The Love that Moves the Stars

The President's Memorial Day address included a line that probably gathered little notice, but deserves some remark. 

President Trump’s Memorial Day address opened by reflecting on the power that drives sacrifice—not politics, but something far deeper.

“Great poets have written that it's love which moves the sun and the stars,” he said. 

“But here on the sacred soil, right where we are, we're reminded that it's love which moves the course of history and moves it always toward freedom. Always.”

Emphasis added. Great poets may have written that, but a great philosopher certainly did: the concept is from Aristotle's Metaphysics. 

We know that God cannot cause movement by moving (Metaphysics 1072a26). If God did cause movement in this way, God would be susceptible to change, possess potentiality, and would not be the pure the energeia that Aristotle believes God must be. [Also, following Aristotle, Aquinas etc. -Grim] This is why God must cause movement through desire (Metaphysics 1072a27). An object of desire has the power to move other beings without itself moving.... 

The notion of movement through desire is straightforward. Which one of us has not been excited to move here or there by our desire for this or that? We might even suppose that desire is the primary source of all movement. Such an idea is entertained by Aristotle in De Anima: “It is manifest, therefore, that what is called desire is the sort of faculty in the soul which initiates movement” (De Anima, 433a31-b1). 

Aristotle's basic account is that the soul that motivates the heavens has some capacity to perceive the eternal divine, and therefore loves it and longs to imitate it. The heavens cannot persist eternally in the same way, but they can move in a way that imitates eternity. This sort of motion is circular, because it begins and ends and begins again in the same place and continues in the same way. Thus, the way the stars and sun reel about forever in the heavens is motivated, he thought, by their longing to be like the divine they could perceive. 

The insight the President is citing here wasn't meant as a kind of beautiful metaphor. Aristotle meant it quite literally: it is love that moves the sun, that moves the stars. 

The Return Ride

I had meant to ride back today, but the weather coming in after this weekend was not promising. We made the ride yesterday instead, which was still not entirely easy. By morning we were riding through a 200 mile wide salient of air that had fallen to 50-52 degrees, which meant temperatures in the 30s at highway speed. Heavy drizzle turned to driving rain at points, soaking us in hypothermic temperatures. Even after we crossed the salient, air temperatures hovered just at 60-61 in which hypothermia would still have been possible for soaked bodies even without the windchill of the highway.  

It was 15 hours of this, or six hundred miles averaging forty miles an hour once you included stops to warm and eat. 

The whole thing reminded me of the episode where Saruman bends the cold down on the Fellowship as they are trying to pass the mountains at Red Horn, or Caradhras. Unlike the Fellowship, we were able to cross the High Wall at Sam's Gap into North Carolina. It was completely encased in cloud for hundreds of vertical feet, but thankfully not the snows that faced the Fellows. 

My son, who accompanied me on this his first thousand-mile-plus motorcycle adventure, is quite pleased with himself today. As well he might be, I suppose: success in spite of that hardship validates that he has become the kind of man he wanted to be. I am proud of him. 

In Memoriam

 

The Bellamy Brothers & The Isaacs

 

Rolling to Remember ‘25

The city government doesn’t care for the event, and at the end forces all riders onto I-395 into Virginia with no clear way back into town. We get back anyway. The people love it and come out in crowds to cheer us. They wave flags and salute and join in the honoring of the fallen.

Good turnout this year. 

UPDATE: AMVETS, one of the organizing groups for this event, sent this out: "To be clear, we had it in writing from the National Parks Service Permit Office that riders would be allowed the option at the end of the ride to continue on Independence Avenue and circle back behind the Lincoln Memorial to Henry Bacon Drive by the Vietnam War Veterans Memorial for a closing ceremony. We had crew on the ground at the intersection of Independence and 14th St. to ensure a roadblock was not erected before the run began. As our lead element in the run approached 14th, the escort police motor units turned wide and created a blockade, once again forcing everyone to turn left on 14th St.... We have requested, through the White House, a meeting with U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, who is responsible for the NPS."

A dignified silence

The same Oxford memoir from which I drew the Chesterson quotations a few minutes ago mentioned Margot Asquith, second wife of Prime Minister Asquith (1908-1916). Asquith opposed women's suffrage on the ground that "women have no reason, very little humour, hardly any sense of honour... and no sense of proportion." Looking her up on the net, I found a quip that would contradict at least part of her judgment of her own sex, if it indeed happened. (I remember my father relating this story to me some decades ago, though I'd forgotten whom it was about.)

