Thomas Sowell writing on “The Anger of the Left”:

That people on the political left have a certain set of opinions, just as people do in other parts of the ideological spectrum, is not surprising. What is surprising, however, is how often the opinions of those on the left are accompanied by hostility and even hatred.

Particular issues can arouse passions here and there for anyone with any political views. But, for many on the left, indignation is not a sometime thing. It is a way of life.

How often have you seen conservatives or libertarians take to the streets, shouting angry slogans? How often have conservative students on campus shouted down a visiting speaker or rioted to prevent the visitor from speaking at all?

Or beat their teacher to death with sticks, for that matter. Here’s an example from China’s Cultural Revolution of what results when that anger is taken to its pathological conclusion and made into state policy:

“What is your name?” the Great Helmsman asked a young student as she pinned a Red Guard armband on him in front of the Gate of Heavenly Peace. “Song Binbin,” she responded enthusiastically. The name her parents chose meant “properly raised” and “polite,” qualities that Mao Zedong found unappealing. “Be violent!” he ordered the girl. A short time later she changed her first name to Yaowu, or “Be Violent.”

It was Aug. 18, 1966 and the 72-year-old Chinese leader had called male and female students to assemble on Beijing’s Square of Heavenly Peace to launch his Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Hundreds of thousands waved Mao’s little red book and cheered the old man.

Mao’s call to violence fell on willing ears among many young people. Thirteen days earlier Song, 19 at the time, was presumably present when the female students at her school, which was part of the Beijing Teachers University, killed their teacher, Bian Zhongyun. The girls brutally beat the 50-year-old woman to death using wooden sticks spiked with nails. On the day before the killing, members of the Red Guard had already maltreated the teacher, who was the party leader at the school — they suddenly viewed her as a “counter-revolutionary revisionist” who they believed had gambled away her life.

Bian went down in history as the first victim of the Cultural Revolution — the bloody mass movement Mao used to eliminate his enemies within the party. The teacher’s murder was followed by the killings of millions of Chinese people. The ten-year campaign destroyed entire families, irreplaceable cultural treasures and centuries-old traditions. In August 1966 alone, about 100 teachers were murdered by their own students in the western section of Beijing.

Thomas Sowell sums up his point:

If it is hard to find a principle behind what angers the left, it is not equally hard to find an attitude.

Their greatest anger seems to be directed at people and things that thwart or undermine the social vision of the left, the political melodrama starring the left as saviors of the poor, the environment, and other busybody tasks that they have taken on.

It seems to be the threat to their egos that they hate. And nothing is more of a threat to their desire to run other people’s lives than the free market and its defenders.

And here’s an example of what free market capitalism has been teaching the children of China’s great Asian competitor, India:

During the mid-1990s, the first Internet cafes began opening up in Bangalore, with one going into operation nextdoor to Gopinath’s house. “My brother Shreyas took me there. I was fascinated. The Internet changed my life,” he says. He spent every spare minute online.

He taught himself how to build Web sites. “He spent every rupee he had in the Internet Café,” says his mother, disapproval still evident in her voice. Gopinath admits, “I had been a good student up until then. After I discovered the Internet, I was an average student.” Before finding cyberspace, he had dreams of becoming a veterinarian.

So what did he become instead? How about this:

Suhas Gopinath started a software company at age 14 and has since become one of the most remarkable success stories of the Indian IT boom. Now he’s 21 and runs a world-class business with 400 employees.

Nice one, Suhas!

Is there an evil global warming did not cause?

Global warming oppresses the poor:

Mrs Beckett quoted a remark made by the President of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni, that global warming was “an act of aggression by the rich against the poor”.

People do not cause Darfur genocide, global warming does:

British diplomats said the intention of Tuesday’s session was to lift climate change to the top of the international agenda. Britain has pointed to the violence in the Darfur region of Sudan as an example of conflict partly caused by land degradation.

Global warming causes Al Qaeda:

Last November, the Stern report suggested that 200 million people could be displaced by rising sea levels and drought by 2050. It said the global economy could shrink by one-fifth. Even Osama bin Laden accused the US in 2002 of harming nature “more than any nation in history”.

Seriously. What the fuck kind of paragraph is that. Who the fuck is writing this shit? Looking at you, Andrew Clark in New York. STFU, n00b.

And tucked at the end of the story, China don’t take no shit from no rising temperatures:

■ China has created artificial snow in Tibet after experts warned of melting glaciers in the Himalayas. The Tibetan meteorological station had created a fall of 2.2 millimetres, which accumulated to one centimetre, last week, about 4000 metres above sea level in northern Tibet, the Xinhua news agency said yesterday.

Nice one. Or maybe not.

The Chinese Communist Party - its a force of nature. They’d be pissing away deserts and drinking away rising sea levels if it’d keep that economy chugging up and away.

Meanwhile someone somewhere has pioneered the Abstract Expressionist school of journalism and the world didn’t even notice.

From the Manilla Times last week:

When nations stop breeding
by Dan Mariano

HERBERT MEYER was the first senior official of the US government to predict the disintegration of the Soviet Union. For this feat he was awarded the US National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal, the highest honor in the American intelligence community. Under President Ronald Reagan, Meyer served as special assistant of the Director of Central Intelligence and vice-chairman of the CIA’s National Intelligence Council.

Meyer later parlayed his record as one of America’s top intelligence analysts into a career as a consultant and writer. He has authored several books; his views are highly regarded by conservative American businessmen. He was also an associate editor of Fortune magazine.

In a recent article—titled “What in the world is going on? A global intelligence briefing for CEO’s,”—Meyer tackles four major transformations that, taken individually or in combination, will produce radical changes on how to do business worldwide. These transformations arise from the war in Iraq, the emergence of China, shifting demographics of Western civilization and the restructuring of American business.

Each of these developments will give rise to monumental changes, but it is Meyer’s discussion of shifting demographic patterns in the US, Europe, Japan and elsewhere that drew this column’s keenest interest. His forecasts in the area of population seem to have the greatest relevance to countries like the Philippines.

[..]

Meyer’s discussion of “shifting demographic pattern” drew the keenest interest around here also. I haven’t been able to find the original source where Meyer’s essay appeared, although you can find a few articles by him on American Thinker (“An open letter to Europe” is good for a laugh!). On the blogs where the essay has appeared in the last couple of weeks, people mentioned getting it by email, so it seems to have gone viral. Herbert Meyer has also been briefing CEOs about “What in the world is going on?” at least since August 2005 and a number of things in the essay hint at a mid-2005 writing date. For example the statement that other than the US only China is putting money into its military ignores developments in Russia (and a number of small players) and the assertion that Lebanon is moving in the right direction does not match current reality, although it would have matched the apparent reality post Cedar Revolution in March 2005. The section on demographics has not lost any relevance however. You can read the whole essay here, I’ll post just the sections from Meyer’s essay that relate to demographics:

FOUR MAJOR TRANSFORMATIONS

A GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING FOR CEOS

HERBERT MEYER

Currently, there are four major transformations that are shaping political, economic and world events. These transformations have profound implications for American business owners, our culture and our way of life.

1. The War in Iraq
[..]
2. The Emergence of China
[..]
3. Shifting Demographics of Western Civilization

Most countries in the Western world have stopped breeding. For a civilization obsessed with sex, this is remarkable. Maintaining a steady population requires a birth rate of 2.1. In Western Europe, the birth rate currently stands at 1.5, or 30 percent below replacement. In 30 years there will be 70 to 80 million fewer Europeans than there are today. The current birth rate in Germany is 1.3. Italy and Spain are even lower at 1.2. At that rate, the working age population declines by 30 percent in 20 years, which has a huge impact on the economy.

When you don’t have young workers to replace the older ones, you have to import them. The European countries are currently importing Moslems. Today, the Moslems comprise 10 percent of France and Germany, and the percentage is rising rapidly because they have higher birthrates. However, the Moslem populations are not being integrated into the cultures of their host countries, which is a political catastrophe. One reason Germany and France don’t support the Iraq war is they fear their Moslem populations will explode on them. By 2020, more than half of all births in the Netherlands will be non-European.

The huge design flaw in the post-modern secular state is that you need a traditional religious society birth rate to sustain it. The Europeans simply don’t wish to have children, so they are dying.

In Japan, the birthrate is 1.3. As a result, Japan will lose up to 60 million people over the next 30 years. Because Japan has a very different society than Europe, they refuse to import workers. Instead, they are just shutting down. Japan has already closed 2000 schools, and is closing them down at the rate of 300 per year. Japan is also aging very rapidly. By 2020, one out of every five Japanese will be at least 70 years old. Nobody has any idea about how to run an economy with those demographics.

Europe and Japan, which comprise two of the world’s major economic engines, aren’t merely in recession, they’re shutting down. This will have a huge impact on the world economy, and it is already beginning to happen. Why are the birthrates so low? There is a direct correlation between abandonment of traditional religious society and a drop in birth rate, and Christianity in Europe is becoming irrelevant. The second reason is economic. When the birth rate drops below replacement, the population ages. With fewer working people to support more retired people, it puts a crushing tax burden on the smaller group of working age people. As a result, young people delay marriage and having a family. Once this trend starts, the downward spiral only gets worse. These countries have abandoned all the traditions they formerly held in regards to having families and raising children.

The U.S. birth rate is 2.0, just below replacement. We have an increase in population because of immigration. When broken down by ethnicity, the Anglo birth rate is 1.6 (same as France) while the Hispanic birth rate is 2.7. In the U.S., the baby boomers are starting to retire in massive numbers. This will push the “elder dependency” ratio from 19 to 38 over the next 10 to 15 years. This is not as bad as Europe, but still represents the same kind of trend.

Western civilization seems to have forgotten what every primitive society understands-you need kids to have a healthy society. Children are huge consumers. Then they grow up to become taxpayers. That’s how a society works, but the post-modern secular state seems to h.ave forgotten that. If U.S. birth rates of the past 20 to 30 years had been the same. as post-World War II, there would be no Social Security or Medicare problems.

The world’s most effective birth control device is money. As society creates a middle class and women move into the work force, birth rates drop. Having large families is incompatible with middle class living. The quickest way to drop the birth rate is through rapid economic development. After World War II, the U.S. instituted a $600 tax credit per child. The idea was to enable mom and dad to have four children without being troubled by taxes. This led to a baby boom of 22 million kids, which was a huge consumer market that turned into a huge tax base. However, to match that incentive in today’s dollars would cost $12,000 per child.

China and India do not have declining populations. However, in both countries, there is a preference for boys over girls, and we now have the technology to know which is which before they are born. In China and India, many families are aborting the girls. As a result, in each of these countries there are 70 million boys growing up who will never find wives. When left alone, nature produces 103 boys for every 100 girls. In some provinces, however, the ratio is 128 boys to every 100 girls.

The birth rate in Russia is so low that by 2050 their population will be smaller than that of Yemen [TOD: Yemen’s population is now about 21 million, but the birthrate is 7 children per woman. Interestingly the population is evenly split between Sunni and Shia. The projection for Russia in 2050 is 100 million]. Russia has one-sixth of the earth’s land surface and much of its oil. You can’t control that much area with such a small population. Immediately to the south, you have China with 70 million unmarried men – a real potential nightmare scenario for Russia.

4. Restructuring of American Business
[..]

IMPLICATIONS OF THE FOUR TRANSFORMATIONS

3. Demographics

Europe and Japan are dying because their populations are aging and shrinking. These trends can be reversed if the young people start breeding. However, the birth rates in these areas are so low it will take two generations to turn things around. No economic model exists that permits 50 years to turn things around. Some countries are beginning to offer incentives for people to have bigger families. For example, Italy is offering tax breaks for having children. However, it’s a lifestyle issue versus a tiny amount of money. Europeans aren’t willing to give up their comfortable lifestyles in order to have more children.

In general, everyone in Europe just wants it to last a while longer. Europeans have a real talent for living. They don’t want to work very hard. The average European worker gets 400 more hours of vacation time per year than Americans. They don’t want to work and they don’t want to make any of the changes needed to revive their economies.

The summer after 9/11, France lost 15,000 people in a heat wave. In August, the country basically shuts down when everyone goes on vacation. That year, a severe heat wave struck and 15,000 elderly people living in nursing homes and hospitals died. Their children didn’t even leave the beaches to come back and take care of the bodies. Institutions had to scramble to find enough refrigeration units to hold the bodies until people came to claim them.

This loss of life was five times bigger than 9/11 in America, yet it didn’t trigger any change in French society. When birth rates are so low, it creates a tremendous tax burden on the young. Under those circumstances, keeping mom and dad alive is not an attractive option. That’s why euthanasia is becoming so popular in most European countries. The only country that doesn’t permit (and even encourage) euthanasia is Germany, because of all the baggage from World War II.

The European economy is beginning to fracture. The Euro is down. Countries like Italy are starting to talk about pulling out of the European Union because it is killing them. When things get bad economically in Europe, they tend to get very nasty politically. The canary in the mine is anti- Semitism. When it goes up, it means trouble is coming. Current levels of anti-Semitism are higher than ever. Germany won’t launch another war, but Europe will likely get shabbier, more dangerous and less pleasant to live in.

Japan has a birth rate of 1.3 and has no intention of bringing in immigrants. By 2020, one out of every five Japanese will be 70 years old. Property values in Japan have dropped every year for the past 14 years. The country is simply shutting down.

In the U.S. we also have an aging population. Boomers are starting to retire at a massive rate. These retirements will have several major impacts:

• Possible massive sell-off of large four-bedroom houses and a movement to condos.

• An enormous drain on the treasury. Boomers vote, and they want their benefits, even if it means putting a crushing tax burden on their kids to get them. Social Security will be a huge problem. As this generation ages, it will start to drain the system. We are the only country in the world where there are no age limits on medical procedures.

• An enormous drain on the health care system. This will also increase the tax burden on the young, which will cause them to delay marriage and having families, which will drive down the birth rate even further.

Although scary, these demographics also present enormous opportunities for products and services tailored to aging populations. There will be tremendous demand for caring for older people, especially those who don’t need nursing homes but need some level of care. Some people will have a business where they take care of three or four people in their homes. The demand for that type of service and for products to physically care for aging people will be huge.

Make sure the demographics of your business are attuned to where the action is. For example, you don’t want to be a baby food company in Europe or Japan. Demographics are much underrated as an indicator of where the opportunities are. Businesses need customers. Go where the customers are.

You might think that the South Korean people would see the US as a friend and ally and perhaps be thankful for its help in the Korean War and for the billions of dollars in economic and military aid it has received since. Nope, nothing like it. Jonathan Last in the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Americans generally think well of South Korea. The feeling is not mutual. A 2003 Pew survey found that 50 percent of South Koreans (and 71 percent of those age 18 to 29) have an unfavorable view of the United States. This isn’t anti-Bushism: 72 percent of those who disliked America said their hostility was toward the country in general, not just the president. The same survey found that half of South Koreans were “disappointed that the Iraqi military put up so little resistance in the war against the United States.” A 2002 poll found that, by a margin of 3-1, South Koreans opposed even the idea of the war on terror. Some allies.

South Korea has a long history of anti-Americanism. In 1982, for instance, South Korean students set fire to the American Cultural Center in Pusan. At the 1988 Seoul Olympics, the undercurrent of anti-Americanism was so strong that then-president Roh Tae Woo held a special meeting of his cabinet to try to figure out how to soothe public opinion. As one student radical explained to the Associated Press in 1989, “the United States and its proxy ruling force… are primarily responsible for all our country’s problems and divisions.”

[..]

The United States was a big issue in South Korea’s last presidential election in 2002, with the most anti-American candidate, Roh Moo Hyun, winning.

President Roh has been less than true blue. He believes that North Korea must be appeased. He and his predecessor, Kim Dae Jung, encouraged their countrymen to forget about the North’s frequent acts of provocation and extensive network of gulags. Instead, they taught South Koreans to view the North as a slow, underprivileged little brother - more of a burden than an enemy. That view has taken deep hold in the South Korean psyche: In 2004, 39 percent of South Koreans said that America was the biggest threat to their national security, while only 33 percent said North Korea was.

Just in case you keep track of these things, 54,246 American soldiers gave their lives to save the South during the Korean War. Between 1945 and 2001, the United States gave South Korea $15 billion in economic and military aid. The annual cost of maintaining our 30,000 troops on the Korean peninsula is about $3 billion. Which is a pretty hefty subsidy to be giving the world’s 11th-largest economy.

Last says he has an “escape fantasy” about the US military leaving South Korea. Actually this is not such a far fetched idea at all. Both Washington and Seoul are keen to move in this direction and over the next five or so years the US military presence, more a relic of the Cold War than a deterrant to North Korea or China, will be greatly reduced on the Korean peninsula. This will happen gradually as the South Korean military is restructured to reflect the realigned defence relationship, which currently hinges on the fact that the US has wartime operational control of the South Korean military (the Combined Forces Command). In a recent agreement the time frame for the transferral has been set as between October 2009 and March 2012 (a 30 month period).