Day Off

Exhausted and disoriented. Can't think, much less write. See you
tomorrow.

The Tongues Of Men And Angels Part 2: Inevitabilities

My rhetoric, here and elsewhere, is on the libertarian side of
conservative. But when we get down to principles -- when we start
discussing right and wrong, must, may, and must not, who shall do what
to whom and who should pay for it -- I'm an anarchist.

Please don't mistake me: My anarchism is moral and philosophical. I
can't find a defensible moral rationale for the State -- the entity with
the pre-indemnified privilege of coercing others -- no matter where I
start. It's an evil institution; could it be arranged, its permanent
disappearance from the world would make all Mankind better off.

But it's also inevitable.

You see, the State as we know it -- a standing institution with strong
temporal continuity and relatively slow changes in personnel -- isn't
the only kind of State there is. If we keep to the bare-bones definition
of the State as presented above, even a society that recognizes no
persistent, enduring State will throw one together now and then to
achieve some perceived purpose.

In a society with no enduring government, a sufficiently large lynch mob
is a State.

What's that you say? That would be **wrong?** Leaving aside all
questions about the mob's target, the reasons for it, and whether the
victim is actually guilty of the offenses alleged, how would such a mob
differ from a popular majority large enough to enact a constitution,
establish a government, and define an admittedly skimpy judicial
procedure? Granted that States of the sort that currently dominate the
land surface of the Earth exhibit more formality, more persistence, and
a slightly more deliberate approach to justice, those are differences in
degree; they don't disqualify the mob, which meets all the definitional
requirements of a State.

As long as a sufficiently large majority of the persons in a locale
believes that the use of force against others is morally legitimate in
some circumstances, a State of some kind is inevitable. Moreover, the
very existence of a moral consensus, without which life would truly be
"nasty, brutish, and short" (Hobbes), brings that condition into effect.

In short, we're stuck. The State, the most vulpine, predatory
institution in the history of Man, will be with us for as long as we
remain men. All we can do is struggle to render it approximately
tolerable.

* * * * * * * * * *

An old saw runs that the State is evil, but men being men, it's a
necessary evil. Some folks see that as a rationale for trying to make
men into angels -- through State action.

Go ahead and laugh. Get it out of your system. A laugh turneth away
wrath, and all that. (Yes, I know it's a misquotation. I like it
anyway.) But remember: some of the people who believe that are pretty
bright. We mustn't call them morons for their unreasoning faith in an
inherently evil institution, just because it's about the stupidest, most
self-contradictory, least well founded idea in human history.

There's another idea that's just as stupid, you see. Moreover, the same
people hold it. Their faith in it is unshakable. They believe, right
down to the bottoms of their hearts, that if we just elect the right
people and give them absolute, unbounded power, they can make our dreams
of perfect government come true. In other words, they believe that there
are angels among us, and that if we only trust them with the unique
privileges of the State and free them of all constraints, they will make
the rest of us over in their image.

Quite a lot of people appear to believe that. When they've risen to a
majority, they've created the worst tyrannies ever recorded by history.
That hasn't dampened their belief in those angels, though. Ask any of
them why the Soviet Union and Red China turned into slaughterhouses
under Stalin and Mao Tse-tung. The answer is quite predictable: "The
right people weren't in power." Why not? Blank-out.

The ultimate horror lies in this: the very worst men in the world, whom
we should struggle to keep a million miles away from the levers of
power, are those best equipped to capitalize on that foolish faith.

* * * * * * * * * *

If the State, in one form or another, is really inevitable, then men of
good will must content themselves with:
1. Devising ways to limit it;
2. Ensuring that only trustworthy persons rise within it.

The delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 dedicated
themselves to the first of those aims. They trusted the second to
democratic mechanisms and the good sense of the American people. Though
a .500 batting average would get anyone into Cooperstown, in politics
and governance it's a loser. Indeed: the Framers' neglect of the second
imperative has undone their efforts on the first one.

It might well be that no single generation of statesmen can lay down a
blueprint that will safeguard the unseen future. It might well be that
the evil inherent in the State will always, inevitably attract
charismatic villains with a gift for seducing others out of their
rights. It might well be that once a people has consented to an enduring
institution pre-indemnified against the consequences of wielding force
against others, the rise to power of such villains is foreordained.

We don't know nearly enough about ourselves to construct a perfect
filter against such corruption. When it happens, all we can do is try to
correct the mistake and strive to do better in the future. But if the
State is inevitable, passages of corruption -- eras dominated by
Wilsons, Roosevelts, and Obamas -- might be equally inevitable.

* * * * * * * * * *

There is no panacea.
There is no optimal solution.
There is no averting the need for eternal vigilance.
And there is absolutely no substitute for a good character.

The November elections will decide which of two men will occupy the
White House for the subsequent four years. One of these has already
demonstrated villainy of a magnitude beyond anything previously known to
infest the Oval Office. The other appears at least to acknowledge the
fundamental moral requirements of decency and a decent society.

If we judge by his record as Governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney is
not a Constitutionalist. He's from the strain of Northeastern
Republicanism that brought us Nelson Rockefeller and George Pataki:
verbally adroit, excessively compromising, and a bit too vain to be
entirely trustworthy. But he's a decent man in his personal life, he has
some solid accomplishments of which he can be justly proud, and it's at
least possible that he's unlearned some of the mistakes he made while
governor.

Romney could buy the Republic some time to right itself. Obama wouldn't.

The State is inevitable. That Americans will elect in November a man who
will wield the excessive powers of the presidency for the next four
years is just as inevitable. And the man we elect will be either Barack
Hussein Obama or Willard Mitt Romney.

It's time to hold our noses and do all that's possible to us.
Inevitably.

The Tongues Of Men And Angels

"If I speak in the tongues of men and angels, but have not love, I have
become sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal." -- Saint Paul, First Letter
to the Corinthians

It often seems to me that we put the greater part of our historical
efforts into rejecting the lessons of history, whether we're studying
our history of that of another land. Worse, the broader and more
imperative the lesson, the more stubborn we become about trying to deny
it.

The central lesson of human history, particularly the history of the
period since the Peace of Westphalia, is that absolutely no one can be
trusted with power over others.

The men who wrote the Constitution of the United States grasped this, at
least partially. The notions of enumerated powers, and the requirement
that the branches of the federal government agree on each and every
measure, would be meaningless were it possible to trust someone with
power over others. But their understanding, as novel as it was in its
time, did not sufficiently penetrate the dynamism of power: the
relentless way in which men to whom power is the Holy Grail will seek
it, and will seek to unchain it from all that limits it.

In all of history, only one man has dared to delineate the inevitable
terminus of that dynamic -- a writer of fiction:

"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested
in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or
luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure
power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the
oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the
others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites.
The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in
their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own
motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had
seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the
corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal.
We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the
intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One
does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution;
one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The
object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture.
The object of power is power."

I don't need to tell you where that comes from or who wrote it, do I?

Even Ayn Rand, a great champion of human freedom, was somewhat naive
about the dynamic of power. The conclusion of "Atlas Shrugged" has Judge
Narragansett revising the Constitution to render the rights of men safe
from the government it establishes. But who, acquainted with the history
of Man, could possibly believe that words on a sheet of paper can
forever check the ambitions of conscienceless men determined upon power
unbounded? As well believe that a restraining order could really
"protect" an abused spouse.

We are where we are today, chained and immured by men who wield absolute
power, unchecked and unbounded, because we were led to believe exactly
that.

* * * * * * * * * *

The single greatest liberty-preserving institution ever devised is the
jury trial.

Consider: Under the rules that pertain to jury trials, only the jury may
decree that a man shall be punished for something he did. Moreover, the
jury must be "of his peers" -- i.e., no government officials are
permitted to serve on it -- and must agree unanimously on his offense.
Even one objector, unwilling to fix a guilty verdict upon the defendant,
can prevent him from being fined, incarcerated, or executed.

More: A jury's guilty verdict can be set aside by the presiding judge on
procedural grounds. A judge persuaded that the prosecution hasn't made
an adequate case can direct a verdict of acquittal, though not of guilt.
Indeed, should the prosecutor request that the charges be dismissed, the
judge must comply; the jury's opinion of the defendant will never
threaten him.

Finally -- and this is a well established principle of law, regardless
of any judge's opinion to the contrary -- if the jury believes the law
to be unjust, it can acquit even if the defendant openly admits his
"crime."

For these reasons, the jury trial has been under attack by
power-worshippers ever since it first became a commonplace of
jurisprudence. Sol Wachtler, at one time the Chief Judge of the New York
State Court of Appeals, famously claimed that the jury is obsolete --
that criminal trial verdicts would be better determined by the presiding
judge. Prosecutors so dislike having to persuade a jury that they prefer
to plea-bargain as many accused Americans into prison as they possibly
can. Failing that, they routinely challenge off potential jurors who
might possess high intelligence, advanced educations, special knowledge
about the substance of the case, or above-average eloquence.

