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Sunday, November 28, 2004
  American Fighting Forces Are Scary

This from Thomas P. M. Barnett's The Pentagon's New Map:

You want to know what makes our military so scary to the rest of the world? Our noncommissioned officers wield more combat power than every other nation's admirals and generals. When you fight Americans, you face the worst of all enemies: disciplined creativity.


Check out Barnett's web site. And read his book. I'm with him about 90-95%. Almost all of my reservations, I am sure, are simply rooted in my ignorance of the world that he knows - but I cannot get past some of his rhetoric. My ignorance is my own, and I just have to live with it until I can learn a little more.

UPDATE: For anyone who has read Barnett's book or heard him speak, I have a question. He posits the US Leviathan force as fighting individuals who seek to impose disconnectedness on significant populations. Just how far does this go? Can the Leviathan force avoid conflict with garden-variety criminal organizations in the end?


 
Sunday, November 21, 2004
  What It Means To Be An American

Chris Wallace ended the Fox News Sunday program today with a profile on the director of the Smithsonian. The report concluded with the ovservation that the director considers it his task to help visitors to the Smithsonian to understand what it means to be an American.

I find that definition provocative because the single most determinative factor defining an American is the choice, active or passive, to be an American. All other nationalities are defined almost exclusively by birth. Who were your parents? You are what they were.

My near ancestors (within the last 200 years) were immigrants - to America, to Tennessee, to Texas. Twenty-five years ago I realized that I could do my business (software development) from virtually anywhere on the planet. In the wake of that choice, I discovered that I was a Texan. Quite a surprise considering that I had always thought of myself as a citizen of the Galaxy.

I am pleased to be among those who have made a similar choice. I don't even mind that quite a few of them (most of them, actually) aprehend their citizenship differently. We have, after all, such a wide array of choices available to us. And the opportunity for choice never leaves us. Nowhere else on earth - even among those nations and populations most nearly like us - is the process of defining oneself so pervasive, so enduring. And so widely exercised.

No one has to be an American. It is not like being Jewish, or Arab, or Hispanic or Black, or Slav, or . . . anything else. We are a mongrel race made up of Jews and Arabs and Hispanics and Blacks and . . . anything else. While very few governments will let us abdicate our ethnicity, virtually any of them will allow any American to forswear his citizenship - even the US government. Chuck your American citizenship, and peoples all over the planet will fete you and sing your praises - while marveling at your stupidity for surrendering such a treasure.

I am a numbers guy - with a past association with the Show Me state. Follow the bodies. Who emigrates to Russia? Or to India? Or Japan? Or France? With the exception of Arabs (to whom the remainder of the planet must look like paradise) and of the kleptocratic class in Africa, immigration to Europe is a trickle compared to emigration to the US. An airline ticket to France costs a lot less than Mexicans pay to smugglers to get them across the porous US border, yet they take the more expensive route because the opportunity is so much greater here. Shoot, for what they pay to get here, they could take a luxury cruise to Europe and see all of the sights - but it's just so much harder to fit into a society that is suspicious of "outsiders."

I know that it is not easy getting here and re-establishing one's life. Most immigrants through our history have had to burn a generation to give the next one a leg up. I think about all of the pioneers who settled the American West, all the refugees who sweated their way across the Atlantic or the Pacific, through Ellis Island or on the railroad crews - the incredible hardships that they overcame to plant that second generation here. Risk takers, visionaries, survivors, inventors - that is the stock from which Americans are descended. And though the ratio of the hardiest immigrants to the now-native population is much lower than it used to be, it so far passes the ratios of other countries or continents as to make us a different kind of critter.

At the core of the definition of an American is that choice - the decision (active or passive) to be an American. Behind that choice is a level of competence that is wholly admirable. It is the competence and its progeny that define what it is to be an American. That's what I identify with - the drive to be better and to make the the world better. And there is no more fertile zone to nurture that drive and all of the good that flows from it than the US.


 
  Noam Chomsky Was Once Right

This is taken from the follow up to one of the most revealing (and tasty) academic parodies of our time. The payoff quote:

George Orwell once remarked that political thought, especially on the left, is a sort of masturbation fantasy in which the world of fact hardly matters. That's true, unfortunately, and it's part of the reason that our society lacks a genuine, responsible, serious left-wing movement.

It's just too easy to pick on Chomsky now. But is is both sobering and sad to think about the fact that he was once so right.

BTW, I actually studied transformational grammars in the early 70's. It was a trivial process for anyone with a reasonable mathematical background. At the time I thought I might be able to excell in a new scientific area, but I learned pretty quickly that the folks involved were not the least bit interested in science - only the cache' of the scientist.

 
Saturday, November 13, 2004
  Y'alls and Neckies

Damn! I wish that I could be this good.

Here are a few goodies (but you gotta go read the whole thing):


"Stern is now living with friends after her parents kicked her out of the house for spending her bat mitzvah money on a bass boat."


"We became suspicious after several heavily made-up students arrived at Katha Pollitt lecture in a pink Cadillacs," says Swarthmore Dean of Students Geraldine Marcus.


"Then I realized the truth -- he was wearing a mullet. I was shocked, but he swore to me that it was only ironic."


"Pausing for furtive glances, several of the teens share sniffs from a bottle of Harmon Triple Heat deer scent."


"Shit, y'all, I heard Branson's got like four Wal Marts, and more $5.95 all-day breakfast buffets than Glencoe has Starbucks," enthuses Dakota, adding quickly that "pardon my French."




 
  Why Do They Hate Us?

More accurately why do they despise and mock us? Is there no limit to the degradation and insult that the Blue Staters will heap upon us Red Staters?

This morning's email contains yet another offer from the "American Refinance Group" (yeah, right), telling me that "As of midnight, The [Jones] family residence at Po Box [xxxxxx] . . . is Pre-Qualified ." Further, the message assures me that "[s]low or none payment history OK" and that "4 out of 5 people are accepted in most cases." (emphasis added)

Now, it's true that most of us folk in flyover country fell off a turnip truck - but not last night for crying out loud. So what initially appears to be an attempt at economic flattery descends immediately into an obvious and wicked insult intended to spite us with its faux peon grammar.

The message itself, however, is nothing when compared to the source address of the email - fishwife@qgetboob.biz.

I say, "Cease, fishwife." Taunt me no more. You and all of your qgetboob cronies - sore losers, the lot of you - channel your ire in some other, more positive direction. Look into your own hearts and cast out the dark spirits there. Only then can you step out into the Light and feel the love that we Red Staters share for our country and understand the respect we carry for the vast store of Good that America offers the rest of the world.

But, if the APR gets down under 5%, give me a call.



 
Friday, November 12, 2004
  Mars Needs Women!

And, according to today's Austin American Statesman, Mexico needs donkeys. (No online link available, alas.) I have not actually read the story. The headline is enough to get my motor running. Immediately images come to mind viz the American political scene. After all, there is a school of thought that claims America needs more donkeys as well. Probably not a good idea to ramp up a 60's style "donkey gap" hysteria - if for no other reason than the hell you'd have to take from the PC (i.e. donkey) crowd over the phrase "donkey gap."

Still, less direct but more creative solutions also intrude. Could we contribute from our vast over-supply of horses' asses? Even if there is no actual profit to be made on the exchange, surely we could fashion a win-win for us and our southern neighbors. How about our superabundance of jackasses? High-quality, first-rate goods - and our major supply is in LA, just a few miles from the Mexican border. Many of them have already voiced a desire to quit our shores, so we might be able to make the transfer without incurring any shipping charges at all. As an added bonus, almost all of them have considerable experience "working with" Mexicans in the agricultural and personal services industries.

My only caveat is that this has to be one of those "all sales final"-type deals. We'll have to make the re-stocking fee exhorbitant to discourage any returns.

I'm psyched. I'm pumped. I think we can do this. Oh, I know that it's an ambitious goal, but just how often do you have the opportunity to do so much good for so many people at one time?

To paraphrase one of those old, dead, white, male, European poets:

A man's reach should exceed his ass, or what's a NAFTA for?



 
Tuesday, November 09, 2004
  Extremely Cool Maps

The first "purple" map - unscaled - is very cool, indeed. Check the notes at the top of the page closely - the maps are available as wallpaper for computer screens.

 
  Whenever

From Ann Althouse. Life imitates The Simpsons - repeatedly.

 
Monday, November 08, 2004
  G-File Cracking Wise

Jim Geraghty at the Kerry Spot turned me onto this one:

Take the two leading liberal columnists at the New York Times, Maureen Dowd and Paul Krugman. As we all know, one's a whining self-parody of a hysterical liberal who lets feminine emotion and fear defeat reason and fact in almost every column. The other used to date Michael Douglas.

And of course readers of Best of The Web know that the one who did not date Michael Douglas is a former Enron consultant who predicted that the Enron story would be a much more significant and long-lasting influence than the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

As Bugs would say, What a MAROON!

