Professor Haley: Mistaken on Annapolis Part 2

By contrast, Hamas, which seeks the elimination of Israel and the emergence of an Islamic state, does not have any interest in stopping the violence. Iran, which seeks the elimination of Israel and the spread of Shia Islam, does not have any interest in stopping the violence. Therefore both extremist parties must be marginalized for the peace process to continue. Implicitly, everyone present recognizes that assumption.

We have interests and our interests were well-served by bringing together these disparate groups together. If the Saudis, who have been bankrolling international terrorism, can be present at a historic, high-level contact, there might be a chance for peace after all.

Let’s deconstruct Haley’s argument, though.

He writes that the Bush Administration’s effort to isolate Hezbollah and Hamas will ultimately fail because it ignores the growing ties between Lebanon, Palestine, and Iran. How he makes the claim that there is growing support for Iran in Palestine and Lebanon is not made clear. Perhaps that’s because in Lebanon, at least, there isn’t much support at all.

If it were true that Lebanon so loves Teheran, how can Haley explain the assassinations of Rafik Hariri at the hands of Syria, Iran, and Hezbollah? Hariri was popular and Professor Haley mistakes the national Stockholm syndrome in Lebanon as some type of support for Iran at his own peril.

While it’s true that many Lebanese demonstrated in support of Hezbollah in the War of 2006, many did so because they were threatened by the state-like Hezbollah, whose Iranian-funded tentacles, provide schools and hospitals only to those that attend the rallies. This is coercion, not support.

Hezbollah, which used human-shields during the war, prohibited the Lebanese from fleeing at the barrel of a gun. They also, with the help of Syria, assassinated four anti-Syrian politicians. The recent sham election of Michel Suleiman indicates the power of fear within the Lebanese parliament, not a resounding love of Iran.

Similarly, Iran’s denial of the Holocaust and funneling of money to Hamas and other terrorist groups through intermediaries is not necessarily a win for Iran over the Palestinian people. Indeed, as we’ve seen in the past, Hamas will take money from anyone that will provide it. That some Palestinians like Hezbollah and by proxy, Iran, for the War in 2006 is not indicative of some growing support for Hezbollah. The Palestinians in Gaza in particular have concluded that the enemy of their enemy is their friend. But this calculus will ebb when Iran provides little in the way of real services.

Annapolis was never about making Iran cooperate in the peace process. What it was about was bringing the Palestinians and the other Arab nations together to talk about Israel and the future Palestine. If the Palestinian Authority pledges to end terrorism and Israel can stop the Gaza strip from getting access to Iranian weapons, then whether or not Iran supports the peace developments are irrelevant. Iran can play the role of “wicked fairy” all it wants. It isn’t going to change anything on the ground.

As Ambassador Kurtzer mentioned, this effort to isolate Iran has been somewhat successful. Syria, weary of the growing Iranian influence, may be prepared to make peace with Israel over the Golan Heights and Lebanon. That peace will also serve to isolate Iran.

On a final point, Professor Haley suggests that the Israeli "politicians intend to seize large parts of the West Bank and call it peace" because Israel's "system of proportional representation paralyzes diplomacy by handing control over major initiatives to the most militant and narrow members of its perennial coalitions" . How he can make such an accusation is news to me. Israel has repeatedly offered the Palestinians 97% of the West Bank in exchange for peace.

This claim has no basis in fact. I challenge Professor Haley to provide any evidence for it. For starters, virtually every single Israeli government has supported a dismantling of the settlements with the reassurance that the Palestine Authority will end terrorism.

Professor Haley: Mistaken on Annapolis Part I

I have been following the recent developments in Annapolis with the utmost attention. On Wednesday, I attended the Ath lecture of Daniel Kurtzer, a former diplomat who served as the U.S. Ambassador to Israel (2001-2005) and as the U.S. Ambassador to Egypt (1997-2001). He spoke on the Annapolis-Peace Process.

On Thursday night, I saw my old boss, Alan Dershowitz, speak at UC Irvine - also on the Annapolis-Peace Process.

I am just about all peace processed out, but no matter. I still have it in me to take on Professor Haley’s latest diatribe, which ran in today’s San Francisco Chronicle. The piece is largely an outgrowth of Ambassador Kurtzer’s talk. For those familiar with the talk, there is nothing new under the sun.

For those of you who don’t know, the meeting of Ehud Olmert of Israel, Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, and President Bush constitutes nothing short of a historic meeting between enemies. Israelis and Palestinians have agreed to a treaty by 2008. Assuming both sides keep their side of the deal, I see no reason why this isn’t a case for cautious optimism.

As The New York Times reported, over 49 countries were present. Some of the very people present were the Saudis, who clapped after hearing Olmert’s speech, and whose presence was ignored by Professor Haley.

The reason he ignores the Saudis and the dozens of other countries is that he needs this debate to be about the U.S. imperial influence or some such hogwash. That portrait just isn’t accurate. The reason so many nations are present is because each of those nations has a viable interest in the end of the violence. Parties which seek the continuation of violence should not be invited.

Professor Haley has insisted that this meeting is just a meeting of “friends.” I would hardly call the Saudis “our friends.” Indeed, I would dispute the notion that nations have “friends.” We aren’t friends with the Palestinian Authority, but we do recognize their role in stopping the violence. We have a legitimate interest in stopping the violence and so too does the Palestinian Authority. That is why they are at the table. Even the Syrians recognize they have something to gain.

Why The Ath Should Change Its Video Policy

I spoke with the head of the Athenaeum's speaker program about the policy vis a vis videos of speakers. Apparently a team of Claremont McKenna lawyers drafted the policy that allows speakers to edit videos or stop them from going up on the website. As I understand the policy, it is opt in, so if a speaker declines to make a decision, his video does not go up. This policy needs to change for the following reasons.

As I commented earlier, this policy allowed Bono to ban recording equipment from Bridges Auditorium. I think that's a shame. It certainly makes you wonder if speakers really believed in their message, wouldn't they want to shout it from the rooftops? Many of the speakers would be inclined to just let us put up the video on the website, but when we show up with a form, they grow skittish. Whenever I see a form, even when as innocuous as a release form, even I find myself asking whether or not I should consult with an attorney.

While we're on the subject, though, even speakers that have allowed Claremont McKenna to post their speeches haven't had them go up on the Athenaeum website. I have gone and looked on the website countless times to try and catch speakers that I have missed and it isn't uploaded!

If Claremont McKenna would allow us, the students, to put the videos up on YouTube.com, we could really do the school a tremendous service. Many of us own video camera and would do it for free. If quality were an issue, I'm sure the school could hire a media studies major relatively cheaply. (Poor Media Studies, that's probably one of the few paying jobs they'll ever get...)

For starters, very political students tend to love YouTubing their favorite politicians or law professors. In turn, when they see our name attached with those speakers, we can win prospective students through the use of our speaker programs.

A big reason I came to Claremont McKenna was due to the videos I found on the Athenaeum from John Yoo, Akhil Amar, and Claudia Rosett. I then went to look for other videos -- only to find that none of the ones from the previous semesters were available. We can use the speakers to attract interest in Claremont McKenna. We would no doubt increase our name-recognition if parents and prospective students saw the kinds of high profile speakers we've been bringing to Claremont.

Now I confess to have a selfish ulterior motive for the Athenaeum putting videos online.
I wouldn't have to buy a camera and do it myself! It sure would make blogging easier...

We all know that YouTube is the future. Indeed Pitzer College seems to have gotten the message. Though I'll no doubt be posting a reply critical of the way the class is constructed -- it doesn't use the dynamic media of video in the way that the course was initially billed-- I can't help but feel that Pitzer scored a significant P.R. point. They certainly made the news media and entered into the blogosphere. The class and the college was profiled in The Boston Globe in September and the influential blog, TechCrunch, gave its due (even if they mostly ripped into it!) Complete with a video press release, Pitzer certainly seems like it's entering the 21st century. (If only the students didn't smell as if they were from the 14th!)

