Instapundit reports that Bill Clinton thinks…well, it’s not entirely clear what he thinks. Basically, it’s like, “If you’re angry at runaway government power, you’re probably not a would-be terrorist…really, I’d never insinuate any such thing…it’s just that real terrorists such as Timothy McVeigh were also angry at runaway government power…and therefore unless you embrace Big Government in all its benevolent, nurturing modalities, well, there’s no getting around it: you’re kind of enabling the next McVeigh, don’t you think? So don’t get on the Internet unless you’re going to sing hymns to Washington.”

You may recall that this is not the first time he’s used that maneuver. (Eric says of the Clintons, “To be kind about it, their gaffes [at least I think they’re gaffes] keep coming!” That’s a much more comforting angle on things than that we’re seeing their authentic, unfiltered worldview.) One of Virginia Postrel’s most memorable columns from when she was editor of Reason was this one from 1995:

This is what the president of the United States said in a widely praised speech at Michigan State’s graduation: “I would like to say something to the paramilitary groups and to others who believe the greatest threat to America comes not from terrorists from within our country or beyond our borders, but from our own government….I am well aware that most of you have never violated the law of the land. I welcome the comments that some of you have made recently condemning the bombing in Oklahoma City….But I also know there have been lawbreakers among those who espouse your philosophy.” (Emphasis added.)

“There have been lawbreakers among those who espouse your philosophy.” Clinton may start with the “to be sures”—acknowledging that his nameless opponents are law-abiding and condemn the bombing—but he ends with guilt by association. Anyone who “believe[s] the greatest threat to America” comes from the government might as well be a terrorist. After all, they’re on the same philosophical team.

Just who is purveying hate and division now? Just who is using wild words? Just who is paranoid, spinning out conspiracy theories built on blurring distinctions and imagining “links”?

…

He then cleverly moves the argument from whether government power is something to be feared–obviously not, since the problem is a few rotten workers–to whether violence against public employees is justified. Here, he lumps together “people who are doing their duty” (the Nuremberg defense), people who are “minding their own business,” and “children who are innocent in every way.”

It’s not clear who advocates killing any of these people under current conditions. But at least in theory they are distinguishable. One can imagine circumstances under which self-defense might be justified against the first group; it’s hard to conjure up rationales for attacking either of the other two. But Clinton’s rhetorical mode is to blur distinctions.

And to smear by innuendo. By never specifying whom he is attacking—Who exactly claims the right to kill “children who are innocent in every way”? Who claims the right to kill “the people who perished in Oklahoma City”?—Clinton manages to call all of his political opponents murderers and then say he didn’t.

He accomplished the same thing with his vague attack on “loud and angry voices.” Was he talking about all conservative and libertarian talk radio hosts? G. Gordon Liddy? Or just conspiracy theorists like “Mark from Michigan”? He was in fact smearing them all, but preserving his deniability.

Edifying, huh? Virginia’s conclusion remains the right one:

Such tactics must not work. Loud voices are not the same as violent deeds. Criticism is not the same as murder. Exposing government violence is not the same as blowing up buildings. It is grossly irresponsible to blur these distinctions. And those who rely on such smear tactics are in no position to lecture the rest of us about toning down rhetoric.

In fact, wide-open debate is the best chance for restraining violent impulses. Contrary to the Los Angeles Times editorialists, hearings on Waco would be a very good idea, especially now. Information is the enemy both of out-of-control government and of paranoia. Vigorous, open dissent is a powerful check on government excesses—and an important, peaceful outlet for citizen grievances.

Of course, that argument only has heft if you believe government excesses should be checked.

If the plane-grounding Icelandic ash cloud hasn’t been sufficient reminder of how vulnerable we are to nature’s vagaries (and how fortunate that we have such an extensive technological arsenal to protect ourselves), check out this story about Japan’s vegetable shortages:

The government is calling on farmers to speed up vegetable deliveries after cold weather and lack of sunlight led to a poor spring crop and spiking vegetable prices.

