NYT Writers on Property and the West

First of all, you don't really own anything, so get that out of your heads.

An idea common among conservatives — and surely an assumption of the protesters in Oregon — is that the past fully explains private property. For example, perhaps you paid for your phone or were given it as a gift. That’s why you are entitled to it. So in general we might say that if you paid for something or were given something, then you are entitled to it.

But is that true? Suppose I steal your car and sell it to my friend Dugald. Is Dugald entitled to the car because he paid for it? You probably want to say “no.” Buying something doesn’t give you entitlement unless the seller was entitled to the thing first. So a transfer of property from one person to another is rendered illegitimate if the seller got the property through unjust means.

But now think back to your smartphone. What are the chances that the money you used to buy your phone can be traced backward through your employer, your employer’s customers, and so on back through history without passing through the hands of a serious injustice? Slim to none. The same can be said for the seller’s side of the transaction. Chances are excellent that your phone arrived in your hand only after the exploitation of workers, abuse of the environment, theft, fraud, human trafficking, or any number of deal-breaking injustices....

So despite its appeal to conservatives, the idea that history alone explains private property is hard to make good on. On this theory, the mere fact that we were given things or paid for things won’t determine whether we are entitled to those things. At worst the historical theory implies that no one is entitled to any private property. And if our property isn’t legitimately private, it’s hard to see how it’s unjust for the government or anyone else to take it from us.

Got that? It's hard to see how it's unjust for "the government or anyone else" to take your property.

So, should the government own all the land out West? Absolutely -- unless we give it back to the Native Americans.

Righteousness

AVI notices a change in the language.

I wonder what the shift portends. At one point it was helpful to degrade the very idea of righteousness as a means of advancing behaviors that were considered anti-social by society. Yet now they find that they need it, as a means of shaming a public that strongly disagrees with them on the issue they're currently devoted to advancing.

Being Stalked By A Predator

Want to rob a 65 year old woman?

The 65-year-old woman who was Bontaites’ alleged intended victim, told police she had stopped at Mobil on the Run, 1050 South Willow St., around 11:30 p.m. after leaving work. She got back on South Willow Street and stopped at a traffic light when she noticed a dark-colored sedan behind her. She told police she had “heightened concern” as the vehicle followed her into her apartment complex parking lot at 640 South Porter St.

The woman entered her apartment complex and noticed multiple vacant parking spots, so she parked as close to her building as possible hoping the other vehicle would vacate the area. Instead, the sedan parked close to her. She exited her vehicle and walked toward her apartment building. She immediately heard a vehicle door close and the sound of a person quickly walking up behind her.

How do you think this story turns out?

Illegal Guns in Chicago

From the city where there were nearly 470 murders last year, a story about the (already completely illegal) guns favored by the city's gangsters.

From that hierarchy, a few patterns emerge. The city’s criminals, for instance, prefer semiautomatic pistols to revolvers and generally seek out cheap junk guns. What’s also notable is the type of gun that doesn’t appear among the top models seized. In 2014, Chicago police recovered only three assault weapons associated with criminal incidents. “Often there’s a misimpression about the importance of assault guns and assault weapons, and it’s important to point out how rare that is,” says Phillip Cook, an economist at Duke University who studies underground gun markets. “The guns being used in Chicago for crime and murder are by and large very ordinary pistols.”

Indeed, they're not even especially powerful pistols, if you take a look at the chart. Aside from the one .357 Magnum, none of these firearms are capable of defeating even lightweight IIA body armor. The .357 can be stopped by full scale Type II armor. Glancing at a popular police body armor online store, it appears that they chiefly sell the even stronger IIIA and III armors.

So we have the tools we need to deal with this particular threat. Neither new laws nor new tools are necessary. As the NRA recently pointed out, the Federal government even has the laws it needs to send these drug gangsters away for as much as a decade each if they are caught with a gun.



This should be a solvable problem with existing laws. If anything, Chicago should move to make it easier for law-abiding citizens to defend themselves rather than looking for new restrictions on guns. They have the tools and the laws they need. We just need the President to do his actual job, rather than scheming for new restrictions on the rights of honest Americans.

Viking Stuff

Lars Walker is surrounded.

Woah

Headline: "Pentagon may upgrade hundreds of troops to possible Medals of Honor."

Lower standards across the board.

'A Depressing Election We Need'

The Washington Examiner hosts a comment on the current election:

For instance, the candidates leading the polls in either party — Hillary Clinton for the Democrats, Donald Trump for the Republicans — are not just viewed unfavorably by voters overall; they are the most unfavorably viewed by Americans out of all of the candidates running.

To put this in context, during the entire slog of the 2012 election, neither Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney sustained a brand as unfavorable as Clinton or Trump. John McCain, John Kerry and George W. Bush all enjoyed "favorables" of over 50 percent during their presidential campaigns, even though two out of the three were ultimately never elected president. Today, only one out of four Americans think the country is on the right track. Americans continue to express deep economic anxiety, and the president's job approval remains low, with particular disapproval for handling of foreign policy....

The depression of voters seems like nothing to celebrate, and a Clinton vs. Trump election is not one I'd savor. Disgust and disdain at Washington may manifest itself in a whole host of ways, for good or for ill. But like many illnesses, those unpleasant symptoms are often part and parcel of the process of being cured.

What a depressing campaign this has been. But it also just may lead to the election we need.

What's the cure, then? An election between Clinton and Trump would suggest what therapy? I think I know, but it isn't one any candidate is proposing.

Heavy Metal

A fellow I know is behind this campaign. He's not the one named in the article, but the one who suggested it to him.

A Liverpool professor has backed a campaign to rename a “super-heavy” periodic element in memory of Motorhead frontman Lemmy.

A petition is calling for one of four newly-discovered elements to be named “Lemmium” in tribute to the rock superstar, who died earlier this month.

More than 28,000 people have backed the campaign since it started two days ago.

You can sign the petition here.

When good sons go . . . military

Bookworm Room, who lives in Marin County surrounded by progressives, reports an odd development:  some of her hyper-progressive neighbors have sons who are choosing to join the military.  The parents are starting to change their attitudes.

The End of Christmas

The Last Day of Christmas is upon us. January 6th ordinarily is taken to mark the day that the Wise Men located Jesus, which is thus the point in the Christmas story that the world abroad first celebrated the lordship of the king of kings. This year today is officially 'the Wednesday after Epiphany Sunday,' but the date of 6 January remains an important anchor for that feast.

There are of course some differences among the several Christian traditions. It is not my wish to dwell upon those, but to wish everyone a Merry Christmas one last time. Until next year, I hope you have had a joyous feast and a moment for faith.

"What’s the Difference Between a Socialist and a Democrat"?

Chris Matthews asks Hillary Clinton, who can't answer. Apparently Matthews had already asked her puppet, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and received the same non-answer.

The question isn't hard to answer, so it's interesting that these figures are dancing around the answer.

A Socialist believes that, to the greatest possible degree, the means of economic production should be owned by the Public and not by individuals or corporations. Practically this means that the government should own the means of production as much as is practicable.

A Democrat believes that, to the greatest possible degree, power should be invested in the citizenry broadly considered, rather than in some elite. It is opposed to monarchy, aristocracy, but also technocratic systems in which judicial or lawyerly or scientific elites rule over us as our betters.

There is thus no necessary connection between the ideologies. One can be a non-democratic Socialist, as the Communists often were. One can be a Democratic Socialist, as European parties sometimes claim to be. And one can be a non-socialist Democrat, as in fact most American Democrats have historically been.

The connection between the two is nevertheless not accidental, even if it is not necessary. Aristotle explains in the Politics that democracy is government by the many (rather than the few or the one), and that the poor are always more numerous than the rich. One of the thing the poor tend to want from government, even in ancient Greece, is for it to redistribute wealth to them from those who have it currently.

