Quote of the day

"It must be, in any free society, OK to be as open as you want to be about your dislike of a set of ideas. Otherwise it becomes impossible to think, it becomes impossible to have any kind of interchange of thought in a society, if you are told that there are ideas which are off limits. Nothing is off limits."

Salman Rushdie, 10/11/06, New York City (hat tip: LGF). His part of the recording starts with an introduction around minute 16, and he actually starts speaking a little before minute 21. The quote above is just after minute 27.

The total recording (including a shorter segment in the beginning with Ibn Warraq, which is also good) runs a bit over an hour. If you have the time, though, it is certainly worth it. He touches on a number of aspects of religious tolerance, and along the way covers the Danish cartoons, veils in the UK, and the lack of Muslim outrage about genocide in Africa (among other things).

He also takes a shot at many intellectuals of the Left (with whom I suspect he would normally find himself in more comfortable company) regarding their reluctance to criticize certain groups (about minute 43):

"And for the Left to refuse to understand the nature of the people that they're refusing to criticize is a historical mistake as great as those who were the fellow travelers of Stalinist communism in an earlier age."

I'll write another time about how important Rushdie was to me growing up. For now, I'll just leave you to listen to his words for yourself.

But who will speak for the trees?

Tuesday's Wall Street Journal (sorry, no link - it is actually one of the only things I still read a hard copy of) ran a front page story about a controversy brewing in San Francisco over . . . trees:

"'Wanted' posters went up around the Tenderloin last year, featuring Ms. Abst's photo. Someone circulated pamphlets disparaging her. Residents yelled at her in the street. Ms. Abst's offense: trying to plant 400 trees in the area. 'I had no idea that cleanliness, beauty, and safety could get people so riled up,' the 58-year-old says.

In San Francisco's Tenderloin, residents aren't fighting the usual gentrification battle over displacing low-income families. Instead they are fighting for the neighborhood's gritty ambiance."

I've actually stayed in the Tenderloin a few times over the years. It is a pretty good neighborhood for finding (especially along the periphery) cheaper tourist hotels, and I've hit it when I've been on a particularly tight budget. It is also notoriously crime-ridden, and full of a number of other problems. Definitely not the place for everybody (before all of you run off to book your rooms). And, to be blunt, it could use some trees.

Carolynn Abst opened a business there in 1999, and moved into the neighborhood to live with her husband as well. I mention this to suggest that, having been there a number of years now both professionally and privately, she certainly has earned the right to participate in local politics and issues. Then again, I guess not everyone agrees:

"Ms. Anarchy says she frequently consults with Mr. Sycamore to figure out ways to stop beautification efforts. She attends neighborhood meetings held by the likes of Ms. Abst in order to disrupt the gatherings, loudly seeking to refocus the proceedings on her agenda of rights for sex workers. 'I'm giving voice to the voiceless,' Ms. Anarchy says."

The group that put out the wanted posters is called Gay Shame and refers to itself as "a Virus in the System." Visiting their website is the kind of thing that you do on a slow afternoon is order to get a chuckle. Today was just such a day.

They are actually against gay marriage. Of course, that is because they are against all forms of marriage:

"Don't forget-marriage is the central institution of that misogynist, racist system of domination and oppression known as heterosexuality. Don't get us wrong-we support everyone's right to fuck whomever they want-we're just not in favor of supporting the imperialist, bloodthirsty status quo."

They are also so against pretty much any form of economic prosperity and commerce that they even targeted the business that has been in the neighborhood for over 30 years and gives them free meeting space (despite not being able to make its own rent). Oops:

"Gay Shame frequently encounters hostility for challenging inconsistencies; we consider this risk-taking a measure of our own integrity. Nevertheless, we do have a reputation for making rash decisions, and the stencil outside Modern Times did not improve our (usually undeserved) image. Nor did it help to articulate our politics-- we ended up removing the stencil from the sidewalk with a toxic can of chemicals. Some within the group believed that we were backing down from our politics, but most of us were glad to find a remedy to an uncomfortable situation."

They may be against most businesses, but they certainly know what they are for - sex in public:

"While sex is not legal in bars, My Place has been renowned for decades as a backroom dive. Clearly, the bar is walking a delicate line in order to stay open, but talking about 'getting rid' of the clientele who have kept the bar open and hiring 'sex police' to do the ABC's job is unacceptable, and furthers a reactionary, silencing agenda. . . We will not accept a crackdown on public sex. . ."

They are definitely no fans of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, and are probably the only people in the country who think he is some kind of far right stooge They do have a mayoral platform of their own, though (which I will give them the benefit of the doubt about and assume is satire):

"All members of the SFPD and any other law enforcement agency will be used as nutritious compost to fertilize Golden Gate Park.