Were American governments required to submit each and every claim
against a citizen to the scrutiny of a jury, we would be far freer, and
far safer from the voracity of the power-mongers, than we are today.
Which is a great part of the reason for the explosion of "regulation" in
place of statutory law.

* * * * * * * * * *

Regulatory bodies run roughshod over the rights of the citizen. They
are, in the main, subject to no constraints. They can constrain, fine,
and otherwise oppress private parties without first putting their
demands before a jury. Should a particularly plucky victim press his
resistance so determinedly that a jury does eventually get to rule on
the affair, the costs of his persistence will often prove greater than
any favorable verdict would be worth.

The regulatory agency is complemented by the "executive order." This
mechanism is nowhere mentioned in the Constitution. Given the powers
delegated to the president, such an order could not legitimately apply
to anyone not one of the president's employees -- i.e., to anyone
outside the executive branch. Yet they proliferate, often addressing
subjects on which the president has failed to get Congressional
cooperation, ever more thickly as time passes.

These are the ratchets being used to tighten our manacles and shorten
our fetters. Yet regulatory "law" continues to proliferate, generally
without regard for any bounds set by Congress. Regulatory bodies have
acted against defenseless private citizens with increasing arrogance and
rapacity. The executive order has been used, especially in recent
administrations, as if it were a perfectly Constitutional alternate
means of extending or altering federal law. In particular, it has been
used to increase the scope of the regulatory agencies beyond what
Congress had allowed to them in the enabling legislation.

Juries almost never get to rule on such things. That's why they're so
popular with those who seek power.

* * * * * * * * * *

Allow me to relate a story from some years ago.

A town legislature on Long Island, which at that time retained the
charming practice of posting the time and place of its next session and
the session's agenda in a local paper, announced at one point that it
was considering banning the retention of unregistered cars on private
property. The proposed ordinance stated that such cars would be
confiscated at the town's option and disposed of as the town sees fit,
and that the costs of such confiscation would be charged to the
homeowner from whom the car was seized. That's the whole of the
proposal: a simple decree of expropriation of any vehicle not currently
registered with the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles.

Anyone who can't see the tyranny inherent in that proposal should
contemplate relocating to North Korea.

The session at which this ordinance was to be voted on was packed to the
rafters with angry town residents. Virtually no one but the town's
attorney spoke in favor of it. His statements:
"We don't allow outside storage."
"Such cars are an eyesore that offends many town residents."

When the attorney was challenged for the authority behind the proposal
-- i.e., the clause in the town's charter that granted it the power to
pass such an ordinance -- he changed the subject. When another attendee
pointed out that the ordinance's logic would support allowing the town
to seize any item left exposed on private property, his reply was, "Oh,
you know we would never use it like that!"

Despite the overwhelming opposition to the ordinance, the legislature
refused to vote on it at that session. Instead, they "reserved" it for
another session. When that later session was held, there was no
announcement of the time, the place, or the agenda -- and the ordinance
was passed unanimously.

* * * * * * * * * *

The power-seeker's agenda must be carefully concealed behind a facade of
"compassion," "civic spirit," and as many other nominal virtues as he
can harness to the task. He must persuade the voters that he has their
best interests at heart, and so firmly embedded therein that he would
never dream of traducing them.

In other words, he strives to persuade the voters that he loves
them...and that therefore, they can trust him with unlimited, unchecked
power.

If there ever was a politician who truly loved anyone outside his
immediate family, history makes no record of him. The evidence for the
possibility of such a creature is microtome-thin.

As Saint Paul continues in the First Letter to the Corinthians:

"Love is long suffering,
"love is kind,
"it is not jealous,
"love does not boast,
"it is not inflated.

"It is not discourteous,
"it is not selfish,
"it is not irritable,
"it does not enumerate the evil.
"It does not rejoice over the wrong, but rejoices in the truth.

"It covers all things,
"it has faith for all things,
"it hopes in all things,
"it endures in all things."

Name a contemporary politician whose conduct matches that list of
characteristics.

* * * * * * * * * *

The upcoming elections offer some hope of modest retrenchment from the
excesses of the current and former administrations and Congresses. Not a
great deal of hope, mind you: even if the Republicans sweep every office
for which they contend, we will have succeeded only in replacing one
crop of power-seekers with another. The victors will interpret their
election as an endorsement of their preferences and a license to do as
they please (cf. Barack Hussein "I Won" Obama). They are unlikely to
stop short at measures well beyond their proper sphere.

Between now and then lie nearly six months of campaigning: innumerable
commercials, a slew of public appearances, two national conventions, a
series of debates, and of course a continuous stream of requests for
funds. At every opportunity, every candidate will strive to present a
facade quite distant from his underlying reality.

They will speak with the tongues of men and angels.
The facade will be of unbounded love.
The reality will be of lust for power.

Beware.

A Terrible Chance

First and foremost, Happy Mothers' Day to all mothers everywhere.
Second but no less important, reflect upon the courage required by that occupation.
Third, and equally important, ponder the damage done by those who take it lightly.

* * *

I grew up in the Fifties and Sixties: turbulent decades, during which many of the old certainties of American life were roughly questioned, and which large numbers of persons -- mostly young persons -- rejected. One of those old certainties, which remains under great pressure today, is the bond that links motherhood with marriage.

Unwed motherhood is a common thing today. Its ranks swell every day, often to the fanfare of trumpets. Those who approve it are disdainful of marriage and casual in their dismissals of "men" as "unimportant" or "disposable." The damage it does goes unremarked except by a tragically shrunken corps of the clear-sighted.

Allow me to be brutally clear about it: A woman who denies her children the active, ongoing presence of their father has committed a terrible offense, against them and her society. There's no statute to that effect. No one stands ready to prosecute offenders. The penalties are set and enforced, for mother and child both, not by any legislature, but by the laws of nature.

Natural law is automatic, impersonal, and efficient. It cannot be set aside by human will. One aspect of natural law is that no one individual, however devoted or well-intentioned, can properly raise a child. Indeed, a single mother is the worst possible guardian for a minor child. Yet contemporary women, uninterested in marriage but avid for "the experience of childbirth and motherhood," have striven to deny this with a desperation born of fury.

That desperation has given rise to some of the worst social pathologies we know. Ann Coulter, in her book Guilty, cites the terrifying consequences:

By 1996, 70 percent of inmates in state juvenile detention centers serving long-term sentences were raised by single mothers. Seventy-two percent of juvenile murderers and 60 percent of rapists come from single-mother homes. Seventy percent of teenage births, dropouts, suicides, runaways, juvenile delinquents, and child murderers involve children raised by single mothers. Girls raised without fathers are more sexually promiscuous and more likely to end up divorced. A 1990 study by the Progressive Policy Institute showed that after controlling for single motherhood, the difference between black and white crime rates disappeared.

Various studies come up with slightly different numbers, but all the figures are grim. According to the Index of Leading Cultural Indicators, children from single-parent families account for 63 percent of all youth suicides, 70 percent of all teenage pregnancies, 71 percent of all adolescent chemical substance abuse, 80 percent of all prison inmates, and 90 percent of all homeless and runaway children.

A study cited in the Village Voice produced similar numbers. It found that children brought up in single-mother homes "are five times more likely to commit suicide, nine times more likely to drop out of high school, 10 times more likely to abuse chemical substances, 14 times more likely to commit rape (for the boys), 20 times more likely to end up in prison, and 32 times more likely to run away from home."

Coulter's conclusion: "Single motherhood is like a farm team for future criminals and social outcasts."

Yet women who have no excuse for not knowing and doing better, given the cheapness of contraception and the ease of its use, elect to become single mothers each and every day.

* * *

Today it's a rare American who doesn't number one or more single mothers among his acquaintances. We're almost all rather gentle with them. We tend to focus on who they are -- their personalities and characters -- rather than what they are -- persons who have inflicted terrible chances on their progeny. That doesn't make the consequences of their decision to bring a child into the world lacking the support and attention of a father go away.

Time was, such women would have been the targets of criticism barely less harsh than that awarded to actual felons. Time was, they were expected to repent of their deeds and seek help for their children. Time was, a "repeat offender" would be shunned as an enemy of society, too neglectful of her responsibilities to deserve anything but contempt.

Time was.

The stigma has been removed from this most antisocial of nominally legal decisions. That's partly a consequence of the "sexual revolution," the only revolution known to history in which everybody lost. But it's as least as much the result of today's far greater reluctance to pass judgment. We strain to find possible excuses: "Maybe she didn't know any better." "Maybe the diaphragm slipped." "Maybe he deceived her, took advantage of her, and left her to struggle on alone."

Maybe. But the probability of any of those exculpations being accurate was far better fifty years ago than today.

* * *

The laws of nature have clauses that politicians are forever trying to defy. One of them pertains to costs and behavior: If you reduce the costs of a particular act, you'll get more of it.

American welfare law has subsidized single-motherhood to an unbelievable extent. The consequences are as Miss Coulter enumerated them above. The statistics are available to everyone. For those disinclined to trust statistics, a sojourn through a welfare neighborhood or two will bring the realities home vividly enough.

