Cowlesy
12-06-2010, 10:01 PM
Derb's first volley: http://www.nationalreview.com/blogs/print/254262
A Smug Op-ed from George W. Bush
By John Derbyshire
Posted on December 01, 2010 3:22 PM
I wish George W. Bush would shut up and go away. He keeps reminding me what a fool I was ever to think that the man has a conservative bone in his body.
His Washington Post op-ed this morning illustrates the point. Titled “America’s global fight against AIDS,” it is filled with the kind of emoting, gaseous, feelgood cant about “hope” and “progress” that, if you want it, is in all-too-plentiful supply over at the liberal booth.
I firmly believe it has served American interests to help prevent the collapse of portions of the African continent.
Has it? How? Is any American more prosperous, secure, healthy, or happy because of our government’s efforts at AIDS relief in Africa? How would you demonstrate this? Is it not at least as possible that we have just stored up trouble for the future, as a person more familiar with Africa has written?
But this effort has done something more: It has demonstrated American character and beliefs. America is a certain kind of country, dedicated to the inherent and equal dignity of human lives. It is this ideal — rooted in faith and our founding — that gives purpose to our power. When we have a chance to do the right thing, we take it.
Wilsonian flim-flam. Americans, taken in the generality, are indeed distinctive in their character and beliefs. That distinctiveness has often expressed itself in efforts to improve the lives of people in far-away countries, as in the missionary endeavors to pre-communist China and elsewhere.
It is the most elementary error, though — and certainly one no conservative should make — to confuse private charity with state action. When governments are generous, they are generous with our money, after ripping it from our pockets by force of law.
If George W. Bush, or any other wealthy American, is moved by the plight of AIDS sufferers in Africa, he is free to discharge his feelings by acts of charity. If he were to do so, no-one — no, not even I — would begrudge him the smug self-satisfaction he displays in this op-ed.
There is, however, no virtue in a government official spending your money and mine unless for some reason demonstrably connected to our national interest. AIDS relief in Africa is not so connected, not in any way visible to me.
The subsidizing of expensive medications (the biggest part of our AIDS-relief effort, though not all of it) in fact has long-term consequences more likely to be negative than positive. The high incidence of AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa is caused by customary practices there. What is needed is for people to change those customary practices. Instead, at a cost of billions to the U.S. taxpayer, we have made it possible for Africans to continue in their unhealthy, disease-spreading habits.
Perhaps the future of sub-Saharan Africa would be brighter if the people of that place changed some of their customs; but now, thanks to us, they don’t have to. (A similar point can be made about domestic AIDS-relief funding, currently around $20 billion a year.)
We have also burdened our own citizens with huge and growing costs — $7 billion in 2011 — that we shall not, ever, be able to curtail. (A point explained in this Foreign Affairs article, unfortunately subscription-only. That essay, by the way, will also disabuse you of any idea that our efforts on behalf of AIDS relief get us any leverage with recipient governments. The contrary is in fact the case: They get more leverage over us.)
Our desire to be seen as a good nation driven by noble and generous motives is indeed a part of our national character. It’s a thing every foreigner notices about us. I personally, when I first noticed it, found it very endearing. However, when that commendable desire leads to us becoming the welfare provider of last resort to all the world’s seven billion people, it has overstepped its proper bounds and needs to be reined in.
But, hey, George W. Bush feels real good about himself. What could be more important than that?
Neoconservative Peter Wehner will have none of the Bush Bashing -
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/wehner/383181
A Response to John Derbyshire
Peter Wehner - 12.03.2010 - 11:00 AM
In his post responding to George W. Bush’s op-ed on combating AIDS in Africa, John Derbyshire writes this:
The subsidizing of expensive medications (the biggest part of our AIDS-relief effort, though not all of it) in fact has long-term consequences more likely to be negative than positive. The high incidence of AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa is caused by customary practices there. What is needed is for people to change those customary practices. Instead, at a cost of billions to the U.S. taxpayer, we have made it possible for Africans to continue in their unhealthy, disease-spreading habits.
Perhaps the future of sub-Saharan Africa would be brighter if the people of that place changed some of their customs; but now, thanks to us, they don’t have to.
Here are a few facts that undermine Derbyshire’s case: (a) Africans have fewer sex partners on average over a lifetime than do Americans; (b) 22 countries in Africa have had a greater than 25 percent decline in infections in the past 10 years (for South African and Namibian youth, the figure is 50 percent in five years); and (c) America’s efforts are helping to create a remarkable shifts in how, in Africa, boys view girls — reflected in a decline of more than 50 percent in sexual partners among boys.
