AAR: Huntsville

Rocket City is a fun town. 

It has to be, I gather, because the space industry is going gangbusters and needs people to want to move to Alabama. Local unemployment recently hit 1.9%. Major corporations like JP Morgan Chase, Lockheed Martin, and Blue Origin are heavily engaged with state and local leaders to fund cheap housing for new employees, try to get high school students trained on coding so they can become 2-year college students then trained on machine welding and other technologies greatly in need in the rocket industry. Four-year colleges focus on engineering; the town claims the highest percentage of engineer citizens in the nation. They've also built parks, an arboretum, music venues, sporting facilities, trails, and anything else they can think of to make the place seem like a fun place to be -- which, indeed, it is. 

Here's one fun idea: they turned over one of those antiquated mid-century school campuses to local bars and game shops, which have had fun turning it into a punk/rockabilly sort of version of traditional high school.

Classic institutional architecture, now a reform reformed school.

Pool and Bud Light in the Principal's Office.

Dungeons and Dragons gaming shop among lockers festooned with once-forbidden stickers.

Prom, no. Rockabilly Prom? Maybe!

An arcade filled with nothing but pinball machines. I played the Star Wars one.

Well, and one more pool table at the back.

Rockabilly Prom? How about Zombie Prom?

The whole area is what we here in NC call a "Social District," meaning that you can walk around freely with open containers of alcohol. There are some rules that are mostly deference to state law, but generally it is set aside to be a more-fun space than usual.

Right across the street from all that is the IBEW Union Hall, so it's a place where you'll meet welders and working men. Also servicemen: the city features Redstone Arsenal, where the military component of all this lives, about 45,000 service members and civilians devoted to the space program in one way or another. Soon to be 55,000, because US Space Command is relocating there soon from Colorado Springs. 

A much fancier version of the same concept exists just two blocks away:

A similar space called Stovehouse built around an old factory. It’s got everything from ballroom dancing to taqueria to a Pilates studio.⁩

Also defense contractors. Lots of them have offices in the same facility: Booz Allen Hamilton, Deloitte, etc.

Less wild and crazy than the reformed-school space, but it was fun to watch the happy children play in the water feature.

Because of the prosperity and low unemployment, Huntsville is a very clean and safe town. I think it is well understood that I generally dislike cities under the best of circumstances, but this one is actually a nice place to visit. Even better -- it's only about 12 miles from city-center to the farmlands outside, so it doesn't take long to escape when you get ready to climb on your bike and get out of town. 

Back in the Mountains

This was taken at the remnants of the site of the 1996 Olympic Games’ whitewater events. Those Games were mainly held in Atlanta, but there’s not much whitewater in Atlanta. This is just over the border into Tennessee in the Ocoee River country. 

All the Way Down to Ala-Bam

Had some business in Huntsville today, so I rode down yesterday. 

Boyd Gap, on the Tennessee side.

The TVA made many lakes; this one floods the Ocoee River.

That one is small compared with Nickajack Lake, which floods the mighty Tennessee River. 

Huntsville. Pretty sure this is the right place. Hard to miss, actually.

What Exactly is the Crime?

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) did helpful service many years ago by taking on the KKK; we're better off without that latter organization having the power and control it did of yore. More recently they've served as a kind of third-party validator of left-wing attempts to paint conservative organizations as unacceptable extremist groups. I can understand how that annoys people. 

What part of this conduct is illegal, though?

In the video posted Tuesday morning, CEO Bryan Fair said the probe focuses on bringing potential charges against both the organization and individuals connected to the group.

"The focus appears to be on the SPLC's prior use of paid confidential informants to gather credible intelligence on extremely violent groups," he said.

