Academic freedom or brain washing?

Recently an UCLA alumni group called the Bruin Alumni Association made headlines by coming out with a list of liberal professors at UCLA that the BAA considers too radical to be teaching at a public university. The group is willing to pay students to bring in tapes or lecture notes from these professors so that it can be demonstrated that they indoctrinate students. Of course the liberals are complaining about interfernce with academic freedom and that it is mean spirited to single out certain professors. Well, this is the same argument I made last year when a group of liberal called for the firing of John Woo, a law professor at Berkely, who was an apologist for the Bush administration. I did not see any liberal group coming to the defense of Woo then. As usual, I feel both sides just want their views to be heard and not the others.

I checked out the BAA website and frankly I was impressed with the length Andrew Jones, the writer of the site, goes to give a biography of each of the professors. I don't know if everything in the biographies are true but Jones does put out a lot information and references. I would have to say some of the views of these professors are way out in left field. The only thing is that Jones has not proven in these biographies that these professors are indoctrinating students with their views in class. For example, being an Asian American, I have heard of Jerry Kang. He is a law professor whose view on affirmative action I strongly disagree with. Jones made a point that Kang felt affirmative action was partly responsible for his being at UCLA. Kang had said that UCLA needed an Asian American law professor when the only one it had left for Georgetown and so he was hired. I think Kang was just showing his Asian upbringing which calls for humblenes. Kang graduated from Harvard with a degree in physics and then got his J.D. from Harvard. He graduated magna cum laude in both instances. He hardly needed affirmative action to get a job at UCLA. I believe his view on affirmative action is wrong but I did not see anyone come out with any evidence that he tried to indoctrinate students with his views.

The same goes for John Woo. I don't think much of the Bush administration especially its handling of the war. Woo is one of Bush's apologists on the torturing and unending detention of prisoners of war. The liberals at Berkeley called for firing. Again there was never any evidence of poor teaching or indoctrination in his classroom. I am not defending Kang and Woo because they are Asian Americans. I am defending them because having some knowledge about them I see where both liberals and conservatives are just trying to get people they disagree with.

You don't have to agree with anybody just because he is a so-called intellectual. But it would be beneficial if everybody listens to both sides of the argument before making up his mind. I don't agree with John Roberts on many of his views but if I have an opportunity to listen to one of his lectures, I would do so. The same with Ruth Ginsburg. Keeping an open mind is the best way to prevent indoctrination. If a student at a law school like Berkeley or UCLA can be indoctrinated by a bias professor, then that student wasn't qualify to be admitted in the first place.

Many Congreesmen are scrambling to return money donated by Jack Abramoff or his clients. It is nice that some of the money ended up in charities but the whole thing is rather silly. If you accepted money from the mob and committed a crime in exchange, would giving back the money absolve you of the crime? A Congressman who voted according to his conscience should not have returned the money. A Congressman who was bought by the money would still be guilty even if he returned every cent. The problem is that even money that is contributed legally may influence a politician to do the wrong thing. If a lobbyst contributed money legally to a Congressman which causes him to change his vote, wouldn't that be a bribe also? There are too many loop holes in the law because the lawmakers like it that way. Campaign reform will unlikely be able to solve this problem.

Ideally voters should be the ones making judgments on this. If voters feel their representatives are being bought, they can voted them out. Unfortunately, unless there is a situation like with Abramoff, the voters will have no idea who is bribing their representatives. Even now, do most voters check to see if Abramoff contributed money to their Congressman? Voters are unlikely to be able to figure out who contributed to their Congressman and more unlikely to know if he/she was influenced by the money. The only time the voters will hear about their politician being influenced by special interests is during election when negative advertising is all over the place. Nobody can sort out what is true or false during those times.

I advocate an ombudsman system for the federal and state governments. The system will hire people who are nonparisian and have no ties with any business or union. They will investigate to see whether there is a connection between a large donation and how a politician votes. Periodically, a report will be sent to each voter in the district of a particular politician. Of course, the voters may like the politician even if he gets a negative report. This is because many politicians bring "pork" home to his districts. If the voters do not read these reports or ignore them then they deserve what they get.

