A good question

Andrew Bacevich, professor of history and international relations at Boston University, and one of the most respected conservative foreign policy experts in the country, and deservedly so, offers this question for our commitments in Afghanistan.

What alternatives other than open-ended war might enable the United States to achieve its limited interests in Afghanistan?

Should Obama go 'all in' on Afghanistan?

"The really big decisions have yet to be made. The biggest of all is simply this: Is the president willing to go for broke? Is he committed to Afghanistan as Obama's war -- committed as George W. Bush was to his war in Iraq? Is he willing to pull out the stops, regardless of the obstacles ahead, despite evidence of eroding public support and disregarding the fact that many in his own party oppose the war outright?

Obama's advisors -- Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Michael Mullen and Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander on the ground in Afghanistan -- have been quite candid in arguing that half-measures won't suffice. The war is going badly. The Taliban is gaining in strength. Seven-plus years of allied efforts in Afghanistan have accomplished very little.

Even if the military's recently rediscovered catechism of counterinsurgency provides the basis for a new strategy, turning things around will take a very long time -- five to 10 years at least. Achieving success (however vaguely defined) will entail the expenditure of vast resources: treasure (no one will say how much) and, of course, blood (again, no one offers an estimate).

So the president faces a real challenge if he intends to make the case for starting from scratch in Afghanistan. To persuade the American people to buy in, he will have to reassure them on five points:

* Afghanistan constitutes a vital national security interest -- victory in this primitive, impoverished, landlocked and distant country will contribute materially to driving a stake through the heart of violent jihadism.

* Armed nation-building -- securing the Afghan population, developing the economy, building legitimate institutions, eliminating corruption and drug trafficking -- provides the most realistic and effective way to satisfy those interests.

* The failure of past efforts by other great powers to impose their will on Afghanistan is beside the point -- history has no relevant lessons to teach.

* The United States possesses the money, troops, expertise and will to get the job done -- notwithstanding the recession, the mushrooming deficit, the diminishing enthusiasm of our allies, the stress and strain already endured by U.S. forces and the uneven performance of government agencies in the analogous U.S. effort to "fix" Iraq.

* No other priorities, foreign or domestic, exist that outrank Afghanistan and should have first call on the resources that years of additional war will consume -- several hundred billion dollars and several hundred additional American lives by a conservative estimate.

Driving home these five propositions will require Obama to deploy all of his formidable powers of persuasion. Even if he manages to do so, he will then spend the rest of his presidency -- as the bills mount and the body count climbs -- defending and reaffirming them. As was the case with Harry Truman in Korea, Lyndon Johnson in Vietnam and Bush in Iraq, war will hold his presidency hostage.

Obama does not act impulsively. Before betting his remaining chips on Afghanistan, he will no doubt deliberate carefully. He will consult. He will sift through all the evidence. Yet before hitting the 'start over' button on Afghanistan, he would do well to consider the following: Sometimes the essence of leadership is not to render the right decision but to pose the right question."

It's an excellent read. And an excellent question.

I am convinced, like Michael O'Hanlon and I would imagine Andrew would agree, that any solution will involve some military presence. Like Iraq, if better security is not guaranteed to a new Afghan democracy, it is no guarantee that democratic political institutions will survive.

But as George Will has rightly argued, I believe, in his columns favoring pull-out in Afghanistan and Iraq, if the Afghani and Iraqi populations are not willing to defend and secure those institutions out of their own commitments, then no amount of American assistance will do a damn thing.

I am convinced that the populations in both Iraq and Afghanistan do want to maintain and defend their democratic institutions and to provide security for their people. The question today, as it was when we entered this war is, do they need our help?

Andrew is right, I think, to ask us to pause and consider alternatives, especially civil society, economic and political alternatives that might better help this situation.

In both cases, what people in these countries need to be reassured of is that we are not there to impose our will. We are there, primarily, to help them secure a democratic future, if they want it. If they don't, we should leave, I believe, unless there is evidence that a substantial enough number, in fact, do and are willing to establish and defend those institutions. But if they do want to build and defend democratic institutions, then Americans need to do what we can to support them in their own efforts and to let Afghanis and Iraqis be primarily responsible for all efforts to do so, with American support.

This was the mistake in the initial invasions in both countries, I believe. Americans believing that they could help remove thuggish rulers - and I happen to believe that the impulse to do good by the Afghanis and Iraqis did substantially motivate our military interventions, there, as cock-eyed as the debate and arguments made for those interventions square with that explanation; certainly that was not the only reason we invaded each, but doing good by the Afghanis and Iraqis and by us substantially motivated most of the players involved, I believe - without consulting citizens in these countries about whether removing their governments was something they actually desired. I think in both situations we would have found many people who did want to remove these governments with no reasonable recourse to do so and which a military intervention offerred the overwhelming military capacity to do so, and which would have been trusted, more, as a self-determined choice by the Afghanis and Iraqis had we allowed them to lead that effort and backed them up with our political and economic weight and with overwhelming military force.

We chose paths of uniltateral imposition of American military power instead of pathes of collaborations with self-determining populations and we have been dealing with the consequences of those choices, I believe.

And George Will is right. If these populations do not want us there or are not willing to support and defend their own democratic instituations and the building of a more liberal democratic culture, our efforts are futile.

I believe Afghanis and Iraqis are willing to support and secure their own democratic institutions. But I agree with George that the Afghanis (and Iraqis) must lead efforts to support and defend both and with Andrew that Americans should do so with the least amount of military commitment as possible, as a matter of wise policy, where the use of force is minimized as much as possible and where the peoples we help determine their own destinies, primarily, with our support for their self-determination and not for our own agendas.

If you know where to look, the debate about Afghanistan is a refreshing alternative to the failure to debate in a similarly thoughtful way before our initial invasion in either Afghanistan or Iraq. And, curiously enough, it is liberals like Michael O'Hanlon and Bruce Reidel who argue for sustained military commitment and conservatives like Bacevich and Will who argue for caution in such commitments.

That is what makes a mature liberal democracy and mature liberal democratic debate and discussion great. People thinking outside their boxes. And for themselves. And not romanticizing power as the means to get to all the right answers. Or even most of them.

Andrew's posed a good question. Something for us to think about.

Getting honest with ourselves

Here's the bottom-line on this situation.

Documents on US-Lybian ties outrage IRA victims

I am deeply saddened by the fate of the victims of the Lockerbie terrorist bombing. What that man and the terrorists involved did was wrong and what happened to those people is tragic. Similarly, I am very sad for the people killed by the Irish Republic Army during that long and tragic conflict referenced in this most recent opportunity for some people to express outrage. Terrorism, in all of its forms, is wrong. And no person should have to live in fear of it.

But here's the no bullshit version of this situation.

If you do not want to be the more decent human being and let this man or Susan Atkins or anyone else go die in peace, even with their past inexcusable behavior, so be it.

But stop pretending that you are being the better person, for goodness fucking sakes.

You aren't. Those people who are acting out of compassion are.

If you can't bring yourself to be the better person. So be it. Keep it to yourself. And stop pretending that you are being a better person than you really are.

If you do not want to be a better person, make that choice and live with it. Namely, live with the fact that people who do choose to be the better person do not treat you or your reactions as better than they are.

Why in the world we are confusing the actions of those who are being better people with the reactions of people who openly and avowedly are not, I have not the faintest clue.

Don't be the better person. So be it. But noone needs to pretend like you are when you so clearly are not. And stop trying to bully and pressure people who are trying to do the right thing from doing so.

Go home and tell your wife and kids about why you can't bring yourself to be the better person. And if you're genuinely struggling with that fact and honestly trying to be the better person, that I'm right there with you and will support you the whole way.

But, in the case of so many folks acting like their outrage should be treated more seriously than it should, if you are really not interested in being a better person but just pretending that the reactions of someone who is not interested in being better should be given privilege over the actions of someone who really is being a better person, tell it to your wife and kids and stop acting like the world owes your baser instincts to be pandered to just because you don't wanna.

So you don't. Humble thyself. And learn to appreciate the examples of people who are being better people and doing the right thing.

And if looking in the mirror is too difficult for you to manage at this very moment, then find another time. But, for goodness sakes, stop acting like you really are being better than people who really are trying to do the right thing.

