Telltale Signs

Found this in a Fark photoshop thread.

TRUE! nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why WILL you say that I am mad?

With apologies to Edgar Alan Poe.

OK, What The Hell Is Up With Blogger?

The posts are appearing down at the bottom of the blogroll. I can't see anything wrong with the HTML.

UPDATE: OK, I have even tried changing the template and the problem persists. Evidently this is not something I did. Grr.

Undemagoguing Guantanamo

According to the Washington Times (Registration Required):

Two Democratic senators just back from reviewing U.S. detention facilities and interrogations at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, said they saw no signs of abuse and said it would actually be worse to close the facility and transfer the detainees elsewhere.

"I strongly prefer the improved practices and conditions at Camp Delta to the outsourcing of interrogation to countries with a far less significant commitment to human rights," said Sen. Ron Wyden, Oregon Democrat, who toured the U.S. facility along with Sen. Ben Nelson, Nebraska Democrat.

The two Democrats were joined on the trip by two Republicans, Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky and Sen. Michael D. Crapo of Idaho.

This is good news on a number of levels. First, I am glad to see that there are members of the Democratic party that are willing to go against party talking points to get at the truth. I am especially impressed with the senator from Oregon, who must be under a considerable amount of pressure to toe the liberal line.

More important, though, is the assertion that there is no evidence of abuse. I have effectively stopped reading Andrew Sullivan because of his increasing hostility to the Religious Right, but I consider his warnings against failing to address the allegations of widespread abuse to be absolutely correct and to date largely unanswered. (Greg Djerejian of Belgravia Dispatch has similar criticisms but without the hostility.) This bipartisan report goes a long way toward reassuring me of the generally moral character of US conduct.

But what of the supposedly credible evidence that such abuse did occur? Well, I have been unsuccessful in finding primary sources on the subject, and the reportage seems to be somewhat contradictory when it isn't based on hearsay. But, supposing for the sake of argument that the reports are valid and the abuse did actually occur. Is it possible that the public pressure and investigation has caused those responsible to clean up their act? If so, I suggest that this is the best result we can reasonably hope for. A democratic and open society does not produce perfect men, but it does restrain their ability to do wrong.

Still, none of this should detract from the necessity to fully investigate such charges. We can't become complacent when dealing with charges of such gravity. But I fully recognize the difficulty of getting the facts straight when dealing with a hostile group that is religiously committed to the idea that infidels are not owed the truth.

Update: In looking over Sullivan's and Djerejian's blogs to see if they had reacted to this news, I noticed that they are both discussing something called a Conscience Caucus:

Greg's sin is to be pro-war and anti-torture, making him a member of the fledgling "conscience caucus" of pro-war, right-of-center writers who oppose the Bush administration policy of allowing abuse of prisoners if "military necessity" demands it.

I guess you can count me in that group, although I am not clear that this abuse is an actual policy. But I am certainly uncomfortable with some of the rhetoric that conservatives have been using to justify these practices. Greg posts that he will be giving more details on the subject when he gets back from vacation. I will be very interested in what he has to say.

Oil, Israel and Conspiracies

Meryl Yourish finds this article funny:

More than two decades ago, John Brown grew mesmerized by an evangelical preacher's theory that the Bible hinted at a major oil field deep beneath Israel's soil.

[...]

Two months ago, Brown's Zion Oil & Gas Co. began drilling a deep well near Kibbutz Maanit, 25 miles north of Tel Aviv, a site that lies at the intersection of faith and science.

Brown, 65, cites a passage from Genesis that quotes Jacob telling Joseph that God will give him "blessings of the deep that couches beneath," which he believes refers to oil.

The passage says the blessings will be on "the head of Joseph," which Brown reads as the geographic location in ancient Israel occupied by the tribes of Manasseh and Ephraim, Joseph's sons. Maanit falls within that area.

Zion's geological experts say previous wells drilled in the area showed the site has good potential for oil, Brown said.

[...]

Brown is not the first prospector to combine faith and science in the search for Israeli oil. Other Evangelical oilmen, though few with Brown's financing, have tried their luck here, with no success.

Last year, Tovia Luskin, an ultra-Orthodox Jew, began drilling about 15 miles south of Brown's site, inspired in part by the same "deep that couches beneath" Biblical passage.

