In a previous piece (The Free Market and Morality), I argued in favor of legislated morality, in the abstract. Fortunately, my sloppiness could not survive for long, and I was asked in the comments section to specify what laws in particular I would prefer, which did not involve people actually injuring each other.
(For my purposes, I am going to restrict myself to activities that are entirely voluntary for all parties involved, and do no direct harm to anybody.)
Having thought about it for a few days, I keep coming back to the entertainment industry. Take music, for example. The Greeks knew the degree to which a person’s moral instincts were shaped by the very music they listened to; Aristotle even went so far as to advocate banning certain musical modes entirely from the city, as being too discordant and not instilling the proper love of harmony in the listener. The Phrygian mode especially (which is today called Dorian mode) was seen as promoting vice. Much to be preferred were the morally edifying Lydian and Dorian modes (Dorian is today called Phrygian mode, ironically enough).
Does this seem farfetched? It is widely known today that hooligans generally do not like classical music, and public malls have taken to playing such music on loudspeakers to drive away criminals. How can such people dislike classical music so much that they will actually leave places where it is playing?
I remember when I first began listening to Metallica. I really liked the music, which was unusual for me; generally I consider most rock to be terrible. But at the same time, as I listened I could feel myself becoming coarsened in some subtle manner. Perhaps it was the aggressive electric guitar, or the pounding precussion. It was worse when I would work out in the campus weight room. Someone would usually put on some sort of rap or hip-hop, which makes for excrable listening. Aside from the lyrics, the effect of the music itself was like a jackhammer to the brain, with a relelntlessly pounding beat that obliterated all thought before it.
Music is a language, and communicates information just as surely as words do. That the information is emotional and not logical does not make it any less real. And its effect on the human spirit is profound. Aristotle wrote that good music teaches the listener to recognize and even to seek out true virtue. The opposite is true as well. Are we then to simply allow people to make whatever music they want, and then to inflict it on the public sphere?
The Beatles were seen in their day as shocking, even dangerous. Compare them to the cesspool that is modern music. Can anyone doubt that there has been a real moral decline? Or that its effects are felt throughout society?
Similar arguments can be made for television or movies, or computer games for that matter, and much more easily than for music. Now I am not arguing that "immoral" music should be banned entirely, if such a thing would even work. But it should be banned from the public sphere. If children want to listen to such things in the home, that is their parents' concern. But the public sphere is our concern, and we should not permit it to become the dumping ground for everything that people don't want in their homes, as it has become.
So much for entertainment. The other thing that comes to mind is body piercing.
I am continually astonished by the miracle of the human body. That nerves and sinews and muscle work together so flawlessly (in general), that the endocrine system can maintain such a complex and delicate balance of chemicals, is staggering. And people are so cavalier about poking holes in themsleves?
Earrings and nose piercings have a long tradition, and I have no quarrel with them. But the more exotic manifestations denote a certain disregard of the human body, or even in some cases actual self-loathing. It cheapens the value of human life; it is perhaps suicide writ small. A bit overstated, but not by much. So I would ban all piercings besides ear and nose; teenagers can keep their melancholic angst to themselves, and should not be allowed to damage their bodies on a whim.
Both degraded public entertainment and body mutilation hurt no one directly, or even indirectly except at several removes. They are purely voluntary for those directly involved. And yet to allow both free license, as has been done, undermines the morality of entire societies. It is here where the Non-Agression Principle fails, I think, and where strict libertarians come up short. Morality best grows in an environment suited to morality. It is the task of societies to provide that environment.
6/17/2005
6/15/2005
Rafsanjani's Doubletalk
I am right now staring with some amazement at the front page of the Investor's Business Daily, which is graced with a photo of former (and would-be future) Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. The caption quotes this worthy as saying, "I am going for a policy of relaxation of tension and deténte." Rafsanjani is apparently running on a platform of specifically not developing a nuclear weapon.
This is of course the same Rafsanjani who said on December 13, 2001:
This is of course the same Rafsanjani who said on December 13, 2001:
If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in possession, the strategy of colonialism would face a stalemate because application of an atomic bomb would not leave any thing in Israel but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world…. Jews shall expect to be once again scattered and wandering around the globe the day when this appendix [i.e. Israel] is extracted from the region and the Muslim world.I am willing to imagine that he may have changed his mind. After all, the nuclear program is wildly unpopular within Iran; Iranians have no desire to get into a shooting war over some mullah's homicidal fantasies. But I think this is just one more sign of how rigged the elections really are. Rafsanjani is hardly an outsider candidate, promising to reform the system. He is an old friend of the ayatollas, and everybody knows it. If there were real reform candidates on the ballot, our dear friend Rafsanjani wouldn't stand a chance. He may be moderating his talk now in hopes of avoiding Western ire, but I don't think we should let him get off that easily.
6/14/2005
The Free Market and Morality
For a long time I've been nagged by a sense of inconsistency in my beliefs. I am as absolute a defender of free-market capitalism as you will find, under the assumption that people can generally be trusted to sensibly pursue their own interests. At the same time, I believe that morality can only be assured through a system of law, and that leaving morality to the individual is a recipe for disaster.
When thinking about the distinction between them, the best I could come up with is that individual freedom seems to work better in economics than in morality. That answer is unsatisfying, since it says nothing about why this should be so. Yesterday, I finally put my finger on what I think the essential difference is.
In economics, you can keep score. In morality, you can't.
In economics, your success or failure can be clearly quantified at any time, by counting up your assets. By watching your score, you have immediate feedback on whether the choices you make are beneficial. With that information, each individual can analyze his options and decide which are best, at least when taken generally over the whole system.
But in morality, the very standards you use to measure yourself are based on a moral decision. There is no single standard. What I would consider a debauched disintegration of society, others might call the free expression of individual potentialities or other such nonsense. We cannt agree on how to score ourselves, and therefore groups of people cannot effectively regulate their own behavior without the intervention of an outside standard. People cannot be trusted to do the right thing, because they cannot agree on what the right thing is.
Libertarianism, when applied to morality, leads to anarchy.
When thinking about the distinction between them, the best I could come up with is that individual freedom seems to work better in economics than in morality. That answer is unsatisfying, since it says nothing about why this should be so. Yesterday, I finally put my finger on what I think the essential difference is.
In economics, you can keep score. In morality, you can't.
In economics, your success or failure can be clearly quantified at any time, by counting up your assets. By watching your score, you have immediate feedback on whether the choices you make are beneficial. With that information, each individual can analyze his options and decide which are best, at least when taken generally over the whole system.
But in morality, the very standards you use to measure yourself are based on a moral decision. There is no single standard. What I would consider a debauched disintegration of society, others might call the free expression of individual potentialities or other such nonsense. We cannt agree on how to score ourselves, and therefore groups of people cannot effectively regulate their own behavior without the intervention of an outside standard. People cannot be trusted to do the right thing, because they cannot agree on what the right thing is.
Libertarianism, when applied to morality, leads to anarchy.
6/12/2005
Draining the Swamp
The program I'm on seems to have a very clear theme: government has gotten out of everyone's control. As one example, it has become so musclebound because of its huge network of subsidies and preferential laws, and the growing mass of lobbyist groups that have arisen to defend them, that it can get nothing done. That's the basic premise of Jonathan Rauch's book "Government's End: Why Washington Stopped Working." He takes great pains to avoid demonizing the lobbyists; after all, they are only acting rationally, given the high costs for a single group not to lobby Washington when everyone else is. If you don't get in on the action, you're left screwed.
The major problem is that lots of people say they want small government, but nobody wants to personally suffer from government's retrenchment. So every time a particular program or subsidy goes under the ax, hordes of concerned citizens shriek like the Furies and send lobbyists to save "their" piece of the pie. This is absurd, of course. We need to realize that if we want to clear away the deadwood of government, and free up the small businessman from the morass of laws that favor the big boys, we will need to suffer some pain first.
I think one good place to start would be in housing.
Everyone is worrying about a "bubble" in housing. People are overstretching their means, and buying houses they clearly cannot afford, using such risky and shortsighted methods as interest-only adjustable loans. Why, you ask, would so many people put themselves at such risk of going upside-down on their mortgage?
Simple. Because paying interest on mortgages is government-subsidized. To wit, you get to write it off on your taxes.
How many times have you heard that buying a bigger house is the best tax-shelter available (assuming you aren't extremely wealthy)? How many people do you know who have actually bought massive houses for just that reason?
This cannot go on. If sanity is not restored to the housing industry soon, we are going to end up with a meltdown that will make the S&L crisis look like small fry. We have to remove the tax-free status of interest payments. It can be done in increments, naturally, to make it easier to adjust to, but it must be done.
"But," you ask, "how can we possibly do that? Think of how much money we will be paying. We can't afford that!" So along with making interest payments taxable, we should lower the tax rate to compensate. No more subsidizing interest-only foolishness; just fair taxes across the board. (Plus, it would be "progresssive"! After all, most poor people do not make mortgage payments.)
Best of all, by doing this we will demonstrate our fundamental willingness to accept a little pain in the short term in order to correct a fundamental distortion for the long term. That is, if we are indeed willing to do so. Philosohpically, ending mortgage subsidies should be something liberals and conservatives can agree needs to happen; the only thing standing in the way is our questionble tolerance for pain. That is why we need to start spreading the word now, to get the idea out into the open.
We need to face the facts. The only way to really fix government is to suck it up and do without many of the entitlements we have ourselves demanded, and benefit from. Housing subsidies is as good a place as any to start.
The major problem is that lots of people say they want small government, but nobody wants to personally suffer from government's retrenchment. So every time a particular program or subsidy goes under the ax, hordes of concerned citizens shriek like the Furies and send lobbyists to save "their" piece of the pie. This is absurd, of course. We need to realize that if we want to clear away the deadwood of government, and free up the small businessman from the morass of laws that favor the big boys, we will need to suffer some pain first.
I think one good place to start would be in housing.
Everyone is worrying about a "bubble" in housing. People are overstretching their means, and buying houses they clearly cannot afford, using such risky and shortsighted methods as interest-only adjustable loans. Why, you ask, would so many people put themselves at such risk of going upside-down on their mortgage?
Simple. Because paying interest on mortgages is government-subsidized. To wit, you get to write it off on your taxes.
How many times have you heard that buying a bigger house is the best tax-shelter available (assuming you aren't extremely wealthy)? How many people do you know who have actually bought massive houses for just that reason?
This cannot go on. If sanity is not restored to the housing industry soon, we are going to end up with a meltdown that will make the S&L crisis look like small fry. We have to remove the tax-free status of interest payments. It can be done in increments, naturally, to make it easier to adjust to, but it must be done.
"But," you ask, "how can we possibly do that? Think of how much money we will be paying. We can't afford that!" So along with making interest payments taxable, we should lower the tax rate to compensate. No more subsidizing interest-only foolishness; just fair taxes across the board. (Plus, it would be "progresssive"! After all, most poor people do not make mortgage payments.)
Best of all, by doing this we will demonstrate our fundamental willingness to accept a little pain in the short term in order to correct a fundamental distortion for the long term. That is, if we are indeed willing to do so. Philosohpically, ending mortgage subsidies should be something liberals and conservatives can agree needs to happen; the only thing standing in the way is our questionble tolerance for pain. That is why we need to start spreading the word now, to get the idea out into the open.
We need to face the facts. The only way to really fix government is to suck it up and do without many of the entitlements we have ourselves demanded, and benefit from. Housing subsidies is as good a place as any to start.
6/06/2005
Update: Georgetown Live!
Yesterday I arrived at Georgetown University, where I will be having classes for the next two months. Tomorrow I begin my internship (I am not blogging about it unless and until I get my boss's approval).
The university is large and very beautiful (aside from the disconcerting presence of crucifixes in most of the major buildings). The other students on the program look like a really good bunch, and my roommates are good guys. So far it's been a lot of fun.
I haven't had a lot of time to think about what I'm going through, but rest assured that my cogitations wil be cogitating as always, so there should be some fun reading here before long. So far, the biggest issue has been dealing with kosher food, given that all the good shopping is outside of walking distance from the university. Once I start using the Metro more, that should be taken care of.
Now I have a lot of news to catch up on. I'll be back...
The university is large and very beautiful (aside from the disconcerting presence of crucifixes in most of the major buildings). The other students on the program look like a really good bunch, and my roommates are good guys. So far it's been a lot of fun.
I haven't had a lot of time to think about what I'm going through, but rest assured that my cogitations wil be cogitating as always, so there should be some fun reading here before long. So far, the biggest issue has been dealing with kosher food, given that all the good shopping is outside of walking distance from the university. Once I start using the Metro more, that should be taken care of.
Now I have a lot of news to catch up on. I'll be back...
6/02/2005
Trouble Brewing in Uzbekistan?
After the massacre of several hundred (perhaps thousand?) civilians by the Uzbek military, the US became rather uneasy about its support for President Karimov. After Karimov and China publicly aligned with each other, the US started moving.
Via Instapundit comes word that the State Department is evaucating the families of its personnel from Uzbekistan. Apparently the Peace Corps and other NGO's are about to pull their people as well. This comes just after a delegation of Senators visited the capital to express their displeasure over the massacre and subsequent crackdown by Karimov's thugs. It seems that practically overnight, Uzbekistan has become hostile territory, or at least unfriendly.
If Karimov is seeking closer relations with China, there is probably some sort of Russian involvement. Russia and China both want to limit American power in Central Asia, and Russia has been nervous over American bases in Uzbekistan in particular. The massacre and its reprecussions gave China a chance to extend its own reach, and Russia is probably happier this way because the American presence is being undermined.
Was this the impetus behind our new pressure on the regime? Or is it simply that we have finally decided that we can no longer tolerate "our SOB's" in order for the spread of democracy to become a true geopolitical weapon against extremism? I don't know, and frankly the practical difference is slight. It seems like the recent tide of democratic feeling in tyrannies is going to stick, and is being supported by the United States. If we should hope to preserve isolated outposts of tyranny because the State Department feels it to be in our immediate interest, it would be foolish and ultimately futile. The Mubaraks of the world are doomed, whether Foggy Bottom likes it or not.
At any rate, what next for Karimov? The presence of American troops in Uzbekistan has to be a constraining factor, but what if he should demand that they leave? I don't think he's ready to do that yet, but the possibility has to be worrying President Bush. I suppose it depends on whether China is willing to make it worth Karimov's while. It will be interesting to watch, at least.
Via Instapundit comes word that the State Department is evaucating the families of its personnel from Uzbekistan. Apparently the Peace Corps and other NGO's are about to pull their people as well. This comes just after a delegation of Senators visited the capital to express their displeasure over the massacre and subsequent crackdown by Karimov's thugs. It seems that practically overnight, Uzbekistan has become hostile territory, or at least unfriendly.
If Karimov is seeking closer relations with China, there is probably some sort of Russian involvement. Russia and China both want to limit American power in Central Asia, and Russia has been nervous over American bases in Uzbekistan in particular. The massacre and its reprecussions gave China a chance to extend its own reach, and Russia is probably happier this way because the American presence is being undermined.
Was this the impetus behind our new pressure on the regime? Or is it simply that we have finally decided that we can no longer tolerate "our SOB's" in order for the spread of democracy to become a true geopolitical weapon against extremism? I don't know, and frankly the practical difference is slight. It seems like the recent tide of democratic feeling in tyrannies is going to stick, and is being supported by the United States. If we should hope to preserve isolated outposts of tyranny because the State Department feels it to be in our immediate interest, it would be foolish and ultimately futile. The Mubaraks of the world are doomed, whether Foggy Bottom likes it or not.
At any rate, what next for Karimov? The presence of American troops in Uzbekistan has to be a constraining factor, but what if he should demand that they leave? I don't think he's ready to do that yet, but the possibility has to be worrying President Bush. I suppose it depends on whether China is willing to make it worth Karimov's while. It will be interesting to watch, at least.
5/27/2005
Grrr!!
As I was moving out of my room, a student I know was going with a security guard to get into his room, which was locked at the time (He had forgotten a few things that he needed to get out of the room). While I was locking up my room, I overhear the security guard say, "You going to leave all the lights on like that?" (Bear in mind, this is over summer vacation.)
The student answered, "Sure, why should I worry about it? I don't pay the electrical bill, do I?"
GAAAAAAAAAHHH!
What kind of ignorant $#!+ is that!? I knew he was a bit of a jerk before now, but what could possibly be going through the guy's mind to make him waste a ton of electricity (which the school is paying for) because he can't be bothered to turn off a lightswitch, while he can be bothered to make a smart-alecky remark about how much of a jerk he's being?
/rant_OFF
Anyhoo, time to get out of here. Shabbat shalom!
The student answered, "Sure, why should I worry about it? I don't pay the electrical bill, do I?"
GAAAAAAAAAHHH!
What kind of ignorant $#!+ is that!? I knew he was a bit of a jerk before now, but what could possibly be going through the guy's mind to make him waste a ton of electricity (which the school is paying for) because he can't be bothered to turn off a lightswitch, while he can be bothered to make a smart-alecky remark about how much of a jerk he's being?
/rant_OFF
Anyhoo, time to get out of here. Shabbat shalom!
5/26/2005
"You Will Never Find a More Wretched Hive..."
Over the next few days, I'll be in transit to the greater Washington D.C. area, where I have a summer school/internship program lined up. It's based from the Georgetown campus, and I'm really looking forward to it. All kidding aside (see title), I hope to be placed in some sort of government agency; but I'll know for sure once I get there (I hope).
Depending on where I do get placed, this blog could potentially get a LOT more interesting. Blogging will be light until I get settled in, but after that we'll see what happens. Cheers!
POSTSCRIPT [1:45 AM]: If you should happen to be standing outside of Penn Station on Sunday, and you see a giant U-Haul pull up and start unloading—that'll be me.
It really is amazing how much stuff can acumulate over a year, and I've already sent a huge box home by mail!
Depending on where I do get placed, this blog could potentially get a LOT more interesting. Blogging will be light until I get settled in, but after that we'll see what happens. Cheers!
POSTSCRIPT [1:45 AM]: If you should happen to be standing outside of Penn Station on Sunday, and you see a giant U-Haul pull up and start unloading—that'll be me.
It really is amazing how much stuff can acumulate over a year, and I've already sent a huge box home by mail!
5/24/2005
Gender in English
I have always been annoyed by those who dislike the word "man" in English, by which I mean those individuals who would rather have a "chairperson," a "congressperson," "all persons are created equal," et cetera, et cetera. Such constructions have no poetry, are incredibly flabby and grating on the ear, and disregard the weight of centuries of English rhetoric.
"Men" is a vigorous word, marching forward with the stride of a legionnaire. "Persons" is high-pitched and whining, has two syllables instead of one, and ends nearly inaudibly. Similar contrasts exist between "Man" and "Person." Compare the following (you might try reading aloud):
"Fight like a man." "Fight like a person."
"You ain't no kind of man." "You ain't no kind of person."
"Declaration of the Rights of Man." "Declaration of the Rights of Persons."
On the other hand, I can easily imagine that women would take offense at the proliferation of male language, given that English is largely neuter. One could compare it to a Jew listening to public declarations praising America's Christian charity, for example. So there is a problem to be dealt with.
Fortunately, there is a solution that does not involve watered-down language and weak, limp-wristed rhetoric. In Old English, the term "man" actually was gender-neutral. It had precisely the same meaning as "person" today, and it also included a collective sense lacking in the modern equivalent. The word for man was "wer" or "wére," surviving today in "werewolf." The word for woman was "wyf," which became "wife."
So here's a thought, which is shared by the author of the site I linked: what if we readopted "wére" in place of modern "man," freeing up "man" to return to its previous place of glory as a neutral word representing all of humanity? In one stroke, we would save the masterpieces of English rhetoric from the enervating influence of the Uberfeminist Censorship Committee, while at the same time solving the underlying problem once and for all.
There are a few practical problems, but nothing insurmountable. if "Negro" could be banished from the language in favor of "black" or "African American," I see no reason why "wére" cannot catch on. It's not as if English doesn't have any other homonyms or homophones, anyway.
I'm tempted to adopt the term on my blog for a few posts, and see what happens.
"Men" is a vigorous word, marching forward with the stride of a legionnaire. "Persons" is high-pitched and whining, has two syllables instead of one, and ends nearly inaudibly. Similar contrasts exist between "Man" and "Person." Compare the following (you might try reading aloud):
"Fight like a man." "Fight like a person."
"You ain't no kind of man." "You ain't no kind of person."
"Declaration of the Rights of Man." "Declaration of the Rights of Persons."
On the other hand, I can easily imagine that women would take offense at the proliferation of male language, given that English is largely neuter. One could compare it to a Jew listening to public declarations praising America's Christian charity, for example. So there is a problem to be dealt with.
Fortunately, there is a solution that does not involve watered-down language and weak, limp-wristed rhetoric. In Old English, the term "man" actually was gender-neutral. It had precisely the same meaning as "person" today, and it also included a collective sense lacking in the modern equivalent. The word for man was "wer" or "wére," surviving today in "werewolf." The word for woman was "wyf," which became "wife."
So here's a thought, which is shared by the author of the site I linked: what if we readopted "wére" in place of modern "man," freeing up "man" to return to its previous place of glory as a neutral word representing all of humanity? In one stroke, we would save the masterpieces of English rhetoric from the enervating influence of the Uberfeminist Censorship Committee, while at the same time solving the underlying problem once and for all.
There are a few practical problems, but nothing insurmountable. if "Negro" could be banished from the language in favor of "black" or "African American," I see no reason why "wére" cannot catch on. It's not as if English doesn't have any other homonyms or homophones, anyway.
I'm tempted to adopt the term on my blog for a few posts, and see what happens.
5/23/2005
Declarations of War, Revised
As long as democracies have gone to war, there have always been those who argued that wars were prosecuted for selfish reasons, and were therefore illegitimate or evil. Anyone not living in a cave for the past few years knows exactly what I mean. In the Iraq example, many people have gone so far as to belittle the tangible good that the United States has done for Iraq and focus entirely on the perceived selfish goals of the Bush Administration, believing that our humanitarian work has been incidental and only to disguise our supposed exploitation of Iraq.
This is to be expected. The world has a long history of wars fought only for the benefit of the rulers and their hangers-on. War being such a terrible evil (though often the lesser evil), it is repugnant to the moral mind to allow wars to be fought without a clear idea of why they are necessary; yet the government has many tools at its disposal to influence the public to give its assent, in a case where they might not have done so otherwise. For this reason among others, many people have an instinctive distrust of government intentions in war. As our soldiers in Iraq know, this causes significant problems.
I think that one way to lessen the chronic mistrust of a wartime democratic government would be to rework the concept of a declaration of war. Presently, declarations of war serve only to put the opposing state on notice; they are practically redundant, and have not been used by the United States since World War II. Note that this does not mean that the legislature is no longer consulted; often bills are passed instructing the executive to use “any means necessary” to deal with the conflict at hand. (This absurd change of labels probably owes much to the U.N. Charter, which declares “war” illegal.) But there is no longer a routine, formal invocation of the world community as spectators. This should change.
I propose a new formula of declaration to be passed by the legislature, necessary in any case where one state sends an occupying force to another (not necessarily in war), consisting of three parts: first, laying out the reasons for sending troops, casus belli or otherwise; second, laying out the immediate goal of the troops; third, laying out in general terms the long-term program of the declaring state in the state to be occupied. This declaration must carry the force of law, both national and international.
This would make into a criminal act the prosecution of war for stated reasons known to the aggressor to be false. Note that incompleteness in stating reasons would not be inherently criminal, but lying in the declaration would be. The purpose would be to force a government to state an “official” reason or reasons for the war, which could then be judged on their own merits by the citizens or by the international world, independent of conjecture. Even if the true reason for war was different, the official reason must be able to stand on its own in the eyes of the public.
It would also clearly delineate the boundaries of military action at the outset, and make going beyond them illegal, unless another such declaration is passed. No more could the people say they did not know what they were getting into.
Perhaps most importantly, the long-term phase would be forced to conform to what had been openly agreed to by the legislature. This would calm those who fear naked exploitation or any other underhandedness, since such activities would now be devoid of any legitimacy.
Such a formula, if adopted, could help keep states honest. Any opposition party would salivate at the chance of arresting government officials for unauthorized war activity. If such an arrest were prevented, the invocation of international law would at least make the government into official pariahs, if nothing else. (I am skeptical, but there must be a fallback in case of abuse of power.) The declaration would also clear up much of the anxiety surrounding government motives in wartime, which can only be to the good. In any event, it would ensure that all major aspects of the war are consented to by the legislature, which would be a marked improvement over what we have now.
This is to be expected. The world has a long history of wars fought only for the benefit of the rulers and their hangers-on. War being such a terrible evil (though often the lesser evil), it is repugnant to the moral mind to allow wars to be fought without a clear idea of why they are necessary; yet the government has many tools at its disposal to influence the public to give its assent, in a case where they might not have done so otherwise. For this reason among others, many people have an instinctive distrust of government intentions in war. As our soldiers in Iraq know, this causes significant problems.
I think that one way to lessen the chronic mistrust of a wartime democratic government would be to rework the concept of a declaration of war. Presently, declarations of war serve only to put the opposing state on notice; they are practically redundant, and have not been used by the United States since World War II. Note that this does not mean that the legislature is no longer consulted; often bills are passed instructing the executive to use “any means necessary” to deal with the conflict at hand. (This absurd change of labels probably owes much to the U.N. Charter, which declares “war” illegal.) But there is no longer a routine, formal invocation of the world community as spectators. This should change.
I propose a new formula of declaration to be passed by the legislature, necessary in any case where one state sends an occupying force to another (not necessarily in war), consisting of three parts: first, laying out the reasons for sending troops, casus belli or otherwise; second, laying out the immediate goal of the troops; third, laying out in general terms the long-term program of the declaring state in the state to be occupied. This declaration must carry the force of law, both national and international.
This would make into a criminal act the prosecution of war for stated reasons known to the aggressor to be false. Note that incompleteness in stating reasons would not be inherently criminal, but lying in the declaration would be. The purpose would be to force a government to state an “official” reason or reasons for the war, which could then be judged on their own merits by the citizens or by the international world, independent of conjecture. Even if the true reason for war was different, the official reason must be able to stand on its own in the eyes of the public.
It would also clearly delineate the boundaries of military action at the outset, and make going beyond them illegal, unless another such declaration is passed. No more could the people say they did not know what they were getting into.
Perhaps most importantly, the long-term phase would be forced to conform to what had been openly agreed to by the legislature. This would calm those who fear naked exploitation or any other underhandedness, since such activities would now be devoid of any legitimacy.
Such a formula, if adopted, could help keep states honest. Any opposition party would salivate at the chance of arresting government officials for unauthorized war activity. If such an arrest were prevented, the invocation of international law would at least make the government into official pariahs, if nothing else. (I am skeptical, but there must be a fallback in case of abuse of power.) The declaration would also clear up much of the anxiety surrounding government motives in wartime, which can only be to the good. In any event, it would ensure that all major aspects of the war are consented to by the legislature, which would be a marked improvement over what we have now.
5/21/2005
Quote of the Day
Leo Strauss responds to Marxist philosopher Alexandré Kojéve (previously Kochevnikoff, before he moved to Paris), who identifies the ideal world state as a homogeneous tyranny in which all citizens agree with each other, and with the tyrant, of their own free will:
Does this sound at all familiar? It should.
[T]he Universal and Final Tyrant will [by definition] be an unwise man… To retain his power, he will be forced to suppress every activity which might lead people into doubt of the essential soundness of the universal and homogeneous state: he must suppress philosophy as an attempt to corrupt the young. In particular he must in the interest of the homogeneity of his universal state forbid every teaching, every suggestion, that there are politically relevant natural differences among men which cannot be abolished or neutralized by progressing scientific technology…. [T]his time, the cause of philosophy is lost from the start. For the Final Tyrant presents himself as a philosopher, as the highest philosophic authority, as the supreme exegete of the only true philosophy, as the executor and hangman authorized by the only true philosophy. He claims therefore that he persecutes not philosophy but false philosophers…. Kojéve would seem to be right although for the wrong reason: the coming of the universal and homogeneous state will be the end of philosophy on earth.Leo Strauss, "Restatement on Xenophon's Hiero" in On Tyranny, pg. 210
Does this sound at all familiar? It should.
5/20/2005
80/20
Last night I was privileged to attend a Tai Chi class given by my professor's teacher, Dr. Harvey Sober, a grand master. It was a very good class, and I learned a great deal. One of the members of the class had written a Tai Chi handbook that we used at the college, and the master was throwing him around casually during his demonstrations. It was something worth seeing.
At one point in the evening, Dr. Sober spoke about the importance of developing and maintaining your health. He teaches classes at my college, and said that if you ever wanted to see people in terrible health, you just had to come into the Beit Midrash (House of Study, with the connotation of studying Jewish law), or as he called it, "the Ward." There, you can see "eighty-year-old twenty-year-olds, and ninety-year-old twenty-five-year-olds."
My fellow college students and I knew exactly what he meant, of course. At the college, there are several different types of students. You can identify the hard-core Beit Midrash learners easily enough. They usually spend several hours a day in the Beit Midrash hunched over large books with very small type (aside from their regular university classes). Many of them do not exercise at all and eat poorly, and all of them get perhaps five or six hours of sleep a night—and it shows.
This type of student usually has very pale skin, and his head and shoulders are hunched forward exactly as if they were ninety-year-old women with osteoporosis. Often they have glasses of varying thickness, and most of them already have visibly receding hairlines. Their bodies are usually thin and flabby, and the skin of their fingers, arms and necks looks like it belongs to a senior citizen. Seeing these students for the first time, you would imagine them to be perhaps in their late thirties and in poor health.
That these students were ever allowed to think that they could destroy their bodies for the sake of their learning is a disgrace for the observant Jewish education system. According to the Rambam, we are obligated to guard our health and fitness, so as to better serve God with our bodies. Yet for some reason, this obligation is given short shrift even as more trivial minutia of the law are obsessed over. The result is that those students most knowledgable in Torah are in all likelihood the ones who will die soonest.
Something has gone very wrong with the Jewish concept of the ideal person, and I think we can identify the problem as far back as Talmudic times at least. In Biblical times, the leaders were not only teachers of the Law and prophets, they were also physically powerful. Jacob lifted a boulder that usually took many men to roll; his sons were powerful enough that two of them anihilated the city of Shechem. The prophets of Israel often led armies in battle, for example Gideon and Devorah.
More than that, the leaders were often musicians and poets. King David, the "sweet singer of Israel," is the best example. It seems clear that in those days, the leaders were expected to hold to a standard very much like that of the "whole man" of Greece, combining physical prowess, cultural refinement, mental development, and spiritual perfection.
By the time of the Talmud, something had changed. With the loss of sovereignty, martial prowess was no longer worthwhile. Indeed, the consesus now was that the study of Torah itself made one weaker, and that this was simply the price of being a scholar. Music was discouraged as lightheadedness, and poetry seemed to die out entirely until we had contact with Muslim culture centuries later. Study of the Torah and the law was seen as the only worthwhile pursuit for the leadership, though commercial activities were seen as practically beneficial and "secular" study was deemed necessary to properly interact with outside powers.
One vivid example of the new mindset: at one point, a major rabbi had been kidnapped by bandits. R' Yochanan, a leader of that generation, gave up hope and said that the women should begin weaving the funeral shroud. His associate, Reish Lakish (who before turning to Torah had been a bandit and gladiator), immediately got out his old weapons and said, "They may kill me or I may kill them, but regardless I will try to save the rabbi." He succeeded; but the tragedy of the situation was that it was even necessary for him to go alone. In a previous era, every other rabbi would have been standing beside him from the first moment.
We need to rediscover the ideal of the complete person, fully developed in all aspects, body, mind, and soul. To cripple the body through neglect as you seek to refine the soul is absurdity. Not only that, it is damaging to the nation as a whole. We are not not under the Roman occupation; we have our sovereignty back, and we need to act like it. We can no longer neglect the physical for the sake of the spiritual—if we ever could to begin with.
At one point in the evening, Dr. Sober spoke about the importance of developing and maintaining your health. He teaches classes at my college, and said that if you ever wanted to see people in terrible health, you just had to come into the Beit Midrash (House of Study, with the connotation of studying Jewish law), or as he called it, "the Ward." There, you can see "eighty-year-old twenty-year-olds, and ninety-year-old twenty-five-year-olds."
My fellow college students and I knew exactly what he meant, of course. At the college, there are several different types of students. You can identify the hard-core Beit Midrash learners easily enough. They usually spend several hours a day in the Beit Midrash hunched over large books with very small type (aside from their regular university classes). Many of them do not exercise at all and eat poorly, and all of them get perhaps five or six hours of sleep a night—and it shows.
This type of student usually has very pale skin, and his head and shoulders are hunched forward exactly as if they were ninety-year-old women with osteoporosis. Often they have glasses of varying thickness, and most of them already have visibly receding hairlines. Their bodies are usually thin and flabby, and the skin of their fingers, arms and necks looks like it belongs to a senior citizen. Seeing these students for the first time, you would imagine them to be perhaps in their late thirties and in poor health.
That these students were ever allowed to think that they could destroy their bodies for the sake of their learning is a disgrace for the observant Jewish education system. According to the Rambam, we are obligated to guard our health and fitness, so as to better serve God with our bodies. Yet for some reason, this obligation is given short shrift even as more trivial minutia of the law are obsessed over. The result is that those students most knowledgable in Torah are in all likelihood the ones who will die soonest.
Something has gone very wrong with the Jewish concept of the ideal person, and I think we can identify the problem as far back as Talmudic times at least. In Biblical times, the leaders were not only teachers of the Law and prophets, they were also physically powerful. Jacob lifted a boulder that usually took many men to roll; his sons were powerful enough that two of them anihilated the city of Shechem. The prophets of Israel often led armies in battle, for example Gideon and Devorah.
More than that, the leaders were often musicians and poets. King David, the "sweet singer of Israel," is the best example. It seems clear that in those days, the leaders were expected to hold to a standard very much like that of the "whole man" of Greece, combining physical prowess, cultural refinement, mental development, and spiritual perfection.
By the time of the Talmud, something had changed. With the loss of sovereignty, martial prowess was no longer worthwhile. Indeed, the consesus now was that the study of Torah itself made one weaker, and that this was simply the price of being a scholar. Music was discouraged as lightheadedness, and poetry seemed to die out entirely until we had contact with Muslim culture centuries later. Study of the Torah and the law was seen as the only worthwhile pursuit for the leadership, though commercial activities were seen as practically beneficial and "secular" study was deemed necessary to properly interact with outside powers.
One vivid example of the new mindset: at one point, a major rabbi had been kidnapped by bandits. R' Yochanan, a leader of that generation, gave up hope and said that the women should begin weaving the funeral shroud. His associate, Reish Lakish (who before turning to Torah had been a bandit and gladiator), immediately got out his old weapons and said, "They may kill me or I may kill them, but regardless I will try to save the rabbi." He succeeded; but the tragedy of the situation was that it was even necessary for him to go alone. In a previous era, every other rabbi would have been standing beside him from the first moment.
We need to rediscover the ideal of the complete person, fully developed in all aspects, body, mind, and soul. To cripple the body through neglect as you seek to refine the soul is absurdity. Not only that, it is damaging to the nation as a whole. We are not not under the Roman occupation; we have our sovereignty back, and we need to act like it. We can no longer neglect the physical for the sake of the spiritual—if we ever could to begin with.
5/19/2005
Bill Whittle Returns
Bill Whittle, the brilliant internet essayist, had taken a long hiatus from blogging. He's back now.
Go. Read. Send to all your friends. (Be warned, the essay is rather long.)
Go. Read. Send to all your friends. (Be warned, the essay is rather long.)
Discordance
Today's print Wall Street Journal has a piece on its Arts and Culture page about the decline of opera. This is true both in the sense that fewer people are going to the opera in general, and that the operas they are going to are predominantly from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Modern opera is characterized by lavish productions that generally appear for one season and then vanish into the mist.
The author of the piece (I cannot remember his name, but he is the former director of a New York Opera company I think) blamed the music world's infatuation with atonal music. He noted that while the critics applaud atonality because it produces "challenging" music, everybody else just hears bad music. While other art media have had similar styles enjoy great popularity (abstract paintings, for example), music is diffferent. Most people want to hear something that sounds good, i.e. melodic music.
Phillip Glass, the piece notes, was the last modern opera writer to enjoy any prominence whatsoever. His work was unusual, but it was also unusually melodic; though you never knew quite where he was going, you always knew that Glass was going somewhere and that it would be a relatively continuous journey. And for the sin of not writing atonal music, the opera world has buried his works. They would rather put on "challenging" operas to empty houses than abandon their precious atonality. The customer is wrong here, the artist's vision is paramount.
I dislike atonality in general. A few years ago, as part of a college assignment, I went to a performance of works by students of Stefan Wolpe, an atonal composer. I think it was the first musical performance I attended where much of the audience wore tie-dye, faux-Third-World peasantwear, and Che Guevara shirts. (The overwhelming majority of them were over forty.) The other interesting thing was the contrast between the music of Wolpe himself, and the composers of the present generation. I wrote at the time:
It is no surprise that when most people listen to classical-style music, they listen either to the old masters or to movie soundtracks. Game soundtracks too are losing their stigma, and are becoming more and more popular. I cannot name a single modern "classical" composer after about the 50's; yet the names of John Williams, Danny Elfman, Hanz Zimmer and Jerry Goldsmith (to name a few) are known and loved by millions.
So the musical establishment is running itself into the ground. All right; wouldn't they eventually get the message? Not when their music has become an expression of cultural angst, rather than an end in itself. Plato complained that the musicians and poets of his day desired so much to please the audience with their music that they broke out of the musical conventions of their day and invented new forms (which to Plato's ear were inferior to the old—though he opposed most innovation on general principle). Modern-day "serious" artists, on the other hand, believe that breaking established conventions is their entire purpose, their raison d'etre. They are unlikely to change just because the unwashed masses think their work is terrible.
As an audience member, I am very displeased. These so-called "artists" have lost their way. Other forms of art can be enjoyable even if they are unconventional or abstract. But music depends on harmony, on the beautiful mathematics of ratios and intervals, on melodic lines building to glorious release. Music is also uniquely connected to the emotions. Harmony is pleasing; disharmony is nervewracking. I know what I prefer to listen to.
The author of the piece (I cannot remember his name, but he is the former director of a New York Opera company I think) blamed the music world's infatuation with atonal music. He noted that while the critics applaud atonality because it produces "challenging" music, everybody else just hears bad music. While other art media have had similar styles enjoy great popularity (abstract paintings, for example), music is diffferent. Most people want to hear something that sounds good, i.e. melodic music.
Phillip Glass, the piece notes, was the last modern opera writer to enjoy any prominence whatsoever. His work was unusual, but it was also unusually melodic; though you never knew quite where he was going, you always knew that Glass was going somewhere and that it would be a relatively continuous journey. And for the sin of not writing atonal music, the opera world has buried his works. They would rather put on "challenging" operas to empty houses than abandon their precious atonality. The customer is wrong here, the artist's vision is paramount.
I dislike atonality in general. A few years ago, as part of a college assignment, I went to a performance of works by students of Stefan Wolpe, an atonal composer. I think it was the first musical performance I attended where much of the audience wore tie-dye, faux-Third-World peasantwear, and Che Guevara shirts. (The overwhelming majority of them were over forty.) The other interesting thing was the contrast between the music of Wolpe himself, and the composers of the present generation. I wrote at the time:
I found it intriguing that Wolpe’s music was associated with that of the other composers, for although all of it was aggressively avant-garde and abrupt, I heard in Wolpe’s compositions a subtle structure and framework which seemed absent from most of the later composers’ works…. [M]uch of the later music seemed designed to induce suicidal depression or gastric ulcers in the listener, while Wolpe’s music was whimsical, vibrant and often quite humorous.Later on, I wrote:
The music did not seem to be building up a progression to an event, but rather setting an evocative tone, a tone which in almost every piece seemed aimed at unease, instability, disquiet, and stomach-acid. The night struck me as a sort of group-flagellation; this impression was bolstered by the members of the audience, who for the most part spoke about the rallies they were attending or international politics and who read “The Voice of the Village.” The music seemed to be narrowly aimed at just this sort of people, antinomian, iconoclast[ic] and restless.I think this is the problem. The musical establishment is producing pieces by and for people who do not see art as pleasurable pastime, or as cultured refinement, but as an expression of their all-consuming dislike for structure and tradition. Small wonder that modern opera is finding few takers; most people go out to have a good time, and expect to hear music and singing that they can enjoy. For much the same reason, modern "highbrow" classical music is dying off. It is populated almost entirely by the atonalists; composers who want to write melodically have instead been writing sound scores for movies, and increasingly video games.
It is no surprise that when most people listen to classical-style music, they listen either to the old masters or to movie soundtracks. Game soundtracks too are losing their stigma, and are becoming more and more popular. I cannot name a single modern "classical" composer after about the 50's; yet the names of John Williams, Danny Elfman, Hanz Zimmer and Jerry Goldsmith (to name a few) are known and loved by millions.
So the musical establishment is running itself into the ground. All right; wouldn't they eventually get the message? Not when their music has become an expression of cultural angst, rather than an end in itself. Plato complained that the musicians and poets of his day desired so much to please the audience with their music that they broke out of the musical conventions of their day and invented new forms (which to Plato's ear were inferior to the old—though he opposed most innovation on general principle). Modern-day "serious" artists, on the other hand, believe that breaking established conventions is their entire purpose, their raison d'etre. They are unlikely to change just because the unwashed masses think their work is terrible.
As an audience member, I am very displeased. These so-called "artists" have lost their way. Other forms of art can be enjoyable even if they are unconventional or abstract. But music depends on harmony, on the beautiful mathematics of ratios and intervals, on melodic lines building to glorious release. Music is also uniquely connected to the emotions. Harmony is pleasing; disharmony is nervewracking. I know what I prefer to listen to.
5/16/2005
Kofi Annan on Iran
In response to the Iranian parliament voting to resume uranium enrichment, Kofi Annan has issued a warning—to the United States:
Granted that the Security Council will veto any attempt to get tough on Iran. Given that, Kofi would rather preserve the tenuous illusion of international solidarity rather than display for all the world to see that major powers are willing to cover for rogue states. Unfortunately, everybody knows what is really going down, and the absence of an official diplomatic headcount will change nothing. Indeed, if it becomes clear that Russia and China intend to oppose the West over Iran, then we could drop the polite fictions we have been hamstrung by and get down to business.
That is certainly the result I would prefer. But it is more dangerous in the short-term than the Kofi approach; it is probable that Kofi and those of like mind hope that Russia and China will shift their positions over time, and realign with the West on nuclear proliferation and other issues. If we have an open confrontation, this scenario becomes much less likely; but so long as there is no need to draw lines in the sand, Russia and China retain the option of changing their stances without losing face.
There are two key flaws in this approach. First, it assumes that we have time to wait for Russia and China. Given the advanced stage of the Iranian weapons program, that assumption is questionable. Second, it assumes that Russia and China have compelling reasons to align with the West against Iran. If anything, the reverse is true. A nuclear Iran would create a huge impediment to the growth of American power, and also supplies oil to China and buys weapons from both. On the other hand, if the theocroligarchy were to fall, America would almost certainly become the new power broker; hence, American influence would blanket the entire Middle East.
Neither China nor Russia want that. China especially seems to be gearing up for a fight in the near future, and Russia is quickly moving past its Weimar phase and into its Fascist phase. I believe it better for us to confront them now than to let things continue to simmer, while Iran moves closer and closer to a functioning arsenal.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned the Bush administration that the Security Council might deadlock if asked to punish Iran for its nuclear program… China and Russia, which have strong economic ties to Iran, might veto any push to sanction Iran, Annan suggested in interviews with USA TODAY. "Action or inaction will have a great impact on future cases and on our efforts to promote nuclear non-proliferation," Annan said. A deadlock on Iran, he said, could embolden North Korea and future North Koreas.So instead of having a deadlock in the Security Council, which would encourage proliferation, Kofi wants us to avoid the issue entirely, which will impress would-be proliferators with our steely resolve and steadfast commitment. Huh?
Granted that the Security Council will veto any attempt to get tough on Iran. Given that, Kofi would rather preserve the tenuous illusion of international solidarity rather than display for all the world to see that major powers are willing to cover for rogue states. Unfortunately, everybody knows what is really going down, and the absence of an official diplomatic headcount will change nothing. Indeed, if it becomes clear that Russia and China intend to oppose the West over Iran, then we could drop the polite fictions we have been hamstrung by and get down to business.
That is certainly the result I would prefer. But it is more dangerous in the short-term than the Kofi approach; it is probable that Kofi and those of like mind hope that Russia and China will shift their positions over time, and realign with the West on nuclear proliferation and other issues. If we have an open confrontation, this scenario becomes much less likely; but so long as there is no need to draw lines in the sand, Russia and China retain the option of changing their stances without losing face.
There are two key flaws in this approach. First, it assumes that we have time to wait for Russia and China. Given the advanced stage of the Iranian weapons program, that assumption is questionable. Second, it assumes that Russia and China have compelling reasons to align with the West against Iran. If anything, the reverse is true. A nuclear Iran would create a huge impediment to the growth of American power, and also supplies oil to China and buys weapons from both. On the other hand, if the theocroligarchy were to fall, America would almost certainly become the new power broker; hence, American influence would blanket the entire Middle East.
Neither China nor Russia want that. China especially seems to be gearing up for a fight in the near future, and Russia is quickly moving past its Weimar phase and into its Fascist phase. I believe it better for us to confront them now than to let things continue to simmer, while Iran moves closer and closer to a functioning arsenal.
