#TrudeauEulogies

The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, today issued the following statement on the death of former Cuban President Fidel Castro:

“It is with deep sorrow that I learned today of the death of Cuba’s longest serving President.

“Fidel Castro was a larger than life leader who served his people for almost half a century. A legendary revolutionary and orator, Mr. Castro made significant improvements to the education and healthcare of his island nation.

“While a controversial figure, both Mr. Castro’s supporters and detractors recognized his tremendous dedication and love for the Cuban people who had a deep and lasting affection for “el Comandante”.

“I know my father was very proud to call him a friend and I had the opportunity to meet Fidel when my father passed away. It was also a real honour to meet his three sons and his brother President Raúl Castro during my recent visit to Cuba.

“On behalf of all Canadians, Sophie and I offer our deepest condolences to the family, friends and many, many supporters of Mr. Castro. We join the people of Cuba today in mourning the loss of this remarkable leader.”

And in response Twitter lit up with #TrudeauEulogies. The National Post and USA Today both covered it, and here are some samples:

John Barnes ‏@WesternSkies 8m 8 minutes ago

The world mourns the passing of Uncle Joe Stalin, an innovative pioneer who taught us so much about Photoshop. #TrudeauEulogies

Toastmaster General ‏@Vosnicos 9m 9 minutes ago

Today we mourn the passing of Osama Bin Laden a revolutionary in the aviation and demolition fields. #trudeaueulogies

 

magda_83 ‏@magda_83 13m 13 minutes ago

Best known as a style icon for many, Cruella De Vil shall also be remembered as an untiring advocate for animal rights. #trudeaueulogies

 

James Robinson ‏@JRobinson8899 14m 14 minutes ago

Today we mourn Dr. Josef Mengele, who's controversial experiments helped pave the way for modern medicine #trudeaueulogies

 

Hammersmith ‏@Czernobog 18m 18 minutes ago

"An accomplished painter and cinemaphile, Adolf Hitler united a troubled nation using his trademark wit and passion." #TrudeauEulogies

 

Derek Cook ‏@ARTofHope 19m 19 minutes ago

Today we mourn the passing of Judas Iscariot who, with a mere $30, successfully launched a brand new religion. #trudeaueulogies

 

Kevin Sheehan ‏@windkbba 51m 51 minutes ago

It saddens us that we lost Jack The Ripper today. He was responsible for helping prostitutes get off the streets. #trudeaueulogies

 

Bingo Bango Bongo ‏@SumOfChoices 59m 59 minutes ago Virginia, USA

Though a divisive figure, Fidel Castro brought us Justin Trudeau's #trudeaueulogies & Jill Stein's serious mental breakdown on Twitter.

 

J.J. McCullough ‏@JJ_McCullough 7h 7 hours ago

As we mourn Emperor Caligula, let us always remember his steadfast devotion to Senate reform. #trudeaueulogies

 

Jason Markusoff Verified account ‏@markusoff 9h 9 hours ago

"While controversial, Darth Vader achieved great heights in space construction & played a formative role in his son's life" #trudeaueulogies

The End of Fidel Castro

It's interesting having a diverse group of friends. Seems like half of them are cheering his demise, and the other half are posting what they consider his most inspirational quotes.

Certainly, he was a man of consequence. Most of those consequences were bad.

Speaking of Guns

A position paper from the Trump team calls for national reciprocity for concealed carry permits.

Check Your (Stability) Privilege

An argument against gun control:

The American left supports gun bans, magazine bans, and the abolition of the 2nd Amendment wholly as a function of what I’m calling “Stability Privilege.” Almost no one out there on the left can remember a time when America was not economically and politically stable, relatively speaking. It’s been half a century since a president was assassinated, and even then, the transition of power was seamless. It’s been a little less time since a president was forced out of office. Again he left quietly, not a shot fired...

They don’t believe they can be rounded up and shot, because “that could never happen here.” They don’t believe someone would break down their door for the food in their pantry, and slaughter them if they resist. They don’t believe they could be rounded up and raped by the truckload for worshipping God differently than their next-door neighbor. They don’t really believe that any of these things are happening anywhere. If they do on any level, they seem to think they can hashtag it out of existence. They believe all of this because of their stability privilege, because they’ve never seen it with their own eyeballs, and so they think “It can’t happen here.” All they’ve seen themselves is firearms misused near them, and so that is the one thing they can wrap their heads around. They don’t see the use, the purpose, the importance of the 2nd Amendment and modern arms....

Try to remember that Sarajevo once hosted an Olympics. Remember that Beirut used to be called “The Paris of the Middle East.” Remember that women used to wear lipstick and miniskirts in Tehran. Most of all...remember that it CAN happen anywhere. It can happen here. The bubble can break. The bubble WILL break.

It's an interesting theory, but I'm not at all sure it's correct. The reaction to Donald Trump becoming President Elect has not convinced me that people on the left believe that stability and nonviolence are dependable features of American life.

Take these recent nominations for cabinet positions. Some of them have come from the right, like Jeff Sessions. Others have been lifelong Democrats, like Mike Flynn. Harold Ford is supposedly going to head up the infrastructure plan, and he was a Clinton supporter. Mitt Romney is supposedly in the pole position in the race for Secretary of State, and he's a centrist Republican who strongly criticized Trump. Jim Mattis is apolitical. To me, this looks like the choices of a guy who is largely non-ideological, rewarding some allies but also making outreach efforts to potential supporters he didn't win over during the campaign. But to my left-leaning friends, the right-winger appointments prove Trump's pending evils; and the centrist and Democrat choices are traitors, to be forever despised for not standing strong against the man. [UPDATE: Apparently NPR agrees with me, more or less.]

I think they really believe not that they're safe, but that many of their fellow citizens -- and especially the sort who buy guns or vote for Trump -- are barely restrained Nazis who dream every night of murdering gays and lesbians and people of color. The fact that we actually live in the safest place and time in human history, in a political system that if anything is too stable* for its own good, doesn't seem to be a conviction.

So the longing to disarm the citizenry makes sense, not because they don't see any good to guns, but because they're terrified of us.


* Is it possible for a political system to be too stable? I don't think Aristotle would say so, but it strikes me that stability is not an unalloyed good. Instability is dangerous, but it also enables adaptation. The United States might be better off if it changed some aspects of its political system to reflect the fact that we no longer have regional diversity, as was well served by the state system, but rather a rural versus urban split. It's easy to see from the county-level election maps that there aren't really red states and blue states, but blue urban cores inside a massive red country. Does it really make sense to have Atlanta in the same "state" as the rest of Georgia, or Charlotte in the same state as the mountains of Western North Carolina? The system of states is stable, but insofar as this creates new tensions and clashes, it may be "too stable."

I Hope You All Enjoyed a Non-Confrontational Holiday in a Culturally-Appropriate Safe Space

Romance and Waiting

An academic argues that women always wait:

Literature bears out Barthes’s claim and my experience: In books, it is always women who wait. In the Odyssey, Penelope awaits the return of her husband for twenty years, weaving a funeral shroud for her father during the day and unraveling it during the night to put off intermediary suitors, one of whom she will wed when the interminable tapestry is finally complete. Penelope is the product of an oral lyrical tradition that excluded women, and it is only fitting that a male authorship relegated her to the sort of maddening inactivity that waiting so often entails.

The whole tradition of chivalric literature runs the other way. In the literature of a thousand years, the man -- the knight -- serves patiently in the hope of a woman electing to reward him with her love. This is often described as "mercy" or "grace," as she is not in any way required to do so by the forms of the literature.

Consider this bit from Le Morte D'arthur, in which the good knight Beaumains has fought a number of the great knights of the world, and overcome them, in order to free a lady who was being besieged by them. Her sister says to go and see her, but when he gets there...

NOW turn we unto Sir Beaumains that desired of Linet that he might see her sister, his lady. Sir, she said, I would fain ye saw her. Then Sir Beaumains all armed him, and took his horse and his spear, and rode straight unto the castle. And when he came to the gate he found there many men armed, and pulled up the drawbridge and drew the port close.

Then marvelled he why they would not suffer him to enter. And then he looked up to the window; and there he saw the fair Lionesse that said on high: Go thy way, Sir Beaumains, for as yet thou shalt not have wholly my love, unto the time that thou be called one of the number of the worthy knights.

My guess is that there's a lot more literature like this, even outside the chivalric tradition. Waiting for a beloved, even forever, is a sadly universal experience.

DB: Obama's Pardoned Turkey Defects to ISIS

Full story here.

More guides for Thanksgiving harmony

We won't have any use for these; our gathering today won't have much ideological diversity.

Agree that America has a terrible gun crisis – many Americans simply cannot afford to purchase the multiple firearms each citizen should own. Inform him that his opposition to your plan for “gun vouchers” to allow all Americans to take part in the defense of themselves, their families, communities and the Constitution, is “super racist” and that you support “caliber diversity.”

Last night we had neighbors over, and everyone stayed strictly away from politics. It was a lovely dinner. Today we make a roundtrip roadtrip to the Houston vicinity visit my mother-in-law.

Happy Thanksgiving

I have a sixteen-pound bird that I am slow-roasting at 165 degrees for twenty hours. This approach means you cannot possibly overcook it, as the bird will eventually be exactly the temperature you want it to be throughout. I have a few other side-dishes planned, but it will be a simple Thanksgiving this year. With my father's death, my mother has gone out to Wyoming to be with my sister and the new baby. It doesn't seem like it's worth doing things quite as extravagantly without them.

This day of all days I remember Iraq. I was there two Thanksgivings in a row. This year some five thousand paratroopers, a Division's special troops battalion, and a bunch of special operators are in Iraq. More are in Afghanistan, where they serve the interests of a President who never intended for them to win their war. Others are in Africa, and points East.

Think of them today, at least during the holiday prayer.

I wish you all a very fine day.

Terminal Lance on General Mattis

The comic -- by a now-former Marine Corps infantry Lance Corporal -- mostly treats the various indignities and hardships of a life that wasn't quite what the recruiter promised. Usually anything "moto" (i.e., overly motivational) is mocked viciously. Life in the Corps is about standing in the mud and the rain, punishing deployments, being screwed over by your chain of command, and so on.

But there is a heartfelt exception for General Matts.

Just in time for Christmas

Over at WeaponsMan, a hot tip on a gift for the ages- an incredibly high quality reproduction of the manuscript I.33, which, Dating from around 1310 is the earliest known surviving European Fechtbuch (combat manual).  He's done a great job linking various related sites, including the site for information to purchase, should you be so inclined, so go over and enjoy the splendor of an amazing publication (at least virtually).  Just be forewarned- it's not cheap!

A Symbol of Fear

A liberal arts college in western Massachusetts has taken down the American flag on campus –leaving the flagpole bare until next semester –in hopes it will free up students to have a “direct, open, and respectful conversation.”

The flag at the center of Hampshire College is viewed by some as a symbol of racism and hatred and following the election and news of Donald Trump’s victory – many students called for its removal....

Hampshire College President Jonathan Lash wrote: “By removing the flag, the college will seek to focus our efforts on addressing racist, misogynistic, Islamophobic, anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic, and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and behaviors.”

A spokesman for the college told the Boston Globe that some people view the flag as “a powerful symbol of fear they’ve felt all their lives because they grew up as people of color, never feeling safe.”

Indeed there are people who should fear the American flag. May it ever be so.

No Nazis Welcome

In a far-ranging interview with the New York Times, the US president-elect was quoted as saying: "I condemn them. I disavow, and I condemn."

He said he did not want to "energise" the group, which includes neo-Nazis, white nationalists and anti-Semites.

Alt-right supporters were filmed on Saturday in Washington DC cheering as a speaker shouted: "Hail Trump."

In the video, Richard Spencer, a leader of the "alt-right" movement, told a conference of members that America belongs to white people, whom he described as "children of the sun".

They really didn't do themselves any favors at this weekend's conference, especially right at the end. My guess is that there were some 3 martini lunches.

In fairness, at least one of their leaders has called for an end to any sort of Nazi symbolism.


Swimming is good for you, but some people need it more than others.

Trump Breaks Campaign Promise

I didn't really expect him to prosecute Clinton. It goes against all the rules of a class to which he himself belongs, and to which he will himself someday have to appeal for his own personal safety.

However, it is disappointing to see that the law remains for the "little people."

"You $*%@ed Up. You Trusted Us."

Undocumented immigrants learn a lesson from Animal House.

More than 800,000 undocumented immigrants who were brought here as kids, myself included, have willingly handed over our personal information to the federal government as part of a program called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). The program, started by President Obama through executive action in 2012, was supposed to temporarily shield us from deportation and give us temporary employment authorization.

And people wonder why the NRA is so dead-set against a gun registry.

I get it now

"The President Can't Have a Conflict of Interest."

That's not true, boss. It was the whole problem with the Clinton Foundation, in fact.

Trump's sense of self is completely tied up with his business empire. I'm guessing nobody can talk him into liquidating his interest in it, or giving up a sense of personal control over it. That means this whole Presidency is going to be one scandal after another.

Glam Dicenn

In ancient Ireland, bards were supposed to be able to perform a kind of satire that was so punishing that it could cause boils to rise on the head of its target. This satire, glam dicenn, was traditionally reserved for very bad kings -- especially kings who didn't pay their bards.

The power of satire is something I've been thinking about lately. It is a more powerful weapon than we readily acknowledge, one that really does have the potential to destroy. Sarah Palin, once a successful and highly popular governor, was asked what in her experience qualified her for the job of Vice President. She made a reasonable argument that governors have to handle civil defense matters as the head of the National Guard for their state, and that Alaska has an unusually sensitive position because of the issue of Russian aerial incursion given its proximity. Almost no one remembers her answer, or the responsibility that really does attend to such a position. What everyone remembers is Tina Fey's satire: "I can see Russia from my house!"

The result of such mockery, carried on day and night at a national level, seems to have destroyed Ms. Palin. She ended up reduced to a caricature of the successful, plucky woman she was in 2008. She discovered that being willing to play that caricature was lucrative, as people loved the idea of her as a ridiculous figure so much that they would pay for it. In the end, she made herself over into what they mocked her for being.

I was thinking of this when I saw John Oliver's treatment of Trump -- and Mike Pence. It's a long bit, and the only part I'm interested in really is what is pointed at the VP. He was mocked as being a Salem Witch Trials-era figure. This is intended as punishment for the sin of taking traditional moral positions on things like marriage and abortion. These positions are shared by many millions of Americans of all races. In the case of marriage, his position was quite modest compared to the resistance pushed by Roy Moore of Alabama: he signed a law protecting moral objectors from being dragooned into wedding ceremonies they found blasphemous, and then revised it when objections were raised. This willingness to reconsider his position given further argument is described as him being "forced to sign" another bill, but in fact you can't force a governor to sign anything. Nobody was there with a gun making him sign it. He was reasoned with, which proves that he's reasonable.

Further evidence of his being reasonable occurred this weekend, with the Hamilton mini-controversy. Mike Pence strikes me as a good guy. I think we don't agree on everything, but I never expect that. He's a very ordinary Republican in most respects.

So, when Oliver says that Pence is "even worse" than Trump, and goes on to mock him viciously, I'm wondering what the effect of this unconstrained use of satire must be. Trump deserves all the satire he gets, I think. Hillary Clinton likewise deserved to be mocked. Yet if we use satire against everyone, we lose anyone with whom we can reason. Everyone becomes, in our minds, a mockery. No one is left to talk with.

I would propose a restriction of the weapon of satire on the order of the ancient bards. It's a weapon that should be used with care. As an opening position, is it possible to construct a list of figures in American life who don't deserve to be treated this way? I am especially interested in figures from the opposition: people who deserve to be treated with a modicum of respect, even though we disagree. Any nominees?

