Then They Shall Know That My Name Is...

An article wonders why we engage in punishment.

Traditionally, what reasons justify punishing wrongdoing, such as criminal behaviour?

(1) Retribution;
(2) Specific deterrence or incapacitation (i.e., deterring the wrongdoer);
(3) General deterrence (i.e., deterring third-parties);
(4) Rehabilitation; and,
(5) Restitution.

Modern intellectual discourse favours the latter 4 justifications. Retribution is seen by many criminologists as primitive, if not irrational. But may a society -- i.e., a society aiming to be a just or good society -- impose punishment absent some strong conception of retribution? I am not so sure. Here is why....

I quote this section in order to point out that this has not been the opinion of the enlightened only recently. Socrates is brought up against it by Protagoras:

If you will think, Socrates, of the nature of punishment, you will see at once that in the opinion of mankind virtue may be acquired; no one punishes the evil-doer under the notion, or for the reason, that he has done wrong, only the unreasonable fury of a beast acts in that manner. But he who desires to inflict rational punishment does not retaliate for a past wrong which cannot be undone; he has regard to the future, and is desirous that the man who is punished, and he who sees him punished, may be deterred from doing wrong again. He punishes for the sake of prevention, thereby clearly implying that virtue is capable of being taught. This is the notion of all who retaliate upon others either privately or publicly.

Rational punishment does not look to the past but to the future, Protagoras says. Indeed, since we cannot change the past, the only reason -- that is, the only kind of purpose to which rationality even might apply itself -- for punishment must be an eye toward the future. Deterrence is rational. Rehabilitation is rational. Mere retribution is bestial, so he argues.

I think that the opposite is true. It is the beast who is most likely to forgo retribution. They will act not to revenge past harms, but to avoid fresh ones. They might kill you if they think you are still dangerous and sense a momentary advantage. They might just as readily avoid you to keep from presenting you with a chance to hurt them again. They will not feel any duty of honor to avenge themselves, or their families, nor to repay you for the wrongs you have done.

Retribution is a higher, not a lower quality. This is orthodox, is it not? Vengeance is the divine quality, not a bestial one. Human beings are urged to mercy and kindness toward their enemies not because it is irrational or animal to punish past wrongs, but because they are not high enough to do it well and justly. Be patient, return kindness for cruelty, and you will heap hot coals on their heads.

How fitting, then, that it was a Vicar who provided the author cited at the top of this post with his reasons. But this is not a purely Judeo-Christian view. The Ancient Greeks thought this too, those of them who were poets instead of philosophers. They also thought that vengeance and retribution were divine. Hesiod even tells you her name.

Always With The Euphemisms

If a group calls itself the "Military Religious Freedom Foundation," what do you suppose their cause is?

Right. Their cause is making sure no one in the military is free to express religion, outside of a designated chapel.

John Derbyshire noticed this trend in deceptive names for radical policy organizations way back in 2003.

The Santorum business brought to the fore an outfit called "The Human Rights Campaign." You would never know from its name that this is a homosexualist lobbying organization. I have no problem with HRC's existence — homosexuals have as much right to organize and lobby as the rest of us — but I do have a problem with that name — viz., it's dishonest. The name of an organization ought to give some clue as to what the organization is for. Why don't they call themselves "The Homosexual Rights Campaign," or "The Campaign for Tolerance of Alternative Sexuality," or something like that? If they want to be a little more in-your-face, they could go for something with a defiant or humorous twist: "The Sodomite Sodality," perhaps. Don't they understand that this straining at bland respectability just makes them look shifty?

Readers, I have decided to launch a movement for the legalization of dog meat as a marketable foodstuff. My movement will be named: "The Campaign for Truth, Justice, Harmony and Peace." Everyone OK with that?

Of course, in the ensuing twelve years, the Human Rights Campaign went on to win everything their hearts desired -- while John Derbyshire was exiled to the outer darkness, precisely for being direct and honest about his more radical views.

"Short"

With apologies to MikeD, I guess it's relative.

