Tuesday, September 30, 2003
Stinks Like Slavery
The people of Iraq have not been duly convicted of a crime; they should not be subject to involuntary servitude. Iraq certainly appears to be subject to our jurisdiction. If we provide them money as required loans and compel the Iraqi people to pay the loans they had no choice on taking, we are practicing involuntary servitude. Although the proposed compelled loans should also be fought on constitutional grounds, we should not inflict this on the people of Iraq because it stinks like slavery. The Thirteenth Amendment is the one that we have paid the most blood for, our congress should respect it more than this.
Contact Your Congressional Representation
Senator (Your Senator Name Here), or Representative,
This letter is to voice my opposition to tying Iraq reconstruction funds to loans. Placing Iraq in greater debt serves no useful purpose. I clearly see money spent making Iraq a healthy, liberal, and free nation is an investment that will return tenfold. The $87 billion dollars the Coalition Provisional Authority is calling for is the best money spent since the Marshall Plan. We need Iraq as our partner, not our debt-slave.
Thank you for your time and attention,
(Your name here)
Please send your congressman something about this. The only excuse for crippling Iraq with debt is to make Iraq slaves again. Go to the House and Senate web sites and you can copy out this message or your own really quickly.
Monday, September 29, 2003
Moral Relativism: Do I Look Fascist In These Pants?
I am convinced that there is a lot more leeway in most aspects of life than there are at the extremes. The designated hitter rule has it's good and bad sides. Genocide of humans is always a failure and a criminal form of behavior. There are behavior patterns that are of themselves not very objectionable in an individual but when practiced strictly by a city, state, or nation quickly become hideous. Religious piety, for instance, often produces quite favorable results with individuals and vicious excess when practiced universally.
I believe that there are absolute moral truths that exist, but only within finite boundaries. Genocide of mosquitoes is not always a failure or criminal behavior.
Note: Thanks to Who Knew? for bringing the topic up!
Sunday, September 28, 2003
Freedom from the Oppression of Pacifist Thought
I have studied war from my childhood to this day, to the chagrin of my pacifist father. Much of the study of war is the study of what causes oppression and how oppression survives. Many people who oppose war discard the study of war because it is unpleasant. War is more dramatic, but there are more unpleasant events in this world.
I have visited dictatorships in my life, Franco's Spain, Tito's Yugoslavia, Pinochet's Chile, and Musharraf's Egypt. To be absolutely honest, these were very mild and extremely open dictatorships. From a distance I have seen Kim's North Korea, Catro's Cuba, Saudi Arabia, and Islamist Iran. These are some extremely vile dictatorships, and I am glad to have never had to experience that fear up close.
Wars rarely last more than a few decades, and lately they have not lasted very long at all. It is worth noting that the casualty numbers for war in the last century pale in comparison to the casualty numbers for dictatorships. Unopposed dictatorships can last for generations, and inflict fear, desperation, cruelty, privation, torture, and death from a position of advantage unavailable in armed conflict. Dictatorship's veneer of legitimacy has caused a century of intellects to abandon their integrity and point at war as the only unconscionable behavior of nations.
In the last two years, we have brought freedom to two oppressed nations. There is no good reason to believe that we could not have driven through Baathist Syria to the Mediterranean. Although it will take some time to stabilize Iraq with the exceptionally light casualties we are currently taking, there are very good indications that stabilization is progressing apace. Within two years, we could readily free Iran, North Korea, or anywhere the leadership acts like them.
The dictators of the world are petrified because of the way we went to war. That we no longer allow diplomatic manipulation to solely determine our foreign policies is the doom of regimes that exist on a diet of death and lies. We have shown that we will bring life and truth, and that such things can thrive. Saddam and his cousins no longer bind our hands, our minds are free. We proclaim ourselves unchained from the ties of absolute pacifism that allows armed oppression to rule. We can study war and end oppression.
Thursday, September 25, 2003
Arguing with Sean LaFreniere over the tradeoffs of totalitarianism.
The Old Lie of Totalitarianism
"Dolce et Decorum est pro Patria mori", the old lie of imperial powers, "Sweet and fitting it is to die for your Nation." Rejecting this lie has been the cause celebre for the intellectual since the end of the First World War and the exposition of the horrors of industrial warfare at stalemate.
The old lie of totalitarianism is much more prosaic, "Trade your freedom for the desired state." This is a great lie because there never is a trade, only the promise of one. The promise differs greatly by cultures and has taken the form in the last century of stability, prosperity, dignity, revenge, restoration, equality, fraternity, security, purity, and holiness. The only consistent returns on this exchange are oppression, poverty, disease, violence, misery, and death. Genocidal campaigns are the norm in totalitarian states as structurally incompetent governments try to bury their own failures with the most glaring exceptions to their rule. This is as true in Iraq as it was in Bosnia, Rwanda, China, Russia, and Germany.
Totalitarian governments are incompetent by their very nature because reposing all power in the government can only work with an administration that is omniscient and omnipotent. That those are also the qualifications for Godhood is in many cases a selling point, since any honest government admits mistakes. The basic paradox that a qualified God-government would not need a revolution usually does not survive contact with the fanatics who espouse totalitarian views. In that initial bludgeoning down of rational dissent, a pattern of suppressing meaningful feedback is emplaced. In order to obtain and maintain power, totalitarian governments must do away the ability to use power wisely.
In all of this, there are matters of degree. Josip Broz "Tito" managed to run the amalgam of Yugoslavia astonishingly well for many years as a dictator. For all his atrocities, Pinochet did amazing work to make Chile a very modern nation and he did hand over power peacefully if not totally. Franco's Spain did not make much economic progress during his reign, but it was not a bad place to live. I know this because I visited these places while the dictators were in power. I have no love of political strongmen and their ruthlessness, but there are matters of degree. At one end of the spectrum goes Tito at the other end goes Pol Pot and Stalin. The quickest measure of wickedness is the depth of blood the dictator waded in.
There is one more inconsistency that is frequently thrown around in conversations about the Old Lie of Totalitarianism and that is the presumption of efficiency. Totalitarian governments are often described as efficient because a given circumstance or measurement occurs. This is a misuse of the term because what efficiency means is a measure of work done for effort expended. Analysis of the actual condition of totalitarian states consistently displays tremendous waste of effort and inefficiency. Free and open systems that are regularly subjected to honest review are consistently efficient.
Il Duce Never Ran On Schedule
There is no link between totalitarian government and efficiency, security, honesty, purity, simplicity, or holiness. There is no trade; you do not get benefit in exchange for fascism, socialism, holy rule, or anarchy. What you trade your freedom for is chains and promises; only the chains ever arrive.
Many survivors complain about the lack of stability once their chains are no longer there to support them. Some slaves never let themselves be freed. They insist that the promises were better than the reality they face. They will frequently try to kill the liberators, especially if they were privileged. It is much better, some feel, to be chained to the top of a mountain than walk freely as an equal.
Free people forget this. The trains never run on time, but no slave survives saying they are late.
UPDATE:
Thanks for the link Mike! I'll try to be topically pompous more often!
Tuesday, September 23, 2003
The Persian People Must Be Freed
Just a quick note, I'm sure that I will expand upon it later. One of the great civilizations of the world is held in chains by self idolizing, viscious, and brutal clerics. The Persians deserve better from history and they deserve better from the world. I am uncertain that freedom will come quickly. I am sure that freedom will come at a price. I am positive that freedom will come and the world will be better for it. Blog-Iran
Sunday, September 21, 2003
Everything Immortal is Compromised
I just watched a review of the movie " Underworld" where the critic completely missed the point. Although a strong argument might be made that the critic had merely fulfilled his occupational requirements of being artistically obtuse, it still bears clarifying. The critic was disappointed that there were no thrills in the monster movie. The critic did not make the intellectual effort to realize that he was watching an allegory, not a roller coaster.
