Tragedy of our common cowardice

David Sirota is largely wrong in this piece that gets the big picture right.

Journalism is definitely a serious mess, these days.

Journalism today: A haven for parasites and double-dealers

What David is wrong about is the reason. Journalism's not in sorry shape because of the evil journalists in cahouts with big industry opposing the noble progressive agenda, as this old, tired, and self-centered line of reasoning supposes.

Journalism is in trouble because of people like David.

Not progressives. Though they certainly have done more than their share to make journalism a mess. Not conservatives. Though they have created enough of the ugly milleu that the media has become. Not moderates. Though most moderates have been either playing cynical games or been too cowardly to challenge the cynical games being played.

The reason most people that I talk with don't trust the press is the same reason I trust the press so little, these days.

Because they're assholes. They are a mass gathering of vultures and cynics looking to shit on anything decent and mishandle anything serious they can get their hands on. Because it's never dawned on them that maybe being assholes has helped create most of the more intractable messes they've been covering.

Why? Because assholes, as a rule, do not take responsibility. Ever. Not until they stop being assholes, that is. At which point, they're no longer part of the problem. But which problem remains while they are. Which is the ugly and destructive self-fulfilling prophecy of the press, politics, and most serious issues that we just can't seem to get a handle on that face us, today.

As a good friend of mine was just saying, it's Network in real time. It's press cynicism feeding a cynical political, financial, and broader culture. Taken to it's logical conclusion with the exercise of formal political power, it is the ugly tragedy that is most illiberal cultures, like North Korea, Cuba, China, Zimbabwe, Myanmar, Syria, and Iran. And the larger logic is what drove Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union to their unimaginable depths.

And what all of those folks have in common is that none of them will take responsibility for it. Because there's too many other people to blame for their bullshit.

And no matter how much they fail and how much advocacy for more aggression to solve every problem backfires in every variation of foolish, obvious ways, they just keep at it.

Because to do otherwise would take courage that none of them seem to have.

To admit that this path of aggression and pressure to resolve our most serious problems was just a foolish, mistaken, counterproductive path.

It's ego trumping something more honest. And decent. And more genuinely liberal. And what they know is the better direction, deep in their tiny little hearts.

And you know what the saving grace for humanity is?

There's no way to get things turned around until we face up. Period. Everything else is one long lie to avoid facing the failure.

Doubt that? Then live with the failure.

Most of these assholes seemed pleased as punch to do so.

Perhaps that's all we will ever do.

Until we get honest, that is.

Nuff said

Jim Nantz is a whining little bitch.

Jim Nantz criticizes Tiger Woods' vocal tantrums

As for my kids.

I wouldn't want them to grow up to be whining little bitches.

Nuff said.

The stakes in this debate

Think hard about whether this is the direction that you want for civilization.

Irish Blasphemy Law: Authors, Writers, Fear Censorship

Because this is what is at stake in this debate about governance and who we are.

I'll take freedom for 500, Alex.

God love us, despite ourselves

I have many thoughts to share on this case and too little time to do it, tonight.

Richard Dawkins: Arrest Pope During UK Visit

All I'm going to say, for tonight, is that there are many tragic mistakes that have been made in this terribly tragic period of history in the Catholic Church. The Church, I will acknowledge, that my broader family has called home for all of my life.

But outside of leaving any child in the care of someone who will so seriously abuse their trust and love, I cannot think of a more tragic outcome to this sorry mess of human frailty than the imprisonment of this all-too-human and very decent man.

I can only hope that we will wake up from this sad frenzy of vengeance that has taken hold of us.

God love us, as always, despite ourselves.

Yeah, me too

My official favorite Katy Perry song.



I could listen to this song all day, by the way. In fact, it's exactly what I'm doing, at this very moment.

Go ahead. Try not to do it. I dare you.

Do realize how much easier homework is with this girl crooning by my side?

Ready to be that man.

The road to progress

It's hard to believe that we still have to argue that peace in the Middle East is in the interests of all parties involved. But Zibigniew Brzezinski and Stephen Solarz do a nice job of just that.

To achieve Middle East peace, Obama must make a bold Mideast trip

The outlines for a peace agreement these guys make look fine. Except for the one big hitch that has always stalled these agreements.

The details are not for Americans to work out. They are for Palestinians and Israelis to work out. And until they are, everything else is doomed to failure.

We can make our suggestions. But, they, ultimately, must make the commitments that make peace workable.

And the truth is that the hold up is not the Devil that is in the details. The hold up is each side committing themselves, for real, to an honest peace agreement for the long haul. Everything else is excuses. And the bitterness of their long and tragic past undermining a peaceful future.

And this proposal by these authors demonstrates better than most I've heard during this period the folly of the prevailing political winds.

"Accordingly, the administration must convey to the parties that if the offer is rejected by either or both, the United States will seek the U.N. Security Council's endorsement of this framework for peace, thus generating worldwide pressure on the recalcitrant party."

If America were to follow this suggestion, any peace commitment would almost certainly fall apart utterly. Though noone should root for that outcome, obviously. But noone should have any doubts about that.

If there is any region in the world where it is clear that the legacy of military and political force, pressure, and manipulation has failed the larger interests of everyone involved in a peace that allows both peoples to grow and develop to their fullest potential, this is the region.

Hamas, Islamic Jihad, former P.L.O. members, and the Israeli government can point to a hundred pyrrhic victories over the years that supposedly justified the use of various forms of military and political manipulation to force short term concessions.

And every single one of those victories ignores the very clear and long term cost that each of them has incurred:

The absence of peace. And the lack of trust between Israelis and Palestinians to build a peaceful, secure, and prosperous future that does not continue to sacrafice the lives of innocent Palestinians and Israelis for the acquisition of land and political concessions.

If the President were to follow the advice outlined in this article, he would further add fuel to the very rationalization that has maintained this bloody relationship and undermined peace for almost a hundred years between these peoples.

Because the logic of political pressure is exactly the rationale used by Palestinian terrorists and those Israelis who have favored killing every peace agreement that has ever been and using peace discussions as a calculation in broader power politics.

It is an ugly logic that has won them concessions many times.

At the expense of thousands of innocent and not-so-innocent Palestinian and Israeli lives.

As long as we continue down this path, we give ammunition to the same ugly rationalizations of terrorists and despots the world over.

And nowhere has is this game being played with uglier, bloodier, more openly cynical calculations than in Israel and Palestine.

We can pretend that our cynicism has no consequences. But thousands of dead Palestinian and Israeli citizens would beg to differ. Millions more citizens living in repressive societies with governments and poltical players who rationalize in similar cynical ways bear the burden of our self-centered rationalizations.

And if we want that to end, we need to end the games and the political manipulation.

There is no other road to any real progress.

Trust

It's so crazy.

The more I watch national and international media, political leaders, academics, activists, and all the rest, this political period.

The less I trust any of them.

The more I watch people, the more dissappointed I become that so many of this foolish little species have such a hard time ever just admitting that they just don't know what to do about even the biggest problems that we face. And that, maybe, genuinely listening to one another might, consequently, be in order. If we actually want others to take seriously our concerns.

To hear all the confident assertions, you would think that more of the folks with opinions about politics actually know more than they do.

