NYC Junta

I started the discussion on Tuesday night with a sort of mini-argument: four points that I had arrived at over a couple of weeks reading on the subject of Iran, which I figured would get the ball rolling on the evening. Because of the sharp minds in attendance, it was all that was necessary to spark a great conversation. I said:

• Iran is the dominant power in the Middle East. This was a historical fact for a long time before Saddam Hussein’s Iraq became a check on Iran’s power—and now the US has removed that check. While Israel and Saudi Arabia are America’s allies in the region, Iran could take both of them, as it had indeed already defeated Israel in Lebanon. Even the US could not really take over Iran. We could bomb them into submission and take Tehran, but we would not be able to hold the country against the guerrilla threat they represent.
• Iran has the power to make the US presence in Iraq and Afghanistan untenable, and indeed they have already done this to some degree. They have become experts at proxy warfare, and at this point they are able to determine the level of violence that US forces have to deal with in certain parts of both countries.
• All of this, it is important to note, does not require that Iran possess nuclear weapons. Indeed we (America) are quite powerless to stop them acquiring nukes if they are determined to have them. Sanctions won’t work; military attacks won’t work. Iran has the power to drive oil prices through the roof, by mining the Strait of Hormuz or launching missiles at tankers, which would make life in America very painful.
• Given all this, the best option is for America to reach some kind of settlement with Iran. This would involve giving Iran a formal role in maintaining the security of Iraq, which would likely end up partitioned. We would share responsibility for security of the Strait of Hormuz, because both countries have an interest in keeping the oil flowing. Trade and talk would increase as sanctions were lifted and diplomatic ties restored, and Iran would agree to stop arming Hezbollah and Hamas. America would stop talk of regime change and guarantee Iran’s security, in order to foster closer ties and stop the Iranians inching closer to Russia and China. In short, the US would balance its strategic alliances in the region.

There was some controversy in my words, because Jarrod came in right off the bat to challenge my first point, saying that Iran, in the wake of last year’s elections and subsequent protests, had never been weaker. And while it seems the mullahs aren’t going anywhere yet, I would concede that they might feel a bit restricted right now. Jarrod came back later in the evening, twice, on the point on nuclear weapons: the concern is not that Iran will use them, but that they will give them to others who will. “If a white light flashes over Israel, then that’s it, and Iran can say they had nothing to do with it.” Alex contended this forcefully, saying the uranium traces (or something) after an explosion would definitively prove where the bomb was made. So it seems Iran wouldn’t be able to get away with it, although that provides little comfort to Israel, since they are too small to absorb a nuclear explosion and still viably exist.

A lot was made of Ahmedinejad’s words towards Israel; although I argued that he didn’t have the final say in Iran, Noah said convincingly that he obviously spoke for the leadership. But Alex reminded us all that the fact is that there is no evidence Iran is pursuing nukes—citing the most recent intelligence reports. Noah claimed otherwise, mentioning the articles we have been seeing on our front pages for so long. But we also read a lot about Iraq’s weapons programs in the newspapers, I said, which turned out to be bluster.

We debated whether we could know the character of the Iranian people. Is there a “red/blue” divide, similar to America’s, with rural people more supportive of Ahmedinejad’s populism and jingoism, and urban “elites” more inclined towards cosmopolitanism and internationalism? Some argued in general support of this idea, although my conclusion was that we generally know very little of the Iranian people, despite the seeming ease of false labels.

The conversation broke into pieces several times during the evening, which was great. There were 10 people there, so it was inevitable that mini-convos would break out here and there. Of course I couldn’t follow everything that happened at once.

My most contentious point may have been the partitioning of Iraq. Some participants, Noah most vocally, said this would be crazy, that after spending so much blood and treasure we should “lose” Iraq. My point was that it was inevitable without American troops on the ground: should we stay forever? “Well, we’re still in Germany, we’re still in Korea,” Noah said. This is true of course, but it worries me. I don’t foresee a day when American soldiers are not being attacked in Iraq, or Afghanistan. I don’t think Korea and Germany are good models (in fact, I don’t think we should have troops in those countries, anyway). I argued that Iran already had some de facto control over southern Iraq, and that they would take it over when we left, anyway. But Noah seemed to think that we could leave a strong Iraqi government behind. This I doubt, and so it seemed we would not reach any agreement here.

