"The tough guy who got his ass kicked with 'Twitter'"

Yes, it's true. I just steal all my material from Sullivan. Because he's a badass like that.

Force as a governing philosophy, same as it ever was

This is what it looks like.

Bloody Saturday in Tehran









"in Baharestan we saw militia with axe choping ppl like meat - blood everywhere - like butcher" - Allah Akbar



And this is how the law is and always has been used by those who abuse power.

Fershteh Ghazi (Iranbaan):

“Head of parliament’s judiciary committee: Mousavi accountable for illegal protests, can be pursued legally.”

“Iran MP: Ground ready to legally pursue Mousavi for ‘acting against national security.”

“Head of the Judicial Commission of Majlis has requested the judicial pursuit of Mir Hussein Mousavi.”


Just in case you weren't sure what you were signing up for.

The spoils of power. Enjoy.

Barack Obama, Come to Save the Day

From my pal, Foutsc and his buddies over at Nietzsche is Dead.



Kind of foolish our expectations of Presidents and political folks of all stripes, if we'd step back to think about it, a moment.

The lucky thing is that they can only be in office, and swimming in the waters of their own bullshit, for a short time. And then we can move on to a new Messiah.

Kind of dumb for Americans to behave this way, don't you think?

Maybe we're better off standing on our own two feet.

And expecting our government to treat us like grown-ups rather than like wards of their largesse. And power.

I know you are, but what am I

Pluck beams from your own eye before plucking splinters from the eyes of your neighbors. Isn't that what Jesus said?

Apparently, Michael Barone, as usual, didn't get the memo.

The Adolescent Angst of Barack Obama

"There is a tendency for newly installed presidents, like adolescents suddenly liberated from adult supervision, to do the exact opposite of what their predecessors did. Presidents of both parties indulge in this behavior, though Democrats who campaign as candidates of hope and change are more likely to do so.

Some of this is a legitimate response to the political process: Voters tend to elect presidents who seem to possess qualities and views they thought lacking in their predecessors. But some of it, and especially in the case of Barack Obama, seems to come from an adolescent-like confidence that everything done by those who came before is (insert your own generation's expletive here).

We have seen this spectacularly in the dozen days since the June 12 Iranian election. Back in July 2007, Obama said that he would meet with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other tyrants without preconditions. Grownup squares like George W. Bush wouldn't talk to these guys, so as the avatar of the generation of hope and change, Obama would. Obama figured he was cool enough to get the mullahs to agree to renounce nuclear weapons and all that hate stuff...

...A regime of tyrants dedicated to hatred of America, Britain and Israel is not going to be persuaded to abandon a central goal by even the most dazzling display of adolescent charm.

The other example of adolescent rejection of a policy has come on missile defense. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, Democratic politicians opposed missile defense on the grounds -- mistaken in my view, but arguable at the time -- that it would destabilize the balance of nuclear terror between the United States and the Soviet Union. Democrats have clung to that position even after the fall of the Soviet Union, and Obama, as a senator and presidential candidate, joined them, routinely expressing doubts that missile defense could ever work.

As president, he has singled out missile defense for cuts, even in the face of missile launches by North Korea and evidence of continuing missile development by Iran. Bush abrogated the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and pushed ahead on missile defense, so it must be bad even if there's no U.S.-Soviet balance of terror to destabilize anymore.

Fortunately, there has been some adult supervision: Defense Secretary Robert Gates, in anticipation of a North Korean launch, has activated missile defense operations in Hawaii.

Obama has not taken an adolescent approach across the board. Despite the yearning of many Democrats for American defeat in Iraq and withdrawal from Afghanistan, he has pushed for something like victory in those theaters.

But he is persistent in seeking negotiations with the mullahs and obviously disinclined to increase the small chance of the far more promising outcome of regime change. Plus, Obama shows a continued distaste for missile defense when tyrants are aiming missiles at us and our friends.

These moves show an adolescent determination to renounce the policies of those who came before, no matter what. As parents know, it takes time for an adolescent to grow up."

Could everyone in the room raise their hands who is honestly confident that what Michael is demonstrating in this column is grown-up behavior?

Is this what Michael teaches his children? To mock those he disagrees with rather than engage them honestly? To mock their President when they disagree with his policies?

Mocking opponents is hardly a conservative beam. Beams aplenty to go around on this one.

But is this really what grown-up behavior looks like? Really?

The irony, here, is that Barack has never spoken of Michael Barone in such terms that I have ever heard. I've never heard him be so dismissive of anyone.

Because, Michael, what you are missing, here, is that he really is the grown-up in the room on this discussion. I may disagree with him. On many things.

But the truth is that I trust Barack Obama to be a grown-up and honestly engage me around those disagreements much more honestly and respectfully than I would ever expect from you.

And that is how a grown-up behaves. Whether your children have an appropriate role model for those qualities or not.

Jesus would be a good role model to consider on this one, Michael. I really don't remember him talking about the Pharisees this way. I remember him disagreeing with their policies. But I don't remember him trying, lamely, to mock his way through a discussion that he really just didn't understand very well.

Barack is doing a fine job on Iran, is the simple fact of the matter. He's not making huge inroads. But neither is he taking us as clearly backward, by any objective standard, as his predecessor was. His concerns about making the United States the issue rather than the corrupt Iranian elections the issue is clearly legitimate and being borne out to any honest observer, even if you would prefer a different approach. And, regardless, on the larger issue, he happens to be right. It really doesn't matter what the U.S. President does other than speak honestly and let the Iranians resolve this issue as a matter of Iranian democracy and not as a matter of American swagger.

What is terribly ironic about Michael's column is just how blind he is to how little maturity and thoughtful engagement his thinking demonstrates in that piece. As if black were white and white were black.

A lot of that going around these days. Longer we bullshit ourselves, the more get to pretend, I suppose.

In the meantime, perhaps we should take the ramblings of folks like Michael Barone as seriously as they deserve.

And, thankfully, we have a President of the United States who can and will do just that.

Courage

It goes without saying that what we are witnessing in Iran is a demonstration of enormous courage.



Very moving to see real courage challenge the cowardice of power and the corruption it reaps.

Would that liberal democracies of the West would show similar courage.

Liberty, like love, is easily taken for granted. But, like love, it is where real courage lies.

I
Have
Learned
So much from God
That I can no longer
Call
Myself

A Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim
A Buddhist, a Jew.

The Truth has shared so much of Itself
With me
That I can no longer call myself
A man, a woman, and angel
Or even pure
Soul.

Love has
Befriended Hafiz so completely
It has turned to ash
And freed
Me

Of every concept and image
My mind has ever known.

-Hafiz, Sufi poet (1315-1390)

The politics of irrationality

Do you think either of these parties will take a moment to notice that neither of them are getting anything they want?

Palestinians angered by Netanyahu peace terms

Probably not. How sad and foolish the road that power politics paves.

Force as a governing philosophy, the saga continues

For those in the West - especially those doing so and perversely calling themselves "liberals"; where is George Orwell when we need him - this is what it looks like.

North Korea sentences US reporters to 12 years labor

I also want all immigration hardliners to take note. Their logic is the same. It is as ugly there as it is here.

