Articles Tagged As “America”:
2557.\\ Some Reasons for Optimism
Amid the doom and gloom of America's fiscal destruction and abolition of liberty at the hands of Obama and the Democrats, there is some glimmer of hope for the Republic.
USA Today illustrates the future demographics of the major nations of the world with its usual colorful graphics.
It isn't a panacea, but it sure does look good compared to, say, the debt and military power projections for the same time period.
TAGGED AS: America, Decline, Demographics, Economy, USA Today
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PERMANENT LINK2555.\\ Sino-American Showdown
I don't have time to write much about this since I'm dealing with an irritable little girl who just got her ear tubes this morning.
Suffice it to say, this article in the Telegraph today paints the picture of the clash many have been predicting for years (hand raised).
What's interesting is that the showdown is likely to be triggered by economics instead of traditional great-power politics, as Ambrose Evans-Pritchard points out.
Best bit:
As America's creditor - owner of some $1.4 trillion of US Treasuries, agency bonds, and US instruments - China can exert leverage. But this is not what it seems. If the Politburo deploys its illusiory power, Washington can pull the plug on China's export economy instantly by shutting markets. Who holds whom to ransom?Any attempt to retaliate by triggering a US bond crisis would rebound against China, and could be stopped - in extremis - by capital controls. Roosevelt changed the rules in 1933. Such things happen. The China-US relationship is no doubt symbiotic, but a clash would not be "mutual assured destruction", as often claimed. Washington would win.
TAGGED AS: America, China, Economy, Military, Politics, The Telegraph
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PERMANENT LINK2552.\\ Sowell: Too Many Apologies
Brilliant piece today by Thomas Sowell.
I think he hits it straight on when he identifies and laments the absence of personal responsibility in our society. It has been creeping for years, of course, even decades. But the success of the American Republic is absolutely dependent on individualism and responsibility not collectivism and blame.
We are now embarked on a grand experiment in collectivization and group think. It may work out. But it certainly represents the end of the experiment that began in 1787.
Best bit:
For more than a century, the intelligentsia have been trying to get us to focus on the "root causes" of crime-- supposedly created by "society"-- instead of locking up thieves or executing murderers.If some people don't have the money or the achievements of others, that too is society's fault, in the eyes of those for whom personal responsibility is an outmoded idea.
Personal responsibility is a real problem for those who want to collectivize society and take away our power to make our own decisions, transferring that power to third parties like themselves, who imagine themselves to be so much wiser and nobler than the rest of us.
Aimless apologies are just one of the incidental symptoms of an increasing loss of a sense of personal responsibility-- without which a whole society is in jeopardy.
TAGGED AS: America, Constitution, Thomas Sowell
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PERMANENT LINK2545.\\ The Case For Deficits and Against Spending
Just go read it. It makes sense.
Best bit:
"Unseen is how much higher our wages would be if our federal minders weren't spending over $3 trillion per year, and how very different and varied our collective employment outlook would be if our productive gains stayed in the private sector as opposed to the bloated government sector. It's said that government spending is compassionate, but what is compassionate about politicians spending money not their own?
If it's agreed that governments have no resources of their own, would readers prefer a balanced budget of $3 trillion plus, or a trillion-dollar deficit amid $1.5 trillion of spending? The answer here seems pretty simple. Since dollars are dollars, and investors don't seem concerned with the deficit, the most economically stimulative path would be to continue running deficits while greatly reducing the level of federal taxation and spending."
2544.\\ Coming to America: Crisis
Niall Ferguson's article in the Financial Times yesterday cuts to the core of the apparently insurmountable fiscal disaster we face. He repeats Larry Summers rhetorical question "How long can the world's biggest borrower remain the world's biggest power?"
I think it is absolutely fitting that the final implosion of Western Civilization is starting in the very birthplace of liberal democracy. Greece is doomed, that much seems increasingly clear. The dominoes will fall across the Club Med region. Berlin and Paris and London will attempt to right the ship, but it is a matter of rearranging positions in the lifeboat. The ship is lost. Europe has been on the slippery slope for years and is now in a headlong slide down the hill to ruin.
America seems next. Our collapse would make Greece's look like a minor nuisance. It seems pretty clear by now that the current one-term Administration is about as capable and up to the task of saving America as my 4 year old son. Unlike my son, however, Obama lacks modesty. He'll be the one at the helm loudly proclaiming how he, the second coming of Christ, did away with all the terrible things George Bush did as the bridge submerges and the stern rises out of the ocean. The reality is that while we might have been set on course to strike the iceberg by the previous Administration, the current one grabbed the wheel, locked in the course and put us a flank speed all the while loudly strutting and clucking about how great things will be because they took over the captain's chair.
