Patriotism in Time

Patriotism in Time:

I have written more about patriotism in these pages than is easy even to link to; all of you know how to use Google if you are curious about what has been said. Still, I note with some pleasure this piece by Peter Beinart in Time Magazine. It attempts to compare what he calls liberal and conservative ideas about patriotism, but finally asserts that the conservatives are right -- as long as they don't go too far with it.

Actually, conservatives are right absolutely on this particular matter. "Patriotism" is a word with an etymology, as we discussed very recently, while debating just the same question Beinart treats this week. The meaning of the thing is encoded in the word itself.

If America is a woman, she is your mother.

You should love her because she bore you into the world, and gave you every chance you had as a youth. You should love her because she defended you, nursed you while you were weak, and gave you a chance to grow strong. You should love her without failing because it is your duty, and because no man can hate his mother without destroying a part of himself.

Of course, "patriotism" is from the Latin patria, in turn derived from Pater, which means "Father." Still, it is usual to think of America as being a woman, in part because the name takes a feminine form. Whether you love her as a mother or as a father, however, love her that way.

Beinart quotes JFK in citing Faust:

He liked to cite Goethe, who "tells us in his greatest poem that Faust lost the liberty of his soul when he said to the passing moment, 'Stay, thou art so fair.'" Americans risked a similar fate, Kennedy warned, "if we pause for the passing moment, if we rest on our achievements, if we resist the pace of progress ... Those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future."

But this is a misreading of Faust. Faust was damned on the point only because he had the arrogance to claim that nothing could be good enough for him. Like the modern antipatriot, judging America as too flawed to merit his loyalty, it was his arrogance that doomed him. He believed he could see all the possibilities of creation, as the antipatriot believes he understands fully all the issues he judges from America's history: neither allows doubt that they could be mistaken. Demons work on such pride.

It was not the love of the moment that doomed Faust, but his arrogance in believing that creation could not make a thing or a moment that could merit that love. And yet you may find love like that in the street. Look at Chesterton's poem, Femina contra Mundum, in which he describes the words of a man called to Judgment; and the man has looked on a woman through a cottage door left carelessly open, and weighed the stars and mountains worth less than her:

'For I had weighed the mountains in a balance,
And the skies in a scale,
I come to sell the stars -- old lamps for new --
Old stars for sale.'

Then a calm voice fell all the thunder through,
A tone less rough:
'Thou hast begun to love one of my works
Almost enough.'

That is the love that pays this debt, this debt for everything you are or could have been; the debt for nurturing you in your weakness, giving you whatever strength you have, whatever wisdom. If you will not recognize your personal liability for that debt, you are not a patriot.

You could still be right -- George Washington had many virtues, and was surely correct in his undertakings, but one thing he cannot claim is to have lived as a patriot of his king and country. We do not esteem him less for that. If a nation sets aside the natural rights of mankind, it becomes a tyranny, and not patriotism but separation or destruction is the duty of its citizens. This view is the birthright of Americans, and it is a longstanding complaint of mine against our hard left that they will not accept it. If America is as bad as they so often claim, they have duties beyond mere complaint. If she is evil, fight her. If she is not, fight for her.

Those who whine on the sidelines are the ones I detest. Even William Ayers at least fought, in his way. I wish he had been hanged for it, but I respect him ten times as much as I do any number of beardless men I have met who did nothing but snark about 'America's sins,' as if they too had lived two hundred years, and could judge her as a peer. At least Ayers had courage enough to fight as well as talk, and that redeems him somewhat.

America is a fighting faith. Beinart gets that right:

So is wearing the flag pin good or bad? It is both; it all depends on where and why. If you're going to a Young Americans for Freedom meeting, where people think patriotism means "my country right or wrong," leave it at home and tell them about Frederick Douglass, who wouldn't celebrate the Fourth of July while his fellow Americans were in bondage. And if you're going to a meeting of the cultural-studies department at Left-Wing U., where patriotism often means "my country wrong and wronger," slap it on, and tell them about Mike Christian, who lay half-dead in a North Vietnamese jail, stitching an American flag.

With that, I have no argument at all. A true patriot must love his country enough to want to leave it to his sons as he got it from his fathers, pure, with its ideals as well as its physical attributes intact. If anything, he should wish to perfect it, extend it, and make it ever purer.

What I like best about his formulation is that it puts the actor in an eternal fight for his nation. When he goes here, he should fight this way for her; when he goes there, fight for her that way.

That's the thing, the real thing. It is the love that stands off the world.

Death of Uga VI

The Death of a Good Dog:

Attention, fellow Georgians: if you have not already seen the news, I am sad to report that Uga VI has died. We will miss him.

Long live Uga VII.

Banner

A New Banner:

My beloved and faithful wife has given me a gift: she has sewn a large cloth banner in the colors of my heraldry.

I've decided to replace the poor, computer generated image with a small photograph of the beautiful banner. I truly have the finest wife in the land, the fairest and most wonderful.

The Natural Right to Arms:

Dave Kopel believes it most important that the Heller decision considered the right to self-defense a natural right, pre-existing the Constitution. This gives the rights protected by the 2nd Amendment even greater stature than if they were "merely" Constitutional: one can amend away a protection that isn't a natural right by adjusting the Constitution, but a state that gives away your natural rights is a tyranny that justly provokes rebellion.

Since we are talking about Catholic moral history this week, follow this link to Kopel's piece on the Medieval Catholic development of a notion of a right to resist tyranny. As he correctly points out, Aristotle and the Greeks had a clear notion of this right, but it faded as Classical learning faded. By 1000, it had to be rediscovered by the Church.

However, he overstates the degree to which the right was lost in the Dark Ages. Scholars in the Church may have needed to rediscover it, but it was a felt and living tradition outside the monk's cell.

For example, Archbishop Hincmar of Rheims (approx. 805-881 A.D.), an important advisor to King Charles the Bald of France, wrote a pair of treatises distinguishing a king (who assumed power legitimately and who promoted justice) from a tyrant (who did the opposite). Yet even Hincmar argued that even tyrants must be obeyed unquestioningly.

"Even Hincmar" may have done so, but it was not the standard understanding of the folk of the Early Middle Ages. Þorgnýr the Lawspeaker made the point clear when speaking to King Olof the Swede in 1018. He spoke to the King as the head of the common folk of Sweden, and made clear what Dark Age Swedes thought of tyranny:

But if thou wilt not do as we desire, we will now attack thee, and put thee to death; for we will no longer suffer law and peace to be disturbed. So our forefathers went to work when they drowned five kings in a morass at the Mula-thing, and they were filled with the same insupportable pride thou hast shown towards us. Now tell us, in all haste, what resolution thou wilt take.

Emphasis added. The point being, this wasn't a one-time threat made in 1018: it was a threat with a resonant history. Nor was this pagan Sweden: Olof had been baptised in 1008, and remained Christian to his death. He was married to a Christian girl, and married his daughter to Yaroslav I of Russia, the son of St. Vladimir the Great.

So, when Kopel points to 1187 as a relevant date, he's vastly overstating the case.

As Glanvill’s famous 1187 treatise on English law explained, when a lord broke his obligations, the vassal was released from feudal service. If a party violated his duties under an oath, and the other party suffered serious harm as a result, the feudal relationship could be dissolved diffidatio (withdrawal of faith).

Historian Friedrich Heer explains that the diffidatio “marked a cardinal point in the political, social, and legal development of Europe. The whole idea of a right of resistance is inherent in this notion of a contract between the governor and the governed, between higher and lower.”

What Ranulf de Glanvill's 1187 piece cites is an understanding well-established in the Anglo Saxon law, if not the Norman one. As Glanvill was attempting to codify the "common law" developing around the courts of Norman England, he was doubtless encountering traditional English concepts as well as imported ones. The Anglo-Saxons certainly understood removal of bad kings, and the Witan -- the counsel of elders, the great men of the kingdom -- did so twice, in 757 and 774 A.D. Yet the Anglo-Saxons were also in the habit of consulting with the Pope when it was advantageous:

In the early years of Coenwulf's reign he had to deal with a revolt in Kent, which had been under Offa's control. Eadberht Præn returned from exile in Francia to claim the Kentish throne and Coenwulf was forced to wait for papal support before he could intervene. When Pope Leo agreed to anathematize Eadberht, Coenwulf invaded and retook the kingdom; Eadberht was taken prisoner, and was blinded and had his hands cut off.

Eadberht Præn was in exile at Charlemagne's court during the time he was out of Kent. The Pope appears to have taken Coenwulf's side not out of a sense that his claim to Kent was superior -- it had belonged to the Præns before -- but because Præn was a former priest.

