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I have another two weeks vacation. I know there are some projects to do around the house, but I'm trying to keep all that to a minimum this year. Our 13-year old says he wants to go with me on the scariest rides at Wonderland, to see the scared look on my face.
I want to spend at least one day at U. of T. I have business to do to prepare for the course I'll be teaching, and I'll pay another visit to the Robarts library, that splendid temple of higher learning. When I renewed my alumni card and went in to the stacks a few weeks ago, it was my first time "deep inside" for many years. In the 80s I had exclusive use of one of the carrels for years. It's just a great place to study, and everything I looked for, I found. One minor example: because of Ann Coulter's new outrageous book, I wanted to look at the old Willam F. Buckley book (with L. Brent Bozell) praising Joe McCarthy. I did some reading on "McCarthyism" in my teaching days, and I thought it would be worthwhile to go through Buckley's and Bozell's arguments and see whether they really make a case that Truman (of all people) had failed to protect the U.S. against genuine security threats, in such a way that it was essential for McCarthy (of all people) to resort to irregular, sometimes reckless or dangerous measures, in order to save the country. The book was in Robarts. It was bad enough that it was published in the 50s; then it was re-issued in the 70s. Anyway, I don't think I'll take the time to go through it.
My brother is now related by marriage to the guy (Bob Blackburn) who was Chief Librarian at U. of T., and presided over the building of Robarts as the crowning achievement of his career. Bob received an honourary doctorate from U of T in 2002, and I was graciously invited to attend both the ceremony and the lunch before hand. There were several references to the fact that the building of the library was controversial at the time: it's a huge grey structure, that didn't fit into the surrounding "old Toronto" streetscape, and was commonly described as "Fort Book," or simply as phenomenally ugly. (Apparently there were concerns about cost as the building approached completion, so some final "beautifying" features were scrapped). The plan was for this research library to be closed to undergraduates--they could get the books they needed at the undergraduate library. Of course that was elitist and unacceptable, and undergraduates were allowed in. It's still generally a quiet place to work. What a wonderful asset it is.
And since I've brought up Ann Coulter: in one of her more ridiculous recent columns she argues that the five people who deserve credit for preserving freedom in the 20th century are: Joseph McCarthy, J. Edgar Hoover, Richard Nixon,Whittaker Chambers, Ronald Reagan.
The only part of this that can be taken seriously is what I would call the "Mount Rushmore" question: if there were any more room on the famous mountain (which I gather there is not), who deserves to be up there?
The present list, for those who don't know, is: Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, T. Roosevelt. Obviously one would add Roosevelt Minor, as Mencken sometimes called him. (of course in this case, the "Minor" was major). I think without much controversy one would add Truman: ended World War II, re-built both Germany and Japan, fought communism with a variety of weapons in several countries, and established the Truman Doctrine which every president followed for the duration of the Cold War.
I think that there should only be one more up there to this date, and it should probably be Reagan. But maybe more time is needed to be sure. His supporters want to say, first and most important, he ended the Cold War. His critics say Gorbachev deserves more credit for that.
Reagan escalated the design, manufacture and deployment of every possible high-tech defence system, including the more or less pie-in-the-sky "Star Wars." In every case (intermediate range missiles in Europe, cruise missile testing in Canada, new bombers), the intellectuals called him names and said he would get us all killed. It seems clear that for Gorbachev and other rational Soviet leaders, there was a technology race underway that the poor old Commies simply could not win. Reagan deserves credit for bringing that point home to them, while successfully maintaining the Truman Doctrine all over the world.
Reagan also showed enormous flexibility in all his summit meetings with Gorbachev, more or less at the same time he was escalating. (Some say the escalation came mostly in his first term, the peacemaking mostly in his second, as if he simply jerked from one strategy to another).
On the domestic front, of course his defenders will say he established the force of tax-cutting as the main unifying agenda item for Republicans, and something to which Democrats have to respond. He also gave social conservatives a home in one of the two mainstream parties, without dooming that party to loser status. Here we come to the mystery of Reagan. As Governor of California, he was not particularly right-wing. He negotiated budgets with Democrats, and was not much of a tax-cutter. The Proposition 13 tax-cutting movement in California was led by obscure, previously low-profile politicians, and by private citizens. Reagan was among the "pro's" who more or less watched, stupified, while property taxes were frozen. Of course he learned from the experience, which not everyone would do.
[Update August 26: this mis-states things slightly. Reagan was first elected Governor in 1967, and he inherited a huge deficit. In his first months in office, he joined with leading Democrats to push through the biggest tax increase in California history. In 1973, however, he put Proposition 1 on the ballot to limit taxes and spending. The measure was defeated. Partly thanks to Reagan's tax increases, California ran up huge surpluses in the years leading up to Proposition 13 in 1978. Propositions similar to 13 had been tried before, but 13 succeeded partly because it seemed that the state had more money than it knew what to do with.]
On social issues, it's been repeated a million times that Reagan as Governor signed a pro-choice bill into law. He and Nancy were never church-goers. If anything they believed in a California suburbs-style combination of New Age, Druid, vaguely Eastern and Christian mysticism. Ronnie himself seems to have believed firmly that the end of the world was coming soon, and it was important to him that this was predicted not only in the book of Revelations, but in many other sources as well.
Update August 4: "Druid" is probably going too far. Don Regan's book about life with the Reagans emphasized Nancy's reliance on astrology, but apparently the Governor and then President consulted the stars for many years as well. See articles on Reagan's Christian faith: here and
here.
Some people seem to think any apocalyptic belief is Manichean and pessimistic: if we're all going down soon, it's best to go down with guns blazing against evil. For some critics, this helps to explain why Reagan and the Bushes have been war-mongers. Lance Morrow has captured the fact that Reagan's belief that the Apocalypse was probably approaching did not prevent him from trying to stop nuclear war; it's not clear whether Reagan saw himself as altering God's prophecies, or what. For an overview of pessimistic vs. optimistic visions of the apocalypse in the U.S., with an indication of Reagan's sources, see here.
Reagan's decisions contributed directly to the savings and loan scandal--I believe the most costly scandal to U.S. taxpayers in history. Weren't the Republicans supposed to be fiscal conservatives? Yes, but unfortunately they don't care enough about public policy to pay attention.
Finally, there is Iran-Contra, about which I've forgotten more than I remember. When it comes to War Powers, I side with presidents of all stripes against Congress. Maybe that's the main issue, and maybe Reagan and his people were correct.
Update: an overview of Reagan from the Washington Monthly.
Update: Eleanor Clift likes to say that there are very few presidents that Republicans actually dare to praise at their conventions. Reagan is one; Truman--a Democrat, and in some ways a liberal Democrat--is another. There will probably be a sentence at these conventions about Gerald Ford "healing the wounds" by pardoning practically everybody: Vietnam draft dodgers and deserters (who received a final pardon from Carter), Nixon, and "Tokyo Rose" (a U.S. citizen imprisoned for 30 years for reading scripts written by others--mainly by an American officer who was a prisoner of war). Update August 5: Oops. She served just over 6 years of a 10 year sentence. (After she was released, her husband was not allowed to join her in the U.S., and she feared that if she left, she would not be allowed back). This web site suggests the woman in question had opportunities to avoid helping the Japanese, so she was in fact guilty of treason. Another site emphasizes that she was taking directions from an Australian officer and an American one; the former was cleared of treason, the latter was promoted. The POWs were convinced that were undermining, not supporting, official Japanese messages, and this second site suggests Iva Toguri (the woman in question) should have received a medal.
Nixon? Not to be mentioned under any circumstances. Eisenhower? Either a joke, or forgotten. (I have great respect for him myself, but I'm in the minority). Hoover? No. Calvin Coolidge? Mainly of historical interest, and there may be some question as to whether he was asleep at the switch while the crash of '29 approached. Lincoln? OK, now we're getting somewhere.
Update August 26: the Presidents that Reagan himself tended to praise were Truman and FDR.
In a nutshell: Jean Chretien has been Liberal leader since 1990, PM since 1993. The guy he defeated for the leadership, Paul Martin, has been waiting all this time to take over. Chretien made it clear, again and again, that Martin didn't have the clout or the balls to push Chretien out; Chretien would go at a time of his choosing. (Chretien will turn 70 in January 2004; Martin will turn 66 that year. This reminds me of the "age issue" in France in 2002, when Jospin (64) said Chirac (69)was too old.)
The party, somewhat bizarrely, had committed themselves to a leadership review shortly after the 2000 election--even though they won a huge landslide. It is a safe bet that they will change that rule, and review leadership only when they lose, like other parties. Anyway, the prescribed leadership review was Martin's big chance. The Chretien forces got it postponed, but it was still coming, and it was obvious that Martin had sold enough party memberships to ensure an embarrassing result for Chretien. That didn't mean Chretien would actually lose, i.e. get less than a 50% approval rating. His problem was that anything less than 80% or 90% would look bad.
So to avoid the review vote in February 2003, Chretien promised in the fall of 2002 that he would indeed step down--in February 2004. The party will have a multi-stage vote to select a new leader, as has become fashionable. Many observers think Martin will win in the very first stage, in September 2003--which means Chretien will stay on as a lame duck for 6 months. (Martin has very little opposition; see Colby Cosh on Sheila Copps).
