"American Martial Culture"

Seth Barrett Tillman wonders if the decline of academic quality has something to do with the declining number of veterans in higher education.

Pre-World War II, this division between American civil and military society was less (perhaps, much less) of a problem. Then, the largest part of our (white male) population (of a certain age) was enrolled in our various state militias (or, their successors—the U.S. and state National Guards). Conscription, if not universal conscription, naturally flowed from actual congressionally declared wars. Likewise, a large swathe of Americans, across all social classes, could expect to see military service in war, including, unfortunately, Indian wars. (Lincoln and Davis both served in the Black Hawk War.)

With all due respect, that's not right. After the Civil War, the United States military shrank to a very tiny size and remained that way until the First World War. The very brief Spanish American War (1898) aside, the main business of the Army was fighting unions, not fighting Indians -- the famous Indian wars were fought by Civil War veterans like Sheridan and Custer (who was one of Sherman's favorites). So it's not a new generation of fighting men, it's the same generation staying on in a much smaller army, fighting battles that were minor echoes of the great battles of their youth.

Military service was the exception rather than the rule for most of the 19th century, excepting the Civil War generation. It was again between the two World Wars. It is actually only after the two great wars -- the Civil War and WWII -- that we have had a very high percentage of veterans in American culture. You can see the effect of this by looking at this poll about the percentage of American men who are veterans. All the way to retirement age, the percentage hovers around twenty percent. It shoots up among the eldest among us, so that 80% of those 85-89 and 74% of those over ninety are veterans.

For women, too, we see the lingering effects of the draft because women were not drafted: overall, only 2% of women are veterans, compared with 24% of men, mostly in the older generations. That number is 14.5% currently, so the overarching importance of the WWII/Vietnam drafts is what is driving the percentage of female veterans down into the low single-digits.

Another way you can see the lingering effects of WWII and, to a lesser degree, Vietnam is in the chart on proportions of veterans by region. The numbers are fairly flat: overall 12.7%, with a low of 11.4% in the Middle Atlantic states and a high of 14.6% in the Southeast. That means we're talking about the bulk of these numbers coming from the draft eras: since the introduction of the All Volunteer Force, the military has been 40%+ from the South. The trend has only intensified since Heritage did that study in 2008: recent numbers show that it was 44% in 2013. People move around, of course, but the relatively flat percentage of veterans by region shows the lingering influence of the massive draft of WWII and the smaller but significant draft of Vietnam.

So really, if a culture is a way of life that one generation passes to the next, it doesn't make much sense to talk about an "American martial culture." There are some families, especially but not only in the South, where a culture of military service is passed from one generation to the next in the days of non-compulsory service. American culture overall has not been martial. For all but two generations, the bulk of Americans have not served in any military nor fought in any wars. The institutions have cultures, but American culture overall has been not much affected by them for most of our history.

The Dangers of Art

Powerline commends to our attention a terrific interview of Paul Cantor by Bill Kristol.  Normally I'm not a big fan of 90-minute interview videos and wish someone had just transcribed them, but this one's worth the time.  Cantor is a Shakespearean scholar who long ago turned his attention to American popular culture.  The whole thing is worth watching if only for the discussion of Hobbesian vs. Lockeian westerns.  And who can resist a guy, especially a grizzled old conservative, who liked the instantly forgotten "John of Cincinnati"?  At a dream dinner party, you'd be seated next to him.

One of Tex's Comrades

So, apparently this is how law is practiced in Texas?

Has the Elf King Stolen Our Children?

Instapundit sent me off on an interesting journey through an old-school role-playing gamer's blog via a novelist's.

The blogger at Jeffro's Space Gaming Blog spent a year reading the authors recommended by Gary Gygax, creator of D&D, in Appendix N of one of the rule books, and reports. A few of his more interesting conclusions are:

• ... Next to the giants of the thirties, just about everything looks tamed and watered down.
• It used to be normal for science fiction and fantasy fans to read books that were published between 1910 and 1977. There was a sense of canon in the seventies that has since been obliterated.
• Ideological diversity in science fiction and fantasy was a given in the seventies. We are hopelessly homogenistic in comparison to them.
• The program of political correctness of the past several decades has made even writers like Ray Bradbury and C. L. Moore all but unreadable to an entire generation. The conditioning is so strong, some people have almost physical reactions to the older stories now.
• The culture wars of the past forty years have largely consisted [of] an effort to reprogram peoples’ tastes for traditional notions of romance and heroism.

Author John C. Wright, of an older generation, read this and brought up the topic of how elves have changed in the popular mind.

Who Are Your Peers?

Should you be accused of a crime, you are guaranteed a trial by a jury of your peers. What does that mean, exactly? We get the rule from Magna Carta, where it meant that a baron accused by the king was entitled to be tried by others of similar independence of rank and station -- and not, say, by several of the king's lackeys. The independence of the jurors is meant to prevent you from being railroaded by a system of closed power.

The American system usually thinks that all citizens are peers, being free men or free women. A judge in Louisville thinks that isn't sufficient:

Unhappy with the number of potential black jurors called to his court last week, Jefferson Circuit Court Judge Olu Stevens halted a drug trial and dismissed the entire jury panel, asking for a new group to be sent up.

“The concern is that the panel is not representative of the community,” said Stevens, who brought in a new group of jurors despite objections from both the defense and prosecutor....

“There is not a single African-American on this jury and (the defendant) is an African-American man,” Stevens said, according to a video of the trial. “I cannot in good conscious go forward with this jury.”

I'm of two minds about that. On the one hand, it's a tremendously bad decision insofar as it seeks to further enshrine race as a category of thought (and, even, of law). On the other hand, pragmatically rather than philosophically speaking, the judge is probably right that it makes a huge difference to the defendant's likely outcomes at trial. So while there is a bad legal principle at work, it is conceivable that the defendant would get a fairer trial if race were taken into account. The particular trial is about the particular defendant, who either is or is not guilty of the offenses with which he is charged. The business of the particular trial is to come to a fair and, hopefully, correct decision about that -- not to display grand legal principles, but to set a man free if he is not guilty of the crime with which he is charged. That's why we have trials by jury at all: we could enforce the law without them, as long as we weren't worried about whether the state was accurate in the charges it filed.

It'll be interesting to see what the state Supreme Court says. My guess is that they will come down against him, if only because it would open the state to having to re-consider goodness knows how many earlier cases in which black men were convicted by all-white juries. Indeed, presumably every black man convicted previously could file an appeal on those grounds, since we wouldn't have necessarily kept a record of the race of jurors.

Mirror Images -- Two CIA Action Flicks

Recently I watched the movies Erased and Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. The movies themselves are good, secret agent / underworld action flicks in the tradition of the Bourne series or Taken, though not quite as suspenseful or compelling.

What I found interesting was the sociopolitical viewpoints of the two movies, which mirror each other. First I have to say that the social and political aspects in these films are minimal. Regardless of what one thinks about the US or its intelligence agencies, they are enjoyable because they are mostly fighting, chasing, and solving mysteries. However, in those few places where background is given, Erased assumes the US is part of the problem, while Jack Ryan assumes the US is one of the good guys.

I think one example from each movie is enough here. In Erased, the hero is a highly trained warrior whose motivation for leaving a US intelligence agency is that he "grew a conscience." In Jack Ryan, the hero is a former USMC officer who was severely wounded in Afghanistan and given a medical discharge. He gets a Ph.D. and joins an American intelligence agency as an analyst because he still wants to serve his country.

These little differences interest me. The stories a culture tells about itself are important. I don't think one movie is very important. But I think the themes that are repeated in movie after movie do have an impact on how that culture sees itself.

If You Like Your Plan...

Yeah, you know the rest.

As of this week, nine of the law’s 23 state co-ops — nonprofit health-insurance companies set up to help people enroll in Obamacare — have collapsed. Over 600,000 people who enrolled in co-op health plans will lose their insurance at the end of this year. Many of them were forced into the co-ops to begin with when Obamacare canceled their private insurance policies in 2013, meaning they will have lost their health insurance twice because of the law.

