My wife and the Minister of Propaganda almost did me in last month.

My crime?

Thinking about voting for Bush.

Please don‚ÄövÑv¥t think that I, in any way, support Bush‚ÄövÑv¥s domestic policies. I disagree with his administration almost entirely across the board.

But I wasn‚ÄövÑv¥t that inspired by Kerry‚ÄövÑv¥s vague platitudes. Additionally, I can‚ÄövÑv¥t foresee a circumstance in which the Democrats could regain control of either house of Congress, so Kerry wouldn‚ÄövÑv¥t be able to significantly challenge the prevailing domestic agenda.

The President has much more discretion in foreign affairs. And I thought Kerry would be a disaster.

I‚ÄövÑv¥d rather pluck out my own eyes with a shrimp fork than give France a veto over American foreign policy. I believe the U.N. can occasionally be a useful tool, but have no illusions about its democratic legitimacy. And Kerry‚ÄövÑv¥s evasiveness about his plan for Iraq, together with his wink-wink-nudge-nudge asides to the Howie Dean pacifist crowd alarmed me.

So I was going to reluctantly pull the level for George.

But then two experiences gave me a moment of clarity.

I read a blogger entry that was attacking Kerry for campaigning against unilateralism. I don‚ÄövÑv¥t remember which blog it was so can provide no link. But the gist of it was that Kerry was smart enough to know that winning was the only option and that he was just being disingenuous when he played to the ‚ÄövÑv pro-U.N.‚ÄövÑvp and pacifist crowds.

While I wish our politicians were more honest about their positions, this attack on Kerry‚ÄövÑv¥s character made me realize that Kerry‚ÄövÑv¥s election would not be a foreign affairs disaster.

The other lightning bolt came from watching CNN. I caught part of a Rumsfeld news conference. The SecDef was explaining to a reporter that ‚ÄövÑv no one could have predicted the insurgency‚ÄövѬ ‚ÄövÑvp

What!?

What the Fuck!?

Many, many people predicted the insurgency.

My blogger colleagues will remember that I supported the morality of the war to save the Kurds AND believed that we had to eliminate the long-term threat the Hussein posed to our national interest. My one reservation was the fear that the Bush team would fight the war on the cheap and fail to win the peace. I should have placed more weight on that reservation, because it has come to pass. Our failure to go in with enough force or to plan for the occupation has cost us dearly. And the Bush team can‚ÄövÑv¥t see, or won‚ÄövÑv¥t see why this is a problem.

Months ago, Rumsfeld himself had gotten into a public pissing match with the Chief of Staff over troop numbers. The Chief of Staff has said that more men were needed to prevent the growth of an insurgency. Rumsfeld overruled him, discounting the dangers ahead. And this same son of a bitch now has the temerity to claim that ‚ÄövÑv no one could have predicted the insurgency!?‚ÄövÑvp

I suddenly realized:

Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld are so driven by ideology that they are unable to modify policy to match reality. While this is obnoxious on the domestic side of the slate (the ideological partisanship of the ‚ÄövÑv Mayberry Machiavellis‚ÄövÑvp has been amply demonstrated by former players in the administration), it is dangerous and immoral on the international front. If a group of people who are psychologically incapable of questioning their tactics lead us into an unwinnable war (and we can‚ÄövÑv¥t win this war on the cheap ‚ÄövÑv¨ you need more troops to fight a guerilla insurgency than you do a traditional enemy ‚ÄövÑv¨ you have to guard huge numbers of soft targets) and can‚ÄövÑv¥t change their tactics, they need to be removed.

I have no problem with using lethal force to advance our national interest and, while saddened by their sacrifice, understand that the blood of our boys may need to be spilt. But I can only accept these things IF a positive outcome is achievable. Without the possibility of a positive outcome, killing foreigners and sacrificing Americans is IMMORAL.

Bush and his boys don‚ÄövÑv¥t have the intellectual flexibility to find a positive outcome. They MUST be replaced.

Once more unto the breach, dear Kevin, once more, or fill the the wall up with our Blogger dead.

I have already posted a couple of times on Analphilosopher’s penchant for sloppy political argument. I’m not going to do much writing here - I’ll just post two Analphilosopher posts next to each other for comparison:

From Analphilsopher on 4-14, bottom of the Krugman post:

‚ÄövѬ By writing such shrill, partisan columns, Krugman undermines whatever credibility he would otherwise have. He‚ÄövÑv¥s a party hack, not a disinterested seeker after truth (what we philosophers call a veracious inquirer). I wonder what Krugman‚ÄövÑv¥s fellow economists think of him. I know that if any philosopher were as partisan as Krugman is, he or she would be roundly condemned. We philosophers take pride in our honesty and fairness. Yes, we have evaluative and interpretive disagreements, often profound, but none of us would ever distort or hide facts that go against our beliefs, and we certainly don‚ÄövÑv¥t treat others with the contempt that Krugman displays in every column. He‚ÄövÑv¥s a disgrace to academia. He gives economics an even worse name than it had, which is hard to do.

From 4/12:

Liberals have no shame. They’re unfulfilled totalitarians. Their only goal, despite their declared concern for the disadvantaged, is power. Think about it. If liberals truly cared about the disadvantaged, as they say they do, they’d dispose of their wealth. There are enough wealthy liberals in this country to feed, clothe, shelter, and medicate every poor person. Don’t hold your breath waiting for this to happen. The Kennedys are still wealthy, aren’t they? John Kerry is more than happy to take advantage of the Heinz fortune. Liberals insist on forcing others to pay for their hare-brained social-engineering schemes. This suggests that they’re driven by envy and spite, not benevolence.

I have already posted on the 4/12 rant against liberals. Comparing the two columns, I am sure that Professor Burgess-Jackson wrote column on the twelfth as an attempt at humor. In light of his opinions expressed in the post of the fourteenth, he couldn‚ÄövÑv¥t possible have made the argument of the twelfth with a straight face.

The Maximum Leader asks his ministers to post, so post we shall, or die in the attempt.

Of note today is the latest Drudge link to an article about draft talk. This seems to be coupled with the running argument about troop strength in Iraq, and may or may not indicate a little nervousness about how badly stretched we are, currently.

I have a feeling this issue won’t be taken seriously once the discussion widens into a larger public debate, but some lines from the article do give pause:

“There’s not an American … that doesn’t understand what we are engaged in today and what the prospects are for the future,” Senator Chuck Hagel told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on post-occupation Iraq.

“Why shouldn’t we ask all of our citizens to bear some responsibility and pay some price?” Hagel said, arguing that restoring compulsory military service would force “our citizens to understand the intensity and depth of challenges we face.”

The Nebraska Republican added that a draft, which was ended in the early 1970s, would spread the burden of military service in Iraq more equitably among various social strata.

“Those who are serving today and dying today are the middle class and lower middle class,” he observed.

Two items:

1. The “all our citizens” question. Would a draft actually catch “all our citizens”? I haven’t dipped into the history books on this (I’ll leave that to the experts on this blog), but haven’t the richer folks generally had an advantage when it comes to fancy methods of draft-avoidance? And if we put aside class issues and grant for argument’s sake that a draft would be absolutely fair (i.e., catching people proportionately from all social strata), is the American populace actually ready to bear this burden now?

2. On a related note: doesn’t the last line of the above quote sound more like the ulterior motive for a draft would be, in fact, to snag more upper-class folks and make them serve?

Item (1) above amuses me because, even if the draft-reinstitution idea isn’t taken seriously, it’s a “put your money where your mouth is” issue. It’s a good metric for determining who, in fact, would be a chickenhawk, squawking pro-war rhetoric but finding excuses not to make the ultimate commitment. I suspect the loudest murmurings would come from the upper class.

Item (2), however, seems to give away the game: this sure as hell sounds like a hunt for the upper class. It sounds like an honor-and-glory version of the “redistribution of wealth” idea: redistribute the burden of military service. Sure, this might actually be fair, but it’s not consistent to talk about a draft– something whose randomness/fairness should make it impossible to target a particular social stratum– while implicitly targeting the upper class. (Or am I misreading this?)

The moral question for us, Joe and Jane American, is whether we’re willing to be consistent with our rhetoric. If able to serve, would you serve? Would you accept being drafted even if you don’t believe in the war? If you’re a war supporter of age, would you go willingly to Iraq or bolt to Canada?

A modern question: would today’s draft include women? Ha! There’s a debate in itself! I don’t see why it shouldn’t, personally.

I look forward to seeing a public debate on the draft. I’m curious to see how many people suddenly decide that we don’t really need more troops in Iraq. I’m curious to see what we discover about just how stretched our forces are; currently, I don’t have a clear read on this because the numbers are being spun by both sides, red and blue. I’m curious to know what people who praise the voluntary nature of our fighting forces will say about a draft.

On a personal note: my Dad’s been worried for years that the draft would be reinstituted. He worries because my younger brothers could, in theory, get drafted. I don’t know whether Dad’s heard about this issue yet, but I doubt he’d be cheered by the news that we’re beginning to discuss conscription again.

