I might have refrained from posting on Robert Kaplan, lacking a developed view of who he is. But it’s enough to note that a public intellectual who is fond of emphasizing the unlimited and glorious nature of America’s imperial project now has something to say in favor of realism and limitations. “We all must learn to think like Victorians,” Kaplan intones. “That is what must guide and inform our newly rediscovered realism.” Certainly this is a group one rarely hears praised.

I can’t say with any authority whether Kaplan’s essay on geographical determinism really does the concept or the people who fashioned it justice, or whether he basically understands the Victorians. Leave it to another of Taki’s contributors to build him up or cut him down or qualify him. All I can say is that he’s better and more honest reading than, for example, Max Boot. Having said that, of course, can I really be said to have said anything?

Reader, I ask you: When Pat Toomey explains his views on foreign policy in 2009, aren’t we entitled to something better than this?

The vote authorizing the president to use force in Iraq occurred while I was a member of the House and I voted in favor of that authorization. I will tell you it was probably the toughest vote I had to cast while I was there. But I thought then, and I still believe now, that it was probably the right risk to take, understanding that it was a very big risk. And the reason I felt that is I do believe Saddam Hussein was a very grave medium-term threat to the United States. I think he was a force for enormous instability and great and dangerous mischief in the Middle East and beyond. And after Sept. 11, and after we had witnessed and suffered through such a devastating attack, I thought we had to change some of these fundamental circumstances and in getting rid of Saddam Hussein and allowing the Iraqi people to build a democratic society of their own that would be free of that brutal dictator, it struck me as a risk that we ought to take, as difficult as that was. There’s plenty of legitimate, very legitimate, criticism of how the war was conducted, especially in the early and middle stages of it. There’s plenty of blame about some of the planning and implementation of policies after the initial very successful military efforts. But in the end, the surge then did work, and it’s unfortunate that it wasn’t deployed far sooner. But it did work. And I am cautiously optimistic that things will turn out okay in Iraq as long as we don’t pull out precipitously.

Curious. Toomey isn’t a plain FOX Republican, and he’s not a Democrat now obligated to walk back high-pitched anti-war shrieks of the Bush years. He’s an informed fellow, and ought to know better than to offer a garbled apology for the basic honesty and good faith of our foreign policy over this decade. Also, wasn’t there a guy in the news somewhere recently saying something about imperial overreach and unsustainable spending and . . . the Constitution? Is that what it’s called? Whoever he was, I remember him seeming pretty stirred up, and I thought Mr. Toomey might be coming from a similar place, as someone wrapped up with issues of government size and spending. Perhaps not.

This especially is true when it comes to sex. Why?

In Sartre: Ideologue of Our Time the Hungarian Catholic philosopher Thomas Molnar follows the path of Sartre’s ethical neutrality and exaltation of freedom and individual choice to one of its major destinations: the valorization of sexual exotica per se.

Freedom [in Sartre’s analysis] is a dreadful possibility before which we [as bourgeois people] recoil; in self-protection we set up taboos, collective guidelines, so as to avoid making free choices. We prefer to act comfortably, within what society permits with our own tacit approval. Yet there are those not afraid of their freedom and its consequences. Society chooses to call them criminals, as if they had injured an absolute good when in reality they acted outside and against the prevailing taboos. If society did not define a certain evil, their acts would have no ethical connotation, they would even be sources of value. The myth of evil was forged by the so-called respectable people (gens de bien) who deprive human freedom of its positive power and give it a negative interpretation. They call a free man an evil man; and once he is so labeled, whatever he does as a free agent will be called harmful.

Sartre thus pushes with metaphysical determination for a de-neuroticization of society. Such a society would be purified of such dishonest, self-serving bourgeois oppression and denial of freedom. Molnar writes:

The de-neuroticised society is the one which knows no good and evil, whose only criterion is freedom. But the problem arising here, ignored by Sartre, is that this kind of freedom invariably begins and ends with the approval of certain acts (called evil in the language of conventional morality) and the condemnation of other acts (called good in that language). It other words, the “de-neuroticised” society does not look neutrally at man’s conduct; it does not abolish, but merely reverses, the meaning of good and evil: It gives the first term a negative, the second term a positive, sign. Hence it is not difficult to see in Sartre’s analysis of the Genet case history the desire to indulge in absolute license in a world to which his own imagination alone sets limits. Theoretically, this would not have to lead to the abolition of all restraint and ultimately to sexual frenzy. But there is a logic of human nature at work here as was shown by the Marquis de Sade in La Philosophie dans le boudoir. Welcoming the Revolution, the divine marquis exhorted his compatriots not to stop halfway but to push toward the ultimate freedom, the abolition of all institutions as man-made, and the institutionalization of the satisfaction of instincts, made by nature. The basic instinct is, of course, the sexual one, so true freedom for Sade consists in license for all, men and women, young and old, to satisfy their sexual urge in any way and with whomever desired. A frenetical sexuality was, thus, the goal of mankind, the last and best thing freedom could offer. A singular restriction of the infinite number of choices permitted by the theoreticians of freedom!