5/15/2005
The Power of a Dying Man
An Iranian mullah on his deathbed writes a letter to former President Rafsanjani, he who publicly called for Iran to aquire nukes and explode them in Tel Aviv. What is in the letter is absolutely astounding. I have nothing to say, other than that I hope Rafsanjani and all of his ilk spend eternity in horrific torment for what they have done.
Read a summary here. The original letter, in Farsi (I think), is here in case anyone can read it.
Read a summary here. The original letter, in Farsi (I think), is here in case anyone can read it.
5/13/2005
Wow... Just Wow...
Robert Byrd compares the ending of judicial filibusters to Haman's plot to kill the Jews!
Radioblogger has the audio, along with some remarks on the context. After listening to it, I can understand why everyone in the Senate looks permanently bored out of their minds. Sen. Byrd hasn't a single coherent thought in the whole rambling bloviation. But listening to Sen. Byrd say "Ahaas-yu-ei-rus" is worth the time. There is nothing I can possibly say that will do justice to the clip.
As an aside, I think that elected officials should be tested for aging-related neurological disorders. I'm not sure Sen. Byrd is playing with a full deck.
Radioblogger has the audio, along with some remarks on the context. After listening to it, I can understand why everyone in the Senate looks permanently bored out of their minds. Sen. Byrd hasn't a single coherent thought in the whole rambling bloviation. But listening to Sen. Byrd say "Ahaas-yu-ei-rus" is worth the time. There is nothing I can possibly say that will do justice to the clip.
As an aside, I think that elected officials should be tested for aging-related neurological disorders. I'm not sure Sen. Byrd is playing with a full deck.
5/12/2005
This Could Get Interesting...
British MP and tyrannophile George Galloway has been rather cross lately, after Senator Norm Coleman's committee investingating the Oil-for-Food mess accused him of accepting vouchers for 20 million barrels of oil from Iraq. After Galloway claimed that he had demanded to testify to the committee, Coleman responded by publicly inviting him to the hearing scheduled for May 17. Now, Galloway is taking him up on it.
Galloway had been a member of the Labour Party, but was thrown out after he accused Tony Blair of dishonestly prosecuting the war on Iraq, among other things. He then formed his own Respect Party, and won reelection against the black Jewish woman Oona King (a Labourite who supported the war) in a campaign that saw some really nasty racist politics in a district with a large Arab bloc. In at least one incident, Ms. King was assaulted by an Arab gang. Mark Steyn commented on election night that "I think there's no doubt that, under cover of "anti-Zionism", there's now an explicit anti-Jewish component to the political scene."
Galloway has a long history of kissing up to murderers and dictators, especially if they are anti-British, anti-American, or especially anti-Israel. George Orwell would have had a field day eviscerating him in print, I'm sure.
Galloway vs. Coleman. I hope somebody gets a good video feed, because things are going to be very nasty.
Galloway had been a member of the Labour Party, but was thrown out after he accused Tony Blair of dishonestly prosecuting the war on Iraq, among other things. He then formed his own Respect Party, and won reelection against the black Jewish woman Oona King (a Labourite who supported the war) in a campaign that saw some really nasty racist politics in a district with a large Arab bloc. In at least one incident, Ms. King was assaulted by an Arab gang. Mark Steyn commented on election night that "I think there's no doubt that, under cover of "anti-Zionism", there's now an explicit anti-Jewish component to the political scene."
Galloway has a long history of kissing up to murderers and dictators, especially if they are anti-British, anti-American, or especially anti-Israel. George Orwell would have had a field day eviscerating him in print, I'm sure.
Galloway vs. Coleman. I hope somebody gets a good video feed, because things are going to be very nasty.
5/11/2005
"Epic"
Some time ago, I first was directed to this "documentary" set in 2014 predicting how news would end up being produced in the Internet age. The main focus is on Google's automated news aggregator; but I'll let you see the rest for yourself.
The piece is becoming more and more pertinent, given that Google has occasionally used as source material websites promoting neo-Nazism, communism, and various extremisms, while at the same time refusing to include material from more conservative sites such as Little Green Footballs for alleged racism. Now Powerline reports that they're at it again. Apparently, someone is upset that Jews are holding Holocaust memorials in Germany. That someone also seems to approve of the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe. Google's service appears not to mind.
There is too much data out there for any person to read alone. It must be organized; but organization implies evaluation. The gatekeepers of information will always be the true powers of the world.
The piece is becoming more and more pertinent, given that Google has occasionally used as source material websites promoting neo-Nazism, communism, and various extremisms, while at the same time refusing to include material from more conservative sites such as Little Green Footballs for alleged racism. Now Powerline reports that they're at it again. Apparently, someone is upset that Jews are holding Holocaust memorials in Germany. That someone also seems to approve of the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe. Google's service appears not to mind.
There is too much data out there for any person to read alone. It must be organized; but organization implies evaluation. The gatekeepers of information will always be the true powers of the world.
5/10/2005
Operation Matador
Belmont Club summarizes information about the ongoing battle in and around Qaim on the Iraq/Syria border, in which the Marines are crushing a large contingent of insurgents. More information at Fourth Rail; a second post is here.
It seems that having reduced most of the insurgent bases in Iraq proper, the US is finally starting to close down the supply lines from the border. A commenter on Fourth Rail speculates that all the diplomatic pressure on Syria in the past weeks has been in preparation for Operation Matador, to prevent the insurgents from escaping across the border. The Army has said that the mission was planned for some time, so this is very likely the case.
Actually, stop reading this post and go to The Adventures of Chester. He's been liveblogging the mission for some time. I'm headed there as soon as I post.
It seems that having reduced most of the insurgent bases in Iraq proper, the US is finally starting to close down the supply lines from the border. A commenter on Fourth Rail speculates that all the diplomatic pressure on Syria in the past weeks has been in preparation for Operation Matador, to prevent the insurgents from escaping across the border. The Army has said that the mission was planned for some time, so this is very likely the case.
Actually, stop reading this post and go to The Adventures of Chester. He's been liveblogging the mission for some time. I'm headed there as soon as I post.
5/08/2005
Hmm...
Sen. Clinton Finance Director Goes to Trial
I can't say I'm terribly shocked. I'm sure this sort of money laundering goes on all the time, in campaigns on all sides of the political spectrum. It really is absurd to try to categorize political donations; money is fungible, after all, and numbers in a ledger can easily be tweaked.
The rewards for cheating are high. Money is the lifeblood of political campaigns, and there is no way to change that. Even if all campaign donations were banned tomorrow, and were replaced by public debates and free airtime, "independent activists" would spring up to do the dirty work that campaigns need. Plato would say that a law that is being broken more often than not should be repealed, since it is ineffective and is only leading to contempt of the legal system.
That said, what David Rosen did was illegal. And I'm sure that this will complicate Ms. Hillary's ambitions for the presidency. The thing I find most alarming is that so many of the principal actors are also involved in securities fraud, defrauding charities, prostitution, and money laundering. Bad enough that the last President Clinton was connected to this sort of scum; do we really need a second one?
I can't say I'm terribly shocked. I'm sure this sort of money laundering goes on all the time, in campaigns on all sides of the political spectrum. It really is absurd to try to categorize political donations; money is fungible, after all, and numbers in a ledger can easily be tweaked.
The rewards for cheating are high. Money is the lifeblood of political campaigns, and there is no way to change that. Even if all campaign donations were banned tomorrow, and were replaced by public debates and free airtime, "independent activists" would spring up to do the dirty work that campaigns need. Plato would say that a law that is being broken more often than not should be repealed, since it is ineffective and is only leading to contempt of the legal system.
That said, what David Rosen did was illegal. And I'm sure that this will complicate Ms. Hillary's ambitions for the presidency. The thing I find most alarming is that so many of the principal actors are also involved in securities fraud, defrauding charities, prostitution, and money laundering. Bad enough that the last President Clinton was connected to this sort of scum; do we really need a second one?
5/06/2005
Quote of the Day
[R]ock music has one appeal only, a barbaric appeal, to sexual desire—not love, noteros, but sexual desire undeveloped and untutored. It acknowledges the first emanations of children's emerging sensuality and addresses them seriously, eliciting them and legitimating them, not as little sprouts that must be carefully tended in order to grow into gorgeous flowers, but as the real thing. Rock gives children, on a silver platter, with all the public authority of the entertainment industry, everything their parents always used to tell them they had to wait for until they grew up and would understand later.—Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind, pg. 73 (softcover)
5/05/2005
British General Elections
First line from Fox News's reporting:
Especially given the horrible economic performance by the big Eurozone countries, and given the horrible regulations they have to work under, Blair's chances of getting Britain to fully join the EU are smaller than Yossi Beilin's to win the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
The next few years are going to be interesting for the Liberal Party, methinks. Especially since most of the party is actually anti-war, and cannot stand Tony Blair. I must say, his domestic policies are rather disgusting, but when the chips are down he was willing to go all the way in Iraq over the objections of his own party, and I and a lot of people respect him for it. I'm glad he was reelected at least, so that nobody could crow that he was punished over Iraq—um, never mind. (Stupid journalists...)
Tony Blair won a historic third term as prime minister Thursday but his Labour Party suffered a sharply reduced parliamentary majority in apparent punishment for going to war in Iraq, according to projections based on exit polls.Like hell it's punishment over Iraq. If it was, then most people would have defected to the Liberal Democrats, and not to the Conservatives, who were the biggest winners and who supported the war (albiet in lukewarm terms). According to accounts I've seen by Britons, the big issue is whether or not Britain will drop the pound, embrace the Euro, and join the political side of the EU. Blair has aggressively pushed the Euro, and most of Britain despises him for it.
Especially given the horrible economic performance by the big Eurozone countries, and given the horrible regulations they have to work under, Blair's chances of getting Britain to fully join the EU are smaller than Yossi Beilin's to win the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
The next few years are going to be interesting for the Liberal Party, methinks. Especially since most of the party is actually anti-war, and cannot stand Tony Blair. I must say, his domestic policies are rather disgusting, but when the chips are down he was willing to go all the way in Iraq over the objections of his own party, and I and a lot of people respect him for it. I'm glad he was reelected at least, so that nobody could crow that he was punished over Iraq—um, never mind. (Stupid journalists...)
5/04/2005
Sharansky is Done
A few days ago, Natan Sharansky, the conscience of Israel, resigned from Ariel Sharon's cabinet. I haven't been thinking a lot about it until today, partly because I didn't want to consider what it meant. But the truth will not go away.
So long as Sharansky remained in the government, there was hope. You could say that things are not so bad, that Sharon may yet see reason, that Sharansky thought that the situation was worth being involved in. But now that he has quit, there is no other conclusion than that the disengagement is a colossal blunder, and a betrayal of our people, our principles, and not least of the Palestinians who are being condemned to life under terrorists indefinitely.
I hope to God that Sharon is brought to his senses. I don't know what kind of stature Sharansky still has in Israel after over a decade in politics, but for many of us on the outside he represents Israel as it should be, unflinching in its principles and dedicated to serving God by spreading justice on Earth. Now he has finally given up on Ariel Sharon. What are we to think?
Perhaps this move will resonate more strongly in Washington. President Bush famously claimed to base his foreign policy on Sharansky's ideas; now let him show whether his principles will trump momentary convenience. I am sure that the disengagement could serve some short-term interests of America, and perhaps even Israel, but in the long run it is a terrible mistake and a mockery of justice to let Gaza sink deeper into the rule of the gun.
How can it be that we continue to put ourselves in such an absurd position? Yes, ourselves! Arafat is dead, Saddam is imprisoned, Lebanon is shaking free of Syria, Syria itself is desperately trying to avoid being next on the American hit-list… yet we make concession after concession to appease a band of murderers who survive now largely with our own money! What madness is this?
All we can do now is trust in God. We certainly cannot trust the government of Israel.
So long as Sharansky remained in the government, there was hope. You could say that things are not so bad, that Sharon may yet see reason, that Sharansky thought that the situation was worth being involved in. But now that he has quit, there is no other conclusion than that the disengagement is a colossal blunder, and a betrayal of our people, our principles, and not least of the Palestinians who are being condemned to life under terrorists indefinitely.
I hope to God that Sharon is brought to his senses. I don't know what kind of stature Sharansky still has in Israel after over a decade in politics, but for many of us on the outside he represents Israel as it should be, unflinching in its principles and dedicated to serving God by spreading justice on Earth. Now he has finally given up on Ariel Sharon. What are we to think?
Perhaps this move will resonate more strongly in Washington. President Bush famously claimed to base his foreign policy on Sharansky's ideas; now let him show whether his principles will trump momentary convenience. I am sure that the disengagement could serve some short-term interests of America, and perhaps even Israel, but in the long run it is a terrible mistake and a mockery of justice to let Gaza sink deeper into the rule of the gun.
How can it be that we continue to put ourselves in such an absurd position? Yes, ourselves! Arafat is dead, Saddam is imprisoned, Lebanon is shaking free of Syria, Syria itself is desperately trying to avoid being next on the American hit-list… yet we make concession after concession to appease a band of murderers who survive now largely with our own money! What madness is this?
All we can do now is trust in God. We certainly cannot trust the government of Israel.
5/03/2005
US Military Stretched Thin?
Apparently the Pentagon has described in general terms a classified report to Congress which states that our deployment to Iraq is straining our resources and may impede efforts to, ahem, respond to new threats (for example, Iran?).
My question is why such a report was issued now, and why, if it is classified, was a description given to the press? My only conclusion is that this must be part of a diplomatic game of some sort. We are signaling that we have no intention of expanding military operations any time soon, certainly not in the next year.
What is the purpose of doing so? Either we are trying to get certain countries to calm down, or else we might be trying to get them to overextend themselves in the mistaken belief of our weakness. I have no idea which is the case, nor do I know who the target is. But the timing of this strikes me as very fishy. We'll probably get a clearer picture of what's going on in a few months.
My question is why such a report was issued now, and why, if it is classified, was a description given to the press? My only conclusion is that this must be part of a diplomatic game of some sort. We are signaling that we have no intention of expanding military operations any time soon, certainly not in the next year.
What is the purpose of doing so? Either we are trying to get certain countries to calm down, or else we might be trying to get them to overextend themselves in the mistaken belief of our weakness. I have no idea which is the case, nor do I know who the target is. But the timing of this strikes me as very fishy. We'll probably get a clearer picture of what's going on in a few months.
5/02/2005
To What Purpose?
On several occasions now, I have written about the troubling tendency of American society to neglect the spiritual and focus on the material. Over the end of Passover I began reading Allan Bloom's "The Closing of the American Mind," and I am even more troubled. Bloom traces this mindset to the very philosophical underpinnings of our democracy, starting from Locke; worse, all we have to look forward to (according to prevailing philosophy) is the nihilism of the Nietzschian abyss, as the contradictions within Locke become more apparent.
At present, we are most concerned with creating material wealth and political peace and stability for the entire world, that being the way to achieve universal happiness (in theory). Very well; imagine this scenario. In perhaps twenty years, but certainly within the next century, we will possess the technology and manufacturing capacity to feed, clothe, house, educate, and entertain everybody on the planet in a manner scarcely dreamed of by the kings of old. Judging from current trends, by that time the greater part of the world will be ruled by democracies, and interstate war will become almost nonexistent.
So we will have achieved universal peace and prosperity. Then what?
How will we spend our lives? To what will we dedicate ourselves? What will animate our faculties, inspire our imaginations?
For the part of humanity that has banished the spiritual from their lives, we will begin to see a world out of "Fahrenheit 451," in which constant amusement is the order of the day. People will be frantically diverting themselves to avoid confronting their own meaninglessness and purposelessness. Indeed, we are beginning to see such a world today in America. Have we ever spent as much time and money on our own amusements as we do today?
What truly amazes me is that all of these existential crises that supposedly overthrow our very natures are predicated on philosophies that assume, as their first axiom, that God does not exist and that religion is mere superstition. Let us set aside for the moment the thought that such an assumption is incredibly arrogant, and amounts to a deification of the human intellect as final judge over reality. What these philosophers are saying, is that it is better to unflinchingly believe that there is no God, no meaning, no purpose in life, and then to accept the inevitable destruction of human society that must ensue, rather than to continue believing in God, virtue, and the good.
Yet if one simply believes in God, suddenly all of the angst and emptiness of modern life is swept away and replaced with the shining certainty of truth and virtue. Moreover, the prospect of universal prosperity presents no terrors to the spiritual mind; indeed, such a world is best suited for the cultivation of the soul, as individuals are at last freed from the necessity of endless daily labor.
And on what basis was it declared that "God is dead"? Because we cannot perceive a God? What absurdity. Indeed, as science continues to roll back the mysteries of the universe, it becomes harder and harder to believe that the universe, Earth, or humanity came about by chance. The sheer infinitude of factors that had to converge for humanity to exist awes the mind (to say nothing of the events of the Big Bang, which even the devout atheist Stephen Hawking admits were outside the bounds of physics).
(It is perhaps easier for Jews to believe in God because our own history is so wildly improbable. That we survive, and prosper, in circumstances in which every other people in history have simply evaporated, forces the conclusion that an unnatural factor is intervening. But regardless.)
Yet if the Western mind does not rediscover spirituality, if not actual divinity, we are doomed to the slow disintegration predicted by Tocqueville nearly two centuries ago. In a world of individualistic nihilism, why participate in society? Why have children? Why deprive yourself of instant gratification in search of moral refinement?
Much has been said about the imploding birthrate of Western Europe, and the explosion of the Muslim birthrate. Aside from the geopolitical implications, I believe that this shows clearly that in a Darwinian sense, atheism is a poor survival trait. Over time, atheistic societies will be swallowed up by theistic societies.
Which shall America be?
At present, we are most concerned with creating material wealth and political peace and stability for the entire world, that being the way to achieve universal happiness (in theory). Very well; imagine this scenario. In perhaps twenty years, but certainly within the next century, we will possess the technology and manufacturing capacity to feed, clothe, house, educate, and entertain everybody on the planet in a manner scarcely dreamed of by the kings of old. Judging from current trends, by that time the greater part of the world will be ruled by democracies, and interstate war will become almost nonexistent.
So we will have achieved universal peace and prosperity. Then what?
How will we spend our lives? To what will we dedicate ourselves? What will animate our faculties, inspire our imaginations?
For the part of humanity that has banished the spiritual from their lives, we will begin to see a world out of "Fahrenheit 451," in which constant amusement is the order of the day. People will be frantically diverting themselves to avoid confronting their own meaninglessness and purposelessness. Indeed, we are beginning to see such a world today in America. Have we ever spent as much time and money on our own amusements as we do today?
What truly amazes me is that all of these existential crises that supposedly overthrow our very natures are predicated on philosophies that assume, as their first axiom, that God does not exist and that religion is mere superstition. Let us set aside for the moment the thought that such an assumption is incredibly arrogant, and amounts to a deification of the human intellect as final judge over reality. What these philosophers are saying, is that it is better to unflinchingly believe that there is no God, no meaning, no purpose in life, and then to accept the inevitable destruction of human society that must ensue, rather than to continue believing in God, virtue, and the good.
Yet if one simply believes in God, suddenly all of the angst and emptiness of modern life is swept away and replaced with the shining certainty of truth and virtue. Moreover, the prospect of universal prosperity presents no terrors to the spiritual mind; indeed, such a world is best suited for the cultivation of the soul, as individuals are at last freed from the necessity of endless daily labor.
And on what basis was it declared that "God is dead"? Because we cannot perceive a God? What absurdity. Indeed, as science continues to roll back the mysteries of the universe, it becomes harder and harder to believe that the universe, Earth, or humanity came about by chance. The sheer infinitude of factors that had to converge for humanity to exist awes the mind (to say nothing of the events of the Big Bang, which even the devout atheist Stephen Hawking admits were outside the bounds of physics).
(It is perhaps easier for Jews to believe in God because our own history is so wildly improbable. That we survive, and prosper, in circumstances in which every other people in history have simply evaporated, forces the conclusion that an unnatural factor is intervening. But regardless.)
Yet if the Western mind does not rediscover spirituality, if not actual divinity, we are doomed to the slow disintegration predicted by Tocqueville nearly two centuries ago. In a world of individualistic nihilism, why participate in society? Why have children? Why deprive yourself of instant gratification in search of moral refinement?
Much has been said about the imploding birthrate of Western Europe, and the explosion of the Muslim birthrate. Aside from the geopolitical implications, I believe that this shows clearly that in a Darwinian sense, atheism is a poor survival trait. Over time, atheistic societies will be swallowed up by theistic societies.
Which shall America be?
4/28/2005
Democracy, Policy Decisions, and Education
Thucydides makes for interesting reading. One of his speakers, Diodotus, sums up in a nutshell the major problem of democratic assemblies:
If it were possible to have a body of citizens able to know right and wrong on their own, and if they could not be corrupted or confused by rhetorical brilliance in the service of suspect policy, then there would be no need for lying in order to arrive at the best policy. Unfortunately for modern America, this presupposes that there are indeed such things as "right," "wrong," or a "best policy."
It used to be that we as a nation educated our children to believe in natural law and absolute good and evil. In the last sixty years or so, however, this has been supplanted in the public school system (and to a somewhat lesser degree elsewhere) by a belief in moral relativism: in short, that good and evil as such do not exist. There can be no objective standards for viewing behavior, since every culture, every community, and every individual does things differently. Therefore, the last several generaltions have been trained to be uncomfortable with the idea of right and wrong, as such. (They certainly believe that actions are proper or improper, but this is much harder to pin down; so much the better for some would-be social engineers.)
This being the case, how can the polity make decisions without reference to right and wrong? Out of naked self-interest, or else based on the rhetorical presentations that are presented to them.
Remember the bewilderment in many quarters over the large numbers of poor people who voted for President Bush in the last election. "How can they vote against their own self-interest?" was the anguished cry, on the assumption that Republicans are bad for the poor. This assumption comes from the media, of course, which has appointed itself the arbiter of all elections and the final judge between candidates (in its own mind). "Therefore," it reasons, "if we tell these poor people that Republicans will deny them services, then they should clearly vote against Republicans. Why shouldn't they?"
Why shouldn't they? Because they judged for themselves who is bad for the poor, or else because they made their decision based on other factors than self-interest; for example, the much-lamented "moral values."
Moral values, or moral absolutes, or knowledge of right and wrong, make things so much more complicated for those who seek power. It is much easier to work in a system of moral relativism. Simply offer all things to all people, and "shape the information environment" to your advantage. Victory goes to those with the slickest media machines, the most successful lies, and the most lavish bribes for the voting public, to be paid out of the public treasury. In other words, victory goes to those least concerned about the long-term health of the nation.
This may not be why moral relativism is taught to our children, but the practical result is the same. Democracy, if it is to endure, must base itself on firm principles of right and wrong, good and evil. Otherwise, we will simply flounder around in a swamp of vote-buying, mass deception, and moral ambiguity until we at last sink entirely in the mud.
It has become the rule also to treat good advice honestly given as being no less under suspicion as bad, so that a man who has something rather good to say must tell lies in order to be believed, just as a man who gives terrible advice must win over the people by deception.Leo Strauss, in his commentary, comes to a sobering conclusion:
From not entirely pure motives, democratic assemblies are more concerned with purity of a certain kind than with wisdom. Since they will not vote for a proposal unless they have trust in the proposer, and since they trust on grounds which are so little rational, not only bad men but good men as well are compelled to deceive the assembly and lie to it. Perhaps one cannot benefit any city without deceiving it, for no city is likely to consist chiefly of perfectly wise and virtuous people…At issue is whether the largest part of the assembly is able to distinguish on its own between good advice and bad, rather than advice that is convincing or personally appealing. If it cannot tell good from bad, then all that is left is personal interest, or else the influence of skillful orators and sophists. In such a situation, the policies chosen by the city must inevitably be inferior, given that they are not chiefly motivated by concerns of right and virtue.
If it were possible to have a body of citizens able to know right and wrong on their own, and if they could not be corrupted or confused by rhetorical brilliance in the service of suspect policy, then there would be no need for lying in order to arrive at the best policy. Unfortunately for modern America, this presupposes that there are indeed such things as "right," "wrong," or a "best policy."
It used to be that we as a nation educated our children to believe in natural law and absolute good and evil. In the last sixty years or so, however, this has been supplanted in the public school system (and to a somewhat lesser degree elsewhere) by a belief in moral relativism: in short, that good and evil as such do not exist. There can be no objective standards for viewing behavior, since every culture, every community, and every individual does things differently. Therefore, the last several generaltions have been trained to be uncomfortable with the idea of right and wrong, as such. (They certainly believe that actions are proper or improper, but this is much harder to pin down; so much the better for some would-be social engineers.)
This being the case, how can the polity make decisions without reference to right and wrong? Out of naked self-interest, or else based on the rhetorical presentations that are presented to them.
Remember the bewilderment in many quarters over the large numbers of poor people who voted for President Bush in the last election. "How can they vote against their own self-interest?" was the anguished cry, on the assumption that Republicans are bad for the poor. This assumption comes from the media, of course, which has appointed itself the arbiter of all elections and the final judge between candidates (in its own mind). "Therefore," it reasons, "if we tell these poor people that Republicans will deny them services, then they should clearly vote against Republicans. Why shouldn't they?"
Why shouldn't they? Because they judged for themselves who is bad for the poor, or else because they made their decision based on other factors than self-interest; for example, the much-lamented "moral values."
Moral values, or moral absolutes, or knowledge of right and wrong, make things so much more complicated for those who seek power. It is much easier to work in a system of moral relativism. Simply offer all things to all people, and "shape the information environment" to your advantage. Victory goes to those with the slickest media machines, the most successful lies, and the most lavish bribes for the voting public, to be paid out of the public treasury. In other words, victory goes to those least concerned about the long-term health of the nation.
This may not be why moral relativism is taught to our children, but the practical result is the same. Democracy, if it is to endure, must base itself on firm principles of right and wrong, good and evil. Otherwise, we will simply flounder around in a swamp of vote-buying, mass deception, and moral ambiguity until we at last sink entirely in the mud.
4/27/2005
Nostradamus He Isn't
Reading Doonesbury over the past several days has been most amusing. A word first about print comics. As I understand it, generally syndicated comic-strip writers submit their strips to the distribution networks as much as two weeks in advance, which makes commenting on current events a chancy business.
Apparently, Garry Trudeau heard about the recent ethics controversies surrounding Congressman Tom DeLay, and made the judgment that the Republican Party and the President would withdraw their support in short order. Therefore, his latest comic strips have been following the plotline that DeLay is on a political "deathwatch," having been made bereft of allies. The President, in this plot, is hanging DeLay out to dry, disregarding his years of loyal service to the party and callously calling him "the Leper" in today's strip.
Apparently Trudeau meant to kill two birds with one stone. Not only would he have gotten in a few cheap shots at DeLay, but in his portrayal, any retreat by the President would not be out of any sense of morals but out of pure political calculation, and hence would be a betrayal of his close ally.
Sadly, real life did not follow Trudeau's script. The President just yesterday gave DeLay a ride on Air Force One, and though the White House spin doctors are denying that the appearance implied any political support, the messsage is obvious. DeLay is certainly in hot water, but the rest of the party is not going to abandon him to the wolves.
I have not beeen following the DeLay issue closely. More interesting to me is what this episode shows about tightening feedback cycles. Trudeau, operating with an antiquated distribution model, must make his calls weeks in advance. Normally, he would not risk such a blunder as he just committed, except that a new breed of comics has arisen on the Internet that responds to major events in real time. One popular comic, Day By Day by Chris Muir, often has quotes from major newspapers and blogs of the previous day (though at present, he is in the middle of a self-defense plotline).
Trudeau is trying to compete for relevance, with a crippling handicap. If he doesn't go to realtime distribution, he'll have to step back from the cutting edge of current events, and the internet strips will have secured a major victory.
Apparently, Garry Trudeau heard about the recent ethics controversies surrounding Congressman Tom DeLay, and made the judgment that the Republican Party and the President would withdraw their support in short order. Therefore, his latest comic strips have been following the plotline that DeLay is on a political "deathwatch," having been made bereft of allies. The President, in this plot, is hanging DeLay out to dry, disregarding his years of loyal service to the party and callously calling him "the Leper" in today's strip.
Apparently Trudeau meant to kill two birds with one stone. Not only would he have gotten in a few cheap shots at DeLay, but in his portrayal, any retreat by the President would not be out of any sense of morals but out of pure political calculation, and hence would be a betrayal of his close ally.
Sadly, real life did not follow Trudeau's script. The President just yesterday gave DeLay a ride on Air Force One, and though the White House spin doctors are denying that the appearance implied any political support, the messsage is obvious. DeLay is certainly in hot water, but the rest of the party is not going to abandon him to the wolves.
I have not beeen following the DeLay issue closely. More interesting to me is what this episode shows about tightening feedback cycles. Trudeau, operating with an antiquated distribution model, must make his calls weeks in advance. Normally, he would not risk such a blunder as he just committed, except that a new breed of comics has arisen on the Internet that responds to major events in real time. One popular comic, Day By Day by Chris Muir, often has quotes from major newspapers and blogs of the previous day (though at present, he is in the middle of a self-defense plotline).
Trudeau is trying to compete for relevance, with a crippling handicap. If he doesn't go to realtime distribution, he'll have to step back from the cutting edge of current events, and the internet strips will have secured a major victory.
4/25/2005
Democracy and its Detractors
Over Passover, I read Natan Sharansky's boook, "The Case for Democracy" (appropriate, I suppose, for the holiday commemorating our freedom). One point which he returned to again and again is the skepticism which his views on democracy and peace were met with by diplomats and national leaders in America, Israel, and most of the Western world. These worthies all preferred to work with "friendly strongmen" in the interests of "stability."
This is especially troubling in the wake of the recent belligerencies out of China. For several decades, American policy has been to "engage" China in the hopes of moderating its regime, or at the least to establish a sort of regional stability. In the name of engagement, China's abysmal human-rights record and its invasion of Tibet have been more or less swept under the rug. Bill Clinton, to his modest credit, at least made noises to the effect of linking China's entry into the WTO to an improved human-rights record; yet when the chips were down, he caved.
And what has been the result? China's industrial power has grown exponentially, with Western money and investment as its fuel. On the strength of its roaring economy, China is now in the middle of a massive naval mobilization. Its object appears to be Taiwan, a staunch US ally which has been repeatedly betrayed by American diplomats in order to appease its larger cousin.
True, at the same time a large middle class has been created, which is more and more connected to the outside world. And the social strains of China's new economy are causing headaches for the Communist Party. These pressures may yet lead to a revolution, in time. Yet who is to say that such a revolution would not have come earlier, had the West not acted as China's sugar daddy? According to Natan Sharansky, the dissidents in the USSR loooked on deténte as nothing more than appeasement, that extended the life of the Soviet tyranny. And remember that Deng Xiaoping decided that China could not survive without foreign trade. Should we then have so quickly given him what he so desperately needed, without so much as a single serious concession in return with regard to human rights?
Now we are in a race to see what will happen first. Will China move against Taiwan, in the dictator's classic move to unify a restless populace? Or will the Chinese Communists fall first?
Given such a situation, we have no excuse whatsoever to avoid throwing all the means at our disposal behind the cause of Chinese democracy. As to those who protest that doing so would be a "destabilizing" influence, I scorn your stability. Your stability is but a carte blanche for murderers to continue murdering. You would turn a blind eye to tyrants with blood on their hands, for fear that a spot of it should stain your elegant suits. For the sake of Taiwan, for the sake of Japan, for the sake of the Chinese who live under oppression, we can no longer be silent.
This is especially troubling in the wake of the recent belligerencies out of China. For several decades, American policy has been to "engage" China in the hopes of moderating its regime, or at the least to establish a sort of regional stability. In the name of engagement, China's abysmal human-rights record and its invasion of Tibet have been more or less swept under the rug. Bill Clinton, to his modest credit, at least made noises to the effect of linking China's entry into the WTO to an improved human-rights record; yet when the chips were down, he caved.
And what has been the result? China's industrial power has grown exponentially, with Western money and investment as its fuel. On the strength of its roaring economy, China is now in the middle of a massive naval mobilization. Its object appears to be Taiwan, a staunch US ally which has been repeatedly betrayed by American diplomats in order to appease its larger cousin.
True, at the same time a large middle class has been created, which is more and more connected to the outside world. And the social strains of China's new economy are causing headaches for the Communist Party. These pressures may yet lead to a revolution, in time. Yet who is to say that such a revolution would not have come earlier, had the West not acted as China's sugar daddy? According to Natan Sharansky, the dissidents in the USSR loooked on deténte as nothing more than appeasement, that extended the life of the Soviet tyranny. And remember that Deng Xiaoping decided that China could not survive without foreign trade. Should we then have so quickly given him what he so desperately needed, without so much as a single serious concession in return with regard to human rights?
Now we are in a race to see what will happen first. Will China move against Taiwan, in the dictator's classic move to unify a restless populace? Or will the Chinese Communists fall first?
Given such a situation, we have no excuse whatsoever to avoid throwing all the means at our disposal behind the cause of Chinese democracy. As to those who protest that doing so would be a "destabilizing" influence, I scorn your stability. Your stability is but a carte blanche for murderers to continue murdering. You would turn a blind eye to tyrants with blood on their hands, for fear that a spot of it should stain your elegant suits. For the sake of Taiwan, for the sake of Japan, for the sake of the Chinese who live under oppression, we can no longer be silent.
4/22/2005
Happy Passover
Pesach, or Passover, starts Saturday night, which means that I will not be blogging for the next several days. I would leave you with some incisive and thoughtful (or at least naively pretentious) commentary, but I've spent most of today cooking and cleaning. So I'll just leave you with a quick note:
Chametz, or leaven, is seen to symbolize arrogance. The process of cleaning leaven from the house is meant to parallel a similar process of introspection and self-improvement, and removing arrogance from your nature. As you go through the weekend, try to take the opportunity to think about yourself and your character, and see if you can't identify one area to work on. I know I've got quite a list...
Drink lots of water or have lots of prunes. You'll be much happier that way, trust me. Have fun!
Chametz, or leaven, is seen to symbolize arrogance. The process of cleaning leaven from the house is meant to parallel a similar process of introspection and self-improvement, and removing arrogance from your nature. As you go through the weekend, try to take the opportunity to think about yourself and your character, and see if you can't identify one area to work on. I know I've got quite a list...
Drink lots of water or have lots of prunes. You'll be much happier that way, trust me. Have fun!
Syracuse and Imperial Overstretch
Having arrived home, I have found the time to read some of Thucydides' history of the Second Pelopennesian War (which is good, since we covered it in class some weeks ago). It is interesting that, though the Athenian invasion of Sicily is widely considered the classic case of "imperial overstretch," all told it had a very good chance of succeeding. Even given the thin support of the local Sicilians against Syracuse, Athens had sufficient resources to threaten the city with capture.
The major reason for the invasion's failure was that certain factions in Athens turned on one of its generals, Alcibiades, and unjustly charged him with crimes against the city. He then defected to Sparta rather than submit to arrest and trial, and advised the Spartans to support Syracuse against Athens. Without this support, Syracuse would almost certainly have fallen; even with it, an aggressive general like Alcibiades may well have won victory where the more cautious Nicias did not.
That civil discord within Athens was the main cause of her defeat is a recurring theme in Thucydides. On its strengths, Athens had every reason to expect victory in the war, as the Spartans acknowledged. Yet because the city could not unify for the greater good, it fell.
Still, we have learned nothing. Note how loudly the mob called for Secretary Rumsfeld to resign over the Abu Ghraib affair.
The major reason for the invasion's failure was that certain factions in Athens turned on one of its generals, Alcibiades, and unjustly charged him with crimes against the city. He then defected to Sparta rather than submit to arrest and trial, and advised the Spartans to support Syracuse against Athens. Without this support, Syracuse would almost certainly have fallen; even with it, an aggressive general like Alcibiades may well have won victory where the more cautious Nicias did not.
That civil discord within Athens was the main cause of her defeat is a recurring theme in Thucydides. On its strengths, Athens had every reason to expect victory in the war, as the Spartans acknowledged. Yet because the city could not unify for the greater good, it fell.
Still, we have learned nothing. Note how loudly the mob called for Secretary Rumsfeld to resign over the Abu Ghraib affair.
4/19/2005
Homeward Bound (And China Too!)
Early tomorrow I'll be heading to the airport to head home for the holidays, so I'll be spending much of tonight packing. To keep you occupied, check out this truly awe-inspiring post about China's military options from Winds of Change (hat tip: Instapundit). If you have the time, read through some of the documents that it links to, they are excellent.
China is becoming more and more worrying, when you put together the recent episodes of Japan-bashing, the resolution authorizing invasion of Taiwan, and the massive military buildup of the past several years. It could be that containment was the right strategy to follow after all, and not economic engagement. Unfortunately, we are too far in to back out now. All we can do is intensify our efforts to undermine the Communist government and hope that it collapses before China starts throwing its weight around.
That's all for now. Have a happy and healthy Passover, and (more generally) a happy and healthy year. Some rumblings from Israel's mystical community indicate that ths year may end up being happier than most, but I'm not at all qualified to comment beyond that. Have fun!
China is becoming more and more worrying, when you put together the recent episodes of Japan-bashing, the resolution authorizing invasion of Taiwan, and the massive military buildup of the past several years. It could be that containment was the right strategy to follow after all, and not economic engagement. Unfortunately, we are too far in to back out now. All we can do is intensify our efforts to undermine the Communist government and hope that it collapses before China starts throwing its weight around.
That's all for now. Have a happy and healthy Passover, and (more generally) a happy and healthy year. Some rumblings from Israel's mystical community indicate that ths year may end up being happier than most, but I'm not at all qualified to comment beyond that. Have fun!
Benedict XVI
The Vatican Conclave has chosen the next Pope, formerly known as Cardinal Ratzinger. I do not know enough about him to comment, but Captain Ed has a quote from him that is extremely gratifying:
[Relativism] is letting oneself be "swept along by every wind of teaching." (It) looks like the only attitude (acceptable) to today's standards. We are moving towards a dictatorship of relativism, which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desires.If this is the new Pope's thinking, then the world will be much benefitted by it. Here is my hope that Catholicism will be a force for good under his leadership.
4/18/2005
Say What?
While researching a paper, I came across a piece by Michael Mandelbaum from almost two years ago regarding Saudi Arabia and our foreign policy. Most of the article is a reasonable survey of the problems with supporting the Saudis for their oil, while allowing them to export Wahhabism. Mandelbaum then lists three scenarios for dealing with the issue. This is the third:
Off the top of my head, I can imagine all sorts of problems with this idea. First, the UN is not the kind of organization you want in control of a lot of oil. Second, this assumes that the Saudis will meekly submit to an infringement of their sovereignty and a huge loss of revenue. In reality, this would mean a full-scale invasion and occupation, which would amost certainly be done by Americans. In that case, why not just take control ourselves? Does the Third World have some sort of claim on that oil we don't know about?
From all accounts, Mandelbaum is a sharp thinker who knows his stuff. Yet his answer to everything is a fairy-dust fantasy of internationalization and global charity to those in need. Note that there is not a single reference to military force in the above paragraph, nor is there a reference to any Saudi reaction. It's as if we could create ex nihilo a solution to all of Life's problems.
I don't get it. He saw the problem clearly, but could not bring himself to identify the clearest solution. This was probably influenced by the unstable situation in Iraq at the time, but still, he should have done better than to reflexively float off into Multilateral Land.
I don't know. I just don't know. You say the magic words "military conflict," and otherwise rational people curl up in the corner and start whimpering. That is not a great way to engage in intellectual speculation.
If the world cannot live without Saudi oil but concludes that it also cannot live with the current Saudi regime, it may decide to separate the two, putting the Saudi oil fields under some sort of international control. They might be administered by the United Nations, with the proceeds going to the world's poorest countries rather than to the Saudi ruling family. This would cut off the funding for terrorism that, until now, has emanated from Saudi Arabia. It would represent a sharp departure from existing international rules and procedures. But if Saudi-funded terror continues, proposals of this kind will rise to the top of the international agenda.Does he actually think this sort of thing will work? What could he possibly be thinking?
Off the top of my head, I can imagine all sorts of problems with this idea. First, the UN is not the kind of organization you want in control of a lot of oil. Second, this assumes that the Saudis will meekly submit to an infringement of their sovereignty and a huge loss of revenue. In reality, this would mean a full-scale invasion and occupation, which would amost certainly be done by Americans. In that case, why not just take control ourselves? Does the Third World have some sort of claim on that oil we don't know about?
From all accounts, Mandelbaum is a sharp thinker who knows his stuff. Yet his answer to everything is a fairy-dust fantasy of internationalization and global charity to those in need. Note that there is not a single reference to military force in the above paragraph, nor is there a reference to any Saudi reaction. It's as if we could create ex nihilo a solution to all of Life's problems.
I don't get it. He saw the problem clearly, but could not bring himself to identify the clearest solution. This was probably influenced by the unstable situation in Iraq at the time, but still, he should have done better than to reflexively float off into Multilateral Land.
I don't know. I just don't know. You say the magic words "military conflict," and otherwise rational people curl up in the corner and start whimpering. That is not a great way to engage in intellectual speculation.
4/17/2005
Artistic Atrophy?
Many people on my campus, most of all the fine-arts faculty, have been reduced to a state of numb horror as year after year, fewer and fewer students take any interest at all in the fine arts. There are no dance programs on campus, and most students have absolutely no rhythm or coordination. Almost nobody plays any instrument besides electric guitar, and most of those people are terrible. (Living across the hall from several guitarists is no fun.) Almost nobody can sing with any skill. Writing and poetry classes routinely have fewer than ten students, perhaps half of whom have a tin ear for language.
Granted, there is a degree of selection going on. Anyone who wants to actually develop his talent will not go to this college. But even among the general student body, there is less and less interest in watching the fine arts. Our theater productions have thinner and thinner audiences every semester, and the college jazz ensemble (which is mostly made up of faculty now) can barely fill a small room. A night of poetry and short fiction that I attended a while ago had maybe two people in the audience of ten who were not presenting their own work (and this was even with the free pizza!).
This stems partly from a sick attitude that has taken root in some communities, that "non-religious" art and music are a waste of time that could better be spent learning Torah. I wonder, according to this twisted worldview, what an ideal society would look like. It would probably be extremely boring; most of the "Jewish" music I have heard is awful. I can say with confidence that most of these "musicians" have never heard a piece by Bach or Mozart in their lives.
Aside from the loss to art that this represents, I worry that this trend indicates a larger lack of any sort of intellectual creativity. A serious criticism of the traditional Jewish education system is that it produces well-educated drones, not leaders. I see this in action all the time. A small core of students are actually engaging in intellectual discourse; the rest are simply "grinding" their studies, and they shut down in befuddlement when confronted by a challenging idea.
I think a significant cause might be the difference between associative learning and formalistic learning. Art is primarily associative, while most of these students have been trained their whole lives in a sort of mechanical rote learning, or if they are lucky, in a rigorous logical process. Associative learning has very little place in the typical Talmud class (which is a mistake, I think). Unfortunately, a critical trait of the most original thinkers has always been the ability to associate seemingly unconnected ideas and create new concepts. This process is in large part missing among Orthodox Jewish youth, and it is worrying.
Granted, an associative mind is an exceptional trait. But these sorts of traits can be cultivated, and art and music have historically been the most profound ways to cultivate societies. We are cutting ourselves off from that influence. Now, I can understand rejecting modern music, much of which is crude, unoriginal, and just not very good. But Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Debussy? The great works of the past, that have withstood the test of time, what of them?
On the other hand, this could be the means by which the pathologies of Jewish life get starved out of the intellectual gene pool. One can hope.
(I'm getting a little depressed, blogging about Jewish communal issues. I'm going back to blogging about people killing each other, that oughta cheer me up...)
Granted, there is a degree of selection going on. Anyone who wants to actually develop his talent will not go to this college. But even among the general student body, there is less and less interest in watching the fine arts. Our theater productions have thinner and thinner audiences every semester, and the college jazz ensemble (which is mostly made up of faculty now) can barely fill a small room. A night of poetry and short fiction that I attended a while ago had maybe two people in the audience of ten who were not presenting their own work (and this was even with the free pizza!).
This stems partly from a sick attitude that has taken root in some communities, that "non-religious" art and music are a waste of time that could better be spent learning Torah. I wonder, according to this twisted worldview, what an ideal society would look like. It would probably be extremely boring; most of the "Jewish" music I have heard is awful. I can say with confidence that most of these "musicians" have never heard a piece by Bach or Mozart in their lives.
Aside from the loss to art that this represents, I worry that this trend indicates a larger lack of any sort of intellectual creativity. A serious criticism of the traditional Jewish education system is that it produces well-educated drones, not leaders. I see this in action all the time. A small core of students are actually engaging in intellectual discourse; the rest are simply "grinding" their studies, and they shut down in befuddlement when confronted by a challenging idea.
I think a significant cause might be the difference between associative learning and formalistic learning. Art is primarily associative, while most of these students have been trained their whole lives in a sort of mechanical rote learning, or if they are lucky, in a rigorous logical process. Associative learning has very little place in the typical Talmud class (which is a mistake, I think). Unfortunately, a critical trait of the most original thinkers has always been the ability to associate seemingly unconnected ideas and create new concepts. This process is in large part missing among Orthodox Jewish youth, and it is worrying.
Granted, an associative mind is an exceptional trait. But these sorts of traits can be cultivated, and art and music have historically been the most profound ways to cultivate societies. We are cutting ourselves off from that influence. Now, I can understand rejecting modern music, much of which is crude, unoriginal, and just not very good. But Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Debussy? The great works of the past, that have withstood the test of time, what of them?
On the other hand, this could be the means by which the pathologies of Jewish life get starved out of the intellectual gene pool. One can hope.
(I'm getting a little depressed, blogging about Jewish communal issues. I'm going back to blogging about people killing each other, that oughta cheer me up...)