Yet More Thanksgiving

Heterodox Academy has a placemat for you to put out on your tables.

My Colleague's Opinion Makes Him A Monster

In the new political climate we now inhabit, [David[ Duke and [Mark] Lilla were contributing to the same ideological project, the former cloaked in a KKK hood, the latter in an academic gown. Both men are underwriting the whitening of American nationalism, and the re-centering of white lives as lives that matter most in the U.S. Duke is happy to own the white supremacy of his statements, while Lilla’s op-ed does the more nefarious background work of making white supremacy respectable. Again.

Mark Lilla and I both teach at Columbia University, and I acknowledge that this is a harsh indictment of my colleague. But these are harsh times.

Here's Lilla's piece, which I take to argue that identity politics isn't really working out well for Democrats and they ought to rethink it. I'd have thought this was a bit of advice obviously intended to help the Democratic Party win elections, and thus less likely to come in for a charge of "white supremacy" than if it were aimed at helping the Republican Party. Apparently not, but see what you think. Maybe the KKK aspect of his piece is eluding my eye.

If this is where people's heads are, this is going to be a rough little while.

My sense is that it's not going to work, though. The election of Donald Trump was a very close-run thing, and I don't know that he has a lot of deep support as a person. But while the election of Trump was narrow, the rejection of political correctness as an approach to life was broad and deep. The fact that Trump got through the Republican primary shows that Republicans are done with it. The fact that he was taken seriously as a major party candidate in the general shows that the American people are, mostly, done with it.

Hillary Clinton wondered aloud why she wasn't ahead by 50 points, given all the things Trump said and did. It was a good question. The only workable answer lies in collapsing the assumption that violating PC norms was fatal.

That's going to give us a very different public discourse. We'll see how it improves, and whether it also harms, public life. These attempts to stand the PC norms back up, though, isn't going to work. A Trump administration is going to be a continuing bulldozer to such norms. Every day there will be a new lesson in how they don't apply any more.

UPDATE: Bernie Sanders asks about going "beyond identity politics." He should realize how offensive this is, says Vox.

Harleys are Awesome, But...

John Wayne on a Honda should pretty much end the idea that only Harleys are fit bikes for American riders.

Which movie do you think this still is from? He wore suspenders all across his career, from Stagecoach to The Searchers to the Cavalry movies and onwards. He's older, here. Big Jake?

More Thanksgiving Talk

If Donald Trump is racist, does that mean you think your family is racist for voting for the man? Is Kanye West racist now? You think I like the fact that a rich New York jagoff with verbal diarrhea is going to be president? I just voted for the guy, I didn’t sign on the dotted line in blood. If he starts throwing people in camps, I’ll be the first guy to form a militia. But until then, I can’t be bothered to keep up with all things that are racist these days.

Go, California!

...and take Seattle with you.

A Message From Donald Trump

Wretchard asks: "Does it make sense? If not what happens next? If it makes sense, does it have a chance?"



I'm a big fan of killing the TPP.

A Neat Tool

So, we all know that we can use the Internet Archive (also known as the Wayback Machine) to try to find old internet pages.

Did you know, though, that they have an extensive archive of live music?

It turns out to be especially good for Grateful Dead fans, which is a category I'm guessing overlaps neatly with "people who work on the Internet Archive."

The value of price

You have only to see how afraid the Venezuelan government is of price information to see what a powerful economic tool it is.

I absolutely love it when information is enough to destroy a totalitarian regime.

ATF: "Medicinal" Marijuana Trumps 2nd Amendment

A number of states have recently passed medicinal marijuana laws. I do not have a strong opinion about these, although I do know of a young girl here in Georgia whose seizures were finally brought under control by its use. (Georgia's own very limited such law was brought on by a similar case, but not the same one.)

The ATF would like you to know, however, that if you obtain a card allowing you to purchase medicinal marijuana, you are barred from owning a firearm.

Under the ATF’s policy, not only are users of marijuana prohibited from possessing firearms, but a person may not transfer a firearm to an individual if the transferor knows that the transferee holds a medical marijuana card.

Importantly, this second prohibition applies even where the cardholder does not actually use any marijuana.

I could see an "under the influence" law pertaining to carrying or using a firearm. An ownership ban seems excessive to me.

The Bubble

FP Needs A Class on Military Science

One of the mysteries about the ongoing offensive in Mosul, where Iraqi security forces are now pressing into the northern, eastern, and southern edges of the city, has been the apparent decision to leave unattended the desert between the battlefield and Syria. Unless this was a baffling oversight, the 20-mile-wide corridor of desert seemed intended to give Islamic State fighters an escape route to the group’s strongholds in Syria, perhaps to limit the destruction in Mosul.

Sun Tzu said, ""When you surround the enemy always allow them an escape route. They must see that there is an alternative to death."

The reason is not to 'reduce the destruction' of the city, although it would be nice if that occurred. The reason is to reduce their will to fight to the death. If there's no choice, every man will resist to the last to the utmost of his powers. If there is, an increasing number of men will opt out and take to the road.

There's a second issue, which has to do with American technological advantages, that I won't discuss for OPSEC reasons. Still, it's not that baffling why a route through the open desert was left free for Sun Tzu's purpose.

The rest of the article is worth reading, as it pertains to the history of Tal Afar in the battle of Sunnis and Shia. I always think of Col. McMaster and the 3rd ACR when I think of that place. Tal Afar was one of the places where we learned how to win against the insurgents' influence on the population. The Shia militas are not going to be able to make that strategy work, and they are not strong enough to effect the Sri Lankan solution to an insurgent population.

Biker in Chief is Not Offended

There's a minor brou-ha-ha over the fact that VP-Elect Mike Pence was addressed by the cast at a performance of Hamilton. They told him that a lot of people were worried by the recent election, especially that the incoming administration wouldn't protect all Americans equally, and expressed hope that he'd found in their show some inspiration to adhere to American ideals.

A lot of people were angry on Pence's behalf, including the President Elect.

Pence himself, who is a biker, was not the least bit put out. In a very classy response, he complimented their show and the cast themselves, urged others to see the show, and said he was not at all offended by their remarks.

He then went on to say "But I want to assure people...."

CBS News cut off the rest of his remarks. I haven't found a longer version of the clip, so I'm not sure what he wanted to assure us of, but my guess is that he went on to say something comforting to those Americans who feel frightened by him or the incoming administration.

That's just a guess, though, because CBS didn't think that part mattered.

UPDATE:

What he said was, "I just want to reassure people that what president elect Donald Trump said on election night, he absolutely meant from the bottom of his heart. He is preparing to be the president of all of the people of the United States of America."

What happens next

At David Foster's place, Lexington Green argues that Trump's campaign positions have been no more vacuous than most, and less so than many.  He believes Trump's critics, especially a Prof. Lipson, are unaccountably ignoring the President-Elect's fairly well fleshed-out position papers.

If Prof. Lipson wants to look like a genius-prophet to his readers, he should do what too few people have done: Read Trump’s papers and predict that bills will be introduced to do X, Y and Z. Astonished readers will say, “Professor Lipson, how did you know?” He can claim his methods are proprietary.

My Food is Problematic

"Although breastfeeding is assumed to be natural and a biological function, we problematize the practice as gendered and heteronormative."

You do that. I know a three-month-old who needs to eat every three hours, however, and she will not care what you think about how she does it.

Thanksgivingsmanship

From an Ace commenter:

I've been all anti politics at Thanksgiving because c'mon people can't we at least pretend for one day that there are more important things.

However. Someone reminded me that if you bring up politics and drive people off, more pie for you!

So my position is now this: Stake out the high ground next to the pie and then GAME ON!

