Honor and Monuments- Now that's a knife!

Grim's post below about the Merlin cave and it's monument to Merlin- the carving in the rock of the wizards face, brought to mind another monument I'd seen recently, alas not in person but perhaps someday- Sverd i Fjell.  It's near Stavenger, Norway and memorializes the battle most symbolic of the unification of Norway, the Battle of Hafrsfjord, where King Harald Hårfagre (Fairhair) united most of Norway under one crown, effectively marking the origins of the modern Norway.

The largest sword represents that of the victorious King Harald, with the two smaller swords representing those of the two defeated petty kings.  The swords are about ten meters tall, making them rather impressive in scale.  Similarly to Merlin's Cave, it's a beautiful natural location of historic significance, where a memorial has been placed, and in my opinion, in an effective and powerful way, boldly marking the place and presenting some information and raising one's curiosity to learn more about that which is here memorialized, I would think.  It also makes it quite clear what it took to give birth to a nation.

While I'm at it- here's another monument in natural stone like Merlin's Cave-
the Löwendenkmal, or Lion of Lucerne.

It's a memorial to Swiss Guards massacred in the French Revolution in 1792 at the Tuileries Palace.
This one I have had the honor of seeing in person.  As I recall, having seen it in photographs prior to going there, I was rather surprised at the scale of it.  Because of the pool of water in the foreground, photos never really give a true sense of it's scale.  The sculpture is about 33 feet long and 18 feet high, not the 1:1 scale I had always assumed in seeing the photos.

Partly because of the sculpture itself, and partly because of the setting, it's quite moving.  Mark Twain describes it better than I ever could (from "A Tramp Abroad"):

"The most mournful and moving piece of stone in the world."

"The Lion lies in his lair in the perpendicular face of a low cliff — for he is carved from the living rock of the cliff. His size is colossal, his attitude is noble. His head is bowed, the broken spear is sticking in his shoulder, his protecting paw rests upon the lilies of France. Vines hang down the cliff and wave in the wind, and a clear stream trickles from above and empties into a pond at the base, and in the smooth surface of the pond the lion is mirrored, among the water-lilies.

Around about are green trees and grass. The place is a sheltered, reposeful woodland nook, remote from noise and stir and confusion — and all this is fitting, for lions do die in such places, and not on granite pedestals in public squares fenced with fancy iron railings. The Lion of Lucerne would be impressive anywhere, but nowhere so impressive as where he is."

I think these two monuments are quite powerful, each in their own way.  Maybe if I'm lucky, some day I'll win a commission to design a memorial for some event or person of significance.  I'd think it a great honor.  I would only hope I could do so well as these.

Lincoln on the Supremacy of the Courts

Dad29 reminds us that Lincoln was not a fan of conceding moral questions to the Supreme Court. Indeed, it was opposition to one such decision that brought him into politics -- and the Republican party into being.

...Perhaps the most famous opponent of judicial supremacy in our nation’s history was Abraham Lincoln, who as President directly defied the abominable and inhuman monstrosity that was Chief Justice Taney’s ruling in 1857’s Dred Scott v. Sandford.

"...the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal."

Far from the Supreme Court being the obvious answer to the problem of state slavery, for a time it was slavery's most prominent defender.

Two from Arts & Letters Daily

One on Thoreau and his view of life:

Thoreau is less an ecologist than a thinker obsessed with the problem of life in a properly ontological sense. By this I mean not only that everything in his world—from stones to humans—is alive, but also that in his philosophy life is afforded the status of a force that precedes and generates all individuations and into which individual forms dissolve. Consequently, death is considered a process of deformation but not of cessation. Differently put, in Thoreau’s world death does not have the power to interrupt life but instead functions as the force of its transformation, enabling us to experience finitude while ushering us into what remains animated.

And one on Shakespeare and his evolution as a writer, as seen through a (disputed) earlier edition of Hamlet:

[T]he Bad Quarto moves more swiftly to its bloody climax, so that it could be said to lose — or never have had — the very quality that gave birth to the phrase "Hamlet-like."

