Xinjiang Sanctions Hurt the Uyghurs

 

The U.S. sanctions on products produced in the Xinjiang Region will not be effective and will tend to harm the Uyghurs more than the Han Chinese.

Xinjiang is over 50% Uyghur and Uyghurs produce the majority of the goods there.

Sanctions against products manufactured in Xinjiang using "slave labor" will have a generally depressive effect on demand for all products produced in the region, not just those produced in prison camps.

Therefore, the worst impact will be on the Uyghur majority in Xinjiang and will only have a slight effect on Han Chinese generally.

The repressive policies in Xinjiang come out of Beijing and Beijing should be held responsible.

If sanctions are to be used, they should be on Chinese exports generally, not exports from the Xinjiang Region specifically.

Other policies should be studied that might be of assistance to the Uyghurs.

However, we should temper our expectations, particularly when we consider the abject failure of international efforts to free Tibet, which is a region bordering Xinjiang that is also subject to severe Chinese persecution and control.

Expand NATO to Include Russia

 

This is about as friendly as it got in Geneva.

While the United States and Europe have grown since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989, Russia has steadily gotten smaller and weaker, such that Moscow now commands 76% of the geographic area, 51% of the population, and only 26% of its former gross national product. This puts Russian somewhere between Mexico and Nigeria in terms of overall population and somewhere between Kazakhstan and Panama in terms of per capita GDP.

What Russia has in abundance are nuclear warheads (#1), geographic area (#1) and proven oil reserves (#8).

But, the clock is ticking on Russia, because many of those warheads date back to the Cold War and will soon be unreliable (and are exorbitantly expensive to upgrade), the Russian population is ageing and shrinking, the Russian economy is stagnant and in forty or fifty years future fossil fuels will become an anachronism, making all those reserves virtually worthless.

Vladimir Putin must be acutely aware of this predicament. It seems to me that he may yearn for the Soviet heydays when Russian power rivaled that of the United States. However, those days are long past, and unlikely to ever return. Today, Russia wields the purchasing power of the State of New York, which is not the hallmark of of a global superpower (no offence intended toward New Yorkers, of course, who similarly yearn for superpower status).

Geopolitically, the world is fast approaching a tipping point, where the center of the world, in terms of economic and military power, is shifting closer and closer to Beijing. Russia, literally and figuratively, straddles this divide. If Putin wants to see Russian greatness restored in his lifetime, does he hitch his cart to the economic engine of China or does he soften his tone and seek alliances with the West?

At the present, Putin seems to be eyeing China. For example, in December of 2020, Russian and Chinese heavy bombers flew a training mission that included a brief incursion into Japanese and South Korean defense zones, prompting the scrambling of jet fighters from both countries. In September 2020 China participated with Russia in massive military exercises in the Caucasus region of southern Russia. Most recently, in the lead-up to the Geneva summit, Russia conducted naval maneuvers near Hawaii while Chinese warplanes repeatedly invaded Taiwanese airspace.

So, is it too late to swivel the Russian gaze back toward the West? What can the U.S. and NATO offer Russia in exchange for an alliance and a lasting peace? Can we finally bury the skeletons of the Cold War and move toward denuclearization? Will Russia ally itself with the West as a bulwark against Chinese hegemony?

The problem lies in what fundamentally links Russia and China: authoritarianism. Authoritarian leaders do not like to share power within their sphere of influence. Authoritarian leaders can work with other authoritarian leaders without having to endure the constant, annoying buzzing of human rights groups protesting this or that abuse of human rights. Authoritarian leaders take pleasure when other authoritarians annex land and expel people (as long as it isn't their land or their people, of course). Authoritarian leaders seek to work with other leaders whose power is absolute in order to have confidence that their secret agreements won't be subject to the vagaries of the next election cycle.

So, at least from the perspective of two authoritarian leaders, Xi and Putin seem to be a match made in heaven, and what can the U.S. and NATO possibly offer to lure Russia into the fold?

It all depends upon Vladimir Putin and what he, in his heart of hearts, values most. Does Putin value the interests of the Russian people over the desire to see Russia command respect on a global scale, even if that respect has to be coerced at the point of a tactical nuclear warhead?

