Exploring the redistribution of wealth concept

I got an email today from a friend, and can't resist the temptation to share in my museum. It's a sort of  comedy, but I can feel the sarcastic tint trailing my own laugh after reading. I don't know if myself would be the beggar or the waiter under the new government for it all depends how Uncle Sam picks the cutoff line, which seems coming down in recent days. Here's the email and enjoy it.

This was sent to me via a close friend who is a Pastor in South Carolina. It has made the rounds to thousands of people and it seems to be really hitting home with many that read it....

Today on my way to lunch I passed a homeless guy with a sign that read "Vote Obama, I need the money." I laughed.

Once in the restaurant my server had on a "Obama 08" tie, again I laughed, as he had given away his political preference -- just imagine the coincidence.

When the bill came I decided not to tip the server and explained to him that I was exploring the Obama redistribution of wealth concept. He stood there in disbelief while I told him that I was going to redistribute his tip to some one whom I deemed more in need -- the homeless guy outside. The server angrily stormed from my sight.

I went outside, gave the homeless guy $10 and told him to thank the server inside as I had decided he could use the money more. The homeless guy was grateful.

At the end of my rather unscientific redistribution experiment I realized the homeless guy was grateful for the money he did not earn, but the waiter was pretty angry that I gave away the money he did earn, even though the actual recipient deserved money more.

I guess redistribution of wealth is an easier thing to swallow in concept than in practical application.

A Liberal Supermajority - Wall Street Journal Opinion 10/17/08

A Liberal Supermajority

 

Below is an article from October 17, 2008 Wall Street Journal | Opinion. Above is the link. I found the reading very interesting and educational. It helps shed light into this year's American Presidential Election from an abroader and  longer-term view of its possible impact on America's political and ideological landscapes, and some feasible outcome scenarios.  

 

A Liberal Supermajority - Wall Street Journal | Opinion, October 17, 2008

Get ready for 'change' we haven't seen since 1965, or 1933.

 

If the current polls hold, Barack Obama will win the White House on November 4 and Democrats will consolidate their Congressional majorities, probably with a filibuster-proof Senate or very close to it. Without the ability to filibuster, the Senate would become like the House, able to pass whatever the majority wants.

 

Though we doubt most Americans realize it, this would be one of the most profound political and ideological shifts in U.S. history. Liberals would dominate the entire government in a way they haven't since 1965, or 1933. In other words, the election would mark the restoration of the activist government that fell out of public favor in the 1970s. If the U.S. really is entering a period of unchecked left-wing ascendancy, Americans at least ought to understand what they will be getting, especially with the media cheering it all on.

 

The nearby table shows the major bills that passed the House this year or last before being stopped by the Senate minority. Keep in mind that the most important power of the filibuster is to shape legislation, not merely to block it. The threat of 41 committed Senators can cause the House to modify its desires even before legislation comes to a vote. Without that restraining power, all of the following have very good chances of becoming law in 2009 or 2010.

 

- Medicare for all. When HillaryCare cratered in 1994, the Democrats concluded they had overreached, so they carved up the old agenda into smaller incremental steps, such as Schip for children. A strongly Democratic Congress is now likely to lay the final flagstones on the path to government-run health insurance from cradle to grave.

 

Mr. Obama wants to build a public insurance program, modeled after Medicare and open to everyone of any income. According to the Lewin Group, the gold standard of health policy analysis, the Obama plan would shift between 32 million and 52 million from private coverage to the huge new entitlement. Like Medicare or the Canadian system, this would never be repealed.

 

The commitments would start slow, so as not to cause immediate alarm. But as U.S. health-care spending flowed into the default government options, taxes would have to rise or services would be rationed, or both. Single payer is the inevitable next step, as Mr. Obama has already said is his ultimate ideal.

