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"The stream of Time, irresistible, ever moving, carries off and bears away all things that come to birth and plunges them into utter darkness, both deeds of no account and deeds which are mighty and worthy of commemoration. . .Nevertheless, the science of History is a great bulwark against the stream of Time; in a way it checks this irresistible flood, it holds in a tight grasp whatever it can seize floating on the surface and will not allow it to slip away into the depths of Oblivion. "
- Anna Comnena (1083-1153), The Alexiad
"I have taken all knowledge to be my province."
- Francis Bacon, 1592
Saturday, January 3, 2004
Homeless Hawkish Democrats
David Adesnick and Anne Cunningham are feeling homeless, something I know Armed Liberal has felt from time to time as well. Not that Liberal Hawks who still think of themselves as Democrats are likely to take my advice, but election results can be powerful motivators for politicians.
If it ever becomes clear that the electoral costs of playing to the "peace through unilateral concessions" crowd1 outweigh the benefits they'll start to understand what Democrats from Truman through Kennedy - and even LBJ, though in a less aware and resolute sense - understood: that there are more people who will vote for resolute, strong-on-defense, hawkish Liberal Democratic candidates than will either stay home or vote for Henry Wallace (or Ralph Nader).
If you all would pull the lever for Republicans for an election cycle or two, rather than giving your limpid Democratic pols a pass when they pander to the Left Wing, they'd snap out of it. Indeed, IMO guys like Gephardt would be almost grateful if the Hawkish Liberals were as active, rather than mostly passive, as the Hard Left is. Those guys are always demonstrating (heh) that there will be a cost for not prorating them, which is different from the grousing-without-any-plan-for-consequences that IMO too many "Hawkish Democrats" (not necessarily yourself or David) express in lieu of making it clear that there's something to gain, if the politicians tailor their campaigns to appeal to you all, but at least as importantly something to lose if they don't.
They don't have that sense, so naturally the Leftist tail wags the Liberal dog, and now has taken over the dog (as Dick Morris has put it, and for once I concur - mainly on the grounds that I came to that conclusion independently of Morris, and just because Morris says something it doesn't automatically make it wrong).
1"Peace Through Unilateral Concessions Crowd" - I hate to call people who romanticize Che Guevara on t-shirts or in music videos by Hip-hop groups they admire as "pacifists", since the shoe doesn't fit. They like violence and militancy just fine, when it's perpetrated by our enemies. I believe in Peace, too, but my slogan is:
Peace Through Victory
Which means I'm not a Democrat or a Liberal in today's world, as those who decide what makes one Liberal and Democratic define it - thus the excommunication of so many "NeoCons" from the First Church of Liberalism.
"The people have spoken," the Labour MP replied to the programme, "... the bastards."
Well, the wrong sort of people must have participated:
We are going to have to re-evaluate the listenership of Radio 4. I would have expected this result if there had been a poll in The Sun.
Really, if certain people participate, it discredits the results:
there were suspicions the vote may have been hijacked by supporters of Tony Martin, the Norfolk farmer who was jailed for shooting a burglar. The winning proposal enjoyed a late surge in support in the final 24 hours of the poll, a jump attributed by the BBC to the fact that telephone votes - which were more firmly in favour of the anti-burglar proposal - were added at the last minute.
They, too, pay the BBC's license fee, but since the opinions they expressed were the wrong ones, they can be rationalized away. So the Left's real slogan, the unspoken reality behind their "Power to the People" rhetoric, remains:
Power to Me and a Few of My Like-Thinking Friends Who Know What's Best for the People!
That's what they mean by "democracy". The rest of us can, of course, just sod off: points of view leading to outcomes at variance with the received wisdom of the Left intelligencia shall be disregarded.
Paul Krugman's Great Unraveling continues to spool forth. Manufacturing grew at the fastest pace in two decades - again. I say "again" because this joins other news:
I say "again", because in November Manufacturing Activity grew at the highest pace since December of 1983 - when Ronald Reagan was President.
Housing starts rose 4.5% in November to the highest level since February 1984, when Ronald Reagan was President (wait, I thought everyone was going homeless then?)
Productivity grew by 9.4% in the Third Quarter - the highest since 1983, when Ronald Reagan was President.
The Business Roundtable's December survey of CEOs showed that 93% expected higher sales in the next six months (up from 71% in October).
The Conference Board revised its projections of 2004 GDP growth to 5.7% - the highest since 1984, when Ronald Reagan was President.
Reuters reported an unexpectedly steep drop in jobless claims, amid rising economic indicators.
Of course, many of these indicators are at their highest level since they were in the wake of Reagan's tax cuts. Reagan's economic policies put a stake in '70s-era stagflation, and as we remember from Calpundit's interview with Krugman (critiqued here, Krugman's progressivism is expressed through nostalgia for the economic condition of the '70s. Reagan's "crazy" policies unraveled Krugman's utopian era (which we all remember with such. . .I guess "fondness" isn't the right word, unless you were ensconced at Harvard). Bush has also cut taxes, and for Krugman it's like deja vu all over again: Reagan-era economic conditions (noted above) are returning with a vengeance, but all the enlightened people know - to paraphrase Krugman's hero, Bill Clinton, giving people a tax cut means they might not spend it right: that is, on things their betters (Clintons, Progressive Harvard Pundonimists, and the rest of the Anointed) think it should be spent on.
And it's happening again. Their worst nightmare is unfolding right before their eyes, just as it did two decades ago, and the only thing they can do about it is spew venom and bile at the sources of their anguish (while patting themselves on the back for being masters of civil discourse, unlike those meanspirited Conservatives), and misrepresent and distort reality in service of their Propaganda Model.
Lightish blogging likely again today. The British still want the right to self-defense, despite elite disaproval of this sign of independence and willingness to stick up for oneself, which is very un-European.
Arma Virumque On the Brave New World That Has Such Bananas In It
Alert reader Alene sends a link to the New Criterion's blog, wherein Roger Kimbal has a post on the mindset of those who are engaged in the vital task of creating New European Man.
The post leads off with a nice image of the EU's banana, so if you've ever wondered why my friend Last Toryboy selected the URL he did, well there's your answer. If, for those of us who are Big O fans, we're tomatos, the Euros are bananas - and, if you think about it, that's rather fitting.
I'm not huge on celebrating it, as a holiday. But I hope the new year brings good things for you all, and for our Country and world.
I'll have my second annual Year in Preview before the weekend is out. The one for the year just past is here. Note that things did not entirely unfold as they Ought to have, mainly because timing was thrown off by the French overdoing it in being French - by their own admission (or at least the admission of at least one of their self-selected Elect, Dominique Moisi). The French were supposed to behave according to type, in the manner Howard Dean described ("the French will always do exactly the opposite on what the United States wants regardless of what happens, so we're never going to have a consistent policy"). But they had always stopped short of crossing the point of no return before (see for example the Gulf War of '91). This time involved the hypertrophy of that attitude, and that is their fault, not mine, and they will live with the consequences.
I accurately described what they should have done. Had they done that, things would have been better. But they did not. From their failure to behave as they ought to have, a number of rippled were created. French intransigence, for example, beguiled Democrats like John Kerry (D-FR) into adopting a foreign policy platform aimed at appealing to the French electorate. The state of his candidacy, and the likely electoral consequences for Democrats who are following similar paths, will extend deep into next year and possibly beyond (the cold-water of the election, if it goes as it Ought to, may wake them from this revere. But more musings along those lines will have to wait for the 2004 Year in Preview post).
I may not be posting a lot this week, but lots of folks have some excellent posts encapsulating the year in review. I'd link to some of them but I'm lazy. Most of them I've found via Glenn, anyhow, so just follow the links there.
This is not likely to be a post of general interest. It's my blog and a place to write what I feel like, when I feel like it. I like to write things that I hope others want to read, but I feel an obligation to point that this may not be such a post.
But I'm motivated to write it anyhow, and since the blog has my name on it (or at least my web-name), I get to write it. But you don't have to read it - it isn't so bad, but as I say it's not likely to be of wide interest. (Here I am with limited blogging time this week and I'm spending it this way? Yah. Sorry).
