The natural condition

I heard Glenn Beck opine on the radio this morning that the natural condition of governments relative to their people is tyranny, and that we are living in an exception. I think he's right.

Mark Stein at National Review said:
"The Libyan War never caught the imagination of the American public, even though you’re paying for most of it. But in Tehran and Moscow and Beijing they’re following it. And they regard it as a useful preview of the post-American world. Absent American will, even a tinpot desert drag queen can stand up to the great powers and survive. The lesson of Obama’s half-hearted little war isn’t lost in the chancelleries of America’s enemies"

I think that the nations of the world have been in awe of the dominant military powers on the planet for the past 60 years, first the Soviet Union and the US, an later just the US, and basically not willing to make too much trouble lest one or the other of those powers take notice and crush them. Lets call it Pax Americana

This global "vacation from history" has, in my opinion, allowed us to develop worldwide food and trade networks, as well as a globe-spanning financial network the likes of which has never been seen before.

But I think that the world is now reverting to its more natural state, with regional powers duking it out and their populations bearing the brunt of the suffering. The global trade networks will no longer function as smoothly as they once did, nor will the worldwide financial networks. Populations that are used to being able to (and therefore dependent upon) getting food from multiple sources across the globe will be disappointed.

Great Line - good observation too

From The Daily Bayonet:

"Branson (owner of Virgin Enterprises, which includes Virgin Air, Virgin Records, etc) is just the latest rich activist to flee high taxes. Bono and U2 quit Ireland without a backward glance at the revenue hole the move left for their countrymen. It turns out that rich activists are rich first, activists second."

Wow, go figure. I suppose it supports the idea that even liberals share in human nature, focusing on themselves and their families first, others second. No comment on how that reality reflects on their professed value system.

Thoughts on decline, softness, and What is Necessary

JR Nyquist:

A few days ago a Pentagon specialist, Keith B. Payne, testified before a U.S. Senate committee that the administration's Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty offers numerous loopholes to the Russian side. ... Meanwhile, Russia is bolstering its road mobile ICBM forces, developing a new strategic bomber, new ICBM forces, and a cruise missile with a 3,000+ mile range. The U.S. doesn't even possess a road mobile ICBM, and has no plans to develop new strategic forces. How can this happen? Is it the stupidity of one party over another? Here is a reminder, however, that should be noted: Both parties share the same mentality, which was molded by television instead of books, and by the experience of shopping instead of war.

The logic of going downhill, the logic of decline, ... signifies a softening. It is known, as well, that soft people no longer have the stomach for what is necessary.

There it is, that's the line: Soft people no longer have the stomach for what is necessary. I would suggest (and JR does further on) that not only do soft people lack the stomach, they have lost the ability to discern what is necessary. Case in point, criminal gangs from another country are putting bounties on US law enforcement officers. Is this acceptable? What is the necessary action here? And yet a whole host of people will fail to discern a problem there.

What occurs is a form of denial, in which the realities of politics and war are cast aside in favor of fantasy substitutes, heavily laced with ideological logos of the kind that paralyze all thought....Here is a failure of imagination alongside a dismissal of the concept "enemy," done without any hesitation, with the survival instinct overridden by the daily corruption that attends absolute comfort. Those who are soft cannot see into an enemy that emerges from totally different conditions of life.

Cannot conceive of an enemy. Maybe that partially explains 'a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged' idea. Once the idea gets through that some people either actively have it in for you, or simply have no consideration of you except as a source of funds or goods, this precipitates some other changes in world view. Not that conservatives have a stellar record of choosing a path sans the rose-colored glasses. Remember 'compassionate conservatism'?

Well, that was easy for you to say

I love it when someone says something succinctly in one sentence that I couldn't describe in 10.

"Projects which must be protected from economics by special arrangements are suspect vehicles for long term development."

Yeah. But it was Richard Fernandez, who is pretty good at succinctly stating the correct, so I don't feel so bad.