 

- The business climate. "We have some harsh decisions to make," Speaker Nancy Pelosi warned recently, speaking about retribution for the financial panic. Look for a replay of the Pecora hearings of the 1930s, with Henry Waxman, John Conyers and Ed Markey sponsoring ritual hangings to further their agenda to control more of the private economy. The financial industry will get an overhaul in any case, but telecom, biotech and drug makers, among many others, can expect to be investigated and face new, more onerous rules. See the "Issues and Legislation" tab on Mr. Waxman's Web site for a not-so-brief target list.

 

The danger is that Democrats could cause the economic downturn to last longer than it otherwise will by enacting regulatory overkill like Sarbanes-Oxley. Something more punitive is likely as well, for instance a windfall profits tax on oil, and maybe other industries.

 

- Union supremacy. One program certain to be given right of way is "card check." Unions have been in decline for decades, now claiming only 7.4% of the private-sector work force, so Big Labor wants to trash the secret-ballot elections that have been in place since the 1930s. The "Employee Free Choice Act" would convert workplaces into union shops merely by gathering signatures from a majority of employees, which means organizers could strongarm those who opposed such a petition.

 

The bill also imposes a compulsory arbitration regime that results in an automatic two-year union "contract" after 130 days of failed negotiation. The point is to force businesses to recognize a union whether the workers support it or not. This would be the biggest pro-union shift in the balance of labor-management power since the Wagner Act of 1935.

 

- Taxes. Taxes will rise substantially, the only question being how high. Mr. Obama would raise the top income, dividend and capital-gains rates for "the rich," substantially increasing the cost of new investment in the U.S. More radically, he wants to lift or eliminate the cap on income subject to payroll taxes that fund Medicare and Social Security. This would convert what was meant to be a pension insurance program into an overt income redistribution program. It would also impose a probably unrepealable increase in marginal tax rates, and a permanent shift upward in the federal tax share of GDP.

 

- The green revolution. A tax-and-regulation scheme in the name of climate change is a top left-wing priority. Cap and trade would hand Congress trillions of dollars in new spending from the auction of carbon credits, which it would use to pick winners and losers in the energy business and across the economy. Huge chunks of GDP and millions of jobs would be at the mercy of Congress and a vast new global-warming bureaucracy. Without the GOP votes to help stage a filibuster, Senators from carbon-intensive states would have less ability to temper coastal liberals who answer to the green elites.

 

- Free speech and voting rights. A liberal supermajority would move quickly to impose procedural advantages that could cement Democratic rule for years to come. One early effort would be national, election-day voter registration. This is a long-time goal of Acorn and others on the "community organizer" left and would make it far easier to stack the voter rolls. The District of Columbia would also get votes in Congress -- Democratic, naturally.

 

Felons may also get the right to vote nationwide, while the Fairness Doctrine is likely to be reimposed either by Congress or the Obama FCC. A major goal of the supermajority left would be to shut down talk radio and other voices of political opposition.

 

- Special-interest potpourri. Look for the watering down of No Child Left Behind testing standards, as a favor to the National Education Association. The tort bar's ship would also come in, including limits on arbitration to settle disputes and watering down the 1995 law limiting strike suits. New causes of legal action would be sprinkled throughout most legislation. The anti-antiterror lobby would be rewarded with the end of Guantanamo and military commissions, which probably means trying terrorists in civilian courts. Google and MoveOn.org would get "net neutrality" rules, subjecting the Internet to intrusive regulation for the first time.

  

It's always possible that events -- such as a recession -- would temper some of these ambitions. Republicans also feared the worst in 1993 when Democrats ran the entire government, but it didn't turn out that way. On the other hand, Bob Dole then had 43 GOP Senators to support a filibuster, and the entire Democratic Party has since moved sharply to the left. Mr. Obama's agenda is far more liberal than Bill Clinton's was in 1992, and the Southern Democrats who killed Al Gore's BTU tax and modified liberal ambitions are long gone.

 

In both 1933 and 1965, liberal majorities imposed vast expansions of government that have never been repealed, and the current financial panic may give today's left another pretext to return to those heydays of welfare-state liberalism. Americans voting for "change" should know they may get far more than they ever imagined.

