Red, White, and Blue Bloods

Now that I've pronounced doom on the Republican Party (even though there is much more to say on the matter) I'll move on to a much broader topic, namely the American Empire and the U.S. as the world's policeman. A wise man once said, “anything that can't go on forever will end”, and this has proven to be true of empires (at least the earthly kind), and there is no reason it will not prove to be true of ours. Empires are notorious, in fact, for coming to an end – usually ignominious, but sometimes with a minimum of pain, as witness the ends of the British, French, and Soviet empires, still within recent memory. (A generation or two earlier saw the more painful end of the German overseas empire, the Ottoman Empire, and before that the Spanish, etc.) It's not necessary that a given empire is conquered, as the Roman Empire was; most of them rot from within, from an erosion of political will, diminishing resources, and just plain demoralization. Empires go along with aggressive nationalism, and when the cultural, social, political, and economic basis for nationalism is reduced to some critical level, the empire, which seemed so permanent and invincible, collapses – much to the dismay and mystification of its adherents. The point is, this will happen – it's inevitable. It's a matter of when, and by what means, and what will remain. England and France wound up quite intact, and arguably better off; Russia is trying to regain some of its former glory, with limited success; Germany lost its empire as a result of World War I, and lost pretty much everything else as a result of World War II, but has gained much of it back because, as an acquaintance of mind put it, “the advantage Germany has is that it's full of Germans”. And yet nations, in a post-empire period, do manage to salvage some respect; they are no longer to be feared, but they are not about to be erased from the world map either. What keeps them in business, so to speak, are what I call the “eternal verities” – race, ethnicity, language, culture, and yes, faith – and these, note, are the very things that the globalists are waging war on at this time. (And don't be fooled by “identity politics” and “diversity”; those are strategies to liquidate the nation on the cultural level, not strengthen it.) A nation that asserts and shows pride in these things is likely to survive, whereas a nation that does not is doubly doomed – no more empire, and, eventually, no more nation. (Oh, did I mention borders? That's another essential quality of a nation. And we're busy giving up ours.)

So where do we stand in all this? Well, for starters, this country was not founded – at least not explicitly – on the basis of race, ethnicity, language, faith, or culture. It had a dominant race (white), a dominant ethnicity (English), a language (English), a faith (Protestant deism), and... well, not much in the way of culture, let's admit. But it was, in essence, ideational, i.e. founded not on the sorts of things that have characterized nations throughout history, but on ideas, as expressed in the founding documents of the Republic. And those ideas served us well for a while, and continue to do so, if only in the iconic (I'm tempted to say “fetishistic”) sense. They are, in fact, a kind of crumbling bulwark against what has become a wildly “diverse” society, in which all races, all languages, all cultures, and all faiths (and non-faiths) have a right to stand up and be heard, and to join the culture wars, i.e. the battle for the so-called “soul of America”. But America's “soul” is ideas, and ideas can change, and morph, and become obsolete much more readily than the more solid, natural, organic factors that traditionally define nations. (Try to find one idea from the writings of the Founding Fathers that would not cause outrage and demonstrations on college and university campuses today, and in the media – you won't find any.)

And can a nation characterized as such remain an empire? Don't the same factors that are essential to the strength and coherence of a nation apply to its empire as well? And if our nation is rotting from within, how is that supposed to be consistent with the persistence of an empire? It can't, but – again, historically – we see that, oftentimes, an empire can persist, at least for a while, even if things are collapsing on the home front. The Roman legions were spread across the known world even as Rome itself was decaying and collapsing – and we see much the same thing today. We have a military “presence”, and “force projection”, all over the globe, even while the White House is under siege and American “ideals” are under criticism and attack. It's a strange sight, to be sure – but one that is all too familiar to anyone with a sense of history. (And the rest of the world looks on in wonder, as it did when the Roman Empire came to an end – “Lo, how the mighty have fallen!”)

And when you think about it, the American Empire is a relatively new thing, historically speaking. For that matter, America itself is a relatively new thing. When the English colonies coalesced into The United States of America, it didn't take long before age-old empire urges began to surface; I'll make the Mexican War the beginning of this (although, even there, we're at least talking about adjoining territory, the difference being that we had to fight Mexico for it, whereas in the case of the Louisiana Purchase, it was one colonial power selling a piece of property to the former colony of another colonial power – which seems just, in a kind of way). But real colonialism got a shot in the arm with the Spanish-American war, where we wound up with territories halfway around the world; that's the true beginning of empire.

But then a curious thing happened. On top of the age-old empire urge, we acquired a new meme, if you will, namely that we had to – for some reason not ever quite fully explained or justified – become the world's policeman. This began in earnest when we joined up in World War I, which was supposed to “make the world safe for democracy”, but which actually made it less safe for democracy and more safe for communism and fascism. But we had a foothold on the world map, and that's what counts. And in between world wars, we pursued the Monroe Doctrine with a vengeance, charging down on any number of rebellious and upstart movements in the Western Hemisphere – allegedly in pursuit of law and order, but it was really about commercial interests. (The American Empire has always been at least as much commercial as military in intent and outcome, and it remains so to this day with the exception of the Middle East, which is purely political.)

And throughout all of these developments up to the present day, a few isolated voices were raised along the lines of “What business it is of ours?”, and “What gives us the right...”, and “Whose real interests are being served here?”, and so on. But those voices were promptly shouted down on the basis of such well-thought-out notions as “Because we're the best”, and “We need to teach those people a lesson”, not to mention verbal tics like “spreading democracy” and “protecting the American way of life”, which were invented to cloud people's minds and keep them from seeing what's really going on.

And this is not to say that there weren't people of influence along the way who really, sincerely believed that we had something to offer the benighted masses of the Third World – or the oppressed masses of the Second World. That may have been true, but the way to spread the gospel of democracy is not to start bombing and sending in troops; spreading ideas through violence is a contradiction in terms, even if it seems to actually work on occasion. Even if you can get people (whoever survives the invasion) to embrace our ideas, it is more often than not a sham; they are just mouthing words in order to stay on our good side (assuming there even is a good side in these situations). Eventually, if and when we ever leave (a rare event), the old ways return and, sooner or later, it's as if we were never there. We can poke as many holes in the ocean as we like, but unless we stick around to reinforce, protect, and maintain those holes they are going to vanish as soon as our last soldier goes back across the border. Because, once again, we are fighting traditionally-based culture with ideas. The Russians and the Chinese tried it with communism – the idea to end all ideas – and once communism in the strict, or “pure”, sense collapsed of its own weight the old culture – the “pre-idea” culture, if you will – returned. This country at least had the advantage of starting off as a blank slate, culturally speaking, which meant that ideas could gain, and maintain, more of a foothold here, because there was nothing to compete against. And yet even in what one might call “pioneer” nations, an organic culture will arise sooner or later; it's just against human nature to live in a cultural vacuum for very long. And once that new culture asserts itself, it competes with ideas for the loyalty and dedication of the citizenry – as can be seen throughout this country at the present time. Take more than ten steps outside of the National Archives, where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are housed and meticulously cared for like ancient mummies, and you run into people with radically different notions of man, society, and how one is to live. And they aren't all aliens, fresh off the boat; most are citizens and voters, whose families have lived here for generations. The ideas that gave rise to “diversity” – or at least to its toleration – have turned out to be self-destructive. I'm not saying this is either good or bad; it's just the way things are.

So – the fool's errand to end all fool's errands is for us to venture overseas in order to convert the unwashed and ignorant masses to the American way of thinking, which is based entirely on ideas which must seem impossibly abstract to said masses, and for which, in order to take them seriously, one must give up loyalty to things with more solidity and permanence. Plus, the fact that this is undertaken, in most cases, as a thin veneer for empire building and commercial interests, AKA imperialism, makes it even less likely to succeed and take root. So, once again, when we leave our ideas leave, and things return to normal. The problem is that there are very few examples of this because we almost never leave; the main exception in recent times has been Vietnam, and we left because we lost a war, which is also a rare occurrence.

And even if take back the bulk of our troops, we invariably leave “peacekeepers” behind, as we did in Germany and Japan. Is our military presence only a way of insuring continuing commercial advantage, or is it also a form of insurance, i.e. making certain the country in question doesn't make the same mistake – getting into a war with us – again? I say it's both, and that the two motives are complementary. The military is there to intimidate, and the commercial presence is there to soften the blow by offering economic advantages, trade being the most obvious. So we wind up with a world filled with client states who are not quite happy slaves, but who must wonder, once in a while and in the stillness of the night, what it would be like if we would just get out of their lives. And who knows, they may find out sooner than they think, if things continue the way they are going.

All of which leads to the question implied at the beginning. If the American Empire and America as world policeman can't go on forever, it will have to stop. But even when it does, the world will still be there, with all of its pathologies and discontents. So what happens then? Does someone else step up and assume the world's policeman role, or do they decide, right off the bat, to reject that hypocrisy and assert raw power? (In which case, history not only fails to end, but it starts running in reverse.) Russia and China are already making moves in that direction, and they are certainly our most likely successors. And no, I'm not forgetting the E.U., but, lest we forget, the E.U. has no troops, and neither does NATO – not really. NATO has never been anything more than the U.S. and a bunch of other guys, and the E.U. is the other guys without the U.S. These sorts of entities do not an empire make – at least not in any traditional or lasting form. Can you imagine the E.U., or NATO, going up against a resurgent Russia without Uncle Stupid providing muscle? I can't bear to look! And I suppose the U.N. is going to go toe-to-toe with China (or even North Korea) without muscle-bound us in the mix. Forget about it!

And this, I suppose, is the reasoning of the globalist powers-that-be. They may despise us and consider us uncultured, primitive slobs and idiots suitable only for cannon fodder, but they have a hard time imagining the world without us – the way the owner of a vast estate couldn't imagine getting along without his serfs and servants. And yet, “something will happen”. The world as it is is in such flux, and there is so much instability on all fronts, that things as they are simply cannot stand, any more than a machine shedding nuts and bolts and leaking oil is going to run much longer. The conservatives who want nothing to change, ever, are dreaming. The revolutionaries at least know that things can't go on, but they imagine that they're the ones who are going direct the changes and own the future (“Well, it worked for Lenin and Mao, why not for us?”) – but they may be wrong too. And even if they win some near-term victories, revolutions are notorious for devouring their own; revolutionaries who win actually have a lower life expectancy than those who lose. So the future may not be as rosy as they think. In any case, take heart – if you don't like the American Empire, be assured that it will vanish some day. The question is, will America survive its empire, and if so in what form? Hopefully not abject slavery, but even that is not assured.

Looking for Mr. Goodbye

I. Our material world

Some have contended that a prominent aspect of the American character is optimism... the notion that things will – inevitably, but even faster with a good dose of motivation, enthusiasm, hard work, and know-how – be better tomorrow than today, and so on ad infinitum. This is tied, of course, to the idea of “progress”, which also has an air of inevitability (as in “you can't stop progress”), continuous improvement, the triumph of technology, and Utopianism... not to mention somewhat shop-worn notions like Manifest Destiny. And all of these ideas are, in turn, based on a certain variety of Protestantism, sometimes identified in our time as the “prosperity gospel” -- the idea that material progress is, and should be, a natural motivator for the righteous, and that prosperity is an unmistakable sign of merit (with the implication that a lack of prosperity is a sign of reprobation). (This, by the way, is a mindset typical of Old Testament times, of Judaism, and even of Hinduism – and is extremely anti-New Testament.) 

I'm not going to claim that this more materialistic variety of Protestantism has replaced, or shoved aside, spiritual values in our culture. Rather, I'm going to claim that it has always been dominant, and has always, from the very beginning, determined our thinking in diverse areas, such as law, economics, foreign policy, “social justice”... even aesthetics, not to mention customs and mores. By contrast, people with a more spiritual bent – a more ascetic bent, even – have generally been considered dreamers and fools, and – that most devastating of Americanist adjectives -- “impractical”. One way to characterize our history, in fact, is to consider it a perennial struggle between “pragmatism” -- progress, technology, bourgeois values, etc. -- and things of the spirit. There is no greater sin in our society than to be “against progress” -- or even to be thought to be. Then, we are consigned to the outer darkness of Medieval ignorance and “superstition”, or placed in the company of stagnant Oriental empires. Since the lot of man is implicitly defined as never having quite enough “stuff”, anyone who opposes this view is obviously opposed to human fulfillment, happiness, and self-actualization. Never mentioned is that, beyond the basic necessities, “stuff” has a dismal track record when correlated with human contentment. Why else would we be the most prosperous society on earth, and yet have the highest percentage of crybabies (from all socio-economic levels, note)? We have yet to learn that material contentment is not an absolute; it's more the relationship of expectation to achievement. It's bad enough to be overly attached to what one already has; our problem is that we become attached to things we don't have, and are not likely to ever have. It is a sure formula for misery and discontentment in the midst of plenty.

But wait -- you might say -- aren't you constantly describing this as an “ideational” society, in which ideas, rather than pragmatic considerations, dominate? Yes, this is true, but if you look into it you'll find that most of our ideas are based on materialistic values and ultimately have materialistic goals. In other words, if ideas don't “pay off” in the long run, they're not worth considering. Never in the entire American corpus of ideas, notions, memes, or stray thoughts is there any hint that there might be something more important than material success and material prosperity – in the long run. The things we identify as “ideas” or “ideals” are not goals in their own right, but means to an end – namely more of everything. So yes, we are ideational in the short term, but materialistic in the long term – a paradox, I admit, but I think it's accurate.

Let me give some examples. What does the average American mean by “freedom”? Freedom to think, to meditate, to philosophize? Hardly. It boils down to being able to live where you want, have a family (or not), do the kind of work you want, and keep what you earn, with minimum harassment by your neighbors or the government. Fair enough; this was what the colonists wanted, and it was what the early settlers and pioneers wanted. And it's amazing to see the American public's level of tolerance of having more and more of these freedoms taken away from them with each passing day. The regime's argument boils down to this – we have to take away your freedoms in order to preserve your freedoms. Which makes about as much sense as having to destroy a village in order to save it (a favorite bit of absurdity from the Vietnam era).

And going back to the founding, what was American “independence”? How was it conceived? Mostly as a means by which we got to keep our stuff, engage in free trade, and be self-governing. Nothing wrong with that, as long as we admit it. The point is that most of the complaints against George III in the Declaration of Independence were material issues. It's not as if he engaged in religious oppression or spiritual intimidation of some sort – that was left up to the individual colonies, which did engage in such activities from time to time, as we know. But that problem was solved – wasn't it? -- with the First Amendment, which set up a “wall of separation between church and state”. Actually, it did no such thing. All it said was that Congress – i.e. the federal government – “shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”. In theory, the states still had that right – and it was exercised, in various ways subtle and not-so-subtle, for a long time afterward.

The point is that the founding documents, and the Founding Fathers, are relatively silent when it comes to spiritual matters, and when they do speak, it's typically with the tolerance born of secular humanism, if not outright skepticism, agnosticism, or atheism. In practice, of course, the United States turns out to be a much more religious country than the founders may have intended – but again, if you dig down you'll find that religious values are nearly always subordinated to material ones, frequently under the guise of patriotism or nationalism. In other words, let's achieve the material Utopia first, then we can worry about spiritual matters – except that the material Utopia never comes, so we never get around to what should be our highest priority. In our time, this means that we have to be “practical”, and use tools like progressive taxation, welfare, affirmative action, social policy, and industrial policy to achieve “fairness” (equality of outcomes), because if we don't take care of this first, then all of our spiritual activities are a sham and a sign of hypocrisy. (And once we achieve Utopia, we won't need religion anyway – so it's a “catch-22”.) And again, this is based on a certain reading of the Old Testament, and a distorted reading of the New Testament, by people all across the Protestant spectrum who are, in fact, our national leaders when it comes to “ideas”. From what other source, for example, do our notions of the American Empire derive? By what other set of standards do we look upon the rest of the world as our plantation, and crack the whip and dole out severe punishment whenever necessary? And what I say is that our pseudo-religious ideas are actually the most noble basis for this attitude, compared to the more common motives of greed, raw power, and downright sadism. The fact remains, however, that a Third-World citizen blown to pieces by an unmanned drone doesn't care a whole lot whether the person pushing the button was an idealist or not; he's just as dead either way.

This is, in fact, the point at which American “pragmatism” tends to jump the rails. Given that we're “in it for the long haul”, our ideas get in the way of success in both the short and long haul... and this is because they're delusional, muddled, and unsustainable, even as they are materialistic at base. I am always willing to admit that our ideas – our founding principles – sustained us as a civilization for a decent period of time, and lent themselves to an impressive level of prosperity and material well-being. But that's precisely the point. We did not become prosperous because of some mysterious causal relationship between our ideals and the material; it was always about the material, and very little else. It might almost be said that we were the first totally materialistic culture in history – and the most successful, compared to the many varieties of socialism that followed. What religion we had, and what little we still have, can be seen as an overlay – an aspect of our culture that thrived in spite of our materialistic base (or because of a lurking suspicion that our materialism was misguided).

Think of it this way. The “church-state” issue should be called a “spiritual-material” issue, and our typically American “ideas” are all on the side of the state, or the material... even if they are occasionally presented in pseudo-religious guise. And I include in the “material” category things like environmentalism, which though seemingly idealistic is basically materialism of a different sort. And needless to say, all varieties of socialism boil down to pure materialism in one form or another – as do most versions of “fairness” and “social justice”. (When's the last time you heard a social reformer or “agent of change” express concern about the spiritual welfare or spiritual needs of the underprivileged? I imagine Dorothy Day was about the last one who did so consistently.)

I might add that worshiping the Creation without worshiping the Creator is foolish and heretical. How many environmentalists are churchgoers? But is religion anti-environment? It is if you only take the Protestant “robber barons” as a model. But any good Catholic will agree that proper Christian stewardship should include respect for the created order, which includes the environment and issues like sustainability. It was actually the Protestants who invented the War on Nature -- as part of the Industrial Revolution, but it reflected a deeper (and heretical) world view.

II. Shattered dreams

With that introduction, let's examine, for a moment, how political ideas fail. Sometimes a perfectly good idea comes along, but it's met with such overwhelming resistance that it hardly stands a chance. Thus, the fate of the pillars of Catholic social teaching, distributism and subsidiarity. They came along (in “modern” form) at the same time socialism (as a generic idea) was waxing triumphant – namely in the early part of the 20^th Century. They were countercultural, in that they seemed to call for a return to the land and to “the simple life” at a time when the city was considered the highest expression of human achievement (this was way before the fall of the city in America, most notoriously exemplified by Detroit).

Another possibility is that an idea, whether good or bad, is simply proposed in the wrong place and at the wrong time. It is not so much countercultural as it defies all political, economic, and social trends at the time. Conservatism, for example, was hopelessly countercultural in this country from the New Deal through the 1970s... libertarianism is countercultural now... and communism is also countercultural now, except for a few wretched holdouts in foreign governments and in academia. 

There are also ideas that have merit, but their implementation is fatally flawed. Just about every Third World pesthole has something that passes for a constitution (unless they have sharia), and there's an even chance that their constitution is modeled after ours – but corruption, ignorance, and tribalism tend to trump the ideals of the dedicated few who dared to put pen to paper hoping the outcome would resemble the U.S.

But given that there are plenty of examples of the above cases, the most common reason that political ideas fail is simply that they are bad ideas. In one way or another, they defy what anyone with common sense knows about human nature, either individually or in groups. They may also fly in the face of Natural Law, which can be thought of as a subset of human nature... or they may attempt to defy, or overcome, economic realities or even physical laws. Or – they may be based on ill-conceived philosophical or moral premises – in other words, they have built-in fatal flaws, which may take many generations to manifest themselves; this is what I believe has happened in the present case of the U.S. We've been operating, since the founding, on what one might call “philosophical steroids”, but, just as with steroids, the time has now come when the price has to be paid.

Now, please notice that I'm not talking about whether a given set of ideas is humane, compassionate, or “fair” per se. Plenty of systems that – according to our, ahem, enlightened way of thinking about things – would be considered anything but humane, compassionate, or fair have shown considerable robustness and durability... probably because they were at least realistic in some significant respects (consider, for example, the Machiavellian concept of governing – or that represented by Hobbes' Leviathan – or even by fascism). An extreme on the humanistic side would be pacifism – but how is a pacifistic society to survive in a world where most other societies are warlike? And as to radical democracy, it seems to work quite well in small towns in New England, but as a model for a national government? There you quickly wind up with the absurdity of “people's republics” which are ruled by anything but the people – or with what we have, which I'll call “ceremonial democracy”, i.e. a thinly-disguised oligarchy.

The point is that what works works – at least for a time. Even anarchy – of the East African variety, say – works for a time, especially when it represents a regression to tribalism, or even gang rule. Our “inner cities” all have informal governments where the formal, official governments have failed; there is a perverse kind of order, even if it's not to everyone's taste. And do I have to even mention the informal but highly-effective social “systems” that characterize public schools and prisons?

