We finally had that yard sale last week, the one we'd been threatening to have for the past two years. As we were clearing off the pool table and lugging all the junk upstairs my wife and I were both struck by how much crap we've accumulated without even trying. I even went through my books and tossed a few dozen outside to be sold.
At that moment, when everything in the house became possible yard sale fodder, I began asking myself if I really need all of these books, many of which I read years ago and have been collecting dust ever since. Some of them I bought in high school and have been moving around with me for years. Chances are I'll never read them again, some of them I'll never even open again. They'd survived past yard sales because they're books that I enjoyed reading at some point, and who knows? I might decide to read them again. But they're still stuff. And when you're looking at all of that stuff on piles on tables, and under tables, and sitting on boxes next to tables, it all becomes junk that isn't ever going back into the house.
On the other hand, they're books.
So yes, there are still shelves full of books in the house. And there are still boxes full of books in the basement. Those books belong for the most part to my kids, so in theory, one day they will be taken away. Some of them are mine though, and they're still in the basement.
Many of them are beautiful children's books that are just too good to dump. Some of them are signed by the authors and/or illustrators. Some of them are remains of my mother's children's book collection, most of which was donated to a local library when she died.
Before she died I always told myself that whichever books my siblings didn't want, I would pack up and bring home. After she died I started asking myself where I was going to put all those books. So I swiped a few of the good ones, first edition Caldecott winners, signed, or stuff I just liked. I left others with my father, and the rest are now being shared (I hope) with local children.
I don't think we sold a single book at our sale. I see books at other yard sales, usually their trashy best sellers, diet books, or other things I'm not interested in. There are almost always kid's books. We had kid books and diet books, but I thought the rest of the books, since they weren't trashy best sellers, would sell. I forgot that most people don't think like me. I took the kid books to school, and they will be donated when school starts in September. Our librarian will be so happy with the extra work these books will make for her, I'd better bring her a present.
We also had clothes, bikes, games, and miscellaneous items. The bikes went quickly. There is a guy, whose house we pass all the time who buys and sells used bikes. They're out on his lawn every weekend.
We got rid of a bunch of other junk, but there was still a lot left at the end.
I'd advertised the sale on Craigslist. From that ad, I got an email from Goodwill. I called them Sunday night. They came on Monday and took away all of the leftovers. I appreciate that kind of service.
As I was looking at the Goodwill receipt it suddenly hit me that it pays more to donate your junk because the tax write off is much higher than the pittance you get from people looking for cheap stuff.
On the other hand, neighbors come over to visit. You meet new people. And I was able to get a lot of reading done.
It is now possible to walk in the basement. When I look around the house though, I still see lots of stuff that I'm responsible for. And there is still stuff that I want, mostly music and book stuff. How do I balance wanting my stuff with the knowledge that most of is is just "stuff", and since it's mine, I have to take care of it, keep it clean, make sure it stays usable and all that? How do I keep from coveting more books and music?
Even though the ruckus has died down and Helen Thomas is no longer in the news for her irrational comments, there are still things going on that relate to that wrinkled, demented gasbag.
The first thing is - most people weren't even paying attention. When I speak to people who are not obsessed (or even interested) in what is happening when it comes to our local Arab/Muslim community, they either have a vague idea of who Helen Thomas is, or the entire controversy passed right by them and they didn't even notice. I suppose that's normal. How many people's lives were impacted by Wayne State's "Helen Thomas Spirit of Diversity Award", and Wayne State's decision to pull it after Thomas' obnoxious statements? So why should they pay attention? I'll tell you why. Because, even when they don't know the facts, people still form an opinion. I do it. You do it. We all do it. Sometimes I get into arguments with people who operate on very little (or completely incorrect) information over Israel. Sometimes those opinions affect the way people respond to situations, the way they spend money, the way they treat people, the way they vote, and the way they let some people be abused. Example: Nobody is raising their voice anymore against the genocide in Sudan. We don't see it in the news, so it doesn't exist anymore.
The second aspect of this under-the-radar-but-still-ongoing situation, is the reaction of large portions of the Jewish community and our self-proclaimed leaders. At first, Thomas was roundly, logically, and accurately condemned, as she deserved. Of course, her partners in hate are trying to frame this as a free speech issue and an example of that all powerful Jewish conspiracy that shuts down any and all criticism of Israel. So how is it that they're able to foist these views in our local (allegedly Zionist controlled) newspapers again?
We have silence from the Jewish community over this article in the Detroit Free Press, where the writer, while supposedly writing about Muslims joining Jews to help Christians on Christmas, something the Jewish community has been doing for years (as part of the vast Zionist conspiracy, no doubt) turns it into another forum for Muslims to express their support for the Jew-hating Thomas.
When Micki Grossman of Farmington Hills read journalist Helen Thomas' comments about Zionists earlier this month, the Jewish woman was hurt. "It caused a lot of pain for me," she said.
"I also wish that we could have had more of our Muslim friends stand up and say, 'This was not appropriate.' "
But some Muslims and Arab Americans were upset that Jewish leaders pressured Wayne State University to remove an award in her name.
At the annual banquet this month of the local chapter of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, people wore buttons reading "Defender of Thomas," said regional director Imad Hamad.
And you can't accuse Imad Hamad or any of the other Thomas supporters of "not getting it." They get it. They're taking advantage of the fact that most people don't pay attention, and with the limited amount of information they have, they can be convinced that this is a free speech issue - if they can even be reminded who Helen Thomas is and what she said that was so offensive.
Instead of deluding themselves that our local Islamic community is truly interested in improving relationships with, and working side by side with the Jewish community, our "leaders" need to wake up and really listen to these schmucks. They need to understand that any compromise with this Islamic evil is a victory for evil. I would ask them when, in our 3000 year history, has compromise with evil ever worked in our favor?
Wait, let's extend that. When, in the history of human civilization, has compromise with evil ever worked to the benefit of humanity? I suppose it's possible. Maybe I missed it.
The larger problem here, as some people have recognized while others have buried their heads in the sand, is that Islam is a world wide problem. Whether or not we have personally had to face the hatred or terrorism personally, it has already affected our lives and will continue to reduce them as the evil coming out of Islam continues to be excused. You would think the Jewish community would understand that and would stand stronger in openly battling it. You would be wrong.
Last year, the Jewish community invited Muslims to help them volunteer on Christmas. The partnership was a historic first, with about 60 Muslims helping 900 Jewish volunteers. This year, up to 400 Muslims led by the Council of Islamic Organizations of Michigan will take the lead on Christmas.
"We have many similarities," Grossman said. "Let's look for the sameness rather than the differences."
Such partnerships are playing out across metro Detroit.
Similarities? Sure, there are some. But I challenge Jewish leaders to examine Islamic texts and attitudes as to our differences. I also challenge Muslim leaders to honestly explain and answer questions about some of the more unsavory portions of the Qu'ran and the hadiths.
That will never happen, because it would be impolite of our Jewish leaders to do so. They will be called "Islamophobic" and racist. Samuel Huntington, in his Clash of Civilizations was subjected to name calling because he made people pay attention to Islam's bloody borders. He's got the impolite, politically incorrect facts to back up his ideas, but when people refuse to face the facts, name calling becomes their substitute.
