Category: General
Posted by: Tocqueville
In Lawrence v. Texas Justice Kennedy announced: "At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life." [Query whether this applies to the notorious Octo-Mom?] The architects and proponents of decriminalization assured us that Scalia's slippery slope argument was a canard--that the enshrining of homosexuality (once taboo) into law would not lead to the mainstreaming of other historically taboo but consensual relationships. Well, they were wrong.
It's finally begun. Here's the next vanguard in the "civil rights" struggle. Romania is set to decriminalize incest between consenting adults.
It's finally begun. Here's the next vanguard in the "civil rights" struggle. Romania is set to decriminalize incest between consenting adults.
14/03: Stop the Presses!
From the front page of today's New York Times:
"But in a much anticipated court filing, the [Obama] Justice Department argued that the president has the authority to detain terrorists there [i.e., Guantanamo Bay, Cuba] without criminal charges, much as the Bush administration had asserted. It provided a broad definition of those who can be held, which was not significantly different from the one used by the Bush administration."
Are there no truth commissions? Is the "Wheel" no longer in operation?
"But in a much anticipated court filing, the [Obama] Justice Department argued that the president has the authority to detain terrorists there [i.e., Guantanamo Bay, Cuba] without criminal charges, much as the Bush administration had asserted. It provided a broad definition of those who can be held, which was not significantly different from the one used by the Bush administration."
Are there no truth commissions? Is the "Wheel" no longer in operation?
Category: General
Posted by: an okie gardener
Brits at their Best has the story of Lieutenant-Colonel Tom Carew, who recently died at age 89. Excerpts:
On August 26 1944 Carew was one of a three-man Jedburgh team, code-named "Basil", which was dropped into France south of Besançon, near the Swiss frontier. His companions were Captain Robert Rivière, of France, and Technical Sergeant John L Stoyka of the US Army.
The team became separated, and their canisters – which should have contained vital equipment and a wireless set – were full of cocoa and propaganda leaflets. They had only their pistols and the clothes they stood up in, Carew said later.
He hid in the house of a schoolmaster, where he heard a BBC message on the local radio which told him where he could contact the Resistance. Their leader later recalled the anxious wait at their HQ. They had received a large arms drop, their map was marked up with promising targets – but they were in a foul mood because their special agent was missing.
Suddenly, there was a knock on the door, and everyone in the room scrambled for a weapon. The door slowly opened to reveal a blond young man in a Harris tweed jacket and corduroy trousers, smoking a pipe. "Excuse me, gentlemen," he said. "My name's Carew. I dropped in this evening, you know. Got lost somehow." When the laughter had died down, he gave them the plan.
After successfully leading Resistance fighters against the Germans, he was parachuted into Burma where he had similar success against the Japanese.
On August 26 1944 Carew was one of a three-man Jedburgh team, code-named "Basil", which was dropped into France south of Besançon, near the Swiss frontier. His companions were Captain Robert Rivière, of France, and Technical Sergeant John L Stoyka of the US Army.
The team became separated, and their canisters – which should have contained vital equipment and a wireless set – were full of cocoa and propaganda leaflets. They had only their pistols and the clothes they stood up in, Carew said later.
He hid in the house of a schoolmaster, where he heard a BBC message on the local radio which told him where he could contact the Resistance. Their leader later recalled the anxious wait at their HQ. They had received a large arms drop, their map was marked up with promising targets – but they were in a foul mood because their special agent was missing.
Suddenly, there was a knock on the door, and everyone in the room scrambled for a weapon. The door slowly opened to reveal a blond young man in a Harris tweed jacket and corduroy trousers, smoking a pipe. "Excuse me, gentlemen," he said. "My name's Carew. I dropped in this evening, you know. Got lost somehow." When the laughter had died down, he gave them the plan.
After successfully leading Resistance fighters against the Germans, he was parachuted into Burma where he had similar success against the Japanese.
The revolution for social justice at NYU was dealt a significant setback today. Gawker has the details here. Please try not to laugh.
