RIP Andrew Breitbart

RIP Andrew Breitbart (1969-2012)

Collapsed walking near his home, survived by a wife and four young children.

My condolences to the family, friends, co-workers and those who loved this Happy Warrior.

That, my son, THAT was a man.

The KTA Doctrine

On 31 MAR 2011 NATO announced that not only will NATO air forces fire on Libyan regime supporters attacking civilians, but 'rebel' forces attacking civilians.  And since most of the people fighting dress like civilians (Kadaffy's thugs-for-hire and mercenaries, the 'rebels' and, of course civilians), that led me to this bit of commentary at Hot Air:

It started as: ‘Huh? Another uprising….’

Then the rebels were winning.

Then it was: ‘Kadaffy must go!’

Then a vacation.

‘Days not weeks!’

Then coming home.

‘The French, UK and the Arabs want a NFZ, we will help.’

Then…

‘We will lead it.’

Then…

‘We will hand it over to the UN NATO Political Committee!’

Then…

‘It’s a humanitarian mission to save lives!’

Then…

‘Kill them all.’

Going from ‘Huh?’ to ‘Kill them all’ in a month.

Just loverly.

ajacksonian on March 31, 2011 at 7:44 PM

The KTA Doctrine is 'Kill Them All'.

By 02 APR 2011, again at Hot Air on a different post, we find that 'rebels' are now, indeed, being attacked from the air by NATO forces.  Of course they made the mistake of firing on the NATO sponsored air craft... but what were they doing?

Thus this comment taking a bit from the announced KTA doctrine on the previous thread and intertwining it with the recent attack:

“A NATO airstrike killed 13 rebel fighters in the battle outside the pivotal oil port of Brega, the rebels said Saturday…

“One rebel fighter who was wounded in the airstrike said a fellow rebel had fired into the air moments before the attack.

“‘I don’t know why,’ the rebel, Ali Abdullah Abubaker, said later from a hospital in Benghazi. ‘Maybe he was scared.’…

Well given this bit from earlier on…

“We’ve been conveying a message to the rebels that we will be compelled to defend civilians, whether pro-Qaddafi or pro-opposition,” said a senior Obama administration official. “We are working very hard behind the scenes with the rebels so we don’t confront a situation where we face a decision to strike the rebels to defend civilians.”…

…if you were attacking ‘civilians’ then he might just be a bit afraid of retaliation, thus firing into the air, given…

“’NATO takes reports of civilian casualties very seriously,’ [a] spokesman said. ‘But for us, exact details are hard to verify because we do not have reliable sources on the ground.’

“The spokesman, who, according to NATO policy, asked not to be identified, added, ‘If someone fires at one of our aircraft, they have the right to defend themselves.’”

This is the ‘kill them all’ doctrine at work.

Kadaffy has hired a bunch of thugs and mercenaries to beat up, intimidate and kill parts of the civilian population so as to rule by fear. The thing is the mercenaries and thugs dress like civilians.

Then there are the ‘rebels’ who haven’t formed a government and don’t put on uniforms. When they attack supporters of the regime it looks like they are attacking civilians. Of course the reports were that the ‘rebels’ were also attacking civilians, too.

Then there are the poor civilians: they are getting attacked by both sides. I would think that some of them are arming themselves with whatever is around to protect themselves from other guys dressed as civilians out to kill them.

Which means you have people who look like civilians that:
- attack unarmed civilians
- attack armed civilians

Can you tell which ‘civilian’ dressed individual is:
A) A mercenary or thug of the regime?
B) A ‘rebel’?
C) An actual civilian?

If you can’t then you now know why there is a ‘kill them all’ doctrine.

Mind you we are there to ‘protect’ civilians!

And since you can’t tell regime supporters from ‘rebels’ to armed civilians protecting themselves to people who may be unarmed but its hard to tell with all the shooting going on, that means its open season on civilians. And all the people in uniform are Kadaffy supporters, thus they can be targeted freely, too!

Really, we are there to HELP!!

ajacksonian on April 3, 2011 at 9:58 AM

This is why I have been going with the simple concept for Libya that demonstrates how a 'rule of thumb' can be wrong.

The rule of thumb is: 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend.'

That is wrong, the actual rule is: 'The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy.  They deserve each other. Let's you and him fight.'

This is why the Laws of War are so important.

Legitimate combatants must wear a uniform.  They must be accountable to a command structure.  That command structure must be known, public and hold itself accountable for what  happens to its government.  That government must have leaders, people they protect and a set of laws (no matter how ramshackle) that lets the world know what their objectives actually are.

We have ZERO of those going on with the 'rebels'.

Instead you have a 'good feeling' intervention because of some unquantifiable 'responsibility to protect' that applies in this case and, somehow, not in every other hellhole on the planet from NoKo to Burma to Somalia to Zimbabwe to Ivory Coast to Venezuela to China.  Each of these has repressive regimes that have unlimbered against its civilian populations forces that are of the State to suppress or kill rebels or those merely disagreeing with the system.

I have some bad news for the Globalists of this world: in the realm of Nation States I am NOT my brother's keeper.

If you want to interfere with an ongoing calamity that is internal to a Nation do it the right way and get some woebegone government to sanction YOU to go in and clean up the mess.  Or just arm up and do it on your lonesome as you, obviously, have the skill and ability to tell people dressed as civilians from simply civilians to people acting like civilians to actual civilians all of which can be armed and fighting each other.  If you can't figure out who the 'rebels' are, who the hired mercenaries and thugs are, and who are actual, real-life civilians, then what you see in Libya is what you get from the 'responsibility to protect' concept.  It comes down to the KTA Doctrine for such a situation.

So instead of volunteering other Nation's militaries, volunteer your own sorry life and hide, and leave the rest of the world to go on its way so that you, PERSONALLY, can right the world's wrongs and get the applause and credit.

I'll chip in $50 for the organization that will do that... get the Global Left and Bleeding Hearts Willing To Volunteer Others together to actually go out and put their bodies and lives behind their lovely words and ideals.  Maybe I'll put in a few copies of Homage to Catalonia in with the cash.  You'll need that book, that's for damn sure.

And I'm still waiting for our President to consult with Congress and , no, a 'Sense of the Senate' unanimous consent resolution doesn't count as consulting... you get those sorts of things for National Pie Day.  And I put warfare way higher than that sort of thing, because it tends to wind up with blood and bodies involved.

Tea Party Foreign Policy Concepts

There have been others writing on this topic and I've only seen links to articles like this criticism by President Clinton (to which I responded in a comment thread at Hot Air) or this piece by P.J. O'Rourke. The basic Establishment criticism now being echoed in some venues is that the Tea Party 'needs' a foreign policy (beyond that of John Bolton joining an election day Tea Party group, H/t: Dan Riehl; 25 SEP 2010 update by Michael Patrick Leahy at Big Journalism here). No one can speak for the Tea Party (why I describe in this piece) but the thrust of a distributed, small government, fiscally conservative distributed organization is one that will guide its foreign policy to a large extent. Parallels between how the emergent behavior of such a disintermediating force will play in foreign policy are interesting as the guiding precepts of thrift, frugality and expenditures only for the necessary come into play. Similarly as a small governance distributed organization, it will not look towards big government, centralized pathways for its foreign policy. Thus some outlines, and they can only be that at this point in time, can be generally sketched out, although some details may go beyond the sketching area while others will draw closer in within that area so as to avoid the edges. Thus each of the major thrust domains of the Tea Party will constrain the resultant foreign policy, and if you examine the thrust domains you get the sketch parameters.

Small or Limited Government

This domain is paramount and drives foreign policy. A shift towards smaller government has not been seen since the time of President Coolidge, and the shift of foreign policy then will indicate which direction the US goes with a Tea Party majority or even large plurality holding the purse strings of government in the balance. It is a view that draws away from large, international institutions just as it draws away from large national ones: these are concurrent beliefs in the strength of the individual to do good on their own and while the Nation is guided by the President on foreign policy, it is up to the people to fill in that guidance outline.

What results is not, exactly, isolationism of the pre-WWII era: Americans remember WWII and have no wish to repeat it.

Americans also remember that entangling alliances, dependence on foreign policy to keep a status quo, internationally, led to WWI.

This then shifts the Tea Party away from the artifacts of the Post-WWII era that have dominated foreign policy: the UN, IMF, World Bank, and other large scale, unaccountable multi-Nation organizations. If we have had problem with run-away, accountable government, the problems of runaway, unaccountable international institutions will not garner support from a Tea Party perspective. These large organizations that the US contributes the bulk of the funding to can expect either a massive draw-down and demands for accountability (via accounting firms, audits, and some form of Inspector General) or be completely de-funded and withdrawn from. If international institutions shirk the accountability, then they get the de-funding. Even if they become more accountable, they lose a lot of funding as they had to be told to be accountable in the first place and didn't hold themselves accountable to all who contributed to them. This can be an expected fallout of similar moves on the National side against unaccountable bureaucracies (ex. Federal Reserve, Fannie, Freddie, Sallie, Ginnie, Dept of Agriculture, Education, Energy, etc.). Thus what will come of that is something that looks far closer to 19th century US foreign policy and not like post-Theodore Roosevelt foreign policy (his examination of why international institutions that he originally favored are unworkable are in Chapter XV of his autobiography at The Gutenberg Project).