_

How the Hollywood media has failed to respect the war in Iraq, the hypocisies of the Bush administration (make that a double!), why Texas politicians are evil, a new book about why gay is good, and a candidate for President with whom we can all sleep soundly.

This is your Minister of Propaganda, broadcasting from the left coast.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader was perusing the Politburo Diktat today and found this nifty listing of blogs. The Commissar has, in the past, put out some other neat blog maps. With this shameless trackback, your Maximum Leader hopes to get Nakedvillainy listed as a group blog. Ministers! Get to writing!

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is ruminating over some comments inspired by his Minister of Propaganda’s last post. Your Maximum Leader agrees with some of the M of P’s major points as they speak to our elected officials at large. Not only our current administration.

Speaking of the Minister of Propaganda, your Maximum Leader saw this article over on the Washington Post website and thought of him.

Carry on.

Whether or not you are for the war or against the war, for or against Bush, here is an excellent analysis of Bush’s strategic failure in conducting the war in Iraq. To quote from the middle, “[the Bush administration] has adopted a two-tier policy: a complex and nearly hidden strategic plan and a superficial public presentation.”

Personally, I think this administration’s efforts to insulate their internal processes — not just with Iraq but in practically every aspect of government policy — demonstrates a harmful and dangerous style of leadership that is contrary to the best democratic traditions of this country. Even if you agree with his policies on this issue (the analysis I posted above supports the war in Iraq), aren’t any of you concerned about what this administration will privately decide next? Or worse yet, what’s ALREADY been decided without even a semblance of open, public debate?

The strength of democracy, in the liberal tradition anyway, is the public competition of ideas. This is the basic principle behind the First Amendment. This administration, and (dare I speak as a partisan for a moment) increasingly the Republican party itself, has adopted an overall political strategy where public scrutiny of internal strategis (Cheney’s energy council meetings, the Medicare boondoggle, Ashcroft’s wars on just about everything) is intentionally blurred by a two-prong strategy: first, the delivering of misleading or outright dishonest public statements (Bush, etc al) and second, vicious attacks on your opponents. Both efforts serve only to distract from any debate of substance. Whatever your political stripes, we should all be concerned about an administration which, in a GENERAL election, strategically moves to the FAR RIGHT on social issues. It’s a devisive strategy that chokes real debate on any issue, and it’s contrary to the founding principles of this nation.

In any practical analysis, the disconnect between private strategy and public presentation is unstable and should eventually tear this administration apart. My fear is that Bush (and Cheney and Rumsfield and Ashcroft) will do irreparable damage to our country before it does. Anybody-but-Bush this November.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader, as a sometimes kilt-wearer himself, thought he would pass along this item off the AP news wire. Kilt-Wearing Marine Plays Bagpipes in Iraq. And he’s not Scottish…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minons. Your Maximum Leader wanted to point out that there is a sale going on at Your Maximum Leader’s Villainous Commerce Store. Ladies! Get your Nakedvillainy t-shirts for the perfectly reasonable price of $13 (US - no Loonies!).

Of course ladies, if you are in the mood you could pick up a Nakedvillainy Thong.

Guys. You can’t help but look studly, super-intelligent, and hung like a horse while wearing a Naked Villainy t-shirt. Chicks dig the nifty image of your Maximum Leader on your Schwarzenegger-esque pectorals. (Did your Maximum Leader mention that wearing his t-shirt will actually cause your pectorals to bulge?)

Loyal minions, indulge yourselves…

Commerce break is now concluded.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader was over at National Review Online today and stumbled upon this article: Michael Smerconish on John Lehman & Airlines. Your Maximum Leader does wonders why this was not reported on in more detail by other news outlets? Here is an unspoken question, Did the 9/11 terrorists know about this policy? Your Maximum Leader doubts if we will ever be able to discover the answer to that.

Your Maximum Leader understands why racial profiling is contraversial. And to an extent your Maximum Leader acknowledges that profiling can be abused by certain officials. But, wouldn’t it make sense to follow a profile if it reasonably fits?

This whole question causes us to examine a difficult issue in our society. At what point to we sacrafice privacy for “security.” It also causes us to examine items such as race, sex, and religious affiliation which are hot button items. As a matter of course, we as Americans want to be tolerant of other people. People of all religions, sexes, and races deserve basic civil respect. So profiling according to these characteristics alone strikes many Americans as intolerant and even bigoted.

But at what point to we come to realize that in some cases (and so far not a demonstrable majority of cases) these characteristics may in fact be useful tools for raising suspicions? As has been said many times before, the 9/11 terrorists were all youngish, male, arab, muslims. From what we can gather, many of those who seek to do great harm to our nation fit that basic profile. Thus, those characteristics, added with others (like one-way tickets paid in cash on short notice), seem to be part of the basis of a sensible profile to use as a guide to segregate (used the word deliberately) some people from others in sensative areas for screening by legitimate authorities.

Ultimately, it seems to be a reasonable trade-off. Some people are, genuinely, disadvantaged by application of a profiling policy. But the application of the policy provides some reasonable measure of security to many others. Profiling, at least in airports and train stations (marine terminals?), is a sensible policy.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader was looking over his site statistics. And found this: Yahoo! Search Results for anticpatory guidelines for pregnancy

Does it seem as though your Maximum Leader has been obsessing over his site statistics of late? He thinks it is nothing more than just liking to look at pretty colour graphs and such… (That is how the statistics are displayed on Superb.net.) He’ll be quiet about it now…

Carry on.

I have been called to task for ‚ÄövÑv dissociation‚ÄövÑvp on the Analphilosopher site by a reader:

Donovan and Smallholder’s posts read so much like Psychology 101 illustrations of Denial (animals don’t suffer, Donovan), Justification (it’s acceptable to eat meat because other animals do it, Donovan, or because the “meat” was raised “humanely,” Smallholder) and Dissociation (meat comes from “humanely raised meat” not from individual animals, Smallholder), that they are almost comedic. Thank you, I enjoyed reading them.

Joanna

I will send what follows to the Analphilosopher in his mailbag. He may or may not use it, as is his prerogative; I do not know his policy on reader-to-reader discussions.

Dear Joanna,

I‚ÄövÑv¥m always happy to bring happiness, humor, and joy to others. You should see me dance. Unfortunately, your amusement at my failure to recognize that meat comes from ‚ÄövÑv individuals‚ÄövÑvp arises only because she does not do her part to keep the Maximum Leader happy with his site meter statistics. If she would only click on the link to the Nakedvillainy blog, she would discover that I do not deny the individuality of the animals I eat. In fact, my blogosphere handle, ‚ÄövÑv Smallholder‚ÄövÑvp is taken from the English term that not only denotes someone who farms a small patch of land, but also lives in close harmony with his animals. I know each individual animal intimately, spending one or two hours in direct, hands-on contact with my boys every day.

If you were to drive up the hill at Sweet Seasons Farm at 5:00 AM on any day of the week, you would find the barn light on and yours truly inside, feeding the boys with hand-mixed milk replacer. As they drink, I rub their sides, talk to them, scratch their ears, and lift their tails to make sure they don‚ÄövÑv¥t have runny manure. They particularly like chin rubs. As I clean out the night‚ÄövÑv¥s manure, the only real difficulty I have is the lads throwing me off balance as they seek even more attention. The same process gets repeated each evening as well. In fact, one of the little scamps was too affectionate last night ‚ÄövÑv¨ I had forgotten the egg basket and carefully placed several eggs in my front pants pocket. One of my twins didn‚ÄövÑv¥t think he had gotten enough love and butted my hip ‚ÄövÑv¨ breaking four of the eggs.

In fact, the close association with the individuals can get even more intense. Last year, a snowstorm coupled with freakish wind swirling through the hills pushed snow through the barn‚ÄövÑv¥s second story, around the hayloft, and into the pen. I went out at eleven in the evening to check to see if my boys were snuggly warm in the midst of the blizzard and found them standing forlornly with a quarter inch of snow on their backs. Intellectually I understand that cattle are built to survive this sort of thing ‚ÄövÑv¨ I have seen my neighbor‚ÄövÑv¥s cattle with an inch of encrusted ice all over their hides ‚ÄövÑv¨ but I didn‚ÄövÑv¥t want my lads to be cold. I Jerry-rigged (look at me ethnically slandering myself) a tarp over the calf pen, rubbed them all over with a blanket, changed the straw bedding, and then proceeded to sleep in the barn to add my body heat to their pen. It was cold, nasty work. But I kind of enjoyed waking up at three in the morning with calves snuggled up to me on each side, their heads tucked between my shoulders and face.

This year I had an outbreak of pneumonia. I had one calf that I tube-fed three times a day for a week, cradling it in my arms and massaging its ribs to aid digestion.

I could provide many, many, more examples.

