The Red State Ranger

A Slender Thread

2009-07-04T07:06:00.002-06:00

As some of you may know, I've been reading a lot of GK Chesterton lately. I haven't been reading his more well-known mysteries, essays, and apologetics. Instead, I've been reading a few of his less well-known pieces of fiction. The Return of Don Quixote is a full-length novel. There's a reason it was his last: it's forced, at times lazy, and he never really found his classic voice in it. Don't get me wrong, it's got some powerful, fun, and touching passages; in fact it contains what has become my favorite Chesterton quotation ever. But there's a reason it's not as well known as Father Brown, The Man Who Was Thursday, or any other of his fiction. On the other hand, Tales of the Long Bow is a collection of disjointed short stories that tie together a handful of characters, each of whom have a triumphal moment in his particular story. It's romantic (the arch-conservative follows the comedic template and they all manage to get hitched), hilarious (each in his own way absurdly disproves a popular figure of speech), and yet full of a modern pathos (the villains are a cabal of politico-industrial bureaucrats). I highly recommend this particular work.

But there's one thing they do have in common: Both stories hinge around great conservative counter-revolutions. In the former, a fad of recreating medieval England in culture and politics sweeps the nation. In the latter, the band of heroes defend and expand private property rights against a socializing land reform scheme. Indeed, the revolutions portrayed in these stories are surprisingly broad and sweeping; they would put the wildest dreams of the 1960s cultural revolutionaries to shame. Clearly, Chesterton was a man of his era, and these stories are stories of their era. The man wrote during a revolutionary time; within a decade of the Bolshevik Revolution, at a time when fascism, communism, and industrial capitalism were sweeping post-WWI Europe like a storm. It's only natural for a radical conservative such as Chesterton to imagine a truly conservative England, and enjoy throwing a few social scientists in the mad house in the process.

All this got me thinking about the state of modern-day America in a new light. Signs of a social breakdown are everywhere, from the faltering economy to the divisive political culture. The fault lines are indeed as geographic as they are economic and social. It's hard not to wonder a little about the future of American Civilization. I mentioned a while back to someone that if the roots of these elements of great political change are the expansion of social-science and government bureaucracies evident at the turn of the 20^th century, the antidote to them certainly is Chesterton. That antidote is no less potent against the concern for an impending revolution.

As I stated earlier, Chesterton lived in a time very ripe for revolution. Indeed, it was arguably moreso than today. Yet if we look at his England and the rest of Western Civilization in the time that followed, while a handful of countries did succumb to revolution, many, indeed most, did not. The thread of civilization is a slender one, but it's as strong as spider silk. While there are many things to remain concerned about, truly revolutionary moments in history are more rare than our prideful sense of the present is wont to admit. Indeed, to have truly revolutionary moments, one must have truly revolutionary ideas. The concepts of ordering society by social science and of the proletariat owning the means of production were truly revolutionary ideas. But at least in America, we were fortunate enough that they were overpowered and outlasted by even more powerful revolutionary ideas. Let us look upon them today, and commit ourselves to continuing to make that so:

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.
…
We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. 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.

Have a great Independence Day, everyone! For those who are so inclined, hoist a Sam Adams for me!

My Favorite Christmas Writing

2008-12-24T20:26:00.002-07:00

From the first chapter of the second book of GK Chesterton's excellent The Everlasting Man. The whole book is outstanding, but read this and you'll never see Christmas the same again - you'll know why you saw and sensed it the way you always did before.

Some Excerpts:

A mass of legend and literature, which increases and will never end has repeated and rung the changes on that single paradox; that the hands that had made the sun and stars were too small to reach the huge heads of the cattle. Upon this paradox, we might almost say upon this jest, all the literature of our faith is founded. It is at least like a jest in this; that it is something which the scientific critic cannot see. He laboriously explains the difficulty which we have always defiantly and almost derisively exaggerated; and mildly condemns as improbable something that we have almost madly exalted as incredible; as something that would be much too good to be true, except that it is true. When that contrast between the cosmic creation and the little local infancy has been repeated, reiterated, underlined, emphasized, exulted in, sung, shouted, roared, not to say howled, in a hundred thousand hymns, carols, rhymes, rituals pictures, poems, and popular sermons, it may be suggested that we hardly need a higher critic to draw our attention to something a little odd about it; especially one of the sort that seems to take a long time to see a joke, even his own joke.
Yet [the scientific modern critic] will think us very narrow-minded, if we say that this is exactly why there really is a difference between being brought up as a Christian and being brought up as a Jew or a Moslem or an atheist. T he difference is that every Catholic child has learned from pictures, and even every Protestant child from stories, this incredible combination of contrasted ideas as one of the very first impressions on his mind. It is not merely a theological difference. It is a psychological difference which can outlast any theologies It really is, as that sort of scientist loves to say about anything, incurable. Any agnostic or atheist whose childhood has known a real Christmas has ever afterwards, whether be likes it or not, an association in his mind between two ideas that most of mankind must regard as remote from each other; the idea of a baby and the idea of unknown strength that sustains the stars. His instincts and imagination can still connect them, when his reason can no longer see the need of the connection; for him there will always be some savor of religion about the mere picture of a mother and a baby; some hint of mercy and softening about the mere mention of the dreadful name of God. But the two ideas are not naturally or necessarily combined. They would not be necessarily combined for an ancient Greek or a Chinaman, even for Aristotle or Confucius. It is no more inevitable to connect God with an infant than to connect gravitation with a kitten. It has been created in our minds by Christmas because we are Christians; because we are psychological Christians even when we are not theological ones. In other words, this combination of ideas has emphatically, in the much disputed phrase, altered human nature. There is really a difference between the man who knows it and the man who does not. It may not be a difference of moral worth, for the Moslem or the Jew might be worthier according to his lights; but it is a plain fact about the crossing of two particular lights, the conjunction of two stars in our particular horoscope.* Omnipotence and impotence, or divinity and infancy, do definitely make a sort of epigram which a million repetitions cannot turn into a platitude. It is not unreasonable to call it unique.
Bethlehem is emphatically a place where extremes meet. Here begins, it is needless to say, another mighty influence for the humanization of Christendom. If the world wanted what is called a non-controversial aspect of Christianity, it would probably select Christmas. Yet it is obviously bound up with what is supposed to be a controversial aspect (I could never at any stage of my opinions imagine why); the respect paid to the Blessed Virgin. When I was a boy a more Puritan generation objected to a statue upon my parish church representing the Virgin and Child. After much controversy, they compromised by taking away the Child. One would think that this was even more corrupted with Mariolatry, unless the mother was counted less dangerous when deprived of a sort of weapon. But the practical difficulty is also a parable. You cannot chip away the statue of a mother from all round that of a newborn child. You cannot suspend the new-born child in mid-air; indeed you cannot really have a statue of a newborn child at all. Similarly, you cannot suspend the idea of a newborn child in the void or think of him without thinking of his mother. You cannot visit the child without visiting the mother, you cannot in common human life approach the child except through the mother. If we are to think of Christ in this aspect at all, the other idea follows I as it is followed in history. We must either leave Christ out of Christmas, or Christmas out of Christ, or we must admit, if only as we admit it in an old picture, that those holy heads are too near together for the haloes not to mingle and cross.
The place that the shepherds found was not an academy or an abstract republic; it was not a place of myths allegorized or dissected or explained or explained away. It was a place of dreams come true. Since that hour no mythologies have been made in the world. Mythology is a search.

I could seriously quote the whole thing. Read it if you have time. Then read the book. :)

Merry Christmas to all!

* A reference to the idea that the Wise Men sought the Newborn King when they observed the conjunction (close joining) of Jupiter and Venus in Leo. The Star of Bethlehem seen by the astrologers may have been two "stars" very closely joined. Talk about a pretty clever allusion by Chesterton!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-11-27T15:21:00.001-07:00

General Thanksgiving

By the PRESIDENT of the United States Of America

A PROCLAMATION

WHEREAS it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favour; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me "to recommend to the people of the United States a DAY OF PUBLICK THANKSGIVING and PRAYER, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:"

NOW THEREFORE, I do recommend and assign THURSDAY, the TWENTY-SIXTH DAY of NOVEMBER next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed;-- for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish Constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted;-- for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge;-- and, in general, for all the great and various favours which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

And also, that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions;-- to enable us all, whether in publick or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us); and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

GIVEN under my hand, at the city of New-York, the third day of October, in the year of our Lord, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine.

(signed) G. Washington

Happy Thanksgiving, and God Bless America!

Enjoy the Turkey and family and everything else!

Barbarians in the Ports

2008-11-19T22:12:00.002-07:00

By now, you've all seen the news. Thar be pirates.

For nearly a century, during peacetime, there has been freedom of navigation for all on the high seas. This universal freedom was bought and paid for by the US Navy. Similarly, we have freedom of navigation in the ether of modern communication - space and these interwebs right here - thanks to the US Air Force.

Does this mean the US Navy is no longer strong enough to maintain full freedom of the seas? Make no mistake; you're going to hear from people blaming this on the atrophy brought on by the War in Iraq, or the War on Terror, or the Failed Bush Policies, or even Clinton's Peace Dividend. Don't believe them.

I agree with the premise that the US Navy can no longer control and defend the entirety of the sea. But the reason is not through the fault of the Navy. The economies of the world have expanded explosively, and commerce is more and more global. Heck, one look at the multi-national crew manifests on these ships is evidence of that. Simply put, there's just too much traffic, and too many sea lanes to protect every single one - especially when it's not really your job in the first place.

But we're not facing the end of global shipping, nor even the end of "Made in China" tags. The good news about the expansion of other economies is the expansion of self-interest. Other countries are stepping up to defend their economy and their sense of nationhood.

If it's the Wild West, the cattle rustlers have ticked off just about every sheriff on this side of the Pecos.

What's really interesting is we've been here before. A nation, relatively new to the global scene, stands up to defend its commerce and interests against piracy on the high seas.

This ties into the War on Terror, as well. The Barbary Pirates came about as a result of the Crusades; it could be said that that medieval battle between Europe and the Middle East didn't end until the conquering of Algiers in 1830. And it's safe to say that these Somali pirates aren't exactly independent of the modern-day crusade. Will history repeat itself, and will those aggrieved by piracy set aside their differences and put down the barbarians at the gates? (You can watch - isn't the internet cool?)

