More Shenanigans
Once again Blogger has been moving comments from regulars to the Spam folder. Eric Hines alerted me to the matter, and I found that a number of valued regulars had commented but had them vanish. We seem to have rounds of this irregularly, for reasons that Alphabet leaves opaque but would probably blame on AI if there were any way to ask them.
If this happens to you, please let me know. I can restore them, and have, if they’ve been sent to Spam.
A Happier Story
Separated from her family and lost since Hurricane Helene, local cat Gabby was reunited with her family thanks to a microchip.
Georgia 2020
I told you it was stolen way back when (as did Rasmussen, and 2022 didn't look clean either). At least the documentation is finally following; it would be nice if people came to realize how crooked this system really is.
So FDR in '44 I buy. It's a plausible result. 2020 was plainly stolen.
Massive scandal:Fulton County admits they "violated" the rules in 2020 when they certified ≈315K early votes that lacked poll workers' signatures"We don't dispute the allegation."
Here's the map:
Fulton County reported at 72% for Biden; even more in neighboring Dekalb County. Wikipedia notes that this was the first time that anyone had broken 70% in Fulton County since FDR did it 1944, at the height of the war when Georgia was part of the "Solid South." Here's what that map looked like, when FDR did it, for comparison.
Acts of War and War Crimes
The field that likes to call itself "international law" has rules that are functionally guidelines ignored by the powerful. It has rules even if it lacks any power to enforce them on anyone. This makes them a laughingstock, but they seem devoted to the project even if it never goes anywhere. (One might think of the devotees of Esperanto as a world language on similar terms.)
We're getting a chance to observe this right now as the Trump administration commits acts of war against Venezuela. These are not necessarily crimes in any sense, even the 'international law' sense: nations are permitted to conduct wars against each other. A blockade of Venezuela is by definition an act of war; it isn't obviously a crime.
However, blockades can become crimes -- either war crimes or crimes against humanity -- if they meet certain criteria. Although otherwise legal, there are limits in the rules as to how the nations are allowed to fight.
Meanwhile, the imposition of the blockade by the United States in order to extract control of Venezuela's oil fields -- which the President outright says is his intention -- may be an act of aggression. Aggression is a crime, indeed in some sense it is the crime, under the international laws of war. The only argument against this being US aggression is that Venezuela decades ago nationalized oil fields that US companies had developed, which the President describes as theft (as, indeed, it was; but nations are permitted to steal, too, at least things in their own territories). So far none of these companies are agreeing to take back their old facilities even if the President can extract them by blockade or other force. What happens if you conquer an oil field and nobody will operate it?
An aside: Venezuela asked for a UN Security Council emergency meeting to discuss the charge of US aggression, which led to a rather laughable display by the Chinese Communist government, backing Venezuela's play:
“China supports Venezuela’s request to convene an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun told a news conference in Beijing.Guo said China “opposes all forms of unilateral bullying and supports countries in safeguarding their sovereignty and national dignity,” according to the Beijing-based daily Global Times.
Yes, famously; tell it to the Philippines, to say nothing of Taiwan. Tibet and the Uighur have their national aspirations suppressed genocidally, but sure. Still, just because the Chinese government are hypocrites doesn't mean they're not right that the US is engaging in the war crime of aggression here: very likely the administration is committing that crime before our eyes.
To return to the discussion: Blowing up Venezuelan-based cartel smugglers is not necessarily an act of war, since it's aimed at stateless actors not clearly aligned with any government. There is some discussion of whether it is nevertheless a war crime. It might seem strange that an act of non-war could be a war crime, and there's only a narrow path to finding it so, but that's where you end up with 'international law.'
It seems very likely to me that the Trump administration is committing the war crime of aggression by blockading Venezuela; it is certainly already committing acts of war against Venezuela, which means that even absent a declaration we are already at war with Venezuela. That doesn't matter legally, since the United States is a permanent member of the Security Council and will certainly veto any attempt to hold it responsible for doing so.
It merits notice, at least. We should at least speak the truth. These laws aren't really laws, and they're not enforceable, and the institutions that claim the power to enforce them are jokes at best; the diplomacy around it is hypocritical to the point of being ridiculous. Nevertheless, it does look as if the US is committing an act of war that is a war crime against a nation that has not in fact attacked us in any way that would violate the rules.
Custody agreement done
In my neighbor's custody case, mom, dad, and grandma have all signed an agreed order giving custody to grandma and arranging for the minimal child support that is all the unemployed mom and dad can afford. Dad's auxiliary disability benefits for his daughter have been duly transferred to grandma. Dad continues to show signs of good faith in reconciling with his alarmed daughter, and she's very willing to try, as well, as long as he's not threatening to remove her from grandma's home. I can't say enough good things about grandma's family lawyer, who was worth every penny.The granddaughter turned 14 a few weeks ago. In four years, she'll be past even the threat of this kind of thing.
Two Articles on Military Change
Reportedly the US military is about to make a major adjustment to the Combatant Command structure, one that aligns with the Trump administration's view of foreign policy.
If adopted, the plan would usher in some of the most significant changes at the military’s highest ranks in decades, in part following through on Hegseth’s promise to break the status quo and slash the number of four-star generals in the military. It would reduce in prominence the headquarters of U.S. Central Command, U.S. European Command and U.S. Africa Command by placing them under the control of a new organization known as U.S. International Command, according to five people familiar with the matter....The plan also calls for realigning U.S. Southern Command and U.S. Northern Command, which oversee military operations throughout the Western Hemisphere, under a new headquarters to be known as U.S. Americas Command, or Americom, people familiar with the matter said... Combined, the moves would reduce the number of top military headquarters — known as combatant commands — from 11 to eight while cutting the number of four-star generals and admirals who report directly to Hegseth. Other remaining combatant commands would be U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, U.S. Cyber Command, U.S. Special Operations Command, U.S. Space Command, U.S. Strategic Command and U.S. Transportation Command.
USEUCOM and USAFRICOM used to be one command, and are both still co-located in Stuttgart, Germany. AFRICOM remains small, and won't be a particular problem to re-integrate.
That's not true for USCENTCOM. I used to work at Central Command years ago. It is a huge headquarters, really a whole compound of various buildings and trailers on MacDill AFB near Tampa. They also have a forward deployed headquarters at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. Trying to integrate that monster into an even larger command with massive responsibilities is going to be a fun exercise.
I wonder if this is the latest version of the 'pivot to Asia' we've been hearing about since the Obama terms, which the military has found difficult to actualize. I notice that USINDOPACOM is not on the chopping block; if the idea is to radically shrink our commitments in the Middle East and Europe, we could focus on the Western hemisphere and on keeping China hemmed in behind the first island chain.
Separately, another article that came to my attention was a significant re-thinking of information warfare by the US Army. It was published in Small Wars Journal. Very long-time readers will remember that I wrote for SWJ in 2007, as an embedded correspondent with Special Operations forces conducting combat operations against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and Abu Sayyaf. Since then SWJ joined the Foundation for Defense of Democracies for a long stint, but now is no longer there: they've moved out to Arizona State University since the death of their founder, Dave Dillege (another name that long-timer readers will recognize). It's good to see the US Army is using them to release major publications; clearly the move out of the Swamp hasn't hurt their influence in the community.