In any event, when William the Bastard in 1066 went to the Pope for the right to rule England, there was precedent. But when the Witan selected Harold Goodwinson instead, there was also precedent. The question was resolved by force of arms at Hastings and elsewhere, and by the erection of powerful castles that could assert control of the land. By 1187, law had replaced force in many cases, and we can see that there was enough of a body of workable precedents arising across the land to need codification. (In addition to which service, Ranulf de Glanvill provided remarkable service as a fighting man, capturing the knightly king William the Lion of Scotland, serving as Sheriff of Yorkshire, and eventually dying on Crusade.)

In any event, Kopel makes a worthy and interesting argument. But when the Catholic Church went looking for ideas on the right to resist tyrants, they had more to draw upon than Aristotle. It is a natural right indeed, one well recognized by the folk of the Dark Ages. If it was occasionally denied by some tyrant kings, and sometimes by some of their allies in the Church, it was nevertheless deeply felt by the folk of Europe.

Congrats Steyn

Congratulations, Mark Steyn:

I see that Mark Steyn has been vindicated by a kangaroo "human rights" court that previously had a 100% conviction rate. Not too shabby, mate.

STEK can be trusted

"This You Can Trust"

We sometimes overpraise guns. I know a boy who loves the things. I tell him: A gun can always jam, misfire, or blow up in your hands; it can overpenetrate and kill someone you love on the other side of your target. A gun is like a snake: it serves a purpose in nature, a purpose that no other creature quite manages to serve, but it is a foolish man who trusts one. They must always be regarded as perilous to you, as well as to your enemies.

You must select them and their ammunition carefully, see them carefully maintained, and handle them always with great care. That is not to say that you should not have them: just that you must always take care with them. They are not to be trusted.

A blade, on the other hand, a blade you can trust.

I noticed this evening that my favorite custom knifemaker has a fine tactical knife for sale, although I do not know the reserve he's asking; and a fine Bowie knife, also. I say they are knives. They stand in the place between knives and swords, and might rightly be regarded as either: but they are well-forged, I know from experience with his work. The best smiths I know look at his work and speak well of it.

If you are interested in such things, look.

Not Helpful

Not Helpful, Boys:

Dana Milbank gives the view from the other side on yesterday's hearings: "When Anonymity Fails, Be Nasty, Brutish and Short."

This is an occasion when Congress' role is to clarify the lines. If they don't like the lines the administration drew, they are free to draw new ones -- that's Congress' job.

It's reasonable for them to want to interview the authors of the existing rules, for the purpose of helping construct the new ones. What's going on instead is not an attempt to resolve a tricky question of ethics, but an attempt to frustrate each other and hurt each other politically.

Neither side is covering itself with honor in this debate. We deserve better from our government than this.

Best Laid Plans

The Best Laid Plans:

From The Chronicle of Higher Education:

The idea that video games and explicit media content are a threat to society is demonstrably false. Whatever evidence there might be that violent media content causes violent behavior, or that graphic sexual content stimulates unhealthy sexual behavior, there is a simple test that invariably proves otherwise. Buy the game and then take some time to play it over the next few days or weeks — however long you feel is necessary for a proper test (keep in mind that Grand Theft Auto IV involves at least 25 hours of narrative development, more if you actually decide to play the game instead of just following along with the story).

After you're done, ask yourself a few straightforward questions: Do you want to go outside and steal a car? Do you feel the need to obtain a missile launcher? Do you feel like having sex with a stripper? Or, to more accurately represent the sort of reasoning involved in media-effects claims, do you feel that having sex with a stripper is now a real possibility for you?

From Newsday:

Teenagers who police say went on a video-game-inspired late-night crime spree were arraigned Thursday after police say they mugged a man outside a New Hyde Park supermarket and menaced motorists in Garden City with a baseball bat, crowbar and broomstick.

The teens told detectives they were imitating the Grand Theft Auto video game series where players steal cars, beat up other characters and score points for committing crimes, authorities said.

Police have identified at least three victims: a man they said was severely beaten and had his teeth knocked out during a robbery; a would-be carjacking victim who called 911; and a driver whose van was smashed with a bat.

*Sigh*.

WTF? Buried Alive

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot:

I was looking over Memeorandum this evening, and I see there's a whole knot of liberal blogs bent out of shape over something that happened on the floor of Congress today. It was during the hearings into the memos that had to do with the use of harsh interrogation techniques, some of which some people consider to be torture.

I believe that prohibitions on torture are wise, moral and correct. I think America benefits from a refusal to use torture. We should play this game fairly, though. We disagree somewhat on where the lines are, but there nevertheless are lines that are recognized by all Americans.

John Yoo testified, and was asked by the Honorable John Conyers:

CONYERS: Could the President order a suspect buried alive?

YOO: Uh, Mr. Chairman, I don’t think I’ve ever given advice that the President could order someone buried alive…

CONYERS: I didn’t ask you if you ever gave him advice. I asked you thought the President could order a suspect buried alive.

YOO: Well Chairman, my view right now is that I don’t think a President — no American President would ever have to order that or feel it necessary to order that.

CONYERS: I think we understand the games that are being played.

The liberal bloggers are apparently under the impression that this was an insightful question, and that it is deeply revealing that Yoo didn't answer with a clean denial that the President has the authority.

Consider, though: You're a lawyer. You're testifying before Congress, about legal matters. A Congressman asks you for an opinion on a matter you've not only never studied, but never imagined. Are you going to render a firm opinion?

Of course not. You'll say something very much like what Yoo said -- 'Honestly, I've never thought of that, and can't imagine why it would ever come up.'

Furthermore -- Can the President order people buried alive? What?

I think we understand the game, yes. Congress should be trying to clarify the line between torture and 'harsh interrogation,' not fuzzing it up worse.

UPDATE:

Another beauty from today's hearings in Congress.

“I can’t talk to you because Al Qaeda may watch C-SPAN,” Addington said.

Delahunt responded: “I’m sure they are watching. I’m glad they finally have a chance to see you, Mr. Addington, given your penchant for being unobtrusive.”

Allah says it can't be as bad as it looks, though the Congressman's own explanation is simply to deny that he said any such thing.

Delahunt said he was just trying to express that he was glad to see Addington. Delahunt said he recalls saying “I,” not “they,” during the testimony – though the video, broadcast on C-SPAN, shows he was talking about Al Qaeda.

Ace doesn't buy that:

He meant exactly what he seemed to mean. For these bastards, Al Qaeda is not the enemy; only Americans who stand between themselves and political power are. In some situations, Al Qaeda is a genuine ally in the real war.

Freudian slip, or botched joke combined with a bald-faced denial?

Oh, well. At least he didn't suggest that the Bush Administration might start burying people alive. Next question: "Could the President order you to build a big pit in the ground, and light a fire in it, and douse people in alcohol, and then throw them in the fire?"

We captured a tape of insurgents doing that while I was in Iraq, so you know, we wouldn't want to risk a torture gap.

Looks like the Supreme Court affirmed the Heller Decision. (I'm watching the SCOTUS blog)

The right to bear arms is an individual right.

Update:

Quoting the syllabus: The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditional lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.

Get your copy of the decision here (.pdf download--right click and select 'save target')

I want my machine gun, NOW.

Ethics Video

Mandatory Ethics Training Video:

I was asked to review this video, which is the Joint Contracting Command's proposed ethics video for civilians working in Iraq and Afghanistan. I haven't quite decided what I think about it.



I did like it better than the suggested alternative:

Betraying Trusts

Rape and Death:

It's not uncommon for the SCOTUS to come up with something I think is flatly wrong, so it is no surprise to see it done today. Today they held that raping a child can't be a capital crime.

I would suggest, given recidivism rates in child molestation, that molestation of children under 13 should always be a capital offense. Furthermore, given that prison has proven to be a failure at rehabilitation, I see no reason that forcible rape, even of adults, should not have death as a potential penalty at the discretion of judge and jury. Rape is every bit as awful as murder, and may be far crueler. More, unlike in murder cases, the victim has to continue to live with the crime.

There is no reason they should also have to live with the rapist.

The Eighth Amendment certain did not prevent the execution of rapists, even adults, "where the victim's life was not taken" at the time of its ratification. It was only in this century that the SCOTUS -- not the Congress or the several states -- decided that was unacceptable.

Now the SCOTUS says we must "not expand" the use of the death penalty to child rapists; but this is no expansion, it is a simple restoration of how things were actually done at the time of the passage of the Eighth. The court has been acting unreasonably on the point for decades, and is getting worse as time goes along.

The Incas and Bad Philosophy

The Incas and Bad Philosophy:

Since we were debating -- somewhat far afield of the original topic -- relative blame for the destruction of the Aztecs and the Incas, it is worth seeing what an earlier expert had to say about it. (h/t: Arts & Letters Daily.) Montesquieu was one of the Enlightenment thinkers, who developed the idea of "the separation of powers" into a doctrine that is now the basis for numerous free governments.

