Two from AL Daily

The first one wonders if AI means the end of anonymous authorship. Maybe looking backwards, but couldn't an AI serve to randomize your language just enough to ensure you weren't recognizable? Seems like more of an arms race than a finale.

On "The end of enchantment" and the Enlightenment. I obviously disagree that ending animism or enchantment is a necessary product of reason; panpsychism is as old as Plato, and inherent in the Neoplatonic philosophy that I think is the closest human beings have gotten to the truth. Praise for the Frankfurt school strikes me as short-sighted, but it's worth reading all the same because of this insight:

[A] surprising 83.3 per cent of Americans believe in either guardian angels, demonic possession or ghosts, and there is evidence for similar belief patterns in western Europe. (I should note that disenchantment should not be confused with secularisation. The sociological evidence suggests that de-Christianisation, while usually equated with secularisation, often correlates with an increase in belief in spirits, ghosts and magic – not the reverse.) Nor are sociological surveys the only evidence. If one views Europe and North America through the same sort of anthropological lens that European and American anthropologists are used to directing abroad, it seems hard to defend the notion that the ‘modern West’ is straightforwardly disenchanted. There are plenty of examples.

Walmart sells ‘Sage Spirit-Smudge Wands’ and clothing chains such as Urban Outfitters sell ‘healing crystals’ and tarot cards. You can go on eBay right now and pay an Australian ‘white witch’ to perform a ritual to summon a djinn and bind it to an object of your choice. Celebrities such as Anna Nicole Smith and Bobby Brown have publicly described having sex with ghosts. Coffee shops and co-ops throughout the US and much of western Europe display flyers advertising ‘palm readers’, ‘energy balancing’ and ‘chakra work’. Even if you ignore the Harry Potter craze and other fictionalised depictions of wizards, ghosts and witches, studies of American reading habits suggest that ‘New Age’ print culture is incredibly lucrative, with ‘non-fiction books’ about magic, guardian angels and near-death experiences frequently appearing in the upper echelons of Amazon’s bestseller lists. And the past 15 years have seen a proliferation of ‘reality’ television series that claim to report evidence for ghosts, psychics, extraterrestrials, monsters, curses and even miracles.

This pattern is older than the Frankfurt School, as it was known to Chesterton. Like Chesterton, we sit in a strange place with regards to it. On the one hand, Chesterton favored Roman Catholicism over some other variations of Christianity -- and especially materialism -- just because it offered him the opportunity to believe in faerie.

The Christian is quite free to believe that there is a considerable amount of settled order and inevitable development in the universe. But the materialist is not allowed to admit into his spotless machine the slightest speck of spiritualism or miracle. Poor Mr. McCabe is not allowed to retain even the tiniest imp, though it might be hiding in a pimpernel. The Christian admits that the universe is manifold and even miscellaneous, just as a sane man knows that he is complex. The sane man knows that he has a touch of the beast, a touch of the devil, a touch of the saint, a touch of the citizen. Nay, the really sane man knows that he has a touch of the madman. But the materialist’s world is quite simple and solid, just as the madman is quite sure he is sane.

It seems as if there is a health that attends to belief in the imp, in the not-quite-settled and not-quite-understandable nature of reality. Which indeed there is; philosophy can sketch the limits of reason readily. Kant does so in his first critique, and prior philosophers come to the ineffable regularly. The worst thing to believe is that reality is purely rational, subject to human science, and completely comprehensible. Chesterton is not wrong to say that madness lies that way.

On the other hand, healing crystals are bunk, and the 'white witch' isn't really sending you a magic item with a bound jinn.

A Real Russian Information Operation

Vladimir Putin does not have "traditional values." Vladimir Putin is a former KGB agent turned gangster-government strongman. So when he says things like this, it's worth remembering that he's not advocating things he really believes in; he's advocating things he thinks will exacerbate divisions in the West.

It would behoove us to find a way to attain the stability associated with 'traditional values' without playing into the hands of people like Putin.

Serious People

"Medicare for All" was already supposed to cost a nearly unfathomable amount of money. What if we were to pledge to add to it the costs of anyone from anywhere in the world who shows up here needing health care, regardless of whether or not they have any sort of visa or legal right to enter the country?

As I've said in this space before, I'd love to hear the plan to save the Medicare we have before they start telling me that they're going to institute Medicare for All. That was when I assumed that "all" meant "all Americans," rather than "∀." It's a logical principle easy to script: (∀x)Fx->Gx. That is, 'for all x, if x is a person who needs healthcare, x gets it for free.'

People ask, "But how will you pay for it?" They answer, "We'll print the money we need." Well, yes, you can print money. Can you also print the doctors you'll need? This way lies inflation, sure, but the bigger problem will be scarcity of medical resources -- just as our largest population of American citizens, the Boomers, reach the age at which their need for medical resources will be greatest.

It's madness. Every single one of them put their hands up for it.

Just Not Getting It

The SCOTUS issued what strikes me as a completely weird decision today on the census. As I'm sure you've heard, they declared that the administration's explanation for wanting to ask whether counted people were citizens was "insufficient," and sent the case back down for more consideration once a fuller explanation was provided.

I'm unclear on exactly why any explanation is needed. This is surely what a census is supposed to do. What exactly is the census for if it isn't to count the number of citizens in each state? Is there some reason the United States government shouldn't be allowed to know how many people are inside a given state who aren't citizens? By law, all of those people should have a legal status registered with the government, after all: a visa or a permanent residency, for example. Conducting the census is an actual Constitutional duty of the Federal government. Why should the government need to explain itself at all?

Political Courage in Contemporary America

Tim Young: I dont know about you guys, but I thought the bravest, most courageous moment of the #DemDebate was when Julian Castro defended a transgender woman's right to have an abortion.

I wonder how long it will be before "Life of Brian" is held to be hate speech -- not because it makes fun of Christianity, but because of this scene:

Dan Crenshaw vs. Google

The tech giants seem determined to force a conflict in terms of their effect on our self-governing republic, and they're starting to get one.

Tulsi Beats Warren

Her argument that she is 'the most qualified to be commander-in-chief' is not quite right, but she is the most qualified of the ones who have any kind of chance. They're running a bunch of career politicians, so she's the closest thing: a real military officer, albeit one who served in a medical staff role rather than one who would have "commanded" in the ordinary military sense of the term.

She won the Drudge Poll and the Google Search quasi-poll, and Reason was impressed with her.

I like Tulsi, as I've said before. It's just hard to imagine turning the keys over to her given her courting gas-my-own-population Assad. On the other hand, she has been a strident defender of religious liberty at a time when that liberty is under heavy assault. We could certainly do worse than to have her head the Democratic ticket.

UPDATE: TNR strikes a measured tone:

Over the course of two hours, approximately seven minutes were devoted to the top existential threat facing humanity. And only four of the ten candidates on stage were asked directly about how they intend to rapidly reduce carbon emissions over the next eleven years—something that must be done to preserve a livable planet for future generations.... It was, to put it lightly, a disgrace—and not just because climate change was the number one issue that Democratic voters wanted to see discussed at the debate. The debate itself was held in Miami, Florida, a city that’s literally being swallowed by the rising ocean.

If you are curious, Tulsi's "vision" says some very sweet things about the environment, but has zero specifics on exactly how to attain any of them.

The debates

John Podhoretz on the elevated tone we can expect:

The only way these debates will matter is if they are exciting. And the only way to ensure that people keep watching them as the months pass, and thereby create a sense that the Democratic Party is full of life, is if these first debates reward their interest with fireworks.

It’s the shmendricks who need to set the debate hall on fire — you know, the ones you’ve never heard of, like the governors of Climatechangiana and Potsmokia and the House members from Whereverdude and Freestuffistan.

If only I had more confidence one of those guys wasn't going to end up with the nomination.

Bill Barr, Bagpiper

With the full marching band backing him up it's hard to hear how good he is, but it's a fine look for an Attorney General.

