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Jonah Goldberg has an interesting column about Financial reform. He writes:

“If by “capitalist” you mean someone who cares more about his own profit than yours; if you mean someone who cares more about providing for his family than providing for yours; if you mean someone who trusts that he is a better caretaker of his own interests and desires than a bureaucrat he’s never met… then we are all capitalists. Because, by that standard, capitalism isn’t some far-off theory about the allocation of capital; it is a commonsense description of what motivates pretty much all human beings everywhere.”

Perhaps so. And yet, not all human beings, surely. After all, if it were so for all human beings, would capitalism have such staunch opponents? If we are all supposed to be capitalists, than what is it that makes a man join the Army, where, by all accounts, bureaucrats he’s never met will make decisions on which his life depends. Or what about someone who joins the Church? How many pious Christians can claim to care more about their profit than anyone else’s?

I have to disagree with Goldberg on this point. Not all humans are capitalists, at least not by this definition. He goes on to say:

“At the end of the day, it is entirely natural for humans to work the system — any system — for their own betterment, whatever kind of system that may be.”

He’s correct here; but he would have been wrong if he had said  “it is entirely natural for all humans to work the system.” I have no idea if he intended to write that or not, but if he really did mean only some humans engage in this behavior, then he is contradicting his own previous assertion.

For there are, whether he cares to acknowledge it or no, many people who are in fact willing to abide by the rules of a system in order to preserve it. And even those who work a Socialist system are by no means the same as the enterprising Capitalists who seek to make a profit. After all, a Socialist–even a system-working one–is still dependent on the system to achieve his ends. He is not “standing on his own two feet”, as True Capitalism compels him to do.

Not that Goldberg’s column is without merit. He is quite correct in asserting that the problem with Socialist regulations is that those who are selfish–in the Randian sense–will attempt to play the system to their own personal advantage, disregarding the well-being of others. Where he goes awry is in foolishly assuming that everyone will do so.

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This is pretty cool. The article concludes:

“The X-37B might lack a flashy name, a made-for-the-movies mission and public hoopla, but this space plane’s low profile might be just the thing that helps it beat the long odds and become a success.” 

Actually, “X-37B” sounds exactly like the sort of name that Secret Projects have in science fiction. Perhaps it will be our first line of defense against The Reapers.

(Hat Tip to Huffington Post)

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William Saletan writes:

“There was no America, as a nation, until Britain foolishly behaved as Palin now wants America to behave. Her advice is a prescription for superpower suicide. If she understood the Boston Tea Party as more than a slogan, she’d know that.”

It seems to me like the British Empire declined for very long time–never completely ceasing to be an Empire until after World War II. So, if Saletan is right and Palin’s advice is indeed analogous to the British policy at the time of the Boston Tea Party, we’ve still got about 200 years left.

On the one hand, it’s tempting to give in to this idea that history repeats itself. On the other hand, it strikes me as a rather simplistic analysis. I’m no historian, but I do think that Britain’s superpower status should probably have an asterisk by it, because they almost never successfully beat any similarly-equipped enemy apart from (sometimes) the French. The United States has defeated most of Europe twice.

As an aside, Pat Buchanan–who I wrote a post about last week–has been saying for years that we’re behaving like the British Empire did to trigger its decline.  Yet, he seems to be something of a fan of Palin.

(Hat Tip to Andrew Sullivan for the Saletan article.)

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For quite some time–perhaps his whole career–Patrick Buchanan has been saying that World War II, despite its reputation as a Just war, was not the “Good War” it is made out to be, and, more controversially, that it was the result primarily of Britain’s blunders. He summed his case in his book Churchill, Hitler, and “The Unnecessary War“. 

Of particular interest to Buchanan is Churchill, who he thinks is vastly overrated as a statesman and as a man. To hear Buchanan tell it, Churchill’s mistakes helped to cause World War II. Even in his latest column, he makes sure to take a jab at Churchill.

I’m really of two minds about Buchanan; on the one hand, he is a total economic isolationist. I think this is a huge mistake. He tends to be too puritanical in his views on culture. He also supports the flying of the Confederate Flag, and, most bizarrely, supports the farcical “War on Drugs”. (The only American war he does support, it seems.)

And frankly, I’m not at all convinced that his ideas about war in general, and World War II in particular, are actually correct. The Nazis seem to have imagined themselves to be inherently superior to all other people. With an attitude like that, surely they were bound to attack America eventually, no matter what.

And yet, for all that, I can’t help but applaud the man for even examining this question. So many people who claim to oppose war in principle are willing to admit that World War II was worth fighting because, in that case–and seemingly just that one remarkable case, never to be again–the enemy was so indescribably evil that it must be defeated at once. (That they were evil is certain; that there have subsequently never been others as evil is not.) Buchanan is no pacifist, but he recognizes that if he’s going to make anything like a sound case against “going abroad in search of monsters to destroy“, he has to address the prevailing understanding that the only thing the Allies did wrong was not destroy Hitler and Nazi Germany sooner.

