Weber Was Wrong

Bear this in mind, as you bear your arms.

Here’s the issue before us, after Dallas: Is the United States a state?

The question seems strange; this nation’s full official name suggests not only a state, but also a union of states. Among defining attributes of a state, the United States possesses a territory, a flag, laws — and courts and bureaucrats to enforce them.

What it doesn’t have, crucially, is a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence by a central authority.

In part, this is by design. The Constitution provides for the legitimate use of violence by a federal government, but also by the 50 semi-sovereign entities represented in Washington. Indeed, in the founding era, the federal government exercised only limited power to establish a standing military or law-enforcement apparatus; it relied heavily on state cooperation, and state resources, to provide what we know today as “national security.”

And then there’s the Second Amendment, which gives “the people” a right to “keep and bear arms,” thus legitimizing nongovernmental violence, not only by groups — from slave patrols to pioneers to sheriffs’ posses — but also by individuals, from hunters to homeowners.

No constitutional provision better expresses an essential difference between the state as Europeans understood it and the “republic” America’s founders conceived. Yet none has spawned more debate, confusion and conflict within America itself, right down to the present day.

No greater matter exists for us as a free people. The United States must never be a "state" by this European notion. Should it come to an appeal to the God of Hosts, we must keep this right subject to the People. This is what enabled Magna Carta, the Declaration of Arbroath, the Declaration of Independence. There is no more fundamental matter, nothing more important save the salvation of our souls.

And even there, if we are wrong, we have the comfort of praying for forgiveness in our error.  But we aren't wrong:  Luke 22:36.

Bastille Day

30 dead in France. The weapon of choice? A big truck.

Liberté, égalité, fraternité still need fighting for. Aux armes, citoyens. You're likely to need those arms, and your ploughshares won't stop them.

That's true there, here, and everywhere.

UPDATE: There seems to be a big fire at the Eiffel Tower.

UPDATE: At least 75 killed. Bodies for a mile, some of them children. This is accounted a great day by our enemies.

Cornell West: Obama Has Failed Us

I note that Professor West has also announced that he will be supporting Green Party candidate Jill Stein, and not Hillary Clinton. It's interesting that he chose the Guardian, out of the UK, for this article.

Unfortunately, Obama thrives on being in the middle. He has no backbone to fight for justice. He likes to be above the fray. But for those us us who are in the fray, there is a different sensibility. You have to choose which side you’re on, and he doesn’t want to do that. Fundamentally, he’s not a love warrior.

Funny, I'd heard that he was a "lightworker," whatever that meant. Guess it's not the same thing. Maybe lightworkers are like Jedi, and they aren't allowed to love?

"There Are Two Americas...."

John Edwards' famous stump speech is coming true, although not in the way he envisioned it. In one America, violent crime is at historic lows. In 35 American cities however, as we were discussing yesterday, there has been a spike in murder rates coinciding with the spike in tensions between the police and black Americans.

And now:

The Army last week warned all military personnel in the United States to avoid 37 American cities this week over concerns that anti-police protests, dubbed “Days of Rage,” are planned and could turn violent. The July 8 notice from the U.S. Army North said there is a potential for violence or criminal activities in the aftermath of the shootings of five Dallas police officers.

Want to bet those lists of cities overlap more or less completely?

The article notes that the Army's warning seems based on an internet rumor. Still, mobs -- including flash mobs -- can organize around internet rumors as well as anything else.

False Positives on Racism

As someone who thinks that the issue here is really one of training -- specifically, of training for a stimulus-response reaction of shooting when hands get out of sight in cases where weapons are considered likely -- I've tended to dismiss or downplay the idea that racism is much at the back of these issues. Many, many people disagree with me about that. I would say that it is the most commonly held opinion among the 'great and the good' that America is still suffering from a simmering racism that has never been expiated through all our suffering.

I believe racism exists. I grew up in a county in Georgia where the Klan recruited openly, wearing their robes but not bothering with their hoods because they didn't think what they were doing was shameful. I just don't see racism like that any more, except in fringe cases. For example, in both the Stone Mountain rally here in Georgia, and the "Traditional Workers Party" rally in California, the members of the pro-white racist groups were vastly outnumbered by the anti-racist groups. In Stone Mountain, all the arrests were of anti-racists. In California, the police elected not to protect the white separatists.

Last night I was reading an article at the Huffington Post that investigates a suggestion that one of the slain Dallas cops was a "proud, open white supremacist." The HuffPo author ultimately approves the idea, saying that the signals individually could be dismissed, but that all together they are demonstrative.

Here is the alleged evidence:

These strike me as a collection of false positives, none of which should individually or collectively be taken as evidence of racism.

Support for Donald Trump is apparently taken to be prima facie evidence of racism, as is the display of any sort of Confederate flag. There are plausible non-racist reasons for either, to say the least that might be said.

I don't know who Pastor Greg Locke is, but I'm not a Protestant evangelical, and my guess is that he's known for more than just being opposed to trans* issues. I don't see how that's relevant to whiteness anyway; lots of trans* people are white. It's relevant to traditional Christian culture. Many Americans from traditional Christian faiths feel under siege on these issues, and some of the rhetoric has been angry, but it's got nothing to do with race.

Same deal with a Crusader tattoo. Chris Kyle had one. Was it about race issues in America? Of course not. It was about 9/11, and the sense that the West was under attack from radical Islam. Islam is not a race, and although many people would like to run "Islamophobia" in with racism, the comparison isn't plausible. Race is an invented, pseudo-scientific category that refers to nothing actually real in the physical world. Islam is a real thing. Anger at Islam for events like 9/11, or Orlando, or San Bernardino, or Chattanooga, or Fort Hood, or... well, anyway, it's not difficult to understand the anger. Maybe Muslims worldwide have some valid reasons to be angry with America, too, such as a sense that we are polluting their culture with images they find pornographic. Either way, it's got nothing to do with racism.

What they are calling an "Iron Cross" is properly called a cross formée or cross pattée. There are two of them on the sidebar here, one red and one white. It's a traditional piece of Christian heraldry, much older than and quite apart from any use by Germans, quite apart from any use by bikers (such as myself) or surfers. The Pope wears them on his sash. Others have other heraldic reasons for using them.

So what about the Thor's Hammer? You know, we talk about Vikings all the time around here. In the last week, I've had a post about the Viking ship sailing across the Atlantic and another about Wagner's Ring. Others inspired by such things include noted Roman Catholic J. R. R. Tolkien -- if you read the Silmarillion, note the character of Tulkas the Valiant. There's a very popular television show right now about Vikings. Interest in such things has been intense since about the middle of the 19th century, and for good reasons. The sagas and poetics have proven tremendously inspiring, and they are even today a continuing source of high art. That it may appeal more to people who have a sense of kinship with the Vikings is no more racist than the fact that Beijing opera appeals mostly to Han Chinese. Beijing opera has a kind of universal appeal -- witness Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, or for that matter Xena, Warrior Princess -- but it also has a cultural context that makes it more resonant for those within that culture. That's not shocking.

False positives are not helpful. Let's not magnify the perils of racism in our imagination, but rather fight it forthrightly where it unambiguously exists.

Good news in food

Maggie's Farm linked to a guide for the neurotic food buyer. I found this part cheering:

Potatoes are Republican. There’s a possibility your potatoes were grown using Koch Advanced Nitrogen fertilizer. Yes, that’s Koch as in Koch Brothers, the family that has used its $82 billion fortune to finance free-market principles that are diametrically opposed to ideas like Fair Food certification.

