A couple of essays broke today on joining the NRA in spite of reservations, one featured at InstaPundit and the other at Hot Air. The upshot of both are that the NRA is not really the premiere gun rights organization in America today. It has in the past endorsed gun control laws in order to appear reasonable, and it has in the past accepted compromise positions that furthered some of our interests at the expense of others. That may be a virtue or a vice depending on how you see American politics, both in general and at this specific moment.
What actually annoys me more than the compromises is the propaganda they run in their magazines. Even on years when it is clear that there are no dangers to gun rights, the NRA's magazines always read like the next Great War is on the horizon. This is for fundraising purposes. I generally maintain membership with them only in years when there really is a danger because it is difficult for me to respect an organization that is not completely honest with its membership.
In terms of better organizations, the Second Amendment Foundation is mentioned prominently for its role in Heller and other court cases that have advanced the ball on forcing the government to recognize the Second Amendment. I wish fervently we could do as much for the Tenth Amendment -- it would be a great start if the government at least admitted it was really in the Constitution and really ought to be binding in some way or other.
Another organization I like is the Gun Owners of America, which insists on a no-compromise position.
All the same, the NRA is about to take it on the chin in the next election cycle. The Obama administration has pledged to make gun control a top issue in his final(!) year in office. Hillary Clinton -- and other Democrats on stage at the first debate -- named the NRA as an "enemy." Whether or not they're the best, it's going to make a huge difference whether or not they can show increasing support as a consequence of this push.
So, today, I signed back up with the National Rifle Association. I want them to be able to point to big increases in membership as the main consequence of the Democratic Party's return to gun control as an issue. We need to keep teaching this lesson until they give up on it. Gun rights are not going anywhere. We will not surrender our liberty for the false promises of government-granted security. The government couldn't keep those promises even if it were wholly serious about them. To be able to do much more than it does it would have to override our rights to privacy and independence.
Even then, it simply can't keep you safe. Just because criminals and terrorists choose their victims carefully, the police will not be there when you need them. Not because they don't want to be -- I think mostly they fervently wish they could be. It's probably why they joined the force. But they can't be. They can only come when they're called, and then it will take as long as it takes.
Finally, a government that truly obtains a monopoly on arms has subjugated its population. No free nation can accept that status. We must never put ourselves in the position in which the government can do whatever it wants to us, and only refrains if it wants to refrain. One person or a small group cannot defend themselves against the government, which is good because it enables the government to keep the peace. Nevertheless, it is in the interest of justice that any government should have to fear mistreating a plurality or majority of its citizens. It is the best thing for everyone if those elected to office know that they will be held responsible for their actions by a people that is ultimately stronger than they are.
It is time to teach that lesson again. They think they want to pick this argument up again. Let's remind them why they'd rather not.
Pilgrimage Update: Success!
I thought it was a dodgy choice to do this in December instead of April as Chaucer recommended, but he claims to have had a Medieval antecedent who left 'on the same day' in 1365. Of course, that was in the Medieval Warm Period! But perhaps God favored his endeavor. Certainly here it's been the mildest winter in a long time.
A former physics teacher has completed a 700-year-old pilgrim's journey using only medieval clothing and equipment. Steven Payne began walking from Southampton's Mayflower Park to Canterbury on 16 December, carrying a goodwill message from the Pope. The 52-year-old slept in his cloak, sometimes in fields and hedgerows or in structures built in medieval times. He was greeted by the mayor of Canterbury and canon of the cathedral when he arrived on Tuesday afternoon.
Armed Protests & Attorneys General
It seems there is widespread agreement even among III Percenters that this Oregon situation is neither the time nor the place for an armed protest. An interesting tidbit uncovered in the readings, though...
As college student, Eric Holder participated in ‘armed’ takeover of former Columbia University ROTC officeThat protest was different in a key respect: people needed access to the Columbia ROTC office. This thing was shut down for the winter anyway. Nobody was going to need to use it until sometime in the Spring. It's the sort of place you could stage a protest like this without actually inconveniencing anyone else for at least a few months.
As a freshman at Columbia University in 1970, future Attorney General Eric Holder participated in a five-day occupation of an abandoned Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) headquarters with a group of black students later described by the university’s Black Students’ Organization as “armed,” The Daily Caller has learned.
Department of Justice spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler has not responded to questions from The Daily Caller about whether Holder himself was armed — and if so, with what sort of weapon.
Holder was then among the leaders of the Student Afro-American Society (SAAS), which demanded that the former ROTC office be renamed the “Malcolm X Lounge.” The change, the group insisted, was to be made “in honor of a man who recognized the importance of territory as a basis for nationhood.”
