American Conservative Magazine Losing Money

The proof? Its editor Pat Buchanan reviews Cinderella Man in his latest column, some eight or ten weeks after its release, so we must conclude he waited to see it at the discount theater on the bad side of town.

Death Penalty II

When thinking about criminal justice, we must not let traditional concepts of its purpose - like vengeance and rehabilitation - taint our judgment. We should think instead in terms of self-defense and restitution. Ironically, I've become more favorable toward the death penalty in principle since becoming a libertarian.

Andrew L. asks in response to my post on the death penalty:

If it is wrong for an individual to kill other than in self-defense (a tenet of the non-aggression pact that is the basis for libertarianism), then how can the state have that power?

It is also wrong for an individual to imprison another person, other than in self-defense. Which points to the underlying presumption: for libertarians who believe in minimal government, the only justification for the state to either kill or imprison, is self-defense, keeping the violent people away from us. The question should be, how do we defend ourselves against known murderers?

Greater justice would be served by executing them - the rest of us are guaranteed we won't be menaced again (no possibility of escape, no pardon from a corrupt governor), and we are spared the expense of housing them.

But, as I said, I oppose the death penalty because of the expenses associated with safeguarding it from error and abuse - which can never be done perfectly.

It's just not worth the trouble.

Knowledge vs. Power, or, What If There Is No Cliff?

"There are limits to freedom." This is often expressed in the style of, "I believe in freedom, but..."

No matter how the thought is stated, I agree. I admit it: freedom has limits. Does that refute the libertarian position? No, because the fact that there are limits to freedom does not justify the imposition of power.

Of course there are limits to freedom. If you're dead, you can not be free in any sense known by our present reality. "I am not free to jump off a cliff." Which is another way of saying, "Since I require life to enjoy freedom, and jumping off the cliff will end my life, then I can not jump off the cliff and remain free." Life sets the limits of freedom.

And I admit that perhaps some people will die because they don't know the limits, they don't know what can kill them. From falling off cliffs to drug overdoses to drownings to shootings, people will die exercising freedom. And others will learn from these mistakes and accidents.

But freedom creates its own self-regulating limits. We acquire knowledge about human limits and pass it on. Children may not know how babies are made - and it is entirely probable, absent any learning whatsoever, to not recognize a causal activity between pregnancy and sexual activity. Having babies at random intervals may be attributed to merely being a woman, just like people get sick at random intervals. Assuming a woman would have many more experiences of sexual intercourse than just the particular times it leads to the birth of a baby nine months later, there is nothing obvious about a causal relationship between sexual intercourse and having babies. Things things are learned through teaching from trusted authorities, like one's own parents. The knowledge is ancient, but it's not obvious. And so we also learn a bunch of other things, what causes what, what hurts us. Knowledge both "limits" our freedom by informing us of the impossible and deadly, but also expands it because it spares our lives by, well, informing us of the impossible and deadly. A person who knows what hurts him enjoys more freedom over a longer period of time than one who doesn't.

What is the justification of power? To protect us, because we wouldn't live without it. "I forbid you to go to that area: there is a cliff and you will fall and die." Sounds reasonable, right? But what if there is no cliff? What if the person doing the forbidding, is lying? If there is a cliff, we would find out soon enough; why do we need someone who prevents us from even finding out?

Acquired knowledge, not power, is what makes us free.

Freedom discovers its own limits; power imposes limits.

The Death Penalty

Well, the guy the guy who admitted to bombing abortion clinics and the Atlanta Olympic games, Eric Rudolf, pleaded guilty in exchange for a life sentence.

When it comes to crimes of this nature, three principles come to mind:

1. We should make sure we have the guilty person;
2. He must be removed permanently from society;
3. We shouldn't incovenience the taxpayer any more than necessary.

In light of our extremely expensive appeals process, and the length of time before execution, life imprisonment is probably the best way to fulfill all three principles, even though #3 isn't exactly well-served.

I have no problem with the death penalty as a principle of justice, because I don't see why taxpayers have to pay for the existence of murderers behind bars. But when capital punishment is expensive, as our system is, it's probably not worth it. To protect the innocent and guard against abuse, we've made capital punishment really expensive.

That's the problem with the State. Give it power to do something, and it will be abused. Or, as in this case, when it creates for itself safeguards against abuse, they are so expensive as to be not worth it.

Rudolph was probably smart to plead guilty to avoid the death penalty. It seems that an "innocent" verdict would have been unlikely. Now, if only there was a way we could have criminals like him do forced labor in prison to pay their way and compensate the surviving victims and the families of the dead.

Are They Immigrants, or Refugees?

An opening caveat for any newcomers to this blog, if you read any bigotry in harsh words I have for the Mexican ruling class in this post, I confess that's true: I have bigoted thoughts against all ruling classes.

I am all for open immigration. If someone from the Dominican Republic can hit a baseball better than an American, I have no problem with him "taking the job from an American." I believe people should be able to cross borders in search of better opportunity.

But that's different from crossing borders for any opportunity; that's different from crossing borders just to survive.

I can't imagine how bad conditions must get to leave one's own country - one's home - to move to another where one's language and skin color is not the majority's. Even if there are large communities of fellow countrymen in the new country.

When large numbers from one coountry move into one other, which is full enough that Locke's "enough, and as good" proviso for land doesn't apply, then three things will happen:

1. Rents will go up, because there are more people occupying the same amount of land;
2. Consumer prices go up, because more people means more consumer demand;
3. Wages goes down, because the supply of labor has increased.

I suppose #2 and #3 may even themselves out "in the long run." The greater demand will increaase production and create jobs. But rents will still go up, and there would be a large amount of displacement and uncertainty as things shake out.

But is it natural for people to leave their own country en masse for another, especially in violation of the immigration laws of the new country?

Are we talking about immigrants, or refugees?

Does it make any sense for Mexican migration to the USA to get even bigger after the NAFTA "free trade" agreement?

Reason's Hit and Run recently provided a clue:

“In Mexico...it takes at least 58 days to start a business, compared with 5 in the U.S., 3 in Canada and 27 in Chile. Mind you, this is only the process of getting all the legal permissions needed to launch a business. The cost of starting a business as a percent of per capita income is even more startling--16.7% in Mexico versus 11.7% in Brazil, 10% in Chile and 0.6% in the U.S.”

Stats on employment flexibility by country are here. Mexico ranks near the bottom.

Mexico's oligarchs have no incentive to change. Mexicans can't get work in Mexico, leave for work in America, but send the money back home.

I think it is reasonable for the USA to seal the borders, if only to enforce current law and guard against terrorist enemies of the USA coming in. But also, to adopt laws in which immigrants are admitted only from countries that are as free as the USA, and perhaps that have a recipricol immigrant policy that admits Americans. For them, the entire process should be entirely hassle-free, nothing beyond showing a passport.

If our neighbors had civil wars that displaced a lot of refugees who cross the border, we would concede that their civil war is also our problem. If a foreign government creates conditions that pushes its people out and onto our territory, creating a refugee crisis, we have a right to respond in some kind. What is true in war, is true in unfree economic systems.