Aristotle warns against this tendency strongly. It will destabilize the state, he says, for the rich to be deprived of both power and their property. They will respond by hiring mercenaries to overthrow the democracy, which will lead to the harms of political instability or war. On the other hand, in a system that is governed by an elite (an aristocracy, for example), redistribution of wealth is an important point of public policy. The poor must be made physically secure from starvation and the harms of poverty in order to support a state that denies them political power. They can cause an insurrection too if their interests are completely ignored by the powerful.

Thus, Socialism should be regarded as the sickness of Democrats. It is an illness to which they are particularly prone. That does not mean that Democrats are wrong to favor government by the many. It just means that the position entails certain risks which have to be guarded against faithfully. Other positions entail other risks, so it is not a unique failing of Democrats that such a risk exists. This one just happens to be the one to which they are especially likely to fall prey.

As, apparently, they are currently doing.

Stand Down Orders in Benghazi

Was there an order to 'stand down' in Benghazi? As we all know, it has been repeatedly denied by the government, which claims that no forces were available to respond and there were no stand down orders given.

The guys who were actually on the ground say it absolutely happened. (Advance to 7:10.)



Their opinion is that 13 Hours is unusually accurate for a war film. It certainly has the potential to be explosive. American Sniper proved to me that there's an appetite for this kind of movie. Let's hope it does well.

As Seen on Facebook

Marjah

More than a dozen U.S. Army special operations soldiers are trapped in Marjah, Afghanistan, taking cover in a compound surrounded by enemy fire and hostile Taliban fighters after a U.S. special operations solider was killed earlier in the day, senior U.S. defense officials told the media late Tuesday....

The joint U.S. and Afghan special operations team was sent to Marjah to clear the area of Taliban fighters, who have retaken most of the town since November.

There were nine airstrikes on Tuesday in support of a clearing operation.

I trust you know what to do.

"Scores of Women" Attacked in Germany

Just one of those things you have to accept in order to ensure the benefits of increasing diversity, I suppose.

“The government’s loss of control is not only taking place on the borders,” wrote Alexander Marguier, deputy editor in chief of the monthly political magazine Cicero, in its digital edition. “For whoever gives up control of who enters the country no longer has control over the consequences of this action.”

Indeed.

UPDATE: In Missouri, a woman has a different experience.

UPDATE: Germany will have much to reflect on this week.

UPDATE: So far, reflection is going predictably wrong.

On The Underlying Tensions in Oregon

A good piece on how Federal environmental policies are destroying traditional Western ways of life, such as ranching and mining. That's true in West Virginia, too, but out West the Federal government actually owns most of the land -- and it would like to own more.

The federal government owns more than half the land in the state, as it does across much of the West. It used to be routine for ranchers to get permits to graze cattle or cut timber or work mines — a way to make a living from the land.

Then came increasing environmental regulations, and the federal land became more for owls and sage grouse than for local people trying to feed their families, said Soper, 39, who lives 100 miles up the road in Bend.

We all agree that natural beauty is important, and the environment represents a kind of national treasure. But the culture of the West is also a kind of national treasure. The people might be self-sufficient, as once they were when they could own the land they worked.

To me this is a story much like the Yazoo land scandal, except that instead of selling the land to a corporation the government is refusing to sell to anyone. That policy ends up making citizens less free than they would be if they could own their own means of production, including the land on which they graze. While some national parks and refuges are a great idea, the West is vast -- vast enough that the government could do everything we'd want them to do without owning half or more of the land in these states.

The effect of government ownership of most of the land in your state is to reduce a large part of the citizenry from free landholders to tenet farmers subject to the whim of their landlords. It is to reduce the scope of human liberty substantially. Property ownership is one of the rights the Revolution was fought to protect -- indeed, for the many Founders who were politically aligned with John Locke, it was first among those rights. These policies put the liberty that comes with ownership out of reach, and along the way are crushing out of existence a traditional American culture of great nobility.

Should Conservatives Support "Industrial Scale" Clemency?

The American Conservative suggests that it would be both moral and practical to release many, many more prisoners than we do.

Why is it moral? For one reason, because we put too much faith in the law qua law.

In the United States, our civic religion is the Rule of Law—we have no monarchy, and we are less tribalist than more ethnically and religiously homogeneous nation-states. Instead the highest symbol of our nation is a legal document, with its own legalistic cult and rituals. To be sure, the rule of law is in many ways an ideal of rational order and equality without favoritism. But a spillover effect is the tendency to treat all legal codes as if they were handed down from Mount Sinai, no matter how unreasonable or cruel they may be.

Devotion to the Rule of Law has an ugly side in resentment of executive acts of mercy, at the level of practice and high theory. Immanuel Kant, often thought of as a Birkenstock-wearing human-rights guy, was one of the most vicious retributivists in the history of moral philosophy, an implacable opponent of royal clemency. In 1764, Milanese philosophe Cesare Beccaria argued that the same crimes must carry the same punishment regardless of the perpetrator’s rank or station, no exceptions—a radical proposition for its time. This sounds unobjectionable, but this Enlightenment universalism has had harsh ramifications in the American context where, combined with Puritan moral panics and the authoritarian heritage of slavery and Jim Crow, it has frequently made for a justice system with a tendency to degrade and “level down” to an egalitarian level of misery....

At the founding of the country, executive power was seen not as a violation of our self-image as a “nation of laws not men” but as a necessary and healthily legitimate part of any popular government. As Hamilton wrote in Federalist 74: “the benign prerogative of pardoning should be as little as possible fettered.” Without pardon power, “justice would wear a countenance too sanguinary and cruel.” Justice John Marshall also upheld clemency as “an act of grace, proceeding from the power entrusted with the execution of the laws.”

Why is it practical? I'll cite just one argument here, though you can read the rest if you like:

Our incarcerated population is also aging rapidly, and though older prisoners have far lower recidivism rates, few states are availing themselves of geriatric release. For instance, Virginia in 2012 granted geriatric release to less than 1 percent of about 800 prisoners eligible, according to the state parole board. Meanwhile, as the Virginian Pilot reported, “during the same period, 84 inmates died in state prisons.” Running high-security nursing homes is neither compassionate nor fiscally sound—another reason to restore and expand clemency.

That seems like a reasonable case to me. Some prisoners ought to die in prison simply because of the magnitude of their crimes -- Charles Manson, perhaps. Others really shouldn't be in prison, even if they were pretty hard-core thugs as young men, because they pose no threat that would justify paying for both guarding them and caring for them in their age.

What's being asked for here is not pardons by and large, but clemency. They would remain under the disabilities associated with being a convicted felon. We just wouldn't be responsible for them.

Good idea?

Joining the NRA

A couple of essays broke today on joining the NRA in spite of reservations, one featured at InstaPundit and the other at Hot Air. The upshot of both are that the NRA is not really the premiere gun rights organization in America today. It has in the past endorsed gun control laws in order to appear reasonable, and it has in the past accepted compromise positions that furthered some of our interests at the expense of others. That may be a virtue or a vice depending on how you see American politics, both in general and at this specific moment.

What actually annoys me more than the compromises is the propaganda they run in their magazines. Even on years when it is clear that there are no dangers to gun rights, the NRA's magazines always read like the next Great War is on the horizon. This is for fundraising purposes. I generally maintain membership with them only in years when there really is a danger because it is difficult for me to respect an organization that is not completely honest with its membership.

In terms of better organizations, the Second Amendment Foundation is mentioned prominently for its role in Heller and other court cases that have advanced the ball on forcing the government to recognize the Second Amendment. I wish fervently we could do as much for the Tenth Amendment -- it would be a great start if the government at least admitted it was really in the Constitution and really ought to be binding in some way or other.