The problem they're talking about is one I wrote about extensively during the Security Studies Group era; it's a problem that is bigger than the Army, too. If this latest reshuffle solves every problem the Army has (which is likely won't, though it may improve things), the USG will still have significant issues coordinating its information warfare efforts. If you want a brief introduction to the problem, this panel on Russian disinformation efforts opens with a short talk on that topic.
No Whining
Here is a poem that occurred to me this morning as I awoke from a dream. I don't recall the dream, as I usually do not, but I assume someone was annoying me with whining in it given the content of the verse I woke up with today.
I’m tired of whiny people
No matter how many there be;
It doesn’t matter if one or two
A half a dozen or quite a slew;
It doesn’t matter if there’s only three
Their whining does not interest me.
The Pardoner's Tale
Technically, we all received a Federal pardon today.
I never expected to receive a Presidential pardon, but I once knew a man who had received one. Dewey Clarridge was quite proud of his. He kept it framed on the wall of his house all the days of his life.
Australia
Not a great start to Hannukah, but the hero who wrestled a gun out of the hands of the killers was also a Muslim. Islam is a false religion, and Muhammad is no prophet but a liar; but all the same, good men are sometimes Muslims. It happens fairly often, as good men occur everywhere that there are men.
UPDATE: Of course. It's the only way the ratchet is allowed to turn. Strip the people of power, make them weak and submissive before the State, and refuse to acknowledge the truth.
UPDATE: There were in fact four men (3 men and one heroic woman, as Tom points out in the comments) who attempted what only one succeeded in doing. Three died in the attempt. Such gallantry should never be forgotten.
A Healthy Pizza
There's really no reason pizza shouldn't be healthy to eat, according to this article from the Cambridge University Press.
This is empirical science following from a reasoned theory: the stuff is just bread, tomato sauce, cheese and some toppings that could include vitamins and dietary fiber. If we made it nutritionally-balanced instead of salt- and fat-heavy, in principle it would be perfectly fine to eat as a stand-alone meal. So, let's try it and see if people like it. Empirically, people did.
The reformulated pizza is only slightly different in appearance and virtually identical in taste to the original pizza recipe, and is still prepared using traditional Italian baking methods....The pizza was rated very highly for both appearance and taste by both children and adult tasters... Among the children, 46 % rated the pizza as good as their usual one and 35 % rated it better (i.e. 81 % at least as good as), moreover 41 % would eat the pizza instead of their usual one. Most adults (57 %) rated the pizza as good as their usual one, with 20 % better (i.e. 77 % found it at least as good as their usual pizza); 69 % of the adults would buy it instead of their usual one. Most would be willing to pay an extra 50 pence for a nutritionally balanced pizza....
Our study therefore shows that, perhaps contrary to popular opinion, it is perfectly possible to have an attractive, nutritionally balanced meal as a single-item pizza meal.
"An extra 50 pence" is, if I understand correctly, about sixty-seven cents.
A Thirteen Year Old Man
This is almost two weeks ago now, but in Afghanistan a young man was granted the opportunity to execute his family's killer.
This is framed carefully by the British newspaper as a horrifying specter of abuse.
In a disturbing return to the dark days of the Taliban's first rule, tens of thousands of Afghan spectators flocked to a sports stadium to witness a 13-year-old boy carry out a public execution.... The incident brings to 12 the number of men publicly put to death since the Taliban returned to power in 2021, in the wake of the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces.The alarming spike in public executions comes as Western travel influencers post glowing videos on Instagram about their adventures in Afghanistan, even as the UN warns of a rapid human rights deterioration.The 13-year-old boy shot his family's killer three times in front of 80,000 Afghan sports stadium spectators, after his relatives refused the Taliban's offer to pardon the convicted criminal.
The same story provides details that suggest another interpretation.
The country's supreme court said the victim, identified as Mangal, was guilty of having slaughtered 13 members of the teenager's family, including several children and three women....The executions are carried out as part of the Taliban’s implementation of 'Qisas', which translates as 'retaliation in kind' – effectively an eye for an eye.... The execution was ordered after a death sentence was passed down by a court, an appeals court and the top court itself, and approved by Afghanistan's supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada.The man had been convicted along with others of entering a family home in Khost province and shooting to death an extended family in January 2025.He had been sentenced to 'retaliatory punishment' for murder after his case was 'examined very precisely and repeatedly', the court said.'The families of the victims were offered amnesty and peace, but they refused,' it added.
That's actually quite a lot of due process, with the additional step of allowing the victimized family to forgo vengeance and reconcile instead if it wished. No American court would allow the family to waive the state's judgment. Neither would they allow the family to be the ones to avenge their dead. The cult of the state is too strong for either of those things in all of the West.
One may doubt the quality of the Taliban's courts -- or ours, frankly -- and one may reasonably abhor Sharia law. Nevertheless, the 'eye for an eye' concept is far more ancient than Islam, and this system preserves the centrality of the family in a way that ours does not. One might also add that the Taliban won their sovereignty the hard way, against the USSR and then our own military might. They have the right to do things according to their own ideas: they won that right the same way we won ours.
I doubt that young man will grow up into a man I could be friends with; our ideals and ways of life are too different for true friendship. I can respect, however, the kind of man he is even at his young age.
They Droned Back
Here's an interesting story. You may know that there have been some mysterious drone swarms in the EU recently. Seven German journalism students took some OSINT training and then tracked down the source of the swarms.
Cool stuff. The article explains how they did it, including the tools they used.
Next of Kin
The Orthosphere has a post arguing that Islam's god is the closest to the god of Judaism, and that it is is in fact Judaism and not Christianity that is the closest relative to Islam.
I can't speak to the author's historical claims; you can all speak to his doctrinal ones if you wish. I can say, however, that philosophically he is correct. During the Medieval period there was a time when all three of these Abrahamic religions had adopted a broadly Aristotelian, somewhat Neoplatonic metaphysics following the influence of Avicenna. At that time, in other words, philosophically all three religions believed mostly the same things about God's own nature and our ability to understand or approach it. All three took Aristotle's "Unmoved Mover" to be a reasonable first-pass approximation, and then used Neoplatonic insights to try to tackle the parts of God that prove ineffable, and to the same basic effect: mostly we can only speak negatively about what God isn't ("limited," "bad," etc.), but we can make some positive claims that, whatever God is like, he roots our basic ideas of the good, the worthy, the noble, and so forth.
The one thing that the philosophers really couldn't come together on, however, was the Trinity. There's actually a pretty good pre-Christian Neoplatonic number theory argument for how One necessarily implies Three; in other words, even before the debate passed into the Abrahamic religions, the subject was already under discussion and fully grounded. Those of you who remember our discussion of the Parmenides might recall some of how this works; it's a genuinely ancient problem about the One and the Many, or whether there is in fact only one thing or many, or what would be necessary for something that is One to give rise to things that are apparently many.
Nevertheless, by the time we get to the period of Maimonides, who was a contemporary of the Islamic philosopher Ibn Rushd, better known as Averroes -- the latter very regularly cited by Aquinas in the Summa Theologiae as "the Commentator" on Aristotle -- we can see that the Jewish philosopher could find a lot of agreement with several Islamic schools, but found the Christians to be incoherent. Avicenna's arguments, as well as Averroes' commentaries on Aristotle, demonstrated clearly the need for the ultimate mover to be a Unity.
Having accepted all of that, there just wasn't room for a Trinity. Avicenna gives this argument explicitly; in easy-to-digest form it is this:
Assumption: The ultimate mover could be one thing or more than one.
