Evacuate the War Room

This has been stuck in my head. It is my own little remake. Sung to the tune of Cascadia's 'Evacuate the Dance Floor':

Oh, oh, evacuate the war room

oh, oh, until you can tell us what we're fighting for

Oh, oh, stop, this war is killing me

Hey Mister President this war will put us underground

Connectivity and Relatedness in European Life

I am reading and blogging about Jeremy Rifkin's book The European Dream: How Europe's Vision of the Future Is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream. He talks a lot of about connectivity in Europe. U.S. law , society and politics seems to be guided by the 18th and 19th Century worhsipping of the autonomy of the individual. This leads to the belief that security comes from being autonomous, and autonomy comes from amassing property. This simplistic design leaves most U.S. citizens lacking a sense of community and a sense of belonging.

Rifkin explores how Europeans have dealt with the alienation and threat of narcissim that comes with modern society. He examines how Europeans find meaning through "connectivity," "relatedness" and "imbeddedness." I found several eamples of this myself in the way European countries organize their legal systems and in how professionals organize their life.

While U.S. politicians and judges seems always to be scared of "losing sovereignty" and attempt to find security through unilateralsim, this is the contrary to the approach of most countries and is quite ineffective and impractical. For example, take the wikipedia page of The Netherlands: "Among other affiliations the country is a founding member of the European Union (EU), NATO, OECD, WTO, and has signed the Kyoto protocol. With Belgium and Luxembourg it forms the Benelux economic union. The country is host to five international courts." For another example, take the page of Slovenia: "Slovenia is a member of the European Union, the Eurozone, the Schengen area, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the Council of Europe, NATO, UNESCO, WTO, and UN." Such connectivity.

With that connectivity comes strength. Considering how quickly the toxic assets in the U.S. were exported to banks in other countries as well as the general international dimensions of finance and banking, people could never solve the problem by working through just one country. Mr. Obama understands this. That is why you see the G20 taking the lead here and Obama increasing U.S. partnerships in many areas.

The leaders (Merkel, Balkenende, Sarkozy, etc) of all the major European governments understand this. All three of those leaders are from the right of the political spectrum in their home countries. If conservatives in the U.S., with their knee-jerk anti-internationalism find themselves out of step with nearly all the other conservatives in the world, maybe they should re-evaluate their stance. If they truly believe that Obama or another person from the left who will rise is a radical communist/socialist/fascist, etc, then why wouldn't they want to set-up long-term stabilizing support networks from the same multi-national organizations that have been set-up specifically to assist each other in preventing authortarian leaders and new Hitlers from rising again in any of the member countries?

As for a more individual example, take one of my professors. He has studied and taught in Ther Netherlands, France, Germany, Italy, U.S., UK, and Canada. Currently, he teaches law in Maastricht and in Germany, he works in the administrative part of the University, he is a deputy justice on an appeals court here, as well as President of the Netherlands Comparative Law Association, board member of the International Association of Legal Science and co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of the Electronic Journal of Comparative Law, member of the international editorial board of the Russian Journal of Comparative Law, co-founder and member of the board of the Dutch Inter-University Foundation for the Study of European Private Law and member of the Collegio dei docenti del Dottorato in Studi giuridici comparati ed europei of Trento University (Italy). Wow, such connectivity and divided loyalties. This is the reality of the modern professional man/woman, and increasingly the same will be true for U.S. professionals as well.

Can this connectivity lead to prosperty, predictability and stability? Can people learn to work together on some projects when necessary and still maintain high levels of personal economic freedom? Well, I think you may find the answer here: "The Netherlands has one of the most free market capitalist economies in the world, ranking 12th of 157 countries according to the Index of Economic Freedom." This has gone hand-in-hand with the long-standing recognition by the Dutch people that certain projects require joint effort. They learned this long ago, not from Karl Marx (as is the common incorrect stereotype of European left countries in the U.S.), but from the weather. Since most of The Netherlands in below sea level, they learned that unless the people worked together on their shared problem of too much water, they would all have their property reduced to nothing. Literally. Simply approaching this problem individually just led to dumping water on your neighbour's lands endlessly. Thus, when one finds a good method of deciding which projects should be joint-efforts and which should be individual efforts, one can maintin strong individual freedoms and a sense of maning and connectivity to others.

On Pacifism and Selling Cloaks to Buy Swords

Recently, a common conversation came up yet again. Someone was explaining their pacifist beliefs on their blog and someone challenged them with: "You might wish to note that Christ did recommend selling your clothing to buy a sword if you did not already have one. Why buy a sword if it is always wrong to use?"

My Reponse:

To take this story to justify violence or the building of armies confuses the lesson of a story with some of the facts that happen to be in the story. He commanded a group of specific disciples to buy 2 small swords. This is very far from an individual commandment to each of us to arm ourselves, and is also very far from a commandment to build armies. Two short swords would get them nowhere, and actually they were short daggers, not even military weapons. The purchasing of the swords was part of fulfilling an OT prophecy about the chopping off of an ear/the Messiah being counted among the lawless (Isaiah 53:12), and also the disciples were being tested.

Do not forget the end of the story and its lesson. Jesus commands his disciples “No more of this!” when they become violent.Another lesson of the story is the inefficiency of violence. His followers get caught up in this grand hero narrative of saving their leader and the world (much like your roommate B tries to construct these grand, unrealistic scenarios), only to end up hurting a defenseless slave. Jesus then heals this wrongfully injured man. The lesson is that getting caught up in these grand narratives of just violence or redemptive violence just leads to recklessness and sorrow.

It all comes back to Jesus proclamation that not only killing is wrong, “But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment.” Those who harbour anger and violent thoughts against others have already sinned, because buying into these hypotheticals about buying swords (or guns, or tanks, or bombs) to protect inevitably lead to more senseless violence than protection of innocent life. This is especially true today when we can be so easily manipulated into believing we are acting to defend innocent people, when in reality we are the aggressors. In fact, throughout history, every military aggressor believed that they were fighting defensively.

For more, there is a useful four part series on such passages at http://www.ecapc.org/articles/RensbeD_HS1_Centurion.asp. I remember being too scared to ask about such passages at my home church when I was a teenager. I feared the answers might challenge the church or my own faith too much. My pastor sensed I had such questions, and was very open to me bringing them up, but I decided not to at the time.

Hillary Clinton = Right Pick?

This is a response to Bob Beckel's analysis over at RealClearPolitics. Beckel argued Hillary was the best pick for VP and that it's "not even close." I disagree www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/06/its_not_even_close_obama_shoul.html

Analysis is way off. I'll address it point-by-point
1. Bring Repubs to the Polls: Of course the right-winger radio nuts are going after Obama, but he still has high numbers and those attacks turn off a lot of moderates and Republicans, especialyl because so many have been simply untrue. Hillary galvanizes Republicans, who are not very fired up about this election at all. All my Republican friends say they are not going to volunteer or give money this year and basically sit this one out after McCain got the nomination.
2. Edwards gives bigger boosts in those same areas. Just because Hillary became strong by targetting certain groups (women, hispanics), never meant that Obama was inherently weak in those areas (as seen by his recent boosts). AS far as expanding the map, Obama is doing great at that on his own. A wealthy Northeasterner is actually the last thing Obama needs to win rural Virginia and North Carolina.
3. Hillary = distraction. Unity in message is key. That is what people have learned since 1984. Hillary is actually one of the Democrats with the least personal incentive for Obama to win, so by simply saying her success is dependent on his success is flawed.
4. Bill Clinton disclosures- point well taken. I agree.
5. I disagree, Bill and Hillary are still both very divisive. I think Edwards has the campaign skills in the Appalachians to match either of them.
6. It is not "absurd" to believe that having a scandal-ridden right-wing targetted former President around would be a distraction. It is certainly true.
7. I would rather have her in the Senate. That is where she has proven herself the most. Obama wants to move away from Baby Boomer debates about Vietnam and the excesses of the 1960s. Key to his message (and increasingly so in the general election) is going to be rejecting the Bush/Rove 51% = mandate way of running things. A person like Hillary is best in the Senate and not best in an administration that must immediately restore decency and bipartisanship. Also, Bickel always seems to think that saying the right thing is enough, but voters (especially in the Midwest) want someone who actually believes it too, and we can spot a fraud any day. If Hillary would work her own agenda in the Senate, then Bickel's argument on her being able to be on message on the campaign fails, unless your only standard is for a politician to say the right thing and not actually have a consistent record and conviction on the issue.
8. I agree with this one. Her organization and money raising are incomparable. This is the best argument for her. Her Senate campaign raised so much money, and she has access to so many lists and donor rolls.
9. Bickel reasons that because Republicans are against Hillary on the ticket, that makes it a stronger ticket. This reasoning is why Obama beat Hillary, Obama constantly takes into consideration what Republicans and Independents think. His ability to listen and truly understand what others are saying is his gift. He used it very well as Harvard Law Review Editor and is famous for it. Obama will need the support of lots of Republicans to not only win, but win with a big enough mandate to fix healthcare, restore America's integrity and place in the world, and solve the energy crisis. The days of 51% is good enough are over.
10. "Your vice presidential choice must reek of experience... Can another VP candidate provide that level of comfort." Yes. Wesley Clark. Duh. No question a better record of experience and past success. Take Harvard Law Review Editor (Obama) and top of class at West Point (Clark) and that is a nice ticket. Clark would be far more prepared to take over than Hillary.
-Finally, I would like to say that Obama is someone who genuinely listened to advice from his team. Obama would be wiser to pick Edwards or Clark as far as someone to give great advice. Clinton not only failed to adjust to the new DNC rules which gave more weight to rural areas and decreased winner-take-all primaries, but also failed to adjust to the demand for a change candidate fast enough (as seen after Iowa when Edwards jumped on the change bandwagon and labeled Clinton the status quo candidate). I would much rather get advice from a more experienced leader, or a more perceptive decision-maker.
Just today while I was canvassing-- out talking to real voters-- I talked with a moderate Republican woman who wasn't impressed at all with McCain and her big reservation about Obama is that she was worried he would pick Hillary, in which case she wouldn't vote for Obama. Outside of the polite little political analyst circles, real voters simply are turned off by Hillary, who has very high negative ratings right now.

उर्बन कंसास मेंनोंइतेस एंड होमोसेक्सुँलिटी

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Brandon Mayfield Speaking in Kansas

Brandon Mayfield will be speaking in Kansas:
-Wednesday February 27th noon in room 102 at bottom level of Washburn Law, Topeka, KS.
-Thursday, February 28th noon at Washburn International House, Topeka, KS.
-Friday, February 29th at Bethel College Krehbiel Auditorium in North Newton, KS 11AM.

Our speaker, Brandon Mayfield, was investigated by the FBI after his
fingerprint
was falsely matched to plastic bag with detonators from the Madrid
bombing. Despite the fact he had not left the U.S. since 1994, the FBI
was "100% certain" (as one investigator told a judge) they were on the
trail of a terrorist based largely on the fact that Mayfield is Muslim.
His home was burglarized and wiretapped under a FISA warrant. Later, his
office, home and family farm in Kansas were raided for evidence of his
alleged terrorist connections. He was arrested, detained, abused and
interrogated. In 2004, his name was illegally leaked to the press as a
terrorist suspect.
It seems that the FBI messed with the wrong man. Mayfield is a
lawyer, and a Washburn Law graduate. Mayfield won a $2M settlement with
the FBI and an initial victory challenging the constitutionality of the
PATRIOT ACT.

www.nytimes.com/2006/11/30/us/30settle.html
www.washburn.edu/news/newswire.php?id=view_only&release_id=2460

Republican Caucus in Florida

It seems like Florida voters will be given another chance to really mess with a Presidential race. Polls reveal a four way tie there. Remember that Florida Republicans have decided the state with be a WINNER TAKE ALL CAUCUS! 57 delegates at stake.

McCain 22%
Giuliani 20%
Huckabee 19%
Romney 19%
Thompson 7%
No answer 7%
Paul 5%
Hunter 1%