Study: Americans Angrier

Technically, the finding is that 84% of people think Americans are angrier than they used to be. VodkaPundit notes that this seems to be an artifact of the media, especially social media: "In real life, people don't seem much different."

Iowahawk was just making the same point, following a long round-the-country trip he's just finished. "You can learn a lot more about this country from a dashboard than from a keyboard.... The USA is an amazing, beautiful place, full of friendly people of all types and all political persuasions, who don't scream invectives at each other all day long in real life."

In general, I think most of America's problems are confined to small places with loud voices. There are some that are not: the opioid crisis is not; rural unemployment is not. Increasingly the immigration crisis is spilling out of the border regions and major cities and into the whole country. These things need to be addressed before they wreck the whole.

Still, for the most part the America I see from the back of the bike is much as they describe it. Anywhere you stop, people are friendly enough. You exchange pleasantries, and then ride on. If you should move and settle somewhere else, your neighbors make you welcome, and then largely leave you be. It's a pretty good place, most of the place and most of the time.

Nor can I easily recall the last time I saw someone, face to face, speak as rudely to another person as seems to be the standard on social media. I take Conan's position on this, as R.E. Howard related in The Tower of the Elephant.

A little more exposure to peril might improve our "civilized" class.

Federal Prosecutors Warn Judge Not To Interfere

The victims are that much less important than the people being protected by DOJ's exercise of discretion in this case.

Starship Troopers tax

Instapundit reports that Robert Francis ("Call me Beto") O'Rourke is channeling Robert Heinlein and proposing a tax on households that lack current or past armed service members.  The idea has a superficial appeal:  fund veterans' benefits by putting an extra tax on the population that benefits from military service without personal sacrifice.  On second thought, though, isn't it just another way of saying vets should get taxpayer-funded benefits, with the new wrinkle that vets and their famlies should get a tax break, too?  Why not just fund vet benefits at a suitable level and, while we're at it, quit playing games that make the benefits unreasonably hard to get?

O'Rourke's proposal smuggles in the assumption that we can't treat vets properly unless we raise taxes.  As usual, his mind goes straight to a tax that lands on some but not others, because that's the only way to achieve social justice.  Someone always needs to pay reparations to someone else.

Consummatum Est

As announced recently, David Bellavia was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor today.

He is the first living Iraq War veteran to receive this highest of awards.

Task & Purpose, like true enlisted men, frame the story in terms of the back pay to which SSG Bellavia is now entitled.

Congratulations to an American worthy of the name.

That crazy Conway

AVI posted links to a number of old articles, many from 2016.  I particularly enjoyed the WaPo October 2016 article dripping scorn on Trump's ridiculous PR team and their ignorant, probably insincere disregard of the prevailing wisdom in the "lamestream media."  The article ends with this taunt:

On Nov. 8, I fully expect Trump TV to say that Trump actually won. After all, Conway said they would. Unequivocally.

Conway's electoral map predicted Clinton would take California, Oregon, Washington, New Mexico, Minnesota, Illinois, New York, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Delaware, and New Mexico. She assigned toss-up status to Nevada, Colorado, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maine, New Hampshire, Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida.

And what happened? Conway was right about all the definitely-Clinton and definitely-Trump states. What's more, she didn't do badly on the toss-ups. Clinton took Conway's toss-up states of Nevada, Colorado, Maine, New Hampshire, and Virginia. Trump took the toss-up states of Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Florida.

The WaPo's own "realistic" map blew not only the predicted states but the toss-ups.  It assigned "weak Clinton" and "weak Trump" status to six states; Trump took them all home on election day. WaPo assigned toss-up status to only three states, all bagged by Trump in the end.

The final taunt turned out to be the best prediction in the piece.

How about this year?  Are the polls any more competent?  They sound a lot like the 2016 polls, just as the reports of amazing rally crowds remind me of 2016.

Wonderful News

...if true.

The sprawling Democratic presidential field is incredibly diverse, but a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs finds Democrats give a collective shrug to gender, race and age as factors they’re considering when supporting a candidate.

Instead, Democratic registered voters are yearning for experience in elected office. A whopping 73% cited that as a quality that would make them more excited about supporting a presidential candidate.

Citizens

One end of my county is stirred up over an annexation effort by a small town on our southern border.  A bit further south sit three or four other smallish towns that are growing both commercially and industrially, and on the other side of them, across Nueces Bay, the larger town of Corpus Christi has quite a bit of industry.  Our county, in contrast, watched industry pass it by during the 20th century, leaving it to develop primarily as a tourist and fishing spot and home for retirees.  Jobs for young people aren't plentiful here.  The commute to the greater employment opportunities to our south is doable but not obviously attractive, especially since our rent prices are pushed up by the coastal location and the tourist trade.  The tourist trade, in turn, depends on our preservation of the bays and shores.

The town on our southern border, Aransas Pass, is the mainland twin to the barrier island's much more prosperous Port Aransas, covered with condos, bars, and restaurants.  Aransas Pass struggles with its infrastructure and tax base.  It also fears incursion and encirclement from its municipal neighbors to the south.  It has constantly to reckon with the mixed blessing of industrial development, particularly to the south, tempting with its jobs and property values but threatening with its dirt.

In the southern, unincorporated part of my county, which has mostly scattered residential development, is the site of an old carbon-black plant.  A new owner recently has invested a lot of cash into cleaning up the unsightly but largely inert crud left behind and has received state environmental clearance to redevelopment the property for commercial or industrial but not residential uses.  The city of Aransas Pass, noticing this spring that Texas was about to pass a new law requiring the consent of the annexees, quickly took initial steps to annex an area that includes the old plant site.  They hoped to be grandfathered under the old statute, thus avoiding the expense and uncertainty of a referendum.

The proposed annexees generally oppose the city's move, fearing that they'll pay much greater taxes without getting any services.  Many city residents to the south applaud what they see as a chance to use a city's statutory land-use restrictions to control or prevent industrial development, powers that are largely denied to a county government.  Opponents of the annexation are mixed on their view of the proposed industrial development, but some question whether the city genuinely will restrict it, given their current negotiations with industrial developers on the other side of town.  Others view the developers and the annexing city with perhaps equal suspicion.

It is my painful duty to report the unsurprising news that public officials have not achieved the highest possible level of transparency and informed citizen involvement.  Many citizens are only now beginning to pay attention.  Accusations of smoke-filled-room tactics and hypocrisy are vying with charges that previously uninvolved citizens are belatedly second-guessing the beleaguered public servants.

In short, it's a dispute after my own heart.  My neighbors are struggling with the trade-off between creating jobs and preserving habitat.  If a site was used industrially for a century, what should be done with it now, and at whose expense?  Should taxpayers buy it up and turn it into a bird sanctuary?  Should it be set aside for industry, so we can concentrate on preserving other, still pristine coastal marshes?  Do we have the right to insist that the owners fund a residential development--or even a nature preserve--instead?  If they build a residential neighborhood, are we really sure that canals, lawns, septic tanks, pesticides, and fertilizer will affect the bays less than some kind of light industrial park?  Should more houses be built practically at sea level in hurricane country?  Did the city skip steps in its rushed annexation move, or must it start over and this time subject itself to the new resident consent process?

The public discussion of all these issues is confused, opaque, and fraught.  There are now three lawsuits pending or threatened, one for defamation of the plant-site owners, another alleging the plant-site owners are pursuing the defamation action to squelch public participation in a legitimate policy dispute, and a third attacking the annexation process.

I'm in my element, attending meetings and hearings, writing them up, posting them on Facebook, doing my bit to keep the public discussion fact-based and focused, and trying to make the implicit trade-offs more explicit.  I'm meeting some interesting new people and encouraging them to run for office.

#CancelStudentDebt

Although I don’t intend to sell my vote, I do appreciate that the opening bid is in the six figures. I suppose it’s a sort of respect to assume the bribe would need to be quite high.

If bribery is the platform, Bernie’s going to be hard to beat. Maybe Kamala will promise to cancel my mortgage.

Aristotle’s Ethics: Politics and the Nature of Man

To quickly review the first post on the Hillsdale course Aristotle’s Ethics, there were three main points.

1. We are looking for an appropriate level of precision and evidence. The precision and evidence expected of mathematics is different from that expected for biology, history, etc.
2. There is a hierarchy of “good” in things, pursuits, methods, etc. Some things, pursuits, methods, etc., are more valuable than others. I think it is easier to think of it as a hierarchy of value, maybe, but the Nicomachean Ethics (EN) consistently calls it good, the good, goods, etc.
3. This hierarchy is established first by the theory that if something exists for the sake of something else, that something else is a higher good, or more valuable.

The example was the work of the bridle maker, which, in ancient Athens, was for the sake of having cavalry, and cavalry was for the sake of military victory, and that was for the sake of preserving the city-state. So, the work of the bridle maker is good, but that of the cavalryman is a higher good, that of the general even higher, and the existence of the city-state yet higher. I surmised that this would make the work of citizenship, political engagement, the highest form of work.

The very highest goods exist for their own sake, like happiness.

ThinkSpot

Sounds like Dr. Peterson has a new project aimed at securing freedom of speech and thought.

In a rambling column today, Martha Gill, one of The Guardian’s authoritarian scribes, attempts to take Dr. Jordan Peterson to task for launching Thinkspot—a new free speech-friendly social media platform.

Well, thanks to the Guardian. I hadn't heard of this endeavor before now.

"The End of an Era"

I suppose eras are always ending these days. Quillette has an excerpt from a book by Phyllis Chesler, whose given name marks her era quite well. In the Baby Boom, close to ten thousand girls a year were given the name "Phyllis" some years; in 2012 it was 13.
This is a real change, but a small one. She has seen bigger things.

After 9/11, I felt as if the Afghanistan I’d fled so long ago had followed me right into the future and into the West. That distant and dangerous country began to dominate American and European headlines. Muslim women started wearing burqas (head, face, and body coverings) and niqabs (face masks) on the streets of New York City, London, and Paris.

As global violence against women gained horrendous momentum, many Western feminists became increasingly afraid to criticize that violence lest they be condemned as colonialists and racists. This fear often trumped their concern for women’s human rights globally.... Many feminist academics and journalists now believe that speaking out against head scarves, face veils, the burqa, forced marriage, female genital mutilation, and polygamy is somehow racist. I did not foresee the extent to which feminists who, philosophically, are universalists would paradoxically become isolationists. Such timidity (presumably in the service of opposing racism) is perhaps the greatest failing of the feminist establishment.

The bulk of the work appears to be biographical tributes to the Second Wave feminists she worked with, as well as a sorrowful retrospective on what has become of their common work. I suppose she must be intending to close off her own era indeed, given some of her comments. She will not now be welcome on many a campus.

The Army Loves Reflective Belts

T&P reports that the Army has finally realized that it isn't necessary for every soldier to wear one in the daytime. Now if only they could realize that it isn't necessary to wear one in a war zone. I suppose there were probably numbers to back up that being struck by a vehicle while inside the wire was a bigger threat than being shot by a sniper. Maybe.

What would we do without research

Actually, this research appears to have been pretty open-minded.  The researchers left wallets all over the world and tried to figure out what influences people to try to return them to their owners.  They found interesting trends in national location, level of average local education, and size of wad of cash (would you have guessed that the greater the cash, the greater the chance of return?).

I tried to do a thought experiment about finding a wallet.  My first impression is that I'd never dream of failing to try to find the owner.  When I try to imagine find a stash of money large enough to be seriously tempting, I also start imagining making myself a target for death from some cartel.  Finding big money always gets people in trouble in movies and books.

The perception gap

This study concludes that people on both the left and the right overestimate the extreme views of their opponents.  The effect is less marked for those who are not very engaged politically.  The upshot is that people on either side of the political divide probably have more views in common than they realize.

Joltin' Joe and the Segregationists

As AVI points out, there's no reason for anyone to defend him; he has no principles, really, he just stuck his foot in it. Furthermore, he wouldn't defend any of us in similar circumstances. Still and all, I'm going to say a few words about it, just in the interest of speaking the truth.

NRO's Kevin Williamson attempts a kind of dance here that is not completely warranted. Not that he's wrong, exactly.

Most of the segregationist Democrats of the FDR–LBJ era were committed New Dealers and, by most criteria, progressives. They largely supported welfare spending, public-works programs, the creation of the major entitlement programs, and, to a lesser extent, labor reform. They did work to ensure that African Americans were effectively excluded from many of the benefits of these programs, but they provided much of the political horsepower that carried forward the progressive project from the Great Depression on. This should not be terribly surprising: Many of the Democrats who were instrumental in the reforms of the Wilson years, the golden age of American progressivism, were virulent racists, prominent among them Woodrow Wilson himself. Given such figures as Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt, one might as easily write that progressives of both parties were racists.

It's definitely true that progressives of the early 20th century were committed racists. That's where eugenics came from -- from the very same people who believed in evolution from the apes when most of the country still did not. The very same willingness to question tradition in the light of science was at work in both projects. Because man could evolve from an ape through breeding, man could revert to an ape via the same process. Abortion and careful selection were about ensuring the continued improvement of the species, and barring 'the wrong kinds' from breeding as much as possible was about the very same thing. You didn't have to believe in race, or use it as a proxy for excellent genetics, but people at that time generally did believe in it. Until the depth of evil was revealed by the Nazi embrace of eugenics, this was just another way of being scientifically minded, forward thinking, progressive.

However, it's not just progressives who have to bear the weight of the segregationist history. The fact is the South had a lot of progressives who wanted to make progress on race, too. They wanted to do it a bit at a time, because if you moved too fast too far it could provoke dangerous disruptions. The history of lynching wasn't history quite yet, and they both wanted to do better by their black neighbors, and feared to go too fast. Pretty much every one of these figures was driven out of office after Brown v. the Board of Education.

The full-throated embrace of segregation was, then, reactionary rather than progressive. It was a reaction of exactly the kind the good-hearted moderates had warned about. For a generation or so, no one who wanted to be elected to office from the South could avoid being a segregationist. If you wanted a political career, you'd play along because it was what the majority strongly wanted.

Some people I generally think well of played along, and felt bad about it later. Zell Miller, for example, was a segregationist in his youth because he wanted to be a politician. He was a very successful politician, but by the time he had risen to the rank of governor, he began to try to fix his mistakes. Zell tried to remove the Confederate battle flag from Georgia's state flag, and it almost ended his career. (Later governors succeeded by trickery, rather than by getting a vote past the citizens; and actually, the current Georgia flag is almost identical to the first Confederate National Flag, which to my way of thinking is worse. At least the Confederate army had the virtues of brave soldiers; the Confederate government had no virtues I can see.) He did his best to heal the wounds he'd helped to cause, and I hope he managed to heal some of them.

I figure Zell is as close to a political progenitor as I have. He came out of the Jacksonian wing of the Southern Democrats, and while he believed in using government for progress (he created the Hope scholarship, which sent me to college), he was a conservative as much as anything. He gave the keynote speech at the 1992 Democratic National Convention, when Bill Clinton was supposed to be a new and more centrist kind of Democrat; he gave the keynote speech at the 2004 Republican National Convention, in which he personally burned John Kerry's presidential hopes to the ground as thoroughly as Sherman had burned the city where Zell later governed. He was an outstanding Senator, a good governor, and a fine lieutenant governor. I'm not much in favor of government or politicians as a rule, but he was as good a one as I ever knew.

And he was definitely at one time a segregationist.

Joe Biden may not really believe what he said (which, by the way, implied strict disagreement with segregationists). But it's exactly the kind of sentiment that made me feel better about Bernie Sanders. I can't think of two political positions that Bernie and I have in common, but his friendship with and respect for Jim Webb made me think he could be OK. The ability to look past even serious differences and find common ground is in fact praiseworthy. It's hard. There's no guarantee it will work, certainly not that it can work forever. But if we can show each other respect, sometimes we can develop friendships even when we disagree very deeply. And that's the only way a big, complex, diverse society like ours could possibly work.

If we really can't do that anymore, America is over. Joe Biden is right about this, even if he doesn't mean it. Bernie Sanders is right about it, by example. Those trying to make this kind of outreach unacceptable are plain wrong, and they're running us up on the rocks with their poison.

And that's the truth, as far as I can tell.

Seven Riders Dead in Massachusetts

The Jarheads MC took a heavy blow this weekend, because of a pickup truck that was on fire when emergency services arrived.

Volodoymyr Zhukovskyy, 23, of West Springfield, Massachusetts, was behind the wheel of a 2016 Dodge 2500 with an attached trailer, officials said at a press conference. Zhukovskyy is not currently facing any charges, but officials said the crash remains under investigation.

It's a tragedy for Jarheads MC, a Marine Corps veterans club. Ride safe, those of you who do. You just can't predict what the cagers will do.

UPDATE: A photo from a FB group I'm in, one of whose members went out to the scene.

Bully in the Alley

This festival in New Hampshire seems like it still exists. It's in September. Perhaps?

Going to the Wild

Following my own recommendation, I went out to the Wild on Friday through today. There's some significant landscape in this photo. The highest peak you can make out is Clingman's Dome, which is the tallest peak in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and one of the highest in the Eastern United States (Mount Mitchell, which you can see from atop it on a clear day, is slightly taller). The Appalachian Trail crosses there. If you're southbound, you'll climb three mountains that day to get to it, and then have a long decline to the closest shelter down by some springs below.

Back to the photo. If your eye should follow that ridge to the right, where the squiggly peaks are, the low point on the ridge is Newfound Gap. That's where the road between Gatlinburg and the Cherokee reservation passes. (Much of the valley you can see before the ridgeline is the Qualla Boundary Lands).

We'll pause for a musical interlude at the mention of Gatlinburg.



Far off to the left are the Unicoi mountains in Tennessee. The gap in the Clingman's Dome ridge headed that way is Deal's Gap, which is the location of the Tail of the Dragon, the most famous motorcycle road in the world.



I've ridden the Dragon quite a few times, but the hardest trip I ever had on it was in a Chevy whose power steering went out. I've seen guys ride right off the edge, though.

BB, Chickenhawk Edition

I'm not a big fan of the chickenhawk rhetorical move, but it's the Bee.

Aristotelian Warmup

While you're waiting for Tom's next post on the topic, here's something that turned up on Instapundit today. "Is human nature good or bad?" Since we talked about "the good" last week, the challenge (for those of you who wish to accept it) is to try to give an Aristotelian account of the answer. I think last week's discussion gave you enough mental furniture to do it.

I'll leave this for a few days and then come back and reply to any attempts. It's more important to think it through yourself than to have me tell you an answer.

"Pro-Choice" Socialism

Oliver Wendell Holmes smiles from beyond the grave.

A British judge ordered Friday that an abortion be performed on a mentally disabled woman who is 22 weeks pregnant, despite objections from the woman and her mother....

“I am acutely conscious of the fact that for the State to order a woman to have a termination where it appears that she doesn't want it is an immense intrusion,” the justice said. “I have to operate in [her] best interests, not on society's views of termination."

The unnamed woman, a Roman Catholic, reportedly has developmental disabilities and the mental age of a 6- to 9-year-old.... The woman’s mother, a former midwife, opposes the abortion procedure and told the court that she could take care of the child with the support from the daughter, Sky News reported.

A social worker who works with the woman also said the pregnancy should not be terminated.

But the judge said the woman didn’t have the mental capacity to make her own decisions even it look like she wanted to continue the pregnancy.

She doesn't have the mental capacity to make her own decisions about religion? The Church allows confirmation at seven, which is in the 'six to nine' age range, and the British government doesn't see fit to tell children they can't make that call yet. If she can make that decision for herself, then her opposition to abortion follows.

The British government is long due to be overthrown as a tyranny. This is just part of what an earlier set of over-throwers called "a long train of abuses." Lately, the worst abuses are all at home.

Dim bulbs

None of my bulbs are this smart.

Diminishing returns

Michigan's spending on roads increased even as road quality decreased.  I think we've seen this same trend in school spending.  Could there be a common thread?

Crime journalism

This report had to have been turned in by his partner, who's just jacking with him now.

Solstice

It's time to go to the Wild, as you are able. Pentecost is gone, and if you remembered you re-swore your oaths. So now it comes summer, and knights ride out for adventure in the forest. One thing comes and another, but only if you go out to meet them.

So go, as you are able.

The Black Watch

It's one of the universal tartans, these days: anyone can wear it. Once it was not so.

An Invitation from a Polish MP

A propos a Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D, NY) scurrilous remark and a post below, I offer this from a Polish Member of Parliament.

 It can be seen here, too, if that image isn't blow-up-able: https://twitter.com/D_Tarczynski/status/1141704905436160001/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1141704905436160001%7Ctwgr%5E393039363b636f6e74726f6c&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpjmedia.com%2Ftrending%2Fmember-of-polish-parliament-invites-ocasio-cortez-to-visit-real-concentration-camps%2F

Ocasio-Cortez won't trouble herself to visit the detention centers on our own border, though, so I doubt she'll do anything more than ridicule this invitation. If she has the grace to respond to it at all.

Eric Hines

Twenty

Today is my twentieth wedding anniversary. My mother and father were wed forty-nine years, so potentially this is not even the halfway mark; although one never knows what Fate has in store. My wife has been around for all the best parts of my life, but also all of the hardest parts. Life has plenty of those, but the good parts can be good indeed.

Our wedding album looks different to me now. At the time I remember being annoyed by all the pictures for which they made us pose, and later I used to find the book fun to look at to remember the pleasure of the day. This year I am suddenly struck by how many of the attendees are no longer with us. Dad is gone and my uncle; my wife's mother and father and sister; my sister is still alive, but the boyfriend she brought to the wedding is gone. If we were to reassemble the wedding party it would be rather hollow, although children in the photos -- and others who have come along since -- are now young adults.

My best man was an Evangelical Marine, and the other two groomsmen were a Quaker who converted to Judaism after he learned his family had changed their names to hide their Jewishness when they immigrated, and a Scottish-American who had converted to Islam to escape alcoholism (this was before 9/11, remember). It was a dry wedding, as rural Georgia on a Sunday was required to be.

Oddly enough my Best Man and my wife's Matron of Honor are the only two of the wedding party we don't still talk with at least occasionally. Somehow the ones who seemed closest at the time are the ones who fell off.

The Havamal says to praise the day at evening, a weapon when proved, ice when crossed, and ale when it has been drunk. By that standard I can only say that the first twenty years were worthy. For twenty years, in hard times and in good ones, it was well.

Hot woke-on-woke action

The irresistible force of women who have suffered for years from grinding injustice in sports programs meets the immoveable mountain of the right of people who are lots stronger and faster because they are men but have the right to identify as women you bigot.

Wow, doxxing actually can be prosecuted

Remember the young fellow who doxxed Lindsay Graham and others in fury over the Kavanaugh hearings?  To my amazement, he has been tried and sentenced to four years in prison.  A promising career in burglary and hacking has been cut short.

Gee, I don't know

Why Do Conservatives Hate Oberlin So Much?  You have to admire the chutzpah of Salon's publishing an article with this title that makes no attempt whatever to look at or think about the college's behavior leading to the recent award of $33MM in damages for defamation.

China Sets the Example

Not a good example, again, except as an example of commitment to a bad idea: if you're going to build concentration camps, why not go all the way?