Well that's just crazy talk

A Trump-supporting law professor wonders how nearly all his colleagues so thoroughly lost sight of the principle that ours is a government of laws, not men:

What this is supposed to mean is that we adhere to the original understanding of our Constitution and laws, and that if legal change is to be accomplished it is done not by judges or presidents, but by legislators or the American people, through constitutional amendments.

This is a New Approach

Can a section of the Constitution itself be unconstitutional? The answer is yes.

Used to be the idea was just to get the SCOTUS to ignore the parts of the Constitution you didn't like. Is the 10th Amendment unconstitutional? It's certainly impossible to square with the left's agenda since FDR. As far as I know, though, no one has argued that it is unconstitutional; they've just elected to act as if it didn't exist.

The Mars Tartan

Very good.

The list of essential items astronauts would need to pack for an expedition to the Red Planet, has just got longer after a leading space scientist has had his design for a Mars Exploration tartan – including a colour representing future human settlement on Mars – officially registered with the Scottish Government’s Register of Tartans....

Prof Cockell, who also runs an online course about the search for alien life, said: “I’m totally enthusiastic about Mars exploration and decided it would be fun to have a tartan for future Mars exploration. I also thought it would reflect that forward-thinking scientific aspect of Scottish culture.

“The tartan could be worn by those working on Mars, any Scottish people going to Mars and on Earth by those preparing for Mars expeditions such as training in extreme environments in Antarctica.”

But what about the children?

Useful advice for everyone melting down about how their children will cope with Trump's proposed cabinet appointees.  News flash:  your kids don't think your politics are all that cool.

"The End of Identity Liberalism"

And not a day too soon.

Recently I performed a little experiment during a sabbatical in France: For a full year I read only European publications, not American ones. My thought was to try seeing the world as European readers did. But it was far more instructive to return home and realize how the lens of identity has transformed American reporting in recent years. How often, for example, the laziest story in American journalism — about the “first X to do Y” — is told and retold. Fascination with the identity drama has even affected foreign reporting, which is in distressingly short supply. However interesting it may be to read, say, about the fate of transgender people in Egypt, it contributes nothing to educating Americans about the powerful political and religious currents that will determine Egypt’s future, and indirectly, our own. No major news outlet in Europe would think of adopting such a focus.

The author is mostly concerned about the effect on liberalism, but the effect on America is more significant. This division of America into hostile, tribal camps has done no one any good. That it is coupled to a governing philosophy that insists on one-size fits-all rules, rules that make no room for Federalism or regional differentiation, only makes it more explosive than it already was.

A Biker Post

Dallas also has some choice biker stuff going on. I talked with the owner of this fine bike, which is a tribute to a not-so-classic 1991 movie.

The owner of that bike also owns a very nice shop dealing chiefly in custom Harleys.  It's as good a motorcycle shop as I've ever strayed into.

After that the wife and I went out to what turned out to be a famous Biker bar.

Making America Great Again: In Victory, Magnanimity

So we took this trip to Dallas. The wife and I were walking along the Turtle Creek greenway, which is quite lovely for an urban park, when we came across this large statue that was visible at another park across the road.

"Who is that?" she asked.

I answered, "It's Robert E. Lee, of course."

"Why would there be a monument to Lee in Dallas?" she asked incredulously.

"I don't know," I admitted, "but I'm pretty sure that's him."

Sure enough.

This statue was personally dedicated by Franklin D. Roosevelt, who came to Dallas for the purpose. The park was built out by his WPA. If you think they were kidding about celebrating Robert E. Lee, they weren't. In addition to the giant equestrian statue, they built a 2/3rds-scale exact replica of his mansion in Arlington.

They also built a lot of stuff that looks a lot more like what I've seen of CCC/WPA projects around the country. This bridge is a good example. They built benches and picnic tables out of similar stone, all of which remain in beautiful shape.

The upshot of this is not that Making America Great Again means that we should resume the mid-century celebration of the military heroes of the Confederacy. No, the thing I want to point out is how magnanimous this action was coming from FDR. He was elected in a similarly heated election, and faced similarly heated opposition after coming into office. Many people thought his CCC was little more than his version of Hitler Youth, which he was going to use to impose totalitarian rule on the nation.

But he didn't do that. He put them to work. Not everything they did was the most obviously sensible thing to do, either. Even if you accept that building a monument to Robert E. Lee served a useful political purpose in unifying Americans and healing older divisions; even if you believe wholeheartedly that building lasting parks and public recreation areas beautifies the country in a worthwhile way; even then, it's not at all clear that anyone really needed a 2/3rds-scale replica of Lee's mansion.

It put people to work, though. It taught them useful skills. It did, in fact, beautify the nation -- as did the CCC's yeoman work on similar parks and monuments around the nation, such as the repairs to the Confederate fortress at Fort Pulaski, or their building of shelters for hikers on the Appalachian trail.

It also showed a way for Americans to join each other in being Americans.

Trump can't fall back on exactly what worked for FDR, and I'm not suggesting that he should. The method is what is important. Put people back to work. Build something good, something that will last, even if it's not the very most obvious and sensible thing. Do it in a way that celebrates America, even the parts of it you may not always truly love. Show magnanimity in victory.

Overreach

They went too far . . . even for Oregon?

They went too far . . . for college students?  Well, maybe not, that's just a few hundred students pushing back and pointing out how unpleasant it is to have their college president declare their politics out of all human bounds.  But Oregon, golly, the statewide race actually went to an R.

"Still Crying Wolf"

The author of Slate Star Codex, which is a stellar example of blogging at its best, has a piece refuting the idea that Donald Trump is appealing to racism.

In general I think this author is worth considering carefully, and I note that he did not publish this piece until after the election precisely because he didn't want to sway people into voting for Trump. So this is an argument against interests, politically; but in favor of knowing the truth, which is the real interest of both the author and all true philosophers. You may think he's wrong, but he is clearly trying to be honest with himself.

I'm only going to quote a small subset of the argument, way down the page, because it's interesting in itself.

Suppose you’re talking to one of those ancient-Atlantean secrets-of-the-Pyramids people. They give you various pieces of evidence for their latest crazy theory, such as (and all of these are true):

1. The latitude of the Great Pyramid matches the speed of light in a vacuum to five decimal places.
2. Famous prophet Edgar Cayce, who predicted a lot of stuff with uncanny accuracy, said he had seen ancient Atlanteans building the Pyramid in a vision.
3. There are hieroglyphs near the pyramid that look a lot like pictures of helicopters.
4. In his dialogue Critias, Plato relayed a tradition of secret knowledge describing a 9,000-year-old Atlantean civilization.
5. The Egyptian pyramids look a lot like the Mesoamerican pyramids, and the Mesoamerican name for the ancient home of civilization is “Aztlan”
6. There’s an underwater road in the Caribbean, whose discovery Edgar Cayce predicted, and which he said was built by Atlantis
7. There are underwater pyramids near the island of Yonaguni.
8. The Sphinx has apparent signs of water erosion, which would mean it has to be more than 10,000 years old.

She asks you, the reasonable and well-educated supporter of the archaeological consensus, to explain these facts. After looking through the literature, you come up with the following:

1. This is just a weird coincidence.
2. Prophecies have so many degrees of freedom that anyone who gets even a little lucky can sound “uncannily accurate”, and this is probably just what happened with Cayce, so who cares what he thinks?
3. Lots of things look like helicopters, so whatever.
4. Plato was probably lying, or maybe speaking in metaphors.
5. There are only so many ways to build big stone things, and “pyramid” is a natural form. The “Atlantis/Atzlan” thing is probably a coincidence.
6. Those are probably just rocks in the shape of a road, and Edgar Cayce just got lucky.
7. Those are probably just rocks in the shape of pyramids. But if they do turn out to be real, that area was submerged pretty recently under the consensus understanding of geology, so they might also just be pyramids built by a perfectly normal non-Atlantean civilization.
8. We still don’t understand everything about erosion, and there could be some reason why an object less than 10,000 years old could have erosion patterns typical of older objects.

