Secession ? Why not.

Dewsbury, Bradford and Tower Hamlets ... where Islamic extremists want to establish independent states with sharia law

Medieval 'emirates' would operate outside British rule

By Daily Mail Reporter

Islamic extremists have called on British Muslims to establish three independent states within the UK.

The notorious Muslims Against the Crusades (MAC) group have named Yorkshire towns Bradford and Dewsbury and Tower Hamlets in East London as testbeds for blanket sharia rule.

The medieval 'emirates' would operate entirely outside British law, according to a document on the MAC website.

Veiled women in the London borough of Tower Hamlets which has seen a rise in extremism. The Muslims Against the Crusades group says the medieval 'emirates' would function as autonomous territories and operate entirely outside British law, according to a document published on their website

Where the group envisages the autonomous areas being set up

The MAC group, led by Abu Assadullah, was set up last year and has become notorious because of its violent protests, most provocatively burning poppies during the Remembrance Day silence.

Under the heading 'Muslims should set up Islamic emirates in the UK', MAC says: 'We suggest it is time that areas with large Muslim populations declare an emirate delineating that Muslims trying to live within this area are trying to live by the sharia as much as possible with their own courts and community watch and schools and even self sufficient trade.

'Likely areas for these projects might be Dewsbury or Bradford or Tower Hamlets to begin with. 

'In time we can envisage that the whole of the sharia might one day be implemented starting with these enclaves.' 

The call is likely to cause anger among moderate Muslims and community leaders in the areas concerned.

Ian Greenwood, leader of Bradford Council, said people would 'not allow extremists to provoke them into violence'.

A general view of Bradford in Yorkshire which Muslims Against the Crusades (MAC) group have named as one of three testbeds for blanket sharia rule

London 7/7 bomber Mohammad Sidique Khan lived in Dewsbury, which has battled to diffuse extremism in recent years. In 2007, it was alleged that a number of Muslims in Dewsbury were running an illegal Islamic court from a school and similar claims have been made in Tower Hamlets and Bradford. 

Tower Hamlets council was last year accused of falling under the control of extremist groups following a documentary by the Daily Telegraph journalist Andrew Gilligan.

The plan is part of the MAC's response to the government's revised Prevent strategy to combat Islamic extremism.

In its document, called Islamic Prevent, the fanatics also call for an end to CCTV cameras in and around mosques. 

It says: 'Muslims must get rid of all CCTV cameras from Muslim institutions. Sadly many mosques have today adopted CCTV cameras to spy on Muslims on behalf of the police and local authorities.' 

Other inflammatory instructions include demanding the release of all Muslim prisoners, a ban on Muslims joining the police or armed forces and a rejection of British democracy.

The document ends: 'We can conclude that measures by the UK government are nothing more than an attempt by them to strip the Muslim community of their Islamic identity and to integrate them into the non-Islamic way of life.' 

The revised Prevent programme, announced last month, is aimed at tackling home-grown terrorism and radicalisation of students. 

It demands stricter controls on extremist literature and a more proactive approach by universities to prevent extremism. 

Councillor Greenwood added: 'Extremism is less likely to emerge when people get the opportunity to come together.

'Local voluntary, community and faith groups, the council, and other public and private sector partners, all work together in Bradford to strengthen community relations and encourage better understanding and respect between all our communities.

'We believe that this is one of the best ways to build a tolerant society in which extremism plays no part.'

Tower Hamlets and Kirklees Council, the local authority for Dewsbury, refused to comment.

Scientific Socialism in practice

Modern-day prohibitionists

The British Medical Association is dressing up moralistic attacks on smoking and drinking as health policy.

by Max Klinger 

In the past, attempts by the state to prevent the consumption of alcohol were known as prohibition. Now they’re called ‘promoting public health’. The ultimate goal is the same though: the diminution of our rights in the name of ‘the public good’.

Fresh from browsing George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four for tips on good government, the British Medical Association (BMA) last week issued a series of demands following its annual conference. These included the introduction by the government of restricted licensing hours, a ban on alcohol advertisements, and a minimum price per unit of alcohol.

Dr Paul Darragh, chairman of the BMA’s council in Northern Ireland, claimed: ‘A range of substantive measures are needed to reduce alcohol misuse… Increasing the price of alcohol in particular will have a twofold effect. Not only is there likely to be an effect at a population level, but there is evidence that heavy drinkers and young drinkers are responsive to price.’

The BMA conference also decided to support the introduction of a smoking ban in cars while driving. ‘This motion further emphasises that smoking is unacceptable’, Darragh proclaimed.

Given that one of the BMA’s avowed aims is to make the UK ‘tobacco free by 2035’, its decisions are hardly surprising. They do, however, shed light on the illiberal nature of much of contemporary thinking regarding alcohol and smoking. Usually based on an appeal to protect others from the actions of an offending minority, there is a more authoritarian streak inherent in the current movement for prohibitive policy than such justifications suggest. The BMA has effectively declared its aim to be the denormalisation of certain activities and for others to be criminalised outright. Smoking is ‘unacceptable’ to the BMA not simply because of the effects of secondhand smoke on others, but because of the nature of the activity itself.

