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I reckon it's almost time to retire this thing.
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A friendly reminder for those who are still following the war: Georgia started it. Russia's response has been grossly disproportionate, sure, but don't kid yourself about poor innocent Georgia. What saddens me about US-Russian relations today is that they didn't have to be this way. There is nothing intrinsic in either the Russian or US character that destines us to always be enemies. Our current rivalry is the result of the foreseen and avoidable consequences of many bad decisions since the end of the Cold War. I'm convinced a lot of it is just pure anti-Russian (or anti-slav) animus. McCain's hatred of Russia is white hot and uncompromising. If you're convinced Russia will be our eternal enemy until the Second Coming, then McCain's your man.
Many people get hung up on the form of government while avoiding altogether questions of its essence. From whence does the government derive its civil authority? If the source of the government's authority is rationalistic principles based on the unrestricted will of man - whether it's one dictator or an elected legislator - then we are not truly free, regardless of whether that government has the form of democracy or not.
Solzhenitsyn had the right idea: it does no good to change the form of government if the essence remains unchanged.
We were recently entertained by a naïve fable of the happy arrival at the “end of history,” of the overflowing triumph of an all-democratic bliss; the ultimate global arrangement had supposedly been attained. But we all see and sense that something very different is coming, something new, and perhaps quite stern. No, tranquility does not promise to descend on our planet, and will not be granted us so easily.
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I have to take my shoes off to count the number of times I've heard Vladimir Putin compared to Hitler and the South Ossetia War compared to 1938 Munich in the past few days (everything that ever happened before 1933 is cordoned off with "Here be dragons.") Putin strikes me more as the Bismarck of our time.
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Your result for The Perception Personality Image Test... HFDS - The Coach
You perceive the world with particular attention to humanity. You focus on what's in front of you (the foreground) and how that is affected by the details of life. You are also particularly drawn towards the shapes around you. Because of the value you place on humanity, you tend to seek out other people and get energized by being around others. You like to deal directly with whatever comes your way without dealing with speculating possibilities or outcomes you can't control. You are highly focused on specific goals or tasks and find meaning in life by pursuing those goals. You prefer a structured environment within which to live and you like things to be predictable. The Perception Personality Types:  Take The Perception Personality Image Test at HelloQuizzy
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| » Deus Vult! |
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On this day in 1099, the Christians triumphed in the Battle of Ascalon, thus ending the First Crusade.
The First Crusade must appear particularly baffling to the modernist mind. Where else in human history can you find a similar example of so many people marching so far from home for no good strategic or material gain at all? I'm pleased more and more historians are moving away from the tired narrative of "Greedy, warlike Christians attacked the peace-loving, progressive Muslims for no good reason at all."
That reminds me. Edward Gibbon and Friedrich Nietzsche blamed the fall of the Roman empire on the effeminate, peace-loving Christians (and more than a few people have commented on this blog that Catholic Just War doctrine as applied to most American wars is suicidally pacifistic.) Yet it's often the case that the same people who nod their heads in agreement with Gibbon and Nietzsche will, in the next debate, argue that the Crusades proves how bloody-minded and violent Christianity really is.
I would argue there hasn't been a purely "religious war" in the West since the Late Middle Ages. Religion has played a part in some wars since then, but it's almost never been the driving motivation. Even in the Thirty Years War, Catholic France allied herself with Protestants for what? Why did so many Christian kingdoms not come to the aid of their fellow Christians in the struggle against the Ottoman Turks? Reasons of State, or money, or political grudges, take your pick. People who say "Religious wars have killed more people, blah blah blah" are not making a serious judgment of historical reality, but rather are making a polemical statement about their prejudice against religion.
Aug. 12th, 2008 @ 10:36 pm
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| » Putin Derangement Syndrome |
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It's rather bewildering to see the same people who cheered for Kosovo's independence sternly lecturing Russia on the territorial integrity of Georgia. It's also confusing to see that so many American conservatives, who constantly blast the mainstream media for being biased and unreliable, are taking everything the MSM says about this latest conflict at face value.