Two things are certain - First, in indiscriminately attacking vessels of all nationalities and origins and destinations, the pirates have succeeded in making the war (not just the battlefields) truly Global in nature, and they've given us some allies in the process. That should be capitalized on in this global counterinsurgency.

Second, everything old is new again:
It was written in their Koran, that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every mussulman who was slain in this warfare was sure to go to paradise. He said, also, that the man who was the first to board a vessel had one slave over and above his share, and that when they sprang to the deck of an enemy's ship, every sailor held a dagger in each hand and a third in his mouth; which usually struck such terror into the foe that they cried out for quarter at once.

Sound familiar?

The Audacity of Audacity

2008-11-16T00:35:00.002-07:00

Michael Yon has an interesting piece referring to a story he wrote in one of his earlier books.

Go read it - it's hilarious. I'll see you back in a couple minutes.

Welcome back. Maybe that's the breakthrough in this past election. It's not about shady funding and massive spending after all. The thing that Changed Everything this year was that we discovered the concept of Election by Meme.

It doesn't matter who you are, or what your past is, or what you will be. All that matters is that you have some concept that's sufficiently vague - say, "Change" - and the audacity to turn that concept into a magic mirror, showing everyone what they want to see.

The internet was hailed as an achievement of and monument to Reason. Instead it's become a better propagator of memes and hysteria. For example, it doesn't matter if Rickrolling is dumb and pointless - it's still funny, and therefore it must go on. It was well-documented that no one could really describe or explain "Change," but it didn't matter. It doesn't matter if "Change" as a policy is stupid and pointless. They saw in it what they wanted to see, even if they couldn't put it into words. Reason cannot penetrate either.

Of course, all of this proves why democracy becomes a crude and cruel system, and why the Founding Fathers did all they could to dampen its influences. Otherwise, we all find ourselves voting for Bill Gurley. I mean, he's a good guy, and I guess we like him, but who's in charge when he gets elected?

In the Palm of Your Hand

2008-11-12T21:54:00.003-07:00

In the wave of support for “Green Energy,” we’ve seen support for about every form. But the future of energy isn’t in clean coal, it’s not in windmills, nor water mills, nor distilled cereal grains. We’ve been doing all of those for centuries, anyway.

Two companies – Hyperion Power Generation and Toshiba – are developing for market mini-nuclear reactors. They’re the size of a tool shed, made of no moving parts, and can be buried for security and safety. Hyperion’s provides 25 megawatts of power, and lasts for up to 10 years. And it’s all in a generator that needs no infrastructure but the road to drive the truck on, and the cable coming up from the ground.

But it’s nuclear – and nuclear’s scary, right? Not really. They’ve been safely using this source of power – thermocouples turning radioactive heat into electrical energy – on deep-space probes for decades. It’s material that’s refined only enough to stay hot, but not so much to be hot enough to melt down. And they say it would take roughly the same level of technology to “weaponize” it as pure ore.

That means countries like Iran that feel the need to have nuclear programs “for the energy” can do just that without needing an the infrastructure that’s strikingly similar to nuclear weapons programs. Don’t you just hate it when plausible deniability disappears like that?

That’s not to say it’s without fault. I don’t know how “dirty” a dirty bomb using the material would be – but it’s probably worse than using regular dirt. Also, in 10 years, you’d have a bunch of radioactive material come due for reprocessing or disposal. And that disposal problem has proven tricky in the past.

But, in the end, it’s the technology to dig a hole and plug in the world – whether it’s remote drilling sites in the Canadian far north, or cell towers linking rural Africa to the global market. And that’s pretty darned cool.

Welcome to the Nuclear Age. Even if it is some 60 years late.

A More Perfect Union

2008-11-11T21:52:00.002-07:00

"Our union can be perfected." - President-Elect Obama

Those were words from his acceptance speech last Tuesday night. I'm sure it was a rhetorical flourish, meant to refer back to the Preamble of the Constitution. But it says so much more.

When you compare the Preamble (see the title of this post) to the quotation, however, you'll note an important difference. That difference is the word "more."

That one simple word belies a significant difference in philosophy. You see, the Founders, and, indeed, most people from the beginning of time, viewed people as inherently imperfect, and therefore imperfectable, creatures. And, as such, any human system, be it family, group, or country, is imperfectable as well.

But we're not here to just throw up our hands in resignation at our flaws. No, we ought to seek to make ourselves more perfect tomorrow than we are today, and the world a more perfect place, too.

That lasted for a few thousand years, until the early 1900s. (Though there are stirrings of it in The Republic) About then, the political class found themselves flush with all sorts of new knowledge and understanding. Darwin, Einstein, Marx, and countless others had been able to unlock the wisdom of the ages, and make it accessible to everyone else. With scientific understanding of biology, and physics, and economics, it became possible to understand people, and societies, and social systems.

If only you could get the right technocrats, the right Brain Trust in place, they could apply these new and wonderful sciences to society. They'd have to be able to do this by fiat, of course, because when you can make everything perfect with your knowledge, why would you need to stick to democratic ideals? A sufficiently enlightened dictator ought to be good enough, if they can make things perfect.

This was the source of a philosophy that called itself Progressive (sound familiar?). Essentially, they justified this wave of Applied Social Sciences with the concept of pragmatic governance - If it works, who cares how you do it - into a new technocratic ideal.

The thing is, the concept itself is distinctly illiberal. If you can drum up the support of the people through populism (which can often be easy with the "just do it" pragmatism), so be it. But if you can't, well, they're all hoopleheads anyway, and they'll thank you later. When you have a Brain Trust of the Smartest People in the World, you don't need popular support. You just need the power to make things better. To "perfect the Union," if you will.

Now I don't know if the President-Elect meant all this or not by that one turn of phrase. But knowing the progressive roots of his Party, it makes one wonder, doesn't it?

But it gets worse. You see, in other countries, it wasn't just society they sought to perfect through Applied Social Sciences. These ideas followed naturally to applying the other Applied Sciences of biology and chemistry and physics to not just human social groups, but to humans themselves. The wave of interest in eugenics came from the exact same stream of thought. In some cases, it took the form of selective breeding, in others, various genetic and biological experiments. In others, it focused on culling certain folks, rather than keeping certain folks. If you get my drift.

No, it's been tried before. It didn't end well.

For decades, the Left has been emphasizing that this Union is not perfect. Well, no kidding. But that's the definition of any human society. Can we make it more humane? Every day. Can they, or anyone, make it perfect. Not only no, but Hell No.

I'm reminded of a speech from the climax of the movie Serenity. (Highly recommended, if you haven't seen it.) They've discovered the story of a Government that had tried its own experiments at perfecting a society. It didn't end well, either. It's from science fiction, but the words can be a call to us, too.

I know this - they will try again. . . A year from now, ten? They'll swing back to the belief that they can make people... better. And I do not hold to that. - Malcolm Reynolds

No, we're not perfect, nor is this Union. But no government, no Brain Trust, no quasi-messianic President-Elect can perfect either. We can only strive toward a more perfect self, and a more perfect Union, one person and one act at a time.

I don't know if it was a rhetorical flourish, or if it was a hint at a more dangerous philosophy rearing its head. I hope it was the former. But if it was the latter, well,

I aim to misbehave.

Updates Enroute

2008-11-08T12:54:00.003-07:00

More updates coming - ETA, Next Tuesday at the latest.

Until then, I updated the Links/Blogroll section at the side. Definitely check out the Eject! link to start - his latest is good stuff.

See you in a couple days.

What Now?

2008-11-04T22:44:00.001-07:00

Whither now the GOP?

Will Obama be a centrist, or led by the nose by the other two in the Troika, namely Harry and Nancy?

What guns should we get first?

Open thread.

Election Live Blogging

2008-11-04T17:01:00.002-07:00

Welcome to the 2008 Election Live Blog fun!

It begins now-ish. Just post whatever - snarks about obnoxious media-types, criticisms of campaigns, updates on your area, ideal weapon choices for the coming Apocalypse - and we'll all have a grand time.

Exsurgency

2005-10-19T11:10:00.000-06:00

The lessons of history can teach us much, but sometimes we find that there is something new under the sun, something our experience, and even our language, is unprepared for. Now is such a time, and the new concept is that of exsurgency.

"Insurgent" is a word that can have many applications, but it is limited by those first two letters. The in in insurgent implies that the "surging" comes from within the body being affected. In Iraq, however, that is largely not the case at all.

The offensives and actions in (and sometimes not in) the news hint at that. From Rawah to Qaim to Sadah to Tal Afar, there are hot clashes between coalition (mostly Iraqi and US) forces, and what the news refers to as pockets of foreign fighters. Of course, that simply makes sense - towns filled mostly with regular people down run guns or behead "sympathizers," especially in the numbers met by opposing forces. These fighters have to come from somewhere, not to mention get their weapons from somewhere, and it's no secret that they're not mostly from Iraq, let alone from a couple towns over. Even the de facto leader of these counter-coalition elements, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, is himself a Jordanian.

Yet, despite all of this evidence, the language of today still maintains that these elements are an "insurgency," as defined that that they counter the intended status quo by unconventional means. While the latter is true, they are nonetheless obviously not from within Iraq, perhaps we should take to calling an exsurgency, to emphasize their non-native origin.

When you do that, you get an entirely new picture of the situation, not to mention a much more accurate one. No longer are random, ticked-off Iraqis lashing out at us "imperialist Americans," instead, directed and organized armies of foreigners are striking innocent Iraqis, and being fought by US-aided native Iraqi security units. The picture becomes a clash of order vs. disorder, not some grassroots uprising of the Arab Street. And considering that, historically, clashes between order and disorder are infinitely more common than an ultra-violent grassroots rebellion, this tends to hold quite well with what we can take from the overall human experience. In other words, in the big picture, this really isn't something new at all.

