| Wednesday, October
9, 2002
I am home.
Jim Seymour, RIP
http://www.thestreet.com/funds/editorsdesk/10046684.html
Jim was a long time friend and colleague. We generally had dinner
together a couple of times a year at COMDEX shows. We weren't close
friends, but we could call on each other for favors, and we shared
contacts. I was never worried that Jim would abuse or take advantage of
any information I gave him.
I haven't thought about him for a while, so I can't say I'll miss him
greatly, but he was a good man, and deserves to be remembered.
I have a lot to do on fiction for the rest of the week.
A short disquisition, not
well organized.
It's hard to read the situation regarding the coming war. The President
made a good case, and Saddam Hussein has a long record of defying
inspectors and playing obfuscatory games. That's the Arab way, but playing
that this time will probably get him killed, or at least deposed. I
believe he has already exhausted the patience of our President and his
advisors; soon he will exhaust the patience of the American people, and
his doom will be sealed. So be it.
If the United States is determined to be involved in the affairs of the
Middle East, and absent a vigorous energy independence program I suppose
we have little choice, then a change of regimes in Iraq is probably a good
thing in the long run. The danger to us is what may do with that victory.
The first fruits of empire are often very sweet, and lead to a lust for
more.
At home, my quarrel with current events is that war always brings about
more centralization of government, more conversion of republic to empire,
and that trend often accelerates when the war isn't so popular and law and
coercion have to be used as well as national enthusiasm to enforce
policies necessary to the war effort. By empire I mean centralization,
concentration of political power in one city and in one small group whose
decisions affect everyone.
The old republic I remember, when Washington D.C. was a small town in
Maryland and the local sheriff and mayor were more important to your life
than the President; when the major Federal presence in rural Tennessee was
the County Agent who had really good information about terracing and
contour plowing and land conservation; those days are pretty well gone,
and it's unlikely we'll ever devolve enough power to the states to bring
them back.
It may be that those of us who loved the old republic, and who believe
that minding our own business is hard enough, may need to rethink who we
are and what we call ourselves. I used to say I was conservative, but I
don't have much in common with the people who are now the leaders of what
calls itself the conservative movement. I don't thirst for overseas
adventures, I don't want vexillations of US legions scattered all over the
globe, I don't want our pro-c0nsuls governing people with our Special
Forces enforcing their will; and if those things come to pass because we
have no choice, I may cheer our soldiers but I will not cheer the outcome;
and I will continue to look for ways to give us other and better choices.
Those who now claim the leadership of the conservatives rejoice at our
lack of choices. They long for the thrill of American parades in foreign
capitals. When I was young, I recall a British friend of my father's who
told of his joy at seeing more and more of the world map turn pink. He
thought that grand, and I can understand that thrill. It is seductive. And
you can make a good case that much of the world was better off under the
British Raj than it is now; that the world is a better place for the
former existence of the British Empire. But is Britain?
I am not an ardent free trader. I recognize that international trade is
a way to keep out own industries efficient, and that lack of competition
leads to stagnation; I know that without efficient industry there are
fewer goods of fortune to distribute and that rising tides float all
boats, etc., etc. I know that free trade maximizes the choice of goods at
minimum prices; but I also know displaced people are unhappy and restless,
and become more dependent on government. I know that a nation of rootless
people who can be thought of as that commodity "labor" and moved
from place to place with no more concern than we would have for where we
ought to locate a new pig farm or chicken ranch is a nation that will need
more and more police and "law enforcement" and welfare and the
rest of it, and is a nation whose citizens are more and more dependent on
the government for their lives; and I think unrestricted free trade
inevitably leads there.
I am not a libertarian as such. Libertarianism is a vector, not a goal,
and for the moment we ought to be headed toward less government control
rather than more, but there are exceptions there as well. The world is a
dangerous place. The public safety can be endangered by a very few,
especially if they have the resources of a foreign government. I have
always know that; after all, I was a Cold Warrior most of my life. I may
know more about how a small conspiracy well supplied with foreign gold can
endanger the republic than most people alive today.
But the world has always been dangerous, which is why governments are
instituted among men: left to themselves, most people live quiet and
decent lives, but there are plenty enough to disrupt the public peace and
order. For every right there are those who think to enjoy the fruits of
others by violating those rights. These include thieves and robbers and
petty bureaucratic tyrants as well.
