Hillary's policy of involuntary deletes. I don't care who you are, if you grab my phone out of my hands, I'm going to consider that I was just assaulted and robbed, and I'm going to stone cold deck you. Fair warning.
Friday, September 20, 2013
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Do Your Good Deeds Quietly
That's how I was raised. To this day, when a store is running one of those charity campaigns where they have the little shamrocks or hearts or pink ribbons that they post all over the store with the names of the people who donated, I find it a little unseemly. I always refuse to put my name down. You do your good works quietly. You don't boast. You don't seek recognition. To do so ruins the entire point.
Jesus told a parable "Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself : 'God, I thank You that I am not like other people : swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 'I fast twice a week ; I pay tithes of all that I get.' But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me, the sinner !' I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other ; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
To me, getting your name posted on a wall for a trivial act of charity is exalting yourself.
A recent story was Police ID mystery boy who donated savings of $10.03. Apparently the boy just non-chalantly walked in with his bag of change, said he wanted to give a donation to the police and walked out before the desk clerk could get his name.
So they posted their video surveillance of him on YouTube and Facebook to try to find someone who could identify him. OK. First -- creepy! You can't even make a quiet donation without the police tracking you down and making a big deal about it? They publicly ID'd and thanked him. I think this sends the wrong message to the kid. Charity isn't something you do expecting recognition and for people to tell you how wonderful you are. You do it because it's the right thing to do. That seems to be why he did it in the first place, and by making a big deal out of it, they risk making it more about the congratulations than the act itself.
Fortunately the kid seems to be taking it the right way, and still seems to be focused on the value of the giving. You get that kind of attitude from being raised right, not from getting pats on the back from police chiefs.
Jesus told a parable "Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself : 'God, I thank You that I am not like other people : swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 'I fast twice a week ; I pay tithes of all that I get.' But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me, the sinner !' I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other ; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
To me, getting your name posted on a wall for a trivial act of charity is exalting yourself.
A recent story was Police ID mystery boy who donated savings of $10.03. Apparently the boy just non-chalantly walked in with his bag of change, said he wanted to give a donation to the police and walked out before the desk clerk could get his name.
So they posted their video surveillance of him on YouTube and Facebook to try to find someone who could identify him. OK. First -- creepy! You can't even make a quiet donation without the police tracking you down and making a big deal about it? They publicly ID'd and thanked him. I think this sends the wrong message to the kid. Charity isn't something you do expecting recognition and for people to tell you how wonderful you are. You do it because it's the right thing to do. That seems to be why he did it in the first place, and by making a big deal out of it, they risk making it more about the congratulations than the act itself.
Fortunately the kid seems to be taking it the right way, and still seems to be focused on the value of the giving. You get that kind of attitude from being raised right, not from getting pats on the back from police chiefs.
Inability To Respectfully Debate Disagreements
Ricochet has a recent article, Has Rand Paul Stepped in It? Over on Powerline, their link to the article was "Rand Paul defames Christian conservatives."
Defames? Really? Wow, he must have said some awful stuff! Then I read the article. Hmm. Not so much. The manufactured defamation comes from this statement:
The category "Christian conservative" is a huge one. And, certainly, encompasses people whose instincts are both peaceful and aggressive. This should not be news to anyone.
After the 9/11 attacks I found myself quite sympathetic with Ann Coulter's exhortation: "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."
Of course, that was never going to happen (the "convert them to Christianity" part), and lacking that fundamental transformative step, my enthusiasm for what we actually did "Invade their countries, kill their leaders and embrace peaceful 'moderate' Islam, allowing them to set up governments that deferred to Sharia law" sure waned over time.
Given that our public and political culture has deteriorated to a point that where we are so enthralled with the Cult of Diversity and Multi-Culturalism that we can't make rational judgments about our cultural superiority over a bunch of backward Middle Eastern hellholes, the best course is to simply keep out and let them kill each other as much as possible.
