White Russia Still Pretty Red

My and Julia's dear friend, whom I will call Natasha, is from Belarus. She cares about as much for politics as I do for NASCAR, but she has reported enough about her country's President to give me some clues as to what sort of a guy he is.

President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko is referred to, in a tongue-in-cheek fashion, as "our father" by many Byelorussians and makes frequent television appearances in which he demonstrates to his people his efforts to spur on the economy. One of his favorite tactics? Calling the administrator of collective farming for an area, asking about the current wheat harvest projections, and demanding “well, can’t we do any better!?”

The typical response, a well rehearsed, “We’ll do our best, sir!”

* Opposition schmoposition, as long as I'm president. *
Our friend Natasha is married to an American, who has visited Belarus on occasion and, it didn’t surprise us to hear, is in love with the country. He, however, was surprised to hear that, when visiting Romania with my wife, I do not have to thoroughly report my whereabouts to state security officers and generally do not receive phone calls from said officers reminding me that I am being watched. No, such things are not at all common in most former Eastern-Bloc countries.

Not so in Belarus. The secret service is still pervasive there. Foreigners are still looked upon with suspicion.

The charming, throw-back idiocy of Belarus’ current regime doesn’t end there. The International Herald Tribune aired a very fine piece yesterday on some of its even more endearing attributes, particularly those that have to do with what political dissenters can expect in that country. Suffice it to say, a good number of them have disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Lukashenko, amazingly, has yet to garner less than 75% of the “vote” in Byelorussian presidential elections. To quote an opposition member, Lukashenko "does not like figures below 75%."

And who can blame him?


Meanwhile, Belarus has one of the poorest economies in Europe (ranking above only the likes of the Ukraine, ALbania, and Bosnia), as Lukashenko persists in pushing through his vigorous program of "market socialism" (a term that is about as internally logical as "benevolent child molestation").

* And as to the obvious question *
Why?

The truly interesting question in all this is "why?". I never thought to ask it until I read a recent Reason Magazine article by [I'll fill in his name later.] He cites the work of economist [again, the name to be added later] positing that, as between a thief that occasionally raids my homeland and a thief that sets up shop there (read: a dictator), I should prefer the one that sets up shop. He, at least, has a vested interest in keeping me well off so that he may steal from me for years to come.

That, at least, is what a truly self-interested dictator would do. It rather fairly predicts exactly what happened in Chile in the 1980's when their dictator, Pinochet, hired Chicago-school economists to swoop down on the country, liberalize its economy (this causing an economic boom of huge proportions), and allow him to live off the fat.

What, then, is the problem with our man Lukashenko?

My current theory is that he actually isn't in it to enrich himself. Rather, he truly believes that "market socialism" is just the sort of contradiction-in-terms that's going to make Belarus richer and its people happier.

Heaven save us all from the idealists. For my money, I'd prefer to be ruled by a self-interested thief.


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"Fool me - you can't get fooled again."

My favorite Bushism goes: "There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."

We can't? Well, in any event, shame on us if we do.

Let us please, please just agree that, when we ponder the relative merits of the next war (oh please don't let it be in Iran,) we will consider just how attractive this one sounded, when its proponents plugged it three years ago.

In a 2003 Newsweek article entitled (note: not punch-lined) "Why the War was Right," Fareed Zakaria argued. . . well just that. He valiantly contended:

Iraq was a threat, but more important, it was an opportunity. "A pre-emptive invasion of a country gives one pause," I wrote in [my]August 2002 column, "but there is another massive benefit to it. Done right, an invasion would be the single best path to reform the Arab world.

In a previous Guardian article, we find similar sentiment, but (as the article was written pre-war) with the warning from the author, Jason Burke:

But to create anything close to a stable, relatively democratic, prosperous Iraq will require enormous political attention and financial aid. The Unites States, as events in Afghanistan are showing, is not very good at providing either. A sustained postwar programme that forgoes the cynicism and self-interest which has dominated US and British foreign policy for so long will [. . .] be an answer to the Islamic fanatics;

Yeah, no kidding there. And, as it turned out, Mr. Burke's warning about Iraq proved all too insightful. (As the International Herald Tribune grimly lays out in this fine piece.)

Those considering the possibility of war with Iran will certainly argue that the case for action against that country is different - different than the case for the Iraq war was. And the troubling thing is that it truly, truly is. Iran has more than twice the population of Iraq, much more land area, and an army not currently ailing from a decade of sanctions, as was Saddam Hussein's.

Even if Iran is seeking to develop WMD's, ought we not at least wait until they aim them at us to strike at them? And as to the concern of their passing bombs they have made on to terrorists, I think that the fear of U.S. retaliation would still be a considerable check against such activity. Were there a nuclear detonation on our soil, its chemical signature would enable us to tell the place of its manufacture, presuming we have good intelligence about the Iranians' manufacturing processes. A mere threat of a-bomb-for-a-bomb ought to be enough to deter Tehran from making such a terrorist-launched preemptive strike.


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Microsoft treated mega-hard

European prosecutors don't appear ready to relent in their crusade against Microsoft's profits, reports the International Herald Tribune.

IBM, Oracle, Sun Microsystems and others have been kind enough to "bring to the European Commission's attention" the fact that they deem Microsoft in continuing violaiton of EU antitrust laws. And the Commission appears to be considering taking the case.

Which isn't surprising. If my antitrust course taught me anything, it's that such laws are drafted so broadly that this blog is technically in continuing violation of them (for having a veritable monopoly on Kisbács-related news and events and exploiting that monopoly without relent).

But this news comes at a pivotal time for me. The antitrust case against Microsoft, which the company recently settled in Europe to the tune of hundreds of millions, never made it to a jury in the United States. Antitrust laws are of necessity so vaguely drafted that remarkably similar standards can be interpreted by more free-market U.S. judges not to apply to the exact same practices that socially minded European judges find them to apply to.

I'm Officially Out of the Euro-skeptic Closet

And another thing about this news: it has given me still more cause for thought about the EU as a whole. I've been debating of late whether to turn from a mere Euro-agnostic to a full Euro-skeptic. This is an especially poignant question for me, given that it's hard to argue that ascension into the EU wouldn't bring huge economic windfalls to Romania (a country to which, if you haven't guessed it yet, I am partial).

But I'm going to take this opportunity to "out" myself as Euroskeptical. Regardless of the benefits of a 400-million person common market, I see the EU as well on track to ensnare all of its member states in a (if you'll pardon the metaphor) socialist web that no amount of free trade will make less sticky. Maybe not anytime this decade, mind you, but in our lifetimes if things don't change dramatically.

If it ever gets a web site, I will be very interested in looking into the Alliance for an Open Europe, a group that purports to want all of the free trade and openness with none of the heavy-handedness of the EU.



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What's good for the goose . . . (and then somehow the gander winds up in jail)

My supreme irony alarm has been ringing in my head all day:

EU citizens are clamoring to support Danish newpapers' right to publish idolatrous pictures of the Muslims' prophet on the one hand . . .

. . . and jailing historians for extremist views about the Holocaust on the other. (See also my post below.)

Ahhh . . . the delicious inconsistency of the Left, for whom "tolerance" means that we must all be tolerant of the things that please them. And that is all.

Update to this post:
David Irving has just been sentenced to 3 years in an Austrian prison, according to the International Herald Tribune.

Holy. Crap.

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Irving to be jailed by Austria's history police

Extreme Right-wing British historian David Irving has plead guilty to one count of denying the Holocaust, a crime in Austria, reports the International Herald-Tribune. Conviction is almost certain, and the penalty may amount to as many as ten years in prison.

Ten years in prison.

I feel like writing it about ten times. I would be disgusted even if the historian's "crime" actually were denying the historical fact of the Holocaust.

But it isn't. Dr. Irving was on trial for questioning the extent of the Holocaust, arguing among other things, that the Nazis didn't actually use gas chambers and that Hitler had little knowledge of the German state’s “final solution.”

