It reminds me of what the cyberpunk novels called 'skillsofts,' except you don't have to jack anything into your head; the thing is wholly external. I love the idea of being able to play a guitar, which I've never managed to learn even slightly in spite of several attempts; but now I could just put these on and play like Waylon Jennings, or the bass like Lemmy, or whomever else I wanted.
Killing the Petroyuan
“Yuan” isn’t actually the name of the Chinese currency; it is called the Renminbi (人民币), or “People’s Currency.” “Yuan” is what is called a ’counting word’ in Chinese: things that can come in various quantities have different words to specify what unit is under discussion instead of “give me a beer,” you must ask for a glass of beer or a bottle of beer “Yuan” is a quantity of Renminbi; but it’s so commonly used that yuan functions as if it were the name of the money.
Anyway, the Treasury Secretary has a plan.
A swap line is not a loan and it is not a bailout. It is a contractually-bounded currency exchange in which a foreign central bank delivers a deposit of its own currency to Treasury or the Federal Reserve and receives an equivalent dollar deposit, with both parties committing to reverse the trade at a specified future date and at the same exchange rate. The foreign central bank pays interest on the dollar borrowing. The US holds the foreign currency as collateral for the duration. Counterparty risk sits at the central-bank level, not the commercial-bank level.
The structure is so conservative that the Federal Reserve's swap operations, including peak utilization of roughly $585 billion during the 2008 crisis and $450 billion during the 2020 crisis, have generated no documented losses to US taxpayers across the major episodes examined in the academic finance literature. As Bessent told Congress in defending the Argentina arrangement, "in most bailouts you don't make money. The US government made money." What Bessent is now doing is taking that demonstrated playbook and scaling it into the central instrument of 21st-century American economic statecraft. The strategic logic, which Bessent has stated plainly, runs as follows. Additional swap lines, in his words, "can benefit our nation by reinforcing dollar usage and liquidity internationally, maintaining smooth functioning in dollar funding markets, promoting trade and investment with the United States, and, in hypothetical stress scenarios, preventing disorderly sales of US assets." He went further and named the actual game: "Dollar dominance and reserve currency status are strengthened by constant long-term initiatives, including countering the growth of problematic, alternative payment systems." Translation for those who do not speak Treasury, this is about killing the petroyuan in its cradle.
A Pirate Philosopher
In the comments to a post at AVI's that began with an interesting character, I noted that pirates were pretty common among the English gentry of the era: "The English Civil War and its echoes also turned many adventurers into outlaws on Britain's wide frontier."
That turns out to be exactly what happened in this case. A Roman Catholic who converted to Anglicanism for political reasons under Charles I, he returned to Catholicism during his grief over the death of his wife. A successful privateer defending England's interests before the Civil War, he ended up in exile during the war; fought and won a duel against a French nobleman; became an emissary to the Pope for Oliver Cromwell; and after the Restoration, a popular figure at Charles II's court. He also developed a better wine-bottle than had existed before his time, stronger and tinted to protect the wine from the effects of sunlight.
One of his most famous philosophical/medical attempts was the powder of sympathy. As noted in the post I wrote about "Empathy vs. Sympathy," this was the original use of the term sympathy in English: sympathetic magic, we would call it today.
Up the Militia
Megan McArdle proposes what she clearly intends as 'a modest proposal' on firearms; but she's quite right.
Maybe we’re looking at the problem wrong. Maybe instead of putting so much energy into efforts to keep people from buying guns, we should be trying to change which guns the buy. Instead of trying to make gun purchases more onerous, we should try something more radical: help people buy long guns instead of handguns.No, I haven’t gone crazy. I’ve just been reading a provocative new paper from economists Bradley Shapiro, Sara Drango and Sarah Moshary.They start from a few simple and correct premises. First, handguns are associated with more harm than long guns — they are involved in 90 percent of firearm violence and a huge number of suicides. People own significantly more handguns because they are just easier to carry around and easier to conceal.Second, most people who buy guns say they want them for personal or household safety. That’s a use for long guns as well. Displacing handgun purchases with purchases of less convenient long guns could reduce the likelihood of tragedy when the owner becomes angry or despondent.So, what if the government gave first-time gun buyers a subsidy to choose a long gun instead?
The numbers on handguns vs. long-guns are well known to readers of the Hall. America is a safe country, a fact that is obscured by a few neighborhoods in a few cities in a few counties creating a vast bias in our statistics. The media likes to report on 'assault weapon' mass shootings, but those are a tiny percentage of the gun violence problem: long guns of all kinds, 'assault' or otherwise, account for a couple percent of the murders. If we then are only interested in mass shootings we reduce that percentage to statistical noise; they just get a lot of coverage in the press because the stories are exciting and drive clicks and viewers. In fact, almost no American guns as a percentage are ever involved in violent crime: once you appreciate that we have more guns than people, the math becomes overwhelming.
That said, the money to be made in reducing gun homicides is clearly with illegally-possessed handguns: not new laws, since these things are already illegal (e.g. stolen) or illegally possessed (e.g. by felons), and readily done by increased policing in those few neighborhoods in those few cities in those few counties. Nobody ever raises that solution because it doesn't address the real issue that the politicians want to address, which is greater government control over the citizenry -- not the criminal class, but the law-abiding ones.
It would be perfectly Constitutional, however, for the government to require that all non-felon adult citizens arm themselves with a rifle suitable for militia service. Article I, Section 8, Clause 16 gives Congress the authority to "arm" the militia, which would embrace the idea of subsidies for suitable firearms. The AR-15 is the obvious choice: it's the one that operates most similarly to and shares many parts with our service rifles, and shares ammunition with what we have in large military stocks.
McArdle is only floating this as an idea to broaden the discussion, not as a serious proposal. Still, it has some points in its favor.
Mossadegh
A new report argues that our popular understanding of Iran’s mid-20th century history is almost completely wrong.
Chamber of Commerce
A curious decision by the local Jackson County Chamber of Commerce as to what they wanted to highlight about their community, but who am I to judge? They seemed enthusiastic.