Those born in the USA shouldn't have to pay higher rents and prices, and suffer low wages and unemployment, just because the Mexican government's policies impoverish their own people and drive them to leave. The American shouldn't suffer because Mexico is creating economic refugees, any more than he should suffer if Mexico or Canada have a civil war. The internal policies of other country's governments shouldn't be his problem, and it is the duty of his own government to make sure they aren't.

I am not calling for intervention in the internal affairs of Mexico, or to declare war on it for its de facto invasion of the USA. I'm just saying it is reasonable to refuse immigrants from Mexico and seal that border until Mexico liberalizes its own economy instead of using ours as its gravy train. And if their socio-political "culture" makes that almost impossible, well, that's not our problem. The fact that so many leave, and many times that want to leave and are making plans to leave, make it plain that the real culture in Mexico is of a people who will work for a living, if work is available.

Allowing in Mexican economic refugees as we do is basically a form of foreign aid to the Mexican ruling class. The more it wallows in its own kleptomania and incompetence, the more Americans are hurt. We would be better served if the landless and jobless in Mexico were forced to stay and do something about their government.

Selling Meaning, Selling Life

As I write this I'm listening to Howard Bloom, author of The Lucifer Principle and Global Brain, being interviewed on Coast to Coast AM. He mentioned "selling meaning," and that Osama bin Laden is one of the best at it.

I'm noting it because it is one way to frame things - another way to look at the world. Selling meaning.

Defining life's "meaning" is like defining hypochondria. I think it was Florence King in National Review a decade ago who said that hypochondria was its own antonym. What is a person obsessed with being sick? A hypochondriac. What is a person obsessed with being well? A hypochondriac.

I call that ironic paradox.

(As opposed to ironic hyperbole. What is ironic hyperbole? When people use "literally" when they mean "figuratively" or "metaphorically" to emphasize a point, as in "you are literally driving me up the wall.")

Life's purpose or meaning is an instance of ironic paradox. The reason to live is the reason to die. Perhaps the reason to live is the reason to kill, if the situation ever arises. Meaning is that which is more important than life itself, and since we all die, we have to believe that there is a greater value than life.

But is there? Is there a greater value than life? If there are gods, angels, and demons in the world, they will try to enlist us in their own battles against each other. That's the seduction of religion, that we can do God's work, as if God is impotent, and Truth needs our "help" to triumph. It's also the seduction of power: we kill the unbelievers of the true faith (or ideology), before they kill us. Sometimes, there may be some merit to this, but often people kill out of theoretical guessing games of what their supposed enemies might do instead of what they've actually done, or out of sheer hatred of the fact that these enemies are "unbelievers."

It seems to me that those who live for something, but would not die for it, are at a genetic dead end. Is cowardice a virtue? Does "let the women and children die so I may live" make any sense? Will the coward die a contented man?

There are also those who would live for something, and kill for it, but not die for it. They are called criminals. Think of bank robbers. They want money, and they would kill for money (as a Plan B), but it is self-evident that they won't die for money. It is in our interests to capture such people and make them pay for their crimes.

But then there are those who would live for something AND die for it AND kill for it. There is no reasoning with these people, no compromise, no negotiation. And they come in every stripe - each one as reprehensible as any other, even if you happen to agree with one stripe more than with the others. They are the most dangerous people, and they occupy the highest offices of academia, religion, and government in every country. Their hearts are full of evil, which they interpret as good. Their interpretation of justice is the destruction of their enemies, regardless of the "collateral damage."

Usually, what is sold is ideals rather than reality. It is okay for us to blow up Iraqi civilians alongside insurgents, because the "greater good" of "democracy" is accomplished. We don't pause to consider that perhaps our Islamic enemies also believe that their killing is for the "greater good," and that their hearts are just as sincere, and their minds just as rational and convinced of the truth as ours.

The reality, however, is widespread mocking of the Golden Rule: we murder parents, children, and spouses for our cause, but refuse to forgive our enemies when they do exactly the same thing with the limited resources they have.

It seems to me that life itself is the one value, the one ideal, for which one would die for, but not kill for. Life is reality as we know it, not an ideal to be imposed on others. That doesn't mean we wouldn't kill in defense, but that it makes no sense to kill for an abstraction called "Life." Killing in defense of life is one thing, but killing for the ideal of "life" isn't paradox, isn't irony, but rather flat-out contradiction. Life is the one "idea" that can't be idealized. Life is reality as we know it.

The value of life isn't that it guarantees free minds or free markets, because it doesn't. Nor does it guarantee happiness. But it does guarantee survival of the human race, which is the minimal requirement: you need life in order to enjoy the good things in life.

Bill Bonner once was asked, "If you could only give your son one piece of advice, what would be the one thing you would tell him?" The answer, "The means are the ends." In that:

The ends may be wonderful or asinine. You don't know. But when the means are sordid, the whole project is tainted from the get-go. In the worse cases, the world improvers have blood on their hands; all the good intentions in the world won't wash it away.

Better to focus on the means. Work hard. Think clearly. Say please and thank you. Smell the cork before you drink the wine. Buy low; sell high. Be humble. Be happy. Who knows; you may even get the ends you craved.

And the #1 means, the base of all other means, is to respect the lives of others, to recognize that they have as much a right to life as you.

The question is, can this message sell, that life is, itself, the meaning of life?

Perhaps not to the masses, but maybe to a niche audience. Even if there are few buyers, it is worth selling.

Plame Game: Sympathy for the Devil, er, Rove

Why would Karl Rove have even known about Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame? Does he control everything to the last detail? Unlikely. Justin Raimondo wonders, who leaked to the leakers?

I'm going to swim against the tide, here, and against the expectations of my readers, by suggesting that this investigation isn't about Rove – and, furthermore, that Rove is a victim, in an important sense, someone who was used and abused by the real culprits. And who are these mysterious culprits?
[...]
[M]ost married women – even in this era of Women's Liberation – defer to the tradition of taking their husband's name, but I have to admit that, even after wondering about it for a brief moment, I shrugged and moved on. As it turns out, however, this is an important detail, because now we have Rove's lawyer saying that he at no time gave out Valerie Plame's name: but if Rove identified her as Joe Wilson's wife, what the heck is the difference?

The difference is that, as Valerie Plame, Mrs. Wilson was affiliated with a CIA front company, Brewster-Jennings & Associates, engaged in tracking and stopping the proliferation of nuclear weapons. As soon as her name was made public, the implications for U.S. national security amounted to a grave breach – far more of a crime than merely violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, which has only had a single prosecution since its passage in 1982.
[...]
The publication of her maiden name not only endangered Valerie Wilson, but also blew the cover of a CIA front and imperiled anyone she might have come in contact with during her stint overseas. This isn't just a matter of of violating a statute that, at most, entails a 10-year jail sentence and a fine – this is a question of possible espionage.

What also seems fairly clear is that Karl Rove would not have had direct knowledge of Plame-Wilson's covert activities on behalf of the CIA, and that only a very few people high up in the national security bureaucracy had the clearance to get access to her name. So who was it? If Rove leaked to Novak, and half a dozen Washington reporters, then who leaked to the leakers?

This isn't about Rove.

