Intermarkets' Privacy Policy Support
Donate to Ace of Spades HQ! Contact
Ace:aceofspadeshq at gee mail.com Buck: buck.throckmorton at protonmail.com CBD: cbd at cutjibnewsletter.com joe mannix: mannix2024 at proton.me MisHum: petmorons at gee mail.com J.J. Sefton: sefton at cutjibnewsletter.com Recent Entries
America's Worst Previous President, Jimmy Carter, Dead at 100
THE MORNING RANT: Government is Paying Manufacturers to Produce Electric School Buses, and Then Paying School Districts to Buy Them Mid-Morning Art Thread The Morning Report — 12/30/24 Daily Tech News 30 December 2024 Sunday Overnight Open Thread - December 29, 2024 [Doof] Gun Thread: Post Christmas and Pre-New Year 2024 Edition! Food Thread: Raccoons, Brisket, And Latkes...A Match Made In Heaven! First-World Problems... The Progressives Love Lawfare...Payback Is A B*tch! Absent Friends
Bandersnatch 2024
GnuBreed 2024 Captain Hate 2023 moon_over_vermont 2023 westminsterdogshow 2023 Ann Wilson(Empire1) 2022 Dave In Texas 2022 Jesse in D.C. 2022 OregonMuse 2022 redc1c4 2021 Tami 2021 Chavez the Hugo 2020 Ibguy 2020 Rickl 2019 Joffen 2014 AoSHQ Writers Group
A site for members of the Horde to post their stories seeking beta readers, editing help, brainstorming, and story ideas. Also to share links to potential publishing outlets, writing help sites, and videos posting tips to get published.
Contact OrangeEnt for info:
maildrop62 at proton dot me Cutting The Cord And Email Security
Moron Meet-Ups
|
« Rasmussen: 64% Say This Is the Worst Winter in Years; 50% Say Global Warming Not Man-Caused Disaster |
Main
| Open Blog »
January 11, 2010
Fareed Zakaria: Would You People Please Stop Worrying So Much About Terrorism!I don’t know why but Fareed Zakaria annoys the hell out of me. No, it’s not because he’s brown (that’s why I’m afraid of him, a very different deal). I think it’s because he says and writes dumb stuff, a lot of dumb stuff, yet he’s hailed as a deep thinker. He also bothers me because he’s a younger (and yes browner) Thomas Friedman. Since there’s simply no point in taking out after Freedman anymore, I guess I’ve turned my ire to Zakaria. What got me going today is his column about terrorism in the wake of the Underwear Bomber. First, there’s the annoying and predictable, 'if we overreact or even really react at all, the terrorist will have won'. The funny thing about liberals is, no matter what we do (fight back, increase security, etc) the terrorist win. Apparently in Zakaria’s mind the only way we can win is to simply take what the terrorists do and pretend it never happened. Quite frankly, I’m not sure Zakaria actually gets the concept of ‘winning’. More annoying is this bit. Is there some sensible reaction between panic and passivity? Philip Zelikow, the executive director of the 9/11 Commission and later a senior State Department official in the Bush administration, suggests that we should try to analyze failures in homeland security the way we do airplane catastrophes. When an airliner suffers an accident, major or minor, the National Transportation Safety Board convenes a group of nonpartisan experts who methodically examine what went wrong and then issue recommendations to improve the situation. "We approach airline security with the understanding that it's a complex problem, that we have a pretty good system, but that there will be failures -- caused by human beings, technology, or other factors. The point is to constantly fix what's broken and keep improving the design and execution," says Zelikow. This plays into Ace’s earlier post on Brooks and the Tea Party crowd. Liberals always seem to think we need to take decisions out of the hands of individuals who are answerable to actual voters. Some how the world would be rainbow filled if only we had more experts in charge of things, insulated from the passion of the moment or the will of the people. Funny thing is, those experts always seem to want to do what the liberals default to anyway. The left knows their positions aren’t all that popular so they either have to hide what they really want (see Campaign Of, Obama, B.H., 2008) or move it to the friendly and popularly unaccountable judiciary (see, Abortion, Same Sex Marriage, etc.). Worst of all, Zakaria’s example of airline accident investigation doesn’t illustrate his point as he might think. Short version is, when there’s a plane