“The vegetables prices may remain high for the foreseeable future. We’d like to ask farmers to bring forward their shipments in a bid to stabilize retail prices,” Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Hirotaka Akamatsu told a news conference following a regular Cabinet meeting Friday morning.

Also on Friday, the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry asked the National Federation of Agricultural Co-operative Associations to bring forward vegetable shipments. Consumer organizations as well as the ministry have also asked farmers to ship malformed vegetables that are usually discarded.

However, noting the measure will have only limited effects, government sources say they fear vegetable prices are unlikely to decline until May or later, and farmers pointed out that complying with demands for early shipment is difficult.

“We harvested lettuce and other vegetables earlier than usual in response to an increase in demand from the restaurant industry during the spring vacation period. Even if we are asked to bring forward shipments, it’s difficult to comply,” said an official of the Ibaraki Prefecture chapter of the agricultural federation.

Shredded lettuce and cabbage come with nearly everything in Japan: you walk into a little restaurant, and the waitress plunks down a small bowl of shredded cabbage and carrots with ginger dressing as your o-tooshi-mono. That there would be a shortage of them is really unsettling. Of course, Japan isn’t facing a famine—you’ll notice that one proposal for making up the difference is just not rejecting too many misshapen cabbages, which is a problem the DPRK would have loved to have around a decade ago. Still, the story is a good reminder of how intricate our supply and distribution systems are. (Of course, you could also take the opportunity to bring up Japan’s insane agricultural-subsidy system, but I’m feeling generous today.)

*******

It’s a few days old, but the Asahi English site had a good rundown of what’s led up to the current confusion—impasse doesn’t seem to be quite the best word—over the relocation of the Futenma facility in Okinawa:

U.S. officials certainly have no intention of jeopardizing the decades-long alliance with Japan, but there is growing concern and frustration at the lack of a meeting of minds on such important matters of mutual concern.

Hatoyama broached the issue of the relocation of the U.S. Marines Corps Air Station Futenma in Okinawa Prefecture during a short meeting with Obama on the sidelines of the Nuclear Security Summit in the U.S. capital on Monday. Neither Japan nor the United States explained how Obama responded.

What did come across, however, is that the meeting did not change the U.S. government’s position, which is that the best solution to the Futenma issue lies with a 2006 agreement reached by the two nations to relocate the base to the Henoko district of Nago, also in Okinawa Prefecture.

…

Behind this extremely defensive and careful approach of the U.S. government is its resolve not to make the same mistake of 2005, when Washington compromised and accepted current Henoko option.

During those negotiations, U.S. officials for a long time advocated a plan to construct a replacement facility on a landfill off the south coast of Henoko, Nago city. This plan was commonly known as “Nago Light.” However, during the final stage of the talks, U.S. officials abandoned it and accepted instead the Japanese proposal to build the new facility on the coastline of Camp Schwab at Henoko point.

Richard Lawless, who negotiated the agreement for the United States as deputy undersecretary of defense, recalled his decision to go along with his Japanese counterparts.

“They guaranteed that they can implement the proposal,” Lawless said. “I made sure about this point with several people in charge (in the Japanese government) a number of times.”

Four years after the agreement was reached, the Japanese government has done an about-turn and told Washington the Henoko option cannot be implemented. Japan’s turnaround frustrated not only Lawless, but also current U.S. administration officials. They also share a deep sense of mistrust over Hatoyama’s frequent flip-flops on this issue.

It’s very difficult to assign blame in this scenario. It’s not possible to indulge the NIMBY-ism of every municipality, but it’s understandable that many towns don’t want the side-effects of a military installation. I’m very much a supporter of the military, but it’s a plain and simple fact that putting a lot of hopped-up kids in their early twenties far from home—in an environment of literal martial discipline in which their violent impulses are deliberately brought to the surface so they can be channeled to useful purposes—nearly guarantees an increase in crime and a tense relationship with the locals, whatever job-creating benefits may come along with the installation. Washington wants the existing agreement to be implemented; Tokyo seems to see the new administrations in both countries as an opportunity to restart negotiations practically from square one. Neither seems likely to have all its expectations met.