It is, in short, a fast approaching disaster of epic proportions. Forget 1929, I'm talking 476 here. From this inflection point outward in the timeline, we will become a shell, a joke, America in name only. We'll be ruled by oligarchs and corporations and foreign governments, in short the barbarians. Oh future generations will still think of themselves as American, aping our ways and taking our titles, but they won't be any more American than the Ostrogoths were Roman.
Crisis, disaster, my friends, looming ahead. It may already be too late.
****UPDATE:
Von Mises agrees with me at least in part
****UPDATE 2:
And the BBC by way of Breitbart's Big Government
TAGGED AS: America, Debt, Deficit, Disaster, Finance, Financial Times, Niall Ferguson, Politics, Rome
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PERMANENT LINK2541.\\ Even the Monarchists Get It
I love reading the media in my native country when it is observing the happenings in my adopted country. There's something just delightful about the way Canadians write. It is sufficiently British in style to differentiate it from US English but not so much that it is self-righteous and patronizing (or is that patronising?).
Although it is sometimes annoying to have to listen to people with limited understanding of American society talk down to us, we seem to put up with it quite well coming from the liberal elite in this country.
So I enjoyed the Macleans article on our recent State of the Union address.
My favorite bit:
"Even dear old Justice Ginsburg seemed nonplussed and disapproving, though no doubt she seems much the same way when she's watering plants or eating a sandwich. I was hoping for Chief Justice Roberts to rise to his feet and lead the black-robed group right out of the building. Better still, perhaps, if they'd just dispersed in all directions like a murder of crows startled by a gunshot."
The language evokes imagery that makes me laugh for some reason. Why couldn't our media be more like this?
TAGGED AS: America, Barack Obama, Congress, Constitution, State of the Union
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PERMANENT LINK2529.\\ Henry Liu Makes Krugman His Bitch
Read Krugman's article here first, then read Henry Liu's total smackdown, raw.
The article also happens to be a great historical recounting of monetary policy. Fantastic read for the day. And frankly, any time Paul Krugman is revealed as the fraud that he is it is a good day for me.
TAGGED AS: America, China, Economy, Henry Liu, Paul Krugman, Smackdown
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PERMANENT LINK2524.\\ WSJ: Google Gets On the Right Side of History
Great article today in WSJ on Google's recent throwing down of the gauntlet in China.
What I find most refreshing about the piece is that it concisely lays out the ideological bankruptcy of the regime and elites that seek to profit from the oppression and murder of the Chinese people. Anyone doing business in China, anyone who bows to the wishes of the autocrats, has blood on their hands. Until Tuesday, that included Google.
Of course, China being autocratic and involved in epic levels of industrial espionage is nothing new. But finally, finally, the Google Incident has pushed this more into the limelight. More coverage here, here, here, and some less thought of implications are discussed here (will Google stand firm with censorship in France and Italy too?)
More on the staggering size and scope of Chinese espionage here, here, here, here, here, here, and this site here run by an excellent blogger who focuses on this topic.
And I've reserved the scariest spying reports for last: here, here, here, here, and finally the chiller here.
They won't have to beat our military. It'll be like the Cylon war. All of our systems will suddenly stop working and we'll be blind and dark. Be afraid.
TAGGED AS: America, China, Cyberwar, Google, Hacking, National Security, Spying
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PERMANENT LINK2523.\\ You Are Not A Gadget
This is one of the best articles I've read in weeks. It is an excerpt from a forthcoming book written by Jaron Lanier, one of the very first innovators in virtual reality. He manages to capture and describe the essence of my long running uneasiness with modern information technology. Specifically, he harpoons the whale of the open, free, social media utopia where everyone has a voice and a say and nothing costs us a dime (nor should it). He pins it absolutely dead on, it is collectivization and socialist utopian thinking that has become a staple of our lifestyles. It may go a long way to explaining our relative and absolute decline since the early 1990s.
Very, very important idea. I plan to buy and read his book.
TAGGED AS: America, Internet, Socialism
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PERMANENT LINK2522.\\ China on the March as West Continues Collapse
The bad news keeps rolling in here, here and here.
The question is, will we get our groove back and climb out of this ditch? Or is western liberal democracy destined to be permanently overcome by oriental autocracy?
