This time, no more Mr. Nice Guys.

So we've made Afghanistan a paradise and with the final demise of you know who, Iraq will also become so bobo that David Brooks will soon move there. Is there an area of the world that we've missed. Why, yes. There is an area calling out for our ministrations. It is called Somalia. Now, now, I shall not tolerate all the guffawing I know is going on out there. Just because George the Father sent a healing mission that utterly failed does not mean we haven't learned something. Actually, our government has learned something and that is we are not going to send American troops this time. This is not smart, it is less stupid. The Ethiops come from just the next hood over and have no Kumbaya genes so no matter how humanitarian we may frame this operation, you get in the way of this army and the mercies won't be tender.

Anyway, unlike the last time, I don't think we're calling it kindness. Rather we portray it as part of the War on Terror. You see, Somalia was a mess, with all kinds of cutthroat militias cutting throats in the Mogadishu area. Then religion reared its ugly head in the name of Islamic Courts. Religion was real tricky this time because its ugly head looked downright appealing to the locals. This may have been because instead of someone losing his head when he wouldn't payoff a thief, the thief lost his hand when the courts took up the case. Anyway, if you are surprised that we are now bosom buddies with the militias who used to be the problem but now are the solution, you haven't really been paying attention. After all, we were once very friendly with the late what's his name.

We had fought the cutthroat militias years before. We did it by sending some of our boys to hang out there. Rather, to be hung out there. After the Blackhawk Down debacle, President Clinton realized there was no point and bugged out. Whatever one wants to say about the man, he was no fool in his own interest and when he smelled no personal upside, he was gone in the same way Ronald Reagan moved out sharply from Lebanon. The two of them knew when the doctrine of sunk costs applied to politics and war.

So the theory is that stopping the Islamic Courts will stop Al Qaeda from using Somalia in the war on the Great Satan. If the Abyssinians had not taken Mogadishu, why right this minutes Osama's carrier fleet and troop transports would be getting ready to dock and resupply for the next leg of their voyage to invade and destroy America, the home of the crusaders. Yep, that's the way of it.

The truth of it is that if we are to suffer at home from jihad, it will be because we let jihadists come here like the last big surprise. If we cut ourselves off from the source of holy warriors they will kill each other much the way enlightened Euros killed each other in the two intramural matches that took place in the first half of the twentieth century. It will probably not be as organized, but then, you have to be highly civilized to slaughter efficiently.

If you love your kids, teach intolerance

New addition to the The Short Dictionary of Politics.

tolerance: Old, permitting free expression of views one does not share. New, suppression of thought, or speech found uncomfortable by favored groups.

I was moved to add the above definition after reading Let’s make 2007 the Year of Real Tolerance by Brendan O'Neill at Spiked Online. The definition says it all and Brendan does as well. Tolerance no longer means giving unpleasant ideas a hearing, but the opposite. As that is so, it is now incumbent for every open minded person to stand up for the free expression of views one does not share, that is, to be intolerant.

In truth, no one really believes in tolerance, just as no one is really pro choice or pro life. To hold any one of the three, you have to hold it through thick and thin. What people say when they are saying any of these things is, "I am tolerant of what it is fashionable to be tolerant about," or I am pro abortion, but I don't really want to discuss it on its own terms," or "I am anti abortion." The last one is even more tricky because so called pro lifers usually do want to discuss abortion, but, unless they are insane, get stuck on the pro life thing when you ask them how pro life they are. Would they refrain from shooting someone about to rape their daughter? My general sympathy is with pro lifers, but I would reload and keep firing in the event. As to pro choice, it would not be difficult to find a union member public school teacher who claims to be pro choice. Ask him/her how they stand on school choice. Doublethink was around long before Orwell.

But enough of that, it is the high virtue of tolerance we are discussing here. I was behind a car once with a bumper sticker that said, "Unitarianism, a religion without a dogma." Unitarianism in Massachusetts has a reputation for being accepting and inclusive. They will accept you no matter what your race or sexual orientation, etc. Of course, one could force the issue and prove they do have a dogma. Say a bunch of skinheads with swastika tattoos went to church one Sunday and introduced themselves by saying, "we believe in God and want to worship him and have never found acceptance at any church. Well, we saw the slogan about no dogma and said this is the place for us. It is wonderful to find a place tolerant of us and our different views on race." The UUs (as they are referred to here) would soon find a dogma even though they might not write it down.

It is hard for anyone to tolerate an idea that says something extremely negative about them. I don't remember whether it was Shockley or Jensen who was speaking when they first came out with their intelligence theories, but the audience of mostly black students kept applauding to drown out the speaker. I certainly understand why they were upset. No one likes to have their intellect slighted. Still, they were in no way tolerant. Along comes the Bell Curve and the applauding continues. The definition of tolerance must change from respecting the honest arguments you disagree with to not rocking the boat for some people.

Now the science of intelligence is something I will never study. I have an interest in reading the popular science press, but science is, to me, a religion into whose inner mysteries I will never be an initiate. This saddens me as I wish I were smart enough to understand. It also causes me not to believe any idea as it might become passe. After all, when I was a baby the advanced theory was that breast feeding was not preferable to the bottle. Now the theory is there are IQ points to be gained by sucking it in naturally. I needed those points.

Still, one can do some observations on one's own that give some convincing evidence. The vast majority of Jews came to this country over the last century in an impoverished condition and lived in slums. Today, a Jewish neighborhood is often a place of opulence. Was this rapid change due to luck or brains? This may not be proof, but it is evidence of intelligence being heritable. Saying it violates a taboo. Applause please.

I do not like the idea of offending people, but I do not believe it is a good thing to stifle discussion. Better to have us screaming at each other than the soft totalitarianism of holding hands as Oprah Nation.

I Was Sick And You Healed Me, I Was Separated And You United Me

So Gerald Ford has passed on. I wish him well whatever dimension he has attained. The comments on the news are coming fast and furious and are notable for an almost uniform vacuity. We are being told he healed and unified the nation. Funny, I never felt sick enough to need healing and I felt no more or less united after he became president.

I remember Nixon going and Ford being sworn in. He made a speech utterly forgetable other than for the line "I'm a Ford not a Lincoln." He was excoriated for pardoning Nixon. Even Teddy Kennedy is now saying that was a great move. Supposedly, if Nixon had been tried, we would have either had a civil war or gone into a national funk that would have been disastrous in those pre prozac days. Well, I for one would have liked to have seen Nixon tried. He was a fair lawyer and if he could have gotten a change of venue out of DC he would have made a show of it. Maybe, it was the political class that was healed and unified.

Yeah, they were dredging up anyone who could be relied upon to say something meaningless. Barney Frank said Gerry was the last of the Republican moderates. So who is the last of the moderates in your freakin' cargo cult, Barney. That would be Grover Cleveland and we shall not see his like again among the Dems.

Okay, I'll Sacrifice My Honor This One Time

So, your man Drudge informs us of the wee contretemps between Rosie and Trump. In truth, I don't have a dog in this fight (another thirty days in Purgatory for that). Still, I find myself wanting to root against someone, but this is just too tough.

When I started this blog, it was my intention to be much more gentlemanly than I was in my early life. Actually, it would have been difficult to be less so, but, when these two appear together.... One is reminded of the words of Oscar Wilde, "The only way to get rid of temptation is to give in to it."

More About The Happy Jobs

Part of Udolopho's comment on my last post:

"The question becomes, are we building an America that can support people of all stripes and talents, or are we building a two-tier society that offers riches to certain white collar classes and working poor wages to everyone else. I don't want to live in a country with Mexico's class structure, but that is what we are building. I wish I were a little older so I could be spared the inevitable outcome of this reckless experiment. If we keep this up there is socialism in our futures. Frankly, I'd rather work in a factory."

I must have sounded cavalier in my last post, even though I was not speaking about immigration but the loss of jobs overseas. One certainly does not wish to offend Udolpho for the treatment he can deliver is withering. Actually, as bad as the one just linked to is, this one is far more devastating.

Someone who spent years in a job and sees it go away can feel desperate. I actually know what that is like. Twelve years ago, the company I worked for left and took my so called professional job with them. That job was lush and I knew in our declining area of the state it could not be replaced. And it wasn't. We adjusted and I am one of the self under employed of this country. We could have followed the company but they were headed to a place where we would not have wanted to raise our kids. I have no regrets even though I know the day I turn 65 will just be another day.

As to that blue collar thing, The departure of factory jobs is a mixed blessing. Yes, some higher skilled and paid jobs leave, but a lot of industrial accidents never happen. If you've been around when someone's hand gets caught in a machine, it is not pretty. That can happen in real work. When my son was small, a classmate's dad, working as a truck mechanic, was killed when something sprung lose. We don't have many industrial jobs here and that was not factory work, but it was enough to remind me that I am glad I escaped the box factory.

As to Udolpho's question about the nature of what the economy is to become, that is a lot to think about, but, I don't expect we disagree much on the nature of our future social structure. I have a problem with the word "we" as in "are we building an America that can support people of all stripes and talents, or are we building a two-tier society." We don't get to build anything. Either it evolves or someone is deciding things elsewhere and is not consulting the we. At least I don't remember any one from the government or a cabal calling moi.

Anyway, I am working class myself and I expect a tad older than Udolpho. I remember the largest employer's workforce going out on strike for near a year and only going back when Taft-Hartley was invoked. The kids of the strikers got free lunches in school. My own father was out for a summer on strike. It was always a stratified society, you knew it in the town I grew up in. Oh, that largest employer is gone and my father's company has merged a number of times and is no longer recognizable as the old New England icon it was.

Post WWII may have been the only time in the history of the world that working people were allowed by the amount of their paychecks to think of themselves as middle class. How long could that last and how much had it to do with us being the only economy standing after the war? Beats me. I'm no economist and they disagree anyway.

As to the world Udolpho sees coming to pass, I may not agree in every particular, but the ongoing invasion can only bring changes. Will they all be Camp of the Saints type. Probably to a great extent, as an inundation of workers can only result in beggar thy neighbor and decline of wages in declining industries and service jobs and the overclass prefers every new group over their lumpen countrymen. Yeah, it should not be pretty.

Actually, it is not pretty now in this country. I go to a suburban mall maybe once a year unless I can avoid it. The young people I see there are in no way ready for the Tsunami coming their way. On the way home today, I listened to a talk show where callers carped about the Brazilians (a growing presence here). All of a sudden a couple of restaurant owners called in to say though the chefs are American, they never hire Americans for grunt work because they are not as reliable as Brazilians (they did not mention if they are paid less). If it were a choice between Joao and an overly tattooed* American kid** who is also doing an imitation of a pincushion, I would probably decide on Joao from Sao Paolo. Joao's kids will not work as hard or get along as well.

Why this is happening against the wishes of most Americans is the big question. I understand that corporate donors want it. I don't understand why that feeling is pervasive among them. It is only in the dirtiest of industries that third world immigrants toil for corporations (e.g meatpacking). Around here it is busboys, chambermaids and landscaping, etc. not big business.

So why the big push. Let's go across the pond and look for a paranoid conspiracy theory that at least sounds plausible. The English libertarian, Sean Gabb looks at what is happening in his country in his Free Life Commentary Issue Number 143.*** I have highlighted what I think is most relevant to our situation.

"It is possible to see, during the past 25 years in at least this country, a movement towards a new settlement in politics. This movement has continued regardless of who has occupied which office, and regardless of what party has won which election. It is clear that the ruling class - or that loose coalition of politicians, bureaucrats, lawyers, educators, and media and business people who derive wealth and power and status from an enlarged and active state - wants an end of liberal democracy. The desired new settlement is one in which those at the top or with the right connections can enjoy the most fabulous wealth and status, and in which their enjoyment of these can never again be challenged from below. We, the ordinary people, are to be stripped of our constitutional rights - no freedom of speech, no personal or financial privacy, no procedural safeguards in the criminal law. We are to be taxed and regulated to what counts in our own culture as the edge of the breadline. This is on the one hand to provide incomes for clients of the ruling class, and on the other to deprive us of the leisure that might allow us to understand our situation, and of the confidence that might allow us to challenge it. In any event, every organ of the ruling class is at work on promoting ideologies of boundless submission to the new settlement.

At the same time, structures of accountability that emerged in the 17th and 18th centuries are to be deactivated. Their forms will continue. There will be assemblies at Westminster. But these will not be sovereign assemblies with the formal authority of life and death over us all. That authority will have been passed to various unelected and transnational agencies. And so far as the Westminster assemblies will remain important, our votes will have little effect on what they enact.


We are passing into the sort of world that existed in much of Europe before the French Revolution - a world of diverse and conflicting sources of authority, all equally unaccountable. The great simplification of authority that happened in Europe after 1789, and that had happened over two centuries earlier in England, was a product of nationalism; and simplification was followed by accountability and then by liberalism. This sort of reaction is in future to be made impossible by promoting movements of people so that nations in the old sense disappear, and are replaced by patchworks of nationalities more suspicious of each other than of any ruling class."

Even if this is true, it can't work for long. Manchester, New Hampshire once had the largest textile mill in the world. They hired a French Canadian to work next to an Irishman to work next to a Pole to work next to an Italian as they figured that would stifle union organizing. The mills no longer make textiles, the mill owning class has ceased to exist, If those who plot against us execute their plan, may they disappear too.

*To me, that's one tattoo.

**This show also often does a segment on the dumbing down of American youth where callers give examples of young people who can't add or make change.

***This link does not go directly to the article. You have to search on the left side to get to Issue 143.

Give Us Back Our Happy Jobs

Today I heard someone talking about a record trade deficit and problems for the country thereof. I don't remember anyone saying anything about our loss of factory jobs, but they might have. A lot of people, go on about the destruction of our industrial base and the ensuing loss of work. Not me. Maybe I should, but I don't. That does not mean terrible things may not occur because we lost all those jobs. I'm just not going to go on about how terrible it is.

Why? Because I had one of those jobs. Summer after freshman year saw me in a box factory doing hot, sweaty, grunt labor. It is a moment in life that makes you think about your future, and think I did. At the end of the summer I knew I would never go back there and I started bugging relatives to make sure that any avenue of nepotism available would be tapped for a better job the next year.

The point is, all the folks moaning about the loss of factory jobs have no intention of taking one were they to magically reappear on our shores. You listen to them and you would think that the Chinese were just having a ball in all those factories. They are all saying to each other, "I didn't know what fun was until factory work arrived." These are the jobs that remind one of the story of John F. Kennedy campaigning outside a coal mine in West Virginia as the workers were arriving. As he was about to shake the hand of one worker older than himself, the man tore into Kennedy. He told the candidate, "What are you doing here? You have nothing in common with us. You've never worked a day in your life." JFK shocked the man by saying, "Well, suh, you ah right." The man, taken aback by the candidate's honesty, then said, "Son, you ain't missed a damn thing."

So, who knows? The widget plant reopens and maybe everyone leaves Walmart and shows up Monday morning as the whistle blows. Maybe not.

Will that be one hump of two?

The blog The Black Sea reports on the camel sacrifice practiced by Turkish Airlines maintenance staff. The owner of the blog actually flies that airline. He reports the food is good for airline food. Hmmm, I wonder if they are serving fresh filet of camel. I am culinarily adventurous (in a humble way) and would not be adverse to trying dromedary steak on a flight,assuming there is no mad camel disease . I would watch to make sure that the camel sacrifice held on the tarmac was not how they supplied the galleys of the jetliners. Anyway, if they can guarantee where the camel came from and the cleanliness of the processing facilities, Turkish Airways is now the official airline of the voice of humility for at least one flight to Istanbul.

One thing I don't get. I assume all or most of the staff is Muslim. It was my impression that animal sacrifice is a pagan thing and not Islamic. Of course, as the meat was distributed to the participants (so I read somewhere), only the camel was making any real sacrifice and that may be allowed in The Church of the Camel.

Which, apropos of nothing, reminds me of the saying, No pain, no gain. I've seen my fair share of people suffering and getting nothing out of it. In fact, the more pain, the less gain. I remember slipping and falling and breaking a wrist. It hurt like hell. I don't remember anythng good such as some cosmic lesson coming out of that except to wear non slip shoes in icy conditions.

Wrong From the Start

Randall Parker strikes again. We are losing in Afghanistan. Of course he is highlighting the obvious, but I guess that has to be done over and over again as few of us get it the first time.

I would not wish to repeat what Mr. Parker is ably doing. My focus today is to show what a deficient personality I really have and knaw on an old rug like a senile dog.

Remember the heady days after 911. Well, I do, but how clearly? Good question. I'm having more and more senior moments all the time. I remember the general tone being, "We gotta get those bastards." So we started bombing Afghanistan and cooperating with the Northern Alliance, a group of freedom loving patriots who quoted from the collected works of Bill Bennett. With our air support, they turned the flank. We sent troops in and chased the remnants of the Taliban out and installed a government and freed women and all that. Noble stuff.

It was all a waste. All of it. We did not get the self confessed mastermind of every bad thing that has happened to us. That evil Taliban is back. What people forget is that the Taliban was not defeated. They retired in good order. Certainly good enough order that they were able to regroup and return to battle. Not only that it looks like Round 15 of a 15 rounder and what looked in the early rounds like a mismatch with that big lanky guy from the West landing a few roundhouse rights has changed. That cagey boy from the East got on his bicycle and just circled around, landing a jab here and there, staying out of reach, while wearing the big guy down. In the final round, the betting has shifted, big time. This is how the Afghan Kid has won all his fights, seemingly a pushover in the early going then coming back later on. And, he has won all his fights (maybe the contretemps with Big Alex can be called a draw, but that's about it).

But of course, this time it was going to be different. Right. Anyone who thought the GIs giving out nylon stockings and chocolate thing was going to work this time was nuts. Actually, all that ranting about "United we stand" was little more than the raging of a drunk in a bar. Trust me, it's been a long time, but it's a subject I know something about.

So, I can hear no one say, though they might, what would have been your great plan, smart guy. Well that's the thing. I have no illusions about my genius, but all too many of my country's leaders do. If, by some bizzare circumstance, I had been invited I would have laid out the options thus, "Scenario one, we can invade that country and try to capture bin Laden. To do it right so that he can never come back if he escapes, it will take hundreds of thousands of troops and several decades to change the culture and more likely our culture will change. Oh, we will probably leave without actually effecting the desired change. Scenario two, I would withdraw all our troops from overseas and secure our borders.

So by now, if you are awake, you are saying, does this guy want to just give the terrorists a pass? No, I want to win. Hey, I'm from Red Sox country: I know what losing is* and it seems that our military and foreign policy wonks are, even still, hell bent in merely taking us into one labyrinth after another.

The most intelligent strategy I have ever heard was best explained in a letter to the Antiwar.com letters page years ago. It was posted by George D. of the UK, "the terrorists could have been hunted one-by-one by having a special task force that deals with it, like Israel did in hunting the Nazi war criminals, without going to war with the country that provided shelter for them."

Of course such a policy would need focus over a long term and could not be a TV war and no party out of power would have been able to resist accusing the administration of doing nothing.

No, the Afghan thing will continue on until the inevitable and like the Brits and Russians, we shall leave, maybe with some face saving fig leaf, but we shall leave.

*So they finally won the series, long after I lost interest in sports in general and the Red Sox Nation fanaticism in particular. I am probably the only person in New England who does not own a piece of Sox regalia. Still have my Ted Williams baseball card.

I'll leave baseball fanship to heavy hitters like George Will. I'll also leave pushing for wars to him as well.

Leave Sil Alone

Ok, so Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-TX) doesn't know Sunni from Shia. Does anyone care about that? What did knowing those things do for all those smartypants Republicans? What he does know are the things it is important to know for a congressguy, how to get elected, how to get along with party leadership, how not to be impeached as a judge. Knowing enough to not put large sums of money in the freezer is a bonus for which I am certainly grateful.

What is Victory?

Glaivester has a good post wherein he opines on what is and is not victory in the current Mesopotamian unpleasantness. His screed is, to me, not arguable. However, in reading it, I realized it would give me an excuse to be lazy and repost something from ancient times.

The Article below was written and published before the great crusade in Iraq and even before the liberation of Afghanistan, but after 911. Of the little that I wrote, it was found to be the most offensive. I think it is still valid.

America's greatest 20th century victory

Indeed, the only one

Every now and then someone on a talk show or in print will ramble on about how we lost in Viet Nam. Some act of cowardice or stab in the back is regretted, blah blah blah. I wish to dispute the idea that we lost "nam." If one truly reflects, the U.S. Army's ten year Southeast Asian Field Training Exercise that ended in the nineteen seventies was our only victory of the last century. Yes, yes, everyone is saying to themselves, "What is he talking about?" Well, folks, wise up, we lost all the other ones. Our friends and enemies alike bled us and continue to bleed us dry over conflicts that supposedly we were victorious in or at least managed a tie.

Now, granted we might not all agree on what constitutes a win. In order to set the tone, let us define terms.

The Agamemnon School of Victory: This consists of completely destroying your enemy, grabbing a lot of plunder and a great looking slave babe. After that, you go home to be murdered by your wife and her toy boy. It is only the last part that I think needs work.

The American Century School: After victory or tie, hunker down, rebuild the place, never leave.

The humilitarian School: After the war, you leave and forget about the place you left.

Believe me, I used to accept the conventional wisdom of our defeat. I remember being on active duty on the day the cease-fire went into effect and hearing the lieutenant in charge of our section sarcastically call it HPVN Day: Honorable Peace in Vietnam Day. I remember the collapse of the South's regime and thinking how it had all gone down the drain. It had, it was a waste, but that was the end of it.

Therein was our victory. Had the North given up the fight, we would still have troops and planes and PXs and condom dispensing machines all over South Viet Nam. We would have brass on the border taking meetings ad infinitum with the North's officers. We would be forever rebuilding the South. Heck, the North would by now have cozied up enough to us running dogs to get some aid, as in the North Korean nuclear blackmail scam. Swiss banks would be awash in skimmed cash from all the associated boondoggles.

Ah, but that was not the case. When the last of our boys left, we were gone. We had bled buckets and lost untold treasure, but, when we finally said au revoir, it was over. We even had a measure of revenge as Hanoi had its own Viet Nam in Cambodia.

Compare our "defeat" with our "victories," (not to mention "ties" and "incompletes" like Haiti). There was WWI, The Great War. I've wondered about that name, "The Great War." It is doubtful that the lads who spent all those years in the trenches would have thought it so great. We got into it because the president at the time, Wilson, wanted to "make the world safe for democracy" by fighting "the war to end all wars." Now sober reflection - an endeavor, I used to avoid like the plague - would tell one that such comments were moronic. Certainly, history has proved Mr. Wilson wrong. Still, it led our country to send enough men over to pull the Allies' chestnuts out of the fire. Wilson, fresh from a rhetorically successful Mexican adventure gave a war message that went something like this, "Oceania is at war with Eurasia. Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia." No, well close enough.

Did our country get anything out of this? Of course: war dead, left where we had no compelling national interest. Worse, while our troops were overseas, the early twentieth century version of the soccer moms managed to slip through a constitutional amendment prohibiting the sale and use of alcohol. In a way, this brought about a continuation of World War I on the home front (Let me digress a second, religious Jews were allowed wine for certain holidays. I can see the handwriting on the wall. Maybe someone will want to join me in starting a new religion with bacon and other high cholesterol foods as sacraments so we can be ready when the health Nazis ban them.)

There were other results from that "Great War" including Hitler. Yes folks, without Woody, Dolph would have probably spent his declining years raving in a Bavarian old soldiers' home. By demonizing Kaiser Bill and getting rid of the Imperial German Government we insured instability in Germany. Maybe an Allied victory did not lead to Hitler in an algebraic equation (Allied victory + German defeat = Hitler) but it is impossible to imagine the Third Reich, the holocaust, etc. had the Kaiser stayed in power after a peace of exhaustion.

While we are on the subject, would a German victory without our participation, have been all that bad? Yeah, they would have made a few annexations and would have tried to order trade to their liking. Sorta like what they're trying to do today in the era of the Euro.

In the inter war period (that is, between the big wars) we had adventures in Haiti and Nicaragua that brought peace and stability forever (yes, Nurse, I'll take my medication now)...

Now, class, let us look at World War II. The record shows that we were attacked by Japan whereupon Germany brilliantly declared war on us. There will always be controversy as to whether we pushed the Japanese into attacking us and intended to be in the war. Suffice it to say, I will not debate the issue and will display my maturity by stating a belief that the American and Japanese elites both suffered a temporary lack of humility that led them both into an inevitable and unwanted misunderstanding.

Though we took the surrenders, let us not claim a victory. We ended up supporting our allies and our enemies. We really did not want Japan and Germany rearming so we generously managed their defenses. The American Army became the Japanese Army. The U.S. Air Force served as the Luftwaffe. Those countries, freed from huge defense expenditures, had "economic miracles" that allowed pundits to tell us we should be doing what they were doing. (There are few American intellectuals so poor, that they don't own an inferiority complex about something.) Of course, that advice is no longer given today.

Eventually, by "containing" the Soviet Union" we were able to see it collapse. Now that should have been victory. We should have said to our NATO buddies, Okay, guys and girls, we're taking off, you have a few years to work out your modus vivendi for the next millennium, but, you're on your own. How naive such a sentiment is. No, all those bureaucrats out of work, Pentagon planners with nothing to plan, a president who couldn't refer to himself as "Leader of the Free World" (granted it doesn't have the ring of Dux et Imperator, but we do still pretend to be a republic. It will take awhile before even "Princeps" appears). So we have our cold war commitment, without a cold war. Our defeat continues.

On the other side of the world, there was Korea, an incomplete. The Communist Bloc doesn't really exist, yet North Korea is holding its own. This is amazing in that they are spending nothing on anything, if only because they have nothing to spend and their people are starving to death. Meanwhile, we hold the line with Seoul.

There are a few other items including but not limited to Haiti and Nicaragua again. See above, and, give me a larger dose this time, please.

We are all proud of how we ejected the Iraqis from that wonderful just and good democracy of Kuwait and ended the evil reign of . . . what's that, we're still bombing? Oops.

We have had success in the Balkans. We put a cop on the beat in Bosnia promised for one year. Of course, "one year" was like the question did creation take seven days as we know them or could each of those days have meant untold ages. I am no theologian, so I have no business discussing biblical chronology. Merely note that one year is going to last a long time. World War One started in Sarajevo and was so much fun, we just have to fight it again. Mr. Cohan should have written: "We're staying, we're staying over and we won't be back forever."

And of course Kossovo was another bada boom, bada bing, hurl a few bombs and go home. Nope, taxpayers are going to foot the bills until Camp Bondsteel becomes an archeological site.

Obviously, I've left out a few of our successes like Panama and Grenada. Well, I haven't any knowledge of their current situation, but maybe we just left them alone after we were done and are spending no money on them at all and we merely bask in their gratitude. Maybe not.

So, as we are about to start the second year of the new millennium while continuing all the foreign adventures of the last century as well as a forever war on terrorism, let us remember, our boys overseas. On patrol for us from the Maldives to Pristina, from Seoul to Berlin as well as Kabul, but not Saigon. Where is George McGovern? Wake him up at the Home for Failed Presidential Candidates. Let's say it again, George: "Come home, America."

And if you have any doubts about the Viet Nam victory thesis, let the record show that no one even remotely connects the Hanoi regime with 9-11.

V is for Vacuous

Call me cheap, but I rarely get to see movies in theaters. Here in the Peoples' Republic, we have an institution known as Inter Library Loan whereby you can get any book that is held in a Massachusetts library anywhere in the state delivered to your hometown library. This also applies to DVDs. We wait for them to come to the library system. So if I am to comment about movies, it will never be early. Anyway, what little I have to say will not deteriorate horribly over time, Conversely, it will not gain much either.

There are a number of bloggers who write about their fanship of comic books, graphic novels, etc. It must be me, but I don't get it. It is probably old age as I think Spiderman was just gaining popularity when my reading of the genre ended. I had occasionally bought or borrowed comics in grade school and then in the Summer between seventh and eighth grade, a friends mother gave me his DC collection (maybe fifty comic books) consisting mostly of Superman. I read them all and then tossed them never to have the desire again. I read a Mr. Natural owned by a drug addled college classmate and once sufficed. I hope I have not missed some great cultural development.

So along comes V for Vendetta and the movie of it was treated with all the seriousness of a work on the level of that serious scientist, Al Gore. I have heard that the comic series was somewhat inspired by hate for the lioness, Margaret Thatcher, whose effect in the end was little more than a meow. Oh, well.

The movie was a waste of time. Its plot can be summed up easily. It's always the Reichstag Fire. In this case a virus that allows John Hurt to become an English Fuhrer. Then one brave freedom fighter saves the day. And what a freedom fighter he is, taking on battalions of cops. All these movies remind me of a cartoon I saw in Playboy while in college. It is a movie set with the action in the Middle Ages. A field of knights are about to charge a lantern jawed hero armed with sword and buckler, but no armor. His retinue is three poorly equipped derelicts. The director gives him the scene, "Okay, Rex, Take it from, "Follow me, they can never stop men who want to be free.""

Of course, what really made it a waste of time is that the Wachowski brothers are completely tone deaf about the TV age. The left loves to fantasize about the imminent rise of the next Hitler. Well, in our times, that is not about to happen. This does not mean we don't have some disgusting politicians who manage to attain office. It certainly does not mean that I would know if totalitarian dictatorship is or is not possible. What can be said with some confidence is that it is probably not possible to build a hard guy cult of personality with TV. John Hurt's personality is all wrong for a television supremo. Why do you think Oprah destroyed Phil Donahue. Which one would you rather listen to for an extended period of time assuming suicide was not an option? Well, you would probably choose Oprah. Not because you cared about what she had to say, but just for the soothing tone of voice as opposed to the hectoring of Phil Donahue. It goes to why Ronald Reagan did so well though I can't remember a word he said. He had the tone of voice of everyone's loving father.

I remember seeing Bill Clinton win the election against Bush the father. It was in the debate where I think they were all on stools and they stood up to answer questions. Bill would get up and act as if it was the Bill Clinton show. George was hapless and Perot would lecture. Even I liked Bill. It wasn't the only reason, but soon after that, we got rid of TV. People would have turned their backs on a regime with John Hurt and Roger Allam's characters. In fact, if the Republicans perceive Hillary as a mortal threat, they would be well advised to buy her half hour prime time slots with the proviso that she have no guests.

No, Il Duce is not coming. No one is going to be yelling Heil W or Heil Chaney soon. Our fascist future may have The Two Minute Love,* but we shall never have the Two Minute Hate. But if you like movies with a lot of action and no dearth of PC cliches, this is for you.

*From The Joy of Curmudgeonry

Fewtril #4

Many a man is so impressed with the idea that the next despots will be wearing jackboots, that he will fail to hear the gentle flap of sandals.

nVI Day

the voice of humility officially designates today, December 5, 2006, not Victory in Iraq Day. We have taken this unprecedented action in light of the testimony of Mr. Robert Gates, the President's nominee for Secretary of Defense. Mr. Gates said we are not winning. tvoh is sure there is a sense of betrayal among many, many bloggers. Even so, we do suspect that there is still not a hair out of place on any of the well coiffed manes. The same cannot be said for many of the fellows they cheerlead into battle.

Among other reasons for taking this drastic step is the memory of being on active duty the day the cease fire was signed with North Vietnam. Our section chief referred to it as HPVN day, Honorable Peace in Vietnam in accord with Nixon's oft quoted words, "Peace with honor." If the voice of humility can't smell a set up at his advanced years, then he has truly wasted his life even more than his relatives have suspected.

I assure whatever few readers I have that there is no pleasure in this as there are 2906 of my countrymen in graves.* Once an Irishman said to me when I asked him why I should do a certain thing now, "Because you're a long time dead." What did these lads, who will never wake, die for?

That does not mean I am beyond taking some satisfaction. From the antiwar.com blog is a link to an Instapundit timeline. If this man were a really great lawyer, he would certainly go to court to suppress this as it is embarrassing beyond words.

*It's probably considered bad form, but I shall also mention that significantly more Iraqi's have attained the same peace.

Peace Studies at the voice of humility

Stephen Browne of Rants and Raves has commented on Congressman Charles Rangel's call for a draft. Stephen is agin it. He notes the generals do not want or need conscription. Recruitment is meeting goals, etc. He is right as far as it goes, though I've read the quality of new recruits is declining. Not unexpected in a military that sells itself as a gateway to college. Why enlist if that dream may not come true?

Anyway, as Clemenceau said, "War is too important to be left to the generals." Unless, we are going to give it all over to the military, we have to understand that this is so, for good and ill.* We also have to understand some aspects of our current problems. The generals did not want the wars. Remember Madeline Albright saying, "What good is it having the most powerful military in the world if you don’t use it?" It was civilians who pushed Iraq. The Generals are happy to build the machine, but do not want to risk it and see it suffer the inevitable degradation of real operations. Oh, a Delta Force raid here and there maybe to test the toys, but, saints preserve us from a long war. This is something about democratic armies that de Tocqueville touched on. Sooner or later, the politicians are going to want to use it.

So, how do you have an army and not have a war. Let us cast about for an example of a democracy that does not start wars and does not get invaded. And the winner is; Switzerland. Now, I do not know what the congressman from NYC was proposing in detail, but if it was the system in place previously, that is not what will work. That system of deferments insured that few from even slightly privileged backgrounds ever woke up at the reception station.

No, in Switzerland, everyone (male) goes. No deferral for someone just because he got 750 verbal. Everyone goes.** If that were so here, attitudes might change. Say, if Glenn Reynolds had to have learned the pleasures of low crawling, would he have backed sending others to die. And if his unit were being called up? Indeed! I am also serene in the knowledge that such a national militia will never happen and there will be more stupid adventures in the future.

So the Swiss know that they will all be called up in an emergency. That has the effect of limiting the number of emergencies that Swiss politicians find it necessary to respond to. Especially as the politicians will be donning their uniforms as well.

As someone who is somewhat libertarian, conscription is not something I endorse, but if you don't want war, this is one way to avoid it. Still, everyone, and I mean everyone, going to defend the nation in a real emergency is far less odious to me than the facist national service proposals that the Dems are always floating.

I grant Mr. Browne's point about the military having a better army with volunteers. It is possible universal service may be the ruin of the army as our youth appear to be self absorbed and semi-literate. Still, I am as willing to risk it as Bill Bennett, JPod, Frank Gaffney, Max Boot et al were willing to risk the lives of men not their sons.

Lest anyone think that the thought of actually facing service in a real war made the Switzers a bunch of wimps, one only need to glimpse the general order issued by their leader, General Henri Guisan during World War II when they might have faced invasion, ''Everywhere, where the order is to hold, it is the duty of conscience of each fighter, even if he depends on himself alone, to fight at his assigned position. The riflemen, if overtaken or surrounded, fight in their position until no more ammunition exists. Then cold steel is next. ... The machine gunners, the cannoneers of heavy weapons, the artillerymen, if in the bunker or on the field, do not abandon or destroy their weapons, or allow the enemy to seize them. Then the crews fight further like riflemen. As long as a man has another cartridge or hand weapons to use, he does not yield. ..." The order also commanded the men to consider a government broadcast of surrender as enemy propaganda. Would the nation stand to the end? Apparently, the Germans thought so.

*I say this as a civilian whose military service ended only 11 promotions shy of general.

**One can bring up the case of Israel where everyone goes and there is a lot of war. The arguments pro and con are for another day. I recommend Defending Israel by Martin Van Creveld.

Another social problem not solved

Here in my home state, the gay marriage question has bubbled up again. Our state's supreme court did what any group of politically connected lawyers are capable of and performed the modern equivalent of looking at the entrails of an animal and divined that the state constitution mandated same sex Holy Matrimony. The antis organized and have fulfilled requirements to get the question on the ballot. The legislature has to certify it to get it on the ballot and with all the courage that our Great and General Court (the official name of our collection of foxes in the henhouse) can muster, they are doing their best to adjourn before taking up the question.*

Jane Galt in an old long post has convinced me that gay marriage would ruin straight marriage. Or she would have if marriage were not already in trouble. The problem is that someone has already went off the road and drove the hummer into the living room. Marriage ain't what it used to be, or the number taking "advantage" of the institution, anyway.

Nationwide, you have your social conservatives wanting a constitutional amendment to save marriage. Yeah, that'll work. Nationalizing marriage will solve things such that someday a Republican pres will be working with Teddy Kennedy on the "No Marriage Left Behind" bill.

The reasons behind the decline in marriage rates are beyond my poor powers of cognition. Do I want to "save" marriage? My natural inclination is libertarian in most parts. Where it is not libertarian, it is reactionary. Though no family is perfect, I remember mine as being most often happy. There was sibling rivalry and the feeling of oppression when not getting one's way, but I look back on it and hope I am doing as well for my children. The other aspect of life that causes one to be a reactionary is the sure knowledge that almost all ideas are wrong. Those that are right are few and far between and prove themselves by standing the test of time. There may be some or many who enter into legal gay marriages and attain long term bliss, but oh to be a pioneer in the field of same sex divorce law in these times.

Still, my libertarianism is always bubbling up as is also the desire to give people what they want til it hurts (them). There is also recognition of the fact that no one, male anyway, should ever commit matrimony here in the Peoples' Republic of Massachusetts without a pre-nuptial agreement. If it has come to that, that there is no real default option and even normal average walking around straight couples are well advised to write a contract, then maybe it is time to take the state out of marriage altogether.

I know this does not fly with the contending parties, as they both want to marry the state more than anything. When someone wants the state to enact their vision, it is time to be suspicious.

The causes of the decline in marriage will probably accelerate and maybe gay unions will help that along. There are too many other factors that are at work and governmental fiat will not stop it. If Ray Kurzweil is right and we are going to live near forever, til death do us part becomes meaningless. Even if his singularity stuff is only partially right and we will be able to live healthy lives past a century, then who will want to commit at twenty five to what could be over a hundred years. Maybe some couples contracting for twenty five with renewal options and and equitable division of assets is an answer. Few would want to be part of a couple that did the no one put asunder forever thing if one could contemplate a union celebrating the three hundredth anniversary.

There is, of course, the guys just don't want to commit at all stuff that is thrown about. Having myself committed to the institution of marriage was probably the smartest thing I ever did other than not buying a nehru jacket. Fred Reed(#150), however, has put why most other lads are not rushing to the altar business as well as anyone could.

"You don't understand how bad the divorce courts are. You probably don't know what "imputed income" is. You think that "joint custody" means "joint custody." Think again. Quite possibly you will have to support her while she moves with your kids to Fukuoka with an Air Force colonel she met in a meat bar.

In short, marriage often means turning twenty-five years of your life into smoking wreckage. Yes, happy marriages exist (I personally know of one) and there are the somnolent marriages of habitual contentment or, perhaps, of quiet resignation. But the odds aren't good.

Permit me an heretical thought. In an age when neither sex economically needs the other, in which women do not need protection from wild bears and marauding savages, not in the suburbs anyway, perhaps marriage doesn't make sense, at least for men. The divorce courts remove all doubt. A young fellow might do well to stay single, keep his DNA to himself, pick such flowers as he might find along the way, and live his life as he likes."

Thus getting the state out of the way so that individuals can find their own "compelling" reasons to tie the knot will probably work out a lot better as time goes on as the default position is becoming more and more obsolete.

What about polygamy? Well, what about it? Anti gay marriage people will tell you that if gay marriage is allowed so will polygamy. The gay marriage advocates have taken pains in Massachusetts to say that will not happen. I think the antis have it right here. After all if Adam and Steve have successfully argued before the court that they have the right to live the way they wish, then why not Adam, Eve and Sue (a boy named or otherwise). Of course, there are arguments that polygamy exploits women and all that. if a women reaches adulthood and signs a contract that exploits her, that proves only her stupidity, and what if is the guy who is getting snookered? I am not interested in making democracy safe for the stupid. I would think that the normal rules on contracts made under duress would obtain. Marrying a fourteen year old like the renegade Mormons as your third wife would be asking for trouble, when a lawyer** gets a hold of her (or him, noting the rash of teacher/young stud pairings) and asks,"Did you know what you were doing and would you like to be free with a hefty settlement?" Certainly, almost anyone can answer that question, no (maybe not the free and hefty settlement part). I aver I am lucky to be married 20+ years, but time has proved I did not know what I was getting into.

Some people are even worrying about polyamory and its effect. Some people don't have a life (like bloggers).

So I am willing to see the Commonwealth of Massachusetts amend its constitution to read that the state has no law on unions of individuals other than to enforce contracts freely made and that the contracting parties are responsible for the smooth operation of the contract and anything resulting thereof (such as children). Obviously, a better stylist should write the amendment, but not a lawyer.

This is suggested with the sure knowledge that it has no chance of ever being enacted. For where my countrymen and women do not want to marry the state, they oft wish to be its children. They look on the government as ultimate father and mother to succor them when their lives have taken a bad turn. Nowhere more so than here in the Peoples Republic. That lousy trailer FEMA will give you three weeks after the hurricane subsides does not alter the mindset Having to write your own contract and think about it will seem too much of a burden to most people.

I intend to just sit back and watch. After all, there are so many other icebergs out there, what with social security, tight energy supplies, immigration, a forever war on terror. I can't solve 'em all. Gay marriage will have to take care of itself.

*The previously blogged about Governor Romney plans to recall the legislature to make them vote. Romney can't be bothered to spend much time here anymore as he is running for the presidency. The best way to do that in the Republican Party is to run against Liberal Massachusetts. One would expect no less of him.

**I know of no one who has ever said, "You know the problem with Massachusetts is, you can never find a lawyer here."

the voice of humilty, human tennis ball

On the Litvenenko case, I have been lobbed back over the net by Martin Kelly and until the next whack of the racquet I am not blaming the Russian Government.

Litvinenko, the other side of the coin

Okay, so my question in my last post, "Am I missing something," suggested that the net equation of killing Litvinenko would be a loser for Putin. Well, now for the other side.

I have been a subscriber to Stratfor's free "Geopolitical Intelligence Report" which is periodically emailed to me. In the latest missive, they give an overview of the decline and end of the Soviet Union and events leading to Vlad Putin's presidency.

My takeaway is, there could be an upside for the Putinistas, There are a lot of rogue KGB/FSB types out there. These are desparate times and all (Putin, Berezovsky et al) are desparate men. Putin sees that the West is probing in Georgia and other places and is not about to stop. He holds the energy card for Europe now. He is popular at home. If he has some political capital maybe he knows how to spend it better than George Bush and now may be a time to get away with it. After all, what are we going to do, nuke 'em?

A painfully dying and eventually dead Litvinenko as a signal sent to a lot of people while publicly shedding a few tears may not be without a net upside.

Leaving some amibiguity about Mr. Berezovsky's role in his friends death doesn't hurt. Certainly, this is not all that difficult as the speculation about Mr. Klebnikov on other blogs made clear. I know I'll not be sending my resume off to Mr. B anytime soon.

Berezovsky, Putin, I don't think most Americans appreciate how ruthless people from other societies can be.

There is no link directly to the article so if you wish to read the whole thing, sign up at stratfor.com

Am I missing something

There are some things in life I don't get. For example, Donald Trump is supposed to be one of those master of the universe gazillionaires who hemorrhages money as he just can't stop making the stuff. If this is so, why is he giving seminars all over the country to supposedly tell his countrymen and women how to make as much money as he does? If I were Mr. Moneybags, the last place I would want to hang out is with the hoi polloi (of which I am a member in good standing) to tell them how they can be just like me, thus erasing any uniqueness I might possess.

Thinking there is something that does not meet the eye, I googled to try and find if he was really rich as Croesus. It seems he does have assets, but there has got to be something wrong here as success to me would mean not having to spend time on the road in Holiday and Hampton Inns across the country giving the same spiel over and over. If he isn't a pauper, he's a nut.

Something not meeting the eye is more or less today's theme. Pierre Gemayel's assassination this past week, with the blame placed on Syria, set alarm bells off in my head. To that purpose I propose a thought experiment. Let us pretend to be the President of Syria in a meeting with his trusted advisors. "Okay, lads, next order of business, should we assassinate someone this week. How about Pierre Gemayel. He and his family hate us. If we get this guy everyone will pin it on us and we shall have America salivating even more to bring down the regime. Last time we took out someone, we had to remove all our troops from Lebanon. Tell me the net upside?"

In the same vein, we have the case of Alexander Litvinenko, given something that didn't agree with him in London and succumbing from indigestion last Thursday night. The hue and cry surrounding his death has centered on the executive of an Eastern European country. Again, let us do the thought experiment thingy. A certain fellow named Vladamir Putin is in a meeting with his trusted advisors. "Okay, lads, next order of business, should we assassinate someone this week. How about Alexander Litvinenko. He is a part of the Berezovsky circle. Now if we could get Boris back and put him on trial, that would be something. Sasha Litvinenko, just how important is it to lose this guy? Tell me the net upside?"

I dared not give voice, I mean blog to my thoughts as being the voice of humility, I thought them to unworthy to mention. That was until I read Martin Kelly's rantings that are different from my paranoid rantings in that they are in much greater and better detail (linked from Dennis Mangan). Worth looking at. I am not linking to any one post in particular as there are so many of them.

If anyone has the net upside of getting rid of Gemayel in Lebanon and some B list critic in London , please let me know.

I never liked bowling anyway

It began early, as our parents got us up to be taken to the neighbors to spend the day. I remember asking what my parents were doing, but the answer did not register. Then, I would guess, about 7:00 PM Mom and Dad arrived to retrieve us. We were ready to go home to our own familiar rooms.

Except, we were not going home. Traveling out from the city on slow roads as the new fast highways were not finished, we were headed to ......The Burbs. No more living in apartments, neighbor upon neighbor. Now we would live in a house that we owned (subject for a short while to a mortgage). For a time, the big change did not appear positive to me. I and my sibs had a network of friends in the apartments and missed them. In fact, for a few years I would wish to move back. As other relatives lingered in the city for some years, we would travel by our old place and visit. The memories faded, though as families of the old friends made their hegiras out of the city in the great post war migration. When the highway building was done and had taken fast roads to the suburbs, our trips bypassed the old digs. The next time I saw the old apartments, they looked long in the tooth and now I felt more the escapee than the exile.

My memories of my new hometown are not perfect, but, on balance they are positive. My new friends and I would travel all over town on our bicycles, going further all the time. It was a feeling of freedom that I don't know if I would have had had we stayed put. People, as owners, become house proud and though this is lampooned, I kind of liked living in a neat neighborhood. However, I did a lot of lawn mowing as a child and that was not a fond memory and I have vowed never to mow another lawn and have kept that promise, even though I live on a much larger piece of land now.

Of course, you are not cool unless you hated your life in that narrow universe outside of the metropolis. That is what we are all supposed to believe. Oh, the isolation, the alienation, the anomie. Whatever. This is really just evidence of the eternal adolescence at least of Americans.

No matter how happy your home life was, you were ecstatic to go off to college. It was all new. So free. No one telling you to do your homework, go to bed. What is more, no matter how old the school is you have the false feeling that you are the first to experience all this. Or at least to experience it in a new and unique way.

The life with mom and dad and sis and rover is gone. One recoils from the memory with horror. Yes, there is a better way. You may not find it, but you know it is not suburbia, even if you end up living there yourself. Still, you know that bourgeois life is a living death and how can your unenlightened neighbors stand it?

Well, grow up. No, I mean it. Literally. Grow up, put down the bong and enjoy life in the burbs. You are wrong. Life out beyond the city limits is better and more fulfilling than in the loft where you plan to start writing the book with the movie rights in mind about how the suburbs eat one's soul. Just as soon as you save enough money delivering pizzas, if you are not shot first.

How have I come to this epiphany? Moi, I could not have come up with it in a thousand years. I live out in the "exurbs" and have to watch out that my Swamp Yankee neighbors don't shoot each other up at church suppers as they must be even more alienated.

No, Randall Parker over at Parapundit links to an article about how high density living is the enemy of friendly communities where people socialize and interact with their neighbors. as proposed by economist Jan Brueckner.

Take that Robert Putnam, Mr. Bowling alone. Just because no one likes his favorite sport anymore does not mean people are not enjoying each others company. Most suburbs seem empty during the weekday, but, on weekends just walk down any street and you can smell the barbeque as neighbors gather to eat ribs and feed the obesity crisis. In Fact,

"Among their specific findings were that for every 10-percent decrease in density, the likelihood of residents talking to their neighbors at least once a week jumps by 10 percent. And involvement in hobby-oriented clubs increases even more significantly -- by 15 percent for every 10 percent decline in density. To measure these and other social interactions, researchers used data from the Social Capital Benchmark Survey and controlled for other factors such as income, education and marital status."

So, get a life and get a lawnmower.

I do have a friend who went to trade school and now has a electrical contracting business where he makes more than partners at prestigious big city law firms. If I ever asked him about his level of alienation, I am sure he would not regard me as sane. Poor soul never got to college. Does some mean barbecue, though.

One of Randall's posters, Fred, sums it all up,

"Critics of suburban sprawl often try to argue that it's the result of collusion between the evil forces of developers, zoning officials, the oil companies, and . . . you name it, paving contractors, tire companies, aluminum siding salesman. All of this disregards the fact that for families of normal income, and probably for people generally, a detached suburban home is overwhelmingly their housing preference. That's why those evil residential developers keep building those faceless, sprawling suburbs. Demand.

I have a book about the evolution and development of the city of Paris in the 19th and 20th centuries. I remember that it makes reference to a survey conducted asking Parisians to select their preferred type of home, disregarding the factor of cost. In other words, if price were no object, would you prefer a townhouse, a penthouse, a flat in a high rise, etc. The overwhelming favorite: a single family detached home. This is the City of Light!"

Humbly, I shall accept a draft nomination

All this talk about Republicans getting back to their base is all well and good after the deluge. I just don't know how effective it is. There were a number referenda in several states and the ballot questions on moving the minimum wage north all did very well.

The small government crowd, it seems, only does well when a Democrat regime has screwed things up such that people are willing to try something new. So all the GOP has to do is wait for the debacle and catch the resulting wave and ride it as long as possible. Selling small government itself is a bit of a problem.

The voice of humility understands this. A true humilitarian knows you do not try to change the current but to travel with it. It is with this in mind, I have started the True Democrat Party. I announce that I will seek and accept the nomination for President. Here is my platform:

America needs a $40 minimum wage. Working families can't do it on their own. The True Democrat Party is here to help the little guy.

Let's see that wuss, Nancy, match that.

I'm being channeled

It isn't really so. I hardly think that little me has influenced William S. Lind over at Defense and the National Interest. I am certain that he does not know this blog exists. Still I take it as vindication that my ideas have some validity somewhere.

We differ in that Mr. Lind does think we should put Saddam back. His reasons are cogent, but as stupid as the war was and is, I can't get my mind around putting Himself back in power.

Unfortunately, I agree with Mr. Lind that it would be the smart thing to do. I have other reasons. Saddam coming back would be seen as our defeat. It rankles me no end to see my country lose, but we lost the war when we started it and if we can salvage something, it is an ill wind etc. If we lose a stupid war, we may, for a generation, not be inclined to get into another one. If we find someone and he is perceived to be our boy and can survive despite that perception, we may be able to claim a sort of victory, we may sucker ourselves into another adventure.

No, it will have to be someone credible as a Sunni resistor. There is only one big name in that field.

Let's just go. There are going to be consequences anyway and it is not worth Bismarck's Pomeranian grenadier.

Hard as Nails

I agree with Gene Healy's agreement with Julian Sanchez's take on John Derbyshire. "his views are, often as not, absolutely vile. But he's exceptionally sharp and learned, and expresses his thuggish views without cant or sugar coating, which I suppose is a virtue. It's almost as if a team of genetic scientists took a mouth-breathing, beer-swilling, Pak-bashing specimen of pure Cockney trash and raised his IQ by 100 points. How can he fail to be interesting?"

Mr. D is in trouble with some people for giving up religion. An ability to argue Episcopal theology is absent here so others can have a go at him for that. I did read his un conversion story and it seemed reasonable enough. I get the feeling he stayed as long as he did out of filial piety or he was no longer in his comfort zone. Anyway, now that he has left his up scale (in American eyes) denomination, it may be easier to think of him as that lager lout.

No, I found something else to to discuss. Actually, he makes a pretty good case for his having that genteel thuggish side in his review of Mark Steyn's America Alone,

"I am, in fact, willing to confess myself a collateral-damage armchair warrior, who would be happy to see us trade in our inventory of smart laser-guided precision munitions for lots and lots and lots of old-style iron bombs, and fleets of great big iron planes to deliver them. Remember those photographs of mid-1945 Berlin, fragments of broken wall sticking up out of vast drifts and dunes of pulverized masonry? Now that’s rubble.

Oh, and we won that war."

That is certainly refreshing. He just loved the Hun suffering. Ooh, forgot to mention that arm sticking up through that rubble.

Of course, that his point is ridiculous goes without saying. No expert has ever suggested that conventional bombing won the war in Europe. I hate to jog anyone's memory as I know of my own early onset, but it was the Big One that ended the Pacific War.

Now, we brushed aside Saddam's army to get to Baghdad. Does Derb suggest that we should have just bombed for forty five days and then proceeded to the same results? Is he suggesting that we withdraw and start a course of heavy bombing and then go back in and then we will get the march to Jeffersonian democracy?

Oh well, usually he makes much better sense. Anyway, as he kinda turned his back on the war, he has to keep up some hard guy cred. Once a chickenhawk......

It's too bad, because I do like consistency. I want my jerks to be jerks all the time. Not John. His War Against White Trash a few week before was dead on and he is usually interesting.

Anyway, I don't believe in sanity. I've never known anyone who was not afflicted with doublethink (i.e. act of holding two contradictory beliefs simultaneously, fervently believing both, and being unaware of their incompatibility). Heck, I'm sure I practice it myself, but of course, I'm more humble about it.

So, I'll continue to read him as he is often quotable and I'm often lazy.

And if he wants to argue that we start a five year carpet bombing campaign against the whole Middle East, it would be no stupider than our current policy.

John Derbyshire, my favorite hooligan.

I should have expected it

I think it was the Summer of '84. We were all gathered in Worcester as the candidate was about to swing through and was going to meet our group among others. He was moving up and if he was successful, his incumbency would carry him through other campaigns, but this one would be tough and nothing could be taken for granted. I believe he would have met with the Massachusetts chapter of the National Association for Man Hamster Love if it existed.

So in he comes and shakes hands all around. The first thing everyone noticed about him was how perfectly groomed he was. Think of some guy you know with a rep as a snazzy dresser. Well, forget it, he was a slob beside your man. He looked like a sculpture out of GQ.

So he sits down and we discuss what we want. After some small talk, he agrees to what we ask and get up and leaves. After he is gone we stand for a second. Everyone starts to look at everyone else. We all start to smile and, almost in unison, we say, "We've just been lied to."

In looking back, I can think of what we saw when he talked to us. Well groomed, insincere, polished. One thing though, he did not impress anyone as being too sharp. It was a short meeting and it may be unfair. there are some people after a few minutes, right or wrong, you say, wow, there's a bright lad or lass. Not him.

I guess by now I should not be surprised by what John Kerry says.

I was wrong

There is a folk tale from my neck of the woods.* A car gets a flat in front of a State Hospital. The driver gets out to fix it. He jacks it up and takes off the bolts. Accidentally, he kicks over the hubcap where he has placed the bolts and they roll down the sewer. He yells out in despair. One of the inmates comes over to the fence and inquires to the problem. He then says to the driver, "Why don't you take a bolt from each of the other tires and put it on the spare and that will get you to where you can buy new bolts." The driver says, "Gee, that's a good idea. What is somebody as smart as you doing in a place like that." The inmate answered, I may be crazy, but I'm not stupid."

So, what's the point. I just want to cover myself. A few posts ago, I made the point that W is not stupid. I stand by that point. John Kerry is stupid and has given another example to prove it. I am not certain W is sane. If he bombs Iran, it will either prove him crazy or his advisors. I have nothing against the insane, but if their actions will bring harm to the interests of my country and myself, I have a problem.

I hope William S. Lind's column of October 31, 2006 is wrong about the administration's intentions, but if it is not, the consequences he outlines are sure to happen. Steve Sailer says that there is not much to the Iranian military. He is probably right in that they do not have all the spiffy gear our troops possess. They don't need it to cause a lot of trouble for us. Iran does not have to have an up to date military to just disrupt oil supplies from the Gulf. Maybe I am just a nervous nellie, but that scares me, a lot.

Therefore, I am changing my tune from my last post. The dems are still primitives, but some of them could prove useful. Any dem who promises to agitate for impeachment and trial should receive your vote. In the unlikely event a GOPer promises it, vote for him. I don't care if the pres is kicked out of office at the end of the day, as Cheney is no prize. I just want to cause maximum distraction for the remainder of the term. Of course, in the one party state I come from, however I vote changes nothing. I will still be able to safely vote for neither the Cargo Cult nor the other gang of charlatans.

Oh, that state nuthouse of the folk tale. It is closed. some of those places deserved to be shut. Unfortunately, closing them all was a mistake. Ralph Peters has proved that complete de-institutionalization of the insane was a big mistake. Of course, sometimes you can't tell the players from the spectators in that sport and he may have a marketable treatment and a book out of his idea of "therapeutic violence."

*You may have the same folk tale, but I claim we had it first.

Don't be a primitive

Udolpho's post Eight reasons not to vote for the Republicans… is dead on. Unless your rep is truly deserving of your vote (someone like Ron Paul) a vote for a Republican is a vote for nothingness, a void. The current Republican party is Dorothy Parker's "there is no there there."

The Democrat Party is another thing altogether. It is a cargo cult masquerading as a political association. It promises everything to everybody. To be a member of a cargo cult is to mark yourself as a primitive. Vote for the Natural Law Party before you vote Democrat!

In fact, I always support the Natural Law Party's presidential candidate. After all anyone who cannot only run the country, but can also serve as his own Airforce One deserves every citizen's consideration.

Quintilius Varus, give me back my legions

{Blogging is not as easy as it looks. I started a couple of times and never got too far so, as I play for time, here is something from the past. This was originally published September, 2002. There were rumblings of the we need a draft sort and I think my original idea was to set forth some reasons why that was not on. As I am probably in need of some medication, but would forget to take it even if prescribed, things started to ramble.

I was wrong on the course that the occupation has taken. I thought the resistance would not arise for long while. After all we are dealing with a people who have a proverb that goes, "You must kiss the hand you cannot bite." I thought they would suck us dry while taking our measure before they started shooting at our troops.}

"Quintilius Varus, give me back my legions"

I think I was about eight years old when I first read those lines. Not at all a precocious child, I'd heard some older family members talk about the Roman Empire and went to the local branch library to ask if there was something I could read. The two lovely women who ran the place always got excited if a kid showed some interest in books. Though they did not have a budding scholar on their hands, they did find me a book that began with Aeneas and ended with Odovacer.

The Roman defeat and loss of three legions at the Teutoburger Wald in A.D. 9 are the origin of the words of the title. Augustus screamed them as he would beat his head against the door posts. It was a disaster for Rome that could not have happened. Heretofore hapless German tribes caught the legions of Rome in a giant ambush on ground unfavorable and annihilated them.

A tribal leader, Arminius, had been watching the Romans for quite awhile. He studied their tactics, he studied their leaders and he was ready when his opportunity came.

So what? There were many military defeats in history. Why is this one so important? After all, Rome herself had suffered much worse and she would continue on for a few hundred years more as a going enterprise.

It was serious because Rome was never able to raise those legions again and this may have implications for us as well. Augustus had been trying to establish a stable frontier in the north. He had made great progress toward the goal under the able generals, his stepsons, Drusus and Tiberius. At Teutoberger Wald, the able generals were not there. Instead, as it was, or seemed, peaceful enough, the region was left in the care of Varus, a political appointee. Military historian J.F.C Fuller called him a "camp attorney." Of course no such animal could ever infest our military.

When Augustus learned of the debacle, he did beat his head against the wall, but he also set to work. To bring Roman forces back to strength, he set to calling up the available men of military age. According to the historian Dio, "when no men of military age showed a willingness to be enrolled, he made them draw lots, depriving of his property and disenfranchising every fifth man of those still under thirty-five and every tenth man amongst those who had passed that age. Finally, as a great many paid no heed to him even then, he put some to death." All this to little avail.

Thus ended the democratic and patriotic army of Rome. In the future, it would be an army of mercenaries. Oh, Roman citizens would still man the legions for a long time, but they would be of the under classes (as they had mostly been since Marius) and of naturalized peoples from many nations. Most who enlist for twenty plus years are thinking more of the reward for service and less duty, honor and country, even if they do have an affection for such sentiments. Or so it has been my observation.

So why implications for us? 911 has given us an outpouring of patriotic fervor not seen in my lifetime. Everyone seems to have a flag in front of their house and a window decal or a "These colors don't run" bumper sticker. However this has not translated in a rush to the colors, understandable in that Admiral Bin Laden did not launch his attack with a carrier fleet and an expeditionary force and did not seize Puerto Rico preparatory to an assault on Little Havana. Still, if President Bush had gone on television the night of the attack and had said, "I am therefore asking Americans of military age to join the armed forces of this country that we might defeat this most grave challenge," does anyone believe that the call would have been answered? Certainly, there would be some small increase in enlistments, but the US Army is sold as an opportunity for self fulfillment. The recruiting ad slogans were, "Be all that you can be," and are now, "An army of one." Of course, "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" would not sell even if our young people knew what it meant. The smell of battle will not bring an avalanche of recruits.

From the Civil War to World War II, during wartime, we had a democratic army. By that, I mean there was general participation with a lot of enlistments and, other than a few Civil War draft riots, the rest made up with conscription that was not resisted. During a rare moment of lucidity while pretending to be a college student, I remember a professor talking about Helmuth von Moltke. This Prussian general had come to the United States to observe the American Civil War. The lecturer mentioned how von Moltke had observed the railroads in America and went home to invest and make a killing in German trains. Von Moltke also had another observation. He contradicted any idea that the spread of democracy would lead to a more peaceful world. Rather, democracy would lead to mass armies as the whole nation needed to be involved in the war effort and the people propagandized for the national crusade.

Time has dulled my memory, so I do not claim to have the general's thoughts right. I have searched half heartedly to find his writings on the subject and failed. Even so, I think World Wars I and II prove the point sufficiently.

We were able to keep our democratic military through Korea and part of the Vietnam war. As the Vietnam war progressed (or didn't), one portion of the age group subjected to conscription revolted. This seems a bit surprising in that if you were a college student at the time, you were exempt and I knew almost no one who had to serve even after graduation. If you could not find some excuse or physician to ease you out of harm's way, your parents had wasted the tuition. Notice how a lot of today's cheerleaders (Cheney, Bennett, Wolfowitz et al) never went. A mind is a terrible thing to waste.

Nevertheless, as more American youth are co-opted into the maw of the education industry, they seem to feel they are part of an elite even if they are majoring in bowling science at Pepperidge Farm Junior College. They may condescend to "volunteer" in the Freedom Corps* if the stipend is ample, the honor great and the burden light, but military service is something they will avoid like the plague and short of Augustus coming back to execute the recalcitrant, will fight any attempt at a draft.

Alas, it is doubtful that we shall suffer a defeat on the scale of the Teutoburger Wald. It may be possible that a small team of terrorists could place a mine that would be able to sink a navy vessel with significant loss of life, but such an event would take immense skill and even greater luck. What is more likely is that we'll be bled over time. No matter. Our Teutoberger Wald really was the Viet Nam war. Our Varus was the "Camp Attorney" Westmoreland.

Today, only the underclass serves as enlisted men in the combat arms. The implications of this are many. As the section of the population that has received the least of the benefits of our prosperity, they will have the greatest tendency to be mercenary about their service. Any loyalty will be first and foremost to their fellow soldiers who share the same burdens. As time goes on, these feelings can only intensify.

One would also suspect that we would see a deterioration in Reserve and the National Guard reenlistments. You saw all those lads and lassies at the airport or some other facility during what everyone understood was an emergency. Well if we are going to constantly call up units for overseas and other duty, something has to give. It is one thing to have a claim on you for the big event, quite another thing to be subjected to mobilization after mobilization in a force used for international adventure as opposed to national defense.

How all this is to develop over time can only be rank speculation. I assure everyone that had I any confidence in my own abilities as a seer, I would take them to the stock market or Foxwoods and with the results, hire a staff to help my screed appear more polished. Still, I aver my abilities are no worse than the average blogger. So let us go forth.

While the civilian defense establishment gets bolder, the actual military brass will get more timorous. We see this happening already. From Colin Powell being (rightly) appalled by Madeline Albright's remark on what good is it if you can't beat up someone to the generals' reaction to all the DoD staff yelling to get Saddam. One set gets to play chess and the other, twister. The boys with toys are saying they don't have enough and the warmongers are claiming Hussein has just about everything one could want in the way of WMDs and has cleverly hid them under every mattress in Mesopotamia.