But what do we hear from the Left, which has adopted the single mother as one of its iconic figures? More! More! More! Government-funded and government-run day care! Laws that impose expensive obligations on the employer of the single mother! A statutory floor under the income of the single mother! How can you protest? Don't you know it's for the children, you heartless Neanderthal of a conservative?

But it's not, is it?

* * *

This is probably the most painful subject directly relevant to Mothers' Day. That's why I chose it. No one else is likely to address it in the hoopla of the day...yet it brings home most vividly the primary obligation of the mother-to-be, and the unique cost a woman who desires children ought to be compelled, by social convention and opprobrium if in no other way, to pay for that privilege:

Provide your baby with a father.
Vow to stay with the father lifelong and faithfully, and extract the reciprocal vow from him.
Make whatever personal sacrifices and compromises are required to see to that.

Happy Mothers' Day.

Moves

In a fictional setting, I wrote:

    "Strength is an advantage, but not the only advantage. Speed trumps strength, and so does mental agility. You have to have a wide range of tools, and they have to be available all the time. A lot of people who think of themselves as ace fighters have one or two tricks that they use exclusively. Whatever else they might have learned once is gone. If you've got two moves, you can beat anyone who has just one. If he's got two, all you need is three. When I'm done with you, you'll have about a hundred."
    "How many do you have?"
    He smirked. "About a hundred and one."

The context, of course, is (for the purposes of simplification) a martial-arts instructor speaking to a student. But the underlying principle applies with equal force to every other form of human interaction.

There is a caveat. If your opponent's one trick is irresistibly hypnotic -- that is, if it seduces you into responding to it, rather than essaying a move of your own -- his one technique can throw you onto the defensive and keep you there. Very few contests are won by playing only defense.

And so we come to politics.

* * *

Columnist Jonah Goldberg, whose first book Liberal Fascism excited widespread hosannas of praise and hurricanes of denunciation, has repeated his triumph -- perhaps surpassed it -- with his new offering The Tyranny Of Cliches. The book is immensely readable and entertaining. As usual, Goldberg's style is impeccable, and well suited to his subject matter. But infinitely more important than anything else about it, Goldberg has invoked the principle in the segment above and commanded those of us who are serious about freedom to pay attention to it.

The political cliche, as Goldberg puts it, is "a placeholder for an argument not won." This pithy summary is so good that it deserves a place in the Rhetoric Hall of Fame. Let's take a moment to analyze it:

• placeholder: The cliche occupies a position in a political exchange that implies that it stands for something larger and more complex.
• argument: An argument, in Western society, is a series of statements that employ objective evidence and logical implication, building to a conclusion that can only be refuted by debunking the evidence or finding a flaw in the logic.
• not won: The argument (if it ever occurred) for which the cliche is a placeholder either has never been settled to general satisfaction, or was won by the other side!

Clearly, the political cliche, in this view, is a fraudulent tactic: a specimen of rhetoric intended to deceive as it deflects. But then, quite a number of political tactics are intended to do those things. In our amoral age, the question most frequently asked about such a tactic is "Does it work?"

And with that, we return to the caveat in the opening segment of this tirade.

* * *

Exchanges between Left and Right nave never been more vituperative. Argumentative substance has given way to accusations of low motives. Ironically, those who are most strident about those accusations usually possess the lowest motives in the gathering. As Louis Nizer once noted, when a man points an accusing finger, four of his other fingers are pointing back at him. This is tragically commonplace in political exchange.

Consider a few examples:

• racist: The Left's obsession with race, and with bestowing differential privileges on Americans on the basis of race, should require no further comment.
• sexist: Instances of the Left's savage misogyny toward women -- especially conservative women -- are beyond counting.
• homophobe: If we go by the most recent developments, the true homophobes are on the Left: Leftist mouthpieces are forever gay-bashing conservatives, and Leftist politicians are afraid to offend the powerful and well-heeled homosexual lobby.
• heartless: Usually leveled at persons advocating limited government, this attempts to slide past the corrosive effects of welfare on individuals, their families, and society generally.
• warmonger: (Alternately: "Violence never solves anything.") The most devastating wars in history have come about because a previous war, launched for good and sufficient reasons, wasn't fought all the way to a genuine conclusion. Concerning the alternate formulation: a comedian whose name I've misplaced noted that "professional, well thought out, competently-executed violence" really does solve a disagreement, because when it's over, "all the other guys are dead."

I consider the responses above to be beyond reasonable dispute. More, virtually everyone on the Right side of the political spectrum knows all the facts required to establish them for himself. So why are the vilifications they refute still so common...and so effective?

Because they're mesmerizing.

When Smith calls Jones a "racist," or any of the other cant words above, Jones's immediate reaction is almost always to defend himself against the charge. This is wrong. Indeed, it collaborates with the charge, for the only "defense" involves accepting Smith's criteria, according to which Jones can never get out of the dock.

The appropriate rejoinder is a full-scale counterattack:

• Dismiss the cliche;
• Present a compact argument for the duplicity and villainy of the accuser;
• Sit back with a satisfied smile and enjoy his sputtering.

The Leftist's use of such vilifications marks him as a one-trick fighter. Anyone not hypnotized into a defensive stance by his cliches can easily defeat him. He doesn't want to argue substance because he can't. He might be an ignoramus. Alternately, he knows the evidence and the logic it supports are against him. Were it otherwise, he would offer a true argument, which is always more persuasive than a slander. Something resembling an actual exchange of ideas would be taking place.

Herein lies the major impact of Goldberg's book.

* * *

One of the critical skills one must master to become a rhetorical black belt is the ability to recognize and comprehend the meta-argument: the landscape of assumptions and rules on which the overt argument is being conducted. If there's an all-important rule embedded in the meta-argument, it would concern whether the contestants are genuinely arguing -- that is, whether they're open to one another's arguments, if adequate -- or are fixed in their positions and merely trying to defeat one another.

In politics, the contestants' positions are almost always fixed. They are perfectly convinced of their positions and determined to prevail. This is the reality of the thing. There's no profit to be had in trying to deny it...and a great deal of latitude available from accepting it.

CAUTION!
Blinding Flash of the Obvious Ahead!

If your opponent's position is fixed, you will not convince him of yours. Therefore, if you make convincing him your aim, you have pre-defeated yourself. The effort you put to the contest will be wasted. You will come away weary, disheartened, and with nothing to show for your exertions.

(Do please remember that "obvious" really means "overlooked.")

In such a case, your principal need is to know whether there's any point in having the argument. If there is -- if there's an audience of potentially reachable persons -- then it might be worthwhile. If not, refuse to engage! Ignore the sallies of the Martin Bashirs, the Piers Morgans, the Soledad O'Briens, the Ed Schultzes, and the Chris Matthewses! Ignore invitations from quicksand-filled sinkholes such as MSNBC and NPR! Save your energy and zeal for a time when it does matter.

Knowing whether to enter the arena is a neglected survival skill, quite as much in political interchange as in violent combat.

* * *

In summary:

• Recognize the "one-trick fighters" of the Left for what they are.
• Refuse to be hypnotized into a defensive cringe by their slanders.
• Be fearless about counterattacking -- and be just as personal as the attacks leveled at you.
• Above all, know who's fencing with you, whether there's any point in replying; it will save you a lot of unnecessary breath and agita.

It's all about who has more moves. Be on the right side of that metric.

Racism...Or Islamic Supremacy?

What possible application could the concept of race -- any concept of race -- have to this obscenity?

Nine British Muslim men were jailed for a total of 77 years for rape and trafficking within the UK for sexual exploitation. The whole case made for disturbing reading, but somehow it was the tiny, paralysing details that made it real. Like the fact that one of the convicted men, father-of-five Abdul Rauf, was a religious studies teacher at a local mosque. Rauf asked his 15-year-old victim if she had any younger friends, and drove some of the girls to meet other men, who had sex with them despite knowing they were under-age.

The nine Muslims convicted for this siege of sexual predation were all born in Pakistan. The young girls those nine Muslims pounced upon -- "grooming" them to become prostitutes, among other things -- were all between the ages of 13 and 15, were all British-born, and were not Muslims. And I must emphasize this: Every last person involved in this horror is of the Caucasian race. In colloquial terms, all the predators and all their victims are "white."

So of course, the defendants had to claim they were being oppressed because of their race:

The 59-year-old ringleader was banned from court for calling the judge a “racist bastard”. His barrister explained that his client “had objected from the start to being tried by an all-white jury. He believes his convictions have nothing to do with justice but result from the faith and race of the defendants.” In other words, a racist who treats poor white girls as sub-human seriously believes it is he who is the victim of racism, when he is called to account for organising the gang-rape of under-age females.

I doubt that that ringleader sincerely believes he's the victim of racism.

Multiculturalism, anyone?

* * *

There's a war on. No, not the business in Afghanistan. This war is worldwide. The aggressor is a non-state-actor that calls itself "the religion of peace." That's two lies for the price of one: Islam is neither a religion nor is it peaceable. But we'll leave that for another screed; there are more important points to be made.

