In the Syria saga, we are getting a good glimpse of how political decisions are made in a gargantuan democracy, and we are also getting quite a cash payout — worth a great deal to me at any rate — of Ron Paul’s apparently quixotic presidential runs. Let me state the conclusion first. I am …
A Three Car Funeral
Spotify just informed me that Vince Gill had listened to Merle Haggard’s “The Fightin’ Side of Me,” and so naturally, I did too. It had been, what? — thirty years? Maybe more than that. Apart from how Congress votes on Syria, and regardless of what Obama does after that, we are not really in a …
Syria in a Sentence
I want Congress to authorize something I don’t believe they need to authorize, and which I reserve the right to do anyway whether or not they authorize it, in order that I might defend the credibility of a red line I didn’t actually draw, so that I may take decisive action that will not in …
Syrian Just War, or Just War in Syria?
The Syria thing is such a mess that it appears to fit right in. And so let me say just a few things that might indicate why I might say something like that, and to help everyone feel right at home. It is the Middle East, after all. Traditional just war theory contains two fundamental …
Other Than That, Everything’s Normal
It has been a while since we have discussed national security issues. I walked away from the topic so that all parties concerned might have a chance to calm down. But Bradley Manning was just sentenced to thirty years plus, and his big announcement right afterwards was that he wanted to start the Chelsea hormone …
When There Is No Ham in the Ham Sandwich
Here is a post that illustrates, as few other things could, the need to read our political and historical narratives in a biblical way. In this post, the author, Jada Thacker, argues that the Constitution was not about limited government at all, and that Tea Partiers and their ilk (ilk is just a great word, …
The Fourth of July: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Genuine patriotism is not surprised or derailed by flaws, sins or wickedness in the object of our love. Sentimental patriotism, by contrast, treats love of country the same way a maudlin Hallmark card writer would treat, after three beers, love of mother. Mothers Day becomes a high, holy, and sacred thing — a sanctifying thing, …
To a Chair in the Basement
Allow me first to draw your attention to this fine post, with which I largely agree. But then, if I may, I would like to ladle some generous helpings of my own brown gravy complications over top the roast beef of our agreement. So to speak. This is another way of saying that I agree, …
Down the Sinkhole
The issue before us now is not whether Snowden is an admirable and trustworthy character. The thing we should care about is whether the people pursuing him are trustworthy, and the manifest answer is that they are not. The issue is not whether the countries that Snowden has popped into are bastions of liberty — …
But I Don’t Want Internal Safeguards . . .
Once we established the supposedly constitutional right to abortion, grounded in the right to privacy, it was just a matter of time before the genuine right to privacy came apart in our hands. A nation that does not know what privacy is can hardly protect it. You can’t guard what you can’t define. The NSA …