Mormons on Israel and the Palestinians

Since Mitt Romney is the likely GOP presidential nominee, his Mormon faith, and how it might influence his policies on war and peace in the Mideast, will likely be key issues in the 2012 race.

There is reason to believe that Romney, like most past U.S. presidents, will be blindly pro-Israel. The New York Times has reported on the close friendship between Romney and Bibi Netanyahu ("A Friendship Dating to 1976 Resonates in 2012," by Michael Barbaro, April 7, 2012):

[I]n 1976, the lives of Mitt Romney and Benjamin Netanyahu intersected, briefly but indelibly, in the 16th-floor offices of the Boston Consulting Group, where both had been recruited as corporate advisers. At the most formative time of their careers, they sized each other up during the firm's weekly brainstorming sessions, absorbing the same profoundly analytical view of the world.

That shared experience decades ago led to a warm friendship, little known to outsiders, that is now rich with political intrigue.

Mr. Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, is making the case for military action against Iran as Mr. Romney, the likely Republican presidential nominee, is attacking the Obama administration for not supporting Mr. Netanyahu more robustly.

That's not good news for peaceniks.

But if Romney is elected, I hope he will recall that the Mormon faith advocates an even-handed approach to Jewish-Israeli/Muslim-Arab relations.

I'm no expert on the Mormon faith, but I was pleased to find this on an LDS website ("Orson Hyde's 1841 Mission to the Holy Land," by David B. Galbraith, October 1991):

It was perhaps inevitable that the gathering of the Jews and the creation of their modern nation would lead to a clash between political zionism and Arab nationalism. Few members of the Church fully appreciate the dimensions of this confrontation. In what has become a classic address, President Howard W. Hunter observed:

"Our Father loves all of his children. He desires all of them to embrace the gospel and come unto him. Only those are favored who obey him and keep his commandments.

"As members of the Lord's church, we need to lift our vision beyond personal prejudices. We need to discover the supreme truth that indeed our Father is no respecter of persons. Sometimes we unduly offend brothers and sisters of other nations by assigning exclusiveness to one nationality of people over another.

"...Both the Jews and the Arabs are children of our Father. They are both children of promise, and as a church we do not take sides. We have love for and an interest in each. The purpose of the gospel of Jesus Christ is to bring about love, unity, and brotherhood of the highest order."

Some of our Arab/Palestinian friends express concern about Elder Hyde's prayer because they feel anything that favors the Jews must oppose them. On the other hand, some of our Jewish friends have a tendency to interpret the prayer as conferring political support for their cause. Even members of the Church are sometimes confused as to how the prayer is to be understood.

The scriptures and the modern prophets clearly teach that all father Abraham's children have a place in the Lord's plan, and our Arab/ Palestinian friends are a part of this group.

Latter-day Saints need to be more sensitive to the hurt, disappointment, and even anger created among our Arab/Palestinian friends when we blindly attribute divine approbation to all that takes place in that part of the world we call the Holy Land.

Also read the Catholic Church's position on Islam.

How Political Third Parties Can "Win"

I've long argued that political third parties should not worry about offending voters with "extremist" positions -- because (barring societal collapse) no third party will ever supplant one of the two major parties in the U.S.

There are structural reasons why this is so. For one thing, if a third party's position on an issue becomes popular, then one or both of the major parties will co-opt that position. The Democrats and Republicans both began co-opting the various socialist parties' economic policies after 1933.

If third parties wish to influence public policy, they must focus on changing the culture. On changing attitudes and opinions. This means fearlessly promoting their principles (i.e., the dreaded libertarian macho flash). Once such uncompromising promotion influences enough voters, one or both of the major parties will implement that third party principle into a concrete policy position.

I've cited the socialist parties' successes as an example. Richard Winger, at Independent Political Report (comment 18), offers the Prohibition Party as another example:

In the period 1872-1920, all political observers agreed that virtually all people who voted for the Prohibition Party would have voted Republican if the Prohibition Party had not been running.

Prohibition Party cost the Republicans two presidential elections, 1884 and 1916. After the 1884 election the Prohibition candidate, John P. St. John, was hung in effigy or burned in effigy all across the north, but angry Republicans.

But after the 1916, when the Republicans again lost the election due to "spoiling" by the Prohibition Party, the Republicans in Congress decided to pass the prohibition amendment, which had been pending in Congress since 1875 but which had made no headway. The Republicans were sick of losing over the prohibition issue.

This shows the power of minor party voters. "Spoiling" is a stupid name but it is a potent weapon and voters should not be intimidated into being afraid to use it. It is one of the few ways a small minority can have some leverage.

Also never forget, in 1776 only a minority of Americans supported independence from Britain. You don't need a majority to change history.

When George Bush Was a Man of Peace

Back in 2000, I made the mistake of voting for George Bush when he ran for president. I did so because I was sick of Bill Clinton in general, but mostly because of Clinton's many wars and military invasions (e.g., the Balkans, Haiti, Somalia, Iraq, Sudan).

Sure, I preferred Harry Browne. But I didn't want to "waste my vote" on a third party. (Although I was long a card-carrying Libertarian Party member, I wasn't active in the LP -- apart from supper clubs -- until 2004, when I attended my first Libertarian convention.)

People forget how good Bush sounded on foreign policy in 2000. Here, take a look:

Seems silly now to have voted for Bush. Possibly the worst vote I ever cast.

Yet Al Gore was of the Clinton regime. Clinton, whose Secretary of State, Madeleine K. Albright, said in 1993, "What's the point of having this superb military you're always talking about if we can't use it?"

But what cinched it for me was that both sides claimed that Bush would ignore foreign policy. Progressives like to forget that today, but in 2000 they attacked Bush by saying that he would be a "do nothing" president.

I figured if both Democrats and Republicans claimed that Bush would be a "do nothing" a president, then it was likely true.

Yup, progressives meant that as an insult.

Unfortunately, Bush did what progressives originally wanted, and took an active foreign policy. Ironic, no? Someone should have told those progressives to be careful what they wish for.

Consider that C-SPAN clip, above. Bush sounds almost like ... a radical libertarian.

Libertarian Party Membership Is Shrinking

According to George Phillies, the national Libertarian Party's (i.e., LNC) membership numbers are falling.

Phillies reports the previous eight months as follows:

November 2011 ..... 13,691
December 2011 ..... 13,468
January 2012 ....... 13,492
February 2012 ...... 13,538
March 2012 .......... 13,406
April 2012 ........... 13,179
May 2012 ............ 12,923
June 2012 ........... 12,870

A slight uptick from December to February, but an overall steady decline.

Phillies's remark may be found at comment 16, at Independent Political Report.

Gary Johnson Weak on Peace

Gary Johnson has a new video in which he promises to bring home US troops from Afghanistan "immediately" (i.e., in 2013), as opposed to 2014 (which is what Obama and Romney are promising).

Sounds good -- except that this is a major retreat for the Libertarian Party. At the 2004 Libertarian Party convention, Michael Badnarik advocated withdrawing all US troops from every foreign nation, and closing all US military bases overseas.

Badnarik said, "[T]he best way to eliminate terrorism for the United States is to bring our soldiers home from 135 countries around the world. Stop influencing other governments. Stop influencing other economies. And stop poking other countries in the eye politically, and just mind our own business the way we would like other people to leave us alone."

Badnarik advocated withdrawing US troops from "135 countries" -- not just from one. Quite a bit more than Johnson's position: A withdrawal from one nation, one year earlier than the Democrats' and Republicans' timetable.

Also, compare Johnson's wishy-washy above video to this Ron Paul video below:

Ron Paul's video makes boldly clear that US foreign occupations and war are evil.

Johnson's video dares not morally judge US foreign policy. He says the US should leave Afghanistan, but does not say why. At most, he implies that it's economically unsound for the US to stay there.

He even engages in a bit of tough talk, from which one may infer: "Don't worry, we'll still have lots of troops elsewhere in the world, so we'll still be the biggest badass on the block."

Hollywood Threatens Internet Freedom

From DemandProgress.org:

Today's the big hearing. We told you that we're beating back Hollywood's attempts to take over the Internet again.

Today's court hearing on the MegaUpload case will decide if Hollywood will be able to use the courts to undermine Cloud storage and social media platforms. Will you help us fight back (again)?

If you haven't yet, please click here to sign on to our legal brief, and make sure the court understands that millions of Internet users will be impacted by the judge's decision.

Whether you've signed or not, please use these links or forward the email below to urge your friends to get involved right away. If you're on Reddit, please post a link to www.theinternetvshollywood.com, or vote up any such links that have already been posted. We need as many people as possible to sign on to the brief so that the judge understands the broad impacts of his decision.

If you're already on Facebook, click here to share with your friends.

If you're already on Twitter, click here to tweet about the campaign: Tweet

For more background, or to forward to your friends, here's the email we sent yesterday:

---

It's us versus THEM again.

Hollywood attorneys are trying to use the courts to circumvent Congress and implement a backdoor SOPA/PIPA scheme.

Fight Back: YOUR FILES ON Google, Dropbox, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, YouTube, Flickr, etc. and even your emails are in jeopardy.

We need to make sure the judge understands that his decision will affect millions of people.

Demand Progress is fighting back in the courts and standing up for Internet users. We are taking on the United States and the MPAA. Please click here to support our legal brief -- the court will be hearing the case THIS WEEK.

BACKGROUND: One day after the Internet staged a massive blackout to protest Congress's Internet censorship legislation (SOPA/PIPA), the United States responded by seizing millions of ordinary user files hosted on the popular website Megaupload.com.

With an aim of shutting down Megaupload and other Cloud-based hosting services (like Dropbox, YouTube or even your email provider), the government is trying to claim website operators should face decades in prison for the misdeeds of some of their users.

But while they pursue trumped up criminal charges against the companies' founders, they are shutting down dozens of websites, and leaving ordinary Internet users without any way of retrieving their files.

Please click here to sign on as a supporter of our legal brief: The judge will be hearing the case THIS WEEK, and we need to make sure he understands that his ruling affects millions of us.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak called the case against Megaupload a "threat to innovation". Wozniak likened the Megaupload site to a highway and those who shared pirated movies and songs to speeding motorists.

"You don't just shut down the whole street because somebody is speeding," he said.

Numerous laws on the books already give copyright holders plenty of avenues to stop actual infringement, but that's not enough to satisfy Hollywood's lawyers and lobbyists.

And get this: The prosecutor in the case, Neil MacBride, previously served as the Anti-Piracy Vice President of the Business Software Alliance, where he represented the intellectual property interests of countless multinational corporations.

Now Hollywood's lobbyists, represented by the Motion Picture Association of America, want him to make it nearly impossible for ordinary Internet users to get their property back.

Please click here to sign on to our legal brief, and make sure the courts understand that millions of Internet users will be impacted by the judge's decision.

And please use these links or forward this email to urge your friends to get involved right away -- we need as many people as possible to sign on to the brief so that the judge understands the broad impacts of his decision.

If you're already on Facebook, click here to share with your friends.

If you're already on Twitter, click here to tweet about the campaign: Tweet

One last thing -- Demand Progress's small, dedicated, under-paid staff relies on the generosity of members like you to support our work. Will you click here to chip in $5 or $10? Or you can become a Demand Progress monthly sustainer by clicking here. Thank you!

California Police Are Electronically Tracking All License Plates

Los Angeles County police depts. -- and most likely cops across America -- are electronically monitoring wherever you drive, using a computer network that tracks license plates on streets and highways.

So says Jon Campbell, who reports in the L.A. Weekly (June 21, 2012):

Using a vast and automatic electronic tracking system that is all but unknown to the California public, on the day of Robles' murder, police in Los Angeles County cities had made a detailed record of the alleged getaway vehicle's movements.

The information came complete with GPS coordinates — even photographs.

In a situation evoking the hit movie Minority Report, the suspects were being watched even before they were considered suspects.

L.A. Weekly has learned that more than two dozen law enforcement agencies in Los Angeles County are using hundreds of these "automatic license plate recognition" devices (LPRs) — units about the size of a paperback book, usually mounted atop police cruisers — to devour data on every car that catches their electronic eye.

The L.A. County Sheriff's Department and the Los Angeles Police Department are two of the biggest gatherers of automatic license plate recognition information. Local police agencies have logged more than 160 million data points — a massive database of the movements of millions of drivers in Southern California.

Each data point represents a car and its exact whereabouts at a given time. Police have already conducted, on average, some 22 scans for every one of the 7,014,131 vehicles registered in L.A. County. Because it's random, some cars are scanned numerous times, others never.

Read the rest of Campbell's report.