Keeping it classy

Liberal bloggers are keeping it classy about Palin.  Of course if people see Palin as the woman who got promoted over them because she is an attractive young woman, might it be possible that people see Obama as the inexperienced guy who got the job because he is black?

Professor Kling’s pledge

here

"What were the Unionists thinking?"

Asks Mencius Moldbug:

So the Civil War, for example, is taught today very much as the Anti-Confederate War. One can very easily find all sorts of information on how weird, creepy, and awful the Confederacy was. Some of this is exaggerated, some is not.

But for me the important question is: what the heck were the Unionists thinking? Were they ethical, sensible, and competent? Or crafty, rabid, and inept? Because our own dear USG is the modern descendant of the grand old Union. And if it was crafty, rabid and inept in 1861, what is the probability that it has since somehow improved?

The question deserves its own post – but I note merely how much less attention is paid to the blue side of the picture. Magic.

I've been reading a lot of Civil War history and I can't find on the subject.

The most I have found so far is that the North minus New England did not really want to keep fighting after the early part of the war.  So, I believe the question can be narrowed to "What were the New Englanders thinking?"  It's an important questions because a lot of people died in the war, the war cost a lot of money, and for a long time seemed endless.

The obvious answer is that they fought to free the slaves.  But, once the war was over, these same people were not exactly tripping over themselves to welcome free blacks into their communities (or even let them vote in their states – of course they wanted them to vote in Southern states).  I'll keep looking for an answer and post any updates.

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Obama and Ayers

I don't like talking politics, but I can't avoid commenting on the story of Obama and Ayers.  Here are my thoughts:

How did Ayers go from being the type of activist who actually kills people to bring on the revolution to the type of "activist" who holds fundraisers for state-level Democratic candidates in his house?  He must be an enormous idiot to think that getting some local politicians elected is going bring on the revolution.  Way to stick to man, Ayers!

Look, I'm not saying that our country isn't headed toward socialism – so maybe voting Democrat will bring that about (probably it will happen slightly faster than if you vote Republican).  My point is that both parties are part of the system.  As part of the system, they're not going to overthrow the system.  Ayers either must believe in a much lesser form of revolution than he used to believe in – in which case his past actions were wrong and he should certainly apologize (personally I am repulsed by his past actions, but I understand that liberals will excuse them because he had good motivations or some such BS) – or he's a friggin' idiot for thinking that the Democrat party will start the revolution.  That's not how politics in America works.

More on Georgia

Some good reporting from Michael Totten.  Plus, how can I disagree with this: "You should always be careful with the version of events told by someone on government payroll."

Educational romanticism

The title is too good to not read the article

Review of "The Civil War" vol. 2 by Shelby Foote

The second book in the series was as good as the first, which is to say that it was incredibly good.

The writing is too good to stop to take too many notes while I’m reading, so these reviews are going to be disjointed. Deal with it.

I would say I am most struck by the descriptions of the time. I feel like I leave the current era and transport back to the mid 1800s while I’m reading these books. I can’t stress how incredible this achievement is, as our current society is so far removed this older time period.

Next, I’m struck by the characters. Four characters – Lee, Lincoln, Sherman and Forrest – particularly stand out, in my opinion. Lee seems like as good a man as any that have ever lived. Foote tells a story in with some shaky details, but the gist was that Confederates believed they had thwarted an attack to destroy Richmond by less-than-noble means. Many in the South called for similar destructive tactics, in response. Lee simply asked Meade if the plan had been to destroy the city and any or all of its inhabitants. Meade said “no.” This response was sufficient for Lee.

Lincoln comes across as brilliant. Again this is an achievement as Foote does not go all wobbly in his admiration for Lincoln. Lincoln was brilliant, but he was not god-like, as so many of his biographers suggest. Foote is not afraid to mention the bad along with the good. Many of Lincoln’s detractors miss his tactical brilliance – one almost feels sorry for the other politicians who scheme against him, as Foote describes how Lincoln seemingly effortlessly out-maneuvers them.

