Rest in peace, Teddy

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



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

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

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

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

Honesty pays

This is why I teach him to my kids.



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

Take that to the bank.

The problem is us

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

Health care debate based on lack of logic

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

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

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

Irrational thinking

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Much ado about nothing, as Shakespeare would say.

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

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

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

Wherefore happiness

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

And that is the end of that story.

The most serious mistake is never being wrong

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

All the President's Zombies

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

And the answer is fairly straightforward.

Because Adam Smith was more on target.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Buffet is in good faith.

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

Warren is more honest. Paul is not.

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

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

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

Fumbling forward despite ourselves

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



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

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

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

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

May we at least fumble forward.

American liberalism in retreat

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

Illiberal politics: America's unjust sex laws

Sex laws: Unjust and ineffective

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

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

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

Man carrying assault weapon attends Obama protest

And the dumbest part of all?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Many Faces of Bitches Ain't Shit

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



And the original Ben Folds Five cover.



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



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

Put down the hammer

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

Mr. Obama, Put Down the Hammer

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

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

Been that kinda day

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

That's a real conversation for your ass.

America's health care discussion and ordinary people

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



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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If we are going to make wiser decisions that is.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What courage looks like

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

France Mourns the Death of Its "Mother Courage"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Health care and liberalism

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

Health debate isn't about health

But this is encouraging:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Just happened upon this article while researching something for class.

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

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


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

Or so the campfire talk among Al Queda operatives goes.

We need to decide.

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

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

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

Courage challenges this kind of logic.

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

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

Our choice, fundamentally, is between courage and cowardice.

May we choose courage one day.

Why I like Obama

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Love to pick Barack's brain about that.

Geopolitics

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

Didactic Empire

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

Perhaps we can take a more mature route.

My favorite liberal

This is why he is my favorite columnist.

1959: A Year of Slipping the Leash

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

Nice to know that some people remember why freedom matters.

Power and progress

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

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

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

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

How can that be?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Forgiveness, pride, and diaper duty

I'm no prude, in the least, or naive about kids and sex. I work with kids who brag regularly about their sexual activity.

But even I think this is bad news.

"Orgasm a Day" Campaign Directed at British Schoolchildren Sparks Controversy

"A National Health Service leaflet is advising school pupils that they have a 'right' to an enjoyable sex life and that regular intercourse can be good for their cardiovascular health...

...Alongside the slogan 'an orgasm a day keeps the doctor away', it says: 'Health promotion experts advocate five portions of fruit and veg a day and 30 minutes' physical activity three times a week. What about sex or masturbation twice a week?'"

Kids are having sex. That is a fact. I work with many kids who are having sex at far too young an age to be responsible for all of its consequences. And a generation of children born to teenage parents is one of the unfortunate consequences from that fact.

But another fact is that kids are not ready for the consequences of sex and need to wait, I believe, until they are adults who can be responsible for their choices. And even then, they should be using reliable protection until they are ready for pregnancy and child rearing in their lives.

I can be wrong on this question, as on any and every question. I frequently am. It's my trademark. I'm beginning to believe it was my given birth name.

But, by my lights, there is nothing mutually exclusive between advocating abstinence for kids as the best option while maintaining some realism that many kids will still have sex and need to know about protection from diseases and pregnancy when that is the case.

The problem in our public discourse is that we polarize questions like this one, and most questions, out of religious, ideological, and whatever sanctimony we can get our hands on and we undermine a more thoughtful, reasonable, realistic, compassionate, good-humored discussion, in my humble, not-so-genius-funny-particularly-dashing-or-otherwise opinion.

We treat our neighbors like our enemies instead of our friends and partners in raising healthy children and in tackling a thousand other priorities because we strangely and inexplicably believe that because we have strong emotions on any particular question that this must signal that we are right and those who disagree are wrong, and that those who agree are our friends and those who disagree are our enemies. It is a bizarre and dysfunctional sanctimony borne of an obsession with power and what we, generally wrongly, believe we can do with it if we only had enough of it. It is now and always has been the most serious weakness in the human race. It is called pride in religious circles. And there is a reason that it is the most deadly sin.

Lord Acton was right. Power does indeed corrupt. All of us. Not some of us. Not theocrats. Not despots. Not totalitarians. Not Nazis. Not Communists. Not kings. Not queens. Not liberals. Not conservatives.

All of us.

Because the context of that bit of wisdom is that power leads people to believe that they can never be wrong - "papal infallibility," in the case of Pope Pius IX and the subject of Acton's criticism with that observation - so proud do they become in its exercise.

We have often just chosen to ignore his advice for much of our history in the democratic world. Thankfully Baron de Montesquieu inspired a separation of powers that has been adopted in one form or another in most liberal democracies that has helped blunt the most serious consequences of this obsession. And thankfully we have chosen to teach our children the more genuinely liberal values inspired by the likes of Voltaire, John Locke, John Stuart Mill, Adam Smith, Mary Wolstonecraft, Mark Twain, Harper Lee, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, and all the rest, that have taught us to trust our consciences and voice our thoughts openly and honestly and engage one another with respect for differences and appreciation for our common humanity. And, in the case of Twain, to laugh at ourselves. As often as possible.

The consequence our pride has on our public discourse is that it breeds cynicism and suspicion among people who should otherwise be neighbors and friends working through difficult matters of the heart and mind as best they can. And giving themselves and one another plenty of slack to screw those matters up while we learn together.

Whether you are a Christian or not, there is no mistake that the heart of the wisdom of Jesus of Nazareth was love, compassion, and forgiveness. Many of his followers try to wrap his teachings around their own uglier impulses, as do the adherents of almost any religion, ideology, or belief system. It is the most common and most self-deceptive of religious and ideological practices. It happens in almost every circle of the like-minded. It is also responsible for most of the harm we do to one another. I'm fairly confident that Jesus would be proud of how far we've come. And disappointed at how often we still fail to practice that very simple and central virtue in working through our most difficult problems. Twain would just think we're fools. Nice to always be right.

But that message had a very clear practical purpose. We cannot live together and support one another as well as each of us needs without plenty of room to learn how to be worthy of each others' trust. And we cannot learn to do so - noone, not even the best among us - without plenty of space for the learning and the mistakes that are its inseparable companion, with plenty of love and forgiveness for our trespasses, in the meantime.

And we cannot work through questions like this one, in our public discourse, with one another, with our spouses and families, or with our children without that kind of commitment transcending our pride and the suspicion and power obsession it breeds.

The great irony of this era on which generations down the line will comment, undoubtedly, is that for a generation that so denigrated compassion and forgiveness, it will be all of us who will need to be forgiven. For our foolishness as much as our pride.

Hopefully they will do it in good humor.

Cause, if not, we're all gonna need it changin' all those diapers.

Bitter much?

Is this insniping really the best that the Republican party has to offer?

Victor Davis Hanson: Why the Elitist Hatred Toward Palin?

Peggy Noonan: A Farewell to Harms

A lot of good thought in both of these pieces. But what they also reflect is the degree to which bitterness over matters of power and privilege drive too much of the thought, in all quarters really, about matters that are too grave to be driven by anything other than more serious and reflective consideration of policies that keep us safer, freer, more prosperous, and, in the end, reflect our best efforts and our better, more decent, more thoughtful selves.

Isn't it about time we had more honest, humble, open-hearted, open-minded discussions about serious policy matters?

Or is bitter the soil of some greater wisdom, these days?

I have my doubts.

Recommitting ourselves to our liberal values

Peggie Noonan offers a fine commemoration of the Founding Fathers who made our independence possible and to David McCullough, one of the America's finest historians, paying tribute to their memory.

Making History

"Monday, July 1, was heavy and hot, and a full-scale summer storm passed through the city late in the morning. John Dickinson of Pennsylvania rose to speak. He knew he was endangering the respect in which he was broadly held, his 'popularity,' but he once again counseled caution: Slow down, separation from Britain is 'premature,' to declare independence now would be 'to brave the storm in a skiff made of paper.' When he sat down, 'all was silent except for the rain that had begun spattering against the widows.'

Then John Adams rose. He wished he had the power of the ancient orators of Greece and Rome, he said; surely they had never faced a question of greater human import.

He made, again, the case for independence. Now is the time, the facts are inescapable, the people are for it, we are not so much declaring as acknowledging reality. 'Looking into the future [he] saw a new nation, a new time, all much in the spirit of lines he had written in a recent letter to a friend: '. . . We are in the very midst of revolution, the most complete, unexpected, and remarkable of any in the history of the world.' ' Outside the wind picked up and the storm struck hard with thunder and lightning. Storms had in the past unnerved Adams, but he spoke steadily, logically and compellingly for two hours.

After nine hours of debate, the voting commenced. The yeses were in the majority, but there were more noes than expected. Someone moved a final vote be taken the next morning. Adams and the rest hastily agreed.

That night word reached Philadelphia that the British fleet, a hundred ships, had been sighted off New York.

The next day, July 2, the final voting began. It went quickly. This was a pivotal moment in the political history of man. A creative, imaginative, historically conscious person in the middle of a thing so huge and full of consequence will try to notice things, to keep them forever in his eyes and pass them on. Here is a thing John Adams would never forget:

At 9 in the morning, just as the doors to the Congress were to be closed, "Caesar Rodney, mud spattered, 'booted and spurred,' made his dramatic entrance. The tall, thin Rodney—the 'oddest-looking man in the world,' Adams once described him—had been made to appear stranger still, and more to be pitied, by a skin cancer on one side of his face that he kept hidden behind a scarf of green silk. But, as Adams had also recognized, Rodney was a man of spirit, of 'fire.' Almost unimaginably, he had ridden eighty miles through the night, changing horses several times, to be there in time to cast his vote.'

All of these quotes are from David McCullough's 'John Adams.' More on Mr. McCullough in a moment.

The vote was completed: 12 for independence, New York abstaining, no one opposing. 'The break was made, in words at least: on July 2, 1776, in Philadelphia, the American colonies declared independence. If not all 13 clocks had struck as one, twelve had, and with the others silent the effect was the same.'

On July 3, Congress argued over the wording and exact content of the formal Declaration. An indictment of the slave trade was dropped. In all, Thomas Jefferson saw roughly 25% of what he'd written wind up on the floor.

On July 4, discussion ended, debate was closed, a vote on the final draft of the Declaration of Independence was called, and the results were as on July 2. Congress ordered the document be printed. They'd sign it in a month. For now, John Hancock and one other, Charles Thompson, fixed their signatures.

Those present thought the great day had been July 2—the vote for independence itself. John Adams, who'd emoted over the 2nd in letters to Abigail, didn't even mention the 4th, and Thomas Jefferson famously went shopping that afternoon for ladies' gloves.

But on the morning of July 5, the people of Philadelphia started getting their hands on independently printed copies of the Declaration, and the impact was electric: My God, look what they said yesterday—'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.' And on the 6th, a local newspaper carried the text of what had been agreed upon on the 4th. And so the celebration of the Fourth of July as one of the signal moments in the history of human freedom, was born. And so we mark it still.'"

Read the rest of the column for a glimpse of Peggie honoring David McCullough and his contributions to American history.

It is a nice moment, this Independence Day, for us to remember and appreciate better the risks, sacrafices and wise efforts that went into founding our democracy and making our liberty possible.

If there is anything this period has taught me, it is how easily we take that freedom, and all of our most cherished values, for granted, in the wake of our fears about what liberty and our free will make possible in this world, good and bad.

It is a shame that we take the courage of these men and women for granted as we do. It is a greater shame that we attribute that courage to their use of force rather than to their much more powerful consciences and the limitations that they proscribed for the use of force to preserve our liberty and its fruits.

July 4th, this year, should be a solemn reflection on the liberal values and liberty that make this day and this country great and how and why we have so readily taken those values for granted. Especially, at the end of a century that, more than any other, demonstrated the genuine power of liberty in the face of the ugly and destructive consequences of force as a governing philosophy.

May this year mark a turning point in our recommitment to the liberal society they founded, to the liberal world they have inspired, and to the liberal and democratic century that lies ahead.

Why I voted for President Obama

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

Time for an Israeli Strike?

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

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

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

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

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

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

A happy life

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

Sex, Fame Bring No Joy to Masters of the Universe

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

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

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

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

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

Just Hard Data

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank God

Someone reputable finally said it.

Robert Kaplan: To Catch a Tiger

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

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

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

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

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

Illustrating the point

Dicks would rather you be killed by other dicks than to take responsibility for what dicks they are.

And you know what's really sad about this?

Nothing new under the sun.

Dicks who don't like taking responsibility for being dicks

You know who doesn't care about religious freedom? Dicks. Secular dicks.

Christopher Hitchens: Learn from France - and consider banning the burka

And you know who writes incomprehensible bullshit like this?

"...One cannot be absolutely sure that no woman has ever donned it voluntarily, but one can certainly say that, in countries where women can choose not to wear it, then not wearing it is the choice they generally make.

This disposes right away of the phony argument that religious attire is worn as a matter of 'right.' It is almost exactly the other way around: The imposition of burkas or even head scarfs on women - just like the compulsory growing of beards for men - is the symbol of a denial of rights and the inflicting of a tyrannical code that obliterates personal liberty.

Western masochism about other people's 'culture' often obscures this obvious fact. Think of the things that we all have to do now, like submitting to humiliating searches at airports, or showing our ID to people who have no "probable cause" for demanding it. Can we turn up at airport security wearing a bag over our heads? Can we produce a photograph that shows only our eyes through a slit? Of course not. Nor can anyone in a Muslim country (though of course in Saudi Arabia an unchaperoned women cannot turn up at the airport anyway).

And don't force me to say this, even though I will: One reason we have to undergo such indignities is because of faith-based suicide attacks on our civil aviation, and so far the perpetrators of this nightmare have not been caught wearing crucifixes or Stars of David around their necks."

Dicks who don't want to take responsibility for being dicks. That's what all this "don't force me, while I force you" bullshit has been about. This whole Orwellian mess is about dicks not wanting to take responsibility for what dicks they are.

Christopher is going to rid Muslim women of the subjugation of men by subjugating them to this own presumably benign manly code against the expression of their own religious beliefs.

He's such a sweetheart, isn't he?

Or maybe he's just a dick looking for an excuse to be a dick.

Seems to be a lot of that going around these days.

Believe it or not, I know the feeling. About time we cut this shit out.

"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.