Two Kinds Of Chess

THERE ARE TWO kinds of chess in the world. There is the western game of chess, in which the pieces move about the board. And there is Chinese chess, in which you put your pieces, or stones, on the board never to move them again.

I say this in connection with the continuing political argument over 9/11 and the war on terror. Democrats are all over the board, yelling at one moment that Bush is to blame, at another that Clinton is not to blame, that Iraq has nothing to do with the war on terror, that the whole thing is “Bush’s War.”

You’ll note that the Republicans have not been rushing around saying this one day and that the other. Instead President Bush is playing it the Chinese way, putting markers on the board and never moving them.

The flap over ABC’s “The Path to 9/11” shows all this with disturbing clarity. The Democrats run a week-long spin extravaganza, with the Clintons soberly asking for the truth, aged historians talking about “disingenuous” disregard for the truth, and Democratic officeholders issuing naked threats about broadcast licenses.

In the end, everyone watched the Sunday Night Football game instead of “The Path to 9/11.”

Media critic L. Brent Bozell III reports on all the Clinton shenanigans. He closes with a quote from a Kosite:

As one blogger at the Daily Kos pleaded about the ABC film: "So who is the greater threat to democracy? Terrorists or media consolidation?" Nothing, but nothing will bring this crowd to reality.

This would be funny if it weren’t so tragic. Because we have to ask ourselves: Where did this dunderhead learn this crazy conspiracy stuff? And the answer probably is: in college.

Meanwhile President Bush continues fighting “his” war on terror, in behalf of all of us whether we get it or not.

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Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.

TAGS

Action

The incentive that impels a man to act is always some uneasiness... But to make a man act [he must have] the expectation that purposeful behavior has the power to remove or at least to alleviate the felt uneasiness.
Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

Chappies

“But I saw a man yesterday who knows a fellow who had it from a chappie that said that Urquhart had been dipping himself a bit recklessly off the deep end.” —Freddy Arbuthnot
Dorothy L. Sayers, Strong Poison

China and Christianity

At first, we thought [the power of the West] was because you had more powerful guns than we had. Then we thought it was because you had the best political system. Next we focused on your economic system. But in the past twenty years, we have realized that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity.
David Aikman, Jesus in Beijing

Churches

[In the] higher Christian churches… they saunter through the liturgy like Mohawks along a string of scaffolding who have long since forgotten their danger. If God were to blast such a service to bits, the congregation would be, I believe, genuinely shocked. But in the low churches you expect it every minute.
Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm

Civil Society

“Civil Society”—a complex welter of intermediate institutions, including businesses, voluntary associations, educational institutions, clubs, unions, media, charities, and churches—builds, in turn, on the family, the primary instrument by which people are socialized into their culture and given the skills that allow them to live in broader society and through which the values and knowledge of that society are transmitted across the generations.
Francis Fukuyama, Trust

Class War

In England there were always two sharply opposed middle classes, the academic middle class and the commercial middle class. In the nineteenth century, the academic middle class won the battle for power and status... Then came the triumph of Margaret Thatcher... The academics lost their power and prestige and... have been gloomy ever since.
Freeman Dyson, “The Scientist as Rebel”

Conservatism

Conservatism is the philosophy of society. Its ethic is fraternity and its characteristic is authority — the non-coercive social persuasion which operates in a family or a community. It says ‘we should...’.
Danny Kruger, On Fraternity

Conservatism's Holy Grail

What distinguishes true Conservatism from the rest, and from the Blair project, is the belief in more personal freedom and more market freedom, along with less state intervention... The true Third Way is the Holy Grail of Tory politics today - compassion and community without compulsion.
Minette Marrin, The Daily Telegraph

Conversion

“When we received Christ,” Phil added, “all of a sudden we now had a rule book to go by, and when we had problems the preacher was right there to give us the answers.”
James M. Ault, Jr., Spirit and Flesh

Democratic Capitalism

I mean three systems in one: a predominantly market economy; a polity respectful of the rights of the individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and a system of cultural institutions moved by ideals of liberty and justice for all. In short, three dynamic and converging systems functioning as one: a democratic polity, an economy based on markets and incentives, and a moral-cultural system which is plural and, in the largest sense, liberal.
Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism

Drang nach Osten

There was nothing new about the Frankish drive to the east... [let] us recall that the continuance of their rule depended upon regular, successful, predatory warfare.
Richard Fletcher, The Barbarian Conversion

Education

“We have met with families in which for weeks together, not an article of sustenance but potatoes had been used; yet for every child the hard-earned sum was provided to send them to school.”
E. G. West, Education and the State

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