Thomas Jefferson's Reaction, Marbury v. Madison, Landmark Supreme Court Cases

Judges: What is at Stake

Since Noel has me thinking about this, I would like to express an opinion on what this debate is really about. The rhetoric surrounding this debate has long ago spun off into personal attacks on the Left, whereas the Right debates about how democratic principles are expressed through the peculiar mechanics of the Senate. Neither issue has anything to do with what is really being decided here, although -- perversely, for a lover of logic -- the ad hominem attacks of the Left come closer to the substance. Though they are each an expression of an informal fallacy, they do at least grace the surface of the matters at issue. The parliamentary arguments avoid those issues entirely.

There are two issues for which our side is really fighting:

1) The Bill of Rights, where we are either asking for the government to stop ignoring parts they find troublesome -- the Second, Ninth and Tenth Amendments, for example -- or, for the government to reinterpret existing understandings in a way we find more amenable to individual liberty (e.g., the Establishment Clause, to allow for a more open expression of religious principle by individuals, even though they be judges or military officers, and groups, even though they be Boy Scouts).

2) A great rebalancing of the power of the Judicial branch with the other two branches of the Federal government, which is the third such effort in the history of our Republic.

The two previous large-scale attempts to rebalance judicial power were the early struggle between Jefferson and Madison, and the famous "Supreme Court Packing" attempt by FDR. Both of these are usually portrayed as failures by the Executive and victories by the Judiciary. I think that this is an incomplete understanding.

It is easy to see why people have that understanding, however. Consider Thomas Jefferson's reaction to Marbury, and you will see that the Supreme Court carried the day. Judicial review by the USSC has prevailed entirely over Jefferson's suggested alternatives, a Constitutional convention or the regular use of the amendment process.

Nevertheless, Jefferson was nearly right that Marbury made the Constitution "a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please." The judiciary of the day was rather restrained in comparison with our own, which invents new rights out of "penumbras," and denies plainly expressed rights either by refusing to apply them, or by pretending to find them too difficult to understand.

If the conflict had ended with Marbury, the Court would have had a complete victory. It did not, however. The Jefferson Administration joined with Congress in further attempts to restrain judicial authority. These met with only mixed success, on their face: some of the particular acts succeeded, and others failed.

Here is the thing that is usually missed, and the great success of the movement: the USSC did not overturn another law on constitutional grounds for half a century. While it retained the power to do so, in practice it stopped thwarting legislative intent and executive power.

This seems to me something to feel good about. It does not really serve any citizen's interests to see the judiciary subordinated to the other branches. On the other hand, it must not be allowed to be the final authority, or it becomes superior rather than co-equal. This was a success for the Republic. The Court retained the power to rule on constitutionality of laws, but it recognized that it did so at peril of drawing the fire of the people and the other branches. As such, it acted with great circumspection in applying this power.

Contrast with today. Now, any law in any state that is in any way controversial is instantly slapped with a lawsuit and taken into court as unconstitutional. Federal courts today rule laws unconstitutional as a regular affair, and often on purely procedural grounds. Consider this First Amendment case:

A federal judge ended the ban on Confederate flags in Hurricane High School, in part because the overwhelmingly white school does not have a history of racial tension or violence... Copenhaver wrote that he lifted the school’s ban on Confederate flags because the school has not had “flag-based physical violence between students, a pervasive background of demonstrated racial hostility or the involvement of any hate groups aligned on either side of a serious racial divide.”

Without that racial turmoil, the school does not have the right to trample on Bragg’s First Amendment right to express himself freely, Copenhaver ruled.

“That was the key, that the flag didn’t cause any problems there,” said Bragg’s American Civil Liberties Union lawyer, Roger Forman of Charleston. “You know, as long as the flag is properly used it is not a symbol of hate, and I think it’s fair to say that’s what [Copenhaver] found.”

Leave aside the question of whether the Confederate flag is appropriate. There are two other matters more important. The first point here is that it either is a form of political speech, or it is not; and if it is, the First Amendment's language is plain: "Congress shall make no law... abridging the Freedom of Speech[.]" Not, "unless it would cause tension." There is a principle here, not a procedure.

The second is that the Courts feel so free to exercise the power to rule on constitutionality that they do it even in matters relating not even to laws of overwhelming importance, but to the internal disciplinary rules of a single High School -- this particular one, which has no tension, as opposed to any other one, which might. It is bad enough that every sphere of human organization is brought under the rule of the Federal Courts. It is worse that they feel no restraint whatsoever in exercising that power. It is worst of all that they feel so expansive as to freely state that the First Amendment means one thing at your school, and another at a school across the way.

The First Amendment is a ball of wax. This power of the courts strips it of the ability to serve as a guiding principle. The Constitution is harmed by this.

FDR's court-packing "scheme," as it is usually called, was the second great movement to rebalance the relationship with the judiciary. What is important here is that it had broadly the same results as the first: the attempt as such failed. However, the court -- which had until that point been ruling New Deal programs unconstitutional both left and right -- ceased to ban FDR's reforms. The government as we know it today, the one that all good Liberals admire, is the result of that rebalancing. Faced with the combined ire of the Executive and Legislature, the court stayed on the field only long enough to win the discrete battle. It then left democracy alone for a great while, using its tremendous power only when absolutely necessary.

The third such rebalancing is upon us. Once again, it isn't particularly important if this or that battle is won. What is important is that the courts be reminded of who the real arbiters of Constitutionality are.

And who are they? The very ones Jefferson identified:

But the Chief Justice says, 'There must be an ultimate arbiter somewhere.' True, there must; but does that prove it is either [the judiciary or the executive]? The ultimate arbiter is the people of the Union, assembled by their deputies in convention, at the call of Congress or of two-thirds of the States.

The true arbiter of the Constitution, of what it means and how it ought to apply, is the people.

The Court has, despite Jefferson, been allowed to serve as a proxy for that. It has not captured the authority from the people, however; it has only been lent it. Twice before the people have, through their representatives, reminded the court that the power must be used responsibly, or it will be removed entirely. It is time to do so again. The judiciary likely will retain the power, as they have in the past; but they also will be more circumspect, as they were in the past.

I think that Pat Buchanan, with whom I broadly disagree on most points, was right about what the results of this revolution will be. It will be a greater degree of rule by the people:

If Americans were a self-governing people, ours would be a different country. There would be voluntary prayer in the schools and term limits on members of Congress. Pornography would be restricted. There would be legislated limits on "abortion rights." The Citadel and VMI would still have their all-male cadet corps. America's cities would never have been torn apart by the lunacy of forced busing for racial balance. And, at Christmas, we could drive through town and see a beautiful display of the Nativity scene, with carolers singing "Silent Night."

I dissent from the rest of Buchanan's piece, but I think this is where we are heading. I shall be glad to get there. What he is describing is nothing other than the America in which I grew up: it is home.

It is in this sense that the Left's ad hominems are closer to the truth than the tactical maneuvers of the Right, which talk about "up and down votes" and fairness and filibusters. There is a real revolution intended.

Where the Left may be wrong is in asserting that its practitioners are "out of the mainsteam." My expectation is that it is just the other way around. These tactical maneuvers of the Right are a serious mistake because they expend resources on what can only be a tactical victory.

We stand on the ground for winning a strategic victory, and we ought to press for it. Buchanan really is an extremist, but let as much of his vision stand as was quoted here. Who wants to go before the American people and oppose it?

Nor needs the Left to fear the decision, when it comes, for it will not sweep anything away from their redoubts. The restraint of the federal judiciary can only protect their interests, as it is the federal judiciary which often requires national solutions to divisive questions. Its restraint is a victory for federalism, which means for example that the "legislated restraints" on abortion may be as light as the bluest blue state chooses to enact. That leaves the Left in a stronger position than if the federal judiciary is unrestrained and -- as seems inevitable, given the composition of the Senate -- eventually swings further and further right.

This is what is really at stake. It is come time, as such times come now and again, to fight another skirmish to reassert a border. The border establishes the proper place for judicial authority. We 'who wi' Jefferson bled,' and ye who did with FDR, ought to unite on the question. It is in our interest, as it was in theirs: we for the yeoman farmer, and you for a local law that protects the programs and legal understandings you prefer.

In this, as in so much, we are brothers and sisters.

Sharp Knife

Founders Talk:

Sharp Knife has one of Noel's always-thoughtful, always-informative comparisons of founding documents with modern, ah, thinking. In this case, he is looking at how Alexander Hamilton would have spoken to the recent acts of Mr. McCain.

Noel does these things regularly, they are always worth reading. This is a rare occasion for me, in that I think I disagree with the results he draws from the comparison.

I find the concept of a deal of this sort less bothersome than Noel does. It has the advantage of being open and transparent. It certainly is antidemocratic, in the sense of being anti-majority.

On the other hand, the entire purpose of the Senate was to provide a brake on majority rule, much as the House of Lords used to do. Hamilton himself would probably not have been seriously bothered by the idea of fourteen or so Senators standing half the nation at bay. If anything, I think this sort of thing is what the Senate was designed to do.

It happens that I disagree with the principles the fourteen are seeking to impose, and would probably prefer that the majority rule in this case. In that sense, Noel and I are surely in agreement.

I don't, however, follow him in asserting that it is improper to do what has here been done. My sense is that our Constitution (and the British one also) was in better shape when the Upper House was more strongly active in this fashion. It does slow what we are pleased to think of as progress; but we of all people should be most suspicious of the concept of "progress" in legal and social matters. In science, yes: progress always. But not so in the law, and not in society.

If it is really a good thing -- if it is really "progress" -- it will come in time. There are benefits to waiting. For one thing, human wisdom is uncertain, and what seems right now may seem wrong with a few years' more learning behind us. We may thus be saved from a mistake, however hard it may be to conceive of it as a mistake at this point in time.

For another, if it proves that we are right, we shall only grow stronger by waiting. The Senate, as the House of Lords, is not impervious to democracy -- it is only somewhat more resistant to democracy. If these principles prove out in time, as I expect them to do, they will be strong enough to remake the Senate in future elections. For the price of waiting, we shall find ourselves in a far stronger position in the future. We shall find ourselves there, that is, if we are right: but I believe that we are, and therefore am pleased to play out the game and collect what I expect to be real rewards.

McCain may be detestable as a Senator -- surely is detestable, if only for McCain-Feingold, which remains a great abomination of the law. On that too, however, we shall prevail in time. When we do, it will not be in a narrow partisan fashion. Because we were patient and let the Republic work according to its intended fashion, our eventual victory will be one to shake the stars.

Oliver North: The courage to make history

Colonel North:

Old Ollie gives Congress both barrels today. They've got it coming, on several more counts than he had room for in his column.

I'd love to write more about that today, but last night was one of those nights. Every family has them sometimes -- a child gets sick, and you find yourself awake at three or four in the morning tending to them, and then try to get back to sleep for what remains of the night with the little monster tucked into the big bed between you, punching you in the head every little while.

For that reason, I think I'll leave off here. Gonna hit the rack early tonight.

Musings of The GeekWithA.45

America, the Beautiful:

Though I think the last post points to a real concern, it should be noted that free speech is still very strong in America. The GeekWithA.45 found a good example, which I just love:

Rather than simply welcoming drivers to the Garden State, a new billboard greeting people entering New Jersey over the Delaware Memorial Bridge slams the state's business climate.

"Welcome to New Jersey. A horrible place to do business," reads the billboard message.

The glaring, red capital letters represent the revenge - misguided, according to officials - of a developer upset with the state's environmental regulators.

You can disagree with the message, but I love that we live in a country where a citizen can rent a billboard to carry a message like that, and there's nothing the government can do but grit its teeth. That's freedom.

Instapundit.com

New Media:

InstaPundit cites a report that bloggers may have been strongly influential in the "no" votes in Europe this week:

"Proponents of 'No' have said the mainstream media have been shamelessly in favour of the 'Yes'. They said the internet was the main area where the democratic debate can take place," he added.

Compare and contrast with this report from Malaysia:

Steven Gan, editor-in-chief of Malaysiakini.com newspaper of Malaysia, recalled a government raid on his Internet newspaper. "The police raided our office and 'arrested' 19 computers from the office. We held demonstrations against government repression of freedom and the police eventually returned all the computers except two."

Malaysiakini.com is the only democratic space left in Malaysia, he said, as the government censors all newspapers except for the Internet, which remains a free space because the government needs to promote its Multimedia Super Corridor, a Silicon Valley-type project.

There's a difference between censorship and self-censorship: in Malaysia, the government is using intimidation whereas in Europe, the media is simply in cahoots with the governing class. In both cases, however, the internet is providing the only real place for a democratic movement to find news and to organize.

That is, of course, why this report is so alarming. A major priority for all bloggers, regardless of politics, should be overturning McCain-Feingold and preventing any similar abuses in the future.

RAND | News Release | Americans Will Back Military Action Overseas If They Believe The United States Has "Important Stakes" in a Battle

The Good Sense of the American People:

Via the Dawn Patrol, a survey from the RAND Corporation on civilian support for the war. If the survey is accurate, American civilian thought about warfighting is generally on a higher level than I had realized.

Americans support the global war on terror because they believe the United States has “important stakes” in the conflict, and will support other military actions overseas as well if they believe important stakes are involved[.]

“The main implication for the Army,” concludes the report, “is that Americans have proved themselves far more willing to use ground troops — to put boots on the ground — and to accept casualties in operations conducted under the global war on terror than in any of the military operations” during the 1990s.

Americans' opinions went on a war footing following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against the United States, often matching levels of support for military action seen during World War II, according to the study that synthesizes findings from about 100 public opinion surveys.

“The perceived importance of the stakes was the key belief predicting support for the operation,” said RAND analyst Eric Larson, the report's lead author.

If true, that undermines an argument that we've begun to hear from many places: that the US is tapped out by Iraq.

There are two parts to this argument: that the US has no more physical resources on which to draw, and that American public support is drained. Apparently, the latter is not true. As to the former, it is only partly true. An additional conflict of the type in Iraq and Afghanistan could only be pursued if it were contiguous with current operations and could draw on existing logistics -- if we decided to expand our nation building to include Syria, say. But I don't think we could even consider a third nation building exercise, such as in North Korea.

On the other hand, a more traditional military approach does not require occupation and rebuilding. A conflict with North Korea, for example, could be limited to destroying their military and infrastructure, leaving occupation to the Chinese or South Koreans, depending on who had the will to do it. One or both would have to find the will, since they couldn't afford to have a vortex on their northern border. For a conflict of this type, American public support and American military might are sufficient.

This is important even if -- especially if -- our goal is to avoid a military conflict. So long as potential enemies understand that we have both the power and the will to smite them, they will be less likely to insist on a conflict. Enemies push for wars they think they can win.

But there is more in the study to cite. Again, if it is true it reflects not a passing moment of sentiment, but a deeply-rooted good sense about military adventures:

The RAND analysis also shows that Americans weren't big fans of the peace missions conducted during the 1990s, and they wanted these missions completed with as little cost as possible.

“None of the peace operations of the 1990s (Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo) were judged particularly important by most members of the public, and avoidance of casualties turned out to be a more important consideration than avoidance of defeat…,” according to the RAND study.

Only three or four of 10 Americans thought the stakes for the United States were important in Kosovo, Bosnia and Haiti, the RAND report says.

This reflects something important about the American people. This demonstrates that we are not engaged in "imperialist" ventures: Americans don't support military action regardless of context. Americans don't want to be drawn into anyone else's fights.

Again, this seems to me to be a measure of good sense. It counters an insight that has been picked up by the Marines who operate the Small Wars Center for Excellence, and incorporated into the draft of the new Small Wars Manual [UPDATE: the site for the draft seems to be down; see below]:

The greatest and most significant danger we have in entering a small war is the potential for an asymmetry of wills. We must decide before embarking upon any small war whether we can withstand the pressures of our own impatience.

This suggests that it is not "American impatience" that is the danger, but a reasoned consideration by the public of the stakes. Maintaining the support for the Iraqi rebuilding requires making sure that the American public continues to view the stakes for America as high.

This would seem to be a natural break on adventurism. If the political class can learn the lesson here, it will not be so ready to embark upon deployments without first testing whether the American public considers them to be worthwhile. Curiously, this is what the Marines are advocating -- the "we" in "we must decide before embarking" is not the military, but the political class. The military does not decide what wars to fight. The Marines are requesting of the politicians that they not send Marines to fight on missions the public will not support. The Marines merely misunderstood why the public might not support a mission.

This is not to say that there were not good things to be accomplished in Mogadishu, say; it is only to say that the harm caused by an early retreat was greater than the good we hoped to accomplish. We have often heard how much al Qaeda, and others, were influenced by the quick American retreat from Somalia. We must avoid such things in the future.

It seems to me that the best way to test this proposition up front would be for a return to the Congressional duty of declaring war. Interestingly, in the case of Iraq we almost had one -- the Congressional resolution approving the use of force, which drew support in Congress that was commensurate with its support among the populace. Even some Senators with strong anti-war views voted in favor, because of the demands of their constituents.

One lesson that will have to be learned, and has not yet been learned, is whether or not support for the Iraqi rebuilding can be maintained over time. The resolution of this question should have strong implications for American warfighting.

Interestingly, those implications play out according to the policy preferences suggested by the last election. As will be recalled, Kerry's chief military advisor, "Tony" McPeak, advocated what is called a "network centric" war: bombing Iraq, destroying its infrastructure and its military, reducing it to rubble, and then departing. The Bush administration proposed, and continues to propose, what is called a "fourth generation" model. The engagement with the Iraqis, the attempt to engage in counterinsurgency fighting and to change the society through development is characteristic of this model.

Both models have the potential for long term success in the GWOT. Contrary to a frequently stated line of thought, it is not the presence of unstable regions that breeds terrorists of the sort who are dangerous to Western society. It is the possession of material prosperity, in particular education, that allows groups like al Qaeda to have assets who can move freely in Western society. They must be able to speak English, understand the customs, hold passports, and travel freely. What turns these men into terrorists is the possession of material prosperity, combined with a lack of opportunity to influence the politics of their homes through nonviolent means.

The fourth generation model attempts to raise their societies the rest of the way, to democracy as well as relative prosperity. The network centric model attempts to return them to pure poverty, so that they are too poor to produce educated and mobile men capable of being a real threat to the internal structure of the West. From a purely utilitarian perspective, either method has the potential to be successful; and the second is a great deal easier and cheaper than the first.

The preference for the first method, then, must come from something other than utilitarian thinking. It must come, I think, from a moral preference. Moral preferences are very expensive in war. In a sustained conflict, they are normally abandoned: war has a way of reducing everything to utilitarian calculations.

Anti-war forces in America should be advised of this fact. Most of them are decent people, who simply detest violence, and who -- like the Quakers -- would rather suffer than strike.

They need to understand the sense of the American people, which is otherwise. If the antiwar movement succeeds in convincing Americans that Iraq's rebuilding is too expensive, it is not the case that Americans will not support future wars. They will support any future war in which they feel the stakes are high. Nor will the presence of an antiwar president in office, should one be elected, stop war: just as the Senate was forced to approve the resolution at a far higher rate than Senators' personal sentiments would allow, so the President too must be driven by the will of the people when it is expressed with clarity and unity.

What the people will not support, should Iraq's rebuilding fail, is future rebuilding efforts. The violence that the antiwar movement so detests can only become more naked and unmitigated as a result of their efforts. I do not think many of them truly supported, or understood, what McPeak was advocating. I suspect, if they understood, many would choose Bush's model as the lesser evil.

Lesser evils are usually the best you can manage in war. We are fortunate beyond words to be able to attempt to use ours to achieve some positive good. We can, for now, afford to act according to moral principles. Those who would wish us to do so would be well-advised not to undermine the public support that allows it. Indeed, a wise antiwar movement would focus its full attention on supporting those "good news" efforts, so that Americans would come to view them as an important and necessary part of the wars that they will, occasionally, support.

UPDATE: The Small Wars Center website appears to be down. Until the link to the draft copy is working again, here and here are two earlier Grim's Hall posts about it. It's not quite as good as having the whole source, but it's the best I can do while the main site is down.

Scotsman.com Heritage & Culture - Great Scots - Women and children first

An Old Soldier:

Ever wonder where the phrase "Women and Children first!" came from? The story is a remarkable one, recounted in today's Scotsman:

THE AGE of chivalry is often defined by the quintessentially English Sir Walter Raleigh laying his cape before his Queen lest she should tread in a puddle. But Raleigh's actions pale into insignificance beside those of Lt-Col Alexander Seton, an imposing Scottish army officer who, in 20 terrifying minutes, demonstrated a level of selflessness, bravery, leadership and chivalry rarely witnessed before or since.

Thus begins the story of "The Birkenhead Drill," which "sheds more glory upon [the 74th Highlanders] than a hundred well-fought battles."

Economist.com | Face value

Saving the Rainforest:

Is it worth doing, if you have to give credit to a Texan?

Mr Carter is an unlikely bridge builder. As a child in San Antonio he trapped mink and raccoon, selling their pelts for pocket money. In the army he dropped behind enemy lines in the first Gulf war. He views himself as a 'pioneer' on a frontier with 'so many parallels with the old West.' Cattle losses to jaguars and rustlers, in this case Xavante Indians, are line items in the budget of his ranch. He indulges in a bit of Texas swagger, as if George Bush had not made it the world's least fashionable sub-culture.

He's come up with an incentive-based plan to protect Amazon rainforest which, being market-based, might actually work. He's certainly devoted. But can they stand him long enough to work with him?

Well, fashion is fickle. It's only been two years ago that cowboy hats were on the Milan runway.

Kim du Toit - Daily Rant

One Hundred:

It's a good day.

A 64-year-old Central Florida woman killed an intruder in her home over the weekend with a single shot from her .38-caliber revolver, according to police.

The woman shot the unidentified man in the chest from about 10 feet, sheriff’s authorities said. The man ran out the back door and collapsed, Local 6 News partner Florida Today reported. He was declared dead shortly after he was found in the yard of the home in an unincorporated beachside neighborhood north of U.S. 192.

Agent Lou Heyn of the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office said the woman heard a window break and hid behind her bed, according to Florida Today.

“That woke her up,” Heyn said. “She can’t I.D. him. Never seen him before.’’

Heyn said the case is considered self-defense.

“The bottom line is that when somebody enters your home like that, it’s self defense,” Heyn said. “Breaking into the house obviously shows some intent."

Now that's a lawman talking. Well done, ma'am.

BLACKFIVE

SitRep:

BlackFive has an excellent update on Ops Mongoose and New Market. It contains this, from an unnamed Senior Marine Officer:

No shock to any of you, 1st Force had their own target sets and with its sniper and Direct Action capability has had great success in their missions -- nothing here out of the ordinary -- it's how Marines do business.

That's Force Recon he means. You can probably read "sniper and Direct Action capability" for yourselves.

The State | 05/31/2005 | Army wants soldiers to get used to guns

This Seems Familiar:

Via Best of the Web today, an article entitled "Army Wants Soldiers to Get Used to Guns."

On his third day of basic training at Fort Jackson, Pvt. William Banks got his gun -- an M16A2 rifle.

Less than an hour later, the 23-year-old soldier from Colorado Springs, Colo., already had taken the gun apart, cleaned it and put it back together. Then, Banks and other soldiers in Company D, 1st Battalion, 34th Infantry Regiment slung the weapons over their shoulders and marched off to chow.

Giving recruits a gun so early in boot camp and expecting them to carry it almost 24 hours a day, seven days a week marks a radical change in how the Army trains its soldiers.

Now, is that a "gun," or is it a rifle?

This is a great idea. I wonder who came up with it?

Greek philosophers

Philosopher Kings:

A brief word on Plato's political thinking:

Plato accepted the world of the phenomena as a mere shadow of the real world of the ideas. When we observe a horse, we recognize what it is because our soul remembers the idea of the horse from the time before our birth. In Plato's political philosophy, only wise men who understand the dual nature of reality are fit to rule the country.

I thought of this today while reading Dalrymple's article on Ceausescu art:

There were two still lifes — both of the President’s desk. Books by Ceausescu, the so-called ‘Danube of Thought’, are prominently displayed on his desk, the implication being that the President had only to return to his own writings to obtain further inspiration. One of the still lifes was entitled ‘One Country — One Masterpiece’, as if an entire nation were but raw material to be fashioned into a work of art by its supreme genius. To emphasise this point, an architect’s drawing was draped over the desk.

One of the standing criticisms of the Right in America has been that it is anti-intellectual. I've often argued that this is incorrect -- that the intellectualism that the Right practices and respects is simply not directed at traditional academics, but instead at military and religious achievements.

The Department of Defense contains any number of serious "academic workers," from DARPA to the National War College, to the various schools attended by officers both commissioned and non- throughout their careers. Similarly, there is a whole industry devoted to Biblical scholarship, from the study of Aramaic through examinations of the Bible through the methodology of history or archaeology. This seems to occupy a lot of intellectual energy, but it is largely contained outside of the academy for one of several reasons that are obvious after a moment's reflection.

There is, however, a certain truth contained in the criticism. I think that the Right is more likely to be suspicious of claims to intellectual achievement that aren't backed up by anything other than academic achievement. An intellectual whose ideas have proven out in the real world -- a Theodore Roosevelt, who writes vigorously, and applies those ideas successfully -- is greatly admired. But an academic who writes works that are great only by the acclamation of his fellow intellectuals is regarded as suspect. An academic whose philosophy leads to bad results in the real world -- a Ceausescu or a Kim -- is regarded with baleful eyes.

He is the great teacher who teaches them what the true life is.... The General is the mental pillar and the eternal sun to the Korean people. As they are in harmonious whole with him, they are enjoying a true life based on pure conscience and obligation. They are upholding him as their great father and teacher, united around him in ideology, morality and obligation.

Why this need to portray these Communists, masters of their society, as great intellectual lights? Why was Mao so lauded as a thinker, when it appears that he gave little consideration to the consequences of his words? "Let a hundred flowers bloom," he said, and was horrified to see that people believed he had meant it; let us have "a Great Leap Forward" by boosting steel production, even if millions starve. When he wrote of what he knew -- guerrilla warfare -- he was a solid mind. But why must he have also written 'the little Red book,' that so many carried around as a talisman of thought?

Perhaps the most famous intellectual light of the Communist period was Lenin, who is still regarded by some as a plain genius who simply couldn't make his beautiful ideas work in the real world. There are two serious objections to the notion that he was a genius.

First, he was a dishonest debater:

Note that the context in which Lenin wrote is often crucial to understanding the point of much of his work... It is possible to attribute just about any political position to Lenin by quoting him out of context. This is not to say that any one interpretation is as good as any other. Only that in reading Lenin it is always important to know something about who he was debating and why.

Far from being an intellectual heavyweight, Lenin took the easiest road to victory in any challenge. His principles were not firm things that he could stand upon against all comers, but things he asserted or abandoned based on the needs of the moment. He was not interested in truth, but in winning arguments. He would adopt or abandon any position as it was momentarily useful. Once he came to power, he won simply by exiling or killing intellectuals who disagreed with him, and thereby intimidating the rest -- intellectuals, indeed, suffered greatly from Lenin's attention. This is not the mark of a great mind.

Second, he was noted for "borrowing" from other writers. There were a great number of intellectuals involved in Communist thought from the 1840s until Lenin's time. Much of Lenin's writings were culled from the work of these others, so that little heavy lifting was necessary -- just a lot of reading, followed by the simple exercise of updating the examples. Where the original author cited some outrage of 1852, you find a similiar outrage of 1911, substitute it, and it's a new work. If there are two such authors -- Hilferding and Bukharin are usually cited as the source of Lenin's thinking on imperialism -- you find the middle ground between them, and assert that.

Now, there's nothing wrong with doing that if you've got eternal principles that actually work. Indeed, it's a good way to educate people generally: make them familiar with older writings that express these principles, and then have them perform the exercise of finding modern-day examples of where the principle could be applied. But this is the point: any schoolchild can do it. In and of itself, it isn't that impressive. What impresses is what you do with what you've learned.

We have seen what they have done. It is, in its way, impressive. It should not convince anyone that they were geniuses who understood the truth of the world.

Yet, still today there are people who set out to portray them and their modern analogues as Philosopher Kings. These things are meant to justify their rule over "common" men: their education, their wisdom, their ability to think great thoughts. This is meant to set them apart from us, to convince us that we ought to submit to their reason. They are the experts.

The West is deeply indebted to Plato for preserving for us, in his early writings, the example of Socrates. His political thoughts, however, have been a disaster. Only those who understand the nature of reality should rule? Well, if that's what we're after, show me the man who can make his ideals work in the world. I'll follow his example, even if the ideals are mystical and their internal logic unclear.

Better that, than to follow a bright and beautiful notion that leads to ruin and cruelty. It may be that the truth isn't readily understandable. I've always suspected that might just be the case. Logic may be good at getting you from where you are to where you want to be, but it probably isn't any good for figuring out where you ought to want to be.

For that, you need something better. You need faith, in ideals that sound good and feel good but may not make a lot of sense when you try to think them through. You need to look around for the men that you naturally admire, and follow them. And you need to look at yourself honestly, and be straight about where you're not measuring up.

Winds of Change.NET: Memorial Day, 2005

Memorial Day:

I had planned to do a roundup post, but Winds of Change has a better one than I could have done. So, instead, I'll do some original reporting.

Mark Steyn wrote a piece on Memorial Day:

Before the First World War, it was called Decoration Day -- a day for going to the cemetery and "strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion." Some decorated the resting places of fallen family members; others adopted for a day the graves of those who died too young to leave any descendants.

I wish we still did that.

We still do.

Virginia is unique in the South in that it celebrates Confederate Memorial Day on 30 May (most places do it on 26 April), with the provision that celebrations "give place" to Memorial Day proper. It was therefore the case that I was able to see the two celebrations back to back, as they are held in the small town of Warrenton, which changed hands sixty-seven times during the Civil War.

This morning's celebrations were far larger, and began at 9:30 AM with a parade down main street. It involved the local school bands, JROTC rifle demonstration teams, majorettes, and Marines in their Dress Blues. The Memorial Day parade is smaller than other parades -- it occupied only half of the small main street, as compared to the Halloween parade, which occupies all of it. Nevertheless, quite a few families came out to have a walk in the May sun and see the parade.

It was an old fashioned parade, in that spectators did not simply watch, but followed along (the Halloween parade is also of this sort). The destination was the cemetery, which includes many graves from the Civil War, and indeed from the Colonial period forward. The speechmaking was rather short, with the three volleys of the 21 gun salute following within twenty minutes of the start of the parade. Perhaps two hundred people came out to attend, not counting the bands in the parade or the Marines in the color guard.

Confederate Memorial Day celebrations were held the day previous. These were smaller, with the ceremony having perhaps a hundred people in total.

The ceremonies were also rather longer, with speech following on speech, including a long history lesson about one of the Civil War officers native to the town. There were two prayers -- an invocation and a benediction, the first of which I wish I had a copy to quote to you. It was an unusually fine example of the art. Though it was the Civil War they had come to remember, the prayers were of national unity and the brotherhood of Americans. The poem read afterward likewise could have applied to the soldiers of either army. There were also several hymns, most notably "Amazing Grace."

The UDC came out with baskets of flowers, which were distributed among the crowd to decorate the graves. In particular, they wished to decorate the mass grave of Civil War soldiers who had died in the hospitals following First and Second Manassas, and whose markers had been used for firewood by the Union Army during the last, bitter winter of the war. But they have raised a fine granite marker over the mass grave now, and it was covered with flags and flowers.

Then there was the 21 gun salute. There was no official color guard, but instead a group of civilian re-enactors. Five of the seven "guns" were muskets, but the last two were Civil War artillery pieces. The third time they set them off, a squirrel in the tree behind me -- having had as much as his little heart could stand of the shock and the smoke -- lept straight out of the tree and hit the ground running, twenty feet below.

Poor creature, he didn't understand. The cannons and longarms had not come to shed blood, but to honor it.

I put my hat back on my head, and went home to start the cooking fire. Happy Memorial Day.

Karl's New Manifesto - New York Times

Marxism:

Strongly advocated in the New York Times. This time, though, I think I pretty much agree.

OhmyNews International

Two from PACOM:

Here are a couple of interesting articles from PACOM. The first is an interview with AEI's chair in political economy, Nicholas Eberstadt. It ran in the South Korean press.

'[A nuclear North Korea] would have a terrible economic impact on the entire region, a very big business impact,' he said. 'A downturn in this important region of the world economy translates very quickly into high urban unemployment rates in China. And if China is not afraid of North Korean nuclear weapons, I can promise you the Chinese government will be afraid of high rates of urban, male unemployment.'

There's quite a bit of interesting thinking in the interview.

Meanwhile, over at The Australian, Greg Sheridan tries to explain three underplayed stories in Japan, and what they mean for the future of the Australian - Japanese alliance. His thought: they will become closer to each other, but also to the United States.

Trust

"Gun Bigotry"

The Geek with a .45 refers to gun control advocates as "the forces of organized gun bigotry." Here are a few examples this week, taken from The Virginia Citizens' Defense League online alert list, VA-ALERT. It's an interesting email list if you're interested in that sort of thing -- particularly for Virginia citizens, but also for people interested in the issue nationwide.

In Illinois, one of the last states that essentially forbids the practice of Second Amendment rights, there is a debate about whether yet another gun control law may be wanted. The question is not whether purchasers of guns should have their names put on a list kept by the state -- everyone seems to think that they should. The question is whether the list should be kept for 90 days, to give the state time to do whatever investigations it may feel necessary, or forever.

"We are in an arena of compromise," says one of the 90-day advocates, state Senator Peter Roskam. Here is what he's compromising with:

- Fellow Senator Don Harmon asked him to explain why he was supporting "a gang-banger initiative."

- The Chicago Tribune stated that Roskam was "a tool of the NRA in its fight to weaken gun laws."

- Senator Kwame Raoul asked why, since sex offenders' names are kept on record, gun purchasers' names should not be?

Ah, yes. Compromise. My side wants people to be free to exercise their Constitutional rights without being put on a list of undesirables; your side thinks gun purchasers are moral equals of rapists and child molesters, and that the NRA is secretly in league with gang-bangers in a fight to undermine protections for law-abiding citizens.

The rhetoric is similar in the District of Columbia. There, as in Illinois, the notion isn't that anyone might be allowed to carry a firearm. However, it is suggested that people might be allowed to keep one in their home, to defend themselves at least in their own bedrooms.

That suggestion drew this rather thoughtful critique:

- "They're trying to see to it that more children get killed," said D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat.

Yes, precisely. That's why married couples with children are more likely to vote for conservatives than any other group of people. We want to see more children get killed.

Meanwhile, you probably saw the story on Alphecca that San Diego feels that off-duty police officers should not carry firearms, as it would make their festival unsafe.

Well, maybe it would. A badge doesn't except you from the rules of gun safety, because those are based on the law of physics.

I suppose the overall moral is, "Don't trust the government." I always feel odd saying that, being a completely committed defender of the Republic and its Constitution. Nevertheless, it's true -- the government, its politicians and its bureaucrats can't be trusted to protect your interests. You have to be ready to stand up, and speak up, to them.

Even if they're SWAT team officers.

A citizen's duty is real. We aren't going to keep this country on the right path if we don't consecrate ourselves to doing it.

Arts & Letters Daily - ideas, criticism, debate

Arts & Letters Daily:

I should mention that the last two stories came to me via Arts & Letters Daily. I've hat-tipped to them so often that I sometimes forget to do it, but if you don't read them regularly, you might enjoy doing so. They have a permanent place on my link bar -- the second link under "Honor & Virtue," and only the third link down overall (counting the hidden link under the Leatherneck tartan). They do good work, and Grim's Hall is often in their debt.

Postmodern Fog Has Begun to Lift

Bloom Off PostModern Rose:

Here's an interesting article from the Los Angeles Times, called "Postmodern Fog Has Begun to Lift." Those of us who have been opposed to Postmodernism all along will be glad to hear it.

Until now, however, professors of English literature have been largely impossible to move from the Postmodern bandwagon. What has caused this sudden rethinking of the notion of Objective Truth?

[T]he master strategists in the White House, though they claim to stand by traditional values, are very much in the camp of postmodernism. In the New York Times Magazine last October, for example, a "senior advisor" to President Bush told Ron Suskind that journalists and scholars belong to "what we call the reality-based community," devoted to "the judicious study of discernible reality." They have no larger vision, no sense of the openings created by American dominance. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality."

He might have added that there are many ways to simulate reality: staying on message, for instance, impervious to correction and endlessly reiterating it while saturating the media environment. Ideologues, whether they're politicians or intellectuals, dismiss any appeal to disinterested motives or objective conditions. They see reality itself, including the electorate, as thoroughly malleable.

If President Bush is to be credited with liberating English departments from Postmodernism, it's been a successful administration indeed.

Weekly book reviews and literary criticism from the Times Literary Supplement

Bolivian Cattleman Whips Stanford Professor

With barbed wire. And shoelaces. Truly, my friends, a brutal but well-deserved beating is administered within these pages.

Judge: Parents can't teach pagan beliefs

Another Landmark Ruling:

Or something like that:

An Indianapolis father is appealing a Marion County judge's unusual order that prohibits him and his ex-wife from exposing their child to 'non-mainstream religious beliefs and rituals.'

You know, I'm broadly sympathetic to what is usually called "the Religious Right." For example, even though all modern jurisprudence is against displays of the Ten Commandments in an official capacity, I recognize that there is an honorable alternative view of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment that is as old as the view that holds sway.

The alternative view is that it is perfectly fine for government officials to practice their faith and display their symbols, and even to perform their duties in line with their religious principles. As uncomfortable as it might make some to be judged by someone with a framed copy of the Ten Commandments behind his head, so long as it's a personal rather than a goverment-owned display, I personally have no problem with it. I see no reason the judge can't hang his own copy in the courtroom he uses, just as you might hang a cross in your office if you were a Catholic. The judge's felt principles are the same whether they're on display or not -- at least if he hangs the sign, you know up front who you're dealing with, and if you don't feel he's been fair with you, you'll have an easier time making the case on appeal because you can clearly point to a reason for your belief.

So, I'm not especially hostile to "the Religious Right" on these questions. All the same, the Establishment Clause means something. If it shouldn't mean that you can't display the signs and speak in the terms of your faith, it certainly does mean that you can't establish a state religion. If you can't establish one, I see no reason why you can establish twelve, or fifty, or whatever range it takes to make up whatever the judge considers "mainstream."

The actual religion in question is Wicca, which is interesting in two ways. In the first case, it's interesting for reasons laid out in this sympathetic article, which boil down to this: the two founding historic claims of Wicca have both been proven false. It is neither an ancient religion that survived in misty folk traditions; nor were "witches" executed in the Middile Ages and Renaissance (who did not, per the first point, practice Wicca anyway) executed to the tune of nine million persons.

This last claim some Wiccans used to suggest that they had suffered from European predation as much as, or more than, the Jews. In fact, it appears that Wiccans actually originated among upper-class Britons in the 19th century. As the article notes, it drew from "connections to Masonic ritual, Aleister Crowley, Yeats and Kipling, the Golden Dawn, Theosophy, spiritualism, and much more."

That is the first interesting thing. The judge, either out of ignorance or because it was not his purpose, did not use this angle -- admitted even by many leading Wiccans -- to attack the faith. There is no reason to think the First Amendment would let him succeed if he had singled out Wicca on these grounds, but surely it would have been a stronger position for attempting a ban on a faith.

I don't raise this to damn Wicca, but only to point out something about the judge's tactics. He would have had documentary evidence that some variants still persist in attempting to falsify history, though he would have had to have admitted that other variants are working hard to correct the record and set the faith on a new course. Still, that is an angle that would have had a much stronger chance to survive appeal.

That is not what he chose to do. What he chose to do was not to attack Wicca due to any alleged deficiency within Wicca, but to attack all small faiths. This is not, therefore, an attack on a single faith -- it is an attempt to establish what is an acceptable "range" of religion.

The proof of this lies in the second interesting fact: the various traditions calling themselves Wicca are, collectively, the largest neo-pagan faith in the United States.

As a consequence, a declaration that Wicca is "non-mainstream" serves to delegitimize a host of other, smaller faiths as well. If a faith is allowed to be banned by the state merely because it is rarely practiced, a lot of faiths don't measure up. This chart puts Wiccans with "Pagan/Druid"s as well, but it does tend to show what else would be tossed "out of the mainstream" and thus forbidden to troubled children: Native American faiths, Sikhism, Taoists, Deism, and other faiths as well.

Apparently, the good judge took it upon himself to do this, having been asked by neither parent -- both are Wiccans. His reasoning is that it might be 'confusing' for their children, who are being educated in a Catholic school, to be exposed to Wicca as well. Yet, surely the parents have the right to have their children educated where they wish -- can they not choose to send, or not to send, their children to this school? And if they can choose that, why then should the school and not they get to choose the faith in which their children are primarily rasied?

Would he dare tell a Shinto family from Japan the same thing? A Navajo family?

It is astonishing that this ruling could have been issued in any court. I assume it will not long survive.

Hat tip: Sovay.

Grim's Hall

The Boy Scouts & the Gentleman

Commenter Ron Fox wrote an extensive piece on the Boy Scouts on one of the posts below. I thought it deserved a place on the full page:

As I've commented before, I've been a Scout leader the last 12 years. I've had a lot of experience observing boys and their behavior, and observing their mothers and their interaction with their mothers. Boys are loud, impulsive, physical, and difficult to control, especially if you are not 6' 2" and over 250 pounds with a voice that carries though a brick wall. The Scouting program deals with this by 1) making sure the boys have plenty of physical activity, 2) having them learn mostly by doing, not by listening or watching, 3) using other boys that the Scouts themselves elected as leaders, and 4) tolerating a certain level of disorder and mistakes.

There are a significant number of mothers who don't like this. Fathers tend to mostly go along with the "boys will be boys" philosophy, but the mothers want boys to be nice and quiet, pay attention, and not take physical risks. Just like they were when they were kids. I have had a lot of mothers question my philosophy. When we take the kids rock climbing, which I describe to the parents as "We're going to take your kids, tie them to ropes, and hang them 70 feet in the air over rocks", the mothers often don't even want to hear us describe it, never mind consider joining us. Just as well, since many of them are far too heavy and out of shape to be able to climb up to the top of the cliffs (although our Committee Chair is a notable exception). And we actually have had parents hold their kids out of our trips because it sounded too dangerous to them - we just had one kid who had to stay home from our rafting trip because Mom somehow divined that the currents in the river (that are 6 hours away by car and that I'll bet she's never seen in her life) would be too strong. Nevermind that the whole rest of the Troop went, and that we've been going up there for 3 years; we obviously don't know what we're talking about. Kids like that will quit the program out of shame.

Now, there are numerous mothers who, willingly or not, recognize that their sons have to be boys in order to become men. But there's a lot who don't. They are smothering their kids. They start literally screaming at me when I let the kids play dodgeball and one gets smacked by a ball thrown by a boy a foot taller and 50 pounds heavier than he is. They don't realize that when the kid realizes that he didn't die, he becomes a little braver. They hold him close instead of shoving him out the door, and then wonder why he calls home crying homesick from summer camp his 4th year at camp, when he's 14 or 15.

And should their son insist on being a boy, they drug it out of him, often because the school finds boys harder to control than girls and use drugs to turn the boys into girls. The concept that perhaps they should adapt their teaching methods to fit the pupils, instead of vice versa, seems to escape them.

That captures a great deal of what is wrong with modern education. I would like to see a method of education that teaches boys in just that fashion: and one that returns to the classical notion of education. It should focus on reading the great works in their original languages, which means learning a fair amount of Greek, Latin, and French as well as Early Modern English. It should involve a heavy does of physical education, including boxing, riflemanship, ropework, and other practical skills according to the boys' interest.

It should involve mathematics heavily, and history taught in three cycles from childhood through the end of high school: a short first cycle to give children a "root" of where they are in the world; a second, long cycle, from third grade until the end of eight grade, that starts with the founding of civilization and goes through American history, but with time for frequent looks back over the years at how civilization carried forward traditions and ideas from the earlier periods, or lost and recovered them. Then a fourth cycle in high school, which begins again with Ancient History and Ancient Greece for the first year; Ancient Rome and the Medieval period for the second year; the Renaissance and the Early Modern Period in the third year; and the fourth year, modern history and American history. The third cycle would be more in-depth and scholarly than the previous two.