"Underworld" has a different mythology than most similar works in that both vampires and werewolves are immortal. Without divulging critical plot details, linkages exist between the two supernatural types. But in both cases, you do not live forever without blows to your integrity. Everything immortal is compromised. Over time your weaknesses will out, even if you have power, strength, and beauty. How you choose to manage that reality is important. Character is important, especially when confronting the infinite.
Every human institution is to some extent an attempt to accomplish immortality. Religion, corporation, nation, or family; all institutions seek to live beyond a single span of years. All of these institutions will eventually fail to some greater or lesser degree. How and what you choose to deal with this matters. How and what you choose to live in the future after the failure matters. Each of us who participates in an institution makes this exact decision. Arguably the most despicable aspect of anarchy is the adherent's willful irresponsibility regarding these decisions. They cannot live with less than ideal perfection, and so they pretend that chaotic squalor is divinity.
People involved in the world make choices. Everyone who makes choices confronts failure. The movie "Underworld" is a well made, relatively low budget, stylish, and worthwhile metaphor for this truth. I recommend it strongly for people who can accept that truth and who like seeing Kate Beckinsale kicking a lot of ass.
Tuesday, September 16, 2003
Myopia and the New York Times
As I write this Thomas Friedman of the New York Times is being interviewed by Charlie Rose and showing a monumental ignorance of history. He is a reporter and trained to report a story. He probably is relatively good at reporting a story; while the Times has epic problems, they also are actually quite well staffed. He is accusing the Pentagon of tremendous failure to plan the success of their actions in Iraq. He asked what, other than Iraq, the Pentagon had to do than plan for the successful defeat of the Baathist regime. This is hilarious.
The mission of the Department of Defense is to protect the United States. We do not have a Department of Conquering as part of the government. We do not even have a Federal Bureau of Hegemony or an Office of Imperial Expansion. The United States is not actively engaged in the process of active world domination. I suppose that one of the most insulting choices of the people of this country is their ongoing decision that the rest of the world is not really worth the effort of taking over. We are much more profitable than overtly imperialistic states like France, and that must be all the more galling. (Pun intended)
The United States is at war with North Korea. Look it up if you do not believe me. North Korea shoots at our people all the time. We have an active and ongoing commitment to defend our allies in South Korea and Japan and we have met those obligations for the last half century.
The United States has a neighbor to our immediate south, well within Scud missile range of one of our major cities that incidentally is the financial capital of South America. This nation to our south is actively engaged in human rights violations and is committed to the destruction of our way of life and freedom. Within recent memory this nation has shot down our civilian aircraft engaged in lifesaving efforts at sea.
The United States is actively engaged in an ongoing counter-insurgency in Afghanistan. We have thousands of troops on the ground and are in combat operations on a weekly basis. Two empires have left their soldiers bones littering the ground in that nation; they have a millennia old tradition of dispatching invaders.
The United States is actively engaged in suppressing the drug trade in South America. The United States is actively engaged in suppressing piracy in the Straits of Malacca. The United States is actively engaged in tracking international arms shipments around the globe. The United States is actively engaged in watching the skies for Intercontinental Ballistic Missile attacks. The United States is actively engaged in training the next generation of personnel to be as competent in battle as the current one. The United States is actively researching methods, technologies, and doctrine to make the next generation more effective in battle. The United States is actively engaged in assessing the threats the next generation of personnel will face. The United States is actively engaged in supplying all of our forces and many of our allies. The United States is actively engaged in supporting our allies around the world with their security concerns.
The armed forces of this nation and the people who lead them are actually quite busy this season and on their behalf, allow me to apologize that their efforts to not meet with the highest expectations of the New York Times. Perhaps Mr. Friedman would in the future consider the scope of the task. His continuing failure to do so is quite petty.
Sunday, September 14, 2003
A Word to the Incoming Freshman Class
One of the benefits of being a veteran, or just old, is that you can gain a realistic appreciation of the value of youth. Young people usually have good knees and can be easily inspired to work pretty hard for short periods. They also usually have extremely limited notions of how things function and often contribute meaningless observations to serious conversations. I know that was true of me when I was younger…like last year.
I just came back from a party where there were a several kids heading to college soon, and I had the chance to reflect on the things I wanted them to know. I didn't get the chance to tell them because both my brothers in law were there, and they are much cooler than I am. It doesn't bother me much though; I've made more money than both of them for the last five years. I know that simple financial standing is not the great determinant of my success as a person. On the other hand, the ability to pay the rent and afford health care is nothing to sneeze at, either.
If there was one requirement I would impose on every college student it would be that they all get at least one marketable job skill for every year they go to school. I don’t think this would destroy education in the United States if this was to happen; although I am rather less certain that the current culture of academia would survive. This would probably be a good thing, on the whole. A culture of academia that does not regularly compete with valuable alternate choices is in extreme danger of letting itself become valueless. The students with a viable choice can commit to serious study or creating a different life for themselves.
Some of the best people I know graduated when they were ready to commit to academics instead of just chasing paper. Some of the least interesting people I know got their degree and are deeply dissatisfied with the choices handed to them by self-serving faculty advisors. If you are going to college, take several courses every year that you can turn into a living. I truly wish I had taken at least one elective at the business school. I did however, start my education at the School of Engineering, so I have never had too much difficulty finding work.
One last thing: If you have a trust fund, the same thing goes triple for you. Most of the people I know who have an assured income without having ever worked for it really become pointless pains in the ass. If you want to avoid hating yourself for the rest of your life, make certain you are capable of accomplishing things on your own. It will provide endless snide amusement for your peers early on, but you will have the last laugh when they are on their third divorce and seriously contemplating suicide. Joining the military and having your ass kicked on a regular basis mentally, emotionally, and physically is probably a great idea if you have the stones to do it seriously. If your identity is your ancestor's ability to accumulate wealth, you are in extreme danger of killing yourself to prove that you are capable of doing something on your own. One of the great things about the military is that they really don't care where you came from or what you were. The military wants you to succeed and be of value to the people around you. The University wants you to prove your value by sponsoring an endowment.
Tuesday, September 09, 2003
Quoting John Ringo
John does not have a blog per se, but he does have Ringo's Tavern at http://bar.baen.com/. Like many a doofus, me for instance, much of his best blogging stuff is wasted on a rapidly disintegrating forum. I am quoting a post of his completely and verbatim less the thread because he made a great point that I wish I had articulated.
The premise of the question is false. There was not a "war" in Iraq, there
was a _campaign_ in Iraq. It was one campaign (during which others were
ongoing) in what some people are now calling the Fourth World War. (The cold
war being the third.)
Prior to the Iraq campaign, the Arabs still saw us as soft. Even after
Afghanistan they could hold Saddam up as someone who had "beaten" the US.
(Yes, _beaten_. We didn't take him out of power, therefore he won and all
the news about how badly we trounced him was, clearly, propaganda. Nobody
could have won that handily and then walked away. The Arabs that oppose us
do NOT HAVE THE CONCEPT of mercy to a defeated foe.)
After the Iraq campaign, there were some wonderful stories about the
reaction among the Arab street. They ranged from utter disbelief ("Saddam
has not been defeated, he could not be defeated therefore he is not
defeated.") to total pathos. My favorite quote is "I am ashamed to be an
Arab." It was very popular in the post fall of Baghdad period.
Frankly, there is a limited slice of the total population that is willing to
die for their faith. From that limited slice you extract those who are
actually _capable_ of doing a mission. Then from that limited slice you
extract those capable of performing a mission against the US, passing
through the layers of security that now exist. (The "reporter" arrested in
Spain and the CIA agents all over Djibouti are examples of the layers.)
You end up with a relatively small group.
Many of that group are now focussing on attacking Americans in Iraq.
I think that it is working and not only that it's working well.
Furthermore, what is occurring in Iraq is the development of a casus belli
against the next targets, which to my mind are Iran and Syria.
The plan is now, and always has been, to slowly strangle the memes that
support terrorism by removing them and to strangle the terrorists by
removing their "safe areas."
Iraq did both and when we move on it will make it harder and harder for the
terrorists.
I think it made us safer and we'll get safer still.
OTOH, we _will_ have a major attack again, someday.
John
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