Ad hominem is one of the more common informal fallacies, but I have decided that it is also a significant cognitive bias. A cognitive bias is a mode of thought that speeds analysis but tends to lead to errors. A famous one is the availability heuristic, the tendency to make judgments on available information rather than seeking fuller information. For example, I might decide to adopt a new diet because I've seen it depicted favorably in television shows and news programs. Those positive depictions are available without further work. However, further study might show that the new diet was much more questionably beneficial, or even harmful.
Another famous one is the confirmation bias, in which I am inclined to approve information that supports what I already believe to be the case (and to discount evidence that suggests I might be wrong). This one is a very powerful bias that affects everyone, no matter how careful a thinker they may be. It is very difficult to correct for it.
The ad hominem bias, another heuristic bias, which I am proposing works like this: it is easier to understand a known individual's bad qualities than to understand a complex situation in which they are involved. If a bad quality attributed to the known individual can reasonably be inferred to be the cause of a bad but complex situation, the ad hominem heuristic occurs when you make that easy move.
The ad hominem cognitive bias is similar to the availability heuristic in that it works on information that is already available, partly in order to avoid the difficulty of understanding the complex situation. However, it is also similar to confirmation bias in that you believe the bad attribution you yourself are making just because you already believe the person is bad. It is more complicated than the other two, however, in that -- because this is your own attribution, and you therefore believe it -- the new, probably false belief gets filed as further evidence of the bad quality of the person you dislike or hate. The ad hominem heuristic thus contains a feedback loop in which it strengthens itself the more often it occurs; and since it is a cognitive bias and thus likely to lead to error, that means you tend to drift further and further away from what is really true.
In extreme cases, all the problems in your world can end up seeming to be the fault of this one pernicious individual. If only he (or she) could be removed, the improvement would be systemic and massive. This kind of belief can justify many sorts of extreme conclusions, or even violence against the hated individual.
Perhaps it has a name already.
Poor Target Selection
Granted that this man wasn't carrying either his machine-gun or his sniper rifle at the time, but what thief looks at this guy and thinks to himself, "Oh, yeah, of all the people in the city today this is the one I'm going to pick out to rob"?
Mexico Loses a Gun Battle to a Cartel
Speaking of wars and rumors of wars, there's a conflict closer to home that may become a pressing problem.
The eight-hour battle ended when government forces, outgunned and surrounded, without reinforcements or a way to retreat, received an order directly from Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to release their prisoner and surrender."Ordered to lay down arms and surrender" is never good, but ordered to surrender to a criminal organization noted for mutilation and beheading?
Bill McRaven Calls For a New President
Retired Admiral Bill McRaven, formerly commander of JSOC and later SOCOM, has penned a piece calling for the replacement of President Trump "the sooner, the better." I'm one of the kind of people he's trying to motivate, and he's speaking in language I understand. The argument has an unusual structure, one rarely seen in American politics.
The piece is fifteen paragraphs long. The first ten paragraphs are purely about honor, as are his last three. He lays out numerous examples framed around two specific recent events of men and women of honor showing honor to and for each other. Honor is indispensable to society and to politics, so this kind of argument is not out of place. Without honor, there is only power, and the direct exercise of power is expensive. Showing respect for each other and each other's interests lowers the cost of running a political system, and indeed a society. It allows us to accept that others may assume positions of power and authority, because we believe they will respect us enough not to use that power irresponsibly; and because a concern with being seen as worthy of honor by us will mean they behave honorably and respectably. They are and ought to be motivated by 'a decent respect for the opinions of mankind,' as the Declaration of Independence puts it. It is not for no reason that the Founders, who were concerned not only with 'lives and fortunes' but also 'sacred honor' built so successful a system of governance.
It is also unsurprising that a man whose life is built around honor would find Donald Trump especially objectionable. Trump is not concerned with the proprieties of honor at all. He uses the language and forms of honor to reward and punish, but without regard to whether the rewards or especially the punishments are merited. It is proper to regard him as ridiculous in this way -- just last week Jim Mattis drew a connection between the insults Trump had directed at him and those directed as Meryl Streep to declare himself 'the Meryl Streep of generals' -- but it is not completely our of line to feel this misuse of honor represents a dagger at the throat of basic social connections. McRaven's closing argument, in his last three paragraphs, suggest that our ability to maintain the military power that holds the order of the world together is fundamentally threatened by Donald Trump. His arguments as to why a disdain for promises and alliances and respect for the interests of allies are perfectly reasonable.
So thirteen of the fifteen paragraphs are places where McRaven and I share a basic worldview about the role of honor and its place in the world. It's really only parts of two paragraphs where we come apart, but those two are enough to call the whole thrust of his argument into question for me. They are these:
Category errors are very serious philosophical mistakes. McRaven is not a philosopher, and as the essay notes this error is extremely common among those we tend to name as our 'foreign policy elites.' Nevertheless this is an error of thought with severe consequences. It is one that has drawn us into wars, and could again, to fight for values that aren't even held by the people we think we are defending. The most prominent of the Kurdish fighting organizations, for example, are Communists. Communists don't believe in 'universal freedom,' and while they profess a view of 'equality,' they don't mean anything like what Americans do by the term. The idea is not that everyone is endowed equally with basic liberties, but that society should control everything in order to ensure something like an equal distribution of goods (or at least an equitable one, since those with greater needs might receive more; though in practice, the 'equities' somehow always align with closeness to the political elite). Such a state is in most respects aims at the opposite of our traditional notion of 'equality,' and is completely opposed to our ideal of freedom.
Which brings us to the second paragraph. The problem here is not an opposition to oppression, which is noble. It is the list of conflicts. American honor might compel us to do something to defend allies like the Kurds, but it cannot compel us to fight in South Sudan. Most Americans could probably identify that Sudan is a nation in Africa, but I'll bet you that the percentage who can tell you where the Rohingyas live is vanishingly small. Honor bonds are mutual relationships, not one-way duties of provision. The Kurds have one with us because they fought with us against a common enemy, and bore a lot of the burden of the fighting while we mostly provided fire and air support. Where no deep relationship with us exists, honor does not and cannot compel us to fight someone else's war. We might choose to do it, and think it worthy of honor that we chose to bear a burden we did not have to bear. Honor cannot compel us to do it. If they want an honor bond of the sort that would compel us to do it, well, formal alliances are negotiated formally, and usually between nations rather than between a nation and disfavored ethnic groups.
Meanwhile McRaven has omitted a significant honor concern that touches on this project of removing the president 'the sooner, the better.' The class of public servants, to include military servicemembers, is honor-bound to uphold the will of the American people. This will is expressed formally and permanently in the Constitution, and less formally and permanently in the elected government of the day. The current impeachment hearing (if it is that) was kicked off by a letter to Congress from an unnamed intelligence officer who has chosen to remain in the shadows rather than testify even incognito. The intelligence community has no constitutional standing even to exist, but it is legally bound to the Executive Branch, whose elected leader is a President of the United States. The State Department, similarly, is now a merely statuatory authority that is in open revolt against the Constitutional authority. The New York Times just ran an article openly praising "the deep state" for its attempt to resist and remove the elected leader of their branch of government.
McRaven must know that having military officials throw their weight behind the removal of the Constitutionally-named Commander in Chief would set an alarming precedent with echoes to ancient Rome. There is no guarantee that allowing the unelected bureaucracy or military replace the elected and Constitutional leadership would happen only once. It certainly cannot be said to be consistent with the honor owed to the Constitution or the constitutional structure to advocate for the bureaucrats to be allowed to override the election.
Now Congress has constitutional authority to remove the President if it chooses to do so, but it is supposed to be for 'high crimes and misdemeanors,' not because the President lacks honor. He does, I agree. That is a big problem, I agree. But the cost of removing a President outside the constitutional norms, at the behest of an unelected bureaucracy and even unnamed intelligence officers, is too high to be borne. There will be an election in a year and a week. If the American people want rid of him, they will have the chance to do it themselves.
