Accessories Before the Fact

The full-blown lycanthropic yowling of some for an air attack on Iran is well-known in the media and the blogosphere, but considering the nature and extent of the threat, moral and physical, that such an adventure poses, it has not drawn enough attention.

Much of the yowling comes from Jewish Americans who sympathize with the most aggressive and hysterical forms of Zionism. These are the people for whom any criticism of Israel is Jew-baiting (remember Joe Klein), the diverse world of jihadis is a single, monolithic enemy, and it is 1938 every day. They take the rhetoric of Iranian President Ahmadinejad as an expression of his intentions, and see no distinction between the interests of israel and the United States. They are, of course, a small minority of American Jews, who absorbed veneration for St. Eleanor and the slogans of liberalism at their grandma's knees.

There are, of course, proponents of an aggressive war with Iran who are not Jewish and don't even particularly care about Israel, except as a strategic asset. (Despised in the region, Israel must tie itself to a foreign sponsor, first Britain and then the United States--hence it's a Mideast base of last resort).

However, to give the agitation critical mass and effective rhetoric, it's the NoPods and the Krauthammers whose theme-development and writing are essential to the effort, in which exploitation of WWII genocide is constantly exploited. Pat Buchanan, although in some ways performs yeoman service, has to play bad boy and use the term "Fifth Column" to describe these circles, and if Israel were an enemy, and not just an over-pampered and too-influential ally.

I have played the troll on Commentary's Contentions blog, attacking this notion and the constant lies used to promote and exonerate Israel. It's no fun commenting where everyone agrees with you. But it's a bigger deal than a few nasty exchanges.

War with Iran would be a horrible mistake, and a crime. Nuremberg prosecutor Robert Jackson said,

To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.

The United Nations Charter, to which the US is still, perhaps unwisely, a signatory, also forbids aggressive war.

To bomb Iran, then, without an attack from Iran or the imminent danger of an attack, would not only be a mistake, it would be a crime. And the Commentary crowd are accessories before the fact.

Psychopathology plays a part here. In most intellectual men there lurks the self-doubt--am I, a scribbler, really a man? Norman Podhoretz, the leading agitator for a bombing campaign, parlayed reminiscences about being beaten up by what used to be called "Negroes," into a literary career, and fame among a small New York coterie. For those who were converted to Zionism in 1967 or later, identifying with the image of the tan, tough, brash and ruthless Israeli is an anti-pansification salve.

Instead of agitating for the murder of thousands to reassure themselves that they aren't wimps, here's my suggestion to these folks. Take a Viagra. Then take a Valium.

Tanking

Obama's dropping in the polls. His lead's down to 1 per cent in Rasmussen's tracking.

This drop could be ephemeral. They've both had a lousy two weeks. But, then again, perhaps not.

Barack needs to get his groove back. Meanwhile, the electoral college map still favors BHO.

UPDATE (7/19)--back up a little, then down. Tied in Rasmussen. Odd, because the McCain campaign is invisible.

Grrr

Am I the only one out there that despises the Partnership for a Drug Free America and their stupid ads?

They set my teeth on edge.

Parse This

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Well, it's that time of year again (already!).

Let's just start with the first proposition, that it is "self-evident" that "all men are created equal."

It is evident that all men are not equal when it comes to basketball prowess, mathematical skill, and perfect pitch. What, then, doth "equal" mean? Equal in rights to participate in gummint? Jefferson may have proclaimed this equality as an ideal, but it was belied by property qualifications for voting, slavery, and if "men" is taken to be gender-inclusive, the limited rights of women. To rescue the proposition, we must retreat to some rather abstract notion of equal importance to God, rather like the mother who loves her slow and disobedient offspring just as much as her clean, obedient achievers.

Not much of a proposition on which to found a nation, however nice a ring the words have to them.

Next we come to natural rights and the reason for governments. I'll leave the "life, liberty" stuff to the reader, but it's pretty clear that governments in fact were not instituted to secure these rights, but to get organized to fight the guys over the next hill, or to make sure the Big Men kept more of the women and luxuries than the peasants.

I love the country and the ring of the words, but like most truisms, their sound is more persuasive than their sense.

Talk amongst yourselves, as Linda Richman would say.

A Surfeit of Males

Abe Greenwald, the Deputy Hack-in-Chief of connections, Commentary Magazine's warmongering blog, had an interesting post for once. Pointing out that the Chinese, in the face of the state's one-child policy, have slaughtered their female fetuses in the womb or allowed them to die of neglect in babyhood, and are now facing a huge excess of males over females, creating problems of frustration and violence--not enough women to domesticate men, which is what they tend to do.

Ransacking ethnography and history, how can a society deal with this problem? I came up with five ideas. On longer reflection, one might come up with more.

1. Polyandry. As in Tibet, allow a woman to take more than one husband. Unfortunately, this works best when the husbands are related, usually brothers ("adelphic polyandry"), and the Chinese, generally allowed one child only, tend not to have brothers. It might work with cousins.
   