Let me illustrate what’s really going on with a hypothetical situation. Suppose you’re introduced to me at a pub. As we talk, I notice a man light a cigarette. Despite the protests of the publican, who is perfectly happy for the man to smoke, I inform him that it is bad for my health and that he must leave the pub to smoke. I then instruct the publican to ban smoking within the room. Frustrated, the man decides to buy a beer instead with his remaining £3.00. The barman informs him that a beer now costs £3.10, due to a new governmental tax. The man dejectedly exits the pub, and sits in his car alone to smoke. As he begins to drive off, I tap on the car window and inform him that he cannot smoke in his car, as children may be present (although they are not).

The peaceful looting of California

Crazy: California Prison Psychiatrist Paid $838,706

By R. Wenzel

The chief psychiatrist for California’s overcrowded prison system was paid $838,706 in 2010, more than any other state employee that year, payroll figures released today show,reports Bloomberg.

The doctor, whose name wasn’t released, had a salary range of $261,408 to $308,640, according to data released today by California Controller John Chiang. The total compensation was raised by bonuses or payout of unused vacation time, according to the controller’s office.

Nanny State at its Best

Iceland considers prescription-only cigarettes

Why not execute all smokers and also fat people and may be ugly people. And why not people listening to classical music and also ... 

By Helen Pidd

Iceland is considering banning the sale of cigarettes and making them a prescription-only product.

The parliament in Reykjavik is to debate a proposal that would outlaw the sale of cigarettes in normal shops. Only pharmacies would be allowed to dispense them – initially to those aged 20 and up, and eventually only to those with a valid medical certificate.

The radical initiative is part of a 10-year plan that also aims to ban smoking in all public places, including pavements and parks, and in cars where children are present. Iceland also wants to follow Australia's lead by forcing tobacco manufacturers to sell cigarettes in plain, brown packaging plastered with health warnings rather than branding.

Under the mooted law, doctors will be encouraged to help addicts kick the habit with treatments and education programmes. If these do not work, they may prescribe cigarettes.

The private member's bill is sponsored by former health minister Siv Fridleifsdottir, who worked with the Icelandic Medical Association as well as a coalition of anti-tobacco groups to come up with the proposal. "The aim is to protect children and youngsters and stop them from starting to smoke," she said on Monday. The proposal would initially result in an increase in cigarette prices, said Fridleifsdottir, of "10% per year, in line with World Health Organisation proposals – evidence shows that a 10% increase results in a 4-8% reduction in consumption".

But by the end of the 10-year plan, prescription-only cigarettes should actually be cheaper than ever, according to Thorarinn Gudnason, president of the Icelandic Society of Cardiology, who helped draw up the proposal.

"Under our plan, smokers who are given prescriptions will be diagnosed as addicts, and we don't think the government should tax addicts."

Gudnason said current cigarette pricing in Iceland did not take into account the huge costs imposed on society by smokers. "A packet currently costs around 1,000 krona [£5.50], but if you factor in the cost of sick leave, reduced productivity due to smoking breaks and premature retirement on health grounds, it should really be 3,000 krona," he said.

The tobacco proposal also says that nicotine should be classed as an addictive substance. "It's as hard to give up nicotine as heroin, not in terms of the side effects, but in terms of the cravings and how quickly one becomes addicted," said Gudnason.

"We also want the government to license cigarettes like a medicine, which would mean they would have to go through the same rigorous trials as any other drug. I doubt cigarettes would ever get on the market now that we know the side-effects – lung cancer, heart attacks, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease."

Gudnason said 300 out of the 1,500 deaths in Iceland each year were caused by one of those three conditions.

"That's 20% of all deaths. We think that our proposals could lead to a significant reduction in smoking-related deaths – perhaps down to just 100 annually."

The proposal also suggests that tobacco smoke should be treated as a carcinogenic substance, and that it should be restricted in a similar way to other known carcinogens, because of the known effects of passive smoking.

Gudnason did a study five months after Iceland introduced a smoking ban in restaurants and pubs in 2007 and found a 21% reduction in acute coronary syndrome (heart attacks and near heart attacks) among non-smoking men, compared to five months before the ban.

A spokeswoman from the Icelandic ministry of welfare said on Monday that the proposal was "very serious" but had limited chances of success.

"Siv Fridleifsdottir is a very serious politician and this is a very serious proposal," said Anna Baldursdottir, political adviser to the minister of welfare, Gudbjartur Hannesson.

"Whether it not it eventually becomes law, I do not know. I seriously doubt it."

The idea will be debated in the Althing, Iceland's parliament, in the autumn, when politicians return from recess, she added.