"This use of informants was necessary because we are no stranger to threats of violence. In 1983, our offices were firebombed, and in the years since, there have been countless credible threats against our staff," he said. "For decades, we engaged in unprecedented litigation to dismantle the Klan and other hate groups. In light of that work, we sought to protect the safety of our staff and the public. We frequently shared what we learned from informants with local and federal law enforcement, including the FBI. " 

The probe comes as the Justice Department has stepped up its scrutiny of nonprofits that it accuses of being involved with or funding "domestic terrorism." It was not clear if the criminal investigation is related to that initiative, and a spokesperson for the SPLC did not know the Justice Department's legal theory behind the probe.

Insofar as you are publishing the findings of such research, it's protected journalism under the first amendment as far as I can tell. The National Enquirer pays sources for scoops; that's how they nailed John Edwards back in 2007. As far as I know the fact that they paid for the information they published didn't make it illegal. Any of you lawyers have a theory about how this could be a crime?

Thomas Transcript, Day 2

From the second half of the speech, the critique of Progressivism. 

As we meet today, it is unclear whether these principles will endure. At the beginning of the 20th century, a new set of first principles of government was introduced into the American mainstream. The proponents of this new set of first principles, most prominent among them, the 28th president of our country, Woodrow Wilson, called it progressivism.

Since Wilson's presidency, progressivism has made many inroads into our system of government and our way of life. It has coexisted uneasily with the principles of the Declaration. Because it is opposed to those principles, it is not possible for the two to coexist forever.

Progressivism was not native to America. Wilson and the progressives candidly admitted that they took it from Otto von Bismarck's Germany, whose state-centric society they admired. Progressives like Wilson argued that America needed to leave behind the principles of the founding and catch up with the more advanced and sophisticated system of relatively unimpeded state power, nearly perfected.

He acknowledged that it was a foreign science speaking very little of the language of English or American principle, which offers none but what are, to our minds, alien ideas. He thus described America still stuck with its original system of government as, quote, slow to see the superiority of the European system. Progressivism was the first mainstream American political movement, with the possible exception of the pro-slavery reactionaries on the eve of the Civil War, quote, to openly oppose the principles of the Declaration.

Progressives strove to undo the Declaration's commitment to equality and natural rights, both of which they denied were self-evident. To Wilson, the unalienable rights of the individual were, quote, a lot of nonsense. Wilson redefined liberty, not as a natural right attendant and assedent to the government, but as, quote, the right of those who are governed to adjust government to their own needs and interests.

In other words, liberty no longer preceded the government as a gift from God, but was to be enjoyed at the grace of the government. The government, as Wilson reconceived it, would be, quote, beneficent and indispensable. Progressives such as John Dewey attacked the Framers for believing that their ideas were immutable truth, good for all times and places, when instead they were, according to him, historically conditioned and relevant only in their own time.

Now Dewey and the progressives argued those ideas are to be displaced. Progressivism seeks to replace the basic premises of the Declaration of Independence and hence our form of government. It holds that our rights and our dignities come not from God but from government.

It requires of the people a subservience and weakness incompatible with a constitution premised on the transcendent origin of our rights. You will not be surprised to learn that the progressives had a great deal of contempt for us, the American people. Before he entered politics, Wilson would describe the American people as, quote, selfish, ignorant, timid, stubborn, and foolish.

He lamented that we do too much by vote and too little by expert rule. He proposed that the people be ruled by administrators who use them as tools. He once again aspired to be like Germany, where the people, he said admiringly, were docile and acquiescent.

The century of progressivism did not go well. The European system that Wilson and the progressives scolded Americans for not adopting, which he called nearly perfect, led to the governments that caused the most awful century that the world has ever seen. Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, and Mao all were intertwined with the rise of progressivism and all were opposed to the natural rights on which our declaration are based.

Many progressives expressed admiration for each of them shortly before their governments killed tens of millions of people. It was a terrible mistake to adopt progressivism's rejection of the declaration's vision of universal, unalienable natural rights. Wilson's claim that natural rights must give way to historical progress could justify the greatest mistake in our history... 

They say our 18th century declaration has prevented us from progressing to higher forms of government, but we were fortunate not to trade our Lockean bonds for the supposedly enlightened world of Hegel, Marx, and their followers. Fascism, which after all was National Socialism, triggered wars in Europe and Asia that killed tens of millions.

