Meryl Streep on Honor

"Yes, I am the most overrated, over-decorated and currently, I am the most over-berated actress ... of my generation," she said to laughs.

She noted that she wished she could simply stay home "and load the dishwasher" rather than take a podium to speak out - but that "the weight of all these honors" she's received in her career compelled her to speak out.

"It's terrifying to put the target on your forehead," she said. "And it sets you up for all sorts of attacks and armies of brownshirts and bots and worse, and the only way you can do it is if you feel you have to. You have to! You don't have an option. You have to."

Leaving aside the particular political questions -- including whether or not her opponents are properly described as "brownshirts" -- her remarks about honor are themselves interesting. What compels her to speak is honors, she says: in other words, just because so many people have said nice things about her or presented her with awards admiring her work as an actress, her voice in politics is important and needed in the public debate.

At first it seems as if this might be a sensible thing to say. After all, one is honored for excellence; she has received many honors; therefore, she must in some sense be excellent. Politics should in theory benefit if it draws excellence. Certainly Aristotle and Plato both argue that political roles are best filled by those with excellence. Our English word "virtue" is from the Latin, but the Greek word is arete, which really does mean "excellence."

Thus, it seems as if a woman of proven excellence really ought to play an outsized role in politics -- just as she says, the honors she has received prove that she has a greater capacity than most, and that implies a duty to exercise that capacity for the common good. Politics needs people like her.

Well... maybe that's not quite right.

The problem is that there are two different things going on, and Streep is conflating them. As an actress, she is highly honored (and has therefore outsized duties, presumably). As a citizen, however, she is properly the equal of any other citizen. It is wrong to claim that she has an outsized role to play in a sphere in which she is properly only the equal of all other American citizens, not their superior.

Her celebrity gives her a louder voice, so to speak, but she is reading her warrant the wrong way. Rather than her honors as an actress making it imperative that she speak publicly, they ought to disincline her to do so -- and this is true for all such celebrities, regardless of their political views. Knowing that the attention they will receive will drown out others to whom they ought only to be equal, they should be circumspect about their political views.

Certainly that does not mean that celebrities should not participate in politics, which they have an equal entitlement to do. They should just take care not to use the honors they have received in the fields of arts, or sports, to 'talk over' their fellow citizens. That is what honor really requires here.

Jim Webb on NBC

American politics needed a jolt, Webb says. Was it this one? What about the Democrats in 2018?

The journalist pins him early on the fact that he refers to Democrats as "they," not "we." Webb thinks about that for a minute and says that, you know, he's not really part of the system at the moment -- he's thinking about this all from the outside, as the journalist is himself, and as are all of us here. It's still an interesting observation.

UPDATE: Another piece on Webb today wonders what might have been.

Islam, Reformation, the West

Andrew McCarthy proposes that we start asking politicians whether or not they think Islam needs reform. McCarthy's a thoughtful guy, and he has a point, but he hasn't reflected philosophically on the question. What does it even mean to ask "Does Islam need reform"? Islam is a religion. A religion either points to the true ground of the divine or it does not. If it does, then what sense is there to reform it? The structure of right and wrong, whatever it looks like, follows from the divine expression.

If it does not, then of course it ought to be reformed -- which is not to say that "it" needs reform. A religion that does not point to the divine is just a set of conventions, and a set of conventions has no needs. It's just something people do. People have needs. A longing for the divine is one of those needs for many people.

So the question really ought to be, "Do you think Islam is true?"

And, then, only if they answer in the negative, the second question is, "How should Muslims reform their faith so that they do in fact genuinely connect with the divine?"

Now, the proper thing to say about the second question is that anyone who is not a Muslim can only have an advisory opinion. We're not going to be the ones reforming Islam -- we're just going to be giving advice about it. Of course, what I said before holds for these. Even Muslims who want to reform Islam must first reject that it correctly captures the divine expression. They also must first admit, however tacitly, that they do not in fact believe what is taught by their faith.

The first question is the one that matters. It's only even sensible to talk about reform if you deny that Islam is true. Saying that has consequences we should face honestly.

The Introduction of Beowulf in the Original

Apparently, he performs the whole thing live. He'll be up in the northeast in March and April if you want to catch him.

If, on the other hand, the northeast is a bit far, he sells a DVD on his website as well.

Toss the Feather

"Learn Old English," He Said

"It'll open up 'Call Me Maybe'," he said ...

And it doesn't end there.

9th Circuit to Consider Reconsidering

Think one of the judges not on the 3 judge panel noticed they had completely forgotten to give an opinion on the relevant law?

Damned if you Do

So just a few days ago, I read in the Nation that Trump's nominee for the #2 spot at State was "an actual American war criminal."

As assistant secretary of state for human rights, Abrams sought to ensure that General Efraín Ríos Montt, Guatemala’s then-dictator, could carry out “acts of genocide”—those are the legally binding words of Guatemala’s United Nations–backed Commission for Historical Clarification—against the indigenous people in the Ixil region of the department of Quiché, without any pesky interference from human-rights organizations, much less the US government.

As the mass killings were taking place, Abrams fought in Congress for military aid to Ríos Montt’s bloody regime.... Abrams not only supported the nonsensical official explanation (there was “no evidence indicating other than that the deaths were due to an accident”), he also denounced a spokeswoman for the group who demanded an investigation, insisting that she had “no right to call herself a human rights worker.” When The New York Times published an op-ed challenging the official State Department count of the mass murders under way—by a woman who had witnessed a death-squad-style assassination in broad daylight in Guatemala City without ever seeing it mentioned in the press—Abrams lied outright in a letter to the editor, even citing an imaginary story in a nonexistent newspaper to insist that the man’s murder had, in fact, been reported.

I don’t know about you, but intentionally helping the US government to aid and abet the commission of genocide, while attacking the character and reputation of those trying to expose it, strikes me as securely within the definition of “war criminal.”

So it now looks like the Abrams appointment is off. Is this evidence of Team Trump's good judgment? Of course not. In fact, the allegations against Abrams don't even appear in the piece about Trump shooting down the nomination. Abrams is presented in an unfailingly flattering light now that Trump doesn't want him.

Two different publications, of course, but it's still enough to make one's head spin.

Bad carbon math

More on the topic of how not to get bogged down in procedure when we roll back some of the dumber climate regs promulgated by the EPA.  Apparently the agency's "social cost of carbon" calculation failed to distinguish between the domestic and foreign costs, in violation of OMB standards.  Correcting this part of the procedure may be a quicker fix than others.

Judicial Review Suffers Self-Inflicted Wound

I don't object in the slightest degree to Trump's executive order coming under judicial review for its constitutionality. I do think the 9th circuit should probably have at least mentioned the law he was citing as granting him the legal authority.

(f) Suspension of entry or imposition of restrictions by President

Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.

Remarkably, in the entire opinion, the panel did not bother even to cite this statute, which forms the principal statutory basis for the executive order (see Sections 3(c), 5(c), and 5(d) of the order). That’s a pretty big omission over 29 pages, including several pages devoted to determining the government’s likelihood of success on the merits of the case.

This would be roughly like me being brought into court for carrying a firearm in Georgia, presenting my license to do so, and citing the sections of the Official Code of Georgia, Annotated, that specifically permit someone with such a license to carry such a firearm -- and then having the court rule against me without acknowledging the law existed.

Also, its reasoning would have to be that my protected exercise of free speech proved that I was such a bad person that I must be denied what would be legal for anyone else in my position.

Judicial review can be a good thing, but this is a poor example of it.

The Young British Soldier

by Rudyard Kipling

The Perfect Timepiece for the Hall

Cannon Sundial by Victor Chevalier, Paris

Photo by Andres Rueda, CC 2.0

Fresh Meat

Derailing Conversations: A Primer

This satirical site is meant to chide "Privileged People" in the interest of "marginalized groups," but it plays in surprisingly well with our recent conversation about journalists seeing themselves as members of the elite.

If you really want to excel as a privileged person you need to learn to value data, statistics, research studies and empirical evidence above all things, but especially above personal experiences. You can pretend you are oblivious to the fact most studies have been carried out by privileged people and therefore carry inherent biases, and insist that the marginalized person produce “Evidence” of what they‘re claiming.Their experience does not count as evidence, for it is subjective and therefore worthless.
This is very important because it works in two ways: 1) it communicates to the marginalized person that their personal testament is disbelieved and of no value, causing them great hurt; and 2) it once again reinforces your privilege.

You see, the very capacity to conduct studies, collect data and write detached “fact-based” reports on it, is an inherently privileged activity. The ability to widely access this material and research it exhaustively is also inherently privileged. Privileged People® find it easier to pursue these avenues than marginalized people and so once again you are reminding them you possess this privilege and reinforcing that the world at large values a system of analysis that excludes them, and values it over what their actual personal experience has been.

The process of valuing “fact” over “opinion” is one very much rooted in preserving privilege. Through this methodology, the continued pain and othering of millions of people can be ignored because it’s supported by “opinion” (emotion) and not “fact” (rationality).

It is also important because it calls on the marginalized person to do something that is simply impossible, and that is to summarize the entirety of their group’s experiences into a definitive example. It is important that you establish this precedent for the next couple of steps.

Well, fair enough -- blue collar guys are definitely a marginalized group, increasingly these last several years. I wonder if that's what they meant us to discover, though.

An Interesting Question from AVI

In a post about reducing racism, AVI ends on a note that is worth further exploration. I'd like to put it before the Hall, even though there is a lot of overlap in readership. I'll give enough of the setup for context, and then the ending question.

When did we make our biggest gains in reducing racism in America? I think people would point to the 40's-60's.... It is at least co-incident with the period when we had much less immigration, 1927-1964. The common declaration is that all prejudices go together, and reducing prejudice against immigrants is just the same thing as reducing it against blacks, with the requisite accusations of white American disliking "brownness" in general....

What if it's just not true? What if it would be better and more praiseworthy if human nature were that way, especially in aspirational, open-hearted America - but it's just not?...

We sometimes speak of immigrants making it harder for blacks to get ahead in terms of employment and wages - it was one of Bernie Sanders's core values until he gave all those away. We aren't supposed to mention that, but it is likely true for economic gain. What if it is also true in an emotional, associational sense? What if Universal Brotherhood is actually a dead end, and step-by-step changes of becoming a people are all that is possible?

I don't know this to be true. I simply note that it is possibly true but no one says it. Which in turn immediately leads to "Why don't we want this to be true? Why is it not one of the cliches of the discussion, rather than an unmentionable?" There are plenty of untrue cliches out there all over the political spectrum, but this one is not even a Facebook poster.

So why isn't it one of the cliches, do you think?

Less Defensible

The conflict of interest issues around the Trump businesses are not going away, and the Trumps do not seem very interested in even minimizing them. Maybe it doesn't matter today, because the opposition is too weak to do more than squawk about it, but someday that will change -- and indeed, the clear appearance of impropriety may help it change.

Paving the Way for that MB Designation

One of the red headlines on Drudge today is about Hamas sending a team of commandos to train with ISIS bomb-makers. Hamas, as I assume everyone knows, was founded as the Palestinian branch of the nearby Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.

The Trump administration is reportedly mulling a move to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist (or terror-supporting) organization, following a bill introduced last year by Ted Cruz. Needless to say, all the smart people are against this proposal. It will damage academic research, say academics. It will fuel extremism, says a(nother) leaked CIA memo. It will lead to a witch-hunt, says the Council on American-Islamic Relations (which has some reason to fear it will be target #1 of that hunt, given that Ted Cruz's bill mentions them by name). Human Rights Watch tells us that the move would threaten rights to free association for Muslims in the United States.

The most interesting argument is that the designation would actually be illegal.

To qualify for a designation, the organization has to be engaged in terrorism or still has the capability and intent to do so, and it has to pose a threat to U.S. nationals or our national security. The Muslim Brotherhood as a whole obviously doesn’t qualify on either count. McCants and Wittes say that certain individual affiliates might qualify for such a designation, but the entire group cannot be defined as a terrorist organization:

The short answer is that the Brotherhood is not in a meaningful sense a single organization at all; elements of it can be designated and have been designated, and other elements certainly cannot be [bold mine-DL]. As a whole, it is simply too diffuse and diverse to characterize. And it certainly cannot be said as a whole to engage in terrorism that threatens the United States.

The decision by Hamas (which is already designated) to ally with ISIS seems to me to ease the path to designation. ISIS is not just a terrorist organization in the same way that Hezbollah is not. They also intend to run a state, and are organized in part to do so. Yet no one would argue that ISIS should not be designated as a terrorist or terror-supporting organization just because some elements of their organization are aimed at, say, provision of clean water.

My guess is that the new Attorney General will be able to defend the decision if they decide to go forward with it, and this report only makes that defense easier to do.

UPDATE: Apparently Hamas could really use the help.

Having the Wrong Fantasy Again

Slate demands to know why female superheroes take men down with their legs, instead of punching and kicking like male superheroes. "Is this even practical?"

There are two answers to that question, speaking as someone who has trained in and taught several martial arts. The harsh answer is that the impractical thing is the idea that a 120 pound woman is capable of beating the three or four men arrayed against her in hand-to-hand combat under any circumstances. She's going to need a weapon for the scene to be "practical" in any strict sense.

However, we're doing fantasy, aren't we? So if we're fantasizing, why not fantasize that she can do it? She's got 'spider-senses' or whatever.

The less harsh answer is that grappling arts -- which frequently use the lower body -- are much more female-friendly than "hard" striking arts. There are a lot of mechanical reasons for this. One is that female limbs are shorter, and the limb functions as a kind of lever in striking ('the longer the lever, the greater the force'). Another is that female limbs are lighter-weight on average, and with less muscle-to-bone, and force is a function of mass times acceleration. They both have less mass, and less muscle to accelerate it. Females also tend to have smaller bones in the striking surfaces, making them more prone to shattering or cracking on impact.

The leg grapples thus use the strongest part of their body to its greatest effect. Although the silly acrobatics that appear in these movies are not terribly practical -- nor, again, are they meant to be -- showing women fighting with a focus on leg-grappling is the most plausible non-weapon form.

But, I suppose, if you're going to fantasize, why not fantasize they can punch like Rocky? Why would you want the more-plausible still-implausible fantasy?

This policing of the fantastic is becoming tiresome.

A Journalist Getting the Facts Right

"How many arrests have there been of foreign nationals for those seven countries since 9/11?" Robart asked a Justice Department lawyer in court on Feb. 3. When the lawyer said she didn't know, Robart said, "Let me tell you. The answer to that is none, as best I can tell."

It turns out the judge, and Nadler, and everybody else repeating the talking point had it wrong. Last year the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest released information showing that at least 60 people born in the seven countries had been convicted — not just arrested, but convicted — of terror-related offenses in the United States since Sept. 11, 2001. And that number did not include more recent cases like Abdul Artan, a Somali refugee who wounded 11 people during a machete attack on the campus of Ohio State University last November.

I assume Byron York is a journalist, anyway. I gather from recent comments that some of you have very particular standards! I tend to think anyone is a journalist who contributes to these 'journals' (currently as much online or televised as written) of news and opinion, either reportage or punditry. I don't think of it as being very specialized, as those with 'real degrees in journalism' often don't do as good a job as local folks who decide they're interested in something and start going to the meetings about it.

The "S" Stands For "Shut Your Mouth"

Apparently Harry S Truman laid some precedent for our current President's defense of his daughter.