Vox Popoli

I have to admit, I’m a bit shocked:

That does it. I officially no longer support this war. Furthermore, may I encourage my sons to not reenlist? These people are fools. Politicians have always been fools, but when your military ‘leadership’ become fools, I consider every order from that point on to be an unlawful order.

My contention is that you can’t win a war without anything that remotely approaches an observable strategy to win it. Bane’s point, and I can’t say I disagree, appears to be that you can’t win a war if you’re apologizing to the enemy for harming the occasional inanimate object.

The first 3-star non-reader review I’ve ever seen:

Haven’t read this book yet…

…hence the 3-star, kind of middling star rating. I am going to read this book, as soon as I’ve finished Antony Flew’s “There is a God.” But the book I must recommend is a book by Scott Hahn and Benjamin Wiker called “Answering the New Atheism: Dismantling Dawkins’ Case Against God.”

Apparently he thinks that book reviews are an appropriate place to recommend other books. Or something. Look, the concept really isn’t that difficult. FIRST, you read the book. THEN you write the review. This applies regardless of how much or how little you think you’re going to like the book, and regardless of how much you think you’ve read about the book or its author. I’ve read terrible books by authors I love. I’ve read really good books by authors that I happen to know from personal experience are complete idiots. That’s why you always have to read the book in order to ascertain its worth… which is largely subjective anyhow.

Now, I’m flattered that TIA has become enough of a success that other anti-New Atheist authors see fit to reference it in various ways. It was nice to see it mentioned by David Noebel in company with the books by Aikman, Berlinski, and Lennox. As you may recall, I have always contended that TIA is merely one shot in a veritable barrage that will be headed the New Atheists’ way for years to come; it may be one of the better ones to date but it probably will not turn out to be the best. But regardless… always read before you review. Always.

Here’s two examples of this in action:

Mr. Obama reveals many things in his books, speeches and interviews but polarity and a tropism toward the extreme are not among them.
– Peggy Noonan, WSJ

Obama is, in fact, radical. Hearing him at a rally, he doesn’t sound like it. (Read some of The Audacity of Hope and he doesn’t sound like it.) Goodness knows I know it. I’ve had the experience — you listen to him, you start to project, you start to get caught up. For me, it was only a matter of seconds before I came to.
– Katherine Lopez, NRO

Like Schiffren and Lopez, I find myself wondering what Miss Peggy was smoking for breakfast with that statement. Obama is extreme by literally every measure; he holds very few mainstream positions. But the two statements show how women simply don’t pay attention to the same signals given off by men that other men notice, at least not initially. Because Obama isn’t shrieking provocative phrases and bugging his eyes out like his overly dramatic pastor, but instead speaks in soothing tones using ambiguous words, they have a tendency to project their own opinions on him rather than paying attention to anything he has done or is specifically articulating. Pretty Lady is, to a certain extent, correct, in that the change Obama endlessly champions is one of tone. It is definitely not one of substance, except in that he favors an increase in the expansion of government power over the individual.

The current “debate” over who would talk to Hitler is a good example. Bush and McCain are posturing about taking a hardline on negotiating with “terrorists”, the “change” that Obama offers involves the groundbreaking concept of an open line of communications to one’s enemies. But as everyone taking part in the Thucydides study knows quite well, heralds and ambassadors doing their job in wartime aren’t exactly a new idea.

Fortunately, I still see no evidence that Obama will win the nomination except the obvious – and please don’t even think about bringing up the delegate count again. It takes a special sort of individual to bring up the obvious when the entire bloody context is looking beyond the obvious. Nothing has changed in the last two weeks except for his recent demonstration in West Virginia that he may be one of the very few Democrats capable of losing to John McCain in November despite the massive winds blowing in a Democratic direction. Now, that would be ironic; the Republicans go ahead and offer up the expected sacrificial lamb, only the clueless wing of the Democratic party insist on nominating the one guy who can’t manage to cut its throat.

This doesn’t mean they won’t go ahead and give him the nod, of course, but I would be surprised if they did. It’s not that I’m wedded to my Hillary prediction, it’s simply that given the historical evidence I don’t think it’s wise to base one’s analysis on the Democratic party’s propensity to play by the rules.

UPDATE – Speaking of the Magic Negro, Rachel Lucas wonders if perhaps he’s going to go all Hussein on Republicans over his America-hating wife:

“If they think that they’re going to try to make Michelle an issue in this campaign, they should be careful, because that I find unacceptable — the notion that you start attacking my wife or my family,” he said.

If you don’t want your wife to get attacked, then you should probably make sure that she doesn’t say incredibly stupid things about your presidential candidacy in front of television cameras, Mr. Snory Stinker. Actually, given what an annoying Ivy League Liberal Michelle Obama is, Obama would be wise to see that she is provided with weekly shots of botox in the tongue for the duration of the campaign. Her big mouth is potential kryptonite to his Magical Negritude, although considering Obama’s history, he probably wouldn’t hesitate to throw her under the bus to keep company with his first literary agent, his grandmother, and his pastor if that’s what the next step required.

UPDATE II – Mark Steyn points out that Obama isn’t exactly what you’d call sound on national sovereignty, or, when you think about it, the English language:

So “leadership” means finding out what other countries want from America and then doing it. Good luck with that.