Go get honest with yourself. Stop bullying. And stop acting like a jackass is really the same thing as being a better man. Or woman. Or whatever may suit your fancy.

Some people have a lot of fucking gall. Be nice if that could be directed toward something worthy.

Real strength

Former U.S. Ambassador to Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, has the strongest insider reflection on the Afghan and Iraq wars 8 years on that I have read to date. This is a must read for anyone concerned with these wars and what they mean for America.

Eight Years On: A diplomat's perspective on the post-9/11 world

"Americans tend to want to identify a problem, fix it, and then move on. Sometimes this works. Often it does not. Of course, imposing ourselves on hostile or chaotic societies is no solution either. The perceived arrogance and ignorance of overbearing powers can create new narratives of humiliation that will feed calls for vengeance centuries from now. What's needed in dealing with this world is a combination of understanding, persistence, and strategic patience to a degree that Americans, traditionally, have found hard to muster.

We have learned much since September 11, 2001, but we are still learning this lesson. As the war in Afghanistan enters its ninth year, with U.S. casualties rising and the Taliban revived, public opinion is turning against what was always, compared with Iraq, our 'good war.' No one, least of all me, has an easy fix to propose. But over the last eight years I was intimately involved with our country's effort to manage its relationship with the Middle East and South Asia. I know that success only comes from a solid, sustained commitment of resources and attention."

I highly recommend this article in its entirety and the video about Ryan Crocker and his long career efforts to end terrorism at the top of the first page of that story. Lots to learn in this column. And much that Ryan clearly has learned from his efforts over the last 8 years.

Ryan is right. Patience is the virtue we are in most need of in our efforts to make us safer, these days. As he says well, building confidence is a long process. Anything solid is built over time.

Patience is not a virtue I come by easily, always, is the truth. But it is that quality that we need, right now. Aggression is a more natural instinct. It is easier to come to anger and react against our hurt or our fear than it is to quiet the heart and bring a calmer, more dispassionate, more thoughtful consideration to our efforts. I am guilty of that former too often to recall. It is likely responsible for my most serious failures in life, is the truth. But much experience and reflection has taught me that it is better to acknowledge that failure than to pretend that it has served me better than it has.

America has failed often over this period. Many Americans would like to believe that it is President Bush who is responsible for their failures. But that wouldn't be honest. President Bush is responsible for his own failures. But we are also responsible for our own.

And the truth is that the aggression that has consumed America in the last 10 years in lieu of the patience and confidence-building that Ryan Crocker describes in this piece is the fault of most Americans. The truth is that the aggression that came to characterize the foreign policy efforts of the Bush Administration and has now come to characterize the domestic policy efforts of the Obama Administration is something that Americans have clamored for loudly in the last 10 years. And no matter how much it fails, we clamor for more.

It is exactly those instincts that led to the rise of Adolph Hitler. A scared, defeated, and desperate population turned to Hitler to discipline a nation and to use any and all means necessary, namely aggression, to force out of existence their problems and the supposed conspirators against their safety and prosperity.

It is one long dark, demented fantasy about aggression and power and what it could and could not do to make people and a nation strong.

And the truth is that America has been indulging a similar fantasy for the last 10 years, but with the thankful benefit of a mature democracy, with divided government, separation of powers, diverse political parties and peoples to check the abuses of power of their counterparts, and, most importantly, the freedom to speak out, to criticize, to call into question, to organize and protest, and to otherwise express their displeasure with this obsession with power among competing players. And we've enjoyed the freedom to go on living our lives while this national drama takes place without having to worry, as the citizens of Germany did, that this fantasy would become our own unintended nightmare.

It is people like Ryan Crocker, and not people like Adolph Hitler or Joseph Stalin, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Kim Jong Il, Paul Hill or Malcolm X, or any of the various representatives of the fantasies of power that Americans and peoples around the world have indulged, that represent real strength.

Real strength is not found in bullying our neighbors into submission. Real strength is the patience in engaging one another thoughtfully and honestly about differences and respecting the consciences and choices of our neighbors. Real strength is having faith in our capacity to work together and, in its fullest expression, to love one another, rather than giving into the temptation that aggression offers. As someone who has been given to that temptation, I understand its appeal. I also understand, with much experience, its failure to resolve what thoughtfulness and strong relationships and building confidence in ourselves and one another are better able.

To do so freely is what most people crave, I believe. To not be bullied into that position is what most people want in their deepest hearts, is my belief. If there is any one best explanation for the fact that younger generations seek more freedom than their parents' generation perpetually thinks is good for them or likely to lead in better directions, this is it, I think. To make that possible will involve much love and forgiveness, patience and understanding and letting go of our propensity to try to substitute aggression for trust in our relationships. It is a long and complex lesson that I have confidence that we are learning and will learn, slowly, patiently, with time. Myself included.

And that ability to make choices, even bad ones, and learn from them is what makes America, all liberal democracies, and homo sapiens, as a species, great. There is no other species on the planet that learns as well or as often as homo sapiens. It is a very special feature of our existence as human beings. It is the most special feature of our existence.

It would serve us better, I believe, to appreciate what all that learning has to offer.

Making the free world such a remarkable place to live

Matthew Continetti has an excellent description of the relationship that most Americans, as reflected in the poll numbers and is consistent with my own personal experience, are feeling toward their government, right now. And for good reason.

People power: A wake-up call for America's political elites

"Congress returns this week, and here's hoping that its members, Democrats in particular, learned a little something from this summer's town hall meetings. The lesson to be drawn from these occasionally raucous events is that America is on the verge of--or already knee-deep in--one of those moments that periodically roil the country and rearrange our preconceived notions about public life. And not a moment too soon.

Popular outbursts serve as a check on, and corrective to, our elites' behavior. The people know things the elites forget or don't want to remember. The political class is supposed to serve the people, not the other way around. As Gerald Ford said after assuming the presidency on August 9, 1974, 'Here the people rule.'

For a while now, the message from Washington has been that we know what's good for the public, whether the public likes it or not. One after another, both parties have attempted to foist a series of grand reforms on a skeptical populace--in areas ranging from Social Security and immigration to energy and health care. Politicians have made decisions affecting millions of lives without accountability and oversight. The upshot has been more government, more debt, and--coming soon to a 1040 form near you--more taxes. No wonder the public is anxious.

It should hardly come as a surprise that the public views American elites with suspicion and disdain. Ordinary Americans have a point when they assign blame for the current mess to Wall Street CEOs, federal regulators, corrupt politicians, and gullible reporters. When Americans look at the economic landscape, they see dismal growth, high unemployment, and large deficits. But when they listen to the president and Congress, they hear that 'stimulus'--borrowing ever more from tomorrow to spend today--will work like some kind of magic cure. They hear that this perilous moment is the time to build a 'new foundation' with even more expenditures and taxes through 'cap-and-trade' and Obamacare. It's as if spending and debt are no problem; as if it's fine that the federal government--which failed in its fundamental duties to build guardrails for the financial system--owns large chunks of that system; as if the political, financial, and think-tank elites have proven themselves worthy of the public's trust."

The truth is that many political folks are also wrapped up in a political moment that ordinary citizens have clamored for, as much as they are, rightly, I believe, clamoring against it, today. It's a classic case of "Be careful what you wish for; you just might get it." Watching this period, I can see how despotism maintains itself. Public support for power to find magical solutions to all kinds of problems is not terribly difficult to come by, apparently. People tend to be seriously naive about power and what it can do and what it can't do, is my experience. The hard part is undoing what has been done. And the lucky thing about a democracy is that we can openly challenge arrangements that limit our say over our own lives. And we do, thankfully. As much as we get it wrong.

The truth is that Americans have as much responsibility in this era of romance with big government as much as their representatives. They are both wrong, I am convinced, that power can do the things they want done absent the consent and commitment of ordinary folks and that it doesn't frustrate the best efforts, in the process. That's the beauty of a democracy. Even when noone wants to take responsibility for their mistakes in this or any matter, there is always someone to check them and another opportunity to turn the ship around.

One thing is for sure. Political elites and most Americans need to get straight what many Americans have been getting straight this past summer. We do need to help one another when we need it. And we do need to be willing to show courage when others need it.

But, to do so, we cannot wait for a paternal government to force us or one another to make those things happen. We must be freely responsible for our own lives, first, and to build the strength necessary to share that strength with others. And that cannot happen when we are persistently looking to the goverment to build that strength for us and when we are the only ones who can do that for ourselves, in our lives, and it cannot happen when we are perpetually taking weaker routes and pretending that we are being stronger than we are.

Real strength comes from within. Not from the largesse of government. Not from defeating an opponent. Not from feigning superiority in any matter to compensate for self-doubt about where strength more real might lie.

Real strength is the kind that we build for ourselves and from within ourselves that does good because it is the right thing to do, not because someone else or something else is looking over our shoulders or compelling our will. Especially when that someone or something else might be and often is wrong. With real strength comes the humility to acknowledge that you might be wrong, which leaves you more humble in the use of power over the lives of others, not more emboldened. Those who romanticize power as an elixir to fix all problems are engaging in fantasy and conceit about their abilities and the abilities of power to do more than it can. They are not strong, no matter how much they pretend to be so. And the results of their efforts have failed in spades, absent the voluntary efforts of peoples, like the American people, to fulfill worthy visions out of a sense of honest commitment to the needs of others. To pretend otherwise is to demean those efforts. And, sadly, that is exactly what we have been doing for the last 10 years, in particular. But, really, for much of humanity's history.

Freedom is the heart of liberal values for a reason. Because it is the value that best respects the choices and self-determination of all people more honestly.

And no amount of cynicism about our capacity to manipulate others for our own more self-centered purposes will ever compensate for that genuine commitment that made America and all liberal democracies great, no government oversight necessary. Government has limited purposes it does well. We have assigned it responsibilities that it cannot sustain that we need to engage in more thoughtful discussion about how they might be maintained in a more sustainable and financially and otherwise healthy fashion. Most of the major liberal democratic governments have had serious problems financing these worthy efforts, as much as their and our insatiable appetites. All of them will need to face this fact if we are to build programs of real strength to genuinely care for our neighbors in need.

But, first and foremost, Americans and others need to look into themselves and ask themselves what they need to be doing to help build the strengths necessary to share with their family, friends, and neighbors before they look to government to provide those things for them.

"Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country," was as good a way of putting that as any.

That is the spirit Americans and the world are missing, today, as we rush to care for the needs of others but fail to consider the benefits and the necessity of expecting people to contribute their own efforts to guarantee more safe, healthy, well educated, financially secure, freely chosen and responsible lives for everyone. Ordinary Americans, ordinary Iraqis, ordinary Afghanis and ordinary peoples around the world find themselves in that same position, with more or less freedom to do that successfully being the most important distinction between their existences.

If despotism, terrorism, and tyranical forces of all kinds are to ever end, we will all need to end our fantasies of power swooping in to fix our problems that only our own efforts and the efforts of friends and neighbors can ever finally resolve. That kind of confidence and the efforts that come with it are our only hope for the kind of solutions we are looking for, if we will only offer them up.

And that world is one we can and will rightly be proud that we created for our children. Because it is that world, alone, that will allow them to live safely and freely to pursue the kinds of ambitions that make the free world such a remarkable place to live.

Christian music comes of age

For those not convinced that Christian music has come in its own, folks like Tobymac and Brandon Heath have something to say about it. And they have talent to back it up.





Nice to have a positive alternative for my kids to listen to one day, if they choose.

Give me your eyes

One of my favorite songs on the radio, these days, and for a long time now.



We need to have confidence in who we are. And stop being scared of our shadows.

One man thought that, at least. He was right.

I know my choice. Do you?

Are the terrorists right?

That's the question we need to ask ourselves today.

Are they right? Are we weak? Are we soft? Are we too liberal?

If so, why are we fighting them? Aren't they right? Shouldn't we be joining their ranks? Isn't liberalism the problem and illiberalism the answer?

And, if not, why are we scared? If our liberal values make us strong, what are we scared of?

Our own shadows, by my lights.

How sad to watch the strongest peoples in the history of humanity be scared of their own shadows. Enough that they would follow a path of illiberalism, reversing all the progress they have made in more than 200 years of more liberal democracy, out of fear that what makes them so great is what makes them weak.

If we are weak, and the terrorists are strong, we need to go about the business of being strong like the terrorists. And becoming just as brutal, just as vengeful, just as unforgiving as they are. Not some half-ass compromise. Because if they are strong, we need to be strong like them. Not some bullshit half-measure.

But if not, if we are strong, then we need to confident in who we are. And be strong. And all of the compassion, humanity, liberty and values that comes with that strength.

What we need to do is choose. We need to shit or get off the pot.

I know my choice.

Do you?

We are weak and they are strong

It's so ironic. This sad little replay.

It is the exact same line that brought Adolph Hitler to power. It is the very reasoning that has brought and kept most despots in power for most of humanity's history. It's nothing new. Same ol', same ol'. Or, if you believed the Nazis, a whole new path to progress.

Compassion is weakness. Force is strength.

You know what's supremely ironic about using it in this case?

82% Oppose Decision to Release Lockerbie Terrorist

It is exactly the logic of terrorism.

If you want a root cause to terrorism, this is it.

If you observe all of the rhetoric and action of terrorists, and almost all radical political activity and the boldest, most violent criminal activity, not to mention most despots of any serious note, this is the logic and the source of their efforts. Almost without exception.

Which leaves us with really two choices, fundamentally.

One, that if we were really honest with ourselves, we're just not living up to what we know, down deep, is our truest expression of our values.

Or, two, that the terrorists are right. And we are wrong. That we are weak. And they are strong.

That is the logical conclusion of that line of reasoning. Not only that conclusion, but the much more honest conclusion. That Hitler and Stalin embodied strength. Whereas we are only cowards, too afraid to use power how it should be used.

Or perhaps we are just not as bad as them.

That's better, right?

To not be quite as bad as Hitler and Stalin? To not be quite as bad as Al Queda, Hamas, Hezbollah, and all the rest?

Or, perhaps, like many of my radical friends of the left and right, we aim to be exactly as bad as all of those folks. Or at least pretend to be as much as it will intimidate our way into our aims.

That is the direction of progress. Or so every thug who has ever walked the earth would have us believe.

Perhaps they are right. Perhaps we are weak and they are strong. Jesus loves you. But he doesn't pack heat. Might may not make right, but it tells you what the fuck to do. Or maybe it does make right. With enough persuasion, that is. Or maybe compassionate folks like Jesus really were the enemy all along and we were just too blind to know to tell him what the fuck he could do with all that love and bullshit.

Compassion is weakness. Power is strength.

We are weak. They are strong.

Force is the path of progess for the strong and courageous.

Freedom is the path of failure for the weak and compassionate.

Liberalism is weak. Illiberalism is strong.

The strong don't apologize. And they certainly don't forgive.

Manson follower Susan Atkins loses 13th attempt at freedom -- and it may be her last

"Former Manson prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi said it was time for the state to show Atkins mercy. He told The Times last year that it was wrong to say 'just because Susan Atkins showed no mercy to her victims, we therefore are duty-bound to follow her inhumanity and show no mercy to her.'

“She’s already paid substantially for her crime, close to 40 years behind bars. She has terminal cancer. The mercy she was asking for is so minuscule. She’s about to die. It’s not like we’re going to see her down at Disneyland,” said Bugliosi, who wrote the best-selling book 'Helter Skelter.'"

But that's because Vincent Bugliosi is weak. And we are strong.

Perhaps what we have not considered is that these people we are killing have a point. Perhaps Hitler was right all along. Al Queda as well.

We have tried freedom. And it, not us, is responsible for our failures. Freedom made life worse. We were but innocent bystanders. Liberalism is our shameful past. It is time to shackle it.

Or. Perhaps Hitler was a coward. Who would not face honestly his weakness. Perhaps Bin Laden is the same.

And perhaps we are too.

Perhaps we might at least be honest about that direction.

And not confuse it with something more honest.

Or maybe we can just do better.

Honest conversation

Just occurred to me that, absent the experience and the money, Buffet's story about long-term capital management - risking something's that important to you for something that's not important to you - is not only an all-too-common and tragic mistake that people make, it is one that I was guilty of, at one point in my life, sadly. In my case, I lost everything that was important to me, at one point, for something that was worth not a lick in my life. Namely, I lost a really great girl for fighting that led nowhere. I miss her a lot. And I love like hell the humanity with which Buffet tells that story.



