Old school
From Daily Time Waster: "An AR with a 60-round magazine would be better, but a Viking with an axe is just old school."
Sounds About Right
I am the type of American they want to go away....
I know the Democrats there hate me because I’m a straight, white, Christian, Southern conservative and the people that run the Republican Party today would only care what I think if I had hundreds of thousands of dollars to give them. That’s why if I can make trouble for either group, I’m game.
Second Sunday of Advent
An appropriate news story: approximately 100 years in the making, America's largest Catholic church is now completed.
Their own website is here.
Their own website is here.
The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC, is the largest Roman Catholic church in North America and is among the ten largest churches in the world. Designated by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops as a National Sanctuary of Prayer and Pilgrimage, the Basilica is our nation’s preeminent Marian shrine, dedicated to the patroness of the United States, the Blessed Virgin Mary under her title of the Immaculate Conception.One of the most noteworthy features of Medieval cathedrals is that they were constructed over generations. Architects and stone masons did work on these shrines knowing they would never see them finished, nor their children, nor possibly their grandchildren. The unity of purpose that kept generations working on the same goal tied them together in a common and glorious purpose. Likewise, the adults who laid the foundation stone for this likely now have great-great-grandchildren alive to see the work finished.
Freedom of Speech & Assembly
Legally protected, but culturally under assault. The "White Nationalists" being discussed here are odious, but that is where we often first see signs of the suppression of rights.
In fact, the white-nationalist movement had been so effectively de-platformed and delegitimized, and become so frightened of drawing protesters like the ones who turned out to mock Spencer from the audience at the University of Florida, that NPI’s executive director, Evan McLaren, refused to tell reporters the conference’s new location until half an hour after the meetup was scheduled to start on November 19.The rest of the article is kind of interesting, as it points out that their agenda is not particularly right-wing at all: it sounds a lot like socialism. It's just "National" socialism, rather than international socialism.
When I finally arrived at the organic winery and cow-and-hog farm in Poolesville, Maryland, an hour outside of DC, I learned that NPI had not even trusted its own attendees with the conference location. Instead of allowing its followers to drive to the winery themselves or even learn its name, NPI made its adherents leave their cars behind and hand in their cell phones so they could not see where they were going and inform others. Instead, NPI monitors drove them in 10-person vans to Rocklands Farm, which turned out not to have known that the white supremacists were coming, either....
When the farm’s owners discovered they were hosting a white-power group, they immediately asked NPI to leave. Though Spencer told the media afterward that the cancellation had come halfway through the event, in fact NPI was far less lucky.... There was only time for one conference session.... Spencer himself gave no major speech. Swedish fascist megapublisher Daniel Friberg, who’d been announced as a headliner along with MacDonald and Spencer, couldn’t appear because the United States had barred him from the country following Charlottesville.
That's the Spirit!
Gurkhas and Paratroopers, "two of the most elite infantry units in the world training intensely."
A 22-year-old loses zheir innocence
I'm going to report on a point of view, but first, I denounce myself for not taking an approved point of view about it. It's like . . . it's like . . . who was that again? Hitler, that's it.
I'd like to think that Ms. Shepherd is getting an early wake-up call. You can drop a crucifix in a glass of urine because everyone knows we have to be neutral, but some kinds of neutrality are beyond the pale. In fact, if adopted with 18-year-old college students, they're tantamount to child abuse.
Just listen to this young woman struggling to control her tears while she insists on an old-fashioned non-Kafkaesque argument from her betters. I like her fully woke conclusion:
I'd like to think that Ms. Shepherd is getting an early wake-up call. You can drop a crucifix in a glass of urine because everyone knows we have to be neutral, but some kinds of neutrality are beyond the pale. In fact, if adopted with 18-year-old college students, they're tantamount to child abuse.
Just listen to this young woman struggling to control her tears while she insists on an old-fashioned non-Kafkaesque argument from her betters. I like her fully woke conclusion:
"Moral of the story: A university must be repeatedly publicly shamed, internationally, in order to apologize," Ms. Shepherd said in a tweet.
"Also, make sure to secretly record all meetings or they won't take you seriously."
Swamp tactics
From Thomas Farnan:
What do you call a system of government that cannot tolerate a transition of power without corrupt machinations by those unwilling to cede control? Banana Republic is a term that comes to mind.
Turtles all the way down
I'm working very hard right now to get to the bottom of a number of confusing local issues with a complicated history. It was a pleasure, therefore, to read the clear-thinking columnist Holman Jenkins on some basic issues about reliable sources:
Splitting is . . . a method of columnists. Example: All true things about Donald Trump are bad, all bad things about Donald Trump are true.
* * *
Splitting columns write themselves, and tend toward lists, as if piling up claims is a substitute for examining them. So Christopher Steele was said to be a “credible” ex-spy, though unasked is what exactly he was in a position to be credible about: only that he faithfully relayed claims made by his source’s sources to his sources, and a little bit about how this game of telephone was set in motion—i.e., money was dished out.
Once upon a time, no reputable paper would print a sensational claim from a source who won’t vouch for its truth, who got it from a source he won’t identify, who got it from a source he can’t or won’t identify, and all were paid.
Citing Mr. Steele’s credibility was not even a competent appeal to authority, since his credibility derives from a profession that specializes partly in disinformation.
I Don't Know About the Contents, but the Label Sure Looks Good
Ravage wines- just randomly came across an advertisement for it- I have no idea about the contents of the bottle, though I like a good Cabernet Sauvignon, but the label sure has my interest...
Might even be good for an evening in due to snow.
Frozen Georgia
In line with Tex, we are also receiving wintry weather. What a beautiful day! The flakes are thick and soft, as lovely a snowfall as I've ever seen. Nor can I recall snow in December in my home state.
I hope all of you who are fortunate enough to enjoy this weather are able to make the most of it.
Outside from fireside.
Snow has bent down the bush by the stone circle.
I hope all of you who are fortunate enough to enjoy this weather are able to make the most of it.
Frozen wastelands
The view from our neighbor's yard toward our back porch. A few months ago, you wouldn't have been able to see our house from there at all.
And from the opposite side of the house, close up. What could be more beautiful than a warm, lit-up house in the snow? You can see the pergola we're just starting to build, and some startled banana trees near the stairs.
Macrobrewery and Microbrewery Joust
This was followed by the microbrewery Modist Brewing releasing a beer called "Dilly Dilly."
This in turn was followed, just hours after the beer's release, by Bud Light sending a town crier to the Modist HQ to read a medieval-ish 'cease and desist' request that the beer be kept to a limited run. You can watch the video of the crier reading the cease and desist letter at the Modist headquarters at the GOMN website.
"Dilly Dilly" is, of course, selling out rapidly.
Modist Brewing's "Whoa Dilly" FAQ on the event
Feast of the Immaculate Conception
Just recently Elise and I were discussing this doctrine.
I am reminded of the example of Mary, of whose consent to be the mother of God is made much by at least Catholic theology. The whole concept of the "Immaculate Conception" is not that Mary conceived while remaining 'immaculate' (i.e., viriginal), but rather that Mary herself was conceived in a way that kept her clean of original sin. This was done by God, according to the doctrine, just so that she could consider and consent to carrying Jesus. God didn't want to impose this on Mary, as my favorite nun explained it to me; he wanted someone he could ask, who had the right kind of conscience to consider.The history of the feast day is a surprisingly interesting story.
Götterdämmerung
There's snow approaching the Texas Coast Bend tonight. We locals are, shall we say, unprepared for this development.
We have a tiny aged dog who doesn't regulate her body temperature well these days. She's been crashed in front of the cozy fire on a pillow since yesterday. It really is raw, wet, and windy.
We have a tiny aged dog who doesn't regulate her body temperature well these days. She's been crashed in front of the cozy fire on a pillow since yesterday. It really is raw, wet, and windy.
A Great Speech from a Law Professor
The 'cluck like a chicken' part is merely funny; the speech itself is truly worthy from an educator.
A Second Special Counsel?
In the comments to a post below, Douglas endorses this Hugh Hewitt piece: "A special counsel needs to investigate the FBI and Justice Department. Now."
State of Play
Wretchard, after noting yesterday's Obama speech in which the former president invoked McCarthy, Nixon, and Hitler, describes our current affairs.
There's a cost, too, in using Deep State assets like highly-placed elite-educated bureaucrats at the FBI. The cost is partially institutional, but it may also turn the field agents against their leadership. The issue is one of honor:
After a period of sheer disbelief these liberal revolutionaries are now going head to head with the Deplorable rebels.... Which will win has yet to be determined by history. All one can do is compare their present strengths and strategies. In the matter of strength there should be no contest. A survey of federal government employees have the liberals over the Deplorables by almost 19 to 1. Over 99% of Department of Education employees backed Hillary. Trump's best showing was in the Department of Defense -- and even there Hillary had 84% of contributions. Add to this the liberal dominance in the media (93%) and academe (92%) and in Big Silicon and it should be a case of progressive Goliath walking over conservative David.His conclusion is that the Resistance is conducting an internal purge to strengthen its unity by eliminating some of the contesting factions. The problem is that they have to go on to win an election next year with a narrowed appeal: purging the Clinton faction may drive some voters away.
Yet for a variety of reasons the contest is much closer than the liberal project could have been imagined.... the inability of the Resistance to generate net thrust is indirect confirmation the toxic lying, wasteful spending, institutional incompetence and ideological madness of which they have been accused is at least partially true.
There's a cost, too, in using Deep State assets like highly-placed elite-educated bureaucrats at the FBI. The cost is partially institutional, but it may also turn the field agents against their leadership. The issue is one of honor:
Flashback to Miami, April 11, 1986. Eight agents make a felony stop on a car with two suspected bank robbers, igniting a firefight that demonstrated the bravery and devotion that should be what first comes to mind when any American thinks of the FBI.There's just a chance that those imbalanced figures in political support could change. Honor matters, especially to the kind of guys who become FBI field agents or pursue a career in the military. But there are competing honor claims on the other side, too: claims that the Deplorables represent something inherently dishonorable.
William Russell Matix and Michael Lee Platt were ex-military and had killed before – and they packed an arsenal that ensured they were not going quietly. The FBI agents, lightly armed with under-powered handguns and a couple 12 gauges – came under intense rifle fire that the light vests some wore could not stop. In the end, seven of the eight agents were hit – and Special Agent Benjamin Grogan and Special Agent Jerry Dove died fighting....
His forearm shattered by a .223 rifle slug, Special Agent Edmundo Mireles, Jr. (no surprise, a former Marine from Texas), pumped his Remington 870 shotgun with his one good arm again and again as he engaged the criminals. His buddies dead or wounded all around him, bleeding out, Mireles then drew his .357 and advanced on the pair, in the open and totally exposed, as they attempted to drive away in one of the FBI cars. He put six magnum slugs into the criminals and finally put them down.
Matix took six hits to kill, Platt a dozen. And Mireles? This hero went back on the job, and actually worked with my former battalion commander Colonel (Ret.) Bill Wenger in Afghanistan in the 2000s on assignment there for the FBI. Now that’s a patriot. Now that’s what the real FBI is all about....
That’s the courage that these desk-riding bums in Washington are dishonoring every time they sell their souls and their honor to kiss up to skeevy politicians.
What this means is that the universal adoption of “Trump Era” by intellectuals and journalists bodes ill for any kind of gathering of the clans. The term is entirely pejorative and implies a disease called Trumpism that must be stamped out or—since it’s an era and not a stage—stoically endured. No one who uses “Trump Era” is saying, “Now that the people of West Texas have spoken, let’s pay more attention to their needs and beliefs so that the great melting pot of America can be reunited.” They’re still deplorables. They’re still expendable.So that's where we are, as 2017 draws closer to a close.
Post Traumatic Growth
A good piece from a soldier.
You see, despite what you hear, veterans don’t always end up disordered from their experiences. From what I have seen, more often than not, veterans grow stronger after their struggles. They experience post-traumatic growth. I did.
At home, my family grew stronger too. My wife struggled with her own job and a firstborn who was prone to ear infections and fevers. We spoke as often as we could on a scratchy USO line, but of course, it wasn’t nearly enough. She was alone for two birthdays and two Christmases, yet she persevered. I returned home after 15 months to a walking, talking boy and a marriage that had been strengthened by sacrifice on both sides.
The Feast of St. Ambrose
We get fewer of them the closer we get in Advent to Christmas. But tomorrow is a big one: be prepared for it.
Today is St. Ambrose.
Today is St. Ambrose.
St. Ambrose (340-397) was born at Treves in Gaul, a territory which embraced modern France, Britain, Spain, and part of Africa. He studied in Rome and later became governor of Liguria and Aemelia with residence at Milan. While supervising the election of a new bishop of Milan in 374, he himself was suddenly acclaimed the bishop. He was only a catechumen at the time. He was ordained a priest and consecrated a bishop on Dec. 7. He wrote much on the Scriptures and Fathers, preached a homily every Sunday, resisted the interference of the secular powers with the rights of the Church, opposed the heretics, and was instrumental in bringing about the conversion of St. Augustine.
The Feast of St. Nicholas
St. Nicholas is the patron saint of "sailors, merchants, archers, repentant thieves, children, brewers, pawnbrokers and students." Perhaps a few Congressmen, then, if they ever repent.
Of course he is of great importance to our understanding of Christmas.
In late medieval England, on Saint Nicholas' Day parishes held Yuletide "boy bishop" celebrations. As part of this celebration, youths performed the functions of priests and bishops, and exercised rule over their elders. Today, Saint Nicholas is still celebrated as a great gift-giver in several Western European and Central European countries. According to one source, in medieval times nuns used the night of 6 December to deposit baskets of food and clothes anonymously at the doorsteps of the needy. According to another source, on 6 December every sailor or ex-sailor of the Low Countries (which at that time was virtually all of the male population) would descend to the harbour towns to participate in a church celebration for their patron saint. On the way back they would stop at one of the various Nicholas fairs to buy some hard-to-come-by goods, gifts for their loved ones and invariably some little presents for their children. While the real gifts would only be presented at Christmas, the little presents for the children were given right away, courtesy of Saint Nicholas. This and his miracle of him resurrecting the three butchered children made Saint Nicholas a patron saint of children and later students as well.[51]It is thus fitting to feast in celebration of him during the Advent.
Santa Claus evolved from Dutch traditions regarding Saint Nicholas (Sinterklaas). When the Dutch established the colony of New Amsterdam, they brought the legend and traditions of Sinterklaas with them.[52] Howard G. Hageman, of New Brunswick Theological Seminary, maintains that the tradition of celebrating Sinterklaas in New York existed in the early settlements of the Hudson Valley, although by the early nineteenth century had fallen by the way.[53] St. Nicholas Park, located at the intersection of St. Nicholas Avenue and 127th Street, in an area originally settled by Dutch farmers, is named for St. Nicholas of Myra.[54]
The Center of the World
NOW: Jerusalem Old City walls light up in colors of Israeli and American flags as Trump to declare Jerusalem capital of Israel. pic.twitter.com/uu6s1LNRR3— Israel Breaking (@IsraelBreaking) December 6, 2017
DB: New 'Counterinsurgency' Video Game
Sounds realistic.
“You could be in the middle of stability operations in a nearby province, and a disillusioned soldier will desert his post or leak classified documents,” Cevalos explained, referring to unscripted incidents that can happen during gameplay. “And don’t be surprised if your best troops with fleshed-out skill trees quit the military and get replaced with inept morons.”
Making things worse, the insurgents are often indistinguishable from neutral non-playable characters, making accidental civilian deaths practically unavoidable. This problem is compounded by vindictive locals falsely accusing their rivals of being guerrillas, while others have no interest in ratting out their insurgent friends and family....
At press time, a leaked memo has revealed that the only way to win the game is by carpet-bombing the entire country.
Assessing Character in Politicians
Part of my problem with the arguments I've seen that character is important in political candidates like Roy Moore is that they focus on "our party's" candidate, which is a form of tribalism. Another part is that they seem to separate policy positions from character, as if support for a particular government policy tells us nothing about the character of the politician.
Focusing on the character of "our" candidate but ignoring the character of "their" candidate is tribalist. "Policing our own" is another way to put it, and that is one aspect of tribalism. It means that it's OK to have a wicked one of "them" in office because he or she wouldn't reflect on "us," whereas a wicked one of "us" is unacceptable because he or she would be associated with us and we don't want to be identified with wickedness. (Unless we're from Boston.)
The non-tribal way of treating character as important is to assess the character of all of the candidates by the same criteria. So, when we think about character in the current Alabama senate election, we need to assess the characters of both Roy Moore and Doug Jones and make the decision based on that direct comparison, forgetting the D and R tribes for the moment.
This presents us with another problem I have with recent articles arguing against Moore based on his character: Character cannot be separated from policy positions. Sure, there is a difference, but support for a particular policy is one expression of character. Supporting / opposing racist policies says something about character. Pro-life / pro-choice positions say something about character. Views on the role of government in society say something about character. These positions may be hypocritical, publicly endorsed but privately violated, but that also tells us about character. Policy positions are expressions of character.
The attacks on Moore's character are unproven. Jones's policy positions, which speak to his character, he himself has publicly announced. It's difficult for me to see why treating character as important leads to voting for Jones, who endorses what I consider to be infanticide and tyranny. That doesn't absolve Moore, but it does take character into serious consideration. Separating policy positions from considerations of character does not.
This kind of "policing our own" tribalism and the bizarre attempt to ignore the implications of policy positions for character weaken the arguments against Moore in my mind.
Focusing on the character of "our" candidate but ignoring the character of "their" candidate is tribalist. "Policing our own" is another way to put it, and that is one aspect of tribalism. It means that it's OK to have a wicked one of "them" in office because he or she wouldn't reflect on "us," whereas a wicked one of "us" is unacceptable because he or she would be associated with us and we don't want to be identified with wickedness. (Unless we're from Boston.)
The non-tribal way of treating character as important is to assess the character of all of the candidates by the same criteria. So, when we think about character in the current Alabama senate election, we need to assess the characters of both Roy Moore and Doug Jones and make the decision based on that direct comparison, forgetting the D and R tribes for the moment.
This presents us with another problem I have with recent articles arguing against Moore based on his character: Character cannot be separated from policy positions. Sure, there is a difference, but support for a particular policy is one expression of character. Supporting / opposing racist policies says something about character. Pro-life / pro-choice positions say something about character. Views on the role of government in society say something about character. These positions may be hypocritical, publicly endorsed but privately violated, but that also tells us about character. Policy positions are expressions of character.
The attacks on Moore's character are unproven. Jones's policy positions, which speak to his character, he himself has publicly announced. It's difficult for me to see why treating character as important leads to voting for Jones, who endorses what I consider to be infanticide and tyranny. That doesn't absolve Moore, but it does take character into serious consideration. Separating policy positions from considerations of character does not.
This kind of "policing our own" tribalism and the bizarre attempt to ignore the implications of policy positions for character weaken the arguments against Moore in my mind.
Both Things Could Be True
We are having an interesting discussion about the President, the Constitution, and obstruction of justice. I don't see anything wrong with Andy McCarthy's argument that the President can't commit obstruction by ordering Federal police to exercise discretion. As he says, the FBI/DOJ is not a separate branch of the Federal government. They exist as an arm of the executive branch, whose powers are all invested in whomever the President happens to be. The President may choose to let the Department of Justice operate independently, but it has no constitutional standing to insist on doing so.
In large part, that is because the Founders never intended the Federal government to have the general police power: that was to go to the states, or be reserved by the People. The Constitution does not imagine a Federal police agency with anything like the FBI's reach or jurisdiction: even the Secret Service only dates to the end of the Civil War. The idea that the Federal government should have a police agency that could go anywhere and arrest anyone -- let alone spy on them in the myriad ways that our Federal government does -- is nowhere imagined. Controls on those powers were never set by the Founders, because the powers were never granted by the Founders. Controls were never set by an amendment seeking new authority from the People, because no authority was asked. These powers were arrogated by the government to itself.
The spying powers in particular were done so behind walls of classification. The citizenry never voted to grant the Federal government those powers. The citizenry never even knew what powers were being assumed. Nor could they, of course, without greatly weakening the security the state hoped to gain for them by assuming these powers: a public debate on the propriety of this spying would mean informing the enemy, not just the citizenry, of the capacity for the spying.
By the same token, David Frum is not wrong to argue that this is dangerous and that it could lead to unacceptable results. He is only wrong to argue that, since there is a danger of unacceptable use of power, the power must not exist. Yes, the President is invested with a great deal of power; perhaps it is more than is wise. We can change that via the Article V amendment processes, or by throwing out the Constitution and writing another one.
All the same, consider the remedy more carefully. Do we really want this vast security state untethered from any elected official? Congress cannot run it in the place of the President; as today's Contempt of Congress resolution shows, they cannot even compel compliance with basic oversight requests even when the President would like the agencies to comply. Formalizing this independence, which is already too great to be safe, would mean taking the last chains off a demon.
Could the courts control these agencies where they decide they need to be independent from their elected officials? Of course not: the enforcement of the courts' orders already depends on the police.
Cassandra was just reminding us that sometimes there aren't good answers or easy solutions. Perhaps this is one of those cases. But as dangerous as a corrupt President might be, should we find ourselves (again) with one, at least there is a formal control on him in the form of the Article I impeachment power. The police need to be tightly chained to the President because a President can be removed and replaced. Loosing a mighty demon to protect us from Donald Trump is, as the metaphor intends to suggest, a devil's bargain.
In large part, that is because the Founders never intended the Federal government to have the general police power: that was to go to the states, or be reserved by the People. The Constitution does not imagine a Federal police agency with anything like the FBI's reach or jurisdiction: even the Secret Service only dates to the end of the Civil War. The idea that the Federal government should have a police agency that could go anywhere and arrest anyone -- let alone spy on them in the myriad ways that our Federal government does -- is nowhere imagined. Controls on those powers were never set by the Founders, because the powers were never granted by the Founders. Controls were never set by an amendment seeking new authority from the People, because no authority was asked. These powers were arrogated by the government to itself.
The spying powers in particular were done so behind walls of classification. The citizenry never voted to grant the Federal government those powers. The citizenry never even knew what powers were being assumed. Nor could they, of course, without greatly weakening the security the state hoped to gain for them by assuming these powers: a public debate on the propriety of this spying would mean informing the enemy, not just the citizenry, of the capacity for the spying.
By the same token, David Frum is not wrong to argue that this is dangerous and that it could lead to unacceptable results. He is only wrong to argue that, since there is a danger of unacceptable use of power, the power must not exist. Yes, the President is invested with a great deal of power; perhaps it is more than is wise. We can change that via the Article V amendment processes, or by throwing out the Constitution and writing another one.
All the same, consider the remedy more carefully. Do we really want this vast security state untethered from any elected official? Congress cannot run it in the place of the President; as today's Contempt of Congress resolution shows, they cannot even compel compliance with basic oversight requests even when the President would like the agencies to comply. Formalizing this independence, which is already too great to be safe, would mean taking the last chains off a demon.
Could the courts control these agencies where they decide they need to be independent from their elected officials? Of course not: the enforcement of the courts' orders already depends on the police.
Cassandra was just reminding us that sometimes there aren't good answers or easy solutions. Perhaps this is one of those cases. But as dangerous as a corrupt President might be, should we find ourselves (again) with one, at least there is a formal control on him in the form of the Article I impeachment power. The police need to be tightly chained to the President because a President can be removed and replaced. Loosing a mighty demon to protect us from Donald Trump is, as the metaphor intends to suggest, a devil's bargain.
A Great Day in History
Today the 18th Amendment was repealed, ending Prohibition. Now if we could just get rid of the 16th and 17th Amendments too, that'd be a good start.
Contempt of Congress
It's curious that a Republican administration isn't complying with a Republican Congress' orders on an investigation friendly to that administration. I'm guessing that the Department of Justice and the FBI have a lot to hide here -- and as much from the President as from Congress.
An independent law enforcement branch that is neither responsive nor responsible to the elected branches is an alarming thing to behold.
An independent law enforcement branch that is neither responsive nor responsible to the elected branches is an alarming thing to behold.
Savagery
The press has a penchant for reporting "Trump administration rolls back policy instituted by Barack Obama in his last days in office" as if restoring the order Obama himself maintained through seven-and-a-half years of his presidency is an unprecedented act of barbarity. The news at NPR today: "Trump Orders Largest National Monument Reduction In U.S. History"!
Well, only two monuments are being reduced -- and reduced, not eliminated. Of those two, one was created in whole cloth by Barack Obama in the final days of his office. (The other dates to a similarly late project by Bill Clinton.) There's no reason that a policy instituted by one administration shouldn't be reconsidered by another. As the NPR article eventually gets around to noticing, rural Utah has been fuming about the Clinton-era designation ever since it happened. The Federal designation means they can't do the things they have traditionally done on the land anymore.
Nevertheless: "This arbitrary review and illegal action will not go unchallenged," said Nicole Croft, executive director of Grand Staircase Escalante Partners.
Illegal, is it? The same way restoring the military recruitment policy of the last 43 & 7/8ths Presidents was unconstitutional? Right.
Well, only two monuments are being reduced -- and reduced, not eliminated. Of those two, one was created in whole cloth by Barack Obama in the final days of his office. (The other dates to a similarly late project by Bill Clinton.) There's no reason that a policy instituted by one administration shouldn't be reconsidered by another. As the NPR article eventually gets around to noticing, rural Utah has been fuming about the Clinton-era designation ever since it happened. The Federal designation means they can't do the things they have traditionally done on the land anymore.
Nevertheless: "This arbitrary review and illegal action will not go unchallenged," said Nicole Croft, executive director of Grand Staircase Escalante Partners.
Illegal, is it? The same way restoring the military recruitment policy of the last 43 & 7/8ths Presidents was unconstitutional? Right.
Turning over rocks
I came to the decision to run for local office with much reluctance. (And you should hear my husband on the subject. I think we can be sure he won't be standing around on podiums gazing at me with admiring support, or pressing the flesh at community gatherings. I get the impression he doesn't enjoy crowds.)
Nevertheless, having concluded I had to step up and that was that, I have found that there are some compensations. There's an endless fascination in finding out how things work. Whether it's getting a chance to look inside a water treatment plant or learning where local government gets its powers and funding and seeing how the roads get paved and the trash gets picked up, the hidden mechanisms all around us are a constant source of joy and learning. God made me a curious person and a quick study. It's good to put it to use.
What I'm seeing is that the ramshackle machine that makes the trains run is staffed with equal amounts of people who have no clue and people of amazing competence and good character. You have to find the latter and minimize the damage from the former. The trick of politics seems to be to encourage a system that makes both of those tasks easier.
Texas has a funny wrinkle in its criminal prosecution system. Normally a State District Attorney handles criminal cases for several rural counties, while a County Attorney in each county handles civil matters, including advising the County Commissioners on their contracts and their statutory duties and powers. The Texas State legislature can, however, grant a county's (inexplicable) request to opt out of the local State DA system and give criminal prosecution powers over to the County Attorney. From then on, the local DA will stay out of your county and perhaps lose interest in your problems. If your County Attorney's background is, say, real estate, that may not seem like such a great idea. If in addition she is given to obscure, intractable quarrels with the local police force and suddenly announces that she will prosecute no further cases referred by that body, things come unwound pretty quickly. Suddenly we all have to turn to the thorny question, "How does one remove a sitting County Attorney, especially without any cooperation from a Commissioners Court that apparently doesn't see the problem?" It's become a lively Facebook discussion, which I call a healthy thing.
My campaign is largely summed up in what is supposed to be George Washington's warning about fire being a dangerous tool and a terrible master. We get a lot of droughts here; people who let their "controlled burns" get out of control come in for a lot of squinty-eyed ill humor. I tell my prospective voters that, when you're thinking of handing over a new power to your elected officials, it's like setting a fire. You don't do it until you've cleared a little area around the fire pit and gotten a water hose charged and ready. Before we elect someone, not only should we find out a lot about his character and abilities, we should get conversant with the procedures for booting him back out of office. Do we have recall elections? What about impeachment? Who has standing to get one of these procedures started? How hard is it? Do we have to go to court? When will he be up for re-election? How long does it take to get ready to run someone to challenge him?
From Facebook I judge that most people look at a situation like this and think "I'll write to the Governor," or may "to the Attorney General." No great harm in that, but it discharges a sense of urgency without being very likely to produce results. I keep coming back to the old lesson that there is not, and never will be, any substitute for people to organize and rule themselves, starting locally. We can govern ourselves, or we will be governed. As Benjamin Franklin said, "A republic, if you can keep it."
It's also occurred to me lately that there's a swath of the Republican party that divides the world into "golf cronies" and "pool boys." For me that's the GOPe in a nutshell. What I want to know about a neighbor is: Does he take responsibility for himself? Can his neighbors count on him? I have many neighbors I can count on, and it's not their incomes or their wardrobes that make the difference.