An article in the New York Times suggests that exotic sexual behavior is growing more open in Iraq, as a result of conditions created by Western invasion. The authors of the article can’t call homosexuality “exotic,” but the view comes across anyways, in the quotations from Iraqis and their officials, and in the apparent effort by Iraqis themselves to brutally stamp out homosexual habits, even and especially among family members. The authors say that a spate of violence against openly gay men shows that “Iraq remains religious, conservative — and still violent.”

On that view it’s the regular, “heteronormative” habits and attitudes of Iraqis that are the problem and the source of violence and tension. A traditionalist might ask, why not the other way around? Why doesn’t the effort to normalize anti-traditional modes of behavior attract blame as being the root of the problem? It might be seen that way by evangelical Christians, but their handling of basic issues always seems amateurish and superficial to me—at least, that’s my unstudied view.

If traditional attitudes and prejudices are merely aberrant and arbitrary, then there shouldn’t be any fundamental difficulty with reconfiguring things to get rid of them and obtain satisfaction and social peace. That sort of project is now typical in the West. But that’s not what traditional attitudes are, and that’s not how dealing with them works.

I guess I’m entitled to come in and proclaim finality as well. Clearly what I was suggesting from the beginning is that there are sound reasons for opposing the federal drug war as one among many examples of idiocy and overreach, but that it probably doesn’t make sense to view it as an urgent cause or a crucial battleground, given the nature and purpose of anarcho-tyranny. I think Paul and I have submitted sound reasoning along these lines.

Dylan says that I’m mapping out a retreat on “the one major civil liberties issue that has been trending our direction in recent years.” “If Evan is not advocating for a ‘stand put and wait’ position on the issue, I’d like to know what exactly the purpose of his post was.” Besides being a little shrill, that demand only makes sense if one adopts the cause of libertarian revolution—attack the State everywhere!—as a self-contained principle by which to measure and understand everything. I refrain from doing so, even though I think there’s a lot in libertarianism and libertarian strategy that’s valuable. I’m also not convinced that everything about the legalization movement represents a worthwhile trend. More likely it represents an area of discourse on which the elites are willing to tolerate a measure dissent that does not represent a threat to their overall control, and that favors the counterculture. They can afford to contemplate a less authoritarian approach since their goals can be fulfilled in other ways, and since every respectable social and religious institution already relies on their favor and patronage.

Mr. Hales may be right to blanche at my suggestion, that drug legalization would (in this setting at least) simply play into the hands of the therapeutic state. Perhaps taking any wind out of the drug legalization movement is a dumb idea.

I’m not mapping out a retreat on a civil liberties issue, though, and it might be a sign of slight myopia that Dylan understands my remarks that way. What I said is undeniably true, to wit: legalization would not occur in a vacuum, but would be a process carefully monitored by whatever regime was in control. For the foreseeable future that regime is therapeutic and politically correct and exerts enormous control over our thoughts and social behavior. If Hales really believes that the powers that be would, in the event of legalization, allow habits and attitudes to resume a somewhat normal, traditional pattern, he should support his view. As far as I can see this is the one course that our handlers will never permit our society to take with regard to anything, be it pot, polyamory, or pistols. As in all things the State will press exotica upon its subjects using the tools of a relatively “soft” tyranny in ways I’ve already outlined, and that are familiar to everyone. Does Dylan think that the process of normalization is as far along as it is because of natural, organic changes among settled human attitudes? Or does he suspect that a half-century of government emphasis on the anti-traditional might have something to do with morphing viewpoints?

Legalization still might be the preferable course. But what’s “horribly misguided” about stating the obvious?

Conventional unconventional opinion is that drugs ought to be legalized. The drug war is dramatically unproductive and counterproductive. It’s a major expense, and a major excuse for more buildings and cubicles full of crawling public administrators. It’s a make-career project for empties like Bill Bennett.