So Derbyshire’s argument that our AIDS efforts are “more likely to be negative than positive” because they will continue to subsidize and encourage “unhealthy, disease-spreading habits” is not only wrong but the opposite of reality.
More of Wehner's commentary at the link here... (http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/wehner/383181)
Derb returns fire to Peter Wehner here (http://www.nationalreview.com/blogs/print/254540)
http://www.nationalreview.com/blogs/print/254540
A Response to Peter Wehner on PEPFAR
By John Derbyshire
Posted on December 06, 2010 9:34 AM
Kathryn: I’m going to pass very lightly over the fact, noted by several emailers, that the two persons whose responses to my anti-PEPFAR posts (Dec. 1 and Dec. 2) you have chosen to publish bear the names Putze and Wehner. Possibly you are signaling something … but as I said, I prefer to pass over this without further comment.
Now to Peter Wehner’s Commentary blog post:
First, those “few facts that undermine Derbyshire’s case.”
• “Africans have fewer sex partners on average over a lifetime than do Americans.” I never wrote anything to the contrary. I wrote in general terms of “customary practices.” Mr. Wehner’s statistic, even if true (he offers no links or references), therefore does nothing to undermine my case.
So far as I understand the epidemiology literature, the most relevant of those customary practices is concurrency, i.e. having two or more steady sex partners at the same time. There is a cursory survey here, with some useful links. Sample quote:
Researcher Martina Morris … later teams up with the mathematician Mirjam Kretzschmar to develop a new model that could compare the spread of HIV through two hypothetical populations: one in which concurrent partnerships were common and another in which serial monogamy was the norm. They found that HIV spread 10 times faster in the first population.
• “22 countries in Africa have had a greater than 25 percent decline in infections in the past 10 years.” Possibly so: but does this have anything to do with PEPFAR, which is the subject under discussion? Let’s take a look.
UNAIDS offers some very handy interactive web pages where you can summon up all the relevant statistics. (Sample such page here.) I just went through the pages for the current PEPFAR focus countries, graphing “Number of new infections — all ages.” There was no data for Ethiopia. For the other 13, here is the year in which the graph last turned down (alphabetic order by country, Botswana to Zambia): 1997, 1994, 1990, 1994, 1994, 2003, 2000, 2003, 1999, 1993, 1991, 2001, 2005.
PEPFAR was authorized in 2003. The first field programs got under way in mid-2004.
[I note that (a) this is a rather good illustration of Charles Murray's Trendline Test, and (b) the leveling-off you see in most of those graphs across the past few years might be taken as support for my case that, once the drugs were available, people resumed doing what they had customarily done. You'd need a deeper data analysis to clinch the argument; but at the very least, we are a long way from "facts that undermine Derbyshire's case."]
• “America’s efforts are helping to create a remarkable shift in how, in Africa, boys view girls — reflected in a decline of more than 50 percent in sexual partners among boys.” Unfortunately the UNAIDS charts are nothing like as clear on this and I can locate no other data source. No doubt Mr. Wehner can provide one, including of course evidence that the increasing restraint among African “boys” (?) is driven in part by PEPFARS.
Then there are some impertinent speculations concerning what I do and do not care about. I shall surrender here to the temptation that always comes over me when I am the target of sanctimonious bullying by self-congratulating prigs: Bite me, pal.
Next Mr. Wehner tells me that I am “more than a decade behind in [my] understanding of overseas-development policy.” He tells us how “transformational” President Bush’s development effort was. He throws in another sneer: “Derbyshire seems to know nothing about any of this. That isn’t necessarily a problem — unless, of course, he decides to write on the topic.”
Certainly I am no expert. I did, though, in March 2008 write a longish researched piece on aid to Africa for The American Conservative. (A magazine which, I venture to suspect, never sullied the desktops of the George W. Bush White House. The title alone would have disqualified it.) For background I read with careful attention two books recommended to me by friends knowledgeable in the field, and skim-read half a dozen more, as well as doing the usual internet trawling and attending a lecture.
I can tell Mr. Wehner with strong confidence that if he thinks President Bush transformed the foreign-aid scene from a less-effective to a more-effective model, he is in a world-wide minority of one two.