OK, I admit this is pretty damn silly. The idea that the Bible could be used as a guide to oil prospecting is the sort of superstitious nonsense that could only occur to a fundamentalist and gives the rest of us a bad name.

But what really interests me in this article is the following passage:

In a Middle East rich with petroleum, Israel has struggled with little success to find deposits of its own for more than 50 years. Large oil companies' reluctance to work here and risk angering major Arab oil producers has hindered exploration, as have unfavorable geological conditions. [emphasis mine]

So the Arabs are putting pressure on major oil companies not to do business with Israel? Shouldn't the International Conspiracy of Jewish Bankers be doing something about this? Or the Americanmilitaryindustrialcomplex? How about Dick Cheney?

Seriously, though, I'm always amazed at how the crazy conspiracy theories correctly identify the problem but get the players wrong. There is an oil consipiracy in the middle east but it isn't us who are running it.

Aid for Africa (Again?)

Several conservative bloggers seem genuinely impressed with the Live8 campaign to End Poverty in Africa:

Althouse:

It struck me that Geldof, like Bush, saw establishing democracy as central to solving problems. And there was none of the Bush-related cynicism one normally expects to hear. How can Bush take the lead pushing for democracy in Africa when so many people in other G8 countries are derisive about his efforts in Iraq? No such thing was said. Geldof acted as if such a thought did not exist. He thinks Bush is perfectly positioned to take the lead.

(OK, she's not a conservative, but she isn't a lefty either and she's generally pretty reliable.)

IMAO:

It ends up that Bob Geldof, the organizer or Live 8, has a real plan for tackling poverty in Africa (real, in that it involved free trade and competition in parts of it) and hopes the blogosphere can use some of its influence in pushing towards the means needed for the end. The conference call should be up as a podcast a little later, and I'll urge you all to listen to it. I hope to get you more information soon (that was my main suggestion during the conference call was to have a place to link to where things are explained as well as Sir Geldof explained them himself), and, perhaps, you'll see more of the blogosphere talking about this.

Powerline:

To say that I was impressed would be an understatement. Geldof is an extraordinarily knowledgeable guy. Equally important, he is not soft-headed about Africa's problems. He emphasizes free markets and the need for political reform, which should be, and according to Geldof will be, a condition of the assistance that he advocates. Another important point, I think, is that he talks eloquently not only about the appalling conditions in some areas of Africa, but also about the striking progress being made in areas where political tyranny or upheaval have made such progress impossible. While I am no expert on Africa, I know that there are a lot of important, under-reported positive stories coming out of that continent.

Citizen Smash:

Overall, I'm happy to report that much of my skepticism was unwarranted. In case you haven't noticed, Geldof hasn't produced much music in the past 20 years. Instead, he's devoted his life to fighting hunger and poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa, and it shows -- Sir Bob really knows his stuff. And while he is clearly trying to reach out to a wide spectrum of people, he didn't pull any punches when it came to criticizing those who waste, embezzle, or squander public money (at one point, he casually mentioned that both Prime Minister Berlusconi of Italy and French President Jacques Chirac would be in jail for corruption if they weren't leaders of their respective nations). I was impressed.

Here's the clincher: Geldof wasn't asking for donations. He admits that food aid and even debt cancellation, while helpful, are of limited utility in the long run. Instead, he's asking us to start a converstation about how to stimulate long-term development in Sub-Saharan Africa. "This isn't Live Aid 2," the website reads, "LIVE 8 is about justice not charity."

Little Green Footballs:

Despite my skepticism (rock stars with causes, oh boy), I was impressed with Geldof's knowledge of the situation, and by his group's ideas to make sure that whatever aid is generated will not simply be pocketed by corrupt African dictators. Ultimately, the vision seems to be to promote freedom and reform on the African continent. Geldof said, "Robert Mugabe will not be included."

Ed at Captain's Quarters was live-blogging:

Believe me, we all understand the skepticism -- perhaps Geldof most of all. We know this will be a tough sell, even to ourselves. I want to see the specifics before I go running around mindlessly supporting it. However, I think we need to ask ourselves where we want to see Africa in twenty years, and what needs to be done to get it there.

