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Where empires go to die. Hard to believe that Obama isn’t aware of the dangers of a sinkhole war, but apparently not.

Here’s an interesting piece from Le Nouvel Observateur, Paris, 15-21 January 1998 – Zbigniew Brzezinski backs up Robert Gates in saying that the root cause of the destabilization of Afghanistan during the 1980’s was not first the Soviets, but the U.S., which lured them there in 1979.

Q: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs [“From the Shadows”], that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?

Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.

Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?

B: It isn’t quite that. We didn’t push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.

Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn’t believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don’t regret anything today?

B: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.

Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?

B: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?

Q: Some stirred-up Moslems? But it has been said and repeated Islamic fundamentalism represents a world menace today.

B: Nonsense! It is said that the West had a global policy in regard to Islam. That is stupid. There isn’t a global Islam. Look at Islam in a rational manner and without demagoguery or emotion. It is the leading religion of the world with 1.5 billion followers. But what is there in common among Saudi Arabian fundamentalism, moderate Morocco, Pakistan militarism, Egyptian pro-Western or Central Asian secularism? Nothing more than what unites the Christian countries.

Translated from the French by Bill Blum

Poor Afghanistan – perpetually caught in the Great Game. What is it about its location that lures superpowers there?

Some time ago I announced with some fanfare that I had undertaken to read the book The Varieties of Religious Experience by the American philosopher and psychologist William James. It has taken some time, but I have made my way through it, and wanted to summarize my impressions taken from the great professor.

But first, some essential humility. My intelligence is often called into question here, but the most important criticism is often missed by my critics, though Budge hits on it now and then – I dabble. I am the accountant who always wanted to be a lion tamer. I do have an IQ that is above the average, but this is a source of frustration, as all it does is introduce me to the higher realms of those who have real and startling intelligence, whose depth I can only observe but not hope to experience. So reading William James is like watching a train go by – there’s no way I can run fast enough to get on board.

That said, as soon as I put up my thoughts on the opening passages of the books, Ed Kemmick offered his own thoughts, having long ago read the book, and it kept me in suspense the entire time. Here’s what he said:

Mark: You’re in for one of the world’s great reads. I don’t want to ruin the ending for you, but James concludes that people throughout history who claim to have had religious, transcendent experiences actually did have them. He concludes this on the basis of having examined the experiences of thousands of believers from widely divergent times and places and having found similarities that couldn’t be explained in any other way but to conclude that they had experienced something divine or transcendent.

I most admire James for coming to this conclusion without himself being able to feel any religious impulse. It’s a wonderful idea, painstakingly arrived at: that there is something out there, but that given the “varieties of religious experience,” it appears unlikely that any given sect or individual has yet been given any clear instructions from God. He makes dogmatists and atheists both look close-minded.

So I embarked. James was systematic in his analysis of the religious experiences we have all read about, that some of us have encountered. He examines the testimony of those who have had personal experiences with the unseen, and concludes that these experiences, while being real to the beholder, are not necessarily “real” in any scientific sense – that is, they are subjective and unique to the one that experiences them. But they have something in common, in that they answer a personal crisis, and almost always lead the person to a higher quality of life, a better and kinder existence, allowing people to forsake drink and tobacco and cease to pursue wealth, for example.

Often people who undergo mystical transformation do so only in benefit for themselves, living out their lives in monasteries, ceasing to be useful for the rest of humanity. As such, James seems to discount the mystical experience as having any terrible significance. Such experiences are perhaps nothing more than a manifestation of some individual’s need for meaning in life. That does not give life meaning, however.

Then there is the conversion experience – Paul being blinded by light and having an immediate and significant change in personality. Such people – I have known one or two – often become engines of transformation for others. The process is generally brought about by suffering – deep suffering that most of us don’t experience – psychological torment of one form or another that cries out for immediate relief. Otherwise, the person might retreat into insanity. The conversion experience again seems to be set aside as a psychological phenomenon. Most who experience it go on to become more satisfied, but not exceptional people.

James then examines the saintly personality – those among us so dedicated to charity, simplicity and purity as to lead exemplary lives worthy of biography and (seemingly only in Western Civilization) autobiography. James notes a common characteristic among saints – the complete sacrifice of self.

“One of the great consolations of monastic life,” says a Jesuit authority, is the assurance that we have that in obeying we can commit no fault. The Superior may commit a fault in commanding you to do this thing or that, but you are certain that you commit no fault so long as you only, because God will only ask you if you have duly performed what orders you received, and if you furnish a clear account in that respect, you are absolved entirely.”

Later in the Twentieth Century, this would be called the Nuremberg Defense. It is most likely my own ‘getting-off’ point with religion. I cherish my ego, cannot let go of it. I derive too much joy from it to sacrifice it to some higher power that never saw fit to give me a personal visit.

Saints are indeed among us and do live according to higher virtues and leave more positive impact on us that ordinary people. They are worthy of note, but this does not testify to the reality of their personal interaction with a deity.

We have to pass judgment on the whole notion of saintship based on merits. Any God who, on the one hand, can care to keep pedantically minute account of individual shortcomings, and who on the other hand can feel such partialities, and load particular creatures with such insipid marks of favor, is too small-minded a God for our credence.

James then examines mysticism – the apparent union with a higher power after the dark night of the soul. James lived in the time of the Transcendentalists, Emerson and Thoreau and Whitman, and observes that mystical experiences are often in tune with nature. The experience is real to the beholder, but, concludes James, should have no particular hold over the rest of us. The observations of mystics can only be experienced, and not well described, and since that experience is limited but a few of us, can be taken less seriously than the work of serious philosophers. But the experience points to something valuable, as he later concludes.

James then attacks theology itself. He is one of those who was behind the development of the philosophy of pragmatism, along with Charles Peirce, the idea that the meaning of thought is only valid in the actions it produces. (Read sometime, for the sheer fun of it, The Metaphysical Club, by Louis Menand)

If, namely, we apply the principle of pragmatism to God’s metaphysical attributes, strictly so-called, as distinguished from his moral attributes, I think that, even were we forced by coercive logic to believe them, we we still should have to confess them to be destitute of all intelligible significance.

Richard Dawkins, the annoying atheist, comes to a similar conclusion – theology is not of much use, and can be set aside. In Dawkins’ case, it is not to be set aside lightly, but in Dorothy Parker’s words, should be “thrown with great force.”

Prayer – what good is it? James may seem to have dismissed much of the religious experience at this point, but he takes prayer seriously. He gives credit to the unconscious being, and concludes that there is a flow of energy from there to our conscious life, and that those ideas that thus flow are healthy. From prayer we receive inspiration, strength, wisdom, and virtue. Whatever the mystical nature of the prayerful experience, it is a positive value.

James concludes that religion starts with “an uneasiness”, and its solution. The conclusion is that “we are saved from wrongness by making proper connection with higher powers.” This experience takes us into the realm of the mystical, and indeed many among us have had real experiences with the mystical life.

The whole drift of my education goes to persuade me that the world of our present consciousness is only one out of many worlds of consciousness that exist, and that those other worlds must contain experiences which have meaning for our life also; and that although in the main their experiences and those of this world keep discrete, yet the two become continuous at certain points, and higher energies filter in.”

There is “over-belief” – conclusions drawn from conversion, prayer, mysticism and saintliness that are not supported by unique individual experiences or objective inquiry into them, but whatever it is that these people experience, it is indeed real, and there is far more to our existence than our conscious minds can absorb. James, the psychologist, would put in the realm of the unconscious overlapping with the conscious, with the unconscious not yet fully explored and with much to tell us about our lives and existence.

It’s a book that needs to be re-read – I hope to have that time. In the meantime, I hope I have done him justice; I know I have not.

This is a thread from down below – I thought it might be of general interest and hope the participants carry on: (Fred and Knight – no slight intended by not including your comments – please join in.)

Mark T: Oh – you mean you want me to defend [FDR] against your accusation that he did more to destroy competitive practices than any president in history. I took that as hyperbole. Many things you did not like came out of FDR’s reign. Libertarians did not fare well, but the country, as a whole is far better off before than after his stay in office.

I cite stronger labor unions, Social Security, unemployment insurance and public works – trails that I still walk on today, dams that still hold water for parched area farmers. Just for starters. The only president I can think of who did more for the public good was Nixon.

Dave Budge: What’s that line: those that would trade freedom for security deserve neither.

Mark T: you seem to approach things from a Social Darwinist angle – that if we’re not constantly challenged for survival, that we lose our cutting edge skills. It’s not like that at all – people who are secure in their existence operate on a higher level than people who fear for survival. Do not the moneyed classes have better education and higher earnings than the working classes? If cutting edge survival skills are at the fore, why aren’t the lower classes on top?

