Bringing Out The Dead

By now, most people have heard about Representative Ginny Brown-Waite's proposal to exhume American military dead in France and transport the remains to "patriotic soil" here in the US.

From what I have seen, most people have been repelled by this idea, and for good reason.

The memorial cemetaries in France are more than the final resting places of thousands of Americans. They are a lasting reminder of one of the most important events in human history. These places -- quiet, somber, beautiful -- not only mark the sacrifice of individual soldiers, but stand as a symbol of the alliance between the free peoples of the earth against the closest thing to evil incarnate that history has ever seen.

Right now, we are involved in diplomatic disputes with most of the rest of the world. There is a very good chance that relations between the democratic nations of the world will be damaged for a long time to come.

But that is irrelevant.

Even if we were to become the closest thing to enemies nations can become without actually going to war, those monuments should still remain undisturbed. France and the United States might bitterly disagree about a great many things, but no one on either side with any degree of rationality believes the other side to be truly evil.

That is why the symbols of our past cooperation should transcend present and future conflicts. A sickness broke out in Europe in the early part of the last century, a condensation of all the things that are wrong with humanity. This sickness rose out of the chaos that followed the First World War, which itself was a tradition-shattering culmination of all the conflicts that had haunted that continent since the Roman armies marched through Gaul.

In an act that can arguably be called the first collective decision made by the human race, that portion of humanity that was free decided to ratify in blood the principles first codified in the Declaration of Independence - Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. Not as exclusively American principles, but as a basic part of our conception of ourselves as homo sapiens.

Did these ideals instantly become reality upon the conclusion of the War? No. For significant portions of the world's population, these ideals are still a distant dream. Still, World War II was the first of several giant steps towards this eventual goal. The fall of the Soviet Union left China as the sole remaining world power without democracy and a basic respect for inalienable individual rights. The grand transformation from individual tribes and nations to an entire planet of free men and women is not yet complete, nor will it be for many years to come.

This, however, does not diminish the momentousness of the actions taken by the War generation. The events of the second quarter of the twentieth century must never lose their perceived significance, and the monuments that sit throughout Europe, including those in France, must forever remain intact as a reminder to all future generations of the price that was paid for the freedoms that they will enjoy.

If these sound like huge, epic concepts, it's because they are. They are themes that only come into focus when we look beyond the specific decisions of individual politicians, beyond the actions of individual soldiers, and to the overall effect on the continuing narrative of the human race.

And if there exists such a thing as secular sacrilege, then surely the desecration of these symbols -- symbols made up of the bones of our dead fathers and grandfathers -- in the name of transient spite is it.

Hijacking the Discussion

I want to officially register my protest against the false distinction between people who are against the war in Iraq and people who support our troops.

This is an old topic, and one that has been gone over by many other people, but I keep seeing it everywhere, and so I need to add my voice to the chorus of people screaming against this kind of trash.

I am outraged by the liars who promote this line of thought, and the simpletons who accept it and mindlessly repeat it.

It is nothing less than an intellectual hijacking of the entire pro-war/anti-war discussion. By defining the argument in terms that are favorable to the pro-war crowd, they make it logically impossible for the anti-war position to be the the correct one, no matter what is said or done by the anti-war people.

It is also a textbook of example of a false dilemma, yet another logical fallacy (which is a horse I will continue to beat until it is dead, dead, dead. And then I will beat it some more). By saying that everybody is either a) For war or b) Against the troops, without allowing for the possibility that there are people for whom both a and b are false, the pro-war faction completely abandons any attempt at rational discussion, and descends to the level of merely currying favor with the masses through dishonest rhetoric (that would be Lies, for the less polite among us).

This has been a common tactic of the Republican Party since at least the Vietnam war, and as we get closer and closer to invading Iraq, the occasional lobbing of verbal manure in the general direction of the Left has become a solid wall of bullshit that needs to be tunneled through in order to go anywhere.