Nevertheless, having concluded I had to step up and that was that, I have found that there are some compensations. There's an endless fascination in finding out how things work. Whether it's getting a chance to look inside a water treatment plant or learning where local government gets its powers and funding and seeing how the roads get paved and the trash gets picked up, the hidden mechanisms all around us are a constant source of joy and learning. God made me a curious person and a quick study. It's good to put it to use.
What I'm seeing is that the ramshackle machine that makes the trains run is staffed with equal amounts of people who have no clue and people of amazing competence and good character. You have to find the latter and minimize the damage from the former. The trick of politics seems to be to encourage a system that makes both of those tasks easier.
Texas has a funny wrinkle in its criminal prosecution system. Normally a State District Attorney handles criminal cases for several rural counties, while a County Attorney in each county handles civil matters, including advising the County Commissioners on their contracts and their statutory duties and powers. The Texas State legislature can, however, grant a county's (inexplicable) request to opt out of the local State DA system and give criminal prosecution powers over to the County Attorney. From then on, the local DA will stay out of your county and perhaps lose interest in your problems. If your County Attorney's background is, say, real estate, that may not seem like such a great idea. If in addition she is given to obscure, intractable quarrels with the local police force and suddenly announces that she will prosecute no further cases referred by that body, things come unwound pretty quickly. Suddenly we all have to turn to the thorny question, "How does one remove a sitting County Attorney, especially without any cooperation from a Commissioners Court that apparently doesn't see the problem?" It's become a lively Facebook discussion, which I call a healthy thing.
My campaign is largely summed up in what is supposed to be George Washington's warning about fire being a dangerous tool and a terrible master. We get a lot of droughts here; people who let their "controlled burns" get out of control come in for a lot of squinty-eyed ill humor. I tell my prospective voters that, when you're thinking of handing over a new power to your elected officials, it's like setting a fire. You don't do it until you've cleared a little area around the fire pit and gotten a water hose charged and ready. Before we elect someone, not only should we find out a lot about his character and abilities, we should get conversant with the procedures for booting him back out of office. Do we have recall elections? What about impeachment? Who has standing to get one of these procedures started? How hard is it? Do we have to go to court? When will he be up for re-election? How long does it take to get ready to run someone to challenge him?
From Facebook I judge that most people look at a situation like this and think "I'll write to the Governor," or may "to the Attorney General." No great harm in that, but it discharges a sense of urgency without being very likely to produce results. I keep coming back to the old lesson that there is not, and never will be, any substitute for people to organize and rule themselves, starting locally. We can govern ourselves, or we will be governed. As Benjamin Franklin said, "A republic, if you can keep it."
It's also occurred to me lately that there's a swath of the Republican party that divides the world into "golf cronies" and "pool boys." For me that's the GOPe in a nutshell. What I want to know about a neighbor is: Does he take responsibility for himself? Can his neighbors count on him? I have many neighbors I can count on, and it's not their incomes or their wardrobes that make the difference.
Scott Lynch's "Locke Lamora" Novels
One of my regular laments is that the genre of Sword & Sorcery has withered in recent years. This genre, which predates Tolkien's High Fantasy, grew out of some turn-of-the-last-century stories "set in exotic locations" and therefore mixing physical adventure with dark powers. By the time of the Great Depression, it has blossomed into its most famous flowering: the Conan stories of Robert E. Howard, which were only a small part of a whole world and deep history of his imagination. About the same time, the other great master of the genre began crafting the Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser stories. The genre was related to another offshoot of the earlier tales, the Horror genre characterized by Cthulhu; but in Sword & Sorcery stories, the heroes could overcome eldritch beasts through steel, wit, and courage.
Sword & Sorcery lacks most of the moral force of the Tolkien's High Fantasy, but it is in a sense more joyous and primal. It is that quality that, sadly, is lacking in the works of Scott Lynch, the first writer I've run into in a while to attempt it. His stories are almost entirely lacking in the joy that gave Fafhrd 'the laugh of the Elder Gods,' or the primal confidence that gave Conan the ferocity to contest demons with cold steel. I read Lynch's three books, hoping he might discover the power of the thing as he played with it; I am sorry to say that he did not.
Lynch's cities are well-drawn, and he has a place for eldritch magic that somehow comes to play little role beyond providing interesting architecture. His heroes are riddled with guilt and loathing, of themselves if they are male. Lynch is of the current fashion that has wholeheartedly adopted feminism as moral truth; female characters are invariably confident and accomplished in a way that his men never are, and yet retain adequate bitter loathing to lecture at length -- whole pages at a time in the third book -- on how unfair the world is to their sex. The books are blurbed by George R. R. Martin, and for good reason: they share his penchant for killing off sympathetic characters in horrible ways, but to no real point.
As a consequence the books are a slog to read rather than a pleasure, and I am sure I will not return to them the way I have to the classics of the genre. I am planning to give the whole set away in the hope that someone else may like them better.
Sword & Sorcery lacks most of the moral force of the Tolkien's High Fantasy, but it is in a sense more joyous and primal. It is that quality that, sadly, is lacking in the works of Scott Lynch, the first writer I've run into in a while to attempt it. His stories are almost entirely lacking in the joy that gave Fafhrd 'the laugh of the Elder Gods,' or the primal confidence that gave Conan the ferocity to contest demons with cold steel. I read Lynch's three books, hoping he might discover the power of the thing as he played with it; I am sorry to say that he did not.
Lynch's cities are well-drawn, and he has a place for eldritch magic that somehow comes to play little role beyond providing interesting architecture. His heroes are riddled with guilt and loathing, of themselves if they are male. Lynch is of the current fashion that has wholeheartedly adopted feminism as moral truth; female characters are invariably confident and accomplished in a way that his men never are, and yet retain adequate bitter loathing to lecture at length -- whole pages at a time in the third book -- on how unfair the world is to their sex. The books are blurbed by George R. R. Martin, and for good reason: they share his penchant for killing off sympathetic characters in horrible ways, but to no real point.
As a consequence the books are a slog to read rather than a pleasure, and I am sure I will not return to them the way I have to the classics of the genre. I am planning to give the whole set away in the hope that someone else may like them better.
The new fascists
Sebastian Gorka on the bizarre treatment he gets from the press:
My father, as a young boy at the age of 13, escorted his fellow schoolmates to school in Budapest during the German occupation because his fellow schoolmates were forced to wear the yellow Star of David as Jews. And my father, as a Catholic young 14-year-old, protected them from getting beaten up or spat on by the German forces occupying Budapest.
And for them to then accuse me of having some kind of extreme right-wing tendency … you don’t get to call yourself a journalist and lie that badly, but it tells you the state of journalism in America today. But I think that’s going to change.
A Quiet Day in the Country
So today I went out to a farm that raises fallow deer and emus, as well as horses, and enjoyed a nice walk. Later the wife and I went to a leather shop to look at hides and plan some Christmas gift projects -- she's quite talented at many sorts of making, including leatherworking. Following that we had a dinner of home-made chicken soup.
A very quiet, uneventful day. Did I miss anything?
A very quiet, uneventful day. Did I miss anything?
Not Quite My Grandfather's Story, but Close Enough (Plus, Tchaikovsky)
The funny thing here is that, although I think country music like this best tells the story of his life, my grandfather was never really a country music fan. While he didn't go to college and lived much of his life out in the sticks, he mostly listened to classical music. He'd probably rather I play Schubert or Tchaikovsky in his honor. Here's something he might have enjoyed more than the Alan Jackson I've been playing.
(The story the 1812 Overture tells is of the Russian defense against Napolean's invasion, an interesting read in its own right.)
Harvard Law Profs Explain Conservative Dislike for Elite Colleges
Continuing the evening's trend, here's a WaPo article by two Harvard Law professors about why conservatives dislike elite universities. They offer four reasons:
Not bad.
First is the obvious progressive tilt in universities, especially elite universities ...
Second, the distinctive progressive ideology of elite universities is relentlessly critical of, to the point of being intolerant of, traditions and moral values widely seen as legitimate in the outside world ...
Third is the rise of anti-conservative “mobs,” “shout-downs” and “illiberal behavior” on campus ...
Fourth is the public contempt of so many university academics for those who fund their subsidies ...
Not bad.
Stanford Student Sam Wolfe: "Yes, Congress, Tax Stanford's Endowment"
Notable mostly because the Stanford Review published it:
The rest is Wolfe's justification, put in terms of simple economics and the left's own arguments for distribution of wealth. Worth reading.
Update: Or maybe it's not so surprising the Stanford Review published it. The Review claims to be "Stanford's Independent Newspaper" and some current headlines there include:
It's Time to End Net Neutrality
Rally Against Islamophobia Exposes the Double Standards of the Campus Left
Stanford Students Pretend to Support Free Speech, Stumble at Final Hurdle
Why America Still Needs Guns
Wolfe's article seems to be typical. Nice to know.
After the Presidential election cleaved the country in two, pitting Trump’s “poorly-educated” deplorables against Hillary’s college-educated elites, it was probably only a matter of time before Republicans went after their tribal opponents. To this end, both the House and the Senate have proposed tax plans that include a 1.4% tax on the investment income of college endowments. ...
The Republicans have announced no serious rationale for this plan. With college campuses becoming increasingly liberal and the college-educated leaning more heavily Democratic than ever, it is a fairly transparent attempt to hit their opponents where it hurts. The justification that it treats colleges in line with private foundations, which currently face a 2% tax on investment income, rings hollow given that the proposed tax will only apply to about 140 institutions. The plan has faced backlash from liberals and conservatives alike ...
But please, Congress, pass it anyway.
Most income is taxed in some form, whether it be salaries hit by income tax, business revenues that face corporate tax, or private investment earnings slugged by capital gains tax. By failing to tax Stanford’s endowment at all, the government is effectively handing us a large subsidy (in addition to the government funding we already receive). The government is implying that it is happy to tax working Americans more than it otherwise would in order to give Stanford students, and their endowment, a free ride. In light of the damage that elite colleges do to the world, there’s really no excusing this.