Except when you hear them repeatedly make assertions that turn out to be wrong - and I really can't think of any of the major figures in any circles who do not fit that description - the more you begin to wonder if any of those folks have ever stopped to even consider it. No matter how clearly wrong that often are.

It's a strange spectacle to watch. If you're honest, that is.

Because not many of them really are, is the truth.

Which is exactly why Lord Acton argued and was right, I think, that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Because those who covet it seem to almost never to able to admit that they ever screw up with its use. Which was exactly what he was telling the Pope when he said it.

No matter how many obvious mistakes they make.

I very much understand why the wisest political observers so often situate themselves so far from power.

Because it's so often such a three ring circus headed to nowhere.

And the truth is that I just don't trust most such folks anymore.

And it's good to know that I chose a life where I can avoid them as much as possible.

Because, most of the time, what a thoroughly unpleasant and ridiculous lot they are.

"Mature" democracies

Do Thais Lack Spirit for Democracy?

"There appears to be a misconception in Thailand over the past few years that democracy equals intimidation — whether that means blockading major city intersections in Bangkok and forcing the country’s commercial center to close, tossing grenades at government buildings, shutting down a major international summit attended by Asian leaders, occupying the Government House, or closing a major international airport."

Perhaps it is because intimidation is the way even the most "mature" democracies have been conducting themselves, as of late.

Because as this articles well articulates, everyone should know, by now, that intimidation isn't the way mature people and mature democracies should engage their disagreements.

Intimidation is how less mature goverments and peoples conduct themselves.

Mature governments and peoples only use force when no other means is available. Not as a rationalization for "by any means necessary" to get whatever it is that they want.

Perhaps the Thai people are watching contemporary democracies all too closely.

Perhaps they should find better role models.

The voice of integrity

Earl and Tiger @ Yahoo! Video

For all the cynics and everyone who still haven't quite found that voice.

Bullshit, or politics, by any other name

Is it possible to have a politics without people wallowing so thoroughly in their own bullshit?



Don't you hear it?

Me and my kind have all the answers. They and their kind are fools and naives and a threat to the rest of us.

You know, the really obvious bullshit.

Is it possible to have a politics that does not operate like this and is more thoughtful, reasonable, and grounded?

Like the rest of America is (more, at least). The way most peoples' families typically are. The way that most people are who don't have a stake in persistently attempting to improve the stink of their own fecal matter.

Of course it is.

The question is:

Are we going to do it? And are we going expect it out of those in politics?

Because the notion that we get better the more that we pretend that we have all the answers is like the notion that finding a cure for cancer means pretending we already have.

It makes no goddamn sense. It's a literal impossibility.

Slightly better odds than my Royals having a winning season.

Boy's gotta dream.

Story of my life

Until I find that one special singing partner.



Let the love story begin.

How's that "broken windows" policing workin' for ya?

At Least 3 Shot As Gangs of Youths Run Wild in Midtown

"Overall, crime in the city is still at record lows despite an uptick in murders, felony assaults and rapes this year. Jittery lawmakers are worried about crime rising, especially as the ranks are decreased at the nation's largest police department."

So, don't worry. The only increase we've seen is in murders, felony assaults, and rapes. You know. The small stuff.

Don't worry. We'll add officers, maintain the same policy, and everything will be under control.

And when that doesn't work, we'll blame all the pussies in the department who coddled all those criminals.

Because it couldn't just be that more aggressive policing is limited in what it can do. And might be counterproductive when enforcing the small stuff. Like broken windows. Hence the name of the strategy. Because it undermines trust from the community, especially in getting information and collecting evidence to solve stuff like, say, murders, felony assaults, and rapes.

Because noone who has information on that stuff might be guilty of, say, drug crimes, of course.

Perhaps we should ask Ciudad Juarez, Mexico's drug war capital, how that effort's working out.

Life in 'Murder City'

Noone with important information on those crimes is guilty of illegal immigration. Or illegal possession of firearms. Or other variations of broken windows.

Yeah, I'm sure it's all going a-ok. Because that's what the people who advocate the policy tell us. Even when it's not.

The question for people, at this point, on a whole range of more aggressive approaches in governance that have failed and backfired is:

How long are you going to swallow the bullshit?

And, more importantly, when might we all take some responsibility for the fact that our aggressive posturing has betrayed us, once again. And hurt a lot of people, in the process. No matter who is doing it.

Aggression is sometimes necessary. But honest use of aggression minimizes its use as much as possible and offers a broad scope for freedom, in the meantime, except when people are a genuine danger. And not a endless variations of made up dangers we can conjure to rationalize our use of power.

This has been the ugly and cynical rationalization behind power since humans started exercising it. And our progress has been marked by our honest challenge to that rationalization, since the beginning of time. Not pretending that the rationalization has made things better when it hasn't.

Progress is marked by our commitment to more genuine liberal values - meaning a commitment to liberty - and the more honest accounting of this rationalization of power and our behavior, as a consequence.

Deep in their hearts, even the cynics know that. Deep in our hearts, all of us do.

Because it's deep in our hearts where all of us are most honest.

Remembering what freedom looks like

The video that my first hour U.S. History 3 class watched during our unit on the end of the Cold War.



It still makes me cry, in my private moments.

Enjoy.

Profound. Or something.

Or why we shouldn't take ourselves so seriously.











Oh yeah. Feel the depth.

That's what she said.

The change we've been waiting for

It couldn't possibly just be that progressives are wrong. About anything, no less.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

It couldn't even possibly be the obvious - that Americans cannot be forced to trust (the most serious contradiction in terms humanity's history has to offer) a government that has so thoroughly earned its mistrust - because that would mean that progressives are wrong about something.

And that's just too extreme for any progressive to swallow. Ever. And always will be.

As long as they're right about everything. And can explain everything else as everyone being too stupid to know their wisdom.

It may be that this is what Montequieu and Madison and Acton and Mill and Twain warned us about. Or perhaps progressives can explain to us how they are right and everyone else is wrong about even that.

It's not just the snottiness. The straight-faced slander of racist or crazy for those who disagree with the health bill. The arrogance behind the progressive response to the distrust of the health bill and those who passed it.

It's the backwards logic behind the whole premise.

You have the right to health care. So if you don't exercise that right, we'll fine you. And we'll imprison you, if you still further do not exercise that right.

How would that work with speech?

If you do not criticize your government for passing legislation with such backwards logic - you have a right that you will be imprisoned for if you do not exercise it - would you be imprisoned for criticizing the legislation - which would express your hostility to the enlightened wisdom behind such a walking contradition?

Or would you be imprisoned for not criticizing it - since this would be more consistent with the logic that rights are something to be enforced against citizens by a governing authority?

How would that work for religion?

If you choose to exercise your right of freedom of religion by not practicing it or by not attending a church, regularly, shouldn't we pass laws that enforce that you exercise that right if it is to truly be a right, by the logic of this health care law?

How about for the press?

If you choose to start a newspaper but all it ever has to say is just how terrific the world is, and, in particular, how hunky dory government is, would that make you a progressive or would that get you a sentence?

How about freedom of assembly?

If you choose not to protest your government, shouldn't the government be able to imprison or fine you for failing to exercise a right that the Founders risked their lives for you to have? You ungrateful slob.

I was under the impression that being liberal was conceived as the suspicion of all this horseshit. Especially the most pernicious horseshit of all these days.

That government knows best.