First, a digression on a phrase: Adult Swim. When people see the word's "adult" or "mature" associated with programming, it is generally as a euphemism for nekkid people getting it on. Now I for one don't think there's anything wrong with that, but that's not what this stuff is about. There isn't even any foul language in The Big O (at least not in the English-language version). What made The Big O an "adult cartoon" and "for mature audiences" is that it dealt with very sophistimikated idears, ultimately. There was, to be true, sexual tension, as there is in InuYasha - though in ways that are far more chaste than a typical episode of Friends, which airs early in prime-time and rarely deals with anything except sexual innuendoes in a mature way. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
End of digression.
Earlier this year (oops: earlier last year) I read some stuff - Steven Den Beste's spoiler-riven reviews of Cowboy Bebop, which I read because at the time I didn't think I'd be watching it myself. But as I got more and more interested in The Big O, I decided I probably would want to see Cowboy Bebop, as the same creative team produced it. It too was airing (and is airing) on Adult Swim, but I put off watching it because I wanted to come in at the beginning rather than in the middle (and kept missing the start).
Well, in response to the Big O post, one reader wrote in and recommended Cowboy Bebop. I replied that I intended to watch it but wanted to get in at the beginning. He convinced me it wasn't really as important with this show and to just go ahead and start watching. Which I did.
Now, it's not by any means his fault - it's just my ill-luck - that the first episode I saw was My Funny Valentine. This was a bad episode for me to start with. Probably it wouldn't have been for others, but it was for me.
The episode centers on Faye Valentine's past. Now, Faye is a member of the group, but she is a self-centered and truly horrible bitch who comes to a bad and deservedly so end. That is, a tragic end that is her due. I know that from Steven's posts on the subject. Now, people who have watched the previous episodes in the show will have already seen Faye's behavior. This episode would, for them, counterbalance some of that and give them some sympathy for her as it gives some insight into why she is the way she is, untrusting and look-out-for-number-one-to-the-Nth-degree.
Of course, she has to have dark hair and green eyes. It's not like I don't have a thing for women with dark hair and blue-green eyes as it is (and Scarlett O'Hara types). Faye, voiced by Wendee Lee, can't help but remind me of Angel Rosewater from The Big O every time she opens her mouth, because Angel was voiced by Wendee Lee as well.
Of all the characters in The Big O, I identified most with Roger Smith (naturally), Dan Dastun (also fairly naturally), and Angel Rosewater (for different reasons). Roger and Dan are noble, heroic characters. Angel a bit more dubious - and tragic, but redeemed in the end (and wanting to do the right thing throughout, but being, as she herself acknowledges, unreliable). In this sense, I already know there is a big difference between Angel and Faye.
Yet now, as a result of seeing My Funny Valentine first, I am bonded with, have sympathy and empathy for a wretch of a character. I've been troubled since seeing the episode two nights ago because I'm rooting for something to happen that I already know isn't going to happen: that the example set by Spike and Jet will rub off on her and she'll emulate their code of honor. That someone take her under their wing, care for her though she doesn't deserve it, and guide her on a better path that will lead to a better fate. But I already know this doesn't happen. Her fate is a tragic, dark one, fully in accord with how she lives her life and treats others.
But that's little consolation to me at the moment.
Ralph Peters, by no means an apologist for every move we've made, has a good summary of the year just ending:
EVEN if terrorists attack our homeland before the stroke of midnight, 2003 will still have been a year of remarkable progress on every front in the global War on Terror - and the greatest year for freedom since the Soviet Union's collapse.
A decisive government in Washington, backed by the courage and common sense of the American people, worked with allies around the world to carry the fight to the terrorists' home ground. We continued to seize the strategic initiative from the most implacable enemies America has ever faced.
That is followed by this line, which is something I have tried to emphasize as well:
Unless we choose to defeat ourselves, there is no chance of a final terrorist victory.
Check out the whole piece. Also, don't miss this NYT piece on the 101st.