For the moment, the war is being prosecuted actively only by the aggressor. Muslims have learned that their reputation for volatility and violence can be used to reap social, commercial, and political concessions. They've also learned that Islam's facade as a religion can be used to avert the sort of scrutiny its adherents' behavior has properly earned. They've learned how to play on the unearned guilt Negro race-hustlers have nurtured in Western Caucasians these past few decades, even though the great majority of Muslims in Western countries are Caucasian. And because the great majority of non-Muslims are not yet emotionally prepared to recognize that a state of war exists in which we are all combatants, the relatively small percentages of Muslims in America and elsewhere are steadily imposing themselves, their "religion," and their seventh-century barbarism on the rest of us.

Deny it all you please. It's happening. The outrages in France and Britain are just examples of what happens when the Muslim fraction of a nation rises to certain percentages. They're outriders of what Americans can expect here in the Land of the Formerly Free if our Muslim fraction is permitted to increase. Significant violations of law and equity are already occurring in Dearborn and elsewhere Muslims have concentrated.

Reflect for a moment on this: Of the Muslim suicide bombers involved in the 7/7 bombings in London some years ago, one wore a suicide vest that failed to go off. The fizzle was nevertheless noticed by the other passengers on the bus he rode. When those passengers, perhaps not yet aware of the fates they'd escaped, turned toward their would-be assassin, his very first words were "I have rights!"

* * *

Take note of this: Simon Danczuk, the Member of Parliament for Rochdale, the site of these predations, was quick to state that the great majority of "Asian" men are "extremely respectful of women."

"Asian?" Is that intended to rope in Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Taoists, and so forth? Is the idea to suggest that the predators were of the Mongolian race, rather than the Caucasian? Or is it to avert objective examination of the misogynistic practices Islam enjoins upon its male adherents? Perhaps the issue would be all too clear were Islam's dictates about the treatment of women openly discussed.

Muslim men are commanded to treat women as inferior creatures: chattels of whoever possesses them, completely lacking any rights against their owners. They are taught that any sexual excesses a Muslim man commits, or is tempted to commit, are the fault of a woman, for "exposing herself," or otherwise acting to incite lust. Finally, they are taught that a Muslim man may rightfully take any non-Muslim as a slave, whenever he finds it practical to do so. Don't take my word for it. Read the Qur'an, and the Sunnah, and the ahadith and verify these things for yourself.

"Extremely respectful of women," eh? This must be a meaning of "respectful" I wasn't previously aware of.

One consequence of this "extreme respect" is a climate of fear that pervades the public spaces of any community that's home to a significant number of Muslims. Women are afraid to go unescorted in public; that's against Islam. They're afraid to dress according to Western norms; Islam teaches that a woman must conceal her entire body, except for her face and her hands. The infestation of Western European countries by Muslims has persuaded many non-Muslim women to adopt Muslim dress, at least in public, and not to venture onto the streets without a male companion.

Just how compatible are Western notions such as the equality of the sexes with Muslims' "extreme respect" of women?

* * *

Of course, Islam isn't entirely about relations between the sexes. Neither is it particularly concerned with worship or ritual. Its principal focus is the totalitarian subjugation of the entire world, such that Islam shall be the only religion practiced anywhere -- and mandatory for everyone.

Again: Don't take my word for it. Read the Qur'an. There are more than one hundred verses, all of them "Medinan" and therefore supersessive of the earlier "Meccan" verses, that preach the obligation of holy war in the service of Islam. The Qur'an explicitly states a requirement that all Muslims contribute to the jihad and the expansion of Dar al-Islam in whatever ways they can.

Muslims have acted on those dictates with perfect consistency for fourteen hundred years. When they are weak in numbers and resources, they bide their time. When they have swelled sufficiently to act, they act. They agitate relentlessly for special privileges, special accommodations, and special status, whether by intimidation, violence, or the modern substitute for warfare: political pressure.

And they do as they please with whatever women come under their power.

* * *

The atrocities in Britain might finally be galvanizing some resistance among Englishmen who remember what life was like in a free society that observes Christian norms. In France, Holland, Germany, and so forth, matters are less clear. Here in America, matters have yet to come to a head in a fashion visible enough to alert most Americans to the danger.

Meanwhile, Muslims continue to pour into this country. Between three and four million are already here. As I said earlier, there are already reports of Muslim demands for special privileges, special accommodations in schools, workplaces, and public facilities, and hostility toward us "infidels," in those communities where they've concentrated. And we have charming developments such as Islamberg to contemplate...to the extent our Legacy Media permit us to learn about them.

Whenever so much as a question is raised about these things, Muslims and their mouthpiece-groups immediately scream "RACISM!"

The larger this tumor is permitted to grow, the harder and more painful it will be to excise.

Food for thought.

Downshifting: Some Predictions

One of the mechanisms that characterize a society with a free-market
economy is the irregular advance of prosperity through that society via
upshifting. This is a simple concept: At time T0, persons of great means
can afford the high-quality version of item X; persons in the "middle
class" must be satisfied with a middle grade of X; and persons at or
near the subsistence level must content themselves with low-grade X or
do without it. By a later time T1, increases in the efficiency of
production, compelled by competition of several sorts, cause effective
reductions in the prices of those grades, such that persons at or near
the subsistence level can now afford the middle grade of X, while
persons in the "middle class" upshift to the high-quality version of X,
and persons of wealth have moved to an ultra-high-quality version of X,
or to some completely different product.

Housing is a particularly clear case of this. No one can have failed to
notice that the quality of new-built homes has risen sharply in recent
years. The families buying those homes are no better off, relative to
the population generally, than they were thirty years ago, yet they're
able to afford houses considerably roomier, better built, and more
various in their features than families of their economic standing could
afford a generation ago. The houses those families are selling are being
purchased by families less well off -- families that probably wouldn't
have been able to afford to buy houses a generation ago.

Upshifting also applies to the job market. Progress in the available
tools and technologies, though they do require learning and adaptation
to exploit them, gives rise to more remunerative occupations, into which
those who have the smarts and the desire will upshift. The slots they
leave will be filled by persons who were previously on lower rungs of
the ladder. (Interestingly, the tragic deterioration of the
government-run schools appears not to have affected this form of
upshifting; the learning required to make the transition seldom requires
a stint in a classroom.)

However, just now, the prolonged weakness of the economy -- and don't
kid yourself, left-liberal friends, this is entirely the consequence of
the policies **you** favor -- has brought about a reversal of the
upshifting dynamic. We are currently in a period of downshifting, most
noticeably in the jobs market.

The contraction of many industries that provided large numbers of
middle-class jobs has forced those who've been let go from those jobs to
lower their sights. Those released workers have resorted to taking jobs
they once would have spurned as beneath their skills. In the process,
they're reducing the number of openings suitable for the sort of workers
who would once have filled those slots, forcing them into piecework, odd
jobs, and the "underground economy."

When governments strangle production and trade,
When governments mulct us for every dollar they can,
When we allow the vain and arrogant to dictate to the rest of us,
Downshifting happens.
And it's happening now.

(A tangent: The debate over the value of education, particularly college
education, is sharpened and intensified by downshifting. A college
degree is not particularly useful to a retail clerk. A high school
diploma is largely irrelevant to a delivery-truck driver. A certificate
for having completed grammar school matters little to someone who mops
floors for his daily bread. Note that the actual educational value
conferred by our schools, whatever it might be, becomes ever less
relevant as downshifting intensifies.)

This process may have a while to run; accelerating taxation, ObamaCare,
and the explosion of business-hostile regulation have frightened
employers into immobility, a condition unlikely to be relieved in the
near term. It's exceedingly unlikely that the November elections will
reduce the Democrats' Senatorial caucus to 40 seats or fewer; therefore,
they will retain the ability to block, not only new legislation, but the
repeal of ObamaCare and the reduction of the regulatory authority of the
alphabet agencies. If I'm correct in this, there's more downshifting to
come, with a concomitant reduction in tax revenues, enlargement of the
"underground economy," and increase in the general resentment of
government at all levels.

One aspect of downshifting that makes prediction possible is the
occupation, by adult breadwinners, of jobs that teenagers would
otherwise fill. That includes temporary seasonal jobs. Expect to see
more teens than usual "loose on the streets" this coming summer; there
won't be nearly as many unoccupied slots for them as in previous years.
A large number of teens wandering about, with nothing wholesome to
occupy them, is rarely a harbinger of good times to come.

Perhaps it's time I got to work on that crush-proof mailbox.

Channeling

Back in the late Sixties, Thomas Reed and Karl Hess produced a book
titled "The End of the Draft," which was less about conscription than it
was about certain ulterior motives acted upon through federal policies
(including, of course, the draft). One of the principal themes of the
book was that the Selective Service System and the various deferments
and exemptions it made available constituted a mechanism by which young
American men could be steered toward particular involvements (e.g.,
college educations) and occupations (e.g., in the defense-related
industries). One appendix of the book reproduced an apparently genuine
DoD memo that described this mechanism's purpose as "channeling" young
men according to federal preferences.

