So, the question is, apparently, "Does your right to keep and bear arms extend to bazookas?"
In point of fact, it does; the National Firearms Act establishes regulations under which you might, if you choose and if you meet the regulations.
These things are considered relics, and Ed Morrissey at Hot Air says that "No one needs a bazooka[.]" Can we construct a case in which there is a reasonable need for a citizen who is not a member of the government to own or keep a bazooka or similar weapon?
I think we can, using the recent case against a former Blackwater president as a model. The case is a very strange one: he's accused of trying to use the government as a "straw man" in purchasing automatic weapons. It'd be odd to attempt to hide a criminal conspiracy by crafting a written agreement with the local Sheriff to carry it out. (Why isn't the Sheriff in the dock too?)
In any event, why did Blackwater want automatic weapons? At least partially for a fully legitimate purpose: to train for missions protecting State Department employees. The State Department has reasons to want an independent protective capacity in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, so they will not be reliant on the US military for transportation. They also wish to preserve the sense that diplomats are unarmed; so they want to outsource this capacity.
The Founders recognized a very similar concept with their granting to Congress of the right to issue letters of marque and reprisal. This allowed you to arm ships with artillery, to conduct raids on enemy shipping, etc.
So yes, the right to keep and bear arms does extend to "bazookas" and like weapons. However, it's reasonable for the government to institute a much higher standard for regulation here than with personal defensive weapons. Perhaps Congress should get back in the business of issuing letters of marque, thereby certifying groups like Xe as potential recipients of State and similar contracts. Certainly the extensive background checks involved in Class III licenses represent another form of such regulation. But whereas rifles, pistols, swords and knives ought to be regulated either not at all, or by a "shall issue" permit at most, these other weapons might be reasonably regulated in a stiffer fashion.
That does not, however, mean that there is no right at all. Such regulations would not be creating a right that other citizens don't have; it would simply be going to an extra length to ensure that you haven't done anything that ought to disqualify you, such as engaging in criminal enterprise.
Guns and Bazookas
A useful history lesson
The Politico points out that President Obama's attempt to discipline those Democrats who broke with him on HCR may actually help them out:
During the 1938 midterms, Roosevelt stepped up pressure on recalcitrant lawmakers, campaigning against conservative Southern opponents of the New Deal....The result of his aggressive involvement? George kept his seat.
FDR, according to one aide, wanted “to make an object lesson” of Georgia Sen. Walter George “because he thought such a defeat would furnish a lasting lesson to the Southern bloc in Congress” — conservative Democrats who helped torpedo parts of Roosevelt’s agenda....
George called Roosevelt’s appearance “a second march through Georgia.”
FDR’s statements even forced some liberal state officials to remain aloof. But after Georgia Gov. Eurith Rivers, architect of the state’s “Little New Deal,” remained neutral, FDR halted Georgia’s public works aid for nearly a year.
From AllAfrica
From AllAfrica, a piece on why Africans survived colonialism:
Yes, the indigenous people of the Americas were almost wiped out, but many colonised Asians and conquered Europeans also survived. Why doesn't Museveni also say that Asians and Europeans do not die easily? Now, like with victory, we can speak of the management of defeat and subjugation. You can have a vision as a powerful emperor, but you can also have a vision as a leader of weak slaves.That's unusual humility, and rightly said. Tribal sovereignty is the most natural form of human authority; it is the natural government of humankind. It is the overwhelming force of the state that suppresses it. This has been going on for a long time: the ancient kings, the empires, the modern state. Maybe it's good and maybe it's not, but the tribes are always there to take things back up if the states should finally fail.
If you like, Africans are tough humanoids, but maybe the way some of their leaders handled the colonial invaders prevented their annihilation.
It is the same today. The concept of the sovereignty of Africa as one people is of course a complete myth.
Museveni and Col. Gaddafi who sing (albeit in different keys) about Africa's oneness know it. The nearest thing to sovereignty was tribal sovereignty.
