[David Bernstein, 3/22/2004 07:41:46 AM]
More on the Hate Crime Hoax at Claremont: Last week, I posted a note from one of my students, an alumnus of Claremont McKenna College, expressing his view that activists at the college and its affiliated schools were very disappointed that the "hate crime" reported there turned out to be a hoax, because they had used the hate crime as an excuse to promote a leftist agenda. In this article, professors express exactly such views. For example:

Some professors say the incident could set back their efforts, fueling the side of students who disagree that hate and intolerance are problems on campus. Others maintain the steps taken after the initial discovery of the car were positive, and hope students will recognize a climate hostile to diversity exists regardless of whether the charges against Dunn are true.

I've read many articles about the alleged "hostile environment" at the Claremont Colleges, many noting a "string" of racist incidents on campus. This string turns out to be drunken students setting fire to cross stolen from a building at Harvey Mudd College--the students claiming it was a prank and they were unaware of the racial implications of their action--and a racial slur written on a calendar, perpetrator apparently not apprehended.

That's it. Two racial incidents at five colleges, none directed at particular students. Thousands of people attend and work at these schools. That a few of them are louts or fools hardly makes "a climate hostile to diversity." No, what allegedly makes the "climate hostile to diversity" is that the campus racialist left has met some resistance in implementing its agenda, and it isn't above using the worst forms of demagoguery--including taking advantage of what appeared to be a "hate crime"--to overcome that resistance.

 
[David Bernstein, 3/22/2004 07:15:27 AM]
The Happiest Day of His Life: Yassin: "The day in which I will die as a shahid [martyr] will be the happiest day of my life." So I guess it's win-win.

 
[David Bernstein, 3/22/2004 06:28:53 AM]
Yassin has been brought to Justice: Israel has eliminated one of the world's leading wanted murderers, Shiekh Yassin, founder and leader of Hamas. Under Yassin's leadership, Hamas has been responsible for the murder of hundreds of Israelis, and the wounding and maiming of hundreds more. Worse yet, any progress made in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians has always been met with Hamas terrorism, a signal to Israel that Arafat is unable to unwilling to deliver peaceful coexistence. To take just one of many examples, Shimon Peres's Labor government of the mid-90s, the government that under Yitzchak Rabin brought the Oslo Accords, was brought down by a Hamas bus bombing campaign. Hamas's favorite target of late has been the Erez checkpoint, where Gazan workers enter Israel. Better, from Hamas's perspective, that Palestinians should all starve, so that they will more eagerly seek "martyrdom."

UPDATE: The reaction in Israel is mixed, with the right cheering, and the left arguing that the assassination will only inflame hatred, that a "negotiated settlement" is the only solution. (With whom? Arafat? Hamas?) In the center, there are concerns about reprisals. I think these concerns are misplaced. All indications are that Hamas has been gearing up for a major terrorist campaign to promote the view that any full or partial withdrawal from Gaza is its doing. This campaign is receiving logistical and financial support from Hizbollah and tactical support from the Al Asqa wing of Fatah. Much better to go on the offensive against Hamas, keeping its leadership in hiding and on the run, than to sit back and wait for Hamas to go after Israel. For a largely contrary perspective, see this article in the Jerusalem Post.

 
[David Bernstein, 3/22/2004 05:59:55 AM]
Pipes at Berkeley On Daniel Pipes' blog, I came across this ridiculous letter from Robert M. Berdahl, chancellor of the University of California-Berkeley, sent in response to a protest about the way the university handled disruptions of his talk there:

February 26, 2004
Dear xxxx:
I would like to respond to your inquiry about the recent lecture of Daniel Pipes on the campus.
The University faculty or some student groups occasionally have invited controversial speakers to the campus. We believe it is important to have all points of view expressed, regardless of the likelihood of criticism that ensues from those who hold opposing viewpoints. When Daniel Pipes was invited by Hillel to speak, we anticipated that pro-Palestinian students would use the occasion to protest, and we planned accordingly.
When we hold an event on campus that we can reasonably anticipate will produce heckling and potential interruptions, our purpose is to assure that the speaker is able to deliver his or her message and complete his or her speech. We can neither insist that only those who agree with the speaker attend, nor can we silence those who attend and disagree with the speaker. We can and do require that anyone who interrupts a speaker leave the event, if necessary at the insistence of the police. We took such action at the Pipes speech.
As the Daily Californian noted in its coverage:
Throughout the speech, a handful of loud commentators were escorted outside by the police, and a large faction of Pro-Palestinian students made a dramatic exit toward the end of Pipes' speech. Pipes' supporters often shouted back for those students to listen. And somewhere in between, the moderate Jews, Muslims and community members said they found little resonance in Pipes' words and even less of an opportunity for real discussion.
Did the campus meet its obligation to preserve the right of a speaker to present his or her message? I believe it did. The article from The Front Page [Magazine] concludes with the observation: "The audience gave Pipes a standing ovation with loud cheers at the conclusion of his speech."
Uncivil behavior, lamentable as it is, is not a crime, nor is it a violation of the Code of Student Conduct. No matter how ugly and hurtful may be the comments of those who dissent from the opinions of the speaker, those comments are also protected by the First Amendment, and they are punishable only when those who make them refuse to leave when asked to do so by the police.

First of all, the First Amendment does not protect anyone's right to disrupt someone else's speech. That is why people who disrupt a speech can be escorted out by the police. And I presume that if Berkeley can sic the police on someone, they can also warn such individuals in advance that disruptive behavior will be punished by the university. "Pro-Palestinians" are free to hand out literature before and after the speech, and bring in their own speakers. Exercise of their right to freedom of speech does not entail disrupting someone else.

Note also that the good chancellor feels the need to suggest that "moderate" Jews, Muslims, and community members found "little resonance" in "Pipes" speech, while acknowledging that Pipes received a standing ovation. Way to call hundreds of your students extremists, chancellor.

UPDATE: A reader suggests that, just for fun, pro-Israel students should, in protest of the chancellor's craveness, disrupt the next major fundraising or alumni event the chancellor holds on campus, in exactly the same way the "pro-Palestinian" folks disrupted Pipes' speech, and see if the chancellor's interpretation of the First Amendment changes.

 
[David Bernstein, 3/21/2004 05:58:02 PM]
Cyberterrorism and Outsourcing: Can't find the link, but Eugene blogged recently about how the U.S. allegedly sabotaged software the operated the Soviet's natural gas pipeline, and expressed concern that our own software could be vulnerable to sabotage. I'm actually writing an article that deals tangentially with cybersecurity issues, and just came across in my notes a link to a NY Times article expressing exactly this concern. Here's the abstract:

American companies continue to move their software development tasks out of their own offices to computer progrmming companies in US and abroad, raising concerns that such outsourcing may heighten risk of theft, sabotage or cyberterrorism from rogue programmers; operations in some countries, like US, Britain and India, are generally considered safe for such software outsourcing, and nervousness focuses on possibility of abuse by hackers, organized crime agents and cyberterrorists in nations like Pakistan, Philippines and Russia; outsourcing can save company 25 percent to 40 percent, and some of security concerns are raised by interested parties, programmers fearing export of jobs; companies providing outsourcing services argue that they take all necessary precautions to limit risk.

 
[David Bernstein, 3/21/2004 05:34:01 PM]
Clark on Bush: I don't know anything about Richard Clarke, but he sure isn't making the Bush Administration look good. I'm still hoping that going after Iraq first instead of the real terrorist threat of Iran was part of some grand master plan, and not an inexplicable obsession with Saddam, but Clarke's claim that top Bushie's were obsessed with Iraq both before and after 9/11 gives me pause.