Even John Hawkins at Right Wing News had good things to say about Geldof (though he is unconvinced about the program):

He said nice things about the Bush administration, seemed appreciative of the help America is giving, thinks Robert Mugabe is a hopeless tyrant, talked a lot about accountability in Africa, seemed to have a fairly good grasp of the political landscape in America and Africa, and generally came off as exactly the opposite of the airy headed, sniping liberal, rock star you'd expect.

Still -- while my opinion of Geldof improved considerably, I'm an enormous skeptic on Africa. Sure, we can always do something, feed hungry people, give a certain amount of aid, forgive debts, but -- the reality is that the problems Africa has are on a scale that simply can't be fixed by the West.

So, what to make of all this optimism? Well, it strikes me that much of it comes from the marketing skill of Joe Trippi who has evidently figured out how to talk to conservatives and is training Geldof. I don't yet see evidence of anything concrete that would make conservatives happy. The only two proposals on the table -- doubling government aid and canceling debt -- are actually antithetical to the free-trade ideal that has everyone singing. And even that is couched in leftist terms of "trade justice", presumably to avoid scaring off the base.

The enthusiasm probably stems from the simple fact that we have finally found someone who speaks our language. And this is no small thing. When you have been alone in the dark for a long time, the faintest light or the most distant sound of a human voice can be a joyful thing. Most of the respondents expressed continued skepticism, but it is only natural to hope that someone who actually talks about free-trade and democracy as vehicles for social renewal might actually be able to make a difference.

And one, small, final point: if the Aid Crusaders are starting to realize that they need our input, is it possible that we may be winning the war of ideas that we have been fighting for the past quarter century? Too early to tell, really.

But, here's hoping.

Update: A different kind of Aid for Africa.

Potential Terrorists Caught Near State Capital

Two Islamic leaders and a father/son team was arrested by the FBI in Lodi, CA:

Federal agents searched the homes of two Islamic leaders in Lodi, California, and have made four arrests since Sunday, part of an ongoing terrorism investigation, according to the FBI and witnesses.

Two of those arrested are top Muslim leaders in Lodi, including one who publicly condemned the September 11, 2001, terror attacks and issued a declaration of peace with Christian and Jewish leaders in Lodi three years ago.

The other two were a father and son, identified as 47-year-old Umer Hayat and 22-year-old Hamid Hayat, who allegedly lied about the younger man's attendance at an al Qaeda training camp in Pakistan, according to an FBI affidavit unsealed Tuesday evening by a federal court in Sacramento.

Both Hayats are charged with "making false statements of material fact within the jurisdiction of the FBI," the affidavit says. Both are U.S. citizens; Hamid Hayat was born in California, it says.

The affidavit says the younger Hayat confessed to attending the camp, which he said was run by al Qaeda, in 2003-2004 while he was in Pakistan ostensibly to attend a madrassa, or school, his grandfather ran.

According to the affidavit, Hamid Hayat was on a U.S.-bound flight that authorities diverted because his name was on a "no-fly" list. In interviews afterward, Hayat initially denied attending the camp.

[...]

"Potential targets for attack would include hospitals and large food stores," the document says.

[...]

The two local Islamic leaders in Lodi -- Muhammed Adil Khan and Shabbir Ahmed -- were detained on immigration charges and will face an immigration hearing, FBI Special Agent John Cauthen said.

The Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the two were in custody on "administrative immigration violations for violating their religious worker visas" and there is not a set date for their hearing.

(Via Michelle Malkin)

Update: The above story does not explain how the two clerics are related to the Hayats. According to this local report they met with Umer Saturday but are not being charged with criminal activity. Rather murky. (Via My Pet Jawa who has much more.)

Maybe They Really Don't Know What "Is" Means

Pastorius is tracking Astute Blogger who notes that the left is becoming increasingly caught up in its own metaphors:

Powerline - and others, notably DISSECTING LEFT and this blog - have noted that the Left seems to continually use analogies and metaphors instead of deductive reasoning and rational arguments. I have described this as the "IS/AS Conflation" because it is typically most obvious when someone treats an analogical comparison ("that man sings like a bird") as if it had an ontological verity (that man who sings like a bird is a bird. OR: "The USSR had secretive prisons known as gulags; Gitmo is LIKE a secretive prison; therefore Gitmo IS a gulag."

Some Gals Have All the Luck

I've always wanted one of these. Don't really have a use for it, but I think they're cool.

(I don't know what I'd do with one of these either, though it has nothing to do with firearms.)

The Return of Shame

A couple of months ago I agreed (in principle if not every detail) with this lady's practice of publicizing married men who were soliciting her for sex on an adult dating service. This practice is similar:

Images of men convicted of soliciting prostitutes will soon be joining professional athletes and product placements on city billboards here.

Beginning this month, some billboards will be updated to show the photos of "johns" - men convicted of soliciting sex - with the headline "How Much Clearer Can We Make It?"

The measure is part of a "shaming campaign" to crack down on prostitution.

"We're warning everyone: Next time, the image won't be blurred," City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente said at a news conference Wednesday, where city officials stood under a 10-by-22-foot billboard with the images of four convicted men intentionally blurred so they could not be recognized.

The billboards will only show the images of those convicted of soliciting sex, De La Fuente said. Most persons arrested for soliciting sex - a misdemeanor - ultimately plead guilty to a lesser infraction of disturbing the peace and serve little, if any jail time.

Well, that last bit seems a little wimpy, but it's a step in the right direction.
(Via La Shawn Barber)

Definitive Post on the Filibuster Question

I got too involved in real-life concerns to expand my thoughts on the filibuster before it ceased to be a live issue. Story of my life, really. Fortunately Prof. Bainbridge was more on the ball:

Lots of my fellow conservatives are seriously exercised by the compromise reached by the Senate moderates on judicial nomination filibusters:

[...]

Will somebody please get these folks some cheese to go with their whine? I find these reactions not only short-sighted but also surprisingly unconservative. They reflect a willingness to put possible short-term partisan gain (and I emphasize the word possible) over both principle and long-term advantage.

[...]

The filibuster is a profoundly conservative tool. It slows change by allowing a resolute minority to delay - to stand athwart history shouting stop. It ensures that change is driven not "merely by temporary advantage or popularity" but by a substantial majority. Is it any wonder that it has usually been liberals who want to change or abolish the filibuster rule?

There is much more and it is all good. Don't miss the lovely quote from Russell Kirk that I ellided for space considerations.

Some of my lack of motivation to blog recently has been due to depression over the fact that people I respect have been so willing to abandon conservative principle in favor of partisan advantage. I am glad to note that Bainbridge is still on the same side.

(Via: Andrew Sullivan)

Full Disclosure: I should mention that when I say "some of my lack of motivation", I really mean a small portion. Most of it is just plain, old-fashioned sloth.

California Textbook Page Limit

It would be difficult to make up a story about public schools that was more absurd than this story from the Sacramento Bee (Registration Required):

Lawmakers voted Thursday to ban school districts from purchasing textbooks longer than 200 pages.
The bill, believed to be the first of its kind nationwide, was hailed by supporters as a way to revolutionize education.

Critics lambasted Assembly Bill 756 as silly.

Silly doesn't even begin to describe it. As the Center for Local Liberty notes:

The bill would exclude The Federalist Papers, the Bible, the Lincoln-Douglas debates, innumerable classic novels, just for starters.

Maybe therein lies the explanation?

(Via Captain's Quarters)

Book Meme

I got tagged with this from Pastorius at CUANAS:

1. Total Number of Books I've Owned:
This is actually a bit of a domestic crisis at the moment. We have bookshelves on every available wall in our house with loose books shoved sideways in the spaces between one row of books and the next shelf. In front of some of the shelves, my wife has crates and boxes of books sitting on the floor, two rows deep at one point. Every available surface has a stack of books on it. I have no idea how many there are. Surely in the thousands. And that doesn't account for the many books donated to libraries, lost in moves or "loaned" to friends over the years.

2. Last Book I Bought:

Restoring the Lost Constitution by Randy Barnett of the Volokh Conspiracy. Haven't had a chance to start it yet, but I have been impressed with many of Barnett's arguments.

Before that, I can't quite remember which books I've bought. Most of my reading recently has been trying to catch up with backlogged books that I've owned for awhile. For reasons cited above, I've put a semi-moratorium on buying new books, although occasionally my wife will find something interesting at the thrift store for a price too good to pass up. We got the first five Lemony Snicket books that way, I think.