****UPDATE:
Even more... read this and this and this and this
TAGGED AS: America, China, Decline and Fall, Democracy, Oligarchy
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PERMANENT LINK2520.\\ I'm Loathe to Say I'm Right...
But, well, I am. China is the antagonist for the century. We've had nonsensical policy toward them for the past 20 years. Read this and this and this and this and this and this. Among others.
TAGGED AS: America, China, War
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PERMANENT LINK2519.\\ Effective Containment of China
This is the most important article I've read this year. That's a whole 5 days of reading for you math whizzes out there.
Sadly, until we dispose of the neophytes in the West Wing and the Socialist autocrat wannabes in Congress, we'll make no headway in strategic planning vis a vis the rising threat of China.
Oh, happy new year.
TAGGED AS: America, China, Geopolitics, Military
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PERMANENT LINK2514.\\ The Once and Future British
Go read this story here at the Independent. Also be sure to read the comments. They are stunning. I wanted to comment but can't be bothered to register for their site. Luckily I have my own commenting system:
My Comment:
On this side of the Atlantic, many of us reading this article cannot fathom why Britain would surrender itself to be consumed by 'Europe' and relegate itself to the position of minor, mediocre province of an apathetic, indolent fiction called the EU. If it is the will of the people there to accept this role, then Britain is no longer British. It is instead populated by Proles who exist on State welfare from cradle to grave, take no risk, achieve nothing great and coexist in drab, monotone, groupthink sameness. They are rather like human batteries, with no independent thought or action, that power the State which succors them. If those are indeed the values, then yes the special relationship is gone for those are not our values. It is puzzling, however, because the fact is that Britain was never this way. It was afloat in a sea of euro-homogenization, but it kept the light of western civilization burning on its side of the Atlantic. That is why Britain was special and that is what made our relationship special. The split over Iraq was a mere symptom of the apathy evident in the anti-semitic and stunningly small minded comments posted here. The British were a great people who shaped the world. It is sad that they no longer seem to exist.
TAGGED AS: America, Britain, Europe, Orwellian
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PERMANENT LINK2498.\\ The Coming Collapse of China
I've long held the belief, based on my studies at college, that China would one day collapse of its own weight. The forces at work in that part of the world for the past 3000 years aren't likely to change overnight, nor have they changed since the Communists took power 60 years ago. Even more unchanging is human nature. This collapse, brought on by loosening central power, is no different in its dynamics than any other time in China's history when similarly authoritarian control was loosened just enough for the entire thing to come unwound. Add to this loosening of CCP power an immense uptick in the materialism and driven self-interest of the various regions of China and you have the ingredients for a massive splintering of the nation into a modern version of Warring States.
A recent article by Gordon Chang in Forbes detailed how the Chinese Miracle may in fact be totally fraudulent (you should read Gordon if you are remotely interested in the future of Asia). An article in the Politico today backs that up. As does the movements of various hedge fund managers and investors including the one who correctly identified the phoniness of Enron. Now granted, figuring out a company is cooking the books is different than figuring out a secretive nation is cooking the books. But the point is that not all is as it appears to be in the Middle Kingdom.
Which brings me back to my own, long held, prediction. If China collapses or begins to, the leaders will try anything to remain in power. This includes whipping up nationalism by manufacturing a war with America over Taiwan or the South China Sea or imported chicken.
In any event, if China collapses they will stop financing our debt. This will hurt us. If China collapses and tries to take it out on America, this will hurt us. Either way we should prepare for a rough go of it where China is concerned.
Of course, our only concern as a nation at the moment is whether someone is going to give us health care for free, not the imminent collapse of the international order.
TAGGED AS: America, Asia, Capitalism, CCP, China, Communism, Economy, Finance, Forbes, Gordon Chang, Politico, Totalitarianism, War
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PERMANENT LINK2493.\\ Losing Turkey
This should send shudders down the spine of anyone remotely concerned about islamic extremism and theocracies run amok.
TAGGED AS: America, Islamism, NATO, Turkey
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PERMANENT LINK2481.\\ The Conservative Thinker
You might be tempted to think the title is an oxymoron. Sometimes it is. But I've become ever more enamored with Thomas Sowell's thinking and writing and I believe he's the new voice of the reasonable intellectual who happens to be right of center.
Go read these two articles on the dismantling of America (Part One and Part Two). Taken together they are alarming yet offer a reasonable critique (free of foaming at the mouth) and a high level prescription for appropriate change.
I wonder what it is like for him to be who he is and have his opinions at Stanford?
