We Happy Few

Independence Day

2007-07-04T15:40:00.000-05:00

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor."

-Declaration of Independence

I cannot claim the credit for this observation: every nation has a July 4th. Not every nation has an Independence Day. Invariably, today's opinion pieces across the country will use the national holiday as subject for some editorializing. Your dear Henry is no different, but I thought I would take a slightly different approach. Sure, many people will lament the absence of solemnity on this day, as if the holiday has become an excuse for consumerism or debauchery. Profiteers will laud today as a day of sales. Business will remain open, staffed by those who would enjoy nothing more than to celebrate their freedom with beer and hot dogs.

There will also be those who state that President Bush and the Powers That Be have much maligned our system of legal freedoms, sighing that we no longer have what we once did. Others will celebrate the sacrifices of the fallen, the wounded, and those who serve in Iraq and elsewhere. Finally, some will even say that the decline of America started when Major League Baseball adopted the wild-cards and the playoffs.

All of these are, of course, true because they exist in the minds of people who do have real freedom, freedom to think. If we are to believe the exhaustively researched articles presented this past week in the Washington Post, Vice-President Cheney has done a number on the legal protections created by the Founders. If we see the numbers and the faces of the men and women who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, we can choose to believe they died for a noble cause. Or we can believe their lives are wasted in a fruitless cause, the absurd idea that people elsewhere can govern themselves.

What the events in London this past week demonstrate is that there are those who have freedom to think and there are those who want to take that away. In my opinion, and by God or Allah or Whoever, I have the right to introduce my sentence that way, what we really need to celebrate is not the freedom to act, but the freedom to think. Ugly as it is, those bombers in London have the same rights as the straight-laced Brit. They can think it, malicious and hateful as it is, and that freedom is what people fight to protect.

So, we are in a terrible fix, but the idea is bigger than any one individual or brain-washing terrorist cell or political group. We celebrate Independence Day, warts and all, not on July 4th, but every day.

Henry's Hiatus

2007-06-25T20:50:00.001-05:00

Folks, many many thanks for the well wishes and communications during my hiatus. Amazingly, after six months of no new posts, some of you still visit. Your loyalty alone has brought me back with a promise to be more faithful.

So let's see... I think it best to avoid all the politics until dear Henry gets back on his feet. Instead, I'll pique your interest with a recent book I have just read. The novel, A Good and Happy Child by Justin Evans, tells the story of George Davies who mysteriously cannot come to hold his new born child. After many months, eventually he seeks a therapist who helps him unpack a confusing past. This past entails horrific details that eventually lead adult Davies to begin a series of journals. These journals eventually tell the tale that involves demonic possession, exorcism, murder, and supernatural occurrences.

The novel also brings up serious questions about faith, and thankfully does not devalue or eliminate the notion of faith having a serious and important place in society. It proffers not a political agenda, instead it asks a pertinent question: does evil exist and is faith the way to combat it?

I cannot help but believe that the ubiquity of therapy and therapists is simply a replacement for what the church used to provide. People want to talk to someone who will lend them the patient ear and offer, perhaps, a consoling word. Organized religion has gotten beaten up in years past, but people's personal problems remain. They seek so many answers to dark, hidden questions, and they will willingly pay by the hour to get to the bottom of things.

People often dismiss the church out of convenience. Hence, they make excuses not to visit their place of worship because it intrudes on their personal time. (For the matter of full disclosure, your dear Henry has oft delivered this excuse to his family. Shame on me.) However, who cannot visit a church or cathedral when few are present and not feel some inner calm? That calm is spirit, my friends and dear readers, and spirit is how you combat the uglies deep inside you.

Evans' book is a winner. It abounds with lucid imagery, meticulous research, and creepy tone. Who would know of documented exorcisms that find their ways into his prose? Who would know of accounts of possession and Christianity's answer to the problem if not for one man, Evans, willing to make numerous trips to a library and (GASP!) research actual books that document these events.

So go get it. Here's a link. But read it during the day time. Your imagination will get the better of you, and you might just need to find someone wearing the familiar black and white collar.

Bombs for Parking Decks And Bombs for Liberty

2007-01-02T20:39:00.000-05:00

Inter arma leges silent. - Latin maxim

Happy New Year to my loyal readers. As once professed to me, "the only thing that is certain is change," and 2007 will bring much to celebrate and contemplate.

Consider the recent bombing in Madrid. Apparently, the media in the United States didn't give it much coverage, but your dear Henry P. got plenty of it while traveling in Spain. Yes, days after staring at a large parking deck upon disembarking from my flight, ETA, a local terrorist group, flattened it, killing at least two people. I can only surmise that its limited exposure in the US is due to the fact that ETA in not affiliated with al-Qaeda or any other Muslim extremist group. ETA, the Basque separatists, want, among many demands, to have their own state in the middle of Spain.

Now consider the irony. In 2004, al-Qaeda operatives killed hundreds of people with bombs detonated on the Madrid subway. The Spanish populace responded by voting out the government. Two years later, an old thorn in the Spanish side, ETA, ends the cease-fire. And hours later, your dear Henry P. waded through a protest calling for a new government, one that will deal a fatal blow to the terrorists once and for all. In 2001, US citizens stiffened their resolve to take the fight to the murderers who started it with their hi-jacked planes. We didn't call for resignations.

Consider news of new policies regarding travel to stymie the growing complaints of long lines and delays at security. For a fee, travelers can register with the government, to include an ID card that has a microchip full of data and a fingerprint and retina information for an eye scan. After your background check, you earn a pass for special lines that promise ease and limited lines. If you've read 1984 by Orwell or Brave New World by Huxley, you may think of Lady Macbeth's words, "I feel now/ The future in the instant." We have arrived; you may sacrifice your liberty for convenience. But then you say what difference does it make if you don't participate in terrorism. Never mind the abuses that this system can lead to.

Consider how ideas change; years of patient pressure applied in multiple uncomfortable places. It doesn't occur by voting out an entire government. It doesn't come through appeasement. And it certainly doesn't come by sacrificing the principles that separate us from the medieval knuckleheads who want to enslave the world into a world-wide caliphate.

Consider the Latin above, "in war, the laws are silent."

The Reason for the Season

2006-12-23T21:04:00.000-05:00

While we all wither away in numerous traffic jams and shopping lines, thinking about the "perfect gift" for the child or adult who has everything, I thought I would offer a few thoughts on Christmas.

It is no accident that parents spend lavish amounts of money on Christmas. We are, after all, a nation that believes the "pursuit of happiness" is an endowed right. Any parent, aside from the shamefully negligent, wants to see his or her child smile and be happy, and thus, children can be easily gratified with the latest and greatest. In case you don't believe the youthful exuberance that just the right gift can bring, look at this recent BMW commercial that features a home movie of two youths opening the Christmas present of their dreams. The kids go beserk.

But, this season is also about children. After all, the reason we convene and exchange presents, whether we believe in Christ or not, is to celebrate youth. We gather family around, we exchange gifts, we take a moment to catch our breath. We also take a moment to award youth. As a child, I lay awake for hours hoping that Santa had come. When I grew older, I thought of the presents I was entitled to have by virtue of my hard work in school or my obedience to my household's rules. Now, I just want socks. However, the gifts, even the mundane ones, return us to our youth, when someone else took care of us.

The parent celebrates youth by supplying happiness, and in a way, that adult is reliving those sleepless nights of yesteryear, when a wagon or BB gun or doll would have made him or her go beserk. When Modern Mom can duplicate that feeling in her child, she feels validated and valued. When Modern Dad can savor that moment of anticipation, he can revisit his own parents' delight at his excitement 30 years prior.

More importantly, the season is about a child, one born in the dust and grime, but one born with hope and one born to instill hope. Regardless of how much people buy into the Christian message of this season, they still buy into hope. Even if we lose our collective mind as a society, we will never lose hope. It makes us human.

Merry Christmas (and Hope) to all, and to all a good night.

I Told You So

2006-12-13T17:44:00.000-05:00

"When military service is compulsory, the burden is indiscriminately and equally borne by the whole community. This is another necessary consequence of the social condition of [democracies] and of their notions. The government may do almost whatever it pleases, provided it appeals to the whole community at once."
-Alexis de Toqueville, Democracy in America (trans. by Henry Reeve)

According to today's Washington Post, the US Marine Corps and US Army seek to augment their personnel numbers for future engagements. Your beloved author has discussed this issue in previous posts, and I again mention that the United States has two choices: change foreign policy goals or change the manpower situation.

It still baffles me that Congress, with the exception of New York Democrat Charles Rangle, and the Defense Department maintain that current troop levels and quality of those troops do not necessitate the need for a draft. Rangle's point is more to illustrate the inequity of who shoulders the burden of fighting the wars rather than make the changes to support the current war. But as the article aptly discusses, the potential scenarios that illicit pangs of fear in the Defense Department require numerous and complicated solutions with a military that is basically unable to handle its current demands.

So I ask you a few questions. What happens if:

1. Iran nukes Israel? Either by missile or a truck laden with a nuclear weapon.
2. Pakistan suffers a coup d'etat? (They are a nuclear power, after all.)
3. Refugees from Iraq spill over into neighboring states? Syria and Jordan and Saudi Arabia don't want Palestinian refugees. Why would they accept Iraqis?
4. Other nightmare scenarios in Asia actually occur: North Korea moves South, China crosses the Taiwan Straight?

Some will accuse me of painting the gloomiest of possibilties. But, what will this country do if just one of these events happen when so many of the youth of America shun military service?

Waste Not, Want Not When We Leave

2006-11-28T23:12:00.000-05:00

"Res nolunt diu male administrari. Though no checks to a new evil appear, the checks exist, and will appear. If the government is cruel, the governor’s life is not safe. If you tax too high, the revenue will yield nothing. If you make the criminal code sanguinary, juries will not convict. Nothing arbitrary, nothing artificial can endure. The true life and satisfactions of man seem to elude the utmost rigors or felicities of condition and to establish themselves with great indifferency under all varieties of circumstance. "

-Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays

Henry's back, and I humbly apologize to the loyal readers who have waited entirely too long for my latest attempt to clarify the mud. Much to discuss since the elections, but tonight I turn to the ever worsening situation in Iraq. Pundits and media pollywogs banter endlessly about the definitions of civil war in the Middle East. Generals confidently state conflicting information. The Democrats, spurs sharpened for the stampede towards Rumsfeld that never occurred, look towards a new target. How are we to understand anything, especially to understand chaos?

But, let us ask one question: what happens if we leave?

One idea states outright civil war, bloodshed on a massive scale, unimaginable human suffering. Along with human suffering comes exodus, and refugees destabalize other nations. Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and even Iran lose when the human swarm crosses their borders. The UN will break under the weight of trying to help that many people. The ones who remain will have no choice but to join the local gang for protection. The sticky question with this outcome relates to responsibility: what is the moral responsibility for the nation that caused the power vacuum? If we leave, we answer the question, "nothing."

The other idea is that this civil war has existed for the entire regime of Hussein and his thugs. Like every other civil war studied in theory, one faction of society cannot withstand the oppression any longer. In Iraq, some argue, the current of civil war has built up for decades, and we chipped the dam. In our own case, the US Civil Rights movement was a "peaceful war" in comparison to the US War for Independence where armies lined against each other. Both caused suffering and bloodshed. Both took decades to resolve. But they did conclude.

Emerson's quotation above explains that all matters will resolve, and human societies must thrive in order to survive. Sure, the gloomiest, ghastliest of predictions summon the spectre of a regional nuclear war. Other nasty ones portend the Middle Eastern equivalent of the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand, the single act of violence committed with a pistol that eventually eradicated entire generations in World War I. Who knows how many nations could be absorbed into that type of conflict, but certainly, the world cannot stand idly by when oil costs $300 a barrel.

Emerson's point is that no government can survive, no dire situation can exist ad infinitum. Hussein can no more survive than the Zarqawi lieutenant hoping to replace him in "The Land of Two Rivers." The human spirit, one that repairs, invents, and heals, triumphs in the end. It will be ugly, but freedom will triumph. That's what happens when we leave. The real question is whether or not we can handle the truth of how ugly it will be.

Do You Hear that Howling?

2006-10-18T22:14:00.000-05:00

"I travel the roads of nature until the hour when I shall lie down and be at rest; yielding back my last breath into the air from which I have drawn it daily, and sinking down upon the earth from which my father derived the seed, my mother the blood, and my nurse the milk of my being - the earth for which so many years has furnished my daily meat and drink, and, though so grievously abused, still suffers me to tread its surface."
-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, ( 5.4, trans. by Maxwell Staniforth)

I watched Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth today, and if true, it sure will be more than inconvenient. In the two hour documentary/ lecture, Gore cites compelling evidence that the planet is doomed. Among his most convincing arguments is the statistic that in almost 1000 scientific, scholarly articles, not one scientist disagreed with the fact that the earth is warming and that warming is causing significant, and in most cases, detrimental change to the planet. In the popular media, fifty-three percent of the newspapers and magazines offering commentary on the subject discount the facts of global warming, placing the debate into the political, and not scientific, arena.

Let's forget Al Gore and politics for a second, and let's employ common sense. Irrefutable is the fact that world population continues to increase exponentially as modern medicine and standards of living help preserve life. Now, think about natural selection and animal populations. As habitats change, so do the animals which inhabit them. If the animals cannot find sustainable living, they die out. If they can migrate, they do so and survive in a new location. Take for example the wily coyote in Washington, DC. Yes, in the great Rock Creek Park, the coyote has found refuge and plenty of deer on which to nibble to the consternation of the urbanites who dwell in the nation's capital. Why have they come there? Because the deer cannot survive the sprawl in the suburbs, so they move at night until they find vegitation. For the coyote, it means no natural competition and ample supply of venison. Mother Nature chuckles as the DC Parks Service scratches heads to find the answer to ridding the park of the carnivores. They'll be there tomorrow and next week and next. Take that to the bank.

Common Sense tells us that more people mean more demands on the planet's resources. More demands mean the strong will survive. Those with water, fossil fuels, and agriculture will be sitting pretty as the human migration to find that sustainable habitat occurs. Human coyotes in the middle of a protected park.

The movie also suggests one solution: government standards for fuel efficiency in cars and trucks. As the recent spike in gas prices has taught us in the past, the oil faucet can be stopped with the flick of the OPEC wrist. Venezuela's Chavez and Iran's Ahmadinejad wring wrists and lick chops to put the U.S. in their economic vise and crank away. However, the movie also points out that the automobile companies that earn the most profit are not the gas-guzzling makers in Detroit but those of Asia. Gore even suggests that Toyota and Honda's success has occurred because of their products' burning fuel more efficiently and cleanly. Why then would we want Uncle Sam to lift the hood and tweak Ford's engine? Let the market decide. Eventually, people won't be able to pay the price of filling up their GM SUV, and they'll wise up.