A classical education of that sort would be the best preparation I can imagine for the modern world. That it was also the best possible preparation for all previous worlds is not an accident.

Yet Another

Another Voice in the Chorus:

Southern Appeal cites a report by the Manhattan Institute that says more or less the same thing as these recent "class" articles, starting with Red State, Blue Collar, which I wrote while visiting at BlackFive's place. That was followed by Class War and The New Class, which were less 'considered essays' than regular old blog posts. Still, the three read together are all on a theme.

The Manhattan Institute sings a variation:

Steven Malanga shows how coalitions of public employee unions, workers at government-funded social service organizations, and recipients of government benefits have seized control of the politics of the big cities that make up the heart of Blue America. In New York City, this coalition has helped roll back some of the reforms of the Giuliani years. In California cities and towns, it is thwarting the expansion of private businesses. In nearly 100 municipalities, it has imposed higher costs on tens of thousands of firms by passing "living-wage" laws. Whereas the New Left of the 1960s believed—idealistically, if somewhat naively—that government could solve the biggest problems of our times, this New New Left is much more narrowly and cynically focused on expanding government programs to increase its own power, pay, and perks. And, as Malanga shows, the New New Left is emerging as the most powerful element of the national Democratic Party coalition.

Genuine progressives -- the old sort of Progressive -- will soon realize that the point of these programs is no longer 'helping the poor,' but controlling the poor along with the rest of society, while arrogating more wealth and power to their own "class."

Blogger

Blogger Troubles:

You've probably noticed (I hope!) that the page is down occasionally. I gather this is a Blogger problem, and I hope they shall resolve it directly.

Winds of Change.NET: Darth Vader, NASCAR, and the New Class

The New Class:

Joe Katzman at Winds of Change linked to the article on class, below. He wonders if it doesn't demonstrate illustrate the theory of the "New Class" envisioned by Communists, but likewise present in the socialist West.

Mr. Derbyshire, whose notes from the school bus stop were quoted in the piece below, wrote in 2000 about the New Class. He was entirely hostile, but his piece is nevertheless insightful. One of their traits, he stated, was that:

They hate masculinity. The great masculine enthusiasms -- hunting, sexual conquest, mathematics, adventure, history, poetry, war -- are not popular with the New Class.... There is a strong tendency in our culture, encouraged by New Class educators and psychologists, to regard masculine traits as undesirable.

That is a common theme here, and elsewhere, but Mr. Derbyshire put it to virtual paper some years before we did. Psychology as a discipline (not really the appropriate word, but "science" is even less so), when applied not to individuals with problems but to "social problems," does seem to serve just this function: to enforce New Class values, while undermining traditional ones.

(Psychologist, by the way, is 77th percentile in the 'high status' scale of the Times' article. Since it requires a college degree (91st percentile for education even if it's just a Bachelor's), any practicing psychologist will average out as a member of the Top Fifth.)

Recognizing that is the first step to purging that pseudoscience from the unearned position it has come to occupy in our society. Both Derbyshire and du Toit complain, rightly, of the abuse young boys take at the hands of members of the 'helping professions,' who redefine their natural and healthy energy as a problem for society. As adults, men who have that energy are routinely painted with a black mark on these grounds. Because an increasing number of Americans have grown up in institutions that have enforced those values on them since childhood, it almost seems natural. Of course we should punish aggression, in all forms -- protective as well as predatory! Naturally, both the person who started the fight and the man who fought back are guilty.

This is the real face of our problem, as Mr. Katzman has rightly recalled. It comes down to class, but not "class" as the Times meant it. It comes down to whether you're one of them. If not, perhaps you're just a Hun.

NY1: Politics

Not The Only One:

Apparently my recent bout of nastiness is not unique. I see where Tokyo's governor, Shintaro Ishihara, recently held a press conference. He began by saying, "I have hay fever and am in a bad mood, so don't ask me stupid questions."

Well, maybe. But he sure seems to be having a good time while he is tweaking China's nose.

Cowboys and Indians - New York Times

At Least It's Not Vietnam:

Suddenly, comparisons between Iraq and British India seem to be the fashion.

Niall Ferguson: "Cowboys & Indians."

Chris Hanson, "The Scoop Heard Round the World."

Wretchard, "The High Hand."

Nicholas Fearn reviews "The Butcher of Amritsar"

Michael Hirsh, "A Troubled Hunt"

Wretchard excepted -- he has made occasional British India comparisons, but only as part of a wider commitment to exploring many historic models from military science -- this new wave seems in need of an explanation. My guess: the Vietnam analogy was finally fully explored in the 2004 elections, and decisively rejected by the voters. Journalists, who are broadly anti-war, now need a new model of to draw upon. It's taken this long to discover the next good model, and to educate themselves about it enough to write of it.

UPDATE: I've decided to expunge the last four paragraphs of the original post, on the grounds that it was nasty and unfair. :) Must be my allergies are getting to me. My apologies.

Southern Appeal

On Pat Tillman:

Readers need no introduction to Pat Tillman, though Southern Appeal provides one today. William at SA is wondering "why the Army withheld [information about Tillman's death by friendly fire] from Tillman's family and the American public."

It didn't occur to me at the time, but as I was reading the post and the comments, I remembered something from earlier. There's an executive order that touches on this matter:

"In no case shall information be classified in order to ... conceal violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error [or to] prevent embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency...."

The first time I encountered it was in Secrecy News, which brought a formal challenge against the military for classifying the Abu Ghraib report.

As I said at SA, no one is a bigger supporter of the military than I am. However, government secrecy is a danger to the Republic.

It's a necessary danger, but we have to have clear and enforcable rules -- and robust declassification, when the time comes that the information can be released -- if we are to remain a nation where the citizens are in charge.

All of you know how strongly I feel that we must remain that kind of a nation. The road away from citizen government is very smooth and wide. There are many reasons to travel it, and there are many people who will encourage you every step of the way. Yet we know where such roads lead.

If we are to remain a government of the people, we cannot yield over to goverment by experts. We cannot let it be said that only those trusted by the government enough to have clearances have a right to information about the government. We must insist that we have a right to all the information, even if it cannot be released immediately. Delay, yes, for the good of the Republic: but in time, we must insist, all things, all of them, must be told and reported to us. In the meantime, we must insist that our representatives be informed, and we must insist that they hold the government -- even the military -- to its laws on these matters. Just as we cannot accept a government of judges, we cannot accept a government of bureaucrats and functionaries, nor even of officers.

That is the only way to preserve the Republic for the long term. Here is a matter on which you might write your representative, and suggest that they demand an answer. Was the law followed? It shows less honor to Pat to have tried to keep the truth of his death from his family, than to have built some shining tale around it.

'Sunday Money' and 'Full Throttle': Nascar Nation - New York Times

Class War:

You probably saw the link at InstaPundit to the "NASCAR fans are a bunch of Huns" article at the New York Times. (Junior Johnson really is an American hero.) I went over to read the thing, and noticed another article on the sidebar -- on how evangelicals are either low class or Nuevo Riche. Both categories are, naturally, traditional objects of scorn for the Old Money or Traditional Aristocrats, in which latter role the Times places itself and its presumed readers.

Want proof of that assertion? Try their helpful online quiz, to determine what class you are. Go ahead.

OK, you've tried it out. Notice anything odd about it?

Well, what exactly is the "Occupation" field telling us? It doesn't tell us how much you make -- that's a separate field (income). It doesn't tell us how much you have already, as that is another separate field (wealth). The fourth field, education level, is likewise removed from Occupation.

What the Occupation field is for is to tell you how socially acceptable your job is. It tells you whether what you do is "High Prestige," or "Low Prestige." A surgeon, they say, is of the highest prestige -- and, since prestige is crossed with class, it tells you that a surgeon is presumably worthy of being in the Top Fifth.

Own your own business as, say, an exterminator? The best you can do is "Upper Middle Class" even if you set all the other indicators to full. Assuming you don't have a Doctorate, but rather a High School degree or thereabouts, and you're down in the regular Middle Class, even if you're rich as rich can be. If you're not fithy rich, you are hereby instructed that your lower prestige job relegates you to the status of Nobody Important.

So, where does a Senator fit in?

How about a State Department official? FBI Agent? ATF? Congressman? Federal Judge? [UPDATE: Per Daniel and Eric, judges are apparently included, though oddly as lower-status than lawyers; see comments] Town Mayor?

It seems to me that the Times misses the real story about 'Class in America.' The real story was captured nicely by John Derbyshire's recounting of a conversation at the school bus stop:

Another factor is the rising awareness & resentment among people working in the private sector of the widening gap between themselves and public employees. Here in Long Island, one teacher in 12 makes over $100,000 a year (according to last Sunday's NY Times Long Island section). That's with wellnigh guaranteed employment, masses of fully-paid vacation, and a gold-plated benefits package.... This, while private-sector workers are struggling to stay afloat in a fast-changing economy.

