Peaceful Religion Watch
Read Aziz Poonawalla's "lanat upon the hirabists" -- a principled and brave condemnation, by a practicing Muslim citing the Qur'an, of the recent suicide bombing in Israel.

Much credit as well to Glenn Reynolds for publicizing it on his megablog "Instapundit." Patrick Nielsen Hayden and Jim Henley have linked to it, too. (I wrote that last sentence before even checking Henley's blog.) The rest of this post can wait until you read Aziz's first, so take a minute, please…

...Forgive me for seeming to ignore the crime that occasioned Poonawalla's message, and for seeming to ignore the victims of that crime. They are foremost. But I've been meaning to say this for a while, so here goes.

The title of this post refers to a site that increasingly confuses extremist Islamism with the religion of Islam itself. "Peaceful Religion Watch" is a recurring post title at Charles Johnson's "Little Green Footballs" web site: the accompanying post is some real example of ugly, extremist statements or deeds by people claiming to be acting in accord with Islamic principles. It's not the stories that are false, it's the implication the title gives those stories: that this is all there is to Islam. I still read the site occasionally. But all too often I have to wince at Johnson's accompanying text or titles, let alone the comments many of his readers add.

By way of analogy that may challenge both Charles Johnson, his readers, and decent Muslims alike, I think the distinction between Islam and Arabs on the one hand and extremist Islamists -- hirabists -- on the other is like the distinction between Germans and Nazis in the 1930s. Not all Germans were Nazis, and Nazism was not all there was to being German, not by a long shot; it was antithetical to the best of Germany, while carrying forward the worst of it. On the other hand, enough Germans were or became Nazis, and Nazis eventually saw to it that the fate of all Germans was yoked to the fate of Nazi ideology.

But right now I'm concerned that all Muslims, and their religion, not be tarred with the brush of extremism, that Americans not declare war on them all -- on some of us. When an individual or a group deserves it, that's one thing. But incendiary titles like "Peaceful Religion Watch", or using phrases like "Religion of Peace™", to my mind, are another. Reports of atrocities done "in the name of Islam" -- as their perpetrators suppose -- are one thing, deriding anonymous death threats against Muslims is another. Criticizing Egyptian TV for running a series on the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" -- a scurrilous, imaginary version of Judaism -- is one thing. Republishing someone's scurrilous, imaginary version of Islam is another.

Charles, you have an opportunity, one few other people have. It's abundantly clear to most of us that there are a lot of bad people who are Muslim, and who abuse their religion to justify their crimes. You could balance many people's awareness of that with the awareness there are also a lot of good people who are Muslim, and who live up to their religion, or try to.

You don't have to figure out the precise proportions of those two groups. (You, of course, don't have to do a solitary thing.) But it could be to your great credit to to bring greater balance to your accounts of the Arab and Muslim worlds. It could be to your great credit to not just express hostility, when that's warranted, but also respect and understanding, when that's warranted. And it would be to your greatest credit to make more of an effort to learn when that respect is warranted.

That respect is warranted a lot more than you've displayed so far. You might start by relabeling some of your future posts "Hirabist Watch." You might continue by linking to Mr. Poonawalla or any number of other sane Muslim bloggers, having some civil discussions with him, and suggesting your many readers do the same.

This little blog of mine doesn't amount to a hill of beans. Yours could. posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:29:00 PM -- |    

 

That was quick
"Newsrack" speaks, the federal government listens! The Washington Post reports today that "U.S. Studies SUV Mileage Standards: Administration May Propose Modest Fuel Efficiency Gains":

The Wall Street Journal reported that the NHTSA's draft recommendation would raise fuel efficiency standards by roughly a half a mile per gallon each year in model years 2005 through 2007, to 22.2 miles per gallon in 2007.

NHTSA is the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. It's not a done deal, the final rule will be announced next April ...1. (I hope this isn't an elaborate April Fool's joke.) Opinions differ, of course, on how significant the measure would be:

"The Bush administration claims to be striving for energy independence -- yet this proposed increase in fuel economy for SUVs doesn't even come close to what could be achieved using technologies that are already available," [Congressman (D-Mass.) Ed] Markey said.

However, Kevin Mills, director of Environmental Defense's pollution prevention alliance, said, "Compared to the last CAFE rulemaking, an increase of this level would be a significant step forward."

I.e., something is better than nothing. Next step: a gasoline tax that encourages less driving and even more fuel-efficient vehicles. posted by Thomas Nephew at 9:18:00 AM -- |    

 

Helping Afghanistan
This seems like a good idea:

The Academy for Educational Development wants to raise $2 million for school supplies (supplied in blue backpacks) for Afghan children.

So does this. You can direct that your donation be spent on Afghanistan, or on other countries with land mine clearance needs.


Both programs seem to have a real "field" component to them, and not just an office in Kabul. That seems important: the sheer number of charitable organizations in Kabul is starting to have some unintended effects, according to a Washington Post article today ("A Year After Taliban, Daily Life in Kabul Is Struggle for Most"):

To a large extent, Kabul's commercial bustle is being artificially sustained by the nonprofit agencies that have proliferated here since the departure of the Taliban. By last month there were more than 1,000 registered in the capital, gobbling up blocks of real estate and driving rents up fivefold.

I don't have unlimited faith in the free market, but something more like it will need to return to Afghanistan. Hopefully, some of those NGO's camping out in Kabul are devoting some energy to giving Afghan businesses and markets a helping hand, so that they'll persist after the handouts are gone. In an admittedly brief search, I found no online way of supporting this kind of work in Afghanistan. If you know of one, or of other ways to help Afghanistan rebuild, I'd like to hear about it. posted by Thomas Nephew at 6:09:00 PM -- |    

 

Rand in the Gears
Tony Woodlief, whose blog is titled "Sand in the Gears," is writing an interesting series of critiques* of libertarianism from the most unexpected point of view: a libertarian's. (Eyes narrowing: ...or so he says.)

Woodlief argues that -- to paraphrase -- libertarianism is fine in theory, but you might not want to actually live there. Libertarians (defined as "you leave me alone, and I'll leave you alone") celebrate individualism, but ignore or (sometimes) deride communal and spiritual values. They have abundant faith in the contention that less government is always morally and economically best, no matter how little government there is left (Woodlief suggests dropping "economically"). They have little realism to offer about how to face foreign threats, and little that seems admirable to offer about standing by threatened friends, or opposing threatened atrocities. They neither understand how to gain power, or having gained it, how to keep it.

Let's be clear: Woodlief would probably disagree with nearly all of what I've said in the past week, ranging from topics like energy policy to gun control, and possibly all the way to my use of the words "and" and "the," given his repeated derision of and contempt for "the Left":

The Left remains committed to brainwashing children and co-opting public and private organizations. [...]

Deprived of principle, integrity, or honor, they are happy to snip the bottom rungs as they climb the ladder of power. (3)

This may be to salvage "street cred" with libertarian brethren who need an enemy caricature to hoot about. But while these comments are the weakest part of Woodlief's writing, they are just asides; otherwise the four remarkable essays present a thorough criticism of classical libertarianism and particularly Ayn Rand Libertarians. On Rand:

Recall Ayn Rand's latter years, when she held her own secret tribunals by which members of the fold were cast out for being unorthodox. [...]

In any event, Rand's portrait of utopia is most compelling to healthy young people without children, and to old curmudgeons with an overly exaggerated sense of their ability to create value. [...]

Ayn Rand aside, selfish, godless people do not a good society make. (1,2,4)

On foreign policy:

These arguments against foreign intervention derive from the libertarian principle that coercion is wrong, which is really no fixed principle at all, because nearly all libertarians admit that a military financed through taxation is a necessity for the protection of liberty. Somewhere in their calculus, however, they conclude that this coercion shouldn't extend to financing the liberation of non-Americans. [...]

The point is that in the area of foreign policy libertarians are most likely to argue from principle, yet this is the area where consequentialism is most required. Nobody cares about principle if it leads to enslavement or death. (3)

On drug policy:

If libertarians were serious about taking and maintaining power -- truly serious -- then they would drop the caterwauling over drug criminalization and focus every drop of energy on building schools. The latter is hard work, however, and forces consideration of messy things like moral instruction, and self-discipline, and what makes for good parenting. It's far easier to toke up in the discounted hotel room at the Libertarian Party Convention and rail against the DEA. Thus libertarianism remains less a force for change than a tool for self-expression. (3)

On moral values:

I think this reluctance to pronounce moral opprobrium on bad behavior results from a fear that behaviors labeled as immoral tend to be regulated by the state. The libertarian response to this reality seems to be to pretend that such behaviors really aren't so bad after all, or at least not nearly so bad as theft by taxation. (4)

All of this rings a bell with me: I recall the drug legalization discussion I had once upon a time with other bloggers. I recall other conversations in which I was startled to hear United States efforts in Kosovo and Bosnia dismissed as empire building, rather than celebrated as a stand of the decent against the swine. I recall strangely convoluted discussions** of slavery and the South that would evaporate at the first photograph of a slave's whipped back.

I can't claim I share Woodlief's moral grounding in what I assume is the Christian faith. But -- believe it or not -- I struggle to uphold my principles, integrity, and honor, too. At any rate, I think Woodlief is right for detecting a hole at the center of Libertarianism, the Philosophy. I'm just not sure the lower-case version is much more powerful.

It's odd that I sometimes can only think of a German word for an idea; in this case, it's "weltfremd" -- "world foreign". Think 1 tablespoon "naivete", 1 tablespoon "academic", sprinkle with a bit of "doesn't get out much," you've got it. (And I suppose we've all got a bit of that.) I'll grant I'm not familiar with the writings of the high priests Rand, Rothbard, and so on, I have to go by what I see from their disciples. And I see a lot of "weltfremd" libertarianism as practiced and preached these days.

What I see offers nothing when facing people who have freely chosen evil, because it barely recognizes evil in the first place. What I see offers nothing when the excessive pursuit of happiness (drug-induced or commons-befouling) is the problem, because it can't conceive of that pursuit being anything but the solution. What I see offers nothing when an abstraction called "the market" coalesces into real human organizations expanding and abusing private power, because it's obsessively focused on concentrations of public power.

I may be constructing a straw man version of libertarianism, but I've tried to abstract it, however unsuccessfully, both from experience and these comments by an eloquent writer who "probably come[s] close to being a libertarian." As a creed or as a philosophy, libertarianism is inherently limited; as Woodlief observes in one of the essay titles: "It's all about Me." Woodlief is right to argue that a political movement must be about more than that. Personally, I think libertarianism is to politics as a hammer is to a tool chest: it's useful, even essential sometimes, but you need much more than that. But if all you've got is a hammer, then everything starts to look like a nail. Especially if you're a Hammerarian.


=====
*(1) Libertarianism: Bringing Back the Lower Case; (2) Libertarianism II: Internal Contradictions; (3) Libertarianism III: It's all about Me and My Needs; (4) Libertarianism IV: Hey, You, Get off of My Cloud. Give them a shot: it would be a shame if you got this far and didn't have a look for yourself, they're very well written.
**Via Charles Dodgson's "Through the Looking Glass", and mentioned once before on this blog. posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:07:00 AM -- |    

 

CAFE Americano
The very honorable Fritz Schranck, of "Sneaking Suspicions," comments on today's Washington Post article ("Area Traffic Bursts Limit On Pollution: Surprise Findings Endanger Road Plans") on looming clean air choices for DC metro area planners:

Many people don't realize how much these planning agencies have already relied upon low-hanging fruit, such as the major advances in vehicle pollution controls in the last 10 years. The remaining options are not so much a matter of mandating technical changes, such as CAFE standards. Instead, they assume adjustments in land use controls and other reforms that are not intuitively acceptable to most folks.

My personal belief is that the political elements that have to deal with these consequences, especially now that the DC area is so involved, will soon search for a way to push back environmental deadlines or otherwise ameliorate the consequences of total Clean Air Act compliance.

I'm certainly no expert on the details of regional pollution abatement; Mr. Schranck may be right that in the short term, revising CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards can't result in the pollution reduction necessary to avoid a Clean Air Act train wreck in my home region.

But in the middle and long run, there's at least one major piece of CAFE "low hanging fruit" -- technologically speaking, if not politically -- that remains relatively untouched: SUVs and light trucks. And it's my impression, over the last seven or eight years, that SUVs are taking a growing share of DC metro area traffic. But maybe I'm just increasingly sensitized to the elephantine driving habits of many of their owners. Yep, it's another Culture Clash! So I'll try to keep an even tone.

