Thought for the Day

A reader writes, apropos of the name-calling against the authors of the "Israel Lobby" report:

Everyone is a liberal when it comes to their "privileges," but a conservative when it comes to their "interests."

Remember "Bernard" from BBC's unmatched series "Yes Minister" (Remember that one? We used to watch it the whole extended family; it was like a crash course on governance based on a millennium of distilled British wisdom.) He called these "political irregular verbs". For example:

"I'm defending my country's interests; you're meddling with others' affairs; they are 'terrorists.'"

It's when they are defending another country's interests at the expense of ours that I get annoyed.

By the way, how come when we are being lectured on the Wisdom of the American Founders these days, you never hear about Washington's "Farewell Address" anymore? The part where Washington warns:

"Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite [foreign country] are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests."

sounds like he was anticipating the smear jobs the Israel Lobby is flinging at Mearsheimer and Walt. (Of course, he was thinking of the need for Americans to resist the blandishments of the partisans of England and France, but it's still relevant.)

Washington, Hamilton, and Madison worked on the Farewell Address, on and off over four years, and it is clearly the best considered document of the era. For a long, long time in America, it was considered the best advice from the Founding generation.

Instead, now you mostly hear about the Declaration of Independent, which Jefferson stayed up all night to write. Not surprisingly, its most famous section appears to suffer from a proofreading bug that distorts its meaning. As it is, it reads:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

But as artificial intelligence guru John McCarthy pointed out, it would make a lot more sense if it read:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, in that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer