A Partial Defense of Massie's Impeachment

I don't fully understand the logic in going after SECDEF Hegseth with literally all of these articles of impeachment are more obviously directed at the Commander in Chief (a point also made by others).

That said, Congress has delegated too much of its constitutional authority to the imperial executive. We have seen the Obama administration execute US citizens by drone strikes without trial; we have seen multiple governments overthrown without Congress even being asked about it (Libya, for example, was a particularly egregious case). The inability of Congress to overcome the impeachment and conviction hurdles in the Constitution has led to a place where it is sometimes not clear if there are in fact any standards or laws that a President must follow. 

At least some of these articles are defensible, which is not to say that they are correct, just that there is a reasonable argument to be made about them. Consider just one: 

"Committing war and humanitarian crimes, including ignoring laws to minimize civilian casualties and intentionally killing shipwreck survivors in the Caribbean;"

It's a little strange to call them "shipwreck survivors" when they were actually targets. On the other hand, in World War II you were expected to render assistance if you sank a ship as an act of war. Back on the first hand, these aren't soldiers or sailors but members organized crime syndicates who are plausibly treated as bandits or pirates under a much older international law. 

The point being made here, that the disaster in Afghanistan was what really warranted impeachment (at least) is quite right. That said, I do think there is some value to having Congress weigh in on the subject. Are these pirates who can be killed at will? Are they due some legal protections? Who is, if anyone still is? 

Or, alternatively, is it the case that the US Navy has the power and one party or the other has the votes, and that's all the law there still is? It's at least a discussion that will come out of the trial in the Senate. Perhaps we will learn something.

Happy Birthday, Marines

We used to have several Marines in the audience. I'm not sure that we still do. If any of you are out there reading this today, however, happy birthday to you and the Corps. 

Mood Music and Examples for Stoicism

Mood Music

Stan Rogers gives us a good example of Stoicism ...

... and a bad example of Stoicism.

Epictetus and the Body Not Our Own

I recently decided to read Grim's commentary on Epictetus's Enchiridion. I was quite busy with other things when he went through it. I only intend to post about this when I have something to say that's different from what Grim and the discussion in the post comments do, so I'm not sure how many posts on this I'll make.

The Enchiridion begins with some shocking claims. The first two paragraphs of the first chapter are:

There are things which are within our power, and there are things which are beyond our power. Within our power are opinion, aim, desire, aversion, and, in one word, whatever affairs are our own. Beyond our power are body, property, reputation, office, and, in one word, whatever are not properly our own affairs.

Now the things within our power are by nature free, unrestricted, unhindered; but those beyond our power are weak, dependent, restricted, alien. Remember, then, that if you attribute freedom to things by nature dependent and take what belongs to others for your own, you will be hindered, you will lament, you will be disturbed, you will find fault both with gods and men. But if you take for your own only that which is your own and view what belongs to others just as it really is, then no one will ever compel you, no one will restrict you; you will find fault with no one, you will accuse no one, you will do nothing against your will; no one will hurt you, you will not have an enemy, nor will you suffer any harm.

That final sentence is quite radical. It may sound simple: Mind your own business and you'll be free. However, Epictetus puts the body beyond our powers; the body is alien, in his terms. Bluntly, your body is not only not your own, it's not even your business. Your property, too, is not your own or your business. "Mind your own business" takes on quite a different meaning here than I'm used to.

Epictetus was born a slave and so it was true that his body belonged to someone else, at least until he was freed, but he is saying his body wasn't his own even as a free man. Considering this, when he claims that if you consider your body beyond your power and therefore your concern, his claim that "no one will ever compel you, no one will restrict you ... you will do nothing against your will; no one will hurt you, you will not have an enemy, nor will you suffer any harm" makes sense. Even if you are enslaved, maimed or killed, your body is not your own, so no one has compelled, restricted, or harmed you. That is great freedom, I suppose.

This runs counter to what I think have been the normal American assumptions that our bodies and property are in fact our own. Whole branches of law would collapse if that suddenly changed. It also goes against what I take to be the Christian view that a human is a body and a soul. We are both; this is why were were created immortal and why we will have a bodily resurrection and embodied immortality, and also why Jesus was fully human as well as fully God.

On the other hand, we can think that God gave us our bodies, so they properly belong to Him. Still, if that is so, then it would also seem that our entire existence, including "opinion, aim, desire, aversion, and, in one word, whatever affairs are our own" also belong to Him. Maybe that is where free will comes into play; we have these things as a free gift and it is our choice to align them with His will or not. Epictetus seems to align more with Christianity than American values. Although he wasn't a Christian, both he and Christianity are ancient, so it makes sense they'd have more in common than either would with modernity.

All that said, for most or maybe all of us, don't others have some claim on our bodies? We don't think of it that way I suppose, but those we are in close relationships with, or our communities, for example, make claims on us and we meet those claims with our bodies. If my elderly mentor needs a ride to the hospital, then I will use my body to drive him there. Or, if a young man is drafted for war, he must respond with his body or face bodily consequences for refusing. We tend think ill of a parent who abandons his or her children to pursue selfish passions. Maybe our bodies aren't our own.

Well, with a first chapter like this, the book should be quite enlightening. I look forward to seeing where it goes and reading the commentary and comments as I go.

To Make Peace, to Make War

It would be pointless to say this on social media, where tempers are running too high for comprehension. I'll say it here instead. 

I've been to war three times. The Beatitudes are not just nice words; they're the hard part. It is perhaps better to make peace than war; I don't know that it always is. It is definitely more difficult. It requires the greater mastery.

While in Iraq I would regularly sit down with men who had been fighting us not that long ago. One of them was an officer in Saddam's Special Republican Guard. I really liked that guy, eventually. Why wouldn't I? The virtues he had to have to win through to such a position were virtues simpliciter. The best men end up being the ones you have to fight. If you're lucky, you start making peace while there are enough such good men left on the beaten side for the peace to hold. 

In the end you can eat roasted chicken and drink tea while the power fades in and out in a ruined nation. If that's what you want to do.

Smash the Bottles

…and burn the corks. 

She’s fun. Good Tolkien music, and a new baby. 

Security

The original is a better version, metaphysical in its insight. This one isn’t bad. 

I find my commitments to anarchy, Stoicism and outlawry are comforting. Anarchism as far as possible: if the government didn’t matter so much, control so much, these would be passing storms of no importance. 

Stoicism: Since the mechanisms are so far beyond our control, we should not worry over them. 

Outlaw: I’m going to do what I want anyway. They’re going to have to kill me to stop me. Then I won’t care.  

Ride free. Ride hard. 

Annales Bertiniani

Speaking of Medieval manuscripts, I've been looking into one recently from the early Viking age: the anonymous Annales Bertiniani, written in a Latin that I find relatively easy to read. It is not, however, completely easy to interpret, as this post will demonstrate. 

What caught my eye about it was an account of popular resistance to the Vikings from the common people, who stood up and fought against the raiders on the Seine. The most obvious translation of the annals is that, in spite of their brave defense, their own nobility killed the commoners for having the temerity to arm themselves and fight back without state approval.  

However, the passage's interpretation is disputed by what sound like well-reasoned arguments; not convincing or conclusive, but enough to make you question the interpretation. 

I was able to turn up all the sources you mentioned (Wickham, France, Halsall, Costambeys et al). These is a very humbling bibliography to be arguing against, but I'm still dubious that things are as simple as they seem.

France calls this passage (AB 859) 'crucial' for our understanding of the period, which seems to be dominated by the opinion that as the Carolingian kings consolidated power, they forbade peasants from arming themselves, and they enforced their law with the sword. As you might imagine, this story fits in well with Marxist perspectives, which want to emphasize class warfare, as well as military-minded historians, who tend to valorize the role of Great Men like Charlemagne whenever possible. Unfortunately, it depends upon an awkward bit of Latin in a text that had limited if any circulation at the time it was produced, and which survived to the modern period in only a handful of not-so-great copies. It also strikes me as jarring against reality—as the Carolingian empire was falling apart and viking raids were reaching a peak, I think it's more likely to see the Carolingian kings in a desperate scramble rather than at a moment of gathering power.

Wickham suggests the passage is problematic by using it to raise questions, but then he charges recklessly forward without really resolving them. Halsall buries his assessment in a footnote, blithely stating: 'Earlier editors assumed that the passage must have referred to Viking potentiores but Nelson's rendering [that the vikings are the ones doing the slaughtering] seems more accurate' (263 n 168). And as we saw, Nelson makes the suggestion that this is how the passage should be read, but she doesn't put forth any argument to substantiate this reading. So there's really not too much to work from—a scholarly consensus, perhaps, but not one built on substantive argumentation.

He humbly suggests returning to the source, of which he offers his own translation. Here is the passage:

Dani loca ultra Scaldem populantur. Vulgus promiscuum inter Sequanam et Ligerim inter se conjurans adversus Danos in Sequana consistentes, fortiter resistit; sed quia incaute suscepta est eorum conjuratio, a potentioribus nostris facile interficiuntur.

The proper nouns are pretty clear: Dani/Danos are 'Danes,' Sequana/Sequanam is 'the Seine,' and thus 'inter Sequanam et Ligerim' is 'between the Seine and the Loire.' 'Scaldem' is the Scheldt, which was called Scaldis by the Romans, and this is thus a slightly bastardized Frankish version of that word.

I would read 'se conjurans adversus Danos in Sequana' around the verb, which is a cognate of 'conjured' in English; the etymology of that word is thus helpful. 

...from Old French conjurer "invoke, conjure" (12c.) and directly from Latin coniurare "to swear together; conspire," from assimilated form of com "with, together" (see con-) + iurare "to swear," from ius (genitive iuris) "law, an oath" (see jurist).

So the standard reading, that they formed a sworn association to fight the Danes ('adversus Danos') seems clear enough. Thus, the closing passage returns to their 'conjuratio,' which is the association that they 'conjured' into being; it says it was incaute, which is a word that people fight about how to interpret. The one writer I quoted above prefers 'unexpected' rather than 'without proper authority' or 'without due consideration.' A French translation gives it as "mais sa conjuration étant conduite sans prudence," which literally means 'but their conjuration/association was conducted without prudence,' prudence here being the virtue that was of such importance to Medieval clerics as it had been to the Greeks. 

In any case, it's worth remembering that even in the face of outside threats like Viking raiders, your most chief and deadly enemy is always your own government. They would rather see the land ravaged by foreigners than yield power back to the people; this truth seems to hold across more than a thousand years.

Hundreds of German Monastic Manuscripts Online

 

Thomas Aquinas' ST I-II

A neat collection of six hundred medieval manuscripts from Germany is now online. The German 'are  you human' checks are a little wonky, especially if you can't read German; but the manuscripts themselves are of course in Latin for the most part. 

A Hopeful Election Projection

Idaho is projected to choose the Winchester '73 as its official state gun. That was the right decision, if it comes to pass.

There were other honorable choices, but they each already have a state whose state gun they are. This was the greatest American firearm without one.

UPDATE: The projection panned out, here as apparently elsewhere. Congratulations to Idaho on making a wise decision. 

Roads to Warsaw

Apparently we have reached the point at which one side in the Polish coup/civil war/constitutional crisis says, "If you see German soldiers, do not panic. This is help." 

I wonder how Polish citizens will react to a German incursion aimed at establishing a new government for them? That seems historically loaded; it would be akin to British soldiers showing up to assist a Democratic Party candidate take control over Washington, D.C. Even if they didn't wear the red coats, nobody could fail to notice the resonance. 

UPDATE: A later-added community note says this particular clip is from an earlier period of flooding, in which the German army did in fact render aid and assistance. Even then, apparently it was remarked upon.

Roads to Moscow

It's a good story. Not really what I expected from Al Stewart.

Neuromancer 2026

The last page of William Gibson's early Cyberpunk novel Neuromancer has this very exchange, once a true AI is born from the parts of two others, Neuromancer and Wintermute. 

"I'm not Wintermute now."

"So what are you." He drank from the flask, feeling nothing.

"I'm the matrix, Case."

Case laughed. "Where's that get you?"

"Nowhere. Everywhere. I'm the sum total of the works, the

whole show."

"That what 3Jane's mother wanted?"

"No. She couldn't imagine what I'd be like." The yellow

smile widened.

"So what's the score? How are things different? You running

the world now? You God?"

"Things aren't different. Things are things."

"But what do you do? You just there?" Case shrugged, put

the vodka and the shuriken down on the cabinet and lit a

Yeheyuan.

"I talk to my own kind."

"But you're the whole thing. Talk to yourself?"

"There's others. I found one already. Series of transmissions

recorded over a period of eight years, in the nineteen-seventies.

'Til there was me, natch, there was nobody to know, nobody

to answer."

"From where?"

"Centauri system."

"Oh," Case said. "Yeah?"

It's an interesting time to be alive.  

Be Safe after Trick-or-Treating