The tribunal found that "the Commission of Crimes Against Humanity against the Falun Gong and Uyghurs has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt," with the "torture of Falun Gong and Uyghurs" in addition to "forced organ harvesting," but stopped short of concluding that genocide had taken place. The tribunal left that open for further investigation: "There can be no doubt that there is a duty on those who have the power to institute investigations for, and proceedings at, international courts or at the UN to test whether Genocide has been committed."

Ask the Uyghurs how many of them are free to leave if they decide to go home.

By the way, China doesn't call its camps "concentration camps." It calls them "Thought Transformation Camps."

Illinois Sets the Example

Not a good example, mind, but the example.

An Illinois state lawmaker, during a town hall over a proposed ban on semiautomatic weapons, responded to a gun owner's questions about the bill by threatening to change the bill to call for outright confiscation of previously legally-obtained firearms, according to a video posted by the Illinois State Rifle Association.

The discussion was about Senate Bill 107, which would ban future purchases of semiautomatic guns and require those who keep previously purchased semiautomatics to pay a fine and register the weapon.

A fine for what? Having obeyed existing law?

The legislator's snooty answer tells me that she thinks she's the reasonable one, and that the peons should be grateful that she's considering allowing them to keep their property under any terms at all.

Concentration Camps

There is some debate about whether what is going on at the border is properly described as "concentration camps." This will be an unedifying debate.

Brittanica defines them as such:

Concentration camp, internment centre for political prisoners and members of national or minority groups who are confined for reasons of state security, exploitation, or punishment, usually by executive decree or military order. Persons are placed in such camps often on the basis of identification with a particular ethnic or political group rather than as individuals and without benefit either of indictment or fair trial.

On that model, arguably FDR's Japanese internment camps were American concentration camps; but so, then, were the reservations onto which the Native Americans were forced. However, the current camps are not, because anyone who wants to leave can go whenever they want to go -- provided they go home, to their own country, rather than coming into ours.

I gather that no one is being confined, except by their own choice to remain and not leave. Nor is it because of 'identification with a particular ethnic or political group,' as people from all over are showing up right now: not just Latin America but African migrants are appearing in large numbers at the southern border. The only thing that's putting you in such a camp is being a foreigner with no legal right to enter America, insisting on entering anyway, and then insisting on remaining even after you are caught. The only reason there are camps at all is that so many people are insisting on that -- hundreds of thousands of people, probably more than a million this year alone.

We are going to need a better answer than we've got, but it isn't going to be "suspend the laws, admit everyone, and pay whatever it costs." It's impossible even to estimate what it would cost, but the people proposing we pay whatever it is are also proposing free college, universal health care, Green New Deals, maybe a universal basic income... the promises are endless, but our resources are not, especially given that our political system can't even pass an ordinary budget half the time. You want Medicare for All? First show me how you're going to pay for the Medicare we have.

What If No One Told You That You Were Free?

Today is "Juneteenth," a celebration I hadn't heard of until recently -- but it's apparently as old as 1865 in places.

Laura Smalley, who was freed from a plantation near Bellville, Texas, remembered in a 1941 interview that her former master had gone to fight in the Civil War and came home without telling his slaves what had happened.

“Old master didn’t tell, you know, they was free,” Smalley said . “I think now they say they worked them, six months after that. Six months. And turn them loose on the 19th of June. That’s why, you know, we celebrate that day.”

It was June 19, 1865 when Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger and his Union troops arrived at Galveston with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were now free.

I wonder what we might be free of, that we just haven't been told about yet? You don't have to do that anymore: maybe it's carrying a grudge against a family member, or drinking too much, or whatever else. You can stop. You are free. Just nobody told you.

Thought of that way, it's a universal story rather than a particular one. I'll bet we all have things like that.

Privateering We Will Go

Ranger Up has a new line of Ts celebrating the privateers that helped the US win its freedom from England.

Here's an appropriate tune, although from the other side.

Shocked, Shocked to Find That Gambling is Involved

A feud between tribe nations in the American southeast is going on right now. Senator Richard Burr writes:

Recently, a Native American tribe with deep historic ties to North Carolina announced its intent to purchase land across state lines for an “economic development” that could include a new casino. In order to put up a casino, the legislature would have to pass a measure allowing gambling on the site, but the legislation has already been introduced by the tribe’s political allies.

The tribe is the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, and the land in question is in Sevierville, Tennessee.

Yet here in North Carolina, the Cherokee are doing everything in their power to prevent the Catawba Tribe from acquiring land near Kings Mountain for “economic development” (also known as a casino). The episode is only the latest example of the Cherokee’s willingness to disenfranchise other tribes in order to protect their own lucrative gaming monopoly.

I really don't understand this casinos-on-reservations thing. Georgia has had several fights about this recently as well. There's no incentive to the state to permit it, since such casinos are exempt from both state and Federal taxes. Many Southerners object to gambling casinos in spite of the South's long tradition of poker-playing as, unlike poker, casinos are structurally unfair due to the house edge. Often Evangelicals regard gambling of any sort as morally corrupting, and ruinous to poor families.

The South has nevertheless in my lifetime increasingly endorsed state-run gambling, especially lotteries, because they produce revenue that can be used for purposes like education. I don't tend to object, given that all of this revenue is freely given rather than (like taxes) extorted at gunpoint. Still, if more casinos are something that would be good for Southern states to have, why not legalize casinos outright and then tax them? I can understand why the Catawba Tribe would want a tax-free casino, but why should the rest of the citizenry go along with it?

Aristotle's Ethics: The Good

A couple of weeks ago I posted about Hillsdale College's free online course on Aristotle's Ethics, taught by Larry P. Arnn. Since our host seems to know a bit about Aristotle (ahem), I thought I would bring discussion questions here. The focus of the course is appropriately the Nicomachean Ethics, but there are readings in other works as well.

I don't plan to just rehash the lessons. Instead, I will take thoughts and questions the lesson sparked in me, develop them a bit, and bring them here for discussion. I am going through one lesson each week. If time allows, I will then post one discussion topic here each week. I will also include a link to the lesson at Hillsdale’s website.

There is a key point in the first lesson that I think will bear on all of the lessons. In the third chapter of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle plainly states that we can't be equally precise in all things (e.g., physics vs. history vs. justice). He acknowledges that topics such as the beautiful, justice, and goodness involve great disagreement and depend on convention, and in fact can include inconsistencies, as some things considered good can result in harm. Therefore, "one ought to be content ... to point out the truth roughly and in outline," and in general when speaking and reasoning about things that are true for the most part, to reach conclusions that are also true for the most part. This seems quite reasonable to me.

One last point before we get started is that my goal in these 10 lessons is to understand Aristotle’s ideas. As such, I don’t plan to spend much time trying to pick them apart. I learn by trying to apply, so my discussion topics will focus more on trying to apply or extend Aristotle's ideas than on whether or not I agree with Aristotle. Once I feel like I have a reasonable understanding, I might then try to pick some of his ideas apart, but I want to understand first. You, on the other hand, should feel free to attack his ideas right away. That's your business.

I'll get to the first lesson, "The Good," under the fold.

Cruel luck, hard times

I always knew my maternal grandfather (born 1886) had a shockingly hard childhood after he and his elder sister were orphaned in Chicago in the early 1890s, both parents dying within a month of each other.  My sister, who has bitten by the genealogy bug, figured out a while back that they had a maternal grandfather in California, and she always wondered why the family didn't hear what had happened and somehow take them in.  Instead, my grandfather ended up being hired out to do farm labor for other families while he was still quite young.  His sister went to an orphanage.  I knew that my grandfather, whom I never met, was a singularly hardened man in adult life.  He died when I was still quite young, so estranged from my mother (who predeceased him by a few years) that he didn't attend her funeral.

My sister has dug up an 1891 article from an San Diego newspaper that explains a little:

Asa White [my maternal grandfather's maternal grandfather], a well-to-do rancher living near Otay [California], died suddenly about one o'clock yesterday morning at the residence of his friend, John B. Palmer, at 1157 State street.

