Correspondence: Tools of violence

Edited by Moristotle

[Items of correspondence are not attributed; they remain anonymous. They have been chosen for their inherent interest as journalism, story, or provocative opinion, which may or may not be shared by the editor or other members of the staff of Moristotle & Co.]

Veteran international reporter Nicholas Kristof recently visited North Korea, and what he observed there isn’t comforting: “Inside North Korea, and Feeling the Drums of War” [NY Times, October 5]. Excerpt:

PYONGYANG, North Korea — To fly into North Korea on an old Russian aircraft is to step into an alternate universe, one in which “the Supreme Leader” defeats craven American imperialists, in which triplets are taken from parents to be raised by the state, in which nuclear war is imminent but survivable — and in which there is zero sympathy for American detainees....
    [Senior ministry official, Choe Kang-il] derided President Trump as “a crazy man,” “a thug,” and “a pathetic man with a big mouth.” I’ve been covering North Korea on and off since the 1980s, and this five-day trip has left me more alarmed than ever about the risks of a catastrophic confrontation....
    Far more than when I previously visited, North Korea is galvanizing its people to expect a nuclear war with the United States. High school students march in the streets in military uniform every day to denounce America. Posters and billboards along the public roads show missiles destroying the U.S. Capitol and shredding the American flag. In fact, images of missiles are everywhere — in a kindergarten playground, at a dolphin show, on state television. This military mobilization is accompanied by the ubiquitous assumption that North Korea could not only survive a nuclear conflict, but also win it.
    “If we have to go to war, we won’t hesitate to totally destroy the United States,” explained Mun Hyok-myong, a 38-year-old teacher visiting an amusement park.
    Ryang Song-chol, a 41-year-old factory worker, looked surprised when I asked if his country could survive a war with America. “We would certainly win,” he said....
    Hard-liners seem to have gained greater power this year, especially after Trump’s threat to “totally destroy” North Korea, and we were told that military officers sometimes mock their own country’s diplomats for being wimpish “American cronies.”....
    I leave North Korea with the same sense of foreboding that I felt after leaving Saddam’s Iraq in 2002. War is preventable, but I’m not sure it will be prevented. [read more]

Today’s kids may be better at delaying gratification, but we have to remember that Donald Trump was technically a child over 50 years ago, and Kim Jong-Un is of a different culture: “How children’s self-control has changed in the past 50 years” [Christopher Ingraham, Washington Post, September 22]. Excerpt:

“Kids these days are better at delaying gratification on the marshmallow test,” [John] Protzko [a researcher at the University of California at Santa Barbara] writes. “Each year, all else equal, corresponds to an increase in the ability to delay gratification by another six seconds.”
    This was something of a surprise. Before running the analysis, Protzko had surveyed 260 experts in the field of cognitive development to see what they predicted would happen.
    Over half said they believed that kids' ability to delay gratification had gotten worse over time. Another 32 percent said there’s been no change, while only 16 percent said kids’ self-control had improved in the past 50 years.
    The experts, it seems, were just as pessimistic about the abilities of today’s kids as everyone else. [read more]

In the midst of the Vietnam War, I met through my boss one of those top thinkers hired by the Department of Defense from time to time to look into big issues.
    In this case he went to Vietnam and received a set of high-level briefings at Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) HQ.
    At some point he was facing the J-2 [intelligence] and J-3 [operations] directorates across the table. He asked them, “You are telling me the enemy is being beaten?” They said yes. He said, “Then why isn’t the enemy acting like he is losing?”

About these mass shootings: in all seriousness, does it strike you as odd that all places hit so far have been niche music venues?
    France was a death metal private concert. Pulse was a disco/gay night club. Vegas was country.
    Look at the thousands of mainstream concerts – and sporting events, for that matter – that have been held since the attacks in France, yet NONE of them have been hit. What are the odds on that?
    Well, at least some very strange statistics. As far as I can recall, only sporting events that have been hit were the Boston marathon & the ’72 Olympics. They are the ultimate soft target, so why not more?

Regarding the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, Stephens’s proposal puts things in a refreshingly stark light: “Repeal the Second Amendment” [Bret Stephens, NY Times, October 5]. Excerpt:

I have never understood the conservative fetish for the Second Amendment.
    From a law-and-order standpoint, more guns means more murder....
    From a personal-safety standpoint, more guns means less safety. The F.B.I. counted a total of 268 “justifiable homicides” by private citizens involving firearms in 2015...Yet that same year, there were 489 “unintentional firearms deaths”....
    From a national-security standpoint, the Amendment’s suggestion that a “well-regulated militia” is “necessary to the security of a free State,” is quaint....
    From a personal liberty standpoint, the idea that an armed citizenry is the ultimate check on the ambitions and encroachments of government power is curious....
    And now we have the relatively new and now ubiquitous “active shooter” phenomenon, something that remains extremely rare in the rest of the world.... [read more]

A reader commented in the NY Times : “Taking Steps to Reduce Gun Violence” [October 6]. Excerpt:

Re “Repeal the Second Amendment”….
    Politics is the art of the possible, and Bret Stephens’s suggestion of repeal is not possible. However, it may be possible to replace the Second Amendment in a way that clarifies both the right of Americans to own guns and the powers of the government to regulate that right. It could read as follows:

The right of individuals to keep and bear arms consistent with the purpose of self-defense shall not be infringed. Congress and the states shall have the power to regulate the possession, ownership, sale, production and transportation of arms and ammunition, provided that such regulations do not infringe the right of individuals to keep and bear arms consistent with the purpose of self-defense.

    Advocates of gun control would support this amendment because it clarifies that the government has authority to regulate gun ownership. Advocates of gun owners’ rights might support the amendment because it enshrines their right to own guns for self-defense. [read more]

Learning about this mathematician sends chills up and down my spine, even though I know that I myself couldn’t comprehend his work: “Vladimir Voevodsky, Revolutionary Mathematician, Dies at 51” [Julie Rehmeyer NY Times, October 6]. Excerpt:

Dr. Voevodsky was renowned for founding entirely new fields of mathematics and creating groundbreaking new tools for computers to confirm the accuracy of proofs. In 2002, he was awarded the Fields Medal, which recognizes brilliance and promise in mathematicians under 40.
    He was “one of the giants of our time,” Thomas Hales, a mathematician at the University of Pittsburgh, said in an interview. Dr. Voevodsky, he said, transformed every field he touched. In his work using computers, for example, he upended mathematical thinking to such a degree that he changed the meaning of the equals sign....
    Vladimir was kicked out of high school three times, once for disagreeing with his teacher’s assertion that Dostoyevsky, who died in 1881, was pro-Communist. He was also kicked out of Moscow University after failing academically, having stopped attending classes that he considered a waste of time.
    He continued to study mathematics independently, however, and with the mathematician Mikhail Kapranov he published several papers so impressive that he was invited to enroll at Harvard as a graduate student, despite never having applied for admission there and holding no formal undergraduate degree.
    Once enrolled he again failed to attend lectures — but his body of research was so astonishing, colleagues said, that no one cared. He graduated in 1992 and remained at Harvard to do a fellowship. In 2002 he moved to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, where he spent the rest of his career. [read more]

Texas beer joint sues church in Mt.Vernon, Texas. Drummond’s Bar began construction on an expansion of their building to increase their business.
    In response, the local Baptist Church started a campaign to block the bar from expanding with petitions and prayers. Work progressed right up until the week before the grand reopening when lightning struck the bar and it burned to the ground.
    The church folks were rather smug in their outlook, bragging about “the power of prayer,” until the bar owner sued the church on the grounds that the church “was ultimately responsible for the demise of his building, either through direct or indirect actions or means.”
    In its reply to the court, the church vehemently denied all responsibility or any connection to the building’s demise.
    The judge studied the plaintiff’s complaint and the defendant’s reply, and at the opening hearing he commented, “I don’t know how I’m going to decide this, but it appears from the paperwork that we have a bar owner who believes in the power of prayer, and an entire church congregation that now does not.”

Grateful for correspondence, Moristotle