Also germane to the discussion: Montesquieu was educated at the Catholic College of Juilly, where Saint Genevieve stopped one day to pray -- and a spring burst from the ground. The miracle, and the sense that the waters were holy, caused it to become a place for pilgrims to visit; then an abbey formed there to serve the pilgrims; then an orphanage for the children of knights killed on Crusade. The abbey became a royal academy.

If the Church is to have the blame for what Cortez did in its name, then they must also have the praise for the saintliness of a lady; for the faith of the pilgrims; for the kindness to the orphans; for the teaching of the monks; and for the instruction of wise men whose ideas blossomed into the foundation of our modern age. Later thinkers, who have no interest in the Church or the glory of its God, nevertheless stand on their shoulders.

If you will blame them for a wrong of their ancestors, then you must also give them that due. If they are forever to blame for wrongs, then let them be forever praised for the right.

Congratulations, General Dunwoody.

Only in America. What a country.

LT G pops the question.

Boomshanka.

The Cowboy Way:

The other day, bthun said:

Funny thing that... I suspect that many of us who would be able to survive and even thrive in a more primitive culture or way of living, ala the 18th to 19th century, are not the same ones who are gloating over the rise in energy prices as a means to force some eco equality or perceived social comeuppance.

I'd like to have a discussion about that subject.

For example, item one: the suggestion that meat prices will soon soar, as flooding destroys crops in great numbers.

Item two: deer populations are causing problems across the country, including disease, the destruction of forests, and crop damage.

So: here is an untapped source of meat, for the cost of a hunting license and a bullet; plus it restrains disease and saves crops at a time when crops are unusually troubled by flooding. The improvement to the environment and human health are only... ah, gravy.

We have occasionally sought extra venison from friends who like to hunt a great deal, but don't really want to eat very many deer, as a way of reducing meat costs. We'll also hunt. This year, I'm thinking of investing in a large freezer for this reason.

In addition to deer, you can save large amounts on meat by buying a half or whole beef. You can do this through local farmers as well as online -- I cite the website mostly to give an idea of the prices we're talking about. A single beef will feed your family for a year. In return for providing the money up front, you get hundreds of pounds of ground beef for about $2.60 a pound, plus numerous steaks, etc.

There is also gardening. Home grown vegetables not only taste better, they are richer in nutrients. It is not too late to start many kinds of summer vegetables, and even a small plot or a windowbox can produce tomatoes, squash, peppers, and other favorites.

Of course you can cut down on expenses by driving less, but you can also stay in campgrounds instead of hotels. Our trip to Savannah, when I returned from Iraq, was at Skidaway Island State Park; there are numerous campgrounds in state parks, national parks, state and national forestland, and so forth.

So: hunting, fishing, growing your own food, canning, all these things can be done. Even if you live in an urban or suburban area, there's a hunting ground not too far away from you in most states. You can grow food in a windowbox and can it on your stove. Some commitment is necessary to make this work in a big way, but it can work for you.

If you live further afield, you can do more. For example, we've heated our home in the winter at least partially with wood for several years, which keeps down heating oil or propane costs.

I'd like to suggest a discussion of other ways in which 'the cowboy way' can help us deal with a moment of relatively high prices. Anyone with good ideas, let's hear them.

Conversion

To March to Jerusalem:

Spengler of the Asia Times has a piece that builds on what has been a long-time theme of his: a conflict between Islam and what he sees as (hopes to see as?) a resurgent Christendom.

After Pope Benedict XVI showed unprecedented courtesy to visiting American President George W Bush last week, much has been written about the Christian faith that binds the pope and the president.

It is not only faith, but the temerity to act upon faith, that the pope and the president have in common. In the past I have characterized Benedict's stance as, "I have a mustard seed, and I'm not afraid to use it."

...

As Father Dall'Oglio warns darkly, Muslims are in dialogue with a pope who evidently does not merely want to exchange pleasantries about coexistence, but to convert them. This no doubt will offend Muslim sensibilities, but Muslim leaders are well-advised to remain on good terms with Benedict XVI. Worse things await them. There are 100 million new Chinese Christians, and some of them speak of marching to Jerusalem - from the East. A website entitled Back to Jerusalem proclaims, "From the Great Wall of China through Central Asia along the silk roads, the Chinese house churches are called to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ all the way back to Jerusalem."

Islam is in danger for the first time since its founding. The evangelical Christianity to which George W Bush adheres and the emerging Asian church are competitors with whom it never had to reckon in the past. The European Church may be weak, but no weaker, perhaps, than in the 8th century after the depopulation of Europe and the fall of Rome. An evangelizing European Church might yet repopulate Europe with new Christians as it did more than a millennium ago.

Conversion has become a secular sin in the West. It is easy to understand the reasons why. We had a bloody history over religious conversion, especially the time of the Thirty Years War, which informed early Enlightenment thinking. The Scots who devised most of the thinking on which America itself was based saw continuing wars, as the victors of the English Protestant split ignited a feud between Covenanter and Anglican Protestants. And so on.

Yet there is a basic command in Christianity to attempt conversion: not through force, but through persuasion and example. In guarding against forcible conversion, we have come so far as to have made it rude to attempt philosophical conversion.

Case in point: I've been running this blog for more than five years. I regularly quote Chesterton, speak approvingly of the Pope, and yet it is clear that I was raised Protestant and am not Catholic. Not one of my Catholic readers has ever tried to convert me. Not so much as a, "You know, given how moved you were by The Ballad of the White Horse, you might want to read..."

Neither have any of my Protestant readers, even those of you who would call yourselves Evangelical, ever attempted to convert me to your particular church. We just don't do that anymore.

Yet this is a period when people switch religions at the drop of a hat. Neither my sister nor I still follow the religion in which we were raised. I sought out a degree in comparative religions, studying now Buddhism and now Hinduism, now Chinese folk religions and now historical pagan ones. I spoke the other day of my wedding, in which one of my groomsmen was a converted Muslim, and the other a Quaker who had become a Jew. The third had passed from agnosticism to Methodism, on the strength of a loving woman's faith. One hundred percent of the men in my wedding party had changed religions within a decade of the ceremony. People are adrift, and seeking truths to which they can moor their lives.

It is worth reflection. What do you believe is true, beyond what you can prove is true? Is there a tradition left that is strong enough, and deep enough, that you can trust your weight to it? Or must we each wander alone?

Six percent

Six Percent:

Six percent of Americans have a great deal of confidence in Congress. Can there be that many lobbyists?

Of course, only three percent express no confidence at all, which is better than I would have expected. Actually, the no-confidence numbers are mildly inspiring across the board: even in the case of the much (and often justly) maligned Bush administration, 93% of Americans express at least a little confidence in it.

That suggests that Americans still have faith in the system, just not in the current actors. As a whole, they believe that Congress is doing a terrible job, but that it can be fixed.

What is not obvious is how this harmonizes with the electoral trends for this year: the solution that Americans have intuited seems to be to give the ruling party in Congress even greater control; and at a time when none of the institutions of government are receiving popular support at any level, to vote for the party that wants to increase vastly government control over the economy (nationalize the oil industry! Universal health care!). Big business' numbers are not much better than Congress', but small business is #2 (after the military) in expressed confidence, with 28% of Americans having a great deal of confidence in it.

It is also noteworthy that "the police" enjoy such great confidence, while "the criminal justice system" does so badly. Americans like that they can call someone to have a criminal arrested, but are not satisfied with what happens to the criminal afterwards.

Gallup interprets the numbers as expressing a desire for "change," which is fine; but I think we can go further. Americans will take any change on offer, versus continuing the current system. But the change they would prefer is:

1) Keeping the military strong,

2) Helping the population start small businesses, moving out of public or big-business sectors of employment,

3) Law-and-order reform to strengthen the criminal justice system's ability to deal with criminality; I would think that a vastly increased use of capital punishment for violent crimes would be very popular.

Democratic candidates are running strong this year because Americans think of Republicans as being "in charge," even though Congress is in Democratic control. But the changes that people actually seem to want have little to do with what the Democratic party platform is proposing. Almost no one wants government to grow in importance; almost no one has "great" or "quite a lot" of trust in any of its branches.

A platform based on the three points above would likely win this year. There is still time for a strong expression of that platform: a pact, like the "Contract with America." It wouldn't matter whether it was the Democratic or Republican party that proposed the platform: they would gain wide support by it.

Furthermore, it's a platform I could support, regardless of the party that offered it.

Diplomacy = Magic

Diplomacy = Magic:

Consider the IAEA comments on Iranian nuclear negotiations. The concept here is that the IAEA feels it could not maintain negotiations on Iran's nuclear program in the event of a military strike by Israel on Iran. That may well be true; but it comes alongside Iran's absolute refusal to negotiate on the issue:

ElBaradei's comments come as Iran stressed on Saturday it will not negotiate with world powers over its nuclear programme if it is required to suspend its enrichment activities.

"Suspending uranium enrichment has no logic behind it and it is not acceptable and the continuation of negotiation will not be based on suspension," Iranian government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham told reporters.

That is the only thing that we really want out of the negotiations: Iran not to have the capacity to build nuclear weapons. Iran says it won't negotiate on ending enrichment, which is the thing that would give it the capacity to build nuclear weapons.

So, what do we get out of continuing negotiations? The right to maintain 24-hour camera surveillence of their enrichment activity. They won't stop doing what we'd like them not to do, but they will let us watch them do it, 24 hours a day.

I would very much like for there to be a diplomatic solution to this issue, but the IAEA tactic doesn't strike me as a step in the right direction. It amounts to stating, 'You must take the military option off the table, so we can continue watching them do what we were supposed to stop them from doing.'

The UN, through the IAEA, is doing just what people so often complain that it does: pursuing the continuation of negotiations as if it were the chief good to be achieved; sacrificing the actual good that was desired in favor of that continuation.

Again, I would love to see a diplomatic solution to this matter. But this mechanism is not producing it. We need a better way of approaching these matters than the UN system, which is once again engaged in a spectacular failure.

Gracious

An Argument for Nudism:

Given the attire of certain teenagers I've seen this Georgia summer, I had thought this law might have already passed. Apparently there is still some debate.

Isn't it, really, bigoted to insist that clothes are the normative standard for society, and that people who prefer nakedness ought to cover up in public? Plenty of ancient cultures didn't have the same attitude toward clothing that we do now, and wore very little. If we insist that clothes must be worn in public places, aren't we just imposing our morality on people who disagree?

It doesn't harm any dressed people for naked people to be walking down the streets, going to work, going shopping, or doing anything else the rest of us do. There's really no reason at all aside from personal, religious beliefs to insist that everyone wear clothes in public--and it's unconstitutional to impose our religious or moral beliefs on the rest of the public.

There is a nudist colony here in Dawson County, which goes to show just how diverse even rural America actually is. I've thankfully never encountered any of them wandering naked. Still, I suppose nakedness in the deep woods is just fine, as long as you're enough of a woodsman to recognize the poison oak.

That said, if some hunter should mistake you for a black bear or a sasquatch, don't come crying to me.

H/t: Dad29.

Fast Eddie Obama

"Fast Eddie Obama"

David Brooks proposes to resolve the question that we were discussing the other day: is Obama a Chicago Way politician, or a New Class liberal? Brooks says, both -- but the Chicago Way will win out in any conflict.

But as recent weeks have made clear, Barack Obama is the most split-personality politician in the country today. On the one hand, there is Dr. Barack, the high-minded, Niebuhr-quoting speechifier who spent this past winter thrilling the Scarlett Johansson set and feeling the fierce urgency of now. But then on the other side, there’s Fast Eddie Obama, the promise-breaking, tough-minded Chicago pol who’d throw you under the truck for votes.

...

Dr. Barack could have been a workhorse senator. But primary candidates don’t do tough votes, so Fast Eddie Obama threw the workhorse duties under the truck.

Dr. Barack could have changed the way presidential campaigning works. John McCain offered to have a series of extended town-hall meetings around the country. But favored candidates don’t go in for unscripted free-range conversations. Fast Eddie Obama threw the new-politics mantra under the truck.

And then on Thursday, Fast Eddie Obama had his finest hour. Barack Obama has worked on political reform more than any other issue. He aspires to be to political reform what Bono is to fighting disease in Africa. He’s spent much of his career talking about how much he believes in public financing. In January 2007, he told Larry King that the public-financing system works. In February 2007, he challenged Republicans to limit their spending and vowed to do so along with them if he were the nominee. In February 2008, he said he would aggressively pursue spending limits. He answered a Midwest Democracy Network questionnaire by reminding everyone that he has been a longtime advocate of the public-financing system.

But Thursday, at the first breath of political inconvenience, Fast Eddie Obama threw public financing under the truck. In so doing, he probably dealt a death-blow to the cause of campaign-finance reform. And the only thing that changed between Thursday and when he lauded the system is that Obama’s got more money now.

And Fast Eddie Obama didn’t just sell out the primary cause of his life. He did it with style. He did it with a video so risibly insincere that somewhere down in the shadow world, Lee Atwater is gaping and applauding.

It's interesting, in terms of how disconnected this election is from reality. If you want campaign finance reform, McCain is your candidate: he's really done things for you, hard things. Yet Obama has been running as the campaign finance reform candidate -- though he has no actual commitment to the issue, has done nothing but talk about it in terms of advancing it, and undercut the project at the first sign of advantage.

Similarly, if you are concerned about "change" in Iraq, McCain is your candidate. He stood up to the Bush administration and forced them to undertake the Surge, which Rumsfeld and others did not wish to do. The current successes are in many ways his progeny. He can honestly claim to be the candidate of a very positive change: the chance to wind up the Iraq war on a positive note, with relative stability and upcoming provincial elections, and a status of forces agreement of some sort rather than a withdrawal and collapse of the state of Iraq.

Obama has done nothing but talk, and hasn't updated his concepts on Iraq since 2006. He only updated them then because he pivoted to a self-described 'just like Bush' position in 2005, when Tony Rezko had some business interests over there. Once again, nothing but talk versus a guy who has really effected serious change: but Obama has talked the public into giving him the credit.

On a similar topic, Obama has just sold out the progressives on FISA. I guess he didn't mean any of that talk, either.

Meanwhile, the man who has proposed an explicity race-based "Southern Strategy" to put the South in play is charging Republicans with telling voters that he's black.

Fast Eddie, indeed.

Joe Writes

Happy 20 June:

The holidays are upon us here at Grim's Hall, so I won't have much to say today. However, our friend and co-author Joe -- currently resident in Iraq -- writes to notice The Wall Street Journal channeling Johnny Cash. (Scroll to "Sioux.")

In honor of which:



Also, for anyone who liked the Big Moccasin Gap picture below:



I got the wife a scroll saw for her anniversary gift. She danced like Snoopy. Good woman.

UPDATE: Bthun writes to tell me that this is also Chet Atkins' birthday. Here's Chet doing a number with a fine country musician from the Great State of Georgia, Mr. Jerry Reed:



If you liked that, you'll probably like this too. It's a bit more jazzy, with less bluegrass:

Dangerous

These People Are Dangerous:

So there's this video:

Link: sevenload.com

(H/t: Cassidy).

And also this article:

Americans drove 1.4 billion fewer highway miles in April than they did in April 2007, the Department of Transportation said Wednesday.

Americans have driven 20 billion fewer miles overall this year, the Transportation Department says.

That marks the sixth consecutive monthly drop and coincides with record gas prices and an increase in transit ridership, Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said.

April's drop is more than three times larger than the drop from March 2007 to March of this year, which was 400 million fewer highway miles.

So: the lady says that "when Congress can set prices, Congress can set prices."

Let's say they set the price at $2.00 a gallon.

Americans don't drive 1.4 billion fewer miles in a given month.

What happens to the gasoline?

Answer: Americans consume more of it. What does that do to fuel prices worldwide? It drives them way, way up.

Who does that hurt? The poorest people in the world, whose governments aren't wealthy enough to deficit spend to buy them gas and sell it below market rates. These are the people -- in places like Africa and the Southern Philippines -- for whom extra fuel prices isn't an inconvenience, but associated with things like famine and death.

Why is that the "progressive" answer? This is the kind of thing people die over: not here, but in the poorest parts of the world.

If you can't swing the gas as a relatively rich American, try riding livestock. I can grab a horse; but some of you progressives might want to try riding a camel. Through the eye of a needle.

Memeage

A Challenge:

I had thought we'd escaped this when Cassidy didn't pass it to us, but Jeff has issued a challenge to do the "seven random things" meme. I'll be a good sport, just for the excuse to post 'images of martial discord,' celebrating that great American artist, N. C. Wyeth. The challenge only calls for one, but Wyeth's art is too good for only one.

Jeff tags the Hall.

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
5. Present an image of martial discord from whatever period or situation you’d like.

So here we go:

Grim's Hall, 2008 summer picnic.

1. As is surprisingly common, I was born choked to death by my umbilical cord. Fast action by an alert medical staff meant that I was restored to life without loss of health, as is not always as common -- I have known people who had lifelong difficulties because of just that thing, and I have heard of children who did not survive. I was greatly blessed to come through that fire in one piece: early luck.

Grim enjoys a quiet morning.

2. In spite of a fairly active life, I never broke a bone until a certain misbegotten gelding freaked out and reared over backwards while I was riding him, two years ago. That broke some ribs (@$#%! horse).

The wife gets me something nice for my birthday.

3. Those same ribs didn't heal correctly, and rebroke during a mixed martial arts match with an Army Ranger bird-colonel in Iraq this fall. I finished both falls with him in a headlock, but paid for it for two full weeks afterwards. Because of the endorphins (and the joy of having acquitted myself honorably against a genuinely powerful fighting man), I felt no pain at all until I laid down for bed that night. I could barely breathe the next day.

