One Man, One Vote -- No, Really

The latest pronouncement from The Anointed One – who must still be punch-drunk from the beating he got from Bibi – has to do with voting. As in, voting in elections, by citizens. He seems to be advocating obligatory voting, which would put it in the same category as filing one's income tax return (or actually more so, since not everyone has to file). His reasoning (so-called)? It would get rid of the “corrosive influence of money in U.S. elections” (quote from the AP article). Really? Well, let's see – what exactly does “money” do to elections, anyway? It buys advertising, I guess – and how can that be bad? Well, it can be bad if one side has more money than the other, which means that the richer side can buy more ads, and thus influence more people's decisions as to (1) whether to vote, and (2) whom to vote for. Or, another way of putting it is that people with bad ideas, but more money, will inevitably win out over people with good ideas but less money. As if increasing the absolute amount of exposure to bad ideas somehow enhances their acceptability (which, I guess, is true if we're talking about The Big Lie and other, smaller lies).

You know, frankly, I've never been convinced that advertising plays all that decisive a role in elections. People vote a certain way because their parents did... or because they feel that everyone else in their racial/ethnic/economic/gender group is voting a certain way... or because of what they read, hear, or see in the actual news, as opposed to in campaign ads. They “vote their pocketbook” above everything else, but can also be influenced by ideas (if simplistically presented), ideals, and, yes, guilt. Not to mention, of course, candidates' personalities and personal traits and habits – and here, I suppose, information (including libel and slander) could be relevant.

I'm not saying that propaganda doesn't have an effect, only that it has to compete with any number of other factors – personal, political, sociological, etc. A member of a hard-core constituency could hear 3 or 4 hours per day of ads for the other side, and it wouldn't change his or her mind. And “independents” are more likely to see the big picture rather than falling for ham-handed political ads. And in the case of incumbents, memory is always a useful tool – especially memory of what they promised the last time around, versus what they actually delivered.

Plus, Obama seems to be implying that “money” is always on the side of the eeeevil Republicans. Not true! The Democrats have become the party of both the poor and the rich. Wall Street and the “banksters” cynically donate money to each party in about equal amounts, for obvious reasons. So the money argument is bogus – not entirely but nearly so.

What else could he mean, then? “If everybody voted, then it would completely change the political map in this country.” OK, that's a bit closer to the truth. If it's really true that non-voters tend to be “younger, lower-income and... immigrants or minorities” (AP quote) then it's a blatant attempt to further expand the Democrat power base by getting all of its constituents to the polls. And this is the angle that the conservative commentariat (AKA talk radio) has focused on. Well... it may be true, but Obama should be careful what he wishes for. A lot of “minorities” are very traditional in their thinking and may turn out to be more in tune with the Republicans (as in the case of the Cuban exiles in Florida). And as for the young? Are they really enchanted with the likes of Hillary Clinton? I'd be surprised if that were the case. She doesn't talk their language any more than the Republicans do – less, in some cases, if we're talking about some of the more young and dynamic Republicans, not to mention the libertarians. Plus, she looks like the meanest teacher they ever had in public school.

Another cautionary note (for liberals) is what I call the “disgust factor”. More and more people are staying away from the polls simply because they see nothing to choose from among the candidates, who they consider to be rogues, schemers, and fools. No argument there! But if they were forced to vote, are there any guarantees as to whom they would vote for? If forced to choose between the lesser of two evils, which typical Democratic or Republican candidate would come out ahead? The liberals, in all of their delusions, always feel that they are born to rule simply because of their enlightened attitudes and humanism... but it's clear that the citizenry do not always agree. And this is particularly true with regard to foreign policy, where the tendency of red-blooded Americans is to vote for the guy who will teach those rag-heads a damn good lesson rather than “negotiate” or “dialog”.

But having said all of that, I prefer to, as usual, dig a bit deeper. My first thought when I read the headline “mandatory voting” was those old pictures and newsreels of the Supreme Soviet in the grand old USSR days. Row upon row of stone-faced delegates would raise their hands in unison when asked to vote on the latest scheme proposed by the strong man – be it Stalin or Khrushchev or any of those other guys. And it was always unanimous! Never was heard a dissenting word. The perfect model of a socialist Utopia, where everyone thinks exactly alike because all have achieved ultimate wisdom through the remaking of human nature by the state, using all the tools at its disposal (including eliminating troublemakers). Is this not the dream of every socialist? And is it not, therefore, the dream of any liberal... any Democrat... any president named Obama? Of course it is. He wakes up every morning from this dream of perfect unanimity, only to find himself, once again, bogged down in that most feared of all things – actual democracy, with all of its aggravations, headaches, and discontents. But he has hope! Yes – hope and change. (It's alive!) If only he could convince Congress – or himself, by means of executive order – to compel everyone to troop off to the polls on every Election Day, like the gray masses in “Metropolis”, and vote – and vote for him! -- then life would be good, at long last.

It all sounds so good – so idealistic. (I can visualize the posters now, done up in the best totalitarian style, with muscular men and fecund women all straining toward a monumental building in Art Deco style with a sign reading “VOTE HERE (or else)”.) But it would also mean the end of democracy – and I mean the absolute end, game over. Why? Well, for one thing, the “right to vote” also implies the right not to vote. You can't have one without the other. If voting becomes an obligation, it's no longer a right. Imagine anyone talking about the “right” to pay one's income tax. (Cue laugh track on maximum volume.) Also, any country where the populace is trooped off to vote under the watchful eye of the police (well, how else would you do it?) is rightfully considered a tyranny, and the voting a mere sham – an exercise of egotism on the part of the ruling elite, who will do as they please no matter who votes or how they vote. We laugh at the farcical “elections” in places like North Korea; we'd be better off biting our tongues.

Another way of saying this is that when everyone votes, nobody votes. I mean, they may go to the polls and cast their ballots, but it's pathetic, since the candidates have been chosen by the Regime and, at least half the time, the outcome is already determined. Muhammad Ali had his “bum of the month club”, and we have the “face in a suit of the year/2 years/4 years club”. The Regime pops these people out like McDonald's pops out Big Macs – but they are all serving the same master, and nothing the hapless populace does or doesn't do, including voting, makes the slightest difference. This is already the case, at least on the national level, but at least one can protest the fact by not voting. If we are all forced to vote, then we are all forced to indicate, by that act, that democracy is still alive and well, even though we know better.  We have then become, like the citizens of any totalitarian state, the greatest of liars -- to each other, but mostly to ourselves.

So what I'm saying is that mandatory voting, if it ever becomes law, will be the official death knell of democracy. And yes, it's paradoxical, but in that it does not differ from so many other phenomena in our time. The more we talk about rights, the more of them we lose – and whatever “right” is the leading topic of conversation on any given day is the one most recently lost. Yes, voting is pathetic... an empty exercise... but it's still one of the few symbolic acts we have left to salvage our self-respect. If they make it obligatory, they will take even that away.

A Red Letter Day

The Republican senators' letter to Iran is a curious document – not only because of the circumstances involved but because of all the delusional and wishful thinking it contains. If it was supposed to be a civics lesson for the mullahs, it has failed in that mission. Consider, first, the letter as composed:


An Open Letter to the Leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran:

It has come to our attention while observing your nuclear negotiations with our government that you may not fully understand our constitutional system.  Thus, we are writing to bring to your attention two features of our Constitution — the power to make binding international agreements and the different character of federal offices — which you should seriously consider as negotiations progress.

First, under our Constitution, while the president negotiates international agreements, Congress plays the significant role of ratifying them.  In the case of a treaty, the Senate must ratify it by a two-thirds vote.  A so-called congressional-executive agreement requires a majority vote in both the House and the Senate (which, because of procedural rules, effectively means a three-fifths vote in the Senate).  Anything not approved by Congress is a mere executive agreement.

Second, the offices of our Constitution have different characteristics.

For example, the president may serve only two 4-year terms, whereas senators may serve an unlimited number of 6-year terms.  As applied today, for instance, President Obama will leave office in January 2017, while most of us will remain in office well beyond then — perhaps decades.

What these two constitutional provisions mean is that we will consider any agreement regarding your nuclear-weapons program that is not approved by the Congress as nothing more than an executive agreement between President Obama and Ayatollah Khamenei.  The next president could revoke such an executive agreement with the stroke of a pen and future Congresses could modify the terms of the agreement at any time.

We hope this letter enriches your knowledge of our constitutional system and promotes mutual understanding and clarity as nuclear negotiations progress.

The following version (which I urged the worthy senators to use, but to no avail) would have been more accurate, and more edifying not only to the leaders of Iran but to the American public:

An Open Letter to the Leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran:

It has come to our attention while observing your nuclear negotiations with our government that you may not fully understand our formerly constitutional system.  Thus, we are writing to bring to your attention two features of our Constitution — the power to make binding international agreements and the different character of federal offices — which you might want to consider for your own amusement as negotiations progress.

