The following is my response to amike's most excellent challenge to write a response to Thomas Paine's DISSERTATION ON FIRST PRINCIPLES OF GOVERNMENT

PseudoCyAnts was a serious student of Thomas Jefferson's writing and at various times provided a nicely arranged way to read Jefferson on the web in a format PCA called Liberated Text. The topic of many of the letters he collected in this fashion expressed Jefferson's very negative opinion of priests and ecclesiastic figures of authority as a class. I wish that I had access to that collection but will make do for now by linking to four relatively restrained passages in this  collection of letters.

On page 274, there is a testimony of how strongly Jefferson felt about the matter in a tirade against Calvin: 

    It would be more pardonable to believe in no God at all than to blaspheme Him by the atrocious attributes of Calvin Indeed I think that every Christian sect gives a great handle to atheism by their general dogma that without a revelation there would not be sufficient proof of the being of a God The truth is that the greatest enemies to the doctrines of Jesus are those calling themselves the expositors of them who have perverted them for the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible and without any foundation in His genuine words.[To John Adams, April 11, 1823]

This view is directly opposed by Thomas Hobbes, the champion of Monarchy:

    He, therefore, who hath the sovereign power in the city, is obliged as a Christian, where there is any question concerning the  mysteries of faith  to interpret the Holy Scriptures by clergymen lawfully ordained. And thus in Christian cities, the judgment both of spiritual and temporal matters belongs unto the civil authority. And that man or council who hath the supreme power, is head both of  the city  and of the Church;  for a Church and a Christian city is but one thing.

Whether and how much a society needs interpreters is the issue Jefferson and Hobbes share in their opposition to each other. In this light, it is ironic that so many arguments have been generated about the "intentions of the Founders."  Jefferson can only defeat Hobbes if he stands in a place that doesn't require an intention to exist.

Saying: "We hold these truths to be self-evident" does not mean they are so obvious that even a moron can understand them. It means they can be held in a way that requires no interpreter to stand in between the truths and we who would know them. Paine's First Principles of Government is a demonstration of how those truths can be held without the intervention Hobbes deems necessary.

While Paine argues for the necessity of a constitution, he makes clear to the would-be writers of the French constitution that any such document has to answer to a higher standard than any it can create through itself. That standard can be expressed as a posited principle in a manner Jefferson was accustomed to doing. Paine does that when he says: 

    In contemplating government by election and representation, we amuse not ourselves in enquiring when or how, or by what right, it began. Its origin is ever in view. Man is himself the origin and the evidence of the right. It appertains to him in right of his existence, and his person is the title deed.

But Paine's method for establishing a place without need of intention does not rely on positive declarations by themselves but are formed through the power of the negative and the exclusion of alternatives. The method is shown most perfectly by the way he proves the need for a government through representation of citizens by not talking about it at all. He dispenses with the idea of rights as established by hereditary forms of sovereignty and the work is done. On the design of constitutions, a similar process of exclusion is carried out:

    The principle of an <i>equality of rights</i> is clear and simple. Every man can understand it, and it is by understanding his rights that he learns his duties; for where the rights of men are equal, every man must finally see the necessity of protecting the rights of others as the most effectual security for his own. But if, in the formation of a constitution, we depart from the principle of equal rights, or attempt any modification of it, we plunge into a labyrinth of difficulties from which there is no way out but by retreating. Where are we to stop? Or by what principle are we to find out the point to stop at, that shall discriminate between men of the same country, part of whom shall be free, and the rest not?

This place, founded upon the absence of what would destroy it, teaches its citizens through experience and practice. To dispense with interpreters requires that we create the place over and over again.

    It is at all times necessary, and more particularly so during the progress of a revolution, and until right ideas confirm themselves by habit, that we frequently refresh our patriotism by reference to first principles. It is by tracing things to their origin that we learn to understand them: and it is by keeping that line and that origin always in view that we never forget them.

