Tag Archives: Political Correctness

Do We Have a Deal?

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The famed author of Parkinson’s Law once wrote that there are two kinds of books: those with naked women on the cover, and those without. As a rule, he added, the former sell better. Over the years my blog has carried quite some pictures of women. However, not one of them shows a pair of naked breasts. Much as I love women, specifically including their bodies, it is a policy I intend to follow in the future, too.

Seriously, the blog is now ten years old. During the first four years it was clicked-on more than a quarter of a million times; at that point I lost touch. Not nearly enough to compete with, say, Stormy Daniels and her alleged presidential lover. But perhaps sufficient to merit pausing for a bit of reflection. Before I get started, though, I’d like to thank my stepson Jonathan Lewy, who has been running it on my behalf; Mr. Larry Kummer, editor of the Fabius Maximus website, who more than anyone else has taken an interest in my work and encouraged me to continue posting; my friend Bill Lind whose blog, Traditional Right, is always an inspiration; the painter Bob Barancik; various people who, either after being contacted by me or spontaneously, agreed to write their own essays; and a somewhat larger number who took the trouble to contact me and correspond with me.

Just why I started blogging and kept doing so I am no longer sure. Originally I wanted a forum on which I could write what I wanted at any time and in any form I wanted. Without, what is more, being subject to the whims of editors many of whom have their own agenda and quite a few of whom have always remained more or less unknown to me. That remains true to the present day. Another motive, which was added later, was a growing sense of obligation towards my readers. It is like being married; how could I let them down? Not that I have any illusions that they could not exist without me. However, it is as people say. The one thing worse than a Dutch Calvinist is a Jewish Dutch Calvinist.

Normally I spend about two hours on each post. Often these are times when, for one reason or another, I do not feel like doing more “serious” work. I draw my ideas from various sources. Including, above all, the daily news; any book or books I happened to be reading or working on; and friends’ suggestions. Topics I found particularly interesting included Israeli affairs—I am, after all, a citizen and a resident of that country and have long shared both its triumphs and its failures. Also military affairs in general; women’s affairs (both in- and out of the military); the shape the future might take; political correctness, which is my personal bête noire; why American kids so often take up guns and kill everyone in sight; and others.

Some of these topics have proved much more popular than others. I have, however, never succeeded in guessing in advance which ones would draw many readers and which ones would turn into flops. Truth to say, I have not even seriously tried. Perhaps it is better so; writing to please should only be allowed to go so far and no farther. Some posts, especially those that touch upon the position of women in society as well as the relationship between them and men, have drawn considerable critical fire. Good! May they continue to do so in the future, too.

One part of the work I particularly like is searching Google.com for images. Given enough patience, you will almost certainly find what you are looking for. I know there are a lot of criticisms of Google and I suppose some of them are justified. Any organization as large and successful as they are is bound to make enemies. As, in the past, Western Union, Standard Oil, General Motors, ATT, and Microsoft all did. To me, however, the company has provided a certain kind of freedom people before 2000 or so could not even imagine. Thank you, Google, for your help. It is appreciated.

Finally, I am not getting any younger or healthier. Driving up and down the hills around Jerusalem, which as a young man with twenty kilograms less around the waist I used to run over as if my life depended on it, I often wonder how long before some illness strikes and brings me to a halt. Que sera, sera. This, however I promise my readers:

Never, ever, will I use the kind of swearwords and other forms of expression that, after they have been uttered, require mouthwash.

Never, ever, will I knowingly allow my judgments to be affected by inducements—and there have been a few attempts to offer them—or threats. The kind of threats, incidentally, that are even now being issued by some elements in Israeli academia against any faculty member who dares address any kind of political issue in class.

Never, ever, will I allow anyone or anything to interfere with my right to think, say and write as I saw fit.

Always, always, will I try to keep an open ear to my readers’ suggestions and criticism.

In return, I ask my readers to go on telling me what they think. Preferably by email at mvc.dvc@gmail.com

Do we have a deal?

Hurray, I am on the Index!

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Some weeks ago I got an email from a stranger in England. Here goes:

“I work at a top UK school and was asked to give a lecture on a controversial topic for a course intended to provoke debate. I chose the patriarchy.

I quoted your comment in The Privileged Sex that, in a world without men,

‘Mining, oil extraction, heavy and chemical industry, long-distance transportation, most forms of construction, many kinds of agriculture, such as forestry and the herding of large domestic animals, would all but cease. So would deep-sea fishing. Under such conditions, over 90% of the world’s present-day population would die of starvation. The women that survived such a calamity would likely revert to a primitive life based on horticulture, dwelling in huts and suffering from a permanent shortage of animal protein. Judging by historical and pre-historical precedent, their life expectancy would be reduced to less than 40 years.’

My point was simply about the traditional division of labor. A lot of men die doing those jobs, and most societies have avoided risking women’s lives.”

Next thing I learnt that, for daring to quote me and defying political correctness in general, the teacher was accused of “gross misconduct” and fired.