In any event, it's time to reevaluate the policy.

Grade Inflation at Harvey Mudd? Say It Isn't So!

The Muddraker finally came out at Harvey Mudd College and the front page story above the fold is the unfortunate truth that Harvey Mudd College has been inflating the grades.

The chart indicates a rise of two-tenths of a percent. In 1990, the average GPA of graduating seniors was between a 3.1 and a 3.2. In 2007, Dean of Students Jeanne Noda reported that the new median GPA for graduating seniors is a 3.4.

(My apologies for no link, but it seems that Mudders, intoxicated no doubt by Everclear and quantum mechanics, have not made the transition to putting their issues online.)

Now to be fair, that media GPA of graduating seniors is still significantly lower than their counterparts at Harvard, M.I.T. and elsewhere. Kudos to Harvey Mudd College for tackling what once was a selling point by providing a realistic revision of the average GPA of graduating seniors.

Now what could account for that rising GPA?

While Ben Keller HMC '10 and author of the piece believes its due to pushing back the drop date for hard classes and to increased student hand-holding, I have my doubts. He cites Dean Noda, who believes as most observers of grade inflation do, that students are just smarter now than they were before. Keller may be right, but I'm skeptical.

I find it hard to believe that there was some sort of quantum leap (yes, Mudders, I too have an inner geek) in student performance since 1990.

My own theory is akin to another Harvey's -- Harvey Mansfield that is, who believes that the reason for Harvard's rising GPA is due to affirmative action. The way affirmative grading works is that professors give minority students, oftentimes unprepared for college work, higher grades than they deserve. To cover for that obviously misguided grading, they also inflate the grades of white and Asian students.

(At my old prep school, we had a similar problem. As one teacher confessed to me, any student who spoke English as a second language received no lower than a B for a writing assignment. Though I wanted to write it in the school newspaper, she wouldn't go on record and my Board overruled me. Alas.)

We know that the current HMC President Maria Klawe openly supports affirmative action for blacks, Latinos, and especially women. Might her predecessors have also supported those same increases and might affirmative action be behind that grade inflation?

What Are We Prepared To Pay For?

Today I received an email from Jim Nauls about a concert at Bridges Auditorium on January 22. While I can think of better uses of my time, I can also think of better uses of our money.

I have nothing against singer, Ryan Adams. I even like his music, but I have serious reservations about his visit to the Claremont Colleges. For starters, I am not entirely comfortable with bringing a singer to an academic community. It's one thing to use our largess to attract politically controversial or informative speakers. It's quite another to bring a singer to the Claremont Colleges.

True, the tickets will be only $37.00, but like with all music promoters, I'm sure that the Claremont Colleges have guaranteed a certain economic return for Mr. Adams. What amount of money are we doing paying to bring him here?

Mr. Adams's invitation to speak at the Claremont Colleges comes on the heels of Pomona's decision to not invite former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales due to cost.

The questions this invitation of Adams presents is why are we paying to bring Adams here, but not paying to bring Alberto Gonzales. Why is a school bringing a singer to sing? Why is there a 5 college campus wide program that pays to bring singers, but no campus wide program that pays to bring speakers? What is a school doing bringing singers? Can't the good students of the colleges find, attend, and pay for their own concerts on their own time?

If the schools are going to spend the money they get from tuition and from the endowments, don't you think they ought to bring only academic, informative, or political speakers?

The Student Life recently ran an editorial critical of Claremont McKenna for bringing Bono or Bill Clinton to Claremont and not inviting Pomona students. Today we use their facilities for our speakers and while we may throw them some money, we're not being good neighbors. Instead, we should invite them to help us pay for our speakers and work to build a program. There clearly is a desire for that kind of a partnership.

I don't see that kind of desire or support for a 5-C entertainment program for a singer that few will learn from, most won't attend, and some dislike.

Pitzer, Pomona Lead in Fulbrights?

So hell has frozen over. Witness the frost here.

Pitzer got more Fulbright Awards (15 awards out of 49 applicants) than did Pomona (11 out of ) in the 2006-2007. They were second and third to Smith College.

Claremont McKenna College did not place on the list. Why not? Why have we produced no Fulbrights this year?


Apologies for not posting. I had a visitor...

Emerging Stats Department: Why Isn't It A Good Idea?

Is it just me or do Claremont McKenna people love to fight about money?

You'd think that a school which is painfully behind its peer-schools in terms of institutional street cred would welcome every new dollar that comes along with an eye to the old notion that money buys news and news buys reputation. "Civilization prospers with commerce," right? When someone offers you money, you ought to have the good grace to say thank you before you start critiquing their motives.

And so it is that I must come out in favor of the new statistics department. The Inland Daily Valley Bulletin reported on The Claremont Portside's article about the brouhaha over the new stats department. The Portside cites a letter from the Math Department saying that “The formation of such a department would be divisive, wasteful of resources, and would decrease the overall quality of the college.”

I can understand the underlying reason why the Math Department doesn't want a Statistic Department -- because they don't want to compete for donations. But civilization -- just as CMC -- prospers with commerce and so, I don't see it as a necessary evil that a Statistic Department will destroy the curriculum and the meaning of a CMC education. Math Department chair Asuman Aksoy has it exactly wrong when she said in a letter that “[t]he formation of such a department would be divisive, wasteful of resources, and would decrease the overall quality of the college.”

Might it be that the Statistic Department may even be good for the school? The Statistic Department could teem up with the Government department to analyze fascinating new trends and could supplement the number of math requirements. The Statistic Department and the Math Department could even pool resources to bring noted mathematicians to Claremont McKenna to come and speak. They could even team up to bring top-notch math faculty from other colleges. Like at all liberal arts colleges, the Departments can work together to build cross disciplinary majors and interests. Whether or not the gift will further the mission of the school remains to be seen, but please give it some time. Listen to the arguments presented before you start complaining!

Liz, Mary Cheney Show What It Really Means To Be a Feminist

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to make Liz and Mary Cheney's speech at Scripps College.

Unlike the Pomona debate, at least people behaved themselves. Well, except for one Pitzer professor. Professor Dan Segal of Pitzer College, wore a T-shirt that read “Impeach, Indict, Imprison” on the front, referring to President Bush. How juvenile.

Here's the bit that I found most revealing.

Liz and Mary both consider themselves feminists, in the sense that they support women’s empowerment and equal opportunity for both genders to advance.

“The modern women’s movement has lost sight of that goal,” Mary said. “They are focusing too much on women as victims. I’m a woman, not a victim. I don’t need men to go easy on me, and I don’t need any extra help.”

If only women weren't considered victims by Keck Graduate Institute...

Pomona Ducks Gonzales By Complaining About Money?

Here it is in The Associated Press.

The former attorney general's pricey speaking fee so far has deterred at least one potential customer. Students at liberal arts school Pomona College in Claremont, Calif., considered inviting Gonzales to speak on campus next spring but could not afford paying the $30,000 to $40,000 he requested.

"He has a rather substantial speaking fee," Pomona associate dean of students Neil Gerard said. "I believe that's dead in the water."

The controversy surrounding Gonzales does have an up side: It ensures he'll remain a well-known name and help bolster his appeal as a speaker.

"He was the attorney general and was a big name, and he's in the news," said Gerard, adding that Pomona students became interested in hearing Gonzales after being approached by a speaking firm working on his behalf.

"President Clinton spoke on our campus last year," Gerard said. "And I'm not equating those two people, but I think there is an interest in big name speakers."

How funny that Associate Dean of Students Neil Gerard mentions the visit of Clinton with that of Gonzales. Does he read the blog?

But more importantly, Pomona -- a school with a billion dollar plus endowment -- can't afford a $40,000 speaker?

Something tells me that some back room deals were cut. Let this just be an example that Pomona is unwilling to pay a $30,000 to $40,000 stipend. Any speaker that goes higher than that can not be invited to Pomona, lest they want to remain consistent.