Dave Budge: That’s a straw man argument.

Mark T: Not hardly Dave – we’ve argued many specifics, but in a larger sphere I have long thought (and said on occasion) that Social Darwinism is the heart of your philosophy.

Oh, wait – you’re going to say that even though I have made the point before, it is still a strawman. So let me be specific: The essence of your philosophy, as I hear you over time, is the idea that people need to be unencumbered by the leveling of government to allow the best of us to prosper so that the rest of us can benefit from the activities of the best of us. You believe in greater good, and differ from my side in that you think we are all better off with minimal interferences by the collective, which weighs us down and stifles our creative forces.

Is that fair? If so, then by implication, without the leveling activity of government, there has to be winners and losers, and we have to let the losers lose so the winners can win, otherwise we are all losers.

Have I misstated your philosophy? Oversimplified, I’m sure, but I think I’ve caught the essence.

Our philosophy on this side merely says that government can provide a safe atmosphere in which we carry on our business – winners still win, but losers don’t perish. It’s a little more humane. And when we all get to share basic goods like education and health care and basic foodstuffs, we are freed to pursue higher activities.

It’s the opposite of Darwinism – we’re not merely surviving – we are all blessed with a healthy life from which to start life’s endeavors.

Please, join in, anyone. I stand to be enlightened. I see Social Darwinism under just about every conservative construct. I think it’s the essential difference in all our debates.

I’m sure I’m not alone, but I’m a bit nonplussed over the fear stated by some on Wall Street that limiting pay of top Wall Street executives would cause a talent drain. These are the very executives who got caught up in a wild frenzy of greed and gluttony, and they’ve shown no indication that they think they were excessively exuberant. These are the hedge fund traders with the over-stimulated brains who dreamed up the unfathomable financial instruments on which they leveraged company fortunes. They caused the collapse, and screwed everyone within their reach, which was global, in the process.

Jail seems appropriate, and in a rational country they’d be fired and sent to work the soup kitchens – our new growth industry. But if limiting their incentive bonuses achieves the same result, I’ll take it.

On July 28, 2008, Jim David Adkisson broke into the Knoxville Unitarian Universalist Church, pulled a 12 gauge shotgun out of a guitar case and began firing. Before he was subdued, he shot eight people, leaving four in serious condition and killing two.

Inside Adkisson’s house, officers found the books “Let Freedom Ring” by TV talk show host Sean Hannity, “Liberalism is a Mental Disorder” by radio talk show host Michael Savage, and “The O’Reilly Factor,” by Bill O’Reilly. They also found four hand-written pages, which are the Adkisson Manifesto.

Adkisson hates Unitarians (I am one). He hates liberals and gays – the repeated references to “homos” leave me with the scent of self-loathing, as in repressed homosexuality. (But that’s probably just me. I see that in every Hummer driver.)

The Manifesto is gripping and revealing – he literally spouts right wing talking points, as if he were the ugly stepchild of talk radio. (He calls it the “Democrat” instead of “Democratic” Party.) He also refers to liberals as the “Fountainhead” of anti-American organizations (Moveon.org and Code Pink), making me wonder if he’s read Rand. He also makes reference to Bernie Goldberg.

Fascinating stuff. (Typos and misspellings are Adkisson’s.)

To whom it may concern:

I guess you’re wondering why I did this. Well, let me explain it in detail.

Over the years I had some good jobs, but I always got layed off. Now I’m 58 years old & I can’t get a decent job. I’m told I’m “overqualified”, which is a code word for “too damned old”. Like I’m expected to age gracefully into poverty. No thanks! I’m done.

I’ve always wondered why I was put on the earth. For years I thought I was put here to die as cannon fodder in Vietnam but somehow I cheated the devil out of it. Lately I’ve been feeling helpless in our War on Terrorism. But I realized I could engage the terrorist allies here in America. The best allies they’ve got.

The Democrats! The Democrats have done everything they can do to tie out hands in this War on Terror. They’re all a bunch of traitors. They want America to loose this war for reasons I can not understand. It makes me soooo mad!

In a parallel train of thought, it saddens me to think back on all the bad things that Liberalism has done to this country. The worst problem America faces today is Liberalism. They have dumbed down education, they have defined deviancy down. Liberals have attacked every major institution that made America great. From the Boy Scouts to the military, from education to Religion, the major news outlets have become the propaganda arm of the Democrat Party. Liberals are evil, they embrace the tenets of Karl Marx, they’re Marxist, socialist, communists.

