I’m accumulating too many topics, so it’s time for another inventory dump. Above is one: Hakeem Jeffries delivers an epic “huminahumina” response to a simple question with a clear answer because he doesn’t have the integrity to admit the real answer. There is no way to distinguish Obama’s bombing of Libya from Trump’s attack on Iran, other than American interests are far more tied to Iran’s fate than Libya’s.
I am reaching the point where I have to reset my brain any time I learn that another freind is inclined to support the Democratic Party, meaning the current version, the one, in 2026, that apparently bases its entire justification for its existence on blind hate for the President of the United States, and seems to think that makes sense as well as make them heroic. And they aren’t even embarrassed about it, no matter how many times they are shown that Trump is finally pursuing courses they advocated not long ago.
The NeverTrump conservatives are arguably even worse. Bill Kristol, who a month ago tweeted out that it would be a disgrace if Trump didn’t take decisive action to “help the brave people of Iran overthrow a cruel and terrorism-sponsoring dictatorship,” yesterday tweeted that “Maybe Rubio should stop inventing ‘imminent threats’ to justify the war his administration started and get to work doing his department’s job of helping Americans in the war zone they created.”
The apparent 50-50 split in the public over the Iran war, coming—let’s see—47 years after it should have, isn’t surprising. One nice, kind, smart, religious freind posted a meme on Facebook showing Jesus destroying a missile. That’s nice. Stupid, but nice. Too many Americans are weenies, too many never have the stomach for necessary military action, too many think guns are icky and “if it saves just one life” to sit back and keep saying “Don’t!” like Joe Biden, that’s being compassionate. Not enough Americans have served in the military or have loved ones who have. Too many don’t want America to shoulder the job of stepping in to fix the biggest problems and crush the worst international evildoers even though the choice is us or no one.
That’s still better than a culture that wants wars.
Meanwhile…
1. At least one furious Trump-Hater, George Will, can demonstrate integrity. In his column “At last, the credibility of U.S. deterrence is being being restored: The perhaps 30,000 protesters who perished in Iran’s streets in early January did not die in vain,” Will endorses the bold action of the President he despises. He wrote,
“Some say that U.S. involvement in Iran constitutes a “war of choice.” That too casually bandied phrase rarely fits untidy reality. America’s Civil War was a choice: Lincoln chose not to heed those — they were not few — who agreed with the prominent publisher Horace Greeley. He said of the seceding Southern states, “Let the erring sisters go in peace.” Lincoln chose against such national suicide. Donald Trump’s administration has chosen not to wager U.S. safety on Iran’s abandoning its multi-decade pursuit of nuclear weapons, or on Iran’s acquiring them but not really meaning “Death to America.”
For Israel, the death of Iran’s self-proclaimed genocidal regime was a choice only in the sense that Israel chose to believe the regime when it called Israel a “one-bomb country.” Tyrants lie promiscuously, but occasionally are candid. In 1939, Adolf Hitler said a world war would mean “the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe.” Israel exists because Hitler meant that. Israel’s survival depends on forever thinking that nothing is unthinkable.
The U.S. action for regime change in Iran is not sufficient to produce regional tranquility. It is, however, a necessity for beginning to reestablish a precondition for a more peaceable world: the credibility of U.S. deterrence.”
Welcome back to the real world, George! The Ivy League, buttoned-up class snob couldn’t bear being in a nation with such an unmannerly peasant at the metaphorical helm, but at least his principles aren’t completely subject to bias. I may even start reading him regularly again….Nah.
2. Megyn Kelly, on the other hand, is a depressing reminder that a disproportionate number of the “Ew! Violence!” Americans in that 50% are women. Here was her embarrassing take on the U.S. attack:
“First and foremost, I, Megyn Kelly, am praying for the troops. That’s where my mind immediately went. The guys in the and the gals who have to actually carry out this mission… why again? And put their lives on the line… for whom, again? [Those] are the ones who are on my mind, and I prayed for them mightily yesterday and the day before, and I hope you have and will continue to as well. There are massive divisions over what we’ve done here, and people are going to change their minds over the coming days and weeks, one way or the other.
