The American center

What's wrong with freedom and compassion right at the center of what it means to be American?

Nada goddamn thing. That's where our truest center has been all along.

And people are finally beginning to wisen up.

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When bullies remind you that they could be bullying you much worse, if they pleased, on any issue that they see fit, remind them, nicely, to go fuck themselves. Because that is exactly how bullies and illiberalism have functioned since the beginning of time and the world over. The Iranian mullahs have made it into a theology. As did our own Judeo-Christian adventures in illiberalism. And virturally every culture has tried the same since the beginning of organized human existence.

And we left those ways behind for a reason.

Freedom and compassion are and always have been the values that make us great. They are what distinguish us from our illiberal past and illiberal cultures the world over.

It is our freedom and compassion and a wiser, more courageous notion of human nature that liberal values offer that make us stronger and better as people.

What we are doing today is what we have been doing since the beginning of humanity.

Choosing between our more honest and compassionate strength and our more self-centered and petty-minded weakness.

Wanna know a secret?

There is no such thing as too liberal. Or too free. Or too compassionate. Or any of the rest.

There is only a thoughtful, more decent, and honest application of these values and our missteps and failures. That's it. The rest is excuses by the less thoughtful and decent among us to excuse their own cowardice and much more profound failures of humanity.

Obviously, we need policies that make sure that we cannot hurt one another with impunity. And policies that constructively facilitate genuine responsibility when we do hurt one another. And contain those, in the meantime, who are honestly dangerous to others.

There is no world where more recrimination, aggression, punitiveness, and mean-spiritedness makes the world better. Never has been. Never will be. No matter our protestations to the contrary.

And the places where despotism and terrorism fester should be evidence enough for that conclusion.

America was conceived so that legacy could be thrown off for good. There is no reason we should be treating that logic like it is our birthright when, in fact, it was the very past we were casting off to offer something better.

Something freer. Something more decent.

Something to make us genuinely proud to bear that name American.

Why ESL teachers burn an ungodly monsterous hole in my pants

I needed this, today. And a much better English lesson than anything that Tim James has to offer.



Limited INS resources should be used to stop terrorists and violent criminals likely to reoffend. Everyone else should be encouraged to take the legal route. But peoples' lives don't need to be disrupted to do that.

Why do we persistently go to dick mode to address any issue we face? Because it gives us an excuse to be a dick, that's why. Everyone likes the dick, apparently. Your mother, for instance. Or so I'm told.

I've always had a serious soft spot for English-as-a-Second-Language teachers, actually. Single ESL ladies should definitely hit me up. That sex has got to be nuclear.

Because, fundamentally, there are just people who see any problem and think, "What excuse can I find, here, to not give a shit about whose life I dick with?"

And others who say, "How can I help?"

I respect the latter. And want to bear their beautiful, brilliant, decent-hearted, multilingual children.

And the former can go fuck themselves. In whatever language they please.

If you want to sing out, sing out

Was on a Cat Stevens kick today.

Harold and Maude was one the favorite movies of my first real love in life, and the one we never got to watch before it was through. And, as it turned out, it was the movie my second love and I watched the night I started to fall for her.



And, mostly, because Cat's song Father and Son is one of the most beautiful songs about fathers and sons I've ever heard. And I couldn't get enough of it, this morning.



So Yusuf Islam's got something goin' right for him, in my book.

In the process, I came across this classic from Jackson Browne, today. Got me thinking about my own dreams. And all the dreams of people and kids I come across.



I don't know why, exactly. Why so many people resign their dreams. Resign themselves to lives they fell into. Or got too comfortable with. Rather than lives they love.

The beauty of it all?

It's not the end. Nothing ever is. Until it is.

Life's not a beautiful, tragic melody. The life you love is just waiting for you to make your move.

Just ask Nick Vujicic.



I love this little life of mine. Even the stumbles. And the failures. And the heartbreak. All of it.

Hope you love yours.

If not. Now's your chance.

Take us home

The $13 trillion pound elephant in the middle every financial policy discussion, at the moment.

A Day of Posturing by Congressional Hypocrites

"Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) yesterday actually scolded the executives for 'betting with other people's money and other people's futures.'

Taxpayers -- pitchforks in hand -- should hold a hearing and grill these senators along the very same lines.

