Author: J. Arthur Bloom

J. Arthur Bloom is the blog's editor, opinion editor of the Daily Caller, and an occasional contributor to the Umlaut. He was formerly associate editor of the American Conservative and a music reviewer at Tiny Mix Tapes, and graduated from William and Mary in 2011. He lives in Washington, DC, and can be found, far too often, on Twitter.

Secession lagniappe: Here’s hoping for an ‘aye’ today

If it’s a ‘no,’ the referendum has put secession on the map. And if, as Tim Stanley thinks is more likely at this point, they vote to split, may it move more towards Singapore-of-the-North than “Pakistan with exposed knees.”

By the cross oor Andrew bore
By the sword oor William wore
By the crown our Robert swore
Tae win oor Liberty
Ca’ the falcon frae the glen,
Ca’ the eagle frae the ben
Ca’ the lion frae his den
Tae win oor Liberty

By the man wha’s faith was old
By the man they sold for gold
By the man they’ll never hold
Tae win oor Liberty
Ca’ the thieves o’ Liddesdale
Ca’ the spears o’ Annandale
Ca’ the brave o’ Yarrowvale
Tae win oor Liberty

By the arm that bends the bow
By the arm that plies the blow
By the arm that lays them low
Tae win oor Liberty
Ca’ the banners frae the West
Ca’ the raven frae his nest
Ca’ the clans that dance the best
Tae win oor Liberty

By the field that once was green
By the shield of silver sheen
By the sword in battle keen
Tae win oor Liberty
Bless the man wha’s faith we hold
Bless the man in chains they sold
Bless the man in cloth o’ gold
Wha’ won oor Liberty
Bless the man in cloth o’ gold
Wha’ won oor Liberty

William Batchelder, “Libertarian Perspective on the Scottish Independence Referendum, Part I: Scotland, The United Kingdom, Devolution and Referendum”

The Guardian says whatever happens, things won’t be the same.

Reason’s for it

So’s Billy Bragg

Gavin McInnes is against

And I can’t help but like this crotchety take from a Jacobite:

Alex Salmond is regularly described pejoratively by the ‘No’ campaign as a ‘separatist’ – and he is, but not because he wants an independent Scotland. Independence is no more than what Scotland deserves, but the separation of Scotland from the British Crown by the assertion of a novel notion of sovereignty is an existential threat to the Union of Crowns and the concept of monarchy itself. The notion that Salmond is advocating was never accepted by James VI and his legitimate successors, who asserted the Crown’s undoubted and unqualified sovereignty over the Three Kingdoms – and all right-thinking people in Scotland must now assert it again.

Michael Brendan Dougherty on what it could mean for Northern Ireland

Steve Sailer on why it couldn’t happen here

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Sacred Harp 33b: ‘Abbeville’

Come, Holy Spirit come,
With energy divine,
And on this poor, benighted soul,
With beams of mercy shine.

Melt, melt this frozen heart;
This stubborn will subdue;
Each evil passion overcome,
And form me all anew.

Mine will the profit be,
But Thine shall be the praise;
And unto Thee will I devote
The remnant of my days.

Secession lagniappe

Groundskeeper Willie would like a word:

Here’s Ewan Watt over at TheDC on why free-marketers should support Scottish independence.

Sort of related, what if journalists covered Scotland like they cover the Middle East? And why are these Tibetans playing bagpipes?

National Journal on how American secessionists in Cascadia, Vermont, and Dixie are rooting for an “aye” in Scotland.

The New York Times on how Texans, Basques, Kurds, and other minorities are watching the referendum closely.

Pro-union parties are panicking.

David Boaz is for it.

John Harris in the Guardian:

In the broadcast media in particular, there is an implied assumption that “the Scotland moment” is something confined to that country. But the reality across the UK suggests something much deeper and wider, and a simple enough fact: that what is happening north of the border is the most spectacular manifestation of a phenomenon taking root all over – indeed, if the splintering of politics and the rise of new forces on both left and right across Europe are anything to go by, a set of developments not defined by specific national circumstances, but profound social and economic ruptures. …

What with every conceivable threat being thrown at the pro-independence side, let us assume Scotland narrowly decides to remain in the UK, that the three main parties stumble through their conferences and we get to May next year. Whoever wins will do so with only the flimsiest of mandates and, particularly in the case of a Labour party uncertain of its mission and committed to austerity, the backlash would set in early; indeed, mid-term blues might arrive well inside the first year. Ukip could easily end up on yet another roll, while the consequences of increased powers for Holyrood ripple through the whole of the UK, with unpredictable results, as evidenced by increasing interest in the kind of nationwide devolution floated today by Nick Clegg. …

In short, nothing is going back in its box. Anxiety and excitement abound in equal measure, which is what happens when uncertainty takes over almost everything. Only one thing seems clear: politics as usual suddenly seems so lost as to look completely absurd.

