Posse Incitatus

Memorial Day 2012

My obsession this spring has been the spacious grounds of the recently upgraded ranch.  Weeding, mowing, pest eradication and minor landscaping have dominated my thoughts and intruded into my dreams.  Between that and a hectic work schedule, the onset of Memorial Day came almost as a surprise.  Tempus fugit and all that.

Taking a quiet moment to contemplate Memorial Day this year, I cannot help but feel a sense of loss and bitterness.  Long-time readers know that we have taken it as our honored duty to keep the memory alive of one of our friends - Capt. Sean Grimes - who fell in Iraq seven years ago this spring.

Looking at the disorderly way in which our forces were withdrawn - and the similar sense of urgency in leaving Afghanistan to its fate - it is hard not be bitter about what our military has sacrificed and what our leaders have thrown away.

War is an extension of policy by other means, as Clausewitz pointed out almost 200 years ago, and a rational person can admit that there are times when there is no other recourse than to its dreadful call.

But what if that policy is hopelessly muddled, willfully blind, or cynically driven?

Afghanistan and Iraq were both wars of necessity.  Afghanistan had sheltered our enemies and on Sept. 11, 2001, we saw just how deadly they could be.  Iraq was an ongoing strategic threat, tying down our forces and constantly attacking our aircraft (though without much effect).  Both required a military solution.

Both went well at first, but then bogged down into a foggy counterinsurgency.  We gained the upper hand and did so for comparatively little loss of life - far less than Korea, or Vietnam.  But then a new administration came in, one devoid of strategic vision and looking only to the next opinion poll.  And so we are in retreat.

What did the sacrifice of Sean and his comrades achieve?  What is his legacy?  They gave up all the tomorrows - for what?

A free Iraq?  A modern Afghanistan?

Both teeter on the brink.  And then there is Libya, which has spawned at least one civil war (in Mali) and may itself break up.

At this point, we cannot know.  I believe that Sean died in the opening round - the overture, if you will - of the clash of civilizations between the West and radical Islam.  His actions as a healer proved to those who would listen that there is a better way than one of Islamofascist hate - a path of forgiveness and compassion, of hope and eventual prosperity.

In a larger sense, his sacrifice transcends the political.  Like all of our fallen warriors, he was called to serve, and died for his nation.  It is the ultimate expression of selflessness.  Whatever happens in Iraq, he did not die in vain so long as we honor him, and uphold Freedom.

In hoc signo vinces

It is easy to get caught up (and burned out) by the ceaseless banter of the political blogosphere.  Now augmented with Twitter feeds, the partisan operatives have never had more ways to waste their time and annoy the rest of us trying to get on with our lives.

However, despite (or perhaps because of) this unending white noise, the commentariat is missing underlying trends that are in fact breaking through the fog of partisan warfare.

I speak of course of the coming Catholic storm that is about to fall on the Obama reelection campaign.

It is easy for lapsed or hypocritical Catholics (like Nancy Pelosi) to downplay the effect of the HHS mandate that religious organizations be compelled to pay for abortion-inducing drugs.  For many of the political insiders, birth-control is a no-brainer and among the hipster crowd, treating condoms like priest repellent is an old and pathetic joke.

What they miss is not just the substance of the debate – religious freedom – but also the betrayal of Catholic leaders that led up to it.  The Bishops wanted to give Obama the benefit of the doubt.  They met with him, were charmed by him, and wanted him to do well.  Indeed, they love the notion of universal health care and more social spending – this is why so many Catholics ignore the Democrats’ total dedication to abortion and instead focus on the “social justice” component of their platform to justify their vote.

But the mask has fallen.  Obama and his allies have revealed that they cannot be trusted.  They have no use for the Church, even as an ally.  The state must rule all, and if private charities go away, well so much the better.

It is now a matter of survival.

Though it has gotten little attention, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has released a letter that reads much like an ultimatum.