The technology to improve SUV and light truck gas mileage exists -- it's got to, given that light truck fleet gas mileage has slightly decreased to 17.3 mpg in 2001 from as high as 18.4 in the late 1980s, according to an EPA report in September, 2001 ("Light-Duty Automotive Technology and Fuel Economy Trends: 1975 Through 2001"). The report summarized:

Average new light vehicle fuel economy continues to decline. Since peaking at 22.1 mpg in 1987 and 1988, average light vehicle fuel economy has declined nearly eight percent to 20.4 mpg, and for 2001 is lower than it has been at any time since 1980. The primary reasons for this decline are the increasing market share of less efficient light trucks, increased vehicle weight and increased vehicle performance. (emphases added)

Historically, the payoffs of better technology have been used to allow greater power and weight, rather than better mileage and reduced emissions. But now a number of technological options exist to not just tweak, but radically improve SUV and light truck gas mileage and hence emissions. As a recent Technology Review article by Mark Fischetti ("Why not a 40mpg SUV?")* indicates,

The gains would come largely from emerging technologies such as improved control systems that minimize energy losses in the engine and transmission, as well as efficient electrical components—from water pumps to engine valves—that could replace belt-driven mechanical systems. Existing technologies, such as advanced transmissions and fuel injection systems, could also play key roles if they were adopted more widely.

It's beyond belief that CAFE standards have remained unchanged for 17 years, and have thus failed to compensate for the growing share of SUVs and light trucks in the American automobile market. From the points of view of environmental protection, to energy independence, to keeping money out of the hands of Saudis and others underwriting extremist Islamism throughout the world, this ought to be an issue uniting everyone who cares about this country.

A common objection to improved fuel economy standards is that the safety of SUVs -- a major selling point -- would be impaired. But safety is a fraught issue. As the Natural Resources Defense Council report "Clean Getaway" indicates, SUVs are actually underbuilt for some of their single-vehicle crash risks, like rollover. And their multiple-vehicle crash safety benefit may largely come from not picking on other vehicles their own size: since they're likely to crash with a smaller car, their occupants will naturally come out of most collisions in better shape. My personal impression, for what it's worth, is that a fair number of SUV owners seem to "consume" their heightened sense of safety by decreasing their attention to safety: they feel invincible, and they act that way.

At any rate, not everyone familiar with the industry agrees with the premise -- that SUVs are appreciably safer -- or even that higher fuel economy standards would impair safety. Fischetti reports:

[Roland Hwang (a co-author of "Clean Getaway")] notes that federal and insurance industry tests show that the safety record of SUVs is about the same as that for other cars. Honda America’s manager of environmental and energy analyses, John German, agrees that “if all vehicles weighed 100 pounds less, there would be no impact on safety.”

The larger point is simply that with no mandate from Washington or the public, the auto industry has little motivation to change. Doug Patton, a senior vice president at Denso International America in Southfield, MI, puts the subject into perspective: “What is the customer demanding? What is the government requiring? That’s how we look at it.” (emphasis added)

The tradeoff of safety and economy should be left to market choice. But the freedom to pollute everyone's air should be a matter of public regulation. If getting the kids to school safely is why someone buys a bigger car in the first place, it's their choice; they should be willing to pay for it and the dirtier air they help bring about. If they buy a lighter SUV and are worried about safety... well, if "safety first" is the battle cry, let's have another look at lower highway speed limits, too. In the meantime: consider slowing down and looking around more often.

Whether higher pollution control standards for these behemoths is "intuitively acceptable" to their owners is at best an open question, of course. My answers would be (1) personally, I couldn't care less, and (2) that's where that whole "leadership" thing comes in, though perhaps not from leaders with resumes like Bush's or Cheney's. Yet, as Gregg Easterbrook wrote last year,

Today Americans burn through 875 gallons of gasoline per year per licensed driver, and of that about 100 gallons comes from the Persian Gulf. This works out to roughly $75 per year transferred from the typical American driver to Saddam and the desert princes who smile as their allies chant "death to America."

I'll be upset -- but not surprised -- if the "solution" to the D.C. air quality crisis (and others like it around the country) is for the federal government to simply roll back or ignore the Clean Air Act to make it easier for cities to "live with" the rising popularity of SUVs. At minimum, let there be a quid pro quo: finally tighten the CAFE standards, especially for the light trucks and SUVs contributing more than their fair share of pollution.

This is not to pick any kind of quarrel at all with Mr. Schranck himself, who was kind enough to invite me to this weekend's Beach Blogger Weekend, at Rehoboth. I decided not to go because of the weather, which made it unlikely that my family, and especially my little girl, would enjoy the trip. I hope it's a great success, and thanks again very much for the invitation.


=====
*As "premium content" in Technology Review, the bulk of this article must be purchased.
Notes: 1) I revised this post several times without realizing I'd failed to remove an online version I'd inadvertently published. To early Sunday AM readers, I apologize for any inconvenience. 2) For an earlier post on this topic, see "Sacrifices worth making", 10/16/2001. posted by Thomas Nephew at 1:25:00 AM -- |