Pundapaul

Tolerance or Solidarity?

2010-09-25T03:50:00.001-07:00

In Algeria Christians who did not fast during Ramadan are being condemned to prison sentences or ordered to leave the country, defined as a “land of Islam”.

Lest we forget - or lest we never knew - present day Algeria, along with Egypt and the rest of North Africa (to say nothing of Arabia itself), adopted Christianity with enthusiasm in the first centuries of the first millenium, well prior to its spread in Europe. It was only long after, in the 8th century, that Islam was imposed by conquest. But Christianity persisted, despite oppression. In recent decades the massacres and persecutions of Christians and Christianity rival and surpass previous episodes, and an active resistance is starting to form. Its fate is impossible to predict - particularly in the absence of support from a de-christianized West.

In France there are now calls for a moratorium on the construction of mosques, by solidarity with Algerian Christians. The building of churches is forbidden in several “lands of Islam”, and non-Muslims are forbidden to enter certain “holy cities” of Islam.

Tolerance, if it is to retain any meaning or force, must end where this sort of intolerance begins.

Do you know that there is a conflation of “Muslim” and “Arab” in Islam which gives it a certain racialist tone? Most north Africans are not Arabs ethnically. As Muslims, however, there is a pressure to self-define as Arabs. The term “Arab world” - though westerners are becoming more sophisticated in these matters - has tended to cover a much larger area than relatively small Arabia. There are indeed Arabs all over the North Africa and the Middle East - descendants of the Muslim conquistadors of the first millenium, but they are an ethnic minority. Many people considered "Arab in Lebanon, Palestine or Jordan are in fact ethnically Phoenician or Cannanite. And the Egyptians, of course, are not Arabs. Who cares? There are some Muslims and Arabs who care very much.

Funeral Gigue for Christopher Hitchens

2010-09-15T06:39:00.000-07:00

For Christopher Hitchens: a funeral gigue!
Let’s hail with laughter the end of his gig,
For sorrow and tears he’d not give a fig,
Having avoided the infernal brig.

Hitch was a dandy of sinister bent
Who dexterously later came to repent,
Though he never would go the full extent:
From atheism he would not relent!

Struck down by Fate - or by God, who can tell?
He was seized by fear that a fear of hell,
In a delirium, like a bad smell,
Seep from his lips, and his life’s work dispel.

Thus Mr. Hitchens has left us to find
How we’re to know that his so-called "right mind"
Has any more right our credence to bind
Than the final gasp of his soul resigned?

Nutbag?

2010-09-12T04:59:00.000-07:00

Poor reverend Jones has been denounced in all currently acceptable epithets by the totality of the cultural elite, including the “extreme right” - from Victor Davis Hanson to Mark Levin, though VDH had the decency to draw a clear parallel to imam Rauf, whose Cordoba House project he qualifies as a provocation.

I won’t go along with any of this. How can the ground zero project in it’s intentions, financing, government support or the impudent hypocrisy of its justifications and the craven obsequiousness and moral posturing of its non-muslim defenders, be in any way compared - to paraphrase VDH - to burning a few objects which belong to you, on your own property?

___

First, regarding my qualification of the situation in New York:

“Cordoba House” is a mosque at “ground zero”.

Airplane debris hit the building in question and lowered its value by more than half.

Who can tell what this project is supposed to be, now that it has been redefined several times, and why should its being a mosque be shameful? Why did Rauf back away from that?

“Cordoba” has become a double code: for westerners it is intended as a symbol of muslim tolerance - when in fact Christians and Jews in that city were dhiminis - while for muslims this outpost of their lost empire is a spur to vengeance.

“Cordoba House” will help terrorism and the promotion of Sharia in America.

Imam Rauf can say whatever he wants. A majority of Americans - to say nothing of Europeans - have become convinced that too many mosques are used to preach anti-western jihad, or even to recruit, organize and finance it.

“Cordoba House” is supported by local and national government.

The authorities of NYC, including the zoning board, which have authorized “Cordoba House” have not yet permitted the rebuilding of an orthodox church destroyed by the 9/11 attack. This situation is getting little attention, and the story reported is about obstruction on the part of the church itself, naturally. The mayor of NYC and the president of the USA - our Benevolent Guides - have given public support to Rauf. The church is not even mentioned.

“Cordoba House” will be financed by the middle east.

Rauf has no financing of his own. Is the “muslim community” of NYC, already tricked out with 100 mosques, going to come up with the millions and millions needed to pay for a 15 story “center” in lower Manhattan?

Kadafi recently told an audience of 500 young women in Italy that Islam would soon take over Europe, and there is talk like that all over the place, for anyone willing to hear it.

“Cordoba House” justifications are impudent.

For nine years Americans have been hearing the same thing: 9/11 was essentially thier own fault because of America’s international behavior and domestic attitudes. One would think that American efforts in Kuwait and Kosovo - to mention only those - and the uncounted mosques which have sprung up in America in the last 10 years - to say nothing of those already present or the fabulous American tradition of religious tolerance which in fact shows no sign of waning - would temper this sort of claim.

[Do Americans go berzerk, or just shrug, every time some rag-head burns the stars and stripes or saws the head off one of our fellow Americans? Why should we not hold these people to our standards of tolerance/indifference - or else? Or, if their attitude is superior, why not adopt it (and go berzerk at each "provocation")? At any rate the two attitudes cannot co-exist. Either we let ourselves be cowed by their attitude, or we make the world safe for our own.]

The defense of “Cordoba House” by non-muslims is concocted of craven obsequious and moral posturing.

