ShrinkWrapped

The Council Has Spoken:

The winning post this week was by Soccer Dad, Unhinged or calculated, in which he argued that Bill Clinton's outburst with Chris Wallace last weekend was a calculated attack.  I might agree there was pre-meditation, but I also think the President lost his temper and lost control; in other words it was not "unhinged OR calculated" but "unhinged AND calculated."  There was a second place tie between No Commitment! by Jimmie at the Sundries Shack, in which he decries our inability to actually stand for the things we claim to believe in, and JOSHUAPUNDIT's A real peace proposal for the Middle East, which sounds so reasonable it could never amount to anything.

The winning non-Council post was Fear and Loathing in The Land of the Pure by Isaac Schrödinger, in which the fate of one man encapsulates the conflict between Islam and the modern world.  It is long, but a "must-read."   The second place post was by The Anchoress, who writes about the value of Civility in political discourse.

As  always, the full panoply of nominated posts can be found at the Watcher of Weasels and all will reward your time and effort.

Islam and Democracy

There is a rather heated discussion going on between Dean Esmay and Michelle Malkin on whether or not Islam is compatible with Democracy.   Dean would like to make clear that our fight is not with Muslims or with Islam (despite the efforts of the Islamists) but with a particular dangerous strain of totalitarian Islam.   I doubt that Michelle disagrees but she makes the salient point that Dean's post seems more polemical than reasoned and thus is a distraction.

I have written about the problem of Moderate Muslims sharing characteristics with Moderate Germans; while they might not necessarily be proactive anti-Semitic Islamo-Nazis, their tribal affiliations lead too many Muslims to passively support their leaders and self-styled spokesmen, many of whom are Fascists of one sort or another.  Whether or not a large enough co-hort of Moderate Muslims exists or will emerge, will ultimately determine whether this "Long War" against Islamic fascism ends up more closely resembling the cold war or WWII.

The Anchoress has weighed in with some trenchant thoughts on the issue:

There is a lot of chatter these days, but it seems to me the best way to ease the confusion is for the Muslims themselves to define themselves once and for all - to sort of “take back the faith,” from the extremist, radical Islamists who have come to - in the eyes of much of the world - define Islam.

Donald Sensing also has some sensible thoughts on the matter.  He liberally quotes Prof. Bernard Lewis and concludes:

Reason and Rationality

Psychoanalysis is an extremely taxing treatment and people who enter such treatment require significant cognitive abilities. It is not enough to have an excellent language facility and affect tolerance; it also requires the ability to tolerate ambiguity and to confront and tolerate one's own irrationality. Working in the field, the reality of our basic irrationality is hard to miss, though one often wishes to deny and avoid the recognition. I bring this up now because I think too many people misunderstand our ability to reason as being equivalent to being rational.

When Freud first began to promulgate his theory of the mind, the reaction of horror and fury was focused on his proposition that children are sexual beings and that their libidinal struggles and fixations, often reinforced by overt and/or covert abuse, continued to influence adult behavior and relationships. While most sophisticated people would agree that the existence in children of libidinal drives is no longer in dispute, there was always an underlying tenet to Freud's work that remains a source of tremendous anxiety and dispute. What so many found most threatening in his work was the idea that the rationality upon which our civilization rests is merely a thin veneer over deeper strata of our much more powerful irrationality. In fact, Neuroscience and Psychoanalysis are increasingly coming into agreement that our Conscious minds represent a tiny fraction of what transpires in our cognitive apparatus and further, that rational explanations for our behavior (so often fueled by unconscious motivations) most often represent post facto rationalizations rather than the careful, logical explications based on prior reasoned positions we imagine them to be.  (In other words, we most often use our reason to justify our emotionally charged feelings rather than mobilize our emotions in the service of our reasoned thoughts; ie, feeling precedes reason, rather than the other way around.)

Pope Benedict's recent challenge to Islam must be understood as emerging from just such a recognition. Reason is not enough, since it can be so easily harnessed by the forces of unreason.