Didn’t this sort of thing used to horrify Americans when it was East Germans spying on each other for the Deutsche Demokratische Republik?

“For this year, everyone that’s called has pretty much been just looking for money,” said Sgt. Lawrence Beller, who answers Crime Stoppers calls at the Sussex County, N.J., sheriff’s office. “That’s as opposed to the last couple of years, where some people were just sick of the crime and wanting to do something about it.”

As a result, many programs report a substantial increase in Crime Stopper-related arrests and recovered property, as callers turn in neighbors, grandchildren or former boyfriends in exchange for a little cash.

I already know of at least one couple in which the father was arrested and spent the night in jail after being reported by a neighbor on suspicion of child abuse. In that particular case, the spying was unmotivated by pecuniary interest and was largely inadvertant; the neighbor had called the police and wanted to know if spanking was supposed to be considered child abuse. It wasn’t, but somehow the question got misinterpreted as an accusation. But if there’s money to be made in reporting church attendance and Bible study, you know there will be thousands who will be more than willing to play informer… ironically, many of them the very same people who would have been outraged to the point of apoplexy if anyone had taken cash for informing the police of those breaking the anti-sodomy laws.

Regardless, it does make for an interesting economic indicator, though, and one that tends to support what Art was saying in a comment about his observations in the pattern of automobile repairs showing behavior indicative of a recession.

I imagine something like this will be one of the first experiments proposed if Sam Harris ever manages to find a particular area of the brain that is responsible for religious belief:

Words failed me. I stuttered as Prof Vincent Walsh turned off the speech centre of my brain for a few thousandths of a second to demonstrate the power of transcranial magnetic stimulation, a popular way to interfere with the most complex known object in the universe.

Of course, as I suggested to him in an email, if he ever manages to find such a location or brainwave pattern, it would be interesting to test those secular rationalists who think so highly of evolution and determine just what sort of belief they truly have in it.

Lest you think the Magic Negro is a self-made man:

A 28-year-old law student gets written up in the newspapers, then gets a call from a literary agent? She calls him? The agent then signs this 28-year-old nobody — whose only credential as an author is student law journal stuff — with Simon & Schuster. Hello? In what alternative universe does this happen? He misses his deadline, but that’s OK, because he then gets another big contract with a $40,000 advance. At this point, Obama’s story is reminding me of another popular book, The Peter Principle.

But the real killer is how, having gotten a contract based on a proposal for a book about race relations, Obama pulls a bait-and-switch, and instead delivers … a memoir….

First-time author. $40,000. Memoir. Reviewed in the New York Times.

I found this particularly interesting, since all three of my books published by Simon & Schuster sold more than Obama’s did, but I don’t recall many reviews, much less reviews in the New York Times. I wouldn’t blame any author who loathed Obama for the way in which he was literally handed an astonishingly lucrative literary career. You’ll note that Bill and Hillary Clinton are similarly successful “authors”.

The OC contemplates the land that was once Canada:

While the Canadians had never been great fans of free trade or free speech, in the above quote we find proof of their final descent into madness. For in the new nation of Khanadistan, it is now the official position of the government that truth is no defense against the accusation of hate speech.

But at least Khanuckistanis have the right to wait in line for health care without paying for the privilege.

William Safire saw the inevitable result of legalizing homogamy in this tongue-in-cheek piece written more than a decade ago:

1. A woman’s chance of being left alone would be cut in half overnight. If one man left, there would still be another standing by. Both the wife and the stay-behind spouse would, in their joint rejection, be drawn more closely together. Moreover, the search for a replacement second husband would be easier, conducted by two abandoned spouses, one of whom could work or stay home with the children while the other cruised singles bars or followed up personal ads. Also, because women live longer, a backup husband reduces full widowhood.

2. The likelihood of the presence of a male role model in the home for children would be doubled. The era of the latchkey child would end abruptly, as one of the husbands would be at home at all times for roughhouse and nurturing.

3. Marital fidelity would be enhanced by internalizing the eternal triangle. The costs of living together could be cut sharply by eliminating the need for assignations. Three can live as cheaply as two; remove the adult from adultery.

Who could oppose this modest proposal to extend connubial rights, inheritance-tax advantages and benefits blessings to millions of lonely women and angry extra males?

Since I think de jure or de facto polygamy – which is tantamount to polygyny due to historical sexual dynamics – is vastly more societally stable than the current Western system of a serially monogamous divorce culture, I suspect the unintended consequences of the Lavender Mafia’s push for homogamy may turn out to have some surprisingly positive results. If state-sanctioned homogamy is the price required to effectively destroy feminism, and polygyny will totally eviscerate feminism, it’s a pretty small price to pay.

Now, it’s true that a polygamous culture isn’t likely to be very respectful of individual liberties nor is it necessarily inclined to small government, but then, neither is the one we currently inhabit.

Fat people are not only sweaty and unsightly, apparently they’re causing global warming too!

[O]bese people are disproportionately responsible for high food prices and greenhouse gas emissions because they consume 18% more food energy due to their greater body mass — and require increased quantities of fuel to transport themselves and the food they eat.

Those fat bastards! Personally, I’m all for the total oppression of the overweight, particularly persecution of those rotund reprobates that smugly supported all the smoking bans now ubiquitous around the world. Because if it’s the government’s business what you put in your mouth, that logically applies to pizza and doughnuts as well as nicotine and tequila.