TO Joseph Mussomeli and his blogpost on the 5 myths about the Iran deal controversy. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.
Mussomeli makes some good points in the above article even though they can be improved on.
Point #1.
Mussomeli is correct in his assessment regarding Iran's status in sponsoring terrorism. Certainly, Saudi Arabia should be a leading candidate but only if we ignore state actions that meet the definition of terrorism. For the definition says that terrorism consists of the threat or use of violence on civilians to achieve a political end. And whether one considers that we used terrorists in our invasion of Afghanistan and our overthrow of Libya's government, we practiced terrorism in the events leading up to and including our invasion of Iraq, we practiced terrorism in our overthrow of Libya's government, and we use drones to assassinate civilians in other nations, it would seem that the US is the greatest purveyor of terrorism in the world--similar to Martin Luther King's statement that his government is the 'greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.'
The problem with Mussomeli's point here is that it seems to assume that violence can only be counted as terrorism when it is practiced by those who oppose our nation or its allies.
Point #2
Even if Iran developed nuclear weapons, it could never qualify as the greatest nuclear threat in the world. And Mussomeli is correct in stating that Pakistan is a greater threat than Iran would be. But here, Mussomeli leaves out of the rankings of other nuclear armed nations like Israel, Great Britain, India, Russia, and the US--of course there are other nations that could have been included. In terms of the quantity of weapons, the US and Russia pose the greatest nuclear threat in the world. But when one considers the willingness to use nuclear weapons, both India and Pakistan rank ahead of Iran.
There are a couple of reasons why some western thinkers would rank nuclear armed Iran as the greatest nuclear threat in the world. One is that possession of nuclear weapons would give Iran a deterrent to Western aggression in the region. Another reason is to cover Israel's apparent adoption of the Bush Doctrine. The Bush Doctrine said that the US would not tolerate any nation to begin to rival its power in the world. Of course, that doctrine was and still is delusional for the US to enforce on the world. But Israel seems to be enforcing that doctrine in its region. And that might be the real reason for Israel's concern. Israel will not allow for almost any other nation, with the exception of Saudi Arabia, in its region to close the technological gap between itself and Israel. And America allows for Israel to practice such a doctrine because it becomes a watchdog for the US in that region.
Point #3
The only thing I would change in what Mussomeli wrote is the word 'belligerent.' When a nuclear-armed nation surrounds your nation with military bases and another nuclear-armed nation in the region continually employs rhetoric, belligerence is not the only way to describe defiance to the situation.
Point #4
Is it in America's best interest to operate by the rule of force? We should ask because, after all, that is how our allies Israel and Saudi Arabia operate in the region and us in the world. But it is that rule of force that fosters enough resentment to cause groups to defiantly oppose our control over others. We should also note that agreements like the Iran nuclear deal subtract from that rule of force because it adds an element of self-restraint. In addition, some American leaders are pushing for sanctions on those European businesses that do business with Iran to even magnify the effect of our leaving the agreement.
Point #5
To continue to operate by the rule of force is suicidal in a world where, because of ever advancing technology, the proliferation of WMDs is inevitable and the current ways of doing things increases the number of our enemies. Thus, it would seem that leaving the Iran deal is not in our best interests as Mussomeli pointed out in his own way.
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May 15
To Hunter Baker and his blogpost that declared that, from the examples set by nations like Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea, Socialism is dead. This appeared in the Acton blog.
Baker misses the most key component of Socialism from the Marxist tradition in his definition of the term. Socialism is first about the redistribution of power from the bourgeoisie to the proletariat. And thus, if the state controls the means of production but the bourgeoisie are in charge of the state, you have no socialism. But what about the examples provided by Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea.
First, as discussed a number of times during the 2015 Left Forum, there was great concern as to whether Hugo Chavez putting workers in positions of power and thus giving workers more decision-making ability. For while Chavez was making economic decisions that helped the poor, which went unmentioned in the above article, he made those decisions from a top-down organizational model. Lenin used a similar organizational model and the regime he led was called a bourgeoisie dictatorship by Rosa Luxemburg. See, how Luxemburg defined Socialism was the rule of a proletariat run democracy. Is that what Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea implemented?
Second, what escapes Baker's mentioning is that both Venezuela and Cuba were subject to significant harassment from the US. The embargo, which consists of economic sanctions, on Cuba was covered by 6 laws and was meant to hurt Cuba's economy until it allowed for democratization and it ecognized human rights. We should note here that the US interest in human rights for Cuba came into existence when the Cuban Revolution occurred. It was then that the US recognized that their support for the corrupt dictator Batista was not in its own best interests.
For Venezuela, there are allegations that the U.S. was not only involved in the 2002 coup attempt, but that it was working behind the scenes to sabotage the Venezuelan economy. The coup and attempts at sabotage could provide a partial, but not complete, explanation for Chavez's reaching for more power.
In terms of the redistribution of power to the proletariat, the question Baker and other conservative, opportunistic prognosticators of Socialism have to answer to is this, do they provide examples of real Marxist Socialism? Did either the Soviet Union or China provide such an example? Here we find that using proper definitions is a key in answering those questions and making pronouncements over the status of Socialism.
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To Joe Carter and his blogpost that argues for Former Justice Scalia’s Originalism approach to interpreting The Constitution over the Living Constitution approach. This appeared in the Acton Blog.
One problem with the living Constitution approach is that it risks separating us too much from our roots in an attempt to be relevant in using The Constitution to address situations never envisioned by our founding fathers. The attempt to be so relevant elevates the present over the past to the effect that we think nothing could be learned from studying the past. The problem with Originalism is that it risks destroying The Constitution by making it either irrelevant or a tool to implement a tyranny of tradition which elevates the past over the present in terms of wisdom and fairness. Originalism doesn't recognize that the people back then may never have seen the greater implications of what was written in our founding documents. For example, did Thomas Jefferson consider that all men, in his line that 'all men are created equal,' now refers to not just men of every race, but women as well?
Scaila was a conservative and so his approach to interpreting The Constitution is consistent with conservatism and its flaws. And one of the flaws of conservatism is that it tends to look SOLELY to the past in order to understand and react to the present. That is why the Scalia's Originalism approach to The Constitution not only facilitates the tyranny of tradition, it works to deny many logical implications of the text and thus usefulness of The Constitution. Scalia's approach makes The Constitution itself too inflexible, despite his claims otherwise, to speak to many of today's issues.
Finally, the following claim by Carter should be examined:
The Living Constitution replaces our representative democracy with an out-of-touch oligarchy
We should note that The Constitution was written in an effort to maintain the status quo for America's financial elites at that time. For not only was The Constitution written in response to widespread dissent and Shays Rebellion, it gave the Federal government power to put down such insurrections and it tried to prevent the populace from gaining power that would allow it to rule over the financial elites at that time (a.k.a., the landed interests) . Madison himself expressed fear over the opening of elections to all classes of people in England lest agrarian reform should follow. Thus, it seems that, at the least, Originalism invites the same risk of oligarchy that Carter claims that the Living Constitution approach brings.