While that may be a slightly disgusting metaphor, it is perfectly appropriate, because it exactly captures the purpose of such obfuscation: it puts those who oppose war on the defensive, needing to first refute bogus charges of animus towards US troops before they can even begin to discuss the war on its merits.

It's a dirty tactic used by dirty people, and it displays a certain brand of intellectual cowardice in that it loads the dice in their favor, something which would not be necessary if they truly believed they were as right as they claim they are.

I am still officially a fence-sitter (though not, I fear, for much longer), but cheating in order to score cheap rhetorical points does not help convince me to join the pro-war cause.

So I say to anyone who thinks we should go to war: If you want to keep attracting the idiot hordes to your side, continue doing what you are doing. If you want to convince the more thoughtful people, instead of just shouting them down, knock it the fuck off.

More Sullivan, Because I am Bored With Bad News And Like To Mock Fools

"The difference between now and the 1930s, of course, is that we may now have Churchill in office - but before the world has become convinced of his rectitude..."

I would like someone to come along and explain to me that of course Sullivan isn't saying that Bush is a modern day Churchill, but we all know that he is, and that he's been doing it for quite a while now.

I'm not British, but, if my taking extreme offense at Republican comparisons between Bush and FDR, Teddy Roosevelt, and Lincoln is any indication, there should be quite a few Brits out there who would like to have a few quiet words with Sullivan in a pub somewhere. Saying that George W. Bush is similar to a respected historical figure does not raise him up, but rather demeans those he is compared to. In fact, I would go so far as to say that, with our tendency to mildly worship some of the historic leaders of the free world, this can be appropriately termed blasphemy.

Please, anyone who thinks I'm wrong, explain to me why Bush is such a great President, deserving of a place among our most honored figures. Because he passed a whopping big tax cut? Because he has demonstrably lied to us over and over again? Because he has united most of the world against us? Because he happened to be the guy in office when 9/11 happened? Because he has "moral clarity"? Because he hates him some liberals?

The reason that this kind of thing angers me so much is that it is the embodiment of an appeal to authority, one of the classical logical fallacies. In likening Bush to Churchill (or any other respected figure), Sullivan counts on our assuming that Churchill was right about everything regarding war (which is itself fallacious, because no one is right about everything, even in a specific, limited topic- but since Churchill is a tremendously popular figure, and was right about war often enough to win the Big One, for argument's sake, we will assume that he was right about everything regarding war). Then, through the simple math of Bush = Churchill, we should logically assume that Bush is right about everything regarding war as well. And since Bush is right about everything regarding war, he must be right about everything regarding this war. It also has the nice (and perhaps equally important) side effect of equating people who disagree with Bush with people who disagreed with Churchill. Since history has proven Churchill's opponents wrong, that would make Bush's opponents wrong as well.

There's also a splash of appeal to emotion, yet another logical fallacy, in comparisons between Bush and beloved historical figures. Favorable emotions are associated with these historical figures, and so, again, by the simple logic of Bush = Historical Figure, favorable emotions (in the case of Churchill, pride, comfort, safety, victory, etc.) should be associated with Bush.

Beyond all that, I am so extremely tired of the comparisons between Iraq and 1930's Germany, and that every time a liberal points out the excruciatingly obvious fact that the two situations are so different that they might as well have occurred on different planets, they need to then hastily add that of course Hussein is a bad bad man, as if that point were in dispute by anyone to the Right of Fidel Castro. I place the blame for this directly on Sullivan's head - his and that of every other pundit and "journalist" who has contributed, through blatant misrepresentations and vicious attacks, to an atmosphere that is actively hostile to dissent in general and liberalism in particular.

Andrew is not stupid. He is actually a pretty decent writer. I admire his ability to churn out good-sounding opinion pieces at a fairly high rate and to articulate his positions with relatively high precision. But he is obviously a liar -- or at least capable of fooling himself to an extraordinary degree -- and that, combined with his masquerading as a respectable journalist, makes him completely and utterly useless to anyone who wants to actually use discourse to improve policy and ideas, and not simply beat their opponents for personal gain.