Mark said something which put everything in perspective. Over the last 15-20 years (and I would argue, even longer), when the US has seen a geopolitical problem in the world, it has resolved to do something about it. We have gone into countries, or engaged with countries, in a way which we determined would solve the problem. We’ve taken decisive action. But most of the time, there have been unforeseen consequences that have either made the original problem worse, or created wholly new problems to deal with. Perhaps, in the future, we should endeavor to do less, to be more passive, and to let things play out before we act.

***

What are your thoughts? If you were there, fill in my account with points I missed. If you weren’t, what would you have added?

Wrap-Ups iran, israel, nukes, oil, politics, usa

Robert Baer, formerly a CIA operative, published a book in 2008 called The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower, which I’m reading in preparation for our meeting next week. His theory is that Iran is rising and has imperial ambitions, that it has basically been at war with the United States for 30 years, and that the Iranians have already “half-won” the war. While America sees a country in the grips of Islamic fundamentalism, Baer says that underneath the religious veneer is nationalism and “a deep, abiding defiance of colonialism.” While we have been concerned with preventing Iran getting nuclear weapons, they have perfected the art of warfare by proxy, defeating Israel in Lebanon and hampering our own efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

What it comes down to is this: Iran is the most powerful and stable country in the Middle East – a country the United States must either fight in a new thirty-year war or come to terms with.

I wouldn’t throw around the “superpower” label as easily as Baer, but he’s really using it as a rhetorical device. And he makes a key point early on (and I’m sure I’ll have more to say about this as I continue reading). The US has unwittingly aided Iran’s rise by smashing its chief rival: Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-dominated Iraq. Baer believes that Iran has designs on Iraq’s oil, which if they came to pass, would see Iran producing more oil than Saudi Arabia. Not likely to happen soon – but remember that we will eventually have to withdraw our troops from Iraq, while Iran will remain right next door. The Saudis may be seeing the future that Baer envisions, because they’ve started making efforts at rekindling relations with Iran.

Baer talks about visiting the Nabatiyah martyr’s school in Lebanon, where the Iranian proxy Hezbollah trains children to become suicide bombers. He had come as a journalist (after retiring from the CIA) making a documentary, and listened to the teacher of a girls’ class explain why martyrdom is so important in Shia Islam. And yet when Baer asked the girls if they watched American TV, they all giggled and said they loved Oprah.

The sooner we understand how a girl from Nabatiyah’s martyrs’ school can watch Oprah, then strap on a suicide bomber’s vest and blow herself up in the middle of an Israeli patrol, the better prepared we’ll be to face what’s coming our way.

Meetings global jihad, hezbollah, iran, iraq, lebanon, saudi arabia, usa

The next Junta will take up the subject of Iran, and to focus the conversation, I’m asking the group to consider the possible scenarios five years from now. Things to consider:

• Will Iran have the bomb by then?
• Will the current ruling structures still be in power?
• What are the best/worst possible scenarios for US-Iran relations?
• What about China- or Russia-Iran relations?

We’ll talk about the effectiveness of sanctions and whether Obama might introduce new ones; compare the revolution of 1979 to the protests of 2009-10; and look for parallels in American and Iranian society. A number of us have strong views on the subject, and it should make for a lively debate.

Look for us to post details of the meeting soon – we’re thinking the second week of March. Meanwhile, I’ll expand on the above ideas in subsequent posts and provide some reading material. If you know people with particular interest or experience with Iran, please encourage them to join us.

UPDATE: The meeting will be held Tuesday, March 9, at 7:30pm. Location TBD.

UPDATE II: Location will be the Roebling Tea Room, 143 Roebling St, near the Bedford Ave stop on the L train, Brooklyn.

Meetings iran

Jeremy started his discussion of maritime piracy by talking about his days covering the issue in Asia, specifically the activity in the Straits of Malacca, between Singapore and Indonesia. At one particularly narrow stretch, the channel is less than 2 miles wide – an ideal target zone for pirates.

