Rod Dreher states what he's learned in the past five years as a result of the Iraq War:

1. Having been absolutely certain that the war was the right thing to have done, and that we would prevail easily, I am no longer confident that I can discern when emotion is affecting my judgment unduly.

I was not absolutely sure the war was the right thing to do: I completely misunderstood what we were attempting to do. It never occurred to me that we would NOT go into Syria and Iran -- I thought Iraq was the beginning of a much larger war involving most of the nations between Syria and Pakistan and would involve several million U.S. troops. I was shocked when Bush appointed a governor in Iraq.

Still, I hope for the best in Iraq. It still might work. Iran might collapse, and time might be the thing we need here. If not, then we've screwed the pooch times 1,000 here.

2. I no longer implicitly trust governmental institutions, including the military -- neither in their honesty nor their competence.

The key word is implicit. I figured people were trying to do the best they can, and still figure that. Rod Dreher has been having a lot of these sorts of moments lately. I suspect Rod had far too much trust beforehand.

3. I no longer believe the Republican Party is superior in foreign policy judgment to the Democrats.

I do. The variety of viewpoints within the GOP (and it varies considerably) includes all the reasonable viewpoints within the Democratic Party, within a considerably more responsible tone. The Dems don't add anything to the debate on foreign policy, and they subtract much and make it far more difficult for our troops to win. BTW, they did this at the end of the Cold War as well.

4. I no longer have confidence in the ability of our military, or any military, to solve deep cultural and civilizational problems through force alone. I mean, I thought nothing could stand in the way of the strongest military fielded since the days of ancient Rome. No more.

If you ever believed that, you weren't the brightest bulb in the bunch. You can't force people to change -- you can force them to leave you alone.

5. I have a far greater appreciation for how rare and fragile liberal democracy is, and a corresponding revulsion at the American assumption that it's the natural state of mankind. Which is to say, the war has made me rethink my ideas about human nature, and I'm far more pessimistic now than I ever was.

Glad you just joined the club. You're only a few hundred years behind the ball on this one. It's actually much much worse than you think -- civilization itself exists in the minds of the people. You change that thinking, you change the actions, and the whole thing falls into despotism, triviality or anarchy. And even worse, it's often the actions of the elite that matter most.

That's why we didn't rebuild the Twin Towers. What would have been an inspirational act of rebuilding instead became a politicized, half-ass compromise. So we get the Fear Tower instead -- a 68-story building on a 200 foot concrete pedestal, thinner than one Twin Tower, though arguable taller.

Do you know, Rod, that in many countries, people don't pay the required taxes. That in turn causes elites to raise taxes so high (like 100%) that tax compliance is impossible -- it forces people to cheat? That political/economic corruption is so endemic that you can't create a business under the rules? And these are often in brutal dictatorships?

Our economic system is based on trust ... that you will deliver quality products on time based on my credit. That I can drive down the street without a bandit trying to rob me. That the police will, for the most part, try to administer the law and not act out of personal vendetta or corruption -- and that if that latter happens, it will be an exception or a problem later to be fixed.

That's one reason I'm in favor of the death penalty for securities fraud and identity theft. I'm not kidding. They're tinkering with the fundamental trust mechanism of our economy.

This trust is an inheritance. It is the result of thousands of years of collective action by certain groups. It (probably) won't die overnight. But it can be destroyed. It's already been damaged. In many places in the world, they don't have this level of trust, and thus people need to act through family, tribal and political ties we all as bribery.

FWIW.

Dr. Albert Ellis, a pioneering therapist who helped uncouple psychotherapy from Freudian shackles and nonsense, has died. Rest in peace.

I only recently discovered his book, How to Make Yourself Happy and Remarkably Less Disturbable. He had a lot of interesting things to say, even brilliant and wise. But he also said some things that were in clear violation of natural law. For example, one of his succes stories involved how he "saved" a repressed Long Island socialite by encouraging her to abandon her Catholicism, take up Buddhism, drink and fornicate.

But the valuable thing he said, the real take home, is the idea that you are unhappy because of thought distortions, especially what he called "musturbation." That's when you insist on having your own way ... declaring that you must, absolutely must, have something. Should, ought, must -- these are the problems.

You attack your thought distortions at any or all of three levels -- you address the distorted thought itself through reason, you address emotions that come from thoughts by ... well, I forgot how you address that (something about disputing emotions), and then you address the actions you must take.

His most famous example is that if you are upset at a crazy person, you're the crazy one, because you have unrealistic expectations that the people around you MUST NOT be crazy. You are saying they MUST act rationally and not expose ugly emotions at any time -- they MUST be consistent. He urges folks to look at it another way, "It's unfortunate that the person is being rude to me, but people sometimes behave rudely, and I'm driving myself crazy by insisting they behave according to my own expectations." Or, "I MUST NOT lose! It's awful! It's unacceptable!" Better: "It'll be unfortunate if I lose, and I'll be sad for a while."

I thought about the things he said, and I had certain questions. It seems that on one hand, there was a treasure trove of wisdom in learning real acceptance and tolerance. And yet, there was a potential for conscience-searing as well.

I'm not prepared to say, "It'll be unfortunate if I go to hell for my sins, but it won't be awful." It'll be awful. I won't like it. I must not go there.

There have been Catholic and other Christian therapists who've tried to adapt some of Ellis' philosophy to a Christian context. AA also transmits some of his considerable wisdom, particularly about acceptance.

RIP, Dr. Ellis.

When I say Left, I'm really referring to a continuum of folks who are all entirely to the Left of the mainstream of the Democratic Party. It gets difficult, however, to use the term accurately because there are really several continuums. Our country is not the Estates General, and the Jacobins (that is, supporters of the French Revolution) do not sit on the left and the royalists do not sit on the right.

In America, the terms Left and Right are applied to (1) economic policy, (2) social policy, and (3) national defense. But even within these areas there is a wide variety of positions. In the GOP, you have a lot of absolutely flaming (heh) liberals on social policy. They're called Libertarians. On national defense, you get more hawks on the right on the left, but there is still a robust debate on the right about our handling of the War on Terror. When it comes to economic policy, there seems to be a lot of argument, but I suspect it's just talk. In fact, there's a broad consensus.

That is, Nixon, Ford and Carter (two R's and a D) supported economic policies that are far to the left of the entire debate between the parties today. That's because our economy has boomed and boomed and boomed for almost 30 years now, under both parties leadership. Only John Edwards among the major candidates seems not to have learned the lesson; yet, in the unlikely event he wins, he probably won't do as much as anyone thinks.

So I guess what I'm getting at -- that is, the really obvious point -- it's really difficult to describe someone accurately using a one-word term like Left or Right. But it probably needs to be said again.

We need something more akin to the Myers-Briggs, but for political types. (BTW, I'm an INTP).

The European political left in the 20th Century had two real ideas -- international socialism and national socialism. The idea that Nazi-ism was a right-wing movement is one of the most pernicious lies the Left has ever spread. Interesting explanation here at Volokh.

I took the quiz, "What kind of liberal are you?" Whtt's funny is back in Peace Corps, a fellow volunteer said my politics was hung up on this whole, "Working Class Hero" mentality. And by the way, one of my dreams is to open a sandwich shop called, "Working Class Heroes." One of the many reasons I left the Democratic Party was I found them sold-out to corporate interests as badly as the Republicans, but they weren't even honest about it. So here's the result of my test:



Now, my conservative test: