Supply Side Keynesian to Dorfman, You Overstated

It is obvious that Jeff Dorfman views himself as a Supply Side economist where supply side means having a one track mind with regard to what constitutes a good economy. Here is what he says in this regard: “Policy makers should … focus on … tax reform that simplifies the tax code and lowers marginal tax rates.” In fact, this is how he ends an article in which he displays a wide and solid grasp as to how an economy works. So you ask: Why then is he displaying this kind of narrow mindedness when he has that much grasp of the subject?

You may find the answer to that question in the article where Dorfman discusses his many points. The article came under the title: “Earth To Keynesians, Government Spending Isn't Demand” and was published on July 15, 2013 in the online publication Real Clear Markets. You may decide that perhaps the author overstated his case to convince the government that it should stop spending on stimulating the economy. This is something he regards as a temporary measure, the reason why he wishes the government would do something different to fix the economy permanently – something like lowering the tax rates, for example.

He cannot deny that the American economy is experiencing a recovery at this time, so he uses the fact that it seems like a jobless recovery to explain why lowering the tax rates rather than spending by the government will prompt the employers to hire more workers. To make that point, he attacks what he calls the Keynesians who, in his view, make the claim that the recent recession and weak recovery were due to a shortage of demand by consumers. To this end, he mocks the Keynesians by putting words in their mouths as if they were saying: “If only the government would spend more money … we could fully recover … miraculously” after which the private sector is supposed to take over the management of the economy.

This is not happening, he says, because government demand is temporary whereas private sector demand is continuing. And this makes it so that the two demands have different impacts on the economy. To elaborate on these points, he does two things at the same time. One thing displays the wide grasp he has of the subject; the other shows how narrow minded he can be.

Here is where he displays savvy: “It is not the dollar size of an economy that counts, but its real size measured in terms of the amount of goods and services produced and sold.” And here is where he displays narrow mindedness: “demand cannot produce economic growth [because] every buyer requires a seller; you cannot buy a product unless somebody has manufactured it and is ready to sell.” What he tries to convey here is that there are no wholesalers or retailers managing inventories, sitting between the manufacturers and the consumers. And of course, he does not mention the fact that the inventories are quickly replenished the moment that they reach a critical minimum level whether or not clients are knocking at the door.

Thus, you see that the man who noticed the recovery to have been weak and jobless, now fails to notice that inflation has not been a problem. And so he adds the following to his commentary: “If the supply of goods to sell is unchanged, an increase of demand simply results in bidding wars among buyers and higher prices … More demand without more supply does no good, since it does not result in more goods and services being produced.” But how does he explain the lack of inflation? He does not even attempt to explain – but wait till you see what he does.

For one thing, he lectures to those he calls the Keynesians telling them that to be effective, government spending must convince suppliers to increase the supply so as to avoid inflation. Dorfman does not come right out and says how the government can do this, but hints at something that you will recognize as being vintage Supply Side economics. Here is what he says: “An increase in supply can come from companies investing in new productive capacity.” In other words, he says that government stimulus should go not to the consumers but to businesses so that they may invest in new capacity. And now – only now – does he praise the virtues of inflation: “as prices rise, profits will return and firms will compete for market share.” Ah, those savvy and narrow-minded academics! How much they can befuddle you with their bright ideas!

Having made those points, you would expect him to end the presentation and sit on his laurels ... but that's not what he does. Instead, he attacks the Keynesians again for thinking that government spending is a good thing, and he attacks the government for doing just that. All the while, he interweaves this talk with a description as to how an economy that has been dormant for a while begins to revive and catches speed.

However, being conscious of the fact that this may well be happening right now, and loathe to let the government take credit for the recovery, he inserts a word of caution: “Perhaps businesses will soon believe that conditions are favorable … If so, we may return to more normal unemployment levels … if that happens, it won't be because of any government stimulus spending.” We hear you, Jeff Dorfman but we can only laugh.