What to buy: In 2010, the Wichita Eagle called Koch Industries the third-largest nitrogen-fertilizer company in the world. Considering how much fertilizer is required to grow not only potatoes but also corn feed for chickens, pigs, and cows, cutting Koch fertilizer out of your diet would be a challenge. You can try boycotting products like Dixie, Brawny, and Angel Soft, but there is really no effective way to avoid contributing to a new libertarian world order.

Rev. 3:16

Cox emphasized that Bikers for Trump weren’t looking for trouble at the convention. “Veterans are the backbone of the biker community,” Cox continued. “We are patriots and unlike Black Lives Matter and the other leftist idiots, we love our cops. You won’t find one biker in Cleveland jumping on cars, lighting fires, or doing any of the other stupid things we’ve gotten used to seeing on TV the last few months.”

The police are having a difficult moment right now. I have a lot of concerns about the way we train police, and the way we equip them, and the way we deploy them. However, my intent in fielding these criticisms is to come to a place in which we have a better civilization. Police and other citizens aren't natural enemies, and it's strange in a way that we've gotten to this place. In another way, it's not so strange: it serves the interest of powers on both sides.

Nevertheless, I find Chris Cox's reaction puzzling. It's true that Vets are the backbone of the biker community. It's also true that lots of cops are also Vets. It is generally true that bikers are very strong patriots. It does not therefore follow that bikers love cops. A few bikers aren't just outlaws, they're criminals who have reason to fear the police. Among those who are outlaws in the sense of "Outlaw Country," police are often used to harass and extract money from them at gunpoint. Cops are often deployed against them by some of those powerful interests, and the police go along with it. It is, after all, their job to work for the bosses elected over them. In a corrupt system, and many of our localities are quite corrupt, the orders of the bosses are often bad. A friend of mine who was a long-time Chicago cop used to say that, in his opinion, the police were just the best-armed gang in that city given that the government itself was just another, bigger racket.

Even understanding the difficulty of the moment, I can't help but notice how strong the reactions have been. Cox isn't alone in overstating the case in spite of obvious counterexamples. The other day Nick Palmisciano of Ranger Up posted a criticism of two individual police officers -- the two from the Baton Rouge video. It was based on his experience as a military officer, and was both heartfelt and honest -- as well as detailed. I think it's been erased since then.

No wonder it has been. There's been a furious reaction against him by police. This is a guy who has a whole section of his store devoted to pro-police "Blue Line" merchandise. Nick Palmisciano really does love his cops. In spite of that, his criticizing one event featuring two individuals is being taken as proof of something akin to treason.

Nick will forgive them, if he hasn't already. Sometimes we'd see things like this during the heat of the Iraq war, when a bad call by a unit would lead to international headlines. We'd do our best to hold our own accountable, while trying not to lose it with those who were assuming the worst of all fighting men and preaching that the military was an evil bunch of baby-killers. So I get it. I do. I think a citizen has to take these issues seriously and deploy honest criticism, but I'm not insensitive to the pain the police must be feeling in the wake of Dallas.

Rolling Music

That's Whitey Morgan and the '78s doing a Dale Watson tune called "Where Do You Want It?", if you don't recognize it. The 'Billy Joe' is Billy Joe Shaver, who was a friend of his. It's apparently based on a true story.

DNC Host: Trump Right on Trade

That's... surprising. Not that he agrees with Trump, as Trump is to the left of Clinton on this issue (as on foreign policy). Just that he would say it out loud right now.

"We've Seen That Movie Already..."

"... In fact, Hillary Clinton produced that movie."

How Different Are The Male and Female Experiences of the World?

Take something very basic to the human experience -- pain. The ancients thought that pain and pleasure were the two biggest problems for ethics. To experience pleasure, or to avoid pain, human beings will often do terrible things. For the Epicureans, ethics was all about moderation because it provided the greatest pleasure and the least consequent pain (think of enjoying wine without the hangover; only perhaps you don't need the wine, either). For the hedonists, enjoying life as much as possible while experiencing the least pain was the whole purpose of ethics. Modern utilitarians explain things in roughly the same way, albeit with collective pleasure and pain as the measure.

So what if the experience men call "pain" and the one women call "pain" aren't actually the same thing at all? There's some evidence from lab rats that this might be true.

A growing body of evidence—including a 2012 analysis of 11,000 patient records—indicates that women are more sensitive to pain. In fact, they may be hardwired to feel pain differently. Last year, Magil and a plethora of co-authors published a study showing that female lab mice actually used different cells to transmit pain signals through their spinal cord. And while no one has confirmed that this is also the case in human females (paging the ethics committee…), Magil says evidence in animals is both compelling and growing stronger.

As the article says, it may not be true that humans differ in this way just because mice do. Considering the possibility, however, raises some really big epistemological and metaphysical questions. Maybe some ethical ones too, especially for the utilitarians.

Well, that's one more reason not to be a utilitarian -- a matter already over-determined, in my book.

OODA Loop Beats AK

A concealed carrier takes down a rifleman.

We often hear this can't be done. Of course it can be done. It just can't always be done. If the guy walks in with his rifle and lights you up first thing, you aren't going to have a chance to do anything. But if he's there for something else, and you're careful not to be observed bringing your own weapon to bear, you have the advantage provided that you can hit your target. He's going to have to observe you, orient to what he's observing, and decide to shoot you before he can do it. If you're decisive, it's possible.

Wagner, Love, and the Loss of God

A piece in Prospect tries to untangle the lessons of the story:

So Wagner has a reply to Feuerbach, and to Feuerbach’s other great disciple, Karl Marx, namely: stop looking to politics for your salvation. But stop expecting from love anything more than it demands: which is sacrifice. It is a harsh moral, but a true one.

The piece is worth reading.

Matter and Intelligence

A new study suggests fat people have less grey and white matter in a significant network of their brains -- though not in the brain overall -- than people who are not fat. The article suggests this means that they are less "intelligent" when it comes to making good food choices.

I'm not buying it, if only because the measure they used was BMI. Someone who has a high BMI because they are a weightlifter is all about smart food choices. It takes considerable attention to ensure you get enough protein to maintain large muscles. The suggestion that BMI correlates with weakened self-control over food choices isn't adequate. (I doubt that they really used only BMI, anyway. If they wanted to study 'fat people,' they doubtless used an informal visual evaluation to determine which high-BMI candidates to include.)

Nor am I ready to buy off on the claim that we know exactly what part of the brain always and everywhere handles this or that function of the mind.

However, a follow-on study might be interesting if the study were done over a period of years, especially tracking thin people of whom some became obese. I'd be interested to know if the weakening of this sector proceeded or followed the increase in weight.

It Does Sound Like She's Trying Out for the Supreme Court

Loretta Lynch, prosecutor, won't say that you've broken the law by speeding.

"I've got a question for you," said Collins. "Driving down the road, speed limit says 55, I'm doing 65. Have I broke the law?"

"You would have to ask the Highway Patrol," Lynch answered, as the chamber erupted in snickers. "He would likely write you a ticket," she added helpfully.

The dumbfounded Collins exclaimed, "I went to a small law school. We were taught the law!" He noted that he wasn't so sure about Harvard (Lynch's alma mater) though.

He repeated his question, "Did you break the law or not — 65 in a 55? My dad was a state trooper..."

"As I said before, you would get a ticket for that," Lynch answered.

"So you broke the law!" Collins exclaimed.

"You would be cited for that," Lynch offered. "That would be considered an offense."