4/16/2005
Anticipating the Messiah
(The first part of this post is condensed from a d'var Torah given by R' Dani Rapp a few hours ago.)
Jews are obligated to expect the coming of the Moshiach (Messiah) at any time, even today. This is true to the extent that the rabbis of the Talmud stated that any Jew who denied the possibility of the Moshiach coming would lose his share in the World to Come.
Yet we find that in practice, almost everybody does the exact opposite. Indeed, "when Moshiach comes" has become a near synonym for "never," as in: "The Cubs winning the World Series? When Moshiach comes!" This is understandible after three thousand years, but that is still no excuse. We need to take our intellectual acceptance of the Moshiach and infuse it into our daily lives, and thus perhaps bring about the Messianic Age more quickly.
But there is a passage from the Talmud that seems to dispute this idea. (If I remember correctly, it is in Tractate Chullin.) It more or less reads as follows: "The son of David will not arrive until the whole world has despaired of his coming."
How can such a thing be? Could we really be prolonging the Exile by hoping that it will end? Can this really be telling us that we should accept the Exile and give up hope?
R' Yaakov Kaminetzky interprets the passage in the following way. He believes that it parallels the experience of the first Redemtion, the exodus from Egypt (which is said to be the prototype for all subsequent persecutions and redemptions). Remember that God appeared to Moses and commanded him to approach Pharoh and ask for the Bnei Yisrael's (Children of Israel's) freedom. Yet when Moses did so, not only did Pharoh refuse to free the Bnei Yisrael, he increased the labor to which they were subjected. The leaders complained to Moses and asked why he had come at all, since all he did was to make the situation worse.
R' Yaakov asks: why did God need for this to happen? Why not simply begin the Plagues immediately and force Pharoh to acquiesce? Why did God need for the Bnei Yisrael to suffer more?
He answers that before this happened, some among the Bnei Yisrael felt that it was possible to end the period of slavery through normal political means. If someone could approach Pharoh and explain to him the ways in which freeing the Bnei Yisrael would be beneficial to him, then Pharoh would see reason and the situation would be resolved. God needed to demonstrate that such a "normal" approach would not work, that there was no hope for freedom within the normal way of doing things. The only way that Israel could possibly be saved was through the intervention of God Himself.
Similarly, many people believe that the world can be perfected through normal human means: through philanthropy, or universal brotherhood, or whatever. R' Yaakov says that so long as people believe this, then the Redemption will not take place. It is only once the whole world realizes that true perfection is beyond the ability of humanity, and can only come about through God's hand, that the Moshiach will indeed come.
(Thus far the words of R' Dani Rapp.)
Many people today try to implement Utopian systems in the hopes of bringing about universal happiness. The United Nations was meant to end all war, Communism was meant to end all class conflict and poverty, and so on. Yet people do not realize that we cannot create a perfect system, and that any attempt will have intrinsic flaws which may be worse than what is being replaced. Even capitalism, which I continue to believe is far and away the best we can come up with for now, brings with it the suffering of the poor; and it exacts from the rest of us a constant mental strain that focuses our thoughts on the material, to the detriment of the spiritual.
And yet people persist in trying to find the perfect system. Granted, it is clearly possible to improve the world, and the world today is much better than it was in centuries past. But true perfection is beyond us. Defenders of capitalism too have fallen into the trap, by belittling the valid concerns of their adversaries that the poor are being neglected, and that the culture is being degraded.
But "Man cannot live on bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Eternal One." We must, as a culture, truly accept that materialism will only take us so far. One cannot be a complete person, and a society cannot become a healthy society, unless attention is paid to the spiritual as well. If we accept that we cannot become perfect on our own, and instead try to become better, than the world will truly be ready for the Messianic Age.
Jews are obligated to expect the coming of the Moshiach (Messiah) at any time, even today. This is true to the extent that the rabbis of the Talmud stated that any Jew who denied the possibility of the Moshiach coming would lose his share in the World to Come.
Yet we find that in practice, almost everybody does the exact opposite. Indeed, "when Moshiach comes" has become a near synonym for "never," as in: "The Cubs winning the World Series? When Moshiach comes!" This is understandible after three thousand years, but that is still no excuse. We need to take our intellectual acceptance of the Moshiach and infuse it into our daily lives, and thus perhaps bring about the Messianic Age more quickly.
But there is a passage from the Talmud that seems to dispute this idea. (If I remember correctly, it is in Tractate Chullin.) It more or less reads as follows: "The son of David will not arrive until the whole world has despaired of his coming."
How can such a thing be? Could we really be prolonging the Exile by hoping that it will end? Can this really be telling us that we should accept the Exile and give up hope?
R' Yaakov Kaminetzky interprets the passage in the following way. He believes that it parallels the experience of the first Redemtion, the exodus from Egypt (which is said to be the prototype for all subsequent persecutions and redemptions). Remember that God appeared to Moses and commanded him to approach Pharoh and ask for the Bnei Yisrael's (Children of Israel's) freedom. Yet when Moses did so, not only did Pharoh refuse to free the Bnei Yisrael, he increased the labor to which they were subjected. The leaders complained to Moses and asked why he had come at all, since all he did was to make the situation worse.
R' Yaakov asks: why did God need for this to happen? Why not simply begin the Plagues immediately and force Pharoh to acquiesce? Why did God need for the Bnei Yisrael to suffer more?
He answers that before this happened, some among the Bnei Yisrael felt that it was possible to end the period of slavery through normal political means. If someone could approach Pharoh and explain to him the ways in which freeing the Bnei Yisrael would be beneficial to him, then Pharoh would see reason and the situation would be resolved. God needed to demonstrate that such a "normal" approach would not work, that there was no hope for freedom within the normal way of doing things. The only way that Israel could possibly be saved was through the intervention of God Himself.
Similarly, many people believe that the world can be perfected through normal human means: through philanthropy, or universal brotherhood, or whatever. R' Yaakov says that so long as people believe this, then the Redemption will not take place. It is only once the whole world realizes that true perfection is beyond the ability of humanity, and can only come about through God's hand, that the Moshiach will indeed come.
(Thus far the words of R' Dani Rapp.)
Many people today try to implement Utopian systems in the hopes of bringing about universal happiness. The United Nations was meant to end all war, Communism was meant to end all class conflict and poverty, and so on. Yet people do not realize that we cannot create a perfect system, and that any attempt will have intrinsic flaws which may be worse than what is being replaced. Even capitalism, which I continue to believe is far and away the best we can come up with for now, brings with it the suffering of the poor; and it exacts from the rest of us a constant mental strain that focuses our thoughts on the material, to the detriment of the spiritual.
And yet people persist in trying to find the perfect system. Granted, it is clearly possible to improve the world, and the world today is much better than it was in centuries past. But true perfection is beyond us. Defenders of capitalism too have fallen into the trap, by belittling the valid concerns of their adversaries that the poor are being neglected, and that the culture is being degraded.
But "Man cannot live on bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Eternal One." We must, as a culture, truly accept that materialism will only take us so far. One cannot be a complete person, and a society cannot become a healthy society, unless attention is paid to the spiritual as well. If we accept that we cannot become perfect on our own, and instead try to become better, than the world will truly be ready for the Messianic Age.
4/15/2005
Those Wascally MIT Students
Via Tim Blair, a group of MIT students were tired of getting spam solicitations for submissions to the World Multiconference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics (WMSCI), and wrote a program to generate a faux research paper complete with nonsensical jargon and meaningless diagrams.
It was accepted.
Excerpts: "the model for our heuristic consists of four independent components: simulated annealing, active networks, flexible modalities, and the study of reinforcement learning" and "We implemented our scatter/gather I/O server in Simula-67, augmented with opportunistically pipelined extensions".
Check out the article, it just gets better.
It was accepted.
Excerpts: "the model for our heuristic consists of four independent components: simulated annealing, active networks, flexible modalities, and the study of reinforcement learning" and "We implemented our scatter/gather I/O server in Simula-67, augmented with opportunistically pipelined extensions".
Check out the article, it just gets better.
4/14/2005
She Gets PAID For This Stuff?
The proprietors of the Hatemongers' Quarterly blog posted an invitation they received for a lecture at the University of Nottingham, which reads in part as follows:
Based on a few minutes of Googling, it seems that much of Dr. Irigaray's thought is a justification for anti-Westernism, and especially anti-capitalism. Granted that competition seems to be a more male way of doing things, as opposed to cooperation. But it also tends to get better results when used as a basis for an economy. To oppose a system that works, and mitigates a great deal of suffering, just because it is male-centric seems to me to be the worst sort of narcissism. Once you show me that your "placental economy" actually gets results, then we can talk.
Invitation to the Seminar of Luce IrigarayI've always thought radical feminist philosophers were a bit off their rockers (granted, most philosophers are a bit off their rockers), but this has to take the cake. The primary problem with feminist thought, in my view, is that men supposedly go around constructing vast intellectual edifices in order to fetishize our genitals, or else to suppress women out of some sort of insecurity. Now, I'm willing to grant a certain degree of such behavior, depending on the era and the culture. But most of the time we're too busy hunting, gathering, and killing each other to worry about such things. Seriously, our lives are not spent scheming about how to oppress women!
Luce Irigaray is Special Professor at the School of Modern Languages of the University of Nottingham for three years.…The programme of the week was established according to the wishes of the students themselves. Generally, in the morning, Luce Irigaray explained some key words or key thoughts of her thinking, from a list drawn up by students:
[S]exual difference; becoming, and especially feminine becoming; femininity – feminine – woman – female; sensible transcendental; feminine imaginary in relation to the symbolic order; maternal order; invisibility; desire; placental economy; exchange; the breath; energy; elements; angel; the East, etc.
Based on a few minutes of Googling, it seems that much of Dr. Irigaray's thought is a justification for anti-Westernism, and especially anti-capitalism. Granted that competition seems to be a more male way of doing things, as opposed to cooperation. But it also tends to get better results when used as a basis for an economy. To oppose a system that works, and mitigates a great deal of suffering, just because it is male-centric seems to me to be the worst sort of narcissism. Once you show me that your "placental economy" actually gets results, then we can talk.
4/13/2005
Quote of the Day
Beneath the rule of men entirely great, the pen is mightier than the sword.—Edward Bulwer-Lytton
(I find it most interesting that the first part of the sentence is usually ignored. It completely undercuts the way in which the quote is generally used, that is, to discount the utility of violence. In fact, the pen can only be mightier than the sword "beneath the rule of men entirely great," meaning under a just and stable society. In a time of turmoil, the writer must take refuge behind the swordsman, or else take up the sword himself.)
The Economics of Pesach Food
Soccer Dad has been trying to defend the high price of Kosher for Passover food over at his blog, in the face of apparent chest-beating by the New York Office of Consumer Affairs. He asked me to contribute my two cents, so here they are.
Soccer Dad actually touched on most of the high points already, but here are a few more points:
With normal Kosher food, a large chunk of the market is actually non-Jews who are looking for a higher standard of sanitary supervision thn they can get with normal government oversight, or who are trying to avoid "mystery ingredients." Healthy eaters especially like Kosher food. With Kosher for Passover food, this market disappears. Nobody would eat this stuff if they didn't have to. That means a much smaller potential market, hence a need for higher margins.
Moreover, companies have a very short window to sell their merchandise. Again, if it isn't eaten during the holiday, it probably never will be eaten. That means that companies can't simply inventory their surplus stock. It has to go out now or never. Hence, additional risk and the need for higher margins.
Finally, there are a lot more producers of standard Kosher items than there are of Kosher for Passover items. And many Kosher items are mass marketed, for example Hershey bars which have a global consumer base.
But in any event, if you believe that the price of Pesach food is too high, you should see it as an opportunity to make some money. If you can sell food yourself and undercut the prices of the big boys, go for it! You will be rewarded by the cheering multitudes, and with a fattened pocketbook. That's the beauty of a free market. And that is also the test of market prices.
Soccer Dad actually touched on most of the high points already, but here are a few more points:
With normal Kosher food, a large chunk of the market is actually non-Jews who are looking for a higher standard of sanitary supervision thn they can get with normal government oversight, or who are trying to avoid "mystery ingredients." Healthy eaters especially like Kosher food. With Kosher for Passover food, this market disappears. Nobody would eat this stuff if they didn't have to. That means a much smaller potential market, hence a need for higher margins.
Moreover, companies have a very short window to sell their merchandise. Again, if it isn't eaten during the holiday, it probably never will be eaten. That means that companies can't simply inventory their surplus stock. It has to go out now or never. Hence, additional risk and the need for higher margins.
Finally, there are a lot more producers of standard Kosher items than there are of Kosher for Passover items. And many Kosher items are mass marketed, for example Hershey bars which have a global consumer base.
But in any event, if you believe that the price of Pesach food is too high, you should see it as an opportunity to make some money. If you can sell food yourself and undercut the prices of the big boys, go for it! You will be rewarded by the cheering multitudes, and with a fattened pocketbook. That's the beauty of a free market. And that is also the test of market prices.
4/11/2005
Government Bailouts and Moral Hazard
My uncle just wrote a column for the Free-Market News Network, Smaller Government Could Undermine Terrorists, in which he notes three instances in which large government has impeded effective airline security: preventing pilots from carrying firearms, preventing private security on flights, and bailing out the insurance companies who underwrote the airlines and the WTC. I would like to expand on the last point.
In a free market, insurance agencies are a powerful regulating force. In order for an agency to assume part of your risk, you generally have to prove that you are running your operation safely and effectively. If you are being slipshod and taking unnecessary risks, insurance companies will demand a higher premium, giving you a powerful incentive to improve.
One would assume that the same principle would apply to government regulations that actually make situations more dangerous; insurance companies would increase premiums in response, and the companies affected would lobby government to have the rules relaxed. But with the advent of the government bailout, the insurance companies no longer have an incentive to raise their premiums and risk losing clients. They simply continue with business as usual, and if the government regulations actually contribute to a disaster (as they did on 9/11), the insurance companies can stick government with the tab.
(One would imagine that airlines would rather pay more in premiums than risk having a plane hijacked. Unfortunately, this sort of shortsighted thinking is a constant feature of the American worldview, whether it be business, politics, or society. I don't know why it is, and I'm not sure how it could be changed without a massive cultural shift.)
In essence, by bailing out the insurance companies, the government is bribing them not to react to stupid government policies, which would in turn provoke calls for the policies to be changed. And they're doing it with our money! Pretty smooth, huh?
And they wonder why we're always complaining about taxes.
In a free market, insurance agencies are a powerful regulating force. In order for an agency to assume part of your risk, you generally have to prove that you are running your operation safely and effectively. If you are being slipshod and taking unnecessary risks, insurance companies will demand a higher premium, giving you a powerful incentive to improve.
One would assume that the same principle would apply to government regulations that actually make situations more dangerous; insurance companies would increase premiums in response, and the companies affected would lobby government to have the rules relaxed. But with the advent of the government bailout, the insurance companies no longer have an incentive to raise their premiums and risk losing clients. They simply continue with business as usual, and if the government regulations actually contribute to a disaster (as they did on 9/11), the insurance companies can stick government with the tab.
(One would imagine that airlines would rather pay more in premiums than risk having a plane hijacked. Unfortunately, this sort of shortsighted thinking is a constant feature of the American worldview, whether it be business, politics, or society. I don't know why it is, and I'm not sure how it could be changed without a massive cultural shift.)