That's the real story. The socialist sector of our economy -- the public sector -- is quickly becoming a problem. The private sector is shrinking to the point that our economy is more socialist than not. The public sector workers enjoy all those benefits, and can simply vote themselves more.

It seems to me that there are two overarching classes in America: those who work in the Private sector, and those who work in the Public sector. What the Times is talking about is -- mostly, as some sorts of police and firefighters, social workers, and teachers are included -- the internal hierarchy of only one of those classes, which is why the article fails to give you anything akin to the real picture. The data leave out a massive sector of the economy, one that may be the real locus of wealth and power in our nation today.

UPDATE: See comments for a discussion of the proper place for considering the military, which is not included in this model; and also for gov't contractors.

Riding Sun: Newsweek: America is dead

The End of Newsweek:

"The Day America Died" they call this week's cover story in the Japanese edition. The cover? An American flag in a trash can.

For some of us, there's more of Truth in that flag than in the "holy" Koran. Will we riot, and call for the murder of journalists, as so many Muslims around the world allowed themselves to do toward America at Hizb-ut Tahrir-led rallies?

No; but now Newsweek is joining calls for the death of America too, or rather, asserting it as if after the fact. The "international" edition, less abusive because it is in English, is still highly aggressive.

But the American edition? They don't mention it at all. Cover story this week is on the Oscars.

It would be well to spread this as widely as possible. Newsweek can say what it wants, but it shouldn't get away with saying one thing to America's face, and another behind its back.

This behavior is beneath contempt, cowardly and craven. Zell Miller correctly stated that we would have a better country if journalists could still be challenged to duels, but this behavior is so low as to place the editors of Newsweek beneath challenging. They would, indeed, be beneath notice -- if their behavior were not undermining America's cause, endangering the lives of our soldiers, and the nascent cause of freedom in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the myriad places where reform has but recently begun.

Shame on the scoundrels. What a perfectly worthless bunch of cowards.

Yahoo! Mail - grimbeornr@yahoo.com

Support for the Troops:

I've had a couple of emails today from people trying to help out. They wanted me to pass some information along, so here goes.

SFC Christopher Grisham writes to mention a "soldier support" concert being held this Memorial Day weekend. It's a fundraiser for Adopt A Platoon. There is a story about it here.

Soldiers' Angels is a group mentioned frequently on MilBlogs because of their extraordinary work to support the troops, and particularly the injured. They are trying to put together a welcome for Sgt Brian Currier, returning home after encountering a VBIED. They're planning to "greet this hero at the airport in style," but the email doesn't say when or which airport. If you might want to come out, though, email Patti and ask for details.

Armarillo Spoof By Royal Guard

I Guess the Scots Still Get a Whisky Ration:

That, at least is the only lesson I can draw from this video, shot by the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards in Iraq. "Ya'll are out of uniform" seems so inadequate as a response.

Hat tip: Daniel.

The Blue Bus is calling us...: USS John F. Kennedy arrives in South Boston

Happy Armed Forces Day

Our friend and regular commenter Lizard Queen has a nice little photo gallery of the USS John F. Kennedy coming home to Boston. They've got a prototype Joint Strike Fighter on the deck. There are tours today, if any of you are in Boston.

Black Five has a post on the coming war against the military by the press. His thesis, which seems all too reasonable, is that the press is likely to rally behind Newsweek instead of the military, and do anything they can to "prove" the allegations of insensitivity. This is, of course, likely to cause harm to the military, the interests of America, and in the long term the interests of a free press. How many nations which currently do not have a free press will be eager to create one, after they watch how ours behaves?

Baldilocks reminds all those soldiers not to cooperate with the media's desire to destroy their reputation. "Some military personnel were Judases for a lousy 900 dollars. I hope they can live with the fallout," she says.

Doc Russia has a link to a page with a photo of a Cuban gentleman prisoner that you won't want to miss. We have enemies in many places, but we also have friends -- often the truly oppressed and downtrodden. It is men like these, and women like those in Afghanistan, who most love the idea of America.

On a topic not directly military, but of importance to MilBloggers and others who believe that this form of media is the wave of the future and a particular strategic advantage to the United States, the FEC is still planning to regulate blogs. Send a letter while their comment period is still ongoing.

It's been a rough couple of days around here for professional reasons, just as last week was pretty heavy. I'll be back to my usual blogging self as soon as things quiet down.

Eject! Eject! Eject!

Sanctuary:

Bill Whittle has a new essay out. It is long and winding, as they always are, but quite rewarding, as they always are.

The early part of the essay takes on the question of the abuses of the laws of war, and who is responsible for them. Mr. Whittle maintains that the refusal of the enemy to wear uniforms -- their attempt to take cover among civilians, which then requires the military to set aside some part of the protections for civilians -- makes the enemy at fault for all such abuses. That is the correct explanation as a matter of the laws of war, and the essay examines the reasons for that carefully.

However...

I often wonder what options there are for fighters in the current period. "Fourth Generation" warfare isn't something we control: the wearing away of the clear lines between civilian and combatant aren't to our advantage, and in fact the American military could not be better served than by having clear lines. Responding to the challenges posed by these enemy shifts is probably the single greatest problem facing the American military.

But, by the same token, our enemy doesn't control the shift from Third to Fourth Generation warfare either. It's easy to forget that. The fact is that, to a large degree, the enemy is fighting us this way because there is nothing left. They cannot do what the Minutemen did -- compose an army of farmers, stand in a line, and slug it out with British regulars. Stand in a line now, and you'll get a JDAM dropped on your head.

Some of these unlawful acts are indeed atrocities, and they should be condemned even by the very radicals who oppose us. Car bombings or other attacks directed against civilians; the use of atrocities against the innocent, such as beheading civilian hostages, to inspire terror; the use of the mentally retarded as suicide bombers; pretending to surrender and then detonating yourself: these things are crimes, not just against the UCMJ or the "Laws of War," but against the higher and prior laws that underlie those things. Those are truly evil acts, which ought to be abhorred by all people equally.

But the fact of fighting without uniforms is not among those things. It is morally problematic, for the reasons Whittle cites: it undermines the protection of civilians. Yet, how else can they fight us? If not by assassination, sniping, hiding, bombing military targets -- how?

I think Mr. Whittle's answer -- again, the correct answer -- is that they should not be fighting us. We are in the right. We are upholding civilization, the 'society of miracles' that he holds forth on later in the essay. These savages, who behead unarmed civilians in order to inspire terror, are simply wrong and should lay down arms.

Yet it isn't necessary that this should be the case. Consider the question from this angle: What if some future administration were actually doing the things that Democratic Underground charges Bush II with doing?

Let us say that you became convinced, correctly, that this theoretical administration was undermining the Republic and the Constitution, and actually seeking to install itself as a dictatorship -- either openly, or through perversion of the law to make elections a mere show. The elections of 2008 and 2010, say, were illegitimate elections that used outright fraud to install not just a President, but a legislature that would be pliant to him. The military was being used, not just to batter other nations into line and steal their resources, but also against our own people in accord with the administration's interests. The nation's police forces were being fielded to suppress dissent, and to terrorize innocent people who might be a problem. The administration was arresting people without charges, and holding them without trial. It was secretly endorsing the use of torture and murder: not only letting its servants get away with it, but secretly encouraging it from the very top down. Good-hearted people in the military, who try to object, are being driven out, imprisoned, or having their careers ruined. Only officers who agreed with the government were left, or were being installed where they hadn't been, and they were moving to use their units in accord with its goals.

So it's 2011. You honestly believe -- as apparently many of the subjects of Mr. Whittle's essay do -- that new Nazis have taken over the government. Many of you have taken an oath to uphold the Constitution against enemies, foriegn and domestic. Others have not, but feel as strongly about doing so. What do you do?

Pondering this, of course, demonstrates the fundamental unseriousness of the current opposition. What they actually do is hold no-account protests that do nothing but disrupt the workings of people's lives. They sit at home, in comfort, writing screeds. They go to Meet-Up meetings and talk angrily among themselves, over expensive coffee that they can easily afford.

That wouldn't do, though, if these were real Nazis.

Frankly, I think the theoretical example is and can only be that -- I do not believe that the military would enforce those sorts of illegal orders. I think they would stand true to their duty to disobey illegal orders, and would do whatever it took to restore the Republic. The military remains a strong hindrance to abuse of power by any US government. In order for the theory to ever become practice, then, the government would have to engage us in a war -- not like Iraq, but with a genuine threat like nuclear China -- that so involved the military with an actual external threat that its members could not attend to, nor consider resigning from their posts in order to address, serious Constitutional violations at home.

I think, then, that the military would have to be otherwise engaged.

On the other hand, we have seen a real example of a Federal police agency -- the very largest, BATFE -- that has been perfectly willing to be transformed in improper ways. Most of BATFE's activities are against people guilty of procedural violations, and according to a Congressional investigation, seventy-five percent of BATFE prosecutions are constitutionally improper. (See a lengthy debate on the topic, with links, at InstaPundit).