Cheeky nandos

I stumbled today on a word-junky blog some of you might enjoy.  The author's primary interest is difference in usage between Great Britain and the U.S., explored in two ways made possible by the Internet:  comments from geographically distributed English speakers, and the Google tool that allows us to make charts of the usage of a word or phrase over time, contrasting the ".us" with the ".gb" style.

The Ghost Army

Sun Tzu tells us that all warfare is based on deception. During WWII, the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops were a unit of artists, set designers, and regular guys who used inflatable tanks, vehicles, and artillery; recordings played over loudspeakers; and other means to simulate US units and deceive the German army during operations from Normandy to the Rhine. While it was serious business, they seem to have had some fun doing it, too.

The Ghost Army is an hour-long documentary that tells their story. It uses film footage, interviews with some of the veterans of the unit, and a number of sketches and paintings done by the artists during their service. It's pretty good, if you're into WWII documentaries.

I'll Take You To the Wars, Love

AVI has produced a remarkable resource. The site collects traditional folk songs and ballads from Gloucestershire. It's just the sort of thing to warm the heart. Here is one -- you can listen by clicking on the player on the right side of the screen -- based around a man who wants to bring his pregnant wife along to the wars he's going to fight in "High Germany." It's 18th century, and the notes indicate that nobody's really sure just which of the several wars near the period were meant to be indicated by the song.

Well, we may see such a time ourselves, and not in the too distant future. Fortify yourselves with song.

Tomorrow's Headlines Today

Top Army leaders have ordered its elite Special Forces unit to change its motto from the Latin “De Opresso Liber” (To liberate the oppressed) to something that would be more culturally sensitive, after a large number Afghans holding child sex slaves have complained.

“We want to make sure we are not offending our coalition partners and not judging them based on our own biases,” said Col. Dwight S. Barry, a Pentagon spokesperson.

By now, you know the source.

Cosmopolitan Was Once a Literary Magazine

Apparently! And suddenly, I have a new appreciation for the popularity of Hemingway.

It was on the morning of January 25, 1954, that word flashed around the world that Ernest and Mary had been killed in a plane crash in dense jungle near Murchison Falls in Uganda, setting off universal mourning and obituaries. But news of the tragedy was soon superseded by a report that Ernest had suddenly, miraculously, emerged from the jungle at Butiaba carrying a bunch of bananas and a bottle of Gordon’s gin.

All right, that makes sense to me. I've read a lot of his work over the years, most recently The Old Man and the Sea, and I've always liked it as far as it goes. What I hadn't understood before was his rock star image. But that -- and what follows -- makes sense of it.

The real story is about the dangers to a man of loving two women at the same time. It is, and perhaps it really must be, a tragic story. F. Scott Fitzgerald proves to be the wise man of the tale. He understood what was going on right at once, and tried to guide his friend in the right way. He was up against an at-least equal and opposite power, though, in one of the women who loved Hemingway.

The Pope's Visit

I've always liked Pope Francis. What I like about him, above all, is that he gets out of his security and walks among the people. He's ready to die every day. That's what I look for in a man of God: if he really is what he is supposed to be, he ought to be ready to die at any moment. I don't doubt that God loves Pope Francis for this reason alone, without regard to anything he believes. That is living faith.

For that reason, I don't care especially about the particulars of his statements. Gosh, a lot of people obviously do. I think they're missing the point. Human knowledge is always limited. There are a few points of theology Francis can state that are obviously firmly binding on Catholics. The teaching on abortion is one of these. But they aren't binding because he believes it, or because he says it. They're binding because standing behind him is a massive weight of authority. No one man, Pope or otherwise, can alter it in more than the slightest degree.

Why is that? The Church is the largest religious organization on Earth, with just about 1.2 billion members. That is not binding. To appeal to that would be an ad populum fallacy, an appeal to the popular. What is going on with the Church's authority is something more. The Church does not think it represents 1.2 billion people. The Church thinks it represents all of the members gone before those 1.2 billion into the grave. It takes seriously the proposition that it must remain in fellowship with the dead, because it expects to meet them again -- perhaps tomorrow afternoon.