While some observers have noted the call for a “Fortnight of Freedom” from June 21 to July 4, the key phrase seems to me to be this one:

It is a sobering thing to contemplate our government enacting an unjust law. An unjust law cannot be obeyed. In the face of an unjust law, an accommodation is not to be sought, especially by resorting to equivocal words and deceptive practices. If we face today the prospect of unjust laws, then Catholics in America, in solidarity with our fellow citizens, must have the courage not to obey them. No American desires this. No Catholic welcomes it. But if it should fall upon us, we must discharge it as a duty of citizenship and an obligation of faith.

It is essential to understand the distinction between conscientious objection and an unjust law. Conscientious objection permits some relief to those who object to a just law for reasons of conscience—conscription being the most well-known example. An unjust law is "no law at all." It cannot be obeyed, and therefore one does not seek relief from it, but rather its repeal. [Emphasis added]

 

Civil disobedience is nothing new – the activist left has made a cottage industry of it.  The difference is when the normally non-demonstrative population engages in it.

It should be noted that if Obamacare is overturned in June, much of this storm may blow over – but the damage has already been done.  The reprieve will not have come from an administration seeking to right its wrongs but from a court that defied it.

While the Obama campaign strategists may think they are being clever trying to pit women vs men, young vs old and secular against religious, they are actually diminishing their coalition and enraging their former allies.  The issue now is the very survival of the Catholic Church itself – and indeed all religious organizations. 

The clouds are gathering, and Catholics across the nation are looking for the break in the pall - like the one the Roman Emperor Constantine saw at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge.

This battle decided not just the fate of the Empire, but also whether it would be Christian or Pagan.

It is said that on the eve of the battle, Constantine had a dream, in which he saw the clouds part and a cross appeared in the heavens with these words:  In hoc signo vinces - in this sign you will conquer. Accordingly, he ordered his legions to repaint their shields with the Chi-Rho - the Monogram of Christ.

Constantine was victorious, and under his patronage, Christianity became the dominant religion of the Empire. 

Curiously, the battle will have its 1,800th anniversary on October 28, 2012. 

How to torture language (and logic)

In the response to my post on how liberals hate religious minorities, commenter Marcus Aurelius offers this specimen of the latest Dem talking points:

Yup. Giving people access to birth control is all about controlling them. That's how it works. Heaven forbid that people should have access to affordable birth control. The gov't isn't making you use it, it's just making sure that it's covered under your employer's health care plan. You don't have to be employed. Or even employed with a health care plan.

I emphasized the key words because they are essential to understand the way in which liberals are torturing both language and logic to make their case.

Let there be no mistake - this is not about access to birth control, it is about compelling religious minorities to pay for it under pain of law.

If you want birth control, there is nothing to stop you from getting it.  Given that contractives are both cheap and easily obtainable, there is no logical reason to compel third parties to pay for it - unless you are trying to drive home a point.

Indeed, Planned Parenthood's core mission is supposedly to provide free birth control.  What else do they do with the millions of dollars they recieve each and every year?  (Answer:  kill babies, but I digress.)

Note the language of the second sentence:  "The gov't isn't making you use it, it's just making sure that it's covered under your employer's health care plan."

But it is making you pay for it, even though you may find it morally abhorrent.  Using the exact same logic, the government could compel Jews and Muslims to purchase pork so long as they aren't made to eat it.  And actually, the case for compulsory purchase of pork is better since hunger can kill you, wherease lack of sex won't (though millions of teenage men have sworn to the contrary).

Moreover, what if both employer and employee don't want this coverage?  What compelling state interest is at stake by making Catholic Charities pay to provide The Pill to blue-haired ladies? 

The argument that this is about access is therefore a false one.  Every study undertaken in the last two decades has found that the number of people who want birth control and somehow can't get it is statistically meaningless.  For those that somehow can't afford it (can't come up with $30 a month?  Seriously?) there are numerous charities out there.

What this mandate is really about is power and control.

Also, while I too prefer the notion of simply refraining from making babies, it's really not an option for some people. It's bizarre to wrap one's mind around, but sometimes people have sex without enthusiastic consent, in order to gain something else. But hey, so long as it's not your problem, right?

You're right, it is not my problem. Nor is it an issue of national importance - certainly not one that requires federal government intervention.