Thus limited funding for such institutions will be an outcome of a Tea Party foreign policy and those institutions will be very, very few and limited in nature. There will be no adoration for the multi-National organizations that create policies counter to the interests of the US, and they can expect to be cut off completely under a Tea Party driven foreign policy.

Limited Funding

The US federal budget system is flat broke and living beyond its means.

Foreign policy gets cut, drastically by a Tea Party based foreign policy as this is part of the domestic policy review.

Expect funding for Palestine, Turkey, China and a few other prime hostile Nations to be slashed. Everyone else will take a cut. Humanitarian aid funding may be retained, but nowhere near current levels, and they will concentrate into the 'boots on the ground, post-disaster' sort of aid and not longer term, systemic aid. AIDS funding for Africa will dry up, as the way to stop the spread of AIDS is well known: have safe sex with very few partners. Sorry if that sounds moralistic, but that is how the disease is spread - via unsafe sex with lots of partners. If people can't figure this one out at this late date, then no amount of funding will help them to stop it... and what aid that does 'help' is limited to a very few cases and might be better served via charitable organizations with targeted tax cuts for them.

Foreign aid can also be expected to shift from the cash venue to the products venue: products are harder to pilfer, designated as to type and delivery point, easier to account for, harder to sell on the black market and generally help the US economy via production and delivery of same. Cash quickly ends up in the pockets of intermediaries and kleptocrats, and that lack of accountability or 'wink and a nod' to corruption will be curbed if not ended entirely. No good is done by letting leeches and skimmers siphon off aid from those who need it, and if they threaten us with arms, they announce they are our enemy.

We will no longer fund our enemies or the enemies of our friends. We don't have the funds to afford that and can't afford that now, if we would but think about it.

Overseas Military Presence

Outside of active war zones, there will only be a few logistics and supply bases for those zones left under a Tea Party foreign policy. If a deep ally wishes to have a base to co-train with us, that is one thing and we should honor them with a base and training with them, although it should be a training base.

Pragmatically this means that Germany, Italy, Spain, South Korea, Japan and a few other places will suddenly have empty lots available.

Those who are fighting enemies that are our enemies can expect continued help. That means Colombia against FARC, Philippines against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (and various others), Iraq against al Qaeda and generally anyone else against al Qaeda and their offshoots as well. Help means logistics help, INTEL help, and even boots on the ground if necessary.

In the Af-Pak region there will need to be some recognition that the reason for the conflict there dates back to the British Empire attempting to divide the Pashtuns, and then when they left that border being left without agreement as to where it should be. The resolution can be brokered locally, but must be done to finally settle matters there once and for all. Pakistan is unwilling to police the NWFP and other Pashtun lands properly, Afghanistan can't achieve that with their limited economy on their side of the border, and the Pashtuns haven't been able to figure out what they actually want on their own, either. At some point the Pashtuns have to be asked what they actually want, get everyone to stop having a conniption fit if they can actually make a decision, and then get some agreement that leaves no one satisfied but actually gets some understanding and agreement to talk it out without pulling in foreign terrorists, thugs, and killers. It may not be peace as we know it, but that is close to peace as they know it.

A cheap and easy way to go after those who think Private War is fun to wage against the US is to authorize Privateers. Privateers are not mercenaries: no one pays them to do their work. Privateers are accountable under military codes for their military work as they fly our flag for their actions. They are authorized by Congress, and the President can call upon them for work against foes identified by Congress. What they can do is grab stuff from and offer reprisals to our enemies, with both being glamorous but the grabbing offering the bread and butter part of the work. Privateers are in the business of taking support from those who are not Nations in proportion they have done to the US on a 1:1 basis. What they are authorized to grab they can then sell at auction, and that often goes beyond the material, itself, and includes the shipping and transport vessels of such material bound for our enemies. This is a low cost, high benefit operation to the US government and is a wonderful way to get those over-age for military work who still want to go after our enemies a way to do so. No one pays them to do that - they volunteer. They can die for this privilege. Which means they will not risk their lives foolishly. If it sounds like a strange version of the Repo Man, that is because that is what Privateers are. You can fear the police, but you dread the Repo Man.

Remember: thrift and low expenditures by the government drive decisions.

Trade

Lots of it with friends and allies.

No subsidies to any of it for homegrown businesses and talking with our friends and allies about reducing their subsidies to their homegrown competitors. Free people should be willing to play on a field where governments do not dictate outcomes and that governing systems determine competitiveness. This helps to reform all systems involved as free people will identify problems and seek remediation for them based on a value of absolute human liberty to prosper by one's own hand.

Perhaps a minor set of tariffs to Nations not liking us over much, but liking to trade with us a lot - they can pay for the privilege of not being a friend or ally, just a trade partner. This would not be enough to discourage trade, but enough to show that the value of human liberty has a direct cost to it. And it would be a way to get some income into the treasury outside of all other taxes.

The understanding is that trade amongst free peoples reinforces them, builds them up and enables them to exercise their liberty with greater strength for the benefit of all. Trade does not reform Nations: decades of trade with China has not changed the repressive nature of the system there and only moved it from a form of Communism to a form of Fascism. Neither form of government sees individual liberty as a good thing, represses it whenever it goes against the State, and will not set up humane laws for working conditions for its population, thus creating some of the worst working conditions on the planet that make the old sweatshops seem positively benign in comparison. We do like the cheap goods from China because China values human life so cheaply. Thus a minor but constant rebuke is in order, and even at 1% it would be minor, at 10% it would be noticeable but not impact prices too much in the US for all goods coming from China.

The American people do not support tyrants, dictators or systems made to repress the individual via the State. That is the point of the movement at home and becomes one abroad, as well.

Topics of Human Rights

As all humans are created equal, they deserve to create their own government to reflect their values and such government should not trample on the rights of its population in the areas of liberty, freedom of speech, freedom of worship and the absolute right of self-defense.

Small arms treaties have not, noticeably, changed the number of conflicts around the globe. Getting some agreement to stopping the creation of landmines is only partially successful as it is not a universal ban and as technology improves the ability of devices to discriminate between targets increases, not decreases. The old 'step on it and it goes boom' sort is a danger to everyone. One that senses mass, has a sensor system to determine the nature of who is stepping on it, and that automatically defuses itself if left in place for too long is of less danger to individuals immediately after a war zone shifts and becomes inert in days, not decades. As that is a weapons class of war, not for personal self-defense, it shows little applicability to items that do apply directly to self-defense: small arms.

In that realm the US is not a leader, but somewhere far back in the pack with Nations like the Czech Republic actually freely allowing and propagating arms in its civilian population that would shock many in the US Elite Establishment. Automatic weapons are far more common, per capita, there as they recognize the danger from authoritarian and totalitarian government having experienced the Nazi and Communist systems up-close and personal for decades. While requiring a permit to own fully automatic weapons, that is not a burden to the Czech people as they encourage individuals to understand and use responsibly the small arms necessary to defend themselves from tyrants and dictators. Bans on firearms are meant to make a people subservient to, and unable to resist, their government. Thus the UK has gone from a gun ban to those now pushing the idea that all paychecks should go to the State, first, and the State determine if you should get anything from your work. That took years to do, not decades, and the slippery slope of believing that arms are the problem of criminality and thuggish behavior belies the fact that criminals and thugs then see more people as victims and the government sees their citizens as serfs who work for the State.

This topic, currently not a part of US foreign policy, would be expected to appear as the Tea Party has a strong affiliation with personal liberty, self-reliance and self-control. There is no fear of an armed citizen as they exercise the positive, natural right to say that they will not be a victim to anyone from a street thug to their own government.

Freedom of worship expectations would re-orient US foreign policy more towards its 19th century roots and expectations of other Nations to follow the good example of Westphalian behavior of religious tolerance and the State not telling people what to believe. That only ends in death and destruction, while religious tolerance creates a more civil, more active society willing to work out what is best for all citizens and still uphold the common morals so as to have a civil society. Government cannot create morals in its people, but it can join with them to reinforce the concept that bad moral behavior that endangers the public has a high civil price to pay to it. As a Nation we expect to see basic human liberty to talk about these things, protect oneself from government turned thug, and get to a rational set of laws amenable to all via their sparsity to be the good result of religious toleration.

As the modern age has made a distributed system of communications available, protecting the right of free speech means that a free and unfettered medium of communication must be upheld as a basic part of our human rights. That goes from verbal speech to ink on paper to electromagnetic waves going from broadcast stations to radios and tvs to digital electronic exchanges over a shared inter-networked environment. The liberty of speech is scale free and there is no scale level where it needs to be made 'fair' or restricted or censored. As the Tea Party uses all media to exchange ideas and build a common ideal set, the extreme good of this human liberty is seen. Having distracters, dissenters and discourse allows for the marketplace of ideas to test out new concepts and put them through the wringer before they can get a food-hold in society as a whole. Good ideas cannot be grown in a monocultural garden, as the first idea to threaten the monoculture will bring it down. A robust, interactive environment providing safe haven for discourse for all peoples means that good ideas with merit will gain acceptance, and those without merit or that threaten human liberty will be discarded. As a people we welcome this free and unfettered system of communications as one of the greatest goods and highest liberties we have and we should seek to extend it to all mankind in all its venues. Luckily that is low cost as we don't have to provide printing presses, broadcast hardware and receivers, nor computers to anyone, just make the discourse systems open to the interchange of ideas. That is what human liberty and freedom of speech is all about and 'fairness' is in the eye of the beholder.

Those systems unwilling to tolerate freedom and liberty for their own citizens are enemies of these ideals and should understand that by the way we treat them... or don't treat them as the case may be. The greatest good can be done not by trying to 'help' citizens in Nations abrogating their basic rights, but in ignoring those systems and working to undermine their legitimacy so the people in that Nation can change it. We can advocate for human liberty everywhere, safeguard our own and show why those two must be done and let others know there is a cost to not allowing human liberty for one's own people in the way of our not working with you on anything.

In general, following the dictum of 'how they come to power, so shall they rule' allows for some insight in a people that don't want to be ruled and who want equal treatment by their government to all citizens as their touchstone. As we apply it at home, so it will be done abroad. The concepts of thrift, that is low expenditures for high returns, equality of treatment amongst equals, showing that there is a real world cost to not applying principles of human liberty and rights to the population of Nations, and keeping out of entangling alliances and slimming down the military so as not to be the 'World's Policeman' are all seeking to enhance liberty and freedom at home, keep government small and effective, and spread the blessings of liberty beyond our shores.

We used to do that, way back when.

And that part of our outlook now appears to be returning in full-throated voice, with this last year or so being the voice preparation for the choir that is about to take center stage and move the old fashioned 'wings' concept out of the theater. Too long have these voices been missing from the American Stage, and now they are about to change the way we look at ourselves, how the world looks at us and how we look at the world.

All of that starts with you.

The Winds and the Cold Civil War

H/t to Instapundit pointing me at this article by Ed Driscoll on Dispatches from The Cold Civil War.

One of the strange ideas that has been promulgated in science fiction is that of alternate history.  These are historical reviews that postulate the age old question of: 'What would happen if this happened instead of what did happen?'  Normally this goes into the realm of warfare, but postulations of various sorts on society, technology, and just who dies and doesn't die at inopportune times, and then postulating a 'counter-factual' speculation of what would have happened if the events were different.  This is, actually, something we should recognize as a way to examine our ideas on historical thought: if our ideas hold up in a broader set of circumstances with well founded postulations based on intrinsic attitudes, personalities and events, then we can have some assurance we are looking at history correctly.  If, however, our ideas do *not* stand up, then we must examine them as being based on something less stable than accurate analysis, and put them aside.

I enjoy that area of fiction because it does allow authors to explore these areas and put forward that our understanding of what people do and why they do it is not so well founded.  This does have a strange set of cross-overs, however, in those postulating the 'people using machines to time travel' idea and meddling in history.  That derives from the examination that so many events were extremely 'knife edge' and many counter to the way we understand human behavior, that the only way to explain them is for someone from the future intervening in non-obvious ways to change the course of events.  What that does, however, is question our own time and timeline which has obviously been rescued from things like the Cuban Missile Crisis, a change in aircraft and aerospace outlook in the mid-1930's, an operative willing to assassinate Hitler in 1936 because he was seen as a threat to Europe and told not to do it by his UK superiors, Wilhelm acceding to British wishes on a rail line in the Ottoman Empire and not building it, to some lovely questions of what would happen if King Gustavus Adolphus had not died in 1632, if Eric the Red had gotten fed up with being pestered about converting to Christianity... or if Justinian were a bit more competent.  These are endless speculations and really quite fun as you take society, personality, capability, trade and other matters into account.  One slight change can change all of history, and really ruin ideas of 'mass movement' concepts of history as well as demolish the 'lone individual one' as the flux up and down the scale is continuous:  all levels play in history, just as they do in real life.

If we are a timeline saved, most recently being that flock of ducks that nearly triggered WWIII into a hot war back in the 1980's, then we seem to have been forgotten in this timeline as no real interventions have happened while society decays into pointless political bickering.  My personal speculation is that this is now the 'Stuck On Stupid' universe, because all the competent ones either finished humanity off or are in some other continua having a good laugh about those of us left in this universe.

It is a form of ongoing joke... but it has a point: if you want to be rescued, then do keep the society that is both resilient enough and has enough good individuals in it to do that rescue.  Never depend on just one end of the scale and expect salvation... like the Roman people did as the Empire decayed.  Soon the barbarians were seen as a solution, and civilization fell again.

One of the few pieces that I've written that has gotten any notice at all, is that on The Long Term Consequences of Defeat.  In that I take a look at the actual cost of the Vietnam War's aftermath to those we left behind because we didn't mean it when we said we would support a friend and ally.  Contrary to the erudite sniffing, the 'Domino Effect' did take place and reached a natural stopping point at the sea.  To get there it killed tens of millions who's only crime was being political enemies of the victors and those who followed their politics.  Pol Pot's multi-year killing spree started out with anyone who was a threat to his regime and could publicize what was to come:  journalists, writers, editors, advertisers.  Soon it encompassed all of the intelligentsia.  Then Pol Pot realized that if you *looked* smart you must *be* smart, so wearing glasses was punishable by death.  If you looked pretty, that was uncommon and a threat, and so you died.  That is 'identity politics' taken to its natural conclusion.  The greater aftermath would cause more death to other people on this Earth and the USSR, which had been pushed to the brink of collapse was given breathing space to try and recover.  Fully 25% of their economy was devoted to keeping the US embroiled in Vietnam, while the US spent 6 to 8% out of a much, much, much larger economy.  And even though it was not the US that would pay for that, those who would pay had no defense against a superpower bent on domination.

Those who wanted out of Vietnam have not answered for their ill considered ideas and ideals, and the blood that pools around their feet, a gift of their politics and outlook.

As I've pointed out utilizing a slightly different look in one of the topics on alt-history: History is not inevitable.  There is no inevitable outcome to any action taken, no great graced pathway to perfection for humanity.  If 15% of Europe died during the 30 years war fighting about how best to worship The Prince of Peace, then the millions and hundreds of millions dead to the worship of socialism and its noxious off-shoots in the 20th century are as bad if not worse.  Both had taken paths that their leaders and many of their people, but by no means a majority, felt was 'inevitable'.  Growing up in a family of 'scientific socialists' that actually bothered to analyze Marx and decry the uses his works were put to by others, finally led me to the realization that much of socialism is delimited by its historical founding and the attitude of that era seeing an up and coming 'end state' of humanity.  While that first article is haphazard, the next I put out on the topic is more to the point and examines the well known Theory and Practice Conundrum when applied to socialism.  This is a well understood concept in the areas of science and engineering and goes like this: 

In theory there is no difference between theory and practice.

In practice there is.

This is where not only the idealists stumble, but those following an idealistic 'perfect course' of 'just doing everything right' and you will get to the promised land.  Thus we get lovely 'theories' backed by linguistic sleight of hand, that postulates all sorts of weird, nice things, and then falls on its face when actually tried.  Changing the definition of, say, gravity, does not remove it as a force in the universe.  Calling all those who disagree with you politically as 'imbeciles', 'racists', 'haters', 'dumb', etc. does not make them so, and actually calls attention to one's own limited capability to grasp humans as individuals beyond the 'conceptual' stage.

Of the most ill thoughts purported is the concept that if you just 'regulate' things and just 'make laws' that everything will magically alter and change to fit those 'regulations' and 'laws'.  The cartoon I remember growing up poked fun at this in There Ought To Be A Law.  Thus driving slowly in the passing lane should not be an anti-survival characteristic or an attempt to test the braking system of that 50 ton truck going faster than you are, but *illegal*.  In theory you can do that, but in fact its insane to try and creates unnecessary legislation and law that then gets exploited to raise money via unequal enforcement of that law.  Save when someone doing the act is tossed from the gene pool by their own idiocy.