It's about a cabal of war hawks inside the administration who passed on this information to others without telling them about Plame-Wilson's deep cover status, perhaps suggesting that she was just an analyst working at a desk rather than a covert operative involved in a vitally important overseas operation, the knowledge of which was highly compartmentalized and only dispensed on a need-to-know basis. When Rove and his shills blabbed to reporters and anyone who would listen, they didn't realize that they were aiding and abetting an elaborate ploy to stick it to the CIA.

But does this make Rove a victim? Well, in the sense that he was only doing his job, which is politics. And politics, Tom Knapp writes:

is a nasty business, and Rove's job has always been to handle the nastiest part of that business: to go after his candidate's enemies with a meat ax, bury their bodies deep in the woods and make sure that his guys can credibly say that they don't know where those bodies are. That's what he does. Bush isn't going to fire him for it if it can be avoided. Firing your best employees makes it hard to hire good help.

Think there's anything new there? Think it's a partisan thing? Think again. Ever heard of Lee Atwater? How about James Carville?

Raimondo again,

Seen against the backdrop of the fierce intra-bureaucratic war that broke out in the administration in the run-up to the Iraq war – with the CIA and the mainline intelligence and diplomatic communities pitted against civilian neoconservatives in the upper echelons of the Pentagon and the Office of the Vice President – the outing of Plame and her colleagues amounts to an act of espionage committed out of a desire to exact revenge. The leakers meant to retaliate not just against Joe Wilson, through his wife, but against the "old guard" that was resisting the campaign to lie us into war. When the CIA wouldn't go along with the neocon program and "spice up" their analyses with Ahmed Chalabi's tall tales and the outright forgery of the Niger uranium documents, the War Party struck back at them with the sort of viciousness for which the neocons are rightly renowned.

The neocons had a fix on their target; now the question was how to get someone else to pull the trigger. The leakers, in order to protect themselves, "laundered" the leak through journalists (Judith Miller, one of their favorite conduits) and Bush operatives – Rove.

This isn't about Rove, and Rove isn't the target of Patrick Fitzgerald and the grand jury. The target is the people who leaked to Rove. Closing with Raimondo:

I do not believe for a moment that this lengthy and increasingly controversial investigation is centered around alleged violations of a rarely invoked statute, incurring a penalty that hardly seems proportionate to the energy expended to get a conviction. It is extremely hard to prove that someone has violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act; there are all sorts of conditions and sub-clauses that provide a legal escape route for anyone so charged: that can't be what all this is about.

If, however, Fitzgerald can prove there was a conspiracy inside the government to collect and selectively reveal classified information in order to crush political opponents, and shape U.S. policy, then the charges could be much more serious. By all accounts, the Plame investigation is said to be widening, and I would venture to say that by this time it is wide enough to include charges of espionage.

Plame Game: The Irony of it All

If you haven't already, read Robert Novak's original column which "outed" Valerie Plame. Novak has been charged as a lackey of the Bush Administration, even though he was opposed to the Iraq War, was called "unpatrioic" by National Review, and whose column was actually sympathetic to Joe Wilson, whom the neocons in the Adminstration were allegedly trying to discredit by outing his wife. Novak wrote:

Wilson's mission was created after an early 2002 report by the Italian intelligence service about attempted uranium purchases from Niger, derived from forged documents prepared by what the CIA calls a "con man." This misinformation, peddled by Italian journalists, spread through the U.S. government. The White House, State Department and Pentagon, and not just Vice President Dick Cheney, asked the CIA to look into it.

That's where Joe Wilson came in. His first public notice had come in 1991 after 15 years as a Foreign Service officer when, as U.S. charge in Baghdad, he risked his life to shelter in the embassy some 800 Americans from Saddam Hussein's wrath. My partner Rowland Evans reported from the Iraqi capital in our column that Wilson showed "the stuff of heroism." President George H.W. Bush the next year named him ambassador to Gabon, and President Bill Clinton put him in charge of African affairs at the National Security Council until his retirement in 1998.

Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him. "I will not answer any question about my wife," Wilson told me.

After eight days in the Niger capital of Niamey (where he once served), Wilson made an oral report in Langley that an Iraqi uranium purchase was "highly unlikely," though he also mentioned in passing that a 1988 Iraqi delegation tried to establish commercial contacts. CIA officials did not regard Wilson's intelligence as definitive, being based primarily on what the Niger officials told him and probably would have claimed under any circumstances. The CIA report of Wilson's briefing remains classified.

All this was forgotten until reporter Walter Pincus revealed in the Washington Post June 12 that an unnamed retired diplomat had given the CIA a negative report. Not until Wilson went public on July 6, however, did his finding ignite the firestorm.

After the scandal broke out ten weeks later, Novak wrote::

This story began July 6 when Wilson went public and identified himself as the retired diplomat who had reported negatively to the CIA in 2002 on alleged Iraq efforts to buy uranium yellowcake from Niger. I was curious why a high-ranking official in President Bill Clinton's National Security Council (NSC) was given this assignment. Wilson had become a vocal opponent of President Bush's policies in Iraq after contributing to Al Gore in the last election cycle and John Kerry in this one.

During a long conversation with a senior administration official, I asked why Wilson was assigned the mission to Niger. He said Wilson had been sent by the CIA's counterproliferation section at the suggestion of one of its employees, his wife. It was an offhand revelation from this official, who is no partisan gunslinger. When I called another official for confirmation, he said: "Oh, you know about it." The published report that somebody in the White House failed to plant this story with six reporters and finally found me as a willing pawn is simply untrue.

At the CIA, the official designated to talk to me denied that Wilson's wife had inspired his selection but said she was delegated to request his help. He asked me not to use her name, saying she probably never again will be given a foreign assignment but that exposure of her name might cause "difficulties" if she travels abroad. He never suggested to me that Wilson's wife or anybody else would be endangered. If he had, I would not have used her name. I used it in the sixth paragraph of my column because it looked like the missing explanation of an otherwise incredible choice by the CIA for its mission.

How big a secret was it? It was well known around Washington that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA. Republican activist Clifford May wrote Monday, in National Review Online, that he had been told of her identity by a non-government source before my column appeared and that it was common knowledge. Her name, Valerie Plame, was no secret either, appearing in Wilson's "Who's Who in America" entry.

The real mystery to me is why it would matter - what political advantage the war party would have had by outing Plame, or how or why Joe Wilson could be discredited just by being married to her. No one who read Novak's column initially thought twice about it, which is why it took some ten weeks for the scandal to erupt. If this was a political hit job on Wilson, it was pointless, foolish, and ineffective, and it would be hilarious if the Bush Administration is brought down by it.

Which makes it more likely that the real purpose was to disrupt the CIA and Plame's work, whatever that was, possibly for reasons unrelated to Wilson and Niger-yellow cake story. More on this to come.

Aristocracy and the Next Justice

Vache Folle on the judiciary and aristocracy:

She will have been ruthlessly ambitious, and she will believe in the depths of her soul that she deserves the rewards she has won by virtue of her having “merit”. This gives her the sense that she is fit to impose her views and her will on her less “meritorious” conspecifics. She will have been trained to “think like a lawyer”, ie to reduce every issue to a set of narrow categories and to strip them of all substance. In sum, she will be an utter tool.
[...]
The absence of a public-spirited aristocracy means that all positions of trust in this country are held by men of dubious character who lack the courage and independence to resign in protest over wrongdoing. The military is led by careerists who need their jobs and who will not resign over a matter of honor. Judges treasure their positions over principles, and bureaucrats at every level of government depend on their government salaries too much to permit them to act in the public interest.