The core issue at stake is the abuse of power.  A government that can order people to purchase things against their will can also order their use.  That is the supreme irony of the liberal argument.

(Edited for some typos)

 

Liberals to religious minorities: Shut up and do what we say

One of the strangest arguments in defense of the Obama Administration’s demand that Catholic institutions buy birth control is the notion that since most Catholics privately use birth control, it’s okay to make the Church’s charitable arms pay for it.

Comment threads all over the InterTubes are littered with the assertion that “98% of Catholics use birth control,” so this makes the administration’s diktat perfectly okay.

But what about the liberal concern for minorities?

For a bunch of folks who are ostensibly all about diversity, the modern left sure does love itself some authoritarian conformity, doesn’t it?

Old and Busted:  Respect the cultures and beliefs of minorities, especially if they are small.

New Hotness:  Conform to the majority, cultist freaks!

The whole point of the Constitution was to limit the power of government and protect the rights of individuals.  The Bill of Rights extended these protections even more, seeking to prevent the “tyranny of the majority” from oppressing the minority.

For the Obama Administration, thought, the fact that a minority is being oppressed is a feature, not a bug.  In this bearded-Spock world, the new mantra is “the wants of the many (voters) far outweigh the rights of the few, or the one.”  (Yes, I said “wants” because birth control is a want, not a need.  You don’t need free pills to not have children, you simply have to refrain from the act of conceiving them.)

I think that there are several reasons Obama and his minions are pushing this.

The first is that they love the power of telling other people what to do.  That’s just a given.

The second is that they particularly like sticking it to the Catholic Church.

The third is that they get to sing the virtues of Population Control, something the left has never given up on and is once again touting as the Solution To All The World’s Problems.

For the dedicated liberal, it’s still 1972 and the Population Bomb is going to go off any minute now.  The fact that affluent American women don’t receive cases of The Pill for free is now the Greatest Injustice Evah.  What, you might have to pay $30 out of pocket for some form of birth control?  Patriarchal oppression!

Seriously, that’s the way these people think.

If you think about it, it is the perfect inversion of the old “Keep Your Laws Off My Body” argument.  For the new liberals, the federal government should control everything about your body.  It was never about individual freedom, it was about power and control.

Further proof – if any was needed - that liberals are really authoritarians at heart.

A world without Christ

Christmas is a time of renewal. As my pastor put it, each Christmas is a little different because each year we are a little different.

While it may be overcommercialized, Christmas – and more importantly, its message – are deeply embedded in our culture. It is interesting to contemplate a world without it.

The late Christopher Hitchens had an implacable hostility toward religion and like most militant atheists seemed to think that once people got over their sky-god, the world would be a better place.

The thing is, we know what that world looks like. It looks like North Korea.

If there is no higher authority, then it is up to men to police their own impulses. Given human nature, this is an impossible task. While the belief in the afterlife may animate a handful madmen to blow themselves up and cause carnage, it motivate a far larger population to do good deeds.

Based on the historical record, it is pretty clear that Christianity has been an enormously positive force for humanity – so much so that it allows atheists to assume that they could dynamite the churches and everything would stay the same.

Consider the pre-Christian world. It is a place of arbitrary and often capricious gods, where mercy is almost nonexistent. Rivals are killed in brutal fashion and there is nothing to be gained by tithing to help the poor. Slavery is widespread and an accepted part of life.

If one had the world to choose from in 300 B.C., probably the best place to live (from a moral standpoint) was Judea. The Israelites had the Law of Moses, which laid the foundation for Western morality. Whereas the pagan essentially believes that kings may do what they will (after all, Jove does all sorts of crazy things), the Jews hold to a higher law, and none are exempt from God’s final judgement (King Herod’s fate being a fine example of this).

The problem with Judaism as a global belief was that it is limited to the Chosen People. What Christianity did was extend the promise of salvation to everyone: rich and poor, free and slave. This universal appeal is why it has been so successful around the world.

