Re low liberalism - back in my university days I took a course about politics with a campus legend, a man already then in his 70s (this would have been circa 2001-2002). In a private conversation with a few of his students after a seminar, he commented that democracy works best with the implied understanding that we don't try too hard to get the votes of a third of society. It took me a while to figure out what he meant, and now I absolutely do.
Hitch and Iraq provide a valuable lesson for anyone who is either an aspiring or congenital contrarian. He reflexively wanted to go against the grain of his social circle and his predictable "been writing the same column for decades" colleagues at The Nation and whipped himself into a frenzy of righteous outrage.
Unfortunately the idea that Saddam and his famous rape rooms was an intolerable evil that had to be eradicated by any means necessary led him into the waiting arms of Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld, who had as little concern for the welfare of Iraqis (or for anything besides power) as ol Saddam did.
Moral to the story: try to remain skeptical of people who claim exalted motives, who profess to be fighting for freedom and other hazy abstractions, especially when they have zero prior track record of ever being interested in these things. And, as painful as it may be, sometimes the obvious answer—that the Iraq invasion was an aggressive unprovoked war of choice—and not the complicated contrary perspective, turns out to be the right one.
If I have not already done so here, I'd like to confess to supporting the Iraq invasion a lot more than 70/30. Fortunately I was just a lowly economist working for the USG in Nigeria at the time and my support was merely symptomatic with no RL effects.
I'm tempted to blame my error on the "Left" for making such bad arguments against the war, but then I would think that, no? :)
In the way that Margaret Thatcher wanted to create a country in the image of her father, but created one in the image of her son, I want to live in a world where Christopher Hitchens is correct, but fear I live in one where Peter is (though he is often indistinguishable from the crank left when it comes to Syria and Russia).
I am the rare person who continues to support removing Saddam Hussein from power but opposes American involvement in Ukraine.
Explanation: Most people badly misremember the Iraq years, for "history is written by the victors" reasons. They forget the central lesson of 9/11, which was "those towel-headed whackjobs on the other side of the world actually CAN hurt us (and badly), so we can't afford to ignore them." Saddam Hussein was an awful dictator, he absolutely had lots of chemical weapons (in spite of UN resolutions straightforwardly requiring his removal from power if he had any WMD), and he had people tasked with building nukes. It is true that intelligence about his nuclear program proved incorrect, but that's not the same as it being fabricated or dishonest. Saddam's scientists appeared to be lying about their progress to avoid execution, and their reports made their way to Western intelligence agencies.
The Iraq strategy was mistaken in a number of big ways. Bush lied in saying that Islam is "a religion of peace" because he wanted to divide the Islamic world and get support from most Muslims against al Queda. In doing this, he led America down a multiculturalist "they're just like us and we can make a Western democracy" fantasy. "Shock and awe" needlessly destroyed physical infrastructure, and de-Baathification destroyed political infrastructure (in fairness, we genuinely thought those chemical weapons might be used against us during the initial invasion, but overestimated the Iraqi army's competence). From there, the destroyed infrastructure causes problems until the 2007-era strategy change resulted in massive improvement in conditions, just in time for Barack Obama to sabotage the hell out of everything by announcing a withdrawal date and sticking to it with no regard for conditions on the ground. Had he not done that, things would have been vastly better and "ISIS" would never have formed, but instead Obama straightforwardly incentivized "go into hiding until after withdrawal, then come out and dominate", which is exactly what ISIS did. And of course Obama blamed Bush for it all, and his media were happy to oblige.
It is because of this history that involvement in Ukraine is now foolish. Yes, there are other arguments - Ukraine is itself corrupt, Europe is not nearly pulling its weight, etc. But America has proven that it will sabotage itself in war to such an extent that the threat of American power is a gigantic bluff.
And that bluff is holding the world together.