Lee Harris offers some historical perspective for the Pope's words in Socrates or Muhammad? Joseph Ratzinger on the destiny of reason:

Ratzinger is troubled that most educated people today appear to think that they know what they are talking about, even when they are talking about very difficult things, like reason and faith. Reason, they think, is modern reason. But, as Ratzinger notes, modern reason is a far more limited and narrow concept than the Greek notion of reason. The Greeks felt that they could reason about anything and everything--about the immortality of the soul, metempsychosis, the nature of God, the role of reason in the universe, and so on. Modern reason, from the time of Kant, has repudiated this kind of wild speculative reason. For modern reason, there is no point in even asking such questions, because there is no way of answering them scientifically. Modern reason, after Kant, became identified with what modern science does. Modern science uses mathematics and the empirical method to discover truths about which we can all be certain: Such truths are called scientific truths. It is the business of modern reason to severely limit its activity to the discovery of such truths, and to refrain from pure speculation.

Because people can reason, they believe they are rational, yet the message of science is that the irrational contaminates all thought, which is why science is conducted under such stringent rules.  Harris adds:

Modern reason cannot hope to prove these postulates to be scientifically true; but it must recognize that a refusal to adopt and act on these postulates will threaten the very survival of modern reason itself. That is the point of Ratzinger's warning that "the West has long been endangered by [its] aversion to the questions which underlie its rationality, and can only suffer great harm thereby." Because it is ultimately a community of reasonable men that underlies the rationality of the West, modern reason is risking suicide by not squarely confronting the question: How did such a community of reasonable men come into being in the first place? By what miracle did men turn from brute force and decide to reason with one another?

The Scent of Desperation

"Dirty tricks" are in the air.  Senator George Allen, currently in a difficult fight for re-election in Virginia, is fighting charges that he hid his Jewish background, that he used racist epithets (the "N" word) and that he knowingly used a vicious racial slur ("macaca").   Points have been cherry-picked from the NIE to "show", in the pages of the New York Times, the LA Times, and the Washington Post that our invasion of Iraq has worsened the threat of terror.

Not long ago, everything seemed to be lined up properly for the Democrats to take over control of one or, perhaps, both houses of Congress. 

The minority party has historically gained during mid-term elections

The MSM had done an exemplary job painting the Iraq War as an unmitigated disaster, with an emphasis on "body counts" (though, in contrast to the Vietnam War use of "body counts" of enemy soldiers to show we were winning, the MSM uses "body counts" of American soldiers to show we are losing)

The polls showed high levels of disatisfaction with the Bush administration, especially their handling of the War (the Republicans have tried to help via their poor articulation of the war strategy)

The Republicans were divided, with one wing attacking their own President for violating the "rights" of detainees

The Republicans seemed to be doing everything they could to mishandle the immigration and border security debate

In essence, all signs pointed to substantial Democratic gains in November.  In fact, the Party core were already planning their impeachment hearings, and just yesterday, Charlie Rangel was quoted describing how the House would cut off funding for the Iraq War.

Yet "dirty tricks" are not a sign of a confident party; rather, they have always been the sign of a desperate party.

Saying Whatever Comes to Mind VIII

This week the Sanity Squad, consisting of Neo-neocon, Siggy, Dr. Sanity, and myself turn our attention to ex-President Clinton and his feisty interview with Chris Wallace, in which Clinton defended his record on Osama Bin Laden and accused Wallace of doing a “nice little conservative hit job on me.”

We had a special guest this week, Gagdad Bob, who blogs at One Cosmos. Bob is a clinical psychologist as well as an extreme seeker and spiritual aspirant and he has been described, on Daily Kos, as “the most obnoxious man in America.”

Play (30:05) or download (28.9 MB) The Clinton Kerfuffle.

You can also now subscribe to the Sanity Squad Podcasts at iTunes.

The Democrats' Repetition Compulsion

This morning, Drudge had the following headline:  "Dem Rangel Promises To Cut Off Funding For War In Iraq If Dems Win House..." with links to an article at The Hill.  I have been unable to get the link to work and the article (which was on the front page of The Hill site this morning is no longer listed at all) but the headline is consistent with the approach that the Democratic party has taken on the Iraq War.  This is sadly reminiscent of the approach that the Democrats took during the latter days of the Vietnam War, though their desire to be defeated in Iraq has emerged with only ~5% of the casualties we suffered in Vietnam.

[NB: Apparently, Free Republic was able to grab the story before it disappeared: Anxious Dems eye power of the purse on Iraq(Rangel Promises-Cut Off Funding In Iraq If Dem Win House]

Not long ago, a frequent commenter on my site, Jimmy J, sent me an e-mail detailing his experiences and the evolution of his thinking during the Vietnam era.  With his permission, I am posting it here.  This is much more than a recap of a difficult era; it is also a pre-history of the War on Terror if we lose our nerve:

Before my stint as a recruiter I was essentially apolitical. I was raised during WWII. No one questioned what we were doing then. The military did the work of defending the country from our enemies as designated by the government. That was it. No questions, no doubts, just do or die.

