The Temeraire

I was surfiing the net and stumbled upon both Turner's masterpiece "The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last Berth to be broken up" here and Melvile's poem on the same subject. Both are old favorate but I haden't thought about either in a long time.

The gloomy hulls, in armour grim,
Like clouds o'er moors have met,
And prove that oak, and iron, and man
Are tough in fibre yet.

But Splendours wane. The sea-fight yields
No front of old display;
The garniture, emblazonment,
And heraldry decay.

Towering afar in parting light,
The fleets like Albion's forelands shine -
The full-sailed fleets, the shrouded show
Of Ships-of-the-Line.

The fighting Temeraire,
Built of a thousand trees,
Lunging out her lightnings,
And beetling o'er the seas -

O Ship, how brave and fair,
That fought so oft and well,
On open decks you manned the gun
Armorial.

What cheerings did you share,
Impulsive in the van,
When down upon leagued France and Spain
We English ran -

The freshet at your bowsprit
Like the foam upon the can.
Bickering, your colours
Licked up the Spanish air,

You flapped with flames of battle-flags -
Your challenge, Temeraire!

The rear ones of our fleet
They yearned to share your place,
Still vying with the Victory
Throughout that earnest race -

The Victory, whose Admiral,
With orders nobly won,
Shone in the globe of the battle glow -
The angel in that sun.

Parallel in story,
Lo, the stately pair,
As late in grapple ranging,
The foe between them there -

When four great hulls lay tiered,
And the fiery tempest cleared,
And your prizes twain appeared,
Temeraire!

But Trafalgar is over now,
The quarterdeck undone;
The carved and castled navies fire
Their evening gun.
O, Titan Temeraire,
Your stern-lights fade away;
Your bulwarks to the years must yield,
And heart-of-oak decay.
A pigmy steam-tug tows you,
Gigantic to the shore -
Dismantled of your guns and spars,
And sweeping wings of war.
The rivets clinch the ironclads,
Men learn a deadlier lore;
But Fame has nailed your battle-flags -
Your ghost it sails before:
O, navies old and oaken,
O, Temeraire no more!

Independence Day

Today is for an American the most important holiday on the calendar, celebrating the principals upon which the nation was founded. It is also in a way the beginning of the Anglosphere as something distinct from the British state. I don’t have anything to say and will let the words of our third president speak for me.

“When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government ..

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levey war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.”

On Virtue

This post is a response to Bill’s Post at EjectEjectEject “You are not alone.” He brought up a point that needs a good place to discuss it and I thought I would provide one until such time as the Ejectia project is further along. That topic is Virtue.


In his post, Bill pointed out and listed the Aristotelian virtues. They are all to my mind important ones, but I think that Rand did a good job when she said that the primary virtues were Rationality, Productiveness and Pride.
There are several other lists of Virtues on the net. Wikipedia is a good place to start looking.


Here are some links for Virtue, Virtue Ethics, the Nicomachean Ethics, and Objectivist Ethics.

I Call Bullshit or You Can’t Have it Both Ways

There are some who are trying to use the tragic events at Virginia Tech to push the anti gun agenda. Never mind that the school was a “gun-free zone,” never mind that gun control is not a proven method of lowering violence in society. However I don’t want to comment on gun control generally in this post.

I want instead to look at the part of the left that has spent the last four years telling us that Bush is Hitler and now demand the disarmament of the people. I agree that this president has dangerously restricted liberty and expanded executive power. However, I do not think Bush is a power tripping genocidal dictator either.

However those who do think that have some explaining to do. Should gays, women, and other potential victims of Bushitler TM be disarmed in the face of the “Bush Agenda” TM ? If the republic is really in danger of being subverted by a dictator, one would think that that was the time to call the people to arms, not to disarm them.

The loony left faces a serious logical problem.

It is called the law of non contradiction. It was first stated by Aristotle more than two thousand years ago. “A thing can not both have and not have the same characteristic in the same respect. Either Bush is a genocidal dictator and the people should, “put their trust in god, but keep their powder dry,” or Bush is not a genocidal dictator and we should trust the authorities under his control to protect us and not keep our own means of self defense, but not both.

So which is it boys and girls? You can’t have it both ways.

Before you Kirk someone remember Google is forever

If you run a company and a blogger makes a critical review of your services you should learn the story of J. L. Kirk & Associates, aka Kirk Associates, or JL Kirk, or JLK, or JLK-A, or “Kirk“, before you decide to have your lawyers send threatening letter trying to shut them up.

Katherine Coble blogged about her husband’s experience with J. L. Kirk & Associates, she related that she felt that the firm was at best a hard sell and at worst, a scam, a fraud, a rip-off, or a con.

