The liberal democracy conundrum

I just finished reading 700 pages about Islamic fundamentalism over the last three weeks. The first book, The Looming Tower, chronicles the rise of Al-Qaeda, while the book While Europe Slept details the challenge Europe faces in its rising Islamic immigrant population. Both clearly articulate why no matter what offenses the radical Islamists claim, their irrational response is just that - an irrational one that must not be entertained or tolerated. Both books provided great insight into the wider meaning of two events that occurred this week - one reported by every media outlet (the assassination of Benazir Bhutto) and another reported only in the British media (the expulsion of British officials from Afghanistan).

Ultimately, the Bhutto assassination is only the latest display of the obvious desires of Islamic extremists that democracy, women's rights, and those who believe their philosophy is a poison on earth must be eliminated. Bhutto, although an early backer of groups like the Taliban in the misguided belief that stability equaled peace, had eventually realized the threat of Islamic terrorists and their anti-modern beliefs. Bhutto's clear championing of the anti-terrorist message and her status as a powerful woman in Pakistani made her a visible target of choice - her death was inevitable. Countries like Pakistan have a much more challenging road to democracy than Western democracies had. There is a substantial minority within their own population that fear educated women, societies where gays are not murdered, and where thieves don't get their hands chopped off.

Even more troubling than Bhutto's assassination is the expulsion of two UK "diplomats" for engaging the Taliban in Afghanistan. In the typical lack of understanding of non-European cultures, the typical response to this expulsion by UK officials is much along the line of UN spokesman Aleem Siddique:
"Mr Siddique said the aim of the talks was 'to understand from the people on the ground what their needs are, what their concerns are and that includes people who are perhaps less than supportive of the government of Afghanistan.' "
The Taliban is "less than supportive of the government of Afghanistan"? That's like saying the KKK is less than supportive of African-Americans' civil rights. While Europe should be commended for learning from the destruction of the two World Wars and the Cold War, they should also recognized the limited number of people on earth that are so enlightened. Discussing, negotiating, and tolerating people who only despise you, find lying to you and raping your women as non-objectionable, and only want the destruction of your liberal democracy is not a recipe for maintaining such democracies. Reading this drivel made me frimly believe the worst examples given in While Europe Slept.

Ultimately, Western democracies and moderate Muslims must recognize that there must be limits to their tolerance. Liberal democracies don't have to tolerate those who wish to destroy them - from within or from another country. To do so invites one of two disasters - either destruction from such enemies of democracy, or from the response to such tolerance withing their own citizenry (often in the form of fascism). Reasonable minded democrats can clearly draw a line in the sand, welcoming the vast majority of Muslims who value our pluralistic democracies while advocating the destruction of those within the Muslim community that distort their supposed religion. If they cannot stand up to such irrationality, they will surely succumb to it.

The Day the V8 Died

It is well known in my circle of friends that while I am employed in an engineering profession, I also have a good deal of interest in politics and public policy. A number of years ago, when I was still in school, my father bought a book for me entitled Beyond Engineering: How Society Shapes Technology. While the concept is not new, the detail with which the author explains how some of the most indirect policy decisions can affect the whole course of a certain technology's development path is new. Things that we take for granted, like the internet and the microprocessor, and we suspect are great technological achievements of the "free market" are actually the product of heavy investment by the government that helped an immature market that could not survive by free market principles alone. While we often recognize how much technology can change society, we often don't fully recognize how much society can change technology.
An interesting case study can be found in the automotive industry. Few industries are as heavily regulated and require as much innovation in a short period of time as the automotive industry. What started as a vehicle occupant safety crusade via Ralph Nader's Unsafe at Any Speed has now spawned into an entire industry of regulation that shaped most of the major technological breakthroughs in the last 30 years of automaking. The catalytic converter, air bags, roll stability control, engines with variable valve timing, exhaust gas recirculation, electronic fuel injection, crumple zones, lightweight materials, 3 point harnesses for all passengers, anti-lock brakes, and on board diagnostic systems (that troublesome "check engine light") are all either a direct response to regulations or the spirit of the regulations (often the case with safety innovations).
So it is with much sadness that the American public should know that they have 13 years to buy V8 engines and then bid them farewell. President Bush signed a bill on November 19th that will require all automakers to achieve 35 miles per gallon (fleet average) by 2020. To give some perspective to this requirement, the current requirement is 27.5 mpg for cars and 22.2 mpg for trucks and SUV's. While the increased cost of fuel has certainly driven more consumers to fuel efficient vehicles, they are still buying V8's and V6's that get well below the current average. The purchases of those engines are offset by automakers selling smaller, 4-cylinder powered cars at production costs or a loss. And this last point is the key to why, in this case, the governments regulation of fuel economy is not addressing the root cause of the problem - automakers are being forced to sell a product that consumers don't want to satisfy a fuel economy target that consumers don't want to achieve. But when the target shifts from 27 mpg to 35 mpg this will no longer be an option - their simplify aren't enough consumers willing to buy 50+ mpg cars to offset 20 mpg or less V8-powered vehicles.
What is really driving the purchases of V6's and V8's that lower our national fuel efficiency? The continued access to relatively inexpensive fuel, even with $3 per gallon gasoline. Europeans pay between $6 and $7 per gallon of fuel, and the result is much better fuel
economy than we have here in the states (see graph below). Ultimately, the effects of the fuel tax go well beyond the design of the vehicles and how well they do on the standard fuel economy tests. Paying $6 per gallon of gasoline also encourages drivers to accelerate slowly, brake earlier, and take mass transit or walk more often - all behaviors that cut down on fuel consumption and pollution in the real world and not just on some laboratory test.
So while some might hail this week's passage of the new fuel economy bill as being a landmark, it is one only because it continues the behavior of the American public to pass the buck for their gluttonous behavior to the companies that are only making vehicles that the American public wants to buy. The right thing to do would be to force the American public to take a long, hard look in the mirror for the true source of gas guzzler vehicle purchases, and to change the behavior by instituting a European style fuel tax. The revenues from such a tax could be poured back into mass transit, alleviating some of the effects of higher transportation costs.