Are we delusional or coward?

This election is very unusual and bothers me a lot in what direction this greatest nation on earth is taking long term, beyond the current financial crisis, beyond this economic down turn, through the next decade and beyond. I think the will and determination of this nation to uphold those fundamental principles and beliefs on which this nation was found is going to be tested once again.  Are American people open up to embrace something new that government should be given the arbitrary power to pick the cutoff of winner and loser, redistribute the wealth created by the successful to achieve economic equality, and generate even more of entitlement rather than of contribution? Instead of helping elevate the bottom, are we Americans visioning equality by suppressing the successful. I’m not rich by any standard, and I’m working hard to realize the inner potential the creator trusted in me.  It won’t be fair to be panelized should I ever realize my potential some day, isn’t it?

Gilbert Chesterton wrote in 1920 in his “What I Saw in America”: “America is the only nation in the world that is founded on a creed. That creed is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence.” The American ideology is found on individualistic rather than a collectivist view of society: individual rights, including political freedom and private property rights; equality of opportunity (not distribution as my understanding); and limited, democratic government. These ideas are set forth in the great documents of American political life: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and such great speeches as Lincoln’s Gettysburg and Second Inaugural addresses. The dominance in the US of such a distinct political ideology has precluded certain political solutions and ordained others. This underlying bias shows clearly in America’s approach to economic questions. In the world history, the United States stands as a striking exception that socialism has never been strong in this country.  Why? In part, because the intense individualism derived from classical liberalism has been resistant to the collectivism central to all forms of socialism. American people in majorities in every income, occupational, and educational group, has repetitively rejected ideas of various forms of income limit, because such a financial limit undermines our individual opportunity and achievement.  

Are we not holding up this anymore? If we allow being leveraged by the financial led economic turmoil to believe that Sen. Obama holds the magic wand who can let all our problems go away by taxing and redistributing, we are either indulging self-delusion or acting coward economically, socially and morally, in my view.  Majority rules, which is democracy all about. If the majority of our generation willingly and consciously abandon the creed this nation was found, I have nothing more to say. The question is if we are sure and aware about the choice and its historical consequence.  Although the Republican option is not the best choice either, I have to say it’s the choice doing no or less harm than the Democratic alternative.

The state of Earth - natural and human

One of the most compact and comprehensive resources ever published, Earth presents essential data and commentaries on the condition of the world's environment - both natural and human . Click here

Have you ever seen a storm?

An extremely insane tornado was on way to unleash its power.

Think the unthinkable

Charles Disckens so started his "A tale of two cities" -

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way..."

It's disturbing to watch the tension building up between Japan and China; Japan and Korea; as well China mainland and Taiwan. Their path forward depends on whether their leaders and citizens are wise enough to come to terms with history, visionary enough not to let their past eat up their future, and brave enough to embrace their old foes. Their destiny is in their hands whether they will rise to the call of history to invent peace and prosperity. Will it be an "age of wisdom" or "foolishness"? The "season of Light" or "season of Darkness"? The "spring of hope" or "winter of despair"? Is East Asia "going direct to Heaven" or "the other way"?

The Europeans have set a modern model for the invention of peace through "The United States of Europe" (T.R. Reid). Will the East Asians stand up and prove rival to their European neighbours on wisdom, vision, and braveness? It was unthinkable for most Europeans to vision a united Europe half century ago. Will this miracle manifest again in the East? Here's an excellent article telling you the hope of the unthinkable is on the horizon...

Thinking the unthinkable, a Confucian union
By Jan Krikke
Asia Times Online (http://www.atimes.com/)

JOMTIEN, Thailand - In 10 to 15 years East Asia will form a political-economic union along the lines of the European Union. It will follow the reunification of the two Koreas, likely to occur around 2007. A "Confucian" union will integrate Japan into East Asia the way the EU integrated Germany into Europe. By about 2020, the East Asia Union will be the world's most powerful bloc, ahead of the EU and US-led North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA). And its core will be China.

Amazing? Credible? Incredible? Making these bold predictions is Lawrence Taub, an American futurist living in Tokyo, who recently visited Thailand. Taub has a long record of forecasting global trends in astonishing detail. In the 1970s, he predicted the fall of the Berlin Wall, Iran's Islamic Revolution, and the entry of Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar into the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). His most recent book, which includes some of these futurist concepts, is The Spiritual Imperative: Sex, Age, and the Last Caste.

Is Taub risking his reputation by predicting a Confucian Union between China, Korea and Japan? Tensions are rising between Japan and South Korea over fisheries and possibly mineral-rich islands and sea beds, still unexplored; between Japan and China over oil and gas-rich islands where exploitation is contested. Resentment toward Japan runs deep in both China and Korea, over colonialism and World War II atrocities, and a union of almost any sort between the three countries would seem improbable to most observers. But Taub is adamant. "Enemies can become friends almost overnight," he told Asia Times Online in a sit-down interview.

Taub predicted the formation of a Confucian Union in his book, but during an interview with this correspondent he proposed an additional reason: that Korea and China would be able to "neutralize" any Japanese military threat - both nations are concerned about what they see as the threat of renewed Japanese militarism - by absorbing it into a political union. That makes the overall argument for a Confucian Union even more compelling.

"France and Germany formed the European Union less than a decade after fighting a bitter war. The EU integrated Germany into the European family of nations and neutralized its militaristic tendencies. But more importantly, the formation of unions is a sign of our times. Regional economies are banding together. They integrate their economies to pack a bigger punch in the global trade arena. Unions like NAFTA, ASEAN, the EU, and Mercosur [a South American economic union] make individual states stronger vis-a-vis other blocs."

Macro-history with a twist
Lawrence Taub is not an average, popular political observer or predictor of the future. He is among a select group of scholars to have developed a comprehensive macro-history. Macro-historians rely on "grand narratives" of human history to forecast future scenarios. Recent examples are Francis Fukuyama's The End of History and Samuel Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations. Most historians and political commentators usually focus on their own areas of expertise - economics, technology, culture, business - which narrow the scope of their forecasts. Moreover, they tend to be Eurocentric and male-oriented. Taub is neither. His macro-history draws on Indian and Chinese thought, and like few other macro-historians, he claims women will play a key role in shaping the future.

When asked about other historians, political commentators and futurists, Taub quoted the American poet John Godfrey Saxe: "Though each was partly in the right, all were in the wrong." He pointed to Alvin Toffler's "third wave" theory as an example. "Toffler accurately describes the transition from agricultural to industrial to post-industrial society. That's a valid model, but it's only part of the picture. Toffler's macro-history could not predict the rise of East Asia as the world's leading economic center, nor the emergence of religious fundamentalism as the strong political force that it has become, which in the long run will evolve and have profound socio-economic implications in the future."

The caste model
The centerpiece of Taub's macro-history is what Taub calls the Caste Model, a remarkable synthesis of the ancient Indian Theory of Caste and actual historical development. Most observers agree that the world's economic center of gravity is moving from the West to East Asia, but Taub's Caste Model gives this historical shift a theoretical basis. Taub argues the world is in the midst of a transition from the merchant caste age to the worker caste age.

Taub explained that the merchant caste age was dominated by capitalists, industrialists and landowners. Its source of power was capital and its social ideal the "self-made man". The worker caste age is dominated by technocrats and bureaucrats. Its source of power is scientific and managerial knowledge, and its social ideal is the "organization man". Taub acknowledged that East Asia also has its merchants, but he argued that Confucian Asia is more in tune with the worker caste age than either Europe or the United States.

Taub said several factors will make the formation of a Confucian Union inevitable, among them a shared cultural heritage and growing international competition. "Despite a turbulent past and lingering animosity, the three countries speak the same cultural language, and their economies are increasingly integrated. Last year, China replaced the United States as Japan's largest trading partner. With the largest dollar reserves in the world, Japan and China resemble two mountain climbers linked by a rope. Technological cooperation between China, Japan and Korea is growing. Over-reliance on US-made software has fueled concerns about national security and industrial espionage and led to an initiative to develop CJK Linux, an Asian version of open source software."

Korean unification
Taub believes a reunified Korea will precede the formation of a Confucian Union. Asked about how reunification would come about, he said it would not be a repeat of the German experience. "North Korea is much poorer than East Germany was at the time," he told Asia times Online. "Spontaneous reunification is unlikely. But there will be a parallel with the German example. Just before it happens, when it will seem impossible, the momentum toward reunification will surge rapidly. The momentum is likely to start building in 2006, with reunification probably in 2007. The last hurdle will be the fate of North Korea's current leaders. They will insist on guarantees they won't be thrown in jail. China may offer them asylum."

Recent developments appear to support Taub's forecast. In December last year, the Guardian reported that European policymakers have been advised to prepare for "sudden changes" in North Korea. A European delegation, after visiting Pyongyang, predicted the collapse of the regime. The Guardian also cited Chinese academics who report a growing number of defections among North Korean diplomats. The South Korean press reported that the Austrian police prevented the assassination of Kim Jong-il's son Kim Jong-nam, by backers of another son of Kim Jong-il. All signs point at a power struggle in the top of the North Korean leadership, which in turn may explain the dying nation's nuclear saber-rattling.

Confucianism, communism, nationalism
Taub said he does not foresee problems with democratic Japan and Korea forming a political union with communist China. He believes pragmatism will prevail. He also pointed out that communism has become a mere label in China's political theater, but argued at the same time that communism and Confucianism have many similarities.

"Confucianism and communism, especially as introduced by Mao [Zedong] Ho [Chi Minh], and Kim [Jong-il], were compatible," he said. "Confucianism, like communism, has no Godfather figure. And communism's strong state sits well with Confucian tradition, which is centered on the group, the family, the community, and the state. When the Deng Xiaoping government initiated reform, the ideological transition was smooth. The government didn't have to worry about the weight of opposing tradition, only about the Gang of Four - Mao's wife Jiang Ching and her three Cultural Revolution radical allies. All it had to do was go from socialism without a free market and private enterprise to socialism with a free market and private enterprise."

Taub has argued the name "socialist democracy" is not an oxymoron. "It perfectly describes the half-communist, half-capitalist hybrid system that all industrialized or industrializing countries are currently developing," he said. "It is a system that is half market and private business-driven and half highly central-government-regulated. Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan also have that system - in fact Japan pioneered it - but they call themselves capitalist. Most Western European countries call themselves social democracies, which sounds pretty close to socialist democracy."

William Kelly, intercultural communications lecturer at the University of Southern California who wrote a foreword to Taub's books, pointed out that nationalism - strong in China and Korea and growing in Japan - will not necessarily be a hindrance to the formation of a Confucian Union. "It is obvious that the only way to fulfill the desire for national glory as well as economic success is by getting together in a union and being stronger than the other two blocs [the EU and NAFTA]," said Kelly. "First, Japanese militarism could be neutralized by such a bloc. But the real future danger could be Chinese rather than Japanese nationalism, since there is much resentment and a sense of grievance behind it."

Paradox
How should the United States respond to Asia's growing economic clout? Taub said America would do well to support the formation of a Confucian bloc. "The United States' main fear is that China will dominate global trade and technology, and emerge as an economic and military threat to the US," he said. "China has to make political and economic reforms before it can become a global power, but it eventually will make these reforms. This will transform China into a liberal democracy like Japan and Korea. Liberal democracies don't make war on each other. So it's not likely China will pose a military threat to the US. That's the paradox of the current worker caste age. A country can't become a real global military threat until it becomes a liberal democracy. But then it is no longer a threat."

The American government frequently pressures the Chinese government to further reform its system. Taub agrees with this approach, but points out that the US also needs reform. If the US doesn't overhaul its social-economic system, he said, it will drop too far behind the EU and the emerging Confucian bloc. "The US, like all other advanced countries, has a worker-age system, and its ruling elite is mainly worker caste. But half its mind is still stuck in the merchant age: money and wealth at any price. The United States' merchant caste and its world view made the US the leading country in the world. This explains why countries that reach the top in one age, tend to lose power in a subsequent age. They find it hard to change a winning formula, even as the system starts cracking at the seams. The first impulse is to reach for patches."

Taub said the foreign and domestic policy of US President George W Bush reflects this merchant-age backwardness. "The invasion of Iraq was, in part, classic merchant age: start a war for business purposes - oil, weapons, reconstruction contracts, etc. The United States' merchant-minded leadership is making it hard for working Americans to do their jobs, and use their professional/managerial skills to keep the country competitive. Medical and legal costs are out of control, 45 million people lack health insurance, teachers are underpaid and undervalued, and filing lawsuits is a national pastime that squanders precious resources. If China has to make reforms to become competitive, the US must make reforms to stay competitive."

Kaifeng's warning for America

Nicholas Kristof, in his International Herald Tribune column May 22 this year, lists the cities he considers the most important in the world at 500–year intervals, going back millennia.
The list:
2000 B.C. — Ur, Iraq
1500 B.C. — Thebes, Egypt
1000 B.C. — Sidon, Lebanon
500 B.C. — Persepolis, Persia
The Year 1 — Rome, Italy
500 A.D. — Changan, China
1000 A.D. — Kaifeng, China
1500 A.D. — Florence, Italy
Today — New York City, New York
2500 A.D. — "Probably none of the above"
His column is devoted to just how great empires come to get that way, and how they destroy themselves. (Bookofjoe)

As this millennium dawns, New York is the most important city in the world, the unofficial capital of planet Earth.

But before New Yorkers become too full of themselves, it might be worthwhile to glance at dilapidated Kaifeng in central China.

Kaifeng, an ancient city along the mud-clogged Yellow River, was by far the most important place in the world in A.D. 1000. And if you've never heard of it, that's a useful warning for Americans. This column's headline - translated from Chinese, a language of the future that more Americans should start learning - is "glory is as ephemeral as smoke and clouds."

As the world's only superpower, America may look today as if global domination is an entitlement. But if you look back at the sweep of history, it's striking how fleeting supremacy is, particularly for individual cities.

My vote for most important city in the world in the period leading up to 2000 B.C. would be Ur, Iraq. In 1500 B.C., perhaps Thebes, Egypt. There was no dominant player in 1000 B.C., though one could make a case for Sidon, Lebanon. In 500 B.C., it would be Persepolis, Persia; in the year 1, Rome; around A.D. 500, maybe Changan, China; in 1000, Kaifeng, China; in 1500, probably Florence, Italy; in 2000, New York; and in 2500, probably none of the above.

Today, Kaifeng is grimy and poor, not even the provincial capital and so minor it lacks even an airport. Its sad state only underscores how fortunes change.

In the 11th century, when it was the capital of Song Dynasty China, its population was more than one million. In contrast, London's population then was about 15,000. An ancient painted scroll, now in the Palace Museum in Beijing, shows the bustle and prosperity of ancient Kaifeng. Hundreds of pedestrians jostle each other on the streets, camels carry merchandise in from the Silk Road, and teahouses and restaurants do a thriving business. Kaifeng's stature attracted people from all over the world, including hundreds of Jews. Even today, there are some people in Kaifeng who look like other Chinese but who consider themselves Jewish and do not eat pork.

As I roamed the Kaifeng area, asking local people why such an international center had sunk so low, I encountered plenty of envy of New York. One man said he was arranging to be smuggled into the United States illegally, by paying a gang $25,000, but many local people insisted that China is on course to bounce back and recover its historic role as world leader. "China is booming now," said Wang Ruina, a young peasant woman on the outskirts of town. "Give us a few decades, and we'll catch up with the United States, even pass it."