Unfortunately, the prospects of bringing Putin around to our way of seeing things doesn't look very good on that front, either. If you analyze Putin's domestic political strategy, he is certainly not seeking any sort of consensus of political views. He is actively involved in a war against progressive values and is accelerating the debasement of Russian democratic institutions. Putin is effectively a fascist dictator (think Stalin without Marx) seeking to rid the nation of "undesirables" and coalesce the population into a force that will do his bidding without question. In Stalin's time as many as 20 million "undesirables" perished during a period referred to as the "Great Purge" (out of a population of 168 million at the time, or more than one person in ten). Under Putin's leadership, Stalin's image in Russia has seen a tremendous resurgence. Today, 45% of Russians have a positive view of Stalin, a man who was the greatest genocidal megalomaniac the world has ever seen. Putin believes that Stalin was a man of "good intentions" and that the 20 million who died was a sacrifice that was justified by the country's great goals at the time.

So, it seems fairly clear that Putin's management style isn't necessarily a good fit for roundtable discussions with the leaders of the great Western democracies, as the failed summit in Geneva served to prove. But, what is Vladimir Putin's end game? It seems that he is starting to follow the North Korean playbook, another autocratic nation with nuclear weapons that periodically engages in bad behavior to try and keep itself relevant in a world that is literally racing ahead of it. If Putin seems poised to bet everything on China, what could China be possibly promising him in return?

It is starting to become clear that China is looking to escalate existing confrontations beyond the breaking point, particularly in the case of Taiwan and the South China Sea. Their actions in these areas, when combined with their brazen abrogation of the "Handover Treaty" that protected civil rights in Hong Kong and the consolidation of power around Xi, point to a probing and testing of Western resolve that seems to inevitably lead to the occupation of Taiwan and the full-scale exploitation of energy resources in the South China Sea. Either of these actions would lead to a break with the West and the imposition of strict sanctions against China which would effectively shut off oil from Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. However, China has been slowly but surely transitioning from Saudi oil to Russian oil, up from 11% in 2014 to over 16% today, and is prepared to import more. When China decides to seize Taiwan they will be solely dependent on Russia, Iran and Malaysia for their oil supplies. Additionally, China dramatically accelerated their oil stockpiling when COVID-19 made oil cheap and are adding additional storage tank capacity at the rate of over 100 million additional barrels per year. In other words, China is preparing to lose access to its Saudi pipeline and will depend on its stockpiles, Russia and Iran for its supply.

Putin, on the other hand, would be in a position to demand a significant premium over market oil prices if China were become almost solely dependent upon him for oil. With China being the largest oil consumer in the world, this would be quite the choice customer to command.

So, the answer seems to be that Russia is allying itself with China in anticipation of the reunification of Taiwan with Mainland China and the geopolitical shock waves that this will create, in the interest of profiting mightily by supplying energy to China.

How did we get into this situation in the first place? When NATO won the Cold War and the Soviet Union collapsed, the United States and Russia had a unique opportunity to forge peace out of the fallen Iron Curtain. However, instead of working with Russia to develop their economy, build a democracy and to integrate economically with the West (like we had done at great expense with Germany and Japan post WWII), the United States and Europe virtually turned their back on Russia, gloating in their victory and instead focusing on helping the Soviet satellite states break away and gain their footing. Over this time massive Soviet-era industries were privatized and fell into the hands of the cronies of Boris Yeltsin for pennies on the dollar, financed by loans from European banks. These oligarchs are who now run Russia, with Putin overseeing everything. Instead of helping Russia to develop an evolved system of government they were left, essentially, to their own devices and Russia devolved in something akin to a Mafia State.

On the military front, NATO never altered it mission from one of containing Russia, even when the idea of containing Russia had become quaint at best and ridiculous at worst. Apart from its ability to launch a nuclear attack, Russia posed no real threat to the West. Toward the end of the Soviet Empire, the size of its military began to shrink dramatically, which only accelerated after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Today, Russia has 15,000 tanks versus the 55,000 that it had in 1990. In spite of knowing that Russia was a mere shadow of its former Soviet self, NATO kept its gunsights trained on Moscow.

I mentioned earlier that Russia, on a per capita basis, is not a wealthy country. Can you imagine if you were a Russian in 2010, earning less than $10K per year and having wealthy neighbors like Germany ($41K/yr) performing war games and continually expanding those war games into countries that were former members of the Soviet Bloc, right up to your borders?

How about when you, as a Russian, try to build a pipeline to export natural gas to Europe, only to have the United States oppose the project every step of the way on security grounds based on Cold War logic? Would you be made to feel that NATO and the United States wished to be your friends or were, in fact, rivals and antagonists?

I think you understand where I am going with this. Russia is in something of a sorry state for a country of its size and rich history, and that in and of itself is a difficult pill to swallow for the Russians. NATO needs to acknowledge this and reach out to Russia to facilitate solutions to some of their most enduring problems such as an extreme overdependence on energy production, weak governmental institutions and poor social cohesion (including the highest rate of alcoholism in the world and a declining life expectancy). We should be trading MORE with Russia, not less. We should be providing humanitarian aid and social services to Russia. We should be figuring out how to bring Moscow into Europe where it belongs.

If the NATO can openly admit to its mistakes and convince Russia to trust it we will pull an important leg out from under China's expansionist ambitions and will facilitate a free and modern Russia to the benefit of the European continent and the world.

If Putin agrees, of course.

Replace the Corporate Tax with a National Sales Tax

Source: https://1.bp.blogspot.com/

Why should the government tax corporate earnings if they will be taxed as soon as they are distributed anyway? That is a good question, and many economists argue that corporate earning should NOT be taxed. However, there are issues with the elimination of the corporate tax that should be discussed.

The primary problem with a zero corporate tax rate is that the corporations depend heavily on the government for support. Corporation use roads and highways, they utilize the communications networks, they depend on law enforcement and border protection, they engage in interstate commerce, they export goods to other countries, etc. All of these activities have a cost, and if the corporations are paying taxes on their income at a zero rate all of these costs will be passed along to the investors and other taxpayers which may not sufficiently cover the impact of corporate activities on society at large.

Therefore, I propose, as an alternative to the corporate income tax, a national sales tax on all revenue generation, including foreign revenue that is generated when goods are imported into the United States. Since a sale typically involves the movement of goods or of intellectual capital across our physical and digital highways, a national sales tax will directly address the related costs. Also, by taxing foreign revenue in the form of a duty on imports, the impact of foreign goods entering the U.S. will be similarly mitigated.

I estimate that a national sales tax rate of 2% would be more than adequate to replace the revenue lost to the government by the elimination of corporate income tax.

By eliminating the corporate income tax and replacing it with a national sales tax, the United States will benefit in several ways:

• Greater fairness in taxation by eliminating the double-taxation of corporate earnings.
• Increase in domestic savings which can be used to finance loans by eliminating all incentives to shelter corporate earnings in foreign tax havens.
• Greater potential for economic growth and employment since the money saved by corporations can be plowed back into their operations.
• The capture of income on revenue earned by foreign corporations who wish to access our market.

Prosecute Cops and Watch Crime Rates Spike

 

Freddy Gray Struggles to Avoid Being Detained

In April 2015, Freddy Gray was arrested in West Baltimore, after a foot chase, for carrying a spring-assisted knife that was legal in Maryland but illegal in Baltimore City.

He was handcuffed and shackled, placed in the back of a paddy wagon and was driven around West Baltimore before arriving at the police precinct for booking. At some point he suffered a spinal injury that led to his death. It was alleged that the driver of the van deliberately accelerated and braked in such a way that Mr. Gray, who was not belted in, would fly around in the back.

Subsequent to Freddy Gray's death, the City of Baltimore brought charges against all six officers involved in the arrest, including the driver, Caesar Goodson, Jr.

The six officers prosecuted for the death of Freddy Gray

The decision to charge these officers was extremely unpopular amongst the rank-and-file officers of the Baltimore Police Department. After a series of mistrials, all officers either had the charges dismissed or were found not guilty, and they proceeded to sue the City of Baltimore for the way that they were treated.

In the month after the death of Freddy Gray, Baltimore experienced a massive spike in homicides, to the highest level in over forty years, and the year-end total ranked as the third highest rate ever recorded.

Washington, DC, which is only about 50 miles from Baltimore and which has many criminal connections to Baltimore, also experienced a spike in crime during this same period.

Philadelphia, PA, which is about 100 miles north of Baltimore, also experienced an increase in murders, although to a lesser extent.

It should be pointed out that the prosecution of the six Baltimore police officers was closely watched by police forces nationwide, but in particular in neighboring cities like Washington DC and Philadelphia. The displeasure felt by the police in these cities was expressed through an unwillingness to perform dangerous foot and bicycle patrols, an unwillingness to chase suspects, and an unwillingness to arrest suspects for low-level criminal activity.

Freddy Gray was someone the Baltimore Police Department knew well and someone they hoped to get off the streets. At 25 years of age, Freddy Gray had a long arrest record, having been arrested eighteen times, including four times in 2015 prior to his final arrest in April 2015.

Today there are unprecedent calls across the country to defund police departments and prosecute police officers, and crime in areas where police have been prosecuted all have shown spikes in crime similar to what was seen in Baltimore in May of 2015.

While it is important to weed out bad cops who are guilty of using excessive force in the execution of their duties, it is important to distinguish clearly between "good cops" and "bad cops" and to make it clear that society is not at war with law enforcement personnel IN GENERAL. Unfortunately, that is exactly the feeling that we, as a society, are giving the police officers who risk their lives to get illegal guns and other weapons off the streets.

Therefore, expect to see dramatic increases in violent crime in urban centers across the country, which is going to cause untold heartbreak and loss.

Gun Control is a State's Rights Issue

 

Every time there is a mass shooting in America, the Federal Government makes another power grab in an effort to limit or restrict the rights enshrined in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The problem with this is that the Second Amendment exists precisely as a limit on Federal Authority and efforts to undermine it are unconstitutional.

The text of the Second Amendment is as follows:

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

At the time this amendment was penned, each state fielded its own militia, and it was these militias that waged war on England during the U.S. Revolutionary War (1775 - 1783). These militias were comprised largely of citizen volunteers, mainly farmers, who owned their own muskets and who were available at a moment's notice to rally to the defense of the fledgling nation.

It is precisely these citizen warriors, who served by authority of their own state's militia, that the Founding Fathers were thinking of when they penned "the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

The fear of the Founding Fathers was that a national army would come to replace the militia system and that the Federal Government would concentrate power and seek to confiscate weapons from the citizenry to prevent rebellion and insurrection. It is well documented that the formation of a standing army was one of the Founding Father's greatest fears. They believed that keeping a standing army at the ready in times of peace could only lead to mischief and to a loss of freedom generally.

Instead, they preferred the concept of state militias over that of a national standing army, to be regulated by each State's legislature. Basically, each state was to maintain its own militia to be organized (and armed) as that state saw fit, and that the new federal government must not take any action to disarm the citizens that comprise these militias.

However, the Founding Fathers did not want the nascent nation to devolve into the chaos of internecine violence. For this reason, they imagined (or hoped, really) that each state would field a "well regulated" militia, with proper discipline and training. They always felt that the right to keep and bear arms must be for a specific purpose, that being in support of the state militias in defense of each state and, by extension, the defense of the nation.

Therefore, the Constitution strictly outlaws the regulation of arms at the federal level, but not at the state level. In fact, the Constitution demands the regulation of arms at the state level. The problem we are facing as a nation is that too many states have failed to properly regulate their own citizens which has led to the chaos and internecine violence that the Founding Fathers feared could emerge.

The solution is for state legislatures to take up this matter and enact regulations that will make their states safer from gun violence. The Federal Government can enact legislation to help states fund these efforts, but they must not enact legislation that usurps this essential authority.

Split Afghanistan Across the Middle

The United States is attempting to broker a power-sharing arrangement between the secular government of Afghanistan and the Taliban, but it is not going to work. 

The Taliban have proven themselves to be too persistent and too durable, and the secular government too weak and too corrupt. 

And, perhaps more importantly, the vision that the Taliban has for the future of women in Afghanistan is incompatible with the secular model and will be impossible to reconcile. 

If the United States pulls out, the secular government will quickly fall and Afghan women and girls will lose their freedoms.