...
The rest is Wolfe's justification, put in terms of simple economics and the left's own arguments for distribution of wealth. Worth reading.
Update: Or maybe it's not so surprising the Stanford Review published it. The Review claims to be "Stanford's Independent Newspaper" and some current headlines there include:
It's Time to End Net Neutrality
Rally Against Islamophobia Exposes the Double Standards of the Campus Left
Stanford Students Pretend to Support Free Speech, Stumble at Final Hurdle
Why America Still Needs Guns
Wolfe's article seems to be typical. Nice to know.
At the Harvard Crimson: "100 Years. 100 Million Lives. Think Twice."
Nothing new to us here, but the fact that this is currently the second-most read article at the Harvard Crimson might be news.
Laura A. Nicolae, an undergraduate in applied mathematics at Harvard, writes:
Worth reading the whole thing just for her perspective. It's short and to the point.
Also, I didn't realize the English translation of The Black Book of Communism was published by the Harvard University Press.
Laura A. Nicolae, an undergraduate in applied mathematics at Harvard, writes:
In 1988, my twenty-six-year-old father jumped off a train in the middle of Hungary with nothing but the clothes on his back. For the next two years, he fled an oppressive Romanian Communist regime that would kill him if they ever laid hands on him again.
My father ran from a government that beat, tortured, and brainwashed its citizens. His childhood friend disappeared after scrawling an insult about the dictator on the school bathroom wall. His neighbors starved to death from food rations designed to combat “obesity.” As the population dwindled, women were sent to the hospital every month to make sure they were getting pregnant.
...
Roughly 100 million people died at the hands of the ideology my parents escaped. They cannot tell their story. We owe it to them to recognize that this ideology is not a fad, and their deaths are not a joke.
Last month marked 100 years since the Bolshevik Revolution, though college culture would give you precisely the opposite impression. ...
Worth reading the whole thing just for her perspective. It's short and to the point.
Also, I didn't realize the English translation of The Black Book of Communism was published by the Harvard University Press.
The Feast of St. Andrew
Most of St Andrew is still [in Italy] today but bits of him have been moved over the years to Scotland.... Legend has it that St Andrew’s first bits ended up in Scotland thanks to St Rule or St Regulus, a Greek monk who had a vision in which he was told to take the bits to the ends of the earth for safekeeping. His journey took him to the shores of Fife, which is easy to mistake for the ends of the earth.
Granddad
This evening I got a call telling me my grandfather had passed away. He plowed behind a mule as a boy, learned to drive in a Model T, served his country in World War II, farmed and welded and did odd jobs to support a devoted wife and a bunch of great kids, told some pretty good stories, and kept working long past the days he needed the money, well into his 80s. I will never be as good a man as he was.
Not the Worst Idea
We all know that the Founders crafted a Constitution that expected imperfect leaders. All the same, character still does count. Virtue is properly honored, and the honors of political office are unwisely given to the vicious. These things were true in Aristotle's day, and they remain true in our own.
An Unwanted Companion
I'm not too surprised to see the news about A Prairie Home Companion maestro Garrison Keillor. Exactly like Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, he is a physically unattractive man whose talents located him in a position of controlling access to show business. Both men really were talented in their way, and both appear to have succumbed to the temptation to use their position to obtain more sexual pleasure than they'd have gained if they had relied upon their physical charms.
Keillor's show had many sublime moments, but it was also marked by nearly continual (and not always at all subtle) mockery of the traditional culture that the show allegedly celebrated. The sophisticates didn't see the value of the old walls, and urged them be swept away. Now we hear that there is no shelter from the wailing wind, and that new walls are needed against it. Plan them well, I suppose, if you are able.
Keillor's show had many sublime moments, but it was also marked by nearly continual (and not always at all subtle) mockery of the traditional culture that the show allegedly celebrated. The sophisticates didn't see the value of the old walls, and urged them be swept away. Now we hear that there is no shelter from the wailing wind, and that new walls are needed against it. Plan them well, I suppose, if you are able.
Landfall
The NYT's Opinion page finally throws away its last shred of pretense to objectivity. This Rubicon was crossed so slowly that you may not even notice that we've finally reached the opposite shore.
What if There are Too Many People?
Fertility rates continue to plummet in the developed world. There are lots of questions about why, and what the long term effects are.
I've thought about this for years, but lately I've begun to rethink my views. Maybe the problem isn't fertility crashing, but overpopulation. The argument for maintaining a larger up-and-coming population than the existing population turns on the need to support the elderly: 8 grandkids can more readily support 2 grandparents than can 2 grandkids. But with automation and robotics, increasingly we won't need people to do the work; and if they become cheaper goods the way other sorts of durable goods do, then we won't need to tap the vast income of the 8 grandkids as much to provide caretaker robots or other things that the elderly need.
Meanwhile, overpopulation has its own set of problems. You don't have to be a crazed environmentalist to see that massive traffic jams don't contribute much to human happiness. In a way, that's not fair: each of the people in the cars in those traffic jams is going somewhere for reasons of his or her own, presumably in pursuit of some individual vision of human happiness. At the same time, any individual one of them would be happier if there were fewer of them doing it.
We should figure out why fertility is declining so rapidly, if we are able. If it's some chemical disorder or disease, that's a problem. But if it's just people making choices to have fewer children, well, maybe lower population is manageable at this moment in technological history in a way it would not have been before. That could be all right.
I've thought about this for years, but lately I've begun to rethink my views. Maybe the problem isn't fertility crashing, but overpopulation. The argument for maintaining a larger up-and-coming population than the existing population turns on the need to support the elderly: 8 grandkids can more readily support 2 grandparents than can 2 grandkids. But with automation and robotics, increasingly we won't need people to do the work; and if they become cheaper goods the way other sorts of durable goods do, then we won't need to tap the vast income of the 8 grandkids as much to provide caretaker robots or other things that the elderly need.
Meanwhile, overpopulation has its own set of problems. You don't have to be a crazed environmentalist to see that massive traffic jams don't contribute much to human happiness. In a way, that's not fair: each of the people in the cars in those traffic jams is going somewhere for reasons of his or her own, presumably in pursuit of some individual vision of human happiness. At the same time, any individual one of them would be happier if there were fewer of them doing it.
We should figure out why fertility is declining so rapidly, if we are able. If it's some chemical disorder or disease, that's a problem. But if it's just people making choices to have fewer children, well, maybe lower population is manageable at this moment in technological history in a way it would not have been before. That could be all right.
Mike Pence and Public Broadcasting
It may be counter-intuitive, but Vice President Pence once won the Champion of Public Broadcasting award.
“Governor Mike Pence is a highly-respected conservative who jealously guards taxpayers’ interests, believes deeply in limited government, values the public service mission of public television, and has recommended an investment of State funds in support of that mission in Indiana,” said APTS president and CEO Patrick Butler. “We are profoundly grateful for his support of our work in education, public safety and well-informed citizenship, and we are honored to present a well-deserved Champion of Public Broadcasting Award to one of the most principled and talented political leaders in our country.”There are reasons to question whether the public interest is best served by a government-run news agency, which will of course be operating in the interests of the government -- not necessarily the same as the interests of the public. Still, the recognition of the role that journalism plays in creating an educated and informed public is striking compared to the current administration's rhetoric towards news even of the market-based sort.
“The foundation of a free society is an educated and informed public,” said Governor Pence. “For decades, Indiana’s public television stations have enriched and engaged the Hoosier public and reflected the state’s values. I am grateful for their service and that of the Association of Public Television Stations in furthering the knowledge of viewers across this great nation every day.”
Objectification and Empathy
Two of the biggest assumptions in our current culture are these:
1) Objectification of people is what allows you to treat them badly.
2) Empathy is the answer, as it prevents this objectification.
Both of these assumptions are certainly wrong as simple statements. Objectification is absolutely necessary to the process of thought; you can't consider another person even as a presumptive subject without making them an object of your conscious thought. As the article under the first link explores, there are a number of other ways in which objectification is either not bad, proper, or sometimes simply non-problematic. The real issue is more fundamental. If rationality leads to better solutions, well, objectification is a necessary condition for rational thought. You can feel about someone without objectifying them only because the feelings are really your own: you aren't feeling what they feel, but what you feel. If you are going to think about them, you're going to have to freeze them in your mind as an object for analysis.
Meanwhile, as the author goes on to point out, frequently cruelty doesn't arise from objectification at all: it is just because the other is recognized as a human capable of suffering humiliation or pain that the wrong is done to them. If only the evildoer saw them as merely an object, without subjective capacity, there would be no point to the cruelty.
Empathy, as the second link explores, is not an unalloyed good. Being empathetic means experiencing an emotional response, which may not be entirely coherent with applying reason to a problem. For example, feeling a strong sense of empathy for the victim of a crime may make you less rational about administering punishment in vengeance for that crime. It is important to be rational there, though, if only to be sure that the person you think you've caught is really the guilty party.
Good to see these basic assumptions beginning to be challenged. Both of them preference feelings over reason in moral decision-making, a preference at odds with all of the great moral philosophy.
1) Objectification of people is what allows you to treat them badly.
2) Empathy is the answer, as it prevents this objectification.
Both of these assumptions are certainly wrong as simple statements. Objectification is absolutely necessary to the process of thought; you can't consider another person even as a presumptive subject without making them an object of your conscious thought. As the article under the first link explores, there are a number of other ways in which objectification is either not bad, proper, or sometimes simply non-problematic. The real issue is more fundamental. If rationality leads to better solutions, well, objectification is a necessary condition for rational thought. You can feel about someone without objectifying them only because the feelings are really your own: you aren't feeling what they feel, but what you feel. If you are going to think about them, you're going to have to freeze them in your mind as an object for analysis.