Mary supports terrorism in all its forms…as long as the right people get hurt!! . . .

Last year over 169 homeless people dies on the streets of San Francisco. This year 16,900 rich fascist politicians will take their places. . .

Unemployed activists will be given productive employment throwing rocks and boulders through the windows of all live-work loft-style condominiums until all loft owners are forced to take shelter in the bay."

At this point, I'm inclined to sponsor a tree myself, if for no other reason than to piss them off.

Prohibition in a taxi

So it turns out that an increasing (and non-trivial) number of cab drivers in Minneapolis refuse to accept passengers that are carrying alcohol (original hat tip: Little Green Footballs). Not drunk. Not drinking. Not carrying open bottles. No, we're talking about people in possession of sealed, legal bottles of alcoholic beverages.

I don't want to talk about the legal question of whether or not this is allowed. My quick perusal of NY taxi regulations (see section 2-50) suggests that it wouldn't be permitted out here, but I know that there are plenty of lawyers in the country that could shed more light on this than I. Instead, I want to talk about the principle involved, and how that fits within an open society.

The argument by the drivers is that it conflicts with and/or offends their religious beliefs to have to accept fares that carry alcohol. If this is the operative principal - namely that one can refuse service (in a regulated, licensed industry, no less) because of personal offense or beliefs - then under what rationale could we proscribe a driver from refusing service to:

• someone carrying certain types of foods (non-kosher, for example)?
• a member of the military (could be a pacifist driver)?
• an African-American (if the driver was a white supremacist)?
• an unmarried, unrelated man and woman traveling together?

We could keep coming up with other examples all day, but you get the point. Again, I don't want to hear "legalese" about protected versus non-protected classes, etc. - that is a different issue. I want to hear about the principle involved.

People are welcome to their beliefs. Yet it is simply not true that at every point where an individual's personal belief clashes against societal norms, that the personal belief has to triumph over the rest. Actually, very close to the opposite is true, at least insofar as the public sphere is concerned. To live in a society such as ours is to implicitly accept an affirmative responsibility to work/live/peacefully coexist with people very different from you. And that includes people with whom you disagree. If you don't like that deal, then maybe this isn't the place for you. Don't worry - it's a big world, and you have other options.

If you hold certain beliefs so strongly, you inevitably preclude yourself from certain professions. Just like the Amish shouldn't expect to be electricians, nor most vegans butchers, people who want to pick and choose passengers based on their perceived purity shouldn't be cab drivers. Think that's unfair? Tough.

I'm curious: if they do install these special lights atop taxis out there, showing drivers that refuse to accept passengers with alcohol, am I allowed to refuse to let them take me somewhere even if it is their turn? Can I get to the front of the taxi line, look down it, and demand to be taken by the first "all inclusive" cab available, even if it is ten cabs down? Can I do that since I find "offensive" the policy that led to the lights being installed in the first place? If I do this, what will the reaction of the affected drivers be? Of the dispatcher? Of the public?

It is time to state something so central to the modern experience of a free people that we should never need reminding. Alas, it seems that we do, and so I now offer it here for the first - but I'm sure not the last - time on this blog:

There is no right not to be offended.

You read past that too quickly. Slow down. Try it again, and really let it sink in this time:

There is no right not to be offended.

Your rights stop right when they run into mine, and I've been known to be offensive from time to time. Democracy, freedom, and the market place of ideas - there is nothing in there that says you can't be offended. The great ideas, the strong ideas, the true ideas - those survive quite nicely in an environment that permits and encourages dissent, even mockery. The best among them even thrive.

Those ideas or people that can't handle the heat, that need special protection from competition like an antiquated industry of a bygone era, that are so unsure of their own veracity that they must not set eyes upon the opposition - well, you probably know how I feel about those.

Oh, and the next time I am in Minneapolis, I'm getting into a cab that takes me regardless of what I'm carrying. I'll call it a Freedom Cab, and I'll be getting in it whether there's a bottle of wine in my suitcase or not. I hope you do the same.

Oratorical envy

I know very little about domestic British politics, and the little I do know suggests that I wouldn't be a fan of Labour if I lived there. That said, there should be no doubt about my continued admiration for Tony Blair's ability to clearly explain the importance and severity of the problem that the West now faces. I will also admit a little envy at his talents, as there are few among even President Bush's most ardent supporters who don't find his locution lacking at times.