There are three things one should keep in mind when following this war: 1) Most importantly, we need to pray for peace between these two Orthodox nations; 2) There aren't really any "good guys" in this fight; and 3) It is none of our damned business.
I haven't followed all of the particulars or all of the history leading up to the war. I do know something of the US's policies regarding Eastern Europe and Russia over the past few years, and it's difficult to avoid the conviction that we've deliberately tried to anger the Russians at every opportunity (the only alternative explanation is the government is hopelessly tone deaf.) How would you feel if Russia aggressively courted Canada, Mexico, Cuba, and the rest of Central America to form a "defensive alliance," where each country would be obligated to go to war on the other's behalf? How would you feel if the Russians then decided to install some "defensive" missile sites in Canada and Mexico?
All the usual suspects have found their new Hitler of the Month. Even if Georgia were a member of NATO, the US would not go to war over her. And that is an important lesson of geopolitics: never, ever, under any circumstances whatsoever, make a promise that you cannot or will not keep. I don't blame the average Georgian citizen one bit for feeling betrayed. It's even worse once you understand that even if Georgia had full NATO membership, hard political realities would prevent any Western nation from militarily coming to her aid.
Before concluding that we are ordained by God to fix every problem and right every wrong in the world, it would be helpful to learn something about the region. Let's also remember the plank in our own eye, hm? What major differences exist between South Ossetia and Kosovo, other than the fact that Kosovo is thousands of miles away from the US while South Ossetia borders Russia?
EDIT: This is a good example to illustrate the Just War criteria of "proportionate response." When I said earlier that there aren't really any good guys in this fight, what I meant was Georgia started this war. Now it seems Georgia is offering to let South Ossetia go (if I read that story correctly), and pretty much anything else the Russians want; it's not like Georgia is in much of a position to resist anymore. I'm not convinced the Russians intend to annex Georgia (and breathless worrying about Putin wanting to reform the Soviet Union are just plain silly), but their rejection of cease-fire offers, which include independence for South Ossetia crosses the line into a disproportionate response to Georgian president Saakashvili's blundering, i.e. an unjust war. By all means we should try to broker peace between the two nations, while keeping in mind there are no vital American interest worth going to war over.
Aug. 11th, 2008 @ 10:57 pm
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| » Marching towards Georgia |
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Senator McCain: “Russia should immediately and unconditionally cease its military operations and withdraw all forces from sovereign Georgian territory.”
This war provides a stark illustration of why expanding NATO into the former Soviet republics was always an insane idea. Neoconservatives might imagine NATO expansion to be synonymous with advancing freedom, but at the end of the day NATO is a military alliance. If Georgia was a member of NATO, we would be obligated to go to war on her behalf right now. Are even the most rabid warhawks ready to declare war on Russia? Just as an intellectual exercise, could you craft a speech, to be delivered by the president on national television, explaining why American soldiers have to die for Georgia (not the one in the Deep South, but Stalin's birthplace?) Better yet, with two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, is the US in any position to go to war with Russia?
The answer, of course, is no. Which means McCain's statement comes off as, "I don't really mean what I'm saying. I am just posturing from the camera. I have no idea what's going on or what the US should do."
Dan Larison has a good series of posts on this subject here, here, here, here, and here. It's rich to hear the WSJ and Washington Post complaining about Russian "imperialism."
Aug. 9th, 2008 @ 07:22 am
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| » The devil was the first Whig |
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"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing [or words to that effect]." - Edmund Burke
That statement is rubbish (and it's quite likely Burke never actually said it.) One reason why it's rubbish is that it's so often invoked by good men who are arguing in favor of evil actions. "If we do nothing, then the evil men will bomb our women and children. Therefore, let us bomb his women and children first so that evil may not triumph." It's one of liberal modernity's favorite games:
Fat Man and Little Boy vs. a land invasion to secure an unconditional surrender with millions dead.
Abortion on demand vs. treat women as chattel.
Invade Iraq vs. surrender to Islamic terrorists.
Torture prisoners vs. surrender to Islamic terrorists.
Embryonic stem cell research vs. sanctimonious anti-science moralizing that causes endless preventable suffering.
Euthanasia vs. being responsible for suffering.
