Free Exchange of Ideas

So there's a story about a teaching assistant at the University of Georgia's philosophy department. I've drunk some beers with this guy. He's not going to kill anybody. He is forwarding some explosive ideas, but that's what a philosophy department is for.

“Some white people may have to die for black communities to be made whole in this struggle to advance to freedom,” the TA said. He further claimed that to suggest otherwise is “ahistorical and dangerously naive.”

The point he is making here is one that probably most people agree with, if it is framed instead: "Chattel slavery of blacks in North America probably would not have ended if the North had not defeated the South in the American Civil War." I used to think otherwise, but I realize that I had been persuaded by a teacher with a basically Marxist frame of social analysis. The argument I found persuasive, when I was younger, was that the changing from an agrarian to an industrial capital model would make chattel slavery undesirable as a social form, in favor of having a class of free labor that you could pay only as long as you needed them and then fire or lay off as soon as you didn't. In retrospect, I don't think that's necessary; chattel slavers could have rented out slaves to industry on a piecework basis and still made out OK. Besides, the Confederacy's long-term plan was definitely built around institutionalizing race-based slavery.

So, OK: at least at one moment in history, it was necessary to kill (a lot of) white people in order that black people should be freed. Is that still true? Well, that's the point at which the discussion would become interesting (and worth ordering another round of beers to discuss). It would be nice to think it wasn't true, especially since it was me or mine you'd probably be thinking should be killed. But if you do think it is true, I'd like to know it. I'd like to understand the idea, if only for the purpose of constructing a better defense against it.

We are in a dangerous time, and I think we can see that the racializing angle of the Left is having a perilous effect on our politics. Even so, philosophy departments exist precisely to talk through ideas that are for one reason or another dangerous. Which ideas these are -- Darwinism, evolution, philosophy of race, feminism, Marxism -- that changes from one generation to another. But this is the place for them, whatever they are.

"Abortion Rights Under Threat From SCOTUS"

Maybe if there were a stronger basis for the idea that abortion was (or could be) a "right" than SCOTUS rulings, you wouldn't be in this position. What only SCOTUS gives, SCOTUS can take away.

The March for Life this weekend appears to have produced some very significant fireworks. It's been interesting to see the mob turn on minors, and then -- when all the positive claims fell apart -- decide that it was sufficient that the kids were at the March for Life. Or wearing MAGA hats. Whatever: dox them! beat them! (Or chop them up.)

In a way this was the second running of the Kavanaugh fiasco, where felt empathy for the alleged victims completely overwhelmed any interest in the question of the actual guilt or innocence of the accused. Not shockingly, it's really over the very same issue at its foundation.

But there's also a general point to be made about the perils of empathy. Empathy is linked to unreasoning aggression against those who stand accused of harming the empathetic victims -- or even, as the study found, those who are just bystanders to the empathetic victim's alleged suffering.

There is a history of this sort of thing. Lynchings in the American South were often sparked by stories of white women who were assaulted by blacks, and anti-Semitic attacks prior to the Holocaust were often motivated by tales of Jews preying on innocent German children. Who isn’t enraged by someone who hurts a child?

Similar sentiments are used to start wars.

I keep hearing people say that America needs more empathy, but I think we really need a lot less of it. Stop feeling, start thinking.

SCOTUS Lifts Injuction on Trump, Transgenders in Military

This is a big deal because it means medical outs for a fair number of people that the Obama administration admitted, or allowed to remain in the military after they declared their status. Lower courts had held that these folks shouldn't be forced out until and unless the final court ruling was that it was right and proper for the Commander in Chief to discriminate in this way.

I've always held that 'the needs of the service' is the right standard in all of these cases, and that the application of discrimination law was an error. The rights one has as a citizen are properly pre-political in some cases, e.g., natural rights; others are civic rights that come about as a result of your having the status of being a member of this polity at this time and not that one at that time. Even for the pre-political rights, and definitely for the civic rights, the realization of those rights as enforceable realities depends upon the establishment and defense of a polity that will do the practical work of enforcing them. Thus, the work of the military has priority over the question. First, we have to keep a military that will defend the space in the world in which the polity exists; within that space, we can enforce rights both natural and civic.

If it turns out that the military needed to be all male again to be effective at that task, then we should make it all male again. If it happened that an all female force was required to make the space in the world and defend it from all comers, then we should do that. If it turned out it needed exactly 10% women for particular functions, that would be the right choice. If we need transgenders in the service for some particular cause, then we should permit them to serve in the role according to the needs of the force.

