I have to confess that much of the rhetoric from the right on Muslims in America has crossed a line that I find uncomfortable.  Much of this is centered around the controversies of the mosque proposed a few blocks away from ground zero.

One problem is that Muslims are rarely portrayed in the media except in instances of terrorism or other forms of confrontation.  The danger is to assume that Muslims have no moderate base at all.  I would guess that Muslims would find it indignant to have to defend their faith from the acts of extremists, just as Catholics would reject being labeled by the antics of Mel Gibson or the Jews by the words of Meir Kahane ( of the Jewish Defense League).

Rabbi Meir Kahane

On the Zakaria GPS show on CNN today (8/15/2010), Fareed Zakaria interviewed Irshad Manji and Ayaan Hirsi Ali.  Fareed is a Muslim who questioned Ali as to what extent the radicals were a fringe element.  Fareed believes that the vast majority of Muslims are solid American citizens with American values.

Irshad Manji and Ayaan Hirsi Ali

But the interesting exchange was between Manji and Ali. Ali has rejected Islam totally and accepted Christianity.  Manji, who is a very  progressive feminist remains devout to her Muslim faith yet does not hesitate to chastise Muslim moderates for not being more aggressive in  holding the more radical elements more accountable.

The interview has not yet been posted on the Zakaria GPS site, but hopefully it soon will be.

What we should be careful to avoid is painting all Muslims as a monolithic group with a single voice. Just as with Christians and Jews there is diversity within the Muslim ranks. Many Muslims came to this country to escape the more intolerant strains of their religion from abroad.

Fareed is correct that we would be wiser to encourage the more moderate elements than to remain adversarial with the entire religion.  He explains his position in this video where he voices his support for the Mosque.

I have been a fan of Fareed Zakaria,l read and enjoyed his Post American World, and I like the depth of his interviews on the TV show GPS.

His recent article in Newsweek (“Obama’s CEO Problem”- 7/12/20101 print edition), however,   showed a detachment from the world most of us function in and an analysis that seemed outright foolish.   He correctly sees a problem of American corporations sitting on top on $1.8 trillion in cash yet is blind to the fact that the reason they are paralyzed in cash is that the very president he has supported created policies that are as anti-business as any seen in 100 years.  He somehow thinks the elitist CEOs in New York he interacts with some how represent the core of American business.

My retort to Zakaria’s analysis is in the July 14, 2010 American Thinker in “Fareed Zakaria Thinks the Problem is the Solution“.

excerpt:

The stimuli enacted so far have not worked and doubling down on a failed policy is not a case for success.  As Arthur Laffer wrote recently in the Wall Street Journal (“Unemployment Benefits Are Not Stimulus” July 8, 2010),  if the dollars spent on the failed stimulus policies had instead been directed at an 18 month tax holiday for everyone we would have spent less money and unemployment would be near 2.5%.

Fareed, like so many, mistakes eloquence for competence.  Some of our worst policies have been enacted by some of our smartest leaders.  Smart people can rationalize some of the worst ideas.

It doesn’t take the smartest to enact wise polices.  It takes an open mind free of blind adherence to bad ideology and free of the hubris that discounts experience and common sense.

It takes a leader other than the one we have.

I am a fan of Fareed Zakaria and his CNN show “GPS”.  Today (April 4, 2010)  he had Tom Friedman (The World is Flat).  While I disagree with much  of Freidman, Zakaria allows different ideas to surface without the rudeness and ideological filter that plagues so much of media. He engages his interviews with some level of depth and is one of the best at bringing forth a rational global perspective.

He also had Andrew Sullivan, a blogger and writer for Atlantic, one of the few magazines I subscribe to .  Sullivan believed that the Health Care Reform bill was neither right nor left but was dead center. John Meacham, editor of Newsweek, also made a case for how centrist Obama really is.  I fail to see his record so far as a centrist. (I responded to Meacham’s editorial in American Thinker in Anything But a Centrist.)