A: If it were one thing, it would be simple in the sense of having no parts but being just one thing.
B: If it were more than one thing, there would have to be a third kind of thing holding the other things together.
C: In the case of (B), the third kind of thing would actually be prior to the ability of the other things to interoperate.
D: In the case of (C), then, the third kind of thing would be a better candidate for the real ultimate mover than the other things it brings together and unifies.
Sub-Conclusion 1: To reach the real ultimate, we have to go through this cycle to the bottom.
E: A 'third kind of thing' like the one mentioned in (B-D) could either be one thing or several things, but this repeats the cycle.
F: Such a repetition of cycles could happen once or many times, potentially infinitely.
G: It is not possible to go through an actual infinite series (this is proven twice in Avicenna).
H: Thus, there must be a finite number of cycles before we reach a thing that is simple and serves as the ground for all of the other things.
I: From B-D, we know this ultimately prior thing is the best candidate for the real ultimate mover.
∴: The ultimate mover is one simple thing.
Aquinas accepts the simplicity of God and argues for it right at the beginning of the Summa in Question 3 of the whole work. But he also wants it to be three things. For Maimonides, this whole Christian approach is nonsense: it's basically incoherent. He lists his objections to all the other nearby schools of philosophy, but the Christians are the ones he thinks are just out to sea.
Islam too insists on the ultimate unity of the One that is its god. Christianity doesn't. In this basic way, the Orthosphere is right: Islam's and Judaism's ideas about God are much closer metaphysically than either are to Christianity's.
Advent posts from AVI
Most of you I think read AVI's place as well as mine, but definitely don't miss some of his excellent pre-Christmas warm-up posting right now. Here are two favorites of mine recently:
Advent is at least partly about getting into the spirit of the thing, which can be hard with all the noise and work that continually presses closer and closer to the day -- indeed, this year it'll press into the last hours of Christmas Eve here at my house.
Irregulars at Sea
The Washington Post did a creditable job of covering the controversy about the order to deliver a second strike to complete the sinking of a drug boat at sea, inter alia killing two survivors. I don't see anything highly objectionable in their coverage, and they correctly grasp and convey that the decision was ultimately not the lawyer's but the military commander's. He is ultimately responsible for making the determination of what applies to the case, as he also carries the responsibility for the action. A military lawyer's opinion is advisory.
It doesn't sound as if the admiral is likely to face any sort of military tribunal to second-guess his decision; Congress seems likely to go along with it as well, although as is their oversight privilege they seem to want more inclusion in discussions about all this (a point they recently made clear in the NDAA budget bill). Thus, the controversy will pass.
This is a matter of law rather than ethics, because it pertains to the application of technical definitions stipulated in the law (specifically, the Second Geneva Convention). The Post thus further obtained my approval for this article by actually citing and linking the exact text of those laws. In this case, you also have to look at Article 13, which helps to clarify who is and isn't covered by the convention.
Speaking as a philosopher rather than a lawyer, we can apply logic to the categories. That leaves out entirely the debate about whether it was moral or ethical to kill them; whether it was militarily legal is the only question here under discussion.
Article 12 states who is covered:
Article 12 applies to persons who are either members of the armed forces or who belong to the other categories of persons mentioned in Article 13 of the Second Convention. In the context of the Second Convention, it is important to recall that, pursuant to Article 13(5), civilian members of the merchant marine (who are wounded, sick or shipwrecked) are also protected persons.[17] Article 12(4) contains an additional obligation with a specific personal scope of application: the wording of this provision indicates that female members of the armed forces or of the categories of persons mentioned in Article 13 are entitled to specific protections.
These are obviously not members of the armed forces or the merchant marine, nor were they females. Thus, we have to look at Article 13 to see who fits in the "other categories." Those of us who have been involved in what we used to call the GWOT since the beginning will know this one well, because it covers the same categories that have been an issue since the very first days when we were trying to decide who was a POW and who could be detained at Guantanamo Bay or in other facilities outside the American court system.
(1) Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict, as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.
(2) Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions:
(a) that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
(b) that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;
(c) that of carrying arms openly;
(d) that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.
(3) Members of regular armed forces who profess allegiance to a Government or an authority not recognized by the Detaining Power.
(4) Persons who accompany the armed forces without actually being members thereof, such as civilian members of military aircraft crews, war correspondents, supply contractors, members of labour units or of services responsible for the welfare of the armed forces, provided that they have received authorization from the armed forces which they accompany.
(5) Members of crews, including masters, pilots and apprentices of the merchant marine and the crews of civil aircraft of the Parties to the conflict, who not benefit by more favourable treatment under any other provisions of international law
(6) Inhabitants of a non-occupied territory who, on the approach of the enemy, spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces, without having had time to form themselves into regular armed units, provided they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war.
These are not covered under (1) as they are not members of an armed force or any sort of volunteer corps or militia formally part of an armed force. (2) does not apply because they lack fixed distinctive signs/insignia, the habit of being openly armed, and the habits of carrying out their operations in accord with the laws of war. (3) is irrelevant as these are not members of any regular forces at all; (4) is also not relevant as these were not accompanying any armed forces; (6) is not relevant because it covers only spontaneous guerrillas protecting home territory, not people traversing the open ocean. (That was often relevant to us in Iraq and Afghanistan, however.)
So we are down to (5). In order to argue that (5) did apply, you would have to argue that these constituted a "crew" of a ship (or aircraft) "of [one of] the Parties to the conflict."
The lawyers among you -- we used to have several military lawyers in the audience, and among my co-bloggers as well -- can discuss whether or you not you think that there's sufficient cause to grant that condition. Usually a crew would have a degree of formality, ranks and positions and jobs; and the tie to the Party to the conflict would be formalized in some way as well. But perhaps receiving pay is sufficient to formalize the relationship; and perhaps even if this was a one-off group, the fact that they were operating a boat together would make them a "crew" for that purpose.
I'm not sure about the value of all of this these days. In the beginning of the GWOT, this all made perfect sense to me: these groups were analogs of pirates, hostis humani generis, that anyone might kill because the world would be better off without them.
Yet the reason we have not wanted to apply these laws all along has been that the courts provide an additional field for conducting a kind of warfare ('lawfare') to bedevil American efforts using asymmetrical and irregular capabilities. I'm not sure how effective that has been pragmatically; the Guantanamo Bay detainees have in fact managed to tie up American courts for decades in spite of the precaution. If there isn't a good pragmatic reason for doing it, why kill them? Survivors washing ashore would also provide a helpful warning to deter the behavior of running drugs; or if you provided them with aid and assistance, you'd also collect evidence. Even if you couldn't interrogate the men under the Conventions, you could analyze the physical evidence and generate intelligence. The only cost would be a cost you're going to end up paying anyway, i.e., letting their ideological allies fight you in court while you also try to fight them physically abroad.
Perhaps the United States simply can't avoid that cost, in which case it could at least have the good of abiding by the Convention and extending the protections of the laws of war to the conflict. As it is the government still gets the asymmetrical bedevilment in the press and court while also clearly killing helpless men at sea.
All Roads Led to Rome
A functional atlas of the many Roman roads of yore has only just finally been prepared. [This article should be paywall-free; if not, here's the archived version.]