Let readers decide two things. First, whether there is any truth in the lines I wrote; and second, whether anyone deserves to be fired for quoting them. Here I want to discuss some other books that have been banned by the authorities that be. Taking a look at history, it turns out that, starting long, long ago, there have been any number of such books. Either because they contradicted the dominant religion, or because they were considered politically subversive, or because they celebrated sex. Thinking of it, it seems to me that there has hardly been a literate civilization that did not have a list of them.

That is why, in the discussion that follows, I shall limit myself to one such list, i.e the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. Not because it was by any means the first. And not because it was the worst of the lot. At any rate it banned books because of what the authors had to say, not because of the race to which they, the authors, belonged. But because many of the books it banned were, or later became, world famous. Already in 1559, the year its first edition was issued by Pope Paul IV, it contained the names of 550 authors whose works were considered heretical. Individual titles by many additional ones not included. Over the next four centuries the number grew and grew until it reached into the thousands.

Some books were banned in certain countries but not in others. Some were banned entirely, others only until certain changes were made in the text. As the intellectual ambience changed, others still were dropped from the list. Keeping it up to date provided generations of Catholic scholars—not the world’s most foolish or worst informed, by the way—with lifetime sinecures. All to no avail, of course. Neither the printing presses nor any number of curious readers could be stopped. The harder the Holy See fought, the more it turned itself into a laughing stock. Until, in 1966, Pope Paul VI took the long overdue step of doing away with the whole thing.

Whether the sperm donor should be known or unknown? It generic levitra 5mg is always advisable to go for unknown donor. Former is expensive and latter is affordable. buy generic sildenafil Both of prescription free cialis http://www.unica-web.com/archive/2012/baca.html these numbers are important. Causes of weak erection in men include reduced sildenafil 100mg hop over to these guys blood supply due to damaged nerves and tissues. A full history of the list, let alone even a short description of the books on it, would easily fill the shelves of a library (or, these days, a hard disk). Here, all I can do is to present you, my faithful readers, with a few examples, selected for no other reason than that, as I’ve just said, the authors in question ended up by becoming world famous.

Nicolas Copernicus, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies). In the West, the idea that the sun and all other heavenly bodies revolved around the earth reigned supreme from the second century CE on. Enter Copernicus, a monk from Torun in Poland. In On the Revolutions, published in the year of his death (1543), he argued that the opposite was the case. In 1616 it was placed on the Index. Today there are statues of him all over Poland as well as one in Chicago.

Galileo Galilei Dialogue on the Two Systems of the World. Galileo was a widely known, widely respected, early seventeenth-century scientist with many discoveries to his name. Including sunspots, including the mountains on the face of the moon, and including the moons of Jupiter. In this work, published in 1632, he argued, as Copernicus had done, that the earth was not the center of the universe. The Church immediately had the publication suspended. Later it put the author on trial, the details of which are too well known to be retold here.

Thomas Hobbes. Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) in Leviathan and other words tried to bridge the gap between biology and social life on one hand and the physics of his day on the other. On the way he invented the modern state as an “artificial man,” for which I personally consider him, along with Aristotle, as one of the two most important political scientists of all time. Also on the way. he came very close to denying the existence both of God and the human soul. If he personally escaped punishment, then only because he fled from his native England to the Netherlands.

Francois-Marie Arouet Voltaire. Voltaire’s (1694-1778) ability to combine serious philosophy with a light, almost flippant, touch has probably never been equaled. For advocating the rights of nonconformists of every kind, religious ones included, most of his books were put on the Index. Today many see him as the greatest of all Enlightenment writers.

Antonio Rosmini, On the Five Wounds of the Catholic Church (1883). A relatively obscure figure, Rosmini was an Italian priest and theologian. In this work, each of the crucified Christ’s wounds is made to stand for a serious defect of the Church. The one on the left hand represents the division between the people and the clergy in public worship. The one on the right hand does the same for the insufficient education of the clergy. And so on, wound by wound. In 1849 it was placed on the index, along with another one of Rosmini’s works. Why did I put him on this short list? Because, 158 years later, his concern for the poor and downtrodden caused him to be formally beatified.

Jean-Paul Sartre. Opera Omnia. Sartre (1905-80) was a French philosopher who clashed with the Church on almost every point. Many consider him the twentieth century’s most important atheist. Which did not prevent him from being awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize for literature.

Simone de Beauvoir (1908-86). De Beauvoir was Sartre’s lifelong companion. Her books, The Second Sex (1949) and The Mandarins (1954) were among the last to be put on the Index and also among the fairly rare ones written by women. Her sin? As well as joining Sartre in his atheism, she was perhaps the twentieth century’s most important feminist writer. As such, she opposed patriarchy and accused the Church of having supported it for two thousand years.