Here is the difference between Goldman and Congress:

Goldman may be trying to sell ice to Eskimos, but nobody is making the Eskimos buy it. With Congress, either you give them your money or you go to jail."

It's not just the dirty deals made in Congress. And the shady accounting. And the selfish pursuit of self-interest.

It's the damn fool notion that these would be the very folks we would go to to fix all of these matters.



Why don't you listen to some Michael Buble and then consider whether you're gonna lie to me, again, and tell me how it's all the nice guys that fuck everything up in the world.

Because none of these guys look nice to me. Just ordinary assholes. Who just can't face up to their bullshit. Same as it ever was.

Take us home, Michael.

It just can't get any better than this

An interesting study of power and hypocrisy from Andrew Sullivan.

How Power Increases Hypocrisy

"The researchers found that compared to participants without power, powerful participants were stricter in judging others’ moral transgressions but more lenient in judging their own: 'power increases hypocrisy, meaning that the powerful show a greater discrepancy between what they practice and what they preach.'

Nothing new there.

My favorite line from Andrew, though, is this one:

"Power corrupts. Always has. Which is why we need more assholes in the press and fewer people, like Mike Allen, annotating and revering every word that drops from the platters of the connected and the powerful."

Yeah, that's been a plan of pure genuis. Get back with me about how that's workin' for ya, fellas.

Cause from here, to quote the advertisers for the beer of choice for assholes, it just can't get any better than this.

I am Fred Phelps

Among the multitude of ways to deal with these assholes while respecting the First Amendment.

Illinois Group Pickets Fred Phelps' Church

Fuck you, Fred. That's my contribution.

That and I agree with your son. You have my pity. And even my empathy and genuine concern. For how you could so totally twist the decent, compassionate teachings of Jesus of Nazareth into your hateful screeds. And so utterly undermine your family's more honest strength and well-being, in the process.

Fear, of hell and damnation, as a means of coercing conscience is exactly what Fred Phelps stands for. Fear of mass murder is how Al Queda goes about it. Fear of the government is how Iranian clerics and the Taliban do it.

Surely, we can stand for something stronger.

Meaning, something more like Jesus. Something more compassionate and decent. And loving.

And which more honestly respects peoples consciences.

Because if not, we really are just lesser versions of this dick. A man who really does believe in force and fear as a governing philosophy. All in the name of scaring people into good conscience.

Just like him.

Let him eat the court costs of his little adventures, I say. The families of U.S. Marines certainly shouldn't be picking up the tab.

But, at some point, all of us should take a step back, I think, and ask ourselves, "Am I more like Fred Phelps than I would like to admit?"

For many among us, the answer to that question, even unintentionally, is yes.

Endgame

If there is any one statement made in the last 10 years that better reflects the cowardice of this period, this is it.

Abbas calls on Obama to impose Mideast peace deal

It's your people, dumbass. You're the prime minister. Americans are not standing in the way. And, by and large, Israelis are not standing in the way. What's standing in the way is the willingness of Palestinians (and Israelis, to a lesser extent) to give up the bullshit and stop using peace deals as a means of manipulating for more shit.

Who cares about who gets what shit, you assholes? Sign a deal and stop killing people. It's not fucking rocket science.

And finally figure out that all of you are going to have to learn how to live with one another and stop killing each other. The end, maestro. Buh-dum-bum.

This is the consequence of all this rationalization of pressure, in lieu of responsibility, as political gamesmanship. It rationalizes the very kinds of games that Palestinian terrorist groups have played for years to get more stuff and kill more Israelis and Palestinians to get it.

This shit has got to end, in the broadest sense, if the world is to get safer for real. For any moron who isn't defending the bullshit along with them.

If Palestinians and Israelis want to be safe, they need to stop killing one another and to make arrangements to capture or kill those not prepared to end that ugly legacy and all of the horrific consequences that this security nightmare has created for Palestinians and Israelis.

And they need to genuinely commit themselves to live in peace. Period. Everything else is gravy. Or any number of excuses for why they'd rather people continue to die than to settle this insanity once and for all.

There are no winners in this kind of politics. And many, many dead losers.

Time for this to end.

Get over it, Potter

Proud enough I could spit in Potter's hospice drip. Maybe I will.