Putting aside for a moment the fact that Dr. Irving's Ph.D. in history should be ceremonially taken out and used to clean up after animals at the Vienna zoo, jailing this man for his thought crimes is a human rights violation of the first order.

But let me go down on record as predicting that you'll see little in the way of street demonstrations in Austria defending this “historian's” rights to question orthodoxy. Indeed, it strikes me as one of the dramatic inconsistencies of many left-leaning organizations that their members will set themselves on fire in public squares to protest amnesty for Chile's ex right-wing dictator Pinochet and demand humane treatment of such groups as Kurdish Marxist terrorists in Turkey but won't lift a finger to object to this sort of thing.

As evidence, I offer Amnesty International's news feed on "freedom of expression" issues. What you will find on there: concerns about excessive use of force on Haitian demonstrators, a piece urging Columbia's right-wing government to practice free and fair elections, an "Urgent Action" report on the U.S.'s *gasp* force-feeding of certain of its detainees who are practicing their freedom of expression by hunger striking.

What you won't find? Any mention of this right-wing historian's facing jail time for arguing down the number of Holocaust deaths.

I suppose that, if certain Austrian historians come out tomorrow saying that the actual Jewish death toll in the Holocaust was 20 million, anyone who turns around and then argues for a more rational figure may be jailed.

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Timothy B. Smith again - a must read

In another perfect response to Theodore Dalrymple's pooh-poohing of multiculturalism (Dalrymple namely goes on record at Cato Unbound referring to multiculturalism as a "preposterous" solution to Europe's ethnic problems), I give you Timothy B. Smith's eloquent reply, which can be found in its entirity here.

Some particularly poignant excerpts:

After all, there's a reason why we in the rich world admit immigrants, and the least we can do is show a little respect. There is no harm in that.

As long as the fundamental laws of the land—in Canada, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms—are respected, what is the harm in being a tolerant society? One might respond: multiculturalism is a myth. Perhaps. But a useful one, in that it puts an admirable ideal in our sights and it gives us a sense of hope. Before immigrants to Canada are considered equal in the economic sense (this of course takes a generation or two, usually), they are already considered equal in the theoretical and political sense.

And later, this gem:

France is living proof that a multicultural society (demographically speaking, that is) which denies this reality, does so at the risk of social peace. Beyond this concern, wouldn't all the devotees of Adam Smith out there be more inclined—shouldn't they be—to embrace a more cosomopolitan, individualist view of social identity? It's ironic, but true: multiculturalism strengthens individualism, insofar as it works in the direction of respecting difference. Ethnic nationalism, by contrast, works in favor of the group, at a terrible cost to individualism. Ethnic nationalism has a far bloodier past than multiculturalism.

I couldn't agree more. I very much encourage a read of the entire article. Then, compare it with the culturally myopic excerpt from Dalrymple's article, which I have placed in a previous post on this topic.

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Objectivists object

On the issue of Muslim immigration in Europe, my response to Rogel Sokolin-Maimon, of the blog It Looks Obvious got a little long winded. Since it would make a decent blog post in and of itself, here it is.

(His original post, to which I am responding, can be read * here *.)

You make some excellent points, and in many places, I'm sure you wouldn't be surprised to hear that we are agreed.

But to get to the point, if the question for me is "which culture is preferable?" I think there's no doubt but that my answer would be, "it's the one that embraces liberal values."

But, in my mind, that isn't really the question. I am not at all convinced that most modern Europeans embrace liberal values or that most European Muslims do not.

And even if there were such a disparity in values, I cannot say what a libertarian or an Objectivist - politically speaking - would propose to do about it. Neither of us offers a political system that proposes to change cultural values. We would probably both say "prosecute those who use violence," and you might add "convert more people to Objectivism.” But I doubt that either of us would propose, “white people are better, close the borders!” as I get the distinct impression Dalrymple and his ilk would.

I don’t want to be accusable of ignoring the recent demonstrations against Danish newspapers, and so on. As regards those demonstrations, we can at least say that in Europe, by and large, they have been peaceful.