Requiescat in Pace, David Allan Coe
Reliable sources are reporting the death of Outlaw Country legend David Allan Coe.
He was one of the last of the greats, and a true Outlaw; he was a full patch member of the Outlaws MC.
Next Up
With the Supreme Court's solid ruling in Louisiana v Calais et al., next up, I say, is partisan gerrymandering, gerrymandering by political party. That gerrymandering, decades of court rulings notwithstanding, is just as unconstitutional as racial gerrymandering. While Alito centered the Calais ruling on the 15th Amendment, both forms of gerrymandering--all such forms, come to that--treat one group of American citizen voters entirely differently from and at the direct expense of all other groups of American voters in direct violation of the 14th Amendment.
As a man almost said not so long ago, "There's not a liberal American voter and a conservative American voter. There's the United States of America voter. There's not a black American voter and white American voter and Latino American voter and Asian American voter; there's the United States of America voter."
Full stop.
Eric Hines
Three Strikes
Coffee and Covid notes a disturbing pattern in these assassination attempts. (H/t D29).
Taken together, the three attempts highlight a paradox: the protective apparatus keeps evolving— and so do the shooters’ tactics. It’s almost like each successive shooter knows how the Secret Service’s protocols have changed.
In the most recent two, the attacker was successfully neutralized before Trump was physically harmed, and in the latest, the suspect never made it to the final stairway. Yet, in spite of increasingly paranoid and enhanced security, each incident exposed a brand‑new seam — an unguarded rooftop, a gap in a golf‑course fence, a “layered security” perimeter that still allowed an armed man to sprint the last 50 yards....
If this were just three different shooters exploiting three different weak spots, that would be bad enough. But when you look more closely at the details, the pattern gets even harder to wave away as “bad luck.”...
Combine those three stories, and our N=3 dataset starts to look a lot less like three independent miracles of bad fortune and a lot more like a system that keeps failing in eerily specific ways.
One rooftop that was covered and then mysteriously uncovered. One would‑be sniper who spends hours inside the outer perimeter without any sweep pushing him out. One gunman who manages to pick the exact right moment when a half‑dozen security professionals aren’t physically in his way at a choke point designed precisely so that someone should always be in the way.
We can dismiss those questions as coincidence —as lottery-level luck— for three separate, consecutive “lone wolves.” If so, well, the crack where “incredible luck” lives is getting microscopically skinny.
By coincidence, this points to an unrelated sports article that AVI just posted with his own commentary about how people are bad at estimating the odds of three or more successive events.
This is an example of people not understanding that successive reasonable probabilities quickly become unreasonable. A 7-in-10 chance is good, but if it is combined with a second 7-in-10 chance it drops to 50-50 (0.7 x 0.7 = 0.49), and a third one brings you down to about a 1-in-3 chance. (0.343)
That's true: even with good odds, getting three in a row is hard. How about with allegedly terrible odds?
Inside help looks like the most probable theory. That's not an accusation, just an observation about the math.
Looking for Bridges
In a comment to a post below, Tom was asking if anyone is still looking for common ground. The President of Dartmouth is.
When an encampment went up in May 2024, Beilock had protestors arrested within two hours. Under her leadership, admissions has prioritized students who can act as "bridges between people" and students with "underrepresented" viewpoints—the admissions director used as an example someone who led his high school's Young Republicans club and was dialogue-focused. Her Dartmouth Dialogues project has spent hundreds of thousands bringing in speakers from both sides.
Above all, Beilock believes schools should be "in service of truth," not "ideology," and cannot allow disruptions to free speech
One suspects that is a controversial position, especially in the Ivy League. An honorable one, though.
Another Piece on "Equality"
Now since all of you suffered through the long commentary on the EN last summer, which is available on the sidebar if you wish to revisit it (especially EN 5, for this matter), you can readily engage with this bit from American Thinker.
The equality of man is found at the forefront of our Declaration of Independence and is considered an uncontested virtue of free society. However, disagreement over its implementation has raised the following questions: What exactly is equality in a state? Which things should be equal? Which should be unequal? What are the consequences? A nation’s concord depends on the answers — and yet today, these questions are rarely examined.Historically, this was not the case. In Aristotle’s exploration in Politics, equality is governed by justice — the principle that each is given his due. But exactly what is “due” depends on the object being distributed. To account for this, Aristotle distinguished two types of equality: numerical, or equality of distribution, and value, or equality of proportion. The first is characterized by each receiving the exact same, the second by each receiving an amount proportional to his contribution, ability, or merit.A just society requires a combination of both, each to its appropriate object. Any misplacement of a form of equality to a domain where it doesn’t belong is an error that, if absolutized, manifests in two extremes. The first assumes that if all are equal in one aspect, they ought to be equal in all aspects — e.g., if two people are equal in citizenship, then they should also have equal amounts of material goods or wealth. The second supposes that if some are unequal in one aspect, they should be unequal in all aspects — e.g., different laws for different classes or levels of wealth.The question, then, is which aspects of society should be governed by which types. Citizens should have numerical equality in that which is innate and belongs to man by nature itself: rights endowed by the creator, equal protection under the law, respect, and dignity. A just state gives these things equally to everyone; they don’t require another’s physical production and are intrinsically owed by the laws of nature. Proportional equality, however, should be owed to objects that belong to man by action and do require external production by other humans: wealth, services, and material goods.
There must be some advantages to philosophy, after all. Not serious ones, since it is worth doing for its own sake: as Aristotle says in the beginning of De Anima, the best kind of mind wants to know the truth about the highest things. The very highest things are useless, since to be 'useful' is to be useful for something else; and that something else must be higher in some sense than the first thing. Yet there are advantages to knowing, all the same.
Manfesto: "Message: I Care"
Usually a manifesto contains some sort of model for improvement that justifies revolutionary violence. This one does not. I infer from this that his revolutionary Leftism is an essentially conservative movement: it is trying to roll back the changes of the Trump administration, to restore the order of perhaps the Obama era. The shooter in this case was, after all, a credentialed California educator: he doesn't want to change anything, he just wants to stop the changes.
