JEFF JACOBY: Armenian genocide was also a jihad.

Turkish authorities weren’t always so reluctant to accurately label the genocidal horror unleashed against the Armenians a century ago.

Talaat Pasha, the powerful Ottoman interior minister during World War I, certainly didn’t disguise his objective. “The Government . . . has decided to destroy completely all the indicated [Armenians] persons living in Turkey,” he brusquely reminded officials in Aleppo in a September 1915 dispatch. “An end must be put to their existence . . . and no regard must be paid to either age or sex, or to conscientious scruples.”

US Ambassador Henry Morgenthau, flooded with accounts of the torture, death marches, and butchery being inflicted on the Armenians, remonstrated with Talaat to no avail. “It is no use for you to argue,” Morgenthau was told. “We have already disposed of three quarters of the Armenians. . . . The hatred between the Turks and Armenians is now so intense that we have got to finish them. If we don’t, they will plan their revenge. . . . We will not have the Armenians anywhere in Anatolia.”

If some of them survived, it wasn’t for lack of effort by the killers. Of the roughly 2 million Armenians living in the country in 1914, 90 percent were gone by 1918. The death toll was well over one million; innumerable others fled for their lives. To read eyewitness descriptions of the ghastly cruelties the Armenian Christians were made to suffer a century ago is to be reminded that the jihadist savagery of ISIS and Al Qaeda is not an innovation.

That key fact is one the pope, to his credit, refuses to downplay: Armenians were victims not only of genocide, but also of jihad. In imploring his listeners on Sunday to hear the “muffled and forgotten cry” of endangered Christians who today are “ruthlessly put to death — decapitated, crucified, burned alive — or forced to leave their homeland,” Francis was reminding the world that the price of irresolution in the face of determined Islamist violence is as steep as ever.

The way you stop a genocide is, you kill the genocidaires until they not only give up, but shrink from the very thought.

SO I GUESS POPE FRANCIS ISN’T GOING TO STAY A LEFTY HERO FOR LONG: Pope Francis: Removal of Differences Between Man and Woman Is the Problem, Not the Solution: Says Gender Theory Causes Society to Take A Step in the Wrong Direction.

MARK RIPPETOE explains about weightlifting shoes. I replaced the Nike Free shoes that I was using, which weren’t bad, with the Rogue strapped shoes that he shows a while back. Walking in the Rogues is like walking with pieces of plywood on your feet — because, basically, that’s what you’re doing — but they’re much more stable for heavy squats.

CONGRESS VERSUS THE IRANIAN PARLIAMENT:  . . . and the Iranian Parliament seems to win.  Today, the Nuclear Committee of the Iranian Parliament issued a strange “factsheet” on the nuclear deal, which seems to contradict virtually every material aspect of the P5+1 Geneva Agreement, as conveyed by the Obama Administration.  In particular, the factsheet states that Iran agrees to only a 5-year deal (not 10-year); will be allowed to continue enriching uranium to 20% (weapons grade) if “needed”; won’t agree to shut down the Arak Heavy Water Reactor (which supplies plutonium necessary for bomb-making); and of course all Iranian sanctions must be terminated immediately, and in one single step.

Would Iran like fries with that agreement?

Meanwhile, back in the Bat Cave… the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday unanimously passed a toothless Corker-Menendez bill that appears to have a veto-proof majority.  After veto-proof congressional approval became inevitable, President Obama magnanimously said he wouldn’t bother to veto the bill.

Under the revised Corker-Menendez, Congress would only have 30 days to reject the Iranian deal; if it fails to do anything (which would not be surprising), the deal goes into effect, with the tacit approval of Congress.  And Congress also caved on the terrorism language of the bill, which used to require the President to certify, every 90 days, that Iran was not supporting terrorism against Americans (or the sanctions could be re-imposed).  That is now gone, an apparently disposable byproduct of garnering Democrat votes.

Wow– way to go, Congress.  You are negotiating away your constitutional prerogative to lift the sanctions you imposed via statute (and/or for 2/3 Senate ratification of treaties), in return for a mere 30-day window of consideration of a deal that the Iranians are already saying they won’t abide by.  This is what happens when a President successfully bullies Article I– Congress eventually gets the courage to feign a modicum of self-respect, but is so afraid that the President will “go around” them anyway (as he is wont to do) that it ends up giving the President its lunch money.

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FIRST-YEAR LAW STUDENTS: Thinking of transferring to UT Law? The transfer period is open!

JUXTAPOSITION WORTHY OF DRUDGE.

NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: Solid-phase synthesis of custom-made DNA nanotubes.

HISTORY: The Lincoln/Bentley Spat Dates Back More than 60 Years—as this 1953 Letter Attests. “At the time of the letter’s writing, in August of 1953, Ford was readying the 1956–57 Continental Mark II, a car many regard as the ne plus ultra of opulent Lincolnosity, a car that could legitimately compete with the Bentleys of the world for exclusivity. In fact, it was so exclusive, it was badged solely as a ‘Continental’—sans Lincoln. At the time, Bentley was preparing the S1-derived S Continental, its third automobile to bear the name, after the short-run Mark VI Continental and the 1952–55 R-type Continental, the cars that had initially aroused Ford’s ire. Have a gander at the two. While the machine from Crewe is not without its charms, the Yankee conveyance is clearly the more elegant of the pair.”

NO SURPRISE HERE: Chipotle Manager: Hillary Clinton Didn’t Leave Anything in Tip Jar.

I BLAME HEAVY STUDENT-LOAN DEBT: The Demise of the Starter Home: Eight reasons why that cornerstone of the American Dream, the entry-level house, is going the way of the dodo. They don’t mention that one, but I think it’s a major factor. So maybe I should’ve tagged this “higher education bubble update.”

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GEORGE LEEF: Sustainability: A new college fad with fangs. Tip: The more a school talks about “sustainability,” the less sustainable its business model probably is.

A 550-HP FORD TAURUS. “This is the fastest couch I’ve ever driven.”

SPACE: 9 of the Most Audacious Space Plans Ever Proposed by Humans.

HMM: Microsoft Surface 3 review: Smaller, slower, cheaper… better? “For all the missteps, the one thing that Microsoft truly nailed with the Surface line has been build quality. They feel like quality devices. The Surface 3 is no exception; it still has a magnesium alloy body, it still has a surprisingly sturdy kickstand, it still has neatly beveled edges. The front is once again all glass, and again the glass is optically bonded to the LCD panel, eliminating the air gap that would otherwise exist. This construction both enhances rigidity and improves the pen experience by ensuring that the digital ink appears as close as possible to the pen tip.”

WHEN LOVE ISN’T FREE:  An organization representing prostitutes in California (yes, you read that right) has filed a lawsuit in a federal district court in San Francisco, arguing that the Supreme Court’s substantive due process “liberty” decisions–which protect the right of consenting adults to engage in sex in private–also protect the right of consenting adults to pay for sex.  If it’s legal to have sex, the plaintiffs argue, how can it be illegal to pay for it?  And relatedly they argue:  If a person can pay for dinner, wine, roses and other items as a prelude to sex, why not just offer to pay the sexual partner cash instead?

This kind of litigation was predictable after the Court’s decision in Lawrence v. Texas (recognizing the liberty of consenting adults to engage in private, homosexual sodomy), though the Lawrence Court did explicitly note that the case didn’t involve sex-for-hire.   Justice Scalia’s dissent in Lawrence presciently predicted that it would open the floodgates to challenges of traditional marriage laws, prostitution, polygamy, and even incest.

In August, a federal trial judge in Utah struck down that state’s polygamy ban, concluding that it violated the 1st Amendment free exercise of religion rights of the “Sister Wives” polygamist TV show family.  Ruling on First Amendment grounds, however, is much narrower than on substantive due process “liberty” grounds.  So the question remains:  Do the rest of us–who aren’t particularly religious–have a constitutional right to polygamy?  Stay tuned– a lesbian “throuple” (3 persons) in Massachusetts is openly defying that state’s anti-polygamy law, claiming a right to polygamy.  

Polygamy aside, if we have a constitutional liberty to have sex, do we have a corresponding liberty to pay for sex?  Arguably, yes.  After all, doesn’t criminalization of prostitution demean the humanity and dignity of a person who has no romantic sexual partner? Or whose partner is physically unable to have sex with him/her?  Must that person seek out an adulterous or other third party “romantic” relationship, when all he/she really wants is sex?

One possibility the courts may use to distinguish prostitution is that it involves “commercialization” of sex, which is a distinction that still justifies legal prohibition of the sale/distribution of obscenity, but simultaneously allows individuals to consume/possess obscene materials in the privacy of their own home (Stanley v. Georgia).   But then again, if prostitution occurs in private– and particularly, in a private home (as opposed to a commercial establishment, such as a brothel), one would think the privacy-of-the-home rationale of Stanley could similarly grant constitutional protection to in-home prostitution.

Should the courts be “constitutionalizing” these sexual activities, or allow the political process to play out?  One state, Nevada, has statutorily allowed prostitution in certain places, pursuant to state regulation.

Being a libertarian, I see the policy arguments for enacting statutes like Nevada’s.  But being a constitutionalist, I think there are some democratic dangers to giving unelected federal judges the power to constitutionalize every “liberty” claim, which cuts short the political debate inherent with legislative change.  And the mother in me (which is inherently conservative) –with a teenage daughter– gets a little worried when I think of a world in which prostitution and polygamy are legal.  The times, they are a-changin.’

GREEN CARS GET CHEAPER: GM drops price of Spark EV to $25,995; lease to $139/month. All Told, Incentives Can Leave You With A $14,995 EV. Of course, since hardly anybody wants one, they have to be cheap.

GARY PULSINELLI: Happy Together? The Uneasy Coexistence of Federal and State Protection for Sound Recordings.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 706.

REASON TV: Remy: Best Song Ever (Tax Code Edition).

PROBABLY NOT WITH HILLARY AND OBAMA IN CHARGE: The U.S./Russian Diplomatic Debacle: Could It Have Been Otherwise?

Did the West bungle its relations with Russia after the Cold War? Was there a better way? This debate, now a quarter of a century old, will doubtless be with us for decades. The sides don’t seem to change much, nor do their arguments. Those who opposed the enlargement of NATO in the 1990s treat the war in Ukraine as proof that they were right all along. It was madness, they say, to challenge a core Russian security interest. Enlargement’s supporters, of course, claim vindication just as vehemently. For them, Putin’s aggression shows the wisdom of bringing new members into the alliance. Including Ukraine, they suggest, might have avoided the current crisis altogether.

While they differ in their policy prescriptions, these two sides converge on one point: their view of Russia. Great powers don’t change much, they tell us. Habits of domination are not easily unlearned. So expect a future full of potential trouble, and think carefully in advance about how to avoid it.

Centuries of conflict confirm such maxims.

Well, that was before we had Smart Diplomacy^TM so naturally there’s nothing to learn from history.

BRITAIN NEEDS AN INSURGENCY: Life in the Land of Britain’s Political Insurgents: From its base in a sleepy seaside town, the UK Independence Party is forcing a debate about immigration and national identity. But note how The Atlantic has to compare it to the KKK. But remember, Labour imported these immigrants for political reasons, and because it thought Britain was too white. So who’s the racialist, really?

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