Rest in Peace, Maureen O'Hara

She lived to be ninety-five, which is a fine old age to have attained. She is perhaps most famous for playing opposite John Wayne to such powerful effect in John Ford films like Rio Grande and The Quiet Man. She also was in the Christmas classic Miracle on 34th Street. Though born in Ireland, she became an American citizen and will be buried at Arlington, beside her husband US Navy pilot General Charles Blair.

We are as a civilization enriched by her works.

Patriarchy? Paternalism?

The Sage of Knoxville has a column in USA Today that says that 'feminism works in the West because patriarchy is dead -- but it might not stay that way.' His point is that the fact of feminism shows that people care about the opinions of women, and even their more minor discomforts, and that this is a necessary condition of feminism existing at all. But this will all go away, he says, because of the admission of mass immigration from genuinely patriarchal nations, where women are subjugated and treated like dirt (or, rather, like women according to these cultures' lights).

We often speak of a government as acting in a fatherly capacity if it cares for the needs and concerns of its people. This concept is usually given as "Paternalism," rather than "Patriarchy," but actually they mean almost the same thing: both of them mean that fathers should lead, but the former word suggests that they should lead in the manner of fathers. It seems to me that Paternalism is exactly what left-leaning feminist usually want: they want a government that will take care of the needs of women in the way that a father should care for his daughters. He should provide for their medical care, for their birth control expenses, for the protection of their independence, and so forth. It's the Julia concept of what government is for.

One proof of this is the aggressive nature of feminist protesters. They clearly expect to be protected. Code Pink -- and, in Europe, Femen -- operates aggressively in complete faith that policemen or even just passersby will keep them from harm in spite of their provocations. It worked out well most times, except where Vladimir Putin (who had encountered them in 2013) sent a Cossack militia armed with whips to put down a similar protest at the Sochi Olympics in 2014. There's a patriarch for you.

You don't get that here, because we who consider ourselves men in the West are in favor of women leading decent lives. We take them seriously even where our interests strongly diverge, out of love. But we also hold them to certain standards, also out of love, because to violate those standards would be to fall.

So I don't think that feminism works in the West because 'leadership by fathers' is dead. I think it works because the leadership in the West is exercised in love. What Glenn Reynolds is advocating for is men-against-women, rather than men-for-women. What I think I'd like to see more of is women-for-men rather than women-against-men, and that combined with men-for-women. Speaking as a husband and father, that dynamic of friendship and reinforcement has been of tremendous importance to me.

Of course, I don't want a paternalistic government -- no more, and perhaps less, than a patriarchal one. It might be well, though, if our civil society better embodied the idea of love and friendship across the sex divide. We ought to take care of each other, and lift each other up.

Quiz for Fun

What historic military leader are you most like?

I got Gustavus Adolphus.

Oh, Canada.

Canada's newly elected Prime Minister 'issues a challenge' to the United States: “We’re Ending Wars and Legalizing Pot.”

Uh-huh. One can only "end" a war by winning it or surrendering it, unless you've found a way to shake hands with the people calling for a new Holocaust. You can ask the ghost of Joe Stalin how well it worked out when he thought he had a deal with the guy calling for the last Holocaust.

Otherwise, you're just running away. You can have all the pot you like if it makes you feel better, but in the end they'll just follow the smoke trail back to you. And when they do, as they have done before, it will be men like this man who save you:

Even he couldn't "end" your war. He just ended one battle.

But I know: you think they'll leave you alone now. If only you concede enough, you'll be left in peace. Our President seems to believe the same thing.

Speaking of detachment

Hillary Clinton is some kind of humanoid, chuckling over Chris Stevens' adorable sense of humor as he tried to pick up barricades for his embassy at fire-sales, while everyone else was getting out of Dodge.  She admired his entrepreneurial spirit, so that's nice.

Hillary Clinton Had No State Department Computer?

Powerline wonders if she was ever really Secretary of State:

Given her detachment from official means of communication, one wonders whether Hillary was ever really Secretary of State at all. Did she make any decisions? If so, what were they? We know that she plotted politically to make the overthrow of Qaddafi the centerpiece of her tenure at State, but we only know this because of her enraptured, off-the-record correspondence with Sidney Blumenthal and other sycophants.

If she ever had a strategy, if she ever engaged in diplomacy, if she ever made a decision, it seems to have left no trace. Maybe she didn’t need a State Department computer because she was never really Secretary of State at all. Maybe she thought the position was honorary, like being First Lady. Just one more rung on her ladder to the top.

Mammoth hurricane Patricia

A bit out of the blue, the strongest hurricane on record in this part of the world has sprung up just off the coast of Western Mexico, near Puerto Vallarta.  Patricia's sustained winds are an astonishing 200 mph, with gusts predicted to 245, and a pressure of 880 mb.  I get nervous about anything under about 950.  Katrina was approaching 900 mb just before landfall in 2005.  Camille, the nightmare storm of my childhood though it struck far to the east of my home, probably reached 900 mb.  Rita, the storm that panicked Houston into evacuating a month after Katrina, was at 895 mb before it weakened dramatically near landfall.

Patricia is forecast to come right over our heads here on the Texas Coastal Bend, too, but only after it probably will have been torn to pieces by crossing over the Mexican mountains.  Nevertheless, our forecast this weekend jumps right out there with a 100% chance of heavy rain.  While this is good news for us, the people in the Mexican state of Jalisco are in for a terrible beating.

An amazing storm:

The closest contender, at this point, might be Hurricane Camille when it battered the U.S. Gulf Coast in 1969. Regardless, Patricia looks to be more powerful than Hurricane Andrew in 1992, Katrina in 2005 and many others.

'Dude, That Idea Is Texas!'

Apparently Scandinavians have an interesting use of the name of our Lone-Star state.

An Appropriate Conclusion to the Argument

I think this proposal actually is pretty graceful, and would make a proper conclusion to the fight over Georgia's beautiful Stone Mountain.

An elevated tower — featuring a replica of the Liberty Bell — would celebrate the single line in the civil rights martyr’s 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech that makes reference to the 825-foot-tall hunk of granite: “Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.”

“It is one of the best-known speeches in U.S. history,” said Bill Stephens, the chief executive officer of the Stone Mountain Memorial Association. “We think it’s a great addition to the historical offerings we have here.”

Not So, Yavin 4!

Gross Negligence

So, just how many state secrets were lost to Russia and China because of Mrs. Clinton's gross negligence? The odds favor "lots."

If you sent emails through foreign telecoms that contained classified material, you can be sure they had a copy. She did. If you set up an email server without a digital certificate, you've ignored the most basic part of internet security. She did. And that doesn't touch the physical security of the servers, which were apparently kept in a bathroom closet at the mom and pop shop (albeit politically well-connected shop) that she hired to do all this.

No one would believe this story if you wrote it into a novel or a movie.

De Oppresso Liber

Doing what we're supposed to do. Looks like we lost one KIA in the raid.

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

"Zero privacy" is at least a good a doctrine as "zero tolerance." In fact, I expect them to be combined for maximum effect.

Today the Air Force, tomorrow the world!

But How Can This Be?

Via D29, we have an argument of a sort that the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee doesn't need to allow guns on the campus because the campus is so safe. Nonsense. I have it on good authority that 1 in 5 women on campus is subject to sexual assault. At least, if both the President and Vice President of the United States aren't a good authority, I don't know who is.

This university actually has a pretty even 51/49 sex ratio, unusual these days, so only slightly more than half of these are women. So that's about 12,500 women, which means that 2,500 rapes must occur every 4 years, or about 625 a year.