Now I too have been put on the index. If not on that of the Holy See, which has finally woken up to the folly of trying to control thought, then at any rate on the much more odious, because much less well-defined, of feminism/political correctness. To which I can only say, hurray! Who knows, perhaps there is hope for me, The Privileged Sex, and The Gender Dialogues as well.

P.S A few years ago the BBC, “punishing” me for something in wrote on this blog concerning (nonexistent?) Kurdish female warriors, canceled an interview with me. So I was very happy to learn that 1,300,000,000 Chinese are now prevented from watching it or listening to it. Serves it right, I suppose.

Happy Anniversary, My Blog

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The first time on which this blog went online was on 9 April 2013 and has never missed a week since. Today’s post is number 250; time to celebrate, I think. My way of doing so will be to re-post a piece I first posted two years ago. Except for the first sentence, which I have deleted, word for word.

*

No, my site has not drawn very large numbers of readers and has not developed into the equivalent of the Huffington Post. And no, I do not do it for profit; though at times I was tempted by offers to open the site to advertising, in the end I rejected them all. As a result, never did I receive a single penny for all the work I have been doing (normally, about two hours per week). More, even: since I am not very computer literate, I rely on my stepson, Jonathan Lewy, to run the site for me. But for him it would not have been possible. So let me use this opportunity to thank him from the bottom of my heart.

What I have received and am receiving is feedback. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Some people have used the appropriate button on the site to say what they think of my work or simply in order to get in touch. Others suggested that they write for me or else responded to my request that they do so. Others still have asked, and received, my permission to repost my work on their own sites. A few have even taken the trouble to translate entire articles into their native languages. Except for a few yahoos who ranted and swore, almost all my contacts with the people in question, many of whom were initially complete strangers, have been courteous, informative, and thought-provoking. Thank you, again, from the bottom of my heart.

Most of the ideas behind my posts are derived from the media. Others have to do with my personal experiences; others still, such as the series on Pussycats, have to do with the research I am currently doing or else were suggested by various people. Perhaps most important of all, I often use my posts as what Nietzsche used to call Versuche. By that he meant attempts to clarify his thoughts and see where they may lead. The most popular posts have been those which dealt with political and military affairs. Followed by the ones on women and feminism, followed by everything else. Given my background and reputation as a longtime professor of military history and strategy, that is not surprising.

At one point I tried to enlist the aid of a friend to have the blog translated into Chinese and make my posts available in that language too. No luck; I soon learnt that the Great Chinese Firewall did not allow them to pass. Why that is, and whether my work has fallen victim to some kind of dragnet or has been specifically targeted I have no idea. Thinking about it, the former seems more likely; to the best of my knowledge I have never written anything against China. But one never knows.

That brings me to the real reason why I write: namely, to exercise my right to freedom of thought. And, by doing so, do my little bit towards protecting it and preserving it. My heroes are Julian Assange and Edward Snowden. The former because he has exposed a few of the less decent things—to put it mildly—out dearly beloved governments have been saying and doing in our name. The latter, because he has shown how vulnerable all of us are to Big Brother and called for reform. Both men have paid dearly for what they have done, which is another reason for trying to follow in their footsteps as best I can.

Freedom of speech is in trouble—and the only ones who do not know it are those who will soon find out. The idea of free speech is a recent one. It first emerged during the eighteenth century when Voltaire, the great French writer, said that while he might not agree with someone’s ideas he would fight to the utmost to protect that person’s right to express them. Like Assange and Snowden Voltaire paid the penalty, spending time in jail for his pains. Later, to prevent a recurrence, he went to live at Frenay, just a few hundred yards from Geneva. There he had a team or horses ready to carry him across the border should the need arise. Good for him.

To return to modern times, this is not the place to trace the stages by which freedom of speech was hemmed in in any detail. Looking back, it all started during the second half of the 1960s when it was forbidden to say, or think, or believe, that first blacks, then women, then gays, then transgender people, might in some ways be different from others. As time went on this prohibition came to be known as political correctness. Like an inkstain it spread, covering more and more domains and polluting them. This has now been carried to the point where anything that may offend anyone in some way is banned—with the result that, as Alan Bloom in The Closing of the American Mind has shown, in many fields it has become almost impossible to say anything at all.
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Let me give you just one example of what I mean. Years ago, at my alma mater in Jerusalem, I taught a course on military history. The class consisted of foreign, mostly American, students. At one point I used the germ Gook. No sooner had the word left my mouth than a student rose and, accused me of racism. I did my best to explain that, by deliberately using the term, I did not mean to imply that, in my view, the Vietnamese were in any way inferior. To the contrary, I meant to express my admiration for them for having defeated the Americans who did think so. To no avail, of course.

And so it goes. When the Internet first appeared on the scene I, along with a great many other people, assumed that any attempt to limit freedom of speech had now been definitely defeated. Instead, the opposite is beginning to happen. Techniques such as “data mining” made their appearance, allowing anything anyone said about anything to be instantly monitored and recorded, forever. All over Europe, the thought police is in the process of being established. Sometimes it is corporations such as Facebook which, on pain of government intervention, are told to “clean up” their act by suppressing all kinds of speech or, at the very least, marking it as “offensive,” “untrue,” and “fake.” In others it is the governments themselves that take the bit between their teeth.