If I want to do a Marxist analysis, I would say it is because it appeals to the vast underclass in the way that other religions do not. Pre-industrial societies tend to significant stratification and their religions recognized and legitimized this. Whether we are speaking of the entrenched Chinese bureaucracy or the Brahmins of India, the lot of the poor was to simply accept their lowly place.

Christianity offered an alternative, one that could appeal not just to the powerful (who could claim divine sanction) but more importantly to the masses.

This is not to say the pagans were without morality, but it was simply not the same as ours because the divine underpinnings were not as rigid. When Caligula wanted to bed his sister, he could point to the gods doing it all the time. The taboo wasn’t all that firm.

The big knock against the Catholic Church is of course the Crusades. But these are widely misunderstood and distorted. They were a defensive campaign, initiated to save the Eastern Roman (or Byzantine) Empire from being overrun by the Turks. It's not as if the Levant peacefully converted to that noted religion of peace – or that its pacifist disciples didn't conquer Constantinople after a desperate siege and bloody aftermath.

Anyhow, the atrocities committed during the Crusades were routine for the period – so much so that they weren't considered atrocities at the time. Siege warfare was ugly. President Clinton talking about Jerusalem’s streets running with blood was describing the fall of just about every city in recorded history.

Indeed, I defy a reader to indentify a fortress taken by storm where the defenders weren’t massacred. That was the bargain one made: Open your gates and there will be minimal harm, defend them and if we get inside, we’ll kill you all.

The medieval Church did more than preach crusades and launch inquisitions – it was a center of learning and knowledge, and also provided critical care for the poor. The Knights of St. John – the Hospitallers – founded medical facilities for the poor across Europe and the St. John’s Ambulance Company is their direct descendant (the Order is still around, in fact). The Church also attempted to outlaw warfare altogether, or at least “civilize it.”

I cannot leave the topic of the Crusades without mentioning Louis IX of France – St. Louis. One of the last Crusaders, he was pious in the extreme, going so far as to wash the feet of the poor outside Paris.

This notion – a king who serves as father to his people, just as God is the father to all – is a wholly Judeo-Christian concept.

Much of the morality we take for granted comes from our Judeo-Christian civilization. Take that away, and life gets a lot more savage.

There are still good and bad people, but without the commandment to love one’s neighbor, to forgive the trespasses of others, mercy becomes a very rare commodity.

Atheism takes this to its logical end: For if people are just another form of good, they can be expended as needed. The Soviet Union put this into practice, sacrificing some for the “great good” of material gain. After all, if there is nothing other than the here and now, what better cause than to sacrifice the few for the many?

Thus we see political dissidents becoming “unpersons” and sent to camps where they were worked to death. Meanwhile the elites – and there are always elites – live the good life because they can. Why not? Life ends in nothing but darkness, so if you have power, enjoy it while you can.

Even the immortality offered by a good life can be substituted through control of the history books. Stalin was a great man because anyone who said otherwise is dead, and their works are burned.

Atheism can only work if it is practiced in a Judeo-Christian way. This is because human nature craves inspiration from the divine. If no god can be found, we place ourselves on the heavenly throne – and inevitably create hell on earth.

 

Veterans Day 2011

As always, the Posse offers deep thanks to our military veterans for their service.  Perhaps I was just inattentive, but it seems to me that more businesses are offering discounts and promotions for veterans than ever before.  This is a good thing.

Our nation is not only divided between the producers and consumers (or "makers" and "takers" but also between those who serve and those who do not - and will not.

I never liked all the flowery rhetoric about the World War II generation being the "Greatest Generation."  First off, every generation faces is challenges.  To say that this one or that one had more strikes me as the height of arrogant self-importance. That this label came from the Baby Boomer made it even more obnoxious.

When I think about important generations, I think about the parents of the "Greatest," the people born between 1890 and 1910.  They weathered slumps, two wars and ignited the greatest period of technological advancement in human history.  The leaps forward in medicine, communication, transportation - and even warfare - far exeeded anything before or since.

When war came, they went.  When the economy collapsed, they muddled through.  The World War II generation provided the footsoldiers for victory, but the architects came from this age group.

