The Cathedral of May
A day celebrated here each year, as the fullest glory of springtime. The long and painful summer is coming, and fast, but for now there remain some good days ahead.
I've only seen one hummingbird this year, so far. The wife is worried that they might have had some sort of die-off event. I wonder if the truth isn't just that the flowers are so rich this year that so far they have seen no need to approach the feeders.
UPDATE: Many people are reminding me that today is also the anniversary of Osama bin Laden's death. Another thing to celebrate!
The Most Honest Speech of the Year
According to Vox, the only time Obama's really honest with us is when he pretends to be joking.
Self-Defense is Not the Issue
A blogger called Justin Curmi is writing about the Bill of Rights. He proposes an interesting lens: that controversies about the Constitution be re-evaluated in the light of the Preamble's "Five Aims." The blogger apparently has dyslexia, so let us excuse minor errors in spelling and grammar. He says that we should ask of any proposed reading the following questions:
Nevertheless, self-defense is not the real point of the 2nd Amendment at all. The real point of the 2nd Amendment is just what it says -- the security of a free state. A distributed defensive capacity among the citizenry is the best guarantee of a free state, and the state of freedom, against several common threats. It represents a better defense against many forms of terrorism than other options, such as massive surveillance of the population or a vast increase in police controls, because it better respects the state of freedom. It also means that terrorists (to include mass shooters of any stripe) have a harder time predicting where they will encounter resistance.
Thus, the carrying and use of arms defensively ensures all five of the "Five Aims." It promotes justice by reducing the incidence of violations of justice like murder and assault. It helps to ensure domestic Tranquility by making crime more dangerous and costly, which reduces crime rates. It is all about the common defense. The reduction in crime and increase in justice promotes the general welfare. And, compared with increased government control of our lives, it protects our free state against common dangers in a manner more consistent with securing the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.
When you stop your own murderer, it's only by-the-way that you're defending yourself. What you're really defending is the common peace and lawful order. You're doing a just and good thing that will improve the whole society. It is always right to defend a citizen from being murdered, after all. It's merely incidental that the citizen happens to be yourself.
Does is promote Justice?So when he gets to the 2nd Amendment, he finds that there is clearly a right to keep and bear arms. However, he says, these arms should be kept only for the purpose of revolution. Self-defense should be illegal.
Does it ensure domestic Tranquility?
Does it ensure the common defence?
Does it promote the general Welfare?
Does it secure the Blessings of our Liberty and Posterity?
The main problem with the notion of self-defense is it imposes on justice, for everyone has the right for a fair trial. Therefore, using a firearm to defend oneself is not legal because if the attacker is killed, he or she is devoid of his or her rights. In addition, one’s mental capacity is a major factor in deciding whether a man or woman has the right to have a firearm.This is not a terribly-well considered position. First of all, the right to defend one's self is fundamental to the first of the five aims -- the promotion of justice. How can it be just to ask someone to suffer assault, rape, or murder so that they do not deny their murderer or rapist the right to a fair trial? In fact, the right not to be murdered or assaulted is more basic than the right to a fair trial before being punished for one's murders or assaults. This can be seen by a simple thought experiment: in an ideally just world, no one would receive a fair trial for murder because no one would commit murder. However, in the same ideally just world, everyone would have their right not to be murdered actively respected. Thus, the right to a fair trial only comes into play when something has gone wrong. The right not to be murdered is merely a statement of what the ideally just condition would be.
Nevertheless, self-defense is not the real point of the 2nd Amendment at all. The real point of the 2nd Amendment is just what it says -- the security of a free state. A distributed defensive capacity among the citizenry is the best guarantee of a free state, and the state of freedom, against several common threats. It represents a better defense against many forms of terrorism than other options, such as massive surveillance of the population or a vast increase in police controls, because it better respects the state of freedom. It also means that terrorists (to include mass shooters of any stripe) have a harder time predicting where they will encounter resistance.
Thus, the carrying and use of arms defensively ensures all five of the "Five Aims." It promotes justice by reducing the incidence of violations of justice like murder and assault. It helps to ensure domestic Tranquility by making crime more dangerous and costly, which reduces crime rates. It is all about the common defense. The reduction in crime and increase in justice promotes the general welfare. And, compared with increased government control of our lives, it protects our free state against common dangers in a manner more consistent with securing the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.
When you stop your own murderer, it's only by-the-way that you're defending yourself. What you're really defending is the common peace and lawful order. You're doing a just and good thing that will improve the whole society. It is always right to defend a citizen from being murdered, after all. It's merely incidental that the citizen happens to be yourself.
A Brutal Assessment
A book review of a new history of Clinton and Obama's time together is not complimentary. Well, not to the subjects of the history. The review is quite complimentary of the book.
The irony is that, in fact, history will remember Obama as the president who unraveled the world and left it on fire. And the drone president, of course.
There are many in-depth books dealing with individual aspects of U.S. foreign policy in recent years, but for a single work encompassing the Obama administration’s engagement with the world, it is hard to imagine one better. From the Arab Spring to the resurgence of Russia to the Iran nuclear deal, Landler reveals a president obsessed with making history, and a secretary of state weighing every move in light of her personal advancement. Really, “Alter Egos” could just be called “Egos.”Obama's disastrous legacy in foreign policy has grown more and more clear as we have neared the end of his presidency. It's easy to see why. If one's motivating foreign policy principle is self-aggrandizement, everything else is to be sacrificed so that you can have a complimentary footnote in the books to be written after you die.
...
The president liked running foreign policy out of the West Wing, Landler explains, and “Clinton had trouble penetrating Obama’s clannish inner circle.” That inner circle was devoted to finding symbolic, legacy-building opportunities for the boss. Ben Rhodes, Obama’s foreign policy whisperer, regarded outreach to closed societies such as Cuba as “exactly what a history-making president like Obama should be doing,” Landler writes, and threw himself into secret negotiations with Havana. Obama saw the Iran nuclear agreement as a once-in-a-generation achievement and pursued it accordingly. And he fretted that historians would remember him for the wrong thing. “I don’t want to be just remembered as the drone president,” he said to a top adviser in 2012.
The irony is that, in fact, history will remember Obama as the president who unraveled the world and left it on fire. And the drone president, of course.
Another CAS Option: Erik Prince's "Thrush"
War is Boring describes it as a "fighting crop-duster." But if the enemy has no air force -- and no MANPADS, as Eric Blair notes -- why wouldn't this be a smart idea?
Friday Night AMV
A State Alchemist has to be hardcore.
This series was interesting in that its' magic had a real cost.
This series was interesting in that its' magic had a real cost.
Motherhood is Service
In response to this foolishness about 'me-ternity leave,' I just want to link to a post from 2009. That's why we do it this way, and not some other way.
SFC Martland Update
Good to see the Army do the right thing by Green Beret Charles Martland. Spreading core American values like not raping children is well within the mission of the US Special Forces.
I say "core American values" rather than "universal human values" because, while you'd think this was the sort of thing people would just understand, Afghanistan proves that it isn't quite.
I say "core American values" rather than "universal human values" because, while you'd think this was the sort of thing people would just understand, Afghanistan proves that it isn't quite.
Boy Shoots Home Invader
A young man in Alabama, aged 11, shot a home intruder near Talladega. Something similar happened when I was growing up. I described the case eleven years ago.
In those days, Forsyth County was entirely rural. In the southern and eastern parts, it was cattle country, with green and rolling pastures being the main feature of the land. In the northwestern part of the county, it was timberland, and forestry was the main industry. A modestly large county, nevertheless there were often only two deputy sheriffs on duty at any shift. There was no other law, and not much need for any, but on the rare occasion that anything bad happened -- whether a fire or a car wreck or whatever -- they called out the volunteer Firemen to lend some extra, uniformed hands.Fifth graders are typically about eleven, I think.
So this one day, just about six miles from my own childhood house, a couple of fifth grade kids were returning from their afternoon's sport: shooting their .22 rifles. It was probably target shooting rather than squirrel hunting, but either was a common passtime. They came out of the backcountry and onto their red-dirt road, and started walking home.
Passing a neighbor's house, they saw a couple of men they didn't recognize taking things out of it and loading it into a strange car. The two boys -- fifth graders, now -- yelled at the strangers to demand an answer as to why they were taking their neighbors' stuff. One of the men pulled a gun, and shot at them.