It will take decades to cultivate an aristocracy, and the concept of the meritocracy will have to be rooted out first. The aristocracy needs independent means (I reckon that an individual estate of $20 mm in the city or $10 mm in rural areas would be the minimum) that it did not earn and that it does not pretend to merit. It also needs to be trained in the ideals of noblesse oblige and in good character.

I would add that government would likely be smaller as both the aristocrats and the subjects would find little justification in the former taxing and regulating the latter excessively. Aristocrats would also more likely to take a long-term view, since their own estates depend on a stable government.

Privatizing Government

Mike Tuggle on organic community:

The government’s war on organic community and the right of association in the name of equality has destroyed countless downtowns, and spurred white flight to the suburbs. For decades, suburban and rural areas have been unable to influence the halls of power to their benefit – city hall continued to incorporate (kidnap?) these areas in order to acquire the tax base needed to prop up crumbling city halls. Refugees from the urban behemoths had no means of organizing resistance.

This has changed. But instead of trying to take over corrupt city governments, besieged suburbanites have created a new mechanism for protecting their property and community with gated communities and homeowner associations. In what amounts to a privatization of local government, 52 million Americans now live in private neighborhood associations. These associations are taking on more of the responsibilities once the exclusive domain of municipalities, and are evolving into little islands of self-government. The number of these associations is bound to rise as immigrants, who now tend to form their own local associations, continue to act as a solvent destroying the network of ties among old political structures. This prediction fits in with current trends – in California, the state with the highest number of immigrants, 60 percent of all new housing is governed by a community association.

Free Judith Miller

I haven't expressed my thoughts on the Plame Game because they are hard to articulate. It is like one of those times when something "feels" wrong put you can't explain it or put your finger on it. Here, at least, is an attempt to explain why I think Judith Miller ought not be in jail:

1. The press is not prohibited from publicizing information that the government has classified as secret. To prohibit this, is to proclaim that the press can not tell the people what the government is up to, and the press would not be free.

2. Thus, if the press is able to "out" a CIA agent through independent means such as its own investigative work, it would be free to do so.

3. Since reporting facts, such as the identity of CIA agents, is not itself a crime, and provided the press did not resort to criminal means to attain information, then it is not the press's fault if someone leaked classified information.

4. Since there are other means to attain the same information, it is nobody's business how the press gets its information. "White House sources revealed that 2+2=4" is the same as "Scientists have discovered that 2+2=4."

5. The only "crime" in a leak is breach of contract. Example: Let's say the New York Times publishes KFC's secret recipe of 11 herbs and spices. This indicates one of two things:

a) Someone in KFC committed a crime by violating his confidentiality agreement, which does extreme damage to KFC.
b) Through trial and error and perhaps recovering isolated pieces of information, NYT investigators eventually managed to duplicate the secret recipe, doing extreme damage to KFC.

If the Times refuses to reveal how it got the recipe, then we wouldn't even know if there was a leak. And remember, revealing the information is itself not a crime.

What is the difference if the Times admits that a secret informant within KFC revealed the recipe? Only, that we'd know that a crime did take place. But what was the crime? It wasn't revealing information, it was breach of contract - a violation of an agreement between KFC and an employee. KFC, and perhaps the state's attorney, know only two things, that somebody in their company is guilty of breach of contract, and that this person revealed information to the New York Times.

Should the Times be compelled to snitch over a breach of contract at another company? If it was my best friend, and he admitted it to me, would I be compelled to come forward? Apparently, I wouldn't if I were the informant's priest, psychiatrist, or spouse. Why are they exempt? Why should everyone else be compelled to snitch?

6. Any organization has the right to keep secrets - the press doesn't have the "right" to know them. Individuals working for an organization have pledged secrecy, and the press can not coerce them into giving away secrets. But neither does the organization have the "right" to compel the press to reveal its source if someone does spill the beans. The newspaper has as much of a right to pledge confidentiality and keep secrets as any other organization.

7. The press wants to disseminate information; other organizations such as the government want to control information. When someone leaks information, that is a testament to the organization's incompetence in controlling information. That may require an in-house investigation to find out who did it, but the press has no responsibility to help.

8. If the government gets to compel the press to reveal the leaker, that means the government enjoys the forced cooperation of the press in controlling its own information.

9. Compelling the press to reveal sources thus becomes a means for the government to control the press. All the government would have to do is make it a crime for any official to reveal any information whatsoever to anyone. The press would be compelled to reveal all of its government sources.

10. Thus, if the President is ordering genocide, or if our country is run by Satan-worshipping pedophiles, it still might not be a crime for the press to report these things, but it would be compelled to reveal its sources. We would have a government of secrecy and cover-ups, and an impotent press.

A Question of Values

My latest at the Partial Observer. Excerpt:

If you want to believe something, you will always have enough evidence and you'll never be proven wrong. Two major terror attacks in the past two years - in Madrid and London - can be interpreted as proof that we're winning the War on Terror - "only two attacks, none on American soil." Or, it can prove that we are losing the War on Terror and that we can't win it. Terrorism can also prove that the terrorists hate us, our civilization, and our freedom - or it can prove that they just want us to end our occupation of their countries - the terrorists aren't attacking Sweden!

American Hiroshema, or Osama's Kicking our Butts

Osama bin Laden's suitcase nukes are already in the US, according to Worldnet Daily:

According to captured al-Qaida leaders and documents, the plan is called the "American Hiroshima" and involves the multiple detonation of nuclear weapons already smuggled into the U.S. over the Mexican border with the help of the MS-13 street gang and other organized crime groups.


Al-Qaida has obtained at least 40 nuclear weapons from the former Soviet Union – including suitcase nukes, nuclear mines, artillery shells and even some missile warheads. In addition, documents captured in Afghanistan show al-Qaida had plans to assemble its own nuclear weapons with fissile material it purchased on the black market.

In addition to detonating its own nuclear weapons already planted in the U.S., military sources also say there is evidence to suggest al-Qaida is paying former Russian special forces Spetznaz to assist the terrorist group in locating nuclear weapons formerly concealed inside the U.S. by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Osama bin Laden's group is also paying nuclear scientists from Russia and Pakistan to maintain its existing nuclear arsenal and assemble additional weapons with the materials it has invested hundreds of millions in procuring over a period of 10 years.

The plans for the devastating nuclear attack on the U.S. have been under development for more than a decade. It is designed as a final deadly blow of defeat to the U.S., which is seen by al-Qaida and its allies as "the Great Satan."

At least half the nuclear weapons in the al-Qaida arsenal were obtained for cash from the Chechen terrorist allies.
[...]
Bin Laden, according to Williams, has nearly unlimited funds to spend on his nuclear terrorism plan because he has remained in control of the Afghanistan-produced heroin industry. Poppy production has greatly increased even while U.S. troops are occupying the country, he writes. Al-Qaida has developed close relations with the Albanian Mafia, which assists in the smuggling and sale of heroin throughout Europe and the U.S.