It's time for the Jewish community to face the facts.
I've gotten to the point where for the most part, I've become an opportunistic book buyer. I used to go looking for specific books and I would (mostly) buy the book I was looking for before buying anything else. Now, there are so many books that I want to read that unless it's by one of my rare "must have" authors, I don't bother until I find it cheap somewhere around town, whether it's in a used book store, or even better, at a yard sale. This week I picked up a nice paperback copy of Thackery's Vanity Fair. Eventually I'll read it.
I've already written about volume I of The Gulag Archipelago which I found as a paperback at the local YMCA's used book sale. Early this summer I found volume II in hardcover at a used book store. It's big, and it's heavy, and I'm guessing that very few people bought it, and even fewer people read it.
I am not like other people however, and I brought it to keep me company on the six hour train rides to and from Chicago. It is truly as fascinating as the first volume. As with the first volume, the irony and sarcasm keeps this book from making the reader suicidal.
With about 200 pages left to go, it suddenly hit me that a totalitarian society - as the USSR, as the other communist dictatorships, as the Third Reich, as Islamic countries are and always have been - suicidal. No, that's not right. They still survive. They are self-defeating. They can never rise up from the mud because they destroy their best and brightest. Solzhenitsyn writes of engineers, scientists, writers, composers, poets, artists, and others who should have been inventing and creating new products, and building the wealth, and forming the spirit of the USSR, being instead, forced to live as political prisoners and slave laborers in prison camps across Russia. Lenin had his opponents murdered, and the entire slave labor system began under his leadership. Stalin, in addition to imprisoning and killing the best and brightest Russia had to offer, purged his generals before WWII. Oops! And then there was China. How many brilliant, creative, hard-working people were murdered during the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward? Under Pol Pot in Cambodia, people with glasses were killed under the assumption that they were dangerous intellectuals. How many political prisoners has Castro imprisoned?
You want to talk non-communist dictators? How about Zimbabwe's Mugabe turning a net food exporting country into a nation of starving disease-ridden beggars? Yes, the Rhodesian apartheid system was immoral, but are Zimbabweans better or worse off now?
Islam, although it has conquered a large portion of the world, as its holy book, the Qu'ran instructs its followers to do, it doesn't allow Muslims to rise in the world in any meaningful manner. Jihad doesn't allow for excellence in fields that improve the lot of mankind, there is no incentive to create and nurture industry, medicine, art, literature, etc. It's all about conquest and control over the lives of Muslims - and non-Muslims. We are supposed to be tolerated as dhimmis. Not that Islam has contributed nothing, but considering 20 percent of the world's population is Muslim, it seems to me that if there were genuine freedom in Islam and in Islamic nations, we would hear more positive news and less of the kind that insists we in "dar al harm" ignore the pathologies of Islam; jihad, honor killings, terrorism, rioting over cartoons, teddy bears, literature, etc.
But back to the gulag. As I was dawdling with this post over days and weeks, I finished the book. Turns out it's also a philosophy book. And it's not that Solzhenitsyn just tacked some philosophical musings on at the end to give it a bit more kick. Due to the previous 12 to 1300 pages, it is an integral part of the book. It fills a need that the reader (or at least this reader) doesn't even realize needs to be filled until it is filled. He has built a philosophy built on pain and death and the horrors of a slave labor system that is as bad or worse than any other that has ever been conceived by human beings. And I'm not sure he's totally satisfied with this philosophy, but he doesn't excuse himself as a victim. He doesn't "go Obama" on us. He presents his own weakness and fallibility to the reader. (I can't pretend that I would have done any better in his situation. In fact, I don't think I would have lasted very long at all.) He doesn't offer himself as a hero, but merely as another innocent Russian unjustly imprisoned who happened to be lucky enough to survive. His survival amidst all of those who died forces him and the reader to continue to think about the validity of these final thoughts. It also reminded me of Tolstoy's story, God Sees the Truth, but Waits.
I hate to gush, but it you have some spare time, you should read this monster.
Interesting article here by Ayaan Hirsi Ali on how to win the clash of civilizations. I suppose it would be a lot easier if our leaders were truly interested in winning this fight, or even recognizing that we are in a fight. Preemptive surrender seems to be their default position. But, Ayaan says,
The greatest advantage of Huntington's civilizational model of international relations is that it reflects the world as it is—not as we wish it to be. It allows us to distinguish friends from enemies. And it helps us to identify the internal conflicts within civilizations, particularly the historic rivalries between Arabs, Turks and Persians for leadership of the Islamic world.
But divide and rule cannot be our only policy. We need to recognize the extent to which the advance of radical Islam is the result of an active propaganda campaign. According to a CIA report written in 2003, the Saudis invested at least $2 billion a year over a 30-year period to spread their brand of fundamentalist Islam. The Western response in promoting our own civilization was negligible.
Our civilization is not indestructible: It needs to be actively defended. This was perhaps Huntington's most important insight. The first step towards winning this clash of civilizations is to understand how the other side is waging it—and to rid ourselves of the One World illusion.
I read Huntington's book a few years ago when it came out. It's a fascinating look at the world, and it seemed then and still seems that the paradigm he constructed is, if not absolutely correct, then a reasonable way to look at the current world situation. When I read reviews calling it racist, and insulting it because, like Ayaan says, it presents the world as it is, not as we wish it were, I liked it even more. Read it. It's good.
Demades the Athenian—[Seneca, De Beneficiis, vi. 38, whence nearly the whole of this chapter is taken.]—condemned one of his city, whose trade it was to sell the necessaries for funeral ceremonies, upon pretence that he demanded unreasonable profit, and that that profit could not accrue to him, but by the death of a great number of people. A judgment that appears to be ill grounded, forasmuch as no profit whatever can possibly be made but at the expense of another, and that by the same rule he should condemn all gain of what kind soever. The merchant only thrives by the debauchery of youth, the husband man by the dearness of grain, the architect by the ruin of buildings, lawyers and officers of justice by the suits and contentions of men: nay, even the honour and office of divines are derived from our death and vices. A physician takes no pleasure in the health even of his friends, says the ancient Greek comic writer, nor a soldier in the peace of his country, and so of the rest. And, which is yet worse, let every one but dive into his own bosom, and he will find his private wishes spring and his secret hopes grow up at another’s expense. Upon which consideration it comes into my head, that nature does not in this swerve from her general polity; for physicians hold, that the birth, nourishment, and increase of every thing is the dissolution and corruption of another:
Nam quodcumque suis mutatum finibus exit, Continuo hoc mors est illius, quod fuit ante.
[“For, whatever from its own confines passes changed, this is at once the death of that which before it was.”—Lucretius, ii. 752.]
(1580)
Can you spell envy? Throughout history haven't there been those who condemn others for being too wealthy - even if the wealth was honestly gained? Are there and have there always been those who will gladly bite off their nose to spite their face by forcing the redistribution of wealth even though that tactic has only caused the general decline of all?
More proof that we humans just don't learn from our mistakes.
Yes, I'm falling way behind in my blogging. If I had time, I'd talk about it, but I'd rather talk about Forrest McDonald's biography of Alexander Hamilton. I read and finished it after Gibbon. That was a few weeks ago.
McDonald's Hamilton is not one of the current oversized monster bios that covers every detail of the subject's life from the birth of their grandparents to the deaths of their grandchildren - although I do own and have read some of those. This one is manageable. It covers the important aspects of Hamilton's life, his development, and his important (and I mean really important) contributions to the creation and evolution of our country.
As a child, the only thing I learned about Hamilton was that he was killed in a duel by Aaron Burr. They'd been on opposite sides of the political aisle for years. Since this happened after Hamilton made his contributions and was basically retired, McDonald only gives a few pages to this most unfortunate episode in American history.
The fascinating aspect of this book, besides learning all about Hamilton, and a bit about economics, was discovering how human our founding fathers were. Some were completely corrupt. And covetous. Hoo boy, they were covetous. And some of them were schemers who worked for their own interests and against the country's interests. Hamilton's genius (if I understand correctly) was in finding ways to make this corruption work for the country. This goes along with our political system that, in theory, divides power between three branches of government so that no one branch has too much power.
Hamilton wanted the to change American society from one of gentleman farmers to one of economic vitality and hard work. He made a lot of enemies along the way. Some of our founding fathers loathed Hamilton, and there were various alliances and battles between various factions political factions. Hamilton's main political enemies were James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. Fortunately for the nation (if I understood all of the economics correctly, which - uh - well . . . ) it was Hamilton who had G. Washington's ear when he was president, and not Madison and Jefferson.
By the end of Washington's second term as president, McDonald describes him as haggard and worn out. Jefferson comes off worse according to McDonald's telling, but not as bad as he is repeatedly described by James McCullough in his John Adams biography. But then, McDonald, in his book refers to the "pompous and porcine Adams." While 200 years will do wonders for a person's reputation, it is always good to remember that no matter how we lionize these men, they were human. Yes, they created a county that has served as a beacon of freedom for millions. No, it's not perfect, and it never will be. But it is still the one that people yearning to breath free risk their lives to reach.
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Part II
One thing I forgot about in my first post on Gibbon; he was viciously anti-Semitic. All of his descriptions of Jews and Judaism are outrageous. He accuses Jews of cannibalizing their defeated enemies. That's just stupid. Observant Jews, which would have been the entire Jewish community at the time, wouldn't have eaten people. People aren't kosher. We don't have split hooves, and unless you consider chewing gum, we have no cud to chew. He also accuses the Jews of Rome of starting the infamous fire that the Emperor Nero was said to fiddle during. And it was (according to Gibbon) the fault of the Jews that Christians were persecuted. I think it's another one of those British attitudes.
I'm not sure Gibbon's anti-Semitism is ever discussed, probably because his Decline and Fall is a such an otherwise magnificent piece of scholarship and writing. As I said in part I (if I remember correctly), the man could construct a sentence and describe a character better than most novelists. He did have an advantage over writers of fiction though. These were real people he was fleshing out for us. He merely had to find the right words.
During Rome's decline, when one emperor after another was being raised and then violently dispatched, it was clear that the virtuous men of genius who ruled Rome and fought for Roman interests during its ascension in centuries past, were either no longer available or they weren't being allowed to rise up from the multitude. Instead, there was a centuries long parade of scoundrels, usurpers, and con men, who had abbreviated reigns wearing the purple. The great were sometimes thrust into the throne, but they were the exception.
As Gibbon would begin his descriptions of each new emperor rising or being forced to the top during the tumultuous third and fourth centuries A.D., I wondered each time how long this one would last and what manner of violent end he would suffer, because they all came to violent ends, the good, the bad, and the indifferent. Major exceptions were Diocletion, Julian, and Constantine, but try as they might, they couldn't halt Rome's decline. The best they could do was to slow it down.
By this time, corruption reigned and the edges of the empire were being eaten away by the barbarians Rome could no longer control, but only negotiate with in-between increasing futile wars. Rather than handle the barbarians, whom I think had embraced certain aspects of civilization over the centuries, and who were being squeezed by the Scythians (who were even more barbaric) on the other side, Rome chose to negotiate when they needed to concentrate on internal problems. Who did these negotiations help the most? Well, it wasn't the Romans.
The West (Rome) discovered (and then promptly forgot) the lesson on letting a cruel barbarian tyrant grow strong by neglecting to squash him when he's weak. What is it with humanity? Don't we ever learn?
When corruption becomes the order of the day, when it's not only tolerated but expected, when society has lost its memory of what responsibilities we all must fulfill to pass our civilization on to our children, how do "we the people" maintain a civil free society? The Romans were finally overwhelmed by their own pathologies, which weakened them enough for outside forces to invade and finish the job. It was a long process though, and as each generation contributed to their share of Rome's decline, whatever they were living through was their normalcy, no matter how degraded they would have appeared to their ancestors.
Does this story hold lessons for we the living of today? Sure it does. Will we listen? We never have.
Next summer, I will reread volume II. I'm looking forward to it.
After I finished reading it the first time a few years ago, I didn't think I'd ever want to read it again. But over the years, I've read about it from writers whom I respect. They talked not only about what a great history it is, and how it relates to today's world, but about what a great read it is. I didn't think it was so great upon first reading. But this time, I took it slowly. The first time, I just wanted to get through it. It was tedious. This time I paid attention, and I discovered that all of those people talking about what a great writer Gibbon was, are right. I read the first volume, all 956 dense, footnoted pages over the past month. I really enjoyed the journey this time. The Latin and Greek footnotes did slow things down, but most of the footnotes in English were worth reading. And of course, Gibbon doesn't just tell the story, he tries to teach us lessons in morality and proper living. He tries to show the difference between excellent governance and poor governance. He gives us portraits of the great, the not so great, and the truly awful. Gibbon has this to say about the sons of Constantine and the conflict among them.
After the partition of the empire three years had scarcely elapsed before the sons of Constantine seemed impatient to convince mankind they were incapable of contenting themselves with the dominions which they were unqualified to govern.
He charts the rises and falls of emperors, generals, great men and scoundrels. And he does so with intelligence and wit that is rarely found in any of today's histories.
People don't write like that any more. The big histories of today are full of minutiae. They include everything but the kitchen sink. Gibbon covers too much ground for that, but he still tells a great and marvelously entertaining story and gives enough detail to make the reader ponder and feel the tragedy that the fall of the Roman Empire wrought through Europe, N. Africa, and E. Asia. The Romans were the superpower of their day. They kept order throughout their lands and the surrounding lands. When they began to self-destruct, order was reduced. Brigands, barbarians, and other opportunists were able to make life miserable for everyone. The suffering caused by this collapse lasted for a thousand years.
As with other great histories, this one is not only about one people during one time. It is the story of ancient and modern empires and superpowers. And it's the story of people and how they act and react. As much as we'd like to think otherwise, people haven't changed much over the past few thousand years. Corruption of morals is universal.
Tiberius, and those emperors who adopted his maxims, attempted to disguise their murders by the formalities of justice, and perhaps enjoyed a secret pleasure in rendering the senate their accomplice as well as their victim. By this assembly the last of the Romans were condemned for imaginary crimes and real virtues. Their infamous accusers assumed the language of independent patriots, who arraigned a dangerous citizen before the tribunal of his country; and the public service was rewarded by riches and honours. (55) The servile judges professed to assert the majesty of the commonwealth, violated in the person of its first magistrate; (56) whose clemency they most applauded when they trembled the most at his inexorable and impending cruelty (57) The tyrant beheld their baseness with just contempt, and encountered their secret sentiments of detestation with sincere and avowed hatred for the whole body of the senate.
Today, it is reputations that are murdered, but in Judaism, that is believed to be as great crime as stealing from or cheating another.
The minds of despots throughout history work the same.
In the administration of justice, the judgments of the emperor were characterised by attention, discernment, and impartiality; and whenever he deviated from the strict line of equity, it was generally in favour of the poor and oppressed; not so much indeed from any sense of humanity, as from the natural propensity of a despot, to humble the pride of greatness, and to sink all his subjects. to the same common level of absolute dependence.
Along with using the iron fist to earn the fear of the subject people, pander to the lowest among them and gain their gratitude. Wealthy scapegoats are the best.
I could go on quoting Gibbon as there are so many passages worth quoting, but I won't. Other points Gibbon makes though, are that as the empire declined, pomp and glorious titles increased. Emperors had greater retinues, more slaves, bigger entourages as their power and prestige declined. Superficial aspects became more pronounced as the insides rotted. While the army and praetorian guard named then assassinated emperor after emperor, the Roman people were given their bread and circuses in an effort to keep them mollified. There were good emperors and bad ones, but for a lengthy period, none of them died a natural death.
There were attempts to rebuild, but after a steady decline, and the slaughter of so many Romans in civil wars, the momentum was impossible to reverse.
If, like me, you're tired of listening to and arguing with know-nothing-know-it-alls who insist that the current economic downturn is the fault of deregulation, the failure or excesses of capitalism, you might be interested in Thomas Sowell's latest, The Housing Boom and Bust. As always, Dr. Sowell writes for the layman, who may not know much about economics, you know, like the know-it-alls. It's a short book, 148 pages of text, and another 30 pages of notes. And if you've been following Sowell's regular columns, you will have already read some of what he says in the book.
You should still read the book. He explains the entire problem beginning at the beginning. And it doesn't even take the entire book to explain how we got into this fix. He also explains some of the failed government interventions of the past, some of which led to, and extended the Great Depression, and Obama's failure to learn from the past as he attempts to lead us into a greater depression.
While the problem began with government intervention and good intentions, to help more people afford to own their own homes, others helped along the way. And yes, some of them were Wall Street investors. Some of them were Republicans. George Bush has his share of blame in this, and so do the people who knowingly bought more house than they knew they could afford.
The simple, yet biggest lesson Dr. Sowell tries to teach, and one that he tries to teach in many of his columns is that government intervention, no matter how well meaning, almost always ends up causing more harm than good, which leads to the government rushing in to fix the problem, which, because of the universal and unbreakable Law of Unintended Consequences, and the fact that government officials have little or no knowledge or experience in the businesses they intend on "fixing", they only make things worse, which leads to still more government, etc. It's a lot like the debate on Obamacare. We've had government intervention that has led to changes in our health care and in the insurance industry since World War II. Nobody remembers that far back. Very few people look back and track the government policies and mandates that, over the years and decades, have forced the price of health care to the level it's at today. We only know what's happening now and we're not happy with it. So, here comes Obama and the Democrats with their multi-trillion dollar solution.
As Dr. Sowell demonstrates in book after book and in column after column, the free market is still the best path toward economic growth and freedom.
Victor Davis Hanson gives an interesting analysis of The Obama's recent European venture.
Given Obama’s performance on his recent trip, three developments were quite astounding.
First, despite this fresh climate of atonement, there was a complete absence of a single apology from any other foreign leader — odd for the new shared spirit of multi-polarity and reciprocity.
Not a word came from Britain about colonialism. Nothing from Germany on the Holocaust, or its trade with Iran. Not a peep from France about Algeria or Vietnam.
Turkey was mum on the Armenian killings and its own tough anti-Kurdish policies. Russia said nothing about the 30 million murdered by Stalin — or its present assassinations abroad, much less its leveling of Grozny or its destruction of Afghanistan. Nothing came from China about the 70 million who perished under Mao or its present role in subsidizing North Korean nukes — or its violation of global copyright laws. We won’t hear anything in the “New Asian Hemisphere” about Muslim Uighurs or Tibet.
Second, there was no other example of “He did it!” about supposedly inept predecessors. Mr. Medvedev said nothing about Putin’s brutish rule. Sarkozy and Merkel did not trash the shady Chirac or Gazprom’s bought lobbyist Schroeder, and their role in harming the Atlantic alliance. Gordon Brown was quiet about Tony Blair and Iraq. China did not mention a reset button. The new Berlusconi did not trash the old Berlusconi.
Third, we saw no concrete evidence of any help — or hope and change — from any foreign leader. Zilch. There were expectations of American concessions, but nothing new or helpful from anyone else.
I've got nothing to add to what Hanson says, so go read the article. I will say, though, that one of the books that helped me appreciate the uniqueness of Western culture was Hanson's book, Carnage and Culture. Sure, it's mostly about wars and battles between Western and non-Western armies, but Hanson also delves deeply into how the peculiarities of Western thought that have grown out of the Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian strains of thought created a civilization that has, not just militarily, but in many ways, conquered the world.
But Obama and his true believers hope to change that . . . after he's done apologizing for it.
There are books that I want. Then there are books that I really want, books that I must have. Thanks to Amazon.com, I can readily find any book in the world. But I'm cheap. I don't always want to pay those prices for the books I want. There are too many books that I want. And I'm always finding new ones. Not that I'm alone in that respect.
Some of the books that I must have are by my favorite philosopher, Eric Hoffer. They're available, but due to my parsimoniousness, I search estate sales and used books stores for his books. On rare occasions I get lucky. Last week I found a hard cover copy of Working and Thinking on the Waterfront. It was $6.50. To me, that seemed kind of high. It's not in perfect shape. In fact, it's kind of rough around the edges. And somebody underlined some passages in pencil. I hate that. I have friends that take notes in the margins of their books, and one friend in particular who cares even less about the condition of his books, and will actually tear out sections of a book to read while traveling if the book is too thick to be easily carried. That's OK. Those aren't my books.
I'm kind of obsessive, and I like my books to be in perfect shape. My wife has learned to live with it. She claims that I yelled at her one time when she set a glass of wine on a paperback book of mine, but I didn't yell. I merely asked her to move the glass. I've gotten better, and while in the beginning, when my kids were young, I tried to get them to take better care of their books, I was forced to back off. Since then, I've lightened up a bit. I even let my kids read my books - well, most of them.