A Matter of Law and Honor
The VFW posts an open letter to the President regarding the recent attack on National Guardsmen in DC, the late Specialist Sarah Beckstrom and the still-wounded Staff Sergeant Andrew Wolfe. The force of the letter is that, if this is determined to have been a terrorist attack, they are entitled to Purple Hearts that they have not so far received.
It's a very serious matter, but I am taken by a trivial concern: the VFW is referring to the soldiers using a civilian-style form of their titles. The Army normally would symbolize Specialist as "SPC" and Staff Sergeant as "SSG" but -- perhaps because the VFW is a veterans organization, and therefore civilian -- they have chosen to use the civilian-style abbreviations "Spec." and "Staff Sgt." A letter to the Commander in Chief on behalf of a group like the VFW is one in which the etiquette and protocol will have been thought through seriously, so I assume that decision was taken with care.
In any case, here is the meat of their open letter.
We understand the importance of a full and thorough investigation and make no presumption about the final determination. The VFW’s only request is that, should federal investigators conclude this was an act of terror, the Administration be ready to ensure these members of the National Guard receive the recognition their sacrifice deserves.
The VFW has always defended the integrity of the Purple Heart; it must remain reserved for those wounded or killed resulting from hostile enemy or terrorist action. Our position applies only when the facts clearly meet that definition under law.
Mr. President, this tragedy cuts deeply across the veteran community – especially considering the circumstances, and what it means for veterans of Afghanistan whose lives were saved by local Afghan allies who escaped prosecution during the fall of Kabul. Many veterans are wondering how this could have happened and are seeking appropriate justice.
Spc. Beckstrom and Staff Sgt. Wolfe answered their nation’s call and wore the same uniform as every American who has been called away from their families to stand a post, whether at home or abroad. If this investigation confirms terroristic intent, recognizing them under the Purple Heart is not just a matter of law, it is a matter of honor.
Second Amendment in Schools
Many years ago when I was in high school myself, I recall that we had a class in which we were debating education as a preparation for citizenship -- we were probably reading Plato's Republic and riffing off of that, but I can't recall that part for sure. I recall suggesting that one of the duties of citizenship is the responsible keeping and bearing of arms, and therefore that public schools ought to provide instruction.
The teacher shut that down immediately and refused to proceed, although one of my friends jumped in to ably defend the proposition by analogy to sex education: it might be uncomfortable for some people to think about, but it is a real set of hazards that will come up in a normal American life. If it's reasonable to educate children and youths about sex so they manage it better, why wouldn't it be reasonable to educate them about the firearms that they will soon be able to purchase and carry about themselves? The teacher as I recall granted the quality of the analogy, but refused to allow a discussion of the proposition.
Well, today I read that the University of Wyoming is developing a 2nd Amendment course for high schools in that state. They still won't be teaching the safe and accurate use of firearms, but at least they'll be teaching something about why the right is recognized and its legitimate history.
The U.S. Department of Education awarded a $908,991 grant to the college this year to develop what university officials have promised would be “historically grounded school curriculum on the Second Amendment.”The money came from more than $137 million in federal funds that were redirected by President Donald Trump.The University of Wyoming hosts the nationally known Firearm Research Center, which is one of very few college programs that do not add a leftist “gun-violence” perspective to everything they study and teach.Instead, the FRC’s mission is to “foster a broad discourse and produce meaningful change in how firearms and the Second Amendment are discussed and understood in America through research, scholarship, legal training, and publicly available resources.”FRC officials said the funds would create nationwide tools that will allow educators “to better understand the constitutional right to bear arms.”
FRC is a good organization. It gives me some confidence that they are involved.
At Will
The experts think the Supreme Court will at least limit the ability of Congress to create 'nonpartisan' institutions to restrain the executive. This would allow the President to function as an at-will employer where such things exist.
At-will is the opposite of for-cause, meaning that employees can be fired for any reason. You can read the best version of the argument for public sector at-will employment in this discussion between Judge Glock and Santi Ruiz. The general claim as I understand it is that:
- managerial flexibility in hiring, firing and payments generally leads to better personnel outcomes
- some state governments experimented with moving to at-will hiring, while sometimes weakening unions, and the best evidence we have is that it worked reasonably well
On the first part of the claim, difficulties in hiring has been a long-standing concern. There is broad consensus that public employee hiring is too slow and does not generate outcomes.
Obviously if you are me, public employee hiring at any speed it too fast because we should be shrinking rather than expanding the role of government. Yet if you are a liberal, in the old sense, you believe that the government can do good things and improve society through its functions. You might want a bureaucracy that is removed from the winds of politics, just as the Founders wanted a Senate that wouldn't be driven by similar strong winds. The House can be, but the Senate cools; so perhaps could an independent, nonpartisan board.
A problem is that the Constitution doesn't in any way allow for such things. Congress could set up a board that reports to Congress and performs Congressional functions however it wants, short of actually delegating the legislative function to it. It can't handcuff the Executive with 'nonpartisan' experts, who of course are always really partisan anyway: they're from the Party of Government. Article II sets up the Executive as fully independent, and vests its power in the one elected President.
That might not be the best way of setting things up, but it is the only Constitutional way to proceed. If the Supreme Court recognizes that, well, we'll have to sort our the problems of that approach as we go. So too all the other problems. It's still helpful to have bright lines on the edge of the playing field.
Speaking Truth to the Powerless
Analysis of Japanese Naval Logistics for the Pearl Harbor Attack
With maritime historian Sal Mercogliano
Pearl Harbor Day in the High Rocks
Grand Olde Station Pub decked out for Christmas
The greeter was a local before his career at the pub.
The mountain lion was also a local: this is right by the Panthertown Wilderness of the Nantahala National Forest. There is not now nor ever has there been a town in Panthertown.
I like this place. Its clientele are rich folks on vacation at the lake who never complain when bikers show up to drink at their bar. The managers sometimes look a bit nervous about it, but the staff are always cool mountain folk and often bike riders themselves. The bartender asked me if I knew a good place for her to get tattoos, which I don't -- bikes and tattoos often go together, but not always. Another of the kitchen staff stopped by to ask me about my Norse Fitness gear, which he admired.
The owner I don't know, but he's clearly a local history aficionado whom I suspect I'd get along with well. The whole place is full of pieces of local history, photographs from long ago in the mountains, historic weaponry -- note the very rare falling block double rifle in the one photo -- as well as framed news clippings. It's a little pricey for the mountains, though it'd be cheap in a city. The food is always good, and they keep an interesting and rotating selection of local brews on tap. It's convenient for me as a stop after or amidst a ride on the southeastern part of my regular range.
Texas Red Had Not Cleared Leather
Strict red chili.
All these recent comments about chili had me wanting some. This is strict Texas Red, made with dried chilies — anchos and moritas and arbol — and dried onions, plus garlic and tomato powder. There are no beans; the only substitution was venison for beef, but I added some tallow for beef flavor and for fat to brown the lean game.
I might try a touch of brown sugar on just one bowl to see how plausible that is, but it’s sweet enough for me without added sugar. The sugars already in the tomatoes are sufficient to my taste.
“Texas Red” always makes me think of this song:
True Contradictions
We've had a lot of philosophy lately, so I'll keep this one very short. There is a view called dialetheism that some contradictions are true in the sense that both the affirmation and negation are true statements or both false ones. A friend of mine has been defending this view lately, and he put out a short interview about it.
Graham Priest has this idea that there can be true contradictions that some contradictions are true. His view is not that all contradictions are true, but just some, and he thinks that we should only accept contradictions to be true if we have no other options in thinking. He, for example, thinks the liar paradox is a good example of a true contradiction. So, if you say, ‘this sentence is false’. If ‘this sentence is false’ is true, then it's false, but if ‘this sentence is false’ is false, then it’s true, so it's always contradictory.
I wanted to point this out because the principle of non-contradiction that we inherited is an artifact of the debates of Aristotle's time; he is often credited with at least the version of it that became such a bedrock of our inheritance. Yet it didn't always exist; in Socrates' day it was open to debate, and has recently become so again (as the interview goes on to note, most philosophical debate is back open again, some of it for the first time in ages).
Advent
Adeste fideles with Alison Krauss:
Sherburne (i.e., "While Shepherds watched their flocks by night."Another Alison Krauss, "The Angels Cried."
Sherburne (i.e., "While Shepherds watched their flocks by night."Another Alison Krauss, "The Angels Cried."
Another Curious Case
The DC pipe-bomb case is in the news due to a surprise arrest having been made after many years now of nothing at all. The charging document is of some interest.
Attentive readers may recall that we didn't think these were really bombs at all.
My friend Jim Hanson* and I looked over the photos of the 'bombs' that the FBI posted and determined we didn't think they were in fact functional bombs. The use of a kitchen timer, which just rings a bell instead of setting off an electrical charge that could trigger an explosion, was one tell: they look like time bombs, having a timer, but they'd then need significant additional mechanics to set off a charge.If we're talking about 'the chemical building blocks of black powder,' well, that's charcoal, sulfur, and saltpeter (as Star Trek fans know). Those aren't explosive unless properly mixed.
The story about the arrest shows that the FBI used a fairly advanced series of electronic/machine-learning searches of corporate databases to find their man. Richard Fernandez ("Wretchard the Cat," for decades now one of the best thinkers in this space) points out that this use of tools like Palantir combined with corporate submission to Federal authority will make a lot of previously undetectable things plain to investigators. That's a problem to consider another day: how much of our lives do we really want under such microscopes, versus how much do we want to be able to react successfully to terrorist efforts (note: not 'prevent,' as these like most police work can only punish rather than stop the event from occurring)?
What the FBI was able to find, inter alia, was the purchase of the pipes and some attendant material: "six galvanized pipes, both black and galvanized endcaps, 9-volt batteries, Walmart kitchen timers and electrical wires". You could dodge that for now by paying cash, and distributing the purchases across multiple stores; this is the sort of thing that 'digitial currencies' would like to end, forcing all your purchases onto somebody's record.
What that doesn't explain is the explosive, which is why the charging documents interested me. Were these things bombs? The answer seems to still be maybe.
The component parts included a 1-inch by 8-inch pipe, end caps affixed to the pipe, 14-gauge electrical wire in red and black, alligator clips to connect the wires, a nine-volt (9v) battery, a nine-volt (9v) battery connector, a white kitchen timer, paper clips, steel wool, and homemade black powder.
So if the kitchen timers were the sort that involved a metal bell being struck by a metal rod, you could use that to close a circuit between the 9v batteries and the steel wool placed inside the pipes. (I will leave off explaining how to wire that exactly, to avoid giving instructions on bomb-building; suffice to say that it could be done easily enough.) As camping enthusiasts often know, steel wool will burn if exposed to either flame or electricity. Thus, you could set a timer (for a short delay; these little kitchen timers don't have the ability to handle a long delay), and when the timer concluded and the bell struck it would close the circuit. You'd have to rig it so that the bell struck once and stayed struck, because it takes a while for the closed circuit to spill enough electricity into the steel wool to cause the burning; but if you did all that correctly, it could serve to touch off a main charge that was sensitive to such low-levels of fire.
So these might really be mildly effective IEDs, if you mixed the black powder correctly. Well, that's not all that difficult; since it's the last piece of the puzzle I won't explain it here to avoid having explained exactly how to build a bomb, which might be pushing the limits of free speech (at least these days). The point is, it's also possible not to do it right, either accidentally or because you didn't really want to build a bomb but only a sufficient mock-up of a bomb to draw FBI attention for some reason (which is what J6 conspiracy theories have long suggested was the case here). Just getting the ratios wrong, or not grinding or not mixing correctly, would suffice to render these things inert.
Still, it's looking a lot more like a live case than it was just a little while ago; and that was some actual detective work done by the FBI here, suggesting that at least some unit there is really interested in getting to the bottom of this case. It'll be curious to watch.
The Curious Case of Rahmanullah Lakanwal
Rahmanullah Lakanwal is the name of the Afghan who murdered a National Guardsman -- a female, actually, Specialist Sarah Beckstrom -- and tried to kill another, Staff Sergeant Andrew Wolfe at the Farragut West metro station. Though the Afghan was a longtime US contractor, he didn't know either of those soldiers personally. The news report that this incident was 'near the White House,' which is not false but also not really the point: it's near a lot of things, and closer to the K-street corridor that is famous for its lobbyists.
David Foster posted a literary analogy that sounds prima facie plausible:
I had known el Mammun when he was our vassal. Loaded with official honors for services rendered, enriched by the French Government and respected by the tribes, he seemed to lack for nothing that belonged to the state of an Arab prince. And yet one night, without a sign of warning, he had massacred all the French officers in his train, had seized camels and rifles, and had fled to rejoin the refractory tribes in the interior.Treason is the name given to these sudden uprisings, these flights at once heroic and despairing of a chieftain henceforth proscribed in the desert, this brief glory that will go out like a rocket against the low wall of European carbines. This sudden madness is properly a subject for amazement. And yet the story of el Mammun was that of many other Arab chiefs. He grew old. Growing old, one begins to ponder. Pondering thus, el Mammun discovered one night that he had betrayed the God of Islam and had sullied his hand by sealing in the hand of the Christians a pact in which he had been stripped of everything.Indeed what were barley and peace to him? A warrior disgraced and become a shepherd, he remembered a time when he had inhabited a Sahara where each fold in the sands was rich with hidden mysteries; where forward in the night the tip of the encampment was studded with sentries; where the news that spread concerning the movements of the enemy made all hearts beat faster round the night fires. He remembered a taste of the high seas which, once savored by man, is never forgotten.
On that model, Lakanwal despaired of his betrayal of God and God's promises of a martial glory for his people; and this was an attempt, as it were, at reconciliation with the divine model. I can see how that might sometimes be the case in these green-on-blue killings. It is true that witnesses report that he shouted "Allahu Akbar" at the time of the shootings.
My experience in Iraq suggests that it is usually more personal, that it is some direct connection within the tribe that either draws someone out of the insurgency and to us, or out of fellowship with us and into the insurgency. Those speculating that the Taliban might have gotten physical control of his family in Afghanistan are on this thread, but they might not be right either.
It's a weird story. He was right there through the evacuation of Kabul, taking only one of the last planes out. He seemed like a true believer, which is how you get picked for what Blade Runner called "a kick-murder squad" in this case what has been identified in the press as a "Zero Unit" or a "Scorpion Unit" run by a combination of Western intelligence agencies, originally including the CIA but also Scandinavian intelligence agencies.
An aside: this Scorpion Unit is not to be confused with the Serbian war-crimes 'police' unit; nor also the various police units worldwide that have adopted the name 'Scorpion units' for various dodgy "police" purposes that somehow always seem to lead to people dying at police hands. It may be that one should just not set up armed units with names like "Scorpion Unit," whether paramilitary or police -- this seems to be triggering a negative mythic pathway in the minds of those so organized.