I suspect that a squad of PX managers could probably defeat Iraq. According to David Hackworth, whom I heard commenting on a local talk show, we only needed a third of what we sent to Gulf Storm** and I doubt, considering all the problems he has had that Saddam has been able to rebuild his forces such that we need worry. Also, I doubt anyone really wants to stay long in the field in his service. Surely, a heck of a lot of Iraqis are looking forward to our reign. These are a people with a long history of cynicism of big government. Heck, they invented both big government and the cynicism thereof. No doubt they are audibly salivating on how they can manipulate our occupation forces who will be staying a long time if they get there. After all, the only successful "exit strategy" we have ever executed was at the end of the Viet Nam War. Maybe I'm wrong and Iraq will give us a black eye before succumbing and the warmongers will be chastened, though I doubt it.

The Iraq adventure should be popular and everyone should enjoy the spectacle. Adam Smith explained it thus:

"In great empires the people who live in the capital, and in the provinces remote from the scene of action, feel, many of them scarce any inconveniency from the war; but enjoy, at their ease, the amusement of reading in the newspapers the exploits of their own fleets and armies. To them this amusement compensates the small difference between the taxes which they pay on account of the war, and those which they have been accustomed to pay in time of peace. They are commonly dissatisfied with the return of peace, which puts an end to their amusement, and to a thousand visionary hopes of conquest and national glory, from a longer continuance of the war."

In the absence of a draft, it should all be great fun to watch.

Of course over time, it should get expensive, if only for Flyover Nation. Foreign adventure, whether one calls it imperialism, colonialism or benevolent hegemony, always has a constituency. Conquistadors or patroons, some crucial class wants something and has the influence to get it, while the rest of the country gets little but expense. In our case, being a nobody from nowhere, I can't say who exactly is pushing what in what proportion. Still, there are many well connected. There are a number of centers of power that would benefit from our world mission. From oil companies to military contractors to some deputy something who dreams of his own bureaucratic mini empire as well as allies who need a favor. Of course, when the contractors who build Camp Babylon are about to be paid, it is not likely they will request a reduction in their stipend as their part in the War on Terror. In the next several years we can expect to see a lot of profits privatized and costs socialized.

Is there anything that could stop the trend as it is now developing. It does not look so. President Bush said at West Point that we're the good guys and we have the right to get the bad guys anywhere anytime, and, by jingo, we can do it. True, the polls show that people don't think we are winning, but that probably does not translate into a lot of dissent. An occasional scare on US soil can allow the government to justify support for taking the war to the terrorists. No, things should continue on the same way until it collapses naturally.

It matters not what you call it, the old Marxist "correlation of forces" or the alignment of the planets, things should continue to go forward no matter the administration (I remember conservatives moaning that there had been more deployments in the Clinton administration than in......). Could anything stop it? Well yes, say we alienate enough Afghanis such that they go after us as they did the Russians. Say the rebels are successful in Columbia such that only US troops could prop up the regime and we took the bait. If both groups could bleed us enough such that we had to make ever larger commitments of troops, maybe a reassessment would be possible. My guess is that our "best and brightest" are smart enough to devise a strategy of an acceptable level of mayhem such that the bleeding won't be noticeable until the last drop has drained away. Our army will change, our nation will change until Odovacer drags Romulus Augustulus out of the Oval Office.


* Freedom Corps as I vaguely remember it was in the wake of 911 a briefly proposed new children's crusade outfit.

**Of course on the same talk show, Hack hailed the capture of Padilla as a great intel coup even though a former deputy director in State's office of counterterrorism said he "couldn't make a dirty burrito, never mind a dirty bomb."

Sorry, his mistake

One of our country's most self beloved chickenhawks has admitted the Iraq war was a mistake. Jonah can't tell us the truth outright and just say I was absolutely wrong about this. No, to him it was a worthy mistake.

Of course, how worthy a mistake it was is a question we are not able to put to the soldiers who are now beyond answering, but so what? Jonah was happy to cheerlead, but while ever ready to sit down to the keyboard, was never one to step up to the plate, I mean recruiting office. He gave as his excuse "I'm 35 years old, my family couldn't afford the lost income, I have a baby daughter, my a** is, er, sorry". He later had to apologize for this, as it was well pointed out to him that there were 35 year olds with kids and non lush financial circumstances who were humpin in the Mesopotamian field, but fortunately, he does not long agonize over his mistakes. A strength we can all envy.

I'm sorry, I was against this war from the beginning. I knew it was a fraud from well before day one. How you may ask could a nobody from a backwater know such a thing. I was born and raised in a state unexcelled for its culture of corruption. Politicians from Louisiana could learn a few tricks. A lot of it is done without any bribery. No, it is done much more smoothly. first, someone starts mentioning un met needs. Then, the newspapers have articles that morph the un met need into a crisis. State reps and senators start using phrases like " we need to do it for the children" and "the kids are our future." Soon enough there is a new state agency and cronies are being hired all over the place.

It was a little bit different with the war drumbeat. First, we have Iraq mentioned as part of the Axis of Evil. Then, do we remember the Anthrax scare? I do. I remember pundits hot for action, for others of course. As I live up on a hill, I can get Boston stations on the car radio. One talk show host, Jay Severin was shilling for the war big time. One afternoon he breathlessly intoned that it was reported that the anthrax involved in the letters had the footprint of an Iraqi lab and that if it did have that footprint, then, "We are at war with Iraq." Cut to a break.

The anthrax scare faded away but the drumbeat continued. I remember some peacenik type acquaintances talking about going down to New York for a march and hearing them hopeful about stopping the juggernaut. I remember telling them that the people who want the war, can have the war and that is that. Of course that was discounted, but that is life. If common sense had ever prevailed in this country, the slogan would have been, Forget the Maine. Contriving a war has a history here.

Some of the propaganda was so obviously stupid that it embarrasses me as an American to think it was said and quoted. Condoleeza Rice's remark about the smoking gun turning out to be a mushroom cloud was, maybe, the worst. A few unfortunates might have believed that Iraq was somewhat near the bomb, but no one suggested they had any inkling of a delivery system. So, Condi, how were they to get it to a target? "Quick Achmed, get it on to the donkey cart, we will get it on a cargo ship as part of a shipment of dates and when it gets to New York Harbor, it gets set off. I volunteer you, Achmed, for this important mission."

Let me admit, I am for cutting and running. Jonah is not. In one of the dumbest analogies ever he writes, A doctor will warn that if you see a man stabbed in the chest, you shouldn’t rush to pull the knife out. So, Jonah probably feels that if you wander into a burning house, you should make yourself a cup of tea, sit down and drink it while reading the paper rather than rushing out. Of course Jonah forgets to mention that stabbing was a self inflicted wound.

There is no winning in Iraq. We don't have an enemy from whom we can take the surrender ala the Japanese on the Missouri, or Lee at Appomattox. We don't even have an enemy we could surrender to if we wanted to. So, we are going to leave eventually. If anyone reading thinks staying in an unwinnable war is worth it, maybe you will volunteer to explain it to the next of kin of the men who will be killed until we finally say au revoir. Heck, explain it to me. No, cutting and running is the plan, now or later, whether under Bush, President Hillary or President McCain.

Of course, Jonah has a plan.

"According to the conventional script, if I’m not saying “bug out” of Iraq, I’m supposed to say “stay the course.” But there’s a third option, and, funnily enough, I found it in an old column of mine (journalistic taboos be damned!). I think we should ask the Iraqis to vote on whether U.S. troops should stay.

Polling suggests that they want us to go. But polling absent consequences is a form of protest. With accountability, minds may change and appreciation for the U.S. presence might grow.

If Iraqis voted “stay,” we’d have a mandate to do what’s necessary to win, and our ideals would be reaffirmed. If they voted “go,” our values would also be reaffirmed, and we could leave with honor. And pretty much everyone would have to accept democracy as the only legitimate expression of national will.

Finishing the job is better than leaving a mess. And if we can finish the job, the war won’t be remembered as a mistake."

Okay, so they vote and say stay and we fight it out for twenty years and thousands of casualties. So, how will the war not be remembered as a mistake. They can vote now by universal support for our mission if they wanted to, but they don't, or not enough of them do.

No, cut and run. Tell Jonah admitting denial is the first step (it is, isn't it?).

Is there no other way. Well, there is one other way. Mind you, I don't endorse it. Still, I believe it recognizes the reality of Iraq. The land between the Tigris and Euphrates is where big government was invented, not to mention cynicism regarding big government. These people will never buy the we are here for you, let's spread democracy, by the way are there sufficient women in your graduate petro engineering classes silliness. They know what works and we are spreading something else.

Before we invaded Iraq was either a perfectly good dysfunctional country or a horribly bad functional country. There was reasonable freedom of religion and hospitals and schools functioned. Our sanctions distorted the economy, but at least there was an economy. It is not a good model, but in some form or other it is what works there.

I know what you're thinking. Yes, I know he has had a rest and is bored with the trial, but no. Saddam can suffer whatever court structure they have there can hand him. We are not going to help him no matter how many times he shows that picture with his buddy Don Rumsfeld.

What we need to do is find the smartest, toughest guy in the country. I would throw one other criterion into the mix. I would want us to look for the most decent smartest, toughest guy in the country. It should be made clear to him he has a country to run and all we ask is he just run it. We would like to buy some gas when he has cowed the country into some semblance of order, but he needs fear nothing as long as he does not bother us.

Actually, we should just bug out. We'll screw up this selection process as well.

No matter what the boy thinks, it was not a "worthy mistake." It was just a dumb war and it won't get any smarter.

A couple of posts worth reading here and here.