Front Page Mag has named it's Man of the Year. I'm not sure I'd agree - but I wasn't there, and I wasn't in his shoes, and I believe in giving commanders in the field the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the lives of their men and succeeding in their mission. There is, of course, such a thing as going too far, and in my opinion Col. West's actions were in a grey area: not really Man-of-the-Year materiel. But certainly someone faced with a difficult dilemma and doing the best he could.
There is, of course, this problem, which the Prescription Drug Bill didn't help and which demands bold steps in reforming Social Security and, especially, Medicare. Bush ran in '00 on a plan, but it got shelved when his political capital was required elsewhere. We'll see what the future holds.
I'd love to shake the hand of whoever did this. That's creative, and also takes real guts, unlike the people in America and Europe who think they're showing political courage in depicting Bush that way, whoever did this really could end up jailed or worse. Which proves that the shoe, in this case, fits. Or at least it's a much closer fit in Castro's case.
Now, to be fair to Castro, he didn't take inspiration from Hitler. Il Duce was more of a political and philosophical mentor for him. But one can forgive a few liberties in this case.
The Dec. 30th news here is interesting if it pans out:
Sunni Arab tribal and religious leaders have formed a reconciliation committee in Tikrit to urge Sunnis to stop armed resistance against the coalition and the new government. The tribal leaders realize that the Sunni Arabs will be a minority in any democratically elected government and will not have control of the army or police (as Sunnis have for centuries.) As a result, Sunni Arabs would suffer greatly as Sunni and Kurd dominated police fought the Sunni resistance. In such a low level civil war, the Sunnis would be at a major disadvantage, would suffer the most and could not win. US Army Special Forces have been working with the Sunni tribal chiefs for over a year, and that has finally paid off.
Of course it won't mean an immediate end to the violence, but to the extent to which it persuades people, it should encourage people to finger/identify/narc-out the Saddamites & terrorists.
It seems every four years people speculate and muse about what could happen that would make one or both Party Conventions interesting like they were in the past: no obvious nominee going into the convention. The Democratic Party's delegate selection process, which forbids winner-take-all primaries (unlike the Republican primary rules) seems to make this more likely.
Steven Den Beste has musings setting up a scenario whereby the Democratic candidates will divide up the delegates in the primary process in a way that will prevent any one candidate from achieving a minority.
I can, with absolute and complete confidence, guarantee two things, that
1) Under no circumstances will the Junior Senator from New York allow herself to be put on the ballot for President in '04. The Clintons may be many things, but one thing they are is politically savy. They long ago realized that next year would not be Hillary!!!'s year. Sure, they kept the door open just a crack through fall for a possible "late" entry into the race (remember, Bill didn't throw his hat into the ring until, IIRC, October of '91). But it's not in the cards and if Steven Den Beste could see this October that the Dems were next year's losers, they could tell, too. They will not allow Hillary!!!!! to be associated with defeat. '08 is her year.
2) I can with complete and absolute confidence guarantee that the Democrats will have a nominee going into the Convention next year, and that nominee will have a significant majority of Delegates pledged to him (not her - remember #1). It's odd that Steven's post on the Democratic Party's nominating process immediately follows his post on collective intelligence, but doesn't really take it into account.
I think that Steven is looking too much at where the Candidates are ranking in national polls, not enough at the two states that matter most in the winnowing out process. People may complain that it's unfair that two somewhat politically anomalous states, Iowa and New Hampshire, have the influence they do, but such complaints are irrelevant. One needs to look at where the Candidates stand in those states and one can then infer what will happen after the Iowa Caucuses and New Hampshire Primary, using past experience as a guide.
Think "Win, Place, or Show" - The three Candidates who do the best in Iowa will get a bump going into New Hampshire. They will get a bump in coverage, since the media has a hard time focusing on eight Candidates. Even now. But it will be more difficult in the brief period between Iowa and New Hampshire, so they'll focus on the top tier and most stories that do come out on the other Candidates will be about their complaints that they aren't being given a chance and are "unfairly", in their minds, not being covered. The Candidates that Win, Place, and Show will get a bump in donations, an infusion of cash, while the funds of other Candidates will tend to dry up. Primary voters and, perhaps more importantly, volunteers & organizational muscle will begin to see the handwriting on the wall for "their guy" if he isn't one of the top three, and drift to one of the other candidates.
New Hampshire will further emphasize this, and I can with some (though this time not absolute) confidence predict that Dean will blow John Kerry out of the race in New Hampshire. After New Hampshire there will be only two or three real Candidates in the race. Yes, others may officially still be running, but voters, $ donors, and volunteers that do the work on the ground will come to a collective decision that they cannot win, and switch their support to another candidate. I've seen how this worked. Last summer I wrote about my participation in the Primary process in '92. Let it be noted that I started in '92 as a Tsongas supporter. When he dropped out, I switched to Brown. Others switched from this or that Candidate to Clinton.
There will be a process of winnowing out and as one Candidate gains momentum, there will at some point be a collective decision to end the contest. Dean is, right now, somewhat logically (but prematurely and in a way that looks foolish) trying to jump to that point now: telling everyone it's over, he won, time to play nice with him, &tc. That's being tuned out, but there will come a time next spring - early next spring - when things will reach a tipping point and most Democrats will be sounding that theme, having decided it's time to unify behind the candidate who is leading, and any candidate that stays in the race except the guy whose clearly ahead will be seen as a jerk and a heel whose doing more harm than good to the Party. The only candidates who will be able to defy that are those who are independent of it all - Al Sharpton, for example, isn't really running for the nomination anyhow, he's running for other reasons - and Candidates whose following has a strong, almost fanatic, personal attachment to him. There's almost always one such Candidate in any field. It's hard to remember now, but in '92 it was Brown and this time along it's Dean. It usually isn't the front-runner who has this depth of support that is unlikely to waver when the (half-unconcious) collective decision of the Party faithful is made to go with the front runner, but this time it is, and that's one of the reasons that Dean is seen as the likely winner when the smoke clears, even though votes have yet to be cast and no delegates have been selected. Steven points this out several times as if it means something, but people are able to make observations of current fact (fundraising, poll results, observations of "boots on the ground" - organizational strength - crowds and ferevency of said crowds at the candidate's rallies, &tc) and use inductive and deductive reasoning to make predictions. But this rallying creates a snowball effect and if the candidate with this kind of fervent support wasn't the one who was leading, he would then stand no chance of winning and his supporters would be increasingly isolated as the rest of the party made up its mind to swing decisively behind the "Man of the Hour". (This, btw, is natural and happens in both parties and there is nothing insidious about it).
One other thing that Steven doesn't take into his account: Democratic Party "Superdelegates". These are delegates from the "Real Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party" (think IRA: there's a Provisional IRA and several "Real" IRAs in Northern Ireland). The Superdelegates are the Real Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party in that they aren't chosen by voters at primaries and caucuses: they are current Democratic office-holders and the like. Right now, many of them are pledged to, have endorsed, this or that candidate. But that will change as things go on. The Superdelegates exist in Democratic Party Presidential Nominating Convention Rules precisely to prevent a hung Convention: they will swing disproportionately towards the perceived winner as time goes on.
There will not be a Hung Convention. Indeed, the Democrats will have a nominee fairly early on next year, and best guess is that it will be Dean.
a true superhuman "intelligence" may appear during our lifetime.
But when it does, most of us won't even notice it, because it will be lost amidst the great sea of mediocrity and banality which will always dominate the internet and consume the vast majority of its bandwidth as long as humans exist.
Which I think is probably true. But there's another reason we might not recognize this supra-genius, and that is because on some important subjects it may very well reach conclusions that can be mistaken for stupidity.
Of course, it's long been a staple of Science Fiction that a megagenius artificial intelligence may not make decisions we would consider wise. Crazy old Hal9000 is the most obvious example, but the autocratic computers of Colossus: The Forbin Project (there was a B movie if there ever was one) also come to mind. Super-intelligent computers that decided the best way to insure the survival of everything was for them to take absolute control and rule with an iron fist over what became their hive of worker-ants and drones (humanity).
