Monday, February 28, 2005

Laurence D. Miniter 1930-2005

Blogging will be exceedingly light this week due to the death of my maternal grandfather, who passed yesterday afternoon, of lung cancer. Smoking kills.

Meanwhile, the entire Northeast braces for blizzards. It's not as good as an aurora borealis, but it'll do.

Full blogging will resume later this week, but I might pop in before that.

Friday, February 25, 2005

The Essayist #4: Terms of Victory

I know that I promised that I would mostly stay away from the war on this new blog, and I know that I haven't fully kept that promise. However, I am prepared to deal with the matter somewhat more clinically, for lack of a better term. So if you're convinced that splattering explostions like today's means that we are headed for an embarassing defeat on a truly Vietnamese scale, I am not going to attempt to persuade you otherwise. What I am going to do is perhaps give us a set of terms we can agree upon for determining when we will have lost, and when (if ever) we will have won.

The truism of guerrilla war/counterinsurgency is that for the insurgents to win, they merely need to not lose, that by continuing to exist, they will sap the morale of the government forces and defeat them by convincing them that they cannot be destroyed: resistance is futile. Conversely, for the counter-insurgency to not lose, it must win: overwhelm and hunt down the guerrillas, while turning the populace against them.

Both of these are true, as far as they go. But I challenge their status as universally true, because both of them are dependent on a politically determined stratum of victory. In other words, for both guerrilla and government, victory comes when the people believe that the other side has not won and, moreover, will not win. Both insurgent and counterinsurgent aim to drive the enemy to the Futility Point.

In truth, the same could be said for any variety of war. But with unconventional warfare, the Futility Point becomes the more difficult to gauge. When the Red Army took Berlin in 1945, the Futility Point of WW2 had been reached for every German, including Hitler (whose opinion, given the nature of the Third Reich, mattered most). But how can we convince Zarqawi of the same? CAN we convince Zarqawi of that, and how much does that matter?

I argue that the relative position of the Futility Point for either side, in a guerrilla or any other kind of war, is dependent on the goals that both sides begin with. For example, in the Greek insurgency of the late 1940's, the Greek Communists were setting out with the goal of overthrowing the government and establishing a communist state in Greece. The postwar Greek government, on the other hand, was first concerned with survival, and then with the disruption of Communist activities, to weaken their capacities. By 1949 this had largely been accomplished, without government forces destroying guerrillas in large numbers. What tipped the Greek Communists past the Futility Point was the closure, on Tito's orders, of the Yugoslav frontier, which denied the insurgents the sanctuary from government operations that they had previously depended on. This and the failure of the insurgents two major offensive operations in the north of the country signalled the end of their ability to command respect in Greece.


Now, let us look at the goals of the two opposing sides in Iraq. The U.S. Government invaded Iraq with the following goals in mind:

1. Overthrow the Baathist regime headed by Saddam Hussein. Capture or kill Hussein and his major leadership.

2. Catalog and destroy Hussein's stockpile of WMD's.

3. Rapidly repair war damage and improve Iraq'a economic infrastructure.

All of which leads up to:
4. Establish effective control over the country, until such time as a new government could be created, one which reflected the goals and aspirations of the Iraqi people, and one which would be, if not grateful to the United States, then at least opposed to being a haven and source of Islamic terrorism, as Saddam had been.


Meanwhile, the goal of the insurgency has been:

1. Inflict major casualties on coalition forces, to the point where anti-war opinion worldwide precipitates a withdrawl of the coalition forces from Iraq.

2. Seriously disrupt the growth of the new Iraq. Prevent the new Iraqi government from functioning.

3. Cow the Shi'ites and Kurds into accepting continued Sunni dominance. Barring that, provoke a civil war which will hasten coalition withdrawl.

All of which lead up to:
4. Either re-establish a Baathist or establish a fundamentalist Islamic state in Iraq, or perhaps a hybrid of both.


While no one can effectively argue that the insurgency has been put down, few can argue that it has achieved any of its goals, or argue that the U.S. has not achieved most of its goals (#2 being the obvious exception, for reasons which are as yet unclear). All of which might still be awaiting events. Shi'ite dominance in Iraq might yet lead to a fundamentalist state. Even if it doesn't, the insurgency might be yet be able to survive long enough to overpower the new government, provoke the civil war and win the peace.

Such things are not beyond the bounds of possiblity. Yet as the U.S. presence in Iraq remains without a definite withdrawl date, while diplomatic pressure on the Baathist Syrian government, which supplies the insurgents with a possible source of haven and supplies, increases, while the new Iraqi government continues to enjoy legitimacy in the eyes of a majority of the country, these things become less and less likely.

Thus, while the U.S. has not yet achieved complete victory in Iraq, neither has it lost, and it appears that time is on its side. This would seem to be a rare position for the counter-insurgent to be in, and to explain this, we must look to the terms of victory.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, indeed.

Boxing Alcibiades asks what we've all been asking about the rash of female-teacher-adolescent-boy-relationships in the news.

Light blogging due to Snow Day

The Essayist #4 will be up later this afternoon. In the meantime, consider the argument put forward by this book: that the Democratic party has already been led rightward by the success of the Republicans in the 90's. This isn't new. As early as '96, some journalists were comparing Clinton to Eisenhower, the Republican who presided over the liberalizing of America.

Rather puts the Democratic Underground wing into perspective, doesn't it?

Thursday, February 24, 2005

The Mask Slips

Instapundit links the latest in the series of "Gee, maybe Bush was right," escapes, this time from Der Speigel in Germany. Welcome as such developments are, we can't yet know whether Bush's Middle Eastern Gambit will play out. The place of Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, not to mention Palestine, vis-a-vis (the French has been creeping in of late, hasn't it?) the fledgling Iraqi republic has yet to be delineated. But there's a section of the article I think worth noting:

Europeans today -- just like the Europeans of 1987 -- cannot imagine that the world might change. Maybe we don't want the world to change, because change can, of course, be dangerous. But in a country of immigrants like the United States, one actually pushes for change. In Mainz today, the stagnant Europeans came face to face with the dynamic Americans. We Europeans always want to have the world from yesterday, whereas the Americans strive for the world of tomorrow.

How may it be possible that the regime of Cowboyus Maximus Bush Caeser Fascus is more progressive, for lack of a better term, than the multiparty, socially-oriented European People's states? I argued back in August, on the old blog, that the European states deserve the title of Bureaucracy, rather than Republic. I also thought the title might apply to the United States, if perhaps to a less severe degree. Maybe the strength of the popular will in the U.S., and it's relative youth as a nation, still gives it a progressive spirit that old, experienced Europe lacks. But if Der Spiegel is willing to give Americans credit for a greater desire to change the world, then perhaps the Liberal Revolution truly is on an upswing.

Wednesday, February 23, 2005

Please, Make me "Wanker of the Day"...

Daily Kos seems excited because a bunch of College Republicans chanted "Hey hey, Ho ho, Social Security's got to go." Apparently this means that "the GOP is drowning on Social Security." He tells us that Atrios and Yglesias explain why. Atrios, as far as I can tell, mentions nothing but the same College Republican story, and Yglesias, has nothing but a vague claim that the argument is being won, while excorciating a particular democrat for being a "turncoat," (i.e. coming to the compromise position that raising taxes and private accounts will be required).

Yeah. The GOP is really swirling the drain. Their college recruits are enthusiastic to the point of hyperbole, and the House caucus is tricking Democrats into arguing a "terrible political idea," that will backfire on them. Wow. Them righties are in so much trouble.

Whipping Boy

There is nobody, and I mean nobody, that right-wing bloggers enjoy pimp-slapping more than Ted Rall. Not even Michael Moore excites as much contempt as Rall, who's moved beyond the echo-chamber into a kind of rubber room, where words and phrases just seem to tumble out of his head without thought to how they will be heard, and of course, no unsatisfactory elements will ever get in. Today, Instapundit, Day by Day and Captain's Quarter all pile on.

If he didn't so eminently deserve it, I'd almost feel bad for him.

Ecosystem Bizarritude

How is it that a man who posts six times a year gets awards and has a higher rank than me?

1. The Ecosystem is monstrously unjust.

2. "Mr. Cranky" is a way cooler name than "The Essayist".

Methinks, the latter.

Ah, back to normal...

Chirac goes about his usual tricks. But the speaking of French at a formal occasion looks more cosmetic than anything else, an idle display of independence (quelle François!). As to the busting up of NATO, well, why should the corpse remain now that the spirit is dead?

NATO's raison d'être was, in the words of Churchhill, "to keep the Germans down, the Americans in, and the Russians out." Goal one has largely been accomplished, in fact, accomplished so well that we are now managing to keep the Russians out of the Ukraine simply by example. No one pretends to keep the Germans down any longer, and only a few still want the Americans in. Et Voilá...


Update: Mark Steyn weighs in with a good point: (via Instapundit)

America and Europe both face security threats. But the difference is America's are external, and require hard choices in tough neighbourhoods around the world, while the EU's are internal and, as they see it, unlikely to be lessened by the sight of European soldiers joining the Great Satan in liberating, say, Syria. That's not exactly going to help keep the lid on the noisier Continental mosques.

Dont'cha just love nuance?

Tuesday, February 22, 2005

The Inevitable Logic of the Nanny State...

...that which is bad for you becomes a crime. (Via Drudge)

This is justified via the "cost to the state" argument: the state will be called upon to care for this individual, ergo the state has an interest in this individual's health, ergo it has a right to compell treatment. Insurance companies do it all the time, why can't the gov'mint?

Three Words for Hunter Thompson:

What kept you?

Huzzah, Slimy Mollusc!

Thanks to the After Abortion blog, which also touches on issues of euthanasia. To be clear, I've never been a fan of abortion, and I've never cared who knew it. To women who say "If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrement," I say ladies, how little you understand us.

If men could get pregnant, childbirth would be a sport.

Enemis ne Plus?

Took the weekend off to visit the smoochie-poo in NYC. I now resume:

Is it me, or is it...odd, the way that Chirac, and the Canadians, and the EU, are suddenly amenable to our Middle East policy? I suspect one of two possibilities:

1. The power of Europe to resist our imperial might is limited. When they discovered that we would not be shamed from a warlike response to 9/11, they meekly knuckled under. Bush's re-election nailed this coffin shut.

2. The sneaking suspicion that Iraq has not been an unmitigated disaster and, indeed, has become a qualified success has led them to look for places on the bandwagon. Ever pragmatic, and realizing that their own security situations has so far not worsened, and could possibly improve, Europe cautiously files in behind.


It would be easy to say, both, but I suspect it's more the latter than the former. The 2004 election would have meant nothing if Iraq had come apart like 1968 South Vietnam. Let's not underestimate the images of blue-fingered Iraqis defying the bringers of blood. I don't think Europe has ever doubted the value of democratizing the Middle East, merely the likelihood of its success. One can hardly blame them, given the testimony of human history, for that.

Friday, February 18, 2005

The Essayist #3: An Infinity of Soapboxes

Using a blog to write about the blogosphere is a bit like trying to control the ocean by spitting in it. I'm fully aware of this, but the title of the web site is The Essayist, not The Fatalist, so I'm going to give it a go.

In part, writing about this is futile because the blogosphere is already pretty navel-gazing. We bloggers are self-consciously devoted to our craft, to the joy of saying "Look at me publish!" We enjoy what we do and enjoy the connection to worldwide events that it brings us. Blogs bellowed in triumph at bringing down Trent Lott, Dan Rather, Eason Jordan, and yes, that Gannon chap. Those of us not quite so influential as Reynolds or Kaus or Wretchard cling to the hope that one day we will be, and in the meantime, we enjoy being part of the national dialogue.

Or maybe that's just me.

What about a website like, say....this one? Looks like a blog. Has posts and entries like a blog, links like a blog. But...is it journalism? What about xilan's blog? My girlfriend's LiveJournal? What shall we call the other millions of LiveJournals where people happily trade pictures and record the non-contentious, non-earth-shaking events that constitute life for the majority of us? Are they part of the sphere?

Peggy Noonan, with her noted quality for getting to the heart of a matter, has proclaimed in her most recent column that blogs are "a public service." I understand what she means, but I disagree. A public service is a duty and a bore, a mass institution to serve the masses. I hear the words "public service" and think of those obligatory ads warning kids about drugs. Every kid sees the same message, and after the first 50 or so, diminishing persuasiveness returns start to set in. But we see them all the time, because how is an instituion supposed to change it's marketing to please one person? There's no future in it.

The blogosphere is not public, but uniquely private, a million windows to a million minds, each connected to the others, yet each self-contained. Regardless of labels that some apply to Daily Kos, there is no Hive mind online. There's no way to enforce one. Anyone who wants to is free to disappear without trace, or to set up one's own shop, because everything done online is voluntary. Every actor is radically free, to do something positive, something negative, or nothing at all. What kind of system can be imposed on that?

Using terms like "left-blogosphere" or "right-blogosphere" are valid only up to the point of stating that the two don't talk to each other a whole lot. Beyond that, describing their habits and stereotyping their methods according to some aesthetic straw-man (yeah, those mindless liberals, they're like insects, man) means ignoring all the other details, all the other minutia. And when we want that, we've got the MSM waiting for us to sit down and accept their information flow.

The bane of TV reportage is that the camera, all appearances to the contrary, is a strikingly limited means of capturing data. There are only so many, and only so many capable of funding their preparation and use. The wide world that the camera did not see was the Great Unenfranchised in the era of Big Media. We would be foolish to replicate their error by creating false tribes and false descriptions gleaned from the segment of blogs that devote themselves to the daily political kerfuffle. As partisan as we are, we're not here to create voting blocs.

So I start where I began, in a declaration of largeness. And I'm okay with that.

Thursday, February 17, 2005

If you hear the word "Christian" and recoil...

...then see if this guy fits your stereotype.

Yeah, I'm not sure where the "hedonism" part starts, either. But I'm intrigued nonetheless.

First, Explanations...

My Tarantino essay is turning into a monster beyond my control. I don't think I've got in in me, not yet, to do what I really want to do. So that one's on indefinite hiatus. I think tommorrow's essay will take in some blogospheric ponderings.

Wednesday, February 16, 2005

Jay was Right...

You know how you know race relations in America are all right? When a black comic rips off a white director, and no one even notices.

I refer to Chris Rock, who, as the media bonfire around him begins to heat up has been revealed to think that any woman who gets an abortion is loose:

Abortion, it's beautiful, it's beautiful abortion is legal. I love going to an abortion rally to pick up women, cause you know they are f*!@*%g...

So quotes Dorinda Bordlee, a lawyer for Americans United For Life in a piece for National Review that defends Rock:

So here we are, five years into the new millennium, and a comedian has the nerve to say out loud what men across America know full well: that legalized abortion is great for their sex lives; that abortion on demand makes women into sex objects with the full consent of the highest court in the land; and that if their sexual use of a woman results in the unfortunate side effect of a pregnancy, then $300 and their "kindhearted" support of the woman's "right to choose" will take care of the problem.

My guess is Bordlee never saw Kevin Smith's Dogma, in which Rock stars, and in which recurring doofus and druggie Jay, after a loud proclamation of pro-choice beliefes, explains that he's hanging out in front of an abortion clinic to meet loose women. If she had, she might not be in such a rush to call this a revolutionary statement.

But let's go back to that idea, that abortion exists primarily to protect the Sexual Revolution. Surely, this is right-wing logic. No lefty could accept such reasoning, right?

Wrong. Here's Ellen Fulton in Salon, five years ago, urging men to vote for Gore or ruin their sex lives:
Women, on the other hand, won't be so understanding about this election. To many of us, this election is important. I hear a lot of women talking about the Supreme Court, because the idea that Roe vs. Wade would be overturned is an idea that many of us genuinely fear, even if we have qualms about abortion. Our rights are at stake in this election, and we know that "strict constructionist" judges don't support our rights. We hear pro-life types talk about how banning abortion is just a first step to getting rid of birth control pills and other types of birth control methods like IUDs. Now, even if you oppose abortion and think that overturning Roe vs. Wade is a good idea, think about the effect that changing the legal landscape for women's reproductive rights will have on your ability as a man to get laid. Then forget getting laid at all, because women whose options for dealing with an unplanned pregnancy have changed will decide to spend nights with vibrators instead of you.

She goes on to say that, when such happens, only guys who voted for Gore will be considered "sponge-worthy," as it were, and therefore that she encourages men everywhere to "vote with their dicks."

Charming, but let's summarize:

Conservative woman says: "Abortion exists to allow men to have sex as much as they want with no consequence."

