Total Eclipse.

My Kimber Eclipse is back from the factory. I get to try it this weekend to see if it has been repaired properly, but I’m pretty sure it has. Kimber certainly didn’t seem to cut any corners.

Before:

and after:

Gee, I wonder what they did to fix it?

Can’t complain, though. Turnaround was fast, and I didn’t even have to pay the freight.

Jenny Masche Isn’t Afraid of Buying Big Jars of Mayonnaise

You know, as I get older my memory is going to hell. I thought for sure I’d written something on the Amy Richards story when it came out, but checking the archives I find that I did not. Let’s get this out of the way right up front: I do not believe we should ban abortions. I think there should be some limits on when abortions should be performed (first trimester) at the discretion of the mother, and past that it should be only for actual medical need. At some point a fetus does become a human being, with all attendant rights. The disagreement is apparently over just when this occurs. I’ve picked my arbitrary point. Others have picked theirs.

But I was, admittedly, appalled at the choice Amy Richards made, and her “reasoning” behind it.

I applaud the choice Jenny Masche and her husband made. Here’s the key quote from the article:

When she had got over the shock of a scan which showed she was carrying six babies, Jenny says she was offered the opportunity of a selective reduction. “Even though we were in a complete state of shock, we just couldn’t do it. How do you choose which three of the little heartbeats to remove?

That question was apparently easy for Amy Richards. Since she was carrying identical twins and a fraternal, the twins got it, and spared Amy the horror of having to buy “big jars of mayonnaise.” Congratulations to the Masche family.

Well, DUH!

Reuter-Rooter reports: U.S. most armed country with 90 guns per 100 people. This according to the Small Arms Survey, 2007 coming out in September. Per the report, we 300 million Americans own some 270 million of the estimated 875 million small arms that exist worldwide. We apparently are buying about 4.5 million of the estimated 8 million new guns rolling off production lines each year, worldwide. Even better, the number of guns estimated to be in private hands worldwide is only 650 million, so we own over 40% of them. The other 225 million are held by police and military forces. And best yet, “Only about 12 percent of civilian weapons are thought to be registered with authorities.”

Yeah, baby!

Our closest competitor? India with 45 million privately held arms, but a population of over a billion. Per capita, Yemen comes in second with 61 guns per hundred population. How big is Yemen? About the size of Connecticut? Many of theirs, I would bet, are full-auto capable AK-47s. I bet they’d be amazed to know what they would be worth over here – if they could just sell them legally.

It is the gun-controller’s mantra that “the number of guns” is the cause of violent crime. This report reminds me once again of the conclusion of the 1983 report of a meta-study of gun control research, Under the Gun: Weapons, Crime and Violence in America:

The progressive’s indictment of American firearms policy is well known and is one that both the senior authors of this study once shared. (My emphasis.) This indictment includes the following particulars: (1) Guns are involved in an astonishing number of crimes in this country. (2) In other countries with stricter firearms laws and fewer guns in private hands, gun crime is rare. (3) Most of the firearms involved in crime are cheap Saturday Night Specials, for which no legitimate use or need exists. (4) Many families acquire such a gun because they feel the need to protect themselves; eventually they end up shooting one another. (5) If there were fewer guns around, there would obviously be less crime. (6) Most of the public also believes this and has favored stricter gun control laws for as long as anyone has asked the question. (7) Only the gun lobby prevents us from embarking on the road to a safer and more civilized society.

The more deeply we have explored the empirical implications of this indictment, the less plausible it has become. (My emphasis.) We wonder, first, given the number of firearms presently available in the United States, whether the time to “do something” about them has not long since passed. If we take the highest plausible value for the total number of gun incidents in any given year – 1,000,000 – and the lowest plausible value for the total number of firearms now in private hands – 100,000,000 – we see rather quickly that the guns now owned exceed the annual incident count by a factor of at least 100. This means that the existing stock is adequate to supply all conceivable criminal purposes for at least the entire next century, even if the worldwide manufacture of new guns were halted today and if each presently owned firearm were used criminally once and only once. Short of an outright house-to-house search and seizure mission, just how are we going to achieve some significant reduction in the number of firearms available?