How did we get to this point of exsurgency? Surely, the enemy combatants in this war haven't always been foreign fighters streaming in across porous desert borders. The answer, it turns out, is fairly simple. The military has taken to using terms like "OIF 1" and "OIF 2." I never really figured out where the lines for each period were drawn, but it's obvious that someone who was "in OIF 1" was in Iraq for the first parts of the war. Now it seems that the era is currently OIF 3, but I don't know where the memo came from stating such. These terms could refer to any number of things, though. First, Operation Iraqi Freedom has been going on for just over three years. You do the math. Similarly, it could refer to the roughly year-long Army rotation schedule somehow. But in the context of the action itself, it also applies, and this becomes really three distinct wars consecutively.

First was the conventional action - air strikes on military targets, rolling tanks north to Baghdad, that sort of thing. The primary objective was to topple Saddam Hussein's regime, and defeat any resistance posed by his conventional units. The second course of action was, to use an analogy, fertilizing the soil. This included rooting out Baathists and other former regime elements, organizing forces for a long-term rebuilding effort, and containing Iraqi radical clerics and other leaders who would incite violence. The last was accomplished by involving their constituencies in the political process, which, oddly enough, happened to kick off the third portion. It began with the provisional elections last January, and continues with the recent (pending) ratification of the constitution. The greatest threat now is exsurgency, namely the foreign fighters and those mostly Sunni Iraqis they wish to recruit, supply, and direct. The exsurgents are being dealt blows by conventional military means, in operations manned by both US and Iraqi forces. They are also being harmed by their falling standing among the civilian Iraqi population. After all, you can't car-bomb peoples' cousins and other fellow tribesmen without alienating a few people here and there. But, much like the final strike against any true insurgency, the ultimate blow to exsurgency will be involving their potential recruits in the political process, leaving the exsurgents smaller and smaller influence, and thereby more and more exposed.

It's important that we remember the picture of conflict between order and disorder, not only because it's accurate, but also because that's the way our enemy views the conflict. In a recent speech regarding the continued War on Terror, and the current battlefield of it in Iraq, President Bush quoted both Osama bin Laden and Zarqawi. The former has said "The whole world is watching this war and the two adversaries. It's either victory and glory, or misery and humiliation." Zarqawi was also up front about his intentions: "We will either achieve victory over the human race or we will pass to the eternal life." In both cases, neither hid his aims within the cloak of some anti-Western grievance. They clearly recognized the importance of the Iraqi front in their plans for world domination, and they certainly did not limit their call to arms in this battle to those followers only with Iraqi citizenship.

These two armies are clashing. On one side are the supporters of Zarqawi's Islamofacist ideal. On the other are the US and other coalition forces building up an independent and sovereign Iraq. The enemy will fight with all it has; we must not fail to recognize this, nor fail to act against it. For on one side is misery and humiliation, while the other is victory and glory. And the winner gets to pick the outcome.

Sacrifice and Victory

2005-10-11T22:08:00.000-06:00

Three-Hundred.

Seven-Hundred.

The headlines start like a faucet dripping into a hollow steel sink.

One-Thousand.

Then a dull roar invades your head.

One-Thousand, Eight-Hundred American Soldiers Dead.

The roar gives way to pained screams wracking your brain - ENOUGH! ENOUGH!

We've all felt it. It's the reaction any decent person is supposed to have, and that sense of decency is precisely the target. After all, Americans are essentially a peaceful, isolationist, decent people. It is in our history, in our myths, and practically in our blood. We can be excited beyond that, of course, but, just like an electron, it takes a good deal of influence and energy, and we tend to fall back to our natural state rather quickly.

But, just like an electron, as we fall from that excited state, America gives off Light. The late President Reagan spoke of America as being a Shining City on a Hill; that was no mere metaphor. Throughout our brief history, America has risen to great energy and industry only a handful of times. Each time, while slow to light, America has done no less than save a significant portion of the humanity, time and again, by undertaking, and accomplishing great feats, spending our blood, toil, sweat and tears from Gettysburg to Normandy to Fallujah. And each time, after accomplishing these victories, Americans have simply gone home. In doing so, Americans have exchanged that energy to light the way for those we'd fought, showing them that this is what Free and Just people do, and giving them the well-lighted room in which to be Free and Just themselves.

Those dark and morbid headlines are not the stuff of American history. In merely accounting the numbers, they are derelict in telling the true story - stories of battles won, towns freed, and murderers captured. We, after all, don't refer to "almost 2,500 dead near Shiloh Church" or "over 20,000 killed in the Ardennes Forest," yet those were surely battles from which the death tolls were quite newsworthy. Why do we insist on referring to re-taking Fallujah or sweeping terrorists out of Hadithah in such language?

The implied purpose, of course, is that when enough decent Americans say "enough," perhaps we'll come home, once again. Now, given that, in this view, the requirement to come home isn't Victory, but rather the sheer numbers of American soldiers killed, to dangerous and insidious outcomes result. The first is obvious: things that would have been required for victory will be left undone, and the light of our departure will as likely be used to burn the country down as it will be to set men and women free. The second, less obvious, and thereby far more dangerous result is that each and every brave American soldier, sailor, airman and Marine who gives his or her life in the ultimate cause of freedom becomes but one more decibel added to that screaming voice, and one more nail in the coffin of the victory they paid so dearly to gain and the liberty they fought so bravely to protect. Dying for one's country is no longer one's "last full measure of devotion," but rather it has become nothing more than abject defeat.

Think about that for a minute.

Perhaps in the cold, black recesses of your post-modern-conditioned mind, thoughts of what that possibility means to the morale of our brave men and women, concerns about how your worries honor or dishonor their sacrifice, and the shame of your failing in the face of mere numbers, while they, in the face of bullets and roadside bombs, and in spite of those numbers, continue to accept their mission of victory, perhaps those thoughts will drown out those Headlines of Defeat, like a march, conquering a dirge.

Hear that march. Hear the honor of being an American, the honor in risking everything you have only to share the spoils of victory with the defeated. Eighteen-hundred? God Bless Them. Perhaps Two-thousand? For them, and for those who continue to still, we can win, we will win, and we must win.

Perhaps in another dry, dusty corner of your mind, one with a flag, neatly folded, next to an old picture of a smiling relative in a uniform, you hear another voice. This one echoes out of a history so deeply-instilled in who you are, it's like an American gene, perhaps passed down from the relative in that picture:

The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. –Abraham Lincoln, November 19, 1863

Hear that voice, yet recall the darkest days of what seemed like our utter defeat. We are stronger now. We have come farther than we dared dream. Yet we still have much farther to go; we will not be deterred. Let yourself be lifted up again, from that easy state of peaceful isolationism into the excited state of action, because much remains to be done. We've been here, in these days of sorrow and doubt, before. And, as before, we will leave them again, and press home the victory. To the hands of brave and free men and women, Victory must not be denied.

The Sandwich Doctrine

2005-10-05T21:21:00.000-06:00

Let's be frank. The way the case was made for undertaking the War in Iraq was rather weak. But, like a brilliant philosopher with a stutter, just because the way the arguments were put forward was incoherent and incomplete doesn't mean the reasoning wasn't sound. The media, the pundits, and the actors themselves all settled early on for stressing the mysterious, dangerous intrigue of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, while all of the other very important reasons were lost in the sound and fury spent on the WMD argument. The results of this were threefold. First, the true threat posed by Saddam Hussein's WMD programs, in his regime's funding, resources, and know-how, was overshadowed by the concerns only over his existing stockpiles and intent to use them. Second, the large strategic interest with respect to the Global War on Terror became a secondary concern. Finally, any further mention of these or any other reasons were attacked as being an attempt to change the argument, rather than a full documentation of it.

Wars are complex issues, and often the reasons for them that seep into societal consciousness aren't the most important ones. The Greek states certainly didn't fight the Trojans for a decade because of one king's unfaithful, but really hot, wife. It was likely, among other reasons, a trade war for control over the Straits of Bosporus (where modern-day Istanbul is) and the Eastern Mediterranean, and thereby access to Asian markets. But economic geekery doesn't put food in a storyteller's stomach, and Homer knew that. If we want to truly understand something with as many causes as war, we can't get lost in one scary or otherwise compelling reason. We have to take that reason to be an ingredient in a larger plan, like a slice of cheese on a sandwich.

So, you want to make a sandwich. I'm not talking about just your average, run-of-the-mill bologna or PB&J affair; I'm talking about an epic, put-Dagwood-to-shame sandwich. First, you have to know what you're going to put in it; you have to have a plan. In a war, that plan is usually covered in a nation's grand strategy, which is a long-term approach to strategy, on a decades- or centuries-long level. Currently, our grand strategy is also known as the Bush Doctrine, and is best explained in a document called the National Security Strategy. Essentially, the Bush Doctrine states that our greatest threat is international terrorism, particularly terrorism aided by state sponsors. To defend the strategic interests of the United States, these sponsors must be dealt with, and we must also remove the conditions which breed terrorists, namely oppressive regimes who use their propaganda to essentially blame the "Great Satan" America for all their nation's troubles.

Next, to make a sandwich, you need ingredients. Sometimes, you already have some of them. For example, the hostilities between the US and Iraq never really ceased after the '91 Gulf War - instead there was a cease fire agreement, which Saddam and his friendly missile-site operators continually violated. But if you truly want to make a sandwich for the ages, you'll need a trip to the store. Of course, you need to go to the grocery store which will have the highest quality as well as the best selection; ingredients that will best fit your master sandwich plan. Even then, sometimes the store won't have everything, even when they say they do. The bad news here comes when it's an ingredient that everyone was excited about, like the finest of Swiss cheeses. This is essentially what happened with the WMD argument. The good news, however, is that you can still have a really good sandwich, one that still can fit your sandwich master plan. The key is not to forget the good news, and to build the sandwich from the many, many other ingredients left in the store. For example, the meat was still there, in that a state sponsor of terror was removed from power, and his fellow members of the "Axis of Evil" could see precisely what was coming to sponsors of terror who had modern armies (something that wasn't necessarily proven against the Taliban). We can say the cheese was still there, also. After all, now we have the opportunity to introduce and prove the worth of a democratic "virus" in a population of both Sunni and Shia, as well as Arab and Kurd and Persian, as an example for all who may see. It is precisely this goal - introducing popular government, thereby removing the curtain behind which someone can blame the outside world for his own domestic failures - that makes the Bush Doctrine a grand strategy. Not only are enemies in the here and now considered, but the soil from which future enemies may grow is also treated with a healthy dose of pesticide.