Chretien's party campaigned in 1993 promising to reverse the course Brian Mulroney had set. Once in office, they adopted all of Mulroney's major policies, and then stayed adrift except for eliminating the deficit and passing a "Clarity Act" to deal with future Quebec referenda. (Arguably Preston Manning deserves credit for leading the campaigns both for deficit elimination and a "tougher stand" on Quebec). There have been plenty of scandals, and plenty of mediocre or disgusting ministers. Starting about a year ago, with Chretien making plans to leave, he has been sounding more like a left-winger again. He wants campaign finance reform (which would have prevented a lot of his own tricks), he wants to guarantee medicare stays in its present form, he favours medical marijuana and (now) gay marriage, and he opposed the U.S. on Iraq.
Somehow the Liberals seem unbeatable, and commentators are now saying Canada may be more different from the U.S. than it's been in a long time. The other federal parties each have their pocket of regional support, and that's it. There is definitely some right-wing popular backlash against taxes and gun control, and the Alliance party gives voice to this reaction, especially in the West, but there seems no chance of an actual alternative government.
The Canadian economy stayed strong during the most recent recession, but I worry that in a larger sense we are increasingly irrelevant. When Canadians are challenged as to why we have such a small armed force--we couldn't help the U.S. much if we wanted to, and by the way we (many of us) don't want to--the answer is: we're great UN peacekeepers.
We are now #32 among countries in our contribution to peacekeeping activities. We are almost as irrelevant to the peacekeepers as we are to the war-makers.
(Colby Cosh said #34 in February, but with a link to a Maclean's article, not to the actual table).
old/february03.html/
A rising Canadian dollar hurts our exports, which have benefitted from selling directly to the U.S. Auto parts, in particular, have become a huge business here in Southern Ontario. The number of actual car assembly plants has been in decline
since 1988.
I was at a meeting the other night where the discussion turned to mad cow disease, and what is now a crisis in Canada's entire beef industry. One guy said this is about the relationships--the U.S. is pissed off at us, and they won't help us on this. Another person said "we need them more than they need us" and the first speaker said: "and the only people who don't realize that are the Liberals."
Maybe there's no cause for doom and gloom, but I keep looking back to Pierre Trudeau's funeral. You don't have to be a fan of Trudeau's to say he was truly a great man. Young Canadians, I believe, are brought up to respect him greatly because he fought to establish the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. He was PM for a long time, and left behind a family that was sexy, yet had seen some tragedy. The funeral was one of the big unifying moments for Canadians--one of the very few that united French and English, like the great hockey tournaments and maybe Expo 67. A huge TV event in Canada.
How was the funeral seen internationally? There were two "heads of state" present: Jimmy Carter; and Fidel Castro.
I might as well admit right away that I didn't go. No one in my family seemed to want to, and neither did I. I don't get that excited about the Stones, I'm sick of the Guess Who, and I didn't know much about the other groups.
So of course when Wednesday evening comes, I'm trying to watch as much as I can--on CBC Newsworld until 9:00, then CBC TV itself. Gian whathisname (Jian Ghomeshi) made a pretty good host on Newsworld; Ralph Benm (Ralph Benmergui)was atrocious; Frank Magazine is right that he just doesn't belong on the air.
I hardly knew who AC/DC were, but they really impressed me. I want to buy one of their albums. Rush was also excellent. Some of the others were OK, more or less as filler. (Tea Party I will want to listen to some more). The Stones sounded and looked like they were in a really shaky rehearsal. Pathetic.
When I bought a coffee at the bus station this morning, one guy who was at the show said: I love the Stones, I went there for the Stones, but AC/DC put on a better show. Another guy didn't like this, and wouldn't really let any of us speak up and say: absolutely.
Of the new Labatt's ads, "Monday" is hilarious.
Does it prove anything about Toronto? I guess it is impressive that such a huge crowd was so well-behaved--like stories about Toronto that go back for decades. The boomers were kind of in the driver's seat (the Stones and the Isleys being...ahem...older than the boomers). Younger Toronto is wildly multi-ethnic and multi-cultural: many skin tones, lots of Asians, exotic types of Europeans. Driving by the high schools, you can see Moslem girls in anything from bare heads, Western-style, to a fairly full veil. Or a family grouping on the street: tiny grandma, in traditional dress, middle generation in transition, teenagers who look and talk like tens of thousands of other Toronto teens.
I'm not sure the "new" Toronto was reflected at the SARS concert. Maybe these kids listen to Justin Timberlake, for all I know.
Update Aug. 1: I guess I should have said first, for any Americans who are reading, that this was an outdoor concert, with the Stones as the featured act. An estimated 400,000 people in attendance. Proceeds net of costs to charities including SARS relief. We've been told the only U.S. media outlet that was here was CNN. I work quite close to the venue, and traffic was lighter than usual, if anything.
And then, in contrast to this rather bland affair, the Stones go back on tour in Europe. Vaclav Havel joins them on stage in Prague with a T shirt that says F the Communists. Excellent.
Not much more than a month until I'm teaching again--one night course, "American Constitutional Law".
The next step is to finalize my syllabus. I owe the Department a copy soon.
I've pulled some syllabi off the web, and I will rely heavily on the one used by a former fellow student of mine--Joe Knippenberg, at Oglethorpe University. Like him I will use Rossum and Tarr. The Fall will be devoted to Volume I, The Structure of Government; Spring to Volume II, The Bill of Rights and Subsequent Amendments.
This means telling the students that what they will likely regard as the exciting stuff will come in the second semester.
In the first semester I have to establish that certain issues or problems always arise in constitutional government. Some government, or part of a government, will do something arbitrary, or something that a reasonable person thinks goes beyond the scope of their constitutional powers. What to do? Parts or branches of government should compete with each other, so that the ambition and public-spiritedness of office holders helps to ensure they all keep each other in check. At least one significant part of the government should be elected by the people--so they will get their chance to say what they want, sooner or later. In extreme cases, the government will break down, and there will be civil war followed, eventually, by some kind of government.
If you simply read some of Locke, and Federalist 33, as we will, it seems there is no real, reliable solution to this problem. Federalist 72, responding to a popular Anti-Federalist paper, defends judicial review as both a novelty and at least a partial solution.
The judiciary is in one way no threat to any other part of government--it is very weak. In another way, though, if it sticks to legal and constitutional issues, it can maintain an authority so that its decisions will be followed. It can be a trustworthy umpire on constitutional issues. Of course, it can also become another part of government making arbitrary decisions, and we will see lots of examples where decisions can be and have been criticized for that.
That's why the roughly chronological order of the course makes sense. The Marshall court had to establish itself, and develop a kind of myth of judicial supremacy, while trying to avoid direct battles with Congress. The Legislative Branch, The Executive Branch, War Powers--still sorting out the government in Washington. Federalism is a big 19th century issue, and then it flares up again with the present Rehnquist Court. Specifics on National Power (Commerce Power, Taxing Power, Spending Power), State Power, The Contract Clause, and "Economic Due Process."
With Dred Scott v Sandford, which we will read in connection with Federalism, the Court went too far; instead of resolving the slavery issue, they helped bring about the Civil War. War Powers is still an issue for every president. With Lochner you begin to see issues of economic regulation; there have been long been arguments that this decision is outrageous, far from original intent, etc., but I'm not so sure. In any case the controversy prepares us for some of the "Rights" cases in the 20th century.
Update July 28: I meant to add: I will have the class read some of Lincoln's commentary on Dred Scott, partly to remind the class that the Supreme Court can also make arbitrary (and harmful) decisions, and partly to raise questions as to what to do about it. Lincoln was careful to give his fellow Republicans hope that Dred Scott could be overturned eventually, in small steps. He never advocated anything like widespread civil disobedience. (He never condoned violations of the Fugitive Slave law, such as the actions of those who ran the Underground Railroad).
Contrast this with people who are proud to be "radicals" on both the left and the right today. Certain conservatives--and not only social conservatives, or Christians--think that Roe v. Wade may be the worst Supreme Court decision of the 20th century, at least. There has been some impatience, to put it delicately, to see the present "conservative" court overturn this decision--something they show no interest in doing. In exasperation over this and other issues, some commentators in the journal First Things suggested a few years ago that the trend in Supreme Court decisions raised questions about the legitimacy of the entire constitutional order; civil disobedience may be called for.
At that, other conservatives, including Walter Berns and Robert Bork, refused to have any further ties to the journal. As they said, Lincoln never called the legitimacy of the constitution into question, not even when Dred Scott was the law of the land.
As Eve Tushnet has said (scroll down to Wednesday, May 7), if there is one case that maddens the left the way Roe v. Wade maddens the right, it is Bush v. Gore.
It is still common to hear that the 2000 election was stolen, and Bush didn't actually win. Could patriotic citizens, if they are thinking clearly, ever say such things? Bush won under the rules in place at the time. Gore's only hope was court action, and he began to ask the Florida Supreme Court to take up more and more questions--many of which could have been resolved simply by asking for a full count right after election day. The Florida Court may or may not have overstepped; the U.S. Court stepped in, and everyone seems to agree their decision is final. Whatever one thinks of the arguments Scalia used, which are weak and contradictory, no one should say: let's scrap the constitution. (Indeed few Gore fans have even mentioned scrapping the Electoral College, the biggest source of their trouble).