THE UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST CHURCH

Don’t let the word church mislead you. It isn’t a church, it’s a cult. They don’t even believe in God. They worship the God of secularism. These sick people aren’t Liberals, they’re Ultraliberals. This is a collection of sicko’s, weirdo’s & homo’s. The UU Church is the Fountainhead, the veritable wellspring of anti-American organizations like Moveon.org, Code Pink, and other American groups.

These people are absolute hypocrits. They embrace every pervert that comes down the pike, but if they find out you’re a conservative, they absolutely hate you. I know. I experienced it.

I can’t, for the life of me, understand why these people would embrace Marxism like they do.

I’d like someone to do an exposé on this church, it’s a den of un-American vipers. They call themselves “Progressive”. How is a white woman having a niger baby progress? How is a man sticking his dick up another man’s ass progress? It’s an abomination.

It takes a warped mind to hate America. It makes me so angry. I can’t live with it anymore! The environmental nuts have to be stopped!

KNOW THIS IF NOTHING ELSE

I: This was a hate crime.
I hate the damn left-wing Liberals. There is a vast left-wing conspiracy in this country & these liberals are working together to attack every decent & honorable institution in the Nation, trying to turn the country into a communist state. Shame on them.

II: This was a Political Protest
I’m protesting the liberal Supreme Court Justices for giving the terrorists at GITMO constitutional rights. I’m protesting the major News outlets, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, PBS for being the propaganda wing of the Democrat Party. It’s criminal what they’re getting away with. They’re traitors! They must be stopped. I’m protesting the DNC for running such a radical leftist candidate. Osama Hussein Obama, no mama. No experience, no brains, a joke. Dangerous to America. Hell, he looks like Curious George.

III: This was a symbolic killing
Who I wanted to kill was every Democrat in the Senate & House, the 100 people in Bernard Goldberg’s book. I’d like to kill everyone in the Mainstream Media. But I know these people were inaccessible to me. I couldn’t get to the generals & high ranking officers of the Marxist movement so I went after the foot soldiers, the chicken shit liberals that vote in these traitorous people. Someone had to get the ball rolling. I volunteered. I hope others do the same, it’s the only way we can rid America of this cancer this pestilence.

IN CONCLUSION

No one gets out of the world alive so I’ve chosen to skip the bad years of poverty. I know my life is going downhill fast from here. The future looks bleak. I’m sick and tired of being sick & tired. I’m absolutely fed up.

So I thought I’d do something good for this Country. Kill Democrats ‘til the cops kill me. If decent patriotic Americans could vote 3 times in every election we couldn’t stem this tide of liberalism that’s destroying America.

Liberals are a pest, like termites. Millions of them. Each little bite contributes to the downfall of this great nation. The only way we can rid ourselves of this evil is kill them in the streets. Kill them where they gather.

I’d like to encourage other like minded people to do what I’ve done. If life ain’t worth living anymore, don’t just kill yourself. Do something for your country before you go. Go Kill Liberals!

Tell the cop that killed me that I said “Thanks, I needed that!”

I have no next of kin, no living relatives. If you would take my sorry carcass to the body farm, or donate it to science, or just throw me in the Tennessee River.

Sincerely,
Jim David Adkisson

h/t SoHum Parlance II
See original Document

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Large minds talk about ideas. Small minds delve in personalities.

Anyway, there’s this guy – he’s a college professor, and so he’s free of any threat of ever losing his job. He gets free health care and nice retirement benefits and an expense account. So, consequently, he’s more insulated from the free market than any I know (save a few trust babies I once worked for). This guy preaches the beauty!, the wisdom!, the genius! of …. the very free market from which he is exempt.

I’ve interacted with him several times now, and found he has other characteristics that now seem to fit – the insulation from the stress and strain of survival in the market have made him cocky in his attitudes. Viewing us all from above, he’s quick with bromides for every problem, virtually all of the same proscription: Less Government, More Market. He’s a man on a mission, enlightened and ready to show us the way, if only we would listen.

One other matter – the man studiously researches his views, constantly reassuring himself that he is right. He seeks out studies that reinforce him, and, I learned last night, even done a study himself. Here’s the exchange, redacted, which has gone off the main page at Electric City Weblog:

Mark T: You methodically seek out data and economists that support your views, as we all do, but you are different in one important regard: You are so sure you are right that you don’t postulate – you conclude conclusively and with finality. You have spoken. . And you always conclude that you are right….

Since you present yourself as methodical, I ask that you measure Montana’s economic performance while neutralizing two important variables – national [and] world commodity prices, and subsidy. You are looking for correlation between income tax and economic performance, and since you look very very hard for that correlation, you of course find it. But with such a narrow focus, you miss more than you see.

…[Montana} state tax revenues tend to go up when oil prices are high, as they do when farmers are prospering. Most of our farmers are heavily subsidized, as is our road building and land management. Where are we without subsidy and high commodity prices? Do income taxes even matter? In fact, so much of our economic performance is beyond our control that I am reminded of a child with a pretend-steering wheel thinking he is driving a car as I listen to your rhetoric.

…Your focus is too narrow, your outcomes preordained – your philosophy is not worth much. But it seems, as always, that your way of looking at things is the only way. You are widely critiqued and criticized all over the Montana blogosphere, but you never seem to leave here. Why?

Natelson: Actually, I don’t believe a total taxation package should be regressive. I believe it should be proportional with respect to income.

Did you know that an MSU economist and I ran the numbers ourselves for Montana years ago? In a study published by the Independence Institute in 1994, we found highly robust, statistically significant connections between both taxes and government spending as a share of state personal income and subsequent (not simultaneous) economic growth over the previous quarter century: The higher the Montana taxes and spending, the lower the subsequent growth and vice versa. Montana state-local fiscal policy accounted for 25-40% of the difference in growth rate between Montana and the nation as a whole.

So we didn’t just rely on other published studies, nor did we assume that what was true elsewhere was true in Montana. WE DID THE LEGWORK OURSELVES.

And I’m delighted to hear from you that, I am “widely critiqued and criticized all over the Montana blogosphere.” Since I actually work for a living and therefore don’t have infinite blogging time, I guess they’ll all just have to come over to Electric City Weblog to engage me, won’t they?

If they have the GUTS . . .

Mark T: Oh, they have the guts, Ron. Each and every one of them. Crisp, for example, has written about you on a couple of occasions. It’s a click of the button – not a factor of time. It’s not like it takes extra time to visit another blog. You’re being disingenuous here. You have plenty of time to blog and respond to blog posts, but when it comes time to face your critics, you get too busy.

Anyway, go back a re-read what I wrote:

Have you finally learned that most studies are a reflection of the desired outcomes of those who study?

Your answer to this: “I did the study.”

What sense does that make? Is a study better because you did it? Are you more objective in your analysis than you are in debate? Do you set aside your extreme views when you enter the laboratory?

That’s preposterous.

Anyway, show us the study, and show us where it was peer reviewed. I’d be interested – peer review is essential in these matters, so I presume that you and your cohort published both your findings and your data, and that others then replicated your findings with that data.

End of story. What did I learn? Here’s s snippet from Rolling Stone Magazine, an article titled “Bitter Pill” by Ben Wallace-Wells, regarding trials and studies of new drugs:

studies have found that drug trials sponsored by the industry (which, since rule changes made in the Reagan administration, has meant virtually every large drug trial) are at least four times more likely to suggest that a drug is a success than trials that are independently funded.

My conclusion? Studies by conservative and libertarian think tanks are four times as likely as any other study to find that the policies advocated by conservative libertarian think tanks – lower taxes (or no taxes) on wealth, unregulated trade and deregulation – are the right policy for our country.

I further conclude by use of an exponent applied to an extreme personality, that a study sponsored by Mr. Natelson is sixteen time more likely than objective observers to say that Mr. Natelson has been right all along.

People attempting to contact their representatives concerning the stimulus bill have run into a few roadblocks. For one thing, right wing talk show hosts have been urging their listeners to call and voice objections to passage, so Capitol Hill phone lines have been swamped. People going to web sites have often found them unresponsive, as servers are overloaded. Anyway, how can we know there’s even a person on the other end?

I have always thought that the best way to contact a representative was a personal and short (and oh, I need to be reminded, respectful) letter. Form letters and post cards tend to be taken lightly – people who sent them obviously didn’t think much about content. And letters with repetitive wording tend to have less weight than those with original wording. (So the next time your local environmental group tells you to write to your congressperson and tell him “Here’s what I think about such and such”, think of a clever new way to word it. Better yet, express your own thoughts.)

I learned all of that from working with a former legislative assistant. But times have changed – there was no Internet at that time. Now we can email them. Right? Don’t bother. They get so many emails, which are so easy to generate, that they just don’t get read. They might be scanned for key words and replies might be generated automatically. Maybe. Most go unnoticed, unrecorded, and certainly unread. (By the way, Internet petitions are a cruel joke – a way of collecting email addresses for other purposes. Our “right to petition for redress of grievances” means real signatures on real paper- not electronic.)

Anyway, even letters, as I understand it from talk radio, are now kind of useless too – it seems that after the anthrax scares of 2003, all mail going to Capitol Hill is being scanned, and it’s quite a long process. So if you wrote your congressperson yesterday about the stimulus bill, she should be hearing from you in, say …., two weeks. Maybe longer.

So it comes down to a phone call. They do log phone calls, and phone calls have the advantage of immediate gratification. But what to do when the Dittoheads are clogging the lines? Our last and best option is to call the local office, or any local office in the state. Caller ID reveals area code, so it has to be in-state. But local offices do log calls and report results to the head honchos. It’s the last best way to stay in touch.

I’ve been subject to a flurry of emails surrounding the recent opening of a “women’s health” clinic in Livingston, Montana. It’s an abortion clinic. I get that. The people sending me the emails are acquaintances who I know through a relative, and their concern is heartfelt. They are among those picketing the clinic.

I have had many go-rounds with these folks. They are all devout Christians. I mean that sincerely – their faith is as much a part of them as any saint who ever lived. So when they send me photos of aborted fetuses and tell me that I am an evil man for supporting such an awful practice as abortion, I have to take stock.

I answered one of their emails this morning, facing the subject as squarely and forcefully as I could, not wishing to indulge myself in self-absolution. This is what came out:

You folks have been a curiosity to me, focused are you are on abortion and oblivious to all of the other horrors we inflict on one another. I was once young and naive, and I believed fervently in my God and country, and was as fervently concerned about abortion. It was such a horror – me the father of five, I could not imagine such a practice.

What changed? Why do I now “favor” abortion? I don’t. I hate it. I think it is ugly. But I’ve learned a thing or two about life, and one of those things is that we are often confronted with ugly choices. And with abortion, most times it is an early-pregnancy procedure that frees a young woman to pursue a productive life. Late-term abortions, which is what those awful pictures we see are about, are horrible, and I cannot bear to see them.

Contrast this, say, with my country, which I loved and believed in, and its “choice” to kill three million Vietnamese by the most horrible means imaginable – half a million Cambodians and Laotians. My country supplied the list of names so General Suharato could kill his millions of his own Indonesian citizens. See how my country recently made a similar “choice” to kill hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, again by horrible means. See how over two million Iraqis had to flee their country because my country made life so horrible it was their best option.

I try now and then to help you see how big the crimes are around us, and what I get is something like “it is a lie”, it is unavoidable”, “the good outweighs the bad”, and other such self-delusions. You so willingly and easily accept evil when done by your country that I conclude that you are part of it, and therefore think your caterwauling about abortion to be insincere.

What has this to do with abortion? Nothing, and everything. I am inured to the rough edges of life, I see how ugly humans are to one another, and how humans justify it all and say it is noble and good. I see hypocrisy all around me, masked in saintliness. Jill [name changed] has repeatedly tried to get Jack [ditto] to face death in Iraq and contrast it with death by abortion – to no avail. Jack prefers to be a saint on the one hand, and a blind man with a cane on the other.

So, how do I feel about abortion? I let it be. It will go on, no matter what. Always has, always will. I cannot dictate the lives of others. I live with those choices, ugly though they may be. I leave you to your picketing with the reminder that you and your country are involved in far greater crimes, and suggest you stop ignoring that part of life too. Were I to think you genuine in your heartfelt concerns, I might also find you carrying signs and protesting the Iraq war, but you don’t do that. That part of death and destruction and horrible killing you seem to accept with glee.

There it is – I cannot stand abortion. I think the euphemism “choice” is meant to mask something that is very ugly. It’s another way of saying “collateral damage”. I am part of life, and not above it. I accept without judgment mothers who abort their fetuses as being human, as am I. Can I ever forgive my country in a similar manner? I seem to suffer from a mirror contradiction to those at whom I directed this morning’s email.