The socialism of the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China proceeded to kill more tens of millions of their own people. This is what happens when natural rights give way to the higher good of notions of history, progress, or as Thomas Sowell has written, the visions of the anointed. None of this, of course, was an improvement on the principles of the declaration.... 

If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the government, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions.

Emphasis added, but only because emphasis is warranted.  

A Little Crockett

A Meditation on Tradition

We live in an online world governed by algorithms. One of them has learned that I like and will reliably watch 70s-themed videos of guys riding rebuilt Shovelhead choppers, especially if they are set to 70s music like the above. Often in addition to riding through beautiful country, these videos feature campfires and guys sharing some beer around them. It reminds me of how we used to spend many happy nights back in the old days.

Yet the videos aren't from the 1970s; they're guys doing it right now. There's nothing to stop you from going out and buying a Shovelhead. In addition to the used bikes you can source, you can buy a brand new Shovelhead engine and build one. These guys making the videos aren't looking at their phones at the campfire, but you can be sure they're filming the videos on their phones and sharing them with you that way. You can listen to everything from the 70s on Spotify as you go down the road, which you couldn't have done in the 1970s: the Walkman didn't even exist until '79.

Here as elsewhere, nothing has been lost. You can still do it the old way: chop your wood with an axe, as I've been doing lately in preparation for next winter. Ride your own bike. Listen to the old songs; sing the old songs. 

Be free. You just have to do what your ancestors did. There's a good chance they taught you how, if you listened.

A Thomas Transcript

Updated below, but here at last is a transcript of the speech Justice Thomas gave at UT Austin.

Some highlights from the first half only:

It is my sincere hope that your work to revitalize the teaching and research of Western civilization and the American constitutional tradition will lead the way in the reform of our nation's colleges and universities. And I hope that your example will help to rejuvenate our fellow citizens' commitment to the principles of the Declaration of Independence....

[A]ll too often the sentiments [voiced by the common culture] tend toward cynicism, rejection, hostility, and animus toward our country and its ideals. With the foregoing in mind, I would like to begin by addressing my first encounter with the principles of the Declaration of Independence.

It is perhaps not what you would immediately think. The second paragraph of the Declaration proclaims, We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. Throughout my youth, these truths were articles of faith that were impervious to bigotry and discrimination.

The American Heritage Dictionary of English Language defines self-evident as obviously true and requiring no proof, argument, or explanation. Whether they had a divine source or a worldly one, they were never questioned. They were the Holy Grail, the North Star, the Rock, immovable and unquestioned.

Despite the multiplicity of laws and customs that wreaked a bigotry, it was universally believed among those blacks with whom I lived and who had very little or no formal education that in God's eyes and under our Constitution, we were equal. This was also the case with my nuns, most of whom were Irish immigrants. At home, at school, and at church, we were taught that we are inherently equal, that equality came from God, and that it could not be diminished by man....

Somehow, without formal education, the older people knew that these God-given or natural rights preceded and transcended governmental power or authority. When you lived in a segregated world with palpable discrimination and the governments nearest to you enforced laws and customs that promoted unequal treatment, it was obvious that your rights or your dignity did not come from those governments, but rather from God. Though not a literate man, my grandfather often spoke of our rights and obligations coming from God, not from architects of segregation and discrimination.

Men were not angels. They were subject to the constraints of antecedent rights, and we were not subject to those men, even as we were subjected to their whims. We knew that life, liberty, and property were sacrosanct....

Arguably, those men committed treason against the king, risking death at the hands of an empire far mightier than the newborn United States. They thus concluded with the memorable final sentence, and I quote, and for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. I will say it again.

We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. Recently, I came across a definition of courage that is attributed to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.

In essence, the signers of the Declaration were saying that they were willing to die for the principles they were asserting, the supreme act of courage. Those principles were more important than their fear. Nothing in the Declaration of Independence, I now realize, matters without that final sentence.

 This is an address that merits reading and consideration throughout. 

Patriots Day

Raven reminds us in the comments below that we ought to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Lexington and Concord.

On April 18, 1775, about 700 British Regulars in Boston, under Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith, received secret orders to capture and destroy colonial military supplies reportedly stored at Concord. Through effective intelligence gathering, Patriot leaders received word weeks before the British expedition that their supplies might be at risk and had moved most of them to other locations. On the night before the battles, several riders, including Paul Revere, William Dawes and Samuel Prescott, warned area militias of the British plans and approaching British Army expedition from Boston.

The first shots between Patriot militiamen and Regulars at Lexington were fired at sunrise on April 19. Eight militiamen were killed and ten wounded. Only one British soldier was wounded. The outnumbered militia quickly fell back and the Regulars proceeded to Concord, where they split into companies to search for supplies. At the Old North Bridge in Concord, approximately 400 militiamen engaged 100 Regulars at about 11:00 am, resulting in casualties on both sides. The outnumbered Regulars fell back and rejoined the main body of British troops in Concord.

Initially inconclusive, but it was the 'shot heard around the world.' It set the stage for the destruction of many empires, the liberation of peoples, and the principle that no free man shall ever accept being disarmed. 

Play it Straight, Matey

The New York Times caught my eye with a story about a new study of sunken pirate treasure. Even here, though, they can't play it straight.

Pirate’s Booty Corrects a Myth About West African Gold

Centuries-old European tales about Gold Coast traders adulterating precious metals hundreds of years ago are challenged by the famous Whydah Gally shipwreck.

[Introductory paragraphs] Sometimes all that glitters is, in fact, real gold. But it would have been difficult to sell that idea to the many European traders who journeyed along the coast of West Africa during the age of exploration.

As their vessels plied what was known as the Gold Coast, records of the era show that the English, Dutch, Swedish and other Europeans often viewed their trading partners with suspicion. There was a longstanding belief that people in that part of Africa were intentionally mixing their gold with lesser metals like silver or copper, or even with bits of glass.

“It’s a recurring theme that they’re stretching the gold,” said Tobias Skowronek, a geochemist who studies archaeology at the University of Bonn in Germany.

But a recent study of artifacts recovered from the wreck of a pirate ship suggests that the West African traders were not passing off adulterated gold....

[Deep down at paragraph 15] The researchers found that the 27 artifacts ranged from 70 to 100 percent gold by weight.

When an artifact wasn’t pure gold, the most common metals present were silver, copper, iron and lead.

While it’s true that some objects were far from pure gold, these results don’t imply that West African traders were being deceitful, the team concluded. 

So, in other words, the European traders were precisely right all along. The study only concludes that the admixture was probably due to a lack of skill in separating the ores, which occur together naturally in that part of Africa.  

The rest of the relief due Proud Boys

A lawyer who posts on X as "Shipwrecked Crew" represented a number of J6 defendants when scarcely any other lawyers would. He got good news today.

Indians & Highlanders

For the most part the preference has shifted to “Native American Tribe Nations,” but the local community still calls itself the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. They came out to join in the celebration of our local heritage, of which they are an indispensable part. They were demonstrating several of their cultural traditions, including Stickball, which I finally understand how to play. 

The Highlander heritage is also on display. 

They played, inter alia, “The Skye Boat Song.” I was definitely talking that about recently. 

The Scotsman’s tent. “Amo Probos” means “I love the upright,” and is the motto of Clan Blair.

The Scotsman itself.

Appalachian True Heritage Festival

Yesterday and today in Waynesville, a charming festival. 

The bandstand, with mountain music all day.

Another musical circle. Note the belt-of-harmonicas on the harmonica player.

“Outlaw Alchemy” didn’t appear to do any alchemy, but there were several herbalists in the festival.

A permanent installation helping visitors identify plants.