The Malacca Straits

The Free Aceh rebels, a separatist guerrilla group fighting against the Indonesian government, funded their insurgency, in part, through piracy. These pirates were much like those in the news today operating off the coast of Somalia. They used small but fast boats, lying in wait for large commercial vessels that had to pass through the narrow straits. Using the advantage of surprise, they would board these larger, slower ships with grappling hooks and rope ladders, then subdue the crew, using only a few men with AK-47s. We took up some time asking how this was even possible – how does one board an oil tanker from a small fishing boat? And the answer seemed to lie in the fact that many of the boats attacked are heavily laden, slow moving and often not adequately prepared for pirate attack.

The Aceh pirates were driving the governments of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore mad, as they seemingly could not be stopped. Piracy resurged as a major international issue — amplified by the thought of Al Qaeda seizing a large vessel and setting off a spectacular attack, with a major impact on global shipping — but poor governance in Indonesia allowed piracy to flourish.

The Christmas 2004 tsunami put an end to it, wiping out the province of Aceh. It has been speculated that many of the rebels and a majority of their ships were destroyed. The remaining rebels called a ceasefire to allow aid to reach the area, and President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (aka: SBY) wisely used the disaster as a starting point for peace talks, which culminated in a 2005 treaty. The need to focus on rebuilding after the disaster, along with the better governance that effort demanded, caused a significant drop-off in pirate activity in the Malacca Straits. This is the key point: piracy flourishes in lawless environments.

What of the pirates themselves? Who are they? Typically the poor and afflicted, as you might expect. They usually have a grievance against their government. In Indonesia, the Aceh rebels fought for independence and control of the oil resources in their home province. Aceh is the most conservatively Muslim province in a country that mostly practices a much more mainstream, tolerant version of Islam. In Somalia, local fishermen have taken to piracy because there has been no functioning government for many years, no one to protect Somalia’s territorial waters from the massive illegal commercial fishing that has taken their livelihoods. In this way, it is easy to compare pirates to terrorists; some will argue that pirates are just a subset of terrorists, small independent groups using violence to attain their political goals. But for their own people, pirates might be seen as heroes in the Robin Hood vein, sharing their loot with the village. Or perhaps they are opportunistic criminals, what the  Malaysians call lanun, men who loot, plunder and pillage because that is what they do. When society has broken down, it is natural, after a certain amount of pressure, to take matters into your own hands.

Since steering around pirate-infested waters is often impossible, shipping companies have started defending themselves. The most obvious method is arming your ship, but this can have ill effects. Adding more weapons and warriors to the mix can inflame the situation. Companies sometimes insure their crews against kidnapping, but they tend to keep this information hidden, since anyone known to be insured instantly becomes a target: insurers are guaranteed to pay ransoms, right? Non-lethal methods like fire-fighting hoses to repel attackers, barbed-wire around the hull, or long-range acoustic devices to blast the ear-drums of marauders are some of the methods that shipping companies have adopted. There’s also the “strong room” (ever see Panic Room with Jody Foster?), in which crew can hide in the event of a pirate attack. Jeremy mentioned some of the advice his firm gives to clients, and related a few off-the-record incidents which can’t be repeated here. Sorry, folks, gotta show up to Junta for the good stuff!

The Somalia pirates might be concluding that their strategy is working. The fish stocks which some of them were originally defending from poachers are replenishing themselves as those poachers move to other waters. Kenyan sportfishing is on the rise. Which means that, despite the dramatic sniper-rescue by the Navy Seals earlier this year, we’ll continue to see attacks. Piracy will only be reduced with the establishment of functioning government, and that is sadly not looking likely in the near term with Somalia. As Jeremy detailed, the Islamist movement is increasingly balkanized and remains heavily armed; the centrist, transitional government in Mogadishu controls only a few city blocks, along with the port. It could fall at any moment. Considering all of this, together with the strong lack of appetite to intervene in any meaningful way (see “Blackhawk Down”), the forecast for Somalia and the Gulf of Aden remains grim.

Wrap-Ups indonesia, kidnapping, malaysia, pirates, singapore, terror, the sea, trade

UPDATE: The date was changed to the 11th, as the venue is closed on the 9th.