This isn't the ordinary perspective of a prosecutor, who would stand up before a jury and tell them that they have proven a breach of the law if they have proven that you were going 65 in a 55. It's the perspective of a judge, even a Justice: until a court has issued its ruling, there is no fact of the matter about whether or not you are guilty of violating the law.

Indeed, from this perspective, until the black robed Olympians have ruled, we cannot know what the law says -- or whether there is a law at all. The "real" law isn't the text passed by some legislature, but the set of precedents that fill out just how the law will actually be applied. Too, if the Supreme Court should rule that the law is void for some reason, the mere fact that some legislature and executive passed and signed a law means nothing whatsoever. No law has been broken if there was never a law to start with.

I think we know what Bill Clinton promised her on that plane.

UPDATE: FBI agents interviewed anonymously report that they believe there was a deal struck on that plane.

Well, probably there isn't anyone who doesn't believe it deep down. There are just some who feel obligated to deny it to soothe their own consciences about what they're going to do in November.

...And Replace Them With What?

A Chicago BLM activist names Jessica Disu calls for the police to be -- well, she isn't very clear about what she wants. She says she wants them "demilitarized," "disarmed," and "abolished." From my perspective, that's three options rather than one. FOX News took her to be insisting on abolishing the police outright, but one could merely demilitarize or merely disarm them. One of those solutions isn't terribly radical -- I've been advocating for years that the police be armed like citizens, rather than like a branch of the military or some other specialized force. The other two are more radical.

The problem is that, asked the inevitable question, she didn't have a clear answer. That's too bad, and it might be worth trying to find out if there's a better answer forthcoming on reflection.

I think that for maybe 90% of the country -- by land mass, not by population -- we really could shift to the model of having the police work like fire departments rather than operating as patrols. Especially given the prevalence of cell phones now, it's almost always going to be the case that you could call for help if you needed it. I think this would have a very positive effect on police/citizen relations, as I have written a couple of times lately. It's very close to how policing works where I live now, and would probably work fine for most parts of America where the population is not deeply dense and crime rates are quite low.

However, Ms. Disu is talking about the least plausible places for that model. Most of America continues to enjoy historic lows in violent crime. That is not true for certain parts of several cities, where there has been a sharp uptick in crime of late. These are all poor, densely-populated urban areas with criminal gangs and drug violence. There is a plausible argument that police withdrawal from these communities, out of fear of sparking a BLM protest, is what is behind these upticks in violence. It doesn't seem like fewer police patrols is helping these areas.

So this is the real question: is it possible to replace the police in these areas with some sort of community action? Like a local citizen militia, say? Or is the answer going to be a more robust police enforcement -- say of Project Exile laws that would raise the costs of criminals carrying guns high enough that they'd stop doing it?

Or why not both? You could organize local militias like volunteer fire departments, to operate with the professional fire-deparment-like police in most of the country. As with volunteer fire departments, the government would support the volunteers by helping to fund training exercises and limited facilities. In the urban areas, whether a militia's citizens' arrest or a peace officer's arrest was at work, the Feds would back them up by actually enforcing these robust Federal laws against felons and drug gang members who carry firearms.

It seems as if we could get this under control, while also improving citizen/police relations.

Self-government

I have been experimenting with subsidiarity lately: the devolution of organized political control to the smallest possible local level. I think I mentioned before that I joined the board of something called an "improvement district," which is a tax-funded state-sanctioned governmental entity that resembles a utility district on steroids. It covers a development, or perhaps several developments in a relatively small area, and is responsible not only for utilities but other public amenities such as (in my case) canals, piers, and bulkheads. The development that this district is currently responsible for (the others not yet having got going) has only a few homeowners so far. As soon as possible, when there are enough homeowners, they should run for spots on the board. For now, though, the developers essentially appoint board members.

On this small peninsula, there are a handful of companies supplying water--generally well water with an associated RO treatment plant, because our well water is brackish and pretty awful--but only one entity supplies the wastewater treatment, under contract with all the others. That entity is itself a government district, in this case an ordinary municipal utility district. Recently we had some heavy rains, which predictably infiltrated the MUD's leaky sewer lines. At the same time, a building contractor on my own district's property apparently used an insufficient sewer plug to protect an open sewer line at one of the building sites, and the extra pressure from the heavy rain blew it out, causing even more freshwater intrusion in the sewer lines. The wastewater plant shut down operations only for a few hours, but cut my district off from sewer services for months while we all argued about how big a check the contractor's insurance company should write for the damage that could be attributed to the sewer plug. (We paid a honey-dipper to truck out the relatively small amount of sewage from the few current residents.) Do our state utility laws and the wastewater service contract permit the MUD to cut off our sewer services for financial leverage, after it's clear there no longer is a safety/operations issue? I'd say no, but my district's counsel is not what you would call aggressive, or even energetic; they're terrific at complying with the open-meetings rules and shepherding us through bond offerings and tax issues, but not so inclined to jump into contract negotiations or litigation. All I know is, before the MUD gets another chance to deny us service for financial leverage, I'd like to have other options, especially when we have enough residents that honey-dipping is hardly practical. Our contract, however, appears to obligate us not only to stay with the MUD for our wastewater treatment, but even to finance a significant part of a scheduled upgrade and expansion of the current rather old and tattered plant. So for the next few years, we'll probably be looking for opportunities to renegotiate the contract's requirements and freedoms. It turns out not to be all that expensive or time-consuming to get an independent permit or build and operate an independent wastewater treatment plant, and it's something I'd love to learn about. It will irritate the MUD, though, and will be politically touchy. And of course it may never happen; we may mend all the fences and/or simply find the contract requires us to grin and bear it.

Sorting through all this stuff, which had a 10-year complicated history before I got involved, has proved engrossing. I attend not only my district's meetings, but increasingly the public meetings of other entities, such as the MUD, the County Commissioners Court, and a proposed new Groundwater Commission. While the infrastructure issues I have to get up to speed on are wildly interesting, I probably never will learn to like attending a lot of meetings regularly every month. I do it because I feel the only way to keep distant government at bay is to have strong local government that doesn't flub matters and leave a public mess. It turns out, though, that there are almost limitless meetings of this kind. As it is, I don't attend monthly meetings of the fire department or the Republican Party, let alone multi-county regional meetings addressing things like the groundwater situation. I've never attended a state political convention or an annual Diocesan meeting. It could eat up your whole life, going to these things: not the best choice for an introvert.

Gowdy Buys Lynch's Defense

He sounds very argumentative, except at one moment where he agrees that he 'understands that' it is important to protect the confidentiality of Lynch's team.



Her argument is that it's very important that these decisions not be touched by politics. That is to say, in this case, that it is important that they not have to explain themselves to the American people. This is being presented as an interest in justice: that it is important to justice itself that these decisions not only be made out of the public square, but that the explanation for the decisions never be revealed to the public at all.

And that's the part that Gowdy buys.

Trump Has A Point Here

Bernie Sanders' endorsement of Hillary Clinton doesn't make any sense. It is like Occupy endorsing Wall Street.

The Clintons' actual word is worthless, but they do carry out their threats and fulfill at least those promises for which they were paid large sums of money. I suppose some combination of threats and promises must have carried the day.

Republicans Adopt Very Pro-Israel Platform Plank

You can read it here. I certainly do support Israel, for a number of reasons, but I have some questions about this plank.