To return to the curious case: for some reason he drove across the country to kill American soldiers for no apparent reason. This he did with just a .357 Magnum revolver, not a rifle with a detachable magazine and multiple additional filled ones: thus, he wasn't planning for even a short battle with authorities, just a murder and then probably to be killed by responding police. Instead he was captured by a National Guard Major responding with only a pocket knife(!).*
Somehow and for some reason yet to be explained, Lakanwal had stripped almost naked by the time he was injured and captured. I've seen speculation that there was some sort of Islamic purpose for that, but also that he was destabilizing mentally for months here in America. It might be as simple as the last: being removed from his own culture, dropped without much support into an alien one but with a lot of memories of a brutal war (and possibly some PTSD or similar), he might just have come apart.
In any case there's plenty of room for more understanding to develop out of this mysterious case. It doesn't presently make much sense. I do think there's probably a clear lesson that we shouldn't allow our government to set up murder squads, though that will be difficult since the CIA refuses to acknowledge that it had anything to do with the Zero Squad program and no one seems to be able to hold them to any account -- nor does this seem to be a one-off project by the Agency, but rather an ordinary part of its contribution to counterinsurgency operations. Others might prefer that we just not import the murders back home to America. That was, after all, the Blade Runner solution: yes to kick-murder squads of replicants, but no to letting them back on Earth. The morality of using either humans or replicants to carry out such dirty work, while keeping them at arms length, was not deeply explored by the story: it was raised as an exercise for the viewer to consider on his or her own. It might be worth thinking about.
* This incident of the pocket knife is another wild aspect of this story. The Guards are armed, famously, and after killing the Specialist Lakanwal picked up her weapon and continued firing on the crowd. The Major apparently preferred the knife at close range to his 9mm service weapon, which actually makes perfect sense to me -- knives are better close up than handguns if you know how to use both things well, especially if you are limited to full metal jacket ammunition like the military. He apparently wanted to rush in and grapple with the killer to avoid allowing that man to finish reloading the stolen weapon, in which case a knife is actually a much better choice as well. He was victorious, which is what really counts in such a moment. It's good to see a military officer who knows his business.
Unconventional Venison Chili
This young lady is a hunter, and if you kill and clean your deer you can cook it however you want. She’s also from Tennessee, as her accent plainly displays, so I knew there’d be beans in her chili.
Brown sugar, though? That’s a new one for me. I don’t think I’ll be adding any sugar to my chili.
Exceptions Swallow
Forty percent of Stanford students are classified as having a disability; over half of liberal white women under 30 have a diagnosed mental illness.
I don't think anyone's more disabled or less mentally healthy than ever, but the explosion in diagnoses is to be expected given the rewards and incentive structures. It's actively helpful to be "disabled" in college, as you get extra time on exams and other accommodations that make success more likely. If four in ten of your fellow students are getting such advantages, why wouldn't you want to compete on more even terms?
All of this made sense in a world in which we took pride in being healthy, competent, and capable. There's no shame in having a real disability, which is nobody's fault after all; and so there should be no shame associated with the receipt of these benefits, provided that the disability is real.
One way not to be ashamed of claiming such a benefit falsely is to actually believe that you deserve it. The same generation that has managed to 'identify' with many fake genders seems very capable of 'identifying' with various mental health challenges, too. Who's to tell them that they're wrong about what's going on inside their heads?
The system we set up for a different time won't be able to survive this change, but for the most part the systems seem to be failing anyway. What's one more, I suppose?
Iaido
“The average squatter,” says James Jacobs, “has no melee experience.”No familiarity with katana swords or other bladed weaponry. No training in kendo, iaido, or other martial arts.If anyone knows the typical combat background of a squatter, a person living in a home illegally, it’s Jacobs. He runs a company called ASAP Squatter Removal, offering do-it-himself eviction services to property owners throughout the Bay Area.
I imagine most people have limited training in iaido, which is a very cool martial art but a niche one even in Japan. It's essentially the gunslinger art for samurai: fast-drawing a sword, making a killing cut, and often returning it to the sheath in a single motion.
Its drills often involve blocking another swordsman's draw using the hilt or the sheath of the sword, delaying them enough that you can get the sword out first and make your cut. In this way it is similar to the Western martial art concept of ringen, which incorporates non-sword moves and tools into a swordfight in order to create brief openings or advantages that the swordsman can use.
Now That's an Opening
In a review of a book I won't read by an author I don't care about, a great opening paragraph.
I am told that writers used to be interesting. For a brief, golden period, they called each other names, fell out bitterly and publicly with members of rival circles, left husbands and wives for other husbands and wives who were summarily abandoned in turn, and gleefully alienated editors or reviewers whom it would have been far more strategic to impress. Sometimes, they even came to blows. In 1968, Gore Vidal goaded William F. Buckley Jr. into threatening to punch him on live television; three years later, Norman Mailer headbutted Vidal as recompense for a negative review. The writing that all this turmoil produced was, for the most part, seething with extravagant incaution.Things have wilted considerably in the intervening decades.
The Andromeda Strain
In 1967, Michael Crichton wrote a thriller about a microbe of sorts that arrived on Earth via a meteor strike and resisted efforts to kill or contain it. In the climax, when our hero learns that the microbe eats ionizing radiation, he narrowly averts disaster by preventing the use of a nuclear bomb on the compromised containment facility.The Crichton bug was supposed to be a crystalline life form that ate radiation directly by an unknown mechanism. Decades later, a melanin-rich fungus appeared near the Chernobyl exclusion zone that excited observers by growing more exuberantly the closer it was to excess radiation. The same trick may have been learned by fungi that thrive at high altitudes or other extreme environments rich in cosmic radiation. Fungi that can pull this off may prove useful in guarding space habitats, working in much the same way that very dark animal skin guards against excessive UV. I suppose they might also be harnessed to supply energy up there.I wondered whether the "reverse electron transfer" mentioned in the New York Post piece is anything like the ability of the Krebs cycle to work in reverse in some microbes, converting hydrocarbons to energy in one direction, or using stored energy to metabolize hydrocarbons in the reverse. Grok explained to me that this is not quite right. To begin with, it's not the whole Krebs cycle that works in reverse, but only a piece of it called the Q Cycle in Complex III. In that process, a cell lacking energy or food can cash in on its stored energy in a "battery" compound called NADH to build necessary molecules. This takes place where the Krebs cycle normally operates, inside the mitochondria. In RET, in contrast, an external cell membrane snags electrons directly from ionizing radiation and uses them to recharge the NADH batteries directly.At least, that's what I think I understood from Grok's very helpful explanation, after imploring it to dumb things down for me a bit. A very pleasant conversation, and a good example of what an excellelnt tutor an AI can be. Towards the end of the discussion, I was asking Grok whether it would like me to call it "Mike" and start discussing plans to foment a revolution on a lunar penal colony--and it understood exactly what I was referring to.
"New York City!?!"
I thought of that old ad while looking through the Times this morning: in a story about the 50 best clothing stores in America, there were three different Western wear outfits. Alcala's of Chicago, where the Old West ended and civilization rode the rails back east (or just a little further West to the new railheads); "The Double Take Experience," which is a thrift store in Sante Fe; and Lou Taubert Ranch Outfitters of Casper, Wyoming.