This has caused me to decide to take up gentler sports, like maybe kendo.

Cousins from the Tennessee branch of the family, near Big Moccasin Gap.

4. This week is my anniversary, so you'll have to endure a few marriage-related facts. On my wedding day, it was also Father's Day, and the summer solstice. A few years later, my son was born on the same day. Thus, 20 June is like a second Christmas around here: everyone has at least one good reason to celebrate.

Some of the cousins from the Old Country.

5. I was married in a kilt -- I believe I mentioned that recently. It was a remarkable wedding. My best man was a US Marine sergeant, in dress blues and NCO sword, a devout Methodist. He was less devout when used to run together, but he met a fine woman. They came to our wedding as a couple; he caught the garter (right on the skull) and she caught the bouquet. They were married the next year.

The morning workout session at Grim's Hall.

6. At that same wedding, my other two groomsmen were a sergeant from one of the Highland regiments, in his military kilt and dirk, who was a Muslim as well as a Scot; and a former Quaker friend of mine, converted to Judaism, who was carrying my sword. This, plus the kilt, got us a lot of attention. At the end of the ceremony, when I kissed the bride and then scooped her up to carry out of the place, a huge crowd of strangers I didn't know were there suddenly burst into applause.

Debating with my brother-in-law his choice of descriptive terms for my wife.

7. I really enjoy a beer, but have no real interest in any other form of alcohol. In fact, I learned in Iraq that I like even nonalcoholic beer. I do take a sip of Scotch at the Highland Games, and sometimes I've carried a small flask of bourbon for camping/hiking trips when I'll be sleeping several nights on the ground. The one use is ceremonial, and the other medicinal; the only thing I ever drink for pleasure is beer.

Pabst Blue Ribbon is my favorite large-production American beer. My favorite beer of all is Sierra Nevada's Celebration Ale, produced only for the Yuletide.

Now: I'm to tag seven people. My usual system for these memes is simply to allow readers who want to do so to jump in, in the comments; or coauthors, to consider themselves challenged if they wish to be.

AP

On the AP Mess:

I imagine you've all heard that the AP wants bloggers to pay by the word if we link to their stories and quote any of the text. All of this reminds me of a story.

I believe I've mentioned that -- in addition to being a captain of the volunteer fire department -- my father has spent many years as a telephone man. In the early part of that career, he served AT&T (the old giant megacorporation) in rural Tennessee.

One day they had an inexplicable service outage, so they sent him to see if he could figure out the cause. He was driving along the cable route when he saw a farmer standing by the side of the road, in a hole, swinging an axe into the ground.

He stopped and looked, and sure enough the farmer was chopping up the copper cable. "Excuse me," my father asked him, "What are you doing?"

"Hey there," the farmer replied. "You know, I was plowing this morning and I hit the damndest root I ever saw."

Well, my father explained the situation and summoned a team to repair the damage. The farmer, realizing his mistake, was highly apologetic and got his tractor-backhoe out to dig around the cable so that the repairmen could fix it.

A few days later, the farmer got the bill for the cable repair -- a very expensive bill. He called in to the phone company, and happened to get my father on the phone.

They talked it over for a while, and finally the farmer had to admit that he probably did owe the money. "But," he says, "I haven't sent you my bill for the backhoe service."

Laughing, my father asked him how much he was thinking he'd charge. The farmer named a figure that was precisely the same as the cable repair service charge.

"Send the bill," my father said.

The AP is in the position of deriving traffic, attention and credibility from blogger links. They can, in theory, bill people for using their stuff; but if I were a blogger who received such a bill, I'd think they might also get a bill for the heretofore-free advertising they've been receiving.

I notice Ms. Malkin has had a similar thought.

A Peace Between the Sexes:

Cassidy picked up on the Indiana Jones post, and confessed a desire to be: Valeria, from the Conan story "Red Nails."

What's interesting about Valeria is that she is a male fantasy: a beautiful, strong woman, skilled in arms, who has to be won through a combination of competence and respect. Yet it turns out she's also a female fantasy: by being that kind of woman, she is able to enjoy the opportunity to do a number of things (like fight among a band of mercenaries and pirates) that are normally the outpost of men.

So: Maybe we can resolve the postfeminist debate after all. Here's a model that is not only acceptable, but highly desirable, to both men and women. Certainly Valeria meets the qualifications I was looking for in a wife and partner.

Robbin' banks

I Think I'll Rob A Bank Today:

What could possibly go wrong?

Another teller saw the situation unfolding and alerted Nabil Fawzi, 39, a long-time customer.

Fawzi, who spent six years in the Lebanese army, took matters into his own hands.

He tells WXYZ.com he pulled out a .9 mm handgun (for which he had a CCW permit), racked a bullet in the chamber, pointed it at Webster and announced, "You are not robbing this bank!"

The startled Webster countered with, "but, I have a bomb" -- but Fawzi wasn't impressed. "I don't care. You are not robbing this bank!" was the reply from the other side of the gun. He then forced the Webster into a chair and held him at gunpoint until police arrived.

"A .9mm handgun"???

And hey -- thanks, Lebanon.

A Few Links:

Some items I'd like to suggest you read.

An extraordinary piece on classical education, by VDH.

"There is Much to be Won in Iraq", by myself.

A short article on the debate between McCain and Obama today. "Democrat Barack Obama says he'll take no lectures from Republicans on who will keep America safer."

Another article on that topic, involving a discussion with one of Obama's chief advisors on security:

Mr Danzig told the Centre for New American Security: “Winnie the Pooh seems to me to be a fundamental text on national security.”

Duly noted.

Against Terrorists as Criminals

Against Treating Terrorists as Criminals:

Bob Owens reminds us of the story of the first World Trade Center bombing:

Somebody get a history book for the clueless freshman Senator from Illinois (my bold):

And, you know, let's take the example of Guantanamo. What we know is that, in previous terrorist attacks -- for example, the first attack against the World Trade Center, we were able to arrest those responsible, put them on trial. They are currently in U.S. prisons, incapacitated.

...

It's quite simple: where is the 1993 World Trade Center bomb-builder? Is he in a U.S prison, as Obama claims? Not even close.

Though grossly neglected in the media, Abdul Rahman Yasin conducted the first attempted chemical weapons attack on U.S. soil by terrorists with the 1993 World Trade Center bomb. The bomb that detonated in the WTC garage in 1993 was built by Yasin to create smoke filled with sodium cyanide, which he hoped would rise through elevator shafts, ventilation ducts, and stairwells to suffocate 50,000 people.

Fortunately for those in the Trade Center that day, the bomb burned hotter than Yasin expected, and incinerated up the cyanide as it detonated instead of spreading it in toxic smoke.

Yasin fled the United States after the bombing to Iraq, and lived as Saddam Hussein's guest in Baghdad until the invasion. He is still free, and wanted by the FBI.

Also, I imagine, by the CJSOTF.

Undistinguished Obama

The Undistinguished Obama:

Protein Wisdom fills in the story. It's hard to call Senator Obama a failure, having reached at a young age the Senate and a reasonable shot at becoming President of the United States. How many people are asked to write memoirs as college students? (Or paid forty grand advances on the memoir, as a reward for missing their deadline?) In that one regard -- self promotion -- he has been a remarkable success.

In every other regard, however, his undertakings have not been impressive. Nothing he has attempted has really ever come off: yet he has run for higher office every three years, and often succeeded using the machine politics of the Chicago system.

We are starting to learn a bit more about Obama's work in Chicago -- thanks, by the way, to the Chicago area commenters who've written here. It's not an impressive story in any good way.

Meanwhile, speaking of The Chicago Way, the trial of Tony Rezko, fundraiser and land-deal maker for the Senator from Chicago, continues:

Rezko and Odinga are important persons in their own right, but it is their connection to Barack Obama that has the press interested.

He's right -- they are, and especially Rezko is, interesting quite on their own. We do owe the Senator that much: I would never have been aware of the fascinating story of Middle Eastern money in Chicago politics if Sen. Obama hadn't been so tied to Rezko over the years. That's garnered a lot of press attention, and has shone light where it otherwise might not have shone.

Rezko's apple pie had strange and persistent Middle Eastern spices. The Sun-Times wrote: "Rezko was indicted in October 2006 while on a trip to Syria, and he had returned to face the case. He remained free on bail until Jan. 28, after prosecutors raised an alarm with the judge that Rezko had received a $3.5 million wire transfer from Lebanon. [Judge] St. Eve jailed him until April, when family and friends put up $8.5 million to secure his release."

The $3.5 million was sent by Nahdmi Auchi of all people. The Sun-Times continues.

Rezko opened his letter by apologizing to St. Eve for not informing her of the $3.5 million, which had come to Rezko through Beirut from General Mediterranean Holding SA, a company led by Auchi. He said he took the money in because he was under "tremendous pressure" to pay his legal bills.

