Patriotism

I wouldn't have thought them capable of it, but the demonstration of patriotism by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie in naming their daughter after one of the great battles of the American Civil War, Shiloh, born this Memorial Day weekend moved me.

Juxtaposition

From the Instapunditand his reader Fred Butzen:

You write: "... you can understand people who would support a full-hearted war being unwilling to support a half-hearted one."
That is half correct. Large numbers of paleo-conservatives (e.g., W. F. Buckley) would be much happier with a Kissingeresque put-in-a-strongman-and-nail-down-the-lid strategy for the Middle East. They want no war at all.
What the paleos don't understand is that since 1989, the world has changed utterly. Societies that are in juxtaposition influence each other and, sooner or later, arrive at an equilibrium; with the advent of globalization and the Internet, all societies now are juxtaposed. Bush grasps what so many of his critics on the right miss: either we will make them more like us, or inevitably they will make us more like them.
Iraq is the first step on a long road to making them more like us. It may be too little, it may be too late; but it's a strategy, which is more than the isolationists of the left or right are offering.

This sounds right to me.

Costello

     You’ve got to love Peter Costello, Australia’s Treasurer.  First there was:

     “If you are somebody who wants to live in an Islamic state governed by sharia law you are not going to be happy in Australia, because Australia is not an Islamic state, is never going to be an Islamic state and will never be governed by sharia law.  We are a secular state under our constitution, our law is made by parliament elected in democratic elections.  We do not derive our laws from religious instruction.  There are Islamic states around the world that practice sharia law and if that’s you object you may well be much more at home in such a country than trying to turn Australia into one of those countries, because it’s not going to happen.”

     And his latest:

     “If you have strong objections to walking in your socks, don’t enter the mosque.  If you have strong objections to (Australian) values, don’t come to Australia.”

http://vitalperspective.typepad.com/vital_perspective_clarity/2006/02/australian_trea.html

     Where is the American politician (who is not a member of the tin hat brigade) who speaks as plainly and as accurately?  I believe that for now the media would crucify any one who spoke in this way, making an end of the speaker’s political career, and so in the end there is a fundamental flaw exposed:  those who are honest and capable political leaders are prevented from succeeding in a political career by the requirements of dishonesty and subterfuge in such a career.

Where oh where

Nice quote from American Heritage magazine in an article about Ronald Reagan by Richard Reeves:

     “By temperament and experience and a certain laziness, he knew the job is not about managing the government.  The job is leading the nation.”

Where is a Democrat that is a leader and not somebody who wants to manage the government?

Free Expression

EU Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini:
     …the consequences of exercising the right of free expression,” he told the newspaper. “We can and we are ready to self-regulate that right.”

What part of ‘free’ does the EU not understand?  It is as if ‘free expression’ has become ‘freeexpression’ or some other new entity altogether that can be understood differently from ‘expression’ that is ‘free’.

Thx to http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/

Syrian Inaction

     What do you suppose this means:

          "The government of Syria's failure to provide protection to diplomatic premises, in the face of warnings that violence was planned, is inexcusable," he [Scott McClellan] said in a statement from Texas, where President George W. Bush is staying at his Crawford ranch.
     Who was in a position to warn the Syrian government that violence was planned?  And once warned, the Syrian government gave permission for the burning of the embassy by withholding protection, by keeping their police/troops a block or two away or on the base.  If so, this is as much an act by the government of Syria as it is by a mob of ignorant thugs.

Words again

Words matter.  Lileks on the same subject as my last post: http://www.lileks.com/screedblog/06/0130020306.html#words