He's right. Who cares if you have $110 or $120 million dollars? Keeping straight the things that matter really is the most important priority in life. And IQ is no substitute for keeping those more honest values straight. Intelligence just can't substitute for honesty. No matter how we try to intellectualize ourselves out of that one.

And, in the end, the beauty of teaching Buffet is that the proof is in the pudding. I sure as hell would love to drink beer or a Coke with this guy. If you happen across this Warren, I'm buying.

Just love the honest conversation.

Toughing it out in Afghanistan

Most impressive thing I've ever seen Michael O'Hanlon write, frankly. And a very strong case for toughing it out in Afghanistan.

What's Right with Afghanistan

O'Hanlon, of the Brookings Institution, and Bruce Reidel, President Obama's advisor on Pakistan and Afghanistan make the case:

"However, it is important to remember our assets, and not just our liabilities, in the coming debate over Afghanistan policy this fall. Democracies sometimes talk themselves out of keeping up the faith in tough situations, and we should avoid any such tendency towards defeatism, especially so early in the execution of the Obama administration's new military/civilian/economic strategy, which combines stronger and more widespread counterinsurgency measures with increased nation-building efforts. Indeed, the U.S., our NATO allies, and the future Afghan government—be it another Hamid Karzai presidency, or a new administration—have a number of major strengths in this mission. Consider:• The Afghan people want success. There is frankly too much talk of Afghanistan as the graveyard of empires, as land of a xenophobic and backward people who will always resist efforts to enter the modern world. Afghans fought against the British in the 19th century and the Soviets in the 20th century because these imperialist powers were pursuing their own agendas. Today, Afghans consistently show a desire for progress, and their support for the Taliban hovers just above 6%, according to an ABC News/BBC/ARD poll taken in February; support is essentially zero among the non-Pashtun majority of the population.

• Afghans are still largely pro-American. As the war slipped away from us in recent years, U.S. favorability ratings fell too, winding up at about 30% last winter, according to polls conducted by the International Republican Institute (IRI). But the new Obama strategy, combined with at least some modest excitement about the presidential elections, has changed that. IRI polls this summer show that Afghans now give the U.S. (and NATO) favorability ratings of 60%. A similar percentage express optimism about their own future, despite all the challenges of current life.

• The Afghan Army is reasonably effective. It is too small, with roughly 90,000 total soldiers. But by most accounts, the Afghan Army is fighting well, and cooperating well with NATO forces. Gen. McChrystal's new approach to training Afghan troops will greatly strengthen and deepen this cooperation. Not only will NATO finally field enough personnel to embed with each Afghan unit in mentoring teams, but its combat units will partner with Afghans at every level on every major operation—living, planning, operating, and fighting with each other in one-to-one formal partnerships.

• Even the Afghan police show some hope. This force is too intertwined with drug dealers, underequipped, and overstressed by the hazards of combat, taking up to 100 or more fatalities a month. But it is willing to fight. As a member of an IRI observing team on election day, I was impressed with their professionalism. They did a passable job securing voting sites, and while there were many insurgent attacks that day, there were very few civilian casualties. Also the reform efforts promoted by the very able Interior Minister Hanif Atmar are showing signs of progress.

• The economy is better. Afghanistan remains poor, its economy remains dominated by opium, and the twin scourge of corruption and insecurity plagues efforts to revitalize the agricultural system. Despite all that, legal GDP has been growing up to 10% a year, health care reaches much larger segments of the population than before, and seven million children are in school (in contrast to a nationwide total of less than one million during Taliban rule). What's more, the Afghan people know these things, perhaps helping explain why they are guardedly optimistic about the future despite worsening security.

• The elections were not all bad. Whether President Karzai secures the 50% vote total needed to avoid an October runoff in the presidential race or not, the tainted election process has nonetheless had many impressive attributes. The campaign this summer was serious and focused largely on the issues. Although the state-run media favored Mr. Karzai, Afghanistan's flourishing private media provided balanced coverage, and millions watched or listened to presidential debates. Poll workers were well prepared and serious about their jobs on election day. Independent election groups are now carefully scrutinizing ballots and investigating claims of fraud, and I believe they will probably do their jobs well.

To be sure, our strategy is not perfect yet. Gen. McChrystal may not yet have the resources he needs to connect what counterinsurgency theorisists call "oil spots"—pockets of government control and stability—in the crucial south and east of the country with adequate numbers of NATO and Afghan forces. Economic donors do not yet coordinate their efforts adequately, or involve Afghan businesses sufficiently in the development effort. Pakistan's commitment to its own related fight has improved but remains tenuous. And we do not yet have a sufficiently sophisticated approach to improving law and order. We must still establish a network of courts that work with local and tribal justice systems.

These problems need to be corrected soon. Even then, it will take at least 12-18 months to see results. Our chief challenge in Afghanistan is building state institutions and that is an inherently slow process. But as we debate new changes to our strategy this fall, we would do well to remember all that is working in our favor in this crucial effort."

This way progress lies

One of the better pieces I've read at the Weekly Standard in a long time. A remarkably humane portrait of former D.C. Mayor Marion Barry from Weekly Standard columnist Matt Labash. One of the leading conservative publications brings some humanity to one of America's most notorious liberal political figures. Now that's something original.

A Rake's Progress

"When I ask a Barry staffer if her boss is spooked by the new attention, she says, 'No. He never gets spooked. We get spooked.' By the lights of longtime Barry aficionados, this latest doesn't rank very high on his scandal Richter Scale. A ward boss throwing sketchy patronage jobs to friends? It could make a Barry connoisseur very sleepy. Plus, some Barry-watchers think he might be losing a step. There wasn't even any cocaine involved.

Yet the scandal wasn't my reason for visiting hizzoner. Barry-bashing has been a near ubiquitous sport, and approaching him in order to find holes in his stories is about as sporting as taking candy from a quadriplegic preemie. Rather, I was curious to take his measure as a human being, which many forget he still is, despite the caricatures and self-parodies. For 73 years, over 40 of them in public life, Barry has kept rearing up like a plastic varmint in a Whac-a-Mole game. No matter how many times he's batted about the head with a mallet, he relentlessly reappears."

In an era obsessed with its own presumed capacity to prevent wrong-doing by withholding forgiveness and greater humanity, it is refreshing to note that some people still take the high road seriously. Even for members of the other team.

This way progress lies.

Those who think nice guys finish last are not paying very close attention

It's so funny to watch people dance around this question of power politics and force as a governing philosophy as if everything is working out just all hunky dory.

The next 100 years

Some people just can't quite get straight when the writing is on the wall.

Once we face the bullshit - most notably, for all the proponents of force as a governing philosophy and that raw power finally triumphs, that they were just wrong and that the writing is clear as day on the wall except for folks still confusing their excuses with something more honest - I think it will become clear that our future is one of devolved, decentralized power that frees up the energies of democratic citizens, inititally, and the citizens of illiberal societies, over time, to do what they do best.

To use their freedom to make the world better in a million ways never predicted by anyone, especially, with all due respect, the likes of Mr. George Friedman, here.

Those who think nice guys finish last are not paying very close attention. Sometimes we just so full of shit we can't even see past our own stink.

Liberal democracies are the strongest nations in the world for a reason, when we're not being dumbasses about it. Because they're liberal, obviously. When we're not suckin' on our thumbs out of cowardice and self-pity and whatever else passes for real strength, these days. And we are free to do that, as well. Until we figure out what a road to nowhere that is.

And that's what's great about liberal societies. We can choose whatever we want. And live with the consequences. Until we choose something different, that is.

We are a species of lovable dipshits, sometimes, I think. Forgivable dipshits, to be sure. Because what else you gonna do with us. After laughing at us falling on our asses yet one more time, that is.

Facing the bullshit

I really do think America's debates have gotten about this stupid and senseless.


Is Using A Minotaur To Gore Detainees A Form Of Torture?

Our political discussions make almost absolutely no sense, at all, anymore, these days. America has become a pale, sad, pitiful version of her former self. With everyone tripping over themselves proclaiming how small and unworthy we should be.

All in the name of progress, I suppose.

It's kind of a pathetic point in what has become a somewhat bizarre story of cowardice and self-pity masquerading as something less humiliatingly sad and weak than it is.