Regrettably, one of the governments which is doing so is that of the U.S. Naively, I hoped that Trump’s election would signify the beginning of the end of political correctness. Instead, he is even now trying to prevent people in- and out of the government from discussing such things as global warming and the need to preserve the environment. Not to mention his attacks on the media for, among other things, allegedly misreading the number of those who came up to witness his inauguration. Should this line continue and persist, then it will become imperative to do without him and go against him. Not because of what he has to say about both topics is necessarily wrong, but to ensure the right of others to think otherwise.

This won’t do. That is why I promise my readers, however few or many they may be, one thing: namely, to go on writing about anything I please and go on speaking the truth as I see it. The English poet W. H. (Wystan Huge) Auden, 1907-1973, might have been referring to blogging when he wrote:

I want a form that’s large enough to swim in,

And talk on any subject that I choose.

From natural scenery to men and women

Myself, the arts, the European news.

They are Not Nice

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Asshole. Assjabber. Assmuncher. Badass. Bitch. Boy (if applied to a young man). Babyface. Bollocks. Clitlicker. Blowjob. Buttplug. Cock. Cockbag. Cocksucker. Cumguzzler. Cunt. Cuntee. Cuntface. Cunscikle. Cunthish. Cuntishness. Cunty. Dago. Dick. Dickhead. Dickhole. Fatso. Feminazi. Girl (if applied to a young woman). Fuck. Fuckboy. Fuckhole. Fuckmeat. Gook. Guido. Ho. Homo. Honkey. Jackass. Kike (sometimes spelt Kyke). Lardass. Lesbo. Lezzie. Motherfucker. Nigger (no explanation needed). Pollack. Pooper. Prick. Pussyfart. Queef (a vaginal fart, in case you, like me, did not know). Queer. Ruski. Shit (when referring to a person). Shitbag. Shitcunt. Shitface. Shitfucker. Shithead. Slut. Slutbag. Spunkbucket. Suckass. Thundercunt. Tit. Twat. Whore.

I may have overlooked a few, but you get the idea. They and any number of others are not what people, myself included, call nice. But better, much better, than being prohibited from using them. The more so because, like ripples in a pond, the prohibitions tend to expand. As, for example, seems to be happening to the word sausage. For fear it may make some sensitive soul think of a penis, it is now well on its way to being prohibited in every- and any context whatsoever. Until, in the end, there will be no room left for any kind of thought at all. Let alone, speech.
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PS Thanks a lot to the North American Scrabble Players Association which, by banning the use of such words in competition, drove me to write this post.

Guest article: Old, Older, too Old

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By

Kobi Haron*

Queen Elizabeth I is generally regarded as a very successful monarch, one of the best. For many years she did very well, making few mistakes. But after 1590, following the defeat of the Spanish Armada, when she was already 57, her reign changed for the worse. Here is what Wikipedia has to say about her:

The conflicts with Spain and in Ireland dragged on, the tax burden grew heavier, and the economy was hit by poor harvests and the cost of war. Prices rose and the standard of living fell. During this time, repression of Catholics intensified, and Elizabeth authorized commissions in 1591 to interrogate and monitor Catholic householders. To maintain the illusion of peace and prosperity, she increasingly relied on internal spies and propaganda. In her last years, mounting criticism reflected a decline in the public’s affection for her.

It could be bad luck, or perhaps, after 32 years on the throne, she was simply bored. Maybe it was her age.

In 1951 Churchill started his second premiership. Again see the account at Wikipedia:

Churchill was nearly 77 when he took office and was not in good health following several minor strokes. By December, George VI had become concerned about Churchill’s decline and intended asking him to stand down in favor of Eden, but the King had his own serious health issues and died on 6 February without making the request. Churchill developed a close friendship with Elizabeth II. It was widely expected that he would retire after her Coronation in May 1953 but, after Eden became seriously ill, Churchill increased his own responsibilities by taking over at the Foreign Office. Eden was incapacitated until the end of the year and was never completely well again.

On the evening of 23 June 1953, Churchill suffered a serious stroke and became partially paralyzed down one side. Had Eden been well, Churchill’s premiership would most likely have been over. The matter was kept secret and Churchill went home to Chartwell to recuperate. He had fully recovered by November. He soldiered on through 1954 until, finally accepting his decline, he retired as prime minister in April 1955 and was succeeded by Eden.

So a prime minister starts his premiership at age 77 while he is seriously ill, but he doesn’t resign because his second in command, who is merely 54, is also very ill. Of course this is just an example of situations which are quite common.