South Park - Sexual Healing



In a world of fools - meaning, me and you, fool - scared of our own little bitch shadows and making excuses for just about anything we hope will make all of our scared, stupid, selfish impulses go away forevah, or visit-Granny-in-hell-trying, Matt Stone and Trey Parker cut through the bullshit better than just about anything on ye olde boob-tube, these days. Except General Hospital. And Fox News.

And now some goodie-goodie terrorist douchebag named Yunus Muhammad has threatened their lives. Because they dare tell Muslims that they, too, are morons like the rest of us. Making enormous fools of themselves in the name of all that fear. And making a mess of their societies in the process.

Just like us. See. Now everyone can be like America.

And for eating all those delicious pork chops. Hmm. Pork chops.

These two boys are what America is all about. When we wipe our snot-filled noses and stop crying in our tiny little pillows about how scary and selfish the world is.

We are. You too, dumbass. Me too, asshole. Thanks for reminding me. Now get over it. And do better. And go do something useful with your life. Other than threatening everyone else to get your way.

And if you still can't handle life as it is, Drs. Stone and Parker have the treatment you need. That means you, ladies.

Martin Luther King. Selfless Adulterer. And other profound thoughts.

George Will brings the pain. And Stephen Colbert brings his famous Hawaiian beef casserole.

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Heaps o' genius. Genius on a stick. Why is there not nearly enough genius on a stick?

If all political conversations took this turn, perhaps we might learn something.

Martin Luther King think he's the only one with a dream? I, I, I. Does that guy ever think about anyone but himself? Even his adultery was selfless.

Someone's gotta save the world now that Dreamboy got himself greased.

Might as well be George Will.

And ground beef in pineapple glaze.

Hmm. Pineapple glaze.

Hubris as a governing philosophy

If true, Rich Lowry has written an excellent commentary on the ugly protection racket that is Democratic regulatory policy, these days.

Pro-Business Does Not Mean Pro-Market

I don't have nearly enough knowledge of this area of policy to be able to say whether Rich's charges are true or not.

But they are remarkably plausible, given Democratic ideological and political strategy, right now.

Meaning, I don't know the details of the cases in the charges he is making, here, about businesses buying favor from the party and members of Congress.

But I can believe them, prima facie, because they match the general pattern of behavior from Democrats in the last 2 years, in particular.

Reap what you sow. So reap carefully, I suppose is the lesson.

You preach an unforgiving attitude to matters criminal and political, you may just get to taste the fruits of your labors.

Perhaps Democrats will be sounding a more liberal tone on such matters. I know. Democrats liberal. Who'd a known?

And, sadly, all of this is it likely to be for naught. The political winds do not blow leftward, this season.

Hubris, the Greeks murmur. Hubris.

Haven't you heard? All the kids are doing it.

Parents just don't understand

Spending time talking with the kids, today - the real fundamental of quality parenting and teaching, and all the emotional scarring they inspire in tiny little hearts - it's become all too clear to me that this problem just never seems to go away.



I hope parents of my generation remember Will's message. Now that we're the Einsteins with breadpins.

Kids these days

The more I watch liberal and illiberal democratic and autocratic politics, the more I am convinced that Lord Acton had the last word on power.

Power corrupts. Absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely. And so does your mother.

So the big question is:

So where's the hope, genius?

If power corrupts and that's the last word, what's the way out? Or aren't you ready to concede that there is no way out, pretty boy?

Two things.

First, don't hate me cause I'm beautiful. It's just uncouth. And it just makes me sizzle in ways your momma warned you about.

Second, it's a damned good question, don't you think?

Why is it that if power corrupts that liberal democracies like America still seem to stumble forward in the biggest picture? Or was your high school history teacher just inescapably full of shit.

Well if your high school history teacher was me, then the answer to that last question is an inescapable and emphatic, "Booyah." Can't get anything past this guy. Except with magic.

But the answer to the first question is actually pretty straightforward.

Power corrupts. That's for sure.

But, the light at the end of that tunnel is that it also falls apart.

Every single time.

No exceptions.

Why?

For the same reason that bullies always get their due.

Because, after awhile, you piss off enough people, you create enough enemies, eventually, you're going down. Either of your own accord. Or someone will make sure that you go down. Or be subject to the musical wrath of Mr. Barry Manilow.

In democracies, we have elections. Without democracy, you have bloodshed and revolution. And loads of cake, apparently. Which was the long history of humanity - empire, war, and revolution - up until liberal democracy. Which is why it's so ugly that people would engage in similarly manipulative behavior, like, say, threatening war or revolution, in a liberal democracy, to get their way. Not that anyone would do that (I'm talking to you, Mr. Terrorism-is-the-perfect-preparation-for-schoolin' the-youngin' Western and not-so-Western activists and intelligencia).

In liberal democracies, we can just choose differently when someone deserves to be humbled. We don't actually have to bully them in return. Like, say, how the Republican leadership and conservative activists are gearing up to do, as we speak. Or as the Democratic leadership and progressive activists have been doing for the last couple of years. And really all of them have been doing since the beginning of politics as a social practice. And as homo sapiens have been doing to other homo sapiens - and really most of God's creation - since they first discovered bacon.

But, one thing is for sure.

Everyone gets their cummupance. Zero doubt about that one. Not sure? Go talk with Hitler. He might have a story or two after he recovers from that little matter of his suicide. Poor baby.

And that's how it always works out, in the end.

Because noone likes to be bullied and manipulated, obviously. And though bullies will often not take responsibility for their own bullying, in the beginning, they sure as hell will make sure that noone bullies them. And people find ways to confront bullying, in the end, is the truth.

In America, we have a democracy. And that's how we confront bullies who can't get the message that they need to either humble themselves or be humbled.

But, in the bigger picture, it's not our government that needs to face, most, it's bullying.

It's us.

Yeah, you, girly man.

Every single one of us who is trying to get their way with bullying because they think they can. Which is most of us. In one way or another. When we're honest, that is.

And it is most definitely every single one of us who encourages our political representatives to use bullying and manipulation and intimidation to get our way. No matter how self-destructive it so clearly is. To anyone with any kind of honest impulse in the world. Even you, James Carville.

We are a species of shitheads. Homo sapiens, that is. Always been true, at some level. As long as we have lived long enough to mistrust one another. Meaning as soon as Fox News took the airways.

And, like every real moment of progress in our history, we will not get better by success or intelligence, primarily.

We'll get better because being a shithead is a sure road to failure. And sometimes you just have to fall on your head enough times to get the lesson that noone's going to put up with your sorry ass if you can't face up. Unless you're member of the Catholic clergy, that is.

And that is the real story of human history. When all the gloss and bullshit doesn't fuck up the view.

And that, as it turns out, is the last word on power.

Until some other kid comes around and makes all of us look like the damned fools that we are.

Kids these days.

Gotta love 'em.

If you know what's good for you.

Courage and progress

The more the kids and I have discussed it, the more convinced I am.

The greatest bulk of human tragedy is borne of cowardice.

And the most pernicious cowardice of all is the failure to say those three little words that we find it so hard to say.

I was wrong.

Actually, as my friend Julie said recently, that's probably not true. The truth is that our cowardice is borne of our ability to say, "I love me. And I love you. Enough for both of us to be wrong plenty in life. Because that's what's gonna happen anyway, fool. Now stop hogging the blanket."

And most of that is borne of the further cowardice to acknowledge that perhaps our failure to do that is borne of our failure to treat each other more decently and forgive one another when we do screw up. And the ways that aggression is not only limited in preventing otherwise, but has generally contributed to creating many of those messes, in the first place.

When I think of all of the people who have died, lived in fear, and otherwise had lives destroyed or seriously undermined by this one common source, I am sometimes overwhelmed by the stupidity and waste of it all.

With the solid knowledge that our only hope of turning it around is finding the courage to face this failure.

And it is courage, it is clear to me, at this point, that is borne of love, and compassion, and decency, and forgiveness. And all of the values that we fear make us weak. But which really are our surest source of strength.

That is a fact, I am clear, at this point. And a stubborn fact more stubborn than our stubborn refusal to acknowledge it.

And it is our stubborness to acknowledge that fact that is the single most destructive source of the greatest share of preventable human tragedy in our sad, destructive history.

And it is a fact that does not care what we think otherwise. It is a fact that will most certainly be a part of human existence, in some smaller way, likely, for as long as we exist. And it is a fact that will engender the most serious preventable tragedy until we face it.

I've had to make my peace with this fact.

