More Constitutional Makeupery

Making The Constitution Up As We Go Along:

So the other day we noticed Rep. Stark saying that the Constitution contained no meaningful restrictions on Federal power...



...except for those unconstitutional programs that might prevent illegal aliens from getting a job.



Now, the woman's point about the 13th Amendment is preposterous. Saying that the Federal Government has an obligation to provide a service is coherent with the 5th Amendment's provision that the Feds can seize property for the public interest, provided they pay a fair market price. There's no reason they can't require your labor of you for some similar public interest, provided they likewise pay what's fair. (Which may not be what you think you deserve, or could be earning in another line of work, but only what is fair for the particular type of labor they force you to provide: see, inter alia, the draft.)

However, the 10th Amendment provides a very clear division between Federal and State powers; and the 14th Amendment, which brings many state issues under the jurisdiction of the Federal courts, does not thereby bring those issues under the jurisdiction of Congress. Congress still has only its Article I powers. All the 14th is supposed to do is ensure that the states may not tread on the normal rights of Americans.

What are those rights? The 14th Amendment spells out one of them plainly:

But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime…

So, the same amendment that defines the power of the Federal courts to serve as enforcer of 'equal protection' rights defers to tradition in ideas of what those rights may be. Women did not gain the right to vote in the 14th Amendment. "Equal protection" clearly did not intend to mean that every person was to be given precisely equal rights and privileges. Rather, they were to be given rights and privileges equal to others of their status: men for men, women for women, felons for felons, citizens for citizens, non-citizens for non-citizens, etc.

Women do, of course, now have the right to vote. That is because of the 19th Amendment, which was passed according to the normal Article V process. What that means is that those who wanted women to vote -- both men and women wanted this -- constructed an argument and took it to the people. In time, they convinced Americans of the rightness of this position. The majority of states ratified a proposition that had been passed by supermajorities of both houses of Congress.

As a result, although it was a massive change in our social structure to grant women the right to vote, we have made that change with great stability and without noteworthy friction. Compare with the voting rights issue the 14th sought to protect, which was being imposed by force instead of argument: a hundred and sixty years later, and we still have some disputes about it.

Prop 8 opponents believe they have made an argument, of course; but they have so far convinced only the court.

I think they’ve made a needless mistake in pushing this in the courts instead of doing it legislatively state-by-state. The optics are uniquely bad — a federal judge imperiously tossing out a public referendum enacted by citizens of one of the bluest states in America on the shoulders of a multi-racial coalition.

The thing is, a legislative victory probably could have been achieved without even the time required to build the 19th Amendment coalition. The culture appeared to be moving that way. Imposing a settlement by force in this area is an unwise maneuver. I leave aside the oddness of the court's finding that there is no rational basis for thinking that sex has something to do with marriage. The broader point is that, win or lose on that argument, the court has decided to make up the Constitution instead of enforcing it. They have done so in a way that does not adhere to the will of the People -- even a 'diverse,' and blue-state People -- but that slaps it aside.

There will be consequences to choosing that road. For one thing, it ties their movement tighter to that faction in our government that refuses to abide by what the Constitution actually says about restrictions on their power; but which offers ever-more inventive arguments about its restrictions on the People. That is the wrong side, even if their cause is the right cause.

About the latter question I disagree with them, but only mildly. About the former question I have a great and unshakable conviction.

∞

∞

An ancient question: how many numbers are there?

In the sixth century B.C.E. Anaximander of Miletus gave a name to the infinite, calling the indeterminate, or “something without bound, form, or quality,” apeiron. But limitlessness, and non-rationality, and ineffability were all descriptions of what infinity was not. The closest anyone came for centuries to a positive definition was “potentiality” as opposed to “actuality,” in the influential terms of Aristotle. But this formulation did little to help define the indefinable. Even Galileo, nearly two thousand years later, bowed his weighty head before the limitless. Contemplating the series of infinite integers (1,2,3,4...) and the series of infinite even numbers (2,4,6,8...), he gave up: clearly both could continue without limit, and yet wasn’t one precisely one half as large as the other?

And thus we crack open the shell of one of the hardest problems in Metaphysics. Now, I must admit that I love the thesis of this particular article: that mysticism, and not pure reason, is necessary to apprehend the truth. That is exactly what I would like to believe to be true, here as elsewhere.

For that reason, let us turn aside from it, and explore something else. Dr. Anthony Kenny talks about the problems of 'potentiality and actuality' as expressed by the famous Islamic philosopher Avicenna. (This is from pp. 193-5 of Kenny's Medieval Philosophy.)

If we take 'essence' in the generic sense, then the distinction between existence and essence corresponds to the distinction between the question 'Are there Xs?' and 'What are Xs?' That there are quarks is not at all the same thing as what quarks are.... But if we take the distinction to be one about individual essences, then it seems to entail the possibility of individual essences not united to any existence; individual essences of possible, but non-existent individuals. The essence of Adam, say, is there from all eternity; when God creates Adam, he confers actuality on this already present possibility.

Dr. Kenny does not want us to accept this idea.

Let us ask how an individual humanity -- say the humanity of Abraham -- is itself individuated. It is not individuated qua humanity: that is something shared by all humans. It is not individuated by belonging to Abraham: ex hypothesi, it could exist, and be the same individual, even if Abraham had never been created but remained a perpetual possibility. It can only be identified, as Avicenna says, by the properties and accidents that accompany it -- that is to say, by everything that was true of the actual Abraham -- that he migrated from Ur of the Chaldees, obeyed a divine command to sacrifice his son... Of course, since Abraham's essence was there before Abraham existed, it could not be individuated by the actuality of these things, but only by their possibility.

This natually looks like Saul Kripke's assertion that Aristotle could have been Aristotle even if he'd gone into shoemaking instead of philosophy. Names are, Kripke said, a 'rigid designator' for a given thing; what that thing does, or might have done, is still captured by the designation across various possible worlds. He did this here; he did that there; but it's still the same thing. Joe in this world lost his Mustang to me in a poker game; in another world, the same Joe decided to spend the night reading philosophy, and therefore kept his car. (Wise Joe! Even if it gave him a headache!)

Well, all that takes us right back around to the article: and the mysticism.

Rocking in the belly of the Imperial Russian Navy ship as it sailed, in June 1913, through sparkling Aegean waters toward the Monastery of St. Pantaleimon on Mount Athos, the Archbishop Nikon of Vologda braced himself. He was determined. Even before hermits in the deserts of Palestine practiced the “Prayer of the Heart” in the fourth century, Christianity had known mystical sects. Later called hesychast monks from the Greekhesychia, or stillness, such mystics had believed in the power of glossalia, or “praying without ceasing,” with control of breathing and the heartbeat, to reach union with God. Already in the fourteenth century Gregory Palamas, a Constantine monk, had settled on Mount Athos preaching hesychasm as a true alternative to the staid rationalism of Byzantine Christianity. Now, in modern times, to the great consternation of leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church, a Russian monk named Ilarion had instituted the “Jesus Prayer” among his followers (“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner”—sometimes shortened to “Lord Jesus Christ,” or just “Jesus”—repeated over and over again), a prayer considered heretical for harking back to mystical times. Ilarion admitted that when reciting the prayer worshippers needed to be careful. There were three “stages of immersion”—the oral, the mental, and finally the “Prayer of the Heart”: if one jumped between them prematurely, warm blood could descend to the lower parts of the body and lead to sexual arousal. Archbishop Nikon of Vologda clenched his fists.