Should a demographic, or an excessive percentage of a demographic, actually prove harmful to the needs of the force then it should be culled. It's nothing personal. It's just that we have to defend the space within the world in order for any of the other rights to be practically realizable. We are not doing a great job of defending our space right now; I would guess that in my lifetime, or shortly after, large parts of what is now the United States will depart the union because of just this issue of letting the space go undefended. We need to stop messing around with this stuff.

And as for Europe, well...

No Friends on the Left

Sen. Harris is not well-loved by the Jacobin left.

*Sigh*

OMB says there will be no reduction in force.

Ouroboros

I’m writing on the train leaving Washington, D.C. following a normal weekend in the nation’s capital which hosted tens of thousands of activists who interrupted traffic flows and traipsed around town shouting slogans at no one in particular under the mistaken impression that their actions would somehow cause the narrative of history to turn in their favor.

They traveled here. They made signs. They walked and walked. They screamed and yelled. They gave speeches to each other. But so far as I could tell this morning, nothing changed because of their efforts.

Hawkins Misses a Shot

John Hawkins has a post that got an Insta-link about masculinity coming under attack. Most of what he has to say is right, more or less. However, there's one place where he misses something important.

The very traits that the APA says are so harmful -- “stoicism, competitiveness, dominance, and aggression” -- are the same traits that built the entire world. If anything, saying that 98 percent of the great industrialists, scientists, generals, inventors, heroes, and leaders have been men with traditional masculine values is an UNDERSTATEMENT. Who created the Constitution? Who won every war America has ever fought? Who put men on the moon? Who built the internet you’re reading this article on? Men with traditional masculine values.

Read charitably, it's certainly true that 98% of the people 'who put men on the moon' were men. But it's not true that they all were. One of the most crucial roles was filled by Katherine Johnson, a mathematician who calculated moonshot trajectories without a computer.

Honor is due to the honorable, and she is among them.

Houthi "Rebels" Kidnap, Torture Women

Iran's men in Yemen, if you're trying to remember who a "Houthi" might be.

Press Credibility

I've written this elsewhere, and perhaps I've nibbled at it here, too, but—prompted by one of Grim's comments in a thread below concerning NLMSM integrity—I'm offering this in full.

If the NLMSM hopes to gain any measure of credibility at all, it must do some things, and it must do them satisfactorily in the minds of observers and consumers of the NLMSM's output.

1.  a journalist must identify at least some of his sources, rather than hanging the thesis of his article exclusively on the claims of anonymous sources
2.  if an anonymous source refuses to be identified, the journalist must show with concrete, measurable evidence two things

          a.     the source actually exists 
          b.     why the source should be believed, given that by speaking publicly, even in anonymously, he's likely violating his terms of employment if not his oath of office

      3. if the journalist is representing the anonymous source as a whistleblower, the journalist must provide concrete, measurable evidence that the source has used up all of his employer's internal whistleblowing channels before he decided to leak to the journalist.

All of this must be done in the opening paragraph(s) of his piece, even ahead of the Who, What, Where, When that used to form the lede (but seems to no longer).

And the largest question of all:

      4. The press used to have a standard that required two on-the-record sources to corroborate the claims of a journalist's anonymous sources. The journalist's editor must explain why he's chosen to walk away from that standard of integrity.

Eric Hines

Providence

The Dems aren't getting their semi-auto ban through Congress right now, but they might in the future. It's blatantly unconstitutional: the AR-15 is the most protected firearm under both Heller and Miller. Still, they mean to do it whether it's constitutional or not.

So why not build a non-semiautomatic AR?



The trigger pull is cocking the weapon, or so it appears; if so, it's no more semi-auto than a traditional revolver.

"Church of Sol"

A weather forecaster finds a new faith.

Jerry Reed, Bros and Sisters

Not a bad bit for a Friday night.



That old man sitting next to him is Marty Robbins. You might not recognize him because you think he should be dressed like a cowboy. But listen to the voice.

About twenty years earlier, he sounded like this.

What voters care about

It ain't the environment, the economy, or any of the things Pelosi wishes it was.  They're worried about lack of leadership in government, and immigration.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz Takes a Stand

She refuses to march with the Washington Women's March this year:

I am not alone. Teresa Shook, who launched the movement with her viral Facebook post, has publicly called for the co-chairs to resign, writing that Bob Bland, Linda Sarsour, Carmen Perez and Tamika Mallory "have allowed anti-Semitism, anti-LBGTQIA sentiment and hateful, racist rhetoric to become a part of the platform” of the march.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, EMILY’s List and the Democratic National Committee I once led are among the groups distancing themselves from the national event. The Washington State Women’s March rebuked the national group, noting its leaders’ failure to “apologize for their anti-Semitic stance.” 

I applaud Schultz for her stand and am glad to see others on the left doing the same.

The Society of Classical Poets

Ran across this outfit by accident and thought some here might enjoy it. I signed up for email and get one poem a day.

The Society’s mission is to preserve humankind’s artistic traditions; to reestablish poetry as one of the most widely appreciated forms of literature, communication, and entertainment; to increase appreciation of centuries of rhyming or metered poetry; to support poets who apply classical techniques in modern poetry through publication and performance opportunities and awards; and to aid in language arts education that imbues high moral fiber and good character.

A couple of favorites:

• Arise, You Bones
• The Pointless Voice of James Joyce

And last year they had a rhyming riddle contest, which sounds like fun. Looks like they have some other kinds of contests as well.

Here's their poetic forms page full of "how to write ..." links, and they have a riddle page as well.

Where's That Masculinity When You Need It?

A UK feminist who was sexually assaulted on a train is very angry -- not at her attacker, but at two men who didn't step up to help her out.

Cincik told The Daily Mail she her attacker was not to blame, but two “white middle class” men instead who allegedly failed to help her during the assault.

The fashion chief executive was attacked by a tall Muslim on a busy Underground train, but blamed two British men who moved to other seats and left her alone to defend herself....

“He was about six foot [2 metres] and around 30 to 35-years-old and he started just screaming. He was screaming and shouting at me and saying things like ‘I am going to f****** kick you’ then he did actually kick me.”

She said she did not blame the migrant but “remained more angry with those white middle class men who left me to it. As fathers, husbands and sons they should be ashamed of themselves”.

She accused them of being “cowards”.

Oh, so it's 'fathers, husbands and sons' who should be shamed as 'cowards' when they don't step up? Well, that's the sort of thing I might say. My philosophical apparatus would support that approach.

Of course, I might also have something to say about a culture that led to assaults like this -- and to a culture that unmanned itself in the face of such assaults. You have to take the bad with the good, ma'am.

Defy Federal Courts!

There's an argument to be made here. It was Andrew Jackson's argument. Hammer goes farther, asserting that the power to be the final hand on Constitutional questions actually only dates back to the 1950s.

In 1958, in a little-known opinion known as Cooper v. Aaron, the Supreme Court quietly effected its most nakedly self-aggrandizing power grab ever. In Cooper, for the very first time, the Supreme Court pronounced itself to be the sole and final binding arbiter of constitutional disputes. The Cooper Court said:

In 1803, Chief Justice Marshall, speaking for a unanimous Court, referring to the Constitution as "the fundamental and paramount law of the nation," declared in the notable case of Marbury v. Madison ... that "It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is." This decision declared the basic principle that the federal judiciary is supreme in the exposition of the law of the Constitution, and that principle has ever since been respected by this Court and the Country as a permanent and indispensable feature of our constitutional system.

Marbury, of course, stands for nothing even remotely resembling the judicial supremacist sentiment the Cooper Court affixed to it. As Michael Stokes Paulsen has persuasively argued, Marbury instead stands not for judicial supremacy but for constitutional supremacy: That is, each of the three branches has an independent and binding fealty to interpret and abide by the Constitution, as it sees fit, in line with its own carefully delineated constitutional duties and powers. As Josh Blackman noted last year, the Cooper Court's radical claims amounted to "unprecedented assertions of judicial power."

The argument against is that the court systems is serving as a "cooling off" period for Presidential power -- one that, thanks to Trump and McConnell's success in promoting conservative judges, could be more effective against the next progressive President if it is allowed to stand now. Break it today, and it'll definitely be broken tomorrow. Abide by it now, and there's a chance it'll still be in place to restrain the next bad president.

"Retoxify Masculinity!"

There's thinking outside the box, and then there's Col. Kurt.

We need more masculinity, and the more toxic the social justice warriors think it is, the better....

Much as I advocate global warming, I am a strong proponent of toxic masculinity. It’s also known as “masculinity.”

Risk-taking.

Ferociousness.

Independence.

These are the qualities the SJWs want to wring out of us. Why? Because these are the qualities they cannot overcome. They want us weak, passive and obedient. That’s how they get power.... Don’t be fooled by the “toxic” qualifier – all masculinity is toxic to these human weebles. What they call “toxic” is really the essence of freedom. It’s toxic all right, but to their goals, not ours. Masculinity means freedom from them and the puffy, non-binary utopia they dreamed up because that’s the only world in which such losers could be anything more than a sorry punchline....

When some thug who didn’t get the memo about hugging is breaking down the door to get you, do you want some neckbeard sissy with a disposable Gillette standing by your side, or a toxic male with a 12-gauge Mossberg loaded with buckshot racking in a shell?...

