Salon's useful article on Sharia law

Salon, a left wing publication, has produced a useful article explaining Sharia law and its application here in the U.S.  In order to develop a narrative on the bigotry of a Republican lawmaker in Tennessee who introduced a bill to prohibit the use or application of Sharia law in that state, the reporter interviewed a New Jersey-based attorney and an expert on sharia who regularly handles cases that involve Islamic law.  Here is a quote by the attorney describing the primary source for Sharia Law:

"Sharia is more than simply "law" in the prescriptive sense. It is also a methodology through which a jurist engages the religious texts to ascertain divine will. As a jurist-made law, the outcome of this process of ascertaining divine will is called fiqh (positive law), which is the moral and legal anchor of a Muslim's total existence. Sharia governs every aspect of an observant Muslim's life. The sharia juristic inquiry begins with the Quran and the Sunna. The Quran is the Muslim Holy Scripture -- like the New Testament for Christians or the Old Testament for the Jews. The Sunna is essentially the prophetic example embodied in the sayings and conduct of the Prophet Mohammed."


This sounds like Sharia law is pretty much whatever any given Muslim jurist decides it is primarily based upon the Quran and the sayings of Mohammed as recorded in the Sunna.  


The attorney goes on to say:


"After the two primary sources of Islamic law, the Quran and the Sunna, the two main secondary sources of Islamic law are: (1) ijma (consensus of the scholars and jurists, and sometimes the entire community), and (2) qiyas (reasoning by analogy to one of the higher sources).  Other secondary sources of Islamic law are juristic preference, public interest and custom. Sharia is extremely flexible and subject to various interpretations."

From this quote it is also apparent that Sharia law is not a legal ruling determined by any duly elected legislature and therefore has no basis in the will of people, democratically expressed.  Therein perhaps is the most significant difference between our system of jurisprudence and that of countries in which Sharia is the rule.  In Iran, for example, justice would be meted out by a jurist -- undoubtedly an Islamist -- who alone determines the outcome without any consideration to any law passed by the "people", or, put another way, a law passed in a democratic, open forum after some debate as to its pros and cons.  

From this explication by the N.J. attorney it is obvious why Sharia law could not and would not ever make it in any country with well-established democratic traditions.  This explication also makes it obvious why Muslim countries, at least those in which Sharia law prevails, are unlikely to ever take to any democratic form of governing.  There is a reason why Ataturk rejected Sharia law in Turkey in 1925 when he instituted the reforms designed to bring his country into the democratic modern and western world from the theocratic despotism of the Ottoman Empire and the rest of the east.  In lawmaking the will of the people must be paramount.

Blogging

Here is a bird's eye view of what it means to create a blog for a living.  For the independent sort it can be fulfilling.  The downside is there are no guarantees, no company retirement or healthcare programs, and no social intercourse in the office.

College education -- losing its value?

It would be difficult being a parent with college age high schoolers today, given the cost/benefit ration now under serious review everywhere.  This article provides a perspective on this discussion now going on at various college symposiums.  The stratospheric costs of college are now taking a serious bite out of family budgets and the tightening of government budgets probably mean less credit availability.  At times like these the value of an education investment also comes under scrutiny as is the case in this article on higher education here.

The Stockman perspective

Reagan's budget head, David Stockman, who was influential in applying the supply side theory to the government budget during the 80's, weighs in here on the present conditions and the possible shutdown of the government.  In essence he says the current fiscal crises is so manifestly huge and the proscriptions offered by the Ryan Budget and others so timid and inconsequential that a shutdown would be a good idea just to get people's attention.  His is the ultimate apapoliptic view and one that many consider realistic.  After all, our government is still spending much more than its revenues, 40% more, and has a huge debt overhang which is obviously growing each day.  His problem with the Ryan plan is its lack of attention to the immediate problem of the 50+ trillion dollar debt.  In other words Ryan's plan makes sense for running the government on a sound basis once the 50+ trillion overhang has been dealt with.  By this he implies that the interest payments are the 500 pound gorilla in the room because those payments are not going to go away and will likely increase as interest rates inevitably rise because they are at historically and abnormally low levels.  Stockman argues, without a plan, for dealing with the size of the debt and then worry about the balanced budget plan offered by Ryan.  Short of debt liquidation or default by the government, it is hard to see how we get out of this dilemma.

Conservative perspective in the NYTimes

Ross Douthat is the token conservative columnist at the NYT.  In this article he discusses Rep. Paul Ryan's attempt to address the budget problems.  What's interesting about Ryan's budget presentation by Douthat is the reaction from all the liberal readers of the Times in the comment section.  Without exception these liberals are all critical of the attempt by Ryan to deal with this problem accusing him of all manner of deviousness in his plan and unwillingness to address what everyone of them sees as the real issue/problem: insufficient tax revenue.  Socialists make no connection between a growing economy and increasing tax revenues.  Their solution to budget shortfalls/deficits is always to raise taxes on the wealthy without any consideration for the consequences of that action on the performance of the economy.  It's almost impossible to have an adult conversation with those who refuse to acknowledge the consequences of a given action on anything.  And yet that is the problem of debating liberals on this issue.  Bottom line: liberals fundamentally do not understand nor appreciate how an economy based on capitalism works.

The 19 per cent solution

Paul Ryan, the GOP's primary guy on reforms required to balance the budget, announces his plan tomorrow.  Meanwhile this article from Reason Magazine, provides a fairly complete analysis of the budget problem and a broad outline of how to go about correcting the imbalance between revenues and income that have accrued and are accruing at an alarming rate. It will be interesting to compare Ryan's plan with the one presented here.  The Reason plan calls for eliminating many government departments and subsidies and for a substantial cut in the defense budget. I doubt Ryan will propose any defense department cuts as the holy grail of the Republican Party is a strong military and the claim is that we are underfunded now.  Somehow it's hard to see how we are underfunded while conducting two active wars and a third (Libya) on the horizon.  We are probably simply doing more than we should be what with all the bases in Europe, Korea, etc.

Create and sell products or financial derivatives

This is an interesting point of view and suggests that as a country we would be better off to reign in the Wall Street and free up engineers to build real stuff instead of paper derivatives and the like.

Vietnam articles of interest

Preparatory to a visit to Vietnam in the Fall, here and here are two articles about what is going on in that country today.  It is obvious that the communist regime now running Vietnam is repressive and becoming more so, which should come as no surprise to anyone considering the history of all communist countries in the past.  It is tragic that our involvement in Vietnam in the 60's and 70's ended as it did.  It is apparent to anyone who has read up on that period and its aftermath that had the US, at a minimum, provided war material and logistical support to the South Vietnamese when we pulled out after the peace agreement with the North Vietnamese, that there would probably at least exist today a viable South Vietnam government and free people.  Vietnam today would most likely look like Korea -- a productive, free South and a repressive, unfree North, instead of what it is now -- a repressive, unfree unified country.  So much for the perfidy of the left in this country which, let us never forget, was responsible for cutting off all support to the South Vietnamese shortly after our departure.