Vox Popoli

If the Malkinites will permit us to move on from the historical internment debate and look at what John Leo suggests is the present one, I’d like to encourage people to consider the what is the fundamentally leftist notion of internment. First, does the following statement sound more characteristic of left-wing or right-wing thought:

We have to do something even if it won’t do any good.

You see, the technological imperative suggests that it will soon be impossible to prevent the damage wrought by a single individual, if it is not already. Whether it is a matter of nuclear miniaturization, biological weaponry or nanotechnology, the massive and powerful edifice of the central state is growing increasingly vulnerable to the actions of one man.

The only genuine defense against an unstoppable danger that is limited as to its area of effect is decentralization. But decentralization is also highly conducive to individual liberty, which is why the central state resists it even when its own survival is supposedly at stake. For example, if Leviathan is beheaded in Washington DC, the plan is not to turn power over to the 50 governors of the sovereign states, but to FEMA, an even stronger central authority than the current Federal government.

Internment will only be one of the many totalitarian solutions proposed, if not imposed, in the wake of a serious attack on the USA. I think it is a short-sighted and foolish betrayal of principle for conservatives to look to the state to protect them from something it manifestly has not been able to protect them and from which it will likely never be able to protect them.

The other possible defense against a threat from resident aliens lies in immigration controls and deportations, but since the global statists have latched onto flooding the population as an excellent method of destroying national sovereignty, this is not even up for mainstream discussion despite its Constitutional viability in comparison with internment. I can’t help but think what a surprise it will be to many conservatives when they finally realize that they are more likely to be candidates for internment than those they were envisioning would be the targets.

Ran tries attaching electro-shock paddles to the dead horse:

Vox – Like many armchair generals, you operate with the benefit of hindsight. Planners and leaders in 1942 had to assume worst case against a military that had already overran most Asian colonies, pounded the Royal & US Fleets, & threatened Australia.

Now I’m getting sick of this. Ran, with all due respect, please shut your mouth, turn on your brain, and go read the actual war plans that the planners and leaders you mention had worked out in response to the Japanese military threat. Then get back to me via email. Don’t even think of posting more wildly stupid statements like this until you do so.

Read AWPD-1, AWPD-4, AWPD-42, Rainbow-5, War Plan Orange, and War Plan Red. Then read what Admirals Stark, Nimitz and King had to say AT THE FREAKING TIME!!!!! I’ll be very interested to hear how you argue that they were operating with the benefit of hindsight ahead of time. Were they armchair admirals?

Just to give one of many, many examples:

On 4 February [1942] General Clark of GHQ and Admiral Harold R. Stark, the Chief of Naval Operations, offered testimony on the west coast military outlook at a meeting of the first of these subcommittees. Before they spoke, Senator Holman summed up the situation by saying that the people there were alarmed and horrified as to their persons, their employment, and their homes. General Clark said that he thought the Pacific states were unduly alarmed. While both he and Admiral Stark agreed the west coast defenses were not adequate to prevent the enemy from attacking, they also agreed that the chance of any sustained attack or of an invasion was as General Clark put it-nil. They recognized that sporadic air raids on key installations were a distinct possibility, but they also held that the west coast military defenses were considerable and in fairly good shape; and, as Admiral Stark said, from the military point of view the Pacific coast necessarily had a low priority as compared with Hawaii and the far Pacific. These authoritative Army and Navy views were passed on to the Wallgren subcommittee, but they do not seem to have made much impression.

I’m getting very, very tired of this theoretical idiocy that clearly doesn’t know the first thing about the historical specifics. No admiral or general at all concerned about damaging attacks on the West Coast would have sent all four of their carriers, 160 heavy bombers and 272 fighters to the Dutch East Indies on January 6 and January 11, 1942, and there are a plethora of statements from various generals and admirals that demonstrate this total lack of concern.

If anyone has a specific argument, backed up by historical fact, I’ll be delighted to entertain it and discuss it. Further theoretical objections unsupported by direct citation will be deleted. I don’t want to have to ban anyone, but I won’t hesitate to do so if anyone repeatedly refuses to abide by this very reasonable condition.

From Slashdot:

“DISCS 1-2: The Feature FEATURE (approx. 250 minutes) – A new version of the final installment in the epic trilogy! The Academy-Award winning film now has 50 minutes of never-before-seen footage incorporated into the film for this highly-anticipated video release.”

Yep, sometime this winter I’m going to sit down and fire up a 14-hour Tolkein marathon. I still am deliriously happy when I stop and think that against all odds, my favorite childhood books didn’t get completely trashed in translation to film. Unbelievable, but in a good way.

Now if someone will only do The Dark Is Rising and The Chronicles of Prydain. (Some will say that Disney did a movie called The Black Cauldron; don’t believe them. It never happened.) I think a CGI version of Watership Down is definitely worth doing as well.

Strangely enough, it’s theoretically possible that my first foray into comic book writing might make it to the screen before any of them. We’ll see. It’s amazing to discover that there is an industry even more full of BS than the music industry, but it’s true.

Week 2: 9-7. Overall: 20-12.

W – Atlanta Falcons over Arizona Cardinals

W – Seattle Seahawks over San Francisco 49ers

L – Tennessee Titans over Jacksonville Jaguars

W – Minnesota Vikings over Chicago Bears

W – Philadelphia Eagles over Detroit Lions

Oakland Raiders over Tampa Bay Buccaneers

W – Denver Broncos over San Diego Chargers

Indianapolis Colts over Green Bay Packers

L – St. Louis Rams over New Orleans Saints

W – New York Giants over Cleveland Browns

L – Kansas City Chiefs over Houston Texans

Miami Dolphins over Pittsburgh Steelers

Washington Redskins over Dallas Cowboys

L – Cincinnati Bengals over Baltimore Ravens

Last week was tough for Chokechain and I, as we lost our 16-point game with the upset of Green Bay. To give you an idea of what a massive upset that was, only two of 99 people in the pool had Chicago winning, with very low confidence ratings of two and three points, respectively. But we’re still towards the top of the second quartile, while Annabella, (the artist formerly known as the White Buffalo), languishes in the bottom half. That being said, the real Annabella beat us by 30 points last week, so we may need to find a new and more insulting appellation.

Fantasy looks pretty good this weekend, as the Robin’s Egg Blue and Gentle Yellow of Big Chilly’s Hummingbirds are forced to start Joey Harrington at quarterback. The Piranha also feature the Oakland D going up against Tampa’s putrescent offense and Ahman Green looking to make up for last week’s disaster against a questionable Indy run defense that gives up five yards per carry, third worst in the NFL.

Mark Alexander writes on useful idiots:

FDR, perhaps unwittingly, used the Great Depression to establish a solid foundation for socialism in America, as best evidenced in this dubious proclamation: “Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.”

….Soviet dictator Nikita Khrushchev said of Roosevelt’s “New Deal” paradigm shift, “We can’t expect the American people to jump from capitalism to communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving them small doses of socialism, until they awaken one day to find that they have communism.”

Not just AN American principle, the ONLY one. Interesting. I would submit to every conservative defender of WWII-internment that any time you discover that your opinion is running in parallel with FDR’s, you should probably consider taking a good hard look at your reasoning to figure out where you went off the rails of fact, logic and true American principle.

Sarah writes:

Vox, when I say that she is ignoring you, it is mostly true. Where she is directly and publicly confronted with you, she will make an attempt at evading your points by brushing it off. As far as I’m concerned, that is functionally equivalent to ignoring you. After all, what does anyone care whether she acknowledges your existence? It is your points that matter in this particular context, not the source (unless it is to ensure that that source is trustworthy).

Of course, you can get all literal about ‘ignoring’ if you want to…

You know, you’d think it would be so easy for Malkin. If she doesn’t want to be exposed as a liar and incompetent, then all that she would have to do is ensure that she knows what she is talking about and that she is careful to tell the truth. I really hope this bites her in the ass in the end.

Actually, I pretty much agree with you. Nor do I care that she is ignoring me on a personal level, as I firmly believe that she will treat anyone who brings up the question of military necessity in precisely the same way, even if their name were Bill O’Reilly or Rush Limbaugh. She has to, because even opening her mouth on the question will reveal her ignorance. I mean, look what level of total cluelessness she managed to reveal in only two blog posts on the subject!

I find it rather strange that she chose to lie in public rather than completely ignore me. That was just weird. Perhaps she needs to take lessons from Al Davis. Oakland is playing Tampa Bay tomorrow, and when a sportswriter asked a Raiders official why it was Derrick Thomas doing the weekly press conference for Tampa and not Tim Brown, the former Raider who was their number one draft pick and All-Pro wide receiver who caught 99 touchdowns for them before his acrimonious departure from Oakland this summer, the Raiders executive replied: “Tim who?”

Now, THAT’S ignoring!

While it would have been far more satisfying to debate Mrs. Malkin directly, I think I answered the questions to the satisfaction of Captain Ed, King, St. Paul and the Elder. If I sounded a little more awkward than normal, it felt rather like trying to pour water from a keg into a tiny little funnel. There were so many things I would have liked to get into, but couldn’t in the interest of keeping things moving along. I did hit the primary points I wanted to address, though, so I’ll have to be satisfied with that.

MikeF wrote:

Honestly Vox, except for a minority of people, I’m not sure who you plan on converting anymore. The ardent defenders of Malkin are often those who think that Bush is the spittin image of Reagan. IMO you’re in the end what you’re doing amounts to trying to appeal to the dumb and willfully ignorant.

You can’t win this because her supporters desparately want to support anything they feel will get back a quieter, simpler, more traditional America. Malkin offers some of that, you offer a deep challenge.

Space Bunny and I were talking about this a few days ago. She pointed out that regardless of what the facts are, most people will assume that Malkin knows what she’s talking about because they have not heard of me nor do they know the historical facts. I laughed and pointed out that the vast majority of Americans have never heard of Malkin, indeed, most people have not heard of Bill O’Reilly and could not place Dick Cheney if you paid them.

It amuses me when people talk about cable news figures as if they are well-known. If we are going to abandon the truth and concern ourselves with popularity, then the only people whose opinion truly matters are the Britney Spears, Brad Pitts and Jenna Jamesons of the world. I daresay ten times more people would recognize Jenna Jameson’s not-exactly-private parts than Michelle Malkin’s face. The top cable news show is watched by barely one percent of the population, after all.

My primary motivation in all of this was to simply stand up for the truth here because apparently almost no one in the supposedly intellectual commentariat has any idea what it is. Ignorance is rampant; the History Channel – which is the only exposure that many people who consider themselves to be thinking men will have to the matter – recently did a Decisive Battles series on Pharsalus. At one point, the narrator mentioned that Julius Caesar had been married to Pompey’s daughter, Julia. The program got it entirely backwards, however, as it was actually Pompey married to Caesar’s daughter Julia, the episode serves to demonstrate how utterly hopeless the media can be when it comes to matters of iron-clad historical fact. In addition to the easily verified lineage, you’d think the name alone might have given the idiot a hint.

I suspect that not only will the reason for my contempt for Malkin’s grasp on history be very clear to you all within a few hours, I expect most of you will likely share it.

To total Windows-free operation, not counting games. It’s been a hassle to transfer my writing from the laptop to my Dana; while it’s doable, it’s enough of a pain that for the most part, I only use my Dana for reading. However, after I started using Blue Nomad’s Wordsmith on the Dana, which serves as both an ebook reader and a word processor, I decided to check out the Linux utility they had available for download.

What’s nice is that the combination of Blue Nomad’s wsconv utility with a pair of scripts allows me to save a file as an RTF, right-click on it to convert it to a Palm-readable PDB format, then fire it over to the Dana. That last step still requires hopping into Windows for now since the Dana , but someone’s already figured out how to get the Dana hotsyncing in Linux using infrared, so it’s only a matter of time before there’s a decent USB option as well.