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Predictable. From AFP:

Time magazine named the collective “protester” around the world as its person of the year Wednesday, citing the change brought by street demonstrations from Arab countries to New York.

The shared honor for protesters beat the traditional individual contenders, who included Admiral William McCraven, commander of the US mission to kill Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden.

“There’s this contagion of protest,” managing editor Richard Stengel said on NBC television.

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President Barack Obama’s call yesterday for “restraint on all sides” as defenseless Coptic Christians were attacked and murdered in Egypt in a government-supported Islamic pogrom was typical of his administration’s response to attacks by states against civilians.

Though he has, in some cases, come around to criticizing and even toppling regimes, Obama’s first instinct is to treat the perpetrators and the victims as equals.

The sole, and repeated, exception is Israel, which the Obama administration criticizes and condemns for legal activities such as construction within the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem. By contrast, the administration coddles the unrepentant, terror-promoting Palestinian leadership–a fruitless effort, greeted with contempt rather than gratitude.

The same tendency is apparent in Obama’s newly-uncovered attempt to apologize for the atomic blast at Hiroshima, which the Japanese, appropriately, rejected. Obama has had trouble, especially early in his presidency, distinguishing defense from aggression–especially when that defense is on behalf of western democracy.

That is worse than moral equivalence; it is “immoral equivalence,” because it destroys the moral distinction between freedom and tyranny. (more…)

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Pejman Yousefzadeh is joined by Mustafa Akyol to discuss the seeds of liberalism within Islam, how those freedoms were trampled in Muslim countries, and how the Arab Spring and the Green Movement in Iran might restore that personal liberty.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

Islam without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty
Islam Will Find Its Own Way to Freedom
The Forgotten Liberalism Within Islam
Mustafa Akyol on the Basic Compatibility of Islam with Free Market Economy

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American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten recently led a delegation of union representatives to Cairo, Egypt to meet with “leaders of Egyptian unions that were instrumental in the recent political and governmental changes there,” according to a news release issued by the union.

Whoa.  Are public sector unions planning a similar “regime change” here in America?

If not, why would Weingarten be cavorting in the Middle East at a time when American public schools are seeing massive dropout rates, budget reductions and reforms that strike at the base of union power?

Details are scant regarding Weingarten’s trip or agenda.  The union didn’t identify her traveling companions, the Egyptian unions they met with, or what action plan may have been devised.

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We are hearing a great deal about a budding “Democracy movement” spreading throughout the Middle East. Many are calling it an “Arab Spring.” The belief is that after centuries of totalitarian oppression, the Arab street is suddenly pining for more freedom; rebelling against the elitist ruling class of kings, emirs, despots and tyrants. This is most likely true for a great number of those filling the streets of Egypt, Syria, Tunisia, Bahrain and myriad other Middle Eastern, predominantly Muslim nations. But there is a less than honorable component amongst the rebellion that simply waits for the “right” to a democratic vote. Contrary to how the idea of a move to Democracy presents, in the volatile Middle East there are elements in play that could make it a move in the wrong direction.

Each and every day we hear the misnomer that the United States of America is a Democracy. We hear it from the average man on the street, the mainstream media and even from those we have elected to office. But the fact of the matter is this: we are not a Democracy. We are a Constitutional Republic. A thorough and convincing exhibit of the facts surrounding this reality is presented in Notes on Democracy: And the Republic for Which It Stands. The fact that this issue is even in need of address is a scathing commentary on the constitutional illiteracy of the American electorate and serves as a sobering reminder that, often times, what sounds good – what “feels good” – isn’t always as it presents.

The distinction – between the benefits of a Democracy and a Constitutional Republic – is incredibly important, and while some describe our nation as a Democracy in an error of ignorance, others – some with schemes of political opportunism – do so with a nefarious purpose and bad intentions.

James Madison, recognized as the Father of the US Constitution, said this about factions and Democracy in Federalist No. 10:

“Men of factious tempers, of local prejudices, or of sinister designs, may, by intrigue, by corruption, or by other means, first obtain the suffrages, and then betray the interests, of the people…From this view of the subject it may be concluded that a pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions.”

Why is this important in the context of what is happening in the Middle East at this very moment?

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Ishmail Khaldi, Israel’s Advisor for Arab Affairs to discuss his beginnings as a Bedouin living in a tent until he was 8, the Arab Spring, and how the upheaval in the Middle East may effect Israel.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

Ishmail Khaldi
A Shepherd’s Journey: the story of Israel’s first bedouin diplomat
Israeli Bedouin questions American-Jewish apathy
Coffee & Markets: Will the Arab Spring Lead to a War Against Israel?

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Chuck DeVore to talk about the uprisings in the Middle East and how it could lead to a war against Israel.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

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Chuck DeVore: The Next Middle East War
Egyptian generals speak about revolution, elections
Egypt’s liberals worry about loss of clout as Muslim Brotherhood rises

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Desperate times call for desperate measures, and the United Auto Workers’ Bob King thinks he’s just the union boss to make a go of it. With negotiations about to start with the Big Three American auto companies (two of which are UAW-owned), King is ramping up his rhetoric against the CEO of the only automaker that taxpayers did not bailout (Ford’s Mulally), while plotting his strategy for negotiations.

Meanwhile, claiming that he’s fighting for “social justice” and the entire American middle class (as opposed to just trying to save his otherwise failing union), sounding a lot like he is using the model being used to overthrow governments in the middle east, the UAW’s top boss is recruiting global activists to attack UAW-free foreign automakers.

If action is necessary, “we have a new strategy to organize them,” Williams said, which involves mobilizing members, retirees and allies “to expose violations of human rights.”

The efforts fall under the umbrella of the newly created Global Organizing Institute that is training the activists.

“It has the potential to be the largest, sustained consumer action by organized labor,” Williams said. “We have the resources and the people to be successful in this mission.”

In the United States, the Institute has put coordinators in each state to oversee recruits from university campuses and social organizations. An initial group of activists also has been recruited abroad in countries including China, India, Brazil, Japan and South Korea.

This coordinated effort will allow simultaneous protests at a company’s dealerships around the world to press for auto plant union organization in the U.S.

A second wave of eight interns from other countries is wrapping up a visit to the United States, where they interviewed workers at nonunion auto plants in Mississippi and Alabama.

When the UAW picks a company, these young international leaders say they will take action against the target, knowing they have UAW support.

In addition, alliances have been formed with unions in Germany, Japan and South Korea.

Of course, to King and his clan of foreign crusaders, a violator of “human rights” would be any foreign auto company that does not succumb to King’s extortionate version of a “fair election.”

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson is joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss Portugal’s need for a bail out, then Captain Neta Gerri of the Israeli Defense Force talks about the possibility of a new Gaza war, the conflict with the Palestinians, and more.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Robert Tracinski to discuss the uprising in Libya, and Obama’s Free Range Chicken foreign policy. Then, Pejman Yousefzadeh talks about Don Rumsfeld’s new book.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

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Our Schizoid Foreign Policy
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Pej: My Podcast Interview With Donald Rumsfeld
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The stunning speed of events in the Middle East that brought about the fall of Tunisia’s strong-arm dictator, Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, followed by the resignation of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak might suggest that our intelligence services were caught napping.  While the final chapter of the ousters of Mubarak and Ben Ali have not yet been written, depending upon the outcome, political recriminations are certain to follow.  After all, some historians still are asking the question:  “Who lost China?”  While blame is invariably a by‑product of political debate in a democracy, particularly where our intelligence services seem to have been caught flat‑footed, we suspect there is less here than meets the eye.

To over simplify, we might categorize small intelligence failures into two main areas:  those that involve state secrets that could be uncovered only by traditional cloak and dagger work; and those that derive from actual political conditions on the ground that can foment potential revolutionary change.  Even though the latter can involve tens of thousands of people when they erupt, they are more apt to be missed than intelligence that is gathered through traditional sleuthing.  We will get back to the reason for this later in this essay.   Our failure to know that Saddam’s nuclear arsenal didn’t exist or that North Korea would suddenly conduct nuclear tests or that some shadowy group would attack the USS Cole and later the World Trade Center, are failures of our traditional intelligence assets.   Although those events were planned virtually under cover of strict military secrecy, which is obviously difficult to penetrate, it is not an excuse for northpoor undercover work given the billions of dollars we spend on it.

Contrast that with political explosions in Tunisia, Egypt. Libya, Bahrain or Iran, which toppled from power the likes of President Ben Ali, President Mubarak, or, 35 years ago, the Shah of Iran.  Those events, once triggered, seem to take on a life of their own often leading to chaos with participants having different goals . . . or no simple unifying objective.  Sometimes they operate like mobs without leaders.  The forces that are unleashed seem to know what they don’t want (the current despotic leadership) but typically can’t articulate a coherent set of demands.  What is even more difficult to predict is the potential ripple effect of a sea change in a despotic form of government.

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by James Taylor to discuss the regulation of phosphates and why your dishwasher doesn’t work anymore, then Pejman Yousefzadeh talks about the White House and Egypt.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

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The Obama Administration: Missing in Action on Egypt

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson is joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss rising food prices, inflation and the overthrowing of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

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Universally, democracy is being exalted.

Everywhere one turns, one hears of its virtues: how democracy ensures human rights, fosters prosperity and shepherds in modernity.

Yet democracy represents nothing more than the tyranny of the majority.  In other words, contrary to the ideals of western liberalism, democracy does not ensure that the smallest minority, the individual is protected.

In the vast majority of circumstances, people free to choose their government get the government they desire.  In Russia, the people have chosen again and again to elect KGB criminals.  In Gaza, the people have chosen to elect either Hamas or Fatah, terrorist parties in perpetual war.  Democracy does not a free society ensure.

Democracy is merely a system of election – it is not inherently good as its results are entirely predicated on the voters themselves.  Freedom-loving peoples will generally establish a political system to protect freedom.  Those who prefer strict rule will devise a political order that squelches it.

I would argue that any Islamic society will refuse to establish a system grounded in property rights, individual liberty and free market principles because it is completely anathema to Islamic culture, history and religious tenets.

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What is going to happen next in Egypt?  According to Mubarak, “the result will be extremism and radical Islam.”  Others aren’t so sure.  What is certain is that the risk factor in the Middle East has risen again.  That means the world’s oil supply is at risk as well.  A wise country would do what it could to insulate its people from that risk.  It is beyond a serious question as to whether the United States will.

Revolutions are not things of certainty. For instance, once underway, the ideals and prospects for the French Revolution once were touted by the likes of our own Jefferson and Madison. Washington, the soldier among the three, was far more circumspect.  The freedom won by the likes of the Marquis Lafayette in the early days of the French Revolution was lost not long after in the ensuing chaos.  Lafayette, the same man who helped win our Revolution, would eventually be jailed for years while many thousands died in The Terror before Napoleon dashed any hope for democracy.  So much for the foresight of our 3^rd and 4^th Presidents – they fanned the early embers only to see those embers engulf a nation.

Our current President encouraged those taking part in the first Act of Egypt’s current drama.  Given that it was the military of Egypt that removed an intransigent Mubarak and now run its streets, it can hardly be said that freedom has been assured.  The difficult part lies ahead.  The only certainty in front of us now is uncertainty.

Returning to the French Revolution, its affects were hardly restricted to the French.   International trade was affected and the rise of Napoleon brought serious concerns of war in the United States and actual wars to Europe.  Egypt may play a similar role today.

Will Mubarak be right about the future of Egypt?

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When I look at the picture of the horrifically tortured Khaled Said I am sickened.  A government willing to do this – perhaps to thousands of “disappeared” Egyptians over the past 30 years – to silence dissenting voice, to kill humanity, deserves to be reviled by the world.

Technology brought Said’s (and Egypt’s) horror to our eyes.  It exposed what “stability” means there.  No God-fearing person can support this terror.  Nothing justifies that.

I must confess that I was initially torn by what was happening in Egypt, especially as it pertains to the use of Internet technologies to foment the uprising.  I still harbor apprehensions on what lies on the other side of the wall.  To defeat one atrocious regime only to have it possibly replaced with one bent on our destruction unsettles me greatly.

Yet, the default for humanity must be to let voices flourish, and lives to be lived in liberty, over the tyranny of “stability.”  This may sound naïve, even offensive to some, in light of our post 9-11 world.  I cannot, however, reconcile Said with American exceptionalism.

Doubtless, much work and hard choices remain for Egypt, her people, and the region.  The rest of world’s democracies must become involved, too.  As former Prime Minster of Spain, Jose Maria Aznar, put it in his recent WSJ piece, “The Arab World’s 1989?”:

Today, those of us who believe in open societies, in democracy and in freedom, have the obligation to help see that the changes unfolding in the region head in the right direction. In the direction that leads to the rejection of jihad as a political instrument. In the direction that leads to religious freedom, to pluralist democracy, to the acceptance of international law, to an opening to the world, and to respect for universal human rights.

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss Egypt, the possibility of a German owned NYSE and the post-Steve Jobs picture at Apple.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech discuss Donald Berwick’s testimony on Capitol Hill today. Then Pejman Yousefzadeh talks about Mubarak and the White House.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

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Governments throughout the world – Egypt, Iran, Syria, China, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, and on and on – block or dramatically control their peoples’ access to the Internet.

We in America have enjoyed a government-free Web.  Which has led to it becoming a free speech, free market Xanadu.

That all changed December 21^st, when the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) executed a completely unauthorized power grab – and voted themselves Internet Overlords.

These three unelected Democrat bureaucrats did this, they say, to “protect” us from the non-existent threat of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) affecting our access to the Internet.

And the enforcer of this “protection” of our unfettered Internet access?  The government – the entity responsible for myriad instances of Web censorship all over the world.

And these three Donkeys did this in truly authoritarian fashion – in a manner unnervingly reminiscent of what we’ve seen from the aforementioned dictatorial regimes.

Now we are told we need an Internet “kill switch” – granting the President the power to shut down or commandeer control of the nation’s ISPs.

Much like the recent moves of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Does not this cognitive dissonance cause you policy whiplash?

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