There is a huge power in that, even apart from the authority it draws from community with the divine. To hold the human family together not just across space or culture but across time, that requires speaking and thinking with the greatest care. When the Church speaks as a whole, it speaks with some thought to the Pope (2015), to St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), St. Augustine (354-430), with Jesus who defines the calendar, with the prophets of old who came before. It considers the writings of fairly ordinary men, even, such as Tobias of one of the books taken as apocryphal and in any case written by a fairly ordinary person of his age.

Nothing like it exists. Certainly no greater human organization than it exists. We can imagine a similar organization that somehow embraced the whole of the human traditions of wisdom, from Hinduism and Judaism to Buddhism and Christianity. But there is no such organization, nor could one be constructed now. The Church is as powerful an organization of humanity as has ever been built, whatever you think of its claims of connection to the divine.

Of course it doesn't agree in all its specifics with anyone. It pursues a greater agreement with everyone.

It is good to see the Congress pause and consider. It will do whatever it wants, of course. So does everyone else. But the wise pause. The wise consider.

Kenny Rogers

I see that one of the last remaining greats of country music has announced his retirement today. He was never one of my very favorite singers, even at the top of his career, but my mother adored his singing.

Here is a song of his that remains relevant.

Islam is the War on Women

This is not where I expected Dr. Ben Carson to plant his flag. I thought he'd defend his comments on 'not supporting a Muslim for President' as a matter of personal choice as a voter, which everyone has a right to make. A substantial part of the Democratic Party would decline to support any Evangelical Christian for that office for similar personal concerns about the way the tenets of those faiths play with issues of importance to them as voters.

Instead, he's doubling down on a formal objection that Islam is incompatible with Western civilization -- and the Constitution -- unless Muslims become extremely flexible on its law. America should be a "Judeo-Christian" nation that defends the rights of women.

The Anti-Defamation League posits an objection based on, I gather, concerns about how we might receive presidential candidates who came out against Jews the way Carson is coming out against (at least fundamentalist) Muslims. On the other hand, Front Page Magazine asks whether we can really expect "a black man to prove his tolerance by endorsing a religion that practices slavery?" Given the currency of the rise of ISIS and its practice of slavery justified by appeals to sha'riah law, that's a reasonable question. But they aren't just talking about ISIS: Front Page cites a Human Rights Watch report based on compensation levels for death in Jeddah based on the free or unfree status of the dead.

I'm not sure that 'protection of the rights of women' is even a Judeo-Christian thing, but rather a specifically Medieval European tradition. It has a Judeo-Christian root in the idea, expressed by Aquinas among others, that God created both male and female and loves them both equally. But it is a chivalric ideal to defend the rights of women as an especial duty of good men. Malory put it in the Arthurian oath, taken each year at the feast of Pentecost:

“The king stablished all his knights, and gave them that were of lands not rich, he gave them lands, and charged them never to do outrageousity nor murder, and always to flee treason; also, by no mean to be cruel, but to give mercy unto him that asketh mercy, upon pain of forfeiture of their worship and lordship of King Arthur for evermore; and always to do ladies, damosels, and gentlewomen succor upon pain of death. Also, that no man take no battles in a wrongful quarrel for no law, ne for no world’s goods. Unto this were all the knights sworn of the Table Round, both old and young. And every year were they sworn at the high feast of Pentecost.” (Le Morte d'Arthur, pp 115-116)

Emphasis added, but it is already quite emphasized in the text: on pain of death. The oath states that Arthur would have hung one of his knights if he failed to defend a lady who needed his help.

Women Should Feel Free to Hike Alone

Backpacker magazine wants you to know that it's almost totally safe.

When we did five days in the Smokies last spring, we met a female hiker who was through-hiking the AT alone. She seemed to be having great fun, and is now getting close to finished according to her occasional online updates. Nothing she's written suggests that she's had even a moment's trouble from anyone. But that's an anecdote: Backpacker has the statistics.

