America in 2016, As Viewed from Classical Athens

Plato, in Laws III, talks about the two sorts of ruin that afflicted Persia and Athens. It strikes a familiar chord on both terms. How familiar does this sound, when thinking of the corruption of the Clintons or the endless regulation of the Obama faction?

We remarked that the Persians grew worse and worse. And we affirm the reason of this to have been, that they too much diminished the freedom of the people, and introduced too much of despotism, and so destroyed friendship and community of feeling. And when there is an end of these, no longer do the governors govern on behalf of their subjects or of the people, but on behalf of themselves; and if they think that they can gain ever so small an advantage for themselves, they devastate cities, and send fire and desolation among friendly races. And as they hate ruthlessly and horribly, so are they hated; and when they want the people to fight for them, they find no community of feeling or willingness to risk their lives on their behalf[.]

As this faction pursues further restriction on our ancient liberties, now on guns as earlier on freedom of speech, religious liberty, freedom of association, and politically-incorrect expression, they find there is no trust left among the people. Why can we not discuss 'common sense gun regulations'?  Because no one can trust that such regulations are not a back door to confiscation.  We are unable to reason together because of decades of bad faith.

Who will enforce these new laws in any case?  Will the people they want to fight for them comply?  Will the police, whom they have hated upon ruthlessly and horribly for more than a year?  Will the military, which is drawn in plurality from the part of the country they hate most ruthlessly and horribly of all?

As for the right, or what passes for it among common Americans today, the situation is a wave of support for... a reality-TV judge.

[A]s time went on, the poets themselves introduced the reign of vulgar and lawless innovation.... And by composing such licentious works, and adding to them words as licentious, they have inspired the multitude with lawlessness and boldness, and made them fancy that they can judge for themselves about melody and song. And in this way the theatres from being mute have become vocal, as though they had understanding of good and bad in music and poetry; and instead of an aristocracy, an evil sort of theatrocracy has grown up. For if the democracy which judged had only consisted of educated persons, no fatal harm would have been done; but in music there first arose the universal conceit of omniscience and general lawlessness;-freedom came following afterwards, and men, fancying that they knew what they did not know, had no longer any fear, and the absence of fear begets shamelessness.

Donald Trump is a theatrocrat if ever there was one. His judgments are judgments of the sort Plato fixes his gaze upon here, and he has like the theatrocrat of old swayed the audience into believing that they can judge as well. Watching these shows, and rendering judgments as if they knew what they were talking about, is now the pastime of millions. I have seen only enough of these shows to know that everyone in the audience is boldly stating their opinion about which chef did best in the competition -- though they have never studied cooking, and never tasted the food.

They love Trump because he is bold in just this way:  loudly, fearlessly, and in ignorance. This is the last power they sometimes feel they have, to judge as he does. They want to believe in it.

There is a real danger that he will win. There is a very powerful wind at his back. There is a despair eating the heart of middle aged Americans without college. When we see a demographic collapse brought on by suicide, alcohol and drugs, unheard of except among Russian men after the fall of the Soviet Union, we know we are talking about something much more powerful than a passing fancy. It is the pain of a people who have come to believe that their lives are worse than wasted, who are ashamed to live without work or on government aid, who are in pain from finding themselves useless and without a place or a point. They are not only hurt, but righteously angry.

This has been brought on by the pressures against this class of our fellow Americans brought by those who support massive immigration and globalization, either because they hoped to fundamentally change the nature of America, or because they sought campaign donations from corporations that benefit from cheaper labor. It is the fault of those who have ensured that all new jobs since the start of the recession have gone to immigrants. They have called down this whirlwind.

I do not distrust my fellow Americans, especially not the poor and downtrodden members of this class, who have suffered so much at the hands of those who dare to think themselves their betters.  I feel a great loyalty to them, and am angry at how they have been betrayed by the government -- of both parties -- which owed them fellowship and loyalty.  It is only that it is hard to think clearly in pain and anger, as I know too well myself.

From social media

Heh.

You May Find This Triggering

Project Veritas strikes again.

"Get Over It"

Hillary Clinton gives some advice to Africa.

It's not that different from the advice the President gave when he spoke in Kenya.

If you are an American, you should ask yourself: why are they giving you different advice?

Asking for her hand. A lesson.