The piece is fifteen paragraphs long. The first ten paragraphs are purely about honor, as are his last three. He lays out numerous examples framed around two specific recent events of men and women of honor showing honor to and for each other. Honor is indispensable to society and to politics, so this kind of argument is not out of place. Without honor, there is only power, and the direct exercise of power is expensive. Showing respect for each other and each other's interests lowers the cost of running a political system, and indeed a society. It allows us to accept that others may assume positions of power and authority, because we believe they will respect us enough not to use that power irresponsibly; and because a concern with being seen as worthy of honor by us will mean they behave honorably and respectably. They are and ought to be motivated by 'a decent respect for the opinions of mankind,' as the Declaration of Independence puts it. It is not for no reason that the Founders, who were concerned not only with 'lives and fortunes' but also 'sacred honor' built so successful a system of governance.
It is also unsurprising that a man whose life is built around honor would find Donald Trump especially objectionable. Trump is not concerned with the proprieties of honor at all. He uses the language and forms of honor to reward and punish, but without regard to whether the rewards or especially the punishments are merited. It is proper to regard him as ridiculous in this way -- just last week Jim Mattis drew a connection between the insults Trump had directed at him and those directed as Meryl Streep to declare himself 'the Meryl Streep of generals' -- but it is not completely our of line to feel this misuse of honor represents a dagger at the throat of basic social connections. McRaven's closing argument, in his last three paragraphs, suggest that our ability to maintain the military power that holds the order of the world together is fundamentally threatened by Donald Trump. His arguments as to why a disdain for promises and alliances and respect for the interests of allies are perfectly reasonable.
So thirteen of the fifteen paragraphs are places where McRaven and I share a basic worldview about the role of honor and its place in the world. It's really only parts of two paragraphs where we come apart, but those two are enough to call the whole thrust of his argument into question for me. They are these:
It is easy to destroy an organization if you have no appreciation for what makes that organization great. We are not the most powerful nation in the world because of our aircraft carriers, our economy, or our seat at the United Nations Security Council. We are the most powerful nation in the world because we try to be the good guys. We are the most powerful nation in the world because our ideals of universal freedom and equality have been backed up by our belief that we were champions of justice, the protectors of the less fortunate.The problem with the first paragraph is the assumption that our power comes from "ideals of universal freedom and equality." It is true that many Americans believe that these are universal ideals. But ideals like 'equality' are not universally held, and the appeal to these things as if they were universals is a category error, as this essay explains in detail.
But, if we don’t care about our values, if we don’t care about duty and honor, if we don’t help the weak and stand up against oppression and injustice — what will happen to the Kurds, the Iraqis, the Afghans, the Syrians, the Rohingyas, the South Sudanese and the millions of people under the boot of tyranny or left abandoned by their failing states?
Category errors are very serious philosophical mistakes. McRaven is not a philosopher, and as the essay notes this error is extremely common among those we tend to name as our 'foreign policy elites.' Nevertheless this is an error of thought with severe consequences. It is one that has drawn us into wars, and could again, to fight for values that aren't even held by the people we think we are defending. The most prominent of the Kurdish fighting organizations, for example, are Communists. Communists don't believe in 'universal freedom,' and while they profess a view of 'equality,' they don't mean anything like what Americans do by the term. The idea is not that everyone is endowed equally with basic liberties, but that society should control everything in order to ensure something like an equal distribution of goods (or at least an equitable one, since those with greater needs might receive more; though in practice, the 'equities' somehow always align with closeness to the political elite). Such a state is in most respects aims at the opposite of our traditional notion of 'equality,' and is completely opposed to our ideal of freedom.
