Revolutions

Revolutions, In & Out of the Hemisphere:

Congratulations to Canada, which has done what was unthinkable even two years ago -- broken the hold of the Liberal party on the government. More at Captain's Quarters, which deserves a share of credit for breaking the strength of the previously-ruling party by exposing its corruption.

I wish them well, and indeed, they are among the most optimistic people in the world right now. The others are the Iraqis and the Afghans:

Canadians are bullish not just about their own finances (64%), but also about the economic prospects of their country (63%).
They are joined in their optimism by the people of two countries devastated by war and civil conflict, Iraq and Afghanistan.

In Afghanistan, 70% say their own circumstances are improving, and 57% believe that the country overall is on the way up.

In Iraq, 65% believe their personal life is getting better, and 56% are upbeat about the country's economy.

The Canadian "revolution" is like the Afghan and Iraqi ones in only one way: it promises freer markets and more open, honest government. That is a most important similarity.

There is less reason for optimism in our Southern hemisphere, where the recent revolutions have promised less-free markets, and a renewed Marxist influence. Here is a piece from former Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge G. Castaneda that is extremely critical of the American response:

At the inauguration tomorrow of Evo Morales as Bolivia's new president, the United States -- which has a significant military and aid presence in that country -- will be represented by a deputy assistant secretary of state. This is just further evidence -- if any was needed -- that U.S. relations with Latin America are in utter disrepair....

Today practically every nation seems to have some point of friction. Brazil is at odds with Washington on trade policy, especially anti-dumping and agricultural subsidies; on its wish to occupy a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council; and on Iraq. Argentina rails at President Bush's support for the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), criticizes U.S. economic policy recommendations, and may advise Venezuela's Hugo Chavez on nuclear energy. The newly elected Morales wants to remove the penalties for coca-leaf cultivation -- and expand it. President Vicente Fox in Mexico has been left high and dry by George Bush: Instead of an immigration agreement that would have addressed the most important issue on the bilateral agenda and an increasingly intractable U.S. domestic problem, Fox now has to deal with a hateful proposal to build a wall on the border, criminalize unauthorized emigration to the United States and punish any association with it. Bush didn't push for an agreement when he could have; now he supports a bill that is offensive to everyone in the region.

And then, of course, there is Venezuela. Chavez is not only leading the fight against the FTAA (which was going nowhere anyway) and making life increasingly miserable for foreign -- above all, American -- companies in Venezuela. He is also supporting various left-wing groups or leaders in neighboring nations and has established a strategic alliance with Havana. Most important, he is attempting, with some success, to split the hemisphere in two: for or against Chavez, for or against the United States. Whenever this happens, everyone loses.

Castaneda, though harsh here in his criticism, should be best remembered by Americans for being Mexico's Foreign Minister on 9/11. Alone in his government, he took such an openly pro-American stance that it caused a tremendous backlash among the Mexican people. That backlash disrupted the early efforts of the Fox government -- the first government not from the ruling "Institutional Revolutionary Party" since the revolution -- but it was worth it to Castaneda, who thought it was the right thing to say and do. Though he is a Mexican first (as he ought to be), we should remember Castaneda as our friend.

I don't know how much good a commission of the sort he suggests would do, but it couldn't hurt. One thing we ought to know by now: it is free markets and open government that work. Those are two of the things we've been fighting for in Iraq and Afghanistan, and with real success. We need to do what we can to encourage them in the Southern hemisphere as well.

Ideology

On Ideology and Closed Systems:

I'm going to respond here, because what started as a comment turned out to be far too long for Haloscan.

I. On Changes

When a movement arises of people who are breaking out of a closed, dominant system of thought, it is a movement that often has the potential to become dominant. It's something to be watched closely when it happens.

This is because the new movement has been lately informed by direct examination of reality. The theoretical structures it builds -- the new ideology -- is at least momentarily closer to the current reality than the one it replaces.

This is why neoconservatism -- which has its origins among certain former liberals who were shocked by WWII and the rise of the Soviet state -- remains a strong philosophy in the West. But it is also why Reform Liberalism had been so strong beforehand: it, and its European counterpart Democratic Socialism, had broken out of the well-developed system of Marxism on the left. Thinkers who abandoned the Marxist worldview and structures, but were still interested in the social questions Marxism had arisen to protest, developed new political structures and ways of thinking that swept Europe and America in turn.

II. Growth and Ossification

I think there is a cyclical process here, which arises from the fact that these things (if they are successful) become movements. Movements require a lot of people; and almost no people are rational in the way of what your 'neo-neocon' describes as a "changer" is rational. As a result, any successful system will ossify over time and become "closed," and thus progressively less attached to the current reality and more vulnerable to a new breakout system. I'll explain what I mean.

Only a small subset of political thought considers large-scale systems at all. It's been a long time since I took political science, and I quote from memory so the percentages I offer should be considered rough, but you're welcome to clarify them with political science professors at your university. I seem to remember that the studies indicate that most people decide who to vote for based on personal considerations (this candidate offers tax cuts; that one offers better garbage collection); or based on party or other personal affiliation (I'm in the union, and the union says this is our guy); or based on purely social considerations (That fellow seems smarter in the debate; this fellow looks like a weasel).

Only about twenty percent of voters, as I recall, considered ideology in making their decisions. Of these, half were "ideologues," hard-core devotees to the system of their choice. This group was the most important group to possess in order to be successful as a political movement -- these people, because they think according to the system, understand what needs doing on their own and can mobilize others. These are often your party volunteers, the union leaders -- the ones who are telling the group-identifiers who 'the union's guy' is -- and other similar organizers.

The problem is that you need these people to be successful as a movement. However, because their approach to life is ideological, in order to capture them you need to present a system for them to apply to life. They are rational, but their rationality rarely extends to questioning the fundamentals of the system. It normally stops with thinking rationally about how events they observe fit within the system.

III. The Role of Emotional Thinking

This is not limited to politics -- Aristotle, for example, questioned whether it was possible to think rationally about the ends of ethics. Once you understood what you wanted to be -- "A good man should be generous to the poor," or "It is better to be a fireman than a banker" -- it was easy to think rationally about whether a given action fit with being that kind of person. It was not clear, however, if you could make those basic decisions based on simple reason. It seemed to Aristotle that it was the irrational part of the soul, the emotional part, that made those base decisions about what the ends of virtue are.

The same thing is at work in these political models. Your most effective political operatives are good at applying reason to questions within the model. "How does this political coup fit within the model?" is one such question. "What does the model suggest as the right response to rising gas prices?" is another.

Yet the reason they adopted the model wasn't rational -- it is tied up with emotional thinking about what kind of person they want to be and also what kind of society they want to have. These are the very questions that Aristotle said might not be able to be addressed wholly rationally, or possibly even at all rationally.

This is why the "changer" gets hit with a heavy emotional response when he begins knocking down the pillars of the system. It is because, at base, the real supporters of the system are invested based on deep emotional attachments to the ideals. They can be wholly clinical about applying reason to events, fitting them within the system and devising a response. Applying reason to the model, in a way that undermines it, moves you into an emotional field, and they will have an emotional response.

IV. The Process of, and Reasons for, Success

As a result, the system ossifies as it becomes successful. In order to succeed, you need these ideologues to move your politics out through society. In order to engage them, the system needs to stabilize enough that they can identify with it -- enough that it presents a coherent vision of society and the Right Kind of Man, so that the ideologues can see that and decide (emotionally) that this is what they want. At that point, the system succeeds, but it also hardens. It is no longer possible for the founders of the system, or other "changers," to modify it without enraging its most important supporters.

The system may become dominant over whatever was the old system, however, because even in the hardened form it is closer to the current reality than the older system it is replacing. The ossification was more recent. More recently, reason was applied to its foundations, and brought it in line with the broader world.

If you live long enough, and remain open minded, you will therefore outlive more than one of your ideologies. They break, over time.

V. How to Lead Rather than Follow

The solution is to make your emotional decisions about what the right kind of man is, and what society is for, based on things that aren't subject to politics. You can then move easily from working one ideology to another as necessary, choosing whichever one is most likely to approach your real goals. You can also influence the new ideologies as they are arising, so that they adopt your goals.

The normal sources for these decisions are family, religion, art and philosophy. You can't do much about your family, but you can look for other families you admire, and see what is important to them. You can, in this country, examine religions freely, with an eye toward what kind of men and what kind of societies they produce.

Art is properly emotional, but once you know what you like you can examine its underpinings.

And philosophy? I still think Aristotle has the right of things. But again: look not so much at the philosophy itself, but at what kind of men it produces. You're making your emotional decisions first -- what kind of man do you want to be? What kind do you want others to be? Pick a philosophy and encourage it if and only if it develops that kind of man.

When you see a new system breaking out, you will therefore be prepared to engage it during its still-purely-rational phase. This is the point at which it is most open to change. You can help to guide it toward the things you think are eternal, so that when the ideologues get there it will invest them with those things. You will be guiding the production of the right kind of families, what you feel is the right kind of religion (not necessarily "the right religion"; it can be the right way to believe in any religion), the right kind of art and the best understanding of beauty, and the right philosophy.

In this way, as new systems emerge to meet new challenges, you can push them to remain devoted to the things that are eternally important. You can help ensure that they continue to pursue the right kind of man, and the right kind of society.

Open Mind, Closed Mind

Open Mind, Closed Mind:

After a day spent toiling away at academic work, I took a pleasant break over at neo-neocon's place.

More specifically, I read her articles about changing mindsets, which sprang from an article about the metamorphosis of the thoughts of exiled Iraqi scholar Kanan Makiya.

I hesitate to speak of this subject: I am not too young to have gone through such a total investment in one socio-political mindset, but I am a little too young to have seen such a mindset fracture in the face of a dissonant reality.

There is an element to these stories involved which is troubling. In both cases mentioned, we read about people who gradually realize that they live in a closed system of thought. That is, they inhabit a mental environment in which the words and thoughts of those who disagree don't even rise to the dignity of error. Instead, this disagreement is the result of inability to see all of reality--or of active participation in evil plans to delude the rest of humanity.

Even as I try to avoid the error of thinking inside such a closed system, I am aware of the equal danger of being too open-minded. How many pieces of absurdity clamor for my attention on a daily basis? I filter most of them out with a few simple rules, rules which close my mental world.

Following the lead of Aristotle, I seek the golden mean. A mind that is open enough to acknowledge error, and a mind that is closed to nonsensical claims.

CIA Reports Blocked

CIA Blocks Reports:

Via Secrecy News, I see that the CIA is blocking critical reports on its intelligence gathering. At least three unclassified reports, which could be made available to the public, have been produced by the Center for Study of Intelligence since 2003.

These are the kinds of reports, to judge from the article linked, that could be informative in our efforts to improve intelligence capabilities and reduce intelligence failures. The national debate is poorer, because the Agency has decided it doesn't want these critiques of its methods to be available to the citizenry it serves, and whose taxes pay for its hidden budgets.

The reports are available by mail... just not published online, nor is there any notice that they're available offline. You have to know to request one.

I haven't seen a copy myself, so I don't know if they have language in the printed version that prevents them being scanned in and posted on (say) a blog. But I would be surprised if it didn't.

One of the Sharp Ones:

Uncle Jimbo, during an interview with Sgt. Boggs, lets the sergeant ask him a few questions back. Here's one of the exchanges:

What do you think when people call those in the military the “best and the brightest?” Since you are prior service I am expecting a different answer from you then say a politician might give.

I don't believe that the military, by and large represents our best and brightest, as it would normally be defined, I think it represents an excellent cross section of middle America. If you define best as offering to serve a greater good than yourself, then that certainly fits, but brightest?.....hardly. There were plenty of smart and even brilliant people I met, but there were also plenty of raging dumbasses, and even an entire class of people we termed oxygen thieves.

Well, OK, fair enough -- reference the LT from the previous post. But let me point you to one of the sharp ones: Specialist Phil Van Treuren of "Camp Katrina." One of the things about the Reserve and National Guard is that the "part-time soldiers" are often extremely qualified professionals in their civilian lives; I remember Marine Reserve Lieutenant Colonel Coulvillon praising some of his reservist enlisted Marines in Iraq, who were often very highly educated and able to bring their education and experience to bear on the tasks of the day.

I don't know exactly what Specialist Van Treuren does 'in real life,' but he's got a brain on him. That link is to his new "Weapons Cache Database," in which he's compiling DOD reports on captured war material:

Camp Katrina's 2006 Weapons Cache Databank, updated daily, now gives you the ability to check out a current list of MSM-ignored stories showing every bomb and gun our military takes out of terrorist hands this year. Check back daily for more stories proving that the U.S. military does much more than just kill people and break things!

Now, why didn't the DOD think of that? A tally of deadly weapons removed from the hands of professional killers is just the sort of thing to counterbalance the constant "Today, we passed X casualties" stories that the MSM loves to run. Good job, Spec.

TGL

Hanging! Fire!

If, like me, you haven't gotten over to The Gun Line lately, don't miss this story about mortar practice with a really stupid lieutenant issuing the orders.

Kerry/Kos

JohnKerry@DailyKos.com:

I've been reading some interesting reports that J. F. Kerry has decided to engage the folks at Daily Kos (the lack of a link is entirely intentional). Here is one such report; Cassandra has another, at her quietly-reopened blog. I'm rather amused that Kos said that Kerry should be taken out and shot; but apparently the Senator is a forgiving sort (as long as you aren't a Secret Service agent who "caused" him to trip).

But look especially at Greyhawk's writeup. The founder of the MilBlog Ring can't help but notice this little exchange between one of the Kos commenters and Mr. Kerry:

Commenter: Liberals shouldn't pretend to be in favour of the military (as a concept most liberals are instinctively against it) when we aren't. The military are 'special cirucmstances' - men who must do a dirty job when all other opportunities and options are exhausted. They aren't men to be lionised and put on a pedestal - they're like toilet cleaners: it's a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it. There's nothing brave or noble about it - it's a dirty, degrading, inhuman affair, but one which is occasionally necessary.

Kerry: As you can imagine, it's difficult to respond to each of you individually, but Teresa and I were impressed with your thoughtfulness, your honesty, and your dedication.

I don't know. I might have taken some time out to respond to that one individually, if I ever wanted to be taken seriously as a candidate for a national office. I'm not sure anyone outside of the Kos kids does take him seriously, though; even the despicable attack emails have essentially stopped mentioning him. The lastest "Democrats are pro-terrorist" urban-legend email to drop in my box had apparently reverted to bashing Gore, whereas it had been an anti-Kerry email in 2004. (This one, if you're curious.)

I really hate these things, by the way -- regardless of whom they target. They're designed to plant a big lie in your mind ("Candidate X is a child molestor"). Even if the lie is patently untrue, and in fact proven to be untrue, once you've forgotten the charge and the response you'll remember that you once heard something awful about the guy. It's a poisonous kind of discourse, and if you ever get one of these things, I hope you'll take a moment to research the truth about it rather than passing it on.

John Kerry, of course, claims to have been a victim of such a campaign all along -- or rather, a whole lot of them, including the "Swift Boat Veterans" campaign, the AuthentiSEAL team, the Stolen Valor movie, the authors of Unfit for Command, and others. That's an argument not worth having again, except to reassert that I actually know one of the AutheniSEAL team (Steve Robinson, mentioned on the page), and trust his honesty entirely. The charges they raised, I have every cause to believe they actually believe to be true. Since Kerry has still not released his full military records to the public as he's promised, I see no reason to take his word over my friend's beliefs at the end of his investigation.

In fairness to the Senator, however, Snopes considers him clear of the fake-medals charge. Actually, they have a whole page for Kerry, most of which claims are rated false by Snopes. My own sense is based on a personal friendship, and high regard for the honor of that friend. I see no reason why my regard for Steve Robinson should be persuasive to anyone else, but for what it is worth, there it is.

Bad guests

To Insufferable Guests:

I notice all to my grief,
My vegan guests will not eat beef;
But if I roast them in beef's stead,
And boil their over-suffer'd heads
And place those heads upon the board
That other guests are so informed,
The menu-muttering shall cease,
And we at last shall have some peace.

A small offering at a gathering of friends, where was discussed a number of similar topics. Another such finding: "Dragon is more like veal than beef, given their habit of cloistering themselves in small caverns for centuries."

Given that I named my son "Beowulf," the composition of dragons cannot be a matter of no interest to me. I suspect it will interest, or at least amuse, some of you as well.

Poker Game

A Crazy Game of Poker:

I spent last night playing poker at the house of a former neighbor of mine, who is the groundskeeper at the local Catholic church. He is a devout Catholic and a proud Virginian, and had invited in addition to me his father -- a retired Chicago police officer, who now works at the Pentagon -- and also the priest, and also a couple of other people. Among those "couple of others" was a fellow I'd never met, whom we shall call Blondie.

Blondie had obviously come for the festivities instead of the poker, as he began drinking with several glasses of beer, and then began "fortifying" the beer with some sort of cheap rum. After several more glasses, he moved on to straight hard liquor.

Oh, and what liquor. The advertisement for Tarantula Tequila begins, "You wouldn't expect Tequila to be blended and bottled in Italy, but..."

So anyway, amid all of this some of us are trying to play poker. Blondie, meanwhile, is so drunk that he accidentally deals about half the cards face up on his deal, can't actually tell whether he has a hand or not so just bets heavily on everything and then lays his hand down at the end of the game to see if he won.

He won almost everything. Seriously -- he must have won two out of three of the hands, all night long. I think I broke even, but two of the other players lost everything they'd brought, and most of it ended up in Blondie's pockets.

I would suspect him of being a cheat, except that (a) I actually watched him drink all that stuff, all of which was provided by others, so I know it was all genuine liquor he was drinking; and (b) in my misspent youth I learned several good ways to cheat at cards, and he wasn't making use of any of them. Furthermore, every time he saw an ace in his hand he would burst out laughing and beating his hands on the table, which isn't much of a poker face.

Anyway, Blondie -- who while still sober had been playfully harrassing his Catholic hosts about the 'high church' aspects of the faith, such as robes and bells and saints -- by the end of the night was demanding to know the name of the patron saint of poker so he could perform some sort of ritual sacrifice in his honor.

I don't see anything quite like that on the internet lists of patron saints -- there are saints for "compulsive gamblers," which I don't think is quite the right idea, and for "playing card manufacturers," but again, not just right. Perhaps one of our Catholic readers could help us discover the right saint.

Anyway, there must be one, because he cleaned up. I shall be interested to see if he follows through on his oft-repeated, drunken claim that he was going to donate it to the local Catholic church ("It'shall goin' ta th' poor, boys," was the usual formulation of this promise.) Though I don't know if less devoted gamblers can also benefit from the veneration, some of you may wish to try it.

UPDATE: I knew I could rely on Southern Appeal, which even today linked to this piece:

I am pleased to announce that we have started a campaign to ask the Vatican to name patron saints for... Texas Hold 'Em[.]

That's the Catholic Church I know -- finding a need and filling it.

Global

Global War:
(also posted at Wilde Karrde)

I seem to recall saying, shortly after the London Subway Bombings last July, that this is another reminder that the War on (Islamofascist) Terror isn't restricted to the Middle East.

It is a Global war.

A piece of evidence tying one side of that war to the other surfaced on Reuters today. (Thanks to Michelle Malkin for the pointer.)

It seems that the interrogators at Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba have been asking questions of the detainees held there. Those detainees were, of course, rounded up during Coalition military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But some of those detainees have connections in London. Apparently, some useful information about Al-Qaeda related operations in London has surfaced during questioning, and been passed on to London investigative officials.

I am actually somewhat happy that the Reuters story doesn't go into specifics as to what information has been passed along. If the information was leaked, it would quickly become useless to law-enforcement and investigative teams in England, or elsewhere.

But the reminder is welcome. Al-Qaeda has friends and allies all over the globe. Every piece of the network that is dismantled is a victory. And the war against AQ, and against like-minded Islamofascist terrorists, is a global war.

Whiskey

Whiskey in the Jar:

The COUNTERCOLUMN reports on the EU and Irish ballads. Short version: apparently, you have to be in a union to sing at the pub. It costs about forty euros to pay your "fee," every time you perform. Also, you need a permit. And so does the pub.

Unlike the Captain, I'm not an acoustic musician; on the other hand, I know quite a few Irish ballads well enough to sing (well, OK, "roar" -- though Sovay kindly said I have a good singing voice) them by heart. My favorite is "The Old Orange Flute," a good Protestant tune you don't often hear in American Irish pubs. Still, it's got a great sense of humor, and some very clever rhymes. I can also sing plenty of Green songs, lest anyone suspect me of partisanship.

My only point of difference with the Captain is this: what's wrong with someone requesting 'the Wild Colonial Boy'? That's a great song.

Truce

Bin Laden offers truce.

Sorry... but I'll only accept their surrender... preferably at bayonet tip.

I especially loved the:

"We are a nation that God has forbidden to lie and cheat. So both sides can enjoy security and stability under this truce so we can build Iraq and Afghanistan, which have been destroyed in this war."

Aren't we the great satan?

The Whiskey Wars

"The Whiskey Wars" Are Finally Over:

Unconditional surrender has at last been achieved. Only took 131 years; but our cause was just.

Friction & Medicare

Medicare & "Friction"

I'm going to take another stab at saying what I was trying to say below. Sovay is furious because she is shocked and angry that the government's screwups are causing human suffering -- sickness and, perhaps, death, due to something that should have been avoidable. I am angry at the obvious corruption, but I'm not at all shocked, and so I can't muster the same level of outrage. I don't think the government could have done better than it did, because of the flaws native to giant Federal bureaucracies.

People often make the mistake of trying to point fingers at specific mistakes in cases like this. I don't doubt that we will soon see documentation that shows particular administration officials made particular mistakes; and it's easy, in the face of such data, to believe that the mistakes could and should have been avoided. The response I often get to this fatalistic attitude about government incompetence is, "How can you say the government couldn't have done better? Here's ten things it did wrong. If it had done those things right instead, there would have been a much better result." Obviously, that is true on its face: if the Bush administration officials hadn't made the mistakes we will soon be told that they did, things would have been better.

The problem is that it's not possible to run a giant Federal agency without making mistakes. Nor, in fact, am I convinced that the mistakes made at the top are more important than the compilation of mistakes made by the 99.5% of any Federal bureaucracy who aren't at the top -- the civil servant class, which doesn't change from administration to administration except through natural hiring and retirement.

A lot of the problems that appear that arise in these efforts come of that great force impeding human design: friction. I'm no expert on health care, although as you can see I have some opinions about it. I do know a thing or two about military science, and history, and it seems to me that there's a very useful concept we need to bring across to this kind of discussion.

Probably the single greatest military scientist was von Clausewitz; and among the things that earned him that title was the recognition of the problem of friction in war. Clausewitz wrote about "friction in war," but it is obvious that friction exists outside of war as well -- it is just that war exaggerates and worsens its effects. Part of the reason that armies make the mistakes they do is the pressure of blood and fire; but a large part of it is that they are also large bureaucracies, and much of friction arises from the failures that are natural to that form of social organization.

For example, Clausewitz speaks of generals bedeviled by "reports both true and false; by errors arising from fear or negligence or hastiness; by disobedience born of right or wrong interpretations, of ill will, of a proper or mistaken sense of duty, of laziness, or of exhaustion; and by accidents that nobody could have foreseen." Well, and so are bureaucrats; and not only the top level bureaucrats, but bureaucrats at every level. The top level are getting their reports from the field filtered through multiple lower levels, each one blurring the picture; the middle levels can hardly compile the next set of reports from the top level before new directives come down for additional reports, all the while those middle-level bureaucrats must also try to direct operations below them; and the people below are separated from the ones above by these multiple levels, so that they cannot really know what they should be preparing to do or when, or why, or how. No sooner do they think they understand the plan of action and start to prepare, then down filters a new report from on high that tells them that last plan was abandoned weeks ago, and they're only just finding out about the change now. So they must begin again; and the report begins to make its way back to the top that they have had to start preparations over, and so they are not nearly so far advanced along as previous reports had indicated.

This is the nature of bureaucracy. War makes them worse; but so do any matters of life and death, such as health care.

This is not to say that brilliance is impossible, or that no 'general' is capable of better results than another. We celebrate Ulysses S. Grant's Vicksburg campaign because it was brilliant -- but not because it was flawless. A general has to make do with the reality of friction.

I thus regard it as essentially inevitable that, of the 3.6 million new prescription drug beneficiaries, 2.6 million were signed up within the last 30 days. Of course they were. Everything is done at the last minute. That is the nature of things. The bureaucracy designed for day to day operations couldn't handle the surge of the sudden crisis caused by having to institute a major change; it never can.

Where the Bush administration is culpable (aside from their participation in the corruption attendant to the law-writing) is in not having realized that a crisis was inevitable, and prepared accordingly. They should have warned people that major disruptions in basic, life-sustaining services were all but inevitable, and to prepare themselves as best they could. They should have been ready to delay the roll-out until the crisis of late registrations could be minimized. They should have been had excesses of money set aside to address the inevitable collapse.

Really, they should never have done this at all. Yet they insisted. Well. Every major change in a massive Federal bureaucracy must be approached as if it were war: and that means expecting casualties. For major changes to a bureaucracy of any size are always a crisis, just like a battle is a crisis. If anyone's life depends on that bureaucracy, some people will die. That truth, the truth of friction, is a law of nature as immutable as gravity.

So no, I am not shocked, nor surprised, only sad to see it. It is somewhat like receiving news of a distant battle, and mourning the dead -- but we are not surprised that there were dead in a battle. Nor should we be surprised if dead come from this -- not surprised, nor given over to fervent belief that if only this or that mistake had not been made, if only someone better had been in charge...

