Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Questions of Faith

My friend has an interesting post on Obama and faith. He lives in small-town Arkansas so he comes in contact with a very different segment of the voting block than I do. He describes conversations with someone who believes Obama's a closet Muslim, evangelicals who are considering pulling the lever to the left, and a "self described third generation secular humanist" who will remain nameless who doesn't think Obama is particularly religious.

I think one thing this post really demonstrates is Obama's ability to be all things to most people (I guess this charm doesn't work as well on the first group). I think McCain does this too, and these chameleon-like skills leave some voters with the odd false belief that these two are similar in substance. People are able to project their ideal candidate fantasies onto them.

Although I didn't start out an Obama supporter, I feel more positively about his candidacy as the campaign wears on. In theory, it isn't a bad thing for a politician to be able to convince a majority of the electorate he's speaking to them and agrees with them. However, it reminds me of my initial unease about Obama. Will he be a great progressive leader? Is his foreign policy as good as I think it will be? I was uneasy when he revived the social security debate earlier this fall. I think I was immune to the winks and nudges he was sending the rest of the progressive left.

In time, I've come around. I'm quite sure he's winking at me, and sometimes, he's out and out brave. I don't think this is a case of drinking the koolaide, but rather, respecting a candidate more as he is challenged and tested. However, in the end, despite analysis, research, and a far longer-than-usual campaign season, guessing what type of president a candidate will become will always involve a few leaps of faith.

Monday, March 24, 2008

Samaria, Judea, and Tibet

After listening to a radio story about Tibet, my father made an interesting argument about post- World War II conflict and souvreignty that's stuck with me throughout this week.

He argued that since the end of World War II, only two nations have conquered previously sovereign territory and incorporated into their state. The two cases were China (Tibet) and Israel (the West Bank). These instances aren't perfectly parallel-- on the one hand, China had more recent territorial claims to Tibet than Israel had to the West Bank, but on the other hand, Israel claimed the West Bank as a buffer zone in the content of a larger war and never gave it back whereas China took control of Tibet in the absence of a surrounding conflict.

There have been other states that have controlled territories that had sovereign claims, such as the former Soviet Union. However, these territorial encroachments occured before or at the onset of the post-war period and they have gained independence since. There have also been prolonged occupations (like the current US position in Iraq) but although that occupation invalidated Iraqi sovereignty and does n't seem likely to end soon, the US never claimed Iraq was now part of our state, and has argued that Iraq should be sovereign.

At first, I worried that this argument was limited because it excluded most of Africa because few modern African states had sovereignty before World War II. However, I can't come up with any cases in Africa, either.

There have also, of course, been sovereignty movements by groups within states that have been repressed by the state (Basques in Spain, etc) but this isn't the same as the state conquering sovereign territory. If anyone can think of another case besides China and Israel, let me know.

If this argument is true, I think it has two important implications:

A. The UN charter has been successful in creating a norm in which states do not conquer; they do not claim sovereign territory. This is different from the world before the charter (colonialism, German aggression, etc) and the fact that war over land and boundaries continues to exist suggests that the difference cannot just be attributed to the decreasing bounty gained from territorial war.

B. Both the exceptions to this rule may have benefited from the UN structure which may enable them to be exempt from the dorm. China has a security council veto and Israel is closely allied with a country that has a similar veto. I think this buttresses an argument I made on one of my honors exams; the UN's weaknesses are more due to dated structural weakness within as declining external support, corruption, or the "unsuitability" of IGOs to the current world order.

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Trouble with Polylingustic Blogging Technology

Some readers may remember that while in Japan, I was consistently
outsmarted by my plumbing. I like to pretend that such laspes only occur when I'm at a linguistic disadvantage-- would YOU know how to talk to a Japanese toilet?-- but, as my close friends would no doubt tell you, I have similar difficulties stateside.

Among the most recent of these is an ongoing frustration with the inflexibility and intelligence of blogspot. While I was in Japan, blogspot picked up on the fact I was in Japan, and decided to speak to me in Japanese. While I'm very impressed both that a) blogspot is so aware of its environs and b) blogspot speaks Japanese, I'm frustrated at blogspot's unwillingness to recognize it has returned home to the United States. Either that, or it has decided I'm a Japanese speaker.

I've tried to convince blogspot (through verifying the language setting on my computer, etc) that we have, in fact, returned to the states, and I do, in fact, speak English, but alas, the program is stubborn.

Ok, I know this isn't quite as funny or novel as the talking shower, but it explains why I can't change much on the site (all the prompts/menu options are in characters) and I needed a warm up post.