The current denizen of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave recently brought Change to the Oval Office in the form of monocromatic beige-and-cream. Apparently Mr. Excitement is not a big risk taker. But if you find yourself bored by all the creamy wonderfulness, you can always occupy your time by reading the Presidential rug:

If President Obama's visitors ever grow bored, they can always read the mottos woven into the border of the Oval Office's new rug.

There are five of them "of meaning to the president" on the outskirts of the traditional presidential seal, according to a White House spokesman, and definitely not from Disney. No "whistle while you work," in other words.

This is fare for troubled times, and the White House is, uh, very transparent about it all. The carpet-bound philosophies are:

• "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." (Franklin D. Roosevelt)

• "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." (Martin Luther King Jr.)

• "Government of the people, by the people, for the people." (Abraham Lincoln)

• "No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings." (John F. Kennedy)

• "The welfare of each of us is dependent fundamentally upon the welfare of all of us." (Theodore Roosevelt)

Love that last one...

The Blog Princess approves of the wallpaper - it's fresh and crisp. But she is not sure whose idea it was to have all four upholstered pieces covered in the same boring shade of light brown? Some punchier throw pillows and a color on the two Martha Washington chairs at the far end (perhaps that nice Williamsburg blue from the sofa pillow? Or navy?) would liven things up a bit.

And the coffee table has got to go. Every time she looks at it, she gets the munchies. "Duuuuuuuuuuude...."

Teh Shrub's decor is likewise restrained - no irrational exuberance here. It's hard to see in the photo but the drapes pick up the pale gold stripes on the Martha Washington chairs and both coordinate with the blue and gold border on the rug, pulling the room together nicely. Her only criticism is the cream pillows on the cream sofa. Booooooooor-ing! She would have found a snazzy blue-and-gold braid or silk cord to sew around them and thrown one or two small accent pillows on the sofa.

Looking at the Clinton Oval Office, it's easy to see why the Chimperor-in-chief opted for the relatively sedate azure and gold scheme. The eye popping colors are enough to make a guy choke on his pretzel and that dark blue rug is just... wrong. The candy striped sofas, while undeniably perky (not to mention reminiscent of interns), are a tad much when combined with a bright blue rug and bright gold curtains. Hard on the eyes. Reminds me of a scene from LA Story where Harris Telemacher's tacky girlfriend describes her infallible method for putting outfits together: "Look away from the mirror and then look back suddenly. The first thing that catches your eye - earrings, necklace, scarf - take it off".

Sometimes, less is more.

Bush I opts for a restrained blue and ivory scheme. Safe. Classy. *Yawn*

Reagan kept the divine red curtains from his predecessor but (photo below) lost the rug. I like the red throw pillows and the red border around the Presidential Seal on the rug. I could have wished for a touch of color on those chairs in front of the fireplace, though.

More coming up!

- Barack Obama, August 31, 2010

Does this sound like "confidence and commitment" to you? Because it sure doesn't to this Marine wife:

“I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse.”

- Senator Barack Obama responds to the State of the Union Address, January 10, 2007

"So I am going to actively oppose the president's proposal. … I think he is wrong, and I think the American people believe he's wrong"

January, 2007 again: "We cannot impose a military solution on what has effectively become a civil war," ...until we acknowledge that reality, we can send 15,000 more troops, 20,000 more troops, 30,000 more troops. I don't know any expert on the region or any military officer that I've spoken to privately that believe that that is going to make a substantial difference on the situation on the ground."

July, 2007: "Here's what we know: the surge has not worked."

January, 2008: I had no doubt -- and I said at the time, when I opposed the surge, that given how wonderfully our troops perform, if we place 30,000 more troops in there, then we would see an improvement in the security situation and we would see a reduction in the violence."

July 15, 2008: Barack Obama's aides have removed criticism of President Bush's increase of troops to Iraq from the campaign Web site, part of an effort to update the Democrat's written war plan to reflect changing conditions.

I'll say one thing for Robert Gibbs - the man earns his salary:

"Confidence and commitment": if Obama's speech writers wanted to invite a comparison between the current and former occupants of the Oval Office, they could hardly have placed their boss in a worse light. The phrase only serves to remind us of qualities George Bush possessed in abundance - and Obama does not.

I met Roy in early 2007. I was the leader of a reconnaissance platoon of scouts and snipers in Iraq and was just back from a two-week leave in the United States. Roy was our new interpreter.

That night, my platoon was sent out on a raid. Our target was an al-Qaeda suicide-attack coordinator. Scanning the intelligence report, I learned that previous attempts to capture him had ended with his bodyguards detonating suicide vests and killing 16 Iraqi police officers. An image of my lead scout team entering a house in southern Baghdad and vanishing in a ball of fire flashed through my mind.

I gave my platoon a 30-second rundown of the situation and the mission, and we scattered to our vehicles. As I pulled on my night-vision goggles and the pitch blackness turned a glowing green, it hit me that less than 24 hours before, I was eating lunch at a Panera in Atlanta's Hartsfield Airport. Life is full of surprises.

But that night, at least, the surprises went our way. We raided the target's home without incident, capturing him while he slept in his bed. Later, as I watched two of my snipers lead the shuffling insurgent toward a U.S. prison in Baghdad, I saw what looked like a little kid in camouflage get out of the armored vehicle two down from mine.

I glanced at one of my scout team leaders. "Who let the 12-year-old out with us?"

"That's Roy, the new terp, sir."

"Does his mom know it's past his bedtime?"

I don't think there's a day that goes by that I don't feel guilty about not writing about the war. For years and years Iraq and Afghanistan were the topics I wrote about most - often 2 or 3 times a day.

The thing is, I've gotten to the point where I can't write about it without spending the entire day in tears. I hate myself for being such a wuss when there are people fighting and dying half a world away.

On the other hand, I get paid to be on the phone with clients all day and I can't cry on the phone. By the time I got halfway through the WaPo piece I had tears running down my face. Of course, the phone rang just then.

It was one of my oldest clients - a wonderful man I've worked with since 1999 (hard to believe). I know that he would have understood, but I couldn't ask him to call back without breaking down completely. Still, I want to thank pond for reminding me of what is important in life.

Men like Mohammed are important (and yes, I realize he was just a boy but his actions were those of a man). And we ought not to be ashamed to shed a few tears for them, and for their families. May God bring his mother comfort.

Update: also worth reading.

Although a majority of Americans had long since turned against the war by 2007, they understood that how we left Iraq, and the Iraq we left behind, mattered greatly. Those of us who had lived through Vietnam—a withdrawal under fire, a broken military, a national crisis of confidence—did not want to go there again. Albeit reluctantly, the American people gave the new strategy, and our men and women in uniform, the time they needed to succeed.

To his credit, President Obama has built on this success. As promised, he is continuing to bring our troops home but without jeopardizing what has been achieved. His next task is to realize a long-term diplomatic, economic and security partnership between Iraq and the United States. As he does so, it will help Iraqis achieve a brighter future and make the U.S. effort in Iraq a hard-won success for all Americans.

Pray for Iraq, for the men and women who served there, and the ones still serving there.

The annual Blog World and New Media Expo is gearing up to take place this October in Las Vegas, and if you aren’t planning on coming, you should. This year, a free pass to the military track is being offered to all active duty military and veterans. Not a member of the military? Well, you should still consider coming, because it is going to be a great time. The amazing Greyhawk from the Mudville Gazette is the host/MC for this year’s military track.

And, OK, the entire military track doesn’t feature me. But I am going to be moderator for one of the panels. Here’s a little sneak peek of what we have planned for you:

Panel 1: Surprise for now
Panel 2: Social Media: Force Multiplier for Spouses?
Panel 3: Media and the Military: Myth versus Reality
Panel 4: Ideal versus Field: Social and New Media In Less Than The Best Circumstances

I'll be on Panel 2 - I won't be hard to recognize - I'll be the "seasoned" brunette sandwiched in between two smart and talented ConservaBabes: Cassy and Melissa Clouthier. Here's a preview of what's in store:

Social Media: Force Multiplier for Spouses? New and Social media have changed how spouses communicate with each other and share information within their companies and with other groups. It also is changing how spouses cope with the stresses of being separated and with having their other halves in harm’s way. Join spouse blogger and journalist Cassy Fiano, journalist and commentator Melissa Clouthier, and spouse blogger Cassandra of Villanous Company as they explore how changes in media and technology are changing the world of spouse blogging.

I'm looking forward to a spirited discussion, not to mention the chance to highlight some of the truly inspiring ways military families have turned the Internet into a do-it-yourself virtual family readiness network.

During the coming weeks I'll be writing more about this, but I wanted to get something up in time for those of you who might want to attend to make reservations and travel plans. Hope to see you there!

The funny thing about this is that that's exactly how DI's sound when they lose their voices.

Via Matty O'Blackfive

Sperm plays a more complicated role in the mating game than first thought, researchers at Australia's University of Adelaide said Wednesday.

Professor Sarah Robertson, from the University's Robinson Institute, said sperm "communicates" with the female reproductive tract and helps prepare the female body for nurturing a fetus. If the female system does not approve of the sperm's message, it could attack them.

"We have discovered that sperm doesn't just fertilize an egg," Robertson said. "It actually contains signaling molecules that are responsible for activating immune changes in women so they can accept a foreign substance in the body — in this case, sperm — leading to conception and a healthy pregnancy."

Researchers found that, similar to humans, not all male sperm is good at communicating and some female bodies have very high standards.

"The male provides the information that increases the chance of conception and progression to pregnancy, but the female body has a quality-control system which needs convincing that his sperm is compatible and also judges whether the conditions are right for reproducing," Robertson said.

I'm sure I'll go straight to Hell for finding this amusing, but I can't help it. I'm just wired that way.

...and the hits just keep on comin':

"Relative to the size of the economy, this year's deficit is expected to be the second largest shortfall in the past 65 years; 9.1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), exceeded only by last year's deficit of 9.9 percent of GDP," CBO wrote.

...According to an analysis by the American Thinker's Randall Hoven, the cost of the Iraq war from 2003-2008 -- when Bush was in office -- was $20 billion less than the cost of education spending and less than a quarter of the cost of Medicare spending during that same period.

... and comin':

"It's frustrating to see both the president and vice president jumping up and down saying, 'Look what we did, look what we did,' when if we actually followed the policies they were calling for ... we would have left early and we would have left in shame," Mr. Hegseth said, noting their opposition to the surge of forces in Iraq.

...and comin':

"He has been slow to realize he is the president, and what that means for handling the military," Ricks said.

Referring to Obama's surprise when a roomful of generals stood when he walked into the room for the first time as president, he said, "I don't think he realized that they were standing for the system, not for him personally."

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you "smart power". It is impressive, no es verdad?

IMPORTANT UPDATE: The dissing continues!

... recently released polling data from Gallup indicates that the Iraqi people approved of the job performance of the American leadership more under President George W. Bush, who invaded their country and overthrew the dictatorial regime of Saddam Hussein, than they do under Obama, who opposed the invasion of Iraq and has repeatedly vowed to have all U.S. troop out of that country by the end of 2011.

So much for restoring our legitimacy in the eyes of the Arab world. Dang... this leadership thing is turning out to be harder than it looked from the campaign trail.

When it comes to what women want from men, the little things really do matter. The items on this list aren’t particularly difficult or time-consuming, but they are, unfortunately, very often overlooked by men. This often leads a woman to feel neglected, which in turn leads to nagging and other problems. Make her feel special, and she’ll go to the ends of the earth for you; try one of these suggestions, and she’ll feel like you've already gone there and back for her.

The bolded part goes for the male of the species, too.

Under one of the many bridges in the Fremont art district lurks the Fremont Troll.

Hey! What is Retriever doing here?

The waterfront is lined with houseboats.

On Saturday we drove to Tacoma to see the Museum of Glass. I think this was my favorite out of all the places we saw.

I loved the stairs leading up to the Chihuly Glass Bridge:

The next few photos are all of the bridge.

I'm posting this from somewhere above Montana - there are blue skies as far as the eye can see, dotted here and there with patches of clouds.

I hope I never become immune to the wonder of flying. Will catch up with email, comments and the like momentarily.

DERBYSHIRE: Among the hopes that I do not realistically nurse is the hope that female suffrage will be repealed. But I’ll say this – if it were to be, I wouldn’t lose a minute’s sleep.

Elise comments:

The rest of it - that we’d probably be a better country if women didn’t vote because women “lean hard to the left” - can be explained away (not adequately to my mind but your mileage may vary) as Derbyshire merely pointing out - as he says in the NRO video - the “downside” to women voting. But the statement that he “wouldn’t lose a minute’s sleep” if female suffrage were repealed is plainly and simply a statement that the “equity” he is careful to laud in that video is simply damage control. Or perhaps a statement that he is utterly unruffled by equity being thrown under the bus of pragmatism.

A later exchange is equally enlightening:

COLMES: What’s next? You want to bring back slavery?

DERBYSHIRE: No, no. I’m in favor of freedom personally.

COLMES: Okay, but women shouldn’t have the freedom to vote.

DERBYSHIRE: Well, they didn’t [for 130 years] and we got along ok.

I've seen the suggestion that certain demographics shouldn't be "allowed" to vote from both the left and the right. I have to say that the more I think about it, the more the suggestion appalls me. For two excellent discussions on this topic, see Elise's second post. She links to a writer I'd never had the pleasure of reading before. Both her posts and Elise's are must reads.

Over the past few days there has been quite a bit of discussion here about limiting the franchise (or perhaps requiring voters to earn the right to vote through military or other service). On the surface a behavior- or service-based criterion seems less troubling than a biological or identity based one.

Heinlein's utopian vision has been kicking about for years. The idea has great emotional appeal, but like all utopian schemes it rests on the premise that social ills spring from flaws in the system rather than flaws in human nature. If we could just find the perfect voting scheme, somehow people would stop acting like people! They would become virtuous, responsible, and wise.

History has a way of dispelling such notions. It reminds us that although times and laws change, human nature remains depressingly constant. In the Federalist #10, James Madison examines the problem of faction:

By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.

There are two methods of curing the mischiefs of faction: the one, by removing its causes; the other, by controlling its effects.

There are again two methods of removing the causes of faction: the one, by destroying the liberty which is essential to its existence; the other, by giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests.

It could never be more truly said than of the first remedy, that it was worse than the disease. Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency.

The second expedient is as impracticable as the first would be unwise. As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As long as the connection subsists between his reason and his self-love, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other; and the former will be objects to which the latter will attach themselves. The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government. From the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results; and from the influence of these on the sentiments and views of the respective proprietors, ensues a division of the society into different interests and parties.

The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society. A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good. So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts. But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government.

The wisdom and foresight of the Founders never ceases to amaze me. They were, many of them, ordinary men but theirs was an age when men still looked to previous generations and sought to learn from the mistakes of their fathers and grandfathers.

I've been reading Sowell's Intellectuals and Society with great enjoyment. My problem with utopian schemes is that I've never met a person who was wise or disinterested enough to decide who "deserves" the vote. The notion that any commonly shared experience so ennobles fallible human beings that it would ensure a wise and disinterested electorate strikes me as naive at best. Such arguments, like Derbyshire's fond wish for a purer, more masculine, more rational (but I repeat myself) electorate that would never allow the other party to set foot in the White House substitute pragmatism (or perhaps it's just arrogance) for principle. They amount to a prettied up version of "the end justifies the means".

But on a more basic level, they're just plain unreliable. How would the last 38 years of presidential elections have turned out if only men had been allowed to vote? As it turns out, virtually the same as they did with more women voting than men. An all male electorate would have changed the results of only ONE election in the past 4 decades:

There seem to be a lot of folks who would be willing to disenfranchise entire classes of their fellow Americans if doing so would result in their party winning. Losing is always hard and when we lose we tend to look around for someone to blame.

The one constant seems to be that that someone is never us.

CWCID for the graphic: Elise and her link to the NY Times. Their graphic was edited (by me) to remove women and highlight the winning party in each election.

]]> http://www.villainouscompany.com/vcblog/archives/2010/08/the_case_agains_1.html http://www.villainouscompany.com/vcblog/archives/2010/08/the_case_agains_1.html Fri, 27 Aug 2010 09:23:05 -0500 That which does not kill us, makes us stronger.