Asquith was known for her outspokenness and acerbic wit. A possibly apocryphal but typical story has her meeting the American film actress Jean Harlow and correcting Harlow's mispronunciation of her first name – "No, no; the 't' is silent, as in 'Harlow'."

Slavery and symbols

The incomparable G.K. Chesterton, from a debate and conversation at Oxford:

"Because I bow down to the sceptre, and because I take the words 'honour and obey' quite literally, you say that I am the slave of the symbol. But I bow down to the sceptre because I believe in the power that lies behind it. I keep to the smallest details of the marriage service because I believe in marriage. If you believe neither in the sceptre nor in the service, and yet bow down to them, then you are the slave of the symbol."

* * *

[As he was leaving the debate hall:] "A time will come--very soon--when you will find that you want this ideal of marriage. You will want it as something hard and solid to cling to in a fast dissolving society. You will want it even more than you seem to want divorce to-day. Divorce ..." and here, with a sort of groan, he thrust his second arm through his mackintosh--"the superstition of divorce."

A Candidate for Grim

 

Departing for the Road

First light, my son and I will be departing on motorcycles for the big ride on Memorial Day weekend. Hopefully there might be good stories or pictures from the road. Or, perhaps, you may not hear anything for a while. I'm not taking a computer, though I can blog from my phone in a limited fashion should that seem like a good use of my time. 

I expect to be back Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on the weather. It's a little hard to say right now how that ride back will turn out. 

Golden Age

Our friend David Foster has pulled together a summary post with links to several others, on the question of whether wages and happiness stagnated or fell in America over recent decades. Here are a couple of more links on that subject which tend to take the position that fiat currency is responsible for a lot of disruption.

Terrorism and Genocide

It's probably a mistake to universalize a lesson from a single loser like this guy who murdered two Israeli diplomats for no apparent reason except "Free Palestine." It was obviously, definitionally, an act of terrorism because he shot noncombatant civilians (employees of an Embassy, even, with diplomatic protections) in order to advance a political agenda. 

However, his own personal and inexplicable decision to travel across several states to shoot two random people is obviously not part of a strategy by an organized group; these weren't even two crucial officers of the Embassy, just two young employees of no special importance. The other groups the shooter associated himself with -- BLM, ANSWER, etc. -- are the ordinary sort of Left-wing political groups that winks at violence, and maybe the occasional riot, but they're not executing a Hamas-style orchestration of terror on an organized scale. These groups are self-described radicals, but not "terrorist organizations" -- even though they occasionally produce an actual terrorist like this one. 

It does point up how strange our cultural debate is at the moment about these two terms, though, "terrorism" and "genocide." We do have functional definitions if we wanted to use them, but mostly people want to use the emotional weight of the language rather than restricting themselves to its rational meaning. 

Genocide, for example, has a definition. It's a new word, too, so the usual drift of natural language hasn't affected it much yet. We might say our present debate was natural language trying to exert itself on the definition, but a brake on that is that the word was newly coined and then codified in an international treaty. It's a very strong case for a word that means something.

Article 2 of the Convention defines genocide as:

... any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

— Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article 2[9]

There's a little bit of ambiguity, but not much. "Killing members of the group" doesn't mean, say, two members: the DC shooting wasn't an act of "genocide" even though the shooter explicitly targeted these two Jews for their group-membership. 

This can extend to very large numbers in cases of war in which two ethnic groups or national groups are fighting each other, because their intent is not to destroy each other as a group, only to win their war aims. I don't think the current war in Israel is an example of genocide because the Israelis don't really seem to be trying to exterminate Palestinians as such, nor so far even to expel them from Gaza (as I frankly expected they would) in order to create a larger buffer zone given the October 7th demonstration that they were currently very vulnerable. The 50,000 figure killed is a tiny percentage of the total population of Palestinians, and 2.5% even of the population within Gaza -- a pretty restrained bit of killing given the intensity of the fighting and Israel's clear superiority in weapons.

Likewise, it doesn't extend to conflicts within a group: in the Syrian civil war, for example, fourteen million people were forced out of their homes and many killed or harmed, but nobody thought it was a genocide. There was even a religious difference here and there, Alawites and Muslims, Shi'ites and Sunnis, and even ethnic differences between Arabs and Kurds (who sometimes appeal to ancestral faiths as well). It wasn't thought a genocide all the same.

Is what is going on in South Africa genocide? The President and the media both have very certain opinions about that. Definitely there has been a campaign of killing/harming Boers in order to extract their land and resources to transfer to another ethnic group. The government of South Africa denies there is any intent by the government to engage in genocide, but that isn't a requirement under the convention: the fact that a large political party seems to be encouraging and celebrating all this (as President Trump decided to point out in a rather theatrical fashion this week) without the government doing much to discourage them may satisfy the requirement. 

If the Boers had their own government, you could say that there was a war aim of seizing their land -- South Africa's history over the last two centuries is riddled with that. "Genocide" didn't exist as a term when Shaka Zulu was around; the Boer Wars might not qualify because the British attempting to subjugate the Boers were "white" as well, although I think they recognized a real ethnic difference between themselves in those days. However, the Boers are not a state or state-like entity waging a war, either offensive or defensive; like the Uighur (who definitely are suffering a genocide), they're a subjugated population whose government hates them. 

It seems like we should be able to get to clarity on this, given that we have a relatively clear standard that is formally codified. Our cultural institutions are not even trying to build a case either way, though; they're just asserting that it is obviously or obviously isn't.

Getting Democrats to Support Border Security

 

So, Who Was Really President for Four Years?

So, we don't really have a government that respects the Constitution. The 2nd Amendment is violated outright in several places; Maryland, which I will be in this weekend, considers it a three-year prison "misdemeanor" to carry some of the items I normally keep handy. The 10th Amendment is a dead letter. The 4th and 8th are violated by outsourcing. The government is evil, frankly, and much in need of dissolution.

Who was actually in charge for the last few years, though? Not the elected President, who is the only Constitutional officer in the Executive branch (the VP has his duties entirely within the Senate unless he/she steps up to take the Presidential office).

The answer is Weber's: the administrative state, unelected and undemocratic, was running itself.

I don't think they mean to be the enemy of all of us; I think they conceive of themselves as our betters and protectors. They are, however, the enemy of all of us. They defend their own interests, and are a positive threat to human liberty.

A Manual for the Ages

One hesitates to say anything even a little bit positive about the Nazis, but listen to just the first bit of this to learn about the manual they included in their Panzers. It shows an awareness of the costs of government that is enviable, even if nothing else about their program was.

Common Sense Gun Laws

UPDATE:

Courtesies of the White

A rare privilege: 

The three royals are allowed to wear white in front of the Pope because they are Catholic Queens and Princesses.

They are each one of only seven women in the world who have 'the privilege of the white' – or the ability to wear white when meeting with the Pope.

Called le privilége du blanc in French or il privilegio del biacno in Italian, the special tradition is extended solely to designated Catholic queens and princesses and is reserved for important events at the Vatican, such as private audiences, canonisations, beatifications, and special masses.

Normal protocol for papal audiences requires that ladies wear a long black dress with a high collar and long sleeves and a black mantilla.

An American woman can, of course, wear whatever she wants. 

The Rhythms of Old Norse Poetry

A really interesting video by Jackson Crawford, if you're into Old Norse or metered poetry or both.

It's Not Wrong to Threaten the President

Come off it. He put up a post on Twitter. That shouldn't be occasion for an interrogation. I think there's a real chance the current President is still alive because he was chosen by God to be; if that's right, all actual assassins will fail as the prior ones have for as long as that divine will continues. Some loser running his mouth, and virtually where it's even less important, isn't going to change anything. 

The natural rights are what matter. That's what the government itself allegedly exists to defend. If it can't do that, or worse if it betrays them, it is without function. 

Let a man speak his mind. Even if he's a jerk; a loser; a liar; a nothing without honor. Who cares what a man like that says? His words are empty, cowardly, and without meaning. 

What does matter is the right to speak your mind. 

Rolling to Remember

If any of you are planning to attend this year's Demonstration Ride through Arlington and DC, I plan to be there again. 

The Preservation of Books

Professor of history at the Catholic University of America Michael Kimmage writes an impassioned defense of a library in danger. It is rhetorically quite impressive.

Two oceans can be said to defend the United States. There are also the islands in the Pacific and the Caribbean, outposts of security and pivot points on the U.S. Navy’s map of the world. The American territory not bounded by water is bordered by countries with no reason and no will to invade: Mexico, Canada, and the United States still have the remarkable option of friendship, should they choose to accept it. Were the will to invade ever to materialize in Mexico or Canada, it would have to contend with a military that commands immense power on land, on sea, and in the air. For those still undeterred, countless nuclear weapons stand ready. The security is not total — total security is an illusion; but it is a fact so formidable that it can be (and almost always is) taken for granted.

