Thoughts on the Ports Contraversy

Let's start with a clarrification. Neocons are not advocates of commerce making friends, that's a different wing of the right. Its Hamiltonians who believe that commerce breeds a middle class and that middle class values produce democracy and liberal societies. Neocons invade Iraq to establish a democracy. Hamiltonians trade with Iraq to build a middle class who then demand a democracy.

The Hamiltonian thesis requires a long time to play out. Little countries like Korea and Taiwan took 50 years to go from unfree, western aligned states to functioning democracies. A big country like China will take longer. Start counting for China in 1976 when Mao died. Just as the revolutions in 1848 were a false start for Germany, where industrialization and the growth a middle class was too small to sustain the revolutions, Tiananmen was a false start for China. But like Germany, in a century (or perhaps more, China's too big to extrapolate reliably) China will have too many middle class people to accept a tyrannical regime.

Neocons advocate a risky, rapid democratization. Hamiltonians advocate a slow, steady development.

Regarding the UAE, because of the psychological crisis of "the failure of the Islamic" world in the 20th century, the best analogs are the 2nd phase democracies: Italy, Germany, and Japan. The countries had a substantial and growing middle class, but they also had a group of radicals owing to the Great Depression and unresolved trauma from WWI. As a result, their democratic development was vulnerable to being hijacked by the radicals. Arab states likewise have two forces largely at war with one another. The modernizing, westernizing, commercially oriented people, and the backward looking Islamic fundamentalists who want to re-create an imagined past of Islamic greatness. What the bombings in places like Saudi Arabia reveal is that these two forces are at war with each other in the Islamic world.

In fact, the thesis of Fawaz Gerfes _The Far Enemy_ and the historical background to Marc Sageman's _Terror Networks_ is that this struggle between the modernizers (those who think the Arab world can catch up to the west by becoming Modern, as the Japanese did between 1854 and 1954) and the Islamicists (those who think Islam becomes great by becoming salafi, Koranic, and sharia) has been going on since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, and it was the specific shift in the ideology of Al Qaeda from fighting the local modernizers to fighting the exemplars of all that is modern, the United States and the West, which had forced us into this struggle.

Therefore it is a great error to regard all Arabs as potentially sympathetic to the Islamicists. Our allies in the Arab and Islamic world are the modernizers. Because they are in the heart of the struggle and are the direct targets of all Islamicists (and were long before Al Qaeda) being that they are the Near Enemy, we need to aid, protect, and guide them to a secure modernism. At the same time, we must understand that demanding that they openly and fully declare allegiance to full modernity makes them a target, not only of Islamicist violence but of all the anti-modern forces in the Arab and Islamic worlds. As such, even genuine modernizers will attempt to appear traditional by kow towing to traditional idols, such as Islamic charities, anti-Israeli declarations, and madrassas. These kinds of things happen in the most modern and Western oriented countries in the Arab and Islamic worlds. Its a sign of their insecurity, not their bad intentions. We will know we are winning when the modernizers no longer have to apologize for their modernity by kow towing to traditional Arab or Islamic institutions, causes, or ideas.

Some of the criticism of the UAE’s could be leveled at the Swiss, the Caribbean, or Hong Kong banks. One of the things we saw in 9-11 and from Al Qaeda is the ability to use our modernity against us; flying our planes into our skyscrapers by taking advantage of the open access of our society. Certainly they are doing the same to the modernizers in the Arab and Islamic worlds.

People who are operating ports in many countries outside the Islamic world, employing technical and administrative skills to advance commerce, these are the modernizers. They are our friends. We will not advance the cause of liberal societies (and would repeat the mistakes Michael Ledeen describes in _Freedom Betrayed_) by regarding Arab modernizers as potential Islamicists.

Coulter gets slammed

Its nice to see Ann Coulter take one on the chin. She took her hyperbole and over the top schtick to CPAC and was rejected. The American Mind reports just how bad reviews were. She's much more useful to the left, providing a living breathing straw man, than she is on the right. Further her attachment to any cause becomes a liability that has to be overcome, she's no assett.

Cuddle Puddles and the New Modesty

This is something of a continuation of the previous post from yesterday. Still reading the Atlantic, still on the culture wars.

I read Caitlin Flanagan's Are You There God? It's Me, Monica. It hit many of the same points as the Laura Ingraham interview with someone behind the piece on the Cuddle Puddle in New York Magazine.

But at the same time that I see evidence for the new decadence, I still see evidence for the new modesty. There is Mona Charen's piece, A Modest Backlash Against the Culture. It refers to a group blog called Modestly Yours in which the issues of modesty are discussed. There is the Modesty page on Ladies Against Feminism.

My interpretation of both trends suggests that the ends of the bell curve are getting further apart. Another dominant culture is fragmenting and womanhood and girlhood are giving way to a series of distinct cultures with totally different value systems. Modesty may only describe a small group (let's suppose somewhere between a tenth and a sixth of females), and decadence may likewise describe a similar small group. In between we might find everything from 50's style petting to serial monogomous sex between teens based on stable (for teens) relationships.

The abstinance movement is real, and the kind of casual sex with strangers and multiple partners (Ingraham described the cuddle puddle as an orgy) seems to be real as well. I suspect that the modesty movement is more a responce to the decadence than what is going on in the middle. There is an ongoing discussion of what 's going on, as these sources begin to link to one another.

Deceptive Chart

The Atlantic has an interesting piece on twelve tribes of American votes, divided according to their views on religious issues. There is a chart, featured much more on-line than in print, which I think is deceptive. (Non-subscribers can see the chart, but not the article.) Consider the group, White-bread Protestants. This group is described as the heart of the old Republican Party, the country club Republicans who supported Republicans from McKinley to Ford. Some have gone to the left some to the right. They sure sound like center-right swing voters. The kinds of voters who are required for Democrats to win, but would normally default to Republicans.

Looking on the grid lines, they are on the mid-point of the economic values axis, perhaps a touch more conservative. However on cultural values, they are two grid lines to the left of the center line, only two grid lines from the edge of the chart. Another group described as "true moderates" are the Convertible Catholics who are one grid line to the left on both economic and social issues.

This chat deceptivly makes it look like moderates and leftists are clustered closely together, implying agreement, while the religious right ends up off in a corner by itself, impyling that its views are far from anyone elses.

Taranto on the Adversarial Media

James Taranto has a good peice at Opinion Journal dot com on the failures and growing challenges of the adversarial media.