No, probably not even then. Even Grant made mistakes, and he was a genius in his day.

Medicare

The Medicare Disaster:

I've just had an enlightening conversation with dear Sovay, who is up in arms over the Medicare disaster. "What Medicare disaster?" you may be forgiven for asking if you, like me, have been paying no attention to the subject these last few months. But it's a big story, as you can see reading here and here, and also here, that last link being to Josh Marshall's blog. Marshall, as everyone knows, is given to monomaniacal focus -- which can be a useful trait in crisis situations, though it keeps me from reading him often -- and just now it's Medicare he's focused on.

I don't write to criticize except on one point, which is the corruption involved in (a) misleading everyone as to what this program would cost (i.e., the usual corruption involved in socialist welfare plans), and (b) allowing lobbyists so much influence in how the law was written. Both complaints are with the Congress as much as with the administration; they set out to pass this benefit for political gain among seniors, and apparently did whatever was necessary to achieve that goal. If that meant downplaying costs, as it always does when the government goes into health care, so be it; if that meant giving their corporate lobbyists access so as not to see a withering of financial support from them, so be it.

This is in fact corruption, of a predictable and sad, but pervasive type.

Sovay holds that I am "setting the bar too low" in not being outraged over the other aspects of this case, the most troubling of which is that people are going to die because of the government's rank mismanagement. As I've explained to her, people dying due to mismanagement is what I expect when the government is placed in charge of important matters. This is never more true than when it attempts to take over health care duties.

It's not that I don't care; it's that the political class and the seniors are absolutely insistent on the government doing this. As a result, these disasters are inevitable. Government is not competent to handle anything this important. There are some important things that have to be handled by government, because no one else can do it at all -- maintaining a functional blue-water navy, for example. That doesn't mean the government does it well, just that they're the only ones who can do it at all. Ask any squid what he thinks of Naval bureaucracy sometime. (If you really want to hear some griping, ask what he thinks of their health care.)

I have always been hostile to the idea of a prescription drug benefit, as I am always hostile to all government health care schemes. Mark Steyn has written a few pieces on this subject, including this one:

Making idle chitchat as his fingers felt his way around my fleshly delights, [Steyn's doctor] explained that "waiting" is built into the concept of a government health service: "If you need surgery," he said, "it's in my interest to get you in and operated on as soon as possible, because that's money for me. The faster it happens, the better my cash flow. But when the government runs the system, every time you get operated on it costs the government money. So it's in their interest to restrict or delay your access. When you look at the overall budgets--salaries, buildings--it's not hard to understand that the level of service you provide to the patient is one of your few discretionary costs. So the incentive is to reduce that."

...

A few years back, [Steyn's wife] felt herself beginning to miscarry. Nobody was at home so she called a cab and went to the emergency room at the Royal Victoria. Knowing what "emergency" means in the Quebec system, she grabbed a novel on the way out--an excellent choice, Mr. Standfast by John Buchan, our late Governor General. It's 304 pages, and my wife had the time to read every single one of them before any medical professional saw her. While she was reading, she was bleeding, all over the emergency room floor, the pool of large dark red around her growing bigger and bigger, until eventually a passing cleaner ran her mop over the small lake and delivered a small rebuke to my wife for having the impertinence not to cease bleeding.... Since my wife's experience, the average wait time in Montreal emergency rooms has apparently gone up to 48 hours. So don't pack an overnight bag, take two, and the complete works of John Buchan.

Steyn's wife didn't die, but in Montreal hospitals the death rate is four times the US average from an easily prevented infection that normally results from a lack of cleanliness. The government runs the janitorial services, too.

So now the government has taken it upon itself to provide for lifesaving drugs of millions more people than ever before. The short term consequence? Lots of those people will get very sick, and some of them will die, because the bureaucracy isn't up to the task.

Sovay asserts that any other administration -- Clinton, Bush I, Reagan -- would have handled this better. I honestly don't believe that. It's nothing in favor of Bush II, who certainly isn't the President that Reagan was. It's just that this is exactly what I expect from government, which is why I think we should keep it out of as many places as possible.

The other thing I think about it is that we should tend to push the required government "down" as much as we can, as local governments tend to be relatively more responsive. Sovay tells me that twelve or fourteen states are now providing lifesaving drugs on an emergency basis, since the Feds have totally failed to do so. Great, I say -- if they're succeeding where the Federal government has failed, let's have them do it instead. Block grant the money to them, and fire all these bureaucrats at the Federal level -- including the Bush appointees at the top, if you like. Fine with me. Then, if there is a problem, there's a chance the folks at the state level might really get it fixed.

I don't mind if Bush takes a political hit for this. He deserves one. But let's be clear on why he deserves it. It isn't because the program should have been managed better. It's because he should have known that this is how it would be managed.

This is what government does. It has no business being involved in health care, except -- perhaps -- in terms of block-granting money to the states to protect the poorest and the weakest who truly can't make market-based arrangements. Even those are far from perfect -- I get annoyed with my insurance company every time I think about them -- but they're far better than any government endeavor at the basic work of keeping patients alive, clean, and keeping the wait times short.

For those American citizens who really can't avail themselves of that better way of obtaining health care, I don't mind that we should look out for them. But let's do it at the state level, and restrict the Feds to providing the cash to poorer states if necessary.

Of course, we're not really going to do that. What we're going to do is muddle along with the bureaucracy in panic mode, with people growing sick and dying because they either trusted or were forced to trust the Feds to keep their promises and manage to run things in a good order.

Don't weary me with "experts" who say it could have been done better; if those experts think so, they can take the job at a government wage. They're obviously qualified. They'd rather work at their think tanks instead? Then they can shut up. They aren't interested in doing what it takes to fix the problem. They want to slam others for 'not caring enough,' but they care more about their cheery paycheck than about getting their hands dirty and making things right.

This is a disgrace. Congress, the President, and the whole health-care bureaucracy are equally damned by it. They ought to be ashamed of what they've wrought.

China e-Lobby: News of the Day (January 17)

Chinese Paramilitary Police:

In the comments to the "war games" post below, Eric mentions the Chinese and Russian responses to Iran. Russia obviously has a lot to lose from nuclear terrorism, but China is also concerned about it. It's just that they're more concerned about energy supplies.

China e-Lobby has (among very many interesting links, as always) a link to this story about Chinese plans to bolster their "People's Armed Police," which is to say, government paramilitary units in form somewhat like our SWAT teams. In form, I say; not in function.

In a November video presentation, the Ministry of Public Security identified several threats to national stability, according to Chinese academics, that are echoed in the article.

Among these were growing anger and angst among Chinese as social pressure ratchets up; clashes among domestic groups over corruption, land seizures and the growing gap between rich and poor; and conflicts involving groups Beijing identifies as enemies on its periphery. The latter includes those who advocate independence for Tibet, Taiwan and the far western province of Xinjiang, sometimes referred to as "East Turkestan," as well as members of the Falun Gong religious group and Tiananmen protesters who fled overseas.

Analysts said it has become increasingly difficult for local police to handle the growing number of conflicts, given limitations on their weapons and manpower, leading to calls for a stronger paramilitary force.

Fears of a "paramilitary police force" being used in this fashion is precisely why American libertarians (and, frequently, even some sorts of conservatives and liberals) harbor deep concerns about the militarization of the American police force. (See the post "Reasonable Men," below.) But in China those aren't concerns; it's the reality.

I added the emphasis on Xinjiang, or "East Turkestan." Xinjiang is a Mandarin word that means "New Frontier," which is how China views the lands of the Muslims they have annexed. Beijing has been enthusiastic in building railroads out there, and encouraging ethnic Han Chinese -- who are about 97% of the Chinese population, if memory serves -- to move out to the frontier. Speaking of what Chinese words mean, "Han" translates properly as "true man" or "hero." You can interpret that as you wish; probably almost all societies think of their type as the most heroic, but few are so up front in declaring other sorts of men to be lesser creatures. In any event, that understanding -- rooted in culture and language -- has had an effect on the settlement of the frontier, with the result that there is, ah, "unrest." Exactly how much is not clear, given the remoteness of the province and the short leash on which Chinese state media operates.

But it isn't only its ethnic minorities against which China plans to exercise paramilitary control. It's also unruly farmers, religious minorities, and especially democracy advocates:

"Compared to normal police, the paramilitary police are designed to safeguard social stability through the use of compelling force if necessary," said He Husheng, a professor of Communist Party history at Beijing's Renmin University. "We learned from Tiananmen what happened when we used the army, which was not proper."

The tanks made for bad footage, I guess.

Personal = Political

"The Personal Is Political"

See, I can actually understand why this guy wants to ban the ownership of guns by private families. Unfortunately for him, so can everyone else: "Brooks organized the protest at Rutgers University - 2,000 people were supposed to show up, and only 3 actually made it to the protest."