Especially when it's run by people like me. And not like those other losers who always fuck things up. And willfully resist my infallible judgment.

That's the narrative, at least. A narrative, because nothing could ever just be right or wrong.

Because if it was, people would be capable of being right or wrong, in their judgment.

And if progressives are people, that might imply that they could be wrong. About any one of their positions. Including their holiest of holy grails.

And no self-respecting progressive could stand for that.

Because that gets back to that impossible notion that progressives could be wrong.

Which would mean that they are the obstacle to progress they've been seeking to remove. Perhaps they really are the change they've been waiting for.

Now the rest of us are just waiting for them to change. For once.

Maybe starting with something a little less condescending this time around.

Oughta be a law

The Boston Herald, a well-known bastion of right-wing bile, hate, and neo-Nazi death metal, has written a most loathesome and underhanded editorial on the likes of one Ms. Rachel Maddow, of CNBC lineage, which can only be characterized as gross libel, shameless slander, and a desperate attempt to upend the unstoppable bullet train of progress that has lately taken the nation by storm.

And a sure sign that leftist manhandling has gone over as a smashing success in Massachusetts. Just like with the rest of us.

Rachel Maddow for what?

I cringe as I post the racist poison and hostility to lesbian sharp dressers everywhere that drips from these words, with apologies to the kind-hearted and dearly beloved racists and homophobes responsible for the post, in toto.

"After a week of serious grownup news, what we all really needed was a little comic relief and thank goodness for the self-absorbed rantings of MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow for supplying it.

In an apparent attempt to reverse slumping ratings, Maddow’s bosses even took out an ad so she could vent uncensored about how Sen. Scott Brown 'smeared' her by indicating in a fund-raising letter that Democrats were trying to recruit her.

Now we’re a little unclear how a run for Senate - however improbable - constitutes a 'smear.' But that aside Maddow’s petulance seems, well, just a little contrived.

Brown, of course, has been inundated with interview requests since his January election victory. He’s just as popular on the Republican fund-raising circuit.

And Maddow might want to contemplate these numbers: Brown got 1,167,178 votes in that Senate election. Maddow’s total national Nielsen Company ratings run about 881,000 (but only 240,000 in the coveted 25 to 54 age group).

Now if only Keith Olbermann would buy a summer home on the Cape..."

Why such unaldulterated misogyny (think about that one, for a second) can see the light of newsprint, I will never know.

Oughta be a law.

No lying necessary

Does this guy ever stop lying? Ever?

Paul Krugman: Going to Extreme

These two pearls, in particular, stand out.

"All of this goes far beyond politics as usual. Democrats had a lot of harsh things to say about former President George W. Bush — but you’ll search in vain for anything comparably menacing, anything that even hinted at an appeal to violence, from members of Congress, let alone senior party officials."

As Greg Pollowitz, at the National Review, puts it:

"Oh really? Google 'Kill George Bush' to find out how wrong Krugman is.

One of the long forgotten ones:

Nobel Peace Prize winner Betty Williams apologized Thursday for saying she could kill President Bush, remarks that drew scorn from Bush loyalists and shook up the International Women's Peace Conference in Dallas.

'My feelings now and again get way ahead of me,' Ms. Williams said. 'I couldn't kill anybody, but I must confess that I'm extremely angry with the Bush administration and what they have done. To say that was wrong.'"

Or this last bit of wisdom from our noble Nobel-winning economist:

"In the short run, Republican extremism may be good for Democrats, to the extent that it prompts a voter backlash. But in the long run, it’s a very bad thing for America. We need to have two reasonable, rational parties in this country. And right now we don’t."

Paul's right about that one. The problem is it is people like Paul who are the problem. When he says we don't have two reasonable, rational parties, he's right. We don't even have one. We have two parties committed to their own power at every cost. And no amount of dishonesty, like the kind embodied in this article, is too dishonest for that purpose. Dishonesty that Paul has with himself as much as with everyone else.

The only people who could possibly believe that kind of bullshit he's writing here - that only partisans of the opposing party are guilty of the kind of ugliness Paul cites in this article - are the very kinds of folks who both carry that kind of ugliness in their hearts and who make it more likely with their infinite manipulations of language and argument for partisan advantage.

Paul just can't get figured out that all that deception and self-deception only sells with his own kind. Noone honest could take it seriously, unless they are seriously naive in the ways of politics and partisans, generally.

Same goes for Republicans who engage in this kind of bullshit.

It's laughable in the extreme for such people to do this and say to everyone else, "Trust me. I mean it."

Isn't there somewhere we can trust where this kind of dishonesty is not the norm?

Because it sure isn't politics. Or government.

And it is strange beyond recognition that these people would be so dishonest and then ask the American people to trust them to exercise power over the most intimate concerns in their lives.

The problem, at this point, is not that Americans do not recognize this. They do. The problem is that people like Paul don't care that people don't trust them.

And that's exactly the kind of arrogance that power breeds that our Founders and the strongest thinkers about power and politics wanted checked.

And the reason we have a democracy is to choose people we can trust, better, when this kind of dishonesty becomes the norm.

How can we possibly trust such dishonesty? We can't, is the answer. And we should make choices, accordingly. In life, as much as politics.

Democrats need a powerful reminder, this coming election, that the dishonesty will not be rewarded. And that power, for any purpose, is not a good enough philosophy of governance.

People like Paul may never face their failings. As human beings as much as as democratic participants. Some people never escape their own bullshit.

But that doesn't mean we should have to live with it.

And, if there is anything about the American experience that I have become convinced of it is that, though Americans and our government have done much wrong, in the past and the still present, we, generally, get honest with ourselves about that wrong, with time. And correct our mistakes.

And then and only then is when real progress occurs.

No lying necessary.

"It takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people"

Representative John Dingell (D-MI) makes clear just what is at stake in this health care legislation and debate.



Americans have a decision to make about whether this is the future they will resign themselves to.

Choose wisely.

Do it for love

You know what I love about Sara Bareilles?



That she'll wear her heart right there out on her sleeve. And she's gonna succeed the right way. Whether you fuckin' like it or not.

That's my girl.

Oh, and as it turns out. Living life the right way tends to be make for more real success in life. In all the ways that really matter.

Reason #1,678,983 for why you, and not Congress, are the source of any real happiness and success in your life.

Sing it, Sara.

Why I love liberal democracy (maybe I will marry it, wiseguy)

Though I hear that's illegal in most states.

Lacking consensus, policies should fail

T.R. Fehrenbach is a pimp. And this column is his bitch, in a serious way.

"Amid all the genuine bad tidings blasting our sensibilities each news day, we are being subjected to the notion that our system of government isn't working. Something's wrong in Washington. This is mostly coming from the semi-educated media and commentator classes, but apparently it is believed to the extent that Congress has recently received its lowest confidence rating: 10 percent.

The idea that the institutions of the U.S. are fundamentally flawed is arrant nonsense. Washington and the Constitution, as amended, are working pretty much as the Founders intended them to work. I have heard and seen all this before, during the Great Depression and run-up to WWII, when supposedly sensible men argued that free institutions weren't up to the challenges of economic crisis and totalitarian dictatorship. We showed them...

...If this coalition wants to effect real change, it must hold together for more cycles; otherwise, it was a fluke. The evidence to date is that the Obama coalition has already lost cohesion; therefore those it put in office have little right to push agendas. Our institutions are right to resist, meantime.

The Founders, both Federalists and Democratic-Republicans, were mortally fearful of tyranny, whether popular or elitist. This is why they created three independent equal branches, two legislative houses and reserved powers not granted the federal apparatus to the states.

This last has been gutted by every strong president, but the division of powers within the federal branch leaves ample room for stopping popular stampedes. The Senate is supposed to slow down or thwart the House; it was designed that way. So was the fact that a few small states can block the will of the great, imperial states. In fact, cloture — cutting off debate — is a newer rule. Originally a single senator could block action.

What I'm getting at is that if you have no consensus, you get no results — nor should you. This doesn't mean the country sinks; it just means you can't implement purely partisan policies. We keep the Army, Navy and Treasury going, you notice. If the American people want reforms and pursue them long enough, not just for the moment, they usually get them. Muddling through, the democratic-republican way, is better than marching off a cliff like morons.

After all, it's worked for more than two centuries."

We showed them, indeed. And we'll do it again, bitch. As many times as necessary.

Take that to the bank, Mr. Bin Laden.

You, too, America.

God, I love this country.

Progress means we get better

It's nice to see that hearts still beat, occassionally, in Washington.

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And proof that laughter is worth a thousand sticks.



A lot of pride, now as ever, from folks whose hearts are small. Good to see some people start to talk, and laugh, about that honestly.

Note to the smallhearted. The notion that this is progress is a lie. Always has been. For as long as humans have walked the earth. Even the cynics know that's true deep inside those teeny-weeny little hearts.

When we're not lost in our own bullshit, that is.

Even when you're lost, taking a road to nowhere doesn't lead to progress.

It just means your still lost and not acknowledging it.

Progress means we get better. For real.

About time we started down that road.

Why television doesn't sell wisdom

Remember that the next time your premise your politics, your thinking, or your life on what people say on TV.

More or less

Might makes right. And what those in power say must be true. Why else would they have the power, after all? And who are we to question them?

Iran's Ahmadinejad: Sept. 11 attacks a 'big lie'

It's a foolish mistake that has trailed us for as long as humans have organized governments. And it is the mistake that is at the heart of power, it's manipulations and its abuses.

Those who have it will have you believe that they know, unerringly, what to do with it. And that is the danger.

We take for granted a free country where we can challenge that notion at our own risk. If you want to see a country that believes that might makes right and that the use of force trumps honest understanding, this is the regime.

The question for us is, "Do we want to look more like them? Or less?"

Just ask Mahmoud

That about sums it up.

Iran, Syria may talk a big talk, but too scared to act

That's why military action against Iran is unnecessary. That and the real possibility that they really aren't arming themselves (though I do have my doubts).

The reason why it's foolish is because it rallies Iranians to a regime that they might otherwise unseat. Which is the only sustainable way that Iran will move away from it's hostile posture with the U.S. and Israel.

And because it rallies all of the Muslim world against the U.S., Israel, and the West, and to the defense of lunatics like Osama bin Laden.

Perhaps none of that matters to us. Perhaps what we care about it waving our dicks about hoping that doing so will end all of this drama once and for all. Or maybe just for now and long term consequences be damned.

Good luck with that, by the way. Tell me how that works out for ya.

And when it doesn't work, make sure to send me a postcard about how it's all the nice people who fuck everything up in the world.

Apparently, that's what it means to be a man. If you're a lying, manipulative shithead, that is.

Just ask Mahmoud.

The truth about our lying

Tracy Clark-Flory writes the most honest thing about children and sexuality that I've read in a long time.

Lying to kids about sex

In response to pop psychologist Linda Papadopoulos' proposal to keep "lad magazines" on top shelves in Great Britain, to end sexist images on public billboards, to show music videos with graphic language after hours, when children are often in bed, to add parent controls to gaming systems, and to ban ads for sex-related jobs at career centers, Clark-Flory writes:

"It's an admirable aim, and I suspect Papadopoulos's heart is very much in the right place, but her solution seems rather superficial. Putting racy magazines on the news stand's top shelf only makes them more alluring. The same goes for all the other targeted vices: It isn't as though kids won't eventually find out that such things exist -- and by the time they do, these adult secrets are imbued with an added electric charge. It seems a disservice to kids to so completely and thoroughly shield them from the realities of our sexualized culture, because they'll have to face it themselves eventually.

Not to mention, it's awfully hypocritical to try to protect teenagers from these 'bad' things, while consuming said 'bad' things ourselves -- and kids are smart, they'll notice. In fact, I'm pretty sure teens come equipped with a hyper-developed vomeronasal organ capable of sniffing out adult inconsistencies. That isn't to say that there aren't plenty of things youngsters simply aren't ready to be introduced to, but, so often, attempts at preserving young people's innocence essentially delivers the message, 'Live as I say, not as I do.' It's less about protecting them and more about allowing ourselves to maintain a certain level of cognitive dissonance -- because, hey, at least we're looking after the children. It's like, instead of vacuuming up our filth, we sweep it under the rug without ever questioning why our house is always so damn dirty."

It is a little insane, to me, today, the ways that our hypocrisy, cognitive dissonance, lying and manipulation pass for honest understanding and discussion of issues like this one.

The truth about our lying is that we do it often. And we get so used to the lying that we forget that it isn't the truth. And that the truth is that none of us is terribly honest, honestly, about this matter or many of the issues that we face, in our own personal lives, nevertheless in our politics.

And the only way to get to better resolutions of our concerns on this front, as on every front, is more honesty. And the only way we will get more honesty is when people feel more safe to be honest. With themselves and with one another.

Most of our problems, in liberal and illiberal cultures, center around the degree to which our lies cover up the truth. And the ways that our illiberal efforts to manipulate make sure that honest discussion never takes place.

Perhaps we are unable to unravel our dishonesty. Perhaps it is in our genes. Or maybe it is because we are wicked and incapable of anything better. Or perhaps it is because our causes are too important for something more honest.

Or perhaps we are all too afraid to be honest. And too afraid to admit we are too afraid.

Perhaps that is as good as we will ever be.

Or perhaps that is yet one more lie to cover all the other lies we tell ourselves and one another.

And perhaps we are not only strong enough for more honesty, perhaps we will be stronger, still, for it. Perhaps we are stronger for it, already.

Perhaps that was the point of all that freedom in the first place.

Or as the kids might tell it

Crazy what lengths we'll go to keep our minds and hearts closed. Even when, clearly, the only honest resolutions to our problems and the only real way to sustainable happiness are when they are open.

Sound and fury signifying nothing, Shakespeare says. Big waste of time, I say.

Or as the kids would probably tell it, kinda retarded, really.

The strength that always finds a way

George Will eviscerates the power-driven faith that has replaced more open-ended and thoughtful science that would be global warming scientific and policy discussions in today's column.

Blinded by Science

"The global warming industry, like Alexander in the famous children's story, is having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Actually, a bad three months, which began Nov. 19 with the publication of e-mails indicating attempts by scientists to massage data and suppress dissent in order to strengthen 'evidence' of global warming.

But there already supposedly was a broad, deep and unassailable consensus. Strange.

Next came the failure of The World's Last -- We Really, Really Mean It -- Chance, aka the Copenhagen climate change summit. It was a nullity, and since then things have been getting worse for those trying to stampede the world into a spasm of prophylactic statism.