Liberal woman says: "Get rid of abortion rights, boys, and see your sex life dry up."

I love it when a plan comes together.


Update: SuperBiff comments to tell me that the joke is Rock's after all, and Kevin Smith used it for the movie. I guess white artists are still ripping off black artists. Some things never change.

That Popping Sound You Hear...

...is the sound of conservative's heads exploding as the Navy announces that the newest Seawolf submarine will be named after Jimmy Carter.

See, boys? If you had just been patient, Ronald Reagan could have a cool sub named after him instead of that lame airport.

Tuesday, February 15, 2005

A Response, Not a Fisking

Among my fellow Lowly Insects I found a man who has seemingly left his blog behind (he last posted in December, announcing a hiatus, and hasn't been back since). He wrote an essay, let's call it, describing his vision of the ideal president and the ideal policies, ones which he felt would resonate among all Americans. I am taking it upon myself to respond to them, point-by-point. This isn't a fisking, because, as I wrote here, a fisking implies contempt. I am just going to question.


What Our Nation Needs
At this time of division in our nation, many people are asking the question, "What does our nation need?"

It does not need a religious fanatic. It does not need a corporate crony. It does not need a warmonger. It does not need another talking head who recites party policy.

These things we know to be true.


This is boilerplate. Your standards of "religious fanatic," "corporate crony," "warmonger," and "talking head," are not mine. Therefore, I'm afraid I can't agree with your implication that the President is all of these, which makes it difficult to join your "we".


We still leave the question unanswered. What DO we need?

The United States needs a leader. A statesman. Someone like FDR or JFK. Am I stating that either of these two men were perfect? Of course not. No man is perfect.

However, both men were strong willed. Both new how to address the people of the nation. Both worked to restore a feeling of safety and comfort to the people.


Is it your estimation that Reagan, just as an example, had none of these qualities? Just asking.


FDR was elected during the great depression. He had a plan. He pushed the plan into action. Today, we still have programs he initiated in place. Social Security. Unemployment insurance.

Social Security is an argument for another time. Unemployment insurance I have no criticism of. But I notice that you don't mention any of JFK's achievments. What was it about his presidency that you admired? I, personally, don't see much at all to esteem, though he did cut taxes.


So what plan does this great American statesman, that our nation needs, need? He needs a plan to address terrorism. Not one of attacking other nations, but one of securing our homeland. He needs a plan to secure our borders, to prevent terrorists from gaining entry. He needs a plan to secure our nuclear power plants, our shipyards and harbors. At a time when American should be consolidating our military power at home, we are instead fighting battles abroad and spreading our military too thin in the task.

You seem to be implying that the way to combat terrorism is to have the military police the targets that terrorists are most likely to attack, to be building up our domestic security apparatus, to be sealing the borders that terrorists will not get in. In other words, since trying to change other nations is out of bounds, we must accept a permanent police state, empowered to do whatever is necessary to prevent another damaging attack. I have to say that I don't think the consensus exists for this. If I have misread you, may I ask for more details?


He needs a plan to control government spending. He needs a plan to lower and eventually dissolve the national debt. He needs a plan to bring jobs to the US, not send them abroad. He needs a New Deal.

As I understand it, the New Deal involved a vast increase in government spending. I agree that such spending needs to be reined in. But the most expensive programs happen to be the most popular ones. Regardless of what spending gets cut, someone is going to get angry.

One way to "bring jobs to the US" might be to decrease corporate taxes and burdensome regulations that drive companies overseas. A president who does this, however, will undoubtedly be referred to as a "corporate crony." It also will make getting rid of the debt more difficult.


He needs a plan to enact corporate responsibility. He needs a plan to bring healthcare costs under control and to cover every American citizen with a national healthcare plan. He needs to ensure that illegal immigrants are either urged to earn US citizenship, and not play the green card system for their own personal gain.

How are we to give every American citizen healthcare and rein in government spending?


He needs to bring taxes in line with wealth. The more you make, the more you pay and vice versa. He needs to protect the American worker, the lower, the middle, and the upper classes. He needs a vision of fair treatment and constitutional guarantees of equal and inalienable rights.

I am given to understand that this is how the system already works. The tax system is based on graduated percentages, so the more you make, the more you pay. I would like to see the evidence that this is not true.

As to the constitution, what rights do you have in mind that are not already enshrined in the constitution, or rather, how are the rights we already possess not "equal and inalienable"?


A true statesman would welcome transparency in his government. A true leader has nothing to hide.

He should neither tow the party line nor follow the party creed. He must, most importantly, think first of what will benefit the American people the most. He must be a humanitarian. Yet, at the same time, he must be prepared to defend the American people with military force as a last resort.


At what point may the "last resort" be employed? There seems to be a sea of disagreement on this subject.


He must be willing to compromise on some issues, while refusing to budge on others.

All politicians have some issues on which they will not budge, and some on which they are flexible. What specific issues did you have in mind?


It's a tall order. Some would say that it is impossible to fill. I say that it is not impossible.

We in America seem to have fallen for the myth that a truly great president must be wealthy, college educated, and well-known. I say that that myth is wrong. The greatest thing a US president can possess is a patriotic spirit and a healthy dose of common sense.

Common sense, you ask? Yes, good old fashioned common sense.


I agree with this up to a point, because I don't know that "common sense" is as widely accepted as perhaps it once was. Many people find some of the notions that some call "common sense" offensive, and I don't know that anyone has defined "common sense" in any but a few specific cases.

I'll give a hypothetical example.

To protect our nation from terrorists, what could a man of common sense do?