The last thing Nicholas II wanted was for bickering monks to invite an invasion of the Greek army into the monastery; the czar didn’t care much about the theological dispute, but he was not about to lose a Russian protectorate in the Aegean. Later, after the gunboatDonets had lowered its anchor and Russian marines stormed the monastery with clubs, water hoses, and bayonets, each side would claim a different story. Whether monks were brutally murdered, soldiers were beaten, or only a small number of fanatics were rather quietly subdued didn’t in the end really matter: after all, nearly a thousand monks were hauled back on the ships to Russia, where their leadership was thrown in jail, and the rest were defrocked and banished to far-off provinces. The Name Worshippers of Mount Athos had been shut down. What mattered most were the defiant interruptions to the angry sermon of Archbishop Nikon of Vologda, who had marched into the monastery courtyard behind the troops. “You mistakenly believe that names are the same as God,” his voice trembled. “But I tell you that names, even of divine beings, are not God themselves.” Corralled, water-drenched, their arms twisted violently behind their backs, the monks would not be silenced. “Imia Bozhie est’ sam Bog!” some of them were clearly heard shouting, their eyes alight. “The Name of God is God!”....

Throwing himself into set theory back in Moscow, Luzin maintained strong ties with Florensky, and here is where the escapades of the monks of the Aegean return to our story. It is not clear precisely when both men first learned of Name Worshipping, but already in 1906 they enjoyed calling each other by names other than their own. When news of the rebellion on Mount Athos reached Russia in 1913, Florensky spoke up publicly in its favor, and befriended monks who had endured firsthand the navy’s brutal attack on St. Pantaleimon. Soon two worlds were becoming entwined. Lebesgue had asked whether a mathematical object could exist without defining (meaning naming) it, and now the answer was becoming clear. Just as naming God via glossolalian repetition was a religious act that brought the deity into existence, so naming sets via increasingly recursive definitions was a mathematical act that conferred a reality in the world of numbers. Cantor and before him the ancient Neoplatonists had shown the way, but this was only the beginning. Infused with mysticism, Florensky believed, new forms of mathematics and religion were being born, ones that by rejecting determinism would rescue mankind from catastrophe. In both cases—God and infinity—the key to bringing abstractions into reality was bestowing upon them a name.

What is the power of a name? And, as Kripke warns us to consider, just what are we naming? There is a truth lying there as deep and as dangerous as the sea.

Hitchens Cont

Hitchens on "The Topic of Cancer":

The man continues to write very well, and with great courage. It's hard not to admire and like someone who is so willing to encounter the world.

The notorious stage theory of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, whereby one progresses from denial to rage through bargaining to depression and the eventual bliss of “acceptance,” hasn’t so far had much application in my case. In one way, I suppose, I have been “in denial” for some time, knowingly burning the candle at both ends and finding that it often gives a lovely light.

As indeed it does. I likewise will be poorly placed to complain if I should find that fate has dealt me some similar illness. It's something I think about from time to time; frankly, I don't expect to live to be very old.

But I also think about Sir Lancelot, after the tournament in which he bore the shield of the brother of the Lily Maid of Astolat instead of his own. He had taken that shield in order to fool his cousins into not recognizing him, so he could have the pleasure of striking them down. Thereby he was badly wounded by a man who would have held his hand if he had known him, and who came to him in his sickbed to apologize. But Lancelot said:

“I have the same I sought, for I would with pride have overcome you all. And there in my pride I was near slain, and that was in my own fault, for I might have given you warning of my being there, and then I had no hurt…. Therefore, fair cousin,” said Sir Lancelot, “let this language overpass, and all shall be welcome that God sends.”

That's a statement of tremendous courage, although Sir Thomas Malory wrote it from a position of knowledge. I salute Mr. Hitchens, who does well and boldly in that terrible valley we all must traverse.

Great Moments in Campaign Slogans

Great Moments in Campaign Slogans

Sharron Angle isn't turning out to be a very good candidate, but I've got to hand it to her on her newest line: “Harry Reid’s Plan to Save the Nevada Economy: Coked-up Stimulus Monkeys.” She's referring, of course, to a report to be released soon by Sens. Tom Coburn and John McCain the 100 most ridiculous stimulus-funding projects, which will include a study of the effect of cocaine on monkeys, new windows for a closed visitor center, and modern dance as a tool for software development.

Great News on the Gulf

Great News

The AP says everything's fine in the Gulf now, move along, nothing to see here. A full 75% of the Deepwater spill was skimmed, burned, evaporated, or otherwise disposed of by a kindly Mother Nature. Of the commenters to this press release in the Houston Chronicle asks, if we drop Washington, D.C., into the ocean, will 75% of it go away?

Not What the Patients Ordered

Not What the Patients Ordered

From "Dave in Texas" at Ace: Missouri has held the

first of 3 (I think) state referendums on Obamacare, to amend state law to "deny the government authority to 'penalize citizens for refusing to purchase private health insurance or infringe upon the right to offer or accept direct payment for lawful healthcare services." Last month a Missouri judge rejected a challenge to remove Prop C from the ballot.

We know what Pete Stark thinks. Here's hoping Missouri sends DC a big "oh, well then allow us to retort."

The results as of late Tuesday evening? With nearly half of precincts reporting, YES: 75.6% NO: 24.4%. Three to one against.

Dave in Texas predicts that tomorrow's spin will be "what's wrong with Missouri?" But you can't tell me a lot of incumbents aren't feeling a pucker.

Old Hickory

Old Hickory:

Distinctive Unit Insignia of the "Old Hickory" Brigade, 30th HBCT

Major Joel Leggett drops by to mention, in the comments to one of the posts below, an apparent Glenn Beck assault on Andrew Jackson. I don't watch TV or listen to the radio, so I tend to miss Mr. Beck unless his remarks get excerpted on a blog somewhere. This sounds fairly foolish.

I just happened to catch Beck’s announcement that he is putting together a special wherein he will lay the blame for America’s initial wrong turn on Andrew Jackson and the idea of Manifest Destiny, a concept Beck believes put us on the path to a secular man oriented world view vice the God centered idea of “Divine Providence.” What a load of crap.

To begin with, the term “Manifest Destiny” was not even coined until 1839, two years after Jackson’s administration ended. It did not even come into popular usage until the 1840s. How on earth could Andrew Jackson be responsible for the concept of Manifest Destiny as described by Beck. I guess it is possible that Beck thinks the Westward advancement that occurred under Jackson’s administration proves his point. But if that is the case why not blame Jefferson as the father of Manifest Destiny. It was Jefferson who was responsible for the Louisiana Purchase, the event credited with opening the West for settlement.

We can go back further than that, and ask about Mr. Washington's intentions. He dispatched generals Lachlan McIntosh and Daniel Brodhead west during the war to establish a line of forts designed to open the west to his forces, and allow them to attack British strongholds. Their successor, John Gibson, used those forts as a base for expansion into what is now Indiana, of which he became acting territorial governor and Secretary of the Territory under President John Adams. Why were we expanding into Indiana?

I'm also not sure where Mr. Beck is getting the idea that there was a Christian Age in pre-Jacksonian American politics. If anything, the reverse is true: Jackson rode the tide of a populist revolt into the White House. His small-town, backcountry supporters were much more likely to be intensely Christian than the Founding Fathers had been. Jackson himself was a Presbyterian, which in those days was still the stern, Scots-Irish, Calvinist sort of religion that it has largely ceased to be in the last generation. That was one of the complaints against him in 'polite society' during his administration; and indeed, it's fair to say that 'polite society' gave him more trouble than the British Army ever did.

The Tax Worm Ouroboros

The Tax Worm Ouroboros

As reported at NBCWashington (h/t HotAir), the District of Columbia funds a Summer Youth Employment Program relies on a $23 million annual budget to hire about 20,000 young residents of the District for various minimum wage summer jobs. The program overspends this budget every year. This year's 50% budget overrun prompted the D.C. auditor to complain and the D.C. Mayor to suggest -- wait for it -- expanding the program for an additional week, using, in part, other funds that had been earmarked for the homeless.