Andrew Sullivan is a joke.

So why am I not laughing?

Waiting For Andy's Head To Explode

Aw, poor guy. You can almost see the slings and arrows of outrageous reality crashing down on him.

Wow. One of the most influential conservative magazines in the United States isn't a bastion of tolerance.

I, for one, am shocked.

Outrage, and Biblical Doom

Pre-empting 24 for American Idol? Rupert Murdoch is the AntiChrist.

Update: Holy. Fucking. Shit. 24 is being pre-empted next week as well. FOR AMERICAN FUCKING IDOL. Again.

I think I'm going to cry.

I will never, never forgive Fox for this. I declare jihad.

Problems

Well, in attempting to fix my archives, I seem to have completely fucked up the rest of VeryVeryHappy.

Have I mentioned that I really hate Blogger?

Updates throughout the day as I attempt to fix this damn thing.

Update: Alright. This is going to work. It's going to piss me off a lot in the process, but it looks like it's going to work. Bear with me, I'm going to be trial and erroring it for the rest of the afternoon (with significant breaks for lunch and caffeine infusions).

Update the Second: I lied. I forgot that I had class in an hour. Also, I'm going to be using this opportunity to make a few changes I've been considering for awhile.

Regardless, VeryVeryHappy should be all fixed and cleaned up by this evening.

Update the Third: If you own Google/Blogger stock, SELL NOW.

Update the Fourth: Well, I figured out what the problem is. Apparently, every once in awhile, when you bring up the "Edit Template" dialogue, Blogger decides to omit key parts of the template code (such as table parameters and link references, among other things). If you are unfortunate enough to not notice this and you hit the save button, it then saves this incomplete version of your template, the results being a royally fucked blog.

This is now the second time today this has happened to me (I was approximately five minutes from being done with repairing it from the first time, and then it happened again).

I'll get around to doing it again (extremely carefully) later. For now, it's time for a break from the computer, before I put my fist through the screen.

Update the Fifth: VICTORY! I have finally repaired VeryVeryHappy. Even the Archives work properly now. And I am in no mood to deal with my computer anymore for the rest of the night.

Sometimes You Just Want To Lie down

A few weeks ago, I got into a minor-scale fight with a friend of mine about politics. Specifically, my reaction to them.

"All you do is unearth the bad news and bitch about it. Every day is a disaster with you."

We've made up since, and we even still talk about politics, but he had a point.

I've given the issue quite a bit of thought since then, and, really, I'm no closer to a definitive response than I was when he said it.

Since the argument, I've started this blog, written a few funny things, written a few serious things, and had some interesting discussions with smart people.

During all this, I've been trying to find the good news, the things to be happy about in the world outside the immediate confines of my town.

I'm really not an extraordinarily dark person, so it really does not bring me pleasure to say that, aside from a few bits of dark humor and instances of laughing at powerful people's expense, there is no good news. Or at least not enough to put a dent in the bad.

A few weeks ago, MB Williams of Wampum took a hiatus -- one that, fortunately, was extremely short-lived -- with the stated reason being that there was just too damn much going on to deal with coherantly.

My little corner of the internet has only been operating for a few weeks now, and I don't put nearly the amount of time and effort into it that she (and a whole hell of a lot of other quality bloggers) does, and already I know exactly how she felt.

There's a brilliant Calvin and Hobbes cartoon that I've always loved. In it, Calvin is reading a book, and Hobbes asks him what he's doing. He explains that he's trying to learn about something, but the more he learns, the harder it gets to try to figure out what to do. The more he learns, the more paralyzed he is by different possibilities and nuances. His solution to the problem? "I'm a man of action, Hobbes," he declares, slamming the book closed.

What Watterson was talking about in that strip, of course, is the fundamental problem with seeing things from all sides, from having so much information that it becomes difficult to act. However, I think it can just as easily be applied to having to much knowledge of too many bad things. Eventually, it just gets to be too much. You don't even know where to begin. Having effectively zero power to actually do anything about any of them, aside from yelling at your friends and complete strangers on the internet, only makes the situation worse.

