“Deporting the ‘Son of Hamas’”: Is the INS Serious?

This renders me speechless . . . What is there to say? That there is indeed a contradiction between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law? That even those who aid the United States in its global war on terror are not immune from the nuances of immigration laws? That there is no moral equivalence between the good deeds of freedom fighters and the technicality of a law?

The INS has no case against Mosab Hassan Yousef . . . certainly not in the court of reason, justice, and common sense; not even in the court of law.

Challenges in North Korea

I am not a soccer fan, but I am pleasantly surprised to find out that North Korea has a team competing in the World Cup. I don’t know anything about the North Korean team (or how they were able to get to play in the World Cup). They must have the support of their oppressive regime, and they must be a privileged lot in an otherwise repressed society where slavishness and poverty are a way of life.

Still and all, sports is supposedly an apolitical thing where physical prowess determines the outcome of a competition. The North Korean team probably made it to the World Cup on the basis of merit. And their achievements should not be cast aside just because they are beholden (maybe) to a tyrannical regime.

And I am thinking beyond sports. I hope that every game the North Koreans play, or for that matter, every game that is played during the tournament, is being aired on TV and radio stations in North Korea. That will be a treat to the people, their narrow window through which they could get a glimpse of the outside world.

This Washington Post op-ed piece, “Screams from North Korea,” portrays a picture of a people who have no idea of a better life outside of their country. Their minds, according to the author, have been nurtured by a tyranny, conditioned for loyalty, and fed on lies. How does a mind shaped by all these change? How does one convince North Koreans of a kind of life different from theirs when they don’t even know of the alternatives out there?

Their only sources of outside information are defectors who provide stories of freedom and opportunities that they have found in their new life. One said that from leaflet drops, he got to view images of people wearing all sorts of different clothes (enough to “spark a revolution of the mind”). Smuggled radios and cellphones from China have become important tools for disseminating information from outside. Defectors are “seeding doubts that might someday become dissent.” Like those imprisoned in Plato’s cave but got to see the outside world, these enlightened defectors are doing everything they can to tell those who are left behind that there are other realities out there, far better than the one they live in.

Closed societies like Burma and North Korea need our help. Deeply-entrenched tyrannical regimes should be removed by force. But there’s also that people-to-people “civil society” obligations that the lucky ones like us, who were able to leave Plato’s cave, owe to those who are still living in the darkness of ignorance. In this 21st century of individual rights and liberties, of free-market enterprise and prosperity, of accessible technological tools and the information revolution, no groups of people anywhere in the world should wallow in ignorance, slavishness, and poverty.

As to the North Korean soccer team, I‘ll be rooting for them, hoping that at the end of the tournament, they, too, will defect so that they can tell the world their story.

China’s One-Child Policy: Social Engineering and Its Costs

Social engineering especially concerning family life could only lead to negative societal consequences. As the most natural and most fundamental of social units, the family provides the conditions for the natural growth and development of its members, towards their becoming good human beings and useful citizens. Tampering with these natural duties and obligations is undermining the very purpose of human existence.

China is about to reap such negative consequences. Its coercive population control effort, the one-child policy that it launched some 20 years ago aimed at curbing the growth of its population, in general, and its female population, in particular, is a massive case in social engineering. Those who don’t comply are subject to either forced abortion or sterilization. Chai Ling, a former leader of China's 1989 pro-democracy movement, in this inspiring and enlightening essay, "China's one-child policy: As brutal and hypocritical as ever", condemns China’s one-child policy as barbaric and its consequences catastrophic.

What are the results of this coercive population control measure? Chai Ling enumerates them: 1) 100 million missing girls; 2) a growing gender imbalance of 120 boys over 100 girls being born (worse in rural areas where the ratio is 130 boys over 100 girls) – the prediction is such that in just 10 years, there will be 30 to 40 million more boys than girls under the age of 20 in China. (Sociologists are worried about problems of social instability -- that in the event that Chinese males are unable to find women to marry, cases of rape and other sex-related crimes will ensue); 3) the suicide rate among Chinese women is five times the world average, and is the No. 1 cause of death among rural women in China.

All this is tragic. Let it serve as a lesson to autocrats and totalitarian regimes the world over: no amount of political power in the world can alter the dictates of natural and familial living.

As to Chai Ling, she only has prayers for the women of China:

Since moving to the U.S., I have been blessed to marry the man of my dreams, and we have three beautiful daughters. Every June 1 [China’s "Children's Day"], I make sure to remind them how lucky we are to live in a country that values personal freedom more than hollow public pageants. When I tuck them in, I give them a kiss, read them a story and say a prayer for the women in China, that one day soon they may have the same freedom and safety that I have found in America and which is the birthright of my three little girls.

The Meaning of Their Sacrifice

As we honor the dead and the living during this Memorial Day for their utmost sacrifice for God and country, it is good to revisit Abraham Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address” to remind ourselves about the meaning and purpose of their sacrifice.