In 2007, before the economic downturn began enforcing seriousness and discouraging grandstanding, seven Western U.S. states (and four Canadian provinces) decided to fix the planet on their own. California's Arnold Schwarzenegger intoned, 'We cannot wait for the United States government to get its act together on the environment.' The 11 jurisdictions formed what is now called the Western Climate Initiative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, starting in 2012.

Or not. Arizona's Gov. Jan Brewer recently suspended her state's participation in what has not yet begun, and some Utah legislators are reportedly considering a similar action. She worries, sensibly, that it would impose costs on businesses and consumers. She also ordered reconsideration of Arizona's strict vehicle emission rules, modeled on incorrigible California's, lest they raise the cost of new cars.

Last week, BP America, ConocoPhillips and Caterpillar, three early members of the 31-member U.S. Climate Action Partnership, said: Oh, never mind. They withdrew from USCAP. It is a coalition of corporations and global warming alarm groups that was formed in 2007 when carbon rationing legislation seemed inevitable and collaboration with the rationers seemed prudent. A spokesman for Conoco said: 'We need to spend time addressing the issues that impact our shareholders and consumers.' What a concept.

Global warming skeptics, too, have erred. They have said there has been no statistically significant warming for 10 years. Phil Jones, former director of Britain's Climatic Research Unit, source of the leaked documents, admits it has been 15 years. Small wonder that support for radical remedial action, sacrificing wealth and freedom to combat warming, is melting faster than the Himalayan glaciers that an IPCC report asserted, without serious scientific support, could disappear by 2035.

Jones also says that if during what is called the Medieval Warm Period (circa 800-1300) global temperatures may have been warmer than today's, that would change the debate. Indeed it would. It would complicate the task of indicting contemporary civilization for today's supposedly unprecedented temperatures.

Last week, Todd Stern, America's Special Envoy for Climate Change -- yes, there is one; and people wonder where to begin cutting government -- warned that those interested in 'undermining action on climate change' will seize on 'whatever tidbit they can find.' Tidbits like specious science, and the absence of warming?

It is tempting to say, only half in jest, that Stern's portfolio violates the First Amendment, which forbids government from undertaking the establishment of religion. A religion is what the faith in catastrophic man-made global warming has become. It is now a tissue of assertions impervious to evidence, assertions which everything, including a historic blizzard, supposedly confirms and nothing, not even the absence of warming, can falsify."

The numbers I've seen seems to indicate that the planet has warmed in the last century. Those numbers could most certainly be wrong, which should come into question as much as anything else if this is an honest scientific endeavor. The big claim that George has very powerfully poked holes into for the last few years is whether moderate warming actually means catastrophic scenarios. And this is where the real rub is, as far as I'm concerned, at least.

People get so wrapped up in their talk in politics that they, more often than not, lose track of whether what they're saying is true by more rigorous empirical standards. That's true in life, as well, by the way. It's just a fact for the whole damned race, is the truth.

And that standard is one that can survive even the most unreasonable of dissent.

The only people who have to worry about dissent are the only people who have ever worried about dissent. The people who were wrong. Or the people who may be right but are too afraid to let people question if they are wrong.

The people who have always coveted power, especially power in lieu of reason.

People who are afraid. People whose minds and hearts are too weak to allow others to disagree and choose differently. People who are afraid they do not have the right stuff.

I'm one of those people. Learning to be stronger in the face of my fear. Perhaps that describes all of us.

If we genuinely want things to get better, that is.

That's the strength that always finds a way. The more genuine strength of greater wisdom. Of heart and mind.

And that strength is the only honest path of progress that humanity will ever know.

Liberty and power

As I follow coverage of world issues, these days, it's undeniable to me, anymore, that the source of most of our problems and their lack of real resolution is power and our efforts to manipulate one another.

I don't know what's wrong with humanity, most days. Except that we are too stubborn to ever admit when we might be wrong. Which really is the most foolish pride to have.

It's foolish because most of humanity's progress has come when it has acknowledged that it was wrong on serious issues they faced.

Without mistakes, there is no real progress. Otherwise we remain at a standstill, biding our time until we pass from this mortal coil.

My kids in 2nd hour and I debated the Rennaisance, today, and whether it made humanity better. We all agreed, for obvious reasons. But I took the negative since the kids were nervous to take a position that seemed so obviously wrong.

I argued as the Church argued, at the time. That freedom and free thought undermined the Church's authority. That challenging the Church's authority would make morality and criminality rampant. And that our hedonism and decadence in the West was a consequence of this break from the Church and its teachings. And that all of the developments of the Rennaisance and the Enlightment - in science, in art, in literature, and in reason in all matters of humanity, as well as in other matters - could be used for good or for bad. Science brought us medicine. But it also brought us nuclear weapons. Philosophy brought us John Stuart Mill. But it also brought us Nazism. And that undermining Church authority has led to a downward spiral of corruption and perversion, ever since.

The kids made good counterarguments. They argued that none of the major advances we have made, in science and technology, nevertheless in our humanity, could have been made or were made without the freedom and free thinking of the Renaissance. They argued that advances like the printing press and the mass production of books, including the first mass produced book, the Bible, educated people in ways that improved peoples' understandings and their capacity to improve society. And they argued that people like Hitler had developed their own sorts of religion to justify their ugly deeds, and that it was free peoples, from America and the rest of Europe, who challenged Hitler's ugly ideology and war machine and saved the world and made it free from his tyrrany.

After the debate, I showed them the evidence I had found, while researching, that demonstrated that crime rates, in all likelihood, according to Cambridgeshire Criminal Justice Board research, were higher in Medieval Europe, the period before the Rennaisance, than after or today, while punishments were much more brutal and publicly humiliating.

That evidence, if it is true, is consistent with the vast majority of other evidence I have researched on the subject of criminal justice, that punishment generally has very little effect on aberrant behavior, long term, despite far more brutal punishments that one might imagine would have much larger substantial deterence for would-be criminals in both our own illiberal history and illiberal cultures in contemporary times.

The fact is, I think, that we are either unaware of that debate, that we disagree for various reasons, or, often, that we largely ignore that evidence for the same reason that we have always ignored it. Because it challenges our more fearful and vengeful impulses.

It is fairly plain, really, that our society is a better society than that of Medieval Europe. On every count. Including morality and criminality. And it is fairly plain that liberal societies are better, safer, more prosperous, and more decent societies than their illiberal counterparts, left and right.

We are just too scared to embrace that fact. Because we are afraid that if we do, it will confirm our deepest insecurities about ourselves and about our cultures. That we are weak. And immoral. And indecent. And just waiting to be overrun by our more brutal, illiberal enemies. Same as it ever was.

It is a sad state of affairs. The hollow victory that is the insecurity of liberal democracies that their liberality makes them weak. Rather than, quite clearly, for anyone being objective about the matter, what makes them strong.

There is no mistake why most people, including people from illiberal cultures, would rather live in liberal countries like America, Europe, and the various other liberal nations growing in number around the world.

It is because our liberality makes us stronger.

If only we would have the sense to embrace that fact about ourselves.

And to embrace ourselves, in the process. And all the good and bad we have to offer.

And the freedom to do both that offers us the freedom to do so much more good than our illiberal ancestors or brethren were ever willing to imagine.