*******

Sugarpie, I have just found the must-have camp accessory of the year:

Herman Van Rompuy, the European Union’s first permanent president, has published his first anthology of haiku poems.

Van Rompuy, a former prime minister of Belgium, said here Thursday that he hopes to compose haiku when he is in Tokyo for the annual EU-Japan Summit, which convenes April 28.

The book, titled “Haiku,” contains 45 haiku he wrote in Dutch and which have been translated into English, French, German and Latin.

Can you just…?

A new commission–
the joy of its formation
like freshest spring rains

*******

Indifference from
sassy Yank colonials–
our cries sad, owl-like!

*******

Dry cicada shell–
an easy relationship
would be so empty

Okay, in all seriousness, van Rompuy could be very good; but haiku is one of those genres that bring out the “I could do that!” dilettantism in people, and the results are nearly always irredeemably precious, in my experience. For some reason, the combination of shortness (not a major time investment!), nature themes (I love Nature—I’m a good person!”), and Japaneseness (aesthete capital of the world!) makes haiku hard to resist, but it also makes them difficult to execute well. Maybe Catherine Ashton will be flogging her first manga this summer?

Added later: Thanks to Instapundit for the link. I have a half-dozen regular commenters who routinely agree with me, for which I am very grateful; but if you have a dissenting comment to make, I’ll be glad to read it, since I don’t get much dissent around here. (That’s not an aspersion, regular readers.) If you’re wondering where my interest in Japan comes from, I studied Japanese literature in college and grad school, and I lived in Tokyo from the ages of 24 to 36. I am unapologetically American down to the bone, but I love Japan also, and I’m very interested in seeing our alliance not screwed up.

Joanne Jacobs applies her usual deadpan to Duke’s new policy on campus sex, which she describes thus:

A person seen as “powerful”—such as a varsity athlete—may “create an unintentional atmosphere of coercion,” the policy states. For the “powerful,” it’s not just that “no” means no and silence means no. “Yes” means no too.

In addition, sex with someone who’s been drinking—not like that ever happens—is considered a form of rape because the policy considers any level of intoxication makes a student unable to consent to sex.

The document itself is as coruscatingly stupid as you’d expect. It never ceases to amaze me how brain-dead college administrators are about student drunkenness:

The use of alcohol or other drugs can have unintended consequences. Alcohol or other drugs can lower inhibitions and create an atmosphere of confusion over whether consent is freely and effectively given. The perspective of a reasonable person will be the basis for determining whether one should have known about the impact of the use of alcohol or drugs on another’s ability to give consent. Being intoxicated or high is never an excuse for sexual misconduct.

Note the way the lowering of inhibitions is assumed to be an unintended consequence of drinking. After all, no college student would ever drink purposefully to get over feeling like a slut for wanting sex, feeling like a pervert for wanting homosexual sex, or feeling like a loser for wanting sex with someone who acts like a jerk once the clothes are back on. You might argue that students with such inhibitions should heed them rather than using alcohol to surmount them, but it’s hard to argue that they’re doing something they haven’t been in a position to consent to.

There are, naturally, helpful scenarios of sexual misconduct given, with a careful distribution of sexual orientations to show that everyone is at least hypothetically a potential sexual assailant. The actual events don’t ring particularly false, but the prissy, desiccated way we’re supposed to interpret them does. Naturally, I’m going to homo home in on the gay guys:

Andrew and Felix have been flirting with each other all night at a party. Around 12:30 a.m., Felix excuses himself to find a bathroom. Andrew notices Felix slurring his speech. Andrew wonders if Felix went to the bathroom to vomit. When Felix returns, the two begin flirting more heavily and move to a couch. As the conversation continues, the two become more relaxed and more physically affectionate. Andrew soon suggests they go back to his room, and Felix agrees. As they walk down the stairs, Andrew notices that Felix looks unstable and offers his arm for support and balance. When they get back to his room, Andrew leads Felix to the bed and they begin to become intimate. Felix becomes increasingly passive and appears disoriented. Andrew soon begins to have sexual intercourse with him. The next morning, Felix thinks they had sex but cannot piece together the events leading up to it. This is a violation of the Sexual Misconduct Policy. Felix was clearly under the influence of alcohol and thus unable to freely consent to engage in sexual activity with Andrew. Although Andrew may not have known how much alcohol Felix had consumed, he saw indicators from which a reasonable person would conclude that Felix was intoxicated, and therefore unable to give consent. Andrew in no way obtained consent from Felix.

