Assorted

1. "Settled Law"

Ann Coulter's column of yesterday makes a very important observation:

No law, certainly not one that fundamentally alters the role of the government, has ever been passed like this.

But now, this greased-through, irregular law is relentlessly defended as "settled law" and "the law of the land"! (At least the parts that Obama hasn't unconstitutionally waived -- again, anybody know if the Constitution is "settled law"?)

Wow -- Obamacare sounds fantastic! Not only does Congress refuse to live under it, but its proponents' strongest argument is that it's "settled law!"

The most hilarious part of the "settled law" argument is that it's coming from the left, for whom nothing is ever "settled" until they get their way.

Indeed. But this is not a new phenomenon. Consider the Brezhnev Doctrine:

The Brezhnev Doctrine was a Soviet Union foreign policy, first and most clearly outlined by S. Kovalev in a September 26, 1968 Pravda article, entitled "Sovereignty and the International Obligations of Socialist Countries." Leonid Brezhnev reiterated it in a speech at the Fifth Congress of the Polish United Workers' Party on November 13, 1968, which stated:

When forces that are hostile to socialism try to turn the development of some socialist country towards capitalism, it becomes not only a problem of the country concerned, but a common problem and concern of all socialist countries.

This doctrine was announced to retroactively justify the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 that ended the Prague Spring, along with earlier Soviet military interventions, such as the invasion of Hungary in 1956. These interventions were meant to put an end to liberalization efforts and uprisings that had the potential to compromise Soviet hegemony inside the Eastern bloc, which was considered by the Soviets to be an essential defensive and strategic buffer in case hostilities with NATO were to break out.

...and, more recently "in the news," the "Islamic Waqf:"

The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine has been an Islamic Waqf throughout the generations and until the Day of Resurrection, no one can renounce it or part of it, or abandon it or part of it. No Arab country nor the aggregate of all Arab countries, and no Arab King or President nor all of them in the aggregate, have that right, nor has that right any organization or the aggregate of all organizations, be they Palestinian or Arab, because Palestine is an Islamic Waqf throughout all generations and to the Day of Resurrection. Who can presume to speak for all Islamic Generations to the Day of Resurrection? This is the status [of the land] in Islamic Shari’a, and it is similar to all lands conquered by Islam by force, and made thereby Waqf lands upon their conquest, for all generations of Muslims until the Day of Resurrection.

(That, of course, is from the HAMAS Charter: its justification of its irrevocable determination to destroy Israel.)

So the American Left, particularly its political arm, the Democrat Party, has taken the same position on "settled law" as the Soviet Communists and the terrorists of HAMAS. Be sure to point that out to the next leftist you're unfortunate enough to cross swords with.

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2. "Civility's Anointed One."

If you had sense enough not to subject yourself to Barack Hussein Obama's most recent victory dance, you missed the following:

“And now that the government is reopened, and this threat to our economy is removed, all of us need to stop focusing on the lobbyists, and the bloggers, and the talking heads on radio, and the professional activists who profit from conflict, and focus on what the majority of Americans sent us here to do.”

What's that you say? Freedom of speech? Freedom of the press? The right to assemble and petition for a redress of grievances? But...but...but civility! How can we have civility with all this unruly, disorganized dissent? Surely we are morally obligated to get behind our Maximum Leader and trust to his infallible sense for the Right, the Just, and the Future? Why, the alternative involves disagreement, even argument!

Given that Obama can't even open his mouth without blaming others for his failures and condemning those who disagree with him in some scrofulous fashion, this was probably inevitable. However, it's not likely to get a warm reception outside his hardest-core base. The Daily Caller's Jim Treacher gives it the appropriate coloration:

He should’ve been more specific. He’s just fine with the lobbyists, bloggers, talking heads, and professional activists on his side. Hell, he’s a community organizer by “trade.” No, it’s only the ones who disagree with him who need to shut up.

The only guy angrier than a leftist who just lost is a leftist who just won. It’s not enough that he got what he wanted. He’s seething that anybody has the gall to oppose his decrees.