Well, actually, the article suggests it's not quite that high:

Sex offenses, forcible: 7 on-campus, 1 non-campus and 1 public property

Sex offenses, rape: 8 on-campus, 4, non-campus and 0 public property

Sex offenses, non-forcible: None in all categories

Sex offenses, statutory rape: None in all categories

Sex offenses, incest: None in all categories

Sex offenses, fondling: 4 on-campus, 1 non-campus and 0 public property

So that's, um, twenty-six? Well, that's four percent of the expected number, anyway. Obviously it's an underperforming college -- must be because it has such an unusually high percentage of men enrolled.

Good energy-policy news (unexpectedly)

The Obama administration has approved a natural gas export facility in Palm Beach, an action I applaud.  From the Daily Caller:

In Japan, for example, natural gas prices are nearly three times higher than in America, so companies are looking to export there. Japan’s appetite for gas is only going to increase, especially since the country scaled back its nuclear power plant fleet after the Fukushima Daiichi disaster.

In Europe, American gas exports are the only major alternative to Russian gas. European officials fear Russia’s grip on energy markets could be used to achieve political goals. Russia has used its natural gas to manipulate politics in the past. Indeed, Europe was initially hesitant to rebuke Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula because of its control over natural gas pipelines.

US Already #2 in "Social Welfare" Spending, After France

You probably have heard it suggested that America treats its poor cheaply compared to European nations, but it isn't true.

The problem isn't that we don't spend enough on welfare. The problem is that welfare isn't the answer. As a long-term solution, it's actively harmful to the character of the people and the Republic.

Congress: How About "Body Armor Control"?

A Democrat from California has a brilliant idea: let's make sure citizens are easy to kill.

We must be suspicious of a government that is constantly on the hunt for ways to make us easier to subjugate. The fact that one could use body armor to enable criminal behavior is no more telling than that one could use firearms to do so. All the same arguments apply, but in addition there are several others that apply to armor specifically.

The 2nd Amendment speaks of a right to keep and bear "arms" that shall not be infringed. "Arms" as understood in the 18th century plausibly includes armor, though: Blackstone defines a gentleman as one 'one qui arma gerit,' but he means heraldic arms, which are the symbolic representation of a real right to bear armor onto the field. When Blackstone speaks of the natural law right to keep and bear arms, he follows contemporary English practice of limiting the right as "suitable to their condition." Any free Englishman had the right to certain weapons, but not just any weapons: gentlemen were "suitable" for better arms than yeomen.

The American ideal is that the Revolution 'gentled the condition' of all Americans. We are no longer supposed to have separate classes with differential access to rights 'as suitable for their condition.'

In addition, armor is purely defensive in character. Wearing armor by itself does nothing to make you more dangerous to others. Imagine that Schlock Mercenary-style armor were available that could, instantly, make you safe from bullets. Would that not be a plausible answer to school shootings that we'd all want for our children? In principle, then, we ought to agree to defend the right to armor -- and work to improve it, until it is as good as we wish it were.

Is not protection of one's physical integrity a very obvious candidate for a natural right if anything is? Is it not, indeed, the basis for the natural law right of self defense that is so well-established in our tradition and so well-argued in the philosophy that underlies that tradition?

Of course it is. Say "No!" to 'body armor control.'

A Horse Soldier and Concrete Hell

While wandering around the internet looking for some Corb Lund material, I came across A Horse Soldier's Thoughts, the blog of Lt. Col. (ret.) Louis DiMarco, a career US Army officer who started out in the cavalry and now teaches at the US Army Command and Staff College.

I ran into his blog looking for some historical information on war horses, and he has written a bit about military horses, but it turns out he also literally wrote the book on urban warfare, FM 3-06, Urban Operations (2002). He is also the author of Concrete Hell: Urban Warfare from Stalingrad to Iraq (2012), which looks fascinating. On his blog, he writes that:

Two areas where I think this book breaks new ground is the evaluation of the Israeli Operation Defensive Shield (2002) and the look at US forces in the Battle of Ramadi (2006-7). I think Concrete Hell is the only comprehensive look at these operations currently in print.

Ultimately, what I intended, and what I think Concrete Hell achieves, is a thorough look at the evolution of urban warfare over the last fifty years. By isolating and focusing on this history, and what it tells us in terms of the conduct of warfare, I think Concrete Hell also describes the nature of the most important battlefield of the 21st Century: the urban battlefield. Thus, though a history, Concrete Hell presents not only an accounting of the past but a vision of the future. Recent battles in Lybia and current fighting in Syria seem to validate that vision.

For those with an interest in the Civil War, he has also written "Anatomy of a Failed Occupation: The U. S. Army in the Former Confederate States, 1865-1877," published by the Army's Land Warfare Institute.

He hasn't posted anything new to the blog for about two years, but it has some interesting stuff.

UPDATE: I assume the connection between Corb Lund and war horses is obvious to the regulars here, but for everyone else, here's the missing link:

UPDATE 2: OK, since I'm randomly finding stuff on horse soldiers this evening, I discovered that NYT columnist and economist Paul Krugman is a Civil War buff and U. S. Grant fan. Back in 2013 he wrote about the John Wayne movie The Horse Soldiers that was based on Grierson's Raid.

The Israel Situation

Because of its strategic consequence, I've mostly been thinking and reading about the Middle East in terms of the deployment of Russian forces in support of Iranian ambitions in the Levant. I have not ignored the violence in Israel, but it seems to be something that can be handled by the Israeli Defense Forces combined with the bold citizens of Israel.

While the United States may not have a role in stopping this latest attempt by the Muslim population to terrorize the Jews, we do have an interest in what we associate with. John F. Kerry, that most dishonorable of men, has once again taken point in helping to bring shame on his country.

On Monday, some Democratic members of Congress and a united front of major Jewish organizations expressed outrage over the imminent prospect that the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) would vote to declare Jerusalem’s Western Wall to be a part of the al-Aqsa mosque.... The resolution also included a laundry list of anti-Israel measures including condemnations of Israeli self-defense against terrorist attacks as well as of the Jewish presence in Jerusalem....

[O]n the same day that some Americans were voicing outrage about what the UN agency was doing, the nation’s chief diplomat was at the group’s Paris headquarters to speak to that same executive council with a very different agenda. On Monday, Secretary of State John Kerry came to UNESCO hat in hand, praising the group and begging for the U.S. to be re-elected to the group’s executive board while not even mentioning the resolution that it would soon pass.

Kerry’s humiliating speech was not without a strategic purpose. But it also reflected the Obama administration’s ideological commitment to the United Nations.

The article, which declares in its headline "the end of American honor," "declares the Western Wall to be an integral part of the al-Aqsa mosque called the 'al-Buraq Plaza' after the Prophet Muhammad’s winged horse that carried him on a night journey described in the Quran."

American honor is not dead, but the American administration is certainly without it. Nothing could make that clearer than the appointment of John Kerry to the high office of Secretary of State. It is a dark period in our history.

Independent, For President

Jim Webb will hold a press conference tomorrow at the National Press Club to talk about the possibility of running as an independent instead of a Democrat.

That makes sense. He's been a Republican during the Reagan era, and a Democrat as a Senator. Although he is perfectly correct that he's running on a Jacksonian platform that stands at the root of the Democratic party, the current party is so far to the left that it can't see him.

This is made clear by the SNL skit about the Democratic debate. It mocks Webb as having demanded time to answer questions, and then when presented with tough questions having "passed."

In fact, both of the questions they asked him were asked during the debate. Far from passing, though, Webb gave nuanced and correct answers -- the sort of answers one would expect from a scholar and statesmen of his impressive background. Progressives often claim that they would like intellectual, nuanced thought in politicians. Clearly, they haven't the ear to hear it.