You must hand it to him. The man tried hard but the fact remains that an economy runs not on Keynesian ideas only, or Supply Side ideas only, but runs on a mix of ideas from both schools of thought. And this means we must all become Supply Side Keynesians.

From a Wild West to a Bloody Southeast

Everyone is running around saying they respect the decision of the jury that acquitted George Zimmerman for murdering the unarmed child Trayvon Martin in cold blood. Among the runners are the people who say they disagree with the verdict of the jury but respect its decision anyway. No, I say, neither the jury nor the verdict that was rendered are worthy of respect.

I begin my line of thought with the premise that justice is the end while the law is only the vehicle that must lead to justice. But experience has taught us that the law is an ass in the sense that it can never be so well formulated, it will not cause injustice in one area while helping to administer justice in another area. For this reason, some laws which are written in several sections are seen to end with a clause that specifically says nothing in this section will diminish or negate the sections that came before it – or something to this effect.

Therefore, we can see here that the law itself does at times engage in self-nullification if and when the potential exists that it may get in the way of justice being fully administered by other sections of the same body of laws. Thus, we see that the law recognizes the fact that justice is supreme and must precede it when the two come into conflict. Yes, lawyers will plead equity (justice) when the law is not on their side, and will plead the law when equity is not on their side but in the end, justice must prevail no matter what the law says.

And where there is a jury overseeing a trial, its job is to make sure that justice is done first and foremost. The reason why the judge instructs the jurors as to what the law says is not to ask them to help implement it, but ask them to verify that the vehicle which took them through the trial was used properly for, the judge, the lawyers and the prosecutors who are trained in the law, can handle the law better than the jurors.

What is true about the jury of the peers is that the jurors – who are human – can navigate through the nuances of the human elements of the case that is before them. In their journey, they are expected to locate justice and bring it to the fore. What they are not expected to do is chase after the definition of a word or a clause in the law – something that the judge, the lawyers and the prosecutors are better equipped to do and expected to do.

There is also the fact that the law is written not only by the legislators but also the cases which are adjudicated by the judges and the jurors. This means a vehicle already exits for judges and for jurors not only to make laws but also amend them and nullify them when necessary. And there is nothing more necessary in America at this time than to nullify the “Stand your ground law” by which everyone is given a license to kill others in cold blood as long as they do it away from witnesses – after which they can claim self-defense and be acquitted.

In time, this will bring the Wild West of centuries ago to the Southeast of today's America from where the insanity will spread to the rest of the nation and soak it in blood more than it is already. The effect will be an open season where Americans will hunt Americans, and take them down like game in the urban jungles of the Republic.

For these reasons, the jury that acquitted Zimmerman does not deserve any respect for, instead of nullifying a horrendous law, it gave it more force by adding its voice to the case laws that will be cited in the future.

Using one means or another, the verdict that was returned by this jury must now be rendered moot in the name of sanity, and for the sake of preserving life – American life.

The LaRouchian Theory of Idionomics

I find myself compelled to use words no longer in use to explain what I have in mind, so bear with me. The word you see in the title comes from the name Lyndon LaRouche, an actual person who wanted to be president of the United States of America. As far as I can remember, he ran for the position of commander-in-chief at least half a dozen times and lost. He ran mostly as an independent but also as candidate for a third party that bore his name; even ran under the banner of the Labor Party of America.

Despite being accused of antisemitic tendencies, a charge he denied – claiming instead he was anti-Zionist not antisemitic – LaRouche attracted a number of Jews to his cause, one of them being David P. Goldman. When LaRouche went nowhere with his quest to win the White House, Goldman did what you would expect someone like him to do; he turned coat. From living the life of an atheist, he rediscovered religion and switched to a Republican philosophy of economics from the LaRouchian philosophy that some people called idionomics. As to whether or not Goldman has the brains to understand anything Republican is open to question.

Now you can see that the philosophy of idionomics is at the roots of the article this man has written under the title: “The Economic Blunders Behind the Arab Revolutions.” It is an article that also came under the subtitle: “In Egypt and Syria, misguided food and water policies set the stage for revolt and civil war,” and was published in the Wall Street Journal on July 13, 2013. As suggested in the subtitle, the author discusses the Egyptian and the Syrian economies. To avoid doing what he does which would be for me to discuss a subject I do not know well, I shall refrain from discussing the Syrian economy, and concentrate on the Egyptian which I know.

The thing that idionomists do frequently is invent anything on the spot to make a point at the start of their presentation they hope will sound so smart, it will impress the audience. And that's what David Goldman does in the first paragraph of his article. Here is what tells you the man is an idiot: “Half a century of socialist mismanagement has left [Egypt] unable to meet the basic needs of its people.” The fact is that right after the 1973 crossing of the Suez Canal, then President Sadat of Egypt started to liberalize the economy, a move called “infitah” in Arabic which means “opening.” By 1978, the policy was well entrenched and getting stronger. In time, the point was reached when people started to worry not about “statism,” like says Goldman, but worry about savage capitalism creeping into Egypt.

Beyond the author's first paragraph, he makes assertions and he quotes numbers that are so screwed up, they do not deserve mention. Thus, the best way to refute them is to refute the entire article by describing the situation as it stands now; so here we go. There are 90 million Egyptians in the world. Only 80 million of them live in Egypt; the rest having immigrated to other countries permanently, or working abroad with the intent to return to Egypt after a period of time. About 40 millions of these people live in urban areas and 40 millions in rural areas. The one thing that must be mentioned here is that because the population of the country lives along the one thousand kilometer stretch of the Nile from the Sudanese border to the Mediterranean Sea, no one in Egypt except for a handful of migrants lives further than fifty kilometers away from an urban center.

Since ancient times, an acre of Egyptian soil that was irrigated with Nile waters fed one or two people depending on the weather and other factors. Three or four million acres were available for toil in antiquity, and this made it possible to feed anywhere between three and eight million people. This is how Egypt became the bread basket of the ancient world, including the Roman Empire. Thanks to the Aswan dam (built in the 1960s)  Egypt today has eight million acres for toil – not once a year but twice, and in some cases even three times. In addition, the yield per acre has gone up as much as five times since antiquity. This is why the country can now feed 80 million people adequately, even after devoting a great deal of acreage to plant cotton for local industries and for export, plant flowers mostly for export, and plant herbs for local consumption and for export.

Because agriculture was liberalized long ago, the farmers make the decision as to what they will plant each season. And that decision depends on what they believe the price of each commodity will be in the future. Because wheat and sugar are subsidized by the big economies of Europe and North America, the Egyptian farmers do not have an incentive to plant these commodities unless they are “bribed” by their own government which happens to run a version of the program known in America as Food Stamp.

The government has mills that turn wheat into flour, and has under contract a number of bakeries producing subsidized bread in the poorer regions of the country. It buys the wheat from local farmers, or imports it depending on several factors such as price and availability. The most that the government spends in a given year to run the bread subsidies program is a billion dollars in local or in foreign currencies depending on the circumstances. And this is a very small amount of money.

As to the international trade in agriculture and in processed foods, Egypt imports two or three billion dollars worth of raw foods from abroad. On the other hand, it exports four or five billion dollars worth of agricultural products and processed foods. Thus, Egypt has a surplus in this sector of the economy, and the fact remains that the problem the Egyptians are said to have is that they eat too much. This is shown by the fact that once again when the world obesity chart came out this year, it showed the Egyptians near the top of the list of big eaters alongside the Americans, Mexicans, Germans and a number of other Arab countries. Yes, there are places where people are not nourished as well as they should be but this is a problem that exists everywhere in the world. And yes, Egypt has its share of diabetics due to obesity which is also a worldwide problem. Nobody is perfect.