Iceland has successfully halved smoking rates over the past 20 years. In 1991, 30% of the population smoked; today, only about 15% light up regularly, according to Baldursdottir, giving it the lowest smoking rates in Europe.

This success is attributed to huge increases in tobacco tax, which accounts for about 25% of the pack price, as well as the drop in disposable income among islanders since the financial crash of 2008.

Other countries have gone further. Bhutan has completely outlawed smoking and Finland hopes to follow suit by 2040.

Swedish surgeons now refuse to operate on smokers until they give up, because of the deleterious effect smoking has on the healing process, Gudnason added.

As an isolated island, Iceland arguably stands a greater chance of success with such draconian measures than other nations.

With no neighbouring countries and rigid customs controls at ports and airports, it will be difficult for anyone to smuggle in contraband cigarettes.

Indians pay surgeons to turn girls into boys

Indian doctors have been accused of conducting sex change operations on young girls whose parents want sons to improve the family's income prospects

By D. Nelson

Madhya Pradesh state government is investigating claims that up to 300 girls were surgically turned into boys in one city after their parents paid about £2,000 each for the operations.

Women's and children's rights campaigners denounced the practice as a "social madness" that made a "mockery of women in India".

India's gender balance has already been tilted in favour of boys by female foeticide – sex selection abortions - by families who fear the high marriage costs and dowries they may have to pay. There are now seven million more boys than girls aged under six in the country.

Campaigners said the use of surgery meant that girls were no longer safe even after birth.

The row emerged after newspapers disclosed children from throughout India were being operated on by doctors in Indore, Madhya Pradesh.

Doctors confronted in the investigation claimed that girls with genital abnormalities were being sent to the city's clinics to be "surgically corrected" and that only children born with both male and female sexual characteristics were eligible for the procedure. But campaigners said the parents and doctors were misindentifying the children's conditions to turn girls into boys.

The surgery, known as genitoplasty, fashions a penis from female organs, with the child being injected with male hormones to create a boy.

Dr V P Goswami, the president of the Indian Academy of Paediatrics in Indore, described the disclosures as shocking and warned parents that the procedure would leave their child impotent and infertile in adulthood.

"Genitoplasty is possible on a normal baby of both the sexes but later on these organs will not grow with the hormonal influence and this will lead to their infertility as well as their impotency. It is shocking news and we will be looking into it and taking corrective measures," he said. "Parents have to consider the social as well as the psychological impact of such procedures on the child."

India's National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights ordered the Madhya Pradesh government to investigate the claims and produce its findings within 15 days.

Ranjana Kumari, of the Centre for Social Research and one of India's leading campaigners against female foeticide, said the surgical transformation of girls into boys without their informed consent was a sign of India's growing "social madness".

She said she despaired that education had failed to stop the growing rejection of baby girls in India.

"The figures are getting worse. In 2001 there were 886 girls born to every 1,000 boys in Delhi. Today there are only 866. The more educated and rich you are, the more there is killing of girls," she said.

"People don't want to share their property or invest in girls' education or pay dowries. It's the greedy middle classes running after money. It is just so shocking and an outright violation of children's rights."

The government needed to address the problem by stressing the spiritual value a girl or woman brought a household in Hindu culture. "In India we say God resides in that house where there's a woman but that has evaporated because of all this greed. We need to emphasise the spiritual wealth a girl brings to a family, but we also need to support them with financial subsidies and jobs," she added.

Choice no more

The tasteless aim of the war on salt

Why are health campaigners so down on the white stuff when all the evidence suggests it isn't bad for us?

Rob Lyons

The advice to reduce our salt intake has been so ubiquitous for so long that it simply must be correct, right? Those white crystals may make our food taste better, but it’s a Scientific Fact that salt increases blood pressure and, therefore, cutting back on it will reduce blood pressure and we’ll live longer. Trouble is, while this seems to make sense, the evidence keeps failing to back it up – and a study published today raises further questions about this simplistic advice.

The new study is the latest Cochrane Review, an effort to revisit the evidence on a wide variety of healthcare interventions to provide clearer guidance to medical practitioners and patients. The review took in seven studies involving 6,489 patients. ‘Intensive support and encouragement to reduce salt intake did lead to a reduction in salt eaten and a small reduction in blood pressure after more than six months’, according to the article’s lead author, Professor Rod Taylor of the University of Exeter. But the real question was ‘whether this dietary change also reduced a person’s risk of dying or suffering from cardiovascular events’.

And the answer was ‘not really’. That shouldn’t be a surprise. Previous studies have come to a similar conclusion: reducing salt does seem to reduce blood pressure a little, but the effect on cardiovascular disease is so small as to be hardly worth bothering with. If your blood pressure is high enough that you’ve been prescribed drugs to reduce it, then there may be some benefit in also reducing how much salt you eat. But that’s about it.

