys free cable Dick notes:

"Last night I watched Manchester United play Wolves on Sky Sports. This follows from a pleasant Saturday afternoon seeing United beat Newcastle."

Could he be a fellow red devil, or is he just a rare neutral who doesn't loathe Manchester United?

I too watched both matches and was struck by the contrast. Far from the cricket score predicted by many, the only team with no points looked certain to take at least one from Old Trafford last night. Wolves can count themselves unlucky to lose 1-0 and United can breath a sigh of relief that their modified team got away with it. Premiership starts were granted to Kleberson and Ronaldo and, as Sky's pundit Martin Tyler noted, the last time in the premiership that United's midfield started without Keane (who was in defence), Scholes, Butt, Beckham or Giggs it contained Wolves midfielder Paul Ince.

Cristiano Ronaldo displayed a few of his silky skills but was generally ineffective, making poor choices with his passing and runs. Kleberson was even worse: losing the ball and misplacing passes with alarming frequency. I have no doubt that both will perform better with more premiership match experience. United's best players were 1) John O'Shea who didn't put a foot wrong and scored the game's only goal, his first for United. 2) Roy Keane doing a good job as a makeshift centre back and 3) Diego Forlan, he may not be the most accurate marksman but he was the most threatening of United's players and held and passed the ball well.

Great Article by Colby Cosh on Foreign Aid:

"Egypt was the largest single national recipient of CIDA [Canadian International Development Agency] bilateral aid between 1994 and 1999. For all the visible difference the spending made, it might as well have been put to sea in a flaming barge. De Soto's institute studied Egypt and found that the poor there have no access to legal structures that underpin basic commerce or entrepreneurship. Ninety-two per cent of the populace holds real estate "informally," without legal title. The ILD identified US$245-billion in "dead" capital -- real economic assets held extralegally -- within Egypt. It is already in the hands of the poorest Egyptians. So what sense was there in sending the Egyptian government a half-billion of our Canadian dollars -- or whatever was left after the salaries were paid, the toys were bought, and the necessary palms were greased."

Blog Irish are not so sure that the Irish consensus is, as I previously described, social democratic and refer us to a dirigiste article by Patrick West on Spiked which bemoans how grubby and unfriendly Ireland has become. My first thought on reading the Spike piece was that the standard returning emigrant's complaint routinely omits the reason said emigrant left Ireland in the first place. It may well be the case that Ireland was just as unpleasant when that person emigrated as it apparently is now on his return. West also sounds a bum note in describing the Irish consensus as

"Irish society remains quite conformist, not 'pluralist' at all. It is de rigueur to pronounce here one's anti-republican, pro-EU, multicultural, anti-clerical, 'pro-equality' credentials. Dissenters are shouted down by the deeply offended brigade for being 'right-wing' or 'racists'. "

Perhaps in certain parts of Dublin with even-numbered postcodes! While I agree that Ireland is more conformist than pluralist I can assure Mr West that is most certainly not de rigeur to pronounce anti-republican sentiment where I live or indeed in most parts of Ireland. There is a danger of assuming that the mindset one is confronted with most frequently is shared countrywide.

In any case, what I intend when I refer to the Irish Social Democratic consensus is the Political consensus. As Conor notes below even the Progressive Democrats are happy with some protectionist policies. Blog Irish wittily suggest that the principal difference between Fianna Fail and Fine Gael is that the sons and daughters of destiny do not take piano lessons. I would suggest a simpler, starker difference: Fianna Fail are winners, Fine Gael are losers.

Fianna Fail have such a critical mass of support that they can straddle left and right and claim to be the party of the nation. Their tent is big enough to accomodate a free-marketeer like Charlie McCreevey and a technocratic Big-Governmenter like Noel Dempsey accomodating all sorts of Parish Pumps and Pork-Barrellers along the way. Fine Gael still haven't learned the harsh lesson that in attempting to appeal to a still largely left-leaning, Dublin-centred media they are losing their voters in droves (and ironically earning not plaudits but scorn from the media). There are too many social democrat parties in Ireland and there are only so many social democrat voters.

