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Sunday, January 30, 2005
Ten Million Representative Heroes
To the Oregonian Editors,
Your featured letter Sunday, January 30th, from Kate Mytron asked, "Does anyone think that the results of today's election are going to truly represent the people of Iraq?"
In response, I present ten million heroes who braved suicide attacks and mortar fire to represent themselves to the world. Certainly there were some places where it was simply too dangerous to vote and other problems with the election. But to ignore the courage of millions of ink-stained Iraqi's and let the bombers, snipers, and other butchers run the world is not any way to represent the people of the United States of America.
I congratulate the millions of heroes of Iraq and wish them, in this order, freedom, strength, happiness and the hope of peace.
Patrick S Lasswell
Thursday, January 27, 2005
Michael Totten Helps Democracy
My friend Michael Totten is taking a couple of weeks off regular blogging to help win the war. By editing the Iraqi's own stories of their struggle to bring democracy to Mesopotamia, he is doing a hero's job. He isn't getting paid and he isn't going to get a medal. But he is getting a link from me, please read this often and point it out to others: Friends of Democracy.
Michael Totten Helps Democracy
To the Editors,
Your editorial of January 27, 2005 " Chemical weapons should stay put" is wonderful civics lesson…for those who believe that obstructionism is a civic virtue. For those of us who consider intelligent sacrifice worthwhile, however, your position is frankly despicable. For starters, you take the wrong lesson from history when you remember Tom McCall's principled position to stop the movement of chemical weapons from overseas. Looking at the mechanics of importing chemical weapons from Okinawa in 1970, you are confronted with corrupt and incompetent longshoremen at the docks, badly designed roads to the depot, high numbers of drunk drivers on the road, non-existent hazardous materials handling standards, and conscript weapons handlers at the destination. In 1970, it would not be a question of if, but how many chemical munitions spills would occur. Compared to the situation thirty-five years later, we are talking about quite miniscule risks. The materials handlers are highly paid professionals operating with extremely stringent hazardous materials standards, the materials will travel on best roads in the world, with virtually no drunk driving, and no interaction with a corrupt dockside union.
Additionally, your terrorist scenario is more of a movie script than a serious consideration. In order for a terrorist group to hit the weapons hauling trucks in route, they would have to spend months scouting the routes and familiarizing themselves with the situation. During this time citizens, the local police, FBI, and Army security forces are supposed to be ignoring them? This is not like a foreign national registering for flight school; this is a scary dude acting exactly like a stalker. If they were willing to risk this, they'd be far better off taking potshots with RPG's at railroad chemical tankers which carry greater payloads with much less protection. Your bogeymen do not hold up to scrutiny.
Finally, your position on contributing to the national defense appears to be "Do no more than we are absolutely required to." Just once, why don't you take a higher road and decide that Oregonians can contribute to the nation. Certainly the residents of Colorado and Kentucky would have reason to be grateful. Taxpayers might like to shut down extra weapons depots that are holding these toxic relics instead of paying for the stockpiling of nightmares. Oh, and the Army could certainly use the money to do things like fighting the war and paying the soldiers who are making victory possible a greater fraction of their worth.
By the way, what was the motto of this state? Oh yeah, "The Union." Perhaps you should maintain your editorial stance…just change the title of the paper to, "The Obstructionist?"
Friday, January 21, 2005
How to Comment
1. Select the permalink (Timestamp at the bottom of the post.)
2. Select the "Yammer Back at Patrick" link once the individual page comes up.
You'll need to be registered with Blogger, but I don't view that as a hardship, merely spam protection.
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
So, for the first time I've changed the formatting of the blog. I'm not convinced it is for the best, but I wanted to try something new. Comments are now enabled, fire at will. I'll just delete at will.
Thursday, January 13, 2005
No Atheists in a Foxhole, No Christians in a Torture Chamber
Some years ago I badly lost an online argument about theology based on my flat assertion that conventional wisdom was right about there being no atheists in a foxhole. The assumption behind my statement is that Christian theology and culture accepts and forgives soldiers for the sins they do in defense of their people. Christians have the cultural capacity to forgive those who trespass upon others within the boundaries of organized military endeavor. Arguably this dates to the adoption of Roman military theology into Christian ritual tradition, but a millennium of cultural integration of chivalry is probably a substantial part of the acceptance of soldiery by Christians. In this way we can still demand decency from our soldiers and mitigate the evil that is done in war.
In order for Christians to exonerate themselves for sending others to do evil to the enemy, it must be believed that the soldiers have belief. Sending others to fight without religious imprimatur is a morally vacuous act and causes Christians lingering harm. The history of the last fifty years makes much more sense in the context of a Christian nation on a slippery slope of expedient immorality, in danger of losing its soul. There is a price to pay for doing evil without absolution, and for withholding absolution from those who need it. There is an abhorrent societal cost for accepting atheists in foxholes. We are more willing to lose a war than to abide amoral troops.
Christian culture is at a loss for how to deal with the willful and deliberate infliction of harm on those without the capacity to directly retaliate. If the subject is not an immediate personal threat, there is no Christian capacity to forgive harming them. Much of the death penalty debate revolves around this point. Torture is beyond the capacity for Christians to accept, understand, or forgive. It just isn't in us, and we are unwilling to accept the expedience of torture to gain even crucial information. There is an abhorrent societal cost for accepting Christians in torture chambers. We are more willing to let our soldiers and citizens die than to abide these acts.
The President of the United States is a Christian. Soldiers and civilians are going to die because George W. Bush refuses to allow torture, even on those who have no rights in international or US law. The war, however, will be fought until it is won, because the overwhelming Christian majority can still believe there are not atheists in foxholes. I cannot justify the loss of life that failure to torture will cause, except that the loss of the war would certainly kill many times more. There is no optimal solution and this is an excruciatingly difficult decision. The political reality is that the United States is a Christian culture that cannot abide torture in support of a war, regardless of the cost. I honestly wish I could argue in favor of torture because I will certainly lose friends because of the lack. I simply believe that it is more important to win the greater war, and we cannot do that with torture as a weapon.
Hat Tip: Norman Podhertz
Sunday, January 09, 2005
Perspective on the Washington State Election Mess
A letter I sent to Rebecca Webb, News Anchor at KINK FM-102 in Portland. Rebecca is an old family friend I have the privilege to know. She is gracious and decent as well as being easy on the eyes and ears. I am wildly fortunate in my friends.
Rebecca,
This weblog http://www.soundpolitics.com/ has the best analysis of the actual data of the Washington State Governor election fiasco. Regrettably for Washington voters, their analysis is noticeably more accurate than the election officials in King County. They are doing a lot of verification using database search skills and coming up with some very damning evidence of incompetence and voters practicing fraud. Here's a quote: <>
Here's another fascinating discovery from the latest King County voter file.
[I now have four versions of the King County voter registration file, cut on June 1, Nov. 1, Dec. 29, 2004 and Jan. 7, 2005.]
There are 557 names in the Jan. 7 file for people who supposedly voted on Nov. 2, but who weren't listed in the Nov. 1 file. Only 94 of the 557 are in the Dec. 29 file. There are a number of pre-2004 registration dates among the 557, but many of these aren't in the June file. 280 of the 557 are shown to have registered on dates between Jun 7, 2004 and Oct. 2, 2004, yet did not appear in any of the earlier versions of the King County voter databases.
This is not just Republican operatives making things up...okay, maybe they are Republican operatives...but the stuff they are pulling out from under the logs is real and not very pretty in the light of day. I suppose the question here is how accountable do we want our elections officials to be? The only answer that can stand the test of time is that the integrity of the elections process is much more important than the result on any given election. If the election process is compromised in any one race, the democratic process of all contests is damaged.
Patrick S Lasswell
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