And the real question we need to ask ourselves is at what point are going to face the bullshit?

Because this is fucking embarrassing, at this point.

One of those days

After a rough day like today, I need a reminder that this job is worth it.

My favorite teacher film by far. And some solace that teachers have been dealing with shitheads since time immemorial. And, through it all, most of 'em turn out to be decent people. Even as we all still have a long way to go.



Some days we all need to be reminded of our better angels.

When progressives block progress (or why progress often and generally happens despite those in power)

The Washington Post has excellent advice for the President around one of his more regressive policies, to this point: his decision to end the District of Columbia's program to provide school vouchers to Washington D.C.'s students.

Beach Reading for Mr. Obama: Useful literature on school vouchers

"President Obama reportedly has a hefty reading list while vacationing this week, but we would like to offer two additions, both hot off the presses. One is an article by the education expert who studied the D.C. voucher program; the second is a study on school safety in the city's public and private schools. Read together, they might cause the president to rethink his administration's wrong-headed decision to shut down the voucher program to new students.

He should start with Patrick J. Wolf's article in the new issue of Education Next. Mr. Wolf, a professor of education reform at the University of Arkansas, is the principal investigator of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which allows low-income children to attend private schools. He was unequivocal in his findings: "The D.C. voucher program has proven to be the most effective education policy evaluated by the federal government's official education research arm so far." Equally adamant was his opinion that vouchers paid off for the students lucky enough to win them: "On average, participating low-income students are performing better in reading because the federal government decided to launch an experimental school choice program in our nation's capital.

Mr. Obama, along with Education Secretary Arne Duncan, has repeatedly promised to support "what works," so we figure he should be interested in Mr. Wolf's findings. Also instructive is a new report by the Heritage Foundation, in conjunction with the Lexington Institute, on violence and criminal activity in D.C. schools. The report pays particular attention to the plight of the 216 students who had planned to attend private school before the administration rescinded their scholarship offers while Congress debates the future of the program. The study looks at the 70 public schools to which these students have now been assigned and finds there were 2,379 crime-related incidents, including 666 violent incidents (one of which was a homicide), for the 2007-08 school year. No wonder many parents cite school safety when explaining why they want choice in where their child goes to school...

...As we've said before, vouchers aren't the answer to Washington's school troubles; we enthusiastically support public school reform and quality charter schools, too. But vouchers are an answer for some children whose options otherwise are bleak. In Washington, they also are part of a carefully designed social-science experiment that may provide useful evidence for all schools on helping low-income children learn. Why would a Democratic administration and Congress want to cut such an experiment short?"

Progress is not blocking efforts which offer people more freedom to make better choices for their lives. That is called power. It is not at all the same thing. In fact, for most of human history, they have often been at odds, as they clearly are in this case.

Condescending people by making choices for them is not progress. Progress is when people have the freedom to make choices, good and bad, to learn how to make better choices for their own lives and to benefit from their own learning, not to be pitied and patronized by others.

Since making those opportunities available to children, especially to lower-income children, was my original purpose in becoming a teacher, I will be a little harder to fool about what constitutes progress just because someone says so.

Let's hope that's true for the rest of the country and the liberal democratic world.

Rest in peace, Teddy

The kids and I watched the news of Teddy Kennedy's death, today. And I showed them the speech that Teddy made in his lifetime that most moved me. It was his eulogy for his brother, Bobby Kennedy, and one of the my most profound political heroes. It is one of the more beautiful speeches that all the Kennedy brothers came to be known for. And with Teddy's passing is also the passing of a generation of high-minded purpose in politics that the Kennedy family embodied.



I grew up a liberal, very much appreciating the passion and commitment of Teddy Kennedy and his brothers to higher aims of humanity. I am independent, today, more concerned about finding better and more honest means to those aims than at odds with the aims themselves. And speeches like this one represent Teddy as his best. And the best kinds of commitments of the liberalism that he committed himself to.

Governance and people are at their best when they are committed to these more high-minded purposes, liberal and conservative. Our debates and discussions, at their best, are ones of many committed and good people trying to figure out what ideas might offer us a better future.

Teddy Kennedy was one of such person and one that I have admired, even when I have, often, disagreed with him. And his failings inspired my humanity rather than my baser, pettier impulses. And it is that kind of humanity that should guide us, today, and not our base, petty impulses masquerading as something better.

We have had quite enough of the latter in the last 10 years and really over the entirety of human history. May we all be inspired by Teddy's words and deeds to be something better.

Honesty pays

This is why I teach him to my kids.



So they know. Honesty pays. Integrity is an important corollary. And, as Warren would tell you, nice guys finish first. And doesn't hurt to know what the hell you're doin'. Honesty, integrity, thoughtfulness, and compassion pay.

Take that to the bank.

The problem is us

And not just with the health care debate. With virtually all political discussions.

Health care debate based on lack of logic

"Heated partisan debate over President Obama's health care plan, erupting at town hall meetings and in the blogosphere, has more to do with our illogical thought processes than reality, sociologists are finding.

The problem: People on both sides of the political aisle often work backward from a firm conclusion to find supporting facts, rather than letting evidence inform their views.

The result: A survey out this week finds voters split strongly along party lines regarding their beliefs about key parts of the plan. Example: About 91 percent of Republicans think the proposal would increase wait times for surgeries and other health services, while only 37 percent of Democrats think so.

Irrational thinking

A totally rational person would lay out - and evaluate objectively - the pros and cons of a health care overhaul before choosing to support or oppose a plan. But we humans are not so rational, according to Steve Hoffman, a visiting professor of sociology at the University of Buffalo.

'People get deeply attached to their beliefs,' Hoffman said. 'We form emotional attachments that get wrapped up in our personal identity and sense of morality, irrespective of the facts of the matter.'

And to keep our sense of personal and social identity, Hoffman said, we tend to use a backward type of reasoning in order to justify such beliefs.

Similarly, past research by Dolores Albarracin, a psychology professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has shown in particular that people who are less confident in their beliefs are more reluctant than others to seek out opposing perspectives. So these people avoid counter evidence all together. The same could apply to the health care debate, Albarracin said.

'Even if you have free press, freedom of speech, it doesn't make people listen to all points of view,' she said.

Just about everybody is vulnerable to the phenomenon of holding onto our beliefs even in the face of iron-clad evidence to the contrary, Hoffman said. Why? Because it's hard to do otherwise. 'It's an amazing challenge to constantly break out the Nietzschean hammer and destroy your world view and belief system and evaluate others,' Hoffman said."

The truth is that most political discussions and debates are often seriously flawed and irrational and undermined by both this tendency of thought and, more importantly, our propensity to aggression in lieu of stronger thinking.

It is the heart of my work. And it is a tendency that once we and future generations recognize our failures, on this count, we will look back at such behavior as enormously foolish and counterproductive, very much as we look back at ancestors past engage in similar behavior, especially our most aggressive and least thoughtful and compassionate ancestors, and wonder why on earth we could create so much tragedy in the name of not a damn thing.

Much ado about nothing, as Shakespeare would say.

Or as he would say in Macbeth, and just as well could have said of the great bulk of humanity's more aggressive history "It is a tale...full of sound and fury signifying nothing."

And that is just as good a description as any of our current health care debate and so many our policy discussions that try to substitute aggression for reason, free will, and compassion, the three qualities that are more honestly resonsible for the long length of human progress. Often despite those in power, not because of them. Though that, too, is a complicated and useful tale to study.

Perhaps it is about time we all started studying and engaging it more honestly.

Wherefore happiness

A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval. - Mark Twain

And that is the end of that story.

The most serious mistake is never being wrong

As usual, these days, Paul Krugman is learning the wrong lesson.

All the President's Zombies

The lesson that Paul really needs to grapple with is, "Why is it that people seem to embrace Adam Smith's logic more than my own?"

And the answer is fairly straightforward.

Because Adam Smith was more on target.

And Paul, on this question and so many questions of the economy, is less on target. And though Americans may not understand that, completely, in the abstract, they do know what that means for their lives. Which is exactly why Smith believed that the free market allowed us to better account for both our successes, and, as we are facing this recession, our failures as well. Because, as Smith argued wisely, I believe, fundamentally, the people closest to their own economic choices are the ones in the best position to know what choices will or will not benefit their financial situations and their lives.