The Selective Service System barely survives today: the draft boards no
longer sit, and the administration of the system is in "deep standby,"
though it has never been formally repealed. Young men are still required
to register with it upon turning eighteen, but nothing else is demanded
of them at this time. Needless to say, that could change, but for the
moment, America doesn't conscript its troops; it entices them into
service.

(Please don't misunderstand me: entering military service is one of the
best choices a young American can make upon attaining his majority. Few
things can complete the maturation process the way a passage at arms
does. Nevertheless, if it were entirely about accepting several years of
hardship and being sporadically exposed to lethal danger, few would
volunteer. The services must attempt to emphasize the benefits while
downplaying the burdens and the hazards.)

"Channeling" as the Selective Service System practiced it is no longer
with us. That doesn't mean our young persons aren't channeled.

* * * * * * * * * *

A recent column in Forbes --
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jessicahagy/2012/05/02/nine-dangerous-things-you-were-taught-in-school/
-- attempted to cast some doubt on "Nine Dangerous Things You Were
Taught In School." Among those were several statements that one could
view in more than one way. The ones that particularly drew my interest
were these:

"The best and brightest follow the rules."

And:

"The purpose of your education is your future career."

Forbes columnist Jessica Hagy pours scorn on both notions. In a sort of
a "reply column," noted legal blogger Eugene Volokh attempts to shore up
the foundation beneath those statements:

"As to the purpose of education, schools rarely teach that the only
purpose of your education is your future career (especially since many
literature and history teachers realize that such an argument will go
only so far with their students). But throughout your life you'll want
access to goods and services, and unless you try to force people to give
them to you, you'll need to offer something in return; in our society,
many of the things you offer require specialized knowledge, which a good
education will help give you. And while college is certainly not a very
clear, single path to success, and it won't get you to "the top 1%," for
many people it's a pretty important part of the path to careers that are
both more financially and intellectually rewarding.

Likewise, the best and brightest follow the rules the great majority of
the time, and we take it for granted because it's "just following the
rules." They follow rules about how to do good science, how to write
well, how to craft effective arguments, how to operate within
organizations, how to deal with other people's understandings of what is
their property or institutional bailiwick, and so on. Of course, they
realize that to succeed in really big and innovative ways they need to
do more than follow the rules. "Always follow the rules, and nothing
more" would be lousy advice. But "learn the rules well, because they are
the repository of important wisdom accumulated through the efforts of
many smart people, and then think creatively about how to go beyond the
rules or even break some rules" is good advice."

Volokh comes closer to a true appreciation of the relevant aphoristic
statements than does Hagy, but neither actually touches upon the
ulterior effect of such pronouncements: The channeling of great numbers
of young persons, and the resources nominally dedicated to them, into
courses of life and uses of those resources approved by The
Establishment.

(Two tangents here: 1. How long has it been since you saw the word
"ulterior" used in any way other than to modify "motives?" 2. "The
Establishment" probably -- indeed, almost certainly -- isn't what you
think it is, so be cautious and slow to form conclusions.)

To grasp this point, it's necessary to answer a few questions that will
allow us to expand on what it means to "follow the rules" or acquire an
education.

* * * * * * * * * *

"The rules" in this context are about a lot more than the legislated
laws of the land. They embrace a great many conventions about what's
expected, proper, decent, appropriate, and so forth in a slew of
circumstances. And indeed, it would be a wild and woolly world were all
conventions about such things to be ignored en masse. But that doesn't
mean their authority should go always and everywhere unchallenged.

Consider the "rule" that an able-bodied adult should "work for his
living." Granted that most of us must do so, if only because so many
welfare clients are depending on us. Some don't: those wealthy by
accident of birth; well-set-up retirees; the spouses of capable
breadwinners; and others. While the absence of meaningful work from a
man's life often causes him to spin out of control, the absence of
**remunerative** work is a different subject. Meaningful work need not
pay a salary; ask anyone who's dedicated his time to a cause he believes
worthy.

Then there's the "rule" that one should "defer to authority." This one
leaves out some important information. Who decides who has authority,
and over what? What are the proper qualifications for wielding this or
that sort of authority? What if "the authorities" trespass beyond their
writ? Given that the notion of automatically "deferring to authority" is
promoted mainly by the "authorities" and thus is clearly self-serving,
these questions deserve a lot more attention than Americans this century
past have given them.

Rules, like institutions, exist to serve particular purposes. If those
purposes are not yours, then those who emphasize "the rules" are
attempting to channel you: to guide you into habits of thought and
patterns of conduct others have decided are "for the best." If you're
certain of the moral validity and practical value of your purposes,
challenging and surmounting "the rules" is among the most pro-social
acts you could perform.

Of course, the most important word in that last sentence is "if." But
then, isn't it always?

* * * * * * * * * *

Why does one pursue an education, anyway? Is it strictly utilitarian,
such that it only has value if it gives a good "return on investment?"
Or does the purpose of education go beyond that of a trade school?

It would be hard to answer that last question positively from the
evidence of the postwar years. Starting with the G.I. Bill, the notion
that all high school graduates should attend college, specifically as
preparation for their "future careers," has taken a ferocious grip on
Americans' minds. Our colleges and universities have come to resemble
trade schools in many ways, though the "trades" for which they purport
to prepare us bear little resemblance to the ones BOCES alumni practice.

American grammar and high schools exhibit that orientation in their
obsessive insistence upon **preparing for college.** Breathes there a
"guidance counselor" anywhere in this land whose first question upon
meeting a new student isn't some variation on "What would you like to do
for a career?" Testing for "aptitudes" has completely displaced
intelligence tests in our high schools. (This might be for the best,
considering how many American teenagers possess the intelligence of an
earthworm.) The whole edifice appears designed to get young Americans
aimed toward an office occupation of some sort, such that non-office
alternatives -- e.g., entrepreneurship; the clergy, the blue-collar
trades; a military career -- are effaced from consideration.

To make the channeling effect any more overt, it would be necessary to
proclaim it on highway billboards and giant signs hung over the doors of
our schools.

* * * * * * * * * *

Those who would channel us nearly always have the very best intentions.
(Just ask them.) Benevolence is much more common than venality. That
doesn't mean they know better than those whom they seek to channel, or
that following their guidance will always lead to a good outcome.

Yes, the major pre-existent channels of our society embody a good deal
of information. Some of it is about our expectations for one another,
and some is about our desire for security. Established channels always
incorporate the suggestion of security; it's just not always the
security of the persons being herded into the channels.

The great majority of us would do well to accept such guidance. There
aren't many thinkers out there who are both original and accurate,
especially among teenagers and young adults. But to promulgate a slavish
adherence to the existing channels, as if there were no other paths
through life and no possibility of beating a new one, is a disservice to
them...and ultimately, to ourselves as well.

Overheard In The Corridor

Some of the funniest exchanges heard anywhere occur in the halls of the
grayest of gray-suited office buildings:

He: But what do you want with me? I'm thirty years older than you!
She: Never mind that. Are you interested?
He: Thirty years ago, I would have been. Not now. I'm an old married
man.
She: But I can make you feel like a _real_ man.
He: (snorts) Sweetie, I _have_ someone who does that.
She: Oh? How?
He: She hectors me about my weight, nags me to take out the garbage and
fix the kitchen faucet, yells at me to stop slouching, shave, and get my
elbows off the table, and complains that I never take her anywhere.

(And I thought I was the only one.)

The Hardest Master

The Hardest Master

I once wrote, as an introduction to a short story, that "Principles can
be a hard master." I must admit to having understated the case.

Of course, it helps to be able to distinguish a principle from other
sorts of abstraction. These days, most people are incapable of doing so,
which I consider a primary determinant of our contemporary politics.

I recall, way back in the Nineties, an exchange between New Jersey
Governor Jim Florio and some interviewer, in which Florio was holding
forth about abortion, which, as a good left-liberal, Florio called "a
woman's right to choose." One thing he said was so striking that I
remember it word for word:

"Most issues we deal with in government don't rise to the level of
principle. For me, a woman's right to choose is a matter of principle."

Ponder that pair of sentences for a few moments before you continue
onward.

* * * * * * * * * *

A definition must have two components:
1. A genus, which tells us to what category the thing being defined
belongs;
2. A differentia, which specifies how such a thing differs from all the
other things in its genus.

A principle is a rule (genus). But how does a principle differ from any
other sort of rule (differentia)?

Etymology suggests that a principle is a **primary** rule: a rule which
is founded only in the laws of Nature. Other rules may be derived from
it by implication, but the principle itself arises strictly from the
metaphysically given properties of the universe and the things in it. In
mathematical terms, it's an axiom rather than a theorem: it cannot be
proved deductively.

(For those interested in the evolution of words: "Principle" and
"precept" are synonymous. The etymology tells us so. They differ mainly
in their usual contexts of application: "precept" is more often used
when speaking of a religious doctrine promulgated by a widely
acknowledged authority.)