Until we find the courage to face it. And to be better, for real.

The only honest progress humanity has ever known.

Tragedy of our common cowardice

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

Journalism is definitely a serious mess, these days.

Journalism today: A haven for parasites and double-dealers

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

Journalism is in trouble because of people like David.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And you know what the saving grace for humanity is?

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

Doubt that? Then live with the failure.

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

Perhaps that's all we will ever do.

Until we get honest, that is.

Nuff said

Jim Nantz is a whining little bitch.

Jim Nantz criticizes Tiger Woods' vocal tantrums

As for my kids.

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

Nuff said.

The stakes in this debate

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

Irish Blasphemy Law: Authors, Writers, Fear Censorship

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

I'll take freedom for 500, Alex.

God love us, despite ourselves

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

Richard Dawkins: Arrest Pope During UK Visit

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

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

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

God love us, as always, despite ourselves.

Yeah, me too

My official favorite Katy Perry song.



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

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

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

Ready to be that man.

The road to progress

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There is no other road to any real progress.

Trust

It's so crazy.

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

The less I trust any of them.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No matter how many obvious mistakes they make.

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

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

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

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

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

"Mature" democracies

Do Thais Lack Spirit for Democracy?

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

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

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

Intimidation is how less mature goverments and peoples conduct themselves.

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

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

Perhaps they should find better role models.

The voice of integrity

Earl and Tiger @ Yahoo! Video

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

Bullshit, or politics, by any other name

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



Don't you hear it?

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

You know, the really obvious bullshit.

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

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

Of course it is.

The question is:

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

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

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

Slightly better odds than my Royals having a winning season.

Boy's gotta dream.

Story of my life

Until I find that one special singing partner.



Let the love story begin.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Life in 'Murder City'

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

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

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

How long are you going to swallow the bullshit?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Remembering what freedom looks like

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



It still makes me cry, in my private moments.

Enjoy.

Profound. Or something.

Or why we shouldn't take ourselves so seriously.











Oh yeah. Feel the depth.

That's what she said.

The change we've been waiting for

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's the backwards logic behind the whole premise.

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

How would that work with speech?

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

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

How would that work for religion?

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

How about for the press?

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

How about freedom of assembly?

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

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

That government knows best.

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

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

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

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

And no self-respecting progressive could stand for that.

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

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

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

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

Oughta be a law

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

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

Rachel Maddow for what?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oughta be a law.

No lying necessary

Does this guy ever stop lying? Ever?

Paul Krugman: Going to Extreme

These two pearls, in particular, stand out.

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

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

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

One of the long forgotten ones:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Because it sure isn't politics. Or government.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And then and only then is when real progress occurs.

No lying necessary.

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

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



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

Choose wisely.

Do it for love

You know what I love about Sara Bareilles?



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

That's my girl.

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

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

Sing it, Sara.

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

Though I hear that's illegal in most states.

Lacking consensus, policies should fail

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Take that to the bank, Mr. Bin Laden.

You, too, America.

God, I love this country.

Progress means we get better

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

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And proof that laughter is worth a thousand sticks.



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

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

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

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

It just means your still lost and not acknowledging it.

Progress means we get better. For real.

About time we started down that road.

Why television doesn't sell wisdom

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

More or less

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

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

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

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

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

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

Just ask Mahmoud

That about sums it up.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Just ask Mahmoud.

The truth about our lying

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

Lying to kids about sex

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Perhaps that is as good as we will ever be.

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

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

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

Or as the kids might tell it

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

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

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

The strength that always finds a way

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

Blinded by Science

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Liberty and power

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It is because our liberality makes us stronger.

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

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

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

All the world's a stage

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

The U.S. Political Establishment Has Failed

From that column.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Which is exactly the way it should be.

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

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

May we play our parts well.

Evan Bayh and what it means about politics

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



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

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

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

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

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

It will be corrected. It will take time.

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

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

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

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

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

And selling you a bill of goods.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Choose wisely, this election.

Choose wisely, for your lifetime.

That goes for me, too. More than most.

Thank you, President Washington

A fitting tribute to America's first President.

Mighty Washington: The greatest President

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

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

Noone does.

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

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

Turning the page

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

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

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

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

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

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

Just like the rest of us.

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

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

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

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

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

And certainly not to pretend it's progress.

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