And to put them into perspective for a moment, pick a period in the US’s history when you imagine the country was most liberal. Is it immediately after the founding or perhaps right after the Civil War? Whenever it is, now that you’ve thought of it, imagine that a major newspaper in the Northeast publishes a picture featuring (please pardon the illustration) Jesus Christ in a bed with the covers up to his neck and a woman beside him, similarly positioned. Frankly, this is something that offends me deeply even to type, but I think the mental exercise is an important one.

Would it be even remotely surprising if – say – the South (or even the Northeast itself) then erupted in protests? The almost indisputable fact is that it would have – and as the result of an image that, in today’s America, would hardly cause a stir outside of Christian publications. Now, are you re-thinking your idea that the US was a mostly liberal nation during this time, or are you merely qualifying it with the thought that, “okay, but it’s possible to be a Christian country and a liberal country at the same time.”?

* * *

Sorry for the long comment. In conclusion, if I were to have my way, Europeans would (unlike Dalrymple) frame their comments in terms of, “Muslims should open their minds to the notion of a free press,” than – as they currently seem to be saying – “Europe must beware of Mohammedans in our midst, their culture will rot ours from the inside out!”

The first statement would find broad support even in Muslim Europe. The second statement strikes me as thoroughly bigoted, and ill-informed.

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Theodore Dalrymple: Muslim culture antithetical to Europe's

In previous posts (here, and here) I contended that Theodore Dalrymple, writing for Cato Unbound, thinks "Muslim culture" has no place in Europe.

My (decidedly opposing) stance has been that Muslim culture (to follow him in using this overly broad abstraction) has every right to exist anywhere Muslims are, Europe or elsewhere, and that there's no reason that it should pose a "threat" to Europe. I am, in a sense, arguing for multiculturalism.

Just to make clear that I wasn't misstating Dalrymple's views, I offer this from his latest post on Cato Unbound:

I cannot agree that multiculturalism, embraced in fact as well as spirit (or theory) is part of the solution to our problems posed by Moslem immigrants. This sees to me preposterous. The idea that the French riots took place because the inhabitants of the banlieues did not speak sufficient French is absurd: they all spoke French. And I fail to see how embracing multiculturalism will do anything to inhibit Muslim extremists. As one Italian put it, multiculturalism is not couscous: it is the stoning of adulterers—and, as we have recently discovered, far worse than that. The United States has an advantage because it has a compelling foundation myth, which Europe does not have, and this helps to integrate new arrivals.

I do not doubt Dalrymple's credentials as an economist or a historian. And were he right that "Muslim culture" necessarily implies "stoning adulterers," I'd say he's on to something.

But he's not right. Europeans aren't xenophobes when they deny Muslims' rights to beat their women. They're xenophobes if they deny Muslim girls' rights to wear a head scarf in a French school, or pray at Salat.

As to multiculturalism not stopping extremists, even if he were right on this point (a notion I'd debate - chances are that there would be less extremism in a Europe with greater religious tolerance), stopping extremism isn't exactly one of the stated goals of multiculturalism. Respecting another man's right to live life and serve God as his own conscience dictates, on the other hand, is.

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I hate being right about this kind of stuff

In my January post, "In Defense of Child Trafficking," I (yes, seriously) argue that the black market for adoptions should be liberalized. In sum, I contend that making adoption-for-cash illegal leads to abuses and general criminality in the same way making drugs-for-cash illegal does.

I also argued that it's hard to see how a free market for adoption "victimizes" anyone any more than the current system, the system that involves, instead of adoption-for-cash, adoption-in-exchange-for-bureaucratic-nightmare alongside a thriving (and criminal) black market. Indeed, I contend that the present system produces far more victims, especially in states where the bureaucracy effectively amounts to an outright adoption ban for certain classes of parents.

Now, to the untrained eye, the following comments (click here for the full article) from the very intelligent blog, This is Not My Country, is an example of why I'm wrong.

Its author tells us:

Bulgarian authorites broke up a five-member ring that was bringing pregnant women to Greece to give birth . . . Each baby was sold for 15,000 euros, while on many occasions, the gang foced the women to deliver prematurely by having a c-section, so as to avoid arrest as their leave [temporary visa] had expired.

She goes on:

. . . In fact, in some cases, the masterminds of the ring would grant loans to their perspecitve [sic] victims, charging exhorbitant rates, thus forcing them to sell their babies . . . to repay their debt.

Forced c-sections? Forced sales of babies by loan sharks? If this is what we're seeing in adoption right now, then surely legalizing cash adoptions would lead to a dystopian nightmare. Indeed, I could not improve upon the author's righteous anger:

There are so many things wrong with this, where do you start? Who are the doctors performing these early c-sections? . . . eight years for forcing women to undergo surgery and to sell their babies? Are the lives of these women and children worth so little?

* * *
Imagine, though, for a moment, a world in which adoption-for-cash is legal. I can for certain say two things about that world that are an improvement upon the present state of affairs.

1. Supply would meet demand. Unlike the world we live in, where there is a glut of homeless and impoverished children and ironically also a huge number of parents who are waiting for years - some hopelessly - to adopt, a world of liberalized adoption laws would allow supply to meet demand: every hopeful couple who desired a child would be able to take that infant instantly out of poverty and into a (hopefully) loving home.

2. For-cash adoptions would be humane, and regulated. Unlike the world we live in, where all for-cash adoption is illegal and all of it must be prosecuted criminally if discovered, a world of liberalized adoption laws would allow authorities to recognize for-profit agencies that treat adopters and adoptees humanely and with the care that this delicate situation deserves, while sanctioning those that do not.

Neither of these two points addresses the above author's implicit concerns about the "cheapening" of human life. And in the final wash, I'm afraid I can't address them adequately. A world of legalized for-cash adoptions may well involve mothers who have children for no other reason than to meet the demands of those who cannot.

The thing we have to ask ourselves is first - whether that would be so bad and second - whether it's worse than the world we live in, the world in which I face the same legal sanction if I kidnap a mother and force a c-section to get her baby as I do if she voluntarily bears a child so that my wife and I may adopt it.





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Niedersachsen to become the most efficient state in Germany

Municipal workers' unions in the German state of Lower Saxony and several other communities to boot are ready to walk out, crippling bureaucracies everywhere, reports the International Herald Tribune.

Surprisingly, rather than kowtow to the unions' righteous demands for a 38.5-hour work week (which, subtracting Mittagspause, Kaffeepause, and liberal holiday and vacation times, translates to an average of 3 hours a day spent at work for each worker), German higher-ups are holding fast.

Why?? Why aren't administrators paralyzed by fear that the unions will cripple German cities?

It seems that, unlike recent striking French workers who controlled public transit, the German municipal employees are by and large merely government bureaucrats and office employees.

I'd like to go down on record as predicting that private industry's productivity will double during the work stoppage.

Maybe, if Niedersachsen's lucky, government negotiators will offer to pay bureaucrats simply to stay home and . . . reorganize their sock drawers. Or whatever else flips their pedantic, detail-oriented wigs.
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Who cares about democracy?

Gene Healy doesn't even really care about democracy.

He doesn't care.

Unless, that is, we're talking about liberal democracy.


* * *
Revolutionary, I know, but Gene is EXACTLY, exactly right.

Any classical liberal worth his salt should be saying this three times for every one time he hears some Republican or Democrat state that the world needs more democracies (implication being that its needs the U.S.'s help to "create" them.)

Keep it up, Gene.

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Timothy B. Smith: Immigrants fueled Europe's dynamism

Timothy B. Smith has written an excellent reply to Theodore Dalrymple's lack-luster opening essay in Cato Unbound.

As I stated in my recent post on Dalrymple's essay, I was more than a little disappointed to find somebody blogging on a Cato-sponsored site who clearly has such little regard for the culture of Europe's Muslims. (Indeed, he lays part of the case for Europe's decline at their feet - or at least at the feet of Europeans for failing to properly "assimilate" them.)

