Whoever Has No Sword Is To Sell His Coat...

Early updates on the shooting in Oregon.

The President has issued his predictable call for more gun control. Every time one of these thing happens, he sees a need to strip more Americans of arms. I see a positive demonstration that the police can't protect you, and a duty to try to protect my fellow citizens, and thus become more firmly intent on never surrendering my arms nor the right to bear them. This is the sort of thing that could have been stopped, but once again, the victims were disarmed under color of law.

The Nairobi mall attack

Someone has pieced together eyewitness accounts of the terrorist attack a couple of years ago in Nairobi, which don't sound quite like what we heard at the time:

Nura and his two colleagues were having an early lunch of beef stew with chapati while the mechanic worked nearby when a call came through on the radio. “All units: Shooting going on at Westgate. Robbers inside.” Nura spoke on the phone to his commanding officer, who told him to get to the mall “and do whatever is necessary to handle it.” Nura left his plate of food on the table and jumped into the car. He was excited, eager even. As the unmarked squad car sped up the road, Nura hung out the window, waving his radio and shouting at drivers to move out of the way.

News of the assault was beginning to spread via frantic phones calls, texts, and WhatsApp messages. Westgate is in the heart of a Kenyan-Indian part of the city, and the close-knit community there knew better than to rely on the authorities to send help. Instead, the call went out to the community’s own licensed gun holders, who were organized into self-appointed armed neighborhood watch units.

A Few Choice Words For The U.N.

...and then, no words at all.

Let's Play A Game

The New York Times published an article called "27 Ways to Be a Modern Man." Low score wins.

I have to confess to numbers 4, 5, and 11 (although not for 'modern' reasons -- I just refuse to use Twitter). That's a score of three for me.

You might be curious about number 16: "The modern man lies on the side of the bed closer to the door. If an intruder gets in, he will try to fight him off, so that his wife has a chance to get away."

That's not me. Oh, I sleep on the side closest to the door, in part because of the possibility of intruders. But if I get up to deal with one, my wife can sleep in.

Knowing her, though, she'd probably go for her Glock. Who wants to be left out of a good time?

Let's not be hasty

From Ralph Peters:

Want to know how low we’ve sunk? The president of France just repeated his demand that Assad has to go. Secretary of State John Kerry, following the pattern of his surrender to the Iranians, has already said that, well, maybe Assad can stay for a while until there’s a “managed transition.”

Never before has a US presidential administration combined such naked cowardice, intellectual arrogance and willful blindness. We don’t have a president — we have a scared child covering his eyes at a horror movie. And Putin knows it.

The pickle crisis

Lileks has completely internalized the media narrative on income inequality.  He could write these things in his sleep now.

Meet Your Meat

I assume you know the punchline to the joke about the pig with the wooden leg.

This only works with a certain kind of city folk. The rest of us knew where the meat came from, have cleaned and dressed our own meat, and understand how this works. You don't eat it while it's a cute piglet. You eat it once it's a mean old hog that would be just as happy to eat you, too.

What Do We Do Now?

Richard Fernandez of the Belmont Club mourns the coming to pass of several of his core predictions. Fernandez, who also writes under the pen name Wretchard the Cat, has long written a strategically insightful narrative that strikes a kind of middle position between what you hear from me and what you hear from Cassandra. This stretch of his post, for example, couldn't have been written by either of us, but might have been written by a committee designed to edit our work into a common theme.

Fred Feitz at Fox News makes a brave but conventional attempt to outline a strategy to recover America’s position in the Middle East. It’s worth reading but suffers from the assumption that the same set of actors in Washington who landed us in trouble will do different things in the future. That is an assumption which Ted Cruz’s epic speech on the corruption in Washington does its best to refute.

Cruz explains at convincing length that Congress — the Republican Party included — has been bought off. The whole place is rotten; there is no balm in Gilead nor cavalry to ride to the rescue. In Cruz’s telling political America stands condemned because it is financially, morally and internationally bankrupt. If that’s what Obama has done Cruz explains that’s what the Republicans helped him do.

To the question “what do we do now” Cruz’s answer is “don’t wait for Washington”.

The virtues of Cruz’s indictment are also its limitations, because while his speech accurately portrays the oncoming danger, it does so at the cost of convincing the viewer that America had it coming. Washington in Cruz’s characterization is not the result of bad luck but the accretion of national vices. In that sense, there is about Cruz’s analysis the flavor of Crime and Punishment.