Maybe it's the messenger.

War Games

The Atlantic's War Games:

I've mentioned in the past my respect for Colonel Sam Gardiner, in spite of his attachment to conspiracy theories about US politics. Still, he used to be a top war game specialist at the National War College, and has done some impressive work over the years in modeling conflicts. Consider this old Wall St. Journal piece on India-Pakistan war games.

I saw this morning (via the excellent Arts & Letters Daily) that The Atlantic got Col. Gardiner to lead a war game on a US-Iran conflict. AEI's Reuel Marc Gerecht was involved as well. The article describes the results as "sobering," but I think they're wholly predictable. We all understand that a limited military strike would not be sufficient to derail Iranian nuclear development because they have spread out their resources and hardened them. We understand that a full-scale regime change would run into absolutely massive domestic and international political pressure -- the domestic pressure being the important part. The public seems to have the required patience to see through Iraq, but doesn't look likely to want to start fresh with another nasty insurgency.

This, the Atlantic team concludes, means that there is "no military option." I don't think that's right -- and indeed, a military option is absolutely necessary, so it has to be developed even if there weren't a 'regular' one on the table. As even the (Woodrow) Wilson Center recognizes, "it is as great a mistake to conduct diplomacy without considering military means as it is to wage war without diplomacy."

[S]tates that attempt to conduct complicated and dangerous diplomatic initiatives without the support of credible military options frequently fail to accomplish even their immediate goals—and sometimes create more severe long-term problems. The greatest danger lies neither in using force nor in avoiding it, but rather in failing to understand the intricate relationship between power and persuasion. Some rulers rely excessively upon the naked use of force, some upon unsupported diplomacy. History shows that the most successful of them skillfully integrate the two.

Yet there are some serious problems in the face of all the suggested military options here -- and additional concerns as well. "What if they move first to pre-empt us?" is a question that has to be asked -- with the probable answer, "As that becomes a serious risk, we have to move even faster." But move where?

This is not a rhetorical question. We've got some good military science thinkers on this board. What options do you see that aren't discussed here? What other thoughts do you have? Let's run our own war game, and see what we might come up with.

UPDATE: The Belmont Club points to an Army War College paper on the same subject. It is titled, "Getting Ready for a Nuclear-Ready Iran."

Plantations

Plantations:

I didn't have time to blog yesterday, so I missed these insightful comments from the Honorable Senator Clinton.

"When you look at the way the House of Representatives has been run - it has been run like a plantation," she said. "You know what I'm talking about."

I really don't. Other than that she wished to invoke some extremely negative imagery, and stoke racial resentment by choosing images associated with slavery, I can't imagine what the analogy is supposed to be. At least when people compare Bush to a Nazi, they can point to the Reichstag fire and compare it to 9/11. It's a false comparison, but at least there's something for the conspiracy theorist to hang his hat on.

The New York Times version offers the next line in her quote, which clarifies the thrust of her argument without clarifying what the analogy is supposed to be:

"It has been run in a way so that nobody with a contrary point of view has had a chance to present legislation, to make an argument."

According to the clerk of the House, there were more than six hundred roll call votes in the last session. Glancing through a few of the pages recording them, I can see that a number of these votes passed, and a number failed. The existence of failed votes suggests that the majority, though it is not necessarily passing laws it disagrees with (why should it?) is letting such legislation come to a vote on a regular basis.

If you know anything at all about Congress, you know that no important vote occurs without endless debate, starting pre-committee and carrying on to the final vote. So, I would suggest that the Honorable Clinton is wrong to say that there is no chance to make an argumen, or to present legislation.

It is true, no doubt, that it's difficult to pass legislation when you are in the minority in both houses of Congress. That's rather different from being on a plantation, however, where there is no such thing as a vote at all. Indeed, even if you were not a slave but a cousin or child of the owners, there's no reason you should expect to get a vote in how things were run.

There is no obvious insight into the problem of being a minority party in a democratic republic that arises from this comparison. As such, I suppose it was only an expression of resentment and an attempt to stoke the same in the hearts of others. Yet, if your major means of influencing the system is through argument -- because you are a minority party, you have to persuade others to join your position -- this is a poor way to carry on with it. A little more thought, and a lot less bomb-throwing, would go a long way to easing the problem Sen. Clinton faces.

Reason

Reasonable Men:

I post two examples today of blessed reason in a highly charged debate. The first is from Kim du Toit, speaking of "infringement" and the Second Amendment. While I disagree with some of his underlying assumptions, that is not the point here. The point is that the Second Amendment is as near to his heart as a thing can be, and he comes to a set of conclusions that ought to be soothing to anyone who fears 2A advocates to be unreasonable.

You can (as I do) disagree with the particulars, while recognizing that this is the mark of a reasonable man. The Second Amendment's partisans are wary of 'compromise' only because the opposition openly uses compromise as a "Death by a Thousand Cuts" strategy. If met in good faith, however, a genuine compromise would be possible -- if we could all agree that the issue was settled, and leave it at that. Because every 'compromise' is met with immediate, renewed pushes for still more concessions, you end up with the hard line that has come to characterize the debate.

The second is a post from Geek with a .45, or rather, the comments to that post. The post is against the SWAT mentality that has overcome many law-enforcement agencies (for a defense of that mentality, see Man Sized Target). In the comments, a police sergeant ventures out, expecting to be roundly flamed -- not an unreasonable expectation, given the heat of the comments prefacing his entry to the debate.

Instead, he was met with great civility and respect. His point was an excellent one, and well made. No one drew a straw man around it to attack; no one made any use of flame-war rhetoric. That's the way debate should be conducted.

Religion

A Pair of Religious Articles:

Francis J. Beckwith has a review of a new book on the separation of church and state. I was not aware of the Ku Klux Klan's role in the move of that doctrine to the fore of American jurisprudence, as a result of anti-Catholic prejudce -- if the book is correct in its assertion, that is.

To some degree I am reminded of (former?) reader Robert M's repeated argument that the old and valuable law of Posse Comitatus should be set aside because it was passed out of anti-black sentiment among legislators. Most Americans are entirely satisfied with the notion of separation of church and state, even if we feel that the separation of "state" from church shouldn't mean that individuals who serve in the government should be banned from making decisions based on their religious principles. While it may be true that the KKK was behind this doctrine's rise, the doctrine points to something we have found to be useful and broadly beneficial when it is applied moderately.

We have read that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. It seems the reverse may also be true. A good idea, fielded in the service of a bad intent, can remain a good idea once the original advocates of it have passed away. Those who inherit the idea, being either unaware of or not interested in the bad intentions, keep what is good and discard what was bad. This points to a particular genius in the American system: not only do good ideas often rise to the top, but even bad intentions are often expressed as the cynical misapplication of what is a generally good idea. Once the bad intentions wear away, we are left with just another good idea.

I tend to think that the American courts have taken the doctrine of separation a bit too far, but also that the doctrine does point to a useful ideal. American society works best when religion is not used as a weapon against one's fellow citizens, but only as a weapon against one's self. Insofar as you wield the sword to strike down the evil in your own heart, you and your society benefit from it. The individual Senator or President can benefit from that practice as much as ordinary men or women, because of course they are nothing other than ordinary men or women.

This brings us to the second article, from the Wilson Quarterly, on an attempt to rejoin 'progressive' politics and religion. Or perhaps not religion, exactly...

A good sense of the continuing moral and political import of this American vocabulary of the spirit comes from Barack Obama, the recently elected Democratic senator from Illinois. Obama has said that, despite the results of the 2004 election, it “shouldn’t be hard” to reconnect progressive politics with religious vision: “Martin Luther King did it. The abolitionists did it. Dorothy Day did it. . . . We don’t have to start from scratch.”

Perhaps Obama’s most telling remark came in his observations about his mother’s faith: “My mother saw religion as an impediment to broader values, like tolerance and racial inclusivity. She remembered churchgoing folks who also called people nigger. But she was a deeply spiritual person, and when I moved to Chicago and worked with church-based community organizations, I kept hearing her values expressed.” Obama’s invocation of “spiritual” as an inclusive term, inextricably interwoven with the “broader values” of American democracy, is important and carefully chosen diction. It not only conjures up Whitman’s ghost but also suggests some of the poet’s own audacity.

The article also offers an interesting history of religion in American politics, from a different perspective. As this is MLK day (I am reminded by Sovay), it is probably a good idea to reflect on how he informed, and continues to inform, American politics.

One thing that is little known about the man is that he had a certain number of deacons who served as armed bodyguards. This fact may seem difficult to absorb, because of MLK's focus on nonviolence, and his personal willingness to be the target of violence as part of his method for bringing about change. He famously allowed violence and injustice to be visited upon him, in order that he might better spread his message.

