Do the Iraqis Deserve to be Free?

From: http://shrillblog.blogspot.com/2004/09/wall-street-journal-reporter-farnaz.html#comments
"I asked a 28-year-old engineer if he and his family would participate  in the Iraqi elections since it was the first time Iraqis could to  some degree elect a leadership. His response summed it all: "Go and vote and risk being blown into pieces or followed by the insurgents and murdered for cooperating with the Americans? For what? To practice democracy? Are you joking?"

This sad comment made me reflect on the risks that the people of what's now the United States faced when fighting for their own freedom to participate in self-government. Like the Iraqis we faced a choice between submission to tyrrany and facing danger to win our freedom. Unlike the Iraqis we had little help (well the French made a token appearance) and little guidance and no history of past revolutionary successes to encourage us. Yet with massive US support and a history of free governments around the world to look to for examples, many Iraqis would rather not be bothered to fight for their own freedom. They'd rather submit to the tyrrany of mullahs, the threat of persecution, the terror of bombs and the intimidation of gangsters than take a little risk for a life of freedom.

When America fought back against English oppression the rebels faced the same dangers citizens of Iraq face today. They risked their lives because they believed that the rewards of freedom were worth any risk, even if they were only enjoyed by their orphaned children. Liberty meant something to them and they wanted it enough to die for it. If the Iraqis aren't willing to take a little risk with the US army holding their hands and watching their backs, then perhaps they deserve the future of oppression which their complacency and cowardice earns them.

In this world those without principles or convictions beyond saving their own skin are the weak prey of predators with principles they will fight and die for no matter how abhorent they may be. I may hate the terrorists, but I still respect them more than the common citizens whose innaction allows free reign to terrorist abuse. Until the people embrace freedom as a principle as sacred to them as religious bigotry, nationalism and the lust for power are to the forces of terror, they will live degraded lives of violence and horror with nothing better to look forward to.

If you won't fight for the freedom you ought to be entitled to you end up with all the oppression you deserve.

The Gas Pump Ate My Wallet!

You may have noticed that gas prices are at 'historic' high levels. What that means is that they're super high compared to what we've gotten used to, but not quite as high as they were under Jimmy Carter when prices are adjusted for inflation. Everyone's moaning and whining about how much they're paying. Right now it's an average of an extra $500 per vehicle per year, and that's a shock. It's counterracted the Bush tax cut, it's breaking the back of the working man, it's going to lead to runaway inflation, and so on.

Here's the truth. Gas prices have been artificially low in the US for decades. It's been great for the auto industry and it has helped keep other consumer prices down, but it's also built up hugely false expectations, led to dangerous complacency in a number of industries devastated our balance of trade and cost us a good measure of our economic independence. People in every other country around the world are paying more than twice what we pay for gas and they find a way to live with it. Right now we only see the short term cost, but maybe it's time to look at the long term benefits of higher gas prices and really embrace reality and encourage them to go even higher.

Yes, lower gas prices do save us gas money and let us drive bigger and more expensive cars. They also reduce the prices of most consumer goods which are distributed nationwide by truck. Here's what low gas prices have also done. They've destroyed our domestic oil industry by making it unprofitable to exploit the massive oil resources here in the US. They've destroyed the railroad industry because they make trucking goods cheap enough that trucks can outperform railroads which are by nature a more cost effective and efficient means of transporting goods. They've encouraged stagnation in the auto industry. Better, more efficient engines have been designed, but because gas prices are so low the market demand for them is low, so they aren't being produced with much enthusiasm. As a side effect of this, low gas prices contribute to higher levels of pollution. They increase the tax burden for everyone because high levels of traffic increase maintenance cost for highways. They've encouraged urban sprawl, made urban mass transport impractical and expensive, put us at the economic mercy of terrorist nations in the Middle East, and the list goes on and on. They've even been a large factor in the decline of small farmers because with cheap trucking it's easier to bring in produce from outside of the country or from huge agrobusinesses than to buy from small local producers. Low gas prices are at the root of many of the economic problems we face today.

Yes, high gas prices hit us hard in the wallet. But what's the natural response to an unexpected expense? You look for ways to economize. You don't like paying so much for gas for your Hummer? Go out and buy a smaller car. Go out and buy an electric car. Go out and buy a hybrid car. You might even take a look at public transportation. Did you know that a company called UQM has developed a hybrid engine for your Hummer? But because gas prices have been so low it hadn't been planning to make it available to the public. Higher gas prices change that. Higher gas prices mean that you might soon be able to buy a Hummer which gets better gas mileage than a mid-size sedan does now. Several companies have viable electric cars ready to go to market as well. They've just held off from major distribution because they couldn't compete with regular cars because gas prices have been so low.

With higher gas prices we can reopen our oil fields, cut our trade imbalance, revive the failing railroad industry, give the lazy car companies a kick the right direction and even give small farmers a shot in the arm as regional produce distribution becomes more economically attractive than nationwide trucking of produce. That might even lead to an end for farm subsidies. Every additional cent you pay for gas is an investment in strengthening our economy, improving our environment and making our nation stronger. Plus, higher gas prices mean lower taxes. Fewer drivers and smaller cars reduces wear on the highways. Subsidies and bailouts to railroads, urban transport systems and farmers will become a thing of the past if gas prices go high enough.