2. Eunuchism. It was common enough in many Asian empires, to castrate promising youths, who then became most useful to the court, and less likely to be disloyal in the interest of the children they were incapable of having. Certainly it would reduce the number of randy, frustrated men.
   
3. Monasticism. Practiced among Buddhists, Christians, and others, this practice involves temporary or permanent celibacy for certain people (in the case, it would need to be mostly males) to pursue their spiritual as opposed to carnal development. Whether buggery develops in such settings is a cultural and spiritual matter--the practice still reduces the randy-young-man-with-a-knife problem. The Chicoms haven't yet come to terms with religion, although it is coming.
   
4. Human-wave warfare. The Chinese practiced this technique in Korea, with some success, and the Iranians under Khomeini used it extensively, with hundreds of thousands of teenagers dying in Saddam's minefields. It can certainly dispropotionally deplete the male population, as it did in the Paraguayan War and in WWII Russia.
   
5. Importing foreign women. In a sense, this practice simply internatonalizes the problem, but why should the Chinese care? They have some racial feelings, but the Han have absorbed many non-Han peoples. So, mail-order or internet-order brides from the Phillipines and places like Moldova might be an option. In fact, there are thousands of American women whom the feminist demonesses and girlie-men have driven into careerism, casual sex, and loneliness. How many would jump at the chance to marry up-and-coming Chinese engineers? They do tend to have high IQs and to age gracefully, and Eurasian children are beautiful. (For all the single Jewesses out there, the Chinese are people of the book, albeit Confucius's Analects and the classic poets. A briss and a mikveh (circumcision and a Jewish baptism), and your up-and-coming engineer will be kosher, solvent, and perfectly marriageable under the traditional rules. The kiddies will be unlikely to fall ill with one of the many Jewish genetic diseases. The campuses will fill up with Sino-Hebraic valedictorians in 20 years.)
   

You decide whether these suggestions are tongue-in-cheek or seriously analytical. At least, on this blog, when we wring our hands, we offer solutions, pretty or not.

The Wedgwood Chicken

Young BHO has orated from a lectern decorated with the pseudo-seal on the left. It is the color of Wedgwood. The non-messianic blogosphre is agog.

If one were to remark that the bird is a Popeye's fried chicken and the sphere a watermelon, all Hell could break loose.

It's GOOD to be the Messiah, but it can be hard.

HT: Larison, J. Rubin.

Thought For the Day

From Kyriakos Markides, The Mountain of Silence:

“Marriage, for example, is considered by the Ecclesia [basically Eastern Orthodox teachings] as a form of askesis [method of spiritual exercise], an arena for transcending one’s ego absorption of the sake of the other. It is a mistake, Father Maximos argues, to consider marriage, as many traditional Christians do, as first and formemost a means for procreation. The primary aim of marriage is askesis engaged in by two people who are asked to overcome their separateness in their common ascent towards God.”

NB: ἀσκέσις means "practice, training, or exercise," as by an athlete. Marriage, thus, is just as much a spiritual journey as monasticism!

How Nerds Party

Here, on the successful landing of the Phoenix Mars lander.

This is an amazing achievement. Who cares of one of Barack's ex-minions got a sweetheart loan from Countrywide?

Another Scarebus In Flames

An airbus in Khartoum skidded off the runway and burst into flames. Many escaped, but dozens burned to death.

God Forgive Me, I Despise That Woman

I just listened to Hillary's concession speech. She didn't say anything a loyal Democrat wouldn't say on such an occasion, but she makes my gorge rise. I just can't stand her pieties, her identity politics, her nasality, and her nostrums.

I notice that Chelsea approached, Bill got a peck, but as they walked off, he was the runt, sucking the hind teat.

How long will that marriage last? And who's going to pay the $20 million debt?

Snark for Lanny Davis

You all know Lanny Davis, that unctuous little weasel whom HRC anointed as one of her TV avatars. Mark Cooper finds him particularly repulsive, and wrote a snarky ave atque vale, or "hail and farewell."

The obvious pun popped to mind, and I offered my contribution, which I immortalize in these bytes and pixels:

Lanny Boy, is CNN still calling?
From tow’r to tow’r, and up the aetherside?
The spring is gone, forsythia’s not blooming.
It’s you, it’s you, must go while Barack bides.

But come ye back, in sunshine or in shadow,
Or when the valley’s hushed and white with snow,
It’s I’ll be here, your arse to kick to Glasgow,
O Lanny Boy, O Lanny Boy, I’d love that so.

And if I fall, as all the leaves are falling,
And I am dead, as dead I well may be.
You’ll come and find the place where I am lying,
My ghost will kick yer arse to Tipperary.

Dies Irae

There's something painfully ironic about Pfleger's (if temporary) ouster.

He's been thumbing his nose at authority -- secular and sacred -- for years in pursuit of what he believes God has called him to do: fight for the poor and the oppressed; battle injustice in whatever form it appears, be it racism, sexism, or classicism; and to above all present the God of revolutionary love and radical grace to the world around him. That sometimes has meant disobeying civil and canon law.

--The Chicago Sun-Times

Gotta watch out for those Greek scholars. Give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile.