June 1, 2005

Vive La France
Everett

Faerlas, I din't do any research immediately prior to writing that piece. Pretty much all of it was based on logical extrapolations from facts I've picked up over the years, all 22 of them. So, I don't know that I would say I'm "that smart", but I would claim a good memory and a tendency, inherited from my father, to think through things most people would accept as given w/o giving any consideration as to why such things are given. In short, it's not necessarily that I'm that smart, but rather that I use the smarts I have.

Annatar, you sound like an ideal prospective flat tax supporter.

As to gas prices, $2.00/gallon is close to market price ($1.60-$1.70+various state and federal taxes). I think the biggest problem people have with it is the fact that prices went up so quickly, and it's taken some time for people to adjust to the new price level. I'm spending maybe an extra $5.00/week for gas, which is $5.00 more than I want to spend, but it's not that big a deal. Still, if $2.00/gal is high, then $6.00/gal is patently absurd, especially if most of the price is due to taxes, as in most European countries.

As to Irish neutrality vis-a-vis Iraq, my understanding of the situation is that the United states and Ireland have long had an arrangement whereby U.S. military transports crossing the Atlantic can refuel in Ireland. This did not become a hot-button political issue until the United States signalled its intention to depose Saddam Hussein and his regime. Granted, allowing U.S. planes to refuel on their way to the Middle East in this situation could be legitimately viewed as a pro-U.S. violation of Irish neutrality, but given that the arrangement was an antebellum (or ante-run-up-to-bellum, I ghuess) arrangement, abrogating it simply because the U.S. was going to engage in military action against Saddam could be legitimately be seen as a pro-Saddam violation if Irish neutrality as it would hamper, however slightly, the American war effort. Basically, there was no way for Ireland to remain neutral given the situation in which she had placed herself, and honestly, it seems to me that it would be better to be pro-American than pro-Saddam. Ultimately, if allowing American planes to refuel in Ireland during a time of war violates Irish neutrality, it also does so in times of peace, and the only time abrogating the arrangement could be legitimately seen as restoring neutrality is when there is no military opponent to the U.S. who is aided by said arrangement, i.e. when the U.S. is not at war or about to go to war. The long and short of it is that Ireland was caught between Iraq and a hard place and chose what it perceived to be the lesser of two evils.

Re: the foreign investment angle, American companies are ultimately interested in making money. As long as their operations in a given country are profitable, they don't much care about a country's foreign policy objectives (see Wal-Mart's dealings w/ China). What's more, they don't take their marching orders from the U.S. government when it comes to where they do and don't invest (except where it is a matter of law (e.g. Cuba and Saddamite Iraq)). I highly, highly doubt the United States would have imposed a trade embargo on Ireland if Ireland had withdrawn refueling rights to U.S. military planes.

Now, your brother's complaints concerning the media are spot-on. I don't know what else I can add. That is 95-97% of the U.S. media in a nutshell.