No Offense
You can please some of the people, some of the time...
“To the fairest.”
~ Inscription on Eris’s golden Apple of Discord
Joel Bowman with today’s Note From the End of the World: Hella, Iceland...
Crikey!
It’s a good thing your editor does not mind holding unpopular opinions. Our reckless, anti-warmongering in Tuesday’s Note excited the umbrage of some gentle readers. (Catch up on our radical reckonings and dive into the comment section fracas – especially if you stand in disagreement – here: Mostly Peaceful Bombings.)
Of course, we are not so naïve as to expect our own wife to agree with everything we write, much less an audience of thousands of people from different backgrounds all around the world. Notice we did not title this humble publication “Notes From the Echo Chamber.” It would be wrong to abuse independent-minded readers as though we had.
Rather, and unlike many in the so-called “legacy press,” we actively invite disagreement, courting discord like cheeky Eris and her golden apple. Indeed, we are inspired by a long line of ornery gadflies and impenitent contrarians.
Fighting Words
Back in the early 2000s, for example, we used to relish the delivery of Vanity Fair magazine for the pure pleasure of reading the monthly column, appropriately titled “Fighting Words,” from the pen of the late, great Christopher Hitchens.
The iconoclastic pugilist rarely pulled his punches, and we disagreed with almost everything he wrote. (Mr. Hitchens was an unreconstructed Trotskyist who rabidly supported the Iraq war, just for starters...)
Still, we rarely parsed one of his columns without having enjoyed a chuckle or an “ah-ha” moment of some sort. And if it was pure disagreement we felt, at least we felt it more so after his essay than before. Of course, those were the good ol’ days, before being offended was considered to be an acute, and in some cases terminal, condition...
That being said, we will continue writing under the assumption that most folks tune in to hear what we honestly think... not what we dishonestly think they want to hear. (There’s enough pandering in the world already, without us adding to the steaming pile.)
Besides, if we’re correct in our assessment of the latest quagmire in the Middle East, the mighty Military Industrial Complex will deliver us plenty of opportunity to offend and re-offend thick-skinned readers in future Notes.
So, if you’re among the easily outraged... please, do stay tuned for more!
Meanwhile, let us turn from a subject upon which almost nobody can seem to agree, to one which everyone can surely disagree...
Here’s CNN, with the latest from the center of the socialist universe:
Zohran Mamdani declares victory in NYC Democratic mayoral primary
New York State assemblyman and democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani declared victory in a speech as he is poised to win the Democratic primary for New York City mayor, with his top challenger Andrew Cuomo conceding the race.
Readers unfamiliar with Mr. Mamdani will grasp most of what they need to know by discovering that he was enthusiastically endorsed by gushing comrade in arms, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The snappy pair of socialists are part of what some, including veteran collectivist Bernie Sanders, are calling the “new guard” of the Democratic Party.
This is a party, lest we remind readers, that witnessed the results of the last general election... in which they lost the House, the Senate, the popular vote, the presidency and every swing state there was to lose... and said to itself, “Hmm... perhaps if we moved further left?”
Eat the Rich, Redux
Naturally, Mamdani supports all the usual “eat the rich” slogans... higher taxes for the enviably wealthy and “greedy” capitalists alike, “free” rides on the city’s already dilapidated public transport, collectively owned grocery stores and more governmental intervention in the already highly dysfunctional rental market. (We addressed many of these ideas in another Note, titled “Real Socialists”. )
“But, but, but...” comes the inevitable rejoinder to our frequent socialist-bashing, “Bernie and his DemSoc juniors are not talking about Havana/Caracas/Soviet-style socialism... rather, they’re aiming more at Denmark-style socialism.”
Which would be fine... except Denmark is not a socialist nation, as Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen was at some pains to note in a direct response to Bernie’s continued mischaracterization of his country and its people.
“I would like to make one thing clear,” Prime Minister Rasmussen said in a speech at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. “Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy.
“[Denmark] is a successful market economy with much freedom to pursue your dreams and live your life as you wish.”
Like its Nordic neighbors, Denmark is able to sustain generous welfare programs – universal healthcare, public education, etc. – because of its dynamic, highly functional capitalist economy. It is not the way it spends its money that makes it rich, in other words, but the way it generates it in the first place.
Denmark also happens to be a high trust society, something that cannot exactly be said of the mean streets of many a Democrat-run city in the US, where crime is rampant, baby formula lives behind plexiglass and stealing up to $950 of goods is considered by a growing demographic to be just a new and fashionable way of shopping, because: oppression.
We laid over in Copenhagen on the way to this icy End of the World earlier in the week and were reminded of this quaint cultural distinction when we saw the self-service vending machines and self-service stations at the airport...
Live Free and Prosper
For the uninitiated, these outlets operate entirely on the honor system. One makes their selection from a menu, swipes their credit card for the appropriate amount, then opens the door to the entire fridge, with all the goods within reach, and simply takes what he has paid for... and nothing more.
The items are not protected in individually-packaged and alarmed plastic containers, there are no security personnel to ensure compliance, and one gets the feeling nobody would dare entertain anything so wild as a smash-and-grab style shoplifting frenzy, as are regularly witnessed in cities from San Francisco to New York and between.