Although this first seems odd, it should not be so difficult to understand: Jesus did the same thing. In Luke 22:36, Jesus bids his followers to sell their garments if necessary to buy a sword, knowing he will soon be taken by the authorities. But he will not allow his followers, though he bid them be armed, to defend him from being taken: that was to his purpose. In an age when people often ask "What would Jesus do?" it is worth noting that MLK actually did what Jesus would do: he exposed himself to violence that justice might arise from it, but he urged his followers to be prepared to defend themselves, and others of his flock, from the predations of the wicked.

MLK could follow in Jesus' footsteps because Jesus walked there first. Only because the message of Christianity lay underneath American society could American society be moved by an example of this type, just as Gandhi's example worked against the British in India. Nonviolence as a method of social change, I am far from the first person to note, relies upon an underlying morality in the society you're trying to change. American society was predisposed to justice, even though it was not yet capable of achieving and making real that justice.

That is why nonviolence worked. American society was shocked into making the hard changes necessary to achieve justice precisely because it hated seeing itself engaged in violence in the cause of injustice. America was not a wicked society, but only a society that was failing to live up to its ideals. The fact that it changed in response to MLK is proof of this: if it had been a wicked society, it would not have cared.

New Links

New Links:

I've added a couple more links to the sidebar. As usual, I don't get around to editing the template often enough, and so I forget things or let them go too long. If you feel like I ought to be adding your site to my list, send me an email or leave a comment.

The first is reader Dad29, who has some interesting things to say about local politics, and is a Calvin & Hobbes fan.

The second is Dr. Helen, who is surely my favorite psychologist. That isn't saying much, as longtime readers know all too well, so I should probably say something nicer about her than that. Much like the Geek with a .45, I enjoy and am impressed by her disdain for the orthodoxy of the "discipline" of psychology. But far more importantly than that, I respect her disdain for death.

There's an old story I recall hearing from a Zen Buddhist on the subject of a young man of the samurai class who came to a swordsmaster seeking teaching. He said that he knew nothing, but begged for instruction so that he might become a swordsman and not disgrace his family. At last the master admitted him to the school, and said, "Come here and let me see what you happen to know already." He took up a wooden practice sword, and the young fellow the same, and they took their guard and their eyes met.

The master watched his new student for a moment, and said, "You have lied to me. You are no student. You are a master."

"Not so!" the student replied. "I have never studied a day in my life."

"This cannot be," the master objected.

"Yet it is true," replied the student. "Though, there is one thing. I have never had the ability to study swordplay, but I did not wish to bring disgrace on my family through cowardice. So, for these last several years, I have practiced dilligently to eliminate the fear of death from my heart. But that is the only skill I have learned."

The master set aside his practice sword, and took up instead a pen. He wrote out a certificate of mastery for the student, and sent him away. "Go forth," he said. "There is nothing more I can teach you."

Is that true? Of course it is not. But there is a truth in it, all the same.

Alaskan

The Ruger "Alaskan"

Oh, yes. A .454 Casull fired out of a 2.5 inch barrel -- OOH-RAH! Gonna have to get one of these some time. I'll wait a few months, though, for the first set of folks who buy them to return them to the stores after they sprain their wrists. Should cut down on that hefty pricetag.

Still, looks about right to me. Yeah, it looks good.

R. James

Did You Have a Friend?

So the old song asks, about the good Reuben James. But did you know who Mr. Reuben James was?

In the ensuing skirmish, Reuben James positioned himself between Decatur and an enemy blade, saving Decatur's life. For the rest of the war, James continued to serve Decatur aboard Constitution and Congress. During the War of 1812, he served on the United States, under Decatur, and on the President. On 15 January 1815, however, President was defeated by the British and James was taken prisoner.

After the War of 1812, Reuben James resumed service with Decatur, aboard Guerriere, and participated in the capture of the 46-gun Algerian flagship Mashouda on 17 June 1815. After peace was made with the Barbary states, James continued his service in the Navy until declining health brought about his retirement in January 1836. He died on 3 December 1838 at the U.S. Naval Hospital in Washington, D.C.

And that, brothers, is why -- even after the disaster of 1941 -- we still have a ship called the good Reuben James.

Ethics & Politics

Ethics & Politics:

As we were just discussing the other day, for both Plato and Aristotle the correct politics were a natural outgrowth of the correct ethics. The two things were natural in the sense that correct ethics was directly related to the nature of man; and correct politics was merely an extension of ethics to society. Once you know what the right kind of man is, you build a society that encourages and develops that type. This understanding is the foundation of Western culture.

Ethics and modern American politics are only very barely connected. In the last several posts, we've talked about the extreme social importance of having a Congress that can be trusted to watch over the secret programs run by the Executive -- and the fact that none of us, not the Executive and not the People, really trust Congress as it currently stands to do that. For now let us leave aside the question of whether Congress doesn't deserve it because its members are naturally corrupt, or because the fact that it hasn't been required to take moral responsibility for the programs through proper oversight. The point is we absolutely need a Legislative branch to oversee secret Executive programs. It is a critical function for the continued survival of the Republic. Without that, trust in government will break down to the degree that either the 'red states' or the 'blue states' will be on the edge of insurrection. Civil war -- let us be absolutely honest, Civil War and nothing else -- lies down that road.

The situation is not better at the state level, even relatively sane states like my beloved Georgia:

Teddy Lee just got fired as executive secretary of the State Ethics Commission. It is your loss - and a big one.
He was sacked by a bunch of politicians who couldn't bend him, fold him or intimidate him from representing your interests above theirs.... Ethics - like motherhood and apple pie - is something all politicians pay homage to, but that's about all they do. Perdue is touting new ethics laws that have just gone into effect, but the law has more holes in it than Bonnie and Clyde.

It's true also in Steel City Cowboy's state, where the government is actually trying to destroy the newspapers to punish them for stopping an illegal government pay raise.

For that reason, I gladly sign on to the Center-Right insurrection on ethics. We've come to the point at which ethics is a national security issue. There is no getting around it. It was one thing during the 'fat and happy' 1990s to play at ethics. No longer. We now need a Congress we can trust, so that the minority -- whether red or blue -- can trust its findings. Oversight has to matter, and it has to be honest and reliable.

We need ethics and politics to be rejoined, or the nation will not survive. It cannot survive, with half of its populace believing the most active branch to be in violation of its basic principles, and with no one that half can trust to engage in oversight. The matter has become critical.

GA politics

Politics in the Great State of Georgia:

I see that Feddie of Southern Appeal has joined the re-election campaign of Governor Sonny Perdue. The race is of interest to me. Although I am currently a citizen of Virginia by virtue of residing there, by birth and in my heart I am a Georgian, in exactly the way that Thomas Jefferson ("my country is Virginia") was a Virginian.

I haven't decided whom I'll support, mostly because the opposition isn't yet clear. I am, however, going to take a moment to point out that Sonny, in the picture he posted on the governor's homepage, bears a remarkable resemblance to another famous politician.

Hopefully, Sonny has a better platform (and a less wily opponent).

Moose Drool

"Moose Drool"

Anyone who happens across some of this is invited to send me some. It's apparently available in Minnesota, where I know for a fact I have at least one loyal reader who ought to want to send me some beer.

Blondes

"The Best Blonde Joke Ever"

I'm not sure I agree with Greyhawk, but it is reasonably clever.

NSA

This Seems Like A Problem:

I realize that (a) government secrecy is something that you've all heard me beat the drum about perhaps one too many times, and (b) there are good reasons for a certain amount of secrecy, particularly in national security matters. But how can this possibly be true?

The National Security Agency has warned a former intelligence officer that he should not testify to Congress about accusations of illegal activity at NSA because of the secrecy of the programs involved.

Renee Seymour, director of NSA special access programs stated in a Jan. 9 letter to Russ Tice that he should not testify about secret electronic intelligence programs because members and staff of the House and Senate intelligence committees do not have the proper security clearances for the secret intelligence.

Miss Seymour stated that Mr. Tice has "every right" to speak to Congress and that NSA has "no intent to infringe your rights."

However, she stated that the programs Mr. Tice took part in were so secret that "neither the staff nor the members of the [House intelligence committee] or [Senate intelligence committee] are cleared to receive the information covered by the special access programs, or SAPs."

The Washington Post has more on the question of how the Congress fails to oversee Executive Branch programs. It sounds as if this is a general failure of both institutions, the Executive and the Legislative branch: the Legislative for not insisting on full oversight and access to information on these critical programs, and the Executive for accepting the lack of oversight. I'm sure it makes things easier, but it's like permitting your drunken co-pilot to sleep through pre-flight: it's probably easier to get pre-flight done that way, but there's nobody checking your work. If the co-pilot is unfit, your job is to say so, not to try to do it all yourself. There's too much at stake.