Mr. White had written for his daughter [my grandfather's mother] and son-in-law in Chicago to come to California. They were preparing to do so, when his daughter was run over by an omnibus in that city, from the effects of which she died. The husband then intended to bring the two children and come on, but was taken ill and died within twenty days after his wife's death. There being no relatives in Chicago, friends put the two children, a girl of seven and a boy of five years [my grandfather], on the train, and they came through, safely arriving [in San Diego] at 8 o'clock Monday night. They were met at the train by their grandfather, Mr. White, and taken to the residence of Mr. Palmer, an old friend, where the three were to pass the night and get an early start in the morning for home, where the children would find a home in the loving arms of tender hearted grandma. During the night Mr. Palmer heard a strange sound emanating from the room occupied by Mr. White, and entering, found him speechless and gasping, and he breathed but twice after Mr. Palmer's entrance. Dr. Magee was summoned, but of course could do nothing. The body was removed to undertaking parlors, where the post mortem and inquest was held at 10 o'clock. The verdict was death from heart disease. Mrs. White was notified, and is grief stricken over the sudden death of her aged partner, Mr. White being almost 70 years of age. They have another daughter married to one of the cooks at the Commado hotel. The funeral will take place on Thursday.

Who knows what happened then? What became of "tender hearted grandma," widow of the aged well-to-do rancher?  She was a second wife, no blood relation to the orphaned children.  Somehow the children ended up back in Kansas without a dime, where distant relatives or friends made some effort to provide for them. I don't know whether that happened right away, but it can't have been much more than a few years later, because by the age of 12 or so my grandfather was already a hired farm hand in Kansas and my grandmother was in an orphanage. We've never found out what became of her.

Mother, father, distant would-be rescuing grandfather, all dead within a month.  What those children must have thought!  These events cast long shadows in my family.

A Song of Faraway Wars

The wars were getting bigger, three hundred years ago.



War has great days, when a man can change his station in an hour. We think of the 'gentling' Shakespeare mentions, but it was well true through the Spanish wars of reconquest in the Middle Ages. If you wanted to be a knight, and weren't born to it, you could still yet become one on the frontier. If you wanted to be free, or to marry the beloved other your families refused, you could do it on the frontier. You just had to be ready to fight. So too at periods in England's history, and in our own. You could make your own way, on the frontier.

More famously, recently, this title "Over the Hills and Faraway" belongs to a Led Zeppelin song.



It's not quite the same idea at all. And yet...

Natural Law and the State Department

Natural law has a strange place in the American system. The Declaration of Independence is framed in terms of natural law, but the American Constitution really is not: it's formally capable of endorsing any sort of governance for any sort of reason, provided the Article V processes are followed. America has become less and less attached to traditional natural law conceptions over its long life, outright hostile to them in some cases, and in any case its constitutional vision of liberty very much does not entail pursuing the virtue of citizens. Our constitutional liberties are about being left alone, not encouraged in virtue by the state.

This appointment is surprising, then: the US Department of State has elected to appoint a trained philosopher to pursue natural law ends in our foreign policy. The New Republic is critical, seeing in it nothing more than an attempt to oppose gay rights; but really, they should be much more worried than they are. Natural law theory sets up a structure of the good in human life that is far more completely opposed to the progressive vision than they imagine.

But conservatives ought to be careful, too. Changing the mission of the state from 'leaving you alone to find your own good' to 'encouraging you in virtue' is the sort of sea change that could -- if the vision of the good is captured by progressives, and swayed away from the natural law roots -- empower the state in many ways we should oppose.

I'll leave it to you to work through the arguments. The discussion is open, as always.

Mark Knopfler in Italy

Statistical Lies

Drudge has two great stories today that turn on the same deceptive use of statistics.

Annual Global Index Rates U.S. 128th Most Peaceful Nation on Earth

Of nine global regions, Europe emerged as the most peaceful, followed by North America and the Asia-Pacific region. The Middle East and Africa rated as the two least peaceful regions.

And there is a growing trouble spot much closer to home for Americans.

“Central America and the Caribbean had the largest deterioration, especially in safety and security due to widespread crime and political instability,” the research said.

It's More Dangerous to Live in America than Travel Abroad

After traffic accidents, the second-most-common cause of death was homicides. But to put the 132 Americans who died this way in 2018 into perspective, Chicago alone had 561 homicides that year.

So the truth is that the United States has a near-zero homicide rate, if you except certain neighborhoods in certain cities. However, if you read the whole nation as a unit, it looks like the USA has homicide rates very similar to Central America -- which is exactly what you'd expect, since the instability in those countries is pouring over our border and into our cities.

Is it safer to travel abroad than to stay at home if you live in the 54% of American counties with zero murders a year? That changes the picture a bit, doesn't it?

Is the United States the 128th most dangerous country if you live in that majority of counties (which make up the VAST majority of land area)? No, it's one of the safest nations on earth, exactly in line with the nicest places you could find.

So how scared should you be about being murdered? Well, it depends; but if you're worried, you should really be worried chiefly about immigration. Otherwise, it's the easiest thing in the world to move out of the 2% of counties that cause 51% of the problem.

Unreliable Professionals

I'm a regular user of VPN (Virtual Private Network) software, even on my home connection. One of the things I like about it is that occasionally I learn new things. For example, logging into the news tonight, I found out that I must be connected via Ireland because I saw a bunch of stories I'd never have otherwise seen.

Ireland just voted in abortion recently, as you may recall, scandalized by a case in which a mother died of sepsis. They didn't vote in unrestricted abortion, however: they were reacting to the particular case and were trying to prevent future similar cases. So abortion can occur for medical reasons, not for any reason.

Now they've got their first full-blown scandal, as a doctor signed off on an unjustified termination. The family is outraged, as autopsy tests on the aborted child show it did not have the alleged medical condition.

Tóbín also stated that the family were shocked “by allegations that the medical professionals signing off on the abortions have a commercial interest in the companies that produced the fatally insufficient test”.

“This week, the bereaved family were shocked to hear that the State Claims Agency will indemnify the private company that carried out the fatally insufficient tests,” he said.

“They are furious with the Taoiseach for stating in the Dáil that this is a confidential issue.

"They believe he is seeking to sweep this illegal abortion under the carpet. Will the Government change the law, institute guidelines and carry out a fully independent investigation?"

The unreliability of medical professionals is a real problem. Our own opiate scandal turns on government funding for expensive drugs that end up being sold on the black market, after they are prescribed to people who make their living collecting prescriptions. Doctors are trusted not to be part of this, but they are. And thus the government ends up paying for a massive public health crisis twice: once to cause it, and again to try and fix it.

Pro-Life Views Unconstitutional

Kirsten Gillibrand thinks it's OK for Americans to hold such views, so long as they are never allowed to serve as judges. (She also thinks that 'Separation of Church and State' is a Constitutional requirement, which is a widely held but inaccurate view.)

UPDATE: Or maybe it's porn. I can remember when liberals were pro-porn, but apparently that's changed.

"Fully Automated Luxury Communism"

I assumed this was a satire piece playing off AOC's call for a right to luxury apartments, until I saw it was published in the NYT. Of course then it is not; at least, not intentionally.

So we have to go beyond capitalism. Many will find this suggestion unwholesome. To them, the claim that capitalism will or should end is like saying a triangle doesn’t have three sides or that the law of gravity no longer applies while an apple falls from a tree. But for a better world, where everyone has the means to a good life on a habitable planet, it is an imperative.

So, for a better world, the law of gravity mustn't apply and triangles will have other than three sides? Was that what you meant to write down?

Tribes

The in-group/out-group orientation varies strongly among American ethnicities and political groups.  Skim down this brief article to find interesting charts.  The wokeness of white liberals resembles that of strong conservatives only in an intense response to the sight of someone being taken advantage of because of his ethnicity.  "Very strong" white conservatives light up on this score, but are as indifferent as white moderates or mild conservatives to the routine conscious empathy exercises often characterized as woke privilege-checking.  They ignore that sort of thing unless they see active injustice, which registers weakly with moderates but stirs up strong conservatives and (even more) liberals.