Realistically, gas prices around $2 a gallon aren't high enough to cause all these changes quickly. But they're a step on the way to the key breaking point of $3 per gallon. What we really need on top of this increase in gas prices is a whopping big federal gas tax. Don't expect to see such a move from the Bush administration, but a $1 a gallon tax on gas would push the price high enough to bring about immediate change, plus it would put enough revenue into the federal coffers that they could balance the budget and pay for the War in Iraq and maybe even lower our taxes at the same time. Another quarter or so in state taxes would solve state budget problems just as quickly. Conservatively, with a $1 tax on each gallon of gas we'd be looking at over $200 Billion in added revenue for the federal government per year. That's enough money to solve a lot of problems. Here in the State of Texas a quarter a gallon would be at least $4.5 billion for the state each year. That's more than we need to solve our education funding problems.

So, embrace higher gas prices. Write your congressman, write your governor, write the president. Tell them you're ready to see gas at $3 a gallon and the sooner the better. Pay more for gas, stick it to the Arabs and see our economy boom.

What Unemployment?

Apparently one of the big issues the democrats plan to raise in the upcoming presidential election is the George Bush's failure to hold down unemployment, the flight of jobs overseas and the grim prospects for the job market in America during the next few years, presumably a crisis which only a democrat can deal with effectively. If that's their best campaign strategy they're going to be seriously embarassed in November, since the real facts on unemployment are easy for anyone to figure out, and the future of America's job market, while troubling in some ways - bears no resemblance to their dire predictions.

Despite the frantic complaints of the left, soppy Michael Moore films do not make an unemployment problem in America a reality. The numbers speak for themselves. The current rate of unemployment (at the end of February) is 5.6 percent. By no measure could that be considered high unemployment. That's historically low unemployment. The average level of unemployment for the last 30 years is 6.8 percent, so the current unemployment level is about 18% lower than average. High unemployment is numbers like the 9.7% unemployment of the early years of the Reagan administration when there really was a recession. When unemployment gets that high you can genuinely complain about people being out of work.

The lowest unemployment ever gets in the US is about 4%. It's really almost impossible for it to go much lower than that because of the chronic unemployed, people who are either incapable or unwilling to keep a job or seek a job. Any unemployment over that 4% is made up of people who are genuinely unemployed, looking for work, or between jobs. Currently that's about 1.6% of the working population, which means about 3 million people. Unemployment has been historically trending upwards in the last decade or so, because of the growth of the element of the population which changes jobs frequently. In some parts of the country people average less than 9 months at their jobs because they get hired away by another company at a better salary or in a better location. Increasingly, this group who are between jobs for at most a month or two make up the majority of those enemployed who are not part of the chronically unemployed 4%.

The reality is that if you want a job in the US right now, not only is a job available, but you probably have a choice of desirable jobs at a respectable salary. Take a look at the employment section in your local paper. Why are all those job listings there? Ask the Human Resources managers at large companies, at temp agencies or with government offices. They have good jobs at respectable salaries which go listed and unfilled for months at a time. There are certain areas in our economy which cannot find qualified people to do the jobs they are desperate to fill, and I'm not just talking about fast food restaurants. There is a shortage of competent white colar clerical workers in many parts of the country, a desperate shortage of nurses, and great demand in other areas as well. Companies are offering hiring incentives, training programs and taking other desperate measures to try to find workers with the skills they need in almost every sector of the economy.

These facts leave us asking why exactly all these unemployed people the democrats keep talking about don't have a job. The true situation for those who seem to be unemployed for more than a month or two and are actually looking for a job is that they are trained in specialized skills and are unwilling because of pride or unrealistic expectations to take a job which doesn't fit their exact field of expertise. This is an issue for the democrats because a lot of those people are union workers who have lost jobs in heavy industry and are unwilling to look for jobs in other fields even if the pay is roughly equivalent. They are encouraged in this by their unions, which help them file unemployment, give them limited support and resources while they are unemployed and hold out the hope that the union will eventually get them their old job or its equivalent back. What the unions would never admit to them is that our economy and our job market are changing, and that those union workers might have to face up to the reality that their old job doesn't exist and is never coming back. There are still plenty of good jobs out there for them, but they're not the same jobs. They need to bite the bullet and look for work in a new field, even if that requires some additional training, moving to a different part of the country, or changing their lifestyle just a little.

If you really want a job. If you have a family to support. If you feel any sense of responsibility to society. You'll go out and get a job. The jobs are there if you're willing to take them. There's no reason for anyone who wants to work to be unemployed for even a few days. Anyone with a high-school education and some work experience can get at least some sort of job paying well over minimum wage while looking for something more to their taste. If you lost your auto plant job in Flint Michigan, pack your bags, get in your Suburban and get your butt down to the sun belt and work in construction until something better comes along. All it takes is common sense and enough self-respect not to want to live off government handouts.

If the democrats are foolish enough to raise unemployment as an issue in the election and somehow get people to overlook the true statistics, then what do they offer us as an alternative? Kerry, Clinton and their friends would like to have more government control over wages and hiring and firing practices, forcing companies to extend more benefits and keep people employed even when they don't need them. They'd like to adopt a socialized European model with more support for the unemployed, support which encourages those who don't have jobs to stay out of work and not look overly hard for new jobs. The result is that in European countries the unemployment rates are enormously higher than they are here in America, even more jobs go unfilled, more workers have to be imported from outside, more jobs have to be outsourced, and the tax burden on those who do work is enormous. France has 17% unemployment. Germany has unemployment over 25%. Are those the kinds of unemployment numbers the democrats would like to see in the US? In those countries people have learned that if you don't work the government will support you, and for some it's easier to not work and go on the dole than it is to find a job and have all your income taxed away to pay for those who'd rather not work. That really doesn't sound like a better scenario than our current rather low level of unemployment.