Whole thing here.

General Petreaus and me

I've had an axiom for a while now that there are 3 jobs that come with being 'leader': 1. Possess and articulate The Vision. 2. Make decisions. 3. Be right.

Well, look what I just found quoted from no less a light than General Petreaus:

As I saw it then--and as I still see it now--there are four steps to institutional change. First, you have to get the big ideas right--you have to determine the right overarching concepts and intellectual underpinnings. Second, you have to communicate the big ideas effectively throughout the breadth and depth of the organization. Third, you have to oversee implementation of the big ideas--in this case, first at our combat training centers and then in actual operations. And fourth, and finally, you have to capture lessons from implementation of the big ideas, so that you can refine the overarching concepts and repeat the overall process.

His first two points pretty much exactly match my first point, and incorporate my third. He says 'implement', and I say 'make decisions'. Where I say 'be right' he says 'make the right choices, but then figure out where your implementation is deficient, and fix it', which is even better.

How cool is that?

The speech where those comments were made is here.

Organizational Design by McChrystal

I learned at JSOC,” McChrystal explained, “that any complex task is best approached by flattening hierarchies. It gets everybody feeling like they’re in the inner circle, so that they develop a sense of ownership. The more people who believe that they are part of the team and are in the know, the more you don’t have to do it yourself.”

Later in that same article, Brigadier General Scott Miller said about McChrystal and Rodriguez’s philosophy:

“Decentralize until you’re uncomfortable, then scrutinize, fix, and push down and out even further, to the level of the sergeants.”

Why does it work?

(B)ecause of the commander’s ability to reach down to the junior noncommissioned officers, a flat military organization puts—in the words of one admiral I interviewed—“performance pressure on everybody.”

Analogously, Cpt Roger Hill said

I have learned from working with good NCOs over the years that Soldiers come first. This is in spite of the fact that every Army school I have attended has preached mission first. If you take care of your men, the men will take care of the mission.

- empahsis mine. Yep, good stuff. It jives with my beliefs about management, as well as freedom and personal responsibility, and seems to work for the most successful military in the world operating in some very challenging environments. It would be interesting to see what the Israeli philosophy on these topics is.

Anti-americanism

Victor Davis Hanson: "By voluntarily backtracking — or being rebuffed — on almost all his initiatives, an idealistic Obama is reminding the world that anti-Americanism abroad is not caused so much by what the United States does, but largely by preconceived hostility to the values of liberty, free markets, and individual rights that the United States represents." - emphasis mine.

Marines leave Iraq - what they achieved

The question occasionally comes up from liberals of my acquaintance "well, if we weren't killing innocent Iraqis for fun or for their oil, what were we there for?"

Crunchie over at the Rott summarizes my response nicely, saying well in a few words what I try to say with many:

We defeated Saddam Husseins Iraq. In it’s place we sowed the seeds of a western style democracy in the heart of the Islamic world, right next door to the evil theocracy of the Iranian Republic, the birthplace and spiritual heart of the modern Islamo-fascist movement. And we drew in thousands of Jihadi’s into a battlespace of our choosing, where our tactics, techniques, and equipment could perform at their peak efficiency. And we slaughtered them. In our way, not theirs.

Well said. Read it all

Best thing I've heard all week

There’s an old expression I just made up: There’s no liberal in a bear attack. In matters of life and death, like a bear ripping apart your house, there is no time to morally preen and pat yourself on the back for how smart you sound.

Back in the day, life was pretty brutal for everyone, so there just weren’t any liberals. Unserious people starved to death or were mauled by giant sloths. With death lurking around every corner, people had no time for useless worries like whether warming the ozone would kill unicorns or whatever.

Things are a lot easier now — so easy that even useless people can survive — and thus we now have to suffer liberals. But we have one brutal leftover from the olden days. War. And it’s not something a liberal is ever going to learn to deal with.

Absolutely. A favorite saying of mine is "ecoguilt is a first world luxury". Same idea, but Mr. Fleming says it better. You can read it here.

Insulating folks from the consequences of their useless or counterproductive ideas and actions is a feature of modern affluent society.

In the old days, there was no cushion, and if the wolves killed the milk cow or the crops failed to come in, your family went hungry and possibly died. If the next village over had a crop failure, you could bet that they would be coming over the hill with spears in hand to see how badly you wanted to keep what was yours. In this environment everyone understood that food was important and security a close second.

Social cohesion is an element of security and a vehicle for that cushion. Religion is something that encourages social cohesion.

Since the end of WWII the unprecedented affluence of society has allowed a couple of generations of folks who have never experienced a lack of food, have never seen an empty store shelf, or faced a group of people who view them only as an impediment to what that group wants and is perfectly willing to kill them to get them out of the way. Thus the loss of social cohesion, the diminuation of the importance of religion in social life, and the rise of modern liberalism.

I believe this affluence is an unnatural situation that requires careful maintainance in order to persist (eternal vigilance). I don't believe that vigilance is being applied, and so between the rise of trans-national gangs and islamic terror once again folks are going to be coming over the hill to take what is yours. I heard a saying once that "a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged". Well, I think we're all in line to get mugged here.

Oh yeah

Why GM is screwed:

The murder of common sense, continued

"A statement from the American Family Association explained, "Tampa Police arrested Robert Johnson in February 2008 for hanging out in the locker room–restroom area at Lifestyle Fitness and watching women in an undressed state. The City of Tampa's 'gender identity' ordinance could provide a legal defense to future cases like this if the accused claims that his gender is female."

Ahem. "...claims that his gender is female". The english language is the most expressive in the world, and yet it is incapable of capturing the doublethink inherent in that statement.

"This ordinance will give lawful protection to cross-dressing males to patronize women's restrooms," the Florida Family Association said in a statement. "And men dressed as women or women who perceive themselves as men can also use men's restrooms."

More here

What the hell is it with the radical left? This is the flip side of the hate crime coin. These are what normally would be crimes, but that are OK in this instance because of the mental state of the perpetrator. Utopian fantasies aside, can anyone think of a real-world environment where this will not cause problems?

Why so serious?

I've been reading some of the output of Mises.org, a school of economics that adheres to the 'Austrian School', which makes a lot more intuitive sense to me than some competing models. Anyway, a recent article had this to say:

To solve a problem caused by malinvestments resulting from easy credit at 1 percent interest rates, the Fed is supplying even more easy money at 0.25 percent. None of the malinvestments have been allowed to be liquidated.

Housing prices have been propped up, banks and auto companies have been bailed out, regulations have been increased, debt covenants have been violated, unemployment insurance has been extended. In addition, there's the cap-and-trade bill, the healthcare bill, and a "czar" around every corner.

All of these increase the already-humongous burden on wealth creators. In short, the problems that caused the Great Recession have been compounded. Real output must then necessarily decline. How can anyone logically assert that we are in the beginning of a recovery?

I am less than sanguine regarding the immediate future. And that quote summarizes why pretty nicely.

Well, if you put it that way

COST OF HEALTHCARE

“It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication and a government bureaucracy to administer it.”

- Thomas Sowell

insulated from the consequences of their actions

Someone once asked me why people kept indulging in obviously self-destructive behavior. My answer was, 'because they have been insulated from the consequences of their actions'.

I believe the socialists currently fulfilling their wish list in Washington at taxpayer expense are a dandy illustration of the point.

Peggy Noonan gets it:

"When I see those in government, both locally and in Washington, spend and tax and come up each day with new ways to spend and tax—health care, cap and trade, etc.—I think: Why aren't they worried about the impact of what they're doing? Why do they think America is so strong it can take endless abuse?

