Republican Dan

A New Start

2006-01-14T19:36:00.000-08:00

This will be the last post added the Republican Dan Blog -- but I'm not signing off, merely expanding. I am creating a new site, and this is my explanation (which will be on the site's home page for the time being):

The renaissance of American culture will be the work of conservative students now on college campuses. We have seen religion in America grow weak and we want to make it strong again. We have seen Americans forget the meaning of good and evil, and of man and woman; we want to remind them. We have seen teachers politicize literature, art, and history; we want to restore art for art’s sake, and for the sake of truth and beauty – not for politics or “social justice.” We want history professors to teach us the truth – not feminism, multiculturalism, or the latest revisionist fads.

There are some of us on every campus, but on most we are outnumbered. No single college has the critical mass of conservative student intellectuals we need in order to resuscitate this country and prepare its next Great Awakening.

The Critical Mass Blog will unite conservatives on campuses across the country. It is a stream of information flowing through American colleges, growing with each new contributor and contribution, turning gradually into a river of conservative thought. The Critical Mass Blog carries the ideas of today’s young conservatives.

We are launching this blog with two representatives at Yale and one at Wesleyan. We hope that conservatives at other campuses will volunteer their own pieces and cooperation.

We will keep track of represented colleges on the sidebar. Please take a look at our blog, and send us a note if you want to contribute. (There you will find my next piece -- on morality, as promised.)

We need collegiate conservatives to submit their pieces -- especially now at our beginning. Thanks for reading, and we hope you'll have a chance to watch us grow.

The 15th

2006-01-14T15:37:00.000-08:00

Check back on the 15th of January for a critical announcement.
-Dan

Connecting Conservatives

2005-12-19T08:55:00.000-08:00

You may be wondering what I have been working on, as opposed to writing my regular blog posts. Now that I have finished my first term at Yale, I am semi-free to turn my attention towards blogging once again.

I want to address the issue of Conservatives at college. There certainly aren’t many compared to the liberals – a Yale Daily News poll, for what it’s worth, found that only 15% of the student body identifies itself as Conservative. In such an unbalanced environment, a Conservative student is likely to find an unfortunate dearth of the classical view of morality, which is very dear to him. He may be hard pressed to find even a handful of students who understand the importance of chivalry.

Such handfuls do exist, however. There are little pockets of Conservatives on campuses all across the country. I want us to be able to talk to each other.

I am going to create a new blog that will be a forum for college Conservatives to share their ideas. We will collect representatives – reporters – from colleges across the country, who will keep us informed of the leftist games the administration plays and of their attempts to fight them.

I am starting this as a Yale blog. Getting students at other colleges to participate may be hard at first – until we reach a critical mass. If we can get to that critical mass then we should be able to create a national network of conservative students.

So the sum of my little message here is this: if you are a conservative at college, or know conservatives at college who would like to contribute pieces about the political climate on campus, please let me know. Just drop me an email at republicandan@gmail.com, and we’ll see if we can get this ball rolling.

The Tories and the Yale Man

2005-12-04T10:41:00.000-08:00

The Tories held their last debate of the semester on Wednesday, November 30, in the Saybrook Athenaeum Room.

Most parties have a “joke debate” once a semester. Refusing to tag anyone of our debates with a name like that, we merely understand that our last debate was supposed to be the funniest by a good measure. Hence the debate topic from the previous term had been “Resolved: Cupid’s Arrows are Weapons of Mass Destruction.”

The topic this time would be the humorous (though potentially serious) resolution: “The Yale Man is Dead, and The Yale Woman Killed Him.”

I was not exactly sure how to gear up for this debate, and so planned no speech in advance. I listened to a Winston Churchill recording as I put on my suit, not with a mind to employ him in the debate, but merely as a relaxation. I took care to remove the crease in my necktie knot – the little dimple is so fashionable that I had to conclude that it must be in bad taste.

I headed over with five minutes to debate time, knowing that this way I would spend no more than ten minutes outside before someone showed up with a key. The debate was for 7:30, and we would start, with classic Tory punctuality, at 8:00.

When the Athenaeum Room was opened there were four or five of us. The provost had gone out of his way to provide some holiday beverages – he had tried hard to get the famously revolting “Holiday Spice” Pepsi. As this had fortunately been unavailable, the special drink of the night turned out to be egg nog.

We spent twenty minutes or so chatting with each other, noting with interest a very strong turnout that included two guests from the Independent Party (including the President of the YPU), one sometime chairman of the p.o.r., the current chairman of the Libs, the Floor Leader of the left, and various other guests. They no doubt expected that a room full of traditionalist Tories would make this debate topic a particularly lively one.

There were around twenty-five people in the room when the chairman gaveled the debate to order. Our secretary, though she would shortly have to leave for a class, was present at the debate’s beginning. She read the minutes from our previous debate, noting particularly that “Mr. Gelernter gave a speech in the negative…well, his own negative.” It was true that I had been the only one to take the negative in our last debate “Resolved: This House Prefers Tyranny to Anarchy” explicitly refusing to endorse either one.

The minutes were amended on a minor point and approved, and the secretary stood to read the topic of the night’s debate:

“Resolved: The Yale Man is Dead, and The Yale Woman Killed Him.”

The chairman asked for speeches in the affirmative, but none were forthcoming. After a considerable silence, the former chairman offered his services, beginning in a jovial spirit: “I had in fact planned to speak in the negative, but the wording of the resolution is such that it should be pretty easy to twist things around.” The former chairman argued that the Yale Man had simply died away as a result of losing the traditional marks of a gentleman and because of the seeming dissolution of classic distinctions between men and women (other than purely animal).

I began to formulate my own speech in the negative along the lines that not only is the Yale Man not dead, but the Yale Woman couldn’t have killed him anyway. I did not, however, volunteer to give the opening speech in the negative, waiting instead to see which way the debate would go.

The first speaker in the negative, the Freshman Drama Tory (hereafter FDT, if I should find occasion to reference him) claimed that the Yale Man did still exist, merely in a different form, and also seemed to suggest that his new state was not necessarily worse than his old one.

The debate had still managed to stay away from the essential point of what it is to be a man. Another speaker in the negative, the chief whip, approached this point by discussing chivalry. He pinned chivalry exclusively to combat, however, while it is actually religion that chivalry cannot exist without.

I tried to volunteer for a negative speech several times without success. Mr. Johnston, a freshman who sat next to me, was also eager to speak. I must have projected such a burning desire to take the floor, however, that he graciously decided to step aside and let me have it. This was very fortunate indeed, for I planned to mention Mr. Johnston in my speech.

When I was finally recognized for a speech in the negative we were two hours into the debate. Nevertheless, no one on either side had succeeded in being very provocative or, I thought, tremendously daring in his assertions. I planned to make a light speech, keeping the humorous intent of the debate in mind. As it turned out, however, I could not help but say certain things that led me to be asked about certain other things, and before I knew it the intensity of the debate had risen considerably.

My opening speech ran as follows:

“The first point to be made is that the Yale Woman could not have killed the Yale Man – she never had the power to do so. If it were not, in fact, for the Yale Man, there would be no such thing as a Yale Woman in the first place – like it or not, women could have beat their fists on Yale’s gates for a thousand years and they would still not be here, if it were not for the Yale Man’s knuckling under, so to speak.*

“Fortunately for us, the Yale Man still lives. This is not to say that he is very well, though. He did his level best to commit suicide in the 70s. The Yale Woman couldn’t kill him – he had to do it himself. He stood at the edge of chivalry with the noose of feminism about his neck and prepared to jump. [You should imagine my pacing the floor at this point, making some rather expansive gestures.] He began to forget love of country, honor, and chivalry – and all the things that make a man.

“But now he is beginning to remember these things again. At a debate three or four weeks ago, the word chivalry was spoken on the Tory Floor and someone applauded it. It was Mr. Johnston. And as long as there are men who will clap for chivalry the Yale Man is not dead.

“I believe even that the Yale Man shall grow stronger, as feminism, a blight on civilization is being beaten back. Feminism is truly the most repulsive disaster ever to have befallen our society. But with the coming death of feminism the Yale Man shall return once again to the glory of his former days. And with that I yield the floor to questions.”

I then went on to field what I believe was the largest number of questions any speaker had been asked at any of the debates that year. Over a dozen questions focused on my view of feminism. In the course of questions I gradually made the following argument:

A woman has a responsibility to raise and take care of children. She has a remarkable natural aptitude for this, and inherently cares about children in a manner which men do not: I have often been at some social function or family gathering where a little kid trips and hurts himself, and I always hear someone say “awwww”, expressing sympathy with the little kid who is crying his head off. In my experience, that person has without exception been a female; women are likely to feel a natural impulse to take care of and comfort a kid, whereas the male reaction is normally to wish that the kid would just shut up and stop making so much noise.

Man’s interests and talents lie in other directions. I do not believe that the feminist suggestion that women have simply been suppressed can explain why it is that the greatest scientists, the greatest chess champions, all the winning drivers of the Indy 500, the greatest fighters and military strategists and so on have been men. Men are naturally aggressive and competitive, and therefore well suited to their duty, which is to provide for and protect their families.

Indeed, no self-respecting gentleman can stoop the level of sending his wife to work – of extracting money from her so he can live a more comfortable life, knowing that no matter how little time she may spend at work, there is no job so small that it cannot detract from the attention the child will receive.

Even if the wife is able to get a better job than the husband, it is still the husband’s job to work. On principle, and for the sake of the children whom the mother is uniquely suited to care for, the family will enjoy a lower standard of living in order that both the wife and husband may accept their responsibilities.

For a woman who is capable of making a good living or who enjoys her work, her sacrifice is doubly great and must be noted. It is not easy to be a good mother. It is likely the hardest job of all, and the most important.

I was asked what I would say to a daughter of mine who would tell that she wanted to grow up to have a career as a doctor, and to find new cures for disease. I would tell her that such an ambition is laudable for her concern for others, but that she has even a higher duty, which is to make sure that her children receive from her all they can, and are properly brought up.

I am truly surprised how cheaply these supposedly noble feminists are bought off. In exchange for money and positions of power in business they turn their backs on their children, and force other women to do the same. Ostensibly fighting for humanity, they sell out for cash.

That is the sum of what I said during question time. As you can see, we were little concerned with the actual topic – the Yale Man status is not discussed. At the same time this session was certainly as closely watched, and as much clapped for and hissed at as any other in the debate. It did take guts to say what did, and while I was at the time exhilarated it was a sad point of reflection later on – today it takes guts to say what everybody knew 30 years ago.

Following my speech there was no volunteer for a speech in the affirmative, and so Mr. Johnston took the floor for another speech in the negative. He argued from a copy of William F. Buckley’s God and Man at Yale, that, while there was hope for the Yale Man, he had died as an institution. He died not because of anything the Yale Woman had done to him, but because he had become an atheist, and could not survive as such. I enjoyed listening to his speech very much, especially because I often noted in his speeches the same sort of religious strain that was in mine.

Following Mr. Johnston’s speech we were ready for a division on the motion. Our chairman looked around the room for a suitable acting sergeant-at-arms, and selected me.

After a brief comment on the general puniness and non-sharpness of the Replacement Temporary Tory Sword, I divided the body simply, with affirmatives to my right, negatives to my left, and abstentions in the middle. Things were rather lopsided in favor of the negatives – it seemed there weren’t many who could agree with both parts of the resolution, namely that the Yale Man had indeed died and the Yale Woman had been responsible. The final vote: three in the affirmative, twelve in the negative, and one abstention. The resolution clearly failed.

Following the decision, the traditional motion to adjourn to Yorkside was made, seconded, and passed. We nevertheless remained in the room chatting for about half-an-hour before moving out.

There were seven of us left at Yorkside. The subject of the debate was still worth discussion; we continued to kick around various points over milkshakes. There were two ladies with us, one a Tory and the other a sometime chairman of the party of the right. I believe it was the latter who pointed out, as it seemed half jokingly, that if we were indeed gentlemen we would be taking the check. For some reason the idea had never popped up before in this circumstance – usually at Yorkside everyone simply pays for what he himself has. Nevertheless I was eager to rectify this careless oversight, and suggested that we start taking the ladies’ tabs, not only at Yorkside but at our Mory’s lunches as well. There seemed to be a majority in favor of this, and while we didn’t formalize the agreement, we made sure both that night and at our Friday lunch that there was no financial burden on the ladies who honored us with their company. I hope that this will become a continuing tradition so that we can truly be a party of ladies and gentlemen.

* I planted the last phrase knowing that someone would later ask me if I were opposed to women being at Yale, or college in general (which of course I am not). It is in this manner that I expect many Tories try to limit questions to those for which they already have answers.

Thanksgiving Thoughts

2005-11-22T19:00:00.000-08:00

I was sitting in the orthodontist’s office, waiting for him to get to me, reexamining the various implements on the dentist chair and half listening to the conversation between my orthodontist and one of his assistants.

The orthodontist described how he was taking care of his elderly next-door neighbor’s lawn and was in general looking out for him – certainly very kind behavior on his part.

His assistant agreed that it was very sweet of him, adding with a sincere expression, “It’ll bring you good karma. It really will.”

That struck me. A fellow does kind things and it is natural to believe that it will somehow help his own life in the future. But how does that happen – how does one explain that feeling? Once you’ve stopped believing in God, I suppose karma is all that’s left.

When this assistant, who is a perfectly pleasant and well-intentioned lady, sits down to her Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday, whom does she imagine that she is thanking?

“Thank you for allowing me to enjoy this meal,” she will say (or will at least mean). But thank who? Is she thanking her karma? Is she thanking herself perhaps – “good work on getting through another year”? But it would seem sort of silly to have a national day of personal self-congratulation.

Thanksgiving Day is of course a religious holiday – one that an atheist cannot celebrate. The first American Thanksgiving was celebrated in 1621 by the Puritans, but it did not become a annual holiday until Lincoln made it one in 1864. In April 1865, two days after the war ended and four days before he was murdered, he declared a special day of Thanksgiving in the last speech he ever made, “He, from Whom all blessings flow, must not be forgotten. A call for a national thanksgiving is being prepared, and will be duly promulgated.”

Lincoln was never in doubt as to whom we give our thanks. Maybe he had a point.

Tories on Totalitarianism

2005-11-20T19:54:00.000-08:00

Last week I promised some doubly exciting material in exchange for a brief respite. What I have therefore settled on is that I will write a regular column this week, which will appear as an additional post this Wednesday.

And now for the traditional Tory account:

On Wednesday, November 16, the Tories met in the Saybrook Athenaeum Room to debate the Resolution: “This House Prefers Totalitarianism to Anarchy” – “This House” referring to the Tory Party, of course.

It was another of those philosophical topics that one can’t really research. I was not happy with the prospect of endorsing either totalitarianism or anarchy. I expected that those in the negative would be ranking anarchy over totalitarianism, but decided that the negative could also choose neither one (voting simply to refuse to endorse totalitarianism over anything).

I finished my weekly shiur at the Slifka Center at 7:00, and ran back to my dorm in fairly heavy rain (I had been carrying an umbrella around with me all day, but had cleverly left in my room before going to dinner). I made it back to my dorm in record time and wetness, and changed into jacket and tie. At the last minute I decided to look up Patrick Henry’s famous “liberty or death” speech, and went to the debate at 7:30 armed with the last two lines.

It was around a quarter-hour’s wait before the Tory with the key showed up to let us into the Athenaeum Room – no harm done, however, as Saybrook’s entry archway protected us from the weather. The chief whip was not with us, as he was recuperating from an oppressive workload, and former chairman was off campaigning for the position of Vice President of the YPU (he came to join us later in the evening).

By the time we were let into the room there were six or seven of us. We went about our essential pre-debate duties of hanging up the Tory Banner, milling about, and making aggressive use of the provostery (which was stocked with the finest refreshments and snacks, as is traditional). Our Tory Temporary Sword had been temporarily misplaced, so we were using our Backup Tory Temporary Sword, which was exactly like the other letter opener except that this one wasn’t even sharp.

We had a healthy showing as the chairman gaveled the meeting to order. The secretary read the minutes from the previous debate, and no additions, corrections, or amendments followed, so the minutes were approved as read. The secretary then stood again to read the night’s resolution:

“Resolved: This House Prefers Totalitarianism to Anarchy.”

The first affirmative speech of the evening was given by a newly inducted Tory who had volunteered to speak in the absence of a docketed first speech. He spoke rather eloquently (as a fellow who studies acting and has a definite flair for the dramatic) and argued that of the two options, totalitarianism on the one hand and anarchy on the other, totalitarianism is more likely to move towards democracy and has the additional benefit of occasionally doing something constructive (for example, a totalitarian government may improve its economy whereas an anarchy has no economy to improve). He seemed to overlook the totalitarian government’s occasional propensity to genocidal behavior, but I planned to bring this up later.

I had in the meantime quietly asked the provost (and acting chief whip) if anyone was docketed to speak first in the negative. He said that he had been on the docket, though he would gladly let me take it if I wished to. Pointing out that I had twice recently given opening speeches, however, I decided that I would make the second speech in the negative instead.

The first speaker in the affirmative had said nothing that I wished to challenge him on at that point, and after a few questions he was thanked and returned to his seat.

The provost duly volunteered to give the opening speech in the negative, and argued that anarchy, which contains less concerted evil, is preferable to totalitarianism. In anarchy at least one is not forced to serve a tyrant, and is in a better position to perpetuate a reasonable form of government.

The provost too answered his questions and was thanked. For my own part, I was a little surprised that I hadn’t asked any yet.

The second speech in the affirmative was given by a freshman (possibly to become a Tory later in the year?) who focused on the constructive side of totalitarianism. It is true, he pointed out, that a tyranny is an evil form of government; at the very least though, if that government decides that it is in the national interest to build a road from one place to another it can have that road built. In anarchy if one wished to travel from one place to another there will be no system of transportation and one’s only choice is to walk by himself.

I did, of course, ask the gentleman what use a road was if he was not free to travel on it. He answered that while a tyranny could certainly prevent you from traveling, it is not in their interest (at least from an economic point of view) to restrict the individual’s movements completely.

At the end of his question session he was thanked and I was recognized for the second speech in the negative:

“It seems we are being asked to make a choice between totalitarianism and anarchy – between one form of slavery and another. Totalitarianism is of course a form of slavery where one’s rights are usurped by the state. Equally, anarchy means slavery because there is so much freedom that there is really no freedom at all. One is in constant danger from the individual instead of the government; a man may be able to do whatever he wants, but so can the fellow next to him.

“So, given this choice between two evil systems, between totalitarianism and anarchy, I choose neither. And I am in the negative not because I am endorsing anarchy, but because I refuse to endorse tyranny over anything. If I were plopped down into either system I would be forced to fight. If I were in a tyranny I would fight for liberty just as in anarchy.

“As Patrick Henry asked the Continental Congress in 1775, ‘Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?’ I answer as did Mr. Henry, ‘give me liberty, or give me death!’

“And with that I yield the floor to questions.”

There were plenty of questions for me to answer. At least part of the Tory body seemed disappointed that I was refusing to choose between totalitarianism and anarchy but. Nevertheless I stuck to my guns, defending the plain view of the resolution. I was asked several times with subtle variation which of the two systems I would prefer to be plopped down in if I had to make a choice. This was, of course, irrelevant.

I was finally thanked and I returned to my seat.

A significant number of Tories through the evening looked too devotedly to the fact that totalitarian regimes are capable of greater concerted activity than is anarchy, without examining too carefully what that activity was likely to be. I tried to continue to make that point in questions – if totalitarianism is not preferable to death, as Patrick Henry explained, how can we call it preferable to anything?

The SSCY, who often takes what would appear to be a libertarian tack, argued that one's chances of survival were statistically greater in a totalitarian regime and that that one was therefore to be preferred. He suggested that one was more likely to put one's chips on a winning number in roulette than he was to be hauled off to a gulag. I of course volunteered the point of information:

"Is it not in fact the case that while one's chances of winning a single number bet are one in thirty-five, the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia succeeded in murdering one entire third of the country's population?"

This was in fact the case – except for the fact that odds were a little different than I had remembered. I was able to offer in a subsequent point of information that while the payoff in roulette is thirty-five to one, the odds are actually one in thirty-seven for a single-zero and one in thirty-eight for a double-zero wheel. Fortunately this did not detract greatly from my argument.

A very good speech was given later in the evening in the negative by a new Tory who examined the question from the point of view of a man who can come in four important permutations: he may have courage and morals, he may have neither, or he may have courage or morals alone.

For the man with both courage and morals – the ideal Tory – life in a totalitarian regime was obviously unacceptable, where no man with morals could grovel at the feet of a dictator and no man with courage could refuse to fight (and thus would likely not remain alive very long).

A little later, the drama-studying Tory gave a very flashy second speech:

He stood after being recognized and walked up to the chair. “Mr. Chairman,” he said, extending his hand to shake. As the Tory leaned over to shake hands with the chairman (which was unusual during a debate) he very quickly reached under with his other hand and smoothly snatched the gavel from the chairman’s grasp. Before any of us (chairman included) realized what had happened the Tory was in the middle of the room with the gavel, and began tossing it from one person to another. He made the questionable decision to toss it to me and I handed it off to the secretary, who returned it to its rightful owner. At this point the provost grabbed the fellow’s arm and nearly ejected him from the room.

“You have just witnessed a display of anarchy,” he said, and went on to propose that the Tory party was itself a totalitarian-style mini-government – and that we were better off for it. Several of us immediately challenged his conclusion in questions, which were quick and to the point. The Tory party was not a totalitarian regime, and we could further see from the way that order was quickly restored that we had not really witnessed anarchy. As much as the fellow’s speech lacked a true philosophical underpinning, I nevertheless admired his daring. At the very least it had been entertaining.

There were a few more speeches given, and it seemed as though the body might be tipping to the affirmative, which would be a disaster. Nevertheless, even a tie-vote would make the resolution fail. I did my best to remind members who might be “on the fence” (as I was accused of being) that they did not have to “choose” anarchy to vote in the negative.

When there were no more speeches to be given, the chairman deputized an acting sergeant at arms to divide the body. He asked the affirmatives to step to his right, and the negatives to stand on his left.

As Tories began to move it at first looked as though we might be soundly defeated. When things had settled down a bit, however, there were seven on the affirmative side of the room and six on the negative. The decision still rested on the remaining voters – the sergeant at arms and the secretary.

The sergeant at arms leaned over and whispered the count – that now included his own vote – to the secretary, and the secretary leaned towards the chairman. The room was so quiet that we could hear her whispering “eight in the affirmative, seven in the negative”. This meant that that chairman could vote if he so choose (for he may vote only when he would change the outcome or to break a tie).

But which side would the chairman choose? He had given no speech during the evening to indicate his preference.

We all watched him with, as Spencer Tracy would say, baited breath, as the chairman sat there with a mild smile on his face, contemplating his options.

At length he sat up straight and announced, “The vote is eight in the affirmative, eight in the negative; the resolution fails.”

At this announcement the negative side of the room burst into applause, thankful that the chairman’s perception had allowed us to squeak by a victory by the narrowest possible margin – zero votes. The important thing is that the resolution failed.

Following the motion to adjourn, it was time to move on to Yorkside. I had to choose, however, between going for a late-night snack with the Tories and getting up early the next day to go to minyan (morning prayers, for which we must have at least ten men). Uncharacteristically, I decided to do both. I was therefore able to enjoy nearly another hour of the Tories company, as we conducted our post-debate discussion over some ice cream.

There was plenty left to discuss, even after forty-five minutes or so at Yorkside, but we eventually began to feel the growing lateness of the hour. After a brief escapade brought on by the problem that arises when everyone has only twenty dollar bills in his wallet (those darned ATMs won't give you anything else) we bade each other goodnight and headed back to our respective dorms.

I got up on time for minyan the next morning, not exactly refreshed but at least not as tired as I should have been. Oh well – vacation was coming up anyway.

Blog Break

2005-11-13T18:58:00.000-08:00

Dear readers,
I find myself temporarily buried under an impressive heap of homework and midterms. As a result I will not be able to bring you a piece this week. Please check back next week for a doubly exciting post.

Tory Debate No. 10: An American Empire?

2005-10-31T17:43:00.000-08:00

I attended my ninth Tory debate (the Tories’ tenth over-all) on Thursday, October 27. The resolution was “Resolved: America Will Never Be an Empire.”

I thought that the resolution would give me and excellent opportunity to discuss not so much the actual question of whether America will become an empire, but whether it ought to. There are, I was prepared to point out, many positive aspects of imperialism – not necessarily for the imperial power itself, but for the countries being colonized.

I began my preparation for the debate after I finished with classes, starting traditionally with a search of the Weekly Standard archives. I found a number of interesting pieces on the benefits of imperialism (especially of British imperialism) and assembled the best points into a page of notes.

After an hour or so of reading I had a good speech outline, but it still lacked that extra little bit of pizzazz. Where is the best description of what imperialism involves? The answer came immediately to mind: Kipling – “Take Up the White Man’s Burden.” (Of course).

I looked up the text of this magnificent poem online and read it through once. Then it turned out to be so good that I had to read it again. I was suddenly struck by a burning desire to see the poem in print (and an internet printout does not suffice) so I grabbed my jacket and dashed over to Sterling Memorial Library.

I had never taken a book out Sterling before. In fact, to be perfectly frank, it had been years since I’d taken any book out of any library – there are so many books at my house that I have never been left lacking any text that I looked for. I was determined, nonetheless, to get my book.

I went through Sterling’s main entrance into the cathedral-like structure that houses the card-catalogues, with various connecting passageways to computer “clusters,” reading rooms, and the Stacks themselves. (The “Stacks” refers to the multi-story book tower that holds the largest part of Yale’s collection – about 4.5 million books).

I decided to handle the entire matter in a very traditional fashion (which I’m sure the Tories would appreciate) and started by looking for the appropriate volume’s call number in the card catalogue. The card catalogue itself stopped being expanded in the 70s in deference to a computer system known as “Orbis” (subsequent acquisitions are documented, but not in nearly as dignified a manner). This notwithstanding, there are several million cards to look through in the cabinets that line both walls of the nave, all the way from one end to another. I quickly found the right section, and was happy to see that Kipling has an entire drawer devoted to him on the left-hand side of the building, about halfway down.

I found a likely looking title – the 1920 Rudyard Kipling’s Verse: Inclusive Edition 1885-1918. The first of our copies was in the rare book collection, but two more copies were in the Stacks. I made note of the call number and took the unprecedented step of actually asking for “directions” – one of the librarians at the front desk was only too happy to tell me how to use the call number to find the right floor.

Apparently I wanted floor “2M.”

Not exactly sure what the M was for, I nevertheless inferred that if I were to start on the first floor and work up, it would be impossible to miss. I presented my Yale ID to the guard by the Stacks’ entrance and passed into the colossal book collection for the second time in my life.

I quickly found 2M and wandered around for a few minutes to get my bearings – Milton was right next to the stairwell. Walking through the corridors of books (and pressing the little button at the end of each row that would illuminate it for a few minutes) I was able to locate the Kipling collection, and selected the least banged-up of the copies of his verse – which wasn’t in terribly good shape itself. I checked to make sure the poem I wanted was in there (it was; page 371) and I found my way out of the Stacks without too much difficulty and made my first official checkout with some sense of accomplishment.

Now I was in high gear – back in my dorm I paced back and forth, quoting the poem out loud and making expansive, Churchillian gestures with my free hand. I decided that I would be better off bringing just a single prop (as opposed to notes and book). I therefore decided to memorize the notes and keep them in my breast pocket during the debate.

As debate time approached I installed my suit – this time with a black necktie that I bought locally (which I near-instantly recognized as a mistake; color and price). Nevertheless, the tie deserved to be worn at least once, and so it was selected for the evening.

I set out for the debate, which was to be in the JE Common Room as it had been last week. I was once again on schedule to be the first there, and so I stood outside for a few minutes waiting for a Tory to show up.

It wasn’t long before the former chairman appeared with an ice bucket and a bagful of refreshments. He explained that the provost was in the process of taking a midterm, and that he would handle the provostly duties this evening.

The former chairman and I went into the common room and began to set up – choosing for our chairman a more comfortable seat than we’d given him the last time.

It wasn’t long before the other Tories began to come in. Among those in attendance was the Brazilian freshman who had made his first appearance last week, and a member of the Conservative Party (a friend of our chairman). The former chairman’s grandparents also showed up later in the evening and managed to stick it out to the end of the debate. I walked about with my Kipling volume clasped in my hand, occasionally asked to explain what I was doing with it. I would take care my these explanations not to come too close to the wording of my speech.

I was in the middle of an interesting poetical discussion with the Englisher when the chairman called the debate to order. I went over to take my sofa-seat to the chairman’s left and leaned back for the reading of the minutes. After a minor correction was made, the minutes were approved, and secretary stood to read the topic of our debate.

“Resolved: America Will Never Be an Empire.”

The chairman asked for an opening speech in the affirmative, but no one offered to give one. After about ten seconds, I raised my hand for a point of information:

“Is it not in fact the cast that the chair frowns on a one-sided debate?” I asked.

“Or a zero-sided debate,” the chairman and I added simultaneously. He rapped his gavel and asked the chief whip, whom I had thought planned to be in the negative, if he would give an opening speech.

The chief whip agreed, and proceeded to give a surprising talk on the exploitive and yet unprofitable nature of empire. I understood that in part he was being accommodating in speaking opposite to where he had planned, though he added in his speech that on reflection, this was indeed the side for him. Nevertheless, his points did give me a good occasion to segue into a discussion on the positive points of empire, and so I resolved to offer myself for the first negative speech of the evening, provided there were no immediate volunteers senior to myself.

After the chief whip answered his questions and was thanked, the chairman duly asked for an opening speech in the negative. No one immediately volunteered, so I grabbed the opportunity and was recognized by the chairman.

“Thank you, Mr. Chairman,” I said, rising to give my second consecutive opening speech.

As I started my next sentence, I was appropriately cut off by the chairman’s request for a prop-related motion. This was made by the former chairman, and seconded. It was, however, opposed by the SSCY, who had for a few debates decided to object to all props. Nevertheless, he was heavily in the minority, and I was allowed to continue:

“The prop in question is this book of Kipling’s verse. Kipling, of course, is the author of the great Empire-related poem ‘Take up the White Man’s Burden.’ This struck me as just the sort of poem the body would like to hear, and so you will hear it, later in my speech.

“First there is to be discussed the basic nature of empire. It does not have to be, as has been suggested, an empire of military control. As the great naval strategist Alfred Mahan pointed out, there are empires of influence as well; I shall run on the premise that America may does not have to become a military empire in order to contradict the resolution.

“It has also been suggested that empires are a bad thing. This is not so. In reality they can do tremendous good. An empire may not be so good for an imperial power – it does cost a lot of money and require constant attention. But look at what the great British Empire actually accomplished – it exported capitalism, democracy, rule of law [these were points made in Max Boot’s review of Empire for the Weekly Standard]. It removed trade barriers – in fact it was responsible for the first “wave” of global trade. Since Britain’s leaving its colonies, the abandoned countries have regressed from all these things and are heading back to an uncivilized state.

“Empires export money, people, law. They export civilization. They civilize countries that cannot govern themselves or civilize themselves.

“Being a colonizer is not an easy job, though. That is what Kipling talks about in ‘Take Up the White Man’s Burden’ which he wrote at the height of the British Empire in 1899.

“I am very fond of this poem. It has, however, become rather unpopular of late. One of the reasons is that, because of the refrain ‘Take Up the White Man’s Burden,’ it has been unfairly characterized as a racist poem. Of course when Kipling talks about the ‘white man’s burden’ he is referring to the burden of Great Britain. And at that time it was indeed the white man’s burden. Now, I will attempt to show, it is our burden.

“The second reason that volumes of Kipling have been generally unpopular is that, when Kipling had to decide what ‘signature mark’ he would have printed on and in all of his books, he unfortunately chose a symbol that we would come to know some years later as the “swastika.” As you can see it’s here on the cover as well as the title page [I showed the book around the room at this point]. It wasn’t Kipling’s fault of course, that’s just the way it goes.

“So here is ‘Take Up the White Man’s Burden.’ Follow closely its trenchant explanation of what empire involves:

“‘Take up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go, bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait, in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child.

Take up the White Man's burden--
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain,
To seek another's profit
And work another's gain.

Take up the White Man's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine,
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
(The end for others sought)
Watch sloth and heathen folly
Bring all your hope to nought.

Take up the White Man's burden--
No iron rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper--
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go, make them with your living
And mark them with your dead.

Take up the White Man's burden,
And reap his old reward--
The blame of those ye better
The hate of those ye guard--
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--
"Why brought ye us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?"

Take up the White Man's burden--
Ye dare not stoop to less--
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloak your weariness.
By all ye will or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent sullen peoples
Shall weigh your God and you.

Take up the White Man's burden!
Have done with childish days--
The lightly-proffered laurel,
The easy ungrudged praise:
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years,
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers.’

“It’s remarkable isn’t it. Kipling underlines for us the difficulty inherent in being an exporter of civilization – they build roads and ports, and nudge primitive peoples ‘slowly toward the light’ as he says, but at the same time it is a very tough and thankless job for the colonizers.

“Even though the job is hard, someone needs to do it. At the time Kipling was writing, Britain was the nation that could do that job. Now it is the Unites States: we have the money, we have the power, and the mandate. It is the right thing to do, and America will do what is right. That is why I believe that America both should and will become an empire, and with that I yield the floor to questions.”

It was question time for me, and I got to answer plenty. In particular, there came finally from the secretary one question that I had prepared for and desperately hoped would be asked: What about us? Were we not one of Britain’s colonial possessions? Does the gentleman think that we should still be a colony?”

“I thought this question would come up,” I answered. “In the case of the Unites States, and Canada and Australia, and the lady mentioned, the British were dealing not with an ordinary colony but with one that they themselves created. Their subjects there were British descendants, and that particular race was one that the British simply could not control – perhaps we were just too evenly matched. We behaved in a matter dramatically different from other kinds of colonies. In India, following the British pullout, more than 200,000 people died in the ensuing intercommunal struggle. Similar situations followed in Cyprus and Palestine and in the African colonies the British removed themselves from. In America, however, we formed a government, and we governed ourselves. We did not sink immediately into violence. There was of course the civil war, a hundred years later, which had nothing to do with an inability to govern ourselves.”

The last remark was a bit of a faux pas, quickly picked up on by the other members, but I was able to make a quick recovery:

“Our civil war was not an intractable struggle, unlike the ongoing wars in other former colonies. It was fairly brief; it had a beginning and an end; some people had a great time; others were killed and didn’t have such a good time; and it brought along with it the added benefit of the abolition of slavery, which I would say is a substantial point.”

Another question came from the right-hand side of the room: “Alright, so this is a hard job and someone has to do it. Why does it have to be us?”

“Tony Blair was asked quite a similar question when he last addressed the joint session of congress in the US,” I said, “and he made quite an eloquent answer. He said, ‘You may indeed ask, “Why me? Why should I be the one to do this job?” and the only answer you can make is that the job is there and it is yours to do.’”

After a few more questions I was thanked, and allowed to return to my seat.

The one issue that the speakers of the evening could not get together upon was what an empire actually consists of. The former chairman spoke the affirmative and claimed that the one essential point in being an empire is having the government recognize itself as such. Considering, though, that the USSR certainly didn’t admit to being an empire (much less an evil one) this definition seemed incomplete.

The current chairman spoke in the negative, and supported a looser definition of empire, claiming that we had been one in the past and could in fact be considered to be one now.

The SSCY spoke in the affirmative. He, however, viewed empire as being hard on the colonized countries, whereas the former chairman, had spoken on the same side but described empire as being hard on the colonizer. The SSCY also suggested in his speech that, contrary to Mr. Gelernter’s suggestion, most empires are not created out of a benevolent desire to help the colonized countries. He also used as a semi-comic example countries like Holland, which are not empires and yet are perfectly happy.

The SSCY’s last pair of points gave me an opportunity to make a few more of my own in the form of a question:

“The SSCY has pointed that empires are not often created for the purpose of helping other countries. While this may be true, I am sure he will concede that projects often end with a different purpose than that which they were started with. The Civil War began as a war over states’ rights and ended as a war to end slavery. The British Empire began as an effort to help Britain and ended up as an effort to help the colonies. The original intention of an enterprise does not detract from what it accomplishes. [“Short speech,” remarked the secretary – a reminder that the body prefers short questions.]

“The gentleman has also mentioned the happy Dutch. They may indeed be happy, but they are also a little pipsqueak country, and will remain one. We on the other hand are in a different position – is there nothing to be said for greatness? [“Long speech,” the secretary corrected herself.] The SSCY has advocated our doing what is in our interest – does he not concede that ultimately it is in our interest to do what is morally right?”

It was rather long for a question, but I was relieved to have made the rest of my points. The SSCY did not feel that striving towards greatness was a sufficient justification for empire (nor was the moral compulsion). In the final instance, he seemed happy to let America become a huge model of happy Holland.

Later in the evening the Brazillian fellow decided to give a speech. He was recognized by the chairman, and, despite his marked accent, eloquently proceeded to demand that America become an empire for the sake of the stability of the world (not to mention the stability of the world’s economy). He handled himself extremely well in questions and we were duly impressed with his command of the language. The traditional motion to thank a gentleman for his maiden speech on the Tory floor was moved, seconded, and passed, and we all rose to shake his hand. (The chairman always initiates this process – though he cannot make a motion himself, he will ask if there is “an appropriate motion on the floor” which cues someone else to propose it).

The evening continued to wear on – another pair of speeches was made and our caucus became the longest debate of the year. When the chairman finally asked the acting sergeant at arms to divide the body, it was quite nearly 11 o’clock and our attendance had dropped off quite a bit.

Saying that he was a little too tired to think of anything remarkably clever, the acting sergeant at arms declared simply, “affirmatives to my right, negatives to my left.” The floor vote was close enough that the outcome depended on the votes of the sergeant at arms and the secretary.

Presently the chairman leaned over and the result was whispered in his ear; he spent a moment in silence and then announced, “By a vote of seven in the negative, four in the affirmative, and one abstention, the resolution is, sadly, affirmed.”

The motion that we adjourn to Yorkside “as is traditional” was made and passed with all speed, but unfortunately it was too late for most of the Tories to go. In point of fact, it seemed as if it would just be the chairman and myself.

We walked over to Yorkside together, not wishing to let this tradition fall into disrepair (though we might have stopped for ice cream at Ashley’s, had they not been closed). We were seated in a back booth, and it was only a few minutes before we saw the Brazillian fellow come in and find his way to our table. We eagerly bade him join us, and spent a very interesting half-an-hour or so in discussion – chiefly about what it meant to be a conservative, and a Tory.

It was around midnight when I finally got back to my dorm. I wanted to start writing this one up right away, but the need for sleep was more pressing, and won – I said a fond goodbye to yet another Tory debate.

Tory Debate No. 9: Marriage and State

2005-10-23T19:02:00.000-07:00

On October 20, 2005, I attended my eighth Tory debate. This was the ninth debate of the year – I missed one a week earlier (a joint Tory-Liberal debate) because of Yom Kippur. The reader will also find that an account of the year’s seventh debate is also missing from my series of essays – I simply waited too long to write it up, discovering after about 500 words that I had forgotten the details of nearly every speech except my own.

This debate was to be in the Jonathan Edwards Common Room – a place I had never visited before. As the standard debate time of 7:30 approached, I installed my suit and was forced, thanks to the low temperature, to wear my long black overcoat as well. Cutting a somewhat imposing figure (as one of my suitemates remarked) I left my dorm a quarter-hour before debate time and went off in search of JE Commons.

One of the nice things I have come to rely upon in Yale life is the map available on the wall of any residential college just inside the entryway. Despite the absence of the little red “you are here” dot, they are still tremendously useful as far as locating the Common Room is concerned. After cleverly figuring out where on the map I was, I quickly found the Common Room, only fifteen yards away. I did not, however, go in, as there was a student practicing the piano and I couldn’t see any Tories.

I walked about for a few minutes in the general area, checking the map once again, and was soon reassured by the arrival of the former chairman, who was followed shortly thereafter by the secretary and chairman.

The chairman shared with us an invitation he had received from our daughter debate party, the Edmund Burke Society at the University of Chicago. They had invited us to attend the 200^th debate caucus of their noble and “antient” [sic] society. We found the ancient spelling of “ancient” amusing, as well as their declaration of ancientness – they were founded by Tory alumni some years after the Tory Party itself was formed in 1969.

At seven thirty the pianist left and other Tories began to drift in. The chief whip brought his father along with him, a man who would apply his keen mind to our debate at several points during the evening.

Another freshman who had given a maiden speech a few debates back brought a friend along with him. The friend was a Brazilian whom, after being inundated for a few weeks with e-mail from all six parties, had decided that ours would be a good one to check out. Another guest (intermittently present) at the debate that night was the YPU’s floor-leader of the left.

After the customary bit of friendly milling around, the chairman’s gavel signaled the meeting’s coming to order.

I sat down next to the former chairman on the left side of the room. There were about fifteen of us present.

The chairman asked the secretary to read the minutes from last week’s debate – the one that I’d missed. The joint Tory-Lib debate had been on the subject of the unions. As the secretary recounted, we learned that the Libs do not have points of information, nor are they allowed to hiss at speakers. In addition, as it is their tendency to show up early and leave early, whereas Tories do the reverse, the evening ended in the unions being soundly defeated.

The secretary then read the night’s resolution: “Resolved: Separate Marriage and State.”

I found this resolution a little puzzling; I had assumed, beforehand, that this argument would center on the question of gay marriage. With that in mind, I had done a good deal of research on the topic, and was prepared to speak decisively against it, which I thought would put me in the resolution’s affirmative. When I got to the debate, however, I saw for the first time the recently printed whipsheet, which seemed to suggest that the morality of gay marriage was not at issue. This meant that the resolution didn’t say very much – those in the negative would simply argue that some connection between marriage and state was necessary.

I still hadn’t made up my mind on the resolution when the chairman called for first speeches in the affirmative. No one volunteered immediately, so the chairman decided to ask the provost if he was willing to give one.

The provost obliged, and came to the center of the room. He made a brief speech, arguing that the government should have no connection with marriage whatsoever, and that this way we would be free to define marriage however we want to – whether we turn to religion or something else. (The provost said that he himself was not a religious man, drawing hisses from myself and others). I found his suggestion that the definition of marriage is fluid disturbing, and his suggestion that we turn to various “other” sources for marriage amusing. I therefore posed him the question:

“Excluding, as the gentleman has done, both government and religion, how is he planning to get married?”

The provost’s answer was that he didn’t have a “solution” in this case, which was nice of him to admit but did make the point seem rather silly. He did, though, suggest that there was room for different definitions of marriage from different religions.

After being shelled by questions for a few minutes, the provost was thanked. The chairman asked for speeches in the negative. I didn’t see anyone raise his hand immediately, so I offered my services, and was recognized. This would be my first time giving an opening speech.

I had no remarks prepared in advance to use – I had simply been spurred to action by the provost’s remarks. I opened by saying that I had been unsure of which side to support until about four minutes ago, but that the idea that people should be free to manipulate the meaning of marriage was intolerable, and that government was therefore necessary to insure that the meaning of marriage would not be distorted. My speech was very brief, and I saw a look of mild surprise on the former chairman’s face as I declared myself open to questions.

The first question I got was from Mr. Prosol the Elder (as the chairman referred to him during the debate). His lengthy question (a short speech, really) discussed the origin of marriage and its existence independent of government. In the main, he was worried that government intervention could force the term “marriage” to apply to gay and polygamous unions.

I assured the gentleman in my answer that I was equally concerned about the protection of marriage, and that, much as I distrust government in general, a government under the control of the American People was the best way to insure that marriage would not be destroyed by people attempting to apply the term to whatever they want. (I realized that my argument, at this point, was incomplete, as just because someone says he is married, you don’t have to believe him unless the government grants the union legal status. Nevertheless, as I held the floor in the negative and nobody seemed to have thought of this yet, I decided it would be better not to bring it up). I did, however, state emphatically that the definition of marriage is static and is a product of religion, and that the government can only be used to protect the religious definition.

I was then asked by the visiting floor-leader of the left if I would still allow religion to define marriage if, for example, the Anglican Church were to authorize gay marriage (as it seems to be near doing).

“I would say that if the Anglican Church were to do such a thing, they would have gone insane, ceasing to be a religion and becoming instead a whacko cult. Religion is based on tradition, and that is not something one can vote to change. The Anglican Church could (and might) also vote that God doesn’t exist, but that decision like the former one would have no bearing on religion itself.”

Everyone seemed to like my answer, excepting the floor-leader of the left. After a few more questions, I was thanked and resumed my seat next to the former chairman.

The chairman asked for a speech in the affirmative, and a visiting upperclassman was recognized. Having misremembered the resolution, however, his speech was actually in the negative (on the same side as mine had been). The thing about his speech, however, was that I violently disagreed with it. He argued that government intervention was necessary in order to insure that people who wanted to get married could – though he didn’t exactly care what sort of “marriage” it was.

I would continue through the evening to be swayed from side to side by the speeches – each new statement would repel me into the opposite camp. Only occasionally would a speech contain worthwhile points.

A very interesting and typically hilarious speech came from the SSCY, who claimed that he would just as soon get rid of marriage (as the Scandinavian countries have effectively done). Nevertheless, if we are to protect marriage as what it is, it would seem better to leave the government out of it, as their power to protect marriage is not nearly as great as their power to damage it.

The SSCY’s speech did give me a chance to use some of my pre-debate notes, in the form of a question (if one wants to make a little speech during question time, he can simply make a statement and tack “would the gentleman care to comment on this?” to the end of it). I was able to point out first that the essential abolition of marriage in the Scandinavian countries was accomplished thanks to their legalization of gay marriage, which has had a deleterious effect on real marriage. The result of this is that married childbirth there is now a minority phenomenon, and this absence of family life has lead to a major increase of what I called “thuggery” on the streets.

As the evening drew on, a major highlight was the chairman’s speech in the negative, which was notable for his saying that people, if not somehow chained together, would tend to fly apart like so many “pieces of gas.” That particular expression drew much laughter from the body, and, while the acting chairman did rule subsequent mixed metaphors out of order, this continued as a theme for the rest of the evening.

The night’s closer was a second speech from a freshman. Despite it’s being around 10:15, violent hissing on the part of the body failed to dissuade him from giving his speech, in which he examined the “pieces” of burning gas that make up stars and compared this to fiery and unstable love, untempered by marriage. Though we were getting a little away from the resolution, the humor of the closing moments was well worth it.

Following his speech, the chairman quickly went through the formality of asking for first, second, and even third speeches (as one fellow had already given a second speech, it was in theory necessary to invite him to make a third, if he felt so compelled). Fortunately, there were no more volunteers.

The chairman selected an acting sergeant at arms, and the body was divided. I had considered abstaining, but reflected upon the fact that (whether for better of for worse) I had never encountered a topic on which I wasn’t able to make up my mind. I decided therefore to interpret the resolution in its most basic (but relatively meaningless) sense, which was to suggest that marriage cannot properly survive without at least some form of government recognition.

I stood on the negative side of the room, and saw that I was heavily in the majority. With a final vote of 14-4 with one abstention, the resolution decisively failed.

Following that declaration by the chairman, the motion was made that we adjourn to Yorkside “as is traditional.” The motion was seconded and our caucus was declared adjourned. It was our longest debate of the year (up to the current point).

As we began the friendly post-debate milling around session, one of the freshmen there walked over to the piano at the end of the room and began to play Beethoven’s Opus 2. no. 3. In a few minutes I was at the pianoside with another freshman, watching the fellow play. I saw an opportunity to give my own fingers a workout, and asked the piano player if he knew anything with stride bass. He said he did not, and graciously asked me to demonstrate, which I was more than happy to. I thus drew a crowd playing the piano-roll transcription of Gershwin’s “Someone to Watch Over Me.” We chose to ignore the “no playing after 10PM” sign hung over the piano and decided that quietish music might be permitted until around 10:50. The piano was a Steinway and the action was lovely – one of the best I’d ever played (there are more than enough disappointing Steinways on campus – I’ve already found most of them).

As the chairman commanded “to Yorkside” I cut the last chorus short and grabbed my overcoat off the rack. We arrived after a quick but chilly walk.

There were ten of us for the Yorkside snack. We ordered some garlic bread to be shared by the community and I split a mint milkshake with two other freshmen. I sat across from the former chairman at the rightmost of the five two-man tables that had been pushed together to accommodate us. We spent most of the evening in discussion of religion, and I was tremendously impressed that the former chairman was familiar with the English version of many of the passages I quoted in Hebrew. The mutual exchange of the details of each other’s religion was becoming the traditional theme at Yorkside for the both of us. We also discussed the future plans of one the bordering freshman, who planned to earn a living writing but to make his life’s work improving Kings College in New York. Far more important, he looked forward to being a good father and educating his children.

It was nearly midnight when we paid our bill. I walked back to my dorm with two freshmen and the chairman, parting their company at High Street. It was time to start looking forward to next week’s debate.

Public Schooling: Tory Debate No. 6

2005-10-16T07:37:00.000-07:00

The Tories held their sixth debate on Wednesday, September 28. As is traditional, I was there for every bit of it.

This week we were to debate “Resolved: The Wall between School and State should be High and Impregnable.” The language, of course, reminds us of Jefferson’s famous (and often misinterpreted) remark in a letter referring to a wall between church and state. The Tory line, like Mr. Jefferson’s, is not by any means free of ambiguity. I decided to interpret the resolution as meaning that government may give money to people to allow them to get an education, but that the government should not run or interfere with educational institutions. Reading the resolution this way, I would be in the affirmative.

I digested several pieces on the subject, including an LA Times piece by my favorite writer, David Gelernter, called “Let’s Get Rid of Public Schools.” I also reached back into the files of my blog to pull up the results of a culture quiz I had conducted at my school a year before. I assembled about a page-long outline of the speech I would give that evening.

The debate was scheduled for 7:45 (which meant that it would start no earlier than 8:00). My weekly Wednesday night shiyur had been postponed by the rabbi, who had business from the previous night that needed to be wrapped up. As a result, I would be able to make it to the Tories as early as I wished.

I put on a brand-new grey suit (that I had bought with the Tories in mind) and a burgundy tie. Looking sharp – looking like a Tory should look – I left for the debate at 7:30. We were located in the Berkley Commons this time, which is long room that runs parallel to Berkley’s dining hall. The Common Room is separated from the dining hall by a ten-foot wall; the ceiling is high above that (around twenty feet in the Common room and perhaps forty feet in the dining hall. Despite the atypical layout, we were quickly able to turn it into a comfortable debate area by gathering in all the chairs and sofas and forming them in a circle at the center of the room. Then all we had to do was carry over a table for the provostery and we were in business.

I had arrived at the same time as a few Tories and the chief whip (who, true to his advertisement on the whipsheet, brought pizza). After we had the room set up we began a pre-debate debate, over what the precise meaning of the resolution actually was. Most of us agreed that we would be talking about school and government in general (as opposed to Yale and the surrounding town) but it was unclear whether a “high and impregnable wall” would preclude the government’s giving money to students to enable them to go to charter and private schools. After some discussion, the majority seemed to interpret the resolution as allowing for such government help, which was fortunate in that that was the view I had taken in preparing my speech.

As we moved towards debate time, our showing was on the anemic side; I expected that it would gradually improve as it had last week.

The president of the YPU showed up for a second time in a row. Also among our group was one freshman I hadn’t seen since the first debate, and two others who were here for their first time. They were appropriately welcomed by the former chairman (who is always careful to make everyone feel at home) and it was not long after their arrival that the debate was called to order.

We began as always with the secretary’s reading of the minutes. My speech from last week had been well captured, even mentioning that I had been asked to rank all the parties in the YPU according to their ability to handle natural disasters. The actual ranking I had produced was not, however, recorded in the minutes, so I proposed an amendment showing that I had put the Tories at the top of the list. The amendment was, of course, seconded and passed.

The minutes also recorded that last week’s resolution had succeeded, despite only a plurality being in favor. This matter was still under investigation, so no correction to the minutes on this point was proposed.

The minutes being approved as amended, the secretary was asked to stand and read the topic of the night’s debate:

“Resolved: The Wall between School and State should be High and Impregnable.”

The first speaker in the affirmative was the chief whip. He had come with a “prop” (just as I had). An appropriate motion being passed to allow him to use it, he took the floor brandishing a thick volume entitled Triumph : The Power and the Glory of the Catholic Church.

“You see here,” he began, “many words which we are no longer allowed to use in society today: ‘Triumph,’ ‘power,’ ‘glory,’ and the ‘Catholic Church.’… ‘And’ and ‘the’ are still considered acceptable.”

The chief whip spoke of Sparta (which he is fond of doing) and described a system of education that was extremely efficient, if also a little on the brutal side. The conception of schools as preparing young man to serve their countries and to make those men tough and to build character is gone from society today. Putting those things into an education is not something that modern governments are capable of doing (particularly in Europe, but in America as well).

I always admire the chief whip’s arguments for their emphasis on strength and accepting the responsibility of taking care of oneself. He argued for complete severance of the state-school relationship, though he agreed (on my question) that the state can provide a voucher-like system to insure that poor students would also have the opportunity of an education.

After the chief whip answered his questions and was thanked, we were ready for the first speech in the negative, which was given by the former chairman. He started with a poke at the chief whip, saying that in preparation for his term as chairman, he had gone to visit “The Edmund Burke Society,” which was founded at the University of Chicago by Tory alums and which debates weekly in a style similar to ours. One peculiarity of their society is the annual “Charge of the Light Brigade Award for Sophistry.” The former chairman stated that if we had such an award at Yale it would just have been won by the chief whip. He then claimed that those in the affirmative on this issue generally promote fallacious arguments and he urged the body not to let them get away with it. Getting to the gist of his speech, the former chairman claimed that the public school is an integral part of our society and that problems with the system should be fixed – it would be better to improve on public schools than to destroy them.

The chairman too answered questions (including one very detailed one concerning the meaning of “general Welfare” in Article I, Section 6 of the Constitution) and was thanked. We were now in line for a second speech in the affirmative. I volunteered and was recognized.

I pulled my page of notes from my breast pocket and unfolded it in view of the chairman, who asked if there was an appropriate motion on the floor.

“For a motion, Mr. Chairman,” said the former chairman, who was recognized. “I move that the gentleman be allowed to use a prop.”

“Second,” said another Tory. The chairman noted the motion as having passed, and I began my speech:

“I am going to avoid the waffling type of argument the former chairman has accused us of making and be as specific as possible – I will be talking about American public schools. I will further avoid the ‘dire predictions’ that the former chairman had accused us of making. Instead, I will talk about what is going on right now.

“I myself am a product of the public school system, so I am in a position to tell you what I saw. And it was very bad.

“I had English teachers who could not speak English, math teachers who could not do math, and history teachers who did not know history.

“My teachers would often demonstrate that they did not know what they were talking about. For example, there was one English class I had my senior year in high school in which I would often harshly criticize the books we read because they were, after all, no good. My teacher finally told me that I should ‘critique without judging.’ That doesn’t mean anything! It would have been exactly the same statement had she told me to ‘judge without criticizing.’

“Aside from this, I ran into any number of infantile assignments. In one instance, also in a senior-year English class, our teacher gave us a final assignment for a novel we had just completed. This senior-year final project was to make a patchwork quilt. Each student would make a couple of patches: one would have a drawing, one would have a quotation. Then we would bring them all in and staple them together and hang it on the wall and this would add to our depth of understanding of the book.

“I have been interested for some time in discovering just how good, or rather how bad, my public school education was. To this end, I decided to give a representative sample of students at my school a sort of ‘culture quiz.’ I would ask these students five questions* that were basic to American or world history. If a majority, or a great majority, of students couldn’t come up with the answers, one can only assume that this is material that isn’t being covered adequately in our schools.

“These are the questions that I asked: One: Who was the first American in space? Two: Who perpetrated the Bataan Death March? Three: Name the first book of the Bible. Four: Who wrote, “With malice towards none, with charity to all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right…” – one of the greatest statements ever made by an American. And five: To whom did Churchill refer when he said, “Never in the field of human conflict, has so much been owed, by so many, to so few.”?

“It took me several months to get this poll out, because I was violently opposed by some at my school. These are the results:

“The question we did best on was ‘name the first book of the Bible.’ A whopping 54% of students knew that it was Genesis. The second strongest showing was the Bataan Death March question – 28% of students, a little more than a quarter, knew that it was the Japanese. This embarrassingly poor showing is hardly surprising in view of the fact that, while our history text spent several pages on America’s relocation of the Japanese at the beginning of World War II, it spends only one sentence – one sentence! – on the Bataan Death March, which was one of the most terrible atrocities of the war.

“Just 4% of students knew that the first American in space was Alan Shepard. Popular answers were Neil Armstrong, the first American on the moon, the trumpet player Louis Armstrong, and the Tour de France cyclist Lance Armstrong.

“Slightly over one in twenty (6%) recognized Abraham Lincoln’s famous line from the Second Inaugural Address; some attributed the quote to Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr.

“Fewer than one in twenty – only 3% – knew that Churchill was thanking the Churchill was thanking the Royal Air Force for its heroic victory in the Battle of Britain. More than twice as many (8%) thought that Churchill was talking about the Nazis – an extraordinary answer suggesting either an inability to read English or to think straight.

“40% of students could not answer a single question.

“These problems do not appear to be restricted to my high school. A recent survey in The Weekly Standard showed that only 12% of graduating high school seniors are proficient in science. We ranked 19^th out of the 21 countries surveyed.

“This doesn’t guarantee that things aren’t bad at private schools, but private schools have a crucial advantage in that it is radically easier to fire bad teachers and cut out bad curricula. Private schools can – and out of necessity must – operate efficiently.

“Public schools, on the other hand, are extremely incompetent – if there were a Platonically ideal model of incompetence it would probably be the public school system. They are as bad as you can get…”

“For a point of information,” offered the secretary, who was recognized. “Is it not in fact the case that the New Haven Police Department is the most incompetent organization in America?”

“This is…” the chairman paused for a moment of reflection, “not in fact the case.”

“Point of information,” said another Tory. “Is it not in fact the case that the IRS is the most incompetent organization in existence?”

“This is in fact the case,” admitted the chairman with another rap of his gavel.

“This merely goes to underline my point,” I continued, “that government is in general extremely incompetent.

“A writer named John Chubb did some investigative reporting on this subject. He compared two school systems that function side by side – the New York City public school system, and the privately run New York Catholic school system (which does not only educate Catholics – their pupils are in fact mostly minority non-Catholic students). On the one hand the Catholic school system is achieving considerable success, while on the other hand the public school system is failing. Mr. Chubb decided to ask of both these organizations just one question. He went to the New York City district Central Office and asked them, ‘How many people are working here?’ It took them a week to come up with the answer, and the answer was, ‘we don’t know.’ All they could do was give an estimate; they estimated between seven and eight thousand people. Mr. Chubb then asked the same question of the Catholic school system’s central office, and they had the answer right away – the total was twelve.

“Now, I do believe that we have an obligation to help everyone get the education he deserves. This does not mean that we need public schools. A very fine article on the topic pointed out that while we need an air force of planes built with public money, they are built by private companies. The case is exactly parallel to that of the schools, the one difference being that students are not armed with air-to-air missiles.

“So, what can we do to fix this problem? We can take the money we spend on the public school system and give it to students so they can afford private or charter schools. If we give students a choice of schools, these schools will suddenly have to compete for business. They will have to provide good teachers and good curricula or the students will leave and they will collapse.

“And we will be better off. And with that I yield the floor.”

There were plenty of questions for me, but I handled myself well. Upon being thanked for my speech and returning to my seat, one of the freshmen (the same one who had been acting sergeant at arms two weeks ago) proposed a motion to thank me again for my speech in light of the original research I had shared with the body. The motion was passed and I was thanked a second time.

I was extremely happy with my speech, which had largely fallen together as I was speaking it, helped along from point to point by my notes. It had come off just right, with laughs and applause in all the right places and plenty of energy throughout.

It is only as a write this now that I realize that at no time during the debate was I the least bit nervous. Now, you may ask, why should I nervous? When I came to my first debate it was a daunting task to succinctly state and defend my opinions in front of a roomful of thinking men. I have heard such sentiments expressed by other Tories as well. Nevertheless I had thoroughly enjoyed my speech, from the “Thank you, Mr. Chairman,” that precedes all statements on the Tory floor, to the last question I answered.

There were several speeches to follow; there was one in the negative by the secretary, and then one in the affirmative by a Tory of long standing. We were subsequently ready for a speech in the negative, and one of the new freshmen volunteered. His speech, and the subsequent speech in the affirmative, also given by a new freshman, made a very interesting pair.

The freshman arguing in the negative declared that he had attended private school, and it was far from good (he said that a cafeteria custodian had been promoted to the level of history teacher when funds ran dry – a story which I do not doubt for a minute). He claimed that if there were only private schools, they will feel free to raise prices as high as they want – so long as wealthy people can afford to pay it. They would obviously prefer $15,000 per student than a $5000 government voucher. The problem of the inevitable inequality in a no-public-school system troubled him. Following his question time, the appropriate motion was made to thank the gentleman for his fine maiden speech on the Tory Floor. It was passed and we all went over to shake his hand.

The freshman arguing in the affirmative also made a very good speech (perhaps even better than the last). He made the important point that inequality will always exist, but that it is actually a good thing – it is necessary in a competitive society. If he has two products to choose from, one of them will obviously be better than the other. A similar choice should be available as far as schools are concerned. He also managed to point out that taxation bears remarkable similarity to theft, and while charity is part of his Christian duty, if one makes it mandatory it is no longer charity. As he finished answering his questions, the appropriate motion was made to thank the gentleman for his maiden speech and we rose once again to shake hands.

Following his speech, the president of the YPU gave a speech in the negative. The most memorable moment was when she explained that, in third grade in a private school, she had been forced to learn some concept of math by folding pieces of printer paper. She therefore stated that Mr. Gelernter was not alone in having to do construction paper projects – these things happen in private schools too. I then offered the point of information, “Is it not in fact the case that the lady is comparing something she did in third grade to something I was forced to do in 12^th grade?”

This was in fact the case – an amusing restatement of the laughable incompetence of the public school system.

Following the president of the YPU’s speech, the chairman gave what turned out to be the final speech of the evening. He spoke in the affirmative. He was shocked, he said, that we had barely discussed the vital issue of the need to teach patriotism in the schools, and that this was something that public schools were failing to do. He was therefore proud to support a new system that is privately operated and that, by force of demand, will not only teach students to read and write, but also to instill them with love of country.

After his question session was wrapped up, we were ready to put the matter to a vote. The chairman selected an acting sergeant at arms to divide the body. I walked over to the affirmative side and saw that things were looking good. There were six Tories, including myself, on the affirmative side of the room, and only four on the negative side. Nevertheless, the sergeant at arms and the secretary had yet to vote. The sergeant arms counted, and then whispered something to the secretary, who, in turn, whispered something to the chairman.

At length the chairman announced, “By a vote of seven to six, the resolution is affirmed.” This meant both the sergeant at arms and the secretary had voted in the negative, but that the chairman had stepped in to break the tie – and voted on my side. I had won my second debate of the year, and was now 2-4 overall. The decision was roundly applauded by the affirmatives, and I seconded the traditional motion to adjourn to Yorkside in exceptionally good spirits.

Eight of us moved off to Yorkside for our traditional wrap-up, where we discussed things such as the fictitiousness of the Spanish language. After a pleasant 45 minutes or so I adjourned yet again, this time to my bed.

* It should be noted that my poll actually contained six questions; the sixth question returned results just as bad as the other five, however I neglected to mention it in my speech.

Disaster Relief: Tory Debate No. 5

2005-10-09T08:16:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, September 21 marked the fifth Tory debate of the year. It was scheduled to start at 7:30, but I was depending on the habitual half-hour delay (I myself would not show up until around eight o’clock).

I was learning with the Orthodox Rabbi over at the Slifka Center from seven to eight that night. He had very nicely arranged a weekly private shiur for me, and we began Isaiah that evening.

I had installed my jacket and tie beforehand, so as eight o’clock rolled around I was able to make a quick dash direct to the debate. We were in the Branford Trumbull room for a third time in succession.

It was getting dark as I approached the Trumbull room (coming from the Saybrook side) and through the windows I could see the former chairman already on the floor. I hoped I hadn’t missing much.

I opened the door and plunked myself down in the first seat that presented itself. We were still in the “opening announcements” phase that precedes the reading of the minutes; I had just made it. I looked around the room and noticed a rather week showing – a number of regular Tories weren’t there. This suggested that the switch from Thursday to Wednesday created problems for several of our members. Over the course of the evening our strength gradually increased, as Tories wound up their evening commitments and headed to the debate.

The reading of the minutes proceeded uneventfully and they were approved as read. The secretary then stood to read the topic of the night’s debate: “Resolved: Disaster Relief is a Federal Obligation.” This had been a tricky topic for me to decide on – it was not until two days earlier that I decided I would come down in the negative. This would be my first time opposing a resolution.

The first speaker in the affirmative that evening was the provost. I had done some research in advance, mostly concerning the incompetent local and state-level response to Hurricane Katrina, and as I listened to the opening speech I began to glue together ideas for my own speech in my head. The provost argued that local and state government were incapable of handing great natural disasters, and further pointed out that insurance can cover damages but will not take care of evacuating people from rooftops. He tried to demonstrate the need for federal help in case of disasters, but was challenged by the former chairman for not successfully linking one man’s need to another man’s obligation.

As the provost finished answering his questions and was thanked, I was ready to give my speech in the negative, and raised my hand. It was the chief whip whom the chairman recognized, however, and he took the floor to give the opening speech in the negative. Opening speeches, especially the affirmative one, present a great opportunity to the speaker in that he has a chance to define terms that will be used for the rest of the debate. The term “relief” in this resolution, for example, could mean a whole range of things from giving money to providing emergency rescue services. The opening speech, in this case, took relief to include both things mentioned above and therein set the tone for the evening.

The chief whip’s speech in the negative took quite a different tack from the one I was rehearsing in my head. He suggested that when you live in an area that is known to be prone to natural disasters you must accept the consequences. The government cannot tell you that you can’t build your house on a geyser, and in turn you can’t demand that they give you money after it destroys your house. He reminded us of the value of being strong and responsible for one’s own situation (as much as is possible) as opposed to relying on support from any outside source.

I waited for a turn to speak through one more cycle, and ended up giving the third speech in the negative. The chairman recognized me at long last and I rose to give my fifth consecutive speech on the Tory floor:

“The provost pointed out in his opening speech that, while insurance will cover damage to property, the insurance companies will probably not help fly stranded people off of rooftops. This does not mean, though, that this is the responsibility of the federal government. I do believe that there is an obligation to help people in trouble – we can’t leave them to die, obviously – but it is a responsibility that lies with local and state governments.

“There are some states that have been able to handle natural disasters quite capably by themselves. Florida, for example, has had more than her share of hurricanes. Under sturdy leadership, she has dealt with them efficiently and internally.

“In the case of Katrina and New Orleans, which I’m sure is on everyone’s mind, we have an incompetent governor and an incompetent, corrupt, and perhaps illiterate mayor. They combined to fail their state in this disaster – the mayor was so panic-stricken that he did not even call into action the city’s emergency plan. I’m sure many of you have seen the photograph of the 400 or so busses sitting ruined half underwater because the mayor did not release them for evacuation duty. When the mayor finally did sign an emergency evacuation order it was immediately countermanded by the governor, who also refused to call in the National Guard.

“This merely demonstrates that the people must take their responsibility to vote seriously. If they wish to be protected in time of disaster, they should elect competent officials as opposed to Democrats. And with that I yield the floor.”

“Does the gentleman feel that in a case such as hurricane Katrina, where the local and state response is inadequate, that the federal government should turn its back on the people of the affected area?” I was asked.

“No, I’m not suggesting that,” I answered. “In cases such as that the state may ask the federal government to help and the federal government should help, but it does not have an obligation to do so as it is a case of the local and state governments having failed to do something they had the money to do. The federal government should not have an obligation to penalize my wallet thanks to short-sighted planning and allocation of funds in another state.”

The SSCY posed me the next question: “What does the gentleman say to ‘loyal Republicans’ who vote for responsible leaders but happen to live in heavily Democratic areas?”

“They must accept responsibility for choosing to live in a liberal-infested environment and the danger inherent in that choice,” I answered.

Finally, for a well-timed spot of comedy, the chief whip asked me if I could rank all of the parties in the YPU according to their ability to respond to a natural disaster.

“I would be happy to do so,” I said. “Coming in number one is certainly the Tory Party [the room erupted into applause and it was some moments before I could continue] because in 1970 they responded to a disaster and rescued the US flag from desecration. The five other parties are at the bottom.” Applause continued throughout my statement, forcing me to repeat it a couple of times.

I was then pressed by the chairman to give a complete ranking, and so I continued, “First, as I said, is the Tory Party. The p.o.r. comes in second, for their being conservative (which is a good indicator of readiness to handle disaster). Third are the Conservatives, who are not quite conservative enough. Fourth is the Independent Party, as they are liberal; fifth would be the Progressives, who are barely organized enough to have a weekly debate. At the bottom is the Liberal Party, for being very liberal.”

“For a point of information,” said the chief whip, who was recognized. “Is it not in fact the case that the chairman of the Liberal Party is standing right next to me?”

“This is in fact the case,” said the chairman.

“I was quite aware of that, but I thought they might as well know the truth,” I said.

In the same vein, I was asked why I ranked the Conservatives, with their small number of members, above the Independent Party, which has 60 members, in their ability to handle a natural disaster. Don’t the numbers count for anything?

“In the first place,” I answered, “I think one can argue that any collection of 60 liberally-inclined minds is a natural disaster. Aside from that, the Conservative ability to take care of disaster makes one Conservative in a dangerous situation worth any number of members of the IP.”

That was my last question (we had gotten somewhat away from the original point). I was thanked for my speech and I returned to my seat.

The debate continued through two more cycles. The SSCY gave a speech in the negative, arguing rather amusingly that the only money the federal government owes Louisiana is the precise amount to compensate for 7,000 members of their National Guard being in Iraq. He had waded through the National Guard website (having to watch a very cheesy flash movie intro that he could not skip) to find the monetary information, and had calculated that the bill comes to around $180 million (with a chuckle he gave a figure calculated to the dollar).

Finally I could see the debate was rapping up. I had been on the losing side the last two times; equally I had believed during the debate that the reverse was true. This time though, judging from the number of speakers for each side and knowing the allegiances of many other members in the room, I had calculated with some certainty that I would be in the majority. By a final curse of fate though, four or five members of the Liberal Party walked in to our debate just as the last speaker was finishing and they were subsequently allowed to vote without having attended the debate! I was incredulous of course, but it is apparently part of our open-floor policy. I don’t mind an open floor of course, but I think that people who vote should be required to spend some time on it.

In any event, it was time for the sergeant at arms to divide the body. Our official sergeant at arms had not been able to come to any of our debates (for reasons unknown) so each week the chairman selects an acting sergeant at arms to serve in his stead. This time his eye fell on me.

“Mr. Gelernter, why don’t you divide the body?” He asked.

I was delighted to accept, and walked over to pick up the Tory Temporary Sword.

“What can I do with this great and mighty weapon?” I asked.

“Open a letter,” ventured the chief whip.

“True, but I can also divide the body. Those who can take care of themselves on my right and those who need the government to hold their hands on my left. Once again, negatives on my right, affirmatives on my left.”

To my horror, I saw the affirmative side of the floor being artificially inflated by the liberal latecomers.

I made a careful count of both sides. I was then to add my own vote to the tally and report the result to the secretary, who would add himself to the vote as well, and report to the chairman (the chairman will only vote if he will change the outcome).

I saw nine in the affirmative, six in the negative, and one abstention. With my own vote, we were up to seven, and the secretary added her vote in the negative to make eight. Still this was not enough.

The final act of the evening, in retrospect, has become the subject of some controversy. The motion was declared as passed by the chairman, and has been so recorded in the minutes. After the debate however, I was recounting this outcome to another freshman who had just shown up and he stated that he believed our constitution required a majority to pass a resolution. As the vote of the evening had had only a plurality of 50% in the affirmative, the resolution should have failed, even though there was one less vote in the negative than in the affirmative. As I write this, the issue is still being investigated – I hope that the decision to record the resolution as passing may be overturned in our next debate.

After the traditional motion of adjournment was passed, the former chairman took me over and introduced me to the chairman of the Liberals, and to the other Libs who had just shown up. The former chairman declared that we traditionally enjoy a friendly sort of relationship with the Libs. I of course, was perfectly happy to cooperate, provided I would be allowed to make fun of them occasionally (I have no doubt that the Tories are occasionally “discussed” on the floor the Liberal Party). We had an amicable but brief conversation with the Libs and I promised to attend one of their debates (at some point).

It was quite late (almost 11 o’clock) when we cleared the Trumbull room out and locked it up, but I did not plan to set a precedent in missing a post-debate adjournment to Yorkside. I closed off my evening with a relaxing conversation with the five Tories who remained.

On the Judiciary: Tory Debate No. 4

2005-10-02T12:05:00.000-07:00

Thursday, September 15 marked the fourth Tory debate of the year. The resolution this time was the highly philosophical, “Resolved: Judges should apply unjust laws.” I decided after some thought to support the affirmative.

The chairman had asked me the week before if I wished to give one of the opening speeches. The topic, however, was difficult (perhaps impossible) to research, and I could not develop much of a speech beforehand. I decided that I would need a few points from the first speaker in the negative to respond to, and decided to give the second speech in the affirmative.

The debate was scheduled for 7:30 and was to be held in the Branford Trumbull Room as it had been the last time. I put on my grey suit and a blue tie and walked over to the debate at 7:00.

When I showed up, the room was still locked. It suddenly struck me that this was the first debate without the half-hour meet-and-greet period beforehand. In other words, I was a half-hour early. (As it would turn out, there is always about a half-hour pre-debate warm-up and chatting period no matter whether time is allotted for it or not. As a result, the debate this night started at 8).

I decided to walk around in the Branford courtyard for a bit, keeping an eye out for a Tory and admiring the view. I stuck close the archway whose right-hand wall contained the Trumbull Room doorway. As I was milling about, an oriental girl walked by me slowly and then turned around and came back.

“Excuse me,” she said, “but are you rich?”

This was just about the funniest question I’d ever been asked, but I tried to respond as honestly as possible:

“No miss, I’m not rich; I’m a Tory.” I then proceeded to explain who the Tories were and what one of them was doing wandering around the courtyard in his best (and only) suit. It transpired that she was looking for the spot where the auditioning carilloneurs were supposed to be. (The Trumbull Room is attached to the base of Harkness Tower, which contains Yale’s famous and gigantic carillon).

The young lady went off in search of her audition and I stood by. An irritating and incessant siren suddenly started blaring and in a couple of minutes the oriental girl walked by me again, and said that the Branford fire alarm had gone off but there was no sign of fire. Despite the constant noise and the slow flashing of strobe lights visible in windows everywhere, no one seemed the least bit alarmed. Indeed, it was not terribly exciting – just annoying. I soon decided, however, that it would be wise to remove oneself from a building that may be on fire, and I strolled through across the Branford quad, through the archway on the far side and then through the Saybrook quad (the two colleges are attached). I finally reached the gate and exited onto Elm Street.

I made a big loop around, deciding to approach Branford again just as I had the first time to see if anything interesting was going on. By the time I got back to the other side, there was a pair of fire engines on the street. A few security guards had pedaled up on their bicycles as well. Three firemen in full gear entered the gate that I myself had gone through a quarter of an hour ago. The funny thing was that students also continued to use this gate, going in and out freely. It seemed fairly obvious (even to the firemen) that nothing was burning.

Still I thought I would walk about outside, on the pathway that separated Branford and JE, and wait till the alarm had been switched off. I made of a couple of calls to Tories whom I knew to be in Branford, but nobody answered.

The fireman having poked around and found nothing to extinguish, the alarm was finally turned off. It was now around 7:25, and I decided to take a look at the Trumbull room again. This time it was occupied by a few Tories, who were busy setting up our paraphernalia. The secretary and I tried to find a nice spot for the Tory banner (which is a large blue flag with white letters proclaiming: “The Tory Party”). The banner is present at every debate, but for some reason I had never found it worth describing before. We failed to find a spot that could improve on the one it held last time, so we set it up across some of the windows on the far side of the room.

I took another moment to look at my surroundings and discovered that I had misremembered the appearance of the room in describing it for my last piece. It did indeed have oak paneling around the fireplace, but the rest of the room was grey-white stonework crossed by vertical and horizontal beams. A very English-looking atmosphere.

People started wandering in in clumps. A large number of strangers showed up – the chairman of the YPU, a p.o.r. member, an Independent or two, and many first-time visitors. Also present was the Mr. Gonzales of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, a conservative think-tank that takes 60 college students each year into an honors program at either Princeton or Cambridge. The ISI was also apparently in a position to offer us a little financial support, so we were ready to give our all in the debate.

By starting time there were 25 or so people in the room. Most of them would wander off in the first hour though, so that we were left with a fairly standard number for the vote at the end.

The chairman, dressed very snazzily in a three-piece suit with golden a watch-chain peeking out of the vest, called the meeting to order. He asked the secretary to read the minutes from the previous debate, which she did, once again recounting in brief each speech from last time.

When she finished, the chairman asked for any amendments, corrections, or additions, and recognized the former chairman.

The former chairman said that he thought the minutes were unfair to the SSCY, in that they claimed he advocated an approach to the China problem that was free of moral constraints. (I, however, thought the minutes were perfectly accurate). He requested that the minutes be amended to soften the language.

“Second,” said the SSCY.

“Objection,” said I.

“Seeing that the amendment has been both seconded and opposed, I will call for a voice vote,” said the chairman. He asked for the ayes and the nays, and the amendment was passed over my objection by a small but audible margin.

There being no more amendments, corrections or additions to the minutes, the minutes from the previous meeting were approved as amended and the secretary stood again to read the topic of tonight’s debate:

“Resolved: Judges should Apply Unjust Laws.”

The first speaker in the affirmative was the chief whip, who, in siding with me once again, continued his record as the only Tory who has agreed with me on every single debate topic. He argued succinctly that we should not give up our right to decide what is just to judges, and that the judicial branch was not meant to be a second legislature. These were roughly the points that I was planning to make, so I looked forward to the first speaker in the negative’s giving me something else to chew on.

The first speaker in the negative was the former chairman. He had been unsure of which side to support when the topic was announced a few days ago. Having been asked to give the opening speech in the negative, however, he was prepared to defend it. He made a surprising and (from my perspective) a completely wrong speech. He declared that the Supreme Court is better suited that the common folk of America to decide what justice is. They are the highly educated top – the former chairman actually applied the term “aristocracy” to them and declared that that is the sort of thing we need.

This of course gave me a good opportunity, and I took it. After the former chairman had answered his questions, I volunteered for the second speech in the affirmative and was recognized. My speech was very brief this time. I had only roughly outlined it, and so continued to work it out as I spoke, making sure I worked the essential points in. I had originally planned to present my speech below including, in brackets, points that I would have made in retrospect. This is not really fair, though, so my speech will appear exactly as given:

“I do not know what group the former chairman would consider himself a part of, but I am part of what he describes as the ‘masses’ or those poor, dumb, uneducated, ‘common people’ and I would be loathe to give up my right to decide what is just and what is unjust to some group of high and mighty justices who have proven their unreliability in the past. The United States classically frowns on aristocracy. It is in our Constitution, which lets us know who was forming this country. Does it begin ‘We the aristocrats…’? No, it begins ‘We the people.’ The United States has demonstrated an inherent sense of justice that transcends the knowledge of the tiny collection of men on the Supreme Court.

“It has been pointed out that the courts are the most disconnected from public opinion of the three branches, and it has even been suggested that this is a good thing. I see it as extremely dangerous. Once a Supreme Court justice is seated, we cannot reach him. Indeed we have seen that, for example, a judge like Justice Kennedy can be appointed ostensibly as a Conservative, and then, over the course of his career, become gradually insane.

What would happen if every judge were free to decide for himself what justice was? Where would the rule of law end up?

It is not a judge’s job to create law; it is his job to apply existing law. A remarkably perceptive line from a classic Spencer Tracy movie was the statement that, ‘the law is the law – good or bad. If it’s bad, the thing to do is to change it, not to bust it wide open.’ That is exactly what judges will be doing. And that is the point of my short speech, and I yield the floor for questions.”

There were no very difficult questions posed to me – my favorite one came from the chief whip. Since the chief whip and I are normally in agreement, a question he asks me is generally designed to give me an opportunity of further discussing what he considers to be an important point. This time his question was of a decidedly less debate-related nature:

“Since the gentleman has conceded that the Supreme Court is least dangerous when it is doing nothing at all, does he feel that the Supreme Court’s time would be best spent playing tic-tac-toe, or tiddlywinks?”

I was fortunately prepared for this one, and gave my immediate reply: “I would generally favor tic-tac-toe.” At which point a point of information was volunteered to the effect of: “is it not in fact the case that tic-tac-toe has a very limited number of outcomes and is therefore further than tiddlywinks from allowing outside democratic control?” I countered by saying that I preferred the type of tic-tac-toe played with a larger number of squares, and so this was not in fact the case.

There was a motion made that this exchange be carefully minuted by the secretary.

The next negative speech was given by the Englisher, who seemed to take a pro-aristocracy (and even a pro-monarchy) view. At this point, a distraction began to emerge in the form of an exceptionally noisy party going on in the small courtyard outside the Trumbull Room. The chief whip went to try and quiet them down, while I helpfully volunteered the point of information: “Is it not in fact the case that blasting such rotten, garbage-type noise right outside of at Tory debate is in exceptionally bad taste?” This was, of course, the case.

The chairman himself took the next speech in the affirmative, handing the gavel over to the SSCY for temporary control. The chairman’s speech was very perceptive and strikingly eloquent.

It was approaching 10 PM when the debate rapped up – the Independent Party visitor had actually made two speeches. He was a good political speaker, in the sense that he spoke in coherent sentences that created the illusion of a coherent whole. He was, of course, both in the negative and wrong.

When there were no more volunteers for speeches in the affirmative or in the negative (or second or third speeches in the affirmative or the negative) the chairman asked the acting sergeant at arms to divide the body.

The sergeant at arms picked up our miniature Excalibur, said simply “affirmatives to my right, negatives to my left.” I had had a confident feeling throughout the debate, but I could see I was on the loosing side again. The one recompense was that for the first time the SSCY was voting on my side. Even so, it wasn’t enough – five in the affirmative, nine in the negative, one abstaining. The resolution failed.

A motion to adjourn “as is traditional” was made, and our trip to Yorkside followed, where the conversation focused for the long stretch on religion. The former chairman, seated across from me, was very well versed in the Christian Cannon, and we discussed with the surrounding Tories the interesting basic differences in Judaism and Christianity. The similarities between the two religions were still more interesting – they demonstrated why Judaism and Christianity are capable of harmoniously co-existing. The mood of the discussion was saved from becoming overly serious by the arrival of a Tory’s milkshake that was one-half mint flavor and one-half cookies and cream. At length we were rewarded with the check and I put it my two bits and headed back to my dorm.

I had failed to win a second debate in a row, but I was reminded by a veteran Tory earlier in the evening that success comes in many flavors – if I had succeeded in converting one man to my side it was a victory. So I ended the evening satisfied, perhaps with a small victory on my hands.

The US and China: Tory Debate No. 3

2005-09-25T12:25:00.000-07:00

Thursday, September 8^th marked the Tories third debate. Resolved: The US should distance itself from China. The topic was originally planned to coincide with the visit to campus of the so-called “President” of China. His trip to the US was postponed, but some people protesting China’s persecution of the Falun Gong religious movement had set up shop on cross-campus, so the whipsheet still had something to chew on.

I felt very strongly that the US should not be doing any business with China, and so I was prepared to support the affirmative (for the third time in a row). I took the unusual step of thinking about what I might say in advance and finally decided to plan my speech out to the last detail.

I read (as per my newly formed habit) several articles in the Weekly Standard, and began to create a speech that would attack the problem from three different angles. Having figured these out, I lay on my bed, running through my speech in my head, making notes on the back of the weekly whipsheet. I did three run-throughs, so when I finished I thought I’d come up with quite a tidy little product.

I slipped into my battle dress and headed off for the debate, which was to be in the Branford Trumbull room. (It is indeed a curiosity that a residential college would have a common room with the name of another residential college). I showed up a little early and spent a few moments chatting with the former chairman, who had arrived with our box of Tory gear and some refreshments. The chairman presently showed up with the key and we moved in.

The Trumbull room was similar in design to the Athenaeum room where the last debate had been – oak panels from floor to ceiling with some beautifully carved posts at the room’s corners. There was an assortment of leather and cloth couches with some chairs (but no pianos). The chairman and the secretary’s seats once again bordered a table where our paraphernalia would be set up. A new freshman had shown up and I tried to make him as comfortable as the Tories had made me at my first debate.

As Tories filtered in we chatted about Toryhood and the upcoming debate – the former chairman said that he planned to speak in the negative. This came as little surprise to me because he had just spent two months in China studying Chinese. (As it would turn out, a unusually great proportion of the Tories take Chinese, which had the effect of unbalancing the debate). I learned that the provost would be in the affirmative (the first time we’d be on the same side) and we congratulated each other on our depth of perception.

At length the SSCY showed up – wearing pinkish-read pants. It was obvious to see which side of the debate he planned to speak on. Appearing for the second time was a member of the party of the right. (As a little aside here, the current p.o.r. and the Tories were once one party. They split in 1969 when the Tories decided they wanted a group with less of a libertarian and a fascist bent. Since we view ourselves as an extension of the real P.O.R., we use capital letters in referring to the traditional Party of the Right and lower-case letters in referring to the current one).

The chairman called the meeting to order and the secretary read the minutes from the last debate. Each speech was recounted in miniature, leading to the conclusion whereby the resolution (“Give us your huddled masses”) had passed eight to five with two abstentions.

There were no successful changes to the record, so the minutes were approved as read and the secretary was asked to read the topic of tonight’s debate: “Resolved: The US should distance itself from China.”

The chairman asked for speeches in the affirmative and the chief whip was recognized. He walked to the center of the room clutching some notes of his own (several typed pages). Seeing this, one of the Tories made a motion “that the gentleman be allowed to use a prop” which was seconded and passed.

The chief whip made a very perceptive speech, where he argued that sooner or later we were going to end up in a war with China if we let ourselves become weak; we must remain strong enough to fight them whenever the need may arise. They are our enemy, and we should thus not be consorting with them. He yielded to questions. Two or three times during questions sessions that evening the chairman would announce, “I think I shall take the next question.” This was invariably followed by a shout of “tyranny!” from one of the Tories. (The question would be asked, nonetheless).

The former chairman made the first speech in the negative. He argued that China is already democratizing (albeit slowly), and that the way to keep it democratizing is through continuing our relationship with them. He claimed that, were we to pull out of China, the economy would collapse and that would make the Communist leadership seem a beacon of hope to the people. I would later challenge him on this point – it seemed to me as though a collapsed economy would lead to a new government, which is exactly the effect we were looking for.

After the former chairman had answered questions and been thanked for his speech (all speakers are applauded in Tory style after their question session is over) I volunteered to give the second speech in the affirmative. The chairman recognized the provost, however, so I waited for the third round.

The provost gave another very perceptive speech (his role this time would not be a comic one). He noted that China is guilty of very evil practices and great human rights abuses. This is not a country we should be doing business with – we are merely lining our pockets (and the pockets of the corrupt Communist leadership) with money squeezed from the impoverished and abused Chinese worker.

I had agreed heartily with the two affirmative speeches I’d heard; it seemed as if we were in good shape.

The next speech in the negative was given by a Tory of longstanding [Mr. Elrod]. He suggested that we could not afford to separate ourselves from China economically. His speech and question session were cut short, however, as he was due to attend the “Help Can’t Wait” concert that had been organized to benefit the victims of hurricane Katrina.

As the gentleman concluded, I was recognized by the chairman for the next speech (which would be my longest yet) in the affirmative. I had my notes in my breast pocket, but decided there was something to be gained by giving the appearance of speaking off the cuff. I therefore recited my points from memory:

“It seems to me that there are three parts to this problem, all of which have been touched on in earlier speeches and which I will expand on. We can look at this problem, as I said, from three directions: ideological, economic, and strategic.

“First, the ideological, which should be of dominating consideration. China is a one-party dictatorship. Our provost has already enumerated various horrible human rights abuses that China is guilty of. Added to this, China continues to violate the conventions it has signed concerning human rights and refugees, they have broken and continue to break their promises to the WTO (that is, the World Trade Organization). They proliferate weapons and weapons technology to hostile nations, and they deliberately obstruct our diplomatic dealings with nations such as Iran and North Korea. This is an evil country, and it is not right to continue to do business with them.

“Churchill, in reflecting on Mussolini’s horribly miscalculated decision to join the axis powers, came up with the beautiful and trenchant statement that, ‘it falls to few men to know for certain what is in their interest, but it falls to a great many common folk, every day, to know what is their duty.’ And by duty he means the right thing to do – and doing business with an evil empire is not right.

“Secondly, there is the economic consideration. Our business with China is significant – they are our third largest trading partner in terms of import/export dollars, and they take up about 10% of total US trade. It has been suggested that pulling out of their economy (and pulling them out of ours) would devastate us, but I do not believe this is so. Certainly, in the short term, the prices of things such as those annoying little cheap plastic toys you get in party favors would go up, but in the long run, we would simply sell more goods to other nations, and buy more goods from those nations, and the slack would be taken up. The real danger is if we wait until a point when our economy really is reliant on the Chinese. This would give them a very dangerous weapon to use against us and I think it would be very foolish to let them have it.

“Finally, there is the strategic consideration. Now, when two countries (or two entities, or however many) reach approximately the same power, they have a choice to make about their relationship. They can choose to compete, or to cooperate. I believe it is very clear that China has chosen to compete. Not only is there the economic threat I mentioned before, but I find it very worrying that China is now building a large number of ballistic missile submarines and anti-ship cruise missiles. They claim that they need these weapons to keep Taiwan in check. If we choose not to take China’s claim at face-value, it seems clear to me that they realize that the key to a war with the US would be the destruction of our carrier fleet, just as the destruction of the Japanese carrier fleet at Midway was the turning point of the war in the Pacific.

“As China has chosen to compete, we must compete also. When a country cooperates with a country that is competing with it, it is called appeasement, and this hasn’t worked to well in the past.

“If we cooperate with China, we will run headlong into the Taiwan issue, which is of great importance. In 2001, we pledged to provide Taiwan with whatever support she needs to defend herself. But we cannot sit on the fence on this question – we have to take either the Chinese or the Taiwanese side, and if we cooperate with China we will end up going back on our pledge. If we no longer threaten China with retaliation for invading Taiwan, they probably will invade sooner or later. If China controls Taiwan, the entire map of the area is redrawn. Not only will China now have deep-water east-coast submarine bases, they will control the northern entrance to the South China Sea. This means that they will in turn control most of the South China Sea, and in turn all of the nations dependant on it. Then we will be shut out of that region, and we’ll be stuck.

“In 1938, as we discussed earlier, Hitler wanted the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. After all, it was full of German people; it was really part of Germany. It just happened to turn out that the Sudetenland also contained the mountain ranges that were Czechoslovakia’s natural line of defense, and it was consequently easy for Hitler to spill over into Czechoslovakia and the rest of Europe.

“In the modern day, China wants Taiwan. After all, it’s full of Chinese; it’s really part of China. It also just happens to control the entire region – for defensive or offensive purposes. If China gets that control, what makes us think that they will not want to pour back into areas they controlled long ago, such as South and Southeast Asia, and even Siberia? And who will be prepared to stop them?

“In the final analysis therefore, we must not continue doing business with China. Distancing ourselves from them is the safe, the responsible, and the right thing to do. And with that I yield the floor.”

Among the questions I was asked was the inevitable: Why should we be doing business with some “bad countries” and not be doing business with others? Fortunately I was prepared for this point – I had considered addressing it in my speech, but, as it would inevitably become a question, I thought it would be better to make that one less surprise question I’d have to answer:

“I thought this would come up sooner or later. The question inevitably arises, ‘doesn’t it seem like hypocrisy to talk to some evil nations and refuse to talk to others?’ The answer is that we cannot cut ourselves off from all evil nations right away, or all at once. What we can do is to step towards this one at a time, and remove ourselves from as many evil nations as possible.”

I was finally thanked for my speech, and we moved on to the next speaker in the negative, the SSCY.

The SSCY made an absolutely hilarious and yet completely wrong (from my point of view) speech. He contended that America’s purpose was to act in the best interest of Americans – not caring particularly about the rest of the world. If trading with China will make his suits cheaper, why not? Naturally he was well-hissed at by the provost, the chief whip, and myself. He seemed to view America as similar in value to any country that can insure similar security, freedoms, and standards of living (of which there are none, he neglected to mention). This view conflicted so violently with my own that I was prompted to ask the (good-natured) question, “Does the gentleman simply view America as some sort of big fat dumb happy* prosperous bubble that he is somehow parasitically attached to?” (This was worth a good laugh, but of course his answer was in the negative).

When the SSCY had answered the last question, the chairman requested a speaker in the affirmative, but there was none. With the observation “the chair frowns on a one-sided debate” the chairman asked for speeches in the negative, and recognized once again the former chairman.

The former chairman pitched into a lengthy and forceful restatement of his position. In talking the debate over later in the evening it turned out that both the former chairman and I had believed the affirmative position to be doing better than it was. It was for this reason that he made his second speech of the evening – and in turn I decided not to. I would later regret that.

The former chairman’s speech was followed by yet another speech in the negative, by the oriental Englisher. He argued that the US and China agreed fundamentally on the important points – “what is just, what is honorable, and what is worth.” He actually admitted that he was arguing for a sort of moral relativism (this too was well-hissed at). In the final analysis he claimed that the US should be talking to China, exporting our customs and values in a way that we could not do if we cut ourselves off from them.

That having been the final speech of the evening, the acting sergeant at arms was called upon to divide the room (creating amusing little classifications for the affirmative and negative sides of the debate). I was confident that the affirms would make a good showing, but I was decidedly wrong: the vote was 13-3 in the negative, with only the three Tories (myself included) who had spoken in the affirmative on the other side of the room. It was a crushing defeat.

Oh well.

The resolution was recorded as having failed, and the chairman asked for an appropriate motion, “perhaps from the SSCY?”

“I move that we adjourn to Yorkside…”

“As is traditional,” we chimed in.

The debate having thus ended, we milled about in discussion for a few minutes, reexamining the debate and pondering possible topics for the next one. At length, the remaining Tories (who had finished their homework and didn’t have to get up too early the next day) marched over to Yorkside.

We were five at the Pizzeria: the chairman, SSCY, the sergeant at arms, a longstanding but non-office-holding Tory, and myself. We were presently joined by the former chairman, who made a sixth.

While the majority of the Tories were contented with their pepperoni pizza and the chairman was doing his best to work his way through a club sandwich, I had attempted to order something small – “a scoop of ice cream” is what the menu called it. Little did I know that a Yorkside “scoop” amounts to nearly a truckload by classic standards. The chairman, making his meal complete, ordered a glass of orange juice, which he drinks for every meal and snack of the day, believing it to be healthy and hygienic, not to mention tasty.

Our conversation bounced around freely for a time before it settled on the topic of who was taking what language. I was the only Hebrew-speaker at the table, though Russian and Chinese were amply represented. It would seem a general rule that these Yorkside discussions never become too political – such things are no longer in order after 11 o’clock.

After I had waded through as much ice cream as I thought wise, and shown my compatriots the Hebrew spelling for Israeli “Bazooka” bubble-gum, the check arrived and we were free to leave.

As we were on the way out, we ran into the p.o.r., just coming in from their own debate. The brief conversation that thus developed was civilized, and perhaps even amiable; neither party shared the disdain it felt for the other. The p.o.r.’s dress had a wider range to it, running from suits to a few t-shirts. The Tories were clearly in more uniform uniform. We separated ourselves from the p.o.r. on a friendly note and struck out for our dorm rooms.

I finally parted with the chairman as we walked by Saybrook on Elm Street, and covered the last few hundred yards to my dorm by myself. I would be seeing the Tories again at lunch the next day – as is traditional.

* It should be noted that this particular series of words actually appears more-or-less in a dialogue at the end of the movie “The Caine Mutiny.”

Tories, Chapter 2

2005-09-20T12:51:00.000-07:00

I have noticed that liberals commentors on my last piece did not bother to read it. For the next few weeks these pieces will be similar autobiographical essays. If your attention span isn't up to the job, you have my permission to go away.

Thursday, September 1 was the night of the year’s second Tory debate. The Resolution: Give us your huddled masses. (We were to debate the efficacy of continuing to allow immigration).

I had examined my schedule earlier in the day and determined that I would likely have to miss approximately the first half-hour of the debate – all Calhoun freshmen would be attending a mandatory meeting on alcohol, drugs, and such similarly perverse subjects.

I intended to be properly dressed for debate this time, so I put on a tie and jacket before going heading over to Linsly-Chittenden Hall for the freshman meeting. I would thus be able to rush over to the Tories as soon as the safety spiel was over.

As the best-dressed Calhoun freshman, I sat next to one of my roommates in a classroom with about 50 other students. I listened with marked disgust to the various points made by the speakers (which I prefer not to enumerate). It was about half-way through the meeting that I decided I had had enough – I simply grabbed my jacket, got up, and walked out. As I went down the three flights of stairs I bore in mind that I was required to be in the meeting (although the repercussions for not attending were not clear). I therefore half-anticipated someone stopping me and sending me back up, or at the very least threatening me with some harm to my academic record. As luck would have it, I looked much more like an instructor than a student in my suit, and thus had no trouble getting out of the building.

I headed straight for the debate, which was to be held nearby in the Saybrook College Athenaeum Room, and showed up with fifteen minutes to spare. I was welcomed by various Tories, whom I recognized (and who recognized me!) I was, of course, complimented on my snappy and appropriate attire.

I noticed the absence of a few Tories I had seen at the previous debate, and the presence of some with whom I was unfamiliar. I also noticed (as I kept track during the evening) that I was the only freshman there for any substantial amount of time – probably because many were still in their various meetings. In total we were a little short of twenty people at the start.

I admired my surroundings – the Athenaeum Room was slightly smaller than Dwight Library where the last debate had been held. The room was oak-paneled from top to bottom, with beautifully carved panels surrounding and above the fireplace and all the little touches of a noble English common room. In front of the fireplace were the two chairs for the chairman and secretary placed on either side of a low table on which the Tory flag, sword (such as it was), and plaque were set up. Two upright pianos guarded opposing ends of the room. A pair of couches and a few chairs were placed at the edges of the much-paced-upon rug. A bench (also in oak) ran the length of the back wall.

I spent most of the pre-debate evening in conversation with the sometime chairman who had been at Oxford last year, with another longstanding Tory from last week’s debate, and with a graduate student who was an oriental Englisher (with a lovely accent) and who was, above all, a Tory as well. We discussed the upcoming debate slightly, explaining not much more than what our intended positions were. We talked mostly about various random subjects – the construction work being done on Trumbull College across the street for instance. I managed to learn from the Englisher that he was a devotee of the Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister television series (as am I) and he suggested that we might be able to arrange another of our Tory Movie Nights (a tradition that had fallen into desuetude) for the screening of some select episodes.

After I had had a few drinks (of coke) the chairman took his place and asked us to do the same. It was 7:35. The debate began as it had last time with the reading of the minutes. The secretary (a pretty, redheaded upperclassman with a green blouse) read our last resolution and her notes on each speech, noting which were freshmen’s maiden attempts. Following the minutes, there were a number of emendations to the record, including one that softened last week’s faithfully recorded decision (taken in the heat of comedy) that the provost was in fact not a gentleman.

The secretary read the resolution, “Give us your huddled masses,” and the chairman recognized the first speaker in the affirmative, the former chairman. I myself planned to support the affirmative, and agreed with the former chairman’s points. This was in particular interesting because he and I had been on opposite sides of the debate last week. As it would turn out, several Tories from last week’s opposition were now in agreement with me (and the reverse was true as well). It is also the case the Tories will often address pointed questions to members who speak in agreement with them, simply through a desire to reach to the bottom of the question.

I had come to the debate without definite plans for a speech – I figured that if I had anything to say, the opportunity would once again present itself and I would say it. As the former chairman spoke, I began to think of what my speech might sound like should I choose to make it. I had prepared for the debate by reading a half-dozen articles on immigration, but they dealt mostly with the Mexico situation. The question before us tonight was whether we should continue to allow immigration, and to continue to request other nations’ huddled masses to find their way to us. Once again, the resolution succeeded in splitting Tory opinion.

Fortunately the former chairman finished his speech without making any points that I disagreed with. He was asked a number of questions, but there was nothing to seriously challenge our point of view (though I felt it still needed further explanation).

The first speaker in the negative was the provost, who, with restored gentleman status, made a rather unusual argument. He suggested that we should not allow immigration because our own resources were limited and immigrants would make us run into those limits sooner. He paced the floor in a very slightly pigeon-toed manner, making various comments on the water supply and the quick erosion of topsoil in America’s breadbasket. It was a somewhat strange point of view, and I decided that I would make a quick counterargument in a speech later in the evening.

The next speaker in the affirmative was a Tory of longstanding who argued on the basis of our labor needs. She explained that she had recently tried to get a small wall built outside her New York house, and had been informed by a contractor that the price for such a job would amount to approximately one-half the value of her property. She was fortunately able to find an industrious (legal) immigrant who was able to complete the job for her quickly, expertly, and cheaply, which was something no native-born American seemed had seemed willing to do for her. She yielded the floor for questions and was asked if it wouldn’t have been better to give the job to an American, even at a higher price. This was, of course, identified as a socialistic an unacceptable approach. The series of questions expanded on this arbitrary theme – it was asked if it would not have been better to pay the higher price to an American, who could then have afforded to pay another American a higher price to paint his house. Having gotten (as the chairman reminded us) somewhat far away from the philosophical point, the last question was asked and we were able to move onto the next speaker in the negative.

The chief whip, who had been on my side the last time, was recognized by the chair as a speaker in opposition and proceeded to give one of the most interesting speeches of the evening. He worried that we were becoming too weak a nation, through political correctness. We avoided such things as racial profiling to satisfy an abstract (and incorrect) sense of righteousness, and that this made us open to cultural disintegration and perhaps even a takeover by a stronger, infiltrating outside culture. I agreed with all of this, but our solutions were different. He felt that the problem was too great and that there were too many legal holes in our policy; the only thing to do would be to close our borders and start from scratch.

I had asked a number of questions throughout the evening, and was simultaneously preparing a speech, which I now planned to give after the chief whip had concluded his question session. I had decided to make three basic points, which I ran over again and again in my head to make sure that I would not forget the flow of my speech once I was in the process of giving it. I even thought up a good joke to stick in the last point, and arranged the exact words in advance.

The chief whip finished. I volunteered myself for the next speech in the affirmative and was recognized. My speech was very quick, and ran like this:

“First, I would like to remind every American in this room that he is himself an immigrant, or is related to someone who saw America’s promise, and grabbed at it, and was allowed to enter America. I cannot in good conscience deny the privilege that I was allowed to enjoy to another man simply on grounds of his having been born too late in history.

“The provost has said that allowing continued immigration will only make us exhaust our resources more quickly. This may be true. But as an American I am proud to say, ‘what I have is yours to share. Come and share my freedom, my liberties, and even my food.’

“An interesting point in Judaism is the statement that a convert is dearer to God than a natural-born Jew, by virtue of the fact that he had to make a conscious decision to become Jewish that the natural-born Jew did not. I know that there are many Americans who hate America, and do not value our liberties (mostly members of the Progressive Party, I believe). I would rather have an immigrant who actually wants to be here in America than, say, a Progressive; he understands America better, and will work for America.”

I yielded the floor for questions, and was asked by the former chairman if I could tell him where the line between liberties and security was drawn. I simply told him that I could not (it wasn’t the height of rhetorical brilliance, but certainly the most direct answer of the evening).

My answers to the remaining questions were more thoughtful, and I continued to underline the basic point of America’s tradition (something very dear to a Tory) of receiving the world’s huddled masses and allowing them to share our freedoms. After I was through the chief whip came over to tell me that my speech actually made sense, and that he found we were indeed in basic agreement (nevertheless, he still planned vote in the negative).

There were several more speeches to made that evening – among them one in the negative by a longstanding Tory that really turned out to be in the affirmative, and one by an interesting visiting member of the POR, who said that he had arrived intending to speak in the affirmative, but that the wording “give us your huddled masses” made it seem as if we were inviting all the world’s huddled masses to be indiscriminately thrust upon us.

“Would the gentleman feel better if he considered the fact that the poem also contains the words ‘yearning to breath free’?” I asked him.

“Yes I would,” he replied.

At length, our chairman decided to take a speech in the affirmative. He handed the gavel over to our Oxforidan sometime chairman, and the secretary in turn handed her notebook to a temporary replacement. The chairman made an eloquent and brilliant speech in which he pointed out (better than I had) the advantage of America’s freedoms that could not be found anywhere else. We are the only country capable of extending such an offer to the world’s tired, poor, tempest-tost huddled masses. We thus have a duty to keep that offer intact.

The final speech of the evening was given in the negative by the Englisher, who argued that it was better to close our borders for the purpose of exporting our jobs and our culture overseas. I did not believe that our culture was best spread in that manner (and, if it was no longer America’s open-armed society, would it still be worth spreading?) I asked the speaker if he did not concede that there were certain jobs that Americans would continue to refuse to fill, and was it not better that these jobs be filled in America, so that the workers can pay taxes here and directly soak up our culture? He replied that while that was certainly an important point, it was better to move our culture outwards to other nations.

That having been the final speech of the evening, the chairman (who had spent the speech as part of the audience) returned to his official seat and the gavel was returned to him. He asked our sergeant of arms to divide the room for a vote.

The sergeant of arms picked up our “sword” and faced the room. “What can I do with this small sword? I will divide the room into the Mayflowerians and the later immigrants. Those in the affirmative on the right, those in the negative on the left, and those abstaining in the middle.”

Everyone took his appropriate stand and the votes were tallied: eight in the affirmative, five in the negative with two abstentions. The vote was recorded and the resolution signified as being passed with a rap of the gavel. Finally, the chair made a motion to close the debate, which was seconded and passed, and the chairman announced that we would now adjourn to Yorkside Pizzeria and all the Tories added in unison “as is traditional.” It was now after 10:30.

After some post-debate conversation in the Athenaeum Room, there were about eight Tories remaining for our traditional late-night snack. The chairman commanded “To Yorkside!” (a number of times before we were finally on our way). I had offered to carry our logbooks and the box containing the Tory paraphernalia for the secretary and was accepted (it’s part of a gentleman’s job, after all).

The chairman told me on the way over that he had enjoyed my speech, and it seemed as if I grasped the parliamentary debate format quite naturally. I attributed this to the Yes Minister series and a set of LP recordings of Churchill’s speeches that I was fond of listening to.

We arrived at Yorkside in a couple of minutes and some tables were pushed together for us in the back. I spend the rest of the evening in a comfortable firearms-related discussion with the chairman who sat opposite me. He had shot skeet in high school but had also failed to find shooting sports at Yale, and I suggested that if there was indeed no way to shoot around here it might be a good idea to arrange a Tory daytrip to my own shooting club, not far from campus. I tried valiantly to finish my tasty but oversized milkshake, but it proved a hopeless case (besides, having a milkshake after eleven o’clock when one has classes in the morning can only be regarded as sheer folly). The conversation occasionally adopted a more academic flavor, when we switched to discussion of the well-known Directed Studies program (an intense study of the Western cannon) but soon we moved to engineering, then to Legos and finally back to guns again.

The evening drew to a close when the check showed up (and I was allowed to participate in paying the bill this time). I shook hands once more with the remaining Tories and said goodnight – I would meet them again the next day for their weekly lunch at Mory’s.

Tory Debate No. 1

2005-09-11T08:53:00.000-07:00

I discovered on my second day at Yale that all three of the conservative political groups were out canvassing supporters. The Tories (the group that I was interested in) had shown up at my suite to announce that their first debate would take place later that day, but I had been wandering around campus at the time and missed their announcement. My suitemate informed me that the Tories had visited, but the flier stating the time and location of their debate had disappeared. I thus launched myself on a campus-wide search for Tory-relevant information (steadfastly refusing to use my computer on Shabbos). I scanned the bulletin boards on Old Campus, Cross-Campus, and beyond, finally locating a flier intact in the suite across the hallway from my own. The debate would be at 7:00, in Dwight Hall Library.

That day’s tour of Calhoun – my residential college – finished just in time for me to dash back to my dorm at Bingham Hall, slip on my dress shoes, and head over to Dwight. I quickly found the library, which was a small room containing three sofas, not quite two dozen chairs, and very few books. I was slightly underdressed (not wearing a jacket) but I did better than the rest of the freshmen who trickled in. I was introduced the regular Tories (Chairman, Secretary, Chief Whip, Provost, and various other longtime members and sometime chairmen*). I found myself for the first time on campus completely surround by conservatives, and was comfortable (albeit nervous).

After milling about for half-an-hour there were around 30 people in the room (four of them women) and we were ready to get the debate underway. I picked a chair along the rear wall, separated from the center of the room only by a burgundy-colored leather sofa. The chairman and secretary were seated across the room on either side of a low table on which were placed the Chairman’s gavel, the Tory Plaque, and the Tory Flag (an American flag with a Union Jack instead of the starred blue field). Missing from the table was the Tory Sword, which I later learned had been confiscated some years ago by the Master of Branford, who believed it to be a dangerous weapon. By the time the Tories had successfully negotiated the sword’s release, the Branford Master discovered that he had misplaced it. (We feel this to be a good example of liberalism in action). Taking the place of the regular sword was the Tory Temporary Sword, a four-inch long letter opener with the word “Excalibur” stamped into it.

The chairman banged his gavel, calling the debate to order and once again reminding the new freshmen that we should fell free to participate. The secretary read the minutes from the last debate, after which the chairman called for amendments or corrections. The record was successfully amended to insert the title “professor” in front of the name of one of the Tories (who didn’t happen to be a professor). An amendment requested by one member to explain that the minutes had completely failed to capture the point of his speech in the last debate was not passed as no one would second his request.

There being no further requests for modification of the minutes of the last debate, the secretary was asked to read the topic of tonight’s debate.

Resolved: The Bush Doctrine is Conservative

It seemed clear to me that the affirmative view was correct (and that no one in the room could possibly disagree). The purpose of the Tories’ debate topics, however, is to split conservative opinion. It was clear, three hours later, that the resolution of the night had succeeded admirably.

The chairman asked for a first speech in the affirmative, which was given by a Yale senior now in her fourth year as a Tory. She defined Conservatism as preserving the status quo while extending our liberties to the rest of the world. She continued for some fifteen minutes, discussing the war in Iraq, successfully launched under conservative policy, and made numerous and amusing references to the defective handling of duty and policy by nations such as France in modern times and Gaul (France) in ancient history. Supporters would celebrate a strong point by banging their hands on a desk or chair, while opponents would hiss mildly at the speaker. As she spoke, a book was passed around for everyone present at the debate to sign – the chief whip was happy to return the book to me for my signature after sundown (when Shabbos had ended).

After the first speaker finished, she announced that she would yield for questions, and was challenged on various points by Tories who would first be recognized by the chair, and stand to ask their question, addressing the point to the chair and referring the speaker in the third person – (“Does the lady suggest…” etc.). The questions and answers were thoughtful though amusing (and sometimes very funny). After a question’s rebuttal a request would sometimes be made for a “quick follow-up question,” which was regularly granted. At length the chairman asked for the penultimate and then the final question, and we were ready to hear the opposing view.

The first speaker in the negative was the former chairman, who claimed that Conservatism was driven by realism, that American excpetionalism was not Conservative, and that the United States could not claim moral superiority. He stated in the final analysis that Bush’s doctrine was not based on realism, and was therefore not conservative. He finished, referring to a John Adams quotation that seemed to suggest that no nation could be viewed as morally superior, and declaring that the United States had no right to replace Hussein’s form of government in Iraq with our own. (This was indeed a surprising speech for a conservative to make, but I discovered that Tories come in many flavors). As the former chairman opened himself to questions, I was recognized by the chair as the first freshman to ask a one – “May I remind the gentleman that John Adams also said ‘Our constitution is made only for a moral and religious people’ and does the gentleman not believe that our government is in fact morally superior to Saddam Hussein’s?” My question won me a quiet complement from the chief whip (standing next to me) though I was simultaneously so nervous and so buoyed by the experience that it was several minutes before I could again concentrate on the particulars of the debate (and the answer made to my question).

When the first speaker in the negative had answered his last question, we returned to an affirmative speaker. The cycle continued, with the next speaker in the negative being the provost, who appeared to approach the problem with the purpose of providing comic relief. It was during his speech that I met a new bit of floor-etiquette – an interruption “for a point of information.” This was made first by the secretary, who reminded the provost, “is it not in fact the case that only language fit for the Queen may be used on the Tory floor?” To which the chairman agreed, signaling the admission of this point with a tap of his gavel. The regular Tories then took to interrupting the provost with additional “points of information” every twenty seconds or so, culminating with “is it not in fact the case that the provost is not a gentleman?” At this point the whole room was laughing, eventually called back to order by the chair.

We were ready to move on to the next affirmative speaker, and the chair requested a freshman volunteer. A young man sitting to my left was recognized by the chair, and spoke in an impressively easy manner. After he finished his point and fielded questions, one of the Tories proposed a motion: “that the Tory Party thank the gentleman for his eloquent maiden speech on the Tory floor.” The motion was seconded and passed, whereupon the veteran Tories rose from their seats to shake the speaker’s hand. The custom struck me as both classy and appropriate, and I thought that sooner or later I should like to be indoctrinated in a similar manner.

It was now getting late and the number of people in the room had dropped precipitously to less than 20.

The next speaker in the negative was the SSCY, who had just returned from a year at Oxford. He most eloquently attempted to demonstrate that the Bush Doctrine is not conservative, and was appropriately interrupted for a point of information from the first speaker of the evening: “is it not in fact the case that the gentleman has become much more liberal since attending Oxford?” This statement was riotously applauded by those of us defending the affirmative – I had long since gotten into the act, banging the arm of my chair when appropriate.

After a number of such affirmative-negative cycles, the chairman, citing “the growing lateness of the hour” attempted to limit the debate to one more speaker for each side, and was promptly reminded by the secretary that it was Tory policy never to limit debate and that such a motion was never in order on the Tory floor.

It was around 9:30, and I had asked many questions and listened to a dozen speeches, a few of which had been delivered by freshman such as myself. I had volunteered to speak in the last two cycles, but had not yet been recognized. I therefore got a chance to deliver the closing speech of the night (which ended up being in the affirmative because no additional speaker volunteered in the negative). I was recognized by the chair and invited to the center of room, where I delivered my first speech on the Tory floor, which I had roughly laid out in advance in my head, and that ran something like this:

“I would like to return to the definition of conservatism, which is the central issue of this debate. It has been assumed for some time the conservatism is based on realism. Nevertheless, the right honorable gentleman who first spoke in the negative has helped to demonstrate that a system that conserves everything, irrespective of merit, that conserves perhaps communism or slavery [both of which had been discussed earlier] is not a conservative system. We must therefore consider how we chose what to conserve. How did we know that slavery was bad? The answer is that we approached this problem from a Juedo-Christian ideology, conserving what was morally appropriate. It is therefore not the case that conservatism excludes consideration of ideology – in point of fact it mandates it. This means that one cannot suggest that the Bush doctrine is not conservative on the grounds that it is based on ideology.”

I paced the room while I spoke, noting with delight the smiles on several Tory faces.

Having finished I declared myself open for questions, but no one moved for several seconds. The chair was in the middle of observing that I had stumped the opposition when the former chairman raised his hand and was recognized.

He asked me if ideology always took precedence, even in such cases as the decision to fight the war on poverty in the 60s or in the fight to extend freedom to the entire globe. It was a clever question in that it had lumped together both failed and successful policies, so I avoided the referring to either of them in my answer, simply stating that ideology, properly applied, always takes precedence because a system that takes cold, non-ideological decisions isn’t worth conserving.

I was then asked by the Oxfordian SSCY if I would acknowledge the existence of two differing opinions within the Judeo-Christian framework. For example, did not many Southern slaveholders consider themselves good Christians? I explained in reply that, in this case, as in many cases, there may be two differing points of view, and, once again, in this case as in many other cases, one of those opinions will be wrong. One will be based on a misunderstanding.

A quick follow-up question: “And who is the arbiter? Who decides which is the right opinion?”

“We decide that when we vote,” I answered.

I was then put in the most difficult spot of the evening by the former chairman, who cited an historical example of a Christian-driven system that functioned in a communistic manner (an example with which I was unfamiliar). Rather than question the existence of the system he described, I claimed (affecting while in reality inventing knowledge of his example) that it did not represent a Judeo-Christian system because it had no emphasis on Judaism. The answer was somewhat weak, and another Tory asked me to explain how an emphasis on Judaism would conflict with a communistic system.

“Judaism,” I explained, “places an emphasis on the individual that Christianity alone does not. As it says in Pirkei Avos, ‘bemakom sh’ayn anashim, hishtadel lihiot ish’: ‘in a place where there are no men, try to be a man.’ The emphasis is on individualism as opposed to collectivism, and a proper Judeo-Christian system is therefore inherently un-communistic.”

The truth of the matter is that the quotation above is one of a few I know that seem to be useful in illustrating a wide variety of points. I was delighted that an opportunity for its use had presented itself. There were no more questions.

After I too had been thanked by the Tories and shaken hands with each of them, the chairman asked for additional speakers, but everyone who had something to say had already said it.

That being the case, the chairman, once again remarking on the lateness of the hour, asked the sergeant of arms to take the Tory Temporary Sword and divide the room into affirmative and negative sides. The whole process was conducted with a dignity notwithstanding the fact that the sight of our sergeant at arms brandishing a tiny letter opener was singularly unimpressive. Unfortunately for the affirmatives, several of our votes had left within the last half-hour (uncertain when the debate would end) and we were left with a defeat by a few votes. The chairman then announced that the first resolution of the year had failed, sealing the decision with another bang of the gavel.

I thought at this point that my evening was over (all the other freshman except one had now gone). I continued to discuss the debate (and the Tories) along with the one other freshman, and we were soon invited to continue our discussion over at the Yorkside Pizzeria (an invitation that I gladly accepted).

We were promptly recognized as the Tories upon our arrival and were seated at the back (several tables having been pushed together for us). We spent the next 45 minutes talking over a pizza, switching away from politics to talk about secret passages on campus or the fact that my father had been a Tory (of which everyone seemed aware) or about music (it transpired that the freshman sitting next to me was a French horn player). By the time the bill had been paid it seemed as though I had been part of their weekly outings for as many years as the senior sitting next to me. I promised to show up at the Freshman Bazaar the next day to find out how to launch my petition for entry into the Tories, which I was assured would be granted.

This was my introduction to political debate at Yale, and to the Tories, who continue the tradition of thinking, which is often hard to find – especially at a university.

* The chairman from the previous term is known as the “former chairman” and all chairs previous to him are referred to as “sometime chairman” with the exception of the most senior chair, who is the SSCY (“Senior Sometime Chairman at Yale”).

American Honor at Yale

2005-08-21T11:47:00.000-07:00

In the next couple of weeks I will be on vacation from the blogosphere, making my move to the college campus and establishing yet another beachhead in the war against the receding tide of liberalism. (I plan to be back to blogolytical brilliance on the second Monday of September.)

I will leave you with an inspiring story from my future college campus. Unfortunately, some of the details no longer survive, but the story can still be told.

Yale University’s Political Union (a debate society) is made up of six parties: the leftist Liberals, Progressives, and Independents and the right-wing Conservatives, Tories, and the Party of the Right. Our story is about the Tories, who are perhaps the classiest political party, and have in particular one truly extraordinary moment they can look back on: on May Day, 1970, they rescued the American flag.

In the 70s, America’s college campuses were hotbeds of left-wing anti-Americanism (which has now moved from the students to the faculty). In 1969, under pressure from the Left, Yale had stopped allowing academic credit for ROTC. On May Day, 1970, the radicals on campus made a grab for something Americans hold dear – the flag.

Rioting liberals pulled down the flag hanging from Yale’s ROTC building, planning to burn it while other leftists prepared to burn an American flag in Beinecke Plaza. A small group of about ten Tories managed to rush in and save both flags.

Three photographs preserve the ROTC event.

The first shows a rabble of four hundred radicals ripping down the flag.

In the second, the Tories (in ties and jackets) have charged in to fight the libs, managing to beat them back and wrestle the flag free. I noticed in an enlargement of the second photo one protestor looking at the struggle from the steps of the ROTC building. Hand on his chin, he must be wondering what sort of affection could possibly have possessed this tiny group of students. What makes that piece of cloth so dear to them?

Finally, Tories triumphant, Stars and Stripes safely in hand. Holding the flag in the last photo are Kevin McKeegan, Yale '71(left) and Pat Quinn, Yale '72. The photographs belong to McKeegan, who wrote of the event:

"For Tories these were glorious days. On their shoulders rested the task of organizing resistance at Yale. During the awful first week of May, 1970 the Tories saved the American flag from desecration both at Beinecke Plaza and at the ROTC building. This defeat of some four hundred by ten probably better points up the physical weakness of the Left than the immense vitality of the Right. Still, let it be remembered with fondness."

My thanks to the Tories for having nobly and brilliantly done their duty. I hope to become one of them myself this fall.

The Iran Problem

2005-08-14T17:43:00.000-07:00

Iran rejected last week a proposal by the E-3 (Britain, France, and Germany) that would have promised it all the uranium fuel it would need (and access to peaceful nuclear technology) provided it promised to return spent fuel rods so they could not be enriched for bomb making purposes.

News reports tell us that Iran is building a heavy-water reactor, ostensibly for peaceful purposes, that could be completed in as little as four years. Heavy-water reactors can use non-enriched uranium ore; the spent fuel can have weapons-grade plutonium extracted from it. Iran’s reactor could produce enough material for one bomb per year. The reactor site, by the way, is encircled by anti-aircraft guns – no doubt intended to stop the peaceful aircraft that may come to visit Iran’s peaceful nuclear program.

Iran’s move to reject the E-3’s too-generous proposal (which probably could and would have been cheated on) leaves no doubt that Iranian officials are lying when they say they want peaceful nuclear power – just as they lied when they assured us they were temporarily halting enrichment, and lied before that in claiming that they didn’t even have a nuclear program (which they kept secret for nearly two decades and revealed in 2003). Letting an evil government such as Iran’s get nuclear weapons would be catastrophic; do we doubt that such weapons would be sold to terrorists (or even used directly) to attack the US, Israel, the UK, and other targets?

We should stop offering Iran rewards for dropping its nuclear program. Iran has demonstrated that negotiations merely buy more time for the Iranian nuclear program, and that the Mullahs sign and break treaties indifferently. It is time to deliver an ultimatum (force is the only diplomat a tyranny respects). We should tell Iran: stop your nuclear program, or we will stop it for you.

Of course Iran will not accept this ultimatum, and the US with therefore have a chance to fulfill its responsibility to undo the damage the Carter administration allowed.

Iran’s government has admitted to hating the United States (“the Great Satan”). It believes that its policies run no risk. We ought to show Iran that this belief is false. Iran is ripe for a counter-revolution – the Islamic government is unpopular and its grip on power is tenuous. There are plenty of Iranians who would participate in such a revolution, but they need our help to get things started. We could use missile strikes to destroy the government’s communications network and plunge Iran into chaos. (And certainly the loss of Ayatollah Ali Hoseini-Khamenei or President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would be no disaster). From this chaos would emerge a new popular government, friendly to the US (and without nuclear weapons).

A nuclear Iran would pose an unprecedented threat to the region and the world, and a democratic Iran could produce equally great benefits. This is a great opportunity, but it will take political guts (the rarest kind). We are living at a time when there is a solution to the Iran problem. Fomenting a popular revolution in Iran may not guarantee success, but doing nothing will guarantee failure. We must take on Iran now, while the solution still exists.

Celebrating the Bomb that Ended WWII

2005-08-07T10:47:00.000-07:00

On August 6, 1945, the B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay, piloted by Col. Paul Tibbets, dropped the uranium bomb “Little Boy” on Hiroshima. It did exactly what it was supposed to: killed 66,000 people and injured a similar number. Three days later, on August 9, BocksCar dropped the plutonium bomb “Fat Man” on Nagasaki, killing 40,000. The Japanese emperor decided early the next day that Japan would surrender.

Nowadays the revisionist view that we were unjustified in dropping the bomb is popular, especially in America’s public school system – notwithstanding the fact that it is wrong, as Donald Kagan explained in his brilliant Sept. 1995 Commentary piece.

60^th anniversary documentaries tend to show Japan as the victim, ruthlessly attacked by the United States; footage of Japanese seeking medical treatment for horrible radiation burns is played again and again.

Revisionists argue that Japan was on the verge of surrender – even actively seeking to surrender – and that America dropped the bomb anyway, perhaps merely as a show of force to intimidate the Soviets.

Declassified Ultra intercepts from the last days of the war now reveal that Japan had no intention of surrendering unconditionally, and that the Japanese hoped to make a land invasion so costly to the US that we would be forced to settle for peace terms that would have preserved Japan’s militaristic old order.

We now know too that Operation Olympic, the land invasion of Japan, would probably not have gone ahead. As Richard Frank writes in his August 8 Weekly Standard piece, “Why Truman Dropped the Bomb,” this was not because the invasion “was deemed unnecessary, but because it had become unthinkable.” An invasion would simply have cost too much. But of course without an invasion, we’d have been left with no way to the end the war – except for the atomic bomb.

Americans have a natural tendency to feel sorry for people, even bad people. They also have a tendency to forget. We must remember that you win wars by killing the enemy. We must also remember that we were fighting one of the most cruel, brutal, bestial regimes the world had ever known. (See Arnold Brackman’s The Other Nuremberg). The final and total destruction of this regime by means of atomic weapons is an achievement in which Americans can take pride.

The aggressor nation obviously bears the responsibility for the damage it suffers – just as if someone rear-ends you on the highway, the damage to his own car is his fault. If the Japanese were not prepared to accept the consequences of war, they should not have started one.

In a few days, on August 15, we will celebrate the 60^th anniversary of VJ day – victory over Japan. We cannot begin to imagine what this day would be like had there been no victory to celebrate. It is easy to say self-righteously in retrospect that ‘we should have found another way to win the war.’ What other way? And how would you explain this to a soldier who would have been ordered to land in the first wave of the invasion that never had to take place? We won the war in the best way we could have – with the fewest American casualties – and that’s a blessing.

Get Rove!

2005-07-31T15:29:00.000-07:00

Leftists are still complaining about Karl Rove’s ‘leak.’ They are indignant that Valerie Plame’s identity should have been revealed. Some, such as John Kerry, call for Rove’s resignation; others, such as CNN columnist Anthony Sebok, call for Plame to sue Rove; still others seem to think he should be shot for his “treasonous act.” Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has called for legislation stripping Rove of his security clearance; House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has called for Rove to be fired.

All of these anti-Rovists may be embarrassed (though I doubt it) to learn that new grand jury testimony indicates that the Plame leak actually occurred in “reverse”– that Rove learned about Plame from Novak. (Which of course would mean that Democratic “fire Rove” hype has been off the mark.)

Despite this point, and despite the fact that Plame has not been undercover oversees for more than five years (which removes any legal possibility of a crime’s having been committed) the liberal outrage, which popped up only after Rove was connected to the story, is inexhaustible.

This outrage seems stranger still in light of the fact that the aforementioned Senator John Kerry is himself guilty of outing CIA Agent Fulton Armstrong several weeks ago at a confirmation hearing for UN Ambassador Nominee John Bolton.

The CIA had asked that the agent’s name be withheld, but that did not stop Kerry from inserting it into a question to Bolton: “Did Otto Reich share his belief that Fulton Armstrong should be removed from his position?” In answering the question Bolton replaced “Armstrong” with the pseudonym “Smith,” but of course the damage had been done.

Kerry defended his gaffe by claiming that Armstrong’s name “had already been in the press” – like Valerie Plame’s?

The leftist reaction to the leak is important because it tells us more about the left. Liberals are selectively outraged. They don’t really care about the national security implications in either case (which are likely to be slight). They do care about Karl Rove. They recognize him as one of the top thinkers inside the Beltway, and many believe he is responsible for getting Bush elected.

Above all, Liberals make their classic mistake of taking the American people for dummies. When Senator Schumer or Senator Durbin gets in front the cameras once again for another world-shaking press conference, he actually believes that he is being taken seriously. This leads to Leftist self-righteous pseudo-patriotic pontification.

If either Rove or Kerry is guilty of anything, it is a simple mistake. Nevertheless, if the Democrats want to remain credible, they should assume that Kerry is guilty right off the bat – as they believe Rove is – and demand his resignation. I don’t think they will make that effort, though, which makes them increasingly the party that brings laughter into millions of households on a daily basis.

United Nations UNraveling

2005-07-24T10:10:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year, Iqbal Riza resigned as UN Secretary General Kofi Annan’s Chief of Staff after it was revealed that he had ordered the shredding of three year’s worth of pertinent documents the day after the UN Security Council approved an investigation of the Oil-for-Food scandal.

Kofi called it “careless,” and immediately gave Riza another UN job as his own “special advisor.”

What does a special advisor do? Shred documents, of course.

Fox News reported on July 15 that Riza “has been shredding large quantities of unknown documents in his new 10th-floor U.N. office across the street from the U.N. Secretariat building.” A UN staffer and eyewitness reported that Riza showed up for his first day of work loaded down with cartons of papers that he promptly put through an office shredder. Every day Riza came to work, he would bring more documents with him. (“It became the office joke,” said the UN staffer.)

Riza has now moved on again – to “a new, high-level U.N. position dealing with ‘world peace.’”

Just imagine what the press reaction would be to a similar story in the Bush administration -- “CNN has learned that Karl Rove has been shredding carton-loads of documents relating to the Valerie Plame leak." The press would explode.

But, of course, a Bush administration scandal would be serious – because the world takes the Bush administration seriously. It’s not the same with the UN: a $110-billion gaffe, complete with comic cover-up, is exactly what we expect from them.

Who would take seriously an organization that has countries like Cuba, the Congo, Egypt, North Korea, and China on its Human Rights Commission? The UN is a failure – it lacks power and has too many members to be able to agree decisively on an issue.

What the UN doesn’t lack is a huge (almost $3 billion) annual budget, of which the United Stated pays 25%.

Failed programs should be scrapped and replaced with something that works. Let’s withdraw from the UN, and pitch all those corrupt bureaucrats (along with their disgraceful exhibit of “artifacts” from the atomic bomb blasts) right out onto the sidewalk. Let’s save the building (because it happens to be a nice building) and put something worthwhile in it. Let’s take the cash we save and spend it on our own projects.

