Vox Popoli

It looks like Ron Paul has made it past the “laughter” stage:

According to the New Hampshire State Republican Party and an Associated Press report, Republican presidential candidate and Texas Congressman Ron Paul will be excluded from an upcoming forum of Republican candidates to be broadcast by Fox News on January 6, 2008.

Based on the increasing amount of hatred expressed by anti-Paul Republicans and declarations of their preference for Hillary Clinton in his place, he might do even better than I’ve been expecting in Iowa and New Hampshire.

UPDATE – The man himself speaks on the matter: “They are scared of me and don’t want my message to get out, but it will,” Paul said in an interview at a diner here. “They are propagandists for this war and I challenge them on the notion that they are conservative.”

He’s right. They’re little more conservative than the Clintons.

There must be something strange going on in the rotation of the celestial spheres, because I completely agree with PZ Myers on this subject:

Here is all that torture is good for: inspiring fear in a population. If you want it widely known that your ruling regime is utterly ruthless and doesn’t care about individuals, all you have to do is scoop up random people suspected of anti-government activities, hold them for a few weeks, and return them as shattered wrecks with mangled limbs, while treating the monsters who would do such a thing as respected members of the ruling clique, who are immune from legal prosecution. The message gets out fast that one does not cross the government.

It’s worth reminding everyone of Winston Churchill’s statement about the way in which World War I reduced the Allies to near-total barbarism.

All the horrors of all the ages were brought together, and not only armies but whole populations were thrust into the midst of them. The mighty educated States involved conceived — not without reason — that their very existence was at stake. Neither peoples nor rulers drew the line at any deed which they thought could help them to win. Germany, having let hell loose, kept well in the van of terror; but she was followed step by step by the desperate and ultimately avenging nations she had assailed. When it was all over, Torture and Cannibalism were the only two expedients that the civilized, scientific, Christian States had been able to deny themselves: and they were of doubtful utility.

As I pointed out more than a year ago, the bestial Bush administration has now openly embraced torture, and judging by the barbaric enthusiasm many of its more wild-eyed supporters have shown for this position, if one could make the case for cannibalism helping win the War on Terror, they’d be the first to reach for the barbecue sauce.

Kidist raises a point worth underlining:

[D]isproportionate number of Jewish columnists in one newspaper, which I agree happens to be neocon, doesn’t mean that Jews are the sole proprietors of neocon philosophy.

Of course they’re not. Neocons come in various shapes, sizes, colors and creeds. But it’s important to keep in mind that it is the neocons, of all persuasions, who have attempted to argue that Jew = neocon in order to render their revolutionary political philosophy immune from criticism. This reached absurd proportions back when Joel Mowbray was calling General Anthony Zinni a “ninny” while complaining about the “anti-semitism” of his attack on a number of neocons, precisely none of whom were Jewish.

Now, there is a lot of anti-semitism around the world, in fact, there is far more anti-semitism in Europe today than there has ever been in the USA, but no one realizes this since Jews are not overrepresented in the European press the way they are in the US media, both mainstream and conservative. So, we have the bizarre situation of Jews in the American media constantly complaining about nonexistent anti-semitism in the USA while no one ever says anything about actual anti-semitism in the very place where it has historically been most viciously exhibited.

I could not care less who the New York Times hires. If they want to establish a Jews-only policy for its editorial page, that’s their business and it should be – though I suppose under current labor law, it isn’t – their right. I’ve never read the NYT regularly and I’ve also never had any more desire to write for it than for Pravda or the Rénmín Rìbào. But you can bet that there are an awful lot of non-Jewish writers, especially on the left, who aspire to that kind of high-profile position and are going to harbor an awful lot of resentment about the Kristol hiring. And unlike me, they’re never going to utter a word in public about it.

This is one way the seed of anti-semitism is planted. As Thomas Sowell has chronicled across numerous cultures, preferential treatment for a minority tends to create hatred for that minority on the part of the majority. This effect occurs regardless of who the minority or the majority happen to be.

The Huffington Post has learned that, in a move bound to create controversy, the New York Times is set to announce that Bill Kristol will become a weekly columnist in 2008.

This is EXACTLY what the New York Times needs, a second Jewish faux conservative to provide balance to the Jewish liberal, the other Jewish liberal, the other other Jewish liberal, the black liberal and the woman liberal. Which makes me wonder, where’s the Hispanic liberal and the gay liberal needed to complete the set? Instead of a credibility-challenged neocon, you’d think they could have found a gay Judeo-Hispanic liberal woman and killed five birds with one hire.