Of greatest interest to me is the commitment to help Israel maintain a qualitatively superior military force. Barack Obama has been fueling both sides of an arms race in the Middle East. On the one hand he has guttied provisions that restrained Iran's development of ballistic missile technology, while allowing them to purchase upgraded missiles from Russia, and heavy weapons from China and elsewhere. He's also provided them with a vast windfall from the end of sanctions, cutting free tons of money that Iran is now using in large part for military upgrades (and support to its network of proxy fighters like Hezbollah). On the other hand, he has been trying to buy support for this Iran policy from Sunni states by selling them advanced American weapons in much larger quantities than ever before.

Thus, maintaining a "qualitatively superior military" in Israel has gotten a lot harder. A cynical man might see this plank as a gift to the 'military-industrial complex' of which we've heard so much. Even a non-cynical man who is a true friend to Israel might wonder about what exactly this entails, given that we are already in back of a major escalation in the Middle East's arms race. Are we going to cut sales to other nations? Can we re-impose sanctions on Iran in a meaningful way, given that the UN Security Council ruling is going to prevent most other countries from going along with it even if we try? Or -- should this plank become America's foreign policy -- are we just committing to pumping even more weapons and technologies into Israel to try to keep them ahead of the flood?

Not Getting It

The President fails to understand the shooting in Dallas, in two different and predictable ways.

The president met for nearly two hours with leaders of eight law enforcement groups Monday, informing them that he considered the killing of the five police officers in Dallas on Thursday “a hate crime” and that he would work actively to serve as an intermediary between minority activists and police.

“I’m your best hope,” Obama remarked at one point, according to the Fraternal Order of Police’s James O. Pasco, one of the meeting’s attendees.

Once more, it's all about him and his unique and pivotal role in human history. I'm reminded of his comments at the time of the financial crisis that he was the 'only one between the banks and the pitchforks.'

The far more dangerous misunderstanding is the idea that this was a "hate crime." This was not a crime in the ordinary sense of the word. It was an act of war. It was not a terrorist attack either, but a guerrilla attack that was consonant with most of the provisions of the Geneva Conventions -- especially if you include Protocol I, which the United States has not ratified, but which intends to clarify the status of guerrillas in the laws of war. The only questionable provision is the one requiring them to be under the command of a central authority: this group may have had a commanding officer among them, but it does not appear to have been part of a larger movement. Their status is therefore unclear pending the resolution of that question, and whether a 'central' authority can be derived from such a small group.

The reason this is important is not to say that the shootings were morally better or worse than a terrorist attack or a hate crime. That's a debatable question at best, and one that can be set aside completely at the moment. The reason that it's important is that the solution set is different. If it's a terrorist attack, you kill the terrorists. Terrorists are hostis humani generis. They target civilians, destroy the infrastructure on which life depends, and so forth. This attack waited until civilians dispersed, and targeted only armed agents of the state.

If it's a hate crime, you can be satisfied with merely arresting and prosecuting the hateful criminals. That sets a standard of what is acceptable within the community that will be persuasive, such that even those who are hateful will mostly be motivated by the fear of punishment not to commit such crimes.

A guerrilla swims in a sea of popular support, however. A guerrilla movement cannot exist without such a sea, as Mao pointed out. If you are dealing with a guerrilla movement, you need to address the underlying problems that are giving rise to the support for the killers.

It should be clear from the reaction nationwide that there is a sea for these fish to swim in. Likewise, the fact that "20 to 30" people brought rifles to the BLM protest suggests that there is a strong message being sent to the government that it has reached the limits of patience, and that armed force is the next option. I support such armed, peaceful protests. It's true that armed protesters can confuse police in the case of an actual attack. In that case, the police are justified in treating armed protesters as shooters until they prove themselves otherwise. But it is important that the government recognize that this willingness to take that kind of risk onto one's self is an indicator that political legitimacy has become strained. Legitimacy derives from consent of the governed. A polity that brings rifles to confront the government is still consenting to be governed: they are lawfully protesting and not shooting. But they are an important warning siren that the limits of consent have been reached, and the government should reform itself.

Ultimately I think it would make more sense for the armed protesters from the III% movement and the ones from the BLM movement to get together, and present a unified challenge to a government that has grown accustomed to exceeding its authority. A shift to a more consensual model of government would benefit all of us. There is a common flaw in the approach that gives rise to BLM -- that's "Bureau of Land Management" -- abuses out West, and the shift by localities into using police to generate revenue through the constant extraction of fines.

Nor have I any patience for the liberal/progressive tendency to sing songs of love for BLM -- that's "Black Lives Matter" -- while suggesting that they should definitely disarm themselves and pursue only fully peaceful and nonviolent resistance. If you really respect what they're doing, have the decency to recognize their right to arms. Free citizens don't submit to tyranny, nor are they under any moral obligation to endure it peacefully while begging for relief. Martin Luther King, Jr., was as successful as he was in part because he could point to the crazy radicals like Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X. 'Deal with my movement of Christians adhering to ordinary middle-class morality,' he did not even have to say, 'or, if you will not work with us, deal with the radicals your resistance to change creates.' If you really want to see change, rich white progressives, you should be glad to see this dynamic emerging. Your attempt to marry gun control to loud public signalling of your support for BLM sounds to me like an attempt to slip in submission to your own preferred moral scheme -- a centralized, powerful government with authority to regulate all aspects of American life, and with the sole claim to the legitimate use of force. If you really care about this as you claim to do, progressives, have the courage to dare a potentially revolutionary conflict.

Sometimes violence is a good thing. Violent resistance to overbearing authority gave us Magna Carta, the Declaration of Arbroath, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution and its Bill of Rights. None of those things would have existed without men taking up arms to fight for liberty against powerful authority. Political violence also often leads to bad results. You should recognize, however, that this particular moment is not a moment of crime, or hate, or terrorism. Those solutions aren't adequate or appropriate to this situation.

Haidt on Globalism v. Nationalism

He has the rare insight, for a member of his class, that the debate is not about why a healthy and sane globalism is being overtaken by a virulent nationalism. Rather, he says, we have to explain why globalism is attractive to anyone -- it cuts against several very normal moral senses.

It's a good piece, although as usual Haidt strikes me as wrong about some important aspects of things. Still, he is wrong with an open mind that is trying to grasp the other side's position. That's worth something.

Rather than tell you what I think is wrong, though, I'll leave the matter open in case you want to discuss it in the comments.

What'd They Need a Pilot For? They Found Canada Fine the First Time

Draken Harald Hårfagre, the Viking ship currently visiting the Americas, has been forced to withdraw from "the Tall Ships Challenge 2016," an event held on the Great Lakes. The reason is that Canada decided to slap them with a massive pilotage fee in spite of having promised them that they wouldn't.

The ship was invited to participate in the Tall Ships Challenge Great Lakes 2016 and entered the waters of St Lawrence and the Great Lakes with information from the Great Lakes Pilotage Authorities that a ship of the size and variety of Draken Harald Hårfagre would be excepted the requirement of pilotage. “…Foreign ships of less than 35 meters in overall length are not subject to compulsory pilotage in the Great Lakes Region”

The expedition relied on the information from the Pilotage Authorities and the possibility not to be a subject to compulsory pilotage. Unfortunately the project learned, when entering the St Lawrence Seaway, that the ship is required a pilot at all times while at sea with no possibility of reduction in cost. The cost for the pilotage, if the ship were to participate in the schedule for Tall Ships Challenge Great Lakes 2016, is well over 400 000 USD.

The fees are not within reason for a non profit sail training vessel, it blocks the opportunity for any foreign tall ship to enter the Great Lakes and visit the ports.

Indeed not, though I think there's a decimal point missing in that fee. It looks like the charge is going to be closer to four thousand dollars than four hundred thousand.

Still, that's silly given that this is a Viking ship conducting a nonprofit educational mission and not a commercial freighter. You'd think some good-spirited pilot would volunteer his time, and Canada would have the decency to waive the fees. The only thing more rapacious than a boatload of Viking warriors is a Canadian tax collector, I suppose.

"My Biggest Flaw? I Just Work Too Darned Hard."

The coverage of Hillary Clinton at Vox is shamefully in-the-tank, and never moreso than when Ezra Klein is writing it. He sounds like one of those too-clever job interviewees, except he's making the case for her getting the job instead of himself.

My favorite example remains his piece entitled, "Hillary Clinton Doesn't Trust You." It purports to be a criticism of Hillary Clinton for not trusting the voters, but it is really a criticism of the voters for not really meriting her trust. The idea is to immunize her for a real flaw by admitting the flaw's existence, but then casting it as a strength. You're supposed to come away with a new respect for her wisdom in not trusting the American people, and maybe even a sense of guilt for not being worthy of her.

Today, he has a longer and more in depth version of the same rhetorical trick. Why is it that people inside Hillary's circle describe her in such different terms, adoring and glorious, when the average person doesn't trust her? Once again, he admits the problem exists, and pretends that he is going to criticize her faults as a candidate. But the real answer? "Every single person brought up, in some way or another, the exact same quality they feel leads Clinton to excel in governance and struggle in campaigns.... Hillary Clinton, they said over and over again, listens."

Oh, yeah. That's why I don't trust her. Because she listens.

Or maybe, you know, it could be this.

Scots Wha Hae

A small poem on the occasion of the Highland Games.

"Lay the proud usurpers low,
Tyrants fall in every foe,
Liberty is in every blow,
Let us do or die!"

Was Off to the Wild

I spent the weekend in the Pisgah National Forest, and at the Grandfather Mountain Scottish Highland Games.

The Grandfather Games

Plenty of time for hiking and camping. If you get up early enough, you'll find yourself completely alone in the Linville Gorge. It is named after a Long Hunter who was killed by the Shawnee, along with his son. Those "Long" hunts for furs could go on for as much as a year, during which time you might amass quite a store of hides. Of course, this made you an ever-more tempting target.

Linville Gorge

Saw a black bear again this weekend, a charming young male who pause and stood up to look me in the eye before continuing on his way. No aggression at all, just curiosity. I also saw a double rainbow after an evening rainstorm, the first one I've ever seen that you could fully see both of the two bows from horizon to horizon. It was especially intense in its color.

They did "Britannia Rules the Waves" at the games, as well as all the military service songs. People who had served stood up while their service's song played. Turns out bagpipes can't play the Air Force song because it features "chromatics," whatever that means.

A bit of appropriate music for the Celtic Carolina homeland. This instrument is the Appalachian Dulcimer, a simplified version of a very old instrument -- and, in its hammered form, a much more capable one. You see the Appalachian form throughout Western North Carolina. You see the hammered form more rarely.

The national animal of Scotland, by the way, is the unicorn.

A Little Bit of Craig Morgan

I recently got the chance to see him live over the long 4th holiday.

Morgan spent nearly a decade on active duty with the 82nd and 101st, and another six in the reserves, before releasing his first country album in 2000. In the GWOT, he toured Iraq & Afghanistan with the USO.

Keeper of Antiquities: Irish Sacrificed their Kings Horribly if Things Turned Bad in the Kingdom

A kind of early 'checks and balances,' if you will.

"The king had great power but also great responsibility to ensure the prosperity of his people. Through his marriage on his inauguration to the goddess of the land, he was meant to guarantee her benevolence. He had to ensure the land was productive, so if the weather turned bad, or there was plague, cattle disease or losses in war, he was held personally responsible."

There's a famous similar argument made by Þorgnýr the Lawspeaker in the Heimskringla. The pagan mythos has been bleached out, but the 'checks and balances' sentiment remains.

[Our king] wants to have the Norway kingdom laid under him, which no Swedish king before him ever desired, and therewith brings war and distress on many a man. Now it is our will, we bondes, that thou King Olaf make peace with the Norway king, Olaf the Thick, and marry thy daughter Ingegerd to him. Wilt thou, however, reconquer the kingdoms in the east countries which thy relations and forefathers had there, we will all for that purpose follow thee to the war. But if thou wilt not do as we desire, we will now attack thee, and put thee to death; for we will no longer suffer law and peace to be disturbed. So our forefathers went to work when they drowned five kings in a morass at the Mula-thing, and they were filled with the same insupportable pride thou hast shown towards us. Now tell us [king], in all haste, what resolution thou wilt take.

3 Dead Police in Dallas, 10 Injured

So I hear. More of the injured are in critical condition.

The point at which they started shooting cops was the point at which the police will no longer listen to arguments about adjusting their training to adopt a less-aggressive posture. The window for fixing the problem just closed, at least for quite a while. Nothing good will come from this.

Requiescat in pace.

According to the live feed at this link (local NBC), it was 11 officers shot of 100 total.

Regarding the Intellectual Arguments in Captain America: Civil War

Yes, this post is all of the horrifying things that title implies.

However, before I tear it apart, I'd like to say I really enjoyed this movie. I've gone to see it twice, now. Also, despite what I am about to say about it, I think it is about as balanced as a left-wing studio echo chamber can be expected to create. That said, I have some issues with it.

But first, the trailer:

Since this is kinda long, the rest is below the fold. Mild spoiler alert, mostly if you consider the intellectual side of an Avengers movie a spoiler.

A Point Worth Making Right Now

How to restore oversight, checks and balances? Vote Trump.

Think of it. A Congress that finally finds a spine in the face of the president. And that’s not just Democrats – even the posing goofs on the Republican side of the aisle would be falling over themselves to take a whack at the orange executive. What court would shrug and defer to El Presidente Little Digits? Even the mainstream media would rediscover the curiosity about West Wing wrongdoing that disappeared back in January 2009. Imagine their delight to once again be able to preen and strut while babbling about how they speak truth to power instead of groveling and bussing the rear of their White House master.

America will have never seen checking and balancing like President Trump would experience. And that is exactly, precisely what America must have right now.

Hillary Clinton will roll into office unhindered and unaccountable. We know what Clintons do when there is oversight; any sane person should shudder at the thought of them not merely unaccountable, but actively abetted by the entire elite.

Actually, that's two points worth making. The bigger point is that a Hillary Clinton administration would be the end of the Constitution, via her hand-picked SCOTUS, as well as the rule of law by her actively abetted acts of fiat.

The smaller point, but also important, is that Trump's likely foolishness will give Congress, the media, and the courts a chance to rebuild their atrophied muscles. By the end of Trump's term (which I still think would highly likely end in impeachment and removal from office, especially if he picks a VP that people like better than him), the next President will come into office with a clear example of the dangers of transgressing boundaries in front of their eyes.

With Clinton, if we even get to a President after her, the lesson would be that there no limits. Only power.

Reason: "Where's the NRA on Philando Castile?"

A fair question, although a fair answer might be, "Waiting until more facts come in before committing to a public position."

Still, the NRA could come out with a statement that doesn't take a position on the facts of the case, but that does reassert that police training should embrace the reality that there are millions more Americans lawfully carrying arms. The presence of a weapon should not be taken to indicate that the officer's life is in immediate jeopardy. Some new mode of training needs to be developed that doesn't go to DEFCON 1 at the first sign of a weapon.