So am I already burned out on politics in my early twenties?

Well, if ever there was a time to be burned out, this would be it.

My country is about to engage in an ill-advised war that most of the world is firmly against, engaging a criminal dictator who in all likelihood is going to use chemical weapons as a last resort against our troops. In the process of preparing for this war, our leaders have alienated virtually every government on the planet that is friendly to us, and those that are not actively hostile to us are in danger politically because they are opposing the wishes of their own people to side with us. Our leaders have lied to us, blatantly and repeatedly, and treated the people whose consent they supposedly rule with as little more than a nuisance, a child to be distracted or gently deceived so the adults can get on with business. In readying for war they have betrayed not only us their constituents, but the people whom they are ostensibly trying to save, the Kurds and the Iraqi people.

My country is, in the next few years, going to face, for the first time in history, several hostile nations armed with nuclear weapons that are quite possibly crazy enough to actually use them. I am not a weapons expert, but I defy anyone to state that these four facts do not terrify them:

1. North Korea most likely has a few nuclear weapons, and in a few months will be churning them out at the rate of about one per month.
2. North Korea has a missile capable of hitting the west coast of the United States.
3. North Korea has a history of selling arms of all kinds to unsavory elements, including terrorists.
4. Iran is on its way to developing nuclear weapons.

My country is about to plunge into a debt so great that it will take a generation to recover. I am not an economist, but I have listened to people who are, and from what I can see the really smart people are getting really scared. The current administration is the most fiscally irresponsible in living memory. Actually, given the fact that there has been such a widespread and purposeful effort to deliberately lie about and distort facts about economic issues, perhaps the Administration cannot be called fiscally irresponsible so much as fiscally malevolent. They know exactly what they are doing. Beyond that, an idealogical battle that has been fought for three generations is now being won by the wrong side. After 70 years, the last vestiges of the New Deal are about to be destroyed by the idealogical descendents of the people that made the New Deal necessary to begin with. I am not a political scientist, but I know enough to see that American Capitalism is falling victim to its own shortsighted nature and the corruption and cronyism of the people in power.

My country grows less free every day. Whether it be John Ashcroft's latest assault on vital Constitutional protections or the growing intolerance of those in power and those who support them of views that differ even slightly from theirs, there are new things to be scared of every timne I pick up a newspaper. An America where you can be arrested for growing marijuana for terminally ill cancer patients, or arrested in a public shopping mall for wearing an anti-war tshirt, or regularly be called a traitor for not supporting the President enthusiastically enough by mainstream news commentators is not the America I was supposed to be living in. Somewhere along the line, something went wrong, and I ended up in the wrong place.

My country is being methodically taken over by people who not only disagree with my beliefs, but hold them in contempt and actively work to suppress them. We are in the final stages of a prolonged Right wing effort to take over the Federal judiciary by appointing radical judges who claim to interpret the law according to its strict letter but instead interpret it according to their own Right wing (sometimes extremist) beliefs. With the judiciary comes the final authority- even the President must obey if enough judges tell him to.

And the only group of people in the country who have the power to stop all this from happening, the Democrats, are either too weak, too selfish, too disorganized, or too similar to their opponents to mount an effective opposition.

And these are only some of the highlights.

So, am I burned out?

This weekend, yes. Yes I am.

But when Monday comes, I will read the news and grow angry all over again, angry at the people who pay lip service to the principles of this country only to gain the power to undermine them. And I will yell at my friends, and yell at strangers on the internet, and yell inside my own head, because, goddamnit, I'm not ready to be quiet yet.

I was wrong when I said that I didn't have a definitive response to my friend. I believe I do.

The reason that I get so upset about all the bad things that go on out there is because only when enough people are shouting about them can the wrong things be made right.

And it's nice, at the end of the day, to be able to say that I helped, just a little tiny bit, to make things better.