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Rambling Thoughts: A Philosophical Case for Capital Punishment

I generally do not care to write much about social, and really domestic issues. While I used to be greatly invested in domestic (that is, American) politics, I have recently decided to take a step back from it. It is easier to remain objective writing about the politics and affairs of foreign countries as opposed to your own, in part because there is so much less one knows.

Furthermore, it is not like capital punishment is a major political issue one way or the other. General political trends indicate that capital punishment is declining. The Death Penalty Information Center states that just five states conducted a total of 16 executions in 2022 so far, with Texas and Oklahoma each executing five. This is down from 43 in 2012. Furthermore, politicians in general, whether Republican or Democrat, barely talk about executions. Trump rambled something about executing drug dealers when he announced his candidacy, but even the most rabid Trump supporter acknowledges that Trump says much he doesn’t mean. They attribute it as part of his brilliancy.

So why write about such a non-issue? Because a lot of the arguments in this discussion, and especially from the pro-capital punishment side, are nonsensical. There are reasonable concerns with the death penalty, and I can sympathize with the idea of limiting capital punishment. But the idea of abolishing it completely? It is self-deceptive and hypocritical for reasons that will be explained.

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On the Great Replacement: Americans and Identity

In the aftermath of the Buffalo shooting, there has been a great deal more talk about the Great Replacement, the idea that liberals/Jews are outright seeking to destroy white Americans by subsuming them under the Hispanic hordes or something.

Leftists have used the Buffalo shooter’s actions to show that we have a white nationalist problem, while right-wingers like Andrew Sullivan have pointed out that the left has openly exulted about the declining white population going back decades at this point. But I would argue that this talk of shifting demographics is in fact incidental to the real problem.

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Rambling Thoughts: On the Ukrainian War

There is not much I can say about Ukraine and the Russian invasion itself that cannot be said better by either people. As for the war itself, the campaigns and what will happen, I do think that this is a moment where Twitter, warts and all, will be useful. This will be the most documented war in human history.

But I do think that there are two things in particular which need to be pointed out.

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The Generalissimo: America is never satisfied
A Biography of Chiang Kai-Shek

There are times when I am reading Jay Taylor’s The Generalissimo that I do wonder about the author’s bias. Chiang Kai-Shek was a flawed man. I think his biggest detractors and supporters would say as much. But there are times where I think Taylor tries too hard to make excuses for the moments when he failed, whether we speak politically, militarily, or morally.

But what is most striking, having finished about half of the book and reaching the resumption of the Chinese Civil War after World War II, are the Americans and their continued, constant naivety about the Chinese Communist Party. Time and again, Taylor details how throughout World War II and even afterwards, the Americans consistently thought that the Chinese Communist Party were not, well, Communist. They were just an agrarian democratic party who wanted best for the people. Nothing more.

It was not just American leftists who talked about how wonderful Stalinist Russia was and now transferred that same love to Mao, though such individuals pop up every now and then in Taylor’s narrative. But plenty of people like George Marshall or Joseph Stilwell seemed to think that while the Russian Communists were bad, the Chinese Communists would be different and were not really Communists. And the Communists did everything in their power to make sure that the Americans thought that, even while Mao all but laughed behind their backs.

But why were the Americans so eager to believe? Taylor does not talk too much about this. His narrative focuses more on China, not America. But if I had to give an idea: Americans, and by extension American foreign policy, is constantly struggling with a desire for a better world not matching up to reality.

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Edward Said’s Orientalism – Thoughts, Part II
The flag of revanchism

I spend way too much time playing the WW2 strategy game Hearts of Iron IV, and most of that time is spent using the Kaiserreich alternate history mod. In Hearts of Iron IV and Kaiserreich, you start with the world as it is on January 1, 1936, and can play as any country. In Hearts of Iron IV, that can mean playing as large countries such as Nazi Germany or the USA, or smaller countries like Hungary or Turkey. In Kaiserreich, an alternate history where the Germans won World War I, that can mean playing the syndicalist Union of Britain or the restored Qing Empire.