Now that's Diversity!

Dick has responded to my post below on Iraq and takes the opportunities to restate his principal arguments against the war which he maintains are still valid. Unfortunately he relies rather too much on the pedantic, procedural arguments and completely ignores the specific nature of Saddam's regime:

"1. Setting the precedent of unilateral action. Following World War Two international institutions were set up, i.e. the UN to adjudicate on and, if necessary, take action to avoid conflict, civil unrest and human rights abuses. In this case international institutions were simply ignored, a retrograde step which puts us back to a situation whereby any country can feel justified to invade another without any level of consensus."

Institutions such as the UN do not represent a higher authority than national interests. There is no world government. Countries devolve adjudication to the UN voluntarily. If the UN doesn't do what it is supposed to do - and the UN singularly failed over Saddam - well it has made itself irrelevant. It is just wrong to say that the UN was ignored. Too much effort was expended in trying to get the UN on board when it was clear that France would simply scupper any effort to tackle Saddam. It is pedantic to put the interests of a bureaucratic institution like the UN as paramount and over any other concerns and it is absurd to think that Coalition Forces action against Saddam provides a precedent. Here's a little newsflash for you, Dick. Countries act in their own interest and, regardless of the Iraq war, the UN will not act as a disincentive for one country to invade another if it feels vital national interests are at stake.

"2. The problem of credibility. This is one of I've remarked upon often and basically amounts to the fact that disastrous foreign policy in the Middle East in the past does not lend well to the current coalition being up to the job on this occasion. All too often, in the cases of Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, not to mention Iraq itself, policy has also put self interest ahead of those of the locals. It's thus rank hypocrisy to say that this is all about the ordinary people of Iraq. The West was helping Saddam beat the Iranians at the same time he was gassing the Kurds (and the Iranians). Kurdish leaders were personae non grata in Washington because it would displease Saddam."

This is one of the arguments that infuriates me the most. The short answer to it is "So what!". The long answer is that what matters in the end is the action and not the intention. It is entirely consistent that selfish intentions lead to benign outcomes and it is often the case that well-meaning intentions lead to disastrous outcomes. Whether or not the US has a "track record" in foreign affairs (and I don't accept the consensus that the US has been uniquely nefarious in its dealings) is neither here nor there. It is cold comfort to the person about to be fed into an industrial shredder to know that he has been "saved" from intervention by a foreign power whose intentions are less than pure.

"3. Instability. This leads from the second point. The United States is not terribly popular in the Middle East, for the reasons outlined below and also for its support of Israel. It doesn't matter whether this support is justified or not, if people don't like it they're still going to shoot at you. We've now got a situation where the locals, some possibility ex-regime, some possibility not, are shooting at troops, blowing up pipelines and bombing buildings. We've also got reports of all sorts of fundamentalists coming to the country to enter the fight. The instability argument does not apply to Iraq alone. I feel a long occupation of Iraq would destabilise the entire region, in particular Saudi Arabia. We've already had one terrorist bombing there. What's more, these people are going to fight a cynical war. The longer it goes on, the greater their support is likely to be as people begin to hear about Iraqis without electricity, water and fuel. The fact that much of this may be down to sabotage will be conveniently ignored in the region and instead taken as examples of American heartlessness. How do you counter a guerrilla war? The typical reaction is often to get tough, make mass arrests, shoot first and ask questions later. Is this going to help them win the popularity contest? I'm not sure."

I'm not clear where the point is in all this. It seems to me desirable that the rotten Saudi autocracy is "destabilised", this country is after all the font of Wahaabi inspired terrorism. The US may not be popular in the middle east so it has nothing to lose. A decisive victory against terrorists will do a lot more to prevent further attacks than appeasement. I think that there is also this mistaken notion that the whole country is suddenly without power or electricity. Most of these areas suffered the same way under Saddam who seemed to prefer to spend his country's money on expensive palaces than power stations.