Jeremy will lead us in a post-Halloween discussion of piracy, its history and geopolitical background. Jeremy currently provides risk mitigation solutions to shipping companies who operate in areas where piracy is a problem, and he used to cover the issue as a journalist. Here is a piece he wrote for the South China Morning Post on pirates in the Malacca Strait. [PDF]

Maritime piracy is currently most widely known off the coast of Somalia, in the Gulf of Aden. But it is also a problem in the waters off the coasts of Nigeria, Bangladesh, Indonesia and elsewhere. It is a problem that has been with us with for hundreds of years. This recent excellent piece in the New Yorker is a great historical overview and also provides some insight into the culture of pirates.

The conventional wisdom is basically that these guys should be blown out of the water. But a closer look reveals a more nuanced problem than just bloodthirsty criminals out to plunder and kill. In Somalia, piracy has been a result of the breakdown of the Somali state and inability for any central government to protect local waters from illegal fishing. With their livelihoods threatened, local fisherman realized that they could make money hijacking ships and demanding ransom from the companies that own them. Typically these pirates aren’t killing anyone; in fact, they tend to treat their hostages rather well.

Much as with other problems, unless the root causes of piracy are addressed, no just solution will be reached. We’ll talk about how the example of the Straits of Malacca supports that argument. Once one of the most pirate-infested waters in the world, many of the pirates were wiped out in the tsunami of 2006. The Indonesian government smartly capitalized on a unique moment to establish peace with the Aceh rebels, who used piracy to fuel the insurgency, and piracy has fallen off significantly since then. A lasting solution—though possibly far-off—is probably the only way to solve the Somalia problem.

Somalia is getting worse though as it suffers from an Islamic insurgency that is threatening to topple the weak central government. That insurgency is being fed by jihadists who are exiting the Afghan/Pakistan region due to pressure from drone strikes and the Pakistani army and are moving holy war to other areas. Will Al Qaeda be able to regroup in Somalia with pirates providing a valuable financial lifeline? Will they revisit the plans they coveted once in the Malacca Straits to execute a spectacular attack that would cripple global shipping, this time in the Gulf of Aden? We’ll use the piracy question as a precursor to talk about lawlessness, terrorism and the breakdown of nation-states.

The venue will be China One, 50 Avenue B, between 3rd and 4th street. China One has really good (and organic) Chinese food for decent prices, so a bit of eating this time as well.

Announcements, Meetings indonesia, law, malaysia, pirates, somalia, terror, the sea

Our session on the morality of legislating behavior rambled at times, but produced a lively conversation, and I think we all took something from it. The Junta would like to thank Dave for sharing his personal episode of confrontation with the war on drugs. It was powerful to hear a man speak openly about a situation in which he is most certainly going to jail.

The gravity of Dave’s position naturally occupied our attention for the majority of the session. He was arrested with over 30 pounds of marijuana hidden in a rental car he was driving across the country. The D.A. offered him 12 years but he thinks it’s more likely he’ll do 2 or 3. He has a surprisingly upbeat attitude about it, and mentioned twice his interest in training to be a mechanic while in the joint.

Dave’s defense, such as it is, relies on a series of steps in which he contends his rights were violated. He was first pulled over for speeding, though he was certain he wasn’t speeding at all. The officer asked him to sit in the squad car while he wrote out the ticket. Dave’s first mistake was acceding to this bizarre request.

As he wrote out the ticket, the officer said he thought Dave was nervous, and he wanted permission to search the car. Dave refused, and so the cop called in the canine unit. The dog did four laps around the car, sniffing it out, and somehow did not alert, and so Dave was allowed to go.

Two states later he was pulled over again, this time accused of passing another vehicle without signaling – again, something Dave denies doing. They called in another dog, for some reason, and found the weed. Busted.

What was the reason Dave was pulled over twice and both times a dog was called to sniff his car for drugs? According to Dave: profiling.

Not the Driving While Black that Obama has spoken of – Dave is white – but the fact that he was a single guy with way-out-of-state plates driving on a major highway through the flatlands, at night.

In the course of researching his defense, Dave came across a commercial website operated by a police officer, aimed at other police officers. It sold a video how-to guide for making major drug busts.

“Are you envious of the officers in your precinct taking down the big criminals and getting big promotions?’ the sales-cop asked.

He mentioned the federal budget, and the competition among state and local police and other emergency forces for money from Washington. “All of that funding escalated immensely after 9/11, and now it has to be justified.”

Civil Liberties

The loss of individual rights was a strong thread throughout the discussion, with Dave citing several court decisions that affect his case, including:

• Illinois v Caballes – Here the court ruled that a drug dog alerting on a car constitutes probable cause to search the car, even if there was no probable cause to use the dog in the first place. Or, as this blog puts it, “the total decision as to whether there was sufficient reason for a search was to be determined by a dog anxious to please his or her law enforcement master.”
• Arizona v Gant – This essentially said that if you get arrested while driving, or while near your car, police may search the car without a warrant.

Here the discussion prompted an animated argument from Tim, who contended that a certain population of law enforcement personal have been so effectively “programmed” to bust people for weed, that they cannot comprehend the case for legalization or decriminalization. In his view, this kind of cop is little more than a tool of society’s master planners, a “brain dead” individual who does not think for himself but merely relies on his institutional training for all decision-making. Or, as Ice-T Ice Cube once put it, “Fuck the po-lice!”

The burgeoning prison population in this country is largely a result of increased incarceration of drug offenders. An interesting facet of this is that prisoners cannot vote, yet they count as population in the area where they are incarcerated, skewing the congressional numbers and providing a perverse incentive for states to build prisons.

However, the rising costs of housing prisoners has led to several changes. One is the increasing privatization of the industry, where states outsource the building, running and maintaining of prisons to powerful corporate donors. Another is plans to release prisoners due to the overwhelming costs of housing them.

The media play into the scenario by sensationalizing crime and police work. MSNBC’s “To Catch a Predator” lures paedophiles to hotel rooms by posing on the internet as children. When the targets show up expecting a minor, they are faced with TV personality Dan Hansen and a host of lights and cameras. The show’s webpage invites you to “meet the men of ‘To Catch a Predator’”, and reminds us today not to miss the 2-hour premiere…

The obvious contradiction between legal and illegal drugs was mentioned, and needs no further comment here except to say that while booze and tobacco kill way more people than weed, this line of logic gets dicier when you get to heroin and methamphetamine. Those looking to expand their repertoire of legal highs are advised to study salvia divinorum.

We gravitated back to Dave and his predicament, concentrating on jail. Those who do time in Texas have “Felon” permanently stamped on their ID cards, which makes it tough to get a job later. The cruelty of this scarlett letter is made worse by the knowledge that even those who exonerate themselves, who have been proved innocent by DNA evidence while serving long sentences, still have “Felon” on their driver’s license. Meanwhile, they are even worse off than released felons who were actually guilty because, having had their records cleared (except for their IDs), they are no longer eligible for post-prison services offered by the state.

One participant boiled down the war on drugs to the following: domestically, it means aggresively incarcerating the population (and mostly the underclass); overseas, it means funding the slaughter of peasants. See Colombia.

At some point, human beings ought to be responsible for taking care of themselves, even if we need to collectively protect those who can’t protect themselves.

Announcements, Wrap-Ups drugs, law, legalization, marijuana

Wed. Sept, 9, 2009, The Larry Lawrence Bar, 295 Grand St b/t Havemeyer and Roebling, Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

7:30 pm

What should humans be allowed to do, and what should they be prevented from doing? Besides the obvious rule against killing people who piss you off, how far should the law restrict our personal freedoms to drink, use drugs, prostitute ourselves, get married, vote, practice medicine or religion, or any number of things we might come up with?

Legalizing weed is a trending topic. Lots of people use it, despite its being illegal, and there is clearly a profit to be made by regulating and taxing it. But at what cost?

Should tobacco, whose use can be directly linked to over 5 million deaths per year (worldwide; in the US it’s 400,000), be outlawed?

If causing mass death is our gauge, maybe we shouldn’t let so many people drive. Forty thousand Americans die on the road each year.

Of course, we all know that Prohibition didn’t work out too well – but what about the prohibition of heroin? Hasn’t that done us well?

Then there’s religion. Americans used to pray in school, or so I’ve heard, until the Supreme Court said that wasn’t cool. More recently, a federal appeals court ruled that it was totally cool for a guy to sacrifice goats in his house as part of a “complex ritual for ordaining priests”.