It's such a clever game, isn't it? We give the harshest sentence for something that shouldn't even be sentenced. And then we show mercy. So everyone knows what nice guys we are.

That is what will likely happen here. Washington will engage diplomatically. The journalists will be released for some condition from Pyongyang. And we will continue the dance of dominance and resistance and all of the ugly manipulations of power until we secure what we really need which is a better working relationship with the DPRK, which does not allow them to bully either their Southern neighbors or anyone else for that matter, but which focusses on peaceful, constructive engagement that facilitates free markets and democratic reforms, and perhaps lays the groundwork for some realizable and verifiable assurances around the development and use of nuclear weapons, patiently and far more effectively than the foolish beyond words dance of aggression that we have been engaged in for the last several years.

This nonsense needs to end. The current cycle of provocation takes us farther away from resolution not closer.

It is time to move beyond the wrongheaded and counterproductive policy of aggressive diplomacy to get to something that will actually work.

What is at stake

I really wish people in America and all the liberal democracies would stop talking about liberty as if it didn't matter. If there is any one movement that should offer some reminder that it does, the '89 protests at Tiananmen should be the one.

China, 20 Years After Tiananmen Square: Liberty Has Many Faces

My favorite story:

"Li Yi, 11

Rising seventh-grader

Li Yi yearns for the kind of freedoms familiar to most kids. 'In my eyes, freedom means that parents don't force me to do something I don't want to do,' he said.

Yi loves to paint. He dreams of one day designing clothes or buildings. His parents, however, think the apparel business is too hard. There could be many years when Yi would receive no orders for his clothes. "They don't think I draw well," he confided.

Instead, his parents want him to graduate from a good university and join a big, stable company. But that doesn't interest him.

'I want them to understand what's in my mind,' he said."

Acton was right. Power corrupts. But before it does, we're not all that different.

For those who take the courage of those kids for granted, fuck you very much.

For everyone else, real progress this way lies.

The Big Us and the Little Us

Charlie Cook in the current National Journal (via Frontpage magazine, strangely; if anyone is guilty of what Charlie is concerned about in this column, outside of the Nation and Democracy Now, it is David Horowitz and his hateful ilk over at Frongpage).

Enough with the Selective Outrage

"Someone recently asked me what, after all these years around politics -- 25 years of covering politics, 37 years involved in one way or another -- I liked best and what bothered me the most.

To my alarm, I found myself exhibiting far more passion in delineating what I didn't like: the increasingly hateful tone of the discourse, the hypocrisy of selective outrage and the feigning of disgust over behavior of an opponent while turning a blind eye when it occurs in one's own party.

To be sure, one can go back to the earliest days of our country to find hateful behavior in the discussion and execution of American politics. But there is far more today than when I worked on my first campaign as a senior in high school in 1972 or worked on Capitol Hill while attending college starting in 1973.

People rarely stop at simply disagreeing now. For many, if someone has a different position on an issue, it isn't enough to think them wrong -- they must be stupid; they must be corrupt; their motives must be questioned. Just believing someone is wrong isn't sufficient anymore.

Disclosure and embarrassment were once considered enough punishment. Now, we want investigations, "truth commissions" and punishment, what some have come to call the criminalization of the political process. It isn't enough to beat someone. You must try to throw them in jail or, at the very least, cost them a fortune in legal fees. The fact that neither side can afford that level of scrutiny seems lost on many.

The problem with this, beyond simply being narrow-minded, is that it makes it harder for those individuals to work together on some other issue where they might actually agree. The way Capitol Hill and politics is supposed to work is that while we may disagree on X today, we might agree and work together on Y tomorrow.

But the growing relish and intensity of ad hominem attacks makes such a scenario more difficult to achieve, leading Congress to become increasingly dysfunctional, regardless of which party is in charge...

...It's watching these kinds of things that make long-time observers cynical and jaded. There is so much to be faulted and so much hypocrisy from each side that it would strike me as difficult to, over a long period of time, see either side as that of truth, justice and prudence. It comes down more to which side is the lesser of two evils, the sides changing with some degree of regularity."

Charlie seems to argue for more equitable scandal-mongering among both parties within their own ranks.

I'm pretty clear that the scandal-mongering is the problem.

What is so difficult about learning to be decent to one another?

Nothing, is the answer. We just don't want to do it. For fear that the world will become an ugly, scary place if we do.

Too late, I say.

When I was a little boy, there was this really wonderful book I read after Sunday School called the Big Me and the Little Me. It was all about the choices we make when we face tough situations in life. To be the Big Me or the Little Me. React like a spoiled and destructive child. Or take a deep breath and be the Big Me in the face of the difficulties of life.

Only to find out that, when push comes to shove, on the big questions, many people too often choose the Little Me. No matter how old they get.

It's long past time for us to get bigger than this.

A good start

Lots of people in politics, around the globe, have similar mea culpas to offer up for undermining reasonable, open-minded, and open-hearted discussion and engagement.

How I (and Other "Pro-Life" Leaders) Contributed to Dr. Tiller's Murder

How refreshing that some of us have to courage to do so.

My serenity prayer

This is my hometown, so it hits close to home. Particularly tragic, for me, since my life is dedicated to ending this nonsense.

Suspect in slaying of abortion provider George Tiller being returned to Wichita

What is wrong with people that they have such a hard time admitting that, maybe, especially on the big things, perhaps, they just might be wrong?

This is the problem with contemporary liberal democratic politics. And this is one of the more extreme consequences of that more fundamental failure of our humanity.

The violence of people like Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Queda, the Castro regime, Kim Jong Il, and the totalitarian Communist government in China all reflect the very same and ugly impulse.

What is wrong with us that we refuse to give it up?

We are fools is what is wrong.

May we find the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Repression is bad for your health

And liberal democracy is a pretty decent predictor of health. A quick look at the most recent life expectancy figures might confirm this conclusion.

WHO: Japan, San Marino top life-expectancy list

No mistake why countries like Zimbabwe and Sierre Leone, two of the more violent and repressive countries in the world, are at the bottom of these figures and countries like Japan and San Marino, the latter being the oldest constitutional republic in the world, top the list.

Liberal democrats (meaning those who support freedom and democratic values and government) need to take time to remember that we have much more in common in our values, which make for better lives, than we have different.

This is as good as a time as any.

Progress

Gloria is right. This is what we need. More dialogue, less culture war.

Obama ignores the 'rules,' stirs the pot

This is the direction that the country needs.

One day, this needs to be the norm.

Foolish circling, wise peace

The circling that Israel and Palestine are doing, right now, is so remarkably foolish and futile, it is amazing that we all watch it and take it more seriously than it deserves.

Hamas wants acceptance without changing ideology

Does Hamas really believe that witholding recognition of Israel's right to exist will make their neighbor to the east go away? It would be irrational in the extreme to believe so.

Does Israel really believe withholding support for a Palestinian state offers any viable path to a more permanent peace with their neighbors to the west? Obviously not, to any empirically-grounded observer.

So what is all of this about?

