SOME FINAL MEMORIAL DAY THOUGHTS:
May 27, 2024
OPEN THREAD: Ring out the long weekend.
AT AMAZON, Shop the Memorial Day Sale. #CommissionEarned
METAPHOR ALERT:
Biden's PR stunt of a Gaza floating pier is reportedly sinking pic.twitter.com/5Ol4sDrSPV
— HalalFlow (@halalflow) May 27, 2024
SPACE JUNK, BETTER PUT UP MY UMBRELLA: NASA report identifies cost-effective approaches to dealing with orbital debris.
OH, TO BE IN ENGLAND: Sunak’s Campaign: From Bad to Worse.
The Conservative Party has said it would bring back mandatory national service if it wins the general election.
It said 18-year-olds would have a choice of either joining the military full-time for 12 months, or volunteering one weekend every month carrying out a community service.
The party is proposing a Royal Commission to consider the details but would plan for the first teenagers to take part in September 2025.
The cost is expected to be around £2.5bn per year.
Under the plans, young people could choose a full-time placement in the armed forces or UK cyber defence, learning about logistics, cyber security, procurement or civil response operations.
Their other option would be to volunteer one weekend per month — or 25 days per year — in their community with organisations such as fire, police and the NHS.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he believed bringing back compulsory service across the UK would help foster the “national spirit” that emerged during the pandemic.
In response, NRO’s Andrew Stuttaford writes at the above link:
Sunak wants to bring back the “national spirit” that emerged during the pandemic, does he? The spirit of an overmighty state, hysterical overreaction, and petty denunciations.
If Sunak had any sense, he would keep very, very quiet about the behavior of the Tory government during the pandemic.
It’s worth adding that national service has, for good reasons (individual liberty and all that), played a very small part in British tradition, existing for only two periods in its history. The first was 1916–19, when having entered (unwisely) into a voluntary war in 1914, it ran out of volunteers to fight it. The second time was 1939–60, understandably enough, at least, during the Second World War but decreasingly so thereafter. The last conscript was discharged in 1963, ridiculously late.
The Tory party, the party of lockdowns, net zero, penal taxation, and social-media censorship has already shown itself to be a party, like its rivals even further to the left, of the authoritarian state. Now we have this. . . .
* * * * * * * *
Sunak has, of course, now made it easier for the coming Labour government to introduce some sort of (voluntary) eco corps or the like. But then thinking ahead is not his strongest point.
In 2022 at the American Conservative Jason Garshfield wrote that then-conservative PM Boris Johnson Missed His Churchill Moment in 2020:
When Johnson’s idol, Winston Churchill, first came to power in 1940, France was in the process of falling to Nazi Germany. Most of the other great European powers had already fallen. For a time, Britain stood alone in the world, the sole defender of the West, with Churchill at its helm. Even when his own ministers urged him to accept Hitler’s peace offer, Churchill held firm to his convictions and chose to fight on.
This is the laudable mantle that Johnson has, all his life, aspired to shoulder. He faced just such a defining moment in March of 2020. The entire world had surrendered to the People’s Republic of China, adopting its totalitarian disease-control strategy, and unlike France or Poland in World War II, we surrendered without a shot being fired. If any man in the world was well-positioned to stand against this, it was the garrulous British renegade, Boris Johnson.
Instead, the United Kingdom became a police state.
As Stuttaford noted above, “If Sunak had any sense, he would keep very, very quiet about the behavior of the Tory government during the pandemic.” Since he doesn’t, in response, Tom Slater, the editor the conservative-themed Spiked Website in England is concise: Bring on the bloodbath.
UPDATE: UK Tories: Life Imitates Art. “Seriously, Tories? You’re now lifting campaign ideas from 35-year old episodes of Yes, Prime Minister? Will it really be ‘the Grand Design’ for real?”
“The Labour Party will be terrible in office, but the Tory Party deserves to lose,” Steve Hayward writes.
HOW IT STARTED: Giffords warned heated rhetoric could have ‘consequences.’