“But my own feeling is no one should have to die for a foreign country. I don’t think those four service members died for the United States. I think they died for Iran or for Israel. I understand how this helps Iran perfectly well. I get it. I mean, I hope, long term, we’ll see… But they seem rather jubilant, 80% of the country does not support the Ayatollah. He was a terrible, terrible man. No one is crying that he’s dead, no normal person, but our government’s job is not to look out for Iran or for Israel. It’s to look out for us.”
a). The “praying for our troops” virtue-signaling is nauseating and manipulative, as well as pretty close to being signature significance for an untrustworthy pundit. b) Preventing a nation that has been screaming “Death to America” from becoming a nuclear power is looking out for the U.S. So is giving oppressed people a chance to be free, because that, after all, is what this nation stands for. c) So Kelly is another “the Jews really run everything” conspiracy theorist! Good to know.
3. I should have posted this on Founders Day on Ethics Alarms. The scene was the oral argument before the SCOTUS Justices. In the course of arguing that heavy marijuana use was a constitutional reason to have one’s Second Amendment rights curtailed, the government, taking an anti-drug position that morphed into an anti-gun position, cited the colonial “habitual drunkard” laws that imposed certain restrictions on individuals who were raging drunks. Justice Neil Gorsuch made a surprising point to respond to the analogy. Gorsuch said, “The habitual drunkard, the American Temperance Society [said] back in the day, has eight shots of whiskey a day. [That] only made you an occasional drunkard,” he said. In the Founding era, Gorsuch said, “you had to do double that. John Adams took a drink of hard cider with his breakfast every day. James Madison reportedly drank a pint of whiskey every day. Thomas Jefferson said he wasn’t much of a user of alcohol; he only had three or four glasses of wine a night!”
“Are they all habitual drunkards who would be properly disarmed for life under your theory?” Gorsuch asked.
Americans used to drink much more before Prohibition than they do now, and drunkenness was far more common as well as less stigmatized until it reached extreme proportions. That doesn’t mean 19th century standards should control ours, but if an advocate for curtailing gun rights is going to cite 18th and 19th century authorities, that advocate is obligated to know the cultural context.
4. From the “These people are crazy” and “Res Ipsa Loquitur” files...
5. Imagine: This Atlantic puff-piece is actually talking about Pete Buttigieg, the failed small city mayor who became the most ineffective and incompetent Secretary of Transportation ever while taking long breaks from his job at the worst possible moments. Head Explosion Warning!
“Buttigieg’s critics seem to fault him for the vaguest reasons, many of which come down to: he’s too perfect; he’s not authentic; he’s not a man of the people. It’s an odd line of attack. Is it possible to be too perfect? Is perfection a flaw? Social psychology has documented something known as the “pratfall effect”: the distrust of people deemed too perfect.”
This is, again, Pete Buttigieg getting such fawning treatment, a man whose only qualification for office is that he’s gay at a time when for some reason in the Age of the Great Stupid where and into whom you choose to insert your patootie is deemed a credential.
Too perfect? Here’s this jerk’s Ethics Alarms dossier. Almost as disheartening as Ethics Alarms’ AWOL columnist Curmie’s deterioration due to Trump Derangement is Popehat’s Ken White joining The Atlantic as a pundit. Few publications have disgraced themselves more. I expected better from Ken.
Note: Now WordPress’s page break is malfunctioning again. I give up!
Ethics Alarms 
When did U.S. news outlets start publishing the number of enemy military and civilian casualties? I don’t remember that from Vietnam. U.S. casualties, yes. North Vietnamese casualties, no. Why do the media care about how many Iranians are dead? They are the enemy. Did U.S. newspapers publish a running tab on German and Japanese casualties during World War Two? I don’t get it. If too many Iranians are getting killed, all they have to do is agree to stop being assholes and surrender.
I’m confused. Are you expecting that people are uninterested in the fate of anyone in the “enemy” category, and that all of those enemies see themselves as in the wrong but are unwilling to admit it and stop until enough of them die?