These "habits" will have to perform the work of the sovereign as described by Hobbes. For instance, Hobbes says the highest duty of the sovereign is exactly what Paine requires of the republic in the first half of the following :

    The protection of a man's person is more sacred than the protection of property; and besides this, the faculty of performing any kind of work or services by which he acquires a livelihood, or maintaining his family, is of the nature of property.

The second half of the sentence can only make sense in the place without intention. If the notion of property cannot generate a special right amongst the first principles, material possessions are just another species of what comes to a person with the combination of avid application and good fortune. They are to be protected but not given special powers that would oppress other rights.

I will wrap up this reflection by reciting a bit of Chuang Tzu. Suddenly talking about the Tao while discussing these matters would have amused Kenneth Turner on a number of levels but I mainly do it to emphasize how creating a space with very little in but eternal principles relates to a celebration of lived experience.

    Duke Huan, seated above in his hall was once reading a book, and the wheelwright P'ien was making a wheel below it. Laying aside his hammer and chisel, P'ien went up the steps and said, "I venture to ask your Grace what words you are reading?"

    The duke said, "The words of sages.""Are those sages alive" P'ien continued.

    "They are dead," was the reply."

    Then," said P'ien, "what you, my ruler, are reading are only the dregs and sediments of those old men."

    The duke said, "How should you, a wheelwright, have anything to say about the book I am reading? If you can explain yourself, very well; if you cannot, you shall die!"

    The wheelwright said, "Your servant will look at the thing from the point of view of his own art. In making a wheel, if I proceed gently, that is pleasant enough but the workmanship is not strong; if I proceed violently, that is toilsome and the joints do not fit. If the movements of my hand are neither to gentle nor too violent, the idea in my mind is realized. But I cannot tell how to do this by word of mouth; there is knack in it. I cannot teach the knack to my son, nor can my son learn it from me. Thus it is that I am in my seventieth year, and am still making wheels in my old age. But these ancients, and what it was not possible for them to convey, are dead and gone. So then what you, my ruler, are reading is but their dregs and sediments!

 

Responsibility for the suicide attack at the CIA station in Khost has been claimed by both Afghan and Pakistani Taliban. Aside from the question of which group directed the attack, the dual claims suggest that conditions that had separated their agendas in the past may be changing. The Pakistan government has refused (so far) to move against the Haqqani group while it is at war with the followers of Baitullah Mehsud. The different stance Pakistan takes with different groups involves attempts to reach a negotiated peace with some tribes in Pakistan while not burning their bridges with groups who have influence in Afghanistan.

This strategy has become a part of a deep divide within Pakistan between those who view the military as the defender or the enemy of the state. The drone attacks are deepening those divisions. The following two links are examples of the opposing sides points of view. The first is from Rahimullah Yusufzai:

Aware that escalation in US drone strikes will further destabilise Pakistan, Islamabad is urging restraint on part of Washington. But the US, upset that Pakistan hasn't taken any action against the Haqqanis and the Afghan Taliban's Quetta Shura, is unlikely to heed this advice. More drone attacks could also cause the collapse of the critical peace deals that the Pakistan government has made with powerful, non-TTP Pakistani Taliban commanders Hafiz Gul Bahadur in North Waziristan and Maulvi Nazeer in Wana to prevent them from joining forces with the Hakimullah Mehsud-led militants in South Waziristan.Aware that escalation in US drone strikes will further destabilise Pakistan, Islamabad is urging restraint on part of Washington. But the US, upset that Pakistan hasn't taken any action against the Haqqanis and the Afghan Taliban's Quetta Shura, is unlikely to heed this advice. More drone attacks could also cause the collapse of the critical peace deals that the Pakistan government has made with powerful, non-TTP Pakistani Taliban commanders Hafiz Gul Bahadur in North Waziristan and Maulvi Nazeer in Wana to prevent them from joining forces with the Hakimullah Mehsud-led militants in South Waziristan.