Meanwhile, as the author goes on to point out, frequently cruelty doesn't arise from objectification at all: it is just because the other is recognized as a human capable of suffering humiliation or pain that the wrong is done to them. If only the evildoer saw them as merely an object, without subjective capacity, there would be no point to the cruelty.
Empathy, as the second link explores, is not an unalloyed good. Being empathetic means experiencing an emotional response, which may not be entirely coherent with applying reason to a problem. For example, feeling a strong sense of empathy for the victim of a crime may make you less rational about administering punishment in vengeance for that crime. It is important to be rational there, though, if only to be sure that the person you think you've caught is really the guilty party.
Good to see these basic assumptions beginning to be challenged. Both of them preference feelings over reason in moral decision-making, a preference at odds with all of the great moral philosophy.
Romance, Post-Tolkien
In an essay called "Out of the Shire," Hillsdale College scholar Bradley J. Birzer wonders where we go next.
As I list what to read “After Tolkien,” I must make two caveats. First, almost no one has reached the literary quality of Tolkien’s writings, whether in his clever children’s stories, such as The Hobbit, or in his high fantasy, such as in The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion. And, second, no one has reached the imaginative quality of Tolkien’s writings, either. For better or worse, these two must be givens as we consider “After Tolkien.” And, these two might be givens for the next several centuries.Perhaps, but it is not certain. The earlier, allied genre of Sword & Sorcery enjoyed its great master in the form of Robert E. Howard; but his near contemporary, Friz Leiber, flourished and in some respects went beyond him. Tolkien is a high bar, though, because he had a degree of learning that is itself a high bar. You would need to find someone as creative, as romantic, and as capable of sustaining those things through the dreariness of acquiring all that academic learning. The last of those might be the hardest of the lot, but without the depth of scholarship you cannot do what Tolkien did.
Samizdat: An Amusing Bit in the Wikipedia Entry
The introduction for the article "Samizdat" is as follows:
Samizdat (Russian: самизда́т, IPA: [səmɨzˈdat]) was a key form of dissident activity across the Soviet bloc in which individuals reproduced censored and underground publications by hand and passed the documents from reader to reader. This grassroots practice to evade official Soviet censorship was fraught with danger, as harsh punishments were meted out to people caught possessing or copying censored materials. Vladimir Bukovsky summarized it as follows: "Samizdat: I write it myself, edit it myself, censor it myself, publish it myself, distribute it myself, and spend jail time for it myself."
Anti-Nudge
You're all familiar with Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness, which argued that government regulations and taxes could be used to subtly influence individual decisions to attain preferred outcomes. There are a number of reasons to object to the model, one of which is its imagery: a shove, however gentle, is a form of assault and battery even if it is a shove 'in the right direction.' Another is its arrogance, which presumes that government and not the individual is best placed to determine which is 'the right direction.'
In any case, it looks like the GOP tax bill would slash some of these 'nudges.' Unfortunately it does not eliminate them, but it does at least improve upon them. Naturally, the effect of this is described as murderous: a sort of intentional killing of the innocent by the lowering of their sin taxes.
The real intent of the bill is to streamline alcohol taxes in such a way as to eliminate some unfair advantages enjoyed by major producers, as opposed to the smaller 'craft beer' producers who are flourishing now. Those outfits are producing some really fine beer, too, which improves our quality of life in a much more obvious way than does the paying of taxes.
In any case, it looks like the GOP tax bill would slash some of these 'nudges.' Unfortunately it does not eliminate them, but it does at least improve upon them. Naturally, the effect of this is described as murderous: a sort of intentional killing of the innocent by the lowering of their sin taxes.
As alcohol-linked deaths continue to rise, the Senate is expected to vote on a tax bill this week that would exacerbate this public health problem. Tucked away in the Senate’s tax bill is the “Craft Beverage Modernization” provision, which would cut federal excise taxes on alcohol producers, particularly small brewers. A recent Brookings Institution report estimates that this legislation would “result in between 281 and 659 additional motor vehicle fatalities… (relative to a baseline of 37,461 deaths [in 2016]) and 1,550 additional alcohol-related deaths” per year.They would have you believe that higher taxes are literally good for you.
The real intent of the bill is to streamline alcohol taxes in such a way as to eliminate some unfair advantages enjoyed by major producers, as opposed to the smaller 'craft beer' producers who are flourishing now. Those outfits are producing some really fine beer, too, which improves our quality of life in a much more obvious way than does the paying of taxes.
How Perseus Came to Make a Rash Vow
'I am Pallas Athene; and I know the thoughts of all men's hearts, and discern their manhood or their baseness. And from the souls of clay I turn away, and they are blest, but not by me. They fatten at ease, like sheep in the pasture, and eat what they did not sow, like oxen in the stall. They grow and spread, like the gourd along the ground; but, like the gourd, they give no shade to the traveller, and when they are ripe death gathers them, and they go down unloved into hell, and their name vanishes out of the land.
'But to the souls of fire I give more fire, and to those who are manful I give a might more than man's. These are the heroes, the sons of the Immortals, who are blest, but not like the souls of clay. For I drive them forth by strange paths, Perseus, that they may fight the Titans and the monsters, the enemies of Gods and men. Through doubt and need, danger and battle, I drive them; and some of them are slain in the flower of youth, no man knows when or where; and some of them win noble names, and a fair and green old age; but what will be their latter end I know not, and none, save Zeus, the father of Gods and men. Tell me now, Perseus, which of these two sorts of men seem to you more blest?'
Then Perseus answered boldly: 'Better to die in the flower of youth, on the chance of winning a noble name, than to live at ease like the sheep, and die unloved and unrenowned.'Charles Kingsley, Heroes
L'Inquisito
A recording of an interrogation of a 22-year old teaching assistant for her thought crimes.
The Holiday Season
Officially we have to get through Advent first, but the fine Friar Tuck is prepared to help us see this season through.
UPDATE: I kid, but it is weird how we treat Advent in contemporary America. In parts of the Middle Ages, it was a fast almost on par with Lent: a period of purging and preparation for a 12-day feast. Today, it's a 30-day feast in preparation for a six-day feast. Preparation entails a whole series of holiday parties and spending sprees. By the time the day after New Year's rolls around, everyone's gained 15 pounds.
Friar Tuck does seem to be our guide more than others.
UPDATE: I kid, but it is weird how we treat Advent in contemporary America. In parts of the Middle Ages, it was a fast almost on par with Lent: a period of purging and preparation for a 12-day feast. Today, it's a 30-day feast in preparation for a six-day feast. Preparation entails a whole series of holiday parties and spending sprees. By the time the day after New Year's rolls around, everyone's gained 15 pounds.
Friar Tuck does seem to be our guide more than others.
Authoritarian-Loving Statists for Reform
Thomas Friedman is right that we should all be rooting for the success of the Saudi Arabian reform movement. He's wrong about why it might work.
If the Saudi reform works, it won't be because of an authoritarian character. It will be because it is able to appeal to the Saudi people to reject tribal and family loyalty in favor of direct loyalty to the king. Edward I tried something similar in England, with some success -- reforms like the introduction of fee simple feudalism stripped away nests of existing loyalty relationships, streamlining the connection between 'loyalty to the king' and whatever position you occupied. This new approach will be to the disadvantage of a few, all of them rich and powerful rivals of MBS. It will offer advantage of a great many, whose position could be improved by a direct relationship that cuts out the middlemen between themselves and the king.
As a consequence, it has a chance of working. It worked for Edward Longshanks, at least in his own lifetime.
Unlike the other Arab Springs — all of which emerged bottom up and failed miserably, except in Tunisia — this one is led from the top down by the country’s 32-year-old crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, and, if it succeeds, it will not only change the character of Saudi Arabia but the tone and tenor of Islam across the globe. Only a fool would predict its success — but only a fool would not root for it.The analysis of why the 'Arab Spring' movements failed is simplistic, as is his faith that a 'top-down' movement will work better. MBS is smart enough to have sold it to him that way, doubtless knowing Friedman's preferences.
If the Saudi reform works, it won't be because of an authoritarian character. It will be because it is able to appeal to the Saudi people to reject tribal and family loyalty in favor of direct loyalty to the king. Edward I tried something similar in England, with some success -- reforms like the introduction of fee simple feudalism stripped away nests of existing loyalty relationships, streamlining the connection between 'loyalty to the king' and whatever position you occupied. This new approach will be to the disadvantage of a few, all of them rich and powerful rivals of MBS. It will offer advantage of a great many, whose position could be improved by a direct relationship that cuts out the middlemen between themselves and the king.
As a consequence, it has a chance of working. It worked for Edward Longshanks, at least in his own lifetime.
What Hotshot Navy Pilots are For
Sometimes things don't work out right, and you need guys like this.
UPDATE: The pilot, Lt. Steven Combs, was not among the survivors.
The US Navy has called off its search for three missing sailors after a C-2 Greyhound aircraft crashed on approach to the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier at sea near Okinawa — but the plane's pilot has emerged a hero for saving 8 lives... As Lawrence Brennan, a former US Navy Captain, told Business Insider, "Greyhounds are not equipped with ejection seats or parachutes." The aircrew's only choice was to chance a landing at sea....Three of the sailors aboard did not survive. It is unclear from the report if the pilot is among them.
"The Greyhound was landed in the open ocean so that it remained afloat for a sufficient time to allow the majority of the people on board to escape," said Brennan. "The sacrifice, skill, and professionalism that he and his aircrew demonstrated should be considered for recognition by the award of a Distinguished Flying Cross."
UPDATE: The pilot, Lt. Steven Combs, was not among the survivors.
More Evidence of Russian Collusion!