None of this is the real story, though. The amazing part is that all the furor exposed the fact that SYEP funds were being used to send "participants to attend a Council oversight session at which they lobbied for more funding for the program." No doubt D.C. political critters find this reasonable. As Michelle Malkin notes about this charming boondoggle, minimum wage laws devastate the youth employment rates, while government make-work jobs initiatives simply redistribute the unemployment. But surely when the jobs initiatives consist of hiring unemployed youth to lobby for additional funds for jobs for unemployed youth, we've closed a very neat circle.

It's hard to see how it's very different, on its small scale, from government workers forming unions that lobby for high pay and benefits for government workers.

It's Not Partisan If We're Doing It

A Time to Fight

A new article by George Parker in The New Yorker decries "partisanship" in the U.S. Senate from the point of view that the core mission of the Senate is the fundamental reform of American society. For Parker, partisanship means holding back progress for base political gain. Predictably, he finds partisanship an evil and baffling habit.

For this kind of mournful piece, the first step is to evoke the Golden Age. There is the traditional recourse to Alexis de Tocqueville, who in 1832 praised the Senate's "lofty thoughts" and "generous instincts." After the Civil War, unfortunately, with brief shining moments of "spasms of legislation" under Wilson and FDR, the Senate became “the dam against which the waves of social reform dashed themselves in vain—the chief obstructive force in the federal government.”

Parker interviews an impressive variety of Senators and staff. Although he throws in the occasional admission that "Democrats have been known to do it too," his story is mostly a long jeremiad against the new breed of hardcore Republican partisans who inexplicably use every rule and procedure in the Senate book to block heroic, forward-thinking legislation. “We find ourselves at a moment in our history when the questions are huge ones, not small ones, and where things have been put off for a really long period of time,” mourned Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va). “Yet you have a Senate that’s designed not to advance change but to slow it.” Parker describes the ugly process that led to ObamaCare without a trace of irony, seeming to view it as the triumph of good legislation over baffling obstruction. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill, Democratic Party Whip) said, “I was stunned that only four Republicans would join us in passing this historic [financial regulation] legislation. What does it take to bring the Republican Party into the conversation about the future of America?” Well, just at a guess, perhaps it would take . . . proposing solutions that appealed to a broad majority of voters? In some cases, that can even muster a bare majority of voters?

Parker is deeply disappointed that the Senate reform engine likely has run out of steam. "The two lasting achievements of this Senate, financial regulation and health care, required a year and a half of legislative warfare that nearly destroyed the body." He attributes the damage to partisanship. He does not imagine that the opposition party could be carrying the flag of dissent for the American public. He quotes, but does not seem to understand, Sen. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky, Senate Minority Leader): “To the extent that [Democrats] want to do things that we think are in the political center and would be helpful to the country, we’ll be helpful. To the extent they are trying to turn us into a Western European country, we are not going to be helpful.”

Parker's sources wax nostalgic about the days when Senators formed personal bonds across party lines. “It’s awfully difficult to say crappy things about someone that you just had lunch with,” mused Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn). I'm reminded of the reports of unofficial truces between American and German forces along stagnant fronts in World War I. Mean-spirited officers broke up these heartwarming developments by periodically transferring troops to difficult posts along the line, knowing that human beings naturally form loyal bonds with people in manageably small groups after a period of prolonged contact -- and also knowing that the troops' business on the line was not to foster international goodwill and camaraderie but to win a battle for their respective countries. If the military command hadn't believed the battle was more important than the individual soldiers' diplomatic breakthroughs, they'd probably have let the soldiers go home to practice conviviality among a society of their own choosing.

I have a completely different definition of "partisanship" from Mr. Parker. What I call "partisan" is a Senator's opposition to a policy he genuinely supports, purely for the strategic advantage of damaging his opponents. An example would be Senators who support a war in the first flush of outraged patriotism, but who then begin to backpedal for fear that the public's support is making a President from the opposing party too popular and successful. What I do not call "partisan" is opposition to disastrous policies with every weapon at one's disposal. A progressive movement in this country has pushed reforms for many decades. A strong countermovement has developed among Americans who believe the reforms are wrongheaded and corrosive. As long as the progressives believe reform must be pursued at all costs, they will not confine themselves to measures that enjoy broad public support. As long as that is true, the party of resistance will fight them as if they were enemies, not colleagues.

Monuments

Monuments:

Here is the White House's chosen response to the news that a constitutional challenge to their health care mandate has been permitted by the courts.

We saw this with the Social Security Act, the Civil Rights Act, and the Voting Rights Act – constitutional challenges were brought to all three of these monumental pieces of legislation, and all of those challenges failed. So too will the challenge to health reform.

This, then, is the understanding of our opponents: Constitutional challenges are to be expected, but they will always be overcome. The Constitution isn't so important that it could stop "monumental" legislation; complaining that the Constitution does not permit something is merely a temporary holding action by the rear guard of a defeated army. It only keeps the inevitable back a short while.

Now, it is our challenge to show they are wrong. The Constitution matters. We must show that its limits do limit, and that it delegates no more than it claims to delegate.

In this cause, no sacrifice is too heavy. We are better with no Republic than with a government that burns the Constitution, one that views it only as a minor inconvenience to enacting some alternate plan.

Mair's Longsword

Mair's Longsword:

Thanks to reader B.M. who kindly sent a link to a beautifully crafted edition of Paul Mair's longsword manual, in Latin, De Arte Athletica. Note the beautiful illustrations, which show the kind of fighting foil used to simulate longswords in some places. You also see foils of this type in Joachim Meyer's work. Albion Swords makes one -- quite functional -- which is named after the latter gentleman.

Since we're on that subject, Lars, have you seen Albion's new line for Viking re-enactors?

One for Eric

One for Eric:

...who has doubtless already seen it. But just in case!

Scholars discovered the 100-yard-wide (90-metre-wide) canal at Portus, the ancient maritime port through which goods from all over the Empire were shipped to Rome for more than 400 years.

Old Friends

Old Friends:

Doc Russia writes:

The last place I drove to was the recruiter's office. The Marine recruiter was not in, and I was a little disappointed, but not surprised about. Even when I enlisted, half my lifetime ago, they were usually out visiting high schools or doing other community activities on fridays. It is unfortunate, because I wanted to tell them something. I wanted to hand them my impressive looking business card, show them pictures of my beautiful wife and adorable child. I wanted to tell them about all of the exciting things I had accomplished, the places I had gone, and the adventures I had had. This was so that they could tell these young teenagers that of all of these things which I had and had done, none of them could have happened if I had not come to this unremarkable cubicle in a non-descript office park first....

In 1993, I was a 17 year old on a bus leaving a hometown which held all the friends I held most dear to me (and still do) and headed towards an infamous swamp of an island run by the most fearsome men of history, known for only two things; the trials it inflicted and the men that survived.

Stay Home

Stay Home, Mr. President:

Georgia would just as soon you not drop by.

At least, Democrats in Georgia feel that way.

The President will fly into town Monday morning.

If you think this will be a time for Democrats running for office to rally around the chief executive- -you probably haven't been following the campaigns this summer.

Former Governor Roy Barnes will not be available to meet Mr. Obama. The Democratic gubernatorial candidate will be somewhere in Georgia- - far from Atlanta....

