Frost on poetry: “the happy discoverer of your ends”

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s a little relief from politics and its discontents–excerpts from a discussion by Robert Frost entitled “Conversations on the Craft of Poetry” (1959).” Any aspiring poets in the crowd, please listen to a guy who knows–who really knows.

In response to the comment: “I once heard you say that for a poem to stick it must have a dramatic accent,” Frost replied:

Catchiness has a lot to do with it, all of it, all the way up from the ballads you hear on the street to the lines in Shakespeare that stay with you without your trying to remember them. I just say catchy. They stick on you like burrs thrown on you in holiday foolery. You don’t have to try to remember them….

And when people say that this will easily turn into–be set to music, I think it’s bad writing. It ought to fight being set to music, if it’s got expression in it.

And here are some comments of Frost’s that especially resonated with me. He’s describing the process of writing a poem (even Frost’s prose is poetic, isn’t it? His “voice” is instantly recognizable here as his and no other’s, like a fingerprint):

…I could define poetry this way: it is that which is lost out of both prose and verse in translation.

…I have a tune [when writing poetry], but it’s a tune of the blend of [meter and rhythm]. Something rises–it’s neither one of those things. It’s neither the meter nor the rhythm,; it’s a tune arising from the stress on those–same as your fingers on the strings, you know. The twang!

…You know, you know that, when I begin a poem I don’t know–I don’t want a poem that I can tell was written towards a good ending–one sentence, you know. That’s trickery. You’ve got to be the happy discoverer of your ends.

…I’ve often said that another definition of poetry is dawn–that it’s something dawning on you while you’re writing it. It comes off if it really dawns when the light comes at the end. And the feeling of dawn–the freshness of dawn–that you didn’t think this all out and write in prose first and than translate it into verse.

Those who follow this blog know I’ve written about Frost before, here and here in particular. Many who are familiar only with his most famous poems think he’s a sort of Hallmark Card poet. Nothing could be further from the truth.

To prove it, I’ll offer one of his darker poems today, a poem for winter. This one sure isn’t happy. But I bet that, when he finished it, he was nevertheless the “happy discoverer” of its end:

DESERT PLACES

Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.

The woods around it have it–it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.

And lonely as it is that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less–
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
With no expression, nothing to express.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars–on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.

Are all hatreds alike?–becoming “just like them”

The New Neo Posted on by

Recently I rented the movie “United 93.” The edition I watched included an addendum to the film, interviews with families of some of the passengers on Flight 93 who’d been featured in it.

This was almost as interesting as the rest of the movie–hearing the differing ways people have coped with the almost unimaginably wrenching and violent loss of a loved one at the hands of international mass murderers dedicated to a political cause, occurring (literally) out of the blue on a bright and beautiful day in September.

One of the interviewees was the husband of a woman who died on that airplane. He seems a wonderful man, and loved his wife very much. He was still deeply grieving at the time of the interview, some years after 9/11.

This post isn’t about him, though, not really; I mean no disrespect to his feelings, nor to his way of dealing with his dreadful loss. It’s a particular thought he expressed that gives me pause, a remark that struck me as representative of a kind of thinking that always brings me up short when I encounter it. It’s an example of one possible way people have of coping with grief, and it stems from a genuinely wonderful impulse: forgiveness, compassion, reluctance to rush to judgment, and the banishment of hatred from the heart.

This is the statement, as best I can recall it:

I don’t hate Bin Laden; I’ve never met him. That’s their mindset–to hate innocent people they’ve never met and want to kill them. If I hated him I’d be like them.

Would he? Are all hatreds equal, and all equally abhorrent? And what is the definition of “innocence?”

I’ve heard this sort of thing from people of intelligence, kindness, and thoughtfulness too often to consider it a singular statement from one man in particular. No, it’s a trend of thought that seems to emerge sometimes from a religious sensibility that emphasizes the necessity for forgiveness and love, sometimes from the influence of various psychotherapies and their focus on the healthfulness of forgiveness and the destructive power of hatred for the individual, and sometimes from postmodern pronouncements that right and wrong are mere concepts in an ever-changing narrative.

But unfortunately there’s a problem: those who espouse the sort of viewpoints quoted here, in their well-meaning and heartfelt flight from emotions deemed destructive to self and others, may lose sight of the basis for and the ability to make necessary making moral judgments.

And that can be dangerous; as the old Talmudic saying goes: Those who are kind to the cruel end up being cruel to the kind.

In what sense can Osama bin Laden be regarded as “innocent?” My guess–and it’s only a hunch–is that the statement relies at least partly on the legal rule of “innocent until proven guilty.” That’s all very well and good for a court of law. The rule is a protection against certain actions that might follow from an improper judgment of guilt in a court case: the incarceration of an innocent person, the rush to judgment of an individual without a mountain of well-documented evidence. It’s a check against sullying the name of a blameless person and restraining his/her freedom merely through the force of rumor and accusation.