Marucs Aurelius, the Roman emperor, wrote the words above as he traveled the various regions of the empire with his armies. He reflected often upon the inner working of the soul, and how it relates to the larger, outer world of Nature that surrounds us all. What he understood is that we are on loan to the earth, and Mother Nature will have the last word. If we destroy ourselves, something will replace us. If we want to prevent it, however, the debate has to rage in the public arena with hard science, not with political puffing of someone who wants to re-enter the race or someone who wants to stay on retainer for the Big Oil companies. Otherwise, bet on the coyotes.

Why We Love Sports

2006-10-03T21:36:00.000-05:00

"Three times he charged in with the force of the running war god, screaming a terrible cry, and three times he cut down nine men; but as for the fourth time he swept in, like something greater than human, there, Patroklos, the end of your life was shown forth."
- Homer, Iliad, 16.784-7, translated by Lattimore

I have thought long about where athletics fit into the curricula of schools. On one hand, in most cases, modern universities supply the opportunity for advanced education to those who may not otherwise afford it. It makes little logical sense to award money to those athletes to follow academic study when, in reality, the university pays them for their physical gifts. And most of us know of the numerous abuses of this system: cheating, double standards between athletes and non-athletes, countless instances of bad behavior from driving under the influence to rape. On the other hand, the athletic team delivers valuable instruction where the classroom cannot: collaborative effort, loyalty to a common cause, and collective triumph over or shared defeat by a clearly defined adversary. These lessons make successful athletes into successful leaders and citizens.

I have also wondered why athletics captures such a major portion of our time. From water cooler talk about Monday night football to the awe inspired by Tiger Woods from the innumerable sports "talk" shows on TeeVee and radio to the ubiquity of televised satellite packages, we live in a nation voraciously consuming sports. So why, in a nation apparently overworked, stressed-out, obese, and beholden to Total Entertainment with its infinite choices, do we spend so much time watching others perform physical acts? While many Americans engage in physical activity every day, far more prefer to prop up the loafers on the ottoman than tie up the running shoes.

After witnessing the triumph of the Washington Redskins at FedEx stadium in a thrilling overtime game on Sunday, I found part of the answer: the tribe. Despite numerous admonitions from social moralists about the ever increasing introversion of our citizenry (see iPod earphones everywhere and no one talking to each other?), we still live in regionalized tribes. We have some connection to the teams we worship, whether it be because we attended the university or we have lived just miles from home field or a grandparent once rooted for that team, and doggoneit we are going to preserve our memory of Grandma by loving the Fighting Irish with equivalent zeal. The tribe sends its warriors out to battle the neighboring enemy, and when the warriors return, the tribe knows they have done their best to protect those who did not fight. Naturally, Santana Moss's touchdown in overtime doesn't mean that I won't have trouble with those pesky people from Jacksonville, but in a subconscious way, I know he has saved me. He has saved me from defeat, and therefore, I am preserved. He does what I don't have to do: train for hours and compete in the physical arena. I share his victory.

In Iliad Patroklos abuts his own mortality, and we can rejoice in his teetering walk on the cliff of his humanity for he has both courage and aplomb. Sadly, in this moment of horrific dramatic irony, we know more than the warrior. While Patroklos plunges headlong into the chaos, we know he will soon perish. In this moment we celebrate his triumph, his brutality, and his raw aggression, and we celebrate it because we do not need to confront it in ourselves. He dies so we don't have to, and we laud him for his courage. We share his sacrifice.

Reality TeeVee has always humored me with its paradox. How can anything be real on TeeVee, especially when contrived by Hollywood/NYC executives who value only shock value to generate revenue? The popularity of these shows reveal that we crave something spectacular to divorce us from the mundane of life, but in order for it to work, it must be somewhat real. Sports provide just the panacea for our lives confined by cubicles and air-conditioning. It returns us to the tribe; it gives us that moment when we struggle against our enemy and save our kinsmen. And we don't need hours in the weightroom to feel good. Someone else will plunge headlong into the chaos for us.

The Warrior's Ethos

2006-09-24T22:18:00.000-05:00

"On what foundation stands the warrior's pride?"
- Samuel Johnson, The Vanity of Human Wishes

Dr. Johnson's question relates to the recent assessment of the war in Iraq. The Washington Post points to another source that the war proceeds into the quagmire that will bankrupt the United States in personnel and materiel. The quagmire, according to the article, has spread to the rest of the world because of American intervention in the Middle East. Perhaps this assertion will prove correct after the years of looking back, the historians' analyses, and the result of years of terrorist attacks on the homeland. But tonight, I thought I would use Dr. Johnson to explore what is so different between the two opposing forces. What causes men (and in the case of the United States, women) to plunge into the meat grinder?

For the jihadists, absolute truth exists. Unlike many Americans who believe that an individual defines truth set by some vague parameters based in religion, law, upbringing, the Islamists know for certain that the promise of paradise is granted for the ultimate sacrifice. Their leaders, the ones who easily send the young on suicide missions, may have alternative motives: power, money, status. If martyrdom were indeed so important to those who preach it, why would they not strap on the TNT belt and plunge into the next Baghdad cafe that they see? Thus, the warrior's pride rests on a promise, governed by the Supreme Being, but delivered through earthly intermediaries who have their own agenda. Might as well use the poor and destitute to get what you want if they are willing to go to Heaven for it.

For the servicemen and women in the United States, their pride rests on something different. The cynic will state that socio-economics influences enlistment in the miltiary. The cynics are partially correct, and the lack of particpation from scions of the upper and upper middle class proves this argument. However, the military, and in particular the combat units, swell their ranks with those volunteering for hazardous duty. Some join the military to pay for something they need or want: college, a chance to abandon their small towns, a dream of independence from poverty or to gain a job skill. But for the most part, the "trigger pullers" are men and women who want to serve at the edge of their own humanity, and they serve there so that others do not. In the heat of combat, loyalty to fellow unit members sustains the fight.

Thus, when we look at the combatants in this war, the War of Ideology that I have oft discussed, we see that a promise of paradise fights the promise of duty. Sure, the politicians drape themselves in Old Glory and speak of how soldiers and Marines want to spread democracy and provide a better life for the Iraqi people. Although I cannot quote any imam from Iraq, I imagine that their message sounds similar, that they will provide something for their people that Democracy and Capitalism cannot. In short, they fear what we guarantee, a chance for the individual to make up his mind about religion, politics, who shall be his friend, and whom he shall marry. In the ranks of the US military, you find many who serve for a promise, but in this case one given from the combatant to its citizens. Unlike his enemy, the Marine kicking in doors in Fallujah is guaranteed no eternal paradise. Instead, that Marine promises the citizens who sent him there, as General Robert E. Lee once said, "to do [his] duty in all things. [He] cannot do more. [He] should never wish to do less." His warrior's pride originates from the promise, but we depend on it, whether we support the war or not.

Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Hurting U.S. Terror Fight

2006-09-24T22:13:00.000-05:00

The war in Iraq has become a primary recruitment vehicle for violent Islamic extremists, motivating a new generation of potential terrorists around the world whose numbers may be increasing faster than the United States and its allies can reduce the threat, U.S. intelligence analysts have concluded.

read more | digg story

Israel to withdraw all troops from Lebanon by weekend

2006-09-19T22:20:00.000-05:00

Israel's military chief told lawmakers Tuesday that it plans to withdraw all its remaining troops from Lebanon by this weekend, meeting a key requirement of a cease-fire that ended the 34-day war against Hezbollah guerrillas.

read more | digg story

77% Americans Believe Iran going "Nuclear Soon"

2006-09-16T20:54:00.000-05:00

Most doubt that anything can be done to prevent such a development.

read more digg story

A Goosestep Down Memory Lane

2006-09-16T20:08:00.000-05:00

"What Wonder then, fair Nymph! thy Hair shou'd feel,
The conqu'ring Force of unresisted Steel?"
- Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock

The last line of Canto III from Pope's mock heroic poem blisters the mind with a concept of horrific consequences. Think of the Nazis' march through France in World War II to understand it. "Bon jour, mes amis d'Allemagne, now take away our citizens whom you deem unworthy. Do whatever you wish to them, and we will avert our eyes."

Now, the Nations of the World for Appeasement and Cowardice, formerly known on We Happy Few as "The United Nations", willfully accept the proliferation of nuclear weapons in a regime that has vowed to decimate the nation of Israel. And with all the Shia and Sunni discord in Iraq, Saudi Arabia may be next on the hit list. According to a recent poll from Rasmussen Reports, seventy-seven percent of Americans believe Iranian President Ahmadinejad will summon the Nuclear Genie and make his three wishes. More importantly, forty percent believe the World can stop Iran; thirty five percent have resigned to Iran's possessing the Big Fireworks.

The United States will, once again, sally forth isolated from the world community. Amazingly, the NWAC (again, formerly the UN), its European bench-warmers, and the rest of the Hangers-On will take the risk of a regional nuclear conflict in the Middle East. Maybe people really do not care if Iran blows up Israel, but they will care if the Saudis and their wells get blown to smithereens. How does $250-a-barrel sound? Hard to drive the Autobahn when the gas costs as much as the leather seats in a Mercedes.

According to the Washington Post, the US Treasury has now crafted a plan to exert economic pressure on Iran and the financial instituions around the world that knowingly or unknowingly feed the Beast. Thus, while diplomatic means seem to have vanished from Kofi Annan Headquarters, the Greenback and the G7 nations can at least agree to slow Iran's progress.

Let's see which governments honor this commitment. Otherwise, the 21st century's "unresisted steel" may be more horrific than the last century's.

The American Achilles

2006-09-10T10:13:00.000-05:00

“For this cause he sent me to instruct you in all these matters, to be both a speaker of words and a doer of deeds."
- Phoenix, Iliad, (9.440-1)

Petulant and arrogant, Achilles removes himself from the battlefield on the windy plain of Troy because his king, Agamemnon, has insulted him. The king knows he cannot win the battle without the brutal and skilled warrior, so he sends a delegation to convince Achilles to return to the ranks. Agamemnon also knows the fastest way home is to secure the destruction of Troy. Phoenix, a former warrior and current counselor to the king, arrives in the distant tent of Achilles and announces his purpose, to instruct the younger man to both "speak" and "do". The leader cannot perform one without the other.

On the international stage, a violent and horrific drama continues to play. In today's Washington Post, Senator John McCain and former Senator Bob Dole compare the current situation in Sudan, replete with its massacre and displacement of civilians, to the not-so-distant crisis in Bosnia and Serbia. Instead of invoking the equally apt comparison to Hitler's reign of terror, Messrs. McCain and Dole pull from recent memory as if to say "here we are again." In the mid-1990s the UN, NATO, Europeans, and Americans acted in concert to prevent a spreading genocide. Even with this effort, the brutality shocked the world. But it was stopped.

Let us also realize the opportunity here for the United States. The Sudanese government has allied with the Janjaweed militias, a group of Islamic radicals. Some, but not all, of their actions spring from the radicalized worship they practice. These militias systematically rape, torture, and murder non-Muslim Sudanese civilians, described, of course, as rebels against the government. The opportunity for the United States is to fight another battle in the 21st century War of Ideology. The Sudanese want protection and food not democratic reforms. We should provide the former as the initial salvo launched at those governments who prefer to destroy its citizenry rather than provide for it.

Fareed Zakaria, in his book The Future of Freedom, explains that economic reform and its corollary, taxes, develop and sustain democracy. In essence, without a vibrant middle-class that pay fair taxes to the government, democratic reforms are doomed. He states that governments, such as Saudi Arabia which receives no income from taxes, offer the promise of "we don't ask much of you economically and we don't give much to you politically" (p. 76). In this War of Ideology in the Sudan theatre, the United States has the opportunity to reverse this promise by providing the essential protection of life that would allow the oppressed population to grow and develop its own economic resources. In short, the War of Ideology is about "what do I get with radicalized Islam versus a legitimate capitalist/democratic government." If we cannot provide more than the Islamic radicals, then we will lose 10 times out of 10.

Phoenix's call to Achilles rings throughout the halls of Congress and down Pennsylvania Avenue. We have begun speaking the words; now we must do the deeds.

Just Watching Movies in the Basement, Dad

2006-09-01T06:18:00.000-05:00

"For what so that this carpenter answered,
It was for nought: no man his reasoning heard;
With others so great he was put down
That he was thought mad by all the town."
- Chaucer, The Miller's Tale

In Chaucer's tale a jealous, yet simple and kind carpenter, John, hosts a young student, Nicholas, during the boy's stay in college. Nicholas, a crafty and testosterone-laden youth, convinces his host that a great flood will come to destroy the entire town, and John must build some tubs to save all John, his wife, Alison, and Nicholas. While awaiting the flood, Nicholas and Alison descend from the tubs to fulfill their natural, sexual desires, and when the final scene unfolds, John, now the cuckold, is considered the fool of the town. When his neighbors come to his house, all delight in his impotence and ignorance.

Today, two different countries cuckold Old Man United Nations. First, according to today's Washington Post, Sudan's leader, Lt. Gen. Omar Hassan al -Bashir rejected a UN mandate to place troops in Darfur in order to stop the carnage on the civilians caught in a power struggle between the Sudanese government and the rebels. Second, Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, ignored the UN deadline to halt its nuclear program. Now he and his country, with enormous oil reserves, face economic sanctions.

What will the United Nations do? Tighten the belt on Sudan, one of the poorest nations on the planet? If that course occurs, the Sudanese government will suffer nothing as its population dwindles on the edge of extinction. Those in power will get their money the old fashioned way, they will steal it. For Iran, limit the nation's ability to export oil while world-wide supplies deminish and demand increases? Will the European nations, Russia, China, and for that matter the United States tolerate $100-a-barrel oil in order to stiffle the Iranian economy?

Niall Ferguson in his book, Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire, cites that Woodrow Wilson envisioned the League of Nations, the UN's predecessor, "would not merely guarantee the territorial integrity of its member states but might consider making future territorial adjustments 'pursuant to the principle of self-determination'" (p. 63). Years later, the Nazis rose to power through self-determining, democratic elections and began violating borders as soon as they could. The embers of the League extinguished on the day Germany invaded Poland. Now, the world witnesses similar defiance. What will stop the genocide, estimated to have cost 450,000 lives according to the Washington Post article above, when a dictator refuses to allow the UN troops to enter? What will stop the Iranians from developing a weapon to realize their deepest, seediest desire, "wiping [Israel] off the map"?