 
[David Bernstein, 3/21/2004 04:05:01 PM]
USA Today Scandal: USA Today admitted last week that its reporter, Jack Kelly, fabricated many stories for the newspaper. Only one of those stories seems to have been motivated by animus toward its subject matter. Any guesses?

 
[David Bernstein, 3/21/2004 08:24:47 AM]
Laissez Faire Books Sale: Laissez Faire Books, the leading seller of libertarian, classical liberal, and free market-oriented titles, is having its semi-annual 15% off sale. This is a great opportunity to pick up Randy's Restoring the Lost Constitution. Amazon is selling it for its list price of $32.50, but LFB has it for $24.50, plus an additional 15% off, for a total of $20.61. And LFB still seems to have some autographed copies in stock!

 
[David Bernstein, 3/21/2004 08:07:40 AM]
Results of the "Second Intifada": Strange article by Aluf Benn in Ha'aretz, arguing that what Sharon is asking from Bush in return for withdrawal from Gaza is de facto recognition of Israeli annexation of the Etzion bloc of settlements, the same settlements Israel would have acquired under the Camp David proposals of 2000. Benn concludes that Israel has fought 3.5 years just to get back to where she was in 2000. What Benn never mentions, however, is that it was Arafat and the Palestinians, not Israel, who rejected the Camp David proposals in 2000, and, indeed, Israel agreed to further concessions in Taba a few months later. A settlement along Camp David lines, with, as Bush has insisted, Arafat no longer in power, replaced by someone actually committed to peace and to fighting terrorism, would be a huge victory for Israel.

 
[David Bernstein, 3/20/2004 06:10:00 PM]
Modern Antidiscrimination Ideology, 'Nuff Said: From the Guardian: David Winnick, a member of the Commons home affairs select committee, said only somebody who was "psychotic" would question anti-discrimination laws.

 
[David Bernstein, 3/20/2004 08:12:12 AM]
More on Matt Bowles and the ACLU: Sharleen Mondal's blog has a worthwhile debate between Sharleen and "Mike" over Mr. Bowles, 9-11 Field Organizer for the ACLU. Sharleen argues, contra what I have written, that Bowles did nothing improper in leading a "silent" protest of a Daniel Pipes speech, nor has he supported Palestinian terrorism. Mike gives further details supporting the view that the protest was disruptive and not-so-silent, and thus clearly contrary to ACLU values, and agrees with my reading of Bowles' "no justice no peace" article as endorsing Palestinian terrorism, a rather awkward position for a fellow working on 9-11 issues.

UPDATE: And here is Bowles writing in Cairo's Al-Ahram Weekly about terrorism:

The politically vacuous "terrorist" label is a prominent fragment of highly racialised hate rhetoric used to demonise Third World people of colour in general and Arab and Muslim people in particular. Ironically, since "terrorism" is the central discourse currently justifying the US conquest of the Middle East, Arab- American "leaders" who wish to build ties to the White House do so at the expense of confronting such labels or developing a politically useful critique of US imperialism. (via Classical Values)

So there you have it, it's not simply that one's man terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, the term terrorist itself is simply hate speech against Arabs [edit: btw, since when, other for political convenience, are Arabs "people of color"?] The ACLU is supposed to be a serious organization, and we certainly need a serious organization to be a civil liberties watchdog during the War on Terror. But for the ACLU to be taken seriously, the public needs to be convinced that its fighting for civil liberties, not for terrorists.

 
[David Bernstein, 3/20/2004 07:04:19 AM]
The Heckler's Veto at Virginia Commonwealth University: Meryl Yourish reports:

A student group called Supporters of a Safe Israel at Virginia Commonwealth University wants to bring the [very controversial] Daniel Pipes to VCU for a lecture. However, due to the current anti-Israel climate on many college campuses, whenever a group brings a pro-Israel speaker, the colleges demand extra security due to the protests and controversy that will ensue. SSI needs to raise an extra $5,000 [UPDATE: Meryl has update her blog to reflect that only $350 of the money the organization needs to raise is for the extra security], and they've only got about a month.

VCU policy (see p.9) grants the university discretion to require security for student-sponsored events, either for crowd control purposes, "or for other circumstances." I suspect that as applied to the Pipes visit, where the security will be because of the controversial nature of Pipes' views (among other things, he is often--and falsely--accused of being "anti-Muslim"), and not for crowd control, VCU’s policy is unconstitutional. The closest case on point is Forsyth County v. Nationalist Movement, in which the Supreme Court invalidated a county rule that allowed the county to condition a demonstration permit on the organizers paying the county in advance for security. The Court noted:

The county envisions that the administrator, in appropriate instances, will assess a fee to cover "the cost of necessary and reasonable protection of persons participating in or observing said . . . activit[y]." In order to assess accurately the cost of security for parade participants, the administrator must necessarily examine the content of the message that is conveyed, estimate the response of others to that content, and judge the number of police necessary to meet that response. The fee assessed will depend on the administrator's measure of the amount of hostility likely to be created by the speech based on its content. Those wishing to express views unpopular with bottle throwers, for example, may have to pay more for their permit.

VCU seems to be doing something very similar here, requiring Supporters of a Safe Israel to commit to spending more on security based on its assessment of how it perceives Pipes’ speech will be received.

The Court added: "The costs to which petitioner refers are those associated with the public's reaction to the speech. Listeners' reaction to speech is not a content neutral basis for regulation. Speech cannot be financially burdened, any more than it can be punished or banned, simply because it might offend a hostile mob." See also Judge Posner's opinion in Church of the American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan v. City of Gary, Ind., emphasizing that parade organizers cannot be charged a security bill based on the controversy of their message even if the bill is determined with exactitude by "an army of cost accountants."

VCU’s policy is not only allowing but encouraging a heckler’s veto–anti-Israel activists know that if they just make a few threatening gestures, VCU will impose extra costs on the pro-Israel community anytime it wants to bring in a pro-Israel speaker. The "hostile mob" is thus rewarded.

This is not, it should be noted, a case in which the student group is demanding that VCU provide it with free extra security, which would raise the separate additional issue of what obligations a public university has to provide security for speakers brought by student groups. Rather, it appears that VCU is going to provide the extra security whether the students think it necessary or desireable or not. The question is whether VCU can force the students to pay for this security.

I should also note that VCU does not seem to be discriminating against Supporters of a Safe Israel, but is rather applying its seemingly unconstitutional policy in a context in which its deficiencies are glaring. I'll forward this information to FIRE and the Virginia ACLU on Monday, and see what they have to say.

UPDATE: A $350 "tax"on speech does not have the same chilling effect on speech that $5,000 has, but the constitutional principle is the same: neither VCU, nor any other public university, should require student organizations bringing in controversial speakers to pay for extra security based on the controversial nature of the speech.

 
[David Bernstein, 3/19/2004 10:12:51 AM]
The Absurd World of "Middle East Studies": Why do the poobahs of the world of "Middle East Studies" recoil in horror any time anyone threatens to call attention to their discipline? Because it is such a relentlessly one-sided, politiciized discipline that it could not possibly withstand public scrutiny. The latest evidence? The refusal of the Middle East Studies Association--which has slathered all over the late English professor (later promoted to "univeristy professor") and self-described "Palestinian" activist Edward Said--to name Bernard Lewis, truly one of the great Middle Eastern scholars of the our times, an honorary fellow recognizing him as one of the ten "outstanding internationally recognized scholars who have made major contributions to Middle East studies." (via The Right Coast)

 
[David Bernstein, 3/19/2004 08:39:14 AM]
"Victory" for Diversity of Opinion at Emory: Erin O'Connor reports (and I heard this story when I spoke at Emory about speech codes and academic freedom on Tuesday) that when the College Republicans at Emory sought funding for the student council to bring David Horowitz to speak on campus, two university administrators appeared before the council to urge it not to approve funding:

In an editorial published by the Emory Wheel, Ezra Greenberg, an Emory student and member of the College Republicans, described one of the administrators' arguments thus:

Assistant Dean of Campus Life Vera Rorie delivered a speech littered with euphemisms and doublespeak, all but urging the Council to vote against someone who would “divide us.” Rorie”s statements exhibited classic, anti-free expression duplicity.