Taylor argues that a bigger effect would have been seen if people had cut back on salt further than they did in the studies that he and the review team examined. They might also have found a statistically significant effect on heart disease and strokes if the studies had simply included more people.

But given that the people in these studies were given ‘intensive support and encouragement’ to eat less salt, and managed only moderate reductions, it suggests that this is pretty much the limit of what people with a Western diet are likely to tolerate. Why would you make every meal taste worse in the hope of a small, perhaps even non-existent, reduction in your risk of dying?

Of course, there has been a backlash from campaigners and public-health experts against the new study’s findings. A spokesperson for the most high-profile campaign on the issue, Consensus Action on Salt and Health, told the Daily Mail: ‘It is very disappointing that the message from this small review indicates that salt reduction may not be beneficial. This is a completely inappropriate conclusion, given the strong evidence and the overwhelming public health consensus that salt raises blood pressure which leads to cardiovascular disease.’

What evidence? The big international studies on the matter have actually come to similar results: cutting salt leads to small reductions in blood pressure in people with hypertension, and barely measurable falls in blood pressure for those who don’t have hypertension. Of course, it may be argued, small changes in blood pressure may, when spread over the mass of the population, result in a few saved lives. But equally, we might also see an increase in negative effects, too. For example, the new review suggests cutting salt in people who have suffered heart failure might actually increase deaths.

So, if imploring the population to cut back on salt doesn’t work, maybe getting food manufacturers to do so will sneak in salt reductions without us all noticing. But we do notice. So, for example, the Food Standards Agency in Scotland has been pushing food producers to reduce salt in their products – and they have. But research produced by the agency published last month found no reduction in salt intake, suggesting that consumers simply add salt to make up the difference or switch to products that have more salt.

But why should campaigners and medics on a mission fret about such trivialities as the flavour of our food or our ability to make free choices? Theirs is a political vision in which health overrides all other considerations, where the extension of life rather than its quality is the be-all and end-all. And if they can save a few lives at the expense of making millions more lives a little bit worse by making food taste, well, less tasty, that is a price worth paying in their eyes.

However, studies like the one published today on salt show that even in its own terms, the anti-salt campaign makes little sense. It either doesn’t save lives or it makes so little difference that it is hardly worth bothering with. Whether it is salt, fat, sugar or alcohol, we should take the lectures from our health guardians with a pinch of the white stuff.

How the government robs you blind

You Call It Inflation, I Call It TheftManufacturing, 3D Printing and What China Knows About the Emerging American Century

by Bill Flax

On my daughter’s birthday, she received a crisp new $5 bill, which she promptly deposited in her piggy-bank. Never foregoing an opportunity to expound on free market principles, I warned about her susceptibility to a subtle means of theft even more devious than a burglar breaking in at night against whom you might get a clear shot.

Usually, when she asks why it’s, “Because I told you so!” But for inflation, because Washington wills it, that explanation hardly suffices. And as often as economic prognosticators prescribe currency debasement as some miraculous panacea, her question is a good one. Why do we suffer inflation?

I searched online for “benefits of inflation.”

Inflation Spurs Growth – The theory goes something like this: Since savers realize the value of their money will erode, they spend more quickly thus stimulating the economy. If we believe tomorrow brings higher prices, we buy today. Basically, we spend before the monetary authorities steal our money’s value. Hmm.

The proponents of consumption-based stimuli overlook the essentiality of saving. While burying your money in the ground wastes its talents, most save via bank accounts or through the purchase of capital assets. Thus saving makes investment capital available for new businesses hiring new workers and creating new products that sustain and beautify life. The accumulation of capital drives growth.

Inflation discourages saving. Inflation buries capital into the ground as people flee toward real estate as a protective hedge. Inflation stymies growth.

Inflation Decreases Debt Burdens – If we borrow say, $14 trillion and then cheapen our debt through dollar devaluation, the repaid lenders can’t buy as much thanks to diluted dollars being returned to them.  Inflation essentially harms savers for the benefit of borrowers. Every dollar borrowed requires a dollar saved. The economy gains nothing by such mischief.

Generally, borrowers aren’t responsible for this debauchery so it’s not fair to label it theft. In government’s case, dilapidated debts at least rise to the level of fraud. Why does Washington willfully reward the profligate by cheating the prudent? Ah yes, because they exude profligacy.

Inflation Increases Asset Values – As the dollar falls, the price of our assets raises commensurately. Stocks, real estate, etc. surge. That sounds wonderful, but their value increases against what? Since the prices for everything else rise too all we’ve secured is a nominal gain for tax collectors to confiscate. We derive no real benefit.

The factory of the future

Manufacturing, 3D Printing and What China Knows About the Emerging American Century

Manufacturing, 3D Printing and What China Knows About the Emerging American Century

By M. Mills

The factory of the future is a fully-automated building filled with robotic systems and software.  Purified raw materials and power go in, and a massive stream of customized products comes out.  It is an incredibly efficient machine with nary an ounce of waste.  Software enables fabrication with the precise type and amount of materials, while more software and communications ensure that what is produced is precisely what is demanded from the end market.

That is the goal, and always has been.  And it is barely an exaggeration of what is already emerging.  The poster child of the factory-of-the-future is visible in a hot new trend in the techno-dweeb sphere, so-called 3D Printing.  These machines literally ‘print’ from computer images entire finished parts or simple products, ‘assembling’ from raw metal powders using powerful lasers or electron beams.  They work much the same way much your computer’s laser printer does, though in the latter case using much less powerful lasers to print text using powdered inks.  One guy, a computer, and a 3D ‘printer’ … presto a desktop factory.  More on this incredible technology in a minute.

Such manufacturing is being enabled by the long march of technology.  And it surely worries China.  While economic historians remind us of the importance of the twin innovations of free markets and financial structures, both those factors pale against the power of technology to create productivity, and thus the wealth of the world.

If the future factory is a machine born of emerging technologies and requires de minimus labor, on average such factories will be located preferentially where the skills and culture exist to invent and implement.  And, on average, you’d put such factories close to demand.  The U.S. still has more of both innovation and GDP than any other nation in the world, and will for some time.  (The “on average” necessarily assumes roughly equal tax and regulatory treatment, and roughly equal cost of capital.)

That technology adds productivity – more output using fewer labor hours – is an old story.  But this means, in a narrow sense, technology eliminates jobs even as it creates broader societal wealth.  We’ve seen this in America where total manufacturing output has doubled in the last thirty years while the manufacturing labor force dropped from 17 million in the mid ‘70s to 12 million today.  Each worker today is thus six times more productive.  Overall this is a very good thing for America, but not so good on the face of it for the five million no longer directly employed in manufacturing.

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness

What does it mean to live in liberty?

By Charles Kadlec

This question, though it may seem odd, goes to the soul of the American Revolution. It asks each of us how our actions contribute to or detract from the freedoms won in that epic struggle for the dignity of the individual that began with the signing of the Declaration of Independence 235 years ago.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness,” wrote the founders as they declared the supremacy of the individual over the rule of the State. By so doing, they overturned the political world as it was known — one where the individual served the State, whether that be the King or the local duke or baron.

Our society is comfortable with the “pursuit of happiness,” and we take the right to “life” for granted. But, when is the last time you thought about or discussed the importance of liberty, the second of the three unalienable rights the authors of the Declaration of Independence included in that oft-quoted sentence.

In light of yesterday’s Fourth of July celebrations, I’m thinking a lot about this question.  It seems to me that for the past 100 years, we as a people have drifted away from this founding principle.  Today, more that 40% of Americans receive money taken through taxation and other exactions from their fellow citizens. Nearly half pay no income taxes. Federal revenues cover only 56% of federal expenditures, with the gap filled by the government borrowing a record $30 billion a week.

Government bailouts and subsidies favor the politically connected and powerful at the expense of the rest of us.

Under the management of the Federal Reserve, the value of our paper dollar has fallen 80% in the past 40 years and fluctuates daily providing little trust in what it will be worth a year from now.  Moreover, the Fed aims to devalue the dollar by about 2% a year, increasing prices 50% over the next 20 years.

Unelected bureaucrats in many cases have been empowered to rule by decree while the Supreme Court has held that government may take property from individuals and give it to private, commercial interests with economic and political power.  Under the Dodd-Frank Bill and ObamaCare, tens of thousands of pages of new regulations will further empower the State to dictate the terms of commercial activity and the quality of our health care.

The Institute for Justice reports nearly 1 in 3 workers needs a government permit to go to work, including licenses for shampooing, floral arrangements and interior decorating.

For good reason, more than half of Americans polled by Rasmussen Reports now believe that the government is a greater threat to individual rights than a protector of those rights.

Although our Creator endowed each of us with the unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, as is all too evident, he did not guarantee us the exercise of those rights.  Each of us, in our own way, generates the society in which we live, and thereby produces the liberty that we and our fellow citizens enjoy.  In this respect, the vast increase in the power of government over our day-to-day lives reflects a general willingness to again and again sacrifice a little liberty in exchange for the promise of greater security or some “greater good”.  The cumulative result is that a majority of us now fear that government has become a direct threat to our individual rights.

One Size Fits All

Coming Soon: The Federal Department of Standardized Minds

By Neal McCluskey

The story of federal intervention in education is one of abject failure. Coming in large supply only since President Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society,” Washington’s educational undertakings first resulted in billions of misspent dollars, then billions of misspent dollars coupled with increasingly rigid “accountability” rules. The result of both phases has been squandered funds and academic stagnation. But rather than accepting the lesson that centralized control of education is doomed to failure, inside-the-Beltway educationists are doubling down, pushing for a single national curriculum.