I think I told this story recently, but if not, here is an official version. As of the end of the war, Thomas’ Legion of Indians and Highlanders had defeated the Federal forces in these mountains. Appropriately, both the Cherokee and the Highlanders are represented here today: the Cherokee have a tent at one end, and The Scotsman Pub at the other. Men in kilts or traditional Cherokee clothing can be seen in the crowd. 

This sauce was good enough that I bought some even though I make my own at home.

Hypnotic Medieval

On the hurdy-gurdy. 

Big Moccasin Gap

Not that far from here. 

A Short Patriotic Interlude

In the lexicon of American strategic communications, 'propaganda' is defined as "enemy action to..." etc. As a result, American propaganda is impossible by definition. 

All the same, this is what it would look like if such a thing did exist.

Savannah vs. Georgia

The FPC is assisting a resident of Savannah, Georgia who is trying to get the city's restrictions on transporting firearms lifted. I think their prospects of success are pretty good: the Attorney General of Georgia filed an amicus curaie brief that unreservedly takes their side. 

The reason why he is on their side is straightforward. The state legislature of Georgia, its General Assembly, long ago passed a bill that was signed into law that forbids local governments from placing restrictions on firearms. That power is reserved to the state government only.

Savannah ignored that law and created its own regulation, which it is enforcing by having the city's police department issue fines and citations. As such, and as is increasingly normal for Democratic strongholds in red states, it is in open defiance of the state government. Unlike states vis-a-vis the Federal government, local governments are creatures of the state. They have no powers that are not granted by the legislature, and no sort of sovereignty of their own.

Nevertheless these localities are willing to court such lawsuits, as they only cost taxpayer money and might for a while allow them to get their way. If they ever manage to swing the state government, as has happened in Virginia, they'll change all the state laws to ensure they never lose again; but until then, this will have to do.

All Sorrow Fail and Sadness

The streams shall run in gladness,

The lakes shall shine and burn.

All sorrow fail and sadness

At the Mountain King's return!

His crown shall be upholden,

His harp shall be restrung.

His halls shall echo golden

To songs of yore re-sung.

AVI has the current song of the Iranian revolutionaries. We know there are factions within Iran that are in touch with the US and especially with Israel that have been directing the targeting of regime checkpoints in the streets. The longing for an end to the current Iranian regime among the people is very strong. 

It is hard for us as Americans to imagine the power that royalty has on the imagination in societies that are not, like our own, based on an ideal of social equality. For generations, the Scots sang Will Ye No Come Back Again? and The Skye Boat Song about "Bonnie Prince" Charlie, who was defeated in April 1746. (Indeed, yesterday was the anniversary of the Battle of Culloden.) After the horrors of the French Revolution and Napoleon's bloody attempts at empire, the Bourbons were restored; but, for that matter, Bonnie Prince Charlie himself was a Stewart, who had been expelled in the English Civil War and then restored. The '45, as the attempt to install him in Scotland was called, followed two earlier attempts, one in 1689 and one in 1715. 

Tolkien's song thus captures something that is deeply felt in societies with a tradition of royalty. We see it too in the Arthurian stories. I wonder if it won't yet come to pass in Persia. 

Clarance Thomas at UT Austin

I usually prefer transcripts, but for reasons that might be obvious the media has not elected to provide a transcript of this speech that I can find. You can advance to about 45m in if you want to hear the criticisms of Progressivism as basically hostile to the Declaration of Independence, and of Woodrow Wilson -- a man Justice Thomas has reason to hold in disdain quite apart from Wilson's Progressivism. Within about ten minutes of beginning this critique, he reminds the audience that it was old Woodrow who decided to segregate the Federal government and its workforce. 

We have been fortunate to have his scholarly mind and quiet presence on the Court for so long. He has no clear equal, nor anyone sadly who is obviously a fit replacement when the day comes for him to retire.

UPDATE: Finally, a transcript.

Edward Abbey on Anarchism and Violence

While looking for one of Abbey's aphorisms yesterday, I discovered instead his Master of Arts' thesis. Like a good MA thesis it has little original thought, which is more proper in a Ph.D. dissertation; instead, it is a chance to wrestle with the key texts of an area of study. In that regard it is useful reading for others interested in the history of 19th and 20th century anarchist thought. 

To my surprise, he concludes that anarchism -- not at all necessarily connected to violence, but with members of the school occasionally willing to embrace revolution and even terrorism -- had not successfully made a case the violence was either needed nor appropriate to its project. However, what struck me most was I found to be a very persuasive introduction:

Since  the  Second  World  War  the  idea  of  anarchism  has  enjoyed  a  certain  revival.... [Each of an impressive list of thinkers] has attempted  to  draw  attention  to  the  excesses  of  the  modern  nation-state  and  advocated,  in  one  way  or  another,  the  decentralization  of  the  state's  political,  economic  and  military  power. 

The  importance  of  anarchism  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  is  alone among  contemporary  political  doctrines  in  opposing  the  institution of  the  state,  stressing  the  danger  while  denying  the  necessity  of centralized  authority.  Socialism,  Communism,  and  what  is  at  present called  Democratic  Capitalism  (the  Welfare  State)  have,  on  the  other hand,  both  accommodated  themselves  to  and  actively  encouraged  the growth  of  the  national  state.  Thus  supported  from  within  and  without (through  international  rivalry)  the  state  has  become  the  paramount institution  of  modern  civilization,  and  exerts  an  increasing  degree of  control  over  the  lives  of  all  who  live  beneath  its  domination. 

[A]s  the  state  continues  to  grow,  assuming  to  itself  not  only  political and  military  power  but  also  more  and  more  direct  economic  and  social power,  the  average  man  of  today  finds  his  role  subtly  changed  from that  of  citizen  to  that  of  functionary  in  a  gigantic  and  fantastic  ally-complex  social  machine.  This  development  takes  place  no  matter  what the  official  ideology  of  the  state  may  be,  so  that  we  may  now  observe a  gradual  convergence  of  ends  and  means  In  the  historical  evolution of  such  [typically]  modern  states  as  the  U.  S,  A*  and  the  U.  S.  S,  R., which  tend  to  rese[m]ble  each  other  more  and  more  with  each  passing year  despite  the  fact  that  the  two  states  originated  under  greatly unlike  circumstances  and  attempted  to  guide  their  progress  by official  political  philosophies  which,  in  most  important  respects, are  sharply  opposed.  This  process  of  growth  and  convergence  cannot be  satisfactorily  explained  through  the  use  of  such  conventional concepts  as  Democracy  versus  Communism,  or  Capitalism  versus Socialism;  the  peculiar  relevance  and  appeal  of  anarchism  consists in  this,  that  it  offers  a  possible  theoretical  key  to  the  understanding  of  historical  developments  which  seem  to  have  little connection  with  their  customary  labels. 

Statement  of  the  Problem: 

The  idea  of  anarchism  is  embarrassed,  however,  by  its traditional  association  with  illegality  and  violence. 

Emphasis added. 

"Illegality" is not really a cause for concern, since the state itself sets the laws and naturally enough outlaws the questioning of its existence or necessity. Even the United States, in spite of the protections of the First Amendment -- protections greatly strengthened, as we know, by the effects of the anarchist movement in the early 20th century -- outright bans advocating or teaching the idea, at least if the abolition of the government (expressly to include any subset of government) is tied to an endorsement of violence. So really, as Abbey realizes quickly enough, it's just the violence that is the problem. 

The inquiry is worthy; the conclusion that violence has not been shown to be justified even by those who were most open to the idea of using violence is predicated on the fact that the idea that abolishing the state was a desirable end is something that anarchists haven't adequately persuaded enough people to believe yet (or hadn't, at least, in the 1950s). If it's not something that most people agree is desirable, no war to accomplish it is really possible; only terrorist acts and murders, rather than the spark of a genuine revolution. That's a fairly pragmatic, consequently characteristically American, and quite plausible conclusion.