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), who was shot in the head at a public event in Tucson, Ariz., Saturday, said in a March interview the heated political rhetoric surrounding the healthcare reform debate could have “consequences.”
Giffords, whose Tucson office was vandalized after she voted in favor of healthcare reform last March, discussed the matter in an appearance on MSNBC. She is currently in critical condition, but doctors are optimistic.
Some Democrats have responded to the shooting, in which five people were killed including a federal judge, by targeting inflammatory rhetoric that they said could encourage violent behavior.
Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) said, “America must not tolerate violence or inflammatory rhetoric that incites political violence.”
—The Hill, January 8th, 2011.
How it’s going: Who will hang next week, Trump or the jury?
—James D. Zirin, The Hill, today.
Exit question:
Hahah, remember when Sara Palin got dragged for crosshairs on a map? https://t.co/hduNlSfoMw
— apocalypse.jpg (@apocalypse_jpg) May 27, 2024
AT THE TIME, IT WAS SORT OF EMBARRASSING, BUT NOW IT MAKES FOR A FOND MEMORY: At the age of 11 or so, I was “Miss Poppy” of Northern Virginia. It meant that I dressed in a white dress decorated with crepe paper poppies (actually my Confirmation dress re-tooled for Memorial Day and other patriotic holidays). My job was to go to American Legion Posts in the area where I would recite John McCrae’s “In Flanders Fields.” I could also recite “America’s Answer.”
My favorite lines from the latter are:
Fear not that ye have died for naught;
The torch ye threw to us we caught,
Ten million hands will hold it high,
And freedom’s light shall never die!
We’ve learned the lesson that ye taught
In Flanders’ fields.
I don’t think I was the world’s best (or even Northern Virginia’s best) poetry reciter at the time. But the dress and the little green shoes and hat were cute.
HUMANS: We’re “super predators.” “Multiple studies in the Northern Hemisphere show the sound of our voices evokes more terror than other apex predators and now new research in the Southern Hemisphere reaches the same conclusion.”
Top of the food chain, baby, and don’t you forget it. If you don’t believe me, ask a saber-tooth tiger.
IF IT WERE A MEDICINE IT WOULD BE A MIRACLE DRUG: New Research Reveals That Exercise Can Rewire Brains and Erase Traumatic Memories.
IN FLANDERS FIELDS: The origin of the Remembrance Poppy.
BEEGE WELBORN: On Serving Your Country: Honor and Remembrance.
Memorial Day weekends are especially hard at our house. As a military family with someone in uniform for every conflict this great nation has faced going back to the Revolutionary War, we have a reverence for this land, what it takes to defend it, and those who do. We cherish the time spent in the uniforms representing her, and have been so damn proud to wear them.
We had also been singularly blessed through all those generations that we never lost a family member while wearing one. There have been close calls. The most spectacular is my memory of the story of my Uncle Bobby, a young Marine at the time, who fell three decks on the USS New Jersey during the chaos of a typhoon while off the coast of Korea during that conflict. Months in the hospital in traction, and they weren’t sure if he’d even walk again.
He did.
But that run of good fortune and health changed in 2016, when, as I recounted in my Memorial Day post last year, we lost SSG John Perry to a suicide bombing in Afghanistan.
Read the whole thing.
#GREENFAIL: Those ‘All Electric’ Fire Trucks are a Sad Joke. “The supposedly ‘all-electric’ fire engine has a diesel engine in it. The pumps that actually deliver the water to put out fires run off of the diesel engine and the truck itself can run off of diesel when the battery inevitably runs out. So the entire description of ‘all-electric’ is a farce.”
WELL, GOOD: HPV vaccine linked to sharp reduction in risk of cancers in men. It’s too bad, though, that dishonesty and malfeasance among public health people has led to an increased skepticism of vaccines in general.
OUR ACADEMIC CLASS’S SELF-MARGINALIZATION CONTINUES: Shrieking Eel: Had That Been My Commencement When Ken Burns Spoke, I’d Want My Tuition Back.
BE PREPARED: Victorinox Jetsetter Swiss Army Knife. #CommissionEarned
DESPITE ALL THE LEFTY HYSTERIA: Firearm-Related Fatalities are Third Lowest on Record.
IF PUTIN DOESN’T LIKE HIS NEIGHBORS JOINING NATO, HE SHOULD TRY NOT INVADING HIS NEIGHBORS: Sweden’s NATO Membership Unlocks the Baltic Sea for Alliance, Ends 200 Years of Neutrality.
HIS QUALIFICATION FOR OFFICE WAS THAT HE LIKES TRAINS: Buttigieg Blames Increase in Extreme Turbulence on Climate Change Because… Why Not?
DIED IN BED AS A TRIPLE ACE, 80 YEARS AFTER THE WAR: Bud Anderson, America’s last World War II ‘triple ace,’ dies at 102.
I know Memorial Day is for those who died in combat, not in bed, so here’s to all the guys who didn’t manage to achieve this kind of an end.
LIBERTARIAN PARTY REJECTS RFK JR. BID FOR NOMINATION, RULES TRUMP INELIGIBLE:
The presumptive Republican nominee was booed when he told those at the Libertarian Party convention to “combine” with his campaign. He also pledged to place a Libertarian in his cabinet and senior posts. Trump received just six write-in votes in the first round of voting, and the Libertarian Party chair said the former president was ineligible to be the party’s nominee.
“We cannot give Crooked Joe Biden four more years,” Trump said, adding that the party should join forces with his campaign.
“Only do that if you want to win. If you want to lose, don’t do that. Keep getting your three percent every four years,” Trump said.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Sunday afternoon that even if he were selected as the Libertarian Party’s nominee, he couldn’t accept it since he is set to be nominated by the Republican Party in July.
“Regardless, I believe I will get a Majority of the Libertarian Votes,” he added. “‘Junior’ Kennedy is a Radical Left Democrat, who’s destroyed everything he’s touched, especially in New York and New England, and in particular, as it relates to the Cost and Practicality of Energy. He’s not a Libertarian. Only a FOOL would vote for him!”
Of course, both candidates failed the libertarian test, but for different reasons: Why libertarians don’t trust RFK Jr.
RFK Jr. is himself a former Democrat, of course — and a progressive one, at that. He has a long history of energy and climate activism completely contrary to the limited government ethos of libertarianism. He previously called the National Rifle Association a “terrorist group”, although he does support the second amendment. He said the Koch brothers should be prosecuted for treason on environmentalist grounds. He also supports student loan debt forgiveness and affirmative action, both liberal stances.
Nevertheless, after RFK Jr. formally left the Democratic Party in October 2023 — opting to face-off against President Joe Biden in the general election rather than the primaries — widespread speculation ensued that he might seek the Libertarian Party’s nomination. Last summer, he attended FreedomFest, an annual gathering of libertarians, and emphasised his involvement in issues that matter to us: most notably, the federal government’s efforts to suppress dissenting speech on social media, particularly relating to Covid-19.
Indeed, RFK Jr.’s contrarian views on Covid-19 policies like mandates, lockdowns, and the vaccines themselves have made him a target of social media censors, who were often pressured by government agents to take down provocative speech. (The Supreme Court is currently weighing whether these actions violated the First Amendment in Murthy v. Missouri.) Many of the underlying views are themselves attractive to libertarians; one need not agree with everything RFK Jr. has said about vaccines to nevertheless admire his opposition to making them compulsory.
It was RFK Jr.’s opposition to mandates and lockdowns that first drew the attention of some libertarians. When I spoke with her in June 2023, McArdle was optimistic that his views on the pandemic had “stirred an awakening within him, causing him to reconsider many of his other political stances.”