All the world's a stage

An excellent sum up of the current political malaise in America by former Special Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence, Herbert Meyer.

The U.S. Political Establishment Has Failed

From that column.

"Americans don't like getting tangled in the details of politics. We prefer to stand back and see the big picture. What the big picture is showing now is that our entire political establishment has failed. These were the men and women, both Republicans and Democrats, we relied upon to focus on the details, and by doing so, to keep us safe from terrorists and to keep the world's most powerful economy from imploding. And they blew it. So we'll replace them with a wholly new establishment -- some of whom will be Republicans, others Democrats, and a few Independents here and there -- and hope our next political establishment will get it right.

In the looming political battles, persona will matter more than policy. As we move toward the 2010 elections, of course we'll ask candidates to outline their plans for how to improve our health care system, what to do about illegal immigration, how to bring down the unemployment rate, how to fight the war, and all the rest. But what will determine who gets elected this year won't be a set of specific policies, but something simpler, and in a way much deeper: a recognition among grassroots voters across the political spectrum that character is more important than personality, that education isn't the same thing as judgment, and that expertise without common sense is dangerous.

Stand back from politics and you'll see the same re-establishment trend unfolding in other public arenas. Americans have decided that the mainstream media has failed, and so we are replacing The New York Times, the television network news departments, and all the rest with an entirely new media, including FOX News and websites like American Thinker and Lucianne.com. Americans have decided that our country's education establishment has failed -- our kids are barely learning to read and write, let alone taught our country's history -- so we're seeing the rise of private schools, charter schools, and home-schooling. Would anyone like to bet that within just a few years, we'll have a wholly new financial establishment on Wall Street to replace the greedy idiots who run it now?

The re-establishment of America won't be easy, and we'll make mistakes along the way. Some of the new people will prove just as worthless as they ones they replaced. And some very good people who now hold key positions in politics, the media, education, and finance will be swept away by the avalanche. That's too bad, but collateral damage is unavoidable.

No other country in history has ever attempted to replace its establishments so smoothly and so peacefully -- and so cheerfully -- as we are doing right now. And it isn't likely that any other country ever will attempt something like this. How exhilarating to realize that 234 years after our revolution, the United States is still the most dynamic, forward-looking, optimistic place on Earth. Boy, what an exciting time to be an American."

You really should read the entire article. It captures the moment better anything I've read to date.

He's right. The current political establishment has failed. And another will replace it and either get things moving in the right direction or be replaced.

And most Americans, thankfully, could care less about which team they fight for.

Which is exactly the way it should be.

This too shall pass. Failure always does. Only to bring a renewed commitment to real success. And as much renewed commmitment as is necessary to finally turn this ship in a direction that is going somewhere for real.

The Bard was right. All the world's a stage. And all of us mere players.

May we play our parts well.

Evan Bayh and what it means about politics

Evan Bayh, a favorite American politician of mine, warts and all, is right, in the broadest terms, in this interview.



And the fact that men like Evan Bayh believe, rightly in many instances, that leaving Congress will help more people than staying in is exactly what's wrong with American politics, right now. Because it means decent men like Evan Bayh, a better representative of middle America than most of his Senate colleagues by far, get strong-armed out of a process that is running on the fumes of cynicism and manipulation, right now.

That's exactly what Montesquieu and Madison labored so hard to check with their ideas and with the construction of the American Constitution.

But checking it only goes so far. Which is what ideologues perpetually exploit. And which is what has so seriously undermined the confidence of Americans in their government, to this point.

I doubt you will ever hear an ideologue take responsibility for this fact. That their manipulations and machinations is what has undermined confidence in the American government for those functions that only government can perform.

But they are responsible. Whether they want to acknowledge that or not.

It will be corrected. It will take time.

And having Evan Bayh leave the Senate is not a bad way to make some headway in this direction, given current circumstances.

What Evan says in this interview is exactly what Americans need to hear, right now. Those ideologues who tell you that only they know what is best for you, even against your will, are not honestly concerned with your welfare, long tern. And that message undermines what will be best for you, in the bigger picture.

Which is taking responsibility for your own life, no matter what anyone else, including American political leaders, tell you different.

There is no ideology or political party or religion or group of any kind that can live your life for you. And the only people who can solve the vast majority of your problems, and America's problems, are you. Americans. No matter what American politicians do.

And anyone who tells you different is shortsighted, at best, and seriously dishonest, at worst.

And selling you a bill of goods.

Don't buy it. Because it just isn't true.

If we really want our problems, as Americans and as people, really resolved, rather than appearing to be or perceived to be resolved, we will have to look to ourselves and to one another. Period. Government is generally the cop-out that allows us to pretend otherwise. For awhile. Until times like now, where it is clearly failing.

The message of government and political activists in the last 10 years, "Fear us, or suffer our wrath," is a far cry from the sentiments of Franklin Roosevelt in those words in his first inaugural, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

There is a reason why Roosevelt's words inspired. The same reason why the last 10 years have undermined our self-confidence.

Because one message is meant to uplift. And the other is meant to cower.

And the decision Americans are making today is, "Are we a country that needs inspiration and to have more honest self-governance over our own lives? Or are they a country who needs cowering."

Choose wisely, this election.

Choose wisely, for your lifetime.

That goes for me, too. More than most.

Thank you, President Washington

A fitting tribute to America's first President.

Mighty Washington: The greatest President

Sometimes the cynicism that swarms around power like a vulture waiting to strike at any signs of decency weighs heavy on our nation's capital.

President Washington, a man known more for his humility than his strong political passions, was a healthy reminder that leadership does not necessarily mean having all the right answers. And his maintenance of slaves in the face of his own concerns of the ugliness of the institution reminds us that great leaders do not make all the right choices on matters of import at every juncture.

Noone does.

That's why we honor the man, today, who helped form a government committed to limiting the power of those would believe otherwise.

Thank you, Mr. President. For getting us started on this long and winding road to better judgment about governance and our fellow man.

Turning the page

President's Day. We have the day off. Been watching news coverage, this morning.

I have never seen Washington such a mess. Or the media. Or most people in the thick of politics, these days.

Thank goodness they all so unerringly have all the answers. Makes it easier to understand why they do such a poor job of listening to one another and engaging more thoughtfully about how to tackle problems together.

It's remarkable to me how much certainty people experience when they are sure they have all the right answers or all their friends agree with them. Or why their opponents are unerringly wrong.

Much easier than honest discussion, debate, and reflection. Self-congratulation. Much easier than self-correction.

Strange, when it is altogether clear to most Americans that what Washington needs, right now, is some correction. Though self-correction and a strong dose of humility is the only thing that will do any real good for that town, long-term.

Just like the rest of us.

Power does strange things to people. It gives pride the illusion of certainty. And animus the pretense of better judgment.

It allows everyone to believe that their outrage is the source of wisdom.

It just makes me tired, is the truth. Tired of watching a bunch of jackasses pretend they have more final answers than they have. And that their lack of use for more honest listening, engagement, and thoughtful debate and discussion is a consequence of their unchallengeable genius.

There is a reason that our wisest thinkers look skeptically on power. And on all of us who seek to wield it. Because we screw it up more than we get it right. And because we're so loathe to ever admit it.

That is the purpose of liberal democracies. To check that tendency. Not to embolden it.

