Dumb, dum-dum dumb

When did foreign policy get so unfathomably dumb that it became a contest between nice and tough? How stupid do we have to get before we recognize that we can be tough and nice as situations honestly call for them?

The danger of Obama's dithering

Who do you know who is only nice all the time? Or tough all the time? Noone. Not even King and Ghandi were nice all the time. And not even Hitler and Stalin for tough all the time.

But that doesn't mean we're going to sit around and pretend like the problem with the world is that there are too many Kings and Ghandis and not enough Hitlers and Stalins. And it doesn't mean that we sit around and act like we somehow forfeit understanding for tough as our liberal values and our self-defense are honestly advanced by either.

Least possible necessary aggression. Meaning, we use force as little as possible. And we only use it when it is honestly consistent with our liberal values.

Note to John Bolton: this is why you lost your job, dumbass. You want to sit around and pout that the world just doesn't understand what guys like you who want to whack everything they don't like do for the world. So be it.

And don't expect to get your job back, you dipshit.

And don't expect the rest of us to listen to a guy who can't get figured out that he and his boss were booted from office for exactly this reason. It certainly wasn't for the socialism, that's for sure.

If you can't reason beyond this stupid false choice, John, you need to join professional wrestling where that level of reasoning is more appreciated.

Because we need something smarter than that in foreign policy, John.

And every time you write you remind me why I put up with the socialist bullshit to make sure I get someone in that office who knows to stop pretending to be a terrorist to defend ourselves against them.

Faith amidst tragedy

Makes me yearn to hear from one of my more important heroes. C.S. Lewis.

This is one of the more resonant religious discussions I have heard in a long time, from Reverend Tom Honey.

As a Christian youth leader, earlier in my life, and an atheist with a deep and profound Christian and moral grounding, a believer in universal morality and spiritual connection, and who finds much more in common with people of various faiths than I could ever possibly find different, I found this discussion of God in the contemporary world very moving and thoughtful.



I think the bottom line is do we live lives where we honestly prevent such tragedy, or do we live lives where we are indifferent or make worse such tragedy or make it possible, at all?

We make choices, is what we do. And our choices either hasten tragedy. Or they prevent it.

The trick of life is that we all work with terribly incomplete understandings of what will and what will not hasten or prevent tragedy. And we have stronger opinions, on the matter, typically, than we have reason to believe so strongly. We talk more than we listen. We assume more than we know. We try to overpower more than engage and understand.

Real progress in tackling our problems necessitates that we are humble more than we are more certain than we can ever possibly be about how we can work together to tackle them together.

A discussion well worth a listen.