crash the NTSB investigates. They are generally apolitical forensic investigators who almost always get the cause of a crash. But…they have no enforcement power. If the NTSB says, ‘Hey, this crash was caused by an airline's poor maintenance (or a manufacturer's defect)' they can’t do anything about it other than forward it on to the FAA. The FAA however is a very political agency. They are curiously charged with oversight and promotion of the aviation industry. Before they take an action (like a grounding or fining) they consider the effect on their stakeholders (airlines, manufacturers, etc). The NTSB experts have often been overruled or ignored by the FAA so the non-security aspects of air travel are more politicized than Zakaria seems to imagine (here is one of many examples). Now, that’s not always a bad thing, someone should be looking at the whole picture and consider the costs as well as the benefits. Yes, occasionally that may lead to things being swept under the rug but often these are not cut and dry decisions, they involved weighing various factors that subject matter experts, like a crash investigator, may not be equipped to judge. There is also a check on the FAA. If things go wrong or too many people are ignored…congressional and political oversight comes into play. That’s the mechanism that allows the wider community to weigh in on the costs and benefits of a decision. Once you cede all of this power to subject matter experts, the wider community loses the ability to influence the course of policy. The idea that something so basic as national security is beyond the purview of the sovereign people (through their elected representatives) is essentially authoritarian in nature and far outside the American norm. It’s not as if we are simply talking about choosing between a particular method of screening passengers at a checkpoint or some other technical decision, we’re talking about very different world views on how to approach this problem (law enforcement vs war). This is clearly something the people have to decide, no matter how messy or inconvenient the process is. The self anointed experts don’t worry about that because in their ideal world, the right people (the educated class, which they coincidentally belong to) will be consulted and carry the day. No need to check with the little people about their thoughts on the matter. It’s a hell of deal, so long as you are on the right side of the tracks. FTR-While my degree from a mediocre state university doesn’t qualify me for membership in the ‘educated class’, I’m also not a populist. I don’t think all wisdom resides in one group or the other. I believe in the clash of ideas leading to, if not the best, at least a reasonable course of action that a majority or strong plurality can support. | Recent Comments
Seems Legit:
"How odd, I thought everyone understood that electr ..."
rickb223 Gold & Silver Spot Prices [s][/b][/i][/u]: "You’d think they would’ve come up with ..." Commissar of Plenty and Lysenkoism in Solidarity with the Struggle : "MiG-29 has two sets of intakes Bonus hole. ..." It's me donna : "270 242 To be fair, Elon did advise that there isn ..." West Frisian Women's Auxiliary : "The red head gene mutation also enables them to dr ..." eleven: "If there wasn't a steel re-enforced concrete wall ..." SMOD: "DC_Draino @DC_Draino Think about this If Tr ..." Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden: "[i]thus, his push to ship congolese lithium mining ..." garrett: "What is the increased Mass of an Electric School B ..." Thomas Paine: "242 To be fair, Elon did advise that there isn't e ..." Skip : "Bet they won't get 10 years of use out of a EV Bus ..." Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden: "[i]They handle 25% more pain than others, and repo ..." Recent Entries
America's Worst Previous President, Jimmy Carter, Dead at 100
THE MORNING RANT: Government is Paying Manufacturers to Produce Electric School Buses, and Then Paying School Districts to Buy Them Mid-Morning Art Thread The Morning Report — 12/30/24 Daily Tech News 30 December 2024 Sunday Overnight Open Thread - December 29, 2024 [Doof] Gun Thread: Post Christmas and Pre-New Year 2024 Edition! Food Thread: Raccoons, Brisket, And Latkes...A Match Made In Heaven! First-World Problems... The Progressives Love Lawfare...Payback Is A B*tch! Search
Polls! Polls! Polls!