In 1996 Democrat Michael Coles was running against Republican Newt Gingrich for the 6th congressional district seat. Mr. Coles avoided President Clinton at rallies in Atlanta and Macon.... "I think the difficult thing for anyone in Georgia - if you run as a Democrat- is to separate yourself from not being a national Democrat, because Georgia Democrats like Zell Miller and Sam Nunn are cut out of a different cloth and that's how I wanted to be seen."

Republicans, on the other hand, are overjoyed to see him. I understand Sonny Perdue will be going out to meet his plane and welcome him down. The more people see of him, the better the Republican Party will do come November.

Grim is going to like this one.

When one thinks of heraldry, images of the lion and the unicorn most often spring to mind. In Papua New Guinea, however, beer labels are featured on shields used as protection in battle. Fighting shields had not been used in 50 years but when war broke out between groups in the 1980’s there was a need for them once more. Artist Kaipel Ka uses beer advertising designs on shields he makes for various warring groups. The emblems act like the team colors of sporting groups.

Heh. So, what would you put on yours?

Njal Week Four

Njal's Saga, Week Four:

Here is this week's reading, and here is next week's.

I should say something about "outlawry," because it comes up in this week's readings, and will be of great importance later in the saga as well. There was no death penalty in Icelandic law of the period. Indeed, until this week, we haven't seen anything like criminal law employed at all -- the lawsuits have been more like our civil suits, where people are awarded damages and compensation, but no one is physically punished by the state.

This is a delightful feature of medieval Icelandic law, which contrasts sharply with the law as practiced everywhere else (including in Viking societies with kings, such as Norway or Denmark). Nevertheless, there were occasions when the Icelandic courts could authorize force. This was done by declaring a man to be an "outlaw." The court does not physically punish the outlaw. It merely removes the protection of the law from him -- not usually forever, but for a period of time. During that period, if he is killed, the courts take no notice. Normally men went into exile during their period of outlawry, so as to avoid being killed; but some outlaws were dangerous enough that they felt no need to do so, and lived pleasantly in Iceland in spite of their status. The most famous of these is Grettir Ásmundarson, or "Grettir the Outlaw," about whom there is also a famous saga.

If this is a 'criminal penalty,' it comes up for reasons that may sometimes strike us as strange. Dozens have been killed so far without it ever being invoked; but we see what seems like a pretty minor offense threatened with outlawry this week.

"What!" says Geir, "wilt thou challenge me to the island as thou
art wont, and not bear the law?"

"Not that," says Gunnar; "I shall summon thee at the Hill of Laws
for that thou calledst those men on the inquest who had no right
to deal with Audulf's slaying, and I will declare thee for that
guilty of outlawry."

This is a procedural violation -- Geir has simply involved the wrong people in the inquest. That doesn't merely invalidate his complaint, but also makes him subject to the penalty of outlawry. Why?

The reason is that defying the rules of the court is being punished symmetrically: if you don't play by the rules of the law, you lose the protection of the law. In Anglo-Saxon law, where there was also a concept of outlawry that was somewhat similar, ignoring a summons to appear at court one of the common ways to be declared Caput gerat lupinum (lit. "one who bears a wolfish head," or 'a wolf's head' -- i.e., someone who could be killed like a wolf, with no penalty).

A second matter: there are two references to priests in this week's reading. Geir "the Priest" is one of the actors, and Gunnar promises to make an oath before a priest. Note that the 'priesthood' being referenced here is heathen! We will read about the Conversion of Iceland later in the saga.

The word being translated as "priest" is usually goði. There were often female Gyðja. Their legal and political function is more important than their religious function, and the office continued to exist for these purposes even after the conversion. Somewhat like notaries public, they held special powers to witness, etc., based on the respect due their office. Before the Conversion, they might -- but did not necessarily -- maintain privately-owned temples, called hoffs.

Zinn

Zinn the Communist:

This is not shocking to anyone who's read his books; in fact, it's the perfect explanation for them. The story combines frantic Communism (attended CPUSA meetings five nights a week) with blatant dishonesty (lied about it).

Zinn died not long ago, but he lived long enough to write a piece about the first year of the Obama presidency.

I thought that in the area of constitutional rights he would be better than he has been. That's the greatest disappointment, because Obama went to Harvard Law School and is presumably dedicated to constitutional rights. But he becomes president, and he's not making any significant step away from Bush policies. Sure, he keeps talking about closing Guantánamo, but he still treats the prisoners there as "suspected terrorists." They have not been tried and have not been found guilty. So when Obama proposes taking people out of Guantánamo and putting them into other prisons, he's not advancing the cause of constitutional rights very far. And then he's gone into court arguing for preventive detention, and he's continued the policy of sending suspects to countries where they very well may be tortured.

I think people are dazzled by Obama's rhetoric, and that people ought to begin to understand that Obama is going to be a mediocre president--which means, in our time, a dangerous president--unless there is some national movement to push him in a better direction.

There is, of course: the Tea Party Movement.

Preparing for the End

Preparing for the End:

The NYT is considering how you can offset the failure of Social Security. I find myself shaking my head in amazement as I read the piece.

AT 35 YEARS OLD At this stage, our couple are earning $120,000 ($60,000 each) and they have $75,000 in total retirement savings. But to make up for the decline in Social Security benefits, they need to save about $84,474 above and beyond what they are already saving before they retire. We assume they save the extra money in a taxable account that allows for easy access, because they are already saving 10 percent or more of their total income in a 401(k). That extra money saved is equivalent to about a 7.8 percent increase in total retirement savings, across all accounts. This also means they’ll have less discretionary income — about 9.4 percent less to be exact — to spend each year, over the course of their lives.

Wow, that's really going to be hard -- but with a bit of belt-tightening, everything will be just fine. Assuming, of course, that your household earns $120,000 a year from age 35. Only seventeen percent of households are in that range; and as peak earning years are later in life, mostly they won't be young couples.

Oh, they also need to have $75,000 in retirement savings already. That's about three and a half times as much as the average 35-year old. Assuming both of them have the average in savings, that gets you a little more than halfway to $75K.

How about some more reasonable estimates? Let's say they earn half what you're projecting, and have more average salaries. Now, to follow the NYT's easy math, they only need to find a way to almost double their combined savings this year, and then they need to save at a far greater rate (with half the money, and much less disposable income).

Assuming they can't do that, they need to expect they won't be retiring -- not at 67, and probably not ever. If they have jobs, they'd better keep them!

Music

Music of Honor:

It's been too long since we had a post devoted to music, which is at the core of our visions of beauty. Here is an old favorite of mine, in two parts.






The new comments system lets you post YouTube videos easily. Show me your favorites.

How good an officer would you have been?

I got a 72 despite arguing with superiors (imagine that).

Academic Review: Begging for a Fatwa Edition

Muslim Lesbians in the Middle Ages:

On the topic of people who stand up for what they believe, I have to express a certain admiration for the courage of the scholar who decided to write this paper:

Arab lesbians were both named and visible in medieval Arabic literature. Moreover, and in contrast to their status in the medieval West in the same period, for example, Arab lesbians were not considered guilty of a “silent sin,” and there is no clear evidence that their “crime” was punished by death. In fact, lesbianism in the medieval Islamicate literary world was a topic deemed worthy of discussion and a lifestyle worthy of emulation.

Amer also notes that Islamic legal texts have very little to say about same-sex relations and practices between women, and that perhaps it was considered an acceptable alternative for women in avoiding sex with other men outside of marriage. For example, a 14th century Arab writer, explains, "Know that lesbianism insures against social disgrace…"

That's going to be a highly unacceptable thesis to a whole lot of people. I hope the debate over it remains within traditional academic protocol, because there is some reason to believe that it might not.

Hooah, Sir

Hooah, Sir:

Now, that sounds like a man who cares about what he thinks is right. I might differ on the question of what he thinks is right, but I love a man who stands up and fights for it.