Number of enemy combatants killed is a meaningless measure in order to determine whether war aims are being achieved, as the Vietnam war proved.
The Iranian population is not a target of the USA; the majority of Iran want the Islamic regime gone. We cannot trust statistics provided by the Islamic regime.
We should be utterly indifferent to the fate of members of the IRGC and the Basiji; the more we kill the better it is for the Iranian population that wants freedom.
The enemy casualty numbers are a) untrustworthy, b) used to manipulate public sympathy in favor of the US adversaries and c) irrelevant. Casualties on both sides were largely withheld during WWII, and that was a responsible decision.
If one cares at all about what the country of Iran will be like after the conflict is over and they stop being an enemy, I would expect the enemy casualty numbers to become relevant at some point. Otherwise there’s a very good chance of winning the war and losing the peace, as they say.
In the meantime, points a and b seem like compelling reasons not to report them in the meantime. The only major downside I can see to waiting until the conflict is over before reporting the full story is that if the conflict goes on for more than a few years, the public will have a harder time holding the president accountable for doing a good job. We do need a way for making sure the president’s foreign policy serves the public’s interests rather than special interests. Of course, if we assume that anyone who gets the job of president must be trustworthy, then we don’t need to worry about it.
We do need a way for making sure the president’s foreign policy serves the public’s interests rather than special interests.
The gambit goes like this: The country is heading to bankruptcy; horribly destructive choices were made by The Reagan Class when industries were uprooted and sent to China where peons worked for starvation-wages. The “special interest” class did that and they described it like a Gospel mission of divine goodness to spread wealth over the planet. Such good men! So very (“”) ethical. Then, they said it was morally righteous to import a (lower wage) class from the Third World. Hymns were sung to celebrate multiculturalism.
Ooooopsie! Things went downhill. The social body got more sick. Oh and then those wars! Hundreds of thousand of enemies died (Who cares? the Demiurge feeds on death) and those who killed them suffer psychic disease. The “heartland” begins to collapse. But they are the “non-college educated class” who came under the spell of Trump’s siren song of demagoguery.
As it turns out, to make America great you have to head out on to the Seven Seas swing around some weight. And it is crucial to get firmly a hold on 1) Venezuela oil and 2) ME oil. 3) Restrict China and India access (that arrogant Modi needs to remember “proper hierarchies”). China is waaaaay too powerful (I am unclear how they can be knocked down about 8 pegs, but it is best (for us) if this happens. They are very clever and powerful adversaries though. Watch out!
Special interests come first in realpolitik. You got to win certain battles first, then the benefits ‘trickle’ down.
We do need a way for making sure the president’s foreign policy serves the public’s interests rather than special interests.
Wars always serve special interests. The question is whether they are justified regardless. WWI was infamously pushed in the US by corporate interests. WWII got FDR out of the Depression. Again: motives are usually mixed, and the objective is what matters. Is removing a long-time evil regime like Iran’s an ethical objective, and is the US the only plausible agent of that change? Does the Us and the World benefit from that result? Yes, yes, and probably. Then who else benefits is irrelevant.
Kelly and so many others opine in a given way to get attention. Using her logic we should have never invaded France to fight the Nazis or the Kaiser years earlier.
I wonder how many civilian lives must be taken here at home to justify eliminating a foreign threat.
None of us have the intel that the government has but we think we can second guess the elected decision makers. I am no foreign policy expert but I can surmise that someone wanting enrich uranium well beyond that necessary for civilian energy production and medical needs is doing so to create a weapon. This is especially true when they reject the offer of nuclear fuel for free from US and they will not make their facilities above ground.
Kelly, et al who eschew preemptive strikes will never have to face the public and explain why their belief was to do nothing while allowing the adversary to stockpile the necessary materials or capacity to launch a strike on us.
We ignored the Japanese to our peril in the years leading up to December 7 1941.
Part of the MAGA constituency tends to support an isolationist policy, and does not want to see the USA involved in foreign entanglements. Megyn Kelly is one of them. She also has been playing interception for Tucker Carlson since his interview with Nick Fuentes.
Marjorie Taylor Greene has joined this club. We need to keep an eye on Matt Walsh. Now the Federalist has joined the club with the article linked below, and the executive summary is “It appears that President Trump allowed Israel, our purported ally, to drag the United States into war against Iran“.
https://thefederalist.com/2026/03/03/how-israel-chain-ganged-the-trump-administration-into-war-against-iran/
The common theme is of all those is:
I just subscribed again to the National Review as they have a much more levelheaded perspective on Iran, despite their very critical approach to Donald Trump.
Given that perspective such that we should not fight other people’s battles why do we remain a member of NATO or SEATO?
More to the point why build our military up if all we need to do is nuke a country that attacks us with conventional weapons?
I don’t buy the argument that MAGA demands no preemptive strikes to avoid a much larger conflict.
The first point I want to make is that the war on Iran does serve the interest of the United States, and by extension the free world including Israel.
The second point is that it is a good think for the USA to have allies. The justification for the creation of the NATO has to do with the Cold War and the Warsaw Pact. As the USSR and the Warsaw Pact do not exist anymore there are reasons to review the relationship, and have the European partners in that alliance to carry more of the financial weight of the NATO. I would not write of the NATO as useless though, judging from the following reaction of NATO Secretary General Rutte.
I’m currently reserving judgment on the U.S. attack on Iran. I’d like to believe that it was necessary for maintaining U.S. national security, and I hold the Trump administration responsible for demonstrating that once things have settled a bit.
In the meantime, Braver Angels is having a national Zoom debate about Trump’s foreign policy. Tuesday the 10th from 8-10 PM Eastern Time, you are invited to share your feelings about the extent to which President Trump is helping or harming peace in the world. No membership needed to attend; all are welcome. Do you have strong feelings you want to express? Do you want to understand why other people might disagree? Sign up at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/national-debate-global-peace-registration-1983463949065?discount=BRAVER.
I’m currently reserving judgment on the U.S. attack on Iran. I’d like to believe that it was necessary for maintaining U.S. national security, and I hold the Trump administration responsible for demonstrating that once things have settled a bit.
If my understanding is correct, this war is not merely a security operation (though no sane person would wish for religious fanatics like this Iranian nut jobs to EVER get their hands on such a weapon), but a broader military and economic operation to gain far more control over the region — and with Israel as a partner (and Israel that has its own interests which are nationalistic and expansionist).
If Iran can cause such problems that the oil does not flow, then those states that produce the oil and invest their money in dollars in the US economy will suffer and, the analysts say, the US economy will be severely affected. Therefore, it becomes absolutely necessary strategically to ‘encourage’ those States (UAE, Saudi, etc.) to take a stand against Iran: militarily. Iran’s power, and all its influence, must be totally defeated. Annihilated. And then the region can have security, and the investments in the US will continue and even increase. The enemies of the US must have their power curtailed, reduced, and this is not so much a ‘security’ issue but one of military-economic assertion. This is what MAGA means to that class that stands with Trump and his policies. This is a New American policy and, if it works, it might put the nation America back in that ‘diver’s seat’.
These are maneuvers that do not have to do with justice, democracy or republican values. However, and as someone said, we assume that America is a more benevolent ruler than, say, Russia or China (or some Islamist state!) This is likely true. I live in Colombia. And Colombia is thriving because it allowed the economic and military power of the US to ‘advise’ it as to how to 1) kick back the rebel factions (Marxist revolutionaries and criminal cartels) and 2) contract a functioning economy with direct ties to the US empire to the north. It is, in the long run, the better route to take. Things here are going very well (compared to when my family first arrived it is night and day difference!) Put aside pride. Serve tangible, organized power.
Interesting things happen in the mind when the real way this world operates is seen clearly. We are all COMPLICIT and the nature and depth of our complicity must be seen and understood. If we still want to put on rhetorical acts of ‘righteousness’ — well I guess that is fine for the underclasses. 🙂 But WE can tell the real truth.
And the pray to the Demiurge to save our eternal souls!
