Month: June 2005

Medary.com Usage Note

Regular readers (both of them) may have noticed that we have begun putting information in the “body text” of the article.

What this means is that we’ll try to write teaser paragraphs which will show up on the main page. If you want to see the rest of the article, you’ll need to “click through” to the article by clicking on the title of the article.

Sneaky, yes, but it’s all about driving up the hit count, you know? So, do us a favor and click through to the full articles. We know you’ll enjoy them! Really, you will!

What Does “Nazi” Mean Any More?

More musings . . .

The word “Nazi” has ceased to have any real meaning in public discourse, due to its constant misuse by the Dick Durbans, Rick Santorums, and countless others both on-line and elsewhere. It can now be safely used in any context where the more fitting word would be something like “meanie.”

Snookums and I were at a Kansas City Royals game the other night, and we observed an overzealous usher checking the tickets of everyone in the section beside the one in which we were seated. Naturally, we and all of the fans around us took to calling this young usher (who looked to be just out of high school, if that) the “Ticket Nazi.”

This was all very funny, but got me to thinking about how the word “Nazi” has lost all of the horrific connotations that it had in, say, 1945 after our troops discovered the obscenities of Auschwitz, et al. It also illustrates how degraded our political speech has become. Both left and right substitute name-calling for reasoned and rational argument. From where I sit, those on the “left” are more guilty than those on the “right,” most of whom are content to use the epithet “liberal” versus their opponent’s verbal escalation to the nuclear “Nazi,”, “fascist,” “idiot,” etc.

It’s time for name-calling to stop. On both sides.

Godwin’s law[*1] , formulated in the early days of the Internet on the Usenet discussion board system, stated:

“As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.”

It’s easier to call somebody a name than it is to engage in an intellectual exchange–whether the name is “liberal” or “Nazi.”

A well-known correlary to Godwin’s Law states that the first party in an exchange to use the word “Nazi” automatically loses the argument. Do you suppose there’s any way to enforce this most reasonable restriction on gratuitous name-calling?

Mark Steyn, Dick Durbin

In case you missed it, U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) doesn’t support The Troops.[*1]

On Tuesday, from the floor of the Senate, Durbin, citing a declassified FBI report, compared the treatment of prisoners at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to “Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime — Pol Pot or others — that had no concern for human beings.”

Columnist Mark Steyn in the New York Sun observes[*2] :

As things stand, they’re not covered by the Geneva Conventions — they’re unlawful combatants, captured fighting in civilian clothes rather than uniform, and, when it comes to name, rank and serial number, they lack at least two thereof, and even the first is often highly variable. As a point of “international law”, their fate is a matter entirely between Washington and the state of which they’re citizens (Saudi Arabia, mostly). I don’t think it’s a good idea to upgrade terrorists into lawful combatants. But if, like my namesake the British jurist Lord Steyn, you feel differently, fine, go ahead and make your case.

I may be a bit dense but I also fail to see any credible connection between some (admittedly) rather aggressive interrigation techniques and the horrific Killing Fields of Cambodia, the death camps of Nazi Germany, and the slave labor camps of Stalin.

Durbin owes the Senate, the U.S. Military, and the citizens of the United States an unqualified apology. There’s talk of his being censured by the Senate. This should be the mildest punishment for his breathtakingly intemperate words. Expulsion should also be on the table.

Austin Bay, In Iraq

Austin Bay, a journalist/blogger, reports as he accompanies U.S. forces in Iraq:[*1]

Wander around with a bunch of Marines for a half hour, spend fifteen minutes with Guardsmen from Idaho, and you will have no doubts about American military capabilities or the troops’ will to win. But our weakness is back home, on the couch, in front of the tv, on the cable squawk shows, on the editorial page of the New York Times, in the political gotcha games of Washington, DC. It seems America wants to get on with its wonderful Electra-Glide life, that September 10 sense of freedom and security, without finishing the job. The military is fighting, the Iraqi people are fighting, but where is the US political class? The Bush Administration has yet to ask the American people –correction, has yet to demand of the American people– the sustained, shared sacrifice it takes to win this long, intricate war of bullets, ballots, and bricks. Bullets go bang, and even CBS understands bullets. Ballots make an impression–in terms of this war’s battlespace, the January Iraqi elections were World War Two’s D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge combined. But the bricks– the building of Iraq, Afghanistan, and the other hard corners where this war is and will be fought– that’s a delicate and decades long challenge. Given the vicious, megalomanical enemy we face, five years, perhaps fifteen years from now occasional bullets and bombs will disrupt the political and economic building. This is the Bush Administration’s biggest strategic mistake– a failure to tap the reservoir of American willingness 9/11 produced. One afternoon in December 2001 my mother –after reading a column of mine in her local paper– called me long-distance. She told me she remembered being a teenager in 1942 and tossing a tin can on a wagon that rolled past the train station in her small Texas hometown. (Plainview– one reason I know Lanc-Corporal Solis’ hometown– it’s my parents birthplace.) Mom said she knew that the can she tossed didn’t add much to the war effort, but she felt that in some, small, token perhaps but very real way, that she was contributing to the battle being waged by our soldiers. “The Bush Administration is going to make a terrible mistake if it does not let the American people get involved in this war. Austin, we need a war bond drive. This matters, because this is what it will take.”