It is about the dubious and deeply flawed notion that if peace efforts by moderates are supported unflinchingly by the hardline efforts of those willing to use military force then a resolution will be crafted favorable to the party who can force terms in their direction. Both parties, presumably. Kind of funny and stupid, when you think about it.

The bottom line between Israel and Palestine is now as it always has been. You need two partners more genuinely committed to peace and ending murder, death, and chaos in the lives of innocent Israeli and Palestinian citizens than the power games designed to acquire more land or concessions so that the collective egos of the various parties are not wounded with the unchangeable fact that neither party will get everything they want in a final peace agreement and that all of the pain and heartache of the last 100 years will only be resolved through a commitment to peace and reconciliation.

You need two parties negotiating peace in good faith. You need some kind of security agreement that will arrest or kill any combatants still threatening the lives of innocent Israelis and Palestinians. And everything else is gravy.

To anyone who really cares about ending the bloodshed and not playing power politics, that is.

Which begs the question:

Is there anyone in Israel or Palestine more committed to ending the deaths of innocent civilians than to the power politics?

We shall see.

Love

You know what holds humanity up most?

That we are all just too foolish and cowardly to live up to our values. Or to face honestly that we do not.

How is it possible for a people so premised around Christian values spend 10 years rationalizing why they should not have to live up to Christianity's central premise: forgiveness, love, and compassion for our neighbors?

When you take a step back from it, it is both funny and sad all at once.

And the truth is that there is and never will be any real progress until we get over it.

I see slow, faint glimmers of hope. We're getting there. Just excruciatingly slow.

However long it takes, I suppose.

That's why forgiveness and compassion are so important.

Because we are the ones who, in the end, will need it most.

Luckily, love always finds a way. Always.

Real progress

Nick Gillespie points in its honest direction.

Paying With Our Sins

Repression is not progress. They move in opposite directions.

Time to have the courage to get honest.

And move in the direction that honest progress suggests.

Love and cynicism

I think I understand the cynicism about love, now.

You can't make anyone else love for them.

And the disappointment about that fact can be too much for some people to bear they may feel, sometimes. Although, really, strong hearts can bear whatever they need to bear.

It is just a fact of life.

That doesn't mean that love is not the most appropriate lens through which to look at the world.

It just means that you can't make the world or anyone in it reciprocate.

And, yet, a world and a life without love would really just be too tragic to bear. For any of us.

Which is why love triumphs over cynicism. Every time.

And always will.

Liberal compassion and wisdom

This is why he's the Dean.

David Broder: Stop the Scapegoating

"If ever there is a time for President Obama to trust his instincts and stick to his guns, that time is now, when he is being pressured to change his mind about closing the books on the "torture" policies of the past.

Obama, to his credit, has ended one of the darkest chapters of American history, when certain terrorist suspects were whisked off to secret prisons and subjected to waterboarding and other forms of painful coercion in hopes of extracting information about threats to the United States.

He was right to do this. But he was just as right to declare that there should be no prosecution of those who carried out what had been the policy of the United States government. And he was right, when he sent out his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, to declare that the same amnesty should apply to the lawyers and bureaucrats who devised and justified the Bush administration practices.

But now Obama is being lobbied by politicians and voters who want something more -- the humiliation and/or punishment of those responsible for the policies of the past. They are looking for individual scalps -- or, at least, careers and reputations.

Their argument is that without identifying and punishing the perpetrators, there can be no accountability -- and therefore no deterrent lesson for future administrations. It is a plausible-sounding rationale, but it cloaks an unworthy desire for vengeance...

...The torture memos represented a deliberate, and internally well-debated, policy decision, made in the proper places -- the White House, the intelligence agencies and the Justice Department -- by the proper officials.

One administration later, a different group of individuals occupying the same offices have -- thankfully -- made the opposite decision. Do they now go back and investigate or indict their predecessors?

That way, inevitably, lies endless political warfare. It would set the precedent for turning all future policy disagreements into political or criminal vendettas. That way lies untold bitterness -- and injustice.

Suppose that Obama backs down and Holder or someone else starts hauling Bush administration lawyers and operatives into hearings and courtrooms.

Suppose the investigators decide the country does not want to see the former president and vice president in the dock. Then underlings pay the price while big shots go free. But at some point, if he is at all a man of honor, George W. Bush would feel bound to say: That was my policy. I was the president. If you want to indict anyone for it, indict me.

Is that where we want to go? I don't think so. Obama can prevent it by sticking to his guns."

The truth is that compassion, empathy, and the wisdom that springs from it, is the best that liberalism has to offer.

This was why I was a liberal as a kid. And it is where the best instincts of both liberals and conservatives are found.

It is no mistake that Jesus of Nazareth, the spiritual inspiration for most liberals and conservatives in America and in the world, had a life and a philosophy centered in love and compassion. And it is no mistake that this life and philosophy and the similarly decent and compassionate belief systems of so many moral, religious, and philosophical traditions serve as the moral compasses of most people around the world.

It is no mistake that most children in America learn to "do unto others as you would them do unto you."

The most important rule in this situation as should be the case in most cases in America and almost all matters in the world is the Golden Rule.

But every so often, our baser, more vengeful, more meanspirited, uglier impulses creep up and get confused with these nobler ideals.

It is about time that we stop this nonsense and stop pretending that the ugliness is really more decent or honest or better than it is.

We have gone on long enough like this.

Now is a good time to end this and to move forward.

Because, frankly, if we do not, this is not an America, anymore, that I would want to be a part of if we were choose anything different.

Because I, for one, cannot choose the ugliness and call it decent when it very clearly is not.

And I'm tired of the pretenders being taken more seriously than they deserve this political period.

It is time for us to make a turn for much more genuine progress.

And this direction, of more genuine liberal compassion and wisdom, marks the way.

If only we will have the wisdom to follow it.

The fear to admit that we might be wrong

For whatever reason, this fear - the fear to admit that we might be wrong - is one of the most pernicious and tragic of fears. It is responsible for so much damage in the world.

And all for what?

The more I understand it, the less I understand it.

So much needless tragedy. So sad and foolish.

My life is committed to seeing this foolish tendency, and the tragedy that comes with it, end, as much as possible.

It won't completely. But that is no reason to not expect better of ourselves. And create less of our own tragedy along the way.

Liberal values, power, and this question of torture

Debate Over 'Torture' Lacks Seriousness

The debate over torture by this last Administration is actually much more involved than Mr. Sowell lets on, here.

But this is still one of the stronger pieces on torture that I have read to date.

Debate and engagement, not strong-arming, is how we will get to truth more often. And that debate needs to get honest. Including about what our own instincts would be given the scenarios that interrogators and the Administration faced.

What we need much more of, in liberal democracies, is much more honesty about our real instincts and how we honestly account for them and not the kind of moral grandstanding that the left and the right have been engaged in, these last 10 years.

If you doubt that repression breaks down, over time, keep watching this debate.

The more I watch, the more confidence I have that liberal values trump power, long term, any day of the week.

Scared and foolish

The heart of what is wrong with humanity, much of the time. And the reason for most of our most serious and foolish mistakes and tragedies.

If there is anything that I've learned from our unit on Hitler, this month, and its parallels to our current challenges, this is it.

And if there is anything I have learned in the last 10 years it is that intelligence is no guarantee of avoiding either. Which is why I trust heart more than smarts.

So scared. So foolish. And too little courage and too much intimidation to acknowledge either.

How tragic that we would learn our lessons so slowly and create so much tragedy until we do.

1-2-3-4, the Empathy Challenge

Attention, empathy-challenged. Just try to hate this video. I dare you.

Because, really, if you do, fuck you, too. And who really cares what you think anyway.

Obama's plan and liberal accounting

Let us not say that we haven't been warned.

Quick fix today, crisis tomorrow in Obama's White House

"Precious little snowflakes"

Bill Maher reminds Americans that maybe they are not the snowflakes they imagine themselves to be.

Americans, please wash hands before criticizing Obama

"New Rule: Now that we've answered his call to wash our hands, President Obama must continue to tell us how to live. Last week, when America was faced with the pan-global swine flu omega death plague, the President went on TV and told people to wash their hands, and experts tell us this made a big difference, which augurs well for next month's 'National Wipe Your Butt Day.' Next week, in a fireside chat, he'll tell us not to put a fork in the toaster.

It's sad that the leader of the free world had to call a live press conference to tell his nation of clueless nitwits that employees must wash hands before returning to work. If that's not the 'Forrest Gump-ification' of America, I don't know what is. Feeling wet, America? Why not try new, 'Coming in from the Rain'?

You may think I'm blowing this out of proportion, but this plea from Obama - you know, the "Audacity of Soap' - was the first specific thing a President has asked the American people to actually do in decades. Unless you count 'go shopping.' Hopefully it will open the door to other, slightly weightier suggestions from the President.

So please, Mr. President, tell us to turn the lights off when we leave the room. Tell us not to buy crap we don't need and can't afford. Tell us to lay off the Ring Dings and Cheese Nips, and think twice before dating a stranger we meet on craigslist. For God's sake, tell people to read a newspaper. Not just to save the newspaper industry - though Lord knows I'd miss my Daily Jumble - but because having a public that actually knows something is our best defense against ever again electing a President who knows nothing...

...During the campaign, Obama suggested that one simple thing Americans could do to help with fuel-efficiency was check their car's tire pressure. And Republicans freaked, because to them, every suggestion for the common good is a direct attack on their personal liberty, and it's unpatriotic to interfere with anyone's God-given right to be big, dumb and selfish.

When the President suggests things that will help the greater good, that's not a slight against your fragile manhood. I know, you're a rugged individualist. But you're not - you're just a schmuck.

Going back to Reagan, all of our leaders have predictably and reliably told us that government is always the problem, never you my precious, perfect American citizen. You are always perfect just the way you are, like a precious little snowflake. A beautiful, precious, 350-pound, pig-ignorant snowflake."

Maybe it's time for all of us to stop pretending. That's why I trust the likes of Bill Maher, Larry the Cable Guy, and Mark Twain more than so many in political office.

Because they pretends less. And that is the example, and not the examples in Congress, we all need to be following, these days.

Partisans really just do not get it

A very nice reflection on the torture question by David Harsanyi.

Sorry, History is Just Not That Simple

I really don't know what to tell liberals and conservatives, anymore. This period is not going to be remembered as a vindication of any ideology. Like every period, it will be a debate about ideas. And no ideology, like no religion, will ever be a victor in that conflict.

What that debate will yield, hopefully, is a more honest and compassionate wisdom that serves us and future generations.

And that is the best that anyone can or should hope for.

When they are being honest with themselves, that is.

The Wisdom of Solomon

Have these people never read the Book of Kings? Solomon had other things to say on this matter. As would Jesus.

Beware of Empathy

Sometimes Republicans really are the stupid party. What a foolish and unwinnable battle they have chosen.

How ironic that they would take on empathy in the courtroom at the very moment when their last Administration will be in so desperate need of it. How and ironic and terribly, terribly foolish.

I'm pretty sure this is not something that Jesus would do.

"Liberal democracy"

Britain can call itself many things with this ban. Liberal and democratic are not among those.

Britain's 'least wanted' blacklist

I wonder why Zimbabwe's repressive leadership looks to its former colonial master and says, "Who are you to judge?"

Perhaps we have given up on liberal democratic values altogether.

If so, we should at least be honest that that we have abandoned them for something more "progressive."

The legacy of Jack Kemp

As the GOP looks for guidance for what kind of party they should become, the man who passed on Saturday offers one of its brighter lights.

Jack Kemp: Capitalist for the Common Man

A humble commitment to democracy, free markets, and a passion for doing good is a far stronger foundation for a party than fear or exclusion.

Jack Kemp, you will be missed. Thank you for your contributions while you were here.

Moving forward

Not a bad reflection on how this torture question might be addressed.

The Right Way to Deal With Torture's Legacy

I'm tired of vindictiveness driving policy in America.

Time for something better.

Turning this ship around

Before you know it, your speech could be offensive

How refreshing to read a column genuinely committed to liberal values, rather than illiberal values that have masqueraded shamelessly, lately, as liberal.

Note to illiberal elements of both the right and the left:

We are turning this ship around. Prepare yourselves.

Hell yeah

You thought honest academic inquiry was dead, huh?

It's because you're looking in the wrong place.

What Was the Civil War Really About?

You want honest, open debate about important political and historical matters?

Look to elementary and secondary schools.

Joe Nye, eat your heart out.

Getting honest about the stakes

At least Jackie Chan is getting honest about the stakes involved in this debate.

Jackie Chan's China comments prompt backlash

"Chan told a business forum in the southern Chinese province of Hainan that a free society may not be beneficial for China's authoritarian mainland.

'I'm not sure if it's good to have freedom or not,' Chan said Saturday. 'I'm gradually beginning to feel that we Chinese need to be controlled. If we're not being controlled, we'll just do what we want.'

He went on to say that freedoms in Hong Kong and Taiwan made those societies 'chaotic.'"

And that, in a nutshell, is the problem. Jackie is speaking squarely about the dilemma in Western societies, today, when we are not bullshitting ourselves.

Does progress in liberal societies mean more control or more freedom?

Liberal would imply freedom. And all of our history would point in exactly this direction.

And, as Jackie's comments highlight, if not, what will this mean for less free parts of the world?

It's a question that free societies need to take a long hard look at.

Do we value our freedom? Or take it for granted.

Something tells me Jackie's comments, here, do not reflect the best answer we have to offer.

Taking our freedom for granted

How to Raise the Standard in America's Schools

I love that the free marketplace of ideas lets Walter Isaacson have all the opinions that he wants. What I don't love is journalists like Isaacson using that freedom to add yet one more layer of bureaucracy on America's schools on the foolish notion that a Federal law will make things all better.

I have a suggestion for Walter Isaacson. How about a set of national standards for the quality of reporting that occurs in America, with Time, Newsweek, and the U.S. News and World report being the very lowest standard possible, as any relatively experienced speech and debate competitor will readily acknowledge.

Walter, the day you will accept the Federal government telling you how to report and publish your opinions is the day I will accept the Federal government telling me how to teach.