I love being scolded by an autocrat who just got done calling anybody who disagrees with him a hostage-taker, and then turns around and says $#!+ like, “We don’t have to suggest that the other side doesn’t love this country.” See, it isn’t incredibly ugly, hyperpartisan rhetoric when he says it.

Barack Obama is either completely insane and doesn’t realize he does exactly what he accuses his opponents of doing, or he’s the biggest troll in the history of the world. I guess it could be both?

Obama is not insane in the clinical sense. Nor is it possible to believe that he's a patriot of any variety. He has made it plain that he's determined to have his way in all things. Our "Constitutional law professor" president really, truly does demand that we kowtow before him as he crowns himself king. Dissent will not be tolerated; it's simply "uncivil."

Given that the GOP's Surrender Caucus has emerged dominant over the Tea Partiers, there are no non-violent solutions remaining. What that portends for the next few years, I hesitate to guess.

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3. Book Recommendation

Ann Aguirre has recently risen to the front ranks of speculative-fiction writers on the strength of two excellent series, each of which features an appealing heroine:

• The "Sirantha Jax" science-fiction series;
• The "Corine Solomon" contemporary-fantasy series.

Recently she's lit out on a new and curiously fresh path with her novel Perdition, set on a prison-spaceship of that name whose inmates, the most violent irreformables of a future society, can never leave even as corpses. Granted that prison dramas are a well established genre of their own, Perdition carves a new trail in that this prison has no warden or guards, and is essentially a closed ecology. Perdition's inmates must contrive all things for themselves from the limited, steadily deteriorating resources of the ship itself.

The consequences involve sociological, economic, and political developments of exactly the sort Thomas Hobbes had in mind in Leviathan. Yet the multifarious struggles for existence, for gain, and for power are made new and fascinating by Aguirre's adroit use of unusual characters with unusual drives, fetishes, and quasi-religious creeds.

As with most spec-fic penned by female authors, including Aguirre's other works, the protagonist is a woman, "Dred," who somehow beats the amoral men aboard Perdition at their own games. Also, there's a significant romantic element in Perdition, which some readers might say could have been omitted without loss. However, Aguirre handles such things well; they don't detract at all from the power of the plot or the appeal of the major characters.

Recommended.

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4. Freedom's Fury

The first draft of the third and concluding -- really! -- volume in the Spooner Federation series recently passed what I conceived as its midpoint, which prompted one of my test readers to note that:

1. There are a lot of conflicts going on here;
2. You don't have a lot of word-count left with which to resolve them all, Fran!

Well, that isn't the worst problem a science-fiction writer could have, but it's non-trivial all the same.

The past couple of decades have seen a spontaneous convergence of SF novels around an "optimal" length of 100,000 words, or about 300 pages in standard mass-market-paperback format. That seems to be the dominant length among novels in that genre, though there are exceptions. I have no explanation for this; it might arise from reader preferences, it might have something to do with the economics of paperback publication, or there might be some other reason. All the same, a survey of the books on the SF shelf at your local Barnes & Noble will confirm the trend at a glance.

(Note: The trend does not apply to the fantasy works intermingled with the SF. Whatever the reason, fantasy writers allow themselves, or are allowed, more room to roam their fictional worlds. They seem to need it.)

In consequence, a writer who has a lot to write about -- a lot of themes, or a lot of conflicts, or a lot of fascinating characters -- can find himself straining to accommodate all of it between a single pair of covers. For the writer who takes the 100,000 word length as a limit, the only solution is to "thin out the herd:" to save some of his seemingly irresistible ideas for another day. But that's not the easiest thing to do, especially when the ideas at issue are strongly interlinked and seem to have "taken root" in the plot.

The 100,000 word trend isn't enforced by any agency I know, but a pattern as strong as that one demands attention, and perhaps a modicum of respect. That implies that I have a bit of thinking to do about how to make the resolution of all the conflicts in Freedom's Fury converge satisfyingly in the 40,000 words or so I "have left." It's that or reductive surgery, and my characters are guaranteed not to like that.