I want you to read those last eight points from the view of an Atlantis believer, and realize that they sound really weaselly. They’re all “Yeah, but that’s probably a coincidence”, and “Look, we don’t know exactly why this thing happened, but it’s probably not Atlantis, so shut up.”

Chesterton would say that the person denying the validity of the Atlantis theory has a doctrine against Atlantis, while the ancient-Atlantean person was the one being scientific and looking for evidence. Of course, evidence that tends to confirm a theory is not what we really want in science: no theory can ever be confirmed, after all. What we're really looking for is ways to collect evidence that would disprove a theory.

But that's not what we have here, or there, and there's an important question about what to do in these cases.

The Throwing of the Sword

A deputy came under violent attack the other day, but was saved by an armed citizen who stepped in and shot his assailant. Of course, the firearm used to save the deputy was seized as evidence. Presumably it will be returned when the investigation is complete.

A local gun store has given him another gun so he need not be unarmed.

I told you that story so that I could recite a bit from one of my favorite poems.

For Colan had not bow nor sling,
On a lonely sword leaned he,
Like Arthur on Excalibur
In the battle by the sea.

To his great gold ear-ring Harold
Tugged back the feathered tail,
And swift had sprung the arrow,
But swifter sprang the Gael.

Whirling the one sword round his head,
A great wheel in the sun,
He sent it splendid through the sky,
Flying before the shaft could fly--
It smote Earl Harold over the eye,
And blood began to run.

Colan stood bare and weaponless,
Earl Harold, as in pain,
Strove for a smile, put hand to head,
Stumbled and suddenly fell dead;
And the small white daisies all waxed red
With blood out of his brain.

And all at that marvel of the sword,
Cast like a stone to slay,
Cried out. Said Alfred: "Who would see
Signs, must give all things. Verily
Man shall not taste of victory
Till he throws his sword away."

Then Alfred, prince of England,
And all the Christian earls,
Unhooked their swords and held them up,
Each offered to Colan, like a cup
Of chrysolite and pearls.

And the King said, "Do thou take my sword
Who have done this deed of fire,
For this is the manner of Christian men,
Whether of steel or priestly pen,
That they cast their hearts out of their ken
To get their heart's desire.

"And whether ye swear a hive of monks,
Or one fair wife to friend,
This is the manner of Christian men,
That their oath endures the end.

"For love, our Lord, at the end of the world,
Sits a red horse like a throne,
With a brazen helm and an iron bow,
But one arrow alone.

"Love with the shield of the Broken Heart
Ever his bow doth bend,
With a single shaft for a single prize,
And the ultimate bolt that parts and flies
Comes with a thunder of split skies,
And a sound of souls that rend.

"So shall you earn a king's sword,
Who cast your sword away."
And the King took, with a random eye,
A rude axe from a hind hard by
And turned him to the fray.

For the swords of the Earls of Daneland
Flamed round the fallen lord.
The first blood woke the trumpet-tune,
As in monk's rhyme or wizard's rune,
Beginneth the battle of Ethandune
With the throwing of the sword.

"...And Hear The Lamentations of Their Women"

Newsweek hosts a mournful piece by Nina Burleigh, the kind of person who attended a celebratory dinner for Hillary before the votes were counted. I couldn't help but think of Conan's dictum on what is best in life as I read it. Burleigh thinks this was all about men voting down women, but reading her commentary -- so very smug and self-satisfied even in defeat -- the true source of the wave against the establishment ought to become clear.

Likewise, of course, her journalistic ethics: so much about the connection between Trump and allegations of abusive behavior, and nothing about Clinton's own role in silencing her husband's victims all these many years. Condemnations are surely due at least equally on this ground, assuming the truth of both Trump's accuser's remarks and Clinton's accuser's remarks. I do in fact assume the truth of both sets of accusations, which strike me as likely valid given the characters of these men, and Hillary's character as well.

So I can see why women might want a woman president, when the right one appears to take the office; but hardly this woman president. Burleigh's lamentations are sweet to the ear because they are the lamentations of someone who despises even other women if they do not submit to her allegedly superior wisdom. I am glad to see that class of people, who are sure they know so much better than we, disappointed in their hopes.

But, what to make of this?

Women voted against Trump by one of the most significant gender gap margins in history, but their support for Clinton was tinged with ambivalence. In fact, Trump beat Clinton among white women 53 percent to 43 percent, with white women without college degrees going for him two to one. The hoped-for “first”—and the lead-up to it—never produced the jubilation that greeted the election of the first African-American president in 2008, even though women waited much longer for this moment. The first female president, after all, would have been in the White House on the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage.

The 15th Amendment, which ensured that African-Americans could vote, was ratified in 1870. I'm not clear on how waiting 100 years is waiting "much longer" than waiting 138 years.

There's an obvious joke in there, but I won't tell it. I am, after all, a gentleman.

Gun-Owning for Liberals

The list of people who have suddenly asked me about buying a gun has expanded all week. If the readership includes any lurkers who want to discuss the subject, you can reach me privately at grimbeornr (note the final "r") at Yahoo.

If you'd rather just read an article, here's one constructed for you by a libertarian.

Liberty By Law

You missed it the first time, America. Try it again.



This is the point. This is the thing you should be aiming for. They sorted out the basics in Anno Domini 1215.

How about Jim Webb for Secretary of Defense?

Mollie Hemingway makes the argument over at the Federalist.

It's a bit difficult to excerpt, so I'll just link her article.

Music to my Ears

A Vox interview with Haidt:

We have to recognize that we’re in a crisis, and that the left-right divide is probably unbridgeable. And if it is, we’ll have to give up on doing big things in Washington, and do as little as we possibly can at the national level. We’re going to have to return as much as we can to states and localities, and hope that innovative solutions spring from technology or private industry.

At least on this one point, the left-right divide is not unbridgeable!

Voting for Obama Anyway

It's worth revisiting this article as we encounter people who are wrestling with the question of how anyone could have voted for Trump.

Reagan Dems and Independents.... Yes, the spot worked. Yes, they believed the charges against Obama. Yes, they actually think he's too liberal, consorts with bad people and WON'T BE A GOOD PRESIDENT...but they STILL don't give a f***. They said right out, "He won't do anything better than McCain" but they're STILL voting for Obama....

The next was a woman, late 50s, Democrat but strongly pro-life. Loved B. and H. Clinton, loved Bush in 2000. "Well, I don't know much about this terrorist group Barack used to be in with that Weather guy but..."

What I took from that at the time was that people probably were going to vote for any Democrat against any Republican that year. This year, any Republican -- and Trump really tested that premise -- was probably going to beat the Democrat.

But it probably doesn't represent a permanent realignment of the sort people are talking about, hopelessly or breathlessly as they imagine it relating to their own preferences. Likely as not, the electorate will prove just as unreasonable again in four years, or eight, or twelve. It seems to come up now and then that they just decide to make a change in party control, regardless of how good or bad the particular candidate from that party happens to be.

(Still) On the Road

Just back from Dallas. Only I'm not all the way back, as I got rerouted part way home to another bit of business. I did like Texas, though. I'll have more to say later.

UPDATE: One of the things I did out in Dallas was meet up with our own Thomas Doubting, who drove in from Oklahoma for the occasion. During a long and winding discussion, I referred him to this old series on The Saga of Burnt Njal. Unfortunately, the discussion of the saga among members of the Hall has been lost in the Great Comments Disaster. That was the worthy part of the affair, but the saga itself remains rewarding.

UPDATE: While there, my wife and I made a trip to Stroker's Dallas, a custom motorcycle shop, tattoo parlor, roadhouse, and live music venue. We also went by a custom bike shop called Dream Machines, which had a magnificent collection of fine bikes for sale. We walked by, but did not have time for, a place in Deep Ellum called Reno's Chop Shop. It looked like fun too. There were lots of bikers in Deep Ellum, an old blues and jazz center that has turned into what I guess is the Brooklyn of Dallas.