As Ariel Sharon lies comatose, struggling for life, sad thoughts come to my mind. Recemtly, an article in my local newspaper suggested that the U.S. learn from Israel's experience with terrorism. Among the lessons was that one must use force against your enemy. The following is part of my reaction to that article:

"Force was necessary when Israel had to defend herself against the Arab armies in 1967 and 1973. Force, however, is obviously not the best answer against terrorism. Israel has used force for many years in her fight against terrorism but she has never been secured. For every Israeli killed by Palestinians, Israel has killed two or three Palestinians in retaliation. After so many years of two eyes for an eye, is Israel feeling safer? Was it worth it for Israel to go into Lebanon and then refuse to withdrawl when the situation became a quagmire? Eventually Israel had to withdraw after thousands of lives on both sides were lost.

If you want to learn from Israel, look at Ariel Sharon. Sharon was probably the most hawkish of all Israeli leaders. He was responsible for the invasion of Lebanon and the entanglement of Israel there. He was the godfather of the settlements of West Bank and Gaza. His visit to Temple Mount in 2000 was calculated to draw a Palestinian response that led to the Al Aqsa intifada and thus strengthened his own power. Somehow Sharon has seen the light. He has finally realized that aggressive and brutal tactics will not bring peace to Israel. He has left the conservative Likud Party to pursue peace as the leader of a new centrist party. It won't be easy to obtain peace, but it can be done. Israel's peace with Egypt has held. I think Sharon has finally learned that being the strongest nation in the region may mean survival but it does not mean security. This is a lesson that the strongest nation in the world should learn from Israel."

Unfortunately Sharon will not be able to teach the strongest nation in the world how to achieve peace and security. Even if Sharon survives this stroke, his condition will never allow him to lead Israel again. If someone would have suggested three years ago that Ariel Sharon was Israel's best hope for peace, I would have sent this person to a psychiatrist right away. Sadly, this is the truth today. There is basically nobody in Israel who can replace him. Many politician from the Labor Party want to negotiate a peace but they are dismissed by the public as too liberal and too weak. The Likud Party has no interest in negotiating and that's why Sharon left. The Israel public trusted Sharon's strength and charisma. His remarkable transformation from an extreme hawk to a possible dove gave peace a chance. Unfortunately, this chance is disappearing into the vaccum of Israeli leadership.

Having just finished watching the fourth season of the show "24", I thought about President Bush's problems with tortures and spying on American citizens without warrants. Watching shows like "24" gives the impression that torturing and eavesdropping on suspects' conversations are absolutely necessary. If someone is trying to hit the U.S. with a nuclear weapon, we must do everything possible to prevent it. This is the argument the Bush administration has been giving.

Of course, in real life torturing do not usually bring about critical information. Most of the time even if the right person is in custody, he will not say the truth. He may say something that you want to hear and it may cause a wrong turn in the investigation. However, I am not so naive to say that torturing is never necessary. I am sure it has been going on in all countries, including the U.S. I have not seen anyone convicted for torturing in an attempt to get critical information. The convictions as the result of the disgrace treatment of prisoners in Iraq had nothing to do with security. I think Senator McCain's torture law is right. It may stop people from acting irresponsibly. If you believe that a situation where torturing is absolutely necessary, like in "24", then you should also believe the government would cover it up so that the person who did prevent a castastrophe would not be prosecuted. Bush should have accepted the torure law because in reality it would not have stopped torturing totally but would make commenders think about it carefully before ordering it.

By writing an executive order allowing spying on Americans without a warrant was something Bush did not have to do. In the past the court has given the government authority retroactively for listening conversation without getting a warrant before hand. (We are talking about national security situations, not routine criminal investiagations.) Courts understand that in national security situations, the government must be given some leeway. The government, however, should have to explain later why they had to listen to a conversation. I don't have any problem with that if a court is given the opportunity to determine whether the explaination is adequate. By signing this executive order the Bush administration bypasses the courts altogether. This is not acceptable in a democracy with checks and balances.