The Department of the Navy shows the way:

The Navy has issued a new regulation heavily restricting the use of compartmented security classification to preclude or impede oversight of sensitive programs.

After an internal Navy audit begun early last year found that secrecy was being used to restrict Congressional, Defense Department and internal access to potentially controversial or even illegal activities, the Chief of Naval Operations directed a wholesale review of compartmentalization.

He is right to do so, and deserves praise for this course -- although the article raises other questions about the alternative he's proposing. "So here is a program for compartmentalizing information where the security standards internally are the same as an SAP, but the compartment is easier to establish and the program doesn't have to be reported to Congress!" Well, if that's what it boils down to, that's even worse -- although presumably the Navy wouldn't advise you not to testify to the Senate Select Committee.

We the People can't have full access to every bit of information, for practical and unavoidable reasons related to the need for some secrecy. Our representatives, however, have to have that access -- and they have to insist on using it, and use it well. They have failed to do so, and the Executive branch has taken advantage of their lapse rather than insisted on them doing their part. We must, as citizens, demand a higher standard from our elected representatives.

Evidence and Proof

Evidence and Proof
(also posted at Wilde Karrde)

During the West-ward expansion of America, many people found themselves in wagon trains traveling across plains and deserts. Occasionally, they found themselves trapped by winter weather far short of their destination, and went through extreme hardship before spring came.

One such party was the Donner party, which began travelling towards California in 1846. Trapped by snows in the Sierra Nevada mountains during the winter of '46-47, the party was forced to eat anything they could find, including their own pack animals.

There are also debates over whether the party ever resorted to cannibalism of their dead members.

Very recent research into the subject is outlined by David Nishimura at Cronaca. Historians cannot prove that the cannibalism did happen, but they can prove that human bones buried there weren't charred.

It is a case of absence of evidence. We don't have direct evidence to prove that survival cannibalism occurred. As David argues in his short post, this is not absence that no such cannibalism occurred. From his own research into other such claims, he knows that such events rarely leave evidence behind in the form of charred bones.

This simple discussion of a grisly subject reminds me of many other discussions that have been held recently. From the question of what happened to Saddam Hussein's weapons labs to the question of whether the President was right to order wiretapping of suspected terrorists calling friends in the United States, we are dealing with situations where there is absence of evidence on at least one side of the case.

However, the absence of evidence does not prove that that we have evidence of absence. This applies equally to questions about the legality of Top Secret programs, the historicity of survival cannibalism, data sent by CIA sources all over the world, and knowledge about another government's secret weapons programs after significant effort by that government to hide most of the data from the outside world.

The fact that we don't have direct evidence about the Iraqi weapons program does not mean that we have direct evidence that the weapons program never existed and was never a threat.

Likewise for the legality of wiretapping by the NSA. The fact that we don't have the evidence to show that the wiretapping was legal does not mean that the wiretapping was illegal. It means that the evidence is unavailable to us right now.

CON ST Troopers

Outstanding:

Connecticut State Troopers obviously draw on a pool of fine individuals.

Droid death

Androids Must Die:

Also from my sister, a list of 'get a human' shortcuts for many major corporate and government phone systems. Handling the finances and such things here at Grim's Hall, I've had a fair part of my life stolen by these computerized beasts. By all means, let's frustrate them if we can.

The Alito Nom

Alito, War Powers & International Law:

In deference to poor Cassandra, who wants more Alito, I'll point you to Mondo Alito at PajamasMedia, which has gathered a lot of posts from all sides of the debate.

Meanwhile, from the old journalism school, The Ft. Worth Telegram has a very useful roundup:

Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio: This hearing is really our opportunity to fully and fairly evaluate your qualifications for the high court, but what I really want to do is give a lengthy explication of my feelings about Roe vs. Wade. The mere fact that Roe has been upheld for more than 30 years does not mean that it’s entitled to special deference. Is Roe Supreme Court precedent? Certainly. But in my view, it is not super-precedent or super-duper precedent. It is precedent. Nothing more. Now, I want to turn to another topic ...

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find a transcript for Biden's war-powers question. It's one of the more interesting Constitutional issues, and a relevant one. The closest I've found is this account, which isn't thorough enough.

Though I am not a lawyer or a judge, I am a citizen, and one who believes firmly that the final right to interpretation of the Constitution lies with the People. As such, I think we all have every right to develop our own opinion of what the Constitution means and ought to mean, independent of what the courts and legislatures say it means. I'm glad to consider arguments from either source, but also from history and reason. In that spirit, let's examine the War Powers question.

Alito is correct to say that the issue is unsettled as a matter of Constitutional law. On the other hand, as a practical matter there is something of an agreement: almost every President of the 20th century 'went to war' somewhere without a formal declaration of war from Congress. Congress retains the power to declare war, and in fact the power to stop it -- by cutting off funding for military operations. Yet it has decided to allow the President a great deal of liberty in conducting military operations.

Even the War Powers Act, passed because of concerns arising from Vietnam, only requires the President to inform Congress. So, as a practical matter, yes -- the President could invade Iran tomorrow, so long as he informed Congress that he had done so.

The Supreme Court has not declared the War Powers Act to be constitutional or unconstitutional, because it has never been asked to do so. Neither the Presidents of recent years, nor the Congress, has desired a formal ruling that might go against them. They have chosen, reasonably, to conduct themselves by informal compromise.

Biden apparently asked if the President "can just go ahead and violate international law ("that's the administration's position," said Biden)."

The answer to that question, as I understand it, is that it depends on what is meant by "international law." If it refers to anything informal, or treaties we haven't ratified but which have been ratified by lots of other countries (e.g., the ban on cluster bombs), or the fact that lots of allied countries have similar laws 'so we should have one too,' etc., then neither the President nor Congress is the least bit bound by "international law."

If it means "formal treaties which the United States has signed and ratified," then the US is bound by them unless -- I would argue, and support any President or Congressman who acted on this understanding -- that treaty violated one of the protections of the US Constitution, such as freedom of speech.

However, even then there is a lot of room. What happens if the US acts in a way it feels is consistent with the treaty, but (say) France and Russia feels is a violation? That's a question I would like to see addressed by Alito, if anyone feels inclined to ask a real question. To some degree there's a domestic analogy in the NSA spying -- if the President and the US Justice Department feel it's legal and constitutional, to what degree does that merit deference from the Supreme Court?

My sense is the answer is, "To no degree in cases of rights; to some degree in cases of power; to a great degree in cases of international opinion."

The Supreme Court is meant to be independent of the other branches. If the President, the lawyers at the Justice Department, and the majority in both houses of Congress agree on a point, the Court should take note of it. However, if it is deciding a case that influences the fundamental rights of US citizens, it ought to be willing to decide in favor of the rights of citizens even if there is near perfect unity among Congressmen and the President's men. If the Court is convinced that fundamental rights are being violated, it ought to set the matter straight in spite of every other branch of government.

In cases where rights are not an issue, but the powers of government are, the opinion of the President and the Justice Department should be taken into consideration along with the sense of Congress. However, they should be of no more weight than the opinions of state-level justice departments, in Federalism cases. If the Federal Government and Texas disagree about whether something is legal, they ought to be equals before the court.

If a case of "international law" came before the Court, the fact that the President and Congress believed they were doing right should have great weight. France or Russia's opinion should have no standing at all. The Supreme Court should consider only the question of whether the President or the Justice Department's interpretation holds water, and is consistent with the Constitution.

There is an underlying principle here, which is this: that the Constitution exists for a purpose, and that purpose is "to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our Posterity." Fundamental rights are absolutely essential to the blessings of liberty, and protecting them must therefore be the first business of the Court.

Ensuring the success of Federalism is important to the blessings of liberty, as it allows for different people, who will have different understandings of what liberty is and how they want to live, to have the chance to live according to their lights. Balancing Federal and state power is therefore an important concern of the Court, and it should give equal deference to both sides.

Finally, the ability to decide for ourselves as a People is one of the fundamental blessings of liberty. We have won it, and we have defended it; and this government was instituted in part to protect that blessing. The Court has no business handing away any part of that liberty. It cannot give, as a gift to any foreign nation or entity, what they have neither the right nor the power to claim.

Both Right

They're Both Right, Of Course:

Althouse snarls at the Durbin-Alito go-round:

Durbin accused of Alito of seeking out ways to decide cases against the little guy and even tried to connect a decision of Alito's to the recent mining disaster. Alito defended himself in his usual way: I decide cases according to the law. That case relating to mining was about the statutory definition of "mine," and the above-ground pile of coal at issue in the case did not fit the definition.