It’s most amusing to see all the neocons being forced to react to the increasing probability that the man with the means, motive and opportunity to murder Bhutto was responsible for her death. Someone better get an Osama tape together, stat!

Benazir Bhutto died from a skull fracture suffered when her head slammed against her car during a suicide attack—not from bullet wounds, the government said Friday. Pakistan’s interior minister blamed al-Qaida and the Taliban for Thursday’s assassination and said another key opposition leader, Nawaz Sharif, is also under threat of militant attack….

Authorities on Thursday said Bhutto died from bullet wounds fired by a young man who then blew himself up, killing 20 other people. A surgeon who treated her said Friday she died from the impact of shrapnel on her skull.

But later Friday, Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema said all three shots missed her as she greeted supporters through the sunroof of her vehicle, which was bulletproof and bombproof. He also denied that shrapnel caused her death, saying Bhutto was killed when she tried to duck back into the vehicle, and the shock waves from the blast knocked her head into a lever attached to the sunroof, fracturing her skull.

I’m just surprised they didn’t call it a suicide by sun roof.

This is what it looks like when you have been metaphorically castrated. In public:

Bill told me I could take off the final week of the season, go 0-for-whatever and still beat him even if he picked every game correctly. I looked up the records and, sure enough, I’m leading him by 17 wins with 16 games remaining. I thought this was really funny and demanded to write his “picks” column this week. He agreed, although he probably loved the chance to skip writing so he could spend time on more important stuff, like watching NBA games that happened in 1985, or sending taunting e-mails about his latest League of Dorks championship.

If Spacebunny ever beat me at a networked FPS, military strategy game, or on the bench press, I think I’d have to commit seppuku with a Thrustmaster. I can’t even imagine what the Sports Guy is going through now. Our thoughts and prayers are with him.

As the OC often says, some battles are vicious only because the stakes are so very small:

In Vox’s case, I don’t feel he should be surprised when people he’s chosen to shake up and outrage have chosen to remain shaken and outraged, and yet from time to time, he is. Underneath that brassy exterior there is a very intelligent and thoughtful man, who once in a while comes up with an idea he really would like to see discussed soberly, calmly, and dispassionately, and on those occasions he seems genuinely taken aback to find that the people he would like to discuss his idea with are still holding a grudge over something he wrote years ago.

One of the most basic flaws in human character is the assumption that other people are essentially like us at heart. While I learned long ago that the most reliably self-defeating thing I could do was to assume that everyone was perfectly capable of understanding what I was doing or talking about, I still get caught off-guard from time to time in other areas. One of these is the concept of holding grudges, particularly intellectual ones. I’m simply not interested enough in most people to keep track of those I don’t like and don’t respect. This is why my friends are so amused when I’m accused of hating or being obsessed with someone for whom I’ve demonstrated complete contempt; as the White Buffalo once told a girl who was convinced that I had it in for her during our college days: “he doesn’t hate you, he has no idea who you are.”

In fact, the concept of disliking people simply because I disagree with them has never made sense to me, probably because my views are unusual enough that everyone, including Spacebunny, disagrees with at least a few of them. Sometimes I can win people over to seeing things somewhat my way, sometimes I can’t, but regardless of the result, it seldom affects the way I feel about them. Ideas are not character and individuals are far more than the sum of their ideas. Of course, they’re also less interesting than ideas, for the most part, but that’s neither here nor there. I suppose that the fact I don’t care what most people think on the basis of their relative retardation also makes it easier for me to separate the incredibly idiotic idea from the perfectly pleasant individual who happens to possess it.

So, it’s easy for me to forget that many people don’t think this way, and that the mere fact of disagreement, let alone criticism, to say nothing at all of open contempt for their ideas, is enough to stamp you with “THE ENEMY” for life. That’s why I got caught off-guard in the recent discussion at Mr. Stross’s blog, when the fat old women of the SFWA preferred to wax hysterical about my skeptical view of women suffrage – but NOT actually debate it, of course – rather than stick to the subject of the SFWA’s governance. I had no idea that their thick woolen granny pants were still knotted over a three-year old column on the incontrovertible fact that women prefer writing vampire sex novels and strong independent woman in space romances to hard science fiction; other than John Scalzi, Charles Stross and that hapless old hag Hayden, I couldn’t tell you who was involved in the original discussion if you paid me.

Now, it’s important not to put too much weight on the OC’s statement about my liking for rhetoric. He’s only talking about the part that’s used to push the emotional triggers of the brainless, not the core ideas. To give a recent example, look at the personal views of Steyn expressed in an article written about the Canadian human rights tribunals. If you read carefully, you’ll see that I don’t dislike Steyn at all, but my choice of the loaded words “overrated” and “overexposed” pushed the buttons that made his defenders overreact. Thank you, obedient bitches! But I fully hold to all of the controversial positions which I am defending with the occasional rhetorical provocation. Granted, the way in which I use sarcasm without the usual “WARNING: SARCASM AHEAD” signs can occasionally lead to confusion, but then, this blog is a two-way street and one has only to ask in order to receive clarification.

I should also mention that I cannot fathom why anyone who looks upon me favorably would EVER even THINK about the possibility of attacking the OC for being insufficiently enthusiastic about anything I’ve said, written or done. I expect my friends to freely disagree with me; their opinions and criticisms are the only ones I take seriously. Praise is nice, but honest, intelligent and constructive criticism is to be treasured.

Joe Carter notes that it can be a bit of a shock to finally recognize that many Republicans and so-called “conservatives” are every bit the mindless herd animals that their Democratic and so-called “liberals” regularly demonstrate themselves to be:

I have to confess that I’d always associated sheeplishness with the Left. Liberals, according to my stereotype, are more prone to collectivism and–despite what they might claim–invariably not a part of the “reality-based community.” Conservatives, I foolishly believed, were different. We relied on facts and based our opinions on sound arguments. We did our own homework and didn’t rely on other people to do our thinking for us.

I know, I know, it’s a silly delusion. Had I given it even a moment’s thought I’d have recognized the fallacy of my own bias. But until recently, I didn’t give it much thought. It was only after the pundits started repeating erroneous claims about a topic I knew something about that I realized that they really were, as their liberal critics often claimed, regurgitating the same talking points.

Most pundits are deeply clueless. You have to keep in mind that they are the sort of people who think they know all about Europe from a semester in London plus a two-week trip to Rome five years ago. Interviewing a general makes them experts in all things military and having once heard of something means they “know” about it. They’re NEVER held to account for being wrong; one thing I’d like to do someday is start a Pundit Prediction Percentage site tracking predictions and providing accuracy ratings for every significant commentator. Todd Seavey’s little summary of our new friend David Frum’s prophetic acumen indicates why such a site would be not only desirable, but downright useful.

…while Frum is very smart and writes well, if you take his advice on how to rebuild the GOP, you’re taking advice from the same guy who declared Bush The Right Man in 2003, ten years after he pronounced the conservative movement electorally dead in his 1993 book Dead Right — one year before the GOP took over Congress)

If history is any guide, Frum’s new book Comeback should represent the final nail in the GOP’s coffin for a generation. Anyhow, if this is a concept that happens to interest you, email me with PPP in the subject and tell me which pundit you’d be interested in tracking. I haven’t worked out the precise formula yet, but the inevitable New Year’s predictions coming up should prove to be somewhat useful.

While I’m enjoying my Christmas books, it can be a little depressing when you realize that in our arrogant ignorance, America is simply repeating a number of well-known errors of the past. In the very first chapter of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, I noticed the following gems:

“The Emperor, greatly moved by the signs of the displeasure of Heaven, issued an edict asking his ministers for an explanation of the calamaties and marvels. A certain Ts’ai Yung replied bluntly that showers of insects and changes of fowls’ sexes were brought about by feminine interference in State affairs.”

I think I’d prefer showers of insects to a growing Nanny state, declining real per capita income and eight hundred thousand children sacrificed annually to the sacred cause of women receiving pieces of paper declaring their competence in Political Geography, Sociology and/or Vagina Gazing. And better to learn that the chickens are changing sexes instead of those sad psychological wrecks who think to find happiness in the surgical denial of their chromosomal inheritance.

“Tho’ fierce as tigers soldiers be,
Battles are won by strategy.”

The Eastern sages have known for centuries a basic truth that continues to escape the war cheerleaders in the commentariat. America’s soldiers can win every single clash of arms and America not only can, but almost certainly will, lose this war because its martial strategy, to the extent that it even exists, is entirely incoherent.