A principle may be qualified as to context. That is, it might have a
domain of application outside which it lacks force. However, within the
specified context, either it applies absolutely, or it is not a
principle but a guideline that can be set aside according to
considerations of preference. Thus, a principle may also be described as
**a statement about right and wrong.**

Jim Florio's first statement cited in the segment above implies that
government in the United States has become amoral. His second statement
demands a violation of the principle we call the right to life. Yet
those statements have enormous import for two subjects: the principles
that ought to apply to government (even if they're ignored more often
than not); and how one decides whether a proposed rule qualifies as a
principle.

* * * * * * * * * *

Consider as a test case the following proposition:

"We must not punish the innocent for the deeds of the guilty."

This is a basic axiom of American justice. It has moral rather than
utilitarian weight. It does not concern itself with what particular
deeds are under discussion, nor with how loud or prolonged have been the
cries for justice; nor with what consequences might flow from not
convicting someone, anyone, for some hateful crime. Its context is
simply the cleavage between guilt -- the responsibility for having
performed some heinous action -- and innocence -- the lack of such
responsibility. It appears to be a principle by the definition in the
segment above.

Do we violate that principle from time to time? Of course. No scheme of
human justice can guarantee against error. No amount of evidence or
eyewitness testimony can indicate the criminal with absolute
reliability. But the principle remains as it is. So we do the best we
can, and when we discover that we've violated it, we do our best to
correct our errors and make restitution for them. Were we to fail to do
so, the legal system itself would be criminal.

All the arguments over the death penalty ultimately come down to this:
it renders a violation of the principle impossible to correct. Is that
unacceptable in a society that insists on the closest approach to
perfect justice Man can achieve?

* * * * * * * * * *

Principles cannot conflict. The natural law contains no contradictions;
therefore, primary rules that arise from them cannot contradict one
another. Herein lies the most important test for whether a rule
qualifies as a principle.

If I have a right to my life, you cannot kill me (self-defense and
felony actions excepted). Raised to abstractions, the principle of the
right of a human being to life defies any claim that killing an innocent
can be justified by some "higher motive." There is nothing higher than a
principle.

If I have a right to my liberty, it follows that you cannot legitimately
coerce me away from what I want to do, or toward doing something I
don't. Raised to abstractions, a right to liberty defeats any claim that
a majority can impose its will on innocent persons of other mind. The
majority, whether acting directly or through a government, cannot
morally conscript, nor tax for purposes not Constitutionally agreed upon
beforehand, nor prohibit any other innocent course of action.

If I have a right to my property, it stands absolutely against your
claim of a right to seize it or use it against my will. Raised to
abstractions, the principle of property rights, if accepted, defeats all
claims that some may expropriate others for any reason.

Just as this test functions to winnow out pseudo-principles, it gives
true coloration to the desires of some to exploit their power over
others. It reveals any pretense of high-mindedness as nothing but
posturing -- posturing at others' expense, at that.

* * * * * * * * * *

Principles do not concern themselves with outcomes. Many outcomes the
majority would find highly desirable are practically achievable only by
embracing grotesque violations of principles. For example: How could we
achieve a society in which minor children are never exposed to
pornography? Only one method would have even a chance of working: the
prohibition of privacy regardless of setting. Video cameras everywhere,
continuously manned to ensure that not one single human action ever goes
unwitnessed. Watchers to watch the watchers, since no one can be allowed
to go unobserved. Made stringent enough, and enforced brutally enough,
that might bring about a porn-free society.

Clearly, that would have outcomes other than the suppression of porn,
some of them very unpleasant. Also, it wouldn't be compatible with a
principle that says that an adult has a right to go unobserved in his
own home. But which is the principle? "Thou shalt not expose kids to
porn," or "The right of the people to be secure in their persons,
houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,
shall not be violated" -- ?

The counter-argument, of course, is that we learn principles (to the
extent we do learn them) from observing the outcomes that flow from
violating them. There is some justice in this view. However, a principle
is built into "the moral order of the universe" (Clarence Carson); the
consequences of its violation flow from natural law rather than our
preferences for this outcome over that one, just as the breaking of a
dropped egg flows from the laws of physics, rather than any preference
we might have about having to clean up after ourselves.

* * * * * * * * * *

There's far more to be said about principles, but let the disquisition
above be enough for the moment.

I titled this piece as I did specifically because so much of government
-- nearly all of it, today -- is concerned with achieving particular
outcomes rather than with hewing to principles, including universally
acknowledged principles. Everyone has his dreams; everyone has some
vision of the perfect society; everyone fantasizes about how his Utopia
might be brought about. The aggregate of those dreams, visions, and
fantasy conceptions characterizes us as a people. When translated into
political decisions, they give our power structures their broadest
attributes.

Today, principle is just about never at the forefront of anyone's
agenda.

Americans were once justly hailed as exemplars of principled behavior.
I'd say we've ceased to deserve such an evaluation as a nation. There
are (of course) some highly principled persons among us; just don't look
for them in public office.

Governments ignore principles, as far as possible. They impede the
attainment of the desires of those who rule us: for power, profit,
prestige, advancement to higher posts, and security of status as a
master rather than a subject. Given that individual humans are
self-seeking, and that those who seek power over others are highly
unlikely to regard rights and moral absolutes with complete respect,
this might well be inevitable.

But the worst of it is this: The great majority of Americans has grown
comfortable with the idea that government is an instrument for "getting
what we want," even if using that instrument to acquire "what we want"
requires the violation of others' rights, the use of force to bend them
to majority will, and ultimately, the use of government power against us
when persons whose desires are antithetical to ours gain control of the
State. For there is this about power: like human desire, it knows no
natural limits. They who hold the political structures of a society, if
they are neither self-inhibited by principles nor restrained by still
greater power than what they wield, will run roughshod over the rest of
us. History is lousy with examples.

For the observance of the principles we claim to hold, the demotion of
our desires, and the outcomes we fantasize about, to a lesser position
is a prerequisite. Given our natures, that is the hardest of all lessons
to be learned -- and principles, like experience, give the test first
and the lesson afterward.

Food for thought.

To ask is to answer.

We’re sitting on $15.4 trillion in debt. How is it going to get paid? And by whom?

Back before 1970, foreigners held a 5 percent slice of U.S. public debt. Today foreigners hold nearly half the pie. And the government owes a bunch of it to itself — $4.6 trillion — including what it’s borrowed from the Social Security trust fund.

Is Washington at all alarmed? 

 "Serial Bubble Blowers." By Addison Wiggin and Samantha Buker, The Daily Reckoning, 5/6/12.

A Confluence of Idiocy

What do you get when you cross Milton Friedman's 'negative income tax' welfare streamlining scheme, 'compassionate' conservative and liberal political sentimentalism, an idiotic sense of 'consistency' and a blind obsession with it, an inane grasping for additional sources of income by politicians, and, perhaps the most stupid policy ever enacted by any government, anywhere, for all time -- self-reported income taxation?

Answer:  welfare and tax fraud on a massive scale.


I might be tempted to get angry if I weren't already in a state of complete exhaustion with this kind of thing. But really, what can you say? What kind of place instates policies where people self-report their own taxable possessions, and then is surprised when people report fraudulently?

A place that is doomed. Even public schoolteachers know better than to let students grade their own papers. People like to say that the establishment of the income tax was a critical turning point in the ruining of America. There is some truth in that, but I think that with respect to such ideas, the actual turning point comes when the idea begins to sound reasonable to enough people.

Socialism never actually ruined a place, I suspect. But ruined people find appeal in ideas like socialism.

The Julia Story

I'd say the masks are all the way off, now.

Barack Hussein Obama's campaign website features an interactive presentation about a fictional American woman, "Julia," and the many wonders of the Obamunist policies and programs she experiences as she goes through her imaginary life. As has been noted by other commentators on this obscenity:

• The piece denigrates the idea of self-sufficiency throughout;
• It also implicitly demeans men;
• It presents Obamunist policies as all-embracing and permanent;
• It effaces all notions of costs, whether via moral hazard, exploding taxation and government debt, or the reduction of individual freedom;
• Last but not least, it sidesteps all questions about whether and how the left-liberal vision of a cradle-to-grave welfare state actually works -- that is, whether it can and will deliver the promised benefits to the overt beneficiaries, and at what cost to those individuals.

Possibly the most telling comment on the piece comes from the esteemed Ace Of Spades:

One of the central points of 1984 is that in true totalitarianism, the State must displace the natural allegiances of love -- romantic, familial, and brotherly (and, though Orwell might not agree -- Love of God, too)-- with a love of State.

The State must displace those so that it can occupy the central allegiance of a subject's life.

It would help the State to accomplish this goal if it could take over the functions of natural human relationships -- such as providing succor and support.

Such is Obama's vision, encapsulated in his Prototype Protagonist Julia-- who just happens to share a first name with the heroine in the Orwell novel.

