Kinda makes you feel thankful, don't it?

Reflections upon returning from a visit to America, by a young Iranian blogger:

Saturday mornings people go to the mall and spend their morning and part of their afternoon shopping.
The road is clear. Not too many cars. Not too much traffic. It is a joy to drive.
At home music can play loudly.
At the movies people quiet down when the film starts.
People are not allowed to smoke in public places.
Choosing a comfortable outfit is not a problem.
Writing is not a crime.
Speaking is not wrong.
Dreaming is allowed.
Success exists.
Freedom is a word.
Love is a reality.

High Stakes in the Marriage Debate

Gay marriage is not some sideline issue, it is the marriage debate. Losing it means losing marriage as a social institution, a shared public norm. Marriage will become (as it is in Sweden) a religious rite, with little public or social significance. As a legal institution, marriage will lose its coherence. By embracing gay marriage the legal establishment will have declared that the public purposes of marriage no longer include anything to do with making babies, or giving children mothers and fathers. Legitimating same-sex marriage amounts to an official declaration that "What counts is not family structure, but the quality of dedication, commitment, self-sacrifice, and love in the household." Family structure does not count. Marriage in this view is merely expressive personal conduct, a declaration of love between two adults. As such there is no reason for the state to be involved in preferring marriage as a family form.

The question is not whether this is a battle we can win, but whether it is a battle we can afford to lose.

Maggie Gallagher
"The Stakes: Why We Need Marriage"
National Review Online. July 14, 2003.

It's all part of the IMAGE, man . . .

From an interview with EyeHateGod [date: ???]

You got a new bass player? The same as on the tour in April?

JB: Yeah, his name is Danny Nick, but he had to go home early because had his lip bitten off by a pitbull, it’s fucked up, now it’s funny but it was crazy when it happened. It happened in Germany, I can’t remember the name of the town. We went to this guy’s home to buy some hash and Danny was petting the dog and he bit him. It was fucked up, they had to sow his lip back on. It was rough, so he went home but the guitarplayer from Soilent Green helped us out for the rest of the tour. I think he might even try to sell his lip on eBay...

How much would he get for it?

JB: Hahaha, I don’t know, hahah first bid: twenty bucks on his lip, it’s crazy,

But it fits into the concept of EyeHateGod . . .

JB: Yeah right, tough shit!

(And the rallying cry will be 'Democracy! Whisky! Sexy!')

In the latest issue of The New Criterion, historian Paul Johnson delivers a fascinating explication of the meaning of 'empire' and proceeds with a vigorous defense of America's 'New Awakening':

[I]n the twentieth and still more the twenty-first centuries, the forms of moral, commercial, and cultural imperialism emanating from the West are essentially secular. We no longer speak of “Christianizing the world,” a phrase in wide use up to 1914. But “democratizing the world,” whether spoken or not, is our aim. Behind this lies the belief that when functioning democracies become the norm, international law is more likely to be observed, free trade to spread, real incomes to increase, and the world to become a freer, healthier, more secure, and contented place. In the creation of this oikumene, or ecumenical world of Western-style civilization, America is allotted the prime role by geography and history, economics and demography, culture and philosophy.

. . . it is worth recalling that up to 1860 “empire” was not a term of abuse in the United States. George Washington himself spoke of “the rising American Empire.” Jefferson, aware of the dilemma, claimed that America was “an Empire for liberty.” That is what America is becoming again, in fact if not in name. America’s search for the security against terrorism and rogue states goes hand in hand with liberating their oppressed peoples. From the Evil Empire to an Empire for Liberty is a giant step, a contrast as great as the appalling images of the wasted twentieth century and the brightening dawn of the twenty-first. But America has the musculature and the will to take giant steps, as it has shown in the past.

From the Evil Empire to the Empire of Liberty
The New Criterion Vol. 21, No. 10. June 2003.

On a related note:

• Democratic Imperialism: A Blueprint, by Stanley Kurtz. Policy Review April-May 2003.
• The Liberty Doctrine, by Michael Mcfaul. Policy Review April-May 2002.

Nausea, however, is interesting compared with the actual symptoms of going-through-the-motions sickness induced by Living History. The book does not contain even a dog-worthy return to the vomit of the Lewinsky scandal. And the stingy-mama-bird regurgitations of Whitewater excuses and evasions will leave the most adoring Hillary chick wanting more worm.

P.J. O'Rourke reviewing Hillary Clinton's Living History
Weely Standard Vol. 8, No. 42