The Spectre of Vietnam

The Spectre of Vietnam:

For about twenty years, every time the United States has considered an intervention we have heard about the "spectre of Vietnam." Exactly what that spectre represents is different in different minds, but it always boils down to the question of whether American military power can be effective in making changes in the world. Would not Americans be put off by rising casualty rates? By the fear of rising casualty rates? By the fear of brutalities or war crimes committed by exhausted troops? None of this is new; we've all heard it too often before.

America has done quite well in spite of the warnings. Still, it is arguable that the Spectre is responsible for a number of our current problems. It didn't stop us from acting in Grenada, but it might have been the reason that support for the Contras was banned by Congress. It didn't stop us in Bosnia, but it did restrict us to flying high-altitude missions that often struck wrong targets or were far less effective than they might have been backed by ground troops. It quite possibly did stop us from going in to Rwanda during the massacres. We know we had special ops troops ready and all but in the air when they were ordered to stand down.

Now we're in Iraq, having finally finished what was really a twelve-year war encompassing an eleven-year ceasefire-of-sorts. We're handling the guerrillas, and such evidence as there is in the open sources suggests that resistance is getting desperate enough to resort to Muslim-on-Muslim attacks, which will destroy their credibility and recruiting base in the long run. We are, in other words, winning--and the shockwaves of that victory are carrying to Pakistan, where Musharraf had to admit that AQ Khan was in fact guilty and force a confession from him; to Libya, where the Nuclear Black Market has been exposed by Gaddahfi's surrender; to Malaysia, where plants that have been churning out nuclear weapons' parts have been turned over to the CIA. While it is futile to hope that terrorism will cease to exist, it very well might be possible to win the Global War on Terrorism--to break up the international terrorist groups, and restrict terrorism to local or regional causes where it can do less harm.

But now we have a fellow running for President on the single theme: 'I am the Spectre of Vietnam!' He has already raised the ruinous banner of American military incompetence: the GWOT, he says, should not be a military enterprise at all. Yet the military enterprise is the one that has brought us the successes we've had in this war. If intelligence becomes again a powerful tool, it does so largely on the basis of military success--the recovery of mukhabarat documents in Iraq, of Qaeda manuals in Afghanistan, and the surrender of Libya and AQ Khan are all directly attributable to the military successes. They would not--not one of them--have happened otherwise.

Would the world be a better place? If we lay down arms, will it be a better place in five years? I do not see how anyone can argue or believe that.

Shadow Government

Shadow Government:

We've heard the term tossed around now and then, but it ought to be remembered that there really is one. Since the Eisenhower administration, the US gov't has been aware of the possibility of being knocked down by an atomic or nuclear strike. What the Shadow Government would look like is one of the more carefully guarded secrets--it has to be, in order to prevent enemy nations from targeting those assets at the same time that they target the Constitutional Government's assets.

Still, we can get a look at what the earliest days of the Shadow Government were like, thanks to these newly released letters. Most of them are warrants from Eisenhower to the people he wanted to lead the government in the days after a nuclear war, the possession alone of which entitled them to take command of large swathes of governmental power. As Eisenhower wrote, "This letter will constitute your authority."

Iran

Iran:

If you're curious to see what the US Air Force's people, and the NSA, think about the Iranian government, you can read this unclass document (PDF warning). You can get a feel for Iran, but also for some of the social science techniques they're fiddling around with in the intel community. My feeling on the social sciences is that they're really social arts, and OK as long as you don't lose sight of that--conclusions drawn will always lack "scientific" credibility, but might still be useful as guideposts or navigational beacons.

The BBC says that Tax Freedom Day came earlier in the Middle Ages | Samizdata.net

Taxes:

Today Samizdata has a story on taxation in the Middle Ages. An interesting point: medieval peasants worked fewer days of their year to pay their taxes than we do today.

Chris Kromm: The South at War

For Eric:

A few days ago Eric was questioning my numbers on the percentages of the military who are Southerners. I explained that I was following Zell Miller's speech to the Georgia Chamber of Commerce. I've been looking into the question more since then.

I'm still not sure where the Honorable Senator Miller got his numbers, but I can report that they match all the numbers I see anywhere else. Anti-war journal CounterPunch, based out of California, puts the number at 42%. Essayist Jeff Adams reports that the percentage during Gulf War I was 41%. As the South's population has grown from about a fourth to about a third of the nation's population, its percentages in the military have kept pace: 33% in WWI, 22% in WWII (a low percentage, I suspect, because of the massive draft; numbers of volunteers would probably be higher for the South in both cases), 40% in Korea, 37% in Vietnam (draft again, I expect), and 41% in Gulf War I. The Institute of Southern Studies--which is actually a group of Southern left-liberals, for the record--puts the number at 42% out of a population they now estimate at 36% of Americans.

That's not as definitive as I would like, but the number is agreed upon by people across the political spectrum. I'm not sure where they're getting it, but they seem to be pulling from a common source.

UPDATE: "Essayist" Jeff Adams turns out to be an officer of the Texas chapter of the League of the South, a rather radical organization that has in the past called on Southerners to refuse to serve in the US Military due to the disdain shown to Southern culture by other Americans. (An aside--I categorically reject this sentiment. Certainly Robert E. Lee would not have understood it. How much less should we understand it, when four more generations of us have shed our blood in the defense of the American flag and of the Republic?) His latest article on the topic can be found here.

Southern representation in the military invasion of Iraq isn't yet available. However, based on the data that is available concerning those killed in action or taken as POWs, and this data can be viewed as a reflection of the makeup of the military population, then Southerners represent 38% of the U.S. armed forces in Iraq. There have been some recent surveys concerning the military that estimate the total Southern contribution to the U.S. armed forces in general is pushing close to 50%!

Adams estimates the South's population as about 30%, so he may be working from a definition of the South that's smaller than the ISS--maybe without Floriday, say.

Skewed Priorities (washingtonpost.com)

On Moderation:

We are told that politicians, if they are to be entrusted with any power, ought to be "mainstream" or "moderate." We are, of course, mostly told this about conservative politicians, for reasons explored here. George W. Bush seems to have taken this lesson to heart, to judge from his budget. He has proposed a remarkable amount of spending, to the despair of conservatives everywhere. Many have been speculating openly that his spendthrift nature could cost him the election by alienating his base.

But, since it is so important to be moderate, Bush should at least pick up the solid endorsement of the "mainstream" press. Right? Well, let us see what his festal orgy of spending has inspired:

IF THE FEDERAL budget is a mirror of national priorities, consider this skewed choice in President Bush's spending plan: By 2009, child care assistance would be cut for at least 200,000 children in low- and moderate-income families -- and that's by the administration's own estimates. The real number of children affected could be as high as 365,000. That same year, those with annual incomes of $1 million or more would be paying an average of $155,000 less in income taxes as a result of Mr. Bush's tax cuts.

So, what's needed according to the Post is two things:

1) More spending.
2) Tax increases.

That is exactly the position they would be taking had Bush adopted a responsible budget. He has gained exactly nothing out of his maneuver.

Controlling spending is a civil rights issue, as well as one of the main planks of the Jacksonian party I suspect may soon arise in our political system. Certainly there are quite a few Jacksonians around, and neither party seems at all interested in upholding their views.

The Command Post - Op-Ed - Five Gallons of Gasoline

"Five Gallons of Gasoline"

If you haven't read this essay by Ali at "Iraq the Model", you might want to do so. It seems he's turned the corner, and realized the truth of what all his friends at the BBC have been saying.

Sharp Knife

Sharp Knife:

Sharp Knife has some incisive questions for John Kerry. He's right about all of them--keep scrolling. If Kerry is the nominee, this is going to be a brutal and ugly campaign. I hope America can stand up to it. Divided as we are, I wonder.

Divided or not, though, it is time to answer some of these questions once and for all. Chief among them is this: do we have the will to fight for the Order of the West?

This question weighs heavily on my mind lately. It was brought to my mind most recently by the case of the Talibani child soldiers recently cut loose from Camp X-Ray at GitMo. I have several friends of a liberal persuasion--indeed, sometimes I think my dearest friends of of that persuasion. It is a remarkable thing, that people who disagree so sharply about things so important could be friends, but so far, we are and have been.

The position of my friends, who admitted that they weren't sure just why these children were arrested, was that the US military was plainly doing wrong. Arresting children, shipping them halfway across the world, and holding them incommunicado from their families is certainly a big deal. It's not something you do for no reason. That, at least, was my impression, at the time when I knew no more about it than they did themselves. Their impression was that the military had done it for no reason, or at least, for no good reason, as no reason good enough for such a thing could be imagined.

Well, here is the reason:

Two of the boys were captured during US raids on Taliban camps in Afghanistan; the third was captured trying to obtain weapons for the Taliban, the Pentagon said.

Now let us say a few things flatly. First, the Taliban has freely imported resistance tactics from the terrorists of Palestine, to include the use of child soldiers and suicide bombers. Second, these children were introduced to the war by the Taliban, which was training them and using them to procure weapons against the United States and the Coalition. Third, if the children had not been removed to Camp X-Ray, but had instead been released to their families, it is without question that the Taliban would have tried to use them again. Put otherwise, the decision to ship these kids to Cuba probably saved their lives. It removed them from the war, gave them time and space to be forgotten as assets by the Taliban, and kept them from being recruited to risk their young lives again by their former leaders.

The boys faced stern interrogation in their first few days, according to the only one of them who has spoken out. However, they were not tortured, and he feels he was pretty well treated overall:

"At first I was unhappy with the U.S. forces. They stole 14 months of my life," said Agha, sitting in a relative's general store at the bazaar in Naw Zad, a market town some 300 miles southwest of Kabul....

"But they gave me a good time in Cuba. They were very nice to me, giving me English lessons," said Agha, a smile spreading across his face between a small beard and a white turban that made him look two or three years older....

He was not beaten but was made to sit on his haunches for three or four hours at a time, even when he wanted to sleep, he said....

"For two or three days I was confused, but later the Americans were so nice with me, they were giving me good food with fruit and water for ablutions before prayer," he said.

The Taliban had given him less choice:

The boys were standing outside a shop in a town along the way when they were detained by Afghan militiamen.

'They said, 'Come and join us,' but we told them we are poor people, jobless, and we don't want to join the militia, we want to earn money," Agha said. "Then they said, 'You are Taliban.'

It's an ugly war, to be sure, but the US military seems to me to come out well here. Still, as interested as I am in the facts of the case, I am as interested in the initial impression. That is to say, before the facts were known, my assumption was that the military had good reason for taking what seemed unusually stern measures; my companions, that the military was obviously wrong to do so. For a moment, let us forget the question of who was right and who was wrong when the facts came out. Let's focus just on that initial impression.

These friends of mine--and I claim them gladly, as all of them are dear and good hearted folk--assume, until sufficient evidence appears to convince them otherwise, that our military is brutal. I assume, until such evidence emerges, that our military keeps its professional commitment to the rules of war. The evidence suggests that people who believe as I do, who assume that the military is trustworthy until it is proven otherwise, are not more than half the populace. Indeed, the Honorable John Kerry has made his career on the opposite assertion.

I would humbly suggest that if you find yourself instinctually distrustful of the American solider, during a time of war when American soldiers are dying every day in your defense, you might want to reexamine the core assumptions of your life. Whether you do so or not, however, you've got just this problem: the American soldier's violence is as good as it gets. The Order of the West can not be protected through law enforcement. Law enforcement can't stop the nuclear market we've seen from Libya and North Korea to Malaysia. There are two things that can, perhaps stop them: intelligence, which by its nature involves law-breaking, not law enforcement; and military force. There is nothing else.

When we get to the point that terrorists have access to nuclear weapons, even occasionally, things are going to become worse than you would like to consider. My dear friends--some of you read this site--I beg you to reconsider just how grave this threat really is. Strong measures are required. First among them is belief. It is absolutely necessary to trust the fighting American Solider. He may not always do right, but you must believe that he usually will. He needs your trust to have the freedom of action required to protect you.

The next thing you must believe is that the Order of the West is worth preserving, though it means the deaths of many people. For now it is thousands who must die--we have killed thousands already. I pray that it may remain only thousands, and not hundreds of thousands, or more. The war we have joined is not going away. We can not wish it away. We will wrestle the nuclear genie back in his bottle, or we will see him loosed on our cities. That which must be done for victory, that same thing must be done. There is no alternative.

Believe this now, or wait for it to be proven on our bodies. Fool yourself now, and you may mourn at your leisure.

Her face was like an open word
When brave men speak and choose

Choose.

The Fever Swamp by Meghan Cox Gurdon on National Review Online

The Mouths of Babes:

Meghan Cox writes at NRO:

[T]he Francophone pachyderm is riding on his mother's back when a hunter shoots her. Babar runs away in terror to a Mediterranean city, where he is drawn up short by the sight of two gentlemen: 'Really, they are very well dressed,' Babar says to himself, 'I would like to have some fine clothes, too! I wonder how I can get them?'

This bizarre Gallic reasoning -- Your mother died today, or was it yesterday? You need new clothes! -- comports perfectly with Violet's world view. No matter what we read, however terrifying Hansel and Gretel's predicament, however ferocious the Beast when he arrests Beauty's father, what Violet wants most is for everyone to look good. Older men are 'kings,' younger men are 'princes,' and all females, unless obviously witches, are 'princesses.' She may be right about this. Certainly she exudes more respect for me when I am wearing a dress.

She is indeed right about it. It is out of the peril of forgetting this fact that all modern errors arise. Men have become accustomed to think of themselves as bankers, or lawyers, or accountants. What dignity has any of those, excepting the lawyer, who at least can claim a kinsman in Burnt Njal? No better dignity than their profession, which is to say, a dignity that is at the mercy of fate, now high and now low. Enron did more to lay low the accountant than a plague could do to lay low man.

The real dignity of man is in being Man. As a child he is a wonder; as a man, a terror. As an elder, he is the repository of wisdom in the world. Books contain much, but only living wisdom is active in shaping the events of the day. Even in America, where Youth is worshipped, it is the old that move the world.

It is wise to consider every man you meet a Prince or a King. This is only to say that you ought to treat them with the fullest respect that might be due to a man of their age; and, if they do not live up to that duty, to scorn them accordingly. This is especially true of Americans, for in casting off ranks of nobility, we have made the free American citizen the equal of anyone. He ought to act like it.

This is what is meant by 'endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.' It means that the dignity of Man is in being Man. Upholding that principle is the foundation of Classical Liberalism, and the rock upon which the Constitution is built. The child has spoken wisely, as children do.

South Knox Bubba

A Regional Candidate:

John Kerry writes off Tennessee, saying he's not running a "regional" candidacy. Well, he's certainly not running a national one. Is there a term in between--"multiregional," say?

It's an interesting question, as Kerry is using the term "regional" as slander against John Edwards' campaign. The argument appears to be that Kerry should be preferred to Edwards because Edwards has regional instead of national appeal.

Surely, though, the opposite is true? The Democratic party has institutional strength outside of the South's "region." A Democrat who can win in the South therefore is the only Democrat who has national appeal. He appeals to non-Southern Democrats who want to replace Bush, and to Southern Democrats who like his message. It's Kerry, not Edwards, who is actually "regional," or multiregional; he will not have nationwide appeal in the general election.

That will put him at a disadvantage against Bush, who will be running a genuinely national campaign. Won't it?

CNN.com - Early tests show deadly ricin in Senate mailroom - Feb. 2, 2004

Bioterror at the Capitol:

The bad news is it looks like today produced a ricin attack at the US Captiol. The good news--today was the day that al Qaeda promised a huge assault that would cripple the US, and cut us off from our forces in the Middle East. So far, nothing.

bloodletting.blog-city.com

Kerry:

Doc Russia has some damning details from Kerry's military career. Surely he didn't write himself up for three Purple Hearts, did he? That would take some guts, though not the same kind as earning three Purple Hearts.

Islam

"Islam: A Threat To World Stability":

Intelligence, we like to say, is always speculative. Sometimes, though, speculation is right. Here's a case of that, from US Army intelligence, 1946. (PDF warning--scroll down to page 26)

Mark Twain - Curing a Cold

Sick?

Doc Russia is sick. As this is the season for it, I offer as a kindness to my readers Mark Twain's "Curing a Cold." Take a few moments to read through it, and see if you can't help him realize his high design:

It is a good thing, perhaps, to write for the amusement of the public, but it is a far higher and nobler thing to write for their instruction, their profit, their actual and tangible benefit. The latter is the sole object of this article. If it prove the means of restoring to health one solitary sufferer among my race, of lighting up once more the fire of hope and joy in his faded eyes, of bringing back to his dead heart again the quick, generous impulses of other days, I shall be amply rewarded for my labor; my soul will be permeated with the sacred delight a Christian feels when he has done a good, unselfish deed.

Having led a pure and blameless life, I am justified in believing that no man who knows me will reject the suggestions I am about to make, out of fear that I am trying to deceive him. Let the public do itself the honor to read my experience in doctoring a cold, as herein set forth, and then follow in my footsteps.

House Democrats claim prayer is 'disrespectful'

A Disrespectful Prayer?

The Arizona Republic has an interesting story today: "House Democrats claim prayer is 'disrespectful'".

The prayer in question was the opening prayer to the state legislator. It was offered by a Republican, Doug Quelland. Apparently it was not his own work, but a prayer that has been around for some time. I had not seen it before:

Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and to seek your direction and guidance. We know your word says, 'Woe to those who call evil good,' but that is exactly what we have done. We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and inverted our values. We confess that:

We have ridiculed the absolute truth of your word and called it pluralism.
We have worshiped other gods and called it multiculturalism.
We have endorsed perversion and called it alternative lifestyle.
We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.
We have neglected the needy and called it self-preservation.
We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare.
We have killed our unborn and called it choice.
We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable.
We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self-esteem.
We have abused power and called it political savvy.
We have coveted our neighbor's possessions and called it ambition.
We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression.
And we have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.