Until then, either take liberal values seriously, or don't expect that you will be taken seriously.

There's a reason the Founding Fathers fought for liberty. No matter how many Walter Isaacsons in the world take their freedom, and, more importantly, the freedom that others cherish, forever for granted.

What makes us stronger

Concordia University American history professor Jim Burkee makes the argument that I plan to make my teaching and writing career.

Liberty-loving Gen-Yers will reshape politics

Do you realize how important it is to have just one person really believe in you? That is the power of teaching and a strong heart.

And that is what will turn the tide on cynical power politics.

That and a genuine commitment to liberal values and the powerfully strong consciences and more honest strength that it produces.

Those who think power politics reflects strength should study its masters. Hitler, Stalin, and every figure who has sought unrivaled predominant power has reasoned this way.

And they have all failed.

Because strength is not found in our power, primarily. It is found in the values that animate that power.

And it is on those values that young people have been nourished, whether those obsessed with power politics like it or not.

And that is exactly how liberal values are supposed to work.

And that is what makes us stronger.

Because I do

I've decided that I don't care what those scared little bitches in the political world, say. I take love seriously.

I'm writing that goddamn book.



Katie Sutherland, the lead for Pearl and the Puppets, is a math teacher in Glasgow, England. You gotta check out her Youtube where her students have shown up to support her. And after watching the incomprehensible mess that more cynical folks have made of the world in the last 8 years, It's refreshing that maybe some people with heart are preparing to right what's wrong.

Why do I care about this stuff so much?

Because I do.

Deal with it, bitches.

Soul music

I think Lily just about sums it up.



Or how about an answer to cynicism in the world of celebrity.



Who'd Have Known runs through my heart all day long every day, at this point.



If you've not had the pleasure of the company of Lily Allen, I would suggest acquainting yourself.

And while you're at it, Joshua Radin might melt your heart if you allow him.



And Pearl and the Puppets will make you smile.



Nice to know that the music world still has a soul.

Making it happen

As the immortal Hoki Poki once said, that's what it's all about.

How 1 Autistic Young Man Runs a Business

"Joe Steffy is off to Overland Park, Kan., this week to do a PowerPoint presentation on his business, Poppin' Joe's Kettle Korn. He's a 23-year-old small-business man with a goal of $100,000 in sales by 2012. Joe also has autism and Down syndrome and is nonverbal. When he gives his talk, he will push buttons on an augmentative speech device to deliver the words. His audience will be parents who fervently hope their own special-needs children will be able to work, too.

Joe's parents, Ray and Janet, didn't agree with the school district assessment in their home town of Louisburg, Kan., that said Joe would never be able to work or live independently. "I'm one who can easily get ticked off,' says Ray. 'That ticked me off. We saw more in Joe than that. We set out to prove to the school that he had capabilities.' They came across kettle corn while on a trip to Alaska and realized that all that popping, scooping, and serving suited Joe's love of work.

The path to Joe Steffy's success was not an easy one; Ray Steffy worked closely with Dave Hammis, an advocate for self-employment for people with disabilities in Middletown, Ohio, who trains business owners, government employees, and parents on how to make use of state and federal programs. The Steffys wrote up a business plan and helped Joe secure $25,000 in grants from programs like Social Security Administration's Plan to Achieve Self-Support program (PASS).

In 2005, Poppin' Joe's Kettle Korn was born. Sales have grown from $16,000 in 2005 to $50,000 in 2008, both from selling at festivals and from delivering popcorn to local outlets. Joe has five part-time employees, and his parents help out with driving and other tasks. Pop and everyone that works with him knows whatever Joe wants to do you let him do, because he's the boss,' Ray says. 'If he wants to pop, he'll shove Dad out of the way and pop...

...'It's been hard work, from the standpoint of physical work,' says Ray Steffy, who is 67. 'But a parent with a child like Joe has a choice. You can either kick in and do this kind of thing, or you can sit and fret emotionally with the amount of energy, worrying about what's going to happen to them.'

The payoff for that effort, as far as the Steffys are concerned, has been priceless. They see their son make a local popcorn delivery, accept payment, fold it, and put it in his pocket. When he walks out, his dad says, Joe looks 3 inches taller than when he walked in."

This is the standard for special education and education, generally, to which I aspire.

With so much to lament in life, it's the Joe Steffy's of the world that inspire me.

Saying thanks (some resolution for cynicism)

I've been dealing with some cynicism, here as of late.

Anyone who has ever had any expectation that the world is going to be any certain or ideal or better way is likely to go through some cynicism in their lives. It's inevitable in a world where people and life often fall short of even our most cherished expectations.

Life is FUBAR. Often. That's why I love that movie, I suppose. Because that's my conclusion, too. If you spend enough time with the roughest edges in life - terrorism and despotism come to mind - you come to realize that life is often incomprehensibly FUBAR and tragic in some places in the world.

And when you deal with gangs and violence and the seedy underside of life as I often do in a job where a good proportion of the kids I work with are either in the criminal justice or family law systems or they are well on their way - a special education school for kids with behavior and mental health issues is often euphemism for "education for kids with the most fucked up problems" - or if you study law enforcement, domestic security, international security or any of the most dangerous matters in the world - you often gain a much greater appreciation for the nicer, more decent parts of the world. You come to appreciate all of those places where people generally behave and treat one another better.

That's the point of Saving Private Ryan, if you're watching carefully.

All kinds of fucked up things in the world. All kinds of things to keep open a clear eye for often harder truthes.

But knowing that there is FUBAR out in the world does not, in the least, mean that we should not appreciate the nice things, the decent things, the good things.

To the contrary.

If you are someone who deals with the rougher edges in life more regularly, as I do, you come to appreciate just how much most of us take those nice things for granted. And how much they really matter in life.

In my life, at least.

And I frankly cannot imagine trying to live a life where they did not.

And, for that, I am grateful to all the decent people in the world who have taught me, raised me, helped me, and kept me safe. Soldiers, cops, teachers, ministers and Sunday School teachers, my parents, friends and family, and everyone who has pitched in to make my life better.

And all of us could stand to appreciate and, perhaps, say thanks to some of those people in our lives, as well.

Overreach

Yessir, I think we have overreach.

U.S. Threatens Bankruptcy for GM, Chrystler

Maybe I'm the amateur, here, but this definitely looks like a shitty way to sustain a domestic auto industry to me.

WWBD? (What Would Buffet Do?)

Know better than me, that's for sure.

All I know is having the Federal government call the shots on the biggest auto manufacturer in America is a sign of the weakness of our industry, not strength.

And no political propaganda to the contrary will make that not so.

No sense at all

I think I've finally made my peace with the fact that life often makes no sense at all. And that is not a fact that I am always able to change. I've wasted much energy mourning that sometimes cruel, often pointless fact of life already.

Time to enjoy life more and worry about it less.

Getting honest with ourselves

Nobody listens to real climate change experts

I generally share the sentiments of this column. I believe that a modest warming is occurring. I am skeptical of catastrophic scenarios. And I am quite confident, at this point, because of the tenor of the debate, that climate change has been so politicized that it has rendered more reasonable policy debates and policy-making nearly impossible.