TAGGED AS: America, Conservative, Constitution, Freedom, Liberals, Liberty, Thomas Sowell, Weakness
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PERMANENT LINK2478.\\ Miscalculations on Health Care
There is a thoughtful analysis by Robert Robb of the Arizona Republic on what impact the House Democrats' bill would have on the Health Care industry. I can't say I agree with him. I happen to increasingly believe that the leftists in this country don't give a damn about the people. They are motivated by some utopian dream of manipulating the entire society and remaking it according to intellectual theory dreamed up in a bubble. It is a dangerous ideological crusade they are on and it is little different in its use of philosophy than Jihad, little different in its tactics than Mao's Cultural Revolution and destined to be little different in its results than Lenin's experiments. Theory and practice in the realm of social engineering rarely collide. The inevitable endgame is Orwellian.
Read it for yourself here.
TAGGED AS: America, Democrats, Dictatorship, Health Care, Jihad, Lenin, Mao, Orwellian, Socialism
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PERMANENT LINK2474.\\ The Byzantine Doctrine
This is the read of the day. I've always thought Gibbons simplified the decline of the Romans. This simplistic view is similar to the oft repeated claims of American decline. I think this view is much more nuanced and offers a glimpse of one possible future for the Republic.
TAGGED AS: America, Byzantine, Decline and Fall, Empire, Rome, Strategy, Weekly Standard
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PERMANENT LINK2471.\\ One Author, Totally Deluded
I am slowly shaking off the rage that has prevented me from writing anything about this story so far this morning. I don't even know where to begin. First go read this morning's op-ed in the Boston Globe.
Where to start. First off, the entire premise of the article is that Americans are ignorant. Every single one of us is stupid and deluded with the exception of the few enlightened ones who know so much more than we do that they deserve to rule in a paternalistic style, taking care of us from womb to grave. They just don't want us to worry our pretty little heads about things we couldn't possibly understand (like the health care bill, for example, which Congress won't let us read before they ram it through the legislature). In reality they're much more cynical. They just don't want our petty natures and preferences for things like self-determination and liberty to get in the way of their well-thought out grand intellectual exercises in social re-engineering. You know, sort of like fascists believed.
From the beginning of this article I had my hackles up. I don't like people taking the piss out of this country. But I agree with the first paragraph of the text. There is pandering by politicians to the public about how great everything is all the time. But the part that turned me totally hostile and made me flew into a rage was the sentence "The fact of the matter is that whenever anything really significant has been accomplished by our government, it is precisely because it was better than the American people."
There is nothing about any government or any State that makes it better than the people by whose consent it governs and in whose interest it serves. Government is not a thing that grants nobility of action, purity of character or goodness of intention. It is a temporary social contract that exists to provide impartial equity in human interactions. It is a framework within which a society of people functions. It is not an end unto itself, it is simply an means to an end. It cannot be "better" than the public because it is made up of the public. It cannot be noble because it is nothing more than a framework of rules. It cannot be pure or good or evil for that matter because it is not a person or a sentient entity, it s a legal construct that can evaporate as soon as the will that brought it into being dissipates.
Government is not a person or a philosophy or a social experiment. It doesn't exist to advance any agenda other than that which the people have deigned to adopt. In short, therefore, it is not, has not and will never be better than the people who allow it to continue.
Offered up as some sort of proof to the contrary is FDR's goading America into WWII and wasn't the government so much more enlightened and noble than the moronic mob who opposed US entry into war.
This, of course, is ridiculous. Taking Roosevelt's leadership, principles and strategic thinking and transmuting it into some sort of beneficent action of an enlightened "Government" is nonsense. FDR was elected because people believed in his ability to lead. They trusted him when he laid the groundwork for support of the Allies. It wasn't an American Government, so much better than Americans, that got us into war. We entered the war because we were attacked by Japan and because we trusted our chosen leader to guide us in that war. The same goes for LBJ and his Great Society and for Obama's Nationalized Health Care. People elected these leaders because they believed in their principles, their agenda and their ability to lead (although in Obama's case it may simply have been Oprah's endorsement, who can say).
Now I may completely disagree with FDR, LBJ and Obama. That doesn't make them 'better' than me or somehow more enlightened than me because they have one vision and I have another. It simply means their vision is the one that counts because they were elected. Of course, their vision could be totally wrong. In that case, they are no more stupid than I nor more ignorant and I am no more better. I'm simply right and they are wrong. And since history is written or at least kindest to the victors, in 50 years I have no doubt that whatever happens over the course of Obama's (hopefully short) tenure will be viewed as 'right' and 'better' than whatever else would have happened but didn't.
In short, it is stupid to ascribe supernatural 'better' powers to events which happened over those which didn't. If Washington had been captured and hung and we were all British, we'd have a short lesson in our grade schools about the aborted rebellion that thank God was put down by the King. And this boob writing in the Boston Globe would be gushing at how much better the King was than the population which wanted to separate from Britain. Imagine if the King didn't have the courage to stand up to those who wanted a revolution! This is the same argument as the author seems to believe is a proper guiding principle.
I'm all for humility when dealing with people that cannot possibly compare in any metric of national greatness or who are our friends. But when it comes to despots, thugs, criminal and rogue regimes and belligerent potential enemies, then it is Go America time and we should be as pro-USA as possible. It is incumbent upon everyone in this nation to be as proud as possible and to lord it over any potential enemy. We know our faults, but just like a family we don't have to air dirty laundry and weaknesses for our enemies to pick apart and potentially exploit. We should be as boastful as possible. And so should our leaders. Because if neither we nor they believe that this is the greatest place on earth, the grandest experiment in history, the literal shining city on the hill, then we are totally at the mercy of our enemies' psychological manipulations. Just ask the USSR how things went when they actually began to believe they were the Evil Empire.
The author asks, by what standard is one nation greater than any other nation? He then proceeds to detail failings of our system in comparison to others. He's right. There isn't any one standard. It is a comprehensive standard that takes into account financial power, knowledge, scientific contribution, military capability, cultural impact, geography, morality, guiding principles of government, the legal system, technical prowess, businesses, literature, ecology, social mobility, national flexibility and capacity for change, material resources, historical impact, international esteem, immigration numbers, inventions and overall quality of life. By THAT standard there is no doubt who is number one. But if you still have a lingering question as to who is the best or by which standard we should judge such a superlative, then simply ask anyone in the world today: "What country is the most important in the world?" Nobody is going to say Sweden just because they have higher home ownership and greater wealth distribution. I defy you to find a person on the planet since Teddy Roosevelt sent the Fleet round the world who would claim the United States of America is something other than the most important single nation on the planet.
The author holds up healthcare as a reason why we are not the greatest country on earth. He claims we are the only industrialized nation without a national health care system. He clearly doesn't know his own government. Medicare and Medicaid are both national health care plans available to any and all Americans who need them.
But that point aside, the next argument is that immigration patterns demonstrate that every country in the world is just as good the next one. Yes Mexicans come to the US but Turks go to Germany and Indians go to Great Britain and Arabs go to France. So there you have it, every nation has people who want to go to it and therefore the USA cannot claim it is better because people are immigrating. Balls. Everyone from every nation comes to the United States. The Japanese don't immigrate to Germany. The Chinese don't immigrate to Italy. Tajiks don't flock in huge numbers to Brazil. The fact is that everybody in the world comes the United States. This is an immigrant nation and that regenerative power is the source of our great strength. We get the best, the most industrious, those with the greatest hunger and thirst for opportunity. They come to our shores in droves, by the shipload. They attend our schools and take that BETTER KNOWLEDGE back to whatever shithole they came from in an effort to improve their nations. And at the end of the day, anyone can become an American. A guy from Senegal can't move to Tokyo and become Japanese. A single mother from Mexico can't sneak across the border into Germany and become German. Anyone can come into this country and become part of it. They add their distinctive ability, experience and knowledge to the whole and THAT makes us the greatest nation on earth thank you very much.
The author continues his everyone-wins-a-prize train of thought. And I have to quote it here because it is just such rubbish:
"The point of all this isn't that America doesn't have a lot to be proud of. It does. The point is that just about every country has a lot to be proud of, and America has no more right to assume it is the greatest nation in the world than does France, Switzerland, China, or Russia."
Really? The United States isn't greater than Switzerland? That is ridiculous and ultimately beside the point. Any nation can say whatever it wants about its own national greatness. The proof is in the historical record and will be written by the greatest nation no matter what the others say or do. I'm claiming that this greatest nation is the US. If the Swiss want to believe they're the greatest then fine, let them do so. I would apply my comprehensive metric described above to blast that nonsense out of the water, but whatever. I would ask my future generations when they read the history of the 20th and 21st Centuries, which was the greatest of the great powers? They won't say Switzerland.