Some of that money is used to pay off the notorious MS-13 street gang between $30,000 and $50,000 for each sleeper agent smuggled into the U.S. from Mexico. The sleepers are also provided with phony identification, most often bogus matricula consular ID cards indistinguishable from Mexico's official ID, now accepted in the U.S. to open bank accounts and obtain driver's licenses.

The Bush administration's unwillingness to secure the U.S.-Mexico border has puzzled and dismayed a growing number of activists and ordinary citizens who see it as the No. 1 security threat to the nation.

If this is true, then Osama bin Laden has achieved a supervillian status that no spy novelist would find credible. He has already showed us that we are not safe and the government can not protect us. Now, he can hold us hostage, equalizing the balance of terror.

Would he detonate the weapons? I'd be surprised, because he must asume Mecca and Medina would be nuked in response. And the one thing we know about him is that he isn't stupid or irrational.

It is even plausible to suggest that the USA has already been following his orders. The poppy industry which he controls in Afghanistan has flourished since 9-11, and the USA has deposed Saddam and increased the likelihood of an Islamic theocracy in Iraq. Bush has committed himself to a Palestinian state. And if the "he hates us because of our freedom" baloney is even relevant, well, we are a heck of a lot less free than we were four years ago.

Osama is kicking our butts.

Some Political Definitions

Lew Rockwell mentioned in his blog, "To criticize the founder of the Second Republic is to criticize the current regime (though we might argue that FDR inaugurated the Third Republic) and its militarism, corporatism, centralism, and suppression of civil liberties, all of which were prefigured by Lincoln."

It seems to me that describing American history as different Republics (1st Republic 1789-1861; 2nd Republic 1861-1933, 3rd Republic 1933-2001) is another handy, if not entirely precise (they never are), way to define our political terms:

"right-wing extremist": nostalgic for the 1st Republic.

conservative: nostalgic for the 2nd Republic

liberal: nostalgic for the 3rd Republic

neo-conservative: a builder of the 4th Republic, based on the worst ideas that emerged in the 2nd and 3rd Republics.

Libertarians, of course, are not nostalgic, but rather critical of government in all ages.

Questions About Federal Funding of Science

Questions I originally posted at Democratic Freedom:

Regarding government-funded scientific research:

1. How is this not pork?
2. How is this not corporate welfare?
3. What mechanisms are in place (since the market price mechanism is being replaced)to insure that the right projects are being funded? That is, how do we know what is worthy of further research and what is unworthy?
4. How can this NOT be corrupted by politics and special interests, even to the point of stifling progress?
5. What in the Constitution authorizes such projects?

Support the President, Not the Troops

Robert Novak reports on a loyal Republican who was punished for being right:

At the end of the last Congress, the DeLay-headed leadership purged [13-term Rep. Chris]Smith from the Veterans chairmanship and from the committee itself for wanting $2.6 billion more for the Veterans Administration.

Smith's vindication came June 28 when the Bush administration admitted that its estimate of 23,553 veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan for medical treatment fell far short of the real number: 103,000. The VA's reason was that it relied on two-year-old assumptions. The administration estimated its need for additional funds, coincidentally or not, at Smith's $2.6 billion.

Rep. Steve Buyer of Indiana, who was leapfrogged by the GOP leadership over two more senior congressmen to replace Smith as chairman, at first followed the party line by saying the shortfall could be covered by shifting funds. However, Buyer quickly had to change his position and say more funds were needed, just as Smith had insisted all along.
[...]
There is little doubt Smith would easily have defeated Buyer had there been an open vote of the House Republican Conference without intervention.

Similarly, Smith would be the conference's most likely choice for the International Relations Committee chairmanship against two other well-regarded conservatives, Reps. Dan Burton of Indiana and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida. But the choice will be made by the DeLay-dominated Steering Committee, and so Smith is a long shot.

What Makes Conspiracy Theories Plausible

I've encountered several discussions of conspiracy theories via internet and e-mail recently, both related and unrelated to the London attacks. Sunni Maravillosa reflects my general view:

I'm tempted to dismiss [a conspiracy theorist friend's] claims a nontrivial portion of the time, because often a conspiracy explanation not only goes against Occam's Razor, it simply seems too implausible -- too much needs to be going on behind the scenes for the conspiracy to be likely, and for it to stay secret.

But ... he was in the military years ago, and saw things I'll never see. He's smart and has a memory that seems to never lose facts, and reads things that I wouldn't know exist, if not for him. Maybe they're the products of other conspiracy theorists, maybe not. I don't have the tools and time to adequately evaluate that, and probably never will; it isn't a question I'm interested in doing the grunt work required to answer. So even as I turn away, the thought He may be right remains, tickling my brain.

This got me thinking as to why conspiracies are plausible:

1. Occam's razor (the simplist explanation is the best) may actually be more in line with conspiracy if all the facts are accounted for. Occam's razor also shouldn't apply if the "official explanation" relies on a long train of coincidences, uncharacteristic errors, and accidents.

2. Those who carry out the conspiracy may not know about it:

a) Breaking things down to single individual actions, most of them may not raise suspicion. If US Intelligence smuggled a couple of thousand high-level Nazis into the United States after World War II, would the people doing the gruntwork know that’s what they were doing? It’s not as if the same guy drove the German prisoner to a base, flew him over the Atlantic, and issued him a Social Security number.

b) If you believe in the goodness of the organization you serve, you wouldn’t suspect any evil intent if your supervisor’s supervisor makes an odd request. If you ask for an explanation, you may get a satisfactory one, such as “The President asked us to…” The President has a bigger grasp of the big picture than you do, right?

3. There are reasons to Remain Silent:

a) You are among the conspirators, and either do not have a conscience, or believe you’re doing the right thing.
b) The conspiracy has a satanic or other religious element to it - fear of curses or worse if you break your vow of secrecy
c) Systems of reward, blackmail, and threats convinces you that you (and friends, family etc) have too much to lose if you come forward
d) Lack of hard evidence, such as documentation, makes it unlikely that you would be believed anyway
e) You are too ashamed of your involvement to come forward.
f) You know that something was amiss, but do not know really what it was.
g) You go to a newspaper - a reporter is interested, but the editor yanks the story.
h) You go to the FBI - an agent wants to investigate, but his superiors quash it.

4. If conspiracies operate like networks instead of hierarchies, they would be hard to untangle:

a) If just 1% of the population is willing to gain power and wealth through violent or dishonest means, that’s a recruiting base of 3 million people in the USA alone.
b) Imagine small overlapping circles of business, government, academic, media, and religious elites, all willing to game the system for their own benefit.
c) The pool of honest but ambitious men and women and ideological “useful” idiots is far larger - and it is they who unwittingly carry out the agenda of conspirators.
d) If one crime is caught and prosecuted by honest police, prosecutors, and judges, they may be unaware that the criminals are part of a larger web: they wouldn't know that they had a valuable "piece" of a larger puzzle.

4. Conspirators may be in possession of secret knowledge that can not be discovered through conventional science or uncovered by traditional detective work.