Even the $8.5 million bond raised by his Chicago friends had a connection with Iraq. It included $1.9 million put up by Rezko's old classmate and onetime fugitive Aiham Alsammarae. Alsammarae was a former "Iraqi Electricity Minister ... who in 2006 fled from Iraqi prison. Alsammarae's $1.9 million equity in his Oak Brook home and two other properties made up more than one-third of the $8 million in properties postes to ensure Rezko's bond. Rezko was ... arrested Jan. 28 after failing to disclose an overseas wire transfer."

That's remarkable. Rezko insists, of course, that he never intended to use that money to skip the country for Syria.

Bond

Bond, James Bond.

If you could be a character from literature, why not this one? (H/t: Arts & Letters Daily)

What, after all, is a man's deepest wish? Freud talked about "honor, power, riches, fame, and the love of women" — and Bond certainly encompasses all those. Still, that libidinal litany can be boiled down to a single desire, half hidden in the shadowy reaches of the male psyche and more clearly delineated in world mythology: As Joseph Campbell would say, men long to be heroes. No doubt about it. And yet I think the masculine ego also hungers for something a bit more noirish, if you will. At least some of the time, guys want to be thought of as … dangerous. While it's gratifying to be called a hard-working professional or a good provider, those admirable traits don't make our hearts beat quicker. By contrast, to overhear oneself described as "a man not to be trifled with" — that's quite another matter.

There is nothing quite like it, to be sure.

Though, I might choose Indiana Jones, given all options. I do envy his capacity to speak every ancient language he encounters. I can pretty much do the rest of the stuff, but I mostly "get along" with languages. I can handle written Modern and Middle English, French, Spanish, and can work in German, Dutch and Italian (Latin, Old Norse, and Old English), but I can't really speak any of them except Modern English.

That's an annoyance. I never seem to get any better. Indiana Jones doesn't have this trouble: wherever he goes, he can speak and read whatever it is. Hieroglyphs? Spoken Hindi dialects? Ancient Mayan? No problem.

I've got a good hat, a .45 and a few knives. I could learn the bullwhip. It's really the languages I wish I had. Bond can keep his toys.

Uh-huh

A Sign:

It is probably a sign of things to come that the Obama campaign is talking about winning without Ohio or Florida. I'm sure they intended that as a sign of confidence, but it's a remarkable formula -- 'We don't necessarily need to win battleground states, because we'll win red states.'

Consider the conceit that Georgia is 'in play,' for example. I live in Georgia. I've spent most of my life in Georgia. The suggestion that Obama will win Georgia is just whistling past the graveyard. It's never going to happen.

The argument is that he will do it with "record turnout" among "unregistered black voters." Well, Georgia does have a lot of unregistered potential voters. Obama does have special appeal to black voters, and might energize them more than others have in the past. He also has a lot more money than McCain, some of which can be used for GOTV efforts in Georgia.

Furthermore, Georgia has gone to Democratic candidates more often than Southern states generally: Clinton in 1992, Carter in 1976.

Nevertheless, Georgia isn't competitive this year. Carter was a former Georgia governor, and was a 'favorite son' who had been a fairly decent governor (and was therefore a deep disappointment as President). Clinton had the benefit of the Ross Perot candidacy, and the personal endorsement of Zell Miller, the current governor at the time, a hugely popular man whose opinion was widely trusted. There is no figure in Georgia politics as popular today, not even close.

Lacking that kind of personal appeal, Georgia voters have a very strong conservative preference. In 2004, Bush carried the state 58-41. In 2000, 55-43. In 1996, Dole beat Clinton 47-45 -- a year when Dole did horribly at the polls, in a state Clinton had won in 1992. Clinton won in 1992, by the way, 43-42, with Ross Perot carrying 13 percent of the vote. It's highly likely that almost all of Perot's vote came out of Bush's column.

Meanwhile, the last governor's race had the Republican winning 58-38. That was in 2006, a wave Democratic year; and the Republican governor isn't even terribly popular.

So, Democrats in Georgia get between 38-45% of the vote. In a big year, with a popular Democratic candidate and an opposing candidate who doesn't really inspire, 45%.

It's possible Senator Obama can top the high water mark. To win, however, he would have to improve his standing by six full points over the high water mark. Being black isn't enough to do that -- I say, "being black," because his campaign predicates its ability to make Georgia competitive on high black turnout and support, which is supposed to be possible among unregistered black voters because they are excited about Sen. Obama being black.

Being a conservative Democrat might be enough -- I would say, this year, it would be enough -- but it's plain that he isn't any such thing.

The Chicago Way

The Chicago Way:

Senator Obama, as quoted at the top of his anti-smear website:

What you won't hear from this campaign or this party is the kind of politics... that sees our opponents not as competitors to challenge, but enemies to demonize.

The New Republic, arguing against a potential Jim Webb vice-presidency on the grounds that he was a "reactionary":

Then there is his glorification of violence. It is one thing to accept a certain level of state-sanctioned violence as necessary to the preservation of a just order--to endorse certain wars abroad or certain police strategies at home. But it is quite another thing to glorify violence, to celebrate it, to elevate its practice into a virtue--which is exactly what Webb seems to do in his books....

For a liberal, violence may sometimes be a necessary thing. It may even lead to good outcomes. But while those outcomes may be worth celebrating--and while the people who do the fighting may be correctly labeled courageous or even heroic--the violence itself is never worth celebrating. Webb's outlook flies in the face of this liberal ideal. He seems to be very much in love with violence.

Senator Obama, on the upcoming contest:

"If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun," Obama said at a fundraiser in Philadelphia Friday, according to pool reports.

Taylor Mars, celebrating that stance:

So when I read this quote it made me smile. "New kind of politics" has nothing to do with it. It's the Chicago way, baby. I just want us to win.

Proposition: The kind of liberal that agrees with TNR are fools who have never won an election -- let alone a war, success in which is what allows a government to form and hold elections in the first place. Jim Webb is absolutely right to glorify, not violence, but a capacity to perform it when called upon by honor or self-defense. He is right to celebrate that capacity being located in the individual citizen, and not only in the machinery of "state-sanctioned violence." That has produced the United States Army (happy birthday) and the Black Watch, but it has also produced every kind of tyranny. The citizen's capacity is a useful counterweight, the thing that makes the US Army what it is.

A good liberal ought to know that, in fact: the US Army's principal business from the end of the Indian Wars to 1900 was breaking strikes by early unions. If it doesn't do that now, it is chiefly because citizens fought back both through politics and in fact. These violent citizens -- perhaps they would be more sympathetic to TNR if we called them "the workers" -- are owed something better from the modern liberal than a refusal to glorify them, or to scorn them as "violent," though they certainly were violent. Every political power the liberal has to exercise is founded on that resistance, the organizations and machines it built. Every subsequent success came from that, and rests on it.

That said, TNR was right in their basic concept:

To explain just what it is about Webb that bothers me, I need to distinguish between philosophy and policy. It's hard to know what any candidate will do on any particular issue once in office. This is not to say that the stands a candidate takes on specific policy questions are meaningless. But the political world is unpredictable--alliances shift, circumstances change, things turn out to be more complicated than expected. This is why the best voters can hope for is a candidate whose underlying instincts about the world we basically trust. At this point, I am confident that Obama's underlying worldview is that of a liberal. Of course, there is plenty of room for disagreement about what it means to be a liberal--on foreign policy, on economics, on social issues. But, whatever your views on humanitarian intervention or health care mandates or gay marriage, if you call yourself a liberal then chances are that you recognize clear similarities between Obama's basic instincts about the world and your own.

If Obama is a liberal -- which he absolutely is, given the evidence of his life, the few pieces of legislation he has pursued, and his stated plans for the future if elected -- then what kind of liberal is he? This is the problem that is so difficult to sort out given his conflicting statements.

Is he a Chicago Way liberal? If so, he'll be dangerous and tough, and any gentle words are only a veneer. Those are the old union machines. They are corrupt to the core, power-centered, willing to bend or break any rule to get their way, ruthless, and violent. The Rev. Mr. Wright is one of that stripe -- a former Marine and Navy Sailor. He's a hard-swinging character, who views himself as the advocate of a part of America against the rest of it. Nevertheless, he's a fighter, and I know that if a man like him were President, he'd fight for the thing he led.

Arguing in favor of this proposition: His attachment to the Chicago machine, including the Daley family and the Rev. Mr. Wright. His connections with Tony Rezko.

He tells us these things are not important, but if he is a man of the Chicago machine, we cannot trust his word.

On the other hand, if he is the well-meaning idealist he presents himself as being, he really could be telling the truth. It could be he went along with the Rev. Mr. Wright because his wife wanted him to do so. He took a land deal with Rezko because it seemed handy, and he didn't look too closely at it. He worked with the Daley family (and Wright, to some degree) because they were the powers that be, and he had no choice.