Search us, O God, and know our hearts today; try us and see if there be some wicked way in us; cleanse us from every sin and set us free. In the name of your son, the living Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

House Democrats are said to be outraged. I think they have a right to be. First of all, the opening prayer is not like a prayer at a church. A man in church prays as part of a community of believers. It is indeed disrespectful to address the Almighty with, "We confess," when you know that many you are speaking for do not share your sentiments and would not share your confession. It is disrespectful not least to the Almighty, who deserves better than to be approached with a knowing and willful lie.

Earlier today--well, yesterday, now--I wrote that Southerners like religious men, but prefer forthright ones. This is a fine example of what I mean. If Mr. Quelland feels it is important to pray for forgiveness for America's sins--an occupation for which I certainly have some sympathy--I know where he can find some ready made advice on how it might better be done.

SSDB: Not Subject to the Privacy Act of 1974

The Sarge is Being Clever:

I had a good laugh at Sgt. Stryker's post on the News today:

Stealing a page from the 2000 Election, Democratic Presidential hopeful Howard "Comeback Kid" Dean revealed his new "Winning Through Losing" strategy, saying he "did not have to win any of the seven primary contests Feb. 3 to keep his campaign alive." Dean supporters speculate that if Dean comes in dead last in the next primary, he'll have the nomination locked-up. Other political observers noted that by comparing himself to Bill Clinton, Dean's committed a serious faux pas that has felled many a dorky student running for Class President: artificially appropriating the same nickname as the cool kid.

Meanwhile, Dean has fired his campaign manager and, in a sign of stability, asked staff to defer getting paid for a couple of weeks. Hint to Dean staff: Money up front. In a couple of weeks, the campaign that's supposed to be paying you may dissolve.

Blackfive - The Paratrooper of Love: Journalistic Jingoism...

OpSec:

I join Blackfive in condemning the Chicago Tribune, and especially Ms. Spolar. Even the anti-war Human Rights Watch noted, in their report on "Freedom of Expression and the War" that US precedent condemns this sort of reporting:

Eric W. Ober writes: "During the Vietnam War, reporters could go anywhere -- anytime -- often with the military taking us along. There were two basic restrictions in Vietnam. First, that no troop movements be reported prior to engagement. Second, that no faces of dead or wounded soldiers be shown before their families had been properly identified. Both restrictions were totally understandable, and there were virtually no violations of the guidelines by any American news organization.

Emphasis added. Meanwhile, the military takes a dimmer view. Military Law Review (PDF warning--long article) points out that:

[We are] reminded of Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes oft-quoted observation in Near v. Minnesota that the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech does not bar the government from preventing the publication of sailing dates of transports or the number and location of troops. (Citation: Paul D. Kamenar, Media Restrictions Are Necessary to Protect Doops, LEGAL TIMES, Jan. 28, 1991, a t 19-20. See Near v. Minnesota ex rel. Olson, 283 US. 697, 716 (1931).)

The Pentagon's guidelines for the media during the Gulf War included explicitly:

Any information that reveals details of future plans, operations, or strikes, including postponed or canceled operations.

The government ought to act to defend its right to prevent the publication of this information. I will leave it to the lawyers among you to determine the best course for that action.

UPDATE: The Federation of American Scientists, of which I am a member, has chosen today to draw attention to this report at the Center for Counterintelligence and Security Studies. Entitled "Laws And Leaks Of Classified Intelligence: Costs And Consequences Of Permissive Neglect," it was originally published in 2002. It proposes a strict standard for dealing with journalists who publish classified data.

[A] close reading of 18 USC 798 (sometimes referred to as the SIGINT statute) and surely 50 USC 451 [sic--421, I think, is the right section.-Grim] (Intelligence Identities Protection Act), will show that journalists are already legally accountable for publishing leaked classified intelligence. But these statutes (too narrowly drawn, and considerable intelligence escapes their purview) are apparently unenforced to date, and remain to be tested in the courts....

Recognize that government leakers and the journalists who publish the classified materials they provide do the equivalent work of spies. Even if their motives differ, the effects are often the same. Through press leaks, unauthorized disclosures can be every bit as damaging as espionage because of the focused exploitation of the US press by terrorists and hostile governments. If leakers and journalists were caught providing some of this classified information clandestinely to a foreign power, they could be prosecuted for espionage. But if they publish in the press--where their leaked sensitive information becomes available to all governments and terrorists, not just one--they derive effective immunity from prosecution under a government that lacks the will to enforce its laws.

I don't follow his assertion that the portions of the US Code he cites say anything of the sort. I am not a lawyer, but the SIGINT statute clearly applies only to cryptographic information. The Intelligence Identities Protection Act will be familiar to anyone following the Plame business. It's strictly limited on what it criminalizes.

That said, the overriding argument is proper, and the US Supreme Cout has plainly said that the government has the right to prevent the publication of exactly this information. If any of you lawyers wish to comment, I'd like to hear what options you see the government having to protect our warfighters from unscrupulous journalists.

Forget the South, Democrats - Stop coddling the spoiled brat of presidential politics. By Timothy�Noah

The South and the Democratic Party:

Slate has today an article by one Timothy Noah, entitled "Forget the South, Democrats - Stop coddling the spoiled brat of presidential politics." We shall here discuss it.

"There goes the South for a generation," Lyndon Johnson is said to have predicted as he signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act into law. Actually, it's been two generations, but otherwise Johnson was dead-on.

Insofar as Johnson was right, it wasn't the Civil Rights Act itself, but the use of military force against the South that did the trick. I think that the CRA was less important than Brown v. the Board of Education in that regard. In any event, the South is the only part of the United States that has felt the force of the US military directed against it--twice now, and this last time in living memory.

As I have argued elsewhere, Southerners have come to the point that we ought to admit that things are better in the South in part due to such intervention. Nevertheless--let it be said that I defy the premise of this article, which is that the South is in some way the 'spoiled brat' of American politics. The South provides fully 40% of the US military, and yet is the only region that has had that military used against it. We have served, and we have been struck across the face in our service; and we continue to serve. Therefore is America as strong as she is:

'This blow that I return not
Ten times will I return
On kings and earls of all degree,
And armies wide as empires be
Shall slide like landslips to the sea[.]'

So let us dispense with the notion that the South has been coddled. What else is there in the article?

For 40 years, the Democratic Party begged Southern Democrats to return to the fold. Always undignified, this pleading eventually become futile as well, like Shirley Booth calling for her dead puppy in Come Back, Little Sheba. Now John Kerry, winner of the New Hampshire primary, is taking some heat for saying so. But it's about time somebody did.

"Everybody always makes the mistake of looking south," the Massachusetts Democrat said in a Jan. 24 appearance at Dartmouth. And so they have.

Return to the fold? Sir, Southern Democrats still stand right where the fold used to be. It is the fold that has moved away from us. You have, to extend the metaphor, sought other grazing in pastures you thought from afar would prove greener: socialism, identity politics, abortion politics, judicial activism and its illiberal accomplice, the litigation of every aspect of American life. You have turned free and equal citizens into a hierarchy: lawyers, and subjects of the law. That would bad enough, but you have also encouraged the lawyers who become judges to be legislators, rewriting the law at pleasure. Return to you? You tred ground that shows no sign of any previous human foot: nor will it show yours for long, for it is a morass.

What else?

For two decades, it's been axiomatic that Democratic presidential candidates couldn't win unless they were Southerners.... But it didn't work in 2000 for Al Gore--or rather, it didn't work well enough to counterbalance the Supreme Court's decision to hand over Florida's electors to George W. Bush.

Well, as to that, the Florida State Supreme Court set aside Florida law, Federal law, and the US Constitution in rewriting the recount guidelines. That is an example of exactly what I was talking about just above. If you didn't engage in such foolishness, but respected the law, you would find that Southerners were less likely to have a problem with you.

If he'd taken Florida, which in many ways is not really a southern state, he'd be president. (Some people still argue that he did.) Thus Lesson 2: Democrats don't really need those southern votes.

We will return to the question of whether or not you need those votes in just a moment. For now, note that Florida, though I will agree that it is in character different from the South, is also home to an increasingly large number of military voters (you may remember them? They are the ones whose absentee ballots your Mr. Gore had discarded on a technicality? I assure you they remember, even if you don't). As mentioned, the South provides 40% of military forces. Likewise, the military's relative conservatism, patriotism, and respect for tradition and sacrifice make even non-Southern military men more like Southerners than anyone else in America. I wouldn't count on carrying Florida all that often.