Most people don’t realize the Hamlets they read are not the Hamlets Shakespeare wrote. They’re, more often than not, a cut-and-paste, conflated version that mixes and matches some of the best bits from the Good Quarto and the Folio. "The pales and forts of reason," "the mote it is to trouble the mind’s eye," and "nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so" are each in either the Quarto or the Folio but not in both.

This Guy

Draft-dodger Donald Trump once said that the danger he faced from getting sexually transmitted diseases was his own “personal Vietnam.”

In a 1997 interview with shock jock Howard Stern, Trump talked about how he had been “lucky” not to have contracted diseases when he was sleeping around.

“I’ve been so lucky in terms of that whole world. It is a dangerous world out there. It’s scary, like Vietnam. Sort of like the Vietnam-era,” Trump said in a video that resurfaced Tuesday on Buzzfeed, “It is my personal Vietnam. I feel like a great and very brave soldier.”

All right, let's add a complete incapacity to distinguish virtue from vice to your list of qualifications.

Merlin's Cave

Below Tintagel Castle lies a sea cave that has long been associated with Merlin. Lately the British government has decided that this national heritage site should boast art as well as natural beauty. They hired a sculptor to work the rock into Merlin's face.

The decision has not pleased everyone. I expect that is probably always true. Mt. Rushmore and the Crazy Horse monument both have their critics, though they are far larger works to be sure. There is always some question about whether we can really improve upon the beauty of nature, as well as some reason to object to the politics: whenever you honor someone or something, even a myth, you do so by raising it above the things you didn't choose to honor. Rarely will there be no one to object.

When Uther in Tintagil past away
Moaning and wailing for an heir, the two
Left the still King, and passing forth to breathe,
Then from the castle gateway by the chasm
Descending through the dismal night—a night
In which the bounds of heaven and earth were lost—
Beheld, so high upon the dreary deeps
It seemed in heaven, a ship, the shape thereof
A dragon winged, and all from stern to stern
Bright with a shining people on the decks,
And gone as soon as seen. And then the two
Dropt to the cove, and watched the great sea fall,
Wave after wave, each mightier than the last,
Till last, a ninth one, gathering half the deep
And full of voices, slowly rose and plunged
Roaring, and all the wave was in a flame:
And down the wave and in the flame was borne
A naked babe, and rode to Merlin's feet,
Who stoopt and caught the babe, and cried "The King!
Here is an heir for Uther!" And the fringe
Of that great breaker, sweeping up the strand,
Lashed at the wizard as he spake the word,
And all at once all round him rose in fire,
So that the child and he were clothed in fire.

The Texas Plan, Part II

The second proposed amendment is one that has been hugely popular with states as a proposal -- there are almost enough states demanding it to force the Constitutional convention on this point alone.

II. Require Congress to balance its budget.

The only thing that I can think to say against this is that the amendment might need a waiver for high emergencies such as wars. Of course, any waiver can be abused, and is likely to be. Still, you can't always fight a war on a budget, and some wars are necessary for the survival of the nation. Those of you who are Keynesians may wish to see this extended to business cycle events, although the evidence of the last decade should probably cause us to re-examine the validity of Lord Keynes' theories on that point.

Someone You Know

A former Marine who participated in one of the most iconic moments of the Iraq War was knocked unconscious and robbed by Black Lives Matter activists in D.C.

A Marine vet who served in Iraq and Afghanistan became the target of an assault while eating at a McDonald’s Friday night in northwest DC. Metro PD is now investigating the incident and looking for five suspects between the ages of 16 and 21.

According to the Daily Caller News Foundation (DCNF), the group of teens started harassing Christopher Marquez while he was eating — surrounding his table and asking him: ‘Do you believe black lives matter.’ They also started calling him a racist....

[T]he manager at the fast food chain reviewed surveillance video and informed Marquez that after he walked out of the restaurant, one of the teens struck him on the side of the head knocking him unconscious. The others robbed him, taking off with his wallet, which contained $400 in cash, all his ID’s and three credit cards.

It being D.C. he was completely defenseless against mob violence, as the law requires.

BLM can't be held responsible for everybody who claims to be acting in its name, and it has some reasonable points worth considering. They had better get a handle on this kind of thing quick, though, or it will destroy any momentum the movement has. People will be rooting for more police violence if this kind of thing becomes normal.

Adventures in Machiavelli

In addition to being a political philosopher of the first water, Niccolo Machiavelli also wrote operas. The University of Georgia has decided to perform one, "The Mandrake," originally an opera about the degree to which men will set aside their moral limits in order to pursue longed-for desires. This being 2016 in America, the opera will not be performed with the original music.

“We’ve made them rap songs with lots of stomps and percussion type beats,” Marotta said.

And this being 2016 on an American college campus, the opera will be cast in order to make a point about gender.

In order to change up the stereotypes and force the audience to ask deeper questions about power play and gender roles, all of the male roles will be played by women and all the women roles are to be played by puppets.

The Texas Plan, Part I

Cassandra suggested a series of posts exploring the Constitutional amendments proposed by Greg Abbott. I think her intent is that we should look at them critically, to see if they need refinement.

I. Prohibit Congress from regulating activity that occurs wholly within one State.

My sense is that this is intended as a reinforcement of the limits of the Interstate Commerce Clause against SCOTUS overreach. As you know, a long series of SCOTUS rulings have expanded that power until it is essentially unlimited: it is now a power to regulate any economic activity that has any effect on commerce sufficient to plausibly affect interstate prices, but also power to regulate economic non-activity that might affect prices where the Federal government would like to require some activity (e.g., health insurance purchases you haven't been making).

Since states are forbidden to raise tariffs that would isolate their markets, the law of supply and demand means that any supplier in any state affects the market as a whole. The same is true for people who elect not to become suppliers. It is not clear what aspect of life is thus outside the expanded scope of Federal power under this revised understanding of the Interstate Commerce Clause. Presumably, the state can regulate any sort of economic production or non-production: you can be made to do or not do anything at all, and more than that, you can be told not just that you must do it but how to do it as well.

If this section has a weakness, it lies in the fact that the language does not specify that it is talking about "economic" activity. Presumably as written this would strip the Federal government from any power to regulate any sort of activity that occurs wholly within a state. On the other hand, the limiting force of the word "economic" is not clear to me: the Interstate Commerce Clause, which clearly is limited to economic activity, has somehow expanded to embrace any sort of activity or non-activity. It may be that there are very few human activities that cannot be described as economic.

I am going to propose a general standard for considering these amendments, which is that it is best if they start off stronger to leave room for negotiation in the necessary Constitutional convention. The amendments should be a little stronger than necessary going into the convention, so that what emerges from the convention is more likely to be adequate medicine.

Discuss.

Syria, Reality and Metaphor

Wretchard pens a piece responding to an earlier piece by Peggy Noonan, which likens the geopolitical moment to a gamble. It's most rational to bet when you have good cards, Wretchard notes, but also when you have terrible ones: bluffing is the only option to avoid losing then.

I would dispute that. As a lifelong poker player, I almost always fold a bad hand. Bluffing works best when you almost never do it. Then, people who have called you in the past have learned that your cards are always strong when they try you. At that point you can get one over on them from time to time. The small cost of losing the ante now and then by folding weak hands preserves your ability to win a pot when it matters, later on, with a weak hand.

Wretchard's point is that America gambled a lot on Obama and has lost. With Obama at the head of the table, not only America but everyone -- allies and enemies alike -- have lost so much that they can no longer afford to play.

Kerry is probably accurate in saying of Syria that "there is no military solution to this conflict" because no one is strong enough to emerge the victor. The failed Obama gambit drained so much energy from international system that it cannot rebuild order yet paradoxically left more than enough fuel to burn what was left.

The ruined cities of Homs or Aleppo may come to perfectly symbolize the current predicament, examples of once bustling places now without the wherewithal to rebuild yet with more than enough to destroy. Like the militias in those agonized cities the post WW2 Security Council members are no longer strong enough to pursue an independent strategy. They will be forced into a constantly shifting constellation of coalitions each competing and cooperating with the other to ensure survival and acquire gains.

Russia may pair off in its facile way with first one partner then another. Turkey will play the same duplicitous game, only more duplicitously, as will China. And Europe will do what is necessary to survive. In both the international and domestic political spheres, -- betrayal and counterbetrayal -- will become the rule rather than the exception. And this will continue until a new order emerges.

A new world order may not emerge. We may see a collapse of world order, and the rise of local hegemonies. The one power that has gained in the last year is Iran. It is going to be richer and stronger, even as it tears down other oil-producing powers by flooding the market with crude. Iran is likely to emerge the leader of the Middle East's northern crescent, from Afghanistan to the Levant.

Russia, just because it is weak and on the verge of crisis, will expand again. The one way for a weakened power to enrich itself is by stealing. Europe is too weak to resist. The next expansion will probably be in the Baltics, and aimed at breaking NATO by proving its treaty guarantees are worthless. Russia may wish to prove that first with Turkey, where the stakes are lower and the NATO power much less sympathetic. The Turkish government, openly Islamist, deceitful, and murderous, does not deserve our support.

China is likely to be consumed with its own problems for some time, and not to look too far abroad for a while.

And Syria, as a real front and not just a metaphor? It is a massacre, a war being waged by clearing the land of people because it is easier to rule over an empty waste. The Russians have only doubled-down on Assad's policy of destroying civilian infrastructure. The Iranian-backed militias are as bad as ISIS, who are backed by our allies the Turks. The West will do nothing to stop it, not for a year at least, if indeed we ever do.

Fun with Rx

Only six weeks into the new year, and we've nearly set things up appropriately with our new annual insurance policy. Though we have a doctor we have no intention of abandoning, we have both also had to acquire an in-network "primary care provider" who has authority to issue a hall-pass for any specialists we may need to see. The PCP already has done yeoman's service getting me clearance to have my right-eye cataract dealt with by an out-of-network surgeon. I thought, for the left eye, we might try to pre-clear with the insurance company and avoid the fire-drill and drama.

No dice. The PCP's office can't start the approval/exception process until I schedule the surgery. OK, sez I, I'll schedule the surgery and then find out if insurance will pay for it, though it seems a bit odd. By the way, for the right eye, the surgeon sent me to a local doc for post-op care, which was very convenient, but she wasn't on the list of out-of-network exceptions, so could you add her to the list this time, see what the HMO says? Oh, good heavens, is the reply, why do you have to see her instead of driving an hour to go back to the surgeon's office? Well, obviously, because it's nice not to have to drive an hour to go back to the surgeon's office. Well, why can't you see someone else in network for the follow-up? I can, but their in-network people are an hour in the other direction.

More guff about the theory of managed care and why they run the network the way they do--at which point I gently interrupt to point out that this is a financial arrangement, not a medical one. I'm not turning over the management of my medical care to an insurance company with whom I'm likely to have a maximum of one-year contact. May I humbly request that you simply ask the HMO if the local follow-up care can be added to the list of exceptions, secure in the knowledge that if the answer is "no," I'll cheerfully go to the local doc anyway and pay her fee out of pocket, in order to avoid the two-hour round-trip?

This precipitates another several rounds of concerned explanation that the insurance company may say "no," and the PCP won't know what to answer if the insurance company asks "why," and managed care means . . . . I gently interrupt again to repeat that I'll accept a "no," and will still do it my way, but I'd appreciate it if they'd just ask. If the HMO asks why, the simple truth is best: the surgeon is an hour away and trusts this local doc to do the follow-up, and the patient prefers to avoid the round-trip. If that's not convincing, fine. It's "no."  I'll live.  But isn't it worth asking?  They may say "yes."

I swear: another round of "but they may say no, and managed care means . . . ." And yet, I also swear, I did not (for once) erupt in a tirade about Obamacare. I'm making a real effort not to offend these people, even though I realize that every time I go out of network, they pick up the message that I lack confidence in professionals who would agree to be in the network. There's some justice in that, but on the other hand some of the doctors we chose independently are in network, which we try to emphasize in order to avoid the unpleasant implication. We've also emphasized that there are some kinds of doctor--such as long-time dermatologists and gynecologists--that we're unlikely to be willing to change every year just because we have to go with a new insurer. Nothing personal against you guys or anyone else who's agreed to be in this year's network.

It sure takes a lot of negotiation and discussion.

This Week in Unlikely Stories...

...Vox explains that what we need to fix America is more corruption in politics.

There's a paper that came out last year called "Political Realism: How Hacks, Machines, Big Money, and Back-Room Deals Can Strengthen American Democracy."... Author Jonathan Rauch argues that deals, rewards, and favors are all essential parts of actually making the government work.

This is apparently the latest in their series on why you should support Hillary Clinton. Earlier parts included theorizing that Clinton would be the most effective President because she feels unrestrained by law and ethics, and an article on how the fact that Hillary Clinton doesn't trust you proves that you need to change.

We Should Not Be Having a War Over the Supreme Court

I do not mean to say that we won't have one, or that we could possibly avoid one. Where we are, a titanic struggle is all but inevitable. The sides have too much to lose. A political compromise would in principle be easy -- the Senate could advise the President whom they would find easy to confirm, and the President could nominate one of those people.

In practice it is impossible.

For the Left it is impossible because with the opportunity to create a 5-vote progressive majority bloc on the SCOTUS, the Left has in front of it the opportunity to dispose of the Constitution as an objection to their program. From now on, they would be able to simply wave away any suggestion that a policy or institution or regulation was unconstitutional because the bloc would vote to endorse it. Laws contemporary to the Constitution, which have coexisted with it for hundreds of years, will continue to be found to be unconstitutional even though neither the generation that wrote the Constitution nor any of its descendants to date have seen any conflict. It will be the end of the Constitution as a limit on government power, in other words, as long as that government power is exercised in a progressive direction.

For Republicans in Congress it is impossible because the rise of such a bloc would put an end to their major reason to exist. They would no longer be able to legislate as a party, because any legislation a Republican Congress passed would be set aside on appeal. So too Republicans in state houses, and indeed Republican governors. At a time when the Republican Party holds both houses of Congress and the vast majority of state houses and governors' mansions, this one person -- this one seat in one of three branches of government -- could effectively strip their entire power base of legitimacy. They could no longer proceed as the loyal opposition, raising procedural or legislative bars. They would be told what they could and could not do at every level of government, having their achievements thrown away and their concessions enshrined in Constitutional law.

Nothing could be clearer than that the Federal courts have become too powerful. Admittedly, this is an old argument for me. I've been arguing it probably since I've been writing here, certainly since 2006 (see "The Judiciary" here). The most important work we could do right now would be to strip the Federal courts, and the Supreme Court, of much of their authority. The Supreme Court's ability to amend the Constitution on the fly has risen at the same time that increasing diversity in the nation has made amending the Constitution legitimately, through Article V, more and more difficult to accomplish.

The Supreme Court has become much like the One Ring. Instead of trying to use that concentrated power to defend our position, we need to destroy the power lest it fall into other hands.

Win or lose this current fight over the seat on the Court, Governor Greg Abbot's suggested Constitutional amendments should become the #1 priority of the conservative movement. They are not extreme. They are not even radical. They impose only the kind of super-majority controls the Founders often invoked as guards against concentrated power.

It is in the interest of nearly every American to disperse this concentrated power, which is a threat to the peace and stability of the Republic. Unfortunately, I suspect the siren song of power -- of finally being able to force the other side to submit and obey -- will prove too strong.

The song is an illusion. No submission will be forthcoming. Beware that road that leads only to war.

Lost Roads of Ancient Rome

Made visible in England.

Kerry: Refugees an "Existential Threat" to Europe

A change in the administration's position that refugees aren't a threat to anyone? The recognition is pointed at the threat to Europe's political fabric, which simply can't absorb further mass migration until (and unless) it can assimilate the mass migration it has already encouraged. The United States hasn't encouraged mass migration from the Islamic world in the same way, but it certainly has from the Third World writ broadly. We're better at assimilation, usually, but I wonder if the administration isn't going to decide that the real answer is for us instead of Europe to take on more Syrian migrants.

My opinions on Trump

So I've made it fairly clear in the past that I did not like Donald Trump as a candidate for President.  His ego, narcissism, and tendency to take everything critical of him as a personal affront or insult reminds me of the current President, which is not a feature, but a bug (in the IT parlance).  And in the past, he has made statements that got under my skin (and before you point out hypocracy here, I will first point out that the statements were not criticisms of me but of others, and second I am not running for President), such as his vile personal attack of Senator John McCain's military service.  While there are many things to dislike about Senator McCain, frankly I find nothing remotely questionable about the conduct of Captain McCain.  And to insult him because "he got caught" is a slap in the face of all POWs, which a better man than Donald Trump would be ashamed of making.  But he's not a better man.

Well, over the weekend, he crossed yet another line.  With his slander of former President George W. Bush as having lied us into war, I think the mask has slipped again.  I have wondered previously, but after this and along with his defense of Planned Parenthood, I am becoming more and more convinced than ever that Donald Trump has gone through no Road to Damascus moment.  He was a liberal Democrat, he is a liberal Democrat, and he will continue to be a liberal Democrat.  Whether he is a Clinton stalking horse or not is frankly immaterial.  He is no conservative, regardless of his stated stances on immigration.  He has directly insulted all of us who supported President George W. Bush during his difficult administration by saying we were supporting a war-mongering tyrant (which would make us culpable, as we supported him).  I am not ashamed to admit that there were actions taken and decisions made by President Bush that I felt were misguided.  But at no time did I (nor do I currently) believe he was anything other than a good man doing his level best to protect this country.  And once again, I think the accusations Donald Trump made at the most recent Republican debate were such that a better man would be ashamed of making.  Or at least a better conservative would be ashamed of making them.  A liberal would likely feel little to no shame in making those accusations.

After Him, The Deluge

Rest in peace Justice Antonin Scalia, one of the last, best guards of the Revolution. In myriad ways, we will miss you.

UPDATE: A private reflection on Scalia's great heart.

Mark Steyn Has Guts

Facing a ruinous, lingering lawsuit for defamation and slander from Michael E. Mann -- creator of the famous 'hockey stick' global warming graph -- Mark Steyn has assembled a book-length assault on the same fellow. Entilted A Disgrace to the Profession, he obtained a blurb for it from one Laura Rosen Cohen:

It's probably the longest, funniest, most savvily organized and meticulous "screw you" in the history of Western literature.

I suppose we know what he thinks of the lawsuit now, if there was ever any doubt.

Not Quite

Allahpundit thinks Ted Cruz is just being symbolic in his language against gay marriage:

Here’s the strongest language I’ve found from Cruz on Obergefell:

“My response to this decision was that it was illegitimate, it was lawless, it was utterly contrary to the Constitution and that we should fight to defend marriage on every front,” he said, before promoting constitutional amendments to overturn the ruling and put justices up for retention elections, along with legislation “to strip the federal courts of jurisdiction over challenges to marriage.”

Cruz conceded that none of his proposals are politically feasible at the moment. Once he is elected president, however, Cruz said he will make sure that “we will not use the federal government to enforce this lawless decision that is a usurpation of the authority of we the people in this country.” He also committed to only appoint Supreme Court justices who would not “legislate from the bench” like the justices did in Obergefell.
Okay, but the president’s role in enforcing or not enforcing Obergefell is unimportant. It’s a matter of the states enforcing it, since marriage is a creature of state law. Here again you find Cruz laying down rhetoric that makes it sound like he’s preparing to do something bold when really it’s just symbolism.

That's not true, though, in states like Alabama where the State Supreme Court's chief justice is advising clerks not to stop enforcing Alabama's constitutional prohibition against same-sex marriage. In that case, whether or not Federal enforcement will occur is really important. Keeping this pledge would allow states like Alabama to nullify the SCOTUS ruling, at least for the term of the President making the pledge.

That's important because, for now, Roy Moore is a single guy using his office to hold the line. Everyone expects him to lose. If a President of the United States were to endorse his position, though, it could cause similar moves in other states as well. That could eventually put some teeth in the frequently-proclaimed Republican position that marriage is a state issue, not a Federal issue. A future President who disagreed would have to do more than remove Roy Moore. He or she would have to take on a bloc of states rejecting Federal jurisprudence. They might, or they might back down. If they did take on the bloc, they would do so from a relatively weakened position compared to the position that President Obama holds now.

We All Have Our Bad Days

Madeleine Albright writes:

I HAVE spent much of my career as a diplomat. It is an occupation in which words and context matter a great deal. So one might assume I know better than to tell a large number of women to go to hell.