Now, substitute “270,000,000” for the “100,000,000” in that last paragraph and ask yourself the same question. And here’s part of that conclusion that I have not previously quoted:

To members of the gun subculture who have been around guns all their lives and have owned and used guns as long as it has been legal for them to do so, the indictments of gun control advocates must appear to be incomprehensible, if not simply demeaning. We should not be surprised to learn that they may resent being depicted as irresponsible, nervous, potentially dangerous, prone to accidental or careless firearms handling, or as using their firearms to bolster sagging masculine self-images. Of course, from their viewpoints, they have none of these characteristics and in all likelihood resent being depicted as a demented and bloodthirsty lot when they are only guilty of embracing a set of rather traditional, rural, and masculine values. Indeed, one can only begin to understand the virulence with which gun control initiative(sic) are opposed in these quarters when one realizes that what may be at stake is a way of life.

Again, I repeat: Well, DUH!

Like Water Off a Duck’s Back

Say Uncle pointed to a Chicago Sun-Times op-ed yesterday by columnist and journalism professor Laura Washington. I won’t reproduce the whole piece, but here’s a taste:

Gun lovers disarm control advocates

August 27, 2007
LAURA WASHINGTON Sun-Times columnist

It looks like the petulant, gun-toting NRA stalwarts have won the first round.

Last time, I used this space to ask where you stand on the issue of gun control. A torrent of e-mails later, it’s clear: Gun-control advocates were outgunned, four to one.

The gun lovers were legion, robust and vitriolic. Many of you told me to go places where the sun doesn’t shine and the temperature is way too hot. Yet, if you believe public opinion polls, that reaction is an anomaly. For instance, last April, ABC News polled adults nationwide, and asked: “Do you favor or oppose stricter gun control laws in this country?” Sixty-one percent favored them, 36 percent were opposed, and 3 percent were “unsure.”

CBS News asked, “In general, do you feel the laws covering the sale of handguns should be made more strict, less strict, or kept as they are now?” Two-thirds of respondents nationwide opted for “more strict.”

What is the problem with the advocates of gun control? Why are their voices not being heard? They are consistently cowed and overmatched. Gun violence is out of control, yet the gun lovers are ascendant.

You think we’ve got problems now? Just listen to Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential aspirant. At a recent Conservative Political Action Conference, he bragged, “I’m not a newcomer to the NRA,” the New York Times reported on its political blog. “I was the first governor to have a conceal-carry permit, so don’t mess with me.”

Huckabee, mind you, recently made a flashy second-place showing in the Iowa presidential straw poll.

Do you want to be standing in line for gas, popcorn or a gallon of milk and find yourself next to someone who’s packing heat? If he takes the White House, we can all go shopping for embossed leather holsters and pearl-handled pistols. I’ll be looking to accessorize that with rhinestone-studded boots.

You know, the usual Reasoned Discourse™ we’ve come to expect from our opposition. Please, RTWT. (And yes, I do know about the Zogby poll.)

Instead of fisking her piece, I thought I’d drop her a nice email (and copy the paper’s letters-to-the-editor while I was at it. What the hell, worth a shot.) Here’s what I sent:

Ms. Washington:

I read with interest your op-ed in the online edition of the Sun-Times, and I had some comments to make. I hope that you will see this epistle in the volume of email I am sure has been forthcoming since your little jeremiad was published. Provoking an outpour of response was, I am sure, one of your intentions. Let me apologize in advance (though it is not really my place) for those who will shower you with invective and vitriol. We on the side of the right to arms have been fighting against a decades-long slow-motion hate crime,1 and it tends to wear on our patience. I understand such responses, but I cannot countenance them.

I am eternally fascinated by people who see themselves as “gun control advocates.” I find them fascinating because they epitomize to me the phrase “cognitive dissonance.” The fact that you write from Chicago, one of the epicenters of “common-sense gun control” only adds to my fascination.

Cognitive dissonance has been defined thus:

“When someone tries to use a strategy which is dictated by their ideology, and that strategy doesn’t seem to work, then they are caught in something of a cognitive bind. If they acknowledge the failure of the strategy, then they would be forced to question their ideology. If questioning the ideology is unthinkable, then the only possible conclusion is that the strategy failed because it wasn’t executed sufficiently well. They respond by turning up the power, rather than by considering alternatives. (This is sometimes referred to as ‘escalation of failure’.)”2

Or, as I phrase it, “The philosophy cannot be wrong! Do it again, only harder!” We see this behavior in gun control advocates all the time. There’s always a “loophole” to blame. Always a “next step.” But “gun control” never improves crime rates, never reduces homicide rates. Never. Gun control advocates always – without exception – predict “blood in the streets” and “wild West shootouts” when “shall issue” concealed-carry legislation makes progress in state legislatures, but this never happens. Never. Somehow this data fails to make a dent in the “gun control” mindset. The strategy constantly fails, but the ideology cannot be questioned. Do it again, only harder!