Unless you favor continued mass killing and future nation-sinking, diplomacy in a vacuum will not produce a peaceful solution. In Chaucer's tale, the neighbors perpetuate the crime, the humiliation of a man who had offered his home to a homeless student. The neighbors join in the fun and make no moral stand. The joke, the "nudge-nudge, wink-wink" between neighbor and reader, continues in front of the oblivious and helpless John. In this world stage, the Two Rogues have rendered the UN impotent because of the fracture within the security council. For example, in the Darfur resolution to commit troops, a resolution approved 12-0, China, Russia, and Qatar abstained. Why? Surely, those nations cannot believe mass killing a resonable activity for a government to perform. Likewise, in the case of Iran, Russia and China, and in many ways France, oppose the diplomatic objectives of the United States and Britain; thus, President Bush retorts that the US will go it alone and all responses are possible. Surely, the Chinese, Russians, and French cannot believe another Middle East war, either nuclear or conventional, to be a positive development in the progress of man.

These complicated situations warrant complicated solutions, but in reality, the Chinese and Russians have tremendous power to resolve them peacefully. They must make the just decision, to commit the men and materiel to stop both, and ignore their desire to counteract US hegemony. Otherwise, the UN peacefully sleeps, blissfully ignorant of all the sneaky behavior occuring downstairs.

The World's Most Famous Question

2006-08-25T07:08:00.000-05:00

"To be or not to be - that is the question." - Hamlet

In the days that follow his father's funeral, Hamlet utters perhaps the most famous line in English literature. Bereft, confused, depressed, Hamlet seeks to order the chaos that has become his daily life. His question, posed here, leads to an inquiry into suicide, whether or not it can provide the panacea for all of Hamlet's trouble. The play becomes one man's journey to participate or withdraw from life.

One of the loyal readers of We Happy Few has asked me to discuss the idea of citizenship, its obligations and its benefits, in American society. Only a few days ago, the US government recalled several thousand Marines from their civilian lives to active duty, according to this article in the Washington Post. To clarify for all readers here, the Marines divide their reserve into two components: an "active reserve", that drills monthly and trains for two weeks in the summer, and an "inactive reserve", that does not require any drilling. Those on the inactive ready reserve or IRR remain there to fulfill their final obligation for voluntary service to the United States. Essentially, they lead civilian lives until a major manpower shortage renders their duty essential. Because they are Marines, they accept these recalls and report despite disruption to families, businesses, etc.

The US maintains a military presence on every continent, and at the current time, our strategic goals and manpower to implement those goals do not coincide. Two events will happen: either US foreign policy will change or more people will be added to the ranks of the military. Thus, the Marines on the IRR call-up exemplify this process. The government will get the troop numbers it needs before it changes its global strategy. Manpower, believe it or not, is easier to solve than US foreign policy.

But from where will these bodies come? Much has been made in public and private conversations about the relative lack of participation of the American elite in the ranks of the military. Much has been made of the paucity of public officials who neither served themselves nor have offspring who have joined the military. Much has been made about how the US entangled itself in this mess and how we can't seem to get out of it.

A few weeks ago, I engaged in a debate with some dinner partners who are exceptionally brilliant people. They, admitted detractors of the President and his policies, could not understand why we had engaged in this war and why we could not get the troops home. Additionally, they could not understand why more people had not risen up in the streets to protest this war that will kill our youth and bleed our treasury. I countered that the few people felt the pain of the war, and the sons and daughters of the rich and powerful are not dying in the impoverished streets of Baghdad. After all, the US Civil War ended because the pain of 600,000 American deaths brought both sides to the table with the South unequivocally surrendering.

But the problem is more severe than a military engagement in the Middle East. The problem originates with the perception that rights are granted for free, and that someone else will do the dirty work. The thinking that "because I pay my taxes, I am participating" eventually will financially and socially bankrupt our country. In Israel, where everyone in the country serves in the active military and reserve for most of his or her life, government officials do not take military decisions lightly. Because every one participates, every one bears the pain.

Thus, pose Hamlet's question to those around you, to those who this month begin their college careers, to those who three months ago finished theirs. Will they "be"; will they participate, will they actively do more than working towards personal goals? Or will they "not be"; will they prefer someone else to do the work that must be done? And then ask the question of yourself.

Another Round in the Never-Ending Slugfest

2006-08-19T10:00:00.000-05:00

"'Now in Latium the state of affairs was such that they could endure neither war nor peace.' Of all unhappy states the unhappiest is that of a prince or a republic brought to the extreme where it cannot accept peace or sustain war."
- Niccolo Machiavelli quoting Livy, Discourses on Livy, II.23 (trans. by Tarcov)

Two recent developments elucidate the continuing conflict between Israel and Hezbollah/Syria/Iran. First, the Israeli military has a chink in the armor, causing considerable nervousness at home with its citizens and stiffened resolve abroad with its enemies. According to the Washington Post, the Israeli military received the first bloody nose to its reputation as one of the world's most lethal fighting forces, and that wound has stirred anxiety from Tel Aviv to Haifa to Negev. All militaries worth any salt, by nature, will examine and re-examine their structure and training, probing for weaknesses, and undoubtedly, the Israeli Defense Forces will emerge from this recent skirmish with more rigorous training and a new commitment to applying overwhelming force. To quote Ross MacKenzie of the Richmond Times Dispatch, "the rule for the Israelis is the first war we lose is the last one we fight."

Second, the latest chapter in the peace process has already ended, and the war chapter resumes. According to the Washington Post, Israeli special forces sought to prevent the resupply and rearming of Hezbollah units. The IDF interdiction force, small and stealthy, battled Hezbollah forces and apparently suffered casualties. The Israelis claim the mission proved successful.

Both of these developments reveal that Israel has now occupied the dangerous middle that Machiavelli describes above. The legend of Israel's military contributed to many of her enemies staying home and avoiding prolonged battle. Sure, punks have taken potshots at the IDF over the years, but few nations have attempted full engagement. Now, Hezbollah is emboldened by its perceived success. Likewise, Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad, now licks his chops for a chance at Golan Heights. Others must be saying that Israel is prime for the taking. At this moment, Israel can neither withstand more war nor can she accept the peace offered by the UN. The fact that the IDF sent a covert force to do what the Israeli Air Force had done before the cease-fire reflects a weakened resolve, possibly beholden to international pressure to stop the conflict. But then again, everyone in the world except the Bush administration and many American citizens blame Israel for this conflict.

The issue here is how force is used and to what political end is sought. Livy and Machiavelli describe that the Romans offered the Latins, engaged in open rebellion against the state , two choices: citizenship and peace or total annihilation. Reaching this point, however, required an initial committment, as ugly as it may be, to victory. Peace settled through an intermediary neither effected it nor made it last. Crippled, the rebels had no choice but to accept the honor to join the citizenry of the Roman republic, and Rome survived because she stayed out of the middle.

Many in the Israeli government will demand changes in the military because they will sense, as the Roman Senate once did, that only victory assures peace. An armed Hezbollah will not sue for peace. A broken and defeated Hezbollah will.

Senator Knucklehead goes South South West

2006-08-16T07:11:00.000-05:00

"Great indeed is the admiration aroused by an eloquent and wise speaker, whose hearers judge him wiser, and more understanding, too, than the rest. And if in such a speech there is also weightiness blended with modesty, then no achievement can be more admirable; and all the more so if these qualities are found in a young man." - Cicero, On Duties, 2.48 (ed. Griffin and Atkins)

Many have argued that the 20th century sound-bite, brought into American homes via the television, killed oratory. Whereas Lincoln produced the Gettysburg Address and Washington delivered his famous Second Inaugural, modern leaders strive only to utter one sentence or two that the media will repeat ad nauseum. Hence, the oratorical success of today is to beat a phrase into constituents' heads.