Another organization I like is the Gun Owners of America, which insists on a no-compromise position.

All the same, the NRA is about to take it on the chin in the next election cycle. The Obama administration has pledged to make gun control a top issue in his final(!) year in office. Hillary Clinton -- and other Democrats on stage at the first debate -- named the NRA as an "enemy." Whether or not they're the best, it's going to make a huge difference whether or not they can show increasing support as a consequence of this push.

So, today, I signed back up with the National Rifle Association. I want them to be able to point to big increases in membership as the main consequence of the Democratic Party's return to gun control as an issue. We need to keep teaching this lesson until they give up on it. Gun rights are not going anywhere. We will not surrender our liberty for the false promises of government-granted security. The government couldn't keep those promises even if it were wholly serious about them. To be able to do much more than it does it would have to override our rights to privacy and independence.

Even then, it simply can't keep you safe. Just because criminals and terrorists choose their victims carefully, the police will not be there when you need them. Not because they don't want to be -- I think mostly they fervently wish they could be. It's probably why they joined the force. But they can't be. They can only come when they're called, and then it will take as long as it takes.

Finally, a government that truly obtains a monopoly on arms has subjugated its population. No free nation can accept that status. We must never put ourselves in the position in which the government can do whatever it wants to us, and only refrains if it wants to refrain. One person or a small group cannot defend themselves against the government, which is good because it enables the government to keep the peace. Nevertheless, it is in the interest of justice that any government should have to fear mistreating a plurality or majority of its citizens. It is the best thing for everyone if those elected to office know that they will be held responsible for their actions by a people that is ultimately stronger than they are.

It is time to teach that lesson again. They think they want to pick this argument up again. Let's remind them why they'd rather not.

Pilgrimage Update: Success!

I thought it was a dodgy choice to do this in December instead of April as Chaucer recommended, but he claims to have had a Medieval antecedent who left 'on the same day' in 1365. Of course, that was in the Medieval Warm Period! But perhaps God favored his endeavor. Certainly here it's been the mildest winter in a long time.

A former physics teacher has completed a 700-year-old pilgrim's journey using only medieval clothing and equipment. Steven Payne began walking from Southampton's Mayflower Park to Canterbury on 16 December, carrying a goodwill message from the Pope. The 52-year-old slept in his cloak, sometimes in fields and hedgerows or in structures built in medieval times. He was greeted by the mayor of Canterbury and canon of the cathedral when he arrived on Tuesday afternoon.

Armed Protests & Attorneys General

It seems there is widespread agreement even among III Percenters that this Oregon situation is neither the time nor the place for an armed protest. An interesting tidbit uncovered in the readings, though...

As college student, Eric Holder participated in ‘armed’ takeover of former Columbia University ROTC office

As a freshman at Columbia University in 1970, future Attorney General Eric Holder participated in a five-day occupation of an abandoned Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) headquarters with a group of black students later described by the university’s Black Students’ Organization as “armed,” The Daily Caller has learned.

Department of Justice spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler has not responded to questions from The Daily Caller about whether Holder himself was armed — and if so, with what sort of weapon.

Holder was then among the leaders of the Student Afro-American Society (SAAS), which demanded that the former ROTC office be renamed the “Malcolm X Lounge.” The change, the group insisted, was to be made “in honor of a man who recognized the importance of territory as a basis for nationhood.”

That protest was different in a key respect: people needed access to the Columbia ROTC office. This thing was shut down for the winter anyway. Nobody was going to need to use it until sometime in the Spring. It's the sort of place you could stage a protest like this without actually inconveniencing anyone else for at least a few months.

What's Going On In Oregon?

Wretchard of the Belmont Club passed this link recently, which I take for an endorsement of it. If, like me, you hadn't heard of this conflict until last night -- well, there turns out to be a lot behind it that you haven't heard yet.

UPDATE: D29 suggests some further reading inside the comments. Here also is Reason on the absurdly harsh sentences, which the 9th Circuit Court upheld on the grounds that they've seen worse. The Constitutional protection withers because the government has gotten by with worse abuses in the past?

Why I love Texas

That's our guv.

The Last Segment Is Really Worth Watching

You can skip the rest if you like, but the space exploration bit should be seen.

Reaping the Whirlwind

Fareed Zakaria's notice of the increased death rate in blue-collar white Americans, from suicide and drugs, draws this comment from Glenn Reynolds:

 Psychologists say that depression is anger turned inward. What happens if it turns outward?

That's the right question.  Zakaria misses it completely, being so invested in the narrative that America is becoming more ethnically diverse that he fails to notice that it was an artificial process that could be fairly easily reversed.  Nothing can be done but to accept their miserable fate, he suggests:

Working-class whites don’t think of themselves as an elite group. But, in a sense, they have been, certainly compared with blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans and most immigrants. They were central to America’s economy, its society, indeed its very identity. They are not anymore. Donald Trump has promised that he will change this and make them win again. But he can’t. No one can. And deep down, they know it.

In fact, it was an immigration reform act in 1965 that altered America's immigration policies to favor the Third World instead of the First as they had traditionally.  Laws that can change one way can change another.

It was the election of two different two-term Democratic presidents who did not enforce immigration laws, and one two-term Republican who was not especially exercised about it, that led to the massive demographic shift over the last three decades.  If you elect a President for whom they are a priority, that massive wave of immigrants are still first-generation.  They could be expelled, if enough anger is focused upon the matter.

Even without the increased anger, last year more natives of Mexico left the United States than came here.  Why not?  People have a natural preference for home.  If Mexico and other Latin American states improve, many of these people would go home just because they'd rather be there than here.  If increasing anger drives a nativism that becomes harsh and unwelcoming, even more people will feel inclined to depart.  They'll take their families with them willingly.  The demographic 'destiny' would then change, and what Zakaria thinks impossible would become real.

It would, however, be a very ugly time.  The expressions of such anger and nativism are not beautiful.

What is driving all this anger?  Perhaps it is the fact that the government, under the current administration, is actively taking sides against these workers.  It's also the triumphalism of the cultural left, which is openly salivating about being able to put the older, whiter America in the grave.  These are choices too, choices with consequences.  These people are not fools just because they don't have a college degree.  Having less education may make their response more visceral, but it won't keep them from noticing what is being done and who is doing it.  They can hear the voices that hate them.  They can hear how happy those voices sound when they posit a world in which these American workers and their families are no longer important.

In fact, even if we avoid the period of anger it would be completely unsurprising if America became less 'ethnically diverse' again -- not by changing actual demographics, but by absorbing later-generation immigrants into a new definition of 'the majority.'  That has happened to the Irish, to the Germans, to the Italians, to many Jews, and could very easily happen to Latinos as well.  There is no reason for us to insist on going through the ugliness that is likely to follow.

Still, avoiding the anger will be hard to do because the anger is not unjustified.  It is clear that a generation of policies have been in place to effect this reduction, that new policies are being put in place to further it and cement it, and that the fall of these people and their families is deeply and earnestly desired by the cultural allies of the politicians effecting the policies.

What happens if the anger turns outward?  That is indeed the question, and people should give it some thought.  It would be wiser and better for those driving the underlying causes of this anger to stop and consider the effects of their actions.

A Year in the Life of Grim

I was thinking back this evening on how much 2015 has been a difficult year.  I decided it would be good to go back through my photographs from the year to find some things to be grateful for.  It has been a difficult year in several respects, but it turns out that it I had a great year that somehow ran concurrently with the difficult one.  I'm glad I looked back.  Here's hoping 2016 is a good year, too. 