Ms. Washington, you note in your piece: “(I)t seems the gun control advocates have been outmatched. Abigail Spangler acknowledges as much. Spangler is the founder of ProtestEasyGuns.com, a Virginia-based group that has been spearheading a slew of anti-gun protests around the nation.

“Gun control activists, she wrote me, ‘are TRYING HARD but they are seriously affected in state after state by lack of funding and contributions.” She recently met, she says, with the leader of Virginia’s only gun control group. “He says they may not even be able to afford any lobbyist at all soon in Virginia!'”

Ms. Washington, the citizenry will offer an opinion to anyone. Opinions are free. But activism costs money – and the anti-gun side has shown that the hearts and wallets of the general public are not really into it. Ask any hundred random people on the street if they favor stricter gun laws and most likely the majority will say “yes.” Ask them what the current gun laws are, and they won’t be able to tell you. Gun rights activists can. The gun control side of the argument has been supported for decades with money from foundations, perhaps the largest contributor being the Joyce Foundation. Look them up. Those of us who believe in the right to arms are the true grass-rooters, and there are far more of us than the mere four million that the NRA claims as members. As someone once put it so pithily: “Poor Lefties; they’ve been playing on astroturf so long that they don’t know grassroots even when fed a mouthful of divot.” 3

Ms. Washington, our side is winning because we can see reality. We are not blinded to a flawed ideology. The ideology you operate under is expressed best as “Guns are baaad, mmmmkay?” This ideology springs from an inability or unwillingness to see a difference between “violent and predatory” and “violent but protective.” You see only “violence” and violence offends you. From this inability you mistake the tools of violence to be the cause of violence, and from that error comes the desire to eradicate the tools. But this does not address the actual cause. In other words, “Gun control is what you do instead of something.”4

When disaster strikes and civil society breaks down, when the government proves unmistakably that it cannot protect everyone, everywhere, all the time, then some people have an awakening – and they go to a gun store or a Wal-Mart and try to buy a gun.

And that’s when they discover just what the gun laws really are.

And many become gun-rights activists because, as one woman put it when she found out she had to wait a week for a gun while being stalked by an ex-boyfriend, “I’ve been against guns and violence my whole life.”5 She and those like her were responsible for that interminable week wait. She finally understood the difference between “violent and predatory” and “violent but protective,” and wanted protection – which the law denied her for a full week.

Some of us are “gun lovers,” Ms. Washington. I am, unashamedly. But many, many more simply want to be able to choose how to defend ourselves. That is a choice you wish to deny us out of a belief in a flawed ideology that you cannot bring yourselves to recognize.

I’d love to discuss this topic with you further, but I seriously doubt you’ve bothered to read this far.

Thank you for your attention, however much of it I was able to garner.

(Footnotes not in original).

Somewhat to my surprise, she replied:

Dear Mr. Baker,

Thanks for your comments on the gun control column. I appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts.

Be consoled that you are winning the battle. And yes, I did read your entire letter.

Best, Laura

=================================================================
Laura S. Washington
Ida B. Wells-Barnett University Professor
DePaul University
Contributing Columnist, Chicago Sun-Times
Senior Editor, In These Times

The fact that she responded was surprising. The content was not.

I sent her a short reply:

Dear Laura:

Thank you for your gracious reply, and for taking the time our of your obviously busy schedule to read my missive.

Water off a duck’s back, eh?

My sincere condolences,

Kevin

But wait! There’s more! Phelps had a beautiful response of his own that I hope he sent to her. I urge you not to miss it.

Footnotes:

1Dr. Michael S. Brown
2Steven Den Beste
3Tamara K
4Say Uncle
5Seraphic Secret

Credit where credit is due.

UPDATE: Commenter Kevin P. notes that he maintains (an EXCELLENT) Wikipedia page on the Joyce Foundation and their funding efforts. Way to go, Kevin!

Cue Islamic Rage Boy!.

(I especially like “I am not Amish!”)

Some 25 newspapers refused to carry last Sunday’s Opus cartoon. According to Eugene Volokh, one reason given was “a sex joke a little stronger than we normally see”. With all due respect: horseshit. As a commenter put it so succinctly:

Let’s not act all innocent here. The Post is not afraid of offending someone, they are afraid of offending someone who might bomb them. Breathed has gleeful drawn caricatures of evangelical Christians for years and the Post has complacently published them, not out bigotry but out of the tacit but wholly accurate calculation that evangelicals, whatever their shortcomings, are not likely to commit terrorist acts.

And remember the South Park Muhammed episode? The one Comedy Central censored? Who haven’t Matt Stone and Trey Parker skewered? No, this is simple cowardice.

Not so, here at TSM. Here’s the offending cartoon in all its glory:

Ah, Steve Dallas is a conflicted man.

Cognitive Dissonance

It raises its head once again. To quote Steven Den Beste:

When someone tries to use a strategy which is dictated by their ideology, and that strategy doesn’t seem to work, then they are caught in something of a cognitive bind. If they acknowledge the failure of the strategy, then they would be forced to question their ideology. If questioning the ideology is unthinkable, then the only possible conclusion is that the strategy failed because it wasn’t executed sufficiently well. They respond by turning up the power, rather than by considering alternatives. (This is sometimes referred to as “escalation of failure”.)

Or, as I put it:

The philosophy cannot be wrong! Do it again only harder!

We have some new stories coming out of the petri dishes of the UK Commonwealth.

Let’s start with this one:

Victims and offenders get younger

By Philip Johnston
Last Updated: 7:01am BST 24/08/2007

Periodically, there is a national outcry about guns on our streets. It reached a climax 20 years ago this week when Michael Ryan shot and killed 16 people, including his mother, wounded 15 others, then killed himself.

The massacre in Hungerford led to a ban on the ownership of semi-automatic centre-fire rifles.

In 1996, the murder of 15 children and their teacher at a school in Dunblane, Scotland, led to a complete ban on handguns.

Yet since then, the number of crimes involving guns has risen.

In 1996, there were 14,000 recorded offences in which firearms were reported to have been used. In 2005/6, the last period for which figures are available, there were 21,500.

Although the numbers dying through shooting is roughly similar, 50 victims in 1996 and last year, attempted murders and woundings are up 50 per cent.

Britain now has some of the toughest gun laws in the world – yet they did not prevent the appalling events in Croxteth.

Ergo: the strategy failed.

But the ideology cannot be wrong!

Yesterday, Gordon Brown said the Government was “working urgently” to tackle gun crime. But if previous laws have made little difference why should new ones?

The past year has seen another avalanche of legislation. The Government introduced a minimum five-year sentence for possessing an illegal firearm. They made it an offence to possess an air weapon or imitation firearm in public without legal authority or reasonable excuse.

The Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006 made it illegal to manufacture or sell imitation firearms that could be mistaken for real firearms. It also strengthened sentences for carrying imitation firearms, and created tougher manufacturing standards so imitations cannot be converted to fire real ammunition.

The Home Office boasted: “We’re cutting off the supply of firearms into the country.”

“Do it again, only HARDER!

But the guns are already here; and they are increasingly easy to get. Home Office research indicated that an imitation firearm could be bought for £20 and a shotgun for £50. A military-quality handgun will go for around £1,000. An automatic weapon sells for between £800 and £4,000.

Think about that. Gun control supporters here object to our pointing out the failure of DC’s draconian gun ban (there were seven homicides in DC last week, at least five of which were by firearm), or Chicago’s handgun ban to have any positive effect on the level of gun crime in those cities. They blame “lax gun control laws” in the surrounding areas for the influx of guns into those cities. However, England has all the laws that the Brady Campaign et. al think are “common sense”: “may-issue” ownership licensing with full background check and character references, “safe storage” requirements with surprise inspection powers by the State, restrictions on the amount and type of ammunition permit holders can possess, a complete ban on “military style” semi-automatic rifles, a complete ban on handguns, the whole nine yards. More importantly, the UK is an island – there are no neighbors just across the state or county line with “lax gun laws” that allow an easy flow of illicit guns. You’ve got to smuggle them in through the ports of entry, or by boat. Yet gun prices are barely above American retail, and fully-automatic weapons can cost less than a handgun.

But does anybody learn from this? Hardly. Washington D.C. is going to the Supreme Court to prevent its bans from being overturned. The city of Philadelphia is currently experiencing a tremendous increase in homicides, so two city council members are suing the state legislature so that Philadelphia can pass its own gun control laws, and activist lawyer Michael Coard wants to sue the NRA for influencing the Pennsylvania state legislature into passing preemption laws.

