So. Grim wants (and frankly, so do I) an informed citizenry.
Now how do we do this?
Well, perhaps programs like this could be expanded, because they do stuff like this.
(How the hell do you get picked for this? I wanna go to Florida and get briefed by the deputy commander of CENTCOM.)
Or, I suppose, you could go here. And just follow the links.
Or, like I do, go here, and sign up for all the emails available.
My favorite? DOD Contracts. Check this out.
Synchronous Serial Personal Computer Memory Card. What. Is. That? And why does Special Operations Command want it?
And what is hairy buffalo?
Google it and find out.
What gets me about this is that its all out there already. Paid for. Like, if you're a US citizen, you paid for that website and the General's salary and all that. I want to know what I'm paying for, if nothing else.
And and look at this. Oh wow. What the fresh hell is that? The Colonel going back to the Kentucky state bar to figure out what the hell to do next? What are they doing down there? And this is all available. So much for secret trials. You can read the charges here. (its a pdf, be warned.) After reading that, I say shoot him.
Shoot. Him. Now.
Not that I expect to be consulted, but hey, I'll bet I know more about this case than Katie Couric does right now.
So back to the original point. Part of being an informed citizen is that you want to be informed in the first place.
New Links
I MBC Links:
On the other hand -- "State St. is world famous"? This reminds me of when I lived in China, and all the little students who wanted to practice their English would come up to me. "Welcome to HangZhou," they would say, "a beautiful city that is famous in the world."
Yeah, sure it is, kid. Here's five mao, go away.
On the other hand, I can't think of anywhere better to hold it than Madison -- I hate cities one and all, and I don't suppose ya'll will want to hold II MBC at Yellowstone or Grandfather Mountain. Pity, but there we are.
I've put in a new section of links for people who attended the I MBC (First MilBlog Conference), and who weren't already on my link list. One of the great things about the I MBC was learning how many outstanding blogs exist, many of which I'd never encountered. A lot of people have commented about "putting faces to names," but for me a lot of the good was in learning that there were names I didn't know, or had only barely encountered before.
If you were there, and you want on the list, let me know.
Meanwhile, I notice that Jimbo and Andi are calling for II MBC. I'll certainly come if I can, but I have to laugh a bit at Jimbo's desire to hold it in Madison, WI:
State St. in the Mad City is world famous and Kev might as well be Mayor of it.I'm sure the second part of the line is true. Kev and I had some Guinness at Biddy's after lunch, and I can see how he'd be a fixture. He's a good guy, nihilist though he may be.
On the other hand -- "State St. is world famous"? This reminds me of when I lived in China, and all the little students who wanted to practice their English would come up to me. "Welcome to HangZhou," they would say, "a beautiful city that is famous in the world."
Yeah, sure it is, kid. Here's five mao, go away.
On the other hand, I can't think of anywhere better to hold it than Madison -- I hate cities one and all, and I don't suppose ya'll will want to hold II MBC at Yellowstone or Grandfather Mountain. Pity, but there we are.
The PAO
The PAO Conversation:
What I would like to do, though, is describe the issues at work here and throw the floor open for comments. It's an area in which a wider degree of comment and involvement would be welcome -- not just by me, but according to the PAO, by Abizaid, Rumsfeld and Bush. They want to engage the MilBlogs, though they're still thinking about how to do it the right way. There are some legal and some ethical issues to work through, and a few practical ones also.
One issue at work is that there is a division in the military between two fields that overlap. There is a field called Public Affairs, and a field called Information Operations. These two fields are, as anyone who's dealt with bureaucracies will immediately understand, mutually hostile. This is precisely because their missions overlap at key points, and they are therefore constantly having to engage in turf battles for control over certain aspects of the operations, and the associated budgets.
Public Affairs has the mission of communicating with the public -- especially the American people. Their job is to explain the military's mission and perspective honestly and accurately, and objectively. They do this mainly by talking to the press, and therefore that's where their head is -- they spend their time thinking about how to remain credible with the press, how to build and maintain relationships with the press, and how to structure those relationships with the press (e.g., how to construct the embedding process).
Information Operations handles a wide variety of tasks some of which, like Public Affairs, deal with communicating messages from the military to a public audience. These missions are (in theory) distinct because they are designed not simply to explain what is going on, but to achieve some larger goal: PSYOPs are IOs, as is the tracking of mis- and disinformation. ("Misinformation," in military terms, is accidentally wrong information; "disinfo" is intentionally wrong information, that is being put out by hostile forces).
Whereas PA is "designed" only to convey accurate information, IO is "designed" to achieve some particular purpose. There are laws and rules governing military IO -- messages must be truthful, for example, and IO may not target Americans. As a result, there is a legal separation of IO and PA, as any messages that are meant to be communicated to the American public has to go through the PA stream. This often means messages that aren't designed for the American people, but which are likely to enter the global media stream and get back to Americans.
In a war against an enemy ideology, especially one that puts out anti-American propaganda, IO is cricital. It is also, increasingly, problematic.
Problem #1: All media is now global. An example: the IO whereby the Lincoln Group placed favorable (and true!) stories in the Iraqi press. Some of the stories got back to America, as did the larger story that they were doing it.
As a consequence, the sphere in which these kinds of IO can operate is increasingly small.
Problem #2: The interdepartmental infighting previously mentioned.
PA, for legal reasons, has to handle the coverage of messages that occur in the American media space. IO tracks mis/disinformation. A major thing that PA needs to be responding to is exactly that mis/disinfo: an example we talked about at the conference was the Willie Pete story. MilBlogs did a great job of responding to that in the English language media sphere. We can't do much in the wider European/Arabic/Southeast Asian sphere. Since so much of this deals with arguments that overlap into the American space, PA has to handle the response, either by pushing our messages out, or by pushing their own.
They need language experts for that, and they are competing for those language experts both with IO and with Military Intelligence.
Additionally, these responses need to understand the process of creating/pushing disinfo, as a lot of these messages are intentionally hostile. Responding to them, and predicting the next enemy message/counterpropaganda, is IO work. That's where the experts are in this field.
So, PA and IO really need to work in integrated closeness. Because they are legally required to be separate, however, the bureaucratic infighting destroys that cooperation and trust. This is a disaster.
Problem #3: Just as there is internal military competition, there are other agencies in the government that have similar missions. So, at the macro level, there's even more bureaucratic infighting. The CIA, State, and the NSC all have fingers in this pie. There is some overlap even though the missions are somewhat different (e.g., like military IO, the CIA can't target Americans; unlike either military IO or PA, the CIA can lie). The NSC is supposed to be coordinating between them, but... well, let's say there's room for improvement.
Problem #4: Because these kinds of IO are designed to manipulate the viewer -- although, again, only through honest messages -- they are instantly distrusted when they are revealed as such. PA wants the wall to remain up, not just because the law currently requires it, but because they think it adds to the credibility of messages coming from military PA.
Those are the problems, more or less.
Here are some thoughts of my own. I invite, and encourage, you to share your own in the comments.
A) The separation between PA and IO is counterproductive. Every PAO I've ever talked to has mentioned the benefit of having the wall; and yet every one has also allowed that all their messages are still taken as simple propaganda by the media, and to some degree by the public at large.
If that's true, there is no advantage to the military of having a split between the operations. There are serious disadvantages, but no advantages. If everything you write is assumed to be propaganda anyway, you may as well take advantage of having the propaganda / misinfo / PSYOP people on board to help you.
In addition, to a large degree the "wall" is an illusion. All group messages are designed to manipulate the receiver -- otherwise, there is no reason for an organization to convey a message. A man might tell a stranger something kind for no particular reason. A corporation will not. If a corporation says anything, there's a reason for it: to sell products, to improve public opinion of the company, to recruit talent, to lobby for desired changes of one kind or another. The military is in the same boat.
There is a strong public benefit -- as opposed to a military benefit -- from having strict rules about the type of manipulation that is acceptable. For example, we could say that we would approve honest messages from the military to manipulate American public opinion for the following reasons only:
1) To recruit or retain soldiers,
2) To defend the military in cases when there is mis/disinformation that would tend to slander it;
3) To defend the military's or the nation's honor (this differs from the above in that it isn't a question of the information being right or wrong; it might be a case where the military is countering an opinion from an antiwar or Communist organ. Such opinions may not be "wrong," but might still be unfair and in need of answer).;
4) To suppress enemy recruitment;
5) To explain a military operation, either in progress, completed, or about to get underway.
All such messages would have to be honest and truthful, but that is already the case. We might also wish to stipluate that the precise acceptable purpose be spelled out at the top of the press release/article (e.g., "The purpose of this article is to spur recruitment.") That would tend to increase credibility: instead of people suspecting that you were trying to manipulate them, they would know you were, and furthermore what you wanted. Understanding that up front, they could greet the message as an honest communication, rather than a suspect one.
There are other difficulties that would have to be overcome, but I don't see that the separation is helpful to our war efforts.
B) PA should be able to engage the blogosphere. Currently they are structured around the media, as mentioned -- it's what they have mostly done for decades, so that's where their heads are. Ask Bill Roggio what that means for a blogger who wants to embed, say, without being a credentialed "journalist."
By the same token, PA should be able to pass useful messages from the blogosphere (esp. MilBlogs) through to other populations. They would need to figure out whether to rewrite but attribute (e.g., issue a press release saying, "We are here responding to the following wrongful claim of war crimes. Much of the investigation was produced by the Mudville Gazette"), or to simply start translating and publishing a "best of the MilBlogs" paper (as many Muslim countries are not as wired as ours) in local languages. I like the second idea much better.
C) One suggestion I made to the PAO was that its press releases need to be longer. MilBlogs will carry them, even though the MSM mostly excerpts (and misunderstands, so badly excerpts) their contents.
A good press release meant to communicate with Americans needs to remember that the average American has no military background. The message should therefore explain the meanings of all military terms, and give a basic tactical/strategic context and explanation of the subject of the release. In that way, we can begin to educate Americans about the business of the military, as well as conduct some very necessary public education in military science and history.
An example is Operation Swarmer. The press release referred to 'the largest Air Assault since...' etc. Neither the media nor most Americans knew what an air assault was; and more to the point, they didn't know what it signified. They interpreted it as a sign of major hostilities, when in fact it was nothing of the sort.
We've got to educate Americans about basic strategy and tactics, and remember to explain the context of any current conflict. This is not only important for mantaining public morale. It's important because in a 4th Generation conflict such as this one, the odds are that the enemy will bring the war home to us from time to time. We don't just need to start developing a citizenry that is engaged in the war. We need to start developing a citizenry that knows how to think about war.
Comments are encouraged.
Over at Mudville, I mentioned in the comments a sidebar conversation several of us had with the CENTCOM PAO who showed up to talk with us. For ease of reference, here's most of what I said:
Really two things: the degree to which MilBlogs should be embraced by the military leadership and ways in which they can be; and also some friendly advice on how PA and IO can and must be improved.C4 asked me to expand on this, but I don't have much more to say about the particulars of what we discussed. I would like to reiterate that the PAO was a good guy, and although he came with talking points, he came to work with us. He seemed genuinely surprised by how much we'd thought about how the relationship should work, and I think both sides learned a lot from each other.
He came to talk to the first point, and got a bit blindsided by the degree to which we wanted to talk about the second. However, he was a good guy, and once he got out of his PAO "I need to turn this conversation back around to my talking points" mode and started to listen, which didn't take very long, he started climbing the learning curve fast.
My sense from several previous conversations is that we've got the guys in the field understanding what needs doing and how -- some of them are on the leading edge of developing these solutions. We've got the top level leadership, mostly, coming around -- Abizaid, Cartwright, Rumsfeld, and according to the PAO, Bush. We still have to move the hardest bunch, though, which is the middle level officers who are just removed enough from the war to be attached to regulations instead of effect, and just powerful enough to throw up bureaucratic walls that can stop things from happening even when the combatant commander wants it (e.g., "well, sir, the lawyers say..."). Once you can get that middle on board, you'll see things start moving fast in the right directions.
Our PAO also said the funding was finally coming on line, which I can believe. That will improve his capabilities -- so, if he also knows what to do with his newly funded capabilities, we can make things happen. One of the complaints I heard voiced was the degree to which MilBloggers have been "carrying the weight" of responding to charges, and it's true. If we can work together with PA, and especially if we can use their language resources to get these counterarguments pushed into the media space in the Muslim world (e.g., Malaysia, Indonesia, the Arabic world), we'll really be doing something to change the dynamic of the war.
What I would like to do, though, is describe the issues at work here and throw the floor open for comments. It's an area in which a wider degree of comment and involvement would be welcome -- not just by me, but according to the PAO, by Abizaid, Rumsfeld and Bush. They want to engage the MilBlogs, though they're still thinking about how to do it the right way. There are some legal and some ethical issues to work through, and a few practical ones also.
One issue at work is that there is a division in the military between two fields that overlap. There is a field called Public Affairs, and a field called Information Operations. These two fields are, as anyone who's dealt with bureaucracies will immediately understand, mutually hostile. This is precisely because their missions overlap at key points, and they are therefore constantly having to engage in turf battles for control over certain aspects of the operations, and the associated budgets.
Public Affairs has the mission of communicating with the public -- especially the American people. Their job is to explain the military's mission and perspective honestly and accurately, and objectively. They do this mainly by talking to the press, and therefore that's where their head is -- they spend their time thinking about how to remain credible with the press, how to build and maintain relationships with the press, and how to structure those relationships with the press (e.g., how to construct the embedding process).
Information Operations handles a wide variety of tasks some of which, like Public Affairs, deal with communicating messages from the military to a public audience. These missions are (in theory) distinct because they are designed not simply to explain what is going on, but to achieve some larger goal: PSYOPs are IOs, as is the tracking of mis- and disinformation. ("Misinformation," in military terms, is accidentally wrong information; "disinfo" is intentionally wrong information, that is being put out by hostile forces).
Whereas PA is "designed" only to convey accurate information, IO is "designed" to achieve some particular purpose. There are laws and rules governing military IO -- messages must be truthful, for example, and IO may not target Americans. As a result, there is a legal separation of IO and PA, as any messages that are meant to be communicated to the American public has to go through the PA stream. This often means messages that aren't designed for the American people, but which are likely to enter the global media stream and get back to Americans.
In a war against an enemy ideology, especially one that puts out anti-American propaganda, IO is cricital. It is also, increasingly, problematic.
Problem #1: All media is now global. An example: the IO whereby the Lincoln Group placed favorable (and true!) stories in the Iraqi press. Some of the stories got back to America, as did the larger story that they were doing it.
As a consequence, the sphere in which these kinds of IO can operate is increasingly small.
Problem #2: The interdepartmental infighting previously mentioned.
PA, for legal reasons, has to handle the coverage of messages that occur in the American media space. IO tracks mis/disinformation. A major thing that PA needs to be responding to is exactly that mis/disinfo: an example we talked about at the conference was the Willie Pete story. MilBlogs did a great job of responding to that in the English language media sphere. We can't do much in the wider European/Arabic/Southeast Asian sphere. Since so much of this deals with arguments that overlap into the American space, PA has to handle the response, either by pushing our messages out, or by pushing their own.
They need language experts for that, and they are competing for those language experts both with IO and with Military Intelligence.
Additionally, these responses need to understand the process of creating/pushing disinfo, as a lot of these messages are intentionally hostile. Responding to them, and predicting the next enemy message/counterpropaganda, is IO work. That's where the experts are in this field.
So, PA and IO really need to work in integrated closeness. Because they are legally required to be separate, however, the bureaucratic infighting destroys that cooperation and trust. This is a disaster.
Problem #3: Just as there is internal military competition, there are other agencies in the government that have similar missions. So, at the macro level, there's even more bureaucratic infighting. The CIA, State, and the NSC all have fingers in this pie. There is some overlap even though the missions are somewhat different (e.g., like military IO, the CIA can't target Americans; unlike either military IO or PA, the CIA can lie). The NSC is supposed to be coordinating between them, but... well, let's say there's room for improvement.
Problem #4: Because these kinds of IO are designed to manipulate the viewer -- although, again, only through honest messages -- they are instantly distrusted when they are revealed as such. PA wants the wall to remain up, not just because the law currently requires it, but because they think it adds to the credibility of messages coming from military PA.
Those are the problems, more or less.
Here are some thoughts of my own. I invite, and encourage, you to share your own in the comments.
A) The separation between PA and IO is counterproductive. Every PAO I've ever talked to has mentioned the benefit of having the wall; and yet every one has also allowed that all their messages are still taken as simple propaganda by the media, and to some degree by the public at large.
If that's true, there is no advantage to the military of having a split between the operations. There are serious disadvantages, but no advantages. If everything you write is assumed to be propaganda anyway, you may as well take advantage of having the propaganda / misinfo / PSYOP people on board to help you.
In addition, to a large degree the "wall" is an illusion. All group messages are designed to manipulate the receiver -- otherwise, there is no reason for an organization to convey a message. A man might tell a stranger something kind for no particular reason. A corporation will not. If a corporation says anything, there's a reason for it: to sell products, to improve public opinion of the company, to recruit talent, to lobby for desired changes of one kind or another. The military is in the same boat.
There is a strong public benefit -- as opposed to a military benefit -- from having strict rules about the type of manipulation that is acceptable. For example, we could say that we would approve honest messages from the military to manipulate American public opinion for the following reasons only:
1) To recruit or retain soldiers,
2) To defend the military in cases when there is mis/disinformation that would tend to slander it;
3) To defend the military's or the nation's honor (this differs from the above in that it isn't a question of the information being right or wrong; it might be a case where the military is countering an opinion from an antiwar or Communist organ. Such opinions may not be "wrong," but might still be unfair and in need of answer).;
4) To suppress enemy recruitment;
5) To explain a military operation, either in progress, completed, or about to get underway.
All such messages would have to be honest and truthful, but that is already the case. We might also wish to stipluate that the precise acceptable purpose be spelled out at the top of the press release/article (e.g., "The purpose of this article is to spur recruitment.") That would tend to increase credibility: instead of people suspecting that you were trying to manipulate them, they would know you were, and furthermore what you wanted. Understanding that up front, they could greet the message as an honest communication, rather than a suspect one.
There are other difficulties that would have to be overcome, but I don't see that the separation is helpful to our war efforts.
B) PA should be able to engage the blogosphere. Currently they are structured around the media, as mentioned -- it's what they have mostly done for decades, so that's where their heads are. Ask Bill Roggio what that means for a blogger who wants to embed, say, without being a credentialed "journalist."
By the same token, PA should be able to pass useful messages from the blogosphere (esp. MilBlogs) through to other populations. They would need to figure out whether to rewrite but attribute (e.g., issue a press release saying, "We are here responding to the following wrongful claim of war crimes. Much of the investigation was produced by the Mudville Gazette"), or to simply start translating and publishing a "best of the MilBlogs" paper (as many Muslim countries are not as wired as ours) in local languages. I like the second idea much better.
C) One suggestion I made to the PAO was that its press releases need to be longer. MilBlogs will carry them, even though the MSM mostly excerpts (and misunderstands, so badly excerpts) their contents.
A good press release meant to communicate with Americans needs to remember that the average American has no military background. The message should therefore explain the meanings of all military terms, and give a basic tactical/strategic context and explanation of the subject of the release. In that way, we can begin to educate Americans about the business of the military, as well as conduct some very necessary public education in military science and history.
An example is Operation Swarmer. The press release referred to 'the largest Air Assault since...' etc. Neither the media nor most Americans knew what an air assault was; and more to the point, they didn't know what it signified. They interpreted it as a sign of major hostilities, when in fact it was nothing of the sort.
We've got to educate Americans about basic strategy and tactics, and remember to explain the context of any current conflict. This is not only important for mantaining public morale. It's important because in a 4th Generation conflict such as this one, the odds are that the enemy will bring the war home to us from time to time. We don't just need to start developing a citizenry that is engaged in the war. We need to start developing a citizenry that knows how to think about war.
Comments are encouraged.
2006 MilBlogs
The MilBlogs Conference:
I'll post a fuller review of the First MilBlogs Conference later, but I will say a few things right up front:
Matty O'Blackfive is a prince of a fellow, and if you haven't heard his story about the wedding, you should make him tell you.
Uncle Jimbo is a really great guy.
Bill Roggio is heading back to Afghanistan (and Iraq, I gather), as you may know. It was good to meet up with Bill, as I've written at his site from time to time.
TC Override has excellent taste in music. He got to the jukebox at Finn Mac Cool's, which is right across from Eighth and Eye, and impressed the whole place.
I met Holly Aho, who is indeed a wonderful person just as you'd imagine; and also the Red Headed Infidel, whose paratrooper stories were almost as good as Matt's. By the way, Doc, I referred her to you for a second third opinion on a Kimber; she's apparently in your neighborhood.
Finally, the officers at Op-For asked me about our own Eric Blair. "Don't you have a guy called Eric Blair writing over there?"
"Yes I do," I said.
"Is he here?" they wanted to know.
As far as I know, he wasn't, so they asked me to pass on this message:
"He comes over and argues with us all the time, and @#$@#, he always knows better than we do. Ask him to say, just once, 'Good post, guys.' Please!"
Consider it done.
Political Economy and Justice
Political Economy and Justice:
In recent news, an employee of the Central Intelligence Agency has been fired for leaking classified information to the press. (Hat tip: Michelle Malkin.)
Before I learned anything about the material leaked (or the identity of the leaker), I remembered that I'd seen commentary about leaked information--both here at the Hall and elsewhere.
The complaint has always been that any low-level person who releases classified data to anyone faces stiff fines, imprisonment, and loss of security clearance. However, people who are politically well-connected are shielded from such problems when they leak.
In this particular case, a politically-connected leaker appears to have been brought down. (If we can trust the leak that told the NBC about this...)
This is indeed a sign of hope that sanity might return to the treatment of classified information.
Opposition to this possible return to sanity could be manifold, though. From my long-distance observation of life inside of the Capitol, an illicit economy exists with information playing the role of currency.
The commodity traded for is influence and prestige in the social structures of the Capitol. Thus, a high-level staffer (defined as someone who handles and sorts information that must be passed to the decision-makers in the department) has a lot of valuable currency on hand. Purchases of influence can be made by giving some of this currency--inside information--to a few other people who might have need of it. Reporters, Congressional staffers, and friends of friends of Cabinet members all fit the description of people who might need inside information. In return for valuable information, they become noticed as good sources. The other party to the transaction is encouraged to reckon it as debt, to be repaid with favors--information, budget decisions, influece on policy changes, and the like. This will keep the information flowing in the proper direction.
Reporters play a role in this economy--but they tender payment in terms of positive and negative spin, focus in a news story on events relating to the department/agency, and a tendency to ask for the "unofficially official position" on stories that relate to the leaker's department or agency.
Prosecution of leakers who deal in classified information is a good way to clamp down on these illicit transactions. Especially where the transaction produces costly repurcussions on the international stage.
Will this illicit economy ever be truly eliminated? That is something I won't hazard a guess about at the moment.
In recent news, an employee of the Central Intelligence Agency has been fired for leaking classified information to the press. (Hat tip: Michelle Malkin.)
Before I learned anything about the material leaked (or the identity of the leaker), I remembered that I'd seen commentary about leaked information--both here at the Hall and elsewhere.
The complaint has always been that any low-level person who releases classified data to anyone faces stiff fines, imprisonment, and loss of security clearance. However, people who are politically well-connected are shielded from such problems when they leak.
In this particular case, a politically-connected leaker appears to have been brought down. (If we can trust the leak that told the NBC about this...)
This is indeed a sign of hope that sanity might return to the treatment of classified information.
Opposition to this possible return to sanity could be manifold, though. From my long-distance observation of life inside of the Capitol, an illicit economy exists with information playing the role of currency.
The commodity traded for is influence and prestige in the social structures of the Capitol. Thus, a high-level staffer (defined as someone who handles and sorts information that must be passed to the decision-makers in the department) has a lot of valuable currency on hand. Purchases of influence can be made by giving some of this currency--inside information--to a few other people who might have need of it. Reporters, Congressional staffers, and friends of friends of Cabinet members all fit the description of people who might need inside information. In return for valuable information, they become noticed as good sources. The other party to the transaction is encouraged to reckon it as debt, to be repaid with favors--information, budget decisions, influece on policy changes, and the like. This will keep the information flowing in the proper direction.
Reporters play a role in this economy--but they tender payment in terms of positive and negative spin, focus in a news story on events relating to the department/agency, and a tendency to ask for the "unofficially official position" on stories that relate to the leaker's department or agency.
Prosecution of leakers who deal in classified information is a good way to clamp down on these illicit transactions. Especially where the transaction produces costly repurcussions on the international stage.
Will this illicit economy ever be truly eliminated? That is something I won't hazard a guess about at the moment.
God Save the Queen
God Save the Queen:
Mark Steyn celebrates Queen Elizabeth II's 80th birthday. Allow me to extend my respects to the lady. Some may object that an American owes no deference to the Queen of England, and that is true; and I expect Joel may wish to remind me, again, of the affection of my family for the Jacobite cause. True, all true.
Yet I will never forget that this queen had the Coldstream Guards play "The Star Spangled Banner" at Buckingham Palace after 9/11; or that she sang it, herself and from memory, at a religious ceremony not long after. So long as she is the Queen, may God defend her; and so shall I, according to my own poor power.
9th circ 1st A bad viewpoint
The First Amendment Doesn't Protect You:
Yet the ruling is wrong in its assertion that a ban of this type leads to "fundamental values of habits and manners of civility essential to a democratic society." What would lead to those things is an open and respectful discussion of differences, in which one's right to think a certain way is protected -- as is the right of others to dissent. Stating that "discussions of tolerance [and] equality" are to be encouraged is fine and dandy, but this ruling does exactly the opposite of promoting tolerance and equality. It creates one point of view that is the official one, and one point of view that is totally banned from even symbolic representation. Not only can you not say it, you can't even wear a t-shirt with a symbol representing it.
That doesn't lead to an idea of tolerance or equality. It leads to an idea that ideas with which we do not agree must be silenced -- completely suppressed, so that not even their image offends our eyes.
Just as it does not lead to an idea of tolerance and equality, it doesn't lead to an actual situation of tolerance and equality. It's not only that the courts favor one viewpoint over another. It's that the people who have the disapproved points of view are forced to gather and express themselves outside of the public square. That leads to division within society, distrust between those "secretive" groups and people outside of them, the splitting of society into hostile factions.
How different if they been permitted to express their views in a respectful setting, in which their right to their views was protected but so also was the right to dissent! For one thing, that really would teach the habits of tolerance and respect necessary for a society in which people with competing interests and different upbringings have to live together and make space for each other. Also, in that situation, the "negative" views might be challenged and perhaps even changed. If they are wrong and you are right, what do you have to fear from the contest? You ought to welcome it.
As it stands, what we shall get is "discussions of tolerance" in which the opposing view is condemned without being presented. That will convince no one, because without an advocate for that view there is no chance of the view being presented fairly. If you don't speak to the actual point of view, or take time to understand what it is, you can't begin to persuade the people who hold it. It's like trying to push a rock when you don't know exactly where the rock is.
But don't we know everything we need to know about this rock? Why should we try to understand these points of view, which are -- so the Ninth Circuit tells us -- so wrong as to be outside the realm of protected speech?
Perhaps it is because our idea of them is incomplete. The purpose of education surely includes expanding our awareness of competing points of view. Should we not hear them?
I don't understand the particulars of this student's point of view well enough to advocate for him. He should speak for himself -- the very thing the court says he has no right to do. But I do understand the particulars of another one of the banned forms of speech, so I shall speak for it instead.
Consider the mention of "the Confederate flag" as a banned symbol. In the opinion of the court, it is the equivalent of the swastika. That seems to me like a point of view that ought to be fully argued, rather than simply asserted. To me, the Confederate flag is a positive symbol that represents nothing so much as the concept of home. It meant home to me, both physically and culturally, long before I'd ever heard of a Civil War or a place called the Confederacy. As I've argued recently, love of country -- of home -- is as natural to a man as love of father and mother. It's an honest and proper thing to love home and its symbols, and to feel inspired to defend them. Being asked to feel ashamed of your country is as likely to distort and deform the mind as being ashamed of your family.
That point of view, which is often summarized as "Heritage not Hate," is apparently not to be presented in a public school; while the point of view that the Confederate flag is the moral equivalent of the swastika is approved. The Confederate flag rarely gets a fair hearing, and is generally presented from a one-sided-negative point of view. That's the case even before this ruling.
I respect that there are people who have strongly negative views about it, just as I have strongly positive ones. I am willing to meet them halfway. They might be willing to meet me halfway, if they understood where I stand and why I stand there.
Now they shall not, because they will never have the argument presented to them. What they will have presented instead is an unfair version of the argument, a straw man stood up only for the purposes of tearing it apart.
Where we might have had tolerance and mutual respect, we will have suspicion and hostility. We might have had engagement and a finding of common ground. Now any ground in between shall be No Man's Land.
There is a great deal at stake in the courts right now. There remains much to do.
The Ninth Circuit rules that the First Amendment only protects approved points of view. Volokh points out that this is a far worse ruling for freedom of speech than previous restrictions:
Harper's speech is constitutionally unprotected, the Ninth Circuit just ruled today, in an opinion written by Judge Reinhardt and joined by Judge Thomas; Judge Kozinski dissented. According to the majority, "derogatory and injurious remarks directed at students' minority status such as race, religion, and sexual orientation" -- which essentially means expressions of viewpoints that are hostile to certain races, religions, and sexual orientations -- are simply unprotected by the First Amendment in K-12 schools. Such speech, Judge Reinhardt said, violates "the rights of other students" by constituting a "verbal assault[] that may destroy the self-esteem of our most vulnerable teenagers and interfere with their educational development."The Ninth Circuit wasn't content to rule on the specific case, either. They are happy to provide examples of other sorts of speech that the First Amendment doesn't protect, so that future jurists and administrators can project a nice penumbra of forbidden speech.
This isn't limited to, say, threats, or even personalized insults aimed at individual student. Nor is there even a "severe or pervasive" requirement such as that requirement to make speech into "hostile environment harassment" (a theory that poses its own constitutional problems, but at least doesn't restrict individual statements).
Part of a school’s “basicSchools do indeed require discipline, and the school is in the right to remove hostile messages so that education can continue. I agree that far.
educational mission” is the inculcation of “fundamental values of habits and
manners of civility essential to a democratic society.” Fraser, 478 U.S. at 681
(internal quotation marks omitted). For this reason, public schools may permit,
and even encourage, discussions of tolerance, equality and democracy without
being required to provide equal time for student or other speech espousing
intolerance, bigotry or hatred. As we have explained, supra pp. 28-29, because a
school sponsors a “Day of Religious Tolerance,” it need not permit its students to
wear T-shirts reading, “Jews Are Christ-Killers” or “All Muslims Are Evil Doers.”
Such expressions would be “wholly inconsistent with the ‘fundamental values’ of
public school education.” Id. at 685-86. Similarly, a school that permits a “Day of
Racial Tolerance,” may restrict a student from displaying a swastika or a Confederate Flag.
Yet the ruling is wrong in its assertion that a ban of this type leads to "fundamental values of habits and manners of civility essential to a democratic society." What would lead to those things is an open and respectful discussion of differences, in which one's right to think a certain way is protected -- as is the right of others to dissent. Stating that "discussions of tolerance [and] equality" are to be encouraged is fine and dandy, but this ruling does exactly the opposite of promoting tolerance and equality. It creates one point of view that is the official one, and one point of view that is totally banned from even symbolic representation. Not only can you not say it, you can't even wear a t-shirt with a symbol representing it.
That doesn't lead to an idea of tolerance or equality. It leads to an idea that ideas with which we do not agree must be silenced -- completely suppressed, so that not even their image offends our eyes.
Just as it does not lead to an idea of tolerance and equality, it doesn't lead to an actual situation of tolerance and equality. It's not only that the courts favor one viewpoint over another. It's that the people who have the disapproved points of view are forced to gather and express themselves outside of the public square. That leads to division within society, distrust between those "secretive" groups and people outside of them, the splitting of society into hostile factions.
How different if they been permitted to express their views in a respectful setting, in which their right to their views was protected but so also was the right to dissent! For one thing, that really would teach the habits of tolerance and respect necessary for a society in which people with competing interests and different upbringings have to live together and make space for each other. Also, in that situation, the "negative" views might be challenged and perhaps even changed. If they are wrong and you are right, what do you have to fear from the contest? You ought to welcome it.
As it stands, what we shall get is "discussions of tolerance" in which the opposing view is condemned without being presented. That will convince no one, because without an advocate for that view there is no chance of the view being presented fairly. If you don't speak to the actual point of view, or take time to understand what it is, you can't begin to persuade the people who hold it. It's like trying to push a rock when you don't know exactly where the rock is.
But don't we know everything we need to know about this rock? Why should we try to understand these points of view, which are -- so the Ninth Circuit tells us -- so wrong as to be outside the realm of protected speech?
Perhaps it is because our idea of them is incomplete. The purpose of education surely includes expanding our awareness of competing points of view. Should we not hear them?
I don't understand the particulars of this student's point of view well enough to advocate for him. He should speak for himself -- the very thing the court says he has no right to do. But I do understand the particulars of another one of the banned forms of speech, so I shall speak for it instead.
Consider the mention of "the Confederate flag" as a banned symbol. In the opinion of the court, it is the equivalent of the swastika. That seems to me like a point of view that ought to be fully argued, rather than simply asserted. To me, the Confederate flag is a positive symbol that represents nothing so much as the concept of home. It meant home to me, both physically and culturally, long before I'd ever heard of a Civil War or a place called the Confederacy. As I've argued recently, love of country -- of home -- is as natural to a man as love of father and mother. It's an honest and proper thing to love home and its symbols, and to feel inspired to defend them. Being asked to feel ashamed of your country is as likely to distort and deform the mind as being ashamed of your family.
That point of view, which is often summarized as "Heritage not Hate," is apparently not to be presented in a public school; while the point of view that the Confederate flag is the moral equivalent of the swastika is approved. The Confederate flag rarely gets a fair hearing, and is generally presented from a one-sided-negative point of view. That's the case even before this ruling.
I respect that there are people who have strongly negative views about it, just as I have strongly positive ones. I am willing to meet them halfway. They might be willing to meet me halfway, if they understood where I stand and why I stand there.
Now they shall not, because they will never have the argument presented to them. What they will have presented instead is an unfair version of the argument, a straw man stood up only for the purposes of tearing it apart.
Where we might have had tolerance and mutual respect, we will have suspicion and hostility. We might have had engagement and a finding of common ground. Now any ground in between shall be No Man's Land.
There is a great deal at stake in the courts right now. There remains much to do.
Test Pilot
A Test Pilot:
JHD sends an obit for a test pilot of forty years' experience, who died recently in the crash of a single-engine private plane. It's a good story, the kind of story we hope our lives will leave behind us when we die. Thanks to Scott Crossfield and the men like him, whose courage is written across the sky.
EMP Iran
On Iran:
I imagine some heavy-duty "what if?" planning is going on in corners of the military establishment, trying to develop a military option for Iran. It's not that we desire to attack Iran; it's that, given Iran's history and ideology, we can't afford for them to become a nuclear weapons power. They would probably use it, either to create an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) designed to wipe out the United States' continental electronic grid, or to simply wipe out Israel (something they seem very eager to talk about in front of microphones).
However, there are reasons not to invade, and traditional military war games have turned out badly in the past. InstaPundit says he thinks the EMP threat from Iran may be overrated, citing a Federation of American Scientists report that a credible EMP weapon requires a megaton device.
So here's a little concept I've been working on: Iran may not be able to produce an EMP, but we can. Why isn't that an option for us? I can't think of much that would throw a bigger monkey-wrench into your nuclear weapons building than having to stop and replace your entire power grid. Unlike other military options, the death toll would be small -- the greatest threat would be to those who depend on the infrastructure for food and medicine, but we could provide such aid via airdrops, or allow nations that wished to do so to go in on the ground and do it.
It would create a clear example. It would, of course, inflame much of the world -- but any attack on Iran will inflame much of the world. Because it would involve the use of a nuclear device, it would infuriate the transnationalist crowd, which argues that the US must not be arrogant and behave as if it weren't subject to the same rules as other nations. Nevertheless, as a practical matter, the US is different from other nations, and must behave differently as a result -- the idea that we're no different from France or India is laughable. The world has come to, and indeed has decided to, depend on us to provide worldwide security. It can gripe about how we do it, but you don't see anyone else (except China) stepping up to do it differently.