Since 2000, many Democrats have questioned quietly why they should expend so much effort trying to win votes in what is now a solidly Republican region. The Democrats' ceaseless courtship of Southern votes has fostered an unhealthy sense of entitlement. Southerners now consider it their God-given right to supply Democrats with presidential candidates or, failing that, to force non-Southern candidates to discuss Him using an alien evangelical vocabulary. (God doesn't hear the prayers of Episcopalians, Congregationalists, or Presbyterians. No use even discussing Unitarians, Jews, and atheists.)

On the contrary: Southerners like Joe Lieberman pretty well. He's neither a Southerner nor a Christian--one of those Jews you seem to think need not apply. But Jews have always done well in the South: one of the nation's oldest Jewish communities, which was addressed by General George Washington, is in Savannah. The South, divided so badly by black-white racism, has generally not noticed 'internal' divisions: Irishmen, Jews, Germans, and so forth have suffered prejudice elsewhere, but not in the South. The sad reverse of that is the famous "one drop" rule, of course.

In any event, we have never asked anyone to talk about God who didn't want to do so. In fact, speaking for myself, I'd rather you didn't. There is little mroe irritating than listening to an irreligious Yankee suddenly start prattling on about Jesus when he starts campaigning in the South (Howard Dean, call your office). Southerners do like religious men--Jews or otherwise--but they like forthright men more.

Overindulgence has also made the South grotesquely hypersensitive to what non-Southern liberals say about it; to quote a famous witticism about the writer John O'Hara, today's South is "master of the fancied slight." Thus when Vermonter Howard Dean made the perfectly innocent remark that he'd like to win votes from "guys with Confederate flags on their pickup trucks"--a comment, incidentally, that indicated he did not intend to write off the South--he had to fall all over himself apologizing to Southerners offended by the shorthand.

This part is fair, as far as it goes. The South is an honor-based culture. In that, it is genuinely different from the rest of America. That does provide pitfalls, one of which is pricklishness to insult by outsiders.

The taboo extends to discussing whether the South has enough votes to justify Democratic solicitude. Kerry's remarks prompted Dick Harpootlian, former chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party, to tell ABC's Jake Tapper, "I'm shocked he would be talking about a strategy of avoiding the South." Tapper also quoted Kerry rival John Edwards, political scientist Merle Black, and Sen. Zell Miller, D-Ga., emphasizing the importance of the South to the Democrats. But they're all Southerners; of course they think Democrats shouldn't write off their region. (Miller, who's starting to sound like a right-fringe crackpot, has the gall to tell Democrats what to do even though he's already endorsed President Bush.)

It's worth remembering that Senator Miller gave the keynote address when Bill Clinton was nominated for the Presidency. Senator Miller's book, A National Party No More, warns that the otherwise-national Democratic Party seems not to care that it is writing off an entire region, consisting of fully one-third of the voters in the country. Maybe it seems like a winning political strategy to some persons to ceed 1/3rd of the vote, and then fight for a division of the remaining 2/3rds.

To me, it sounds like Miller is right: the Democratic party is choosing not to be a national party, unwilling to do what must be done to compete nationwide for the popular vote. If that is the case, it will become plausible for the Democratic party to be replaced by a party that will do what must be done to compete for the nationwide vote. That may be a new political party, but it might be the Republican party.

What does this spell for the future of the Democratic party? Illegitimacy, for one thing. A party that tries to govern America, having little support except on the coasts, will find that even if it wins the occasional election its policies are very hard to enact or to execute.

It is likely to find, over time, that trying to compete with a party that has a national strategy when it has only a regional strategy will cause it to be increasingly marginalized.

Nothing makes this clearer than the example of the Senate. It is barely possible to win the Presidency without the South: if you win 70% of all races outside of the South, you will have just enough Electoral votes to squeak by. You'll be OK in the House, for a while, because the House is apportioned by population. The Senate is not. There are Senate races in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Arkansas, North Carolina, and South Carolina this year, which could solidify Republican control of that body. If you don't fight for the South, over time all Southern senators will become Republican. California and New York may stand you fine in the House, but they only give you four Senators together, and both states are in play--consider a Guiliani candidacy, for example. Give the Republicans the South, and you'll never hold the gavel in the Senate again. The Senate's consent is required for all Federal judgeships, ambassadors, major political appointments, and--just in case you have forgotten--legislation. Kiss the South goodbye, and you kiss the Democratic platform goodbye. Even on those occasions you manage to win the 70% of non-Southern races, so that you have narrow control of the House and a Democratic president, you will get exactly no legislation that you want: gridlock will be the best the Democratic party can manage. By the way, don't forget the judges. Eventual Republican dominance of the Supreme Court will be assured by the loss of the Senate.