He expresses this, however, in terms of how much he cares, a statement that follows a large number of apologies to express how much he cares about the people he is affecting. Then his 'manifesto':
On to why I did any of this:I am a citizen of the United States of America.What my representatives do reflects on me.And I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.(Well, to be completely honest, I was no longer willing a long time ago, but this is the first real opportunity I’ve had to do something about it.)
I am also a citizen of the United States of America. I don't think I agree, however, that what my "representatives" do reflects on me at all. I don't feel the least bit responsible for them, and I don't think that I ought to do. For one thing, I don't think the system is in any way representative: my Senators work for the major corporations of North Carolina, not for me, as they prove every day (at least every day that they bother to work) by their conduct. Even my Congressman -- indeed my last few Congressmen -- have made no attempt to suggest that they care what I think or if I vote for them. Why should they? They're gerrymandered into perfect security.
The Presidential races are at least competitive, but my input into that system is so minimal that I don't see how I can be morally responsible for the selection; and once selected, especially this President has made clear that he is not interested in further input from me or you or anyone for four years.
I used to believe that citizens' thoughts were important to the system, and that we could influence the system through argument or letter-writing or petitions or demonstrations. I used, therefore, to argue passionately to try to persuade fellow citizens about what I thought were the best available policies. I no longer believe any of that; I think the political elections are a kind of dramatic show that is only intended to produce the illusion of choice and therefore to manufacture consent to what the permanent, unelected bureaucracy that actually is the government was going to do regardless of who was elected.
Those people aren't my representatives even in theory. They work for the state, and are self-selecting. I have neither influence nor input into their decisions; occasionally there is a public comment period for certain proposals, but they're going to do what they want regardless of how clever your arguments to the contrary may be.
In any case, I feel that my duty to object to the government is mostly satisfied by stating the objection, which I usually do here. No one who reads the Hall probably thinks that I am in approval of the government of the United States in general, or the particular 'representatives' in especial.
I generally think that political violence is fundamental to the American project, which began in revolution because people who likewise felt strongly about it decided to take up arms. I don't especially object to him trying, since he feels that way too; he's taken up what we used to call The Wager of Battle and lost. Having freely chosen it, he now has to pay up. In the old days we'd have hanged him; these days he'll probably get a life sentence that will be commuted by some future Democratic President, leading to a sinecure on talk shows where he'll be lecturing us all from his position of moral superiority as someone who "tried to do something about it."
I'll be skipping the lectures when they arrive. I already know what he thinks; he thinks what they all think. It is the Standard Position of the credentialed class, and devoid of original thought.
Gun Control vs. the White House Correspondents Dinner
Just as an aside, the shooter who went up against several Federal police agencies at the White House Correspondents' Dinner was armed solely with firearms that comply with the strictest gun control laws in America. The pistol he carried is Maryland and California compliant. His main choice of weapon was a pump-action shotgun, which he explains that he loaded with buckshot thinking that might let him get past the body armored security without killing them (a rather dodgy plan, but let's leave that for the moment). It wasn't even a semi-automatic weapon; you can get pump action shotguns even in the UK with the right friends in high places paperwork.
Once again, these laws don't actually solve the problems they purport to solve. Their regular and comprehensive failure leads me to conclude that no one actually cares if they work; their real intent must be something else.
I’d Like An Argument Please
The Heterodox Academy, which is doing good work in trying to create space for viewpoint diversity in American universities, is holding an event they call Disagree With A Professor.
Please join the Heterodox Academy Campus Chapter at Stanford University for the inaugural Disagree with a Professor lunch event on Meyer Green on Tuesday, April 28th from 12:00pm - 1:15pm where you’ll be able to engage with different faculty about a variety of claims, including:
- Mail-in voting was a bad idea. Everyone should vote in-person on Election Day.
- Forget the Electoral College; we should abolish the Presidency.
- We are less prepared for the next pandemic now than we were before COVID, despite significant advances in our ability to detect, analyze, prevent, and treat infectious disease.
- Grading of students by the professor who teaches the class is biased. It should be eliminated or supplemented with evaluations by unaffiliated evaluators.
- The world is a safer place in the 21st century than ever before.
- Geography is the force that drives history.
Those sound like spirited topics! Naturally, however, I thought of this:
SPLC and USAID
In the comments to the earlier post about the SPLC's criminal problems, I commented: "It sounds like the allegations aren't really about paying for sources, but about paying to create and sustain terrorist and extremist groups because it was useful to have them as a political foil. That's akin to how USAID was using 'aid' money to fund NGOs that were funding all sorts of bad activities. The SPLC was I suppose part of that large NGO archipelago."
That supposition is now confirmed.
USAID was funding the SPLC through an organization called the Tides Center, based in San Francisco.From 2016 through 2024, USAID granted $27 million to the Tides Network to “strengthen global civil society organizations, promote transparency, accountability, citizen engagement, and serve as fiscal agent for USAID’s Civil Society Innovation Initiative.”The Tides Center set up a fund through its Tides Foundation with that money for the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “Vote Your Voice” initiative.The executive director of the Tides Center is Ayesha Khanna. She was co-chair of Women for Obama in Atlanta, Georgia.
In the comments to AVI's post on the same topic, Tom and I had this exchange:
TomThey needed an enemy, so they funded one. They became what they hate. Not sure where they go from here. If I recall, they have half a billion dollars in assets. Maybe, I don't know, give it to the poor?3:49 PMGrimYour recollection is incomplete. They have about a quarter billion dollars in assets offshore. They’ve been moving them offshore aggressively for a decade— since just about the time of Unite the Right, I suppose.https://freebeacon.substack.com/p/southern-poverty-law-centers-murky6:02 PMTomI stand corrected. Again. Still.
Not still: even more. This sudden move to aggressively offshoring its wealth now looks strongly like knowledge of guilt, and a recognition that this wealth needed to be protected by being put beyond the ability of a future US government to target as a part of a prosecution like this. Last time I was questioning whether there was a real crime to target: now I see that they themselves appear to have recognized that there was a crime, and that they needed to offshore a lot of money in defense against future prosecution.