Okay, fine. But that omits a lot of the story that would explain how they ended up having sex. For example:

Andrew and Felix have been flirting with each other all night at a party. Felix has pretty much accepted that he’s gay, but whenever he’s attracted to a guy and thinks about doing something about it, the things his parents used to say around the dinner table about homosexuals start echoing in his head, and he gets rattled and feels like he’s stirring things up that he may not be able to handle. The attention from Andrew is making him feel terrific—attractive and interesting—but Felix isn’t sure what he’s supposed to do next. Andrew can hold his liquor pretty well, and Felix doesn’t want to look like a lightweight, so he’s trying to keep up even though he knows he’s already had enough.

Andrew is going berserk. He almost never hits it off with a guy this quickly. And Felix has no idea how cute he is—the slightly sheepish manner, the shrug, the offhand smile. When he leans forward, there’s this place where the back of his neck comes out of his T-shirt collar that Andrew wants to bury his face in. Felix seems to be getting really drunk, but Andrew, though he keeps good motor control, knows that he himself is probably no longer thinking as clearly as he feels he is. Around 12:30 a.m., Felix excuses himself to find a bathroom. Andrew notices Felix slurring his speech. Andrew wonders if Felix went to the bathroom to vomit.

When Felix returns, the two begin flirting more heavily and move to a couch. As the conversation continues, the two become more relaxed and more physically affectionate. Felix doesn’t taste like vomit when Andrew kisses him, so maybe he’s okay after all? Felix feels and smells a little sweat-damp beneath his T-shirt, and Andrew is beside himself.

Felix would never have been able to initiate that kiss, but he likes it. He’s dimly aware that his senses of touch and taste aren’t working right, but he really wants Andrew to like him and be attracted to him. He’s afraid that he’s going to look like a dork if he tells Andrew he needs to go home now but would like to see him again when he’s more sober, so he keeps responding as enthusiastically as he can while Andrew makes out with him.

Andrew soon suggests they go back to his room, and Felix agrees. As they walk down the stairs, Andrew notices that Felix looks unstable and offers his arm for support and balance. Andrew stumbles a few times along the way, and Felix giggles, a little relieved that Andrew’s also more drunk than he’d thought. When they get back to his room, Andrew leads Felix to the bed and they begin to become intimate. Felix is fighting hard to stay awake and perform well so that Andrew isn’t disappointed. Andrew actually asks once whether he’s okay, and Felix makes a huge effort to enunciate a clear “Yeah, I’m fine.” Felix becomes increasingly passive and appears disoriented. Andrew soon begins to have sexual intercourse with him. He’s keyed up, and Felix is responsive enough to keep his arms around him and to get off. The next morning, Felix thinks they had sex but cannot piece together the events leading up to it. He feels like hell: not only is he a failure at being straight, but he apparently can’t even be a faggot without screwing it up. Andrew probably thinks he’s a loser.

Andrew doesn’t, in fact, think Felix is a loser; he wonders whether Felix wasn’t as attracted to him as he thought, since he had to get so drunk before he would make out with him. Felix miscalculated, trying to distance himself from his desire for Andrew while indulging it at the same time. Andrew might have just taken Felix to home if they’d left the party earlier, but by the time they got up to go, he was too keyed up and horny to think of it. Although Andrew may not have known how much alcohol Felix had consumed, he saw indicators from which a reasonable person would conclude that Felix was intoxicated, and therefore unable to give consent. Andrew in no way obtained consent from Felix. But Felix kept drinking past his own limitations; Andrew never put a funnel into his mouth and poured vodka down it. And his own faculties of reason weren’t all operating, either.