One of the comments on this column illustrates, tongue-in-cheek, the problem of the modern politics, left and right.

"This is nothing more than vile propaganda.

I really believe climate change denial should be an imprisonable offense. Hundreds of millions of people will die if something isn't done...

I know this because my children are brainwashed/taught these very things in school. If they argue against the 'facts', they'll come home with low grades. And schools (and indeed universities) are hardly the places to make poltical points now, are they?"

Threats and intimidation clearly undermine more open, honest debate.

The problem is that everyone loves them to get what they want.

It needs to end.

If we are ever going to be honest with ourselves, that is.

Spring break

You know why so many of the most serious problems in the world go unresolved?

Because most people would rather fight about them than resolve them.

After awhile, it gets old.

Makes me crave a beer, some vegi phad thai, and a week thinking about nothing special.

Burning the village to save it

On more than just matters of finances, I think Dr. Sowell is correct, here.

Subsidizing Bad Decisions

The bigger tragedy of the world is substituting the ordinary pitfalls of life with political warfare designed to inflict much tragedy to somehow save the village.

I think we can do better than that.

Certainty

I'm fairly convinced, at this point, that an awful lot of politics, and too much of life, is the long psychodrama of people certain that they must be right. About everything, no less. And who are desperate for the power to back up that all too certain assertion.

Many people die on that alter. Many others are hurt, manipulated, or otherwise maltreated. All of us are poorer for it.

The question is will we settle for it.

How sad if the answer to that question were yes.

Honest, humble, and respecting my intelligence

Christopher Buckley, like all of us, is at his best when he is at his most honest and humble.

The Audacity of Nope

"One feels almost unpatriotic, entertaining negative thoughts about Obama’s grand plan. But it is far from clear that spending oceanic sums of money is the right corrective...

...Now let me say: Unlike Rush Limbaugh, I want President Obama to succeed. I honestly do. We are all in this leaky boat together—did I say 'leaky'? I meant 'sieve-like'—and it would be counterproductive, if not downright suicidal, to want it to go down just to prove a conservative critique of Keynesian economics.

But let’s all be honest about this: No one knows how all this is going to turn out in the end. Do you, really? If we learned one thing during the runup to this rancid enchilada, it is that most of the smartest people in the room were wrong, and the other ones were crooked.

Even today, smart people are still holding spittle-flying debates about what really ended the Great Depression. (That’s reassuring, isn’t it?) Personally, I’m in the camp that maintains it was Pearl Harbor, not FDR’s policies, that actually brought it to an end. Which, I suppose, leaves me to wonder if the best we can hope for is another sneak attack by Japan. Bring it on, as our former president would say. Let’s just pray Japan hasn’t quietly produced The Bomb since 1945. All those centrifuges they said they needed for 'flat-screen plasma TVs'? Uh oh….

I’m all for audacity and all for hope. 'L’audace, l’audace—toujours l’audace!'(Frederick the Great) is an inspiring motto. It worked for Patton. Whatever you think of this leviathan budget, President Obama cannot be accused of being a trimmer, or reticent. And with the New York Times running heart-breaking front-page stories about out-of-work executives now working as $11-an-hour janitors, I’m all for hope, too. Governor Jindal and El Rushbo may not be happy campers, but even Senator John McCain has been sounding positive notes about President Obama’s leadership—while at the same time focusing the nation’s attention on the president’s (ahem) proposed new $11 billion fleet of helicopters. It would be presidential for him to say, as he almost has, that he’ll keep the old model for a few more years.

The strange thing is that one feels almost unpatriotic, entertaining negative thoughts about Mr. Obama’s grand plan, as if one were indulging in—call it—the audacity of nope. It is on the one hand clear that something must be done about our economic woes. But that is very different from saying that spending these vast, oceanic sums of money is the right corrective to a decade of fiscal incontinence.

One thing is certain, however: Government is getting bigger and will stay bigger. Just remember the apothegm that a government that is big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take it all away.And remember what de Tocqueville told us about a bureaucracy that grows so profuse that not even the most original mind can penetrate it.

If this is what the American people want, so be it, but they ought to have no illusions about the perils of this approach. Mr. Obama is proposing among everything else $1 trillion in new entitlements, and entitlement programs never go away, or in the oddly poetic bureaucratic jargon, “sunset.” He is proposing $1.4 trillion in new taxes, an appetite for which was largely was whetted by the shameful excesses of American CEO corporate culture. And finally, he has proposed $5 trillion in new debt, one-half the total accumulated national debt in all US history. All in one fell swoop.

He tells us that all this is going to work because the economy is going to be growing by 3.2 percent a year from now. Do you believe that? Would you take out a loan based on that? And in the three years following, he predicts that our economy will grow by 4 percent a year.

This is nothing if not audacious hope. If he’s right, then looking back, March 2009 will be the dawn of the Age of Stimulation, or whatever elegant phrase Niall Ferguson comes up with. If he turns out to be wrong, then it will look very different, the entrance ramp to the Road to Serfdom, perhaps, and he will reap the whirlwind that follows, along with the rest of us."

If there is anything I am learning, this political period, it is that a little humility and a little honest debate goes a long way to earning my trust in a democracy. And the kind of grandstanding and dishonest debate we've been having earns my mistrust fairly quickly, as well.

The last time I remember trusting the political process was the last time that discussions were more honest, moderate, and where people seemed more honestly pitching in together to deal with challenges in front of us.

When that is not happening, I just do not trust the process, no matter who runs it.

Honesty and humility are much more persuasive to me than grand theories and ideologies, anymore, all of which are more interested in winning my ballot than persuading me honestly, I'm convinced.

Be nice if people actually respected my intelligence, for once.

Growing up, raising children, and how I look at the world

I don't have any children of my own, yet.

But, as I mature, and think about raising children and what message about the world best prepare them for life, I do think the simplest message is the best one.

Be good. Be honest. Keep your promises. Be someone of integrity. Do your best. Accept failure and success with class, learn from them, and look forward to new opportunities. When life gets tough, you get tougher. Follow the law. Be good to people around you. Take school, church, family, and life seriously. But not too seriously. Do something you're interested in. Love your spouse and your children and be true to them. Take the Ten Commandments seriously. Live a good life more than a famous or rich or any other kind of life. Be worthy of peoples' trust.

Do what you're supposed to do. Love your friends and family. And have a nice life.

The older I get, the more I realize that the complicated answers to life are generally too complicated. The simple ones are better answers, on the big life questions, I think.

And, after that, there are plenty of very nice lives awaiting you. And you get to choose.

Have at it.

Choice and character

Excepting for a more understanding attitude toward the confusion for young people like Michael Phelps making their way in this strange age, I roughly agree with Michael Continetti's analysis in this article.

The Age of Irresponsibility

"Decades from now, historians are going to fill e-tome after e-tome debating when the crisis in American authority began. A good place to start would be the Clinton era. The president of the United States had a tawdry affair, lied about it, and refused to accept any responsibility for his actions. The Republicans correctly pointed out that the president had acted beneath his office. The problem was that many of them were acting beneath their offices, too. In Washington, where the spirit of public service is supposed to reign, both Democrats and Republicans were using positions of power for private indulgence. Many things sprang from the Clinton impeachment. Confidence in authority was not one of them.