That has nothing to do with making a mental moral judgment about the acts of a world figure bent on the mass murder of truly innocent people–random civilians–and even claiming credit for it. A trial isn’t necessary in this case to establish a standard of guilt that’s high enough to make a moral judgment–and a moral judgment is required, I’m afraid, in order to fight effectively against such things.

But what about the well-known words of Jesus, “Judge not that ye not be judged?” Well, if one looks closely at the context, it seems that the subject was the need to discourage making hypocritical judgments concerning others, jumping to conclusions about their shortcomings without looking at one’s own:

Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.

This hardly seems to apply to making a judgment about mass murderers who purposely target the innocent.

But what of hatred? The emotion of hatred has gotten a bad press lately, for the aforementioned reasons. Here, however, is a defense of the need to feel hatred in the appropriate circumstances. After all, as the article points out, if we’re looking for a religious base for things, Ecclesiastes 3 says:

For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven. A time to love and a time to hate; a time for war and a time for peace.

Both Judaism and Christianity share the “hate the sin but not the sinner” maxim, which originates in a respect for all human life, and the need to keep open the possibility of repentance (take a look at the linked article for a fuller discussion). But Judaism seems to make more allowance than certain strains of Christianity for a vigorous emotional response one might call “hate” towards a person who has moved beyond “ordinary” criminal acts and into the realm of mass murder and power and true evil: a Hitler, a Stalin, a Bin Laden (who, granted, does not rival the first two in terms of numbers, but nevertheless follows the same nihilistic impulses). It is especially appropriate for an unrepetant evildoer.

We can call the emotional response to such acts “hatred,” which has earned a bad rep lately. Or. we could rename it “outrage,” which might make it more acceptable. Although such an emotion is not the same as “love” for the sinner, it does, in a seeming paradox, stem from love: love for humanity, the need to be “kind to the kind” by not being “kind to the cruel.”

Some consider hatred of evildoers to be wrong because they see it as synonymous with the desire for revenge. Not necessarily. Hatred of evil, and of the perpetrators of evil, is one of the emotions fueling the pursuit of justice, which is different from revenge (and also is not limited to the justice of the courtroom). Hatred shouldn’t get out of control or it does become counterproductive, both for the psyche of the hater and for the effectiveness of any campaign against evil. But to expunge it entirely from the picture can easily lead to a paralysis of the will to fight evil and a tolerance for it that perpetrators only see as weak, and which empowers their cause.

It would be wonderful if the example of love and forgiveness could lead to the transformation of evil into its opposite. That’s the hope. And in same cases I do believe that love and forgiveness can work wonders–but only with those who have not crossed a certain line, only with those who share certain underlying values and assumptions. We need to recognize those who are far beyond its reaches; just as a psychiatrist needs to recognize when he/she is dealing with a sociopath, and all the love and understanding in the world is not enough.

Another problem with the sort of thinking evidenced in the quote about Bin Laden is the idea of becoming “just like” the enemy. Even for those who do believe that it’s wrong to feel hatred against someone like Bin Laden, is it really true that an ounce of hatred for a murderous psychopath is the exact equivalent of the evil done by such people and their supporters? Is there no sense of proportion here? Are all hatreds alike, including the one that is harbored in the heart as compared to the one that results in acts of murder? The one that is against the murderer as compared to the one that is against the victim?

This is a good example of a tendency I’ve noticed in our postmodern world: that the part is the equivalent of the whole. Comparisons of degree seem to be impossible for many people who are making judgments. Bush is Hitler, the Patriot Act is the end of liberty in America–or, as an erudite gentlemen serenely stated at a lecture I attended recently–the US is now a theocracy. This man, like certain other champions of so-called “nuance,” seemed unable to make a “nuanced” judgment of relative fault and degree.

Degree matters. Context matters. Not all hatreds are alike. A President whose policies on stem cells is in accord with his religious beliefs does not a theocracy make–ask the Iranians. And hating Bin Laden doesn’t make one like him. I wouldn’t have thought these things needed to be stated, or would be the least bit controversial. But apparently they do, and apparently they are.

My mother: there’s bad news and there’s good news

The New Neo Posted on by

Those of you who’ve followed the continuing saga of my 93-year old mother (yes, she just had a birthday) know that she moved back to NY in mid-November. So, how’s it going so far?

Well, she hates it.

But she’s happy.

And if that seems to be a contradiction–I think I can explain.

My mother complains about the place she lives in. Not her room; that, she admits, is beautiful–high-ceilinged and airy and light and…well, roomy. The bathroom, likewise, and the little kitchenette. No, the physical plant leaves little to be desired.

Her assistants (after all, it is “assisted living”) come more or less at their appointed hours, to help her with dressing and getting downstairs and the like. Since her stroke she’d gotten used to having personal caretakers around for about nine hours a day, more or less at her service, and now they come and go only as needed or as called, so I was a bit worried about the change.

But it doesn’t seem to be a problem. Actually, she appears to welcome the return of a certain amount of privacy, an unexpected benefit.

So, what is the problem? Two, actually, but they’re biggish ones. The first is that she doesn’t like any of her fellow residents. What this represents I’m not sure. But I think it’s the fact that my mother’s mind is (knock wood) basically sound, and most of the others are more–as they say–“cognitively challenged.”

And she hates the food. Hates, hates, hates it.

Now, food is an important part of life for most of us, although I hear tell of people who eat to live and don’t really enjoy the process all that much. But for the elderly in institutions–even ones as beautiful as my mother’s–food assumes an even greater importance in the hierarchy of events than it does for most people. That is to say, mealtimes are a big, big, very big deal.

So if she doesn’t like the food, and she doesn’t like the company that goes with it, and she doesn’t like the activities (too elementary, designed to suit the diminished capacity of so many of the residents)–then Houston, we’ve got a problem.

Except that we don’t, exactly. When I speak to her on the phone, her voice sounds more happy and relaxed than it has in years, with a lilt I haven’t heard in a long while. Even her memory–not all that bad to begin with–has improved. She sounds sharper in general.

Reading between the lines, I ascribe her improved mood to the phenomenon I wrote about here: the fact that she’s home.

No, it’s not her old home. But it’s “home” as a community, the place where she grew up, the area she lived in for eighty-eight years before moving to New England to be near me.

And that community–at least so far–has come through for her. She’s had lots of visitors (some of them bring the chocolate to which she’s become allergic, forcing my brother to confiscate it and take it home with him, poor thing). She’s had many more phone calls. She’s been out to restaurants–and, what’s more, they’re not just random restaurants, they’re places she knows and loves, with a long and deep history in her life.

Her room looks out over a highway, not the beautiful trees of her previous place, trees that changed with the dramatic New England seasons and offered the spectacle of nature’s wonder through her many windows. But my mom’s a city gal. Although she appreciated those trees and often remarked on them, now she monitors and reports on the changing traffic and seems happy to do so.

Proving that, in the words of the cliché and Dorothy: there’s no place like home– although the definition of “home” isn’t always what you think it will be.

Compassionate Europe and the death penalty

The New Neo Posted on by

I noticed (hat tip: Pajamas Media) that some Europeans may be reconsidering their near-total abolition of the death penalty.

This is surprising news, if true; the recent history of the death penalty in Europe has only gone one way, and that’s in the direction of ending it. It’s been an incredibly successful post-World War II campaign, understandable in many respects in light of the carnage that the war represented, and the desire to turn away from killing. The UN and international human rights groups led the way in the late 40s and the 50s, and all the nations of Europe save Belarus have followed suit. One cannot become a member of the EU without abolishing capital punishment.

It’s another manner by which Europe distinguishes itself from the US–although it should be remembered that the US had its own fling with the European way, abolishing the death penalty (de facto) for a decade from 1967 till 1977 as a result of Furman vs. Georgia‘s Supreme Court ruling that the practice was arbitrary and capricious, and cruel and unusual. Technically, the death penalty wasn’t abolished by the case, but it effectively generated a moratorium while people tried to figure out just exactly what the ruling meant, and how the states should respond to it.

At any rate, the European poll figures are interesting, because–despite the longing of the EU–Europe is certainly far from unitary. As might be expected, Eastern Europe (“new” Europe) leads the way in death penalty support, with 58% of Poles wanting to bring the death penalty back (Poland only came aboard recently, anyway, in 1997), and 56% of Czechs.

But even in France the numbers seem relatively close, and in England public opinion is virtually tied on the subject. England, of course, has a long and colorful history of historically significant beheadings, with the site of many becoming a tourist attraction. And don’t forget the bloodthirsty French Revolution.

But those days are gone in Europe–probably never to return, whatever the people might think. The law, once officially changed, is unlikely to ever change back, despite the fact that the obvious alternative to the death penalty–life imprisonment–is rarely enforced in Europe.

I speak here as a person who is not a strong proponent of the death penalty, although I reluctantly favor it in certain cases. For the individual criminal, its application has been capricious and unfair in too many cases. Life imprisonment–if it actually is life with no possibility of parole–is a decent alternative, often more feared by criminals than death.

But I recognize exceptions, even for individual criminals. For example, a New Yorker article a few years back (can’t find the cite right now) described a multiple murderer who was also a brilliant escape artist. No prison could safely hold him, and he seemed to be the sort who would kill again: an argument for the death penalty if there ever was one. And I always knew that mass murderers of the political sort, such as Hitler (and now, Saddam) cried out for a punishment that was definitive. Keeping them alive after their particular crimes seemed more of an obscenity than killing them.