5. Conspirators may be in possession of advanced forms of mind control by which they control operatives who do the really dirty work (such as assassinations).

6. Conspiracy theorists are dismissed because:

a) Those who come to disbelieve what they’ve been taught tend to unconventional in other matters, making them odd personalities, which means that
b) They may be in a position, socially and economically, where they do not have as much to lose if they expose and unravel the system.
c) A lot of other people have a lot invested in society as it now is, and are determined to dismiss “cranks” and disbelieve conspiracy theories - because they can’t afford not to.

The Logic of Suicide Terrorism

Surprise, surprise. Terrorism expert Richard Pape of the U. of Chicago is interviewed in the American Conservatie, showing that:

The central fact is that overwhelmingly suicide-terrorist attacks are not driven by religion as much as they are by a clear strategic objective: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland. From Lebanon to Sri Lanka to Chechnya to Kashmir to the West Bank, every major suicide-terrorist campaign—over 95 percent of all the incidents—has had as its central objective to compel a democratic state to withdraw.

Not so surprising, is it? Terrorism can't be applied to a non-democracy, because there are few means to apply public pressure on the government to change the policies that instigated the terrorism.

Also, the self-sacrifice of suicide terrorism doesn't need a primarily religious motive. People sacrifice themselves for political and geo-strategic reasons, and to inflict damage on the enemy, all the time. Remember the Alamo.

"If I blow myself up on a bus (or in a crowded market, or wherever), maybe that will be the last straw and the occupiers will come to the negotiating table (or leave). Innocent people will die, but not as many as would die if the occupation persists."

For one really committed to the cause, and for ill-equipped resistance movements, this would make a lot of sense.

For terrorism to go away, democracies have to leave countries where they're not wanted.

Atheism and Consciousness

Jonathan Wilson at the Partial Observer:

Clearly, to "love your neighbor as yourself" is not the same as subsidizing the "world's incompetents." The incompetents Rand and I mean are those of Galt's rant; those who choose a lifestyle of dependency over agency.

In fact, the Biblical story of redemption is always in the direction away from enslaving tyrannies and toward the liberation of the human being. This is why, for example, White slave-holders in antebellum America used the apparatus of the state to pass laws against literacy for their African-descended slaves, and against distributing Bibles among them. It was obvious to the White slave-holders that the African-descended slaves would pick up on the Bible's themes of redemption and liberty, especially in the Exodus story of the Jews in the Old Testament.


Why, then has the Bible been misunderstood to mean that people can choose dependency and exploitation as a lifestyle? The Bible, the Word of God, has been so misunderstood because people have not awakened to their volitional consciousness. The natural condition of the human being, as Galt himself states, inhibits the clarity of reason. Reason is more than a mechanical process and it is not born within the human instinct. In this I absolutely agree with Rand and Galt. So when the Bible, like any tool, is in the hands of the unawake, it becomes a weapon of evil.

Building Freedom

I don’t really practice what I’m about to preach, especially in regards to item #1. And this is not my final word on these issues, this is only a weblog entry, a brief brainstorm. But here’s a rough outline for freeing yourself and the country. The first part is toughest. The odd part of libertarianism is that it extols the virtues of both the division of labor (which is, economic interdependence) AND self-sufficiency. Which is to say, that libertarianism extols the virtues of non-coercion. It is the most diverse ideology, because it values both backwoods living and the luxurious excess of the cosmopolitan metropolis. But if you want to remain free when everything goes to hell, point #1 should be considered.

1. Find your own freedom:

- Learn outdoor/survival skills, preparedness, homebuilding, auto mechanics
- Live in a remote country or small town location (where developers won’t use government to steal your land)
- Learn how to live well, including entertaining yourself, on very little cash
- Build various networks, especially with fellow libertarians, for mutual aid
- Learn a variety of marketable skills
- Attain financial freedom (in part by dropping out of the consumerist culture)
- Withdraw as much as practical from the financial system and any activity that is often monitored by government
-Be a good spouse, parent, and neighbor

2. Cast a wide net:

-Every libertarian should get a blog. You don’t even need to give your real name, or write if you don’t have the confidence. Just link to articles you like. Blogsurfers will encounter your stuff. Some will move to the next blog, others will stay and read.
-Give up on the idea of “persuasion.” Gary North has a rule - I’m not sure where he got it or if its true, but it sounds accurate. If what you have to offer is any good, 20% will actually listen to you, and even like what you say. But only 20% of that, or 4% of the whole, will follow through. There is no “art” in persuasion, especially in persuasion to the libertarian philosophy. Just tell the truth as you see it, or link to others with whom you agree.
-Don’t be discouraged, and don’t waste time on arguing with people. The real blessing of the libertarian philosophy is the moral and psychological benefit of how you treat others and how you view yourself. Freedom is really a state of mind, more than a political condition. Be happy that minds are opened, and that some minds are changed, don’t remain bitter, angry, and frustrated because great masses don’t listen. Read Isaiah’s Job. Other people's problems and character defects are not yours, and you - and no one else, let alone great masses of people - are responsible for your own happiness.

3. Realistic political involvement

-Political change comes only after cultural transformation. If the great masses valued freedom, they will get it.
-Libertarians seeking power is a contradiction. If the Libertarian Party had some success, that will open the door for those who will dilute its platform beyond recognition in an effort to seize power.
-Break down the libertarian program into individual issues and movements. The Libertarian “program” or platform, will attract little support. Individual issues, such as guns, drugs, prison reform, or draft resistance, will attract wider, non-ideological support.
-If campaigning for office, appeal to the values and self-interest of the voters, not the wisdom of your philosophy.
-Maintain a two-tiered political philosophy. One may cater to an anti-state view of the world. But the other must be a theory of the State. It would acknowledge that tax-funded interstate highways, public universities (with their basketball teams and all), and public broadcasting (with Big Bird and Lake Wobegon and all) are not going to go away. If the State is inevitable, what should be its purpose and how should it be managed? If you can not deal with such a question, that’s fine, but then don’t pretend that partisan political activity is going to work, or complain that the Libertarian Party isn’t as “pure” as you want it to be.
-Accept incrementalism, and sometimes it may even be best to vote for the “lesser of two evils.” But don’t become a loyal partisan of any party, and recognize the difference between a compromise and a sell-out.

Perhaps the last two points, about a theory of the State and incrementalism, explains some of the views expressed here that might not resemble full-fledged anarcho-capitalism. I am conservative when it comes to the Constitution and judiciary, and am Georgist in political philosophy, in that I believe that the monopolization of land and natural resources was, is, and always will be the main political problem.

But the main problem is philosophical and moral - how do we think of ourselves, and how should we treat others? It is here that libertarianism will liberate many people, even if the political fruits will not be seen in our generation.

The Price of Empire

Mike Tuggle writes:

The rising death toll in London is just the latest atrocity in the long-standing battle to dominate the Middle East. Both sides have been hardened into ignoring the suffering of others so much that they seem to regard the other side as sub-human. When confronted with evidence of harm to innocents, both sides shrug and respond with language to the effect that they had it coming.