First, under our Constitution, while the president negotiates international agreements, Congress plays the significant role of ratifying them. This quaint notion predates the point at which the presidency became, for all intents and purposes, a dictatorship. Not that Congress doesn't still ratify treaties; it's just that it makes no difference what Congress does, since the administration will conduct foreign affairs as it pleases anyway. 
 
In the case of a treaty, the Senate must ratify it by a two-thirds vote. Again, this is strictly a formality designed to provide some semblance of purpose to an otherwise impotent and obsolete body. The president can come to any agreements, both overt and covert, with any government at any time, and the same applies to breaking agreements. The Senate's role varies along a continuum from mute passivity to helpless rage. 
 
A so-called congressional-executive agreement requires a majority vote in both the House and the Senate (which, because of procedural rules, effectively means a three-fifths vote in the Senate).  Anything not approved by Congress is a mere executive agreement – which, under our current system, has exactly the same weight as anything approved by Congress, especially since it can be backed up by the military, which is under the sole command of the president.

Second, the offices of our Constitution have different characteristics.

For example, the president may serve only two 4-year terms, whereas senators may serve an unlimited number of 6-year terms, and in fact many of them have what amounts to a lifetime appointment, not to be terminated for any cause, including senility and insanity. As applied today, for instance, President Obama will leave office in January 2017, while most of us will remain in office well beyond then — perhaps decades. There is no way to get rid of us, since all election laws overwhelmingly favor incumbents, which is not surprising since it was incumbents who wrote and passed those laws. 
 
What these two constitutional provisions mean is that we will consider any agreement regarding your nuclear-weapons program that is not approved by the Congress as nothing more than an executive agreement between President Obama and Ayatollah Khamenei. This will, of course, have no bearing on how the president sees any such agreement, nor on how it is interpreted or enforced.  The next president could revoke such an executive agreement with the stroke of a pen and future Congresses could attempt to modify the terms of the agreement at any time. The success of any such attempt will, of course, be entirely contingent on the whims of whoever is president.

We hope this letter enriches your knowledge of our formerly constitutional system and promotes mutual understanding and clarity as nuclear negotiations progress.

For further reading, please refer to the extensive writings of President Obama, formerly a professor of Constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School.

We Are Not Worthy

Yesterday, March 3, 2015 -- a date which will live in infamy -- the President of the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by the Prime Minister of the State of Israel. The United States was at peace with that nation and....

OK, OK, enough with the FDR imitation already. And I'm not sure that 3/3/15 will live in infamy; there are so many other dates clamoring for that distinction in our times. But it was certainly a milestone of sorts. It did not represent a sea change in our relationship with Israel; what it did represent, however, was Israel's – or at least its prime minister's – overt and unambiguous declaration that they are in charge of our foreign policy, no matter what any silly-ass president or his pathetic acolytes in Congress might think. Netanyahu not only called Obama out, but he told it like it is, and demanded that Congress fall into line and agree with him – which they did, by the way, in a show of obsequiousness that set a new high (or low). Not that there's anything new about this either, since that was accomplished decades ago, but on this occasion the prime minister openly acknowledged the facts of the matter and pretty much dared anybody to object.

And of course there will be a reconciliation, and an “all is forgiven” golden glow will descend on the whole affair, and history will be rewritten to show “no daylight” between us and Israel. So in that sense it doesn't matter... but the fact will remain. Bibi has bearded the lion (so to speak) in his den, and there will be no backing off from that – no spin, no “clarification”. The prime minister chose his words with exquisite care; there was nothing offhand or spontaneous about them. He made his position plain, he made it plain that it was Israel's position, and he made it plain that he didn't much care what Obama or his stooges think, because, quite frankly, they don't count. (The truth is, even Congress doesn't count – but the exercise was valuable as an affirmation of Israel's power base. The standing ovations tell you all you need to know about that.)

Well, Obama is a lame duck – a lot lamer than he was on Monday! -- but so what? He's been insulted by Netanyahu before, and undoubtedly will be again. And he doesn't dare return blow for blow; he is as helpless as a Supreme Court justice sitting like a bump on a log while the president gives a State of the Union address brimming with insults directed at the Court (which is why some of the justices have decided to boycott said annual exercise until further notice). Maybe now he knows how it feels.

So nothing will change. We will continue to pour resources into the Middle East in endless wars, unto and beyond bankruptcy. We will continue to incur the wrath of the Islamic world, and the derision of most of the rest. We will continue to “stand with Israel” in splendid isolation. And yet... one can't help but think that a milestone has been passed. Gone are the days of subtlety and subversion; from here on it's in-your-face, mano a mano. But at the same time, it's refreshing; everything is right out in the open, and we can now decide if this is what we want, or if we would prefer something else (not that what “we” decide will make much difference). The main point is that from here on out no one can claim ignorance, and no one can feign shock the next time Israel abuses its infinite privileges with the U.S., its leadership, its military, and it's citizens.

It would be tempting to dwell just on the more amusing and ironic aspects of all of this; they certainly made my day. (Feinstein and Pelosi both having hissy fits? Please.) But those aren't the sorts of things that usually echo down through history. What does do this is major world events and political forces – and yet we all too rarely get to see them in plain sight; these events are as rare as total eclipses. For this alone we should thank the prime minister; he has shown us... well, not necessarily the truth about Iran and its perceived threats, but the truth about our relationship with our “eternal ally”. That, and at least one truth about our political leadership – that they are infantile, and as mindless as a gang of yobs at a soccer game.

Why That Rudy is so Rude

What, Obama not a patriot? I won't hear of it! Doesn't love America? Balderdash and pooh. He absolutely loves America. Or... he would, if he could only succeed in transforming it into the country it ought to be (and should always have been) – basically a vast horde of helpless, mindless, thumb-sucking serfs, afraid of their own shadows and totally dependent on government for everything, with him in charge. This is, and has always been, the dream of liberals, going back to the the progressives of more than a century ago. The basic premise is that the “common people” are hopelessly ignorant, superstitious, and hate-filled, and have no idea what is good for them – but that the intellectuals have all the answers and all the skills required to transform society into a Utopia, and that they should, therefore, be put in charge for perpetuity. The first president who fully embraced this notion seems to have been Theodore Roosevelt, but many others followed in his footsteps – most notably FDR, Johnson, and now Obama. And it matters little what the personal foibles and failures of a given leader are; all that counts is good intentions (alleged), good presentation, and “optics”. And a bit of political or financial pressure applied at the right time to the right people – regrettable, of course, but fully justified given the nobility of the cause.

This is what it would take for Obama to love America – for who doesn't love his own creation? Think about Dr. Frankenstein and his monster. If FDR were still around (having given up smoking, of course), he would be ecstatic when surveying the current political scene, because even though the New Deal did not survive fully intact, what we have now includes all of its ideas, most of which have been implemented beyond his wildest dreams. And as far as LBJ and the Great Society -- “If you seek his monument, look around you”, in cities like Washington, D.C., Detroit, Newark, Philadelphia, Chicago, St. Louis, etc. Far from being the abject failures that conservatives accuse them of being, they are a stunning success, if your definition of “success” is, first and foremost, increasing the power and scope of government at the expense of the citizenry. That, and not only defining deviancy down, but defining it out of existence. The agents of social change have done their work in our large cities, and proud of it; the only sour note was that many people were insufficiently enlightened to appreciate their efforts, and so fled to the suburbs. (But that's change too, and change is always good, right?)

And as for Obama's patriotism – why, who has ever waved the flag higher? By which I mean the flag for things like “diversity”, which is little more than totalitarianism and enforced uniformity in disguise. He could lead a very long parade of victim groups (both official and self-styled), as long as they all fit into the liberal-progressive-secular-materialist agenda. God-fearing religious people need not apply, nor do small businessmen, “angry white men” (who are, undoubtedly, also racist, sexist, and homophobic), stay-at-home moms (terribly oppressed, don'tcha know), families who opt out of government schools, and anyone who believes in freedom of economic choice.

Champions of “the people” are never the least bit interested in the hopes and dreams of real people – especially when said people are “held back” by ancient loyalties to race, religion, ethnic group, and tradition. “Diversity” to a progressive is one long “It's a Small World” ride, with colorful stereotyped costumes and stereotyped music... a sanitized street festival with all sorts of foodstuffs, kumbaya and drumming... but heaven forbid anyone try to insert real handed-down traditions and attitudes, and – yes – prejudices into the proceedings, because that is not the kind of world we want, is it? Racial, ethnic, and religious groups have been defined down through the millennia as having pride in themselves and in their own kind, and a healthy suspicion of strangers – of “the other”. This is, in fact, the key to any group's survival, and no one has questioned it up until the current era – especially when it comes to minorities. But this cannot be permitted in the New World Order; human nature must be changed, and the progressives are the ones to do it (just as the Bolsheviks were the ones to do it a century or so ago). The way must be made straight through tangled, messy human nature, and all the rough places made plain. There must be a great leveling process, starting with equal opportunity and gradually evolving into equal outcomes (once we've passed the quotas/affirmative action/reparations stage, that is). And the battle cry from the beginning to the end of this process must be “fairness” (at all costs)!

Conservatives, on the other hand -- while not perfect in this respect -- are much more capable of seeing, and accepting, human nature as it is, whether applied to individuals or groups, rather than what we might want it to be based on some idyllic image of a past that never existed, or of a future that is highly unlikely this side of the Apocalypse. They are neither offended by the way people actually are and how they behave, nor do they put “the people” on an impossibly high pedestal based on pure Utopian fantasy. Conservatives are even willing to accept the reality that some people really are dependent and need charity, while at the same time allowing others (hopefully the majority) to seek their fortune without impediment and harassment by the government. (This, by the way, is how “compassionate conservatism” should have been defined, but the people promoting it didn't have sufficient insight to do so, with the result that the term became an object of derision.)

So, when every flag is a rainbow flag, but all true differences and individuality have been snuffed out, then you can expect Obama and his ilk to be the greatest of patriots. They will look upon that which they have created, and pronounce it good.

Real Life is Small and Local

I made the following observation in a recent Facebook post:

The rich and powerful have always been in charge. Always. You say, "But what about communism?" Well, any communist dictator (and communist countries all have dictators) is powerful by definition, and it's funny how they always manage to accumulate a huge amount of wealth as well. "But how about socialism?" Again, the rulers are powerful, and socialist countries have banks. That's where their money is, and someone runs them. "But how about democracies?" (like ours) Politics is the way to power, and also the way to wealth. Wealth is the way to political power. It's a perfect symbiosis, and the bigger government gets the more extreme the power/wealth gap becomes. People think that if we only had even bigger government we could eliminate that gap; actually, it's just the opposite. We will not return to (or have, for the first time) a true democracy until we drastically reduce the size and scope of government, and start thinking in terms of distributism and subsidiarity. If we are not willing to do this, we have to live with Leviathan.

A correspondent commented thusly:

(This) led me to find and read some commentary on the encyclicals of Leo XIII and Pius XI on subsidiarity. Also, the work of Chesterton and Belloc on distributism was a central discussion point of the recently read "Hobbit Party". Those authors...wholly Libertarian (best government....no government)...don't like distributism, essentially seeing it as merely another form of communism/socialism.

To which I reply:

OK, let me see if I can break this down a bit. Subsidiarity, to begin with, is not about the form of government per se as it is about a concept of government – not just “that which governs least governs best” but the notion that government “of the people” should be as close to the people as possible, i.e. not thousands of miles away in some capital full of whited sepulchers. Any function appropriate to government should be performed at the lowest, i.e. most local, level possible. Among other things, this has the advantage of taking into account things like racial/ethnic composition, religious faith and observances, local economies, local customs, the history of a place, physical constraints (climate, geography, soil, etc.) -- and also makes government officials more accountable since they are known and accessible by the populace. The result should be more like true democracy, as envisioned by the Founding Fathers – not a “people's republic” where there is a remote, elite ruling class and a bunch of faceless serfs who are all treated the same way. This idea is certainly compatible with libertarianism – or can be. What it's not compatible with is tyranny and radical (i.e., enforced) collectivism, or what I call “hard socialism”. But on the other end of the scale, it is not at all the same as anarchy; there is still structure, but it's a kind of structure that is more compatible with human nature as it is, not as we might like it to be. (Even defense could be provided on different levels – defense against foreign invaders on the federal (as should be now), regional defense by state national guard units (ditto), and local defense by the “militias” of 2^nd Amendment fame.)

So much for the easy part! Now, as to distributism, this is the radical notion that the laborer should own his tools, and have an economic interest or share in the success (or failure) of the enterprise. It's not the same as a “workers' paradise” where the government owns and runs all of industry in the name of the worker or of “the people”. (We already see how it's compatible with subsidiarity on the conceptual level.) Obviously, for the self-employed, the situation obtains automatically. But not everyone can be self-employed, i.e. not all industrial, commercial, or even agricultural enterprises will lend themselves to self-employment – which is to say that economic subsidiarity has its limits.

But here's where the challenge comes in, and I think this is what you were referring to. In a highly industrialized, mechanized, high-tech economy where even “traditional” occupations like agriculture have become mechanized and high-tech, there will be a tendency, over time, for economic and commercial enterprises to become more centralized, with greater numbers working for the few. This can happen (or perhaps is more likely to happen) under conditions of “free enterprise” and “capitalism” -- and this is what Marx was talking about, as perhaps the most serious drawback of the Industrial Revolution. What happens is that competition and the desire for profit tend to enforce economies of scale, and push the individual craftsmen, artisans, and small businessmen out. (Please note that Hitler had no use for the “Arts and Crafts” movement, considering it scandalously inefficient. For him, standardization and mass production were the keys to success.)

So – if distributism is a “good thing” from the point of view of the nature of man, and self-fulfillment, etc., but a “bad thing” in the strict economic sense (setting aside politics)... and if capitalism and free enterprise naturally aid and abet its opposite... what is to be done? Well, let's take a case that is by now familiar to everyone, namely the Wal-Mart syndrome, where the Wal-Mart out on the bypass “kills Main Street” (as it has in my home town, for example). It's the product of free enterprise, after all, and should be just groovy with both “conservatives” and libertarians. (And the only reason liberals dislike Wal-Mart is that it puts a lot of money into the hands of just one family. If it were a government agency they'd be happy as clams.) And the thing is, Wal-Mart didn't kill Main Street – it's the people who shopped at Wal-Mart instead of on Main Street who did that. And what converted them into big-box shoppers? Low prices, selection, bright light, mood music, etc. Do they miss the kindly old gent who knew every single item in the store? Not that I'm aware; they're perfectly content dealing with idiots at checkout and no one who really knows anything. But – bottom line -- are they to be denied the freedom to shop where they like? (Especially, should sentimental reasons and nostalgia trump free enterprise?)

And I'm not talking about the monopolies and “trust busters” of old. This is a very here-and-now question. Should the government step in and try to enforce distributism, the way Mao had everyone building back-yard iron smelters (with disastrous results, I might add)? And, are Wal-Mart workers any more “alienated” (Marx's term) than the guy who used to work at the small town shoe store? If you look at the obituaries in the Pittsburgh paper, they are full of guys who spent their entire working life at U.S. Steel or one of the other industrial monoliths, and proud of it! Did they mourn the fact that they weren't the proprietor of a one-man body shop or shoe repair? Not that I'm aware. They probably made more and had better job security (think: unions) in the gigantic mill. And would all the people who work for giant agriculture conglomerates in the Midwest want to go back to dirt farming like their grandfathers? I'm sure some would, but I'll bet a lot wouldn't. (This, by the way, is what “farm aid” is all about. The agra-business giants don't need charity; they're happier than pigs in shit. It's the small, independent farmer who, like the small businessman, is being shoved out of the economic picture by the big boys, with the government's help.)

I think the answer on the distributism question has to be, number one, don't leave it up to government to enforce things one way or the other. That is, respect economies of scale when appropriate, but also don't punish small businessmen the way they do now. But “if government doesn't do it, who will?” -- the common plaint of people who can't imagine life before the New Deal. I think what has to happen is that “capitalists” should have a more charitable attitude toward their workers – and yes, there is such a thing as profit-sharing and rewarding performance with stock in the company; this is not a Utopian pipe dream. (We have a distorted view of these things because of the adversarial history of labor/management relations in this country. But the experience in Europe and Japan is entirely different.) But at the same time, the consumer needs to have his or her consciousness raised, and again this is a matter of charity directed to the craftsman, artisan, tradesman, small farmer – a “preferential option” (to borrow a term from the popes) to, whenever possible, deal on the local, personal level even if the cost is a bit higher. It's a matter of values, in other words. And again, we see this everywhere these days, with farm markets, artisanal foods and beverages of all sorts, local crafts, etc. And it's certainly not enforced by any governmental body on any level – on the contrary, it's frequently discouraged for all kinds of bogus reasons. (The FDA has agents prowling around farmers' markets looking for “violations”.)

So... if people want to shop at the big box stores, let 'em. True societal change comes about very slowly and is typically not so much a matter of changing hearts and minds as of the older generation dying out and being replaced by people with new ideas. People gripe because they can't find “home cooking like Mom used to make” at McDonald's – well duh. They could find Mom's old recipe book and try it out themselves the way I do. A conscious attempt to shop locally will inevitably have “distributist” results. And so on. The main thing is, just keep government out of the way. I don't think you can “enforce” distributism any more than you can enforce charity; the minute coercion gets into the picture, charity no longer exists – then it morphs into politics. So yes, a libertarian will be suspicious of distributism because he thinks it means collective farms. Well, it might – if those collectives were strictly voluntary (like the hippie communes or Utopian communities of old). But I can't imagine a libertarian objecting to any of the thousands of co-ops scattered across the land.

The Life of Brian

People who are surprised, dismayed, depressed, outraged, etc. about the Brian Williams kerfuffle have either forgotten, or they don't want to admit, that “journalists”, especially at the highest, rarefied levels, are a bunch of fantasists. Not only do they “spin” the news to conform to their agendas, but when that's insufficient they make things up out of whole cloth. And this extends beyond the news per se, to their persona and reputation, as shown by the Williams incident. And it's not even that they're consciously making things up, although that happens as well. On some profound level, they have a radically different concept of “the truth” from the rest of us. For them, truth is not an absolute – not a characteristic of reality -- but a political construct, and it can be infinitely manipulated in order to meet political ends. Another way of putting this is that the truth is whatever they make of it – whatever they declare it to be. And the higher you climb up the media totem pole the more intoxicating power you have to define what is true for millions of your fellow (if inferior) humans. If you can define what is true, you have defined reality, and thus the entire basis for action (or the lack thereof). And the “media”, after all, stand, by definition, between events and the reader/hearer/viewer. If we were all omniscient, we wouldn't need them – but this is not to say that they are omniscient, only that they would like us to believe that they are. They would like us to believe that the only facts that exist in the world are the ones they choose to present – and that nothing else is worth bothering about... that nothing else really exists.

Now, this is is not to say that there is never any factual basis for “news” stories; there may be some facts – some real events – hiding in there somewhere... some tiny kernel of “ground truth”. But that is only the beginning – a mere seed, which can only be brought to full fruition by assiduous spin, interpretation, analysis, coloring, shading, and filling in the missing pieces. Did you ever notice that, as messy as life can be, the “news” is never messy? It's clean, clear, and immediately understandable, with no pesky ambiguities or loose ends. There is a reason for this. Messy facts are thrown into the journalistic mill, and everything that might cause doubts or skepticism is excised... and the parts that are guaranteed to stampede the public into another orgy of dependence and begging directed at the Regime are magnified.

Try this experiment. (I think I've said this before, but it bears repeating.) Take any issue of any daily newspaper, put it away for a year, then take it out and read it again. Notice how many of the stories turned out to be distorted, half-baked, or wildly inaccurate? How many were simply the product of hysteria? How many were just plain false – and intentionally so? Now think about today's paper (or this week's news magazine, or tonight's TV news). The same thing will be discovered a year from now, and so on. So what are we being fed on a daily basis, and by whom, and to what end?

Journalists pride themselves on being “agents of change” -- like public school teachers, librarians, and social workers. They are meek, humble public servants just trying to do their job on behalf of “the people”, and to help foster “an informed public”. Right? No. They are part of the vast propaganda apparatus that the Regime uses to keep us both fearful and reassured at the same time – aroused and soothed... outraged and comforted. And let's admit, it's a delicate balancing act, and guys like Brian Williams got where they are because they are good at it. Every tone of voice, every facial expression, is designed to lift us up on some emotion or other, and then to set us down – gently, but not so gently that we forget to retain some degree of anxiety. This has to do with both content and mode of presentation – the message and the medium, if you will. The story has to be compelling, and you have to have good hair.

The bottom line is to make people so dependent on government that they will react with outrage and hostility if anyone dares to suggest that it might be otherwise. And part of this strategy is to build a dream world – a world of heroes (presidents) and villains (“terrorists”)... of looming threats (measles!) and miracles by which to escape them (vaccines!)... of nasty, ill-smelling, babbling foreigners (Islamists!) and all-American heroes (the military, police, etc.)... of blighted ignorance (pretty much any foreign country except the English-speaking ones and Israel, plus Islam and Catholicism) and wise men (and women) who are dedicated to its eradication (Congress, professors, scientists and, of course, journalists).

But, but – you might say – what about journalism school, the training ground for all these people? Don't they teach ethics and objectivity? And how about logic... questioning... skepticism? Isn't their highest goal to turn out skilled seekers after truth? Well, I don't know. Maybe some do, or at least try to. All I know is when their graduates spread out across the land, and the world, like a plague of locusts, they all seem to have an agenda, and it has less to do with the truth than with arranging things into a preconceived set of ideas – a “vision”, if you will, not of the world as it is but as it ought to be (which is, for some reason, completely secular and almost invariably more collectivized and more totalitarian, with crushing pressures to conform – for the ordinary citizen, that is, as opposed to the ruling elite). Start with a vision of the world, then do everything in your power to make it happen – not a bad idea if you're, say, in a science or engineering field... or even the social sciences... or even theology. But journalists, AKA “reporters”, need to be satisfied with the facts, and if they indulge in analysis this needs to be made crystal clear at the outset. And yet isn't it easier – and more effective – to editorialize non-stop, and make every news report a kind of call to arms against enemies, real or imagined – or if not a call to arms, then its opposite – a call to relax, not worry, shut up, and stop thinking? And don't they delight in pitting various segments of the public against each other, then writing it up as such a terrible, regrettable development? It's all about social control – about the great carrot and the great stick.

“If the salt hath lost its savor, wherewith shall it be salted?” If journalists have ceased to seek after the truth and to pass it on, then who can we rely on? Only ourselves? But what is the scope of any one person's perceptions and daily experience? The failure of journalism leaves us in ignorance and darkness regarding the events of our time – events which can have a life-and-death impact. We can retreat into the immediate – into what's right in front of our noses – and drown our epistemological sorrows in “games and circuses”, or we can seek out one of the few remaining truth tellers (you will know them by the fact that they have been banished from all the establishment media). It's depressing... but it's preferable to being brainwashed (even though those who are seem happier than we).

The Universal Sniper

I hadn’t intended to see “American Sniper” because all the discussions I’d heard about it fell into one of two categories -- it was either a shameless militaristic propaganda piece, or a stirring patriotic depiction of an authentic American hero.  Since neither description particularly appealed to me, I was giving it a pass -- but then I was persuaded, and I came away with, let’s say, a much more “nuanced” impression.  I don’t think anyone could credibly describe it as a “pro-war” movie, nor could it be unambiguously described as an anti-war movie; there would be both supporting evidence and counter-evidence for both positions.  It is certainly a pro-America movie (even without the closing credits), but is it an anti-Iraqi or anti-Arab or anti-Islam movie?  The characters are certainly unabashed in calling the opposing forces “savages” and the Iraqis “hajjis”, but is that enough to prove that we are just hopelessly chauvinistic and provincial?  And is it enough to prove that our soldiers have to be brainwashed into “thinging” or hating the “enemy” before they are considered fit to go into battle?  Or is this just part of our (allegedly) racist, xenophobic culture that people inevitably bring with them when they join the service?  Wars always involve name-calling -- both of the known enemy and of the hapless civilians who are caught in the middle.  (I suppose they have some pretty choice names for us as well -- a bit more colorful than “Yankee”.)  It’s in the nature of the game --  you can never see the other side as having equal merit to your own, or enemy combatants as just as human as you are.  It has never worked that way throughout recorded human history.  The other side always has to be viewed as bad, if not downright evil… and our side has to be viewed as good, because… well, just because it’s our side.

I think the intended point of the film was to explore some of the motivations behind the people who sign up, join outfits like the SEALS, and become snipers.  Are those motivations honorable or not?  Is this strictly a personal and subjective matter, or does it depend, as some would argue, on whether the war that is being fought is honorable -- i.e., it is moral, just, and legal (that is, Constitutional)?  Which is to say, are we allowed to judge, and if so, can we judge individuals, or strategy, or only overall policy?  At any rate, it is clear that there is something addictive or habit-forming about war, and about combat -- there’s always the feeling (demonstrated by many veterans) that this was, for better or worse, the time of their life, and that nothing that happens from then on is going to measure up.  (And this seems to happen regardless of whether a soldier comes home wounded, or the severity of the wounds.  There are few, if any, anti-war patients in VA hospitals.)  So the temptation is to keep going back for more, as Kyle did -- telling himself that the job was not yet finished, but I suggest other motives as well.  There is something deeply appealing and satisfying, on a primitive level, about danger, combat, violence, and near-death -- not to mention inflicting death on the enemy.  Human beings are violent, and any nation worth its salt, if you will, is going to be war-like, at least a good deal of the time.  This is just the way things are; I’m not applauding.  I’m sure the peacemakers of this world would like to have it otherwise, but they are fighting an uphill battle against human nature, DNA, and -- yes -- evolution (which they pretty much all believe in, after all).  What’s surprising about war in our time is not how common it is, but how rare it is; any given moment most places in the world are at peace -- and it doesn’t have to be that way, and hasn’t always been.  We, of course, in this society, have the privilege of being able to wage war without experiencing its effects -- at least not directly (with notable exceptions like 9/11).  This is why, even though, by rights, we could be the most pacifist society on earth, we are among the most warlike. 

