Cowboys and Liberals

Judith Warner is a bestselling author and a blogger at the NYT who produces (I have learned today) a blog called "Domestic Disturbances." Her writing was panned by Prof. Kenneth Anderson, who called it condescending. I have only read the one piece of it she wrote, so I won't say he's wrong as a general thing: but I thought this was a piece that showed a great deal of the right spirit. Let me explain.

She writes about attending a McCain-Palin rally in Virginia. She confesses that she intended to go as a joke, and to mock the attendees -- but she ends up being taken by the kindness of the strangers, their hopes for Gov. Palin, and the evident joy of their lives. It scares the hell out of her.

No, it wasn’t funny, my morning with the hockey and the soccer moms, the homeschooling moms and the book club moms, the joyful moms who brought their children to see history in the making and spun them on the lawn, dancing, when music played. It was sobering. It was serious. It was an education....

For those of us who can’t tap into those yearnings, it seems the Palin faithful are blind – to the contradictions between her stated positions and the truth of the policies she espouses, to the contradictions between her ideology and their interests. But Jonathan Haidt, an associate professor of moral psychology at the University of Virginia, argues in an essay this month, “What Makes People Vote Republican?”, that it’s liberals, in fact, who are dangerously blind.

Haidt has conducted research in which liberals and conservatives were asked to project themselves into the minds of their opponents and answer questions about their moral reasoning. Conservatives, he said, prove quite adept at thinking like liberals, but liberals are consistently incapable of understanding the conservative point of view.

Now that's a start. Let's explore it a bit.

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"Confessions of a Car Salesman"

In light of the events related here, I am reading up on buying cars.

If you're in the market, too, then read, "Confessions of a Car Salesman" at Edmunds.com. Enlightening!

I have not bought a new car in many years. One of the advantages of buying a used car (apart from letting the original buyer get soaked by depreciation) is that it's much harder for a salesman to "bump" you - get you to agree to high-cost extras. The car is what it is. Its options are already installed. All they can do is try to sell you high-profit items such as a used-car warranty, but these are easy to turn down.

I saw a new car in a display in the local mall last week that had $2,500 of dealer-added cost, things like "anti-theft engraving" on the windshield, "paint protection" (a plain wax job), fabric protection" (Scotch-Gard sprayed on) and other junk like that. Another article on Edmunds told of a man who was thrilled to get a price via fax for a new, hard-to-find Lexus that was only $500 over invoice. So thrilled that he closed the deal before he even saw the car or closely reviewed the sales documents. He just signed his name away.

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No Ditz Left Behind

This past weekend I was surfing through TV channels while making a long-overdue attempt at organizing some records when I chanced on the Steven Seagal movie Under Seige. While I'm an admirer (and one time beginning student) of his martial art (Aikido, not Karate-do), I seldom watch action movies of that sort so I missed this one when it came out in 1992. I gather it attracted a large audience at the time though. Watching it, I can see why.

It's all about that deep American value: No Ditz Left Behind

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Honor/Shame, the Middle East and the American Left

The Gospel of Luke 14:1, 7-24:

14 On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the Sabbath ... . 7 When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. 8"When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; 9 and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, 'Give this person your place,' and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. 10 But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, 'Friend, move up higher'; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. 11 For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted."

That last paragraph isn't the parable, by the way, which is found in vv. 16-24. Jesus's discourse on jockeying for position illuminates the kind of cultural values that Jesus grew up in 2,000 years ago, and which is still found across most of the Middle East today (and, in his renunciation of those values, helps explain why he made such powerful enemies). Cultures of honor and shame are literally foreign to Western minds. Matters of honor and shame have certainly been powerful in Western history, but such concerns have always been tempered and tamped by Jesus's teachings that "all who exalt themselves will be humbled." And the twentieth century's blood-drenched years did nothing to preserve the concept, either. Jonathan Rauch, writing in National Journal, explains,

Singularly, however, the West has backed away from honor. Under admonitions from Christianity to turn the other cheek and from the Enlightenment to favor reason over emotion, the West first channeled honor into the arcane rituals of chivalry, then folded it into a code of manly but magnanimous Victorian gentlemanliness -- and then, in the 20th century, drove it into disrepute. World War I and the Vietnam War were seen as needless butcheries brought on by archaic obsessions with national honor; feminism and the therapeutic culture taught that a higher manly strength acknowledges weakness.

He goes on to explain that in Arab culture, one's standing in the community is of paramount importance. What Easterners call "saving face" is a real force in the Middle East. Why else, Rauch asks, would Saddam lie about possessing WMDs, knowing that the lies could bring about his downfall and demise? "Saddam was more concerned about saving face -- preserving his reputation for being fierce and formidable -- than about his office or even his life. Indeed, he could not feel otherwise and still count himself a man."