Islam and "America"

An interesting simile:

Can the celebration of wine drinking be Islamic? To Ahmed, the answer is: obviously, yes. It is Islamic insofar as this celebration is expressed, for example, in the terms of such classical Sufi metaphors for “the experience of intoxication with the Divine,” as well as the more mundane recognition of wine’s virtues as a social lubricant. The extensive medical literature of the premodern Islamic world attests openly to the latter fact. As the 10th-century physician and philosopher Abu Zayd al-Balkhi put it, “It is wine that provides excellence to society and conversation…and there is nothing that makes possible relations of intimacy and confidence between friends so tastefully and pleasantly and effectively as does drinking wine together.”

To say that wine drinking is un-Islamic may be akin to saying that the refusal to serve in the military during a period of wartime conscription is un-American. In the view of some citizens, such a refusal may well violate the essence of Americanness, in addition to violating American law; to others, however, this act may rather fulfill and epitomize the requirements of citizenship. By Ahmed’s logic, the refusal to serve in the military is not just American in spite of its opposition to other, contradictory values associated with Americanness, but precisely because of it.

The whole article is worth reading, actually. But I'm struck by this particularly. "What is Islam?" then becomes a question like "What is America?" It's a surprisingly all-encompassing question without any easy answers. John Wayne, in describing his love for America, dwelt on her physical beauty. Clearly, from his movies, that wasn't all he loved about America. Trying to figure out what America was and what it ought to be is a major theme of many of his movies, especially the Ford productions like The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

What is America? What does it mean to be an American? It seems as if there are at least some wrong answers, so the question isn't meaningless. It seems as if it might overlap with many of the answers one might give to the question "What is Islam?" That's not a meaningless question either, again because there are at least some wrong answers. A problem is that some of the right answers to the second question are wrong answers to the first, and vice-versa.

Now They're Just "The Islands"

Chuck Norris' role in bringing down Communism.

Bill Cosby Charged

I don't mean to imply by this post that he is not innocent until proven guilty, but I am encouraged to see such a celebrity brought before the courts given the serious and not incredible charges against him. I hope the process will be thorough and fair, the truth arrived at, and justice done.

May power and political connections also prove to be impotent as a bar to justice.

Fool Me Once, Shame on You

Richard J. Davis thinks Hillary Clinton should set some ethical standards for herself.

This then may be the ideal time for Clinton proactively to take steps to minimize the potential damage to her candidacy from other sources of controversy: the Clinton Foundation and speaking fees earned by former President Clinton. Such steps need to include significant restrictions on who the foundation will accept donations from as well as on where the former president will speak for money.

Taking these steps now is particularly important for Hillary Clinton because one area where her poll numbers remain problematic is whether she is viewed as honest and trustworthy....

It is important to understand that the issue regarding the Clinton Foundation is not whether the foundation is (or was) a conduit for illegal bribes and it certainly is not about whether the foundation does truly humanitarian work. I am not aware of serious evidence that the former is the case.

The thing is, Clinton did set an ethical standard for herself when taking the job of Secretary of State. It was a written agreement she signed with the incoming Obama administration.

She broke it.

Why would we be convinced that she was going to keep an agreement with herself, when she didn't keep a written and allegedly binding agreement with the President of the United States?

The reason that nearly sixty percent of Americans say that Clinton is dishonest is because she is dishonest.

How dishonest? "In a league of her own."

Nobody should be fooled by any statements about ethics coming from the former Secretary of State. They're no more trustworthy than any of her other statements -- or her signature on a legal document.

No Reason the President Shouldn't Spy on Congress, Right?

I mean, many of them are members of the political opposition -- and talking with foreigners, no less. Obviously the President needs to know what they're saying.

To-may-to, To-mah-to

From an amusing list of 'best (or worst) media corrections of 2015.'

“Norma Adams-Wade’s June 15 column incorrectly called Mary Ann Thompson Frenk a socialist. She is a socialite.” --- The Dallas Morning News.

I also like this line from one of the corrections: "There is nothing to be gained in trying to explain how the error occurred." I'll have to save that one to use on my wife.

Waco Update: Defense Lawyer Barred Access to Evidence

...unless he agrees to sign a release form that forbids him to discuss the evidence with the press.

Callahan’s motion states he has not been able to receive the information, after numerous requests, because he won’t sign a condition of release regarding talking to the media....

The motion states District Attorney Abel Reyna should not be allowed to limit the release of evidence based on an agreement regarding media after he gave an extensive TV interview explicitly designed to erode the defendants’ presumption of innocence.

So it's not that we don't want to taint the jury pool by having the matter discussed before the trial. It's that we want to make sure our tainting of the jury pool goes unchallenged.

Magical Thinking Is Good For You!

A satire, sort of.

I’m not just talking about vaccines, but we can start there. A lot of people have judged us harshly in recent days for not vaccinating our nine young children. That’s fine. I myself was held down and vaccinated when I was young. I understand that vaccines bolster vulnerable immune systems by stimulating your body’s natural defenses... And if you want to live and die by the wholly effective, risk-free, and affordable breakthroughs that Western medicine has produced, that’s fine. That’s your right.

But don’t expect me to come along on that joyride of lies.

...

Whenever a friend gets cancer, I make sure to tell her about the power of vitamin C and a can-do attitude. I’ve lost so many friends to the acidic nightmare of chemotherapy. They’re still alive; we just don’t talk anymore. Thanks a lot, Big Pharma.

Don’t get me started about sugar. Don’t get me started about gluten. Don’t get me started about mercury or fluoride. Because I will literally never stop talking about it.

Health insurance reform

Just about everything in this article seems like a good idea.

The Rule of Law

Not a good in itself.

Fatwa 64, which effectively justifies the systematic rape of women and girls, says it is necessary to set out rules because "one of the inevitable consequences of the jihad of establishment is that women and children of infidels will become captives of Muslims".

Among the disturbing list of rules are that 'owners' of mother and daughter captives, or sister captives cannot have intercourse with both and that owners and their sons cannot have intercourse with the same woman captive.

They also state that owners should not cause the captive women to abort if they are pregnant, should not sell her to an owner they know will treat her badly and should treat her with "compassion"....

In order to deal with the women captured by fighters, IS has established a department of "war spoils" to manage slavery.

The confusion is easy to fall into. Aristotle himself says that justice is lawfulness plus fairness, to paraphrase very loosely, and it can thus kind of sound like obedience to the law is a good in and of itself. But that isn't really what he means: on a closer reading, he means to say that it is good to obey the law if the law is properly structured.

Now the laws in their enactments on all subjects aim at the common advantage either of all or of the best or of those who hold power, or something of the sort; so that in one sense we call those acts just that tend to produce and preserve happiness and its components for the political society. And the law bids us do both the acts of a brave man (e.g. not to desert our post nor take to flight nor throw away our arms), and those of a temperate man (e.g. not to commit adultery nor to gratify one's lust), and those of a good-tempered man (e.g. not to strike another nor to speak evil), and similarly with regard to the other virtues and forms of wickedness, commanding some acts and forbidding others; and the rightly-framed law does this rightly, and the hastily conceived one less well. This form of justice, then, is complete virtue, but not absolutely, but in relation to our neighbour. And therefore justice is often thought to be the greatest of virtues, and 'neither evening nor morning star' is so wonderful; and proverbially 'in justice is every virtue comprehended'. And it is complete virtue in its fullest sense, because it is the actual exercise of complete virtue. It is complete because he who possesses it can exercise his virtue not only in himself but towards his neighbour also; for many men can exercise virtue in their own affairs, but not in their relations to their neighbour.

Emphasis added. Law is justice insofar as it commands the behavior that virtue itself would command. In that way, obeying the law is complete virtue from the perspective of your neighbors: though it does not insist on your virtue in private matters, where neighbors are concerned, a rightly-formed law mandates that you act rightly toward them.