In fact, no, there SHOULDN'T BE A LAW for everything.  What that creates is trying to live ones life by having it DICTATED TO YOU BY GOVERNMENT.  Even worse than trying to ban 'hate speech' is the nefarious idea that you can actually DEFINE it in any meaningful way, shape or form.  What those people who push for speech codes are doing is seeking to change YOU by castigation by that role of government known as the Punisher.  That is not called 'Progressive' or 'modern' or 'free thinking': it is, by definition, Authoritarian.

The activity of trying to transform language by shifting its basis to suit political ideology while attempting to retain older emotional import is also described as speech, itself, devolves into meaningless babble.  George Orwell called it 'Duckspeak' and that is where those who feel the need to change well known and historically relevant ideas and phrases have gone to the past 60 years.  Racism is an active, not passive affair: you must take activities to show you are racist, not have it imputed by some cryptology that imputes clear meaning is 'tinged' with overtones. 

If you just squint hard enough to see it.

Squinting that hard closes your eyes.

At that point you are replacing what is actually said with what you WANT to BELIEVE is said.  That is a fantasy ideology that utilizes that conception of things.  On the links to the side of the page I have a link to Lee Harris as he examines another group with a fantasy ideology:  al Qaeda.  Their leaders believed that if they did a few acts to demonstrate their resolve that the mystical would occur and the US would fall.  Their strange takes on economics is one of the weirdest things ever written and is nearly impossible to figure out.  It is called The Management of Savagery and it is the al Qaeda Big Book of Strategy.  It is every bit as fantastical as anything spouted by the Left these days, save that al Qaeda wants big, bloody footprints and is finding that they aren't coming so easily these days, while those on the Left always say they want to avoid them and end up with the pools of blood at their feet. 

That is fantasy ideology: when what you think will happen does not happen as you want it to by taking the actions you do.

By not recognizing that failure and addressing the ideology ITSELF an individual delves deeper into fantastical thought and becomes less attached to this actual, real world even when forming up 'real world communities' that can never bring themselves to address the real live actual reality without trying to see it through a pre-broken prism of politics.  And then, when hateful attitudes are taken to others and attributed to that cryptographic word play that they think is the 'real meaning' instead of just reasoning based on the words being spoken, then we hear rationalizations as to why an individual's own personal abhorrent attitudes are actually 'acceptable' because those that they have re-interpreted are 'worse'.  At some point the concept of reasoning from understanding has turned into rationalization of horrific activity, to the point where those seeking to break down society on a global basis are lionized, and those trying to uphold community made without 'community organizers' are demeaned and belittled.

That is not healthy for individuals, for society, for politics and can only lead to ill ends for all of them if those individuals can try to exercise their fantasies upon a larger population.

I've spent the last couple of years going through terrorism, organized crime, corrupt politics, unsafe banking, political payoffs, and the growing tide of authoritarianism in society.  Through that I've seen the deep interconnections of all of these with the power elite in society on all sides: political, economic, criminal, law enforcement, military.  I've done long and hard research into what terrorism actually *is* as an activity - not our modern attempt to pussyfoot around with it, but the actual activity itself shorn of all politics and religion.  It is a damned surprising conclusion as so many people think that this is something new under the sun while, in fact, it is as old as the very first huts to go up in a village and those villagers banding together to seek common defense.

It is called: Private War.

And the founders knew about it, and placed the powers to address it in the US Constitution in the only reasonable way possible: extract equal measure from those practicing it as they have inflicted on YOU.  That goes back to Grotius, but the actual concept goes back thousands of years.  By trying to condone it, those that do so are joining in reveling in tearing down civilization.  The very same one that keeps them alive.

 

I really don't know which is worse:

Having 'Conservatives' who can't be bothered to actually read and understand such documents as keeps civilization going,

or

'Liberals' who are actively trying to deny that such basic foundational concepts exist.

 

It ain't good no matter which way you slice the politics.  It is still bologna.

Which is worse?  Those who claim to care about the founding and then don't understand it? Or those that claim to be so 'intelligent' that they can't be bothered to do any research AT ALL?

Lets have a Cold Civil War of Morons!

Or, as my quip goes: Morons need Lessons.

Yup, the research is hard!  I have catalepsy and constant exhaustion, to the point where actually reading anything becomes difficult.  So I get three or four coherent hours a day, more if I'm lucky.  And I do not spend all of it reading and thinking, but lots of it in a dulled state of awareness.  Only in the past year have I been able to do some pleasure reading... and that only because I had pored through so much of the necessary basics for our civilization that I finally had a state of awareness slowly come back to me.

What's your excuse?

To those who point to all the reading of the Holy Bible or all the lovely polemics of Democratic Underground or traipsing for the nth time through The Communist Manifesto:  could you fit in de Vattel's Law of Nations in there, say a chapter on alternating weekends for a half-hour or so?  Maybe Grotius' Laws of War and Peace and his Laws of the Sea?  How about Blackstone's Commentaries on the Common Law of England?  The Peace of Westphalia?  Because if we are so much god-damned *better* and *advanced* than our founders, the least we could do is READ the stuff THEY DID to understand what they put down.  Once you run across a few variants of the start of the Declaration of Independence, you begin to realize that it isn't such a revolutionary document but an encapsulation of nearly four centuries of thought on those matters.  That, to me, is horrifically awe-inspiring that Jefferson with editing help from Franklin could distill so much work into such a small space.  It isn't that the ideals were revolutionary, it was their application and quick and cogent summation assuming that later readers would know where they got their inspiration FROM.

That is what you get from looking at those works: a deep and profound appreciation of just what it takes to step away from barbarism and into an accountable society of free people.

My various 'Winds' articles on how this has been building the past year or so does coincide with that of Mr. Lileks and others who started then.   They encompass that strange feeling that we are, well and truly, on our own and about to royally screw things up in a way that will leave them unable to be unscrewed.  When looking at The two party trainwreck, we see how behaviors coincide between elected officials to yield a poor result: the two party system has stabilized on the lowest common denominator of 'what it takes to get re-elected' then use the power of the office to sinecure that position.  That becomes a joint piece of work regardless of party due to the type of powers held by the parties and those in office.  If you want to 'reform the system' you need to distribute democracy down to the local level, as that was the basis of the founding and there were complaints of 'concentration of power' even back then.

What appears are 'factions' within each party, which used to be a set of coherent voting blocks.  Looking at the Republican Party, my views on the factions and their fallouts examines that the three main factions are each subdivided between 'Progressive' concepts and 'Traditionalist' concepts:  if you want to use the power of government to enforce any moral behavior or code of activity then that is 'Progressivism'.  The 'Traditionalists' want nothing, whatsoever, to do with handing government more power as it is a Punisher, and you don't really like to give more power to Punishers.  A necessary Punisher, yes, which means you keep it restricted and accountable for the very few things you want it to do.

Original 'Progressivism' brought about the noxious plants of flourishing communism and fascism, as others took up the cause with vigor, but those societies had already had some start in those from their own political lineage.  Adding in American views on how to consolidate power to government led to tens of millions dead globally in the 20th century and America retaining the foundation of the 'Progressive' views.  Those views morphed in the last half of the 20th century and became a form of politics that shifted from global socialism of the Marxist stripe to Transnational Progressivism of the authoritarian 'government knows better than you, or else' stripe.  Transnational Progressivism, like its Socialist predecessor, has two strains:  Right and Left.  Both seek to divide society and put in an intelligentsia 'elite' group after using categorical divisions placed upon Groups of individuals.  Both seek to have individuals go into Groups by skin color, ethnicity, gender, religion and other non-personal determined parts of an individual's life, like social standing at birth via economic capability of one's parents.

Those two sections break down into the Left Transnational Progressivists seeking a break-down via race, ethnicity and 'intelligence' with economics being used as a negative determinant, and the Right Transnational Progressivists who want to place individuals into permanent economic classes and dissolve Western Liberal Society under the guidance of 'intelligent global economic views'.  These both germinated in the 1960's while a third form of Transnationalism also started, and it is the worst of horrific triplets.  It goes by the name of Transnational Terrorism and currently has a religious component that dominates in the realm of Islam.  That outlook seeks to use religion as the primary determinant with the 'believers' getting the chance to have rights and everyone else getting the short end of the stick.  All of these join up in wanting the destruction of Western Liberalism and Individual Rights.  Whenever you hear about 'group based' analysis, you are looking at someone doing a Transnationalist analysis, trying to engender differences by Groups so that there is an affiliation of behavior by Group and a treatment of Individuals by Group... and to hell with personal accountability.  The Transnational Left thinks it has its winning hand via the Saul Alinsky/Bill Ayers route of indoctrination via education, Transnational Right looks to impose economic efficiency via organs like the Wall Street Journal and its anti-Nationalist views on illegal immigration and liquidating culture on a regional basis and utilizes the power of capital growth and wealth accumulation to attract its adherents, and the Transnational Terrorists just want to kill you if you disagree with what they do, and rule by intimidation and terror.