Fear of the murderous mobs and fanaticized assassins so facilely mobilized by islamic tribunes is understandable. Equally understandable - and equally repugnant - is the very tired tactic of responding to every doubt or argument regarding islamism’s relation to Islam by hurling anathema upon those who dare entertain them. This unacceptable procedure is sanctioned by a well placed but centripetal and shrinking minority.

___

I am hard to shock, but the repeated expressions of disgust and contempt on the part of media stars and pundits who pontificate daily, and year after year, to audiences of millions, that a “jackass”, “nutbag”, “non-entity” should get so much attention, has succeeded. The depths of arrogance and the heights of hypocrisy thus revealed have stunned even the philosophical fellow I believed myself to be. What of Equality and Fraternity? What of the 15 minutes of fame these people so complaisantly predicted and welcomed for all? In this light the bravery, certainly, but also the probity seem to be with Jones.

Despite efforts to camouflage the fact with lies, the attention Jones has gotten is due, above all, to the likes of MSNBC, and the reason these people give him so much attention comes out of the same pot as their eagerness to brand the Tea Party movement as racist. Jones is the greatly desired “proof”, eagerly seized, that America is indeed the islamophobic provocateur they claim. Now, if this is true, would it not be expedient to placate this dangerous populo, the way these same geniuses patiently explain it is prudently obligatory to do in places where enlightenment and tolerance reign supreme, like Jordan? I mean, because Jordan is mostly muslim, it must, right?

The more Obama insists America is not at war with Islam, the more it sounds like it is. Who is provoking whom? Last night, in amazed fascination, I watched CNN’s coverage of the mosque controversy, which consisted of a parade of bearded and dark skinned muslims between the ages of 20 and 30, using sociology-speak to denounce America as "islamophobic", with a cooing obligato from the upper-middle class white anchors. If this is an organized attempt to incite Americans to war on Islam it could hardly be better managed. But the fact is that the ignorance, malice and unavowable intentions inspiring these people lead them into speeches and acts which are incoherent at best.

As for the reverend Jones and his backyard trash fire, it seems he has allowed himself to be talked out of it. Now: has any muslim terrorist, kidnapper, decapitator, lapidator, rioter or jihadist ever allowed himself to be talked out of anything, or have they ever been stopped by anything but force - or multi-million dollar ransoms? What about Imam Rauf ? Will Trump's ransom offer do the trick? If not, will the government - the American government of and by the people - apply force? And if not, what then?

Once he decided upon it, and once it was publicized, Jones should have stuck to his guns, since now he is just another spineless occidental appeaser. But the story is not over, since Jones - unless he really has backed down - may have been tricked.

Oh how fearful to burn a Coran! Does anyone take note of the angry and frustrated Algerians currently sacking mosques and burning Corans? No, because such vermin exist even less for "us" than the despised reverend Jones.

If Jones again goes ahead, he will be more like the rowdy but sturdy Africans and Asians who answer muslim provocation by burning mosques - more like them, but not really like them; for that he would have to burn more than paper - and bump off a few people. Must it really come to this sort of civil war?? Eventually only churchillian adamance will suffice. Meanwhile an American, in America, burning some printed paper which belongs to him, on his own property, is very far short of that.

Doom, and also Gloom

2010-08-14T10:23:00.001-07:00

It’s one thing to throw Obama out of office, along with other anti-American perverters of constitutional principles. After all, these folk have been at it a long time, and they have not destroyed American yet. But we have reached a point where things like a supreme court packed with Elena Kagans, taxpayer responsibility for auto worker pensions, a likely massive new population of regularized “citizens”, a perverted financial and insurance system snared in bloated bureaucracy busy regularizing enclaves of sharia compliance and micro-managing civil life, as well as a debt unlike any ever dreamed of in the history of the universe, give the problem a new dimension.

A responsible government can back out of many things, but I fear that properly fixing the thing is starting to imply civil war. The quarrel over slavery was only tactically about state’s rights and not fundamentally about morality. The basic question was whether Negroes were really people, in the full sense. But the slave owners - this seems obvious - were more concerned about maintaining their situation than scoring theoretical points. After all, even if it had been accepted that Negros are not really people, this does not automatically imply they ought to be treated as property. There are many kinds of discriminations thoughout history which did not result in slavery, and slavery, historically, did not depend on dehumanization. On most constitutional, as well as religious and sexual matters, there was broad agreement in north and south.

Today the situation, on the theoretically plane, is much more sever. Americans are divided into two camps of profoundly opposed views in vital areas. The situation is unstable, and will not persist indefinitely. Furthermore, the forces are not equal. Though the left, or what might be called the Sodomites, hold much high ground, they are a minority. If the Anti-sodomites find effective leadership, or if the Sodomites fail to pull back and moderate, there may be “hell to pay”. The knuckle dragging, church-going, beer swilling, gun-owning, NASCAR watching hordes are restless.

The doctrine of the “living constitution” is now revealed for what it always was: a total lack of interest, concern or respect for each specific constitutional provision and protection, as well as for the spirit of that document, and for the Declaration. There may be common ground for moderated laws on abortion and capital punishment, but contemporary anti-clericalism, “gay rights” activism and La Raza boosterism seem radicalized beyond hope of reconciliation.

Europe is in a similar situation, though here it is less explosive because the ruling Sodomites are - amazing as this may seems - more moderate and prudent than their American counterparts. And the European population is softer and more perverted than its American counterpart. Still, the imbalance is sufficient to wreak the EU, and the real problems - which are more severe than in America - may well end up being treated though some degree of violence.

Enjoy the last moments of this halcyon era, children, while it lasts!

Disaster Disaster

2010-08-09T16:15:00.000-07:00

The greatest ecological disaster in history of the United States of American ended last week. The consequences, of course, are grave. The oil has evaporated, and only two pelicans got tarred, but the economy of Louisiana has been closed down...by the prudent ban on off-shore drilling. The Louisiana judges keep throwing it out, but it keeps coming back, to really make sure we are safe from another, and certainly worse, man-made ecological disaster. Indeed: each new disaster seems to be worst than the last (how does that work?) even when it ends in a whimper.

These man-made natural disasters seem to be escaping all human control…

Ceausescu: an Abortion among Tyrants!

2010-08-09T15:53:00.000-07:00

So last night we watched a documentary about how Ceausescu banned abortions in Romania, an act billed as “the greatest and most tragic social experiment in the history of humanity”. The result: lots of “unwanted” babies (now all adults) and “2000” deaths though rogue abortion attempts.

At one point in this festival of hang-wringing, lamentation and uncritical pro-abortion sentimentalism, it was recounted how the ban did not apply to gypsies - which was qualified as a surreptitious policy of “genocide”.

Poor Ceausescu, he can’t win! Ban abortion and he is a liberty killing oppressor of women. Allow it, and he commits genocide. Romanophobia?

Standard Double Penetration

2010-07-14T23:56:00.000-07:00

Much delight this morning on “France Culture” radio.

First the glad report - based on the say-so of some Italian reporters - that the Vatican will announce sterner measures today against child-molesting priests: the prescription for these crimes will be extended from 10 to 20 years, and the perps will be defrocked.

This was directly followed by the daily “chronicle” of Alexander Adler, unofficial-official historian/revisionist of France, TV and radio personality, and eager predictor of a 2004 Kerry victory. Alexander began with a proclamation of how "enchanted” he is by Roman Polanski’s new found freedom. Then he gave his sermon. The subject: how rotten and irresponsible the American justice system is for giving poor Roman such a hard time for such a minor offence committed so many years ago.

The French Doctors

2010-07-13T01:19:00.001-07:00

Last night the president of France, in his “oval office” interview equivalent, mentioned the “grave crisis” of the French doctors, though the media takes little interest. In this morning news: yet another retreat of the socialized system, a list of more areas no longer covered by the state mandated insurance which all French citizens and foreign workers are obliged to pay as a “social security” tax - not to mention the private “complementary insurance” which all prudent people feel obliged to have, to help cover the now looming gaps in public financing - though the social security tax remains in full force. In the last few weeks a plan to close all surgical units which perform less than 1000 operations a month has given rise to much complaint, but in France there is always fuss at any prospect of change, because each situation has state mandated winners who don’t want to lose. But what can one expect of a “rationalized system”, other than that it be impractical and hopelessly expensive? If this sort of thing worked the USSR, Red China and the Khmer Rouge would still be going concerns.

For the doctors - that is the “generalists”, the individual doctors who constitute the front line and the mass of the troops in the battle against illness - this “grave crisis” is grave indeed. Within 2 years, unless something gives, it is altogether possible that there will be no more generalists in France. Not only are there not enough young people who want to work in this field, not only are generalists disappearing into retirement as fast as they can, not only are there whole regions of France where there is already an alarming lack of them, but those remaining are deserting the field “en masse” to take posts in the public system. There, instead of working 80 hours weeks, instead of having state-designated duty nights, instead of earning tiny state-regulated fees for specific medical acts which they are obliged to pile up and account for in order to be paid, instead of being ordered onto the carpet and interrogated by supervising magistrates every time they happen to prescribe too much of this, or not enough of that, instead of seeing what they do earn drained away in taxation which often tops 50%, instead of continuing to stagger under a quickly growing mass of regulation and bureaucratic obligation of all sorts impossible for an individual to bare, and hardly easier for doctors grouped in clinics which can afford to share a secretary, instead of all this, they will work 35 hours a week, take home a salary, and say goodbye to all that.

The consequence? Front line French health care will soon occur in “emergency rooms” only, emergency rooms already absurdly overburdened. The system will shrivel into a sclerotic inefficiency which, however, can be ignored by the public “health care givers” and their administrators, who will have no obligations beyond their employment contracts, and budgetary relation with the state. It’s not that the French doctors are not alarmed about this but they are only human. Thier energy and thier nerves have limits. Their suicide rate has reached a new high.

And what will happen to “health care”? Need I go into details?

McCrystal Stoned, Obama Stupid

2010-06-28T04:22:00.001-07:00

McCrystal reminds me of officer Crowley, the guy who arrested that black Harvard professor, and got called “stupid” by Obama.

Both men are Obama voters, and both behaved stupidly. Both are “professionals” - McCrystal is even a 4 star general - and I do not doubt that both not stupid in their areas.

But why did McCrystal have anything to do with Rolling Stone? There are lots of theories; mine is that Rolling Stone was no problem for McCrystal (whether its reporter was imposed, or he accepted him). The manipulation theories are absurd. What does McCrystal, or the army, or the war in Afghanistan, get from this? Is not McCrystal a Patreus/surge/Anbar-awakening guy to begin with? Does putting Patreus in his place change anything basic?

McCrystal is another one of those millions and millions of mostly left-leaning people who can’t understand that a rag like Rolling Stone has an agenda hostile to their essential interests, and to them personally for being attached to them. In this sense he is “stupid”.