Buying people off with stolen freebies and relieving them from individual responsibility might win elections among low trust voters in the short term, but it doesn’t make the underlying society peaceful and prosperous in the long run.
For that you need free markets, free minds and free people. But you already knew that didn’t you, dear reader. See you in the comments…
And stay tuned for more Notes From the End of the World...
Cheers,
Joel Bowman
RE: Mostly Peaceful Bombing – Or, The Gospel According to Joel Bowman
Dear Mr. Bowman,
Greetings from Pastor Jack—writing not from the end of the world, but from somewhere between Sunday’s sermon and Wednesday’s prayer meeting.
I read your essay, “Mostly Peaceful Bombing,” and let me begin by acknowledging your poetic flair, gift for sarcasm, and abiding suspicion of American foreign policy. I couldn’t help but chuckle at your gallows humor and admire your ability to weaponize wit with the precision of a cruise missile. Truly, Frank Zappa would be proud. So might Orwell—though I suspect even he would raise an eyebrow at your latest dispatch from Hella, Iceland (fitting name, that).
But after brushing off the rhetorical shrapnel, I feel compelled—respectfully but pointedly—to disagree. Not because your piece was too provocative, but because it wasn’t provocative enough where it counted.
First, a little charity...
You paint American military actions with a brush so broad I half-expected you to sign your column with the blood of a drone technician. Yes, wars cost lives. Yes, the military-industrial complex is real. Yes, Congress too often abdicates its duty to check executive war powers. And yes, American foreign policy has its share of blood and blunders. But your sweeping narrative—where every military operation is a cartoonishly evil plot to enrich Lockheed Martin while sacrificing poor Billy from Milwaukee—is, quite frankly, too tidy to be taken seriously.
Second, nuance isn't treason.
You seem to believe that if we ever launch a missile, it's proof we’ve turned into the Death Star. But in the real world—where actual people get kidnapped, tortured, and murdered by actual terrorist regimes—sometimes the use of force is tragically necessary. You know, Iran does fund Hezbollah. It has launched attacks on tankers. It has threatened our allies and tested nuclear-capable ballistic missiles. But I suppose if Iran carpet-bombed Tel Aviv, you’d write a follow-up piece titled “Zionist Construction Boom Crushed by Mostly Peaceful Munitions.”
We don’t have to love war to understand the burden of deterrence. Sometimes, to keep peace, you need to signal strength. It's a fallen world. Pacifism sounds holy—until it gets people killed.
Third, about that Zappa quote...
Zappa’s line—“Politics is the entertainment arm of the military-industrial complex”—is clever, but let’s not confuse a witty lyric with a foreign policy framework. You use Orwell like seasoning in a stew already overloaded with cynicism. But Orwell was also a man who believed some things were worth fighting for. He fought in the Spanish Civil War—not for defense contractors, but against real tyranny. The problem isn’t bombs. The problem is why they’re dropped—and whether anyone's telling the truth about it.
Fourth, a word for the Joneses and Jennifers...
The Joneses whose son died in Iraq? They deserve more than your pity and punchlines. They deserve a nation honest enough to admit when it gets things wrong—and mature enough to understand that sacrifice is not automatically stupidity. Yes, America’s war record since WWII is riddled with failure, excess, and misjudgment. But it’s not a tale of unmitigated villainy. We toppled genocidal regimes. We protected innocent lives. We tried (however imperfectly) to build schools, train police, and give people—especially women—a shot at a freer life.
Did we botch it? Often. Did we do nothing good? Hardly.
Finally, a word from my pulpit...
From where I stand—usually behind a wooden cross, not a B-2 bomber—I see something your piece sorely lacks: moral complexity. You scorn the “fog of war,” but your clarity is an illusion. It costs nothing to sneer from Copenhagen while sipping coffee and quoting Orwell. It costs everything to wrestle with real evil, real threats, and the gut-wrenching decisions that follow.
So no, Mr. Bowman—I don’t cheer bombs. I don’t put my trust in bureaucrats, whether they sit in Washington, D.C. or anywhere else. And I certainly don’t light candles at the altar of Raytheon’s quarterly earnings.
But I also don’t believe the Gospel demands we stick our heads in the sand while despots light the world on fire. A faithful people may oppose unjust wars—but we should also pray for the wisdom to know when peace without resistance is just surrender in disguise.
So here’s hoping your next “Note from the End of the World” brings not just smoke and irony, but maybe a flicker of clarity—perhaps even something that warms rather than wounds. Who knows? Even Hella might see a sunrise.
Grace and peace (and the occasional missile, if need be),
Pastor Jack
Over time citizens have seemed to want government to be involved in everything, so now government IS involved in everything. Which means, of course, that over time we have gotten more and more politically centralized as we now complain that everything is highly politicized. What did we expect would happen?!! We got what we voted for which we are loathe to admit was a huge mistake. Some of us remember a freer time which will soon be forgotten unless we stop listening to politicians, downsize government at all levels and get rid of the mammoth spending/debt problem we have.