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Sunday,
February 11, 2007 Today I have to get out the International
Edition of the column, as well as Part Two for Chaos Manor Reviews, so it is
going to be thin. Meanwhile I have been bombarded with inspiration: thoughts
for scenes for Inferno 2.
And I have a bunch of Subscriptions to process so that I can send a
mailing to subscribers. And, to add to it all, it's pretty clear that I have
to do a book I contracted for years ago, HIGH TECH WARS, looking at such
matters as military effectiveness in the high tech age. Provide for the
common defense: what does that mean in today's age? Is teaching an army how
to rule without the consent of the governed part of providing for the common
defense? How many of the governed must consent before you have consent of
the governed? And what does it mean to begin with? It's pretty clear that
building a constabulary that can rule Iraq, and Bosnia, and perhaps Chad and
Somalia without the consent of the governed is possible; but is that part of
the common defense of these United States? These are matters that need
discussion and I don't see too many people discussing them. Most of the new
books on the modern military talk about what we can do; not what we ought to
be doing or what makes sense.
Thomas More says in a Man For All Seasons that they ought not be talking
to the king about what he can do but about what he ought to be doing. Thomas
Cromwell, however, was a lawyer who knew the law, and he was careful to show
the king what he could do, and to tempt him with power; and to build an
executive machine that allowed the king to do as he would, including execute
Sir Thomas More.
And -- do we want a military that looks to legalisms? That thinks like
lawyers rather than like soldiers who are supposed to think about honor? It
is no longer fashionable to study
Dumezil and the great themes of Western myth and legend -- or even to
think that the West is worth studying at all compared to savage societies
and other examples of diversity -- but someone ought to be thinking about
such matters.
Anyway, there is a lot I need to do; but this afternoon I have to get the
international edition of the February column done.
===
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