As everyone should know, today marks the anniversary of the culiminating moment of that earlier generation - the end of the World War I.  Back then they called it the Great War, the World War, the War to End All Wars.  It gets little attention here in the United States, but it lies like a chasm across human history, a break with what went before every bit as significant as the fall of the Roman Empire or the Norman Conquest of England.

That calamity saw the collapse of the old ways - religion, tradition, family - and the rise of new beliefs, like Communism, National Socialism, moral relativism.  We are now, almost a century later, still trying to pick up the pieces of that conflict.  The constant crisis in the Middle East, the uncertain rise of China, Russia's turmoil, Africa's uneasy borders and the strife in the Balkans are all the legacy of that perfect storm and imperfect peace.

Where do veterans come into this?

In 1917, for the first time since the Civil War, the United States implemented conscription.  The fear was that were would be draft riots, as their had been in 1863.  It did not happen.  Instead, millions of young men registered and, when called, reported for duty.  Almost from scratch this country went from a miniscule peacetime army to millions of Doughboys ready to go "Over There" and fight in France.

It took time to call up, train, equip and ship them there.  More than a year after the declaration of war, the US Army was still pulling itself together.  In the meantime, the desperate Germans launched the Kaiserschlacht - one last desperate gamble to win the war before our troops arrived in force.  It failed,

The Allied counterstroke was terrible, and starting in July 1918, it proceeded without stop.  Unlike previous offensives, this was no localized affair, but a series of hammer-blows all across the Western Front.  There was no pause, not respite, and as American divisions became ready they were marched to the front and hurled into the inferno.

The American portion of the offensive has gone down in history as the Meuse-Argonne campaign.

To call it a bloodbath is to cheapen the term.  In the space of six weeks, roughly 120,000 American troops were hit with 25,000 of them killed.  In six weeks.

The American commander, "Black Jack" Pershing, used tactics as subtle as a tire iron to the head, but it worked. By early November, the German army was reeling. The Armistice took effect 93 years ago today, at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

Since then, World War I has faded from memory.  Its veterans are all dead, and those who remember them are mostly gone.  Yellowed pictures, dusty uniforms, spiked helmets - these are all we recall.  Even the Red Baron has been distorted and commercialized.

The point here is that a generation was called and went.  In 1941, 1950 they also went.  Some disagreed in the 1960s, but enough went to give us a victory - that we pissed away.  After that, it fell to the volunteers, and they have performed admirably.  The prestige of American arms has never been greater -and the reputation of American politicians has never been lower.

Looking at the "Occupy" protesters, one cannot help but contrast their self-indulgent tantrums with the quiet sacrifices of the veterans.  Let there be no mistake, military people are no saints (f they were, the JAGs would be unemployed).  They expect to be paid and complain about everything (a time-honored tradition).

But they do their duty.  They join to be part of something bigger than themselves and they yearn for the opportunity to prove that they are just as tough as those who went before.

The Occupiers want none of that.  They want free wi-fi, guaranteed income and a life of unearned leisure.  A half-hour of PT would leave them begging for death.

This Veterans Day, think about that contrast and what it says about those who choose to serve despite every reason not to.  MSU's basketball game today on the USS Carl Vinson is a great example.  I admire coach Tom Izzo, but his remarks about how sports pale in comparison to the military life are heartful and utterly appropriate.

Enjoy the game, and thank a veteran.

 

Getting Egypt wrong

Since I’m convinced that our administration is likely to make a total hash of whatever happens in Egypt, I offer the following scenarios of what may happen, and how the Obama administration will screw it up.

SCENARIO 1 - MUBARAK STAYS IN POWER:  This is not unlikely, given his decades of experience and long-term skill in managing crisis.  Under this scenario he manages to outfox the protesters, uses the Army to seemly be an honest broker while undercutting the opposition.  Token reforms ensue, a designated strong-man successor takes over in the fall, and the repression continues.

How Obama will screw this up:  By misjudging the political momentum and trying to make up for its earlier caution, the administration may cause the inadvertent collapse of the regime and essentially hand the keys of the largest Arab nation to a bunch of radicals.

