Violating Taboos

The Washington Post discusses a study in which teenage boys who play games that include killing women become less sympathetic towards women who are portrayed to them as real-life victims of violence.

In the "Grand Theft Auto" series, one of the world’s top-selling video game franchises, players can have sex with women and then kill them....

[A] team of social scientists asked a group of Italian high school students to play one of three kinds of games: one that rewarded violence against women ("Grand Theft Auto"), one that promoted violence without degrading women (a portion of the "Half Life" series) or one that featured good, clean fun (a pinball or puzzle sequence).

After participants played their game for about 25 minutes, they answered questions about how they felt about on-screen characters. Did they identify with the mobster in "Grand Theft Auto?" Did they connect with the alien-battling scientist in "Half Life?"

The researchers then showed each student a photo of a bruised girl who, they said, had been beaten by a boy. They asked: On a scale of one to seven, how much sympathy do you have for her?

The male students who had just played "Grand Theft Auto" — and also related to the protagonist — felt least bad for her, the study found, with an empathy mean score of 3. Those who had played the other games, however, exhibited more compassion. And female students who played the same rounds of Grand Theft Auto had a mean empathy score of 5.3.

What researchers seem to be ignoring in this study is that there is a very strong Western taboo against violence targeting women. We have special laws to protect women against violence even though almost all violent crime is against men. We treat the relatively rare instances in which women are victims as especially bad, from a moral and legal perspective.

Ask the question another way: how much violence in video games do you suppose is targeted against men? My guess is that the answer is "far and away most of it," which the #2 position being held not by women but by monsters -- aliens and zombies and whatnot.

If you work against that taboo by encouraging young men to think of women as legitimate targets for violence, you can expect that some of the protection that women enjoy from violence is going to wane. Presumably these social scientists want you to know that video games like GTA are very bad because they allow young men to treat objects represented as women as legitimate targets for violence.

The dark irony is that these same people are, of course, the ones pushing for women in the infantry.

They're the ones who want co-ed boot camp, where young Marines and Soldiers will train in conducting physical violence not against virtual images of women but actual young women.

They're the ones who want to break sex down into "gender," and then tell you it's not real but just some sort of social construct. We should treat men and women exactly the same, unless it's a man who wants to be treated like a woman, in which case we should make special efforts to make sure he feels we receive him as feminine.

But yeah, tell me again how horrible the video games are. Tell me how sexist it is that they expose virtual women to violence, just like they do virtual men.

I'd be only too happy to endorse a taboo that protects virtual women from being depicted as objects for violence. I'd just like to see the same courtesy extended to actual women.

"Some Observers Have Not Ruled Out"

Interesting phrasing.

Insurers say they are losing money on their ObamaCare plans at a rapid rate, and some have begun to talk about dropping out of the marketplaces altogether....

While analysts expect the market to stabilize once premiums rise and more young, healthy people sign up, some observers have not ruled out the possibility of a collapse of the market, known in insurance parlance as a “death spiral.”

"Some observers" apparently means almost all of us, and "have not ruled out the possibility of" means "completely expect."

Pinky & the Brain read Pulp Fiction

Tar-And-Feathers Day

If you're inclined to view April 15th as a fit occasion to reconsider the Sons of Liberty's approach to excise men, Gadsden & Culpepper have your shirt on sale.

Would You Pay Extra For American-Made?

In addition to Allahpundit's points, I wonder how the poll would have looked if it had been framed toward the majority of people in this country for whom even $50 is an outlandish price for a pair of pants. It's hard for me to imagine much of America outside of the coastal cities ever drops that kind of cash on jeans. Would I pay $85 for a pair of pants made in America? No. Would I pay $50 for a pair of pants made in America? No. I typically buy my jeans at the thrift store, where I pay ten bucks or less for them. I'm planning to wear them out quick with hard work and play, so I don't think of them as an investment into which I'm prepared to sink much money.

Apparently 30% of respondents to the poll said they'd pay the eighty-five bucks to wear American-made jeans, though.

Take Care of the Roots of Liberty

An extended argument about the roots of our Constitutional law that is just the kind I appreciate: one that attempts a deep understanding of the pre-American British history out of which the Constitution grew.

Solidarity, Baby.

Workers of the world, unite!

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders paid an impromptu visit to a Verizon workers’ picket line in Brooklyn on Wednesday after being endorsed by New York City transit workers as he tried to wrest a bit of union support from rival Hillary Clinton.

The Brooklyn-born Sanders addressed an enthusiastic crowd of striking workers from Verizon Communications Inc as “brothers and sisters” and thanked them for their courage in standing up to what he characterized as corporate greed.

It was a scene tailor-made for the U.S. senator from Vermont, who has focused on income inequality in his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. Sanders is trying to catch up with Clinton, the front-runner, in Tuesday’s primary in New York, a state both candidates have called home.

Workers cheered as Sanders criticized the mammoth communications company for wanting to take away health benefits, outsource jobs and avoid federal income taxes, calling it “just another major American corporation trying to destroy the lives of working Americans.”

Popcorn.

"Sexual Racism"

So, as you may know from being exposed to left-leaning American culture, your sexuality is the single most important way in which you express your life and identity. Nothing is more important about you than the way in which you choose to love -- they mean physically love -- others. In no way can you be criticized for choosing to love many people ("No slut-shaming!") or few people ("Respect asexuals!"), members of the same sex or of the opposite sex or both (though you may be criticized for still speaking as if there were "two" sexes).

However, an important distinction has been discovered: you can be criticized for being racist in your sexuality.

Christian Rudder, co-founder of OKCupid, looked at data on online dating — who people messaged, who they matched with, who they responded to, and so on — and found a few patterns. "There is kind of a systemic racial bias pretty much in every dating site I've ever looked at," he said. "We found that 82 percent of non-black men have some bias against black women. … And Asian men get the fewest messages and the worst ratings of any group of guys."

So now if you want to be virtuous, you really need to be sexually active with people of various different "races." Tell your spouse it's in the service of morality.

If this follows the pattern of other innovations in civil rights, we will next hear that we are to be criticized for being selective based on our preference for same- or opposite-sexed partners. To be a really moral person, you need to sleep with everyone equally.

What could possibly go wrong in such an enlightened system?

Lois Lerner, Call Your Office

What could go wrong with this brilliant plan?

Clinton & the Kremlin

The "Panama Papers" reveal a possible Russian intelligence connection to some of Clinton's top bundlers. It's smoke rather than fire, of course: the bank only sometimes handles funding for Russian intelligence operations, and even if they have bribed or suborned Clinton's bundlers that doesn't mean she herself is suborned.

Nevertheless, it raises important questions given Clinton's handling of things like foreign weapons sales to governments that donated heavily to the Clinton foundation, or transmission of national security secrets in the clear on an unsecured private email server. If I were an investigative journalist, I'd be very inclined to dig right here.

RIP "Dewey" Clarridge

I don't know how many of you know the name, but he was a man. I had the honor to know him, and will miss him. We were quite different in age, but he was a friend of mine.

Back on Station

I realize I've been gone for a while, with a minor break about half a week ago. I'm back now, and should be on station for a bit.

Building Your Own Echo Chamber

In which a progressive is shocked by support for the NRA, and somehow realizes why.

DB: Pentagon "Pretty Sure" It Can Ditch FM 3-24

How much of this is satire?

The Pentagon’s top spokesperson said he was “pretty sure” the military could ditch the manual used for counterinsurgency, since it plans to fight all future wars against conventional armies that wear uniforms and use known tactics.

“Listen, COIN is over,” spokesperson Col. Steve Warren said. “There’s really no possibility that terrorists will some day take over large swaths of areas of the Middle East and quickly change their tactics against a conventional foe they are fighting.”

“We need to pivot to the Pacific already,” he added...

“We don’t know where or when our next war might be, but we can be pretty sure it won’t be in Iraq or Afghanistan, because, well, despite tens of thousands of troops fighting in those countries, those don’t technically count as wars.”

A new church building

Our new church building is going to be beautiful after all--all it took was for the old architect to retire.  We lucked out in our new one.

More on Merle

A little late to the RIP-fest:

Nothing Says 'Girl's Empowerment' Like A Headscarf You'll Be Beaten for Not Wearing

Sesame Street's heart is in the right place, no doubt. And, in truth, a hijab is downright "feminist" in the context of Afghanistan, where the conservatives insist on a full burqa if women are not to be beaten or executed.

Still... c'mon.

Some Democrats Have That Fantasy, Too

Headline: "Hillary Clinton Mocks ‘Republican Fantasy’ That She’ll Be Put In Handcuffs."

Drinking water

Via Maggie's Farm, a promising development in producing fresh water from saltwater.

"Look, I'm Just Like You!"

Who raised this woman? I've know six-year-olds who could pour a better beer. Teaching them how is one of those things a man is supposed to do. It goes with the other common-sense teachings you learn at that age.

The True and the Beautiful

Claire Berlinski is trying to understand the collapse of architectural standards in Paris after the Second World War. (H/t: Instapundit.)

I need to make the case that my judgments about this aren’t arbitrary. I’m saying something more objective about beauty than, “I like building A but I don’t like building B.” So I need to start with a robust theory of aesthetics. Here’s what I need it to do:

It needs to be able to tell us, in some detail, why Building A is more beautiful than Building B. These principles should be broadly applicable to all buildings.

It would be useful to show that these principles may broadly be applied to the idea of “beauty,” generally.

I’d like to explore the idea that it’s at least reasonable to associate “the beautiful” and “the morally good.”

This point must be based on evidence, the nature of which must be defined. So, for example, I want to look at the criminogenic quality of ugly buildings, and the way people tend to get sick and die sooner when they live in and among them.

I've never been to Paris, so I can't speak with much authority on the beauty of the buildings there. However, I can tell her why the beautiful and the good used to be thought connected. Here is an old post:

Htom asked for a break to put his thoughts in order before we reconvened on the subject of levels of reality -- that is, whether a thing can be "more real" than another. Here's St. Augustine on the subject:

Look around; there are the heaven and the earth. They cry aloud that they were made, for they change and vary. Whatever there is that has not been made, and yet has being, has nothing in it that was not there before. This having something not already existent is what it means to be changed and varied. Heaven and earth thus speak plainly that they did not make themselves: "We are, because we have been made; we did not exist before we came to be so that we could have made ourselves!" And the voice with which they speak is simply their visible presence. It was thou, O Lord, who madest these things. Thou art beautiful; thus they are beautiful. Thou art good, thus they are good. Thou art; thus they are. But they are not as beautiful, nor as good, nor as truly real as thou their Creator art. Compared with thee, they are neither beautiful nor good, nor do they even exist. These things we know, thanks be to thee. Yet our knowledge is ignorance when it is compared with thy knowledge.

That gives us two 'levels' of reality: God, and creation. The original claim of Mark Twain's suggested that a human creation could -- if it were also true and beautiful -- be "more real" than other things that were part of God's creation.

Confer with Tolkien's idea of sub-creation, and his creation myth in the Silmarillion. Human nature has a capacity to seize upon the True and the Beautiful as they are in other things. We can separate them intellectually from the things they are in, and think about why they are beautiful. We can take things that are imperfectly beautiful, and imagine how to make them more so. We can, in our arts, make them actually more beautiful.

The Twain discussion tracks to this earlier post, and this one. Twain's subject was Wagner's opera, which he criticized intensely -- but his admission undoes all the criticism.

If you can make art that is more real than nature, then you are refining something found in the natural world. That is what Aristotle suggests art exists to do: to perfect the natures of things. You start with the good in the world, and perfect it. Nature might provide shelter in a cave. Men taking shelter in such caves made them places for worship by decorating their walls with other beautiful scenes found in nature. Such a cave begins to be improved by being made more perfect, and thus -- this was Twain's insight -- more real.

A cathedral is just an artificial cave, in a way. Notre Dame is more real because it is more beautiful. It is more beautiful because it more perfectly realizes the goods that it was brought into being to serve.

Break: Goodnight, Merle

A sad day for the nation. I'd say for 'the country,' but this is no time for puns.











I'm sorry to see him go. He was one of the last of the Outlaw Country greats.

UPDATE: I don't know if this story about Merle's last show is true. However, it is coherent with this news report about that show.

UPDATE: A young Merle Haggard does impressions of the singers who were great in those days.

Merle Haggard, RIP

Merle Hazard

I don't even know what to say about this ...

Hat tip to Greg Mankiw.

Kolejka

This game came up in a discussion on another site, and I thought the Hall would enjoy it.

Here's the description from Amazon:

Kolejka -- Queue -- Boardgame

by Instytut Pamici Narodowej

Get in a queue with your family in front of a store and experience a rush of genuine emotions! The board game Kolejka (a.k.a. Queue) tells a story of everyday life in Poland at the tail-end of the Communist era.

The players' task appears to be simple: They have to send their family members out to various stores on the game board to buy all the items on their shopping list. The problem is, however, that the shelves in the five neighborhood stores are empty.

The players line up their pawns in front of the shops without knowing which shop will have a delivery. Tension mounts as the product delivery cards are uncovered and it turns out that there will be enough product cards only for the lucky few standing closest to the door of a store. Since everyone wants to be first, the queue starts to push up against the door. To get ahead, the people in the queue use a range of queuing cards, such as 'Mother carrying small child', 'This is not your place, sir', or 'Under-the-counter goods'. But they have to watch out for 'Closed for stocktaking', 'Delivery error', and for the black pawns the speculators standing in the queue. Only those players who make the best use of the queuing cards in their hand will come home with full shopping bags.

On the product cards are photos of sixty original objects from the Communist era. The merchandise includes Relaks shoes, Przemysawka eau de cologne, and Popularna tea, as well as other commodities that were once in scarce supply.

The neighborhood also has an outdoor market but the prices there are steep unless, of course, you manage to strike a deal with the market trader. In this realistic game you really have to be savvy to get the goods. Are you brave enough to confront the everyday life of the 1980s?

Appropriately, the game is only available from 3rd party sellers and the lowest price is currently $473.46.

On the Road

Gone walkabout for a few days. Should be back late this week.

Pokey LaFarge's Tiny Desk Concert

Political Correctness as the End of Moral Relativism

So, we usually talk about PC as an outgrowth of moral relativism: you can't criticize any other culture without causing offense because you can't suggest that any culture is better than another. A new article in the Atlantic says that, actually, that's a perfectly serviceable non-relative ethic by itself. The harsh punishments of pro-PC activists are an enforcement of a non-relative ethic against the non-PC.

The subjective morality of yesterday has been replaced by an ethical code that, if violated, results in unmerciful moral crusades on social media.

A culture of shame cannot be a culture of total relativism. One must have some moral criteria for which to decide if someone is worth shaming....

This system is not a reversion to the values that conservatives may wish for. America’s new moral code is much different than it was prior to the cultural revolution of the 1960s and 70s. Instead of being centered on gender roles, family values, respect for institutions and religious piety, it orbits around values like tolerance and inclusion. (This new code has created a paradoxical moment in which all is tolerated except the intolerant and all included except the exclusive.)

Well, except no: the most intolerant and exclusive brands of all can travel under this flag, because they can claim to have been not tolerated or excluded by some previous authority. It remains an anti-Western Western philosophy, a West that blinds itself like Oedipus out of horror at its past sins. In that blindness, it now can see nothing except the ever-cycling vision of the old sins playing out again against the mind's eye.

What happens outside of that mental torture chamber is none of its proper concern.

Fatal Design Flaw in SCAR

Funker530 has video of a professional attempting to reproduce the failure.

The Stanford Review Demands Change

From their first of April issue.

Insh'Odin

Satellite images uncover second Viking settlement in North America.

21 Generals for 5,000 Troops?

There's a politically incorrect phrase we used to use to describe this setup. Something to do with 'chiefs' and 'Indians.' Now, I don't want to fail to respect our Native American brothers and sisters, but I can't help but think of the phrase when I read a report like this.

Exclusive: 21 Generals Lead ISIS War the U.S. Denies Fighting

There are only 5,000 U.S. troops in Iraq—about what a colonel usually commands. But for this ISIS war, as many as 21 generals have been deployed. Why?

How does anyone get anything done with that much brass? Well, maybe that's why we somehow aren't winning. I've known a couple of Brigade Commanders who could have cleaned this up, if you gave them their head.

Another Reason to Value Being Long-Married

Cosmopolitan invites four young women to talk with their boyfriends about guns. "Almost all of the boyfriends believe they have the right to gun ownership under the Second Amendment, but their girlfriends don't see it that way."



My favorite is the one who just cannot imagine why anyone would want to own a "death machine." Her boyfriend says, well, you know, you drive a car and they kill just as many people (and about three times as often by accident! More than two thirds of gun deaths are suicides).

I suppose I would have said, "In fact I own many death machines. Wait until you meet my motorcycle."

If she was the sort to really mind saddling up on a death machine, she'd have moved on long before we got to the conversation about guns.

Still, I feel bad for these young guys having to negotiate dating in an environment like this one.



Well, maybe I don't feel too bad for them. It's a hard ride, but at least some of them seem to be working it out.

Did the Hall see this?

This has got to be one of the most amazing stories of wartime survival I have ever read.  Please do yourself a favor and take some time to read the amazing story of a British WWII RAF veteran.

The Dramatic Exception to Nondiscrimination?

Many years ago when I was a teenager, I saw a version of Hamlet with a black actor in one of the leading roles. Knowing that the film was set in Medieval Denmark, I had a moment of being jarred out of the suspension of disbelief necessary for effective drama. However, I made the mental effort to thrust the issue aside and found no problem enjoying the play. Such casting has apparently now become common, and the reaction of viewers is now standard: we have decided not to care.

In fact, it turns out that Medieval Denmark -- if it were much like Medieval England -- probably did have a certain number of people of color in it. Several of the Round Table knights turn out to have been, a fact missed because the Medieval authors didn't make a big deal about it. It apparently wasn't that remarkable.

Nevertheless, one can see that the suspension of disbelief is a real issue for dramatic works. More than that, if a play is really partially about race, the dramatic vision of the whole could make it valid to cast certain roles in a certain way. It might be interesting to do a version of Roots or Tarantino's Django with racial casting reversed, but it makes a certain sense to play the casting straight. I'm not sure it would make sense to fail to take race into account at all: while reversing casting would make a point, you would lose something important to the drama if you gave the sense that race was of no importance in the time period being portrayed. It is the centrality of racism that is the issue, and casting has to reflect that somehow.

I'm thinking about this because the Hamilton musical has come under fire for a casting call asking for only "non-white" actors. There's a question about whether the law can support race-based casting. That's a separate question from whether or not it makes any sense to try to put on a play set in a particular time and place that doesn't take audience expectations into account -- either to smooth suspension of disbelief, or to challenge their preconceptions.

It seems as if the artistic concerns are valid, but they may be illegal. If they were illegal, should there be a nondiscrimination exception for art?

"Oops"

After what the DNC is calling an "error," Bernie Sanders is not on the DC ballot.

There are only 20 delegates at stake, as I understand it. On the other hand, the race is tightening, and Bernie Sanders has passed Clinton in the overall lead among registered Democrats.

As disappointing as this year has been, I think I could be satisfied with almost any outcome that puts paid to the Clinton machine.

UPDATE: From a usually reliable Clinton supporter, Ezra Klein:

[T]he Clinton campaign has come up with the argument that Sanders has somehow crossed a line with his negative campaigning.... This is flatly absurd. The Democratic primary — including the debates — has been substantive and respectful. Sanders has, at times, bent over backward to run a positive race, as when he refused to hound Clinton over her emails. If any candidate has ever proven himself a fair and courteous adversary, it's Sanders. The mockery Sanders's supporters are throwing at Clinton is entirely merited.

This is the Clinton campaign at its worst. The argument isn't just false, it also insults the intelligence of voters.

No one ever went broke doing that.

Knights Templar Cleared of Blasphemy

Seven hundred years ago, the Knights Templar were convicted of blasphemy by the French and the leadership of the order was executed. Historians tend to believe that the real issue was the rich property belonging to the military order, which the French government was then able to claim.

Now, for the first time, the Papal inquiry into the trial is being revealed to the public. The Pope, it turns out, cleared the order of the charges against it. However, he went along with disbanding it for political reasons.

Interesting timing, publicly clearing the old Crusader order at an hour in which many in Europe seem to wish they had them back.

Conan Lives!

Robert E. Howard's conceit for the Conan stories -- and, in fact, for most of his stories -- was that what we take to be the rise of civilization was really a very late period. Civilizations we have never dreamed of had risen and fallen, since before the oceans drank Atlantis.

More and more, it looks like he was right.

Writing did not arrive in this part of Europe for another 2,000 years, so it’s a mystery as to who was fighting whom. A full DNA analysis has yet to be completed, but evidence from teeth indicates that this was no local struggle. Instead, the chemical composition of the teeth show that the men came from many different parts of Europe, some from hundreds of miles away.

One hypothesis suggests that bands of warriors were brought together for a common purpose, in the same way warbands came together in the story of siege of Troy.

But what’s really startling historians is that nobody knew North European society was this organized, stratified and warlike so early in history. One researcher told Science magazine “if you fight with body armor and helmet and corselet, you need daily training or you can’t move. … This kind of training is the beginning of a specialized group of warriors.”

An elite warrior class can only exist if someone else is growing the warriors' food and making their weapons and tools. That suggests a degree of hitherto unsuspected stratification of Bronze Age society.

Let me tell you of the days of high adventure.

Scalia: A Failed Democracy

Via D29, an argument from the late Antonin Scalia:

[W]e got to U.S. v. Windsor, the controversial 2013 case in which a 5-4 majority struck down the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).... Justice Scalia had written a blistering dissent in the case, taking the majority to task for agreeing to hear the matter in the first place. “The Court is eager—hungry—to tell everyone its view of the legal question at the heart of this case,” he had written.

Standing in the way is an obstacle, a technicality of little interest to anyone but the people of We the People, who created it as a barrier against judges’ intrusion into their lives. They gave judges, in Article III, only the “judicial Power,” a power to decide not abstract questions but real, concrete “Cases” and “Controversies.” Yet the plaintiff and the Government agree entirely on what should happen in this lawsuit. They agree that the court below got it right; and they agreed in the court below that the court below that one got it right as well. What, then, are we doing here?

It was a good question. The procedural history of the case was utterly bizarre. President Obama had instructed the Department of Justice not to defend DOMA from constitutional challenges because he believed that the statute was unconstitutional. Yet at the same time, the president had instructed other executive agencies, including the Internal Revenue Service, to continue enforcing DOMA’s provisions...

I asked Justice Scalia whether, notwithstanding Windsor’s limited precedential value, the threat to the separation of powers from “executive non-enforcement” had grown critical. In the wake of Windsor, had it become easier for the president not only to decline to defend laws that he found objectionable, but to decline to enforce laws that he found objectionable? ... Was there any basis, I asked, upon which the Supreme Court might rule on the constitutionality of executive non-enforcement?

It all depends on Congress, Justice Scalia responded—and “if Congress doesn’t do its job and challenge the president,” he said, “what we have is a failed democracy.” The blow landed. The room fell silent. The moderator called for a break.

There is some speculation, in the wake of his death, that the Supreme Court might "just disappear" as a Constitutional organ. Frankly, I think that would be for the best: its current role as a rolling committee of 9 with the power to amend the Constitution at will has not been good either for the stability of the Republic nor the liberty of the People. There is no reason to believe that the Court will amend its ways, especially not if it obtains a fifth liberal vote. In that case, we can expect to see the Constitution rapidly rewritten so that conservative views are firmly declared to be not only illegal but unconstitutional. It is a road we have already come down a long way.

A restrained Court could play its much more limited constitutional role wisely, but the wisdom resides in the limitations. The Court always runs the hazard of deciding questions one way for the whole of a very diverse nation. To the degree that it does so in "controversies," there is a kind of instability built into the use of the judicial power. The several states can agree to disagree. Citizens who care deeply about a controversy can move to a state that resolves it in a way they find agreeable. Every time the Court undertakes to solve a question once and for all, it damages our Republic's stability by forcing a minority -- sometimes a majority -- to accept that their views are illegitimate and may not be considered by any legislature.

There have been a small number of controversies in our history where such a radical approach was justified. Even in these cases, the use of the power is not guaranteed to result in a wise or just outcome. The Court decided to resolve one such question with Dred Scott.

Can Congress stand up for itself, and reassert its proper role? Would the Court, lacking Scalia, affirm their rights if it did? Or are we already past the gate described in these remarks?

What A Shock

The "Guns at the RNC" petition was started by... a Clinton supporter. I'll wait while you pick your mouth up off the floor.

The thing is, I wouldn't mind at all allowing permit holders to carry at the convention or most anywhere else. This was intended as a "satire" aimed at making us look like hypocrites, but really, there's no hypocrisy to be had on this issue.

That's how I knew this was a false-flag -- it's the kind of petition someone would write who fell for the "NRA bans guns" hoax. There are only two reasons guns aren't going to be at the RNC, and neither of them is amenable to a petition. The first one is the Secret Service, and the second one is the insurance concerns of the property owner.

Cruz / Fiorina?

I liked Fiorina more and more the more I saw of her. Her record isn't impressive, but the job of Vice President is just to spend one's full time training to become President. I could support a VP candidate who lacked the record that a Presidential candidate should have, especially when the Presidential candidate is as young and healthy as Cruz.

So far she says there's no deal, but perhaps there will be one.

National Border Patrol Council: Trump, Please

Effectively a union for Border Patrol agents, this endorsement is surprising. They normally do not endorse candidates, for one thing. For another, it's Donald Trump they're endorsing, not just a Republican but the official choice of Worst Republican To Be Hated Most this year. I find it amazing that a public-sector union would endorse a Republican at all, let alone one so thoroughly painted as a racist hatemonger.

Clearly they are tired of the status quo on the border.

NYT: How About Some Frank Talk, Obama?

It's as if they don't trust him to just do whatever he wants without the approval of Congress or the American public.

When did that start?

In any case, here's a decent book on the subject. You'll recognize some of the authors.

Son Ain't Smart

But you don't have to be smart to be right.

Speaking of Tribalism...

Scottish Jews have their own tartan as of now. This has apparently been in the works for centuries.

The tartan, featuring distinctive tones of navy and burgundy, is a kosher non wool-linen mix which abides by shatnez - the Jewish law prohibiting the mixture of wool and linen in garments.

Religious experts and tartan authorities worked together to come up with a design that represent both Jewish values and Scottish history.... The tartan design features blue and white, the colours of both the Israeli and Scottish flags, with the central gold line representing the gold from the Ark in the Biblical Tabernacle.

The silver is to represent the silver that adorns the Scroll of the Law, while the red depicts the traditional Kiddush wine.

There are seven lines in the central motif and three in the flag representations - both numbers of great significance in Judaism.

So now you know.

In addition to family/tribal lines, Scotland has a number of universal tartans that Jews could have always worn (although I don't know if they abide by kosher laws about mixing wool and linen). There are also tartans for districts, including a number of American states. Georgia's is particularly meaningful given the early history of Scottish Highlanders in making the colony of Georgia a reality in the face of Spanish aggression.

"Double Standard"

There's a small problem with this analogy, in an article on the relationship between a particularly violent strand of hip-hop music and Chicago violence which came across my desk this morning though it was originally published in December of 2014. The murder rate in Chicago is at its all time high now, so the problem the author is discussing has only worsened.

In 1956, Johnny Cash released his classic song “Folsom Prison Blues” in which he stated, “I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.” For those of you familiar with this song, ask yourself, “Have I ever felt like killing someone after listening to this?” The obvious answer, of course, is no. Yet, there seems to be a double standard when it comes to hip hop and its new found sub-genre, drill music.

The difference between the Cash song and the songs to which you refer is the absence of tribalism. Johnny Cash's song is about a loser who is all alone in the world, having rejected the mores of his family and his society. He is locked in a prison where there must be people all around him, but none of them are mentioned. The only other people in the song -- aside from his Mama and the man he killed in spite of her advice -- are people he can only imagine, doing things he longs to do in a space forever forbidden to him. He doesn't even really long for fellowship with them. He doesn't imagine himself in the dining car with them, 'drinking coffee and smoking big cigars.' He just wishes he could drive the train. He pictures himself there, in a role he knows he can never inhabit, moving the train away from lonely Folsom Prison.

That's not what's going on with this other music. This music is asking you to imagine yourself as a member of a tribe, a soldier of the tribe, standing up proudly against others. It's a very different logic. Killing in the one song is the Fall. Killing in the other is a source of power, pride, position. Read the lyrics the author quotes as exemplary for the proof of this.

A subsidiary argument blames the broader society for both the rise of the music and the actual violence associated with it:

If you were to take a look at a timeline of events in the Chicago, you’d see that drill music came to fruition as the city began its aggressive redevelopment of public housing. It was an initiative called The Plan for Transformation. In a nutshell, the “plan” was to completely demolish all of the project housings in Chicago and replace them with remodeled updated apartments. However, in doing so, tens of thousands of Chicago’s poor residents were displaced and forced to move into other nearby, crowded and impoverished neighborhoods. When this happened, rival gangs became closer to one another. Sub-gangs also began forming within existing gangs, creating infighting. For years, this problem continued to go unrecognized and unchecked.

In 2012, Chicago took the national stage due to its unprecedented level of gun violence. By the end of that year, Chicago officially became murder capital of the United States.

There's probably a causal factor to be found there, too. It is the property of guilt, however, that it can be divided without being lessened.

Crumbling

The Clinton campaign says there will be no more debates unless Sanders stops being so negative about her.

Sanders is negative about her? She's been in national politics for twenty years. He's the most courteous opponent she's ever had.

Meanwhile, a writer at the Huffington Post says that she should concede the contest.

Yes, federal prosecutors will interview Hillary Clinton, in addition to her close associates.

At what point will establishment Democrats admit this fiasco is horrible for a general election?

When federal prosecutors are interviewing your candidate for president, even Donald Trump has a good chance at the White House.

Furthermore, former U.S. attorney general Michael Mukasey believes A Criminal Charge is Justified. Former Obama intelligence official Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn says that “If it were me, I would have been out the door and probably in jail.” Former NSA director Michael Hayden called Clinton’s email setup “stupid and dangerous.” Even Edward Snowden, the antithesis of America’s intelligence community in many ways, says it’s “ridiculous” to think Clinton’s emails were secure.

It’s time for Democrats to deal with reality, not just allegiance to a political icon, and rally around the only candidate not linked to an FBI investigation...

Also, nothing in the Rolling Stone piece endorsing Clinton mentions the ongoing FBI investigation. The Christian Science Monitor clearly states the nature of the FBI’s investigation, stating “The FBI is indeed conducting a criminal investigation into the possible mishandling of classified information on the private email server Clinton used for State Department communications.”

Yes, Hillary supporters, “The FBI is indeed conducting a criminal investigation.”

Another Dead End

Actual NYT Headline: "Who Will Become a Terrorist? Research Yields Few Clues."

Actual opening grafs:

The brothers who carried out suicide bombings in Brussels last week had long, violent criminal records and had been regarded internationally as potential terrorists. But in San Bernardino, Calif., last year, one of the attackers was a county health inspector who lived a life of apparent suburban normality.

And then there are the dozens of other young American men and women who have been arrested over the past year for trying to help the Islamic State. Their backgrounds are so diverse that they defy a single profile.

Actual Saturday Night Live skit from many years ago, when this line of argument was already a joke.

Governor Deal to Veto Religious Freedom

As expected, the governor has determined that liberty should be sold for profit.

“Our people work side by side without regard to the color of our skin, or the religion we adhere to,” he said. “We are working to make life better for our families and our communities. That is the character of Georgia. I intend to do my part to keep it that way,” he said. “For that reason, I will veto HB 757.”

That's a neat rhetorical trick. If it is the case that Georgians "work side by side without regard to... religion..." then the law would provoke no changes in behavior. The argument is that the law is not necessary because Georgians already freely do what it would free them not to do. This is framed as an act of tolerance and compassion. It is really an assertion that force may be used to compel Georgia's religious dissenters to comply with the opinion of the cultural elite.

What is really going on is that the law is going to require Georgians to work "without regard... to the religion they adhere to" by mandating them to do things that violate their faith. Religion will be forced out of the public space in these ways: if you want to make a living, you will violate your faith whenever you are required to do so by activists who hunt you down to make the point. The law will compel you.

Disney is happy today, and the Coca-Cola company. The governor has betrayed the basic mission of an American state, however. Protecting the liberties of the people is the whole reason this nation and its several states exist. Governor Deal's action is a disgrace to the United States of America and to the state of Georgia.

"Insufficient Attention"

From a story in the Washington Post:

From the earliest days, Clinton aides and senior officials focused intently on accommodating the secretary’s desire to use her private email account, documents and interviews show.

Throughout, they paid insufficient attention to laws and regulations governing the handling of classified material and the preservation of government records, interviews and documents show.

According to this frame, the only wrongdoing was paying "insufficient attention" to (ahem) "laws and regulations." Now, what do we usually call it when someone pays "insufficient attention" to a law?

I notice that the frame also maintains that "Clinton aides and senior officials" are the ones who are in the wrong. Clinton herself? She just has legitimate interests in being able to communicate efficiently that the aides are trying to accommodate.

Though a news story, it almost reads like an offer: take these "senior aides" as your sacrificial lambs, and leave the Great Woman Herself to float free.

The High Feast of Easter

Happy Easter to you all.

Tax All Foriegners Living Abroad

So went an old Monty Python gag.

The New York Times may have just as well used that instead of the their title for this piece: "In Donald Trump's Worldview, America Comes First, and Everybody Else Pays"

That headline is just going to do the opposite of what the Times intends.

A Bird for Bernie: Campaigns React

Nothing from the Cruz campaign, I notice.

Good Friday

Good Friday is a day about which I feel unqualified to write. I hope you may choose today to take counsel with a better authority. I only mention it to wish you well in a difficult hour.

For those with Jewish friends, today is also Shushan Purim, a holiday I had not known of until this morning. Purim I knew of, martial holiday that it is, but it turns out that there is a special variation of the date of Purim that really appeals to me:

Purim is celebrated on the Adar 14 because the Jews in unwalled cities fought their enemies on Adar 13 and rested the following day. However, in Shushan, the capital city of the Persian Empire, the Jews were involved in defeating their enemies on Adar 13–14 and rested on the 15th (Esther 9:20–22). In commemoration of this, it was decided that while the victory would be celebrated universally on Adar 14, for Jews living in Shushan, the holiday would be held on Adar 15. Later, in deference to Jerusalem, the Sages determined that Purim would be celebrated on Adar 15 in all cities which had been enclosed by a wall at the time of Joshua's conquest of the Land of Israel.

Allahpundit Has It Backwards

It's Trump who has to challenge Cruz to a duel. Otherwise, the charge of cowardice stands.

This is why dueling is useful, of course. Lots of men have big mouths. Not all of them have big... hands.

Salute to a Communist

Senator John McCain remembers a member of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.

Namaste, Heathens

Kennesaw, Georgia is a trip.

A group of parents at a Cobb County elementary are upset over the school’s use of yoga and other mindfulness practices for students because they believe it endorses a non-Christian belief system.

School leaders at Bullard Elementary held a meeting recently with parents to address the “many misconceptions” over the issue...

As a result, the school is making changes. When yoga moves are used in classrooms, students will not say the word “namaste” nor put their hands by their hearts, according to the email. The term and gesture are often used as a greeting derived from Hindu custom.

When coloring during classroom teaching breaks, students will not be allowed to color mandalas, spiritual symbols in Hinduism and Buddhism.

I would wager heavily that the school's teachers don't understand the real Hindu customs or theology well enough to teach it if they had wanted to teach it. If they did, they'd understand that the suggestion that yoga has something to do with Hinduism isn't just some silly 'misconception.'



UPDATE: I win my bet. From the program founder's bio:

I consider Dr. Seuss one of my master teachers...

She really doesn't know what she's teaching. I looked up those yoga credentials, by the way. The Yoga Alliance, which seems to be the source for them, points out that they are not certifications -- they're just acknowledgements that she's in their registry, and they've tracked that she's taught 500 hours, or has registered as a teacher of children, or whatever.

The good news is that you can stop worrying about her rubbing any Hinduism off on your kids. The bad news, I trust, is obvious.

You Could Be A Rock Star In America, Too

Headline: "US Attorney Becomes Rock Star In Turkey For Arresting Erdogan’s Partner."

Exulting in Zarrab’s arrest, Turkish social media users had a field day mocking him and hailing the attorney.

Preet Bharara, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, had only 8,010 followers before the Justice Department announced on Monday the arrest of Zarrab, a Turkish-Iranian businessman accused of evading US sanctions on Iran. The number of attorney’s followers on Twitter was skyrocketed to whopping 230,000 and it is rapidly increasing. His latest two tweets were shared nearly 60,000 times and liked by 85,000 people....

Bharara was lionized in Turkey largely because corruption suspects are deemed so “untouchable” that any prosecutor or police who go after them may lose their jobs or jailed and any journalist covering them may face prosecution or get fired.

I assure you that I stand ready to be as celebratory for the US attorney who brings Hillary Clinton to justice. Can we prove at home what we have proven abroad, that the law can apply even to the powerful? Or is that only for those who aren't powerful here?

UPDATE: McClatchy says that, like the FiveThirtyEight people who have to go on 'quests' to understand Trump voters, the People just don't understand the elite.

The people who spend two bucks for chili at the Courtesy Diner at Laclede Station Road can’t fathom why anyone would pay Hillary Clinton $225,000 to make a speech.

That's not true. Everybody knows why she was paid $225,000 for the speech. They're just too polite to say it out loud.

Major Voter Suppression in Arizona

You won't be informed of this by reading the article, so let me ask you if you realize who benefited from this particular fraud? The article actually says that this is "all about electing Republicans," but the Republican establishment isn't the one pulling out all the stops to elect a particular candidate.

Also:

"[I]ndependent voters who switched their registration to the Democratic Party were allegedly told they hadn’t registered at all, forcing them to sit out the closed primary."

How would disenfranchising Democratic primary voters have anything to do with electing Republicans?

There are none so blind as those who will not see.

About that Che Photo...

The Weekly Standard wants you to know what Cubans saw when they looked at that photo:

[T]he building that Guevara's face adorns is home to the Cuban Ministry of the Interior. Unlike our own Ministry of the Interior, Cuba's is not charged with innocuous tasks like protecting endangered waterfowl. Rather, it operates the National Revolutionary Police, which, in addition to keeping law and order on the streets, harasses and arrests dissidents, and suppresses "counter-revolutionary" activities. In other words, it's Cuba's version of the Stasi.

So it's a photo of the President of the United States, standing at attention, in front of the headquarters of the Communist Revolutionary Police. That should send a message to the Cuban people, for sure.

Hey, Ash Carter: What About A 'Less Hierarchical Work Environment' in the Army?

The answer is revealing.

Carter told the cadet it was "a good question," as "we've got to stay competitive."

"And it gets to attracting and recruiting people. And it means we're going to have to keep thinking and keep changing about how we manage people. Let me give you a few examples of things that we're doing now... [to] draw in some of what you're calling exactly right, flatter, more mobile institutions...."

"Just recently, I changed our -- our policies in a number of ways on family programs -- things like maternity and paternity leave."

Yeah, you're doing a heck of a job there.

A flatter, less hierarchical work environment is great for the Special Forces. They've made it work beautifully. It doesn't necessarily translate to the rest of the military. I wonder if our Secretary of Defense can say why, beyond the difficulty of obtaining artillery colonels through the want ads?

"Vexing Decision" for Governor Deal

The religious liberty bill passed the Legislature easily, but has been sitting on the governor's desk for a while.

The question that Governor Deal has to answer is this: is protecting the religious liberty of actual citizens the relevant duty of the state of Georgia, or is it protecting the feelings of cartoon mice and superheroes? Disney and Marvel say they aren't willing to film in Georgia if they can't force citizens to comply with their corporate policies.

It's an easy question from where I sit: if we are being asked to trade liberty for money, they can take their money and run. No state of the Union, and no Federal government, should ever trade an American liberty even for safety in the teeth of foreign threats. How much less should we trade sacred liberty for the wages of the next Avenger film?

This is one of two bills favored by Georgia's conservatives that easily passed the Legislature but have been hung up on the governor. The other one is the 'campus carry' bill, which liberal professors and administrators on our campuses -- a majority here, as elsewhere -- have treated with apoplexy. Governor Deal asked the Legislature to 'make some changes' to the bill.

The Legislature declined.

Duffel Blog: Crusade, Anyone?

Poll: Support for another Crusade at highest level since 14th century

It's a joke, and yet...

North Dakota Professor Quails at ROTC Candidates

“My first thought is for my students’ and my safety: I grab my phone, crawl under my desk and call 911,” she wrote.

The threat, however, was two ROTC students carrying guns on their way to a routine training exercise, Campus Reform reported.

“I can barely talk — first, with fear, and then with rage when the dispatcher reports back that yes, in fact, I’ve probably just seen ROTC cadets, though they’re going to send an officer to check because no one has cleared it with them,” Ms. Czerwiec wrote.

She said a university officer called her back a few minutes later to inform her that ROTC would be doing the exercises for the next couple of weeks.

“So I reply that I guess I’ll be calling 911 for the next couple weeks—and I will. Every time,” Ms. Czerwiec wrote. “It’s not my job to decide whether people carrying guns at school are an actual threat. It’s my job to teach and to get home to my family.

“It’s already highly inappropriate to conduct unnecessary military maneuvers in the middle of the quad. But with school shootings on the increase and tensions at UND running high, it’s especially irresponsible.”

Heaven forfend. You can't imagine how sorry I am to learn that you are having to learn to live with the people who defend the country you live in.

Best Use Yet

A charity shop is given so many copies of Fifty Shades of Grey that it finds an inventive use for them.

"The God Shot"

Via Armed Liberal, a story about a doctor who has a pioneering therapy for PTSD.

How Can You Defeat ISIS if You Won't Stand Up for Western Values?

The refusal to big-up Western values has been institutionalised in the idea of Islamophobia, which is not just about protecting Muslims from assault or discrimination — a noble thing to do — but is about policing any expression of belief in the superiority of Western or enlightened values. In the words of the Runnymede Trust, which shaped the definition of Islamophobia, any suggestion that the Islamic way of life is ‘inferior to the West’ is an expression of prejudice, and everyone should be taught that the Islamic outlook is ‘as equally worthy of respect [as Western values]’. Laws and codes against Islamophobia represent the institutionalisation of relativism, the suppression of loud and proud defences of the virtues of Western life and thought.

Prejudice is pre-judging a thing. The problem is that we've gotten to the point that any judgment at all, regardless of the evidence, is forbidden as if it were a judgment in advance of the facts.

Wikileaks and Clinton

Now that the Clinton emails are public (those she didn't delete before turning them over to the government, of course), Wikileaks has produced them in a searchable format. Now you can read Sid Blumenthal's emails, or prowl around to see who was giving her money in return for favorable treatment from State.

The Exchange Theory of Value (Again)

From time to time we have discussions that feature the exchange theory of value. It's amusing to me that the clearest example I can recall is Mike holding forth on Dungeons & Dragons mechanics.

[W]hile you may argue that it makes no logical sense for an evil Paladin to be the martial equal of a good one, I'd posit that you're arguing logic in a game where wizards can cast an identify spell using a pearl worth "at least 100 gold pieces". And nothing anywhere explains how to calculate who determines the worth of that pearl. Are the pearls used to identify magic items in the desert smaller and more flawed than the ones in the fishing village that has pearl cultivation beds? That's a screwed up metaphysical system where market forces determine the efficacy of magic.

So what is a pearl worth? The usual answer is that it is worth what someone will give for it. This may lead to results that seem absurd in real life, too. Sometimes people who have a lot of money push the value of apparently trivial objects well above what ordinary people could afford. Is the single copy of Wu Tang Clan's Once Upon a Time in Shaolin really worth millions of dollars?

To dispute that it was, you would have to have some other standard than exchange to measure what a thing is "really worth." Many economic theories simply lack the furniture to argue about whether or not the pearl is "really worth" 100 gold pieces, or the album is "really worth" millions of dollars. Other theories that do are largely discredited: Marxists can talk about "surplus value" being extracted from laborers, but Marxist economics has never managed to work anywhere.

I was thinking about this today because of an article in the NYT that purports to show that as women take over in male-dominated fields wages drop.

If this is true, under the exchange theory of value the work of women is "really worth" less just because people are willing to pay less for it. It is, presumably, the same work. The work was "really worth" more if a man did it in a male-dominated field, and now is "really worth" less because women have entered the field. Is that right?

Well, one thing that would make it plausible is that womens' entry increases the supply of labor for that particular job; now everyone's labor is worth less in that field just because of the law of supply and demand. That may be the real explanation, but I want to set it aside for the purpose of this discussion. I'm interested in a theoretical question.

What interests me is -- as usual -- whether there is a moral question that should override the economic question. It often bothers me that so much seems to be for sale. I like to think that at least some things ought not to be traded in the market. Even in the market, too, I think some relationships are adequately unfair that they should be banned even if both parties to the trade are willing.

Here is a moral principle of fairness (which Aristotle said is an important component of justice, and which Rawls said was the whole of justice). It seems to be out of order with the economic principle, maybe, if the explanation is not merely an increased labor supply.

Does it show that the exchange theory of value is incomplete or inadequate? In Mike's D&D example, I thought the pearl would prove to have an objective value if it could be used for the spell. Does fairness perform something of the same role as magic, but in the real world? Or should we continue to discard other concepts than exchange value, and say that fairness does not apply?

I Suddenly Sense the Appeal

Still not a fan, but this makes more sense than anything I've seen yet.

UPDATE: FiveThirtyEight goes on a "quest" to try to understand Trump voters.

Here's what I think they get right, which I will follow on with what I think they are missing.

I queued up in the general admission line and entered the massive space just as the national anthem was starting. The assembled crowd of about 5,000 was reverently quiet — a massive flag billowed, police officers and firefighters stood at attention, and the sickly gray sky seemed more like swirling marble than the dull harbinger of rain it had been only moments ago. Something stirred deep beneath my layers of reportorial cynicism; I got chills.

This part of the appeal of Trump rallies is not talked about much.... Along with the fighting, though, something inspirational seems to be happening among the assembled — a sense of collective identity being discovered. In this millionaire cosmopolitan who has married two immigrants, the threatened silent American majority has found its champion.

The emotional experience Trump is capable of creating is why it will be difficult to replace him, even with Cruz who is a more rational choice given their expressed concerns. Cruz is the right choice for these voters, but they don't have the emotional experience with him. It is Trump that makes them feel large, proud, and part of something.

What I think FiveThirtyEight and others are missing is that this is not something affecting the Republican party only. The author writes that "working-class whites’ racial anger had reconstituted their sense of identity; and their desire for the center to no longer hold meant drastic upheaval in the Grand Old Party and America." If this is about "working class whites" discovering a newly invigorated racial identity, though, that is going to cut a part of the heart out of the Democratic Party, too.

The numbers suggest that, if everything else holds equal, Trump will need 70% of the white male vote to win.

I think he might get it. It would only mean that white men vote more like black men -- that is, as a bloc. The rise of such a bloc ought to have been expected given the Democratic Party's explicit strategy of overcoming Republican advantages with white voters by emphasizing the interests of minority voters while pursuing the mass immigration of new such voters.

Until now, among white voters it has been possible for Democrats to divide and conquer blue collar from white collar, labor from management. That is, until this election, race has mattered most to black voters, but class has mattered most to white voters. It is still somewhat possible to divide out white women from white men by appealing to them qua women. That is, for some white voters, sex matters more than race. The Democrats are hoping to leverage that with Hillary Clinton as their nominee.

Thus, Trump has to pull 70% with white men because we haven't yet reached the point at which our politics are explicitly about whites versus everyone else. We are getting there fast, though. What the Democrats are blind about is that it is their party's electoral strategy that is driving this. The reason the 'white working class' is discovering a racial identity rather than a class identity is that "white" is the box they've been put into by powerful forces affecting their lives.

They aren't creating this identity for themselves. They're discovering the power of accepting membership in it. They're just figuring out what black America has long known: that taking the externally-imposed identity seriously, owning it, and wielding it through bloc voting is terribly powerful.

Neither race- nor class-based democratic systems turn out well. We've had a good run because the system didn't go all one way or all the other: the majority was divided by class while the minorities were divided by race. If we tip over into a system in which race is the main driver of political belonging, we're not going to have a pleasant future. But I don't know how you stop it from one side: and the Republicans aren't the main drivers of race-as-identity in American life. I don't see how they can pull a lever to stop this, not when the levers are mostly owned by the other side.

That Russian Uranium Deal

Now that Bernie Sanders is so far behind in the delegate count that he probably can't catch up, the NYT gets around to telling its readers about Clinton's Russia problem.

UPDATE: Apparently it's an older article that just appeared in my "news" feed. Apologies to the Times, who got this one right.

Havok Journal: Open Letter to Future Women in Special Operations

The author says he gets a letter at least once a day from someone interested in a career in special operations, but so far never from a female. Although Leo Jenkins says he's neither for nor against them, he closes with what reads to me like a strong endorsement of the concept. Nevertheless, he has some significant advice for any women considering the position.

Here is just one of his sections, every one of which strikes me as thoughtful and important.

It is important to discuss the purpose of such professions as Army Ranger, Navy SEAL or infantry soldier. These positions are often glorified in the media. Shiny medals, fancy patches, special color hats, and cool tactical gear permeate the imaginations of those outside these communities. I’m going to let you in on a trade secret, none of that shit fucking matters at all. None of it. Recruitment posters lie to you. Television and movies lie to you. As a hopeful I know what you are thinking, “I’m joining to make a difference.”

Here is the harsh reality, when you volunteer yourself for these positions, your function is to kill. Your job, your purpose, at its core, is to bring an unparalleled level of violence to the throat of the enemy. Your function is to preserve the way of life of those behind and beside you by cutting down those in front of you. You can’t just accept that fact, you have to embrace it. You have to be so filled with aggression that you want to take the life of another human being. If you’re half-hearted about this, Special Operations or the infantry is not the place for you.

Studies have shown females sustain physical injury during training at twice the rate of men, as well as are susceptible to an elevated risk of post traumatic stress. In fact, you are more than twice as likely to experience post traumatic stress than your male counterpart. During a conversation in 2006 with an individual employed as a special operations psychological doctor, I learned that it is estimated that over 90% of the the entire Ranger Regiment has experienced events which have made them highly susceptible to post traumatic stress; many of whom admitted to displaying symptoms of at the time.

According to the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, six to twelve percent of males are injured per month in basic training where 30 percent per month report injury during Naval Special Warfare training. It is important to note that this number is likely significantly lower due to the fact that reporting an injury in special warfare training has a different outcome than reporting injury in basic training.

If rate of female injury in basic training compared to male is double and injury occurrence is three to five times higher (at least) in special operations training, the probability you will sustain a lasting injury during SOF training is almost guaranteed. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be able to try out. Rather you need to understand that your health will be compromised in pursuit of this occupation.

What's the Single Most Important Factor Behind Terror in Brussels?

Go ahead, try to think of one single thing that is more prominent than anything else.

Did you get "poverty," or "injustice?"

Either way, well done. You've mastered your thoughtcrime. However, we still have to talk about your unconscious bias...

UPDATE: By the way, if you came up with the forbidden word, do a CTRL+F on the page and see how often it comes up -- and in what context.

Ukrainian Pilot Sentenced to 22 Years by Russian Court

Nadia Savchenko is a female pilot who was functioning as an artillery spotter in the conflict with Russian forces. Although Russia signed an agreement not only to respect but to protect Ukraine's territory, it is involved in a war there over its attempts to extend its control over the Russian-speaking eastern part of the country. Lieutenant Savchenko was captured by Russian police, and is charged with murder for directing airstrikes that killed two journalists.

The charge is as ridiculous as the trial. This was not a criminal act but the result of a war. The war is Russia's responsibility. The Ukrainian government may not be sweetness and light, but Russia is in clear violation of its treaty with them. Any unfortunate deaths on the battlefield resulting from military action are morally the Kremlin's fault for provoking the war. In any case, accidentally killing civilians on the battlefield is covered by the Doctrine of Double Effect, and does not constitute a war crime. It certainly should not be prosecuted as if it were a civilian murder.

Lieutenant Savchenko has borne up like a heroine, singing her national anthem from the dock and sneering at the judge. She has shown the real mental toughness required of combat soldiers, in a role providing direct support to an infantry unit.

Brussels in Flames

Another Islamist attack? It's early to say, but al Azhar is already calling it a violation of Islam's tolerant teachings.

Just a Reminder

"Unconscious Bias" and the USMC

The Marine Corps has been ordered to implement "unconscious bias" training for all Marines to prepare them for women in the infantry. As you recall, the USMC was the only service to ask for an exception for its infantry, which was denied with prejudice by the Secretary of the Navy (who all but accused them of deceptive behavior in their study of integrated combat units). The object is to change the culture so it is appropriately welcoming to female Marines who join the infantry.

The USMC is duly obeying, of course.

Mobile training teams will be dispatched to installations across the Corps throughout May and June to offer a two-day seminar to majors and lieutenant colonels, Col. Anne Weinberg, deputy director of the Marine Corps Force Innovation Office, told reporters Thursday. Those officers will then train the Marines under them.

Emphasis added. So Higher is going to train battalion commanders and the other top officers of Infantry battalions. The BC will probably train his company commanders, and leave the majors to train his battalion staff. Company Commanders will train platoon leaders and Master Sergeants or Gunnery Sergeants depending on what kind of company it is. At this point, the NCO corps will take over. Gunny will probably be the guy to take this to the men, but even he may pass it off to his subordinate NCOs.

By the time this telephone game is over, how much of the "unconscious bias" mumbo-jumbo that was said at the two-day seminar do you think will have survived?

AIPAC & the Presidential Campaign

I notice nobody's talking about Bernie Sanders' address to AIPAC this morning. Clinton's didn't go over very well.