Most of Europe does not agree. And it’s especially the elites of many European countries who don’t always agree with their people.

In Italy and Spain it’s true that the people are overwhelmingly against the death penalty, to the tune of 72% and 80%, respectively (and Italy, by the way, was the birthplace of the modern movement to abolish capital punishment). But take a look at some poll figures from Europe concerning Saddam Hussein’s execution, widely condemned by the leaders of Europe and the international groups there:

When the German magazine Stern commissioned a poll on whether Saddam should be executed, it found 50 percent of Germans in favor and only 39 percent opposed. A poll conducted last month for Le Monde found that most Americans (82 percent) favored hanging Saddam ”” as did most Spaniards (51 percent), most Germans (53 percent), most French (58 percent), and most Britons (69 percent).

But the rulers of Europe widely condemned Saddam’s execution–not just the form it took, but the fact of it as well.

Here are some more figures:

“Polls show that Europeans and Canadians crave executions almost as much as their American counterparts do,” wrote Joshua Micah Marshall in The New Republic in 2000. “It’s just that their politicians don’t listen to them.”

The figures Marshall goes on to quote (from a 1997 poll) are even more strongly in favor of capital punishment than the figures cited earlier in this post, which showed much softer death penalty support in Europe. But whatever the numbers mean (and we all know about polls and their vagaries), it’s pretty clear that even if the people of Europe were clamoring for a death penalty, the law would be unlikely to change to reflect public opinion. The elites wouldn’t have it, and they seem to be in control.

Its lack of a death penalty is one of the things that distinguishes Europe today. It is part of Europe’s own self-image as an evolved and pacifist culture, leading the way for the world and especially the American cowboys, who are both bloodthirsty and naive. To be the champions of the right to life for even a mass murderer and sadist such as Saddam Hussein is, they believe, the mark of a culture that will lead the world to a better way, where the lion will lie down with the lamb because that lamb’s superior moral force is so extraordinarily compelling.

Would that it were so. Nor do I believe the opposite–that executing someone such as Saddam will dissuade future power-grabbing mass murderers from lusting after the reigns of whatever chaotic and failed countries they can get their hands on. No, I’m afraid that nothing but the proper Constitutional safeguards, and an informed and aware populace, are likely to be sufficient to stop those with such lofty ambitions.

Moving soon: a new neo-neocon address

The New Neo Posted on by

The new blog isn’t ready yet. But since I’ve been having so much trouble with posting on Blogger lately, I thought I’d give the link to the new blog here, just in case Blogger shuts me out later on.

Here’s the link to the new blog site . The URL for it is http://neoneocon.com.

Simple: no hyphen (some prescient capitalist entrepreneur bought up the hypenated name some time ago, while I wasn’t looking).

No need to go to the new site yet. I’ll be using the present blog for the time being, until further notice—or until Blogger gets weirder and more feisty. If the latter happens, and a few days go by without a post on this blog, go to the new one to see what’s what.

It will take some time to get the new site up and running, and till then there won’t be much to see except scaffolding and a few rickety ladders. When it’s ready for unveiling, I’ll post the news here (assuming I can still get here), and then it will be time to change your bookmarks. The old blog should then remain intact at this URL, in case you want to stroll down memory lane.

Oh, and a question: any features you’d like to see on the new blog that this one doesn’t have?

Outdated political definitions: conservatives and liberals unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains

The New Neo Posted on by

There was an argument–that is to say, a lively discussion–in Tuesday’s comments section in the “Cold hubris” post. The subject was political definitions, such as “conservative” and “Left.”

It started about here, and went on–and on and on. Read it if you want some background to the sort of confusion that can reign when trying to pin down what are in some ways outdated and poorly defined political concepts and categories.

I use these terms–liberal, conservative, Right, Left–myself, because they are in such common parlance, but I agree they are misleading. None of these groups are unitary by any means (and hey, whatever happened to that good old epithet from my youth–“reactionary?”) “Fascist” is another one that has come to mean, simply, “bad person trying to do something I don’t like.”

Redefining these terms, or trying to come up with new ones, is a huge undertaking, one I’m not about to tackle this moment.

Besides, plenty of people have done it before me. One of them was Steven Den Beste. Here is his attempt at a comprehensive reordering of the political grid, and here is a description of his own political leanings (he’s conservative because he’s a liberal–read it and it will make sense. And, for those of you unfamiliar with Den Beste, he was one of the best bloggers ever; my paean to him can be found here.)

What I’d like to focus on now is the commonly offered definition of “conservative” as “one who seeks to preserve the status quo.” This definition is wholly inadequate for today’s conservatives, and actually leads to quite preposterous results, as stated here by the commenter “a guy in pajamas”:

Hmmm…. So every administration is conservative, because they try to preserve their own power. I.e., those in power are always conservative. E.g., Clinton was progressive when elected, but conservative afterwards. Hmmm… methinks this is a simplistic definition of ‘conservative.’