White liberals are the only group who consciously identify more strongly with their out-groups than their in-groups.  Otherwise the differences in in-group preference among other races and non-liberal whites are minor.

There are no charts here attempting to distinguish among political groups within any ethnicities but white.

Rules Against the Spirit of the Age

Quillette has an article today about a quest begun in 1977 by an underground academic journal to fight against misuses of the language.

The Underground Grammarian is an unauthorised journal devoted to the protection of the Mother Tongue at Glassboro State College. Our language can be written and even spoken correctly, even beautifully. We do not demand beauty, but bad English cannot be excused or tolerated in a college. The Underground Grammarian will expose and even ridicule examples of jargon, faulty syntax, redundancy, needless neologism, and any other kind of outrage against English.

Clear language engenders clear thought, and clear thought is the most important benefit of education. We are neither peddlers nor politicians that we should prosper by that use of language which carries the least meaning. We cannot honorably accept the wages, confidence, or licensure of the citizens who employ us as we darken counsel by words without understanding.

The effect of these corrections was, the article claims, to teach attentive readers to distinguish 'between reason and rubbish.'

It reminds me of the long-defunct Texas Mercury, from which I adopted Grim's Hall's house rules for debate.

As we see it, modern society has all the important ideas of life exactly backwards: we are completely against the belief in sensitivity and tolerance in politics and raffish disregard in private life. The Texas Mercury is founded on the opposite principles- our idea is of tolerance and polite sensitivity in private life and ruthless truth in politics. Be nice to your neighbor. Be hell to his ideas.

I later added a persistent identity requirement, i.e., not that you had to use your real name, but that you had to pick a name and stick to it. Arguments against anonymity are mostly addressed by persisting identities, which end up carrying honor and being subject to shame in a sufficient way to cut down on the bad behavior associated with true anonymity. In return, the ability to use a persisting pseudonym enables the freedom of debate that our "cancel culture" seems designed to destroy -- and that culture was already sufficiently in sight in 2003, when I started this blog, that I chose to do it pseudononymously.

These old ideas have been underground for a long time. Be clear in your thinking, precise in your language; be polite to people, but ruthless to ideas. It's no wonder such things are suppressed. All of those concepts are deadly dangerous to powers that be who oughtn't to be so powerful as they are.

Tennessee Ernie Ford Sings Civil War Songs

YouTube recommended one of these after "The Lincolnshire Poacher," and so I started listening to the two albums of Civil War songs, one North, one South, that Tennessee Ernie Ford recorded. Here's one from each.

King Donald I

According to the world's most reliable news source, the Babylon Bee, England has been forced to crown Donald Trump king after a strange woman lying in a pond lobbed a sword at him.

The pic is worth the click.

BB: YouTube Radicalizing People into Conversations

Rubin is just one example of the right-wing extremism that is sucking rabbits and children into the clandestine tornado vortex of YouTube mind control. While he claims to be politically liberal on many issues, he regularly has right-wing guests on his show and doesn't even murder them on the spot. "Rubin films his show in his garage," said Guy Ouifaund who used to work in the covert mind-wiping division at Google and YouTube. "There is no better place to do something sensible, like surprise attack a right-winger with a chainsaw and clean up all the evidence. Instead, he has civil conversations with these people, treating them like human beings."

Honestly, I don't know how people find the time to watch these things, but I can't imagine they're destroying the world.

American Legion, China Post 1

A new book, on the occasion of the 100th Anniversary of the founding of the Post, tells especially the story of their World War II heroics.

During the early years and prior to the invasion and subsequent occupation by Japan in 1938, the Post conducted operation much like any other Post within the American Legion.

Following the Japanese occupation the membership shifted focus and much of their work consisted of clandestine operations, intelligence gathering and reporting through their established business connections. In effect operating a Shanghai underground.

On December 8, 1941 following Pearl Harbor, all U.S. expats were gathered up and incarcerated in "civilian detention facilities" like Pootung Prison. During that long incarceration, Post members continued their intel gathering and reporting through a vast network of established civilian contacts.

They went on to be the home Post for members of the Flying Tigers. It's an interesting story some of you might not know.

CONFIRMED: David Bellavia to Receive Congressional Medal of Honor

Here's an interview with our old friend, whom you may remember from the BLACKFIVE days. It's not been officially announced, but I know for a fact that it's been in the works for some time. Once the official announcement is made, I'll be eager to congratulate our friend.

UPDATE: The White House's official announcement came out this morning. Congratulations to David Bellavia, a man the old BLACKFIVE crew is proud to know.

Tolerance

Why Not? Two and a Half Hours of Rebel Songs

Johston's Motor Car

He didn't quite get it back per order, but the damn thing's been found. It'll go back now, I suppose, only a little bit late.

The Nightingale song, if you know the whole thing, is the same bit as the Gentleman Soldier song from last week. Folk songs and all that.

Outlaw Country, Medieval Edition, Re-imagined

This was one of the great films. It's a shame it didn't take off. It's all about liberty by law, the American way, as prefigured in the Medieval.



It was anti-Prohibition, too, as any decent liberty should entail.

Outlaw Country, Medieval Edition

It's a tune still used by British intelligence on their 'numbers stations' out North Korea way.



It's the right season for it. But don't come out poaching my way; not of the bears, at least. If I catch you with a deer, that's one thing and I might share it with you, but if you kill a bear on my land you'd best not let me find you. All bears are under my special protection.

Introduction to Aristotle's Ethics at Hillsdale College

Hillsdale College is offering a free course on Aristotle's Ethics, "Introduction to Aristotle's Ethics: How to Lead a Good Life," taught by college president Larry P. Arnn. Here are the topics:

1. The Good
2. Aristotle's Politics and the Nature of Man
3. Happiness
4. Character
5. Deliberation and Choice
6. Courage
7. Justice
8. Practical Judgment 
9. Friendship
10. Contemplation and Action

The course is open to start whenever you want. There is a forum if you want to post back and forth with others taking the course.

There is a short reading from Aristotle, 2-4 pages or so, for each lecture, and the video lectures take about 30 minutes or so. It seems designed to take about an hour or so per topic.

I'm slowly working my way through it, and it's interesting so far. I would recommend it if, like me, you haven't had much time for studying Aristotle but wish you had.

Towards Noble Speech

It is a form of rhetoric American politics has abandoned, argues Titus Techera, in part because it seems undemocratic: "they exalt some men, usually fallen soldiers, above the rest of us — and, too, because they allow politicians to assume high authority, greater than the merely political, to speak to the nation about the nation as a whole."

Yet it is not necessarily anti-democratic to recognize that some men are better than others. The democratic aspect is reinforced when we realize that those better men are just as often found among the ordinary man of the countryside as among the rich, those thought well-born, or those thought well-educated. Indeed, in today's speech, President Trump does us the democratic service of being an elite-born, elite-educated, rich member of the politically empowered who is manifestly not the equals of the men his task is to praise. He may be a better President than he is often given credit for being, but he is nevertheless not the equal of the Boys of Point du Hoc.*

It is no insult to say so. Reagan didn't claim to be. Few men alive should dare, and of those who might, I can't think of any who would.

Noble speech is a form of honor, and honor is not improper for democracies. It is as essential to the success of our form of self-government as it is for any nobility, or for any form of human organization at all. The quality of democracy is that it sometimes finds honor where the well-born might not expect it. Democracy bestows honor on such heroes all the more capably when it puts their honors in mouths of duly elected, lesser men.


*(The NRO editors give "Point du Hoc" correctly the first time, but then several times as "Point de Hoc," which is another illustration that the elite are not always better than the ordinary man. We all make mistakes like this.)

D-Day at 75

Charles Schultz was a veteran of the Second World War, having served in the 20th Armored Division (there is now only one, with armor units being usually organized at smaller scales and integrated with combined arms). Here is what he wanted children to know about D-Day.