Foote’s descriptions of Forrest make him possibly the most interesting character in the books. He out generals everyone who he comes into contact with despite his total lack of education and training. Unlike other generals, Forrest gets his hands dirty, very dirty. The descriptions of Forrest plugging bullet wounds in his horse with his finger so that he can keep fighting, and of Forrest plunging into battle at the seemingly most inopportune times, are beautiful.

It seems that the only person who understood how amazing Forrest was, was Sherman. It also seems like Sherman was the only person to understand how to defeat a guerilla rebellion and to understand that winning the war meant absolutely crushing the South. Sherman seemed to understand these things from the first days of the war, when he was ridiculed for voicing his opinions. As second book ends, Foote is setting up Sherman’s march. Foote has used Sherman as an almost oracular figure in the books (maybe he was one). I can’t help but wonder if Foote – who avoids commenting on Reconstruction, for the most part – is using Sherman’s beliefs to bring his own views on the subsequent injustice of Reconstruction. Here are some tidbits from Sherman from the book:

In [Sherman’s] absence, guerillas had taken to firing at steamboats from the banks of the big river, north and south of Vicksburg, and he did not intend to abide this outrage. “To secure the safety of the navigation of the Mississippi River, “he declared, “I would slay millions. On that point I am not only insane, but mad. . . . I think I see one or two quick blows that will astonish the natives of the South and will convince them that, though to stand behind a big cottonwood and shoot at a passing boat is good sport and safe, it may still reach and kill their friends and families hundreds of miles off.” . . .

“War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.” . . .

[Sherman’s plan for reconstruction ended with] “I would banish all minor questions, assert the broad doctrine that as a nation the United States has the right, and also the physical power, to penetrate to every part of our national domain, and that we will do it – that we will do it in our own time and in our own way; that it makes no difference whether it be in one year, or two, or ten, or twenty; that we will remove and destroy every obstacle, if need be, take every life, every acre of land, every particle of property, everything that to us seems proper; that we will not cease till the end is attained; that all who do not aid us are enemies, and that we will not account to them for our acts.” . . . “I would not coax them, or even meet them half way, but make them so sick of war that generations would pass away before they would again appeal to it . . . The only government now needed or deserved by the States of Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi now exists in Grant’s army.”

Anyway, those were some random thoughts. I’m eagerly waiting to dive into the third book.

Freedom of the press

We’re supposed to love freedom of the press because it guarantees us critical coverage of politics and business – or whatever the standard line “speak truth to power” means.

What happens now when the press has manifestly failed to live up to this relatively low bar? Do leaders of dictatorial regimes get better press coverage than Obama has gotten (or McCain used to get)? Is freedom of the press worth anything if the answer to this question is ‘no’ as I think it is? Would anyone fight for the press’ freedom to write this crap?

Now I’m just sayin[g]

I really don’t want to defend McCain/attack Obama, but I’ll bite. The difference is that Obama is close to becoming the messiah to his supporters.

[Also, for the record, a B-movie actor isn’t really a celebrity.]

I’m not much interesting in politics either, reasons similar to Ms Contrarian’s oversimplified one. However, I think this election has a chance to be different. If Obama becomes president, he will have a heavily Democratic Congress and an adoring press fully behind him. It’s not much of an exaggeration to say that his supporters think he is god-like. This combination does not bode well for Libertarians. Perhaps it is generally ok to ignore politics to avoid having to decide between the loss of our social or economic freedoms, but this may be a case in which the winner will have tremendous ability to take those freedoms away very quickly.

(Or it may not be. Obama seems relatively pragmatic, so far. I’m just saying that he will be very well positioned to do bad things, if he wants to do so).

US debt repudiation

An interesting article about whether or not it is currently happening. I must say that I am a bit surprised that borrowing costs for the US government haven’t risen sharply – but where else would we put our money now?