The company was foolish enough to have their lawyers send a letter threatening an action for defamation on what seem to be weak or non existent grounds, since the truth is an absolute defense to libel.

In the following 24 hours J. L. Kirk & Associates, has gone from being not well known, to infamous, to a new internet verb.

Kirk, is now a verb meaning to act like a stupid bully towards a blogger.

I have no knowledge of whether or not J. L. Kirk & Associates is or is not guilty of the practices Ms. Coble described. However I am sure that J. L. Kirk & Associates acted like stupid bullies who know nothing of the dynamic of the internet when they had their lawyer threaten Ms. Coble.

Given this I can assert that as fact that I would never do businesses with them and give as an opinion that anyone who does business with them is a fool.

Would you hire the lawyers who gave J. L. Kirk & Associates the service that they did? I would have advised J. L. Kirk & Associates to give it a rest. So would any lawyer who knows anything about the internet.

Also blogging on this are instapundit, captain’s quarters, bill hobbs, and bob krumm. A summary of local reaction is here.

By the way are Kirk and their lawyers now libel proof, that is to say are their reputations now so ruined it is impossible to injure their reputation? We shall see.

Also does Coble have a counter claim? The comment on her blog by a person claiming to be a J. L. Kirk & Associates employee was possibly defamatory.

The Infantilization of Our Youth

While doing research for my up coming post for the birthday of Washington, I came across the following which I present because It makes a point I want to address. What follows is part of a longer piece on Valley Forge

"Lewis Hurt, age 17, a private from Connecticut. Benjamin Blossom, age about 31 years, a soldier from Massachusetts. George Ewing, age 23, an Ensign of the Seventh Company in the Third New Jersey Regiment. Joseph Plumb Martin, age 15 when he enlisted in Connecticut's Third Company on July 6, 1776; age 16 when he arrived at Valley Forge. They came from Virginia, North Carolina, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New Jersey...They represented every state in the new union. Some were still boys -- as young as 12 -- others in their 50s and 60s."

The point is that once upon a time young people in our society had a lot more independence and responsibility than they do today. They were out fighting for their freedom and the nations independence. Today, all to often, young people are kept-act like children into their 20s.

At Common Law young people had more independence than they do today. While it is true that majority was not until 21, at 14 a boy or girl was able witness deeds and contracts, testify in court, select their own guardian, bequeath personal property by will, own land, and apprentice themselves. With their guardian’s permission, they could marry. They could even enter contracts for necessities and in theory could sell land, but since they had a right to void the contract on turning 21, most buyers would not buy land from minors. However, their guardian could take such action for them if he or she agreed with them.

Basically turning 21 meant that a person not longer needed a guardian, could vote, and that their contracts would henceforth be enforced whether they were in their interests or not. This meant that the period from 14 to 21 was a period of quasi adulthood were the young person could make many important decisions but had training wheals so to speak in the form of his legal guardian and the courts.

Now one may question some of the details of the common law scheme, for example the sexual inequality where by young women of 12 were accorded the “training wheels” stage that young men had to wait until 14 to be given. One might also question whether 21 was an appropriate age of majority. However the over all idea of having a training period where young people can make some but not all of their own decisions is a good one.

If we want superior performance from our young people, we need to both give them more independence and responsibility. (more info on the common law rules here)

Other “Mercenaries"

Arkin’s use of the word mercenaries to describe U.S. forces in Iraq (type his name in yahoo to find, I'm not spreading his bilge) reminds me of two things, first A. E. Houseman’s Epitaph On An Army of Mercenaries, here and secondly of the “mercenaries,” formerly known as volunteers before our Orwellian friends decided that volunteer might send the wrong message, who have played such a prominent roll in the history of our people.

After all it was volunteers that made parliament’s victory in the English Civil War possible. It was volunteers who formed the core of the Continental Army that won the American War of Independence. Volunteers by the millions carried the American republic on their bayonets through four long hard years of war.

In this last context one might point to the politicization of the Union Army, those dreadful mercenaries, who voted overwhelmingly for one party during the election of 1864 but if I noted who they voted for and which party against, I might be accused of “questioning the patriotism” of Arkin or even of waving the bloody shirt.

Nor is this the end of volunteers in the history of our people. The Spanish American war was fought by “mercenaries” most famously the Rough Riders a.k.a. the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment. The Boer War was fought by “mercenaries” from Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Cape Colony and Natal.