“We are all for free speech, but ...” and “We are all for academic freedom, but ...,” Rorie said.

She insisted, “If we were to take a vote, I”m sure everyone is this room would support free speech.” Yet supporting free speech in the abstract is meaningless.

The question is whether you will allow someone whom you detest to speak, or if you will boo and hiss, as anti-Horowitz students did last year but campus conservatives have declined to do time and again.

Race, according to Rorie, is a very delicate issue, which she is obviously mature enough to discuss, while campus conservatives are not. Writing in the Wheel a few weeks ago, she said that her white colleagues could not look at race in the same way she could, because “the very existence of white privilege and institutional racism frames our experiences differently.”

What happened next is little short of astonishing. Rorie received a hostile email from one S. Siles, sent from an aol.com email address. The email was a brutally pointed reminder to Rorie that the internet makes it possible for her actions and words as an administrator to be judged by the world. Quoting her confused comments about free speech and academic freedom, the email condemns Rorie as a censor and a fool:

Here's some free speech: you, madam, are incompetent and a buffoon. The internet is making it more difficult for people like you to hide behind the walls of academia. I also would like to remind you that internet search engines record these articles instantly and forever for posterity to see.

That's not the astonishing part (as any blogger knows, having a public presence, however small, attracts its share of hate mail). The astonishing part is Rorie's response, which is recorded on the Emory College Republicans' web site. After the Horowitz vote, Rorie had agreed to meet with Greenberg and Ed Thayer, the Chairman of the CRs, to discuss alternative possibilities for bringing a conservative speaker to campus. But when she got the email quoted above, she withdrew her offer in an email that effectively blamed them for the fact that S. Siles felt compelled to give her an electronic piece of his mind. She wrote:

Dear Ed & Ezra,
My office had offered to assist the College Republicans in planning an event that would bring a conservative speaker of your choice to campus. In light of the attached email and link it is clear that you are not interested in practing [sic] community. The information you provided to outsiders is the source of the enclosed personal attacts [sic] on me. I am rescinding the offer to meet.I will not participate in email name calling or personal assaults.
Dean Vera Dixon Rorie

Erin reports that there is good news:

Negative publicity has done its work at Emory. A reader reports that Emory president James Wagner has apologized to the College Republicans for Dean Vera Rorie's censorious and punitive behavior, and that, despite being denied funding by the Emory College Council, the CRs have raised enough money to bring David Horowitz to campus next month after all.

Frankly, I am much less enthusiastic about this outcome than is Erin. A college administrator who engages in such blatantly biased and unprofessional behavior should be disciplined (I don’t think anyone ever gets fired on a university campus unless he does something illegal) (oh, and for those of you who will instinctively cast aspersions, when I heard the story on Tuesday from Prof. Ann Hartle with fewer details, I suggested immediately that Dean Rorie's behavior should have professional repercussions, and at the time I had no idea that she was African American). Is there any indication that Dean Rorie has suffered any negative consequences for her actions? And why hasn't she apologized? And if Emory's president really wanted to square things with the CRs, how about if he offered to use college funds to bring in Horowitz, allowing the CRs to use the money they raised for other purposes? I think that we have come to expect so little from spineless college presidents that even the most minimum signs of decent behavior are seen as great victories.

POSTSCRIPT: At my own alma mater, Brandeis, I had personal experience with a "student life" administrator who obviously believed that part of her role was to make the university as unwelcoming as possible for Republican, conservative, and libertarian students. So forgive me if I take this one a little personally.