"4. Staying the distance. This results from the third point. Will the Americans and the British be able to sit out such a scenario for any length of time? There'll be an election next year in the States and if troops are still being picked off, will it become an issue? The war was popular because people thought Saddam was a threat, that he had nasty weapons and he might give them to nasty people. Saddam is effectively gone, if not in the dock, and he didn't appear to have that many weapons in the first place. Therefore the grounds for supporting the war are ebbing away. We're left with the question of how long the American public will continue to support the occupation. Is this preventing terrorism, people will ask themselves, and the answer could be that not, in fact its making our troops targets for terrorism. Pull the troops out and what might you get? Another Afghanistan, as everyone fights it out for control and every neighbouring power such as the Syrians, the Iranians and the Saudis sponsoring different sides. In fact its easy to imagine a future for Iraq worse than its recent past. "

The argument that there is a possibility that Coalition forces may not remain (which is it Dick, do you want them to stay or go?) and that there is a further minute possibility of a civil war developing - all the evidence seems to be that no such dispute is on the cards - does not seem to me to be a sufficiently compelling argument to prefer that Saddam continued in power to brutalise his people.

I find myself disagreeing once more with John, this time on votes for emigrants

"I've always felt that citizens should be entitled to vote in their country's elections regardless of where they reside. The Irish political consensus has always been that there are too many emigrants and they would destabilize the political process here. Well, if thousands of your people are leaving due to a lack of work, perhaps your political process should be destablized."

Remember "No Taxation without Representation"?, well it works both ways. "No Representation without Taxation" seems to me to be a pretty fair principle (I mean "taxation" in the most general sense: the unemployed and retired still pay VAT on their purchases). I am opposed to extending the franchise to those who live abroad not because it "destabilises" the political system. The "stability" of our political system is almost as desirable as the fabled "Stability of the Middle East". If it was the right thing to do, well stability can just go screw itself but it's not the right thing to do. The Labour party are in the vanguard of the push for emigrant votes because they have correctly divined that such an extension to the franchise will boost their flagging fortunes.

The problem is that this would reward "rhetorical" politics almost exclusively and to the detriment of "practical" politics. If you don't have to live with the consequences of your actions you don't pay a "cost". As I noted below cost is an important factor in any decision. If you are an emigrant living abroad, why should you care about public spending, tax rises or creeping government interference in all aspects of life?

Great Stuff: Emily on the overstatement of Bush critics such as Arthur Miller who sees a parallel between Salem, McCarthy and today.

"I can understand their fear. Does anybody else recall their own trepidation following the "disappearance" of Maureen Dowd? What about when Noam Chomsky's limp body was discovered in a roadside brush, a single bullet to his temple? The country coiled in shock when it was announced that traces of arsenic were discovered in the empty box of Krispy-Kremes that ultimately killed Michael Moore. As this is written, a Dixie Chick sits in a dark cell, living on peckings, uncertain of her fate"

plus ca change...

Des Geraghty, retiring president of the SIPTU trade union has lambasted the "new right" in Ireland at their Galway conference.

"To find an answer to our economic woes, we need to take a close look at corporate avarice, inflated performance figures, rapacious money-making institutions which provide nothing and no real services."

He received a standing ovation at the end of his address, during which he criticised the current obsession with the "holy incantation" of competition, attacked the abuse of work permits by employers and said union members must become the "architects" of a new Ireland that will challenge the right.

Obviously, this could be nothing more than annual conference bluster to rouse the comrades. But does his retirement represents the passing of the old guard? No, anything but. In relative terms, Geraghty was considered to be on the right wing of his union. Interesting to read this Sunday Business Post profile of him at the beginning of his presidency in 1998.

Following on from the Colby Cosh post on the "smoking jihad" I linked to below there's some nice work by Jon - on a proposed "fat tax" - to show the connection between socialised medicine and overbearing government interference in personal health.

Ok, at the risk of provoking Dick again, I'm just gobsmacked to read these lines about whether Iraq is better off without Saddam:

"Looking forward, if you see years of occupation blighted by guerrilla war and the resultant need for oppressive security, I'm not so sure if it is that much better than the old regime."