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Quoth the Palin:

“It’s kind of like getting out there on a playground, a bunch of kids, getting ready to fight, and one of the kids saying, ‘Go ahead, punch me in the face and I’m not going to retaliate. Go ahead and do what you want to with me,'”

And Obama’s response:

“I would say to them is that if the secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff are comfortable with it, I’m probably going to take my advice from them and not from Sarah Palin,”

It’s hard to argue with Obama’s logic. (Although I have heard that the Secretary of Defense is against certain parts of the policy.)

My assumption is that there is all sorts of behind-the-scenes gamesmanship, and that the information which goes out to us private citizens (which Palin is, let it not be forgotten) is not even half of the story. Nuclear strategy involves lots of game theory, and I figure the information that governments put out is probably designed to influence the behavior of other “players”, rather than accurately describe its own behavior.

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So Virginia Governor Robert McDonnell declared April. According to the article, the move “angered Civil Rights’ leaders”. But my question is: what about the average, everyday, patriotic American? Surely they were angered as well.

Some background: The Confederate States of America was a government established in 1861 by states that had declared they were seceding from the Union. The Union being the United States of America. Long story short, the USA fought the CSA, and the USA won, forcing the CSA to be dissolved.

Now, what seems fairly obvious from this discussion is that the CSA was, at best, an enemy nation of the USA throughout its brief existence, and at worst was nothing more than a gang of traitors. You might think that this would make them an unpopular bunch, but you would be wrong: lots of people are very eager to celebrate them, apparently because their ancestors fought for them.

Okay, that’s nice. But perhaps it should be American Civil War history month; not Confederate history. A lot of people–supposedly patriotic US citizens–seem to forget just who won the war. Hint: it was the country that still exists.

Now, I do not know if there is a “Loyalist History month” in Massachusetts for those who supported remaining loyal to King George III. Is there a history month of any of the other enemy nations we have fought in the past? Think of all the governments we’ve fought: Britain’s (twice), Germany’s (twice), North Korea’s, North Vietnam’s, and the Communist Soviet Union’s, to name a few. When are the months for those governments? (Remember: the German Monarchy and the Third Reich each have to get their own month, as they are two separate governments. We’re going to have to add some months pretty soon.)

Yeah, yeah I know. You say: “But the Confederacy was on land that is now U.S. territory; so it’s part of our history.” Yes, it is. So, while it is truly part of Virginia’s history, Virginia must realize it is a part of the U.S.A, and that this other country is long gone. “We” are not the CSA. We are the USA, and “we” should have “Preservation of the Union month”.

There is a monument, sometimes called the Saratoga Obelisk, which commemorates the Battle of Saratoga in the American Revolution. On it are four niches, three of which hold statues of officers from the American side. The fourth niche is empty. It is for Benedict Arnold, who played a major role in winning the battle for the Americans, but who later infamously betrayed George Washington and joined the British.

The reason I mention this is to illustrate how serious treason is, and how severely it should be looked on by history. That the Confederate States of America are treated so lightly is, I think, an extremely curious phenomenon given the indisputable fact that what they did, ultimately, was take up arms against the United States of America.

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Good news. I love successful covert operations.

UPDATE: For some reason, this reminded me: I remember I once heard somebody say that the “Spy” fiction genre just wasn’t the same after the Soviet Union collapsed, because real-world covert operations stuff was no longer as important.

I’ve always assumed that it was because our spies and secret agents can work better when no one’s writing movies or books about them.

Anyway, it’s good to hear about things like this.

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So, some dude says that high-ranking U.S. officials, potentially including President Obama, could face war crimes charges for using drones to hunt terrorists. He says: “Now, maybe the answer is: This is really terrible and illegal and anybody that does it should go off to the Hague. But if that’s the case, then we should not be having the president saying that this is the greatest thing since whatever.”

This is ridiculous. Using aircraft to eliminate enemy combatants? It’s war. This is how war works. Far worse things have been done by people who walked free.

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Karl Rove has been defending it lately, so I thought I’d throw in my opinion on this.

It’s torture. There is no way around it.

I just thought it was time to clear that up. No more “harsh interrogation techniques”, folks. It is what it is.

Now, you might still say it was justified. It may well be that it was used to save American lives. Still, we have to be clear about what it is we’re talking about. I would have much more respect for guys like Karl Rove and Dick Cheney if they’d just come out and say: “Yes, it was torture. I don’t care, because it was the right thing to do to save innocent lives.”