Unfortunately, the Democratic party has gone so far from its roots that it may not be salvageable. In any event, Webb remains -- in my opinion, of course -- head and shoulders the most qualified candidate running in either party. There simply is no one else in the field who approaches his qualifications. Not as a potential commander in chief, not as a scholar, not as a diplomat -- not even the former Secretary of State, whose diplomatic accomplishments are none so impressive as his leading the effort to normalize relations with Vietnam after the war. With all due respect to former Secretary Clinton, she may have done more, but none of it worked out very well. There's nothing in her record to suggest she knows how to make peace or to make war, to pen scholarship or effective legislation. Sen. Sanders and Webb clearly share a warm friendship in spite of intense philosophical and political differences, which speaks very well of both men. Sanders is nevertheless likewise a man who has not shown that he can make either peace or war. Webb has excelled in both.

Among his Republican competitors, the two young Senators show a lot of promise. Nevertheless, they lack seasoning as yet. Dr. Carson is a very decent man of great accomplishment in his field, but it is absolutely no insult to say that his experience as a statesman pales in comparison to Webb's. Fiorina has a better record in business, and has made some decent initial moves, but it is again no insult to point out that she is a novice in the matters she would have to handle as President. The others I am not seriously considering.

See the Cup as Already Broken

A hugely unsurprising headline: popular biker bar destroyed by fire. Wolf and I used to hang out there.

Porpoise Pub was opened in 1961, according to its website. It was first famous as a beer garden with a large swim tank for a porpoise....

Over the years, according to its website, the pub played host to several rock bands, including Foghat and Quiet Riot. It also frequently hosted fundraisers. An American Heart Association event was scheduled for Sunday afternoon, according to the bar's Facebook page.

UPDATE: I have a few pictures of this classic establishment.

Space Invaders above the bar.

Skeletal ghost with top hat.

One of several hanging devils or skeletons.

Indoor biker-bar firepit, oddly enough not the source of the fire that burned the place down.

The Stone Games

As usual, I will be attending the Stone Mountain Highland Games. There is always a strong Viking current to this Scottish cultural festival. The above map can help you understand why. A number of Scottish Clans derive their names, and more a part of their lineage, from Norse or Danish Vikings.

Heads on Swivels

The FBI issues its strongest warning yet about terror attacks against American military at home.

Schlock Lives!

Maybe, anyway. This story passes the first test of credulity-straining internet news stories: the guy they name really does exist, really is at Penn State, and really does study the shadows on stars in astronomy.

Worth watching. As MikeD says, 'Important, if true.'

Schlock lives!

It must be nice to be so important

I came across this at Ace's place today and had a good chuckle:

This post was cowritten with Elizabeth McLeod, a millennial and cum laude graduate of Boston University, and daughter of Lisa Earle McLeod.

The first alarm bell in this "resignation letter" (which astonishingly goes unremarked upon in the well deserved fisking) is that this child needed her mommy's help to write it.  Ok, if you're asserting yourself as an important and competent adult, relying upon your parent to help write it is a terrible way to start.

In this long, tedious letter, this "adult" (again, it bothers me immensely that she wants to be taken seriously, but had to get parental supervision to write it) goes on and on about how the work she's being asked to do is more about the bottom line than changing the world.  And she's quitting (again) because she's not finding the fulfillment she wants.  The problem, child, is that businesses are in business for business.  They are all about the bottom line, because that's what lets them hire vapid little idiots like you (or more precisely, ones who will actually work without feeling "fulfilled") in order to improve that bottom line.  Something tells me that they're not going to be suffering from an acute lack of you.  You may believe they will, and it's truly adorable that you and your mommy feel qualified to give business advice to your former employer, who, chances are, was turning a profit before you ever showed up.  I mean this sincerely when I say that I agree.  Your former employer did not deserve you.

The Battle of Hastings

On 14 October, 1066, the last Anglo-Saxon king of England died in battle.

(If you don't get the joke, it's because you haven't played Skyrim.)

Many people don't know that the Anglo-Saxon army that the Normans defeated had very recently fought and beaten a Viking army led by "the Thunderbolt of the North," King Harald Hadrada of Norway. Harald was a king with a storied career, having fought in the Vaering guards for the Byzantine emperors before returning to Norway to claim his throne. There's a whole book about him contained within the Heimskringla, the story of the Norse kings. He died fighting Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in the north of England. That battle was on 25 September. Barely had they defeated the Viking army when word came of the Norman invasion in the south. The Anglo-Saxons had to force-march their way across the country in order to catch William's Normans.

Nevertheless it is not thought to be exhaustion but communication that lost the battle for the Anglo-Saxons. They fought dismounted in a shield wall, as also did the Vikings. The Norman cavalry could not pierce the wall, but it could withdraw, plan, and re-engage. Once committed to the fight, Harold's forces had difficulty seeing the battle as a whole and reorganizing accordingly. The Normans could change plans as the battle progressed. In a demonstration of the concept that Colonel Boyd would later formalize as the "OODA loop," this increased capacity to communicate and respond to changes on the field is thought to have been the decisive factor at Hastings.

Few battles have changed history as completely as the Battle of Hastings. The Normans' rise to the leadership of England lasted for hundreds of years, and committed England as a nation to defending Norman possessions in France during the Hundred Years War. The expansionist Normans went on to conquer Wales, Ireland, and Scotland, only one of them with finality but setting the stage for the rise of Great Britain. It's hard to imagine what the world would look like today if the English had remained an Anglo-Saxon power content with England alone.

Reflections on the Debate

It seems clear to me, after sleeping on it, that the Democratic Party is going to nominate Hillary Clinton. Everyone on the stage who spoke about her emails did so to come to her defense. They clearly adopted her line on the email server, which is that it's old news and we should move on. Even while discussing Snowden, they let her get away with a line about how he broke the laws regarding classified information that was so brazen that anyone but a Clinton would have trouble getting it out of their mouth. None of her opponents on the left are serious about stopping her.

Sanders' candidacy has nevertheless driven the primary far to the left. The only candidate on stage who sounded at all like an American was Jim Webb. He defended traditional values and gun rights, stood up for the oppressed regardless of color, and advocated for a careful foreign policy that was nevertheless centered on American strength. He's a candidate that blue collar Democrats and Republicans alike could vote to elect. Jim Geraghty said this morning, "Webb has a good chance of winning the Democratic nomination in 1948," meaning that he sounded a lot like Harry S Truman. He is, sadly, what the party has left behind. Harry Truman was a good President. We could do with another like him.

What we're going to get instead is an untrustworthy, unindicted felon as the Democratic candidate. I hope the Republicans manage to field someone who can beat her, or that the G-men at the FBI finally decide in their hearts that they have to do their duty no matter what it costs them in terms of punishment from on high.

UPDATE: Noah Rothman has a happier take.

The first and only time in which the Democratic field will gather to debate in prime time on a weekday before the first votes are cast in Iowa and New Hampshire featured a cavalcade of liberal politicians all (with the notable exception of Jim Webb) pandering to the Democratic Party’s fringe elements. The candidates spent a fair bit of energy attempting to rehabilitate European-style socialism, competed over who would embrace the most restrictive gun rights policy, promised a bevy of “free” services that none of them will ever be able to deliver, rejected the perfectly noncontroversial notion that “all lives matter,” and assured their wide-eyed viewers that the greatest national security threat facing the nation was the weather and that the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs should be essentially mothballed. This is the stuff of GOP ad-makers’ dreams.

The biggest gift that Democrats bestowed upon Republicans on Tuesday night, however, was their unwillingness to challenge a narrative repeatedly indefatigably advanced by Clinton, which holds her scandalous conduct as Barack Obama’s secretary of state is a partisan issue utterly without substance.

UPDATE: Matthew Continetti:

Jim Webb is a great American and has many provocative thoughts on foreign policy and domestic policy. But there’s no way he can win the nomination of a Democratic Party that is debating socialism over capitalism, whether black lives matter or all lives matter, whether climate change is the most pressing strategic threat facing the country, and whether to open Obamacare and in-state tuition to illegal immigrants.

UPDATE: Max Boot has a solid breakdown of the foreign policy aspects of the debate.

Democratic Debate

Did I just hear Hillary Clinton leap forward to defend capitalism? Fascinating.

