The Informationist, a blog written by Bruce Abramson

Zionist and Proud

The State of Israel turned 65 last month.  Though I may have missed the moment, it remains a fine season to pronounce loudly and proudly that I am a Zionist. 

I am extraordinarily proud of the Jewish state.  I believe that in the years since the land emerged from the last of a long line of invaders and colonial powers, Israel has indeed become a light to the nations—the demonstrable near-universal preference for darkness notwithstanding.

Success under ideal conditions is a noteworthy achievement.  Israel has learned how to thrive under conditions as adverse as those facing any nation on the planet.  The country has opened its arms to countless immigrants; developed a world-class economy; demonstrated unrivaled excellence in innovation and education; established truly liberal governance and a genuinely independent judiciary; quelled brutal ethnic uprisings with unequaled restraint; enacted a generous social safety network; and never once deviated from the state’s liberal underpinnings.  It has achieved all of these goals under constant threat of annihilation, and amidst overwhelming opprobrium.  Indeed, the Jewish State has become the Jew of the States—proving that the unthinkable is doable, and meeting near-universal resentment for doing so.

Alan Dershowitz at the JPost Conference: A Case Study in Elitist Arrogance

It's rare that direct personal experience provides an opportunity to call a prominent speaker to task.  The esteemed Professor Dershowitz of Harvard Law School has provided me with such an opportunity.

For the past couple of weeks, Dershowitz has been positioning himself as a martyr in the cause of peace.  For example, in today's Jerusalem Post, he writes: "I was booed and jeered at the Jerusalem Post Conference on April 28, 2013 when I proposed an idea for restarting peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority."  

Don't believe it for a minute.  I was at that conference and in that audience.  It was Dershowitz that was entirely out of line, demonstrating rare arrogance and contempt for people eager to hear what he had to say.

NOT the Tenth Anniversary of the Iraq War

Ten years ago this week, the U.S. military began a push that led to the toppling of a totalitarian tyrant named Saddam Hussein.

As a result, many publications have printed articles describing this week as the Tenth Anniversary of the Iraq War, and attempted to discuss the lessons of those past ten years.

Don't let any of them fool you.  This week is emphatically NOT the Tenth Anniversary of the Iraq War, or even of the U.S. role in Iraq.

The Iraq war started over twenty years ago, on August 2, 1990.

Limited Government and Drone Strikes

Even the NYT has a mild rebuke for the President concerning his use of drones to assassinate American citizens.

Let's stipulate: Anwar al-Alawaki was a really bad guy, and the world is better off with him dead.

But my problems with the policy as stated are identical to those that I cited during the Bush Administration (and the Obamacare debate, come to think of it): The United States has a limited government. That means that every government action must fall beneath some limiting principle, and be subject to some sort of oversight. If an assassination is not a criminal matter (subject to applicable parts of the Bill of Rights) and it is not an act of war (subject to Geneva conventions and other treaties), what is it and what limits it?

I have been arguing for more than a decade that we need to develop a new body of laws and principles capable of preserving our notions of limited government and oversight without hampering our ability to defeat terrorist. I would advocate that Congress grant the President (though not ill-defined high officials) the authority that Obama claims to have--much as I advocated that Congress grant President Bush most of the authority that he claimed as necessary to combat terror. But I stand strongly opposed to a President who simply claims such an authority without limitation or oversight.

Why I am a Republican

I wasn't always a Republican.  From George McGovern through Al Gore, I was a die-hard, active Democrat.

By 2002, I saw my party start to change.  I saw the internal dynamics shift, as positions that I once proclaimed proudly as my own moved to the party's periphery, then beyond the pale.  In 2004 I backed John Kerry--reluctantly and unhappily--as the party's last hope of preventing the takeover by its Henry Wallace wing, now labeled Progressive.  Kerry lost, Howard Dean became DNC chair, and for the very first time I dropped my party registration.  I became an independent.

Five years later, in 2010, the Tea Party erupted on the scene.  Though I was less than completely aligned with many of its elements, I saw it (and see it) as an immensely positive force, a force capable of reshaping the Republican Party.  I became a Republican--not because I fell in love with the GOP of 2010, but because I saw the potential for it to become a party I could embrace in full.  I saw myself with two choices: I could either challenge the GOP to become the party that I wanted while standing outside, or I could bring myself beneath the GOP tent and try to nudge it in my own direction.

Something seems to be working.  Today's GOP is moving closer to a small-government party, closer to a party of open markets (rather than cronyism), and closer to a freedom party than ever before.  It is also coming closer to a party that champions American engagement abroad, and sees U.S. leadership as critical to a prosperous, free, interconnected world.

But it is not yet where it needs to be.  There is too much residual stupidity, nonsense, and occasional venality.  It continues to fight battles whose outcome has already been decided, largely on immigration and social issues.  It still possesses a strain that believes in imposing, rather than motivating, a particular view of moral behavior.  There is clearly much work to be done.

Which is why it heartens me to see a piece like this one, where Peggy Noonan enumerates a world of positive steps unfolding in but the past two weeks.

The GOP is still not the party I would like it to be.  But with each passing month it continues to move closer.

And that is why I am a Republican.

The Promise and the Threat

America is a country of great promise and great strength.

That strength rests upon an idea most radical.  From its inception, America valued individual dignity and respected individual freedom.  We are a nation born without a king, without nobility, without a priesthood, without a plan.  We grew as an experiment, by expression and reflecting the desires of our citizenry rather than by fiat of some elite.  From millions of individual small decision grew a society of unrivaled complexity, opportunity, mobility, and strength.