Sadly, die-hard supporters of DC's war party are as bad as the jihadists. Here in the US, people ignore the growing number of Afghan and Iraqi civilians killed by the US occupation. And if the US has to use torture methods just as brutal as Saddam's to stem resistance, then no one's going to talk about it -- which amounts to endorsement by quiet acceptance.

As British and US security tightens up in response to the brutal London bombings, and as civilians -- who are obviously now in the crosshairs of jihadists waiting in secret in numerous Western cities -- begin to look over their shoulders, it's time to start talking about these things. As Pat Buchanan warned, years of Western interference in the Middle East cannot have any other effect than to enflame more hatred against us. For the British, the question is simple: If you invade a country that has not threatened you, and imprison, torture, humiliate, and kill its people, does that make your country safer or less safe?

We need to disown the attitude that Washington is entitled to bomb, starve, shoot, and occupy any people anywhere. We need to repudiate the attitude that any reprisal against DC's policies and actions is an unthinkable abomination because its motivations are so noble. Bush has said as much, and that was the subtext of Tony Blair's mumbling response to the horrific news in London.

Is Sydney Next?

Madrid, then London.

Not Berlin, Paris, or Toronto. Let alone Zurich.

Supporting and participating in the USA's middle east policies invites terrorism. And no crackdown, no better "security" system will stop it. (The first rule of any "system" is that it can be beat.)

If Australia pulls out of its pointless partnership with the USA, it won't be hit. If it doesn't, then anticipate a disaster sometime next year.

A Sacrifice and a Launch

I am customizing my very own Internet "radio" station from SBC Yahoo Launchcast. My goal is to guarantee a healthy amount of the really great and popular music from 1964-1979, the best of classic rock, New Wave, punk, and alternative since then, healthy doses of older country and folk music, and then random selections from all genres. But I don't control the playlist, a computer program does based on my input.

This requires a "relationship" with a computer program. I can rate each song, album, and artist as it comes up. Each choice can possibly narrow or widen the playlist. The computer is programmed to think, "If jim102670 likes x, he'll like y, and WANT TO BUY Y's ALBUM." But often, no dice.

For example, since I like Rickey Nelson, the program assumes that I like Leslie Gore. But I don't blame the program. The programmers, maybe, but this is the product of market research. Hey, it's all free and who am I to complain? Any way you look at it, you're getting no deejay, commecial-free music.

What I did do is ban four bands: Boston, Air Supply, Journey, and Foreigner. This despite that each group has one - and exactly one - song that I like (Rock and Roll Band, Making Love (Out of Nothing At All), Lovin' Touchin' Sqeezin', and I Want To Know What Love Is). But I didn't ban Styx, or REO Speedwagon, or Cheap Trick, and I gave Jefferson Starship's song "Miracles" the highest rating. Nevertheless, these may also be sacrificed, as the computer program can't read my mind entirely. But as great songs or great acts occur to me, I'll add them to my four-star lists.

It's a work in progress, but I'm very satisfied with the results so far.

Please let me know if the link doesn't work. Thanks!

A Defining Moment

My latest at the Partial Observer.

It's a brief sketch of the diversity of positions and opinions that fall under any particular label or banner, whether it is "Christian" or "libertarian" or "conservative." Excerpts:

There are self-described libertarians who support the War on Iraq, for example. There are libertarians who support tax and spending cuts in principle but oppose tax cuts today, and others who believe that terrorism is a big enough threat to justify greater federal powers in the PATRIOT Act. There are libertarians who are anarchists, and others who support taxes on land values. There are libertarians who believe in states‘ rights, and others who would use the federal government to check abuses in local government. There are libertarian Republicans and libertarian Democrats and Libertarians and libertarian independents and libertarian non-voters.

Looking beyond these issues, and questions of who is and who is not a "real" libertarian, you will find unanimous support from self-described libertarians on two issues: repealing drug laws and repealing gun laws. This not to say that libertarians think these are the most pressing and important issues of our day. But these are the defining marks.
[...]
Conservatism has always been hard to define in a practical sense. It has always been a drift, a state of mind, rather than a coherent ideology. Conservatives have been foreign policy realists, idealists, and isolationists. Protectionists and free traders. They have been supply-side tax cutters and deficit hawks. They have been hard-line against drugs, and also against it. They have called for a stronger role for the federal government in some areas, and have resisted the growth of government. Conservatives praise capitalism, and the agrarian life. They tend to be flag-wavers, but some of those flags are of the Confederacy. Some derive their ideas and attitudes from Edmund Burke, others from Sean Hannity.

Where is the agreement? What makes a conservative? Conservatives are united in their opposition to activist federal judges.

What if Kelo is bigger than Roe?

In 1964 Barry Goldwater held a hard line against communist expansion and a relatively hard line against domestic expansion of the federal government. He got trounced in the 1964 Presidential election. In the subsequent ten Presidential elections, the Republicans won seven (arguably stealing one or two), and the three they lost could be attributed almost entirely to its own dysfunction and internal rebellions. Goldwater's defeat actually created an image for the party that was never really even close to accurate but which persisted: Tough, principled, pro-freedom.

In 2004 the Democratic Party missed a golden opportunity. It could have sent the volatile Howard Dean into landslide defeat - and with that defeat create the image of the Democrats for decades to come. Instead, it came out even worse: it nominated a pro-war Senator whose fingerprints are all over the absolute worst the Bush Administration had to offer, from the Patriot Act to No Child Left Behind. No matter how bad the President did, the Democrats matched him.

Scandals may yet do the President in. I sure hope so. But that will only possibly lead to one Democrat victory, in 2008. In 2008 the Democrats absolutely must not nominate a Senator. Not Hillary, not Feingold, not anyone. Not even for vice-President. The Senate Democrats are guilty, guilty, guilty. Guilty for imposing an internal passport on Americans. Guilty for fanatically upholding the right to abortion at the expense of EVERY OTHER LIBERTY WE HOLD DEAR.

A Democrat must come from outside Washington, untarnished from the disastrous Bush legislation that Congressional Democrats were all too willing to support, and campaign against the crackdown on civil liberties and basic property rights. The President isn't only contesting the White House, he's representing every State assembly candidate - every candidate of partisan office in the land. He's representing every apartment-dweller and middle-class homeowner in the nation. He must acknowledge that if anti-Roe judges are also pro-medical marijuana and pro-homeowner, that the Democrats have a problem. He can't dutifully cave to the pro-abortion fanatics who don't even have a principled Constitutional argument to back up their support for Roe.

Democrats must recognize the hypocrisies and contradictions in their positions, and move away from them to speak a plainer language to the American people. They can't continue to filibuster what they perceive to be "pro-life" judges who may also support personal liberty and private property when it comes to marijuana and eminent domain transfers.

The culture war got a whole lot bigger than it was just four weeks ago, and morally the "conservative judges" are clearly in the right. Democrats must recognize this and concede the point, if they want to provide a principled and coherent program to carry the country into the future.

Greatest Americans?

The Discovery Channel captured the wave of the world and came up with polls nominating the greatest Americans, and
Ronald Reagan came on top.

These lists are always controversial. Most of that we take for granted - and which were truly American - such as sodapop drinks and hamburger buns - were invented by individuals who are not household names. And a lot of other great things, like Edison's light bulb, were invented via teamwork, not individual genius alone.