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On The Tragedy Of Opposing Islam

This post was prompted by the thread of the post Who's Afraid of Islam? by Joe Katzman (link), AMac's request, (link), and a number of very good statements made lately by outstanding people who are Muslims, speaking more than five years after 11 September 2001, but still (or for the first time) speaking as isolated individuals, when history has moved on.

Now that Iran is embarked on what looks like a final drive to manufacture nuclear weapons and now that North Korea is nuclear armed and may put its products up for sale, some regrets are too late. I think time is running out, and we have to deal with the Islam we have already encountered, not with a post-reform Islam that we might imagine and would prefer to have encountered.

I will say what it is that I think we have encountered as it relates to us as a challenge and a threat (not in itself, as I have no claim to be an expert on the inner spirit of Islam), and some of what is to be done, in what spirit.

I think that considering the splendid personal character of many of the people who are on the opposite side in this fight, or who will wind up on the opposite side as events unfold, we ought to regard this as a bloody tragedy. And I think we have to accept that, and press on anyway. I think we should fight boldly, fiercely and proactively for certain key values such as freedom of religion and freedom of speech, to protect the lives and dignity of those who exercise those freedoms, especially against Islam, and intentionally to diminish Islam, which threatens them. I do not think that we can get out of this fight or prevail otherwise.

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Why North Korea is the Wrong Focus

As fate would have it, I was sitting in a local Italian restaurant with Marc Armed "Liberal" Danziger when the call came in at around 8:30pm California time. Kim Jong-Il, the star of "Team America: World Police" and also incidentally the ruler of North Korea, had set off a nuke. Later research at home turns up the 4.2 quake near Chongjin, an area that doesn't have much of anything in the way of seismic activity history. That isn't a 100% lock as a nuke test... but I'd put it around 90%. Especially given that a Hiroshima size nuke in a chamber 100-150 ft. cubed would be expected to produce about this size quake.

So the day has likely come, as it inevitably had to. And with it comes the question: "Now what?"

And my first answer is: Forget North Korea. No proposal involving their government, from idiotic talk of sanctions (what, we're going to cut Kim out of the movie remake?) to even dumber and more craven responses around "rewards" (read: appeasement and a license to keep cheating) is worth even 10 seconds of your time. Search and boarding activities for ships from North Korea may be helpful, and preparations for that have been underway for a while, but ultimately this doesn't solve the problem and raises risks whenever used.

If you want to fix the problem, you have to see and understand the lever.

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War or No War

The op-ed by Todd Beamer's father, based on the Flight 93 movie, is behind the subscription firewall at the WSJ. Cardinalpark, however, has a key excerpt up over at Tigerhawk:

"This film further reminds us of the nature of the enemy we face. An enemy who will stop at nothing to achieve world domination and force a life devoid of freedom upon all. Their methods are inhumane and their targets are the innocent and unsuspecting. We call this conflict the "War on Terror." This film is a wake-up call. And although we abhor terrorism as a tactic, we are at war with a real enemy and it is personal.

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Credo: "America Is Our Child"

Patriotism is a bad word. America is not our daddy (patria). It is our child, raised again by us each generation, our inescapable responsibility, to be praised often, corrected when necessary, loved and protected always.

Michael Ware and the Law of Unintended Consequences

On March 28, Michael Ware, Time�s Baghdad bureau chief, gave an admirably open interview with Hugh Hewitt about the ethics of war-zone journalism and its reduction to practice in Iraq. Winds covered the interview on March 30. Reflecting on The Issue of Faked War Photos made me want to touch on this story once more.

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Some First Thoughts on Propaganda

So I've been working on the media piece - about the role of media in creating and nurturing national mood - and, of course it's impossible (for me, anyway) to digest what I'm seeing down into a blog post because it's a woolly topic and one where I keep picking up threads - Homer! - Habermas! - and following them out to distraction.

Which means I've been reading a lot. I've looked and looked for the pithy quote that sums my position, or even a book to point you to. And to be honest, haven't found it.

The closest things I've found have been in Clausewitz and in Thucydides, about which more later.

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New Energy Currents, March 2006: Deep Currents

Peter and I were unable to get together this month's 'New Energy Currents' postings due to various unavoidable professional and academic obligations - including a mind-expanding take-home midterm for my Alternative Energy Resources class, in which I sit in a room with a bunch of engineers and try and do my best impression of being able to understand these science guys when they talk about the mechanical/physical/chemical principles underlying various alternative energy technologies. Interesting for sure, but no fun - I feel really unhappily out of touch when I don't have time for the monthly energy plow.