McCain vs. Obama.
Vote vs. engage in armed revolt.
Crafting false dilemmas can be fun. Everyone can play.
Aug. 6th, 2008 @ 11:05 pm
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| » Sixty three years ago today |
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Killing women and children first.
The anniversaries passed with little fanfare in America. No nation really likes to remember its crimes. Stories appeared about the bombings in the German and Japanese press—though both nations feel honor-bound to place them in the context of fascist atrocities which provoked them. But with a few exceptions, the American press has done little to remind us what Allied bombers wrought 60 years ago over the skies of Dresden and other German civilian targets, or over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
And of course, there’s no hint of repentance. We were engaged in total war. The war had been forced on us by aggressive, inhuman regimes, of whom we could only demand unconditional surrender. In the face of so many extremes, of governments which could rape Nanking and slaughter the Jews, to win we could rightly resort to the most extreme of means. There was a powerful inner logic driving us to exterminate all those civilians. And so we did it. And so we refuse to regret it. And so we plan to do it again.
...It’s easy to lose sight of reality, when we’re dealing with such numbers. So let’s think of it this way: Every child who died from our bombs was as innocent as Anne Frank.
People who angrily respond to this with, "But the Germans and Japanese did the same and much worse besides," are missing the point entirely. For starters, it is we who now stand in a position of dominance over much of the earth, and our ability to discern the right path and to follow it will have a decisive effect on the rest of the world, and will determine whether our future is to be that of a nation intent on justice or of one devolving into just another large scale criminal enterprise, like most of the world’s now-fallen empires.
We Americans have to face and accept responsibility for the simple fact that what we did at Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden, etc., was wrong. I'm quite aware that not everyone grants this as a fact or that it is simple. The simplicity I'm referring to is not to the actual historical decisions, but to the principle: it is wrong to target noncombatants in war. It is wrong to incinerate hundreds of thousands of civilians in one fell swoop. It is wrong, and maybe what needs to be said more than ever in our current cultural climate, it is wrong even if there are putatively good reasons to do it. If it isn't wrong, then our fight with Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda simply becomes a question of who struck first, who had the greater provocation, who was more of a victim - we have no principled reason to disagree with their methods.
I'm not trying to say that the circumstances surrounding the decision made by Truman in 1945 were such that doing the right thing should have been easy. Nor do I seek to judge the moral culpability of those who made the decision and those who carried it out. It was not an easy decision, and anyone who says it would have been if he had been the one to make it is fooling himself. There is much that can be said and has been said about the extenuating circumstances surrounding the decision. What we, as a people, must not and cannot ever do is say that it was right.
It's important that we not ever say that because the sins of the past remain as temptations in the present. Someone who believes that stealing is wrong may, faced with the right combination of temptations and circumstances, steal anyway. But someone who doesn't believe stealing is wrong at all will certainly do it regularly. I think the great flaw - possibly the fatal flaw - with the American people is our tendency to think that if something really, really needs to be done, it must therefore be the right thing to do. It's a far lesser sin to occasionally fail to live up to the moral law than to reject it altogether.
Aug. 6th, 2008 @ 03:21 pm
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| » Two stupid ideas |
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Whenever we complain about stupidity, what we usually mean is someone or something is willfully ignoring or is mindlessly oblivious to something obvious. Whether something is obvious or not depends somewhat on your general understanding of the world. So if we declare that an idea is stupid, what we mean is either 1) It's based on an understanding which we reject, or 2) there's something immediately untenable about it, so much so that anyone who claims to hold it is either lying, refusing to think, or has something seriously wrong with them. It follows then, I think, that people who spend a lot of time raging about stupidity are people who find it difficult to understand other people and other ideas. Complaints about stupidity are often themselves quite stupid. Stupidity is still a real phenomenon though, and sometimes it deserves comment. Here, for example, are the two great but stupid ideas of our time:
1) Freedom, taken as the ultimate goal or as an end in itself. Freedom is only worth having insofar as it makes us free to do what is worth doing, and what we ought to do. As an ultimate goal without any regard to what is worth doing - dismissed in a post-modern fog of "what's true and good for you isn't true and good for me" - it becomes the freedom to be free so long as it doesn't infringe on the inviolable freedom of other free and equal supermen.