We should create a new international body. This one will mirror the only effective such group the world has ever seen. It will contain the United States, Britain, and Russia (not because Russia deserves it, but because it is now on the tipping point between democracy and tyranny and needs to be pulled in the right direction). Meetings of the three will be informal; agreed actions will be taken in part by each nation, handled by the three individually with no separate multi-national organization handing out cash or sending its own blue-helmeted soldiers to do the job.

Eventually, we may extend invitations to other nations to join– but they will not be sent to dictatorships or anti-American governments. The total membership will remain small so the body can remain effective.

Life without the United Nations seems horrifying to some people. But what, in reality, does the UN do? It tells the world where it should spend its charity money. It is an international busybody. It has no effective way to control human rights violations or global security threats (like North Korea). There is nothing that a consensus of nations could not do better.

Will Kofi retire? “Hell no,” he says. Maybe it’s time for us to retire him. Hell yes.

The Disaster of the Space Shuttle

2005-07-17T10:35:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, July 16, NASA delayed the shuttle launch indefinitely because of a fuel-gauge failure. This is the latest in a string of delays that has prevented NASA from launching a manned mission ever since the Columbia exploded on reentry in 2003.

Just last week, lady astronaut Eileen Collins had spoken of her hopes for the mission: "The world is watching but I'm not focused on the world watching. I'm focused on the priorities: Getting things done on time but doing them safely."

Of course she was wrong to say that the world is watching. The world couldn’t care less about the shuttle, which emerged from a bored, cut-rate space program bent on low orbits at bargain prices. The shuttle's original creation has been a disaster in itself – in fact the dominating disaster of the modern space program.

Why should the world be watching? We know what the shuttle will do: it will travel into space – where the crewmen will perform some experiments that nobody cares about and add some parts to the international space station that nobody cares about. Then it will return to earth. If we’re lucky, it won’t explode.

On January 27, 1967, astronauts Gus Grissom, Edward White, and Roger Chaffee were killed in a fire during a dress-rehearsal for Apollo 1. The fire resulted in a completely re-engineered Apollo capsule. The space program resumed when this rework was complete. That was the first and the last time we lost men during the Apollo program.

On January 28, 1986, 73 seconds after liftoff, the shuttle Challenger exploded as a result of an O-ring failure in one of its two Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs). All seven astronauts were killed. The physicist Richard Feynman is credited with discovering the O-ring problem (he found that the O-ring rubber lost its elasticity at low temperatures and failed to act as a fire insulator). He made many other findings, which were included as an appendix to the Challenger accident report.

Feynman noted the surprisingly great differences between the failure-rate predictions of engineers and of NASA managers: the engineers predicted a failure rate of roughly 1 in 100; management predicted a failure rate of 1 in 100,000. In practice, the failure rate has turned out to be closer to 1 in 50 (there have been 113 launches to date). Feynman spotted significant problems not only with the SRBs but with the main engines and their components, the avionics, and the gradually falling standards of the Flight Readiness Reviews. He wrote: “It would appear that, for whatever purpose, be it for internal or external consumption, the management of NASA exaggerates the reliability of its product, to the point of fantasy.” He compared NASA’s handling of O-ring erosion to Russian roulette (“the fact that the first shot got off safely is little comfort for the next”). He would probably be shocked to learn that the shuttle is still “flying” today on its 24^th anniversary, and still using plenty of original 1980s technology, such as memory units with reel-to-reel tape readers.

Feynman would also probably be surprised to learn that “Russian roulette” came up again after the second disaster, this time with respect to insulating foam coming off the orbiter in flight (the cause of the Columbia disaster). This time, six-flight shuttle veteran Story Musgrave made the comment. He described foam coming off the orbiter as an alarmingly common event that was bound to create a disaster sooner or later. (“NASA's tried to kill me for 30 years if you get right down to it,” he added).

Problems on the shuttle remain, and may be too difficult to be “worth” fixing – Deputy Shuttle Program Manager Wayne Hale has said that if the wayward fuel gauge on Discovery cannot be fixed in a few weeks, NASA may launch the shuttle anyway, although the shuttle’s main engines are shut down once orbit is reached by a computer that depends on a correct fuel reading.

But no one will pay any attention to the space shuttle unless it does something exciting, like blowing up.

The decrepit vehicle was never designed to push back the boundaries of manned space-exploration. We need a new ship and a new mission.

Remember that we didn’t know exactly what we’d find on the moon. Our landing was mainly for the sake of landing, of exploring new places. Scientific and economic motives were secondary – spiritual motives came first. It was America’s romantic impulse.

That romantic impulse still exists; it just needs something to feed on. This is not just a question of spending money wisely (although no money is less well-spent than the cash that sends the next shuttle back up to put a new control moment-gyroscope on the space station). We need something that captures the imagination – that sparks the interest of a new generation of astronauts and rocket scientists. And we need something that America will take pride in and care about. Let’s go to Mars. Let’s go where no man has ever gone before.

Fill 'er Up

2005-07-10T09:52:00.000-07:00

Underneath the frozen 19.6 million acres of the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge known as ANWR (currently a seasonal home for several thousand caribou) lies oil – a lot of oil: 5.7 to 16 billion barrels, according to the US Geological Survey. Of course we don’t have to use all 19.6 million acres to get at that oil – 2000 acres or about 0.01% of the total will be sufficient for a production area that could give us more oil than Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, and New Mexico combined.

200 miles out to sea, in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), lies a further estimated 46 billion barrels of oil – most of it off the California coast. Considerably closer to shore on the Atlantic side, off Florida, is still more oil.

All this crude is currently untapped and untappable, thanks to green (and yellow) legislators: The moratorium on offshore drilling that affects Florida is not scheduled to expire until 2012, California has permanently banned drilling off its coast, and the ANWR ban is stuck in limbo between the House and Senate versions of the budget bill.

Yes, there is majority support for drilling: A 2005 Harris Interactive nationwide survey found that 53% of Americans want to open ANWR for drilling. Among Alaskans, support for drilling in ANWR is even stronger: two Dittman surveys taken five years apart found support constant at 75%, with opposition dropping from 23 to 19%. Eskimo support is even stronger: 78% in favor and just 9% opposed.

When the Sierra club looks at Alaskans’ strong support for drilling in their state, they have a simple explanation: Alaskans have been brainwashed. You can find another simple explanation by asking Alaskans why they don’t want ANWR to remain closed except to caribou: as the Alaska Federation of Natives explained, drilling in ANWR is a “critically important economic opportunity for Alaska natives.”

Of course it is naive to think that Greens care about the population of Alaska (or of the United States). It’s even naive to think that Greens care about the caribou – if they did, they would have noticed that while most caribou populations in Alaska have been falling, the Central Arctic herd, which spends its summers in the oil fields near Prudhoe Bay, has been growing at about 8.5 percent per year.

There is no place to hide from the logic of opening ANWR.

Prudhoe Bay is the largest oil field in North America. Originally predicted to hold 8 billion barrels of recoverable oil, Prudhoe has already given us more than 14 billion – but production has been slowing since the 80s, and it is time to develop Alaska’s other oil fields. After all, this might be the caribou’s only chance for survival.

Of course getting at that buried oil would be good for humans too – we could realize as much as 2 million barrels a day at peak production from ANWR alone (not to mention the OCS and other off-shore resources). ANWR could provide us with about 10% of our daily oil consumption.

While one CATO researcher predicted in 2001 that this increase in American oil production would knock only $2 off the price of a barrel of crude, he was talking about a $20 barrel of oil. Four years later, with prices above $60 per barrel, a similar percent reduction in price would mean considerably more.

When dealing with environmentalists you must remember that they do not have human interests – your interests – in mind. Environmentalism is a religion – a kind of paganism that worships animals and inanimate objects. And environmentalists would like to see Americans reduced to living as animals do. Some groups are fairly open about this – like the eco-terrorist Earth Liberation Front (ELF). On their website I read this response to an e-mail that asked why the organization feels free to commit arson and destroy homes and SUVs:

“At least ELF gets its point across. Do you people know how unbelievably frustrating that something that is so important to me, something that I believe in, is disregarded and ignored by everyone else. The environment is important, and if this (arson) is the only effective way of getting that point across…I have no problem destroying an SUV or some stupid mansion. I mean, you people don’t even realize the magnificence of what you are bulldozing to erect some stupid shopping mall. I for one, refuse to go quietly.”

Most greens, of course, are not criminals; they are merely uninformed cultists. That does not give them a claim to majority status in this country or the right to control America’s natural recourses. There is plenty of oil out there, and we need it. While the environmentalist lobby continues to work on wind-powered cars, I plan to go on using real gasoline and I would like to see fuel rationing remain no more than an embarrassing reminder of the Carter administration. Drill away.

Happy Fourth and God Bless America

2005-07-04T06:06:00.000-07:00

What are we doing in Vietnam?

2005-06-26T14:54:00.000-07:00

In April 1975 Marine helicopters lifted the last Americans off the rooftop of our embassy in Saigon, and out of Vietnam. By the end of the month the Communist forces had taken control of all Indo-China and embarked on one of the most horrific social-engineering experiments in world history. These crimes are unknown to many Americans – for example the kids my age who didn't learn about them in school, and the former Vietnam War protestors who are afraid to acknowledge what a disaster the American withdrawal turned out to be. The ignorance is overwhelming: a search for "Vietnam atrocities" on the web will bring you reports of American "atrocities!"

Communist regimes murdered millions in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. The Commies were at their worst in Cambodia, under the Khmer Rouge and the social re-engineering of the Angka Loeu, whose plan was first put into action in April 1975. As Paul Johnson explains in his brilliant history Modern Times:

"On April 17 over 3 million people were living in Phnom Penh. They were literally pushed into the countryside...Every hospital was emptied. All papers and records in the city were destroyed. All books were thrown into the Mekong River or burned on the banks...Rockets and bazookas were fired at houses where any movement was detected. There were many summary executions. The rest were told, 'Leave immediately or we will shoot all of you.' By evening the water supply was cut off...

"On April 23 troops began emptying other cities... In Siem Reap over one-hundred patients in the Monte Peth hospital were murdered in their beds with clubs and knives; forty more were killed in the military hospital. Following the pattern of Stalin in Poland, there were massacres of officers: at Mongkol Borei, for instance, a group of two-hundred were driven into a minefield laid specially for the purpose. At the Svay Pagoda near Sisophon, eighty-eight pilots were clubbed to death. Other groups murdered en masse were street beggars, prostitutes, the seriously wounded and incurably sick found in hospitals, civil servants, teachers and students."

Those are the true atrocities of the Vietnam War. The similar crimes of the Vietnamese government prompted tens of thousands of "boat people" to risk their lives leaving Vietnam – and six out of ten never made it. Reformed Communist and former PRG Minister of Justice Truong Nhu Tang was a successful escapee. He wrote of Communist Vietnam: “Never has any previous regime brought such masses of people to such desperation. Not the military dictators, not the colonialists, not even the ancient Chinese overlords.” The Communists are still in power today, of course, and the repression continues, except that Vietnam is no longer openly called a murderous dictatorship – it is instead a “Country of Particular Concern.”

And so on Tuesday, June 21, President Bush received the Communist Vietnamese Prime Minister Phan Van Khai at the White House, and, in a disgraceful fit of ‘reaching out’ reminiscent of the Clinton Presidency, accepted an invitation to go to Vietnam. In the meantime, a group of about 200 mostly Vietnamese-American protestors outside the White House was ignored.

Later that evening, Commie Van Khai was introduced at a formal dinner by none other than former Vietnam POW Senator John McCain. The dinner was briefly interrupted when a balding protestor, believed to be a Vietnam Vet, shouted “you’re a traitor!” towards the stage. The man was quickly kicked out by security guards. Since McCain

has apparently forgotten what he was doing at the Hanoi Hilton (and what was done to him) I will remind him with excerpts from one of his own pieces:

“We say [“before I got killed”] instead of "before I got shot down," because in becoming a prisoner in North Vietnam was like being killed.

“They took me out of my room to "Slopehead," [an interrogator] who said, "You have violated all the camp regulations. You're a black criminal. You must confess your crimes." I said that I wouldn't do that, and he asked, "Why are you so disrespectful of guards?" I answered, "Because the guards treat me like an animal."

“When I said that, the guards – who were all in the room, about 10 of them – really laid into me. They bounced me from pillar to post, kicking and laughing and scratching. After a few hours of that, ropes were put on me and I sat that night bound with ropes. Then I was taken to a small room. For punishment they would almost always take you to another room where you didn't have a mosquito net or a bed or any clothes. For the next four days, I was beaten every two to three hours by different guards. My left arm was broken again and my ribs were cracked.”

Did McCain stand up with hundreds of other prisoners under that gruesome torture only to find himself 30 years later as a consummate politician, whispering sweet nothings into the ear of the Communist government responsible for that torture?

As any of my regular blog readers knows, I support the Bush administration. And that makes me all the more disgusted with Bush and McCain and wishy-washy Republicans in general when something like this happens. I expect to see a morally vacuous leader like Clinton go to Vietnam, or reopen trade with the Vietnamese Communists (both of which he did – the US is now Vietnam’s largest trading partner). Equally, I expect leaders who have shown dignity and courage to understand that the fight is not over just because the war is over. As long as the Communists are still in power – as long as a man can be tried and sentenced to prison in half a day for using the word “democracy” – Vietnam is our enemy.

A Crying Shame: The Feminized Military

2005-06-19T10:18:00.000-07:00

“To me, the very fact that this issue is being discussed and this meeting is being held simply shows that you really don’t take the military seriously. For you, the military is not a question of life and death… So you can afford to make all kinds of experiments, which we cannot… The very fact that you have this debate may itself be construed as proof that it’s not serious. It’s a game. It’s a joke.”
- Israeli Military Historian Martin Van Creveld, on the issue of women in the military

That’s what it was -- a pathetic joke. I was sitting at my lunch table looking at the cover of Time, which sported a photograph of three graduates of West Point’s “Class of 9/11.” There they stood in their immaculate gray cadet uniforms: two men -- and one woman. The hilt of her ceremonial sword peaked out from under her arm.

I had borrowed the magazine from a friend across the table -- my interest was peaked when I heard someone describe one of the West Pointers covered in Time’s story as a “loser.” What could earn a West Point cadet such a reaction?

I flipped through the story to find the section on their cover girl. She talked about how she stood next to a female friend of hers (who had planned to leave the academy) and took the “Commitment Day Oath” that marks the two-year point: “We were bawling, but we made it through.” That’s it -- there is crying at West Point. Our cadet used this friend of hers as “a shoulder to cry on” -- literally.

The military has been forced into pretending to take female soldiers seriously, and Time magazine is one of the believers -- it seems that the editors completely miss the tragic comedy inherent in lines from their article like, “One girl wrote how [the instructing officer] made her cry but in time you made her a better leader.”

In a 1974 congressional hearing on the issue of women in the military academies, Secretary of the Army Howard H. Callaway worried that “admitting women to West Point will irrevocably change the Academy” and that “the Spartan atmosphere…would surely be diluted.” Air Force Academy Superintendent Lieutenant General Albert P. Clark predicted that the academies would “find it necessary to create a modified program to accommodate the female cadet, or, God forbid, to water down the entire program.”

Both ominous predictions have come true.

The fact that women are not suited for and are barred from combat, but are nevertheless admitted to our military academies, is the basic logical flaw that has destroyed the academies’ once powerful reputations as serious schools for war. Their primary mission has switched from preparing men for combat to preparing people for careers in the military. They have switched from judging by performance to judging by effort.

The corruption of these military institutions was signed into law by President Ford on October 7, 1975. Public Law 94-106:

“(1) female individuals shall be eligible for appointment and admission to the service academy concerned…beginning in calendar year 1976, and (2) the academic and other relevant standards required for appointment, admission, training, graduation, and commissioning of female individuals shall be the same as those required for male individuals, except for those minimum essential adjustments in such standards required because of physiological differences between male and female individuals.”

Right off the bat there were “minimum essential adjustments.” The legislators and the military knew from the beginning that women would not be capable of meeting the accepted standards. They also surely knew that it doesn’t matter how hard you try to kill someone -- it’s whether he ends up dead that counts.

What did these “minimum essential adjustments” turn out to be? Start by visiting West Point’s admissions website and checking out the physical standards. The Candidate Fitness Assessment is broken into six events, each of which is graded out of a possible score of 100 points. Here are some selections: A perfect score on the pull-ups test for a man is 18 reps. For a woman it is 7 reps (though a woman can be admitted without being able to do any pull-ups -- females have the option of hanging from the bar with arms flexed instead). A perfect score on pushups requires a man to do 75, a woman to do 50. A perfect score on the mile-run is 5:20 for a man and 6:00 for a woman (although many suppose men to be superior only in upper-body strength). A perfect score on the one-armed basketball throw from the kneeling position will require a distance of 102 feet for a man, and 66 feet for a woman.

These corrupt double-standard physical requirements now extend through every branch of the regular military. In the Marine Corps, for example, a male Marine has to do a minimum of 3 dead-hand pull-ups; a female Marine has to hang from the bar with arms flexed for 16 seconds. But this look at the fitness tests only scratches the surface.

Problems started with the first integrated classes in 1976. The first thing West Pointers noticed was that women were injured more often in field training -- five times as often as men in the first year, fourteen times as often in the next.

As Brian Mitchell points out in his excellent book Women in the Military (1998) women at West Point lagged far behind the men even when they were healthy:

“On their first timed two-mile run, 85 percent of female plebes at West Point received a score of D or lower according to the male standard. When 61 percent failed a complete physical test, compared to 4.8 percent of male plebes, separate standards were devised for the women. Similar adjustments were made to other standards. At Annapolis, a two-foot stepping stool was added to an indoor obstacle course to enable women to surmount an eight-foot wall. At West Point, women carried M16 rifles for rifle-runs and bayonet drills, while men continued to carry much heavier M14s. On parade, West Point women were initially allowed to brace the M14 on their knee when drawing back the bolt for inspection. Later, the bolt springs were shortened to reduce tension, making the bolt easier to draw.”

Wrestling and boxing were replaced with martial arts and self-defense. Women’s low peer-ratings were compensated for at the Air Force Academy by higher officer ratings, and at Annapolis by discontinuing the peer-rating system. In the first year of integration, West Point’s full combat-gear 2.5-mile Enduro run made use of a double standard to allow women to “earn” the Recondo patch even if they could not complete the run. In the second year women were held to the same standards as men and failed spectacularly. In the third year, the Enduro run was dropped. Upperclassmen at the Air Force Academy were ordered to use “positive motivation” for the females, and to continue picking on the men (it was customary for upperclassmen to toughen up new recruits). Where it had once been traditional to make it easy for men who where weak in commitment to leave the academies, women were actively encouraged to stay. At Annapolis, a female midshipmen was allowed to graduate and receive her commission despite having refused to complete the mandatory 34-foot jump into water, simulating abandon ship, because of her fear of heights. As Stephanie Gutmann wrote in The Kinder, Gentler Military (2000) women in Army basic training often begin to cry when they have to descend from a rappelling tower, and some women are so panic-stricken that they cannot rappel at all.

In perhaps the most reckless display of feminism, women are allowed to serve on shipboard even though a 1981 Navy study showed that they are not capable of handling heavy fire equipment, carrying stretchers, or advancing hose lines. Needless to say, such incompetence puts the lives of men and the safety of the ship at risk. It is an immoral thing to allow.

Integration was billed as a tremendous success while men behind the scenes worked overtime to prevent its failure from coming to light. As Mitchell reports, for example, “West Point’s ‘Institutional Plans to Overcome Sexism’ called for tighter controls on the gathering of data related to integration to ‘avoid research activities which have sexist consequences.’” If the facts proved integration to be a mess, the feminist response was to stop collecting facts.

Several studies were commissioned to prove that women could serve in the military, but their conclusions were often contradicted by the evidence. A 1977 field test (REF WAC 77) monitored integrated NATO operations in Germany. 29 percent of females failed to report for “personal reasons.” Once again, as Mitchell reports, women needed help lifting their equipment and complained about the absence of shower facilities; some refused to leave their tents at night “for fear of the dark.” REF WAC 77 concluded that there was no evidence that women worsened performance of their units.

The 1981 Women In The Army policy review group (WITA) broke ranks. This was largely because of the date: The Carter administration had put tremendous pressure on the military and its research commissions to move towards quotas of women in the military; the Regan administration was not actively for or against women in the military (except in combat) and did not keep WITA from reporting what they found. WITA devised a system of Direct Combat Probability Coding (DCPC) designed to locate dangerous positions in the services and close them to women. They also studied the often overlooked issue of strength required in non-combat positions. (On one occasion, WITA members went to Aberdeen and saw women who were being certified as ammunition handlers moving large crates of ammo with apparent ease. Later they discovered that the women were being tested with empty crates because they could not carry loaded ones.) WITA developed a strength test called MEPSCAT which they recommended for all enlistees to determine what jobs they were strong enough to serve in -- a seemingly commonsense requirement. WITA’s report was attacked by the civilian feminist lobby, and suppressed. The feminists never found anything wrong with WITA’s methods or the information they gathered -- they simply attacked the conclusion on principal. Despite the fact that the report had been validated by an independent research group, WITA was officially discredited through the complaints of civilian activist groups. DCPC and MEPSCAT were ignored. As a result, women continue to serve in positions where they are not capable of doing their required jobs because they are not strong enough. (Women mechanics, for example, have trouble changing tires and carrying their own tool boxes, and often have to have men do part of the job for them).

It is not easy to pull women into the military, because the vast majority of women do not want to become professional soldiers. This is obvious on a very basic level -- little girls do not like playing army. Women enlistees “are much more likely to list practical, selfish reasons for joining the services, such as education, travel, and money.” Men are more likely to join out of patriotism, and are drawn to the romantic warrior ideal that women simply (obviously) do not identify with. As a result, recruiting women to fill quotas has proved to be tremendously costly (in money and quality). The Army has had to lower recruiting standards for women, and turn away qualified men, in order to fill the required percentages.

As a taxpayer, you are also paying for wasted pseudo-combat training for women, and for the fact that women leave the service at a much higher rate than men. You are paying for smaller equipment that women can wear, and longer wrenches that women can turn. You are paying for more comfortable helicopter seats (women complained of back pain); you spent $70,000 to plaster the Pentagon’s Military Women’s Corridor with feminist propaganda. You are paying literally hundreds of millions of dollars to recruit people who don‘t want the job and can’t do it. Worst of all, you are paying in your decreased national security. Every time a female officer with no combat experience becomes a general, we lose one male general officer -- and you pay for that. When, on average, 20% of woman sailors on shipboard become pregnant and have to be flown back to land, leaving the ship undermanned, you pay for that. When combat units are supplied by companies with women who cannot lift their own equipment, you pay for that. And our soldiers (the ones who fight) pay for it.

What about fairness? What about fairness for the fighting military? What about national security for the American people? The military is being pulled down by radical ideologues. This is why there has been such a great expansion in the use of Special Ops forces and elite units like the Army Rangers -- which allow no women. If the military academies want to be taken seriously again, it will be a long fight back to where they once were. Take out your handkerchiefs.

GOPINION.COM

2005-06-13T11:45:00.000-07:00

A Brand-New news source is now available at GOPinion.com. The GOPinion editors select the best conservative news stories on the web from 76 different blogs (including this one). Check GOPinion for your daily digest.

The True Story of Reaganomics

2005-06-12T11:31:00.000-07:00

Note: This is a research piece and I must therefore cite my sources. Since, however, the use of footnotes or endnotes is not available to me on this blog, I am forced to use parentheticals, which are ugly.

At the end of President Jimmy Carter’s four years, the American economy (and America in general) was in crisis. Rate of change of productivity was only a quarter of what it had been under Nixon and Ford (the only Presidents of the century who have performed more poorly in this department than Carter were Clinton and Hoover) (Cato 6). Real median family income was declining steeply (Cato 5-6). Worst of all was the combination of a stagnant economy and high inflation (“stagflation”) which seemed to violate Keynesian economic principle (D’Souza 90).

Keynes’s economics was the mainstay of the failed Carter policy. It had been developed by John Maynard Keynes during the great depression and enjoyed great success during the WWII era. It was “premised on the notion that experts can control the ups and downs of the economy by manipulating government spending and money supply” (D’Souza 90). Central to Keynesian theory was the Phillips Curve, which states that there is an inverse relationship between inflation and unemployment (D’Souza 90). The simultaneous double-digit inflation and the high unemployment rates of the Carter administration was baffling to the Keynesians -- fortunately, the American public had a chance to hurl Carter out of office just in time for Reagan to come in and clean things up.

Reagan had three major economic theories to choose from. First, the tried and untrue Keynesian view. Second, Monetarism, championed by Milton Friedman. The Monetarists believed that the bad economy (specifically high inflation) was the result of having too much money in circulation (D’Souza 90). They therefore favored strict control of money supply as a means of lowering inflation.

The last school of thought was supply-side economics. Supply-siders wanted to cut tax rates, thereby increasing the incentive of workers to produce, and “invigorating the economy from the production or ‘supply’ side” (D’Souza 90). Supply-side economics encourages growth “arising from a free response (e.g. investment, hard work, etc.)” (Bartlett 3).

Supply-side economics is identified with economists Robert Mundell and Arthur Laffer. The Laffer Curve, central to supply-side theory, predicts that there are two different rates of taxation that will generate the same government revenue, and that there is a single optimal rate that generates the most revenue (D’Souza 91). For example, if the government were to tax the people at 0% or 100%, the revenue generated would be zero dollars in either case -- at 0% the government will not be collecting, at a 100% the people will have no incentive to produce (D’Souza 91). The idea therefore was to achieve increased government revenue with tax rates lower than they had been under the Carter administration. Interestingly enough, this theory had been advanced by President Coolidge in 1924 (quoted in Bartlett 211). It is also worth noting that Reagan would achieve the second-longest period of sustained economic growth in the 20th century with the second-largest tax cut. JFK had achieved the longest period of sustained economic growth in the 20th century with the largest tax cut (Cato 13).

Supply-side economics has often been unfairly caricatured as “trickle-down” economics by its opponents. They claim that Reagan’s tax policies were designed to stimulate the economy by giving all riches to the richest people, and letting the effects of their increased spending “trickle down” to the lower classes. This is not what Reagan’s tax cuts achieved -- his first and biggest tax cut was the same percentage for all income brackets. Needless to say, this resulted in a greater increase in wealth for the wealthier brackets, simply because they had been paying far greater taxes.

Reagan wanted to use a combination of monetarist and supply-side economics in a Friedman-Mundell compatibility theory that was the subject of heated debate among the leading economists of the day (Niskanen 8). The proposed economic policy had four main parts: 1) A supply-side 25% tax cut across the board; 2) Tight control of money supply as per monetarist theory; 3) A limit on domestic spending to control the budget; 4) A reduction of government regulation (Cato 2). This is Reaganomics.

Reagan predicted that his program would end the “economic woes” of the Carter administration and bring the US “lasting economic growth and prosperity” (D’Souza 85). Reagan’s plan was revolutionary -- “the most ambitious program for America since the New Deal” (D’Souza 85). Its core was tax cuts, which involved Reagan most directly and had been the main plank of his campaign platform (JEC 1).

Reagan was expected to have trouble getting his policies enacted -- tax cuts in particular. Republicans had only a slim majority in the Senate, and the Democrats controlled the House under Speaker Tip O’Neill (who turned out to be the major obstacle to Reagan’s tax plan). Reagan used the “acumen and experience of his aides, especially Chief of Staff James Baker…to win the support of moderate Republicans in the Senate and Conservative Democrats in the House,” without which he would not have had the votes he needed (D’Souza 93). In his most effective move, Reagan made a remarkable national TV address in which he requested that Americans write and call their representatives and demand passage of his tax plan. “The response was overwhelming” (D’Souza 93).

The 25% tax cuts were passed in the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 (often called the Kemp-Roth Tax Cut after its sponsors in the House and Senate respectively). The tax cut was introduced gradually, with the first cut of 5% in 1981 and the last in 1983 (JEC 1). The act also included a provision to index tax rates for inflation starting in 1985, ending the phenomenon of bracket creep (when a person earns the same in real terms but moves into a higher bracket because he is paid in devalued dollars) (D’Souza 93). Getting the act passed was, in the words of Reagan critic Ronnie Dugger, a feat that “no ordinary person could have achieved” (D’Souza 89).

In the final year of the tax cuts’ implementation (1983) the United States “commenced a seven-year period of uninterrupted growth…the biggest peacetime economic boom in US history" (D’Souza 109). As Reagan biographer Dinesh D’Souza continues:

At a growth rate of 3.5%, well above the nation’s historic average, the gross domestic product expanded by nearly a third in real terms. Measured in 1990 dollars, median family income, which had declined during the 1970s, climbed from $33,409 in 1980 to $38,493 in 1989, a 15 percent increase. While European countries were facing chronically high unemployment rates, in America 5 million new businesses and 20 million new jobs were created, largely solving the nation’s unemployment problems. Interest rates fell from 20 percent in 1980 to less that 10 percent. Despite sporadic ups and downs, including the steep fall of Black Monday in October 1987, the stock market more than doubled in value. Most spectacular, these results were achieved with low inflation. The double-digit price increase of the Carter years simply vanished; inflation became an insignificant problem in the Reagan era.

Former CEA chairman Murray Wiedenbaum made some interesting comparisons between the Carter and Reagan administrations in an op-ed for The Christian Science Monitor: “Real GDP declined by one-half of 1 percent in 1980, President Carter’s last year, and rose 3.9 percent in 1988, President Reagan’s last year…the unemployment rate declined from 7.0% in 1980 to 5.4% in 1988...real national wealth rose from $11.9 trillion in 1980 to $14.2 trillion in 1988” (Wiedenbaum 1).

The productivity rate during the Reagan administration increased two and a half times faster than it had during the Carter administration (Cato 5-6). The “Reagan Recovery” lasted 92 months -- the “second longest uninterrupted economic expansion of the century” (Cato 20). Furthermore, the supply-side theory of greater revenues from lower tax rates, along with lowered burden on the lower brackets, was vindicated. The wealthiest 1% of all Americans had paid 18% of all Federal income taxes in 1981, but by 1990, with their taxes substantially reduced, they paid 25% of all Federal income taxes (Cato 20). Similarly, the wealthiest 5% of Americans, who paid 25% of all Federal income taxes in 1981, paid 44% of all Federal income taxes in 1990 (Cato 17).

There are three chief criticisms of Reaganomics. The first is that the Reagan expansion was the result of Keynesian, not Supply-Side economics (“Reagan’s economic program actually amounted to the longest and most successful Keynesian recovery the world has yet seen” ran an erroneous editorial in Newsday) (quoted in Cato 12).

The most obvious argument against this claim is in the fact that, if this were a Keynesian recovery, the Keynesian economists would have predicted it. As D’Souza writes, most Keynesian economists “had warned instead that Reagan’s policies would lead to higher rates of inflation. Not only did this prove to be false, but the very economic facts of the recovery had once again falsified the Phillips curve” (D’Souza 110). Furthermore, since Keynesian economics operates under the belief that the economy is demand-driven, demand should have grown rapidly during the 1980s; in reality, the rate of demand growth fell (Cato 12).

The second main criticism of Reaganomics is that “the poor got poorer and the very rich grew fabulously richer, while middle-class incomes largely stagnated” (as my 11th grade history text, The American Pageant, falsely claims).

JFK once said that “a rising tide lifts all boats” and the Reagan recovery has shown this to be true. During the Reagan years, real family income increased in all five income brackets (Cato 15). During the Carter years, real family income decreased for the two poorest quintiles, stayed the same (“largely stagnated”) for the middle quintile, and increased only for the two richest quintiles (Cato 15). In other words, what the so-called textbook The American Pageant claims to have happened as a result of Reagan’s policies was actually going on during the Carter administration. The change in real family income of the poorest quintile was -5% during the Carter years and +6% during the Reagan years (Cato 16). 85.8% of those in the lowest quintile in 1979 were in a higher quintile by 1988 (Cato 16). In addition, a man who had been in the poorest quintile in 1979 was more likely to have moved to the highest quintile by 1988 than he was to still be in the lowest (Cato 15). Articles such as “The Disappearance of the Middle Class” (which appeared in the New York Times magazine) claimed that, since the middle class was getting smaller, the country must be getting poorer (D’Souza 111). This complaint ignores the fact that, while there was a fall in the percent of Americans in the middle class, there was a corresponding rise in the number of Americans in the upper class -- in other words, “a substantial number of middle-class Americans became rich” (D’Souza 113).