Fortunately, it's karmically consoling that one of my teachers from that same class, Dr. Klaus Lackner, has just published an excellent paper (with bigshot Jeffrey Sachs), "A Robust Strategy For Sustainable Energy" (PDF) that covers much of the next few years' worth of energy news in one (long) shot. You can read the press release for the report here (via Gary Jones, who has some typically worthy words on this), but the translation into enviro press release-ese doesn't really reflect the breadth of the perspective presented in the full paper, which you can and should check out here [PDF format] if you're at all interested in this issue. The authors themselves sum up their work as follows, emphases added:

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2010 Words re: The European Cartoon Controversy

Background.

al-Kafirun are free, and we don't have to submit.

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Just A Second � It�s Not That Dark Yet (And We Have A Really Big Flashlight)

�Diplomacy is the art of saying �nice doggie� while reaching for a stick.�

Tom and Joe have (respectively) blogged the case for immediately and unilaterally invading or bombing Iran in response to their obvious intention and capability to build nuclear weapons: The Case for Invading Iran and Our Darkening Sky: Iran and the War.

I�m unconvinced, and I think that they are overlooking several critical points which need to be considered in making a decision of this import.

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Our Darkening Sky: Iran and the War

"I tell you naught for your comfort,
Yea, naught for your desire,
Save that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher.

Night shall be thrice night over you,
And heaven an iron cope.
Do you have joy without a cause,
Yea, faith without a hope?"
  -- G.K. Chesterton, The Ballad of the White Horse

In the wake of Tom Holsinger's article "The Case For Invading Iran," I was going to enter a comment, but it became long enough to deserve a full post. To begin with, it's time to lay my own cards on the table.

I personally believe that we're very likely to see at least 10 million dead in the Middle East within the next two decades, with an upper limit near 100 million. I do not believe pre-emptive action will be taken against Iran. I do, however, believe the extremist mullahs in Iran mean exactly what they say. They are steeped in an ideology that believes suicide/murder to be the holiest and most moral act possible. They have been diligent in laying strategic plans for an offensive Islamic War against Israel, America and the West. Plans backed by 25 years of action, and stated no less clearly than Mein Kampf. I believe that Ahmedinajad's talk of 12th Imam end-times and halos around his head at the UN aren't the ravings of an isolated nut, simply an unusually public (and unusually noticed) expression of beliefs that are close to mainstream within their ruling class. That class of "true believer" imams and revolutionary guard types have been quietly consolidating their control over all sectors of Iranian society over the last few months, and I do not believe anyone in the world today has both the will and the capability to stop them. A key pillar of The Bush Doctrine is about to fail.

At some point within the next decade, therefore, I believe that they will not only have nuclear weapons, but that they will act to make good on their stated beliefs and plans. With eventual "3 Conjectures" level results as noted above. I hope you're all invested in solar, folks, and have some panels up on your houses.

It gets worse.

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The Case for Invading Iran

by Thomas Holsinger

America has come to another turning point � whether our inaction will again engulf the world and us in a nightmare comparable to World War Two. This will entail loss of our freedom as the price of domestic security measures against terrorist weapons of mass destruction, though we might suffer nuclear attack before implementing those measures. The only effective alternative is American use of pre-emptive military force against an imminent threat � Iranian nuclear weapons, which requires that we invade Iran and overthrow its mullah regime as we did to Iraq�s Baathist regime.

All the reasons for invading Iraq apply doubly to Iran, and with far greater urgency. Iran right now poses the imminent threat to America which Iraq did not in 2003. Iran may already have some nuclear weapons, purchased from North Korea or made with materials acquired from North Korea, which would increase its threat to us from imminent to direct and immediate.

Iran�s mullahs are about to produce their first home-built nuclear weapons this year. If we permit that, many other countries, some of whose governments are dangerously unstable, will build their own nuclear weapons to deter Iran and each other from nuclear attack as our inaction will have demonstrated our unwillingness to keep the peace. This rapid and widespread proliferation will inevitably lead to use of nuclear weapons in anger, both by terrorists and by fearful and unstable third world regimes, at which point the existing world order will break down and we will suffer every Hobbesian nightmare of nuclear proliferation.

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Winners: 2005 Milbloggies (Best Military Blogs on the Internet)

It�s been three months since Milblogging.com debuted. 1,067 military blogs, 22 countries, 1,072 registered members, a plug on Rush Limbaugh, one action movie, and four hundred cases of Red Bull Engery Drink later, today, I�m proud to announce the winners of the 2005 MILBLOGGIES --- winners of the best military blogs on the internet.

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3 Touchstones, 3 Conjectures

(Originally published Sept. 8, 2004)

Some essays are so good that they become touchstones for discussion throughout the blogosphere. Recent updates to one of the items on this list, plus Iran's ambitions and atomic weapons program, make these essays more timely than ever.

• Steven Den Beste's straightforward, point form explanation of the Global War on Terror's strategy, aims and rationale in 2003 is one of the all-time touchstones. In Novmber 2005, Tigerhawk updated it. Den Beste's assessment: "excellent."

• American Digest's "The First Terrorist War" clearly explains of the stakes we face - avoiding the Islamic War by winning the Terrorist War - and much else besides (Hat Tip: reader John Simutis for finding it again). For a more visceral understanding of that concept, sci-fi writer Dan Simmons' story "The Time Traveler" and his excellent May 2006 follow-up discussion about that story are your best bet. All this ties nicely into...

• Wretchard's famous and chilling "3 Conjectures":

Conjecture 1: Terrorism has lowered the nuclear threshold
Conjecture 2: Attaining WMDs will destroy Islam
Conjecture 3: The War on Terror is the 'Golden Hour' -- the final chance

Belmont Club also has an important postscript that sums it all up so very well:

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Remembrance Day, 2005

On the 11th hour, of the 11th day, of the 11th month, the guns ceased. Today, the British Commonwealth countries remember those who came before, and those who came after, and all who have given in their nation's service. Americans know this day as Veteran's Day, and a number of European countries know it as Armistice Day.

Too many others have said it better than I can, so I'll just let them do so:

• Must-Sees: Armed Liberal; Support the Troops; Destroying Hitler's birthday cake...
• Remembrance Day: Background
• Canada's Remembrance
• Veteran's Day, USA
• Stories from Today's Front Lines: Heroes, Soldiers, et. al.
• Commentary

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How To Support The Troops

(published March 24, 2003; last updated November 11, 2005)

Stuck on the home front, but still want to make a difference in the War on Terror? Well, one of the unique features of our Internet and 4th Generation Warfare is that you can. The explosion of direct citizen-soldier and citizen-citizen assistance opportunities is unprecedented - and you can be a part of it!

The U.S. Dept. of Defense keeps a list of organizations at America Supports You. We continue to update our compilation here because [a] it includes troops from other nations and related efforts as well; [b] we offer explanations and personal recommendations, not just a list; and [c ] we offer resources they don't - such as advice for gay members of the U.S. military. With that said, there are many worthy organizations at AmericaSupportsYou.com and we recommend it as a resource.

Meanwhile, I'm still updating this list, validating its links and accepting new submissions. On with the show, this is it...

• Advice for Charities on This List
• Battlefront Aid
• Extending a Helping Hand Abroad
• Getting It There
• Australian Forces
• British Forces
• Canadian Forces
• Danish Forces
• Israel
• Polish Forces
• United States of America
  • US Forces: Care Packages & Gifts
  • US Forces: Communications
  • US Forces: Family Assistance
  • US Forces: Foundations & Memoriam
  • US Forces: Other Aid
  • US Forces: Re-integration & Speaking
  • USA: Civilians in the War Zones
• Add to Our List

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9/11 Comprehensive Roundup 2005: Risin' Up From The Ashes...

(This entry originally ran on Sept. 11, 2004 - I've updated it. Hat tip to Canadian rocker Bryan Adams for this post's title)

9/11. Of course you remember where you were. That day was a summons, a call; many answered it, in many different ways. Our team is here because of it. In all probability, so are you.

This September 11th we honour those who answered that call, and those who answer it still. Amidst the clamour and tumult of all the 9/11 related posts and articles over the past 4 years, some stand out and speak more truly to the essence of that dark day - and the challenges that lie before us still.

What part will you play? "Ah," you say, "but I'm not a writer, or a hero." Funny, but I've got a few people in here who would have said the very same thing.

• Fighting Back
• Heroes & Remembrance
• The Twin Towers' Rise... and Fall
• Humour
• Voices from the Aether
• Concluding Thoughts
  

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The Values of Progress

This long essay comprises the text of three lectures I gave at the Near Eastern Studies Department of Princeton University in February 2001 � However, this text was finalized in this final form a year afterwards.

This essay addresses a subject I believe is better suited than any other to launch a constructive intellectual debate in Egypt today and which can, moreover, serve as a rallying point for all intellectuals, whatever their ideological formation.

The philosophical premise from which the essay proceeds is that there exist three frames of reference operating at different levels: humanity, civilization and culture. Civilizations occupy a higher plane than cultures, while humanity occupies a higher plane than both. As such, it can transcend any clash of civilizations or cultures.

Although all the ideas contained in this essay are concerned with the wider notion of humanity, they can serve at the same time to steer the relationship between civilizations on the road towards dialogue, rather than allow it to be swept by a breakdown of communication between them on to the road of conflict and collision. If, as Sartre said, the future is what we make it in the kitchen of the present, the answer to whether we can expect a dialogue between civilizations or a clash of civilizations in future depends on what we do today. Thus the future pattern of interaction between civilizations can be dialogue if we make an effort in the present to steer matters in that direction.

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The Great Pharaoh Cheops at the 7-Eleven Store

In the course of his essay Sanctuary (Part 2), Bill Whittle explored a theme and perspective that I wanted to call to folks' attention. I'd asked him for an inserted anchor that let me jump right to it with a link, but no go. So, as one of those things I've really been meaning to do, I give you... the Pharaoh Cheops, Builder of The Great Pyramid, Visits A Modern 7-11 Store:

"So what can we do?

Well, I have the rest of a book to explore that with you, but we can start with a taste of the One Big Thing. We can stop, in little ways, taking so damned much for granted.

As an exercise in perspective, let's briefly compare our civilization to another. Let's compare our supposedly soulless, banal, hum-drum society to the splendors of ancient Egypt. And let's tie both hands behind our backs while we do so. Let's not compare the Great Pyramid to one of our skyscrapers, or airports, or hospitals, or even our shopping malls. Let's take a moment to compare the Great Pyramid of Cheops with the most common and drab and ordinary structure on the block: The Great Pyramid vs. the 7-11."

You may be tempted to snicker at this point. Keep reading.

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Divine Evolution, and Creationism's Spiritual Ripoff

Here at Winds, we've addressed topics like Intelligent Design, and Creationism, and especially science as a pillar of free socieites. These controversies won't go away. Or will they? What if they could be reconciled?

Frederick Turner has a post on Tech Central Station called Divine Evolution, which looks at what a bridge between evolution and theologies of divine creation might look like in light of everything we know. Modes of creation, strange attractors, multiple universes, freedom of choice in creation... it's all there.

It's pretty close to where I come out on the whole thing, and I recommend it. I'll also throw in one additional piece of the puzzle. An important one.

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French Slavery

Recently I read a piece by an American living in Europe, recounting how he had found himself in heated argument with a Frenchman who hammered him with America's rap sheet of historical faults and crimes -- it looked like the usual list, if you're familiar with that dreary experience.

Among them, of course, was slavery. The American wrote that he largely conceded the point of slavery to his foe, remarking only that it was not really an American institution, just a Southern one.

This seemed lame to me, not only because it was, in fact, a national institution, as I have been at pains to tell people for some years now, but because the American could have turned the tables nicely on the Frenchman, if he'd known a little more about French history.

So, in case this ever happens to you, be prepared. Here's a primer. Really, the essential numbers can be summed up like this:

• Slaver voyages: France, 4,200; British North America/United States, 1,500.
• Slaves transported: France 1,250,000, British North America/United States, 300,000.
• Slaves delivered to: French West Indies: 1,600,000, British North America/United States, 500,000.*

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Living

Here's a bit of personal information about Marcus Cicero.

Today is a milestone anniversary for me. On July 21, 1992, I was gravely ill. A miracle saved my life. Please bear with me with this long explanation of my thirteenth anniversary from zero.

A few weeks before July 21st, I trotted down to San Francisco's New Chinatown to devour dim sum. My favorite establishment had a storefront window sporting mounds of pork bao and other steaming delights. I veered in, filling up on shu mai and har gow. I love those hollow sesame balls, so I had some of those. But I passed on the chicken feet.

Later in the day, my stomach bloated and ached, which was clearly more than just full. That night I had a high fever. For five days I had all the symptoms of food poisoning, with vomiting, diarrhea, fever and dehydration. Even hallucinations.

If it were just Montezuma's revenge, I might have gotten through all the misery and fully recovered. By my sixth day I was feeling somewhat better, though weak with a mild fever. I remember that day. The fog was rolling in, and it was about 4:00 in the afternoon. My temperature was 99�. Not bad, having come down from 105�. I went upstairs for an afternoon nap, to continue my recovery.

I will never forget that nap, which took me to another world. It was like passing through a gateway. In my fever dream I was on an incline covered with grass, trying to roll up hill a boulder in front of me. I remember pushing and pushing, and feeling the boulder bare down on me. I was losing the battle. In the dream I thought, "If only I had the strength. My arms are too weak!"

Then I woke up bathed in salty sweat, partially paralyzed.

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Tony Blair, Islamic Scholar (& Memetic Warrior)

I'm reading a post at AlwaysOn called Tony Blair As An Islamic Scholar, and something crystalized. So I thought I'd throw it out there and share. The author writes:

"Blair is telling us what Islam is and what it stands for - that man has never read Koran, not to mention spending years studying commentaries to it, the way Osama, Taliban scholars and plenty of terrorirsts (not all, of course) do and did. And yet, he believes he knows better than them what Islam is! :)"

I thought about and replied: "Actually, he does know better - just not in the way you think." Let me explain what I mean, and see if it doesn't snap a few things about this war into focus...

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The Alliance: U.S. & India Sign Major 10-Year Defense Pact

Yesterday, in my article on Bangladesh, I noted that the behaviour of its rising Islamists "is slowly forcing the US and India together over common strategic concerns."

Actually, Bangladesh is just one of many - and this week, The United States and India signed a 10-year agreement paving the way for stepped up military ties, including joint weapons production and cooperation on missile defense. Titled the "New Framework for the US-India Defense Relationship" (NFDR), it was signed on June 27/05 by U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and India's Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee.

This is a big deal. A very big deal.

Our readers know that Winds has covered India with enthusiasm and promoted a US-India alliance for a number of reasons. Many of us are fans of the Anglosphere concept, and we also see the economic & cultural trends, historical and geopolitical logic, and moral sense behind such an alliance. I've even advocated a leaf from the British historical playbook via a "Mumbai Doctrine" for the Indian Ocean basin. As Pavitr Prabhakar could tell us, after all, "with great power comes great responsibility."

This agreement doesn't go that far, but it is a very important step. Under the NFDR, Washington has offered high-tech cooperation, expanded economic ties, and energy cooperation. It will also step up a strategic dialogue with India to boost missile defense and other security initiatives, launch a "defense procurement and production group," and work to cooperate on military "research, development, testing and evaluation." Given India's broken military procurement system, the know-how transfer will be every bit as valuable as the technology transfer - maybe more so.

And the agreement doesn't stop there...

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Victory.

Armed Liberal made an excellent point recently in The Cowboy War:

"I didn't watch much TV as a kid... so I'm not sure if the stereotype of the TV cowboy hero who always aims for his opponents gun, and manages to subdue the six or seven bad guys with his fists and a handy lasso was really a television character or just a caricature of one. But it appears that the stereotype lives, in more ways than one, as we try and judge the progress of the war."

That's part of it - but look deeper. In the realm of ideas, of course those who believe in central planning as the path to their ideal society will also believe you should run a perfect war. They're two sides of the same rotten coin. Throw in their basic hostility to the military and the USA as a whole, and you get a self-reinforcing feedback loop between their delusions of central control and their hates. The one is used to justify the other, and vice-versa, and around and around it goes in a vicious, self-perpetuating circle.

Fortunately, there's a solution.

• The Low, Dishonest Road Through Gitmo
• The War Against the West
• The Road to Victory

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The Cowboy War

I didn't watch much TV as a kid (so that explains it...) and so I'm not sure if the stereotype of the TV cowboy hero who always aims for his opponents gun, and manages to subdue the six or seven bad guys with his fists and a handy lasso was really a television character or just a caricature of one.

But it appears that the stereotype lives, in more ways than one, as we try and judge the progress of the war.

Because not only is the war effort being judged against the schedule of a 115-minute Hollywood feature, but we seem to expect that it will be managed according to the precision of a script written in Los Feliz, not in any reality anyone lives in.

Norm Geras writes (once again) the post that's been kicking around in my head for a few months.

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Washing Dishes

The following is the lightly edited transcript of an IM I just had with a friend. I'm thinking about 'washing dishes' as the basis of a personal philosophy, and am interested in what people think:

me: so what's the existential bummer

friend oh the usual shmoo. my therapist says I have death anxiety. well, yeah. so I'm working through that, and figuring out what I really want to do with the next 10-20 years or so. not just what I've been dreaming about doing or what I think I should or what somebody else's good idea is, but coming to some conclusions about that deep-down life eval that started quite a while back and which has been bubbling the last couple of years. and realizing that I have an enormous range of choices and freaking out about which flavor of ice cream to eat first. wondering why the hell I have so much stuff published not in my name... which seems rather self-sabotaging for someone who professes to want to make a living writing. hard to get credit for it if my name's no where near it, right

me: nope, doesn't work too well

me: so - how do you feel about washing dishes

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Achilles Last Stand: The Primal Heroic Response

"If you faint in the day of adversity,
your strength is small.
Rescue those who are being taken away to death;
hold back those who are stumbling to slaughter.
If you say, "Behold, we did not know this,"
does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?"
   -- Proverbs 24: 10-12

I composed this piece in response to Joe's Zimbabwe Changed My Mind: Guns Are A Human Right. (And I must thank Joe for some editing I asked for, but the final result is Nobody's Fault But Mine.) Joe talked about a number of things in his post, but I want to draw on my personal experience in rescue situations and focus on one thing: what makes people act when the chips are down?

Where, in other words, do heroes come from?

It isn't just a rhetorical question - understanding the answer could save somebody's life.

• Perceptions: In Through The Out Door
• Recognition: Dazed And Confused
• Action: In The Light
• Heroism: In My Time of Dying
• Reality: When the Levee Breaks
• Afterthoughts: Ramble On

read the rest! »

Zimbabwe Changed My Mind: Guns Are A Human Right

As many of you know, I'm from Canada. We have a pretty different attitude to guns up here, and I must say that American gun culture has always kind of puzzled me. To me, one no more had a right to a gun than one did to a car.