Now, those are obvious and fictional examples that don't really get at what I'm driving at. But one can think of some of the most esteemed intellects humanity has had to offer, clearly geniuses, who advanced human science (or excelled in another field of human accomplishment), but whose judgements were not always sound when it came to, for example, policy recommendations. One can restrict oneself to the people who worked on the atomic bomb, many of whom were geniuses, but who came to subscribe to or at least sympathize with Marxist theory.
Or one can remember Albert Einstein, arguably the genius of the 20th century. Certainly the most renowned genius humanity produced in that century. But his public and foreign policy positions, many publicly taken, were often unsound: in particular when it came to the prevention of war, in my judgement.
Ahh, that word: Judgement. Intelligence and sound judgement are by no means mutually exclusive. Please let no one mistake this post for another paean to the earthy wisdom of the simple-minded. Not that the simple-minded can't also have good judgement, but intellect is no barrier to and often a great facilitator of sound judgement.
But it is not a guarantee of it. Good judgement must be cultivated and one must be able to discern where wisdom that applies in one field may not fit in another, or incompletely, and be able to come to discrete judgements on a given subject. Genius applied to great accomplishment in one field does not necessarily transfer to the ability to give sound advice in other areas, where one has not really cultivated the depth of knowledge to come to an informed judgement.
Also, great geniuses can fall prey to attractive/seductive philosophical, social, and political theories that do not work well in the real world, and for whatever reason a fair number of such people fail to apply the empiricism that they would rigorously insist upon in clearly scientific areas to testing those theories. Man will be remade ("evolved", whatever) to fit the theory, rather than the theory tested based on how it works on real people as they are rather than as one might wish them to be if one could remold the clay. The same people who would rightly laugh if some English professor suggested that if the laws of physics aren't going to allow us to go faster than the speed of light (so far as we can conclude given what we currently know) that we should then just change the laws of physics (after all, they're just a text and reality is subjective and contingent, right? Doesn't the theory of relativity tell us that reality is relative, like ethics?) can fall prey to theories of political-economy that when tried on real humans invariably produce misery and death, but will put their hopes in the latest version of "New Man" (the French Revolution was going to remake man anew, then there was New Soviet Man, followed by successive waves of similar attempts to "evolve" humanity to fit a theory, each more tragic than the last).
This too, was all in the past, but beguiled many a great mind. Sound judgement and great intelligence are not identical. We can look around us today and see many great minds, accomplished in their fields, and find ourselves scratching our heads and wondering to ourselves "did she say that? But that's so stupid!"
To make light of a serious subject, Steven's superhuman intelligence may already exist, but we don't recognize it because it's a gathering over at Indimedia, spewing all sorts of inane things that manage to mask its genius below a veil of politically insipid rantings. So, what's my point? In my considered opinion, for any collective intelligence, be it genius-level or just clever, to be noteworthy, it will have to have as its "hub" someone (or several someones) able to sift and winnow information in ways that foster sound judgement on the part of the collective intellect. Cultivating good judgement is rather hard on the web, but absent that quality even the greatest minds can reach conclusions that are just. . .dumb.
Apologies for the lack of posting today, it's been somewhat busy.
I've been meaning to write a post on the earthquake in Iran which claimed so many lives, but I never can find the right words when it comes to things like that, so I'm left with saying that if you can help, do, and of course all my sympathies for the victims and their families.
No, this isn't another Packers post. I try to keep my interest in the Mud Bay Slackers to myself as much as possible.
For those of you keeping score at home, Anne Cunningham has moved on to a a new home and new projects. Don't let yourself be the last person to leave Blogspot!
That might sound overly harsh. I have fond memories of posting on Blogspot, myself. But also memories of frustration and vexation in getting my posts to archive to their server so they'd be linkable for others, attempting to link to other people's posts, or simply access them. I was one of the lucky ones, too: my blog must have been on one of their more reliably-archiving servers. But it was still a pain in the hoop. It all came flooding back to me a week ago in the interminable wait for B. Varenius' post to archive, and by the time it did, the moment had really passed.
The fact that these problems persist and haven't been fixed means that Blogspot just isn't a good long-term home for a blog. Free your blog and your links will follow. Or something like that.