Mustangs

Rhetoric: "A Mongrel People."

Did he really say that?

“Mongrel” is one of those words so loaded with negative connotations that it doesn’t work as anything but an insult....

Which leads to this question: How insulated from America has Barack Obama been[?]

Hot Air defends him on the point, saying it was 'merely amateur' and that there are other ways of saying it that are less offensive. Indeed there are! But that doesn't change the argument -- the point is that it takes more than amateurism to miss how offensive that word is in this context. The point is not that there are less offensive ways to make the same point; it's that it would be hard to construct a more offensive way.

Hot Air, following Instapundit, suggests that he was reaching for "mutts." They are thinking of Bill Murray in Stripes.

We can push the point further, though. Imagine he had said that African-Americans were "...like the mustang: whose ancestors were of many breeds, but which arose only once they came together to run free on American soil."

It's the word that matters. The question is, to what degree does the choice of words reflect the mind? Does the difference between "mongrel" and "mustang" reflect a difference in his mind? If so, what is that difference?

Global Warming

TEOTWAWKI: Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

Megan McArdle is discussing anthropogenic global warming today, in the old-fashioned sense of "warming" and not merely "some combination of climate conditions we can't predict that will be either colder or warmer or both at once, but very bad." One of her commenters made a sensible point:

I won't give serious consideration to the arguments of any eco-doom prophet who does not first demonstrate that he has invested all his money in a way that hedges against that which he professes to expect.

The more extreme the predictions, the more extreme the investment must be. If these guys haven't spent all their money on -- I don't know -- oxygen tanks, canned food, firearms and property on very high ground, they should shut up. Because there's no internally consistent way that a person could actually believe such things while spending their lives blogging from coastal cities.

Hear, hear. I feel the same way about market bears and bulls who spout off in public: if they're serious, they'd better be able to establish that they're all in, going short or long, according to their prediction. Otherwise I just figure they're making noise, because that's what they get paid to do.

I have severe misgivings about the future. You can tell I'm not that sure what will happen, though, because I've taken only limited and tentative steps to hedge against a societal collapse, beyond the sensible precaution of being old enough that I probably won't live to see it. But here's a list of my favorite post-apocalyptic fiction, anyway, which keeps me mulling over the possibilities:

1. Lucifer’s Hammer (Larry Niven/Jerry Pournelle)
2. A Canticle for Leibowitz (Walter Miller)
3. Millennium (John Varley)
4. The Stand (Stephen King)
5. Malevil (Robert Merle)
6. Farnham’s Freehold (Robert Heinlein)
7. Orphans of the Sky (Heinlein)
8. Tunnel in the Sky (Heinlein)
9. Fiskadoro (Denis Johnson)
10. Slapstick (Kurt Vonnegut)

A Good Death

Grim said something the other day about how the expression "Live by the sword, die by the sword" struck him as more of a promise than a threat. We have to go somehow, and the ways that are worse than going by the sword are too numerous to count. One of those worse ways surely is death in the ICU after prolonged treatment of a terminal illness.

The New Yorker is running an article on hospice care, a fine resource that in my experience is always called in too late. A strange rule about hospice care is that a doctor must certify that the patient is not expected to live more than another six months. Until death is at the very door, few patients or family are willing to ask for such a conclusion, and few doctors are eager to give it. To both doctors and patients, it feels like giving up at a point when it's terribly difficult to be sure. Patients report feeling that they've been abandoned to die, in large part because insurance terms force a stark choice between palliative and curative care. Patients must choose between any hope that aggressive treatment might yield a cure, and expert help to make the best of what time is left. It's a rare doctor who can help a patient negotiate those shoals.

In the debate over ObamaCare, we heard statistics about the large percentage of medical costs that occur during the final year of life. The subject is difficult to address, not only because it raises the issue of rationing controlled by strangers, but also because we don't always know that it's the last year of life until death arrives to make the calendar plain. And yet sometimes we know perfectly well, don't we? There are medical conditions in which we're rarely wrong when we guess that the end is near. Even then, though, there's the fear of giving up too soon. So people opt for full-bore "curative" care past the point of diminishing returns. They miss out on palliative care that could have afforded them a better death at home. They run up enormous bills in the process. One insurance company conducted an experiment to see whether, in these cases, they could help both themselves and patients by approaching the likely end in a different way. The company asked the obvious question: Why should curative and palliative care be mutually exclusive?

Aetna . . . knew that only a small percentage of the terminally ill ever halted efforts at curative treatment and enrolled in hospice, and that, when they did, it was usually not until the very end. So Aetna decided to let a group of policyholders with a life expectancy of less than a year receive hospice services without forgoing other treatments. A [cancer patient] could continue to try chemotherapy and radiation, and go to the hospital when she wished—but also have a hospice team at home focussing on what she needed for the best possible life now and for that morning when she might wake up unable to breathe. A two-year study of this “concurrent care” program found that enrolled patients were much more likely to use hospice: the figure leaped from twenty-six per cent to seventy per cent. That was no surprise, since they weren’t forced to give up anything. The surprising result was that they did give up things. They visited the emergency room almost half as often as the control patients did. Their use of hospitals and I.C.U.s dropped by more than two-thirds. Over-all costs fell by almost a quarter.

A strange bifurcation has opened up in the medical care we've grown accustomed to in recent decades. Their medical training, the iron discipline of legal liability, and our cultural aversion to acknowledging death hamper today's doctors in guiding patients to the best possible death. In contrast, hospice workers often show remarkable skill at it. How did we decide that doctors and hospice workers should never work together? Why should doctors think of hospice care as "giving up"? When did so many doctors stop thinking of a major part of their function as advising when continued treatment is doing more harm than good?

Unless you've been awfully lucky, you know the problem I'm talking about. The patient and his family don't fully understand what can be cured and what probably can't, or what later terminal symptoms are likely to replace the current ones if the present crisis is survived. Possibly they're in outright denial. The doctor has neither the time nor the inclination to get into messy, emotional discussions with frightened, grieving laymen, or to risk being second-guessed when the end approaches. In the hectic atmosphere, it's hard to remember what the patient is being asked to endure, and for what purpose. A movie scene that struck home to me was in "Critical Care," an extremely dark comedy about hospitals. An elderly patient is being kept alive by horrendous means. When the doctor hears the floor nurse's summary of the treatments that were inflicted during the previous shift, he asks, "Where should I send the bill? To Blue Cross, or Amnesty International?"

Whether delivered in a special ward or, even better, at home, hospice care is a godsend. There probably are people who have had a bad experience with it, but I've never met one. It's a godsend even if it's delayed for no good reason until a few days or weeks before death. For many people, it would have been incomparably more valuable months earlier. The New Yorker article includes some fine descriptions of what hospice care is good at: giving the patient and family a variety of tools to deal with emergencies at home, in order to avoid a trip to the ER that, at best, will result in a brief spate of torture and, at worst, will lead to a mechanized death among strangers, intrusive procedures, and frantic ugliness. Unlike most doctors, hospice workers are a phone call away. After each visit, they will leave behind not only morphine to deal with breakthrough pain but other medications and equipment to deal with emergencies like shortness of breath. They will focus on preserving mental alertness, mobility, comfort, dignity, and peace in the last weeks, days, and hours before death. I recommend the full New Yorker article for its interviews with patients who tried it both ways, and for its insights into how difficult it is to advise the dying. So much depends on our willingness to face facts, talk to each other, and make clear choices.

The Bruce

The Heart of the Bruce:

A sword commissioned in 1705, whose blade dates to the time of Robert the Bruce, sold for ten thousand pounds. Bthun sends the article.