The proximate impetus for the current national standards push is the failure of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). The law—a bipartisan 2002 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act—is intended to be all things to all federal politicians, a “no excuses” hammer against academic failure that also protects state and local school control. So the law demands that all states have standards and tests in mathematics, reading, and science; test all students on a regular basis in those subjects; and have all students make “adequate yearly progress” (AYP) toward 100 percent math and reading “proficiency” by 2014. However, it leaves it to states to write their own standards and tests and define “proficiency” for themselves.

The incentives for states are obvious: Set the lowest “proficiency” bars possible so they’re easy to vault and in so doing, stay out of trouble under the law, which institutes a cascade of punishments for schools or districts that fail to make AYP. It’s a structure that makes little logical sense but gives federal politicians the ability to simultaneously claim to be unforgiving on educational futility while also being staunch defenders of state and local control.

That these perverse incentives have been prevailing has been borne out in comparisons of state standards with those of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), a federal testing regime that, in contrast to state testing under NCLB, is unlikely to be gamed because how a state or district performs on NAEP carries no rewards or punishments. Federal comparisons have shown that states had either set very low proficiency levels before NCLB or lowered them in response to the law. Indeed almost all states have set their proficiency marks equivalent to “basic” or below on NAEP tests.

This standards bottom-scraping, coupled with significant variation between states in their standards and proficiency measures, has energized the current national standards drive, which has been spearheaded by the National Governors Association (NGA), the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), and the right-leaning Thomas B. Fordham Institute. A major rationale for imposing national standards, as enunciated in the 2006 Fordham report To Dream the Impossible Dream: Four Approaches to National Standards and Tests for America’s Schools, is to “end the ‘Race to the Bottom’” set off by NCLB. If states have to use the same standards, advocates reason, they won’t be able to hide their poor performances behind differing proficiency definitions.

The result so far has been the creation of so-called “Common Core” standards, grade-by-grade benchmarks in mathematics and English Language Arts (ELA) created by the NGA and CCSSO, which were released in June 2010. States have already been coerced into adopting them by the Obama administration’s “Race to the Top” competition, a $4 billion, stimulus-funded beauty contest in which the federal government selected winners based on what it considered the prettiest state promises to initiate preferred reforms including adoption of the Common Core standards. In addition Washington has awarded $330 million to two consortia of states developing tests to accompany the standards.

Liberty versus Security

Fear-Mongering and Servitude

By James Bovard

In his 1776 essay, “Thoughts on Government,” John Adams observed, “Fear is the foundation of most governments; but it is so sordid and brutal a passion, and renders men in whose breasts it predominates so stupid and miserable, that Americans will not be likely to approve of any political institution which is founded on it.” The Founding Fathers hoped the American people would possess the virtues and strength to perpetuate liberty. Unfortunately politicians over the past century have used trick after trick to send Americans scurrying to politicians to protect them.

President Woodrow Wilson pulled America into World War I based on bogus idealism and real fear-mongering. Evocations of fighting for universal freedom were quickly followed by bans on sauerkraut, beer, and teaching German in government schools. H. L. Mencken observed in 1918: “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed and hence, clamorous to be led to safety—by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” In Mencken’s time he was often considered cynical. Subsequent developments have proven Mencken to be a prophet.

The Democratic Party relied heavily on the fear card in the 1920 presidential race. On the eve of the November vote that year Democratic presidential candidate James Cox declared: “Every traitor in America will vote tomorrow for Warren G. Harding!” Cox’s warning sought to stir memories of the “red raids” conducted in 1919 and 1920 by Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, during which thousands of anarchists, communists, and suspect foreigners were summarily jailed and in many cases deported. The American people rejected Cox and embraced Warren Harding’s promise of a “return to normalcy.”

President Franklin Roosevelt put “freedom from fear”atop the American political agenda in his 1941 State of the Union address. But FDR’s political legacy—especially Social Security—has institutionalized fear-mongering in presidential and congressional races. Democrats perennially portray Republicans as planning to yank life support from struggling seniors.

For almost 50 years American politicians have used television ads to spur dread, most famously in the 1964 “Daisy” ad for Lyndon Johnson’s campaign. The ad showed a young girl, in the words of Jim Rutenberg in the New York Times, “picking the petals off a daisy before the screen was overwhelmed by a nuclear explosion and then a mushroom cloud and Mr. Johnson declared, ‘These are the stakes.’” The ad did not specifically claim that Barry Goldwater, the Republican nominee, would annihilate the human race, but the subtle hint wafted through. Though this ad only aired once, it instantly became a legend.

How the modern world came to be

Lessons from Japan

By S. Davies

One of the great questions of historical inquiry, which I have addressed in these pages and elsewhere, is exactly how the modern world came to be so different from what went before. Since about 1750 there has been a 16-fold increase in real wealth per capita on a global scale, something completely unprecedented that has transformed the lives of everyone on the planet much for the better.

