[LINK] Some Friday Links

• At Alpha Sources, Claus Vistesen examines immigration trends in Spain, Italy, and Germany. Noting that Spain's heavy immigration levels coincides with strong growth, he wonders what will happen to an Italy with falling levels of immigration and a Germany on the verge of becoming a country of net emigration.


• Bonoboland's Edward Hugh's points out that Brazil's relatively high rate of population growth has cancelled out recent employment growth.


• Centauri Dreams responds to Stross' critique of space expansionism (1, 2).


• Joel at Far Outliers quotes at length from the book Our Kind of People: Inside America's Black Upper Class, describing the general success of African-Americans in Atlanta.


• Peter at GNXP speculates about the biological origins of homosexuality.


• Joe.My.God mentions how, at Jerusalem's recent Pride march., hundreds of Haredi Jews were waiting to ambush the marchers with a variety of materials including eggs, human excrement, and at least one bomb.


• Peteris Cedrins at Marginalia marks the anniversary of the Battle of Cesis, a joint Estonian-Latvian victory over Baltic-German forces in 1919 that set the stage for the emergence of those two countries. History, as Cedrins notes, is rarely mononational.


• Normblog's Norman Geras critiques David Rieff's criticism of liberal interventionism as a mask for imperialism. Me, while I think that the right to intervene is a good idea, I also think the right can be used as an excuse for permitting mayhem and massacre in the guise of liberation, for which, see Iraq.


• Jason Kuznicki at Positive Liberty tackles the gay panic defense.


• J. Otto Pohl wonders whether Georgia will let the Meskhetian Turks, deported by Stalin, returns to their homeland. I suspect not: The deportation happened too long ago and not enough people in Georgia support it.

[BRIEF NOTE] Convictions

Earlier today, someone reading my post on the Falun Gong in Toronto from Australia left a comment in defense of the Falun Gong which read, in part, as follows: "I will say this Falun Gong is not homophobic . We have gay people coming to learn the practice and soon they realize they are no longer gay. It happens not thru any pursuit but if someone comes to genuinely learn the cultivation way of Falun Gong they will have their body and mind cleaned up."

Besides noting that the concept of ex-gay is annoying regardless of the specific religious tradition and commending the blog Ex-Gay Watch, it's worthwhile to note that agents of the CCP presumably hadn't managed to infiltrate Toronto Falun Gong so as to produce Falun Gong flyers critizing Descartes. It seems that this group's problems with Descartes stems from his embrace of substance dualism that separated mind from matter, thus creating an environment that allowed for religion's marginalization. This, the paper found via the frst link in the previous sentence, incidentally, seems to be a bad thing since Falun Gong practitioners apparently can manipulate their DNA through meditation.

It's worth repeating that the Chinese state's persecution of the Falun Gong is abhorrent. It's also worth repeating that the Falun Gong are homophobic and follow religious dogmas which aren't particualrly worthy of respect. Protesting the ill-treatment of Falun Gong followers in China is all well and good--human rights apply to everyone, not only the people you or I might like, after all. Following the Falun Gong leadership in protesting the actions of the Chinese government is, in my humble opinion, a dumb idea. OK?

[BRIEF NOTE] Dissolve the people and elect another?

As The National Interest reports, former Bush Administration hack and Prince of Darkness candidate Richard Perle is at it again, this time paying attention to Turkey.

The military sees itself as the guardian of Turkish secular democracy, and will intervene in politics when it perceives that secularism is under siege. Such intervention runs the gamut from comments—meant to influence public opinion—to seizing power from governments thought to be "ineffective." Although the Turkish military has overthrown four governments since the Turkish republic’s founding, it has always returned power to civilian officials. The military, therefore, does not impede the functioning of Turkey’s democracy; rather, Perle said, it is an important check on the Turkish government’s power. "The model of the military coup that we’re familiar with doesn’t apply in the Turkish case", the scholar explained.

Consequently, Perle said that the EU must take care to preserve the Turkish military’s place in politics during the membership negotiations process. While some of the EU-mandated reforms will undoubtedly improve Turkish democracy if implemented, any European attempt to circumscribe the powers of the army would be misguided, Perle warned.

After reading this, Bertolt Brecht's poem "The Solution", inspired by his time in East Germany, came to mind.

After the uprising of the 17th June
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?