Following the 7 October attack by Hamas on Israel, RFK Jr. expressed unqualified support for the US continuing to send aid to Israel, a stance that alienated many libertarians, who do not believe American taxpayers should be required to fund foreign wars. Support for RFK Jr. among rank-and-file LP members now appears lukewarm at best; at a California Libertarian Party convention in February, Kennedy garnered just one vote in the straw poll.
America’s Newspaper of Record notes that Trump was rejected for yet another reason besides his policies: Trump Booed For Wearing Deodorant At Libertarian Convention.
HANGING A FEW LEGISLATORS FROM LAMPPOSTS ALONG THE HIGHWAY WOULD HAVE A DIFFERENT KIND OF CAUTIONARY EFFECT: Speeding cars could start beeping to nag their drivers into slowing down: If passed, a California bill would force new vehicles to send out visual and auditory alerts every time a driver goes 10 mph past a speed limit.
OUT ON A LIMB: Nellie Bowles: ‘It’s not healthy to tell kids that being white is bad.’
What’s happening in schools, where the “toxic trends of whiteness” are being taught to young children, is one example, and in the book Bowles writes about a four-day “toxic whiteness” workshop she attended in 2021, where she listens to various white people self-flagellate about how their very existence “perpetuates whiteness” and how shameful that is.
“Because I really don’t think it’s healthy to tell young kids that they are white, and that their whiteness has enormous [negative] meaning,” she says, citing the “white traits” that controversial critical race theorists such as Robin DiAngelo insist exist. “It’s also just so reductive, this reification of race, and I think a lot of it is very counterproductive.” Neither is it helpful “for people to be constantly reminded of their supposed ancestors’ crimes,” she points out.
Another example of small factions having an outsized impact is what is happening at her alma mater, Columbia University, right now, and campuses across the US. “It’s the soldiers of a movement who are extremely effective at public shaming and dominating the conversation,” she says. “But it’s not the majority of people at these places.”
There were always protests when Bowles was at Columbia, she says. “And I think it’s great when college kids protest. It’s awesome – in general. But these protests? They’ve obviously got out of control. You’ve had the kids trapping janitors in the buildings and it has clearly escalated beyond a simple college demonstration.” So, at this point, what should be happening? “At this point you say, ‘this crosses the line and we’re going to call the police in on this situation.’ I honestly don’t think that’s crazy! And it’s especially clear cut at public universities, like, say, UCLA. Because when you have students taking over swathes of campus and saying: ‘Jewish students can’t walk down this path anymore’ – well, that’s illegal. So you have to call the cops.”
I tell her how Rishi Sunak called the leaders of Britain’s top universities to Downing Street earlier this month and insisted a “zero tolerance” approach to anti-Semitism be taken on campus. Has Biden been clear enough on this? Bowles pulls a face. “No. I don’t think so. And it’s beyond what we’re seeing at the universities. We’re in a dark moment in that particular story.”
When she asks me whether I’ve seen more anti-Semitism in the US or the UK, I have to be honest and say that although there has obviously been a clear escalation here since Oct 7, I personally noticed a marked rise in America from the start of the pandemic.
“It’s very worrisome watching the rhetoric,” she murmurs. And it didn’t come out of nowhere. Bowles is sure of this because she didn’t ignore Antifa, even when her NYT colleagues told her it was “a nothing burger”, “a non-story”. And when she flew to Seattle where the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone group had occupied six blocks of the city, she found young men with guns on their laps guarding their “autonomous zone”; she saw looting and anarchy.
“What Antifa brought in those years was the idea that violence could be part of the conversation. That a little bit of tension in the air and the possibility of violence was a good thing for protests. Now, we’re seeing that attitude, which was so fringe, normalised in a way that is so dangerous. In these protests on college campuses, we’re seeing the threat of violence woven in proudly. Now, I think it’s fine to call for war if you want to call for war, but let’s be clear: if you’re doing this, you’re not anti-war, you’re pro-war.”
Not anti-war, just on the other side, to coin an Instaphrase.
Earlier: Look Back In Anger: Nellie Bowles’ Morning After The Revolution Documents the Insanity that was 2020.