Because of the condition of the book and the fact that this is just Hoffer's diary for two years of his life, I debated as to the need of spending my hard earned $6.50 . . . plus tax. I knew though, that if I didn't buy it, I would spend all of my waking hours regretting it. So I bought it. And I'm glad I did. Hoffer did some of his thinking in his diary. On page 6 he writes,
The Greeks extracted geometry from surveying, and their philosophy probably received its first impetus from the invention of coinage about 700 B.C. It was but a step from seeing coins as the common denominator of all values to the speculations that the manifold appearance of things is due to different states and arrangements of a fundamental substance.
That was worth the $6.50 plus tax. Then on page 7,
I am often struck by the money-consciousness of many radicals and their skill in business, particularly in real estate. The radicals on the waterfront have left-wing principles and right-wing bank accounts.
And there is lots more.
I read the thing in a couple of days. Like his other books, its short and to the point. His diary entries quickly got to the heart of his day. Besides the random bits of wisdom, the reader learns that Hoffer, in a lot of ways was just a regular guy. He lived alone out of choice, but there was a family that he befriended to the point that their son was his godson. There are frequent references to his visits with them. He had stomach trouble. He was a longshoreman. We learn a little bit about the men he worked with. He felt no need to ramble on about his thoughts or emotions like a self-centered teenager.
This is a beautiful little book. I'm glad I found it. Last summer, I was lucky enough to find a paperback copy of Hoffer's, The Passionate State of Mind, at an estate sale. There was also a copy of The True Believer, which I bought for my sister. I don't think she's read it as she's never offered to argue about it with me.
One more from this book:
Was there ever a utopia which visualized a society free of planning, regulation, and supervision? Utopias are usually visualized by potential planners, organizers, directors, leaders. The envisioned new society is the ideal milieu for bureaucrats.
The 1948 presidential election pitted incumbent Harry Truman against Thomas Dewey. Nobody expected Truman to win. The MSM was pulling for Dewey, the Republican. Times certainly have changed. But that's not what I want to talk about.
There was a third party candidate, Henry Wallace. His organization was, "Henry Wallace's Progressive Citizens of America." How progressive was Wallace? According to David McCullough, in his biography of Truman, on pages 645-646,
Wallace refused to repudiate his Communist support. He would not repudiate any suport that came to him, he said, "on the basis of interest in peace."
and
The Progressive platform that emerged from the convention was virtually no different from the Communist Party platform in its denunciation of the Marshall Plan, the Truman Doctrine, the new draft law, and called for the destruction of American nuclear weapons, which were still the only nuclear weapons known to exist.
Later, on page 667, McCullough writes,
. . . his (Wallace's) main theme remaining constant throughout: the Progressive Party was "the peace party" that would end the Cold War through direct negotiations with the Soviet Union.
And in two days, Obama will be sworn in as president.
From the Department of Too Much Time on Their Hands, comes a disturbing report that Newbery-winning books are most often about white boys. It's disturbing to me because I'd always thought that these awards should be based on literary merit. Are we to expect Affirmative Action Newberys?
Figuring prominently in this article is the book, Bud, Not Buddy, by Christopher Paul Curtis.
In "Bud, Not Buddy," author Christopher Paul Curtis tells the story of a Depression-era black boy in Flint. The book won the Newbery Medal, the top prize in children's literature, eight years ago. Advertisement
It was the last time a black character had the lead role in a Newbery book. If you want a Hispanic protagonist, you have to go back 43 years.
Characters depicted in Newbery winners are more likely to be white and male and to come from two-parent households than the average U.S. child, according to a Brigham Young University study. The trend has accelerated even as the United States has diversified, with fewer black and Hispanic main characters in the past 27 years than in the civil rights era of 1951-79.
Bud, Not Buddy is a really good book. I read it at least twice, once to a class. It deserves all of the praise that it gets. But it won on merit, not because the main character and author are black.
We are going to have a black president -- literature should catch up," National Book Award winner Sherman Alexie said. Alexie won the award for his 2007 "Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian," a semiautobiographical novel about a teen growing up on the Spokane Indian reservation.
What is it that literature should catch up to? Demagoguery? Shallowness? Empty promises?
To be sure, only about 10% of new children's books published last year focused on minorities, according to the Cooperative Children's Book Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a library that serves the university's School of Education.
The number of books about minorities has remained around 10% since 1992, said Kathleen Horning, the center's director.
This looks like a job for - OBAMA MAN! Only he can insure that more stories are written about minority children! And are awarded for it!
But more troubles abound.
The last book with a Hispanic protagonist to win a Newbery Medal was "Shadow of a Bull," by Maia Wojciechowska, in 1965. The book dealt with a young Spanish boy's struggle to follow in the footsteps of his slain bullfighter father.
Newbery Medal winners also depict disproportionately fewer characters living in single-parent households than the norm, the study found. About a quarter of all U.S. children now live with one parent, compared with 7% of the Newbery protagonists in the past 27 years.
It's time to categorize the Newberys, or perhaps institute a quota system. Whose turn is it this year? Blacks? Hipanics? Kids from single parent families? Left-handed Oriental dyslexic transgendered girls? Or would they be transgendered boys? I'm never sure.
"Maybe the ALA should just describe the Newbery award as awarded to the writer of the best book about white, two-parent households," said Julia Alvarez, a Dominican American and a writer-in-residence at Middlebury College in Vermont, who said she is thrilled about the award but is also frustrated because there is still a long way to go. She won the American Library Association's Pura Belpre Award, as well as the Americas Award for "Before We Were Free," which tells the story of a 12-year-old girl whose family is involved in resistance work in the Dominican Republic against the Trujillo dictatorship in 1960.
That's nice, but was Alvarez' book Newbery quality? Sounds like award envy to me.
Only one book wins the Newbery Medal each year, but the association names Newbery Honor winners, an accolade a number of minority writers have received. In 2008, Jacqueline Woodson's "Feathers" and Christopher Paul Curtis's "Elijah of Buxton" were named Honor Books. Both authors are black.
"The honor books are winners too," Scales said. "We have to look at the whole spectrum. We now give the Pura Belpre Award, which is strictly for Latino writers and illustrators."
That's right, everyone is a winner. There are no losers here!
Likewise, since 1982, the library association has given the Coretta Scott King Award to black authors and illustrators depicting a sense of the African-American experience in their work.
"Pura Belpre started in 1996 and was originally given every other year because there weren't enough books by Latino authors and illustrators," Scales said. "That's changing, and starting in 2009, the association will give the award annually."
"We are not just writing Latino books, we are writing stories for all of us," Alvarez said. "Sometimes there are these lags. The same thing happens in academia; minority writers, Afro Americans, women are taught in specialized courses, such as the Survey of Women's Literature. ... That is slowly changing, and the canon itself is more diverse. Boy, I can't believe it's 2008 and we're still having this kind of conversation."
So maybe part of the problem, and the reason "we are still having this conversation", is that some authors are writing "ethnic" books instead of literature. Perhaps they are so consumed with one ethnic, racial, or other sliver of society that they have limited their audience. The balkanization of literature in academia has hurt both literature and education.