Finally, every epic sandwich has a few secret ingredients; those little extra touches that you don't necessarily advertise, but that make the end result that much better. In Iraq, some of the "secret" ingredients included a stronger diplomatic position with Saudi Arabia, by adding new oil competition to the world market and by removing the US bases there, and a central position against to neighboring overt state sponsors of terror. These are reasons that are certainly strong, but they are also reasons one can't exactly blame those folks who made this sandwich for not mentioning.

Of course, the key to a sandwich is the sandwich itself, no matter which cheese is missing, or which secret ingredient is added. In Iraq, the United States and its allies have spent the past two and a half years building just such a sandwich. We've removed one state sponsor of terrorism, increased our relative strength against other such state sponsors, and created new conditions that serve to stem the long-term production of terrorists as a result of an oppressive, autocratic society. Whether the Swiss cheese was there or not, it remains an epic sandwich and ought to be a pride for all who have made it.

A Land War in Asia

2005-09-28T04:19:00.000-06:00

You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders. The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia; and only slightly less well-known is this: Never go in against a Sicilian, when death is on the line.

If you have seen The Princess Bride (having never read the book, I can't speak for the same exchange being included), you know what happens next: the gloating Sicilian Vizzini falls over dead. The same is true of the other of his so-called "classic blunders;" at first, the truism seems formidable, but upon consideration, it falls over, as well.

Very little on this Earth exists without having a reason for its existence, and this blunder is no exception. History is littered with armies who met their eventual defeat in Asia, whether you consider Alexander stalling in the Indian heat, Napoleon's defeat in the Russian winter, or the Soviet Union failing in the mountains of Afghanistan. Of course, one cannot forget past American difficulties in Vietnam, as well. Each of these defeats has its own causes for failure, not the least of which for each is the vast breadth and depth of Asian geography.

Asia's big. Very big. In fact, it's the world's largest continent. Its size is its first trap - after Athens and Sparta fought for decades over a tiny peninsula, Alexander's Hellenistic armies found no such barriers to conquest. The indistinct border between Napoleon's conquest of Europe and the continent beyond Moscow also lead in part to his overextension and failure. Frankly, there's just nowhere to stop.

The continent also contains some of the most extreme terrain in the world. This can be an extremity of wealth, like the fertile valleys of the Tigris, Euphrates, and Indus Rivers, or the soil, climate, and accessibility of the Crimean Peninsula. It also can mean the heights of the Hindu Kush, depth of the Dead Sea, or the breadth of Siberia, the Gobi Desert, and the Rub al Khali. These vast differences also played a major part in the defeats of armies in Asia.

But the simplest, and therefore most-overlooked reason behind Asia's storied difficulties is simply that there are more peoples to fight over more land. Therefore, just like in the lottery, the more players there are, the more losers there are. However, the important corollary to that point is that in war, there is a winner for each loser; thereby there have also been more winners, historically speaking. If Asia makes such a difficult battlefield, those victors must have done some things very right. Let's look at three examples of this victory through adversity - Alexander the Great's Greek phalanx, Genghis Khan's Mongol hordes, and T. E. Lawrence's Arab revolt.

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First, Alexander. While it's difficult not to notice the eventual defeat of his armies, it's important not to take for granted their great successes before that fall. The tactical key to those victories was the use of the Greek phalanx, which was essentially a large block formation with each rank of its soldiers holding long spears toward its oncoming enemy, so that they constituted a large, very pointy wall. This was the very embodiment of the strategic concept we call Mass.

Prior to the introduction of European fighters, much of the war in what is now the Middle East consisted of either raiding parties out to loot and plunder, various mercenaries or nobility out to attain greatness, or armies of slaves thrown thoughtlessly at an opposing foe. Independently of all of this, the Greeks developed a method of warfare that was entirely different. Instead of numerous individuals hurling themselves at the enemy, relying only on initiative and their skill, Greek armies consisted of many men arrayed all but on top of each other, moving as one unit. In order to defeat them, an enemy had to attack their center, which essentially meant attacking all of the Greeks at the same time. This removed the chief strength of raiding-type warfare - the attacker's initiative - because when all grouped together, a phalanx was always in the ultimate defensive posture.

In addition, Alexander, a horseman from Macedon rather than a Greek himself, added cavalry to hem in an enemy's attack, suck that they had no choice but to assault the center of his army, and thus the heart of his strength. By perfecting the concept of mass, Alexander was able to conquer much of Western Asia, as well as Northern Africa. While it was infighting and illness that lead to his eventual defeat, Alexander's greatness was in perfecting a method of warfare we still consider and apply today - Mass.

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The Mongols, on the other hand, worked from a completely different playbook. Rather than being armored and organized farmers, the Mongols were horse-riding hunter-gatherers. Nonetheless, they conquered nearly all of Asia during their expansionist period, and made significant attempts as far as Central Europe. They didn't have large armies, nor did they have thick armor and strong spears. Instead, they mastered another key concept called Mobility.

The Mongols were primarily a hunter and herder society. As a result, their entire existence was built around moving from hunting ground to grazing ground to gathering ground. This in itself encouraged a very flexible group of people, able to thrive in any location, and adapted to move many people and their supplies with ease. The mastery of horsemanship only added to their range and success with this adaptation for mobility. Of course, in such a lifestyle, luxuries were few, and sometimes even the necessities of life came up short. As a result, they began seeking tribute from neighboring societies. They did this by applying their hunting skills to destroying opposing armies, and their herding talents to corral the remaining survivors. They would do this essentially by encircling a town, then by riding through it. By doing this, they would herd the civilians into smaller and smaller areas, while simultaneously drawing out a scattered opposition to hunt and ride down. In this manner, they conquered nearly all of Asia, and much of Eastern Europe.

While their cavalry mastered the arts of mobility and flexibility, their leader, Genghis Khan, mastered the art of combining vast and disparate peoples into controllable conquered subjects. He did this of course first through owning the battlefield and utterly destroying any military threats. But Khan didn't just hurt and destroy the wolves; he also kept the "herds" of conquered populations fat and happy. You see, the Mongols weren't the only people who enjoyed luxuries like salt, spice, silk, and steel. While some conquered populations had access to one of those, none had access to all, and all had an appreciation for the value of such imports. To this end, Khan developed and protected the largest and most extensive trade network the world had ever known. To build what Western Europe came to call the Silk Road, Genghis Khan developed a currency system that was accepted among all tributary peoples, ensured protection fro merchants and diplomatic envoys by law and by force, killed bandit gangs and tribal leaders alike who did not honor that protection, and encouraged a mutual respect among all people and religions, also by law and by example, taking into his personal court representatives of all peoples and clergy from all religions composing his empire. Therefore, not only have the might of mass and mobility conquered in Asia, but also the so-called "soft power" of the rule of law, free trade, and equality under the laws. While the sword conquers and controls, the pen and tongue maintain stability.

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Now, this is all well and good, but the keys to strategy take a little more than a few spears, some horses, and an order to "Be Excellent to Each Other." What does war in Asia mean in a modern, industrial age? In World War I, T.E. Lawrence, and by his proxy, British and Allied forces lead an Arab "revolt" against their Ottoman and German rulers. Originally intended to be no more than a stunt to make Germany pull forces from the all-important Western Front at minimal cost to the British, Lawrence nonetheless pulled off victory by defeating Turkish and German forces in Arab lands.

Lawrence had great disdain for "by the book" European warfare. In his memoirs, he writes with moving bitterness of routing his enemies by applying the lessons of Clausewitz and Jomini during a battle in which he lost important Arab leaders and the aid of a tribe he'd sought help from for quite a time, all to win an area he gave back up freely only days later. Yet his lessons still apply to Western warfare, both in what he can teach us as "the other," i.e. the insurgents fighting a stronger, modern enemy, and as one of our own, as a Western leader developing a broad coalition of natives in a foreign land, to achieve both their objectives and his own.

First, Lawrence saw both the strengths and the weaknesses of early 20th-century military technology. He adopted the strengths - machine guns, explosives, naval artillery - while attacking its weaknesses - the long and fixed supply lines of a railway system, a logistics-intensive enemy using lots of food, water, and supplies to remain in fixed garrisons, and an enemy who likely also got last selection in weapons, troops, and support, due to a more important front open in a wider war.

His enemy could have learned important elements of their own advantage and disadvantage by viewing Lawrence's decisions in this matter. First, he was using British versions of their own weapons in engagements, from machine guns to artillery. While evenly-matched technologically, they surely had more weapons and ammunition, and better training at both, than he. Second, he was attacking trains while on bridges along their important supply railways, both to disrupt their line of supply and communication, and to loot their trains for ammunition and supplies, and even plundering European luxuries as trophies to maintain good relationships with his Arab tribal allies. These were surely the weakest points in their defensive scheme, and ought to have been either avoided through an application of the new technology of flight, defended more rigorously by putting more troops on better-defended trains, or counter-disrupted by removing potential "plunder" and other luxury items that mattered only in another country thousands of miles away.

Finally, one must also recognize one's strengths, where the enemy is not attacking, such as well-defended cities and garrisons. The catch here, however, is that even if what is defended appears to be a politically important city or strategically important bridge, the enemy won't give up and say "Oh, well, I can't take the bridge, so you win." Instead, he'll develop a strategy where he can either make what's important-but-defended unimportant to his plan, or he can delay assault until you can't defend it anymore due to his other actions elsewhere. The lesson here is simple: Know Thyself, and Know Thy Enemy. Know what you need to defend and keep, be it land, assets, or objectives, what he needs to take destroy and achieve, respectively, and, if those lists clash, figure out how he'll adapt to his weakness.

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Major Lawrence is on our side now, leading a native population of allies to achieve a common goal. If you think out-thinking and out-maneuvering your enemy's plan of attack was difficult, this task looks well-nigh impossible. Guiding and maintaining an army from an entirely different culture, with different customs, and millennia-old prideful divisions among themselves is indeed a delicate task. But it was not impossible for Lawrence; therefore it is not impossible now. This is by far the most complex of any of the lessons one can learn from our study. Therefore, while it's important to know and understand the basic rules, much like playing a card game, your own hand and an opponents hand both dictate how those rules ought to be applied in a specific game. We can glean the important rules for any such basic strategy from Lawrence.