But clearly, there are some of us Christian conservatives who have been eager, perhaps overeager, to go to war. It's a fair depiction. As Paul describes, I would probably still characterize myself as a very strong supporter of Israel and probably more willing to go to war in its defense than I would be for many other nations. Paul's disagreement with me on this issue isn't an "outrage," it's a valuable counterpoint. I don't feel "defamed" that he called me on it. Instead I'm glad that he brings it up, so we can talk about it.
If we really could talk about it instead of ranting about how outraged and defamed we're feeling (hold on while I pause for a good cry).
So lets talk about it. How many times over the past 65 years have we had to go to war for Israel? I count, um ... zero times.
The truth is, Israel is really good at taking care of itself, and I don't think the U.S. nation as a whole is in any way in danger of diplomatically abandoning it, even under a Paul presidency. In other words, this is a big deal over nothing.
The list of issues that are of more import to this nation is virtually endless. Even if Paul treated Israel as badly as Obama as treated the U.K., hey, it's only for eight years. Also, the President is not the whole of the government. So we're talking about something that's inconsequential in a long-term relationship.
Would I accept eight years of slightly distancing ourselves from Israel for eight years of a President who respects libertarian ideals and constitutional limits on federal power? I sure would!
Obama's not exactly an enormous cheerleader for Israel, but even he has felt constrained by popular opinion to give lip service to our relationship with Israel. I doubt Paul would be any worse. He could hardly do any worse than Obama in foreign policy overall.
As for the accusation of "neo-isolationist," as others have said, that usually means "someone who doesn't like my war." We're all "isolationists" when we don't want to go to war. And shouldn't we, in most cases, not go to war?" I have no sense that Paul would refuse to defend American interests. That doesn't mean sending men to die at every turn.
Defames? Really? Wow, he must have said some awful stuff! Then I read the article. Hmm. Not so much. The manufactured defamation comes from this statement:
I think some within the Christian community are such great defenders of the promised land and the chosen people that they think war is always the answer, maybe even preemptive war. And I think it’s hard to square the idea of a preemptive war and, to me, that overeagerness [to go to] war, with Christianity.From the article:
Evangelical leader and supporter of Israel Gary Bauer told Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post, “Senator Paul is ‘mining’ these discontents but his characterization of Christians as ‘anxious’ to go to war is an outrage and will hurt him.”An "outrage!" He "defames" Christian conservatives (said by a "senior GOP leader" who doesn't have the courage to attach his name to the statement)! OK, speaking as a Christian conservative, can we put our big boy pants on and stop pretending we're "outraged" every time someone says something about us with which we disagree? And this is by no means limited to Christian conservatives -- being "outraged" every time you are criticized seems to be the new normal.
...
A senior GOP leader with close ties to the Jewish community told Rubin that Paul’s statement is “factually wrong and demonstrates a lack of knowledge and naiveté.” He said the Senator’s remark “defames Christian conservatives, which, by the way, is not smart politics for someone looking to run for president in 2016. Many conservatives are very worried about the pull on the party, led by Sen. Paul, to a neo-isolationist posture.”
The category "Christian conservative" is a huge one. And, certainly, encompasses people whose instincts are both peaceful and aggressive. This should not be news to anyone.
After the 9/11 attacks I found myself quite sympathetic with Ann Coulter's exhortation: "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."
Of course, that was never going to happen (the "convert them to Christianity" part), and lacking that fundamental transformative step, my enthusiasm for what we actually did "Invade their countries, kill their leaders and embrace peaceful 'moderate' Islam, allowing them to set up governments that deferred to Sharia law" sure waned over time.
Given that our public and political culture has deteriorated to a point that where we are so enthralled with the Cult of Diversity and Multi-Culturalism that we can't make rational judgments about our cultural superiority over a bunch of backward Middle Eastern hellholes, the best course is to simply keep out and let them kill each other as much as possible.
But clearly, there are some of us Christian conservatives who have been eager, perhaps overeager, to go to war. It's a fair depiction. As Paul describes, I would probably still characterize myself as a very strong supporter of Israel and probably more willing to go to war in its defense than I would be for many other nations. Paul's disagreement with me on this issue isn't an "outrage," it's a valuable counterpoint. I don't feel "defamed" that he called me on it. Instead I'm glad that he brings it up, so we can talk about it.
If we really could talk about it instead of ranting about how outraged and defamed we're feeling (hold on while I pause for a good cry).
So lets talk about it. How many times over the past 65 years have we had to go to war for Israel? I count, um ... zero times.
The truth is, Israel is really good at taking care of itself, and I don't think the U.S. nation as a whole is in any way in danger of diplomatically abandoning it, even under a Paul presidency. In other words, this is a big deal over nothing.
The list of issues that are of more import to this nation is virtually endless. Even if Paul treated Israel as badly as Obama as treated the U.K., hey, it's only for eight years. Also, the President is not the whole of the government. So we're talking about something that's inconsequential in a long-term relationship.
Would I accept eight years of slightly distancing ourselves from Israel for eight years of a President who respects libertarian ideals and constitutional limits on federal power? I sure would!
Obama's not exactly an enormous cheerleader for Israel, but even he has felt constrained by popular opinion to give lip service to our relationship with Israel. I doubt Paul would be any worse. He could hardly do any worse than Obama in foreign policy overall.
As for the accusation of "neo-isolationist," as others have said, that usually means "someone who doesn't like my war." We're all "isolationists" when we don't want to go to war. And shouldn't we, in most cases, not go to war?" I have no sense that Paul would refuse to defend American interests. That doesn't mean sending men to die at every turn.
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
History Profs Give Obama "B-." What Do HVAC Techs Say?
History professors across the nation rated Obama "B-" because he's not liberal enough.
I ask the question in my headline "What do HVAC Techs say?" I ask because when you read the article, it specifies areas that the history profs considered:
Complaints:
So, you might as well ask HVAC technicians. Their opinions are equally informed.
This is a non-random citizen opinion poll dressed up in the guise of academic expertise.
I ask the question in my headline "What do HVAC Techs say?" I ask because when you read the article, it specifies areas that the history profs considered:
Complaints:
- The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) “did not go far enough”
- The prosecution of Bradley Manning
- The failure to close Guantanamo Bay
- Drone strikes against terrorists
- “Just about the only aspect of Barack Obama’s presidency which has received universal praise from historians has been the president’s Supreme Court appointments,” the pollsters state. “Both Elena Kagan and especially Sonia Sotomayor are highly respected by academics.”
- They gave him an A- in both the “integrity” and “crisis management” categories
- They also credited him for ending the Iraq War and killing Osama bin Laden.
So, you might as well ask HVAC technicians. Their opinions are equally informed.
This is a non-random citizen opinion poll dressed up in the guise of academic expertise.
Monday, September 16, 2013
Foreign Policy For People Who Don't Understand Foreign Policy
In a recent episode of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart mocks Obama and Kerry's competence in the proposed intervention in Syria. However, he also mocks those who are unhappy with the solution proposed by Putin and accepted by Obama.
Stewart rants:
For the sake of people, like Jon Stewart's viewers, who don't understand foreign policy and aren't interested in it beyond its usefulness as joke fodder on The Daily Show, let me take you back to the classic movie, The Untouchables, with Kevin Costner as Eliot Ness, Robert de Niro as Al Capone, Sean Connery as gruff Chicago cop Jim Malone, and Billy Drago as vicious mob hitman Frank Nitti.
Except, in our version, Vladimir Putin is Capone, Obama is Eliot Ness, Assad is Frank Nitti and the victims of the gass attack collectively play Sean Connery and Nitti's other victims.
This didn't happen in the movie, but imagine Ness had Nitti caught dead to rights for Malone's murder, but he suffers a crisis of courage, because he knows that if he prosecutes Nitti, he becomes target #1 of the mob. The mayor (Kerry) wonders if there's a better way out of the whole thing. Suddenly, Al Capone steps forward as a concerned member of the community. "This whole thing has been overblown. I'm sure we can settle things if we just make sure Mr. Nitti turns in his guns. I assure you, he'll suffer harsh censure by the Chicago community. And Ness caves. He lets Nitti go.
Meanwhile you're screaming at the screen, "No, you idiot! Nitti works for Capone! He's not going to give up his guns! He's not going to stop killing people!"
That's what just happened. Assad is Putin's client dictator. The chemical weapons will not be turned over, except for some tokens to mollify the press and U.N. inspectors. Assad will not be weakened. He'll get off Scot free and actually emerge with greater international credibility. And Al Capone gets to look like a frickin' hero, while making Ness look cowardly and ineffectual.
That's what just happened in Syria.
Now, as Obama likes to say, let me be perfectly clear. I was never in favor of a military intervention in Syria. That's where the Untouchables metaphor ends. Obama made unwise statement after unwise statement over the past several years and backed himself into a corner. In the long run, it's probably better that Obama look weak than we blunder into an ill-advised war. But this was a major diplomatic defeat, and it will take a Reagan-like individual following Obama's Carter impersonation to win back our prestige.
I have no doubt it can be done, but that, Mr. Stewart, is why people are not happy with the outcome.
A compromise solution might have been to outright reject the weapon turnover plan as unrealistic, Assad's stated willingness to cooperate as insufficient and unconvincing, and continued to try to build international support, but that would have been a whole lot easier if Obama hadn't already been saber-rattling for unilateral strikes without any U.N. or international approval. He could have continued to bully the European and International communities for their own cowardice in failing to address the issue -- put the onus on them, as they seem very fond of moralizing about U.S. actions and inactions. the E.U.'s collective military might is more than enough to handle a tin-pot dictator like Assad. Only express willingness to go in when U.S. forces represent less than 25 percent of those committed.
That would have put him in the moral high ground, because this was supposedly a crime against international standards (even though Syria isn't a signatory to the chemical weapons ban), so it requires an international response. U.S. interests weren't at stake in any dire way, so U.S. risk should be minimal. If the so-called international community wants international standards to have meaning, it has to show that it has some balls of its own.
Of course, it doesn't, and that would have gotten us off the hook. This isn't the movie High Noon and if the rest of the international community is too cowardly or unwilling to uphold its standards, then the U.S. doesn't have any obligation to go it alone.
Update: It's starting already.
"It's a clever proposal from Russia to prevent the attacks," one Assad supporter said from the port of Tartous, site of a Russian naval base. "Russia will give us new weapons that are better than chemical weapons," he added. "We are strong enough to save our power and fight the terrorists."
Somehow I'm not expecting an apology from Jon Stewart admitting thatNeville Chamberlain Barack Obama did not achieve "peach in our time."
Stewart rants:
Who did we lose to? Sanity? "You've beat us this time, rational forethought, but we'll get you!" Who cares how we avoided a war and got a dictator to give up his chemical weapons if we avoided a war and got his dictator to give up his chemical weapons? ... oh, Putin gets the credit! If we caught Charlie Manson, who gives a beep who gets the collar?Look, Jon, I get that you're making fun of peoples' lack of enthusiasm for the peace plan plan because your modus operandi is to foment dissent in the form of a relentless and irrational contrarianism to Fox News and all things Republican to advance your ultimate objective of creating a deliberately misinformed body politic whose fear, anger, mistrust and discontent is the manna upon which you sustain your parasitic, succubus-like existence, but there are actual reasons why this peace plan is a bad idea.
And I get that Fox opposes the Syria peace plan because its modus operandi is to foment dissent in the form of a relentless and irrational contrarianism to Barack Obama and all things Democratic to advance its ultimate objective of creating a deliberately misinformed body politic whose fear, anger, mistrust and discontent is the manna upon which it sustains its parasitic, succubus-like existence, and, uh, but--
wild cheers from the audience
Sorry, I blacked out for a second, was I saying something? But for some reason, even CNN's Chris Cuomo seemed disappointed with the turn of events.... On the one hand, geopolitical reality just shifted one hundred percent, but on the other hand, we built this graphic
shows CNN 'Crisis in Syria' graphic.
For the sake of people, like Jon Stewart's viewers, who don't understand foreign policy and aren't interested in it beyond its usefulness as joke fodder on The Daily Show, let me take you back to the classic movie, The Untouchables, with Kevin Costner as Eliot Ness, Robert de Niro as Al Capone, Sean Connery as gruff Chicago cop Jim Malone, and Billy Drago as vicious mob hitman Frank Nitti.
Except, in our version, Vladimir Putin is Capone, Obama is Eliot Ness, Assad is Frank Nitti and the victims of the gass attack collectively play Sean Connery and Nitti's other victims.
This didn't happen in the movie, but imagine Ness had Nitti caught dead to rights for Malone's murder, but he suffers a crisis of courage, because he knows that if he prosecutes Nitti, he becomes target #1 of the mob. The mayor (Kerry) wonders if there's a better way out of the whole thing. Suddenly, Al Capone steps forward as a concerned member of the community. "This whole thing has been overblown. I'm sure we can settle things if we just make sure Mr. Nitti turns in his guns. I assure you, he'll suffer harsh censure by the Chicago community. And Ness caves. He lets Nitti go.
Meanwhile you're screaming at the screen, "No, you idiot! Nitti works for Capone! He's not going to give up his guns! He's not going to stop killing people!"
That's what just happened. Assad is Putin's client dictator. The chemical weapons will not be turned over, except for some tokens to mollify the press and U.N. inspectors. Assad will not be weakened. He'll get off Scot free and actually emerge with greater international credibility. And Al Capone gets to look like a frickin' hero, while making Ness look cowardly and ineffectual.
That's what just happened in Syria.
Now, as Obama likes to say, let me be perfectly clear. I was never in favor of a military intervention in Syria. That's where the Untouchables metaphor ends. Obama made unwise statement after unwise statement over the past several years and backed himself into a corner. In the long run, it's probably better that Obama look weak than we blunder into an ill-advised war. But this was a major diplomatic defeat, and it will take a Reagan-like individual following Obama's Carter impersonation to win back our prestige.
I have no doubt it can be done, but that, Mr. Stewart, is why people are not happy with the outcome.
A compromise solution might have been to outright reject the weapon turnover plan as unrealistic, Assad's stated willingness to cooperate as insufficient and unconvincing, and continued to try to build international support, but that would have been a whole lot easier if Obama hadn't already been saber-rattling for unilateral strikes without any U.N. or international approval. He could have continued to bully the European and International communities for their own cowardice in failing to address the issue -- put the onus on them, as they seem very fond of moralizing about U.S. actions and inactions. the E.U.'s collective military might is more than enough to handle a tin-pot dictator like Assad. Only express willingness to go in when U.S. forces represent less than 25 percent of those committed.
That would have put him in the moral high ground, because this was supposedly a crime against international standards (even though Syria isn't a signatory to the chemical weapons ban), so it requires an international response. U.S. interests weren't at stake in any dire way, so U.S. risk should be minimal. If the so-called international community wants international standards to have meaning, it has to show that it has some balls of its own.
Of course, it doesn't, and that would have gotten us off the hook. This isn't the movie High Noon and if the rest of the international community is too cowardly or unwilling to uphold its standards, then the U.S. doesn't have any obligation to go it alone.
Update: It's starting already.
"It's a clever proposal from Russia to prevent the attacks," one Assad supporter said from the port of Tartous, site of a Russian naval base. "Russia will give us new weapons that are better than chemical weapons," he added. "We are strong enough to save our power and fight the terrorists."
Somehow I'm not expecting an apology from Jon Stewart admitting that
Sunday, September 15, 2013
Boston University of Physics "Brainteaser" Demonstrates Narrowly Focused Intelligence In Action
I blogged recently about how our educational system produces people with very narrowly-focused knowledge. Here it is in action.
The brainteaser, "The Monkey and the Hunter," from the Boston University Department of Physics is as follows:
A hunter spies a monkey in a tree, takes aim, and fires. At the moment the bullet leaves the gun the monkey lets go of the tree branch and drops straight down. How should the hunter aim to hit the monkey?
Which happens to be wrong.
What this really shows is that few BU physics students are hunters. Hunters deal with gravity-induced bullet drop every time they shoot. A rifle isn't sighted in along a straight line from the barrel to the target. The rifle is sighted in to account for the bullet drop at a known shooting distance (typically 100 yards). The shooter either manually compensates or adjusts his scope/sights on the fly if the distance is different, but the point is, the hunter's point of aim is already taking gravity's effect on the bullet into account. Unless the hunter knew for a fact back when he sighted in his rifle that he was going to be shooting at falling monkeys, he would not aim directly at the monkey, because that point of aim is already lower than a straight line, to account for bullet drop. He would have to estimate how much the bullet would drop due to gravity and adjust his aim by that much.
Unfortunately, an education in physics at Boston University doesn't equip you with any knowledge about how people deal with gravity in practical applications every day.
The brainteaser, "The Monkey and the Hunter," from the Boston University Department of Physics is as follows:
A hunter spies a monkey in a tree, takes aim, and fires. At the moment the bullet leaves the gun the monkey lets go of the tree branch and drops straight down. How should the hunter aim to hit the monkey?
- Aim directly at the monkey
- Aim high (over the monkey's head)
- Aim low (below the monkey)
Which happens to be wrong.
What this really shows is that few BU physics students are hunters. Hunters deal with gravity-induced bullet drop every time they shoot. A rifle isn't sighted in along a straight line from the barrel to the target. The rifle is sighted in to account for the bullet drop at a known shooting distance (typically 100 yards). The shooter either manually compensates or adjusts his scope/sights on the fly if the distance is different, but the point is, the hunter's point of aim is already taking gravity's effect on the bullet into account. Unless the hunter knew for a fact back when he sighted in his rifle that he was going to be shooting at falling monkeys, he would not aim directly at the monkey, because that point of aim is already lower than a straight line, to account for bullet drop. He would have to estimate how much the bullet would drop due to gravity and adjust his aim by that much.
Unfortunately, an education in physics at Boston University doesn't equip you with any knowledge about how people deal with gravity in practical applications every day.
Saturday, September 14, 2013
The U.N.: A Force For Decline?
I was reading Vladimir Putin's Op-Ed in the New York Times and it got me thinking again about the United Nations. My distrust of the organization is not new. I think it's a corrupt vehicle for greedy parasites and stealth world socialists and marxists.
But lately I've been thinking that not only the U.N. is bad, but some of what people consider the civilized norms that the institution is intended to promote are bad. In other worlds, the U.N. isn't just bad because it's a failure at what it does. It's also bad to the extent that it succeeds!
Prior to the 20th century, conquest of one nation by another was something that happened frequently. Nations were not considered to have a fundamental right of existence. Nations were created, destroyed, merged and fractured with great regularity. It was an accepted reality of global politics.
However, during the 20th century, not starting with the U.N., but growing as a general sentiment expressed in the world of international politics and in the failed League of Nations, was the idea that invading another country is wrong. Conducting wars of conquest is wrong.
This assertion is, I think, generally accepted by at least the world at large. The consequence is that international borders have become virtually set in stone. The only time they change is when a state fails so badly that it breaks up into smaller states (the origin of the world Balkanization), such as in Sudan and South Sudan and, of course, the Balkans, or, theoretically, when two independent states jointly agree to merge (has that happened in modern times?).