The last major criticism of Reaganomics is the claim that the tax cuts caused a huge increase in the budget deficit. This is untrue -- the main reason for the deficit was the increase in defense spending. The increase of $799 billion in the deficit during the Reagan years was actually smaller than the increase in defense spending of $806 billion (Cato 9). This increase in defense spending, however, was more than paid for by the Cold War victory that it helped to bring about. As D’Souza writes: “[Economist Lawrence Lindsey] calculates that the country’s defense savings since the collapse of the Soviet Union have more than compensated for the investment that Reagan made in the 1980s…In purely economic terms, the buildup was a ‘fantastic payoff -- the best money we ever spent’” (D’Souza 99).

One must also remember that it is incorrect to say simply that “deficits are bad.” All things being equal, we would rather not have a deficit. But all things are not equal: A deficit is better than a weak economy; it is better than having a communist superpower, and it is also better than having a surplus. (Remember that a surplus is actually government theft -- taking more money from the taxpayer than it needs to run the country). A deficit is also a indicator of a country that is economically strong -- it shows that people everywhere (our own citizens and foreign nations) are willing to invest in the United States. (Assuming that, as during the Reagan administration, the Treasury can keep interest rates low).

Reaganomics was tremendously successful. The “Reagan recession,” which was actually the tail-end of Carter’s great recession, ended when the tax cuts took effect, and America’s economy experienced an extraordinarily powerful recovery that lasted well into the 1990s (D’Souza 109,128). The “seemingly insoluble” problem of stagflation was solved (D’Souza 127). Reagan’s astonishingly simple solution turned out to be the best -- all we had to do was “give it back to the taxpayers” (D’Souza 67).

Bibliography:

Bartlett, Bruce R. Reaganomics: Supply Side Economics in Action. Westport: Arlington House, 1981.

D'Souza, Dinesh. Ronald Reagan. New York: The Free P, 1997.

Moore, Stephan, and William A. Niskanen. "Supply Tax Cuts and the Truth About the Reagan Economic Record." The Cato Institute (1996).
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-261.html.

Niskanen, William A. Reaganomics: An Insider's Account of the Policies and the People. New York: Oxford UP, 1988.

United States. Joint Economic Committee. The Reagan Tax Cuts: Lessons for Tax Reform. Apr. 1996.
http://www.house.gov/jec/fiscal/tx-grwth/reagtxct/reagtxct.htm.

Wiedenbaum , Murray. "Reaganomics - Its Remarkable Results'." The Christian Science Monitor. 18 Dec. 1997.
http://search.csmonitor.com/durable/1997/12/18/opin/opin.2.html.

European Unity? Not Quite

2005-06-05T16:55:00.000-07:00

What is going on with the European Union? Last week both France and Holland rejected the monstrous 448-article constitution (ours, as you know, has 7 articles). In addition it seems that Italy may drop the Euro, which has been losing against the dollar, and returning to the Lira (Italian Welfare Minister Roberto Maroni has said that "during the last three years, the Euro has turned out to be inadequate..."). In the same week, Germany's Economy Minister also spoke out against the Euro. He claims, says the UK Telegraph, "that the perverse effects of monetary union were strangling German industry." France and Germany have record high unemployment rates. The Bank of Italy predicts that there will be no economic growth throughout 2005. What has happened to the promise of European unity?

Of course the unity was never there in the first place. Europeans would like to present a united front but the individual desires and identities of the members are too powerful to allow for that. Heritage Foundation Research Fellow John Hulsman explains that the two extremes are France and England. France would like to see a socialist, protectionist anti-American Europe, while England would like the Union to be pro-America and pro-free trade.

With the introduction of the 448-article constitution, written largely by former French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing, Europeans finally had a chance to vote on the EU. The failure (and impending failure) of these votes demonstrates the Europeans’ dissatisfaction not only with the constitution, but with the introduction of the Euro, about which they were not asked, about the 10 new members, about which they were not asked, etc. Europeans are finally given a chance to protest the inch-by-inch destruction of their individuality as nations.

World bodies are generally failures. The United Nations is a failure and always has been. The UN can’t do anything of value because the members cannot agree on what should be done.

The EU also has too many members, and makes the additional mistake of attempting to legislate away the rights of individual citizens of individual countries, which citizens object to -- the Dutch want to be Dutch, not European; the English want to be English; the French want to be French (for some reason).

In order for the EU to avoid becoming an embarrassing reminder of European disunity two things have to happen: First, the EU has to get smaller. Second, the EU has to stop looking at itself as a governing body. Each nation remains sovereign and governs itself -- keeps its own currency, its own individual laws, and its own constitution. The EU therefore becomes an economic agreement, as it used to be in the common market days.

The odds are against the EU rescuing itself, though, because the rescue would run contrary to two nearly inviolable laws of bureaucracy: 1) Once it is large, it will only get larger. 2) Once it has power, it will only get more power. This means that the EU is headed for disaster, which is not necessarily a bad thing. (The last thing the world needs, of course, is another super-power to balance the United States). The EU may remain on the scene for many years, just like the United Nations; nevertheless it is likely that, once again like the UN, it will stop being taken seriously long before its demise.

Quotable Quotes from Left Field

2005-05-29T13:56:00.000-07:00

There is no shortage of ‘Dumb Bush Quotes’ sites on the internet. They are everywhere. Visit one and you find silly phrases, grammatical errors, mistakes. But you will find nothing hateful -- no claims of Democratic rottenness, stupidity, or conspiracy. Nothing like "Harry Reid is a big fat liar!" Maybe of course the Democrats are just so nice that there’s nothing bad to say about them.

The Democrats do talk a lot though, so it’s easy to assemble some quotes. Here are some lines from the Dems’ top officials, starring DNC Chairman Howard Dean and backed up by a supporting cast of Senators and Congressman:

On Bush:
"I think this guy is a loser." - Sen. Harry Reid, D-NV

"He betrayed this country! He played on our fears! He took America on an ill-conceived foreign adventure dangerous to our troops, an adventure pre-ordained and planned before 9/11 ever took place!" - Al Gore

On Republicans:
"Their idea of equal rights is the American flag and Confederate swastika flying side by side." - Julian Bond, NAACP Chairman, on the Republican Party

"You think the Republican National Committee could get this many people of color in a single room? Only if they had the hotel staff in here." - Howard Dean

"There’s corruption at the highest level of the Republican Party." - Howard Dean

"I think Tom DeLay ought to go back to Houston where he can serve his jail sentence." -Howard Dean

On Terrorism:
"[Osama bin Laden has] been out in these countries for decades, building schools, building roads, building infrastructure, building day-care facilities, building health-care facilities, and these people are extremely grateful. We haven't done that." - Sen. Patty Murray, D-WA

"There was no imminent threat. This was made up in Texas, announced in January to the Republican leadership that war was going to take place and was going to be good politically. This whole thing was a fraud," - Sen. Kennedy, D-MA

"One could say that Osama bin Laden and these non-nation-state fighters with religious purpose are very similar to those kind of atypical revolutionaries that helped to cast off the British crown." - Marcy Kaptur, Democratic Representative from Ohio

"I'm the number one target of the White House. They can't get Osama bin Laden; they're going to get me." -Sen. Jean Carnahan, D-MO

On America:
"I was embarrassed to wear it." Sen. Feinstein, D-CA, talking about her American flag pin.

On Convictions:
"Republicans have painted us into a corner where they have forced us to defend abortion. I don’t know anybody who’s for abortion." - Howard Dean

"I’ve waffled before. I’ll waffle again."- Howard Dean

On Religious Thoughts:
"I cannot imagine that God, whoever He has or She has to worry about, is going to take the time to debate the filibuster in heaven." - Sen. Dick Durbin (D, IL)

"They could call Jesus a terrorist too. I mean, he was pretty tough on money lenders a time or two." - Ramsey Clark, former Democratic Attorney General

These are just a few choice selections of Liberal “thought.” It is fairly unfortunate for these Dems that they cannot claim that they were trying to say something else or that they got the words mixed up. It’s not the words that are confused -- it’s the ideas.

The Gentleman's Last Stand

2005-05-22T11:33:00.000-07:00

In my modern American novel class we were discussing the anti-Vietnam War book The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. We were discussing in particular the type of person who gets his draft card and responds by running away to Canada. Some of my friends and I pointed out that such a person is both a coward and a disloyal American.

This was not the only, or even the dominant, opinion in the room. Someone else said that we should not judge this person’s actions because we have never been in his shoes. (By this logic jurors should not sentence convicted murderers unless they are murderers themselves). This classmate went on to add words to the effect of, “if I had been in that guy’s position I probably would have done the same thing and run away to Canada.”

So there you have it -- an American in an American classroom publicly stating that he would commit a criminal act by dodging the draft if the chance presented itself. What makes this statement truly remarkable, though, is that the speaker was a girl.

Doesn’t she know that women were exempt from the draft? Don’t my classmates know? Doesn’t my teacher? It didn’t look like it. (Of course, just a day before my teacher had said “the rumblings of the draft are very real” so there is obviously a lot she doesn’t know).

Perhaps the reason that so many people don’t know that women were exempt from the draft is that they don’t understand why they should be. After all, women are exactly the same as men (provided you ignore the obvious differences).

Today’s young man is not taught to be a gentleman -- he does not hold doors for a girl or carry her books; he grants girls no quarter in the co-educational gym classes, nor would you expect him to, because he has been taught that to differentiate between guys and girls would be sexist. So with the death of “sexism” we have the death of gentlemanly respect for women. And it’s a triumph for the feminists.

I wrote a piece several months ago on why women should not be allowed to serve in the military, closing with the observation that no self-respecting man would allow a woman to do his fighting for him. I was surprised by the reaction I got -- a lot of “self-respecting” males came up to tell me that they had no problems with letting women fight for them. One teacher added that he thought I had a good article, but why did I have to end it with such blatant chauvinism? Of course, I also got positive reactions to my article -- from guys I knew had considered or were considering military service. Maybe the self-respecting male is just a lot harder to find that he used to be.

There is a two-pronged attack on America’s manhood (and womanhood) at public schools. The first prong is in the lack of the patriotic lesson. The young men in our school seem to think that the highest goal they could have in life is to pump tremendous amounts of cash into their bank accounts. They do not think about honor, or service, because no one teaches them what a great country this is. In other words, they do not understand why the United States is worth defending. They don’t think about the manly pursuit of fighting for your homeland. They don’t think about manliness. (I should add, though, that I know several fellows who do think about these things. There are not too many of them, but they’re the sort of guys you want for friends.)

The second prong is the theory of guy-girl interchangeability, which could only have originated in the classroom. The unfortunate thing is, though, that it is much easier for a fellow to forget the rules of chivalry than it is for him to follow them. It is not easy to cultivate respect for anything, so why bother? -- particularly if you are told that this respect is a bad thing.

Chivalrous behavior towards women requires that gentlemen honor and respect ladies. This puts feminists in a bind, however, because to accept this honor would require that they admit there is a reason for it, and they see this as accepting an inferior position. They have decided, therefore, that it is better to let women live without this honor and respect.

It is obvious that feminists hate men -- men, in their view, are the condescending suppressors of female independence. In practice, however, feminists hate women even more. This hate has worked its way into the modern public school system, and the result is that young women are wasting time worrying about being drafted. The young gentleman, as well as the young lady, is being forced out.

“The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are an abomination unto the Lord thy God.” -- Deuteronomy 22:5

An Evening in Commentary

2005-05-18T16:58:00.000-07:00

On Monday evening I had the honor of attending the first annual Norman Podhoretz Lecture, heretofore the Commentary Dinner. The evening was dedicated, as the name suggests, to Norman Podhoretz (probably the greatest intellectual in the country today) and also marked the 60th anniversary of the influential New York-based magazine, Commentary, of which Mr. Podhoretz is the former Chief Editor.

The setting for this gala occasion was the fancy-shmantzy Union League Club on Park Avenue (where else?), an impressive edifice containing wood-paneled walls, uniformed stewards, dimly-lit and impressively large club rooms, and very fluffy paper towels in the bathrooms (I found this last item to be a big plus that contributed greatly to my enjoyment of the evening).

My father, my mother, and I disembarked from our limousine shortly after 6 PM, which left us with an hour before dinner to talk to people. Generously sprinkled through the immense cocktail lounge, among the 250-or-so guests, were the top Conservative thinkers in America, including Norman Podhoretz, William F. Buckley Jr., Charles Krauthammer, Neal Kozody, John Podhoretz, etc (this is a long list here).

Since we were in the middle of the cocktail hour, I needed a cocktail, which in my case was a glass of tonic water with too many ice cubes. It was here that I made my first big sacrifice of the evening, courageously allowing my left hand to become frozen in order to keep my right open to shake hands with everyone who came up to talk with or introduce himself to my father. Conversation was interrupted every thirty seconds or so as yet another steward came by in a vain attempt to foist some caviar or paté on us. My father tried to stick close at hand but was frequently pulled off into neighboring conversational circles, often leaving me over my head in terms of discussional depth. When we were no longer talking about my college plans next year, I was left with fairly little to say, and reduced to offering the occasional clever remark just to keep my hand in.

Punctilious and punctual stewards came in at 7 to ring the four-tone dinner bell (more of a xylophone really). It is just as this bell is sounded that nothing happens, as my father explained: everyone pretends to ignore the dinner call, just to demonstrate how engrossed he is in his deep interlocutional experience. Finally, with some prodding from the hungrier guests and the closing of the bar, everyone boarded the elevators to go down to dinner (second floor).

The dining hall was similarly big but better lit than the salon, and heated to about 300 degrees. Whitish walls and a white ceiling, with Grecian triglyphs around the top and large blue-and-gold chandeliers. An immense portrait of Lincoln and an American flag dominated the room from one end; Lincoln was no doubt happy to see that Republicans continue to promote the advance of freedom in the world, and he watched the whole affair in silent approval.

As we worked our way to our table, I saw Mr. Krauthammer sitting in his electric wheelchair at a table near the podium, chatting amiably with a herd of surrounding people. He seemed somehow larger (more massive) than he had looked on Fox News. My father, my mother, and I moved off to our table, which was right next to the lectern, across from the table with Krauthammer, Buckley, and Podhoretz, and adjacent (or nearly so) to a table with Neal Kozodoy and two guests from the White House.

The sound-level in the dining hall quickly rose to the point where one could only talk to the people immediately adjacent. I took quick stock of the situation, noticing simultaneously that I was the youngest guy in the room and that there were no attractive young ladies to look at.

We worked through our haute-cuisine dinner, starting with a fairly peculiar salad which, judging from the other plates in the room as well as my own, did not seem to be generally edible. After the servers had given us plenty of time to contemplate this unfortunate scene, we moved on to the main course, which turned out pretty well (a piece of fish, with decoration). As we finally got to the exclusive Union League Club sorbet, Roger Hertog stepped up to the lectern, forcing me to turn around (I had been sitting with back to the podium) and leave my dessert for the moment. When I next got a chance to look at my sorbet, about an hour-and-a-half later, it didn’t seem nearly so appetizing.

Roger Hertog is a famous financial figure, friend of the Jewish community, patron of the arts, and a central figure in the Commentary dinner. (As Commentary editor Neal Kozodoy later said, most of the contributors to the Commentary Fund have chosen to remain anonymous, especially Roger Hertog.) Mr. Hertog introduced Kozodoy , who spoke about Commentary’s 60 years, the 5-million people each year who read some piece in Commentary, and the great men behind its success. In particular, he addressed the major metaphysical problem facing us today, namely “Who is qualified to deliver a Norman Podhoretz lecture, other than Norman Podhoretz?” The earlier quest to answer this question had led to the selection of syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer, and the later selection of the man who would introduce him and was now himself introduced -- my father.

My father’s speech was certainly (and I am reporting this in as unbiased a manner as possible) the wittiest and best introduction ever given to any man in the history of the United States, if not the world at large. He started off with a few words about Podhoretz (“The Bible says ‘Do not follow a multitude to do evil.’ Norman’s entire careers is a commentary on that verse.”) This was followed by praise of Commentary (“the most distinguished magazine in the country”) and Neal Kozodoy (“Neal is the perfect embodiment of what intellectuals were supposed to be like before anyone had actually met one”). And that brings us to Krauthammer, “wholly and entirely original… Not once but dozens of times Krauthammer has performed the greatest single feat a thinker can -- he’s said something that seems obvious in retrospect. He says it and before long everyone else starts saying it, and you can barely remember that no one ever had said it before he did.” My father finished with a brief biography of Krauthammer (“In ’87 he redeemed the honor of the Pulitzer Prize by winning one…”) and the podium was handed over to Dr. Charles Krauthammer.

Krauthammer began to speak (“if my mother were here, she’d believe it”) and quickly moved into a fascinating lecture that focused on the movement of Neo-Conservatism into a dominant position, following the failure of realism (Bush ’41) and liberalism (Clinton). Liberals who had been with us only at the very beginning of the war on terror were among the first to jump ship and decry our attempts to democratize Iraq, predicting (and hoping for) failure; suggesting that the United States was incapable of giving, and the Iraqis incapable of receiving, democracy. After we had already fought the war in Iraq, and were moving to the establishing-democracy phase, the semi-Conservative Francis Fukuyama said that the failure of our campaign had been predictable. But, interestingly enough, Mr. Fukuyama had not predicted it, and so he was obliged to predict it in retrospect (“Maybe that’s how it works when you predict things at the end of history”). Unfortunately for Mr. Fukuyama, he had performed the remarkable intellectual feat of getting a retrospective prediction wrong, as Iraq successfully continues to move towards democracy. Krauthammer spoke of four critical elections (Australia, US, Afghanistan, and Iraq) that lent strength to Neo-Conservatism and the march towards world democracy, and added the additional important point that temporary alliances with dictators are sometimes necessary, because we cannot democratize the entire world overnight. We must continue to move in small but decisive steps. Krauthammer suggested that we move on to Lebanon next and then Syria, two countries that are now ready for democracy.

My over-brief summary of Krauthammer’s remarks are approximate, as I am writing from mental notes only (the lady sitting next to me had borrowed my pen for the duration of the lecture). When it was all over, and my head was energetically whirring with ideas, and I was temporarily able to conceal the fact that I was utterly exhausted. Avoiding the herd that had once again established itself around Mr. Krauthammer, we rode the elevator down to ground, said a final goodnight to Mr. Hertog (who happened to be sharing his elevator with us just then) and exited the classy club into our classy limousine, which carried us back out of Manhattan (a good-looking city, in the dark). We passed by the recently collapsed wall on the Henry Hudson Parkway, and, finally, got back to our very own Connecticut house, just in time for me to satisfy the hunger I had left over from dinner with half a cinnamon bun. Not a bad evening -- my first and fascinating introduction to the upper crust of American thinking.

Commentary

2005-05-15T16:48:00.000-07:00

On Monday evening I will be going to the first annual Norman Podhoretz Commentary Dinner, which will be attended by many of the greatest modern Conservative thinkers. Speakers will include Roger Hertog, Neal Kozodoy, Charles Krauthammer, and (of course) my father David Gelernter. Tune in later this week for a complete wrapup.
Sorry Alec and Doug, I will get to your issues eventually. In the meantime, please try to keep your lunatic friends from posting their "comments."

Equal Opportunities

2005-05-08T12:34:00.000-07:00

Half way through the current school year, the Amity public school system moved the 9th grade up from the junior to the senior high school. In order to adjust the freshmen to their new climate, the senior high provided “link crews” – pairs of Amity students who would speak to the freshmen about the experience awaiting them, and give them various ‘transition’ games to play and activities to do.

My brother (a freshman, as it turns out) rummaged through his backpack the other day and found a little packet from his “link crew” experience earlier this year. It’s an assignment: each freshman will write a letter to himself to be opened on graduation (“Look at the blank sheet of paper in front of you now. That sheet is like your life…”). The second page of this packet is a handy-dandy example letter, which includes lines like “I’ll bet I’m still friends with Corey” and “I swear that I will at least try to go to the prom with J.G.” The freshmen apparently spent about an hour preparing for and writing this letter.

After the letter writing was done (a pointless, though not a damaging assignment) the link-crews went on to discuss a statement that had been written on the board: “You’re not better than anyone, but no one is better than you.”

How about that! We’re all the same (and we’re all special, too). We’re all equal – because, after all, they say we are.

Of course, just saying that you’re not better than anybody and no one’s better than you doesn’t make it so. It doesn’t even make anyone believe it. Nobody in this school, not the people writing this stuff on the board, not the roomfuls of freshmen reading it – not even the administrators who thought this line up in the first place – could possibly believe it. And yet, someone seems to think that this is important enough to “teach.”

What do they mean when they say that you’re not “better” than anybody else? They can’t possibly mean that we’re all of equal intelligence, or there would be no point in having honors-level classes. They can’t possibly mean that we’re all equally good at sports, or there wouldn’t be a school record in sprinting. Do we all have the same writing skills? The same musical talent? Perhaps they mean that if you were to award points for relative goodness in each field, everyone would have the same number of points, total (I’ve seen this sort of thing suggested in a psychology text book). But this is silly, unless you claim that someone who has been awarded high points for hamburger-flipping skill is really of the same caliber as a student who wins the regional computer-programming championships.

In the final analysis, the word “better” as used by our school in this exercise has no meaning. It’s just another one of the ways our school likes to distribute liberal amounts of feel-good attitude. The thing is, the only way this feel-good thing works is if you don’t think about it. You have to keep you brain switched off, because, if you try to find the meaning (as no doubt many freshmen did) you will realize that there is none to be found.

So what does the school really want? Do they want us to think we’re all equal or do they want us to think?

Dems Opposed to Private Accounts. Because?

2005-05-01T18:56:00.000-07:00

A few months ago (it was Feb. 3, to be exact) Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and four other liberal Senators (including Schumer) gathered around the ignominious FDR wheelchair-statue to blast President Bush’s private-accounts plan, which would, according to them, “gut” the program (and disgrace the memory of FDR too, no doubt).

These Senators’ choice of venue was unfortunate, considering that the man they were all gathered around (and who Reid was patting affectionately on the shoulder) was in favor of making private accounts a part of the original social security system. He wrote to Congress in 1935, saying that Social Security should include “voluntary contributory annuities by which individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age.” FDR added that the government should only pay for “one-half of the cost of the old-age pension plan, which ought ultimately to be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans.”

The Democrats don’t mention this, of course. Perhaps they simply forgot that FDR supported private accounts. It’s not impossible. After all, they don’t even remember that just a few years ago they supported private accounts too.

As PBS NewsHour reported in 1998, Democratic Senators Pat Moynihan and Bob Kerrey introduced “‘The Social Security Solvency Act of 1998,’ which would cut the Social Security payroll tax by 2 percent and allows workers to invest the tax cut in personal savings accounts.” President Clinton, in his 1999 State of the Union address proposed that we “establish universal savings accounts” continuing: “With these new accounts, Americans can invest as they choose, and receive funds to match a portion of their savings, with extra help for those least able to save.” Senator Reid himself (the man with his hand on the statue) said in 1999 that “most of us have no problem with taking a small amount of the Social Security proceeds and putting it into the private sector.”

Dems are certainly not eager to quote themselves on this issue (and in addition they are no longer quoting Federal Reserve Chairmen Alan Greenspan -- he came out in support of private accounts too).

So how can all these people now be opposed, on ‘principle,’ to discussing any plan that contains private accounts? Especially when polls show increasing public support for private accounts: an April 25-26 poll showed that 79% of Americans think that private investment should be an option, and that 77% of Americans trust themselves over the government concerning investment retirement decisions. (It is further interesting to note another poll found that support for private accounts drops 6% when the plan is mentioned as having been proposed by President Bush, as opposed to “Some people.”)

How can House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) say that Democrats will do no negotiating whatsoever until private accounts are taken off the table?

What are the Democrats really opposed to?

These moves couldn’t be of a petty, partisan, political nature, could they? Are they merely opposed to the plan because now it comes from President Bush as opposed to President Clinton?
On the other hand, maybe the Democrats really are opposed on principle, to letting us have private accounts. (Though this would seem somewhat hypocritical, considering that they themselves already private investment accounts, known as the “Thrift Savings Plan”). Maybe they are opposed to the principle that it is never a good idea to let you do what the government can do for you. What we are really talking about is just 4% of your entire income, the maximum that you would be allowed to invest (the actual decision to invest, and the amount up to the 4% will be up to you -- you don’t have to invest at all if you don’t want to).

The Democrats seem genuinely concerned that you will take this money -- your money -- and do what you want with it. They emphasize the danger (Reid calls it “gambling” now) to try to scare Americans away from this system. They try to create the impression that adding private accounts would destroy Social Security completely (who hasn’t seen that AARP ad that suggests that Republicans are about to “tear down the whole house” because the kitchen sink is clogged). We should not be allowed to take risks -- and the Democrats cannot, in good conscience, allow us to. And since when have we been able to figure out what to do with our own money any way?
There is a third possibility -- maybe the Democrats are simply opposed to change. Are they reactionary liberals, stuck in the 1930s, clinging to a system that was designed to have 42 workers supporting a retiree as, opposed to two or three? Is this why they have failed to come out with any plans of their own to counter the President’s?

The Democrats are opposed to something, but they have not been too clear about what it is, exactly. There are so many possibilities as to why they don’t want private accounts, but whether they think that we’re too dumb to handle our own money, or whether they can’t stand any alterations at all, or whether they know that supporting the President in anything will not help them back to majority status in congress, the crucial thing that the Democrats are missing is a good reason.

And I for one want to be in charge of my money.

And now...

2005-04-25T17:45:00.000-07:00

First off, I’d like to explain why this article (and responses to readers’ comments) are coming late -- I’ve been busy celebrating Pesach (Passover). The first two and last two days of Pesach are separate from the days in between: On these days Jews are not supposed to work, write, make fire, drive, use electronics etc. Now that it is after nightfall on the second day my blog is fair game again.
I had planned to write an article about taxes. On discovering, however, that all that remained of a hefty paper I wrote on the topic last year is the bibliography, I realized that it’s going to take me several weeks to do all the necessary researching and writing so I can come out with a finished product.

In the meantime, I am in the process of being kicked off of my high school newspaper, ostensibly to make room for a conservative columnist to get practice for next year. The decision was made by the very Chief Editor who tried (unsuccessfully) to prevent me from conducting a rudimentary evaluation of the quality of our education (see my article “The Culture Quiz” in the January archives with the results listed in a March posting). He has decided to kick me off, despite that no columnist asked to replace me (one had to be recruited), that there is no shortage of space, that there are still people interested in reading my column, and that if one’s first column is actually published, like my successor’s will be, it is not practice or preparation -- it’s the real deal. In addition, the move to replace me was conducted behind my back, so that I only found out about it accidentally. The Chief said he kept his actions a secret from me because he knew that I “would act like this.” In other words, he knew that I would object to being removed, so he decided it would be safer (at least from his point of view) just not to tell me.

Now, to this chief’s credit, he has agreed to print a farewell column in the newspaper (I suppose he may change his mind in retaliation to this post though naturally I‘d rather be published). I thought I’d write a column on the most important topic I could think of -- namely support for the troops. I know that my post last week, on the Medal of Honor, is closely connected to this, and despite the fact the some people find this topic “boring,” I believe that we can never say enough about it.

So here it is:

The men who defend this country are paid very little money, they live in quarters that a civilian wouldn’t tolerate, they are split away from their families so they can fight in a desert half-way around the world, and by the very nature of their job they may be killed in the line of duty. So the question we have to ask is, why do these men volunteer? What compensation could they possibly get to make it worth it?

The answer depends in large part on you.

Soldiers fight for honor, and love of their country; they want to help spread democracy throughout the world. Most of all, perhaps, they want to know that the people they are fighting for appreciate their sacrifice -- that we guys sitting here reading the newspaper in both freedom and security understand that our military allows us to enjoy that privilege.

It is impossible to support the troops without supporting the war.

I divide the anti-warrites into two groups, the honest, and the dishonest -- those who make no qualms about their dislike of the military and those who ‘claim’ to like it (or at least to like the soldiers themselves). The honest sort is the type who drives around with a “No Blood for Oil” bumper sticker and flashes his middle finger at the SUV with the Marine Corps emblem on the back. They are the type of people who, during the Vietnam War, supported the now infamous “F--k the Army” tour -- a series of shows organized by Jane Fonda and preformed right outside military bases (as USAF Col. Patterson wrote, “a perverse USO tour in reverse”).

The dishonest anti-warrites are pathetically bad in a different sense. They pity the soldiers -- they feel sorry for them. ‘Here these men are, thinking that they’re defending freedom or whatever and what really happened is they got duped into fighting in this needless war -- they’re nice guys but they’ve been victimized. So of course we support them, we don’t want them to die, etc.’ This type of “support” of course does nothing for our troops’ morale. If you tell them that you support them, but not the war, you put yourself in a position of snobbish condescension. You’re still saying “f--k the army,” just in a different way.

Alright, now you say, ‘well I really do support the troops; I just can’t bring myself to support this war.’ What is it you can’t support -- ridding the world of a brutal dictator? Bringing freedom to millions of people for the very first time? Making the world safer for ourselves and the world’s other free nations? Maybe, of course, you question that that is what we’re really doing -- you still think that the military mission was launched and is being conducted over a big pack of lies (“f--k the army”).

The patriotic American does not look first to uncover the dastardly things that his own country is doing. He looks proudly at our history of defending freedom with young men who volunteer to be shot at. He knows that these men are fighting for him, so he does what he can to make that fight worthwhile. Without pretensions, reservations, qualifiers, or condescension, he says, “thanks.”

Above and Beyond the Call of Duty

2005-04-17T06:15:00.000-07:00

Last Friday my father published his first piece in what will now be a regular column in the LA Times. This piece is about US Army Sgt. 1st Class Paul Ray Smith, the first man to win the Congressional Medal of Honor in Iraq, and about the people who are against the war, but claim to honor Smith anyway.

SFC Smith, as his citation says, was working on the construction of a POW holding area on April 4, 2003, in Baghdad, when his Task Force of a hundred men was attacked by a company sized (100-250 men) enemy force. Smith organized a defense of their position, fought the enemy with hand grenades and anti-tank weapons, and organized the rescue of three men trapped in a damaged Armored Personal Carrier. Smith finally moved to man an exposed .50 caliber machine gun and continued to fire on the enemy until he was fatally wounded. The enemy attack was repulsed.

The Medal of Honor has always held a special fascination for me -- I’ve read hundreds of citations about men who ran into exposed positions to aid comrades, jumped on top of grenades, and single-handedly beat off enemy attacks. The citation will famously begin “For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty…” and will often end, in the case of a posthumous citation, “He gallantly gave his life for his country.” Surprisingly enough, less than one in five of the more than 3,400 Medal of Honor citations are posthumous.

The following is one of the most remarkable citations I’ve read, awarded to Private First Class Gary W. Martini, who was killed in Vietnam in 1967:

“For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving as a Rifleman, Company F, Second Battalion, First Marines, First Marine Division in the Republic of Vietnam. On 21 April 1967, during Operation UNION, elements of Company F, conducting offensive operations at Binh Son, encountered a firmly entrenched enemy force and immediately deployed to engage them. The Marines in Private Martini's platoon assaulted across an open rice paddy to within twenty meters of the enemy trench line where they were suddenly struck by hand grenades, intense small arms, automatic weapons, and mortar fire. The enemy onslaught killed 14 and wounded 18 Marines, pinning the remainder of the platoon down behind a low paddy dike. In the face of imminent danger, Private Martini immediately crawled over the dike to a forward open area within 15 meters of the enemy position where, continuously exposed to the hostile fire, he hurled hand grenades, killing several of the enemy. Crawling back through the intense fire, he rejoined his platoon which had moved to the relative safety of a trench line. From this position he observed several of his wounded comrades lying helpless in the fire swept paddy. Although he knew that one man had been killed, attempting to assist the wounded, Private Martini raced through the open area and dragged a comrade back to the friendly position. In spite of a serious wound received during this first daring rescue, he again braved the unrelenting fury of the enemy fire to aid another companion lying wounded only twenty meters in front of the enemy trench line. As he reached the fallen Marine, he received a mortal wound, but disregarding his own condition, he began to drag the Marine toward his platoon's position. Observing men from his unit attempting to leave the security of their position to aid him, concerned only for their safety, he called to them to remain under cover and through a final supreme effort, moved his injured comrade to where he could be pulled to safety, before he fell, succumbing to his wounds. Stouthearted and indomitable, Private Martini unhesitatingly yielded his own life to save two of his comrades and insure the safety of the remainder of his platoon. His outstanding courage, valiant fighting spirit and selfless devotion to duty reflected the highest credit upon himself, the Marine Corps, and the United States Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.”

It is impossible for us to thank men like these enough for their service, but we can at least know who they are -- go to a Medal of Honor site and read a few citations; they make you proud to be an American.

A Weekly Blog

2005-04-14T13:32:00.000-07:00

I have noticed that I tend to write one good article every week or so. To save you the bother of checking this blog every day, only to become frustrated when you notice that nothing has happened, I am now designating this a weekly blog -- check for a new posting every Monday.