Despite the television's assault on the human brain and the evidence that it turns one's brain to spiceless gazpacho, people have not totally become unthinking, unfeeling beings. Thus, politicians still must tour, greet people, and when called to do so, speak to more than just a harem of television cameras and snappily dressed reporters. Voters still expect to hear leaders in the flesh.

Senator George Allen learned a vicious lesson about the sound-bite. While it needs only to burrow in your brain for success, it can also step outside, grab you by the trouser leg and slam you mercilessly to the ground, over and over again. According to an article in The Washington Post, Allen, speaking to a crowd in southwestern Virginia, ridiculed his opponent's volunteer employee and uttered the word "macaca" while publicly addressing the young man, SR Sidarth. Sidarth, an American of Indian descent, took umbrage with the statement. His opponent, James Webb, accused Allen of rascism. Allen retorted he meant no offense, and he then listed several excuses for using the term.

No one, including Allen, can say for sure what exactly he intended. Herein lies the problem, in three possibilities: either Senator Allen made a rascist comment in public about another person; or he equated the term "macaca" to Mr. Sidarth's hairstyle, a mullet; or he delivered a speech in which he did not know the meaning of the word he used. When compared to the quotation above from the Roman senator, Cicero, all three of these possibilities reveal a major failure of a leader.

First, if he intended to belittle a citizen based on race, Senator Allen is foolish and mean. His remarks stir only the nasty to laugh and the level-headed to turn away. If he tried to make "macaca" sound like "mohawk," he proves he cannot speak eloquently. We are, after all, what we say, and eloquence and precision of language counts. If he does not know the meaning of the words that he says, then he is ignorant. All leave little to celebrate for a leader of the state and the nation.

Cicero wants the leaders, both old and young, of a republic to realize that words reflect character. Weightiness implies wisdom; modesty implies humility. No matter how fast human lives become, people still value these qualities. On the day when the census reminds that in Washington and elsewhere new hopefuls immigrated here by the thousands and have now become millions of residents, Senator Allen should note that voters still want their best emotions stirred. People will vote for more than just a sound-bite, Senator, but they will reject the unadmired and unwise.

Chalk Another One Up for the Good Guys

2006-08-14T15:16:00.000-05:00

Since last week, the details of the recent plot to destroy planes and murder people over the Atlantic have dribbled out of the United Kingdom. While many questions remain, the leaders of the United States and Great Britain remind that we still fight a pitched battle with Islamic madmen. The plot has shocked many of the law abiding, but it really should not. We are fighting a war against people who see no value in law, secularism, and justice meted out from human judges. Their energy comes from the purely emotional: fear, anger, hate, revenge.

More astounding are the apologists, those concerned with the "fairness" of treatment for the terrorists, those who resent the term "Islamic fascists", those who criticize the US for failing to act as thoroughly as British gendarmes, those who laud the savvy of the terrorist enemy. While the crafty terrorists indeed have adapted, morphed into a lethal virus despite increased surveillance on all their activities, the victory for the Good Guys recently proves that the West can adapt quicker than they can. Will the terrorists exploit a weakness? Perhaps, and given that we live in an open society that allows individuals to worship and speak as they please, we will always permit the fear, anger, hate, and revenge that they preach. However, with each criminal act they dream up, there are millions of citizens who love the life of freedom. We win, hands down, in the clash of civilizations. They will never birth the caliphate on the shores of democracy.

Recently, I read an article by Richard Haass, a brilliant man with a superb diplomatic pedigree, that challenges the semantics of the "war on terrror." Part of his thesis contends that we need not think of this as war, replete with militaries, battles, uniforms, conventions, etc. Instead, we, as the targets of terror, need to accept its lethality as a part of quotidian life. "Terror" is not an enemy but a disease, and we can no more purge it from our lives as we can the threat of cancer. Better to prevent than defeat it.

Haass makes other salient points about the conflict: the uselessness of believing democracy means unequivocal peace in the Middle East, the need for enhanced police work, the imperative of denuding terrorism of its appeal. However, I challenge this assertion that we should abandon the metaphor of "war on terrorism" because, according to Haass, wars begin and end, and this one will not. If we examine the history of the 20th century, we find several instances when ideologies were defeated by arms and diplomacy. Nazism and its ugly step-sister, Communism, were defeated by short wars of combat and long wars of diplomacy, economic pressure, and covert activity. Imperial Japan was defeated and occupied and then produced a capitalist democracy that has become a legitimate economic world power. Likewise, Germany, divided and occupied, revealed what exactly was at stake: West Germany thrived while East Germany descended into the totalitarian nightmare that was the utopian promise of Mother Russia.

Terrorism acts on impulses sent from the Ideology Nerve Center, the Islamic fascism that shuns modernity and economic prosperity. We must wage this war in the same manner that we defeated the Soviets, with careful and patient economic pressure and a publicly spoken recognition that we are fighting a belief that threatens the way of life for millions of freedom loving people around the world. The shopkeepers of Bali hardly want Australian tourists to remain at home. And neither should we.

A Connecticut Yankee in the Athenian Court

2006-08-10T08:09:00.000-05:00

The politician said, "I am the same man and do not alter, it is you who change, since in fact you took my advice while unhurt, and waited for misfortune to repent of it; and the apparent error of my policy lies in the infirmity of your resolution, since the suffering that it entails is being felt by everyone among you, while its advantage is still remote and obscure to you all, and a great and sudden reverse having befallen you, your mind is too depressed to persevere in your resolves" (The Landmark Thucydides, 2.61, translated by Strassler).

Was that the speech of defeated Senator Joe Lieberman? No, but today Old Joe woke up and must have thought that Pericles got it right when Athens was fighting Sparta in a war for survival. The people of Connecticut, like their spiritual Athenian kin, had had enough of this silly conflict, and now it was time to get the bum out who supported all this icky violence. Amazing how quickly all of Joe Lieberman's former allies jumped onto newcomer Ned Lamont's Democratic yacht and sailed for calmer waters. Sure, alliances in politics are fickle, and Senator Lieberman cannot expect to have support when he has been voted a has-been.

If you believe MoveOn Poltical Action Committee executive director, Eli Pariser, you would conclude that Lamont's victory begins the end for the Republicans. In his column in today's Washington Post, Pariser states that the Lieberman, etal.'s policy of triangulation, "the policy of seizing the middle ground no longer makes sense in an era when any attempt at bipartisanship is understood as a sign of Democratic weakness and exploited accordingly." Never mind that Lieberman carries more credibility with both parties than any other senator because he actually has conviction. Never mind that Lieberman is trying to work from the position of the minority with an administration and Congress dominated by Republican idealogues. Never mind that Lieberman does not sway, neither in his support for liberal Democratic policies nor in his calculated understanding that we have serious foreign policy concerns that cannot be simply mended with a cursory "just bring 'em all home." Never mind that Pariser and his ilk predict a metastasizing cancer of Republican defeat due to the primary loss of one of the only Democrats with actual power in Washington. Never mind logic while you're at it.

If you believe the lead editorial of the Washington Post, you won't buy MoveOn's assumption, and you won't believe that Old Joe is a has-been. Here, the Post editors make the correct argument that statesmanship, Lieberman's ability to reach "across the aisle in an effort to cooperate," made him a "sap" in the eyes of voters. In fact Lieberman's defeat yesterday may be an enormous mistake by the Democrats. Imagine Old Joe triumphantly returning to Washington with no strings attached to his golden chariot. Woe to you who abandoned him if you don't capture control of Congress.