2) Equality, taken in the empirical sense. People are different and those differences matter. Those differences cannot be papered over, nor can they be legislated out of existence, or erased under the right conditions. At the level of particulars, there is no good reason at all to believe that the distribution of intelligence, inclinations, or aptitudes is uniform between the sexes or between racial groups, and plenty of good reasons to believe the contrary. Nonetheless, if you make brief and entirely defensible comments about this simple truth it's enough to get yourself dismissed from your job and targeted for a witch hunt.
The two ideas that so dominate our contemporary politics, morality, and cultural discourse - so much so that to question them is to place oneself outside the pale - are stupid. That is, they are either willfully ignoring or are mindlessly oblivious to truths that should be obvious.
Aug. 6th, 2008 @ 12:05 pm
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| » More on Solzhenitsyn |
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Dan Larison and Andrew Cusack have both written outstanding obituaries for Solzhenitsyn. Most Americans remember him as the great anti-communist, but to think of him as only an anti-communist would do him an injustice. Just as important - if not more so - were his ringing denunciations of the entire liberal project, born in the Renaissance, and coming into its own during the Enlightenment. Modern liberal society, untouched by the breath of God, is as repulsive and inhuman as any communist regime. As an outsider to the West, Solzhenitsyn saw right through one the great stupid ideas of our time: freedom as an ultimate goal, or an end in itself. Freedom is only worth having if it makes us free to do what we ought to do, to do what we must do, to do what is worth doing. Otherwise it becomes license, the freedom to do any damn fool thing we please, the freedom to be silly, or evil. When you lose everything, as Solzhenitsyn did, passing things like wealth and luxury ring painfully hollow. I think that's why poverty is such a beautiful virtue - it makes one realize what really matters.
Aug. 4th, 2008 @ 10:29 pm
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| » No real solution |
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One of the stupidest ideas of the twentieth century is still with us, alas: if there are any inequalities between human beings it must - IT MUST - be because of environmental factors. We're all a tabula rasa, and we can all be perfectly equal in every way if we can just get the social conditions in place.
There's a very good reason why most politicians send their own children to private schools.
Aug. 4th, 2008 @ 10:13 pm
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| » Poll-age |
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Poll #1235048
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 37It will be worse if On election day I will
Aug. 4th, 2008 @ 10:48 am
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| » Prudence: the forgotten virtue |
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I've grown sick of WWII. People who aren't very knowledgeable about it in the first place use it as the first principle through which all other foreign policy questions are judged. WWII has precisely nothing - zero, zip, nada - to teach us about our current geopolitical scene. The lessons of WWII neoconservative pundits in particular like to cite are either 1) wrong or 2) as obvious as a blast of birdshot to the face. For example, WWII showed us that military superiority in the narrow sense no longer decides the outcome of a war between industrialized, first-world nations. That's a good thing too because (meaning no disrespect to American and British WWII vets) the Germans and Japanese were, man-for man, by far the better soldiers. Another example: WWII was Stalin vs. Hitler. Everything else was a sideshow compared to that. The Soviets triumphed because... they were fighting for freedom and democracy? Because Stalin was nicer than Hitler? Nope. The Soviets had more resources in men and material to draw upon, with help from the Americans and British of course.
Anyway, my point is, we are not living in WWII. We are not living in the 1930's either. People who ignore the particular facts of any given situation in favor of a pet ideology or favorite historical period can cause no end of mischief in positions of power. Taking into account the particular facts within their historical context is one of the features of the virtue of prudence. Prudence has been sorely lacking in our foreign policy establishment for the past eight years. Another area where prudence is conspicuously absent is the immigration debate.
This is not the 19th century. Ellis Island is not open for business anymore. The US is different today from what it was then. The kind of immigrants we're taking in are not the same as the ones we took a century ago. How many or even whether to accept immigrants is a question of prudential judgment. Take a look at the US as it actually is and the immigrants for who they actually are. Don't make judgments based on an idealized notion of Industrial-Age America that largely exists only in your own mind.
Aug. 4th, 2008 @ 10:13 am
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| » This makes me very sad |
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A World Split Apart
Commencement Address Delivered At Harvard University
June 8, 1978
By Alexander I. Solzhenitsyn
I am sincerely happy to be here with you on the occasion of the 327th commencement of this old and illustrious university. My congratulations and best wishes to all of today's graduates.
Harvard's motto is "VERITAS." Many of you have already found out and others will find out in the course of their lives that truth eludes us as soon as our concentration begins to flag, all the while leaving the illusion that we are continuing to pursue it. This is the source of much discord. Also, truth seldom is sweet; it is almost invariably bitter. A measure of truth is included in my speech today, but I offer it as a friend, not as an adversary. ( Read more... )
R.I.P. to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who was until today the world's greatest living writer.
Aug. 3rd, 2008 @ 09:46 pm
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| » Ah ha ha ha ha |
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I've said it before and I'll say it again: there is absolutely nothing that ever has been or ever will be discovered by the light of science that can contradict the truths of the Christian faith. Anyone who says otherwise either:
1) Doesn't understand the science
2) Doesn't understand the faith
3) Is selling a book
I've never understood the belief prevalent in some atheist circles that the discovery of extraterrestrial life - or even something as simple as water on Mars - would prove devastating to the faith. Angels and demons, hello? All non-heretical Christians already acknowledge the existence of intelligent, non-human life in the universe. The implications of the existence of extraterrestrial life for Christianity has already been explored at length by C.S. Lewis, among other writers, thinkers, and theologians. Even granting that aliens exist - and there is no evidence that they do - truth cannot contradict truth.
I guess one can't be too careful in what one reads if one is committed to "antitheism."
Aug. 2nd, 2008 @ 11:51 am
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| » Baile para yo, Garfield |
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Aug. 1st, 2008 @ 10:49 pm
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| » This reporter places the blame squarely on you, the viewers |
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California's state budget is thirty one days late now, which is nothing new. What is new is that the slow economy (California's is probably much slower than your state's) has reduced revenue more than usual. Budget analysts estimate that the state will run out of cash altogether within two months at the latest. So Arnold is set to sign an executive order that will lay off all part time state workers, and reduce the wages of full timers to the federal minimum wage. The state treasurer says Arnold can legally do that, though it's a bad idea. The state controller who signs the paychecks says he will take the Jackson route ("Arnold has made his ruling, now let him enforce it.") Arnold says he is doing this to conserve money, although state pundits think he's doing it as a way to increase pressure on lawmakers to pass a budget. As a practical matter, all he's done is make everyone angry with him.
California is proof that democracy simply doesn't work. California voters want the State to provide them with nice schools, good roads, abundant water, a lot of police and fire protection, etc., but they don't want to pay for any of it. Democrats would be more than happy to tax the wealthy and businesses into oblivion to pay for it all, since the largest and most reliable Democratic constituency in this state happens to be government employees. Budgets must be passed by a two thirds majority in the Assembly and Senate, which gives the Republican minority veto power over any proposed budget. Republicans refuse to allow any tax increases, and Democrats refuse to allow anything other than symbolic spending cuts (i.e. slight reductions in the rate of growth).
California voters are just as much to blame. They've voted enough goodies for themselves from the public trough, and locked enough of that spending into the state constitution via the ballot initiative process, that deficits are almost a permanent feature of the California budget. I'll wager five worthless American dollars that the state of California will declare bankruptcy within my lifetime. California Democrats are as fiscally irresponsible as... well, as the Republican Party under George W. Bush. Living in California for any length of time is a good cure for anyone who is foolish enough to place their trust in princes. Hell, I'd say it's a good cure for fanaticism about the efficacy of democracy.
A lot of people think I'm a medieval, theocratic reactionary with monarchist sympathies; those people are right. I don't see any way in which monarchy could arise in America with justice though. As it is, I'm all in favor of literacy tests, poll taxes, a return to indirect election of Senators, raising the minimum age for voting, and other restrictions on the franchise. I guess that would make me a small "r" Republican.
Jul. 31st, 2008 @ 10:59 am
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