3. Last Book I Read:

This answer has thee parts: my personal reading, the book I am reading to my wife and the book we are reading in our church's reading club.

Personally, I am just finishing Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy. Most people have heard about The Prince, of course, and think they know what it is about: power for power's sake, the end justifies the means, etc., etc. I learned that in public school too when I actually tried to read the Prince. But I was too ignorant of general political ideas to make much of it, so I pretty much assumed that what I had been taught to think was what I actually did think, and left it at that for several years.

When I began to be a conservative, in college, I suspected that maybe the conventional wisdom was unfair to Machiavelli, especially since he was always presented as someone you don't need to read because everyone already knows what he is all about. But other interests got in the way and only recently did I get serious enough about political theory to give him another read. As noted below, his Discourses are focused on the concept of liberty and how to preserve it. It is true that he does make some hair-raising statements such as "it is better to be feared than loved." But what he means by that is that someone who tries to govern by making people like him will inevitably do more harm to innocent people by letting the guilty go unpunished than if he acquired a reputation for strictness. This is an observation many conservatives have had occasion to reiterate in recent years.

For the last few weeks, I have been reading Charles Williams' War in Heaven to my wife. This is my third-favorite book by him, coming behind The Place of the Lion and Descent into Hell, in that order. I am discovering, however, just how difficult Williams is to read aloud. His thought is often so idiosyncratic that you have to read a sentence a few times to yourself to get what he is saying, which of course doesn't work if you are reading aloud. Also, his humor is of the elliptical, 1920s variety (think P. G. Wodehouse or Lord Peter Wimsey) that derives much of its effect from the assumption that if you are sufficiently in-the-know, you don't really need to hear the punchline to get the joke. Also, you wouldn't be so offensive as to suggest that the teller should go to all that extra trouble to actually say those few extra syllables. Also, you've heard it all before. It is a humor of ultra-sophistication and embodies all of the worldliness, ennui and arrogance of the early 20th century. I actually enjoy this sort of humor and try, in my own pathetic way, to indulge in it whenever I can. But it is one thing to make this kind of humor, and quite another to read the transcript of someone else making it. If I were a voice actor, I might be able to pull it off but in an unrehearsed, after-dinner reading session it is a bit beyond my capacity.

At church we are reading Russell Kirk's Roots of American Order. If you haven't read it, stop wasting time with this silly blog and go buy a copy. Now, Damn It!

4. Five Books That Mean A Lot To Me:

Only Five? ONLY FIVE? Jeez, who wrote this question, Dyslexics Anonymous? Well, hmmm. I will skip including the Bible as that should be fairly obvious. Nor will I include the Lord of the Rings, for pretty much the same reason (though to a different degree, of course). Also, I won't mention Atlas Shrugged or Mere Christianity, even though they were jointly responsible for my conversion to Christianity, since explaining how that all works would make this a very long post indeed. I won't mention Roots of American Order, either, because that was included in question #3. Does that narrow the list down? Well, no actually.

Hmmm. Well, how about this: I'll only mention the 5 books that I think would be most surprising to people who know me. That might work.

I. The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia McKillip. Quite simply the best fantasy novel ever written. Her ability to create a compelling and intricate moral conflict among people who love each other in varying ways is phenomenal, and, what is more, she manages it without becoming sentimental or introspective in that annoying twentieth century way. In general I hate stories that put essentially modern characters into chainmail bras and codpieces and expect us to pretend it is honest fantasy. For some reason people of our era tend to be so pleased with our own consciousness that we can't help projecting it back into the past or out into faerie with uniformly tedious results. But McKillip maintains a voice that, while not particularly archaic, is nevertheless ancient and weighty. I marvel, for she speaks not as the scribes, but with authority. This book ranks for me with Till We Have Faces but the latter is excluded because it isn't terribly surprising.

II. Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne. Okay, this won't surprise a lot of people because I mention it all the time, but most of my friends are surprised the first time I bring it up. The idea seems to be that I am too intellectual, too serious, too mathematical to be fooling about with whimsical children's books. But, actually, it is because I am all those things that I value Pooh so much. There is nothing more mortifying to me than the recollection of my late childhood and early adulthood when I couldn't communicate with my peers because I (unconsciously) thought I was smarter than them. Or, at least, that my interests were more important. If I have a personality at all, it is largely because I discovered late in life that I could borrow Pooh's and no one would know because they were only familiar with the idiotic Disney version.

III. The Magic Goes Away by Larry Niven. Also the related short stories, "Not Long Before the End" and "What Good is a Glass Dagger?" For much the same reasons that I like the McKillip book: there is a certain worldly wisdom in these stories that I draw upon frequently in the real world, and yet they belong quite firmly in the fantasy genre. I still find the paragraph where Niven relates the "history" of how the story of the quest for the lost god is reflected in tale of Chicken Little thrilling. I hope someday to be able to write with so much flair.

IV. Radical Son by David Horowitz. This book completely changed the way I thought about politics, not because I learned any new facts about the left, but because the facts became illuminated by a pattern I could never previously articulate. Reading this was very much an oceanic experience. I don't generally like biography, but this book is the biography of an entire worldview.

V. Illusions by Richard Bach. Well there are many books that I like that I could have put in this final slot, but the question was books that mean a lot to me. This book is important to me in much the same way that the Holocaust is important to Jews: Never Again. The self-deifying theology of this book corrupted much of my early life, aided my involvement with Mormonism and pretty much turned me into the arrogant, cynical relativist that I have spent the latter half of my life trying to escape. Obviously there were many other influences from the 70s that aided this corruption, but I think this single volume is a good metaphor for the lot.

5. People I Will Infect With This Meme:

There are lots of intriguing possibilities here, but I will play it safe for the moment and pick on my fellow parishioners Andrew, Michele and Paul. (If for no other reason than to wake them from their slumber...)

Update: Paul responds here.

Kingdom of Humanist Revisionism

Saw The Kingdom of Heaven last nigt. Don't have time to create a full post at the moment but I wanted to record two observations while I am thinking about it.

1. All the Muslims were honorable and none of the Good Guys were Christians. Every European who was sympathetic had lost his faith or had never had any to lose. No exceptions.

2. I have to look up some of the details, but I think they screwed up the history pretty badly. Like a missing king, and a queen who runs off with a character that never really existed.

More later.

Publius 2000

Pastorius of CUANAS alerted me via email of this blog by another member of his group. Publius is evidently a history professor interested in, among other things, constitutional law. He seems to be getting a slow start, but what he has written so far is right on target. Publius is hereby added to the blogroll.

Yemeni Elections

Jane from Armies of Liberation cautions that the upcoming elections in Yemen bear close scrutiny. The recent victories for democracy in Afghanistan, Iraq, Ukraine and Lebanon should not blind us to the fact that dictators can easily flaunt the trappings of freedom while flouting its essence:

AL-Sahwa net-The popular Forces’ Union (PFU) party blamed Yemeni authorities for trespassing on its headquarters and robbing the computer sets belonging to its mouthpiece, “Al-Shoura” newspaper (al-Khaiwani’s paper). A statement, issued by the PFU and a copy of which was obtained by Al-Sahwa net, said that the assault coincided with President Saleh’s strong-worded attack on the party.

It also recalled the adduction of Nabeel Al-Wazeer, member of the party’s secretariat general, and the threats of outlawing the party.

The PFU statement urged the political parties and the non-governmental organizations to “firmly stand against such violations, and to support the democratic option as a precondition for building the country’s future and maintaining its security and stability”. During his meeting with Yemeni clerics last Saturday, President Saleh accused the PFU and Al-Haq parties of plotting to lead a coup d` `etat against what he termed as “the revolution and the republican system”.

Jane comments: "Interesting how all the reformers and opposition are getting harrassed in advance of the election. Did I mention that Salah won 96% of the vote in 1999?"

Dennis Miller Cancelled?

My lone source of information about TV culture, Ann Althouse, reports that the Dennis Miller show is scheduled to be cancelled by CNBC:

His show never got to be as good as it could have been because -- I'm guessing -- Miller never got the support from CNBC he needed. And he deserved it. His past work on HBO was great, but the CNBC show was struggling on the edge all along. I suppose Miller never should have risked his reputation by venturing into that unsupported environment. There was a limit to how much he could do on sheer wits alone. And it was often painful to watch him sweating it out on camera.

He needed great writers and supporting actors and a sharp audience -- what Jon Stewart has on "The Daily Show." Now, he's the one stuck looking like a failure. And I blame CNBC for doing that to him.

This sounds like a bad deal for the reasons that Althouse gives, but also because Dennis Miller is one of the few independent thinkers on the TV talkshow circuit. I suspect that may be part (even unconsciously) of the reason that Miller did not get the support Althouse mentions.

But further reading in the CNN piece that Althouse links to reveals that this is not the whole story:

The network will also replace "Late Night With Conan O'Brien" with a new business show at 7 p.m. that will debut in the third quarter.

Both moves are part of a repositioning of CNBC's primetime back to the network's focus on financial news and away from failed attempts at entertainment, according to the report.

Whenever TV moves away from entertainment in order to focus on providing actual information that would be a Good Thing. (Unless the "information" turns out to be political analysis by some Jim Lehrer clone, but I doubt that will be the case with financial shows.)

One of the problems with my policy of not watching TV is that I can't join in the sort of boycott Ms. Althouse describes (it would be like a vegetarian giving up meat for Lent). But on the whole, this may not be a particularly bad move for CNBC and Dennis Miller is good enough that he should find another venue without too much trouble. At least I hope so.

Legitimate Legal Systems

Randy Barnett, of the Volokh Conspiracy, has a lengthy post describing his approach to defining the legitimacy of a legal system. He is drawing on concepts that he outlines in his book, Restoring the Lost Constitution (which is on my ever-growing list of books to read). Here are some selections from his 8-point discussion that I found interesting:

(1) The concept of "legitimacy" I am considering concerns whether laws that are imposed on the people create a prima facie (i.e. rebuttable) duty of obedience because they are laws, or (another formulation) are presumptively binding on conscience.

(2) The concept I am considering is objective, not subjective. By this I mean that I am not discussing the perception that there is a prima facie duty to obey the law, but whether any such perception is valid or justified.

These two points are related in that if an obligation is objective it is necessarily binding on the conscience. What he means by rebuttable or presumptive is that if a law is passed through legitimate means it is presumed to be a legitimate (ie binding) law unless it is shown not to be on substantive grounds. In the latter case, it can be repealed through the same procedural methods. I metion this because there are some who confuse legality with morality, but that isn't what Barnett is talking about here.

One route to legitimacy is the consent of the governed, but [...] the consent of some can never explain how nonconsenting persons come to be bound in conscience. This is the challenge to constitutional legitimacy made famous by Lysander Spooner [...] I try to meet Spooner's challenge by positing an alternative route to legitimacy. (a) No one can complain about the imposition of a law if it does not violate his natural (prepolitical) rights; (b) because one has a duty to respect the rights of others, one also has a duty to obey a law that is necessary to defining and protecting the rights of others. A coercive command that meets these two requirements is "just" and binding in conscience. Therefore (c) a law is legitimate (in the sense defined above) if it is produced and enforced by procedures that make it more likely than not that it (a) respects the rights of the persons on whom it is being imposed and (b) is needed to protect the rights of others. In this sense "constitutional legitimacy" is procedural in nature, though the procedures must be assessed with a background theory of substantive rights in mind.

This is a very powerful concept and bears re-reading. From a Christian point of view, this account of legitimacy allows reconciliation of the often thorny choice between being submissive to the established authorities (Rom 13: 1-7) and obeying God rather than man (Acts 4:19). If, as I believe, establishing justice in the land (1 Cor 6:2) is a duty of the Christian in a democratic society (ie a land in which every man is king) then this notion of legitimacy allows us to participate in a society where the substance of the laws is ungodly, provided there is a legitimate (in the above sense) system whereby laws can be changed. So long as there is hope that the ungodly laws can be changed, we are not obligated to break the law, for instance, by destroying abortion clinics or freeing slaves. However, a corollary is that if it ever becomes clear that there is no legitimate process by which laws can be changed, (such as is the case for Christians in Sudan, for instance), rebellion is justified.

Machiavelli on Freedom and Monarchy

I came across this passage while reading Machiavelli's Discourses (Book I: Discourse 55):

But to make plain what I mean when I speak of _gentlemen_, I say that those are so to be styled who live in opulence and idleness on the revenues of their estates, without concerning themselves with the cultivation of these estates, or incurring any other fatigue for their support. Such persons are very mischievous in every republic or country. But even more mischievous are they who, besides the estates I have spoken of, are lords of strongholds and castles, and have vassals and retainers who render them obedience. Of these two classes of men the kingdom of Naples, the country round Rome, Romagna, and Lombardy are full; and hence it happens that in these provinces no commonwealth or free form of government has ever existed; because men of this sort are the sworn foes to all free institutions. And since to plant a commonwealth in provinces which are in this condition were impossible, if these are to be reformed at all, it can only be by some one man who is able there to establish a kingdom; the reason being that when the body of the people is grown so corrupted that the laws are powerless to control it, there must in addition to the laws be introduced a stronger force, to wit, the regal, which by its absolute and unrestricted authority may curb the excessive ambition and corruption of the great.[Emphasis Mine]

The bolded section is what interested me, since it is essentially the same point I was making here:

I do happen to believe that the bible portrays monarchy as a punishment inflicted on a people who reject God's rule and are, therefore, incapable of ruling themselves.

Of course, Machiavelli is not arguing from a biblical perspective and quoting him does not really advance the debate that much. In fact, given the slanderous treatment Machiavelli usually gets by the public school system, quoting him sympathetically may even get me into more trouble than my earlier citation of Paine did. But I am gratified to see that other lovers of liberty have come to similar conclusions to my own largely self-taught attempts to make sense of human history.

Belated Thanks ...

... to Michi of Journal of a Girl for the link. I am honored to have anyone as a reader who is willing to lose friends over the truth.

Darfur Drawn

Human Rights watch has posted images of drawings by young children who have escaped from the genocide in Sudan's Darfur region:

On mission along the border of Chad and Darfur, Human Rights Watch researchers gave children notebooks and crayons to keep them occupied while they spoke with the children’s parents. Without any instruction or guidance, the children drew scenes from their experiences of the war in Darfur: the attacks by the Janjaweed, the bombings by Sudanese government forces, the shootings, the burning of entire villages, and the flight to Chad.

Here are a couple of examples:

Human Rights Watch: What’s happening here?
Mahmoud: These men in green are taking the women and the girls.
Human Rights Watch: What are they doing?
Mahmoud: They are forcing them to be wife.

I am looking at the sheep in the wadi. I see Janjaweed coming—quickly, on horses and camels, with Kalashnikovs—shooting and yelling, 'kill the slaves, kill the blacks.'

Nur: This is my brother. He is hiding in Sudan. He is not happy.
Human Rights Watch: Why?
Nur: He wants to learn, to go to school, but he has nothing. Our school was burned.

John Hinderaker of PowerLine comments:

Of course, I still don't have much to say about Darfur. My view is that ordinarily, the United States should intervene abroad only when our own national interests are at stake, and, in addition, humanitarian interests are served, or at least not compromised. It's hard to see any purpose other than the purely humanitarian in stepping into Sudan. That would, ideally, make it a job for the United Nations, I suppose, but the U.N. doesn't do anything that useful--it's too busy denouncing America and Israel--and, truth be told, many U.N. members don't especially disapprove of the conduct of the government of Sudan [...]

There was a time, while I was struggling to make the transition form Liberal to Conservative thinking, when I would have reluctantly agreed with this sentiment for consistency's sake. It makes sense to limit US involvement in light of the fact that resources are inevitably scarce and we can't be everywhere at once.

However, I now believe, as noted below that the Liberals got this one partly right. It is in the long-term interest of the US to put a stop to tyranny and terror, even if there is no immanent threat or pressing national interest. Furthermore, relying on the deliberative facilities offered by the UN is only viable if we can trust the member nations to adhere to civilized standards, which is manifestly not the case. (This is where the Liberals get it wrong.)

If the Bush doctrine of defeating terror through establishing free countries is to be effective, there must be a point at which we are willing to acknowledge that recalcitrant nations must be confronted, even if they do not pose an immediate threat. If US power had been used to intervene in Sudan when Khartoum was oppressing the Southern region, the genocide in Darfur may have been prevented. In this sense, my assertion that "Bush has taken the liberal foreign policy recommendations of the '80s and actually made them work" is diminished by the continuing crisis in Sudan.