Lot's more of Derb's retort can be found here... (http://www.nationalreview.com/blogs/print/254540)
Nothing better than riling up the Neoconservatives :D
A Smug Op-ed from George W. Bush
By John Derbyshire
Posted on December 01, 2010 3:22 PM
I wish George W. Bush would shut up and go away. He keeps reminding me what a fool I was ever to think that the man has a conservative bone in his body.
His Washington Post op-ed this morning illustrates the point. Titled “America’s global fight against AIDS,” it is filled with the kind of emoting, gaseous, feelgood cant about “hope” and “progress” that, if you want it, is in all-too-plentiful supply over at the liberal booth.
I firmly believe it has served American interests to help prevent the collapse of portions of the African continent.
Has it? How? Is any American more prosperous, secure, healthy, or happy because of our government’s efforts at AIDS relief in Africa? How would you demonstrate this? Is it not at least as possible that we have just stored up trouble for the future, as a person more familiar with Africa has written?
But this effort has done something more: It has demonstrated American character and beliefs. America is a certain kind of country, dedicated to the inherent and equal dignity of human lives. It is this ideal — rooted in faith and our founding — that gives purpose to our power. When we have a chance to do the right thing, we take it.
Wilsonian flim-flam. Americans, taken in the generality, are indeed distinctive in their character and beliefs. That distinctiveness has often expressed itself in efforts to improve the lives of people in far-away countries, as in the missionary endeavors to pre-communist China and elsewhere.
It is the most elementary error, though — and certainly one no conservative should make — to confuse private charity with state action. When governments are generous, they are generous with our money, after ripping it from our pockets by force of law.
If George W. Bush, or any other wealthy American, is moved by the plight of AIDS sufferers in Africa, he is free to discharge his feelings by acts of charity. If he were to do so, no-one — no, not even I — would begrudge him the smug self-satisfaction he displays in this op-ed.
There is, however, no virtue in a government official spending your money and mine unless for some reason demonstrably connected to our national interest. AIDS relief in Africa is not so connected, not in any way visible to me.
The subsidizing of expensive medications (the biggest part of our AIDS-relief effort, though not all of it) in fact has long-term consequences more likely to be negative than positive. The high incidence of AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa is caused by customary practices there. What is needed is for people to change those customary practices. Instead, at a cost of billions to the U.S. taxpayer, we have made it possible for Africans to continue in their unhealthy, disease-spreading habits.
Perhaps the future of sub-Saharan Africa would be brighter if the people of that place changed some of their customs; but now, thanks to us, they don’t have to. (A similar point can be made about domestic AIDS-relief funding, currently around $20 billion a year.)
We have also burdened our own citizens with huge and growing costs — $7 billion in 2011 — that we shall not, ever, be able to curtail. (A point explained in this Foreign Affairs article, unfortunately subscription-only. That essay, by the way, will also disabuse you of any idea that our efforts on behalf of AIDS relief get us any leverage with recipient governments. The contrary is in fact the case: They get more leverage over us.)
Our desire to be seen as a good nation driven by noble and generous motives is indeed a part of our national character. It’s a thing every foreigner notices about us. I personally, when I first noticed it, found it very endearing. However, when that commendable desire leads to us becoming the welfare provider of last resort to all the world’s seven billion people, it has overstepped its proper bounds and needs to be reined in.
But, hey, George W. Bush feels real good about himself. What could be more important than that?
Neoconservative Peter Wehner will have none of the Bush Bashing -
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/wehner/383181
A Response to John Derbyshire
Peter Wehner - 12.03.2010 - 11:00 AM
In his post responding to George W. Bush’s op-ed on combating AIDS in Africa, John Derbyshire writes this:
The subsidizing of expensive medications (the biggest part of our AIDS-relief effort, though not all of it) in fact has long-term consequences more likely to be negative than positive. The high incidence of AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa is caused by customary practices there. What is needed is for people to change those customary practices. Instead, at a cost of billions to the U.S. taxpayer, we have made it possible for Africans to continue in their unhealthy, disease-spreading habits.
Perhaps the future of sub-Saharan Africa would be brighter if the people of that place changed some of their customs; but now, thanks to us, they don’t have to.
Here are a few facts that undermine Derbyshire’s case: (a) Africans have fewer sex partners on average over a lifetime than do Americans; (b) 22 countries in Africa have had a greater than 25 percent decline in infections in the past 10 years (for South African and Namibian youth, the figure is 50 percent in five years); and (c) America’s efforts are helping to create a remarkable shifts in how, in Africa, boys view girls — reflected in a decline of more than 50 percent in sexual partners among boys.