The Gettysburg Address

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met here on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But in a larger sense we can not dedicate - we can not consecrate - we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled, here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but can never forget what they did here.

It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they have, thus far, so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Capitalism as the Great Equalizer

This quote from Milton & Rose Friedman's book, Free to Choose, says it all:

Industrial progress, mechanical improvement, all of the great wonders of the modern era have meant little to the wealthy. The rich in ancient Greece would have benefited hardly at all from modern plumbing — running servants replaced running water. Television and radio — the patricians of Rome could enjoy the leading musicians and actors in their home, could have the leading artists as domestic retainers. Ready-to-wear clothing, supermarkets — all these and many other modern developments would have added little to their life. They would have welcomed the improvements in transportation and in medicine, but for the rest, the great achievements of western capitalism have rebounded primarily to the benefit of the ordinary person. These achievements have made available to the masses conveniences and amenities that were previously the exclusive prerogative of the rich and powerful.

Socialism’s utopian vision of a classless society is exactly the opposite of the above. Its notion of equality is premised on a false reading of human nature. That is why those who have lived under socialist regimes have become equal, yes, but equal only in poverty and slavishness as they remain beholden to powerful totalitarian governments. They are certainly not equal in rights and liberties that bring out the best in every human being. For socialists have only an abstract notion of the “people.” They love them only from afar and view them only as a collective whole. Even though the likes of Chavez claim to work on behalf of the people, socialists do not have respect for the ability of the “masses” to think and decide for themselves. This premise is central in Marxist-Leninist thought: the herd must be led by a party, the vanguards of “enlightened ones,” towards the right path of the revolution. Hence, in a condescending way, socialist regimes believe that they must continue to think for the masses, order them around, tell them what is good for them because they, the vanguards, know better and think better.

Socialism fails to see the character and freedom-loving nature of every human being. While its collective analysis of human events fails to grasp the worth and dignity of each individual, free-market capitalism empowers individuals, challenges them to be creative and inventive, and turns them into strong, assertive, competitive, and accomplished human beings.

“The New International Order:” America, One Among Many

When Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad trash the United States and get away with it, one can’t help but wonder if the U.S. is losing its grip on world affairs. Whenever the State Department bases its decisions on the consensus of the international community, it sends out mixed signals to its friends and enemies that the U.S. is either afraid to live with its own decisions or feels obligated to explain itself to the rest of the world.

Both bespeak of weakness, which is the last thing that this country’s foreign policy needs right now. For if the leadership in Washington gets it right, it should know that these actions can only ultimately lead to the decline of a powerful America as we know it.

But in yesterday’s speech at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, President Barack Obama promised to shape a new "’international order’ as part of a national security strategy that emphasizes his belief in global institutions and America's role in promoting democratic values around the world,” through diplomacy. He spoke about the importance of cooperation and partnerships “to confront the economic, military and environmental challenges of the future.”

The international order we seek is one that can resolve the challenges of our times,'" he said in prepared remarks. "Countering violent extremism and insurgency; stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and securing nuclear materials; combating a changing climate and sustaining global growth; helping countries feed themselves and care for their sick; preventing conflict and healing its wounds.

Meanwhile, America continues to face threats from at least two radical forces: Islamism and a reemerging communism that is being spawned by autocratic rulers in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. Chavez and Ahmadinejad, the epitome of everything that America is fighting against, are joining forces with other countries and building alliances in order to defeat a common enemy that is the U.S.

Dealing with the global economic crisis, sustaining global growth, helping countries alleviate poverty – all these require international cooperation and collaboration. But these are traditional areas of international cooperation and collaboration for which there are institutions and diplomatic tools already in place.

Otherwise, the world remains a dangerous place.

Socrates teaches us in our meditation of the human condition that we must always begin with reality, wherever it takes us. It is important to realize that global realities present different challenges, and that the strategies that we map out in response to these challenges should be informed by an accurate reading of the human condition and its manifest realities.

Punishing North Korea

South Korea is banking on the UN Security Council to punish North Korea for the sinking of its warship that killed 46 of its sailors. Most likely, the UN will condemn the attack, impose sanctions, and cut trade ties between the North and the South, North Korea’s source of hard currency. For its part, the US State Department will see to it that North Korea will be added again to its list of states that sponsor terrorism.

But how would all these measures diminish the military prowess of an isolated “Stalinist regime”?

For all the world's indignation over this autocrat’s totalitarian rule, his international law violations over missile testings, the sinking of a South Korean naval ship – all legitimate causes for war for which only the North Korean people will benefit in the end -- perhaps an effective retaliatory act to the sinking of South Korea’s naval ship should revolve around the idea of how to incapacitate North Korea’s missiles, especially those pointed down south. Talks along these lines rather than economic sanctions will perhaps have some impact on North Korea’s military prowess.