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What to do about Ted Cruz: Insist that he speak to possible American complicity in genocide

Ted Cruz is now raising money off his appearance deliberately provoking a crowd of Arab Christians. He is raising money off a speech that insulted the leaders of persecuted Middle Eastern churches, and Washington’s Cardinal Wuerl, by suggesting they don’t know how to follow Christ.

If you haven’t been following along, here are some links:

  • Tristyn at TheDC broke the story.
  • Jon Coppage with the transcript and a longer write-up.
  • Another account from the room.
  • Michael Brendan Dougherty and Pascal Emmanuel-Gobry at The Week; Dougherty touches on what at least appears to be coordination with the Free Beacon. Cruz attended a breakfast with Free Beacon reporters and his national security advisor earlier that morning, just before Alana Goodman’s story smearing some of the clerics in attendance as “pro-Hezbollah.” She also got the interview right after Cruz got offstage. It’s been alleged that the neocons have stage-managed stunts like this before.
  • And my great thanks to David Benkof, an Orthodox Jew and strong supporter of Israel, for writing this for us, and adapting his piece for the Times of Israel.
  • Update: Here’s Ross Douthat

The senator must think his constituents and donors are stupid; that his remarks are playing well with the evangelicals back home, and this will all be glossed over in time, with anyone who brings it up being treated as disloyal and possibly anti-Semitic. Here’s what to do to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Cruz is officially against arming the Syrian opposition, but you’d think a supposed conservative firebrand like him wouldn’t hesitate to mention the fact that we already are, and have been since probably 2012. As covered here last week, it is far from a remote possibility that weapons collected in Benghazi and transferred to Syria by way of Turkey have ended up in the hands of ISIS, meaning the United States are complicit in the genocide of Middle Eastern Christians.

This has the added bonus of undermining the neocon argument, which in spite of the chaos engulfing the region they have largely stuck to, that Assad must be toppled above all else, because it shows the consequences of that kind of monomania. Look at how the Free Beacon chides these persecuted people for daring to side, out of sheer necessity, with the autocrat who might at least keep them safe.

This should be Obama’s Iran-Contra, but sadly I think neither Cruz nor Trey Gowdy’s Benghazi Select Committee have any interest in investigating what we were doing there; they’d rather establish timelines about the night of the attack and continue to build a case for the administration’s mismanagement. Ted Cruz should not be allowed to get through a single interview without being asked about what he’s going to do to get to the bottom of whether American-trafficked weapons have ended up in the hands of ISIS. The constituents of Cruz, Gowdy, et al, and conservative groups must be prepared to hold their feet to the fire on this question. If it is true, and Cruz et al are uninterested in talking about it so as not to undermine the case for further involvement in the region, that demonstrates a moral obtuseness that even CUFI might be able to see through.

If Cruz were to demonstrate a good-faith effort to investigate this matter, then perhaps he could be forgiven for the unspeakable insult to the church that he delivered this week. He was on the warpath over weapons trafficking to Mexican gangs, and this should be no different. But pressure will need to be brought to bear: Texans who are concerned about the possibility that America, however covertly or inadvertently, aided ISIS savagery, now is the time to stand up.

It doesn’t matter if Rand Paul is a squish on foreign policy

That goes for whether you’re a closet isolationist or a Toby Keith-listening Straussian. Here’s why.

Watch how Bill Kristol makes his argument here, first laying out that he believes the president has the authority to strike ISIS unilaterally, before suggesting, despite Rand Paul having said more than a week earlier that he would support legislation to “destroy ISIS militarily,” that Rand Paul would be a ‘no’ vote if Obama is taking it to Congress. He’s just blatantly misrepresenting Paul’s position. Make no mistake, that’s the message that the hawks want to send, to be for “leadership” or “peace through strength” means disregarding Congress’s prerogatives.

Last night featured a report by Tim Mak that both Paul and John McCain are asking the president to put it to a vote, though McCain claims the president doesn’t need to.

When Paul endorsed destroying ISIS, progressive writers reacted by calling him a flip-flopper, Republican hawks treated him like an errant schoolboy who’s finally coming around, Jennifer Rubin reacted by extruding another pile of snide bullshit, to all of which Paul responded in Time saying he’s not an isolationist.

However, he did have a piece in the Wall Street Journal on August 27 about how the U.S. abetted the rise of ISIS, which is one of those facts everybody knows is true but violates the America-never-does-anything-wrong ideologues’ catechism.

La Rubin, for example, calls this reasoning “perverse,” and quotes Elliott Abrams:

“In fact we’ve done in Syria exactly what Rand Paul always wants to do–nothing–and we see the result. It’s the steady growth of a murderous, barbarous terrorist group that now threatens even the homeland.”

Christian Whiton has been pushing this “next to nothing” in Syria line too. And Rick Moran suggests that Paul is reading too much Alex Jones. They’re all ignoring the facts or being intentionally misleading.

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