I'll have a bigger post on a WPA park when I have time to upload photos.

Those nuts in the other half

The executive editor of "Cracked" Magazine has at least a glimmer of where all those crazy Trump voters are coming from, though he's careful to explain that he left the compound a long time ago and is enlightened now.

Nirvana

The news of Trump's election took me almost entirely by surprise.  Just in the last few days I had begun to wonder faintly if the polls had been that far off all along, or if perhaps things were shifting.  Caught flat-footed, I barely knew how I felt about the result.  I know the man will drive me crazy, and yet he's already won my heart by proposing a climate skeptic for EPA chief.  I always said I'd like some small fraction of what he did, which put him head and shoulders above Hillary F'in' Clinton.  Maybe this week I'm like the guy passing the 22nd-floor window on his way down:  "So far, so good!"

Something else that surprised me, but may have been evident to everyone else, is that the anger I thought had faded a bit, or at least been tamped down, is in fact still roaring.  I was refusing to make myself miserable concentrating on it all the time, but it was unabated.  All it took was 50 or so funereal Facebook posts by friends and family members who weren't sure they were ever again going to be able to get out of bed in face the day, to awaken a fearsomely vengeful spirit in me.  After several startlingly un-self-aware messages from my sister, I broke down and replied with the question whether she was actually aware that she was communicating with someone for whom the last couple of presidential terms had been sickening, maddening, embittering calamities.  (About which response in me, I didn't add, she had given not a single rat's patootie, not even when the lying little thief's law confiscated my health insurance.)

OK, that last line brings me to the point:  until recently, I could be irritable about bad government and economic policy, but I never let it knock me very far off balance.  I certainly couldn't sustain rage for years at a stretch, or much personal animosity.  I have to acknowledge that these people had never before made me feel afraid and vulnerable.  They'd never figured out a way to take away something that was deeply important to me and that I was afraid of not being able to replace.  Since then, my reaction has been more personal and more ugly.  I can work every day on not gloating openly, but the truth is that every weepy text message makes me incandescently angry.  I want to text back that I'm exactly as sympathetic as they were when the tables were turned, and I'm completely uninterested in any more theories about how I feel this way because I'm a racist.  Just bite me, that's all.  I have completely had it.  For the most part I restrain this impulse and answer noncommittally or not at all.  To my sister, I've taken to answering that I know how she feels.

On a happier note, we just got back from a reunion in Houston with our old commune buddies.  I see some of these folks from time to time, but there were some I hadn't seen for decades, and it was rare to see more than one or two at a time.  Eschewing politics, we did my favorite thing in the world, which was make music and sing along in 2 or even 3 parts, including many of the old songs we used to do nearly every night after communal dinner.  I'm terribly fond of the two guys who were playing guitar--then suddenly it came to me that these two guys had mocked up a big cardboard wedding cake for my bachelorette party in 1983, then jumped out of it in their underwear.  Who knows how either of them voted?  I love them both anyway.  In that moment I reached some kind of transcendent state of happy nostalgia and harmony with the world.  It was a lost moment of youth I never thought I'd feel again.

Don't let it be

Lockstep's appeal:

The problem is that while conservatives see “Live and Let Live” as a useful if imperfect instrument of civil peace, progressives view “Live and Let Live” as a distinct moral evil. It is less important to them that California is allowed to be California than that Texas should be forbidden to be Texas. Progressives have since the time of Bismarck had a mania for uniformity, because they believe that uniformity is necessary for their larger project: managing society as though it were a single factory and its people were widgets. You cannot package widgets eight to a box if they vary in size or shape.

The way it was explained to me in law school was that progressive policies sucked wind until their proponents found a way to make many of them uniform nationwide, typically via the Interstate Commerce Clause. That way, you didn't have to watch the people who objected to the new policy vote with their feet. Cuba and North Korea operate on that principle as well.  It is a large part of the appeal of global fair trade initiatives as well.

Send Me On My Way

Seems appropriate for Veterans Day. Good to see our crack fighting forces training hard.

Mixed Emotions

My workplace is overwhelmingly far left. Wednesday was like working in a funeral home the day after a mass casualty incident. People who suspect my political inclinations would not look me in the eye. Yesterday and today you could see people working through the stages of grief.

I have been trying to be considerate and not look like I'm pleased. I understand what they are going through and I know they need to work this out without having my grin rubbing salt in the wounds.

But I've discovered that at moments I don't feel very patient or kind toward them. In fact, I feel very much like turning at some ridiculously apocalyptic bon mot and saying something like this to them, except I wouldn't and didn't vote Hillary over Trump.

Yes, spittle spewing, arm waving, mansplaining foul language and all.

But there are good reasons not to do so. One, I genuinely like my co-workers and don't want to ruin friendships. Two, they're still Americans, they still get to vote, and we're stuck with them.

Veteran's Day

With thanks to all of you who served, and all of you who supported those who did.

Celebrate as you think best. I'm sure you'll do something appropriate.

Carrying Virtue to Excess

Haidt on "motivated ignorance," "ad hominem albus," the difficulty of persuasion, and a suggested improvement.

By The Way, Happy Birthday

Lest we forget, it's a day for celebration.

I trust you all know the Ranger UP video is not at all safe for work.

UPDATE: Terminal Lance celebrates by singing, as well as they can remember the later verses. "Now I need the oldest and youngest Marine for a blood sacri… Wait…"

Just a Reminder: Bernie Would Have Won

An analysis from the British press suggests that the DNC shot itself in the foot by rigging its process for Clinton instead of Bernie.

If the Caddell hypothesis is correct, as I think it is, the Sanders campaign was much more likely to succeed against Trump than the Clinton campaign. This is because they both were on the same ground on the 80% question of whether the system was about the control and enrichment of a self-serving elite. Since the force of that question would have been disarmed, the attacks on Trump's character would have been far more telling even than they were.

Instead, the contest became one between the living symbol of rigged systems for the well-connected, and an outsider. Trump was still damaged by his bad moral conduct towards the weak -- as he should have been. Refusing to keep to your agreements to pay your contractors, to pick one example of such conduct that happens to be stripped of the sex/race connotations that can make debate difficult, really is the mark of a scoundrel. That is the sort of thing that ought to be damaging if it is true.

It wasn't damaging enough just because of the 80% question. Bernie would have won in a walk, I think, in spite of the very good arguments against socialist solutions to some of these problems. Only Clinton was sufficiently symbolic of the thing many voters wanted to reject to have possibly lost to Donald Trump.

UPDATE: An article in the Washington Post makes an allied point.

UPDATE: Bernie campaign leader: "We have nothing polite to say right now."

We Could Use a Little Chivalry Right Now

It seems like a really good time for a palate cleanser, something to get away from the wailing and lamentations and 'protests'- and we're just one day into this...

I came across these great videos - the C.S. Lewis Doodles.  This one on Chivalry was of great interest, and a reminder that in victory, the gentleman does not gloat.  Also, there were some finer points here that I had not considered in quite the way Lewis does here, and I found it profound, add to that the talent and skill of the doodle artist, and it's quite nice.  Enjoy-

Duh

Paul Krugman writes:

What we do know is that people like me, and probably like most readers of The New York Times, truly didn’t understand the country we live in.

Amazing how many pundits on that summary page explain the whole thing as racism and sexism. If this be racism and sexism, make the most of it.

Upset

I give Maureen Dowd credit for being in touch with a brother who could explain the political climate of the country to her. She's still having trouble grasping it; she can describe it accurately enough, without quite being able to imagine anyone who agrees with it:

It is unthinkable to imagine the most overtly racist candidate — and head of the offensive birther movement — driving in the limousine to the inauguration with the first African-American president. What would they discuss? How Trump plans to repeal Obamacare? How Trump will appoint Supreme Court justices that will transform America into a drastically more conservative landscape over the next 20 years? How Trump plans to undo the Iran deal? When will Trump begin deporting Hispanics? When will Attorney General Rudy Giuliani pardon Chris Christie and put Hillary in jail?

Yep, that sounds about right.

Two Things

The two things that I genuinely enjoyed about this election cycle were the end of the Bush dynasty, and the end of the Clinton machine. I don't think badly of the Bushes, but America does not need nor would it benefit from developing an aristocracy or dynastic tradition. Seeing Jeb Bush go down, with no disrespect to the man personally, struck me as a moment of great democratic health for our nation.

Seeing the Clinton machine rejected and run up on the rocks is far sweeter yet. All the 'powers that be' were aligned to set them over us, to rule us by lies and by power, and instead the American people broke them.

For those two things I am deeply grateful. Both of them, I notice, align with Caddell's paradigm. The American people are demanding something other than rule by the few, the connected, the well-born, those sent to the finest schools, or employed at the finest companies. That is deeply, vibrantly healthy. It was something I feared our nation had lost.

The Aftermath of a Tidal Wave

Yesterday I asked for God to Defend the Right, wherever He could find it. Today I must trust that He has done so.

As I reflect on the magnitude of Trump's victory, which victory I did not expect, I think that Patrick Caddell is really the one who got it right. I am sure we will hear from the smart, educated people that this election was all about sexism and racism. I suspect that voters for whom sex and race were the most important factors are why it was so close for Clinton, rather than why Trump won. My evidence is anecdotal, but I know many women for whom Trump's sexist treatment of women was the deciding factor. I know a Latina for whom it would be hard to divide between her opposition to Trump's way of speaking about women, and Trump's apparent opposition to what she thinks of as her race. For my mother, it was both: though as white as it is possible to be white, she was offended on behalf of recent immigrants, as well as offended as a woman. I do not mean to say they were wrong to vote as they did. I just mean to say that, insofar as they were concerned with these things, they were forces holding the election close rather than driving the Trump victory.

I think the reason Trump won was not a counter-reaction in favor of sexism or racism. I think it was what Caddell identified, which now that I reflect on it I realize I've been hearing from both sides of the aisle for a long time. I just didn't see the unity in the position until he pointed it out, and might not have believed in it if he hadn't backed it up with his research.

Let's hear it again.

What we learned in our in-depth research was as astonishing as it was unexpected. It became clear from this really deep public opinion inquiry that American politics has entered an historic paradigm. What is emerging in what had been assumed to be the static political system was about to be reconfigured in ways and that we still do not know fully. But one thing is certain: the old rules of politics are collapsing and a new edifice is emerging.

The conventional wisdom that America is absolutely divided into warring tribes is a tired falsehood. Overall, in the attitude structure of the American people, the elements of this new paradigm are commonly shared by upwards of 80 percent of the population – from the Occupy Wall Street movement on the left to the Tea Parties on the right. The political battleground is no longer over ideology but instead is all about insurgency....

In our research, the current level of alienation that now grips the American electorate is staggering and unprecedented.

Here are some of our latest results among likely voters from early October 2016:

1. The power of ordinary people to control our country is getting weaker every day, as political leaders on both sides, fight to protect their own power and privilege, at the expense of the nation’s well-being. We need to restore what we really believe in – real democracy by the people and real free-enterprise. AGREE = 87%; DISAGREE = 10%

2. The country is run by an alliance of incumbent politicians, media pundits, lobbyists and other powerful money interests for their own gain at the expense of the American people. AGREE = 87%; DISAGREE = 10%

3. Most politicians really care about people like me. AGREE = 25%; DISAGREE = 69%

4. Powerful interests from Wall Street banks to corporations, unions and political interest groups have used campaign and lobbying money to rig the system for them. They are looting the national treasury of billions of dollars at the expense of every man, woman and child. AGREE = 81%; DISAGREE = 13%

5. The U.S. has a two-track economy where most Americans struggle every day, where good jobs are hard to find, where huge corporations get all the rewards. We need fundamental changes to fix the inequity in our economic system. AGREE = 81%; DISAGREE = 15%

6. Political leaders are more interested in protecting their power and privilege than doing what is right for the American people. AGREE = 86%; DISAGREE = 11%

7. The two main political parties are too beholden to special and corporate interest to create any meaningful change. AGREE = 76%; DISAGREE = 19%

8. The real struggle for America is not between Democrats and Republicans but between mainstream American and the ruling political elites. AGREE = 67%; DISAGREE = 24%

I realize Mr. Hines objects to hearing the "conventional wisdom" described as a "falsehood," as if it were a lie. Say, rather, that it was simply false. Surely people did believe it. They taught each other to believe it, by reading and writing pieces analyzing the world in this way. All the wise and well-educated believed it, most likely. I believed it myself, until I heard something better.

This election is thus a historic moment. I don't know if I believe the man it has settled upon is at all the right man for the task ahead of him. Insofar as he takes this particular task seriously, however, we surely ought to help him. The systems of the elite do need to be broken up. The way in which the government has come to serve the elite and not the people is indeed a swamp that needs to be drained. The looting of America by the few needs to end, and the government ought again to serve the common good of the People.

If he instead turns to the exercise of bigotry as if he were some sort of monarch, or if he violates his oath to support and defend the Constitution, I will be steadfast in opposition to him. If he does what I think the American people have chosen him to do, I must have faith that it was the right I asked God to defend. It has a strong claim to be the right: whether the ruling class serves the common good or its own interests is the very criterion that Aristotle set as the test for the health of all forms of government.

Our government is not healthy. Our people are. This was a mass turnout election. We are always told that high turnout favors Democrats, but this year it favored the insurgent candidate. Trump out performed past Republican candidates among minority voters, too. The people are demanding this change, and it is the change that Aristotle -- though cautious of the effect of the mob will on democratic societies -- would likely endorse. America must be for the common good of its people again, and not just for the few and elite.

Georgia Is Not A Swing State

The signs literally pointed to a Trump walkaway here, and so it would seem to be ordained. The rest of the nation may do what it likes, but Georgia is not -- as so breathlessly reported -- in any danger of voting for Hillary Clinton.

Election 2016 Beer

Let me recommend Coop Ale Work's F5 IPA. Weighing in at 6.8% ABV, it will get the post-vote drinking started before it's time to switch to whisky. Meanwhile, it's 100+ IBUs will truly bring out the flavor of the day.

Cheers!

Honor & Altamont

The Rolling Stone verdict is going to punish the magazine badly, but this analysis is off the mark. Not about the importance of honor: that is true. It's just wrong on the facts.

To understand the importance of honor in journalism, it helps to go back to one of the best examples of honest journalism in history. It comes from the former pages of Rolling Stone itself. In 1970 Rolling Stone covered Altamont, a free 1969 Rolling Stones concert in California that ended in violence and death. At the time, Rolling Stone was the bible of the counter-culture; its founder Jann Wenner had created the magazine so he could meet rock stars. Yet here was the biggest rock and roll band in the world, mounting an ill-advised, dangerous (the Hells Angels were the bouncers), and disorganized event that resulted in four deaths and multiple injuries.

The editors and writers of Rolling Stone were absolutely unsparing and brilliant in their coverage of the event.

We've discussed this matter before -- Gringo actually attended Altamont. You can review the video. The Hells Angels were the only ones who did what was asked of them, and did it well. "The young man in question had been thrown out of the concert for trying to climb onto the stage. He went somewhere and obtained a revolver, returned, drew the gun, and charged the stage again. The Angel who saved the Rolling Stones did it without shooting into the crowd, without hurting anyone else, and by charging a gun with a blade."



They were also motivated by honor, in their way. Indeed, in the day, they saw themselves as an honor culture -- a warrior society, if you take their documentary seriously.

We may all be wanting to join a motorcycle club this time tomorrow. That aside, honor is exactly what is lacking in America right now. Not everywhere, of course. But in too much of society, honor is just what is lacking. In politics, in journalism, and in so much of our urban society: the word means nothing to so many, or else it is a joke.

Heavy Metal Election

The name of the song is "Death to Tyrants."