The United States is in a much better position to take care of its energy needs than Europe, and countries in South and East Asia such as India, China, and Japan.
Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States in the Persian Gulf use specific pipelines to bypass the Strait of Hormuz, primarily directing crude to the Red Sea or Gulf of Oman. Key infrastructure includes Saudi Arabia’s 5 million bpd East West Pipe to Yanbu, and the UAE’s 1.5 million bpd Habshan-Fujairah pipeline. Combined these pipelines cover one third of the 20 million bpd oil traffic through the straits of Hormuz.
The power balance between the USA, China, and Russia is a topic that deserves attention. China and Russia are strategic rivals of the USA at the world stage, and they were teamed up with allies like Iran and Venezuela.
What has happened during the Trump administration is:
Iran has no friends left. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States are now siding with the USA against the current regime in Iran.
The big strategic point that almost nobody is paying attention to is how all these developments affect China, by losing Venezuela and Iran as oil exporting allies.
CvB
You have explained well why the decision to bring Iran to its knees goes far beyond just simple regime change. Weakening the alliances between China , Russia, Iran and othe BRIC nations prevents larger future conflicts
P.S. For readers in Madison, there’s a local event that’s an introduction to Braver Angels, with activities to help people start connecting across political lines. It’s from 10-11:30 AM Central on Saturday, March 21st. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/crossing-the-continental-divide-registration-1982909347236?discount=BRAVER
BYOCW
(Bring your own concealed weapon).
Part of the MAGA constituency tends to support an isolationist policy, and does not want to see the USA involved in foreign entanglements. Megyn Kelly is one of them. She also has been playing interception for Tucker Carlson since his interview with Nick Fuentes.
To explain the present situation vis-a-vis Israel, Iran, the Middle East, and also the various world powers now concerned in this situation, you have to carefully separate them, adjudicate them one by one, and then attempt to first *see* the situation in a clear light, and then decide one what side one will stand. It is, to use Jack’s phrases, an ethical train wreck.
First, the problems stem in the large degree from Israel. The way the new state was founded, the displacement and harm done to the Palestinians. It is called the Nakba and it is a real thing, and a real injustice. Once a situation starts with such acts, those acts do not go away. They turn into wounds that do not heal. And these issues now *mark* the state of Israel. That is why I formerly referred to Miko Peled: an Israeli and directly connected with those events (which he now sees clearly). So, that is the first part of a needed careful analysis.
Second, the US for its own reasons took advantage of Israel as a (excuse the word) imperialist outpost or fort in the region. It desired to militarize Israel, and factions in Israel desired to be militarized. Many Israelis opposed this, and many still do. That is a fact. In this sense Israel is a monster-creation of the US in the grand plan of that construction of the global order. And anyone with any consciousness knows very well that the US has supported, and will support, regimes that are *dictatorial* in a given state or nation if ‘order’ will be maintained. This described the patterns of the Postwar. And the support of the former Shah of Iran is a perfect example. The man was a brute and a killer. But he was ‘our man’ and the US supported him until a popular revolution came along. Examine causation. Things could have been done differently. Simple fact. Simple truth. I advise to stop lying and to tell the truth. But not because it will make taking a side easier. But because it protects the integrity of the individual.
Israel is now an expansionist state as everyone with two eyes in the head should see. And Zionism is a bizarre sort of neo-Judaic political religion. Powerful Jews in America ‘support’ Zionism and they have inordinate influence over policy. Why is this? Money has immense power in the US. Face the fact, stop lying please. You have to understand ‘the Jewish project’ in the postwar, and you have to understand that Israelis of the military class are emblematic of a class that will stop at nothing to secure their interests. These are absolute Machiavellians. Their defined ethics are the ethics of both race and nationhood — those ‘identifications’ that have become so problematic in our days. Blood and soil is what it is. Stop lying. Stope self-deceiving. Begin please to see and tell the truth.
For the last 30 years Israel has had significant, notable power in deciding US policy. At the very least US and Israel are ‘partners’ but there obviously is a power imbalance. The simple proof? Their state rep comes to talk in front of the government of the US and they bow down before him. How this is achieved, and why, is a socio-political and also a religious issue. Christian Zionism must be studied and its origins were in England at the turn of the 20th century. Christian Zionism is a ‘disease of the mind’. Face the facts. Stop lying. Stop self-deceiving. And stop purveying your (that is a general, rhetorical ‘you) to others. At the very least see the truth even if you may not have the courage to speak the truth outright.
There is no doubt at all that the sort of regime in control of Iran is immensely screwed up. These are men who have been bitten by a similar disease that bites ultra-zealous Jewish ultranationalists. A fiery Yahweh is invoked, this mad psychotic spiritual beast, and drives those who are captured by it to a Nazi-like position. It is blood & soil in one of its first incarnations. The American Right (the dissident Right youths) attempt to imitate this. But they say Why cannot we have our strong identifications? (And that is an involved question, and an ethics question). To the degree that people are infected with this horrifying religious fury of the Middle East madness, is the degree that things spin out of control and will always spin out. Fact.
The larger game, the on-going geo-political game, now shows itself as a larger military operation to reassert American military and economic power and domination in the world. Face the facts. A war has been provoked in the hope that military might will help ruling economic powers to recover ground that had been lost. This is not ‘democracy in action’ and it has nothing to do with American republican principles, it has to do with sheer use of open power in the hope that conflicts will lead to a better outcome for the US. Maybe it will but also maybe it won’t.
Now, Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly are in no sense *wrong* in stating that the present war’s most larger beneficiary is Israel. This is a glorious moment and a very bold manouevre that the military-intelligence Machiavellians of Israel are attempting. It is a necessary step in that process of establishing Israel within a region that formerly was Judean possession but had been lost. That is another very complicating feature: Everything that is Jewish is associated with Judea, and even though it was accepted for millennia that “God himself exiled the Jews” and is the power standing behind the Galut (Exile), now that religious narrative has been rewritten by crafty PR managers and rhetorical spinners. The pattern? The reconquest of God’s people of ‘their’ land. (This is all story however).
Now the predicted war has come to fruition. Not only was it predicted by political soothsayers but it receives all the psychic projection of ‘ancient Biblical prophecy’. But here is the thing: Those are all predictions that involve horrible disasters and extremely unfortunate outcomes. They also (from a Jewish predictive position) involve the destruction of Edom. That is to say ‘The Christian West’. Edom is the Christian West and Christianity has always been the traditional enemy of Jewry. You have to understand what Jesus opposed and why. But of course ‘you’ can’t because ‘your’ minds are captured. Christian Zionism is indeed a bastard-branch of Jewish Zionism.
The tensions and psychological conflicts so evident, so overflowing, in Americans now has come to the surface in a violent escapade of real dimension and real danger. This is how political events of scale start, isn’t it?
Now the question is What side will I serve on?
“Now the question is What side will I serve on?“
I am on the side of Western Civilization based on a Judeo-Christian tradition. And geo-politically I am on the side of the United States of America, versus strategical adversaries as China and Russia, of which Iran is currently an ally. The best thing that can happen to the USA is a regime change in Iran. During the time of the shah Iran was an ally of the USA, and the Iran under the shah also had normal relationships with Israel. After Khomeini took over the USA became the big Satan and Israel the little Satan. The USA have been in a state of war with Iran since the embassy hostage crisis in 1979, and Iran has committed many acts of war against the USA including the attacks on the Marine barracks in Beirut, Khobar towers, plus support for insurgencies in Iraq during the Second Gulf War. We can understand the actions of the Trump administration as an attempt to end a 47 year old war with Iran.
There are people on the MAGA right (e.g. Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens) who appear to be antisemitic, going back to traditions that where prevalent up to World War II leading up to the Holocaust. My view is that Christianity has a lot to atone for in relation to its two thousand year history with the Jews; I am saying that as a Dutchmen who is astutely aware how the Holocaust affected the Netherlands. The Jews have often functioned as a convenient scapegoat, from the bubonic plague in the Middle Ages to economic inequality to the loss of wars such as the Great War of 1914-1918.