But let’s say that there is such a thing as just war, which the Catholic Church believes, but most people don’t, feeling that all wars are equally just or unjust.  And let’s even say that the concept of “rules of war” is not absurd; this was certainly the premise behind the Nuremberg Trials.  The notion that there are things one can do in wartime, and things one can’t -- even though the goal is to kill as many of the enemy as possible and destroy their means of making war -- this is a fairly new idea, and yet most countries since World War I have been willing to agree to it most of the time.  So what are they responding to here?  It is just politics or diplomacy, or do I detect a hint of Natural Law?  And yet we find that the idea tends to be more popular in Europe and the English-speaking countries; so are we more highly morally developed than everyone else?  I’m not going to go into that now, but you’re welcome to consider the issue at your leisure. 

I have to point out that Kyle had his ambivalences.  He didn’t want to have to kill anyone without having a damn good reason -- and a person who was an obvious danger to our troops qualified.  And yet he hesitated when it came to women and children, even if they were combatants (possibly forced into it, possibly not -- who knows?).  What did he believe in totally, uncompromisingly, and without any shadow of a doubt?  America -- i.e. the U.S. -- and our way of life.  (His way of life, at least -- I don’t think too many service members are fighting in the Middle East for gay rights parades in the U.S.)  And he believed in the military -- and in their mission, which was (and continues to be) to pursue all known (or suspected, or potential) enemies to the ends of the earth.  The questions that were never asked were the ones asked quite frequently after 9/11, namely:  Who are these people, anyway?  And how did they come to be our enemies?  And why do they hate us?  Whoever asked that last question typically had a ready, and completely wrong, answer.  Our handicap in dealing with that issue was, and is, that we are still clueless as to the power of religion, and religious belief, and faith -- even (or especially) when the actions based on that faith are considered (by us) wrong.  This is because our own society was founded as a secular society -- one of the few in history to explicitly ban religion from the public forum and from the “marketplace of ideas” -- and so, for us, religion has been rendered relatively toothless when it comes to motivating real action, with the possible exception of the Evangelicals.  We treat religion as “a private matter” and shun anyone who tries to bring it into play in real-life, especially political, situations, considering it an “intrusion”.  But try that “wall of separation between church and state” argument out in the Middle East some time -- you’ll be lucky to just get laughed to scorn rather than arrested and shot.  We’re dealing with true believers, as I pointed out in a previous post -- they may be wrong, we may not like it, but that’s the way it is.  And, I might add, they are not only true believers, but, for them, death is the most important thing in life -- a mind set that we simply cannot fathom.   

The other begged question -- out of many -- is, why do we always wind up fighting the people who live there on their home turf?  What compelling need do we have that we keep having to go overseas at great risk and expense, and attack other countries while most of sit warm and cozy at home?  Do we even have any idea as to the true costs of war?  Of course, it was argued that 9/11 was an attack by Islam -- well, “radical” Islam -- and that our response ought, quite naturally, to be to go to war with Afghanistan and Iraq, even though most of the alleged attackers were Saudis.  If you accept that, then I daresay you could be talked into waging war on anyone at any time for any reason.  (Anybody for invading Canada?)  The least that can be said about 9/11 is that it brought the war home -- and yet did it sober anyone up as to the costs of war?  Not that I’ve ever noticed. 

But the real issue -- which I alluded to before, and which is not dealt with in the movie at all -- is that of responsibility.  And here we have the full range of opinion (and law).  On one extreme is what I will call the authoritarian view, namely that a soldier’s job is to follow orders no matter what, and to suspend personal judgment (not only at the time, but in retrospect as well).  And this is how most militaries have operated down through history -- with a premise that seems not only necessary but possibly essential for success and victory.  That last thing a commander in the field needs is a debating society second-guessing his every order, right?  The last thing he needs is to have to deal with “sensitive” people.  So failure to follow orders is an occasion for severe punishment -- or even summary execution, if in the heat of battle.  No one cares what your hopes and dreams were when you joined up; it’s time to “strap ’em on” and go kick raghead butt.   

And yet we don’t seem to completely accept this premise.  Once in a while soldiers wind up before a court martial for having done the wrong thing to the wrong person at the wrong time -- and they are invariably baffled as to what the problem is, and claim they are being singled out, treated unfairly, made a scapegoat, etc.  And it almost invariably comes down to this:  They were given legitimate orders but did something else -- something “above and beyond” -- that was not legitimate.  But who judges whether orders are legitimate?  Very seldom are orders questioned, and when they are it is usually confined to the lowest rank capable of issuing orders -- i.e. the ones who have been given responsibility beyond their capacity.  Senior or general officer orders are never questioned; for them authoritarianism is alive and well. 

But some will ask, well, who got this given soldier or given unit into this impossible predicament in the first place?  How far up the line do you have to go before you find someone who’s responsible (or until responsibility evaporates -- depending on your point of view)?  The problem with this approach is that it’s not based on the big picture.  Ultimately, the responsibility for any given soldier being in any given place at any given time rests with the commander-in-chief, i.e. the president (and, less directly, with Congress, who approved the funding).  Then it becomes a matter of how far _down_ the line you go -- is the secretary of defense also responsible?  How about the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff?  How about the four-stars, three-stars, two-stars, one-stars, bird colonels, etc. etc.?  Whenever one of these things blows up, the buck gets passed up and down the line like a leaf in a hurricane -- and eventually disappears once everyone (meaning the media) loses interest.  Then it turns out that no one is responsible, and no lessons are learned, and the same thing happens again and again.   

A subset of this argument is this.  Setting aside specific instances (war crimes, atrocities, etc.), if a U.S. president starts, or continues, an illegal (un-Constitutional), immoral, or unjust war, how far down the line does the responsibility for that go?  And especially, does it go all the way down to the individual soldier?  Should he be expected to make a legal, moral, or philosophical decision as to the justification for his being in that place at that time with his personal weapon, and for his use of said weapon against the enemy, or alleged enemy?  This is the other end of the spectrum -- what I call the “universal soldier” position, after the protest song of the same title: 

    http://www.metrolyrics.com/universal-soldier-lyrics-donovan.html

According to this point of view, every soldier is expected to be a moralist, legal expert, and philosopher -- and to keep universal principles in mind even in the heat of combat.  But is this realistic?  And isn’t it a betrayal of trust when the authorities put a bunch of, basically, young kids into that position -- kids who trust the leadership, are loyal to their unit and their comrades, and have regard for their native land and heritage?  Aren’t they being terribly misused?  (And this is for the ones who stay alive and well, not to mention the countless dead and wounded.)  Sure, you can talk to them all you want about “why we fight”, but what if it really is just deception and propaganda?  What if the real agenda is entirely different -- something they could barely perceive?  One can argue that every war we have ever fought was fought more for economic reasons than for “survival”, i.e. responding to an “existential threat”.  Or if not for economic reasons, then for pure political reasons… or psychological ones.  Or, once again, for no reason at all except just plain human nature. 

So yes, Kyle went over there, and went back three more times, based on premises that he believed in and that seemed sound.  And within that context -- accepting all of those premises -- he acted properly and did his duty.  But what happens if we start having doubts about those premises?  What happens if guys like Kyle wind up on trial for war crimes because they happen to be on the losing side (military or political)?  Will the plea “I was just following orders” suffice?  We don’t seem to think that’s good enough to cover a multitude of sins -- and yet we can’t agree, from one day to the next, as to what is a sin and what is not.  One thing is for certain -- the soldiers wind up paying the price, one way or the other, and the men (and women) who put them in harm’s way don’t.  This alone should be sufficient cause for a serious look at why, and how, we wage war. 

Truth and Tolerance

Back in December, I put up a post entitled “Fools, Holy and Otherwise”, dealing with “true believers” and how they can be of any political stripe, as long as it's radical and revolutionary. In other words, “true believer” and “moderate” don't go together – any more than “true believer” and “silent majority”. True believers are activists, either in the physical sense (joining a crusade, proselytizing, blowing things up, etc.) or in the sense of expressing opinions, loudly and often, regardless of how counter-cultural or unpopular those opinions might be. So in our time, we can count, among true believers, libertarians and anarchists, the far left (or what's left of it, as opposed to garden-variety liberals and “progressives”), the far right (beyond mainstream “conservatism”, which doesn't differ significantly from Neoconservatism), and – obviously – adherents to Islamic fundamentalism and jihad. I should also include the more serious Christian Zionists, even though it's hard to draw the line between true belief and knee-jerk support.  (And when it comes to the Occupy crowd and the Tea Party, I think that's more about mob psychology than any coherent belief system.)

I guess what this amounts to is that true believers are a relative rarity on the current American political scene. What we have instead is any number of people, and organizations, who want to work “within the system”, and an isolated few who realize that the system is terminally corrupt and, basically, doomed (but not without many years, if not decades, of dying pains). Ron Paul supporters were, and continue to be, true believers, whereas political activity in Democrat and mainstream Republican circles is characterized by cynicism, resignation, and hunger for power – and little else. (Power without principles – ah yes, there's the ticket! Expect nothing but great and ennobling things to come out of that combination.)