It was a tremendous defeat for the intelligent design movement when Judge John E. Jones III ruled that a school board violated the constitution by requiring the teaching of the theory as an alternative to evolution. In a 139 page ruling Judge Jones presented such eloquent arguments against the intelligent design movement that I cannot add anything of value to his writing. If you have not read excerpts of his ruling in your local newspaper, please do so. Basically Judge Jones points out that intelligent design is not science and should not be taught to students as such. He also said that the school board members lied to disguise their real purpose which is the promotion of religion.

The interesting thing about this is that Judge Jones is a church going conservative appointed by President Bush. So the intelligent design movement cannot claim bias against religion. It is also heartening to me because I believe that there are courageous and ethical people who do not go with the party line but are independent thinkers. My gut feeling is that the two most recent Supreme Court nominees, Judges Roberts and Alito, will not be as conservative as people think they are. It is obvious that they are well qualified and are extremely intelligent. I believe that while I may not agree with all of their rulings they will be fair-minded about each case that come before them. Of course they can be the next Scalia or Ginsburg, well qualified but totally predictable in how they rule. Worse, they can be another Thomas who is predictable and not even qualified. Anyways, this ruling by Judge Jones give me a little more hope that Judges Roberts and Alito will follow the law rather than follow personal beliefs.

Once again the government has looked incompetent in trying to convict a Chinese American for espionage. Following the cases of Wen Ho Lee and James Yee, the case of Katrina Leung has also come unravel. Leung was a business woman who worked for the FBI by obtaining sensitive information from China. She was acccused of switching sides and taking information from her FBI handler and lover James Smith and passed them on to China. Leung pleaded guilty to lying about a sexual affair and filing a false income tax return. Just as in the cases of Lee and Yee, the prosecution failed miserably and this plea bargain is just a face-saving attempt for the government. While I believe that Lee and Yee are totally innocent and it was a waste of time and money for the government to prosecute them, the Leung case could have helped the U.S. avoid losing secrets to China and other countries. Unfortunately, by zealously going after the alleged Chinese American spy while giving her co-defendant an easy way out, the prosecution committed misconduct and lost the chance to help our national defense.

Let's assume that Leung was a double agent. It is incredible that James Smith had no idea that she was spying for China. The first thing the prosecution did was to grant immunity to Smith with the idea that they can nail Leung. They didn't care if Smith was punished adequately for his crime. Even if they had succeeded and put Leung in jail, so what? She was guilty of doing for China against the U.S. what the U.S. had hired her to do against China. In other words, spying was something used by all countries. By putting a foreign spy into jail would not stop spying from that country. It will have no deterrent effect. To safe-guard our secrets we must make sure our own people cannot be bought. Leung could not be have been successful if Smith did not take the bait and succumb to sexual temptations. Most people become traitors not because of ideology but because of greed or sex. The logical thing to do would be to punish someone like Smith more harshly than Leung because he was higher up and was the one who gave up secrets that Leung could never have gotton without him. Instead the government just let Smith go and thus give a message to others that if you have sex with a spy from another country and lose information as a result, you would not have to go to jail.

It is not a pure racial issue where the white guy gets off while they try to punish the Asian. It is however, apparent that the government thinks that Chinese Americans are more likely to spy for China than white Americans because of ethnicity. It may be that more Chinese Americans than Americans of other races are spying for China but that is because China is trying to recruit Chinese Americans rather than people of other races. You would expect that Israel would recruit Jewish Americans to spy in the U.S., not Arab Americans. People of Chinese origin are as likely to succumb to sex or money as other races but I don't think ideologically they are more for China. In fact if they originated from Hong Kong or Taiwan they would more likely be ideologically opposed to communist China than the average American. I don't think Leung was a communist since she did provide excellent information for the U.S. against China. I believe that she is a person who craves for power and prestige and by playing off both sides she gets that feeling of power and prestige.