Social atomization -- the displacement of interpersonal relations and fellow-feeling by State mediation and regulation -- is essential to any totalitarian program. You cannot rule a nation if its citizens exhibit social solidarity; you must divide them and make them feel divided, isolated in their concerns and suspicious of one another, so that no unified body of resistance to your rule can arise. It's also essential to any plan to introduce the State as surrogate protector-provider.

Obama's Julia is a disconnected atom of the Orwellian sort. She requires nothing from her fellow men; her needs are provided by the State. We hear nothing about her parents, her friends and lovers if any, or any other human associations in Julia's life. When she decides, at age 31, to have a child, the decision is presented to us as wholly individual; the father's prerogatives -- we must assume there's a father, as none is ever mentioned -- are irrelevant. (A husband? Don't make me laugh. Why would Julia want one of those?)

But one thing has gone unnoticed so far in the commentary on this piece: its exploitation of narrative structure.

Stories are inherently more persuasive than abstract arguments. If you can show your conceptions operating in a plausible real-world setting, you can win over many who would otherwise be untouched by your reasoning. The qualifiers matter, of course: the setting must itself seem reasonable to the listener, and unexplainable miracles, which set aside the laws of cause and effect, are disallowed. Within that envelope, a well told story, that shows plausible individuals responding plausibly to the incentives and disincentives they confront, always triumphs over Power Point. Ask anyone who was struck by Atlas Shrugged.

Among other things, a story permits you to deflect attention from the undesirable consequences of your scheme: the costs, the weakening of familial and communal attachments, the undermining of critical moral constraints, and so forth. Obama's Julia narrative certainly strives to do this. We of the Right who pay attention to such things are alive to the implications; Americans entranced by the fantasy of cradle-to-grave government-provided security, and uninterested in pondering the consequences for freedom and prosperity, will let those considerations escape them.

(Henry Hazlitt, where are you when we need you?)

It's critical that the Right not stop short at criticism of the Julia narrative. The production of counter-narratives that focus the audience's attention on those inevitable consequences has become imperative.

The Julia conception is what Kant might have called a categorical imperative. The fictional Julia is not intended to be a lone example, as a real-life woman would be, but a "replaceable variable" who stands for any and every American under the Obamunist scheme. The Left wants everyone to look to the State for everything, and to feel helpless and alone unless the State is there to swaddle and comfort us.

The mighty Arctic Patriot provides the summation:

I have posted before that one cannot expect to restore a country to its founding principles without restoring the context (call it culture, national character, morality, whatever) in which it was founded. I mean this not in a religious sense, not in a bible-thumping sense, but in a culture-spirit, deeply personal sense that starts within people, radiates out into families, from families further into communities, and then is returned from where it came -- as communities do their magic and strengthen families, which in turn strengthen individuals.

No piece of paper made America great. No government or law, or lack of law made America great. Americans made America great.

Indeed. We cannot have freedom or self-reliance without a culture that both honors and demands these things. The culture the Left has constructed has made us timorous as individuals, weak as families, and limp as communities...and the Obamunists intend to capitalize on it.

A good storyteller, a contemporary Rand who can bring those chilling facts home to his audience, would be worth his weight in gold. Where is he? His hour is upon us, and we need him desperately.

WBTYM: The Video Devolution

Words are the instruments of thought. Words are the tags we apply to categories and specific entities, that we might speak of them, their characteristics, and their actions in a fashion that conveys useful knowledge. Words occupy the same position in the landscape of logical thought as do symbols in the realm of mathematics. When I seek to convince someone of a causal proposition, I employ words.

Video is a medium of entertainment and diversion. Video conveys images that can fascinate, even hypnotize a viewer. With its power to dramatize isolated incidents and render pure fiction as visible as objective reality, it can suggest without substantiation, persuade without argument. Were I to embark on a campaign of manipulation or deception, I'd prefer video to verbal argument. There's no way to refute a video.

Words engage the cerebrum, the logical center of the brain. Video goes straight for the amygdala, wherein the emotions are formed.

Beware him who seeks to persuade you of a causal proposition by means of video.

***

There are legitimate uses for video in politics. There's no better way to immortalize a particular incident; a politician's gaffe caught in a video clip can never be effaced. But video should not be used to argue for specific policies. It's a poor format for the effective presentation of a policy's systemic consequences. When a video succeeds, however modestly, in such an undertaking, it's invariably the case that a verbal presentation would have been even meatier and more conclusive.

The expanding use of video in political outreach can only mean that the proponents of the propositions those videos attempt to promulgate are tired of argument. They've talked until they're blue in the face, but their progress has failed to satisfy them. So they've decided to go for the "quick kill." They're eschewing argument and aiming for the heartstrings.

The fallacy here follows from Porretto's Third Law of Emotional Manipulation: For any conceivable emotional thrust, there's an equal but opposite thrust. Think what you like about your powers as a polemic cinematographer; among your foes are some who are just as good. Indeed, your gambit is likely to energize them into producing a counterstroke. This is not the case with arguments properly supported by objective evidence.

Please, please, please, fellows of the Right: Do your arguing with words. Reserve videos for specific instances of idiocy, infamy, and atrocity among our adversaries. That will give you two weapons to our opponents' one, for deceitful emotional appeals are all they have.

Alongside that, if you have an argument to make, reading it without having to watch a dozen videos will save me quite a bit of time in my twice-daily news sweeps. I am getting old, you know.

WBTYM: "Charity" And Its Pecksniffs

(I'll award a Guest Post, max. 500 words, to the first person who
identifies the common phrase acronymized in the title of this piece.)

Jeff Jcaoby's post of today --
http://townhall.com/columnists/jeffjacoby/2012/05/03/what_browns_and_warrens_tax_returns_really_show
-- makes some interesting points, but concludes with a stunning display
of moral numbness:

"No one expects Brown to give the shirt off his back, or even to tithe
-- to give the tenth off the top that for many Americans is automatic.
Yet a well-heeled Republican senator who believes in the efficacy of
private action surely ought to be able to part with at least the same
fraction of his income as the average poor giver does."

I immediately focused on the "surely ought to be able" bit. Here's why:

"For Warren and Brown -- for most of us -- it's easier to criticize
other people's standards than to faithfully measure up to our own. In
the quest for votes, politicians will say just about anything to
convince us they are worthy. The road to moral integrity isn't paved
with campaign sound bites, though, but with admirable behavior."

So Senator Brown is well to do. That is, he makes a nice salary -- all
United States Senators do -- and has considerable assets already.
Therefore, he "surely ought to be able" to give more to "charity" than
he does at present.

But should he?

Unwise charity has done a great deal of harm, mainly by persuading its
recipients that if they choose not to carry their own weight, others
will carry them.

For best results, charity should be:
-- Kept strictly local, so its effects can be monitored;
-- Given to persons whose troubles are not of their own making;
-- NEVER given in cash, always in sustenance goods (i.e., food,
clothing, or shelter).

Anything else undercuts the drive to regain one's self-sufficiency.
Weakening individuals' willingness to provide for themselves and meet
their own, freely undertaken responsibilities is ANYTHING BUT "admirable
behavior." In fact, it's more usually a way to pat oneself on the back
-- or to curry favor with uncritical types who equate "charity" with
goodness.

Not your best column, Mr. Jacoby.

Tension And Habitat Part 6: Summation

The previous five pieces in this little series have emphasized habitat as an envelope-concept: a framework for comprehending the development and persistence of various social, economic, and political pathologies. That was my entire intent in writing them. A couple of readers have written to ask why I thought it a constructive use of time and pixels. The time has come to answer them.

* * * * * * * * * *

There are many conceptual envelopes applicable to political dynamics and tensions. Habitat is merely the one I've chosen to exploit. It's not inherently more significant than any of the other approaches; it's merely one that hasn't been used until now. Neither does it provide an especially potent insight into how America's prevalent pathologies could be undone. But it does provide its own insights, and its own indications of directions to be followed. That's sufficient justification for exploring it.

The constitutionalist / traditionalist / libertarian-conservative Right has had enormous difficulty in countering those pathologies. Its spokesmen and activists have tried one strategy after another to gain a purchase on our devolution and mobilize Americans into reversing it. We've had little success, despite frequent, ingenious reconceptualizations and shifts of emphasis.

That doesn't mean we should give up and let Leviathan roll over us. It does mean that we have to become more inventive. Indeed, given the failure of past monothematic approaches, I submit that our overarching need is to become concurrently inventive and mutually supportive:

• Any approach anyone can conceive should be developed and tried;
• All approaches should be wielded concurrently;
• Differences in approach must be prevented from engendering hostility or fostering isolation;
• When one approach fails with a given target, another must be deployed, until something has been found that produces ingress.

Habitat-analysis is merely one more arrow in our quiver. If it has some virtues, we should exploit them. If it proves insufficient with a certain target populace, we should prefer another scheme in approaching that sector. Add it to the persuasive arsenal, try it out when appropriate, and note where it hits and where it misses. That is all.