In essence, by bailing out the insurance companies, the government is bribing them not to react to stupid government policies, which would in turn provoke calls for the policies to be changed. And they're doing it with our money! Pretty smooth, huh?
And they wonder why we're always complaining about taxes.
4/10/2005
Yet Another Reason Why We Need Tax Reform
The annual exercise in masochism, aggravation, and seething fury known as "doing your taxes" is upon us again. Death by a thousand paper cuts...
Blogging will be slow until I get my taxes in. On a better note, the play production is going very well.
Blogging will be slow until I get my taxes in. On a better note, the play production is going very well.
4/08/2005
The Double-Edged Sword
Techology continues to promise near-miraculous benefits, while threatening unimaginable abuses. Sony has just been granted a patent for a technique to beam sensory information directly into the brain.
This could end up being the cure for blindness, deafness, and a host of other maladies. On the other hand, such things could also be used maliciously. Imagine if a dictator were to use a large-scale device of this kind to produce rapturous experiences in his citizens when he addresses them, creating a whole new cult of the god-king. Or it could just as easily be used to inflict pain on his enemies.
On another note, it seems inevitable that such devices could take pornographic materials to a whole new level. I can't remember where I read it, but there was a statement going around to the effect that once antisocial men can have a better time locked in their rooms than they can have with real women, we are going to see a demographic implosion unlike any other.
It's things like this that make it so important to have a societal value system. The libertarian credo is breaking down, just because people are more and more likely to act in ways that, though they do not cause direct harm to another, will be ruinous to society. In order for a society to survive in a world of effectively infinite technology, we must have a social framework to guide our actions. Otherwise, society will simply break apart, and is already in the process of doing so.
This could end up being the cure for blindness, deafness, and a host of other maladies. On the other hand, such things could also be used maliciously. Imagine if a dictator were to use a large-scale device of this kind to produce rapturous experiences in his citizens when he addresses them, creating a whole new cult of the god-king. Or it could just as easily be used to inflict pain on his enemies.
On another note, it seems inevitable that such devices could take pornographic materials to a whole new level. I can't remember where I read it, but there was a statement going around to the effect that once antisocial men can have a better time locked in their rooms than they can have with real women, we are going to see a demographic implosion unlike any other.
It's things like this that make it so important to have a societal value system. The libertarian credo is breaking down, just because people are more and more likely to act in ways that, though they do not cause direct harm to another, will be ruinous to society. In order for a society to survive in a world of effectively infinite technology, we must have a social framework to guide our actions. Otherwise, society will simply break apart, and is already in the process of doing so.
4/07/2005
Last Gasp for the Iraqi Insurgency?
I apologize for the light posting lately, but we just finished dress rehearsal. The show runs for most of next week, so I'll be a little tied up in all probability.
In the meanwhile, check out this excellent post over at Belmont Club (hat tip: Instapundit), where Wretchard considers the latest futile attempts by the terror groups in Iraq to defeat the Americans in a head-to-head battle. Don't miss the comments section, there's a lot of good stuff there too.
In the meanwhile, check out this excellent post over at Belmont Club (hat tip: Instapundit), where Wretchard considers the latest futile attempts by the terror groups in Iraq to defeat the Americans in a head-to-head battle. Don't miss the comments section, there's a lot of good stuff there too.
4/06/2005
Forcing the Redemption
I just finished watching a Flash animation series called "Broken Saints." It was essentially a comic-book series on steroids. Very well done technically, but I can't say I like the underlying philosophy. A lot of people seem to equate the Messianic Age with people being forced to do good. Ergo, if people put together what is essentially a global mind-control network, they can use it to bring about a rough equivalent to the Messianic Age. Simple, right?
In Judaism, there have always been two ways that the Messianic Age could be brought about. Either we could merit it through our deeds, or else it can be imposed by God to prevent a total destruction. But in either event, the purpose of the Messianic Age is to provide people an ideal environment in which to do good. But we would still be left with free will, and the choice to do good or evil remains. It will just be easier to do good.
The drive among some people to deny others their free will is unsettling. They don't seem to realize that it is our freedom of action that makes us human. Not some intrinsic lifeforce, not some collective organism in which we all share. Free will. Remove that, and we are no longer human.
Although this mindset goes a long way towards explaining the attitudes of specific groups of people. The politics of the series were rather distinctive, to say the least. One of the protagonists was an Iraqi terrorist (and this series was begun in 2001!).
In Judaism, there have always been two ways that the Messianic Age could be brought about. Either we could merit it through our deeds, or else it can be imposed by God to prevent a total destruction. But in either event, the purpose of the Messianic Age is to provide people an ideal environment in which to do good. But we would still be left with free will, and the choice to do good or evil remains. It will just be easier to do good.
The drive among some people to deny others their free will is unsettling. They don't seem to realize that it is our freedom of action that makes us human. Not some intrinsic lifeforce, not some collective organism in which we all share. Free will. Remove that, and we are no longer human.
Although this mindset goes a long way towards explaining the attitudes of specific groups of people. The politics of the series were rather distinctive, to say the least. One of the protagonists was an Iraqi terrorist (and this series was begun in 2001!).
4/04/2005
Oh, Canada...
I haven't been paying very close attention to the Canadian corruption investigations, but Captain Ed has. In fact, his expose provoked the Canadian government to threaten prosecution of any Canadian webmaster who so much as links to his site.
Isn't this the sort of thing that totalitarian regimes do?
I think it high time for such an autocratic government to get the boot from voters. Fortunately, it seems that the Canadians are just as disgusted as the rest of us, and the Liberal Party is about to get a wake-up call the likes of which could change the course of Canadian politics.
Last word comes from one of Captain Ed's commenters, Corrie: "Yet another demonstration of 'Tucker's Theorem': The Internet was originally designed to survive a nuclear war. It treats censorship as battle damage and routes around it."
Isn't this the sort of thing that totalitarian regimes do?
I think it high time for such an autocratic government to get the boot from voters. Fortunately, it seems that the Canadians are just as disgusted as the rest of us, and the Liberal Party is about to get a wake-up call the likes of which could change the course of Canadian politics.
Last word comes from one of Captain Ed's commenters, Corrie: "Yet another demonstration of 'Tucker's Theorem': The Internet was originally designed to survive a nuclear war. It treats censorship as battle damage and routes around it."
4/03/2005
Hevel Havalim #16!
Welcome to Hevel Havalim, or "Vanity of Vanities," the Jewish blogosphere's blog carnival. The name comes from the beginning of the book of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes), so I figure that it is only appropriate to begin with a quote from that book:
Now to begin with some sobering reading. Terri Schiavo passed away this week, having been starved to death by court order. Naturally, the Jewish world has some strong opinions on the issue. Here are a few, many of which draw parallels with other issues.
At Crossing the Rubicon 2, Gail gives an exceptionally comprehensive look at the Terri Schiavo case from all angles: moral, religious, legal, ethical, and a personal note as a survivor of cancer. It’s all good, but one quote in particular jumped out at me:
(I actually explored a similar theme in a post a few days ago, before this one was submitted. The two pieces compliment each other very well, I think. Murder by Judge)
Batya at Shiloh Musings relates the Terri Schiavo case to the present culture of abortion on demand, and then extrapolates outward into America’s foreign policy. (Though I’m not sure I understand her reference to the Yom Kippur War, given Nixon’s massive arms airlift.) Terri Schiavo and Modern Morality
In another piece, Batya draws a parallel between the death of Terri Schiavo and Israel’s disengagement plan. Selection
Judith at Kesher Talk links to several fiskings of a terrible article by the Jewish Week on the Schiavo case, which manages to cover several angles of the issue without consulting a single eminent bioethicist (certainly not because we have such a shortage of them, either). Poskening
On to other topics...Soccer Dad, Hevel Havalim’s esteemed founder, asks the question: What Jewish holy text is most like a blog?
Shanna of Devarim.com rants about “Shomer Negiah,” the prohibition against physical contact between unmarried men and women, and about the profound sociological distortions that it causes. From where I sit at YU, I have to agree that things have been taken to an unhealthy level. The more clearsighted rabbis are extremely worried. Natural, Chemical, Logical, Habitual
She then takes issue with the “Fuzzy December” holiday season in Rejoice!
Back at Shiloh Musings, Batya considers the implications for Israeli society of the proliferation of Shabak agents and agent-provocatuers who spy on Israeli Jews, and comes to a disheartening conclusion: Trust and Insecurity
Fred at Israelpundit takes note of a Canadian Muslim who refused to tolerate anti-Semetism at his children’s private school. How do you say “mensch” in Arabic?
Fred's post makes for particularly interesting reading in light of this piece by Daniel Pipes.
Winds of Change features a post by Zorkmidden of Discarded Lies, where he interviews an old Salonikan Jew who survived Bergen-Belsen. What was it that seperated the Jews from their tormenters? Terra Nostra: "We were from a different level"
David at Israelly Cool tells of the drive back from a Jerusalem wedding party, and the hijinks that ensue. Only in Israel will people not feel nervous about accepting help from confessed criminals! One Night in Jerusalem
The Elder of Ziyon brings our attention to a statement by leading Papal candidate Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, calling for Christians to recognize Zionism as a “Biblical imperative.” Zionist Cardinal.
On Batya’s other blog, Me-ander, Baile Rochel writes a post described as “A true life story about ladies in YESHA. There's only one, maybe two exaggerations. Send me your guesses.” All I can say is, the more sixty-year-old women who can belly-dance, the better! Got That Rhythm!
At Multiple Mentality, Jewish contributer Sethual Chocolate and non-Jewish co-founder Lowcommotion discuss How to Become an Honorary Jew
And I'll close with a piece of my own, containing some rough thoughts on the historical Parallels Between Early America and Early Israel
Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoy all the great submissions, and be sure to check back with Soccer Dad to see who's hosting next week.
Of all the things that come, a man is not able to speak; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor is the ear filled from hearing (1:8)That's certainly how I feel now! There's a lot of good stuff out there, and the articles linked here are only a small sampling of them. Be sure to check out the main pages of the blogs I link to, if you can.
Now to begin with some sobering reading. Terri Schiavo passed away this week, having been starved to death by court order. Naturally, the Jewish world has some strong opinions on the issue. Here are a few, many of which draw parallels with other issues.
At Crossing the Rubicon 2, Gail gives an exceptionally comprehensive look at the Terri Schiavo case from all angles: moral, religious, legal, ethical, and a personal note as a survivor of cancer. It’s all good, but one quote in particular jumped out at me:
Those who see her as a vegetable want her dead because they can't bear to think of what life would be like under those conditions, but one who is living under those conditions is not aware of the factors that we find unbearable. We want her dead to ease our own suffering - not hers.The Schiavo Case
(I actually explored a similar theme in a post a few days ago, before this one was submitted. The two pieces compliment each other very well, I think. Murder by Judge)
Batya at Shiloh Musings relates the Terri Schiavo case to the present culture of abortion on demand, and then extrapolates outward into America’s foreign policy. (Though I’m not sure I understand her reference to the Yom Kippur War, given Nixon’s massive arms airlift.) Terri Schiavo and Modern Morality
In another piece, Batya draws a parallel between the death of Terri Schiavo and Israel’s disengagement plan. Selection
Judith at Kesher Talk links to several fiskings of a terrible article by the Jewish Week on the Schiavo case, which manages to cover several angles of the issue without consulting a single eminent bioethicist (certainly not because we have such a shortage of them, either). Poskening
On to other topics...Soccer Dad, Hevel Havalim’s esteemed founder, asks the question: What Jewish holy text is most like a blog?
Shanna of Devarim.com rants about “Shomer Negiah,” the prohibition against physical contact between unmarried men and women, and about the profound sociological distortions that it causes. From where I sit at YU, I have to agree that things have been taken to an unhealthy level. The more clearsighted rabbis are extremely worried. Natural, Chemical, Logical, Habitual
She then takes issue with the “Fuzzy December” holiday season in Rejoice!
Back at Shiloh Musings, Batya considers the implications for Israeli society of the proliferation of Shabak agents and agent-provocatuers who spy on Israeli Jews, and comes to a disheartening conclusion: Trust and Insecurity
Fred at Israelpundit takes note of a Canadian Muslim who refused to tolerate anti-Semetism at his children’s private school. How do you say “mensch” in Arabic?
Fred's post makes for particularly interesting reading in light of this piece by Daniel Pipes.
Winds of Change features a post by Zorkmidden of Discarded Lies, where he interviews an old Salonikan Jew who survived Bergen-Belsen. What was it that seperated the Jews from their tormenters? Terra Nostra: "We were from a different level"
David at Israelly Cool tells of the drive back from a Jerusalem wedding party, and the hijinks that ensue. Only in Israel will people not feel nervous about accepting help from confessed criminals! One Night in Jerusalem
The Elder of Ziyon brings our attention to a statement by leading Papal candidate Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, calling for Christians to recognize Zionism as a “Biblical imperative.” Zionist Cardinal.
On Batya’s other blog, Me-ander, Baile Rochel writes a post described as “A true life story about ladies in YESHA. There's only one, maybe two exaggerations. Send me your guesses.” All I can say is, the more sixty-year-old women who can belly-dance, the better! Got That Rhythm!
At Multiple Mentality, Jewish contributer Sethual Chocolate and non-Jewish co-founder Lowcommotion discuss How to Become an Honorary Jew
And I'll close with a piece of my own, containing some rough thoughts on the historical Parallels Between Early America and Early Israel
Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoy all the great submissions, and be sure to check back with Soccer Dad to see who's hosting next week.
I'm Late! I'm Late! For a Very Important Date!
Apologies for not having Hevel Havalim posted yet. I just got back, so it should be up within a half hour or so. See you then!
4/01/2005
Invasion of the Column Snatchers!
I'm being considered for a position as opinion-page editor for the student newspaper, the Commentator. I don't know whether I'll be chosen, of course, but it would be nice. I'm not sure if the poor guys at the Commie know what they'd be in for if I do get in...
Top Ten list of new topics for the opinion section:
10. Suggestion box for countries whose currencies need manipulating.
9. A continuing column on how public schools are secretly fronts for the International Communist Party.
8. Monthly shidduch candidates for Condi Rice.
7. Analyses of cool names like "Krauthammer."
6. The dollar should be pegged to the price of Prozac.
5. "Evil Dictator of the Week," with suggestions on how to assassinate him.
4. We need to invade Mexico to secure vital supplies of oil, cheap workers, and tequila.
3. Why everyone less religious than me is wrong.
2. Why everyone more religious than me is wrong.
1. Guns!! Guns!! Guns!!
************
And remember to check back on Sunday for this week's installment of Hevel Havalim. It's not too late to submit your own pieces, so let me know if you have written anything particularly good in the past week. Shabbat shalom!
Top Ten list of new topics for the opinion section:
10. Suggestion box for countries whose currencies need manipulating.
9. A continuing column on how public schools are secretly fronts for the International Communist Party.
8. Monthly shidduch candidates for Condi Rice.
7. Analyses of cool names like "Krauthammer."
6. The dollar should be pegged to the price of Prozac.
5. "Evil Dictator of the Week," with suggestions on how to assassinate him.
4. We need to invade Mexico to secure vital supplies of oil, cheap workers, and tequila.
3. Why everyone less religious than me is wrong.
2. Why everyone more religious than me is wrong.
1. Guns!! Guns!! Guns!!
************
And remember to check back on Sunday for this week's installment of Hevel Havalim. It's not too late to submit your own pieces, so let me know if you have written anything particularly good in the past week. Shabbat shalom!
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