Back of the Envelope

The folks at the Harvard Christian Fellowships are trying to motivate people to do something about the genocide happening in the Sudan:

As you may know, there is a genocide happening in the Darfur region of Sudan. Over 200,000 men, women and children have been killed, countless innocent women have been raped, and another 2 million Darfurians have been driven from their homes. President Bush and Secretary of State Rice have officially called it a genocide.

Unfortunately, the church is woefully uninformed about the Darfur genocide. Still, many Christian students have faith that Christ's body will witness to God's love and grace through this crisis. Moreover, many verses in scripture command us to respond to tragedies like this, and Proverbs 24:11-12 has particularly caught our attention.

To help inform churches of this issue, we have compiled a packet of information about the genocide that students can send or bring home to their pastors. The packet includes a letter to the church leader and several pages of suggestions on how to PRAY, SPEAK OUT, and ACT. It also references an article from Christianity Today about the need for Christian response to the Darfur genocide.

Darfur seems very far away, and it seems unlikely that anything we can do can stop it. However, that is not an excuse for doing nothing, and great things can happen through what at first appears to be a small, helpless movement. In fact, that seems to be the way God prefers to work.

The packet of information can be found here, along with other information. Be forewarned, iIt's a Word document.

Doc Rampage has a rather cynical look at what the Republicans get out of the deal to end the filibusters on three of the judicial nominees:

Do you think Republican elected officials really want to reform the judiciary? I don't. I think that out-of-control judges are a great campaign issue for Republicans. They bring in votes, and--more important--they bring in dollars. The Massachusetts Supreme court may very well have won George Bush his second term. It's almost certain that it helped other Republicans get elected.

I'm not certain whether that's really the case, as the centrists who hammered out the deal are among the least devoted to the Republican cause.

Tired of the occasional personal notes when I should be writing about religion and politics? Go read Doc Rampage. He's got some of both, including this interesting tidbit on the Republicans' "betrayal" of conservative priniciples: "There is a lot of disappointment going around over the behavior of the Republicans in the federal government. There are lots of good reasons for disappointment. But not the ones that some people keep harping on."

Jonah makes an attempt to define conservatism:

So all of this is preamble to a humble, not entirely original, suggestion about what defines a conservative. I don’t pretend to think that it is definitive, but the more I think about it, I think any definitive definition would have to take the notion into account:

Comfort with contradiction

I mean this in the broadest metaphysical sense and the narrowest practical way. Think of any leftish ideology and at its core you will find a faith that circles can be closed, conflicts resolved. Marxism held that in a truly socialist society, contradictions would be destroyed. Freudianism led the Left to the idea that the conflicts between the inner and outer self were the cause of unnecessary repressions. Dewey believed that society could be made whole if we jettisoned dogma and embraced a natural, organic understanding of the society where everyone worked together. This was an Americanized version of a Germany idea, where concepts of the Volkgeist — spirit of the people — had been elevated to the point where society was seen to have its own separate spirit. All of this comes in big bunches from Hegel who, after all, had his conflicting thesis and antithesis merging into a glorious thesis. (It’s worth noting that Whittaker Chambers said he could not qualify as a conservative — he called himself a “man of the right” — because he could never jettison his faith in the dialectical nature of history.)
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Now look at the arguments of conservatives. They are almost invariably arguments about trade-offs, costs, “the downside” of a measure. As I’ve written before, the first obligation of the conservative is to explain why nine out of ten new ideas are probably bad ones. When feminists pound the table with the heels of their sensible shoes that it is unfair that there are any conflicts between motherhood and career, the inevitable response from conservatives boils down to “You’re right, but life isn’t fair.” Some conservatives may be more eager than others to lessen the unfairness somewhat. But conservatives understand the simple logic that motherhood is more than a fulltime job and that makes holding a second fulltime job very difficult. Feminist liberals understand this logic too, they just don’t want to accept it because they believe that in a just society there would be no such trade-offs.

It's not a bad definition, really. But where does Christianity and its idealism fit in, you wonder. Can Christian conservatives not be political conservatives? Jonah addresses that as well:

The attempt to bring such utopianism to the here and now is the sin of trying to immanentize the eschaton. I have a piece on how liberalism operates like an immanentist religion in the print NR (subscribe!) and I’m running long here. So I’ll leave much of that for another day. But not all religions are alike. Which gets me to the rub of my disagreement with Derbyshire (and another Brit, Andrew Stuttaford) and others who are touting the supposed incompatibility of conservative Christianity and political conservatism. Christianity, as I understand it, holds that the perfect world is the next one, not this one. We can do what we can where we can here, but we’re never going to change the fact that we’re fallen, imperfect creatures. There’s also the whole render-unto-Caesar bit. And, of course, the Judeo-Christian tradition assumes we are born in sin, not born perfect before bourgeoisie culture corrupts us into drones for the capitalist state.

In other words, while Christianity may be a complete philosophy of life, it is only at best a partial philosophy of government. When it attempts to be otherwise, it has leapt the rails into an enormous vat of category error. This is one reason why I did not like it when President Bush said his favorite political philosopher was Jesus Christ. I don’t mind at all a president who has a personal relationship with Jesus. It’s just that I don’t think Jesus is going to have useful advice about how to fix Social Security.

Jonah's essentially correct in his understanding of Christianity in general, and Evangelicalism in particular, here.

This was originally posted at 3:12 pm on Dec 6, 2004. I'm reposting it, and deleting the original post, in order to eliminate the trackback spamming this post routinely receives.

You know, the real world is getting impossible to parody.

If you've been following Sluggy Freelance, you'll know what I'm talking about right away, but if not, here's a bit of background (WARNING: Spoilers for those who might want to read this story and be surprised, but this whole post doesn't make much sense without discussing the N.U.K.E.):

The Dimension of Lame, as it is dubbed by Torg, is an alternate version of our world which is, well, lame. It has no weapons or violence, nor does it have drugs, alcohol, meat, or anything good to watch on TV. It's a paradise, but a boring one. When the Dimension of Pain, a world ruled by sadistic demons, invades, they are totally helpless, technologically and psychologically unable to fight back. Their only hope is Torg, a pretty normal guy from our dimension and the main character of Sluggy Freelance, who finds himself stuck in the Dimension of Lame, which he finds annoying, where he's the only one who can fight the demons (having a magic talking sword helps). Fast forward a few months, and the demons have taken over the pathetically weak US and the EU fears that it is next, so in their desperation, they launch a nuke at the US. The nuke is targeted right where Zoe, Torg's love, is hiding, so he rushes back to rescue her, hoping to find cover for them both by diving through the portal to the Dimension of Pain. Unfortunately, the N.U.K.E. is not what Torg thinks it is:

The 'n.u.k.e.', or 'Notification of Unified Kindness' Envelopes was an old way to deliver a polite yet stern message to a country by dropping hundreds of thousands of polite yet stern messages.

But the incidental damage was too great and it was universally banned. Until this day. Lady Gwynn [another character, from the Dimension of Lame] recalls the historical account of a N.U.K.E. survivor.

"Terrible thunder. Paper cuts impending. Litter unimaginable."

The demons themselves don't find the N.U.K.E., which has the message "We love you! But please don't come overseas. Hugs, The E.U.", very impressive. One of the demons comments, "You know, the argument is weak but the repetition's compelling!" Fortunately for the Dimension of Lame, the demons are more interested in pursuing Torg than invading the E.U. If you're interested in the whole, six month long story, start here. Or take my usual advice for reading webcomics, and start from the beginning. (Expect it to take a week to read the whole thing--Sluggy is big!)

Anyway, this silly bit of parody doesn't sound so silly much like parody any more (from Jim Robbins in The Corner, although it's been all over the Sluggy forums as well):

A massive airdrop of paper birds to promote peace failed to halt violence in Thailand's restive south, with a spate of new attacks targeting soldiers and local officials erupting on Monday.
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Encouraged by the government, Thais across the country _ Cabinet ministers, office workers, schoolchildren and even convicts _ folded more than 130 million birds to promote peace in the south. Approximately 30 million will be delivered by land.

While meant as a morale-boosting measure for victims of violence, Sunday's origami airdrop resembled a festive treasure hunt with prizes offered for some specially marked birds. People who collected large quantities could trade them in for items ranging from cartons of milk to bicycles.

You know, it sounds about as effective as it was in the comic. The odd thing is, I do believe that love can overcome hate, that it can break down defenses and turn people to redemption. However, the sort of love that does this is a strong, bold love, personal and confident, a tough love, not the impersonal, weak love--more of an abstract friendliness, really--dealt out by airdropping love notes.

Mark Steyn is a little bit frustrated that Hollywood has decided to pass on this war:

By contrast, nearly four years after September 11, I can't think of any big pop star in uniform except Madonna, who on her world tour last year cavorted in a blue burqa and, when she disrobed, as she inevitably does, was revealed to be wearing a US army uniform underneath.

This was in order to make the highly original point that the Taliban and the Bush Administration are both equally oppressive. Well, I never. The herd mentality of celebrity "dissent". Would it kill 'em once in a while to dissent from their dissent and try something other than the stultifying orthodoxy of Hollywood cardboard courage?