What else can you think of – what should be made legal/illegal and why?

UPDATE: Forgot all about prostitution, the top example of an illegal activity that just won’t go away. NPR did a great debate, “Is It Wrong to Pay for Sex?”, which I heartily recommend everyone listen to (about 50min). On a related note, the Economist recently made a case for looser restrictions on how we treat pedophiles (Megan’s laws, sex offender registries).

And organ sales. People need kidneys; other people have kidneys to spare. Should we be selling our organs? The New Yorker did a story on people who felt motivated to donate their kidneys to total strangers, for nothing. There is also an audio interview with the author.

Announcements, Meetings booze, drugs, god, law, legalization, marijuana, religion

We are going to send a notice around about the next Junta being pushed back till September. I have some travel coming up, and we really want to find a good venue (suggestions very welcome)–we are thinking about Williamsburg for the next one and we’re going to check out some potential spots soon.

There was a small item in the most recent Economist about the legalization issue. It seems that California might be turning to marijuana to help ease its massive budget woes. 80% of voters in Oakland have approved a sales tax on marijuana sales that could bring the state approximately $1.4 billion a year. I say hallelujah, great idea, and suspects others who will come to the next Junta will agree. But we’re still hoping to get some voices that feel otherwise, even if they aren’t strictly against, at least some reservations noted would be worthwhile.

Anyway, hope ya’ll enjoy the rest of the summer.

JH.

Announcements drugs, law, legalization, marijuana

I hope you’re having a good summer. Not sure if any of you have been on the junta blog since the last meeting but it features a wrap-up about the democracy meeting and some talk about Uighurs and Chinese oppression.

Towards the end of the last Junta we touched on discussing the idea of legalization at the next meeting. At the moment there seems to be an increasing segment of the population that agrees that marijuana should be legalized. But should the trend stop there? What drugs should be legalized and why? Should prostitution be brought in from the shadowy underworld that it currently exists in? How do we as a society face our vices and what role should government play in legislating morality to us and trying to keep us safe and healthy when it comes to questions that are ultimately about personal liberties. When talking with a few other Junta people it was mentioned that the discussion might be one-sided and that a largely young and liberal crowd would be an echo-chamber for the pro-legalization stance. Since then at least one person, Don Chase, has agreed to take a stab at arguing the other side, at least in a limited way. Any one else feel that they could speak effictively against legalization?

The discussion should be particularly interesting because we are going to be joined by someone caught inside the drug war, specifically on marijuana. This person was caught in a mid-western state with over 30 pounds of marijuana and is now facing serious legal ramifications. He has mounted a defense based on a violation of his civil liberties in terms of unlawful search and seizure, his story is fascinating and will color everyone’s thoughts in terms of law enforcement, how our tax dollars are used, and the penalties against a drug that many feel is less harmful that alcohol.

We are thinking of August 11th or 12th and welcome any feedback about these two dates, as well any other thoughts on the topic. More details soon.

Meetings drugs, law, legalization, marijuana, prostitution

Monday night’s Junta was well-attended despite coming off a holiday weekend, and produced great conversation.

Our out-of-town guest was Jarrett Wrisley, an American living in Bangkok and a longtime friend of mine. He spent the opening part of the discussion bringing us all up to speed on the situation in Thailand, including the story of how he arrived in the country with his wife and dog the day protesters shut down the airport. His was probably the last plane to land before the weeks-long standoff.

The basic outline of the arguments in Thailand is the serious divide between educated urban elites and simple rural folk. The country dwellers feel they are looked down upon and marginalized by city know-it-alls, and those living in the concrete jungle see their farmer cousins as being manipulated by crooked politicians.

The politician in question is Thaksin Shinawatra, the deposed Prime Minister accused of all sorts of corrupt practices, but beloved by the poor and dispossessed for delivering them basic health care and cracking down on Thailand’s drug problem to some degree. Wealthy Bangkokers see him as threatening the status quo – not only because he “spreads the wealth around” but because he is a blatant nepotist who has enriched himself and others by milking the state. They see his largess in the countryside as vote-buying. Some claim he would put an end to the monarchy in Thailand – though I personally question whether that would be popular, since Thais famously love their king – but certainly the throne quietly assented to his removal from power or it would never have happened. The army doesn’t move without the king’s approval.