From what I have read, I think the decision was terrible, and no great harm would have resulted if the Florida Court had been left in charge. At worst, there would have been two slates of electors from Florida, favouring different candidates, and the House of Representatives would have had to resolve the issue. No civil war. No crisis of noone being President. Both in Nixon's troubles in the 70s, and in Clinton's troubles more recently, there were predictions that the country couldn't take the strain, etc., but both the system and the country did fine.
(I am grateful to Richard Neuhaus for the observation that even in the worst case, the system would have done fine in late 2000 or early 2001. But in the paragraph I'm thinking of, he straddles the fence and then shifts position. First he opposes judicial interference in political questions, especially where a perfectly acceptable alternative solution was available--and indicates clearly that this was the case with the 2000 election result. Then he favours the intervention by the Rehnquist court in this case.
"I confess to being disappointed, however, by the number of commentators who said they had at last been awakened to the tyranny of judicial usurpation but then expressed such deep gratitude that the U.S. Supremes had 'saved us' from a constitutional crisis. Both left and right seemed to think that there would be something very wrong about resolving the confusion legislatively-by the Florida legislature certifying its electors and, if necessary, by the House of Representatives choosing the President. The Constitution specifies the way of legislative resolution, but most pundits seemed terrified by the prospect. Thus we had, at the same time and often by the same people, a decrying of judicial usurpation and paeans of thanksgiving that the Supreme Court had spared us the awful prospect of self-government through the constitutional means of representative democracy. Having said that, I do think the decision of the Supreme Court was the right one. It was a sharp and dramatic rebuke of the Florida court's usurpation of legislative authority in attempting to change election laws after the election. A more effective challenge to the regime of judicial usurpation, however, awaits an occasion when a wayward court is set right not by another court but by those who are elected to represent the sovereign people.")
(Jack Balkin also argues that the Congress could have peacably determined the presidential election. See pp. 126, 130 ff. Balkin toys with the idea that the Republicans would be so enraged at losing for the third time in a row, they would attack the institutions of the Republic; then he says no, no, they're probably not such bad citizens as all that.)
So in reading the cases, and even more in the supplemental readings, I'll keep coming back to the questions: why have a constitution? Why have judicial review? Can we or should we simply surrender democratic judgement on a range of issues to 9 judges? To what extent does "original intent" resolve the issues that are brought forward? To what extent are judges likely to wish a political result, and make their arguments suit that result? To what extent can reasonable people, at least with the benefit of hindsight, agree as to which decisions are good and bad?
What causes all, or almost all the temperature changes on Earth? Mr. Golden Sun, silly.
(Link via Colby Cosh.)
I just love stuff like this. Of course I have to add a disclaimer: I am not a scientist trained in any of the relevant fields. But then: what did David Suzuki know about climate in his days (long ago) as a working geneticist?
1000 victims and one bad priest in particular.
I can't resist:
"It's nice to hear the Church speaking out for a change on social issues."
Ramesh Ponnuru (at The Corner) has been arguing that "neo-conservative" is no longer a meaningful category to distinguish some conservatives from others. You get a sense he wants to keep the team united.
Eve Tushnet has responded--mostly with questions.
I've been doing some work on different kinds of conservatives. One question, of course, is whether there will ever be a truly conservative movement or party, that hopes to win elections, in a dynamic society. Here are some attempted definitions--or maybe just "indications":
Paleo-cons: Used to be for balanced budgets, with a vague hope that spending and taxes could be cut. Reagan converted many of them to accepting deficits as long as taxes were cut and the economy was good. Why should the liberals have all the fun of making promises to be paid for in the future?
In fairness, some will still emerge from time to time and worry about deficits.
Social issues: Republicans became pro-life when Reagan brought Catholics and Evangelicals on board. This stand is not in itself a big winner; many successful Republican women are pro-choice. (There was a story during one of the Clinton elections to the effect that some New England Republican women, whose families had been Republican for generations, were pro-choice, and were voting Democrat. I thought the headline could read: Muffy and Buffy both vote for Clinton.)
Death penalty: for a while there this issue was such a winner for Republicans, Clinton felt compelled to be pro-death penalty, with no reservations, even to the extent of being in Arkansas early in 1992 when one brain-damaged individual was executed there. (Clinton as governor wanted to remind everyone he did not commute the sentence, or grant a pardon).