Let me just say I doubt it. Something tells me that they are worried post-Minute man and Open Borders fiasco that they'll get protests. Too bad.

Chemerinsky: Wrong on the Second Amendment

As you know, Erwin Chemerinsky came to speak at the Athenaeum.

He didn't speak about the Second Amendment at the gathering. (You'll have to tune in tomorrow to get my reaction to what he said. It will be meaty and of course, advocate against the racism he extols. It's going through the intense fact checking process that I've now instituted.)

The Second Amendment will be the subject of a Supreme Court case this term.
Oftentimes constitutional thinkers have debated the merits of the individual versus collective argument, with the emerging consensus being that the Constitution as applied through the Fourteenth Amendment is that the Second Amendment is an individual right.

Is it an individual right? Is it a collective right as applied through the states? The obvious original intent of the Founders -- as Akhil Amar and even the liberal Alan Dershowitz have noted -- is that the Second Amendment is a personal, individual right. In an article found here, Chemerinsky tries to state that liberals believe that the state can regulate that right, but liberals have been abandoning that position in droves.

That Chemerinsky has abandoned that argument -- an argument he used to favor -- for the regulatory argument indicates the strength of the individual rights argument.

Here he is talking about that argument -- namely that even if the Court recognizes the individual argument, the Court can regulate some restrictions on gun ownership.

"The Court should rule that the government can regulate firearms, consistent with the Second Amendment, so long as it acts reasonably," says Erwin Chemerinsky, a constitutional law expert at Duke University. "This is the standard used in assessing the constitutionality of other government regulation of business."

He is probably obliquely referring to the case decided in '39 that decided sawed off shotguns are not protected.

To say, though, that the regulations in the Heller case are anything other than destructive to that liberty is laughable. Judge for yourself. Here are the restrictions that the plaintiff is fighting.

The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit struck down sections of the Washington gun law that make it exceedingly difficult to legally own a handgun, that prohibit carrying guns without a license even from one room to another, and that require lawfully owned firearms to be kept unloaded.

So, if we assume that self-defense is a natural right -- which is undeniably is -- then how can this restriction that makes it so that someone essentially has to assemble a gun all the while under the stress of somebody busting into their home is enabling of that right?

It isn't. And the Court, if it's read its history, will say unequivocally that the Second Amendment is an individual right and that hand guns, which have deterred untold numbers of crimes, are not comparable with sawed off shotguns.

My “Naïveté” Strikes Again!

The very fact that Professor Williams feels the need to come on my blog and discuss Gonzales’s record is indicative of the need for dialogue surrounding Alberto Gonzales's prospective visit to Pomona.

Professor Willilams, in the comment section of my blog, has candidly expressed her views on Gonzales.

She drops my argument about the ticking time bomb terrorist because it is the strongest - that in an age of terror we ought to have the right to use wiretapping between domestic and international calls to identify terrorists before they strike. She tries to argue that monitoring the international calls of suspected terrorists, even if they go into the U.S., is somehow a violation and constitutes a widespread domestic spying program.

The net effect of discontinuing this NSA program would allow terrorists who come into the U.S. or who are grown here organically to use our laws against us as they plot a terrorist attack. As The New York Times reported early on the War on Terror, we know that terrorists use international phone calls in much the same way they use the internet: to recruit, to pass along information, and to coordinate attacks.

Professor Williams suggests that I am naïve for believing that U.S. government, specifically the N.S.A., would knowingly use wiretapping in some sort of expansion of executive power. She ignores that the Democratic Congress overwhelmingly approved the NSA-wiretapping program and that bills that seek to cut its funding have all failed. She further ignores that the courts have allowed the program to continue. Is it naïve to conclude that there isn’t some large conspiracy, but that each of those other branches of government has concluded that this isn’t the violation of civil liberties as Professor Williams contends?

Perhaps my alleged naïveté is one more reason why Pomona ought to bring Alberto Gonzales so that I may see from the alleged devil himself how awful he truly is for orchestrating a pan-governmental criminal conspiracy.

That pan-governmental conspiracy, unlike the alleged U.S. attorney scandal in which no one has been indicted or brought to trial, would truly be “criminal.” She argues that Alberto Gonzales is guilty of perjury, but no charges have been brought against him.

She further argues that this record of perjury makes him unable to come to Pomona. But where was Professor Williams’s criticism of the decision to bring President Bill Clinton to Claremont McKenna College? Clinton was impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice and yet Professor Williams has been silent about whether or not CMC should have invited Bill Clinton. Indeed Bill Clinton’s speech before Claremont McKenna cost much more than Alberto Gonzales prospective talk and Pomona, a school with an endowment almost twice as large as CMC, can probably afford a meager $30,000.

On the subject of cost, though $30,000 is indeed quite high, I have to question Professor Williams on consistency. She says to me in the comment that “if you want Gonzales to come speak, you fork over the 30 grand and pay for his dinner, too.”

But I wonder if Professor Williams has ever before used the cost argument to deny a speaker at Pomona? A thorough look through of her record reveals no such criticism.

Pomona Assistant Professor Heather Wiliams pulls out all the stops for why Alberto Gonzales shouldn’t come and speak. She intrudes on a student decision to bring Gonzales and writes on the blog of another student with the underlying hope that she might be able to stop Pomona from bringing a speaker she finds ideologically repugnant.

When I answer her accusations - that Gonzales is not a criminal - she insists on calling me naïve. Is this what Pomona considers reasoned discourse?

Pomona, stand for constructive dialogue. Bring Alberto Gonzales to speak!

RETRACTION: Clinton, who was brought to trial for his perjury unlike Gonzales, spoke for free at Claremont McKenna. I apologize to any and all for the slip up on my part.

On the issue of liars and dishonest people being presented at Pomona with school fees, a better comparison would be between Ward Churchill and Alberto Gonzales. Churchill lied about his tribe affiliation, compared the victims of 9/11 to Little Eichmann's, and later was found to have plagiarized some of his works. Churchill was an honored speaker at Pomona. Professor Williams was silent on his invitation.

Claremont Colleges Receive $1.5 Million Gift

According to The San Bernardino County Sun (subscription required, article taken down), the Consortium announced on Friday that it had received a $1.5 million gift from the Andrews W. Mellon Foundation that will support "faculty hiring and retirement transition plans over at a five-year period."

The gift means that each of the five undergraduate universities will be able to hire a new faculty member.

This foundation typically gives gifts for the purpose of helping the arts and cultural affairs certain questions must be asked. Is this $1.5 million gift a consolation prize post-Day gift? I wouldn't count on it as it's been given to all five colleges, but then again, I wouldn't count it out either.

Exit question: Why has this gift not been announced on any of the five college websites?

Pomona: We Make It Hard for Students, Easy for Criminals!

In today's The Boston Globe, Pomona is listed as one of the schools that makes it hard for students with disciplinary records to be admitted. Here's the paragraph in question:

Pomona College, a highly selective private college outside of Los Angeles, takes one of the toughest stances [for students who don't report disciplinary infractions]: It stops considering a student if a high school leaves questions blank about behavior and then refuses to provide the information when Pomona asks directly.

I think their efforts to screen student criminals are a tad bit hypocritical, to say nothing of ineffective. For starters, they failed to catch drug dealer Vinay Shah before he was busted for distributing and if the rumors are true, Pomona failed to report a rape.

If safety is an issue for the community and a recent gun crime would make us think it is, I just don't get why Pomona would have former women cons on its campus without so much as batting an eye.

Adam Sappp of Admissions Talking About Extra-curriculars Needed

Courtesy of The Herald News (New Jersey):

Adam Sapp, assistant dean of admissions at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, Calif., said students should not be thinking about how good an activity will look on a resume.

Rather, they should ask themselves, "'Do I have the time to leave this organization better than when I started?' ... It's OK for a student to be involved in fewer things if they have that depth and focus," he said.

I've been getting a lot of email from parents and prospective Claremont McKenna students asking me what they "need" to do to get into Claremont McKenna, as if I somehow knew anything about the whims or likes of admissions officers I never met! In fact, I hadn't ever been to L.A. County before I came for school in September!

In any event, I just want to echo what Dean Sapp has said. The real question is whether you love an extra curricular. If you don't love it, why do it? And if you don't love it, you probably won't do it well. So don't volunteer way too much.

Oh, and prospective students, enjoy high school. I know most of you won't listen to me on that one, but do enjoy it. You never know how great it was until it's a year or so behind you.

CMC Professor Frederick R. Lynch on Tom Brokaw's New Book

In yesterday's Los Angeles Times, Claremont McKenna professor Frederick R. Lynch reviews Tom Brokaw's new book Boom! Voices of the Sixties. It's mandatory reading, but the tell all bit comes at the end.

[Brokaw] also hopes that retiring baby boomers will acquiesce to a reduction in their benefits as their numbers strain Social Security and Medicare. Don't bet on it!

Professor Lynch is writing a new book about the impact of aging baby boomers on society. (I may be working with him on it next semester.) Should be fun!

First Annual International Careers Conference!

Shamil Hargovan is leading the first annual International Careers Conference this November 30, 2007. Hargovan, president of the Claremont International Relations Society (CIRS), has invited some very interesting speakers, like Peter Thune '90, Ethos-water founder and Vice President of Starbucks to name just one.

Be sure to register here. Everybody's going. Be sure to sign up quickly.

Fact-Checking Pomona Professor Heather Williams

Contrary to what Assistant Professor Heather Williams has written, Pomona’s ASPC Communication Commissioner Kelly Schwartz ’10 and ASPC President Elspeth Hilton ’08 have a duty to bring former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

First and foremost, I find it disturbing that a Pomona Faculty member intrudes on what is otherwise a student-centered event. Nevertheless, I will address her points in the order in which she presents them.

Gonzales’ “Criminal Actions” and the So-Called “Prisoners of War”:

On The Student Life website, Williams’ title “Alberto Gonzales is a Criminal, Not A Speaker” smacks of bias. (To be fair, in the hard copy, the headline is "Alberto Gonzales is a Disgrace, Not a Speaker." I disagree that Gonzales is either criminal or disgraceful.)

Gonzales’ firing of political appointees - which, he has every right to do, just as the Justice Department has every right to address certain types of crimes - is hardly “criminal.” Professor Williams misleads, stating that Gonzales “criminal actions” undermine the public trust. How she can say that when there has been no indictment, no trial, and certainly no conviction of Gonzales testifies to a lack of balance we should expect of a Pomona faculty member. In the American democracy and under the Geneva Conventions she so extols, we try people before we call their actions criminal.

While we’re on the topic of the Geneva Convention, Williams ignores why nations endorse treaties in the first place. The principle reason that nations approve treaties is because their enemies and their allies have done the same. When terrorists choose to deliberate fight under the flag of no nation, they waive the considerations the Geneva Convention affords and harm international law. Why would nations agree to treaties when terrorists can get their protections even as they work for the destruction of the very institutions that produce them?

“Blanket Domestic Spying Powers”

Professor Williams criticizes the Democratic-Congress approved NSA program that has saved lives. She ignores this fact. She calls the NSA program’s “blanket domestic spying powers” without ever talking about how the NSA program only monitors the international calls between pre-designated terrorist-states and American phones. This policy smacks of common sense. It frankly doesn’t bother me that the U.S. government is listening in on the calls of people in Yemen or Saudi Arabia and the U.S, particularly when it has saved lives. In other wars, notably World War II, the President authorized wiretapping on all American phones without so much as a peep from Congress.

In any event, this current program has saved lives and continues to save them. Perhaps that’s why the Democratic Congress overwhelmingly approved the NSA program despite its initial kvetching.

“Waterboarding and Torture Techniques”

Professor Williams’s personal distain for torture is well-founded, but she goes too far when she says that the ticking time situations do occur. Unfortunately, the ticking time bomb terrorist does exist.

To provide just one example, I’ll give you the example of a little known case in Germany in 2004. According to Sanford Levinson of the University of Texas Law School, German authorities captured a man suspected of kidnapping a young boy. After questioning the man for two days, a senior officer, fearing for the boy’s safety, authorized non-lethal pain to get the information. When the officer told the suspect what was going to be done to him, the suspect broke down and told the officers where they could find the boy’s body. Both the officer and the interrogator were charged with running afoul of Germany’s constitutional prohibition against torture, but released due to “massive mitigating circumstances.”

If Germany, a country with an explicit constitutional prohibition to torture, allows that form of torture, why shouldn’t the U.S., a country without an explicit constitutional prohibition of torture, be barred from maximizing its citizenry’s safety? Some scholars like Alan Dershowitz have recognized that democratic countries will sometimes use torture and so we should plan to develop appropriate safeguards as to what is acceptable.[1] Viewed this way, the case Professor Williams mentions of the Office of Legal Council (OLC) and the 2002 “torture memo,” Gonzales was simply authorizing the OLC to study what would be the limits of U.S. law under circumstances. Contrary to what Professor Williams writes, the OLC did use relevant judicial opinions - the very place where the law has most frequently talked about torture. They rightly concluded that waterboarding does not run afoul of U.S. law because it does not risk eminent death.

Whether or not waterboarding runs afoul of U.S. laws remains controversial, unlike the other forms of torture she mentions. She rightly notes that torture can get away from those employing it. The barbarity Professor Williams mentions comes to mind. But this is the very reason why we need to have policy discussion as to what is and is not appropriate. But Professor Williams’s blanket condemnation against torture is far from the nuanced positions we’d expect from a professor. Fortunately, she, an assistant professor at Pomona, has the luxury of not making these tough calls of when to use torture. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had to make those very tough calls. He knows that those calls are unpopular and perhaps that’s why he was forced to mislead the investigation into waterboarding. Then again, the stress of the job may produce a spotty memory. I’m sure those questions can come out in a question and answer period - the very place where Professor Williams can make her reservations known.

Indeed, I would argue that forum, and not The Student Life, is the appropriate place to challenge admittedly controversial Gonzales views. This controversy is the very reason we need Gonzales to come and provide his views on that and many other subjects. Pomona needs to stand for intellectual inquiry, even if her professors do not.

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[1] Full disclosure: I worked for Alan M. Dershowitz these past two summers and during my senior year of high school. My views do not necessarily reflect his.

Why Fantasy Congress is Flawed

The following essay is one I wrote for Professor Pitney's Honors Government. In it, I go after Andrew Lee's (CMC '07) creation, Fantasy Congress, as being too focused on legislation. Here is Lee and Fantasy Congress crew in The New York Times. (Written to address the legislation and co-sponsorship points, I'll probably issue a critique of news points at some point in the near future depending on the volume of comments.)

Barry Goldwater Would Not Have Scored Points: Real Congressional Leadership is Stopping Laws, Not Passing Them

My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution, or that have failed their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwanted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is ‘needed’ before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents ‘interests,’ I shall replay that I was informed their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can.[1]

With views like this one, Senator Barry Goldwater (R-Arizona) would have won few Fantasy Congress legislative or cosponsor points. Though Goldwater had comparatively and characteristically few legislative acts,[2] but he led an entire movement. His bestselling book, The Conscience of a Conservative, influences American conservatives long after his death.[3]
In his ill-fated run for President, he would have won fewer news points than today’s candidates. Unlike current presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Christopher Dodd, Dennis Kucinich, John McCain, Duncan Hunter, Bill Richardson, Barack Obama, Tom Tancredo, Ron Paul, (and until recently,) Sam Brownback who win news points as members of congress (MCs) for press they get as presidential candidates, Goldwater would not have won news points in Andrew Lee’s Fantasy Congress. On principle, he resigned his Senate seat to pursue the Presidency in 1964.[4]
His maverick points would have been hard to score. While he personally disliked Nixon - he once quipped that “Nixon can go to China and stay there” - he defended him. In a September 1973 New York Times op-ed, he even went so far as to claim Nixon’s innocence.[5] In what New York Times obituary writer Adam Clymer called Goldwater’s “most important role as a Senator,” he persuaded President Richard M. Nixon to step down.[6]
His “defeat” before the U.S. Supreme Court in Goldwater v. Carter (1979) would also be hard to score in Lee’s point system. In 1979, when President Carter stripped Taiwan of official recognition and gave it to the Chinese Communists in complete violation of the Mutual Defense Treaty, Goldwater took President Carter to the Supreme Court. By invocating the Treaty Clause, Goldwater argued that the President could not unilaterally terminate treaties or change parties with prior senatorial consent[7]. Though Goldwater lost in an 8-1 decision, he put President Carter on record as supporting the Chinese Communists over the Taiwanese. Carter, already facing a tough reelection again, looked like he was favoring an enemy over an ally and the American people punished him at the ballot box.
So how can Goldwater, one of the most influential senators of our time, fail on almost every single one of Lee’s points? Might it be that Lee favors the quantity of legislation to its quantity and that he favors legislation over leadership?
One of the highest point scorers in Fantasy Congress is Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV). Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) named the “King of Pork” after he became the first person since 1991 to help obtain more than $1 billion in pork for his state.[8] Byrd wields his position in the Appropriations committee to pass legislation at the taxpayer’s expense. Oftentimes, he names federal buildings and expressways after himself. If this legislation is the kind that would win points in Fantasy Congress, the taxpayer is better off without it.
Fantasy Congress’s flaw is that it undervalues other forms of leadership. Lee's point system ignores senate investigations, backroom deals, or stopped legislation. Fantasy Congress’s point system hinges upon legislation, but if MCs rarely read the bills, how can it be considered leadership that they got them passed?
None of these actions would have scored points: Senator Fulbright, who brought oversight to the Vietnam War’s prosecution, Senator McCarthy, who rightly or wrongly brought oversight to the Communist infiltration of American government, and Congressman James E. Rogan who managed Clinton’s impeachment at the cost of his seat. Even if you counted Senator Mark Hatfield (R-OR) action as a maverick point, it would be a small consolation. Hatfield’s vote killed the Balanced Budget Amendment.

Other more recent actions would also not get points, despite their importance to the body politic. The Republican leadership would have won no points for stopping the foolish nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, nor would those who defeated President Bush’s immigration bill. The Democratic leadership would have won no points by stopping Ted Olson’s confirmation as Attorney General or for their investigation of the firing of U.S. Attorneys. The Gang of 14, which preserved the filibuster for presidential appointees, would not have won any points, despite preserving a vital Senate tool. Presumably Joe Lieberman (I - Conn.) would win few maverick points for his principled defense of the Iraq war. A former Democrat jettisoned by his own party for his support of the war, Lieberman is one of only two Senate Independents and so has no real party to leave.[9 Unlike Fantasy Baseball on which it’s modeled, Fantasy Congress cannot comprehend these important actions and so fails at educating people about contemporary events, real congressional leadership or the inner workings of Congress.

---

[1] Barry Goldwater, The Conscience of a Conservative, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1960, 2007), 15.

[2] David R. Mayhew, America’s Congress: Actions in the Public Sphere, James Madison Through Newt Gingrich, (New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press, 2000), 174.

[3] See generally J. William Middendorf II, A Glorious Disaster: Barry Goldwater’s Presidential Campaign and the Origins of the Conservative Movement, (New York: Basic Books, 2006). Indeed, it may even be one of the most politically influential books of the 20^th century.

[4]Accessed at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/remember/1998/goldwater_5-29a.html (Last accessed 11/12/2007).

[5] Adam Clymer, “Barry Goldwater, Conservative and Individualist, Dies at 89,” New York Times, May 29, 1998. (Accessed at http://www.nytimes.com/books/01/04/01/specials/goldwater-obit.html. Last accessed at 11/14/2007)

[6] Ibid.

[7] Alona E. Evans, “Judicial Decisions: Goldwater v. Carter,” The American Journal of International Law, Vol. 74, No. 2 (April 1980), 441 - 447.

[8] http://www.cagw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=news_byrddroppings Last accessed November 14, 2007.

[9] He still caucuses with the Democrats, however technically he’s still an Independent.

Carl Schramm on Enterpreneurial Capitalism

Carl Schramm spoke today at the Athenaeum about capitalism, entrepreneurship, and education.

Though he had a few interesting fiews of capitalism more neatly expressed in his book, Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism, I found him to be one of the more interesting Ath speakers yet.

He delved into growth and how we're in a time of both tremendous economic prosperity and yet paradoxically, it looks like jobs are less and less secure. Unlike a lot of analysts who view this paradigm as unstable, Schramm suggested it is by no means dangerous. Indeed, he remarked that we're at historic levels of wealth creation, employment, and growth. Over 60 percent of Americans of my generation will grow a business and many of us, 50% will work for a firm that is 5 or fewer years old.

Most of the talk boils down to a view that American entrepreneurship is a social good and that it meets needs of everyday people in ways never before imagined. And unlike elsewhere, when U.S. entrepreneurs make serious amounts of money, they go around and put it into philanthropic foundations of which the Koffman Foundation is a part.

He rightly criticized the anti-growth crowd as being all in the first world and how that first world mentality is ultimately hurting the third world. He went after the State Department for being too concerned about institutions and ignorant of the role culture plays in entrepreneurship -- as if we could just plunk down U.S. institutions in Africa, for instance, we'd somehow get a return on our investment.

He had a few words about social capitalism (or social entrepreneurship) and how in essence, it's a socialist critique of capitalism. The phrase he says that gets everyone riled up is that all entrepreneurs are social entrepreneurs. I couldn't agree more.

He points out how little we've had to show for our investment of billions of dollars into African countries. Sounds like he's read William Easterly to me! What a breath of fresh air post-Bono!

Peter Wehner At The Ath??

I couldn't make the Peter Wehner speech tonight. What did I miss?

(Would you believe that I actually go to class at Claremont McKenna?) To say I'm upset would be a total understatement. But, nevertheless, I've done my homework even if I can't make it to the Ath.

Here's Wehner in today's National Review going after Jim Wallis, a crazy liberal who went off on a 60 Minutes report about misleading intelligence. When will I get to hear a new slogan other than "Bush lied, People died"? It's really quite tiresome.

And Ben Casnocha has kindly sent me this criticism Wehner wrote of Professor Kesler's dismal Iraq war predictions. You might remember I went after Kesler for his dark view of progress in Iraq, but Wehner does it much better than I ever could. Mandatory reading if you want to really get a sense of what's going on in Iraq post-surge.

Anderson Cooper As Seen From The Middle Way Forward

David Dreshfield CMC '11, over at The Middle Way Forward, neatly captures the Anderson Cooper speech. You should absolutely check it out. He even got mentioned on Anderson Cooper's own blog!

Naturally, I'm impressed, but then again I so often am impressed by David.

The one line I thought summed up the little bit that I saw of Anderson Cooper is the following: "You don't control how your born, but you do control how you live." Power stuff that is.

I disagreed with his characterization of the conflict in Congo as somehow due to the West's demand for cell phone parts. More appropriately, it has to do with tribalism and a history of ethnic divisions than with resource distribution. The DRC is the most resource rich country on the planet. There is no reason why it couldn't enjoy the material abundance of say, the UAE or Dubai, but I digress.

And yet, Anderson Cooper is, I find, part of the problem with mainstream media. Though he rightly criticized all of us for being a part of the lost blonde of the month television programming, Anderson Cooper got where he was largely from being a strapping good looking man at the right time, in the right place.

His characterization of the mainstream media as entertainment and not news was refreshing, but I still want him to explain the talking snow man from the YouTube debates!

Veterans Day at Claremont McKenna

Maybe I'm going out on a limb here, but I somehow doubt it. I apologize for posting this so last minute, but I wanted to be sure I worded it right.

Something's been on my mind. Could someone please explain to me why we have school on Veterans Day, but not on Cesar Chavez Day? Why is there no school wide service to commemorate the lives lost and the service rendered? Maybe those are questions and fights for other days, but I feel they ought to be asked all the same.

In any event, Claremont McKenna rightly boasts a history chock full of heroes and lest we forget them, I direct you to Ward Eliott's Claremont McKenna history. He puts it better than I ever could.

Billy Pedersen ‘68, Jesse Clark ‘65, and Stewart Moody ‘67 were neither economists nor ordinary people, but extraordinary people, looking death in the face on mission after mission in Vietnam till death won the last hand. Jesse Clark could play better golf on his knees than anyone else standing up. He was blown up by a mine in Cu Chi, South Vietnam. Billy Pedersen and Stewart Moody went down with their helicopters in Vietnam. Pedersen had volunteered for service in Vietnam, completed his tour of duty, packed to go home, heard his replacement had not arrived, and volunteered yet again to help his shorthanded buddies. He was shot down in an ambush and killed on his second mission. Harry Jaffa dedicated his The Conditions of Freedom (1975) to his memory.

Really? Top Bachelor? A Keck Graduate Student?

Really? America's Top Bachelor? A Keck Graduate Student?

Read it and weep. I know I did. (Courtesy of the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin)

The 23-year-old Kent, Ohio, native was awarded a $10,000 prize. He is featured in the magazine's November issue.

"With his smoldering eyes and chiseled cheekbones, how could we escape the hotness of this Midwestern wonder boy?" read a caption on the Cosmopolitan Web site. "When he told us he wanted a super power so he could 'read girls' minds,' we knew he was the 'one.'"

It actually gets creepier.

On the magazine's Web site, Watkins identified his guilty pleasure as "shopping with a woman, especially if she models the clothes."

(Okay, I really didn't want to post this, but I kind of lost a bet.)

Germany: A Good Terrorist Target Says Claremont Institute's Mark Helprin

In tomorrow's Wall Street Journal, Mark Helprin of the Claremont Institute lays out the reasons that Western Europe should invest in its own military defense in a post-Cold War world.
He elegantly paints the reasons for why Germany and the rest of Europe has been soft on Islamic terrorism by affording jihadists the same standards of proof as normal criminals. Do Europeans honestly believe that jihadists can be rehabilitated in their systems or are they just out of fresh ideas? Helprin discusses why Germany in particular and Europe in general fails to really go after those who would end Western civilization.

Germany must fascinate the Jihadists, too -- not for displacing America as the prime target, but as the richest target least defended. Though it will never happen, they believe that Islam will conquer the world, and so they try. Unlike the U.S., Europe is not removed from them by an ocean, and in it are 50 million of their co-religionists among whom they can disappear and find support. Perhaps out of habit, Europe is also kind to mass murderers, who if caught spend a few years in a comfortable prison sharpening their resolve before they are released to fight again. In July the French sentenced eight terrorists connected to the murder of 45 people to terms ranging from one year, suspended, to 10 years. In Spain, with 191 dead and 1,800 wounded, the perpetrators will spend no more than 40 years behind soft bars. Though in 2003 Germany found a September 11th facilitator guilty of 3,066 counts of accessory to murder and sentenced him to seven years (20 hours per person), he was recently reconvicted and sentenced to 43 hours per person, not counting parole.

And there's the problem with treating terrorism as a law enforcement option as several Claremont professors implicitly want.

Harvey Mudd in CSM: Thou Shall Not Prank These Students

Harvey Mudd's "no prank" list was mentioned in The Christian Science Monitor. Yes, the article is from October 31, and no, I'm not slipping. I'm deliberating how I feel about this issue. On the one hand, no prank lists suck the marrow out of fun. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure there are a few things I own that I wouldn't want messed with. In any event, here's the quotation:

Following complaints in 2000 from several students at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, Calif., about an annual prank where sophomores perform elaborate freshman room rearrangements - such as turning a dorm room into a campsite, complete with sod - administrators decided that rather than sacrifice their prank culture, they would refine it by creating a "no prank list."

"There is an implicit assumption that when you come to Harvey Mudd that you are willing to be party to pranks against you and your room," explains Guy Gerbick, associate dean of students. "We tell students during orientation, 'If you don't want to have certain things or yourself or any of your stuff pranked, let us know, and we'll put you on a list.' "

Over half the student body has registered. According to Mr. Gerbick, most make specific demands, such as not to interrupt sleep or meddle with a prized guitar or stuffed-animal collection. Only about 15 students have asked for no involvement whatsoever.

Think about all that regulation! If you prank so and so's teddy bear collection, you get in some serious trouble. Who would want to take the risk? Only the daring or the foolish. Too bad we don't have the good ole days when you could prank away and let boys be boys. Frankly if you can't get in trouble for it -- if your heart doesn't escalate-- than it isn't a prank.

Ban the Convicts From Claremont, CA

Now I blogged about this ridiculous student theatre program and local paroled women thing back in September, but apparently The Student Life is only now getting the message. Their headline says it all:"Theatre Program and Local Paroled Women Collaborate for Social Change". Lindsay Mullen, a writer for The Student Life, just swallows the agitprop without challenging any of the people she gets quotations from or the underlying premise that cons should be allowed into schools. What a shame.

Apparently Pomona has this woman, Norma Bowles, who set up this activist theatre company, Fringe Benefits, that "works with schools and communities to create plays that spread awareness about racism, sexism, and homophobia." Yawn. Heard that one before.

Her latest "work" is at Pomona where her women-only class, Theatre for Social Change creates "activist theatre from a feminist point of view to explore current theoretical positions." (read: boys need not apply.) Or to use the propagandist's words, "the class is composed of only women, giving the course a distinctive dynamic."

It's all about social change through theatre, baby. Or as one student taking the class puts it:
“The women and activists involved are really becoming enthused about this project,” said Arielle Brown ’11. “We are all interested in seeing how activism and art can be paired to affect change.”

But some of us just aren't comfortable with former convicts running around. Call me reactionary, call me whatever, but something seems downright wrong about having former convicts running around at Pomona of all places where a student was viciously attacked at gunpoint. Does anyone else think its a strange coincidence that a gunpoint robbery took place at Pomona recently? Does anyone else think it might not be too far of a stretch to say that one of these women may have been involved? After all, we have no idea what crimes they have stood accused of committing or could commit. Something tells me that the theatre "business" isn't quite so lucrative as these activists make it out to be. I'd put even money on the theatre program running at a financial loss.

After Pomona went to all the precautions of hiring outside security people, you'd think that they would cancel the play, but I guess the show must go on. In real life, though, far removed from the word of make believe, we simply can't risk having former cons on our campuses.

UPDATE 11/11/2007: Some of you have criticized me from the admittedly tenuous connection between the armed robbery and the cons. What's more distressing to me isn't necessarily the former cons but that no one else seems to have a problem with this program. No one has made an effort to inform the community of when and where these women will be on campus, no one has provided their names so that we can check what crimes they have or have not been convicted of, and no one has questioned the underlying sexism of creating a course that deliberately excludes men. Any thing that deliberately excludes a section of the population cannot be said to be nondiscriminatory.

Harvey Mudd President Attends Yet Another Female Engineers Promotional Conference

The Korea Herald reported on Nov. 8 that Harvey Mudd Pres. Maria Klawe attended another symposium addressing her favorite topic: women engineers. This time, she flew to South Korea's Ewha Womans University. (One wonders if that travel is included her salary as a Harvey Mudd President or if she's getting free travel by some larger lobby.)

She's made a habit of flying all over, spreading the word. In September, she went on a panel and talked about her fight for women in math. In early October, she pushed her teach for Math for America on everyone at Harvey Mudd. As I've blogged previously, at another women software engineer conference in Orlando, Fl. she made no secret of her fuzzy math for improving the numbers of women admitted to Harvey Mudd. By her estimation, 43% of Harvey Mudd's class of 2011 is now female. (One wonders if quotas had anything to do with that... )

By her own admission, she's also done some heavy "recruiting" of women engineers for Harvey Mudd. Will she make those numbers public? After all, even me, a non-math major, can tell that there's probably been some hard core affirmative action for the women admitted to Harvey Mudd. One girl told me that they "relentlessly encouraged [her] to apply."

Perhaps, instead of working so hard for female engineers or mathematicians, Dr. Maria Klawe could work to drum up support for all would-be engineers. This support would get Harvey Mudd's name out in new and exciting ways. Rather than doing the traditional recruiting for minorities/women, Klawe could work on creating contests for would-be engineers, encourage scholarships for students in dire straights, etc. After all, Dr. Klawe readily admits we're facing a crisis of math and science majors. Why would she deliberately go after only one narrow group if her role as an educator is to educate all?

Scripps Professor Explains Why Old Folks Tend To Be So Darn Happy

(From the Tennessean.com) In a study published in Psychological Science, Stacey Wood and her colleague at the University of Colorado

recorded the brain activity of 63 adults, ranging in age, who were shown a series of negative and positive images, such as dead animals or a bowl of ice cream. Older adults were about 30 percent less reactive to the negative images compared with the younger adults.

Might it be that the old folks are just desensitized to anything bad?

In characteristic bluntness, Wood states that

Younger people tend to think that happiness is getting what you want: a fabulous body, great job, true love, a nice place to live and a good ride. No one should dismiss the hopeful dreams of the young, but it's just not that simple, Wood says.

"We try to make decisions that make us happy, but we're not good at doing that," she says.

Now there's a cheery thought! Anyone see else see why I don't want to take psychology?

Pomona Will Bring Atttorney General Alberto Gonzales to Speak?

Pomona's ASPC has an opportunity to showcase its purported political diversity by bringing former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to campus. As The Student Life points out, his visit to the campus is fraught with difficulties. Putting aside that various human rights groups contend Gonzales's views of the Geneva Convention are less than consistent with their own entrenched positions, he should come to speak. Indeed, because the anti-Gitmo position is so mainstream on American college campuses, that is exactly why he should come to give Pomona students a view that they have seldom heard before.

Unfortunately, Kelly Schwartz '10, who serves as ASPC Communications Commisioner and Chair of the Speakers' Committee, wants to put the issue to a vote -- or more directly, a survey.

“We are more than likely going to survey students to see if they want him to come,” said Schwartz. “It is in no way a definite decision.”

That Pomona students feel the need to use surveys and popular demand as a means of keeping a former Attorney General from their campus testifies to the lack of balance present at Pomona. No speaker should be subject to a campus wide vote because a simple majority disagrees with him or her. Conservative students, far in the minority at Pomona, do not ask to censor the multitude of liberal speakers at Pomona and nor should they. Indeed as a fellow conservative and Claremont McKenna student, I disagree vehemently with Gonzales's views of affirmative action, but I don't believe that I should have the right to veto his prospective speech at Pomona.

Indeed Pomona should try to bring only the most thought provoking speakers. By worrying about perceived slights, Pomona does us all a disservice by thinking that our consciences are too fragile, that our views are too weak to not be directly challenged. Taken to its logical conclusion, we're left with boring speakers that neither inform, nor challenge us.

Gonzales, born to a poor family in Texas, put himself through college and U.S. Air Force Academy. He had little of the comforts we all enjoy and still worked his way up into government. Regardless of your politics, you can empathize with his story-- the story of the American dream.
Encourage Pomona's ASPC to bring Gonzales. Encourage Pomona to embrace its commitment to ideological and political diversity.

Pomona Debate on Immigration Lacks Substance, Facts

In a Pomona Student Union-sponsored debate between The Minuteman Project's Marvin Stewart and the Future of Freedom Foundation's Jacob Hornberger, substance and reason lost. In what can only be described as a debate chock a block with rhetoric and emotional appeals, I felt cheated.

Even before the debate, Pomona activists were distributing leaflets saying that Marvin Stewart of The Minuteman Project's group was a racist organization with trumped up and unverified sources. They hand out a flier damning the Minuteman Project without providing any evidence for people to verify their claims.

If that weren't bad enough before the debate even began various student agitators stood up with cheap slogans that they chanted at the end during the question and answer period. Those slogans were "immigration: it's who, not what" and "hate is not debate." Unfortunately, these protesters obscured everyone's view of the debate and undeniably made the speakers feel unwelcome. Had I been running security, I would have encouraged them to protest in the lobby and not in front of a debate that many wanted to hear.

I found both speakers reprehensible, but Mr. Hornberger was beyond the pale. By comparing America's desire to control its immigration policy as "equivalent to North Korea or Communist Cuba" in the opening remarks he cannot be said to have a serious understanding of the issue. Post-9-11 and during the fully fledged drug war, our immigration complaints cannot be solved by allowing anyone into this country. There is, like any immigration policy, a sustainable rate of immigration. Granted, Hornberger had a point about injustice laws and how they ought not to be enforced but he never convinced me that the entirely natural concept of protecting a nation's borders somehow was akin to Nazi Germany. His lack of balance was unnerving. The part where he said that Americans don't need to learn English is laughable. He began trotting out his Spanish to much applause. Why does Hornberger think that so many immigrants have fought for English only bills in government and the schools? The answers it that everyone recognizes knowing English is the most important way of getting ahead as an immigrant. He tries to answer that argument by saying that the estimated one million Americans that live in Mexico don't want or can't learn the language of Mexico, but he never discusses that those Americans in Mexico are not economic refugees. Indeed, most are members of very wealthy expatriate communities. Further, he ignores that even if the Americans in Mexico wanted to become Mexican, the Mexican government has excluded them by law. Americans in Mexico cannot own property, cannot petition government for a redress of grievances, and have many fewer rights than Mexicans do in the U.S. Any one who purports to be a fan of the free market cannot allow these injustices to go unnoticed. Shame on Stewart for not pointing them out.

Hornberger was also dead wrong on the history of the immigration debate. He tried to say that America was founded on free and open borders and began citing the language of the 14th amendment. He advocated that we should return to our "first principles." The problem, of course, is that the 14th amendment applied only to slaves. You would have to wait for the activist court of the 1890s for the 14th amendment to apply to the children of immigrants born in the U.S.

What neither side pointed to is that contemporary immigration is fundamentally dissimilar to the immigration of the 19th century. Whereas immigrants from Western Europe burned the bridges behind themselves and readily learned English, Hispanic immigrants cross the border repeatedly oftentimes multiple times a year. Whereas immigrants established night schools to teach their fellow immigrants English, immigrants today are told that they should retain their 'own cultures.' Is this not an argument that says that their cultural heritage is fundamentally dissimilar with that of America?

Now, lest someone say that I am not balanced, let me first say that I have never seen someone like Marvin Stewart who had so many opportunities to turn and capture his debate opponent's arguments and yet did not touch them. He tried to go on and on about the Declaration of Independence without providing the internal link as to why we should follow the Declaration of Independence in the immigration debate. If all men are created equal, why not allow all Mexicans into the U.S? Further, the comment that religion and politics are intertwined seems a bit dangerous. Though I'm weary of dismissing it on a First Amendment grounds -- the First Amendment also allows for the free exercise of religion-- I would prefer he didn't preach to the unconverted.

Tragically, most people came to the debate without any intention of listening to the other side. Much like the debaters themselves, they showed up with pre-conceived notions. They came expecting a fight and during the question and answer period when questions ad hominemly attacked the speakers, they got exactly what they wanted. What a shame, indeed.

