Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Hugh and Larry Beware!
Back in the early nineties he was the guy who backed the so-called Clipper Chip, which would enforce a back door in every encryption system developed. Now he's trying to get a patently illegal (in the US) law put through Congress. And why else? Not for terrorism, which would be considerably easier to stop through intense effort to develop better foreign relations. Definitely not for the safety of US citizens. (I mean, they still have trash cans in airports -- how serious can they be about safety?)
No, it's pretty obvious: they want a way to get their porn for free. Larry and Hugh have a major stake in seeing this law doesn't pass. Once the NSA has their hands on the porn, they're lost: everyone in the government will have it (and once it falls into CIA hands everyone will have it).
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Drang nach Osten
Honestly, drang nach Osten derives from a time even before Hitler. In some ways it refers to the Germanic movement to the east during the middle ages (Ostsiedlung), but it really came into its own as a concept in the 19th century when German intellectuals used it to justify their desire for "lebensraum" ("living space," another favorite of the Nazis). Later still the Poles used it as propaganda to encourage anti-German sentiment.
Drang nach osten was just the German descendant of what we've all come to know and love: the concept of the "Just War." A silly little concept developed by St. Augustine of Hippo in his book Civitas Dei ("City of God"). Now, there are several criteria of a just war (jus in bellum): just cause (and I don't mean just because), comparative justice, legitimate authority, right intention, probability of success, and only as a last resort. Furthermore, once you're already fighting your little just war, you also have to follow certain rules (jus in bello), otherwise it becomes "just another war." There are also a third type of rule, jus post bellum, but since we're talking about history and philosophy here, not this new-fangled "let's all be plushy-happy good-people friendly." I'll stick with the originals; maybe I'll get around to jus post bellum some time. For now, I'll start with the history of Just War, and at some point in the future I'll move along to just how stupid the idea really is.
So, back on topic. The Just War moved from theoretical to practical in the 12th century with the birth of the Crusades. After all, what is Just if not eradicating Moslems, right? Anyway, after the disaster we call the Crusades we have the European expansion into the rest of the world in the form of colonialism. Be it the English in India or the Spaniards in New Spain, the results all flowed quite fluidly from the idea of jus in bellum, though the criteria was lacking almost in entirety, justice replaced by justification.
In the aftermath of the colonial period the Old World began to diverge from the New World, but the idea of a "just war" thrived. While drang nach Osten was the watchword of Germany, in the New World the twin ideas of "manifest destiny" and civilizing the Native American "indians" were born. The latter idea began to decline in the early twentieth century, but the former -- the idea of America's "manifest destiny" was championed by such leaders as Presidents James Monroe (The Monroe Doctrine) and Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt (the Roosevelt Corollary). Manifest destiny gave way to the idea of the United States as a protector of the New World from Old World tyranny and, later, as protector of international law the world over in the form of interventionism, which Woodrow Wilson used to make the world "safe for democracy."
Through these policies, the Monroe Doctrine, the Roosevelt Corollary and interventionism as a whole, was born the policy of American Imperialism. While the Just War concept all but died in Europe following the Second World War, in the New World it was still going strong and continues to be felt throughout the world.
The modern incarnation of the "just war" is the Neo-Conservative policy of "shoot first and, oh yeah, what's a question?" In short, what is occurring in the Middle East right now is a direct result of St. Augustine's vision of a Just War.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Gaming Meets Life
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Heroism
That suggests a few things. Specifically, the ideas of "heroism" and "bravery" seem to be active in nature rather than passive. That is, a person must do something, not merely be in the right place at the right -- or wrong -- time.
The United States Department of State states on their 9-11 website states (emphasis added):
September 11 created a new generation of heroes for America and the world. They came from diverse cultures, and many from faraway lands, but on September 11 — whether they perished in the attacks or bore witness — all were victims and each was a hero. From Pakistan, India, China and Nigeria, their stories are remarkably the same. A human being, not a nationality, saw strangers in need, and in many cases risked — and gave — their own life in order to save another. The global heroes of September 11 spoke different languages, but shared a common humanity.
Are they really heroes? Those who gave their lives? Possibly. Those who fell screaming down forty flights while diving from a collapsing building? No. They were most certainly brave in the sense that a rat fleeing a sinking ship is brave, but not in the same sense that a soldier rising an American flag above Iwo Jima is brave. They did not, in other words, have "a quality of spirit that enabled them to face danger or pain without fear."
Neither, I can hear you saying now, did the soldiers at Iwo Jima face death without fear. No. They did not. But they did have courage. That is, the soldiers at Iwo Jima -- indeed most soldiers -- share a "state or quality of mind ... that enables one to face danger [or] fear ... with self-possession, confidence, and resolution." Giving in to natural instincts does not require courage -- that is, fleeing a sinking ship, or leaping from a collapsing building (knowing there is effectively no chance of survival whether you leap or not) is not an act of courage, but one of self-preservation (no matter how misguided). Self-preservation is not heroism; they are not mutually exclusive, but neither are they the same thing.
I have to say that no matter how pathetic an excuse for an individual "Rockwell" might be, I agree when s/he points out that "being a victim doesn't mean you are de facto a 'hero'." Were there heroes on September 11, 2001? Of course. There are heroes every day all around the world (whether or not you recognize them as such and regardless of their political agenda). Were the victims, unable to do more than die, heroes? Absolutely not.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Victory through Manipulation; or, Why Reason Will Never Win A Political Debate (Part I)
Monday, January 21, 2008
The Kook and the Clown
Why is it that people rely on comedy when dealing with The Bad Guy? (Speaking of which, I can't find a good mockery of Osama bin Laden, but apparently one of his nieces is a model, and another has just signed a six-figure deal to be a porn star...) The art of mockery -- satire -- was born a long time ago, back in the late Renaissance. It flourished in the written and verbal form during the 1700s and, later, took on the visual arts: cartoons, movies and eventually television. Charlie Chaplin was best known for his satire of Adolph Hitler (as shown above, a still from the October 1940 film, The Great Dictator), and he was possibly the first and greatest satirist of the big screen.