"Old" Republicans are more worried about gays in the military than they are about women there. Their admiration for capitalism undermines any attachment to tradition. Not necessarily church-goers, and if they are, they are something like Episcopalians--they don't talk about it much.
Neo-cons:
Were or might have been Democrats until about 1972. Classic voting pattern: Humphrey in 1968, Nixon in 1972.
They think the U.S. effort in Vietnam was a "noble cause" (Reagan again), and wouldn't mind seeing it re-fought and won.
They were always kind of excited by the Cold War, and became comfortable with it: a powerful enemy, steps had to be taken on a regular basis, the U.S. always with a clear superiority if only in technology. In some ways they miss the Cold War: their sense of direction, of "us" vs. "them" is a lot murkier without it.
Domestic programs: they take a real interest in the nuts and bolts of policy, and in making government programs work better. They share this interest, and welfare reform in particular, with Clinton. They are always a bit detached from an ideological debate as to whether the public sector is good or bad. They regard "Reinventing Government" as a great book.
On social issues, they're not particularly conservative. They may support religion and traditional values for their alleged social benefits. "Somebody had better start going to church, and it's not going to be me." (See Tom Harmon's post to Eve Tushnet).
Evangelicals: Somewhat unpredictable, if not arbitrary. They go where the spirit takes them.
In the 70s they changed from a basically a-political movement, to a commitment on abortion, to being the biggest complement of pro-lifers. Pro-Reagan and pro-Israel. (In the latter case, this may be due to their beliefs about the end times; they may even have shared some of these views with Reagan, who was not really a church-goer). Intense interest in all social issues--sodomy, sometimes even divorce. Not true to say all evangelicals are conservative (see Jimmy Carter), but they tend that way.
Country-club Republicans, aka liberal Republicans, not that different from some so-called "Red Tories" in Canada. Welfare state is growing, best to accept this and make of it what we can. Maybe even launch some big spending programs--likely to be infrastructure rather than a war on poverty. Proud to be progressive on social issues. This is truly a dying breed, e.g. Jim Jeffords, my examples of Buffy and Muffy above. Oddly, Bush II with the huge deficits, and his failure to be really conservative on many issues, is reminiscent of this group. This is his family group. But he also has an evangelical side. Sandra Day O'Connor has been a very influential member of the Supreme Court: promoted by Barry Goldwater, who literally knew her through the country club in Phoenix.
Many Republicans, except for neo-cons, may not actually enjoy government very much. They always think there is someplace better to go--mainly the private sector. They are unlikely to learn the nuts and bolts, so in a way they leave the field to others.
Liberals: define themselves in relation to the majority, "the voters." They like to see themselves as defenders of downtrodden minorities, so the majority is always somehow an obstacle or a problem.
Insofar as the majority wants government programs, with taxes to match, liberals are in sync. Many things the majority wants, or will tolerate, are bad: maintaining traditions like heterosexual marriage, church in public arenas, guns--mostly out of habit. The apathy if not hostility of the majority supports oppression of minorities.
Worse yet, it is possible that the majority wants capital punishment at home, and guns abroad; it may even be that they don't actually want national health insurance. If that's all true, they should be treated somewhat like mad dogs.
Libertarians. Their great strength is focussing on contracts. What exactly have we agreed to? What does it make sense to agree to? We should have a lot of freedoms, both social and economic, because it makes no sense to give them up simply in order to prevent an ever-shifting majority from getting irritated.
In the Cold War libertarians were usually united with conservatives on "big issues." One teacher of mine said all they really had in common was a desire to kill Marxists. That was an exaggeration. They probably agreed that the welfare state was creepy and mediocre, somehow: by and for mediocrities, violating privacy, suppressing individuality and creativity.
The neo-cons are not likely to be hawks on either deficits or tax cuts. (Of course, they can come around temporarily if they are convinced these are winning issues). They believe government needs a lot of money to spend on both the military and domestic programs. (A naive person, or an old-fashioned conservative, might have expected the CIA to be downsized by about 90%, and the U.S. military by about half, with the end of the Cold War. Er...no). As LBJ said during the 1964 campaign: "We are in favour of a great many things, and opposed to very few."
Update July 23: Thanks to Nick Gillespie on Reason's blog, Hit and Run, I have found a chart showing that the number of U.S. military personnel has gone down sharply with the end of the Cold War.
Tax cuts are now a unifying and defining issue for Republicans--almost as much so as being pro-choice for Democrats.
Neo-cons are not bothered by big expensive wars that might go on for a while and raise unexpected complications. In a way this is what public service is all about. They remember JFK's Inaugural in
1961 ("Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty") very fondly, even though JFK himself might have been learning before his death that it was not wise to try to put his most extreme words into practice.