AAR: Huntsville
Rocket City is a fun town.
It has to be, I gather, because the space industry is going gangbusters and needs people to want to move to Alabama. Local unemployment recently hit 1.9%. Major corporations like JP Morgan Chase, Lockheed Martin, and Blue Origin are heavily engaged with state and local leaders to fund cheap housing for new employees, try to get high school students trained on coding so they can become 2-year college students then trained on machine welding and other technologies greatly in need in the rocket industry. Four-year colleges focus on engineering; the town claims the highest percentage of engineer citizens in the nation. They've also built parks, an arboretum, music venues, sporting facilities, trails, and anything else they can think of to make the place seem like a fun place to be -- which, indeed, it is.
Here's one fun idea: they turned over one of those antiquated mid-century school campuses to local bars and game shops, which have had fun turning it into a punk/rockabilly sort of version of traditional high school.
Classic institutional architecture, now a reform reformed school.
Pool and Bud Light in the Principal's Office.
Dungeons and Dragons gaming shop among lockers festooned with once-forbidden stickers.
Prom, no. Rockabilly Prom? Maybe!
An arcade filled with nothing but pinball machines. I played the Star Wars one.
Well, and one more pool table at the back.
Rockabilly Prom? How about Zombie Prom?
The whole area is what we here in NC call a "Social District," meaning that you can walk around freely with open containers of alcohol. There are some rules that are mostly deference to state law, but generally it is set aside to be a more-fun space than usual.
Right across the street from all that is the IBEW Union Hall, so it's a place where you'll meet welders and working men. Also servicemen: the city features Redstone Arsenal, where the military component of all this lives, about 45,000 service members and civilians devoted to the space program in one way or another. Soon to be 55,000, because US Space Command is relocating there soon from Colorado Springs.
A much fancier version of the same concept exists just two blocks away:
A similar space called Stovehouse built around an old factory. It’s got everything from ballroom dancing to taqueria to a Pilates studio.
Also defense contractors. Lots of them have offices in the same facility: Booz Allen Hamilton, Deloitte, etc.
Less wild and crazy than the reformed-school space, but it was fun to watch the happy children play in the water feature.
Because of the prosperity and low unemployment, Huntsville is a very clean and safe town. I think it is well understood that I generally dislike cities under the best of circumstances, but this one is actually a nice place to visit. Even better -- it's only about 12 miles from city-center to the farmlands outside, so it doesn't take long to escape when you get ready to climb on your bike and get out of town.
Back in the Mountains
This was taken at the remnants of the site of the 1996 Olympic Games’ whitewater events. Those Games were mainly held in Atlanta, but there’s not much whitewater in Atlanta. This is just over the border into Tennessee in the Ocoee River country.
All the Way Down to Ala-Bam
Had some business in Huntsville today, so I rode down yesterday.
Boyd Gap, on the Tennessee side.
The TVA made many lakes; this one floods the Ocoee River.
That one is small compared with Nickajack Lake, which floods the mighty Tennessee River.
Huntsville. Pretty sure this is the right place. Hard to miss, actually.
What Exactly is the Crime?
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) did helpful service many years ago by taking on the KKK; we're better off without that latter organization having the power and control it did of yore. More recently they've served as a kind of third-party validator of left-wing attempts to paint conservative organizations as unacceptable extremist groups. I can understand how that annoys people.
What part of this conduct is illegal, though?
In the video posted Tuesday morning, CEO Bryan Fair said the probe focuses on bringing potential charges against both the organization and individuals connected to the group."The focus appears to be on the SPLC's prior use of paid confidential informants to gather credible intelligence on extremely violent groups," he said."This use of informants was necessary because we are no stranger to threats of violence. In 1983, our offices were firebombed, and in the years since, there have been countless credible threats against our staff," he said. "For decades, we engaged in unprecedented litigation to dismantle the Klan and other hate groups. In light of that work, we sought to protect the safety of our staff and the public. We frequently shared what we learned from informants with local and federal law enforcement, including the FBI. "The probe comes as the Justice Department has stepped up its scrutiny of nonprofits that it accuses of being involved with or funding "domestic terrorism." It was not clear if the criminal investigation is related to that initiative, and a spokesperson for the SPLC did not know the Justice Department's legal theory behind the probe.
Insofar as you are publishing the findings of such research, it's protected journalism under the first amendment as far as I can tell. The National Enquirer pays sources for scoops; that's how they nailed John Edwards back in 2007. As far as I know the fact that they paid for the information they published didn't make it illegal. Any of you lawyers have a theory about how this could be a crime?
Thomas Transcript, Day 2
From the second half of the speech, the critique of Progressivism.