Kennedy and the KGB

2005-04-08T11:46:00.000-07:00

“I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God”
-Oath of Office, United States Senate

“Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.”
-US Constitution, Article 3, Section 3, Clause 1

“Kennedy had instructed [former Senator] Tunney, according to the KGB, to carry a message to Yuri Andropov, the General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, expressing Kennedy’s concern about the anti-Soviet activities of President Ronald Reagan….Kennedy asked for a meeting with Andropov for the purpose of ‘arming himself with the Soviet leader’s explanations of arms control policy so he can use them later for more convincing speeches in the U.S.’….Tunney also told the KGB that Kennedy was planning to run for President in the 1988 elections.”
-Herbert Romerstein in Human Events, Dec. 8, 2003

There are three documents (that we know of) produced by the KGB during the Cold War that discuss Ted Kennedy and his efforts to strengthen the position of the USSR against the United States and to subsequently strengthen his own political position. These documents show, among other things, that Kennedy’s pro-Soviet stance was always present, irrespective of whether the US administration was right or left-wing.

The instances where the KGB discuss Kennedy were collected in a Dec. 8, 2003 article in Human Events entitled, “Ted Kennedy was a ‘Collaborationalist’” by Herbert Romerstein, a retired US government official and former Professional Staff member for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

The first of the three documents is a 1978 KGB report to the Communist Party’s Central Committee that was discovered in the KGB files after the collapse of the Soviet Union by Russian reporter Yevgenia Albats, who published the discovery in Izvestia in 1992. As Romerstein reports, the document said that:

“In 1978, American Senator Edward Kennedy requested the assistance of the KGB to establish a relationship” between the Soviet apparatus and a firm owned by former Sen. John Tunney (D.-Calif.). KGB recommended that they be permitted to do this because Tunney’s firm was already connected with a KBG agent in France named David Karr.

The second document is another KGB report to Central Committee; it was removed from the archives by Vasiliy Mitrokhin, a KGB officer who defected to the West; it reports that Tunney met with the KGB in Moscow on March 5, 1980, on Kennedy‘s behalf. Kennedy’s opinion, as Tunney explained to the KGB, was that “nonsense about ‘the Soviet military threat’ and Soviet ambitions for military expansion in the Persion Gulf…was being fuled by [President] Carter, [Natl. Security Advisor] Brzezinski, the Pentagon, and the military industrial complex.” Rommerstein writes that “Kennedy offered to speak out against President Carter on Afghanistan. Shortly thereafter he made public speeches opposing President Carter on this issue.”

If Kennedy was worried that President Carter was too anti-Soviet and anti-Communist, one can imagine his horror on seeing Reagan elected. The KGB did not have to be content with simply “imagining” Kennedy’s concern, though -- Kennedy kept them carefully informed through go-between John Tunney. The third KGB document, discovered in the archives by London Times reporter Tim Sebastian, dates from May 1983, and reports that “in Kennedy’s opinion the opposition to Reagan remains weak. Speeches of the President’s opponents are not well-coordinated and not effective enough, and Reagan has the chance to use successful counterpropaganda.” Kennedy offered to “undertake some additional steps to counter the militaristic policy of Reagan and his campaign of physiological pressure on the American population.” He also requested a meeting with Andropov for the purpose of “arming himself with the Soviet leader’s explanations of arms control policy so he can use them later for more convincing speeches in the U.S.” Here Kennedy actually wanted to know how the Soviets would be lying about their weapons policy, so he could make sure that he would be telling the same lies to us in America. Romerstein also notes that Kennedy, according to the KGB, was willing to help get Soviet views represented in the US mainstream media. Finally, the KGB document mentions that Kennedy hoped to run for President in 1988.

It is important to remember what a crucial role Kennedy played in weakening our intelligence capabilities and building the “wall” between the FBI and the CIA. One bill of particular interest is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. Among other things, this bill curtailed Presidential wiretapping powers that had existed since FDR first used them in 1940. Romerstein writes that:

Kennedy worked with the ACLU to raise the [wiretapping] barriers as high as possible. Kennedy introduced the concept in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Bill that required evidence that someone was providing classified information to a foreign intelligence service. Someone who “only” had a clandestine relationship with a foreign intelligence officer and carried out covert influence operations for a foreign power could not be wiretapped.

Kennedy thus cleverly excluded the possibility of his own phone being tapped.

Kennedy adhered to the Soviets, he aided the KGB, and we can be sure they took comfort in hearing him blast their message across the United States.

I think this country has had enough of Senator Kennedy's "service."

Traitor

2005-04-04T15:44:00.000-07:00

Currently in the works, an upcoming piece about Sen. Ted Kennedy and his Cold War ties to the KGB. How this man helped undermine national security for his own political gain.

Reckless Disregard

2005-03-28T11:18:00.000-08:00

I've been reading Lt. Col. Robert Patterson's book Reckless Disregard: How Liberal Democrats Undercut Our Military, Endanger Our Soldiers, and Jeopordize Our Security. It contains loads of astonishing personal accounts and facts and figures that carefully outline the left's continuing struggle against our military and intelligence systems. Col. Patterson was an Air Force pilot whose experience as President Clinton's "nuclear football" carrier allowed him to write another excellent book: Dereliction of Duty: The Eyewitness Account of How Bill Clinton Endangered America's Long-Term National Security.
Read both books -- and prepare to be shocked.

Getting Ready to Go Nuclear

2005-03-20T06:46:00.000-08:00

A few days ago, the Senate Judiciary Committee sent the William Myers nomination to the floor of the Senate, where it may be some time before he is given the traditional and constitutional privilege of an up or down vote on his nomination. Myers is the first of 10 nominees who are being blocked by Democrats for political reasons.

The Senate Democrats, now under Minority Leader Harry Reid, are refusing to close debate on these nominations, therefore requiring a supermajority of 60 votes to confirm a judge, as opposed to the 51 votes required by the Constitution. This is the first time in the history of the United States that a minority party has used the filibuster rule to block judicial nominees – despite the fact that these nominees have majority support and would be confirmed if the vote were allowed to be taken.

The Democrats claim that they are blocking these nominations for a number of reasons.
In public they attack the nominees’ qualifications. For example, critics claim that Federal circuit court judge Terrence Boyle is anti-civil rights and that in 20 years on the bench his rulings have been reversed over 150 times. In reality, as Senator Graham has pointed out, Boyle has only been reversed 92 times – a reversal 7.5 percent well below the national average of 9.7 percent.

In private (as leaked memos reveal) Democrats view Bush’s nominees as “Neanderthals” and “Nazis” and have a special bent against minority candidates – Justice Janice Brown, a black, female Conservative is being blocked, as was Miguel Estrada. (Estrada was described by Senate Judiciary Committee member Dick Durbin as “especially dangerous because he is Latino”). After all, it certainly would be dangerous for Democrats if minority members in a position of power happened to be Conservative. Estrada has now withdrawn his own nomination after too many years of waiting to be confirmed.

Democrats claim that they are justified in their filibustering. For one thing, they say that Republicans did the same thing to Justice Abe Fortas in 1968. This is not true, as Senator Cornyn explains, because “The Congressional Record makes clear that a confirmation vote would have likely failed by a vote of 46-49. Moreover, Fortas's opponents explained repeatedly that they were not filibustering — they just wanted adequate time to debate and expose serious problems with his nomination.” Democrats further claim that since they only blocked 10 out of 214 nominees during the last session, it’s certainly not such a big deal. What they fail to understand is that they don’t have a right to block anyone who has majority support – not 10 judges, not even one, because these nominees have the right to be voted on.

Many Democratic Senators currently filibustering candidates are trapped by their own words – having just a few years back flatly denounced the very things they are now doing. In 1998, Senatory Leahy said that “If we want to vote against somebody, vote against them. I respect that. State your reasons. I respect that. But don’t hold up a qualified judicial nominee. . . . If Senators are opposed to any judge, bring them up and vote against them.” Also in 1998, the well known Senator Ted Kennedy said “Nominees deserve a vote. If our . . . colleagues don’t like them, vote against them. But don’t just sit on them – that is obstruction of justice. Free and full debate over judicial nominations is healthy. The Constitution is clear that only individuals acceptable to both the President and the Senate should be confirmed. The President and the Senate do not always agree. But we should resolve these disagreements by voting on these nominees – yes or no.” Senator Feinstein, 1999: “A nominee is entitled to a vote. Vote them up; vote them down. What this does to a [nominee’s] life is, it leaves them in limbo . . . It is our job to confirm these judges. If we don’t like them, we can vote against them. That is the honest thing to do. If there are things in their background, in their abilities that don’t pass muster, vote no.”

Senate Republicans are now strongly considering what is often called the “nuclear option” – informally changing Senate rules to force a vote on the nominees. This would grant Bush and his judicial selections the Constitutional justice that so many of these Democrats seemed so impassioned about a few years back. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has promised that if Republicans use the nuclear option, the Dems will retaliate by filibustering everything and closing down the Senate to practically all legislation. This of course, would not be a tremendous disaster (except for the Democrats) because the Senate does the least damage when it is not passing any laws. As a political move, the Left’s continued obstructionism can only be termed “dumb.” Just ask former Senator and Minority Leader Tom Daschle. He had Senator Reid’s job just last year, but judicial filibustering made him the first minority leader in 52 years to lose his seat.

Culture Quiz Results

2005-03-16T03:17:00.000-08:00

We asked 144 students to write their answers to the following questions:

1. Who was the first American in space?
2. Who perpetrated the Bataan Death March?
3. Who were the Khmer Rouge?
4. Name the first book of the Bible.
5. Who wrote, “With malice towards none; with charity to all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right…”
6. To whom did Churchill refer when he said “Never in the field of human conflict, has so much been owed, by so many, to so few.”?

And I got the following results:
Around half (54%) could name the first book of the Bible. A little more than a quarter (28%) knew that the Japanese were the perpetrators the Bataan Death March.
4% knew that the first American in space was Alan Shepard. Popular answers were Neil Armstrong, the trumpet player Louis Armstrong and the Tour de France cyclist Lance Armstrong. Slightly over one in twenty (6%) recognized Abraham Lincoln’s quote from the Second Inaugural address; some attributed the quote to Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. Fewer than one in twenty (3%) s knew that the Khmer Rouge were the communist murderers responsible for the annihilation of 1/3 of Cambodia’s whole population, a massive feat of genocide. Fewer than one in twenty (3%) knew that Churchill was thanking the Royal Air Force for its heroic victory in the Battle of Britain; more than twice as many (8%) thought that Churchill was talking about the Nazis—an extraordinary answer suggesting either an inability to read English or to think straight.
40% of students could not answer a single question.

I will be writing a more complete article shortly to further explain the results of my poll.

Culture Quiz Distributed

2005-03-14T13:16:00.000-08:00

My poll (explained about half-way down the stories on this page) was handed out in English classes today to a sample of 144 students. I will tabulate the results, which will appear on this blog in a day or two, followed by a full-length article explaining the significance of the figures (I'll work on that this week).

A Farewell to Kyoto

2005-03-01T08:37:00.000-08:00

The Kyoto Protocol, it would seem, is finally dead – the US, Russia, China, India, and Italy have all either withdrawn from the treaty process entirely, or refused to be bound by emissions restrictions. So, is this a good thing, or are we just speeding towards environmental destruction? I’ll try to explain.

First, and most importantly, humans do not cause global temperature change – it has merely been posited that we do. In reality, the earth has small natural warming and cooling cycles enclosed in larger ones. In the 20th century, the earth warmed from 1900 to 1940, then cooled from 1940 to 1975 (during the early 70s, many of today’s global warming alarmists were convinced that we were on the verge of another ice age). From 1975 to 1979 the world warmed again. Since 1979, the world has cooled just slightly. The larger cycles include ice ages (the world has continued to warm since the last ice age).

The international groups with a stake in the global warming theory have worked hard to cover up contrary evidence. In the UN’s 1996 report on global warming, the following two lines were deleted from the final draft:

1. "None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed climate changes to increases in greenhouse gases."
2. "No study to date has positively attributed all or part of the climate change to…man-made causes."

The Danish statistics professor, Bjorn Lomborg was an environmentalist who believed that humans were destroying the world. Then he decided to do a little research and in 1998 published The Skeptical Environmentalist. Among his discoveries: the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) was ready to report that “the balance of evidence suggests that there is a discernable human influence on global climate.” In the April 2000 draft the uncertainty was removed: “There has been a discernable human influence on global climate.” In the October 2000 draft this was changed to “it is likely that increasing concentrations of anthropogenic greenhouse gases have contributed substantially to the observed warming over the past 50 years.” The official summary (the thing that the press and policy-makers read) finally said “most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations.” The New Scientist asked UN spokesman Tim Higham if there was any new science to support the report’s new stronger wording. He responded, “There was no new science, but the scientists wanted to present a clear and strong message to policy makers.”

The IPCC’s finding that we have even a “discernable” effect on global climate is flawed in many ways. As the atmospheric physicist Dr. Fred Singer explains, there are three main methods that we use to measure global temperature: Surface measurements, weather balloons, and satellites. The satellite and weather balloon measurements are in close agreement and show a slight cooling over the past 20 years. The surface measurements show a temperature increase. The problem with the surface measurements, though, is 1) that they only measure a tiny part of the earth and leave the oceans essentially unmeasured, and 2) that the sensors are normally placed near cities, which are warmer than the surrounding countryside because of the greater industry there. Nevertheless, satellites are not even mentioned in the IPCC report summary, and the computer models tend to be based on surface measurements. Dr. Lomborg writes in The Skeptical Environmentalist that the IPCC computer models no longer even claim to be predicting the future. There are now 40 computer “scenarios,” all different, and not a single one is capable of explaining past global temperature changes. The big problem there is that our models do not include the effects of clouds and similar forcings. We do not yet know how all these things effect the climate, and, even if we did, our computers are not powerful enough to include these factors in their models.

What we are left with are a bunch of inaccurate computer models, on the basis of which the IPCC predicts that the temperature increase in the next hundred years will be from 1.4° to 5.8° Celsius. (If the IPCC had not used its most pessimistic computer models for this assessment, the range would most likely be from 1.2° to 4.8° Celsius.) The mainstream media proved little help to the public here – CNN, CBS, The Times, and Time all reduced the IPCC numbers from a range to a single figure: 5.8° C.

The environmentalist ‘scientists’ at the IPCC and other research groups have pushed to get the right kind of results. Richard Lindzen, and American atmospheric physicist stated, “throughout the drafting sessions, [the UN’s IPCC] 'coordinators' would go around insisting that criticism of models be toned down, and that 'motherhood' statements be inserted to the effect that models might still be correct despite the cited faults. Refusals were occasionally met with ad hominem attacks. I personally witnessed coauthors forced to assert their 'green' credentials in defense of their statements…” Bjorn Lomborg himself was accused of scientific dishonesty regarding his book, and initially ruled against by The Danish Committee on Scientific Dishonesty before he was vindicated completely on appeal.

So now we finally arrive at the Kyoto protocol itself, which demands drastic reductions in carbon dioxide output. First, do we even know that CO2 is a culprit? Bjorn Lomborg demonstrated that solar activity is more closely correlated to temperature than is carbon dioxide output.

The people behind the treaty have failed to demonstrate whether any link between CO2 levels and global climate show CO2 as the cause or the effect. Dr. Singer related a story about one of the most prominent alarmists: former VP Al Gore. Gore used to be fond of displaying a chart showing the temperatures in the Antarctic ice core and the global CO2 levels together. He would tell the audience that whenever the CO2 levels went up, the temperature went up as a result. A 1999 paper in Science later showed him to be wrong, when they reported that they had gotten adequate resolution to be able to see whether the temperature increases or CO2 increases came first. They determined that the rise in CO2 levels was preceded by the temperature increase by a mere 600 years. When temperatures rise, the ocean and the earth itself releases more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Let us suppose, for a moment, that the IPCC predictions are actually correct, and then (to continue assuming according to their models) that reducing CO2 would in fact reduce global temperature. What effect will the Kyoto protocol have on global warming? If we go back the original, full-power treaty (that is, we include the United States and the other countries that have now dropped out) and if the entire world were to observe that treaty completely, the UN Science Advisory Council admits that, by the year 2050, the expected temperature increase would be reduced by just 0.05° C. If we were to enforce the treaty until the year 2100, different models indicate that the temperature increase would be reduced by 0.13° to 0.15° Celsius. To put it another way, the Kyoto treaty will, by the year 2100, reduce the sea level rise the IPCC expects by a grand total of one inch. It will delay the temperature rise they expect, again by the year 2100 for six years, so that the temperature with Kyoto in 2100 will be the same as the temperature without Kyoto in the year 2094. Dr. Lomborg points out that because of this fact we will be forced to pay for global warming twice -- not only will we have to pay the costs of Kyoto, we will also be paying the full price of the eventual climate change.

The main reason why Kyoto is so ineffective, even if we agree to use the IPCC computer modeling, is because the treaty was designed to restrict the CO2 output only of developed countries. Third world countries, including the two largest countries in the world, population wise (China and India) would be allowed to continue producing as much carbon dioxide as they wanted. What the protocol really amounts to, then, is a tremendous cost to developed countries with no real environmental benefits -- the country taking the biggest hit would be (surprise) the US. The OECD (Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development) estimates that the cost of Kyoto to developed countries would be 2% of GDP per year by 2050, and 4% of GDP per year by 2100. Tom DeWeese reports that Kyoto could cost the US seven million jobs in 14 years. Also from Tom DeWeese’s piece on global warming: “The Department of Energy has estimated that electricity prices could rise 86 percent -- and gasoline prices 53 percent.”

Back in 1989, two scientists announced that they had achieved cold fusion. This turned out later to be false, but for some months we lived with the illusion that we would soon have access to essentially unlimited, clean power. Instead of being thrilled at the prospect of getting rid of dirty energy sources, environmentalists were horrified. Dr. Lomborg documents several examples from an article in the April 1989 Los Angeles Times: Environmentalist Jeremy Rifkin said that is was “the worst thing that could happen to our planet.” The Times wrote: “Inexhaustible power, [Rifkin] argues, only gives man infinite ability to exhaust the planet’s resources.” One environmentalist, UC Berkley anthropologist Laura Nader, finally got to the real point, telling The Times that “many people just assume that cheaper, more abundant, energy will mean that mankind is better off, but there is no evidence for that.” She doesn’t care about the environment -- she is concerned about your lifestyle.

The cold fusion incident back in 1989 is similar to the obviously ineffective Kyoto protocol. It demonstrates that what these environmentalists really want is to redefine the way we live. The IPCC’s 2001 report essentially admits this: “Raising awareness among media professionals of the need for greenhouse gas mitigation and the role of the media in shaping lifestyles and aspirations could be an effective way to encourage a wider cultural shift.” The environmentalists want to move away from consumer-driven economies and institute a system of world socialism, where rich countries subsidize the poor ones until we are all more-or-less equal. Inefficient countries will be protected by the efficient ones -- the United States will share the wealth she earns completely with the rest of the world. You’d better be glad that this policy has failed utterly -- if it hadn’t, you might well have found yourself trading in your car for a bicycle, so you could help pedal the world into the next century.

-Republican Dan Gelernter

Bibliography:
"Buenos Aires: Kyoto's Waterloo." Tech Central Station 17 Dec. 2004. http://www.techcentralstation.com/121704C.html.

Sanera, Michael, and Jane S. Shaw. Facts Not Fear. Washington, DC: Regnery Inc., 1996.
"There is No Man-Made Global Warming." NewsWithViews.com 16 Dec. 2004. http://www.newswithviews.com/DeWeese/tom23.htm.

The Skeptical Environmentalist. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 2001.

The Upcoming Kyoto Piece

2005-02-24T10:36:00.000-08:00

I promised, in my comments on the last post, that I would write an article about the Kyoto protocol. I am currently researching this issue (you know, reading a couple of books, that sort of stuff) and should have within a week a finely polished piece explaining the whole thing, including: what the people behind Kyoto are really after (hint: it has nothing to do with protecting the environment).

Those Radical Founding Fathers

2005-02-09T14:15:00.000-08:00

The following is a brief list of founding fathers quotes assembled by John Torrenti, a friend of mine (among them is the quote I keep on my blog’s header). Notice the similarity between the views of our founding fathers and those of the neo-con.

On religion:

"What students would learn in American schools above all is the religion of Jesus Christ." - George Washington in a speech to the Delaware Indian Chiefs May 12, 1779

"It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and Bible." - George Washington

"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." - John Adams

"The general principles upon which the Fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity." - John Adams

"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports." - George Washington

On fighting:

"No man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." - Thomas Jefferson

"To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace." - George Washington

The Inventor of Modern Conservatism

2005-02-06T13:04:00.000-08:00

The Febuary 7 issue of the Weekly Standard contained an article written by my father about Disraeli entitled “The Inventor of Modern Conservatism”. I know that many of you are readers of the Standard already, but just in case you’re not, you’d better not miss this.

Abortion

2005-01-27T03:38:00.000-08:00

On January 24th, two days after the anniversary of the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion on demand, the Family Planning Advocates of New York State held their 28th annual abortion-rights conference. It was attended by about 1000 pro-choicers including Senator Hillary Clinton. They represented, in effect, the 34% of Americans (according to an NY Times poll) that want to keep abortion generally legal.

Norma McCorvey, the “Jane Roe” and winning party of Roe v. Wade, did not attend. Instead, she chose that day to go to (and speak at) the 32nd annual March for Life in Washington DC. She says that she regrets her abortion, having formally asked the Supreme Court a week earlier to overturn their decision and end the “covenant of death.” She was surrounded by women who had had abortions holding signs saying “I Regret.”

When does life begin? A Senate Subcommittee held hearings in 1981 to answer that question. The testimony, given by world-renowned geneticists and biologists, was surprisingly one-sided – the vast majority agreed that life begins at conception. Dr. Jerome Lejeune (often called “The Father of Modern Genetics”) said “to accept the fact that after fertilization has taken place a new human has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or opinion ... it is plain experimental evidence.” Dr. Michelle Mathews-Roth of Harvard Medical School agreed, sighting evidence from more than 20 medical texts to support her claim. “The Father of In Vitro Fertilization”, Dr. Landrum Shettles, said, “Conception confers life…to deny a truth [about when life begins] should not be a basis for legalizing abortion.”

Suppose for a minute, though, that there is no scientific evidence to support the claim the life begins at conception (we are going to examine the way pro-choicers think). If life does not begin at conception, when does it begin? I do not see how one can say that at this finite point in time, life begins, so that there is one second (or maybe one micro-second) when a baby becomes human. Do pro-choicers suggest that if you kill this ‘thing’ one minute before this time that it is morally okay, but that one minute later it suddenly becomes murder?

On the extreme left end of that argument is MIT professor Steven Pinker, who would like infanticide to be legal, so that a mother can “coolly assess the infant and her situation” before deciding whether or not to kill her baby.

Senator Clinton echoed the general sentiment in the room at the Family Planning conference, when she said that they want to bring about a day when abortion is “safe, legal, and rare.” I don’t understand the last part of this. I can tell why they want abortion to be safe and legal, but if abortion really has no moral implications, why should they want it to be rare? To save women the time, perhaps?

I further find it difficult to see why these leftists have no problem with killing a baby and yet oppose the death penalty for convicted murderers. If death is not appropriate for a criminal, why should it be appropriate for an innocent?

An unwanted baby can be adopted, of course, though that would probably take more time than an abortion, and in the case of a junior probably require the parents to be informed. I suppose that having to tell the parents would cause a great deal of embarrassment. So instead of getting overly inconvenienced or embarrassed, the girl in question secretly goes to have her baby exterminated. Morally clean?

Some pro-choicers argue that, after all, it’s her body and she can do whatever she wants with it. No matter whether it’s moral or not, she has a right to kill her baby. Maybe the woman who chooses to have an abortion recognizes that she is actually killing a human being, but that it’s something she can live with (or just avoid thinking about in those terms). Does that make it right? If someone doesn’t ‘feel bad’ about killing one of his coworkers, does that mean that we should let it happen?

The pro-abortion argument seems confused, and requires at the very least that a certain finite and arbitrary time is selected to separate “choice” and “murder.” In the search for clarification, you yourself can conduct an experiment: try asking a pro-choice activist if he wouldn’t have minded being aborted.

Resolution (?)

2005-01-25T11:25:00.000-08:00

Well, the editors have decided that my story is not newsworthy (though I think that at least one of them is clearly afraid of seeing the results). I will still be conducting the poll, however, and I will write up the results as an opinion piece (which will appear on this site whether or not the school paper wants to publish it). In my piece, I will explain, at length if necessary, why each question I selected is of great and basic importance.

The Culture Quiz

2005-01-16T19:12:00.000-08:00

When the last man to fly in space alone, Gordo Cooper, died a few months ago I was upset. The next day in school, whenever my friends and I needed a subject for conversation, I said, “Hey, you know – Gordo Cooper died yesterday.” The only response I got was: “Who’s he?”

Not a single person I talked to in school that day knew who he was.

I figured that this might reflect not only on the kids in my school but on their education, so I decided that it would be a good idea to make up a quiz that I could give to a representative sample of kids at my school, with the results appearing in the school newspaper (which I work on as a section editor). I worked with my Dad a little, and settled on the following questions:

1. Who was the first American in space?
2. Who perpetrated the Bataan Death March?
3. Who were the Khmer Rouge?
4. Name the first book of the Bible.
5. Who wrote, “With malice towards none; with charity to all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right…”
6. Who did Churchill refer to when he said “Never in the field of human conflict, has so much been owed, by so many, to so few.”?

I thought that these questions were common knowledge – and that if they weren’t, they should be. And how did the kids in my school do on this poll? I don’t know.

I don’t know, because I decided to show the questions to one of our paper’s chief editors (also a student) and he said that he didn’t like them. I discovered a couple of things that he thought were wrong: First of all, three of the questions dealt with war, and two with religion, and he didn’t like that. Secondly, he himself couldn’t answer the questions, so naturally they must be no good. I asked him if he thought it was right to interfere so much in my section; he said that it was if I was going to do such a “controversial” topic.

His reaction surprised me, because I was prepared to encounter resistance from the teachers, not the students. Nevertheless, I told my ‘chief’ that I was determined to use these questions, and I added that my intent was not to show that Amity High School kids were stupid, it was to find out how good a school we had – here we had a chance to be a real newspaper. He was skeptical, and further worried that teachers would be angry with him if I rapped the school in our paper (he also thought that I couldn’t fill up enough space with a story on that). I told him that I would take all the responsibility myself, and that if the story didn’t work out that he could fire me from the newspaper. He gave me a shaky go-ahead.

I sent the questions out to my writers that night with their assignments, and I added an additional note to one of them, whom I knew I could trust. I said in that additional note that I was worried about being sabotaged, and that if my friend got any letters from any other editors about the assignment that I’d appreciate his sending me a copy. In the meantime, my section co-editor was “urging” me not to send out my assignments.

The same evening one of my writers – the one who I could trust – forwarded me a note from my co-editor that was sent to everyone on my section, except me:

“If you have recently received an assignment for the January issue, please disregard it for now. Soon, we (meaning I and not Dan) will be notifying you of the real assignments.”

The sight of this note really steamed me, and if this co-editor had been sitting next to my computer I probably would have punched him right in his characterless nose. It’s a good thing that I didn’t, because the next day he was quick to confess that he’d been instructed to send out that note by the chief-editor that I’d started with.

That brings me up to the current point. I’ve decided to leave this until after midterms, at which point a few friends of mine with character will help me get my poll out to the students. As for the Chief, his attempt to stop this thing hasn’t gone to well – the results will appear in my column in the school newspaper, on this blog, and (who knows) maybe in another national magazine.

Do the Iraqis want us there? A Marine explains.

2005-01-05T13:36:00.000-08:00

A school friend of mine told me that his history teacher explained to her class that the Iraqis didn’t really want us to be there (she also said that the US has killed more Iraqis than Saddam did). The second claim is so ridiculous that it’s not worth discussion, the former claim, however, is worth a few lines.

Former USMC First Lieutenant Karl Blanke was recently interviewed on Fox News. He told a number of interesting stories, starting with the time of America’s initial push into Baghdad. As they engaged Saddam‘s loyalist forces, Iraqis would line the street to cheer for the US.

“Their response was incredible…they just had complete trust that we would not target them, would not harm them in any way. And they literally were out there with their children watching and were so excited to see the special Republican Guard and Baathist units be destroyed by U.S. forces.”

The Iraqis’ positive response was not limited to the first days of the war. Blanke says that he interacted with Iraqis on a daily basis who were “extremely appreciative of everything we had done.” Blanke gives a “great example” from the period after the Abu Grahib controversy: One night in when he was on patrol Fallujah, two Iraqis stopped their car. “And they came up to me and said thank you, thank you, thank you. That’s all they could say. What they did was then they showed me, they pulled up their shirts, pulled up their trouser legs, and showed me all the scars where they’ve been tortured by Uday and Qusay and went on to quite an extensive length about the horrors that they had faced. And that, you know, that’s not one isolated incident. We had a whole series of those types of incidents.”

Interviewer Jim Angle went on to ask Blanke if the absence of WMD had soured the mission for him. Blank answered, “I think for us, as we interacted with the Iraqi people and they started to tell us about the atrocities…the mass graves that have been found, literally thousands of people, some of whom were buried alive. Things like that made it very clear to us that there was a human rights dilemma. And for example…we found a prison of nothing but children, all 10, 12, 14-year-old children that were in prison as a way of manipulating their parents for political goals of Saddam.” In other words, he’s proud of what we’re doing.

Lt. Blanke ends on a positive note, pointing out that it will take time for the Iraqis to recover from 30 years of slavery but saying nonetheless that things look good. (Despite the fact that this “flies in the face of everything we see in the media today.”)

While some people may not accept the above evidence as conclusive, I think that Lt. Blanke may in fact know even more about what’s going on in Iraq than my friend’s history teacher.

Rumsfeld in Iraq

2004-12-27T15:39:00.000-08:00

The following is an e-mail from an American military doctor serving in Iraq (Capt. Dan Mattson) from Instapundit:

"It made my day, and I'm pretty certain it made theirs too. It's Christmas Eve, though it didn't feel like it. There are some good decorations in the hospital, but we had no Christmas music in the OR today, and no snow on the ground. No nativity scenes or festive cheer in this part of the world. Then, after a routine for here but hardly routine day in the OR, my day was made. I'm referring to the interaction I witnessed and helped facilitate between a young injured soldier and a high ranking official. Here is how it happened:

"I was reading foxnews.com at around noon when I told the anesthesiologist that 'the Donald' was in town on a surprise visit. No, not Donald Trump, but Donald Rumsfeld. He laughed cynically and said no way would he come here. Well, at around 1600 I was in the OR and I was told that Rumsfeld was downstairs, and we could go down there if we wanted to. I was not in a position to leave, obviously.

"Well, the timing worked out well, because I was taking my patient to the recovery room when we wheeled the stretcher through a mob of dignitaries, to include 3 and 4 star generals. I knew the Secretary was nearby, and it turns out he was in the ICU. The patient drew enough attention because of his bruised, banged up face that the 4 star came over to get his story from the surgeon. I was doing some charting by the bedside when Mr. Rumsfeld came over and heard the kid's story from the 4-star. Rumsfeld looked concerned and kind of kept his distance from the gruesome site. He said something like 'bless his heart', as if talking around him.

"That is when I, without any thought, piped in with 'Sir, you can talk to him, he's awake.' He told the soldier, named Rob, how proud he was of his service. The soldier was in a bit of disbelief, because he couldn't see with one eye patched and the other swollen shut. He said he wanted to talk to Rumsfeld. That's when I said 'He's standing right to your left, Rob, that's his voice you hear. You can talk to him.' The kid was nervous at that point, but sputtered out how honored he was to talk to him. Mr. Rumsfeld replied, 'No, it's an honor for me to talk to you.'

"Then remarkably, the young soldier, who had just lost his left hand and right eye from an explosion, came to the defense of the Secretary of Defense, stating 'Mr. Rumsfeld, I want you to know, that you are doing a fantastic job. I know that you are taking a lot of heat for the problems with getting armor for vehicles. I want you to know that things are vastly improved. Our vehicles are great, and I have never searched through junk piles for scrap metal.'

"At this point, Rumsfeld looked choked up, and I had a lump in my throat and and watery eyes. It was moving. What makes a man who has been so close to death, and maimed for life, come to the defense of the Army's highest ranking official? Loyalty, I dare say. Did Rob think Mr. Rumsfeld was having a self-esteem problem? In his greatest hour of need, his thoughts went to the emotional needs of another. I found it quite amazing, and moving. The Secretary took out a coin and gave it to a bystander for him, as if he didn't know he could touch him. Finally, the soldier said, 'Man, Donald Rumsfeld, I wish I could shake his hand.'

"Even at that, I felt Mr. Rumsfeld needed some prompting, so I picked up the kid's arm and looked at the Secretary, and he reached out and took the kid's hand. After the entourage left, I took the coin and placed it in the soldiers hand, for him to feel and hold. I said, 'that's not one you'll get every day.' He was happy. I told the person caring for him to make certain that coin went with him to his room. I was assured that he would. I told Rob it was an honor to care for him, and then went on to do my next case. I'd like to see him tomorrow, but I heard he is flying out tonight.