If today, for instance, Bunyoro Kingdom attempted to forcefully assert its sovereignty over the oil reserves in its territory, Gen. Museveni, no more kindly than a colonial governor, would unleash his military might to crush Bunyoro nationalism.
Words like "reactionaries", "idiots" and "saboteurs" would fly around. So the Banyoro avoid upsetting Museveni, precisely because they know that Africans die very easily; not the other way round.
A computer game retailer revealed that it legally owns the souls of thousands of online shoppers, thanks to a clause in the terms and conditions agreed to by online shoppers.
The retailer, British firm GameStation, added the "immortal soul clause" to the contract signed before making any online purchases earlier this month. It states that customers grant the company the right to claim their soul.
Apparently the thing is an April Fool's joke, but still.
The power of contracts and deals runs very deep in Western civilization. God knows what could be conjured with something like this.
The Left is Right
The Founders were scoundrels! Well, one of them, anyway. There's just no excuse for turning in a book 220 years late.
Trust the Gov't?
Headline: "Majority" says you can't trust the government.
Actual story: "Nearly 80 percent."
That's quite a delta.
Good Line Zero
From Hot Air, on the President's "like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower" remark:
There’s nothing factually incorrect about what the President said. It’s the tired, bloodless way he said it that provoked a sharp Sarah Palin response. It was a far cry from the way someone like JFK or Reagan would address the same topic. They would have seen the responsibility of power as a challenge we should rise to meet, with confidence and determination, and offered thanks to God that America is the nation entrusted with this challenge.
Sadly, the America of new frontiers and bright mornings was long ago. Today we live in Hospice America, where caretakers with first-class temperaments and sharply creased trousers make us comfortable in the face of inevitable decline… and forward the bills for our end-of-greatness care to our children, who will go bankrupt paying them.
More On Music, Men and Women
I think I'm convinced by Eric and Bill's posts that we were right to conjecture that folk music would be more interesting, set to electric guitar, than any of these "dude music" forms being written today. The two samples are different, though: Eric's are genuine folk tunes being set to electric guitar (the "All Around My Hat" piece really was good); Bill's shows a band trying to write music with a foundation of serious poetic and eternal themes. That's half the conjecture.
The other half is that -- while there is nothing wrong with writing a song that is about a man's perspective, or a woman's perspective -- achieving a balance might actually improve the quality of the song. Curiously, the next piece of evidence in favor of that comes from the example that the ladies at TigerBeatdown chose as an example of anti-"dude music."
They praise this as an example of female rebellion, and "a venue for angry or self-obsessed or confrontational expression." Probably it's all of those things, and it may be (I take them at their word that, for them, it is) successful in that regard.
However, they also wanted to "talk about these women musically," so let's do that. Musically, this is a terrible song! It's grating; the electric guitar is merely repetitive; and however powerful the protest lyrics are, you'll have to look them up in order to realize it. You can barely make out a word she sings.
Now, P.J. Harvey is not a terrible musician! She has a voice that has a tremendous power and fascinating range: it's just not on display there. But try this:
That's a remarkable piece. I have a feeling that you could remove the electronics and improve it, by removing the distortion that the electronics so often produce (especially live). It's got a simple blues feel, but there's a lot going on with the lyrics: it touches a deep tradition we have on how love, even honest and real love, can destroy as well as save.
Now, how does that meet our test? Could a man sing that song? I think so, if it were the right man: he would need a powerful voice to handle what she's set down here. Putting a man in the role of the singer of this song would change the meaning of the song somewhat: how should a woman react to a lover who curses God and makes deals with the devil in order to be with her? With alarm, one would think! After all, if he will defy God 'to bring her his love,' how ready is he apt to be to accept her "no" if she offers it? If he's ready to accept hell to assert his love, how much will he fear prison if she refuses him?
Yet the song is universal enough that there's room for that change; it doesn't render the song absurd. So we might say that this is a balanced song. (Is it important that a male or female singer be optional? I don't think so, personally; a song that needed to be sung by a man, or a woman, would qualify as 'balanced' if it told the truth about both men and woman. However, in their first post, these ladies had mentioned songs being written around male vocals; so it's worth examining that issue to see if it matters.)
Is it stronger than the rage-filled song, as music? I think it is; but the question is, does that strength come from the fact of it being more balanced, or is it accidental? It seems right to say that songs that represent something honest about the condition of men and women ought to be more powerful than songs that are honest about one sex only, in just the way that the truth is more powerful than a half-truth. The latter may deceive for a time, and therefore seem powerful; but deception is only human, and can therefore only persist for a time.
The truth is a force of nature. Capturing that in music ought to produce true power, the kind that raises mountains or grinds them down.
Are there more examples? What is the strongest half-truth song you can think of for us to examine? I don't think it would even be fair to compare it with the strongest songs of Truth: the fourth movement of the 9th symphony, for example. We might try to take the strongest half-truth songs, and compare them to ordinary songs of truth. My thesis is that the songs of truth will win; but let's see what we come up with.
I'd like to tap some of our lady readers to offer some of their favorites as well. I know one of Cassandra's, at least, that may qualify as a song of truth:
That's a very powerful song, and it's powerful just because of the truth it tells. The music is pleasant, but you can compare versions of the song recorded by a younger lady with a different vocal quality, and see how very well it stands up. She doesn't have the breath to hold the notes anymore; and it doesn't matter.
UPDATE: Here is a post by a writer who differs on P. J. Harvey, and thinks her whole power is that she scares him:
Harvey’s music feels dangerous, harsh, and epic—everything rock music is supposed to be—and it’s this sense of danger that ultimately elevates Rid of Me... [she] goes so far beyond traditional models of decorum and taste that every note becomes a bold gesture, an affront to society at large.Perhaps I just find gestures designed to cause affront more boring than bold; certainly, I find that I'm as unmoved by the alleged scariness as the authors of the first piece were by "dude music's" focus. It's fine for someone to write music that's about that, but it lacks the power to move me. That was their original point in the first article: this kind of music doesn't make me feel anything. As a half-truth, it is meaningful only to those invested in the half-truth; for those outside it, it's empty.
Continuing the theme.
Submitted for your listening pleasure, because, unlike the music of most bands formed in the ‘70s, Jethro Tull’s was meant to be *listened* to rather than danced to. The songs tell stories. They’re meant to draw you to the tale-teller on an individual basis as a listener rather than a participant – which, I guess, is the reason Jethro Tull never caught on with the “I Didn’t Understand The Words, But I Can Dance To It” Crowd™.
Eric gave you a plethora of riches from Steeleye Span, and bade you choose one or all, as suited you.
I’ll give you only two, but these are of my choosing. Moths, the first selection, throws an interesting twist to Grim’s question: “If you did this song on an electric guitar, it would be more interesting and better than any 'dude music.' How much of that is the viewpoint, and how much is the music itself?”
The music is complex and mixes modern instruments with old – Ian Anderson is credited with being the first to introduce the flute into Rock, and the only musician to use it as the lead instrument – and the lyrics would not be out of place at gentlefolks’ table.
No visual, but the sound quality is the best of those I previewed, and I previewed for the *listening*.
Of course, if I thought your attention span was as short as mine, I might have
Hmmmmmm.
Ummmm – anybody know where was I going with this?
And the first moths of summer
suicidal came
to join in the worship
of the light that never dies
in a moment's reflection
of two moths spinning in her eyes.
The second is Broadsword. The music has a more dramatic theme, and the choice of instruments – still a mix of old and new -- reflects it. The lyrics are those of a warrior lord – instructions to his squire, prayers before battle followed by orders to his soldiers as to the location of the battlefield and their formation on it. Although the melody wouldn't be out of place today, the words would be anachronistic -- and probably abhorrent -- to a typical modern audience.