Paleo-cons see the value of some wars, sometimes. War can be a test and proof of patriotism. It can rally voters and citizens. But insofar as they are in charge, they try to insist on small, easy wars. Defenders of Eisenhower speak with pride of stern action in the Central African Republic,
Congo, and Guatemala.
Reagan gets similar credit for Grenada.
Stopping at the Iraq border (or so) in the 1991 Gulf War was a classic paleo-con move. (It took Bush I some time to be persuaded to go to war at all). Invading Iraq in 2003 was a classic neo-con move. Obviously the President makes the decisions; it may have been decisive that both he and Condeleeza Rice bring the evangelical pro-Israel position with them. Bush I was not really evangelical about anything.
Update: July 25: George Will has weighed in, big time.
(Link from the Corner; many comments, led by Jonah Goldberg ).
Will identifies 4 conservative "factions" and claims that none are being satisfied by the policies of the Bush II administation. The conservative positions, according to Will: In foreign policy: don't follow the UN lead, avoid dubious and costly interventions and "nation building"; on fiscal policy: keep taxes low while balancing budgets; support the Constitution, more or less according to the "original intent"; and defy what is called the "progressive" view on social issues. Bush II as President is either doing nothing to support the conservative cause, or doing quite a bit to support the opposite.
Basically to finish up my vacation, I'm re-reading a Lew Archer book by Ross Macdonald, The Chill.
One great line: "You see, I know Dolly. She isn't aggressive at all. she's one of the really pro-life people. she doesn't even like to kill a spider."
My question: is this the first (1963) use of the term "pro-life"? It doesn't refer to abortion, but it suggests the whole Francis of Assisi/Albert Schweitzer position "Respect for Life," "harm no living thing unless it is to save your own life." I'll ask the word expert (Walter Clements) at the Globe--probably after checking a few sites.
Another great line:
"[Archer:]...'there's a strong possibility that you'll need a lawyer to-morrow.'
[Alex Kincaid: ]'What for?'
[Archer as narrator]: He was a good boy, but a little slow on the uptake."
Isn't this exactly like a line that Foghorn Leghorn might say? You just have to add the accent: "Mind you, he's a good boy, and all, but a little sl... I said a little slow on the uptake. Follow me?"
I just finished The Quiet American, which I've said before we should all be reading.
This confirmed for me again that Greene does not purely and simply take the side of the Brit against the American--even though the Brit more closely resembles Greene himself. The Brit is truly a decadent European, with little or no hope for the future. It is clear he has conspired with Communists to murder the American. He can tell himself this is to somehow help the Vietnamese--perhaps by bringing the war to an end more quickly. But there is a real possibility that he simply wanted to get his girlfriend back. And he knows it.
There are passages that suggest: better someone with hope for the future who makes mistakes, than someone who has given up.
The American Pyle believes that a Third Force, neither Communist nor colonial, will win the war. He has been assured of this by an author named York Harding. Ah yes-the best and the brightest.
Before that I read the Waugh trilogy on World War II. (Sword of Honour: consisting of Men At Arms, Officers and Gentlemen, and Unconditional Surrender). A sad and beautiful "book." In one way the series starts out very gloomy and grey, matching the sadness of protagonist Crouchback, who has been basically alone, doing nothing, since his wife left him 8 years earlier. In some ways Crouchback is "disillusioned" as the war goes on. Some people turn out to be total shits, the Allies are falling over themselves to do favours to Stalin, good men are treated like cannon fodder, etc.
Yet he becomes somewhat more cheerful. This makes sense if you think he is not only busy, doing valuable work as well as he can, but really learning things he didn't know before. I think a false note is struck when he makes a literary comment about Toulouse-Lautrec or someone (p. 146 of the 3rd volume in the edition I have)--the kind of comment Waugh himself might make. Otherwise Crouchback is somewhat different from Waugh.
He's not a writer, as far as we can tell. For a while he is unfortunate in having no wife, and no way to get a divorce; Waugh got a divorce before he was a Catholic, and re-married almost immediately. But Crouchback is someone Waugh could envy: cradle Catholic, able to take certain traditions for granted (and being able to have faith that they will survive somehow). The snob factor: Crouchback is from one of the "old," recusant English Catholic families, like the Marchmains in Brideshead. A real aristocrat, not like one of those arrivistes who got money or title under the Protestants over the last 300 years or so. Breeding so good, very few people even know about it. It's only prudent to be a restrained gentleman about it, because very few people would understand at all if you flaunted it.
Waugh, on the other hand, was descended from Scottish clergymen and civil servants in India. Ouch.
Waugh probably thought of Crouchback as a better man than himself. In some ways he might be the man Waugh could have been if he didn't get drunk every day of his life. (I think the booze was responsible for some of his better, nastier lines). On the other hand, what I care most about with Waugh is the writing. I'm one of those who wish he had written twice or three times as many pages, or books, as he did. It's not that difficult to arrive at the feeling that you've memorized everything. Waugh makes me think of Nietzsche's line that for a real artist, everything but the art is a kind of relaxation or game.
My favourite story about Waugh and the war. Probably on the basis of his trilogy, which shows lots of the absurdity and apparently pointless suffering of war, Joseph Heller asked Waugh if he would write some kind words for dust jackets, etc., on Catch 22.
I can't find it right now, but Waugh is supposed to have written back something like: "I have no idea what made you think I would enjoy a story about the cowardice of American officers."
Dog: Had surgery Tuesday, we picked him up Wednesday, and he seems to be recovering well. The surgeon found no arthritis in the knee (although some was found in the hip earlier, by x-ray). We've bought a new crate, and he's going to have to spend a lot of time there for six weeks. His movements have to be very restricted--no running or jumping; when he goes out, always on lead. Now that new "ligaments" are in place, some kind of connective tissue has to grow.
Relatives: have gone from our house to other relatives', a few miles away. Returning to Edmonton on Sunday.
Vacation: coming to an end. I've booked a couple of weeks in August.
Course this fall: I've left the readings I want to use with the Bookstore. I had to confirm the estimated enrollment so that they can contact copyright holders. I found out that 16 signed up in the Spring or early registration--when the course was only available to Pol Sci majors, and a few others. There will be another registration in August, and who knows what will happen? I checked with the woman who is ordering the actual textbook from a publisher, to see what estimate she is using. She said "20." I guess it's ego; I thought she meant she still wasn't sure how many more would sign up, but obviously what she meant was that only 4 more would sign up. When I said: shall we say 30 on the high side?, she was too polite to say: how about 20?
Dalton Camp article. Much shorter, sent off again.
Just within the last few days, I have paid for "premium" service--6 months at $3.00 (U.S.) per month.
Premium Membership means I have 200 MB "Monthly Transfer Limit" and 5MB "Disk Limit".
BlogEasy went down for much of the day today (Friday). This reminds me of warnings from Glenn Reynolds and others that BlogSpot is not to be relied upon. (Update: "Support" has now e-mailed me (10:00 p.m. Friday) to say the problem has been "permanently" solved).
Until recently there was an active site called
"Blogspot Exodus." Readers are now referred to a site called A Stop on the Railroad.
Colby Cosh says he pays $10.00 per month. I'm not sure what kind of support he is using; there is something on his blog that says "XML feed available through the courtesy of Janes' Blogosphere."
Kathy Kinsley is offering to support blogs for either $4.00 or $5.00 per month through [link=www.bloghouse.net]BlogHouse.[/link]. She offers a number of services--some of which I don't understand.
"The First type of account will start as the most inexpensive, at $4 per month, with no set-up fees. You will get 5 e-mail accounts, FTP access, cgi-bin, 75MB disk space and 2 gigs of bandwidth per month (since this is shared space, we'll keep an eye on the disk space and bandwidth for you)."
This looks like ten times as much monthly bandwidth as I am getting, and 15 times as much disc space. I don't know why I would need 5 e-mail accounts, and two of the features she lists mean nothing to me.
She adds:
"I'll be running spam spider blocks and such, so your bandwidth won't be as high as you think it will be! (My hits about halved when I started banning the things.)
"My own blog site, by the way, has never gone over 3 gig in one month, and only once over 2 gig (due to either a glitch in a spider or a troll attack), and I get quite a number of hits. I do keep my pages reasonably sized, which you should (pretty please) do anyway for the sake of people on dial-up. (I'm on dial-up now and some of you take 3 minutes to load!)"
Both Colby and Kathy are running blogs that will be hit by many of the people (like me) who hit Instapundit every day. I don't think I'm going to have that problem.
On the other hand, some people do have problems. One female blogger (I forget which, and I can't find the post now) was worried recently that she was using more space or capacity than she was paying for. She was considering using tools such as spam spider filters. I gather (as a lay person, guessing) a spam spider is a program that will launch messages to many sites at once, and often to the same site many times in one day. A filter will block such "automatic" communications, and avoid the clogging of your capacity.
I think "spidering" can also mean searching through a lot of data. According to this site, it means using a "robot" to follow links. Your employer can "spider" through your e-mail or your hard-drive, most likely word searching for words that suggest porn, time-consuming personal stuff or humour, etc.
Thus endeth the poorly-informed technology lesson.
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