Politics

Some further thoughts on assumptions; I continue to blame Mike. And of course Trent Lott, who has provoked a furor of discussion which could be useful but will no doubt turn to partisan bickering — oh wait, it already has. Trent Lott is, in my eyes, most likely a racist. While his most recent statement could be construed as flattery to an old man and nothing more, we have other evidence. We have similar statements he’s made in the past, one of them off the record (if it’s confirmed) and thus unlikely to have been scripted to win over the crowd. We have his appearance at rallies to raise funds for all-white private schools. We have his voting record. We have a preponderance of evidence. ...

Conventional wisdom in the blogosphere is that everyone’s up in arms about Trent Lott, with harmonious accord. At the worst, there’s some confusion about which bloggers broke the story first. Well… I gotta kick that one around a little, and shed some light on the warblogger world. Mischa says (original), “Listen, folks: If you wanna get rid of Trent, it’s no skin off of my nose, I couldn’t care less. I never liked the guy to begin with. But would you please, please, PLEASE try to come up with a reason that’s even half-way intelligent?” ...

The January 2003 issue of Esquire contains an interesting article about Bush’s White House (original). I’m not entirely certain what to make of it, but it’s certainly good reading. The meat of the article is a fairly scathing portrayal of a White House where policy is set by Karl Rove, whose main concern is political advantage. As a sidebar, Esquire presents the primary source material: a letter (original) from John DiIulio, detailing his concerns about the current administration. ...

Once again by way of Instapundit, we bring you James Lileks on politics. This time he’s talking about the inevitable decline and fall of Europe. I don’t really have a lot of debunking to do here; I just wanted to point out the vast irony inherent in this sentence: “Like a religion unhinged (original), it is desperately intense (original), gripped with eschatological certainties and devoted to an unswerving belief in a caricature that bears little resemblance to the actual nature of its enemy.” ...

Daily Kos recommends that Democrats “back off Lott, and for heaven’s sake, don’t call for his resignation. He’s more valuable to us alive than dead.” I think this is allowing the thrill of the competition to distract one from the destination. Politics are, in ever-glorious and rather deeply flawed theory, a tool for governing the country well. Putting aside the goal of doing good by the country for the sake of political victories is, well, the sort of thinking that reminds me why I’m an anarchist. It’s too damned easy to slip into tactical thought when considering politics: “What would be best for the Republibertariocratic Green Party?:

I have just a little more on the Ninth Circuit gun control decision, to start off the morning. How Appealing pretty much sums it up here, here, and here. This is why he’s a practicing lawyer and I’m just an interested party. I was particularly interested in this SF Chronicle article (original), which talks about Judge Reinhardt and his approach to the law. It discusses what I think is admirable about the recent decision; namely, Judge Reinhardt’s tendency to confront cutting edge issues head on.

Via How Appealing: the Ninth Circuit today concluded that the Second Amendment confers no individual right to own and carry arms. (That link is a PDF.) I recommend reading the opinion if you’re interested in such things. I suspect the language and arguments presented therein will be core to the gun control debate for some time, at least for those who are pro-gun control. The argument seems to rest on the meaning of the phrase “keep and bear arms.” Judge Reinhardt’s opinion states that “bear arms” is a phrase used, historically, only in a military context. Quoting Aymette v. State, 21 Tenn. (2 Humph.) 154 (1840): “A man in pursuit of deer, elk and buffaloes might carry his rifle every day for forty years, and yet it would never be said of him that he had borne arms.” Given that interpretation, he further reasons that the phrase would be nonsensical if the phrase “keep arms” had a wider interpretation than the phrase “bear arms.” ...

Daily Kos has an excellent summary of Trent Lott’s recent comments on Strom Thurmond. I, of course, have Cliffs Notes: Trent Lott is our Senate Majority Leader. Strom Thurmond is the guy who ran for President in 1948 on a segregationist platform. Senator Lott’s comments include “When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years, either.”

Possibly that New York Times article on the economies of China and India wasn’t so great after all. The New Republic has more. I’m going to take credit for wondering how much foreign investment has to do with the differences anyhow; NRO suggests that a lot of the apparent Chinese economic growth is simply due to the amount of foreign investment flowing into China. (Link via Electrolite.)

While I’m thinking about Volokh, here’s another National Review article he wrote recently. Executive summary: we shouldn’t worry about military discrimination based on sexual preference, because the military does so much good for us. Well. There you go.