Medieval Economics & Post-scarcity economics

Post-Scarcity Economics & the Middle Ages:

Via Arts & Letters Daily, an interesting but flawed approach to revising economic history. The author is interested in where we are going -- what economics will look like as scarcity becomes less important as a principle, and wealth increases. He is unsatisfied with previous attempts to map that, and looks backward for guidance. That is usually a sound policy.

However, while I found his thoughts interesting, there are several problems he will need to address before we can know to what degree he has said anything truthful and reliable. There are some serious problems, as well as insights:

The economy in which we operate is not a natural system, but a set of rules developed in the Late Middle Ages in order to prevent the unchecked rise of a merchant class that was creating and exchanging value with impunity. This was what we might today call a peer-to-peer economy, and did not depend on central employers or even central currency.

People brought grain in from the fields, had it weighed at a grain store, and left with a receipt — usually stamped into a thin piece of foil. The foil could be torn into smaller pieces and used as currency in town. Each piece represented a specific amount of grain. The money was quite literally earned into existence — and the total amount in circulation reflected the abundance of the crop.

Now the interesting thing about this money is that it lost value over time. The grain store had to be paid, some of the grain was lost to rats and spoilage. So each year, the grain store would reissue the money for any grain that hadn't actually been claimed. This meant that the money was biased towards transactions — towards circulation, rather than hording. People wanted to spend it. And the more money circulates (to a point) the better and more bountiful the economy. Preventative maintenance on machinery, research and development on new windmills and water wheels, was at a high.

Many towns became so prosperous that they invested in long-term projects, like cathedrals. The "Age of Cathedrals" of this pre-Renaissance period was not funded by the Vatican, but by the bottom-up activity of vibrant local economies. The work week got shorter, people got taller, and life expectancy increased. (Were the Late Middle Ages perfect? No — not by any means. I am not in any way calling for a return to the Middle Ages. But an honest appraisal of the economic mechanisms in place before our own is required if we are ever going to contend with the biases of the system we are currently mistaking for the way it has always and must always be.)

I'd like to see some references for all of these claims. Still, assuming for the sake of argument that they are true, they still don't yield his conclusions, which follow:

Feudal lords, early kings, and the aristocracy were not participating in this wealth creation. Their families hadn't created value in centuries, and they needed a mechanism through which to maintain their own stature in the face of a rising middle class. The two ideas they came up with are still with us today in essentially the same form, and have become so embedded in commerce that we mistake them for pre-existing laws of economic activity.

The first innovation was to centralize currency. What better way for the already rich to maintain their wealth than to make money scarce? Monarchs forcibly made abundant local currencies illegal, and required people to exchange value through artificially scarce central currencies, instead. Not only was centrally issued money easier to tax, but it gave central banks an easy way to extract value through debasement (removing gold content). The bias of scarce currency, however, was towards hording. Those with access to the treasury could accrue wealth by lending or investing passively in value creation by others. Prosperity on the periphery quickly diminished as value was drawn toward the center. Within a few decades of the establishment of central currency in France came local poverty, an end to subsistence farming, and the plague. (The economy we now celebrate as the happy result of these Renaissance innovations only took effect after Europe had lost half of its population.)

There are three sizable problems with what he has just said.

1) 'Feudal lords, early kings, etc., did not create wealth.' It's remarkable to me that you would view the trade of locally-issued currency as 'wealth creation,' but not the acivity that allowed that trade to occur without the markets being burned. This claim is somewhat akin to saying that the modern US military is simply a hole into which we pour money. Rather, it guards the physical borders, the trade routes, and particularly the US navy guards the sea routes. The Medievals did the same, and in a fashion at least as critical for the survival of economic activity. Their efforts were quite sophisticated, even early, in the face of threats more immediate to the towns and merchants of the day. (Footnote 1)

Indeed, as we look toward a 'post-scarcity society,' I submit that one of the goods that people will continue to have to pay for is physical security. It is as much a part of the wealth-creation process as anything else: without that security, wealth cannot long exist, let alone can new wealth be created and built.

2) "...and the plague." Woah! The Plague was the central economic event of the period. You don't get to write an article on the subject of economics in the late Middle Ages and simply elide past it as if it were a minor matter. It completely altered the face of society. When it broke out, governments that did not understand its cause attempted all manner of new controls on trade in the hope of limiting its spread. Such commerce across great distances had boomed during in the High Middle Ages, after a sharp decline following the collapse of Rome's ability to provide security in the West. That's something an essay of this sort ought to consider, since it intends to consider the very issue of how trade restrictions in the Middle Ages affected economic growth.

3) "The first innovation was to centralize currency. What better way for the already rich to maintain their wealth than to make money scarce?"

In the Plague's aftermath, too, there was a fairly impressive increase in social mobility across Europe. The sharp decrease in the supply of labor meant that the agricultural laborer -- formerly a minor player as an individual -- had a new power to negotiate his status. But while his status increased along with his wages, the wage increase was undercut by other forces:

Grave mortality ensured that the European supply of currency in gold and silver increased on a per—capita basis, which in turned unleashed substantial inflation in prices that did not subside in England until the mid—1370s and even later in many places on the continent. The inflation reduced the purchasing power (real wage) of the wage laborer so significantly that, even with higher cash wages, his earnings either bought him no more or often substantially less than before the magna pestilencia (Munro, 2003; Aberth, 2001).

Before you simply paint the currency policy of the Middle Ages as an attempt to control the merchants, it's worth considering how powerful these forces were. Most likely, in the face of the chaos being caused by the Black Death, the issue of keeping merchants in their place was hardly at the forefront of anyone's thought process. "Making money scarce" was of benefit to the workers in the fields, as much as it was to any king or nobleman.

Besides which, I'm deeply suspicious of the claim that 'centralizing currency' was an innovation of the period. The first coins in Britain date to the first century BC, before the Romans took control of the island. Centralized currency was the law of the land during the Anglo-Saxon period:

Aethelstan (925-39) continued the fight against the Danes and the title AETIIELSTAN REX TOTIVS BRITANNIE is to be found on some of his later coins. It was Aethelstan who decreed at a Witanagemot at Grately in 928, that every burgh or town should have a mint with from one to eight moneyers depending on its importance, thus providing that a single coinage should be current throughout the country, and that the dies were to be engraved in London. Thus eight moneyers were appointed to London, seven to Canterbury, six to Winchester, etc. At Grately, too, it was decreed that the penalty for forgery should be the loss of a hand which was then to be nailed up in the smithy or, if the accused desired to clear himself of the charge, the hand that struck the coin should be submitted to `the ordeal of the hot iron'.

So, why should I believe that this was an anti-merchant policy of the Late Middle Ages? I'd like to see some additional evidence and argument before I accept any part of that claim.

There's a great deal more to the essay, and some of it is really quite valuable. I don't mean to dismiss or demean the argument. However, I think that a number of the claims require greater investigation by the author, and some of them ought to be reconsidered entirely. That, though, is what debate is for: to challenge ideas, and thereby improve them.

Footnote 1. For a very good example of a response to Viking piracy and sea-based invasion, see Nicholas Hooper, "Some Observations on the Navy in Late Anglo-Saxon England," Anglo-Norman Warfare, ed. Matthew Strickland (Suffolk: The Boydell Press, 1992).

UN SEC CNCL

Where Can You Go From President?

I suppose we should have seen this coming. The man's been on the job for seven months; his record indicates he should start scoping for his next promotion about now. After all, he'd been in the US Senate about this long before he started preparing to run for President; and in the Illinois State Senate about this long before he started his (failed) run for the US House of Representatives; and so on back through his career.

It's time to move on up. But where do you go from President?

President Obama has decided to go to the one place where merit bears no relationship to adulation: the United Nations. On September 24, the president will take the unprecedented step of presiding over a meeting of the UN Security Council.

No American president has ever attempted to acquire the image of King of the Universe by officiating at a meeting of the UN’s highest body. But Obama apparently believes that being flanked by council-member heads of state like Col. Moammar Qaddafi — who is expected to be seated five seats to Obama’s right — will cast a sufficiently blinding spell on the American taxpayer....

What he wants to discuss is "nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament broadly" with no mention of "specific countries." Iran and North Korea, then, can rest easy. (Can we? Anyone want to give odds that he'll promise to stand down some US nuclear forces as a goodwill gesture? How many of them?)

Some say this is a bid to become the next Secretary General of the United Nations. Why wait? I'm ready to support him for the office immediately.

Sigh...

Sigh...

The last post points to the good things available in life, this time of year. It's terrible to think that those pleasures will be lost to this young man, or that this Marine's death is being used to profit the Associated Press. Both Carrie and Cassandra have reactions to the latter. So does BlackFive, where I also blog.