 
Sunday, November 07, 2004
  Prescience from Harvard

A very interesting and apt comparison of the elections of 1948 and 2004 - before this year's vote. 
Saturday, November 06, 2004
  Let's be honest

Nice take on the rest of The Governator's "losers" answer at Ace of Spades HQ. Well, the first part is good - not the student loan stuff. Pay your bills, Ace. 
Friday, November 05, 2004
  Hoist by their own petard*

Surely most of you are aware of the effort by the UK paper The Guardian to have its readers appeal to the residents of Clark County, Ohio, to support John Kerry in the presidential election. Today's Political Diary from the Wall Street Journal includes the following in its first entry:

"Of the 115 Ohio counties that Al Gore won in 2000, John Kerry won every single one -- with the conspicuous exception of Clark, which went to Bush this year by 1,620 votes."


* A petard is an explosive device,** not a lance or spear. Thus one is hoist (lifted) by his own petard - not on it.

** petard - "A small bell-shaped bomb used to breach a gate or wall. "

 
Wednesday, November 03, 2004
  Unintended Consequences

Funny how things work out. Two examples of the immutable law of unintended consequences stick out in this year's electoral results. First, soon-to-be-former South Dakota Senator Tom Daschle was instrumental in the questionable defeat of John Thune two years ago - and this year is involuntarily retired by that same John Thune - effectively trading away his own seat to keep Thune out of the Senate for two years.

Second, Ross Perot exorcised his own demons in 1992 - leading to the defeat of George H. W. Bush. Absent his father's defeat, it is difficult to imagine that W could have become the architect of two consecutive terms as president - and the expansion of the influence of the Republicans in the House and Senate. Not, I am sure, what H. Ross had in mind a dozen years ago.

Perhaps you have your own examples from this year's results. Funny how things work out.

 
Monday, November 01, 2004
  Let Freedom Ring!

Time to go vote, folks. Or not. It's a privilege; it's a right. But it is not really an obligation, and, if you don't want to, or don't feel comfortable, or don't think you know enough - then, by all means, stay out of it. No reason to get involved in something so dirty without a clear reason to do so.

My first election was 1972 - just after I turned 22. Until this year I have never voted for a presidential winner. Or a presidential loser, for that matter. That is to say that I have never voted for either a Democrat or a Republican for President. That is not quite so bizarre as it first sounds when you consider that I live in the predestined electoral college state of Texas. Never a doubt which way Texas is going to go.

My defense against irrelevancy has been to vote for third-party candidates. (First complaint: Even the designation "third-party" grates on me. Implicit in the designation is that there are only two "real" parties. I get upset even though, as I will explain later, I strongly prefer a two-party system.) I have even developed a transparently self-serving explanation for why that makes sense.

My basic observation is that the two main parties in US politics are both very centrist - and between them, cover about 10 degrees of arc in the full political circle. Picture it as approximately 11:59 to 12:01 on a round, analog clock face. (Or you can make it 11:55 to 12:05, if that seems too clausdrophobic.) This is a good thing. It is important that major institutions - particularly institutions as large and important as the US government be stable over long periods of time*. That stability is hard to maintain when fringe politics play an active role in government.

That's where the "third" parties come in. There is an irreducible minimum of any population that is determined to be discontented with human progress or human nature or human existence or . . . . humans. Usually those folks are religious - or claim to be. The purpose of third parties is to act as a safety valve - to provide a "free speech zone" for the moonbats for whom getting along with their fellow citizens and getting on with life are classified as "selling out." Third parties such as the Socialist Workers Party, the Green Party, the Libertarian Party (now THAT is an oxymoron!) give these nut jobs an innocuous place to play while the adult Americans run the world.

Because Texas is (with respect to the Electoral College**) a deterministic state, I have used my vote to preserve the third-party sandbox in our state. I have voted variously for the Socialist Workers, the Libertarians and the Greens as the opportunity presented itself. And I have never considered such a vote to be "wasted" - because my votes have served a valid and positive public purpose.

Only once in the past have I even considered voting for a Republican or a Democrat. If there had been any chance - even 0.000000000000001% - that Jimmy Carter could have carried Texas in 1980, I would have voted for Reagan. I think that I voted SWP or Libertarian that year.

This year, however, I succumbed; I did the dirty deed. The only third-party on the ballot was the Libertarians, and they had just offended me too deeply this year by promoting the conspiracy theory that the US government was a participant in the September 11, 2001, attacks on the Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Win or lose, I might decide to publish my choice at a later date. I just had to get this much off my chest now.

* I have more to say on this topic in the upcoming Federalist series
** This is in the Federalist series, too.

 

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