"It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force. If there be any truth in the remark, the crisis at which we are arrived may with propriety be regarded as the era in which that decision is to be made; and a wrong election of the part we shall act may, in this view, deserve to be considered as the general misfortune of mankind."

Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers.

Excellent interview with Peter Thiel. If our politics cannot start to resemble or mimic or take on the characteristics of the kind of practical rationality displayed in this dialogue then it's hard to see how we move forward as a nation. It's natural for people with extreme conceptions to think only extreme actions or gestures or rhetoric will do - to imagine otherwise would be to subvert their beliefs and drain their passions of meaning - but of course democracy is about mitigating extremes, finding consensus, exploiting dynamic avenues opened up by the flexibility of freedom - extreme positioning driven by ideological rigidity is counter intuitive to the very idea of the democratic principles the hyper partisan claim to be an expression of.

Of course, bitter ironies abound - they're not necessarily wrong in thinking that - you wonder if maybe it's a function of the nature of modern media - in the sense that, the ubiquitousness of simplistic messaging has resulted in too much democracy, which is a sentiment that is both hard to defend and hard to ignore as possibly being true - I mean, when does it become a sort of alchemy to think that crude opinions are somehow made golden by being freely expressed? Certainly Obama was a slavishly superficial media creation and liberals accordingly prostrated themselves before him for the most idiotic of reasons - and now with a sort of counter-idiocy the republican nominating process, fearful of a great liberal Caliphate cresting over the horizon, tramps from one supposed 'true' conservative to another in a desperate attempt to avoid the evil moderateness of Romney - and this disgruntled peregrination is fed by the uber right media organs of talk radio and dyspeptic blogs which basically preach the gospel that any hint of ideological timidity is akin to leaving the door open to satan.

Alas, even as I scorn the right I have no choice but to empathize with them because Obama is too liberal, has been an awful president and is deliberately fanning the flames of hyper-partisanship and a ruinous class war because he's obviously decided that's the only way he can get re-elected - and it's working since the more enraged the GOP base becomes the more damage is done to Romney and the closer you get to someone like Santorum being the nominee and I see no way that an arch social conservative like him beats Obama [or that you'd want him to even if he could - I mean, put aside the problematic nature of his social views and the flawed reasoning and cloistered conscience they reveal - and forget that the aggressive way he talks about Iran and 'Islamo-fascism' suggests his opinions are grounded more in religious fervor than strategic clarity - the fact that he's so closely tied to extremist right wing thinking can only one imagines lead to more partisan rancour and deadlock in Washington, not less].

No doubt Obama's huge ego allows him the delusion that of course the republic is improved by his re-election - but, c'mon, is this anyway to run a supposedly great country? The system is becoming a caricature of the values and principles it professes to encompass. Now, I know Aristophanes made great fun of Athenian politics - but was Pericles ever reduced to such sad displays as this? What would Locke have said could he see this? What about brilliant men like Madison and Alexander Hamilton - hard to imagine them not feeling ashamed to see the great enterprise born of their keen intellects and noble passions reduced to this side show.

So then the question becomes why the dysfunction and is there anything we can do about it? If the system is a reflection of the prevailing culture and it's the culture then that's broken, then I don't know how you 'fix' that - short of I guess a revolution or upheaval that resets the parameters. If the system is independent of the prevailing culture then I suppose it can be reformed - but that's a huge undertaking that would be undermined and possibly undone by the same problems that afflict the system now, namely hyper-partisan rancour, dishonesty, demagoguery, populist pandering and a press and other media that often don't even attempt to feign objectivity anymore. If it's simply a case of bad leadership, then that's a bit more of a fixable thing - sure, bad leaders can be a reflection of a flawed system and therefore possibly just as indicative of a broken culture - Obama and Bush may be exhibits 1 and 1a in that scenario - but one could certainly envision that a wise leader with a real gift for reaching people could still manage to do wonderful and far reaching things despite the system's shortcomings - just have to find him or her and convince them to run [no one had to convince Pericles of the value and purpose of leading Athens - but then Pericles didn't have to run in no god damn primary where a media drone like Wolf Blitzer would with an accusatory tone ask his opinion of something as silly and of little consequence as say gay marriage which would be the equivalent of asking Pericles in the middle of the Pelopennesian war if slaves should be freed and made citizens and he has to somehow come up with an answer that offends neither the idiots on the right nor the idiots on the left who conveniently have diametrically opposed ideas of what a good answer should sound like - and sure, a cunning boy like Pericles just might be able to craft a perfectly reasonable and logical answer that left each party a wee bit consoled and a whole lot enlightened - but ya know old Wolfy and Rush and the NY Times etc etc etc ain't gonna let you wriggle away by just being reasonable and logical - boring! - which is a long and confusing way round to say gov't and the ideological vermin that feed off it increasingly seem like agitated, annoying, yapping, delusional little dogs chasing after a runaway train without the slightest little clue in their heads of what they might do should they catch it - because you see it's all about the yapping]

[now, of course, Pericles failed too - well, I guess one can argue that, Thucydides certainly wanted to - but assuming he miscalculated viz Sparta it raises a sobering point: if even the Pericles' of the world fail and make mistakes, what does it say about a nominating process that gives us inept, flawed or otherwise ill-suited commanders in chief like Bush and Obama? A process that has offered up the truly scary likes of Herman Cain and Gingrich and now possibly - although admittedly somewhat less scary than those two but still troubling regardless - Santorum? It's not a happy thought. And yet people still make the claim that the tough primary process makes for better candidates - where's the proof of this? The process may in some nominal way make the candidates better campaigners - but where's the positive connection between campaigning and governing? If you look at Obama, the two things are actually in opposition - great campaigner, horrible president]

"To a man, the U.S. officers in that unit told me they had nothing but contempt for the Afghan troops in their area."

 Read this.

When I used to argue with people about the war in Afghanistan I'd say "go ahead, let's talk about winning it, let's talk about victory - but understand, when you talk about winning that war what you're really talking about is changing the prevailing culture - without a modification of the inherent culture, any victory achieved will be short lived. Because the enemy isn't really the Taliban - the Taliban is just a symptom - the Taliban exists because of a bankrupt culture, of a society weakened and made vulnerable by specific cultural traits and attributes and tendencies that are determinative and identifiable. You wanna talk about victory, start there - and don't be cloaking it in the phony optimism of counter-insurgency theory."

What I found was that no one wanted to talk about culture. Thus the article cited above doesn't surprise me at all.

The Economist sums up, apres the Santorum sweep of last night, by saying exactly what Ive been saying for months now: a long, tiresome, drawn out primary that keeps forcing Romney to dance with the devil [the republican base] and pretend he likes it, serves the interests of only one person, Obama:

The contest is thus turning into the party elders’ nightmare. They have begun to unite behind Mr Romney, hoping to focus all attacks on Barack Obama. Instead, Messers Romney, Gingrich, Santorum, and even Mr Paul, must now attack one another. Many of their one-liners are good, meaning dangerously memorable even in November. Mr Gingrich, for example, delights his crowds by calling Mr Romney a “Massachusetts moderate” and belittling him as “little Food Stamp” next to Mr Obama’s “big Food Stamp”.

All this prevents Mr Romney from following his preferred strategy. All along, he has tried to look presidential by attacking Mr Obama rather than other Republicans. But each loss is forcing him to descend into the gutter of attack ads against his Republican rivals. He hopes to do well in the next several contests, from Maine to his native Michigan and Mormon-friendly Arizona. But if he can’t seal the deal by March, things could get ugly.

If Romney was battling against another credible candidate, in the manner of Obama vs Clinton, maybe this dance of death doesn't get everybody killed. But when you have one electable candidate getting pulled into an uber right mud fight with a bunch of unelectable candidates... well, what you end up with is a bunch of unelectable candidates covered in mud.

The Economist article also points to something else I was talking about a few months ago, ie a looming civil war in the republican party between the base and the intellectual elite - since 2010, when Tea Party extremes led to the nominating of several senatorial candidates that were unelectable and ended up costing republicans the senate, a conflict has been hinting at it's presence - if this ridiculous primary leads to an Obama second term when the man's first term is virtually crying out for a sound drubbing, an irrefutable repudiation, then hostilities could definitely break out in GOP land.

Now, sure, you could argue that if Romney were a better candidate these problems would have been mitigated or even nowhere in sight - but is that true? After all, I considered Daniels a better candidate and yet you can trace his loss of interest in it to the giant shit the base dumped on him after he had the nerve to suggest a truce in the culture wars - and I think Christie and Ryan might have been better candidates but I believe they decided against runs for two reasons: one, they were confortable with Romney as the candidate; and two, they had no stomach for putting up with the nonsense Romney is now stuck with. Certainly Christie strikes me as a guy who would have bristled at having to please the Limbaughs et al.

I suppose it's legitimate to think Jeb Bush would have had a much  better chance of navigating this uber right minefield - but is America really ready to vote for another Bush, even if he might prove the best of them all? Good chance no.

The whole mess raises the spectre of a troubling thought that keeps returning to me - namely, what if Western democracy has reached a watershed moment that could lead to either decline or renewal, with decline being the most likely outcome since it requires no fundamental change? The problems we face are complex yet the actions required to address those problems depend on ratification by voters who, even when well intentioned and sufficiently motivated, can rarely hope to understand the complexity involved to a degree necessary for the making of good decisions - and then this problem is compounded by cynical politicians and other scoundrels feeding off the beast who play to the ignorance, play to peoples vulnerabilities or worst instincts. Perfect example - apparently Santorum did well in Colorado yesterday because his daughter's been sick and this humanized him which of course allowed the average voter to excuse themselves from actual thought and just feel their way to an answer. When the electorate is engaged in such a simplistic and superficial way, at what point does the system just stop working? At what point does confusion and apathy and ignorance and cynical self interest and blind partisanship and the demagoguery that serves it weigh the system down so much with nonsense and bull shit that not even idiot momentum is enough to carry it forward anymore?

[and then when you consider that Santorum's daughter is ill because she was born with birth defects stemming from fact her mother was 48 years old when she conceived and that happened I'm guessing because Santorum thinks contraception is evil, evil enough to be made illegal if he only could - well, how does the absurdity of this not leave a person incapacitated by despair? A guy who thinks contraception is a plague upon the nation, thinks that intelligent design should be taught alongside evolution in science classes, who thinks Catholic priests raped children in Boston because liberalism has turned that city into a modern day Sodom, a guy who is so fanatical about pro-life issues that he took the corpse of his still born son home from the hospital so he could show it to his living children - a guy like that has no chance of being elected president - I mean, there are definitely a lot of stupid people out there,  but still not enough I think to do something like that. Although, we did elect a guy president simply because he was black - and some of our most intelligent people swore up and down that not only did this make complete sense, was fucking brilliant man, but also claimed that this simple act was just so incredibly inspired, just so utterly awesome, that the whole freaking world would become infatuated with the brilliance of it and usher in a new age of, ya know... awesomeness. We did do that - so who's to say how stupid we can get]

"... democracy is a function of culture, not the other way around... it is begotten, not made... it is not a thing you simply impose as if all the good therein will forthwith manifest itself according to some mysterious natural law... it is of a piece with the whole from which it emanates and that whole is the culture otherwise known as Western civilization... we saw with the putative Arab Spring how easy it is for people to forget this... but then that was likely just as much about creating false but convenient narratives than it was about forgetting one's history... I imagine because it's easier in a world narrowed by the intolerance of political correctness to simply focus on a mere procedural matter like voting and thereby avoid having to make value judgements, avoid having to wonder if Islam as a culture is maybe incompatible with democracy, incompatible with free speech... for certainly it is free speech and a respect for open debate, the rudiments of which were evident even in the early history of the poleis of ancient Greece, that mark the well spring of democracy, and not any notion of universal suffrage per se... voting was merely an after thought, a byproduct of a much more fundamental something else..."