So Derbyshire’s argument that our AIDS efforts are “more likely to be negative than positive” because they will continue to subsidize and encourage “unhealthy, disease-spreading habits” is not only wrong but the opposite of reality.
More of Wehner's commentary at the link here... (http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/wehner/383181)
Derb returns fire to Peter Wehner here (http://www.nationalreview.com/blogs/print/254540)
http://www.nationalreview.com/blogs/print/254540
A Response to Peter Wehner on PEPFAR
By John Derbyshire
Posted on December 06, 2010 9:34 AM
Kathryn: I’m going to pass very lightly over the fact, noted by several emailers, that the two persons whose responses to my anti-PEPFAR posts (Dec. 1 and Dec. 2) you have chosen to publish bear the names Putze and Wehner. Possibly you are signaling something … but as I said, I prefer to pass over this without further comment.
Now to Peter Wehner’s Commentary blog post:
First, those “few facts that undermine Derbyshire’s case.”
• “Africans have fewer sex partners on average over a lifetime than do Americans.” I never wrote anything to the contrary. I wrote in general terms of “customary practices.” Mr. Wehner’s statistic, even if true (he offers no links or references), therefore does nothing to undermine my case.
So far as I understand the epidemiology literature, the most relevant of those customary practices is concurrency, i.e. having two or more steady sex partners at the same time. There is a cursory survey here, with some useful links. Sample quote:
Researcher Martina Morris … later teams up with the mathematician Mirjam Kretzschmar to develop a new model that could compare the spread of HIV through two hypothetical populations: one in which concurrent partnerships were common and another in which serial monogamy was the norm. They found that HIV spread 10 times faster in the first population.
• “22 countries in Africa have had a greater than 25 percent decline in infections in the past 10 years.” Possibly so: but does this have anything to do with PEPFAR, which is the subject under discussion? Let’s take a look.
UNAIDS offers some very handy interactive web pages where you can summon up all the relevant statistics. (Sample such page here.) I just went through the pages for the current PEPFAR focus countries, graphing “Number of new infections — all ages.” There was no data for Ethiopia. For the other 13, here is the year in which the graph last turned down (alphabetic order by country, Botswana to Zambia): 1997, 1994, 1990, 1994, 1994, 2003, 2000, 2003, 1999, 1993, 1991, 2001, 2005.
PEPFAR was authorized in 2003. The first field programs got under way in mid-2004.
[I note that (a) this is a rather good illustration of Charles Murray's Trendline Test, and (b) the leveling-off you see in most of those graphs across the past few years might be taken as support for my case that, once the drugs were available, people resumed doing what they had customarily done. You'd need a deeper data analysis to clinch the argument; but at the very least, we are a long way from "facts that undermine Derbyshire's case."]
• “America’s efforts are helping to create a remarkable shift in how, in Africa, boys view girls — reflected in a decline of more than 50 percent in sexual partners among boys.” Unfortunately the UNAIDS charts are nothing like as clear on this and I can locate no other data source. No doubt Mr. Wehner can provide one, including of course evidence that the increasing restraint among African “boys” (?) is driven in part by PEPFARS.
Then there are some impertinent speculations concerning what I do and do not care about. I shall surrender here to the temptation that always comes over me when I am the target of sanctimonious bullying by self-congratulating prigs: Bite me, pal.
Next Mr. Wehner tells me that I am “more than a decade behind in [my] understanding of overseas-development policy.” He tells us how “transformational” President Bush’s development effort was. He throws in another sneer: “Derbyshire seems to know nothing about any of this. That isn’t necessarily a problem — unless, of course, he decides to write on the topic.”
Certainly I am no expert. I did, though, in March 2008 write a longish researched piece on aid to Africa for The American Conservative. (A magazine which, I venture to suspect, never sullied the desktops of the George W. Bush White House. The title alone would have disqualified it.) For background I read with careful attention two books recommended to me by friends knowledgeable in the field, and skim-read half a dozen more, as well as doing the usual internet trawling and attending a lecture.
I can tell Mr. Wehner with strong confidence that if he thinks President Bush transformed the foreign-aid scene from a less-effective to a more-effective model, he is in a world-wide minority of one two.
Lot's more of Derb's retort can be found here... (http://www.nationalreview.com/blogs/print/254540)
Nothing better than riling up the Neoconservatives :D