Why I voted for President Obama

John Bolton reminds me, today, why I voted for President Obama.

Time for an Israeli Strike?

Iran is definitely a serious flawed and corrupt democracy. But it is a democracy, nonetheless. The kind of regime change he is talking about is exactly the kind of regime change that got us the current regime in Iran, in the first place. It was this kind of machination in our support of the Shah that created the mess of Iranian theocracy, long before the current standoff. And aggressive efforts with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have not only clearly accelerated his nuclear ambitions, ambitions that he was not pursuing as vigorously as he was until after the Administration began threatening him, they have clearly played right in his hands, as it has repeatedly rallied Iranians to his defense against the Great Satans of Israel and Iran. Not to mention that they have utterly and unequivocally failed and taken us backwards, not forwards, in our desire to stem nuclear proliferation and Iran's pursuit of the bomb, by any empirical standard.

Why does John Bolton not see this? Because he doesn't want to. Because to do so would be to admit that perhaps many of his assumptions about power and its use, and abuse, are wrong. And that, perhaps, he is much more like these Iranian mullahs than he wishes to admit. And that is not something that someone like John Bolton does easily, is the truth. Ironic for a Christian, I know. Lots of irony in the world, these days. Makes things more interesting, I suppose. More deadly more often than more secure.

This is exactly why I voted for Barack Obama, for all of my concerns about his tepid commitment to free markets.

Because I knew that Obama was more likely to pause and consider, more, the larger consequences of such rash aggression.

And because Obama's instincts happen to be the right ones here. The problem with the last several years of policy towards Iran has clearly not been that we have been too soft. It has clearly that we have been too aggressive. To anyone not seeking to defend our failures that is. Failures that John Bolton helped craft. And which I have not the least amount of interest in defending.

No matter how difficult it is for John Bolton to face up to his own failures on this one.

A happy life

Margaret Carlson writes a really insightful column for Bloomberg (which I retrieved from my new favorite news site, RealClearPolitics), today, that I found very affirming of the choices I've been making, lately, in life.

Sex, Fame Bring No Joy to Masters of the Universe

"Has there ever been a more vivid example than Bernard Madoff that English tailoring, a lifetime of ease and untold riches can’t save a man?

Standing before the judge on Monday, face gray, swagger gone, in a suit that hung off him as if it were still on the hanger, Madoff told the court, 'I live in a tormented state now knowing all the pain and suffering that I have created.' Turning to face his victims, who came to hear him sentenced, he said: 'I am sorry. I know that doesn’t help you.'

Madoff made his dramatic appearance the day I arrived for the Aspen Ideas Festival to speak about politics and listen to others talk about more important subjects like how to be happy by doing good, not simply doing well.

The Masters of the Universe, political and financial, don’t have time for such reflection, which is too bad. What drives them to live so close to the edge that having to say they’re sorry is a foreseeable event? They have no idea what will lead to a happy life, the prize we are all after.

The Ideas Festival opened with a speech on that subject by David Bradley, whose magazine, the Atlantic, got exclusive access to the archive of one of the most comprehensive longitudinal studies in history on happiness. Researchers at Harvard followed 268 men who entered the university in the late- 1930s (it was an all-male school back then) into their 70s and 80s to find out what was going on in their lives that made some of them “happy-well” into old age.

Just Hard Data

The study didn’t take anyone’s word on whether they were happy. One of the marks of the rich and powerful is boasting about how happy they are (and how little sleep they need). The study relied on intense yearly interviews, medical and psychiatric exams, and hard data. It found that the best predictor of a happy life isn’t power, riches and fame, or intellectual brilliance, the social class you were born into, a loving childhood or popularity at school.

The most reliable predictor turned out to be having warm relationships by at least age 47. A good marriage is important (even if some didn’t get it right until their second or third), but strong relationships based on trust and respect and continuity can also be with relatives, friends or mentors.

Good sibling relationships seem especially powerful: 93 percent of the men who were thriving at age 65 were close to a brother or sister. Also predictive were starting a sport or physical activity while young, and adaptability. Resilience and optimism saw the happy-well through the loss of jobs, fortunes, spouses, children and health...

...I asked Rutgers University anthropologist Helen Fisher, author of 'Anatomy of Love: A Natural History of Mating, Marriage and Why We Stray,' what she made of Sanford. She cited the delirium set off by dopamine, the chemical overproduced in the first throes of love, to explain his behavior. You’ve been living a life of quiet desperation in office and think you deserve happiness. You can’t see the consequences, or you think they can be fixed.

I wonder if capital punishment is called for. Just imagine if the same standard of fidelity were applied to other professions. Journalism, for one, would be decimated.

It looked like Sanford would survive until he followed up a genuine if meandering press conference with a rambling Associated Press interview in which he spoke of 'forbidden' love for his 'soul mate.' He must know his four boys can read the papers. It’s clear Sanford doesn’t want to be forgiven; he wants to be understood, if not admired, for following his heart. What the man needs is his head back.

Readers are as fed up with politicians who think the rules don’t apply while they pursue a warped idea of happiness as they are with bankers. What the public wants from its leaders is also what could ultimately make them happy: honoring and fostering their relationships with their loved ones and voters, with some impulse control thrown in. Our mothers already knew that without the benefit of Harvard."

Time for me to make good in all those places where I've screwed up. And to cut that bullshit out for good. And to love my friends and family thoroughly. And to live with some confidence in the fact that loving others, thoroughly and completely, and experiencing their love in consequence, really is the secret to a happy life.

Thank God

Someone reputable finally said it.

Robert Kaplan: To Catch a Tiger

"So is there any lesson here? Only a chilling one. The ruthlessness and brutality to which the Sri Lankan government was reduced in order to defeat the Tigers points up just how nasty and intractable the problem of insurgency is. The Sri Lankan government made no progress against the insurgents for nearly a quarter century, until they turned to extreme and unsavory methods. Could they have won without terrorizing the media and killing large numbers of civilians? Perhaps, but probably not without help from the Chinese, who, in addition to their military aid, gave the Sri Lankan government diplomatic cover at the UN Security Council.

These are methods the U.S. should never use. But the fact that this is what it took for the Sri Lankan government to subdue the Tamil Tigers makes clear just what a hard grind lies ahead for the U.S. in Afghanistan."

You really must read the entire article to get a flavor for just how despicable the methods of the Sri Lankan government were. And why it is so important for Westerners not to romanticize those practices as they consider how to deal with their own terrorist threats.

Not to mention that, typically, such methods, in the past, used by imperial and non-imperial governments for much of civilization's history, have generally come back to haunt them. Let's hope that is not the case in Sri Lanka. But I have my serious doubts.

We absolutely can do better. And must. For the sake of the values and the people for whom we fight.