Not always, obviously. Noone, not even the great Paul Krugman, can possibly be right all the time (in fact, the truth is that I trust Paul less, frankly, in this respect, to get questions right, more often, than, say, Warren Buffet or others, because he lacks the humility to acknowledge when he is or might be wrong that stronger thinkers and actors must have to be stronger thinkers and actors).

But, over the long haul, the free market offers people better opportunities to learn better choices, even and especially from their mistakes, in a way that govermment power and regulation will never, ever be able to achieve, no matter the hubris of those clamoring for that power. Because it assumes that actors are in a position to know so unmistakably that they can impose their thinking, good and bad, and frequently bad, on a population more generally, even when it does great harm. And almost never do they admit that they were wrong.

At heart, that is what separates Paul from stronger thinkers. He just isn't willing to ever consider that he is wrong.

And how on earth could anyone ever become a stronger in their thinking if they are constantly defending how they are right without consideration of when and where they are or might be wrong? That kind of hubris belongs to many lesser thinkers. Which are exactly the sorts of folks who tend to run for office. But the most important insights come from those who seek to understand what they did not understand before. Which cannot happen when we are only looking to confirm our own thinking rather than considering ways it might be disconfirmed.

Disconfirmation is the heart of scientific and empirical knowledge. There is no science when everything is right. And, yet, not everything is right, no matter how loudly or consistently one argues it. There really are things that are and things that are not in the world. And, as a consequence, all of us, no matter how smart we are, are wrong, often. Probably more often than we are right, frankly. And the problem with politics, in the bigger picture, is that almost noone ever thinks they can be wrong. Which is a sure sign they are, for anyone who knows the difference.

The truth is that greater freedom, in general, and free markets among those freedoms, is exactly what has been the truest sign of progress in both liberal societies and illiberal societies, which is why we call them liberal societies. Because their liberty has made possible their progress. To say that less freedom makes for progress in a liberal society is very much like saying greater illiteracy makes for progress in a literate society. It is logically inconsistent and demonstrably wrong. Except when people are trying to defend their mistakes. Which is exactly why Paul cannot see his error, here. But his error exists quite apart from his judgment of his error. Nobel prize and all.

The historical legacy of 20th century progressive ideology is a complicated and mixed legacy of commitments to good purpose and freedoms that have improved the lives of many people, compromises that have improved lives temporarily, even when they are poor policies for the longer term, and, as with conservativism and most ideologies of power, a darker and more arrogant legacy of manipulation, bullying, distortion and dishonesty that can only honestly be called abuse of power.

Lord Acton was right. Power corrupts. No matter the ideology. And the reason it corrupts, as the context of that statement demonstrates - Acton was criticizing Pope Pius IX for his doctrine of "papal infallibility" - is because people who are afraid to admit their failures, in their use of power distort, and manipulate, like anyone else, to avoid acknowledging them, generally, for the same reason, which is to avoid consequences or the harsh or hurtful treatment of others. Except they do so with the power of coercion or other means of manipulation - say, controlling both Houses of Congress and the Executive Branch or the prestige of a Nobel Prize - over and with others to maintain the dishonesty.

It's ugly, this game. This game with high stakes where noone ever acknowledges responsibility or that they are wrong. And where doing so is equated with weakness to cover for the cowardice that defends it. Hitler told that same lie - that admitting mistakes or vulnerabilities was weakness and that tough and aggressive policies were strength - his entire career. And he, like its proponents today, lost that gamble. He lost the war and, ultimately, his life. He lost everything by the end. No matter how aggressive he became.

It is a game played by power players since the beginning of time. It was why Hitler argued in quite serious and extensive terms why he would never admit if he was wrong. And it was the rationalization that propped up Soviet and other forms of Communism for so many years. And it is the basis for despotism, terrorists, and other power-consumed players on today's stage, as well. And always has been.

And illiberal folks in liberal democracies have gambled that they can engage in the same distortions in a free society and be successful.

And they are losing. In spades. Left and right. And it serves them right.

And that is the lesson that Paul Krugman is missing, right now. Because he is too invested in defending the mistakes of his ideology and ideological brethren. Even when doing so serves neither him nor any of us.

It is a foolish, foolish game that we play with ideology. And worst of all, it is all for naught.

Because the notion that any ideology or group or even any individual could ever have all the right answers on all of our most important questions is not just wrong, it is a logical and empirical impossibility. It is a fantasy with not one cintilla of historical or empirical evidence to support it. And the aggression involved with seeking and defending power in this discussion undermines a more honest, empirical discussion of what policies do and do not attain the goals we seek and do and do not serve us. It takes a serious discussion of a reality that clearly exists quite apart of our opinions of it and turns it into a spectator sport based on nothing more than defending a team whose premises are half-true, at best. And probably less, given how much more there is to know about the world than what any partisan or even any nonpartisan could ever know in a lifetime. And sometimes, in the case of Nazis and Communists, it is a high-stakes and terribly tragic game premised almost wholly on lies and the pursuit of power at all costs.

Warren Buffet is wrong about much, he would readily acknowledge. But the reason I trust him, more, is because he knows and admits that, readily, and does not pretend to have answers he does not (or at least he makes a better attempt to avoid doing so).

Buffet is in good faith.

Paul Krugman is not. Which is why I trust him so little. Because he has earned my mistrust. Because his dishonesty and manipulation are embedded in his ideological outlook. And are the reason why Paul cannot see his mistake here. Because Paul will, likely, never - save for some serious rethinking - acknowledge any serious mistakes of any kind in an ideology that he accepts without any critical consideration.

Warren is more honest. Paul is not.

And that, like much of what Paul writes these days, is why Paul cannot see his mistake no matter how clearly the writing on the wall is.

It's not personal. It's just a mistake. But, in Paul's case, it's a very serious mistake borne of a stubborn refusal to ever admit error.

And no matter how smart someone aspires to be, that, really, is the most important mistake that one can make in a lifetime.

Fumbling forward despite ourselves

Despite some hyperbole, this psychiatrist actually talks a lot of sense. It would be nice if we could have a conversation where everyone was talking more sense.



Maybe we're not capable of mature discussion. Maybe sanctimony is all we can ever expect of ourselves. Maybe all politics will ever be is a spectator sport with tragic stakes.

If so, does it really matter what happens on this debate or any debate?

Because, really, what it means is that we gave up on what really matters long before we got what we wanted. And what a sad, unworthy example we set for anyone we would have the hubris to thus compel their will.

What a sad little species we are, much of the time. What a small and petty thing we thus aspire to be.

May we at least fumble forward.

American liberalism in retreat

Leave it to the world's most liberal periodical to critique some of our most illiberal practices.

Illiberal politics: America's unjust sex laws

Sex laws: Unjust and ineffective

The fear that launched Hitler's career was that Germany had grown too soft, too weak, too liberal. It was a criticism from both the Left and the Right. Nazis rule was the result. We might reconsider our direction, at this point.

So hot up in here, can't see the light

It is dumb, in the extreme, to persistently turn up the heat and then wonder why it's so hot up in this place.

Man carrying assault weapon attends Obama protest

And the dumbest part of all?

Not a single bit of this heat sheds light on a goddamn thing.

The left will blame the right. The right will blame the left. And, as usual, noone will take responsibility. All in the name of forcing people to do so.

Helluva brilliant species we've become, isn't it? God's favorite. So they say.

Perhaps he has some ideas on how we might learn to use the brains he gave us a bit more effectively.

I have a suggestion. Perhaps we might talk and think. With just a touch more humility. And, perhaps, genuinely listen. Rather than continue on our stupid route to nowhere.

Perhaps we're not bright enough to see the dead end. Not a problem. Because seeing it is the only real way forward.

Sometimes we just have to fuck up long enough to finally come square about our failures.

If we ever really want to succeed, at anything, that is.

The Many Faces of Bitches Ain't Shit

I might like this version better. Something about an all-girl version that's just kinda sexy, really.



And the original Ben Folds Five cover.



And the sexiest sign language interpretation I have ever seen in my life.



Note to those who are offended: the fact that you are offended is what makes it so goddamn funny. The more offended you get, the more fun you make it for the rest of us. So sorry if that makes you wet your panties, bitches.