What he should do:  Emphasize the danger of the Muslim Brotherhood and how revolution is not the way to bring about change.  Behind the scenes he should reassure other allied regimes that we will stand by them no matter what, but that we expect something in return for our support.  The downside of this plan is that we look bad, and we’re still stuck with dictators.  The upside is that we forestall revolution and don’t look feckless.

SCENARIO 2 – GRADUAL TRANSITION:  Under this scenario, Mubarak has decided to transition to democracy ala Pakistan and the Philippines and is merely seeking an orderly way to hand over power while preventing an Islamist takeover.

How Obama will screw this up:  By increasing demands for an immediate transition, which would create a power vacuum and lead to divisions both within the government and without.  In such an event, many of the regime’s hardest cases may throw in their lot with the Muslim Brotherhood, just as Saddam’s goons made common cause with the Al Qaeda in Iraq terrorists, despite being ostensibly secularist.  The end result is a tottering caretaker government that collapses into anarchy with the Muslim Brotherhood playing the Bolshevik/Khomeinist role.

What he should do:  Announce that the US accepts the offer of Mubarak to step down and will assist in the development of genuine democracy and fair and free elections.  To keep the Army on board, announce that all future aid will be subject to Egypt meeting these benchmarks.   If elections are not free, the US will embargo the regime and several all ties.  This has the advantage of relieving some of the pressure, and gives the pro-democracy groups a chance to organize.  It also gives the Muslim Brotherhood a chance to overplay their hand and be stepped on by the Army and the secularists.

SCENARIO 3 – SUDDEN COLLAPSE:  Within days, the Army could join the general uprising, Mubarak could flee the country and the nation could be plunged into anarchy.  With factions competing for power and legitimacy, the Muslim Brotherhood could step into the vacuum thanks to is organization and willingness to coopt former enemies in the Army and security agencies.  Indeed, they could make a powerful case that only under their leadership can Mubarak’s chief enforcers escape mob justice.

How Obama will screw this up:  By mouthing platitudes to democracy, expressing willingness to work with the Muslim Brotherhood and downplaying the ties of key actors to Islamic terrorism while at the same time urging restraint upon the Army if it acts to restore order and establish a strong man.

What he should do:  Call for the Army to restore order and refuse to recognize any government influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood.  Use long-standing contacts with the Egyptian military to facilitate the creation of a “caretaker” government that will honor elections in the fall, and blame violence on militant Islamic extremists.  Yes, this is also unsavory but geopolitics are not for the faint of heart.

Of course there are other possibilities, but these three seem most likely to me.

A merry Christmas to all

As is customary at this time of year, I tend to vanish from the blogosphere.  The pressing concerns of government, politics and even sports tend to shrink to insignificance when one is surrounded by friends and family.

Some may argue that it is self-defeating for conservatives to unilaterally cease fire at this time of year, and certainly the Democrats in Congress have shown a willingness to use the holiday season as a cover for their shenanigans.

However, there is a very real danger of conservatives becoming the mirror image of thei opponents - becoming just as politically-obsessed as the liberals they decry.  This "Beltway disease" is common in state capitols as well as in Washington and the only sure way to avoid it is to take time away.

So pour another glass of eggnog and add another log to the fire.  We'll be listening to Jo Stafford and Bing Crosby and thinking back to times when all that mattered was the joy and excitement of this blessed holiday.

Merry Christmas!

Aaron Sorkin hates Native Americans

One of the things I like about Sarah Palin is the fact that she is totally self-aware:  she knows that just about everything she does pisses off liberals, so she doesn’t try to mitigate it in any way.

In this respect she is very similar to Rush Limbaugh, who has never taken prisoners in his struggle against the left.

I have watched a few episodes of her new reality show, and while I have not seen the hunting episode, I look forward to watching it.

Not so eager, however, was Aaron Sorkin, who penned a nasty little screed over at the Puffington Host (of course I learned about it through the Hated Instapundit).

Other blogs have already taken the easy shots (so to speak) of noting that Sorkin has a cocaine problem.  What surprises us is that they ignored a much more important point:  Aaron Sorkin hates Native Americans.