While Smith did little to directly attack Dalrymple's (in my mind) chauvanistic cultural assesments, I detect that he at least deflected them, in a round-about way.

Smith credits immigrants for contributing to Europe's success:

Western Europe was in the midst of a massive social and economic transformation [involving] the arrival of millions of immigrants to fuel dynamic economies growing at 5% per year.

He properly blames European governments for shutting them out of the success they helped create:

The general population sees immigrants and their children as threats to their share of a dwindling system of spoils. Starting in the mid-1970s, Western Europeans attempted to freeze the postwar economic miracle in its tracks, as they shut their borders to immigrants, and shut their factories to new workers. Europeans lost the focus on economic growth and instead concentrated on the distribution of existing wealth. (my emphasis)

Finally, he puts the Parisian riots into some much-needed perspective:

Old Europe's key problem is not low productiviy or the failure to create new wealth; it is its failure to allow the market to distribute new wealth in the form of new, private sector jobs. This is why French youth of immigrant origins riot but their Canadian counterparts do not.

Compare this last passage to Dalrymple's reactionary explanation of events such as the Paris riots:

. . .conflict is the method in which [immigrants] will resolve their very different and entrenched conceptions about the way life should be lived. This is particularly true when immigrants are in possession, as they believe, of a unique and universal truth, such as Islam in its various forms often claims to be. (my emphasis)

Even though Smith never mentions Dalrymple's (okay, I'll just say it) bigoted statements outright, he does appear to be cordially refuting them by way of inference. Dalrymple argues: Muslims riot because their beliefs are unwielding and backwards. Smith responds: the riots in Paris were predictable social and economic unrest resulting from stifling economic policies.

Congratulations to Timothy B. Smith for his very intelligent reponse. It would have made a much better lead article.

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Po-urkey to finally hit Europe

Citizens of EU member states have taken to their tidy, cobblestone, charming streets in violent uproar since the recent WTO decision that the European Union's ban on genetically modified food imports is, to quote trade panel chairperson Eirik Glenne "a half-baked, sissy cop-out." He added, "man up and eat America's unnatural, mutant goodness, Europe."

Europeans' fears, reports Reuters, were hardly assuaged. "Thanksgiving dinner is about Turkey, not crazy mutant, half-swine, half-bird Po-urkeys!" declared one resident of Eindoven, Holland. Reminded that the Dutch do not have Thanksgiving, he refused to recant, muttering something in a hardly intelligible accent about "the principle of the thing."

Several residents of Aachen, Germany took to their city's almost absurdly tidy and charming square and set themselves ablaze.

In light of such pure, righteous emotion, one can be forgiven for thinking that Europeans' opinions about so-called "Frankenstein-food" are unlikely to change as a result of soon-to-be-opened markets. Pundits speculate that this may have something remotely to do with the fact that European media outlets are consistent in referring to genetically modified products as "Frankenstein-food."

U.S. scientists, such as Thomas R. DeGregori of the University of Houston, who have calmly attempted to explain the benefits of gene technology in food products have had their visas to France, Luxembourg, and Portugal revoked. Other member states vow to follow suit. The charming French-Alp resort community of Annecy has temporarily parted from its otherwise peaceful history and issued a shoot-on-sight ordinance against such scientists.

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Some perspective

Many Muslims are rioting over blasphemous cartoons in Europe. This behavior is, of course, ridiculous. But, points out Catallarchy's Patri Friedman, so are Europe's own onerous laws against hate speech.

He notes the sick but ultimately crafty contest that an Iranian newspaper is holding to make this point. The goal of the contest? To see who can submit the best Holocaust cartoon.

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Theodore Dalrymple thinks Muslim immigrants are polluting Europe's culture

To be filed under the soon-to-be created "truly disappointing" archive section of this blog is Theodore Dalrymple’s lead essay in the latest Cato Unbound thread: “Is Old Europe Doomed?”

On Cato’s behalf, I will take the liberty of stating that any views expressed by their guest blogger do not necessarily represent the views of the Cato Institute or its illustrious staff. (Interns included, of course.)