You'll forgive me, but this isn't very hypothetical at all. Terrorism is a well-known issue about which many opinions exist. You seem to be trying to declare what you think a president should do to be "common sense." I don't think this a very persuasive tactic.


First, he must listen to his intelligence advisors. Then he must question their authenticity. He must ask questions, and expect answers. He cannot ignore warnings. We saw on 9/11 what happens when warnings are ignored.

What if he gets a warning, from his intelligence advisors, questions their authenticity, and errs in so doing? If all warnings must be accepted as valid, it is difficult to question them. Also, what is your basis for assuming that the President does not do this?

If the intelligence groups cannot provide the answers needed, then he must err on the side of caution and then address the issue of inadequate intelligence agencies. He must communicate with the American people on a regular basis. He must reassure the people. He must increase the security at our borders and increase security on our airlines. He must push for standardized training guidelines for security officers.

In other words, the intelligence and security apparatus of the federal government must be vastly increased, and the capacity of the government to watch the people inside the borders made stronger. Again, I feel that many will object to this.


To pay for this, he must stop wasteful government spending. He must urge congress to actually read the bills that they are voting on. If the result is a slower legislative process, then so be it. We as American people must learn to slow down, to think before we act, to understand before we rush headlong into an issue.

There is absolutely nothing I can object to about this, in principle. I must ask however, precisely which government spending do you consider "wasteful"? It matters, because one person's "wasteful" is another person's "needful". Many groups are attached to certain programs, anc can motivate members of the populace to vote with that in mind. It is a political hurdle that every president has dealt with.


The statesman must present this case to the American people. He must then pursue a more progressive tax plan. He must streamline social programs and make them more efficient. He must seek to lower bureaucratic wastefulness and red tape.

So, less spending, more taxes. That's going to be a tough program to sell.


Most importantly, the statesman must gather a diverse team of advisors, from all professions, representing the interests of the American people. They must be black, white, Asian, democrat, republican, conservative, liberal, religious, and non-religious, and on and on. He needs to listen to their advice, and weigh the alternatives to determine the best, most effective choice for the American people.

Not to be glib, but a body like this already exists. It's called Congress, and for the President to get anything done, he must listen to them.


He must remember that he is a federal employee and a civil servant. He must remember that the office of president is not a priviledge, but a job. He must be a man of the people, and a servant of the people.

Every President since Jackson has labored to make this his image. What is your basis for assuming that Bush does not agree with every word of this?


I believe, that if such a person were to present a common sense approach for the American people, that the American people would unite behind that person. That grass root donations would and could pay for his presidential campaign, without the need for corporate sponsors who would later expect favors.

I've pointed out several points where people might not agree. But let us assume you were right, and a president came to power with a vast popular mandate to increase the surveillance powers of the federal government, decrease spending, increase taxes, close the borders, etc. What problems can you for see with such policies being implemented? How should they be addressed?


Maybe its all just a dream, but it is the American Dream.

Be careful of such assertions. I'm an American, and I don't know that this is my dream.

Allow me to reiterate that I find these arguments merely questionable, not offensive. It's said that such is about all we have in the way of consensus these days. But I guess that is the nature of an argument.

Faux Terrorists

John O'Sullivan has a recap on the terrorists who used to have movies made about them: The IRA. He suggests that the President ought to snub Sinn Fein on next St. Patrick's Day. I'm all for it. My contempt for the IRA is greater than that I have for the Islamofascists. They, at least, have the courage (twisted, cruel, monstrous courage, but courage nonetheless) of their convictions. They truly believe, in their bigoted way, that their actions are going to bring about the rule of holiness and virtue on Earth, the destruction of all that is evil. That is not to say that there are not charlatans and sinecure-hunters among them; there are. But their religious fury, horrific though it be, is genuine.

The IRA, methinks, doesn't even pretend to genuine relgious fury, if ever they have it. The "troubles" in Ireland are tribal, not really religious. It isn't about the varieties of Christian doctrine that Catholics and Protestants are fighting; it's the settling of old scores, and new ones. The Catholics in Ireland are the "natives" who've lived there since the Bronze Age. The Protestants are the "newcomers," mostly Scottish, who settled during the 17th Century (Never mind that a goodly number of the Scots came originally from Ireland; Ireland was once called Scota, and please please let's keep this logic from the Indians, shall we?). The slapping's been going on ever since.

I doubt very much that the IRA even believes its going to accomplish its stated objective of driving British authority from Northern Ireland. After 30 years, they've accomplished hardly a thing towards that end. By way of comparison, the Communists in Vietnam started from being a nothing organization in the 1940's to controlling half their country in 1954 to controlling all of it by 1976. Those guys meant what they said, and killed millions to accomplish what they said they wanted.

These ersatz Mick revolutionaries are a bunch of clowns, drug dealers and street thugs with expensive toys and nasty connections playing at war. They're not willing to really fight for what they say they want, not enough to achieve it, anyway. Plus, they're fighting the ground nubbin of yesterday's war. The Penal Laws have been abolished. The Irish Republic has been a going concern for decades, and it has a real army of its own. There's more southerners still mad at Sherman than there are Irish still mad at William III.

All these "boyos" need to be steadily penetrated, arrested, and sent away to the Isle of Man, like the FBI's been doing to the Mafia. And if George Bush isn't going to spend Columbus Day with the consiglieres of the Five Families, I don't see that he should be in the same time zone as Gerry Adams on St. Patrick's Day.

Monday, February 14, 2005

Black Comic. "Anti-Gay" Remarks. The Oscars. Get Ready.

And all this time I thought I was the only one that hated the Oscars.