Cruz tagged Trump for a symbolic violation of the way hard-core Israelis speak about Palestine, but made a foul of his own according to those rarefied rules.

According to an Israeli friend of mine, however, the big winner of the night was Trump, who won it all at the end of his speech when he showed that he couldn't wait for his "beautiful Jewish baby" grandchild. For her, that was better than all the carefully crafted speeches in the world.

The Legend and the Renegade

If you aren't reading Garden & Gun magazine, let me recommend it. I think most folks here at the Hall would enjoy it.

Here's an interview they did with Merle and Sturgill in the most recent issue. They are pretty solidly Southern: Southern cooking, hunting destinations, riding trails, homes, personalities, music, et cetera. Beautiful photography as well.

Vigilantes

Since we've moved on to that stage of American politics...

Manufacturing in America

D29 has a post challenging the idea that labor costs are the main thing driving the movement out of the country.

Via Uncle J

Lawlessness

What are the core features of the drift in American government toward lawlessness? I might have said these:

1) The President's war on Libya, undeclared and without Congressional authorization or notification as required by law.

2) The use of prosecutorial discretion to refuse to enforce the law on key administration allies, especially from the Clinton faction. This is so important that it is a necessary condition for the continued candidacy of the likeliest next President of the United States.

3) The unilateral suspension of America's immigration laws.

4) The free rewriting of major legislation such as Obamacare by Health and Human Services.

5) The refusal to defend democratically-enacted laws with which the President disagrees ideologically.

6) The use of the IRS to target conservative groups and prevent conservative organization.

7) The Iran deal's inversion of the Constitutional requirement for treaties to obtain a 2/3rds majority in the Senate.

8) The clear demonstration that no one in the administration will be held accountable for lawlessness as long as a sufficient minority exists in the Senate to prevent impeachment and removal from office. Failing that, everyone is protected because the chief is protected.

David Bernstein, who wrote a book on the subject, agrees with some of these and gives additional examples.

I mention it because the left-wing journal Jacobin says that the rise of lawlessness in America is a Republican work. They also have a list of objections:

If you want to understand the particular spirit of lawlessness, the contempt for rules and norms that is Donald Trump, you have to go back to the illegitimacy of the 2000 election, the GOP turn to the filibuster-proof majority as the operating rule of congressional action, and now the Republicans’ declaration that they simply won’t vote on Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, whoever it may be. (I’d add the Iraq War as part of this buildup toward lawlessness.)

Now, the 2000 election was ultimately decided by the Supreme Court -- but by a majority seen by the left as a Republican political action. There is a mirroring complaint about the SCOTUS on the right.

How interesting, these competing lists of grievances.

UPDATE: By the way, how about using trespassing or the unlawful blocking of public highways to stop political foes from engaging in free speech?

[C]onfining politics to the polling station automatically excludes a huge portion of the population, from undocumented immigrants (a favorite target of Trump’s) to young people (like the Latino high schoolers who heard taunts of “Trump! Trump!” and “Build the wall!” at a recent basketball game in Iowa) to the millions of American citizens, disproportionately African American, who have been stripped of the franchise because of felony convictions.

I'll give you young people, I guess, but the rest of that argument boils down to, 'If we confine politics to lawful means, illegal immigrants and convicted felons won't be able to participate.' So, lawlessness is or is not a concern?

Defeating ISIS by Calling it Arab

Kathryn Hillegass, writing at the Georgetown Security Studies Review, argues that ISIS has a seam that can be exploited.

Countering the spread of ISIS’s narrative outside of Greater Syria and the Middle East should be focused on this juxtaposition of nationalism versus Islamism. Thus far, responding to the threat of ISIS in an Islamic context has challenged America’s sense of political correctness which so desperately seeks to avoid the perception of a religious war. Countering violent extremism through narratives emphasizing how ISIS is inconsistent with Quranic teachings has been ineffective and has alienated the Muslim community at home and abroad. Instead, counter-narratives should highlight that supporting ISIS is more likely to contribute to the establishment of a new Arab state in Syria rather than a Muslim caliphate, ideally creating skepticism amongst potential ISIS followers outside of the Middle East.

Dr. Dan Byman recommends focusing on ISIS’s affiliates who have answered the call for global jihad and continually undermine regional security outside of the Middle East. Byman suggests weakening the affiliates “by portraying the core group as out of touch with local grievances.”[iv] One way to do so is to expose how ISIS spends its money. Although precise numbers are elusive, ISIS spends considerable amounts supporting the millions of people living within their territory.[v] Governing, no matter how brutally, is expensive. Contradictory to their global message, the majority of the money is staying in the Middle East. The money flowing to fledgling ISIS affiliates in Nigeria, Somalia, Southeast Asia, and elsewhere is only directly funding violence. The West ought to recognize and exploit that seam.

That said, characterizing ISIS as a nationalist movement does not make it any less dangerous.

Emphasis added.

So we're not getting anywhere by saying that ISIS is not Islamic. That is failing to persuade Muslims, and in fact saying it alienates Muslims from us (perhaps because it is usually alienating when someone tells obvious lies and then insists that you agree with them).

The alternative proposed is to divide and conquer: instead of saying that they are not Muslims, we should say that they are Arabs. We can presumably follow that line down: once they are disaggregated from Muslims elsewhere, we can say that the leaders are not Arabs, but members of some faction or tribe that will further divide their support.

It's a strategy that has worked in the past, but it is counterbalanced by another seam of great importance that is in play right now. They are not only Muslims, but specifically Sunni Muslims and not Shi'a Muslims. That provides a centripetal force to counterbalance the forces that can pull them apart. You have also to provide an answer to that problem: if ISIS is not to defend the Sunnis against oppression, whom should Sunnis trust instead? A plausible alternative must exist if disaggregation is to work most effectively.

Springtime

I guess the actual date was yesterday. Ironically, the weather here has been May-like until yesterday, when it suddenly turned chilly again. Still, the hour has come when the warmer weather is sure to come.

So you know about Stonehenge, but here are five sites -- not all "ancient," in spite of the headline, in fact the majority Medieval -- built to align with the spring equinox. One of them is the Basilica San Petronio, which contains a feature that was used to help construct our modern calendar:

In 1575, cosmographer Egnazio Danti arrived in Bologna to teach mathematics and astronomy. In order to continue his work on the commission charged by Pope Gregory XIII with the development of a new calendar, he constructed a meridian line in San Petronia. The meridian line—an astronomical instrument invented by Danti—consisted of a small hole high on the wall of the church; the position of the spotlight created when the sun shined through the hole allowed Danti to define and analyze the sun’s position and movements. This technique was later used by Giovanni Cassini to confirm the elliptical orbital model proposed by Johannes Kepler.

The Shape of Things to Come is Left-Wing

So argues Vox, whose function is to argue this to the exclusion of everything else. This piece is structured in such a way as to present a half-criticism of Clinton: sure, she is certainly "well-positioned to win both the primary and the general election," but she is too centrist for her position to be the long-term one for the Democratic party.

The analysis finds that Clinton relies on blacks, labor unions, and older voters for her support. But blacks favor politics well to the left of others, as do labor unions; and as do the young, whom future elections will have to rely upon because the older voters will die off.

The obvious problem with this analysis is that the immigration Vox often champions is diluting black as well as white percentages in the electorate. We hear all the time about how white voters are becoming less important, and white preferences less decisive. But that will be true for black voters as well, especially in the context of Democratic politics and especially if Vox is correct that Latino voters will continue to trend Democratic.

Union labor, meanwhile, is like all American labor being strangled by competition at home from mass immigration, and competition from abroad by globalization. They won't be as large a bloc either, and they may be up for grabs if the Republican party takes a long-term populist swing.

As for the young, well, the young are nearly always liberal while they are young. Remember the 'older, more conservative' Democratic cohort Clinton is leaning on are the Baby Boomers. If former hippies drift into economic centrism as they age, what confidence should anyone have that today's young will not?