And certainly not to pretend it's progress.

Perhaps it's time for all of us to turn the page and start again.

Finding our courage

The more time I spend living in America, the more I like Americans.

And George Will illustrates why.

Progressives and the Growing Dependency Agenda

I actually disagree with George's argument about Federally-funded school vouchers. While I agree that government money that is spent on education is best put in the hands of parents and children to choose schools that best fit their children's needs - a learning curve that would be valuable and that government paternalism cannot possibly replace - I agree with progressives that school vouchers, if they are going to be funded consisent with the ideas that inspire them and if they are going to be better funded, need to come from private donors. Federal funding of education is and always will be a disaster, with No Child Left Behind and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act demonstrating George's concerns about dependency and quality in public education.

George is right that if we are going to spend Federal money on schools, private vouchers are more consistent with the liberal values and liberal education that better schools would provide. But I think this is the dead end, ultimately, except as a redirection of already codified Federal funding that, like Medicare and Social Security, should, ideally, be transitioned into efforts that fund and administer help for people who need it into private non-profit, and, when appropriate, for-profit hands.

Having said that, George's criticism of progressive ideology as one that, too often, foolishly and counterproductively - for everyone involved - promotes dependency of citizens on government is on-target.

And this line sums up what contemporary progressive ideology has reduced itself to when it does not take more honest and consistent liberal values seriously.

"A century ago, Herbert Croly published 'The Promise of American Life,' a book -- still in print -- that was prophetic about today's progressives. Contemplating with distaste America's 'unregenerate citizens,' he said 'the average American individual is morally and intellectually inadequate to a serious and consistent conception of his responsibilities.' Therefore, Croly said, national life should be a 'school' taught by the government: 'The exigencies of such schooling frequently demand severe coercive measures, but what schooling does not?' Unregenerate Americans would be "saved many costly perversions" if 'the official schoolmasters are wise, and the pupils neither truant nor insubordinate.'

Subordination is dependency seen from above. Today, it is seen approvingly by progressives imposing, from above, their dependency agenda."

The heart of liberal values and the strongest liberal education - the heart of what makes liberal democracies stronger than their illiberal brethren - is teaching people, kids and adults, to be good people of their own accord and the folly of every other path.

The problem with our schools, like the problem with our culture and society, is that we are not liberal enough, in this sense. We lack confidence in the strength of our liberal values.

And George's criticism gets right to the heart of those fears we harbor. And their counterproductive consequences.

As it turns out, it is the American people who will correct this problem. Not her leaders or her intellectual, media, or other elites. It is each of us. And all of us. Despite our insecurities.

That's how courage works. Courage is not the absense of fear. Courage is doing what is good and what we fear despite our insecurities.

And the truth is that Americans would rather do the courageous thing, even when they are afraid of it. Including taking responsibility for their own lives.

It just takes time for them to work up the courage, I think.

Me too. And I like folks like me. Folks working at doin' the right thing, even when the wrong thing is sometimes too tempting to pass up.

The truth is this describes all of us. Every one of us. Some people just have more courage to admit it, to themselves and to the world, which makes it easier for all of us to find the courage to be honest, as well.

Yeah, I think I like these people. These Americans. And the whole lot of us homo sapiens. And I like them more the more honest they get about who they really are underneath all that fear, that fear of what others might think if they knew, and honestly aspire to be better, to the best of their ability.

Like every generation, it will take courage to do that.

Luckily, it's our strong suit. Even when it takes time for us to find it.

Happy Valentine's Day

Since Valentine's is my holiday - the kids will tell you that, by far, the great majority of music I play, in class, are love songs, of one sort or another, because "Mr. Sutherland is a little bitch" is the most popular explanation, I believe - I thought I'd share some all-time favorites.

And, of course, what Valentine's Day would be complete without a wedding dance?



Happy Valentine's, everyone. Be sure to tell people how much you love them.

Speaking of which. I love you, too. For reals, homey.

Valentine's Day, or how the rules keep us pure

It's been so strange and sad watching free peoples of the world pretend, these last 10 or so years, that it is their might and not their freedom that makes them great.

And the almighty Kingdom of Saudi Arabia offers a story to give us perspective on that ugly and foolish belief.

Saudi Valentine's Day: Authorities Crack Down on Anywhere Selling Red

"The Saudi religious police launched Thursday a nationwide crackdown on stores selling items that are red or in any other way allude to the banned celebrations of Valentine's Day, a Saudi official said.

Members of the feared religious police were inspecting shops for red roses, heart-shaped products or gifts wrapped in red, and ordering storeowners to get rid of them, the official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.

Red-colored or heart-shaped items are legal at other times of the year, but as Feb. 14 nears they become contraband in Saudi Arabia. The kingdom bans celebration of Western holidays such as Valentine's Day, named after a Christian saint said to have been martyred by the Romans in the 3rd Century.

Most shops in Riyadh's upscale neighborhoods have removed all red items from their shelves. A statement by the religious police, informally known as the muttawa, was published in Saudi newspapers, warning shop owners against any violations.

'Those who don't comply will be punished,' the statement said, without spelling out what measures would befall the offenders.

The Valentine's Day prohibition is in line with Saudi's strict Wahhabi school of Islam that the kingdom has followed for more than a century. The birthplace of Islam also bans several Muslim holidays except the two most important ones because it considers them 'religious innovations' that Islam doesn't sanction.

Even birthdays and Mother's Day are frowned on by the religious establishment, although people almost never get punished for celebrating them.

Many Saudis, who still want to mark the popular Valentine's, do their shopping weeks before the holiday.

Each year, the religious police mobilize ahead of Feb. 14 and descend on gift and flower shops, confiscating all red items, including flowers.

Attitudes toward Valentine's Day vary across the Arab world, with devout Muslims opposing the holiday as a Western celebration of romantic love that corrupts Muslim youth."

Repression is the long history of humanity. The presumption that it will make us good and make all the bad go away, or too afraid to raise it's unholy head, has been with us since the evolution of moral codes to organize human behavior in every grouping of homo sapiens since the beginning of humanity.

It just happens to be wrong.

And it is responsible for the great bulk of the history of human tragedy.

And led to reversals of real human progress in every generation.

The Rennaisance and the Enlightenment, in early European history, marked a break from the long history of repression of Medieval Europe.

And their central theme was freedom. Freedom of thought and freedom of conscience. And the freedom and responsibility to challenge repressive governments that had chilled the development of thought, art, and science for hundreds of years.

Does it not seem strange to anyone that the last 10 years, the first sustained liberal democracy in the history of the world has seen it's public debate and discussion shy from embracing the very value that was the original purpose for its existence, at all?

Valentine's Day in Saudi Arabia should be a reminder to those of us in less repressive countries of what that kind of repression looked like in our own history. And why there is no future in that past.

It does not matter for what purpose repression is used. Those who are a genuine threat to others need to be contained until they are no longer a threat. And confusing fear with likely probability of real threat is not an honest substitute for better governance or real safety. But freedom to follow our conscience on all other matters is central to what nurtures all that is great, including real security, in liberal democracies and for all peoples who are more honest about the consequences of repression.

It is the scared and the weak who must bully those who disagree with them.

Courage, greatness, comes from respecting the value of the freedom and conscience that make us great. And it is with that courage that we become better, for real. Not a means of pretending that we are better than we are.