America will never fall to a military coup, nor will we fall to a foreign invader.  But that does not mean that we will stand forever.  The fall of America, should it occur, will unfold slowly and stealthily.  We will fall only to a leader of our own choosing, a great American who perverts our institutions and our ideals into unrecognizable form, a voice that inspires us to corrupt our society in the name of our loftiest ideals.  America's fall from grace will occur when we follow such a leader. When that day arrives: 

We will trap people in poverty in the name of compassion;

We will restrict expression the name of sensitivity;

We will denigrate faith in the name of humanity;

We will see earners as greedy and takers as worthy in the name of equity;

We will discriminate in the name of ending discrimination;

We will abandon our allies to placate our foes in the name of peace;

We will foment social tension in the name of protecting citizens from each other;

We will elevate paternalism over our own instincts in the name of progress;

We will feel entitled to things that others must provide in the name of justice;

In short, we will embrace slavery only when it comes wrapped in the language of freedom.  And it will occur precisely because a majority of us fail to see it happening until it is too late, welcoming the subtle redefinitions as expressions of our strength.          

Therein lies the greatest threat to America.

The hope lies with those dedicated to the grand American experiment, those who remain capable of seeing light even as a majority deny the darkness slowly enveloping us.

On The Obama II Foreign Policy Team

President Obama added clarity to his foreign policy plans for his second term today.  He announced his plans to nominate John Brennan to head the CIA and Chuck Hagel to head the Pentagon--rounding out a team that started with his announcement of John Kerry as his Secretary of State.

I have three immediate thoughts about this team:

First, it represents American weakness at its best.  These folks will work together to the detriment of American interests and American allies around the world.  The damage that they do may be incalculable.

Second, this team is a fair and accurate reflection of President Obama's worldview.  He, like they, see America as a nation in decline, retreating from the world, and hoping only to do so in an orderly fashion.  He, like they, views Israel as an irritant, and nuclear powers like Iran and North Korea as manageable problems.  None of them put much stock in liberty or human rights outside our borders, reasoning (in grand tradition) that as long as other nations do not attack us overtly, their treatment of their own citizens is none of our business.

Third, this team continues the party realignment that I have been writing about for nearly a decade.  Yes, Hagel was a Republican.  In fact, he was precisely the sort of Republican who kept me from supporting the Republican Party.  Back when I was an active Democrat, nearly all of my Democratic friends viewed Chuck Hagel as among the worst of the worst.  I suppose that the message is that they made their peace with Hagel; I made my peace with a Republican Party that relegated Hagel to the sidelines.

All told, these appointments make a great deal of sense.  Over the past decade, large parts of the old Republican isolationist and "realist" establishment has made common cause with the old Democratic peace movement.  Today's Democratic Party provides a comfortable home for all who have viewed the U.S. as needlessly aggressive and insufficiently attentive to the needs of others.  

Let no one say that these appointments caught them by surprise.  President Obama has not been subtle in expressing his worldview.  Those of us who voted against him on foreign policy grounds find these appointments appalling.  I hope that those who voted for him on foreign policy grounds find these appointments exhilirating.  Because otherwise, shame on them!

Bibi's Gift to Obama

Events in Gaza occur on multiple levels.  In the foreground, the IDF is fighting Hamas forces.  In the background, an important round of the U.S./Iran proxy war is unfolding.  Here is why:

In the front story, Hamas chose to use the days following the Obama reelection to escalate its persistent missile attacks on Israel.  Israel chose to respond to this escalation with a significant show of force.  But the real action may be in the back story.    

With this current action in Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has given Obama an opportunity to achieve his goals vis-à-vis Iran.

My Comments on Trade in the Los Angeles Times

Hard to believe that I forgot to link to the article, but it came out November 7 and I was a bit preoccupied.

The Informationist 2012 Endorsement: Mitt Romney for President

With less than a week remaining before the election, it is time for me to issue my endorsement.  The choice is easy.  On Tuesday, November 6, Americans should elect Mitt Romney our next President.

Any election involving an incumbent necessarily raises two questions: Has the incumbent earned a second term?  And if not, is there any reason to believe that the challenger promises to be an improvement?

The first question is easy: Barack Obama has underperformed by any reasonable standard.  He has strengthened our enemies abroad at the expense of our friends, and in doing so put American lives in danger.  He has increased the burdensome overhead of regulations and attacked businesses large and small, and in doing so impoverished Americans at home.  On the issues about which he professes to care most, he has been no better: His policies have entrenched the worst elements of our health care system and misallocated research resources dedicated to environmental improvement.  And while he has said some fine things about ending discrimination and reforming immigration, he has effected no little change in either area.  In short, there is no reasonable metric, standard, or value set capable of suggesting that President Obama has earned a second term.

That conclusion, standing alone, is insufficient to suggest that Mitt Romney would be an improvement.  Romney himself appears to be a basically decent man, and a polished business negotiator with a keen eye for talent.  His natural orientation seems to be a competent technocrat of the center-right—an effective counterpart to Bill Clinton’s center-left governing style without Clinton’s oversized personality (or its numerous accompanying strengths and weaknesses).  His choice of Paul Ryan as his running mate, however, is telling.  Ryan is likely the individual most closely associated with a willingness to face a painful reality: Our most popular programs face the choice of restructuring or insolvency.  Conventional wisdom drives wise politicians to the safety of ignoring this choice until insolvency is upon us; Ryan personifies the courage to address this issue while we still have a choice.  On the critical matters of economic policy and entitlement reform, it is hard to think of a combination superior to Romney’s technocratic execution of Ryan’s reform plans.  That promise alone is enough to earn Romney my endorsement.

With that said, it is worthwhile to expand on some of the critical issues underlying my conclusion.