On its blade, an emblem pays homage to Sir James Douglas, who died while carrying Bruce's heart in 1330. Depicting a wild man with a heart on his left breast, the emblem features the inscription, For Strength In Stier This Heart I Bier" (for strength in battle this heart I bear). On the reverse it features a crowned Lion Rampant.

Now, if you don't already know the story, you are probably scratching your head and asking yourself, "Why was Sir James Douglas carrying his heart?"

Since many of you may not know the story, and the article only sketches it, allow me to relate it. This is from Froissart's Chronicles.

During this truce it happened that King Robert of Scotland, who had been a very valiant knight, waxed old, and was attacked with so severe an illness that he saw his end approaching: he therefore summoned together all the chiefs and barons in whom he most confided... "My Dear friend Lord James Douglas, you know that I have had much to do, and have suffered many troubles, to support the rights of my crown. At the time that I was most occupied I made a vow, the non-accomplishment of which gives me much uneasiness: I vowed that, if I could finish my wars in such a manner that I might have quiet to govern peaceably, I would go and make war against the enemies of our Lord Jesus Christ. To this point my heart has always leaned; but our Lord gave me so much to do in my lifetime, and this last expedition has delayed me so long, followed by this heavy sickness, that, since my body cannot accomplish what my heart wishes, I will send my heart in the stead of my body to accomplish my vow.

"I will that as soon as I be dead you take my heart from my body, and have it well embalmed.... and, wherever you pass, you will let it be known that you bear the heart of King Robert of Scotland, which you are carrying beyond the seas on his command, since his body cannot go[.]"

...and when Lord James could speak, he said, "Gallant and noble king, I return you a hundred thousand thanks for the high honor you do me."

Sir James Douglas died in that quest: but not before he cast the heart into the midst of the Saracen army of the King of Grenada.

Stereotypes

A Frenchman, a Russian, and a Scandinavian Walk Into a Bar

This Arab/Israeli and male/female dispute (see below) has inspired me to engage in some entertaining rounds of stereotyping. I've been reading Megan McArdle's several pieces on the issue whether FICO scores are good predictors of employee performance and whether, if not, employers should be banned from using them to assess job applicants. (My view, naturally, is that the issue is for the employer to decide, just as would be the case with astrological charts. If the FICO scores aren't good predictors, the employer will miss out on good employees and will suffer in competition with employers who use better predictive tools.)

The somewhat stale comment thread on this latest FICO article suddenly went off in an interesting direction. Much of the annoyance over the FICO process centered on the frustrations many of us have suffered with human resources departments. One commenter said, "And if there is a more noxious department in any company, I'm unaware of it." Another immediately suggested: "you must not have much interaction with IT." OK, now they're talking my language!

A third commenter jumped in with (mildly edited):

I use international relations and national characters as the metaphor for intra-organizational relations.

HR are likely the French: infuriating and they tell you "that is not possible" about things that you know are perfectly possible but they chose not to do because it doesn't conform with their utterly arbitrary rules.

IT are like the Soviet Union: ruthlessly imperialistic and utterly untrustworthy. They constantly try to expand their empire and impinge on user freedom and autonomy and they are more concerned about the welfare of the state than of the individuals in the community (think of all the [sh*t] they impose that makes you have to change how you work, often for the worse, with the justification that it's more efficient for the IT backbone).

The former are difficult friends (or maybe your spouse). The latter are the ENEMY (or maybe your ex).

Okay! Now we've brought in the additional useful metaphor of spouses and exes. I'd like to see where we can go with it. And don't forget lawyers. The next commenter's suggestion, "Let's not let legal off the hook here," elicted this response:

Legal are like the Scandanavians: constantly telling you can't/shouldn't do that, to the point where you wonder just whose side they're on.

And the reply: "And like the Scandinavians, almost always ignored."

Sex, Lies, and Fraud in the Inducement

Here's a story about how our notion of fraud and crime can get tangled up in times of radical changes concerning sex, hedonism, and ethnic hatred. An Israeli Jewish woman had consensual sex with a man she believed to be a Jewish bachelor "looking for a serious romantic relationship." After what sounds like a rather casual assignation in a building near where they met in downtown Jerusalem, she discovered he was an Arab. He was convicted of rape and sentenced to 18 months in prison on the ground that her consent was invalidated by his deception.

I can certainly understand that consent to sex is invalidated by force or the credible threat of force, and perhaps even by blackmail, though I think blackmail is stretching things. (That is, I'll buy nonconsensual sex as the value extracted by blackmail, to support a blackmail conviction, but not blackmail as the force to support a rape conviction.) But really, by deception about ethnicity?

I take this story as a ugly confluence of racism with the present totally confused state of affairs regarding casual sex. We haven't seen a rash of criminal cases involving garden-variety dishonesty in sexual relationships, and a good thing, too, or the courts wouldn't have time for anything else. This court obviously thought that lying about one's ethnicity put the dishonesty in a class by itself, which is just tawdry. The court's reasoning also revealed a gaping disconnect between its protective assumptions about the young woman's purity, versus her actual conduct. "The court is obliged to protect the public interest from sophisticated, smooth-tongued criminals who can deceive innocent victims at an unbearable price - the sanctity of their bodies and souls," the judge wrote.

But hold on, now. The details are sparse, but the sex seems to have involved a fairly casual encounter. There was a time when society would have wasted little sympathy on a woman foolish enough to have consensual sex with a near stranger. She was expected to get to know something about him first, and preferably to let her family get to know a good bit about his family. The modern attitude, particularly with the advent of birth control, is more permissive regarding casual hookups. But then should a woman who barely knows her lover be heard to complain that she was deceived about his social context? Should we be imprisoning a young man for violating "the sanctity of her body and soul" that she appeared to hold so cheap? (I realize I'm using "we" very loosely here; this was not an American case.)

Here's an old song about the dangers of leaping before you look, with the genders reversed. The song's humor can't work when it's the man being deceived unless he's been snookered into marrying his partner first, which shows us something about what we assume it takes for a man to be irretrievably ensnared by a sexual encounter: "Now all you young men who would marry for life/Be sure to examine your intended wife."

There once was a lawyer, they called Mr. Clay
Who had but few clients, and they wouldn't pay
At last, of starvation he grew so afraid
That he courted and married a wealthy old maid

...The ring on her finger left no room to plead
For his failure to ask for a warranty deed

. . .She hung her false hair on the wall on a peg
Then she proceeded to take off her leg. . . .

The courts didn't cut Mr. Clay any slack. Caveat emptor!

Fermi

Another Answer to Fermi's Paradox?

If universes nest in black holes, and the event horizon of black holes (largely?) prevent information transfer, there could be many civilizations: but nested so that the methods of communication we have are poorly suited to contact.

Actually, that doesn't answer the paradox -- the universe is as large as it was when Fermi asked the question; this is another example of just how large it might be. But it does throw up a new barrier to human understanding -- if we are nested in a black hole of some mother universe, how do we explore what lies beyond that horizon?

The walls of the world get farther away.

The World in Connections

Is This the Party to Whom I Am Speaking?

HotAir links to this New York Times article about the White House's difficulties reaching Shirley Sherrod by telephone last week between Monday and Thursday. It's an amusing article, in part because White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was claiming to the press corps that "the secretaries" were trying to reach her at the very moment she was on a split screen at CNN, watching the press conference. It's also an interesting story about the evolution of the President's relationship with the MSM, because the NYT made it pretty clear it was accusing the White House of lying, even to the point of relying on the old "critics say" and "one blogger commented" gambits to throw in some anonymous zingers.

