Author: VD

Chad the Elder checks out Codeville’s Advice to War Presidents:

After eight years of wavering and inconsistent foreign policy under President Bush (quasi-isolationist to neoconservative to realist) and nine months of a “one world, one dream” hand-holding and Kumbaya-singing approach to diplomacy under President Obama, the United States desperately needs to get back to statecraft basics. At least that’s the clearly delivered and well-articulated argument put forward by Angelo Codevilla in his book Advice to War Presidents: A Remedial Course in Statecraft.

The book is a primer for statesmen and especially presidents to follow in order to return the country to a more pragmatic approach to foreign affairs. Codevilla doesn’t propose a specific label to cover what he proposes, but it might be called “common sense statecraft.” To paraphrase Teddy Roosevelt, Codevilla wants the United States to “speak clearly, carry a big stick, and don’t be afraid to swing it hard when you must” when dealing with other countries.

Codevilla’s advice sounds like an eminently sensible approach, although I question the wisdom of attempting to deal with terrorism by aggressively going about defeating it. Terrorism is a symptom, therefore it cannot be treated as if it is the disease. The present terrorist threat can be completely ended by a) withdrawing from the Middle East, and b) expelling all nationals from Middle Eastern countries and refusing entry to them. And that’s simply not going to happen for political reasons, so we’ll continue with the same strategy that hasn’t worked for the USA or Israel in four decades, namely, killing a few terrorists here and there while constantly generating new ones through collateral damage.

But the core strategy is very sound. If you’re going to engage in military conflict, first make sure you are in line with both the national interest and the will of the people, then go to war with a vengeance. And then bring the troops home as soon as they finish killing people and breaking things. No more nation-building, democracy-constructing, globo-policing, or Korean border fence-sitting nonsense.

The NYT covers the ongoing attempt to create more housing debt:

When Congress passed an $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers last winter, it was intended as a dose of shock therapy during a crisis. Now the question is becoming whether the housing market can function without it. As many as 40 percent of all home buyers this year will qualify for the credit. It is on track to cost the government $15 billion, more than twice the amount that was projected when Congress passed the stimulus bill in February….

The National Association of Realtors estimates that about 350,000 sales this year would not have happened without the lure of the tax credit. Moody’s Economy.com used computer modeling to put the number at 400,000.

As Calculated Risk points out, this is the equivalent of spending $43,000 per house buyer who would not have bought without the program. Lunacy. And since this program is both artificially propping up house prices and creating more debt, it’s going to make the next crash even more painful. Which, no doubt, is why the Republican Senator who originally proposed the program is looking to expand it to everyone and double the incentive, in order to stave off the crash a little longer.

This isn’t an economy in recovery. This is an economy on government life support.

Paul Shirley is also more than a little underwhelmed:

As I grew older, I was confused by everyone’s reverence for The Beatles. Curious, I listened, read and researched. Eventually, I had to admit that the band was important and influential. But that didn’t make their music any better. It was predictable, fairly dull and seemed elementary. Because I thought Achtung Baby was better, I listened to Achtung Baby….

I understand that The Beatles are culturally significant and important in the historical progression of rock music. And I understand that they’re talented. But unless you were locked in a time capsule like Brendan Fraser in “Blast From the Past,” they cannot be your favorite band. If you’re younger than 50 and you do make such a claim, you’re either (A) trying to impress someone with what you think will be received as good taste, or (B) woefully behind in your consumption of music.

Shirley obviously thinks a bit more of them than I do. But not much more. Meanwhile, over at the OC’s Friday Challenge, Henry mistakes my contempt for the Baby Boomers for the usual intergenerational irritation, but nevertheless raises an interesting idea about them:

The rap on the Boomers is that we never grew up, never learned that the world didn’t revolve around us. I’ll go ahead and admit that there is some truth to that. I know members of my generation who haven’t ever learned what it means to be a grown up. But I’m also believe no previous generation was quite like the Boomers.

I could go on about all the things in this world that are not the fault of the Boomers, but that is mostly beside the point. The thing that was truly unique about the Boomer generation is that they were far more likely than previous generations to survive into adulthood. There was no major war being fought as they grew up nor the worst depression ever seen by the industrial world. Through out the Boomer’s lives, the country’s wealth was increasing at such a pace that people we now consider poor are living a lifestyle that would have been considered middle class in the 1970s.

Put bluntly, more irresponsible and idiotic Boomers survived to adulthood that any generation before it.

I suspect it has more to do with the mass media myself. But the point is that I don’t despise the Boomers because they are my parent’s generation. I’m completely fine with the idea that tastes change and so forth. What I find annoying is the way the Baby Boomers are the first generation to completely fail to understand that as adults. As I pointed out previously, there is no chance that any Generation X writer is going to be writing headlines about Duran Duran still being cool in 2027.

But if a Baby Boomer survives that long, who can doubt that he’ll still be insisting that The Beatles are the best music that the human race ever managed to produce and Woodstock changed the world. And he’ll be doing it even if the human race is living in underground bunkers hiding from the AI gods ruling over a planet full of psychotic killer robots.

Henry, we’ll make you all a deal. We’ll stop ranting about your generation as soon as your generation will STFU about itself.

Dr. Helen figures it is usually mere self-preservation:

I think that often men lie because they will get a very severe response from women if they tell the truth. For example, if a woman says, “What’s wrong?” and rather than reply, “I’m fine,” the man says, “You are driving me crazy and I need some time away from you,” there is a good chance the woman will make him pay dearly for the remark. I don’t know about you, rather than lies, I think many of these quips are more like self-preservation.

Based on my observations, this is a correct conclusion. Men not only learn to lie readily about their thoughts and feelings, they’re so accustomed to seeing the truth provoke insane rage from women that most of them have developed an instinctual reaction to back up the lies of other men even when they have no idea what is going on.

It’s pretty simple rule that actually applies to both sexes. If you genuinely want the truth, then you can’t react with fury whenever someone gives it to you. And once you’ve taught someone that you really don’t want to hear the truth, you’re not likely to hear it very often. I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong in not wanting to know the truth at all times, so if you suspect that you don’t want to hear it, just leave the matter alone.

It appears that Sam Harris isn’t the only one attempting to revise history regarding Stalin’s mass murders:

A government-backed drive is promoting textbooks which say his reign of terror was entirely rational and necessary to make Russia great. We visited a school in Volgograd – formerly Stalingrad – and found patriotism and pride for Russia and its pivotal role in the Second World War are still strong. During a history lesson pupils learned about Joseph Stalin the hero – not the villain….

A new law in Russia means that anyone who falsifies the Kremlin’s version of history, for example comparing Stalin with Hitler, may be prosecuted.

So much for Harris’s notion that there is no rational justification for committing mass murder. I wonder if anyone would like to bet that those behind these new laws proclaiming Stalin a rational hero are devout Christians? The astonishing thing is that many of today’s atheists are still so desperate to deny any possible connection between a historical atheist mass murderer and his atheism even as other atheists are actively slaughtering large quantities of religious people for their religious beliefs… despite the fact that this connection has no bearing whatsoever on the existence or nonexistence of God.

Now, as I pointed out in The Irrational Atheist, atheism alone cannot possibly be responsible for turning an individual into a mass slaughterer. The overwhelming majority of atheists will never kill anyone for any reason. But, the disproportional tendency of atheists who find themselves in positions of sufficient power to commit mass slaughter that subsequently engage in it cannot be dismissed as a mere coincidence or irrelevant correlation either. Because atheists practice a morality of one, both logic and history dictate that there always be some who redefine good and evil in a manner that directly contradicts the way it is defined by Christians and more conventionally moral atheists alike.

Mao is a prime example of such an atheist, as he explicitly declared that conventional morality did not apply to him; by his logic, the desire for absolute power was in itself license to exercise it in any manner he saw fit. He concocted a rationalization for his lethal actions long before he committed them in his commentary on Friedrich Paulsen’s A System of Ethics:

“I do not agree with the view that to be moral, the motive of one’s actions has to be benefiting others. Morality does not have to be defined in relation to others. . . . [People like me want to] satisfy our hearts to the full and in doing so we automatically have the most valuable moral codes. Of course there are people and objects in the world, but they are all there only for me. . . . I have my desire and act on it. I am responsible to no one.”
– Mao: The Unknown Story p. 15

“I am responsible to no one.” That, right there, explains the intrinsic danger of atheism. The perception of freedom from the invisible shackles of religion that many atheists celebrate is precisely the source of the problem. While this is relatively harmless in the average atheist, it is absolutely lethal in those extraordinary individuals who possess ruthless personalities, exceptional ambitions and utopian visions. And it is telling, too, that like Richard Dawkins and other atheist champions, Mao claimed he not only possessed a moral code, but a moral code that was superior to conventional religious moralities.