Rule One: Know your Allies. Know what makes them tick, from their greatest leader to their smallest citizen. Know under what circumstances, and at what cost, they'll defend your mutual interest, and know what circumstances might beat that. Know their divisions, and their unity. Finally, know how they do the things you'll be doing the most of - deal-brokering, settling disputes, and creating strategies. The values of pride, honor, respect, and glory can vary wildly among all cultures, whether contrasting Alabama and California or the British and the Arabs, and these values play most heavily into the diplomacy required.

Rule Two: Find a Leader. In beginning his work, this was the first, and to him the most important, step in Lawrence's plan. You can't pick someone who always just agrees with you, but you have to find someone who can work with you. Further, you can't pick them, you can only find them. They have to be strong, likeable, understanding of your goals and their own, and nearly universally respected among their own people. Some great leaders are just born. The one you find has to be one of them.

Rule Three: Have a plan, but be flexible. By this, I don't mean have just a strategy, but also a plan to integrate that strategy into your coalition. Expect disappointment. Sometimes an ally or group of allies simply won't pan out, and sometimes a group you weren't counting on will come through. In either case, if you can't successfully integrate this surprise into your strategy, the consequences will be disastrous. To successfully meld a diplomatic plan into a strategy, you have to know your main objective, have intermediate objectives, and know how they relate; which intermediate objective is necessary, and which is conditional? The plan you start with, you won't follow, but in dealing with both a disappointing and a pleasant surprise, one can remain flexible enough to achieve the end result desired.

These are just three of any number of key points one can clean from what T.E. Lawrence learned about coalition warfare with a different culture, but most of them fall under these three in some way.

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We began this discussion attempting to prove or debunk the truism that it is a blunder to fight a land war in Asia. After a discussion of just three of the leaders and armies who fought and won such land campaigns, there should be no doubt that the silly question "Can we win?" ought to be replaced with the more important question of "How do we win?" While the full answer to that question, as applied to our current war, is for another day and hundreds of books worth of thought, we can gain a good start by asking and understanding how "they" won.

First, one must seek to master both Mass and Mobility because, just like Alexander's cavalry funneling the enemy toward the phalanx, the weakness of one is complemented by the strength of the other, and vice versa. Second, one must hunt the wolves and herd the sheep. Like Genghis Khan knew, even after the land is conquered, both still need to be done to maintain the stability of a victory. Third, post-industrial warfare doesn't negate these rules, it simply raises the stakes. To achieve his goal, T.E. Lawrence had to work with a tricky coalition while enjoying the advantage of understanding both his enemy's (and his own) Clausewitzian background and European traditions, as well as understanding and having by his side his allies' backgrounds, advantages and disadvantages.

Finally, and most importantly, we've learned that winning a land war in Asia is quite possible, and, in light of historical understanding of those who have won just such a war, suggesting otherwise is silly. In fact, it becomes exceedingly so when winning a land war in Asia becomes not a question of possibility, but of necessity, as it did with our own country's awareness and concern of this problem on 11 September, 2001. Consider the lessons of history. Read about those who have won, and who have lost. Consider the lessons they learned, and how they might apply in today's world, with modern technology and post-modern sensitivities. Because a land war in Asia is precisely what we need to win, and failure is not an option.

Incoming

2005-09-21T09:06:00.000-06:00

It's been a while. I don't mean since I last wrote here; much more significantly, it's been over four years since 11 September, 2001. It's been four years, not since we had war declared on us, but since we finally declared it back. In one sense, four years can sometimes still feel like yesterday, but in another, it's all too far away. With a journey so bold and difficult as this one, it's easy to take for granted the path we've been down as a whole: where we've been, where we are, and where we're going.

Because of that, what will follow will be a series of four essays, each concerned with a different aspect of this arduous quest, from single issues to grand scale, big picture ideas. Though they are separate pieces, each is part of the past four years, and of the larger puzzle of where our country stands today.

A Land War in Asia will consider the very real worries many had in accepting so great an undertaking as fighting a war in Afghanistan, and take a look at the wisdom and/or folly of the concept of fighting a land war in Asia from a strategic and historical perspective.

The Sandwich Doctrine explains the fallacies many have fallen prey to in criticizing (and continuing to criticize) the war in Iraq, from the WMD issue to the Bush Doctrine.

Sacrifice and Victory will take a hard philosophical and moral look at what defines the price of victory and the cost of defeat in a Post-Modern America.

Finally, Exsurgency will be a look at the trends shaping Iraq today, how the war is changing before our eyes, and how the world is changing as a result.

To Note: I'm posting this by email, so link tags will probably not work. As a result, when I refer to current news and historical documents, rather than linking directly, I'll do the incredbly non-web-savvy thing and use a form of endnote to document sources(1). Further, I'm going to attempt to get a solid schedule down for when updates will be posted, to hopefully deliver a better quality of work over a longer time frame. Expect weekly updates each Wednesday.

Last, but not least, I'll be playing historian, philosopher, strategist, and political scientist, none of which I get paid for. So, if you, dear reader, have any notes, points, or corrections, lay them out there. It's been an interesting and complex four years, and no one as all the knowledge and insight from the duration.

Next Week: A Land War in Asia...

1. Like this, I hope it's not too annoying

What is the Value of a Life?

2005-04-09T22:21:00.000-06:00

My old economics professor used to work his way off on tangents that were often closer to Animal Planet than to the name of the book we all brought to class, but he’d always bring the class back with his oft-repeated conclusion: “Everything is Economics.” Now, whether or not that is completely the case is not something which is about to be argued here. It will simply suffice to say that he has a point. Modern economics, after all, was essentially the first discipline to recognize and prove that a non-actor has as much effect on the result of a system as one who chooses to act. Markets, and it follows all human social systems, are completely democratic: we all vote, whether we like it or not.

Take, for example, the produce section of your grocery store. While shopping there, you make many choices, both in filling and not filling your shopping cart. To narrow this example down, say you have a choice between a basket of apples and one of oranges. Personally, I prefer apples, so that is what I would put in my cart. But that choice goes beyond just my cart and just that particular grocery store. In the big picture, I am placing an increased value on apples two-fold: I am decreasing the supply by one apple, and am registering my demand for the same in a real and concrete way. This choice, however, wasn’t just about increasing the value of apples. In addition, by my not selecting an orange, the supply increases by one more person who can buy one, and the demand also decreases by one customer who doesn’t want an orange. It follows that my choice to buy an apple both increases the value of the apple and decreases the value of the orange. Granted, my personal tastes register as a very small fraction in the big picture; it takes a massive trend to affect the value a noticeable amount. But, by economic principles, we can see that the value is nonetheless affected by one person.

It is important to note that the value of an apple is affected by more than just supply and demand. There are certain qualities of an apple that matter. And apple that is a deep red color, crisp, fresh, and unbruised is closer to our ideal of an apple, and is therefore of greater value. One could even say that the ripe fruit straight off the tree is more “apple-y” than the one that has been lying beneath the tree for a few weeks.

Now consider the value of a human life. In this day and age, many argue that they ought to have a “personal choice” to not suffer, to “die with dignity,” to euthanize the sick. My purpose is not to argue whether they have, or even whether they ought to have that choice. My purpose, rather, is to point out that just like in the produce section of a grocery store, a “personal choice” isn’t really merely “personal” at all.

It is obvious that the value of a human life is not zero by the simple fact that we spend the time and effort supporting our own lives. Similarly, some would say that the value of life is irrelevant beyond that of our own selfish needs. Yet a firefighter who risks his life to save others is not viewed as committing a moral evil, as this philosophy would suggest.

Still others say that the value of a life is fixed, be it zero (which has already been dealt with), infinity, or some arbitrary but constant value. The same firefighter shows all to be absurd; by his actions, he is not only not committing an evil, but by saving many, he is committing a moral good. It follows that since many lives are greater than one, and since multiple infinities is still the same as the original value – infinity – that such an answer is not the value of life, for reasons similar to those mentioned in the preceding paragraph. Furthermore, we can say that in saving many lives, the fire fighter’s life is more valuable than before, so the value is not fixed at all.
An interesting question is whether, like the apple, the qualities of a human life affect its value. In other words, if we say that a ripe, red, delicious apple is more “apple-y” than one a little beaten up and past its prime, can we also say that a person with perfect vision and hearing, with unmatched intelligence and physical prowess, and good looks to boot, is more “human-y” than you or I? The very thought is absurd. The humanity of a person does not change, regardless of eyesight, talent, or even health. This means that the value of a person is inherent in mere person-hood, regardless of any external characteristics. It follows from this that the fire fighter, by saving many lives and thus increasing the value of his life, also by his actions necessarily increases the value of all lives at the same time.

As they say, what goes up must come down. If the value of life can increase, it can also decrease. We see this in those who do not respect the inherent value of a life. Some claim that “quality of life” is the thing, as though transitory environmental effects truly alter the value of life so significantly as to make it worthless. If we can toss out a barrel of rotten apples, can we not also toss someone who is severely ill or disabled, with little quality of life, as well? Here’s the rub: if something can be deemed worthless, it can also be deemed worth less. If a severely ill person has no value for continued survival, a marginally ill person has less value as well. The absurdity of this conclusion has already been shown. The “quality of life” is irrelevant with respect to a life’s continued worth.

True quality of life is in the choices we make and the actions we take to those ends, not in the morally irrelevant external qualities that would offset our value if we were, like apples, mere commodities to be bought and consumed. As the heroic fire fighter by his personal choices effects an increase in the value of all life, so too the euthanist effects a decrease in the value of all life by his, and his “patient’s” personal choices. As absurd as one can show their conclusions to be, their actions will still affect the value of human life, regardless. Our personal choices, both for good or for ill, have an effect on the overall value of life, regardless of what those choices may be, or for what relevant or irrelevant ends they would meet. If we hold that life is of great value, it is of greater value. If we hold that certain lives are less worth living, all life is less worth living.

What is the value of a life?

Precisely what we say it should be.

Subtle Character, Brilliant Example

2005-04-01T23:51:00.000-07:00

You are all a Lost Generation…

Gertrude Stein said that of a war-weary generation who had had their faiths shaken by a terrible and devastating war. We are on the verge of a lost generation ourselves, though not because of a Great War, but rather because of the lack of one.