19/02: The Democracy of the Dead
Are tradition and democracy necessarily opposed to one another? G.K. Chesterton concluded just the opposite. In a chapter entitled "The Ethics of Elfland" in his book Orthodoxy, Chesterton wrote the following:
But there is one thing that I have never from my youth up been able to understand. I have never been able to understand where people got the idea that democracy was in some way opposed to tradition. It is obvious that tradition is only democracy extended through time. It is trusting to a consensus of common human voices rather than to some isolated or arbitrary record. The man who quotes some German historian against the tradition of the Catholic Church, for instance, is strictly appealing to aristocracy. He is appealing to the superiority of one expert against the awful authority of a mob. It is quite easy to see why a legend is treated, and ought to be treated, more respectfully than a book of history. The legend is generally made by the majority of people in the village, who are sane. The book is generally written by the one man in the village who is mad. Those who urge against tradition that men in the past were ignorant may go and urge it at the Carlton Club, along with the statement that voters in the slums are ignorant. It will not do for us. If we attach great importance to the opinion of ordinary men in great unanimity when we are dealing with daily matters, there is no reason why we should disregard it when we are dealing with history or fable. Tradition may be defined as an extension of the franchise. Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our father. I, at any rate, cannot separate the two ideas of democracy and tradition; it seems evident to me that they are the same idea.
What do you think?
But there is one thing that I have never from my youth up been able to understand. I have never been able to understand where people got the idea that democracy was in some way opposed to tradition. It is obvious that tradition is only democracy extended through time. It is trusting to a consensus of common human voices rather than to some isolated or arbitrary record. The man who quotes some German historian against the tradition of the Catholic Church, for instance, is strictly appealing to aristocracy. He is appealing to the superiority of one expert against the awful authority of a mob. It is quite easy to see why a legend is treated, and ought to be treated, more respectfully than a book of history. The legend is generally made by the majority of people in the village, who are sane. The book is generally written by the one man in the village who is mad. Those who urge against tradition that men in the past were ignorant may go and urge it at the Carlton Club, along with the statement that voters in the slums are ignorant. It will not do for us. If we attach great importance to the opinion of ordinary men in great unanimity when we are dealing with daily matters, there is no reason why we should disregard it when we are dealing with history or fable. Tradition may be defined as an extension of the franchise. Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our father. I, at any rate, cannot separate the two ideas of democracy and tradition; it seems evident to me that they are the same idea.
What do you think?
Category: General
Posted by: Tocqueville
"Do you ever wonder why the poor and the working classes, if they're religious-minded, are almost always followers of the most conservative forms of religion? And why the wealthier you are, the more likely you are to be a partisan of liberal religion, if you're a partisan of religion at all?"
Rod Dreher has some thoughts here.
Rod Dreher has some thoughts here.
16/02: President's Day
NRO has a symposium today inviting historians, beltway pundits, and other expert commentators to pick their favorite U.S. President: "The Good, the Bad, and William Henry Harrison."
What say you? If you had to pick just one, who would you say is your favorite and why?
What say you? If you had to pick just one, who would you say is your favorite and why?
Category: General
Posted by: Tocqueville
So warns Tony Blankley of the Washington Times:
President Obama is a beguiling but confounding figure. As he has said of himself: "I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.” (”The Audacity of Hope.”) It is indeed audacious that he should proclaim this consciously disingenuous attribute. And, as one reads his inaugural address, it is hard not to conclude that it was shrewdly crafted to perpetuate such confusion.
Run-of-the-mill politicians try to hide their duplicity. Only the most gifted of that profession brag that they intend to confound and confuse the public. Such an effort is beyond ingenious - it is brazenly ingenuous.
And it is working. Many of my fellow conservative commentators are embarrassingly eager to search Mr. Obama's words, groveling for hopeful signs that he is not a radical intent on changing the face and nature of our republic. Some of our Tory conservatives have clung to his words (”hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism-these things are old. These things are true”) as evidence of a deep conservatism.
Other smitten conservative commentators take false comfort from his reference to George Washington's “small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shore of an icy river.” Free-market conservatives point hopefully - pathetically - to the first clauses of his words: “Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control.” That “watchful eye” he calls for may be as benign as Teddy Roosevelt's anti-monopoly policies, or it could be as constricting as French Socialism - or worse. Mr. Obama offers philosophical hope to all.