An Old Man From Britain Has Some Harsh Words For "Generation Snowflake"

Here in the US, "Generation Snowflake" has borne the brunt of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- though plenty of my own generation made it out there too. Let's make sure to remember to carve out an exception for that element of the generation.

With that said, let's proceed with the verbal beatdown.



Hopefully he's right that, someday, they'll appreciate what has been saved for them.

Interesting

James Comey was asked directly about whether there was an investigation into the Clinton Foundation. Comey responded: “I’m not going to comment on the existence or non-existince of any other investigations.”

But when they asked if he had investigated whether Hillary Clinton lied under oath in her testimony to Congress -- committed perjury, in other words -- he specifically denied the existence of that investigation, and told Congress they'd have to request one. (They are going to do so.)

The other big news is that the FBI did not record Clinton's testimony, nor place her under oath. "Still a crime to lie to us," Comey noted, but now no one can prove that she did.

Mm, Hmm.

The quote is from a fundraising email she sent out on behalf of the DSCC.

Captain's Journal: Cf. Hillary and the New SCOTUS Ruling on Guns

It's been a while since I looked at Herschel Smith's page. I should drop by more often.

Whereas Hillary can skate on perceived reckless conduct when Comey himself acknowledges it is “a felony to mishandle classified information either intentionally or in a grossly negligent way,” gun owners also deemed guilty of recklessness now face a “terrifying new precedent,” per a Conservative Review analysis of the Supreme Court’s 6 -2 decision in the Voisine case.

“[T]he court ruled that crimes of recklessness rise to the same level as ‘misdemeanor crimes of domestic violence’ which preclude individuals convicted of such a crime from firearm ownership by federal law,” the article explains...

But it gets even worse than that. As we’ve seen, in the words of Justice Elena Kagan, “… the word “use” does not demand that the person applying force have the purpose or practical certainty that it will cause harm, as compared with the understanding that it is substantially likely to do so. Or, otherwise said, that word is indifferent as to whether the actor has the mental state of intention, knowledge, or recklessness with respect to the harmful consequences of his volitional conduct.”

Notice the words intention, substantial likelihood, and recklessness.

That's just a matter of your fundamental rights as a citizen, the protection of which is the whole and only purpose of the government of the United States according to the Declaration of Independence. This was a much more important question of preserving Hillary Clinton's power.

Rep. Chaffetz to Comey: Expect a Referral from Congress on Perjury Charges

"You'll get one," he promised.

Rep. Cynthia Lummis: Comey, You Didn't Even Talk About These Other Crimes

Representative Lummis of Wyoming goes after Comey on Clinton's use of uncleared attorneys to review and destroy public records -- some of them classified.

Waiting for Backup

The pair of police shootings this week will make the upcoming DNC much more interesting, I don't doubt. By far the more disturbing case was that of Philando Castile, who had a concealed weapons permit and had informed the officer of that fact. The officer shot him while he reached for his wallet to produce it, as well as his driver's license. What makes the case most disturbing is that the officer then held him at gunpoint while he bled out, making no effort to render aid or assistance to the dying man, nor to verify his story by calling in his IDs, nor to do anything except wait for backup.

For me, this underlines the point I've made about these shootings in the past: they are about the way we train police officers, and teach incoming officers to think about their relationship to the public. The incident makes perfect sense if you follow the logic of the training. If the most important thing is to protect the officer's life, then you shoot as soon as hands go for something unseen. You don't render aid or assistance until you have full and complete control of the situation. That cannot happen until all the other parties are secured, i.e., handcuffed or locked in police cars. When there are multiple other parties (here there was a girlfriend and a 4 year old), the only thing you can do is maintain watch with your weapon covering the unsecured members of the public while you wait for backup to arrive.

Only then can you take steps to save the life of the man you shot.

If you watch the video, you can hear the upset and tension in the officer's voice. He's very highly strung on adrenaline and fear of what he's just done. He's not thinking straight under these circumstances. He's going to follow his training, and this is how he's been trained.

Which means that he, like other police in these cases, will walk. He will be found to have acted appropriately, because he will have done just what he was trained to do.

FBI Lets Us Down

After spending several minutes explaining that they had found clear evidence that Hillary Clinton met the legal standard for gross negligence, that she endangered Top Secret and Secret information, and that it is highly likely that our enemies gained access to her server...

...Director Comey recommends no charges. He says "no reasonable prosecutor" would bring them.

His conclusion does not follow from his premises, nor from the plain law.

This is a sad day for our nation.

UPDATE:

The relevant law is 18 U.S.C. § 793(f). Gross negligence is the standard, and the FBI investigation proved it robustly by Comey's own statement. The shift to any other standard is a refusal to enforce the law. Those doing this for political reasons are asking us to entrust the enforcement of the law to someone whose continued freedom from prison depends solely on that refusal to enforce the law.

Clinton and her machine must be stopped.

That machine apparently includes the law enforcement apparatus of the Federal government.

James Comey: "To be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences."

Indeed, I now have no choice but to expect to see the full weight of your organization brought down on her political enemies for much less.

Some Independence Day Thoughts Along the Right Line

"A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government." -- Edward Abbey

A writer named Kurt Schlichter has some similar thoughts. I still think there is an outside chance that the fix isn't in, and that Clinton might be indicted as she manifestly deserves. But if not, it will be hard to argue against this logic.

There is one law for them, and another for us. Sanctuary cities? Obama’s immigration orders? If you conservatives can play by the rules and pass your laws, then we liberals will just not enforce them. You don’t get the benefit of the laws you like. We get the benefit of the ones we do, though. Not you. Too bad, rubes....

Who is standing against this? Not the judges. The Constitution? Meh. Why should their personal agendas be constrained by some sort of foundational document? Judges find rights that don’t appear in the text and gut ones that do. Just ask a married gay guy in Los Angeles who can’t carry a concealed weapons to protect himself from [OMITTED] radicals.

The politicians won’t stand against this. The Democrats support allowing the government to jail people for criticizing politicians and clamor to take away citizens’ rights merely because some government flunky has put their name on a list....

It’s not a social contract anymore – American society today is a suicide pact we never agreed to and yet we’re expected to go first.

I say “No.”

We owe them nothing - not respect, not loyalty, not obedience. Nothing.

We make it easy for them by going along. We make it simple by defaulting to the old rules. But there are no rules anymore, certainly none that morally bind us once we are outside the presence of some government worker with a gun to force our compliance.

Indeed, I would go further. I think anyone who believes that government workers with guns are going to be able to force compliance had better think again.

He's right about the judges, though. Clarence Thomas' recent dissent establishes that clearly.

"Give Me Liberty, or Give Me Death!"

Via Lars Walker.

The Spirit of Rebellion

Here is a link to last year's Independence Day essay. I reassert everything.

The View from Brexit

Well, I hope you are.

Ragged Old Flag

She's got a few more holes in her now. But we're not quite done.

More Talking About the Queen on Independence Day

From Vox, an article actually titled "3 Reasons the American Revolution Was A Mistake." The first two reasons are slavery and Native Americans, but the third reason is -- I kid you not -- that it would have avoided the horrible Constitution, or as they put it, "We'd have had a better system of government."

AVI was saying the other day something to the effect that members of the global elite -- journalists seem to believe that they qualify -- think of themselves as belonging to an international tribe of each other, rather than to the nations of which they are actually citizens.

I may have to make re-watching Unforgiven a regular Independence Day tradition.