Don’t let it happen.

Buy guns.

Drink beer.

And tell the SJWs to go to hell.

Dinosaurs

The only problem with being a dinosaur is there ain't no future in it. But there is one hell of a past. Now what you need to do is act like the mighty Tyrannosaurus and leave deep prints.

-Ironhead Haynes

For anybody feeling that way today, just remember it's the way things always are. Waylon Jennings gave that speech twenty years ago. For Hank Williams, Jr., it was the disco era.

Inconceivable!

UPDATE: Related.

"...if there were a permanent cessation of a quarter of federal activity, the result would be trillions worth of extra resources for private actors to put to work."

Redefining the Essential Workers

The Trump administration sure looks like it might be settling in for a long wait. Maybe they really are going to gut the bureaucracy -- now that they know which parts of it they don't really want anyway.

Measurement

Maggie's Farm reported today the death of John Bogle, who started the first index fund in 1976 to test the proposition that money managers could beat throwing darts at a dartboard. Bogle's skeptics at the time adopted the classic "stands to reason" thinking in assuring investors that of course money managers could beat the average consistently.  Bogle insisted on checking.

The Sense of the Senate

Sen. Ben Sasse just stole a march on his colleagues Kamala Harris and Mazie Hirono.

Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate that disqualifying a nominee to Federal office on the basis of membership in the Knights of Columbus violates clause 3 of article VI of the Constitution of the United States, which establishes that Senators "shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support th[e] Constitiution," and "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

The resolution passed without objection.

Reminding them of their oath was a very nice touch. Well done.

The Jihadist Threat from... FORSYTH COUNTY, GEORGIA?!?

Hasher Jallal Taheb sounds like the least-competent terrorist ever. He had never fired a gun, but intended to hit the West Wing with a rocket launcher he didn't actually have. He did find a helpful friend who said he'd help him out, naturally a Federal agent. (Anyone who offers to help you buy a rocket launcher, grenades, or a machine-gun without going through the proper licensing procedures is a Federal agent. Take it to the bank.)

He is said to be a man of Cumming, Georgia, which is the county seat of Forsyth County. That's where I grew up.

The place has changed a bit, these last few years.

Here's a story of the old days, when the last thing you'd have ever found in Forsyth County was a jihadi. It wasn't pure: you might have found a Klansman, and you certainly could find the Outlaws Motorcycle Club.

Jihad, though, that's new.

Well, it was getting too crowded for me twenty years ago, what with Atlanta's population expanding into it. I expect that's what brought the jihad, too.

UPDATE: The NYT runs an editorial today called "There's Nothing Wrong With Open Borders." But of course that's nonsense; today's story shows that open borders pose challenges, at least, even when they're between different parts of America. Heck, even when they're between different parts of Georgia. Freedom of movement is a wonderful thing, but let's be honest about the challenges and problems associated with it.

Dissolve the FBI

I really like the way American Greatness is thinking big.

There may be one solution that preserves the patriotic agents who are protecting the nation while helping drain the Beltway swamp: dissolve the FBI, fire all the senior political operators still in the Hoover Building, and make the 56 FBI field offices across the nation—where the real agents work—the counterterrorism, counterintelligence, and criminal investigations division of the Department of Homeland Security.

This way we may prevent the next palace coup.

We are in a time in which significant reforms are needed.

"Cultural Marxism"

As is often the case, much depends on how one defines a phrase.

As a term of art, “cultural Marxism” has been in circulation for some time, and in recent years it has become a staple of outlets like Quillette. An article published there last summer, by the cultural studies graduate student Galen Watts, described it as a “social theory” holding “that culture (ideas, religious beliefs, values, etc.) is in the last instance determined by one’s position in a class or social hierarchy.” In other words, cultural Marxism is the belief that our tastes and preferences—the books we read and the museums we visit—are determined by our racial, gender, and economic positions.

That is definitely not what I mean when I use the term.

"Cultural Marxism," as I use the term, means the application of a specific move within Marxist analysis to culture. That specific move is the one Marx makes in asserting that all of human history, culture, society, and so on can be explained by the struggle between oppressor and oppressed. In true Marxism, this division is made between economic classes: those who own the means of production, and those who are forced (in one way or another) to work for those owners. Exactly how that struggle works changes as the mode of production change: Marx's analysis is that feudalism arose from agricultural means of production, with some lords and others serfs. The inadequacy of this explanation even to the historic institution of European serfdom, which is substantially different from the various sorts of outright slavery that existed elsewhere, should be a warning that the model is too simplistic even when applied exactly as intended by its original author.

Cultural Marxists apply the basic model of explaining reality in terms of an oppression struggle to something besides economic class. Usually it has been sex and race; lately it has been "gender." Many of these Cultural Marxists have been teaching in the academy, and their students likewise are trained to believe that you can account for Medieval history in terms of these categories of oppression just as readily as you can modern or contemporary history. The Patriarchy is eternal, and White People are awful even before they know about 'being white.'

As such I don't think it's in any way deterministic. People are taught to be Marxists, cultural or otherwise. They might have been taught better; they might yet learn how foolish their teachers have been.

I do think that it's a problem, indeed a very serious problem, but it's not the problem the deterministic model implies. If it were, the only solution would be to get rid of the people from the wrong groups (or at least exclude them from power). Because the problem is a creation of teaching, however, educational and experiential solutions are possible. There's no reason to think in terms of exclusion, let alone elimination.

Note, however, that the conclusion that we must be thinking in terms of exclusion or elimination does follow from their model for what the phrase means. If you let them define the terms, copping to a concern about the effects of "Cultural Marxism" in society is equivalent to copping to a desire for oppression or even genocide. The fact that they are teaching this may help to explain the hysterical reactions students of Cultural Marxism produce when they are brought face to face with a critic, even for an single evening's lecture at a campus venue.

A Jew Rejects Identity Politics

Are Jews white, white passing, or “people of color” (POC)? Dare Jews claim suffering or must we acknowledge privilege? Are we victims of racism or do we uphold racist systems? Do we support Israel or do we see it as evil? The language is wrong. The dichotomy is forced. It is a test we Jews cannot pass and remain true to ourselves....

I reject this attempt to pit Jews against one another, to divide us by color, and force allegiances based on made up values and newfangled language.

I reject all of this.

And I refuse to be told Zionism is racism, that supporting Israel means supporting oppression. I refuse to be saddled with other people’s sins, to let others define our story. We have a history, we have a present and if we want a future, we cannot let it be denied.

Good for you. Some of the rest of us can't pass the test either, although that's mostly because the test was drawn up to exclude us.

Still, how right this is: "I reject this attempt to pit [us] against one another, to divide us by color, and force allegiances based on made up values and newfangled language... to be saddled with other people's sins, to let others define our story... history... present... and if we want a future[.]"

No More Gun Control

Mark Overstreet at The Federalist writes against two bills the Democratic Party is pushing.

What's Best in (Western) Life

A writer asks after the Saudi teenager who defected to Canada and obtained asylum there, after she eats bacon for the first time:

Is eating bacon and drinking Starbucks freedom? Is that what's best about western lifestyle?

No, of course not. Bacon is good, of course, but...

Hey...

I wasn't aware of this. The odds of it being a clever trap are, sadly, small; but if the right people become aware of it, it might become so even if it wasn't planned that way.

In only five more days of the already "longest government shutdown in history" (25 days and counting, as of today), a heretofore obscure threshold will be reached, enabling permanent layoffs of bureaucrats furloughed 30 days or more.

Don't believe me that federal bureaucrats can be laid off? Well, in bureaucratese, a layoff is called a RIF – a Reduction in Force – and of course, it comes with a slew of civil service protections. But, if the guidelines are followed, bureaucrats can be laid off – as in no more job.

Wretchard Asks, "What if It's Intentional?"

“He is going to discourage so many people in the next generation from ever going to work in Washington or working as a civil servant. Why in the hell should you go work in this craziness?”

You make a good point there. Fewer people should work for the government.

Decluttering

Some advice from an expert.

This decluttering thing must be a real phenomenon since even I've heard of it. My circle includes a number of people who are roundly outraged about the suggestion that you shouldn't have more than thirty books, and only those which 'spark joy.' (The philosophers in particular are put out with the idea that you shouldn't own books that should provoke serious thoughts but not joy, such as histories of totalitarianism or meditations on genocide.) I'm guessing you will all get the popular culture if I do, since I am about as removed from the stuff as it is possible to be without eliminating electricity or the internet.

Speaking My Language

A senior official writes with advice to the President on the shutdown:

...lock the doors, sell the furniture, and cut them down.

...

Due to the lack of funding, many federal agencies are now operating more effectively from the top down on a fraction of their workforce, with only select essential personnel serving national security tasks. One might think this is how government should function...

Furloughed employees should find other work, never return and not be paid.

Time to shrink the state.

Against American Football

American Football [is] a game of collisions and brute force that requires an entire chest of drawers of padding and equipment and a storm trooper helmet. More than a few professional football players will not even let their children participate in it. Everybody hates it.

Except the race of barbaric persons known collectively as Americans.

Spoiler: the author is in fact an American. Specifically, he's one of those white American males trying desperately to differentiate himself from the rest of 'them' that VDH was discussing.

Really, it's a classic of the genre.

...And Then I Lie To Myself For A While

It's OK, because it's 'meditation.' From a piece on morning routines:

Then I do some meditation, where I might recite some mantras. One of them is "all of my relationships are harmonious and full of love," which is good if you are working with difficult clients.

In the wintertime like it is now, I wake up and go downstairs. I put some coffee on, then I split some wood to rekindle the fire. Then I rekindle the fire.

Then I drink some strong black coffee. I might have a glass of water first, if I'm feeling dry. I go to work usually about the time the wife is starting in on the coffee.

In the summertime, it's just the coffee.

What Does 'Authentic' Mean Anyway?

VDH writes:

One common denominator, however, seems to govern today’s endless search for some sort of authenticity: a careerist effort to separate oneself from the assumed dominate and victimizing majority of white heterosexual and often Christian males.

Even before we got to the present moment, I always wondered what the 'authenticity' debate was really about. It seems to be an attempt to define yourself by adopting someone else's categories. A country music singer who wanted to be successful might well say that he was "an authentic cowboy," or in any case present himself as such, as if Roy Rogers hadn't already mocked that concept way back in 1943.



That song came from "King of the Cowboys," which was a classic example of Roy Rogers' particular approach to the genre. It wasn't an 1880s "Wild West" bit, it was set in its own present day. Are they cowboys? Well, yeah, in a way: "The Old Bar X is a barbecue."

In another way they were quite self-consciously performing an iconic role, for reasons of their own. Roy Rogers was definitely Roy Rogers. He had his own unique style and manner even within the context of the 'cowboy' genre of the 1940s-1960s. How much he was like the cowboy of the open range days was a question that amused even him. How much were any of them "authentic" cowboys?

You might think this is less applicable to whether or not one is 'authentically' a member of an ethnic group or a sexual minority, but I'm not sure. Really people are individuals, like Roy Rogers was. Membership in social groups is to some degree performative, just as playing a cowboy on the screen was. What does it mean to be "black," for example? Barack Obama was from a white family on his mother's side, even a cousin of George Washington's. On his father's side, well, his father was from Kenya in that generation. The whole thing we think of as 'the black experience' -- the Western passage, the heritage of slavery, Jim Crow, the long economic oppression in American cities -- neither side of his family experienced that. His father had some claim on a similar heritage of being oppressed by the British within Africa, and of course he had black skin. But what we normally think of as 'black American' experience had no role in Obama's heritage. Yet he performed as 'the first black American president,' and was accepted as quite authentically so by everyone.

At this point we've started to let people make performative exceptions even to their physical sex, and are treating the performance as more authentic than the genetics. What could authenticity mean in such a context?

It's got to mean that, like Roy Rogers, you're delivering a great performance. Which is to say that the word is a kind of contradiction in terms as we currently use it; to be authentic is to be great at constructing and presenting yourself as something. It's artifice, it's artificial, and yet the word we use for it has exactly the opposite connotation.

Tulsi Gabbard to Run for President

If you don't have anything to do during primary season next year, you might give a thought to supporting Tulsi. She'll be running into the winds, between her support for religious liberty and her tangling with more powerful Democratic leaders. She's not likely to win, but she might force a debate among them that would be helpful; and if she did happen to win, her support for Assad aside, she served honorably in the military and has shown at least some deference to historic American principles.

When it comes to Democrats running for President next year, we could do worse.

What Did You Just Say?

The U.S. approved more than 5,000 requests by men to bring child or adolescent brides into the country over the past decade, enabling forced child marriages....

The requests and their approvals were apparently legal, according to government data obtained by The Associate Press, due to the fact that the Immigration and Nationality Act does not limit the age of spouses. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services also approves or denies requests based on whether the marriage is legal in the home country and the state of the applicant.

Yes, the Connection is Obvious

Bristol banning grilled cheese sandwiches in order to fight the formation of motorcycle clubs.

Nationalizing Elections

Under the traditional system, states run elections under state law even if they are for a Federal office. The Democrats would like to change that. Unsurprisingly, this is a wish-list of everything from "mandatory felon voting" to "mandatory registration to vote of everyone on welfare rolls." (Not everyone on welfare rolls is a citizen, but so what?)

Also, mandatory limits on states trying to make sure that voters aren't registered in two states at the same time. Hey, that sounds like an effort to ban checks on voter fraud. (So does 'mandatory same-day registration').