It is an exercise in denial to play up the present difficulties and try to make them approach the dreadful, brutal tyranny Saddam imposed on his country. Who knows what the future might bring to Iraq, or even Ireland or France. The question is: Right now, which is better? the status quo or an alternative present with Saddam still in power. It is not that difficult to answer as long as you don't mind re-examining your position prior to the war. It seems to me that there were any number of reasonable arguments against the war, prior to the war. These would be based on fears of how the war might progress, whether Saddam would use chemical weapons, whether he would try to draw Israel into war, Whether chaos would ensue. All perfectly reasonable fears and all ultimately groundless. The problem is: the war and liberation pretty much answered any reasonable argument against it. All that those who opposed the war are left with is to examine whether they got it wrong and admit it or to come up with some other reason to justify their previous stance. It is hard to imagine a future for Iraq worse than its most recent past and those who continue to argue against a war which has taken place will be hard pressed to convince anyone that that will be the case.

I received the following email from Aisling Reidy, Director of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties

It has been brought to my attention that a report in the Irish Times on Sat 2 August has received widespread coverage and dissemination on web sitesincluding yours, and I would therefore like to bring a clarification to the attention of your readers.

Despite the spin in the paper, we did not issue a press statement or a legal warning to the Catholic Church. We were actually contacted by the paper and asked to comment on the legal position of the document released by the church in relation to the existing Incitement to Hatred Act 1989. As I said, we did not issue a statement on it and have no intention of pursuing any legal action against the Catholic Church. The 1989 act states:

2.—(1) It shall be an offence for a person—

( a ) to publish or distribute written material,
( b ) to use words, behave or display written material—
(i) in any place other than inside a private residence, or
(ii) inside a private residence so that the words, behaviour or material are heard or seen by persons outside the residence, or
( c ) to distribute, show or play a recording of visual images or sounds, if the written material, words, behaviour, visual images or sounds, as the case may be, are threatening, abusive or insulting and are intended or, having regard to all the circumstances, are likely to stir up hatred.

And hatred" means hatred against a group of persons in the State or elsewhere on account of their race, colour, nationality, religion, ethnic or national origins, membership of the travelling community or sexual orientation;

That is the Act that I was asked to comment on and I noted that it is possible that the document could be interpreted as breaching these standards. I also said that the document itself is likely not to be a problem, but if the words in it were used in an active campaign to condemn gays as evil and a threat to children, then that could be interpreted as likely to cause hatred.

I never said that the Vatican intended to incite hatred, but the strong words of the document could lead to problems.

I hope this clarifies the matter. Also to confirm, the ICCL fully supports equal rights for all those irrespective of sexual orientation and has and will continue to campaign for full recognition of same sex unions.

Thank you for your time,

Aisling Reidy
Director, ICCL

I don't have time to comment on this now but as a courtesy I thought I'd bring it to everyone's attention.

UPDATE: Just getting back to this, it still seems clear to me that the original Irish Times story was a shot across the bows of the Catholic Church in Ireland with the implicit message: "Be nice... or else".

In the light of the email it is more likely that, in asking the question of the ICCL to get the answer it wanted to hear, it was the idea of the Irish Times than the ICCL. However this means that the ICCL either

a) Knowingly allowed itself to be used as the proxy for the Irish Times' crusade.

b) Didn't realise what the Irish Times were getting at.

neither of which reflects well on the ICCL. 27/8/03 5:21 PM

In my post below about "bonus outcomes" and "compelling interests" and in the interests of clarity I neglected to mention the principal disagreement I would have with Irish Eagle John about the desirability of "stamping out smoking" which is that my premise is to have no interest in what people wish to do as long as it doesn't affect me personally. It should be a principle of a free society that we don't, as a rule, feel the need to encourage people to moderate their behaviour and conform to some defined norm.

Colby Cosh has some thoughts for those who are indifferent to the smoking ban.