The problem with the retributive narrative is that it sounds too much like a story from out the old books and most politicians, reluctant to sound hokey, are loathe to take it up, however true it may be. For in the retributive story there is one unpleasant feature; disasters continue until the sinners “repent” and repentance is something most of us are by and large averse to.

Much as the voters despise politicians, most of them are attached to life as it is. They love the normal; the predictable, the comforting and the routine. Therefore they love without realizing it the liberal narrative, which falsely promises a painless progression from cradle to grave without the need for virtue, courage or even industry.

There's a lot of worth in what he has to say after that, where he talks about the way forward. It's worth taking a moment to realize that the last week -- as the last six months -- have involved a coming-to-be of a new world and a passing-away of the world we knew. The ramifications have only begun to appear in reality. What we knew is slipping away. We will have to be bold, but the good news is that we will have the opportunity to be bold. The death of institutions and easy assumptions means a birth of possibility. New things will come to be, and we will have at least some power to shape them. We must be wise in what we make of that potential, insofar as it is in our power to shape.

How Dark Were the Dark Ages?

The regulars here probably know a lot of this, but I learned a few things from this video, and it packs in a lot in just under six minutes, so I thought I'd post it.

BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTTT!

Congress saved the A-10 today. It's not often that I have much good to say about Congress, so let's take a moment to recognize them for having what alcoholics refer to as a moment of clarity.

None of us deserve to vote

Oh, not seriously, that's just Jimmy Kimmel's tagline.  More Kimmel man-on-the-street video to make you feel good about the franchise.

Comprehensively Missing the Point

Defenders of Planned Parenthood have managed to get the 5th Circuit to force the release of the unedited videos to the public. In the eyes of the defenders, the unedited videos -- all caps in the original -- "PROVE they did nothing wrong."

The people making these videos set out to prove that Planned Parenthood was an ongoing criminal enterprise profiting from the unlawful harvesting of fetal tissues. I think the videos, even the edited ones, failed to prove that claim.

That isn't what people are upset about who have actually watched the videos. No one is upset that Planned Parenthood might have been violating some technical regulation about the exact manner of extracting fetuses in order to better harvest organs. No one is soothed to learn that, thank goodness!, the regulations have all been scrupulously obeyed.

What people are reacting to is the horrifying state of what is legal, not the accusation that something is criminal. To learn that the practices are legal only makes it worse.

There is a huge difference between proving that Planned Parenthood obeyed the law, and proving that "they did nothing wrong." The whole video series is a carnival of horror, discussed over lunch or in an easy manner, sometimes a vision of little feet.

Upton Sinclair wrote a book called The Jungle that he hoped would cause people to become outraged about the working conditions of the poor in food factories. Audiences were horrified, but not by the things Sinclair thought would horrify them. They were horrified to learn how their food was made.

By the same token, the people who are defending Planned Parenthood over these videos are comprehensively missing the point. They are talking right past everyone who is upset or disturbed by what they've seen. For some reason, they just don't see what is bothering anyone about all this.

It is a shocking sort of moral blindness.

Changing of the Guard

Philosopher Jeffrey Woolf, who has a strong background in Medieval thought, notes that his native country of Israel is undergoing a moment akin to a moment in early American history.

There comes a time in the life of nations, that the founders cede dominance to others. It happened in the United States in the 1820’s. In his magisterial study of Andrew Jackson, historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., describes how Virginians and (to a lesser degree) Bostonians strove mightily to maintain their control over the nation that they (and their fathers) had founded. They sought control of its resources, its policies, its values and its culture. They saw all of these being usurped by the uncouth pioneers on the western fringes of the country. These were represented by their bête noire, Andrew Jackson (himself, ironically, a Virginian). As Schlesinger notes, the declining elites made their last stand in the Supreme Court. In the end, they failed.

In Israel's case, the founders were secular and not very interested in reviving religious Judaism. It was a much more popular country in Democratic circles back then. In reviewing this history of government shutdowns, I notice that back during the long era of Democratic control, shutdowns were sometimes resolved in part by increased support to Israel. In those days, this was a concession to Democrats.

Shutdown #9: Tip O'Neill takes on a nuclear missile and wins

When did it take place? Dec.17-21, 1982
How long did it last? 3 days
Who was president? Ronald Reagan
Who controlled the Senate? Republicans, 53-47; Howard Baker was majority leader
Who controlled the House? Democrats, 244-191; Tip O'Neill was speaker
Why did it happen? House and Senate negotiators want to fund $5.4 billion and $1.2 billion, respectively, in public works spending to create jobs, but the Reagan administration threatened to veto any spending bill that included jobs money. The House also opposed funding the MX missile program, a major defense priority of Reagan's.
What resolved it? The House and Senate abandoned their jobs plans but declined to fund the MX missile, or the Pershing II missile (which was a medium-range missile, while the MX was intercontinental). They also provided funding for the Legal Services Corp., which provides legal support for poor Americans and which Reagan had wanted abolished, and increased foreign aid to Israel above what Reagan wanted. While Reagan criticized these moves, he grudgingly signed the bill following a short shutdown.

Shutdown #10: So you can have your missiles but Israel gets some, too

When did it take place? Nov. 10-14, 1983
How long did it last? 3 days
Who was president? Ronald Reagan
Who controlled the Senate? Republicans, 55-45; Howard Baker was majority leader
Who controlled the House? Democrats, 271-164; Tip O'Neill was speaker
Why did it happen? House Democrats passed an amendment adding close to $1 billion in education spending. They also cut foreign aid below what Reagan wanted, adding money for Israel and Egypt but cutting it substantially for Syria and El Salvador, and cut defense spending by about $11 billion relative to Reagan's request. The dispute wasn't resolved before a short shutdown could occur.
What resolved it? House Democrats agreed to reduce their education spending request to about $100 million. They also funded the MX missile, which they had successfully cut funding for during the last shutdown battle. However, they kept their foreign aid and defense cuts, and got a ban on oil and gas leasing in federal animal refuges. The spending bill also added a ban on using federal employee health insurance to fund abortions, except when the mother's life was in danger, similar to the ban already in place for Medicaid (see above). That wasn't as partisan an issue at the time; it was a win for anti-abortion members of both parties (including Reagan and O'Neill) and loss for pro-choice Democrats and Republicans (including Baker).

It is an interesting fact that this state founded along secular nationalist lines -- Jews as ethnic nation, not Jews united by faith in the God of Israel -- has been drifting somewhat away from its secular foundation. The majority there still consider themselves secular, but a rising intensity is on the side of those who are faithful. It's a counterexample to the thesis that modernity and secularism go hand-in-hand, and not the only one.

Invincible ignorance

H/t Bookworm Room:

Killing women

This Hot Air OpEd gets it right about yesterday's execution of Kelly Gissendaner for the murder of her husband almost 20 years ago.  Gissendaner was not the trigger man; she got her boyfriend to do it for her.  He cut a deal, turned state's witness against her, and will be eligible for parole in seven more years.

Should this seem like a miscarriage of justice?  It's much like the way we get an ironclad case against Mafia boss in exchange for a lighter sentence against the underling who did the wet work.  It just seems weird because we're not used to seeing a woman in the role of mastermind.  We also don't like the idea of the boyfriend testifying against her to save himself:  wasn't he supposed to be acting as her white knight in knocking off the husband?

Double Standards Are Fun For Everyone!

Unfair! "The Huffington Post is also pushing the 'Chaffetz was mean to Richards!' narrative, especially after New York Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney accused Chaffetz of "beating up on a woman.'" So disrespectful!

Fair! "Planned Parenthood paid protestors who threw condoms at Carly Fiorina." That'll teach her!

"Hate Crimes" Require Crimes, Don't They?

A famous basketball star -- who happens to have converted to Islam, and is thus perhaps especially sensitive to criticism of that faith -- paints himself into a corner.

The U.S. Department of Justice describes a hate crime as “the violence of intolerance and bigotry, intended to hurt 
and intimidate someone because of their race, ethnicity, national origin,
 religious, sexual orientation, or disability.” The Bureau of Justice Statistics estimated the number of hate-crime victims in the U.S. to be over 250,000. And, though we cherish our right to free speech in this country, we also acknowledge that we are not entitled to say anything we want when it can cause others to be harmed. When those who have governmental authority, such as police, or who command wide attention from the public, such as candidates and pundits, express contempt for any group, it emboldens the bigots to crawl out from beneath their tree stumps to openly express their prejudices because they believe they have tacit approval from those in authority. Princeton economist Alan Krueger suggests one significant cause of hate crimes is the “official sanctioning and encouragement of civil disobedience.”

Why is he in a corner? He is also in the class of those "who command wide attention from the public, such as candidates and pundits." And he has also endorsed civil disobedience. Quite recently, in fact.

Beyond that, though, there's no crime here to consider a hate crime. Political speech by candidates for office is a protected first amendment activity if anything is.