As an additional practical benefit, the FAS article notes that we have a problem devising EMP-resistant hardware because we have very little data on EMPS. We haven't conducted a high altitude nuclear test since 1963, when we didn't really understand very well what we should be examining. This would be an occasion to get fresh data with modern instruments, that would help us prepare against some future possible use of an EMP against the United States.
Sounds to me like a military option.
Shaving
A Close Shave:
This is outstanding. It's an article on shaving by Andy Crouch of Christianity Today, and it is everything I want an article on any topic to be. This is the right way to approach life, in large things and in small. You'll understand once you've read it.
Hat tip: Arts & Letters Daily.
Press Right, Bush Wrong
Press Right, Bush Wrong:
No, counterfeiting of a state's currency by another state is not a crime.
It is an act of war.
The BBC has a story today on North Korean counterfeiting of US $100 bills. It's an interesting story on a serious problem, but it begins with a little jab at the US government:
The US is cracking down on what it terms North Korea's criminal activities.The BBC is quite right. North Korea is not engaging in "criminal activities," because there is -- as Al Gore put it -- no controlling legal authority. There is, to put it plainly, no such thing as international law. There are treaties and obligations, but there is no law in the sense that law exists for individuals. States can't be criminals.
No, counterfeiting of a state's currency by another state is not a crime.
It is an act of war.
A Good Idea
A Good Idea, Shot Down:
The problem is that a stabbing knife -- which the facts suggest is what was used here -- is a poor weapon for self-defense. Oh, it will kill a man just fine: a single stab to a major artery or organ can be fatal. The problem is that, when you are defending yoruself, the point isn't that the other man die -- it's that the other man stop what he's doing that justifies the act of self-defense. If he dies, fine. If he lives, fine. But he's got to stop.
A stab wound is likely to be fatal, but it's a death that takes a while. The wound relies on bleeding, and mostly internal bleeding, to drop blood pressure or induce shock to the point that the attacker will stop. However, as Daniel points out, the body undergoes two changes in a fight that make it harder for such a wound to act on you: it shrinks the surface blood vessels ("vasal constriction"), and it dumps adrenaline into the body. Thus, you really have to hit a major organ or artery to kill, and even then, you have to wait until blood pressure really drops -- which can take seconds, or minutes, depending on the severity of the wound.
During those seconds or minutes, the other guy is still pounding on you. Yes, you've dealt him a lethal wound. He just doesn't know it yet. He's bigger than you, and his friends have you surrounded. What do you do?
Stab him again, since all you've got is the knife. Stab him again until he drops. Maybe the pain will finally get through to him, or maybe the extra wounds will speed the point at which the blood pressure drop hits him. Either way, if you were justified in stabbing the first time, you're justified for keeping it up until he stops what he was doing.
This is a point that the State is either trying to obscure, or doesn't understand. The fist fight motion should have been granted, if only for the purposes of education.
From a personal point of view -- and with an eye toward the recent post on Flight 93, and our potential duty to put ourselves in the breach to stop a terrorist -- we also have a lesson to learn. The lesson is: bring the right tool for the job. You want a knife that will slash, so you can attack tendons and make long cuts, rather than stab wounds, in nerves and major blood vessels. That is far more likely to stop an attacker quickly than a stab wound, even though it is less likely to kill him. The best choice is a proper Bowie knife, or a Randall Mk I style combat knife.
I continue to recommend Bowie & Big Knife Fighting System as an entry point into the study of knife fighting. As it shows, these are excellent choices for a fighting man -- at the kind of ranges in which self-defense combat is most likely according to FBI statistics, as good or better than any handgun if you have the strength and the skill.
If you don't, a large-caliber handgun is also a good choice. Again, you aren't worried about killing so much as stopping the foe -- a bullet that will break bones and joints, or reach through the body to the central nervous system, is what you need. A .38 Special will kill a man just fine, sooner or later. If it comes to it, you need something that will stop him regardless of whether it kills him -- and stop him now.
And, of course, for home defense or to keep in the truck, a good rifle or shotgun. Pretty much any rifle will do.
So, the motion proves to be educational even though the fistfight didn't happen. Pity it didn't, though. A little trial by combat would probably improve the system. The current "modern enlightened" system is certainly not impressing me much with its ability to rehabilitate, after all.
Via Southern Appeal and Orin Kerr, I see this excellent, if poorly written, motion:
COMES NOW counsel for Defendant...All errors same in citation. The judge is not amused.Shaun Donovan and John Conner have consistently maintained that it was perfectly right, legal and moral for the stronger Matt Palagi to beat up Demetrius Joslin. They have maintained that Joslin did not have to worry [about suffering grave injury or death] because Matt's drunk and stoned friends would jump in and protect Joslin.
The defense team disagrees but would love to give Donovan and Conner a chance to stand up for the principle.... Therefore, the defense moves that... there be a fist fight with one side being Mr. Coroner and Mr. Donovan and the otehr side being Kirk Krutill and Bill Buzzel. For further insurances, that Coroner and Donovan don't get beat up to bad, an group of defense attorney's drunk and stoned friends will be there to assure Conner's and Donovan's safety.
While counsel for the State are confident they could acquit themselves respectably if it were necessary to settle any part of this matter by means of a physical contest, ancient methods of trial by fire, water and the like no longer have any place in our system of justice.As a historian, I'd have to chide the judge in turn for failing to understand that "trial by fire, water and the like," properly known as trial by ordeal, were an entirely separate business from trial by combat. Leaving aside the point, however, the fistfight might really be clarifying -- particularly if the counsel for the State were given knives, and asked to judge what a proper amount of force really is.
The problem is that a stabbing knife -- which the facts suggest is what was used here -- is a poor weapon for self-defense. Oh, it will kill a man just fine: a single stab to a major artery or organ can be fatal. The problem is that, when you are defending yoruself, the point isn't that the other man die -- it's that the other man stop what he's doing that justifies the act of self-defense. If he dies, fine. If he lives, fine. But he's got to stop.
A stab wound is likely to be fatal, but it's a death that takes a while. The wound relies on bleeding, and mostly internal bleeding, to drop blood pressure or induce shock to the point that the attacker will stop. However, as Daniel points out, the body undergoes two changes in a fight that make it harder for such a wound to act on you: it shrinks the surface blood vessels ("vasal constriction"), and it dumps adrenaline into the body. Thus, you really have to hit a major organ or artery to kill, and even then, you have to wait until blood pressure really drops -- which can take seconds, or minutes, depending on the severity of the wound.
During those seconds or minutes, the other guy is still pounding on you. Yes, you've dealt him a lethal wound. He just doesn't know it yet. He's bigger than you, and his friends have you surrounded. What do you do?
Stab him again, since all you've got is the knife. Stab him again until he drops. Maybe the pain will finally get through to him, or maybe the extra wounds will speed the point at which the blood pressure drop hits him. Either way, if you were justified in stabbing the first time, you're justified for keeping it up until he stops what he was doing.
This is a point that the State is either trying to obscure, or doesn't understand. The fist fight motion should have been granted, if only for the purposes of education.
From a personal point of view -- and with an eye toward the recent post on Flight 93, and our potential duty to put ourselves in the breach to stop a terrorist -- we also have a lesson to learn. The lesson is: bring the right tool for the job. You want a knife that will slash, so you can attack tendons and make long cuts, rather than stab wounds, in nerves and major blood vessels. That is far more likely to stop an attacker quickly than a stab wound, even though it is less likely to kill him. The best choice is a proper Bowie knife, or a Randall Mk I style combat knife.