In any case, in response to the blog post, a correspondent provided an excerpt having to do with the Jews, who were considered a bit of a pain (to the Romans, among others) because of their... we would say “dogmatic clinging”... to monotheism. The Roman emperor (a real person, but a fictitious letter in the novel) says, “In principle, Judaism has its place among the religions of the empire; in practice, Israel has refused for centuries to be one people among many others, with one god among the gods.” Sound familiar? In our time there are three “great” monotheistic religions, but are the Jews, as embodied in the State of Israel, any more willing than ever to be “one people among many others”? So it's about more than monotheism, clearly. And this was, of course, before the rise if Islam, so the quote “no other god has inspired his worshipers with disdain and hatred for those who pray at different altars” could apply, in our time, to radical Islam as well as to Christian Zionism (whose adherents are fully behind the war on Islam being waged by the U.S.).

So my reply to the response was as follows:

      Well, it does seem to be true that polytheistic religions are less "dogmatic", and inspire less fanaticism, than monotheistic ones.  (How do you talk about heresy if you have 1000 deities?)  On the other hand, there are plenty of religious wars and strife involving, e.g., Buddhists and Hindus -- although these may, in some cases, be political and economic struggles in disguise.  If you're contending for power, territory, resources, etc. you may have better luck appealing to articles of religious faith than simply to pragmatic ones; they are more inspiring (in the literal sense). 

      But there's another issue reflected in that passage, namely that of tolerance.  We assume that intolerance naturally goes along with dogmatism and fanaticism -- that they are basically the same thing.  And again, it's true that Buddhists are more likely to "live and let live".  But moderate monotheists tend to respect each others' religions, beliefs, and observances -- hence the term "people of the book", which the Moslems use.  I think the feeling here is that any monotheist is at least on the right track -- that they are closer to the truth than the polytheists, animists, etc. -- to say nothing of atheists.  And behind it may be the hope that a monotheist of another persuasion will eventually see the light and convert to your own.  (Christians -- Catholics at least -- have always prayed for the conversion of the Jews, up until recently when the practice was discouraged for political reasons.)  In any case, there is certainly plenty of "competition" among the monotheistic faiths, including persecution and shunning, e.g. when a Jew or Moslem converts to Christianity.  (When a Christian converts to Judaism, all we can do is pray for them to return to the fold -- that is, if we don't mind being politically incorrect.)  (You'll notice, BTW, that most of the Jews who object to Catholics praying for their conversion aren't particularly religious anyway -- so that gives it away as a political issue.)

      What is the basis for intolerance, by which I mean active discrimination against, or mistreatment of, people of another faith?  At best it can be seen as having their best interests -- e.g., salvation -- at heart.  If I refuse to rent a commercial space to a group of Satanists for their "church", it's not because I'm afraid of the competition; I really think that they are at grave risk if they persist in that way.  On the other hand, the Church has, not infrequently, said that God has a "plan" for the Jews -- tantalizingly referred to in Revelation, but not the one that the Evangelical "Christian Zionists" think, i.e. not that one involving the State of Israel.  (That state, as even some orthodox Jews point out, is a kind of red herring when it comes to salvation history, i.e. it's part of the problem.)  (The Church, as far as I know, has not said that God has a "plan" for the Moslems, any more than for the Protestants, since both can be considered heresies.  The "plan" would be to bring them back into the fold.) 

      What's more common, however, is for intolerance to have, again, a political or economic... or racial or ethnic... motive.  Again, you disguise something as something "higher", or more spiritual, and you get more support and more willingness to make sacrifices.  We tend to forget, in these times, that World War II was, among other things, thought of as a struggle of Christian civilization against the heathen.  (Even though the Germans weren't heathens, the Nazis were.)  And the whole history of colonization, westward expansion, foreign intervention, Manifest Destiny, etc. had this subtext.  It's wasn't only about "America" or about white people, in other words; it was about faith.  And I submit that one reason for our failure in Vietnam and our follies in the Middle East is that this element was missing [although the Christian Zionists certainly see the “War on Terror” as, basically, a war on Islam, and fully approve].

      So what we wind up with is a paradox of sorts -- getting back to the tolerance issue.  If we "tolerate" other religions on the basis of their right to exist and the rights of individual believers, then we are submitting to indifferentism, i.e. the idea that it doesn't really matter, ultimately, what religion people adhere to, or whether they adhere to any religion at all... that their fate is determined not by articles of faith but by (at best) the degree to which they live good lives, are "ethical", adhere to Natural Law, etc.  Or, in the climate of the present time, just being "nice" seems to suffice (and "niceness", of course, includes not being dogmatic, absolutist, sexist, homophobic, racist, etc. etc., and also being "tolerant" and some kind of socialist and/or liberal and/or Democrat).

      But what is indifferentism to the believer?  It would be a kind of exclusivity, like, my religion is essential for my salvation, and the rest of you can just go to hell.  (Does one detect a certain lack of charity there?)  Or, my religion is essential for my salvation, but the rest of you can believe anything you like and it won't matter.  (What sort of philosophical nonsense is that?)  So "tolerance" may have its limits, even for the most charitable believer.  On the other hand, I don't necessarily expect, but I would very much like, my own religion/belief system/observance to be tolerated by others -- by other monotheists, by polytheists, and, yes, by atheists and even liberals and socialists!  (This is a test that the Obama administration and the mainstream media fail time after time.)  So if I apply the Golden Rule, I'm going to give other faiths (or non-faiths) the benefit of the doubt even if I have doubts.  I'm going to trust that God has a plan, the way He had a plan for me when I was walking in darkness.  But for this, one has to balance charity (of the active, or even militant, sort) with patience.  God does not will that any be lost, but He also wills that we each make our own choices.  When one is standing on the sidelines of the great human drama, it's hard, at times, to not jump in and try to change history.  I guess we each have to make our own decision as to when, how, and how often to intervene. 

(end of reply)

It is always, it seems to me, about striking a balance between one's own beliefs – faithfully held – and the need to be patient with those who believe (or don't believe) otherwise. Better to set a good example than to appear “dogmatic”... attracting more flies with honey than with vinegar... meeting people at the point of their need... all notions that reflect this position. Using unmanned drones to bomb people who don't agree is certainly an aid to faith – of the directly opposing and radical sort. Rely on God to judge people according to their righteousness and adherence to Natural Law, but pray for their conversion as well. Even in the Middle Ages, St. Thomas Aquinas advocated sitting down with the Jews and Muslims to debate issues of faith, rather than using the secular power as a weapon.

“For further reading” I can suggest no better source than “Truth and Tolerance” by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.

Fairness, Equality, and Other Pipe Dreams

Every once in a while this country goes through a spasm of “fairness” mania, shining a bright light on inequality of income and of wealth, and demanding that elected officials (who are typically wealthy, at least at the federal level) “do something” about it. The first great spasm – born out of the Progressive movement – led to the “graduated income tax” with a top bracket that has fluctuated wildly over the years, but which usually amounts to confiscation – the idea being that no one should be allowed to earn more than a certain amount, no matter the merits of how they earned it. This, of course, is neutralized by deductions, exemptions, and credits, which succeed in shielding the high-bracket types and putting more of the burden on the middle class. (If you think “welfare queens” are good at gaming the system, you need to study up on tax shelters.)

So overall, the favored remedy for this disgraceful situation (i.e., some people having more money than others) is some form of wealth redistribution, primarily on income but also on interest, dividends, and capital gains... as well as “luxury taxes” and “sin taxes” (the latter typically hitting the lower classes the hardest – not because they are more sinful but because they spend more of their money on sinful pursuits – you know, things like smoking and drinking).

The odd thing about all this, after 100+ years, is that it has failed. There are still rich people; there is still a “1%”. (There will always be a 1%, unless everyone's income and wealth is completely equalized. The people who use this term don't seem to realize that.) (I suspect they're the same people who think all public-school children can become “above average”.) Not only that, but everyone has a different idea of what constitutes “fairness” -- that lofty goal of, well, pretty much any social program... and make no mistake, the income tax is a social program, as well as a fund raiser for the government. (That latter function was discovered, let's say, quite a while after the income tax amendment was added to the Constitution. The original idea of the income tax was essentially to punish the rich and placate the masses, not to add mountains of cash to the government's stockpile. But we're now at the point where the threshold for “taxable income” isn't much higher than the threshold for receiving welfare. I expect that, any day now, welfare recipients will have to pay taxes on their benefits.)

So what is “fairness” and what is “fair”? It's said that you can avoid most arguments by simply defining terms ahead of time – that way, people can agree to disagree, but at least they'll know what they're talking about. But in the case of “fairness”, everyone has a different definition. One – a libertarian, say – will say that fairness is allowing people to keep what they earn (and the anarchist will add: “Every last cent!”). A radical collectivist, i.e. a communist of any stripe, will say that fairness requires that individuals have no personal income and no accumulated wealth (either money or goods) – i.e. that everything must come from, and revert to, the collective. (I'm not just talking about communist countries here; much the same approach has been taken by any number of Utopian settlements, including the hippie “communes” -- the difference being that they were voluntary, whereas national-level communism is not.) Then you get the middle-of-the-road types who make familiar arguments like the one that the CEO of a company should not make more than a certain multiple of the average of the workers in that company. This seems reasonable, but it's lacking in any solid rationale, and it's wimpy because it avoids the real issue.

(I should mention at this point that two recent populist movements have come up with completely different concepts of fairness and equality – namely the “Occupy” crowd and the “Tea Party”. The Tea Partiers lean ever-so-slightly libertarian, whereas the “Occupiers” hark back to the Progressives of old. And yet, each group contends that their ideas are the correct ones, and that they know what fairness and equality mean, and the other guys don't.)

Another aspect of this debate has to do with the concept of ill-gotten gains. On the one extreme, it will be argued that anything constituting “profit” is ill-gotten by definition. Less extreme (but still very populist) is the notion that the portion of profit that necessitated “exploitation” of the worker, or deceiving or cheating the consumer, is ill-gotten. I don't have any problem with that idea, but the thing is that the people who fancy themselves judges of how, and how much, income should be redistributed hardly ever make that distinction, because it's too complicated to sort out, and besides, they're lazy. They'd rather sit around complaining about profits, and “predatory” or “cut-throat capitalism” than take the trouble to define terms, pass the appropriate laws, and especially enforce them. And I had better add that, on the other extreme, according to the alleged “robber baron” model, all profits are just because (1) they result from a contract (real or implied) between capital and labor (i.e., there is never any coercion or exploitation – if you can accept that) and (2) the capitalist deserves to be rewarded for his intelligence, manipulation, and wheeling-and-dealing abilities (Can you say “CEO bonuses”, class?).

So what is the real issue? What are the (mostly) unspoken premises behind these arguments? On one level, it has to do with the value of work – of labor. If we agree that all labor is of equal value (never mind what the market and the law of supply and demand say), then of course everyone should be paid equally. This is what an acquaintance of mine years ago called “the aristocracy of labor” -- the notion that the “working man” deserved as much compensation as the president or board of directors of the company... maybe more, in fact, because his work was typically more dangerous.

If some of this rings a faint bell, it's because what's called “the labor theory of value” is a pillar of communist theory – the premise being that the entire value of goods or services is contained in the labor needed to produce them, and no more. One consequence of this idea is that goods and services should cost no more than the sum of the labor component, i.e. that there should be nothing held back as “profit”, because “profit” is nothing more than theft – stealing from the worker (and the consumer as well, presumably). Another consequence is the total devaluation of much that normally goes into the final product – things like invention, innovation, technological advances, efficiency, management skills, investment, marketing... in other words “capital” and all of its appurtenances. Another way of putting this is that once a given technology or process is established, no further compensation need be granted to the originator, inventor, innovator, or “capitalist”... that their work is done, and from that point on it's all owned by the workers – or if not “owned” exactly, then held in custody by the government in the workers' interest.

(Of course, none of our present-day leaders or politicians would adhere to such a ridiculous notion, would they? Oh wait -- “You didn't build that!” Sigh... )

But why stop with the radical notion that all labor should be compensated equally? Doesn't that discriminate in favor of those who work? What about those who can't, or won't, work, for whatever reason? After all, they are human beings too, and since we're all created equal, shouldn't they be compensated for simply existing – for walking the earth and breathing the air? This is, of course, in modified form, the premise behind social welfare and entitlement programs.

But then the question will arise, well, why bother with money at all? Doesn't a “medium of exchange” open up possibilities of inequality (“unfairness”) and hoarding (savings)? Doesn't it tempt people to keep some of what they earn instead of sharing? Or, on the other side of the coin, doesn't it tempt people to borrow and go into debt? Why not just see to it that everyone is equally fed, clothed, and housed, and that anything left over once that is accomplished is distributed equally among the citizenry in the form of extra benefits? This is communism in a nutshell – except that there is seldom anything left over. In fact, suitable nutrition, clothing, and shelter may be hard to come by as well, as it notoriously is in hard-core communist countries. But I'm not going to get into the effects a system of this sort has on motivation; that's another argument, and besides, it's already been made and I have nothing to add to it.

But an advanced society cannot possibly function without a medium of exchange – right? OK... but who said anything about “advanced”? Remember how the Khmer Rouge – radical collectivists if there ever were any – blew up the sewer system in Phnom Penh because it was considered to be a “Western”, i.e. “imperialist”, contrivance, and thus a threat to the purity of their new order? (But not to their old ordure, I hasten to add.) Who knows how much of what we call “modern civilization” and “technology” has been built on the backs of the poor? The claim is made every day in the history and economics departments of American universities. We may have to make some real sacrifices in order to achieve equality and fairness. (Isn't what we are being constantly told by politicians in so many words?)

OK – you see where this is going (I hope). One way to approach an issue is, instead of quibbling at the margins the way they constantly do in Congress, define the limits. What would be the ultimate in fairness and equality? Can there be too much fairness? Too much equality? (To hear Obama & Co. talk about it, you'd think not.) The populists – to give a small bit of credit – tend to be a bit more moderate than this; it's just that any line they draw is going to be arbitrary. They're willing to tolerate some people having a little higher income than others, or a bit more in the way of savings (if not actual “wealth”)... maybe even a slightly bigger house. But don't forget the bumper sticker that reads “No One Gets Two Houses Until Everyone Has One”. That's the “progressive” mind at work. Frankly, I'd like to see Congress try and pass that law; it ought to be great fun.

So let's review. Assuming that it's the job of the government to redistribute income, which model should they use? The one that says that all working people are equally worthy of compensation? Or the one that says that all people are equally worthy of compensation? And what do we do about children and other dependents? Are they to be granted full economic “personhood” under this system? (Now there's an incentive to have large families! Ironic, since everything the government does currently is aimed at minimizing family size or eliminating families altogether.) And what about primates, since they are about to be legally declared people? How about elephants, and dolphins, and talking dogs? How about lobsters, since they're alleged to be conscious, even though pre-born humans are not?

Now, if you don't think that's a big enough cocked hat all by itself, you can stop reading. But let's say that we shrink, and cringe, from such wild-eyed radicalism, and decide that the bureaucratic burden of such a system would be too much to bear – that it would result in the demise of the system, in fact. (Because this is, basically, what happened in the Soviet Union and in communist China – although Cuba and North Korea seem to be muddling through – even though there are rumors that North Korea has a “growing middle class” -- but color me skeptical. I suspect that all it means is that some people get two small bowls of thin gruel per day rather than just one.) (On the other hand, they have solved the obesity problem, which is more than you can say for us.)

Let's say that we retain the money system, allow people to earn income and to save – but only under close and constant scrutiny by enlightened officials of the government, who will have tools such as the minimum wage, taxation, etc. to work with. But then, you see, you've already given in – you've said that fairness, and equality, are not absolutes... that they have to be “nuanced”... that we have to be (at times) “realistic” about what is politically viable... et cetera. What you're saying is that it's all about politics, and therefore all about political power – which is pretty much the premise that most people operate on already, especially the ones known as liberals. But on the plus side, if it's all about politics and power, and there are no absolutes, than no one can complain. If politics trumps my idea of “fairness” or equality, well, that's too bad, because politics rules. Since fairness and equality cannot be absolutes, they have no more significance as principles than politics; they are, in fact, the same thing, for all intents and purposes. So go to the polls every four years (or every two, if you've got nothing better to do), cast your vote, and shut up, because “the people have spoken”.

What to do! Is there no way out? Oh, right... there is that ancient, moldering document called the Constitution... and there is also classical economics, the market system, and supply and demand. These are called “imperfect” by nearly everyone, but the next step in the reasoning is where the great divide occurs. One side says that these imperfections prove that said document or process should be discarded because it is no longer suited to “our time” -- or that we hold onto it for the sake of sentimentality, but add so many qualifiers, nuances, interpretations, and “penumbras” that it might as well be declared null and void. The other side says that these imperfections only reflect the imperfectability of man, and that since no work of man can ever be perfect, the thing to do is to live with the imperfections because it's still the best thing we've got. It should be noted that the latter position implies that most government workers should be fired and their offices closed down – which is the primary reason that its advocates aren't listened to, and accused of being in favor of “cut-throat capitalism”, exploitation of labor, “hate”, and so on.

Bottom line (if there even is one) – the next time you, or anyone else, starts talking about “fairness” or “equality” please take a moment to consider what you, or they, are really talking about – and consider whether your answer is to hire the government to make your vision a reality. Because if it is, it's much more likely that your vision will turn into a nightmare. And this is not just a “doom and gloom” prediction; it's already happening, the horror stories are out there, and no one is made one bit happier no matter how much the government exerts itself in their favor and in disfavor of others. If the government were playing even a zero-sum game, it would be one thing – but the game it's playing is negative-sum (unless you include the government functionaries themselves and their elite cronies, in which case things might be coming out about even).

A Dispatch From the Country of the Blind

It can be difficult to define what is “libertarian” because it would mostly be a list of negatives. (It's no accident that Ron Paul was known as “Dr. No” during his time in Congress.) But what is anti-libertarian? In the broad-brush sense, it's any political world view that puts government first and people – i.e. individuals, not “the people”, which is another word for government – second, or not at all. It includes both communism and fascism, as well as what I call suffocating socialism – i.e., socialism with a veneer of law and order – and even humanism -- but with a firm totalitarian underpinning (sort of like what we're starting to see in Canada and Australia). People are oppressed not so much by guns, prisons, and internment camps (although those may be present) as by laws and regulations that impact every aspect of their lives, no matter how trivial. This would include the American-style socialism that was created by the Progressives but reached full fruition with the New Deal, as well as postwar European-style socialism which has had, let's say, its ups and downs. Europe is still committed to socialism on the fundamental level, but its implementation goes through various cycles, accompanied by disputes and controversies. They go through cycles of reform, then reform of the reform, then reform of that reform, ad infinitum, but never seem to learn any lessons.

Our form of socialism has morphed from the relatively “pure” type represented by the New Deal into what I will call “soft fascism” -- i.e. control of the economy, and therefore (by necessity) the political system, by financial entities, both domestic and international (given that there is even a difference, which is doubtful). The fact that soft fascism doesn't involve mass rallies, torches, uniforms with a lot of leather, and goose-stepping parades doesn't make it any less fascism. What it means is that it's less obvious... more subversive... sneakier.   Another way of putting it is that, in the old days, fascism had to be presented as a political system where government was still in charge, with business being subordinate.  Now we've decided we no longer need that illusion, and government is openly subservient to business.

When Americans wake up, on occasion, to the fact that every meaningful political, economic, and social decision has been taken out of their hands when they weren't looking, that's when they feel the cold chill of fascism – but it's quickly forgotten in the wake of government handouts and entitlements and the contemporary equivalent of “games and circuses” (think NASCAR, the NFL, NBA, entertainment media, computer games and gadgets, etc.).

And you might say, “Whaddaya complaining about? Life (at least in this country) is no longer 'nasty, brutish and short', and the stock market is at an all-time high,” etc. Well, it's true enough that life is now, for most people, only mildly annoying, a bit dangerous at times, but longer than ever. And that's the point – or one of the points. We've been overcome by blandness. We are so far from our own revolution that we've completely lost any concept of what revolution is – the excitement, the fervor, the willingness to sacrifice. Ron Paul's campaign was called “The Ron Paul Revolution” (with the 2^nd through 5^th letters reversed to spell “love”) because it was, indeed, a revolution – not in the physical or violent sense but in the sense of consciousness – of awareness. As such, it was every bit as radical, if not more so, than the cultural revolution of the 1960s, which changed the world view of many but didn't make much of a dent in the true, underlying power structure. Rich white men ruled back then, and they continue to rule today – and the primary instrument of their rule is not “cut-throat competition” and “capitalism”, but government. Economic freedom is enjoyed by those at the top of the heap, and the rest of us have to be satisfied with our status as faceless, gray serfs. And granted, this does not differ significantly from the socio-economic structure of either communism or fascism.  But at least under “classical” fascism, the middle class had a place and a function, although it was tightly supervised and controlled – more so than the “proles”. Under the new fascism, the middle class has no more place than it does under communism; the only question is how quickly, and by which specific means, to eliminate it. For us, it's not about forbidding people to own property per se – or to be consumers. It's more about making it more and more difficult to save money, or to hold onto money that is saved. And it's also about making it more and more difficult to start small businesses, and to remain in business. Please note that large corporations run around sucking up small businesses like some sort of giant Roomba. The regulatory and tax structure is overwhelmingly tilted in favor of the largest entities, and works directly against the small ones. When you wake up one morning and find that everything you eat, drink, wear, drive, use, listen to, watch, feel, touch... is all under the control of one giant international corporation, you will know that a milestone has been reached. (On the plus side, there will be no more need for advertising, any more than there was in Soviet Russia or Nazi Germany. Propaganda, yes – ads, no.)

There's another aspect to all of this, and it's a product of this deadly combination of helplessness and cradle-to-grave security. I call it “societal anorexia”. It is not natural for man to be rendered helpless when it comes to his own life – his successes and failures and the decisions that lead to them. And it's not natural for him to be treated like a baby or retarded adult all his life – as someone who is incapable of making any important decisions and would be a "danger to society” if he did. So what is his reaction to this? We know that in the case of anorexia, women react to helplessness in the face of exploitation and abuse by asserting their choices and power in the only way available – namely by not eating. If everyone (or so it seems to them) has complete power their bodies, they'll show them that they don't, by not eating even to the point of starvation. Well, when you render an entire society helpless except for the ruling elite, they push back in odd ways. Their span of control shifts from society in general (Why bother voting?) to their immediate environment, and when that fails to themselves, and not even to the aspect of themselves that interfaces with the rest of society but by something that they alone can control and manipulate. So we get radical tattooing, piercing, people redoing their facial and body structure... things that go way beyond the self-assertion via hair and clothes that characterized the hippie era. If you can't have any impact on your environment, and if you're fair game for whoever wants to come along and intervene in your life, then the only option is to reinvent yourself – again, not at the interface (which is a lost cause) but physically. So I don't blame these people; they are reacting the only way they know how. Call it ill-advised, weird, pathetic, whatever – but I understand it, because the alternative is annihilation... being sucked into the machine like in “The Wall” and turned into lean finely textured beef, AKA pink slime. And of course the people who witness their futile antics shake their heads and wonder what their “problem” is. And – the tattooed, pierced hordes shake their heads back because they know what the problem is, and the squares don't.

The election of 2016 now seems to be looming on the horizon – at least according to the media. And in the midst of it all, breathing fire and crushing everything in her path, is the political Godzilla, namely Hillary Clinton. The supposed inevitability of her nomination and election makes any efforts the Republicans make seem silly and pathetic – like, why don't they just give up now? Hillary could be elected by popular acclaim, thus even eliminating the need for an formal election (and campaigning, and political ads – hmmm, not a bad idea when you come to think about it).  She could place the empress' crown on her own head, the way Napoleon did, with Bill smirking in the background.

And among the Republican “field” stands Rand Paul, who is invariably called a “libertarian” by.... well, by pretty much everyone but libertarians. The problem with Rand is that, unlike his father, he doesn't seem to have a deep understanding of libertarian principles. In other words, he is more a politician than a theorist. He says a lot of the right words, but wanders off the reservation a bit too often, in my opinion; he can be seduced, at least to some extent, by politics and “pragmatism”, whereas Ron Paul, as far as I know, never was. What it means is that it's a bit ironic for the mainstream Republicans to be having conniptions about this “radical” libertarian in their midst, when he really isn't – although compared to them, I supposed anybody with even the vaguest concept of individual freedom is going to seem like a radical. So, bottom line, if he in fact runs for the nomination and loses (which would be inevitable) it's no great loss for libertarianism. It would be better, in fact, if he were to stay where he is and, as I said, say the right things at least enough of the time to get people's attention (and their irrational reactions, which give away the hollowness of their position).

Having even a quasi-libertarian in the midst of the Republican Party is no less anachronistic than if he were in the midst of the Democratic Party. Each party gets things right on rare occasions, and totally wrong the rest of the time. I find myself agreeing with radical leftists more often than with the bland middle... and I even agree with the Neocons once in a while (based on what they say, not on what they actually believe). But I think that if our society is to survive in any meaningful way, and not morph into a blob of green slime out of some horror movie, the only thing that will save it is libertarianism in government – AKA Constitutional “originalism” -- combined with charity and tolerance on the part of individuals. You can't have a decent government if the citizens don't give a damn... and you can't have a decent society made up of people -- regardless of how charitable or good-intentioned they are – who are ruled over by evil men. People think of government as a one-way street, which it is in our time – all of the energy moves in a downward direction. But society, on the other hand, has to be a two-way street in order to function. This country was imagined, and organized, as a society, but has, over time, become a two-class system of rulers and ruled (with the middle class deluding themselves as to which class they belong in). It may be “soft” still, but there is no rule – nothing on the books – that requires it to remain that way, and plenty of sectors of our society have found themselves on the receiving end of actions that are anything but “soft”. That fact that prisons constitute a significant sector of the economy should tell you something; we are gradually moving toward a point where there are the “done to” and the “doers-to”, and no truly free men.

And as I've said before, perhaps this is only the natural product of societal evolution. Perhaps, like any organism, a given society has only so many years to grow and prosper, after which decline and death are inevitable. In that case, it's our bad luck to be around during the decline, although I imagine it will get much worse before things hit bottom. On the other hand, predictions of the demise of any society, nation, or system can be premature; cultures have a strange way of muddling through and showing surprising survivability – based, I would say, on cultural habits and values rather than governmental structures and laws. This may yet give us time to repent and mend our ways (dream on!), but what is more likely is that the system will collapse of its own weight (as opposed to being conquered in the military sense), not unlike what happened to the Soviet Union. And yet, there is always someone left... someone survives... and let's hope that they at least have a sense of history.