I'd like to add that I'd just like not to hear any more about how awful it is that the military reviews journalist past performance in deciding whether or not to embed them. The two examples Stars & Stripes came up with were for OPSEC violations and publication of classified material. Here's another damn good reason that someone should be looking into every reporter who wants to come into theater.

I think Greyhawk's objection was that contractors shouldn't be doing it, soldiers should be; but that's a small matter. The force size is limited by Congress, and the size of the deployment by orders. It may be that they decided they needed their soldiers elsewhere, and so the slot that might have been used to provide the PAO with an assistant was contracted out instead. The point is, journalists ought to be evaluated before they are given access like this. If they don't respect the lives of the soldiers or Marines -- whether by putting their lives at risk through OPSEC violations, or by ghoulish reporting -- they should not be allowed to be there.

Late Summer:

It is that wonderful time of the year when a man can get both good October beer, and fresh peppers from his garden. Here is yesterday's harvest of cayenne:



The weather offers plenty of warm sun for frolicking:



And there is the occasional downpour:



Have a fine weekend.

A Ruling

A Ruling:

You might like to know that Miss Manners (whose column is listed under the "Admired Voices" section of the sidebar) has issued a ruling on the subject of whether Sen. Boxer was insulted when Brigadier General Michael Walsh called her "ma'am."

Miss Manners assures you that "ma'am" is, like its masculine equivalent, "sir," a highly respectful form suitable for addressing any female, including a president, a monarch and your own mother.

All of us familiar with military protocol knew that no insult was, or could be, intended with such a term. Miss Manner's ruling makes it official for the civilian side of the country -- at least, that part of it that cares about etiquette and courtesy.

Ethics & Wisdom:

Painless Cattle:

Popular Science asks, "Is it ethical to engineer delicious cows that feel no pain?" The answer is that of course it is; humanity has willfully modified animals through selective breeding and other means for all of recorded history. We've done this chiefly for our own purposes, but if we wished to do it for the benefit of the animal, there's certainly no reason we should not.

Now, my counter question: regardless of whether it is ethical, is it wise? These things weigh about a thousand pounds, give or take a few hundred for breed or sex. They're hard enough to control as it is. What are you going to do when they feel no pain?

Confed Yankee Wins

A Victory:

In the competition to create the best headline for this story, the clear and honorable victor is Confederate Yankee.

Revolting

The Peasants are Revolting:

The WSJ has an article that notes consistent voter anger worldwide:

When the political world arrives at the point where even the Japanese rise up to toss a party from office after almost 54 years in power, it's time to see something's happening here, Mr. Jones.... The vote in somnolent Japan suggests that electorates are casting a global no-confidence vote in their leaderships. The same weekend the Japanese unloaded the Liberal Democratic Party, German voters withdrew Chancellor Angela Merkel's ruling majorities in the state legislatures of Thuringia and Saarland.

In the U.S., political handicappers are predicting heavy Democratic losses in the House next November. This just four years after ending GOP control of Congress in the 2006 elections and two years after sweeping into office Barack Obama and his Democratic partners.

Congress's approval rating remains stuck around 30%.... Some search for an ideological trend toward the left or right in these votes, but the only evident trend is to strike out at whichever blob is currently in power. Even as Americans turned over their country to liberal Democrats, opinion polls showed that the British people were turning toward the Conservatives for relief from listless Labour.

So... why?

The WSJ, unsurprisingly, declares that it's because the government isn't acting like they feel a proper government should: it spends up vast national debts, it follows by raising taxes, it refuses to offer incentives to businesses to grow, and it structures laws and systems so that its members can't be held accountable for its bad behavior except by voters.

Thus, the only thing voters can do is toss people out at every opportunity.

Just as unsurprisingly, I would add that the problem is the governments consistently move to increase thier own power at the peoples' loss, and refuse to be controlled by any obvious principle or authority. In America, the Constitution is so widely ignored that it's almost enough to make one despair. The government functions as effectively unlimited in scale and scope, with nothing obviously beyond its power. Every year, we look with interest to see if SCOTUS will lop off one or another of the growing limbs of control and authority, and sometimes it does, as in Heller; and some times it does not, as in Kelo. Even when it does, though, while trimming one vine, fifty are left to flower and grow.

Am I right? Is the Journal? Are we both? Or is it something else, less visible to us because we aren't sure where to look for it?

Levi/Palin

Parenting and Mrs. Palin:

I'm not particularly interested in this story; I read it only because I had a vague notion that I ought to know the name "Levi Johnston," but couldn't remember why. I'm not at all interested in the parts that have drawn the most commentary in the blogosphere.

However, I was intrigued by this part:

The Palin house was much different from what many people expect of a normal family, even before she was nominated for vice president. There wasn’t much parenting in that house. Sarah doesn’t cook, Todd doesn’t cook—the kids would do it all themselves: cook, clean, do the laundry, and get ready for school. Most of the time Bristol would help her youngest sister with her homework, and I’d barbecue chicken or steak on the grill.

I'll excuse the fellow, on grounds of his youth, for not recognizing what he was looking at. Far from being an example of "not much parenting," this is an example of excellence in parenting.

You mean to tell me that, by the late teens, the children are pitching in to such a degree that all the household chores are done? Cooking, cleaning, preparation for school, homework? All of it?

The take-away here is that, far from being unready for motherhood, Bristol Palin was perfectly ready for it. She had learned how to take responsibility, not only for herself, but for those of her family who were younger or weaker or in need of help. She knew how to be depended upon, to carry her own weight, and to help others learn to carry theirs. She knew how to cook and run a household. She was absolutely ready to enter the world of adult life, whether as a wife and homemaker, or in any other capacity normally open to someone of her age: that kind of self-discipline and order will let her tackle any set of problems.

I've known many at the age of thirty-five who weren't ready to take full responsibility for themselves, let alone to have others depend on them. I've known many of any age who never got that family is about taking care of each other, rather than providing you with a never-ending set of loans and benefits.

Raising kids so well as that would be quite an achievement all on its own. Managing a successful business in addition? A great deal of pride should be taken in that. Being a successful governor in addition to all that? Good gracious.

Practical Philosophy

Practical Philosophy & the Constitution:

Ms. Megan McArdle is quite right to say that ethics -- which is the type of philosophy she and her interlocutor are practicing here -- ought to have some real-world relevance. The old phrase "hard cases make bad philosophy" (which also exists: "hard cases make bad law") is true, and it's true for just the reason she brings up here. The amateur (or very clever) philosopher will simply abstract until they've removed all the negatives from whatever they wanted to prove; or until they've removed all the positives from what they wanted to disprove. This is a form of sophistry.

The argument being put foward is, 'So, if we could provide perfect health care to all people at a low cost, shouldn't we do so?' The concept is that, once you endorse the principle that you should do so in a perfect case, we need only to slowly expand to engulf all the imperfections.

Yet wait: Even in that perfect case, I have a practical objection. Listen to the principles Ms. McArdle lists in her counterargument:

■We have some obligations to future generations, if not necessarily future individuals within those generations. Extreme thought experiment to clarify the principle: we cannot strip mine the earth and leave them to die.
■People have no obligation to perform labor for others. I may not force a surgeon to save my mother at gunpoint. (To be sure, I might. But society would justly punish me for doing so.)
■States have an absolute right to tax their citizens to provide public goods, i.e. goods that are broadly beneficial but non-excludable. They have a right to enact other laws, such as public health rules, to achieve similar ends. Both rights are constrained by the basic rights of their citizens. You may perhaps quarantine Typhoid Mary. You may not shoot her.

■Societies have a right to organize themselves to improve the justice of their income distribution. That organization may include taxation. It may also include property rights, or outlawing behavior like blackmail.
■Property rights did not spring full-blown from the head of Zeus into a natural right. They're contingent, evolving arrangements that happen to work really, really well for encouraging many sorts of beneficial economic activity.

■Just income distribution is not just a matter of relative position, but also of how the income is acquired, and absolute need. I do not have any moral claim whatsoever on a dime of Warren Buffett's fortune, because I have a perfectly adequate lifestyle. I still wouldn't have any claim on his fortune if he suddenly got 100 times richer, provided that he acquired that money through means that we regard as licit.

■Societies should strive to organize themselves so that everyone in the society can, if they desire, acquire the means to provide their basic needs.

■There is no per-se right to health care, since "health care" is not a thing, but a shifting collection of goods and services with amorphous boundaries. Health care is a subset of the modern "basic needs" package, and therefore falls under broader distributional justice claims. No matter what your distributional justice intuitions are, it would be perfectly acceptable, if impractical, to give very sick people the cash required to treat their cancer, and let them blow it on a trip around the world.

■No one should have to work more hours for the state than for themselves. This should inform our approach to taxation.