Which brings us to the second paragraph. The problem here is not an opposition to oppression, which is noble. It is the list of conflicts. American honor might compel us to do something to defend allies like the Kurds, but it cannot compel us to fight in South Sudan. Most Americans could probably identify that Sudan is a nation in Africa, but I'll bet you that the percentage who can tell you where the Rohingyas live is vanishingly small. Honor bonds are mutual relationships, not one-way duties of provision. The Kurds have one with us because they fought with us against a common enemy, and bore a lot of the burden of the fighting while we mostly provided fire and air support. Where no deep relationship with us exists, honor does not and cannot compel us to fight someone else's war. We might choose to do it, and think it worthy of honor that we chose to bear a burden we did not have to bear. Honor cannot compel us to do it. If they want an honor bond of the sort that would compel us to do it, well, formal alliances are negotiated formally, and usually between nations rather than between a nation and disfavored ethnic groups.
Meanwhile McRaven has omitted a significant honor concern that touches on this project of removing the president 'the sooner, the better.' The class of public servants, to include military servicemembers, is honor-bound to uphold the will of the American people. This will is expressed formally and permanently in the Constitution, and less formally and permanently in the elected government of the day. The current impeachment hearing (if it is that) was kicked off by a letter to Congress from an unnamed intelligence officer who has chosen to remain in the shadows rather than testify even incognito. The intelligence community has no constitutional standing even to exist, but it is legally bound to the Executive Branch, whose elected leader is a President of the United States. The State Department, similarly, is now a merely statuatory authority that is in open revolt against the Constitutional authority. The New York Times just ran an article openly praising "the deep state" for its attempt to resist and remove the elected leader of their branch of government.
McRaven must know that having military officials throw their weight behind the removal of the Constitutionally-named Commander in Chief would set an alarming precedent with echoes to ancient Rome. There is no guarantee that allowing the unelected bureaucracy or military replace the elected and Constitutional leadership would happen only once. It certainly cannot be said to be consistent with the honor owed to the Constitution or the constitutional structure to advocate for the bureaucrats to be allowed to override the election.
Now Congress has constitutional authority to remove the President if it chooses to do so, but it is supposed to be for 'high crimes and misdemeanors,' not because the President lacks honor. He does, I agree. That is a big problem, I agree. But the cost of removing a President outside the constitutional norms, at the behest of an unelected bureaucracy and even unnamed intelligence officers, is too high to be borne. There will be an election in a year and a week. If the American people want rid of him, they will have the chance to do it themselves.
A Better Riposte for Gabbard
When Hilary! accused her of being a Russian asset would have been: "That's just what a Chinese asset would say."
I don't really believe Hilary is a Chinese asset, of course. She's always worked for herself.
I don't really believe Hilary is a Chinese asset, of course. She's always worked for herself.
Home Again
Back from the road. There were three of the most beautiful days I can recall. The sunset of the last one looked like this, no filters nor edits.
That’s Stone Mountain in the background. All my life I’ve heard the old rhyme, “Red sky at morning, sailors take warning. Red sky at night, sailor’s delight.” Well, not this time brothers and sisters. That cloud formation indicates a weather change, and by Saturday Tex’s storm had blown in with a soaking like I’ve only rarely seen. Fortunately some old biker comrades had met me there, and we holed up with a bottle of Drambuie. It passed and Sunday was beautiful again.
I’m only home for a week or so, then I’ll be headed to DC in early November. Should see the best of the mountain color by then.
Oklahoma Drivers
Kids these days -- can't even drive a wagon properly. What DO they teach them in school?
Well, thankfully, it seems no one was hurt.
Civic health, the sequel
It may not surprise any of you to learn that there is a strong current of paranoia in public life. I'm not really referring to the run-of-the-mill concern that people are exercising power in shady ways and not being straight with us, since I call that more of a universal concern than a current, and in any event if it's a flaw I'm among the most flawed of citizens.
Posting late at night in discussions with my local fellow citizens, however--I'm still getting used to calling them my "constituents"--is sure to reveal some startling assumptions and suspicions. Last night a fellow was arguing with me in a reasonably friendly tone, but exposing some pointed differences between us. Suddenly he posted an inexplicable GIF showing someone high-fiving someone else. Then he posted in some agitation that he hadn't meant to post that GIF, didn't understand why it was under his name, and couldn't delete it. No problem, I said, I can delete it for you, and I think it's an example of something I've often seen happen before. Facebook has little icons at the bottom of comment boxes, including a GIF button, and it's easy to swipe it by accident; it's equally easy to swipe one of the default options it brings up, and presto, you've posted a random GIF. But there's also a little "..." icon you should be able to press and get an "edit or delete" button.
