Egoism
Individualism
Sovereignty
Splendor

(These ideas are explicated in this sloppy manifesto)

 
Two cheers for the Bush Doctrine...

From this morning's Washington Times, a report on President Bush's speech at the National Endowment for Democracy (yes, that's an oxymoron):

"Are the peoples of the Middle East somehow beyond the reach of liberty?" Mr. Bush asked. "Are millions of men and women and children condemned by history or culture to live in despotism? Are they alone never to know freedom and never even to have a choice in the matter?

"I, for one, do not believe it. I believe every person has the ability and the right to be free," he said.

Damn straight! Adding an 's' to people is a Communist code word, alas. It denies the individuality of the members of the undifferentiated mob, crafting an imaginary universe where only mobs exist, each a discrete entity. Bush says he is channeling Ronald Reagan, but Reagan never made the mistake of letting the enemy set the terms of the debate. Unfortunately, that's not the worst news. Bush also said:

"As long as the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation, resentment and violence ready for export. And with the spread of weapons that can bring catastrophic harm to our country and to our friends, it would be reckless to accept the status quo."

This is a little more self-interested. I love self-interest, of course, but this is not quite the love of liberty portrayed in the first quote.

But wait. There's more.

"Sixty years of Western nations' excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe, because, in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty."

Eminently true, but we are now in the land of pure pragmatism. Not Reagan but Bush--Bush the Elder, George Herbert Walker Bush. Okay, but can't we cut Bush the Younger some slack?

"Every nation has learned — or should have learned — an important lesson: Freedom is worth fighting for, dying for and standing for — and the advance of freedom leads to peace."

Alleluia! Wait, that's a little too close for comfort:

"Liberty is both the plan of heaven for humanity, and the best hope for progress here on earth."

Good grief! Always out to buy off objections with butt-bussing, Bush adds this:

"As we watch and encourage reforms in the region, we are mindful that modernization is not the same as westernization."

Yes, it is, for Socrates' sake! There is reason and there is unreason, and there is no middle.

But: Even with all my quibbling, I am inspirited. This new policy is more Busily Bushlike than Regally Reaganesque, but still it is a new policy. Where before the United States pragmatically underwrote tyranny in the Middle East, now for pragmatic reasons it will work to undermine it. Liberty might be more a default consequence than a noble goal, nobly undertaken, but the victims of IslamoFascism--abroad and at home--come out ahead even so. And where Bush lends hope to the "peoples" encysted by Islam today, he may yet bring hope to the billions of "peoples" still enslaved by Communism...
posted by Greg Swann at 12:27 AM

 
Who's the boss?

Cathy and Cameron have been playing with the Myers-Briggs personality assessment. I took it myself this morning. I had been INTJ forever--isolated ivory-tower programmer type, virtually a gnome. But I have been working very hard for the last four years to turn myself into a sales monster, and I was curious to see if my profile had changed. In fact it had. I have become an ESTJ, an Administrator, a Pillar of Strength. Who knew?

I was never, ever introverted in the sense of fearing or dreading human contact, I was just very busy. I could always inspire and motivate people, but I regarded them as a huge time-sink. Ironically, I was a manager the whole time I was INTJ. A very poor manager, in my own opinion at the time, since I did not trust my charges to do the work as well or as efficiently as I could do it myself. Even now I don't much trust people to do my work my way without my intense oversight, but I work solely with independent contractors now, people I can fire just like that without a backward glance. Very liberating, and the mutual understanding of the ad hoc nature of our association induces my contractors to do better work, as a bonus.

As payback to the folks who let me take the test for free, I've propagated their viral marketing in the links to the left.

Now get back to work!
posted by Greg Swann at 10:25 AM

SplendorQuests