■Taxation should strive to equalize the personal cost of taxation among all members of society, not the dollar amount or the percentage of income. That is, it is appropriate for Warren Buffet to pay a higher percentage of his income in taxes for shared public goods than I do, because the personal cost of taking 25% of his income is much lower than the personal cost of taking 25% of mine.
■An equal distribution of misery is not a good social goal. When policies to redistribute goods or money result in fewer or poorer quality goods being available, that cost should limit the redistributive impulse.
■If people will not comply with your regime, and their non-compliance may have unpleasant results for themselves or others, this is an important side constraint.

■The government should not interfere in voluntary transactions unless there are significant direct externalities. The fact that you get stressed or unhappy thinking about something does not qualify as a direct negative externality. Nor does the cultural miasma that emanates from these transactions.

■The government certainly should not forbid anyone to purchase something on the grounds that other people are not able to purchase that thing.

Some of those principles are very sound, and others I might argue; but there is something noteworthy missing from them.

What is missing is the Constitution.

The discussion they are having would be a very nice one for a state in some early stage of formation. However, we've had that discussion. The government was allocated certain powers, only. Not one of the Founders ever dreamed that they were endorsing a government that would provide insurance coverage, or provide doctors, or otherwise provide health care to anyone at all -- far from "every citizen" in the country (plus, perhaps, any other persons in the country, legal or illegal).

The Founders provided us with a means for allowing the Federal government to assume sweeping new powers: the Constitutional Amendment process. So, here is a principle missing from the debate that belongs there:

■ For the Federal government to assume major new powers, that goverment must ask for new authorization for those powers from the People through the amendment process.

"But Grim," you might say, "you know perfectly well that it is impossible to get a Constitutional amendment through such a divided electorate. You're merely attempting to rule that the other side isn't allowed any realistic option for enacting its program."

Not so!

First, the Founders were very well aware of the difficulty of the process they proposed. They were especially aware that it might outright prevent contentious issues from ever becoming Federal law. That was the whole point.

The stability of the government, of the nation, and of the polity all depend on not ramming rapid, massive changes through in the face of severe opposition. Just such behavior had led to civil wars and rebellions across Europe in the period when the Constitution was being written. Two of special moment to the Founders were the English Civil War and the Covenanter movement in Scotland.

That is why the Constitution they wrote requires not only a supermajority of representatives and Senators. It also requires the States to ratify the amendment, each one considering the issue separately in its own space. Without the vote of a supermajority of the States as well as Washington, the Federal government may not assume new powers. It especially may not assume vast new powers touching every citizen in the nation, and every State in the Union.

The amendment process the Founders settled upon was precisely the opposite of the method the Obama administration chose here. They decided to try to pass a law before anyone could even read it, and before the August recess when Congressmembers might have to hear from their constituents about it. Far from asking the States to ratify their approach, they tried to prevent anyone living in the States from having the chance to express an opinion. They would have had Washington insiders decide the issue alone.

Sweeping changes that travel through the legitimate process have to be heard at length, fully argued, and enjoy broad support across the several states as well as within the Federal government itself. That is the way the system is meant to work. It doesn't matter how good your philosophy is: that's the system.

Second, if in fact you could 'provide health care to everyone at minimal cost,' you might well be able to win even the more arduous argument. The problem is, you can't. A substantial number of Americans have lived in countries that have tried, or have traveled in such countries, or have experience with the health care industry, or in one of many other ways become aware of the practical limitations.

Don't tell me, though, that the argument couldn't possibly prevail if it were really true. If the government could actually provide 'perfect health care to all people at low cost,' it would be a very salable idea.

It would sell even through the Amendment process.


What is causing all this revolutionary "water-the-tree-of-liberty" rhetoric at the tea parties is the rank refusal to consider this basic constitutional question. The Federal government wants simply to assume vast new power without asking the States or the People outside of Washington. They may not.

If there is a single philosophical principle that ought to be defended in this debate, that is it. It's not even a question of whether health care is a right or a commodity, whether it's right to want the government to provide it to the citizens or not. The main issue is that they were never given such authority. If the Federal government wants it, it may not simply seize it with no reference to the States or the People. Washington can't do this alone. If they want to make a massive change to the basic nature of the government, they've got to ask for new authority.

The fact that Washington has discovered that it has the power to ignore the Constitution does not make it right. Does everyone remember when George W. Bush, while President, stated that he had Article II power to hold prisoners indefinitely? Remember how badly he was excoriated for that (though the Obama administration appears to agree, now that they are in office)?

Yet at least he made a reasonable attempt to show that the suspension of habeas corpus was rooted in a genuine, spelled-out Constitutional authority of the President's. What is the Constitutional justification for any of this? For the "investment" in General Motors? What limits on the Federal government will Washington recognize?

Wow

Wow:

Block out fifteen minutes and watch this.

Islamic Scarves

The Right to Choose (the Scarf):

Naomi Wolfe has an article in the Sydney Morning Herald (a fine Australian newspaper, that) on the subject of Islamic women who really like to wear their veils and scarves. The article has generated some controversy, but I'd like to explore the concepts she raises because I've heard women in Iraq say exactly the same thing that she has these Moroccan women saying.

Indeed, many Muslim women I spoke with did not feel at all subjugated by the chador or the headscarf. On the contrary, they felt liberated from what they experienced as the intrusive, commodifying, basely sexualising Western gaze. Many women said something like this: "When I wear Western clothes, men stare at me, objectify me, or I am always measuring myself against the standards of models in magazines, which are hard to live up to - and even harder as you get older, not to mention how tiring it can be to be on display all the time. When I wear my headscarf or chador, people relate to me as an individual, not an object; I feel respected." This may not be expressed in a traditional Western feminist set of images, but it is a recognisably Western feminist set of feelings.

This is a point that I have heard from Iraqi women, from American women who have had to travel in the Middle East, and from Israeli women who have operated within the Arab world. It harmonizes very nicely with the piece we were discussing lately on the subject of what it is like for foreign women to operate in the Muslim world, which is apparently highly aggressive towards foreign women particularly.

In addition, she's right to say that the feelings are 'recognizably... feminist.' I can think of several women who read this space who have, at times, expressed a sharp desire for a public space in which women are treated without reference to sexuality. Islamic society has achieved a success of a sort there: they do have a public space in which (local rather than foreign, veiled or otherwise scarved) women may operate without being "on display" or judged by their appearance.

One American woman I worked with found that the headscarf was a welcome refuge when working with Muslims. She spoke of the comfort she felt while wearing it, because it seemed to deactivate men's ability to think of her as a sexual creature. She had a freedom, then: when with those whom she wanted to consider her as a potential mate, she could be sexual if she chose; but when with others, she had a retreat.

Phyllis Chesler delivers an excoriation to Ms. Wolfe, however, pointing out that what is "a choice" for her (and for the American women I mention) is not a choice for many Muslim women.

Now that Wolf is no longer the doe-eyed ingenue of yesteryear, she sees the advantage of not being on view at all times. A Westerner, “playing” Muslim-dress up, Wolf claims that hiding in plain view gave her “a novel sense of calm and serenity. I felt, yes, in certain ways, free.” In addition, Wolf believes that the marital sex is hotter when women “cover” and reveal their faces and bodies only to their husbands.

Marabel Morgan lives! In the mid-1970s, Morgan advised wives to greet their husbands at the door wearing sexy clothing and/or transparent saran wrap with only themselves underneath. Her book, Total Woman, sold more than ten million copies. According to Morgan, a Christian, “It’s only when a woman surrenders her life to her husband, reveres and worships him and is willing to serve him, that she becomes really beautiful to him.”

Well, what can I say? Here’s a few things.

Most Muslim girls and women are not given a choice about wearing the chador, burqa, abaya, niqab, jilbab, or hijab (headscarf), and those who resist are beaten, threatened with death, arrested, caned or lashed, jailed, or honor murdered by their own families. Is Wolfe thoroughly unfamiliar with the news coming out of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan on these very subjects? Has she forgotten the tragic, fiery deaths of those schoolgirls in Saudi Arabia who, in trying to flee their burning schoolhouse, were improperly veiled and who were beaten back by the all-powerful Saudi Morality Police?

The point is well taken. Ms. Wolfe's approach discusses the issues of the veil as if they were about Westerners being unable to accept an "alien," "Other" approach to sexuality. She writes as if this is what Muslim women really desire, and that the fault is ours for not understanding them. In fact, in very many cases, the various forms of the veil are enforced rigorously: they are not a choice.

Ms. Wolfe is not wrong, however, when speaking of cultures where there is choice. She mentions France, and its war against the hijab, as an example. Here in America, too, women have the freedom to choose if they like.