WASHINGTON — The turkey pardoned by President Donald Trump has had multiple contacts with Russian officials over the past year, Duffel Blog has learned.They've got him now, eh?
Grav E. Gobbles, a 4-year-old bird from western Minnesota, received a pardon Tuesday during a ceremony in the Rose Garden. But how Gobbles was able to secure a presidential pardon has come under scrutiny, sources say.
According to sources, Gobbles met privately on multiple occasions with Russian officials over the past year ...
I'm grateful for many things this year, but near the top of the list is that Hilary Clinton is not president.
Antiquated Norms vs. No Norms at All
A piece at RedState argues that Republicans should abandon their "antiquated" sexual morality in order to forward otherwise promising candidates.
The problem is that the old standards are the only clear standards. By age, by sex, and by nationality, there is no agreement on where the line is. "[F]emale respondents were much less tolerant of men looking at women’s breasts than their male counterparts were: among Americans 64 and older, for example, half of women but just a quarter of men said they would consider such ogling sexual harassment.... [A] quarter of French women under 30 believe that even asking to go for a drink is harassment, whereas almost none of their counterparts in Britain and Germany share that view."
Among Americans, more men than women in the 18-30 bracket feel that asking a woman out for a drink is sexual harassment. It's a quarter of young men who fear to make the request lest they be guilty of a moral crime, and only a fifth of young women who are prepared to feel harassed by being asked out for a pint. Young men and women do seem to agree, one in three of each, that it's sexual harassment to tell a woman that she's attractive to you if she's not your girlfriend or wife. But that leaves two-thirds of each who disagree.
Mike Pence's solution was widely mocked at first, and continues to be warned against as a viable option. Well, I agree that there could be some problems arising from the "Pence rule" as well; and I don't wish to adopt it myself, nor do I feel it is necessary to do. I'll bet we won't be hearing that Pence is guilty of this kind of bad behavior, though. His standard may well be antique, but it is at least a clear and bright line that keeps him out of trouble. Those are thin on the ground these days.
My guess is the real danger isn't that we'll adopt the Pence rule anyway. The real danger is that we'll learn both that (a) powerful men have indeed behaved horribly on both sides, but also that (b) neither side's voters are willing to punish them for it as they prefer victory to morality. The end result of this moral panic over sexual misbehavior by powerful men then is likely to be, ironically, a new license to engage in sexual misbehavior if you are a powerful man in politics. Powerful men in corporate life may be punished for it, but politicians may find that their voters won't; and if the voters won't, the donors won't; and if the donors won't, Laissez les bons temps rouler!
As we’ve learned the hard way, not a single piece of the conservative agenda can be implemented—or even pursued—without solid control of all three branches of government. Still, some believe that these crucial majorities are less important than the moral character of individual candidates and office holders. We need Republicans who will do what is necessary to get elected and keep Democrats from holding office.... Unreasonable litmus tests are being applied to candidates by some Republicans, as if marital fidelity or refraining from soliciting sex with children were reliable indicators of whether a politician can be trusted to vote in a way that gives his party political victories.I am pretty sure he's joking, but not completely sure. The argument has a kind of pragmatic validity, and there is some reason to think that Republicans are in fact doing this.
...the GOP still foolishly squanders political potential still in its prime all for the sake of an antiquated obsession with honor and virtue. This is why even when Republicans win, they lose. The desire to be represented by honorable people who practice what they preach is... naive and unrealistic.... Republicans should all be focused above all on winning elections over Democrats and winning legislative victories even if the results don’t match their campaign rhetoric. Instead, many Republicans inexplicably choose to live in a fantasyland where truth and decency are considered more important than victory.
The problem is that the old standards are the only clear standards. By age, by sex, and by nationality, there is no agreement on where the line is. "[F]emale respondents were much less tolerant of men looking at women’s breasts than their male counterparts were: among Americans 64 and older, for example, half of women but just a quarter of men said they would consider such ogling sexual harassment.... [A] quarter of French women under 30 believe that even asking to go for a drink is harassment, whereas almost none of their counterparts in Britain and Germany share that view."
Among Americans, more men than women in the 18-30 bracket feel that asking a woman out for a drink is sexual harassment. It's a quarter of young men who fear to make the request lest they be guilty of a moral crime, and only a fifth of young women who are prepared to feel harassed by being asked out for a pint. Young men and women do seem to agree, one in three of each, that it's sexual harassment to tell a woman that she's attractive to you if she's not your girlfriend or wife. But that leaves two-thirds of each who disagree.
Mike Pence's solution was widely mocked at first, and continues to be warned against as a viable option. Well, I agree that there could be some problems arising from the "Pence rule" as well; and I don't wish to adopt it myself, nor do I feel it is necessary to do. I'll bet we won't be hearing that Pence is guilty of this kind of bad behavior, though. His standard may well be antique, but it is at least a clear and bright line that keeps him out of trouble. Those are thin on the ground these days.
My guess is the real danger isn't that we'll adopt the Pence rule anyway. The real danger is that we'll learn both that (a) powerful men have indeed behaved horribly on both sides, but also that (b) neither side's voters are willing to punish them for it as they prefer victory to morality. The end result of this moral panic over sexual misbehavior by powerful men then is likely to be, ironically, a new license to engage in sexual misbehavior if you are a powerful man in politics. Powerful men in corporate life may be punished for it, but politicians may find that their voters won't; and if the voters won't, the donors won't; and if the donors won't, Laissez les bons temps rouler!
The Judiciary vs. the President
1) A Federal judge rules that the President cannot cut Federal funding to cities that refuse to enforce Federal laws. The argument is that Congress has approved the spending, and therefore the money must be spent! I'll grant that there's a kind of legitimacy to the Article I argument being made here, but it is surprising to learn that the executive -- who swears to 'take care that the laws be faithfully executed' -- is forbidden from taking action to try to see that laws are in fact faithfully executed rather than ignored.
2) A Federal judge ruled that the administration is forbidden to refuse to pay for sexual reassignment surgery for transgender troops. I can't tell from the article what the legal reasoning was here; as presented in the article, the judge apparently accepts that this is a 'harmful consequence' of Trump's policy, and therefore(?) it must be stopped. I suppose no soldier has ever suffered a harmful consequence from a President's policy? Stop-loss, for example?
3) That judge and another Federal judge both ruled that the President cannot restore the policy on transgender troops that the last President maintained until his final year in office, which policy every previous President maintained throughout their entire term in office. The argument is that the policy that was universally practiced until last year "shocks the conscience."
This is an aggressive set of rulings, all from just the last couple of days but of a piece with the judiciary's highly aggressive approach to this administration. I wonder if they won't regret it in the long term.
2) A Federal judge ruled that the administration is forbidden to refuse to pay for sexual reassignment surgery for transgender troops. I can't tell from the article what the legal reasoning was here; as presented in the article, the judge apparently accepts that this is a 'harmful consequence' of Trump's policy, and therefore(?) it must be stopped. I suppose no soldier has ever suffered a harmful consequence from a President's policy? Stop-loss, for example?
3) That judge and another Federal judge both ruled that the President cannot restore the policy on transgender troops that the last President maintained until his final year in office, which policy every previous President maintained throughout their entire term in office. The argument is that the policy that was universally practiced until last year "shocks the conscience."
This is an aggressive set of rulings, all from just the last couple of days but of a piece with the judiciary's highly aggressive approach to this administration. I wonder if they won't regret it in the long term.
KISS Patriots
This isn't my usual thing, but I ran across it while wandering through the intertubes tonight and thought, "Well, that's interesting."
The Vikings in Medieval History
This is episode one of a 36 episode course. The scholar is from Tulane, which is a good school in New Orleans. They draw some good people, including a friend of mine -- not this fellow -- and one of America's leading Kantian scholars. There's no reason not to think this might be worth listening through if you aren't familiar with the history and would like to be.
Prosecutions That Will Never Happen
What do you think -- is it less likely that the International Criminal Court will be able lock up US soldiers for 'war crimes' in Afghanistan, or that Bill Clinton will be prosecuted for these four new sexual assault cases?
My guess is that neither of these ever results in anyone going to jail, no matter how good the evidence is. That's just now how the world works.
My guess is that neither of these ever results in anyone going to jail, no matter how good the evidence is. That's just now how the world works.
Slave Markets in Libya
Ironically, President Obama's Libya policy has led to the restoration of slave markets, where West Africans can be bought and sold for a few hundred dollars. (It was really his Secretary of State's Libya policy; but 'the buck stops here.')
Not that I expect to hear anyone from the recent administration accepting responsibility for their role in this outcome, of course.
Not that I expect to hear anyone from the recent administration accepting responsibility for their role in this outcome, of course.
Germany Teeters
Western democracies are at a strange moment, both here and internationally, in which the existing solutions no longer seem plausible but people are strongly divided about what should come next. Brexit but then May's failed snap-election; Trump (barely) but then a Democratic wave in 2017's November elections; Merkel, again, but she can't form a government. The Marxists are doing far better in this environment than their history gives them any right to do: they've captured British Labour and are on the verge of capturing the Democratic Party here. The Greens, who are pretty much Marxists too, are holding cards Merkel needs.
Outlaw King
A new movie is being made about Robert the Bruce. I guess it's just part of our cultural moment that it's going to 'feature some of the bloodiest scenes in cinema history,' although the period was quite brutal in its application of violence.
Fiendish man
So it's going to be the Shi'a with Russia against the Sunni with the U.S. and Israel? This is going to be interesting. If it doesn't result in glassing over the entire Middle East, who wouldn't be amused by the frantic attempts of every Progressive living to denigrate Trump's diplomatic coup in his second year of office?
As my husband adds, all we need now is for Trump to give Texas the go-ahead to join OPEC.
As my husband adds, all we need now is for Trump to give Texas the go-ahead to join OPEC.