My favorite country to play is the French Republic, better known as National France. Mainland France fell to syndicalist revolution after being defeated by the Germans, but republicans and reactionaries, led by General Petain, fled to Algeria and dream of retaking the home country from the syndicalists. The country can go in a wide variety of directions, ranging from a democratic republic to an integralist monarchy.

But what all of those paths have in common is that it’s a country for white people, for those who moved to France either under the colonial regime or who fled the syndicalists. The actual Algerians or West Africans have little or no rights, and in fact are forced to undergo forced labor. In fact, it is the monarchy which actually provides the most rights for the Africans, though it really is the most rights for the African chieftains who serve the French kingdom.

The point which I’m driving at is that there are two different types of racism which animate National France. On the one hand, republicans declare that the Africans are inferior, and so must be ‘civilized’ to become proper civilized Frenchmen. On the other hand, the monarchists declare that the Africans are inferior, and so should be left alone to do as they please under their fellow African rulers. In neither situation are Africans thought of as equals.

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Edward Said’s Orientalism – Thoughts, Part I

I have owned this blog for a number of years, but have restarted it over the past few months. This is because I have determined that it is time for me to really consider Asian, particularly Japanese studies. And it is for that reason that I decided that it was best for me to go over Edward Said’s famous book on Orientalism.

I first was required to read snippets of the book in college, and recall viscerally disliking it. I do think that some of it was due to emotional immaturity, though I hardly wholly agree with Said’s thoughts. But having finished the first part today, there are two things which I would like to note down for the record.

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Rambling Thoughts: On Law and Morality

So I recently finished reading a portion of The Analects, and have started rereading The History of the Peloponnesian War. The latter book I think I’ve tried to read like four times, the first time when I was a teenager, and I’ve never really succeeded.

But what I found interesting from the two books is how they think about law and morality. In The Analects, it is pretty clear that Confucius does not think that a litigious society is a moral society. A society which is more litigious is one where people no longer understand what is right and moral, and so people use the law as a beating stick where the strong prevail over the weak.

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The Making of Modern Japan, Chs. 17-18

These two chapters concern the militaristic era in Japan, while the last two chapters concerns the postwar era. So I decided to split things up accordingly.

The history of the Pacific War, and to a lesser extent the China War, is well known enough that there is little need for me to go over the campaigns and battles. Shanghai, Nanking, Singapore, Midway, and so on. These names means things to those who know of this era of history, though I will confess that it is always annoying seeing the bookshelves on this theater so bare compared to the Western or Eastern European fronts.

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The Making of Modern Japan – Continued Thoughts, Chs. 14-16

What do people, even those who have a basic knowledge of Japan, really know about the Taisho era?

A basic history of Japan will discuss the Meiji era in great detail, noting how Japan centralized, removed the daimyo, and industrialized and began the first parts of their empire. And then there is of course great discussion around the period of militarization, ending with the Pacific War.

But there is not that much discussion about the period between Meiji’s death in 1912 and the Manchurian Incident in 1931. It is called the Taisho era, and basic students of Japanese history understand that it was a period of relative democratization, but not much more. But in reading over these three chapters, which cover the changes in Meiji culture over time as well as the Taisho era, you get a sense of the contradictions and struggles which define Japan even today.

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The Making of Modern Japan – Continued Thoughts, Chs. 11-13

As I discussed earlier, I think I’m going to make these after every three chapters instead of every five. This book has so much to cover that it feels inadequate.

But while there’s no denying that it covers a great deal, the fact remains that Mr. Jansen does skip over a great deal as well. That is to be expected. The three chapters cover the time from the rise of the Meiji state up to the annexation of Korea. The First Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War are not covered in that much detail (the latter is summarized in about a page), but this is not a military history after all.

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