I continue to recommend Bowie & Big Knife Fighting System as an entry point into the study of knife fighting. As it shows, these are excellent choices for a fighting man -- at the kind of ranges in which self-defense combat is most likely according to FBI statistics, as good or better than any handgun if you have the strength and the skill.
If you don't, a large-caliber handgun is also a good choice. Again, you aren't worried about killing so much as stopping the foe -- a bullet that will break bones and joints, or reach through the body to the central nervous system, is what you need. A .38 Special will kill a man just fine, sooner or later. If it comes to it, you need something that will stop him regardless of whether it kills him -- and stop him now.
And, of course, for home defense or to keep in the truck, a good rifle or shotgun. Pretty much any rifle will do.
So, the motion proves to be educational even though the fistfight didn't happen. Pity it didn't, though. A little trial by combat would probably improve the system. The current "modern enlightened" system is certainly not impressing me much with its ability to rehabilitate, after all.
Some Poetry
Some Poetry:
It's been a little while since Grim mentioned it--I've been meaning to write something of my wn about G.K. Chesterton, and The Ballad of the White Horse. (The poem can be found online here. I originally found it as a part of this collection of Chesterton's writing.)
Chesterton wrote this piece of epic poetry to celebrate the victory of King Alfred over a band of Danish invaders. The struggle is as much a religious struggle as a military one: King Alfred is a Christian, as are his people. The invaders are pagans who worship strange, warlike gods. Chesterton's openly admits that he isn't writing precise history; he is writing about a historical man who cast a legendary shadow across the ages.
The central character in the story is Alfred, a Saxon king in Wessex. He is a king without a kingdom, it seems--his armies have been crushed, invaders roam the countryside, and his authority only holds in a small area.
The tale of the Battle of White Horse Vale is told as a microcosm of Alfred's long fight with the Danes. It is also told as a microcosm of the religious struggle of the time: the attitudes and ideas of Christians as opposed to the Danish beliefs and practices.
One of the strength of Chesterton's poem is the way it introduces people, cultures, and events. Short vignettes pepper the story; each vignette describes the subject in a way that is memorable.
The Vikings are introduced thus:
One of the legendary tales that the poem draws on is one of Alfred entering the Danish camp alone, and singing at one of their campfires. One Danish prince mocks the Christian culture and the remnants of Rome in this way:
Alfred responds to these songs with the joy and hope that seem baseless to non-believers. He holds that the Christian culture had more heart to run than the Danish culture had to pursue; he holds that the followers of Christ were more fullfilled with their fasts and hardships than the Danes were with their feasting and wealth.
Lastly, he reminds them that "only Christian men guard even Heathen things."
The battle of the White Horse Vale is told as if to follow this outline. Several epic encounters are described. The mighty men of both armies fight well. However, the leaders of Alfred's armies are killed and their men are beaten back. But Alfred rallies them in the forest, and manages to set upon the Danes who have become disordered and unwatchful in their celebration of victory.
The tale ends with Alfred as an old king,ordering his people to keep the chalk outline of the White Horse visible in the hill that overlooks the White Horse Vale. Many victories are hinted at; battles that stretched far beyond that first victory near Wessex. Alfred is said to warn about days when the enemies of faith will come as men of learning, rather than as men of war.
The poem captures the drama of the struggle between the Vikings and the Saxons for the control of England. It also describes contributions of Gaelic and Roman culture to the survival of Christian culture in England.
As Grim mentioned, the poem can also be used to describe the current struggle between the Men of the West and the Islamists who wish to remake the world after their vision of perfect Islamic culture. Their culture appears strong, but it has denied itself access to outside sources of culture and philosophy. It has forgotten the cultural sources tha came from outside of itself. It is weakened in its ability to learn from other cultures.
The culture of the West openly deals with outside sources at its deepest levels. Greek philsophical thinking and the Judaic roots of Christianity are both remembered and referenced in the West. These sources--and the conflicts that they engendered during the long development of Western culture--give the Western world its distinct strength.
Paradoxically, this strength looks like a weakness to the non-Western world.
We would do well to remember this strength. We would also do well to remember that cultures are neither created, destroyed, or fundamentally altered in a day. As Chesterton said in his introduction, the long struggle between Christian culture and the nihilism of the destructive invaders was the work of centuries. The characters he drew stand as symbols for the various forces at work over those centuries.
This is the lesson that I read in the Ballad of the White Horse. Strength may appear to be weak; weakness may appear to be strength. Clashes between cultures and civilizations may take a century to reach a conclusion. And the battle to preserve the Western world is not to be abadoned, even when hope seems foolish.
It's been a little while since Grim mentioned it--I've been meaning to write something of my wn about G.K. Chesterton, and The Ballad of the White Horse. (The poem can be found online here. I originally found it as a part of this collection of Chesterton's writing.)
Chesterton wrote this piece of epic poetry to celebrate the victory of King Alfred over a band of Danish invaders. The struggle is as much a religious struggle as a military one: King Alfred is a Christian, as are his people. The invaders are pagans who worship strange, warlike gods. Chesterton's openly admits that he isn't writing precise history; he is writing about a historical man who cast a legendary shadow across the ages.
The central character in the story is Alfred, a Saxon king in Wessex. He is a king without a kingdom, it seems--his armies have been crushed, invaders roam the countryside, and his authority only holds in a small area.
The tale of the Battle of White Horse Vale is told as a microcosm of Alfred's long fight with the Danes. It is also told as a microcosm of the religious struggle of the time: the attitudes and ideas of Christians as opposed to the Danish beliefs and practices.
One of the strength of Chesterton's poem is the way it introduces people, cultures, and events. Short vignettes pepper the story; each vignette describes the subject in a way that is memorable.
The Vikings are introduced thus:
The Northmen came about our landWhen king Alfred prays to the Blessed Virgin; he worries about the death of a culture and the end of a kingdom:
A Christless chivalry:
Who knew not of the arch or pen,
Great, beautiful half-witted men
From the sunrise and the sea.
...
Their gods were sadder than the sea,
Gods of a wandering will,
Who cried for blood like beasts at night,
Sadly, from hill to hill.
"When our last bow is broken, Queen,The response to this prayer isn't a promise that all will go well.
And our last javelin cast,
Under some sad, green evening sky,
Holding a ruined cross on high,
Under warm westland grass to lie,
Shall we come home at last?"
"I tell you naught for your comfort,It is this mention of the hope that underlies Christian faith that galvanizes Alfred's resolve. He gets no promise of the survival of Christian culture in England--or of his throne in Wessex. But he is reminded that the Christian culture he supports cares little for the fate of kingdoms; but this attitude paradoxically makes the Christian culture more resilient.
Yea, naught for your desire,
Save that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher.
"Night shall be thrice night over you,
And heaven an iron cope.
Do you have joy without a cause,
Yea, faith without a hope?"
One of the legendary tales that the poem draws on is one of Alfred entering the Danish camp alone, and singing at one of their campfires. One Danish prince mocks the Christian culture and the remnants of Rome in this way:
"Doubtless your sires were sword-swingersOther princes sing tales of the sadness of the earliest gods of the Vikings, and of the futility of struggle for dominance in a world where all are brought equal by death.
When they waded fresh from foam,
Before they were turned to women
By the god of the nails from Rome;
"But since you bent to the shaven men,
Who neither lust nor smite,
Thunder of Thor, we hunt you
A hare on the mountain height."
Alfred responds to these songs with the joy and hope that seem baseless to non-believers. He holds that the Christian culture had more heart to run than the Danish culture had to pursue; he holds that the followers of Christ were more fullfilled with their fasts and hardships than the Danes were with their feasting and wealth.
Lastly, he reminds them that "only Christian men guard even Heathen things."
The battle of the White Horse Vale is told as if to follow this outline. Several epic encounters are described. The mighty men of both armies fight well. However, the leaders of Alfred's armies are killed and their men are beaten back. But Alfred rallies them in the forest, and manages to set upon the Danes who have become disordered and unwatchful in their celebration of victory.
The tale ends with Alfred as an old king,ordering his people to keep the chalk outline of the White Horse visible in the hill that overlooks the White Horse Vale. Many victories are hinted at; battles that stretched far beyond that first victory near Wessex. Alfred is said to warn about days when the enemies of faith will come as men of learning, rather than as men of war.
The poem captures the drama of the struggle between the Vikings and the Saxons for the control of England. It also describes contributions of Gaelic and Roman culture to the survival of Christian culture in England.
As Grim mentioned, the poem can also be used to describe the current struggle between the Men of the West and the Islamists who wish to remake the world after their vision of perfect Islamic culture. Their culture appears strong, but it has denied itself access to outside sources of culture and philosophy. It has forgotten the cultural sources tha came from outside of itself. It is weakened in its ability to learn from other cultures.
The culture of the West openly deals with outside sources at its deepest levels. Greek philsophical thinking and the Judaic roots of Christianity are both remembered and referenced in the West. These sources--and the conflicts that they engendered during the long development of Western culture--give the Western world its distinct strength.
Paradoxically, this strength looks like a weakness to the non-Western world.
We would do well to remember this strength. We would also do well to remember that cultures are neither created, destroyed, or fundamentally altered in a day. As Chesterton said in his introduction, the long struggle between Christian culture and the nihilism of the destructive invaders was the work of centuries. The characters he drew stand as symbols for the various forces at work over those centuries.
This is the lesson that I read in the Ballad of the White Horse. Strength may appear to be weak; weakness may appear to be strength. Clashes between cultures and civilizations may take a century to reach a conclusion. And the battle to preserve the Western world is not to be abadoned, even when hope seems foolish.
Steve Dillard's Speech
Feddie On "The Most Dangerous Branch"
Feddie of Southern Appeal has sent along a video of his speech to the Federalist Society of Mississippi College. The introductory remarks cease at 2:10.
It's a good speech. On April 15th, it can be hard to focus your attention away from the Congress / IRS as the "most dangerous branch" due to the confiscatory taxation schemes you'll be encountering (about which more later). Still, when your blood pressure drops enough to consider an argument about the continuing Constitutional imbalance "emanating," as it were, from the Supreme Court.
93 Transcript
Echoes of the General Militia of Flight 93:
If you are not ready, prepare. You do not know when you may be called to your duty.
Via The Geek, we can now see the Flight 93 recorder transcript. It's amazing to reflect that we have not seen it before.
We should have seen it before. We should have seen the hijackers speaking before now. This is what they said, while the American men of Flight 93 came for them:
They want to get in there. Hold, hold from the inside. Hold from the inside. Hold.May the enemy ever find us thus: every hand a sword, every sword risen against them. It is in this capacity, our individual capacity as free men to stand up for the right and the common order, that we have our best defense against both terror and tyranny. Wherever they go, whenever they come, let them find us ready, and able, to rush them.There are some guys. All those guys.
There is nothing. When they all come, we finish it off. There is nothing.
If you are not ready, prepare. You do not know when you may be called to your duty.
What's happening here?
Howdy All,
Being a Texan... I've had my head in the sand, excluding near everything to concentrate on this immigration travesty. Anyone have the scoop on this?
Being a Texan... I've had my head in the sand, excluding near everything to concentrate on this immigration travesty. Anyone have the scoop on this?
thievery
Thievery:
I'm afraid I'm quite ill, having contracted something unpleasant while at a two-day conference on Thailand. That's cut into my energy for blogging, and also my capacity for thinking, so I'm just going to steal from some good bloggers I know. If you haven't read these links, you ought to do so anyway.
If you don't read Geek w/A .45, you might have missed Publicoa's "Culture." It's a good piece, and Joel Legget will like it particularly because of the invocation of the Webb book Born Fighting.
If you haven't read InstaPundit -- I know, it seems unlikely, but a couple of you have told me you don't -- you might want to look into the UC Santa Cruz situation.
You'll also want to read Cassandra's take on it. This is one of those situations that can make even mild-mannered men like me call for viol... er, well, I suppose we've seen a few of those situations lately. Still, I'm mild mannered by my community standards, I assure you.
BlackFive examines the new book Cobra II, in which a retired General officer is harshly critical of the Iraq war. B5 collects several top milblogger responses, also.
And finally, Doc is having too much fun at the expense of the nurses.
Malay goes green
"Malaysia Goes 'Green'"
I think it puts an interesting spin on this piece of predictive fiction (hat tip to Subsunk at BlackFive). Malaysia is one of the best examples out there of a Muslim country making progress -- but sometimes steps forward are met with steps back.
An article in TODAY Online examines the sharp turn in Malaysia. "Green" in this case doesn't mean a turn towards environmental politics, but a turn towards radical Islam:
No one jokes about such matters in Kuala Lumpur any more. Last week, students Ooi Keang Thong and Siow Ai Wei were charged with disorderly behaviour for allegedly kissing at the Kuala Lumpur City Centre Park. If convicted, they could face a year in jail.And these are the moderate Muslims who run the government of Malaysia. The relatively conservative Muslims belong to the Islamic political party, the Parti Islam seMalaysia (PAS); or to one of the radical movements, such as Hizb-ut Tahrir.
By itself, the incident might have passed without debate, but it came after a series of developments that have left Malaysians wondering which way their country is headed.
Last year, Mount Everest climber M Moorthy was buried as a Muslim. His wife protested, but her pleas went unheard after the High Court ruled that it had no jurisdiction over the Syariah Court's ruling that Moorthy had indeed converted to Islam.
Early last month, Malaysia's Inspector-General of Police Bakri Omar made it compulsory for all policewomen attending official functions to wear the traditional tudung headdress, regardless of race or religion.
Non-Muslims have started protesting. But even for them, the boundaries have been spelt out. Two weeks back, Minister in the Prime Ministers Department Nazri Abdul Aziz said that non-Muslims making provocative remarks on Islamic affairs could be charged with sedition.
I think it puts an interesting spin on this piece of predictive fiction (hat tip to Subsunk at BlackFive). Malaysia is one of the best examples out there of a Muslim country making progress -- but sometimes steps forward are met with steps back.
Firefighters
Heroes & Volunteers:
I think I have mentioned that I spent a good part of my youth in the company of volunteer Firemen, thanks to my father who was one. Indeed, in due course he became a Captain among them, and the President of their association, the first office of which entitled him to wear a red instead of a black helmet. He almost always refused, on the grounds that the purpose of the red helmet was to ease identification of officers on the ground in the chaos, and his Captaincy was related to the fire-safety division of the VFD. Thus, while he was the equal of the Captain of the firefighting section, he didn't want to be stand on ceremony when it could cause confusion. When fighting fires, he wore a black helmet like everybody else.
If, like me, you have cause to love firefighters, read this. I am indebted, again, to the indispensible Arts & Letters Daily.
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