* * * * * * * * * *

I was once briefly acquainted with a drug-legalization advocate who expressed great frustration at his inability to get his message across. He was intelligent, knowledgeable, impassioned, and perseverant: a good combination of characteristics for anyone resolved upon a public campaign. In appearance, he was a classic "hippie:" long hair and beard; tie-dyed shirts and ragged, multiply-patched jeans; sandals twelve months a year. I sympathized with him -- always a good starting point -- and proceeded to quiz him about his methods and his target audience. This is what I learned:

• Drug legalization was his sole political passion;
• He approved of the use of recreational drugs;
• He targeted middle class, preponderantly Caucasian audiences;
• His talks were heavy with details about the history of recreational drug use in the U.S.;
• He routinely brushed aside questions about how to prevent young people from becoming recreational-drug users.
• He tended to be combative toward those who disagreed with him on this subject.

My acquaintance's approach was poorly matched to his preferred audiences. They demanded a completely different approach -- possibly a completely different proponent, as well. His conceptual envelope disallowed the recognition of that incongruity; as far as he was concerned, anyone who failed to see the inescapable implications of his arguments was simply too stupid to bother with.

Does that sound to you like a formula for success at persuasion?

The above is a specimen of intellectual rigidity -- a lack of versatility when confronted with failure. He who fails, not once but repeatedly, must find some versatility within himself if he's going to keep on trying. Versatility in the political marketplace demands that one have more than one set of intellectual and rhetorical tools. Any and every concept that might be the key to opening some minds -- not all, just some -- should be kept available for when it might prove instrumental.

Perhaps my acquaintance could have used habitat as his conceptual foundation. Perhaps by suggesting that drug prohibition creates a habitat that all manner of corrupt and evil forces can and will dominate, he might have reached the audiences he targeted. He never tried it, so we'll never know.

* * * * * * * * * *

The future is looking grim. I hardly need to tell any regular reader how much we have to worry about. No matter how they turn out, the November elections won't cause us to reverse course and sprint briskly away from disaster. At best, we'll dig in our spikes and stop rushing pell-mell toward the abyss. It will take much more, and much longer, to get back on a wholesome, freedom-respecting political basis.

We need keys to the minds of our fellow citizens. Not one key, but many.

Every concept, every analogy, every parallel we can draw between the hazards of our time and any well-known period in history or easily grasped aspect of Nature should be available for use at all times. Politics doesn't sit isolated in the vacuum, giving birth to itself; it arises from the assumptions and convictions prevalent among a nation's people. Changing those assumptions and convictions isn't something we can accomplish with a single skeleton-key concept. As with any other undertaking, we need the right tools for the job -- and the job will change with every individual we confront.

If you really want to avoid a complete descent into tyranny, and have no stomach for a violent revolution, arm yourself conceptually as well as with "beans, bullets, and Band-Aids."

You have my contribution.

Tension And Habitat Part 5: Safety And Adaptation

Once a species becomes dominant in a habitat, it starts to alter that habitat.

Granted, various species possess different degrees of power over their environments. We can't expect nonsentient creatures without manipulative organs to do as well at altering their habitats as Man. All the same, the process gets under way as soon as species dominance is established.

The first of all alterations to be addressed, consciously or otherwise, is for safety.

Safety is a badly abused concept. In reality, it's a matter of degrees and comparisons, but it's often treated (especially by left-liberal political mouthpieces) as if it were a condition that can be made absolute. When a rational man says "We're safe here," or "This [item or practice] is safe," he's not guaranteeing that absolutely no harm could possibly come of it. Such a guarantee would be both fictitious and foolish, by the nature of the laws that govern the universe.

With regard to habitat safety, the usual progression of things is as follows:

• Category 1: Hazards to the Alpha members of the species are addressed until the rate at which they victimize the Alpha member is reduced to a tolerable level.
• Category 2: Hazards to the average members of the species are addressed next, with the same effect.
• Category 3: Hazards to the most vulnerable members of the species are addressed last, with the same effect.

Of course, the above assumes that those hazards have revealed themselves to the species in some unambiguous fashion, but we need that simplification for the purposes of comprehension.

The Alphas must come first, for the most obvious of reasons: They are the species' primary defense. If they fall, mass carnage is likely to follow. The average members -- the "worker bees," if I may -- come next because they provide the sustenance for all members. The weakest and most vulnerable come third and last by default. This might seem odd to a species such as ours, whose alterations of its environment have been going on for so long that we've largely forgotten what it means for our strongest to be continuously exposed to mortal peril.

Note how the above pattern conforms to the pressures exerted on a species by natural selection.

Adaptation continues in the midst of alteration. The species' characteristics will be shaped by the altered environment even as the environment is changed. The successful reduction of Category 1 hazards will cause non-Alphas to become more willing to "stand in" for Alphas, at least rhetorically. The successful reduction of Category 2 hazards will concomitantly reduce non-Alphas' appreciation for, and admiration of, the Alpha class. The successful reduction of Category 3 hazards will further diminish general appreciation for the Alpha class, while simultaneously increasing the support burdens on non-Alphas and adding to the attractions of being (or becoming) one of those burdens.

* * * * * * * * * *

Anyone who says that economic security is a human right, has been too much babied. While he babbles, other men are risking and losing their lives to protect him. They are fighting the sea, fighting the land, fighting disease and insects and weather and space and time, for him, while he chatters that all men have a right to security and that some pagan god -- Society, The State, The Government, The Commune -- must give it to them. Let the fighting men stop fighting this inhuman earth for one hour, and he will learn how much security there is. -- Rose Wilder Lane, "The Discovery of Freedom"

Once active threats to life and limb have been adequately addressed, other demands on men's time will become paramount, in particular the provision of nutrition, clothing, and shelter. These things are easily folded into the conceptual envelope of safety -- "security" and "safety" are near to being synonymous, contextual differences to the side -- and a dependent class for whose safety others have labored is unlikely to distinguish between active threats and the passive sort that arise from inability to see to one's own maintenance...or unwillingness to attend to the necessity.

In effect, a species that protects its weakest members too effectively has created a sub-habitat suitable for dominance by a parasite class.

Among men, such a parasite class will be populated both by the genuinely incapable and by those who are merely unwilling to make their own way in the world. The former will provide political cover for the latter (cf. the "starving widows and orphans" defense for a luxuriant welfare state). It is in the nature of things that the truly incapable will reproduce thinly if at all, generally well below replacement rate. But the unwilling will reproduce according to their whims; worse, they'll attract emulation from the "lower margin" of the capable and willing. The burden they represent on the rest of their society will increase over time.

If the Alphas and worker class agree to accept that burden, it will have several effects. Most significant among them will be an increase in the hazards to which Alphas and workers are exposed.

* * * * * * * * * *

A grievance is most poignant when it is almost redressed. -- Eric Hoffer

When he emitted the above, Hoffer was speaking principally of injustices and their consequences. However, the phenomenon extends without distortion to "problems" whose remediation has been successful yet short of complete.

Thomas Sowell has written eloquently on the tendency of our era to view any condition that we'd like to see improved as a "problem" to be "solved." One of his most famous formulations is "There are no solutions; there are only trade-offs." That epigram captures perfectly the nature of any effort to ameliorate conditions which some of us find distasteful:

• If we can achieve an improvement, it will be at a cost.
• As the improvement asymptotically approaches a 100% remediation, the cost of further progress increases asymptotically as well.
• He who is disinclined to consider the costs, perhaps because he's their beneficiary, or has averted them from his own shoulders and wallet, will nevertheless demand a "solution to the problem," rather than accept that the condition cannot be completely and finally eradicated except at infinite cost.

Along with this recognition goes the comprehension of the sub-habitat I discussed in the segment above. This is easily grasped in the context of welfarism. "The poor you will always have with you," said Jesus, and as with everything else He said, this is beyond refutation, for reasons that are easy to see. As the hazards and discomforts experienced by "the poor," however defined, are ameliorated by the labors and sacrifices of Alphas and workers, their sub-habitat will become increasingly attractive to new entrants. Therefore, the "problem of poverty" cannot be "solved." Indeed, among the sub-habitats that will arise, we are likely to find a political sub-habitat, occupied by persons whose livelihoods depend on having "poor people" to "serve," and whose class interests require the expansion of that domain to as large a size as the society can support.

Don't try telling that to a left-liberal, of course.

* * * * * * * * * *

Clearly, certain kinds and degrees of "safety" for some create large risks for others. This goes beyond the "Type I -- Type II" risk dynamic Aaron Wildavsky wrote about in "Searching For Safety." It's about habitat, the way a habitat can subdivide internally, and the differential responses of its denizens to such internal divisions.

As with all the other segments in this series, there is no Last Graf. I have no solutions; indeed, as you can surely tell from the above, I disbelieve that "solutions" exist. I certainly won't suggest a stark "survival of the fittest" ethic as a replacement for our species' admirable concern for the plight of the weak and vulnerable. That ethic is what makes us more than just the most efficient predators to arise on Earth. Still, the topic is worthy of extended thought.