There’s more to that piece, and I recommend you read it, but let’s move on to the next story that covers the slaying of an 11 year-old boy in Liverpool:

Former detective: It is a gangland culture

Albert Kirby, Former Detective Superintendent, Merseyside Police, on the problem of gun crime in Liverpool:

“Like other areas of Liverpool, Croxteth has become increasingly more difficult to police over the years due to the gang type culture and the reluctance of people living in the area either to come forward and give either evidence or information about those involved in the gang culture, drugs and crime groups.

“It is the same throughout the city. Once upon a time it used to be fists on the street corner. Then they started to use any sort of weapons – hammers or axes. Now the readily availability of fire arms has opened up a whole new ball game.

But licensing, registration, “safe storage” and outright bans are supposed to prevent “ready availability,” aren’t they? That’s what the ideology says!

“Fire arms can be obtained very cheaply and after they have been used criminals can dispose of them because they are so cheap – a handgun can be bought for about £25 a time.

Yet the earlier piece said a “military quality” handgun would go for about £1,000. What are these, cheap “Saturday Night Specials”? Just so you know, at current exchange rates, £25 is $50 US.

“Fire arms are so readily available that you can go out on the street, make the necessary enquiries and come up with them. It is that easy.

Ergo: the strategy failed.

“The legislation that came in after the Dunblane shooting in 1996 has been utterly and totally ineffective. It was a waste of space. With the borders disappearing in Europe there are no checks on firearms coming in from abroad. They come from Eastern Bloc countries, recommissioned firearms, and a steady flow coming out of the world’s conflict zones.

See! See! It’s the fault of neighboring states with lax gun laws!

Oh, wait…

“Merseyside Police have done a tremendous amount of work to recover firearms. But bearing in mind the amount of firearms that are available it is very difficult.

“For a lot of these kids, it is a status symbol to them. In the sixties they would have the drainpipe trousers and the slicked hair, and then the mods and rockers in the 1970s with their crash hats.

“Now guns are like a status symbol: ‘If you diss me I will shoot you because I have got a gun’. It is part of the culture, it is a gangland culture.

“Croxteth is a poor area. I would think there are a lot of unemployed people there. In that area drugs are just prolific.

So are guns. Cheap guns.

“This poor lad was in the wrong place at the wrong time. These people have been feuding and the poor guy has got in the way. What justification can these people have to shoot an 11-year-old boy who has not done any harm to anyone. He comes from a decent family.

“Where do we go from here? Firstly, we have to change the street culture which accepts guns. That will be a long-term issue – like tackling anti-social behaviour.

With what? Judicious application of ASBOs?

“Secondly, these incidents will continue to happen unless people are willing to come forward as witnesses.

Even though you cannot/will not protect them from retaliation, and they cannot protect themselves.

“The system in the judicial process is so good now at protecting identities. People have to learn to have faith in the system.

You’re going to protect the identities of the witnesses? How? Relocate them to Australia? The people have an abiding faith in the system. They believe faithfully that it’s not going to do squat to help them. They have reason to believe that.

“Thirdly, the courts are so woeful. These people hate going to prison. Scousers have an expression that they can do it standing on their head. But standing on their head gets harder as they get older.

“The courts should say that if someone is sentenced for an offence, and a firearm is used, even if it is a replica, that person are going to prison for a long time.”

They may say it, but as you said, the courts are woeful, and your prisons are overcrowded already.

No wonder there’s no trust.

Finally we travel far across the pond to Australia, to the little town of Roseville, a Northern suburb of Sydney in New South Wales where a new gun shop has opened:

Residents irate over gunshop permit: what do we tell our children?

What a fascinating question!

UP IN arms would accurately describe the incensed reaction of Roseville residents to news that a gunshop is to open in their midst.

Last night hundreds were expected to pack a community hall to protest against the approval granted by Ku-ring-gai Council, apparently without notification to those who may have an opinion about such an enterprise.

Andrew Peter, a gun enthusiast and coffee shop owner from Bondi Junction, made an application last month to turn an old printing shop into a sporting goods and firearms store. One of the main reasons for his decision was the estimated 1300 firearm owners who live in the area.

I’m curious as to how much territory “in the area” covers.

The shop is opposite a community hall that runs a preschool centre. It is also near a bus interchange used by schoolchildren, and some neighbouring businesses say the approval, although legal, is inappropriate.

Lisa Warrand is one of dozens of parents who fear the worst: the potential for an armed hold-up and shootout, or merely having to explain to children who walk past every day why a shop sells guns. (My emphasis.)

“Roseville has five churches and no pubs. People buy in this area because they want a more family-focused area,” she said yesterday. “We teach children about how bad guns are and yet we are being put into a position where we have to explain why there is a man in the car park carrying a gun bought across the road.” (My emphasis.)