I think I know part of the answer. It is that they've never seen things go dark. They came of age during the great abundance, circa 1980-2008 (or 1950-2008, take your pick), and they don't have the habit of worry.
...
We are governed at all levels by America's luckiest children, sons and daughters of the abundance, and they call themselves optimists but they're not optimists—they're unimaginative. They don't have faith, they've just never been foreclosed on."

Yeah, everything is going to be fine

"Give me twenty bucks," says Uncle Sam, to nephew citizen.
And the twenty is given for we trust our Uncle.
"Here's $17. There I've stimulated you. Oh, and here's how to spend it," says Sam.
"Hey, where's the other three?" says nephew citizen.
"That's to pay me to write the rules on how you should spend the $17 I gave you."
"But that's my $20 you took."
"What, you're anti-family? We're all in this together you know. So just be patriotic and give me your money so I can tell you how to spend it."
"Geez, what a bum."
"Now you're being seditious."

American Spectator comment of the day. Reader Jim Hlavac on Max Schulz's About Those Green Jobs...

Thought of the day

"(R)eality being that compassion, culture, law and philosophy are precious, rare and acquired habits that must be defended with force against people who understand nothing but force."

and

"If civilization is worth having (and I believe it is) then it has to be defended, because the restraining virtues of justice, compassion and respect for laws are products of that civilizing force and completely unknown to those who would do it harm. Therefore, since I believe in this civilization, in its laws, science, art and medicine, I believe we must be prepared to defend it against what I feel no embarrassment for calling the Forces of Darkness. Those forces could be raiders on horseback, jackbooted Nazi murderers, faceless KGB torturers or some kid blowing away a shopkeeper."

Read the whole thing here.

Bill Whittle channeling Teddy Roosevelt's Barbarious Values idea. Damn that Whittle can write...

Thoughts on the economy

I don't believe that the downturn is over. Read this quote from 1930, during the rally which was a prelude to the next leg down:

“Cheap money is a stimulant, also an intoxicant. If the dose is large enough, a substantial temporary effect can be brought about, but headaches follow. If the matter really were that simple, everybody could be an economist, and only the perversity of central banks would keep us from endless prosperity. Merchants and manufacturers will not be induced to increase borrowings, since interest on money borrowed is only one small factor in total costs. But if merchants and manufacturers will not use cheap money, speculators will”. Benjamin Anderson, Chief Economist of Chase National Bank, New York Times, April 1930

I believe that housing is one market where a lot of that cheap money went the first time, and the bursting of that bubble was the downturn of 2008. I don't know that all the nonproductive speculation went into housing, though. There will be more to come. IMO The recent stock market recovery is fueled by money looking for a home rather than on the strengths of the business activity of the underlying companies, which makes it a bubble unless the underlying business picks up to a point to warrant the stock values. Time will tell, but I'm not betting on a continued stock resurgence.

Ty Andros at Financial Sense University says the same thing, much more eloquently and with actual documentation. I swiped the quote from his article.

Goya "sleep of reason"

The sabotaging of common sense apparently isn't new under the sun. Francisco Goya in 1797 produced this print:



"Fantasy abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters: united with her, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of their marvels."

Teddy Roosevelt and the Barbarous Virtues

"Unless we keep the barbarian virtues, gaining the civilized ones will be of little avail." - Teddy Roosevelt 1899

This idea too has been on my mind recently, and it may be part and parcel of the death of common sense. The idea that we know what is right and we know what we should do, but we have simply lost the intestinal fortitude to pursue it.

For example, Iran is at this time running pell mell toward the finish line of having a working nuclear device. Iran, the first practitioner of suicidal war since imperial Japan. Do you think it is in the best interests of pretty much every peace-loving non-muslim in the world to prevent that acquisition? Say it with me, 'Yes'. Can we, the United States, sole superpower left in the world, bring ourselves to stomp on Iran if only to set this project back a few years? I sincerely doubt it.

I fear that we have lost the barbarian virtues that allowed western civilization to succeed, and having lost them, our civilization will be devoured by cultures still possessing those virtues.