How is it helpful, at this point, for some Student Life lackwit to wade in and tell Felix he’s a victim and Andrew he’s a perpetrator of sexual misconduct? And in general, how is it helpful to assume that in most drunken couplings it’s the bigger, hornier, more sober party who was the one doing all the “manipulating”? No one who’s ever watched men and women flirt could possibly buy that for a moment. I don’t think it does anyone (except ambitious Student Life lackeys) any good to plant the idea in undergrads’ heads that every bad sexual experience is “misconduct,” in which mustache-twirling offenders can be clearly separated from ravaged victims. Or that there’s some mystical “coercive” power inherent in high status in the social hierarchy. This is supposed to be preparing kids to handle grown-up life?

Authoritarianism is, more’s the pity, an inexhaustibly relevant topic these days. Instead of the unexamined assumption that all government agents have a rightful claim on our respect, Eric has tackled the more general assumption that being under authority is a good in and of itself that we should learn to like:

What never ceases to fascinate me is the sheer gall of liberals in attributing “authoritarianism” to conservatives and libertarians while pretending that liberals are the authoritarian antithesis. It is one of liberalism’s biggest lies. Like so many of the people who drive around with bumperstickers that say “QUESTION AUTHORITY” — while they really mean to say “QUESTION AUTHORITY SELECTIVELY.”

A lot of liberals don’t seem to think that sententious moralizing counts as sententious moralizing if you’re not using religion to back it up. I’m not sure where they get that idea, but as Eric says, it’s sheer effrontery and surpassingly annoying.

Added on 6 April: One of Eric’s commenters (the first in the thread) took issue with his wording:

Since when have libertarians considered “social shunning” to be “censorship”? Don’t people have a right to decide with whom they will associate?

I didn’t see Eric use the word censorship there, though Phyllis Chesler did, and he quoted her approvingly. Her point doesn’t seem unreasonable, though—that a lot of leftists (especially university leftists) don’t just want to discredit the opposition by taking its ideas seriously, pulling them apart, and then refuting them; they want to keep it from being heard altogether. That’s a lot more like censorship than unlike it.

Social shunning is less like censorship than, say, blocking the publication of a book. But your criteria for choosing friendships say something about your character, and it’s not out of bounds to maintain that they say something about your political positions, too, if you’re going to drop friends for their politics. At least when I was a boy, we were taught that it was practically a civic responsibility to assume good faith on the part of your political opponents and to seek out opportunities to get to know people with differing views. If someone shares your values about how to treat people—politeness, respect, consideration—and you otherwise have compatible personalities, I don’t think it speaks well of you if you decide he’s no longer worth breaking bread with because you disagree over politics.

Atsushi sent me this picture of the cherry blossoms in full bloom:

The top of that hill is where my office was the whole time I lived in Tokyo; there are two gay bars along one of the side streets run by a couple who became dear friends of mine. Atsushi and I were first introduced to each other, a scant ten years ago, at one of them. I spent countless working dinners at several of the little restaurants in the neighborhood, where the proprietors would take care of me as if I were family. So it’s a street that has a great deal of meaning for me. Tokyo is a riotously exciting, adventurous place, and I’m an inquisitive person, so I did a great deal of exploring. But of course the moments that are really meaningful are those off-hand ones when you’re with people you value who make you feel that you, in turn, add value to their lives. Many of those moments were on Sakuragaoka (“Cherry-Tree Hill,” fittingly enough) for me.