One final word: In 1991, Oren Bell, by Barbara Hood Burgess was published to excellent reviews. There was grumbling from some though because Burgess is white and she dared write about black kids in Detroit. So, are authors allowed to write about groups they don't belong to? If a white author wins a Newbery for a book about a minority child, have we "caught up?"
During Harry Truman's 1948 bid for reelection, he gave a speech in San Antonio, Texas on Sunday, September 26. David McCullough, in his biography of Truman, on page 676, quotes a piece of that speech.
Our government is made up of the people. You are the government, I am only your hired servant. I am the Chief Executive of the greatest nation in the world, the highest honor that can ever come to a man on Earth. But I am the servant of the people of the United States. They are not my servants. I can't order you around, or send you to labor camps or have your heads cut off if you don't agree with me politically. We don't believe in that . . .
By way of Michelle Malkin, I found this video, wherein an Obama staffer presents a completely different attitude to holding the office of President of the United States. I'm not claiming any conspiracy here, merely a change in the expectation of what this office means.
I wanted to buy a copy of Michael Rameriz' new book of cartoons, Everyone Has the Right to My Opinion. That's all I was there for. I was at a book store I've been frequenting for years, one of the last remaining independent book stores in the Detroit area. The owners are very liberal, but I've always liked them. Everyone likes them. And they have a really good book store.
I was talking to one of the owners and the conversation turned, as all conversations seem to turn to in these final days before the election, to the election. And as has been happening more frequently, I surprised her with my current political views. As we were debating the relative merits of each presidential candidate, I noticed another shopper listening in. Actually, everyone was listening. It's not a very big store, and there weren't many people in the store. Then the other shopper joined in. We have a small community of Russian/Jewish immigrants in the area and she was one of them. She filled us both in on how Socialism, no matter if it's being proposed by Obama, or Putin (who we all agreed was a murderous dictatorial thug) or any other progressive politician, leads away from freedom. While we in the United States have been debating Capitalism vs. Socialism for years, she got to live in a socialist worker's paradise. That's why she and her family came here.
When the owner suggested that we look at the allegedly benign socialism of Sweden, the Russian lady brought the discussion closer to home: Canada. They have socialized medicine, which is why so many Canadians are sneaking into the U.S. for medical care. After all, what's a Canadian to do when you have to wait months for an MRI? Die, or cross the border? Then I brought up another area where Canadian freedom has been sacrificed, The Canadian Human Rights Commission. Neither of my conversation partners had heard of it.
That's no surprise. The American Mainstream Media have been as quiet about it as they've been about Obama's past (non-existent) record of achievement and his past dubious associations.
We covered all of the points of contention: environment, economics, foreign policy, the Press, abortion, VP choices, and the thing that surprised me was the weakness of my bookstore owning friend's arguments. There were no comebacks. And she is an intelligent, well-read person. I'm sure she only reads her side, so there was a lot she was unaware of because it isn't reported . . . by her side.
When I argue with my sister, and she can no longer refute my arguments, she just sinks into the classic progressive defense of "you're a hatemonger" and agrees to disagree. Or, as when I was sending her articles on ACORN and The Community Redevelopment Act being the root causes of the current economic meltdown, and being made worse by the malfeasance of Barny Frank, Chris Dodd, and the Democratic leadership in both the House and the Senate, she simply never read them. After all, other people are saying other things. Who really knows?
Obama and his team, of course, attack the messenger, engage in character assassination, or refuse access to the offending opinionated parties. I hadn't realized how weak arguments for Liberal policies are. They have to engage in subterfuge to sneak their policies in under assumed Orwellian names, like the Fairness Doctrine, or create an echo chamber where the only voice they hear is theirs, or put their hands over their ears and kill the messenger. We've seen all of this for years. I've finally started paying attention to in the past few years.
Getting back to the original thread of this post, we still had a polite discussion. There was no hysteria, no screaming; we all listened to each other. Probably, nobodies views were changed. We are still friends, and I will still shop at that bookstore. The owner asked if some of our mutual friends knew of my views. Some do and some don't. Sometimes they don't want to listen. I tried to get into a discussion with one of my friends when he mentioned that the Soviet Union was not that bad. After all, they had the Bolshoi Ballet. When I started mentioning daily bread lines, he quickly changed the subject and began talking to someone else. When I mentioned to another friend a while back that I was reading Victor Davis Hanson on why the West was able to spread its influence around the world, he started raving about the environment and how we've destroyed it.
One day all of my friends will know that I'm not a liberal anymore. It will be on the day that they bring up politics.
Reading the ancient historians, you really have to pay attention. While at times, they tell fascinating stories that resonate throughout the ages, there are times, I must admit, that things can get dull, kind of that "one thing after another" syndrome. Sometimes things are happening so quickly that you get lost in the names and events that may only get a page or perhaps even a sentence of description. As an example, I found Livy's history of early Rome dull in parts, but later, when he stretches out in his retelling of the Second Punic War, he creates quite the page-turner.
Tacitus (in a well annotated edition) is really interesting. The man could tell a good story. Sometimes too, you just come across unexpected tidbits. I recently read the W. H. Fyfe translation of The Histories by Tacitus. I found it well done. It was readable, and made sense. It was modern enough to flow easily through my mind. That doesn't always mean better, but compared to this translation on the web, I prefer Fyfe. Due to the fact that I'm lazy and don't feel like typing passages from the book though, I'm quoting from the web.
Our first selection is from book 1:
22. The soul of Otho was not effeminate like his person. His confidential freedmen and slaves, who enjoyed a license unknown in private families, brought the debaucheries of Nero's court, its intrigues, its easy marriages, and the other indulgences of despotic power, before a mind passionately fond of such things, dwelt upon them as his if he dared to seize them, and reproached the inaction that would leave them to others. The astrologers also urged him to action, predicting from their observation of the heavens revolutions, and a year of glory for Otho. This is a class of men, whom the powerful cannot trust, and who deceive the aspiring, a class which will always be proscribed in this country, and yet always retained. Many of these men were attached to the secret councils of Poppaea and were the vilest tools in the employ of the imperial household. One of them, Ptolemaeus, had attended Otho in Spain, and had there foretold that his patron would survive Nero. Gaining credit by the result, and arguing from his own conjectures and from the common talk of those who compared Galba's age with Otho's youth, he had persuaded the latter that he would be called to the throne. Otho however received the prediction as the words of wisdom and the intimation of destiny, with that inclination so natural to the human mind readily to believe in the mysterious.
At this point in our story, Galba is emperor, having taken over upon the death of Nero. An astrologer predicts to Otho that he will be replacing Galba on the throne. Otho accepts that prediction and goes on to overthrow Galba. He is then overthrown by Vitellus, who is in turn, overthrown by Vespasian, who serves for nine years. All of this overthrowing stuff takes place in the space of a year - a year of civil war.
If we replace the name Otho with the name Macbeth, substitute three witches for the astrologer, and change the author's name to Shakespeare, . . .