Many current nations didn't even exist until the early 20th century -- Iraq, Jordan, Israel or Somalia. In fact, if you look at a historical maps of Africa from the early 19th century, the borders are almost unrecognizable compared to modern maps. But now, every nation's sovereign borders are considered inviolate, and wars of aggression, no less conquest, attract international outcry.
And therein lies the problem. We have determined that even the worst nations -- nations that are essentially lawless no-man's-lands like Somalia, are "too big to fail." We acknowlege, enforce and revere their borders long after those borders cease to contain anything like an actual functioning nation state.
These facts -- new nations only form from the dissolution of sufficiently failed nations and wars of conquest are not acceptable -- are almost an ironclad recipe for slow decline. The only direction we willingly let nations go is down.
In previous times, an utterly dysfunctional land would be considered ripe for takeover by a more-functional neighboring land. This is how all successful states grew. There was no sense that Somalia had a "right" to be Somalia instead of, say, Northern Kenya.
The United States may never have been settled at all, if the right of natives to their native lands had been respected, or it may have stopped as a little coastal strip, or with the Louisiana purchase -- at whatever point it was at when the modern world's towering respect for international borders took hold.
This would have been a disaster then, and it's a growing disaster now. We view successful nations as having equal rights of existence to failed nations. We even recognize the right of our sworn enemies, Iran and North Korea, to exist.
We've abandoned the creative destruction that has been the engine of world progress, because we're no longer willing to throw away bad ideas when they're shaped like a nation. It's entirely possible that the current national borders are, in many locations, bad ideas. The idea was touched on in Iraq by the proponents of the three state solution, but even this solution stopped at the borders to Iraq.
It's as if no U.S. car company was ever allowed to go out of business. Ha, yes, I know it seems we actually think this way now. Anytime one of the big three looks like it's in real danger of failing, the government steps in. But once upon a time, the big three wasn't the big three. There was competition with Packard, AMC, Hudson, Dodge, and many others.
Imagine if the list of U.S. automobile manufacturers was frozen in 1920 with all of them being considered "too big to fail" or having a "right of existence?" What kind of dysfunctional, parasitic government tenant corporations would we be saddled with?
We enforce the existence of failed nations, unless they fall apart into smaller states. But smaller states are less capable states: they have fewer resources, fewer people, they're less capable of great things. Switzerland is a wonderful country, but nobody looks to it to lead the space race. Swiss ideals of industry and culture will never dominate the world, because the Swiss are content being an insular people. But even if tomorrow they changed their mind, if they decided to invade and acquire failing Italy to the south, the entire world would have a proverbial cow. It would never be allowed.
Instead, Italy will be able to continue with, in the words of Animal House, its "long tradition of existence" no matter how utterly it has failed as a nation. This despite the fact that Italy in the form of its current borders is less than 150 years old -- a blink of the eye, in historical terms.
This excessive respect and veneration of national boundaries serves, of course, the entrenched interests. The elite. The holders of the reins of power. It's rent-seeking and cronyism on the international level. They all make a lot of noise about the spread of freedom and democracy, but the minute one of them started spreading freedom and democracy in the way that we know worked historically -- conquest -- the rest of the world would have a fit. They're far more interested in maintaining the status quo.
So we're stuck with a lot of ossified states, coasting along on their guaranteed right to exist, until they become so utterly failed that their own citizens tear them apart from within, condemning them to chaos or Balkanization. Historically, we'd been moving away from the city-state. It was a failed model. But that's the only direction allowed, now, and that means trouble down the line.
But lately I've been thinking that not only the U.N. is bad, but some of what people consider the civilized norms that the institution is intended to promote are bad. In other worlds, the U.N. isn't just bad because it's a failure at what it does. It's also bad to the extent that it succeeds!
Prior to the 20th century, conquest of one nation by another was something that happened frequently. Nations were not considered to have a fundamental right of existence. Nations were created, destroyed, merged and fractured with great regularity. It was an accepted reality of global politics.
However, during the 20th century, not starting with the U.N., but growing as a general sentiment expressed in the world of international politics and in the failed League of Nations, was the idea that invading another country is wrong. Conducting wars of conquest is wrong.