UPDATE: Jim Webb stakes out a pro-gun position -- not just for 'hunting,' but for defense of self and family. The rest of the candidates on the stage don't seem to have any idea what he's talking about.

UPDATE: Clinton sounded pretty good on Syria. Webb is hitting the Iran deal, which is good.

UPDATE: Did Clinton just say that Libya represents "smart power at its best"? Oh, that statement is going to hurt for a long time.

UPDATE: Webb refuses to slam Sanders for being a conscientious objector in Vietnam, though he asserts he is the most qualified candidate to be Commander in Chief. He is, of course, quite right about that. Sanders responds very graciously.

UPDATE: Email question. "What I did was allowed by the State Department." Um, I'm pretty sure it was a massive collection of felonies, which the State Department can't approve. Also, the Secretary of State was you, so 'approved by the State Department' means 'approved by me.'

UPDATE: Question: "Do Black Lives Matter, or do All Lives Matter?" Everyone else: "Black Lives Matter." Jim Webb: "All Lives Matter. But by the way, I've done more than the rest of these jokers to deal with criminal justice reform and justice for African Americans."

UPDATE: Clinton just made a major advance by drawing a line between all the Democrats and the Republicans on immigration.

UPDATE: Clinton just said something that sounded like deference to states rights. There must be some tactical reason she favors this position, because she's not said anything ever that suggests she cares about that.

UPDATE: Asked if Snowded was a 'hero or a traitor,' Clinton said, "He broke the laws of the United States." SO DID YOU!!!!

UPDATE: How would your administration differ from Obama's? Jim Webb's answer was phrased very, very gently, but what he meant was: "I would respect the Constitutional separation of powers."

UPDATE: "Which enemy are you most proud of?" That's an outstanding question. The answers were predictable, except for Webb's: "The enemy soldier who threw the grenade that wounded me. But he's not around any more." Conan, what is best in life?

Heroes and Rebels

A different sort than we usually celebrate, says Reason magazine, but worthy in ways we don't like to consider:

Chinn was a black man in Canton, Mississippi, who in the 1960s owned a farm, a rhythm and blues nightclub, a bootlegging operation, and a large collection of pistols, rifles, and shotguns with which he threatened local Klansmen and police when they attempted to encroach on his businesses or intimidate civil rights activists working to desegregate Canton and register black residents to vote. After one confrontation, in which a pistol-packing Chinn forced the notoriously racist and brutal local sheriff to stand down inside the county courthouse during a hearing for a civil rights worker, the lawman admitted, "There are only two bad sons of bitches in this county..."

The sheriff thought himself one, and Chinn the other. It's a good story.

It's Not (Just) the NRA

A writer called "Geeky Leftist" explains the numbers.

Terrorism Indictments Against Confederate Flag Group

I think the DA will have a lot of trouble making these charges stick, as the law they were indicted under requires you to show that the group engages in criminal street gang activity. What actually happened was a political protest that turned into an altercation. The police, at the end of that video, are indeed explaining that some of what is being shouted constitute threats under state law. However, the target of that explanation is not among the protest group -- it's the family that took issue with them that is being warned to stop making threats.

To me it sounds like a bunch of rednecks engaging in protected free political speech, combined with emotional overreactions on both sides when the conflict started. Bad behavior was clearly rampant on more than one side of the conflict. Apparently the government has decided to take sides rather than impartially referee the dispute. They put charges of terrorism and gang activity before the Grand Jury, and the Grand Jury bought it. I'll be very surprised if the trial jury does.

Arthur in Scotland

The MacArthurs claim descent from him, so perhaps it is no surprise that a "round table" has been discovered in Scotland.

The King's Knot, a geometrical earthwork in the former royal gardens below Stirling Castle, has been shrouded in mystery for hundreds of years. Though the Knot as it appears today dates from the 1620s, its flat-topped central mound is thought to be much older. Writers going back more than six centuries have linked the landmark to the legend of King Arthur. Archaeologists from Glasgow University, working with the Stirling Local History Society and Stirling Field and Archaeological Society, conducted the first ever non-invasive survey of the site in May and June in a bid to uncover some of its secrets. Their findings were show there was indeed a round feature on the site that pre-dates the visible earthworks.... It has also been suggested the site is partly Iron Age or medieval, or was used as a Roman fort.

Educating Free Men

Have you ever thought that academia would be improved by more conservatives holding professorships? Good news!  Better gun laws are making some states undesirable for left-leaning professors looking for work.

Roughly 94 percent of faculty members did not favor anyone carrying concealed handguns on college campuses, according to a 2013 study published in the Journal of Community Health that questioned nearly 800 faculty members in a random sample of 15 state universities. The majority of these faculty members (98 percent) felt that handguns created more risk for students and staff.

In fact, at UT Austin, more than 400 faculty members have signed a petition to “refuse guns in their classrooms.”

“If people feel there might be a gun in the classroom, students have said that it makes them feel like they would be much more hesitant to raise controversial issues,” UT history professor and petition organizer Joan Neuberger told Daily Kos. “The classroom is a very special place, and it needs to be a safe place, and that means safe from guns.”

Dr. Chad Kautzer, assistant professor in the philosophy department at University of Colorado at Denver, knows this feeling all too well.

Kautzer, along with other faculty members, led the petition against the university in 2012 to ban concealed weapons from being allowed on state campuses. Despite having support from “a vast majority of faculty” and being unanimously endorsed by the university’s School of Medicine, the petition was unsuccessful in the state House.

Competition for academic jobs is at an all-time high, as the academy has produced far more Ph.D.s than it is prepared to consume as new professors. Liberal faculties are disinclined to hire conservatives. As concealed and open carry on campus flourishes, however, it may be that more conservative states will see their academy's faculty shifting to the right. I would not have any problems teaching legally armed students.

This would be good for the health of the academy, as well as the health of society. Though I am not a professor or teacher, I did recently cover a class for an Orthodox Jewish friend who needed to observe one of the very many Jewish holidays this time of year. I was teaching book three of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, which is the book that treats the virtue of courage. It's a text that is completely relevant to the questions of carrying arms in defense of a common society, which is the reason you might be lawfully carrying arms on campus: because you've thought through the threat of active shooters on campus, and have decided to be one of the ones who is prepared to do something about it. This book will help them in their thinking.

First Aristotle prepares you for the discussion of the particular virtues by laying out a general issue about what the ends of action are.

That wish is for the end has already been stated; some think it is for the good, others for the apparent good. Now those who say that the good is the object of wish must admit in consequence that that which the man who does not choose aright wishes for is not an object of wish (for if it is to be so, it must also be good; but it was, if it so happened, bad); while those who say the apparent good is the object of wish must admit that there is no natural object of wish, but only what seems good to each man. Now different things appear good to different people, and, if it so happens, even contrary things.

If these consequences are unpleasing, are we to say that absolutely and in truth the good is the object of wish, but for each person the apparent good; that that which is in truth an object of wish is an object of wish to the good man, while any chance thing may be so the bad man, as in the case of bodies also the things that are in truth wholesome are wholesome for bodies which are in good condition, while for those that are diseased other things are wholesome- or bitter or sweet or hot or heavy, and so on; since the good man judges each class of things rightly, and in each the truth appears to him? For each state of character has its own ideas of the noble and the pleasant, and perhaps the good man differs from others most by seeing the truth in each class of things, being as it were the norm and measure of them. In most things the error seems to be due to pleasure; for it appears a good when it is not. We therefore choose the pleasant as a good, and avoid pain as an evil.

With that setup, how surprising that the first virtue to be considered is courage, which Aristotle formally associates with the fear of death in war.

With what sort of terrible things, then, is the brave man concerned? Surely with the greatest; for no one is more likely than he to stand his ground against what is awe-inspiring. Now death is the most terrible of all things; for it is the end, and nothing is thought to be any longer either good or bad for the dead. But the brave man would not seem to be concerned even with death in all circumstances, e.g. at sea or in disease. In what circumstances, then? Surely in the noblest. Now such deaths are those in battle; for these take place in the greatest and noblest danger. And these are correspondingly honoured in city-states and at the courts of monarchs. Properly, then, he will be called brave who is fearless in face of a noble death, and of all emergencies that involve death; and the emergencies of war are in the highest degree of this kind....

What is terrible is not the same for all men; but we say there are things terrible even beyond human strength. These, then, are terrible to every one- at least to every sensible man; but the terrible things that are not beyond human strength differ in magnitude and degree, and so too do the things that inspire confidence. Now the brave man is as dauntless as man may be. Therefore, while he will fear even the things that are not beyond human strength, he will face them as he ought and as the rule directs, for honour's sake; for this is the end of virtue.

So the good man pursues the true end, not just the apparent end, and it is characteristic of the good man that he gets it right. This end will be the truth of pleasure and avoiding pain. And what the good man will choose, in the face of the terrors of war, is to do nobly in the face of death.

That seems surprising, does it not? After all, if one avoids death in war, one can pursue all of one's true ends -- and all of one's apparent goods -- in a way that dying at war will foreclose. Why, then, is courage in the face of death such a great virtue that Aristotle mentions it first of all, thereby making it the standard by which all other virtues will be measured?

It is because doing nobly in war in the face of death is an absolute necessity for a free life, not only for you but for your fellow citizens. All the goods that can only be realized in a free society will be lost if that society lacks defenders. The good you are pursuing by being brave in the face of terrible death is the true good for yourself and for all your fellow citizens, because it is the only way by which you can realize freedom and a civilization that protects it. The life of virtuous activity, the life of contemplation, these things are unavailable to slaves. This is the first virtue for everyone who would be free, and it must be practiced if any of the other goods are to be realized at all.

This is the education that befits a free man. It is just the education these students should receive. Ninety-four percent of professors are apparently blind to it. They don't see, somehow, that the soft virtues must coexist with the hard ones -- not only in the same society, but in the very same heart.

Morning, Morons

Turns out there's a great reason that people on the right don't see eye to eye with the President. They're just not smart enough to understand him.


The article is actually pretty painful to read. He cites Obamacare and the minimum wage as two policies that are really good in the long run. Somehow he doesn't see the conflict between those two policies:

Republicans constantly paint it as a “job killer” (it’s not) while also rallying against the millions of people who are on government assistance. Funny thing though, a good portion of the Americans who are on government assistance have jobs. If we made sure that no American working full-time had to rely on government programs just to survive, instantly we would save our country hundreds of billions of dollars over the years.

You know why so many people now have jobs but can't pay their bills? Because Obamacare 'fundamentally transformed' the American economy into one in which poorer workers are only able to obtain part-time work -- and not even thirty hours a week of it, so that the company won't be on the hook for their newly-expensive health care costs. That means you need two jobs to make ends meet, and jobs remain hard to come by -- at least for native born Americans, as government immigration policies and refusal to enforce the law have flooded the markets with cheap foreign labor, and trade packages like the Obama-backed TPP have lowered the cost of shipping jobs overseas.

All of these problems have been caused by the government going outside its Constitutional charter. They're all mutually reinforcing problems: meddle with the health insurance industry, screw up wages and hours for workers. Raise the minimum wage to try to return us to a situation in which people can earn a living without government assistance, and you put people out of work (you really do) and make it more attractive to ship jobs overseas. Good news, though: shipping American jobs overseas is easier than ever, thanks to our negotiated-in-secret trade packet that cedes sovereign national authority to un-elected committees made up of non-Americans whose rulings unsurprisingly favor non-American interests.

Allow me to suggest a modification of the thesis. It's not that President Obama is as smart as you think he is. It's that he's not nearly as smart as he thinks he is.

What does this say about your side?

What does it say about your positions when you argue that a mass murdering, child killing, honest to God villain would probably support them.  And this pleases you?

Now That You Mention It, This Does Sound Like An Odd Decision

Taranto mocks Governor Jerry Brown of California for approving state-assisted suicide, but not experimental drugs that might save your life. In other news, the Governor also opposes improving handgun laws so that more people can readily defend themselves... because he thinks guns lead to too many suicides.

The NRA Comes Out Swinging

The National Rifle Association was a little slow to respond to the President's call for 'Australian'-style gun confiscation. I checked their website the day of the speech and even after. The President really threw them the kind of ball they know how to hit. I figured they'd come out swinging:



So I was a bit surprised that they took a few days to get a sense of the field, and perhaps to give their opponents some rope with which to hang themselves. If so, it worked. Not only did they end up getting to hit the hanging curve, they waited long enough for Mrs. Clinton to take a position that they can beat like a drum all the way through 2016 -- assuming she manages to stay in the race. Or out of prison.

Genocide and Personal Self-Defense

A meditation on an individual right that used to be treasured by the political left at least as much as the political right.

Of course, the Second Amendment doesn't only protect an individual right: it also protects the right to organize as militia. That may be the part we're missing in this discussion, both as applies to resisting armed tyrannical units -- the Waffen SS were a paramilitary, not a military force -- and as applies to a more coherent defense against active shooters. The citizen as officer of the state should be armed, trained, but also integrated as a potential actor into the official planning for responses. Much can be done by teaching citizens not only how to use a firearm to defend themselves and their immediate space, but how to link up and work together in the face of a common threat.

Gaza Declares a Curfew in Israel

A Palestinian cleric, brandishing a knife, commands his brothers to stab Jews. 'Now we know why the Jews built walls around Jerusalem: to keep their throats from being cut.'

Well, the walls you see around the Old City today were built by the Turks. But the purpose was the same. He is, in this limited way, correct: that is what walls are for. They are to protect the goods of civilization from the barbarians outside.

Israel has become incredibly isolated in the last few weeks. Even a month ago, it was possible to believe that Israel could unilaterally destroy Iran's nuclear program if it decided it had no other choice. Such action would have required them to become open about their possession of nuclear weapons, most likely: even our ground-penetrating conventional weapons might not accomplish the task. If we were going to take military action against Iran, it would be better to go in on the ground and use sappers, reserving the air forces to pin down and destroy the IRGC units that tried to stop us.

With the Russians deploying air forces and advanced anti-aircraft weapons in Syria, however, the odds that Israel even could stop Iran have lengthened considerably. Indeed, at this point it will be difficult for us to maintain our limited deployment in Iraq. Those forces are cut off in every direction, a danger that I wonder if the Obama administration has begun to ponder. They would probably be allowed to withdraw, if they go now. Alternatively we could send up a force through Kuwait to provide them a salient through which they could withdraw even in the face of Iranian opposition. But they are completely exposed to the whims of our enemies as it stands. They are even sharing basing with Iranian militias.

In time the logic of that will play out one way or the other. Either we will go, or our forces will serve as hostages for our good behavior, or they will be killed in a deniable act of war ordered by Iran but carried out by proxies they need not acknowledge.

Israel is very much alone at the moment. It would take very bold action for America to protect them, action that would need to be both bold and wise if it was not to set off a war with Russia. We do not currently have the leadership for such action. Our civilian leaders are neither bold nor wise, not in their carrying out of foreign policy in the Middle East, and Central Command is dogged by a scandal that reaches to its highest levels. It will be some time before that could possibly change for the better, and at this point it must be doubtful that it ever does.

Killing as a Moral Good

A comparison of Just War arguments.

Ten Seconds to Midnight

Unconfirmed reports indicate Turkey may have shot down a Russian fighter that violated its airspace. If you've been watching the news, there have been two recent reports that Russian fighters (or possibly Syrian ones -- it is unclear that Russia is operating MiG29s in the area) had locked on to Turkish fighters for extended periods this last week. Turkey's patience with such antics may have worn out.