Put down the hammer

The President and liberals in Washington ignore this message at their own risk, at this point. If they do, expect to lose that next election. And deservedly.

Mr. Obama, Put Down the Hammer

Wielding power against the will of democratic citizens is not progress. It never will be. No matter how much progressives and conservatives, alike, bullshit themselves and the rest of us on this point.

And the great thing about a democracy, is that when you try, we can always go find someone else.

Been that kinda day

Why did I choose a field with so many leftists, I have to wonder? I used to feel a part of them. Now I'm just sick of being bullied by them. And now they can all eat a dick.

That's a real conversation for your ass.

America's health care discussion and ordinary people

This was my first glimpse, believe it or not, today, of the ruckus at the nation's town hall discussions of health care policy (I barely watch television, at all, these days, except when others are watching).



As I watched this video, I thought a lot of the John Legend song I fell in love with this summer.



I highly recommend you watch the all white and black official video to see the human interactions John is singing about in this song.

I think this is a really hard thing for most people to come to terms with.

We are not gods. None of us. We aren't omniscient. We don't have all the right understanding. We don't have all the right positions. We aren't on the right side all of the time.

We're just ordinary people. Trying to sort out the hard stuff.

But, for whatever reasons, like all ordinary people, we get angry and frustrated and impatient with one another and with discussions of the things that matter most to all of us in life.

And we lose our patience, almost always, in my experience, myself included, at just the moment when we need, most, to open our hearts and minds and just listen to one another.

We all would be better for that, I think. Just listening.

I say that as someone who spent 7 years talking as a primary commitment. But if all that time in speech and debate competition has taught me anything, at the end of all of it, it is that I always have much more to learn than I have already figured out, at any particular moment.

And most of the more profound learning I've done in my life has happened when I'm listening rather than when I'm talking.

We have a lot of Americans and people in the world, generally, who would be better off listening to one another more and demonizing each other less. Power is often the culprit. Forcing others' hands only enflames our differences, it doesn't resolve them. And most of those differences have honest grounding in reality. When we are honest enough to sit down with all of them. The clamor for power certainly makes the discussion harder rather than easier. It blinds us with aggression and defense, and anger and frustration with one another, rather than resolving much of anything, for real. That's why I'm so committed to people learning to deal with one another more honestly and maturely, as a matter of course, rather than romanticizing that if we just had enough power we could force everyone to see things or do things our way. It is that impulse that has undone us since the beginning of time, whether we acknowledge that or not. And it is that impulse that is undoing this discussion and debate, today.

Watching these town hall meetings, I am reminded why I so appreciate honest, thoughtful, civil discussion - with, perhaps, more room to talk more honestly and be ourselves a little more; though it would be nice if we could learn to do that in a way that was genuinely respectful with one another.

As boring as my kids and most people seem to find such discussion, the truth is that it is where our more thoughtful and responsible ideas and engagement are likely to come.

These last 10 years have been one long romantic fantasy that with enough power and enough leverage to circumvent such discussion and thought, only then will our problems be forced out of existence.

It is the same fantasy that animated Nazi Germany. The same one that animated Soviet Russia. It is the same fantasy that animates Kim Jong Il's North Korean regime. It is the same one that animates Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's less-that-genuinely-democratic regime in Iran. And the same one that animates all illiberal regimes, from Cuba and China to Zimbabwe and Myanmar.

That fantasy - that enough power will finally rid ourselves of our woes and usher in a new era of right-minded people to finally solve our problems - is the fantasy that has riddled humanity since its origination, nevertheless since the beginning of civilization.

It is strange and ironic, as the kids and I study early hominid evolution, that the very kind of compassion, thoughtfulness, and intelligence that were clearly responsible for the great leaps in evolution for homo erectus and early hominids to learn to cooperate with one another to accomplish shared goals are persistently denigrated in favor of the fantasy that it is our aggression, our basest predatory impulse, that is responsible for our progress and will produce solutions we seek.

It is ironic because it very clearly has been our steps beyond that more aggressive, predatory legacy and toward more a compassionate, thoughtful future that so enabled all of our most serious and significant progress as a species and as cultural groupings within that species.

We fail to see it because we do not like to admit our failings. Largely out of our fear and insecurity that those failings mean more about us than they do really.

When, really, our failures are just part of the learning that makes our more honest and genuine progress possible. It is our learning, obviously to any honest observer, and not our aggression that has persistently signalled our most certain progress. Aggression is now and will always be a part of our nature and a needed response, with thougtful consideration of its use and more patient reflection on our responses, in times of danger. But, generally, even in this realm, in our use of aggression, it is still our more thoughtful reflections on its wise use that best guide our efforts.

I haven't learned this as some wise sage with the purity of distance. I've learned this is a flawed actor in a world of people who has far too often made mistakes with this instinct to aggression. It is my mistakes and my failures, the school of hard knocks, that have taught me as much as my education or my more abstract reflections.

But it is that reflection that guides me in a better direction. In a direction of more genuine progress.

And it is that kind of calm, serious, honest reflection and engagement that should animate this discussion and all serious policy choices that we face.

If we are going to make wiser decisions that is.

Our question is will we take a path of greater wisdom or will we take a path of fantasy and aggressive instinct?

It's not looking well for us, right now. But, then again, it never does. Until we follow a more honest wisdom.

Progress is not determined by every choice we make moving forward. That is the path of hubris. Progress is the lessons learned from the failed logic of past choices. But before we make progress, we have to learn the lessons.

And we can't do that on health care or any other issue without a more honest, cool-headed, open-minded, open-hearted democratic discussion.

Until then, we fumble. Sometimes forward. Often backwards.

As John says, "We're just ordinary people. We don't know which way to go. We're just ordinary people. Maybe we should take it slow."

Progressives are about to learn a really valuable, if unexpected, history lesson in what actually constitutes progress, I think. We all are, probably.

Lots of lessons to learn. Much time will be needed to learn them. Maybe we should take the time to learn them rather than try to substitute hubris for learning.

Because if there is one lesson history teaches without fail, it is that hubris never substitutes for learning. No matter how determinedly we try to avoid all that learning.

What courage looks like

For those who still confuse the posing and posturing in politics with courage, this is a reminder of what it really looks like.

France Mourns the Death of Its "Mother Courage"

"Few people would have pegged Marie-Laure Picat as a likely heroine. The portly, plain-looking 37-year-old lived quietly in a village in central France, shunned attention, and said her only real quirk was an adoration of the cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants. But on Aug. 10, when it was revealed that Picat had died the previous day, most of France spared a thought - and shed a tear - for the mother who spent what she knew would be the last year of her life fighting to guarantee that her four children would remain together once she had gone.

'After Astonishing France, Marie-Laure Dies Of Cancer,' read the headline of daily le Parisien's story about Picat's Aug. 9 passing. "The Death of Mother Courage,' echoed France Soir. 'Marie-Laure Picat: The End Of a Battle,' observed the website agoravox.fr. (See pictures of cancer survivors' inspirational stories.)

But while Picat's death marked her lost fight with cancer, it also signaled the end of her victorious war to ensure her children would grow up together as a family after she died. After learning that the liver cancer doctors had detected in July 2008 had become incurable, and knowing that her husband, from whom she was divorced, was unable to care for their children, Picat immediately began the search for a foster family. At first, her quest was seemingly impossible: to find a family with a home close to hers, in her Loiret village of Puiseaux, that would welcome all four of her kids as its own.

'When I found out I was terminal, I knew there was one thing I had to do: protect my children,' Picat said in a March interview with TV channel TF1. 'I needed to be sure they'd be able to live normally.'

Incredibly, Picat found the right family less than a kilometer from her house. However, authorities told her that the final choice of who took care of her children wasn't hers - French social services would have to handle their placement. They also noted even if social workers approved the foster home Picat selected, it could only take in three children maximum, meaning one of her children would have to live somewhere else. (Read: 'Why American Cancer Deaths are Rising.')

So Picat decided to do something she later admitted bothered her: she took her story to the media. The press descended in droves upon the tiny village and, before long, news of Picat's struggle had made her a national heroine.

