Fear, Honor, and Interest

David and I return from our separate vacations last week for a discussion of "bothsides-ism" and "whatabout-ism," two concepts that have been much in the news since the tragedy in Charlottesville while we were away. Rather than delve into the specifics of the present controversy - which you have no doubt heard enough of by now - we step back and discuss the general concepts in an effort to understand what they accomplish and when (if ever) they should be used.

Bonus: We learn what David's impression of a Southern Belle sounds like (it makes less sense in context).

Links:

The WaPo article on similar statues - https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/why-those-confederate-soldier-statues-look-a-lot-like-their-union-counterparts/2017/08/18/cefcc1bc-8394-11e7-ab27-1a21a8e006ab_story.html?utm_term=.fca53fab3b94

The First Total War - https://www.amazon.com/First-Total-War-Napoleons-Warfare/dp/0618919813

David and I are both traveling this weekend, so we could not record a show. Instead, last week we recorded a bonus sign-off - the first of Angry David's Movie Reviews! Here he shares his ... unorthodox ... views of the recent Wonder Woman movie. Get your copies of Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces ready!

On this week's episode, David and I discuss leadership. It's a broad category, and we intend to do many more visits to this topic in the future; this week, we talk about being a leader versus being an administrator. This leads to quite the exploration of the metaphor of the "ship of state."

In this week's episode, David and I discuss the bizarre sequence of events that led to the demise of the "skinny repeal" bill in the Senate. Somehow this results in an extended discussion about cognitive dissonance and support on the left for Robert Mueller. I can't explain it; you'll just have to listen.

The National Review (NOT Weekly Standard) article about Mitt Romney and masculinity that I mentioned: https://www.nationalreview.com/nrd/articles/313504/boss

The full Silmarillion quotation:

"In all the deeds of Melkor the Morgoth upon Arda, in his vast works and in the deceits of his cunning, Sauron had a part, and was only less evil than his master in that for long he served another and not himself." - from the last paragraph of the Valaquenta

In this week's episode, David and I discuss one of the great works of history - Thucydides's writings on the Peloponnesian War. We talk about why this text is so beloved in international relations and military circles, how it sheds insight on modern problems, and how it gave us the name of the show.

Additional links:

Background on Bannon and Thucydides -http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/06/21/why-the-white-house-is-reading-greek-history-215287

A piece criticizing populists using Thucydides - https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/07/the-summer-of-misreading-thucydides/533859/?utm_source=twb

A piece refuting the notion of a "Thucydides Trap" - http://supchina.com/2017/06/12/no-thucydides-trap/

In our third episode, David and I discuss conservatives who took a #NeverTrump line.

In this week's episode, David and I (that's right; Charles writes the show notes) discuss the course the GOP has taken during our lives. We talk about the things we like in conservative ideas, while lamenting how those ideas have been expressed in the last twenty years. We were barely able to scratch the surface in just an hour, but will likely return to many of these issues in the future.

Additional notes: I switched from talking about the Declaration of Independence ("all men are created equal") to the Constitution ("we the people") in a way that makes it sound like I was discussing the same document.

The full text of the Ninth Amendment is "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

I also somehow had my microphone set to my computer's internal one and not my headset's for the first half. We continue to learn!