As to the rest of the economy, it has shown itself to be more robust than anyone could have imagined. In nearly two and a half years during which time it was beat up by one thing after the other, the Egyptian economy not only remained standing; it registered a positive growth – though a modest one – quarter after quarter at a time when its trade partners were registering negative growths. This happened to Egypt because it has a diversified economy that grew organically in response to local needs, not artificially in response to outside needs. What this has given Egypt is a flexibility that the nations of Asia and South America did not have when they experienced similar circumstances and required massive infusions of bailout money to save them.

So now the big question is this: why is it that week after week, for something like 130 weeks now, you saw these so-called economic experts come out of hiding and predict that “the end is near, the end is near” for the Egyptian economy only to see the thing continue to sail like a majestic ship, braving the turbulent waters where many other ships have sunk before?

The answer is that these people are paid to do what they do. Because measures have been taken everywhere in the world to make it near to impossible for cheaters to make money by cheating openly the way they used to do, mouthpieces are now hired to go out and express opinions that aim at convincing other people to make the wrong kind of investment decisions. And in the zero-sum game of finance, what the other people lose is what the cheaters gain. And this, my dear friend, is the same old game of getting wealthy at the expense of others; a game that is now sugar-coated with a different flavor and a different food coloring substance.

The way that the game applies to the Egyptian situation at this time is to tell unworldly investors to forget about all those indicators pointing to a rapid rebound in the Egyptian economy. To explain why, they say that Egypt is a basket case that will never recover. Thus, they hope to scare the others enough to keep them from buying into the Egyptian economy while they scoop every instrument and every derivative they can get their hands on at a relatively cheap price. But when they have had their fill, expect to see them advise the others to start buying at a high price what they will be selling to them. See how it works?

One more point. The rating agencies which are supposed to give honest opinions, have now joined the sorority of mouthpieces that go out and deliberately give bad advice. They do this so that the cheaters who sustain them, get rich at the expense of the people who produce the real wealth in every economy.

They too should be labeled LaRouchian, and put out of business for the sake of the world economy.

Cleopatra Would Have Enjoyed This

If it is true what they say about Cleopatra, mainly that she enjoyed the attention of the people who surrounded her; we must take it that she would have enjoyed the attention that Egypt is receiving these days. Don't get me wrong, Egypt was receiving attention before – even too much of it, I would say – but it was the wrong kind of attention; the sort that would have enervated Cleopatra.

Nothing has changed in the past half century to alter the importance of Egypt. The reality is that the country is no more and no less crucial today than it was then, but something has changed in the way that it is now described by members of the Anglophone chattering classes worldwide.

Half a century ago, the big stories did not come out of Egypt or even the Middle Eastern region. They came out of America where some folks wanted to keep people of a different skin color out of what they claimed were their schools, and out of the front end of what they claimed were their buses. The events surrounding that situation provided the world with moments of great human drama until a few years later when Israel launched a Pearl Harbor style attack on Egypt, and the Middle East became the center of attention. Except for rare moments of calm, the region has featured prominently on the world stage ever since, crowding even the Vietnam War, the murder of an American President and the attempt on the lives of other prominent figures.

And so, having no presence to speak of in the English speaking world, and no influence to make a difference, Egypt and the other Arab countries found themselves outflanked in every way you can think of by the Jewish hordes that were beginning to dominate the media and the various cultural vehicles in America and the other English speaking jurisdictions. These hordes constructed a formidable propaganda machine which they used to portray Egypt as the villain in the drama that was unfolding in the Middle East.

That drama had a simple plot line in that it was a struggle between good and evil. The good was an Israel that was full of saintly Jews; the bad were an Arab World that contained Egypt – the most villainous character on the stage. Week after week, year after year and decade after decade, the never ending monotonous events unfolded to provide the English speaking world with more of the same, and no promise that something will ever change. At the same time, however, the rest of the world was seeing things differently. It saw a situation seething with undercurrents that promised to boil over, change the Middle East profoundly and change it for ever.

That moment has come, which is why you see Clifford D. May – one of the biggest wheels in the formidable Jewish propaganda machine – write a different kind of story. It has the bland title: “Murder on the Democracy Express” and the descriptive subtitle: “An Egyptian mystery with no easy answers – and no heroes.” It was published on July 11, 2013 in National Review Online.

Instead of taking the usual approach of expressing a personal opinion on an event that is unfolding, Clifford May presents a rundown in which he crams into one article what other members of the chattering class have said about the events unfolding in Egypt at this time. Most of the comments are not flattering by any stretch of the imagination, but they are less scurrilous than what used to be – with the exception maybe of Mark Steyn whose role is to provide the audience with monkey-like most absurd kind of comic relief. And so, having developed a thick skin after years of arrows being thrown at her, I am certain that Cleopatra would have enjoyed this development more than anything she experienced in the past half century.

The following are the people that Clifford May has quoted in his rundown: Jackson Diehl of the Washington Post; Jeffrey Goldberg of Bloomberg News; Tony Blair, the former British prime minister; Mark Steyn and Andrew C. McCarthy of National Review Online; David Brooks of the New York Times; the columnist Eugene Robinson; Reuel Marc Gerecht of Clifford May's own Foundation for Defense of Democracies and finally the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal.

Cleopatra must be smiling in her grave. And in time, Egypt will find out if this trend will continue, or if something will happen that will prompt the Jewish propaganda machine to again start spewing venom in the same old style.

Give America What Reagan Asked For

The funny thing about people like Walter Russell Mead is that they compare President Barack Obama with a past Prime Minister of Britain, a past American hero or a long dead American president. But they never compare him to a more recent president like say, Ronald Reagan, whose travails and aspirations can shed a great deal of light as to what Mr. Obama is facing today.

In fact, not once does Walter Mead mention the name Ronald Reagan in his article: “Our Rhetorical President's Unserious Speeches” which also came under the subtitle: “Obama seems to think that eloquent words are a replacement for deeds.” It was published in the Wall Street Journal on July 9, 2013. For that reason, we should remind ourselves of the points in the Reagan legacy that may say something about today's situation.

Was Ronald Reagan a great President? Maybe. Some people say he was; other people say he wasn't. After all, he was the man who negotiated the missiles-for-hostages deal with the Iranians even before he was inaugurated. He also pulled America out of Lebanon shortly after the inauguration in response to an attack on an American military installation in that country. Did these decisions make him look like a wise leader who knew the limits of his country's power? Or was he the consummate wheeler-dealer who, like a true politician, chose the path of least resistance where he could?

Some people say that Reagan single-handedly brought down the Soviet Empire. Other people dispute that assertion and point out that the Pope as well as the Solidarity movement in Poland share in the success of that operation. Yes, the American President helped bankrupt the Communist empire, say some people, but he did so by engaging it in an arms race that turned out to be as detrimental to America in the long run as it was to the Soviet Union in the short run. Now the Russian Federation is brightening day after day while America is dimming year after year. I let you judge who the ultimate winner is in this game.

Ronald Reagan was a good orator; there is no doubt about it. In fact, he was nicknamed the Great Communicator. But that's only because he read the speeches that were written for him by speechwriters. Otherwise, he blundered a few times like when he didn't know there was an open microphone and said things to the effect that he was preparing to bomb the Soviet Union. And where there was not an open microphone, there was Nancy Reagan standing beside him to whisper in his ear how he should respond to impromptu questions put to him by journalists.

On balance, however, Reagan was not as shallow as he appeared to be, and there was a simple reason for that. It is that he had something he was proud of – something that gave him the depth only a few people saw in him. It is that he had plenty of the “horse sense” he saw in other people, liked it very much and praised them for it. In fact, it was this quality in him that made him the cautious man that he was. Deep down, he felt that peace was preferable to war ... and so he pursued the dream of disarmament with the Russians while standing on the Russian principle of “trust but verify”.

The horse sense that Reagan possessed allowed him to see something else. Even though he went around lifting the spirit of his countrymen with the refrain: “America's best days are ahead,” he saw deep down that the country was developing a structural problem in the way that it was governed. He did not like the big bills that came to him loaded with add-ons and riders. This was an approach to the idea of governing he disliked intensely because it forced him to choose between all and nothing. For this reason, he ceaselessly asked Congress for the line-item veto, but he never got it.

Fast forward almost a quarter of a century, and look what the absence of the line-item veto is doing to the country. Bills that are thousands of pages long go through the legislative mill without the legislators reading them because it is physically impossible for these people to input information from dozens of lobbyists, digest them all and use them in such a way as to advance the causes of the country. And because they cannot do this, they opt instead to advance their own causes as well as those of the lobbyists … and they do all that at the expense of their country and their countrymen.

This is the setup that the current President Barack Obama has inherited. The way he responds to events suggests that he has not yet internalized the truth about the American system of governance being broken. A constitutional lawyer by education, he starts every project believing that things will run smoothly because the Constitution will show the way. But he quickly discovers that obstacles are placed on the road to implementation by the people who wish to slow him down or block him till he accedes to their demands. Without a line-item veto, he has no choice but to bow to the pressure and move on, or freeze and do nothing.

And so, whatever complaint people like Walter Mead may have about President Obama, the best thing they can do to remedy the situation is not to go after this president or the next one or the one after that, but try to fix the system by identifying its weak points and working on them.

In the absence of an effort of this kind by the chattering class, America will fall further behind other nations. The chattering class ought to know that the paralysis of a government is never due to the work of one person. It is the result of people who are too lazy intellectually to do the hard thinking, muster the courage and tell it like it is till it is drummed into the heads of everyone.

And so, let's hear them whisper – better yet, let's hear them shout – in one voice what Ronald Reagan used to ask for. Let's hear the refrain: Give America the line-item veto.

The Difference between Good and Bad Speech

Finally, the Grey Lady – as they call the New York Times – seems to be making an effort to behave like a lady. It is not at the hundred percent level yet, but it is moving in the right direction. The occasion is an editorial that came under the title: “Bloodshed in Egypt” and was published on July 9, 2013.

Here, the editors of the Times present the facts as they know them, and discuss opinions that mean what is expressed in the lines without there being insulting messages hidden between them. Thus, the editorial can be classified as good speech. It contrasts with two other articles that do not carry insulting messages either but fall in the category of bad speech because they can do more damage than good. They will be discussed later but for now, let us look at the difference between good speech and bad speech.

To begin with, we must acknowledge that freedom of speech is a wonderful thing because without it we can only be the “Naked Ape” that does not communicate. But there is a problem with free speech because – like everything else – it can be abused; something that happens too often unfortunately. In fact, abuse can take place in one of several ways.

To begin with, speech can be abused inadvertently by well meaning people when they describe events that turn out to be not very accurate. These people could also express innocent opinions that may injure someone. Speech is also abused deliberately by people harboring malicious intent. This happens when such people lie about events they claim to have witnessed, or when they express opinions they know will injure someone.

There is a remedy to all this, and it is encapsulated in the saying: the solution to the problems of democracy is more democracy. We can paraphrase that saying and express it this way: the remedy to the problems of free speech is more free speech. For example, when someone tells a lie inadvertently or tells it deliberately, the remedy would be to expose the lie at which point the well meaning “liar” will acknowledge their mistake and apologize. As to the deliberate liars who may refuse to acknowledge their mistake or apologize, they will lose credibility in the eyes of the public. This will neutralize what they say; and that should be a satisfactory solution.

When it comes to expressing an opinion, however, the situation is somewhat different because it is said that everyone is entitled to their opinion. Thus, if the available facts are stated correctly, any opinion that is expressed based on them will have to be considered legitimate. But opinions can be destructive especially if they are of the inciting kind, and there happens to be an audience that may not be mature enough or smart enough to see the intent behind them and be able to dismiss the destructive messages they spread.

The way to deal with these situations is to refute the destructive opinions the best way we can by offering alternative analyses of the facts, and by reaching different conclusions. Sometimes, however, this cannot be done effectively because all relevant facts may not be available even if they could be inferred by the reasonable people in the audience – which is something we cannot count on in every situation, anyway.

For these reasons, we must appeal to the opinion makers of the world such as the journalists, commentators, and public figures who have at their disposal a megaphone of some kind, to heighten their sense of responsibility when it comes to saying the things that have the potential to motivate the immature or the mentally unbalanced to commit acts that may be injurious to others.

The most common mistake made by well meaning people in those categories is to speculate about something bad happening when the hope and the prayer are to the effect that it does not happen. The mere fact of saying that it can happen may convey to the immature and the mentally unbalanced the message that they have a chance at succeeding if they take up the challenge and act to make the thing happen. The suggestion alone can thus become the catalyst that will motivate these people to see the unlikely as being likely, thus encourage them to act.

Two examples show how this can come about. First, there is: “The Price of Terminating Democracy in Egypt,” an article by Behzad Yaghmaian that also came under the subtitle: “Algeria endured 10 years of civil war after its military blocked an Islamist election victory.” It was published on July 7, 2013 in the Wall Street Journal. You can see immediately what is wrong with it in that the subtitle itself articulates a speculation that might encourage the immature and the mentally unbalanced to act. And so the question we must ask is this: In return for taking that chance, what good can a speculation of this kind possibly accomplish?

Second, there is: “Next Up in Egypt: Ramadan,” an article written by Walter Russell Mead and published on July 8, 2013 in The American Interest. What is wrong with this author is not that he is an evil man but that he is a pessimist who sees history as a series of zero-sum games. He has America and those who love it in the column of the good guys, and has everyone else in the column of the evil guys. And he sees the unfolding of history as a battle between good and evil.

This is reflected in his latest article with consequences that can be calamitous if the speculations it contains are taken up by the immature or the mentally unbalance. Look what the man is speculating: “Morsi and his allies had an impossible task: to make Egypt work. Now they have an easier one: watch it fail.” And he tells why this is so even if he has shown time and again that he has no idea what he is talking about when it comes to economic matters. But here he is, talking about the subject again: “The economic prospects stink.”

He now moves from speculation to incitement: “The uglier the military looks, the harder it will be for the West to shovel billions into the Egyptian money pit.” But to make the military look bad, it must be provoked. Thus, someone should be told how to provoke the military. Here it is: “Ramadan has come. The mosques will be packed and emotions high. From the Brotherhood's point of view, the military could have done it no greater favor than creating martyrs at the start of the holiest month in the year.” And then comes his promise for a spectacular catharsis: “Stay tuned, this isn't over.”

What good will that do to you or to America, Walter Russell Mead?

Authentic Autocracy or Bogus Democracy?

Look at this: “we're still confusing democratic legitimacy with legitimate democracy.” You know who wrote this? It was Andrew C. McCarthy. He is the guy that has been deriding the races and the ethnic groups he calls Islamists. He believes these people will never become democratic because democracy is incompatible with their religion and their set of beliefs.(Elections Are not Democracy, National Review Online, July 6, 2013.)

So now, this same McCarthy says that we – yes, that's “we” not “them,” – we are confused about the word democracy. Wow, what a revelation! Maybe we should laugh the whole thing off at this point and move on. Right? I mean what can be funnier than someone (call him A) poking fun at someone (call him B) for not being the thing that (A) doesn't know what it's supposed to be? This can only be hilarious, Right? I mean it would be hilarious if you're not B, of course. Otherwise you would not want to laugh. Or would you?