The reason Rebelyid claims to be positioned to get beyond right and left, is because I find that those terms explain very little.  I realize that many will think my positions to be conservative on many issues, but I do not support those issues because they are ‘conservative’ or  ‘Republican.’

I truly do not care whether the health care bill is deemed centrist, socialist, or liberal.  Either the ideas are good or they are not. I remember being with the economist Richard Timberlake when he was asked if he was of the Keynesian or the Austrian school of economics. He responded that there was good economics and bad economics.

The health care bill seems bad to me because requiring full coverage of preventive care interferes too much into the market and drives up cost.  Requiring coverage of pre-existing conditions is a laudable goal that both parties desire. But this requires some price control and shifting; what good is forced coverage you cannot afford?  And it requires citizens to be forced to buy insurance; otherwise the risk pool will become polluted and will drive up premiums.

Adding a 3.8%  Medicare tax on investment on top of an expected 5% point increase on investment income will clearly discourage risk and investment which seems foolish with a 10% unemployment rate. It will reduce the tax revenue and make the deficit worse than projected.

These are a few of many negative consequences that seem clear from the outset, but with such a long and complex bill there are certain to be other major disruptions in the market  that we have not yet envisioned. Government works best when it institutes a few clear rules and enforces transparency. It works poorest when it creates complex systems with a lot of regulations.

Whether this bill is leftist or centrist is irrelevant.  It seems likely that it will cause costs to both increase and shift to the young.  I agree with Sullivan that the electorate cannot have lower taxes and undisturbed benefits. Those who protest the deficit must be willing to give up some benefit to achieve a lower deficit. It seems inevitable we will means test benefits such as Social Security and cut obsolete programs such as farm subsidies.  Obama advocated cutting obsolete programs while on the campaign trail. If he wanted to execute a centrist policy then he should make good on that promise.

But the advocates of the health care reform are also unrealistic.  They claim they will expand coverage, cut costs and not sacrifice service or quality. This will not happen. It reminds me of an axiom in the steel business that applies to most business:

“Price, Service, Quality – Pick two out of three.”

Fareed Zakaria’s first idea towards  “Defusing the Debt Crisis”  in the March 8 Newsweek was to institute a value added tax.  While I supported his other two ideas (see previous two posts), I am at best uncertain on a value added tax.

Just because it is common in many other countries does not mean it will be acceptable here. It would seem an effective means to avoid underground workers, which may be less of a problem here than many other comparable economies.

Adding another layer of tax to existing taxes also misses a critical point: after a point the damage is less from the means of collecting the taxes than the percent and amount of the economy the government controls.  Any dollar extracted from the private sector for control by the government sector, limits economic growth and real job creation. Government capital requirements will squeeze out private sector needs.

While I agree with Fareed’s other two proposals which serve more to restore some sense of balance and fairness and to reduce social tinkering, they are also revenue enhancers.

But the value added tax is much more complicated and does not address the real problem which is the relative size of the government, and its risk at smothering the wealth creation machine that made America the most prosperous country in the world in a very short period of time.

Fareed Zakaria wrote in the March 8^th Newsweek, “Defusing the Debt Crisis.”  I addressed one of his ideas yesterday in the post, “End the Market Distorting Subsidies.”

Another idea of Fareed’s  I support is to get realistic on the entitlements.  Regardless of many promises made decades ago, and many were more assumed that made, we simply cannot afford to give generous entitlements to voters who do not need them.  It seems inevitable that Social Security and Medicare will be means tested. Otherwise the share of these bills will drive the taxes on the young so high they will refuse to pay them.

What Social Security is doing with participants is little different than what Bernie Madoff did with his investors; he paid off current withdrawals with other people’s money. But the irresponsible management of Social Security does not hide the fact that these entitlements are killing us.  We must do what we need to do and take the medicine.

At the same time we should encourage the young to save more and younger to relieve further dependency by giving more generous deductions and credits for their own retirement savings. New accounts should be segregated and the Madoff type fraud should cease.

The retirement age must be raised, gradually but substantially, and the benefits must be means tested. It will be a bitter pill for many, but it is inevitable.