Agreed. But then, the regime of managers and therapists wouldn’t take legalization where libertarians want it to go, would they? As difficult as it is to imagine a system of state-run illicit drug stores, there’s no market the government isn’t going to manipulate. More significantly, legalization would end up meaning normalization (actually, that is what a lot of libertarians want), and not merely the end of federal interference. We’d see more academics marshalling data to correct bad old Western prejudices against users.  PC overseers would get fresh wind in their sails coaching students not to “judge” addict classmates. Legal firms would gear up to protect the rights of fiends and punish frowning employers with their stubborn fascist attitudes. (“My client’s condition makes it necessary for him medicate during his construction shift. Our experts will testify to the medical functions of heroin.”)

It seems to me that in our society, progressive “reform” always means advancing anarcho-tyranny. Why assume that drug legalization would be any different?

I just glanced at the latest issue of City Journal and noticed a piece by Heather MacDonald that touches on the thread I was pulling in my last post.

A growing number of activists and politicians argue that foundations should meet diversity targets in their giving and on their staffs. If foundations fail to diversify “voluntarily,” threaten the race, ethnicity, and gender enforcers, they risk legislation requiring them to do so. In other words, the diversity police, having helped bring on the subprime meltdown through mortgage-lending quotas, now want to fix philanthropy. And instead of rebuffing this power grab, the leaders in the field have rolled over and played dead.

And so on. Worth a read.

Because it needs Wall Street to function, and to cooperate in its projects.

You were expecting a longer post? No . . . no, that’s it, really.

I don’t spend much time in the company bankers, but my inexpert sense of things is somewhat Rothbardian—I can see no paradox at all in the support shown to the Left by Big Business. How could we end up with the society we have if the people with money and influence weren’t committed to egalitarianism fundamentally, and not simply out of cynicism or convenience? It’s a topic that could use more attention.

Interestingly, Harold Meyerson (no ally!) gets at some of this in a piece from 2007 on the mortgage crisis:

The problem is that the drift of much of Wall Street toward the Democrats on noneconomic issues coincides with Wall Street’s creation of inscrutable and unregulated investment devices that imperil the entire economy, as the current mortgage crisis makes painfully clear. On gay rights, say, the nouveau financiers are 21st-century progressives; on economic oversight, they are 1920s speculators, determined to keep their machinations free from public oversight. The decision the Senate Democrats make on their SEC appointees will be a good index of the relative strengths of the economically opposed forces within the party and may even foretell the balance of forces within a Hillary Clinton or Obama administration. If the financial industry prevails, it will also leave the Democrats having to answer an awkward question going into the 2008 elections: Why does America need two parties that represent Wall Street?

I thought I could get away with a rant earlier. But Robert Stacy McCain was feeling big and butch today. Now anytime anyone puts my full name in a search engine, they’ll come up with this.

Thanks, McCain. By the way, do you recall meeting briefly at CPAC? Probably not. You were in a rush, perhaps to the bar. Not that I’m criticizing. Live and let live, I say.

At this point no matter what I write I’ll be acting to type (“Young Turk,” was it?). But let’s get a few things out of the way. First of all, there’s this institution called financial aid. Certainly some of the fellas who went through Lawrenceville, Bowdoin, and Kenyon were spoiled, and certainly some were rich beyond belief. And plenty were both. But my arrogance, it turns out, is purely a function of my nature, not my economic class. “Twenty years of schoolin’ and they put you on the day shift,” Bob Dylan sang. After my twenty years I landed on the nightshift, where I drove my forklift. Hey, McCain—are we still keeping score in this crappy status war you’re waging? Your call.

And yes, M. Stanton Evans was there at CPAC. So were a significant number of people young and old who do honorable work. I spent good part of my day loitering around the radio jockey tables with Mr. Spencer and the Brimelows. Don’t tell me I can’t locate worthwhile individuals and pay them their due, pal. I would have been thrilled to be introduced to Evans if you could have spared me a moment of your time instead of rushing off to wherever it was you were going.

(I happened to get my first bit of air time that day, too, telling some conservative host about Taki’s Magazine. I remember talking up this piece he had in his hands, something called “Do the Rich Have Better Sex?” This was before I knew McCain and I can’t be pals.)

The point is that, to borrow from McCain’s own language, the conference was typified by “hordes of callow punks,” who haven’t read any of Evans’ books, never will, and generally don’t give a damn. They wanted face time with Huckabee and a picture with Romney and not a whole heck of a lot else.

That’s enough petty bucking and kicking. I’ll take my piece of humble pie, even if it is from a guy who’s almost as unaccomplished in relation to M. Stanton Evans as I am. I’ll be starting a job in DC soon that will have me in the same circles as McCain. And if he’ll have me, I’ll be his coffee girl as long as it takes me to accomplish something and get somewhere in the conservative movement. On the other hand, if this McCain geezer wants it his way—rough—we can arrange a meeting on a Judo mat somewhere. It’s all the same to me.