These figures should be humbling, causing the bureau to insist on going about its business more carefully and with a great deal of concern for the proprieties. Yet, instead, BATFE has simply chosen to ignore them and pretend that the facts aren't what they are. One bureau is not an uncorrectable problem, nor even several major agencies if the electoral system continues to function -- but what if it did become broken? What if we did find ourselves in an "illegal war" being used as cover by an administration attempting to engage us in a dictatorship?

It is not utterly impossible that we could find ourselves obligated, by oath and duty, to take up arms at some point in the future, against some administration yet to be conceived. Thomas Jefferson thought it likely. Any American must remember the roots of our nation in Revolution, and remember that revolution may someday again be required of us.

I mention all of this only to demonstrate that some of these guerrilla tactics might very well have to be employed -- that employing them, however distasteful, might be preferable to doing nothing. Bombing a city, even with precision munitions, is distasteful. Indeed, it is horrifying. But there are times when it is better, morally as well as in terms of practical reality, than the alternatives.

If our Islamist enemies believe that they are in such a position, then they have to fight us. Indeed, if the radical Left were serious, it should be fighting us.

We have every right to punish atrocities and terrorism. We should, however, be careful to consider which of their tactics are truly evil, and which are simply necessary. That will allow us to separate the terrorists from the honorable enemies with whom we can negotiate. The ones who behead the weak and innocent in order to inspire terror are evil. The ones who fight our military with rifles, though they do not wear uniforms -- they may not be evil men. They may simply not trust us, and be unwilling to conceed control of their nation to foreigners with rifles and bombs.

With the first sort of foe there can be no quarter. With the second, there can be a genuine peace. It is in our enemy's interest to blur those lines, just as it is in his interest to blur the line between combatant and noncombatant. We must try to keep the lines clear, as much as we can.

An imaginary �scandal� by Theodore Dalrymple

On Frauds:

Dalrymple speaks to the philosophy of frauds:

The fact is that people who commit fraud, at least on a large scale, have lively, intelligent minds. I usually end up admiring them, despite myself. My last encounter was with a man who defrauded the government of $38,000,000 of value added tax. I am afraid that I laughed. After all, he had merely united customers with cheap goods. Unfortunately for him, he had been lifted from his tropical paradise hideaway by helicopter and then extradited. By the time I met him, though, his sentence was almost over. He had discovered Wittgenstein in prison.

"Did you have to pay the money back?" I asked.

"No," he replied, "though I would have had a shorter sentence if I had."

He had calculated that an extra two years as a guest of Her Majesty was worth it. I shook his hand, as a man who was unafraid: I could do no other.

It's even harder for Americans, I think, to be irritated with people whose crime is tax evasion. Boston Tea Party, and all that.

UPDATE: I wrote that in amusement when starting into the essay. That is the point of such anecdotes -- to draw you in, with humor, so that you will stay for the sermon.

And it is quite an essay. The amusing parts are up front; the deeper you get into it, the more it proves a tragedy. In this way it is like Shakespeare, who happens to make an appearance. Give it a read.

The Adventures of Chester: The End of the Obvious Pseudo-Event

Strategic Communications:

Officer of Marines Chester has an excellent post about the current situation of the global media, and how it impacts the United States' strategic goals. One of the things he challenges is the Defense Science Board's call for a "top down" revolution in conducting Strategic Communications:

No such orchestration is possible, if it ever was, for two reasons:

1) the mass media has an aversion to being the handmaiden for any government program and
2) the mass media is rapidly being replaced by a decentralized free global and private press that is unprecedented.

A top-down approach will not work if saving America's image is the goal.

There is a particularly American solution in the offing, as demonstrated by the MilBlogs ring. Several times in the recent past, slanders against the US military have been effectively countered by MilBloggers, acting without orders. While these operators are independent -- which gives them a credibility that official government statements do not have because of the walls of secrecy around government decisions -- they are choosing to coordinate of their own free will. Such coordination can create impressive results. Consider a few of these swarms, which are gathering around Mudville because of Greyhawk's leadership:

On Newsweek. There's a lot to be said about this, but all of it falls under nondisclosure for me, so I won't. What should be noticed, though, is how many independent analyses gathered there.

A response to Bob Herbert's slanders was expanded to this second post. Another media-generated "the military is full of thugs" scandal, unmade by the simple fact that a lot of military men with actual experience now have a voice.

The military's own response in both cases has been muted. Even if there were a top-down authority firmly in place, however, I think Chester's right: it wouldn't be as effective as the MilBlog response, except perhaps as an additional means of raising the challenges to these stories that MilBloggers raise. It can ally itself to them, and give the rubrik of authority to their statements. But it can't do what they can do: the news media will regard any statement from such an authority as questionable simply because it was made in secret. MilBlogs offer transparency.

I don't see any reason a similar set of blogs couldn't be set up by institutions with the courage to do so. If State or CIA officials had the guts to say what General Cartwright said, we'd soon be in a stronger position as a nation. The bureaucracies don't like the idea, however, because it gives underlings a forum for complaints as well as for rising to the defense of the institution. (Consider the DiploMad.) Even this is a selling point, however, for those who are not timid. It is the independence of the voice that makes it credible. If they are free to praise or to condemn, their praise is valuable, and their condemnation can offer useful lessons for the improvement of the agency.

Protected free speech, transparency, and a shift of power away from the state and to the individual: that's the American way. Not only that, but we are the culture in the world most comfortable doing it, which means that other nations won't be able to replicate our success at it: there will be no Chinese MilBlogs ring.

If this distributed media is the wave of the future -- as many think it is, and I see no reason to disagree -- America has a chance to retain unassailably its position of information dominance. The way forward is to lift some of the restrictions on disclosure and speech by individuals who are within organizations, and then protect blog speech under the First Amendment.

Obviously there are places that cannot do so easily -- the CIA, for example, would have to think hard about what rules it might employ before allowing officers to blog. But for those that can, it is a powerful tool.

Gunfighting

Gunfighting:

As you recall, I missed out on Buy A Gun Day due to it falling on "pay exorbinant taxes day #1 of 4" for contractors. However, my generous wife has offered to dip into her own money in order to consider a firearm purchase for Father's Day, which happens also to be our wedding anniversary (and our son's birthday -- at least some years).

I'm thinking of a Bond Arms derringer, or possibly one of the Cimarron "Thunderer" Sheriff's models. Either could be carried in a pocket, I think, though the Cimarron would be harder -- maybe I can find one to examine at the next gun show out this way.

I'd like a pocket pistol for the summer, and given the short barrel and short ranges involved in such a thing, I'd prefer a heavy bullet like the .45 Long Colt. At the range at which a pocket pistol would be useful, an assailant is likely to get ahold of you or your family if you don't shut him down at once. The only ways to do that are through central nervous system shock, and by dropping the blood pressure sharply -- i.e., by striking the central nervous system itself, or the heart, or the giant arteries just above it. You've got to get through heavy bone to get to any of that.

What do you folks think? I'll entertain alternative suggestions, but I'm especially interested in people who have experience with one of these models.

B-5

Thanks to BlackFive:

I had a good time posting at B-5's haunt during his absence. Unfortunately for me, the weekend saw a spike in the amount of work I've been doing professionally; and my nondisclousure agreement causes me to refrain from blogging about topics I've done work with in that regard. As a result, I had neither time nor material for more than two posts, which you can read here and here if you like.

My fellow guest blogger, Cassandra, therefore had to carry most of the weight herself. Please note that I've added her blog to the "Other Halls" section, which I meant to do last September when we were blogging together at Mudville. If you don't know her site, you might want to get to know it. She's an interesting voice.

Arganti

Happy Birthday, Arganti:

Back in 1999, a great monster of a hurricane named Floyd bore down on the coastline of the American South. It was the size of Texas when it made landfall, but it had thankfully weakened in the hours just before hitting ground. Not long before it was due, it had been a powerful Category Four.

The city of Savannah, which is twelve feet about sea level at its highest point, was evacuated -- along with the coastline north and south of there for quite a while. I happened to be living in Savannah at the time. When we came back in a few days, some trees were down and the city had endured a thrashing, but there was no severe damage.

However, the evacuation and the storm had occasioned some chaos. I was out surveying the neighborhood in which I lived to see how much damage there was -- the worst was from flooding, and not the only time our home flooded while we were there.

As I turned a corner, I saw a little white kitten sitting alone and forlorn in the middle of an empty sidewalk. She looked up, saw me, and raised her tail straight into that position that kittens use to signal that they've seen their family.

"Uh-oh," I said to myself, and started walking home.

Too late! The little white kitten followed me all the way home, without me so much as touching her or encouraging her. She trotted after me as fast as she could, and walked right into the apartment in which my wife and I lived.

Well, we didn't need a cat. I should say, we didn't need another cat. We haven't had a cat in years, but at the time we had cats already. One of them, a little grey and white coward called Mosqueton, was always sneaking up on this kitten and pounding her. He didn't like her at all.

Fortunately, I had a friend who needed a cat. Unfortunately, she lived in Maryland. Still, once she had seen the pictures, she took a flight down to spend a few days visiting with us, and then when she left she took the cat.

You can see the kitten went to a good home. Happy birthday, Arganti.