That last point became an important one for us. According to Jarrett (and most agreed), this one thing is central for democracy to work: the military must be controlled in a nonpolitical manner, otherwise it can be used as a fig leaf for authoritarianism. The American system, which places a civilian as the ultimate Commander-in-Chief and (at one time, anyway) places war-making authority within the representative body, is a prime example of this working well. (Except for all the times the president has gone to war without bothering to get approval, of course…)

Mark, who was an officer in the Army and attended West Point, discussed his experience there with regard to the military’s respect for the executive branch. Most of the officers he knew at the time were not enamored of President Bill Clinton, but they did have a very healthy respect for his office, and understood that their duty was to carry out its orders. Without that discipline, the institution would quickly break down. But that begged the question: would democracy be protected by a military which blindly followed an executive’s order to act against the people? Is the essence of democracy actually marshal law?

The situation in Honduras was broached, but there were no real experts present, and that thread quickly dissolved into speculation. No one had an informed opinion as to whether the president or the military was on the side of democracy; however, that segued into a point much agreed upon when it came to the official US stance on such matters: America supports democracy when it furthers our interests (such as in Iraq), but not when it doesn’t (such as in Gaza).

Soon we got back into the question of the vote itself. The urbanites in Thailand are starting to think the rural people shouldn’t have a vote at all, on account of their lack of education and perceived susceptibility to simple bribes. The question was raised: should there be minimum standards for voting? How would it go over in America if, say, you had to have a high school degree or equivalent to vote? We concluded that that would be arbitrary: there are plenty of MBAs and PhDs out there who don’t bother voting, as there are likely many people who never finished high school and yet are politically astute and involved. There is no simple way to separate those who “should” be able to vote from those who “shouldn’t,” and it would be a form of discrimination anyway. The ignorant have just as much a right to their opinion as the wise.

In fact, the Founding Fathers saw this as a problem to be overcome. The first thing they did was limit the vote to white, land-owning men – so already the right to vote was very restricted and included only those they considered worthy of deciding matters of state. But even with those severe restrictions, they still thought that unfettered democracy could be a very bad thing – James Madison had some choice words about the need to temper the emotions of the people:

An increase in population will necessarily increase the proportion of those who will labor under all the hardships of life, and secretly sigh for a more equal distribution of its blessings. These may outnumber those who are placed above … indigence. According to the equal laws of suffrage, power will slide into the hands of the former.

(Sounds like my dad complaining about the welfare state today, minus the F-bombs).

It was sentiments like this which led to the bicameral legislature, in which it was hoped that the hot-tempered representatives, closer to the emotions of the people as a result of their having to be elected every 2 years, would be cooled by the more rational (and establishmentarian) senators, who were not directly elected in the original Constitution. In fact, a review of almost any recently passed law will find this pattern again and again: the House passes some wildly radical motion, only to see it watered down by the Senate if not outright rejected.

The situation in Xinjiang, China, was touched upon briefly, but as we have another thread going about that, I’ll exclude it here. Jeremy also tried to bring up the “benevolent authoritarian” models of Singapore and Malaysia, but seemed to be the only one who wanted to discuss those countries.

At a certain point, we got sidetracked talking about interesting ideas for future meetings. These included:

• The nature and history of the judicial branch, and specifically the US Supreme Court
• The history and future of the American health care system
• The case for legalizing drugs and prostitution

Finally, we tried to sum up our thoughts. We considered how even in advanced democracies like the US and Western Europe, the will of the people is not often carried out. Many studies, for instance, have shown popular support for national health care in the US, something that has yet to come about. The European and American protests against the Iraq war failed to prevent that conflict. And I think we can lament the fact that our leaders can go to war without our consent. But perhaps in most cases, pure democracy doesn’t actually work. Government by referendum is probably not the greatest method – look at California, for example. As Jarrod Y put it, people tend to react with their emotions – we elect our leaders to put more thought into their actions on our behalf.

Wrap-Ups democracy, politics, thailand, usa