In the US Supreme court two of the justices, Ruth Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer are over 80 and Justice Clarence is 71. Ginsburg has been ill since 1999. Supposedly she hardly missed a session at the Supreme Court, but one wonders if a healthier justice might do a better job.
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At the US senate there are 23 senators who are 80 and 70 years old. The median age of the US senate is close to 67. In other words, half of US senators would not get a job in most US companies because they are too old.

These days people speak about “ageism,” and mentioning a candidate’s age is politically incorrect. But in fact this is most relevant because any number of studies show that people decline with age. It’s true that a mature person will do better in certain situations. I can readily believe that a 50 years old senator may be better than a 30 years old senator. But most probably an 80 years old senator will not be better than a 50 years old senator.

In most countries the mandatory retirement age is between 60 and 70 years. In most US states judges retire between 70 and 75. Some US companies have mandatory retirement rules, and a few of them allow employees, including CEOs, to work after reaching 70. Most of them retire earlier, between 60 and 67, mainly because shareholders do not like CEOs who are too old.

There’s one more reason to restrict retirement ages. One wants younger people to take charge earlier as this is a way to do things in a better way. All organizations need change because after some time people tend to repeat their usual shticks rather than try a different approach.

At present people live longer than they used to. Life expectancy in the US is close to 80 and in other countries it may reach 84 or more. So we have older people as members of parliament, senators and presidents. There is no reason to believe that these old timers are more competent than they used to be in the past.

In many countries there are no restrictions for the retirement of presidents, prime ministers, senators, congressmen, members of parliaments etc. In many cases they are still at it at age 70 and 80. There’s only one reason for this: they can. As we have seen in the case of Churchill and others, this is to be avoided. The best method would be to have one rule for all public employees, including elected officials, to retire at the same age of 65 or 67.

This may be unfair to some people who could still be active at such ages. The answer to this is: start your own business. You can teach, give speeches, see your private patients, study at the university or write your biography. In Israel judges retire at age 70, and then some of them do well as arbitrators.

And how about the upcoming U.S presidential elections? Both candidates are too old for the difficult and demanding jobs that face them; one can only hope they will survive the ordeal. At age 80 one in six people are afflicted with dementia.

* Mr. Kobi Haron is an Israeli software developer who has worked both in Israel and in the US. 70 years old, he is retired and lives in Ramat Gan, near Tel Aviv.

What Political Correctness Is

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Some of you may already have seen this, and it is almost certainly a hoax. But I thought it worth posting nevertheless.

So here goes.

What is meant by the modern term referred to as ‘POLITICAL CORRECTNESS’.

The definition is found in 4 telegrams at the Truman Library and Museum in Independence, Missouri. The following are copies of four telegrams between President Harry Truman and Gen Douglas MacArthur on the day before the actual signing of the WWII Surrender Agreement in September 1945.  The contents of those four telegrams below are exactly as received at the end of the war – not a word has been added or deleted!

(1)  Tokyo, Japan 
0800-September 1,1945
To: President Harry S Truman 
From: General D A MacArthur 
Tomorrow we meet with those yellow-bellied bastards and sign the Surrender Documents, any last minute instructions? 
 
(2)  Washington , D C
1300-September 1, 1945
To: D A MacArthur 
From: H S Truman  
Congratulations, job well done, but you must  tone down your obvious dislike of the Japanese  when discussing the terms of the surrender with the press, because some of your remarks are fundamentally not politically correct!   
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(3) Tokyo, Japan 
1630-September 1, 1945
To: H S Truman 
From: D A MacArthur and C H Nimitz* 
Wilco Sir, but both Chester and I are somewhat confused, exactly what does the term politically correct mean?   
 
(4)  Washington , D C
2120-September 1, 1945 
To: D A MacArthur/C H Nimitz 
From: H S Truman 
 
Political Correctness is a doctrine, recently  fostered by a delusional, illogical minority and  promoted by a sick mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a piece of shit by the clean end! 
 
Now, with special thanks to the Truman Museum and Harry himself, you and I finally have a full understanding of what ‘POLITICAL CORRECTNESS’ really means…

 

* Admiral Chester Nimitz.  Commander in Chief, U.S Pacific Fleet, 1941-45.

Happy Anniversary, My Blog

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This I my 251st post. Time to celebrate, I think. My way of doing so will be to re-post a piece I first posted two years ago. Word for word.

*

No, my site has not drawn very large numbers of readers and has not developed into the equivalent of the Huffington Post. And no, I do not do it for profit; though at times I was tempted by offers to open the site to advertising, in the end I rejected them all. As a result, never did I receive a single penny for all the work I have been doing (normally, about two hours per week). More, even: since I am not very computer literate, I rely on my stepson, Jonathan Lewy, to run the site for me. But for him it would not have been possible. So let me use this opportunity to thank him from the bottom of my heart.

What I have received and am receiving is feedback. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Some people have used the appropriate button on the site to say what they think of my work or simply in order to get in touch. Others suggested that they write for me or else responded to my request that they do so. Others still have asked, and received, my permission to repost my work on their own sites. A few have even taken the trouble to translate entire articles into their native languages. Except for a few yahoos who ranted and swore, almost all my contacts with the people in question, many of whom were initially complete strangers, have been courteous, informative, and thought-provoking. Thank you, again, from the bottom of my heart.