Turkey, where bombs targeting pro-democracy protesters killed at least 97 today, is dangerously unstable and can ill-afford to appear weak. Russian provocation may have run up on a target that has less to lose from fighting back than from not fighting back. Still, Turkey is a NATO "ally" -- in fact, they've stabbed us in the back several times -- and we are at least in theory obligated to respond to an attack on Turkey as we would to an attack on the United States.

Oh, by the way, remember how we discussed a few months ago how the US would be without an aircraft carrier in the region for the first time in recent history? That aircraft carrier just left the area. Russian naval vessels have been pouring in, however.

Autocorrect

NSFW

We're all on the same hook

Kevin Williamson on why there's no such thing as "raising taxes, but only on the rich," or "increasing regulation, but only on Big Business."

Setting the record straight

So I saw this on my social media today:

And it's cute, but completely wrong.

“We pledge our blood. We will not comply.”

The largest civil disobedience rally in American history just happened.

“This isn’t just a protest. We are here to openly violate the law.” Attendees publicly transferred their guns to each other in violation of I-591’s background check provisions, and some even bought and sold guns just a few feet away from law enforcement. A fire pit blazed throughout the rally, and at the conclusion, gun owners lined up to burn their concealed weapons permits. A petition was circulated affirming gun owners’ refusal to follow I-594, which ended with, “We pledge our blood. We will not comply.”

As the RSVPs in advance of the rally grew to over 6,000, the police – most who probably detest I-594 – decided not to enforce the law.

Gun control advocates need to understand that this is different from other issues. Immigration, free exercise of religion, all the rest of it: violations of those things can be solved later at the ballot box, or sometimes in court. When you demand that we surrender our arms, we understand that to mean that we will never again be able to set the violations right.

In the fantasy of gun control advocates, they'll just be able to order it done -- Second Amendment notwithstanding -- and their agents, the state, will enforce their rule. In practice, they should take on board that there is absolutely no guarantee that the police will enforce unconstitutional laws in the face of armed resistance. For one thing, a lot of the police are on our side. The sheriff's office that responded to the last mass shooting is on the record that they will not enforce unconstitutional orders to disarm the public. The Oath Keepers, which contains military, police, and veteran members have listed orders of this type as first among the sort they will regard as criminal and will not enforce. While it is unclear how many actual members they have, if a crisis came and they stood firm, many who sympathize would be forced to take a stand one way or the other.

How high do you suppose the percentage would get of servicemembers and police who reject such an unconstitutional order? I don't have any way to guess about the police. Among the military, though, it seems like a real probability that it could break fifty percent. More than forty percent of the military is Southern, where gun-rights sentiment runs strongest. Assuming that they broke 75/25 against the order, that would get you to better than thirty percent right there. If the right leaders -- and respected, retired leaders -- were to endorse the refusal as a violation of the military oath, it might get well above fifty percent.

Even if they didn't refuse to comply, but elected to "obey orders in the least likely way to bring about the intended result," there would be enough of them to foil the order. There's a reasonable chance that an order like this could provoke a genuine mutiny, because it would be so clearly a unilateral attempt to overwrite the Constitution by the will of a single political figure. If it didn't produce a refusal to obey orders, I might even say, it would be to the enduring shame of every one who took the military oath. Each one swears: "I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; [and] that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same." What clearer example of a domestic enemy of the Constitution could you ask? What clearer example of tyranny? What does true faith and allegiance to the Constitution mean, if it does not mean refusing to participate in its violation?

D29 in Georgia

I had an opportunity to sit down for lunch with our own D29. We met at a pizza joint that happens to share a birthplace and year with me, the "Mellow Mushroom." I think it's the best pizza in Georgia, although you can now get it in many cities in other states.

I was somewhat amused because he was worried that it would be hard for us to recognize each other. I told him, "You won't have any trouble recognizing me. I'll be the biker with the big beard, and the jacket painted with my coat of arms." Though I make no attempt to stand out from the crowd, I've noticed that I have only the smallest potential to blend into any given social background.

The conversation was pleasant, treating not only religion and politics but history and places worth visiting across the United States. It was good to meet one of our long-standing companions over a good meal, and on a fine October afternoon.

Old-fashioned kids' books

A lazy day of Gutenberging allows me to relish 19th-century juvenile literature.  This one, "Lion Ben of Elm Island" (Rev. Elijah Kellogg, 1869), is about a small early-American community in Maine.  Not much plot or suspense, just families and towns, a more primitive Mayberry RFD, including details of how people build their houses, make their livings, and raise their kids:

He was neither in his own opinion, nor by profession, a religious man; but the teachings of a pious mother had laid deep in his young heart the foundation of faith and love. When torn from her by the savages, in the solitude of mighty forests, he had pored and prayed over them, till they ripened into a heartfelt love for Him "who causeth the grass to grow for cattle, and herb for the service of man."

His teachings were therefore of such a nature, that while divested of the stiffness generally connected with all attempts at advice or instruction, they deepened every good impression, and stirred the young heart to the quick.

A most silly and hurtful notion, often entertained by young people in respect to religion, is, that it has a tendency to make people narrow-minded, or, as they phrase it, meeching. Such a feeling was effectually repressed, as they listened to ideas of that nature from one who hesitated not to grapple with the fiercest beasts of the forest, and bore on his person the scars of many wounds. His influence over them was very much increased, for the reason that he seemed anxious to make them happy in this world, as well as the other; inculcated with great earnestness those principles which lie at the bottom of thrift, competence, and the well-being of society.

Religious discourse from their parents, the catechising of the minister, advice in respect to their conduct in life, might be quite dry and uninteresting; but with what power to attract and move were the same ideas invested, as they fell from the lips of the hunter and warrior, on a wild sea-beach, amid the roar of breakers; in some sunny nook of the hills, with the rifle across his knees, made juicy and attractive by his graphic language; not thrust upon them against the stomach of their sense, but, like the teachings of the great Parent of nature, in harmony with bursting buds, the springing grass, shading into a deeper green, or mingling in their ear with the brook's low murmur, and the music of summer winds among the foliage,--thus imperceptibly, as the increase of their strengthening sinews, growing up with, and moulding the very habit of their thoughts!

Eaten Alive

Senator Cruz on the hunt.

Headline: "Homeowner Stops Three Robbers By Pleading for Mercy."

"Just Kidding. He Shot Them."

Yay, A Tyrant To Rule Us!

Ezra Klein's shark-jumping website explains that emailgate tells us that Hillary would be perfect as President: she wouldn't let her exercise of power be controlled by anything at all. "Liberals need an iron fist in the White House to make progress."

Not big fans of the Founders, their idea of separation of powers, checks and balances, or the Constitution? Vote H!

"Globalization" = "human cooperation"

Kevin Williamson digs into Paul Theroux for his smug and ignorant economics:

Theroux may not have picked this up this tidbit while growing up on the mean suburban streets of Medford, Mass., but the fact is that given a choice between a) picking cotton and b) almost anything else, the vast majority of people choose b. (Or at least they used to; picking cotton is a pretty good job now.) They didn’t lose their jobs to mechanization — they were liberated from them by new economic development.

It is emphatically not the case that the South, or the United States in general, engages in less manufacturing today than it did in the so-called golden age of the postwar era (during which years a lot of poor people in the South, members of my family included, supplemented the wages they were earning during the manufacturing boom by . . . picking cotton, by hand, and being paid by the pound). We manufacture much more today than we did in the 1950s, and we grow a lot more cotton, too — and both enterprises require fewer workers today than they did back then. When one worker can produce what ten workers used to produce, or a hundred, wages go up, which is why you can make $100,000 a year harvesting cotton today, massive capital investments and innovation having turned what was once the work of slaves into a fairly lucrative skilled occupation.

* * *

Just as the gentlemen of the Times were putting the headline on Theroux’s daft little tantrum, the World Bank published its estimate that this year — this year, not at some point in the happy-happy future — the number of people living in extreme poverty on this planet will dip below 10 percent for the first time in the history of the human species. Change will always inconvenience somebody, it is true, and those great jobs sewing underwear in Southern factories for $100 a week no longer exist. Famine no longer exists and several million formerly poor people get to eat, and the terrible tradeoff is what? A fellow who used to work in a sneaker factory has to go hustle real estate or become a restaurant proprietor? Meanwhile, the poor people of Mississippi, still our poorest state, on average have to get by on a mere 118 percent of the median income in France.

What "coming out" looks like now

This article caught my eye because Johnny Depp's 16-year-old daughter, who is enjoying a burgeoning career as a model, looks almost exactly like her father in his youth.  (Not a bad thing; she's beautiful.)  But then I was arrested by this throwaway line:

The budding model, whose mother is French actress Vanessa Paradis, is also taking part in the Self Evident Project, which is an accumulation of 10,000 Americans who place somewhere on the LGBTQI spectrum. The teenager revealed in August that she falls somewhere on the spectrum.

Well, who doesn't? At least, I've forgotten what "Q" and "I" stand for, but whatever they are I imagine I'm in there somewhere. Even if you're at one extreme, aren't you still on the spectrum?

Harsh Truths

It is rare that there is any other kind.  But those who willfully ignore facts will find the truth harsher than most.

You Know What Happens If You Talk Too Much

I can't answer for the visuals on these videos. But turn up the sound.

30 Ways to Be a Modern Woman

After Grim's game with the topic of the modern man, I ran into and posted a link to a fisking of the original NYT article on the blog Cedar Writes. The main author there, Cedar Sanderson, has put up a commenter-suggested list of 30 ways to be a modern woman, including such things as:

6. How about “The Modern Woman has a gun, because the Modern Man is apparently too much of a wuss to protect his family”? — Tom Knighton

30. A modern woman is confident in her ability to defend herself but will allow men to defend her if they have superior firepower. — Karen D.

There is kind of a theme going on over there.

Turns out Cedar Sanderson is also an Air Force brat turned novelist.

In Which We Wholeheartedly Support Bernie Sanders

The TPP has to die. You've heard me rail against it before. The fact is, though, after the Iran deal none of us can support any treaty this administration has negotiated. Because of the secret deals in the Iran deal, we simply can't have any faith that we're being admitted into the confidence of the administration. As citizens, we have to regard that as an affront to the basic trust on which the Republic is based.

No secret deals. No deals at all by this administration. Run it on the rocks. You can't be sure what it says, but you can be sure that's better than it deserves.

Gird Your Loins

A how-to guide.

It reminds me of the different ways of wrapping and tying the Scottish great kilt.

Didn't It Rain?

It sure did, Sister Rosetta.

"It is no flippancy to say of the god Pan that he soon showed the cloven hoof."

In which the 21st century continues its conspiracy to prove right a host of early-20th century British conservatives. Yesterday it may have been Kipling or Lewis. Today it's G. K. Chesterton.

Augustus Sol Invictus, Floridian former lawyer and current Libertarian candidate for Senate, once described himself as “of genius intellect,” “God’s gift to humankind where the English language is concerned,” and “everything you ever wanted to be.” Critics describe him as “a self-proclaimed fascist” and “absolute insanity.” One time, he killed a goat and drank its blood.

Other members of the Libertarian party, in an effort to disown Invictus and his calls for open revolt against the government, have repeatedly brought up rumors that Invictus participated in a pagan sacrifice. And now, according to the AP, he’s owned up to it: “I did sacrifice a goat. I know that’s probably a quibble in the mind of most Americans,” he said. “I sacrificed an animal to the god of the wilderness ... Yes, I drank the goat’s blood.”

Chesterton wrote:

All the same, it will be as well if Jones does not worship the sun and moon. If he does, there is a tendency for him to imitate them; to say, that because the sun burns insects alive, he may burn insects alive....

Nature worship is natural enough while the society is young, or, in other words, Pantheism is all right as long as it is the worship of Pan. But Nature has another side which experience and sin are not slow in finding out, and it is no flippancy to say of the god Pan that he soon showed the cloven hoof. The only objection to Natural Religion is that somehow it always becomes unnatural. A man loves Nature in the morning for her innocence and amiability, and at nightfall, if he is loving her still, it is for her darkness and her cruelty. He washes at dawn in clear water as did the Wise Man of the Stoics, yet, somehow at the dark end of the day, he is bathing in hot bull's blood, as did Julian the Apostate.

I suppose we all know enough Latin to know the translation of "Augustus Sol Invictus."

2.3

An audit of mass shooting events finds that the ones stopped by police average twelve more dead than the ones stopped by citizens on the scene. Not that the police are bad at it, of course. They're just further away. When citizens are there who have the capacity to stop these shootings, the average death toll is only 2.3.

UPDATE: Interesting point raised by Glenn Reynolds. In response to a post by Volokh called "Do civilians with guns ever stop mass shootings?" he wrote, "Of course, if it’s stopped early, it’s never a mass shooting. . . ."

Turns out that the FBI definition requires four victims to achieve the "mass" standard. The average death toll when civilians stop it is 2.3. More, the author of that piece notes:

I found only one example of a shooter stopped by civilians who killed more than 3 people. Jared Loughner killed 6 people in Tucson, Arizona before he was tackled by two civilians. Maybe it’d have been less if one of those two men were armed.... If you compare the average deaths in a shooting rampage stopped by armed civilians to unarmed civilians you get 1.8 and 2.6, but that’s not nearly as significant as the difference between a proactive heroic civilian, and a cowering civilian who waits for police.

So, do civilians stop mass killings? Almost never -- since when civilians stop them, they usually don't rise to the level of mass murder, and thus don't end up in the same statistical category.

Carson Has a Sense of Humor

Or at least the people who design his campaign apparel do.

For the Ace of Spades crowd: I got a fever, and the only prescription is more Carson

For the Chive On crowd: Keep Calm and Carson On

For the kids: Future Neurosurgeon & President

And for those who recycle: It's not brain surgery

Having a Daughter?

Consider one of these awesome Anglo-Saxon names for girls. If I had a daughter, I might well name her "Blaedswith."

Speak the Truth

Consider a young man who has, since the shooting in Oregon on Thursday, shared every pro-gun-control theme that came across his desk. Last night, he told me he was thinking of getting a gun and a carry permit. It's safe to tell me this, and to seek advice on how to do it and what models would be wise. In public, though, he clearly feels he must aggressively signal his "virtue" on this and other liberal agenda issues. One gets the sense that he's doing it largely to try to appear attractive to young women of his generation. It's not at all what he really thinks, deep down. It's what he feels is safe to express.

This was brought to my mind this morning when I read this heart-felt article from a young woman who is a little ashamed about how much she loves being a mother. I know a young woman, about the same age as the young man I started with, who has similar feelings. She is a feminist philosopher, but came to me a few times after the birth of her sons to express a sense that being a mother was better than everything else she'd ever known. She wanted to ask someone who would hear the question with understanding: was that wrong for her to feel?

Of course it's not wrong.

It makes sense to be circumspect about your political views in polite company: religion and politics are the perennial topics to avoid at a dinner party. That's not what is going on here, though. They are talking about their views all the time in public. They're just committed to signalling support for views they don't really hold but are afraid to question, or even not to affirm loudly and publicly.

Herodotus tells us that the ancient Persians raised their noble sons with only three kinds of education. They taught them "to ride, shoot straight, and speak the truth." Obviously I think that is shortsighted: many more things should be known, so that you can explore the walls of the world, understand the mathematics that will let you track the leading edge of physics, peer into deep metaphysical wells, contemplate the limits of language and thought.

Yet the first lessons should not get lost. That there is much more to know does not change the fact that the Persians were right about the core of a good and noble life. Ride. Shoot straight. Speak the truth.

Rearden metal

Interesting Popular Mechanics article about a new, lighter, stronger steel.