I propose dividing Afghanistan across the middle, along a line that is roughly defined by Herat in the West and Jalalabad in the East, making good use of the Koh-I-Baba mountain range that runs through the middle of the country as a natural border. The vast majority of the residents of the three cities that fall along this line, Herat, Kabul, and Jalalabad, are opposed to Taliban rule and so are automatic candidates for inclusion in a secular Afghanistan. Also, creating an international border between the southern and northern areas will help prevent the incursion of Taliban assassins and spies who have been responsible for such suffering amongst the educated class of Afghanistan.

The fine points of the geographical division can be left to the negotiators, but physically separating the two warring groups will present the best chance of a lasting peace and will make the work of defending the secular government much easier by keeping the NATO forces out of areas controlled by Taliban sympathizers.  

Lie to Yourself at Your Own Risk

 

U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower Tours Taipei in 1960

After the People's Liberation Army ran Chiang Kai-shek and his supporters out of mainland China and onto Formosa Island in 1949 the U.S. made the stupid decision to only recognize Taiwan with only 0.3% of the landmass and 2% of the population of the People's Republic of China, and not the communist government led by Mao Tse Tung. This stupidity continued all the way to 1970 when the U.S. replaced one idiocy with another: to recognize the PRC as the legitimate Chinese government and to withdraw official recognition of Taiwan.

Neither decision was smart or forward-thinking. After the Chinese Civil War, it was clear that Chiang Kai-shek had zero chance of regaining control of China. Therefore, the immature denial of obvious facts created a tense and irrational dynamic.

The facts are obvious: the People's Republic of China is the legitimate government of China and the Republic of China (the official name of the Taiwanese government), is the legitimate government of Taiwan.

Instead of recognizing these facts for what they were, the U.S. and its allies lost the opportunity to officially end the Chinese Civil War and convince the PRC to recognize Taiwan, with disastrous consequences.

Now, Taiwan is probably going to be overrun by the People's Liberation Army, the U.S. is going to be chased out of the Pacific region and Japan is in serious danger, all because the U.S. and its allies perpetuated a foolish myth.

The United States should never again perpetuate a diplomatic policy that does not fully recognize the facts as they are and that respects the diplomatic rights of all parties. We should have recognized the PRC in 1949 and we should have never agreed to go along with the "One China" policy.

Support a Direct Central American Immigration Route

 

Guatemalans burned to a crisp in Mexico

Something must be done to stop Central American immigration through Mexico. This immigration fuels wars between cartels who seek to control this lucrative human trade and results in dramatic cases of exploitation as exemplified by the recent death of 19 Guatemalans who were forced to fight with the Mexican cartels. I am not suggesting that we halt immigration from Central America; instead, what I am suggesting is that we bar all immigration of Central Americans across the US/Mexico border. What we need to do is to work closely with governments in Central America, and nonprofits working in those countries to facilitate immigration documents including asylum documents for Central Americans so that they can board airplanes and fly to the United States.

We must make it clear that anyone who arrives to the US border with Mexico who is not Mexican and who seeks asylum in the United States, or who wishes to cross illegally will be stopped. The alternative is to subject these immigrants to extortion, kidnap, torture, forced prostitution, rape, and murder. Additionally, the money that human trafficking supplies serves to strengthen the cartels, helping to ensure their survival.

There are currently programs in place supported by Mexican President Lopez Obrador with the support of the Mexican Guardia Nacional that have been effective in discouraging the large caravans of Central Americans who have sought to march through Mexico to the US border in order to cross illegally or seek asylum. These programs should be bolstered and additional efforts should be made to defend the border such that the Mexican route becomes exceedingly difficult and unproductive.

Simultaneously, the United States should expand outreach from our embassies in Central American countries to enable asylum applications in the home countries with processing in the home countries. Funds, both public and private, should be allocated to help subsidize flights for those who are successful in earning entry into the United States. It should be noted however, that Central Americans currently pay cartel coyotes thousands of dollars per person to cross them over the river and into the United States, so a one-way airplane ticket is actually a very small price to pay and something that Central Americans would agree is a very smart investment considering the extreme risk of attempting to traverse Mexico.