I'd like to see mandatory voter ID, of a sort that requires establishing citizenship -- a passport, or a certified birth certificate, or fully executed immigration and naturalization documentation.

Jorvik Viking Festival, Year 35

You still have more than a month to plan a vacation to York, if you'd like to participate this year. I've always wanted to go, but have never managed it so far.

A History of Assassination

"The trouble with many attempted assassinations is that the subject refuses to die."

Blade Runner Blues

Via Instapundit, a meditation on what 2019 looked like in film versus reality.

Horses Over Mulholland

A Bargain at the Price

The US is currently debating whether or not to spend $5 Billion constructing a partial steel fence along the southern border. The NYT reports that the US has spent $8 Billion on the Afghan Air Force -- which is still "struggling."

Which of these is really more relevant to US national security? Which one is more cost-effective?

Bless Me, What do They Teach Them at These Schools!

Unexpected Finding

Look at the Norway/Sweden split in this poll result.

Now, if I've understood AVI correctly, we should read the Scandinavian results of this poll less as phrased, and more as, 'I believe it is my social duty to answer that our culture is [better/worse].' The very fact that Scandinavians so readily submit to the dictates of their culture proves their faith in it; thus, the honest answer should be similar to the happiness surveys out of Scandinavia, where vast majorities answer that of course they are happy in spite of the long winter darkness.

If that's all correct, Norway's result is the more surprising, because it's only a majority and not a supermajority. Sweden is the expected supermajority, where the people have internalized that they're supposed to proclaim themselves no better than anyone else.

UPDATE: And could it really be true that only 36% of Frenchmen believe their culture is superior to others'? France should look like Greece if people were being honest.

Indian Science Congress: Ancient Demon Kings Had Planes

Surely, in this age of multicultural respect, we should all take these claims just as seriously as any others.

Nageswara Rao, a vice chancellor at Andhra University in South India, said that Ravana, a demon god with 10 heads, had 24 kinds of aircraft of varying sizes and capacities — and that India was making test-tube babies thousands of years ago.

Dinosaurs were created by the Hindu god Brahma, said Ashu Khosla, a scientist with expertise in paleontology at Panjab University in the North Indian city of Chandigarh....

Sadly, some haters have been making noise about this, much to the surprise of the organizers.

The organizers of the conference were taken aback. "This is the 106th edition of the Science Congress," said the group's general secretary Premendu P. Mathur in an interview with NPR. "Since 1914, we've had so many meaningful conversations with children on science. We've hosted Nobel laureates from around the world..."

About 15,000 scientists from India and around the world attend the conference every year, said Ashok Saxena, a zoologist and a former president of the congress, in an interview with NPR. They are a part of the 50,000-strong Indian Science Congress....

Among the famous attendees this year were three Nobel laureates: Hungarian-born Israeli biochemist Avram Hershko, who won the prize for chemistry in 2004; British-born physicist Duncan M. Haldane, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2016; and German-born American Nobel laureate for medicine in 2013, Thomas Christian Südho[.]

Why can't we all be devoted to the norms of inclusivity and acceptance?

Religious Tests

Out in Texas, Republican donors are getting nervous.

Republicans in one of the most populous counties in Texas will decide this week if they should remove a party vice chairman who is Muslim following allegations he has denied that suggest he prefers Islamic over U.S. law and opposes the GOP's pro-Israel stance.... Some have even speculated that the ouster of Shafi could drain fundraising efforts and jeopardize the party's 2020 campaign.... William Busby, a former precinct chairman and leader for the Tarrant County Republican Party [said], "Corporate donors, the big donors, don't want to be associated with a party that's going in the direction of excluding people based upon their religious beliefs."

So that's both parties, then.

Some Analysis of the Green New Deal

I apologize for linking to Twitchy, whose tone and format I neither enjoy, but it's a good single link to a series of posts.

UPDATE: "Growing number" of Dem 2020 hopefuls signing on to Green New Deal.

France to Ban "Unsanctioned Protests"

Guess who makes the decision on whether or not your protest is sanctioned?

All this started over an attempt to impose climate-change policies including new taxes.

Update on Angela Davis Story

The issue, she claims, was her criticism of Israel or, as she puts it, 'the indivisibility of justice.' The facts seem to support this:

In a statement expressing dismay at the controversy, Mayor Randall Woodfin of Birmingham said the decision had come amid “protests from our local Jewish community and some of its allies.”

The institute did say in its statement announcing the revocation that it had begun hearing from “concerned individuals and organizations” in late December, around the time the magazine Southern Jewish Life published a piece about the award by its editor, Larry Brook.