As has been pointed out, and in spite of the hosannas, Obama makes himself look stupid by firing McCrystal for a few cracks reported in some stupid paper, and makes himself look even stupider by turning to Patreus whom he previously ridiculed. This, the still open Guantanamo, and that drone attacks in Pakistan are on the rise since he has become president, does not help.

What is Petreus’ game? Is it stupid to have accepted responsibility for the Afghan war? He must think he can win - under present or foreseeable conditions. If not…

Art Talk

2010-06-28T02:33:00.000-07:00

Here are several recent posts about art.

I think I have finally had enough of the Natural Pigments board, where too many of the active posters are trolls, and the rest are cowards. Anyway, on my board can be found comments about "classical realism", a primer on composition, and other things.

Riot Wave Cover up in Paris

2010-06-28T01:48:00.000-07:00

The French media, it seems, is covering up recent Muslim riots in Paris. For example, excited by the Gaza "relief" fleet incident, a large group wearing Arab scarves and displaying foreign flags attempted to storm the embassy of Israel, to cries of "Baise la France" (Fuck France), "Juifs dans les fours" (Jews in the ovens), "Sarkozy le petit Juif" (Sarkozy the little Jew) and "Obama le nègre des Juifs" (Obama the slave of the Jews). These thugs come armed with rocks and cause the usual millions of dollars of damage to public and private property, while the police, overwhelmed, use "restraint".

Such riots, organized with cell phones, are like the ethnic gang fights and skin-head soccer fan rumbles which occur regularly in Paris and other cities in France and Europe. France, you might say, has seen plenty of organized urban violence, much of which failed to shake the established order. But then much of it did; one must look particularly to the examples where the army and police were not allowed to fire upon the rioters.

Futuristic Science Saves Mexican Gulf

2010-06-17T02:23:00.001-07:00

BP announced that a so called "portal" - developed by a consortium of engineers from Haliburton and Stevens Institute of Technology - has been lowered around the oil leak. This "portal" opens into the 18th dimension, otherwise known as the "cosmic nexus", according to BP engineers. Initial measurements show that the portal is absorbing 100% of the oil, so that the sub-sea camera now shows a placid ocean floor.

The estimated 71 million gallons of oil, mixed with mud, natural gas and other materials, is now directly under the control of God, or, as some experts claim, a mindless but universal law or system of distribution. However this may be, at 8:37 this morning oil and detritus of exactly the same composition as was leaking into the gulf, began dropping out of the sky onto Washington D.C., directly onto the White House, which has been partially evacuated. The first family remains in residences, though the windows of the Oval office have been blocked by the flow of crude. The oil is running off the roof and flooding the east lawn, from where it is oozing out onto Pennsylvania avenue, blocking traffic and disrupting protest marches.

Though BP's action has saved the Mexican gulf region, president Obama's troubles are not over. President Obama has ordered Eric Holder to investigate pope Benedict XVI with a view to criminal inditement on charges of aggravated littering, as well as physical, psychic and metaphysical aggression. But according to unidentified inside sources the administration is torn in a bitter controversy over the existence of God. In a press conference hastily convened this morning, Janet Napolitano emphasized that, while action against the Vatican was good policy for a variety of reasons, it would avail nothing in the present crisis. Nature, Napolitano claims, is the guilty one. Napolitano proposes a punitive subterranean nuclear explosion if the oil is not diverted away from Washington, perhaps to the asteroid belt from where it may later be collected and used in a deep-space mission. She also proposes to indite BP on charges of conspiracy with Nature. This is a dramatic change of policy direction for the ultra-green and anti-nuclear Napolitano.

No commentary from the Vatican is available, but the AAC (American Atheist Conference) quickly denounced Napolitano's proposal, calling it "the vindictive fantasy of an ignoramus". The AAC donated 3 million dollars to president Obama's presidential campaign.

The Deflation Bug-bear

2010-05-22T01:07:00.000-07:00

The Left wants to scare us with the specter of "deflation" because they want the easy-credit party to continue. Their Keynian fantasy is that handing out money makes the economy work: if people have cash they can buy things factories sell stuff, factory workers get paid, and the whole system "works". But doping the economy with funny-money can only help particular and limited situations.

Deflation is not what is going to happen. There is plenty of real value around (more than ever before in the history of humanity!) and the economy, at least in America, is still fairly sound. People are working; there is demand; there is offer. Our current "crisis" is about money - because government debt is out of hand. This situation is unprecedented and difficult to cope with intellectually.

Given the current "political culture", inflation is inevitable. It is the only way to balance budgets without "politically difficult" cut-backs (see the Greek riots), even if the end of this road is still a brick wall. It works this way: the government owes $1000, but it also controls the money supply, i.e. prints the money, or - what comes to the same thing - controls the "flow" of "credit". So, when the money "loses value" (i.e. prices go up because there is so much loose cash around) the same dollar amount buys less, or represents less value. So when the government loan comes due, it hands back $1000 to some sucker of a foreign investor. But this $1000 now only buys 10% of what the $1000 loaned bought at the time it was borrowed. Borrow 1000, pay back 100; clever, dishonest, and a bad deal for lenders.

Gietner wants the Chinese will lend us money. The Chinese laughed at Gietner. The Eurocrats are scrambling to guarantee Greek dept, but this is not "calming" "the market".

Each year, like a plague: larger and larger budgets, more and more debt. The game of infinite credit, or “easy money” is now, at long last, over.

The housing crisis and the debt crisis are really the same thing. The government wanted to make home-owning "democratic", or "accessible to everyone", even the bums who can't pay. They made the banks fill lending quotas. Loans for home-buying are a significant portion of all loans, or “credit”. The other major sectors are business loans, and loans to governments. This is where "savings" go, i.e. money people put in banks. The banks lend this cash to home buyers, business and the government (by buying treasury bills). So too many housing loans were driven by fiat and quota, not on the basis of whether or not people could pay back. The accumulation of bad loans (or "bad dept") was aggravated by the newfangled practice of grouping loans into "packages" to buy and sell like barrels of olives, as well as insurance packages on these packages, also bought and sold like barrels of olives. These shenanigans hid the fundamental problem behind a screen of "finance", namely that there were sums like $300,000 loaned to vast numbers of people who could not pay them back. Eventually it was generally realized that no money was coming was in; the "packages", and the loans behind them, were worthless, and the whole thing fell apart.

Thus IRAs went "down". The money in the IRAs had been lent by banks to home buyers who could not pay it back. The banks could repossess the houses, but the house prices, inflated by th easy credit, fell back down to real values, and much of the loaned money evaporated.

"Deflation" occurs when prices collapse below “real value”, or where “real value” becomes a meaningless concept because no one has anything to trade, because everyone is destitute and exchanges cannot even occur. Deflation is not when prices return to normal after a bubble bursts.

But the big part of the “crisis” is bad government debt.

People lend money to the government, like the banks lent money to home-buyers. But, like the bum home-buyers, the bum-government (like Greece) can't pay it back. Their liabilities and debts are so bloated that money collected in taxes, plus any new loans they can trick people into, do not even cover the interest on thier current loans. The governments borrowed so much money to pay for massive entitlements: hiring people into make-work jobs, or just handing out money. This, thankfully, is now over. We can sit back and, with a certain bitter satisfaction, watch it all wind down.

So keep your value away from money, and away from treasury bills in particular! In the short term be in real property: land, manuscripts, gold, etc.. There will be massive inflation, and there will be much pain for people "sucking on the government’s hind tit". Small government pensions for older people are probably ok, though inflation will ruin their current real value. Savings will shrivel. People dependant on government largesse will have the worst time. But there is no fundamental problem. And this “crisis” will probably be accompanied by a general weakening of governments, which will allow the civil society to reconstitute the economy more easily.

The Beginning of the End

2010-05-08T03:22:00.000-07:00

Well children, here we go!

From a philosophical point of view we are witnessing the death throes of Leftism, or what remains of it after the debacle of 1989.

The fundamental meaning or content of Leftism is revealed by its origin: 18th century French anti-clericalism. The world is not a mysterious thing, ordained by an intelligence and a force beyond our ken; it is, rather, an inanimate mechanism - including its “human material” - which, as such, is subject to Human Will, now consecrated ruler of the cosmos.

The ultimate practical consequence of this doctrine - or, more exactly, religion - is the absurd notion that a) money (material) equals happiness and b) the supply of money, through the agency of credit (human “creativity”), is infinite. The abject nature of all this is now being unveiled, and the consequences of its pathologically entrenched supremacy must, at last, be faced.

But good things, like bad, come in batches! Thanks to the last big trick Leftism will have played on the world (the election of Barack Hussein Obama to the presidency of the USA) Israel must face its implacable Mohammedan enemy, now armed with an A-bomb, alone. This sad and unpresidented fact makes the outcome uncertain. The imminent attack, though it may not include an offensive on Israel’s eastern and southern fronts (if one does not count Gaza), will include, as in Gulf 1, large missiles armed with poison gas, and the outcome, whichever way thing go, will be infinitely more consequential for the world than any of the countless jihadi attacks on Israel to date: for, if the Jews are not eliminated in the first moments there will certainly be a nuclear exchange, and if they are eliminated the jihadist armies will instantly turn their insatiable gaze west.

The great experiment is over! Return now we must to “square one”, which is to say: the philosophical and "cultural" 14th century.

Crowley WAS stupid

2009-07-26T01:06:00.000-07:00

I know, if possible, even less about this foolishness than all the oombahs mouthing-off about it, but since my own view is somewhat different from any I’ve heard so far, here it is.

Gates is obviously a pathetic parasite to whom Harvard has given a wonderful chance to live a beautiful fantasy. That fantasy is based on a more fundamental fantasy, and the Boston police just gave Gates the opportunity to live that one, which he did. It was likewise the occasion for our president to do a bit of vicarious living himself. After underlying that America continues to be a racist nightmare, he stipulated that the cop acted stupidly. The radio hornets are now buzzing furiously.

Now a guy who actually teaches a class on ‘racial profiling’ is not only an Obama voter (which Crowley is) but can hardly be anything less than a full-bore leftist. Leftism, particularly on the contemporary American scene, is fundamentally about something which used to be a religious matter: ‘justification’. Being of the left, having leftist opinions and thinking leftist thoughts, is really about being a good person, in one’s own eyes. Even more fundamentally it is about being a better person than the next guy. So when a policemen, who is mandated to exercise force against the citizenry, is soaked in this attitude, the result is the sort of bumptious and self-righteous snottyness apparently displayed by Crowley. What could possibly be gained by leading away that fool in handcuffs, except some sort of personal gratification? Gates menaced Crowley, and Crowley trumped him. If Gate's behavior was actually illegal (and it obviously must be illegal to behave to policemen in certain ways) was there no way to bring this home to Gates without arresting him on the spot? The robbery issue had been settled; Gates, with infinitely poor grace, had identified himself to the officer’s satisfaction.

Strategy Debate

2009-05-25T04:37:00.001-07:00

The best evidence of our president’s affirmation that ‘the record is clear’ regarding Guantanamo having generated more terrorists than it has prevented would be that it is mentioned in jihadist recruitment materials. But that does not prove it is an effective recrutement tool. It might be intended for western consumption, to throw confusion into the enemy ranks, which indeed it has done. The record would be clear if it could be demonstrated that a) such mention actually motivated terrorist recruits and b) that this number exceeded the number of those detained. Does a clear record on these points exist? It seems incredible that a group addicted to kidnapping and slitting throats, not discreetly but on video eagerly broadcast to the world, would get excited, one way or the other, by detention under any circumstances and the sort of rough-stuff practiced which has been inflicted on two or three of them during the past eight years.

In any case, to both donkeys and elephants who condemn Guantanamo I would ask: even if the current crop of detainees can be somehow done away with, what do you propose for future un-uniformed jihadist picked up on battle-fields around the world, even if you are not interested in asking them a few little questions but just keeping them off the streets? What, in other words, should the short-sighted junta of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld have done in the first place?

Despite all the yammer, however, most donkeys and elephants seem to side with the junta, given the massive rejection of funds requested by the president to close Guantanamo, to say nothing of donkey declarations to the effect that “terrorists” (NB, not “agents of man-made disaster” or some other euphemism) are not welcome on US soil, even in the restricted area of a US prison.

The obvious solution is to shoot un-uniformed combatants on the field of battle, per the rules of war. In this we would perhaps deprive ourselves of useful information which might be throttled out of such rascals, but it would spare our sensitive souls the sort of vindictive squawk in which Madam Speaker seems to have over-indulged, and which our new president promised would end on his watch. Even Madam Speaker may now be longing for this more civil era, in which we politely ignore past excess.

Fungibility

2009-05-25T04:14:00.000-07:00

Their are problems with Anne Korin’s argument (see Strategic Oil).

A) Expanded US oil production would put downward pressure on the international price which, according to Korin’s assertions, would tend to oblige OPEC to make adjustments. Whether or not OPEC actually did make such adjustments, increased US production would tend to reduce thier income flow; either the price would go down or they would be obliged to reduce their own production to maintain the price.

B) America could create a protected national market by eliminating the gasoline tax on fuel produced from US crude, as well as other fiscal inducements, and perhaps mandating a gasoline price higher than what the market would otherwise call for (which might still be less than what it is today), in order to channel all US production into the domestic market, in effect destroying the fungibility problem. Were this not possible though economic inducements internal production could simply be mandated for internal use. If the USA is truly the biggest energy market in the world, this could hardly be an economic hardship to the producers involved. As for international repercussions, apart from finger-pointing, the effect could not be very important, given the universal nature of the market. I am not the one to make the calculations, but surely there would be a way to make this economically interesting to the producers, and given that a great part of gasoline prices are tax, to the customers as well.

C) Surely the tanker loads of crude oil which criss-cross the oceans protected by the US navy are traceable! It seems amazing that petroleum’s fungibiliy could not be interfered with on the basis of this information.

Red and Blue

2009-04-26T03:32:00.000-07:00

The Orwellian switch by which the American Sodomy Party is ‘republican’ blue, and it’s opponent ‘revolutionary’ red, works violence upon a language older and more universal than music, the elements of which, given the color of sky, water and blood, can never be chosen.

The media mandarins who worked this sly trick have savored their success, but with official designation of returning veterans as a vector of terrorism this stagecraft may be collapsing on these heads of the string-pullers.

The culture wars have had this result: the Sodomy Party owns government, education, traditional media, and a claim of control over public discourse. Their opponents have the army and the ideological adhesion of a majority of American citizens. Having color-designated the latter a revolutionary force, given current developments, the former may prove ironically justified.

We know what a ‘blue’ American will look like: the toothless, threadbare models are in Europe, with a prospect of dhimmi status. What would a ‘red’ America look like? One may hope for a restoration of the spirit of the Constitution, but at first it would look like a break-up of the union and military dictatorship. Such situations have been seen in American history, but not in the context of a globalized and nuclearized world.

Shaggy

2009-04-13T04:22:00.001-07:00

Once upon a time there was an evil emperor. But a magic spell put an end to him, and the peasants rejoiced. An evil queen of the north, inspired by a misshapen dwarf who was her court jester, vied for the crown, but the magicians and wise men of the empire appointed a beautiful young prince, beloved of the peasants and all peoples worldwide. A new era of justice and peace was inaugurated.

The new emperor was married to a magical fairy of great beauty. Her close-set eyes, out-thrust lower lip, stiff hair and fine gowns enchanted everyone. The imperial couple boasted two children, and far and wide it was known that the emperor had made them a wonderful promise: if he were crowned emperor he would give them a dog! But after the coronation months went by, and no dog came.

The affaires of the empire were many and urgent. The imperial gold was depleted. The peasants were suffering. Wars raged. One day a great lord brought a dog to the emperor, who gave it to his children. The children gave the dog a famous name, and the entire world greatly rejoiced.

Relativism for Easter

2009-04-12T02:41:00.001-07:00

There is no truth, only different views. One is that all religions are equally valid. Another is that they are equally invalid. The view of Islam is that Jesus was not the son of God. The view of Christianity is that Islam is a form of Arianism; the heresy, in this case, that Jesus was not the son of God.

Those serious about their relativism take all these views with equal seriousness--since, in particular, the pretension that science has proven that religion is primitive nonsense is itself only an ancent prejudice, a version Eliatic Monism, the hypothesis that the cosmos is made of grains of matter and that change is an illusion. This view, known today as Scientism, offers no explanation about the source of the cosmos (or, to the contrary, the nature of infinity) or the nature of awareness (which might as well be illusory). This, of course, does not prove it is wrong; and anyway it is not a crime to be mistaken, or should not be.

Our Chrildren's Debt

2009-04-10T01:41:00.000-07:00

I have heard this cry my whole life, and Victor Davis Hanson echoed it today: our children and grandchildren for generations, through all sorts of higher taxes, will have to service the mountain of debt and interest for the larger entitlements we’ll soon receive. That, or the system will break down. Loans will go unpaid on a massive scale destroying the trust and confidence which is the basis of economic prosperity, igniting a period of poverty unprecedented in modern times. If the American economy sloughs into 3d world mode Curtis Lemay's bombs will not be needed to shift China and India back into the stone age from which they so recently emerged. Europe, which has demonstrated little economic independence, will strangle.

After the cataclysm Americans would surely carry themselves as quickly as possible to internal recovery. The test might even be a tonic to the national spirit. After such a massive thievery the return to familiar levels of world-prosperity will not be a matter of trimesters but of generations; never before has America betrayed the world.

"France"

2009-04-09T12:35:00.000-07:00

For the American conservative movement 'France' has become a dirty word. Pundits who can quote the Founding fathers on the place of Christianity in the American founding or America's role in the maintenance of freedom in Europe through the 20th century, fail to mention that it was only thanks to France that America exists.

It was Admiral de Grasse who planned the battle of Yorktown, defeated the English fleet, and put almost as many French troops into the fight as there were American. The treasure engaged was that of the French nation. That Louis XVI had larger purposes, if he did, changes nothing: no French help, no United States of America.

My wife was twenty four years old in 1944 when America invaded France. Her father fought at Verdun, a battle in a war whose victory was made possible by an American army. Ariving in France General Pershing famously declared: “Lafayette, nous voilà”. My wife, however, is sympathetic to the new American attitude. She is disgusted at French anti-Americanism, and several other aspects of her country. Her attitude is shared by many but they lack a voice.

France, with less freedom than America, has not seen the emergence of anything comparable to the “conservative movement”. But, even with one side mute, the 'culture war' rages also in Europe.

Wilson Redux

2009-04-08T01:44:00.000-07:00

At last: the progressive vision is in power. Like cats watching a king we are seeing it articulated nationally and internationally.

We are also witness to its non-implementation. However placed the heart, however suave the toung, however good the look, the stars will not be charmed from their paths. It is like explaining the basis of civilization to an armed thief who has you at his mercy. So, to mention only the most contemptible aspect, no entity of substance will oppose even a rhetorical flourish to the comic opera playing at Geneva.

Will this renewed experiment, looming above those with eyes to see like a 20th century storm cloud, be the final one? Will the vast failure, if not conflagration, which stalks us, cleanse at last the utopian contagion from our minds? Even the school of hard knocks can teach nothing to the mindless, as has also been seen again and again.

Strategic Oil

2009-04-07T00:05:00.000-07:00

The West is funding jehadi mischief. How can the cycle be broken?

Anne Korin, in a highly coherent presentation, argues that oil is a “strategic” resource because transportation is hostage to it, whereas the US uses virtually no oil to generate electricity. OPEC, she demonstrates, is a cartel which profits no matter who produces or sells the stuff.

With economic and technological arguments Korin advocates a law mandating flex-motors coupled with batteries, after which the market does the rest.

Torture

2009-04-06T07:05:00.000-07:00

Torture, we are told, is ineffective. The idea is that the accused will confess under torture but the innocent, strong in the truth, will have the nerve to resist. This might be true, or publicly defensible, in societies of honor but not in societies of physical gratification. But the idea breaks down because some people are beyond innocence and guilt; they just have pleanty of nerve, and this is not written on thier faces.

When it is not a matter of personal confessions the situation is different. Let us imagine we wish to squeeze information about our enemy from tight-lipped captives. Like the accused of the previous case some have nerve and some not. But here we do not care about confession. We want information which any of the captives might have equally. If some have nerves, others might not. Whatever information is culled can then be checked, and is only one aspect of an informational picture being drawn up from several sources.

Ideological Confrontation

2009-04-06T03:52:00.001-07:00

The problem of ideological confrontation has recently presented itself to me in a new form: what happens to ideological passion in the after-life? For the sake of this query let us say that Heaven is a reflection of our earthly desire for peace, harmony, joy and perfection.

In this life the only work-around against ideological passions is friendship; it is possible to disagree about abstract matters and remain friends. This is even possible in the face of alleged consequences of the given positions. Americans who believe it is a good thing to bring Democracy to Iraq and those who believe that the war is a bad thing, e.g. might remain friends even as American soldiers take casualties.

Friendship, however, is only for men of good will; even friends must always disagree about some things because each man is unique. Those who mock, who use one standard for thier side and another for the other, are not such men. This takes us to the heart of the question: ill-will defines the situation even when it is unilateral. In Heaven the truth will be clear. Men of good will can accept it gratefully; they can recognize their errors because they subordinate thier ideology to something else. Men of ill-will are not interested in self-perfection but in winning. Their positions are not steps on a path towards truth but a weapon.

Men should recognize the finite character of human intellect, their own in particular, and subordinate their conclusions to the results of honest debate, which perhaps can only be concluded in Heaven, where the truth, in all its splendor, will be clear and undeniable. This apparition will not effect men of ill will because it does not affect their lust for success.