As we meet today, it is unclear whether these principles will endure. At the beginning of the 20th century, a new set of first principles of government was introduced into the American mainstream. The proponents of this new set of first principles, most prominent among them, the 28th president of our country, Woodrow Wilson, called it progressivism.Since Wilson's presidency, progressivism has made many inroads into our system of government and our way of life. It has coexisted uneasily with the principles of the Declaration. Because it is opposed to those principles, it is not possible for the two to coexist forever.Progressivism was not native to America. Wilson and the progressives candidly admitted that they took it from Otto von Bismarck's Germany, whose state-centric society they admired. Progressives like Wilson argued that America needed to leave behind the principles of the founding and catch up with the more advanced and sophisticated system of relatively unimpeded state power, nearly perfected.He acknowledged that it was a foreign science speaking very little of the language of English or American principle, which offers none but what are, to our minds, alien ideas. He thus described America still stuck with its original system of government as, quote, slow to see the superiority of the European system. Progressivism was the first mainstream American political movement, with the possible exception of the pro-slavery reactionaries on the eve of the Civil War, quote, to openly oppose the principles of the Declaration.Progressives strove to undo the Declaration's commitment to equality and natural rights, both of which they denied were self-evident. To Wilson, the unalienable rights of the individual were, quote, a lot of nonsense. Wilson redefined liberty, not as a natural right attendant and assedent to the government, but as, quote, the right of those who are governed to adjust government to their own needs and interests.In other words, liberty no longer preceded the government as a gift from God, but was to be enjoyed at the grace of the government. The government, as Wilson reconceived it, would be, quote, beneficent and indispensable. Progressives such as John Dewey attacked the Framers for believing that their ideas were immutable truth, good for all times and places, when instead they were, according to him, historically conditioned and relevant only in their own time.Now Dewey and the progressives argued those ideas are to be displaced. Progressivism seeks to replace the basic premises of the Declaration of Independence and hence our form of government. It holds that our rights and our dignities come not from God but from government.It requires of the people a subservience and weakness incompatible with a constitution premised on the transcendent origin of our rights. You will not be surprised to learn that the progressives had a great deal of contempt for us, the American people. Before he entered politics, Wilson would describe the American people as, quote, selfish, ignorant, timid, stubborn, and foolish.He lamented that we do too much by vote and too little by expert rule. He proposed that the people be ruled by administrators who use them as tools. He once again aspired to be like Germany, where the people, he said admiringly, were docile and acquiescent.The century of progressivism did not go well. The European system that Wilson and the progressives scolded Americans for not adopting, which he called nearly perfect, led to the governments that caused the most awful century that the world has ever seen. Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, and Mao all were intertwined with the rise of progressivism and all were opposed to the natural rights on which our declaration are based.Many progressives expressed admiration for each of them shortly before their governments killed tens of millions of people. It was a terrible mistake to adopt progressivism's rejection of the declaration's vision of universal, unalienable natural rights. Wilson's claim that natural rights must give way to historical progress could justify the greatest mistake in our history...
They say our 18th century declaration has prevented us from progressing to higher forms of government, but we were fortunate not to trade our Lockean bonds for the supposedly enlightened world of Hegel, Marx, and their followers. Fascism, which after all was National Socialism, triggered wars in Europe and Asia that killed tens of millions.The socialism of the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China proceeded to kill more tens of millions of their own people. This is what happens when natural rights give way to the higher good of notions of history, progress, or as Thomas Sowell has written, the visions of the anointed. None of this, of course, was an improvement on the principles of the declaration....
If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the government, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions.
Emphasis added, but only because emphasis is warranted.
A Meditation on Tradition
We live in an online world governed by algorithms. One of them has learned that I like and will reliably watch 70s-themed videos of guys riding rebuilt Shovelhead choppers, especially if they are set to 70s music like the above. Often in addition to riding through beautiful country, these videos feature campfires and guys sharing some beer around them. It reminds me of how we used to spend many happy nights back in the old days.
Yet the videos aren't from the 1970s; they're guys doing it right now. There's nothing to stop you from going out and buying a Shovelhead. In addition to the used bikes you can source, you can buy a brand new Shovelhead engine and build one. These guys making the videos aren't looking at their phones at the campfire, but you can be sure they're filming the videos on their phones and sharing them with you that way. You can listen to everything from the 70s on Spotify as you go down the road, which you couldn't have done in the 1970s: the Walkman didn't even exist until '79.
Here as elsewhere, nothing has been lost. You can still do it the old way: chop your wood with an axe, as I've been doing lately in preparation for next winter. Ride your own bike. Listen to the old songs; sing the old songs.
Be free. You just have to do what your ancestors did. There's a good chance they taught you how, if you listened.
A Thomas Transcript
Updated below, but here at last is a transcript of the speech Justice Thomas gave at UT Austin.
Some highlights from the first half only:
It is my sincere hope that your work to revitalize the teaching and research of Western civilization and the American constitutional tradition will lead the way in the reform of our nation's colleges and universities. And I hope that your example will help to rejuvenate our fellow citizens' commitment to the principles of the Declaration of Independence....[A]ll too often the sentiments [voiced by the common culture] tend toward cynicism, rejection, hostility, and animus toward our country and its ideals. With the foregoing in mind, I would like to begin by addressing my first encounter with the principles of the Declaration of Independence.It is perhaps not what you would immediately think. The second paragraph of the Declaration proclaims, We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. Throughout my youth, these truths were articles of faith that were impervious to bigotry and discrimination.The American Heritage Dictionary of English Language defines self-evident as obviously true and requiring no proof, argument, or explanation. Whether they had a divine source or a worldly one, they were never questioned. They were the Holy Grail, the North Star, the Rock, immovable and unquestioned.Despite the multiplicity of laws and customs that wreaked a bigotry, it was universally believed among those blacks with whom I lived and who had very little or no formal education that in God's eyes and under our Constitution, we were equal. This was also the case with my nuns, most of whom were Irish immigrants. At home, at school, and at church, we were taught that we are inherently equal, that equality came from God, and that it could not be diminished by man....Somehow, without formal education, the older people knew that these God-given or natural rights preceded and transcended governmental power or authority. When you lived in a segregated world with palpable discrimination and the governments nearest to you enforced laws and customs that promoted unequal treatment, it was obvious that your rights or your dignity did not come from those governments, but rather from God. Though not a literate man, my grandfather often spoke of our rights and obligations coming from God, not from architects of segregation and discrimination.Men were not angels. They were subject to the constraints of antecedent rights, and we were not subject to those men, even as we were subjected to their whims. We knew that life, liberty, and property were sacrosanct....Arguably, those men committed treason against the king, risking death at the hands of an empire far mightier than the newborn United States. They thus concluded with the memorable final sentence, and I quote, and for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. I will say it again.We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. Recently, I came across a definition of courage that is attributed to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.In essence, the signers of the Declaration were saying that they were willing to die for the principles they were asserting, the supreme act of courage. Those principles were more important than their fear. Nothing in the Declaration of Independence, I now realize, matters without that final sentence.
This is an address that merits reading and consideration throughout.
Patriots Day
Raven reminds us in the comments below that we ought to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Lexington and Concord.
On April 18, 1775, about 700 British Regulars in Boston, under Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith, received secret orders to capture and destroy colonial military supplies reportedly stored at Concord. Through effective intelligence gathering, Patriot leaders received word weeks before the British expedition that their supplies might be at risk and had moved most of them to other locations. On the night before the battles, several riders, including Paul Revere, William Dawes and Samuel Prescott, warned area militias of the British plans and approaching British Army expedition from Boston.The first shots between Patriot militiamen and Regulars at Lexington were fired at sunrise on April 19. Eight militiamen were killed and ten wounded. Only one British soldier was wounded. The outnumbered militia quickly fell back and the Regulars proceeded to Concord, where they split into companies to search for supplies. At the Old North Bridge in Concord, approximately 400 militiamen engaged 100 Regulars at about 11:00 am, resulting in casualties on both sides. The outnumbered Regulars fell back and rejoined the main body of British troops in Concord.
Initially inconclusive, but it was the 'shot heard around the world.' It set the stage for the destruction of many empires, the liberation of peoples, and the principle that no free man shall ever accept being disarmed.
Play it Straight, Matey
The New York Times caught my eye with a story about a new study of sunken pirate treasure. Even here, though, they can't play it straight.
Pirate’s Booty Corrects a Myth About West African GoldCenturies-old European tales about Gold Coast traders adulterating precious metals hundreds of years ago are challenged by the famous Whydah Gally shipwreck.[Introductory paragraphs] Sometimes all that glitters is, in fact, real gold. But it would have been difficult to sell that idea to the many European traders who journeyed along the coast of West Africa during the age of exploration.As their vessels plied what was known as the Gold Coast, records of the era show that the English, Dutch, Swedish and other Europeans often viewed their trading partners with suspicion. There was a longstanding belief that people in that part of Africa were intentionally mixing their gold with lesser metals like silver or copper, or even with bits of glass.“It’s a recurring theme that they’re stretching the gold,” said Tobias Skowronek, a geochemist who studies archaeology at the University of Bonn in Germany.But a recent study of artifacts recovered from the wreck of a pirate ship suggests that the West African traders were not passing off adulterated gold....[Deep down at paragraph 15] The researchers found that the 27 artifacts ranged from 70 to 100 percent gold by weight.When an artifact wasn’t pure gold, the most common metals present were silver, copper, iron and lead.While it’s true that some objects were far from pure gold, these results don’t imply that West African traders were being deceitful, the team concluded.
So, in other words, the European traders were precisely right all along. The study only concludes that the admixture was probably due to a lack of skill in separating the ores, which occur together naturally in that part of Africa.
The rest of the relief due Proud Boys
A lawyer who posts on X as "Shipwrecked Crew" represented a number of J6 defendants when scarcely any other lawyers would. He got good news today.
Indians & Highlanders
For the most part the preference has shifted to “Native American Tribe Nations,” but the local community still calls itself the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. They came out to join in the celebration of our local heritage, of which they are an indispensable part. They were demonstrating several of their cultural traditions, including Stickball, which I finally understand how to play.
The Highlander heritage is also on display.
They played, inter alia, “The Skye Boat Song.” I was definitely talking that about recently.
The Scotsman’s tent. “Amo Probos” means “I love the upright,” and is the motto of Clan Blair.
The Scotsman itself.
Appalachian True Heritage Festival
Yesterday and today in Waynesville, a charming festival.
The bandstand, with mountain music all day.
Another musical circle. Note the belt-of-harmonicas on the harmonica player.
“Outlaw Alchemy” didn’t appear to do any alchemy, but there were several herbalists in the festival.
A permanent installation helping visitors identify plants.
I think I told this story recently, but if not, here is an official version. As of the end of the war, Thomas’ Legion of Indians and Highlanders had defeated the Federal forces in these mountains. Appropriately, both the Cherokee and the Highlanders are represented here today: the Cherokee have a tent at one end, and The Scotsman Pub at the other. Men in kilts or traditional Cherokee clothing can be seen in the crowd.
This sauce was good enough that I bought some even though I make my own at home.
A Short Patriotic Interlude
In the lexicon of American strategic communications, 'propaganda' is defined as "enemy action to..." etc. As a result, American propaganda is impossible by definition.
All the same, this is what it would look like if such a thing did exist.
Savannah vs. Georgia
The FPC is assisting a resident of Savannah, Georgia who is trying to get the city's restrictions on transporting firearms lifted. I think their prospects of success are pretty good: the Attorney General of Georgia filed an amicus curaie brief that unreservedly takes their side.
The reason why he is on their side is straightforward. The state legislature of Georgia, its General Assembly, long ago passed a bill that was signed into law that forbids local governments from placing restrictions on firearms. That power is reserved to the state government only.
Savannah ignored that law and created its own regulation, which it is enforcing by having the city's police department issue fines and citations. As such, and as is increasingly normal for Democratic strongholds in red states, it is in open defiance of the state government. Unlike states vis-a-vis the Federal government, local governments are creatures of the state. They have no powers that are not granted by the legislature, and no sort of sovereignty of their own.
Nevertheless these localities are willing to court such lawsuits, as they only cost taxpayer money and might for a while allow them to get their way. If they ever manage to swing the state government, as has happened in Virginia, they'll change all the state laws to ensure they never lose again; but until then, this will have to do.
All Sorrow Fail and Sadness
The streams shall run in gladness,
The lakes shall shine and burn.
All sorrow fail and sadness
At the Mountain King's return!
His crown shall be upholden,
His harp shall be restrung.
His halls shall echo golden
To songs of yore re-sung.
It is hard for us as Americans to imagine the power that royalty has on the imagination in societies that are not, like our own, based on an ideal of social equality. For generations, the Scots sang Will Ye No Come Back Again? and The Skye Boat Song about "Bonnie Prince" Charlie, who was defeated in April 1746. (Indeed, yesterday was the anniversary of the Battle of Culloden.) After the horrors of the French Revolution and Napoleon's bloody attempts at empire, the Bourbons were restored; but, for that matter, Bonnie Prince Charlie himself was a Stewart, who had been expelled in the English Civil War and then restored. The '45, as the attempt to install him in Scotland was called, followed two earlier attempts, one in 1689 and one in 1715.