Other than that, popular culture has pretty much skipped the Vera Lynn phase and cut straight to Basil Fawlty: don't mention the war. They'd rather talk about anything other than Islamic terrorism. The Sean Penn thriller, The Interpreter, was originally about Muslim terrorists blowing up a bus in New York. So, naturally, Hollywood called rewrite. Now the bus gets blown up by African terrorists from the little-known republic of Matobo. "We didn't want to encumber the film in politics in any way," said Kevin Misher, the producer.

But being so perversely "non-political" is itself a political act. If there were a dozen movies in which Tom Cruise kicked al-Qa'eda butt across the Hindu Kush, it would be reasonable to say, "Hey, we'd rather deal with Matoban terrorism for a change."

But, when every movie goes out of its way to avoid being "encumbered", it starts to look like a pathology. Whenever some hapless studio exec finds he's accidentally optioned a property that happens to have Islamist terrorists in it, the first thing he does is change the enemy. Thus, the baddies in Tom Clancy's The Sum of All Fears were de-Islamicised and transformed into German neo-Nazis, a very pressing threat to America in 2005.

He then comes to the point:

The disconnect between the headlines and the culture these last four years is not about economics, it's about a loss of civilisational confidence.

Which is a big problem, because the smarter Islamists have figured out that, while they can never win on the battlefield, there's a sporting chance they can drag things out long enough until Western civilisation collapses through sheer self-loathing.

A valid point, I think.

Over as Dean's World, Mary Madigan's praise of the real Arab street segues into criticism of Bush for dealing with the Saudis:

This week, we saw the benefit of the end of destructive myths - the final, wonderful victory for the Cedar Revolution. The Lebanese government formally announced the election would be held on time. Pro-independence and pro-democracy forces were able to make their voices heard. As the Iraqi voters and millions of Lebanese proved, the goals of the fascists are actively opposed by the majority of the "Arab street."

Unfortunately, also last week our President exploded another myth. He just killed the belief that American has been fighting a war against terrorism by publicly begging the financier and the source of most Islamist terrorism for a favor.

Appeasing the Saudi government and helping the Royals in any way they can has been a long-standing policy of our Government. It’s doubtful that the Democrats could criticize Bush for his actions when Clinton accepted millions in Saudi donation towards the building of his library, or when Jimmy Carter accepts many millions in Saudi donations for ‘peace’ in Africa.

She's got a point. I tend to agree that we're too friendly with the Saudis considering how they've financed the madrassas which are busy spreading the Islamist ideology that we're fighting against. On the other hand, I don't really know all the behind-the-scenes politicking going on, and the Saudis are showing some signs of reform, although it never seems to be enough. Should we be taking a harder line on them, or should we be publicly friendly while applying quiet pressure? I really don't know.

Austin Bay (hat tip Captain Ed) is discussing the accidental release of classified documents concerning the "Sgrena incident," when American servicemen mistakenly fired on a vehicle carrying Italian agent Nicola Calpari and released hostage Guiliana Sgrena (Bay's earlier thoughts on this incident).

Here's what he has to say:

I just visited Michelle Malkin’s site and several other blogs discussing an allegedly leaked version of the Giulaina Sgrena shooting incident. (It would be more accurate to call it the Nicola Calpari shooting incident– after all, the Italian secret service agent is the person who died in the tragedy on Route Irish. ) A blogstorm has ignited over the significance of the alleged leaked, and the possibility that classified information is contained in the document.

The biggest worry isn’t specific details of the incident, but confirmation of coalition tactics, techniques, and procedures. Like the “Zarqawi CD” Kurds intercepted in early 2004 (it gave coalition forces an insight into Zarqawi’s strategic thinking, eg, he saw an Iraqi democracy as his biggest threat) many of the “accidentally released” details will confirm intelligence data the enemy has collected by observing US and coalition convoy movements in and around Baghdad.

That being noted, a little military adaptation will overcome this foolish mistake. I’ll show why/how in a moment. For background, here is my post of March 9, 2005 on the Sgrena incident and Route Irish Racing (my section’s term for the mad dash from Baghdad International Airport to downtown Baghdad and the Green Zone).

Is the document the real thing? I went to the Corriere della Serra website and scanned the alledged investigation report. In terms of language and organization is reads like an official summary of a military investigation. If it’s a forgery, then the forger has accurate names, ranks, units, and geographic data.

Austin points out that the document does give the enemy confirmation of much that he has already observed about our Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs). Some of this can and will be changed now that it's out in the open--in fact, much of it is being changed anyway, to try to keep ahead of the enemy observations. It's not good that this report is out there, but it's not as disastrous a compromise as you might think at first.