The latest example of Blair's skill was seen yesterday at a Labour Party conference, a clip of which can be found here. Listening to that excerpt reminded me how much I enjoyed his address to Congress a few years ago. I went and found the transcript online, and it lived up to my recollection:

"There is a myth that though we love freedom, others don't; that our attachment to freedom is a product of our culture; that freedom, democracy, human rights, the rule of law are American values, or Western values; that Afghan women were content under the lash of the Taliban; that Saddam was somehow beloved by his people; that Milosevic was Serbia's savior.

Members of Congress, ours are not Western values, they are the universal values of the human spirit. And anywhere...

Anywhere, anytime ordinary people are given the chance to choose, the choice is the same: freedom, not tyranny; democracy, not dictatorship; the rule of law, not the rule of the secret police.

The spread of freedom is the best security for the free. It is our last line of defense and our first line of attack. And just as the terrorist seeks to divide humanity in hate, so we have to unify it around an idea. And that idea is liberty."

The part of the speech that I liked the best at the time, though, and again today was the end:

"And I know it's hard on America, and in some small corner of this vast country, out in Nevada or Idaho or these places I've never been to, but always wanted to go...

I know out there there's a guy getting on with his life, perfectly happily, minding his own business, saying to you, the political leaders of this country, 'Why me? And why us? And why America?'

And the only answer is, 'Because destiny put you in this place in history, in this moment in time, and the task is yours to do.'

And our job, my nation that watched you grow, that you fought alongside and now fights alongside you, that takes enormous pride in our alliance and great affection in our common bond, our job is to be there with you.

You are not going to be alone. We will be with you in this fight for liberty.

We will be with you in this fight for liberty. And if our spirit is right and our courage firm, the world will be with us." (emphasis added)

I like that part so much because it correctly captures and then addresses the American reluctance to engagement that characterizes many of us and much of our history. I know my friends from Europe and elsewhere find that tough to believe, but I also think that many of them have spent little time with the great bulk of America that lives outside New York and Washington. America correctly feels burdened, and struggles to understand why others don't see that.

And the answer is that such is the hand we were dealt. Life is unfair, its burdens falling unevenly, its calls to leadership going out to certain peoples at certain times. Tony Blair gets it. I hope that the next leader that Britain chooses does so as well.

The long haul

Jay Nordlinger has an interview up with Donald Rumsfeld, where the Secretary of Defense offers some interesting thoughts about our current situation in the context of the Cold War:

"I remind Rumsfeld that, when we last talked — three years ago — I asked him whether the American people would stick with the War on Terror. And he replied, on that occasion, 'They stuck with the Cold War.'

'Yeah,' Rumsfeld says now. 'Long time. Lot of wavering. A lot of cold feet at the various points along the way. I remember being in Spain and getting a phone call saying I had to come back to testify against the Mansfield Amendment,' which proposed to pull U.S. troops out of Europe. 'I was ambassador to NATO at the time — early ’70s. And here you are: The Cold War’s in full flower, and the Soviet Union’s making mischief in Central America and Africa and subjugating Eastern Europe . . .' Yet the proposal was made all the same. . .

So, continues the SecDef, 'you look back on it now and say, ‘Oh, my goodness, it was a good, straight, upward path. We all knew all along the Cold War would last a long time. We knew all along it would be tough, but we never wavered and never doubted.’ And we did waver and doubt, and there were plenty of people who got cold feet as they went along.' . . .

The Terror War, says Rumsfeld, is 'going to be long, much more like the Cold War than World War I or II in terms of length.' And it’s going to be won, 'as much as by anything,' by 'people within that faith,' Islam, 'who don’t want to see their religion hijacked and who are not violent extremists and who do not get up in the morning and think that beheading people and forcing everyone else to be exactly like they want them to be is the preferred way of life.'"

We have a tendency to romanticize things that have come before - to think that people were more united than they were, that the eventually successful strategy was obvious to all (or any) at the time, that there weren't people thought to be right in the moment who were proven to be wrong in the end. It is useful to remember that history is always messy, especially when it is being made.

Oh and by the way, I'm pretty sure Rumsfeld wasn't talking about this guy when he was discussing who needs to step up within Islam:

"Sheikh Abu Saqer, leader of Gaza's Jihadia Salafiya Islamic outreach movement, which seeks to make secular Muslims more religious, called for holy war against the Pope.

He said Christian leaders such as Benedict XVI are 'afraid' because they realize Islam is Allah's favorite religion and that they are going to hell unless they convert. The Gaza preacher declared the 'green flag of Muhammad' would soon be raised over the Vatican. . .

Abu Saqer claimed he did not condone violence. He blamed the pope for recent anti-Christian attacks in the Palestinian territories.

'We are deeply sorry for these acts that we condemn. But I am sorry that this little racist did not think of the consequences upon the Christians in the Arab world when he insulted our Prophet. It is an open war - the Muslims against all the others.'"

Be careful of opening that door

"'Those who habitually accuse us of 'not doing enough' in the war on terror should simply ask the CIA how much prize money it has paid to the government of Pakistan,' he [Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf] says, without specifying where the money came from." (link; via Drudge)

Or maybe we should ask what type of ally would have us pay it "prize money," or what those nearly 700 Al-Qaeda suspects were doing in Pakistan to begin with, or how this "truce" is going to work. I'm just saying . . .

UPDATE: File this under unbelievable (hat tip: Alarming News):

"'Pakistan's military ruler, Pervez Musharraf, says he contemplated war with the United States in 2001 but opted instead to forsake the Taliban and become President George W. Bush's ally,' the Globe and Mail reports."

The article goes on to describe how Pakistan "war-gamed" conflict with the US and, after discovering it would lose, then decided to support US efforts. It follows, then, that if they thought they could resist US military pressure, they would have fought on the side of the Taliban?

Nice to know who our friends are.

Oh, and not for nothing, but maybe all that unified, global sympathy that I keep hearing we squandered after 9/11 didn't run quite as deep as some would have you believe, if in the aftermath Pakistan was trying to figure out if it should take us on in battle.

Bush at the UN

Two parts of the President's speech at the UN yesterday that I wanted to draw attention to. The first I just happened to like:

"Some have argued that the democratic changes we're seeing in the Middle East are destabilizing the region. This argument rests on a false assumption: that the Middle East was stable to begin with. The reality is that the stability we thought we saw in the Middle East was a mirage.

For decades, millions of men and women in the region had been trapped in oppression and hopelessness. And these conditions left a generation disillusioned and made this region a breeding ground for extremism.

Imagine what it's like to be a young person living in a country that is not moving toward reform. You're 21 years old, and while your peers in other parts of the world are casting their ballots for the first time, you are powerless to change the course of your government. While your peers in other parts of the world have received educations that prepare them for the opportunities of a global economy, you have been fed propaganda and conspiracy theories that blame others for your country's shortcomings. And everywhere you turn, you hear extremists who tell you that you can escape your misery and regain your dignity through violence and terror and martyrdom.

For many across the broader Middle East this is the dismal choice presented every day. Every civilized nation, including those in the Muslim world, must support those in the region who are offering a more hopeful alternative."

The second one was a nice little dig at his hosts:

"To the people of Darfur, you have suffered unspeakable violence. And my nation has called these atrocities what they are: genocide."

If you are unaware, the comment was a reference to this. Take a look - doesn't it almost seem like a spoof of what you thought a competent authority would do, more concerned with scoring law review rhetorical points than stopping the homicide in question? It makes me more and more inclined to agree with this type of thinking (which is quite good, and worth your time to check out).

Show them the respect of believing what they say

There is a must-read piece (registration required) in the Los Angeles Times by Sam Harris (hat tip: Instapundit) about the reality of the threat to the West from Islamic extremism. What Harris focuses on is the inability of many liberals to accept the nature and seriousness of the problem. Here is a lengthy quote, but be sure to read the whole thing:

"A cult of death is forming in the Muslim world — for reasons that are perfectly explicable in terms of the Islamic doctrines of martyrdom and jihad. The truth is that we are not fighting a 'war on terror.' We are fighting a pestilential theology and a longing for paradise.

This is not to say that we are at war with all Muslims. But we are absolutely at war with those who believe that death in defense of the faith is the highest possible good, that cartoonists should be killed for caricaturing the prophet and that any Muslim who loses his faith should be butchered for apostasy. . .

At its most extreme, liberal denial has found expression in a growing subculture of conspiracy theorists who believe that the atrocities of 9/11 were orchestrated by our own government. . .

Such an astonishing eruption of masochistic unreason could well mark the decline of liberalism, if not the decline of Western civilization. There are books, films and conferences organized around this phantasmagoria, and they offer an unusually clear view of the debilitating dogma that lurks at the heart of liberalism: Western power is utterly malevolent, while the powerless people of the Earth can be counted on to embrace reason and tolerance, if only given sufficient economic opportunities."

I don't agree with him on everything, but what is clear is that a lot of people don't understand what we are up against. I can understand their reluctance; knowing that many impassioned, irrational people want you dead is, well, at the least disquieting. Ignoring this problem won't work, though. These issues are all too real, rather than some figment of an overly self-indulgent imagination. Don't believe me? How about this, this, this, and this? (all via Drudge) And that for reading a quote.

Do we think these or other such threats are hollow? If yes, then why are we worried about trying to stem such reactions? If no, then when are we going to unite at least in the fundamental understanding of the scope of the problem we face?