I had thought the most ludicrous argument was past at this point. But no. The author has more for me to tear to pieces. He claims:
"None of this would make much difference if the self-congratulation was just harmless bragging. But there are consequences. A country that believes it is the greatest in the world is also less likely to be constrained by that world. One could argue that the Iraq war was a direct result of a sense of national infallibility. So was our willingness to torture, our reluctance to admit our mistakes in Afghanistan, our culpability in the global recession, and our foot-dragging on global warming. Such a nation is also less likely to introspect or to strive for true greatness because it believes its greatness has already arrived."
Egad! It isn't harmless bragging for starters, it is legitimate belief. And a great nation has no obligation to be 'constrained by the world'. Can you imagine? We're suddenly in the business of constraining nations and subjecting them to the diktats of a bureaucracy someplace in Geneva. No nation should be constrained by the world. Nations constrain other nations. Nations coerce and force and lead and encourage other nations. Nations are the primary actors in global affairs. "The World" doesn't exist and even if it did, no entity has authority to constrain the United States. The United States is governed by one document that supersedes any and all laws. It is illegitimate the US Government that seeks to submit the United States to be constrained by the world. That is a US Government that has abrogated its duty, exceeded its authority and must be dismantled and replaced by one that adheres to the Constitution.
The Iraq war was a direct result of the strategic need to dispose of Saddam Hussein and ensure the Iraqi oil supply by creating the conditions for the long term stability and prosperity offered by a free form of government chosen by the people of that nation. That stability and prosperity will reduce the threat of Iraq becoming a reactionary power that disrupts an already unstable part of the world. And yes, our belief that we had the power to create that stable situation was a direct result of our belief in our national greatness and in our nation as a force for good. The author would imply that if we had only been smarter and more humble, we could have lived with total chaos in the middle east in perpetuity. He has a right to believe that, of course, until such chaos leads to the murder of anyone he loves. Then he might wonder why we didn't try to do something, given our great capabilities.
The final thoughts of the author require some analysis. He says that America can't take criticism and that Americans constantly need to be flattered and have their pride attended to. I completely disagree. One major part of our national greatness is our ability to change. Change isn't something that comes from the State or is organized by Presidents. Change is an unseen shift in attitude and beliefs that take place over time in the people that constitute the nation. Nobody forced Americans to recycle (as of yet). And who in the 1940s would have cared much for it? I'm not an environmentalist yet I recycle because I believe it is the right thing to do. Had someone tried to legislate that morality it would certainly have backfired in a person like myself. Lincoln freed the slaves in States not controlled by the Union, yes. But his actions, his enlightened wisdom, didn't create change in attitudes. That change had been brewing for decades and continued to brew for decades to follow. Change flowed UPWARD, not DOWNWARD from the enlightened ones.
Americans don't need flattery. We know our weaknesses and it is a sign of our greatness the degree to which we self-flagellate and wring our hands and agonize over flaws in our national character that a people such as, say, the French, would be aghast at. The Chinese don't sit around talking about how morally corrupt they are. The Russians don't agonize about being a nation of nationalists. The Germans don't sit around and wonder how on earth they got to be so racist. The Cubans don't have thousands of call-in talk radio shows where they debate the pros and cons of teaching evolution in schools. This is a nation in constant flux. Change is constantly flowing in various directions. It isn't all in a uniform march to a better society as progressives and end-of-historites would have you believe. There isn't a logical conclusion to the change ever flowing in a constant direction. But it is more ongoing and churning change than any people anywhere in time or place have ever seen. And that churn wasn't created by Barack Obama's executive order. Change is a feature, a characteristic of America and Americans.
In one final jibe at Americans, he despairs that American Government may be just as good as American people and therefore the end of times is near. I would argue that America's elected officials have always been, and are by design, the same or worse than the people they represent. It is precisely because the politician is a cynic or is a pretentious, self-righteous pretender, that they are elected in the first place. It is their ability to appear that they know what they're doing that encourages us to vote for them. The Constitution recognized this and the founders acknowledged the base morals of humanity and built into the system the ability for self-correction.
We should truly despair when the State becomes the ultimate achievement of mankind. The ultimate expression of our intellect. The basis for reorganizing society along the lines of those who are the 'best'. We should truly despair when the 'best' rule us. Their capabilities coupled with human nature and unchecked ego give rise to dictators and emperors.
TAGGED AS: America, Arrogant, Barack Obama, Boston Globe, Congress, Constitution, Democracy, Hubris, Leftist, Liberals, Liberty, Nation, Principle, State
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PERMANENT LINK2462.\\ Glenn Beck Doesn't Need Defending
I like Glenn Beck a lot. I noticed him first last year when our government stole the next 50 years from us and our children by nationalizing the financial and auto industries and condemning America to decline.