But wait a minute, wait a minute. Try to remember something. Try to remember the shout that killed tens of thousands, including Americans; injured hundreds of thousands, including Americans, and displaced millions of people of several ethnic groups and several religions. Remember the words: “Zey know nossing about za damacracy of za Shamir.” Remember this? That was the shout that eventually prompted America to knowingly fabricate false evidence so as to launch a war against Iraq – a blatant criminal act that caused untold horrors.

That horror was done in the name of a democracy that Andrew McCarthy now says we collectively are confused about. No Sir, no we cannot laugh at that. There is no way we can. We cannot even cry, come to think of it. We can only sit in quiet disbelief, stunned at the state of the human condition. And that's not only the physical condition of man but also his mental condition. In turn, this is not so much about the ignorance of a human race that doesn't know the definition of democracy; it is about the ignorance of those among us who believe they know what they eventually discover they don't know. And what do they do after the discovery? They modify the old explanation to prove they were correct to have committed the horrors that they did anyway. Go figure.

Let us now do a thought experiment. Go down any American street and ask people if they know for certain whether Porto Rico is part of the British or the American Commonwealth. Perhaps one in a thousand will know the correct answer. Now go down and ask people to define the word democracy. Perhaps one in a million will give a definition that would come close to being comprehensive. Now go down and ask people to explain the difference between “democratic legitimacy” and “legitimate democracy,” and see what happens. According to McCarthy, not one in three hundred and twenty million Americans will know the answer.

And so we are compelled to ask this question: How does Andrew McCarthy define democracy? Unfortunately, to get the full answer, you must read the entire article because the explanation is scattered all over it. On the other hand, there is a passage where it is concentrated just enough to give a sense of what the author has in mind. This is the passage: “there must be abiding societal commitments to freedom of conscience, the equal dignity of every person, economic liberty, the rule of law, and self-determination.”

So you ask: If not coerced by an outside force, or if not constrained by legacy or by current circumstances, who would want to live a life that is contrary to those principles? Do we not all want to live in freedom, equality, dignity, self-determination, financial independence and rules that bind others as much as they bind us? Certainly, this is what the American people want for themselves. In fact, they say they appreciate this style of life so much that they want it for others too. Apparently, some Americans are even willing to die to impose it on strangers half way around the world.

But why do some Americans accept being patted at the airport while others do not? Why do some people accept being placed under electronic surveillance while others do not? Indeed, why is there a difference between Andrew McCarthy and the neoconservatives whom he says are confused about the things he sees clearly? The moral of this presentation is that different people see things differently therefore accept or reject restrictions on their lifestyle to various degrees. Are some Americans less democratic than others? Try to figure this out.

The truth is that we all live the way we do because legacy brought each of us to where we are. And the difference between a population like that of America, and a population like that of Egypt is that the latter will stand up even to superpower America and tell it to go jump in the lake if the superpower gets out of line. In contrast, the Americans will be smitten by a former Israeli terrorist who will tell them to launch a war because: “Zey know nossing about za damacracy of za Shamir.” So I ask: Which of these two societies is free, and which is a subjugated society? Think about it and try to respond to your question honestly.

At the stage of democratic development where the Egyptians see themselves at this point in time, no government could pepper spray college students doing a peaceful sit-in on campus. And no government could shoot to kill students in the style of a Kent State University without ordinary people marching in the squares and the streets by the millions to tell the government it will stop this sort of activities or be forced to depart. But how will the American public respond in similar circumstances? If you want an honest answer to this question, ask the Occupy Wall Street people.

In Egypt, they know what they want because they are not confused. And this is because it is less confusing to live under an authentic autocrat than live under a bogus democrat. May America develop democratically just enough to someday dare tell the Jewish lobby: You know nossing about za damacracy of za Egypt.