So yes, it is a part of human nature to organize into groups, gangs, cliques, etc. for mutual support and protection – and it's part of human nature for these entities to enter into conflict with one another. There are gangs, combines, trusts, cabals at all levels – in this society as in all others. In many cases they may fill in, and be effective, where official or nominal governments fail. And even when they are idea-based (think of the “radical Islamists” fighting it out across the Arab world) there is a tendency for things to boil down to practical matters in the long run. One could almost say that ideas become more dangerous as their span of influence widens. A small communal village may be ruled by some ideas that others would find far-out and wacky – but if they work for that village, then they work, and whose business is it to try and interfere? On the other hand, when equally far-out and wacky ideas take over an entire country, or empire (as was the case in the Third Reich) they become a danger to themselves and others. And this, by the way, is one of the best arguments for subsidiarity – to confine governmental functions to the lowest possible/practical level, in order to serve not only the immediate needs of the people but also their long-term welfare, and to protect them from the ravages of foreign, alien, or oppressive “ideas”. (Notice how many bad ideas are actually imported from the point of origin to the place where people wind up being victims – communism from Germany to Russia, and then to China, and then to Korea and Vietnam, for example.)

III. It's our party and we'll die if we want to 

It would be simplistic to claim that all bad ideas wind up being fatal in the same way, and according to the same timetable. Some cultures, even though they publicly and officially embrace certain ideas, have a kind of resistance to those ideas penetrating beyond a certain point. When I was in China – admittedly on a guided whirlwind tour – I was impressed not so much by the things that had changed since, say, the days of the emperors, but by the things that had not changed, in terms of attitudes, habits, cultural traditions, aesthetics, etc. It seems that, under Maoism, Chinese culture went underground, in a sense, only to revive and reassert itself under more lenient and prosperous conditions. I guess Mao only thought that he was stamping out every vestige of an ancient empire, and we can all be thankful that he was wrong. I imagine the same is true in Russia, where much of the traditional Russian culture and the “Russian spirit” had to be suppressed for the duration of the Soviet empire.

Can something of the sort be said for this country? The problem is that we are a new country and a new culture, in the overall scheme of things – and the bulk of our history is dominated by the American Experiment and the American Empire (the latter growing out of the former in what seems to be an inevitable manner). To put it another way, there is, as far as I know, very little in the way of colonial, or pre-founding, traditions or customs available for revival, or worth the trouble to do so – so we are left to fall back on someone's version of “the real America” or the way things were “when this country was the undisputed hope and light of the world”, or some such thing – and take your pick as to when that might have been. I've discussed this before – do we go back to Jacksonian democracy, or the Gilded Age, or Progressivism, or Wilsonism, or the New Deal, or the postwar boom, or... what? To each his own, when it comes to nostalgia. The problem is that each age, each era, contained within itself the seeds of what was to come. The cultural revolution of the 1960s had its origin in the 1950s... Progressivism had its origin in the Industrial Revolution... capitalism gave birth to the New Deal... and so on. And in each case there was plenty of zeal to bring down, destroy, and grind into fine power that which had come before – and yet we see plenty of remnants and echoes of each preceding age in the present. The present day is not history yet, but it soon will be – and it will become another layer added to the deep landfill of ideas and experiences that we have been building for 230-odd years.

The next question is, do empires inevitably have to decline and fall? (And make no mistake, America is an empire, not just a single country.) Well... all the ones we know about did, so what makes us think we're the exception? And again, the causes vary greatly, but a common element is that empires eventually run out of ideas – i.e. effective ones. And that sets off a chain of events – no ideas, no motivation, no energy, no self-confidence, no morality, no resistance to being overrun or replaced. An empire that is not growing is dying; stagnation is just death in disguise. Now... if we accept this cyclic phenomenon as inevitable – as “natural” in a way – does it mean that empires are always a bad thing, and that the human race should get over this fixation with conquering the world? Just sit around a billion campfires with dogs curled up at our feet and roasting small rodents on a stick? But this too would be unnatural. Man is, by nature, Man the Builder... and there is no use trying to squelch this most basic, and (at least on occasion) productive instinct. What is needed is not radical simplicity or “back to nature”, but a re-direction – again, sustainability should be the key concept. And if we're consistent about sustainability, it will mean that the empires that do arise will be more benign and less wasteful than the ones we have known – and who knows, they might last longer as a result. But even if they don't, the process will hopefully be less traumatic than what we typically see in history.

It may even be foolish to talk about “good” vs. “bad” empires, because they all leave us with a legacy of some sort. They all “add value”, perhaps unwittingly. The most we can do is arrange them along a scale according to which ones we admire... which ones left the most in the way of artifacts and contributions to human knowledge... which ones are more interesting or aesthetically appealing... and so on. As with foreign countries, we don't have to sit in judgment 24-7. And, like it or not, empires are the cornerstones of history, with wars and battles as the building blocks. Again, human nature.

See, it's tempting, at times, to interpret the declining stage of an empire as evidence not just of the process described above, but of an almost conscious self-destruction, as if there is some “altruistic gene” embedded in empires that, for the good of the human race in general, causes them to destroy themselves before things go too far. And we can see this self-destructiveness – quite clearly, in many cases – when we consider various empires in decline, including our own. To put it more bluntly, is America committing suicide (economic, diplomatic, moral) for the good of the rest of the world? And are our leaders aiding and abetting this process, whether they realize it or not? I doubt if this could be called an agenda item, but it does seem like such an inevitable process that one is almost tempted to think of it as another instance of Natural Law. When things get to a certain point, “something makes us” start fouling our own nest, and being ever more blind and stupid about things – things like the national debt, the environment, social policy, foreign policy, education, health, and so on. Our politicians, of course, lead the way in the “blind and stupid” department... but the people willingly follow. The Greeks used to talk about “hubris”, and how it was inevitably punished by the gods; maybe they were onto something. You would think, for example, that with greater power would come greater wisdom in the use of that power... but the opposite seems to be the case. The “bully of the town” was never known for his wisdom or insight... and neither is “the superpower”, whatever it might be (Rome, the British Empire, us, etc.). Or maybe the notion that “power corrupts” is more than a statement about material corruption; maybe it also has to do with morals and even sanity. Heaven knows, the bulk of what comes out of Washington these days seems to be the work of madmen – not that they are obvious lunatics (except for a few) but that there is a disconnect between their everyday normalcy and what they produce in the way of laws, policies, regulations, governmental organizations, etc. It is almost like a disease or a curse – call it the curse of empire. And the worst thing is that it blinds them to the welfare of the citizenry – those they supposedly represent. But the citizens are, by and large, afflicted with their own forms of blindness, and so it goes. The few who sober up, and have the scales fall from their eyes, are appalled – but good luck getting anyone to listen. (In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is thrown into prison.) It is a seductive madness, because it assures us that everything is OK and that everything is under control (which is true, but not in the way people think). And because it is seductive, it is clung to and defended with a ferocity that used to be reserved for things of real value – like race, tribe, land, tradition, faith, and family. This is the point at which the world of ideas becomes the world of delusion – but since we still live in the real world as well, all sorts of conflicts arise; we become “mentally ill” as a society. (“Mental illness” for an individual, you may have noticed, is all about conflict and the attempt to escape from conflict; it is the same with societies.)

IV. “Save us, or we perish!” 

No one expects us to go gentle into that good night, any more than any other empire did. But certain pathologies arise, such as the desire to be rescued through some sort of deus ex machina. And thus the obsessive interest in aliens, space travelers, time travelers, and “the possibility of life on other planets” -- anything that might offer to save us from our folly. What are those radio broadcasts directed toward deep space but a cry for help – not just an offer of the hand of friendship. The religious will pray for material salvation when they should be praying for spiritual strength to endure whatever comes. And then we look to all sorts of false gods, both old and new – the government first and foremost, but also “equality”, Mother Earth, technology, and (ironically) an even bigger and better American Empire. We look for materialistic solutions to what are basically moral problems – not realizing that it should be the other way around.

And if none of this works out, we are perfectly willing to pack it in, as witness the plethora of global catastrophe movies and TV shows – which represent wishful thinking on some level. Yep, things didn't work out, so let's just bag it, or “pull it”, in the immortal words of Larry Silverstein. There is a longing for a cataclysm... a cleansing... or, for the apocalyptically-inclined, a chastisement. It is a realization that our sins have brought the Creation low, and that we have been very bad stewards. But in another sense it's a desire to escape – to, once again, avoid accountability and having to face up to our follies and await judgment. Suicide on death row, or cheating the hangman – one last gesture of defiance. But that's human nature too, and it's not too late to recognize it as such and start trying to do the right thing, even if it's only as isolated individuals. We can't stop the Empire, but we can preserve our integrity.

Indignation

As I've pointed out many times, the political culture in this country is based on ideas -- which, if not unique in history, is definitely atypical. Most political cultures in history, and at present, are based on time-honored things like religion, race, ethnicity... even skin color (as a subset of race) and gender. (There has yet to be an entirely GLBT country, but just you wait!) In other words, political cultures and politics – and hence the public consciousness – are usually based on tangibles... things one can see, hear, and touch. But that wasn't good enough for the Founding Fathers... and it wasn't good enough for the French revolutionaries, or the Russian revolutionaries, or any of their clones over the years. And thus, “revolutionary” societies tend to be – or at least claim to be – free from all taint of racism, sexism, or ethnic consciousness. Well... sometimes it works out this way, and sometimes it doesn't. After all, even revolutionary societies typically have a dominant ethnic or racial group... and more traditional societies definitely have. In fact, one can almost say that ethnic, racial, or religious dominance is an earmark of traditional societies... so much so, in fact, that one can't really speak of “dominance”. It's more like homogeneity. In many ways, it's only the unnatural size of most countries in our time that has led to questions of dominance. If you take sub-Saharan, i.e. black, Africa, there was a time when the highest level of “government” was the tribe – and it was, by definition as well as in fact, completely uniform in the racial, ethnic, and religious sense. But then the colonialists stepped in and said, well, this simply won't do, we can't go around governing or supervising hundreds of different tribes, some no more extensive than a single village... so we'll come up with artificial borders enclosing a huge area and call it a colony, or country – and thus abominations like the Congo, Nigeria, and so on, where, if left to their own devices, people readily revert to a tribal model... with or without having first annihilated all the members of opposing tribes. They engage in hostilities they might not have otherwise engaged in, in other words – just to reclaim their birthright.

And so it is with us, in a way. We pride ourselves on not suffering under the choking uniformity of “old world”, provincial cultures... but at the same time we deprive ourselves of one of the more universal bases of identity – both group and individual -- the kinds of things that make people willing to fight, and die, and make sacrifices without having to be brainwashed or coerced. “Ideas” are difficult things to cuddle up to on a cold winter night... but we still contend that they are far superior to any other basis for political or social action, and so are willing to make the sacrifice -- the new, revolutionary kind of sacrifice. So while deracination is liberating in some respects, it is enslaving in others – mainly because it makes us slaves to ideas, and to the people who manipulate those ideas for their own purposes. And when those ideas fail, we have nothing to fall back on, having given all of that up generations ago. So a nation of failed ideas becomes a nation of alienation... and that alienation is not confined to urban areas (its natural dwelling place) but spreads out into the countryside as well. And thus, even people in isolated corners of the country find themselves under severe pressure to give up what is left of their natural identity, and trade it in for ideas which have already either outlived their usefulness, or been twisted completely out of shape. And this is why “political correctness” is so vicious – because it expects us to trade something for nothing... or simply for the sake of getting along, and not being shunned by the mainstream media and their sheep-like victims.

I referred above to “darkest Africa”, and what happened when the colonial powers moved in. But it wouldn't do to limit the discussion to that area. Please witness what happened to Eastern Europe in the post-Cold War era: the re-Balkanization of places like Yugoslavia, as well as of the Soviet Union itself. While Germany was reuniting, the Soviets were fragmenting... and in the Caucasian region, it seems that there is no governmental or administrative division small enough that it cannot be further fragmented by feuding groups. So what we are seeing in those places is a kind of re-tribalization – which may not fit nicely into the globalist view of things, but is much more natural and durable than the alternatives. And the point is, people who live in a relatively uniform country are not beset with the problems we experience on a daily basis, from our much-vaunted “diversity”. I mean, what would “race relations” mean in a country with only one race? Or “ethnic conflict” with only one ethnic group? Or “religious and/or sectarian strife” with only one sect? Think of the peace and quiet that descends when you realize that your neighbor is not going to climb into your window in the middle of the night and slit your throat because you're of a different race, creed, or ethnic group. It must be marvelous... truly. And note, we do not enjoy this level of peace and quiet in this country – far from it! The high water mark of ethnic tensions may be past (although Hispanic vs. non-Hispanic tension has certainly filled the gap to some extent), but race is as big an issue as ever, despite what anyone wants to claim. And now we have a new religious issue to worry about, as exemplified by the Islamic mosque controversy. So there is no peace in “diversity” -- nor should anyone expect there to be. The only people who harbor that delusion are people like the pacifists and Quakers, who revel in their own deracination and “quake” at any mention of racial, ethnic, or religious differences – i.e., differences worth fighting over. The Jews, at least, hold on to their tribal consciousness even though they want everyone else deracinated – culturally castrated – because they feel that it's in their best interests. Well, it's hard to blame them since they've had some unpleasant experiences with “master race” theories. But our new breed of formerly- or pseudo-Christian “peacemakers” is willing to deracinate themselves as well – for which, I suppose, they should win a cultural “Darwin Award”... and good riddance.