Well, my mind has changed. Changed to the point where I see gun ownership as being a slightly qualified but universal global human right. A month ago in Yalta, Freedom & The Future, I wrote:

"Frankly, if "stopping... societies from becoming the homicidal hells Mr. Bush described in his Latvia speech" is our goal, I'm becoming more sympathetic to the Right to Bear Arms as a universal human right on par with freedom of speech and religion. U.S. Secretary of State Condi Rice's personal experience as a child in Birmingham [Alabama] adds an interesting dimension; I hope she talks about this abroad."

This week, I took the last step. You can thank Robert Mugabe, too, because it was his campaign to starve his political/tribal opponents and Pol-Pot style "ruralization" effort (200,000 left homeless recently in a population of 12.6 million) that finally convinced me. Here's the crux, the argument before which all other arguments pale into insignificance:

The Right to Bear Arms is the only reliable way to prevent genocide in the modern world.

And Zimbabwe is the poster child for that proposition. So let's start with what's going on:

• Zimbabwe's Slo-Mo Genocide
• Bystanders of the World
• The Dynamics of (In)Action
• Or Else Get Weapons: The Right to Bear Arms

read the rest! »

Guile

I'll be honest: I expect presidents to be masters of guile.

If I were enduring a lawsuit, I would want the shrewdest lawyer in the land to represent me. And whoever represents my country must be shrewd too. Just about every president I can think of was a master at cunningness. They were artists of triple entendre; of evasion, persuasion, and the percipient shell game of power diplomacy.

One notable exception of the shrewd president is Jimmy Carter, the 'Sorrowful President,' who treated his job like he was the Psychologist-in-Chief. I joke sometimes that President Carter should've been impeached just because he was so stolidly honest. How many times did he give away our nation's hand at the poker table?

European leaders are guileful too. Are the EU and countries like France and Germany built on a foundation of truthful, soul-rending and confessional leadership? Hardly. Chirac and Schroeder's impeccable political credentials are dripping with deceit and power mongering. Those guys are even playing against each other, not just us. And really, I hardly expect less. That's The Game. Their oily credentials made them the powerhouses that they are. For better and for worse.

Nixon's executioners, Woodward and Bernstein, and Clinton's, Drudge and Isikoff, received their journalistic pedigrees by skillfully shooting off the presidential fig leaf. Since then, that seems to be the hunting sport of journalist and citizen alike. They each have gold plated fig leafs mounted on plaques in their offices. They're lucky opportunists who got the scoops of their lifetimes, at any cost. Who among us really eschews opportunism, personally? We all do it. Competing in this world has a lot to do with figuring out how to cut ahead in life's implacable lines. Journalism aside, one can only imagine the guile and wit required of Woodward and Bernstein to obtain their golden presidential fig leafs, which must've been downright presidential in intensity.

Awards can be so hollow.

read the rest! »

THIS is a Gulag

Irene Khan, Secretary General of Amnesty International has characterized the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay as �the gulag of our times�, demonstrating her utter lack of perspective or knowledge of history. Anne Applebaum, the author of GULAG: a History, neatly places the Soviet Gulag into the proper historical context (excerpted from a PBS interview and cleaned it up for readability):

It belongs in the context most obviously of the Holocaust, which... killed six million Jews plus many millions of other people plus the enormous destruction of the Second World War. It belongs in the context of the Chinese and Cambodian revolutions and the... famine in China and the culture revolution in China which...which killed-the...Chinese, the experience of Chinese communism is probably in the... many, many tens of millions. The gulag itself� I think my estimate is that some eighteen million people passed through the camps... of which two to three million probably died.

Nationmaster attempts to enumerate the physical toll of the Soviet Gulag system:

read the rest! »

Faith, Freedom, Virtue

As many of you know, Robin Burk started an in-depth discussion a while back in Who Owns God and Politics in the Blogosphere. As someone with a Master of Divinity degree from a Christian seminary, her points about keeping the doors open to other expressions of belief aren't casual and deserve to be taken seriously. This being Winds of Change.NET, they were.

It's a worthy topic. Over the past 20 years, I've seen the libertarian right become more receptive to arguments about the importance of the values that underpin the endurance of their freedoms. I've also seen quite a few social conservatives like Dignan here become more conscious of the importance of the freedoms that underpin the endurance of their values. As Os Guinness puts it, pithily:

"Freedom requires virtue. Virtue requires faith. Faith requires freedom."

So, how do we get there? I'd like to discuss that a bit, address Robin's subject, and show a different facet of Robert M.'s comment in Robin's thread because it may open a few eyes on both sides:

"...what is so scary to many moderate and liberal members of the left is the conviction of "rightness" on the part of the r/c [JK: "religious conservative"]. Even when we agree with the r/c over a particular issue their is a demand that we repent and become true believers. It's repugnant and offensive."

Robert isn't just right - he's really, really right. More than he knows, even.

• Some Thoughts to Ponder if You're a Liberal or Secularist
• Some Thoughts for Religious Conservatives

read the rest! »

Yalta, Freedom & the Future

Daniel Henninger:

"...it's helpful that V-E Day should connect us to past political behavior of real relevance, such as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 or the Yalta Agreement of 1945, both of which Mr. Bush criticized this week.

Diplomacy has its uses, as in negotiating free-trade agreements, but I think that an appraisal of the politics of the 20th century would not conclude that diplomacy would have proven better than overwhelming force, or its threat, at stopping several formerly civilized societies from becoming the homicidal hells Mr. Bush described in his Latvia speech. But is there a better way than mobilizing men at arms?

George Bush gave his answer to that question in Riga, and his answer - a political template for the future - deserves more attention than re-debating the road to ruin at Yalta."

After a century that saw far more people murdered by governments than killed in wartime (169M to 36M, by one estimate), I agree. So let's discuss:

• The Legacy of Yalta
• A Doctrine of Freedom
• Doctrine and Pragmatism
• The Requirements of Liberty
• The Path Ahead

read the rest! »

Newsweek Shows Us Why Media Trust is Plummeting (Updated!)

[Robin Burk's assistance and additions to this article are appreciated]

Reader SAO writes in to ask why we aren't covering the Newsweek story, which incited the deaths of at least 15 people over a poorly-checked, irresponsible report that the magazine itself now admits is probably false. Me, I'm wondering why no-one on Newsweek's staff saw the potential problems with this report at the time, as Glenn Reynolds and others did. Immediately:

"The press is exquisitely sensitive to the risks posed by, say, racial insensitivity in reporting. It's too bad they're not so careful with regard to things that might get American troops killed."

If they did see the problems, why didn't that stop the story, an act that would have carried zero consequences? And if they didn't see those obvious problems, we've got to ask - why not?

Veteran journalist Joe Gandelman has a roundup of reactions left and right, and specifically notes that making these kinds of allegations is part of the al-Qaeda training manual; this makes apologists' references to "similar allegations from other prisoners" rather rich, IMO. Greyhawk adds an excellent post on similar but debunked allegations in the past and the possible origins of Newsweek's story. In the aftermath, Jeff Jarvis has a fine point to make about Newsweek's mischievous CBS-style non-retraction - which is likely to get even more people killed. Satirist Scott "Scrappleface" Ott is funny as always, and Glenn's post-"retraction" roundup offers a fine back and forth getting at the issues and responsibility. Responsibility that includes religious sects who see incitement to violence and murder as an acceptable response in such situations (but not in Iraq, says Omar).

Media double standards and malfeasance? Ya think? But those double-standards matter. They go to the heart of the reason why nobody said 'wait a minute' at Newsweek, why the subsequent insincere "apology" bordered on malice - and why that liberal media continues to be surprised at surveys like this one from UConn:

read the rest! »

Some New Marshals in Town

As blogs grow, the general rule seems to be that their comments sections deteriorate. Winds is determined to buck that trend - and fortunately, we have a pretty solid community on hand. As Chip Morningstar and Randall Farmer explained in The Social Dimensions of Habitat's Citizenry and Habitat Anecdotes, there is a cure:

The path of Ascension

Passive -> Active -> Motivator -> Caretaker -> Geek God

Encourage everyone to move one role to the right, and the result will be a living, self-sustaining and thriving community where new members can always feel encouraged to become vital citizens.

In light of recent events with Paul Lukasiak, we've decided to accelerate a program that has been on the drawing board for a while - and deputize a few Blog Marshals. Allow us to introduce:

read the rest! »

A Walk with the Leaves

I have an image in my mind that I must get out. I hope it fits here.

Yesterday I went to Berkeley to meet a very old friend. I live relatively close to Berkeley -- an old haunt from my youth -- but I avoid the place now. It's just so far gone -- a cartoon of how radicalism can devolve into such ugly extremes. When I went there to escape home life in the 1970s, it was a mellower place, softened by hippy culture. But now it's militant, with lots of angry sloganeering dashed on the walls, the negativity palpable. Berkeley is not a hopeful place.

Somehow, the disheveled spirits that roam Telegraph Avenue do not seem free, although they might think otherwise. Berkeley people look bedraggled and haggard. They're aged and worn even in their twenties. I saw two people fighting over what looked like a bagel on one street corner. People's Park was having a thinly attended anniversary concert. Booksellers ringed the park selling screeds by Carl Marx and Angela Davis.

It was a beautiful spring day. I had to park several blocks away. On my way back from Telegraph I saw two women walking parallel to me across the street. They had with them a girl who must've been five or six years old, prancing along behind them in a blue dress. I could hear the women talking about Bush and Iraq, agreeing that what was happening there was an abomination. "Pure evil," said one woman to the other. One of them wore a keffiyeh, the other had on a lovely yellow summer dress with jackboots. Two Berkeley classics.

read the rest! »