Most of the ideas behind my posts are derived from the media. Others have to do with my personal experiences; others still, such as the series on Pussycats, have to do with the research I am currently doing or else were suggested by various people. Perhaps most important of all, I often use my posts as what Nietzsche used to call Versuche. By that he meant attempts to clarify his thoughts and see where they may lead. The most popular posts have been those which dealt with political and military affairs. Followed by the ones on women and feminism, followed by everything else. Given my background and reputation as a longtime professor of military history and strategy, that is not surprising.

At one point I tried to enlist the aid of a friend to have the blog translated into Chinese and make my posts available in that language too. No luck; I soon learnt that the Great Chinese Firewall did not allow them to pass. Why that is, and whether my work has fallen victim to some kind of dragnet or has been specifically targeted I have no idea. Thinking about it, the former seems more likely; to the best of my knowledge I have never written anything against China. But one never knows.

That brings me to the real reason why I write: namely, to exercise my right to freedom of thought. And, by doing so, do my little bit towards protecting it and preserving it. My heroes are Julian Assange and Edward Snowden. The former because he has exposed a few of the less decent things—to put it mildly—out dearly beloved governments have been saying and doing in our name. The latter, because he has shown how vulnerable all of us are to Big Brother and called for reform. Both men have paid dearly for what they have done, which is another reason for trying to follow in their footsteps as best I can.

Freedom of speech is in trouble—and the only ones who do not know it are those who will soon find out. The idea of free speech is a recent one. It first emerged during the eighteenth century when Voltaire, the great French writer, said that while he might not agree with someone’s ideas he would fight to the utmost to protect that person’s right to express them. Like Assange and Snowden Voltaire paid the penalty, spending time in jail for his pains. Later, to prevent a recurrence, he went to live at Frenay, just a few hundred yards from Geneva. There he had a team or horses ready to carry him across the border should the need arise. Good for him.

To return to modern times, this is not the place to trace the stages by which freedom of speech was hemmed in in any detail. Looking back, it all started during the second half of the 1960s when it was forbidden to say, or think, or believe, that first blacks, then women, then gays, then transgender people, might in some ways be different from others. As time went on this prohibition came to be known as political correctness. Like an inkstain it spread, covering more and more domains and polluting them. This has now been carried to the point where anything that may offend anyone in some way is banned—with the result that, as Alan Bloom in The Closing of the American Mind has shown, in many fields it has become almost impossible to say anything at all.
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Let me give you just one example of what I mean. Years ago, at my alma mater in Jerusalem, I taught a course on military history. The class consisted of foreign, mostly American, students. At one point I used the term Gook. No sooner had the word left my mouth than a student rose and, accused me of racism. I did my best to explain that, by deliberately using the term, I did not mean to imply that, in my view, the Vietnamese were in any way inferior. To the contrary, I meant to express my admiration for them for having defeated the Americans who did think so. To no avail, of course.

And so it goes. When the Internet first appeared on the scene I, along with a great many other people, assumed that any attempt to limit freedom of speech had now been definitely defeated. Instead, the opposite is beginning to happen. Techniques such as “data mining” made their appearance, allowing anything anyone said about anything to be instantly monitored and recorded, forever. All over Europe, the thought police is in the process of being established. Sometimes it is corporations such as Facebook which, on pain of government intervention, are told to “clean up” their act by suppressing all kinds of speech or, at the very least, marking it as “offensive,” “untrue,” and “fake.” In others it is the governments themselves that take the bit between their teeth.

Regrettably, one of the governments which is doing so is that of the U.S. Naively, I hoped that Trump’s election would signify the beginning of the end of political correctness. Instead, he is even now trying to prevent people in- and out of the government from discussing such things as global warming and the need to preserve the environment. Not to mention his attacks on the media for, among other things, allegedly misreading the number of those who came up to witness his inauguration. Should this line continue and persist, then it will become imperative to do without him and go against him. Not because of what he has to say about both topics is necessarily wrong, but to ensure the right of others to think otherwise.

This won’t do. That is why I promise my readers, however few or many they may be, one thing: namely, to go on writing about anything I please and go on speaking the truth as I see it. The English poet W. H. (Wystan Huge) Auden, 1907-1973, might have been referring to blogging when he wrote:

I want a form that’s large enough to swim in,

And talk on any subject that I choose.

From natural scenery to men and women

Myself, the arts, the European news.

Do We Have a Deal?

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The famed author of Parkinson’s Law once wrote that there are two kinds of books: those with naked women on the cover, and those without. As a rule, he added, the former sell better. Over the years my blog has carried quite a few pictures of women. However, not one of them shows a pair of naked breasts. Much as I love women, specifically including their bodies, it is a policy I intend to follow in the future, too.