Contemplate This on The Tree of Woe

Yesterday I did about 12 hours in the motorcycle saddle, crossing Neel's Gap across the shoulders of Blood Mountain, then up to the Tail of the Dragon in North Carolina, then back over Unicoi Gap. I did the last one in the dark, which was a real experience. It was on the way up Blood Mountain, though, that I happened to reflect on a whole field of crosses in the elbow of one particular curve. How strange that we seek to chance death. I know why I do it, and I know the different reason why young men who haven't proven themselves do it. Still, what a strange feature of human nature.

During the ride I encountered more than one Tree of Woe. The first one I came across is at Neel's Gap. The Appalachian Trail crosses the highway there, as it also does at Unicoi Gap. Northbound hikers frequently abandon the quest after Blood Mountain. Others, though, abandon their gear -- an outfitter has set up shop in a early 20th century stone building up there, and does land office business selling ultra-expensive, ultra-lightweight alternatives to all that stuff you brought. They will even ship your old gear home for you. Many too-heavy pairs of boots have been abandoned there.

Southbound hikers, coming from Maine, often abandon their boots for a new pair too. These boots are frequently held together mostly with duck tape.

Boots at Neel's Gap

The second Tree of Woe is actually called "the Tree of Shame," and it stands at the Dragon. It is covered in motorcycle parts from bikes destroyed on the road. The "Tail of the Dragon" has 318 curves in its 11 miles, some of them quite extreme. The rugged and difficult passage over this arm of the Great Smoky Mountains has an interesting history. I've done it three or four times, and it never gets old.

"The Tree of Shame"

Independence Day weekend is a big occasion at the Dragon.  Lots of motorcycle riders are veterans, and the General Store was all decked out for the occasion.  They closed early yesterday so their employees could get over to see the fireworks show. 

Independence Weekend at the Dragon.

UPDATE: Below the fold, another shot of the dragon sculpture for Douglas.

Independence Weekend: The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Ranger Up warning. Most of you have been around here long enough to know what that means.

Are You Talking About the Queen Again? On Independence Day?

Our new least favorite columnist, Gersh Kuntzman, has decided to go after "God Bless America" on Independence Day weekend.

Part of my outrage stems from ponderous Mussolini-esque introduction of the song, when fans are asked to rise, remove their caps and place them over their hearts.

Reality check, friends: “God Bless America” is not the National Anthem. The only songs Americans should stand for are “The Star Spangled Banner” and “Here Comes the Bride.”

Nice to hear that you're willing to stand for "The Star Spangled Banner," Mr. Kuntzman. I assumed from your last column that the mere mention of rockets and bombs would send you ducking for cover.

Independence Weekend: Knife Hand is a Go

Lynch Claims She WIll Not Make the Call

The plane meeting has created enough of a furor that the Attorney General is repeating her earlier claims that she won't be the one making the decision.

A Justice Department official said the attorney general will accept the “determinations and findings of career prosecutors and lawyers as well as FBI investigators and director [James B.] Comey.” The official spoke on the condition of anonymity in advance of Lynch’s remarks.

It's that "as well as" that's the problem. She'd already said that the decision would be made by Justice Department officials. The problem is that top Justice Department officials are just as unreliable, having donated $75,000 to Clinton's campaign in this cycle.

Meanwhile, it turns out the FBI was present at the plane meeting, and ordered journalists not to record it.

Is it possible that the FBI is going to drop the hammer on Clinton, and the real purpose of the meeting was to give Bill Clinton a 'professional courtesy' heads up so they could have time to prepare? I would love to believe that was the case.

We Will Live Forever

Independence Day's weekend is upon us.

Via SSI.

It's a known sentiment.



The outlawing of the tunes and pipes doesn't date to the Medievals, but to the Jacobite rebellions some hundreds of years later. But the Scots were free, eventually, in Georgia and southern Appalachians if not in Scotland. Aye, and shall be again, when they are ready to be. And so shall we.

Department of Injustice, Continued

After yesterday's mysterious meeting on the tarmac inside a private plane, "Attorney General" Loretta Lynch moves to shield the Clinton Foundation from public scrutiny until nearly two years from now.

Grandchildren. Right.

UPDATE: Armed Liberal is right. It's worth reading the comments from the NPR listeners reacting to this story.

Are You Kidding Me?

This election season remains like a bad dream:

[J]ust last week, yet another “Jane Doe” filed a suit in New York accusing Epstein and Donald Trump of raping her at a series of sex parties when she was only 13. Trump has denied Jane Doe’s claims and his reps have said he barely knew Epstein—even though New York media in the ’90s regularly chronicled his comings-and-goings at Epstein’s Upper East Side palace, and even though Epstein had 14 private numbers for Trump and his family in his little black book. Meanwhile, Bill and Hillary Clinton have remained mum about their ties to the Palm Beach pedophile—despite evidence that shows Bill was one of the most famous and frequent passengers on Epstein’s “Lolita Express” and that Epstein donated money to the Clinton Foundation even after his conviction.

Naturally, the accusation does not prove guilt. Association does not prove guilt.

Still, what a nightmare.

Social Class at Yale

Yale isn't the bad guy here -- they have generous programs to try to recruit poorer kids like this writer. However, when so much of your student body is from a narrow social class, it's hard.

Even though my experiences were unique, I never felt like a foreigner in Middletown. Most people’s parents had never gone to college. My closest friends had all seen some kind of domestic strife in their life—divorces, remarriages, legal separations, or fathers who spent some time in jail. A few parents worked as lawyers, engineers, or teachers. They were “rich people” to Mamaw, but they were never so rich that I thought of them as fundamentally different. They still lived within walking distance of my house, sent their kids to the same high school, and generally did the same things the rest of us did. It never occurred to me that I didn’t belong, even in the homes of some of my relatively wealthy friends.

At Yale Law School, I felt like my spaceship had crashed in Oz.

I had a similar experience, switching high schools halway from the rural public schools I'd always been in to an elite public school in Atlanta. I didn't even apply to elite universities, though doubtless I could have gotten in and gotten good financial aid for the same reasons he did. It was just utterly clear that I did not belong.

Proof that Cultural Difference is Real

The Kerala, India government has issued a new rule: bikers without helmets are to be refused gasoline by filling station managers.

I imagine that works out better in India than it would in some other places.

If They Make That Connection, It's Only Because They Are Right

Hillary Clinton looks across the pond, and must loathe what she sees. Average English people have acted out, voting for Brexit like naughty children pulling a prank on the school principal. Despite apocalyptic warnings from business and political elites, they decided to leave the EU.

UK’s leaders were punished for neglecting middle class wages and hopes and instead pursuing grander ambitions – tighter bonds with Europe. Hillary must wonder, will we be next? Will Americans blame stagnant incomes on President Obama who was so busy "fundamentally transforming the United States of America” that he forgot about the people who elected him?

Now, There's A Thought

CNN: Make UK the 51st State.

DB: Early Indicators Women Settling Into Infantry Just Fine

Slaughter, who graduated from the School of Infantry (SOI) last month, also claims that the infantry community isn’t what it was “back in the old Corps,” and she’s now worried about a “POGification” of the service.

Her comments were in keeping with the infantry tradition of hatred and contempt towards just about everyone and everything else.

“It’s not just POGs, but all of our pencil-pushing officers, too,” said Slaughter after downing a protein shake mixed with Wild Turkey and putting a coworker in a rear-naked choke.

A Pretty Strong Speech by Donald Trump

Not according to me... according to The Atlantic.