Jonah Goldberg has a good article in today's USA Today that points out how popular he really is and why the right should adopt him and not push him away.
He can be a bit out there, to be honest. I don't agree with many of his arguments. But I like his style. I like his approach to discussing the issues of the day. Other programs take it at face value the a State should be in the business of wealth redistribution. He questions the very foundations of the modern American State and wonders aloud what the founders would think if they were alive today.
His detractors on the left, I just don't understand their hatred for him. He's bombastic, yes. But he isn't unlikable like Keith Olbermann. He isn't haughty and arrogant like Bill Maher. He isn't enamored with his own sense of humor like Jon Stewart. He's to the point, direct, and casual. I also find myself agreeing with him more often than just about any other politico.
TAGGED AS: America, Economy, Glenn Beck, Leftist, Media, Politics, USA Today
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PERMANENT LINK2460.\\ Internet Danger
I think that the recent decision to let lapse the ICANN governing agreement is quite possibly the most dangerous thing our nation could possibly do. This is like the British giving up the Royal Navy in the 1920s. The fact is that the Internet is a product of American ingenuity and is our nation's intellectual capital. It is a strategic asset of the Republic. We've given it up to the thugs and dictators (including our future enemy China) and they will not hesitate to use it against us in every conceivable way. They will attack our industries, our infrastructure, our technologies, our universities and use the Internet, as only authoritarian states can, to undermine the existence of the Republic itself.
The world is falling apart, we're encouraging it to do so and remain more interested in Dancing With the Stars and the 2016 Olympics than the 20% effective unemployment and the dramatic fall in the relative power of our nation, our culture and our civilization.
The Visigoths are at the gate and we've just given them the key.
TAGGED AS: America, China, Decline and Fall, Disaster, ICANN, Internet, Weakness
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PERMANENT LINK2459.\\ China Warning
I've harped on this for years. Ever since studying China in college, I've harbored the notion that there will be war with them. Read this article and think deep about it. It isn't the rambling of an idiot or a warmonger or a neocon. This is hard evidence and solid analysis that we are indeed revisiting history. I would argue it is 1932 all over again.
My children will have to fight the Chinese because of 20 years of weakness and inept leadership when it comes to the China question.
2435.\\ Why the World Loves Barry
The British have a bead on the man.
I just don't quite understand why he's so virulently anti-Israeli.
Best bit:
"The president scores highly at the UN for refusing to project American values and military might on the world stage, with rare exceptions like the war against the Taliban. His appeasement of Iran, his bullying of Israel, his surrender to Moscow, his call for a nuclear free world, his siding with Marxists in Honduras, his talk of a climate change deal, have all won him plaudits in the large number of UN member states where US foreign policy has traditionally been viewed with contempt. "
TAGGED AS: America, Appeasement, Barack Obama, Daily Telegraph, United Nations, War on Terror
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PERMANENT LINK2433.\\ Disarming the Responsible
In a Wall Street Journal Opinion piece, Bret Stephens lays out why America is doomed. Not just America but all western peace loving nations.
I would differ in my long term predictions, however. Appeasement and weakness in the West historically invites war and turmoil. And so it will again. A nation or group of nations will attempt to exploit our perceived or actual weakness. The war will be long and brutal and ultimately we will prevail. We'll undergo decades of self-flagellation for ever having been so gullible and naive. I'm a historian. Mark my words that it will happen.
The best bit:
"In 1943, Walter Lippmann observed that the disarmament movement had been 'tragically successful in disarming the nations that believed in disarmament.' That ought to have been the final word on the subject."
TAGGED AS: America, Appeasement, Barack Obama, Economy, Wall Street Journal
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PERMANENT LINK2367.\\ Whatever Happened to the Work Ethic?
Reposted from a Tweet I made a few days ago. Can't emphasize how important I think the article's point is. In fact, it may be my new manifesto. But, lacking conviction, I haven't decided yet.
Apolitical and possibly the most important thing you read all week: http://city-journal.org/2009/19_3_work-ethic.html
TAGGED AS: America, Finance, Future, Work Ethic
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PERMANENT LINK2347.\\ Another Year, Another Kid, Another Anniversary
Yes, #3 is due in little over a month. Exciting to have another child; my first daughter. Born in the year of the first female Vice President? Who knows. What I do know is that I have the urge again to write on a regular basis. My children and the urge to write both seem to come at the same time of the year, the months around the 11th of September.
