Today's links

• Douthat via Sailer: Liberals look at the Obama majority and see a coalition bound together by enlightened values — reason rather than superstition, tolerance rather than bigotry, equality rather than hierarchy. But it’s just as easy to see a coalition created by social disintegration and unified by economic fear.
• Anti-war, pro-military. Sailor Ad Orientem: One of the oldest expressions in the military is R-H-I-P (rank has its privileges). Every general or admiral in history has had staff including enlisted men who effectively function as personal servants. Even junior officers and some senior enlisted people rate a certain amount of deference and waiting on. The military is more hierarchical than Downton Abbey. On some level we inherited that from the Brits. The main difference being that the military is mainly a meritocracy and neither the rank nor the deference is hereditary. If that is really a huge hangup then you probably should not join. Private executive jets and motorcades sounds over the top to me. But speaking as someone who never rose above the naval equivalent to sergeant I am not going to begrudge a man who has stars on his shoulder from the respect, and yes privileges, that come with rank. Admirals have better things to do than shine their own shoes, press their own uniforms or even cook their own meals. And though it rated only a sentence in the article, it’s worth reiterating that the military has a lot of pomp and tradition which civilians usually just don’t get. Lastly, and with all due respect to former Secretary Gates, it is a hell of a lot harder to earn four stars than to be named Secretary of Defense.
• From LRC: The government hates the freedom of cash. More national-security theatre.
• Attorneys: Obama’s ‘secret’ cyber security law may allow ‘military deployment within the US’. Obama: making war and militarism cool for the left since 2009.
• antiwar.com: The US and the Israel-Gaza war. When will our capital stop being Tel Aviv?
• Justin Raimondo on the subject.
• Will Grigg: Sovereign citizens and governments. The left’s about power, not justice for oppressed minorities, or those idiot rich kids 40 years ago who now write Morris Dees checks weren’t anti-war but literally cheering for the other side. It’s a war between different factions of whites. I don’t ipso facto hate the police and wouldn’t pick fights with them by driving without a license but he has a point.
• The Onion makes fun of Ron Paul. Kind of cute. I like Cracked’s history lessons (hooray for Nikola Tesla) and news of the weird better than the Onion’s putdown hipster haughtiness.
• From RR: A group of Tennessee researchers and graduate students are changing the face of fuel economy. They are designing a unique, plug-in hybrid retrofit kit that works on any vehicle on the road, potentially saving those who make the investment 50-100 percent on in town fuel costs.