But here's what I really enjoyed about the article: it describes the glory days, when the White House Operators could get anyone on the line, any time, just like in the movies. The nostalgia starts with some parlor tricks, such as President Kennedy asking the operators to locate someone for him who was in fact standing next to him in the Oval Office (it took them only minutes). They also found Truman Capote for him, not at his unlisted number in Brooklyn Heights but at the home of a friend in Palm Beach, also unlisted.

My favorite, though, was how White House staff ran down the House majority whip, who was fishing in the Gulf of Mexico during the Cuban Missile Crisis:

A Navy helicopter dropped a bottle down to his boat with the following note: “Call Operator 18, Washington. Urgent message from the president.”

These days, with everybody carrying a cellphone, it's hard to imagine a dedicated executive staff taking three days to reach anyone. As the article noted, 20-year-old interns at CNN didn't seem to be having any trouble.

Evil

The End of Love and the Madness of the Ruling Class:

If there is one thing that divides the remnant of ordinary America from the political class, it is a sense that life should involve therapy. Is ordinary life so traumatic that you need treatment for experiencing it?

Yes, argues this very interesting article: it is if you have lost the ability to love.

For centuries in the West, and until only recently, love has been the underlying essence in which the pulsations of existence had their being. People were encouraged to indulge in the daydreams of love, to love their lover, their family, their sect, their nation, and ultimately all mankind. When this civilization came crashing down in the first half of the 20th century after two world wars, the West had a vital interest in replacing a civilization based on love with something else. And it found that substitute in the new ethos of caring, of which the caring industry is the leading exponent.

The ideology of love began nine centuries ago in the era of courtly love. It seems natural to us that people should always have been obsessed with love, but this is not the case. Our code of etiquette that gives precedence to women seems natural, but it is a legacy of courtly love, and to this day is considered to be far from natural in Japan, say, or India. Prior to courtly love, the idea of marrying for love would have been unthinkable. Marriage was a union of property, a social calculation, and still is in many countries. In the West, marrying for any reason other than love seems crazy....

During the First World War, Westerners pierced with the most intense pangs of devotion to strangers whom they had never met — their countrymen — shot at other strangers across deep trenches. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers died in the name of love of one’s country.

Love ideology had revealed its fatal flaw. Clergymen, philosophers, artists, and politicians had encouraged people to intensify their passion for others, to join in consciousness with an ever-expanding number of individuals, with loving all humanity the final goal. But it is impossible to know humanity in the concrete; humanity is a fiction, it cannot be loved....

In romantic life people still want to fall in love as much as ever, and love ideology remains as strong as ever, encouraged by the entertainment industry, but outside this sphere the caring relationship has displaced love as the framework of existence, outside of which no issue, however compelling, no passion, however profound, and no belief, however soaring, is of much account. Many people today meet their basic psychological needs, including self-esteem, fulfillment, and identity, not through a social system of friends, intimates, and communities, as people did in the age of love, but by working directly with a caring professional....

True, the caring experience lacks the intimate gusto and genuineness of feeling that marked life in a social system. Gone are the hysterics and absurdities, the waving of bullet-pierced banners and the singing of militant songs. Gone is the special pride that one religious sect felt against another. But society is more stable. Although many Americans still cleave to love, dream of love, and hope for love in their romantic lives, the other dimensions of life have been spared the tumult and violence that once haunted life when the love ideal reigned supreme and people bonded intimately with strangers.

Yet he closes on a note of disaster, not hope. The caring ethos isn't just empty; it also contains the seeds of violence. You get all the peril, but none of the joy.

In the past, allegiance to a nation, a tribe, a city, a family, or even just a group of friends distorted reality such that people put up with these burdens. A group provided the framework of one’s whole being, within which was to be found all that life had to offer. It charmed reality; it made hard life easier to endure. Without this charming of reality, people will see life in all its horrible unfairness, fueling their anger and resentment. Winning romantic love in private life, already a matter of luck to begin with, will become an even more high-stakes game, since in a world governed by the caring ethos private life will become love’s last bastion, and the only place in which to build a strong attachment. Without romantic love, and with the unfairness and injustice in life laid bare for all to see, people may grow violent. And because groups built around love will continue to decline, people will have fewer groups on which to focus their anger; instead, other unattached individuals will become the focus of anger. The Virginia Tech massacre is just one example.

This plays well with T99's article from yesterday about the kind of people who 'go Nazi.' Which kind was it? The 'lost generation,' she said; the ones who don't have a heart of love.

"Those who haven’t anything in them to tell them what they like and what they don’t-whether it is breeding, or happiness, or wisdom, or a code, however old-fashioned or however modern, go Nazi."

Family can do that; friends can. Religion can. Love can. These are the things that matter.

The West must learn to love again, if it is ever to be whole.

Burnt Njal, III

The Saga of Burnt Njal, Week Three:

Here is this week's readings; and here is next week's.

We are about to enter into the real blood-letting of the work. You may say, "Haven't we seen some blood-letting heretofore?" No, indeed! All this, and all the legal settlements of the various killings, have only been a prelude. Starting next week, we will read of the days when Gunnar has had all he cares to take.

An interesting point about Gunnar, going into this. He has what you might call a bifurcated reputation. We see this a lot in our own time, especially in politics. A given figure is understood by his supporters to be a saint and a hero; the other side says he is a demon, or a monster.

Gunnar is viewed by one side as weak and easy to torment. That seems strange, as he is a demonstrated killer and a man who has offered those who came to him at law the alternative of 'going to the island' (Holmgang). But he doesn't resort to killing right off, as some men do, and it has led some in that era to view him as a man they can bull. We will soon see him lament:

"I would like to know," says Gunnar, "whether I am by so much the
less brisk and bold than other men, because I think more of
killing men than they?"

The circumstances of his complaint will not make it seem much like whining.

Who Goes Nazi?

Who Goes Nazi?

Someone at Bookwoom Room linked to an old 1941 Harper's essay that's been posted on the web, part of that magazine's effort to bring its 148-year history into its electronic archives. Dorothy Thompson (1893-1961), a journalist, was kicked out of Nazi Germany in 1934 and over the next seven years watched Hitler's power spread to France. Writing in Harper's in 1941, before it was clear whether the U.S. would join the war, she proposed the parlor game of imagining which party guests would go Nazi when the time came. "Nazism," she says, "has nothing to do with race and nationality. It appeals to a certain type of mind."

Thompson felt that the post-WWI "lost generation" had been "treated to forms of education which have released him from inhibitions. His body is vigorous. His mind is childish. His soul has been almost completely neglected." As if setting up a country-house mystery, she examines thirteen people:

• a contented blue-blood with a classical education,
• a pragmatist who "fits easily into whatever pattern is successful,"
• a social climber who is "bitterly anti-Semitic because the social insecurity of the Jews reminds him of his own psychological insecurity,"
• a "spoiled only son of a doting mother,"
• a masochist looking for someone other than her bored husband "before whom to pour her ecstatic self-abasement,"
• a warm ex-actress "full of sound health and sound common sense,"
• a cheerful young man studying engineering in night school at City College,
• a contrarian intellectual whose "brain operates quite apart from the rest of his apparatus,"
• a "good-natured and genial man" ready at any time to "grab a gun and fight,"
• a young German emigre who left the Nazi Youth to escape to Switzerland on foot,
• an assimilated and wealthy pro-business Jew who is skeptical of the criticisms of Hitler,
• a sad, quiet Southern Jew who loves his country "in a quiet, deep, unostentatious way," and
• a powerful, predatory labor leader.

Thompson considers which of the guests will make the right choice and concludes: "Those who haven’t anything in them to tell them what they like and what they don’t -- whether it is breeding, or happiness, or wisdom, or a code, however old-fashioned or however modern, go Nazi."