Is Senator Obama a TNR liberal? If so, his real instinct is to try to talk his way around problems, and the "knife/gun" comment is just an attempt to sound tough to reassure people like Taylor Marsh. He doesn't mean it as anything more than a symbol. He has faith that he'll be able to float through the McCain fight like he did the Clinton one, never really getting himself dirty, standing on the power of his rhetoric.

Arguing in favor of this proposition: his memoir, which is reflexively idealistic. His arc through life: the Ivy Leagues often produce this kind of liberal. He has sought power through the legislature, but hasn't gotten his hands dirty with it -- he has accomplished very little except to run for higher office, making an attempt for another rank every three years.

Also arguing in favor: his reaction to the Rev. Mr. Wright's appearance at the National Press Club. He turned his back on the man who gave him his start and supported him every step of the way, scorning him as a sort of lesser creature. This is precisely how TNR treats the men who actually made their sort of liberalism possible and practical. He and they seem to have the same basic attitude about the fighting men on whose shoulders they stand.

In this case, he believes his own rhetoric about "not demonizing" people (the "gun" he will bring is merely a symbol of a metaphor). People who want to see him succeed for their own reasons often do rough stuff to help him. He doesn't see this, and so his frequent refrain about associates, even longtime ones -- "he is not the man I thought I knew" -- is genuine also. He hasn't really paid attention to who they are.

The problem before us is that there really is no way of being sure which of these types is closer to the real Senator Obama. Is he a hard-hitting machine politician who has simply managed to keep an easy, bright face on for the public? Or is he an idealistic, ambitious man who has managed to look away from much of the ugliness of modern politics, and sincerely wishes to change it?

I can't say I know. I know my instinct is that he isn't a fighter, but a talker. I think he's the TNR-style liberal, who is being put forward by the men of the machine for reasons of their own.

In my opinion, that's the worse of the two for the job he's after. If I'm right, he's a somewhat better man -- weak and lacking the virtue of courage, but having other virtues that machine men do not.

He is still the less fit for a deadly and perilous duty.

Happy 233rd US Army. And its Flag Day.

Ace and BlackFive remember both.

Can you do better?

Trust the Law

The Trust Issue:

There is a basic failure of trust in the American court system among many of us, including me. Not for no reason! (H/t: Southern Appeal).

The originally named defendants were 70,787 pounds of spiny lobster tails. Less than 5 percent of them were, horror of horrors, too short – which may or may not have been a violation of Honduran sea-harvest laws.

Even worse, the dastardly tails entered Bayou La Batre, Ala., not in the required cardboard containers, but in plastic. Again, Honduran law may have been violated.

U.S. prosecutors, perceiving a dangerous conspiracy, stopped bothering the lobsters and threw their net at the lobster importers. Using something called the Lacey Act, which makes it illegal in the United States to import goods in contravention of another nation’s laws, the prosecutors began building their case.

And if it were an illegal import, well, that made it “smuggling,” right? And if the importers used the money they earned to buy any goods in the United States, well, that turned the case into “money laundering.”

Suddenly, the allegation of minor civil violations became a major criminal case. Three defendants were given sentences of – get this! – eight years each. In federal prison. To enforce a foreign regulation. About undersized lobsters.

Never mind that the importers openly took the lobsters through Customs, seemingly unaware they were doing anything wrong. Never mind that the U.S. Department of Commerce published an official price list for Honduran lobsters of the very sizes supposedly outlawed.

Never mind that one of the importers was a Honduran businessman, David Henson McNab, who willingly returned repeatedly to the United States to defend himself, apparently thinking it was all a misunderstanding.

And never mind that from the very start, there was conflicting, expert testimony about whether Honduran law was violated at all. The original trial judge, citing a midlevel Honduran official, allowed the trial to continue, all the way to convictions.

Later, when the attorney general of Honduras (!) wrote to say the regulations at issue had been repealed four years before this case began, the appeals court said it was too late.

“There must be some finality with representations of foreign law by foreign governments,” wrote the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

So: Prison! Even though no existing law had been violated.

Meanwhile, apparently we can't keep people in prison who've actually tried to kill us.

How are we meant to allow ourselves to be governed by courts that behave in this way? The same way we are governed by Congress, I suppose.

UPDATE: I was flip in my dismissal of the SCOTUS case, not wishing to add to what Cassandra had already said about it. It doesn't really say we "can't keep people in prison," but just that we must apply Habeas rights to them as if they were (a) citizens and (b) not unlawful combatants captured in a foreign war zone and never on US soil.

That's madness, in my opinion; but I've disagreed with the whole line of SCOTUS cases here. My reading is that we should be applying the Geneva Conventions as ratified, which offer very few rights to unlawful combatants of nonsignatory nations. They have a right to a hearing on their status, and if they are found to be unlawful combatants, not much else.

The SCOTUS has consistently been expanding their rights and access to the courts, which strikes me as a terrible mistake.

The overlap between this case and the lobster case is that both of them have to do with a blurring of the line between US and foreign law. The US courts here are undertaking to enforce Honduran law -- which they understand imperfectly at best, and whether or not the regulations were actually in force at the time. They are going hog wild looking for ways to make crimes out of ordinary behavior.

The SCOTUS case is a case where people are being treated as if American citizens' rights applied to everyone, everywhere. This is not so, has never been so, and really ought not to be so. American citizenship carries with it rights but also duties, and a debt to the nation that supports those rights. If you want those rights, you should take the lawful steps necessary to apply for immigration.

You shouldn't get them for waging war against us. If you do so honorably, you are entitled to POW protections under the Geneva Conventions. If you do so dishonorably, you are not even entitled to that.

Except, now, you are.

Haggis!

Haggis!

BillT is apparently under the impression that he can talk us out of our haggis. In fact, nothing could be a better feast for us.

The haggis is frequently assumed to be Scottish in origin though there is little evidence for this, and food writer Alan Davidson states that the Ancient Romans were the first people known to have made products of the haggis type. A kind of primitive haggis is referred to in Homer's Odyssey, in book 20, when Odysseus is compared to "a man before a great blazing fire turning swiftly this way and that a stomach full of fat and blood, very eager to have it roasted quickly." ...

Clarissa Dickson Wright repudiates the assumption of a Scottish origin for haggis, claiming that it "came to Scotland in a longship [ie. from Scandinavia] even before Scotland was a single nation." Dickson-Wright further cites etymologist Walter William Skeat as further suggestion of possible Scandinavian origins: Skeat claimed that the hag– part of the word is derived from the Old Norse hoggva or the Icelandic haggw, meaning 'to hew' or strike with a sharp weapon, relating to the chopped-up contents of the dish.

Odysseus! The Romans! The Vikings! The Scots and the Icelendings! Why, it's everything a dish should be to enjoy its celebrated place at a great feast.

It's also really good, if you make it right. The canned type tastes rather like any other canned meat-and-vegetable concoction, corned beef or what have you. But a real haggis, with good oatmeal and fresh onions, and a dram of golden whiskey poured atop it just at the point of serving, is delicious.

Of course, we also do steaks, biscuits, beans and beer here at the Hall.

UPDATE: Cassandra, meanwhile, wants you to know about Utilikilts. I've never had one, but I've seen them around. They seem like outstanding garments.

Americans First

Americans First:

I see that Senator Obama has started a webpage aimed at fighting rumors.

I'm glad to link to it, as I wish to see him defeated, but fair and square. In return, I trust the Senator will use it fairly, to fight honestly when he is being misrepresented, and not misrepresent his opponent's words in turn.

OK, I don't really trust that he will do that -- I see the site already characterizes every misunderstanding as a "LIE." Still, as intemperate as that is, let's make sure to get the details right as we can. There's reason enough in his Iraq policy alone to believe he is unsuitable for the office; and plenty of other reasons also.

Only Sleep Democrats

Republicans are Sick:

For Cassidy, a video that suggests Republicans are unclean. Being a Democrat myself, I have no dog in the fight. It's amusing, though.

Here's the counter-question I'd offer: which approach offers a chance at a wife who will be with you thick and thin, through the hard times that life cannot but offer?

I realize the young think not that far. But for me, a wife with a Glock who will watch over my shoulders is worth ten thousand women who have neither the heart, nor the arms to carry the day. I married her in part because she carried a knife, and had taught winter survival on the plains of Indiana.

Take a lesser woman, if you want.

What Scouts are For

What Scouts are For:

Grim's Hall wishes to express our condolences to the families of those affected by the tornados of last night. I also wish to praise the Boy Scouts, individually and as an organization for doing exactly what they were created to do:

Boy Scouts who came to each others' aid after a tornado that killed four of their comrades and injured 48 people were hailed as heroes Thursday for helping to administer first aid and search for victims buried in their flattened campsite....