ISIS clearly thinks it is doing something moral here by regulating away the worst practices of its fighters, and thus mandating that they treat the women they take as slaves with 'compassion,' both while raping them and at other times. In fact, they have codified the worst abuses into the law: the slavery and the rape themselves. Now the law will permit them to feel good about themselves for avoiding a few bad practices in the performance of their monstrosities.

Mutiny?

So you might think, from reading Reuters' report on Gitmo.

Since Obama took office in 2009, these people said, Pentagon officials have been throwing up bureaucratic obstacles to thwart the president's plan to close Guantanamo.

Negotiating prisoner releases with the Pentagon was like "punching a pillow," said James Dobbins, the State Department special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan from 2013 to 2014. Defense Department officials "would come to a meeting, they would not make a counter-argument," he said. "And then nothing would happen."...

When the State Department added the four Afghans to a list of detainees prioritized for transfer in the summer of 2013, Defense Department officials resisted. At a meeting at the Pentagon, a mid-level Defense Department official said transferring the four "might be the president's priority, but it's not the Pentagon's priority or the priority of the people in this building," according to current and former administration officials present at the meeting.

The problem is, the actual things the report cites sound like genuine legal concerns. A big part of this may be the President's penchant for ignoring inconvenient laws running up against the military's penchant for running everything by the SJA as an ordinary part of the staffing process. It's hard to get the Pentagon to do things that are legal but only questionably so, or debatably so. Even at lower levels of organization a lot of cover needs to be available before people take risky actions. The closer you get to the guy on the field of battle, the more freedom there is. The higher you go, the more the legal structure ossifies and the decision-making process becomes averse to running legal risks.

In general, that's not a bad thing. It's good if the military is restrained by the law. Places where it has not been have not always turned out well. Willingness to obey 'the leader's orders' instead of the law is not healthy.

Besides, there's this:

Afterwards, State Department officials began referring to them as the "JV four" or "Junior Varsity four," for their seeming lack of importance to Taliban fighters.

Hmm, there's that "JV" again. I understand that none of these people apparently have military experience, so that college or high-school metaphors are all that work for their thought process. But don't you understand that the Junior Varsity often becomes the Varsity later in their career? That's why schools bother with a JV team: as a training ground and feeder for future star players on the big field.

With judgment like this, it would not be surprising if a few feet got drug in the Pentagon.

Against the Royal Presidency

Charles C. W. Cooke:

As I write, the president of the United States is openly promising to finish off his second term with a flurry of extraconstitutional activity. By the power invested in his “pen and phone,” Barack Obama intends to wield his “executive authority” in order to institute a set of environmental rules that the people’s representatives have declined to grant him; to close the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay in direct defiance of Congress’s will; and to further circumvent a series of immigration laws that have been on the books for decades.

It's a good point. Everyone has been mocking Mrs. Clinton's claim that "I wouldn't keep any school open that wasn't doing a better-than-average job" on the grounds of its innumeracy. What strikes me about it is her assumption that, as President, she would of course have the power to close a local school if it failed to perform.

Tamir Rice Killing: No Charges For Police

I find this decision surprising given that Ohio, where the shooting occurred, is an open carry state. Now, children are not allowed to open carry in Ohio: an unaccompanied child carrying a pistol would be cause for concern. However, in order to realize that it was a child and not an adult carrying the pistol, you would first have to take note of the fact that you were dealing with an unaccompanied child.

So if it were an adult carrying a gun in the park, given the open carry law there is no reason to presume criminal intent. If it is a child carrying the gun, there is no reason to treat the case as being threatening in the way that an adult with a gun would be. The officers' defense is that they thought the child was an adult, and that the child appeared to draw the firearm. That may well be true.

However, that's odd: normally the defense is not presented to the grand jury. Normally the grand jury would hear: the child wasn't breaking any laws, even if the child looked like an adult the pistol they were carrying might well have been legal under the law, and yet the child was shot dead so immediately that the shooter's judgment is unlikely to meet the rational-man test. That would get you charges, and you'd work out at trial whether the defense was sufficient to find that the accused were not guilty of those charges.

It's going to be hard to convince people that this isn't a rigged game when the standards are so different. You can say that it's about the law enforcement system protecting its members and not about race, maybe, by pointing at the Waco shootout as evidence that being white doesn't always help you much: there the police shot at least four of the nine dead with rifles, but the only people facing indictment are bikers whom the DA apparently can't tie to any specific act of violence at all. The system just doesn't work when the police are behind the trigger.

Still, this was a child.

UPDATE: Allahpundit reminds me of why this seemed familiar to me:

But that’s half the story. The other half is the fact that the county prosecutor, Timothy McGinty, extended these two cops the same exceptional courtesy that Darren Wilson received in the shooting of Michael Brown — namely, he presented all the facts to the grand jury instead of only those facts most beneficial to the prosecution’s side. That’s good procedure, as it means someone who’s likely to be found not guilty at trial can go free sooner due to lack of probable cause. Wilson, who was cleared by Obama’s DOJ in the Brown shooting, is a perfect example. But only a very few lucky souls, usually police officers facing high-profile charges of excessive force, seem to benefit from that sort of prosecutorial diligence.

At the time, I remember saying that this is what we should always do -- and that the shame was that we so rarely do it. How many of those Waco indictments would have been thrown out if the prosecutor presented the full facts (such as, for example, the fact that they apparently have no idea precisely who shot anyone)?

It's hard to endorse the standard if it is not anything like evenly applied.

Motörhead Mourns

Let us pause to note the passing of Motörhead's Lemmy Kilmister, who has died at the age of 70.



UPDATE: Just to archive this photo, as a reason to like the old rocker.

Four Views of the Good Life

Brief summaries only, but not bad introductions. Here is Aristotle's, which is of course the best one:



The others are Plato, Kant, and Nietzsche, the most recent being the least decent.

Monstrous Heroes

This focuses on the Icelandic sagas, but it's a feature of Northern European literature more generally. Culhwch and Olwen, which appears in both the Red Book of Hergest and the White Book of Rydderch, has a long list of Arthurian heroes many of whom have monstrous qualities.

The Feast of Holy Innocents

I wrote about this last year. It is a somber moment in the Twelve Days of Christmas.

Great news in medicine

H/t to Maggie's Farm for this link, which was inside an interesting article on medical advances in 2015.

I'm late, as usual

I wanted to post this on St. Stephen's Day, but I got caught up with doing nothing all weekend.  So enjoy:

St. Stephen's Day

The day after Christmas is St. Stephen's Day, who has the honor of the appointment because he was the first Christian martyr (unless one counts Christ himself). Thanks to the Clancy Brothers, however, I always think of it as Wren Day.

Hey ho! for the day after!

Home again and glad of it: up and back in one day is a long haul.  Our neighbor was kind enough to let the dogs out twice and feed them, though one was on strike and nearly refused to go out till we got back.  They sure don't like it when we leave.

All kinds of food gifts have to go straight to my church or maybe one of the local nursing homes.  "You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here!"  Not that I didn't appreciate the food gifts enormously, but in the real world I can fit a couple of bites of each into any fathomable food budget, and the rest need to do their excellent work under another roof.  

At Christmas dinner, two of my young male relatives admitted to weeping during the screening of the new Star Wars epic. So OK, OK, I'll go see it. Here is how Ken Burns would tell the story of "Star Wars."

Hey! For Christmas!

We were late to midnight Mass, because I had relied on my memory about when it started instead of checking. It was a pleasant Christmas Eve, though, filled with Christmas tradition. This morning the family all gathered for joy and company, which lasted through a late lunch feast.

My sister declined to drink any of the gallon of Christmas mead I made for her, because she announced that she was with child. The mead will be even better next Christmas. She has had grave difficulty in the past, so I hope she will this time both mother and child shall come through whole and hale. If so, we can toast the birth with the mead we would have drunk this year.



I hope you have all had a fine Christmas Day, and will have the opportunity to pursue the Christmas joy throughout at least some of each of the traditional twelve days of the feast.

