Category: Oh Tempora, Oh Mores

Drugs and the limits of liberalism

As our cocaine maker in Peru happily told us: ‘People want our cocaine because it is good and, for a while at least, makes them happy.’

So ends an interesting account in today’s Observer by Angus Macqueen  of a journey through the drug-growing badlands of South America.

There is no respectability whatever in drugs trafficking and only pathos or tragedy in drug-taking.  But the intellectual argument for drug liberalisation is becoming increasingly respectable because the alternative of prohibition has so manifestly failed.  Macqueen worries chiefly about the warfare and violence that drug moneys fuel in grower countries.  But he then makes what has become the standard case for liberalisation:-

This journey has left me thinking the politically unthinkable. With an election looming, the Blair government has made the war on drugs a populist law-and-order priority, once again conflating the taking of drugs with the crime and violence that surrounds them. But it is the war itself that is the problem. The politicians rightly warn that demand will go up if it is legalised. Not good but not the nightmare they summon up. Neither cocaine or heroin is a cancer. In quantities it destroys your nose and is bad for your brain, but it very rarely kills - unlike that other addictive plant we can use legally: tobacco.

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Posted by Guessedworker on Sunday, January 9, 2005 at 10:03 AM in Oh Tempora, Oh Mores
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The American way

I have just put up here an email from an American lady who is very passionate about her country.

Posted by jonjayray on Wednesday, December 22, 2004 at 10:18 PM in Oh Tempora, Oh Mores
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Public displays are important

Among the most foolish ideas to emanate from the foolish ‘60s is that what you feel in your heart is more important than what you publicly express. According to this thinking, to cite one example, patriotism is a feeling, not a flag displayed on national holidays. On the contrary, such displays are derided as “flag waving,” which has been rendered a pejorative term.  We have lost an appreciation for the monumental significance of public ritual in maintaining our national identity and values. We have also greatly overstated the ability of feelings to be maintained without public expression of those feelings.

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Posted by jonjayray on Tuesday, December 21, 2004 at 06:57 PM in Oh Tempora, Oh Mores
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Tribal needs

I think that Israeli blogger David Boxenhorn expresses something that many readers of this blog might agree with.  I therefore reproduce the whole post below:

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Posted by jonjayray on Monday, December 20, 2004 at 08:50 PM in Oh Tempora, Oh Mores
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Theo at Wikipedia and Tiscali

I have had a recent disagreement with the Wikipedia writing staff, or one of them anyway.  An encyclopedic sounding of the world should preclude political bias, and as far as Vlaams Blok/Belang is concerned these guys don’t.  But give credit where it is due.  Today I read the Wikipedia entry for the assassinated Dutch film-maker, Theo Van Gogh.  It isn’t an entry that will change very much now, I suppose.  But he is accorded a remarkably fair treatment by the writers, who are well-informed and well worth reading.

They capture the spirit of the man.  Van Gogh did not ask to be loved.  He asked, principally, for respect for the victims of 09/11.  He asked for the freedom to speak wherever free speech was withheld.  In fact, he took it whether anybody else liked it or not.  He revelled in doing so and didn’t care whose censorious habits he riled.

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Posted by Johan Van Vlaams on Monday, December 20, 2004 at 02:54 PM in Oh Tempora, Oh Mores
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Expediency á la Francais

My recent piece, No native voices, kicked off with a hat-tip to John Ray for a link to a Charles Bremner article in The Times.  Now Mark Richardson has posted a link to the same article.

Bremner drew attention to the remarkable law passing through the French lower house, prohibiting “defaming a person or a group of persons on account of their sex or their sexual orientation.” The punishment is a prison sentence of up to six months or a £15,000 fine.

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Posted by Guessedworker on Saturday, December 18, 2004 at 03:00 PM in Oh Tempora, Oh Mores
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“Rednecks” and “Reptiles of the Press”

In response to my post of two days ago about the Leftist use of the term “Redneck” I got a lot of email.  Below is one I particularly liked:

“Thank you so much for your post about rednecks, and the “compassionate” left’s contempt for them. It’s not often that we country folk hear nice things about ourselves. Having grown up in a one-horse town as a poor minister’s daughter, I’ve seen every aspect of “trailer trash” life. Rednecks certainly do have their problems in terms of money, but I’ve never met a liberal who would give you the shirt right off his back - and I’ve never met a redneck who wouldn’t. What the left doesn’t understand, it mocks. The left is comprised mainly of people who’ve never wanted for anything, so when they look at the poor but proud, they wonder what the heck it is that they’re so proud of. What they’re proud of, in a nutshell, is something liberals can never have or understand - compassion for each other. Thanks for stickin’ up for the little guy.”