So normally, I don't bother complaining about music or other elements of popular culture.  Partly because it does no good, but mostly because the general solution is simple, change the station.  But There is a song out there that annoys me.  Less because it is bad (though that is also true) but mostly for the message it passes along to young men.  You are welcome to give it a listen here, though I don't recommend it save to satisfy curiosity, but I will include the relevant lyrics below.

Kant and Warning Labels

If I were crafting a warning label for Kant's works,* it would not read as this one does:

This book is a product of its time and does not reflect the same values as it would if it were written today. Parents might wish to discuss with their children how views on race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and interpersonal relations have changed since this book was written before allowing them to read this classic work.

First of all, any parents who are reading Kant's critiques with their children deserve our robust congratulations and are in no need of further guidance.

Secondly, the thing you really need to be warned about with Kant is that he doesn't use words like anyone else you know. You're going to encounter a lot of words that you think you recognize from a lifetime of reading, yet when Kant uses them all together they are not going to make any sense. This is because he made up his own language. Even in German, the problem is serious according to friends fluent in that tongue; in translation, it is severe. Assume that any word over two or three syllables is a technical term that means something specific for Kant that it never means for anyone else, and that you need to find out just what that meaning is to understand what he's trying to tell you.

Those are my first and second thoughts. Open Culture comes up with its own:

First, we must point out Wilder Publications’ strange certainty that a hypothetical Kant of today would express his ideas in tolerant and liberal language. The supposition has the effect of patronizing the dead philosopher and of absolving him of any responsibility for his blind spots and prejudices, assuming that he meant well but was simply a blinkered and unfortunate “product” of his time.

But who’s to say that Kant didn’t damn well mean his comments that offend our sensibilities today, and wouldn’t still mean them now were he somehow resurrected and forced to update his major works?

...

Secondly, who is this edition for?

Homeschoolers, apparently. The assumption that parents will be reading this with their children suggests to me that homeschooling may be a much better form of education than anything else going.

* (I want credit for avoiding in the headline all the horrible puns suggested by this story: "I Kant Believe This Publisher's Gall" and the like.)

Vortex

Einstein was right again.

Time and space, according to Einstein's theories of relativity, are woven together, forming a four-dimensional fabric called "space-time." The mass of Earth dimples this fabric, much like a heavy person sitting in the middle of a trampoline. Gravity, says Einstein, is simply the motion of objects following the curvaceous lines of the dimple. If Earth were stationary, that would be the end of the story. But Earth is not stationary. Our planet spins, and the spin should twist the dimple, slightly, pulling it around into a 4-dimensional swirl. This is what GP-B went to space in 2004 to check.

This Autumn, If It Were a Celtic Punk Song

Although without the clappy happy ending.

Or maybe

Still, my woes are my own danged fault. (Philosophy joke: What does the repentant solipsist say? It's all my fault!)

So, to happy endings ...

When Google Translate Hates Your Language

Galicia celebrates a local delicacy.

President Obama: You Know, We Could Use More Criminals In Government

I mean, I would have thought there to be no shortage.

Well, you know how on job applications, there's sometimes a little box that asks whether or not you've been convicted of a crime? With the wave of a pen, Obama just ordered that box to be removed from applications for jobs within the federal government, saying, "We can't dismiss people out of hand simply because of a mistake they made in the past."

You really can't make this stuff up.

"Simply because of a mistake" is fair enough, as applied to certain offenses. One might have said, "We shall no longer discriminate against certain kinds of offenses for certain kinds of positions." You could do a double-blind sort of thing with Federal hiring -- they employ enough people to do it -- whereby the first would filter to ensure that the crimes were of the right type to be ignored, and forward the listings stripped of criminal history to the actual hiring committee.

But, no. Instead, we won't consider criminal history... in hiring for government jobs, which come with government power... and somehow this makes sense? Somehow this is a good idea we should all get behind?

A Political Philosophy Wrapped in a Rant

This piece is really about the DMV not shining in comparison with the free market -- a point against which none of us are likely to argue -- but it is framed in an interesting account of the state.

[B]anditry frequently degenerates into a protection racket, a relatively modest tax on criminal enterprises and non-criminal enterprises alike. Protection rackets have their own challenges: For one thing, you actually do have to provide some protection, mainly from other predators like you. Over the years, economic success and administrative demands eventually transform bands of roving bandits into bands of stationary bandits. One popular theory of the state — one that is pretty well-supported by the historical evidence in the European context — is that this is where governments come from: protection rackets that survive for a long enough period of time that they take on a patina of legitimacy. At some point, Romulus-and-Remus stories are invented to explain that the local Mafiosi have not only historical roots but divine sanction.

