A milestone for a heroine: Miep Gies

The New Neo Posted on by

Miep Gies, who was responsible for helping the Frank family hide in Amsterdam during World War II, turned one hundred years old on Sunday. It couldn’t happen to a nicer person.

To know the mettle of this woman, you must read her book Anne Frank Remembered. Her upright and quietly courageous spirit shine through every page.

As with most heroes and heroines, Gies is of the opinion that her efforts to secretly feed, clothe, house, comfort, and entertain the inhabitants of what Anne called the Secret Annex—activities that put Gies’ own safety at great risk—were nothing special. I beg to differ.

For example:

These contacts [Gies and the other “helpers”] provided the only connection between the outside world and the occupants of the house, and they kept the occupants informed of war news and political developments. They catered for all of their needs, ensured their safety and supplied them with food, a task that grew more difficult with the passage of time. Anne wrote of their dedication and of their efforts to boost morale within the household during the most dangerous of times. All were aware that if caught they could face the death penalty for sheltering Jews.

When I first read Gies’ memoir many years ago, it struck me that, if the Frank family had not been treacherously betrayed and their hiding place discovered in August of 1944, they might have starved anyway during that last terrible year before the war ended. In her book, Gies describes such widespread food shortages (Gies herself almost died of hunger) that it’s hard to believe that she could have kept supplying the inhabitants of the Annex with enough food to have somehow kept them all alive.

When I read the book, I was also impressed with the fact that Gies had stored away Anne’s diaries without reading them. Her thought was to return them to Anne herself after the war. When this proved impossible, she gave them to Anne’s father Otto, the only survivor of the original seven who were sheltered in the Annex.

The rest, as they say, is history.

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The Venezuelan referendum, and the perils of democratic tyranny

The New Neo Posted on by

Yesterday the people of Venezuela voted to abolish term limits in their country, paving the way for Hugo Chavez to become president for life.

Although we will never know the true extent of voter intimidation and/or outright fraud by Chavez and his goons, the outward appearance of democracy was maintained. And who knows; perhaps the results (54 percent for, 46 percent against) did indeed reflect the true wishes of the populace. Democracy does not mean that the majority cannot accommodate a tyrant. Au contraire, as our framers were well aware.

I think this is a good time to reprint a post I wrote back in July of 2007. It was pertinent then, and its warning has only become more so with the passage of time.

* * * * * *

In the many posts I’ve written attempting to explain the basic neocon attitude towards the spread of democracy-(see this and this) I’ve tried to be careful to use the term “liberal democracy” to describe what is advocated. Why? Because democracy alone is not enough.

Democracy can devolve into tyranny almost as easily as a powerful central government can. The genius of our system is that it makes it exceptionally difficult for tyranny to occur by making it extremely hard to change our Constitution or to give up the basic rights guaranteed there (absurdly hyperbolic discussions of the Patriot Act notwithstanding).

This is not to say that some encroachments can’t, and don’t, occur. But they have been relatively minor compared to what is possible; so far, our system has worked to insure that we are among the freest people on earth.

Not only are we a republic rather than a pure democracy, but our republican form of government is designed with an exquisite system of checks and balances in place among the three different branches. But that’s not all. Our Bill of Rights establishes that certain basic liberties will be protected, and the mechanism for amending the Constitution and changing that system (including that Bill of Rights) is made almost fiendishly difficult to implement.

History teaches that the Bill of Rights was adopted with an eye to limiting the power of both the executive and the legislative branches, as well as to make clear that all powers not specifically listed in the Constitution as belonging to the federal government were retained by the states and the people. But what would prevent the people from voting away any of those rights? History also teaches us that crowds are strange and fickle things, subject to persuasive demagoguery as well as coercive threats, and that Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor wasn’t lying when he said that humankind is often willing to lay down the burden of freedom for easy answers and the promise of protection from its responsibilities.

As Lincoln wrote, our government is “of the people, by the people, for the people.” But the overwhelming power the people would wield in a pure democracy is limited by the powers and balances among the three branches, the fact that we have a representative republican form of government rather than a pure democracy, and by the aforementioned difficulty of amending the constitution.

Without these guarantees, democracy can mean “one person, one vote, one time.” The Ayatollah Khomeini was given dictatorial powers in a process that began, after the fall of the Shah and the Ayatollah’s triumphant return, with a nationwide referendum that was passed with an extraordinary 92.8% percent of the vote. This established the theocratic dictatorship that exists to this day, with the constitution of Iran being totally rewritten shortly afterwards.