Chinese Americans want people who betray the U.S. to be brought to justice. It is unfortunate that in many high profile cases the government usually portray the Chinese Americans as guilty of great crimes before any substantial evidence are found. This makes people think that the average Chinese American is less patriotic than other ethnic groups. Even when the judge in the Lee case apologized to Lee for the government's conducts, the government has never acknowledge their slandering of this fine American. In the Leung case they used illegal tactics to try to secure a conviction against her but lets her white co-defendant go with practically no punishment. This is the wrong message to send to the Chinese American community as well as the intelligence community. Do you think China cares if they get Leung for spying for the U.S.? I am sure they are concentrating their effort to punish harshly those in their government who gave Leung information. They know that even if they catch Leung or other American spies, more will be coming. We should understand this and that to keep our secrets safe, we must be sure that the people who has acess to them cannot be bought.

I am glad that the Illinois Supreme Court has overturned a $10.1 billion verdict against Philip Morris over claims that the company deceptively marketed "light" cigarettes. I am against smoking and I know the tobacco companies are bad guys but this lawsuit is ridiculous. There are 1.14 million smokers who signed up for this class action suit. These people are morons. You can't figure out that light cigarettes are also dangerous? Who on this earth doesn't know that smoking any type of cigarettes can kill you? For those who signed on because of greed, you should know that 3 billion dollars of the award would have gone to the state. Dividing the 7.1 billion leaves each plaintiff less than $7000 before attorney fees. So for a few thousand bucks you are selling out your dignity as a human being who would take personal responsibility for your action.

Sure the tobacco companies are tricky but they followed federal guidelines and their marketing practice in this case was approved by the Federal Trade Commission. If smoked the same amount these light cigarettes are less toxic than regular cigarettes. The claim by the plaintiff is that to get more nicotine, smoker then smoked more cigarettes or inhaled more deeply and thus nullify the effect of the light cigarettes. This is an absurd argument. I use the lower sodium soy sauce at my favorite Japanese restaurant. If I use twice as much becasue it is not salty enough, I can't blame the soy sauce maker of false advertising when I get hypertension. If you think that you can smoke twice as much light cigarette as the regular ones you must be a moron.

Another moron is the judge who ruled against Philip Morris in the original trial. I can see stupid, sympathetic juries giving outrage verdicts, but this is a judge. If he thinks this case is fraud, then I should sue beer companies in his court for showing that drinking beer makes men look cool in front of women. I am sure I can find a few million men who would testified that this is false advertising!

The tobacco companies have done some despicable things in the past but the dangers of their products are well known today. If an adult makes a decision to smoke any tobacco product in the past 30 years, he has to take responsibility for his own action. The attorney for the plaintiffs in this case said that the Supreme Court decision will cause consumers to suffer. I am a consumer, and I am not suffering since I don't smoke. For those who swithched from regular to light cigarettes because they believed the advertising, they would be killing themselves anyway whether they switched or not. This is not a case of fraud but an example of greed and lack of personal responsibility in our society.

I read recently that GM is closing 12 plants and cutting 30,000 jobs. Also, it appears that Toyota will surpass GM as the leading auto maker in the world in another year. Being originally from Detroit I feel rather sad that this is going to happen so soon. It is, however, an expected development. Both management and the unions are to be blamed for this.

For many years there was not much global competition in the auto industry so GM and other auto companies could name their prices. The union could also demand wages that were much higher than expected given the skill of the work involved. This is no longer the case and hasn't been since Japan became a strong competitor more than 25 years ago. Detroit responded somewhat to the challenge and the quality of work has improved over the years. It is not enough, however. The quality of U.S. cars is still not as good as many of the imports. The managements and the workers must share the blame for this. Better quality control must be put in place by management and be followed by the workers. As for the cost of making the cars, the unions must give a lot more concessions or they will lose more jobs. The management is also making way too much money. Executives in our industries, including the auto industry, make much more money than executives in other countries. If executives get bonuses when the company is doing well, then they should get huge pay cuts when the company is doing poorly. I never hear the president of GM or any other company cut their own wages or stocks when they lay off workers. They are responsible for leading the company into red ink so why are they not suffering for this. If GM loses its top position to Toyota, then the president of GM should make less money than the president of Toyota. I don't see that coming.

There is complaint from management that pension cost for retirees are hurting the company because foreign companies have less retirees. Well, that is no excuse because the money for the pensions should have been put away when the workers were stilling working. There are actuaries who can do this type of calculation. Money should have been put away years ago and not now. Good management would not have let this happen. Negotiation for wage concession and a defined contribution plan for health care should begin as soon as possible. I don't see that coming.

Beyond help from the union which is absolutely necessary, the management has to be more creative. SUVs may be making lots of money for automakers now, but I think eventually energy efficient cars will be the determining factor whether a company survive in the future. GM had the electric car years ago but is not making them anymore. Honda has a hydrogen powered car being tested now. Where is our technology? Instead of hiring lobbysts to block stricter government standard for fuel efficiency, GM and other domestic automakers should spend more money to exceed those standards before the Japanese and Europeans are able to do it. Pay for the best engineers instead of the best PR people. We have to think more long term or we will be in more trouble. Just think, China is not making many cars now but I am sure she will be. Can you imagine the competition then?

I see that Fisher Deberry, the football coach at the Air Force Academy, apologized few weeks ago for his comments about black players being able to run faster than others. I accept his apology on behalf of Asian Americans. I guess we are the group that the coach was offending the most. I don't think that he dislike blacks since he seems to want more of them at the Air Force. Well, at least on the football team. Whenever a coach says he needs more speed on the team, I know he doesn't mean Asians. I look at a school like UCLA where about 40% of the students are Asian, and yet I think there is only one Asian on the football team. The coach of UCLA is black and most of the players at the speed positions of his team are black. So I think black people think just like white people: that blacks are faster than whites and Asians.

Seriosly, I don't think Fisher DeBerry is a racist. You can't blame someone trying to get the best players he can and thus keep his job. The trouble I have is when I see a coach ignores a small Asian kid and assumes he can't play. Dat Nguyen is a starting linebacker for the Dallas Cowboys but throughout his college and pro career people think that he is too small to be a good player. How many Asian kids were cut before they had a chance to prove themselves? If a little guy like Ichiro was born in the U.S. and didn't build a reputation in Japan, would he have made it here? You may say that if he is that good, no way would he have gone unnoticed. You may be right. But think about the quality of Japanese baseball and the number of Asian players in the majors now. Wouldn't you expect a few Asian Americans in the majors? I can't think of any. All of the Asian major league players built their reputations in Asia. We have not produced any Asian American major league players from our high schools and colleges. I don't think genetically Asian Americans are inferior to native Asians. I think if coaches encourage Asian kids more and give them more chances, you will see more Asian Americans in team sports. In individual sports like tennis, golf, and skating where there is no coach deciding who makes the team Asian Americans have fared better.

The uproar over the whole DeBerry incidence is, of course, whether a remark about black superiority in sports implies that blacks are inferior in intellectual pursuits. You can't never tell what is in the heart of the speaker but you can't criticize someone for stating something obvious. Blacks are faster. Nobody knows why this is. Does this means that since they do perform below Asians and whites academically that they are dumber? I don't see how you can draw that conclusion. There are too many factors involved to make any kind of conclusion. All I know is that like the Asian kid being ignored by a coach, it is wrong to assume that a black kid is not capable of doing academic work. Stating the obvious is not the same as making assumptions. DeBerry was only stating the obvious, he has nothing to apologize for.

More and more people in this country are coming to the conclusion that the Iraq war is a big mistake. I was against it from the very beginning. I am not proud to say that I only made my view known to some of my closest friends at first. Even though I have lived in this country for almost 40 years, I still feel that some people look at me as an Asian and not an American. After 9/11 the whole country felt the need to stand behind the flag and that anyone going against the government maybe seen as unpatriotic. As the war is dragging on, I feel more and more frustrated and wish that I have spoken out more. It wouldn't have made a difference because we were going to war anyways but I would have feel less of a coward for not saying anything. I don't have any great answers to how to get out of this war but by writing why I was against it in the beginning and what are some of the flaws of our international policies, may be we can find some answers in the future.