Cf. Aristotle's account:

The family is the association established by nature for the supply of men's everyday wants, and the members of it are called by Charondas 'companions of the cupboard,' and by Epimenides the Cretan, 'companions of the manger.' But when several families are united, and the association aims at something more than the supply of daily needs, the first society to be formed is the village. And the most natural form of the village appears to be that of a colony from the family, composed of the children and grandchildren, who are said to be suckled 'with the same milk.'...

When several villages are united in a single complete community, large enough to be nearly or quite self-sufficing, the state comes into existence, originating in the bare needs of life, and continuing in existence for the sake of a good life. And therefore, if the earlier forms of society are natural, so is the state, for it is the end of them, and the nature of a thing is its end. For what each thing is when fully developed, we call its nature, whether we are speaking of a man, a horse, or a family. Besides, the final cause and end of a thing is the best, and to be self-sufficing is the end and the best.

I would say that there is a sense in which both are true for America, for example: the frontier was settled by families who came together in marriages and formed ever-stronger communities (Aristotle), with very limited support from a distant government that claimed authority and the right to tax (Williamson). The American Revolution is the elimination of the 'stationary bandits' by the Aristotelian states that had formed on the frontier. So we began in the right way, surely.

And yet here we are.

We need a better account, one that does not look for the evil as bred in the bone, but one that recognizes the evil as a corruption of what was once healthy. It won't lie in the traditional analyses of what went wrong with America -- not in slavery or racism, I mean, for America has proceeded against those evils as resolutely through its history as any diverse nation is likely to do. It is, rather, a turning away from the favoring of the small Aristotelian cells of natural government in favor of a stronger, alien state. It is, likewise, about the turning away from the natural producer of the smaller Aristotelian governments -- the family, and those brotherhoods of table and church that Aristotle describes later in the Politics:

It is clear then that a state is not a mere society, having a common place, established for the prevention of mutual crime and for the sake of exchange. These are conditions without which a state cannot exist; but all of them together do not constitute a state, which is a community of families and aggregations of families in well-being, for the sake of a perfect and self-sufficing life. Such a community can only be established among those who live in the same place and intermarry. Hence arise in cities family connections, brotherhoods, common sacrifices, amusements which draw men together. But these are created by friendship, for the will to live together is friendship. The end of the state is the good life, and these are the means towards it. And the state is the union of families and villages in a perfect and self-sufficing life, by which we mean a happy and honorable life.

I suppose we might say that it is a turning away from the natural toward the artificial, but that wouldn't do for Aristotle: he thought it was the purpose of art to bring to fulfillment and perfection that which nature had, for whatever reason, left incomplete or imperfect.

Perhaps it is a good place to begin an inquiry, in any case. There are levels of government and forms of governance that, if it were all to disappear tomorrow, we families would move to come together and re-establish. These levels and forms are healthy. What more?

The Port of Amsterdam -- SAIL 2015

OPM

I got a note in the mail today from the Federal Government's Office of Personnel Management, letting me know that my security clearance information was among those stolen in the massive data breach we've read about. They've taken a page from Target -- the store, that favorite of Michelle Obama's -- by offering me three years of free identity theft protection by way of compensation.

Which is all well and good, but -- like the President's own pre-announced withdrawal timeline for his Afghanistan surge -- that only tells the Chinese how long they have to wait before going gangbusters with the stolen data. My personal interests aside, out of a simple concern with national security they ought to flag my data (and all our data that was stolen) forever, not for three years. Whoever stole this stuff knows everything there is to know about where I've lived and worked, has on file personal references from people who have been interviewed in support to the investigation, and so forth. You could obtain any kind of paperwork from the government, or for that matter from private banks, based on what's in that file.

Fair enough if the three years is a stopgap while they put something else in place to ensure that the stolen data can't be used by the hackers, although it's not clear what that "something" might be. Perhaps a marker that anyone affected must be handled on a different basis than past information, should they need new clearances (or loans).

Still, three years is not that long a time. The scale of this breach, targeting as it did those with security clearances, ought to merit a much more permanent and serious response. That's true even if the government only cares about its own security, and not at all about those of us who are personally compromised.

Once in a lifetime

From Maggie's Farm, images of the desert bloom resulting from historic rains in the driest place on Earth.

That explains it

A retread, but still a Halloween-worthy explanation of the country's economic woes.

But that's a serious allegation!

Apparently nothing  can ever come to light that will keep a lot of MSM commentators from expressing uncomprehending shock at the notion that Hillary Clinton lied about Benghazi.  In this interview, Charlie Rose asks in confused irritation what possible motive she could have had.  Rubio gamely replies that it was a campaign tactic in the final weeks of the 2012 presidential election.  "But that's a very serious allegation!" Rose stutters, for all the world as if no one had ever brought it to the attention of his colleagues until that moment, or as if they'd have been digging into the matter before now if only they'd known.  Rose then tries to argue that Clinton must have been in the dark, because the CIA kept changing its analysis--as if the changes in the talking points in the days following the attack had had anything to do with the untrammeled professional judgment of CIA analysts.  You have to wonder how much of this stuff Rose really believes, because it's hard to imagine that at this point he couldn't have made himself aware of the message-machine process during that eventful week, if he were willing to open his eyes.  Disagreeing with Rubio's interpretation of the facts I could almost accept, but claiming to be innocent of the controversy is a stretch.  Rose acts as if Rubio had suddenly decided to blame the situation on an attack from Mars.

What I rather like about the repeated display, however, is that it gives Rubio yet more opportunities to lay out the evidence to viewers who, like Rose, perhaps are hearing the facts for the first time.  A few may become curious.

Fun to Shoot

Powerline has the right attitude. I'm going to take the day off to enjoy this beautiful fall weather while it lasts. Do some hiking, and then perhaps later...

Taking it back

Bookworm Room's on fire with the videos lately.  There's a Democratic Debate Bad Lip Reading video up, but also this PSA applicable to the coming weekend:

Immoderate moderators

Much of the fireworks in last night's debate centered on the media's habit of beclowning itself.  The Democratic-operatives-with-a-byline in charge of moderating the debate were supposed to be conducting a session on "economic issues."  This is apparently what they think economic issues look like:

• A question about Rubio’s Senate attendance, driven by a newspaper editorial.
• A question about Jeb’s decline in the polls.
• A question about Hewlett-Packard’s stock performance while Carly Fiorina was the CEO.
• A question about Rubio’s family finances and his use of some retirement dollars.
• A question assuming the veracity of the “women earn 77 percent as much as men” canard. Wow. Just wow.
• A question to Ben Carson about Costco’s policy on benefits for employees in same-sex relationships.
• A question to Mike Huckabee about whether Trump has the moral authority to unite America. Wow again.
  

Self help

If you don't follow The Walking Dead--as I don't--you should skip all the written part of this HotAir piece, but watch the video explaining how to deal with zombies.

Waco Update: Dallas News Editorial

Just in case you like the bottom line up front, they give it to you in their headline: "In Waco case, biker gangs earning more trust than prosecutors."

Is God a Fact, or an Opinion?

Not too long ago we had a surprisingly intense argument over the proper definition of 'fact' and 'opinion.' It was framed, and not wrongly, as a really central issue in the quest to develop virtuous citizens. The use of language and the meaning of core concepts of language does indeed have much to do with that. This is just why Socrates was always so interested in whether people could define the terms they were using: "justice," "piety," and the like. Could you give an account of the real nature of the concept you were naming? Or could you not?

(An aside: Socrates thus gets the best line in this cartoon.)

Today I mention it because of this 7th grader whose teacher insisted that anyone who said that "God is a fact" or that "God is an opinion" was wrong. The only correct answer was that "God is a myth."

Now, the way I was taught the distinction, "fact" and "opinion" were mutually exclusive categories that covered every possible statement. "Fact" meant "a statement that can be proven true or false." Opinion meant every other kind of statement.

Thus, "God is a myth" (in the sense of 'myth' as 'false tale') is either a fact or an opinion. Since the teacher thinks it can be proven correct, she is classifying this statement as a fact. But then she ought to recognize that she has entailed that "God is a fact" is true, since she thinks that God's existence can be proven false -- and a fact is the kind of statement that can be proven true or false.

On the other hand, if "God is a myth" is an opinion because it cannot be proven either way, then "God is a fact" is also an opinion. "God is an opinion" is thus a fact, while "God is a fact" is an opinion. That's fun.

