The appearance of partiality

Life would be simpler if principles or goals never conflicted, but they often do. Then we have to decide which principle takes precedence in the particular situation we find ourselves in.

An important principle for a free society is that no one should be above the law. There is, however, a sometimes conflicting principle that the law should never be harnessed to pursue political goals. This is why the Constitution has a provision (Article I section 6) that says “[Senators and Representatives] shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.” This provision is there to prevent anyone from fabricating charges against a serving congressman and getting him arrested to keep him from fulfilling his responsibilities. Part of this was probably informed by the founders’ familiarity with history: one of the factors leading to the Roman Republic collapsing and being replaced by an empire was the use of criminal law to pursue officials’ political enemies.

As an example of how this should be applied, even though I think she was clearly guilty and deserved to be tried and punished for how she handled her emails, I believed it was best that Hillary Clinton wasn’t charged during the 2016 election. At that point, it was best for the voters to render their judgement. It was also good that, even though during the campaign he led his rallies in chanting “Lock her up!”, once elected Trump didn’t follow through by having the DoJ pursue any charges.

Which brings us to the current spate of legal actions against Trump. At this point, they should all be tossed out so we can just let the voters decide. The fact that it’s unlikely any of them would have been brought other than as part of a partisan vendetta only strengthens that position.

Eclipse

We had a pretty cloudy day, and once the eclipse started the sun was playing peekaboo a lot, but right about when totality started we had a short break in the clouds and we had a pretty good view.

Wonks

Walter Russell Mead is one of the most clear-eyed and accurate analysts of our current situation around. I always feel like I understand what’s going on in the world better after I read one of his articles. Unfortunately, lately it seems that most of those I run across are behind paywalls, but this one, Twilight of the Wonks, isn’t. I commend it to your attention.

Democracy

I sometimes see people complaining that some provisions in the Constitution, like the Senate or the Electoral College, are “anti-democratic”. There is some truth to that: under Constitutional design the United States of America is not a democracy, it’s a federal democratic republic. That’s because the men who wrote it had studied history, and knew that pure democracies usually quickly degenerate into demagoguery followed by tyranny.

The difference is that a democratic republic has mechanisms intended to prevent any one group within the community from concentrating power. The prime historical example the founders had, the one the word “republic” comes from, was the Roman Republic, which lasted roughly four hundred years. (The transition of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire had a variety of causes, most of which basically come down to “the checks on power that worked for a small, geographically concentrated government stopped working when the state grew too big.” This is one of the reasons the United States is a federal republic.)

Most of the people who complain about these provisions have political goals that they see these provisions frustrating. When they make these complaints, they reveal themselves as would-be tyrants.

Protests

I keep wondering what the guy who immolated himself in front of the Israeli embassy thought he was accomplishing. Did he really think he would change anyone’s mind?

But then, I wonder the same thing about pretty much any kind of “protest”. Blocking traffic because of “climate change”? Yea, you’ve most likely antagonized all those drivers trying to get to work, and made them resent your cause, not support it. Rioting because “Black Lives Matter”? (Whoever said they didn’t?) Everyone who values civilization now views you with disgust. For that matter, how did the January 6, 2020 protest work out for Trump’s cause?

I don’t pretend to understand people well enough to say what is the best way to persuade others to support your cause, but I’m pretty sure having a protest of some kind isn’t it.

Presidents’ day

I’ve been trying to figure out how to say some of this for weeks. Here goes.

It looks almost certain that we’ll have the same two choices for president that we had four years ago. This does not speak well of our nation.

The problem is in a lot of our institutions—government bureaucracies, universities, journalism, etc.—were set up for the industrial society of the mid-twentieth century, and often also to smooth the “inevitable” transition to socialism. Those institutions have become, as I think I’ve mentioned before, corrupt and sclerotic and are poorly matched to our current information age society, but the people inside them are doubling down on trying to impose their ideals on the rest of us. Not to mention that more and more people are seeing socialism as neither inevitable or desirable.

Trump has provoked a hysterical response from these people, who see him (correctly) as an existential threat to their power and status. What they refuse to recognize is that it’s less that he‘s popular than that they are increasingly hated. If they somehow manage to stop him, they are unlikely to enjoy the next manifestation of that hatred any better.

More books

I’ve been falling down on posting here, but I have two series of books to recommend.

The Vixen War Bride series by Thomas Doscher. The hero of these books is an Army Ranger Captain commanding a base on a recently conquered alien planet. There are six books, and the ending of the last one felt like he was wrapping up the series, although I could be wrong about that.

The Arcane Casebook series by Dan Wells. These take place in 1930s New York, but in a world where magic is real. There are (at least) three kinds of magician: sorcerers, who can do many magical things at will, runesmiths, who can create magical runes that perform their tasks when activated, and alchemists, who can make magical potions. The hero is a runesmith, but also a private investigator who uses his magical skills and brains to solve crimes, thwart Nazi spies, and so on. There are ten books so far, with an eleventh promised for the end of the year, and even a spin-off series.

I have really enjoyed both these series, and have been reading the books as fast as they’ve come out. Highly recommended.

Exactly

Misinformation and disinformation are words tyrants use when they don’t want the people to expose their lies with truth.

Sarah Hoyt

Who governs?

I’ve been thinking about posting along these lines for a while, and then today I read this post (requires subscription) that covered some of the ground I wanted to. He quoted Thomas Jefferson and Robert Heinlein about how there are basically two kinds of people when it comes to politics. Here’s the Heinlein quote:

“Political tags–such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth–are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.”

The Constitution of the United States of America was written primarily by people who had no desire for people to be controlled. This was a very rare case of people of this sort actually gaining political power; the norm in human history is for governments to be constituted for and by those believing in control. For the past over one hundred years the pretext of those desiring control has been Science: since the development of the physical sciences and engineering has led to incredible advancements in material wealth and benefit to society, surely the development of social sciences followed by rule by experts would have similar benefits. Slowly but surely, the original constitutional system of government has been replaced by an ever-expanding set of government agencies populated by these experts, and questioning them or suggesting they shouldn’t govern is now considered a threat to “Our Democracy.”

Personally, as a “surly curmudgeon, suspicious and lacking in altruism,” I would prefer to return to constitutional government.

A myth of competence

Julia gets Imprimis, a newsletter from Hillsdale College. Today she got an issue with an essay by Charles S. Faddis entitled Why the CIA No Longer Works—and How to Fix It. I’m not sure that the CIA ever really “worked”, though, and I doubt it can be fixed.

He identifies two problems with the current CIA: bureaucratization and politicization, and those are certainly big problems. The CIA suffers from more fundamental issues, though.

The biggest one is right in the first letter, “C”, of the initials. As the “Central Intelligence Agency”, the CIA is supposed to be the intelligence organization of the nation. Instead of each branch of the military and the State Department each gathering its own intelligence, the CIA is supposed to gather all the intelligence and organize it into a coherent narrative to inform policy decisions. But in many cases, especially with something as potentially ambiguous and uncertain as intelligence, policy makers would be better served by receiving multiple analyses from differing viewpoints.

Exacerbating this uniformity is the fact that, going back to the CIA’s predecessor the OSS, it has recruited primarily from upper and upper middle class upper-tier college educated people. A CIA analysis is unlikely to contradict the interests and preconceptions of this group. They have a distinct tendency to overestimate their understanding and competence. Also, given that this demographic is probably the most politicized and bureaucratized group in America, this recruitment pattern must contribute to the issues that Faddis identifies.

America would be better served by two or more competing intelligence agencies, that broadened their recruiting to include people educated in the “school of hard knocks” or with deeper experience and understanding of the cultures of the places they are analyzing.