We correct for the mistakes of past presidents. George W. Bush (barely) won the White House in part because he promised to restore integrity to the office. And the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, did briefly increase the public's trust in government and its elites. In the tense months following the attacks, the public rallied behind strong leaders like Bush, Rudy Giuliani, and Donald Rumsfeld. These men, who had many private failings, nonetheless were seen to be acting in the interests of the nation as a whole. We seemed to be on the verge of a new era of patriotism and civic renewal.

But it was not to be. The lack of accountability among the elites quickly caught back up. There was George Tenet, whose time as CIA director included two massive intelligence failures. Bush gave Tenet the nation's highest civilian honor in return. There was the FBI, which still hasn't definitively figured out who attacked America with anthrax in late 2001. There was Rumsfeld, who committed too few troops to the fight in Iraq and failed to change strategy when it became clear, early on, that America was losing the war. He stayed in his job until 2006. The generals whom Bush and Rumsfeld tasked with running the war? None of them suffered any consequences for his failures. One of the main opponents of the successful surge strategy in Iraq, George Casey, was promoted to Army chief of staff.

Nor was the crisis in authority limited to politics. There were dramatic instances of public corruption such as the Jack Abramoff scandal, but there were also remarkable examples of private corruption such as the Enron and Arthur Andersen accounting scandals. In the months after September 11, business titan after business titan came under indictment: Enron executives, Martha Stewart, Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski--the list goes on. Chief executives were massively compensated even when they drove their companies into a ditch. No surprise when populism started making a comeback. The private sector and the public sector were failing the common man. Neither acted with any sense of propriety.

The same was true of our cultural elites. The celebrity of the age was Paris Hilton, an exemplar of the inequality and promiscuity that characterize the present moment. Hilton was born into extraordinary wealth but did not achieve true fame until 2003, when her homemade porno movie made it to the Internet. Twenty or even fifteen years ago, Paris Hilton's behavior would have been a scandal. Not today. Why? Because the wealthy, famous, and well-connected can do as they please and suffer no consequences--as long as they possess no shame.

There are moments when it seems as though every figure who waltzes across the public stage is a cheat, a fraud, a liar, or a failure. Child abuse scandals have tarnished the image of Catholic bishops and priests. Steroid scandals have racked Major League Baseball, the Tour de France, and the Olympic games. And then there are the celebrities who write books, make music, and perform in film and television. Where to start?

On any given day, any public figure might be arrested, assaulted, admit to infidelity, go bankrupt, or break down emotionally in front of television cameras. Sometimes all of these things happen at once.

The next day the celebrity will be released from incarceration. He will go into a rehabilitation program or 'spend time with the family and emerge, weeks later, with a tell-all book and publicity tour that make him even richer than he was before. The idea of 'rehab' is so ubiquitous that in 2007 it was the title of a hit song. No negative value is attached to poisoning one's body to the point where it requires detoxification. Quite the contrary. 'Rehab' is, in some sense, something to aspire to. To go to rehab implies deep financial resources and a life rich with experience (at least in the areas of alcohol and drug abuse). There are no consequences.

It wasn't until last fall that we saw how widely the rot had spread. Everyone was implicated in the financial meltdown. Everyone who took on a mortgage they couldn't afford, who lent to people who couldn't pay back the loan, who securitized the unpayable debts and resold them in ways even astrophysicists can't understand, and who instituted government policies that spurred a culture of easy money and consumption beyond one's means. All were responsible.

Meanwhile, as the men who brought the financial system to the brink of collapse were cashing in and remodeling their offices, the executives and union officials who bankrupted the American automobile industry were traveling to Washington hat in hand, begging the public sector to give them aid. Bush had no credibility with the American public. Treasury secretary Hank Paulson inspired no one's confidence.

America's political, economic, and cultural elites seem incapable of behaving responsibly and being accountable for their actions. That incapacity is why you wake up in the morning and dread reading the day's headlines. It is why, for years, there seemingly has been nothing but bad news. It is this larger crisis that has driven the public's opinion that the country is headed down the 'wrong track' and fostered the widespread sense that American power has entered a period of decline. This is the age of irresponsibility...

...The failures of the elites aren't related to public expend-iture. They are related to a spiritual torpor afflicting the affluent. In a rich society, as we pursue our individual ends, obligations--both private and public--fall to the wayside. The status game consumes all. Corners are cut. The higher we scale the ladder, the more material possessions become an end in themselves. We chase one pleasure after another. Our mantra is 'eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.' The reigning ethic is every man for himself.

Irving Kristol, in his 1976 essay 'Adam Smith and the Spirit of Capitalism,' anticipated the spirit of our own time:

[H]appiness comes to mean little more than the sovereignty of self-centered hedonism. The emphasis is on the pleasures of consumption rather than on the virtues of work. The ability to defer gratification, which is a prerequisite for a gradual bettering of one's condition, is scorned; "fly now, pay later" becomes, not merely an advertising slogan, but also a popular philosophy of life.

How does more federal money for school construction fix that?

There is no reason Obama can't begin to restore dignity to politics and American life. He just isn't trying very hard. But even if he did try, there is only so much one man can do.

Hence it becomes necessary to identify an alternative vision of society where elites uphold and promote the bourgeois values. Only in this way might we all salve the spiritual crisis behind our age of irresponsibility. Such a task extends far beyond the reach of politics.

Where to begin? Start with some exemplars of decency, professionalism, and ability. US Airways pilot Chesley 'Sully' Sullenberger III riveted the nation with his dramatic crash-landing into the Hudson River. -Sullenberger's experience and stoicism meant that not a single life was lost during the dramatic and dangerous touch-down. It is no surprise that he has been lionized in the days since. When everything else seems to be crashing all around us, Sullenberger is a rock of common sense and soft-spoken modesty. Imagine--just imagine--if the men and women who represent us in Congress shared his character?

Then there is General David Petraeus. At the recent Super Bowl, Petraeus received huge applause when he walked on field for the pregame coin toss. The crowd's response was no mystery. They were saluting the man who helped rescue the American war effort in Iraq, the man who did so without mincing words to the American people or their elected representatives. Petraeus has a Ph.D., runs marathons, wins wars, and spends every waking moment trying to become a better soldier and man. It ought to give us hope that our culture--the culture of A-Rod, Madoff, Hilton, and Murtha--is still capable of celebrating someone like Petraeus. Why not boldly and consistently champion the commitment to patriotism and duty expressed in the character of the American soldier--a living refutation to irresponsible living?

The sad fact is that it is difficult to come up with more than a few examples of elite responsibility. Failure breeds apathy. So the age of irresponsibility has spawned a cheap cynicism that says, since everything is broken, why not sit back and laugh at the degradation?

But the cynics are wrong. Things can get a whole lot worse. A failure of accountability not only erodes the foundations of our culture. It also puts our country on unstable fiscal ground. A storm of moral and financial insolvency has been brewing for some time. The populist reaction is only the beginning. We're hearing the thunder. Get ready for the deluge."

The entire article is well worth a read.

As I mature, consider the responsibilities of teaching and parenting and do so coming from a background of social liberalism, my more conservative temper mirrors these concerns. There is work that can and is being done to restore confidence in our public institutions. And it will be choices of character rather than public expenditure that will make the difference.

Progress

For all of our pretensions to dispassionate intellect, when all is said and done, it is all emotion.

Feeling without understanding is humanity at its most destructive.

Feeling with understanding is always what has saved and improved us.

Hearts and minds are forever fallible, complicated things.

But they are all we got.

At least until we have screwed things up, enough, that we turn back to them to find better answers.

In the end, that is what has always moved us forward. It is not power or religion or ideology or any other narrower view of humanity.

It is love and understanding.

Power, religion, ideology, and all the rest can be exercised with love and understanding. Or they can be exercised on behalf of hate, vengeance, greed, envy, wrath, ignorance, and every other ugly impulse that has ever inhabited the human soul. Power, rules, law. None of these have ever been exercised for good or decency or understanding or progress alone. They have always been neutral weapons used for our basest impulses as much as our finest. Law institutionalized slavery, as much as it liberated slaves. Law murdered six million Jews, as much as it convicted their killers. Law crucified great men like Jesus of Nazareth, as much it convicted murderers like Barabus. Law, like money, like intelligence, like morality, like all the rest is and will always be used to advance inhumanity as much as humanity. All of these and every other human creation are subject to our abuse and manipulation as much as to our better angels.

And always will be. Until we commit ourselves, each of us, genuinely, to a better path.

That is why liberal values make for stronger individuals and societies. Because everything else is the illusion that power has made us better than we really are.

Freedom, better than its alternatives, offers us the honest opportunity to be better for real and not as a matter of looking better to others who are not really better either.

And that, and none of the counterfeits, is how we make progress.

Let the learning begin

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

When all is said and done, we just all need to be responsible for our own lives. There is no shortcut around this one.

And there is no magic formula, religion, ideology, or rule that will make that happen. Either we learn or we don't.

And that was all she wrote.

Let the learning begin.

Clever apes

The Economist describes the current financial situation and the subsequent economic consequences quite well.

The spiral of ignorance

"The tide has gone out and, with a very few exceptions, Britain is swimming naked: almost nobody appears to know what he is talking about. The havoc of the financial crisis has stretched and outstripped even most economists. The British political class is befogged. Ordinary people are overwhelmed. And just as the interaction between banking and economic woes is proving poisonous, so the interplay of public and political ignorance is damaging the country’s prospects.

Start with the government, whose ministers are still oscillating between prophesying economic Armageddon and gamely predicting the best of all possible recoveries. Gordon Brown is learned in economic history—indeed, he is at his most animated and endearing when discussing it. But the prime minister’s grip on the history he is living through is less masterful. The government’s implicit strategy is to try something and, when that does not work, try something else: the approach modestly outlined by Barack Obama, but rather less honest.

The Tories are now capitalising on this flakiness; but for much of the past year, they have seemed at least as unconvincing. It was only a few months ago that David Cameron, the Conservative leader, averred that—since the economy was purring so happily—his historic mission was to mend British society. George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, clung for too long to his fair-weather formula about sharing the proceeds of non-existent growth. Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne are vague about the methods they would employ to repair the public finances in office. That sketchiness might be tactical. Or it might be because they do not know.

The truth is that hardly any MPs in any party have more than a rudimentary grasp of the crisis; indeed, their inability to track the City’s baroque excesses helped to foment it. (The intellectual background of MPs, few of whom have much training in economics or commerce, may contribute to this deficiency.) Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrats’ treasury spokesman, has the best record in Parliament of predicting and analysing the debacle—and precisely because he is so lucid, he seems increasingly to be regarded as an impartial pundit rather than a politician.

Meanwhile, the bodies and advisers appointed by the politicians to do the understanding for them have been largely discredited. The Bank of England obsessed about monetary policy and neglected financial stability. Sir James Crosby quit as deputy head of the Financial Services Authority (FSA) amid embarrassing questions about risk-taking at the bank he used to run. The involvement of Glen Moreno—chairman of Pearson, which part-owns The Economist—in UK Financial Investments, which manages the government’s new stakes in Britain’s banks, has been undermined by his association with secretive Liechtenstein.

A layman might conclude that there is almost no one in Britain capable of comprehending the financial mess, and at the same time sufficiently uncontaminated by the mistakes and ruses that caused it to be entrusted with the job of fixing it. (Lord Turner, the FSA’s new chairman—who has admitted that financial regulators, among others, missed “an increase in total system risk”—may be a happy exception.) It might help if ministers looked beyond the world of banking, of which they still seem to be in a sort of post-socialist awe, for more of their recruits. The layman, however, may be as much to blame as anyone else.

If financial acumen is limited in the governing classes, it is at least as rare outside them. In surveys, the economy has leapt to the top of voters’ concerns; anxiety is rampant, fed no doubt by the unfortunate trend whereby half the things that “experts” say can never happen come to pass within a fortnight. The public seem to appreciate that the crunch involves both foreign and domestic forces. But to most people the rest is a mystery. Along with the high anxiety, this uncertainty helps to explain the volatile political impact of the downturn: large numbers of people seem to be amenable to whatever explanation seems freshly plausible.

The culprits many have now settled on are the bankers. Some of those—unable to accept the reality of their institutions’ failure—deserve the opprobrium. But the furore over their bonuses has obscured other realities. One is the fact that, now that taxpayers own some of them, they have an interest in the banks being run by clever people; another is the fundamental role banks play in the economy. And because MPs are instinctively populist, as well as bemused themselves, they too have fixated on bonuses.

It is not only banking about which general knowledge seems poor: the same is true of the concept of money. The nasty little secret of the slump is that by overborrowing and making myopic investments, lots of ordinary Britons helped to bring their difficulties on themselves. Low levels of financial literacy (knowing the difference between an ISA and an iPod, and so on) are part of this problem. But so is the cowardly reluctance of politicians to say unpalatable things.

The philosopher Bertrand Russell once remarked that he knew of only six people in the world who had followed his daunting book “Principia Mathematica” to the end. There sometimes seem to be almost as few people in Britain who truly understand the credit crunch and its recessionary consequences. The public is scared and uncertain; the politicians are panicky and confused. They are leading each other around and down a worrying spiral of ignorance."

It's more than this, of course. It is the constant talking down of the economy by liberals. The incessant talk of Depression is meant to give justification for intervention measures, whether they are warranted or not (and most of them, I believe, are not). And more generally it is meant to justify for liberals why they are right on every important question that the world has faced since the inception of progressive ideology and why George Bush is responsible for every evil ever since.

We are, perhaps, the dumbest species that has ever called itself intelligent, I think. We are a bunch of clever apes constantly trying to prove to one another just how clever we have always been. Without fail, no less.

This is why I don't trust my fellow apes to fix the messes for everyone else that, often, they have had a hand in creating. We are just not evolved enough to outsmart our own folly when really a little humility and some lessons learned might be in better order.