If true, it wasn't the communism or the violence and murder after all.

Russian Tactics Suppress Voter Turnout, May Have Swayed Close Election

Russian tactics, mind you. Democratic operatives.

Originally they used these in the Senate race against Roy Moore, who was admittedly a lousy guy and deserved to lose. That success brought them more funding, apparently, because they pushed this campaign through the 2018 midterms, suppressing Republican turnout and targeting close districts.

I suppose this will be a huge story, right?

Nothing Says "Right Wing Extremist" Like A Nose Ring

A video making the rounds purports to be of a young German lady who was stopped by the police and questioned about her political opinions 'for wearing braids.'



I'm not sure of the truth of the facts, but it's something to watch out for as the elite begins to worry more and more about 'the right.' Ironically for all that he's painted as a fascist/Nazi/Hitler, President Trump is a bulwark against this kind of thing happening in America. It was President Obama's crew who engaged in targeting exercises like the IRS scandal, or Operation Choke Point. No similar things are likely to happen under Trump, whose relations with DOJ are spectacularly bad.

Tulsi Gabbard vs. Anti-Catholic Bigots

For reasons best known to her, Rep. Gabbard -- a veteran of honorable service -- decided to support Syria's tyrant, Bashar al-Assad. I was sorry about that, as it was a significant error in judgment. It's nice to see her getting this one right.

In the process, she's taking on two more powerful Democratic legislators, Sens. Kamala Harris and Mazie Hirono, as well as Diane Feinstein by name. I hope it will prove a useful corrective.

Universal Goods

California's new governor promises "Sanctuary to all that shall seek it." New York City promises "comprehensive health care for all."

Leaving apart the problem of building any kind of community with a constantly shifting population who shares neither common values nor history nor even a common tongue, did I sleep through the part where economic scarcity was finally overcome?

Short Selling, Explained

BB: With Gov't Shut Down, Citizens Must Interfere in Own Lives

One of the primary functions of the government is to ignorantly muck around in the business of others, but the shutdown has hampered that. Thus citizens have been forced to try to fill that void themselves. “Today I just suddenly decided large sodas weren’t allowed,” said Morgan. “It was an annoying, pointless obstacle the whole day—it was like the government was still around.”

“I arbitrarily decided I couldn’t use plastic bags in school lunches,” said Arlene Williams, mother of three. “It was really irritating to deal with. It really made me feel like there was still some bureaucrat out there not caring about me.”

I've imposed Prohibition on myself for the month of January, rather than waiting for Lent like usual. So far I haven't started a criminal organization to smuggle booze, but I suppose there's still time.

Broadcasting In the Clear

For a fairly long time now, those of us concerned about criticisms of 'toxic' masculinity have wondered if it wasn't really just a criticism of masculinity. The APA has finally dropped the mask.

APA has issued its first-ever guidelines for practice with men and boys. They draw on more than 40 years of research showing that traditional masculinity is psychologically harmful and that socializing boys to suppress their emotions causes damage[.]

More and more I think that psychology/psychiatry is chiefly just bad philosophy -- but dressed up as medicine, so people act as if it were a technologically secure basis for decision-making. Freud did more damage to our society perhaps even than Marx, though we rarely talk about how badly he's damaged us by convincing us that people are largely unconscious machines in need of programming and shaping rather than convincing and persuading. That convinced our governing elites that the people were a dangerous mob in need of systems of control, and our fellow citizens that the half who disagreed with them were monsters persuaded only by the Id.

You can't unring a bell, and bad philosophy can poison a culture as thoroughly as Romans salting the earth of Carthage.

Saudi Arabia More Gender Equal than the USA

And women are the ones who are better off, new study claims.

I'm feeling a little skeptical.

Conservatives Against... Conservatives

The Bulwark is the title of a new online magazine designed to oppose Trump. From the right, allegedly, but 'opposing Trump' is what it's all about.

Going Both Ways

Angela Davis -- heroine of the Civil Rights Movement, Black Panther, once honored by the Rolling Stones while facing murder charges, also a member of the Communist Party USA -- has been denied a high honor by the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.

She was originally approved, and then the offer was withdrawn after public comment. They didn't explain exactly what it was that caused them to change their mind. I'd be interested to know.

Hymn of the Northmen

Ok, it's advertising, so I apologize for that, but- wow!  It's perhaps the best 'commercial' I've ever watched, and the advertising is of things I'd very much like (though can't afford, alas)- things made with the wisdom of tradition and the care of the fine craftsman.  I actually got led to this through a video on timber framing (and I think my dream vacation just changed because of it).  It happens rarely, but sometimes the algorithms get one or two right.

Shutdown