Frequently Asked Questions
The (Almost) Complete Paul Anka Integrity Kick
Primary Document: The Audio
Paul Anka Haiku Contest Announcement Integrity SAT's: Entrance Exam for Paul Anka's Band AllahPundit's Paul Anka 45's Collection AnkaPundit: Paul Anka Takes Over the Site for a Weekend (Continues through to Monday's postings) George Bush Slices Don Rumsfeld Like an F*ckin' Hammer Top Top Tens
Democratic Forays into Erotica New Shows On Gore's DNC/MTV Network Nicknames for Potatoes, By People Who Really Hate Potatoes Star Wars Euphemisms for Self-Abuse Signs You're at an Iraqi "Wedding Party" Signs Your Clown Has Gone Bad Signs That You, Geroge Michael, Should Probably Just Give It Up Signs of Hip-Hop Influence on John Kerry NYT Headlines Spinning Bush's Jobs Boom Things People Are More Likely to Say Than "Did You Hear What Al Franken Said Yesterday?" Signs that Paul Krugman Has Lost His Frickin' Mind All-Time Best NBA Players, According to Senator Robert Byrd Other Bad Things About the Jews, According to the Koran Signs That David Letterman Just Doesn't Care Anymore Examples of Bob Kerrey's Insufferable Racial Jackassery Signs Andy Rooney Is Going Senile Other Judgments Dick Clarke Made About Condi Rice Based on Her Appearance Collective Names for Groups of People John Kerry's Other Vietnam Super-Pets Cool Things About the XM8 Assault Rifle Media-Approved Facts About the Democrat Spy Changes to Make Christianity More "Inclusive" Secret John Kerry Senatorial Accomplishments John Edwards Campaign Excuses John Kerry Pick-Up Lines Changes Liberal Senator George Michell Will Make at Disney Torments in Dog-Hell Greatest Hitjobs
The Ace of Spades HQ Sex-for-Money Skankathon A D&D Guide to the Democratic Candidates Margaret Cho: Just Not Funny More Margaret Cho Abuse Margaret Cho: Still Not Funny Iraqi Prisoner Claims He Was Raped... By Woman Wonkette Announces "Morning Zoo" Format John Kerry's "Plan" Causes Surrender of Moqtada al-Sadr's Militia World Muslim Leaders Apologize for Nick Berg's Beheading Michael Moore Goes on Lunchtime Manhattan Death-Spree Milestone: Oliver Willis Posts 400th "Fake News Article" Referencing Britney Spears Liberal Economists Rue a "New Decade of Greed" Artificial Insouciance: Maureen Dowd's Word Processor Revolts Against Her Numbing Imbecility Intelligence Officials Eye Blogs for Tips They Done Found Us Out, Cletus: Intrepid Internet Detective Figures Out Our Master Plan Shock: Josh Marshall Almost Mentions Sarin Discovery in Iraq Leather-Clad Biker Freaks Terrorize Australian Town When Clinton Was President, Torture Was Cool What Wonkette Means When She Explains What Tina Brown Means Wonkette's Stand-Up Act Wankette HQ Gay-Rumors Du Jour Here's What's Bugging Me: Goose and Slider My Own Micah Wright Style Confession of Dishonesty Outraged "Conservatives" React to the FMA An On-Line Impression of Dennis Miller Having Sex with a Kodiak Bear The Story the Rightwing Media Refuses to Report! Our Lunch with David "Glengarry Glen Ross" Mamet The House of Love: Paul Krugman A Michael Moore Mystery (TM) The Dowd-O-Matic! Liberal Consistency and Other Myths Kepler's Laws of Liberal Media Bias John Kerry-- The Splunge! Candidate "Divisive" Politics & "Attacks on Patriotism" (very long) The Donkey ("The Raven" parody) |