Hitler came to power without ever winning a majority vote for his party, but the German government had another weakness—under its constitution, it was relatively easy to suspend civil liberties and establish a dictatorship. This did not even require the vote of its people, merely a two-thirds majority of its legislature. Therefore it was done by republican means; the Reichstag obligingly voted to abolish itself, although not without the “persuasion” of Hitler’s storm troopers surrounding the building with cries of ““Full powers—or else! We want the bill—or fire and murder!”

And recent less dramatic, but similar and still worrisome, events by which Venezuelan dictator Chavez has seized power with the full cooperation of the Venezuelan legislature—which, as in Germany of old, can amend the constitution by a mere 2/3 vote—demonstrate once again that there are not only “democratic” ways to seize power, but “republican” ones as well (and please note the small “d” and the small “r”).

One has only to look at the makeup of our own Congress, with its power-hungry politics-playing on both sides, to understand that we would by no means be immune from such a vulnerability if our own Constitution were similarly written. But, just as our checks and balances work to protect us from one branch of the government easily gaining ascendance over the others, and our Bill of Rights works to protect our liberties from encroachment by any branch, the entire edifice rests on the difficulty of changing any of this. The framers purposely built such roadblocks into the Constitution itself when they implemented the amendment process.

I haven’t done an exhaustive search, but my guess is that our constitution just might be the most difficult on earth to change. Yes, the first step is a vote by two-thirds of the legislature (with a never-used alternative form of proposal, two-thirds of the state legislatures calling for a special convention for the purpose of making an amendment), just as in Germany and Venezuela. But that, fortunately, is only the first step. The next one is approval by three-quarters of the states, either their legislatures or special conventions.

These hurdles placed in the way of easy amendment do not, of course, assure that our liberty will be protected. But they certainly make it more likely than it is in most countries. In the end, of course, even the constitution only rests on the general social contract and the consent of the governed (and, by the way, this is where the guarantee of the right of the people to bear arms comes in handy; at least it gives them a fighting chance against a possible runaway military).

How does this apply to the attempts to spread democracy to a country such as Iraq? It makes it clear that democracy itself is a highly flawed “solution” without the guarantees inherent in a liberal democracy, and that none of it is of much use if the constitution of a country is too easily amended or suspended.

Obama: promises, shmomises

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s a ringing speech President Obama made back when he was still just candidate Obama (hat tip: American Digest):

Promises, shmomises.

Although come to think of it, the stimulus bill will have been posted for about five days before Obama signs it on Tuesday. The only problem is—what good does that do us when it’s already been passed?

Actually, that’s not the only problem. Another one is that the argument for the lack of transparency in the bill was the extreme haste with which it had to be passed. Then we learned that although it was rushed through on Friday, Obama won’t be signing it till Tuesday. One of the reasons seems to be that he had to fly to Chicago for a Valentine weekend.

Oh, and the gazillion-dollar stimulus bill won’t really help the ecnomony all that much, or all that quickly. But of course it had to be voted on with such extreme haste that even a couple of days’ wait would have been a couple of days too much.

Chavez power grab: is this our future, too?

The New Neo Posted on by

Hugo Chavez says “just give me ten more years, and everything will be great.” Today’s referendum on abolishing presidential term limits will allow him to seek those ten years and more, in the grand old tradition of predecessor and mentor Castro.

Unfortunately for Hugo, oil prices have been tanking lately (pun intended), which may make further giveaways more difficult for him. But his power has become quite entrenched, and is about to become more so if the vote goes his way. On the other hand, according to Edward Schumacher-Matos, the end is drawing near for Chavez’s reign even if he wins today. I wonder.

Here’s a piece on Hugo’s strong-arm tactics. I include it not because it’s so wonderful, but because it’s from NPR. If that organization is willing to publish facts that reflect poorly on the socialist hero, it’s a sign of how bad his administration actually is.

The excellent blogger Daniel in Venezuela has a great deal of further background on Chavez and the referendum. He writes:

[Sunday] we have a chance to validate one way to do politics or to reject it. I have also expressed it in no ambiguous terms: [Sunday] if the SI wins Venezuela will be declaring that blackmailing, power abuse, corruption, insults form above and justice in the hand of a a single man are OK, are acceptable, are desirable even. As such Venezuela will reveal itself for what it might have always been and that we just chose to ignore: a wretched country where the people are always on the make, regardless of the consequences. We should have known better: Monagas, Guzman Blanco, Cipriano Castro, Juan Vicente Gomez, Perez Jimenez and now Chavez were not historical accidents, they were the expression of Venezuelan people, adapted to the times they lived. As such, the 1958-1998 period was the historical accident.

If the SI wins tomorrow, then indeed Venezuela deserved Chavez and they can enjoy it further. If the NO wins, well, maybe we will have a shot at another 40 years of relatively benign period once we resolve the exit of Chavez, and until a new one comes.