Tolkien's song thus captures something that is deeply felt in societies with a tradition of royalty. We see it too in the Arthurian stories. I wonder if it won't yet come to pass in Persia.
Clarance Thomas at UT Austin
I usually prefer transcripts, but for reasons that might be obvious the media has not elected to provide a transcript of this speech that I can find. You can advance to about 45m in if you want to hear the criticisms of Progressivism as basically hostile to the Declaration of Independence, and of Woodrow Wilson -- a man Justice Thomas has reason to hold in disdain quite apart from Wilson's Progressivism. Within about ten minutes of beginning this critique, he reminds the audience that it was old Woodrow who decided to segregate the Federal government and its workforce.
We have been fortunate to have his scholarly mind and quiet presence on the Court for so long. He has no clear equal, nor anyone sadly who is obviously a fit replacement when the day comes for him to retire.
UPDATE: Finally, a transcript.
Edward Abbey on Anarchism and Violence
While looking for one of Abbey's aphorisms yesterday, I discovered instead his Master of Arts' thesis. Like a good MA thesis it has little original thought, which is more proper in a Ph.D. dissertation; instead, it is a chance to wrestle with the key texts of an area of study. In that regard it is useful reading for others interested in the history of 19th and 20th century anarchist thought.
To my surprise, he concludes that anarchism -- not at all necessarily connected to violence, but with members of the school occasionally willing to embrace revolution and even terrorism -- had not successfully made a case the violence was either needed nor appropriate to its project. However, what struck me most was I found to be a very persuasive introduction:
Since the Second World War the idea of anarchism has enjoyed a certain revival.... [Each of an impressive list of thinkers] has attempted to draw attention to the excesses of the modern nation-state and advocated, in one way or another, the decentralization of the state's political, economic and military power.The importance of anarchism lies in the fact that it is alone among contemporary political doctrines in opposing the institution of the state, stressing the danger while denying the necessity of centralized authority. Socialism, Communism, and what is at present called Democratic Capitalism (the Welfare State) have, on the other hand, both accommodated themselves to and actively encouraged the growth of the national state. Thus supported from within and without (through international rivalry) the state has become the paramount institution of modern civilization, and exerts an increasing degree of control over the lives of all who live beneath its domination.[A]s the state continues to grow, assuming to itself not only political and military power but also more and more direct economic and social power, the average man of today finds his role subtly changed from that of citizen to that of functionary in a gigantic and fantastic ally-complex social machine. This development takes place no matter what the official ideology of the state may be, so that we may now observe a gradual convergence of ends and means In the historical evolution of such [typically] modern states as the U. S, A* and the U. S. S, R., which tend to rese[m]ble each other more and more with each passing year despite the fact that the two states originated under greatly unlike circumstances and attempted to guide their progress by official political philosophies which, in most important respects, are sharply opposed. This process of growth and convergence cannot be satisfactorily explained through the use of such conventional concepts as Democracy versus Communism, or Capitalism versus Socialism; the peculiar relevance and appeal of anarchism consists in this, that it offers a possible theoretical key to the understanding of historical developments which seem to have little connection with their customary labels.Statement of the Problem:The idea of anarchism is embarrassed, however, by its traditional association with illegality and violence.
Emphasis added.
"Illegality" is not really a cause for concern, since the state itself sets the laws and naturally enough outlaws the questioning of its existence or necessity. Even the United States, in spite of the protections of the First Amendment -- protections greatly strengthened, as we know, by the effects of the anarchist movement in the early 20th century -- outright bans advocating or teaching the idea, at least if the abolition of the government (expressly to include any subset of government) is tied to an endorsement of violence. So really, as Abbey realizes quickly enough, it's just the violence that is the problem.
The inquiry is worthy; the conclusion that violence has not been shown to be justified even by those who were most open to the idea of using violence is predicated on the fact that the idea that abolishing the state was a desirable end is something that anarchists haven't adequately persuaded enough people to believe yet (or hadn't, at least, in the 1950s). If it's not something that most people agree is desirable, no war to accomplish it is really possible; only terrorist acts and murders, rather than the spark of a genuine revolution. That's a fairly pragmatic, consequently characteristically American, and quite plausible conclusion.
Just War Theory vs. Jihad Theory
The Pope has said that he thinks the war on/with Iran is unjust. Fr. Gerald Murray disagrees and offers an argument in favor of the war being just according to Just War Theory.
Wretchard, or Richard Fernandez, says that he thinks you can't properly understand the discussion within the context of Just War Theory alone: you have to engage also the theory of Jihad, which is Iran's rather than ours.
Inevitably it requires us to consider not only what Christians believe but what the Islamic equivalent to Just War -- the doctrine of Jihad -- actually teaches. In many ways the two are as different as chalk and cheese. In the first place Christianity is a nonstate religion while Islam aims to be a “universal religion and a universal state”. From this arises a host of differences.In Just War, the core intention of hostilities is the “righting of wrongs.” Bellum has an earthly origin. Heads of states do not to go to war with the intention of pleasing God but to do particular things. This is not the case with the Jihad, which clearly states that the core intention to wage war must be to please Allah. Just War is a human creation while Jihad is a divine one.
Wretchard is one of my favorite thinkers on the subject of national and international security, so it will not surprise you that I think he has a very valid point that is not being adequately considered elsewhere.
Except here, perhaps; it comes up here and from time to time. So, there are two reasons to suspect myself of confirmation bias here: I already think that Wretchard is very much smarter than most people commenting on these matters, and I already agree with the particular assertion he's making.