This assertion is, I think, generally accepted by at least the world at large. The consequence is that international borders have become virtually set in stone. The only time they change is when a state fails so badly that it breaks up into smaller states (the origin of the world Balkanization), such as in Sudan and South Sudan and, of course, the Balkans, or, theoretically, when two independent states jointly agree to merge (has that happened in modern times?).
Many current nations didn't even exist until the early 20th century -- Iraq, Jordan, Israel or Somalia. In fact, if you look at a historical maps of Africa from the early 19th century, the borders are almost unrecognizable compared to modern maps. But now, every nation's sovereign borders are considered inviolate, and wars of aggression, no less conquest, attract international outcry.
And therein lies the problem. We have determined that even the worst nations -- nations that are essentially lawless no-man's-lands like Somalia, are "too big to fail." We acknowlege, enforce and revere their borders long after those borders cease to contain anything like an actual functioning nation state.
These facts -- new nations only form from the dissolution of sufficiently failed nations and wars of conquest are not acceptable -- are almost an ironclad recipe for slow decline. The only direction we willingly let nations go is down.
In previous times, an utterly dysfunctional land would be considered ripe for takeover by a more-functional neighboring land. This is how all successful states grew. There was no sense that Somalia had a "right" to be Somalia instead of, say, Northern Kenya.
The United States may never have been settled at all, if the right of natives to their native lands had been respected, or it may have stopped as a little coastal strip, or with the Louisiana purchase -- at whatever point it was at when the modern world's towering respect for international borders took hold.
This would have been a disaster then, and it's a growing disaster now. We view successful nations as having equal rights of existence to failed nations. We even recognize the right of our sworn enemies, Iran and North Korea, to exist.
We've abandoned the creative destruction that has been the engine of world progress, because we're no longer willing to throw away bad ideas when they're shaped like a nation. It's entirely possible that the current national borders are, in many locations, bad ideas. The idea was touched on in Iraq by the proponents of the three state solution, but even this solution stopped at the borders to Iraq.
It's as if no U.S. car company was ever allowed to go out of business. Ha, yes, I know it seems we actually think this way now. Anytime one of the big three looks like it's in real danger of failing, the government steps in. But once upon a time, the big three wasn't the big three. There was competition with Packard, AMC, Hudson, Dodge, and many others.
Imagine if the list of U.S. automobile manufacturers was frozen in 1920 with all of them being considered "too big to fail" or having a "right of existence?" What kind of dysfunctional, parasitic government tenant corporations would we be saddled with?
We enforce the existence of failed nations, unless they fall apart into smaller states. But smaller states are less capable states: they have fewer resources, fewer people, they're less capable of great things. Switzerland is a wonderful country, but nobody looks to it to lead the space race. Swiss ideals of industry and culture will never dominate the world, because the Swiss are content being an insular people. But even if tomorrow they changed their mind, if they decided to invade and acquire failing Italy to the south, the entire world would have a proverbial cow. It would never be allowed.
Instead, Italy will be able to continue with, in the words of Animal House, its "long tradition of existence" no matter how utterly it has failed as a nation. This despite the fact that Italy in the form of its current borders is less than 150 years old -- a blink of the eye, in historical terms.
This excessive respect and veneration of national boundaries serves, of course, the entrenched interests. The elite. The holders of the reins of power. It's rent-seeking and cronyism on the international level. They all make a lot of noise about the spread of freedom and democracy, but the minute one of them started spreading freedom and democracy in the way that we know worked historically -- conquest -- the rest of the world would have a fit. They're far more interested in maintaining the status quo.
So we're stuck with a lot of ossified states, coasting along on their guaranteed right to exist, until they become so utterly failed that their own citizens tear them apart from within, condemning them to chaos or Balkanization. Historically, we'd been moving away from the city-state. It was a failed model. But that's the only direction allowed, now, and that means trouble down the line.
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