Sobering thoughts. They put me in mind of a passage from Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov, from the chapter known as “The Grand Inquisitor.” I have posted it before. Now I will post it again.

The speaker is the Grand Inquisitor, and he is addressing Christ, who has returned to earth only to be imprisoned by the Inquisition:

Oh, never, never can [people] feed themselves without us [the Inquisitors and controllers]! No science will give them bread so long as they remain free. In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet, and say to us, “Make us your slaves, but feed us.” They will understand themselves, at last, that freedom and bread enough for all are inconceivable together, for never, never will they be able to share between them! They will be convinced, too, that they can never be free, for they are weak, vicious, worthless, and rebellious. Thou didst promise them the bread of Heaven, but, I repeat again, can it compare with earthly bread in the eyes of the weak, ever sinful and ignoble race of man?

[ADDENDUM: Then again, there’s this (hat tip: Instapundit).]

You must remember this: a kiss isn’t just a kiss

The New Neo Posted on by

Wendy Hill, a psychology professor at Lafayette College, is interested in kissing—the science of it, that is. Her research found that kissing (of the romantic variety) has a measurable effect on certain hormones:

[Hill’s team] found that kissing reduced the levels of cortisol, a stress hormone, in both sexes. But levels of oxytocin, a hormone linked to social bonding that they expected to be boosted by kissing, only rose among the men.

For women, a romantic atmosphere (dimmed lights, mood music) helped raised their oxytocin to the level of the men’s. Ah, women. So very demanding! Especially on Valentines Day—which happens to be today, folks.

And then there’s chocolate:

In 2007 British scientists measured the brain and heart activity sparked by passionate kissing, but found it was less intense that the stimulation produced by eating chocolate.

Speaking of mood music, and kissing:

[ADDENDUM: The recession is romantic—who knew? And kissing is even more widespread than one might think; it’s practiced by 90% of societies.]

Alan Greenspan: idiot or savant?

The New Neo Posted on by

For years, Alan Greenspan was thought to be a genius, responsible for keeping inflation at bay and encouraging our booming economy. He fine-tuned interest rates to make sure all this was going smoothly, and to the best of my recollection he earned resounding praise from almost everyone.

Well, it turns out this emperor had no clothes after all. But when he finally realized something was fishy, somewhere around late 2005, he says there was nothing he could do about it:

“If we [had] tried to suppress the expansion of the subprime market, do you think that would have gone over very well with the Congress?” Mr. Greenspan said. “When it looked as though we were dealing with a major increase in home ownership, which is of unquestioned value to this society—would we have been able to do that? I doubt it.”

Funny thing, I happen to agree with him. That doesn’t mean he shouldn’t have tried, though. Nor does it excuse the rather shocking disclosure of the limits of his understanding of derivatives and the mortgage market and what it all meant.

One of the most interesting quotes from Greenspan is this:

We could have basically clamped down on the American economy, generated a 10 percent unemployment rate,” he said. “And I will guarantee we would not have had a housing boom, a stock market boom or indeed a particularly good economy either.”

In other words, we could have suffered then instead of suffering now. There is no free lunch; ever hear of it? I wonder if Greenspan has.

When a bubble is created, it must burst at some point, because bubbles are inherently fragile things. But just try telling it to Congress, then or now.

[NOTE: House of Eratosthenes expands on these ideas.]

An “unprecedented” stimulus bill

The New Neo Posted on by

I certainly haven’t read the stimulus bill. Few have, since it wasn’t posted as promised, and its length is extraordinary.

But here’s a summary of its provisions that makes chilling reading. It illustrates why people (including me) were so incensed about the prospect of “creeping socialism” and “redistribution of income,” and a host of other moves to the left if Obama and a resoundingly Democrat Congress were elected. The stimulus bill certainly seems to fit the bill.

You might say we deserve this, because the people voted for it. I’m not so sure most voters realized that their “throw the bums out” feeling on election day 2008 would result in this sort of thing. But whether we realized it or not, this is what that action hath wrought.

So much of this bill has nothing to do with financial stimulus, and everything to do with extending benefits to liberal Democrats’ traditional constituents. But in order to pass it, several things seem necessary: to keep the American people from knowing the details, to rush it through before they can find out, and to label the whole thing (including the rush) as absolutely necessary to avoid catastrophe.

Obama is very fond of that oh-so-reassuring word “catastrophe.” He also likes to say that what we’re facing now is “unprecedented.” Both create a sense of extreme urgency.

Well, in a sense, every event is new, and different from all those that have preceded it, so in that sense everything is unprecedented. But what’s really so unprecedented about the current crisis?