I state this disclaimer because I think that, despite his otherwise sound economic musings, Mr. Dalrymple is on to something dangerous and stupid. Some selected quotes:

But there are other threats to Europe. The miserabilist view of the European past, in which achievement on a truly stupendous scale is disregarded in favor of massacre, oppression and injustice, deprives the population of any sense of pride or tradition to which it might contribute or which might be worth preserving. This loss of cultural confidence is particularly important at a time of mass immigration from very alien cultures, an immigration that can be successfully negotiated . . . only if [Europeans] believe themselves to be the bearers of cultures into which immigrants wish, or ought to wish, to integrate, assimilate, and make their own.

In the absence of any such belief, there is a risk that the only way in which people inhabiting a country will have anything in common is geographical; and civil conflict is the method in which they will resolve their [differences.]

Now pause. Breathe that in. It’s a wordy way of saying: Europeans are so (needlessly) ashamed of their culture they’re running a dangerous risk of not assimilating immigrants into it. Dalrymple goes on:

This is particularly true when immigrants are in possession, as they believe, of a unique and universal truth, such as Islam in its various forms often claims to be.

So, if you let Muslims live among you, you’re asking for trouble. Why? Is it because their religion is monolithic and stupid? Indeed it is. Oh – okay, got it. Any solutions in sight, Mr. Dalrymple? Well, maybe one:

If the host nation is so lacking in cultural confidence that it does not even make familiarity with the national language a condition of citizenship (as has been until recently the case in Great Britain), it is hardly surprising that integration does not proceed very far.

Ohhhhh. . . of course! Let everybody know that the language of their ancestral home is as pitiful as their religion. Forget that it’s immensely profitable (in both economic and social terms) for immigrants to learn European languages. Profit alone clearly isn’t sufficing to make them more like us. We should really force our language on them too.

Cough. Cough. Sputter. Gag.

For a fella that Cato’s hosting, this really disappoints.

In (gracious) fairness to Dalrymple, he places much of the blame for European malaise on inflexible labor markets, rigid regulations, and the like.

But the fact that he spends so much ink (er - electrons) discussing how Muslim immigrants are "destroying" European culture . . . it pleases me not at all. It's not so much that he hasn't got his finger on something. I mean, there is widespread unrest among the largely North African immigrant suburbs of Paris, and Muslim Europe is, by and large, poorer and less well educated than Christian Europe. But his explanations are frankly skewed. To hear Dalrymple tell it, you'd think that these Muslims would be ruining Europe under any econcomic circumstances. That any culture (I'm tempted to say "race," but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt) that doesn't have enough pride in itself to fend off those of the barbarian hordes in its midst hardly deserves to continue.

If I may go down on record before any Cato blogger does, I'd like to say that Mr. Dalrymple is talking rubbish and that there is no reason Muslim culture can't contribute to Europe in its own right - undiluted, proud, and vibrant. No assimilation programs necessary. No need for bleach-blonding. Just Muslim culture, as it is. (Pardon the sweeping generalities.)

Period.

I'm sorry that men like Dalrymple mix with Cato scholars, even on a blog where his views will no doubt soon be rebuffed. I'm sure that most classical liberals wouldn't share his views, but the fact that we're even taking him seriously rather bothers me.
For further reading by reasonable (and Muslim) minds, see here.

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In Defense of Child Trafficking

Scenario 1: My wife and I apply to an agency to adopt a child. We fill out our own body weight in forms. We undergo psychological evaluations that do little more than test our ability to rehearse standard responses beforehand. We wait for months, are initially turned down because the child in question's mother is having second thoughts. Time passes, we hire a lawyer for an enormous sum, appeal, and are finally approved. We adopt our "baby" who is now three years old and scarred by months of uncertainty and foster care.

Scenario 2: My wife and I pay $75,000 to an orphanage and select an infant to adopt. The orphanage's lawyers make sure that we have total legal custody. We have our baby inside of a month.

The first scenario involves heartache, uncertainty, depression, and bureaucracy. It is the currently legal and accepted means of adopting a child.