What's Going On In Oregon?
Wretchard of the Belmont Club passed this link recently, which I take for an endorsement of it. If, like me, you hadn't heard of this conflict until last night -- well, there turns out to be a lot behind it that you haven't heard yet.
UPDATE: D29 suggests some further reading inside the comments. Here also is Reason on the absurdly harsh sentences, which the 9th Circuit Court upheld on the grounds that they've seen worse. The Constitutional protection withers because the government has gotten by with worse abuses in the past?
UPDATE: D29 suggests some further reading inside the comments. Here also is Reason on the absurdly harsh sentences, which the 9th Circuit Court upheld on the grounds that they've seen worse. The Constitutional protection withers because the government has gotten by with worse abuses in the past?
The Last Segment Is Really Worth Watching
You can skip the rest if you like, but the space exploration bit should be seen.
Reaping the Whirlwind
Fareed Zakaria's notice of the increased death rate in blue-collar white Americans, from suicide and drugs, draws this comment from Glenn Reynolds:
It was the election of two different two-term Democratic presidents who did not enforce immigration laws, and one two-term Republican who was not especially exercised about it, that led to the massive demographic shift over the last three decades. If you elect a President for whom they are a priority, that massive wave of immigrants are still first-generation. They could be expelled, if enough anger is focused upon the matter.
Even without the increased anger, last year more natives of Mexico left the United States than came here. Why not? People have a natural preference for home. If Mexico and other Latin American states improve, many of these people would go home just because they'd rather be there than here. If increasing anger drives a nativism that becomes harsh and unwelcoming, even more people will feel inclined to depart. They'll take their families with them willingly. The demographic 'destiny' would then change, and what Zakaria thinks impossible would become real.
It would, however, be a very ugly time. The expressions of such anger and nativism are not beautiful.
What is driving all this anger? Perhaps it is the fact that the government, under the current administration, is actively taking sides against these workers. It's also the triumphalism of the cultural left, which is openly salivating about being able to put the older, whiter America in the grave. These are choices too, choices with consequences. These people are not fools just because they don't have a college degree. Having less education may make their response more visceral, but it won't keep them from noticing what is being done and who is doing it. They can hear the voices that hate them. They can hear how happy those voices sound when they posit a world in which these American workers and their families are no longer important.
In fact, even if we avoid the period of anger it would be completely unsurprising if America became less 'ethnically diverse' again -- not by changing actual demographics, but by absorbing later-generation immigrants into a new definition of 'the majority.' That has happened to the Irish, to the Germans, to the Italians, to many Jews, and could very easily happen to Latinos as well. There is no reason for us to insist on going through the ugliness that is likely to follow.
Still, avoiding the anger will be hard to do because the anger is not unjustified. It is clear that a generation of policies have been in place to effect this reduction, that new policies are being put in place to further it and cement it, and that the fall of these people and their families is deeply and earnestly desired by the cultural allies of the politicians effecting the policies.
What happens if the anger turns outward? That is indeed the question, and people should give it some thought. It would be wiser and better for those driving the underlying causes of this anger to stop and consider the effects of their actions.
Psychologists say that depression is anger turned inward. What happens if it turns outward?That's the right question. Zakaria misses it completely, being so invested in the narrative that America is becoming more ethnically diverse that he fails to notice that it was an artificial process that could be fairly easily reversed. Nothing can be done but to accept their miserable fate, he suggests:
Working-class whites don’t think of themselves as an elite group. But, in a sense, they have been, certainly compared with blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans and most immigrants. They were central to America’s economy, its society, indeed its very identity. They are not anymore. Donald Trump has promised that he will change this and make them win again. But he can’t. No one can. And deep down, they know it.In fact, it was an immigration reform act in 1965 that altered America's immigration policies to favor the Third World instead of the First as they had traditionally. Laws that can change one way can change another.
It was the election of two different two-term Democratic presidents who did not enforce immigration laws, and one two-term Republican who was not especially exercised about it, that led to the massive demographic shift over the last three decades. If you elect a President for whom they are a priority, that massive wave of immigrants are still first-generation. They could be expelled, if enough anger is focused upon the matter.
Even without the increased anger, last year more natives of Mexico left the United States than came here. Why not? People have a natural preference for home. If Mexico and other Latin American states improve, many of these people would go home just because they'd rather be there than here. If increasing anger drives a nativism that becomes harsh and unwelcoming, even more people will feel inclined to depart. They'll take their families with them willingly. The demographic 'destiny' would then change, and what Zakaria thinks impossible would become real.
It would, however, be a very ugly time. The expressions of such anger and nativism are not beautiful.
What is driving all this anger? Perhaps it is the fact that the government, under the current administration, is actively taking sides against these workers. It's also the triumphalism of the cultural left, which is openly salivating about being able to put the older, whiter America in the grave. These are choices too, choices with consequences. These people are not fools just because they don't have a college degree. Having less education may make their response more visceral, but it won't keep them from noticing what is being done and who is doing it. They can hear the voices that hate them. They can hear how happy those voices sound when they posit a world in which these American workers and their families are no longer important.
In fact, even if we avoid the period of anger it would be completely unsurprising if America became less 'ethnically diverse' again -- not by changing actual demographics, but by absorbing later-generation immigrants into a new definition of 'the majority.' That has happened to the Irish, to the Germans, to the Italians, to many Jews, and could very easily happen to Latinos as well. There is no reason for us to insist on going through the ugliness that is likely to follow.
Still, avoiding the anger will be hard to do because the anger is not unjustified. It is clear that a generation of policies have been in place to effect this reduction, that new policies are being put in place to further it and cement it, and that the fall of these people and their families is deeply and earnestly desired by the cultural allies of the politicians effecting the policies.
What happens if the anger turns outward? That is indeed the question, and people should give it some thought. It would be wiser and better for those driving the underlying causes of this anger to stop and consider the effects of their actions.
A Year in the Life of Grim
I was thinking back this evening on how much 2015 has been a difficult year. I decided it would be good to go back through my photographs from the year to find some things to be grateful for. It has been a difficult year in several respects, but it turns out that it I had a great year that somehow ran concurrently with the difficult one. I'm glad I looked back. Here's hoping 2016 is a good year, too.
Islam and "America"
An interesting simile:
What is America? What does it mean to be an American? It seems as if there are at least some wrong answers, so the question isn't meaningless. It seems as if it might overlap with many of the answers one might give to the question "What is Islam?" That's not a meaningless question either, again because there are at least some wrong answers. A problem is that some of the right answers to the second question are wrong answers to the first, and vice-versa.
Can the celebration of wine drinking be Islamic? To Ahmed, the answer is: obviously, yes. It is Islamic insofar as this celebration is expressed, for example, in the terms of such classical Sufi metaphors for “the experience of intoxication with the Divine,” as well as the more mundane recognition of wine’s virtues as a social lubricant. The extensive medical literature of the premodern Islamic world attests openly to the latter fact. As the 10th-century physician and philosopher Abu Zayd al-Balkhi put it, “It is wine that provides excellence to society and conversation…and there is nothing that makes possible relations of intimacy and confidence between friends so tastefully and pleasantly and effectively as does drinking wine together.”The whole article is worth reading, actually. But I'm struck by this particularly. "What is Islam?" then becomes a question like "What is America?" It's a surprisingly all-encompassing question without any easy answers. John Wayne, in describing his love for America, dwelt on her physical beauty. Clearly, from his movies, that wasn't all he loved about America. Trying to figure out what America was and what it ought to be is a major theme of many of his movies, especially the Ford productions like The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.
To say that wine drinking is un-Islamic may be akin to saying that the refusal to serve in the military during a period of wartime conscription is un-American. In the view of some citizens, such a refusal may well violate the essence of Americanness, in addition to violating American law; to others, however, this act may rather fulfill and epitomize the requirements of citizenship. By Ahmed’s logic, the refusal to serve in the military is not just American in spite of its opposition to other, contradictory values associated with Americanness, but precisely because of it.
What is America? What does it mean to be an American? It seems as if there are at least some wrong answers, so the question isn't meaningless. It seems as if it might overlap with many of the answers one might give to the question "What is Islam?" That's not a meaningless question either, again because there are at least some wrong answers. A problem is that some of the right answers to the second question are wrong answers to the first, and vice-versa.
Bill Cosby Charged
I don't mean to imply by this post that he is not innocent until proven guilty, but I am encouraged to see such a celebrity brought before the courts given the serious and not incredible charges against him. I hope the process will be thorough and fair, the truth arrived at, and justice done.
May power and political connections also prove to be impotent as a bar to justice.
May power and political connections also prove to be impotent as a bar to justice.
Fool Me Once, Shame on You
Richard J. Davis thinks Hillary Clinton should set some ethical standards for herself.
She broke it.
Why would we be convinced that she was going to keep an agreement with herself, when she didn't keep a written and allegedly binding agreement with the President of the United States?
The reason that nearly sixty percent of Americans say that Clinton is dishonest is because she is dishonest.
How dishonest? "In a league of her own."
Nobody should be fooled by any statements about ethics coming from the former Secretary of State. They're no more trustworthy than any of her other statements -- or her signature on a legal document.