In any case, it's all bad metaphysics. Those who think that they can prove God don't try to prove his existence, but rather his necessity: God's existence is of such a different nature than ours that no one believes that we can understand how God exists, but if God is necessary, then we must accept it though we don't understand it. See Avicenna's Metaphysics of The Healing. Aquinas summarizes the argument (far too briefly to give you the sense of it):

The third way is taken from possibility and necessity, and runs thus. We find in nature things that are possible to be and not to be, since they are found to be generated, and to corrupt, and consequently, they are possible to be and not to be. But it is impossible for these always to exist, for that which is possible not to be at some time is not. Therefore, if everything is possible not to be, then at one time there could have been nothing in existence. Now if this were true, even now there would be nothing in existence, because that which does not exist only begins to exist by something already existing. Therefore, if at one time nothing was in existence, it would have been impossible for anything to have begun to exist; and thus even now nothing would be in existence — which is absurd. Therefore, not all beings are merely possible, but there must exist something the existence of which is necessary. But every necessary thing either has its necessity caused by another, or not. Now it is impossible to go on to infinity in necessary things which have their necessity caused by another, as has been already proved in regard to efficient causes. Therefore we cannot but postulate the existence of some being having of itself its own necessity, and not receiving it from another, but rather causing in others their necessity. This all men speak of as God.

Now Aquinas describes that as a proof of God's existence, but goes on to note that by "existence" he means something extremely different from the "existence" that you or I have -- in other words, he isn't proving "existence" in the usual sense at all. This point he gets from Avicenna, I think, although frankly he could have drawn it from the Neoplatonists or Parmenides. All of these are dense arguments that require years of work to grapple with effectively.

That's work that the seventh grade teacher is unlikely to have done, which ought to provoke some humility -- except that she is doubtless ignorant enough of the whole set of arguments not to realize that it is work that needs to be done to grapple with the question in front of her. She is still trying to prove or disprove God as if God were to be proven in the same way as your postman.

So is God a fact, or an opinion? Both, of course. How could it be otherwise? All things follow from God, and thus all things must be prefigured in God. God is both provable in Avicenna's sense, and outside what can be thought of as a proof for Kant. And thus it is just as true to say that God is neither, of course: all these concepts of human language are limited, and God is not.

Paid the Taxman

Today I rode over to the county seat and had a conversation with a man I know only by face, who recognizes my face in return even though he only sees me twice a year. Once I year I ride over there and pay my tag fees for the various vehicles registered in my name. The other time I come to pay the taxes on my property here in the county. He and I have to talk every time I come because it is his job to physically search me before I am allowed into the building.

The conversation turned, ironically I thought, on his desire to lament just how much of our money the government takes in taxes. He is of course paid out of those taxes, and is fully employed as a cog in the wheel of the tax-collection machine. His job is to protect the taxman from me, and to ensure that said taxman only encounters people like me after we have been carefully checked for arms.

It always strikes me as strange. The same government licenses me to carry arms, has my fingerprints on file and has itself investigated my background. They know who I am. The same government pays for its operations out of money that I or people like me provide. In fact, the reason I ever go there is just to provide them with that money. I always show up and pay my bill as soon as it arrives even though I could wait months to pay it.

Of course, the reason I pay it so quickly is that if I should forget, the government will sell my house and land at auction and evict me. Perhaps that's why they are so unwilling to trust me with arms around them, even though I'm coming -- as I always do -- to pay them what they ask at the earliest opportunity. Their own deep-set bad faith undermines our relationship. They cannot trust their citizens not to use force against them, even the ones who have always played by the rules and who have volunteered to be investigated, because they know how quickly they intend to resort to force if I miss a payment.

Seems like there's got to be a better way. The relationship between the citizen and the state should be a kind of friendship, ideally. You watch The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and you can see how the citizen used to participate in local government, indeed how citizens to really be local government.

Even in this very rural corner of a fairly rural state, we've gotten far away from that ideal.

Popcorn

Via D29, an investigation into the Clinton Foundation.

[T]he foundation portrays itself as do-gooder nonprofit organization but a cursory look reveals questionable and incomplete disclosures of its activities and accounts, as well as incredible misspending of donor money, virtually since its inception.

Naturally, this can’t be stated in polite society. For example, the New York Times just had a story on the Clinton Foundation that found highly questionable conduct but buried it under the bland headline, “Rwanda Aid Shows Reach and Limits of Clinton Foundation.” Other stories have mentioned that the foundation has partnered with assorted dictators and robber barons. Among the latter is Canadian “mining magnate” (read: "penny stock artist") Frank Giustra, who donated millions to the foundation after Bill Clinton helped him land a mining concession for him in Kazakhstan....

However, the problems appear set to catch up with the foundation (now formally known as the Bill, Hillary, & Chelsea Clinton Foundation), which has until November 16 to amend more than ten years’ worth of state, federal and foreign filings. According to Charles Ortel, a financial whistleblower, it will be difficult if not impossible for the foundation to amend its financial returns without acknowledging accounting fraud and admitting that it generated substantial private gain for directors, insiders and Clinton cronies, all of which is against the law under an IRS rule called inurement.

OK. That could be interesting.

This aligns nicely with the Hall's interests

Entropy and Income Inequality

The Mises Institute adjusted individual income to deduct taxes and then add back in what one receives in 'benefits' from one's government. The result:

Since Sweden is held up as a sort of promised land by American socialists, let's compare it first. We find that, if it were to join the US as a state, Sweden would be poorer than all but 12 states, with a median income of $27,167.

Median residents in states like Colorado ($35,830), Massachusetts ($37,626), Virginia ($39,291), Washington ($36,343), and Utah ($36,036) have considerably higher incomes than Sweden.

With the exception of Luxembourg ($38,502), Norway ($35,528), and Switzerland ($35,083), all countries shown would fail to rank as high-income states were they to become part of the United States. In fact, most would fare worse than Mississippi, the poorest state.

For example, Mississippi has a higher median income ($23,017) than 18 countries measured here. The Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, and the United Kingdom all have median income levels below $23,000 and are thus below every single US state. Not surprisingly, the poorest OECD members (Chile, Mexico, and Turkey) have median incomes far below Mississippi.

Germany, Europe's economic powerhouse, has a median income ($25,528) level below all but 9 US states. Finland ranks with Germany in this regard ($25,730), and France's median income ($24,233) is lower than both Germany and Finland. Denmark fares better and has a median income ($27,304) below all but 13 US states.

No surprises here, though: there's significant entropy involved in taxing and spending. If you make $10,000 and I make $110,000, our average income is $60,000. If the government takes $50,000 from me to distribute to you, it's going to have to pay taxmen and bureaucrats to administer the program. You'll probably only get $25,000 of the money, the rest being lost to the systematic entropy. Our average income will now only be $47,500.

That's what these societies are striving for -- a more level field of incomes. That doesn't come without a cost.

In Praise of James Comey

I certainly hope that the author is right about our top G-man.

The fiercely independent head of the FBI is directing the investigation into Clinton’s use of a personal email server and attendant issues raised during the Benghazi inquiry, which could lead to indictments of the former Secretary of State or her various aides....

Comey has shown a nettlesome tendency to stray off the Obama reservation. Most recently, he challenged White House orthodoxy by linking the rise of homicides around the country to stepped-up scrutiny of the police. In a speech at the University of Chicago Law School last week, Mr. Comey described the “YouTube” effect that has created a “chill wind blowing through American law enforcement over the last year.” Police, he suggested, are so concerned about starring in a video that goes viral that they are attacking their job more tentatively to the detriment of law and order. The New York Times reported that Comey’s remarks “caught officials by surprise at the Justice Department, where his views are not shared at the top levels.”

Comey has also parted ways with Obama on the ‘Black Lives Matter’ controversy. In his speech in Chicago, the FBI director declared that “all lives matter” three times; at the White House, Obama was simultaneously defending the Black Lives Matter mantra while participating in a panel on criminal justice reform....

Comey has a reputation for integrity, a quality lauded by President Obama when he nominated the former Deputy Attorney General for his current post. Obama told how Comey prevented an ill Attorney General Ashcroft from being hoodwinked into reauthorizing a warrantless eavesdropping program, in the process standing up to President George W. Bush and putting his career on the line.

"He was prepared to give up the job he loved, rather than be a part of something that he felt was fundamentally wrong," Obama said.

All those qualities will be needed if he is to do the right thing here. No one expects it. The rule of law has collapsed so completely where the powerful -- or even the famous -- are concerned that there are pop-culture songs about how much you can get away with if you're a celebrity. Clinton is protected by both personal celebrity and deep ties to the rich and powerful among the ruling party. I doubt you could find three people in a hundred who really believe in their hearts that the government will call her to account for her casual, habitual violation of the laws governing classified information.

The author says "With James Comey leading the investigation, and unlikely to participate in any cover-up, [Republicans] should have faith in the system." It isn't just Republicans who doubt the system here. Democrats are also confident that she will face no charges. After the Justice Department long-investigated and then winked away Lois Lerner's moves at the IRS, nothing could be more plausible than that the law will go unenforced and the friends of the powerful will be protected from legal consequences. It would be eucastrophic if the FBI upheld its due and proper function in this case.

Beekeeping

John Cleese lists some of his favorite, but less-well known sketches from his career.

Budgetary Maneuvers

Exit question via Dan Foster: Would this budget deal have been this bad if Meadows and the Freedom Caucus hadn’t pushed Boehner out? The reason it’s two years instead of one and concedes so much to the Democrats is chiefly because Boehner no longer has any fear of reprisals from the right. He made a bad long-term deal in order to take this topic off the table for his protege, Ryan, when he replaces him as Speaker.

I think I'd like to know what the goals are for the maneuvers. I assume TEA Party advocates don't have a veto-proof majority on this issue either. There are two possible things that you could be after, then:

1) A better compromise on the budgetary concerns,

2) Losing the budget fight while winning a political "optics" fight.

There is little reason to compromise for either side of the fight. The President's minority party in Congress can rely on his veto to back them up. The majority party might be willing to compromise, but the TEA Party element of the right-wing coalition has drawn strength from driving out people who compromise. They're shifting the party rightwards just by winning conflicts like this one.

It sounds like (2) is what is going on, then: let Ryan vote against the deal, but let the deal pass, thus allowing him to assume the Speakership without being tainted by having compromised on the budget. It will, as they say, remove the issue for a couple of years -- an important couple of years, within the context of the 2016 elections. Voters hate government shutdowns, and tend to blame Republicans for them, so that makes some sense.

It does have the advantage of opening room for Paul Ryan to claim to be on the side of the TEA Party wing. For the TEA Party to have claimed the Speakership of the House -- symbolically if not actually -- is a major advance for a party that only got started in 2010, and which is not even officially independent. If Ryan elects to go along with them, it will raise their credibility in the eyes of ordinary voters who may not understand what is and is not symbolic. The budget gets settled ugly, but that is likely to happen anyway.

I'm Sorry I Missed the Irish Breakfast Special

Clicked a link on Instapundit that led to an online war between the White Moose Cafe and the worldwide cabal of vegans. It's a funny way to start your Tuesday.

Also, educational: I found out in the comments that "vegan" is an old Indian word for "bad hunter."

Winning Votes

The Clinton campaign has probably locked up the Democratic nomination already. Nevertheless, she continues to do damage to herself for the general. Most recently, it was this:



Leftists are in an outrage, because "Sander's record as a feminist is as good as Clinton's." Ok, if you say so. Frankly, I doubt the statement is true. I expect that Sanders would prove to be a better feminist than Clinton, whose work as a lawyer and a First Lady has undermined that cause. I also doubt it matters. 'Who's the better feminist' is chasing a majority among the 18% of Americans who think they are feminists. That's probably not the margin of victory in a Presidential election.

More to the point, though, Clinton has to win votes to win the election. She's already in something of a bind with working class voters, both black and white, because of the economics. She'll be running as the heir to the current administration, whose health care plans have largely determined that most working class Americans are chasing part-time jobs without benefits -- part time jobs that start off as "seasonal" so you don't even make minimum wage for a year or two -- in an environment where all new jobs statistically have gone to immigrants.

She's got to win a massive percentage of women to make up for the men she's losing with remarks like this. She's got to win a massive percentage of the gun-control advocates to make up for the fact that they're a small minority among American voters. She'll have a huge enthusiasm gap given that black voters can't view her pro-immigration policies as otherwise than depressing their access to jobs and the pay that those jobs offer. She won't have access to anything like the Obama coalition, nor does she deserve to.

Of course, a lot depends on who her opponents in the general turn out to be -- and whether there will be one, or two.

Saint Crispin's Day

"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?