Good News / Bad News

Today's good news for Mrs. Clinton: she has one fewer scandal to worry about.

The bad news for Mrs. Clinton: it's because two of the scandals have merged.

UPDATE: "You may recall that she certified, on pain of perjury, that she had handed over copies of all of her work-related e-mails to the State Department. If you believe the AP, that statement is now known to be false.... I can’t believe I’m saying this but I think she really might be done as a viable candidate."

"How to Perform a J-Turn"

The Art of Manliness has some instructional driving advice. I have to admit I'd never heard of a "J-Turn."

Where I come from, in that situation we do what we call a "Bootlegger's Reverse."



You have to be comfortable driving in a skid, but that's an important part of your education as a young man growing up in Appalachia. Or used to be.

Short, Fat, Beast

This guy gives beer-drinkers everywhere hope.

Hail Autumn

A depiction of Avalon by Stephanie Law.
Avalon, the "Isle of Apples," is associated with autumn because of the harvest of apples, and because the autumn brings about the time when the trees fall into sleep to reawaken in the spring. Avalon was the place where King Arthur was supposed to have been taken after the battle at Camlann, to rest and be healed that he might return at the hour of Britain's need. Malory expressed doubts about this story.

Thus of Arthur I find never more written in books that be authorised, nor more of the very certainty of his death heard I never read, but thus was he led away in a ship wherein were three queens; that one was King Arthur's sister, Queen Morgan le Fay; the other was the Queen of Northgalis; the third was the Queen of the Waste Lands. Also there was Nimue, the chief lady of the lake, that had wedded Pelleas the good knight; and this lady had done much for King Arthur, for she would never suffer Sir Pelleas to be in no place where he should be in danger of his life; and so he lived to the uttermost of his days with her in great rest. More of the death of King Arthur could I never find, but that ladies brought him to his burials; and such one was buried there, that the hermit bare witness that sometime was Bishop of Canterbury, but yet the hermit knew not in certain that he was verily the body of King Arthur: for this tale Sir Bedivere, knight of the Table Round, made it to be written.

YET some men say in many parts of England that King Arthur is not dead, but had by the will of our Lord Jesu into another place; and men say that he shall come again, and he shall win the holy cross. I will not say it shall be so, but rather I will say: here in this world he changed his life. But many men say that there is written upon his tomb this verse: Hic jacet Arthurus, Rex quondam, Rexque futurus.

Of course in the Southern hemisphere, it is the coming of spring. Both seasons have their joys. In my own home of Georgia, we are delighting in the end of the long summer and the coming of bonfires, fall festivals, and cold-pressed cider. They joys of Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas are beginning to come to mind. It is a good time of year.

A Veteran's Criticism of BLM

So, an Iraq War veteran decides to go to school. He picks a college with a good reputation, Wesleyan, and decides to write for the student newspaper. This year, he published an article on the Black Lives Matter movement. He is not black. That in itself is fine, as long as the article in question is obsequious.

It wasn't.

Police officers are looking over their shoulders as several cops have been targeted and gunned down. The week before classes started, seven officers were killed in the line of duty; a few were execution-style targeted killings.

An officer I talked to put it succinctly: “If they want to come after me, fine. Just come at me head on. Don’t shoot me in the back of my head. I’d rather go down with a fighting chance.”

Is this an atmosphere created by the police officers and racist elements in society itself? Many, including individuals in the Black Lives Matter movement, believe so.

Or is it because of Black Lives Matter? Many believe that as well, including a police chief who made his remarks after one of his officers was shot and killed—he claimed that Black Lives Matter was responsible for the officer’s death. Some want Black Lives Matter labeled as a hate group.

I talked to a Black Lives Matter supporter, Michael Smith ’18, who recoiled when I told him I was wondering if the movement was legitimate. This is not questioning their claims of racism among the police, or in society itself. Rather, is the movement itself actually achieving anything positive? Does it have the potential for positive change?...

[F]ollowing the Baltimore riots, the city saw a big spike in murders. Good officers, like the one I talked to, go to work every day even more worried that they won’t come home. The officer’s comments reminded me of what soldiers used to say after being hit with IEDs in Iraq. Police forces with a wartime-like mentality are never a good thing....

It boils down to this for me: If vilification and denigration of the police force continues to be a significant portion of Black Lives Matter’s message, then I will not support the movement, I cannot support the movement. And many Americans feel the same. I should repeat, I do support many of the efforts by the more moderate activists....

At some point Black Lives Matter is going to be confronted with an uncomfortable question, if they haven’t already begun asking it: Is this all worth it? Is it worth another riot that destroys a downtown district? Another death, another massacre? At what point will Black Lives Matter go back to the drawing table and rethink how they are approaching the problem?

Guess what the response was.

Fortunately, so far, the President of Wesleyan is holding the line. Good for him.

The CENTCOM Mystery

Several DIA officers have gone whistleblower, charging that "senior officers" at US Central Command altered their intelligence assessments in a way designed to make the President's preferred policy toward ISIS look more successful than it is.

Intelligence analysts exist to provide unbiased, unvarnished assessments to decision-makers. Those assessments must be free to go wherever facts and reason dictate, even if it means going against the grain of a particular political narrative. Such independence is the currency of the analytical realm.

The issue of independence is so critical it is essential that the analysts’ allegations of suppressed or altered intelligence assessments be investigated thoroughly and expeditiously. The Pentagon’s inspector general is on the case.

If the allegations are determined to be well founded it would mean that top brass at a combatant command violated the sacrosanct professional code of intelligence to provide objective analysis, free of political bias and personal agendas. The fact that as many as 50 analysts reportedly signed the complaint filed with the inspector general suggests that the problem is not a stand-alone case but systemic. Signing onto a whistleblowing complaint can easily be a career-ender. The analysts who made the very difficult decision to take this step must be commended for reporting their concerns about political influence corrupting their work.

This is a serious charge. It will be interesting to see what the IG determines.

Liza

Stupid is Relative

A clever guy says Dr. Carson is "shattering stereotypes about brain surgeons being smart."

“When people found out I was a brain surgeon they would always assume I was some kind of a genius,” said Harland Dorrinson, a neurosurgeon in Toledo, Ohio. “Now they are beginning to understand that you can know a lot about brain surgery and virtually nothing about anything else.”

It's stronger than that, you know. It's not that you can know a lot about brain surgery and not much about anything else. It's that you virtually have to know a lot about brain surgery and not much about anything else if you're going to be the guy who is very good at brain surgery. Dr. Carson was amazing as a brain surgeon. His profound intellect was focused like a laser for very many years.

A strong intellect can expand, once the area of focus is left behind. In time he could come to know many things, and be good at many things. He once showed a profound capacity to recognize the areas in which he was weak and needed help. I think only good things about the man. He still has tremendous potential.

Nor do I have much respect for the people who mock him, having none of his achievements nor anything to match them. People mock him for having a taxation plan based on tithing. If these clever guys took time to understand him, they'd see that the thing he says makes sense in his context. I don't doubt that he really does tithe. He's happy with what the church does with the money he gives it. He believes in God, so when he asks why the State needs more than God does, it's not rhetorical. Of course, there's an answer: God can work miracles with his money.

What's going on with people who raise this criticism, though, is worth understanding. It's not that they are simpletons because they believe in God. It's that they willingly give ten percent of what they make to the Lord through their church, and they are pretty happy with what the church does with that money in their community. They unwillingly give much more than ten percent to the State, and what comes of that money? The voluntary given in a way directed at a vision of the divine seems to do good things in their community. The vast sums sent to a distant and alien authority seem to return nothing good.

It's a sophisticated critique generally made by people who aren't always obviously sophisticated. Those who are too clever to grasp it aren't helping themselves. You know what Hank Williams said about putting down what you don't understand -- don't you? If you hang around here, you probably do. You probably even know which Hank Williams it was.

But if you don't, we won't mock you here in the Hall. Maybe you just studied something else. It was Hank Williams, Jr.