The second scenario is beneficial to all parties involved, exciting, speedy, and joyful. It is illegal trafficking in children and considered morally reprehensible.

But let's just ask ourselves why.

Certainly you cannot put a "price" on a human life. Instinctively, many would condemn the "selling" of adoptive children on those grounds. A little reflection, however, reveals this for the thin argument it is: adoptive parents are not "buying" a "life." They are buying the right to adopt. There is no moral difference between purchasing this right with $75,000 worth of bureaucracy, time, and tears vs. $75,000 in actual greenbacks.

Perhaps a "trade" in adoption would lead to child snatching for profit and inhuman practices. This argument, however, is defeated by the same virtually impenetrable logic that surrounds legalization of any black markets: opening up the market actually decreases the amount of danger and immorality surrounding it. Prostitutes in the few Nevada counties where the sex trade has been legalized do not face a fraction of the dangers that street walkers in New York City do.

The same must be true for adopted children. Parents who are willing to risk paying for adoption under current laws must necessarily deal with underworld figures who are likely to be adept at using violence to enforce their contracts (after all, the courts will not.) Since there is no need for such criminal rings to worry about reputation effects (they haven’t exactly got a listing with the better business bureau), they may treat either prospective parents or children in rough and cruel ways, so as to extract as much profit from the one transaction for minimal personal expense.

Parents in a “free market” for adoption would naturally choose from the most reputable agencies that treat children with great care. Agencies and orphanages, in order to stay in business, would have to do a great deal to maintain such a reputation. And so on.

Finally, it is argued, a free market would do nothing to ensure the suitability of adoptive parents. As though the accident of birth does? Every human being who was not an adopted child had the following suitability screening performed on his parents: "Reproductive organs functioning? Check. Okay - you pass. Have your child now." After this, we rely on laws against child abuse and neglect to police unloving parents. It is baffling that we should require stricter standards of parents who, far from merely not being handy with birth control devices, actually pay enormous sums to adopt.

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All this is intended to be food for thought for anyone who has heard the proffered justification for Romania’s ban on international adoptions. The justification? That “adoptions by foreigners were so poorly managed that they sometimes resembled child trafficking.”

Heaven forbid. Lest we be accusable of *gasp* putting a price on human life, let us be content to have Romanian children languish in foster-care hell.

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Orphans of precaution

There are upwards of 50,000 orphan children in Romania. None of them will be allowed adoption by foreign families. (With the possible exception of some 1,100 whose cases were pending when an adoption ban was recently passed.)

An adoption ban? Well, yeah. To international families, at least.

Don't worry, though - it's the children's interests we have at heart. This, according to Baroness Emma Nicholson, the late EU Rapporteur for Romania's admission into the union. Out of a righteous abundance of caution, Nicholson apparently urged the EU not to continue to consider Romania's admission unless international adoptions were stopped. It seems that some of the previously adopted children, you see, can't be accounted for.

It isn't certain what has happened to them. While it's entirely possible that their current 'missing' status is the mere result of a bureaucratic accounting error, Nicholson and other EU officials desired to leave nothing up to chance. Thus, all international adoptions from Romania were ceased as of recently. Foreigners are being urged not to pursue opportunities there any further.

To quote Nicholson:

". . . countries in transition that provide a market for international adoption would better serve the interests of their children by developing adequate community support."

Translation? Until we can be 100% certain that no single Romanian adopted child will be abused or neglected by a foreigner, only Romanian families should be allowed to adopt Romanian children.

To which I say: exciting! Next step is requiring a license of any parent who wants a child. Or why not just save time and sterilize the Gypsies? They seem to be a source of many Romanian orphans. Precaution demands it!

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First month . . .

So we've rounded off this blog's first month in existence. We don't have as many bloggers as I might have wanted by this point, but we've had some visitors from interesting places and almost 100 independent hits. (Yes - for us this is actually an accomplishment.)

Here's to many returning visitors and a growing list of guest bloggers in the future.

. . . Read this entire article