Perhaps we are a species that cannot live up to its highest ideals. Because we lack the courage.

And if so, we should at least have the decency and honesty to acknowledge that we are frauds and cowards. And stop pretending to be anything better.

The Saudi Kingdom has taken this approach. Without all the honesty or courage.

Perhaps we will pride ourselves that we are not quite as bad as them.

Perhaps that is all we have to offer.

If so, we will most assuredly get the lives that we deserve.

Choose wisely.

Happy Valentines.

Attention assholes

What class looks like.



You can't fake it. So stop trying.

Or nice guys will just keep kicking your ass all over the park.

Learning to listen for real (from someone who's learned the hard way)

Gerard Alexander, associate professor of politics at the University of Virginia, has an excellent, if one-sided, criticism of everything that is wrong with politics in America and the world, in today's Washington Post.

Why are liberals so condescending?

"Every political community includes some members who insist that their side has all the answers and that their adversaries are idiots. But American liberals, to a degree far surpassing conservatives, appear committed to the proposition that their views are correct, self-evident, and based on fact and reason, while conservative positions are not just wrong but illegitimate, ideological and unworthy of serious consideration. Indeed, all the appeals to bipartisanship notwithstanding, President Obama and other leading liberal voices have joined in a chorus of intellectual condescension.

It's an odd time for liberals to feel smug. But even with Democratic fortunes on the wane, leading liberals insist that they have almost nothing to learn from conservatives. Many Democrats describe their troubles simply as a PR challenge, a combination of conservative misinformation -- as when Obama charges that critics of health-care reform are peddling fake fears of a 'Bolshevik plot' -- and the country's failure to grasp great liberal accomplishments. 'We were so busy just getting stuff done . . . that I think we lost some of that sense of speaking directly to the American people about what their core values are,' the president told ABC's George Stephanopoulos in a recent interview. The benighted public is either uncomprehending or deliberately misinformed (by conservatives).

This condescension is part of a liberal tradition that for generations has impoverished American debates over the economy, society and the functions of government -- and threatens to do so again today, when dialogue would be more valuable than ever.

Liberals have dismissed conservative thinking for decades, a tendency encapsulated by Lionel Trilling's 1950 remark that conservatives do not 'express themselves in ideas but only in action or in irritable mental gestures which seek to resemble ideas.' During the 1950s and '60s, liberals trivialized the nascent conservative movement. Prominent studies and journalistic accounts of right-wing politics at the time stressed paranoia, intolerance and insecurity, rendering conservative thought more a psychiatric disorder than a rival. In 1962, Richard Hofstadter referred to "the Manichaean style of thought, the apocalyptic tendencies, the love of mystification, the intolerance of compromise that are observable in the right-wing mind.'

This sense of liberal intellectual superiority dropped off during the economic woes of the 1970s and the Reagan boom of the 1980s. (Jimmy Carter's presidency, buffeted by economic and national security challenges, generated perhaps the clearest episode of liberal self-doubt.) But these days, liberal confidence and its companion disdain for conservative thinking are back with a vengeance, finding energetic expression in politicians' speeches, top-selling books, historical works and the blogosphere."

Be on the lookout for Harvard Professor Paul Peterson's forthcoming column, "Why do conservatives act like such morally self-righteous jackasses?"

It's a strange tendency in the human race. Fueled by insecurity, and the everpresent joys of self-righteous indignation, I think.

Christ says love thy neighbor. So Christians interpret that for centuries as, "Kill thy neighbor you suspect doesn't love thy neighbor."

Jews bring us the wisdom thou shalt not kill. And then modify it in the early 20th century to mean, "unless you're Arab and we don't want you around."

And Muslims. Don't even get me started.

It is a strange tendency. This tendency to confuse self-righteousness with being right. Passion with reason. And the damned foolish and without exception literally impossible notion that any person or any group can have all the answers in the world and thus know without having to listen and thoughtfully consider alternatives. And willfully ignore how the strong-arming undermines the more honest discussion.

Why has it caused so much death and destruction and insanity in the world?

Fear. And power. And the ways that we make excuses for our unending use of the latter to unfailingly fail to conquer the former.

Outside of disease, we are our worst predator and source of insecurity. And, thankfully, today, our wisest fellowtravelers have developed ideas and clarified our thinking to assure that our worst problem is that we just don't get along very well.

But it's all the same ball of wax, in the end.

It humanity's most foolish fault, by far. And it is isolated to no group or individual.

And the tendency to turn to power to resolve it and all of our problems once and for all, and to pretend that this tendency is our strength rather than our deadliest weakness, is the long and failed history of humanity. Until more genuinely liberal pathes were paved. Liberal meaning liberty. Especially our liberty of conscience.

And our choice to use that conscience to either listen, genuinely, honestly, to one another. And to humble ourselves in a world where what we know is far surpassed, without exception, by what we do not.

Or to keeping pretending that this more aggressive, less reasoned and reasoning path has taken us forward rather than backward.

It should be obvious to anyone who is still not defending this strange journey that we have taken in the last 10 years that it is a path to nowhere. And that it is hardly the path of our highest values at play. And that it is anything, really, other than one long manipulation in the name of the arrogant notion that anyone, anywhere can use power unerringly to resolve our woes.

If there is any one insight that would more genuinely move humanity forward, I think, it is recognizing this folly. From there, many other problems find resolution. And many more people live and thrive. And many more people learn to seek out answers with less false assurances that they or anyone has more right answers than they really do. And thus more real answers can be found.

We talk plenty. We need to listen more. A lot more. For real. Not faking it. And stop pretending that our aggression, and not our minds and hearts, are the source of our progress. It's in that listening where everything else gets tackled more honestly.

Everything else is the story of my life. Plenty of failure. Plenty more stupidity.

On a personal note. Thanks, Brandi. You were right. And I was wrong. About a lot of things. Namely about how unerringly full of it I am. About everything. Especially about what really matters in this life.

Looking to ourselves

Jacob Weisberg introduces some needed honesty into the debate about challenges facing politicians and Americans, alike, and their general reluctance - both of those groups, really - to take them on squarely.

Blame the childish, ignorant American people

"Our inability to address long-term challenges makes a strong case that the United States now faces an era of historical decline. Our reluctance to recognize economic choices also portends negative effects for the rest of the world. To change this story line, we need to stop blaming the rascals we elect to office and start looking to ourselves."

The first line is wrong, except as it reflects America's waning ability to get its way on any issue on the global stage (a positive development, even for Americans, who, believe it or not, do not have all the answers). On every other matter, America's future lies bigger and better ahead of her. But only after she learns about the limits of her use of power and manipulation to get her way.

But the last line is dead on. It's also what Jesus said, by the way, if anyone's keeping count.

And it is that advice - looking to ourselves - that offers the only real option for being better and improving our lives on every issue we face. Including the few that only government can be responsible for, really. And if we're not sure about which ones those are, how about we stick to government's original purpose - matters of security, domestic and international - and assume that the rest are our responsibility. Because they are and must be, for any real good to be done, no matter what government does or does not do.

That vision for the world, and America as a far humbler contributor, is one that offers much real possibility for improving life for humanity. After everything else has failed, I suppose. And the one that we will need to be responsible for, regardless, if we want our challenges successfully resolved.