When he analogizes hunting to dog fighting and denounces hunters as being cruel, he’s (unwittingly, of course) condemning tribal communities all across this continent for whom the hunt is not just about pleasure, but a sacred ritual and essential tradition.

Are they all sick?  Should they all be imprisoned?  I’d be fascinated to hear Sorkin explaining his thoughts on how (like all good Hollywood liberals) he believes in multiculturalism and toleration while denouncing one of the most critical aspects of Native American culture.

Of course hunting crosses all cultural boundaries in America, which is one of the great things about it.  What Sorkin fails to understand is that hunting is perhaps the most natural thing in the world – far more natural than writing scripts for a medium that didn’t even exist 80 years ago.

It is a universal experience, and it is no accident that hunters are more in tune with nature (and contribute more to preserving it) than suburb-dwelling liberals.  To walk the woods in pursuit of game is to understand the pulse of nature, to re-enter the circle of life.  That phrase is more than just a throwaway Tim Rice lyric, it is an essential truth that liberals simply don’t get.

Hunters know that if their game drinks polluted water, they too will be polluted.  They also understand that building massive Al Gore/John Edwards hideaways destroys habitat and forces animals into closer proximity with humans – with dire consequences for both.

Moreover, hunters know that nature is not kind, that the truth about life in the wild is that it is violent and harsh.  A century ago Jack London documented this for increasingly urbanized audiences in Call of the Wild and other stories which showed nature as it was - “red in tooth and claw.”

 That is a timeless truth.  Despite our increasing seperation from nature, and our attempts to convince ourselves that we can live a post-industrial, electronic lifestyle without harming Gaia or injuring other living things, there will always be a food chain and if we want to live, we had better be on top of it.

Some may say that Sorkin's real objection is that Palin takes pleasure in the kill, but all hunters do.  The kill is the culmination of the hunt and the closing of the circle.  It represents the completion of the task - no different from the fisherman bringing in his catch or the farmer gathering his harvest.  All are essential for our survival.

Once again, Palin has helped rip aside the mask of liberal tolerance and shows an increasingly informed electorate that the biggest bigots today are on the left, and in Hollywood.

Why I don't trust libertarians with national security

For the past couple of years I’ve enjoyed reading Reason's web site. Like many conservatives, I’m naturally sympathetic to many libertarian arguments.

But every now and then, they drop a clunker of an article like this one that shows these people are simply not serious thinkers when it comes to national security.

Right from the get-go author Steve Chapman reveals a serious inability to comprehend reality:

War on Iran: Israel wants it. Various Arab rulers want it. The Obama administration has not ruled it out. It may be inevitable, and it could come any time.

Hello? A U.S. attack on a Middle Eastern country that has not attacked us and poses no threat to our security, out of panic over alleged weapons of mass destruction? Haven't we tried that, and didn't we learn anything about starting wars we don't know how to end?

Words fail me.  The magnitude of this level if denial is simply amazing.

There is simply no reason for this level of ignorance.  After all, there is information about universities online for anyone with the ability to click a mouse.

Iran has been at war with us since 1979 when they seized our embassy in Teheran.  They have been a leading sponsor of international terrorism and provide covert and overt support for our enemies.

Now I’m used to seeing this kind of tripe from peacenik loons with no concept of reality (“maybe they just need a hug”) but coming from a magazine that supposedly is dedicated to rational thought – you know, Reason – this is hugely embarrassing.

A preemptive strike on Iranian nuclear facilities has long been on the wish list of American conservatives and the government of Israel. Now we learn, thanks to WikiLeaks, that Saudi Arabia and other Arab governments have also been clicking on the "Like" button.

Again with the caricature of conservatives as war-mongering fools.  Let’s be clear:  No one wants a war with Iran – not Israel, not the Saudis, not even those insidious Joo-loving Neocons the left constantly whines about.  The question is whether we should fight now – when Iran does not have nuclear weapons – or later, when it does.

Skipping ahead, we see another standby of the Pollyanna School of Foreign Policy:  Blind hope.