"You will notice that the social jihad against smoking is serving as the model for new crusades, which comes as no surprise, certainly, to anybody who both smokes and thinks. The public, by and large, does support the increasingly oppressive measures being taken against smokers up and down the continent. I believe those who have supported these measures believed that smoking was an exceptionally nasty behaviour whose attempted elimination could not possibly serve as a model for other political campaigns. I don't think anyone imagined, ten or twenty years ago, that by taking a stand against smoking they were laying groundwork for the therapeutic policing of every aspect of human life. ... Perhaps you're comfortable with all this because your own unhealthy pleasures haven't been proscribed yet. That makes you--and I'm afraid there's no nice way to put this--a one-hundred-percent asshole. But no matter. Your turn is coming, as long as the premise that good health is an unlimited pretext for state action remains unresisted as such."

Beaurocracy indeed!

Great post by Belfast Gonzo on Northern Ireland solipsism.

"Blair even said: "To those who can sometimes say the process in the Middle East is hopeless, I say we can look at Northern Ireland and take some hope from that.”

Once you pick yourself up of the floor, you can see how our little local difficulty should possibly be the last example of how to end a conflict. Sensibly, the Iraqis have taken the right approach to learning lessons from Northern Ireland – doing the opposite. In April, Iraqi representatives issued a joint statement of governing principles. The second point was: ‘The future government of Iraq should not be based on communal identity’.

A smart move, as politics in Norn Irn is almost completely based on communal identity, and has resulted in the reinforcement of division. Maybe it’s us who should be learning from the Iraqis. After all, knowing what to avoid is as important as knowing what to do… "

Just for Dick: I'd say that the French have a kind of existential shrug, the Portuguese have an earthy shrug tinged with melancholy and the Italians shrug their shoulders in an exaggerated theatrical manner!

Not to keep harping at Dick but...

In his response to my post below about Iraq and inquiries he manages to sidestep the apparently simple question that is so difficult to answer for those who wish to retain their critique of the decision to go to war against Saddam: Are the Iraqis better off without Saddam? This question simply trumps all other considerations.

Whether the "invasion" (I prefer "liberation") is "capable of bringing a long term solution" is neither here or there. You can only compare it with realistic alternatives. Comparing it to some best possible outcome hypothesis is meaningless. The only alternative to the action against Saddam was no action against Saddam which means Ba'athist tyranny still in place. To pretend otherwise is the delusion.

Dick asks:

"However, the public is just as entitled to get a decent explanation of what their government is doing and why they're doing it. If a government bases its decision on dubious information, people have a right to enquire about that and come election time can kick them out if they feel like it. However, the existence of representative government doesn't obviate the necessity of enquiry. How can a public make it's mind up without the necessary information? Hence the need for transparency in government."

This is all very well but the test for success in Iraq should surely be the outcome and not the technical prelude. It is not irrelevant to note that the cause for war against Hitler was his invasion of Poland. However perhaps the most noble effect of WWII was the liberation of the concentration camps.

Dick responds on the Brutal Gallic Summer and is bemused to find himself the font of my "righteous indignation". I felt that he missed the point about the "distasteful" commentary on France's indifference to the slaughter of its elderly. Turns out I missed his point which is that we should be equally critical of Portugal or Italy. France, for what its worth, apparently has an infant mortality rate the envy of the developed world.

The problem is that the indifference to the heatwave is a symptom of decadence in France in a way that the, similarly sized, death toll (albeit in hotter countries) of Portugal and Italy isn't. Neither country appears to shrug its shoulders in the manner of the French. Portugal, perhaps remembering its most recent period of "paternalistic government", doesn't expect the state to tell it what to do in the event of a heatwave as apparently France does. French people as a whole, if not their elderly, may be perfectly healthy. It is their society which is sick.

Via Blog-Irish and Back Seat Drivers I see that Eoghan Harris has finally got around to noticing Irish Blogs. Both are perturbed at his description of the Irish Bloggers linked from Blog-Irish as "radical conservatives". As I am, gratefully, one of those linked by the esteemed Burkeans I should reveal whether I am similarly perturbed.

I wouldn't choose to describe myself as a radical-conservative, for starters it is a bit of an oxymoron, perhaps not as absurd as libertarian socialism but it is similarly difficult to reconcile radicalism, which suggests an impatience with the status quo and conservatism, preserver of that status quo. A more accurate term might be "Classic Liberal" or "Moderate Libertarian". If you attempt to infer his real meaning, looking at how the meaning of the words "conservative" and "liberal" were inverted over the last few decades, you could conclude that while he is sincere about the word radical he intends conservative to mean "that which opposes the social democratic consensus". I am happy to be considered opposed to the social democratic consensus though doubtful that Bran or Dick would feel the same way.

Following on from the post below and something John at Irish Eagle posted in relation to the smoking ban I wanted to write something about compelling interests versus "bonus outcomes" and market pricing as applied to behaviour. Here's John:

"Here are the key questions, as far as I see them. Do we want to totally stamp out smoking? If yes, how do we go about making that happen?

The answer to the first question for me is easily yes. I don't smoke; I hate the smell of smoke. I find people who smoke less attractive to look at and be around. I derive absolutely no pleasure or benefit of any kind from smoking. "

Now, if you asked me "Do you want there to be no more smoking?" I'd probably shrug my shoulders and say "Sure, why not?" but the more pertinent question would be "Do you want to pay extra taxes (or forgo tax cuts) and sacrifice personal freedom to achieve this?" to which my answer would be "No". Smoke-free society might be an attractive "bonus outcome" that is: if it is achievable at no, or low, cost but it is not a "compelling interest" which requires a significant sacrifice. This is a distinction which is not made often enough.

Those who are sceptical of market solutions to any problem hamper their thought by ignoring the importance of cost (not just economic) in decision-making. Frequently the thinking goes: "Do you want X?", when it looks like a majority want "X" the next stage is, "X" is of compelling interest we must do whatever we can to to achieve it.

This affects quite a few areas. In our debate about unemployment a while back, Dick suggested something of the order that "all things being equal most people would prefer a job". While this is not incorrect it is close to meaningless because "all things" are never "equal". The proper focus should be: what are the costs and incentives involved and not an assumption that "most people would prefer a job".

This also affects how we view those who act "irrationally" and particularly those engaged in "self-destructive behaviour". I would suggest that it is only by ignoring the calculations that an individual might make that one would conclude that a wide range of behaviour is "irrational". Take someone involved in risky behaviour, say a heavy user of heroin or crack cocaine. If you disavow a market-pricing model in attempting to understand the behaviour you will be forced to conclude that the person is acting irrationally or, if rational, is suicidal. If you look at the relative costs the individual puts on short-term gratification compared to long-term (or even medium term) personal wellbeing you could conclude that while the individual is not suicidal, at that moment they don't place a high value on their life. Far be it for me to endorse the words of notorious fudgers and obfuscators like Fintan O'Toole but this is a more "subtle" and "nuanced" way of looking at behaviour.

The Sunday Times covers an appalling development which otherwise receives very little coverage: The Irish Government is planning a serious assault on property rights. An Oireachtas committee has presumptively declared this to be "constitutional". In the words of a "leading constitutional lawyer" Gerard Hogan:

"the two articles in the constitution dealing with the right to property were not “the free marketeer’s charter” they were sometimes characterised to be."

Now, the thing is you either have private property or you don't. If private property is not recognised and defended by the rule of law it is impossible to have a free society never mind a functioning economy. The context for this is the government's economically illiterate proposal to place a "cap" on the value of land. Anyone who understand market forces knows that crude interventions like this - and this has proven to be the case with all other government interventions in this area - often have the opposite effect than that intended. The government's action here reminds me of the caricature of Mick McCarthy's gameplan as Ireland manager: If Plan A fails, try Plan A.

This proposal is the classic example of a slippery slope. Many people might shrug their shoulders and assume that this will only affect several "fat cat" builder developers. Not so. There is a principal established which is that private property must take second place to "the common good". The problem is that "the common good" is now taken to mean something as wide and flabby as the right of everyone to buy a reasonable sized house in an area near where they work. Even ignoring the fact that if you let it the market would provide that all by itself, this is a nebulous aim. There is no vital national interest at stake, we are not facing economic meltdown or danger of invasion. Yet this is how the common good, sufficiently compelling to operride property rights, is now defined.

It is depressing how marginal this issue is viewed to be, it is only the PDs who appear to see the principle at stake.