I can't take any more media, be it mainstream or social or any other kind, because the general noisy emotional overdrive and hyperreaction over Trump's inauguration from both supporters and opponents alike is giving me a headache. It's gotten to the point that I am half-expecting febrile friends of mine both on the left and right to start yelling at me because I haven't been posting excitable effluvia nonstop online.
So I give you one libertarian's bemused thoughts:
It’s been a weird couple of months. I’ve seen more people unfriend each other on FaceBook than in the past few years combined; There have been several reports of both Trump supporters and minorities being physically attacked; I’ve been asked to wear a safety pin to proclaim to the world that I am not a racist, because the presumption now is that everyone is a racist and you have to (secretly - only not so secretly) announce to everyone if you’re not; and the senior editor of ThinkProgress is afraid of his plumber. (This, based solely on whatever profiling techniques they use over at ThinkProgress - “… a middle-aged white man with a southern accent who seemed unperturbed by this week’s news.” - rather than anything resembling a conversation with the man.)
Here’s the thing: I’m a libertarian. I’ve been surrounded by people who don’t agree with me for as long as I can remember and it has never occurred to me to isolate myself from everyone because of our political differences. Certainly not to assault them. Nor am I filled with anxiety by the thought that people who work in my home might have different political views than mine. To me, you’re all a bunch of fascists. But I’ve somehow learned to live with you.
Heh! Seriously, though, later the writer says, "For me, watching people unravel over this election has been instructive," and what ultimately follows is not unlike what I've said about why an overly powerful executive is a Very Bad Thing and that it's still a Very Bad Thing even if (and maybe especially if) a guy you happen to like is sitting behind the Resolute desk. Just imagine someone you hate and fear having those same powers. You don't like that? Then maybe those are really stupid, dangerous powers that nobody should have, period.
Oh, one more thing. I've heard plenty of Obama-love over the last few days ranging from the classy to the completely deranged, but the one I remember the best is this: someone I know actually said that s/he wished Obama were a king so he could stay in power forever and we wouldn't have to deal with Trump. Yes, you read that right. Wished Obama were a king. Criminy, this actually happened in earnest. I half-expected the ghost of George Washington to appear on the spot and slap this person into next week. You've missed the entire point of the American Revolution.
I am so tired.
Admittedly, this is a rather difficult endeavour because it's trying to do a definition by default given that the administration seems to have no coherent pro-active strategic vision. "Leading from behind" does NOT count. Anyway, what do you think of:
(1) Definition the First
The Obama Doctrine is to ignore problems until they metastasize into vast international crises, then react with an ineffective spasm of concern. In this, the President has been consistent, be it Libya, Egypt, Boko Haram or Ukraine. The truly serious situations get a Twitter hashtag.
(2) Definition the Second
Asked seven years ago if the need to stave off potential genocide might convince him to change his mind about a total and precipitous withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, then-candidate Obama replied that it would not. “Well, look, if that’s the criteria by which we are making decisions on the deployment of U.S. forces, then by that argument you would have 300,000 troops in the Congo right now — where millions have been slaughtered as a consequence of ethnic strife — which we haven’t done,” Obama said.
This cynical avowal, I wrote at the time, was an indication of what might become the “Obama doctrine,” which I described thusly: “The United States will remain passive in the face of genocide.” Seven years later, I regret to say, my prediction stands up pretty well.
(3) Definition the Third (OK, not so much definition as observation)
I had thought the "libertarians are power-hungry Communists" piece was pretty unassailable as the dumbest, most ludicrous piece of the year, but I think we have a new front-runner. Via Twitchy, I point you to this: "What ISIS gets wrong about the Caliphate." Seriously? A bunch of Western libs messing around on the Internet is going to "explain" to ISIS how they're doing it wrong?
As for the "article" itself, it's so badly written in terms of style (let's not even touch substance) that I laughed. Here's an example:
The present-day Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in declaring himself a caliph and his terrorist mini-state a caliphate, is communicating that he believes he is fighting on behalf of all Muslims worldwide (he does not count Shia Muslims in this, only Sunnis) and that he is the representative of God on earth. He is also sort of suggesting a desire to continue ISIS's advance until he has conquered all Muslim-majority lands, which is an aspiration that's hinted at frequently in jihadist maps of a unified Islamic empire ...
This is freshman-level writing. At best.
Obama's top 10 foreign policy disasters. Number 1 is Syria because:
This is a blunder that arguably sums up every one of Obama’s weaknesses in conducting foreign policy. ...
Syria has shown us the many faces of Barack Obama.
First we had Obama the deer in the headlights, doing nothing for a year after the revolt against Bashar al-Assad broke out in April 2011 and people started dying—a period when there was a real opportunity to shift the balance of forces in the Middle East.
Then we had Obama the redliner in August 2012, promising swift action if Assad used chemical weapons against the rebels … then doing nothing when they were used.
Then came Obama the unilateralist, deciding he had to take military action so he wouldn’t look like a prevaricating poltroon. This was immediately followed by Obama the devious, leaving ultimate responsibility for the decision to Congress.
By then, of course, half a million people were dead and Al Qaeda was left to take over leadership of the rebellion against Assad.
Then came Obama, president of the Vladimir Putin fan club, gratefully taking up the Russian leader’s offer to broker the handover of Assad’s chemical weapons stash because it got Obama off the hook for military action. It also taught Putin that if he wanted to start reassembling the broken bits of the old Soviet Union, starting with Ukraine, Obama wouldn’t raise a hand to stop him.
Or, more accurately, lack of it:
While other administrations have shown weakness or had failures in the region, “This is the first administration to see the region as inconsequential.” Believing our “real” interests lay elsewhere (e.g. Asia) has led to a lack of focus and engagement in the Middle East. We continue to appear unserious because, in essence, we are.
YOU DON'T SAY!
The completely unnecessary mess in Arizona was an embarrassment to everyone. This is as good an analysis as any:
In a doomed effort on a superfluous bill, Arizona legislators created a political disaster for themselves, short-term damage to the business community, massive fundraising and PR victories for the Left, and a national black eye for social conservatives. Not to mention a lovely media distraction from Obamacare.
In fact, the whole thing was so awful that I'm tempted to hatch a conspiracy theory that those Arizona legislators were Democratic infiltrators and agents provocateurs.
Here's the sordid tale:
The publishers Springer and IEEE are removing more than 120 papers from their subscription services after a French researcher discovered that the works were computer-generated nonsense.
Over the past two years, computer scientist Cyril Labbé of Joseph Fourier University in Grenoble, France, has catalogued computer-generated papers that made it into more than 30 published conference proceedings between 2008 and 2013.
The "nerds behaving badly" tag is for the publishers who clearly had sloppy vetting practices. My response:
