How timely…
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
— Theodore Roosevelt
Excellent Economist article on why the war in Iraq failed:
What went wrong? The most popular answer of the American neoconservatives who argued loudest for the war is that it was a good idea badly executed. Kenneth Adelman, he of the “cakewalk”, has since called the Bush national-security team “among the most incompetent” of the post-war era. Others also blame the Iraqis for their inability to accept America’s gift of freedom. “We have given the Iraqis a republic and they do not appear able to keep it,” lamented Charles Krauthammer, a columnist for the Washington Post.
That excuse is too convenient by half: it is what the apologists for communism said too. But there can be no denying that the project was bungled from the start. Western intelligence failed to discover that Saddam had destroyed all his weapons of mass destruction (WMD), the removal of which was the main rationale for the war. However, the incompetence went beyond this. The war was launched by a divided administration that had no settled notion of how to run Iraq after the conquest. The general who warned Congress that stabilising the country would require several hundred thousand troops was sacked for his prescience.
Mr Rumsfeld’s one big idea seemed to be that it was not the job of the armed forces he was “transforming” to become policemen, social workers or nation- builders. As a result, he sent too few and they did nothing to prevent looters from picking clean all Iraq’s public buildings the moment the regime collapsed. “Stuff happens,” was the defence secretary’s comment, a phrase used later as the title of an anti-war play in London’s West End.
Brilliant.
In keeping with my New Year’s resolution to “be the better man”, I have been studying traditional rules of civil behavior. Google led me to an interesting list of rules written (or at least transcribed) by George Washington back when he was a 16 year old student. These rules are originally attributed to French Jesuits back in 1595. While the rules initially appear very antiquated and overly genteel, they express a theme lost in today’s self-centered world – a sense of empathy and courtesy to our fellow man.
To quote Richard Brookhiser from his book, “Rules of Civility: The 110 Precepts That Guided Our First President in War and Peace”:
“All modern manners in the western world were originally aristocratic. Courtesy meant behavior appropriate to a court; chivalry comes from chevalier – a knight. Yet Washington was to dedicate himself to freeing America from a court’s control. Could manners survive the operation? Without realizing it, the Jesuits who wrote them, and the young man who copied them, were outlining and absorbing a system of courtesy appropriate to equals and near-equals. When the company for whom the decent behavior was to be performed expanded to the nation, Washington was ready. Parson Weems got this right, when he wrote that it was ‘no wonder every body honoured him who honoured every body.'”
Some selected rules:
1st – Every Action done in Company, ought to be with Some Sign of Respect, to those that are Present.
8th – At Play and at Fire its Good manners to Give Place to the last Commer, and affect not to Speak Louder than Ordinary.
19th – Let your Countenance be pleasant but in Serious Matters Somewhat grave.
22d – Shew not yourself glad at the Misfortune of another though he were your enemy.
41st – Undertake not to Teach your equal in the art himself Proffesses; it Savours of arrogancy.
49th – Use no Reproachfull Language against any one neither Curse nor Revile.
58th – Let your Conversation be without Malice or Envy, for ’tis a Sign of a Tractable and Commendable Nature: And in all Causes of Passion admit Reason to Govern.
63d – A Man ought not to value himself of his Atchievements, or rare Qualities of wit; much less of his riches Virtue or Kindred.
74th – When Another Speaks be attentive your Self and disturb not the Audience if any hesitate in his Words help him not nor Prompt him without desired, Interrupt him not, nor Answer him till his Speech be ended.
89th – Speak not Evil of the absent for it is unjust.
Just saw an interesting quote on /. from a user named plopez:
Herding cats is hard because you are using the wrong management technique. You herd cattle (and sheep and goats and pigs etc.), you do *not* herd cats. Cats, you put them in the general area of the mice and let them do what they are good at. Micromanagement of cats is a losing proposition.
My 2007 resolutions:
Brendon @ Slacker Manager has hit the nail on the head yet again with this list:
I’ve been thinking lately about what overarching ideas guide folks like us (you know, smart people who want to do good work, but only when it’s good work we want to do). I’ve examined my own ways and I think I’ve isolated
1516 (how convenient!) principles that I tend to follow. I’ll list them here, with brief explanations, but I’m curious to hear what others think I might’ve missed. Also, these 15 principles (and others that you point out) will probably get fleshed out into more extensive posts. Also, this list isn’t ordered at all–just a brain dump. Let’s roll:1. Find the best way. (not necessarily the fastest or easiest, though it often is)
2. Procrascipline. Disciplined procrastination is the art of knowing why you aren’t doing something and when you might.
3. Ensure balance. Even by guerrilla methods (see: 4 hour rule and mental health day)
4. Find your place, for now. This is imperative, difficult and achievable. And you’ll do it over and over.
5. Maximize the work you love, minimize the work you hate.
6. Listen well.
7. Develop (manage) relationships.
8. Market yourself.
9. Think laterally as well as linearly.
10. Master the data. Using simple tools: Excel, SQL, etc
11. Be curious.
12. Pursue other pursuits.
13. Develop your spiritual life.
14. Read broadly.
15. Have a system (of organization).
16. Know how to decide.
Interesting essay on LewRockell.com on the subject of South Park and Libertarian philosophy:
It’s all too easy to become fixated on the vulgar and obscene surface of South Park, rejecting out of hand a show that chose to make a Christmas icon out of a talking turd named Mr. Hankey. But if one is patient with South Park, and gives the show the benefit of the doubt, it turns out to be genuinely thought provoking, taking up one serious issue after another, from environmentalism and animal rights to assisted suicide and sexual harassment. And, as we shall see, the show approaches all these issues from a distinct philosophical position, what is known as libertarianism, the philosophy of freedom. I know of no television program that has so consistently pursued a philosophical agenda, week after week, season after season. If anything, the show can become too didactic, with episodes often culminating in a character delivering a speech that offers a surprisingly balanced and nuanced account of the issue at hand.
Plato’s Symposium is useful for showing that vulgarity and philosophical thought are not necessarily antithetical. Before dismissing South Park, we should recall that some of the greatest comic writers – Aristophanes, Chaucer, Rabelais, Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Voltaire, Jonathan Swift – plumbed the depths of obscenity even as they rose to the heights of philosophical thought. The same intellectual courage that emboldened them to defy conventional proprieties empowered them to reject conventional ideas and break through the intellectual frontiers of their day. Without claiming that South Park deserves to rank with such distinguished predecessors, I will say that the show descends from a long tradition of comedy that ever since ancient Athens has combined obscenity with philosophy. There are almost as many fart jokes in Aristophanes’ play The Clouds as there are in a typical episode of The Terrance and Philip Show in South Park. In fact, in the earliest dramatic representation of Socrates that has come down to us, he is making fart jokes as he tries to explain to a dumb Athenian named Strepsiades that thunder is a purely natural phenomenon and not the work of the great god Zeus: “First think of the tiny fart that your intestines make. Then consider the heavens: their infinite farting is thunder. For thunder and farting are, in principle, one and the same.” Cartman couldn’t have said it better.
What did libertarian Republicans lose on Tuesday?
You lost some “friends” who had exploited the libertarian label but who never deserved it. J.D. Hayworth in Arizona. George Allen in Virginia. Jim Talent in Missouri. In losing them, you lost … baggage. These were folks you never should have been in bed with in the first place — and in your hearts you know I’m right. Know-Nothingism, Mrs. Grundyism, crony “capitalism” and jingoism may make for a nice wave to ride in the short term, but the undertow’s a bitch when that wave collapses. Thank your lucky stars that for the most part those who got sucked under were the ones who deserved it — and that they didn’t take the whole libertarian Republican movement down with them.
Right now, libertarian Republicans are the only faction in the GOP left standing. Everyone else has been drowned in the deluge or is still cowering on the beach, coughing up water and trying to figure out what the hell hit them. You guys are the only ones left with any credibility, any muscle, any ideas that resonate with the public. If the Republican Party has a future, YOU ARE IT.
 | Kevin Jarnot jarnot 9846 Tracks |
 | Tarkus Emerson, Lake & Palmer 4 days ago |
 | One of a Kind Part II Bruford 6 days ago |
| One of a Kind Part I Bruford 6 days ago |
| Hell's Bells Bruford 6 days ago |
 | Knowing Anderson & Stolt 2 weeks ago |