So the price of “diversity” in this country has been, paradoxically, to actually suppress ethnic and religious differences. We are now expected to willingly march, like sheep to the slaughter, into a great deracinating and ecumenical melting pot, where all the rough places will be made plain, and there will be no more strife among religious and ethnic groups – which means, in effect, that there will be no more religion – I mean the real kind, not just the “cultural” kind – and no more ethnicity. (Think of the loss to good eating alone!) This is, of course, very much on the mind of the Regime, which is itself extremely exclusive when it comes to religion and still fairly exclusive when it comes to ethnicity. So in this sense, it's simply the earliest stage of American history writ large – the white Protestants are in charge, just like always... but not in such an obvious way as formerly. I mean, gosh, we have a black president now! Doesn't that mean the end of racism? Well, of course not. Race is much too valuable a political and economic (read: extortion) tool to be set aside. And, our noble black president is as much a slave to the white power structure as his non-ancestors were to the man in the big house on the old Southern plantations. Make no mistake – the black man is still very much under the white boot in this world, and one black president in America is not going to change that. The most he'll manage to do is, basically, shut the black militants up until his term of office ends, at which point they'll be back in the streets and on the airwaves, complaining about what a racist society this is and how much discrimination they suffer on a daily basis. But with one of their own (even though he really isn't) in the White House, all of their militancy has to be put on hold for a while. (This might, in fact, be one of the better arguments for keeping him in office -- along with the fact that the homeless magically disappear every time there's a Democratic president.)

But at least blacks in America are allowed to maintain and perpetuate their own culture – as pathological as it is at times. Other ethnic groups are expected to check their identities at the door, and as for Catholics... well! Anyone suspected of being more loyal to the Pope than to the United States – as Kennedy (mistakenly) was – can hope for nothing better than second-class-citizen treatment. (The fact that this same criterion doesn't seem to apply to American Jews vis-a-vis Israel is the best single indicator of who is in charge of making, and enforcing, the rules.)

And it's not as if ethnic/religious identity is extinct in this country. It's certainly not extinct in Pittsburgh, for instance. But it's regarded as a bit of a throwback... a charming bit of quaintness, like the Amish. Something to take winsome pictures of for National Geographic, but nothing more. Heaven forbid anyone should start taking it seriously, and heaven forbid it should ever again start to impact politics on the national level! Then serious measures would have to be taken. So the bottom line to all this is that “diversity” is used, by the Regime, as a weapon against true diversity. For example, someone who is “diverse” is not allowed to be racist... whereas a person who is truly diverse is almost inevitably racist – at least to some degree. By which I mean, they are highly likely to believe in the the superiority of their own race and the inferiority of others – just as Lincoln did. (Yes, it's true. Wake up from your grade-school history class slumbers and check it out.) And I say that this is a natural thing, and that, up to a point, it can even be a healthy thing. Group cohesion is one of the best indicators of group health, and one of the best predictors of the survival of the group. (Hey, all you Darwinians out there -- are you with me on this?) But let's admit that it can go too far; the “master race” notion popularized by Hitler led to the deaths of millions of Germans and the physical, social, and economic destruction of their country. So along with racial and ethnic pride – and religious pride, if that's not a contradiction in terms – should come tolerance. And to be tolerant, we don't even have to feel that the other group is just as good as us, but different. We can consider them markedly inferior – but still allow them to pursue their own destiny in their own way. But it takes a stong stomach at times. We threw down the "white man's burden" and allowed Africa to be Africa -- and got characters like Idi Amin and Robert Mugabe. We don't have to understand their karma in order to allow them to deal with it in their own way.

And this brings us to American foreign policy, which is blatantly intolerant, according to the above definition. But again, this intolerance harks back to the origins of this nation, and all of the hidden time-bombs of intolerance that underlay the work of the Founding Fathers. As long we were a nation of white Protestants (with a Utopian bent), all was well. But look at what happened when we were inundated with a bunch of Irish Catholics fleeing the Irish famine (which was engineered by British Protestants, by the way – just thought I'd throw that in as an ironic note). Then we found out how tolerant we really were. And did the emancipation of the slaves change the hearts and minds of all white people as to the merits of the black race? Not so much. And each racial, ethnic, and religious group that washed up on our shores faced the same wall of intolerance – either blatant or more subtle -- as it continues to do. Sometimes, in fact, it manifested itself as a kind of paternalistic condescension – the best example being the attitudes of white liberals toward blacks in our time. But that's still intolerance in the sense that it constitutes a refusal to see the other group as equals. They must, in some way, be seen as inferior, weaker, stupider... more in need of help... more in need of things like “set-asides”, affirmative action, preferences, subsidies, reparations, etc. The liberals will fight any attempt to make blacks, or Hispanics, truly equal to whites – not worse, and not better... not discriminated against, nor discriminated for. And you would think, from all their propaganda and protestations, that such a thing would be an ideal world for them – a truly “peaceable kingdom”. But it would also rob them of the most cherished part of their self image, and of their – or so they claim – purpose for living. Where would the activist or the “community organizer” be without the “underprivileged”? Where would the demagogue be without the mob? And where would the politician be without the frightened... the gullible... the passive... the impulsive... and so on? Careers and lifetimes are built on human weakness – one's own and the weakness of others. Show me a strong man working with other strong men. It happens in Ayn Rand's novels, but in real life? Very seldom. Most human transactions in our times involve power relationships, and more often than not someone is at a disadvantage. It's not that most transactions are coerced... but they are contaminated, and overly influenced by power and position. I'm not saying that the free market model is wrong, or should be abandoned; if anything I'm saying that it needs to be protected with more diligence than it is. The essence of “democracy” is not, as the high-school civics teachers contend, “majority rule”. You find that in all kinds of places. It was “majority rule” that allowed the Turks to slaughter the Armenians. No, the essence of democracy is minority rights, by which I mean, in most cases, rights equal to those of the majority. This is much tougher for most people to stomach than majority rule based on raw power (which comes either from the barrel of a gun or from the voting booth – or some combination of the two). In this country, the majority at any given time typically doesn't go so far as to practice genocide on the minority – but they do bully and kick them around quite a bit. This has become the new “American way” in our time, and it has given rise – not surprisingly – to what has been referred to as the “paranoid style” in American politics. It is not enough, any more, to acknowledge that you and your opponents have a difference of opinion as to how the country should be run. Now it's, they are also evil, and they are out to get me. Well, OK. Sometimes that's actually true; why deny it? Frankly, I think our politicians would get along much better with each other if the media weren't in the mix. The media are the real rabble rousers of our time, and the rabble they rouse is, more often than not, themselves. Listen to the “talking heads” from anywhere along the political spectrum, and you'd think that Congress would resemble a WWF cage match – but it really doesn't. Hardly ever. And the reason is that it is made up of politicians, who are, as a class, the most willing to compromise, and the least principled, people on the planet. Unlike their constituencies, I might add – which is why the political game is so bizarre. Politicians have to pretend to have principles in order to get elected... they have to pretend to share the dismay, anger, rage, and indignation (and occasionally the hopes and dreams – but it's safer to emphasize the negative) of the unwashed hordes standing before them at political rallies, or watching them on TV... but once in office, they will do anything to “get things done”. Their greatest fear is being tagged as a “do-nothing Congress”. They were sent to Washington to be “lawmakers” and, by golly, that's what they're going to do, and the citizenry can go to hell. I mean, isn't that basically the attitude? Yes, these people are morbidly obsessed about their popularity, and about their “record”, but no considerations of quality go into that obsession. And as long as they aren't punished by the voters by being voted out of office, the behavior will persist.

And yet, it would be incorrect to say that Americans, on the whole, are in a state of despair. Discouragement, maybe... helplessness, much of the time... and certainly puzzlement and dismay as we gradually, and painfully, learn that, in the present scheme of things, the average person – the “honest citizen” -- simply does not count. What counts, if anything, are the outliers... the troublemakers... the anti-social element... the ones who “act out”. And yet, even these are compromised. The ones who are not incarcerated are co-opted and made to learn what living a life of noisy impotence is like. The middle class, on the other hand, lives a life of quiet impotence... but what is noteworthy is that, up until recently, they only remained quiet because they thought that, on some abstract level, they were in charge. After all, they exercised their right to vote! What more could be asked? But now it is becoming more and more apparent that their votes are meaningless, and that voting is a pathetic exercise in pseudo-democracy. The people who are really in charge – not just the figureheads, who come and go – remain in charge no matter what. And the things that really count – that contribute to one's welfare or to one's failures – are totally out of the hands of the voting public... or the non-voting public, for that matter. So it's not just the rising tide of victimhood that is floating all political boats; it's the rising tide of _perception_ of victimhood... and this tide is rising much more rapidly among the middle class than among the traditional victims, i.e. minorities and the proletariat. Those groups are always ticked off about something, and the middle class has always been complacent and slumbering... until now. And of course, even this feeling is based on, let's admit, somewhat provincial and short-sighted considerations. Anyone with a sense of history can see that the American middle class is, for all of the erosions it is suffering at present, still enjoying a higher standard of living than most people in history, and than most people in the world right now. So for all their talk about principles, they turn out to be relativists after all. “Things aren't as good for me as they were for...” -- my parents, grandparents, whoever... even if they are only saying that in a relativistic way according to certain carefully-selected criteria. I mean, my grandparents had servants! They lived in a house with a back staircase! But they were solidly middle class. Imagine my parents having had anything like that – other than the once-a-week cleaning lady. And imagine me having anything like that. Impossible! So what does it all mean? Has there been a great reshuffling in the economic/class system? Has the working class risen up, and the middle class been pulled down as a result? Is it a zero-sum game after all? It is certainly true that the middle class has had to pay a kind of protection money, ever since the New Deal, in order to maintain some semblance of the old social order. I mean, I don't see them using calling cards, and having “at-homes” any more. But in many ways their lives are better than they were back then, and the heck with the servants. So what's the complaint? “Things should be better than they are; we should be allowed to keep more of our money.” Well, fine. But then you have to look at the suburbs of Washington, DC, which are severely stratified as to income as the result of real estate prices. What's the guy with a $700,000 McMansion going to do with the extra money he gets back if the government cuts expenditures – and hence his tax bill – by, say, 50%? (As long as we're speaking theoretically here, let's go all the way!) Why, he's going to move into the next neighborhood up the road, and into an $800,000 McMansion. That's as far as his vision takes him. And that marks him – let's admit – as middle class, a representative of the great American bourgeoisie... that group that everyone else hates and despises, and the group that now gives rise to the “tea parties” because a few of them are waking up to reality.

Now, make no mistake – I'm not saying that there is anything the least bit commendable about socialism, or “leveling”, or “progressive taxation”, or about class warfare. It's just that the alternative is not necessarily edifying. If one bases one's political convictions on aesthetics, then Soviet poster art is clearly far superior to middle-American housing, malls, and restaurants and motels along the Interstate. No, the first thing we must do when debating these issues is to hold our nose, quite worrying about bad taste, and ask, simply, do people have the right to the fruits of their own labor? The liberals say no, they don't; and the Regime says they do if they're a member of the ruling elite, but not otherwise. Militant minorities say that they have the right to the fruits of everyone _else's_ labor, based on concepts like “discrimination”, “reparations”, and so on, but where they run into trouble is when they wind up on the other side of the equation. Now that Hispanics have overtaken blacks as the preferred minority group, blacks are going to have to start paying some of the Hispanics' bills – and rightly so, since, by liberal standards, it is always incumbent on everyone else to provide for the politically-dominant minority.

And yet, through it all, there is hope. Or let's say, things haven't become totally hopeless as yet. And this is because we – or a decent percentage of us – are still capable of indignation. This attitude will, naturally, always be found more among minorities and the powerless – but, as I pointed out above, it is more and more to be found among those with a decent standard of living who see threats on all sides. If you feel that your own country is dead-set on destroying your culture, your lifestyle, your standard of living, and your values... well, a certain level of indignation is in order, don't you think? And yet this is derided by the media as “paranoia”, “hate”, and what not, because they represent the power elite, which is made up almost entirely by the ones who were indignant a generation or two ago – namely the liberals/socialists/collectivists/totalitarians. Now that we're so close to Utopia, it's considered very poor form for anyone to indulge in reactionary protests; after all, don't they want a world of overwhelming “fairness”? Well, clearly not, if what is meant by “fairness” is equality of outcomes at all costs. But the liberals don't believe in that either; any world in which they and their ideas are not dominant is unacceptable to them. So this “fairness” and “equality” thing is just a scam – just words designed to, once again, arouse the rabble.

But the significance of indignation – from anywhere along the spectrum – is that people still expect the government to serve the people, and to protect their interests. And we tend to forget what an unusual thing this is, historically – or even in the present day. Governments, above the tribal/village level, have generally been sources of oppression as far as the average person is concerned. They engender fear... and the most natural reaction is to stay out of the way – stay “off radar”. The notion that “the government is here to help you” -- well, we make jokes about it, but the fact is that people still believe it. But that makes them a rare breed, according to global or historical perspectives. So in a paradoxical sense, our indignation is a sign of our optimism – foolish tho' it may be – about government. We expect more, and we refuse to give up expecting more. Or at least – and this is the middle-class premise – we expect to be left more or less alone in order to pursue our livelihood, but then have that livelihood and any wealth that it produces protected. This, of course, is the source of middle-class ambivalence about government – it wants carte blanche to earn and invest, but a protective umbrella over anything that is earned and over any return on investment. And that's just on the domestic side; when it comes to foreign policy, the middle class is all for a “muscular” foreign policy and for “force projection”, but gets resentful when this results in an erosion of freedoms back home. (Yes, if you supported the invasion of Iraq don't complain about the TSA inspecting your poo-poo undies! The two are directly related.)

And there's another process going on here as well, and it has to do with cognitive dissonance, which I've discussed before. When the government fails to live up to its many promises (implied or otherwise), we feel that indignation is in order. But that's only on the top layer. That still assumes that our leaders want to live up to their promises... or that they made those promises with at least some degree of sincerity and/or realism. The next level down is that they don't intend to live up to those promises, and that they never did – which leads to things like the tea parties and the time-honored desire to “throw the rascals out”. But that's still just one level down, and, for one thing, assumes that the people who appear to be in charge really are. What we are seeing more and more these days, however – and one has to give the alternative media, and the Internet (and not only Wikileaks) a lot of credit for this – is that the agenda of government, and of its operatives, has absolutely nothing to do with the welfare of the citizenry, except by sheer accident... and that any of the processes, and decisions, that really count are made and conducted in secret, and usually by people who never ran for office in their life. Now, again, none of this would have upset most people down through history all that much – any more than it upsets people when some of the more notorious state and local governments turn out to be rackets. Well, duh! And the Europeans are traditionally blasé about this sort of thing as well; an honest and sincere leader, or public servant, is held up as a kind of saint because he (or she) is so exceptional. But we get upset. And again, it's because of our expectations, but also because of fear. I don't think Americans have a burning desire to believe what the establishment says as much as fear of any of the alternatives. Americans overall tend to be a somewhat skeptical lot, but at the same time they are so wedded to their vision of government, democracy, law and order, etc. that any other possibility puts them in a panic.  And they are especially troubled by the idea that government can, and does, operate in secret most of the time... i.e. when it really counts.  That seems somehow un-American (even tho' anyone else on earth would accept it as the normal way of things).  Another reason for this phobic response may be that they have never seen or experienced a revolution, so as far as they're concerned government = stability, and any thought of change or overthrow is extremely threatening.  And another reason is that, as I said before, they have very little to fall back on in terms of tradition or structure independent of government -- the old, reliable points of reference like race, ethnicity, and religion have been declared taboo. So... if the Wizard of Oz – the Great White Father in Washington – turns out to be a little man behind the curtain, and an evil one at that... well, what then? Our illusions are shattered, and, with them, what little is left of our national identity... or identity as a “people”... and our identity as individuals. It has been pointed out that the most frightening thing about the descent into madness – schizophrenia – is the loss of identity... a sense of who one is, or even _that_ one is. And this can overtake a nation as well, especially if all of the traditional points of reference have been systematically excised from the national consciousness.

See, here's what all sides of the debate have to realize. We are an ideational society, first and foremost. This is what was intended by the Founding Fathers, and it's still the way things are, after all these years. But what it means is that, if you buy into the notion of an ideational society, you also buy into the notion of constant, chronic, and unending dialogue and debate, with nothing ever being settled. And you buy into a kind of relativism, where you can claim that right is on your side – but it really isn't, or at least no one can prove it. Because what do you have to fall back on? Race, religion, and ethnicity are all taboo – which really means that morals are taboo, and all we have left is “ethics” (the Quakers again). The standards and values derived from those more traditional things are not allowed into the dialogue. So all that's left is debate, and politics – which means, ultimately, relativism... which means, ultimately, raw political (and police) power. So it does no good for the liberal media to squeal like a stuck pig whenever the tea partiers hold a rally, because their ideas are no better and no worse – they're just part of the dialectic. I mean... this is the way the system is set up. I don't say it's good, or the best... it's just the way it is. And likewise, the tea partiers would have a hard time proving that the liberals were any less “American” than they are. Less traditional, maybe... less “family-oriented”... less concerned with morals... less religiously-inclined... but they believe in ideas, and that's the essence of being an American. You don't like it, move to the nearest theocracy.

Now, someone might say, “But! But! Isn't it more a matter of how much one's ideas have diverged from those of the Founding Fathers? Shouldn't that be the criterion?” Well, it might be if said Founding Fathers had included, in the founding documents, stipulations that they believed in those ideas because they were white, male, heterosexual, Protestant (or at least Christian)... but they didn't. Those documents are completely free of any of the pesky, messy, old-fashioned points of reference that have influenced people's opinions and world views for eons. They are, in fact, blueprints for a new and basically secular world in which ideas, and nothing else, rule – ideas which are, to most people, abstractions. And as abstractions, they can be infinitely interpreted, twisted and turned, until they come out in any shape, size, or color that one wishes – which they have been. So objections to the “unconstitutionality” of laws, government programs or policies, while they may be valid in the strict, literal constructionist sense, are easily trampled in the dust by the endless parade of “ideas” and “interpretations”. This is why the Supreme Court is in a curious situation – it has to constantly chart some sort of course (resembling a drunk's path home from the neighborhood bar) between literal interpretation and illiterate – I mean liberal – interpretation of the Constitution. And which is truer to “original intent” -- the words or the (presumed) ideas behind them? We have ample evidence of the latter... and some would say, well, that's what they “meant” to say in the Constitution. But if that's so, why didn't they say it? Chances are it's because even our most hallowed documents were the product of considerable and energetic debate – bordering on violence at times – with the result being compromises which often satisfied no one. And those compromises left a hole which has come to be labeled “interpretation”. And what is the basis for interpretation? As often as not, free-floating ideas – things like “penumbras” for example. So it all gets knocked into a cocked hat, and it's only sheer inertia that keeps us from descending into anarchy, violence, and civil war.

Unless... well, this is where the Regime steps in. Knowing full well that the Constitution was fatally flawed in many ways, they began, early on, heating up the fires of “interpretation” until they glowed red hot – as they continue to do to this day. John Adams said that “our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” We read this quote often enough, but few stop to consider its significance. It is that the Constitution is not a rigid structure, nor a checklist, nor an exact blueprint for anything (including totalitarianism). It is a structure that requires – nay, demands – interpretation on a regular basis. We criticize certain phrases for being “ambiguous” -- like “promote the general welfare”. Correct. But they are ambiguous on purpose. A moral people would have figured out, by now, what “the general welfare” is, and what it is not – to say nothing of what constitutes “commerce among the several states”, “the right of the people to keep and bear arms”, “law respecting an establishment of religion”, etc. But we're still debating those points, and many more besides. And thus, the constant churning of ideas... and issues which the Founding Fathers may have thought, in their idealism and optimism, had been settled... but, it turns out, were not. Or, we have decided that they're not, which, pragmatically, amounts to the same thing. If they were settled once, and are now not, does it mean that we were a moral people once, and are now not? The evidence certainly seems to point in that direction.

So... in our lack of morality, and our despising of Natural Law, we find ourselves in a perpetual whirlwind of ideas with little or no foundation, and no anchor points. We use words which represent solid, agreed-upon concepts... or at least used to. But we use them in new, perverted, bizarre ways – so they lose all of their original meaning and become clubs with which we can smite each other over the head, like the blind denizens of some dystopian inferno. And one might well ask, what, after all, good have all of these ideas ever done? Wouldn't we have been better off sticking with the old verities, like almost every other country – blood and soil, race, ethnicity, language, religion, culture? And, let's admit, all the potential "isms" that go with them? Haven't we paid dearly for our enamoration with ideas, and exchanged our birthright for a mess of ideational pottage? Well... the American experiment, for all of its flaws, did work out for a while. And it attracted millions of people who “voted with their feet” -- although one could question whether that was because things were so good over here, or so bad over there. But the bottom line is that you don't find very many people trying to sneak out of the United States (other than the bin Laden family and Israeli spies), whereas millions are doing the opposite, and this continues right up to the present moment. There are people who, inexplicably, want to become American citizens and thus take on their share of a titanic and intractable national debt. And they also want to be involved in our overseas follies and in all of our racial, social, and economic strife at home. They must be crazy. Or... maybe they're just captivated by ideas, like the rest of us.