At the beginning of book five:
1. EARLY in this year Titus Caesar, who had been selected by his father to complete the subjugation of Judaea, and who had gained distinction as a soldier while both were still subjects, began to rise in power and reputation, as armies and provinces emulated each other in their attachment to him. The young man himself, anxious to be thought superior to his station, was ever displaying his gracefulness and his energy in war. By his courtesy and affability he called forth a willing obedience, and he often mixed with the common soldiers, while working or marching, without impairing his dignity as general. He found in Judaea three legions, the 5th, the 10th, and the 15th, all old troops of Vespasian's. To these he added the 12th from Syria, and some men belonging to the 18th and 3rd, whom he had withdrawn from Alexandria. This force was accompanied by twenty cohorts of allied troops and eight squadrons of cavalry, by the two kings Agrippa and Sohemus, by the auxiliary forces of king Antiochus, by a strong contingent of Arabs, who hated the Jews with the usual hatred of neighbours, and, lastly, by many persons brought from the capital and from Italy by private hopes of securing the yet unengaged affections of the Prince. With this force Titus entered the enemy's territory, preserving strict order on his march, reconnoitring every spot, and always ready to give battle. At last he encamped near Jerusalem.
What can we say about that? It began, so the story goes, with Jacob and Esau. It continues to this day. To Tacitus, who was unclear on that history, it was glossed over as just the usual hatred between neighbors.
Random House has declined to publish a novel by writer, Sherry Jones. It was called The Jewel of Medina. It was about Mohammed's child bride, Aisha. In a cowardly act of self-censorship, Random House dumped the novel after word got around to Muslim websites.
Random House said yesterday that it had been advised by a number of Islamic scholars and security experts that the novel was offensive to Muslims and that "it could incide acts of violence by a small radical segment".
There they area again, that "small radical segment", making all of those fabled moderate Muslims seem like they're nothing but a bunch of demented barbaric savages. I'm not sure it was something I would have read, well actually, I'm sure I would have ignored it.
The novel is a luridly written amalgam of bodice-ripper and historical fiction centred on Aisha, the favourite wife of the prophet Muhammad. "Married at nine to the much-older Muhammad, Aisha uses her wits, her courage, and her sword to defend her first-wife status even as Muhammad marries again and again, taking 12 wives and concubines in all," the summary reads.
At one point the novel imagines the consummation of the marriage between Muhammad and Aisha: "The pain of consummation soon melted away. Muhammad was so gentle. I hardly felt the scorpion's sting. To be in his arms, skin to skin, was the bliss I had longed for all my life."
But,
"It was my hope that my book would develop empathy for this other culture," she said. "It has always rankled me the way history focuses on men and wars and men's politics and leaves women out. I wanted to honour the women in Muhammad's life by giving them a voice."
That was her first mistake, trying to give Muslim women a voice. Muslim men have have kept that impulse under control for 1300 years. Women are not to be honored, they're to be used . . . by men. That doesn't mean the book should be censored. Unfortunately, having given up all of our beliefs, we become slaves to anyone who does have strong beliefs and is willing to impose them on us. Who's going to battle the "small radical segment" on this one? Not Random House.
But Muslims aren't the only wants out to stifle freedom of speech. There is also a group calling themselves Accountable Americans. Michelle Malkin has the skinny on these thugs. They call Republicans fascists, but they use strong arm, Mafia tactics to shut down contrasting political views.
I'd like to say that attacks on free speech are coming from all sides, but they're only coming from one, just different heads of the same tyrannical monster. If they ever do win against us, the leftist tools will be quickly dealt with by their Islamic masters.
I can't add much to what's already been written upon the death of Alexander Solzhenitsyn. I remember the hoopla surrounding his exile to the United States back in the 70's. I remember people writing about his books. I even read one, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. I'm sure that's the one that most other people read who only read one of Solzhenitzyn's books. It's short. But it's a great book. I reread it about a year ago. I got the greater appreciation of it that comes with age, experience, and the knowledge that, although it is a work of fiction, it's based on facts that he and millions of Russians had lived through, and that others still live through today, whether in Russia, or one of the other tyrannies on this planet. I also remember reading an interview with him. He said the book was based on a good day in the gulag. We wouldn't be able to stand reading about a bad day.
Over at American Digest, there's a link to Solzhenitsyn's 1978 Harvard commencement speech. It packs quite a punch. He didn't think the American mall culture was all that great. Living only to hoard vast quantities of merchandise was not his idea of a life well spent. He also condemned the lack of courage in our elites.
A Decline in Courage [. . .]
may be the most striking feature which an outside observer notices in the West in our days. The Western world has lost its civil courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, each government, each political party and of course in the United Nations. Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling groups and the intellectual elite, causing an impression of loss of courage by the entire society. Of course there are many courageous individuals but they have no determining influence on public life. Political and intellectual bureaucrats show depression, passivity and perplexity in their actions and in their statements and even more so in theoretical reflections to explain how realistic, reasonable as well as intellectually and even morally warranted it is to base state policies on weakness and cowardice. And decline in courage is ironically emphasized by occasional explosions of anger and inflexibility on the part of the same bureaucrats when dealing with weak governments and weak countries, not supported by anyone, or with currents which cannot offer any resistance. But they get tongue-tied and paralyzed when they deal with powerful governments and threatening forces, with aggressors and international terrorists.
Should one point out that from ancient times decline in courage has been considered the beginning of the end?
and
no weapons, no matter how powerful, can help the West until it overcomes its loss of willpower. In a state of psychological weakness, weapons become a burden for the capitulating side. To defend oneself, one must also be ready to die; there is little such readiness in a society raised in the cult of material well-being. Nothing is left, then, but concessions, attempts to gain time and betrayal.
From 1978 until today I think things have only gotten worse. Facing the Islamofacists, many of our leaders, our MSM, and our intellectual elites have gone even further into their default mode of preemtive surrender. Those of us who refuse to submit are marginalized. We're called racists, Islamophobes and worse. Much like the image of the terrorist is softened by referring to Hamas and Hezbollah as "militants" and "extremists", we who try to get our leaders to fight against them (or at least call them by their proper title) get also get labeled as extremists. Somehow, sitting at a computer writing about the dehumanizing aspects of Sharia law and questioning why so many in the West are submitting to the demands of a theocratic, totalitarian movement firmly lodged in a seventh century desert culture, makes us the equivalent of Islamic murderers of infidel women and children.
Back when I was young, and manufacturing jobs were being lost to automation, many writers,(including Eric Hoffer, which proves that nobody is 100% right) predicted that people would now have more time to devote to study and would be able to make time for science, history, philosophy, and the general improvement of the intellect and the soul. Who could have predicted that with so many "great shows" to watch on TV, that there wouldn't be as much time for self-improvement as we thought?
Right now, I'm near the end of Tacitus' Histories. In it, he relates the period of civil wars between the death of Nero and the ascension of Vespasian to the post of Emperor. In between those two, there were three other very short-term emperors who ruled for as long as their loyalists could keep them in power. The whole period was about a year long. One of Tacitus' themes in this work, and apparently it's echoed by other ancient historians, is that extended periods of peace make us weak and lazy. He gives examples of Roman legions being given too much freedom or too much laxity, and then being useless in battle, or worse, becoming whiners, not willing to do their jobs, attacking their commanders, and degenerating into mobs. According to Gibbon, if I remember correctly, this period of history is shortly after the beginning of the decline of the Roman Empire.