She's right. The United States has had the biggest economy in the world for more than a century, but most projections show that China will surpass it in about 15 years, as measured by purchasing power parity.

So what can New York learn from a city like Kaifeng?

One lesson is the importance of sustaining a technological edge and sound economic policies. Ancient China flourished partly because of pro-growth, pro-trade policies and technological innovations like curved iron plows, printing and paper money. But then China came to scorn trade and commerce, and per capita income stagnated for 600 years. A second lesson is the danger of hubris, for China concluded it had nothing to learn from the rest of the world - and that was the beginning of the end.

I worry about the United States in both regards. America's economic management is so lax that it can't confront farm subsidies or long-term budget deficits. American technology is strong, but public schools are second-rate in math and science. And Americans' lack of interest in the world contrasts with the restlessness, drive and determination that are again pushing China to the forefront.

Beside the Yellow River, I met a 70-year-old peasant named Hao Wang, who had never gone to a day of school. He couldn't even write his name - and yet his progeny were different. "Two of my grandsons are now in university," he boasted, and then he started talking about the computer in his home.

Thinking of Kaifeng should stimulate Americans to struggle to improve their high-tech edge, educational strengths and pro-growth policies. For if they rest on our laurels, even a city as great as New York may end up as Kaifeng-on-the-Hudson.

A Mosaic of Testimony to A Beautiful World

Shall we pull out of Iraq now?

It seems that the voice of anti-war movement to pull out of Iraq now has been up quite a few notches with each point drop of Bush's job-approval rate. I'm with those who believe we used the wrong excuse to invade Iraq. However, regardless itself wrong or right of the real reason for the president to send American troops to Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein, and regardless how we felt the stories were sexied up to justify the cause, it's irresponsible for America to pull out of Iraq now or any time soon unless people can be assured that the new Iraqis government is ready to rule their own country. The pre-mature drop-out in Afghanistan after the war against the Soviet occupation was a lesson learned the hard way, which took more lives and resources to correct the mistake America made more than two decades ago. It's one thing to offer condolence to families that have lives lost in Iraq, and provide solid support to these families to tackle their emotional and financial difficulties, and yet quite another to base our sorrow and sympathy, or even guilt, to make a critical decision with substantial consequences. A new wrong doesn't necessarily correct the old, if we believe it was. All things considered, we'll be better off to be with the president and finish the job in Iraq. In the end, who can say no to a new democratic Iraq? The reason of initiating the war may be wrong, but the accomplishment can be noble.

Remember the Pottery Barn rule: "You break it, you own it..." America should have the will and stamina to win the ultimate war, which is peace. To pull it out now will be less likely of peace, and America will have to pay a higher price down the road.

Galactic Museum

I was browsing the books on the history shelf in a library nearby my home one day about a few weeks ago, and happened to pick up a popular history book, "Millennium - A history of the last thousand years" by Felipe Fernandez- Armesto. It's a book of 800 or so pages, and I was recently too busy to put through it. With a thought I may check it out in another time when my schedule would be more relaxed, so I scanned the contents and its preface. What caught my interest was the mental approach Felipe took to write this book. He envisioned some galactic museum of the distant future in which so much of our significant trash will have biodegraded into oblivion, but material from every period and every part of the world will be seen by visitors as evidence of the same quaint, remote culture: totem poles and Tompion clocks, Netsuke ivories and Nayarit clays, bankers' plastic and Benin bronzes...The distinctions apparant to us, as we look back on the history of last thousand years from just inside it, will be obliterated by the perspective of long time and vast distance. Our assumptions about the relative importance of events will be clouded or clarified by a terrible length of hindsight. To the galactic museum-keepers, as Felipe put it, events commonly invested with world-shattering importance - such as the English and American civil wars, the European wars of religion, the French and Russian revolutions - will all look parochial. Envision if we would have that kind of detachment as a future age might, will we think of and look at the world in quite different ways from what we used to?