Sure, we are in the midst of a Great Conflict of Our Time. But I think it’s safe to say that many in our country are, by and large, quite insulated from that conflict, particularly when compared to previous such wars. The war and struggle of which I speak is something much more ordinary than that. And, as it’s more ordinary, it is, in fact, more fundamental. It’s a struggle as simple as facing down a pitcher or a bully or a driveway full of snow.

I’m not talking about chores or rites of passage, however. This is about pain, pure and simple. For in a sense, we are the sum of our struggles. More correctly, we are what we build of ourselves, in spite of and because of our struggles. But then, that’s so obvious that it was long ago summed up as one word: Character.

An instructor of a refresher course I took began by asking some questions of the class – very simple ones, the answers to which we all knew that we knew once, and should probably have still known. His rather embarrassing point was that knowledge is volatile. You have to use and refresh what you’ve got between your ears, or even the simplest of skills disappear. As with mental fitness, so with physical fitness; of that, I’m sure we can all attest. I know that my mile time isn’t what it used to be, precisely because I haven’t spent the time and effort to keep it up (or rather, down). Finally, as goes physical strength, so goes moral strength. Like fundamental learning and mile times, character is a volatile thing; if you aren’t given, or don’t take the opportunities to build it, it’s not there when you need it.

Let’s take these comparisons a bit further: Survival, in its simplest sense, requires and ability to comprehend the world around us, and an ability to alter the world around us. But there’s a third component – a “something” to tie the knowledge to the action. That something we can, and do, call character. It’s easy to miss because it’s so obvious and natural; our knowledge comes from and our actions work upon a world foreign and distinct from ourselves, while character is within, and necessarily indistinct from Self. Plato compared the relationship between the three to the head, stomach, and heart. After recognizing this, he sought to strengthen all three appetites in his Academy. Even his model Republic was designed around these three attitudes and aptitudes of human nature.

Enough of the vague and incomplete lesson in philosophical history. What we’re looking for is something more sublime than even Plato; after all, recall that we hardly register character in our own existence, unless we specifically look for it. There is no need for an Academy, which was but a shadow on the cave wall with respect to the other catalysts of growth for the three attributes. Intelligence, strength, and will all obviously predated any formal attempts to improve upon them. Before Roger Bannister, before Gertrude Stein, before Plato, we were all children. And therein lies the truth. Naturally, babies kick to gain strength to stand. Also, they seek to use every method, from their newly-focusing eyes to their hands to their gums, to begin to understand the world around them. Young children run and play to achieve both ends. And there it is – in the absence of outside influences to grow and increase our knowledge and strength, we do it ourselves anyway. What that shows us about character, however, isn’t as cute as a smiling baby or a tractor in a sandbox.

There is a paradox to all this: the natural growth of the “external” attributes, strength and knowledge, comes from an individual’s actions, while the “internal” attribute, character, is grown by external influences. In other words, Life is Tough, and if it weren’t, what we are wouldn’t be.

Let us not forget the lesson of the baby, kicking his legs and gnawing on his toes – growth happens. It is instinctual. The same is true of character. If life is made too easy, be it through sheltering, overprotection, or just plain laziness, by others, by ourselves, or by technology, the instinctual drive will be to make things tougher somehow. In today’s world, the greatest extremes of that manifest themselves in more and more common forms of increasingly self-destructive behavior. In other words, by denying ourselves or others one form of pain, the result may well be taking on a greater and more dangerous form of it.

This brings us back to the Lost Generation. American civilization is more cosmopolitan, more wealthy, and more secure than any other society in history. To that end, generations of Americans have sacrificed and suffered through war and depression, and tamed new frontiers as each came within reach. Today’s generations reap the bountiful harvest of their forbears. As a result, the pains that have shaped those generations are easy to avoid, if they’re relevant at all.

I don’t mean to find fault in avoiding pain. There clearly isn’t anything wrong with sharing in the above-mentioned harvest. It does become a problem, however, when we over-indulge in the feast. As that excessive avoidance of struggle becomes easier to do, it becomes more prevalent. As a result, in our modern comforts we raise generations having never received the most basic lessons of character.

Recall that when we don’t have normal means to build character, we find our own. This of course gives us a window to understanding the dire reports from our schools – tales of violence, substance abuse, promiscuity, self-mutilation, and other terrible problems. The term for the “socially acceptable” among these has been there for decades – we call it “finding yourself.” Sometimes these rough roads lead back to the knowledge that one was never missing but for one’s wanderings, but, more often, it leads down darker paths, if it leads anywhere at all.

What can we do about that? How can we save such lost generations? The ways are simple and numerous, which is part of the problem. It’s so easy to overlook the little pain, the smallest building blocks of character, and so easy to avoid them all together, that we pass them by without a second thought. It follows that we have to accept a new outlook, so that a first look is all that is needed. It begins with not fearing the suffering. We can no longer be afraid of suffering long, and we must respect and learn from those who have. As self-evident as that is, more importantly we cannot fear for the younger generations’ getting a little muddy or even breaking their arms. Neither can we fear the life-changes of adulthood and beyond for ourselves. These are not easy fears to ignore, which is why it’s vital that we make the attempt. For in doing so, we implicitly accept the smaller fears and pains; which in turn gives greater strength of character to accept still more difficult challenges. As such, this is a self-catalytic process. Let us all take up this path, so that we find a lost generation – and ourselves- already at home.

Addendum: Over the past few weeks, it seems the nation has proceeded from one mortal watch to what appears to be the next. In the former, partisan sides argued over whether a woman (and, in turn, a person), would abide great suffering, and, in the absence of an answer, whether to end the suffering or to care for it was the greater end. But in this latter vigil, all have paused to pay their respects to a man who not only answered that question long ago, but also a man whom we have seen live it.

While the point has been made that suffering is an end for our character, Pope John Paul II has shown us that it is all the greater as a gift unto others. In his person, all hearts have been opened to the frail and infirm and suffering faceless among us. In the news watch of this vigil, we live as one people the pain each has felt in watching a loved one slip away. Most of all, we have seen a man face great suffering and frustration with serenity and welcoming joy, that we all may be less afraid of our own uncertain futures. For, by the Holy Father’s life and final example, our futures are not for us, but are greatest when devoted to each other.

January 30th, 2005

2005-01-30T16:27:00.000-07:00

Sunrise

This morning, the sun shined upon Iraq from a clear, crisp, blue sky. After the rains of last week, its job of drying the soil is nearly complete, and now it serves to nourish the brave, bright green sprouts peeking here and there from that soil into the early, early spring desert air. This year, almost as if on cue, a new species of plant sprouted, essentially heretofore unknown to this part of the world, though it was once the home of great Hanging Gardens and the birthplace of the rule of law.

Those small leaflets poking from the soil have been identified as of the genus democratus, though the species is difficult to pin down, as each new sprouting is almost always a brand new species. As with all newly-sprouted plants, this one continues to require careful nourishment and care, though it may very well prove hardier than we think.

As is often the case with a new birth, let us stand in humility that such a thing exists at all, let alone what a gift it is that we are able to witness it. For today, I am truly humbled.

It is interesting to note that for many, this Sunday's Christian church services featured a series of readings from the Bible consisting of and relating to the Beatitudes. It was probably not intended by man, but it is fitting nonetheless. For over the past months, and over recent weeks in particular, the prideful and violent have bullied the meek. They repeatedly threatened to boycott this birth (as though not looking at a plant somehow proves its lack of existence), and, worse, to kill any who may have been associated with aiding it. But today, the meek were willing to suffer in righteousness, if the need arose. And today, even those more closely aligned with the murderous few have had to admit that this was a day that the silent majority of the meek stood and inherited the earth.

A long season remains before the harvest can be gathered, but gathered it will be. For today, when the danger was greatest, millions upon millions of men and women stood together with purple, rather than green, fingers and thumbs, and said together "We will be stewards of this democracy. We will stand for ourselves."

The Democratic Drive

2005-01-29T08:44:00.000-07:00

From Counting Sheep to Counting Ballots

I laid awake last night with my ears plugged into my handy mp3 player, thinking about life, love, the universe, string theory, music, and democracy - these are the sheep in the skull of the Red State Ranger. Or at least they were last night. What a wonder the invention of the mp3 player is. Hundreds of CDs all fit inside a little case the size of a pack of cards or cigarettes. They hold so much music that without a second thought I was able to add even my old bargain-bin classical CDs - just $2 each - that I got back when CDs were the newest thing. And as if having the music of the aristocracy available for a small pittance weren't enough evidence of progress, what used to takes "stacks of wax," shelves of tapes or books of CDs now all neatly fits into your pocket, giving you a portable soundtrack for your life.

But this isn't an advertisement for the newest iPod; it's something much less consequential, and something that will most likely not earn as much. It's a reflection on the continuing democratization of society.

Look all around you. You'll see evidence of a truly democratic life. Not only can one carry his own personal soundtrack around in his pocket, he can share it with others in an attempt to persuade them of the superiority of his ideals - in this case, his taste in music. You, dear reader, are but a few clicks from finding information on nearly every musical artist, and also a few clicks from hearing samples of nearly every song and album, as well. Not only do you have unfettered access to these libraries, all musicians also have access to being in (or creating) such libraries. That is democratic access.

But the trend isn't limited to music, nor even to modern life and the internet. With the invention of the affordable car, peoples' travel plans were no longer subject to train schedules and stops. With the advent of network radio and television news, people were no longer subject to learning about their world only through their local newspaper. Those trends continue, as you are also but a few clicks away from being your own travel agent or news editor. This is not to say that the "old" ways are obsolete ways of life, it is far from it. This is merely an attempt to emphasize the exponential increase of man's ability to create his own world.

My old college philosophy professor said that "Every system is perfectly designed to effect the result it does." I'd like to humbly add a corollary to this bit of wisdom: "Every system is a perfect result of the sum of its components and inputs." With these two givens, what can the democratizing trends tell us about humanity? Well, to start, our "system" is perfectly designed to result in an exponential increase in democracy. But what is this system? It is society. In other words, The sum of the desires and intent of humanity nets a massive increase in overall personal democracy.