No, he said, you didn't delete it. I can still see it on my screen. (I suppose it just hadn't refreshed yet or something.) And I can't delete it. And besides, I didn't post it in the first place. And I think you know what happened. Clever. (He repeated "clever" a few times in subsequent agitated posts.)
Hee-wacketa-wacketa. Even if I were that much of a jerk, I said, posting something under someone else's name is beyond my technical expertise. At this point I started disengaging, because there's no percentage in arguing with that kind of thing. Half an hour later he was still thinking up nightmare scenarios about how I had a hacker troll on my payroll. I wonder where you get one of those? I can barely get my iCloud password to work from one week to the next.
As midnight approached, I was engaging with another, more stable neighbor who wanted to know why I thought sewage plants and non-point-source stormwater polluted with fertilizer, etc., were of more concern than the brine discharge from a desalination plant. I looked up some stuff on the internet and tried to quantify some of the wastewater and stormwater volumes from the nearby city we were discussing, adding some explanation of how relatively clean brine discharge is compared to what I considered rather inadequately treated municipal discharges. Well, the first guy interjected, that response is "supercharged with facts," but fallacious, as he planned to demonstrate at a later date. That's me, Texan ("Supercharged with Facts") 99. I'm thinking of making it my campaign slogan if I'm ever crazy enough to run for re-election. My interlocutor said he was sure I hadn't written that response myself and wanted to know who my advisor was.
Don't we all wish we had an omniscient advisor we could get to craft an answer to a moderately technical argument at midnight on the internet? I guess I do, but it's called my head, my education, and Google. It's not dark magic. I suppose this guy thinks I have minions to do my nefarious bidding at all hours of the night, write up little white papers for me.
In the end I complimented him on his public engagement and asked him to consider coming to Commissioners Court meetings. I really hope he will. If he keeps a lid on the paranoid stuff, he'll at least liven things up with some data.
Posting late at night in discussions with my local fellow citizens, however--I'm still getting used to calling them my "constituents"--is sure to reveal some startling assumptions and suspicions. Last night a fellow was arguing with me in a reasonably friendly tone, but exposing some pointed differences between us. Suddenly he posted an inexplicable GIF showing someone high-fiving someone else. Then he posted in some agitation that he hadn't meant to post that GIF, didn't understand why it was under his name, and couldn't delete it. No problem, I said, I can delete it for you, and I think it's an example of something I've often seen happen before. Facebook has little icons at the bottom of comment boxes, including a GIF button, and it's easy to swipe it by accident; it's equally easy to swipe one of the default options it brings up, and presto, you've posted a random GIF. But there's also a little "..." icon you should be able to press and get an "edit or delete" button.
No, he said, you didn't delete it. I can still see it on my screen. (I suppose it just hadn't refreshed yet or something.) And I can't delete it. And besides, I didn't post it in the first place. And I think you know what happened. Clever. (He repeated "clever" a few times in subsequent agitated posts.)
Hee-wacketa-wacketa. Even if I were that much of a jerk, I said, posting something under someone else's name is beyond my technical expertise. At this point I started disengaging, because there's no percentage in arguing with that kind of thing. Half an hour later he was still thinking up nightmare scenarios about how I had a hacker troll on my payroll. I wonder where you get one of those? I can barely get my iCloud password to work from one week to the next.
As midnight approached, I was engaging with another, more stable neighbor who wanted to know why I thought sewage plants and non-point-source stormwater polluted with fertilizer, etc., were of more concern than the brine discharge from a desalination plant. I looked up some stuff on the internet and tried to quantify some of the wastewater and stormwater volumes from the nearby city we were discussing, adding some explanation of how relatively clean brine discharge is compared to what I considered rather inadequately treated municipal discharges. Well, the first guy interjected, that response is "supercharged with facts," but fallacious, as he planned to demonstrate at a later date. That's me, Texan ("Supercharged with Facts") 99. I'm thinking of making it my campaign slogan if I'm ever crazy enough to run for re-election. My interlocutor said he was sure I hadn't written that response myself and wanted to know who my advisor was.
Don't we all wish we had an omniscient advisor we could get to craft an answer to a moderately technical argument at midnight on the internet? I guess I do, but it's called my head, my education, and Google. It's not dark magic. I suppose this guy thinks I have minions to do my nefarious bidding at all hours of the night, write up little white papers for me.
In the end I complimented him on his public engagement and asked him to consider coming to Commissioners Court meetings. I really hope he will. If he keeps a lid on the paranoid stuff, he'll at least liven things up with some data.
Say "rip current," I dare you
Weather psychics predicted 14 named tropical systems this year. They just slipped in under the wire with "Nestor," which exceeded 39 mph winds for about a nanosecond. Now it's making "landfall" in Florida and hailed on weather.com as "post-tropical system Nestor," i.e., not even a tropical storm any more, but by golly we're still treating it as a named storm, because climate science. There's an anchorman standing bravely on the beach with the wind whipping his t-shirt and his gimme cap just barely staying on his head.
Civic health
Last night I got a chance to meet our small town's new police chief, who is retiring from a mid-sized Texas department where he supervised 600 employees to take on our little 30-man department here on the warm coast, where his family has liked to vacation. I was delighted with him. He seems like one of those salt-of-the-earth, God-and-country, solid family men, besides being fanatically devoted to the Bill of RIghts: a great mix of determination to find a way not to let criminals ruin the lives of others, without losing sight of his obligation to respect all our rights.
He told a revealing story about once messing up the chain of custody of evidence on a good drug bust and being furious that the bad guy was getting off on a technicality. His mentor settled him down saying, "You know this isn't the defense counsel's fault, right? It was your mistake. And it's not a fatal mistake. The guy's not going to say, 'Whew, that was a close call, I'm going to go get a job and turn my life around.' You'll get him next time."
He made some good remarks about how the system does favor the defendant, but it's supposed to, because the Bill of Rights was written by outlaws who were tired of seeing the rich guy sic the police on the poor guy without due process. A solid constitutionalist.
He married his wife about a month before 9/11, when he had just taken a job as a police officer and they had just bought a house. He worried about whether the new marriage could bear up under his sudden deployment (Navy reserves). When he drove up to the new house his wife had just moved into, he saw a U.S. flag flying from one porch column and from the other, a Navy flag with a yellow ribbon on it. He got himself a keeper.
RIP Harold Bloom
Critic, writer, professor
In the 50s, he opposed the rigid classicism of Eliot. But over the following decades, Bloom condemned Afrocentrism, feminism, Marxism and other movements he placed in the “school of resentment”. A proud elitist, he disliked the Harry Potter books and slam poetry and was angered by Stephen King’s receiving an honorary National Book Award. He dismissed as “pure political correctness” the awarding of the Nobel prize for literature to Doris Lessing, author of the feminist classic The Golden Notebook.
“I am your true Marxist critic,” he once wrote, “following Groucho rather than Karl, and take as my motto Groucho’s grand admonition, ‘Whatever it is, I’m against it.’”
What is She Talking About?
I'm a little unclear on how even a joint resolution from Congress could "overturn" a military decision by the Commander in Chief. This is not a veto, which Congress has the power to override. It's an exercise of Article II powers that Congress does not share. Does she intend to declare war? I suppose that would create a duty for the Commander in Chief to fight the war, although he still would have a free hand as to strategy and tactics.
By the way, I'm pretty sure Congress didn't even authorize the mission in Syria. It's odd that Congress would raise so strenuous an objection to ending what they never authorized beginning.
Everything is Racist, Vol. MMMDLXXXVI
Someone suggested to me this weekend that we ought to change Columbus Day to Leif Erickson Day, as Erickson got to America first and didn't engage in slavery or mass plunder. (While strictly true, it is surely the case that the Viking explorers avoided these things more from lack of personnel than from ethical objections to plunder or attractive female slaves.) It turns out that this has been suggested before, and there's an ongoing debate about it.
Being familiar with the charge against Columbus, I knew that the reason to replace him was his unacceptable treatment of Native Americans -- which, in the common parlance of today, is "racist." (I'm not sure that the concept of race as such was very well-established in Columbus' day, though the concept of 'non-Christians subject to intense violence as necessary to control them' was one regularly employed by his patrons and their Spanish Inquisition.) It turns out that the advocates of Leif Erickson are also charged with racism by our contemporaries in journalism.
Anyway henceforth I'm in favor of Leif Erickson Day as the standard mid-October holiday in honor of great explorers. Columbus really was terrible, Leif wasn't for whatever reason, and the Viking heritage is beautiful and worth celebrating.
Being familiar with the charge against Columbus, I knew that the reason to replace him was his unacceptable treatment of Native Americans -- which, in the common parlance of today, is "racist." (I'm not sure that the concept of race as such was very well-established in Columbus' day, though the concept of 'non-Christians subject to intense violence as necessary to control them' was one regularly employed by his patrons and their Spanish Inquisition.) It turns out that the advocates of Leif Erickson are also charged with racism by our contemporaries in journalism.
In 1892, the U.S. celebrated a Columbian centennial: the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s journey to the Americas. At the time, the country’s recognition of him was a source of pride for many Italian Americans and Italian immigrants. But Scandinavian immigrants and Americans of northern European descent wanted to celebrate Erikson instead.At some point we are going to have to figure out how to forgive our ancestors, or there will be no living with anyone.
This was a time of fervent anti-immigrant and anti-Italian sentiment in many parts of the U.S., and “the idea that there might be a story where the first Europeans to America are not southern Europeans” was appealing, says JoAnne Mancini, senior history lecturer at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth and author of “Discovering Viking America.”
...Erikson’s nationality wasn’t the only thing that made some people favor him over Columbus. Mancini says that in the 19th century, Americans “who were not Catholic were really paranoid about the Catholic Church.” Some Protestants went so far as to suggest that Columbus was part of a Roman Catholic conspiracy to suppress the recognition of earlier Norse explorers.
It’s not clear whether many people bought into this conspiracy, but the rise of Columbus in the late 19th century did motivate anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic Americans to argue for the national recognition of Erikson over Columbus.
Anyway henceforth I'm in favor of Leif Erickson Day as the standard mid-October holiday in honor of great explorers. Columbus really was terrible, Leif wasn't for whatever reason, and the Viking heritage is beautiful and worth celebrating.
Permanent Coup
Ymar recommended this piece by Matt Taibbi, who has been a reasoned voice these last few years. I think he's got good insights here. One of them is that, as bad as Trump is -- I go back and forth on how bad I think that is, but this week he's not in my good graces -- his opponents are much more dangerous to our liberty and way of life. How much more?
...also a bold new foray into domestic politics by intelligence agencies that in recent decades began asserting all sorts of frightening new authority. They were kidnapping foreigners, assassinating by drone, conducting paramilitary operations without congressional notice, building an international archipelago of secret prisons, and engaging in mass warrantless surveillance of Americans. We found out in a court case just last week how extensive the illegal domestic surveillance has been, with the FBI engaging in tens of thousands of warrantless searches involving American emails and phone numbers under the guise of combating foreign subversion....Yes, we are already seeing the spectacle of Congress trying to remove the President based on the secret testimony of unnamed CIA officers. That's not acceptable, no matter in how much regard one holds the CIA, and no matter what kind of louse the President might be. At an absolute minimum, the officer needs to bite the bullet and testify to the American people in his or her own name, and tell us why we should accept the removal of our elected President over intelligence concerns.
The real problem would be the precedent of a de facto intelligence community veto over elections, using the lunatic spookworld brand of politics that has dominated the last three years of anti-Trump agitation.
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