Sally Cochrane runs the Zest hairdressing salon a few doors away. She concedes that the chances of a hold-up are slim but says it is a risk that should rule out the shop from the neighbourhood. “Children and guns don’t mix. It’s as simple as that, and if there is a robbery then it could be disastrous. I accept that this man has a right to open his shop and to sell guns, but not here.”

Rob Hudspith disagrees. He owns the bicycle shop nearby and says the biggest mistake was that no one was given details of the application by the council.

“If they didn’t have a legal obligation, then they had a moral one,” Mr Hudspith said. “Personally, I don’t have any problems, but there is an inherent fear of firearms, and who can blame people for being worried?” (My emphasis.)

A council spokesman said the approval was assessed under State Government planning laws. The business would have to comply with strict laws covering handling, storage and safety.

The Liberal MP for Davidson, Jonathan O’Dea, backs the residents, denying it is nimbyism.

The Shooters Party accuses Mr O’Dea of stirring up trouble by instigating a survey of residents. Mr Peter says he is willing to compromise with extra security to ensure residents feel safe. “Sure, I understand their feelings and I’m happy to talk to them about their concerns, but they don’t have anything to worry about.” (My emphasis.)

There’s the ideology, ladies and gentlemen: “GUNS ARE BAD, mmmkay?” Its root is the belief that all violence is bad; the inability to differentiate between “violent and predatory” and “violent but protective” that leads to the totemic belief that the tools of violence are the cause of violence. The outcome of that flawed ideology is licensing, registration, restriction, bans, confiscation… and rising violent crime.

But cognitive dissonance prevents people from questioning the ideology. The result is escalation of failure, and a complete inability to implement any kind of successful strategy. As Say Uncle put it, “Gun control is what you do instead of something.”

(Audio) Receiver Bleg.

Well, my Technics SA-EX400 receiver has finally given up the ghost. It is no more. It’s a dead parrot.

I need a new one.

There is never a good time to buy new audio equipment – everything changes so fast in that industry. I remember reading some piece of fiction sometime where the main character said something on the order of “I’m not going to start buying compact discs until somebody promises me that this is the LAST change they’re going to make!”

I am not an audiophile. This thing goes into my living room, where the acoustics are about equivalent to a – well, a living room. Not a listening chamber.

Here’s what I hook to it:

A turntable (needs a needle, though.)
A dual cassette deck
A 5-disc CD changer
A VCR
A DVD player (non-HD, but maybe someday)

This receiver is a 5 channel (maybe 5.1, but I don’t recall seeing a subwoofer output. Hey, it’s been a couple of years…) I use the two main channels and the center channel. It has Dolby Pro Logic, which I like, even though I’m not using the extra two channels. Again, maybe some day. It has an AM/FM tuner as well.

My budget is about $300 +/-. Any suggestions?

I Call “BULLSHIT!”.

Via Instapundit we get a story in the Asia Times Online about how “emergent powers are primed to erode US hegemony, not confront it, singly or jointly.” That part I don’t disagree too much with. It is, in fact, pretty much inevitable in a world that has competition. The part I call “BULLSHIT!” on is this:

The George W Bush administration’s debacle in Iraq is certainly a major factor in this transformation, a classic example of an imperialist power, brimming with hubris, overextending itself. To the relief of many – in the US and elsewhere – the Iraq fiasco has demonstrated the striking limitations of power for the globe’s highest-tech, most destructive military machine.

Here’s a clue, Hiro: The U.S. is not an “imperialist power.” We do not invade nations to make them our vassals and demand tribute. That is what an empire does. Or it decimates the population and takes everything. We go in, liberate populations, try to build democratic structures for the good of the people living there and then we leave. Oh, and then we trade with them, to our mutual benefit.

The only limitations on “the highest-tech, most destructive military machine” in the world is the decency of America and Americans.

We tried the “empire” thing around the turn of the 20th century, following the major European powers, but it just doesn’t play well with Americans. If we were truly an empire, we’d OWN the Middle East, even if that required making glass craters out of some of its major cities, but we don’t think that way.

Here’s what other countries (and journalists) just don’t get about America, as so eloquently expressed by Eric S. Raymond:

I was traveling in Europe a few years back, and some Euroleftie began blathering in my presence about America’s desire to rule the world. “Nonsense,” I told him. “You’ve misunderstood the American character. We’re instinctive isolationists at bottom. We don’t want to rule the world — we want to be able to ignore it.”