Within three weeks of Picat going public in December, French authorities granted a waiver allowing all four of her children to live under the same roof with the family she'd chosen for them. President Nicolas Sarkozy hosted Picat and her kids - Julie, 12; Thibault, 9; Matthieu 5; and Margot, 3 - at the ElysÉe. The family was invited to Disneyland Paris for Christmas - a longtime dream that had been put on hold due to lack of funds. (See pictures of Sarkozy celebrating Bastille Day.)"

The most powerful courage is having the kind of love that makes one willing to challenge power when it asserts its will without regard to your own self-determined course, not when you exercise your will over others or cower before its use. The latter is called aggression. And cowardice. It is its opposite.

We are just too cowardly, is the truth, to face that fact.

And we are cowardly because we lack the kind of love, for ourselves, for our children, for others, that a woman like Marie-Laure Picat clearly had.

If we are looking for a truer north for what progress looks like, this is the direction to look.

Health care and liberalism

A thoughtful, if still too market-unfriendly discussion in the Wall Street Journal, today.

Health debate isn't about health

But this is encouraging:

"The real point is that there are ways out of this box. One would be to make a public-insurance plan merely a fallback, to be exercised only if private insurers aren't offering enough options in all markets. The other would be to take the suggestion of Senate moderates and replace the public option with nonprofit insurance cooperatives as an alternative that doesn't require the government to be directly in the business. In an environment less charged with arguments about government's proper role in the economy, both might be easier for each side to accept."

That second proposal would be a way forward that is much more genuinely consistent with liberal values. Ironic that "liberals" would likely make the biggest stink about such a proposal. But most of those folks aren't really all that liberal, when it comes down to it, except as a means of getting whatever what they want when they want it. Meaning, not very liberal at all.

The more liberal path takes liberal values - meaning liberty - seriously. It takes seriously a free market, a free democracy, and the need for voluntary commitments from citizens rather than solutions imposed as a matter of government fiat.

The more liberal path recognizes that power that is used to try to manipulate the consciences and actions of citizens will never even come close to the genuine and voluntary commitments of liberal democratic citizens. There's a reason Stalin and Hitler lost. And it wasn't the porn staches.

It is those sincere and voluntary commitments that make liberal democracies more genuinely strong. And it is where we force otherwise as a function of our lack of faith in ourselves and one another where we are weak.

The failure of humanity to recognize this distinction and to romanticize and defend the weakness and cowardice in aggression as a means of bullying others to get our way is responsible for most of the serious avoidable tragedy that human beings have inflicted on one another. It is one of the most serious and persistent mistakes in human history. Tragically, it was responsible for more death and destruction in the 20th century, in terms of total number of people killed, than perhaps any other century in human history. And it was the vindication of its more liberal alternatives that looked to be the surest lesson from that century.

Until liberal peoples decided that they could no longer bear their liberality any more.

Why I love Twain, or evidence that we learn slowly if at all

Force as a governing philosophy, or stoning our problems to death

Just happened upon this article while researching something for class.

The moment a teenage girl was stoned to death for loving the wrong boy

Here's a more honest visual take on our governing fetish of choice, as of late.


See, this is how you use force. If we want health care, climate change, nuclear proliferation, child sexual abuse, or any of a number of issues resolved, this is the way to get it done. We're just a bunch of pussies, is the truth.

Or so the campfire talk among Al Queda operatives goes.

We need to decide.

Are we liberal because it makes us stronger? Or are we liberal because we're too big of pussies to be illiberal and finally stone all our problems to death?

Because if this is the way to get it done, we better go about getting it done and overwith and stop sucking our momma's teets.

Me, personally. I'm pretty clear this kind of thing is the coward's way out. And from its logic, most abuse of power follows. And that every one of those abuses of power are the consequence of our cowardice, not our courage.

Courage challenges this kind of logic.

Cowards let a girl like this girl die because they are too afraid to look at themselves and their use of aggression and its consequences and inhumanity honestly.

Because that's what cowards do. They bully their way through issues that they have no patience for thnking more seriously about and no compassion for someone other than themselves.

Our choice, fundamentally, is between courage and cowardice.

May we choose courage one day.

Why I like Obama

If I had to sum it up in one sentence, this would be it.

Gates says it's time to 'move on' from his arrest

"After a phone call from President Barack Obama urging calm in the aftermath of his arrest last week, Gates said he would accept Obama's invitation to the White House for a beer with him and Cambridge police Sgt. James Crowley."

That is what I want in a President. Someone who can chill out a situation and discuss it more maturely over a beer. President Bush had so much promise in this vein. I'd still love to have a beer with our last Commander in Chief, honestly. But President Obama delivers on this commitment better, is the truth. And I really like it about him.

Most of our conflicts in America and in the free-and-not-so-free world need to be resolved like this, really. Far too much heat and way too little light in our discussions, these days. And no amount of rise in temperature will please the assholes who capitalize on and manipulate the heat index because they have so little light to offer. No use in caving to such shitheads. Left, right, or any variation on dick that occupies the political world.

I don't like Obama because I agree with him on everything. I don't agree with anyone about everything. Who does? Nevertheless with any President or Presidential candidate.

What I like about Obama is that he seems like the kind of guy I could sit down and have a beer with and bullshit a little bit about how we saw the world and hopefully learn something from one another.

That's what I want from a leader of any kind. I want someone I can talk with who will listen and who has a substantial amount of wisdom to offer himself. And, in the end, more humility than wisdom. Because noone, no matter how wise, has all the answers. And that is the most important bit of wisdom in the world, as far as I'm concerned, at least.

Love to pick Barack's brain about that.

Geopolitics

What a nice sum-up of geopolitics, generally, sadly.

Didactic Empire

"You get the sense here that geopolitics is a very elaborate episode of Jon and Kate Plus 8 in which one lucky nation will get mommy’s undivided attention for a few minutes, briefly quenching some long-held craving for parental affection. That a U.S. Secretary of State can be deaf to how ignorantly hubristic this kind of thing sounds would be surprising if chauvinistic rhetoric weren’t part of the job description."

Perhaps we can take a more mature route.

My favorite liberal

This is why he is my favorite columnist.

1959: A Year of Slipping the Leash

Because he remembers from whence we come. And because he is committed to liberal values like no other. Not even a close contender from those who call themselves by that name.

Nice to know that some people remember why freedom matters.

Power and progress

You know what the best thing about being a much more thoughtful, non-partisan, independent thinker, these days?

AP-GfK Poll: Great hopes for Obama fade to reality

Polls like these strengthen my faith in the American people rather than weaken it. Because I'm not trying to defend anyone, any party, or any agenda, anymore. It's amazing how stepping out of the game will improve your perspective, by my lights.

The fact is that I think the American people were right when they thought that America under George Bush was moving in the wrong direction, on balance, particularly in national and international security affairs post-9/11. And I think the American people are right, today, that America under Barack Obama is moving in the wrong direction, on balance, particularly in economic affairs.

How can that be?

Because the conventional wisdom in Beltway circles that Republicans are strongest on national security and Democrats are strongest on economic matters is exactly backwards, I think. And the reason they are backwards, I believe, is because it is in those areas where both parties romanticize power most is exactly where they are more prone and generally do abuse power most seriously.

And this is a period like none that I've witnessed, personally - though there have been many, many much worse periods in the past, tragically - where power has been romanticized and abused by both parties. Meaning, until either or both parties choose to stop romanticizing and abusing power, the instincts by most Americans that each party is taking us in bad directions is dead-on correct.

Many Americans may not know why. And they may not know what will make things better.

But they know when things are bad. And they know when to call bullshit on partisans when they claim that they, of course and always, have nothing to do with any negative consequences, whatsoever.

It's amazing what superheroes in both parties are responsible for only good things in the world and yet all the bad things that we have experienced and will keep experiencing, isn't it?

Actually, it's not so amazing. What it is is a function of a hypercompetitive, hyperaggressive, all-too-dishonest process that makes it more difficult for partisans, independent observers, and average Americans alike to understand the world, sort through our mistakes, develop better ideas and solutions.

That will change, if I have anything to say about it. And I will. Plenty. If you doubt that, ask my friends when the last time was that they ever got me to shut up.

And, in the meantime, what I'm really digging about the American people, right now, is their ability to call bullshit.

Now what we need is the ability to call bullshit translated into stronger understandings of people and policy that address our problems more honestly and responsibly.

We make progress. In baby steps. And generally despite our most powerful, not because of them.