BTW, I'm fine with the Academy deciding to dispense with Rock's services as host. No one has the obligation to continue to work with someone who publicly disparages them (even if I mostly agree with the disparagment, especially the "fashion show" line). I really don't think he's the kind of comic that the Oscars do well with. They like their patter to be self-involved and chirpy, and they like it to come from an actual movie star. Chris Rock has done movies, but he's more the angry black comic than the relaxed movie star. Billy Crystal, Steve Martin, Whoopi Goldberg come to mind. But then, they all got their start in stand-up, so what do I know?

This: if given a choice, I'd rather watch Chris Rock than the Oscars.

Backing Myself Up

This Boston Globe piece (Hat Tip: Instapundit) goes a long way towards backing up my description of the left in the Essayist #2. Observe:

What a strange moment for the left to lose faith in democracy. The Soviet Union and other Leninist dictatorships are gone in a puff of smoke. Democracy is taking root in Latin America. South Korea, Indonesia, Taiwan, Mongolia, and Thailand are all newly democratic. Throughout the 20th century, war and authoritarianism were inseparable. For 30 years, democracy and free markets have surged and no war has occurred anywhere on the scale ofKorea and Vietnam, let alone World War I and World War II.

But you see, that's the point. The Left is synonymous with Social Revolution, and the Social Revolution means attacking whatever authority happens to exist, "speaking truth to power," in its own tendentious phrase. Liberal democracy is only to be embraced when it's a means of sticking it to the Man. Once democracy has been established, it loses it's value, and becomes the new Man to be taken out.

Revolutions. At war. Dig?

Friday, February 11, 2005

News Ponderings

I've only done viewings of Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, so Essayist #3 is going to have to wait for the weekend. In the meantime, consider these half-assed rimshots:


1. North Korea: It it just me, or when you claim to have nuclear weapons, shouldn't you...blow one up, in an underground lab or something, you know, to demonstrate this fact?

NEWS FLASH!: Kim Jong-Il, will give up power to his son, Kim Jong-Chol, thus completely ruining my impression of how Koreans get their names. The succession of Il-Sung to Jong-Il made be believe it was a Russian Middle-name-is-dad's-name deal. You know, like Yuri Andreivich. I shall just have to wander about.

2. The Budget: Folks, it's real simple. We, as a people, want more from the government than we're willing to give it. Until that changes, the budget will not add up.

3. Charles and Camilla: You know, Chuck, just because you're going to be King of England, doesn't mean you have to marry a drag queen.

4. Corey Feldman and Michael Jackson: Still no confirmed testimony as to which one stole the other's clothes first...

5. Eason Jordan: I still don't get it. If he's no longer affirming what he suggested might be happening, where's the scandal?

Wednesday, February 09, 2005

"white supremacist Nazi's shouldn't be allowed to advertise"

Last week I argued that a Liberal society is not necessarily bound to permit all forms of expression; certain things can be named anathema. Here's the kind of thing I mean.

Granted, they're just publicizing their existence. But can we name them unutterable? According to most constitutional scholars, no. Yet we would censor many things that they would say, and probably not permit them to buy ad space on television. Where precisely is the line drawn? Legal scholars?


BTW, why didn't the county just annoy them and rename the road "the Rosa Parks Memorial Highway," or some such?

Tuesday, February 08, 2005

Meanwhile, Across the Pond...

Here's a fun blog to check out, if you're curious as to what the hell is going on in Europe. I especially like this item, in which President Chirac of France calls for a globaly anti-poverty tax. You can't make this stuff up.

"Anti-poverty tax"...is it just me, or is that a bit like "anti-pregnancy sperm"?

Glenn Reynolds as Ahab

Number of times that the phrase "Eason Jordan" is found on the front page of Instapundit: 23.

In case you haven't been following, Jordan is a CNN executive who made a statement to the effect that the U.S. Military has been deliberately targeting foreign journalists. Then he unsaid it, and then...I don't know. I don't know what's giving the story legs, other than a chance for the blogs to say "gotcha!" at the MSM again. Which is fun.

Monday, February 07, 2005

The New Week's Work

This week I leave behind politics for pop-culture, appropriate in the week after the oddly anti-climatic Super Bowl (the game was pretty good, but the commercials were a fizzle).

Specifically, I'm going to be writing about the films of Quentin Tarantino. I have a theory as to why his films remain popular, despite the fact that they are neither artistic masterpieces nor predictable formula pieces. Outside thoughts are most welcome.

Saturday, February 05, 2005

Link's Up

Added the two blogs I've invaded to the blogroll. The Snoblog, on the other hand, appears not to be updated regular. I might have noticed that if the dates weren't grey text on a white background. That's my story, anyway, and I'm sticking to it.

Friday, February 04, 2005

The Essayist #2: The Age of Revolution.

Time Magazine's decision to name George Bush as Person of the Year was surprising, not for the choice (was the MSM really to name its mortal enemy, the blogosphere?), but for the tone it took. The picture of the President bore the caption: "George Bush: American Revolutionary." Surely, the title wrankled many on the left, for whom the term "Revolutionary" means leftism by definition. While I didn't see much play in the mainstream press about it, it did not escape notice. A standard objection may be found here, a standard defense here.

I have no objection to the term, even as one who considers himself politically conservative had had hoped that in voting to re-elect the President I was putting another conservative in power. And my lack of objection speaks to my premise, which is that we live in the Age of Revolution.

One of the better works of history I have come across has been Will and Ariel Durant’s Story of Civilization series. They are massive; 6-700 pages each, and overwhelming in the detail with which they flood the reader. The Durants give us politics, law, the lives of kings, the quirks of past historians, the grandeur of architecture; the passions of poets and philosophes, and the overall taste of ages past. One gets the sense of having been in the mind of St. Paul, or Titian, or Augustus Caeser, of having witnessed Cannae and the Reign of Terror, of having walked through narrow streets chatting with Ben Jonson or Catullus.