Ultimately, of course, Central Americans would prefer to live a prosperous and safe life in the countries of their birth. But, weak economies and widespread violence ultimately drive them out of their homes. A big part of the solution must to find ways to alleviate these problems which will automatically eliminate the problem of illegal immigration and its human and societal costs.

Are Twitter's Policies an Affront to our First Amendment Rights?

 

I never thought I would agree with a Tweet published by Donald J. Trump, Jr., but it is true that we are, in fact, entering into an Orwellian future where it will be much more difficult to express our own point of view.

Before anyone misconstrues this post as a moral defense of President Trump, let me state for the record that the President is clearly a traitor to our Constitution who is guilty of sedition for organizing the storming of the Capitol and should be convicted and hung from the neck until dead. In spite of that, and in spite of the fear that he may foment additional unrest, his speech is protected by the First Amendment and the Twitter ban runs afoul of those rights. He should be allowed to say whatever he wants right up to the moment that the rope snaps his neck.

So, Twitter is already censoring free speech by suspending his account, and one could argue that as a private company Twitter may have the right to moderate all uses of their platform. And, this could be okay if people know clearly upfront that Twitter is not a free speech platform. Twitter is like a private meeting hall and technically the company has the right to kick people out if they want to. However, this won’t stop those people from going to a different meeting hall that is friendlier to them. In fact, this is exactly what is happening. Parler (https://www.parler.com/) is a web application similar to Twitter launched by well-heeled Trump supporters such as the Mercers (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebekah_Mercer). However, in a clear sign of things to come, the Parler app has been banned by Apple and Google and Amazon Web Services has canceled their hosting contract.

The next front in the war to regulate Trumpian speech will center on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230). At the heart of Section 230 currently are protections of free speech:

"No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider."

However, there are efforts afoot to strip companies like Twitter and Facebook of these protections which would make them potential targets of lawsuits designed to squelch certain points of view. Ironically, President Trump has called for these protections to be removed and even vetoed the Defense Spending Bill to emphasize the point (the veto was overturned). If these protections are revoked, companies will be forced to ramp up the moderation of the content providers and will be much faster to suspend accounts that are seen to be spreading polemical views. In other words, absent Section 230, Trump would have faced a Twitter ban years ago.

Additionally, the FCC has publicly affirmed its authority to interpret Section 230 as they deem fit (The FCC's Authority to Interpret Section 230 of the Communications Act | Federal Communications Commission), stating that the FCC can feel confident proceeding with rulemaking to clarify the scope of the Section 230 immunity shield. How might this translate into policy? That will depend entirely on the discretion of the FCC Commissioner who acts at the pleasure of the President of the United States. For example, could the FCC remove Section 230 protections from any Twitter posts that are deemed to be based on inaccurate information? How about ad hominem attacks that could be construed as slander? All of these things are possible, and they would subject the host (i.e. publically traded companies like Twitter and Facebook) to massive civil liability.

Do we want to give an appointed public servant the power to restrict wide swathes of previously accepted speech? Do we want to give a U.S. President this authority? Even this blog could wind up getting deleted if Google determined that something that I have written potentially exposes them to liability under a new interpretation of Section 230.

How far this goes is hard to predict, but I can envision a future where search engines like Google or Bing are held liable for linking to websites or commentary that has been previously flagged by the FCC as being unprotected speech out of a fear that the act of serving pages with questionable content could, in and of itself, expose the company to liability.

All of this will have an extreme, Orwellian, chilling effect on freedom of expression on the Internet, and the freedoms enshrined in the First Amendment in general. It will force commentators with viewpoints far diverged from the mainstream into a virtual cyber "wilderness" where they will be all but impossible to find.

What can be done to fix this?

• Pass legislation to prevent Google and Apple from blocking applications for political reasons.
• Pass legislation SEPARATE from the Communications Act of 1934 to enshrine the protections from liability present in Section 230, thereby taking the issue out of the hands of the FCC.

Remember, as John Adams so eloquently stated, "Liberty, once lost, is lost forever." If we are going to err in this, we must err to the conservative and protect the vibrant (and sometimes ugly) online debate forums that now exist.

To further explain how important Section 230 is, and why it needs to be protected, I offer the following infographic (courtesy of the EFF):