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Posted by jonjayray on Friday, December 17, 2004 at 06:57 PM in Oh Tempora, Oh Mores
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The Army and the Japanese

This is pretty disgusting.  Young Japanese women living in Paris get so shocked by constant French rudeness towards them that some of them end up hospitalized with depression.  I am sure my own manners are a bit rough at times but I always try to treat the invariably polite people of Asia with the courtesy that such politeness deserves.  But like all elitists, the French think everyone else is scum, particularly Americans of course.

Because I am an accommodation provider and find Asians to be good tenants, I have met more than a few of the young treasures of Japan over the years and there is no way they deserve to be driven into hospital by foul treatment.  Partly because I am a former Army man myself, I have met and talked to many “old Diggers” (Australian Army veterans)  from WWII over the years and I share their disgust about what “the Nips” did to prisoners and others in that war.  To this day, many of them would not consider buying a Japanese car.  But because of their experiences, if nothing else, those men are true gentlemen and I can guarantee you that not one of them would be rude to a young woman just because she was Japanese.  But ethics have always been something of an afterthought to the French from what I can see.

While I am thinking of the Army, I also want to record my disgust at the way Leftists commonly disparage the armed forces.  To me the profession of arms is the noblest profession there is.  Who else volunteers to lay down his life for his fellow-citizens?

And to revert to the Japanese:  Lots of armies speak of fighting to the death but in modern times only the Japanese have done so.

Posted by jonjayray on Thursday, December 16, 2004 at 03:59 AM in Oh Tempora, Oh Mores
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Iron in the soul.  Oestregen in the water.

Possessing, as I do, a modest interest in the history of aviation warfare I frequently find myself checking the obits for another sad passing.  These days almost all of those astonishingly gallant young men who survived their tour of bombing sorties to Germany and occupied Europe are over eighty.  The obituaries, inevitably, are becoming rarer. 

Today, however, the Telegraph carried the obituary of one such man, David Jackson Penman,  OBE, DSO, DFC who died on November 27th at the age of 85.  The article concentrates largely on his part in the low-level, daylight raid on a diesil engine factory in Augsburg on April 17th, 1942.  Twelve aircraft, six Lancasters apiece from 44 and 97 Squadron, were sent to bomb the M.A.N factory, which made diesel engines for submarines.  Five returned, all damaged.  Militarily, nothing was achieved.  Production of the diesels was inconvenienced, no more.

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Posted by Guessedworker on Wednesday, December 8, 2004 at 10:58 AM in Oh Tempora, Oh Mores
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Theodore Dalrymple: some skeptical thoughts

I am sure that there can be few readers of this blog who have not enjoyed at least some of the columns by British prison doctor Anthony Daniels (a.k.a. “Theodore Dalrymple”). I myself read right through every one I encounter. His latest column, however, reveals that he is retiring from his job and suggests that he is looking for a different perspective on life. What he has mainly documented so far is the disastrous state of the British underclass. From his experiences as a prison doctor, he pictures an entire social milieu that is basically feral, devoid of hope and devoid of most of the best things in life. Read his latest column and you will know what I mean.

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Posted by jonjayray on Monday, December 6, 2004 at 02:46 AM in Oh Tempora, Oh Mores
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Aaah … sweeeeet!

Please … no crudities about the new vulva concept car.  Let’s be gentlemanly and tasteful here.  Volvo has showed its new, all-girl designed concept vehicle for ladies at the Geneva Motor Show.  And, attention being a positively genetic necessity for all lady designers, world-wide attention has it attracted.

The press has picked up on the fact that, given the chance apparently, girlies go for a nice, accessorisable set of wheels.  Know what I mean, John.  Good runner.  One lady owner.  Embroidered cloth interior - to match your mood, y’know.  Looks pretty in pink as a matter of fact.  Plenty of room for, erm … well, the whole thing’s a handbag, mate.  Take it from me, a bleedin’ handbag.  And a dressing table.  And a flower pot.