This sort of deal now puts Traditionalist Conservatives and Go-along, Get-along Jacksonians in the same boat, a position that has never been occupied due to the older Individualism vs. Society Necessary outlooks, where the stresses between wanting Individualism to reign over society and those pointing out that Society creates the space for Individualism have been at logger-heads since the founding.  Now they are in the same boat by circumstance and the ability of Traditionalist Conservatives to support Society Minimal standards and Jacksonians to push Individual Accountability views now must find common accord as no one else wants them in the Transnationalist Camps.  And yet there is overlap between them, and always has been, and it is the exact, same overlap between the Pioneers and Explorers, and First Settlers.  Someone needs to ensure that wilderness is understood enough so that society can flourish and be protected, and that common job of ensuring the wilderness doesn't overgrow society falls heavily on these two outlooks as NO ONE ELSE wants to do those jobs.

These two areas of culture have overlapped and intergrown in the 40 years since the Jacksonians were read out of the Democratic Party and now form 'Polarized America'.  Those trendlines are important and grossly overlooked in the Red/Blue conceptualization of America.  There are those who have bemoaned that this will be the 'ruining of America' when those who stick to what works will be seen as backward compared to their 'more advanced' urban cousins.  And yet it is that same grouping of Traditionalists and Jacksonians that are encroaching on the Urban centers in this land known as Suburbia and Exurbia.  The Red/Blue divide masks the great Interstate Bypass Divide, where any city large enough to get an Interstate Bypass can delineate its political views into Urban/Transnationalist and Suburban/Traditionalist and Jacksonian.

And that is the Battleground of the Cold Civil War: those who want to stay in cities with all of its lovely cultural artifacts and those who want to create good culture to sustain their outlooks on the world.  One is centralized and imposed and adores cities and full blown top-down control structures, and the other is decentralized, lateral and allows an individualist stamp to be put on one's life so that one's values can be sustained.  The Urban regions are trying to grow outwards, but have an unsustainable population ethos of 'two children being a drain is all you can afford to have' and 'sustainable growth': both of which mean stagnation of culture.  Jacksonians and Traditionalists see children as a great boon to families, that finances can be stretched to increase coverage while nominally living with lower living standards, and that one makes growth for themselves and sees no need for growth based on productivity to be 'sustainable' outside of sustaining one self and one's family.

Often those battle lines are hazy, and there are sections of rural America that enjoys the largesse of federal handouts, just as there are still some Urban Black neighborhoods that disdain criminal gangs and support sustainment of self and family above all other things while creating a good community in doing so.  If you have a hand out to receive from the public coffers you find it very hard to give yourself a hand up to a better life.  That is the Traditionalist Conservative view of creation of society by doing good deeds and living a good life, and it forms the basis for individualism in America.

That division is one between wanting to be absorbed into the world and disappear into a polyglot of humanity ruled by government, and those seeking to create good lives and accountable government and help those that agree with us on that basis for a better world.  The first has no standards, save destroying anything that allows individuals to achieve and wanting there to be a quick and easy system of prejudice with a handbook to tell you how to treat anyone else based on their color, gender, religion or ethnic background.  The other holds standards to one self, one's family, one's society and government so that each are held accountable and NONE have the chance to run roughshod over liberty and freedom, and working with those who support both liberty and freedom.

The first is authoritarian based and is seeking to found a new Empire of Global Discrimination with a death toll that will be unmatched by any previous authoritarian State as this will be a Global Empire.

The second is the coalescing of Free People to support their liberty and freedom via minimal accountability and hold the State down with our hands around its neck to keep it from doing anything more than the bare minimum to protect us as we depend on our good nature for charity and distrust government to ever be 'good' or 'do good'.

 

As I see it those are the 'battlelines' in the Cold Civil War as they have been drawn up.

And the people voting with their feet?

I doubt that they are the ones seeking more government.  They are the oppressed who have been told to shut up, or else.  They are the ones who have walked away from liberal democracy as it has turned authoritarian, rigid and unaccountable.

That is the Majority of America.

That is the way the population broke down when the Revolutionary War started and before the blood started to flow.

The authoritarians always resort to the force of the State to put down rebellion and start fights to divide their opponents.

And the Jacksonian credo is: "We did not start this fight.  But we sure, as Hell, will FINISH IT."

 

Welcome to the 21st century, America.

Let us hope the beliefs of the 20th don't kill us off.

Brought to you by A Citizen of the Republic

The water through his hands

Back on 05 SEP 2008 I wrote about giving Sen. McCain time to show that he understood what it was that Gov. Palin was about and that he comprehended what his campaign could actually do.  As I pointed out then, his tactical outlook is very good, but his knowledge of strategy and logistics is awful - that goes beyond the military, but to how to run a political campaign.  I even utilized a sports metaphor post so that people could understand those differences, between mere tactics and strategy.  While my postings have been on the decline, my commentary at a site or two have basically summed up my feelings a month on.

I will start with a response to a posting by Mr. Z on the 'bailout crisis' after the first bailout bill did not pass and the sky did not fall nor did the world plunge into a 'depression'.  All errors in syntax, spelling, grammar and logic left in place for the amusement of the citizenry:

I refuse to have Congress bailed out of its insane ideas on the economy. This is not just the fault of Freddie, Fannie, ACORN, La Raza but also that of the Democratic Party and their willing help from the Republican Party for going on 30 years. Did you see how many Republicans *did* 'cross the aisle' in the spirit of 'bipartisanship'?

And got their butts handed to them by the other side of the aisle?

Those are more than just RINOs: they are idiots, fools and willing helpers in this mess. I damned well don't want any 'bipartisanship' as it means - hand over what the Democrats want and cry about it afterwards.

Let these damned things fail and then REPEAL the CRA and all legislation that puts the government INTO the home loan business. It is a long-term failure and so open to abuse that it is NOT a 'public good'. And I would seriously start looking at just what has been handed over to the Fed and SEC as they have been pipsqueaks in their duty to the American people. If these are supposed to be the stewards of the economy, then it is time to seriously look at turning their jobs over to people interested in it. Which isn't the federal government, apparently.

I've had it with this inanity... I don't want any more 'government help' for anyone, or 'government protection' beyond equal enforcement of the law, keeping our borders safe and ensuring threats of the foreign and domestic sort don't destroy the place. Government can't do this job well or effectively just like our founders TOLD US.

The 'spirit of bipartisanship' died when George McGovern decided to throw open the doors of his party after welcoming in the radicals and leftists.  As he now correctly points out, he opened the doors and people started to evacuate the room.  Before that 'bipartisanship' meant being strong on defense, standing up to the USSR and doing everything possible to still keep a vibrant economy even with the overhead cost of the first two.  The great irony is that Democrats were protesting a war *started* by President Kennedy and continued by President Johnson, and they would then turn on those in the party who were 'bipartisan' in that support and betray their Party and their Country all to the tune of State Control over the lives of inidividuals as the 'State knows better' what to do. 

Hey!  Whattabout that war thingie?  Why didn't it know 'what to do better' THEN?

Yeah, they turned pacifist authoritarian, seeking to undermine the Nation's resolve to supporting a government a President and Congress had asked the people to support.

Sen. McCain still wants to live in the pre-McGovern era... the JFK era... the era of 'Scoop' Jackson which would die with him after his press conference on KAL 007.  That era was already winding down when he died, and his death marks the turning point inside the Democratic Party towards vicious partisanship aimed and pro-State and pro-Government agendas to 'help people'.

That era of 'bipartisanship' is dead.

It is as dead as a doornail.

And it isn't coming back.

That is the critical message when looking at 'polarized America' and it is missed by the 'bipartisanship' hawkers:  Americans no longer want 'bipartisanship' and have, instead, voted in Gridlock to achieve their ends.  Whenever the Left ramps up its rhetoric, demeans a politician they don't agree with on the most vicious and childish of terms, their single, solitary goal is to drive voters from voting.  Of course that begins to backfire when they see politicians that they do like doing the same things that they criticize others for, and then don't have the honesty, bravery or courage of their convictions to actually APPLY THEM across the board.

Anyone who wants you to 'rally around the President' no matter who is elected has not faced up to the partisan, vicious tenor of politics started and continued on by the Left in America.  If we still have more civil politics than other Nations who have gone under to this disease, the disease of forgetting that society creates government and supports it and not the other way around, it is because of the Great Interstate Bypass Divide in America, that I talked about in Sen. McCain's second chance.  That is a major problem for the Left as their natural root-base is the same as Socialism in Europe: urban centers.  And America is inherently a suburban, small town and rural Nation.

So, when Peggy Noonan sounds the great trumpet of 'bipartisan support' for whoever is elected next, I have a problem.  Where the hell are those on the Left willing to do that NOW?  Mr. Z looked at that and lets just say that Peggy Noonan has lost several notches in my relatively low estimation of her:

A rant follows, read at your own risk.

Say, Peggy, when are you going to tell the Liberals to get behind more conservative Presidents? And if you have asked, why don't they do it?

Welcome to the land of 'bipartisanship' where *your* side gets to give in each and every time to be 'nice' to the authoritarians. Good luck on that, I tellya.... I've had it with WFB conservatives standing athwart history yelling 'stop!' and then saying: 'well, if you won't I'll just follow along...' Gots a few of those left in the RINO party? We have a lot of those RINOs in VA, where they are always 'reaching across the aisle' to get kicked in the teeth and then in the ass. They NEVER learn. They are not for a party, not for principles and wholly out for themselves.

Stop worshipping at the shrine of WFB and RR. They didn't do what was necessary to say 'NO' and mean it by their actions. And TR was the one who STARTED all the intrusions of the State into your lives, so you might want to think a bit about the man and read his autobiography, and then realize that the powers he sought for the office went with the office and not the man... which he hated when he was on the receiving end of it.

So instead of being athwart history, how about: 'No further and its time to roll back the State as we have given it too damned much power over our lives.'? Because that is what good Presidents *do*... they see the need for limitations on power, veto legislation that goes beyond that, and then call for the repeal of those things infringing upon the rights of the States and the people. Yeah, I like TR, but I see the problems in what he did, how he did it and that he was honest enough to put those both forward to let history decide on him *without* rose colored glasses. That means I like and admire him as a man, see his shortcomings as a politicians and the problems he caused thinking that only good and worthy people will get to high office all the time. He ignored the founders to *our* peril, and lived to see power used wrongly in the hands of a successor.

It is very simple to tell the difference between those who hold themselves accountable and those who weasel out of their past. Which is why I see the decision to be made this cycle between the horrific and the detestable. Between a 'post-partisan' Fascist and a 'bi-partisan' Social Democrat... and I detest, utterly detest, Socialism. Both these guys want to put *more* power in the hands of the government which means Congress.

Can't the Kumbaya Konservatives see where this has gone over the past 90 years?

Sen. McCain has had nearly a *month* to storm Appalachia with Palin and he hasn't even *started*. He wants to 'reach across the aisle' to the metroweenies in the D party and ignores social and fiscal conservatism that strikes to the root of the D party holdings in Appalachia. Can you imagine how he is going to 'reform' the R party if he WINS? I can and am absolutely horrified at the prospect of either of these candidates 'winning'. Just how many more Specters and Grahams do you *want* in the R party, anyways? Because those are the types McCain will *support*. If McCain really backed conservative principles then Palin would have been running hard and non-stop through Appalachia and the Rust Belt and say 'screw the debates'.

He would have said 'screw this bailout, it is Congress' fault and I'm willing to take my share of the blame, but everyone in Congress gets a slice of humble pie, too.' And then call for the repeal of the CRA, Fannie and Freddie all in one bill. He could explain that we do not reward fiscal irresponsibility at the highest levels of government and the Nation will now take its licks for doing something insane through its elected representatives who caused this problem in the first place.
You know? A conservative? Small government? Accountable government? Lean government? Pointy end of the stick?

I would *vote* for that.

Bi-partisanship? Its Socialism with a smiley face to it.

The only good thing is even though McCain sucks like an Electrolux, Obama sucks like a Hoover... and they both suck in great gusts of wind and hot air. Which sucks more? Doesn't matter... they both suck.

I'm fed up with the rah-rah Republicans. And I detest, with a great loathing, the Democratic party.

I love my Nation. Our politicians are not worthy of holding any office. And that says much about us as a people.

I should really trademark Kumbaya Konservatives... but that would be mean spirited to the doofuses (doofii?) they embody in their Maverick RINOness.

Here's the deal: a party that can't even get candidates who actually back up the people in the party isn't much good.  The Democrats chose the easy way out of putting forward any Progressivist, Communist, Fascist, bomb-throwing anti-American, or absolute 'party first, country near the bottom of the list' individuals they can find, as long as they can say sweet words about 'helping you' as long as they get to tax the bejesus out of you for all the 'help' they want to give you... with your money.  They do, indeed, soak the rich, curb the economy, stop capital re-investment and generally work to keep the 'little guy' poor and dependant upon them.  And then reward their cronies for helping to do that and claim it really 'helped the little guy' when millions or tens of millions go to said cronies in no-performance sweetheart contracts.

So, when Mr. Z took up looking at the VP Debates and then Congress was looking to pass a worse bailout bill than the first, which stunk to high heaven so that angels passed out, well, lets just say that I was not enthused over Maverickness:

I, of course, have already said I would vote for Gov. Palin as she aligns more with my values and has more Executive experience than any of the House of Elder Emirs. I liked a few thing Reagan said, and very little of some of the things he did do and those things he *didn't* do that he said he would do. Ronald Reagan is not my touchstone: a good man, yes, but deeply flawed.

If the Republicans could support that shift in culture away from McCain and towards the blue collar to small business side and showing how they are all part of the same spectrum that is better served by small government, accountable government and lean government, then it would have a long-term winning proposition and break the stranglehold of the Democratic party in the Rust Belt and Appalachia. Sen. McCain is the unfortunate one who must see this, and he is blinded by decades of 'bipartisanship' to not see an ill-served community that is willing to hold to a small government ideal if it could now find a party to back that. I do have problems with Gov. Palin, but she is a step in the right direction and away from 'maverickism' and 'reformism'. Reforming government gets you large, inefficient and wasteful government to oversee those reforms... and then, soon, overseers for the overseers... and Congress being unaccountable and causing more 'reform'.

You cannot get from where we are to that path without, at some point, saying good-bye to 'reformers' and welcoming in those who will want small government and less government and more accountable government. And that is something that no Republican has *ever* done by carrying through their lovely words and actually cutting away at the damned government.

You do not get by on good ideas.

You do not get by in *not* instituting those good ideas.

You do not get by without putting lots of hard work in to make sure those ideas stick.

I can't vote for any of the Senators as they don't hold one conservative value that should be near and dear to all conservatism: showing up for work every day and putting in an honest day's work.

Not doing that is called: Elitist.

Voting in and accepting a 4-day work week for CONGRESS, as was done under Republicans is: Elitist. You gave good cover to the Democrats to move it down to a 3-day week.

Gov. Palin shows up for work every day, and so does her husband and they know it is tough when times get rough and you don't have a job to go to so as to do that.

If you can't even dare to espouse basic conservative ideals and hold your elected representatives to them, then *why* should anyone be impressed with your ideals?

You don't mean them.

I *do*, I *state them*, I hold *myself* to them even know when I am physically unable to do very much. I expect the exact, same thing from those I put down my vote for or they do not *get* my vote. That means that the slackluster Liberals get office positions so that they can get power to slack off and order others around to do their dirty work. That could be stopped by elected representatives holding to their ideals, and actually *working* at the damned jobs they *volunteered for* and *willingly*.

Gov. Palin winds hands-down with that. In spades.

The Senators?

Elitists, one and all.

You cannot roll-back Liberalism by claiming it is too tough to do so, and then slack off at the job and then start acting like them. You want to roll it back? Then elect people who will damned well stand up for a 5-day Congressional work week, who will work at least 8 hour days, and who will make sure that anyone who tries to slack off is noticed and put on record as such. The first person to do that will have a full time job in just doing *that*, but it will be a very, very, very good job. Count hours, name the names, and show how much these elected representatives don't give a damn about the common man.

That sort of culture can do this... not a party, but a culture. And that culture is one that has conservative ideals as its outgrowth, no matter how imperfect the persons are who are running. You will know they show up for work every day, don't slack off and force the Liberals to work *harder than they do* to get anywhere.

I can and will vote for that in a heartbeat.

Yup, willing to do the work of the Cthulhu ticket on this one: so that even if IT loses, IT wins.  At least straightforward and honest Chaos with intent towards Evil is something I can understand.

Sen. McCain has let the opportunity of his lifetime which would be to re-orient the Republican Party by creating a new coalition across the Nation to include the 'Rust Belt' and Appalachia slip through his fingers.  He could still do it... but he needs a strategist who can tell him that.  Luckily he chose Gov. Palin who knows how to fight and what to fight for politically better than HE DOES.  She doesn't want to pull out of Michigan (h/t: Allahpundit at Hot Air), which is now the worst run Democratic State in the Union as Louisiana got its wits about it and elected Gov. Jindal to pick itself up from that status.  She knows that what she is talking about that worked in Alaska will resonate and work in Michigan.

That does not mean that the campaign will *win* there, but this isn't about *just* this election cycle: it is about formulating a new basis for the Republican Party that includes working class poor, small businesses and slowly eases the role of big businesses to the side.  Because it is a recognition that the business of America is Small Business and those who work their hearts out for 6 and 7 days a week putting in long hours to create a better life for themselves, their community and their Nation.  Join those two up with messages of small government, less intrusive government, and protection from the fat cat predatory lawyers and Big Business and you can get a working coalition that will shift that entire region because those are the working ethics they utilize day by day.

Republican Elites in DC don't know how to talk to those people.

Gov. Palin can and does.

This isn't an election about 'Maverick Reform': Mavericks bust up the system, not go quietly to their stalls when pitchforks appear to prod them into confinement.  You can't get to smaller and more accountable government by adding on yet another god-damned layer of 'oversight' which distances the problem from your elected officials who are the root cause of it in the FIRST PLACE.  They don't want to be named or ever held accountable and want to create more government to insulate them from criticism on ANYTHING. 

'Reform' makes the problem WORSE.

Not better.

Because the ideas put forward have no place in a Constitutionally based Republic utilizing Representative Democracy that is harshly limited by Amendments IX and X to do much of anything to 'help people' beyond providing equal administration of the law and protecting the Nation.  Government can't take care of you... they can't even figure out how mortgage financing works because almost all of those Upon the Hill have someone else to pay their bills for them.

The job of a 'Maverick' is to find those incredibly weak areas and BUST THEM DOWN COMPLETELY so that a smaller and more well built and understood corral is put in its place.

How do I know that Sen. McCain was grandstanding?

He didn't call for the legislation to be repealed as the very first damned thing out of his mouth.

The absolutely horrific part is that he is, with all that, *still* better than Sen. Obama.

Can someone hand Gov. Palin a cluebat, please?  Because Sen. McCain needs to get over himself, realize he isn't the Progressive Theodore Roosevelt and actually start having some fun busting some legislation and government down.  Because the dream of Theodore Roosevelt has come to bad ends, no matter how well intentioned they were.

And that job will take work, and lots of it.

Some Republicans cheered at the idea that their Congresscritters would actually work, for a change.

Now they are 'mailing it in' and losing the few benefits of that work.

If you can't vote for someone who actually *will* do their job and *work at it*, then you will get what you deserve.  Because sloth is the realm of the Left - the land of giving in and giving up because the boot to your face is so much easier than standing up to 'reform' and the Nannystate they want.

When the Republican Party puts forward a 5-day workweek platform for Congress and throws anyone out of the party who votes against it, then I just might think they actually have a clue.

Because that would be a platform plank to beat people with.

And it would make an awfully nice cluebat, come to think of it.

Don't hold your breath.

Working for a living is a conservative ideal.

And a Jacksonian one.

The Three Factions of the Republican Party

While the Democratic Party has been endeavoring to factionalize its supporters over the past 30 years, amongst various racial, ethnic and social lines, and using the bonanza of government programs to pay off each in turn, the Republicans coalesced on a Cold War concept of uniting various strands of conservatism that started with Barry Goldwater and reached a peak with Ronald Reagan. Just as the Democratic Party has been working to factionalize itself, and the US population, the Republicans have slowly been decohering along differential lines in its three main strains. Today those three main strains are apparent at first glance at the leader board:

1) Security Conservatives (aka NeoCons or MilCons) - This faction represents the concept of American strength abroad as represented by its armed forces. Traditionally this has been the 'glue' that held the Republican Party together during the last stages of the Cold War, and has been one to justify expenses for the armed forces in securing the Nation abroad against attack. This faction has traditionally lacked three things to give it broader appeal within the Republican Party, on its own:

• Fiscal Policy - The ability to tax and spend has led this faction as the main deficit groups in the last stages of the Cold War only to be outdone by Democratically emplaced 'entitlements'.
• Social Policy - A tin ear has been turned, repeatedly, to the Social Conservatives inside the party in the justification that if you can't defend the Nation then there will be no society to defend.
• Domestic Policy - Here the SecCons fail greatly either assenting to liberal 'entitlements' so as to appease those groups or seeking Moderate or Liberal solutions to social problems so as to return concentration to Security.

Taken as a whole, this set of views plays out as: Security Hawks, Social Moderate to Liberal, and Fiscally Liberal.

2) Fiscal Conservatives - This group has represented the old 'Rockefeller Republicans' and big business faction in the Republican Party. Their money still holds sway in the party and they utilize that to push tax reform forward, but put little effort in following up concepts of minimizing government. So long as government 'growth' is moderate, the need to cut back on it is minimized. Additionally this group does not respect the need to enforce trade law abroad or security at home or abroad as its goal is the expansion of trade and wealth, not enforcing security. Thus it gets three main problems that does not allow it wider appeal:

• Social Policy - Like the SecCons this tends towards Moderate to Liberal, on the justification that society produces business and government is put in place to ensure that society governs the Nation. Further, expansion of trade is given as a problematic point of expanding liberty while, in fact, it just expands trade and not social ideals.
• Security Policy - As the military is a fixed asset concept, it needs only maintenance costs and is far too expensive to use abroad. A sound economy is driven by a large workforce, thus security is not a concern either at home or abroad to Fiscal Conservatives.
• Domestic Policy - The FiCons oppose expansion of 'entitlements' beyond the limits of what the economy can provide and would, generally, prefer more money to stay at home for investment rather than squandered by government. That said reduced security at home means seeking socially Moderate or Liberal plans to appease factions of the population.

Taken as a whole this group is: Fiscally Conservative, Socially Moderate to Liberal, and Security Moderate to Liberal.

3) Social Conservatives - This group represents the Socially Conservative section of society that falls into the categories of Christian Conservatives, or those adhering to the general precepts of Christianity in a fundamentalist form, and Traditionalist Conservatives who view government as the problem to society, not a solution to social ills. These two groups are having the largest shake-out at this time as the Christian Social Conservatives are making a play for big government ideals and taxation while the Traditionalist Conservatives are finding they cannot support those views and are walking elsewhere this election. The peace made between these groups in the late 1970's has held for decades, but the candidate choices are rending the Christian Conservatives from the Traditionalist Conservatives. These splits may be the ones that determine the course of the Republican Party as the Traditionalist Conservatives are, literally, threatening to walk out of the Party. Here is the schism going on:

• Social Policy - Christian Conservatives are pressing not only for a SoCon policy, but one that shifts beyond the accords made at the founding, such as separation of Church and State so as to have a Westphalian Nation that abides by that greatest of all Peace Treaties. Traditionalist Conservatives, adhering to values of hearth and home and keeping government *out* want nothing to do with Christian SoCons seeking big government backing for social policy. By putting forward and solidly backing a pro-interventionist, pro-big government candidate, Christian SoCons are walking out on the Traditionalists.
• Fiscal Policy - As with Social Policy, the Fiscal Policy of the Christian SoCons is now one that, to Traditionalists, is indistinguishable from Liberal ones. While there is some commonality with FiCons, the Traditionalists do not support expansive trade regimes without some societal backing and evidence that the message of liberty gets through via trade. To date the FiCons cannot show that, and their backing of non-national groups offends Traditionalists. Christian SoCons do seek some common cause with the SecCons, as their fiscal views on spending, although not on programmatics, tend to run together. If SecCons move towards a more Christian Conservative view, but keep the expansive taxing and spending systems so that military provisions are made, there can be some accord here, although SecCons have not had much to do with Christian SoCons due to larger problems of selling policy Nationally.
• Security Policy - Here there is some accord to SecCons, but there are limits that Traditionalists see on the use of force by the Nation. Traditionalists do not hew to an expansionist military policy and prefer policing and ensuring that few wars are had and that they are completed. Christian SoCons also see the need for few wars, due to matters of faith, but for protection of home via policing, this is only done in social enforcement venues. Of the splits over immigration, that of Christian SoCons and Traditionalist SoCons is the greatest as the Christians view those coming in as potential converts while the Traditionalists see them as not only law breakers but general scofflaws. This basic accord that had been going on here to generally look for a 'solution' has come to nothing for two decades.

This group, by being in a schismatic mode is splitting along Fiscal and Security lines with the Christians, by and large, ending up on the Liberal end of Fiscal and Security issues and the Traditionalists ending up in the Conservative end of Security and Fiscal issues.

What is fascinating is that the SoCon schism is now putting an earthquake through the SecCons and FiCons as a basic and fundamental rift is opening inside the Republican Party. From 2006-2007 the drive by SecCons and FiCons to actually get an amnesty going has so offended the Traditionalist values of law and order, that this ideal is now coalescing an admixture not seen before in the Republican Party and it, currently, has no representative as the party itself is in flux. Each of the major candidates, at this point in time, represent these factions, but are now caught in the seismic upheaval first felt as an earthquake and soon to produce a rift.

Decades of being in government and even having control of the White House and both Houses of Congress for *years* and then coming up with policy anathema to the law and order Traditionalists are sending the basic message out: What good is this party if it will NOT KEEP ITS WORD?