Merry Christmas!

Translation of "Agni Parthene" ("O Virgin Pure") at Wikipedia

Christmas Eve

I hope you are all having a Merry Christmas.

Drinking (And Some Singing) With Bing and Frank

They used to know how to throw a party, back in that old America.

Hemispheres

This test claims I'm right-brained.

Christmas gifts

h/t Bookworm Room

Too Many Zooz

I could watch this all day.

The Hall Christmas Party Is Completely Voluntary

No kidding.

"Hey listen gentlemen, it’s totally up to you to attend,” said CSM Marc A. Scott during the course of an hour-long briefing. “We want people there that actually want to be there and have fun.... That being said, we’ll be having a quick accountability formation in front of Vapiano at 1925,” he said. “Yes, I know this might be a bit of inconvenience for an accountability formation being at the venue and not on post, but it’s still expected.”

...

“Also, don’t forget, there’s a mandatory recall for clean up detail at 2130. You might want to show up ten minutes early for that. Sober. Sergeant Major doesn’t want any DUIs now. You all know the Polizei doesn’t play. The MPs and Sergeant Major don’t either. FYI, those attending will be given a four-day. Those not attending will have a room inspection with full field lay out."

Nobody needs to bring me a bottle of my favorite beer or whiskey who attends, either. That's completely left to your discretion.

Join the Virginia Citizens Defense League

I don't know if any readers live in Virginia, but their anti-gun governor just announced an end to reciprocity with 25 states on firearms carry permits. Virginia is an interesting state on gun rights issues. It's the home of the NRA, but it actually has more restrictive laws than most American states on firearms carry. The large population of Washington, D.C. government employees drives politics in the northeastern part of the state much farther to the left, and to affection for government as a solution to problems, than is common elsewhere in the state. The southern and western parts of the state thus end up living under laws that are quite different from the ones they would choose for themselves.

For those of you who may live there, though, the best organization pointed at the state-level gun laws is not the NRA, but the Virginia Citizens' Defense League (VCDL). I used to be a member when I lived up there, and I find them to be deeply engaged with the state legislature and local politics in a helpful way. It will be difficult for anyone to undo the governor's executive decision until the next gubernatorial elections, just as it is hard to undo the President's series of executive orders via a Congress that has to get past his veto. Nevertheless, if anyone is going to be successful in restoring your rights, VCDL is the organization.

Their website seems to be having some issues this morning due to heavy traffic, which is a good sign. Check back through the day or tomorrow as necessary.

In the meantime, residents of Virginia who may lose the right to carry in other states if those states retaliate may pursue a permit in Florida, which is widely accepted nationwide. Residents of other states who have to travel to Virginia may obtain a nonresident permit that is specific to Virginia. So there are workarounds to this executive order, which are attainable at the cost of a few extra tax dollars payable to another state.

My Inner Language Curmudgeon Comes Out

Recently, I read Michael Walsh's The Devil's Pleasure Palace, and in a few spots he uses the biblical metaphor of "new wine in old bottles." Grrr.

Although. Some translations do have it this way, with a footnote that the bottles are actually wineskins. Still, the metaphor isn't clear in these terms. If you didn't already know, it would be natural to ask "What's wrong with new wine in old bottles, as long as they've been properly washed?"

It's like the world has a vendetta against clarity.

Then, today, Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit posts:

NEW WINE IN OLD CASKS: Mark Zuckerberg’s $100 million donation to Newark public schools failed miserably — here’s where it went wrong.

This, however, is going too far. Much too far. And Sarah hails from Europe, and all Europeans are wine experts, so there's no excuse for this!

Here's Matthew 9:17:

"... Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”

What does it mean? Different commentaries have different explanations, but I like the explanation that it is a reminder to keep an open mind. It's amusing to think of the brains of the close-minded bursting and dribbling out when confronted with new ideas.

Anyway, you probably knew this, but I had to get it out of my system. Blame Grim; he gave me posting privileges.

PC Christmas dinner

Thanksgiving, too, but the sentiment is the same.

 

Algebraic Christmas

H/t David Rousset

Feliz Navidad

Well, That's Encouraging

The Obama administration insists that it is safe to admit 10,000 Syrian refugees because we have “very extensive screening procedures” in place. “It involves our intelligence community, our national counterterrorism center, extensive interviews, vetting them against all the available information,” deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes recently declared.

He left out one fact: Those screening procedures are so broken that, State Department records show, they let in more than four times as many suspected terrorists as they keep out.

Fairbairn-Sykes V. KA-BAR

An article on the different philosophies behind the two classic designs. It's from the HROARR site for Historical European Martial Arts. It turns out that there's a Marine Corps connection to nearly all of these blades, even the famous British one -- Fairbairn and Sykes worked with a USMC Lieutenant on the design in Shanghai, one Sylvester Yeaton.

Here's an old commando telling stories about the Fairbairn-Sykes blade.

Former Marine Tells DMV His USMC Cap Is Religious Headdress

DMV buys it.

Snopes looked into it, and doesn't seem to find anything to dispute about the facts. The author of the piece doesn't sound too happy about it, though.

"In Hopes That St. Marx Would Never Be There"

A Marxist Christmas from Existential Comics.

UPDATE: Read alongside this story for a pleasant, ironic twist.

Alright, I'll Sweep The *&%$ Stairwell...

In memoriam.

Losing Faith in Democracy

I am this morning reading two very different sources claiming that Americans and our European allies are losing faith in democracy. One is the left-wing Vox, which might be dismissed if it were alone, but the other is Defense One considering the fight against Islamic extremism. That's a different enough source and context that it makes the claim worth considering.

Vox gives as its evidence five propositions. The first is that Americans trust our political institutions less. This is true. We talk about the "Confidence in Institutions" poll every year, and it's been a disastrous couple of decades for American institutions for the most part. However, it isn't just the political institutions that Americans trust less. Only three institutions garner majority trust: the military, small business, and the police. Two of those are government institutions, but not democratic ones -- coercive ones. The Federal institutions garner less than a third of voters for the Executive/Judicial branches, with Congress only getting 8% trust.

The general trend in that poll, though, has been for Americans to trust institutions in general less. Banks are down from the upper 50s to the 20s; organized religion from the 60s to the 40s. Public schools are down from the upper 50s to the upper 20s. Newspapers are down from around forty percent to the 25 percent range.

The police and the military are mostly unchanged, which is the real mark of their success. The military's historic low came after Vietnam, but with the odd high attached to momentary military victories, it's been right around where it is. The police are 52% in the beginning, 52% now. Faith in the criminal justice system is very low, but it's improved over the years: Americans expressing confidence in that institution rose from the teens into the twenties.

So it seems as if the issue isn't democracy, here, it's a collapsing faith in institutions generally. That could indicate a rising tide of individualism, which has certainly been observed during the same period (the mid-1970s to the present).

Next up is "young Americans giving up on politics." Eh, youngsters have always been bad about showing up to vote. That's generally good for democracy, as they don't yet understand the world they live in. This is proven by the third argument, which has to do with whether young people perceive it as "essential" to live in a democracy. Far fewer do than their elders -- but that's how they've been educated. They've also been taught to believe a lot of other nonsense they'll sort out in the real world. The other propositions they offer about America are for increasing support for fringe positions ("I hope the military takes over" garners support from 1 in 6 -- but it's a proposition I'll bet is disproportionately disfavored by actual veterans of the military).

What about the Defense One argument?

You can’t beat a surging ideology with no ideology or higher sense of purpose. In the face of the persistent challenge of violent Islamist extremism and the global recession of freedom, what the world has needed is a powerful reaffirmation of the universal relevance of liberal values. Instead, the democratic West has been retreating into moral relativism and illiberal impulses.

The assault on liberal values has been a defining feature of the democratic recession. During the past decade, democracy has typically ended not with tanks rolling in the streets or the president shutting down parliament, but rather in suffocating increments: with a regime steadily rigging elections, limiting opposition rights, taming independent media, and criminalizing the work of independent organizations.

Hm, now that does sound familiar. Even here in America, we've seen some evidence if "moral relativism" and "illiberal impulses" from the ruling party. Rigged votes are the order of the day in Congress -- the Iran deal, for example, was an exercise in pretending from start to finish. The Clinton campaign's weekend ploy with the DNC is another example, but the Clinton strategy is fundamentally anti-democratic: the real strength of her campaign is in having used a political machine to round up the superdelegates of the party, making it nearly impossible for actual voters to choose another candidate than her. The DNC has structured itself in such a way as to insulate itself from democracy.

My sense is that the real fear isn't that democracy may be losing strength, but that the people may be electing the wrong kind of candidates. Both authors suggest that the rise of right-wing nativist parties represents an enemy of democracy or at least of 'the universal values of liberalism.' That's not clear to me. It may be that one of the universal values is love of home, love of country, love of the way of life that is one's own. That's not incompatible with liberalism. It is incompatible with overarching super-governments that force everyone to live by all and only the same rules and not enforce border controls.

That's the common flaw of the US Federal government and the EU right now. The reaction against both is, I think, fundamentally democratic. It's the people who are furious about it, and who are going to the polls to try and stop it. They are doing so by electing political parties that organize for the purpose of running in democratic elections.

Someone is losing faith in democracy, but it isn't these people.

The Last Days of Advent

Prepare yourselves.

Apparently Astronomers Don't Read History

I am a white woman about to start a faculty position in astronomy at the University of Washington, Seattle. Justice John Roberts wants to know why I would care who was in my class. Although I find it baffling that a man who leads the court of a country built in an attempt to honor and value those disparate experiences and backgrounds doesn’t understand the strength of that diversity, I will do him the service I do for all of my students.

That's... an interesting reading of the American project. The country was founded in order to honor and value disparate experiences. E pluribus, pluribus.

John Roberts doesn’t want us to ask these questions because the underlying reason is ugly and exposes the systemic racism that is institutionalized at the deepest levels of our society. The laws that John Roberts and his colleagues nominally clarify and protect are created to keep Justices Roberts, Scalia, and their ilk of mediocre white men at the helm of our country.

Actually, making people astronomers or physicists is just as effective a way of keeping Justices Roberts, Scalia et al at the helm of the country. To be good at those fields, you needed to study the most advanced math you could from an early age. Focusing on that means not focusing on other things -- for example, as you yourself clearly demonstrate, the focus on math means less understanding of law, history, or political philosophy.

Cruuuuuuuz

The Senator That Saved Christmas.

John Wayne Does Not Smile

"Yes, I apologize," [Bernie Sanders] said when asked whether Clinton was owed an apology. "Not only do I apologize, I want to apologize to my supporters. This is not the kind of campaign that we run. If I find anybody else involved in this, they will be fired."

You buy into Clinton, you're buying four years of this. It'll be nothing but corruption hiding behind corruption, with the decent told they need to apologize for coming anywhere near it. I've said a lot against Trump, who deserves it, but Clinton is the worst candidate in the race.

Crazy TEA Party Types...

Jazz Shaw remembers.

I seem to recognize this argument from somewhere, but where was it? Oh, that’s right… it was me. I was making the same case in 2012 after watching the wreckage of a handful of totally winnable races two years earlier which slipped away. But a few years of observing the antics of Congress after we supposedly took control of both chambers has cured me of much of that.

At some point, if you're going to play, you're going to have to play.

'Today You Did A Great Jihad -- You Took The Train in the Rain'

A moment in a meditation on the fracturing of Europe.

[Legion of Honour recipient Khalil] Merroun leaned forward in his chair. Terrorism is ‘‘not jihad,’’ he said. The jihad of one’s self is about personal betterment and seeking greater understanding.

‘‘Today, you did a great jihad by coming to see me,’’ he said. ‘‘You called yesterday, you took the Metro, it was raining and you came here for a noble cause, to inform people. And I also made an effort, a jihad: I listened to you, I welcomed you and tried to transmit a message to better inform people, to try and dispel misconceptions and spread our true message, thousands of kilometers away, in the United States.’’

Merroun didn’t discount the venom directed at Muslims or refugees — this explained his security detail — but he thought the sour public mood was rooted in broader frustrations, like the lack of jobs. ‘‘So far, things have managed to remain relatively stable,’’ he said.

Our interview finished up shortly after 2 o’clock. I took the train back into Paris with a colleague. That night, less than eight hours later, three teams of suicide bombers and other heavily armed radical Islamists attacked Paris, killing 130 people.

What?

French to be the world's most commonly-spoken language by 2050, thanks to growth in sub-Saharan Africa.

I wouldn't have guessed French was due for such a rebirth.

A Heroic Youth

In Knoxville, TN, a young football player gave his life to protect teenage girls from a gang-related shooting. He is remembered as befits a youth who dies nobly.

Ha-Ha-Ha! Good Joke, Oberlin!

At least, I assume this must be intended as a joke. You should have tried the Army's grits, before you complain about the college not getting your food 'culturally accurate.'

Even funnier is the demand that the college pay them to protest it, and above minimum wage!

The Pot Calls The Linen Tablecloth Black

In a shift of strategy hours before the third Democratic debate, Hillary Clinton’s campaign went for Bernie Sanders’ jugular, accusing his team of stealing valuable campaign data, misrepresenting what happened and inflicting “damage here that cannot be undone.”... And Clinton’s team was angry that Sanders tried to fundraise off the incident by acting like he was a victim of the Democratic National Committee. “Stop politicizing and work to ensure that what took place is remedied,” Mook said, even dropping that Sanders campaign may have broken the law.

Heaven knows how much it scandalizes Clinton to ponder a breach of the law.

UPDATE: DNC violated its own laws in punishing Sanders campaign.

Who Voted for Omnibus

Presidential candidates in the Senate were mostly smart enough to vote against this monster, with the exception of Rubio who contrived to be absent. Both of my Senators sadly were in the 'yea' column, which is predictable. Anything the Chamber of Commerce wants, these guys are there to provide.

Fire Wasserman Schultz

A petition on MoveOn.org has garnered over forty thousand signatures. Feel free to add yours.

Looks like Sanders has won for the moment. Still, removing a corrupt tool like DWS is worth doing on its own merits.

No, really

Please Don't Bomb Anywhere Without Some Reason

Thirty percent of Republicans responding to a recent poll approved of bombing a fictional country from the movie Aladdin.

Conceivably Possibly P=NP

...and that's a big deal.

Maryam Rajavi on Iran and ISIS

I have tremendous respect for this woman and her organization, which is headquartered in Paris because they would be put to death at home. Maryam Rajavi is the head of the National Council of Resistance - Iran, and keeps the focus on Iran's brutal human rights abuses and anti-democratic quality.

Here she advances a theory that I haven't heard before to explain why ISIS and Iran have such similar views on the execution of law. It's a little surprising that they should -- the Sunni/Shi'a split was more than a thousand years ago, and their schools of law have developed along different lines since then, with the Sunni schools 'closing' the law to reform after the 10th century, and the Shi'a schools remaining 'open' to new interpretations. They are different enough that in Afghanistan, whose constitution says that nothing shall counter sha'riah law, the Shi'a Muslims had to have constitutional provisions protecting their right to practices that Sunni schools of sha'riah do not permit.