If he can control his public remarks this well, and give speeches this strong on these issues, he'll have a chance. I think Scott Adams is right, though, that he will still lose unless he can convince Americans that he loves them.

But these are the right ideas for helping out that blue-collar American working class whose analog, the old Labour voters, won Brexit. Would Trump implement these ideas if elected? It's the same problem with the SCOTUS nominee list he put out. They're the right people: would he follow through if elected?

We certainly know Clinton won't.

Well, Yes, That's What We've Been Saying All Along

They're ready to admit that there's no real difference between babies and fetuses now because they think they can win the debate on killing babies.

The whole trick depends on the shift from "it is wrong to kill an innocent human being" to "it is wrong to kill an innocent person." We can say without any scientific doubt whatsoever that a baby is a human being, and by nearly any ethical standard it is an innocent one. But is it a person? Well, now we can play with words!

Beware, of course, who else gets defined out of "personhood." But more than that, we should just refuse to make the shift. We don't need the ambiguous category given that we have the obvious and clear one. Humanity is easy to establish. The whole appeal of "personhood" is that it isn't, and thus can allow for immoral acts to be slid in where convenient.

So, What's Up With That Brexit Vote?

Stathis Kouvelakis was a member of the Syriza central committee, a Greek political party. He was asked about Brexit.

The first thing to note is that the European Union loses all referendums over proposals emanating from the EU or which concern EU authority. The unconditional defenders of the European project have to ask themselves why that is the case. But this is the first time that the question of remaining or leaving has been posed directly. And in my view the fact that one of the three big European countries has chosen to break away from the EU marks the end of the current European project. This result definitively reveals something we knew already, namely that this was a project built by and for elites, and which did not enjoy popular support.

Emphasis added.

7th Circuit Federal Judge: Studying Constitution is a Waste of Time

He has a good point about the SCOTUS being too uniform in background, but his remarks about the Constitution ought to be grounds for removal from office. They ought to be seen, in other words, as disqualifying for the office he holds.

“I see absolutely no value to a judge of spending decades, years, months, weeks, day, hours, minutes, or seconds studying the Constitution, the history of its enactment, its amendments, and its implementation (across the centuries — well, just a little more than two centuries, and of course less for many of the amendments),” he wrote. “Eighteenth-century guys, however smart, could not foresee the culture, technology, etc., of the 21st century.”

He added, “let’s not let the dead bury the living.”

Sounds like a remedial course in Aristotle's Politics would be helpful. There's a reason constitutions -- not just ours -- are an important feature in keeping a government from turning toxic. To whit, they restrain the class that exercises power from pursuing its own interests instead of the common good. Constitutions represent a permanent statement about the will of the people. They can be altered but not easily, and only with widespread consent.

Perhaps the most destabilizing American political factor of all in my lifetime has been the transformation of the Supreme Court into a rolling committee on amending the Constitution. Perhaps not: there are several other candidates, such as the vast increase in executive branch legislation-by-regulation, or the success by the global financial/corporate sector in capturing Congress (and certain Presidents) to serve their interests instead of the American people's interests. This sway by the Federal courts toward thinking of themselves as superior to the Constitution, of their will as having priority in determining the content of the Constitution, is at least one of the major factors in destroying the American republic.

NIgel Farage visits the European Parliament

"Now, I know that virtually none of you have ever done a proper job in your lives..."

I Survived, Mostly Intact

Back in early May I wrote about taking a graduate literature course, about which I had some anxiety as the syllabus declared that (to quote myself quoting the syllabus):

... one of the course objectives is to "undermine and subvert" the traditional narratives of "American hegemony and mythology." In both the objectives and the description of the required research paper, it is made clear that we are to use post-structuralist approaches to the readings.

I was fearful; I would have to quickly read up on all this post-structuralism and fake it, and I had no idea what the class discussions would be like. (Okay, so I had studied post-structuralism in history, but literature is a whole other animal. They do some crazy stuff there.)

Well, I'm done, and in the end, my fears were much ado about little. The professor hardly brought any of that up in the discussions, focusing mostly on the literature itself. There were some biased questions we were expected to write about, but not many, to be honest. I employed the tactic of using the authors' words to undermine American hegemony, reporting that author X criticized America for this, and author Y felt disenfranchised for that, and never talked about my opinions on it. And I got an A, so, there we are.

Granted, I could have produced much more creative work if I had not felt constrained by the BS in the syllabus, but on the other hand, the professor did me a favor by declaring his political allegiances up front, so I knew what to avoid.

I'd like to thank everyone who weighed in with advice in the comments to that earlier post: Eric Hines, Eric Blair, Ymar, Grim, AVI, ColoComment, Raven, and douglas. (I hope I haven't forgotten anyone! If so, my apologies, and my thanks!)

It was helpful, and it's good to know I'm not alone. Thanks!

West Virginia Is Not Having Your Looting

Sounds right to me.

Trump Swinging for the Fences

Now if he only had the money to put out fifty ads telling these fifty stories. Or even the best dozen or so.

The Anti-Nazi Rally Will Be Held at the Nazi Rally

In what is becoming a regular feature of American life, left-wing radicals showed up at a right-wing radical event and attacked it. Much like what happened here in Georgia at Stone Mountain not long ago, the counterprotesters greatly outnumbered the protesters.

I don't care for Nazis or Klansmen, so I can't really bring myself to shed many tears over this. On the other hand, we see the same sort of behavior being pointed at Donald Trump rallies -- and he's twice now faced a potential assassin coming after him personally. It seems as if the right to a dissenting opinion is not being undermined only for the Klan and their ilk. Rather, the strategy seems to be to paint a large part of Americans' views as deserving of physical silencing.

Althouse: NYT Readers Not Playing Along

They're supposed to be moved to tears by the injustice of enforcing the laws against illegal immigration, she says, but somehow reader comments don't seem to suggest that they are.

On Following Orders and Media Coverage

In the case of the two US Navy boats captured by the Iranian navy in January, Fox News reports that the helmsman of one of the boats refused an order to take evasive action.

While a young lieutenant was the highest-ranking individual on either of the two 50-foot boats, when the order was given to evade the Iranian forces, the helmsman refused the order.

That sounds pretty bad to me. My first reaction was disbelief and thoughts of a firing squad.

However, one of the commenters there, JeffGauch, brought up an interesting point:

... if that Lieutenant wasn't the coxswain of the lead boat in the formation the helmsman was absolutely correct in disregarding the order.  Far more information than what is presented here is necessary to make an intelligent judgment.

Oddly, this fits with my experience as a rower. We often have both a coach, in a separate motorboat, and a coxswain in our own boat talking to us. The coach is in charge, but when it comes to maneuver we oar-pullers should only follow the orders of the coxswain.

New rowers often get confused by this: We can hear the coach giving maneuver orders to the coxswain, and newbs on their first or second time out will immediately start to follow them, which produces splashing, crossed oars and confusion as the more experienced rowers correctly wait for the coxswain's commands.

The Fox report does explain that the crew was inexperienced. Maybe something similar to this happened to them.

These kinds of details seem highly relevant to the story. Maybe the LT broke the rules by failing to give orders in the proper way. Maybe the helmsman broke the rules by disobeying a proper order. Either way, we need better reporters.

The Killer at the Star Club

If we're having a dance party, you can't do better than this.



Trouble may come tomorrow, but we get few enough chances to celebrate cleanly. Here's some music for a weekend of it. If you've got the energy for it, Jerry Lee has the energy for you.

The dog that didn't bark

From a commenter at Maggie's Farm: what if the Brexit vote is ignored?