The Justice Department is perhaps largely at fault. Their definition, which he partially cites, ought to be highly controversial:

Hate crime is the violence of intolerance and bigotry, intended to hurt and intimidate someone because of their race, ethnicity, national origin, religious, sexual orientation, or disability. The purveyors of hate use explosives, arson, weapons, vandalism, physical violence, and verbal threats of violence to instill fear in their victims, leaving them vulnerable to more attacks and feeling alienated, helpless, suspicious and fearful. Others may become frustrated and angry if they believe the local government and other groups in the community will not protect them. When perpetrators of hate are not prosecuted as criminals and their acts not publicly condemned, their crimes can weaken even those communities with the healthiest race relations.

Of all crimes, hate crimes are most likely to create or exacerbate tensions, which can trigger larger community-wide racial conflict, civil disturbances, and even riots. Hate crimes put cities and towns at-risk of serious social and economic consequences. The immediate costs of racial conflicts and civil disturbances are police, fire, and medical personnel overtime, injury or death, business and residential property loss, and damage to vehicles and equipment. Long-term recovery may be hindered by a decline in property values, which results in lower tax revenues, scarcity of funds for rebuilding, and increased insurance rates.

First of all, the Department of Justice doesn't get to "define" hate crimes. Congress does that. Does Congress have a definition? Indeed it does. Congress defines a hate crime as a "criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, ethnic origin or sexual orientation.”

The shift that DOJ is trying to make is the shift from "a criminal offense" to "verbal threats of violence" or even speech by government or "other groups" that leaves people believing that they are less safe. That makes it into the article. Carson's statement that he wouldn't support a Muslim candidate for President -- none are running -- is read by our basketball player cum pundit as: "Because of him, Muslims are now a little less safe as they walk home."

Really? Because a black Republican from the South declined to support a Muslim candidate for president who doesn't exist? Well, it doesn't matter. It's enough that they believe that they are.

Why Do Men Get Off Easy In The Abortion Debate?

A rhetorically clever piece by one Emily Hauser. The sleight of hand that makes it work is this:

1) She elides all opposition to elective abortion with the particular objection raised by the Catholic Church.

2) She then points out that most of the people she'd folded into the Church's argument don't share the Church's position on non-martial sex. Hypocrites!

Of course, the one group of people who actually do hold the argument she attributes to the whole class -- that birth control is almost as sinful as abortion, and that sex outside of marriage is dangerously sinful -- also hold the position on non-marital sex she denies to members of that class. The Church could not be clearer about its position on sex outside of the institution of marriage. It's against it, if you haven't heard. I assure you that they go to some trouble to convey that message on a regular basis to their membership, men as well as women.

The position they do in fact advocate is not advocated by others because the others don't share the assumptions. Most Americans who oppose elective abortion do so not because they also believe that birth control is sinful. Actually, even most Catholics believe that birth control is OK. The figures are 82% of American Catholics and 89% of Americans generally. So if you asked most Americans why they don't come down hard on men for having non-marital sex if they oppose abortion, they'll answer: "Birth control is readily available and cheap."

By the same token, most Americans are totally OK with the idea of pre-marital sex. The numbers here are not quite as one-sided: 60% of Americans think pre-marital sex is OK. That's still a strong majority.

So the answer to the question about why you don't blame men for having sex outside of marriage is, for many Americans with concerns about elective abortion, that they don't blame anyone for having pre-marital sex. They just think they should use birth control.

It's a strange argument to field in any case. The reason the moral weight of abortion is on women more than men is a product of the fact that the decision to have an abortion has been placed, by our courts, wholly in the woman's hands. One has moral responsibility for one's voluntary actions. No man may take the voluntary action of demanding an abortion. They might still be held to responsibility if they voluntarily advise or assist in the commission of an abortion -- and the Catholic church, by the way, considers such men to have excommunicated themselves from the Church. They are not held to a lighter standard: indeed, they are said to be in some peril of Hell.

No, just because people on Ms. Hauser's side of the argument have largely gotten their way before the courts, the moral responsibility has shifted to those who have the actual choice under the law. Moral responsibility lies on female shoulders because the law places the choice exclusively in female hands.

Should we undertake to blame men for having pre-marital sex "equally" with women in the way Ms. Hauser suggests, by the way, her side of the argument would be up in arms. This practice -- when directed at women -- is called "slut shaming" and is said to be a violation of the human right of self-determination of women. It would be odd indeed to advocate, as a solution to any problem of any sort, an increased effort to violate what you believe to be human rights.

I have no problem saying that men should certainly marry before sex -- or, at least, be in such a relationship that should a baby come along, marriage is an easily imaginable transition that was probably going to happen sooner or later anyway. I think that is wise and appropriate advice. But it is very clear to me that it is a minority opinion, even among many fellow Americans who have good strong reasons to be opposed to elective abortion.

Good Sense, Unheeded

Garry Kasparov warns that the speeches at the UN were devoid of meaning. It's one of the most sensible things I've read recently, as one might expect from a master chess player turned political activist.

Mr. Obama has already decided to continue his policy of disengagement from the Middle East, and his platitudes about cooperation and the rule of law rang hollow.... [E]very listener was aware that Mr. Obama had no intention of backing his words with action.

Mr. Putin, speaking about an hour later in the same room, included his usual NATO-bashing and obvious lies.... He spoke of national sovereignty—which is very important to Mr. Putin, unless it’s the sovereignty of Georgia, Ukraine or another place where he wishes to meddle.

In other words, Mr. Obama’s speech was routine because he knows he will not act. Mr. Putin’s speech was routine because he knows he will act anyway.

On the subject that occasioned our President's incredibly offensive and disgraceful comments on the Iraq war, Kasparov said this:

A look at a map of Iraq and Syria shows that the rise of ISIS was a logical response to American abandonment of the region’s Sunnis. A group like ISIS cannot thrive without support from locals, in this case Sunnis who see no other way to defend against the Shiite forces of Iran and Syria that are slaughtering them by the hundreds of thousands.

In world affairs, as in chess, you have to play the position that’s on the board when you sit down. Criticizing George W. Bush for starting the Iraq war in 2003 does not change the fact that in 2008 there was no mass refugee crisis or massive ISIS army on the march. Support for al Qaeda had been undercut by negotiations with Sunni groups in Anbar province, a game-changing policy that was as responsible for reduced violence as the surge of new American forces.

The American exit and Mr. Obama’s refusal to deter Mr. Assad ended any possibility of security. The people had to fight, flee or die, and they are doing all three in horrific numbers. It’s important to remember that the waves of refugees reaching Europe are not running from ISIS. They are fleeing Mr. Assad—who counts on active support from Iran and now Russia.

That is not limited to Syria's Assad, but is true of Russia's allies in Iran as well. In Tikrit, Iranian backed militias destroyed the city after "saving" it from ISIS. Having taken control of it, they demolished it and abducted hundreds of Sunni citizens. Near the UN building today where these meaningless speeches were being given, thousands of Iranian Americans gathered to protest the murder of thousands of dissidents by the Iranian government. In Iran it's done not with "barrel bombs" but under color of law. Somehow, mysteriously, all of the regime's opponents are found to be guilty of drug trafficking, which in Iran is a capital crime.

There's a house cleaning ongoing at the Pentagon, too, pushing out those who continue to argue that we need a stronger response to Russian moves.

The Pentagon's top official overseeing military relations with Russia and Ukraine is resigning amid the ongoing debate within the Obama administration over how respond to Russian moves in Ukraine and Syria.... Farkas is a veteran defense policy hand, having served as a senior adviser to the U.S. European Command, executive director of a congressionally mandated commission on proliferation and a professional staff member on the Senate Armed Services Committee. As assistant secretary of defense, she traveled widely as part of the ongoing international standoff with Russia over Ukraine. All along, however, Russia has been a deep point of contention between the White House and the Pentagon.

Obama pushed out his previous defense secretary, Chuck Hagel, after he urged a stronger American response to Russia's aggression. Hagel also questioned the president's strategy for arming so-called moderate Syrian fighters against the Islamic State, a program that has since all but imploded in an embarrassment for the administration.

The President's dead set on all this. Nor can the anger of voters control him during the meantime: as we saw in the Iran deal as in the Obamacare vote, he's quite willing to suffer at the polls in order to get his way.

2017 is still a long way away, and until then we are in freefall.

Unprintable Responses are the Only Ones Appropriate

President Obama actually had the audacity to say this:

No matter how powerful our military, how strong our economy, we understand the United States cannot solve the world’s problems alone. In Iraq, the United States learned the hard lesson that even hundreds of thousands of brave, effective troops, trillions of dollars from our Treasury, cannot by itself impose stability on a foreign land. Unless we work with other nations under the mantle of international norms and principles and law that offer legitimacy to our efforts, we will not succeed. And unless we work together to defeat the ideas that drive different communities in a country like Iraq into conflict, any order that our militaries can impose will be temporary.

Yeah, that's not how that happened, champ.