Israel is obsessed with Iran because the regime in Iran is obsessed with Israel. Former Iran President Ahmadinejad called Israel a “one bomb country”, clearly indicating his intentions with Iran’s nuclear program. Israel is of course not taking any risk, and takes Iran at its words.
Radical Islam is a threat to Western Civilization and Christianity due to the ideology of Sharia supremacism. This ideology declares Sharia to be supreme to any man-made, secular, or constitutional law, and wants to impose Sharia globally, reducing any non-Muslims (infidels) to a lower status of dhimmitude.
So it is in the best interest of the USA and Western civilization to get rid of the Islamic regime in Iran. All the focus on Israel is a distraction, and given the West’s history of antisemitism a bit suspect.
I am on the side of Western Civilization based on a Judeo-Christian tradition. And geo-politically I am on the side of the United States of America, versus strategical adversaries as China and Russia, of which Iran is currently an ally. The best thing that can happen to the USA is a regime change in Iran. During the time of the shah Iran was an ally of the USA, and the Iran under the shah also had normal relationships with Israel. After Khomeini took over the USA became the big Satan and Israel the little Satan. The USA have been in a state of war with Iran since the embassy hostage crisis in 1979, and Iran has committed many acts of war against the USA including the attacks on the Marine barracks in Beirut, Khobar towers, plus support for insurgencies in Iraq during the Second Gulf War. We can understand the actions of the Trump administration as an attempt to end a 47 year old war with Iran.
Power does what power decided that it must. And power, after WWll, chose to foment a coup against the government Iran had elected and installed the Shah. The Shah, from what I understand, was supported by factions in the country that got benefits from his rule, but the average people and the population did not, and the regime was for them an oppressive regime. So, the US contributed to the conditions that led to the revolution. I don’t take a side or do, I just am describing what happened. I am not even arguing against the issue of mighty power that does what it wants — though that is certainly a reality that is opposed by every drop of the American republican spirit. But even there I will not quibble: All people are hypocrites, and America and America cannot be excluded. For this reason I always feel much better when I encounter honest people who do not lie (to themselves). To understand my position you would have to understand that I believe that the character of the United States changed quite definitely around 1900 when it became an invading, occupying, anti-democratic power (Philippines and Spanish War). These are facts and one can make of them what one will.
So then in my analysis, which you might think is ‘opposed’ to yours, separates the issue of allegiance so that the realities of our present can be thought about. The core factors: the country itself is not united it is divided. There are crisis events occurring within the country that do not bode well for the success of immense military operations of the sort being conducted. The country is far too extended financially. The country also has in power a man who, seen from one angle, is classically hubristic. And empires tend to produce such men (I do not have enough information to speak coherently on issues of historical psychology) when they get to the point of intense internal division, fiscal crises, over-extension, and all the rest.
The same man who wrote in the Federalist article also wrote a book (Pagan America: The Decline of America and the Dark Age to Come):
“We live in an anxious age. Long-held certainties, cherished beliefs, and social trust are crumbling. Don’t expect things to get better. For too long we have taken our Christian heritage—the heritage upon which America was built—for granted. But we’re rapidly, and now inevitably, losing the Christian culture that shaped the American republic. What will take its place is a despotism—and a new paganism, worse than the old, because it will be based on a hatred of Christianity.
“In his stunning new book, Pagan America, author John Daniel Davidson offers a stark but honest assessment of America’s future: “America as we know it will come to an end. Instead of a republic of free citizens, we will be slaves in a pagan empire.”
“There is, he warns, no escape. We can only brace ourselves and prepare for a future when power will determine every relationship. Morality as we know it, as a Christian inheritance, will be forfeit, replaced by state-enforced “morality.” Violence will be common—doled out at the hand of an all-powerful state and its corporate allies.
“There are hard times ahead, but we are not without hope. Christianity emerged within the confines of a pagan empire. Davidson shows how with courage, fortitude, and faith, it will be our duty and privilege to defend Christianity and restore its claims in what is likely to be a terrible and brutal dark age.”
If you are to ask my thoughts on ‘the Christian tradition’ in America I could only speak about a Post-Christian reality. America is a Post-Christian nation, and that is even true (and especially true) among those who profess to be believers. The metaphysics (the understanding and the belief-in) the actual metaphysical principles are no longer regarded as being ‘real’. They exist like shadows. I realize this is a complex topic but it DEFINITELY has relevance to the psychological and psycho-social dimension that is now unfolding as the Christian, Muslim and Jewish nutcases begin to rehearse their insane projections that have to do with End Times and Final Wars.
This is a time of the welling of madness, this is a time when anything can happen. And because irrational forces are at work, watch out. Be very careful of psychic and social currents that sweep up people and carry them along. Be very careful about propaganda narratives in the time of Fourth and Fifth Generation Warfare. You cannot know what is really happening, and you certainly will not get it from the TV screens.
[From your host: Banned, comment-section-bombing, jerk “A Friend” hit a new ow with this unauthorized comment: “Kareem”Jeffries? Good lord.” Oh gee, in wring a substantive, almost 2,000 word post for the edification, information and entertainment of those who visit EA< I didn't catch the inadvertent substitution of one rhyming Muslim name for another. Of course, the decent and constructive thing to do would be to send me an email off site, as many of you do, and alert me, but this dickhead has to sneak onto the site before I wake up and mock me instead. Nice. I've fixed the typo. I also couldn't care less about whether I mangle the name of the Democratic House leader, who is an Ethics Villain and s hyper-partisan boob, as the note about him in the post makes clear.
While I'm here, I also want to point out that the snotty, trolling Holly A, who was not banned here but whom I did tell off as she so richly deserved to be, is one of the Trump Deranged leftists who hasn’t had the guts to comment on the Iran issue, as well as others where her muddy end of the stick had disgraced itself with hypocrisy, thus proving her ethics bona fides, or rather the lack of them. She’s been sulking since January 30, knowing that having been warned for trolling, her options were to start being constructive, slap back and be banned, or stay silent.
Also oddly mute is intermittently constructive EA contrarian (and subtle troll) Heres Johnny, whose last obnoxious comment was before “Epic Fury,” on Feb. 21.]
Thanks for fixing the typo. I thought you sent my emails to spam. I’m sending you one now with 4 steps you can take to make Ethics Alarms 10 to 100 times more popular.
I am glad George Will brought up one of the most consequential (in my mind) reasons to attack Iran. The fact that Iran killed tens of thousands of people who protested the government needed a response. After gunning these protesters down in the streets, it is reported that the government ordered hospitals not to treat gunshot wounds and to report them to police (who would finish them off?). The public was told to report anyone who appeared to suffer wounds that could have come from the protests to the police (so they could finish them off?). This is a humanitarian nightmare and the number 1 reason I see in justifying this attack. The threat to Israel and the US was there, but I didn’t see that at imminent. This slaughter of civilians was imminent and needed to stop. It also seems to be the least mentioned. It is interesting that Democrats want to overthrow the elected US government over a few deaths of protesters physically interfering (or attacking) law enforcement, but overwhelmingly support the death of tens of thousands of protesters if they protest a viscous, sexist, homophobic, dictatorship. No wonder the left is taking so many psychiatric meds. How can you hold those 2 beliefs at the same time while still thinking you are a good person? It would break your mind.
“How can you hold those 2 beliefs at the same time while still thinking you are a good person? It would break your mind.”
It’s because including all the other virulent ideological strains that metastacized into the modern Left, the “Hippie” mindset lives on in that petri dish of bad ideas.
And the one thing to remember about hippies is that they are “Bad People Pretending to be Good”.
#3 George’s Washington’s bar tab for a party of 55 people:
“According to the bill, the Founding Fathers drank 54 bottles of Madeira, 60 bottles of Claret, 8 bottles of Whiskey, 22 bottles of Porter, 8 bottles of Hard Cider, 12 of Beer and seven bowls of Alcoholic Punch. There were only 55 attendees.”
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2022/01/20/fact-check-george-washingtons-expensive-bar-tab-real/5947984001/