The SecCons, FiCons and Christian SoCons are hemming and hawing, trying to say that its about candidates. The fissures are not candidate driven solely, and these candidates represent the problems that Conservatives have had nearly 30 years to work out, and have not done so. The topping on it to the Traditionalists is the huge current size of government, expansionist social programs, lax border security and not enforcing the laws of the land. The Traditionalists understand the need for wars to punish enemies, but then seek to expand liberty thereafter not by making those enemies dependant but by teaching them how to be free. The Traditionalists have seen the other parts of the Party mouth these concepts for nearly a generation and the few tax 'reductions' and the limiting of welfare are their only scanty leavings as the government has continued to expand and erode society.

What has been interesting to see is that the Traditionalist SoCons have made some inroads into the FiCons and SecCons, even getting the message across to a number of Christian SoCons that placing the values of charity and forgiveness at home and *not* in the government is essential to society. That bit of work done for these decades has gotten stronger purchase even as the candidates, in Incumbistanian tradition, have remained the same. The Traditionalists may be seen as fed up with Incumbistan and its backers.

To get a 'unity candidate' the actual factions must unify around something, and the Traditionalist voters are not seeing that their support of the Party has gotten them anything save more and bigger government trying to do 'good' which, to them, means doing only a few things 'well' and leaving the rest up to the People. As that has not happened for 30 years, it is unlikely to happen *now* as each faction has become entrenched in its views. The other factions should worry a bit, however, as the Traditionalists are the faction of Washington, Jefferson, Franklin and Paine. They formed a Nation and their followers aim to *keep it*. Thrusting them out of the Republican Party may very well spell the end of two-party politics in America.

And the start of something wholly different.

Some commentary of mine at the Bistro

It had been a few days since I visited Harrison's place at the The Possum Bistro, and I found some great posts, and reading one after another I finally had some ideas that I was going to post about coalesce! So in his Defence Against the Dark Arts post, I did what I always do - meander on in commentary. But, as it was a great post, and a number of good ones to finally get things more properly moving, mentally, I will give it to you, the poor reader, as-is. That said the number of wonderful posts that Harrison has warrants a visit to The Possum Bistro!

Here is my commentary, as follows, no corrections or any such done so you may know exactly how bad I write with an insulin reaction coming on:

Amazing how the West thinks in terms of who should and should not be divided! Yes North and South Korea and Vietnam worked out so well... didn't they? How about East and West Berlin and Germany? Why, thank god there are two of them! Lovely palliative, that, to not stand up to totalitarianism and say: we are war weary, don't grab at what you can't grasp as that will come back to haunt you. And so it did, as you note, in Hungary and the welded together Checzoslovakia. Yes, they were one Nation... now two because of incompatabilities in ethnic outlook. Then there is this thing that the West in its grand ideals, made of disparate peoples and called it Yugoslavia. That worked very well, didn't it?

This 'deciding the fate of others' deal has a long history going back further than the Tripartite division of Poland, which resurrected itself out of the ashes of the Empires that divided it, only to be subjugated twice more due to Western inability to stick to its word: first to Fascist Germany and then to the USSR. 'Realism' is an excuse to put money ahead of liberty, and this idea that the West can do more than just guide post-war situations and *not* control them, is something we must get over. Western culture cannot force people to be free, but it can teach what the cost of liberty and freedom *is*.

Whenever we decide on the 'realistic' course, the US denies its history of being a Revolutionary Nation that has long-term commitment to its ideals. Strange to say, but 'idealistic' outlook can be quite pragmatic and yet understand that to coddle tyranny is abhorrent to a Free People.

And how dare the US put 'benchmarks' upon other governments when it can adhere to NONE of its own? While we are, indeed, committed to securing our own liberty, we do forget the responsibility of a post-war situation to help others understand what it means to secure liberty for themselves. That is *not* a cost-free situation, and yet we have a political class that believes otherwise.

No, let some magnificent 'moral equivalence' reign, in which black is white and torture is a bad night's sleep. Or that mere commerce is the be-all, end-all to liberty... forgetting that it is liberty that builds commerce to make one free to utilize the benefits of one's own work. The defeatism that we see is pure cowardice: an unwillingness to put any cost forward as worth it to build freedom and help others realize what it costs to secure liberty.

Fukiyama was blandly incorrect to assume an 'end of history' and the inevitability of Western culture and outlook. There is no such thing as inevitability in history. There may be 'tides in the affairs of men' but men are not King Canute commanding the tide, we ride it and sink or swim on our own basis... and sometimes we can get to higher ground and deny the tide its reach. That is contingency in history, based upon the actions of individuals. Our actions create history, even if the tide runs counter to it actions can and do make a difference. Even with the tide turning on human liberty and so many willing to see it gone, the goal of swimming for liberty and trying to reach higher ground to escape tyranny is worth the cost and struggle.

Because stopping is fatal.

Now we hear the insane ideas that running from helping others will have desireable outcomes... people that we committed to in overthrowing a tyrant. Be it right or wrong to do the overthrowing, the responsibility is to help guide these people on why we did it as a free people, and for them to determine their own course as a free people. I am more than willing to pay that price as a civilization, as *not* to pay it is lethal to us. That poison already drips into our mouths and its bitter taste is awful. Yet the sweet words of 'just swallow the poison' is heard again.

'We can't mediate a civil war.'

-Show me the 'civil war' by the ancient standards of honorably standing up a government and fighting FOR something, and I will tell you if it is something to take part in or NOT.

No, those ancient standards that we know are not the ones of modernity... *anything*, literally, is 'civil war' now. So blind terrorism masked as sectarian strife to give murderers cover... that is 'civil war'.

Not barbarians behaving barbarically against innocents.

'We can't figure out their problems for them, so just stand by the sidelines. Divide up their Nation.'

-Well if we can't figure it out, then 'why' is it a good thing to divide them? After THREE democratic elections, ONE to make a Constitution, a SECOND to ratify it and a THIRD to elect a government as a unified Nation, how can we say it should be divided? North-South, like Vietnam and Korea? East-West like Germany and Europe were? Or Tripartite like Poland?

Those *failed*.

Welding together people who did not want to be in a Nation together *failed* in the Balkans and for the Checzoslovakia.

The People there have spoken, wisely or unwisely, as a People. Can we abide by that or will we, as with Argentina under Allende, or S. Vietnam under Diem, invalidate their elections by our 'wisdom' being unable to figure the place out? Argentina and S. Vietnam worked out so well in this 'deciding for them' business, didn't it?

How come, in Austin Bay, I hear the same, old, tired and *wrong* ideals being given to us for the defeatist option and NO ONE willing to call them for the old, tired and *wrong* things they have given us in the past? I literally cannot name places where they have WORKED. The Ottoman Empire under lovely Wilsonian ideals? Free now with trade, right?


Those things are *excuses* not to do the right thing and hold on grimly to liberty as the cost of NOT doing that is an invalidation of liberty and freedom for ourselves. That cost was plainly told the US in the Revolution and for the world to witness: 'No taxation without representation' and 'The price of the Tree of Liberty comes in the cost of the blood of tyrants and patriots'.

'Divide up those that we cannot understand!

Or Unite them!

Or call genocide by the name 'civil war'!

Just RUN!

For god's sake don't stay and FIGHT to be FREE!!'


What is the cost of liberty?

-The last free person on the planet FIGHTING to be free, and dying for liberty. Nations rent asunder to do that. Peoples dead for that. All treasuries spent for that. The planet laid waste because slavery of the human spirit and soul to tyranny is NOT worth the price of living as a slave under *any* system.

That started in 1776.

Yet I find few defenders of this concept any more.

How do you justify defeat when it means being a slave to the fear of death?

And soon just being a slave as those that threaten know no bounds.

It is a stark, nasty, and permanent cost to be paid again and again and again. Generation upon generation, until we see that All men are created EQUAL.

The cost of liberty is all Peoples realizing the cost of that freedom is liberty's awful and awesome tree... which gives shade and shelter from tyranny only if it is defended. In blood. Until all men are free.

I am an absolutist Jacksonian on warfare. You fight to win. You help the fallen after. You help those tyrannized to be free. You help up honorable enemies who abide by their word to find the path from tyranny.

And to those that will not give up on tryanny?

You fight until they are dead.

Or you are.

If we cannot hold to that ideal, as a culture, then no amount of 'volunteering to fight' will help, as the culture is debased and will not cash in on the good blood spilled to create liberty. A culture debased is not worth fighting FOR.

Run from this fight and we will find few defenders left, anywhere.

And the Revolution restarted here, in the US.

I do my duty as Citizen to BE Citizen to show the better way to ensure that blood spilled is liberty gained. Not just in Iraq. But here, at home.

"You must pay the price, to secure the blessing." - Andrew Jackson.

And there you have it, twisted syntax and all...