And, as befits a heroic tale, some heroic scenery. The volume isn’t the best, but the words are clear, and the viewing doesn't detract from the listening.
Tull and Tolkein. I think JRR would approve.
Bring me my broadsword and clear understanding.
Bring me my cross of gold as a talisman.
Bless with a hard heart those who surround me.
Bless the women and children who firm our hands.
Put our backs to the north wind. Hold fast by the river.
Sweet memories to drive us on for the motherland.
Universal themes frozen in a moment.
Thoughts?
From the album "Below the Salt":
King Henry
Gaudete (this was a #1 hit in the UK)
Royal Forester
John Barleycorn
From the album "Parcel of Rogues", Came Ye Oer' From France (I think this is is about the '15, not the '45)
To compare, the same song by the Corries:
From the album "Ten Man Mop", Captain Coulston:
From the Album "Please to See the King", Cold haily, windy rainy night:
From the album "Rocket Cottage", Fighting for Strangers:
From the album "Hark the Village Wait", The Lowlands of Holland:
One of my favorites: "All around my Hat" (for you levellers out there) with video of Maddy in full cry:
I think this is from the album "Please to See the King", Female Drummer:
If you can't find something there that pleases, then yer dead.
Dude Music
Actually, I hate this stuff too.
This is what I call “dude music.” To clarify, just because music is made by men doesn’t mean it’s dude music. And just because music is made by women doesn’t mean it’s not dude music. No, dude music is music that prioritizes the status quo, that prioritize men’s voices, men’s experiences, and the experiences of people in power and who benefit from the current power structures in our society. Dude music is music that can ever be described as “noodling.” Dude music is post-rock, and prog-rock, and rock that exists not to say anything, but to showcase how awesome the men in the band are at playing guitar. Dude music is music that has nothing to offer people who are disenfranchised or oppressed, because it either is totally uninterested in their disenfranchisement/oppression, or actively profits from it. Dude music is “I went to your concert and I didn’t feel anything.”I wouldn't say it was wrong to write a song that 'prioritizes men's voices/experiences,' but I also don't think it's wrong to write a song that prioritizes a woman's. One artist might do one and another artist the other without fault; although, perhaps, the best artist might be able to do both. That aside, this entire branch of music is horrible, and she's right to dislike it.
Could it be improved by including women's viewpoints more? Well... that's another question. Let's examine it. On the one hand, a 'dude music' version of "Watkin's Ale" would still be more interesting than anything being written in this genre. I'm going to give you two versions of it, one with a female singer and one with a male. (The female version has the lyrics in subtitles.)
The viewpoint does make a difference. The maiden gets some good lines: "What do you care?" "Your ale, I see, runs very low." It also offers a warning that the women are in a peril that the young men are not, because of the reality of pregnancy, and the ability of the man to simply walk away. The song (as Renaissance and Medieval bawdy songs often do) ends up expressing a moral that is somewhat conventional; but it doesn't show the "maiden" as a wicked or unpleasant person for allowing herself to become pregnant.
This may be an example of a balanced song. The song doesn't really 'prioritize the experience' of either men or women; it's a song about a man and a woman, showing them being young and foolish. It shows the man as being irresponsible and the woman as saddled with the consequences, but that's the reality of anonymous sex. The song can be sung well by men or women.
So, this is a set of advantages it has over modern music. There's another, though: it's just better music. If you take the vocals out entirely, and just look at the music itself, it's objectively better than the 'dude' music that she's talking about. It's more complex, takes more skill, and is composed in a way that more naturally harmonizes with our nature. That is, it's easy to find people who are bored or irritated by 'dude music,' or country music, or hip-hop, or any of the modern 'dance' musics. This kind of music is just naturally pleasant; whether it's "great music" or "folk music," the music itself is really better.
If you did this song on an electric guitar, it would be more interesting and better than any 'dude music.' How much of that is the viewpoint, and how much is the music itself?