And for what? The assumption of hawks in the U.S. and Israel is that once Iran acquires nuclear weapons, it will use them—that it is bent on wiping Israel off the map at any cost. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says, is at the head of "a messianic apocalyptic cult."

But even zealots and despots have a powerful instinct for self-preservation, which Iran's leaders have exhibited many times—as in the war with Iraq, which they agreed to end after Iraqi missiles started landing in Tehran. The Iranians know that any use of nuclear weapons traceable to them would be sure to accomplish one thing: their annihilation.

What planet is this guy on?  Iran’s rhetoric is entirely end-of-the-world nonsense.  We aren’t the ones calling them fanatics – they are self-identifying themselves that way.

Chapman would have us believe that it’s all a clever ploy- that at the end of the day after delivering yet another “Burn Israel in Holy Fire” sermon, the Imams plug in their i-pods and listen to smooth jazz or something.

What this passage reveals is that Chapman – like so many libertarians – is simply incapable of imagining people who have motivations other than theirs. 

Actually, that’s not strictly true:  They are happy to assume that the Joos in Israel and conservative warhawks are completely loco, but the actual religious fanatics are simply misunderstood.  Or something.  There is a gap in logic here the size of the Grand Canyon.

Now consider this next brilliant bit of strategic analysis:

That prospect was sufficient to deter Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong, both of whom were once regarded as madmen bent on world domination. Even fanatical regimes don't take actions they know will be fatal.

Ah, for the good old days of the Cold War, when we had the Doomsday Clock and the Soviets had thousands of warheads aimed at us while the ground Eastern Europe under their heel and spread mayhem in the Third World.  Wasn’t that great?

Of course, we could have spared the world 40 years of terror and millions of lives had we been able to confront the Soviets directly, but gosh those nuclear weapons were real handy at stopping us.  Chapman seems to get it, but only partly:

Nor would the bomb help Iran in pushing its neighbors around. More likely, it would push them even closer together in opposition to Tehran—and even closer to the United States. We, after all, have a bigger military than Iran's and a lot more nukes.

The only real value of acquiring an atomic arsenal is to deter attack and invasion. Iran was designated part of the Axis of Evil by President George W. Bush. One other member, Iraq, lacked nukes and was invaded by the U.S. Another, North Korea, had them and wasn't. Iran didn't miss the lesson there.

Give the man a cookie!  He's almost there.  Let me spell it out: with nukes Iran becomes become invulnerable.  They can stop their war-by-proxy against both the US and Israel and go right to the direct attacks on our installations and citizens, all the while secure in the knowledge that their nuclear weapons provide them with an impenetrable shield.  I can’t wait!

In the event that sanctions fail to dissuade Tehran from going nuclear, war is no answer. A better response would be for the U.S. to inform Iran that any use of nuclear weapons against anyone will elicit a response in kind. If our nuclear guarantee protected Europe against the Soviet arsenal, it can protect our friends in the Middle East.

Funny, I don’t recall libertarians really enjoying that whole military-industrial complex thing we had to sustain for 40 years, though.  Do they really want the same kind of massive defense commitments we had to provide in Europe to be transferred to Arabia?  When their taxes go up to pay for refurbished Pershing II missile batteries and the logistics to sustain them, are they going to go along cheerfully

As long as the viper is holed up, though, we would be wise not to crawl in after it. Even if you cut off a snake's head, it may still bite.

I got a better idea: kill the viper in the egg before it hatches.  That’s what this is about – whether one waits until Iran has the bomb or not.

Like so many pacifists, Chapman does not address the real question.  The question is not whether we want war - no one wants war.  Indeed, the hawks on the right are determined to avoid it.  The problem is, war is unavoidable because it is already going on.

Iran has been attacking us since 1979, just as Saddam Hussein continued to attack our forces long after the cease fire in 1991.

Now we can choose not to respond in kind, but we cannot ignore that it is happening.

So:  Given that Iran continues to attack us both directly and indirectly, why in the hell do we think the mullahs will get more reasonable when they get their hands on the most destructive weapons ever created?

As I said, libertarians make some good arguments, and I'll continue to visit Reason, but arguments like this prove why they simply can't be trusted in foreign policy.