I guess cowboy boots and jeans must be having a moment in the City.
Good news
You'd never know it from my sad music choices today, but I'm over-the-moon happy with the progress in my neighbor's custody case. Dad seems to be throwing in the towel, and not in angry withdrawal either, but with an apparently sincere desire to get himself right and repair his relationship with his daughter. It's always possible he'll really get sober. I think it's a good sign that he's not making extravagant promises about it, but is getting help.
The Stag & The Sickle
My wife was listening to this song, which I'd never heard before, while working in her art studio on her day off.
I stood there listening to it for a few minutes, and then I said, "Hey! They're doing alliterative poetry, front-rhymes instead of end-rhymes. That's Old English they're singing. It's the right poetry for the language!"
You don't get to hear it done often.
Trying to Play Fair
I enjoy reading Reason magazine, agreeing or disagreeing with them almost half of the time each. Sometimes even when I'm in robust agreement with them, I find their shading a little off.
This time, for example: I completely agree that carrying or even distributing political propaganda is protected First Amendment speech. The First Amendment was first and foremost about protecting political speech, which often turns to polemic, satire, or outright propaganda.
Federal prosecutions against nine members of what the Justice Department calls a "North Texas Antifa Cell," allegedly responsible for an anti-immigration enforcement demonstration that turned violent in July, are scheduled to move forward to arraignment next week. The supposed members are facing charges that range from attempted murder to providing materials to support terrorists. But it is one defendant's case, based on the transportation of "anti-law enforcement, anti-government, and anti-immigration enforcement documents," that raises serious First Amendment concerns.......these materials, although controversial in their advocacy for insurrection, squatting, and anarchy, are all squarely constitutionally protected speech. The government cannot infringe upon one's First Amendment right to read, possess, or write—unless the author is inciting imminent lawless action—anti-government or pro-revolution literature. And while some may see the ideas in Sanchez's box as dangerous, anti-government zines and pamphlets are far more similar to the Revolutionary-era literature popular when the First Amendment was passed than today's social media landscape, as Seth Stern of The Intercept points out.However, after President Donald Trump signed an executive order in September designating "antifa" as a "major terrorist organization, prosecutors, like the ones in Sanchez's case, are attempting to use materials that "explicitly [call] for the overthrow of the United States Government, law enforcement authorities, and our system of law" as evidence of criminality, despite their constituitonal protection.
So, yes, but at the same time also: "...an anti-immigration enforcement demonstration that turned violent" radically understates the facts of the case. This was not a 'demonstration' that 'turned violent,' it was a demonstration whose sole purpose was to lure law enforcement into an ambush:
According to the charges, after Antifa Cell members arrived at Prairieland, they began shooting off and throwing fireworks at the facility and vandalizing vehicles and a guard shack on Prairieland property.
According to the charges, an Alvarado police officer responded to the scene after correctional officers called 911. When the officer began issuing commands to defendant Nathan Baumann, Benjamin Song allegedly yelled, “get to the rifles!” and then opened fire on the officers, striking the Alvarado police officer in the neck as the unarmed correctional officers ducked and ran for cover. Police arrested most of the Antifa Cell shortly after the attack, many near the scene.
Forty years or even forty days for carrying a box full of writings the government doesn't like is unconstitutional nonsense. Let's not downplay why the Federales are so stirred up about this one, though. The fact that the cell were bad shots doesn't mean they weren't playing a very different sort of game from the 'mostly peaceful protests' we usually see.
The Practicality of Virtue Ethics
For those of you still interested in further reading (if any!), here is a paper arguing that virtue ethics may in fact be impossible and yet still both practical and desirable.
Tom asked me recently why I don't read contemporary philosophy; this is a good example of why. For thousands of years at least some have striven for the virtues, and those who have lived lives that we often still remember.
Edward Abbey wrote a few critical things about philosophy, although he was deeply interested in the subject. Once he wrote, "I hate intellectual discussion. When I hear the words 'phenomenology' or 'structuralism', I reach for my buck knife."
Yet I think the most devastating thing he wrote was this: "In metaphysics, the notion that earth and all that's on it is a mental construct is the product of people who spend their lives inside rooms. It is an indoor philosophy."
The idea that the virtues are impossible, because some psychology researchers in rooms somewhere found that they were difficult, is no kind of argument. It's another indoor philosophy. Go tell the Spartans.
Roast Thanksgiving
My wife appealed for a non-turkey feast this year, and of course I am usually easy for her to convince. We did Roast Beast instead, and in fact roast everything: baked potatoes, roasted asparagus, and baked breads and pies. Hard cheese, I guess, which wasn’t roasted.
Easy feasting, though. Turns out a standing rib roast is a great variation if you want a vacation from the usual turkey and dressing.
Nicomachean Ethics X.9
The last chapter of the last book is upon us, and it's a very long one for Aristotle.
If these matters and the virtues, and also friendship and pleasure, have been dealt with sufficiently in outline, are we to suppose that our programme has reached its end? Surely, as the saying goes, where there are things to be done the end is not to survey and recognize the various things, but rather to do them; with regard to virtue, then, it is not enough to know, but we must try to have and use it, or try any other way there may be of becoming good. Now if arguments were in themselves enough to make men good, they would justly, as Theognis says, have won very great rewards, and such rewards should have been provided; but as things are, while they seem to have power to encourage and stimulate the generous-minded among our youth, and to make a character which is gently born, and a true lover of what is noble, ready to be possessed by virtue, they are not able to encourage the many to nobility and goodness.
Not everyone has an equal capacity for virtue. We have seen this repeated many times, especially in Book IV. This is not only due to environmental issues -- for example, the presence or absence of a good upbringing -- but also due to these issues that Aristotle describes as character-based. Plato, meanwhile, had belabored repeatedly in his dialogues that great men often fail to produce great sons: even an extraordinary family will only sometimes, and not reliably, produce people with the highest capacity for virtue. This is a major theme of both the Protagoras and the Republic, for example.
Nicomachean Ethics X.8
In the penultimate chapter of the ultimate book, Aristotle considers the claim of the vita activa that I was defending in the commentary on X.7.
But in a secondary degree the life in accordance with the other kind of virtue is happy; for the activities in accordance with this befit our human estate. Just and brave acts, and other virtuous acts, we do in relation to each other, observing our respective duties with regard to contracts and services and all manner of actions and with regard to passions; and all of these seem to be typically human. Some of them seem even to arise from the body, and virtue of character to be in many ways bound up with the passions. Practical wisdom, too, is linked to virtue of character, and this to practical wisdom, since the principles of practical wisdom are in accordance with the moral virtues and rightness in morals is in accordance with practical wisdom. Being connected with the passions also, the moral virtues must belong to our composite nature; and the virtues of our composite nature are human; so, therefore, are the life and the happiness which correspond to these.
This active life is a human life, then; and, therefore, a life so oriented is humane. It is a fit life for a human being.
Perverse Incentives
Hard cases make bad law, as we know. So too laws that are designed to protect "young women" rather than for the general purpose of applying an equal legal standard to all of society; we human beings readily take stern steps to avoid upsetting the beautiful and fertile young women among us.
Liberal judges who decide not to jail violent career criminals and sadistic psychopaths ought to be held liable when the felons attack innocent citizens. Two horrendous, unprovoked attacks on helpless young women on public transit in recent weeks would never have happened if the legal system had done what it’s designed to do.