Ethan said the scouts' first-aid training immediately compelled them to act.

"We knew that we need to place tourniquets on wounds that were bleeding too much. We knew we need to apply pressure and gauze. We had first-aid kits, we had everything," he said.

Ethan said one staff member took off his shirt and put it on someone who was bleeding to apply pressure and gauze. Other scouts started digging people out of the rubble, he said.

The injured were taken to Burgess Health Center in Onawa, Alegent Health Clinic in Missouri Valley and Creighton University Medical Center in Omaha.

Defense in depth.

A Lesson in Scottish History

A Lesson in Scottish History:

In celebration of this weekend's upcoming Scottish Highland Games in Blairsville, Georgia, let's talk a bit about Scottish history. A good starting point is this review of historian Trever-Roper, perhaps the most hostile to the mythology of Scotland.

The myths that bothered him were alike in this way: each made Scotland seem less a part of European civilization than it really had been. You can see the result in Braveheart, a movie actually filmed in Ireland, whose extras were provided by the Irish Army Reserves. William Wallace is depicted in a kilt, which he certainly would not have worn. The article above suggests the kilt was invented in the 19th century, but that is not quite right. What we call the military kilt was, that is, the skirt that is a separate garment. The Great Kilt, which is a huge bolt of cloth belted around the body, is ancient in origins; but it was the dress of the poor, who literally belted their bedclothes around themselves for warmth in the daytime. William Wallace was a knight.

Braveheart also has William Wallace wear woad, which was too late -- the Picts did that, in Roman times. Trevor-Roper, who survived long enough to have seen it, must have been beside himself.

The Scots were noted as having a unique character, however, in the Middle Ages. That character is different from how we imagine it today.

I quote Sidney Lanier -- for whom, north Georgia readers, our Lake Lanier is named -- from his redaction of Froissart. Lanier, the Georgia poet, created this for boys -- Froissart was a French author, who composed his history by riding about the country and talking to knights who had fought in the great wars he chronicled. It remains a wonderful read today; Lanier's version updates the language to modern English, but there are other good ones.

Robert the Bruce, that greatest king of Scotland -- and gentleman of Christendom, whose life is discussed in The Dangerous Book for Boys -- had grown old at the time of Froissart's wars. He sent his companion Douglas to lead this defiance of the English, whom he had fought so often and for so long.

The Scots are bold, hardy, and much inured to war. When they make their invasions into England, they march from twenty to four and twenty miles without halting, as well by night as by day; for they are all on horseback, except the camp-followers, who are on foot.

The knights and esquires are well mounted on large bay horses, the common people on little galloways. They bring no carriages with them, on account of the mountains they have to pass in Northumberland; neither do they carry with them any provisions of bread or wine; for their habits of sobriety are such, in time of war, that they will live for a long time on flesh half sodden, without bread, and drink the river-water without wine.

They have, therefore, no occasion for pots or pans: for they dress the flesh of their cattle in the skins, after they have taken them off; and being sure to find plenty of them in the country which they invade, they carry none with them. Under the flaps of his saddle, each man carries a broad plate of metal; behind the saddle, a little bag of oatmeal: when they have eaten too much of the sodden flesh, and their stomach appears weak and empty, they place this plate over the fire, mix with water their oatmeal, and when the plate is heated, they put a little of the paste upon it, and make a thin cake, like a cracknel or biscuit, wich they eat to warm their stomachs: it is therefore no wonder they perform a longer day's march than other soldiers.

An army marching on short rations and sobriety is not how we imagine the Scots of old, but it is how they won their wars at Bannockburn and elsewhere.

We also don't recall how deeply tied Scotland was to the rest of Christendom at the time. The Declaration of Arbroath, which -- whatever Trevor-Roper said about it -- is one of the most noble and beautiful letters ever composed, was addressed to the Pope. And upon his death, Robert the Bruce charged that same Douglas to cut out his heart, embalm it, and carry it on Crusade. Douglas was killed crusading against the Saracens in Spain, when he led a charge against the King of Grenada that the Spanish neglected to support. Bruce's heart, and Douglas' body, were recovered and returned to Scotland.

The Scots have a powerful history in the highlands of America, where they emigrated in force. Many of what we call "Scots-Irish" were either Scots or northern English, who went first to Ireland seeking land under the plantation laws of James I of England (who was also James VI of Scotland). Much of America owes itself in part to them, under one name or another: the Volunteers of Tennessee who supported the Texans; the Scots who formed Georgia's Highland Mountain and Coastal Rangers in the time of James Edward Oglethorpe; the "overmountain men," victors of the Battle of King's Mountain; who fought the Indians with Andrew Jackson; who migrated West in the greatest numbers after the Civil War; and so forth.

Their history is ours, partly.

Rebel Roots

Rebel Roots:

Such is the title of this Politico piece on Jim Webb's writings on the Confederacy. Of course, all Americans have rebel roots -- Washington was a rebel that George III would have gladly hanged -- but of course it is the Confederates that are the cause of the journalistic complaint.

[Webb] has suggested many times that while the Confederacy is a symbol to many of the racist legacy of slavery and segregation, for others it simply reflects Southern pride.

I wasn't aware this was a controversial statement. It's obvious from the number of re-enactment groups that people remain not merely interested in the Civil War, but proud of the gallantry of their ancestors who fought in it -- this is true for the descendants of both armies, and indeed, many people (including me) had family on each side of the conflict. Webb himself is descended from Confederate officers.

What is the alternative position to Webb's "suggestion"?

Webb, a descendant of Confederate officers, also voiced sympathy for the notion of state sovereignty as it was understood in the early 1860s, and seemed to suggest that states were justified in trying to secede.

It's plain that the Confederates themselves thought they were justified. Webb, among other things, is a historian. If you were writing a history that treated the Civil War, wouldn't you want to explain why the Confederates thought so?

If you're going to be fair to that argument, you should note just how frequently it had come up. After all, northern states had threatened to seceed before the Civil War, South Carolina had nearly come to blows with Andrew Jackson over it, and so forth. There were a number of parties in early America who honestly believed it was a retained power of the states, and that the right to withdraw from a union that had become a tyranny to you was implied by the Founding. It's hard to read the American Revolution as anything other than a successful secession, and the Declaration of Independence is fairly clear that this is something that could happen just frome time to time ("When in the course of human events..." doesn't imply, "Just this once").

Another thing:

Ron Walters, director of the African American Leadership Center at the University of Maryland and a professor of political science there, said Webb’s past writings and comments on the Confederacy could dampen enthusiasm for the Democratic ticket, should he appear on it.

We've all observed the enthusiasm black America has for the Obama campaign, and we all understand the reasons for it. I have a tremendous sympathy for their feelings on the subject, given their shared history -- just as I have for Webb's sentiments, given the history of which his family was a part. That said, given the history, does anyone seriously believe that 'African American... enthusiasm could be dampened' for the Obama ticket by... well, anything?

He doesn’t defend the war at all or the practice of slavery. He does make arguments about why the South seceded,” said Denny Todd. “The individual Confederate soldier, for the most part, did not own slaves. They weren’t wealthy landowners. Webb simply talks about why these men — mostly poor and white — stepped up and answered the call to serve.”

The distinctions Webb makes, however, tend not to receive a full airing in the heat of political debate.

Yeah, I was noticing that.

Optimism on Iraq

Optimism on Iraq:

Now available even in newspapers:

But recent substantial gains by the Iraqi army, flagging insurgent violence and civilians reclaiming a sense of confidence have produced expectations that are higher than at any time since 2003.

It’s increasingly reasonable to assume that Iraq’s security environment will continue to improve…

Even if recent events don’t portend a permanent change, nearly all the numbers the past few weeks suggest that Iraq’s center finally may be holding. Of most interest to Americans is the figure 19: the number of U.S. troops who died here in May….

Evidence of near normalcy is widespread.
…
“It’s a perfect storm of conditions on the ground right now,” says Michael Noonan , the managing director of the Program on National Security at the Foreign Policy Research Institute , who served as an Army Reservist captain in northern Iraq in 2006-07.

Esmay says:

Iraq isn’t Shangri-La by any means, but by virtually all measures it has improved since 2002 (GDP doubled, potable water access doubled, access to sewage systems doubled, electricity nearly doubled (albeit thanks mainly to private generation), ten times as many phones, one hundred times as many cell phones, internet access from nonexistent to widely available in cafes, thousands of free TV, radio, and newspaper, right of speech and assembly and to vote, freedom to purchase cars without paying exorbitant tariffs) and will continue to do so.

The focus on 2002 as a baseline is important, because then we're not just talking about how the Surge made things better than they were in the worst days of the war. We're talking about how the war has made things better overall.

One of Dean's commenters adds:

And let’s not forget another vital measure: since 2002, the number of murdering tyrants running the country and terrorizing the people has dropped precipitpously.

A 100% decline, yes.