Durbin just repeated his accusation: There's a pattern, a pattern of decisions, you know, the crushing hand of fate. (Crushing miners underground?) Durbin sounds a litttle dimwitted saying this, but his point is one made by some of the smartest people in the legal academy: I don't care what your excuse is for any given case that you might want to explain. I will just retreat to my observation, based on every case you ever decided, that there is an overall pattern of siding with the big guy.

Alito's last response to Durbin, as the time is running out, is the assertion that there are many cases where he has sided with the little guy -- not enough to alter the pattern, the pattern, you know -- and a description of one case where his decision favored a schoolboy who had been bullied because of his perceived sexual orientation -- doesn't matter because there's still the pattern, the crushing-hand-of-fate pattern...

Here's how I suggest the judge-so-accused answer the question:

"Senator, you're right. A lot of the time, I am forced to rule against the little guy. No doubt about it -- most of the time.

"But that's because I'm a judge, and the role of a judge is to apply the law, not to write the law. All I can do, if I'm an honest judge, is apply the law as it is written to the facts of the case. And, sadly, the law usually favors the 'big guy' over the little guy.

"That's a problem, Senator. But it's not a problem for judges. It's a problem for legislators. So tell me, Senator -- what do you intend to do about it?

"Because these aren't the only hearings going on right now in D.C. There's another set going on about lobbyists and influence and bribe-sucking legislators. The answer you're looking for about where this pattern comes from, that answer is going to be found in those hearings, not these."

Kids & Cancer

Kids & Cancer:

A number of you read the site of long-time Grim's Hall reader and commenter Lizard Queen, which you can find here. You probably saw her recent piece on the her cousin Marshall, who died of cancer at the age of ten.

Well, today my sister sends a link to the website of a friend of hers, who is an oncology nurse. She -- her friend, not my sister -- is taking donations to shave her head, with the monies going to St. Baldrick's. She has a modest goal of a thousand bucks, and a cute little girl with leukemia who's agreed to do the cutting.

CEN Cares

CENTCOM Cares, Part III:

USCENTCOM sends a request that I point you to their press releases for today. I'm happy to do so. Lest anyone care to think of this as 'another military attempt to propagandize etc. etc. etc.," notice that there is a press release on a death of a detainee at Abu Ghraib in addition to the good news.

Good Reading

Good Reading Today:

Via The Donovan, don't miss this article on hand-to-hand combat training for amputee veterans. It used to be that an amputation meant that the Army considered you crippled, but no longer: increasingly, even amputees are being returned to duty if they wish to go, as many do. That being the case, you have to develop a plan for keeping them combat-effective.

One of the examples in the article has actually been rendered blind. The interesting thing about the Army's move to Brazilian jiu-jitsu as its main hand-to-hand technique is that it largely eliminates the problem of blindness -- at least, once you come to the point of the grapple. Jujitsu, more generally, does -- BJJ isn't unique in this. With training and practice, you can learn to touch a person anywhere on his body, and know exactly how every other part of that body is oriented with your eyes closed. Even the most subtle shift in the location of any part is detected.

Now, if the army would just get on with developing those cybernetic limbs with built-in weapons we've been promised...

To counterbalance that story of martial virtue and courage, we have this story from the Daily Telegraph, via Yourish:

The commanding officer of a nuclear submarine berated his officers with such fury that his face became "gorged with blood", reducing subordinates to tears, a court martial heard yesterday.

Capt Robert Tarrant, 44, bullied and humiliated his officers while at sea on the submarine Talent, yet behaved impeccably in port, it was alleged.

His conduct led to him appearing before a court martial at Portsmouth naval base, where he denied five charges of ill-treating four officers and one rating under his command through repeated, unjustified, verbal abuse.

His "rants" could last for up to 20 minutes, it was alleged. He would place his face 2in away from the target of his rage and shout. One officer was physically sick, it was claimed.

Obviously this British Royal Navy officer missed his calling. He should have been a USMC Drill Instructor instead. Yelling at your subordinates until tears run down their cheeks is considered the height of accomplishment in that line of work. Indeed, it's quite broadly admired as a skill. My father -- who was an Army Drill Sergeant -- used to tell with awe the story of the time they had a Marine DI with them and one of the recruits did something especially stupid with a rifle.

These are literally matters of life and death, rifles and submarines. You can't touch your subordinates to express your displeasure, not even when they do something that could get people killed. Now, apparently, you shouldn't fuss at them either. At least, not in the Royal Navy.

Recess

Recess:

At Red State, Stephen Den Beste is wondering if the Democrats in the Senate are playing a gambit:

[M]aybe the Democrats are using obstruction and delay of SCOTUS nominees as a way of goading Bush into using recess appointments to fill SCOTUS positions. If they can do that, it's a qualified victory for the Democrats. For one thing, it would make Bush look like he isn't willing to fight it out in the Senate despite his party having a majority there.

For another thing, it holds out hope that if the Democrats can move back into the majority in the Senate, that they would have even more leverage over the kinds of candidates who could be approved. I don't think it would break the hearts of Senate Democrats if one or more seats in the Supreme Court actually remained vacant (or were filled by recess appointments) going into the 2008 election cycle because then they could make that a major issue in the campaign.

I certainly agree that Bush is in danger on the recess appointment issue. He has used it recently in cases where it is apt to draw fire from left, right, and center alike. The left is opposed because they oppose Bush generally, and because Myers a crony rather than a qualified appointee; the right, because Myers isn't a qualified candidate to deal with either immigration or customs issues, which are both serious national security concerns; the center, because Myers represents nepotism and political favoritism over merit, and promotion by merit is a classic American value. It very well may be that obstructionism, not only on SCOTUS but on any candidate, could lead to a campaign issue of the type that SDB envisions.

On the other hand, the problem is that obstructing everyone takes the bite out of the tactic. As SDB himself says:

A lot of the rhetoric you saw about Roberts, and now are seeing about Alito, isn't really about them. Turning women back into second class citizens, rolling back civil rights for non-whites, eroding our right of privacy, strengthening the imperial presidency, instituting a Christian theocracy in the US, etc. etc. is really about the Republicans -- or how the Democrats would like everyone to view the Republicans.

That's right, but it's also transparent. The script against Alito and Roberts sounds so similar because there really isn't anything particularly negative to say about either candidate, yet the Democrats in the Senate feel obligated to oppose them vigorously for reasons of fundraising. If there were real areas of concern, we would be hearing about those instead. In the absence of a real issue, you get "fill in the candidate's name here" boilerplate rhetoric that lacks any real power because it is obviously not serious. Boilerplate sounds and feels like boilerplate.

Thus, the other side of the gambit SDB posits is a real risk of breaking down the credibility of Senate Democrats with middle Americans. SDB says they have nothing to lose by playing this out, but in fact they have. Credibility is the currency of the modern world, as The Defense Science Board pointed out in its advice on "strategic communications":

Power flows to credible messengers. Asymmetrical credibility matters. What's around information is critical. Reputations count. Brands are important. Editors, filters, and cue givers are influential. Fifty years ago political struggles were about the ability to control and transmit scarce information. Today, political struggles are about the creation and destruction of credibility.

If the Democrats in the Senate brand themselves as "knee-jerk opponents of anything the President does," they could actually end up in a situation in which the President could recess-appoint even SCOTUS nominees without suffering at the polls. The danger of boilerplate opposition is that it undermines faith in the honesty of the opposition. Middle America could end up saying, "Well, you weren't playing fair anyway; what did you think the President would do? Just accept never having an appointment ratified?"

The danger of opposing every nominee with this kind of radical rhetoric is that you end up not being able to oppose the real bad nominees. There's no credibility left for opponents to use, and thus no power. Indeed, this is true even on occasions like Myers' nomination, when "the opposition" includes a number of people who wouldn't normally be in the opposition. The public becomes used to ignoring "the opposition," and so ignores whoever happens to be in opposition on any given occasion. The statements of the opposition are interpreted as the usual background noise, even on occasions when the speakers aren't the usual opposition and the statements aren't the usual boilerplate.

The result would be a critical breakdown of the "advice and consent" function of the Senate, and with it a serious weakening of the Constitutional separation of powers. It appears we are already at the point that recess appointments for director-level assignments can be used without political negatives by the President, even when there are serious qualms about the candidate being proposed. It is not impossible that even the SCOTUS could come to fall into that category. It is not impossible that even genuine bad actors could end up being approved in cakewalks, or by recess appointment.

I think the gambit is a much riskier undertaking than SDB believes. If you worry about the creation of an imperial presidency, you ought to be thinking about how to improve the credibility of the Senate. We can begin by telling our Senators to shut up unless they really mean it.