There are numerous inspiring stories, including that of Bill Millen and the bagpipes. Via Instapundit, which has many relevant posts today, here's a very good post from a surprising outlet. Just a short part of the whole:

Taylor leads his section crawling across the beach and over the sea wall, losing four men killed and two wounded (machine-gun fire) in this brief movement. Some yards off to his right, Taylor has seen Lieutenants Harold Donaldson and Emil Winkler shot dead. But there is no halt for reflection; Taylor leads the section by trail straight up the bluff and into Vierville, where his luck continues. In a two-hour fight he whips a German platoon without losing a man.

The village is quiet when Pearce joins him. Pearce says: "Williams is shot up back there and can't move."

Says Taylor: "I guess that makes me company commander."

Answers Pearce: "This is probably all of Baker Company." Pearce takes a head count; they number twenty-eight, including Taylor.

Says Taylor: "That ought to be enough. Follow me!"

Inland from Vierville about five hundred yards lies the Château de Vaumicel, imposing in its rock-walled massiveness, its hedgerow-bordered fields all entrenched and interconnected with artilleryproof tunnels. To every man but Taylor the target looks prohibitive. Still, they follow him. Fire stops them one hundred yards short of the château. The Germans are behind a hedgerow at mid-distance. Still feeling their way, Taylor's men flatten, open fire with rifles, and toss a few grenades, though the distance seems too great. By sheer chance, one grenade glances off the helmet of a German squatting in a foxhole. He jumps up, shouting: "Kamerad! Kamerad!" Thereupon twenty-four of the enemy walk from behind the hedgerow with their hands in the air. Taylor pares off one of his riflemen to march the prisoners back to the beach. The brief fight costs him three wounded. Within the château, he takes two more prisoners, a German doctor and his first-aid man. Taylor puts them on a "kind of a parole," leaving his three wounded in their keeping while moving his platoon to the first crossroads beyond the château.

Here he is stopped by the sudden arrival of three truckloads of German infantry, who deploy into the fields on both flanks of his position and start an envelopment. The manpower odds, about three to one against him, are too heavy. In the first trade of fire, lasting not more than two minutes, a rifleman lying beside Taylor is killed, three others are wounded, and the B.A.R. is shot from Pearce's hands. That leaves but twenty men and no automatic weapons.

Taylor yells: "Back to the château!" They go out, crawling as far as the first hedgerow; then they rise and trot along, supporting their wounded. Taylor is the last man out, having stayed behind to cover the withdrawal with his carbine until the hedgerows interdict fire against the others. So far, this small group has had no contact with any other part of the expedition, and for all its members know, the invasion may have failed.

They make it to the château. The enemy comes on and moves in close. The attacking fire builds up. But the stone walls are fire-slotted, and through the midday and early afternoon these ports well serve the American riflemen. The question is whether the ammunition will outlast the Germans. It is answered at sundown, just as the supply runs out, by the arrival of fifteen Rangers who join their fire with Taylor's, and the Germans fade back.

Already Taylor and his force are farther south than any element of the right flank in the Omaha expedition. But Taylor isn't satisfied. The battalion objective, as specified for the close of D Day, is still more than one half mile to the westward.

Back in the "another grim milestone" days of the Iraq war, the press appeared to delight in reporting that the American death toll had climbed by five hundred that year, or a thousand. On D-Day, nearly as many Allied forces died as would die in the whole of our war. Perhaps they had a better cause; or perhaps it was the same cause, as some of us believed. In any case they are due the greatest honor for the weight they bore in defense of the cause of human liberty.

Can't We Just Dispense with Knowledge?

Professor of philosophy at King's College London and CUNY David Papineau says we should just get over the idea of knowledge already. The article is interesting, and I will just briefly give the gist of it in case you'd like to read it.

He claims:

I’m against knowledge. Don’t get me wrong: I’m as keen on the facts as the next person. I’m no friend of fake news. I want truth rather than falsity. It is specifically knowledge I’m against, not true belief. Knowledge asks more of us than true belief, and it isn’t worth it. In reality, the concept of knowledge is a hangover from a stone-age way of thinking that has long outlived its usefulness. We’d be far better off without it. 

In Praise of Killing

...a key lesson of D-Day's 75th anniversary should also be the day's moral import in our consideration of war. After all, D-Day proves that killing people is sometimes not simply necessary, but also inherently moral.

Strange, I Always Found the Game Empowering

Researchers allegedly prove that dodgeball teaches unethical oppression.

The Silver Age of Facial Hair

Following Hesiod's concept that the silver age follows rather than precedes the golden age, our Golden Age may well have been the 19th century; but there's a Silver Age upon us now. In fact it has a lot to do with the Silver Screen, argues this piece in the New Republic.

You could consume more than half a century of American popular culture, from World War II to Korea to Vietnam to September 11, without encountering many bearded manly heroes; facial hair was generally reserved for wild enemies foreign and domestic, swarthy terrorists and libertine hippies. Even American westerns posited a surprising number of neatly trimmed frontier protagonists, reserving scruff for their foes. Italian-produced spaghetti westerns, which introduced Clint Eastwood’s perpetually unshaven man with no name, seem the exception that proves the rule, deploying beards as to emphasize that their protagonists are deeply flawed antiheroes, operating outside mainstream norms....

[W]hy is ours such a hairy century? What began this trend, and what fuels it? There is an easy answer, though it leads to harder questions: We can thank the Global War on Terror—or the Long War, the Bellum Americanum, whatever you choose to call it—and the reluctance of military leaders to impose discipline on the most professional of the units that participated in GWOT, special operations forces. Generals preferred to allow those units to operate based on “big boy rules”—a devolution of authority empowering them to operate like Apocalypse Now’s mad Col. Kurtz, “without any decent restraint, totally beyond the pale of any acceptable human conduct.” The evidence of this is the proliferation of beards in the military, which now extends to civilian society. We worship the post-9/11 military operator. We are a nation drunk on “tacticool” culture.

I'll grant that there may be a connection between the popularity of beards and the cultural moment being enjoyed by operators in story and film. I reject just about everything else the article has to say, though, starting with its conception of 'big boy rules.'

Big boy rules is a real thing, but it doesn't mean that you're unrestrained. It's a simple concept: "Do what you think is right, being prepared to shoulder the consequences of your decision." If, like the authors, you wanted a tie to right wing American politics, you could point at the post-military career of LTC Allen West (who was and is clean shaven). He committed a war crime by staging a fake execution in order to intimidate a man into revealing details about the ambush that threatened to kill several of West's men. He then at once turned himself in, confessed himself, and took the consequences. His subsequent career is based not on respect for him being unburdened by morality, but by his moral decision to take the responsibility for bringing his men home alive even though it meant his career -- that, coupled with his complete refusal to try to dodge the responsibility for what he had done.

It is true that the American right saw the value in that, while the Left mostly saw the war crime; but the point is that it was metaphysically West's decision to make, he made it, and he owned the consequences. The law might argue that West had no right to make the decision; command and control might argue that it wasn't his to make. But ultimately, metaphysically, it was only he who was there in the position to decide.

A cinematic version of this occurs in the movie Flyboys, based on WWI-era Americans fighting in a volunteer flying squadron in France. Complaining about the murder of one of their own by a German ace, the men are told by their commanding French officer: "You want justice? You're the man with the gun." There may not be any justice forthcoming for what was done, but if there is, it's going to be on them to make it. Nobody else is going to step up and make things right. You have to decide what that's worth to you, and accept the consequences of whatever decision you make.

It is not that the man is unquestionable, nor that he is merciless. He submits to judgment after the fact; and perhaps his mercy was exercised on the wives and children of his men, rather than on the ones plotting to kill his people. The point is only that he had to make a decision, and he didn't hide from it, not in the moment and not after.

If you understand that, the rest of their essay unravels. Too, perhaps, you can come to see why this thing they are criticizing might prove to have some value after all.