A few quickies while hanging out at the UMCP comp lab:

• Rich Lowry gets some email:

  In addition to all of the problems you cite, there is another problem with the Chicken Hawk talk. While it would drastically reduce the number of people allowed to support the use of force, it would not limit in the slightest the ranks of those who would be allowed to oppose the use of force. That most fundamental issue–war or peace–is the last one on which we should skew the discourse by artificial limits on who is permitted to have or express an opinion. Incidentally, if anyone wants to see a fictional but plausible example of a society that accepts the chicken hawk logic, check out Starship Troopers. The book is good, the movie bad, but in either one you see a society in which only military veterans get to vote and whose defense policy involves very little wondering why the bad guys hate us and a lot of blowing the bad guys up…

  I like the first half of the passage, but the way Heinlein’s Troopers was cited seems a bit off. I’ve read the book twice (and I like it, too) and I think it was more about an emphasis on merit (with military service as that merit). I could cite a few other things that would be better off as an example for what Lowry’s mailer wants to say. For example, if the chickenhawk argument were to be held true, then no Catholic, in fact, no non-clergy Catholic, would have a say on the juvenile sexual abuse scandals of that church.

• I had something to say over at Doc. Taylor’s place over the uselessness and meaninglessness of all the information that is at our fingertips.

And for the spotlight: Dean Esmay gives Mother Cindy all the right coverage she deserves.