Well, I suppose the test for that would be to take a 'dude music' piece and set it to better music. How much would it be improved? Probably this would only serve to make clear just how horrible the lyric writing is: the kind of lyrics these bands write would only deface music of this quality.
I think we have to give the point to the lady. What do you think?
Thank You, Mr. President
We should be ashamed.
President Barack Obama struck a hyperpartisan note Thursday, telling Democrats that he was "amused" by the Tax Day Tea Party rallies.I'm glad you're amused. Also, thank you for being so concerned about our taxes.
Obama, addressing a Democratic National Committee (DNC) fundraiser in Miami, did little to endear himself to the Tea Party groups protesting around the country, saying "they should be saying thank you" because of the tax cuts he has signed into law.
A Repeat
We did this one a few months ago, but it's worth a repeat.
After the title is given, the man says: "Thank God." And indeed.
CCP Dies
World Affairs Journal considers the fate of the Chinese Communist Party. They share our view (mine and Eric's, that is) that China isn't quite the rising power that it's said to be in much of the press; its days are numbered.
Seriously?
This is genuinely hard to believe.
Last week Jonathan Allen at Politico reported that the Democrats in Congress might not pass a budget resolution this year. "Indeed, some Democratic insiders suspect that leaders will skip the budget process altogether this year — a way to avoid the political unpleasantness of voting on spending, deficits and taxes in an election year — or simply go through a few of the motions, without any real effort to complete the work," Allen wrote. "If the House does not pass a first version of the budget resolution, it will be the first time since the implementation of the 1974 Budget Act, which governs the modern congressional budgeting process."So what does that mean?
The practical consequences of failing to produce a federal budget for next year are about the same as they are for a family that doesn’t set a plan for income and spending: Congress doesn’t need a budget to tax or spend, but enforcing discipline is harder without one. And, like a family that misses out on efficiencies because it hasn’t taken a hard look at its finances, Congress can’t use reconciliation rules to cut the deficit if the House and the Senate don’t adopt the same budget.So they give up reconciliation; that is the tool that allows them to pass laws on a 51-49 vote instead of a 61-39 vote. Why would that be rational?
If you already expect to lose the Senate this year, it makes sense. It means your opponents can't use reconciliation when they are in the majority.
Underfunded Public Pensions
Are you fully satisfied with the quality of public education in our country today? Soon, it'll get worse!
Although it is generally acknowledged that education is the foundation of every modern society’s future prosperity, schools unfortunately will have to compete with retirees for scarce dollars. This competition is uneven, because retirees have a legal claim on promised pension benefits that supersedes schools’ budgetary needs. Consequently, Americans can look forward to higher taxes and cuts in services, resulting in fewer teachers, bigger classes, and facilities that are allowed to deteriorate. In several states, these developments have already arrived.So: we'll soon be paying $933 billion dollars more for retirees not to teach, at the expense of hiring and funding paying active teachers.
That's no problem, though, because there's an infinite supply of money in the world. Stuff grows on trees.
Fertility In the Spring
Of course, to optimize the result, you'll have to enjoy some beer too.
Up the Militia: Ancient Britain
One of the things we've talked about from time to time, over the years, is how effective a militia is (and is not). On the one hand, the Saxon "hue and cry" system worked reasonably well; on the other hand, there is the Battle of Maldon. At least at Maldon, though, the 'militia' was made up of men who were trained as warriors. George Washington's difficulty with the militia, which Eric normally mentions when we talk about this subject, was not unique.
For example, Geoffrey of Monmouth describes how a militia was raised to fight the raiders in Albany, near the wall. The speech was stirring; the results were not.
Neil Armstrong Speaks
A name that was, to my boyhood self, greater than Odysseus' or almost any other you could name -- he has spoken today. I honestly hadn't thought of him in years; I didn't know he was even still alive.
There will come a time -- I trust and hope -- when space matters again, in a way it has ceased to seem to matter now. We are fools to pass it up, for any reason.