Women have tended to choose against the veil, or other clothes designed to 'deactivate' their physical beauty, given the choice. USA Today was just describing how even some nuns now wear "street clothes," since Vatican II gave them the choice. Married women in the West once wore veils over their hair as a normal part of their attire, but increasingly rarely since the 1600s.

There is a choice available that makes that much-desired "public space" more readily attainable for women. However, that choice -- for whatever cause -- is unpopular (even with nuns!). You can see from Ms. Wolfe's writing that there is a certain value placed on it by those who still practice the custom. However, as Ms. Chesler points out, given the physical coercion involved, it's hard to say how much of womens' praise of the veil is rationalization of something they couldn't escape if they wanted. For women I've known in the Middle East, it was a choice that was valuable to them; yet only a few of them wanted to be veiled among other Americans.

Was that due to some similar social pressure: not beatings and stonings, but a fear of scorn or disdain? I'm not sure, myself, not being female; but I suspect that it has to do with a desire to be perceived as "normal." In the Muslim world, "normal" wears a veil; in the West, it doesn't. Insisting on wearing one here is a choice that would be accepted, but it would also be a signal that you demand to be treated differently than everyone else. While people would accept that, generally speaking, it would result in you being placed in a special category off to the side, rather than being part of the general society. Many people, and perhaps especially many women, value social interaction to a degree that makes them want to be accepted as widely as possible.

Still, the answer to that is only that there needs to be a movement to make it common enough that it ceases to be unusual. Not, mind you, that I'm advocating such a movement; no more than I'm advocating against such a movement. I'm merely interested in the issue because I've observed it in several places and through several lenses.

American Royalty

American Royalty:

"It's time to embrace American royalty," declares the Sock Puppet, while making a very good point:

We're obviously hungry to live with royal and aristocratic families so we should really just go ahead and formally declare it...

I'm afraid that all these Kennedy retrospectives make it clear that he's right.

Except, hm... Kennedy, Kennedy... no, no mention of it in this article.

No, he's mad that Jenna Hagar, nee Bush, was given a job. Nothing about the Kennedys at all.

Hm. Well, probably it will occur to him soon.

What?

The Nobility of the Horse:

It's been a long time since I posted a horse photo, once a regular feature of the page. The horse is a noble animal, admitted to the narrow range that features also dogs and men, and very rare cats.



What?

Oh, you're wanting dog pictures too. Philistines on the sidewalk. Fine.

A Year With The Romans

"A Year With The Romans":

Open Letters has endorsed a project by that name, in which their monthly magazine will feature reviews of Roman writers' works -- I gather, every month for the year. The author, Steve Donoghue, has the first piece here, reviewing Quintus Curtius Rufus' writings on Alexander the Great.

I'm encouraged by the comments section of the piece, which suggests that the readers are not taking any foolishness. Mr. Donoghue will have to up his game to satisfy them, which will probably be good both for him and for his future pieces.

One part of the review, toward the end, touches on something I have been thinking about from some other readings. You have here a Roman reflecting on Macedonian conceptions of what it means to be "a free man," and on the proper relationship between a free man and his state (in this case, his king). The occasion is a mutiny by Alexander's men. The classic Greek warrior -- and remember, Alexander modeled himself consciously on the heroes of the Iliad -- was led by a "first among equals" king, not an absolute monarch. It was the Persians who believed in kings who were set far above their subjects. The Greeks fought in a warrior band:

You wanted Macedonians to kneel before you and worship you like a god! You betrayed the memory of your father Philip, and if some fashion elevated a god over Jupiter, you’d despise Jupiter too! We are free men – are you surprised we can’t endure your vanity? What can we hope for from you, if even innocent men must face death, or worse than death?

It’s possible that by this point in his world conquest, Alexander really did fancy the idea of Persian-style absolute monarchy over the hillbilly egalitarianism of his native Macedon. We lack the written records to say for certain, but men have been known to become thus corrupted.

"Hillbilly egalitarianism" is a terrible phrase. It misses the spirit of the warrior band, who are "egalitarian" only among themselves: heroes, who are brothers against the world!

It also misses the real issue of the Roman system, and particular the Roman law. Henry Charles Lea captures the issue in The Duel and the Oath, his work on judicial duels and oath-swearing in European law.

The Roman law concentrated all power in the person of the sovereign, and reduced his subjects to one common level of implicit obedience. The genius of the barbaric institutions and of feudalism localized power.

Lea's "barbaric" nations were chiefly the Germans, Franks, Angles and Saxons whose traditional laws were in competition with the Roman law among Medievals trying to determine the right way to write laws of their own. The Roman law generally speaking preferred to place power in the hands of authority. The Germanic peoples preferred to place power in the hands of men of honor: that was why they favored systems of compurgation, which would allow men of honor to establish your innocence by swearing that they believed in it; and systems involving trial by combat.

The official Medieval understanding of trial by combat was that God would defend the right, so that the just cause would win. The underlying root is that sense of honor that runs the risk of sacrificing life for what is loved: if a man loved something enough to peril his life for it, that love and honor stood before the court as overwhelming evidence unless it was equalled by another champion on the other side. If it was, they would fight.

You can see how this is a system that would appeal to warriors, far more than a system of submission to higher authority. That latter system might impose any humiliation on them, and indeed, the very act of submission to it in the first place was a humiliation. All this system of judicial combat asked was that they be ready to die when they could no longer win. As that was the daily fact of their lifes in the days of combat by shield-wall -- and, likewise for the Greeks in the days of the phalanx -- it was an entirely acceptable bargain.

If they were self-interested in that way, the champions of the Roman law were likewise driven in part by the expectation that they could benefit under their preferred law. The Papacy's special authority was exercised by men not always practiced in physical combat, but expert in argumentation, logic, and intricate legalism. The main advocate of the Roman law was the religious, who pressed for submission to authority as a way of maintaining their predominance in the law. Lea:

An important step was gained when in 1146 Henry II, as a concession to the papacy, agreed that ecclesiastics should not be forced to the duel; but this did not extend to the Scottish Marches, where by law an ecclesiastic was as liable as a layman to personal appearance in the lists; if he presented a champion he was held in custody till the event of the duel, when, if the champion was defeated, his principal was promptly beheaded.

The papacy remained a stern enemy of judicial combat, and especially of forcing churchmen to it. Their success was uneven and limited, however, and Innocent IV resolved certain issues confronting his papacy through wager of battle. He was successful in this regard, probably reinforcing the notion that God was in fact defending His favorites. Even so, the Popes preferred law by evidence and argument, not by the sword, or the oath of trusted men.

On the Other Hand

On the Other Hand, the Eugenics are Great...

Mark Steyn adds another piece of information to the Canada picture:

As a result, this once proud Dominion now has to import sperm. According to CTV, 80 per cent of Canadian women who conceive through donor sperm are getting it from the United States, mainly from men in Georgia...

Well, then! Another generation or two, and it should be quite livable up there.

Rest in Peace, Mr. Kennedy

Rest in Peace, Sen. Kennedy:

I wasn't going to say anything at all on the subject of Senator Edward Kennedy's death. I'd rather not be unkind to a man at a time when his family is suffering the grief that is natural to any such passage.

However, Dr. Althouse does raise an excellent point, based on the information that Chappaquiddick jokes were a particular favorite of his.

If Teddy always "saw the other side of everything and the ridiculous side of things," then that's an open invitation. Despite his death, we can make all the Teddy Kennedy jokes we want. If anyone should see fit to criticize us, they need to know: Teddy wouldn't have wanted it that way.

That's not an unreasonable assertion, actually. Taking the story as its author plainly intended it -- and those men who worked with Kennedy seemed almost invariably to have liked him -- jokes at the deceased's expense might be an honest expression. Such jokes are not unusual at Irish wakes, and Kennedy was Irish enough. For ideological foes, often astonished at how much the man was let to get away with because of his name and willingness to vote 'the right way,' such jokes are even a tribute of a sort. They point to just how astonishing his record actually was.

Here is a good collection. I'll quote a few that I liked. If you have others, include them in the comments.

"Declassified papers report that John Kennedy was taking eight different medications a day. He was so wasted, his Secret Service code name was Ted Kennedy." —Craig Kilborn

"It's Bring Your Daughter to Work Day. This tradition began about 25 years ago down in Washington, D.C. by a quick-thinking Ted Kennedy who was spotted leaving his office with an 18-year-old." —David Letterman

"What a nightmare I had last night. I dreamed I was at a Washington party and I had to choose between Dick Cheney taking me on a hunting trip or Ted Kennedy driving me home." --Jay Leno

Canada Healthcare

So, What's It Like To Live In Canada?

An interesting perspective on the subject of healthcare comes from reading this company's page. They make a living by helping Canadians escape their government-run system, and get what they need in the United States of America.

The Canadian government apparently spends a lot of energy brainwashing its citizens to believe that they have no right to buy health care. Several points in the FAQ are about convincing people they really do have a right to take care of themselves.

Is it legal to go outside the Canadian health care system in this manner?

Yes. It is illegal in Canada to "jump the queue," but perfectly legal to leave the queue and receive treatment outside the public system.

Doesn't this contribute to a "two-tier" healthcare system?

There is already a multi-tier system in Canada. Workers Compensation Boards, the RCMP, the Indian Affairs Ministry, insurance companies and the Federal Corrections Department regularly pay for their clients/prisoners to receive prompt medical care at private surgical clinics in Canada. Recently, the spouse of a deputy provincial health minister sought our help to leave the queue to get private medical care. In November 2005, the CBC aired a one hour documentary on their program "The Passionate Eye" on which they pointed out the fallacy that Canada still has a one-tier system. Our organization, Timely Medical Alternatives was featured prominently, on that show.


Isn't jumping the queue against the Canadian way?

Indeed it is. Inmates in Federal prisons and politicians (among others) routinely jump the queue and we agree that this practice is outrageous. Jumping the queue occurs when convicted criminals and politicians are given preference over the rest of us. When they jump to the head of the queue, Mrs Brown - who had been at the head of the list - is forced to relinquish her place in line. Our clients don't jump the queue; they leave the queue and obtain timely care outside the public health care system.

...

What does the government think about Canadian residents leaving the country to get timely medical care?

Who knows what governments really think. Realistically, they are happy when anyone leaves the 875,000 person waiting list-or at least they should be! The bad news is that Canada is one of only 3 countries where citizens are forbidden, by federal law, to pay a care giving medical facility for treatment. Hence the long waitlists. The good news is that, unlike the other two - Cuba and North Korea - Canadians are still free to seek care beyond the borders of their home country.

So: you're a Canadian who needs medical help. Months drag on. The suffering makes you think about escaping the system, to get the care you need. Still, you feel guilty about not suffering while you 'wait your turn.' You've been told your whole life that it's selfish and immoral to want to get care just because you are in pain: a good Canadian should take his suffering with patience and quiet dignity.

With great effort, you finally overcome the moral inhibitions that your government has inculcated in you. Enough, at least, to ask the question -- if I did choose to pay for my care, how much time could you cut off these months of waiting?

So you ask:

What do you mean by "Timely"?

In general, we can arrange surgery in the U.S. within 17 days.

File that away, when we talk about health reform, and rationing, and the use of 'moral' persuasion by the government to help control costs. This has been something we have talked about especially in terms of end of life care, but it is not only relevant there.

A Shame

Shame, Islam, and the West:

Arts & Letters Daily has a link to a piece from World Affairs Journal, on the subject of foreign women traveling or living in the lands of Islam. For the most part, it is just as bad as you'd expect. Female US Soldiers seem to be treated respectfully in Iraq, in my experience, but they are in uniform and armed, and accompanied by other soldiers who are likewise armed. When our women are traveling alone and unarmed, things are not the same.

A couple of the interviews were worse than I expected. What makes these cases worse is that we were worse.

Here is what happened to her in Kabul—and it’s essential to remember this occurred decades before the Taliban made life for women completely intolerable. Chesler’s American passport was confiscated at the airport: she never saw it again. Her young “bohemian” husband became, as she notes, “another person”: cold and distant, a sometime defender of polygamy (his father, to Chesler’s surprise, had three wives) and champion of the veil. Chesler quickly discovered that “Afghans mistrusted foreign wives”—and her walks around the city, invariably barefaced and without the long coat or gloves urged on her by her in-laws, made her the target of lewd advances and crude insults. When she fled to the American embassy, “the Marines would bring me back home every time,” she recalls. “I was the wife of a foreign national. I had lost my citizenship.”

That was forty-five years ago. This was only nineteen years ago:

Undeterred, in 1990 she returned to Saudi Arabia, gathered her children, and brought them to the U.S. Embassy. At which point, as The Wall Street Journal reported well over a decade later, embassy Marines were summoned to expel the family from the premises. The Saudi authorities had an even more effective solution: they arrested Stowers. She left the country. But at 12 years old, her daughter was still languishing in Saudi Arabia, married off to a cousin.

America betrayed its duty to Ms. Stowers and her daughter in 1990. It has tried to make up for it. The President of the United States personally addressed the issue in a meeting with Prince Bandar in 2002. Congressman Dan Burton apparently took up the matter of Ms. Stowers in 2003. He met with the daughter, who at that time was 19.

Congressman Dan Burton of Indiana has been investigating why Monica Stowers and other American mothers have not been helped by their own government.

“The State Department, in my opinion, for the past 10-15-20 years, has not done their job properly,” says Burton. “Every Embassy in the world, every consulate in the world ought to be a safe haven for American citizens.”

Last August, Burton led a U.S. delegation to Saudi Arabia. They were armed with a list of 35 American kids he says have been kidnapped from their mothers....

It took more than a decade, and a dogged congressman, before an exit visa was finally issued just days before Burton's committee arrived. But for Amjad, the visa may have come too late.

It turns out that two weeks before Burton's trip, Amjad's father arranged a marriage for her to a 42-year-old Saudi military officer who already had a wife and five children. He sat right next to Amjad when she met with Burton.

“She told me she wants to come to America. She said that to me at least 10-15 times. But then she looked at him and said ‘But not now,’” says Burton. “All you could see was her eyes and she was crying.”

The State Department could easily have done its duty in 1990, instead of ordering the United States Marines to expel from US territory citizens they should have been sworn to protect. Congressman Burton's resolution defining that duty for their future reference may be read here. Because they did not do their duty when they had the chance, neither the President nor Congress has been able to make things right.

Elevator Shaft

Late Night Jello:

Iowahawk imagines a conversation between an older lady and a hospital orderly.

You're a Christian, aren't you, Mrs. Petrowski? Me too. I guess my favorite part of the Bible is where it talks about how we all get our allotted "three score and ten." Seventy years, right there in the Bible. And you are, now what was it, 83?

Okay, 78. Still, that's what, eight years over your biblical limit? That's one amazing overtime run you're having, I'd say. Almost unnatural.

Psalm 90:10 actually does imagine you making it to fourscore years. Still, there's reason in it to cheer the heart of an orderly of the type Iowahawk imagines.

OOF

"For Political Reasons"

The President's uncle -- remember how he'd liberated Auschwitz? -- has a few words on his nephew:

SPIEGEL: Mr. Payne, early in June your great-nephew, President Barack Obama, will visit the former concentration camp Buchenwald, which you helped liberate at the end of the war. Will he be travelling in your footsteps?

Charles Payne: I don't buy that. I was quite surprised when the whole thing came up and Barack talked about my war experiences in Nazi Germany. We had never talked about that before. This is a trip that he chose, not because of me I'm sure, but for political reasons.

He says some nicer things later in the interview, but that was a pretty cruel cut.

Speaking of which, Cassandra has another contest.

I think the phrase is "sympathetic magic".

You know, take an umbrella if it looks like rain, and it won't rain, but if you didn't you'd get soaked.

So my first reaction on seeing this was: "But it will."

Healthcare Reform Named After Ted Kennedy Must Not Suck.

I suspect that the naming of things is still has power.

Well, Now, Lads:

Let's have a look at the Near Cosmos:



Each one of those dots is 100 billion stars. Have a drink or three with my compliments; and God Send Us A Merry New Year.

H/t: Dad29.

Hey for Christmas

"Hey for Christmas!"

Late August is probably the wrong time for Christmas; but as I missed the last feast, if not the holiday, perhaps you will excuse me.

One of my favorite early music groups, The Baltimore Consort, has a wonderful Christams album that I've recently discovered. The ultimate song is exactly the kind of merry brawl that so characterizes traditional music, when our feasts were sweetened by fasting.

Then they sat down to their good cheer
And pleasant were both maids and men,
And having dined and drunk good beer,
Then they rose to dance again,
And thus did they did dance from woman to man...

Then they went to the little thatch house,
And played at cards a game or two,
And with the good liquor did so carouse...

The pots blew out, the glasses were broke,
the game was scattered all by the fife,
Richard was pull'd down by the throat,
At which the hostess drew her knife!

They took the fiddler and broke his pate,
And threw his fiddle into the fire,
And drunkenly went home so late
That most of them fell in the mire...

I have fasted too, and perhaps I have learned something thereby. One thing I think I have learned is that the older music is better, and stronger, than what passes for music today.

That, of course, is just what you expect an old man to say: that the music of his youth is far sweeter and stronger than the music of today. If so, my youth was a thousand years ago. And maybe that is right.

Elizabeth Edwards

On Elizabeth Edwards:

My beloved mother refuses to watch sad movies. For a long time, even a sad scene in an otherwise happy movie was enough to convince her to refuse it. This was part of her method of turning off depressing or sorrowful thoughts, and focusing her life on happiness and joy. She has had more luck than most I know in taking control of her life, so there is probably something to the method.

A genuine tragedy, however, has the potential to be powerfully uplifting. There is a reason the "song of the goat" has been so popular since Ancient Greece, and it is the same reason that Shakespeare's greatest works are his tragedies. It is the same reason that the mountains are most majestic when you stand at the lowest place beneath them.

Alas, the life of Elizabeth Edwards has been a tragedy. I mean no offense by saying so. J. R. R. Tolkien's beautiful work on "subcreation" is best realized in his Silmarillion, with its description of the creation as a work of art: creation as a song. The tragedy also can be a song, and in fact reaches one of its peaks in the songs of opera. It may be that God wants to hear such songs, and asks them of us, from time to time.

Some who have heard that song have written well of it lately. It is a tribute to that sorrowful lady that pieces of almost unbearable sadness have been written in her name. Two such are here, and here. But they are not equal pieces. The sadness of the one is her own. The sadness of the other is the author's, a good man, and a blind.

Conservative Philosophy

Conservative Philosophy:

Cassandra had a post yesterday examining conservative philosophy, and there was some interesting discussion around its history. Via Arts & Letters Daily today, a review of a book hostile to conservatism. The author of the review was unimpressed, but cites an earlier book that made the point better:

A decade earlier, Raymond English had touched upon a similar theme in an article in The American Scholar titled “Conservatism: The Forbidden Faith.” Their point was that conservatism as a political philosophy runs against the American grain and thus will always play something of an incongruous and subordinate role in a revolutionary nation dedicated to equality, democracy, and restless change. While the conservative case for order, tradition, and authority may be useful as a corrective for the excesses of democracy, it can never hope to supplant liberalism as the nation’s official governing philosophy. As Rossiter put it, “Our commitment to democracy means that Liberalism will maintain its historic dominance over our minds, and that conservative thinkers will continue as well-kept but increasingly restless hostages to the American tradition.”

We often talk about Jefferson as liberal (classically so, not a part of the modern 'social liberal' movement), and Hamilton as the conservative. It's easy to forget, though, that Hamilton was extremely liberal compared to English conservatives of the day.

What conservatives want is the right kind of person.

For example, one of the thing American conservatives insisted on was restricting the franchise to men; who were white; and also had property in the community of a certain value. That was shorthand for the kind of person they thought could be trusted to exercise power.

But the American Revolution was fought against Europe's version of Traditional Conservatism, which is a philosophy much older than this country. Even the most conservative of the American revolutionaries were wildly liberal (in the Classical sense) compared to English conservatives of the day. Recall that the English, in those days, had a similarly restricted franchise; but it only elected the House of Commons; and that parliament had a House of Lords that could flatly override the Commons, as they trusted nobility of blood more than any commoner; and there was a King who could, in some circumstances, ride herd on parliament.

That situation had only been produced by a series of liberalizing revolutions: the original power had been concentrated in the person of the king and his loyal nobility alone. It spread to the class of knights (who were not nobility) only because of the absolute need of such men in the wars of the period; the lower nobility and their knights won rights from the Crown during the reign of King John, whose barons forced the Magna Carta from him. But that gave rights mostly to the barons and the King: it was only over time that it came to be interpreted more broadly.

Etc., through the Wars of the Roses, which was followed by a conservative re-concentration of power under the Tudors and the "Divine Right of Kings" vision that predominated under the Stewart kings. That led directly to the English Civil War, which was the first major expansion of commoner power; but there was a counterrevolution under Charles II, followed by a re-counter-revolution under James II, followed by several attempted re-re-revolutions under the Jacobites.

So, yes, Hamilton was a conservative next to Jefferson; but neither of them were conservative next to the English conservatives. They believed that "the right kind of man" wasn't just any common man, but a man of noble blood and descent.

Education couldn't make a nobleman of a commoner. Right? They didn't have the upbringing.

That's the position that conservatives hold here. Education can't make the right kind of man: only upbringing can do that. And they're right, exactly to the degree that Aristotle was right.

The question -- and for Americans, a very difficult question -- is exactly where you draw the line. How do you say, in a land that is sworn to 'liberty and justice for all,' that only the right kind of man can be trusted with power?

More, the lines have shifted so far and so often that it's hard to see where we draw them now. It wasn't true that only the king and high nobility could handle power: Washington handled it, and he was a tradesman. It isn't true that only white men can handle it: Dr. King handled it with great finesse. You can run this line down as far as you like.

Yet there is a basic truth there, one that Aristotle saw and that remains true. Not everyone is trustworthy, and it really is a combination of blood and upbringing that makes you so. That is, some people are born wicked, for reasons that presumably have a physical cause; and some are raised so that they can't see the right, but have notions of "justice" that include killing innocents to bring about the Caliphate, or aborting children that interfere with their pursuit of gratification, or the idea that lying is OK if it's for a good cause. Etc.

That's the conservative position: that there is a kind of natural nobility among men, who are the right ones to lead. They need to be (at least) free of 'bad blood,' such as leads to wickedness; and they need to be given the right upbringing from an early age. If you get that person, they can become a good ruler and a wise leader once they are educated.

But not just anyone will do.

The American experiment is a liberal experiment, which has made inroads expanding the franchise easy. Indeed, it's made them seem like simple justice:

As for the culture war—well, most conservatives would be glad to have it over with, if only cultural liberals and radicals would call a halt to their provocations. The historical record is clear that the first shots fired in every engagement of the culture war came from the left in the form of school busing, the abortion decision of the Supreme Court, the Mapplethorpe exhibition, political correctness on the campus, and (now) gay marriage. Indeed, what many call the “religious right” came into existence in the late 1970s in response to the Carter administration’s effort to deny tax exemption to religious schools on the grounds that they were segregated. Absent liberal provocations, there would have been no culture war and probably no “religious right” to wage it.

"Busing" and the Carter administration's attempt to force integration at religious schools are a good example of how the extension of the franchise was only part of the liberal project of empowering everyone equally. That's exactly the kind of democratic impulse that leads to the mob, to the tyranny of the majority, and to all the things that Cassandra warns against.

In the context of America, though, it's very hard to argue against them. The English could point to a nobility of blood or the divine right of kings; we threw all that out from the start. So what's left? We started with race (white) and property (you should own some): but racism hasn't proven healthy, to say the least that may be said; and while the focus on property worked well in some respects, it cannot be justified in an economic system that can sometimes overwhelm your ability to own property through no fault of your own.

In the decades after the Civil War, for example, fewer and fewer people in the South, black or white, owned their own farms. This was not because they were not working hard, but because the price of cotton was declining every year due to overproduction. Yet the farmers were not free to farm something else, because they could get no loans from the banks if they did not agree to grow cotton. The banking policy was set in New York, by national banks not the least bit interested in the question of whether farmers owned their lands, or lost it; or if they had any interest, it was in taking over the farm and reducing the owner to a tenant. Under such a system, you could quickly disenfranchise good, hard working yeoman farmers of the sort that were the backbone of Jefferson's vision: exactly the kind of people he wanted to have the right to vote. The bankers would retain their right.

It is crucial to be able to get 'the right kind of person' into office, if only to balance the worst instincts of the machine politicians, the various interest groups and lobbies. This is why Reagan was in fact a conservative: he was very much the right kind of man. It is why Sarah Palin was exciting to many conservatives, even though she plainly needed quite a bit of education to be ready for the role she was asked to assume. It was at the heart of McCain's candidacy, especially in 2000. It doesn't bear up well against machine politics, though: democracy is its enemy, because the right kind of person is not like everyone. They won't promise just anything, nor deliver all the wealth of the nation in return for votes.

The Republican machine hasn't been able to produce these kind of people: what we've gotten from them instead is "Compassionate Conservatism," which is just more promising up the wealth of the nation. Nor is it easy to see how a party of such people could prosper in a hyper-democratic environment. Virtue is not popular, and calls to virtue even less so. Yet what is even harder than getting the right kind of person elected in this environment is changing the environment: there is simply no practical way to restrict the franchise, to repeal the 17th Amendment, or to do anything else to make America less democratic. Even to say the words "Let's make America less democratic" sounds like treason -- democracy was the whole point, wasn't it? Isn't that why we went to Iraq?

Well, no, opposition to tyrants is not necessarily an endorsement of unlimited democracy: but, as the reviewer points out, George W. Bush's use of Woodrow Wilson's language makes it seem like it was. The Republican party, including its last real leader, adopted the language of the liberal rather than the conservative movement. In their domestic spending spree, they adopted its method as well.

Conservatism may be, not quite dead, but relegated to the fringe. Republicans may return to power, but they will no more be able to enact sweeping changes than the Obama administration has been able to do. What will produce the change is the coming collapse of the government, as it bankrupts and fails to meet its sovereign debt obligations. That day is ever closer. It is time to start thinking about what we would like to do when it arrives.

Now, the Bible

Now, the Bible:

The other matter was the Bible and its use in American politics and culture.

President Obama... has said that he hopes to be “an instrument of God.” (Shouldn’t we all.) And, the other day, I saw a photo of him next to a neon cross (pretty garish). I also read what he said about critics of his health-care plans: They were “bearing false witness.”

...

Kind of a funny country we’re living in. A beauty-pageant contestant says that she is opposed to gay marriage, believing that marriage is between a man and a woman — and she is pilloried as some kind of modern-day witch. But when Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, John Kerry, Bill Clinton — pretty much all major Democrats — express the same opinion: Everyone’s cool.

I know the standard answer: The Left (broadly speaking) realizes those Democrats don’t mean it; and they’re pretty sure that Miss California does.

He has more examples, but these are enough.

I think the issue is that the Left (again, broadly speaking) tends to hear religious rhetoric as a kind of bipartisan outreach. They forgive it in their own because they think 'well, the President has to reach out to the Right, and explain things in terms they'll understand.' They assume the speaker (being a left-wing politician) is 'with them' on questions of right and wrong, and don't get nervous that his faith might lead him to something they wouldn't like.

From a Right-wing politician, the Left tends to receive the rhetoric as outsiders. They assume the speaker isn't one of them, and he's speaking to others who are also not 'one of them.'

For the Right, the division isn't about whether the speaker is 'one of you' or not; it's about whether he's sincere or not. I assume most politicians who invoke God are doing so for purely cynical reasons, like a used car salesman telling you that he used to be a minister. While these people are annoying, they are not worrisome: I expect politicians to lie and wheedle, so it seems entirely within the nature of the beast if they do it.

However, a few men of genuine faith do become involved in politics. George W. Bush seems to have been one of those men. He spoke little about faith, and I think it was less to avoid scaring people, than because sincere faith isn't trumpeted. "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud."

That kind of faith reassures the Right, when it is present; but it terrifies those who do not share it. I can understand why. It is what the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard wrote about: what do you do if God calls you to something? What if that something is awful?

They were afraid that Bush was following his faith into Iraq -- remember the stories about how Bush believed it was the land of Gog and Magog? They were afraid he was following it everywhere. That would mean he was making decisions for reasons they couldn't understand or predict, and given the power of the office, that was terrifying.

In any event, this leaves us here:

1) Politicians who are insincere leftists may freely quote the Bible without scaring anyone, but they won't convince anyone, either.

2) Politicians who are insincere rightists would be better off not quoting the Bible, as it convinces the Left they are insane and the Right that they are liars.

3) Politicians who are genuine believers on the Left may freely quote the Bible, but probably won't. It won't scare anyone if they do, because the Left will assume they are 'one of them,' and will therefore receive the religion as unthreatening; the Right will respect the sincerity of the faith, even if they disagree about where it lead the believer.

4) Politicians who are genuine believers on the Right may freely quote the Bible, but probably won't: and they will terrify the Left regardless of their choice in this matter.

Scottish Heraldry

Scottish Heraldry:

Jay Nordlinger asks, "Who can wave the Bible?" I'd like to discuss that, and will do so above. However, first we must deal with another important matter.

Later in the piece, he makes the shocking admission that -- though part Scot -- he doesn't know what the flag of Scotland looks like. I hope that none of you are in that same category, but if so, let us fix it! The flag is the St. Andrew's Cross, the white cross saltire on a blue field. It appears in the upper left of this achievement:



Probably all of you have seen the Royal Arms of the United Kingdom, which quarter the arms of England (Richard I's three lions), Scotland, and Ireland. Did you notice, however, that -- when displayed as they are in Scotland -- the Scottish arms are given precedence? The Scottish lion rampant is doubled, instead of the English lions of Richard I. The Scottish national motto is also used, and the supporters are reversed. The crown of England steps aside when it comes to Scottish soil.

Here is how you have probably seen the arms, as they are displayed in England and elsewhere:



The Scottish flag partially inspired two additional famous flags. The Union Jack includes the Scottish flag (as well as the St. George's cross of England, and the St. Patrick's cross of Ireland). Also, the old Confederate battle flag was a nod to Scotland in its choice of the St. Andrew's cross, as many of its soldiers were of Scottish heritage. The battle flag's colors, and the use of stars-for-states, were inspired by the American tradition. The Confederates, after all, believed they were defending American traditions of independence and rebellion against overweening authority.

With all of that handled, we can deal with the other matter.

Puff

Subregionalism:

This is one of those puff-pieces that could only have been written by a career diplomat, unless it was by a "visiting scholar" who depends on both the State Department and the White House for access. If you dig down past about seven paragraphs of flattery and excuse-making, however, you do learn something about the direction of US foreign policy under the new administration.

The United States has abandoned the idea of working with its traditional allies. The author mentions the failure of the G8 as a vehicle for our policy: those nations, excepting Russia, are Cold War allies. NATO is barely mentioned in the article, but its continuing difficulty fielding real fighting forces in Afghanistan has shown how weak it has become in its original role -- that of a military alliance. The new vehicle? The author states that this is not clear: "the administration has an effort underway to determine whether the successor to the G-8 will be the G-20, or perhaps some other grouping."

The questions that Sec. Clinton is described as asking have been of interest to the military for some time. A model for addressing the question of building networks of sub-regional partners was considered here, in a piece from the US Army's War College. That model is not entirely theoretical: the US Pacific Command leveraged our relationship with Singapore to assert US interests on a Singapore-Malaysia-Indonesia alliance to patrol the Malacca Straits.

The Malaysians and the Indonesians both have reasons to wish to avoid a formal alliance with the United States. Malaysia, in particular, has a longstanding foreign policy that balances several local third-world governments against any great powers operating in the region. Direct partnership isn't an option for that reason: Malaysia won't have it, not with us. Yet they will partner with the Sings, and our strong alliance with Singapore allows us to exert indirect influence.

Indonesia, meanwhile, is a partner of extraordinary importance as both the largest Muslim nation on earth and a modernizing force within Islam -- but it is also a noted human rights abuser, and a competitor in some respects to a genuine ally, Australia. We would like to work more closely with Indonesia, but political pressures prevent it.

In spite of that, by building strong sub-regional partnerships, we are able to influence the entire area. We have the alliance with Australia, which allows for the good-cop/bad-cop influence on Indonesia; we have the partnership with Singapore, which allows us to influence and keep apprised of the patrolling of the Straits; we have the alliance with the Republic of the Philippines, to whom we provide direct military support in the form of the Joint Special Operations Task Force there, and diplomatic support also to their peace process; and we have another strong ally in Thailand.

One reason the relationship between Sec. Clinton and the military is as good as it is, is that many of the solutions she has been looking for were pioneered by the DOD. The piece makes a sketch of a bow to that fact, noting that a lot of 'statecraft' resources are currently at the Pentagon. Why would that be? Because the Pentagon was the one having the success in creating the desired effects.

This is true even for her signature focus on getting State to attend to 'nonstate' actors, especially those focused on 'women's issues': one of the key places for State officials to learn that is with an ePRT or PRT in Iraq, where the military has been setting up women's committees for several years. These committees are often initially resourced by American money -- formerly CERP, but these days State may be involved from the beginning -- and may meet at US-secured facilities (though that is also increasingly unnecessary).

I'm not sure I agree with the author that the Obama administration has had any notable foreign policy successes. The Clinton State Department, however, may be poised to have some internal successes. If so, the lady does deserve the credit for having both the sense to recognize practical solutions, and the personal power to move the bureaucracy to adopt them.

However, the piece seems to overstate the effects achieved so far. For example:

Even just a few months in, it's clear that these appointments are far from window dressing. Lew, Slaughter and the acting head of the U.S. Agency for International Development are leading an effort to rethink foreign aid with the new Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, an initiative modeled on the Pentagon's strategic assessments and designed to review State's priorities.

Confer that assertion with this piece by Matt Armstrong, at Small Wars Journal, on the serious problems with USAID at State. USAID is one of the most effective arms of the State Department. Also relevant is Mr. Armstrong's commentary on State's failures at re-establishing a role in Public Diplomacy. You might say that he agrees that the Clinton State Department is an improvement, but with less effusive praise:

I'm not sure where Pincus has been, but until the recent year (ie. this year), the leadership at the State Department was out to lunch....

It is worthwhile to recall that it was the Secretaries of Defense (both Donald Rumsfeld and Gates) and not the Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that frequently and seemingly continuously fielded questions about the need of resurrecting the United States Information Agency. It was Rice who raided the public diplomacy budget to help fund the Embassy in Baghdad.