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Posted by Guessedworker on Thursday, December 2, 2004 at 10:41 AM in Oh Tempora, Oh Mores
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Is abortion sacred?

Partisans of either the “pro-life” or “pro-choice” positions on abortion will have us believe there is no middle ground between these poles. This is, of course, nonsense. For example, the “pro-choice” American libertarian scholar Murray Rothbard opposed the US Supreme Court’s “Roe Vs. Wade” decision. This effectively made abortion a right for Americans. Rothbard dissented on the grounds that it centralised decision making on an issue rightfully and best left to state and local jurisdictions. A “pro-life” colleague of Rothbard, Martin Anderson takes up the decentralist argument against Roe Vs. Wade here. The Rothbard / Anderson example shows that compromise here is possible.

What interests me is the amazing extent to which abortion has now been made sacred. To criticise abortion or people who have abortions is to expose oneself to all sorts of tut tutting and the moralistic tones of disapproval that, we are told, are supposed to be reserved for those who “fart in church”. Even learned Church leaders, from Churches doctrinally opposed to abortion, treat the consumers and suppliers of the abortion industry with kid gloves. Even attempts to deal pragmatically with the economic and military consequences of what amounts to a de facto small-l liberal population policy, of which abortion rights is certainly an inherent part, are inhibited by the sacred status of abortion.

This is by no means a local Australian or even western issue. That sanctified and august body, the United Nations, an outfit Roger Kimball calls a “saintly institution”, even believes it has the right to bring Poland into line for not following small-l liberal dogma.

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Posted by Guest Blogger on Monday, November 29, 2004 at 06:44 PM in Oh Tempora, Oh Mores
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An Aphorism

“Modern man does not love, but seeks refuge in love; does not hope, but seeks refuge in hope; does not believe, but seeks refuge in a dogma.” —Nicolás Gómez Dávila

I think that this outlines a central flaw in the modern soul.  Everything good and great exists as a means to a pitiful and self-serving end.  We justify our lives by the metric of personal satisfaction.

Posted by Guest Blogger on Sunday, October 24, 2004 at 08:15 PM in Oh Tempora, Oh Mores
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More than a pretty face

Something perfectly pointless, egregiously superficial and just plain corny has passed into history with the decision by ABC to drop Miss America from it’s 2005 schedule.  It isn’t a passing that will trouble many.  Last month’s pageant drew a record low of 9.8 million viewers.  The American public has pronounced sentence on the high heels and swimwear, the tiara tat and tearfulness in victory.  No more brilliantly smiling hopefuls from Abbeyville or Rainbow Springs will tell the nation that, yes, they adore children and just want the chance to work for a better world.  I don’t know what “totter off in peace” would be in Latin.  But something like that would seem to be appropriate.

OK, so what?  The Humourless Ones For Whom No Man Ever Cared will savour the moment, obviously.  But why should we bother about the passing of these cattle markets?  Well, it’s simple really.  We should bother because there is more to this than a minor, overdue triumph for sexual equality.  We should bother because of what it tells us about our own wives and daughters and the people they and we have become.

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Posted by Guessedworker on Friday, October 22, 2004 at 05:24 PM in Oh Tempora, Oh Mores
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In the beginning

So here we are, online.  After four months of planning we have arrived at that precipitate moment.  The first post.  The one that should welcome, introduce, explicate, commend … and get the blog rolling.  The one that, like a best man’s speech, doesn’t need to say too much and doesn’t need to go on too long.  Just so that it leaves the reader with a crank-handle sense of something vital and positive having begun.

A tall order, then.

Well, maybe.  Maybe not.  I’ve looked into a few of these first post offerings lately.  They are by no means all successful.  Simplicity seems to be the safest if, perhaps, most unadventurous option.  You know … just a few spare but elegant phrases that go to the heart of what it means to blog on politics and what, in addition, it will mean to blog here.  That ought not to be too challenging.

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Posted by Guessedworker on Thursday, October 14, 2004 at 04:48 PM in Oh Tempora, Oh Mores
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