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June 21, 2004

The Birth of a Meme: "Punitive Liberalism"

Writing in The Weekly Standard, James Piereson offers a useful addition to the American political glossary: "punitive liberalism." This "bizarre doctrine," which found its fullest expression in the presidency of Jimmy Carter, holds that "America had been responsible for numerous crimes and misdeeds through its history for which it deserved punishment and chastisement." Those who disagree "were written off as ignorant patriots who could not face up to the sins of the past."

This makes so much sense I am physically angered that I didn't think of it first. I am beating the stuffings out of my therapist-prescribed "Anger Puppets." My Anger Puppets are supposed to teach me the difference between "good touching" and "criminal assault." But I've stripped the clothes off them and I'm now arranging them in a naked puppet pyramid.

I may force one puppet to have sex with a Kenner(TM) Jabba's Prisoner Princess Leia figure. That'll show him.

Why do liberals always support military action when there is no national security threat implicated (Kosovo, Haiti, etc.) but start preaching pacificism when there is (Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, North Korea)?

Because we have sinned. We have to send troops to Haiti as pennance for our sins. We have to bomb Serbia for 77 days because we stole this country from the Indians.

But when a country actually threatens us?

Heavens! We daren't take military action. That would inure to our national-security self-interests, and we're not deserving of acting in our own best interests.

Perhaps, one day, after we've transferred one half of the country's wealth to Africa and the Middle East, then the ledger will be evened-up and we will be able to occasionally act in our own interests, as non-sinful countries like France are allowed to do.

But until that day-- we can act only in order to vindicate someone else's interests. Never, never, never our own.

posted by Ace at 04:50 PM

Comments

It's an interesting theory, but explain to me how, exactly, our actions in Somalia (for example) were in anyone's interests? The military disasters you listed weren't just examples of American altruism, they were examples of us sending troops to places without considering anyone's interests whatsoever.

Posted by: Aaron on June 21, 2004 05:17 PM

"My Anger Puppets are supposed to teach me the difference between "good touching" and "criminal assault." But I've stripped the clothes off them and I'm now arranging them in a naked puppet pyramid. "

Just.F*ing.Brilliant! Haven't laughed this hard since Allah went all gloomy. Poor dear!

Speaking of the beloved deity, someone needs to go and get him drunk, and possibly laid. I'd volunteer, but I have some,er, moral constraints about consorting with a deity.

Meanwhile, I have no constraints about reading your blog....and liking it.

Posted by: Joan of Argghh! on June 21, 2004 05:27 PM

Hey Joan...I'm feeling down, and I'm not a Diety (or an angel for that matter)...nudge, nudge.

Be careful with those puppets Ace! Sully might get wind of their "torture" and spend 3 weeks agonizing over whether he should read your blog or Oliver Willis'.

Posted by: on June 21, 2004 05:51 PM

Grrrr... I had the last post (hitting on poor Joan)..but forgot my info, as is typical these days.

Posted by: Senator PhilABuster on June 21, 2004 05:52 PM

"President" Clinton echoed this theme at a talk at Georgetown University, saying in essence that we deserved 9/11 due to our past sins. The WaPo was there and declined to report on this outrage.

Posted by: dib on June 21, 2004 05:52 PM

I'm willing to bet Jimmy Carter and those who share his beliefs were laughable dodge ball players. They were the tubby kids who got consistently clipped on the skull or on the back of the knees as they fled in terror from that screaming, redrubber alpha male decider.

This is just a theory I'm working on, mind you, but anecdotally at least, it's ironclad.

Posted by: Jeff G on June 21, 2004 05:57 PM

I heard someone compare Republicans to a good parent who encourages the kids to keep trying. Then they compared liberals to an abusive parent who tells the kids they'll never amount to anything and that they'll always need help.

Posted by: rdbrewer on June 21, 2004 06:11 PM

Hey Ace, I think you missed the real story on WSJ's OpinionJournal:

Parkhudin, a 26-year-old Afghan farmer who was held at Guantánamo from February 2003 to March 2004, said in an interview in Khost that he had been questioned for up to 20 hours at a time under uncomfortable conditions at Guantánamo. He said he had been shackled with a small chain during questioning. ''They made me stand in front of an air-conditioner,'' he said. ''The wind was very cold.''

First, we rape them, then we turn on the fans? Will the horror never cease?

Posted by: Shawn on June 21, 2004 08:49 PM

Yep, very well written piece, although I'm with Taranto - it ain't dead yet.

But Reagan made it look boneheaded to hate America for 8 years.

Posted by: Dave in Texas on June 21, 2004 09:03 PM

Wait, let me get this straight. A native of Afghanistan (mountainous country with balls-shatteringly cold weather) imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (Island country with balls-scorchingly hot weather) is complaining about AC?

WTFO?

Posted by: Brian B on June 21, 2004 09:03 PM

I'm willing to bet Jimmy Carter and those who share his beliefs were laughable dodge ball players. They were the tubby kids who got consistently clipped on the skull...

So that's how Carter got that way.

It's an interesting theory but it doesn't hold up: I was a nerdy wuss in school too and look at me: all conservative and everything! I must've been one of the lucky ones...

Posted by: Smack on June 21, 2004 11:34 PM

I was also a nerdy wuss who got beat at Dodgeball all the time.
It taught me that pain means nothing if there is no actual injury, and to keep trying against impossible odds and that "losing less badly than before" is still a victory of sorts, and better than giving up or whining about it.

Posted by: nathan on June 22, 2004 01:28 AM

So, sorry, they theory doesn't hold. I sucked at dodgeball too. Got clipped all the time. All it taught me was that when the other kid has a red rubber ball, get yourself a JDAM.

Through that red rubber ball, sucker, I dare you.

Posted by: Brock on June 22, 2004 10:14 AM

So when does the War on Liberals/Leftists begin?

Posted by: recon on June 22, 2004 12:49 PM

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What? Skeleton of the most famous Musketeer, D'Artagnan, possibly discovered in Dutch church closet.
Dumas picked four names of real musketeers out of a history book, D'Artagnan, Athos, Aramis, and Porthos. So there was an actual D'Artagnan, though he made most of the story up. (Or, you know, all of it.)*

Charles de Batz de Castelmore, known as d'Artagnan, the famous musketeer of Kings Louis XIII and Louis XIV, spent his life in the service of the French crown.
The Gascon nobleman inspired Alexandre Dumas's hero in "The Three Musketeers" in the 19th century, a character now known worldwide thanks to the novel and numerous film adaptations.
D'Artagnan was killed during the siege of Maastricht in 1673, and there is a statue honoring the musketeer in the city. His final resting place has remained a mystery ever since.

A lot of Dumas's stories are based on bits of real history. The plot of the >Three Musketeers, about trying to recover lost diamonds from the queen's necklace, was cribbed from the then-almost-contemporaneous Affair of the Queen's Necklace. And the Man in the Iron Mask is based on real accounts of a prisoner forced to wear a mask (though I think it was a velvet mask).
* Oh, I should mention, Dumas says all this, about finding the names in an old book, in the prologue to his novel. But authors lie a lot. They frequently present fictions as based on historic fact. The twist is, he was actually telling the truth here. At least about these four musketeers having actually existed and served under Louis XIV.
Fun fact: You know the beginning of A Fistful of Dollars where the local gunslingers make fun of Clint Eastwood's donkey and Eastwood demands they apologize to the donkey? That's lifted from The Three Musketeers. Rochefort mocks D'Artagnan's old, brokedown farm horse and D'Artagnan is incensed.

A commenter asked which should be read first, The Hobbit of LOTR?
Easy, no question -- read The Hobbit first. It's actually the start of the story and comes first chronologically. It sets up some major characters and major pieces in play in LOTR.
Also, the Hobbit is Beginner-Friendly, which LOTR isn't. The Hobbit really is a delightful book, and a fast read. It's chatty, it's casual, it's exciting, and it's funny. In that dry cheeky British humor way. I love that the narrator is constantly making little asides and commentary, like he's just sitting next to you telling you this story as it occurs to him.
LOTR is a very long story. Fifteen hundred pages or so. The Hobbit is relatively short and very punchy and easy to read. If you don't like The Hobbit, you can skip out on LOTR. If you do like it, you'll be primed to read LOTR.
Oh, I should say: The Hobbit is written as if it's for children, but one of those smart children's stories that are also for adults. Don't worry, there's also real fighting and violence and horror in it, too.
LOTR is written for adults. (It's said that Tolkien wrote both for his children, but LOTR was written 17 years later, when his children were adults.) Some might not like The Hobbit due to its sometimes frivolous tone. Me, I love it. I find it constantly amusing. Both are really good but there is a starkly different tone to both. LOTR is epic, grand, and serious, about a world war, The Hobbit is light and breezy, and about a heist. Though a heist that culminates in a war for the spoils.

The Hobbit Challenge: Read two more chapters. I didn't have much time. Bilbo got the ring.
I noticed a continuity problem. Maybe. Now, as of the time of The Hobbit, it was unknown that this magic ring was in fact a Ring of Power, and it was doubly unknown that it was the Ring of Power, the Master Ring that controlled the others.
But the narrator -- who we will learn in LOTR was none of than Bilbo himself, who wrote the book as "There and Back Again" -- says this about Gollum's ring:
"But who knows how Gollum had come by that present [the Ring], ages ago in the old days when such rings were still at large in the world? Perhaps even the Master who ruled them could not have said."
In another passage, the ring is identified as a "ring of power."
I don't know, I always thought there was a distinction between mere magic rings and the Rings of Power created by Sauron. But this suggests that Bilbo knew this was a ring of power created by Sauron.
Now I don't remember when Bilbo wrote the Hobbit. In the movie, he shows Frodo the book in Rivendell, and I guess he wrote it after he left the Shire. I guess he might have added in the part about the ring being a ring of power created by "the Master" after Gandalf appraised him of his research into the ring.
I never noticed this before. I know Tolkien re-wrote this chapter while he was writing LOTR to make the ring important from the start. And also to make Gollum more sinister and evil, and also to remove the part where Gollum actually offers Bilbo the ring as a "present" -- Bilbo had already found it on his own, but Gollum was wiling to give it away, which obviously is not something the rewritten Gollum would ever do.
But I had no memory of the ring being suggested to be The Ring so early in the tale.

Finish the job, Mr. President!
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Podcast: Sefton and CBD talk about how would a peace treaty with Iran work, Democrats defending murderers and rapists, The GOP vs. Dem bench for 2028, composting bodies? And more!

Oh, I forgot to mention this quote from Pete Hegseth, reported by Roger Kimball: "We are sharing the ocean with the Iranian Navy. We're giving them the bottom half."

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Forgotten 80s Mystery Click: Red Leather Suit and Sweatband Edition
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Tomorrow is March 25th, "Tolkien Reading Day," because March 25th is the day when the Ring is destroyed in the book. I think I'm going to start the Hobbit tomorrow and read all four books this time.
The only bad part of the trilogy are the Frodo/Sam chapters in The Two Towers. They're repetitive, slow, and mostly about the weather and terrain. But most everything else is good. Weirdly, the Frodo-Sam chapters in Return of the King are exciting and action-packed and among the best in the trilogy. (Though the chapters with everyone else in Return of the King get pretty slow again. Mostly people talking about marching towards war, and then marching towards war.)

Sec. Army recognizes ODU Army ROTC cadets for their bravery and sacrifice in private ceremony
[Hat Tip: Diogenes] [CBD]

TJM gives you a brief tour of his movie collection.

Forgotten 80s Mystery Click
One day I'm gonna write a poem in a letter
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US decimation of Iran's ICBM forces is due to Space Force's instant detection of launches -- and the launchers' hiding places -- and rapid counter-attack via missiles
AI is doing a lot of the work in analyzing images to find the exact hiding place of the launchers. Counter-strikes are now coming in four hours after a launch, whereas previously it might have taken days for humans to go over the imagery and data.

Robert Mueller, Former Special Counsel Who Probed Trump, Dies

“robert mueller just died,” trump wrote in a truth social post on march 21. “good, i’m glad he’s dead. he can no longer hurt innocent people! president donald j. trump.”

TJM has thoughts on Superheros and Iconography

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Podcast: Sefton and CBD have a short chat about Iran, the disgusting SAVE Act theater, Mamdani's politicizing of St. Patrick's Day, and more!

Official confirmation from the Joint Chiefs of Staff: the Warthog is now strafing Iranian fast attack boats