- Friedrich Nietzsche

In the middle of David Brooks' latest column lies an unsettling story. A female novelist undergoes a grueling mastectomy without benefit of anesthesia. Most of us would want to forget such an agonizing experience; to put it behind us. This woman chose to write about it:

It took her three months to put down a few thousand words. She suffered headaches as she picked up her pen and began remembering. “I dare not revise, nor read, the recollection is still so painful,” she confessed. But she did complete it. She seems to have regarded the exercise as a sort of mental boot camp — an arduous but necessary ordeal if she hoped to be a person of character and courage.

Burney’s struggle reminds one that character is not only moral, it is also mental. Heroism exists not only on the battlefield or in public but also inside the head, in the ability to face unpleasant thoughts.

She lived at a time when people were more conscious of the fallen nature of men and women. People were held to be inherently sinful, and to be a decent person one had to struggle against one’s weakness.

In the mental sphere, this meant conquering mental laziness with arduous and sometimes numbingly boring lessons. It meant conquering frivolity by sitting through earnest sermons and speeches. It meant conquering self- approval by staring straight at what was painful.

This emphasis on mental character lasted for a time, but it has abated. There’s less talk of sin and frailty these days. Capitalism has also undermined this ethos. In the media competition for eyeballs, everyone is rewarded for producing enjoyable and affirming content. Output is measured by ratings and page views, so much of the media, and even the academy, is more geared toward pleasuring consumers, not putting them on some arduous character-building regime.

My childhood was filled with tales like this. As a girl I devoured books whole. I almost inhaled them, so greedy was I to learn how the world works, how different people think, how they respond to - and rise above - adversity. Who and why they love. How ordinary folks triumph over grief, disease, disability, poverty, despair. So the tale Brooks told resonated with me, strange as it seems to modern eyes.

Character was a common theme in my childhood reading. Tale after tale spoke of self denial, fear, temptation, pain, courage, perseverance and eventual victory. One doesn't hear much talk of character these days. It has gone out of fashion, but I don't believe capitalism is to blame.

For well over 200 years capitalism has been the signature feature of American life and yet this erosion of character appears nowhere in the books I read during my growing up years. They were (almost without exception) written long before I was born. The erosion is a recent phenomenon that has occurred within my lifetime.

Children - even ones who moves every year - live in a carefully circumscribed universe bounded by rules, family, school, playgrounds and neighborhood friends. For a young boy or girl, reading offers a chance to escape parental warnings and "wait until you're olders". Opening a new book shatters the bonds of time, space, and being. One can see the world through the eyes of an Indian boy or a young girl growing up in the Depression; an elderly Chinese slave or Alexander of Macedonia. The reader can travel backward or forward in time at will, savoring the accumulated wisdom of other ages, other cultures, other lives.

But a traveler touring the classics can't help but notice the common elements that unite characters of every description. There were lessons to be learned: men were sinful by nature and became virtuous only through hard work and determination. The world was a dangerous place; fortunes could be made and lost in an instant. Luck turned sour when one least expected it, but the reverse was true as well.

Without the tempering influences of duty, morality, and character men were weak and easily controlled. People could be divided into ants and grasshoppers. Civilization was a fragile construct threatened on all sides by disease, famine, war, and simple human folly. Security and comfort could be created (however briefly) by industrious ants who worked hard; built strong, secure nests for their families; and saved their food and money against the inevitable prospect of hard times. And then there were the grasshoppers: living in the moment, dependent upon the hard work and foresight of others, never thinking to provide for their own future.

By the age of 8 or 9 I branched out from the relatively structured world of classic literature and began devouring modern books, magazines and newspaper articles - anything and everything I could get my hands on. But this new, undiscovered country offered very different lessons than the piles of books in my parents' house. In the enlightened 60s, social problems were not caused by man's sinful nature or deficiencies of character. No, the system - that fragile and artificial semblance of order so carefully constructed by those officious and moralizing worker ants - was to blame for disrupting the natural order of things. Men were not sinful after all. We were born with an innate sense of goodness that must be allowed free reign. Social ills were the result of oppression, not being understood or allowed to follow one's bliss wherever it led.

Self denial and self restraint were no longer respectable hallmarks of the civilized man. The enlightened person recoiled at such pathological indices of unnatural and unhealthy repression.

Character (with its buzz killing overtones of morality and judgment) was officially "out". "If it feels good" was in. In this new world nothing was off limits, and those who warned that habitual license saps the will and weakens the social fabric were dismissed as joyless scolds out to frighten the weak minded with exaggerated and largely imaginary fears.

In this enlightened universe we were encouraged to indulge every momentary whim. If some negative consequence followed, it was dismissed as an capricious and unfair accident. We were not to blame - "bad luck" was impossible to predict but thankfully, utterly unconnected to our behavior.

One of the United Kingdom's biggest and best-known corporate law firms has little difficulty retaining talented women lawyers as partners, reports the Daily Mail.

Allen & Overy's secret to success? Offering 82 holidays a year, in exchange for reduced pay. Men can also opt for a reduced schedule for up to eight years, although the program was put in place for the purpose of retaining women struggling to balance their work with motherhood, the newspaper explains.

"If we don't succeed in attracting more women through to partner, we will be choosing from an ever-decreasing pool of talent," says partner Geoff Fuller.

So long as they're willing to accept less pay (and perhaps a poorer position on the promotion track) I'm not seeing where this is necessarily a bad thing. I've long maintained that many women are willing to trade salary for autonomy/time with family. This arrangement makes the tradeoff explicit.

...this is an opportune moment to address Elise's argument that men who joke about depriving women of the vote are necessarily unprincipled. (Cassandra also took umbrage at the post at National Review.)

I once wrote a piece on a similar topic. It happens to touch on the very point that they raise, which is that "women" couldn't be replaced by "Jews" or "African Americans." That was the argument raised then, too, except that time it was men who were the butt of the joke:

Lucas says that you couldn't replace "men" in the insults with any other group of people without raising an uproar. That's not quite true, though: there is one other group that could fit in the space, which is women. I can't count the number of bumperstickers I've seen for sale that said something to the effect of: "I miss my ex-wife; but my aim is getting better," or "My wife said to give up fishing or she'd leave; I sure will miss her." (There was a successful country music song about the last one.)

Could you raise a joke about the importance to the country of disenfranchising men without raising an uproar? I think so; in fact, jokes about the relative stupidity of men are so common in sitcoms, etc., that the only bar against anyone making such a joke is that it is probably too obvious to be funny.

The earlier movements accomplished this: they moved the culture from a place where the idea of "women's suffrage" was a joke, to a place where the idea of "ending women's suffrage" is the joke. That is a remarkable thing; and if it takes the telling of the joke to make that clear, so be it!

It's hard to argue that being able to joke around isn't a good thing but unlike Grim, neither Elise nor I saw the post as a joke. Nevertheless, an interesting conversation about context ensued. Elise (who I'm delighted to see is blogging again) and I were pretty much on the same page with regard to the Williamson post - we both thought it was odd to juxtapose a common prank (getting ignorant people to sign petitions against self interest) with the anniversary of women's suffrage unless the writer meant to connect the two in the reader's mind. Over at her place Elise made a few good points:

The argument that women shouldn’t have the vote is literally un-principled. The only justification for it is that if women couldn’t vote then conservatives would always win elections. That’s not a principle; that’s a corruption.

It's always a bit of a gamble for a female conservative to question anything that smacks - no matter how faintly - of sexism. The standard rejoinders are entirely predictable: generally some variation of "YOU HATE MEN!!!" or "YOU'RE A FEMINIST!" (neither of which constitutes any kind of refutation on the merits). I found Elise's observation interesting in light of a fact I've only seen discussed once or twice: for the first 60 or so years after we got the vote, the majority of women voted for conservatives. This point was made somewhat ironically by John Derbyshire while discussing what he calls The Case Against Women's suffrage.

The case, according to Derbyshire, is exactly what Elise critiqued in her post: that female suffrage is bad for conservatism because women can't be relied upon to vote for conservatives. Of course, implicit in his case is the tacit admission that for the first 60 or years, female suffrage was good for conservatism. He also stipulates that he isn't advocating the end of women's voting rights. Equity, he says, trumps pragmatism.

I can't argue with anything Derbyshire has to say in the linked video, but it does make me wonder why a party that advocates both freedom of expression and unfettered markets hasn't bothered to ask itself how it came to lose womens' votes? It has become axiomatic on the right to blame feminism for everything from the heartbreak of psoriasis to the bedbug infestation in NY city, but if conservatism isn't selling well in the marketplace of ideas then perhaps conservatives need to take a long, hard look in the mirror rather than blaming the customer for not buying their product.

A few days ago, Grim and I had a brief discussion on these pages about mixing genders in a military headquarters (specifically, although the subject has broader implications). I suggested that obligations, and the like, need not change simply because women were now present, and that equal enforcement of regulations should remain the norm. Grim demurred somewhat, responding with Saul Alinsky's fourth rule and pointing out the dangers of dogma. If I've oversimplified Grim's position, or otherwise mischaracterized it, he is, of course, free to correct me. I'd like to expand that discussion somewhat, focusing here on Alinsky's fourth rule (make the enemy live up to his/her own book of rules) and on equal enforcement (regardless of milieu).

Alinsky's fourth rule is one of thirteen described in his book Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals, and this rule contains two traps. I say here, "Bring it on. Let's do this." The first trap is that we would, necessarily, defend our book of rules as though it were sacrosanct and immutable. Of course it will be imperfect, being a book of Man, and so Alinsky's radicals will succeed in exposing our hypocrisy and defeating us. But not if we don't accept that trap. I say "bring it on" because here is an outstanding opportunity to give our book an operational, acid test, knowing it to be flawed. What better way to expose our rule book's weaknesses and errors, and so to strengthen the one and correct the other, than through the open challenge and discussion with those who disagree with us? And so it's "Thank you, Mr Radical, for helping us to make our rule book even better." And herein lies the second trap. It is important to not allow Alinsky's radical to control the definition of our rule book. It's our rule book; the definition of it must be ours. "No, Mr Radical, you've misinterpreted what this particular rule means, and you've misunderstood how this particular rule fits into our overall environment. Here are the correct meaning and fitting."

In the end, I suggest one of two things will occur. Most likely, we'll win over the radical because he'll lose the argument — on our terms — or he will be exposed for the distortionist troublemaker that he is through his continued, insistent, and repeatedly exposed, distortion of our precepts and so lose credibility in society at large. There is the possibility that our idea is a bad one; in that case, indeed it should be tossed and replaced with a better one.

The other point concerns equal enforcement. When a police officer writes a ticket for one motorist and gives another a warning for substantially the same speeding, is he enforcing the law equally? Yes, no, maybe. If the officer is basing the distinction solely on gender, or skin color, or some other irrelevant discriminant, the enforcement is, indeed, uneven. If the officer is evaluating the totality of the situation and deciding that one motorist needs the lesson of a ticket but the other needs only the reminder of the warning, I suggest this is equal enforcement. We pay officers to make this judgment all the time.

Some would say, "No, you have to treat everyone exactly the same. No exceptions." See Alinsky's fourth rule above. Some would be misinterpreting our definition of our rule and misunderstanding our application of our rule. People are not cookie cutter copies. We're individuals, every one of us unique and, in that sense, a separate entity from all others. We expect, and are expected, to be treated, even today, as individuals — we each get our separate juries and distinct court cases, for instance. And, indeed, all of us are capable of making such valuations and arriving at appropriate, differing responses to apparently identical situations. For in the end, what is enforcement? It is not the act of enforcing, but rather the outcome of that enforcement. The ticket is needed to compel obedience to the traffic law in the one case, and a warning achieves adherence to the traffic law in the other. In both cases, the traffic law becomes equally followed by both motorists. For awhile. And then the cycle is repeated, perhaps with modifications.

This takes work. The Left would like to stop the work and just have us all be carbon copies (obedient ones, at that). It's harder to treat people as individuals than as groups. It's harder to be results oriented than to be procedure oriented. Conservatives and libertarians and Tea Partiers and freedom lovers generally recognize that freedom takes constant effort, constant vigilance. Because those freedoms are well worth the cost.