For example, the 'jihadist' ideology taught by the so-called "Islamic State" (ISIS) can be contested, but it has to be conceptually severed from the protected freedom of religion, including the practice of Islam. Yet the conceptual roots of 'jihadism' are in the faith, and will come to be known to anyone who studies it closely; and anyone who studies the great scholars of Islam will find much support for the idea. Avicenna, that great philosopher, describes jihad as a kind of double good in his Metaphysics of the Healing, because it brings one closer to God's will while also providing you access to practical goods like slaves captured in the war. The philosopher Averroes, in a reflection on Plato's Republic, agrees with Plato that the best kind of women should be admitted to a kind of equality with the best kind of men, and that this equality means that they should be allowed to join in jihad and the taking of slaves and wealth. The Reliance of the Traveler, one of the great medieval works of Islamic jurisprudence, is a favorite example of Andy McCarthy's (who came to know it while prosecuting the World Trade Center bomber, an earlier example of mass killings by bomb).Apart from not suppressing Islam, you can't suppress (and ought to encourage) the study of Avicenna, especially. In any case, the 'road map' certainly can't be suppressed without trying to drive Islam out of the world. The best you can do is to acknowledge it, and work with those within the community of Muslims who oppose people pursuing violent jihad to try to convince as many people as possible that it's not a legitimate path. Ultimately, though, some will be convinced, and in part because the other side probably has a better case to make about what Muhammad and his companions really meant; certainly about what the great philosophers of his tradition meant.
Just War Theory is a Western tradition, originally a kind of gift that the Catholic Church gave to a warring Europe. It grew out of the Peace and Truce of God movements, which were attempts to restrain the brutal warfare of the Medieval period first against the Church itself, and then against noncombatants within the broader society. It invokes religion, and takes authority from Jesus' own words on the subject of peacemakers being blessed. Traditionally, it also accepts that secular lords are likely to war upon each other for many reasons, and tries to set limits on when new wars can be started.
I don't see how a war against a regime that murders its own citizens by the tens of thousands can ever be unjust, myself. But within the tradition it always comes down to who the aggressor is (jus ad bellum); and that is never resolvable because it always turns on differential claims from history. I thus don't find the tradition useful as a pragmatic approach to ethics.
(Another bias of mine: In general, the only thing our government does that I really approve of is overthrowing other, even-worse governments. Any government that violates the natural rights of its citizens is righteously overthrown according to the principles of the Declaration of Independence; I see nothing wrong with giving a helping hand to citizens who can't quite manage it themselves, as the French did for us once upon a time.)
If you are advocating for Iran being aggressed-against, you have to ignore the constant violence they have engaged in against us since 1979. Yet if you want to argue that Israel is the aggressor in the current war in Gaza, you argue that Israel is the aggressor in spite of the October 7th attacks because of a longstanding tradition of war and oppression and imperialism etc. The Iran aggression is measured from Trump's first act, excluding everything that came before; Israel's, from the very beginning of it or even earlier during the British Mandate. Very often the same people make both arguments on the same day, and at the same time. We never get to a resolution that provides anything pragmatically useful.
It is perfectly possible to make either argument under JWT, as well, which is another weakness of it as a pragmatic mechanism. The gift the Church keeps giving by continuing to raise it is not that it provides a pragmatically-useful ethical standard. It is, as it was from the beginning, that it provides a brake on the warlike impulses of the powerful secular lords of the world.
What it has never done is provide even a brake on governments like the Revolutionary Islamic Republic of Iran. It's not even fair to judge them by it; it was never a standard to which they even aspired. They have a standard of their own. It has been very clearly articulated and defended by them for four decades. There is little excuse for refusing to acknowledge and engage with it in trying to understand the moral structure of this conflict. To exclude it as a consideration is folly: perhaps self-centeredness, perhaps simply a refusal to take seriously their ideas in spite of their manifest willingness to live by and die for them (coupled with our own leadership's unwillingness to live or die by any standards, only to talk about them as if the things really mattered).
So: perhaps all of this is an exercise in confirmation bias by me, and it is fair to consider that. Still, for whatever it's worth, I think Wretchard has a good point here.
Request Denied
From the always-valuable U.S. Army W.T.F! Moments:
As the comments wryly point out, the Army brass is interpreting this as the SECWAR giving permission for the soldiers to ask permission, which the brass can then deny across the board. "No way we're giving these chuckleheads weapons!" you can imagine every Garrison Commander muttering under his breath.
I like this guy
Rabbi Shalom Landau:
If you give out of guilt, don’t call it generosity. It’s emotional leakage. No wonder you feel used, resentful, and drained. Torah already warns: give without a grudging heart. (Deuteronomy 15:10) Because giving from guilt isn't giving, it's pain management!
Trauma is isolation, so you don't really need anything to happen to be traumatized. The first time God said something wasn't good was about being alone.
Small people deal with small problems. A person is sized by the size of his problems. Enhance your problems and you will grow....
Never aspire to be the only one winning. The path to wealth runs through partnerships and relationships. When others benefit from your success you'll benefit from theirs. It's a unstoppable chain reaction!
The gambit
Some fiction captures your imagination in childhood, never to be displaced. I have a vivid memory of a short, satirical science fiction story called "Von Goom's Gambit," including a good bit of the specific wording. Imagine my delight to find that it has been preserved digitally and can still be read.
You won’t find Von Goom’s Gambit in any of the books on chess openings. Ludvik Pachman’s Moderne Schachtheorie simply ignores it. Paul Keres’ authoritative work Teoria Debiutow Szachowych mentions it only in passing in a footnote on page 239, advising the reader never to try it under any circumstances and makes sure the advice is followed by giving no further information. Dr. Max Euwe’s Archives lists the gambit in the index under the initials V. G. (Gambit), but fortunately gives no page number. The twenty-volume Chess Encyclopedia (fourth edition) states that Von Goom is a myth and classifies him with werewolves and vampires. His Gambit is not mentioned. Vassily Nikolayevitch Kryllov heartily recommends Von Goom’s Gambit in the English edition of his book, Russian Theory of the Opening; the Russian edition makes no mention of it. Fortunately Kryllov himself did not--and does not yet--know, the moves, so he did not recommend them to his American readers. If he had, the cold war would be finished. In fact, America would be finished, and possibly the world....I remember the story as being of an ordinary length for a short story and am amazed to find that it's only a few pages long.
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