Her suggestion is that the reason that ISIS's brutality looks so much like Iran's brutality is that Iran is the real model for ISIS:

Ever since Ruhollah Khomeini came to power in 1979, Tehran championed itself as a successful model, which fundamentalists could follow in order to gain stature, power, and sovereign legitimacy. This presents a tantalizing message to Sunni extremists like the Islamic State– why can they not create their own “Islamic” State when Shiite fundamentalists have already done so?

While the conceptual origins of this extremist ideology took shape in the early years of Islam, it only turned into a formidable global force when fundamentalism gripped Iran in the aftermath of the 1979 revolution.

The regime that replaced the Shah—who was also detestable and undemocratic—began exporting Islamic fundamentalism on an unprecedented scale almost overnight. High-profile hostage-takings, bombings, suicide attacks, and assassinations became the norm as the mullahs in Tehran began building their own version of a theocratic state.

In these early stages, Shiite terrorist factions, including militias in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and others were directly formed by the Iranian regime. Without such state sponsorship from Tehran, their clout and influence would have quickly evaporated and they would have vanished. The vicious ideology and proliferative model grew increasingly lethal as its proponents gained access to veritable troves of military, diplomatic, political, and propaganda resources within the sovereign state borders of Iran.

So began the first modern-day “caliphate”—years before al-Qaida’s first attack burned in Yemen, and a full three decades prior to the rise of the Islamic State.

Many assume that Sunni fundamentalism is a unique phenomenon, entirely separate from the dogmas espoused by the Shiite mullahs in Tehran, but the differences are ancillary. In fact, Sunni fundamentalists have found tremendous strength under the political and spiritual umbrella of the Iranian theocracy. Both share the same ideological building blocks: the establishment of a religious state, which implements Sharia by force.

There is considerable evidence that the regime in Tehran has armed and financed Sunni extremists at various times and locations. Not only is Iran a long-standing sponsor of Hamas, but also as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said recently, “ISIS was created by Assad releasing 1,500 prisoners from jail, and Maliki releasing 1,000 people in Iraq who were put together as a force of terror.” Tehran is the known puppet-master of both.

Medieval Christmas Traditions

Renaissance-era, also. From Medievalists.net.

DNC Moves to Sabotage Sanders Campaign

In addition to scheduling the Democratic debate on the Saturday night before Christmas during the exact same time as NFL football, Debbie Wasserman Schultz has used a minor scandal to cripple Sanders' access to voter data. It looks like some lower-level staffers managed to exploit a bug in the DNC's software to look at Clinton's own data, but the Sanders campaign both fired the chief staffer involved and itself reported the violation to the DNC. Meanwhile, as the Sanders' campaign points out, its data was just as available -- and there's no way to know that Clinton's campaign didn't look at their stuff too. In fact, as a betting man, I'd wager heavily that Clinton's campaign absolutely exploited the regular flaws in this software and simply hasn't reported itself for cheating.

All the stops are out on the Clinton Express, though. The DNC is wholly in the tank for her.

Parallels in France

The American Interest considers the National Front:

[T]he National Front represents a deeper challenge for a French right, which now occupies an awkward centrist position.... The possibility of alliance is taboo for Republican leaders, who fear that the mere mention of it would break down the last barrier for voters; even mentioning the possibility publicly has led to the expulsion of party members (including an MP). But if alliance is out, what are the other options? Confronting the FN head on? Co-opt its message to attract its voters (thus running the risk of letting the FN shape the conversation)? Much as U.S. Republicans with Donald Trump, French strategists are at loss.

The National Front is somewhat like UKIP in Britain. Both are nationalist parties in the old sense. They're proud of who they are, and they want to protect their nation and advance its interests, but more than that: they both want to protect their nation's character. They are proud of being French, or they are proud of being English. They want a country that takes that character seriously, protecting or restoring it as necessary.

Their focus on protecting or restoring this national character is what opens them to charges of racism or of xenophobia, but what is going on is less xenophobia than oikophilia, that is, love of home and the things of one's own. Love of home is such a deep, natural part of human beings that of course it is difficult to strategize against. Europe hoped it would be able to transfer the love of home to itself considered broadly, as France had earlier managed to become the emotional center of love-of-home for Gascons as well as Parisians. Great Britain once managed to become the emotional center of home-love for Englishmen as well as many Welshmen or Scots.

What's going on instead is that Europe's demands upon France, or Britain's on England, have begun to work against the interests of home too much for the collective to be thought of as the real home of the heart. In that way, the Scottish National Party is like these parties too in spite of its very different agenda. Because its leftist agenda is more acceptable to the media, it isn't demonized the way that UKIP and the FN are, and because of that it swept the Scottish elections recently. People are willing to associate with it without fear of being called racists or xenophobes.

That fear doesn't last forever, though, and the more because the charge isn't fully fair. There are racists and xenophobes among these nationalists, but there are also among the centralizing parties. The charge is that UKIP or FN are driven by hate, though, whereas racism is accidental when you find it in the Labour party.

In truth, that charge is 180 degrees off of reality. They are driven by love. It is an intense love of home, and the things associated with home, that is driving all these movements. To say that love is hate is not just slander. It becomes an incapacity to see things clearly. Sun Tzu warns that you can never be sure of defeating an enemy you don't understand.

A Price in Blood

I haven't said anything about the Defense Department's decision to open all jobs to women because, as Ranger Up's Nick Palmisciano says, our opinions no longer matter. This is no longer a political question. The decision has been made, and we're going to pay the price in blood for it however high it happens to be. The best thing to do is to support those who have to undertake this mission as well as we can.

Still, we should probably warn young people considering a military career that it just got more dangerous -- especially if they are women.

Army women not only suffer more injuries than men during combat training, but the active-duty female soldiers also are stricken with significantly higher rates of mental health disorders.

The statistics come from a study conducted by the Army surgeon general last summer in conjunction with a bevy of analyses and experiments to judge women’s suitability for direct ground combat roles. It found, for example, that female soldiers suffer depression at more than double the rate of men and that one of the triggers is exposure to combat....

“This is a major scandal in the making,” Mrs. Donnelly said. “Here you have United States Army, with its own medical study pointing to the injury rates at least double compared to men. This is a consistent finding across the board. And they are proceeding anyway. And there is no indication that young women considering military service will be informed of the additional risk they will face over and above what men do. Once you sign up, they are going to be assigned to jobs beyond their strength anywhere the Army wants to send you.”

That it is dangerous isn't a reason not to do it -- the honor comes in large part from the danger. Best of luck.

Two More Problems With the No-Fly List

Problem one: it's almost completely useless for any other purpose, according to Homeland Security. There are only like fifty guys on it who would be affected.

That's not a huge problem, though, because if the President gets the authority he wants, he'll just add everyone's name to it. Hope you didn't like flying very much.

Problem two: If you're a gentle, Santa-like veterinarian from Tennessee whose name is on there wrongfully, the process for clearing your name is both murky and ineffective.

Hackett has never been arrested and never traveled to the Middle East or other centers of terrorist activity, but he found out more than a decade ago he's on the federal watch list because he shares the same name as notorious Irish Republican Army terrorist Patrick Joseph Hackett, who was jailed in the 1970s for planting bombs in Britain.

The difference should be easy to spot. The terrorist is missing an arm and a leg — blown off when a bomb exploded prematurely — while the Knoxville veterinarian has all his limbs intact.

"I don't know how I got on the list, and I don't know how to get off the list," Hackett said.

Since learning he was on the list, Hackett has been denied boarding on planes and even spent time in a foreign jail.

That's not a problem either, though, since protecting your rights and liberty was the old purpose of the American government. The new purpose is progress!

Shame on "Liberals" Who Rationalize Terror

StandPoint magazine, out of the UK, writes:

John Kerry’s liberalism, and the liberalism of millions like him, ignores Chesterton’s warning not to be so open-minded that your brains fall out.

...

Perhaps I am being too kind to Kerry.

It's always a possibility.