1777 wasn't a good year for America. Washington was in full-blown retreat, lurching his way across New Jersey and Pennsylvania desperately trying to find food for his army. Things were so bad that the soldiers, mostly naked (literally naked), were roasting their dead comrades' boots and eating the leather soles. Inflation at that time makes today's Zimbabwe look like a model of economic success. Yet the country pulled through. Things weren't terribly good, but perseverance and an indomitable spirit got those hardy people through some very dark times.
1861 was another year that wasn't great for America. My own state of South Carolina had rebelled, declared independence, bombarded Fort Sumter and the rest of the south followed it into war. Let me, for a moment, attest to the character of the southerners (of which I will likely never truly be a part). They are a tough bunch full of stubbornness, determination and grit. If anyone could defeat Lincoln's North, it was the people who gave birth to Lee, Bragg, Polk, Johnston, Hood, Beauregard and Forrest. But by cleaving a great people in two over an issue that should have (and could have) been resolved in 1783, the conflict that would ensue was an ordeal that America recovered from only after a century, appropriate legislation and anyone alive at the time had passed. It was the bravery and determination of people like Andrew Johnson, Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and Lyndon Johnson that put to rest the schism and finally healed the nation.
1941 was a year that came to be infamous. It was not a good year for America. The Japanese had destroyed US Naval power in the Pacific and the British alone held the line against a terrible darkness. Western Civilization itself, and all of its 2500 year history, was at risk of slipping into a deep abyss. Let there be no mistake about how bleak things looked in 1941. There was a resignation in these States to Germany ruling Europe. There was a real, powerful (magnitudes more powerful than today) anti-war lobby that sought to keep America isolated and insulated from the world. The Japanese changed that on December 7th at 7:48 am. The result was a rallied America that had never been as unified and an awakened giant the likes of which the world had never before seen in the history of mankind. In a improbable turnabout, just 4 years later the United States was more engaged and involved in the world and more relatively powerful than any nation in history.
2001 was not a good year for America. Politics had torn the people asunder the previous year. Charges of a poisonous and ridiculous nature were hurled about between countrymen. There was nothing short of internal war. Had the politicians and ideologies been represented by individual States as they had been in the 19th Century, civil war might have resulted. The economy had had a bubble burst in the first months of 2000 and had yet to bottom out. Jobs were being lost left and right and GDP was threatening to enter negative territory for the first time in a generation. And yet things only got worse. In a short, brutish and nasty flash, an act of terrorism took more American lives in a single day than at any point in the nation's history save for the 1900 Galveston Hurricane and the Battle of Antietam. It was a stunning attack on the world's only indispensable nation, the only MegaPower, a nation that had never been attacked on its own soil in such a brutal and cowardly manner. Yet the nation and its people circled the wagons and pulled together. The people's leader, a man who came to power promising to keep America out of foreign adventures, summoned an improbable inner strength and vowed to focus on nothing but her defense. And to that end, he succeeded for the duration of his tenure.
I know I'll never forget that day. I doubt anyone alive in this country at that time will forget. It is etched in our collective memory in a way that few events are. It is a sad anniversary when it comes around. It reminds me of our mortality and the vulnerability of our people and our nation. I can only hope that my soon-to-be three children will never have to face a day like that. My oldest was 5 at the time and I doubt he recalls it. I envy him. If there was ever a harbinger of the new world order, it was al Qaeda. George Bush the Father spoke in 1991 of a new world order with a thousand points of light coming into being following the defeat of communism. It was not to be, sadly. The real indication that we lived in a new era was when cowards murdered 3000 Americans on a clear, crisp fall day in September 2001.
It makes me tear up to this very moment.
However, I have every faith in the spirit of my adopted country that we will pull through. And as we pull through, we bring with us the beacon of light that represents the sum history of the Greeks, Romans, Franks and Britons. If Western Civilization is doomed to fall prey to the darkness of radical ideologies (be it tyranny, racism, sexism, totalitarianism or religious extremism), it won't be on America's watch.
Tomorrow morning at 9am, I will board a plane with my eldest son and travel to New York. Ostensibly the trip is about experiencing Yankee Stadium before it is torn down. But it is also, and more importantly, about experiencing Ground Zero and the 9/11 Tributes at the Yankees game that I hope will leave an indelible mark on him. The greatest gift I feel I can give my children is knowledge and experience of the history I have witnessed.
And so I celebrate another year of writing and another child while I also remember the events of 7 years ago today.
Never Forget.
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