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Thursday,
February 3, 2000 Column time. I have a number of essays to
do. Norman Podhoretz has a long disquisition on foreign policy in the
January Commentary; it is a good summary of his position, but as is usual
with him, distorts the positions of those who don't agree with him. In
particular, while he must understand a foreign policy based on narrowly
defined national interest and the notion of a self governing republic, he
never states that in his zeal for intervention overseas.
Imperialism is an attractive course. It may even be inevitable. But I
do not think those of us who were Cold Warriors are inconsistent in
wanting to stand down to the Adams policy: "we are the friends of
liberty everywhere, but the guardians only of our own." Yes, we can
afford an enormously powerful high tech military and a standing army. No,
we need not fear the Army will be used to subvert the Constitution, at
least not without decades of politicization not only of the Joint Chiefs
but the entire officer corps. Yes, it seems a noble thing to do, to
prevent "ethnic cleansing" and to defend the weak and make
humble the proud, and it is easy to have pride in that.
But see "Three Kings" and think on that. And understand
that the character of an Army which is used to intervene in places few
Americans know or care about, for reasons having nothing to do with
national interest but more to do with vague noble feelings, will be
entirely different from an Army whose sole mission is to uphold and defend
the Constitution of the United States.
As I say, I need to write that essay. I wish I had time.
I have a note from Dr. Brin who seems unhappy with what I wrote here a
week or so ago. I don't intend to write more, but I repeat the request, if
anyone hears me quoted on the subject of Dr. David Brin, I would
appreciate being put into the loop: who is saying I say what? For those
who have no idea of what any of this is about, this is well. My apologies,
but it really is quite literally none of your business. Alas, some people
seem to want to make it their business.
Things FLOW here so. I can understand tape measures
wandering off from their drawer. But hammers? I have many bad
habits, but one good one I got into was putting the tools away when a job
was done, and I just don't leave the hammer somewhere. I own four. Well, I
don't because you don't own something you can't find. And it's not as if
there were teenage boys in the house: under those circumstances anything
can vanish, and usually does. So where my hammers have gone I don't know.
Meanwhile, the level of competence in this country has fallen to almost
nil.
My wife bought new window shades for the bedroom. Blue on one side,
white on the other. Years ago we did the same, and I put the hardware up
so the blue was on the inside. Over the years they faded and were torn, so
she measured and ordered replacements. They came -- with the colors
reversed from what they were before. I had to take the hardware off and
put the various parts back on four different windows so that the color is
inside. Now leave alone whether one is "supposed" to put the
color on the outside and white on the inside. In our case we wanted it the
other way. And whatever is the "right" way, surely it hasn't
changed in 15 years so that now it is the other way around? Or no one
cares? (And yes, I looked to see if changing the shade hardware would do
it. Nope. Can't remove one of the ends. Glued in. Oh well. So that's what
I did with my morning, except now I get to fix the lamp I broke moving a
dresser to find the nail I dropped when removing the hardware from the
window. Productivity...
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