Dr. Rice was indeed a disappointment, both as Secretary of State and as National Security Adviser. Sec. Clinton does seem to be an improvement over her, but there is a very long way to go. If State wants to begin reasserting its traditional perogatives, it can do worse than to start by trying to "buy back" some of those DOD strategic communication assets, and re-building USAID.

Now it's getting serious.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Senate Democrat asked the top 15 health insurers to explain what portion of premiums go to profits versus patient care, putting further pressure on the companies to explain their business practices as Congress considers sweeping health reform legislation.

It's going to get real interesting, real quick, I think.

Rating Stars

Rating Stars:

I really have no idea why Haloscan is popping up this annoying "rating stars" code. I'll try to shut it off. In the meanwhile, if you have an opinion on what I have to say, please continue to express it in writing. :)

Ouch

A Rhetorical Slap:

Yesterday we noted the President's odd use of religious rhetoric. Professor Althouse slapped down one piece of that rhetoric.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: These are all fabrications that have been put out there in order to discourage people from meeting what I consider to be a core ethical and moral obligation. That is that we look out for one other, that I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper. And in the wealthiest nation on earth right now, we are neglecting to live up to that call.

Now, we know that Barack Obama doesn't "keep" his actual brother — we remember George Hussein Onyango Obama, the brother who lives a hut....

Did you ever see a football player tackled so hard that it made your teeth hurt, just to watch it?

A true and fair stroke, though.

Smack

Smack!

Our friend Lars Walker does not generally believe in signs and portents.

I won’t go so far as to say that signs never come in our day, but I’m leery of them. Whenever I’ve thought I’ve seen a sign in my own life, it’s turned out to be an embarrassment. My church body believes that, in our time, those who have the Scriptures don’t need any further input on divine matters.

And yet, sometimes…

Sometimes, like today.

Oddities in Rhetoric

Oddities in Rhetoric:

Religious rhetoric from the Left: "We are God's partners in matters of life and death."

From the Right: 'Keep your laws off my body!'

Both are fairly reasonable sentiments, which is why they see use in rhetoric. The latter is a very powerful rhetorical trick in its normal usage, since it elides right past the fact that the laws aren't really interested in your body, but rather the one belonging to the child. The former admits that we normally hope to be aligned with God when we make decisions about life or death: we invoke God's blessing over births and executions.

The Honorable Mrs. Bachmann actually proposes a conservative concept for health care reform during her call. It's a sketch -- you don't get detailed ideas in this kind of format.

The Future of the Past:

In the early 1960s, curators at the Philadelphia Museum of Art noticed something funny about one of their modern-art sculptures: It smelled like vinegar. Worse, the once-clear plastic sculpture had begun browning like an apple, and cracks had appeared on its surface. By 1967, Naum Gabo's translucent, airy Construction in Space: Two Cones looked like Tupperware that had gone through the dishwasher too often.

I think I've talked about this before.

Trust

Trust:

I can see only good in this:

The left likes to say that conservatives hate government. The truth, and it holds for many people beyond conservatism, is closer to what Alfred Hitchcock said when he was accused of hating the police. "I'm not against the police," Hitchcock said, "I'm just afraid of them."

Congress's approval rating sits at 30%. This is a remarkable vote of no confidence in the representative branch of a national government.

In California and New York, the two most economically important and famous of the 50 states, the legislatures have been revealed as incompetent to manage the public's money. The budget crises in California and New York aren't just a normal turn in the fiscal cycle. Those governments have finally hit the wall.

Oblivious to manifest failure, the liberal-progressive idea keeps itself afloat on intellectual water wings—insisting that most people still believe that if government commits itself to accomplishing a public good, it will more or less succeed despite the difficulties and inefficiencies of these great projects. Needed good gets done.

That civics-book faith in the good intentions of government has been on the bubble with a broad swath of the American people who don't know left from right but only public performance. The Obama health-care proposal arrived at a particularly bad moment to be asking voters to "trust us."

Ezra Klein writes:

Americans Hate Everyone, Believe Everything

Wednesday's Wall Street Journal/NBC poll is disappointing stuff. It's not so much that the American people have turned against Obama's health-care reform effort as they've turned against the legislative process in general.

Yes, exactly. The American people trust government with nothing.

That distrust is well earned, and past due. We must solve our problems ourselves, not only without the government, but in defiance of its wish to intermesh itself with our concerns. It's 'the man in the arena,' as Theodore Roosevelt put it, that matters. He is the one fully engaged, heart as well as mind. A bureaucracy can, at best, devote only its mind. These critical, difficult questions are best solved at the lowest possible level, where the heart can be tapped as well.

Volte

Volte:

It's time for some more early music:



If you have eighty-nine cents to spend, try track nine here. If you've double that, and you want to hear a medieval drinking song worth the price, try track thirteen. "Istud vinum, bonum vinum, vinum generosum!"

Ex-soldiers burden

"Ex-Soldiers Don't Need to Be Told They're a Burden on Society"

So says the sub-title of this report, looking at "living wills" from the perspective of the VA.

If President Obama wants to better understand why America's discomfort with end-of-life discussions threatens to derail his health-care reform, he might begin with his own Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). He will quickly discover how government bureaucrats are greasing the slippery slope that can start with cost containment but quickly become a systematic denial of care.

Last year, bureaucrats at the VA's National Center for Ethics in Health Care advocated a 52-page end-of-life planning document, "Your Life, Your Choices." It was first published in 1997 and later promoted as the VA's preferred living will throughout its vast network of hospitals and nursing homes. After the Bush White House took a look at how this document was treating complex health and moral issues, the VA suspended its use. Unfortunately, under President Obama, the VA has now resuscitated "Your Life, Your Choices."

Who is the primary author of this workbook? Dr. Robert Pearlman, chief of ethics evaluation for the center, a man who in 1996 advocated for physician-assisted suicide in Vacco v. Quill before the U.S. Supreme Court and is known for his support of health-care rationing.

"Your Life, Your Choices" presents end-of-life choices in a way aimed at steering users toward predetermined conclusions, much like a political "push poll." For example, a worksheet on page 21 lists various scenarios and asks users to then decide whether their own life would be "not worth living."

The circumstances listed include ones common among the elderly and disabled: living in a nursing home, being in a wheelchair and not being able to "shake the blues." There is a section which provocatively asks, "Have you ever heard anyone say, 'If I'm a vegetable, pull the plug'?" There also are guilt-inducing scenarios such as "I can no longer contribute to my family's well being," "I am a severe financial burden on my family" and that the vet's situation "causes severe emotional burden for my family."

Let's all factor that in to our concept of what the Obama adminstration was thinking about with its push to universalize 'end of life' planning.

Co-ops

Profits in Health Care:

The AP has an odd Q&A piece on the "co-op" idea that ObamaCare advocates are floating, now that they've lost the fight to have the single-payer system they wanted, or the "public option" that was their second-best wish. The piece states that such co-ops have a "checkered" history, and that it is "unclear" if they would drive private insurers out of business. None of that is very helpful.

The oddest thing to me, though, is the question about how a co-op might be better. The answer is that the co-op advocates presume it could eliminate some costs, "including profits."

Profits are costs? That's a remarkably awful understanding of a basic economic concept.

Profits are revenue minus costs -- they're what is left over after you've paid for everything. Taking out the profits doesn't reduce the costs, which are the same either way. You can reduce profits by increasing costs, or by reducing revenue.

"But," one might object, "if you eliminate profits, you can make do with lower revenue. So, the price to the consumer is lower, because they don't have to provide profits for the co-op. It's enough that revenues meet costs, rather than surpassing the costs."

That revised concept still fails to grasp what profits are for. Profits are not costs, and the wise man doesn't seek to eliminate or reduce them.

Rather, profits are incentives. They encourage you to do something good for society, by providing you with something good in return. We want health care, right? Therefore, when someone offers to provide us with health care, we want to make it worth their while.

If we do that, more people will want to provide health care. They will be smarter people, too, the sort of people who could choose to do something else instead. That's good for everyone.

Profits are also responsive. Mark Steyn's point in his piece below was that, in a for-profit system, if your hospital isn't clean you can move to the one down the road. In the mandated, socialist system, that's not an option. Even if it were, though, why would the one down the road be any cleaner? There's no money in it. In America, being the cleanest hospital could quickly become a point of competition if attention were focused on it -- a competition leading to rapid improvements.

Lacking profits, the only way to motivate people is through negative consequences. If there's no positive incentive, you're left with regulations, punishments, and drafting unwilling people into service. You have a stick, but no carrot.

Profits are not costs. They're incentives. They're good. We should want more of them.