VIDEO UPDATE: Courtesy of Ben Casnocha, I have a copy of the video of the debate. The coverage is pretty useless. They don't really go into any of the substance either. I suppose like the debate, they just don't have anything really important to say.

The Future of Claremont McKenna is Oxytocin

I've always found it funny that Claremont McKenna's motto -- "Civilization prospers with commerce" would so neatly fit everything Claremont McKenna stands for. The not-so subtle message of the college is that "greed is good" and the good are greedy for more learning, more time with the professors, and more access.

But a new study by Prof. Paul Zak (Claremont Graduate University) studies the "generosity" hormone. According to Telegraph.co.uk, apparently, you are more likely to be generous if you are high on oxytocin.

His team gave doses of oxytocin and a placebo to participants, who were then offered a decision on how to split a sum of money with a stranger who could accept or reject the split. The results were overwhelming: Those given oxytocin offered 80 per cent more money than those given a placebo.

...

Oxytocin's effect on generosity is more than three times larger than observed in the work he published in Nature in 2005 with colleagues in Zurich, showing that people who inhaled an oxytocin nasal spray are more likely to trust a stranger with their cash. "Trust with oxytocin goes up 17%," said Prof Zak, "but in the present paper we show generosity increases 80% with oxytocin."

Let this be a listen to our liberal friends who would force us to sign petitions, attend rallies, or post annoying environmentalist pledges on our doorways. The trick to forcing us to open our wallets and act kindly to strangers is a simple hormone! No longer will we have to watch hilariously heavy handed videos talking about all the wonderful things Claremont McKenna students do in their spare time. All we have to do now is drug our fellow students.

Alums, you aren't except either. Just what do you imagine Robert Day was snorting when he turned over his 200 million? Do we have a new method of "encouraging" alums to give?

Claremont McKenna Professors Make 2008 Predictions

Judge for yourself. My money is on Pitney's prediction. Frankly, Kesler's scares the hell out of me. See their opinions in today's National Review.

Charles Kesler
In the spirit of harmless fun (and amnesia, should these predictions veer wide of the mark), I predict that Hillary will win by three points over Rudy, that the Democrats will increase their margin in the Senate by five seats, and that the Republicans will pick up five to ten seats in the House. It will be a Democratic year, though not a blowout, and where the Republicans do better than feared (the Senate) and about as well as hoped (the House) it will be because individual candidates have done better than the national party at separating themselves from the negative legacy of the Bush administration. Senate candidates will do this on foreign policy issues (mainly, the Iraq war); House candidates on the immigration issue.

— Charles R. Kesler is professor of government and director of the Salvatori Center Government at Claremont McKenna College.

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John J. Pitney Jr.
Republicans nominate Rudy Giuliani for president. To hold GOP women who might vote for Hillary and to stress his commitment to reform, Giuliani surprises the political class by picking Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton makes a move into GOP territory by picking Indiana Senator Evan Bayh. Giuliani-Palin wins with 52 percent of the popular vote and 293 electoral votes.

— John J. Pitney Jr. is Roy P. Crocker Professor of American Politics at Claremont McKenna College.

Drivers Beware: Claremont Police Will Have DUI Checkpoint

Now I am very anti-drunk driving, but I figured you would all want to know about an effort this next weekend to cut down on drunk driving in Claremont.

According to the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, from Friday at 6 pm to Saturday at 2 am, "Motorists will be stopped to see if they are under the influence of alcohol or drugs, have a seat belt on and possess a valid driver's license."

Any one want to guess that they'll be close to the Claremont Colleges? After the fiasco at Hartwood, I almost hope so.

Just Say No To The Invasive Climate Change Pledge

Earlier today an environmentalist knocked on my fifth floor Stark room. As I thought it was someone else, I said "come in." My bad. Had it been a robbing invader as that which frequented those poor Pomona students, I would certainly be that much poorer and gagged. Instead I was robbed of something that is nonetheless valuable: my time.

He tried to encourage me to sign an environmental pledge as part of President Gann's efforts to curb climate change. He handed me the sheet and encouraged me to fill it out and put it on my doorway.

I don't generally reject those things out of hand and may have even sympathized with some of the goals, but I don't -- and won't -- post something up on my doorway signifying my compliance with something I had no part in deliberating or studying. Had Heroes not been on, I would have certainly given him a debate, but as it was, I'll have to settle for a blog post.

A Mistake To Recognize Genocide at Claremont McKenna

As many of you know, I frequented the People's (Stalinist) Republic of Berkeley this past weekend for a debate tournament. One of the topics mentioned was whether or not the U.S. should recognize the Armenian genocide. Having predicted the topic myself, I was very pleased. I got to argue against it and though I did not win the debate at Berkeley, I hope to address the debate here at Claremont McKenna on whether or not we should pressure Congress to recognize the Armenian genocide. As this topic does not seem to be going away, even after Pamuk did not want to talk about it, it's time for a response to the Genocide Noticers. These types engage in rallies without addressing the real substance: how might we best prevent genocide today.

At its heart, this "recognize genocide or else!" campaign on college campuses fails to meet strict intellectual scrutiny. What a pity the otherwise outstanding Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights asserts itself into what is clearly a politicized issue designed to aggravate the Turks. As Professor Pitney mentions, it's a pretty lame effort on the part of Democrats to appease their ethnic constituencies at the expense of Turko-American relations. These relations are essential if we want to keep Turkey from engaging in a war in the relatively peaceful region of Kurdish Northern Iraq and if we want to continue using Turkish bases in that area.

How do I make those claims? Well, for starters, President Reagan already recognized the genocide in 1981. Any symbolic act, however well-intentioned is a restatement of Reagan's position (albeit a quarter century more after the document was issued.)

What's more, any efforts to recognize this particular genocide will result in ethnic tensions here in America. The reason the Armenian lobby is pushing for this recognition is because it is politically powerful and other groups, like the Turks, Rwandans, etc. are not. Despite this problem though, it won't be long before the Chinese lobby in the U.S. forces Americans to recognize the Nanking massacre in China. That this will hurt Japanese relations as much as the current symbolic action will hurt Turko-American relations is of little consequence to the Democrats. Democrats, who often seek to reduce ethnic minorities into dependent Democratic voters by giving them reparations or special ethnic-based services, harm the very national fiber and encourage competition between different ethnic groups. In turn, this fight between ethnic groups leads to ethnic conflict and a "Us vs. them" dichotomy -- the very precondition necessary for genocide to occur.

But this isn't a question about history, it's a question about forcing us to feel guilt for a "genocide" that occurred nearly a century ago. (The reason I say "genocide" is because historians still dispute whether or not a genocide occurred in Armenia and even if it did, what exactly constituted the actions undertaken.) The flier, urging us to "take a stand against denial" plays on our emotional strings. It asks: "If 1.5 million people were killed today, people would care. What makes the past so different?"

Like most emotional pulls based on shoddy historicism, the protesters hope not to be answered. I give them no such satisfaction or moral authority. The reason the past is different is that we have no control over it. We cannot get into a time machine and somehow resurrect people from the dead. But we can stop the Iraq war from accelerating out of control. We can stop setting the stage for a future genocide. We can save lives today.

Now what does this have to do with Claremont McKenna and the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights? By recognizing the Armenian genocide and becoming pawns of the Democratic party's ploy to withdrawn troops from Iraq, the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights loses its credibility and fails to sustain its commitment to prevent future genocides.

And that is a tragedy much worse than I can stomach. But if you insist on stopping genocide today, please take advantage of the letter to congress campaign going on at Collins, Frary, Malott, and McConnell. Ask the Democrat Congress to prove their commitment to ending genocide by stopping future genocides by continuing to support the winnable war in Iraq. Be sure to thank them for putting aside the vested interest of the Armenian lobby for the sake of America's national security and pride.