Chesterton once wrote a parable in which a boy leaves home to seek and slay a massive giant. After months and years on his journey, he finds nothing. In his deepest moment of despair, ruing the day he embarked on such a foolish errand, he turns his face homeward, only to discover that he now sees that the home he left was built upon the long-overgrown corpse of the giant all along.

It would appear that we've come to the end of such a journey here. After reflecting on the inherent democracy in mp3 players, we went on a roundabout quest to discover that it is evidence of a larger human drive for democratic life. But it would appear that we've missed our giant from the beginning.

Tomorrow, Iraq will hold its first free elections in over half a century. Those who hate this possibility have threatened those "caught voting" with death. Yet, in a country so apparently riddled with undemocratic violence, polls show that up to 80% still plan to vote. Most of these people have never known anything but tyranny, and their educations were largely controlled by tyranny. Nevertheless, up to 80% of the entire population will quite literally risk their lives for something they've never known, nor scarcely been taught. These brave souls may not yet fully grasp what it means, but they know it's something like democracy. And they know that democracy is something like personal independence. And, whether it's in headphones or the voting booth, personal independence remains the fundamental drive of the human spirit.

Iraq is a Quagmire

2005-01-23T14:44:00.000-07:00

A Journal Entry

Now, before you Blue-State-types get too excited by that title, you should probably read the rest of this entry. I'm not talking about some vast, geopolitical concept, nor is it some reference to Vietnam. It's simply a statement of the way things are right now: and after an inch of rain yesterday, this place is a quagmire.

There's mud everywhere, and big puddles in between the mud-bridges, thus proving it's not totally flat here. But, true to form, everyone with some time pulled together and scrounged up some old "floor boards" and wooden palettes, creating boardwalks across the most extreme and most well-travelled bogs. So, now, walking back from the shower no longer requires walking through big puddles of mud, which is generally a good thing. With a little hard work and ingenuity, the quagmires of mud and water are no longer a factor to every day life.

It's cold, and getting colder. It's not freezing, but it's certainly not balmy, vacation-destination weather, either. The wind was ridiculous yesterday - some reports were of 40mph steady-state winds. I suppose my earlier comparisons to Kansas weren't that far off. But the cold weather is also good - with as much standing water there is around here, a warm spring day would make this a miserably humid breeding ground for mosquitos. It's not that time of year yet, thankfully.

A Glass of Lemonade for Humanity

2005-01-19T05:57:00.000-07:00

Industriousness and Improvement

My grandfather built his mountain retirement home, as the saying goes, with his bare hands. From what I understand, my great-grandfather (on the other side) did the same with his farm house – the very same house I grew up in. I’m sure many families have very similar histories. The interesting thing, however, is that one doesn’t hear very much of the same thing happening in the present. Sure, more and more people are buying homes, but that doesn’t mean that more are designing and building them. In fact, the opposite is probably true.

There are many factors that go into this societal change. The first is that housing is cheaper when mass-produced, and a corollary we are seeing is that houses can be more commonly made “custom enough” on the cheap, as well. Now, don’t get me wrong – not only is the trend a positive function of the free market, but it is also a distinctly democratic trend in home ownership that speaks great volumes to our excellent standard of living. Additionally, it may even hint to an increasing trend in the fulfillment of the dream of our Republic – the exercising of the rights to life, liberty, and property, and therefore a greater accessibility to the pursuit of happiness.

But, then, I’m an optimist. A pessimist might say that hiring out construction work to contractors is part of a disturbing larger trend in trading the pride of building a self-made life for finding a simple, cheap, cookie-cutter solution instead; a trend that is seen also in simple oil changes, simple frozen dinners, simple clothes shopping, simple interstate travel into simple catch-all truck stops or simple chain hotels, and all along keeping the back seat quiet with simple in-seat DVD players. And that pessimist, though rather long-winded, has a good point. After all, we all enjoy a certain pride in doing things ourselves, and losing that pride of creation and self-improvement is tantamount to losing part of what it means to be human.

The optimist, as always, has the last word. Even a society that has been simplified to complexity cannot kill that drive of industriousness in us all; at its worst it sends it on vacation. You see, I’m living in that proof. When I was told we’d be living in tents here, I expected to be lucky to stay dry and warm every night. What I found instead were palaces of plywood and 2x4s, creating private cubicles for rooms, “stadium seating” facing TV sets for movies and video games, and elaborate, screened-in porches for less-electronic entertainment. Is it the easy life? Certainly. But to leave it at that ignores the hard work and long days that have been, and continue to be put into building and rebuilding our “homes.” After all, the people who built these Palaces of Pine had other pursuits that came first on the priority list. And this isn’t the first time such dwellings have been created ex nihilo, and it certainly won’t be the last.

Ayn Rand might say that the builders are a select few, all of whom may be uniquely attracted to the purposes and lifestyle of the military, nothing more. I wholeheartedly disagree. Granted, many in this group are more mechanically-inclined than most, but that doesn’t also change the fact that we’ve also all bought our fair share of frozen dinners back home, or that one prominent purpose of our building has been to simplify more leisurely pursuits. To the contrary, this small example serves to prove that even in our cookie-cutter society; we remain the same creatures our fore-fathers were: we see a hard life, and almost instinctively will pay any price and bear any burden to create a world less harsh than we’ve known, for ourselves and for those who will inevitably come after. This is a concept not limited to simply nail and board, nor is it merely an American or Western value. The drive to create a better life is invincible; it is the very core of what it means to be Human.

We're Not in Kansas Anymore

2005-01-18T15:48:00.000-07:00

Well, mostly...

Sure, it's as flat as Kansas, on a clear night there are as many stars as Kansas, the rain on the dirt even smells a little like Kansas, and, as I found out this morning, it gets windy like Kansas. But that's about where the similarities end.

You see, I'm in Iraq. I'm currently deployed here with the military, but, as I'm sure you can understand, I can't get much more specific than that for a number of reasons. As a result, this post marks a change in the format of my blog, at least for the time being. Instead of being an essay format, it will become somewhat of a journal/essay hybrid - at least that's my intent. I'll still try to do my best to keep the content fairly readable; I know this might be disappointing, but you'll get no "I woke up and brushed my teeth today" from me. So, stay tuned, and I'll try to make it worth your while and mine. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to drop them in the comment section, and I'll do my best to address what I can. Until then, you can expect my first journal-essay sometime tomorrow. Thanks for reading.

The American Dream (Part Three)

2005-01-10T20:47:00.000-07:00

If You Can Keep It

After months of arguments and tense negotiations, Benjamin Franklin exited Independence hall with the news of a finalized Constitution for a new American government. As the story goes, among the people who met him outside was a woman who was anxious for his report on the structure of the new government. She asked if it was a republic, or a monarchy. Franklin's simple reply: "A Republic, if you can keep it."

Let us ignore the objective portion of his response for the moment and reflect instead on the direction that follows. "If you can keep it," warned Franklin, though he spoke that not to the gathered delegates, nor to "His Excellency" George Washington, nor to authors Madison and Jefferson. Much like those famous words that began the document in question, Franklin spoke directly to We the People. "A Republic, if you can keep it." Can you hear that call? He is speaking to you. You call yourself an American? Then keep this Republic.

If you've read the previous two sections, you've seen how much power We the People can hold, if only we stand up and claim it. This is the heart of the American Dream: We aren't subjects of some king in a castle; we are masters of our own castles, and each rulers of our nation. Ruling isn't easy, and it's not often fun. There are times when we'd rather go on vacation than sit on a jury, and times we'd rather watch Monday Night Football than go to the school's open house. But those actions fly in the face of the great responsibility we have been given. This nation is ours, if, and only if, we can keep it.

How do we live up to this great charge? The first, and most basic, is simple citizenship. We must build our neighborhoods and communities. This, and all other steps, is best achieved through action. We must become involved with our neighbors, and together build and keep such a community as we see fit. But also in the command to keep our community is the responsibility of self-enforcement: we must also insure all of our neighbors are encouraged to be good citizens as well.

This method of our republic follows up the chain, from neighborhoods and communities, to cities and counties, to states, and finally our nation as a whole. Just like we cannot allow ourselves and our neighbors to be lax in keeping our communities, we especially must guard against the trap of allowing others to build and keep our local communities at greater levels simply because they can do it. We must guard our duty of self-government jealously, always insuring that we are acting with others and through our representative proxies to keep our republic as close to us as possible.

But this hard and careful work is all for naught if we do not insure that successive generations are capable of doing the same. So, not only must we be involved in our civic duties, such as upkeep of local parks and making sure all of our neighbors contribute as they can, we must also keep our civic duty as individuals in a community of educating our children to be good citizens, and maintaining the highest standards therefore. That act includes of course setting good examples, but also of setting up a system that maximizes key factors such as parental involvement and high expectations throughout.

Americans were once an engaging and industrious people, jealously keeping our right of self-determination, supporting bonds of community through agreement and disagreement alike, and maintaining a parochial attitude - proud of our towns and cities first, our states second, and the federal system that guards them all finally third. Similarly, our most important rights we keep close to us, where we can defend them most easily. These great prides of self and of community may simmer today more quietly than they once did, but I believe they are still there. To rekindle that fire, we can only take these first steps of Local Governance and Education, and Accountability for both, in faith, trusting that the American Dream still burns inside us all.

We have been given a Republic. Let Us Keep It.

The American Dream (Part Two)

2005-01-09T21:34:00.000-07:00

On Education and Involvement

When I was in Junior High learning about the Civil War, our history teacher made us watch Ken Burns' documentary on the subject. In all, the movies comprised about 2 weeks of black and white pictures, dulcet narration, and fiddle solos for my history education that year. If you've never seen it, the series combines the use of "history facts" (when the battle of Shiloh was, the site of Pickett's charge in relation to the rest of the Gettysburg battle field, etc.) with newspaper reports and first hand letters home from the soldier to tell the story (or, rather stories) of the War Between the States. The part that struck me, even as an over-energetic young teen with a borderline ADD case, was the eloquence of the letters they read. Granted, Burns probably had the luxury of choosing the best out of a number of sources. And, granted, a skill or lack thereof in something such as spelling is edited in the speaking.

Nevertheless, the Privates, many of whom had come from poor, rural backgrounds where the words "boarding school" were unlikely to ever have been uttered, possessed an uncanny ability to convey some very unique and complex thoughts with an incredible depth of vocabulary. These men who were lucky to have seen the inside of a one-room schoolhouse possessed a command of their language and depth of thought that certainly rivals, if not surpasses that of men and women today, for whom 12 grades of education are a given.

What, then, is the difference between education then and now? Certainly, it's more than a mere coarsening of the vernacular to a point where the language from then is "flowery" by today's standards, though that certainly plays a part. Today's students have access to more books, more paper, more pens, and their learning is funded by more money and taught by better-trained teachers. But it would appear that the rising tide of modern times has not necessarily lifted all ships. What is the fundamental difference between then and now? I submit that the differences are twofold, and can be found in expectations and in accountability.

The world around us is awash in bad writing. Misspelling is an advertising method. The news is no longer written in detailed explanation complete with contextual analysis, instead using small-yet-sensational words to increase buzz and therefore sales. The thinkers of the day are relegated to PBS or short segments on cable, while "reality TV" gets all the ratings. Instead of manipulating language to communicate with those separated by distance and time by letter, a few short sentences over the telephone can now say as much.

Simply put, speaking well is no longer a requirement for survival in today's society. With no external societal forces driving learning, expectations must arise from elsewhere. The two forces driving this expectation with respect to formal education are parents and teachers. Parents, obviously, should encourage success by maintaining high, but achievable expectations, and enumerating them clearly. Teachers must demand excellence and, yes, punish failure. "Thy rod and thy staff shall guide me," and in this circumstance, the parents are the staff - guiding by holding - and the teachers the rod - guiding by prodding. Obviously not all situations are like this, and it becomes incumbent upon our well-trained teachers to recognize which methods work best with which students. But the simple requirement remains - expectations must be clear, high, and held to.

Accountability is the check to ensure that the above three descriptions apply to expectations. In short, accountability is involvement. Some have tried to substitute money for accountability, without much to show for it. School resources are simply not tied to test scores - in fact, richer districts often don't do as well as poorer districts. Simply, there is no statistical tie between the input of money and the output of education. This is not to say that schools should be unfunded, it is to say that since money is not the problem, it necessarily follows that it is not the solution. If we look elsewhere, unlike with money, parental involvement is in fact a statistic directly tied to success. There is no substitute for accountability.

A system is already in place at most schools that leads to strong ties of involvement and accountability. Every Friday night across America, towns empty out, to fill stadiums and arenas to cheer on their local school's teams. There is a strong sense of identity in these communities, and therefore a strong sense of accountability to the activity in question. Sometimes that influence becomes destructive, because the goal of a good sports team is not a fundamentally important one - a win in a game is not as important as the path of teamwork, discipline, and hard work that leads to that win. Similarly, grades are not as important as the path of learning - but when the metric is set by solid and fundamental expectations, good grades are the end of that path.

How does one get as much involvement in drier subjects like education as they do with sports? Sports activities create the identity of the community as it ties to the school, and that will not change, thought the subject of the activity does. Communities can be involved through exhibitions and contests, such as Science Fairs, Speech Contests, and Band Concerts, as well as by the further opening of the doors of the school through meetings with teachers and active organizations like the PTA. Additionally, a little healthy competition never hurt anyone: compare your school's annual test scores and scholarship totals with those of your hated rivals.

These ties, however, are implicit, and are often already in place. Nevertheless, the problem of a lack of parental involvement remains. There is one last, very direct method of involvement, one employed best by private schools. That method should be obvious - involve the parents' bank accounts in the education of their children. Really, it's a simple economic principle: if a product is free, the quality is of little consequence to the consumer, but when we pay for something, the expectation of quality goes up. Therefore, the final piece of the accountability puzzle is a certain amount of privatization of the schools. If parents become economically invested, the incentive to want greater quality for the cost will be the result.

As the clever reader notices, that concept raises both of our quotients - expectations and accountability. The goal of applying those to education is of course societal improvement. A society that has a vested interest in the value and quality of its education becomes a better society. There is simply no reason that America cannot be that society, if only we will begin building it.

The American Dream (Part One)

2004-12-18T21:45:00.000-07:00

On Local Governance

It's been said that all politics is local. Granted, the implication is usually a cynical threat to keep the pork coming home, or else. But it's perhaps more true that all politics should be local. After all, and average citizen is infinitely more likely to run into his county commissioner or school board representative in the grocery store than he is to meet the President or even the Secretary of Education on a downtown stroll. The battle cry of this nation's founders was No Taxation Without Representation, and as the base of power is more local, that representation is more truly representative.

After a long election year in which two upper-crust Yalies, both with strong familial connections to power, duked it out for the Presidency, it is all the more evident that an average American is about as likely to rise to some national office as he or she is to find an ice rink in Florida. That is to say, the possibility exists, but only in the most extreme of circumstances.

The first true democracies are said to have existed in Ancient Greece. The Greeks often extolled the virtues of a system in which each person had a direct and equal say in the way his city-state was run. But the reason it worked as such is because the starting population was so small. Seeking to sway and then counting the votes of 500 is obviously much easier than trying to do the same for 5 million. Additionally, by simple rule of percentage, an individual in the smaller group holds orders of magnitude more power than the individual in the larger.

At the birth of this nation, the Framers sought to ensure this principle remained intact. They knew that to ensure peace and security among the various and several states, certain standards must be maintained: namely a universal currency and standard regulation and maintenance of interstate commerce. Additionally, a united and mutual defense against the meddling of colonial European powers was a necessity of the day. The first confederacy, as we all know, proved too weak and ineffective to fund and maintain itself. The requirements of the central government to regulate interstate commerce and to maintain national defense withered under the whims of the miserly and petty state governments.

In order to save what was left of a union, the leaders of the day got together again in an attempt to give more teeth to a federal government between the states. There was much wrangling over what was to be included among the powers; more often than not that was manifested in a concern that any gain may be a gain too far. In fact, in a few cases that concern over the final product nearly led to its end. In order to ensure the rights of the people were explicitly protected, the Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution. In order to convince the people of New York that a federal system would be safe, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay wrote a series of editorial papers they called The Federalist. Even then, in ratifying the new Constitution, the people not only of New York but also of Virginia and Rhode Island were wary enough to explicitly reserve the right of secession should the new government ever overstep its bounds.

They had reason to worry. After all, the natural tendency has been for power to consolidate, not separate. The democracy of Athens gave birth to Alexander's Hellenistic Empire. The Roman Republic became the Empire of the Caesars. The authors of the Constitution saw accountability as a chief defense against this consolidation. It's easier to keep tabs on a local mayor whom you see on a regular basis than some chief executive hundreds of miles away whom you've never met.

Nevertheless, it was also obvious that at least some government was required. As students of the Enlightenment, they knew that the purpose of power was the protection of the rights of man, not the granting of them. But, implicit in that statement is that those rights need protecting in the first place. There is a precarious balance between government maintaining the rule of law and becoming the law. To keep one from becoming the other, they separated the different facets of what comprises the rule of law into three separate and adversarial bodies - the law makers, the law enforcers, and the judges of law. But the greatest check on them all was the electorate themselves.

Thus, the purpose of this federal system was to be a guardian of and arbitrator among the several states. It was not to be another form of popular government, but rather a government of the governments. The Constitution spent more words on how the states would build and also be subject to the government than it did naming the things it did for the people. The Senate was to be appointed by state legislatures and the President elected by a group of electors appointed again by the state. In the end, the say of the people in the Constitutional government lay in the election of local Congressional Representatives and even more local state legislatures.

Some today claim this was made so by some inherent distrust of the people. To the contrary, it was a function of ensuring that local government retained the most power. By placing one large political power as subject to many smaller ones, the idea was to encourage many jealous states to keep the federal power in check. And, as it is easier for an average citizen to obtain and yield more sway in a district or even a state government than in the national, the political power base can be kept closest to the people in even a large and populous republic.

However, this concept of separation of power to create more individual influence in it doesn't just apply to government, but also to education. More on that later.

Christmas Reflection

2004-12-17T23:34:00.000-07:00

For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son.

Those words are the beginning of what you found if you were ever curious enough to look up what all those people were holding signs about. Personally, I never thought that it made much sense - after all, if you want to encourage outsiders to look deeper into their faith, there are a number of verses that are more direct, personal, and accessible than that one. Certainly, the Faithful get, and are greatly heartened by, that verse. But from the crowd of a sporting event isn't exactly the best of places from which to preach to the choir. However, around Christmas time, it makes for a particularly important thing to reflect on.

This is the season when the sun has abandoned us for a warmer clime. We have less day, and more night. Less warm, and more cold. More dark, and less light. Yet still, we bundle ourselves against the darkness, pour lively drinks against the cold, and light our nights with a twinkling brighter than the stars themselves. In a time that brings depression and seclusion to all creatures, we seek others: a neighbor's smile as warm as a roaring fire, a friends laugh as refreshing as a hot cup of cider, a loved-one's embrace as snug as an old sweater from many winters ago.

This is a time to be children again. It is a time to wash away a year's worth of cynicism with a single snowball to the cheek. We light our neighborhoods to new friends and old, like we used to welcome a new playmate before we grew so judgemental. We embrace our families like we did before we decided we were so different after all. But the climax of this season of Communion is about more than remembering what we love - it's about loving before we even remember.

Sure, the passing years make it tougher. And, sure, sometimes we need to ask each other for "hints" before doing our shopping. But the mystery still remains: What lies beneath the brightly-colored paper? I know whose name is outside; I wonder what they have given beneath that facade. We awaken at the break of dawn on that morning, eager to unwrap each other's little mysteries. We're as excited to uncover our own receipts as we are to show others what we've given beneath our own paper.

We come to embody the same spirit of mystery, self-sacrifice, and love as that of the Saint in a red suit who taught us that lesson when we were younger. Yet, even he is but a flicker of that very same spirit we are commemorating. Because long ago came a gift given in the most unique of wrappings: wholly concealing the gift within, yet unusually complementary to the Gift itself. For, in the middle of the night, in a dark cave, among the lowliest of creatures, to an unwed mother was born the greatest gift of mystery, self-sacrifice, and love of all.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son.