Shredding the Constitution

2009-04-05T06:32:00.001-07:00

We have heard so much these past years about the assault on liberty (face it: we are no longer free to plan terrorist attacks over the phone), empowerment of the rich and the “mortgaging of our future”, that the smiling silence meeting current trends puts subtle upward pressure on an eyebrow. The turn-abouts on every principle (virtue and new blood, kosher legislation, jail closing palaver and mortgage bloat) might leave us astonished were it not for the auto-flattery of hero-worship which animates the chattering class.

Perhaps most pernicious, and theoretically amusing, is the newly blatant oligarchic coalition ever more boldly seeking to run the economy for the benefit of the happy few under the auspices of the most progessive wing, whose tenancy on the summits will prove maintainable only through sharp practice. Of the latter there has also been much talk these past years but it seems, as always, that the unselfaware (to put it with exagerated charity) accuse in others their own crimes.

These machinations, if successful from the oligarchs’ standpoint, mean the end of USA free-enterprise as traditionally understood, lowering of USA standard of life, and a slip in foreign economic dynamism, American exceptionalism being its keystone.

The Western Dynamic

2009-04-05T03:22:00.000-07:00

Leo Strauss’ fundamental point about Western Culture is that it is a dynamic of two irreconcilable elements: Greek philosophy and the Bible. The amalgam of materialism, relativism, positivism, darwinism, etc. with moralism however, is, or seems to be, such a reconciliation. Strauss warns that such combination is inevitably a degradation of one side or the other, with consequent enfeeblement of the crucial dynamic.

Contemporary moralism serves almost exclusively to brow-beat ideological adversaries into obedience. As for actual biblical morality, it subverts it.

The amoral quality of materialism & etc. is not faced, and the allegedly evident quality of moralism has a flimsy basis. Even Plato, not once, but again and again, questioned the evident quality of the most obvious tenets of moralism (equality and justice), in the mouths of such characters as Thrasymachus and Callicles. These men claimed that the natural law is the right of the stronger. Socrates confounds them in a context (the presence of other men they are forced to respect and who would hear Socrates out) which forces them to recognize incoherent aspects of thier thinking. But does this undo it altogether?

The biblical side invaded the philosophical side in the 19th century. The concept of progress, which is exclusively biblical, is the basis of Marxism in particular.

The Worst Generation

2009-04-04T00:49:00.000-07:00

How is it that the obstinate Materialism espoused by the Western elite is paired with a moralizing attitude which contradicts it so flagrantly, for why should the fate of the widow and the orphan--not to say the pederast and person of color--excite folk who ought to be convinced that human emotion is a meta-effect of a chemical reaction? They are supine heirs of Christian moralism--its attitudes, not its content. Fasinated by themselves they are naturally uninterested in the history of who they are or knowledge of what they are. Hypocritically addicted to the sweet sensation of acceptance and justification, which drowns the critical sense and the capasity to act independently, they behave like Cambodian peasants, swallowing simplistic ideas to be led around in crowds by cynical demagogues, commiting foolish acts and eventually horrid ones. The best set themselves up as scolding censors of exactly the type they scold and censor.

New Masters?

2009-04-03T03:12:00.000-07:00

The new ideological direction prompts several questions, including the eventual 'who?'. I was particularly struck, in his recent address to a group in Connecticut, by General Petreus' exaggerated republicanism. The new direction of US foreign policy includes hostility towards Israel, appeasement of Russia and Iran, softness towards China, N. Korea and Al Caida, abandonment of missile defense, military budget cuts, and a rhetorical rather than pragmatic approach to Afganistan. This can hardly please the prudent Petreus, and yet he combed through the contradictory statements of our top executives for short phrases supportive of his message and used them repeatedly. He ended his remarks by pointing out that CentCom, of which he is the chief, is a territory not only larger than Alexander the Great’s empire but than the old Persian empire itself. Is America running a world empire? Given the stakes in a time of nuclear proliferation and infiltrated stateless armies, it is nice to know that Petreus is at the helm.

Victor Davis Hanson, praising the US military (april 2, 2009) called it the most competent, judicious—and lethal—military in the history of civilization, and of the officer corps said that they are relics of an American past who believe in honor, duty, country, God, sacrifice, and the continuation of the American experiment, and claimed they will do almost anything as outlined in the Constitution to ensure that their country—you and I—is safe and continues on in perpetuity. What will such men, in whose hands lies such power and responsibility, do in the face of the current challenges from within?

End of the American Experiment?

2009-04-02T11:01:00.000-07:00

If Leo Strauss is right America is the acme of the modern experiment, or the triumph of Machiavelli’s anti-philosophy. In this case modern democracy, despite its advantages and innovations, its wealth and power, its dynamism and freedom, remains subject to the classical critique that democracy is only one step better than tyranny.

Modern democracy, however, is not democracy; it is an aristotelian 'mixed regime' in the post-pre-idustrial era, but also a mass society. We are faced with the conjunction of mass society and technology, a problem the founding fathers did not face. The contrast is epitomized in constitutional provisions like the electoral college, an institution which seems to have become not only obsolete and quaint, but even problematic. Are we not capable of counting each voter's vote in real time? But obviously technology introduces technocratic opportunities to cheat far more suave than anything previous - to say nothing of other considerations.

The problem of knowledge, or information, or mental manipulation, has become extreme. A party which can not only fix the vote, but corrupt the thinking of the majority, sabotages the basic formula which made America work: a system, supported by a minimum of public morality, which enforced public collision and resolution of real interests. The new knowledge-technology situation seems, with the election of determined men supporting, and supported by, a mass ideology, to have brought us to a crisis.

Such considerations lead us to wonder if the American experiment is not coming to its close.