One reason people are angry at Bush is that he used false intelligence about Iraq's weapons program to sell the war. I felt from the beginning that Iraq did have biological and chemical weapons. I didn't think they had nuclear weapons. It really didn't matter though. To me Hussein and bin Laden were not allies. In fact they were enemies, one a secular dictator and the other a religious zealot. Hussein was always afraid of the U.S. He used biological and chemical weapons in the 80's only with the blessing of the U.S. He invaded Kuwait because he thought the U.S. wouldn't intervene. He retreated without much of a fight during the first Gulf War. He truly had WMDs back then but would not use them against the U.S. because he knew if he did he would be completely destroyed. He would never have helped bin Laden even if he had WMDs because that would have been the end of him. Why would he risk his life to help one of his enemies? So to go after him for possible terrorism in the future is absurd especially given our complicity with him in the 80's. It strikes the rest of the world as hypocritical. It also is a waste of our lives, money, and time.

Right after 9/11 we had the sympathy of most of the world. Going into Afghanistan was the right thing to do. We should have stayed in Afghanistan and finished the job there instead of going to Iraq. Maybe bin Laden would still be at large today but we wasted chances to get him and wipe out al qaeda by taking most of the resources out of Afghanistan and into Iraq. Without finishing off one enemy we created another one. Afghanistan is not secured today. Warlords and remnants of the Talibans are still around. We should have helped ensure the democracy of Afghanistan first. By doing so the world would have applauded us. The UN would have taken over much of the work in Afghanistan by now and we would be freed to attack terrorism elsewhere.

When we attacked Iraq based on the right of preemptive strike, we lost much respect in the world. This is also against our own belief that we should not attack others unless we are in immediate danger. By claiming preemptive strike as a right for a powerful country, we have scared many peaceful nations. Can China use preemptive strike against Taiwan? Sure, Taiwan isn't a real threat to China. But is Iraq really more of a threat to the U.S. than Taiwan is to China? To the Arab world this is a case of America believing that all Arabs are alike or that we are trying to use an excuse to attack Arabs.

Let us look at the big picture of terrorism. There always going to evil people in this world. How dangerous will these people be depends on how well they can recruit others to their dirty work. We can and should chase down all the bin Ladens of the world. But we will never get rid of all of them because more are born everyday. The only way we can be secure is when we can stop them from recruiting sacrificial lambs. The suicide bombers are generally not evil people to begin with. Evil people usually don't sacrifice themselves. They get others to do the sacrificing. Bin Laden will never strap bombs on himself and walk into a market and blow himself up. The suicide bombers are misguided people. Even if the U.S. is perfectly even handed in treating the Israeli-Palestinan conflict, some will be persuaded to think of the U.S. as the enemy. But now by attacking Iraq we are adding people who can be more easily persuaded. If unsophisticated suicide bombers attack us, the result would be tragic but it would not be destructive to our way of life. My fear was and still is that there are intellectuals who were moderates in the past but see this war as proof that we are trying to destroy the Muslim world. If one of this individual is a top notch scientist living among us, the danger would be much greater than sucide bombs or planes.

I don't have many answers. But I do know that overwhelming force is not the answer. Being the most powerful nation in the world means that we can last longer than anyone else. It does not mean we are secured. We cannot bomb the whole world into submission. Look at Israel. She has overwhelming military power against the Palestinians and her neighbors and yet she is not secured. Security can only come from political solutions. This does not mean we don't go after the terrorist. We should do that and use as much resources as we need to beef up our security. we have a no win situation in Iraq right now. Even if we are able to capture Zarqawi tommorrow the country will not be stalized. Our presence there will bring more and more outside insurgents regardless even if the leader is captured. Remember Zarqawi was not a great leader before we invaded Iraq. With the help of countries like Iran, there is a guarantee of insurgents as long as we stay. Sure it looks bad to leave but our staying will not be doing any good now.