Seriously, the blog is now four years old. During that period it has been clicked-on more than a quarter of a million times. Not nearly enough to compete with, say, Stormy Daniels and her alleged presidential lover. But perhaps sufficient to merit pausing for a bit of reflection. Before I get started, though, I’d like to thank my stepson Jonathan Lewy, who has been running it on my behalf; Mr. Larry Kummer, editor of the Fabius Maximus website, who more than anyone else has taken an interest in my work and encouraged me to continue posting; my friend Bill Lind whose blog, The View from Olympus is always an inspiration; various people who, either after being contacted by me or spontaneously, agreed to write their own essays; and a somewhat larger number who took the trouble to contact me and correspond with me.

Just why I started blogging and kept doing so I am no longer sure. Originally I wanted a forum on which I could write what I wanted at any time and in any form I wanted. Without, what is more, being subject to the whims of editors many of whom have their own agenda and quite a few of whom have always remained more or less unknown to me. That remains true to the present day. Another motive, which was added later, was a growing sense of obligation towards my readers. It is like being married; how could I let them down? Not that I have any illusions that they could not exist without me. However, it is as people say: the one thing worse than a Dutch Calvinist is a Jewish Dutch Calvinist.

Normally I spend about two hours on each post. Often these are times when, for one reason or another, I do not feel like doing more “serious” work. I draw my ideas from various sources. Including, above all, the daily news; any book or books I happened to be reading or working on; and friends’ suggestions. Topics I found particularly interesting included Israeli affairs—I am, after all, a citizen and a resident of that country and have long shared both its triumphs and its failures. Also military affairs in general; women’s affairs (both in- and out of the military); the shape the future might take; political correctness, which is my personal bête noire; why American kids so often take up guns and kill everyone in sight; and others.

Some of these topics have proved much more popular than others. I have, however, never succeeded in guessing in advance which ones would draw many readers and which ones would turn into flops. Truth to say, I have not even seriously tried. Perhaps it is better so; writing to please should only be allowed to go so far and no farther. Some posts, especially those that touch upon the position of women in society as well as the relationship between them and men, have drawn considerable critical fire. Good! May they continue to do so in the future, too.

One part of the work I particularly like is searching Google.com for images. Given enough patience, you will almost certainly find what you are looking for. I know there are a lot of criticisms of Google and I suppose some of them are justified. Any organization as large and successful as they are is bound to make enemies. As, in the past, Western Union, Standard Oil, General Motors, ATT, and Microsoft all did. To me, however, the company has provided a certain kind of freedom people before 2000 or so could not even imagine. Thank you, Google, for your help. It is appreciated.

Finally, I am not getting any younger or healthier. Driving up and down the hills around Jerusalem, which as a young man with twenty kilograms less around the waist I used to run over as if my life depended on it, I often wonder how long before some illness strikes and brings me to a halt. Que sera sera. This, however I promise my readers:
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Never, ever, will I deliberately set out to offend people or use swearwords and other uncouth forms of expression to do so;

Never, ever, will I knowingly allow my judgments to be affected by inducements—and there have been a few attempts to offer them—or threats. The kind of threats, incidentally, that are even now being issued by some elements in Israeli academia against any faculty member who dares address any kind of political issue in class.

Never, ever, will I allow anyone or anything to interfere with my right to think, say and write as I saw fit.

Always, always, will I try to keep an open ear to my readers’ suggestions and criticism.

In return, I ask my readers to go on telling me what they think. Preferably by email at mvc.dvc@gmail.com

Do we have a deal?

Age of the Muzzle

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Welcome to the age of the muzzle.

In Russia you cannot say that Putin is a dangerous scoundrel. The same, of course, applies to the rulers of many other non-countries.

In Canada, I am told, you cannot say that homosexuality is unnatural.

In Austria you cannot say that there was no Holocaust. Ditto in Germany.

In America, you cannot say that certain countries are s——-s.

In many American schools and universities, you cannot wear a cross pendant for fear someone will be offended.

In the Netherlands any reference to Zwarte Piet (Black Peter, a legendary comic character who has accompanied Santa Claus for ages) is bound to get you in trouble.

In almost all Western countries, you cannot say that many refugees and migrants are uncouth louts.
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Ditto, that Islam is a religion that puts great emphasis on violence and the sword (which, incidentally, is its symbol).

Ditto, that trans-gender people are poor confused creatures who do not know what sex they belong, or want to belong, to.

Ditto, that there are some things men can do and women cannot. Or that people of different races have different qualities.

So why get excited when, in Poland, you are no longer allowed to say that quite some Polish people cooperated with the Germans in hunting and killing Jews?