Among the English Speaking People the draft is an innovation first seen (briefly) in the American Civil War and more frequently during the 20th Century. It is my hope that aside from militia forces for local defense, conscription will never be seen again among our people. Lets leave conscription to the French who invented it and the Germans who perfected it.

Abraham Lincoln’s Birthday

Today is the 198th anniversary of the birth of a great leader of our people, Abraham Lincoln 16th President of the United States. I could write much about him, but I will just let his own words, spoken at the dedication of Gettysburg National Cemetery durring the third anglosphere civil war speak for him.

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

The Eton Wall Game, Making a Mystery of the Commonplace

I am taking keyboard in hand today to write about a rather off beat subject, the Eton Wall Game. I want to start by saying that the title of this little post is not meant to put down the Eton Wall Game, but to explain it. Not the rules of the game, those I barely understand, in fact I am not sure you could understand the published rules (here) without looking at the wall and field where it is played and seeing a game or having it described by a player, and that is the point of this post.

From my own experience and from what friends from various back grounds have told me of their own childhood, it is safe to say that young people adopt, mix, and create games that fit their specific circumstances. Tag, soccer, baseball, rugby, American football, when they are played by actual boys (and girls to) on a particular playing field, have their rules adopted to the circumstances of the playing field and of the players. These adoptions are often so extensive as to make the game very different often nearly non understandable to outsiders.

This, it is obvious, is what the Eton Wall Game is all about, a rugby-soccer type game played on a particular field, at a particular school, in Berkshire, the United Kingdom. To prove this point the goals are at one end of the sport’s only playing field, a door and at the other end a tree. (more details here) There is nothing weird about this, on the contrary it is wonderful that the boys at Eton have cared enough about themselves and their school to perpetuate a tradition of play over more than two hundred years and to write down the rules.

However to read some articles about the Wall Game you would think it was either a) something special that only those superior beings who go to Eton could play or b) something foolish that only the under brained off spring of those with more money than sense would play, and in either case mysterious and non understandable. It is neither, it is one of probably 50,000 (or more) different games played on specific lots or fields around the world by a limited number of specific children.

What is interesting about the Eton Wall Game is that by the fame of the school, it draws ones attention to a commonplace phenomenon. It is at once an example of Hayekian spontaneous order (the boys didn’t set out to start a great tradition, they just wanted to have fun) and of Burke’s particularism (it would be pointless to try and make the Wall Game a widespread game with a fixed type of playing field like soccer) It reminds us both that social order does not have to be externally imposed and that general principals however true and important must develop in their own organic way in each specific context.

Letter to the globe re AGW

I wrote the following as a letter to a writer at the Boston Globe

I was really shocked to read the following in your column, “ I would like to say we're at a point where global warming is impossible to deny. Let's just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and the other denies the present and future.”

This is simply not true. (What is denying the factuality of future events? They haven’t happened yet so theories that claim to describe them can’t be true or false) (note: the theory could be, but we couldn't tell until the future occured) However, the differences in evidence for the two events is instructive.

I have seen movies of the newly liberated camps, the corpses of those who died after liberation stacked like wood. I have meet survivors of the camps, my friends and relatives have meet others. I have read in part, the record and evidentiary documents of the Nuremburg trials. I have meet some of the prosecutors, doctors, and guards who served at Nuremburg and who spoke with the perpetrators. The holocaust undeniably happened. It is a fact of history.

The theory of human caused global warming is an opinion. While I am a non scientist, I have meet scientists, (none employed by the oil industry) who do not believe the earth is getting warmer. I have meet ones who are unsure if the earth is getting warmer. I have meet ones who are sure the earth is getting warmer, but are not at all sure that it is cause by humans. I have meet ones who believe it is getting warmer and that humans caused it. Is this consensus? (Leaving alone the value of consensus in science)

I am of course, not a scientist, but as a citizen of the Republic and as a human being, I take my responsibility to keep abreast of the debate on global warming seriously. I try to figure out what would be happening if this or that explanation was true. What I have read and observed leads me to believe that the earth may be getting warmer, but it may not. The cause (if there is global warming) is to my mind far from clear. CO2 is undoubtedly a greenhouse gas, but is it the cause of the warming that has been observed, (which is far from global by the way, mostly observable in the northern hemisphere) that is not certain. As I say, I am not a scientist, but I am trying to figure out what is going on.