Japanese literature is choked with poems about cherry blossoms, but surprisingly few of them are about the fragrance. When they’re in bloom, the visuals are so painfully lovely that they tend to monopolize the attention. This waka by Ki no Tsurayuki is an exception:

花の香に衣は深くなりにけり木の下陰の風のまにまに

hana no ka ni/koromo ha fukaku/nari ni keri/ko no shitakage no/kaze no manimani

The blossoms’ fragrance
has saturated my robes
to the very depths
borne on the breezes stirring
and stirring beneath the boughs

I said, “I just can’t believe it—boy, I think it’s great”

A few days ago, the Unreligious Right posted about this piece, in which Ben Stein grouses that his fellow conservatives don’t respect public servants enough. As usual, UNRR’s comments are worth reading in full. There’s just one key section that I think is worth expanding on:

When people complain about “bureaucrats,” they don’t mean cops, firefighters, teachers and CIA agents. And for the most part, they are complaining about the system and how the government conducts business, rather than about the individual people involved. Praising government workers as necessary and valuable is every bit as big a gross over-generalization, as is demonizing them.

He’s responding to this passage from Stein’s article:

Government employees include cops and firefighters, who do some of the most dangerous, vital work in the society. Government employees include prosecutors and prison guards, who do work that is often extremely difficult and deeply necessary.

Government employees are the doctors and nurses at VA hospitals. They are the teachers who try to teach our kids. They are the men and women who keep track of our economic and health statistics, without which we cannot measure progress or failure.

Government employees are the CIA agents who launch drone strikes to kill terrorists and who sometimes get killed. Bureaucrats would include the people of the FBI and it would also include the men and women at the Pentagon who guide our armed forces. These people are the muscle and bone of the nation.

I’m not a conservative, but to the extent that the much-hyped conservative-libertarian alliance has ever existed, it’s been based on a shared opposition to government overreach; and from that perspective, in any form of it that I’m aware of, Stein’s arguments make no sense.

All the work Stein mentions is necessary—does anyone think it isn’t?—but that doesn’t necessarily mean it must be done by the government. Just about all of us agree that the military and the police should be run directly by the government because they fall within the job description of protecting free citizens from harm. Firefighting is a grey area. Some places do just fine with voluntary brigades. And otherwise, it’s not clear why these people need to work for the government. Statisticians? Health-care personnel used by vets? Schoolteachers? They all have direct private-sector analogues. One doesn’t have to denigrate the work they do to wonder whether it could be done better if not run by the government. When services are paid for from tax money, it’s functionaries, not the citizens who are end users, whose preferences tend to decide what gets delivered, and effectiveness and efficiency get tossed aside in the bargain. Additionally, government employees create, as Nick Gillespie puts it at Hit and Run, “a permanent lobby for expanded government and higher taxes.” It might be nice if we were able to draw a firm line between necessary and superfluous civil servants, but in reality the latter only have positions to fill because the former shrewdly figured out how to entrench themselves and expand their power base.

Also, even if we decide that every last agency currently in existence really did need to be public rather than private, we still have a right to ask whether everything it’s doing is justified. It’s one thing, for example, to recognize that law enforcement officers work under dangerous conditions and will sometimes make fatal mistakes in good faith, for which they shouldn’t be punished legally or ostracized socially. It’s another thing entirely to insist that any old incompetent thing a cop or prosecutor does is excusable because he or she is just trying to protect us from the baddies out there. I’m not always fond of Radley Balko’s tone, but click at random on his list of articles and posts at Reason . You have your botched raids by paramilitarized police, you have your prosecutors going unpunished for getting suspects convicted with evidence they faked, you have your assets seized from people who are never charged with a crime. Also, don’t forget about the traffic fines not intended to increase road safety but to fund public operations.

You don’t have to harbor any animus against The Man to recognize that there’s a terrible danger in encouraging those in the justice system to use the “we’re doing a dangerous job” card to get a free pass on any old error they might make. The power to shoot, arrest, and land people in prison should require more, not less, accountability than other work.

Ben Stein is welcome to point out that most government employees do the best they can and don’t deserve to be stereotyped as exploitative and shiftless. The flip side, which neither he nor other apologists for big government ever seem to get around to thinking about, is that individual citizens don’t deserve to be viewed by civil servants as fonts of tax revenue who should shut up and do what we’re told by our betters because every intrusive little rule they’re moved to come up with is vital to the social order. If more conservatives are starting to realize that, so much the better for them.