She was right then, and she’s right now.

Do we, the American public, have the will to win this war–for the Iraqis, for ourselves, for the memory of the 3,000 who died on American soil at the hands of Islamic totalitarians?

Do you?

Or is it more important to make sure that the worst of the thugs are accorded Geneva Convention (or U.S. Constitution) protections that they are not entitled to due to their status as Unlawful Combatants?

Yes, this is really an either-or question. There is no middle ground. Sorry about that.

Deep Throat Cashes In

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) – Universal Pictures and PublicAffairs will reportedly pay nearly $1 million for the film and book rights to the life story of W. Mark Felt, better known as “Deep Throat,” a newspaper article said Thursday.[*1]

Discussion topics for today:
Do two wrongs really, really make a right?
Should a high-ranking official go public with allegations against his President? If so, how? Anonymous and technically illegal leaks to the media, or a public resignation and accusation? Or, should he have participated in the coverup (this one thrown out for the hordes of Administration officials since George Washington’s administration).
Thirty years after the fact, is it moral, immoral, or neutral that that public official (or, more accurately, his family[*2] ) makes a million dollars on the now elderly public official’s story?

My answers:
No, two wrongs do not make a right.
Public resignation and accusation would have been the proper and most honorable action of Mr. Felt and any other official in his position.
It is unseemly at best for Mr. Felt or his family to cash in at this time. It gives the distasteful appearance that his family wants to make some money off of the old guy before he passes away.

That’s what I think.

Discuss . . .

Raggin’ On Kansas, Part Two

The Kansas Supreme Court demonstrates their profound lack of understanding of the fundamental concept of separation of powers, by ruling that the State Legislature didn’t appropriate enough money for education in the state.

Missouri is looking better and better.

When Wackos Ruled, um, Kansas

Of course you know of the learned group running the Kansas Board of Education, yes? These are the yahoos who don’t think evolution is a good idea, but think that a mysterious creationism is. Well, they’re baaaaaaackkkkkkk…..

From the Kansas City Star story entitled Evolution theory called impossible:

In a recent newsletter to constituents in western Kansas, board member Connie Morris calls evolution a “fairy tale” that has “anti-God contempt and arrogance.”
. . .
“In short, Darwin’s theory of evolution is biologically, genetically, mathematically, chemically, metaphysically and etc. wildly and utterly impossible,” Morris wrote constituents..

The article of course also reports that creationism opponents such as Board member Sue Gamble falls back on the “separation of church and state” canard.

What’s truly sad is that both sides are profoundly mistaken. The evolutionists show a Luddite “contempt and arrogance” (to coin a phrase) for science with every word they utter.

Here’s the fact: Evolution explains the available evidence and fits well with progress in related scientific fields. Creationism doesn’t. Evolution (by extension into genetics) does a very good job of explaining how DNA can be changed over time–correlating well with other advances in bio-science.

Creationism on the other hand doesn’t explain why we can manipulate dog genes to create dachshunds and great danes, how we can create hybrid varieties of wheat, how we can manufacture Roundup-ready corn. Before it can be taken seriously, it needs to be judged in the context of the entire field of life science. Not just in the context of Genesis.

I don’t often side with the “liberals” but I’m with them on this one. Creationism is nonsense until sufficient evidence for it being correct is presented. Screeching that I somehow have “anti-God contempt and arrogance” or that “Darwin’s theory of evolution is biologically, genetically, mathematically, chemically, metaphysically and etc. wildly and utterly impossible” isn’t evidence. It’s intimidation, and presumption of the highest order.

This whole episode is a continuing stain on the reputation of Kansas. On the other hand, sitting here in suburban Kansas City on the Missouri side, it makes Missouri look comparatively that much better.

Don’t Bug Me, I’m Rippin!

The article count has decreased dramatically of late. Sorry about that, it might have something to do with trips to Paris and San Francisco, playing with my new camera (Canon Exilim EX-Z750) and finally getting around to ripping my CD collection to .mp3. Yes, my music collection is finally entering the 21st Century.

Never fear, I’ve still got a number of other Medary.com projects in the works.