Russia is not Iraq, and China certainly isn't. The enemy is a lot stronger than Iraq was, and the US military is busy teaching recruits about transgender pronouns. The threat of American power keeps the world's villains at least somewhat in check, but that threat evaporates if they call our bluff.
And all the more if we show our cards.
America needs to stay out of military conflicts in order to maintain the bluff. Actually building competent defense (and seeing Europe do something - anything at all - for itself) would be a bonus.
Some writers are much easier for me to follow than others. Their thoughts flow naturally, one after the other. I easily absorbed the piece by the robot at First Things but thought I had suddenly become dyslexic when reading Thomas Prosser's piece. And I always found John Derbyshire much easier to read than Steve Sailer. Of course subject matter must have something to do with it; Niels Bohr could have a lovely style and I still wouldn't understand it. Yet style is clearly important. I don't have to make an effort or re-read the previous sentence with either Theodore Dalrymple or Ed.
And the same with fiction. It is only after recently reading half a dozen novels by other writers where I was often unsure where we were, what was happening and who was speaking that I began to appreciate just how good a writer Robert Harris is.
Yes agree about Robert Harris - particularly his first novels, which are near perfect thrillers. If you want easy to read high art I think the French pair of Carerre and Houellebecq are hard to beat.
Houellebecq I have tried and thought he was very good but too bleak for my taste. I wanted entertaining, not given a realistic picture of life without redeeming virtues. Carerre I have never heard of but will now look him up and try him. Thanks.
I suggest you read Richard Hanania's entire piece. The excerpt given here by Ed may confuse. But I think RH is being coy with his essay and his meaning becomes more clear given the entire context.
The Prosser on ‘low liberalism’ was a nice read; but fundamentally it's exhibit 1024 in why it's stupid to conflate the liberalism and the left. Prosser can point to the seeming paradoxes of authoritarian "liberals", but there's nothing paradoxical when you realize that the left never was liberal. To their credit, Marx and co. were explicit about this, as were the academic forerunners of wokism.
Also the what Prosser calls low-liberals not quite new. They are the same left-wing pseudo intellectuals that mocked by Thomas Sowell, Friedrich Hayek and every Thatcherite that ever harped on about chardonnay socialists.
Prosser is right that thanks our overgrown universities, there are now more of these pseudointellectuals. To the extent that they now include even football commentators. But they are not fundamentally different from the prior generations. They aren't even any more foolish.
I read the intriguing Hanania piece you link to. Hanania writes the following about Kendism:
"But these are small details for Kendism, an ideology so convincing and scientifically well-established that universities produce glossaries to teach its core tenets. "
Hanania has a way of making his points that are wicked.....
Obviously from a distance there is no way to know how which of Bukele's methods necessary/effective introducing crime but it's unlikely that they all are. SOME must just be ways of increasing his personal power. The right stance is to praise the result but be skeptical of the means.
yeah I don't really know. My only basic opinion is that homicide rates of that level are completely hellish and ruin everything, so locking up 2% of the pop or whatever seems like a price worth paying.
The Salvadorans at my church like Bukele a lot, and the ladies think he's super cute. I think he's a little too "shiny" to be cute, and I don't trust such perfect teeth, but I'm not Salvadoran, so it doesn't matter.
Probably but which 2% and might 1.9% have been better? Could he have pushed different levers of power to achieve the better result?
I'm obviously coming from the perspective where the "War on Drugs" and the "War on Crime" and yes, the "War on Terror" were used for political ends even while appreciating the huge reduction in urban crime the seems to have ended in 2019-20.
The search for a theme tune to Ed's Substack might be over. The best unheard band of the 1980s with New Dark Age. Chills
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWoNSADanoA
Great idea! https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4JflxHreOBFlrb4rhPYzVs?si=ac9493c6746940b5
Ha! Lomez is an old online friend of mine. One of the first big accounts to follow me on Twitter. Amusing to see him here.
Re low liberalism - back in my university days I took a course about politics with a campus legend, a man already then in his 70s (this would have been circa 2001-2002). In a private conversation with a few of his students after a seminar, he commented that democracy works best with the implied understanding that we don't try too hard to get the votes of a third of society. It took me a while to figure out what he meant, and now I absolutely do.
Hitch and Iraq provide a valuable lesson for anyone who is either an aspiring or congenital contrarian. He reflexively wanted to go against the grain of his social circle and his predictable "been writing the same column for decades" colleagues at The Nation and whipped himself into a frenzy of righteous outrage.
Unfortunately the idea that Saddam and his famous rape rooms was an intolerable evil that had to be eradicated by any means necessary led him into the waiting arms of Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld, who had as little concern for the welfare of Iraqis (or for anything besides power) as ol Saddam did.
Moral to the story: try to remain skeptical of people who claim exalted motives, who profess to be fighting for freedom and other hazy abstractions, especially when they have zero prior track record of ever being interested in these things. And, as painful as it may be, sometimes the obvious answer—that the Iraq invasion was an aggressive unprovoked war of choice—and not the complicated contrary perspective, turns out to be the right one.
If I have not already done so here, I'd like to confess to supporting the Iraq invasion a lot more than 70/30. Fortunately I was just a lowly economist working for the USG in Nigeria at the time and my support was merely symptomatic with no RL effects.
I'm tempted to blame my error on the "Left" for making such bad arguments against the war, but then I would think that, no? :)
In the way that Margaret Thatcher wanted to create a country in the image of her father, but created one in the image of her son, I want to live in a world where Christopher Hitchens is correct, but fear I live in one where Peter is (though he is often indistinguishable from the crank left when it comes to Syria and Russia).
I am the rare person who continues to support removing Saddam Hussein from power but opposes American involvement in Ukraine.
Explanation: Most people badly misremember the Iraq years, for "history is written by the victors" reasons. They forget the central lesson of 9/11, which was "those towel-headed whackjobs on the other side of the world actually CAN hurt us (and badly), so we can't afford to ignore them." Saddam Hussein was an awful dictator, he absolutely had lots of chemical weapons (in spite of UN resolutions straightforwardly requiring his removal from power if he had any WMD), and he had people tasked with building nukes. It is true that intelligence about his nuclear program proved incorrect, but that's not the same as it being fabricated or dishonest. Saddam's scientists appeared to be lying about their progress to avoid execution, and their reports made their way to Western intelligence agencies.
The Iraq strategy was mistaken in a number of big ways. Bush lied in saying that Islam is "a religion of peace" because he wanted to divide the Islamic world and get support from most Muslims against al Queda. In doing this, he led America down a multiculturalist "they're just like us and we can make a Western democracy" fantasy. "Shock and awe" needlessly destroyed physical infrastructure, and de-Baathification destroyed political infrastructure (in fairness, we genuinely thought those chemical weapons might be used against us during the initial invasion, but overestimated the Iraqi army's competence). From there, the destroyed infrastructure causes problems until the 2007-era strategy change resulted in massive improvement in conditions, just in time for Barack Obama to sabotage the hell out of everything by announcing a withdrawal date and sticking to it with no regard for conditions on the ground. Had he not done that, things would have been vastly better and "ISIS" would never have formed, but instead Obama straightforwardly incentivized "go into hiding until after withdrawal, then come out and dominate", which is exactly what ISIS did. And of course Obama blamed Bush for it all, and his media were happy to oblige.
It is because of this history that involvement in Ukraine is now foolish. Yes, there are other arguments - Ukraine is itself corrupt, Europe is not nearly pulling its weight, etc. But America has proven that it will sabotage itself in war to such an extent that the threat of American power is a gigantic bluff.
And that bluff is holding the world together.
Russia is not Iraq, and China certainly isn't. The enemy is a lot stronger than Iraq was, and the US military is busy teaching recruits about transgender pronouns. The threat of American power keeps the world's villains at least somewhat in check, but that threat evaporates if they call our bluff.
And all the more if we show our cards.
America needs to stay out of military conflicts in order to maintain the bluff. Actually building competent defense (and seeing Europe do something - anything at all - for itself) would be a bonus.
Some writers are much easier for me to follow than others. Their thoughts flow naturally, one after the other. I easily absorbed the piece by the robot at First Things but thought I had suddenly become dyslexic when reading Thomas Prosser's piece. And I always found John Derbyshire much easier to read than Steve Sailer. Of course subject matter must have something to do with it; Niels Bohr could have a lovely style and I still wouldn't understand it. Yet style is clearly important. I don't have to make an effort or re-read the previous sentence with either Theodore Dalrymple or Ed.
And the same with fiction. It is only after recently reading half a dozen novels by other writers where I was often unsure where we were, what was happening and who was speaking that I began to appreciate just how good a writer Robert Harris is.
John Derbyshire is a great writer, I even like his science writing and I find that a subject I struggle with.
And he's a subscriber. Hello John!
Yes agree about Robert Harris - particularly his first novels, which are near perfect thrillers. If you want easy to read high art I think the French pair of Carerre and Houellebecq are hard to beat.
Houellebecq I have tried and thought he was very good but too bleak for my taste. I wanted entertaining, not given a realistic picture of life without redeeming virtues. Carerre I have never heard of but will now look him up and try him. Thanks.
I suggest you read Richard Hanania's entire piece. The excerpt given here by Ed may confuse. But I think RH is being coy with his essay and his meaning becomes more clear given the entire context.
The Prosser on ‘low liberalism’ was a nice read; but fundamentally it's exhibit 1024 in why it's stupid to conflate the liberalism and the left. Prosser can point to the seeming paradoxes of authoritarian "liberals", but there's nothing paradoxical when you realize that the left never was liberal. To their credit, Marx and co. were explicit about this, as were the academic forerunners of wokism.
Also the what Prosser calls low-liberals not quite new. They are the same left-wing pseudo intellectuals that mocked by Thomas Sowell, Friedrich Hayek and every Thatcherite that ever harped on about chardonnay socialists.
Prosser is right that thanks our overgrown universities, there are now more of these pseudointellectuals. To the extent that they now include even football commentators. But they are not fundamentally different from the prior generations. They aren't even any more foolish.
I read the intriguing Hanania piece you link to. Hanania writes the following about Kendism:
"But these are small details for Kendism, an ideology so convincing and scientifically well-established that universities produce glossaries to teach its core tenets. "
Hanania has a way of making his points that are wicked.....
Obviously from a distance there is no way to know how which of Bukele's methods necessary/effective introducing crime but it's unlikely that they all are. SOME must just be ways of increasing his personal power. The right stance is to praise the result but be skeptical of the means.
yeah I don't really know. My only basic opinion is that homicide rates of that level are completely hellish and ruin everything, so locking up 2% of the pop or whatever seems like a price worth paying.
Better a strong Caudillo than an inept democrat. Bukeke is interesting in will he give up power...
Also note the quiet about Nicaragua, or how British Honduras was basically wrecked by Guatemala
What about an effective democrat. Why settle for second best? :)
The Salvadorans at my church like Bukele a lot, and the ladies think he's super cute. I think he's a little too "shiny" to be cute, and I don't trust such perfect teeth, but I'm not Salvadoran, so it doesn't matter.
Probably but which 2% and might 1.9% have been better? Could he have pushed different levers of power to achieve the better result?
I'm obviously coming from the perspective where the "War on Drugs" and the "War on Crime" and yes, the "War on Terror" were used for political ends even while appreciating the huge reduction in urban crime the seems to have ended in 2019-20.
I've used that line too many times to count. Such a great summation of human reality.
I also like to tell people "you've come to the wrong place for anarchy, brother."