And how easily (willingly?) some of our fellow conservative commentators are seduced to believe the good parts and hope away the bad bits.
(More after the jump . . .)
President Obama is a beguiling but confounding figure. As he has said of himself: "I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.” (”The Audacity of Hope.”) It is indeed audacious that he should proclaim this consciously disingenuous attribute. And, as one reads his inaugural address, it is hard not to conclude that it was shrewdly crafted to perpetuate such confusion.
Run-of-the-mill politicians try to hide their duplicity. Only the most gifted of that profession brag that they intend to confound and confuse the public. Such an effort is beyond ingenious - it is brazenly ingenuous.
And it is working. Many of my fellow conservative commentators are embarrassingly eager to search Mr. Obama's words, groveling for hopeful signs that he is not a radical intent on changing the face and nature of our republic. Some of our Tory conservatives have clung to his words (”hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism-these things are old. These things are true”) as evidence of a deep conservatism.
Other smitten conservative commentators take false comfort from his reference to George Washington's “small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shore of an icy river.” Free-market conservatives point hopefully - pathetically - to the first clauses of his words: “Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control.” That “watchful eye” he calls for may be as benign as Teddy Roosevelt's anti-monopoly policies, or it could be as constricting as French Socialism - or worse. Mr. Obama offers philosophical hope to all.
And how easily (willingly?) some of our fellow conservative commentators are seduced to believe the good parts and hope away the bad bits.
(More after the jump . . .)
Category: General
Posted by: an okie gardener
From The Telegraph U.K, link from Brits at Their Best.
David Smiley died this month at the age of 92.
Colonel David Smiley, who died on January 9 aged 92, was one of the most celebrated cloak-and-dagger agents of the Second World War, serving behind enemy lines in Albania, Greece, Abyssinia and Japanese-controlled eastern Thailand.
After the war he organised secret operations against the Russians and their allies in Albania and Poland, among other places. Later, as Britain's era of domination in the Arabian peninsula drew to a close, he commanded the Sultan of Oman's armed forces in a highly successful counter-insurgency.
After his assignment in Oman, he organised – with the British intelligence service, MI6 – royalist guerrilla resistance against a Soviet-backed Nasserite regime in Yemen. Smiley's efforts helped force the eventual withdrawal of the Egyptians and their Soviet mentors, paved the way for the emergence of a less anti-Western Yemeni government, and confirmed his reputation as one of Britain's leading post-war military Arabists.
. . .
During the Second World War he was parachuted four times behind enemy lines. On one occasion he was obliged to escape from Albania in a rowing boat. On another mission, in Japanese-controlled eastern Thailand, he was stretchered for three days through the jungle with severe burns after a booby-trap meant for a senior Japanese officer exploded prematurely.
Read the whole story.
David Smiley died this month at the age of 92.
Colonel David Smiley, who died on January 9 aged 92, was one of the most celebrated cloak-and-dagger agents of the Second World War, serving behind enemy lines in Albania, Greece, Abyssinia and Japanese-controlled eastern Thailand.
After the war he organised secret operations against the Russians and their allies in Albania and Poland, among other places. Later, as Britain's era of domination in the Arabian peninsula drew to a close, he commanded the Sultan of Oman's armed forces in a highly successful counter-insurgency.
After his assignment in Oman, he organised – with the British intelligence service, MI6 – royalist guerrilla resistance against a Soviet-backed Nasserite regime in Yemen. Smiley's efforts helped force the eventual withdrawal of the Egyptians and their Soviet mentors, paved the way for the emergence of a less anti-Western Yemeni government, and confirmed his reputation as one of Britain's leading post-war military Arabists.
. . .
During the Second World War he was parachuted four times behind enemy lines. On one occasion he was obliged to escape from Albania in a rowing boat. On another mission, in Japanese-controlled eastern Thailand, he was stretchered for three days through the jungle with severe burns after a booby-trap meant for a senior Japanese officer exploded prematurely.
Read the whole story.
Category: General
Posted by: Tocqueville