A simple solution for protective parents who wish to foster their children’s independence:

Katie, too, is tormented by the abduction monsters embedded in modern parenting. Yet she wants to encourage her daughter’s independence. “Somehow, walking to school has become a political act when it’s this uncommon,” she said. “Somebody has to be first.”

Come on, this really isn’t that hard:

1) Take a position on high ground somewhere in the middle with clean sight lines of the entire route.
2) Load a round into your .50 caliber rifle.
3) Take the lens covers off the scope.
4) Watch as your little girl walks off to school by herself.

In order to reduce the risk of any misunderstandings, it might be wise to give her a t-shirt that says “That red dot on your chest means my Daddy is watching.”

This would be the time to throw in a few of your suggestions. We probably won’t start for about two months, as I’ve got a number of things going on that may preclude my ability to produce the quizzes reliably, much less get involved in the more detailed discussions. I’m not promising that I’ll pay any attention to any of these suggestions, but perhaps someone will come up with something of particular interest to everyone.

I’ve been thinking about Caesar of late, probably because I’m three-quarters of the way through a mediocre, but entertaining fictionalization of his personal history. But Gaul or Civil Wars? Another possibility would be my forthcoming book, the title of which I will announce here in two weeks. It may be too soon for that, though, considering that we read AGD not all that long ago. And eventually we are going to have to get around to Herodotus, although I’ll have to finish my own re-reading of it first. So, fire away with your opinions, if you have any.

SS writes of her belated realization of feminism’s false promises:

I discovered your blog through your book, “The Irrational Atheist,” which I am reading with great relish. A quick search on your blog using the term “feminism” revealed a treasure-trove of commentary that I am enjoying very much.

You see, I am a woman and a professional, and at the age of 38 after gobs of education and freedom and equal opportunities, am wishing only to remain home and raise children. I have a Ph.D. in a hard science, am a professor and researcher at prestigious institutions, have the respect of my peers and students, and have come to realize that in spite of this I feel utterly empty. None of this success compensates for simple biological urges. I crave tradition, and it is a comfort to realize that there are sound reasons, rooted in reality, for feeling this way. Thank you for expressing, in such a succinct and entertaining way, the utter failure of feminism.

SS is clearly an elite and exceptional example, but she is nevertheless describing the sad reality for far too many women of my generation. They are smart, educated, and successful, and yet, regardless of whether one looks at them from a traditional perspective or a secular evolutionary one, they are failures as women. Now, this is not to say that a woman should not be permitted to choose a path as an evolutionary dead end who primarily contributes to society by creating Powerpoint demonstrations, reading celebrity magazines, and raising felines. We all possess the inherent right to go to Hell – or if you prefer, Oblivion – in our own particular way. But a woman should consciously choose that path, she should not be forced to realize that she had it chosen for her twenty years ago. I note that few of these solitary, childless women ever intentionally chose their path, instead, they discovered themselves insensibly walking it after being subjected to years of subtle pressure from family, friends, and the entertainment media.

It may or may not be too late for SS to realize her heart’s true desires. But it is not too late for her to teach a vital lesson in the importance of resisting both overt and subliminal pressure to the next generation of women.

The False Dawn

Composite Leading Indicators point to broad economic recovery. OECD composite leading indicators (CLIs) for July 2009 show stronger signs of recovery in most of the OECD economies. Clear signals of recovery are now visible in all major seven economies, in particular in France and Italy, as well as in China, India and Russia.

– Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, Sept. 11, 2009

The economists of the OECD are far more serious and credible than the likes of CNBC’s Jim Cramer, who errantly announced the end of the recession in April. And, yet, they are no more likely to be correct about the economic recovery they are now forecasting than they were back in 2007, when they predicted 2008 GDP growth of 2.8 percent in the United States and 5.2 percent for the global economy. This is not to say that their optimism is baseless; there are a number of factors which tend to suggest that the economic situation has reversed and things are on the verge of improving soon.

We’ve got the Purple on, we’re awaiting the debute of the Inglorious Betrayer, and this is the first weekly NFL open post. Feel free to comment away, unless you’re Nate, in which case you can simply fill in the blanks: The Titans are going to be super-awesome and win the Super Bowl this year because Jeff Fisher is the smartest coach in the history of the National Football League, their defense is ferocious, [_____] is going to surprise everyone, and they won’t miss [_____] at all.

Skol Vikings! And beware the Piranha of the Serengeti.