Senator Lieberman understands that, like Pericles, he has not changed but the resolve of 300,000 primary voters has. Irony abounds when we hear the Democrats call for bi-partisanship in the age when President Bush refuses to compromise, and then the Democratic leadership turns on the one man in the Senate whom people believed could work with the other side. More irony and some healthy servings of humilty on the way for Senator Clinton and her band of merry Lamont Who? supporters. Maybe they should figure out a way to reach "across the aisle" before November.

A Banjo's Guide to Peace

2006-08-08T16:00:00.000-05:00

What is peace? The obvious answer, and therefore incomplete, might be an absence of war. Is it a time and place when all people live harmoniously? If we judge with that standard, we might think of Heraclitus, "From the strain of binding opposites comes harmony" (translated by Brooks Haxton.) Harmony, justice, equality, words that conjure the idea of peace, but do not entirely define it.

Heraclitus considers the lute when he writes his maxim. (For our purposes, we will consider the lute's more attractive descendant, the banjo.) The string, bound at two end pegs and pulled taught over a drum, produces a correct sound when struck. If either end releases its hold, the string will slacken and fail to emit the proper note. The string must have tension.

The commentators, politicians, and combatants on both sides of the major conflicts of the world all profess a desire for peace, naturally under conditions that the other side deems entirely unacceptable. Iraq, for example, teeters on the edge of civil war according to some experts. Others, including President Bush, deny the possibility of civil war due to the success of the elections. It may be impossible for us to know if Iraq has descended into civil war until the bloodletting really begins. Terrifying to contemplate that the carnage has not yet begun should civil war result in Iraq.

However, before we make this judgment or define the criteria for civil war in Iraq, let's look back to the Romans on the eve of their civil war. Julius Caesar's famous crossing of the Rubicon begins the demise of the Roman republic. As the civil war ensues, one Roman senator, Marcus Tullius Cicero, flees the general and his minions. Realizing that capture means death, Cicero pens his last work, On Duties, for his last lesson to restore the republic should Caesar's dictatorship fail. As we know, it did not. However, the constructs for republic lie clearly explained in this text. He says, "Our concern should always be for a peace that will have nothing to do with treachery" (1.35, translated by Griffin and Atkins).

Thus, how can justice and its companion, peace, be provided to the people of Iraq? First, justice is not revenge. Can the Middle East shirk its love affair with revenge? Second, justice is self-evident. Can the Middle East eliminate corruption? Third, justice, in a governmental sense, is secular. Can the Middle Eastern governments abandon theocracy as the first principle of government? Intuitively, I believe that the answers to these questions are "yes." I invite any reader to explain how.

Without justice, peace is an illusion, complete with tacit, disguised threats of violence and revenge. But without the inherent "banjo-string" tension of opposing parties, harmony is as much illusion. The fledgling democracies of Iraq and Lebanon must have citizens who, despite their differences, believe in the secular and not divine sense of justice. Let God have His due in Armageddon, but for now, the only hope on Earth is for people to appeal to their reason and prop up the rule of law not the rule of the bullet. As Cicero said before his impending execution, "nothing is liberal if it is not also just" (1.43).

Paris in the Heart of America

2006-08-01T12:14:00.000-05:00

MoveOn.org of Michael Moore fame has created another amazing publicity campaign. Currently, I am attending a seminar at a small liberal arts college in the heart of the United States. Upon entering the library, the academic center of the campus, I noticed a flier entitled, "Are You Feeling a Draft?" with President Bush cariacatured to resemble Uncle Sam. The flier, created by the student wing of MoveOn, details the current military crisis, shortage of manpower, and delivers the tirade against the President for his malfeasance. Fair enough considering libraries and colleges exist to stimulate discussion and debate.

However, its concluding paragraph is most striking: "So unless you like the idea of graduate school in Fallujah, we need to pay careful attention to what our President is saying, versus what it really means." Take a moment to think about what this organization touts in this flier. Regardless of the soldiers and Marines who serve in Iraq think about the political failures or successes of the war, they nonetheless serve under the command of the President. In most cases, these soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, of whom an enormous majority do not have the benefit of a college education, volunteer to resign control of their life. The word "service", often uttered with respect given to those willing to perform it, originates from the Latin word, "servare." That Latin word does not mean, "to do something so others don't have to." It means "to save." That definition finds no footing in MoveOn's flier. Instead, MoveOn lauds the cowardice of those privileged enough to pay for education but savvy enough to duck responsibility. MoveOn instills fear in place of honor. MoveOn wants the college elite to question their future. MoveOn rewrites the definition, "you do it so I don't have to."

Let us turn back 3000 years for a m0ment to consider cowardice. Its defintion proves elusive, but its examples abound. In Homer's Iliad, Hektor stands with wife and child as the Greeks besiege his city of Troy. Hektor, cognizant of his impending death, holds his own child aloft and exclaims, "Zeus, and you other immortals, grant that this boy, who is my son, may be as I am, pre-eminent among the Trojans, great in strength, as I am, and rule strongly over Ilion: and some day let them say of him: 'He is better than his father' (6.476-9, translated by Lattimore). Hektor does not flee the way Paris, the cause of the conflict, does in a previous military engagement. Paris, the younger Trojan, favors the pleasures of the bedroom to the duty of the battlefield. He is the quintessential college libertine. Hektor cannot flee from his obligations for in addition to the Trojan citizenry, his son, wife, and reputation as a leader depend upon his courage. Paris has no such obligation.

Any successful, lasting society must instill the value of earning, not granting, privileges. Our society will be "saved" by those who understand it.

The Chicken or the Egg?

2006-07-28T07:10:00.000-05:00

And so, who is at fault for starting the latest chapter in the Great Conflagration of modern history, the ongoing conflict between Israel and Everybody Else? Assessing blame entails weighing opinion of who wronged whom, who stole whose sheep, who killed whose neighbor with little definitive answer.

Intelligent people, however, can assess the nature of war and its relationship to government and those opposed to that government. Let us look to a work that influenced our foundation in the United States, Englishman John Locke's Second Treatise of Government, chapter 3: "I should have the right to destroy that which threatens me with destruction: for, by the fundamental law of nature, man being preserved as much as possible, when all cannot be preserved, the safety of the innocent is to be preferred: and one may may destroy a man who makes war upon him, or has discovered an enmity to his being, for the same reason that he may kill a wolf or a lion; because such men are not under the ties of the commonlaw of reason, have no other rule, but that of force and violence, and so may be treated as beasts of prey... And hence it is, that he who attempts to get another into his absolute power, does thereby put himself into a state of war war with him."

Locke's work defines the two rival forces as adhering to reason or not. Let us use that criteria for assessing blame. Hezbollah is a stateless enemy, an organization, elected by no one, whose confessed purpose is to destroy the government and people of Israel. The Israeli government, a fairly elected democratic government, has the stated purpose to protect its citizens. Hezbollah touts the doctrine of "force and violence", and in Locke's definition, therefore, it subscribes to the law of the jungle, the unreasonable kingdom where the stronger animal consumes the weaker. Israel, by contrast, has the stated aim of destroying Hezbollah in order to protect its citizens. A government not willing to do so would be disfunctional and corrupt. But the Israeli government does not have an expressed policy of destroying other internationally recognized nations. If it did, Syria, Iran, Iraq, and Egypt would cease to be. Thus, since the Israeli government was elected by people in their employment of reason, the law of the jungle cannot be applied to judge Israel's aggression in the latest conflict. Finally, Hezbollah's attempt to destroy Israel is an effort to subjugate the Jews to the absolute power of the terrorist organization. Israel has no choice but to respond.

Charles Krauthammer condemns the moral righteousness of those lambasting the Israelis for their "disproportionate" response (see Link below). He argues that, true, the Israelis have killed civilians, but their military has tried to minimize these losses while fighting a regime that employs Lebanese civilians as human shields. Hezbollah lobs missiles into the centers of Israeli cities. Could the lines be more distinct?

Everybody Else sits back from their isolated democracies and sternly warns the Israelis to cease their unfair military campaign. These democracies, however, do not live in the fear of a neighbor's expressed wish to obliterate it from the face of the Earth. Should we take a moment to remember the Cold War, with the Soviet Bear licking its chops to devour all of Western Europe? Should we not remember that military support from the United States prevented enslavement of the Western Europeans to the horrors of totalitarianism? Israel and the United States have the single choice to persevere. To do any less would be uncivilized.

The Allegory of Contrary Thinking

2006-07-24T14:19:00.000-05:00

Investment barons, combat commanders, genuinely effective politicians, and market- dominating CEOs all stess the importance of thinking like a contrarion. They use the cliche about thinking and a box, but it has become so commonplace, I cannot publish it here on this page. Constantly, we, as the hapless, ignorant sheep that we are, hear the necessity to change our convention, embrace change, to break the limitations of our feeble minds in order to lead successfully. Some of those espousing this thinking have tidy gimmicks to demonstrate how unconventional thinking solves problems.

But how do we condition our minds to think unconventionally? I can look at some diagram that requires an unorthodox solution, and either solve it, or in most cases, not solve it because my mind does not bend. The gurus want us to think differently, but the gurus do not tell us how. I learn nothing from the diagram and cheap seminar tricks.

Only a philosopher can help. Plato's Republic details the dialogue of Socrates and two of his students in their quest to understand the world around them. And let us be clear: investing, war fighting, voting in Congress, selling products in the market, the functions of the conventional and unconventional leader, are about understanding people and environment. Socrates carries the students through the Allegory of the Cave to condition them how to think of people and environment. Forgive the brief paraphrase: if you chained a baby to a wall in the cave at birth so that the baby could only see straight ahead, and if that baby grew up with other babies in the same awful predicament, and if men, standing near a fire and casting shadows on the wall of the cave, moved to and fro behind the babies, the chained prisoner babies, who can only see the shadows on the wall, would believe those shadows to be real figures moving. The prisoners could see each other, so they would know that the shadows were different than they, but nonetheless, they would believe those shadows to be living, moving forms of life. The babies would grow into maturity believing these shadows are true.

So Socrates asks what would happen if one of the prisoners was released, so that he could "stand up, turn his neck around, to walk and look up toward the light, and who, moreover, in doing all this in pain, and because he is dazzled, is unable to make out those things whose shadows he saw before. What do you suppose he would say if someone were to tell him before he'd seen silly nothings... while now he sees more correctly?" (515c, translated by Allan Bloom). Here is the essence of contrary thinking: the truth surrounds you, but it is only in craning the neck backwards that the new thinking can occur. The pain of turning your head is the pain of breaking your conventional thought.

The changed prisoner, after intial confusion and bewilderment, uses his reason to understand that the shadows were not true at all. Now he understands a new, more correct world around him. His fellow prisoners have yet to be freed, so he must return to the darkeness to tell them, and what, do you suppose, might be their reaction? After all, those shadow images had been all the babies had ever known!

The freed prisoner, the leader, now knows right not by perception but by absolute. His enlightenment originated from looking around to find a truth, an absolute, not relative one. Now he must show his fellow prisoners the shadows for them to understand.

A Shout Out to Machiavelli and Sowell

2006-07-21T14:40:00.000-05:00

We see the Israelis and Hezbollah pitted again in fierce conflict. Appeals for peace ring from shiny desk to shiny desk across Europe and the halls of the United Nations. At risk, besides the obvious regional/global war that could ensue, is the nascent "democracy" of Lebanon and how Israel, an established democracy, could destroy it.

Niccolo Machiavelli addressed this issue of incipient democratic government in Discouses on Livy. When speaking of citizens who attempt democratizing, he states, "they will never order themselves without danger, because enough men never agree to a new law that looks to a new order in a city unless they are shown by a necessity a reason to do it. Since this necessity cannot come without danger, it is an easy thing for a republic to be ruined before it can be led to a perfection of order" (translated by Mansfield and Tarcov). AHA! Machiavelli argues that any republic must face monumental challenges at its birth; it must wrangle and wrestle, it must spit and bleed and sweat. And yes, many of its citizens must die. Baby Republic, born screaming from chaos and tyranny, cannot delay this adversity and survive.

Some may argue that this quotation casts blame directly on Israel for wanting to destroy Lebanon. However, Israel wants nothing more than a true democratic republic to its north. But Israel cannot exist if this democracy allows terrorists to act with impunity.

Thus, as Thomas Sowell demonstrates in his column, "A 'Cycle' of Nonsense," (see link below) the peace process, orchestrated via the rhetoric of United Nations and the chief appeasers of the world, cannot occur through words. If the Lebanese want democracy, they will have to squeeze it from the lifeblood of the terrorists who want nothing to do with democracy. If the Europeans and Americans want democracy in the Middle East, they must stomach the brutality.

In 2000, the Israelis vacated southern Lebanon after 18 years of occupation. In the interim, the various cease-fires and peace plans have unravelled. Now, the Israeli army awaits the final command to return. The Lebanese government appeals to the world because they can neither stop the terrorists, nor can they stop the Israelis.

The Roman republic of which Machiavelli details, the United States, and the other European democracies suffered enourmous pain until they "could be led to a perfection of order." Until the citizens decide to stop the terrorists that are the real enemies of democracy, the Lebanese cannot live in freedom.

A Failed Vision

2006-07-20T10:11:00.000-05:00

I have heard the refrain time and again from parents, "I just want my kid to be happy." Of course, who would not want any child to be happy, regardless of which child belongs to which parent? But a flaw exists in the logic that many parents use to define happiness. For them, parents often define "happiness" as a vague sense of success predicated on where that child attends college, high school, and if you believe Ruth Marcus in yesterday's Washington Post, summer camp. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/18/AR2006071801375.html)

These parents, bent on some social formula that equates success to college attendance and, therefore, "happiness", drive their children in the exact opposite direction. As they fill the schedule of their child's life, they isolate him or her from people, environment, and the joys of childhood. Because parents are leaders of their children, these parents suffer from failed vision.

I wonder if business organizations suffer from failed vision from this same phenomenon. Do leaders create a vague goal? Do leaders create a goal that contradicts a stated aim? The parent proudly proclaims, "I want my child to be happy," yet that parent acts and demands in such a way that only misery occurs. Do leaders believe their vision?

"Unto the Breach, We Happy Few!"

2006-07-13T11:57:00.000-05:00

And so you ask, "why 'unto the breach' ? Why 'we happy few' ? " William Shakespeare's Henry V's awakening as a leader occurs in these two statements. My interest in leadership begins here.

The first quotation, spoken at the gates of Harfleur during the raging seige of the city, incites his men to carry the day through stubborn refusal to cower. Persistence. The leader recognizes the adversity ahead, and when his charges refuse to continue to overcome the obstacle, he instills in them confidence with his words. Leadership.

The second, spoken in the hours before the great battle with French forces at Agincourt, bonds Henry to his men. He creates a world where their lot is one of unique comraderie, one of shared experience. Henry, the leader, participates as much as his followers, and he rejoices in their shared toil. Fellowship.