And here is what Supreme Court member Louis Brandeis, back in 1927, in Whitney v. California, concerning a decision to convict a woman who had been sued for setting up a communist cell, had to say about the matter:

“Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the State was to make men free to develop their faculties, and that, in its government, the deliberative forces should prevail over the arbitrary. They valued liberty both as an end, and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness, and courage to be the secret of liberty. They believed that freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth; that, without free speech and assembly, discussion would be futile; that, with them, discussion affords ordinarily adequate protection against the dissemination of noxious doctrine; that the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; that public discussion is a political duty, and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government. They recognized the risks to which all human institutions are subject. But they knew that order cannot be secured merely through fear of punishment for its infraction; that it is hazardous to discourage thought, hope and imagination; that fear breeds repression; that repression breeds hate; that hate menaces stable government; that the path of safety lies in the opportunity to discuss freely supposed grievances and proposed remedies, and that the fitting remedy for evil counsels is good ones. Believing in the power of reason as applied through public discussion, they eschewed silence coerced by law — the argument of force in its worst form. Recognizing the occasional tyrannies of governing majorities, they amended the Constitution so that free speech and assembly should be guaranteed.”

Did he make himself clear enough?

A Visit to Warsaw

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I have been to Warsaw before. This was in the spring of 1989, just weeks before the first free elections that put an end to Communism in Poland. And twenty-two years after Poland had broken diplomatic relations with Israel, which meant that my colleagues and I were the first Israeli delegation to visit the country in all those years.

At the time Warsaw was a weird place. Clean and safe, or so we were told. Built almost entirely of bare concrete, painted exclusively in gray, a sea of unintentional brutalism gone mad. And with hardly any colored signs to relieve the depressing monotony. People living on $ 20 a month. People queuing in front of small kiosks to buy various kinds of preserved fruit, apparently the only food that was freely available. Every corner occupied by old women holding out small transparent plastic bags with a single tomato or cucumber inside. Every street swarming with black market dealers trying to con you as they changed your dollars into zloti.

Very little traffic, consisting almost entirely of locally-produced, antiquated Fiat (Polski) cars on the streets. A hotel with lousy food and no running hot water (when I called reception to tell them of the problem, they sent up a waiter with a glass containing it). Big “magazines” staffed by lazy saleswomen who spoke nothing but Polish and refused to get up if you were looking for something. Returning home, people asked me what Warsaw was like. I used to tell them it was a place where you spent a week looking for a present for an eight-year old—but could not find any.

Twenty-eight years later Warsaw is still clean—as my wife and I could see with our own eyes—and quite safe—as we were told. In other ways, though, such is the change as to merit just one description: stunning. The kiosks, the old ladies, the black market dealers, and the antiquated cars are gone. While traffic is as heavy as in any Western city drivers are, if anything more polite. People are very well dressed. Public utilities gleam with cleanliness. Color is everywhere. Shops, many of them first class (and, for those of you who are contemplating a trip, very cheap indeed) are bursting with the best imaginable merchandise: clothing shoes, leatherware, cosmetics, electronic appliances, what have you. Any number of excellent restaurants serving every imaginable kind of food. Some truly excellent museums. An extremely lively cultural scene. To be sure, compared with London or Paris Warsaw remains quite poor; the minimum wage is about 400 Euro per month. But it has gone a long, long way towards catching up.

All this is interesting, but it is not what I want to talk about today. The reason I went to Warsaw was because the Polish Staff College asked me to give some talks. I readily agreed, and so I found myself lecturing to 40-50 officers, most of them colonels (on their way to becoming generals) and lieutenant-colonels with the odd major thrown in. Average age about 35-50. As agreed, the lectures were based on my book, More on War. The course was a success and the members of the audience, most of whom spoke very good English, seemed very interested. They kept asking questions, which is always a good sign.
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Again, though, this is not what I want to write about. What I do want to write about as the fact that, for the first time in God knows how many years, I found myself in a class that did not include any women. Having asked, I was told that the Polish military, which like other Western ones consists entirely of volunteers, does in fact take women; they are, however, mostly limited to ancillary tasks such as medicine, logistics, administration, etc. In the higher ranks there are hardly any women at all. One outcome being that, unlike most Western militaries, the Polish one has no difficulty attracting as many young men as it needs.

Finding myself in this unaccustomed situation, at first I kept opening my talks by saying, “ladies and gentlemen.” As the week went on, though, I discovered that not having females around has its advantages. I found myself able to mention some sensitive, but serious and interesting and important questions; and do so, what is more, without having to follow the obligatory wisdom whereby women are no different from men and can and should imitate the latter in everything. Or having to worry about some crybully getting “insulted” and running off to admin to make a tearful complaint.

Briefly, the evil winds blowing from Brussels did not make their effect felt. Political correctness did not reign. I did not have to worry about anyone feeling “embarrassed” by what I said. Though I only spent five mornings lecturing, the experience of liberation was overwhelming. What a blessing, not having to constantly look over one’s shoulder! All, paradoxically, in the one institution—the military—which is normally considered the most hierarchical and the least open to freedom of thought.

Shame on those who have brought us all to this point. However, I am happy to say that the Director of the College has asked me to come back next year. Health permitting, I most certainly will.