So we don't want to fight for our own freedom. We want to shop for goofy stuff, as shown in this post at Pen of Jen, and hope that all of the bad things go away by themselves (or maybe if we are really good, and we vote correctly in November, the Obamessiah will create a progressive utopia for all of us).
Personally, I prefer peace. I've changed though. I understand now, as I didn't understand very well as a young punk, that there are times when you do have to stand up and fight for what you believe in, because if you don't, someone will take valuable things away from you, you know, things like liberty, freedom, and perhaps your life. I understand that we in the United States do have enemies that want to destroy us in the worst way and that we have to defend ourselves against them. I understand that we, like other western nations have lost some of the moral clarity that allows us to do what we need to do. Look what's happening in Canada. They are slowly, in the name of multiculturalism and freedom from insult, knuckling under to the demands of the Islamists in their midst.
Has peace and the greatest prosperity in the history of mankind caused us to lose our spiritual way? The following quote is another piece of Solzhenitsyn's speech, but Tacitus might agree with it.
If humanism were right in declaring that man is born to be happy, he would not be born to die. Since his body is doomed to die, his task on earth evidently must be of a more spiritual nature. It cannot unrestrained enjoyment of everyday life. It cannot be the search for the best ways to obtain material goods and then cheerfully get the most out of them. It has to be the fulfillment of a permanent, earnest duty so that one's life journey may become an experience of moral growth, so that one may leave life a better human being than one started it. It is imperative to review the table of widespread human values. Its present incorrectness is astounding. It is not possible that assessment of the President's performance be reduced to the question of how much money one makes or of unlimited availability of gasoline. Only voluntary, inspired self-restraint can raise man above the world stream of materialism.
I admit, I want stuff. I want specific stuff, but it's still stuff. I want books. I could spend a huge amount of money on the books I want. I could spend another huge amount on the CD's that I want. I don't need them, but I want them. It's an aspect of my life I have to examine.
Solzhenitsyn has given me a lot to think about. At some point, when I have a few extra dollars in my pocket, I'm going to pick up a used copy of The Gulag Archipelago. They're all over the place in every used book store I visit. I've seen them all the time for years, but like everyone else, I paid no attention to the book until the death of the author put it back in the public eye. I imagine it was due to the size of the book, but a lot of people who bought it, dumped it without reading it. That's good for me because I'll be able to get a nice used copy cheap and have many hours of reading pleasure. And I think it's a book worth owning so I can justify buying it. It's not just stuff. It's a twentieth century classic by a Nobel prize winning author and man who demonstrated more bravery and fortitude than I hope I ever have to demonstrate.
I read a lot of history. I usually mark pages with a tiny bookmark if there's something I want to remember. Sometimes I go back and look through some of the things I marked. Sometimes after reading the marked pages, I forget what I marked. Sometimes I don't. A few months back, I read Undaunted Courage by Stephen E. Ambrose. It's about the Lewis and Clark expedition, and I highly recommend it. It's a great adventure story, and a great lesson about what Americans can do when we put our minds to it. It was only a brief time ago when we lived in a "can do" culture. Somehow over the past 40 or so years, we've slowly convinced ourselves that we can't and that even if we could, we're not worthy of doing it. That's a mode of thought that must change if we're going to survive as a nation, and if our nation is going to be worthy of survival.
But that's not what I wanted to write about. As we get closer to November's presidential election, both candidates are making big promises. If elected, they are going to be generous with government largesse. Except for Obama. He's going to be really, really generous. But then, if I had access to billions and billions of dollars of other people's money, and if I could get elected president of the United States by promising some of this money to - let's say "encourage" people to vote for me, I might be just as bighearted, giving money to my friends in this country, and maybe a few spare dollars to friends in other countries, and if the government hasn't actually collected that money yet, what's a few billion dollars more added to our national debt? Who's going to notice? And outside of a few party poopers, who's going to care?
Things weren't always this way. On page 62 of Undaunted Courage, Ambrose talks about the White House and how it was run under John Adams and then Thomas Jefferson.
. . . His salary was $25,000 per year - a princely sum, but the expenses were also great. In 1801, Jefferson spent $6500 for provisions and groceries, $2700 for servants (some of whom were liveried) $500 for Lewis' salary, $3000 for wine. And it turned out he had to buy his own horses; Congress, thinking it an outrage the government should pay for the president's horses, ordered that the ones Adams had turned over to Jefferson be sold. Adams was so mortified over this action, that he left town before the inauguration.
How do we go back to that? Or at least something resembling fiscal responsibility? Maybe we can't.
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until a majority of voters discover that they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury. Alexander Tytler
That depressing quote however, should not keep you from voting. Like Abraham Lincoln said,
Elections belong to the people. It is their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.
Others have already linked to it, most notably (because that's where I first linked from) American Digest, then Melanie Phillips. David Mamet, in the Village Voice, offers an essay he calls: Why I Am No Longer a 'Brain-Dead Liberal'. It's beautiful. It's concise and intelligent. I'm sure liberals and progressives hate it. Some of his story is also my story. I've read it twice so far.
I'd observed that lust, greed, envy, sloth, and their pals are giving the world a good run for its money, but that nonetheless, people in general seem to get from day to day; and that we in the United States get from day to day under rather wonderful and privileged circumstances—that we are not and never have been the villains that some of the world and some of our citizens make us out to be, but that we are a confection of normal (greedy, lustful, duplicitous, corrupt, inspired—in short, human) individuals living under a spectacularly effective compact called the Constitution, and lucky to get it.
For the Constitution, rather than suggesting that all behave in a godlike manner, recognizes that, to the contrary, people are swine and will take any opportunity to subvert any agreement in order to pursue what they consider to be their proper interests.
I also read his book, The Wicked Son. It's kind of a polemic on Antisemitism and anti-Semitic Jews. It's not for everybody, but it was one of those books that I had to pick up and read immediately.
I once heard a conservative comedian on the radio tell the audience something to the effect that he used to be a liberal. Then he learned to read.
Once I was headed in that direction, reading Thomas Sowell, Milton Friedman, Paul Johnson, F. A. Hayak, Victor Hanson, Eric Hoffer, Robert Kaplan, and Daniel Boorstin helped clarify my thinking. But I'm still reading. I'm a slow learner.
As I was examining links to include in this post, I came upon this one, in which a liberal reviewer laments Mamet's change and wonders if his writing will suffer because of it. Of course we know that talent is function of one's liberalality and that the amount of talent one has is directly proportional to how progressive one is. What a dope. I'm betting that Mamet's change in thought will change the thoughts of this and other reviewers.
"No one can find a safe way out for himself if socety is sweeping towards destruction. Therefore everyone, in his own interests, must thrust himself vigorously into the intellectual battle. None can stand aside with unconcern; the interests of everyone hang on the result." -- Ludwig von Mises
War's legitimate object is more perfect peace. Flavius Vegitius Renatus
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CHALLAH AKBAR