Well, he missed. They didn't, returning the fire with their rifles and getting him through the stomach. He and his friend panicked, but found themselves cut off from their car by the fusilade. One of the boys ran down a powerline cut to get to a bigger road, to flag help. The other tried to keep the strangers pinned.
The two strangers managed to break into a truck that was at the house they were robbing, and they went barreling down the road. However, the kid who went for help found some, and soon the Volunteer Fire Department had cut off all the local roads. By the time the deputy got there, Volunteers were standing in the middle of the roads with shotguns. Nobody had to go get one -- they were in the truck gun rack, in case they were needed.
After the two men drove off in the stolen truck, meanwhile, the other kid went home and informed his family of the robbery. They, along with their other neighbors, got into their trucks and went hunting. They recognized the stolen truck easily -- it belonged to their neighbor, after all -- and ran it off the road. The wounded man gave in at once, but the other one tried to escape into the woods. They chased him down and beat him with sticks until he surrendered.
Eventually, word of this got back to the deputy, who headed over to collect the prisoners. He, poor fellow, missed all the excitement but still got to write the report.
I'm told that was the last robbery in that end of the county for quite a little while.
Just War and Polite Philosophy
A professor of philosophy from Brown University, one Nomy Arpaly, argues that philosophy justifies rudeness in much the same way that war justifies violence.
My experience is that polite philosophical discussion is not only possible, it's the case -- unless by "rudeness" you mean the odd thing she is framing as rude, the questioning of people's beliefs. Philosophy conferences are sometimes heated, but usually are extraordinarily polite. Philosophy conferences are also a great place to see things questioned all the way down to the ground. You will see people's entire belief systems destroyed in front of an audience, at times, but almost never in a way we would ordinarily describe as rude. It's only rude if you think it's improper to destroy ideas people care about. Sometimes, though, they're bad ideas.
Indeed, Arpaly's own work questions two of philosophy's most basic assumptions, the centrality of reason to morality and of deliberation to reason. Her opening example makes more sense if you read it in the context of that questioning.
The assumption that such rationally derived rules should govern these interactions is just what she is questioning: sometimes, instead of favoring rationally derived rules, we should listen to our desires. She is proposing a system for doing that and suggesting we would be better off, at least sometimes, if we followed our hearts. Thus the question: what if my heart leads me to violence? Doesn't allowing desires to override rationally-derived rules weaken protections against violence, especially in cases where her proposed system seems to justify substituting desires for the rules derived in rational deliberation?
It's a good question. The fact that she wants to analogize the situation to Just War only makes it a better question. It seems as if a model like hers is going to need very strong rules to prevent licensing violence -- and, by extension, many other kinds of passionate behavior. Otherwise she will have to accept being slapped by someone who really has a desire to do it that is grounded in the right way for her system. Presumably, she is not willing to be slapped. Indeed, she finds even the pantomime of a slapping so objectionable that she's remembered it for years as a clear example of something offensive in philosophy. She is writing a piece specifically to call us not to do such things. To say that another way, she is proposing rules governing desired behavior, to be applied to situations like 'philosophical discussion' in general.
If it does need such rules, though, doesn't that undermine her whole model? Such rules are rational, and are being derived at a deliberative distance. Moral behavior ends up primarily involving containing such desires according to rationally-derived rules that come from deliberation. She just wants different rules, presumably ones that allow for the indulging of desires she approves of more often than is permitted by the rules we have now.
The fact that we can see that comes from the question. It suggests that her basic model is flawed, all the way to the ground. It's an insightful point. I wonder if she has a response, beyond the objection that it was rude.
It is a big part of moral behavior in ordinary situations not to kill people. Yet the morally healthy inhibition against killing people has to be lost, of necessity, in war—even in a morally justified war. It is a big part of politeness—not in the sense of using the right fork, but in the sense of civility—in ordinary situations not to tell another person that she is wrong and misguided about something she cares a lot about, or that she cares about being right about. For brevity’s sake, let’s just say it’s a big part of politeness or civility not to correct people. Yet the civilized inhibition against correcting people has to be lost, of necessity, in a philosophical argument.The way she frames this is in terms of 'inhibition loss,' whereby one 'loses' the usual inhibition against killing/rudeness, and thus is in danger of losing other inhibitions along the way. She thinks the position of women in philosophy can be substantially improved simply by limiting the amount of rudeness in the discussion to 'no more than what is necessary,' in much the same way that Just War prohibitions against indiscriminate killing are helpful in preventing wars from being worse than they must be.
My experience is that polite philosophical discussion is not only possible, it's the case -- unless by "rudeness" you mean the odd thing she is framing as rude, the questioning of people's beliefs. Philosophy conferences are sometimes heated, but usually are extraordinarily polite. Philosophy conferences are also a great place to see things questioned all the way down to the ground. You will see people's entire belief systems destroyed in front of an audience, at times, but almost never in a way we would ordinarily describe as rude. It's only rude if you think it's improper to destroy ideas people care about. Sometimes, though, they're bad ideas.
Indeed, Arpaly's own work questions two of philosophy's most basic assumptions, the centrality of reason to morality and of deliberation to reason. Her opening example makes more sense if you read it in the context of that questioning.
I’ll never forget the old guy who asked me, at an APA interview: “suppose I wanted to slap you, and suppose I wanted to slap you because I thought you were giving us really bad answers, and I mistakenly believed that by slapping you I’ll bring out the best in you. Am I blameworthy?”.This turns out to be a highly relevant question, if desire ought to override reason in the way she is arguing it sometimes should. The prohibitions against violence (including all the ones in Just War theory) are rational principles. They arise not in the heat of the moment, but from abstracting away from the real situations of war to try to find ways in which these situations are alike. Those ways in which many different situations are alike are called "universals" by most philosophers -- I often say they are, properly speaking, analogies -- and the universals are rational objects. The reason we can craft general rules governing very different wars in different times and places is because of rational deliberation of this kind.
When he said “suppose I wanted to slap you”, his butt actually left his chair for a moment and his hand was mimicking a slap in the air.
The assumption that such rationally derived rules should govern these interactions is just what she is questioning: sometimes, instead of favoring rationally derived rules, we should listen to our desires. She is proposing a system for doing that and suggesting we would be better off, at least sometimes, if we followed our hearts. Thus the question: what if my heart leads me to violence? Doesn't allowing desires to override rationally-derived rules weaken protections against violence, especially in cases where her proposed system seems to justify substituting desires for the rules derived in rational deliberation?
It's a good question. The fact that she wants to analogize the situation to Just War only makes it a better question. It seems as if a model like hers is going to need very strong rules to prevent licensing violence -- and, by extension, many other kinds of passionate behavior. Otherwise she will have to accept being slapped by someone who really has a desire to do it that is grounded in the right way for her system. Presumably, she is not willing to be slapped. Indeed, she finds even the pantomime of a slapping so objectionable that she's remembered it for years as a clear example of something offensive in philosophy. She is writing a piece specifically to call us not to do such things. To say that another way, she is proposing rules governing desired behavior, to be applied to situations like 'philosophical discussion' in general.
If it does need such rules, though, doesn't that undermine her whole model? Such rules are rational, and are being derived at a deliberative distance. Moral behavior ends up primarily involving containing such desires according to rationally-derived rules that come from deliberation. She just wants different rules, presumably ones that allow for the indulging of desires she approves of more often than is permitted by the rules we have now.
The fact that we can see that comes from the question. It suggests that her basic model is flawed, all the way to the ground. It's an insightful point. I wonder if she has a response, beyond the objection that it was rude.
Another Ancient CAS Plane That Is Better Than The F-35
The real competitor to the A-10 is not the F-35, but the fifty-year-old Vietnam-era OV-10 Bronco.
It lacks the A-10's survivability, but it does have a lot more flexibility. Boeing has been thinking about restarting production anyway, as it's cheap enough that lots of countries can afford it. As the initial article points out, it only costs $1,000 an hour to operate, compared with $40,000 for an F-15 (another fighter commonly bought by Third World American allies). For sake of comparison, the A-10 comes in at $11,500, and the F-35 at $39,000 an hour (well, or so they say -- when they get them working, we'll see what the cost really is). So the OV-10 is even cheaper to operate than a Predator drone.
To test whether the more than 50-year-old plane still had some fight in it, US Central Command (CENTCOM) sent two OV-10s to Iraq, where they flew 120 combat missions as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, with a 99% success rate.... Capable of carrying 3,000 pounds of ordinance, the Bronco can carry an overwhelming assortment of firepower for it’s small size, including either four 7.62mm machine guns, four .50 caliber machine guns, or a pair of 20mm cannons in addition to a loadout of rockets, missiles, and bombs as needed for the day’s mission...Quite a bit of video at the link.
One more fun trick the OV-10 does it drop a 5-man Special Forces ODA out the back.
It lacks the A-10's survivability, but it does have a lot more flexibility. Boeing has been thinking about restarting production anyway, as it's cheap enough that lots of countries can afford it. As the initial article points out, it only costs $1,000 an hour to operate, compared with $40,000 for an F-15 (another fighter commonly bought by Third World American allies). For sake of comparison, the A-10 comes in at $11,500, and the F-35 at $39,000 an hour (well, or so they say -- when they get them working, we'll see what the cost really is). So the OV-10 is even cheaper to operate than a Predator drone.
Kelpies
Sculptures on the Hebrides, or "he-brides," as they are sometimes mockingly named at Scottish Highland Games.
Of Course Spanking Works
The problem with this study making the rounds is that it assumes that spanking is supposed to generate obedience. Who wants to raise children who are obedient? What we want to raise is children who are self-sufficient and who don't cause us problems. They are children who learn to deal with power structures and pursue their own interests accordingly.
Which is exactly what the study says spanked children are like. They are capable of wielding deception, they are capable of wielding violence in their own interests, and they are capable of pretending to go-along-and-get-along when they aren't in positions of power.
They're Odysseus, in other words.
This is the matter of Plato's Hippias Minor, which treats the question of whether Odysseus or Achilles was the greater hero. The usual position of historians and philosophers is that this is a very unimportant dialogue, with a silly argument, that we might even doubt was Platonic except that Aristotle confirms that Plato wrote it.
That's not right at all. The point is that Plato was teaching the Athens that killed him that Socrates was a kind of Odysseus. Aristotle takes the 'simple' reductio argument of this dialogue seriously enough that he responds to it in the Nicomachean Ethics. This is very serious stuff.
What kind of a child are you trying to raise? An obedient one? Or Odysseus?
Which is exactly what the study says spanked children are like. They are capable of wielding deception, they are capable of wielding violence in their own interests, and they are capable of pretending to go-along-and-get-along when they aren't in positions of power.
They're Odysseus, in other words.
This is the matter of Plato's Hippias Minor, which treats the question of whether Odysseus or Achilles was the greater hero. The usual position of historians and philosophers is that this is a very unimportant dialogue, with a silly argument, that we might even doubt was Platonic except that Aristotle confirms that Plato wrote it.
That's not right at all. The point is that Plato was teaching the Athens that killed him that Socrates was a kind of Odysseus. Aristotle takes the 'simple' reductio argument of this dialogue seriously enough that he responds to it in the Nicomachean Ethics. This is very serious stuff.
What kind of a child are you trying to raise? An obedient one? Or Odysseus?
Cruz/Fiorina
A ticket we talked about back in March has become a reality today. Good, I suppose. Certainly the best thing left out there.
High-Speed Dalai Lama
He operates, bro.
Apparently he really did say the thing about how it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun. Everything else is just internet awesomeness.
Some appropriate music. And by 'appropriate,' I mean appropriate for this. NSFW.
Apparently he really did say the thing about how it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun. Everything else is just internet awesomeness.
Some appropriate music. And by 'appropriate,' I mean appropriate for this. NSFW.
Another Example of Tex's Kind of "Lesson"
The Pentagon has decided to test the A-10 against the F-35 in the role of close air support, to see which platform really serves the needs of forces on the ground best. Hot Air reports:
First, though, the Pentagon has to get its F-35s working properly. Tritten notes that the latest in a long series of “glitches” involves its radar system, which randomly stops functioning and requires rebooting in flight. That could complicate comparative war-gaming — as well as potentially put pilots and ground personnel at greater risk. It’s hard to run a test between an operational and well-known system and a mock-up.No, it isn't. Far from 'complicating' the test, I think it simplifies it a great deal.
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