The main problem with such lists is that they overrate politicians and current celebrities, to the detriment of the true scientific and cultural geniuses. How Britain could rate Churchill over Shakespeare and Newton is beyond me.

Here are some names that, if not deserving to have been in the Top 100, certainly deserve to be ahead of a bunch who actually did get in:

Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, PT Barnum, John Adams, John Q. Adams, Hank Aaron, Jim Brown, Chuck Berry, Marlon Brando, Walter Camp, Johnny Cash, Fanny Crosby, Francis Coppola, Aaron Copeland, William Clark (Lewis and Clark), Duke Ellington, Bob Dylan, Cecil B. Demille, George Gershwin, Lou Gehrig, Barry Goldwater, Aretha Franklin, John Ford, Woody Guthrie, Jim Henson, Oscar Hammerstein II, Catherine Hepburn, BB King, Lerner & Lowe, Robert E. Lee, Billy Jean King, Merriwether Lewis (Lewis & Clark), Vince Lombardi, James Madison, James Monroe, Bill Monroe, Gresham Machen, Jack Nicklaus, Jack Nicholson, Pete Rozelle, Knute Rockne, Richard Rogers, Sidney Poitier, Charles M. Shultz, Gene Roddenberry, Paul Simon, Neil Simon, John Steinbeck, Jim Thorpe, Frank Lloyd Wright, Brian Wilson, John Updike, Hank Williams, Stevie Wonder

The Foundation of Libertarain Foreign Policy

Shamelessly copying from Steve's blog, who lifted from John Nichols in the Nation, who used the great bulk of his column to quote Sec. of State John Quincy Adams, who addressed the House of Representatives on July 4, 1821.

And now, friends and countrymen, if the wise and learned philosophers of the elder world, the first observers of nutation and aberration, the discoverers of maddening ether and invisible planets, the inventors of Congreve rockets and Shrapnel shells, should find their hearts disposed to enquire what has America done for the benefit of mankind?

Let our answer be this: America, with the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights of human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government. America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity.

She has uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, of equal justice, and of equal rights.

She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own.

She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart.

She has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the contests of that Aceldama the European world, will be contests of inveterate power, and emerging right.

Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be.

But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.

She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.

She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.

She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.

She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom.

The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force....

She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit....

[America's] glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice.

Can the Iraqis Hack It?

Pat Buchanan, for all his faults on domestic and trade issues, remains the most astute foreign policy analyst in the mainstream media, probably because of his own experience working for presidents. On Bush's speech to the 82nd Airborne last week,
he writes:

Closely rereading the president's Tuesday address at Ft. Bragg calls to mind speeches I wrote, 35 years ago, for Richard M. Nixon.

While Bush continues to insist Iraq is the central front in the war on terror and will never be abandoned "on my watch," U.S. war policy is emerging as a 21st-century version of "Vietnamization."

For the president just wagered the ultimate success or failure of this mission on the ability of Iraqis themselves. "As the Iraqis stand up," said Bush, "we will stand down."
[...]
Bush appears to have begun to understand that for many Iraqis, the cause of this war – why they fight – is that we are there. They do not have to love Saddam to want Americans gone. And as President Bush has now told the Iraqis that we do not mean to stay, U.S. generals are back-channeling the Sunni insurgents to assure them we intend to leave – and that their real enemy is Zarqawi, al-Qaida and the foreign fighters, who intend to remain and start a civil war.

Not so very long ago, the neoconservatives were cawing, "On to Damascus!" and braying about Iraq becoming a U.S. strategic base camp flanking Iran and Syria. But, repeatedly at Ft. Bragg, Bush signaled that when our mission is complete, America will come home. "I recognize that Americans want our troops to come home as quickly as possible," he told the 82nd Airborne. "So do I."
[...]
But if 135,000 U.S. troops are adequate only to cope with the insurgency, but insufficient to crush it, where are the forces needed for victory to come from? Our European, Latin and Asian allies are all bailing out.

Bush's answer: The new troops will come from Iraq itself.

Thus, whether we win or lose this war is going to come down to the question it came down to for Nixon – as he pungently put it in the early 1970s – "Can the Vietnamese hack it?"

Can the Iraqis hack it? Can Iraqis build up their political institutions and military and security forces not only to take over from the Americans, but to win a war the Americans were unable to win?
[...]
What persuades me we are headed for a crisis is that, within the president's speech, lies a contradiction. He calls the war in Iraq "vital to the future security of our country" – i.e., defeat would be life-threatening for America.

But if victory is vital to this country, how can President Bush ever entrust the outcome of this war to Iraqis?

Irregardless

I think I figured out how the non-sensical non-word "irregardless" came into use. Someone -perhaps a Bush or a Walker - unthinkingly merged "irrespective" and "regardless" and others unthinkingly copied it.

How "I couldn't care less" became "I could care less" remains a mystery.

O'Connor Retires

As I've said several times, I take the Constitution literally, as not meaning anything more or less than it says. I'm not a fan of the "doctrine of incorporation," in which the Supreme Court decides to apply provisions of the Bill of Rights to the states. The Constitution is a political charter, and the Court is a product of it; the people, not the court, are the supreme interpreter of it. In short, I refuse to pretend that my libertarian preferences should be Constitutional law, any more than conservative or liberal preferences. Justices should resolve conflicts of law, not conflicts with the Constitution - Constitutional conflicts are fundamentally political and should be resolved by political branches of government. By my standard, I'm hardly a fan of any Supreme Court Justice, although I'm partial to conservatives in one sense. If libertarians ever took power in the states and the federal government, conservatives would be unlikely to sabatoge the agenda. Liberals are more likely to concoct a "constitutional right" to public education, force local districts to raise taxes, and otherwise wreak havoc.

With all of those caveats, my brief assessment - not being a court watcher - of Sandra Day O'Connor's record is that her "moderation" and "consensus-building" were really more or less sincere efforts to balance states' rights and individual rights. Here concurring opinion in Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down Texas's anti-homosexual sodomy law may be a case in point. She ruled with the majority in Bowers v. Hardwicke, the 1986 decision that upheld the right of states to prohibit sodomy. The distinction, O'Connor wrote,

The statute at issue here makes sodomy a crime only if a person “engages in deviate sexual intercourse with another individual of the same sex.” Tex. Penal Code Ann. §21.06(a) (2003). Sodomy between opposite-sex partners, however, is not a crime in Texas. That is, Texas treats the same conduct differently based solely on the participants. Those harmed by this law are people who have a same-sex sexual orientation and thus are more likely to engage in behavior prohibited by §21.06.

The Texas statute makes homosexuals unequal in the eyes of the law by making particular conduct–and only that conduct–subject to criminal sanction.

Just because a Justice is not a liberal (abortion rights must always be upheld without exception) or conservative (affirmative action policies must ALWAYS be struck down), does not mean that she is a confused, unprincipled, or a poor reasoner. Yes, she may have flip-flopped and been too sensitive to public opinion, but perhaps also was better able to recognize the heap of unconstitutionality (or at least of injustice) beyond the relentless logic of precedents and philosophy.