From the above, I conclude that we need to spend a great deal of money on research to figure out what is happening. (I also recommend real estate investment in more northerly climes as a hedge against the possibility of global warming)

I am not impressed by a political statement that is allegedly based on a scientific document that has yet to be released. (Why weren’t they released at the same time? Desire to make the later conform to the former?) The fact that the report is released by the UN and under the approving sponsorship of 100 governments makes me the more nervous. The UN and governments have a huge interest in finding warming. It gives them a reason to expand their power. Have we learned nothing from the 20th century? Then there is the whole religious angle, global warming lets atheists (of which I am one) get in on the whole fire and brimstone act. Also look at the very real religious aspects of the environmental movement and look at its historical roots in the 20s and 30s.

The last thing that I want to say (which I hope you will not take to personally) is that while I am now a law student, I was for three years (Nov. 2000- Nov. 2003) a reporter. I saw the crap that came into the newsroom from all sorts of organizations in their press releases. I, trying to sort the wheat from the chaff would do a quick bit of research and call up the sender and ask a few critical questions. While most senders were full of it, three groups stand out in my mind, corporations, governments and environmental groups. The last were by far the worst offenders. They had the most slender evidence and made the most of what they had. I can’t be alone in this experience. Why, when a document (basically a press release) that is produced by a collaboration of governments and the environmental movement comes out, is meet with so little critical examination?

Very Sincerely Yours,

Stephen W. Houghton II

Happy Birthday AR

Today is the 102nd Aniversery of the birth of one of the 20th Century's heros, Ayn Rand.

Royal America?

Michael Barone has a piece that is to me both interesting and sad. (hat tip instapundit) With the candidacy of Senator Clinton, he asks is not the presidency of United States taking on a touch of Royalism. “Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton. It sounds like the Wars of the Roses: Lancaster, York, Lancaster, York.”

Those who have read my work, know that as a theoretical matter, I consider a well designed constitutional monarchy to be the best form of government. However, I believe that since in fact American liberty was won-defended as a historical achievement by republican (in the narrow sense) governments and enshrined in our republican constitution, it would be dangerous to liberty to abandon our constitution.

Further I admit to a desire to keep the experiment in non-monarchical government going for as long as it protects most liberties. This is motivated by both patriotic sentiment and scientific curiosity. It is for me a passionate hope that I will died and my children, grand children and great grandchildren should live and die as citizens of the Republic. However if the American people really want a royal family to ogle at and be the center of national life then let us not accept the pallid substitute of the Bushes, Clintons, and Kennedys.

For 169 years from 1607 to 1776, what is now the United States was reigned over by a royal house who’s pomp and majesty has never been surpassed and which was and to a greater extent today is relatively amiable to liberty. If we really mean after 231 proud years to bring our experiment in non monarchical government to an end, then I have a suggestion.

She is the High and Mighty Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary by the grace of God of Antigua and Barbuda, the Commonwealth of Australia, the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, Barbados, the Confederation of Canada, Grenada, Jamaica, the Dominion of New Zealand, Saint Lucia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and her other territories, Queen, Duke of Normandy and Lord of Mann

She would be a most suitable head of state both because she is the legitimate claimant and because she is a women of rare dignity and vast experience. To give but one example her first Prime Minister was Sir Winston Churchill, she has been reading the dispatch boxes for 55 years. We could even keep the republic titularly non monarchical by calling her Lady Defender of the Republic or some such. If we really wanted to restore the monarchy there is even a suitable event coming up, she is scheduled to attend the 400th anniversary of the settlement of Jamestown this summer (she also attended the 350th).

However if we want to keep the Republic non monarchical, than we ought not to keep electing people from the same families to be chief magistrate. I for one am looking forward to Elizabeth’s diamond jubilee in 2012 when I hope she will still reign over all 16 of the Commonwealth Relms, I do not want the United States to be one of them.

Long Live The Republic!

Speaking the life of Augusto Pinochet Ugarte

I take keyboard in hand today to speak the public life of Augusto Pinochet Ugarte.

He was born 25 November 1915 in Valparaiso, Chile the son of Augusto Pinochet Vera and Avelina Ugarte Martinez. He married Lucia Hiriart Rodriguez in 1943. They had three daughters Lucía, María Verónica, Jacqueline Marie and two sons Augusto Osvaldo and Marco Antonio. He died 10 December, 2006 in Santiago de Chile.

Augusto Pinochet Ugarte graduated from the Millitary School of the Republic of Chile in 1937 and served the Republic of Chile for the rest of his life. After many commands at the company, battalion, regimental, and division level he was appointed General Chief of Staff of the Army in 1972 and Army Commander in Chief in 1973. He lead the armed forces in a revolt against the usurping president Salvador Allende. He reformed the laws and constitution of the republic and after losing a plebiscite called for by his own reforms stepped down from the presidency peacefully and returned to his role as commander in chief and later senator for life. He died surrounded by family and honored by a grateful nation. Isn’t that a nice story.