Am I the only one who found it extremely odd that China vetoed the UN censure of Syria? Don't get me wrong, that China's sympathies lie in that direction I completely understand - but they usually read from the Sun Tzu playbook when it comes to stuff like this which means they want their strategy to sail along relatively unnoticed beneath the radar - which is why I assumed China would abstain and let Russia make itself the leading edge of criticism viz the veto. This seems like very odd behaviour by China to me - if so, what's the motivation? - is it that the veto amounts to a de facto vote of support for Iran [again, nothing in itself surprising about that] and therefore this an indication that China sees a looming attack by Israel on Iran a very real possibility? That's the way I'm reading it - although, what they hope to gain from it is less clear. Are they hoping to dissuade Israel? Do they perceive some advantage in making their strategic aspirations apparent ahead of the act? Is it an indication of some as yet unclear quid pro quo with Russia? Or is it simply a miscalculation - or maybe even just evidence that China's old foreign policy calculations no longer add up and this veto represents an emerging new normal? If the latter that would be just as interesting, and disturbing, as my 'Israel on the verge' interpretation.

With Gingrich seemingly coming undone thanks to a demonstrated talent for narcissistic ugliness that parallels his approach to marriage, the oh so depressingly inevitable move to Santorum begins [the only truly conservative not-Romney choice left in the race, or so goes the mind numbingly stupid incantation of the uber right]. I'd just like to turn the whole sad spectacle off - if Romney wins tune back in to see if he can beat Obama - if Romney loses [very hard to see that happening] wait for a third party challenger to rise up since there's no way in hell Santorum beats Obama [at least I hope there's no way - and I can't stand Obama, so...] - I mean, the guy wants to make it possible for states to criminalize contraception should they so choose - heck, why not just take the right to vote away from women too while you're at it!

"... I was in the corner market resupplying my stock of eau d'hops and found myself lined up at the checkout behind a burly, gruff looking fellow who was vying with fain success against a distinct wobble and slur of speech... seems he was attempting the return of a half used twelve pack of strong beer that had sorrily disappointed him... he was pleading with surprising earnestness to an increasingly unamused cashier a case of I know exactly how drunk six extras should make me and if I ain't that drunk then the beer's defective and if the beer's defective you owe me... for a moment I mused that once you got past the absurdity of it it wasn't an entirely unconvincing argument... and then I found myself thinking it's striking how many people there must be in the world that I have absolutely no desire of ever meeting or, once having met, ever meeting again... and then I thought a bit disturbing no how thin the line can sometimes be between cunning and gross stupidity... and then I thought given current circumstances I wonder if there's a sillier, more hollow sounding evocation than God Bless America... as he wobbled away, having failed to melt the cold heart of this most severe of magistrates, I cast one last look over his cursing decay of flesh, flirted briefly with mordant sympathy, and then with a cruel smile concluded bet he voted for Gingrich..."

I liked this essay - some will find it offensive possibly, wrong headed, intolerant or illiberal a bit maybe - but as far as I'm concerned if you're thinking about the future of the West and the idea of enlightened democracy which the West gave birth to and you're not framing the argument in terms similar to those raised by this essay, then you're either engaged in naive ideological obfuscation or you haven't been paying adequate attention to these threads in the historical pattern that are starting to fray and unwind towards an end state that is increasingly difficult to predict.

A ramping up of chatter, rhetoric viz Israel attack on Iran - hard to to tell if US and Israel acting in concert here in sense of trying to dramatically ratchet up pressure on Iran to relent - or possibly Israel and US working at cross purposes in sense of Israel making very public its grave concerns in attempt to increase pressure on Obama to treat the crisis with much more urgency - and then possibly US speaking out in attempt to stoke public fear of an Israeli strike and thereby I guess dissuade Israel from taking action? - it's a bit hard to make sense of things here - I mean Panetta publicly stating he thought there was a high likelihood of an Israeli strike by spring? - that seems damn odd - why make a public statement like that? I really can't see israel believing that such dramatic language works as intimidation and therefore I tend to doubt this rhetoric a joint effort at talking Iran to death. No, I get the feeling that this is about the possibility I raised before - Israel doesn't trust Obama and they're setting the table for action - I mean looking at it logically, if Israel has come to two conclusions - namely, they can't trust Obama and Iran with the bomb is not an acceptable option - then they really only have one choice here - strike while they can.