This, mind you, is the best case scenario. This assumes that the Democratic party will be able to continue to win the Presidency on occasion, and that its legislative incapacity won't cause it to become uncompetitive in regions outside the South. A more likely scenario is that the Republicans, dominant in the Senate, and eventually the Supreme Court, will dominate the other branches as well. As the Democratic party will be increasingly unable to enact legislation, people who want legislation enacted will have to go to the Republicans. That means the withering of Democratic political support among unions, lawyers, and businessmen. The only supporters that will remain are those who are so opposed to the Republican agenda that they would rather have gridlock. You'd have had their votes anyway, even if you'd made the adjustments to your agenda necessary to be competitive in the South.

Noah argues at some length that the Democratic Party can make up with Latinos the loss of the South. That is a deeply suspicious argument, as Latinos trend socially fairly conservative and religious. A Democratic party that ejects its last conservative principles in order to run with the wolves is not going to be even as appealing to them as it is now; and even now, Republicans are making gains among Latino voters.

There is more still:

But there's an even longer political history of Southerners whining and wheedling their way into disproportionate and undeserved power.

What follows this line is tenditious in the extreme.* But, the core of truth to it is that the South has always been more politically powerful than its numbers. This is mostly because of the Senate, which the South has frequently dominated due to its cultural unity.

The radical changes of the 20th century were all enacted by Democrats. They were possible because the South was solidly Democratic, and lent their power to the party--sometimes grudgingly, and sometimes with loud protests. Since the South began to go Republican, there has been no political change of any real degree in America. When the shift is complete, radical change will again be possible. Just as before, solid control of the Senate means tremendous power across the system.

This time it will be Republicans with that power. What, Noah, do you think they will do? Consider that question for a space, and then consider what can be done to stop it. There is one thing, only: the Democratic Party must return to its roots, and start fighting for the South.

* Tenditious arguments include the following:

-"The South is arguably the most socialistic region in the country; nearly half of all U.S. military personnel are stationed there, and the region was only lightly affected by the post-Cold War base closings of the 1980s and 1990s." The facts are right, but the interpretation is wrong. Insofar as military life is 'socialistic,' it is the socialism of the comitatus, not the commune. There could be no greater difference in the value systems than that.

-"Before that, the South treasonously separated itself from the Union." In fact, the right of states to seceed from the union was taught in West Point textbooks before the Civil War. Besides, the principles of the American Revolution do not make sense if states have no right, ever, to reconsider their association. It was hardly treason to do what Washington himself had done. Unless, of course, you would prefer to consider yourself a British subject, surrounded by a nation of traitors.

-"Before that, the South successfully battled all attempts to end the practice of slavery, which the Founding Fathers well understood was incompatible with the principles of the American Revolution." As to the founders--yes, indeed, although they also did all they could to avoid ending the practice of slavery in their lifetimes. Not one of them released his slaves until his death. As to the South's avoidance of ending slavery--the Confederacy was the first American nation to ban the importation of slaves. Slave ships remained legal in the North for quite some time, and they sailed, as they always had, out of Northern harbors. Their markets were limited to Brazil and the Carribean after the Civil War. The markets there never dried up; it was the British navy that put an end to the slave trade, not an end to the market. Whereas slaves in the American South lived to reproduce, slaves in South America died almost as fast as they could be imported on those Northern slave ships, the ones you'll have read about. So please--if you must dwell on old inhumanities, you might at least do so in an evenhanded way.

-"Of course, without the three-fifths rule, there wouldn't have been a Constitution of the United States--not one that governed the American South, at any rate--because the South wouldn't have ratified it. But that only underscores further the perils of paying the South too much attention." Does it? The three-fifths compromise tells us what, exactly, about the intentions of a Southerner living in 2004? About the quality of his advice? It says nothing at all on either question: it is an ad hominem attack against the region, as indeed are most of the other assertions.

Samizdata.net

Samizdata:

You have probably noticed that Samizdata has a new look. I've been trying to sort out what the pistol is they're using on the top left photo. My best guess is a Sig-Sauer P225, but I think that's wrong because grip isn't the right shape. Anybody want to venture an opinion?

Mudville Gazette: MilBlogs:

Milblogs:

I've joined Milblogs. I wasn't sure how they'd feel about a former member of the USMC who was currently in the mercenary service (or shadow forces as Mudville Gazette calls us, though I don't work for DynCorp). Apparently, it's good enough. For what it's worth, I've kept my oath.