Augusto Pinochet Ugarte over threw the legitimately elected president of the Republic of Chile. His coup was a violent one and the early years of his rule bloody and tyrannical. It is believed that about 3,000 people suffered extrajudicial execution during the course of his rule and that an additional 20,000 were tortured. His policies were by no means all successful. During the course of his rule he used his office to personally enrich himself. In short he was a murdering, torturing, thieving dictator . In retirement he was pursued by public prosecutors from many nations, including his own. He is a warning to all those who would over through legitimately elected governments. Isn’t that a nice morality tale.

The truth of course is somewhere in between these two caricatures of his life. I am in fact writing today to commemorate the life of a man who if the Catholics are right about the afterlife, will if he avoids roasting in hell, spend a very long time in purgatory.

At his death, he stands reviled as a murderious dictator. This is of course true, but neither is it the whole truth. In justice to the memory of Pinochet, it is important to lay out the context in which the coup of the 11th of September 1973 took place.

The first thing to remember about the coup is that the government of Salvador Allende which he over threw was by no means a functioning republic. On the contrary, under Allende the rule of law had been suspended in favor of extra judicial expropriation, the suppression of a free press, and rule by decree. The orders of courts of the republic were being routinely disregarded. The power of the printing press was being used to inflate the currency to deliberately impoverish the middle class. His supporters were being organized into armed militias independent of legal state control. Allende was in fact in the middle of establishing a dictatorship of the proletariat.

The situation had reached the point where the supreme court had publicly issued a unanimous resolution denouncing the Allende government for its “ disruption of the legality of the nation.”

On August 22, 1973 the chamber of deputies adopted by a vote of 81 to 47 a resolution charging the Allende government with attempting “to conquer absolute power with the obvious purpose of subjecting all citizens to the strictest political and economic control by the state... [with] the goal of establishing a totalitarian system." This resolution called on the military to over through the government.

Now none of this can excuse many of the later actions of Pinochet, but it does explain why he and the rest of the Chilean military decided to over through the government of President Allende.

The second thing it is important to remember is that Augusto Pinochet is by no means the only dictator in the history of the 20th Century. To fairly evaluate his life he must be evaluated against his peers, that is to say his fellow dictators. In this context we must evaluate several things, the oppressiveness of his regime, how he behaved himself personally as head of state and government, and what was the result of his extra legal rule.

One extremely crude measure of oppressiveness is the number of people killed in extra judicial killings. It is undisputed that about 3,000 Chileans were killed outside of the normal processes of law, mostly during the early days of the military government. To compare this to Stalin, one of the most bloody dictators in history, if the same proportion of the population was killed, under Pinochet as under Stalin, about 2 million, instead of 3,000 people would have died. That is to say about a 1,000 times as many. Another standard of comparison would be the dictatorship of the same period in Argentina where about 20,000 people “disappeared.” Argentina has about 2.5 times the population of Chile. The Argentine dictatorship was about three times as bloody as Pinochet’s regime.

Pinochet clearly did not act personally as head of state and government in a manner that was above reproach. He accumulated a large fortune that he stole from the government and people of Chile. That this is the predictable out come of absolute power is shown by the vast majority of his fellow dictators who personally enriched themselves at the expense of their people. As Lord Acton wrote, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Most dictatorships end in one of two ways. Ether the dictator is himself overthrown or assassinated, or he clings to power until his death. In either case the state is left in a state of chaos. It is to Pinochet’s credit that he voluntarily established a new constitutional order and that when, in accordance with that law, he had to relinquish power, he did so. His economic policies were a mixed bag, but generally positive. Since the end of his rule, Chile has been a prosperous democratic republic.

That as dictators go he was not totally blood soaked and that he reestablished a constitutional system of government, of course does not excuse his many sins, but it does put them in perspective.

A third point that I think needs to be considered is to look at a counterfactual example.

If during the early years of his rule, the German army had revolted against Adolph Hitler, the 20th Century would be considerably less bloody. The army considered it several times. Knowing what we know now, if the army had in 36, 38, or 39 risen against the government, they would have earned eternal glory.

However if they had done so, we would never have known how awful Hitler’s regime would have been. Would the German army have been praised or vilified? After all, they would have had to have killed a lot of Nazis to take power. They would likely have put a stop to Hitler’s social programs.

If the army had overthrown the National Socialist German Workers Party would they be remembered as the crushers of a potential democratic socialist state? Remember Hitler was elected and on a national welfare platform not so different from Allende‘s. Would Hitler in that event have been seen in retrospect as the poor well meaning social reformer who was gunned down by the ruthless army? We will never know, because the German army failed to act.

If Allende had not be overthrown would he now be known as the founder of a foul and murderous socialist dictatorship. Would people be saying “what if” and “why didn’t” the Chilean army over though Allende while there was still time? We will never know, because Pinochet did not fail to act.

This of course does not excuse the excesses to which Pinochet went, but it does caution us against blind condemnation.

So, on Sunday died a man who should be condemned for his crimes, but not out of proportion to his crimes.

If that sounds ambivalent, it is so for a reason. If a consistent standard was applied to former dictators, I would be more inclined to be condemnatory, but this is unfortunately not the case.

How many African dictators have committed absolutely or proportionately more killing than Pinochet, totally impoverished their people, equivalently enriched themselves, left a worse state of affairs to their successors, clung to power till the end and then been buried with plaudits to “the father of the nation” or at least allowed death in the dignity of unnoticed anonymity.

I guess my over all ambivalence can be summed up by a story about Ayn Rand. She received a letter asking her to join a group of writers condemning Father Coughlin. The group was an obvious socialist front and Rand wrote back that she would be happy to join when the group was against Father Coughlin and X, Y, and Z other left wing totalitarian public personalities, “but not until then comrades, not until then.”

So to paraphrase Shakespeare, as Augusto Pinochet Ungarte was a patriot, I praise him, as he was a good soldier, I admire him, as he overthrew a usurper, I proclaim him, but as he was a tyrant, I condemn him. The evil a man does lives after him, the good is oft interred with his bones, so let it be with Pinochet, but that won’t be the whole truth.


Update: BTW I have had responses from people who seem to think that I think we should go easy on Pinochet. On the contrary, I think he should have been tried for what he did, just as the Nazis were tried at the end of the Second World War. I just think we should be more consistent about it. How many communist dictators are living out their last days in peace? Will they receive international condemnation when they die? So by all means lets shoot ALL former dictators or at least write nasty things about them when they die of natural causes, but not some of them.

Dec 7, 1941

Today is the 65th anniversary of the attack on the U.S. navel base Pearl Harbor, T.H. My only though is a depressed reflection on the difference between our reaction to that attack and our reaction to the 9-11 attacks.

Eternal Father Strong to Save
who’s arm hath bound the restless wave.
Whom bids the mighty ocean deep
its own appointed limits keep.
O hear us when we cry to thee
for those in peril on the sea.

UPDATE: It was the 65th not the 75th anniversary.

AUN! Thoughts: A Day to Remember

Today is the 132nd anniversary of the birth of one of the greatest war leaders in the history of our people, the Right Honorable Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill Knight of the Garter, Order of Merit, Companion of Honor, Fellow of the Royal Society, Privy Counselor, Privy Counselor for Canada, twice Prime Minister, Leader of the House of Commons, Chancellor of the Exchequer, the first ever Minister of Defense, twice First Lord of the Admiralty, Secretary of State for War, Secretary of State for Air, Minister of Munitions, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Home Secretary, President of the Board of Trade, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, Elder Brother of Trinity House, Chancellor of the University of Bristol, Father of the House of Commons, Nobel Laureate for Literature, first Honorary Citizen of the United States, etc.

He was born 30 November, 1874 at Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, the home of his fathers, the first son of Lord Randolph Churchill and Jennie Jerome. He was a graduate of Harrow and the Royal Military College Sandhurst. He served in India with the 4th (Queen’s Own) Hussars and fought on the Northwest Frontier. He charged with the 21st Lancers at Omdurman, the last real cavalry charge of the British Army. He served with the South African Light House during the Second Boer War. He was elected to parliament for the first time in 1899 and sat almost without interruption through the reign of six monarchs. He joined the cabinet for the first time in 1908. During the First World War he served with the Royal Scots Fusiliers commanding the 6th battalion (territorial army) on the Western Front. He was a journalist, inventor (the patent for the tank), author, painter, soldier, statesman, and quite possibly the savior of western civilization. He was, in short, a very great man.

He died 24 January, 1965 and after a state funeral was laid to rest in the graveyard of St. Martin Church, Bladon a short drive from where he was born. May his memory endure as long as our people.

AUN! News: A Huge Loss

Economist Milton Freedman is dead at age 94. I have to say I feel a bit hollow. He was a giant and now he is gone. Ended the Draft and improved monetary policy. Could speak intelligibly about freedom. We didn’t what we had until we lost him. I am more shocked than when Reagan died. But not as shocked as I will be when Thatcher goes. That will be then end of an era. RIP

BTW I just realized my previous post on boarding schools was my 100th. Seems silly now but I had meant to make a big deal about that. Now just shocked.

UPDATE this should have been posted sooner but I had trouble posting

Boarding Schools

A while back there was a post on Albion’s Seedlings and Chicagoboys which generated comments which explored education and especially mentioned the so called St. Grottlesex schools and more broadly the many boarding schools around the Anglosphere.

I am interested in this topic for what is basically two reasons. First, I think they are exactly what we need to look at in rebuilding an educational system for our country and the Anglosphere at large. Secondly as an old boy myself, I am naturally interested in boarding schools.

Anyway, here is a bunch of information for any one who is interested. I am going to start with a little parochialism giving links to the two boarding schools I attended, Eaglebrook, a junior boarding school and Avon Old Farms, a high school.

Then for those who are wondering what St. Grottlesex stands for, it is a name for St. Paul’s, St. Mark’s, St. George’s, Groton, and Middlesex.
Other famous American Boarding Schools include Andover, Exeter and Deerfield. The Association of Boarding Schools with links to U.S. and Canadian boarding schools is here.

Probably the most famous of the boarding schools in the Anglosphere is King’s College of Our Lady of Eton Beside Windsor. Others famous schools include Winchester, Rugby, and Harrow. The Dragon School is one of the more famous junior boarding schools. I could go on school by school, but here is a link to the Independent Schools Council in the UK and the Boarding Schools Association site.

Other organizations with links include the New Zealand Boarding Schools association here, a link to an Australian site is here, and the Independent Schools of Southern Africa site is here. A list of wikipedia links to boarding schools is here.

There is an interesting presentation by The Association of Boarding Schools here.

Finally what discussion of boarding schools would be complete without mention of boarding school’s contribution to English literature in the form of the boarding school novel, the most famous of which is no doubt Tom Brown’s Schooldays.

Count me with the Jews

I have had it with these so called liberals. If you want to turn your stomach read this account of a participant at a pro-war demonstration who was asked point blank by a reporter if he was a Jew. The implication of course was that if he was Jewish he couldn’t be a real Canadian. He was especially offended since he is in fact Jewish, but what offends me is how the left has become more and more blind to the results of their association with the anti-war cause.

I want to ask the left what is “Liberal” or “Progressive” about asking people about their religion to provide “context” for a news story. When I was a boy anyone asking such a question in that context would have rightly been universally reviled as a bigot.

What is liberal about making common political cause with people who believe in the subjugation of women and the stoning of homosexuals? Not just common cause in some minor detail of politics, that would be understandable, but common cause in the defeat of the armed forces of the United States, the United Kingdom, the Kingdom of Canada, and the Commonwealth of Australia.

What is liberal about embracing the big lie theory of propaganda. “Bush Lied!” is just such a big lie. Anyone who has paid even the most cursory attention to the media realizes it is a lie. The much ballyhooed British Cabinet Documents which the anti war folks tried to spin into proof that “Bush Lied” when in fact by confirming that the intelligence picture was unchanged, showed that the Iraqi regime was still trying, as they had been trying for a decade (corrupting the international civil service in the process), to obtain biological, chemical and nuclear weapons. Never mind the additional fact that Iraq had violated virtually every provision of the cease fire agreement that had ended the previous war and that we had been launching retaliatory air strikes all the while, which means there was no peace, only a war we were not trying to win. What I want to know is what is progressive about embracing the fucking Nazi theory of propaganda while calling the President of the United States Bushhitler all the while?

I will answer these questions, there is nothing liberal or progressive about it.

While there are no doubt well meaning people in the democratic party and I don’t just mean Joe Lieberman, the fact is that the democratic party and the left throughout the west is being corrupted by its flirtations with International ANSWER and other apologists for religious terrorist groups. I want to note here by the way ,the very honorable exception of Christopher Hitchens and the rest of that crowd. They are especially to be commended because they must know that this will not totally shield them from unjustified smears post war.

Here is the thing that really offends me about this, I am a liberal at least in the original sense of the word. I dislike it when conservatives use liberal as a smear. I don’t like voting republican as a least worse alternative. I wish the democrats would put up a moderate candidate who I could feel safe in intrusting with the defense of the republic. I would like a much closer watch put on the use of coercive methods of interrogation and stricter rules for military commissions.

Instead what do I get? A party that is to busy cozying up to the anti war movement to give a thought for the average voter who would like a choice.

Now back to the title of this post. I am an atheist, but I was raised in the Episcopal Church. In the hymns we sang every Sunday, which hold my heart still, even if I can’t make my self believe them, we identified ourselves as the people of Zion or Israel. When the crucifixion was told on Good Friday, it was not the Jews, in the sense of some evil other, but the Jews in the sense of us, the people of god who were blamed for rejecting the messiah, just as it was held we rejected him when we sinned. According to the religion of my childhood, the only one to which I could return, I am a Jew.

If playing anti Semitic games is now thought to be A.O.K. in politics, count me among the Jews. I would rather stand with King Christian X of Demark who when told by the Nazi occupation government that they were going to make his Jewish subjects ware a Star of David to mark them out from the rest of his people, said that in that case he was going to ware one also. I would rather stand with King Christian and the many heroes who have opposed anti Semitism and bigotry than with those who stand with Neville Chamberlain for the appeasement of the enemies of our civilization.

That seems to me anyway to be the heart of the question. The left (with the exceptions before mentioned and some others) seems to have lost all respect for our civilization. A civilization which traces it roots from ancient Greece and Rome through the fall of the empire to the Germanic conquerors. A civilization which for all it faults never lost touch with the primitive democracy of the German tribes or the Roman idea of the rule of law. A nation which centralized without abandoning the idea of feudal rights and which then expanded them into rights for all. As a conservative it is this great tradition of rights, democracy, the rule of law, and the struggle for progress that I want to preserve.

Now I don’t want to pretend the English Speaking people have a perfect record, not in general or certainly with respect to our Jewish fellow citizens or subjects. Obviously the expulsion of the Jews from England by King Edward was a disgrace. Nor do I want to pretend that there has never been any anti-Semitism among our people. However it was George Washington who assured the Jewish citizens of Providence that they would always enjoy religious liberty in the United States. It was the voters of the United Kingdom who in the Nineteenth Century returned Benjamin Disraeli as Prime Minister (the conservative voters at that).

Our civilization is a great one and I love it, not only in its manifestation as the United States, but as all the myriad of countries over which, Elizabeth by the grace of god, of the United Kingdom and her other realms and territories Queen, Defender of the Faith, Head of Commonwealth, reigns. For this I have been called a traitor by someone who of course has no idea what treason is under the Laws of the English Speaking People. While my first loyalty, is and must be, while I rely on its protection, to the United States, I feel a strong bond with my people, where ever they live. I hope as the title of this blog proclaims for the Union of all our people living around the world in London, Delhi, New York, Melbourne, Kingstown, Capetown, Singapore, Toronto, Christchurch and a million other places. You might even say I am a bit of an internationalist about it.

International relations is always a bit of a snake pit, but the English Speaking People always prefer if they can to support a country that shares there values. Israel, a liberal democracy in a region of dictatorships, is one such country and one of the most disturbing things about the left’s flirtation with the radical anti-war movement has been how this has turned them against a cause they once treasured. I for one support Israel’s right to exist. If that makes me a Zionist so be it.

In fact from a certain point of view one might almost say I am a Liberal, Jewish, Internationalist, Zionist and I am well known to be a supporter of Capitalism too. If that be treason, make the most of it.

Long Live the Republic!

Before You Vote

There is an excellent post “Seeing the Unseen” at Eject, Eject Eject. It is important if you haven’t voted yet read it.

If the Democrats are Wondering

If the Democrats are wondering what John Kerry’s case of foot in mouth disease has cost them, they should consider this. I WAS planning on returning to my normal voting pattern of voting the strait Libertarian Party ticket, after voting for Republicans in 2002 and 2004.

I dislike the president, especially his position on civil liberties and the budget. I WAS thinking that if the Democrats took control of one house, that might not be such a bad thing. Then John Kerry opened his mouth and reminded me of everything that I loath about the modern Democratic party.

I heard about Kerry’s “joke” or “misstatement” and could not help but think of Kipling’s poem “Tommy.” The one that begins,

“I went into a public house to get a pint of beer,
The publican he up and says, We serve no red coats here.”

And concludes with the famous lines.

“Don’t mess about the cook room slops, but prove it to our face
That the Widow’s Uniform is not the soldier man’s disgrace.

For it's Tommy this, and Tommy that, and “Chuck him out, the brute!”
But it’s “the savior of his country,” when the guns begin to shoot
And it’s Tommy this, and Tommy that, and anything you please
But Tommy ain’t a blooming fool you bet that Tommy sees!”

If the Democrats want to win elections, they have to make sure that me and a million voters like me don’t remember what we dislike about their party right before election day. Maybe then we will either vote for them or at least not vote for the Republicans. They ought to always keep in mind the old saying “it is better to remain silent and appear ignorant than to open ones mouth and remove all doubt.”