In her latest work, Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can’t Explain the Modern World, Deirdre McCloskey argues that the critical factor was a change in how productive activities such as trade were regarded. Instead of being seen as menial, morally disreputable, and lacking in honor, they came to be regarded as respectable, dignified, and above all virtuous. This gave trade, merchants, and manufacturers (those who worked with their hands) the crucial respect formerly given only to aristocrats, priests, and even peasants. I think McCloskey gives too much weight to this explanation, but the phenomenon she identifies was undoubtedly real and important.

McCloskey identifies the Dutch Republic as the place where the cultural shift started in the early seventeenth century. In the European case this is undoubtedly true. However it was not unique. Another later but independent shift was even more self-conscious and deliberate. It happened in one of the most fascinating of premodern societies, Tokugawa Japan. (McCloskey discusses the striking similarities between Europe and Japan at this time).

From 1467 to roughly 1570 Japan went through what became known as the Sengoku, or “warring states,” period of its history. The central authority was weak to nonexistent and warfare was almost constant. Between 1568 and 1603 there was the Momoyama, or unification, period in which Japan was unified by several astute leaders. The last of these, Tokugawa Ieyasu, defeated his rivals at the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600 and established the Tokugawa Shogunate, which would rule Japan until 1868. Tokugawa Japan was simultaneously deeply conservative and yet dynamic. The Tokugawa Shoguns, particularly after the 1630s, banned almost all contact with the outside world (the losing side at Sekigahara had generally favored greater links). Internally they sought to encourage and enforce a strict conservatism. One aspect of this was a firm insistence on traditional social hierarchies of esteem and status: emperor, shogun, daimyo, samurai, peasant, artisan, merchant. In general the countryside was seen as morally superior to the city. Another aspect was a revival of interest in Confucianism, particularly by the samurai, with development of an elaborate moral code and philosophy known as bushido—the way of the warrior.

The other side of Tokugawa Japan, however, was rapid economic development. Population grew swiftly after the 1690s, and this went along with dramatic urbanization: By the late eighteenth century the capital Edo (now Tokyo) and other centers such as Osaka and Kyoto were among the largest cities on the planet. There was also a great growth of internal trade and manufacture, as well as some trade with the outside world via a small colony of Dutch merchants on an artificial island in Nagasaki harbor. This also went along with interesting cultural developments. The merchant class in Japan did not simply concern themselves with business and physical pleasure, accepting their lowly status, as is often supposed. Instead they also explored Confucian and other ideas. In doing so they developed their own philosophy and culture, that of chonindo—the way of the townsfolk.

Al-Azhar's declaration

A new leap into politics?

by Noha El-Hennawy

Al-Azhar’s recently declaration backing a democratic civil state has triggered questions over the political role that the world’s oldest and most prestigious Sunni institution might play in post-Mubarak Egypt.

After deliberations with fellow clerics and intellectuals with different political and religious leanings, Al-Azhar Grand Imam Ahmed al-Tayyeb last week issued an 11-clause document declaring the institution’s official position on the prospective political order.

The statement envisions a “modern” and “democratic nation-state” based on a constitution that ensures full separation among the different branches of government and guarantees equality for all citizens. The document also calls for respecting freedom of thought and opinion and voices support for human rights, including children’s and women’s rights.

“This is more of a revolutionary change in the relationship between religion and the state on one hand and Al-Azhar and public life on the other,” said Georges Fahmi, a PhD candidate with the European University Institute, who recently wrote a dissertation on the role of Egypt’s religious institutions in politics.

By using the phrase “modern nation-state,” Al-Azhar dealt a blow to Islamist voices that call for the revival of the pan-Islamic caliphate, said Fahmi. Also, by affirming the state should derive legitimacy from a constitution that the people design, Al-Azhar is distancing itself from some Islamist political movements, which holds Shariah, or Islamic Law, as the constitutional foundation of any Muslim society, added Fahmi.

Another controversial assertion in the charter, according to Fahmi, is the reference to “the general principles” of Shariah, rather than the strict injunctions of Shariah - stoning or decapitating adulterers, for example. By referring to general principles of Shariah, Al-Azhar is providing room for a modern interpretation of Islamic values such as freedom, justice, and equality, rather than citing specific articles in the traditional Islamic penal code.

“The document comes at a juncture where three forces are struggling over Egypt’s identity,” said Fahmi, referring to Islamists, civil parties, and a third, more minor group composed of die-hard secularists that renounces Islam altogether. The second group recognizes the principles of Shariah but does not subscribe to a literal, rigid implementation.

“With this document, he [the Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar] is backing the civil bloc that wants a modern and civil state which derives its principles from Islam,” said Fahmi, who believes that in return, Tayyeb expects these civil forces to back his fight against conservative clerics who remain an impediment to reforming the religious establishment.

The Egyptian Social Democratic Party, which belongs to that civil bloc, had issued a statement welcoming Al-Azhar’s declaration as “an important step” that put the nation on the right track toward “progress.”

