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Three Dot Lounge: How I Empty the “Boneyard”
A fixture of San Francisco in the last half of the Twentieth Century was columnist Herb Caen. He became famous for his “Three Dot Lounge” of trenchant news/gossip items. He was the West Coast’s answer to Walter Winchell. It was Twitter before anyone could bang on about something in 240 characters and publish it to the world.
In this post I am adopting something close to that approach, ridding myself of items in my “boneyard” — draft posts that never went anywhere. The reason they didn’t often was because I started with what I regarded as a bang-up idea but soon got lost in the weeds trying to make it all hold together logically and consistently. And there was always something new that kept me from going back and doing the post justice.
But here I am going to free myself of any attempt to do anything but introduce a point of view. Have at it with critique and/or amplification.
The “Yellow Peril”
The recent arrest of current and former military men of Chinese heritage involved in espionage reminds us of the challenges of a pluralistic society. Ill treatment based on race or ethnicity can always be a breeding ground for disloyalty — take note, Ivy League. And the “motherland” is one of the three basic tools foreign agents use to turn Americans against us — the other two being money and/or sex.
“Phew”!
My feeling after the November 5 results was not so much joy than sheer relief. Those of us who had been following Rich Baris, the People’s Pundit, went into the night confident of the outcome but worried about a “hanging call” by the MSM. But such was the size of President Trump’s victory the news gave it up before the post-election counting shenanigans could change the narrative.
The End of the “Beginning”
Winston Churchill famously said, in response to the first Allied victories recorded after three years of retreat and resistance, “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” The outcome of the November 5 election was not the end of our national nightmare. Happily, President Trump made it to, through, and beyond the inaugural and is starting, unevenly, the process of constitutional reform. But opposing forces remain allied if not yet fully efficient in their resistance.
The Most Malicious Myth (h/t Ann Althouse)
“Trump, Outrage and the Modern Era of Political Violence/The latest apparent assassination attempt against the former president indicates how much the American political landscape has been shaped by anger stirred by him and against him.” This was a NYT headline back in September. According to the NYT, without President Trump’s insertion into politics in 2015, we would be a peaceful country; that all ills begin and end with him. That is not true. What is true is that President Trump successfully personified existing unhappiness with the course our country was taking and offered, in exchange for political support, to take concrete steps to address that unhappiness. That he did that imperfectly or abrasively is totally beside the point. His great sin was gathering that political support and winning. Americans chose disruption over submission. It’s not pretty, but it’s very American.
The Darkness Weather Report
I have a theory, actually more of a notion really, that humans exist more than just temporally in the natural world. That is, human behavior is an outcome of natural forces, just as is fish behavior, whale behavior, bird behavior, and all other life forms. I do not rule out a “supernatural” element, but I attribute to that supernaturality (is that a word?) a set of rules or constraints that, if understood, would make its involvement ordered and not random. If true, human paroxysms should be predictable to some degree, like the weather. Seems like we are currently in a bit of fair weather between storms. But the storm lurks and we must be prepared.
The Challenge of Evil
I have been trying to elevate my focus beyond the discrete instances of outrage to the structures of the problems that seem to engulf us now. The first thing I consider is the extent to which we are actually facing new and more intense challenges than we have faced in my lifetime. If one is not paying attention and then is forced to, one can mistake inattention for relative peace and comfort. While there are a few things today that may be truly novel, most of our problems seem to be repackaging or updating old challenges we thought had been defeated.
The Long Fuse of Indeterminant Length
I understand that there is a philosophical disagreement over whether the Constitution is a fixed or “living” document. But giving the “living” approach free rein results in “anything goes” outcomes that are not predictable and simply an expression of power. A power hierarchy that is the end result of a fully realized “living” Constitution is indistinguishable from a prison. It might be a prison without walls, but a prison nonetheless. Everyone would know they were one misstep from losing everything. That would be true of everyone in the power hierarchy regardless of their own capability for self-deception which would give them an outsized feeling of security. The “living” Constitution is a fuse of indeterminate length, but certain outcome.
I Am A Partisan For Peace
I truly believe that there are some things worse than death, and that there are some things worse than war. But I am a partisan for peace. I am an old man now. I spent 40 years of my working life in support of American national defense. I responded favorably to the initiation of every military action in my lifetime, only to see the outcomes in every case being ambiguous at best and disastrous at worst. The major achievement of my lifetime in national defense was the disassembly of the Soviet Union. And that outcome was not the product of men in battle but the persistent pressure of a strong economic system vs. a weak one, with armaments sufficient to deter direct active aggression against official allies.
You Can’t Campaign Against Compassion
Most Americans have a bit of “bleeding heart” in them. It’s in our DNA. Many Americans are descended from persons who underwent hardships and are sympathetic and charitable to others experiencing current hardship. No political campaign wins by campaigning against compassion. You are telling your voters that they are not the loving, kind humans they either think they are or aspire to be. Progressives understand this, thus they modify the language to make something that is fundamentally bad sound good and compassionate. So we are told to spend blood and treasure on endless foreign war to have peace; we are told to accept government dependence and control (slavery) to be free; we are told to restrict our speech and consumption to approved narratives (ignorance) to have all the information that we need (knowledge). It’s called “truth inversion,” and it is venal and deadly.
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More to come.
Published in General
Nothing like spring cleaning.
The Darkness Weather Report
I have a theory, actually more of a notion really, that humans exist more than just temporally in the natural world. That is, human behavior is an outcome of natural forces, just as is fish behavior, whale behavior, bird behavior, and all other life forms. I do not rule out a “supernatural” element, but I attribute to that supernaturality (is that word?) a set of rules or constraints that, if understood, would make its involvement ordered and not random. If true, human paroxysms should be predicable to some degree like the weather. Seems like we are currently in a bit of fair weather between storms. But the storm lurks and we must be prepared.
The Challenge of Evil
I have been trying to elevate my focus beyond the discrete instances of outrage to the structures for the problems that seem to engulf us now. The first thing I consider is the extent to which we are actually facing new and more intense challenges than we have faced in my lifetime. If one is not paying attention and then is forced to, one can mistake inattention for relative peace and comfort. While there are a few things today that may be truly novel, most of our problems seem to be repackaging or updating old challenges we thought had been defeated.
I found these to be interesting and perhaps similar. Are the storms a function of evil? When things are going well, do we attribute it to our own personal good fortune, or is it just a time of fair weather? We all know that our lives could be upended in an instant, but until that instant arrives are we just oblivious to lurking danger/evil?
We face two types of cataclysms in our lives: one that is unique to us and one that is common to many including us. My two observations were based on the latter and involve growing behaviors such as mass formation psychosis that begin to envelop almost everyone. To see the storm coming permits preparation with varying degrees of success in mitigating or avoiding trouble. We are used to recognizing that in the weather, much less so in the herding behavior of our fellow human beings.
The avoidance tactics aren’t that different: relocate to a better environment/safer surroundings.
Excellent.
I especially liked this one. I think people misunderstand many things about compassion. To one degree or another, most people have a cache of compassion. The question isn’t whether you have it, but when you use or display it. For example, because you “feel” compassionate” doesn’t mean you should act on it. Or if in a given situation, you aren’t moved to compassion, but are motivated to assist someone, you might just act. The key is not blindly acting on compassion, but paradoxically analyzing why you are so moved, if your help will benefit the other or not, if you can afford to help, and so on. In other words, don’t offer compassion willynilly (like that word). Be thoughtful and discriminating. Don’t call it something that it is not.
I say Yes. Even if you just invented it, it sounds legitimate to me.
Man, I don’t buy that even for completely mechanical systems.
Take a pendulum swinging. This is a standard problem for first year physics students, describing the motion. Now take another pendulum and attach it to the bob of the first pendulum. The motion of the pendulum-on-a-pendulum can’t be described in principle. Any system where feedback gets too large, tiny changes in the initial conditions will lead to fluctuations that can’t be predicted; they have to be worked out. For example by letting it run and seeing what happens.
Toynbee, the guy with a theory of history, gave the example of a storm-tossed ship at sea as something that looked chaotic, but that a physicist would say was the product of natural forces. As a physicist reading that gave me pause. I’d say that a storm-tossed ship is precisely the kind of thing that we couldn’t predict because it’s subject to chaotic inputs from the wind and the water. Of course, Toynbee was writing before chaos theory was a thing, but subsequent generations have undermined his point.
I don’t think either the human or the unseen world are random, but I don’t think they’re even theoretically predictable either.
Often appeals to “compassion” are used to bypass careful thought.
It is living, in the sense it can be amended. But if you consider it living in the sense it can be what you want it to be at any given time, no more, no less, then it is has no boundaries and is a rogue governing document.
What about “living” in the sense that the First Amendment can be taken to refer to digital/video/etc communications as “the press,” without having to be amended? Would you be okay with a world where only people with printing presses have “free speech?”
First of all, freedom of speech, whether soap box/video/tv/etc. are speech. Just different methods of dissemination. And written word, whether put to paper or similar media via hand, block letters/cursive/typed or digital are also speech.
As for the press, which was almost certainly to be understood as a general term for a person reaching a wider audience that under the technology at the time meant via manual printing presses, which is the root of the phrase, freedom of the press, and does not exclude later technological innovations of automated presses and now web pages/etc. as the technology to be used isn’t described.
For example, perhaps the right to bear arms should actually be narrowly understood to mean only muzzle loading flintlock muskets, the then available technology. As opposed to more generally available firearms suitable to a well-regulated Militia. The authors certainly had a concept that technology could progress, as it had from bow and arrow to matchlock muskets to flintlocks and thus didn’t specify the type of arms.
That’s what you say, want to believe, etc. But to quote Star Trek (TNG), some judge or group of judges could decide that all of that is just “a recipe for biscuits.”
At that point, one alternative would be to have a well-regulated Militia. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.
Like Rodin, I keep a list of potential posts. I like to pretend that it’s my equivalent of an automotive design center.
“Take a look at the convertible. We’re readying that one for early April, when the weather turns nice.”