"I am grateful that I was placed in a position to help what could have been a mediocre interaction, fantastic. Judging by people's facial expressions, it was truly unique. Someone took a picture as this was happening, so once I get a hold of it, I'll send it along. "

Questionable Question

2004-12-23T16:11:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago, Army Specialist Thomas Wilson asked Donald Rumsfeld pointedly why his unit did not have properly armored vehicles to take “up north” to Iraq with them. Since that point I have noticed a couple of things worth mentioning:

First, Chattanooga Times Free Press reporter Les Pitts bragged in an e-mail about his ‘journalistic’ cleverness on that day. He had heard that Rumsfeld would take questions only from military men, so he had a little conversation with Spc. Wilson and one other soldier, and asked him to think of “intelligent questions.” Les Pitts apparently had a conversation with the microphone-handler as well, to make sure the that the mic found the right troops for questioning.

Spc. Wilson now claims that he came up with this question all by himself, but this brings up another point: At the time that Wilson was asking his question, 800 of the 830 vehicles in Wilson’s regiment (the 278th Cavalry) had already been armored. A further 20 were in the process of being armored at that very moment and were completed within 24 hours. (So he could have asked the question like this: “Why are only 96.4% of our vehicles currently armored, and why will only 98.8% be armored by tomorrow?”)

Either he got the question from someone else, or just happened to think it up wrong. It’s too bad that the media isn’t jumping to help Rumsfeld out of the ditch they dug for him.

The All-Male Military

2004-12-15T14:24:00.000-08:00

Today I will tackle the issue of women and the military (and why the two shouldn’t mix).

People who are in favor of women in combat contend that it is discrimination not to allow women to fight. They do not understand that the military does not, and has never, functioned in a “fair” manner. For some men military service is their privilege, for others it is their duty, for no one is it his right. The military is not a social experiment -- it exists solely for the purpose of killing people and blowing things up. Women compromise this mission.

First of all there is the question of strength (liberal readers: please do not be so obtuse as to suggest that strength is not necessary in the modern war -- ask a soldier). Fortunately we have some statistics provided by various militaries who have evaluated woman’s combat effectiveness.

The English ran a series of physical capability tests and discovered the following: First, in a test requiring soldiers to carry 90 pounds of shells over a measured distance, the male failure rate was 20%, the female failure rate was 70%. Next, in a 12.5 mile march with 60 pounds of equipment followed by target practice, the male failure rate was 17% in comparison with a female failure rate of 48%. In addition, as the Center for Military Readiness reports, “females were generally slower in simulated combat experiences involving lengthy ‘fire and move’ situations [and] in close-quarter battle tests, including hand-to-hand combat, women suffered much higher injury rates [these findings] are even more significant in view of the fact that test exercises had been so diluted…that they amounted to little more than ‘aggressive camping’…another source [reported] that women were not capable of a number of tasks under battlefield conditions, such as digging themselves into hard ground under fire.” In an unsuccessful attempt to skew the results in favor of women, the trials were made easier by, for example, removing heavy weapons from the trials.

Canada put one hundred volunteer women through regular army basic training. The failure rate was 99%. In America women were found to be incapable of throwing grenades far enough to avoid killing themselves.

The need for strength is not limited to combat assignments. Stephanie Gutmann reported in The Kinder, Gentler Military that women mechanics are often not physically capable of lifting their own toolboxes -- they have to get a man to carry it for them.

There is also the question of woman’s emotional ability to fight. As Stephanie Gutmann writes, women in the Army’s new training system often begin to cry when they have to descend from a rappelling tower, and some women are so panic-stricken that they cannot rappel at all. One can safely conclude that if women were as aggressive as men that today’s most aggressive professions, such as driving a racecar or playing ice-hockey, would contain nearly the same number of men and women.

One of the most obvious arguments is that if women were good at fighting, they would have been in the army from time’s beginning (unless you posit that women are just as strong as men, and yet men were somehow in a position to prevent women from serving).
I have heard many people say, “Well Israel has a great military -- and they let women fight.” In reality, while it is true that Israel has perhaps the best military in the world, women are not allowed to occupy combat positions. The Israeli Pal Mach tried letting women fight during the Independence War, and it was such a disaster that Israel has banned women from combat ever since. As one Israeli general explained, they cannot afford to experiment with women because they are a serious military.

So, you say, even though most women are too weak to fight, there are a few who can do the job and we should let them do it. The reason that this does not work is that you cannot have men and women living and fighting together. One of the most obvious problems is demonstrated by the modern Navy, in which an average of 10% of the female crew aboard a ship becomes pregnant and must be flown by helicopter back to dry land.

No one has argued that allowing women to fight would make the military more effective; it is fairly clear that it would do the opposite. Notwithstanding the practical case against women in combat, there is also the moral argument. Is chivalry so dead that men are willing to send women to go and fight for them?

A European Getting fed up with: Europe

2004-12-06T15:37:00.000-08:00

I have noticed that many of my friends refuse to listen to an American’s perspective on Europe, so I thought it would be handy to have a European’s perspective on Europe. The following article appeared in Die Welt on the 20th of November. It was written by Matthias Döpfner, the Chief Executive of publisher Axel Springer AG and was translated by Hartmut Lau.

"
Europe – Thy Name is Cowardice
by Mathias Döpfner

A few days ago Henryk M. Broder wrote in Welt am Sonntag, "Europe – your family name is appeasement." It’s a phrase you can’t get out of your head because it’s so terribly true.Appeasement cost millions of Jews and non-Jews their lives as England and France, allies at the time, negotiated and hesitated too long before they noticed that Hitler had to be fought, not bound to agreements. Appeasement stabilized communism in the Soviet Union and East Germany in that part of Europe where inhuman, suppressive governments were glorified as the ideologically correct alternative to all other possibilities. Appeasement crippled Europe when genocide ran rampant in Kosovo and we Europeans debated and debated until the Americans came in and did our work for us. Rather than protecting democracy in the Middle East, European appeasement, camouflaged behind the fuzzy word "equidistance," now countenances suicide bombings in Israel by fundamentalist Palestinians. Appeasement generates a mentality that allows Europe to ignore 300,000 victims of Saddam’s torture and murder machinery and, motivated by the self-righteousness of the peace-movement, to issue bad grades to George Bush. A particularly grotesque form of appeasement is reacting to the escalating violence by Islamic fundamentalists in Holland and elsewhere by suggesting that we should really have a Muslim holiday in Germany.

What else has to happen before the European public and its political leadership get it? There is a sort of crusade underway, an especially perfidious crusade consisting of systematic attacks by fanatic Muslims, focused on civilians and directed against our free, open Western societies.

It is a conflict that will most likely last longer than the great military conflicts of the last century—a conflict conducted by an enemy that cannot be tamed by tolerance and accommodation but only spurred on by such gestures, which will be mistaken for signs of weakness.

Two recent American presidents had the courage needed for anti-appeasement: Reagan and Bush. Reagan ended the Cold War and Bush, supported only by the social democrat Blair acting on moral conviction, recognized the danger in the Islamic fight against democracy. His place in history will have to be evaluated after a number of years have passed.

In the meantime, Europe sits back with charismatic self-confidence in the multicultural corner instead of defending liberal society’s values and being an attractive center of power on the same playing field as the true great powers, America and China. On the contrary—we Europeans present ourselves, in contrast to the intolerant, as world champions in tolerance, which even [Germany's Interior Minister] Otto Schily justifiably criticizes. Why? Because we’re so moral? I fear it’s more because we’re so materialistic.

For his policies, Bush risks the fall of the dollar, huge amounts of additional national debt and a massive and persistent burden on the American economy—because everything is at stake.

While the alleged capitalistic robber barons in American know their priorities, we timidly defend our social welfare systems. Stay out of it! It could get expensive. We’d rather discuss the 35-hour workweek or our dental health plan coverage. Or listen to TV pastors preach about "reaching out to murderers." These days, Europe reminds me of an elderly aunt who hides her last pieces of jewelry with shaking hands when she notices a robber has broken into a neighbor’s house. Europe, thy name is cowardice.
"

Getting Rid of God

2004-12-02T15:54:00.000-08:00

Steven Williams is a fifth-grade teacher at Stevens Creek School who has been censored by principal Patricia Vidmar because he is a Christian. Vidmar forced Williams to submit all his lesson plans to her in advance for clearance, and any items containing references to God or Christianity were banned. Banned documents included the Declaration of Independence, and writings by George Washington, Samuel Adams, John Adams, and William Penn. Williams has filed suit, citing the obvious violation of his right to free speech. His lawyer Terry Thompson says:

“It's a fact of American history that our founders were religious men, and to hide this fact from young fifth-graders in the name of political correctness is outrageous and shameful.
Williams wants to teach his students the true history of our country. There is nothing in the Establishment Clause (of the U.S. Constitution) that prohibits a teacher from showing students the Declaration of Independence."

Liberals have been trying to get rid of religion for years, and have now reached a point where they can no longer ignore religion’s role in the foundation of this country. They have a choice: either they can keep this county’s founding principles and religion, or they can banish them both. Unfortunately for some libs, they’ve chosen the latter option, which exposes them.
Get a full story here.

Brain Terminal Catches Protesters at their Worst

2004-11-29T04:08:00.000-08:00

Evan Coyne Maloney, creator of the Brain Terminal website, sent me a pair of DVDs featuring video from confrontations with the left. These expertly done pieces include a clip of a protest in NYC (in which protesters are given a chance to come up with a better solution to the Iraq problem) and a discussion with libs who attended Gore’s January 15th speech on global warming (in record-setting single-digit temperatures).

Of all the videos available though, there was one that stood out -- the pro-Pallestinian rally at Rutgers University. Maloney had intended to film the pro-Palestine conference located at the Ramada Inn. He and his crew were soon forced to leave the hotel at the request of the other conference-goers, so they relocated to an adjacent lot. They were still hoping to get interviews, but the conference organizers “started hanging around the camera, calling us Zionists and warning people not to speak with us.”

Maloney decided to go and film the rally taking place at Rutgers University instead. When he and his two crewmen go there, protest-ralliers tried to block their cameras with signs. When this failed to discourage Maloney, things got worse:

“Once again, I tried to move, but I was now completely encircled. When I tried to escape, the protesters then started smacking the camera with their signs, while others were shoving me from different directions. I started retreating, pushing my way back from the loudspeaker, all the while leaving the camera running and asking the protesters why they weren't letting me film. One man tried to prevent me from getting audio by unleashing a high-pitched squeal into the microphone. Another man asked me whether my camera was expensive, a question that--under the circumstances--I interpreted as a veiled threat.
Alexis and Tim also had cameras and were able to snap some stills and shoot few seconds of video. But they, too, were set upon by protesters. When they tried to use their cameras, protesters would put signs in the way. They dodged and weaved like basketball players, but at each turn, they were stopped. One protester with a masked face lunged at Alexis, threatening to break her camera and telling her, 'I'm gonna kick your fucking ass.' She was also hit by signs.”

At this point, Maloney managed to attract the attention of local news camera-crews by yelling “Why are you trying to censor me?” The protestors stopped blocking and hitting him with their signs when the other cameras showed up, though one man continued to ask him periodically “are you nervous?”

Maloney was finally able to film the speakers at the rally. To get a full understanding of their vitriol, you really need to watch the film. The speakers, in between hate-filled anti-Israel diatribes, accused Maloney of being “small minded,” an “agent provocateur,” a Zionist and a Fascist, an “arrogant grinning idiot,” and an “agent of the Mossad.”

Maloney created a separate film dedicated to Mary Lou, a spokesman at the protest who accused the Jews of doing the same dastardly thing that Americans did in founding this country -- they were kicked out of one country, so they decided to go invade another and steal it from its rightful owners. The bottom line here is that it appears that the same people who hate Israel hate America. Take a good look at what this faction of the far left really thinks.

Wait! There's more (soon)

2004-11-23T14:01:00.000-08:00

In the midst of college applications, I'm afraid I may have been a little negligent in blogging. This does not mean that you should all run away. I will have a new story published on the Monday after Thanksgiving (and it will be good).
See you then,
Republican Dan

Help Leftists Leave

2004-11-15T13:13:00.000-08:00

Now all those liberals who are dying to get out of this country can go! For Free! The “Help Them Leave” website is offering to help all those disgruntled libs get out of the US, providing that they renounce their citizenship and sign a sworn statement promising never to come back again. If you have any friends who have ranted in recent about how they can’t spend another minute here you might direct them to the site. At least it should make them quiet.

Here is a list of locations they offer, tailored to match the deportee’s political preferences:

Anti-Americans: Iran, Lebanon, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Yemen
Communists: Cuba, North Korea or Vietnam
Leftists: France, Germany, Spain, or Venezuela
Socialists: Canada, Denmark, Finland, Norway, or Sweden

The View from Michael Moore's Eyes

2004-11-09T14:03:00.000-08:00

I was pointed to this picture by a blog reader, and I saw it later on Fox News. This is from Michael Moore's website. As he sees it, the non-crazy Kerry states belong to the US of C, wheras we religious zealots belong to Jesusland. I don't think he belongs to this world.

From a Small Business Owner

2004-11-07T13:09:00.000-08:00

A few days before the election, one of my blog’s readers sent me a piece written by his friend, on why he intended to vote for Bush. I found the following excerpts on small businesses particularly interesting:

"Personally, I started three new business ventures in the past three years which have created new jobs for people from low, middle, and upper income classes. The jobs range from fiberglass construction [to] high-tech computer programming. One of the things I have to consider before investing in a new business is the risk, which includes weighing the cost against the profit. In all cases, the largest cost I have, regardless of the venture, is taxes. Taxes cost more than the raw materials and the labor combined. If the tax goes up, the costs go up and the risk is increased.

Further, some of my production is done overseas where the labor is cheaper. If I had it done in the USA, the end-cost of my products would be higher. Kerry wants to appeal to lower and middle class voters, so he campaigns against out-sourcing. Clearly, he has never run a business. He appears to know nothing about real-world economics. But the cost of the goods would rise, and cause a lot more damage to the middle class...not to mention give other countries an advantage in establishing production relationships with developing countries where their own goods and services can be sold. Protectionism was disproved as an economy-buster many decades ago. In today’s world, with communication and transportation even more ubiquitous, it would be economic suicide to turn back the clock.

Kerry’s tax and protectionism plan, announced with pride, will prevent me, as well as other small businesses, from investing in new ventures. Therefore, his plan will not help the middle class who need to find new jobs. It will hurt them. In my opinion, it is nothing more than promoting class envy to the masses who will become more dependent on government as they vote for politicians who promise to take care of them while sticking it to the rich."

We can all be glad that Kerry was defeated – in the meantime this post can give us yet another reason not to support the future Kerrys.

Election Results by County.

2004-11-04T16:30:00.000-08:00

This is a map of the election results by county. Red countys were won by Bush, blue ones by Kerry, and the grey ones have not yet finished reporting. If you go by square-mileage, Bush won almost five times as much -- 2.51 million as compared with 511,700. See a larger image here.

Bush is in, Wall Street is Happy

2004-11-04T16:12:00.000-08:00

Stocks have soared for the second straight day after Bush’s win – the Dow Jones average has risen nearly 300 points in two days. Today, the Dow Jones average closed up 1.8%, Nasdaq rose 1%, and the S&P 500 was up 1.6%.

Victory is Ours!

2004-11-04T04:12:00.000-08:00

Hello out there! Not a bad day for the right side of politics. In case you’re not already all up to date, this is how things worked out: Though Iowa has still not been called for either side, Bush has 279 electoral votes to Kerry’s 252 (270 are required to win). Kerry did the manly thing when he called up during math class (my math class of course) to concede defeat – he realized that he was unlikely to receive the 94% of provisional votes cast that would move Ohio into his column. Bush received three-and-a-half million more votes than Kerry, winning the popular vote by 51 to 48 percent. Bush tallied seven million more votes than he got in the last election; he got more votes than any other president in history. Bush got more of the female, black, and Hispanic vote than he did in the last election.

Republicans fared well in the House and Senate races as well – we picked up four seats in the Senate, giving us 55 seats to the Democrat’s 44 (there is also one independent who usually votes with the Democrats). The most important Senate race may well have been the one in South Dakota, where the Democrat’s ex-minority leader Tom Daschle (a Senator since 1986) lost to Republican challenger John Thune, who got 51% of the popular vote. Other happy outcomes include Mel Martinez’s defeat of Betty Castor in Florida, and Lisa Murkowski’s defeat of Tony Knowles in Alaska. (Murkowski had been appointed by her father to fill a vacant seat, and it was speculated that this would hurt her.) In Louisiana, David Vitter (R) avoided a runoff election by getting over 50% of the vote. (Louisiana has open elections where more than one candidate can run from each party; in the event that no candidate gets half the vote, there is a runoff between the top two candidates).

Even though three races remain to be called in the House, Republicans have increased their lead – they now have 231 seats to the Democrats’ 200 (there is also an Independent in the House).

Another bit of good news: Eleven states had state constitutional amendments on the ballot that would ban gay marriage in the state. All eleven amendments won in an impressive rejection of gay marriage. The margins ranged from 3-2 in Ohio to 6-1 in Mississippi. The amendments in nine of the states banned civil unions as well. These amendments have allowed the people to make the laws – and taken the power over gay marriage out of the hands of activist judges in those states.

In the face of this resounding victory for conservative values in America, I’ve heard some distressed liberals say that they’re going to move to Canada. I would like to say to them, in as gracious and magnanimous a manner as possible: Go ahead.

The Village Voice: Another Victory for Unbiased Reporting

2004-10-31T04:09:00.000-08:00

The front page of "America's Largest Weekly Newspaper."

Another Note

2004-10-29T11:42:00.000-07:00

If you happened to IM me in the past few days, I was unable to view your messages because of an IM malfunction. If you've IMed me and not gotten answer, you can IM me again or, even better, e-mail me at republicandan@hotmail.com

Arafat Seriously Sick (physically too)

2004-10-29T05:48:00.000-07:00

Head Palestinian Terrorist Arafat has been flown to Paris to receive emergency medical treatment. He has apparently lost consciousness. Though Arafat’s doctor has claimed that Arafat does not have leukemia, Israeli intelligence has speculated that he does. Read a full story here.

Click here for a past blog on the Palestinian’s behavior under Arafat.

UK paper The Guardian: Assassinate Bush

2004-10-24T08:55:00.000-07:00

As you may have heard by now, a column in the UK’s Guardian by liberal lunatic Charlie Brooker has essentially called for the assassination of our president.

After Brooker dispenses with his intro (“The rest of the world bangs its head against the floorboards screaming ‘Please God, not Bush!’”) he moves on to discuss the possibility of Bush’s having worn a wire during the debates (to get help from his offstage cronies).

“Quite frankly, the man's either wired or mad. If it's the former, he should be flung out of office: tarred, feathered and kicked in the nuts. And if it's the latter, his behaviour goes beyond strange, and heads toward terrifying…Each time he recalls a statistic (either from memory or the voice in his head), he flashes us a dumb little smile, like a toddler proudly showing off its first bowel movement. Forgive me for employing the language of the playground, but the man's a tool.”

Brooker then complains that the US media failed in its responsibility by just letting the “wire” story die. The column rambles on, applying a few more epithets to Bush, and then we get the closer: “John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr. - where are you now that we need you?”

I was going to add an explanation here, but that last line speaks for itself.

Cal State's own "Ideological Bigot"

2004-10-21T13:44:00.000-07:00

Cal State English teacher Clifton Snider’s website header runs: “Clifton Snider, Poet, Novelist, Literary Critic, and Lecturer at California State University, Long Beach.”

As I started reading his website, my first impression was that I was dealing with someone who really loves himself. Most of the site is dedicated to discussing his own books, poetry (he has another site called “Poets against the War”) and various other works. But it wasn’t long before I found what I was looking for – his curriculum.

I just heard on Fox a few minutes before writing this that Mr. Snider is known for forcing his liberal views on his students (who have to take an English class as a requirement). These are some “Subjects for an Argument Paper” as printed on Snider’s curriculum pages:

“Is it right for the Bush Administration to use the War on Terrorism for political or commercial purposes?”

“What role does George W. Bush have in the Enron scandal?”

“The Economy…Under President Clinton, the Federal Government had a handle on the national debt. Now the Bush administration is passing that debt on to the post-baby-boom generation.”

“The Environment (insecticides, off-shore drilling, protecting the forests, clean-air laws, protecting pristine land in Alaska from oil drilling). See Elizabeth Shogren's, "States, White House at Odds on Environment," Los Angeles Times, 29 December 2002, A23.”

“George W. Bush's time in the National Guard presents important questions about the character of a man who has sent hundreds of Americans to their deaths in war and killed and maimed untold thousands of others. See Richard A. Serrano's "What Did Bush Do in the Guard?" (Los Angeles Times, 15 February 2004: A1+), Jennifer Loven's "Bush Guard Records Lack Answers" (Press-Telegram, 15 February 2004: A5), and James Rainey's "Documents Say Bush Got Breaks in Military" (Los Angeles Times, 9 September 2004: A1+).”

“It is no secret that the Bush administration and many Republicans have taken steps to undo the progress in environmental protection made before they took office.”

“Gun control (should a license, including a card with a picture similar to a driver's license, be required of gun owners? should handguns be banned? These are only two narrowed gun control topics; "gun control" itself is far too broad as a topic). See Aparna Kumar's "More Guns in Citizens' Hands Can Worsen Crime, Study Says" (Los Angeles Times, 23 January 2003: A15).”

These are only a few of the topics he lists at the bottom of his argument paper page. Beneath these topics, he lists those which may not be discussed. Taboo topics include religion, and “Topics on which there is, in my opinion, no other side apart from chauvinistic, religious, or bigoted opinions and pseudo-science (for example, female circumcision, prayer in public schools, same-sex marriage, the so-called faith-based initiative, abortion, hate crime laws, the existence of the Holocaust, and so-called creationism).” (Emphasis in the original)

Opposing this “teacher” is Dr. Mike Adams, whose articles appear here. After Dr. Adams exposed Snider as an “ideological bigot” in “Shut up and Teach,” Snider threatened to sue Adams because Adams quoted from his website without permission. Adams followed with “Shut up and Sue,” and most recently “Cliff’s Notes.” They all make very interesting reading.

Getting Worried?

2004-10-19T11:54:00.000-07:00

Kerry’s campaign has deteriorated to the point where Kerry is no longer talking to voters about his plan for America and why it’s so great. He is now reduced to snatching at every little anti-Bush rumor that comes along.

Last week, Kerry told The Des Moines Register that, with Bush as President, there is a “great potential of a draft” despite the fact that the President explicitly stated during the debates that the draft will not be brought back. Perhaps Kerry wasn’t paying attention?

Kerry told voters last Sunday (the 17th) that, if elected, Bush had in store a “January Surprise,” – privatizing social security. The first thing that’s wrong with this is that Bush has not said he will privatize social security (though that would probably be a good idea). Bush’s plan is to allow people to invest 25% of their social security payments privately.
The second problem with Kerry’ statement is that it’s not a surprise. As Fred Barnes pointed out on Fox News yesterday, it such a non-surprise that Bush actually campaigned on the partial privatization of social security the first time he ran for President.

I’m sure that the strongest feeling you’d find in the Kerry camp these days is desperation.

The Red Folder

2004-10-18T14:38:00.000-07:00

I have had a number of requests for the information that I carry in the Red Folder that I referred to in my article in the Weekly Standard. I will therefore be adding in the next few days a section on my sidebar containing links to the online documents that I keep copies of in my folder.

How English Teachers Destroy the English Language

2004-10-18T13:05:00.000-07:00

My school uses The Writing and Revision Stylebook, by Gregory Heyworth and Rosette Liberman (the latter is a teacher at the school, which may explain why we have so many copies). I was glancing through the book to see how in compares to great stylebooks like Fowler’s Modern English Usage and Strunk & White, and I was horrified to find a section entitled, “Using non-sexist controlling pronouns.” The Writing and Revision Stylebook explains:

“Non-sexist terminology emphasizes the equality of men and women by injection gender-neutral nouns and feminine pronouns into writing…In a short piece of writing, the hybrid pronoun he/she or its cousin his or her can be non-intrusive.”

The stylebook admits that the ‘he/she’ type of thing can be cumbersome, and demonstrates this by example. Just as you think the book is about to get serious and tell you the truth about pronouns, it gives instead the following commentary:

“This example can be corrected in several ways. The controlling voice can be converted to the plural they, to the objective one or to the exclusive use of either the masculine or the feminine throughout [in which case] the controlling pronoun can alternate between female and male from one example to the next.”

The English language does, of course, change over time – it becomes simpler and more elegant. What you see here is an attempt by feminist teachers to change the language in order to accommodate their political views.

Churchill Quote

2004-10-18T11:55:00.000-07:00

There is some doubt as to the veracity of the quote "If you are young and not liberal, then you don't have a heart. If you are old and not conservative then you don't have a brain." (This used to be beneath my blog title on the header). Since I am not Dan Rather, I have retracted it and replaced it with a Roosevelt quote which I think goes quite nicely.

The 'Non-Partisan' Press Makes Another Little Mistake

2004-10-17T13:06:00.000-07:00

Democrats are anxious to show that our campaign in Iraq just a big pile of mistakes. One of their favorite things is to complain that we don’t have enough troops in Iraq (despite the fact the President has repeatedly told his generals to ask for more troops if they need any).

Kerry has claimed that former Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki was forced to retire early for criticizing troop levels, but Shinseki actually retired on time.

The Washington Post, always eager to help the Left, reported that, while it was true that Shinseki was not forced to retire early, “Defense Department officials leaked the name of his replacement 14 months early, effectively undercutting his authority” in revenge for his comments.

As reported by Fox News, however, The Post has admitted that this could not be true, since Shinseki made his comments after the Defense Department had already identified his successor.

Iraqi Eloquence in the Blogosphere

2004-10-17T13:05:00.000-07:00

This is a post from the Messopotamian, which is an Iraqi blog.
The blogger, Iraqi Alaa, seems to understand the stakes in this election better than many Americans.

"
Hi Friends,
Actually, the American elections are rather more crucial for us at the moment than our own . That is not to belittle the importance of the latter, but taking a really hard look at the present situation, one cannot escape this conclusion. This statement may annoy a lot of people, but we are not particularly concerned about sensitivities at the moment. The thing is that we have to admit that despite the fact that most emphatically, the majority of the Iraqi people are for the new Iraq, and that the “insurrectionists” do not represent but a small minority, nevertheless the balance of forces on the ground would be seriously upset were it not for the support of the American and allied forces and nations. This small minority is dangerous, desperate, ruthless and absolutely prepared to commit any kind of atrocity to further their aims and vent their spleen, as has been clearly demonstrated almost everyday. They are well financed and connected with parties and interests beyond the border who consider it a matter of life and death to thwart all U.S. efforts and abort this attempt at creating a democratic state in the area. There are even larger international forces at work behind the regional players. So with all these foes it cannot be expected that the fledgling new Iraqi state and the largely peaceful and unarmed people can withstand the assault on their own in the present stage of development. It is a foregone conclusion that any abandonment or retreat would result in the most catastrophic consequences both for the Iraqi people as well as within the context of the wider global war on terrorism. Having said that, it is also important, to ease the burden on the Multi National Forces and keep them as much as possible out of harms way and stop the losses altogether. This can be done by transferring as much of the routine tasks to the Iraqis while keeping the MNF in secure bases from which they can be deployed for strategic tasks. For us, they are a most valuable asset and must be shielded and used only with the utmost care and parsimony. I believe it is possible to devise such a strategy and that it can be implemented.

Now, do we have a right, as Iraqis to express our opinion about the U.S. elections, which are of course an entirely internal affair for the American people? Or are they?It seems to me, that since this matter is going to have a direct impact on our lives and very existence and since the U.S. government and people have seen fit to intervene and initiate this profound revolution in our country; it would not be extravagant nor incorrect for us even to demand to take part in those elections, rhetorically speaking of course.

So, I have been, personally very attentive to the debates and positions of both candidates, and I have some thoughts which I would like to share with you, my American friends. To start with, Senator Kerry may be a very good man and quite patriotic. Also we have to respect the almost 50% of the American people who lean towards the democrats. I don’t know much about domestic issues in the States so naturally, as might be expected, the position of any Iraqi would be mainly influenced by the issue that most concerns him. Thus, regardless of all the arguments of both candidates the main problem is that President Bush now represents a symbol of defiance against the terrorists and it is a fact, that all the enemies of America, with the terrorists foremost, are hoping for him to be deposed in the upcoming elections. That is not to say that they like the democrats, but that they will take such an outcome as retreat by the American people, and will consequently be greatly encouraged to intensify their assault. The outcome here on the ground in Iraq seems to be almost obvious. In case President Bush loses the election there would be a massive upsurge of violence, in the belief, rightly or wrongly, by the enemy, that the new leadership is more likely to “cut and run” to use the phrase frequently used by some of my readers. And they would try to inflict as heavy casualties as possible on the American forces to bring about a retreat and withdrawal. It is crucial for them to remove this insurmountable obstacle which stands in their way. They fully realize that with continued American and allies’ commitment, they have no hope of achieving anything.

On the other hand if President Bush is reelected, this will prove to them that the American people are not intimidated despite all their brutality, and that their cause is quite futile. Yes there is little doubt that an election victory by President Bush would be a severe blow and a great disappointment for all the terrorists in the World and all the enemies of America. I believe that such an outcome would result in despair and demoralization of the “insurgent elements” here in Iraq, and would lead to the pro-democracy forces gaining the upper hand eventually. Note that we are not saying that President Bush is perfect, nor even that he is better than the Senator, just that the present situation is such that a change of leadership at this crucial point is going to send an entirely wrong message to all the enemies. Unfortunately, it seems to me that many in the U.S. don’t quite appreciate how high the stakes are. The challenge is mortal, and you and we are locked in a War, a National Emergency; and in such circumstances partisan considerations must be of secondary importance. If you lose this war, you are no more, and you will have to withdraw within you boundaries cringing and waiting for terror to strike you in your homeland, afraid to move around, afraid to travel, afraid to do business abroad. You will have to see all your friends abroad annihilated and intimidated and nobody will have any confidence or trust in you anymore. And you will have to watch from far with bitterness the forces of darkness and evil taking over in many parts of this earth, with feelings of impotence and inability to do anything about it. In other words you would lose all credibility, and the fiends of terror and obscurantism would go triumphantly dancing the macabre dance of mayhem and death, and darkness would descend and obliterate the light and the hope. You think I am exaggerating, you think I am being paranoid? I just pray that destiny would not prove all these things; I pray that these horrors will not come to pass. And all this for what? For failing to confront few thousands ex-baathists and demented religious fanatics and some common criminals, concentrated in some rural areas of a country of the size of just one of your states; and that for a nation that has defeated Natzism, Imperial Japan and the Soviet Empire!

Well if Senator Kerry is such a good man, and he may well be, then it would be prudent to wait just another four years to elect him, after the job is done. And if this is interference in your national affairs by a foreigner, I am not going to give you any apology for it.
"

Note

2004-10-16T18:46:00.000-07:00

I've just switched to this blog adress so it will take a few days to get my stuff up

ABC also seems Rather surprised

2004-10-10T17:37:00.000-07:00

It seems that one scandal was not enough for the mainstream media. Just one month after CBS's Dan Rather proved to be biased to the point of truth-blindness (hear no truth, see no truth, speak no truth) ABC News' Political Director Mark Halperin has released a memo to his subordinates instructing concentrate more on Bush's than Kerry's mistakes, and to use their "skill and strength" to "serve the public interest.
Read it for yourself:

Halperin Memo Dated Friday October 8, 2004 It goes without saying that the stakes are getting very high for the country and the campaigns - and our responsibilities become quite grave.I do not want to set off and [sic] endless colloquy that none of us have time for today - nor do I want to stifle one. Please respond if you feel you can advance the discussion.
The New York Times (Nagourney/Stevenson) and Howard Fineman on the web both make the same point today: the current Bush attacks on Kerry involve distortions and taking things out of context in a way that goes beyond what Kerry has done. Kerry distorts, takes out of context, and mistakes all the time, but these are not central to his efforts to win.We have a responsibility to hold both sides accountable to the public interest, but that doesn't mean we reflexively and artificially hold both sides "equally" accountable when the facts don't warrant that.
I'm sure many of you have this week felt the stepped up Bush efforts to complain about our coverage. This is all part of their efforts to get away with as much as possible with the stepped up, renewed efforts to win the election by destroying Senator Kerry at least partly through distortions.
It's up to Kerry to defend himself, of course. But as one of the few news organizations with the skill and strength to help voters evaluate what the candidates are saying to serve the public interest. Now is the time for all of us to step up and do that right.

It's easy to see why no one is taking the mainstream media seriously anymore.