However, not all Islamists met the declaration with the same fervor. Hardline Islamist lawyer Mamdouh Ismail, who is in the process of founding the Egyptian Renaissance Party, refused to comment on it.

“I will not comment on anything issued by Al-Azhar as long as it is not independent and remains headed by a person who was a member [of Mubarak’s National Democratic Party],” said Ismail in reference to Tayyeb.

In 2010, Tayyeb was appointed grand imam after the death of Mohamed Sayyed Tantawi. His open-mindedness, tolerance, exposure to the West and staunch opposition to radical interpretations of Islam raised hopes that he would spearhead genuine reform inside the religious establishment. However, he had reportedly encountered strong resistance from hawkish scholars.

“Tayyeb has read the moment well…The next step will be to use the backing that he gets from society to reform Al-Azhar,” Fahmi anticipated.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, Al-Azhar has been a bastion of moderate Islam in the Sunni world. However, its influence has been waning since former President Gamal Abdel Nasser sought to clip its wings.

In 1952, Nasser’s regime abolished the family waqf  (endowments) and then public endowments, stripping the clerics of their financial independence. A few years later, he brought Al-Azhar under the direct control of the state. The grand imam was no longer elected by his fellow clerics but appointed by the president. In the meantime, Nasser utilized Al-Azhar to bestow legitimacy on his pan-Arab and socialist policies.

The same pattern was maintained by President Anwar Sadat, who came to power in 1970. Sadat further weakened Al-Azhar by opening the door for radical Islamist groups, which promoted Wahhabi thought.

“It was these ideological newcomers that delivered the most debilitating blow to the religious foundations of al-Azhar, the ancient and long pre-eminent Sunni religious establishment whose Ash’ari [predominant Sunni Islam school of thought] theological traditions are famously open to multiple views of Islamic law and are tolerant of Sufism,” Hossam Tamam, an expert on Islamist groups, wrote in a 2010 article.

“As a result, the real decline of Al-Azhar dates to the early 1970s when it began to lose ideological influence in the face of the Wahhabi tide...” wrote Tammam.

After Mubarak held the helm of state, Al-Azhar kept losing its influence to radical groups, which sought to discredit the state-sanctioned religious establishment by arguing that it represented the regime’s interests rather than true Islam. Meanwhile, this same Wahhabi thought had permeated Al-Azhar itself, continued Tammam.

Whether Tayyeb’s charter constitutes a leap in Al-Azhar thought is a contested question. For prominent reformist scholar Gamal Qotb, the document is a mere attempt at “window-dressing.”

“Now we have to ask, does the content of this document reflect on the curriculum that Al-Azhar students are taught? Actually, it has nothing to do with it,” Qotb, a former head of Al-Azhar's Fatwa Committee told Al-Masry Al-Youm in a phone interview.

Meanwhile, Qotb criticized the statement for failing to focus on mechanisms for reform.

“Only in two vague and ambiguous clauses the document talks about the independence of Al-Azhar,” said Qotb, who has been promoting a precise and elaborate reform project since the 1980s. Yet, he complains that his project remains ignored.

To Qotb, a genuine reform of Al-Azhar is the best way to safeguard against radical Islamist groups.

“All [Islamist] groups emerged during the 20th century to compensate for the weakness of Al-Azhar. If Al-Azhar becomes strong and rational again, people will get away from all [Islamist] groups,” he said.

Yet, he questioned the ability of incumbent religious leaders including Tayyeb and Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa to bring about reforms given their shaken credibility. Both clerics had held close ties with the Mubarak's regime and their opposition to the revolution has discredited them in the eyes of many Egyptians.

“How would he [Tayyeb] bring about liberalism or democracy? Do Tayyeb’s and Gomaa’s practices and statements during the revolution carry any indications that they might be able to run things in the next phase?” Qotb asked rhetorically.

The last two clauses of Tayyeb’s document emphasize the need to ensure Al-Azhar's full independence from the government, to have top clerics elect its imam rather than give the president authority to appoint one, to modernize the curricula and to give Al-Azhar the exclusive authority to decide religious matters. In the meantime, the document gives the right to non-Azhar scholars, with enough credentials, to voice opinions on faith-related issues.

According to Hazem Kandil, a lecturer on political sociology, it is important to specify these credentials in order to de-legitimize ill-trained preachers who have monopolized the religious sphere.

“Al-Azhar should specify those credentials because this issue poses major problems,” said Kandil. “With the deterioration of Al-Azhar, people with no credentials came to the fore and talked about religion in audio cassettes and on satellite TV channels and people have been listening to them. They were either affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, Salafis or belonged to no organization.

“Al-Azhar should make it clear that scholars who hold al-Alemeyya, the Al-Azhar equivalent of a PhD degree, or any of its equivalents from a foreign university, are the only ones eligible to preach,” contended Kandil.