Rights don't exist outside a mechanism to enforce them; even the old
Roman Republic found that out, when a Roman court might award you possession
of a farm but it was up to you to find ways to enforce that. The result
was inevitably the patron/client system, in which the clientes were in
theory free, but in practice had little choice but to call on their patron
at his bidding and whim, and at all times to "show respect." If
that sounds familiarly like certain extra-legal organizations, I leave you
to draw your own conclusions.
We need government and it needs to be strong; but its jurisdiction and
scope needs to be limited, and the more power it has to stick its nose
into your business, the closer to you, and the more local, it ought to be.
Every case ought not be a federal case.
The above are unorganized and random observations about important
matters. I'll leave them stand, but do not consider the above as anything
more than musings over coffee; one day I'll write a more coherent essay.
But the conclusion I draw, reluctantly, is that we will never restore
the old republic; and given that, the goal ought to be competent empire
that serves its citizens; and ought to maintain the fiction that the
purpose of government was given in the Declaration:
To secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving
their just powers from the consent of the governed.
That is no longer true and we all know it; but perhaps if we try to act
as if it were true, the changes will be a bit slower and less fearsome.
And as we try to determine who we -- the American people, the American
nation -- are, we need to be mindful that there are those who hate us, and
the more we inject ourselves into their part of the world, the more hatred
there will be. Republics generally don't have friends, but they
often lack for enemies. Empires have friend and supplicants and clients;
and they seldom lack for enemies.
Empires must serve their citizens; inevitably, though, they serve
others, often to the detriment of the citizens. Keep that always in mind.
And I almost ceaselessly repeat, we really do need to use our
technology to make ourselves as independent of others as we can be. Gold
may not get you good soldiers, good soldiers can always get you gold, but
it's even better if you own the gold mines so no one resents you the
wherewithal to pay your good soldiers....
I just ran across this:
THE NEW YORK TIMES
http://nytimes.com/2002/09/29/health/29MALA.html
September 29, 2002 Virginia Mosquitoes Found
With Malaria By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
[L] EESBURG, Va., Sept. 28 (AP) ‹
Malaria-carrying mosquitoes have been found near the homes of two
teenagers infected with the disease. The authorities say it is the first
case in at least two decades in which malaria has been detected in
mosquitoes and humans in an American community.
Two pools of malarial mosquitoes were
discovered Wednesday near the Potomac River, one 4 miles and the other 6
miles from the Loudoun County homes of the two teenagers, who were given
diagnoses of malaria over the summer, county officials said.
From another source:
By the way, be very careful about taking
Lariam, the prescription anti-malaria drug. Dan Olmsted at UPI has been
doing a series on how Lariam seems to set off clinical depression, with a
disproportionate number of suicides. There are older (and less convenient)
anti-malarial drug that don't seem to have these side effects
And an interesting notion
on Transportation Agency rules...
Then we have:
Observer | Raging boffins http://www.observer.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4506082,00.html
[Oliver James vs. Steven Pinker, who really
gets around! I add that Pinker's evidence is based on analysis of variance
in a *current* population. This does not preclude large generations
effects, as per Strauss-Howe, or of broad civilizational and racial
differences.]
Raging boffins
The nature v nurture debate has never been so
fierce. Robin McKie and Vanessa Thorpe report on the bitter row between
two leading scientists
Robin McKie and Vanessa Thorpe Sunday
September 22, 2002 The Observer
One is a boor, a scientific dinosaur and 'a
hardline left-winger' whose ideas have long since ceased to matter. The
other is a 'wicked' individual whose ideas could lead more children to be
assaulted by abusive parents.
That is how two leading scientists have
denounced each other over their claims to know the causes of human
aggression. Violence is in the air and, it appears, at its roots.
In his book They F*** You Up British
psychologist Oliver James argues family influences are critical.
Neuroscientist Steven Pinker says nothing matters more than our genes.
Both are openly abusive about each other's stance. Hence, the accusation
of one of Pinker's allies that James is 'fucked-up' while he has retorted
in turn that his opponent is telling lies.
The extraordinarily angry row reveals the
depth of the scientific battle that is emerging over the soul of mankind.
On one side stand the followers of the fledgling science of evolutionary
psychology, led by Pinker. They say studies of human evolution show that
parents have little impact on their children's behaviour. Only their
genes, and a person's interaction with peers and friends, matter in the
shaping of violent personalities. Road rage and murder are in our DNA.
<snip>
And everyone thought that all went away with The Bell Curve. What
differences are inherited? And does that have an implication for public
policy?
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