They are not without their downside, of course. They require disciplined readership; to date I’ve only managed to devour Volume 9: The Age of Voltaire. I don’t remember why I started there; somehow I’ve always felt an affinity for Voltaire, which perhaps stems from the fact that he and I share the same birthday (Nov 21). I’ve skimmed parts of other volumes, absorbed sections of others, but never fully. Perhaps when school lets out I’ll devote the summer to them.

The other downside is that they tend to lose their majestic scale as they progress. Volume 1 includes the millennia of Stone Age humans, Egypt, and Mesopotamia. Volume 2 tells the life of Ancient Greece, Volume 3, Rome and the Rise of Christianity, Volume 4, the thousand years between Rome’s fall and the Reformation. But there are 11 volumes, and so the briefs become smaller in scope. The 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries roughly occupy volumes 5-8, and the 18th is the scope of volumes 9 and 10. By the time we get to volume 11, the "Age of Napoleon," we get but 26 years.

There’s something of the aesthetic to this objection, but 26 years is hardly an age. Durant has no difficulty filling the tome, with names and facts both familiar and surprising, and Napoleon is well deserving of many books about him. But while the years 1789-1815 were certainly epoch-making, they are not themselves the epoch. Durant’s work is best when bringing the large perspective to history, and here that is sadly lacking.

All of which begs the question: What defines our age? What gives moral legitimacy to our social structures? What justification drives our politics?

What can it be, but "Revolution"?

Ours is an age of speed, when today is pushed quickly into the past and yesterday as soon forgotten. What is our hurry? For millennia mankind lived generation-to-generation with so few ripples in its cycle that they have come down to us by name. Tribe grew to kingdom, kingdom grew to empire, empire wallowed in excess and was overwhelmed by tribes. Whether you name it Akkad, Maurya, Zhou, or Roma, the story is always the same. The center expands, the center rots, the king is shuffled off and all good men shout God/Buddha/Allah Save…

Then, in the last quarter the 18th century, humanity, began to reject this dynamic utterly. I date the beginning of the Age of Revolution from 1775, not 1789, not because I believe the American Revolution to be the only one that matters, but because I do not believe the French Revolution, and her daughter the Russian, to be the only ones that matter.

But let us halt, and define our terms. By "Revolution," I mean the willful casting aside of a political and/or social order for a presumed better one, and when that order is established, defended and expanded. The call to Revolution is heard daily in modern discourse. Whether you are animated by feminism, Marxism, gay rights, environmentalism, and yes, even free-market capitalism, you are seeking to change the existing order to one which will be more beneficial to whichever group you happen to care about. The image of truth struggling against mass perversity has been powerful in every age, but it is absolute in ours.

No time in human history has been more hostile to arguments of (small-c) conservatism. In times past, heritage and tradition had powerful holds on human imaginations. To a lesser degree, they still do, but to argue on the basis of nothing else has long been held to be the last refuge of the bigoted ignoramus. Since the 18th century, everything humanity has believed itself to understand has been subject to scrutiny. I do not judge that scrutiny to have been wholly negative. Indeed, I regard it as part of a natural rythmn of the collective grasping of truth. I merely point out how total and merciless the scrutiny has been, how all-encompassing.

The ancient laws regarding political, familial, sexual, and moral order have all either been overthrown, or have a loud party seeking their overthrow. Even in the absence of pressure to reform or undo a tradition, there is a seeming presumption that changing the world, and changing it now, would be the moral choice. It has entered the popular and commercial discourses as well, in the fuzzy-minded utopianism of pop singers and stand-up comics. To them, the status quo is always "so fucked up," and the Man is always to blame, whoever He happens to be (generally, anyone who speaks three kind words in favor of old traditions), and if only we could find the will…

Let me be clearer. I am not in favor of bringing anything back to the pre-1775 order. I am fine with the abandonment of monarchial feudalism, scientific creationism, the exclusion of women from the public sphere. I am not even opposed to humanity’s ongoing self-scrutiny. The Reality Principle decrees that what humans do, they have a reason for doing, and I must be careful in judging it. At present, I am merely describing the age we live in, the presumptions that are encoded in our words.

One of the problems is that we do not agree on Revolution (but of course…if we did, we would not need it). Many would place the proper ends of it towards this problem but not that one, to destroy this institution but leave that one alone. Vague labels, such as "right" and "left" muddy these waters even further. I think the best explanation is that there are two kinds of Revolution: the liberal and the social.

The Liberal Revolution is the enemy of the state. Anything which restricts the political or economic rights of the individual, the Liberal Revolution opposes. And by "rights," I mean the freedom of the individual to engage in self-generated political or economic activity. In a liberal state, no person is artificially restricted from saying or selling, from starting a political party, or a business. That is where the revolution ends. No one in a liberal society has any claim on anyone else, other than that his rights will not be violated.

Note that these rights are not necessarily intended to be taken to their logical conclusion: the right to say or sell anything. This is the difference between a liberal and a libertarian. The Liberal Revolution is not opposed to forms of social control; rather it depends on these, and not the state, to create social order. Censorship may be and is applied to all things which a balance of society names anathema: pornography, sedition, human slavery (if one is free to sell anything, why not human beings?). But the Index Expurgatorius is sharply limited and open to debate.

In addition, liberal societies tend to place restrictions on the state’s power to prosecute criminals. There are elaborate legal safeguards, regulations on how crime is investigated, and extensive right of appeal. None of which always prevents an innocent man from being convicted, but it falls entirely within the concept of the place of, and fear of, government in a liberal society. It is there to serve; not to be served.

The Social Revolution, arguably the Liberal's angry son, has a widely different, even open-ended, goal. The Social Revolution is the enemy of wherever power, authority, or influence is being exercised. Following Rousseau, the socialist believes that human structures are inherently unjust. In the extreme form, social programs advocate violent destruction of existing modes of power, with the expectation that humanity, thus freed from falsehood like the man in Plato's Allegory of the Cave, will start again, down the path that has now been made clear, whatever that might be. In the more moderate form, the socialist acts as critic and gadfly, exposing the injustices and failures in society and demanding, in as loud a voice as possible, a redress. Where the liberal opposes centralized tyranny, the socialist opposes local injustice, and through the cracks in the system, denounces the whole.

These two revolutions have been at war at least since 1789, when a social revolution piggy-backed over a liberal one and, from its starting point of tearing down the Sun Monarchy in France, moved on to attacking the institution that gave France her social control: the Catholic Church. From there, Napoleon fought not for the restriction of the state but for the social dominance of the new, enlightened ruling class. The last liberal revolution occurred in 1848, in Germany, and it was defeated by a monarchy that would use the program of socialists to retain dominance. Since then, Europe has moved ever gradually toward the social camp, growing an ever-larger bureaucracy with which to legislate the end of any form of inequality. This has even occurred in Britian, which gave birth to liberalism in the 17th Century.

Taken in that context, the history of the 20th century is the history of the clash of the two Revolutions. That the social-militarist Kaiserreich in Germany should have proven poor soil for the liberal Weimar state does not surprise, nor that the even more Socialist, even more Militarist Third Reich. Many deny that Hitler and Mussolini were socialists, despite the evidence, because they were nationalists and used nationalist symbols. But as I have defined the Social Revolution, nationalism need not be excluded from it, if the ruling class is deemed anti-national, as the Weimar state was. As there are many forms of human society, so there are many forms of social control, so there are many injustices, real or imagined, to rebel against. The fascist was merely a different form of socialist than the communist. Both hated liberals.

In the Cold war, therefore, we see the liberal and the social revolutions wrestling one another to the ground; the one that tapped out lost. The collapse of the Soviet Untion however, does not mean the end of social revolutionaries or socialist criticism. During the Cold War, both the U.S. and Europe, bastions of liberalism, became more socialist. European socialism has been earlier described. American socialism took the more moderate form of social criticsm and undermining traditional mores. The results have been mixed; greater public acceptance of women and racial minorities, coupled with an increase in social pathologies and venereal diseases, and a decrease in the birth rate.

Thus, the proper way to try to explain the differences in the American poltical dynamic to non-Americans, increasingly important in this day and age, is to drop the terms "conservative" and "liberal". American "Conservatives" seek to protect and expand the Revolution of 1775, the last and arguably most successful Liberal Revolution. American "Liberals" are actually socialists, who reject the title because of its connotative connection with Communism. But it is social injustices that "Liberals" fight, and social solutions that they propose and seek to defend against liberal attacks, like the proposed reform of Social Security (perhaps the last honestly named program in the federal government).

The Republican party is thus the party of American liberals, and the Democratic party that of American socialists. Both defend a Revolution, both believe themselves oppressed by the other, both promise that freedom will follow their success. In his wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, President Bush has thus made the expansion of the Liberal Revolution to be the weapon against both Islamism (a grotesque cross-breeding of medieval will-to-power with anti-semitic fascism) and the increasingly socialist international bureaucracy. Which side will win will be the story of at least the first part of this century.

Thank you, drive through...

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

Just in Case You Thought We Were Done Talking About Vietnam...

...Daily Kos is reviving it (Hat Tip: TCS). Whatever would the Left do without Vietnam to serve as an analogy for every foreign war (led by Republicans)?

The argument runs as follows: in 1967, South Vietnam had free elections, with high turnout, despite being warned by the Viet Cong not to vote. We did not win in Vietnam. Ergo, we will not win in Iraq.

One hates to have to fight old battles, but since the left seems stuck in the 60's, we're going to have to oblige them. The 1967 South Vietnam elections would seem to be not exactly the kind of elections we just saw in Iraq:

In elections held in South Vietnam in September 1967, former generals Nguyen Van Thieu and Nguyen Cao Ky were elected president and vice president, respectively. A number of popular candidates, including Buddhists and peace candidates, were barred from running, and newspapers were largely suppressed during the campaign. Even so, the military candidates received less than 35 percent of the vote, although the election took place only in areas under the Saigon government's control. When proof of widespread election fraud was produced by the defeated candidates, students and Buddhists demonstrated and demanded that the elections be annulled.

Unless Kos is prepared to argue that the Iraq election has been fraudulently conducted, that candidates have been barred, that newspapers have been suppressed, or that Zarqawi=Buddhist Peace Candidate, I don't see how his analogy holds together.

Let us shout it from the rooftops: ONLY. VIETNAM. WAS. VIETNAM!

Fun With De Tocqueville

The debate at De Tocqueville Boulevard seems to be winding down. We've each said our piece, and a degree of philosophical impasse has been reached. That said, there are some areas upon which we can agree:

1. The issue is complicated. Reforming so Titanic a beast as SocSec is going to require time and energy and thought. It's not going to be a Gordian knot.

2. Many things are going to need to be done to fix the problem. Partial privatization will not do it alone.

3. There is no excuse for inaction. We need to do something about this now, while we still can.


That sounds like the beginnings of consensus, if people are willing to be fair with one another. I wonder if anyone's told Congress yet?