It's oddly reassuring to read this essay, written by a thoughtful journalist with enough experience in 1930s Europe to know just what the world was up against. In 2010, we're facing discouraging trends in education, social dissolution, and moral unraveling, but no more than Thompson saw.

Gentlemen, You Can't Whine Here

Night Is to Day As War Is to . . .

. . . Sissies?

Ed Schultz, the MSNBC commentator, made waves this week by complaining that President Obama gave an interview in his time slot to Fox News after all the hardcore shilling he'd done for ObamaCare. He made another revealing complaint, too, as reported by John Fund in the Wall Street Journal, in his pep talk to Netroots attendees: "The White House has a war room. I think they have a sissy room too."

I've been noticing a lot of this lately. The party of peace, love, and understanding can get pretty butch when it lets its hair down among friends. Anyone would think they'd concluded that violence is sometimes morally justified in a good cause.

Expect blowback this week from the sissy lobby. ". . . All We Are Saaayyyy-ing . . . ."

The Post-Racial Administration

Shouldn't Maureen Dowd Have Seen That Coming?

Ann Althouse quotes from Maureen Dowd's loopy analysis of l'affaire Sherrod, including her approving citation to the even wilder loopiness of Congressman James Clyburn of South Carolina. Clyburn's suggestion? "[Obama] needs some black people around him.” Per Dowd, Clyburn explained that

Obama’s inner circle keeps “screwing up” on race: “Some people over there are not sensitive at all about race. They really feel that the extent to which he allows himself to talk about race would tend to pigeonhole him or cost him support, when a lot of people saw his election as a way to get the issue behind us. I don’t think people elected him to disengage on race. Just the opposite.”

Ms. Althouse's commenters dismantle this claptrap instantly in at least two ways. To begin with, as commenter Paul Zrimsek noted: "The NAACP's reaction was of a piece with the White House's. Does the NAACP need more black people too?"

What's more, as commenter Bagoh20 pointed out, how do you "get the [race] issue behind us" by expecting the President to engage obsessively on race?

Jane Austen

The First Rule About Jane Austen

Darleen at Protein Wisdom strikes a blow for Austen fans. "Is that your blood?" "Oh -- yes. Some of it." Actually I've read more than one pomo critical essay on Jane Austen that didn't diverge much from this video in intellectual style, minus the humor. The second video ("Dad Club") is worth watching, too. But now I've blown a good fraction of my satellite download ration for the day.

The Way:

Next morning Alveric came up the tower to the witch Ziroonderel, weary and frantic from searching all night long in strange places for Lirazel. All night he had tried to guess what fancy had beckoned her out and whither it might have led her; he had searched by the stream by which she had prayed to the stones, and the pool where she had prayed to the stars; he had called her name up every tower, and had called it wide in the dark, and had no answer but echo; and so he had come at last to the witch Ziroonderel.

"Whither?" he said, saying no more than that, that the boy might not know his fears. Yet Orion knew.

And Ziroonderel all mournfully shook her head. "The way of the leaves," she said. "The way of all beauty."

-Edward Plunkett, Lord Dunsany, The King of Elfland's Daughter

Unicorns

Unicorns, Scientifically Considered

This starts a little slow, but it's only a couple of minutes long and I think he'll have persuaded you by the end.

The impact of Global Warming on unicorns deserves more study.

WWI and Jihad

The German Plan to Provoke Jihad:

A new book examines the Kaiser's attempt to provoke a global Jihad in order to undermine the British Raj.

Helping to whip up passions was one of history’s most unlikely jihadists, Baron Max von Oppenheim, who directed the Kaiser’s “jihad bureau” for the duration of the war. The scion of a Jewish banking family, an archaeologist, writer, and veteran Near East hand, Oppenheim thundered that Muslims “should know that from today the Holy War has become a sacred duty and that the blood of the infidels in the Islamic lands may be shed with impunity”. (Germans, Austrians, and Hungarians were granted exceptions, of course.)

Oppenheim supervised a crack team of Orientalists, among them Alois Musil, cousin of the novelist Robert, who trekked to central Arabia in 1915 to enlist Arab tribal sheikhs, and Oskar von Niedermayer, who made a perilous journey across the Persian desert to spur the Emir of Afghanistan into attacking the Indian Raj.

Did it work? Well...

Almost everywhere – Persia, the Shia strongholds of southern Mesopotamia, Afghanistan and the Hejaz – German agents found themselves contending with endless logistical traps. With the British Navy in control of the seas, the still incomplete railway took on a vital importance. There was simply no way for the Ottomans to ship arms and materiel across vast distances to supply their would-be allies. The “jihad”, in actuality, turned into a series of cash transactions, with the Germans (and British) resorting to subventions, financial blandishments, and outright bribery.

Logistics will get you every time.

Aw, man!

Aw, Man!

Finally the government comes up with a worthwhile use of taxpayer dollars, and some pennypincher shoots it down.

The Billy Carter Gas Station is privately owned, but its ownership would be transferred to the government if the legislation is approved. The gas station has old gasoline pumps, stacked tires outside, colorful articles from Carter’s closet, commendations from around the world and “Billy Beer” paraphernalia.

And it was such a good time to re-examine our opinion of the Carter years, too.

Marmots and AGW

Global Warming Crusaders Target Marmots in Cruel Genocide

Or is it "zoocide"? Whatever: they can't wash the blood off their hands this time.

"I didn't intend to spend 40 years studying marmots, but new questions kept coming up," confesses a researcher whose professional life was hijacked by this under-reported drama. His perseverance paid off for us all with his "groundbreaking study, published in Nature," revealing to a stunned scientific community that "mountain rodents called marmots are growing larger, healthier and more plentiful in response to climate change." The longer growing season has boosted the plucky creatures' size, strength, and numbers. Unless. Unless we let Al Gore back out of his cage, in which case decades of hard-fought progress in the marmot community could be senselessly undone.

Snapping Back to the Narrative. Someone must have handed our scientist a note from off-camera during the interview, because he hastens to add: "This benefit to marmots is probably short-lived. . . . [I]f there's less snowmelt to nourish plants that marmots forage in the summer, it will severely affect them. In droughts, we've had very high mortality." Marmots cannot catch a break.

The next time you thoughtlessly exhale, or wait to exhale, consider that you're dooming a marmoset to the Scylla and Charybdis of obesity and starvation. Here's a site where you can support marmot research. Look into your hearts and dig into your wallets.

Federal Pre-emption

Enforcing Federal Law As It Ought to Be

I understand federal pre-emption. I support federal pre-emption in the areas where it applies. I even agree that it applies with particular force and reason in areas like immigration. It's just that I think the federal law that enjoys pre-emptive power should be the actual federal law that's been passed by Congress and stuff.

Here's the money quote from the DOJ's July 6 brief in the Alternative Universe that is the Arizona immigration enforcement lawsuit:

Although a state may adopt regulations that have an indirect or incidental effect on aliens, a state may not establish its own immigration policy or enforce state laws in a manner that interferes with federal immigration law.

That actually sounds pretty good to me. The part I don't get is why the feds who happen to be in office this year get to establish their own version of "federal immigration law" without complying with all those tiresome procedures for amending the laws on the books.

Here's how it seems to work: You're a Sanctuary City? No problem of any kind. You're doing the Lord's work. You're in accord with the Immigration Law As It Would Exist in a Just Universe. We, the feds, have the exclusive right to ordain what that is using only the power of our own minds. But over there, you're a Non-Sanctuary State? Knock it off. You're acknowledging the force of the law as written, which is an intolerable intrusion into the majesty of our federal powers.

The fact is, though, I'm pretty encouraged today by the tone of the federal district judge's questions, which show a healthy skepticism about the DOJ's case.