This then may be the ideal time for Clinton proactively to take steps to minimize the potential damage to her candidacy from other sources of controversy: the Clinton Foundation and speaking fees earned by former President Clinton. Such steps need to include significant restrictions on who the foundation will accept donations from as well as on where the former president will speak for money.The thing is, Clinton did set an ethical standard for herself when taking the job of Secretary of State. It was a written agreement she signed with the incoming Obama administration.
Taking these steps now is particularly important for Hillary Clinton because one area where her poll numbers remain problematic is whether she is viewed as honest and trustworthy....
It is important to understand that the issue regarding the Clinton Foundation is not whether the foundation is (or was) a conduit for illegal bribes and it certainly is not about whether the foundation does truly humanitarian work. I am not aware of serious evidence that the former is the case.
She broke it.
Why would we be convinced that she was going to keep an agreement with herself, when she didn't keep a written and allegedly binding agreement with the President of the United States?
The reason that nearly sixty percent of Americans say that Clinton is dishonest is because she is dishonest.
How dishonest? "In a league of her own."
Nobody should be fooled by any statements about ethics coming from the former Secretary of State. They're no more trustworthy than any of her other statements -- or her signature on a legal document.
No Reason the President Shouldn't Spy on Congress, Right?
I mean, many of them are members of the political opposition -- and talking with foreigners, no less. Obviously the President needs to know what they're saying.
To-may-to, To-mah-to
From an amusing list of 'best (or worst) media corrections of 2015.'
“Norma Adams-Wade’s June 15 column incorrectly called Mary Ann Thompson Frenk a socialist. She is a socialite.” --- The Dallas Morning News.I also like this line from one of the corrections: "There is nothing to be gained in trying to explain how the error occurred." I'll have to save that one to use on my wife.
Waco Update: Defense Lawyer Barred Access to Evidence
...unless he agrees to sign a release form that forbids him to discuss the evidence with the press.
Callahan’s motion states he has not been able to receive the information, after numerous requests, because he won’t sign a condition of release regarding talking to the media....So it's not that we don't want to taint the jury pool by having the matter discussed before the trial. It's that we want to make sure our tainting of the jury pool goes unchallenged.
The motion states District Attorney Abel Reyna should not be allowed to limit the release of evidence based on an agreement regarding media after he gave an extensive TV interview explicitly designed to erode the defendants’ presumption of innocence.
Magical Thinking Is Good For You!
A satire, sort of.
I’m not just talking about vaccines, but we can start there. A lot of people have judged us harshly in recent days for not vaccinating our nine young children. That’s fine. I myself was held down and vaccinated when I was young. I understand that vaccines bolster vulnerable immune systems by stimulating your body’s natural defenses... And if you want to live and die by the wholly effective, risk-free, and affordable breakthroughs that Western medicine has produced, that’s fine. That’s your right.
But don’t expect me to come along on that joyride of lies.
...
Whenever a friend gets cancer, I make sure to tell her about the power of vitamin C and a can-do attitude. I’ve lost so many friends to the acidic nightmare of chemotherapy. They’re still alive; we just don’t talk anymore. Thanks a lot, Big Pharma.
Don’t get me started about sugar. Don’t get me started about gluten. Don’t get me started about mercury or fluoride. Because I will literally never stop talking about it.
The Rule of Law
Not a good in itself.
ISIS clearly thinks it is doing something moral here by regulating away the worst practices of its fighters, and thus mandating that they treat the women they take as slaves with 'compassion,' both while raping them and at other times. In fact, they have codified the worst abuses into the law: the slavery and the rape themselves. Now the law will permit them to feel good about themselves for avoiding a few bad practices in the performance of their monstrosities.
Fatwa 64, which effectively justifies the systematic rape of women and girls, says it is necessary to set out rules because "one of the inevitable consequences of the jihad of establishment is that women and children of infidels will become captives of Muslims".The confusion is easy to fall into. Aristotle himself says that justice is lawfulness plus fairness, to paraphrase very loosely, and it can thus kind of sound like obedience to the law is a good in and of itself. But that isn't really what he means: on a closer reading, he means to say that it is good to obey the law if the law is properly structured.
Among the disturbing list of rules are that 'owners' of mother and daughter captives, or sister captives cannot have intercourse with both and that owners and their sons cannot have intercourse with the same woman captive.
They also state that owners should not cause the captive women to abort if they are pregnant, should not sell her to an owner they know will treat her badly and should treat her with "compassion"....
In order to deal with the women captured by fighters, IS has established a department of "war spoils" to manage slavery.
Now the laws in their enactments on all subjects aim at the common advantage either of all or of the best or of those who hold power, or something of the sort; so that in one sense we call those acts just that tend to produce and preserve happiness and its components for the political society. And the law bids us do both the acts of a brave man (e.g. not to desert our post nor take to flight nor throw away our arms), and those of a temperate man (e.g. not to commit adultery nor to gratify one's lust), and those of a good-tempered man (e.g. not to strike another nor to speak evil), and similarly with regard to the other virtues and forms of wickedness, commanding some acts and forbidding others; and the rightly-framed law does this rightly, and the hastily conceived one less well. This form of justice, then, is complete virtue, but not absolutely, but in relation to our neighbour. And therefore justice is often thought to be the greatest of virtues, and 'neither evening nor morning star' is so wonderful; and proverbially 'in justice is every virtue comprehended'. And it is complete virtue in its fullest sense, because it is the actual exercise of complete virtue. It is complete because he who possesses it can exercise his virtue not only in himself but towards his neighbour also; for many men can exercise virtue in their own affairs, but not in their relations to their neighbour.Emphasis added. Law is justice insofar as it commands the behavior that virtue itself would command. In that way, obeying the law is complete virtue from the perspective of your neighbors: though it does not insist on your virtue in private matters, where neighbors are concerned, a rightly-formed law mandates that you act rightly toward them.
ISIS clearly thinks it is doing something moral here by regulating away the worst practices of its fighters, and thus mandating that they treat the women they take as slaves with 'compassion,' both while raping them and at other times. In fact, they have codified the worst abuses into the law: the slavery and the rape themselves. Now the law will permit them to feel good about themselves for avoiding a few bad practices in the performance of their monstrosities.
Mutiny?
So you might think, from reading Reuters' report on Gitmo.
In general, that's not a bad thing. It's good if the military is restrained by the law. Places where it has not been have not always turned out well. Willingness to obey 'the leader's orders' instead of the law is not healthy.
Besides, there's this:
With judgment like this, it would not be surprising if a few feet got drug in the Pentagon.
Since Obama took office in 2009, these people said, Pentagon officials have been throwing up bureaucratic obstacles to thwart the president's plan to close Guantanamo.The problem is, the actual things the report cites sound like genuine legal concerns. A big part of this may be the President's penchant for ignoring inconvenient laws running up against the military's penchant for running everything by the SJA as an ordinary part of the staffing process. It's hard to get the Pentagon to do things that are legal but only questionably so, or debatably so. Even at lower levels of organization a lot of cover needs to be available before people take risky actions. The closer you get to the guy on the field of battle, the more freedom there is. The higher you go, the more the legal structure ossifies and the decision-making process becomes averse to running legal risks.
Negotiating prisoner releases with the Pentagon was like "punching a pillow," said James Dobbins, the State Department special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan from 2013 to 2014. Defense Department officials "would come to a meeting, they would not make a counter-argument," he said. "And then nothing would happen."...
When the State Department added the four Afghans to a list of detainees prioritized for transfer in the summer of 2013, Defense Department officials resisted. At a meeting at the Pentagon, a mid-level Defense Department official said transferring the four "might be the president's priority, but it's not the Pentagon's priority or the priority of the people in this building," according to current and former administration officials present at the meeting.
In general, that's not a bad thing. It's good if the military is restrained by the law. Places where it has not been have not always turned out well. Willingness to obey 'the leader's orders' instead of the law is not healthy.
Besides, there's this:
Afterwards, State Department officials began referring to them as the "JV four" or "Junior Varsity four," for their seeming lack of importance to Taliban fighters.Hmm, there's that "JV" again. I understand that none of these people apparently have military experience, so that college or high-school metaphors are all that work for their thought process. But don't you understand that the Junior Varsity often becomes the Varsity later in their career? That's why schools bother with a JV team: as a training ground and feeder for future star players on the big field.
With judgment like this, it would not be surprising if a few feet got drug in the Pentagon.
Against the Royal Presidency
Charles C. W. Cooke:
As I write, the president of the United States is openly promising to finish off his second term with a flurry of extraconstitutional activity. By the power invested in his “pen and phone,” Barack Obama intends to wield his “executive authority” in order to institute a set of environmental rules that the people’s representatives have declined to grant him; to close the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay in direct defiance of Congress’s will; and to further circumvent a series of immigration laws that have been on the books for decades.It's a good point. Everyone has been mocking Mrs. Clinton's claim that "I wouldn't keep any school open that wasn't doing a better-than-average job" on the grounds of its innumeracy. What strikes me about it is her assumption that, as President, she would of course have the power to close a local school if it failed to perform.
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