Farhat Taj  gives an opposing view:

The Pakistan Army must continue fighting the Taliban until their complete elimination. The military establishment must know that lack of protection of the state from the Taliban atrocities has already thrown the people of Waziristan into cooperation with the US in terms of spying for the drone attacks on the terrorists occupying the area. A time may not be far when the rest of Pakhtunkhwa will be cooperating with the US. What would become of the federation of Pakistan in such a situation? Up until now most Pakhtuns are loyal to the federation of Pakistan, but this loyalty is definitely not limitless and requires that the state must protect them and their way of life. By eliminating the Taliban, the army must prove that it stands with the Pakhtun who suffer under the Taliban. In the long run, this may be important for a constant inflow of Pakhtun loyalty with the state of Pakistan.

It is striking how these opposing points of view see the dissolution of sovereignty at the Durand line as a result of the other side's agenda.

And speaking of strikes, the drone attack upon Omar Khan on New Year's eve was upon a figure who was (if killed) a strong link between the Afghan and Pakistani Talibans.  Will eliminating such links draw them further apart or closer together?

I offered to host a discussion of Russ Baker's Family of Secrets when he threw down the challenge to us readers to actually read his book before commenting. Today is the day I said I would try to hold this discussion but I am only half-way through and know that other people who expressed an interest are just beginning to read it. I want to get feedback for when a better date would be while giving some reactions to what I have read so far.

The book attempts to put at least a hundred years of the immediate past into the context of the rise of a crime family flourishing in the light and shadows of established power. With such a goal, the book is long but also short since it draws from a massive array of other books and resources. Some of the information brought forward in the footnotes is impossible to verify independently. Other stuff can be easily found on the web. Their is a huge middle ground between those extremes. Each of the books cited have their own circle of promoters and critics (along with a ton of their own footnotes). With the quantity of data to digest, you almost have to be Russ Baker to read this book. On some level, I think that is his ultimate point.

When describing the network of interrelated people in the story, an expression Russ Baker often employs is "at minimum." On page 246, he says "At minimum, it certainly is a small world." Before reading this, I didn't realize how small that world was. And at minimum, Mr. Baker has assembled enough reasons to be doubtful of previous narratives even if his story does not prove guilt. I was trying to make a flow chart that mirrored his description of interrelated people but became overwhelmed by the loops.

I have been tracking the criticism to this book. The criticism falls into two categories, (definitely not mutually exclusive categories). The first category challenges stories told in the book (and the books referred to by the book). The second dismisses the discussion itself as paranoia. Since it is too early to address the book as a whole, I would like to start a discussion about what people thought about conspiracy theories.    

One critic who drove over this book on the way to the beach was Tim Rutten :

One of the impressive things about paranoid literature is the contrast between its fantasied conclusions and the almost touching concern with factuality it invariably shows" is a characterization of Hofstadter's that might have been tailored to fit Baker's book. "It produces heroic strivings for evidence to prove that the unbelievable is the only thing that can be believed. Of course, there are highbrow, lowbrow, and middlebrow paranoids, as there are likely to be in any political tendency . . . [that] all but obsessively accumulate 'evidence.' . . . The higher paranoid scholarship is nothing if not coherent -- in fact, the paranoid mind is far more coherent than the real world.

I have seen a lot of instances where the "paranoid style" replaced another kind of thinking. But if enough narratives come together to show that the previously received consensus is wrong, when does the thinking stop being paranoid?

Martin Luther King understood and often said that freeing the oppressed liberates the oppressor as well.  For myself, remembering that has come to be the never-to-be-forgotten part of celebrating this day.

So it is a hard lesson to hear in my head as I prepare to celebrate the end of the Bush administration (at long last!). It is hard because I desire revenge and the payment for stolen things.

But King had is eyes on a bigger prize. While it would be just if the Bushies were to answer for their acts in a court of law, the best result is if they could never talk the way they did, ever, again.

For that kind of justice, more is required and will be.