Washington, DC, lies within this endless zone of security. Daily the city that defends a nation and a hemisphere defends itself. It does so seamlessly, as the task of the millions who wear uniforms, work in cubicles, decipher intelligence, and debate strategy so that the nation’s capital might be forever unharmed. The War of 1812 scarred Washington and the Pentagon was hit in 2001, two vivid exceptions to the rule that the American capital is impregnable. Only bad weather can go where no great power would dare to go; only it can barge in and break things down. Apart from the remains of a few Civil War forts, Washington, DC has no ruins. It is unlikely ever to have ruins.

The unlikelihood of erasure, of ending, of extreme loss is psychological. Since it reflects certain realities – the reality, say, of two world wars that never directly threatened the American capital – this unlikelihood is unspoken. It is assumed, implicit, built-in, less an unlikelihood than an axiom of national security (and daily life). The White House was rebuilt after it was burnt down in 1812. The Pentagon was quickly repaired after it was damaged in 2001. And yet – a ruin is conceivable in this world-historical fortress, a ruin in a massive building on Pennsylvania Avenue a few blocks from the statue of General Sherman (who laid waste to Atlanta in the Civil War) and a few blocks from the White House. I am sure that such a ruin is conceivable in Washington, for I saw it with my own eyes.

This turns out, of course, to be the threat of Trump and DOGE; specifically, the threat posed by spending cuts, in this case to the Wilson Center for International Scholars' library. It does sound like an impressive library, and I agree that a collection like that deserves preservation. 

The rhetorical flourishes are less impressive at the conclusion of the essay, however.

The libraries of Washington, DC must be protected by the citizens of the city, book by book, collection by collection, and if they have to be saved they should be saved merely as the necessary objects that they are, not as metaphors. Better yet, the city’s books should belong to the city’s employed librarians, who are not primarily guardians or warriors or self-conscious defenders of civilization but the giver of gifts, the enablers of so much that is necessary. Without them, an abyss opens. With them, the abyss is kept at bay. We must save the books.

That view of librarians is unfortunately antiquated, and not consistent with what the American Library Association has taken to be its actual mission. They defend their practice of "collection maintenance" -- a euphemism at best -- as "weeding." This is often done with ideological ends in mind, given the ALA's very clear and deep bias towards progressivism. All of the links in this paragraph are to the ALA's own sources, in the interest of fairness. 

This shows up in local library collections finding themselves purged even of classics of world literature 'that are no longer of interest,' combined with additions that are drawn from 'the latest' fashions -- fashions that have been shaped by a parallel bias in publishing. Also in the interest of fairness, that link is to the NY Times. 

Now, here's how that tension plays out locally, which is emblematic of the problem we face at scale.

“I continue to get hounded by people about the stuff they’re displaying in the libraries,” said Commissioner John Smith, who led the discussion about possible withdrawal. “They’re promoting the same ideology that most people in this county reject.” 

[County Manager Kevin King] told the board that its most direct power over the library was through its appointments to the library boards, its appropriations to the library and its ability to exercise the right of withdrawal as permitted in the FRL interlocal agreement.

“The fourth option would be to close the library,” said Hooper, chortling audibly....

King said, “I guess that’s an option.”

Commissioners seem to be upset by some of the displays that are put up in the library, and voiced their disapproval that the nature of the displays have not changed... Commissioners also made it clear they were not happy with library leadership.... “It seems like they’re really promoting certain agendas,” said Commissioner Michael Jennings....

“You ought to be able to go to the library and not have to be appalled by anything that’s there, no matter which side you’re on,” said Jennings, apparently referring to political affiliation. Jennings and all his fellow commissioners are Republicans.

That's how we really got here, and it's a problem that has to be addressed if the libraries are to be preserved. 

I agree that valuable collections ought to be preserved (rather than "maintained" in their euphemistic sense); even if Kimmage's rhetorical flourishes are a little overstated, I agree that keeping good libraries is a fundamental function of civilization. I too want to save the books, as a lover of books and of learning. 

If librarians wish to resume the role that Prof. Kimmage ascribes to them, they need to reflect honestly on what they themselves have been doing to drive a wedge between themselves and the community of which they are a part. The work is itself communal, because the community pays for it even if most of the community doesn't do any of it. A community won't pay forever to be insulted, undermined, derided, or dissolved.