I‚ÄövÑv¥m sure Joann will object that it can‚ÄövÑv¥t be humane because the guys must be terrified at the end of their lives. I‚ÄövÑv¥m sure the slaughtering process is hard on 99.9% of the steers destined for hamburger, but the kindness I have shown the boys and the mutual affection we have also help their ends come cleanly. They follow me right up to the truck and I drive over to a Mennonite Farmer who slaughters on the side. He takes the animals in the order that they arrive, so I shoot to get to his place at 4:00 AM so I am first in line. They calmly walk down the ramp and into the facility. He was shocked that they would just follow me like little lambs ‚ÄövÑv¨ normally unloading and moving is accompanied by a fair amount of yelling and shoving. He hits them with a 22 to the brain and they are down ‚ÄövÑv¨ no muss, no fuss.

Ah, many animal rights advocates might contend, there is still cruelty because they die in the end. While I am in agreement with animal rights activists in their critiques of unnecessary (mental and physical) cruelty, they typically lose me when they make that judgment. If the goal of animal rights activists is to eliminate as much animal suffering as possible, attacking humane farming conducive to their end. My animals lead TREMENDOUSLY better lives on my farm then they would in nature.

The PETA crowd seems to misunderstand that ‚ÄövÑv Mother Nature‚ÄövÑvp is, as Gene Logsdon puts it, often ‚ÄövÑv Old Bitch Nature.‚ÄövÑvp Animals aren‚ÄövÑv¥t living out in a state of Disney Technicolor utopia. Animals in the wild are perpetually fearful, subject to predation, parasite-ridden, frequently sick, and constantly hungry. Most die young and their deaths are ugly, traumatic affairs.

Professor Burgess-Jackson has stated that the art of persuasion is based on making people realizes that their basic beliefs are in conflict. I have a challenge for his readers.

If my beliefs are:
A) Suffering should be minimized.
B) Animals in my care, provided with meals, shelter, health care, and protection from predation, suffer much less than they would in the state of nature.

Show me where these beliefs are in conflict. Please do so without using the ‚ÄövÑv don‚ÄövÑv¥t use others as an end‚ÄövÑvp arguments. I‚ÄövÑv¥d buy that in person-to-person relationships, but don‚ÄövÑv¥t accord full moral (human) weight to animals.

Smallholder

Greetings, loyal minons. Your Maximum Leader has been thinking about a more substantive Iraq post of late. But he has been trying to figure out what may be some of the other causes behind the current uprising. Here is one from the New York Post. Thanks to Kate and The Glittering Eye for starting your Maximum Leader down this path. Will investigate more.

Carry on.

I see the Maximum Leader is still proselytizing about the wonders of pigdom.

I too appreciate the animal known to many American homesteaders as the ‚ÄövÑv Mortgage-lifter‚ÄövÑvp because of its economic utility, but I had to decline Mike‚ÄövÑv¥s request to raise a pig to go along with the beef I am raising for the Villainous household.

I will one day add at least a couple of pigs to the farm, but not until the Wee Smallholder is a bit older. I have a cousin whose ear is a bit jagged because he stepped to close to the boar pen when he was a toddler. Old Horace decided that the little lad would make a good snack, grabbed him by the ear and pulled him into the pen. If my uncle had not been nearby, he would have lost a kid.

So, until my dear little one is big enough to a) understand to stay away from the piggies and b) is too big to constitute a tasty porcine morsel, we will not have any pigs.

This brings to mind one of my favorite answers to vegetarians. When Gene Logsdon was asked how he could eat pigs that he had raised by hand, he responded: ‚ÄövÑv If I had a heart attack in the pen, the pigs would eat me. That‚ÄövÑv¥s fair.‚ÄövÑvp

Big Hominid has posted on the same two Analphilosopher posts that I discussed a little while ago. He does a better job then me.
Of course, he is an academic while I am only a poor son of the soil.

You should also check out his 20 questions with the Maximum Leader. Unbeknownst to Mike, however, question 17 is moot. I already have a spot reserved for him in the compost pile.

UPDATE FROM YOUR MAXIMUM LEADER: No need to be all clandestine about putting my corpse in the compost pile. It is a more utilitarian end to my body than embalming and burial. And anyway, why not have my body end up in a field (or as pig food) when your Maximum Leader is gone. It is better than being interred in a glorious tomb along a major thoroughfare and having thousands of loyal minions coming by to pay their respects to my perfectly preserved body; only to have the MWO crumble, the visitors stop, the tomb close, and have western businessmen offer to buy the corpse as a sideshow attraction in a new amusement park… - Max. Ldr.