In Praise of Alpha Males
Cassandra has often raised some objections to the use of the term, but let's roll with it this once.
The other goods flow from that, though. Success in war provides the protection of a space in which a stable society can flourish. It's hard to flourish if you aren't successful in war -- and, to cite the same Sun Tzu dictum again, you're never more successful than when you're so dangerous that no one wishes to fight with you. That mastery, attained only by careful devotion to the arts of war, depends on all of these qualities that the lady cites.
In both my personal and professional life, I’m a woman who spends most of her time in the company of alpha males. I grew up very close with my two hyper-masculine brothers who habituated me to the ways dominant men think, act, emote, and feel; with a father, stepfather, and grandfather who also all fit the Alpha mold. Competition, well-articulated debates, and robust humor characterized nearly all of our interactions. As an adult, between my involvement with combat sports and my work with members of the military and Special Operations communities, much of my daily life is characterized by interaction with men who embody the traditional traits of Alpha Male dominance: strength, competitiveness, courage, assertiveness, decisiveness, intelligence, aggression…"Conan, what is best in life?" Success in war, if you were to summarize the famous remarks (which were apparently originally attributable to Genghis Khan).
Alpha Males are men who value strength (an undeniable gift of their testosterone-fueled biology); they embrace their capacity and desire for physical, intellectual, and even material dominance. While our politically correct culture has trained me to hesitate before making the assertion that these qualities are somehow innately strong in their sex, as a mother to a young son, I do feel strongly that biology plays a part in this. Strength, courage, hard work, and athleticism are paramount to the Alpha Male identity, which I feel is really just the full realization of the masculine spirit. Some scholars of the warrior archetype, such as Dr. Angela Hobbs, author of “Plato and the Hero: Courage, Manliness and the Impersonal Good,” and Leo Braudy, author of “From Chivalry to Terrorism: War and the Changing Nature of Masculinity,” would agree, and take this one step further by suggesting that success in warfare is historically central to the masculine identity, as the ability to protect and defend one’s community has been fundamental to human existence since the dawn of time.
The other goods flow from that, though. Success in war provides the protection of a space in which a stable society can flourish. It's hard to flourish if you aren't successful in war -- and, to cite the same Sun Tzu dictum again, you're never more successful than when you're so dangerous that no one wishes to fight with you. That mastery, attained only by careful devotion to the arts of war, depends on all of these qualities that the lady cites.
A Lack of Touch
I had a similar line of thought to Dr. Helen's over the last week, although in the end I rejected the idea that the problem she raises are particularly related to the problems getting so much media attention this week. For one thing, a large part of the don't-touch culture is pretty new; but the problems of Hollywood and powerful politicians being exploiters is not at all new.
Still, just because the one problem doesn't directly cause the other doesn't mean that it isn't still a problem.
The first three are real problems.
I can attest that I spent the early part of my life bedeviled by the first one. As a teenager I couldn't figure out what was so wrong with me that I couldn't seem to attract a girlfriend. In fact, it was just that I was being so very careful not to offend that they didn't realize I was interested. This especially goes to touch, which is a primal means of communication that can't be set aside without damaging our health as human beings.
The second one is also a real problem. It wasn't until I started studying jujitsu in earnest that I realized how much fun it is to fight -- to spar, to wrestle, to grapple. I avoided all that as a kid most likely out of an unconscious fear that there was necessarily something deviant about it, and it was a real liberation to realize that you could go and fight just for fun. I had fought some serious fights, but realizing that it was good to just get out there and do it for fun was a kind of freedom.
The third one often prevents men from playing with children, which is bad for the men and bad for the children. Men play differently, and in ways that encourage boldness and learning to take risks and adventure. What do the men get out of it? A joy often otherwise absent from life.
I don't think these things actually relate to the issues of the day. I do think that they're really significant problems with our culture, and that men in general would be healthier and happier if we changed our views about this.
Still, just because the one problem doesn't directly cause the other doesn't mean that it isn't still a problem.
We American men have a tragic laundry list of reasons why we are not comfortable with touch:Number 5 is just something you'll have to get over in order to become an adult. Number 4 is just a misperception. Nothing better highlights how powerful you are than showing that you can use much less force than you are capable of using. The display of control demonstrates another strength, over and above the physical power of which you are obviously capable if you have muscles and big shoulders.
1. We fear being labeled as sexually inappropriate by women.
2. We live in a virulently homophobic culture so all contact between men is suspect.
3. We don’t want to risk any hint of being sexual toward children.
4. We don’t want to risk our status as macho or authoritative by being physically gentle.
5. We don’t ever want to deal with rejection when we reach out.
The first three are real problems.
I can attest that I spent the early part of my life bedeviled by the first one. As a teenager I couldn't figure out what was so wrong with me that I couldn't seem to attract a girlfriend. In fact, it was just that I was being so very careful not to offend that they didn't realize I was interested. This especially goes to touch, which is a primal means of communication that can't be set aside without damaging our health as human beings.
The second one is also a real problem. It wasn't until I started studying jujitsu in earnest that I realized how much fun it is to fight -- to spar, to wrestle, to grapple. I avoided all that as a kid most likely out of an unconscious fear that there was necessarily something deviant about it, and it was a real liberation to realize that you could go and fight just for fun. I had fought some serious fights, but realizing that it was good to just get out there and do it for fun was a kind of freedom.
The third one often prevents men from playing with children, which is bad for the men and bad for the children. Men play differently, and in ways that encourage boldness and learning to take risks and adventure. What do the men get out of it? A joy often otherwise absent from life.
I don't think these things actually relate to the issues of the day. I do think that they're really significant problems with our culture, and that men in general would be healthier and happier if we changed our views about this.
"Facilitate"
In a wooden hut on stilts, a group of children dressed in white sit on the floor. They sing "I will protect Islam till I die" and shout "There is no god but Allah", in unison. Three months ago, the 58 families that make up the Celitai tribe of Orang Rimba converted to Islam.I'm sure they did.
They were picked up and bussed into Jambi, the nearest city, and given clothes and prayer mats.
The Islamic Defenders Front - a vigilante group whose leader is facing charges of inciting religious violence - helped facilitate the conversion.
Hard At Work in the Cockpit
US Navy pilots try their hand at skywriting. "WARNING: Some viewers may find the photos in this story offensive."
UPDATE: Terminal Lance on the occasion.
UPDATE:
UPDATE: Terminal Lance on the occasion.
UPDATE:
A Deeper Issue at Work
Speaking of all of this, Iraq's parliament is under fire for considering "an amendment to the personal status law that would allow men to marry girls as young as 9." Well, that's what the human rights group and the US government says it would do.
As Kyle Shideler points out, what the amendment actually does is simply make Islamic law the governing law in family cases. The amendment says that when issuing decisions on family law cases, "the court should follow the rulings of religious scholars for Sunni or Shiite sects, depending on the husband's faith." Specific governing authorities for each of these fiqhs are identified so that there is no confusion as to which rulings are final. The 'marriage at 9' thing is merely a consequence of what those rulings of religious scholars have always held, not the point of the amendment.
There's a very similar issue at stake in the Alabama matter.
This creates a much bigger problem, here and in Iraq. The contemporary American standard is that a proper degree of sexual consent requires a more complete equality, including in the ages of the consenting partners. A 16 year old is not thought to be able to consent in quite the right way; she's thought to be too powerless compared to a 27 or 32 year old man. But this means arguing against not merely tradition, but the exemplars of the tradition. It's not merely that Islam has done it this way for a long time; it's that Muhammad himself did it. It's not merely that Christianity has inherited an ancient Jewish tradition of marriage; it's that God himself sent his son into a marriage just like the one being criticized as immoral.
As Kyle Shideler points out, what the amendment actually does is simply make Islamic law the governing law in family cases. The amendment says that when issuing decisions on family law cases, "the court should follow the rulings of religious scholars for Sunni or Shiite sects, depending on the husband's faith." Specific governing authorities for each of these fiqhs are identified so that there is no confusion as to which rulings are final. The 'marriage at 9' thing is merely a consequence of what those rulings of religious scholars have always held, not the point of the amendment.
There's a very similar issue at stake in the Alabama matter.
We need to talk about the segment of American culture that probably doesn’t think the allegations against Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore are particularly damning, the segment that will blanch at only two accusations in the Washington Post expose.... That segment is evangelicalism. In that world, which Moore travels in and I grew up in, 14-year-old girls courting adult men isn’t uncommon.She offers a number of cases of people advocating this as the ideal approach for shaping young women into solid members of society. (The idea that a sexual relationship with an older man might do the same thing for young men appears in Plato's Symposium.) There is, as defenders of Roy Moore have pointed out, plenty of Biblical support for the position. Mary herself was married to a much older Joseph at about this age, and although she remained a virgin there's no reason to think that God would have put his only son into a harmful family environment. In the case of John the Baptist, the family arrangements he was born into were about the same; and there are plenty of other examples to find.
I use the phrase “14-year-old girls courting adult men,” rather than “adult men courting 14-year-old girls,” for a reason: Evangelicals routinely frame these relationships in those terms. That’s how I was introduced to these relationships as a home-schooled teenager in the 1990s, and it’s the language that my friends and I would use to discuss girls we knew who were in parent-sanctioned relationships with older men.
This creates a much bigger problem, here and in Iraq. The contemporary American standard is that a proper degree of sexual consent requires a more complete equality, including in the ages of the consenting partners. A 16 year old is not thought to be able to consent in quite the right way; she's thought to be too powerless compared to a 27 or 32 year old man. But this means arguing against not merely tradition, but the exemplars of the tradition. It's not merely that Islam has done it this way for a long time; it's that Muhammad himself did it. It's not merely that Christianity has inherited an ancient Jewish tradition of marriage; it's that God himself sent his son into a marriage just like the one being criticized as immoral.
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