Election Day

Go vote, if you haven't. Vote your conscience, as Ted Cruz said. By now you know what it says. Do what it tells you that you have to do.

I won't hold it against you, however you vote. You're thoughtful people of good heart, at least the ones who join us in conversation. I don't have to agree with you to like you, and you'll all have good reasons for having done whatever you do.

May God Defend the Right, wherever He can find it in this mess.

The Real Issue

The electoral insurgency is a much bigger phenomenon than Trump or Sanders, argues Patrick Caddell:

The conventional wisdom that America is absolutely divided into warring tribes is a tired falsehood. Overall, in the attitude structure of the American people, the elements of this new paradigm are commonly shared by upwards of 80 percent of the population – from the Occupy Wall Street movement on the left to the Tea Parties on the right. The political battleground is no longer over ideology but instead is all about insurgency.

The larger atmosphere is dominated by three overriding beliefs:

First, the American people believe that the country is not only on the wrong track but almost 70 percent say that America is in actual decline. The concept of decline is antithetical to the American experience.

Second, for more than three centuries, the animating moral obligation of America has been the self-imposed obligation that each generation passes on to its children a better America than they themselves inherited. This is what makes us Americans. In Armada’s polling we found that a majority of Americans believe that they are better off than their parents were. But a great majority says that THEIR children will be worse off than they themselves are today. This is the crisis of the American Dream. And it is no surprise that a majority of Americans agree that if we leave the next generation “worse off” that there will still be a place called “the United States” but there will no longer be an “America.”

Third, when asked whether or not everyone in America plays by the same rules to get ahead or are there different rules for well-connected and people with money, a staggering 84 percent of voters picked the latter. Only 10 percent believed that everyone has an equal opportunity.

Read the rest and you'll see a bunch of polling questions that regularly return 80%+ levels of consensus, on all the questions most of you would probably answer the same way.

Yet divided about solutions to the crisis, the insurgents were conquered first in the Democratic Primary and now face a wholly united establishment. Media, government at all levels, wealth, technocratic corporations, all of them are intending to crush this insurgency and keep things going their way.

Well, we'll see how that turns out tomorrow.

Or at least, we'll see where to take the fight next. At some point, though, we're going to have to figure out how to link up with the leftward insurgents -- at least as far as agreeing to postpone the fight over solutions until after we've crushed the establishment.

Joe Biden, Character Assassin, or Typical Politician?

In recently reading about Clarence Thomas's confirmation hearing, it was interesting that Senator Joe Biden was part of the smear machine. Sometimes I forget how long some of these people have been around.

Looking at the Wikipedia entry on Robert Bork, although Teddy Kennedy was his most famous character assassin, Sen. Biden was there, too. This makes me want to read Bork's The Tempting of America to see what role Biden played.

Update: Mr. Hines defends Biden's conduct in the Thomas hearings, and I have to say after reading Thomas's account of the hearing I tended to blame anyone involved on the left for the summer of smears that culminated in Anita Hill's accusations. Maybe my original title for this post, "Joe Biden, Character Assassin," was unfair. I would have to go back and re-read Thomas's account, which I don't really have time for right now, so I'll leave it a question.

Hidden Voters

The Washington Post asks if there are hidden Hillary Clinton voters as well as hidden Donald Trump voters. The idea is simple and obvious: pollsters may encounter husbands, who will speak for their wives (as men do, 'mansplaining' and what). But if you manage to slip back in and speak to the wife, she will tell you that Trump is unacceptable and that she means to vote for Clinton.

That's a kind of thought that accounts only for one specific kind of polling, which isn't that common now: mostly polls are not conducted by canvassing neighborhoods, but by phone or over the internet. On the other hand, I'm sure pollsters will have missed my mother, who is certainly voting for Clinton on exactly those grounds. It's not that she wants what Clinton represents. It's that Clinton is the devil we know, which is the safer way to vote (as the Gods of the Copybook Headings remind us); and that Trump is unacceptable in his manner towards women.

They won't have missed my mother because my father spoke for her. They'll have missed her because she doesn't answer phone calls from strangers. Still, the sentiment they ascribe to her is exactly correct.

I've been on the road all weekend, and last weekend before. Georgia is supposed to be a swing state this year, according to the polls. You wouldn't know it from the road signs. I haven't seen one Clinton sign anywhere, except for a billboard her campaign must have bought. I've seen Trump signs everywhere. In Athens, which is a university town, some of the Trump signs had been defaced (typically for college kids, they cut out the T and the P, leaving a call for "Rum!"). But there were no Clinton signs at all. If this state is really divided on a razor's edge, you'd think there would be some evidence of it.

The support pollsters are picking up on for her may be illusory, of course. It may be an artifact of their weighting categories, and assumptions about who will show up on election day. We'll know that in due time.

I do believe that there are hidden Trump voters, especially among college educated whites. It is never cool to support the Republican, but it has never been less cool than this year. Still, educated men and women can perhaps best see how disastrous the current course is, if they will see it. But maybe they just refuse: international friends suggest that the image that this is a race between an unjustly demonized woman and a fascist racist man has become the general view. Trump has faced 3 assassination attempts, but he's seen as the candidate of street violence. Clinton had her Filipina maid print out classified emails though non-citizens are not even eligible for a security clearance (and though printers are also supposed to be rated for handling classified information -- off-the-shelf ones keep stored images of what they have recently printed), and engaged in insider trading of classified secrets through her daughter, but she's been "cleared" by the FBI. All those charges were false, you see. Somehow. If you want to believe it enough, it is easy to believe it.

No predictions about the election will you get from me. I have no idea what is going to happen tomorrow.

My Grandfather's Son: Clarence Thomas's Life

I just finished Justice Thomas's autobiography, My Grandfather's Son. It is excellent.

He was raised in Georgia by his grandparents, and as much as anything, the book is a tribute to his grandfather, Myers Anderson. It highlights that possibly the most important thing parents can teach their children is the value of hard work. Despite segregation and other manifestations of racism that limited his opportunities and restricted how he could live his life, Anderson had a deep love of America and a solid faith that hard work could overcome adversity.

In addition to simply telling his life, he discusses race throughout the book. In his early life, Thomas had to balance his grandfather's patriotism, faith in hard work, and faith in God with the anger engendered by racial injustice and the murders of civil rights leaders in the 1960s. Many of the blacks around him tell him that whites will never let him succeed, so he's stupid to work so hard. As he goes through university and then Yale Law School, he is confronted by the hidden racism of the left, a powerful condescension toward blacks. As he grows into an unorthodox thinker and leaves the Democratic Party, many blacks begin to consider him a race traitor. He works for the Reagan administration and there is opposed by many civil rights organizations for the simple reason that he is working for a Republican. He also criticizes the Reagan administration's policies and attitudes toward race, but he defends it against charges of racism. There are a number of good lessons in all of this.

Finally, he relates the harrowing account of Anita Hill's accusations of sexual harassment during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings and how that turned his life upside down. In 2016, it is no longer shocking to see the extent the left will go to, but it is still an object lesson to know the details of how they tried to stop his confirmation.

My only disappointment with the book is that it ends with his being sworn in as an associate justice on the Supreme Court in 1991. That was 25 years ago. It's time for an update.

Walk of Life

There oughta be a Cubs video with this.

And, of course ...

Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting

Prepare to repel boarders! (NB: Although shots are fired in the next couple of videos, there is no blood or gore.)

Once upon a time ... Personally, I'd have picked a .308 for this, like an M-14, but, OK. I guess if you only get one rifle and you might have to get up close and personal ... (Oh, sure. Go with the .50. See if I care.)

[Update from a more sober TD: I don't usually claim to know more about firearms choices than the professionals who do this for a living, but after three or so drinks I become an expert on many things.]

Duck!

Brothers in Arms

Dire Straits

"... and though they did hurt me so bad, in the fear and alarm, you did not desert me, my brothers in arms ..."