The View from Right Field

Do Uighur Lives Matter? – Part Two: Do We Care?

In an earlier post I talked about why I thought saying “Uighur Lives Matter” could be problematic.  But beyond that, I don’t think “Uighurs Lives Matter” would carry the day in the United States, even if saying it wasn’t problematic.  Let me mention a couple of reasons.  First, a number of Americans just don’t care about what is going on elsewhere in the world.  It is part of their America First approach.  They feel we need to make economic deals with China.  We have to take care of ourselves; we can’t worry about the Uighurs.  This is certainly what former National Security Adviser John Bolton says that President Trump told President Xi Jinping. 

Second, lots of individual Americans and American companies are intimidated by China.  They see over a billion Chinese and decide sales and profits are more important than principles and doing what is right.

Do Uighur Lives Matter?

Black Lives Matter has swept the United States.  It is on tee shirts and signs outside churches.  It is painted on city streets and basketball floors.  Along with the pandemic, it is the thing most associated with 2020. 

My question is: What about “Uighur Lives Matter”?  The Chinese have been cracking down on the Uighurs for years.  The repression has gotten worse since President Xi Jinping took office.  Uighurs are labeled terrorists, and police are everywhere.  Reports are that over a million Uighurs are in forced labor camps, which the Chinese call re-education or training centers.¹

Scaredy-Cat Protestors – And the Role of the Press

With the Donald Trump impeachment hearings on the TV and all over the news, there is plenty of time to do other things.  But let me talk about something possibly related to the news on the impeachment of President Trump: the media and who to believe.  There was a brouhaha over the weekend at the student-run Daily Northwestern, in Evanston, Illinois.  The editorial staff at the paper ran an editorial apologizing for the harm they supposedly caused when the paper ran/tweeted photos of people protesting a speech by former Attorney General Jeff Sessions.  Apparently, some of the people in these photos felt they were harmed by the publication of the photos.  On Sunday, the paper apologized, saying in part:

“We recognize that we contributed to the harm students experienced, and we wanted to apologize for and address the mistakes that we made that night – along with how we plan to move forward.”

Mass Shootings: After We “Do Something,” Let’s Try to Do Something That Actually Works

With two more mass shootings, in El Paso and Dayton, we are told we must “do something.”  Generally, that means gun control, though it now also seems to include “red flag” laws, as well as more spending for mental health and doing something about violent video games. Okay, let’s do it, subject of course to the Constitution.  Not only the Second Amendment, but also the other ones: the First, Fourth, Fifth, etc.

But after we “do something,” let’s also try to do something that works.  Megan McArdle, at The Washington Post, has a couple of ideas on this subject (here and here).  Aggressive stop-and-frisk policing has seemed to reduce murder rates in places like New York City, but many people don’t like what they see as police harassment of minorities.  Also, given the distrust of the police by many people in places like Chicago, you wonder how it would work there.  Plus, these kinds of tactics wouldn’t stop mass shootings, though reducing day-to-day murders might save more lives than reducing mass shootings over a whole year.

Once Again: Can Americans Be Trusted With Campaign Finance Disclosures?

Last Monday, U.S. Representative Joaquin Castro (Dem, Tex.) tweeted a list of 44 people in San Antonio, Texas, who contributed the maximum amount to President Trump’s campaign in 2019, with this comment:

“Sad to see so many San Antonians as 2019 maximum donors to Donald Trump – the owner of @BillMillerBarBQ, owner of the @HistoricPearl, realtor Phyllis Browning, etc. Their contributions are fueling campaign of hate that labels Hispanic immigrants as ‘invaders.’”

Mark Zuckerberg Wants to Be Regulated

Of course, he does, the cynic would say.  It’s the best way to protect himself – and his money.  In an Op-Ed in The Washington Post last week,¹ Mr. Zuckerberg called for regulation of the Internet.  Among other things, he wants “a globally harmonized framework” for privacy and data protection.  He suggests that third party bodies set standards on distribution of harmful content.   And he wants laws on “verifying” those who buy/pay for political ads and political speech.

There will be plenty of legislators willing to take Mr. Zuckerberg up on his request.  There is nothing that many people in Washington like more than passing laws and looking like they are doing something.²  Plus regulating speech on the Internet is a great way for incumbents to protect their jobs. 

Can Americans Be Trusted With Campaign Finance Disclosure? – An Update After the Brett Kavanaugh Hearings

Four years ago, I wrote a post asking “Can Americans Be Trusted With Campaign Finance Disclosure?”  I noted that, while some people want to limit political spending either by limiting how much people can contribute or by limiting how much candidates can spend, the First Amendment (at least as currently interpreted by the Supreme Court) doesn’t allow either of those.  Therefore, as I said back then:

“[T]hey fall back on disclosure of contributions.  If we can’t limit spending, they say, at least we can require contributions and spending to be disclosed.  In the words of Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis (before he was on the Court), ‘[s]unlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.’”

But, I asked, as I do again in the title of this post: Can Americans be trusted with campaign finance disclosure?  This question recently returned when a federal district court judge threw out a 37-year old Federal Election Commission rule dealing the disclosures that nonprofit advocacy groups have to make with respect to the names of their donors.  Without going into the technical detail of the case,¹ the judge’s ruling increases the number of people whose names have to be disclosed, even though the people aren’t making contributions to candidates, but just to groups that are making independent political expenditures.

What’s Worse? Fake News or the Cure

I find the panic about “fake news” a little overdone.  I understand there are a lot of news stories out there that aren’t true, but it’s been that way for a long time.  The National Enquirer has been at my supermarket checkout lane for decades.  That’s pretty fake news. 

If by fake news, you mean lies, they’ve been around for a long time, too.  Hitler lied about the Jews.¹  Stalin lied about Katyn Forest.  Vladimir Putin lies all the time.  Crimea.  Ukraine.  The shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight 17.  Anybody who believes Vladimir Putin isn’t paying attention.²

It could be, with the Internet, fake news today travels a little faster and gets a broader distribution, but so does everything else. 

Let’s Respect the Flag by Actually Singing the Star Spangled Banner

On Wednesday, the NFL announced a policy providing, as I understand it, that all players on the field when the National Anthem is played must stand and show respect for the flag and anthem.  Players who do not want to stand can stay in the locker room until after the anthem is played.

It has never been a big deal for me whether players stood or didn’t stand during the anthem.  I don’t watch football, and even if I did, I wouldn’t care.  There are more important things to worry about.  Plus the freedom to protest is a good thing.

Cuba’s Ladies in White Win the Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty

Everybody has heard of the Nobel Peace Prize.  Over the years, it has honored people for doing great things.  Teddy Roosevelt in 1906 for negotiating the end of the Russo-Japanese War, George Marshall in 1953, Norman Borlaug in 1970 for the green revolution, and Lech Walesa in 1983. 

There have been deserving winners recently, too, such as Malala Yousafzai, a 15-year Pakistani girl, who won in 2014 after being shot in the head by the Taliban for going to school and writing about it, and Liu Xiaobo, a Chinese human rights activist, who won in 2010 but was not allowed to go to Oslo to collect the prize (surprise).  He also became just the second winner to die in custody.

Others, however, have been questionable, such as Kofi Annan and the United Nations in 2001.  (The people of Rwanda were not consulted.  See, inter alia, here and here.)  Three recent winners seem to have won mostly because they weren’t George W. Bush: Jimmy Carter in 2002,¹ Al Gore in 2007 (he should have won the presidential election in 2000), and Barack Obama in 2009 (George W. Bush was finally gone).  Also, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons won in 2013.  We have seen how successful they have been.