 
[David Bernstein, 3/18/2004 02:12:50 PM]
ACLU Employs Terrorism Apologist for 9/11-Related Job: I've now confirmed with the ACLU that Matt Bowles' official title with the ACLU is "National 9-11 Field Organizer." Mr. Bowles is author of a remarkable anti-Israel article which at best apologizes for terrorism against Israel, and at worst, and as I read it, endorses terrorism against Israel. (He endorses the "Second Intifada," accuses Israel of having a "colonial apartheid regime" and states that until Israel capitulates to all of the Palestinians' demands, including an unlimited "right of return" which will inherently destroy Israel, there will be "no peace for Israel"; all talk of peace until then is just "hype.")

If the ACLU is going to employ individuals who apologize for/support terrorism to work on 9-11 related issues it will, and it should, lose credibility on those issues.

 
[David Bernstein, 3/18/2004 11:13:05 AM]
Apparently Phony "Hate Crime" at Claremont McKenna: My Con Law II student Trent England writes:

You might find interesting the scandal at my alma mater, Claremont McKenna College, where a professor has been [allegedly] caught trying to frame students with a fake hate crime.

CMC has a long tradition as an outstanding small liberal arts college focused on the study of government and economics. Politically, the faculty and students have been remarkably balanced, making CMC appear radically conservative relative to other institutions of higher learning. Recently, a new administration has tried to push the school to higher rankings by forcing it to become a typical left-wing college.

It seemed an outstanding stroke of luck for the administration when, in the midst of a push for greater "tolerance" and "diversity," a visiting left-wing faculty member's car was vandalized. Windows were smashed, tires slashed, and racist and anti-homosexual slogans spray painted on the professor's car.

There were sit-ins, a day of class was canceled, security was heightened, and the college president emailed all faculty, students, and alumni, to call for "regaining control of our community."

How very disappointed they were to receive the police report, which indicated that two eye witnesses identified the perpetrator as the professor herself.... It remains to be seen whether the CMC administration will still call for "the ultimate penalties under law" for what the professor herself called "a well-planned out act of terrorism."

The San-Diego Union-Tribune adds that "Police said [the professor] gave inconsistent statements during two interviews conducted jointly by the Claremont Police Department and the FBI. "

UPDATE: John Rosenberg had a lengthy post about this yesterday.

 
[David Bernstein, 3/17/2004 08:14:33 PM]
The Usefulness of Law School: Nate Oman writes:

Legal practioners have a vast comparative advantage over law schools in teaching practical lawyering skills. Example, I had a semester of trial advocacy and a semester of legal writing in law school, yet I learned more about brief writing in the first three weeks of my clerkship than I did in all of law school. It is simply very very difficult to explain in a classroom what makes for a good brief and what does not.

On the other hand, law schools have a huge comparative advantage over practice in teaching theory. The problem is that most law schools teach it in a really ad hoc and disorganized way. However, I think that lawyers who understand that various sorts of frameworks that can lie beneath doctrinal structures are likely to be better lawyers.

In short, I think that most clinical education is a boondogle. Students would be better served getting theory while they can, and then be prepared for a steap learning curve and some kind of de facto apprenticeship after graduation.

The powers that be at my law school, George Mason, have felt that clinical education, if not a boondoggle, is at least not the best use of our limited resources, (contrary to popular impression, George Mason has relatively meager resources, especially for an ambitious school in a major urban center), and we have therefore had very sparse clinical offerings. Our students who desire apprenticeship training can find no shortage of real life part-time work in the D.C. area. The ABA (which accredits us, and is the source of all sorts of malevolent mischief attendant to that power) however, is constantly on our back to expend more resources on clinics.

On the theory front, we have required all incoming students to take a basic economics course so that they can all have a common framework for discussion in their other classes.

On the other hand, we have disagreed in practice with Nate's perspective on the value of legal writing programs. My own one-semester program at Yale was a bad joke (question to TA: how do I draft this document? A: You're a smart Yale student. Look it up in the library, there are lots of books about legal draftingt there), and I suspect that many programs around the country are just as bad (actually probably not quite as bad), ungraded wastes of time. By contrast, Mason has a rigorous four-semester (seven graded credits) legal research and writing program, trying to impart skills that law firms don't have the time or inclination to work on. Unfortunately, many law students start law school with atrocious writing skills, and many graduate the same way. The Mason approach doesn't work miracles, but I know our students are a lot better prepared to do legal research and writing than graduates of some of our cross-river rivals, and I know it because senior attorneys at law firms and government agencies tell me so.

 
[David Bernstein, 3/17/2004 07:12:33 PM]
National Field Organizer for the ACLU Disrupts Campus Speech (UPDATE: and, DOES THE ACLU TERRORISM COORDINATOR SUPPORT TERRORISM?): No, really. The speech was by Daniel Pipes, whose account is here. Unlike Pipes, I don't see any reason to believe that the ACLU, as such, was behind the disruption, as opposed to the Field Organizer, a Mr. Bowles, acting as freelancer, as he acknowledged in response to Pipes' inquiry. But (UPDATE: in response to reader inquiries, I've ascertained that Bowles does indeed work for the ACLU, for the Washington legislative office as National Field Organizer) it's yet further evidence of the sad decline of the ACLU's interest in freedom of expression and debate that it would hire officials whose idea of how to oppose ideas they don't like is to engage in such antics. (Yes, Bowles led a silent protest, but it was a pretty clearly disruptive silent protest that took place during Pipes' lecture, distracting the audience from his talk.)

Update: Speaking of Bowles, I can't find any information about him on the ACLU's official website, but some other sites identify him as the ACLU's Terrorism and Civil Liberties coordinator (UPDATE: I'm still waiting to hear from the ACLU whether Bowles also holds this position). Do you think the ACLU could have found someone who doesn't endorse terrorism? Here's how Bowles concludes an article advocating an end to US aid to Israel: "For all the hype over peace camps and dialogue initiatives, until the structural inequalities are dealt with [i.e., until Israel capitulates completely, including allowing its own destruction by endorsing the "right of return"], there will be no justice for Palestinians and, thus, no peace for Israel." Readers can judge for themselves, but I understand Bowles to be not simply making a positive statement--that terrorism will continue until Israel capitulates--but making a normative statesment endorsing the "resistance" actions of Al Asqa, Jihad, and Hamas, that terrorism should continue until Israel capitulates.

FURTHER UPDATE: Bowles is not only a supporter of Arab terrorism, he claims that the very concept of "terrorism" is a mere racist construct.

 
[David Bernstein, 3/17/2004 03:00:55 PM]
"The Passion" Not Leading to Increased Anti-Semitism: This article is headlined "'The Passion' May be Reducing Anti-Semitism." That seems like too broad a conclusion to draw from the data presented, but that data, showing that the film isn't leading Americans to blame today's Jews for the death of Jesus is interesting, though to me, at least, expected. I'd be more interested to see the effect of "The Passion" on anti-Semitism in countries where the charge of Deicide against Jews has had more currency. (Via Clayton Cramer)

 
[David Bernstein, 3/17/2004 10:04:18 AM]
Spooner Award Finalists: Laissez Faire Books has announced the four Spooner Award finalists for the best book on liberty published in 2003. The finalists are:

James Bovard, Terrorism and Tyranny;
John Lott, Bias Against Guns;
Charles Murray, Human Accomplishment; and
my own, You Can't Say That!

According to LFB's website, "these four finalists have been submitted to a jury, which consists of members of the Center for Independent Thought (LFB's parent organization) board of directors, as well as other prominent libertarians and scholars, for the final award selection. The winner will be announced on March 31st."