Another example: Hitler was progressive when he was trying to change the status quo of the Weimar Republic, but then became conservative when he actually held power and tried to maintain it.

It seems like a joke of sorts–or a meaningless semantic exercise in which a political term “conservative,” which was originally derived from the word “conserve,” has become defined as almost identical to it, which it most certainly is not.

And, lest you think “guy in pajamas” is setting up a straw man–au contraire. In fact, this is the very definition used by the authors of the seminal study of conservatism cited in the Psychology Today article you’ve heard so much about, the Jost study (the other part of their definition of conservative was “tolerant of inequality”–and don’t get me started on that).

Guy in pajamas is merely paraphrasing Jost, et. al, who actually do state that Stalin was originally a figure on the Left but arguably became a figure on the right because he wanted to preserve the Soviet system. Now, just let that sink in: Stalin was a conservative for supporting an entrenched Communist regime–the important word here being “entrenched.”

I think we can all agree–I fervently hope we can all agree–that this is an absurdity. But it’s an absurdity into which many fall, because the original definition of “conservative” on which it’s based is incorrect.

Oh, it may have once been correct in a certain limited set of circumstances. For instance, way back when powerful monarchs were in vogue, those looking to preserve that status quo against those wanting to limit the divine right of sovereigns would have been called “conservative” at the time. But time marches on–even for conservatives–and those olden-day conservatives have virtually nothing in common with most conservatives of today who tend to believe (note that word “tend;” there are always exceptions) in less central government, not more; and in the importance of individual rights and liberties. Just those things those old liberals were fighting for.

After all, libertarians today are conservatives, and they are fairly radical (as in, “extreme,” not “Leftist”–see the quicksand that looms everywhere, waiting to trap us when we try to use these words?) in the changes they advocate. And, of course, no one could accuse neocons of wanting to do business as usual in the international sphere–leave that to the realpolitikers, who now seem to include most of the formerly radical Left. Go figure.

And don’t liberals want to return to–or conserve–many aspects of the glory days of the 60s, or the Clinton administration?

Oh yes, but neocons are “conservative” because they champion the spread of old-fashioned pre-modern (is that the opposite of post-modern?) ideas such as liberty and justice for all (that’s in the Pledge of Allegiance, so it must be conservative, right?) But didn’t liberals used to do that, at least in theory? Once again, you can twist these definitions almost infinitely to try to fit them into a framework where they just don’t make much sense without the gyrations. Which means they’re not all that helpful.

But they are the only words we have at the moment to use, and they at least have some common meaning that we all think we understand. I strongly urge you to read that Den Beste essay in which he suggests some different ways of ordering things. He’s got quite a few dimensions, such as conservative/revolutionary, liberal/autocrat-elitist, realism/idealism, tolerant/conformist/, capitalist/socialist, individual/group, and opportunity/result (yeah, I know, too complicated–it will never replace the old liberal/conservative).

Here’s an excerpt:

This is where Michael [Totten]’s argument, based on a single axis, breaks down. The people he refers to as “liberals” aren’t liberal. For lack of a better term, we’ll have to call them “leftists” for the moment. The vocal leftist movement which has been revealed in the last year in the US manifests as being elitist (i.e. not liberal), idealistic (not realistic) and conformist (not tolerant). There’s a lesser dedication to equality (over inequality) but it’s not totally consistent because it is a side effect of a basic choice of groups over individuals and to some extent of socialism over capitalism. And within the US right now, they’re revolutionaries because they strongly disagree with the status quo. It is because they are revolutionaries that we tend to categorize them as being “leftist”; it has nothing to do with liberalism as such (especially since they aren’t liberal)….

And here’s still another attempt, by Jerry Pournelle, to redo the political classification system, this time with two axes, statism and rationalism. It’s worth a read, as well. And anyone interested in wading into the works of Den Beste (allow a bit of time–his stuff is loooong, but worthwhile), click on any of the above links to his blog, and then look on the right sidebar and click on the “best of” link (I’ve done this instead of adding a direct link myself, because each time I’ve tried to do so Blogger goes nuts and messes up this entire post of mine).

So, what do I think? I think conservatives tend towards the following: especially interested in individual rights, identity, and especially responsibility over group rights, identity, and responsibility; and in general favoring smaller government over big, including a more laissez faire approach to capitalism (which they also favor over other economic systems). Liberals tend in the opposite direction, and Leftists even more so in the opposite direction–including a liking for socialism, and an increased dislike for the US and the West in general.

That’s it, at least for now.

Oh yes–and bigotry, narrowmindedness, rigidity, self-interest, political wrangling, hypocrisy, lies, and inconsistency know no sides–they are equal opportunity characteristics.

It’s that time again: Sanity Squad podcast

The New Neo Posted on by

This week the Sanity Squad discusses the phenomenon of equal opportunity victimhood: demands (by the Muslim Council of Britain, for example) for the replacement of Holocaust Memorial Day with the more inclusive “Genocide Day.” Along the way we discuss a few other items such as Kerry at Davos, the Holocaust against animals, and Jimmy Carter and his “too many Jews.”

Listen to myself, Shrinkwrapped, and Dr. Sanity; and hear Siggy get even more fired up than usual.

Do cry for Venezuela: the vulnerability of an easily amended Constitution

The New Neo Posted on by

Castro’s not really dead, although most likely dying, despite his TV cameo appearance.

Chavez’s star, however, is in the ascendance, and expanding fast. He’s the new Castro, with a bigger field to play on than Castro ever had: Venezuela.

Chavez has set the stage by taking on greatly expanded powers to nationalize Venezuela’s industries as part of his campaign to “maximize socialism” in Venezuela. He plans to use his newly acquired powers to nationalize and/or control telecommunications, electricity, the oil and gas industry, and:

….dictate unspecified measures to transform state institutions; reform banking, tax, insurance and financial regulations; decide on security and defense matters such as gun regulations and military organization; and “adapt” legislation to ensure “the equal distribution of wealth” as part of a new “social and economic model.”

Okey dokey; that’s democracy, I guess. After all, as his supporters say [italics mine], “Socialism is democracy,” and, “We want to impose the dictatorship of a true democracy and ‘power to the people'” (now, just where have we heard that last phrase before?)

I haven’t followed every in and out of Chavez’s rise to power and his successful grab at more power, but I am under the distinct impression it was done with the appearance of following the rules of democracy.

You might think that, as a neocon, I champion democracy in all its guises. But the type of democracy I support (and I actually prefer a republic, but we’ll leave that aside for the moment) is one that includes a constitution that explicitly protects freedoms and individual rights, and features a system by which it is extremely hard to change that constitution and expand a leader’s powers as Chavez has done.

If you read the Reuters article carefully, you’ll note that Chavez gained his expanded powers through a vote by Venezuela’s Congress, which is at present overwhelmingly composed of his supporters. This unanimity was gained because the opposition boycotted the last election, held in 2005.

Why? Why would the opposition boycott the election of a man they knew was bent on becoming a socialist dictator? This seems so counterproductive that it’s obvious there’s much more behind it. The often-criticized Wikipedia has a lot to say on the matter. The opposition was initially afraid that fingerprint scanners would be used to match voters with results, and even though the scanners were removed the boycott proceeded. Chavez’s supporters say that the boycott reflected the fact that the opposition knew it was sunk; others say the opposition distrusted and greatly feared Chavez and his crew.

At any rate, the boycott enabled Chavez to attain–between his own party and allied parties–virtually 100% control of Congress, far more than the 2/3 it would need to amend the Constitution. One thing appears true: the election was controlled by a National Election Council totally sympathetic to Chavez, and the opposition perceived that, even if they participated, the voting would be rigged.

The entire process points out the utmost–and I mean utmost–importance of guarantees against such usurption of powers (which, by the way, Hitler used, as well, in his ascendance to becoming Fuehrer; Germany had a similar clause that allowed dictatorial powers to be given a leader by a 2/3 vote of the Reichstag, which Hitler then proceeded to abolish).

The United States, by the way, does not allow this dangerous and pernicious route to amending the Constitution (see this for our far more restrictive method). But that’s not going to help Venezuela.

The AP adds some interesting facts about Chavez’s plans:

Chavez…also has formed a commission to rewrite the constitution and expects to hold a referendum on the changes by the end of the year. Among the changes, Chavez has proposed doing away with presidential term limits to allow for indefinite re-election. Term limits currently bar him from running again in 2012.

No surprise, that. He’s on his way to becoming President for Life, despite claims that it will all be oh-so-democratic. With the opposition silenced and frightened, the entire legislature in his pocket, and the path cleared for an indefinite reign, the picture seems very ominous indeed.

I’ve often thought about our own FDR’s propensity to grab power by bending the rules, or at least tradition: the attempt to pack the Supreme Court, and his four Presidential terms. But he never changed the Constitution, he merely took advantage of its silence on certain subjects. Congress deflected his first effort, and the US Constitutional amendment process was used to change the law to fill in the gap on the second, by making the two-term limit explicit after FDR.

But back to Chavez. One possible limitation for his plans involves the fact that, paradoxically, most economies based primarily on oil don’t seem to do all that well; they are very vulnerable, and in good times have no incentive to diversify, and at the moment oil prices are “softening.” And, of course, socialist economies in general don’t have a great track record.

Even if the Venezuelan economy ends up tanking, it’s hard to see how these trends toward dictatorship can be easily reversed. Once such powers are given–especially when war is not the ostensible excuse–they are rarely taken away, except by the force of arms. That’s why, traditionally, the military has been feared by dictators as rivals in such countries–they are often the only ones who can accomplish the removal of a dictator. Unfortunately, they sometimes replace one with another.

Venezuela is a country with a built-in weakness in addition to its social and economic problems: a Constitution that allows for the easy usurpation of basic checks and balances. How many other democracies are vulnerable in this way I don’t know, although it would be an interesting thing to research. My guess is that it’s quite a few.

[For some fascinating background and eloquent commentary on the Venezuelan situation, Daniel in Venezuela has been watching the downward spiral for quite some time. Take a look at his archives: see this, for example. And here’s his description of the 2005 election; here he offers some background to it, and here is his take on how the public lost faith in the voting process in the buildup to the 2005 election.

Daniel’s summary statement:

I have written the diary of Venezuela slow descent into authoritarianism, the slow erosion of our liberties, the takeover of the country by a military caste, the surrendering of our soul to our inner demons.]

Cold hubris: like Father (or Big Brother), the Left knows best

The New Neo Posted on by

The Left likes to position itself as the champion of the underdog, the third world, the downtrodden, the oppressed.

Until, that is, someone from one of those countries has the temerity to disagree with the party line.

Just as the Left like to think every African-American in America automatically ought to be a Democrat–and, if not, that person is obviously to be ridiculed as a fawning tool of the Right (or, if you like, in less PC terms, an Uncle Tom or Aunt Jemima)–so it believes it has the answers for all the suffering people of color round the world.

That, by the way, is one of the reasons the Left hates–positively hates–neocons. Neocons actually have a competing theory about what to do about the third world, and it runs highly counter to that of the Left: it actually involves freedom, liberty, and protection of their rights within a democracy.

Whether the neocon dream is any more achievable than the dream of the Left (and I happen to think it is, because it is more attuned with the strivings of human nature) or any better morally (and I happen to think it is, because it is more respectful of individual and human rights) I’m not going to discuss here. That’s another topic for another time. My point is that it’s a vision for the third world that competes with that of the Left, and therefore cannot be countenanced by that Left.

To the Left, there’s almost nothing worse than an apostate. Neocons are viewed as apostates (some of them actually are; I personally, was never on the Left but always a mere Democrat of the liberal persuasion). Apostates who originate, or even still live, in third-world countries are a tricky proposition for the Left, as well. One would think that their membership in a minority group or race would get instant approval. But the contrarian nature of their viewpoints trumps race any day, and must be fought against with vigor. The gloves tend to come off.

Witness the following exchange the other day in the comments section, between Leftist commenter and troll DonkeyKong and commenter Huan, a Vietnamese-American. It was lengthy, so I won’t reproduce most of it here, but if you want to read the whole thing yourself go to the comments of this post on the State of the Union address.

Huan wrote:

As a Vietnamese expat and refugee from the US betrayal and abandonment of South Viet Nam, and knowing how the press misrepresented the progress of the war, i would say that Neo-Neocon is among the growing number of Americans who actually are coming to understand what really did happened to South Viet Nam 30 years ago.

But DK does not. I would recommend he starts by reading Vo Nguyen Giap.

“Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.”
If Americans understood, America would weep in shame.

DonkeyKong (DK) responded thusly:

Haun, after the US fought for 10 years, expended 275 billion, and 58,000 of it’s countrymen, why did your government fall in 4 months (January 1975-April 1975.)

We didn’t betray you.

Oh I know, if we had only stayed another six months we would have won.

I think DK’s comment above encapsulates in a rather dense and representative packet (“dense” in more ways than one) the combination of ignorance and overwhelming arrogance exhibited by many (not all) on the Left.

DK trashes the feelings of a Vietnamese refugee about the American betrayal of Vietnam in 1974-5 (whatever happened to the Left’s tender regard for feelings?), as well as Huan’s take on history. It’s not so much the disagreement–it’s certainly possible to disagree with a Vietnamese-American about Vietnam, merely on the merits of the case, and to argue facts.

But do it in a respectful way. The element of juvenile taunting is unmistakable here, and especially reprehensible because–any way you look at it, any side you favor–the subject involves a tragedy of major proportions for the people of Vietnam as well as the US. In fact, more of a tragedy for the former than the latter.

The story of why the South Vietnamese government fell in four months is the point. I’ve written about it often (also see this for some background). But DK and his ilk aren’t interested in looking at that sort of thing. They know, they just know; better than articles by officers who were there, and most definitely better than Huan, an actual Vietnamese refugee but one who–like so many others–isn’t cooperating by parroting what DK wants to hear.

DK writes, dripping with sarcasm:

Oh I know, if we had only stayed another six months we would have won.

That’s not only a taunt directed at Huan, but at all those very threatening (and deluded, according to Leftist thinking) Vietnam “revisionist” historians–myself, of course, included (please read this post for a fuller discussion of Vietnam revisionist history). The idea that Vietnam might not have been a hopelessly lost cause at the end, worthy only of abandonment, threatens the Leftist “narrative” (love that word!) so strongly that it must be fought off at all costs, no matter where it originates, even from a Vietnamese-American. Or, rather, especially from a Vietnamese-American.

And what’s that “we” all about in Donkey Kong’s comment, anyway, when he writes “if we had stayed only another six months?” It seems that DK is unaware that the important “we”–our fighting forces–had left Vietnam years earlier (see this post that features a chart illustrating the pace of Vietnamization and the withdrawal of US fighting forces). What precipitated the downfall of South Vietnam was the withdrawal of our money, not ourselves.

After all that time, it really did come down just to money. Filthy lucre. And not a whole lot of it, either. As President Ford wrote at the time:

In South Vietnam, we have consistently sought to assure the right of the Vietnamese people to determine their own futures free from enemy interference. It would be tragic indeed if we endangered, or even lost, the progress we have achieved by failing to provide the relatively modest but crucial aid which is so badly needed there.

“Relatively modest but crucial aid”–that’s what it was all about, DK. Money. Money, weariness, and propaganda from the likes of you.

And people like me to listen to it, and to be taken in by it, to my sorrow. Like Huan says, at least I have the decency to weep in shame. What’s your excuse? Too young to remember?

This time, I’m not weeping. I’m writing.

I’ll leave the final words here to Huan, however, who addresses Donkey Kong in this way:

…but apparently you are incapable of learning from mistake, rather sticking with cold hubris, as you and your ilk are about to repeat the same mistake, abandoning the millions of iraqi to islamofascism and emboldening others to act against the US.

doesn’t matter how many suffers, as long as their skin is different, as long as they don’t meet your desired standards, as long as it is not in the news.

there is no shame to being ignorant, but it is shameful to cling to blind ignorance and let other suffer instead of you.

Passive-aggressive Blogger on the warpath (important announcement here)

The New Neo Posted on by

Twice in the last few days Blogger–the not-so-gracious host of this and all the other “blogspot” blogs–has been playing some games I can only describe as passive-aggressive.

Several times, when I’ve logged in to post, Blogger directs me to register for another version of Blogger that they’ve been trying to push for months–called, quite creatively, “New Blogger.” And this isn’t just a passing thing; when it does this, I can’t post on my old blog at all for several hours.

So far it’s reverted back spontaneously and allowed me to post at last. But this privilege will not last for long. Blogger has apparently decreed that I and others will be forced make the change.

Till now I’d been perfectly happy with Old Blogger (well, maybe not perfectly, but perfectly enough). And till now Old Blogger had been perfectly happy with me being perfectly happy with Old Blogger.

But since the unnamed, un-emailable, unphonable, basically unreachable Hal-like powers behind Blogger, They Who Must Be Obeyed, have decreed that I must switch to the New, I’m not happy. Why? The bulletin board there is full of complaints about New Blogger, and the bugs haven’t been worked out yet. Despite the fact that the service is free, I don’t want to be their reluctant guinea pig; I don’t want to switch (whether I’d rather fight than switch is another question; I’m a chickenhawk, you know).

As regular readers here know, I’ve been working on the reorganization of the blog and its move to another server, but that’s not quite ready yet.

In the meantime, I can’t disable Blogger like the astronauts did Hal (and to do so would cause the immediate demise of this blog anyway, since the two are inextricably entwined). So I thought I’d post this message while I can; I seem to still have access to Old Blogger.

Here’s the IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT:

If I’m forced to make the change before I’m ready to leave Blogger and start up with the new non-Blogger-based server, it’s very possible the switch to New Blogger will go so smoothly you won’t notice. But if there are any problems, I’ll go to a default blog I’ve set up on New Blogger just for the purpose of posting until the real new one is ready.

Here’s the URL of the new temporary blog, neoneoneocon (catchy, isn’t it?). Make note of it (and, if for some reason all of Blogger gives up the ghost, tune into Shrinkwrapped’s blog; he’s not on Blogger and has kindly offered to post a message from me in a crisis).

Remember, I’ll only use that new temporary “neoneoneocon” one if anything goes wrong with this one, and only for a little while till the permanent new one is ready. Hopefully, I’ll never need to use the temporary one.

Then, when I move to my more permanent site, I’ll post the new URL for it–on this blog if it’s still functional; on the temporary one if this one goes kaput, on Shrinks’ blog if they both are unreachable for some unknown reason. And that will be that (I hope.)

I’m not sure yet of the URL for the new permanent blog. But one thing I do know: the new permanent blog will not be here at Blogger, and therefore will not have “blogspot” in its URL. But all the old posts and archives for the present blog ought to remain undisturbed and readable, even after the new permanent blog opens.

There. Was that complex enough?