When I encountered the anti-war movement I felt like I had landed on an alien planet. Who were these people that they thought they knew more than our elected leaders? Where was their information coming from and why had they decided that Communism wasn’t something to worry about?  Where did they get the slogan of “Better Red Than Dead?” What had happened in this country since 1954 when I graduated from college and it was a sane, middle of the road, basically pro-American society?

A Missed Opportunity

Ex-Presidents are a unique fraternity with unique characteristics, responsibilities, and opportunities.  Bill Clinton is one of a very select group of men who understand what it means to control the fate of the "free world" and to have one's finger on the button.  In our modern world, with only one extant hyper-power, the President of the United States has great power and great responsibility.

It would not be too much to expect that an ex-President would have some empathy for his predecessors and successors.  I do not remember Ronald Reagan ever being less than gracious to Jimmy Carter.  I do not recall the Senior Bush ever being less than gracious to Bill Clinton. 

At a time of National testing, ex-Presidents are ideally suited for re-injecting civility into our national discourse.  While they certainly want their parties to do well, they also have the luxury of no longer running for any office; as such, they can easily take a position of Elder Statesman, learned advisor.

Bill Clinton could have gone on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace and taken a Statesmanlike, above the fray, position.   Clinton, for reasons best known to him, though in no way a surprise, chose a different tack, and clearly missed an excellent opportunity.

The Council Has Spoken:

The winning Council Post was 'You'll Never Know What We Did' by Callimachus; this is a must read that will leave you wondering what reporters and editors in the MSM actually get paid for.  In second place was Dymphna's perspective on the recent Muslim dyspepsia over the Pope's remarks, That Was Not a “Blunder.” It’s Just An Excuse to Kill Infidels.

The winning non-Council post was Just outside Westminster Cathedral today... from Joee Blogs, which offered another look at the Muslim reaction to the Pope's comments.  In second place was  What Did You Do This Summer? at Murdoc Online; spend some time there to see what is being done for us by some wonderful young men and women.

As always, the full panoply of nominees can be found at the Watcher of Weasels and all will reward your time and effort.

Shana Tova

To all my Jewish friends and readers:

May the New Year bring you Health, Happiness, and above all, Peace.

The Plight of the Canary

There are many reasons people have difficulty protecting themselves, ranging from confusion over what threatens them to uncertainty about what they are defending.   At the moment, the West shows every indication of suffering from a wide range of ailments that interfere with its ability to defend itself.  As Soccer Dad so ably summarizes and many have pointed out, the Jew has traditionally been the "canary in the coal mine" and in this arena, the difficulty Israel has in defending itself is instructive.

Richard Landes, whose work has been so invaluable in illuminating some of the ways in which the Western Media have become willing, though often unwitting, accomplices for anti-Western and anti-Israeli Information Warfare, has taken a look at a particular problem the Jewish state suffers from, On the Israeli Press and the Al Durah Affair, and he raised a rather plaintive question:

One of the most common questions people ask when they see the Al Durah and Pallywood footage is, “why don’t the Israelis say anything?” — actually one of Charles Enderlin’s favorite defenses. The answer is complex, and some day I’ll try and address it in detail. [Emphasis mine-SW] But for now, I just want to remark that one of the reasons is that the Israeli press is remarkably aggressive and largely leftish (if not more). Ha-Aretz trashed both the investigation and the investigators when they first came out with their claims that the odds were enormous against it being Israeli bullets.

One of my students asked if Ha-Aretz was an Israeli paper. Why? “Because it sounds like it’s written by Palestinians.”

Ah, Israeli self-criticism. It’s hard to realize how hard the Israeli media is on Israel.

Understanding why the Israeli press is "remarkably aggressive and largely leftish" is likely to be a multi-faceted and complex task.  Israeli self-criticism often verges on Jewish self-hatred and Jewish anti-Semitism.  When our enemies can only hope to defeat us by destroying our will to fight, and their primary weapon is Information Warfare, excessive self-criticism overtly interferes with our country's ability to defend itself; as such, Israel's plight may offer a useful paradigm for understanding some of the difficulty the elites in America have in aggressively defending ourselves.

I look forward to seeing what Richard has to offer in this regard, and would like to make a small contribution to understanding "the plight of the canary."