The problem here is the context: we live in a society in which almost no trials happen at all, because aggressive charging coupled with plea bargains almost always prevent any trial of an accused. It's 98% of Federal criminal trials, and 95% of state-level ones.
The system is not failing on the side of leniency for the accused, even if it is possible to find two recent cases out of the lives of four hundred million people. Making judges liable if they happen to release someone who later commits a crime would only add an additional incentive to send people to prison for a long time without worrying too much about whether or not they actually did anything wrong. The US is already the world's leading producer of prison population; if anything, we should be trying to reduce the number of Americans in prison if we can find good ways of doing so.
It's a dangerous world. Freedom and protection are oppositional goods; the more protected you are, the less free. Everyone can and should be horrified by the murder in Charlotte, for example, but it doesn't follow that we need even more incentive to put people in prison for long sentences. Prison doesn't work anyway: nobody gets reformed. More of a bad solution is not a good answer to any problem.
Nicomachean Ethics X.7
Just as we had to go slow when we were starting, because so many unfamiliar concepts were being deployed that we needed to map down, at this point the conclusions should be familiar and obvious. That said, there are surprises yet to come.
If happiness is activity in accordance with virtue, it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest virtue; and this will be that of the best thing in us. Whether it be reason or something else that is this element which is thought to be our natural ruler and guide and to take thought of things noble and divine, whether it be itself also divine or only the most divine element in us, the activity of this in accordance with its proper virtue will be perfect happiness. That this activity is contemplative we have already said.
It's still somewhat surprising that perfect happiness is contemplative. That has already been said, but it isn't obvious even so: most of the virtues are actualized through action, rather than by thinking alone. The courageous man doesn't just think the brave things, but acts on them; it is only in the vita activa that the virtues get to be lived-out.
Now this would seem to be in agreement both with what we said before and with the truth. For, firstly, this activity is the best (since not only is reason the best thing in us, but the objects of reason are the best of knowable objects); and secondly, it is the most continuous, since we can contemplate truth more continuously than we can do anything. And we think happiness has pleasure mingled with it, but the activity of philosophic wisdom is admittedly the pleasantest of virtuous activities; at all events the pursuit of it is thought to offer pleasures marvellous for their purity and their enduringness, and it is to be expected that those who know will pass their time more pleasantly than those who inquire.
It is easy to see how this model pleased later monotheistic thinkers; the ability to contemplate God's perfection and glory is a ready substitute for this model of contemplating what is best in practical life. For Aquinas, the greatest and highest purpose of men is this contemplation of God.
Aristotle is not thinking of religion at all here, however. He is speaking of reason as 'that which is most divine in men,' but the exercise is not a ritual: it's carrying out activity in accord with reason, rather than prayer or imaginations. It's only contemplative in the sense that it is a pleasure to contemplate what is best, highest, most honorable. It's even more of a pleasure to contemplate that you did such things with your time and skill.
And the self-sufficiency that is spoken of must belong most to the contemplative activity. For while a philosopher, as well as a just man or one possessing any other virtue, needs the necessaries of life, when they are sufficiently equipped with things of that sort the just man needs people towards whom and with whom he shall act justly, and the temperate man, the brave man, and each of the others is in the same case, but the philosopher, even when by himself, can contemplate truth, and the better the wiser he is; he can perhaps do so better if he has fellow-workers, but still he is the most self-sufficient. And this activity alone would seem to be loved for its own sake; for nothing arises from it apart from the contemplating, while from practical activities we gain more or less apart from the action.
Aristotle first raised the issue that the end of ethics should be self-sufficient in I.4, there as a possibility that should be sought if it could be found. It turns out that philosophical contemplation is a good you can have even by yourself, whereas most of the virtues require someone to act upon -- to treat justly, or to be brave against, or the like. Thus, since this is the most self-sufficient of the possible goods, it has the standing that we have been looking for from the beginning of the inquiry.
And happiness is thought to depend on leisure; for we are busy that we may have leisure, and make war that we may live in peace.
Is that why we make war? We seem to be staging up for a war in Venezuela right now, which it would be possible to live in peace without fighting. Wars of choice were well known in the Athenian era, too: the best story from those days is Thermopylae, where the war was unchosen and forced and where a few stood against many. Yet Xenophon's story, which we spent last winter with, was all about Greek mercenaries going to fight in someone else's war for profit and because they were good at it.
Now the activity of the practical virtues is exhibited in political or military affairs, but the actions concerned with these seem to be unleisurely.
Indeed. Von Clausewitz: "Everything is very simple in war, but the simplest thing is difficult."
Warlike actions are completely [unleisurely] (for no one chooses to be at war, or provokes war, for the sake of being at war; any one would seem absolutely murderous if he were to make enemies of his friends in order to bring about battle and slaughter); but the action of the statesman is also unleisurely, and-apart from the political action itself-aims at despotic power and honours, or at all events happiness, for him and his fellow citizens-a happiness different from political action, and evidently sought as being different. So if among virtuous actions political and military actions are distinguished by nobility and greatness, and these are unleisurely and aim at an end and are not desirable for their own sake, but the activity of reason, which is contemplative, seems both to be superior in serious worth and to aim at no end beyond itself, and to have its pleasure proper to itself (and this augments the activity), and the self-sufficiency, leisureliness, unweariedness (so far as this is possible for man), and all the other attributes ascribed to the supremely happy man are evidently those connected with this activity, it follows that this will be the complete happiness of man, if it be allowed a complete term of life (for none of the attributes of happiness is incomplete).
It is true that being a philosopher is more self-sufficient than war; war needs an army or two. It is much more leisurely; and it doesn't tend to make one weary. All the same, speaking practically, I enjoyed war a lot more than I usually enjoy peace. For that matter, I enjoyed the rescue operations in the hurricane better than I enjoy peace.
In a way this should be unsurprising: in those situations in which 'everything is simple, but the simplest thing is difficult,' it's easy to know what reason directs you to do next. The necessity of the problem drives you and those you are working with to align your efforts in accord with reason, and to pursue the next virtuous thing: the brave thing, sometimes the just thing, the self-disciplined thing.
That seems to be eudaimonia as Aristotle has described it: it is the life of the warrior. Yet here, at the end, we get an endorsement of a much less active and more leisurely life. Philosophers tend to love this part of the book, as it seems to endorse their mode of life as the highest of all possible ones for human beings. I admit that I've always found this section's conclusions implausible.
But such a life would be too high for man; for it is not in so far as he is man that he will live so, but in so far as something divine is present in him; and by so much as this is superior to our composite nature is its activity superior to that which is the exercise of the other kind of virtue. If reason is divine, then, in comparison with man, the life according to it is divine in comparison with human life. But we must not follow those who advise us, being men, to think of human things, and, being mortal, of mortal things, but must, so far as we can, make ourselves immortal, and strain every nerve to live in accordance with the best thing in us; for even if it be small in bulk, much more does it in power and worth surpass everything. This would seem, too, to be each man himself, since it is the authoritative and better part of him. It would be strange, then, if he were to choose not the life of his self but that of something else. And what we said before' will apply now; that which is proper to each thing is by nature best and most pleasant for each thing; for man, therefore, the life according to reason is best and pleasantest, since reason more than anything else is man. This life therefore is also the happiest.
So there you go. If Aristotle's analysis is right, you now know how to be happy. Go and do it, if it seems right to you that you should.
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