Sunday, March 04, 2012

Comment on a comment

I was going to post this as a rebuttal in the comments section on the last post, but the Blogger gods say it's too long. Nevertheless, I think it's important that I clarify some of my condensed thoughts that bubbled up during the writing of the previous post. I sent this as an e-mail, but let's keep the discourse public here. Everything that follows is verbatim. My replies are in boldface.

And my point-by-point response is:

Also I'm more than a little surprised to hear those liberal talking points [my emphasis] coming out of your keyboard...

-Did we learn nothing from our own adventure in Vietnam? (It was an adventure?)

That's an archaic term, taken from "national adventurism" as used by the British. And yes, it was quite an adventure for the kids that were there.

-Why the hell are we still in Afghanistan after ten years? ...we kicked the Taliban out of the country. (Wrong. Who do you think we're fighting over there? Mother Theresa?)

We're fighting people who are, in the words of Winston Churchill, the most treacherous, cowardly, and militarily inept people on the face of the earth. The myth of Islamic hospitality is just that; they will give you a meal and a place to sleep, and cut your throat when your eyes are closed. The only trust you can place in a Muslim is the certainty of betrayal and treachery.

-a national moral stance that reeks of the American imperialism (Do you really believe that? A "national" moral stance?)

In the sense that we, as a nation, are carrying out policies approved by the majority of the people, through Congress, yes, there is a "national" moral stance. The president is the poster child for that expression of national will, but that went to hell in the '90s with Willie & Monica, and is now no longer even a consideration. As with the rest of my comparisons to War II, our moral stance from 1941-45 was a righteous one. After that, it became warped. Instead of a stand-off, the Cold War became World War III, with "our" dictators versus "their" dictators. Had we just stood back and waited, communism would've collapsed under the weight of its faulty premises 30 years sooner than when the Berlin Wall finally fell.

-Do the hacks who run our government truly believe that other people, from societies that are totally alien to our own, want to be just like us? (It's true that some people don't want to be just like us, especially those who want sharia. But plenty do want to be just like us, and they keep trying to get here.)

Sure, this is the land of opportunity, where a big-city cabdriver can make more in a year than a cabinet minister in some benighted Third World country. I say more power to those who want to come here legally, assimilate at least the rudiments of our established culture--like learning English--and toss the dice in the capitalist system. Until recently, hard work has always been rewarded. One of those rewards is the freedom to hold on to the culture and traditions of wherever you came from. However, that doesn't encompass tribalism or demands for preferential treatment.

-We sold “Americanism” door-to-door in Vietnam, like encyclopedias or Bibles. We knocked on the door of the hooch, explained that we were there to help them, and if the hapless peasants didn’t buy it, we either shot them or relocated them to re-education camps, and moved on to the next village. (C'mon now.)

"We had to destroy the village in order to save it." Save them from what? The peasants I tripped over didn't know Ho Chi Minh from Richard Nixon, and didn't care which one was sitting on the throne in Hanoi or Saigon.

-Maybe, like the Russians, all they really wanted in life was a washer-dryer combo, a microwave oven (Do you think that's what the Cold War was all about? Washers and dryers?)

Yeah, pretty much. The key to that "winning hearts and minds" business boiled down to which goverment, driven by their specific ideology, was going to provide the best quality of life for the largest number of people. That's best measured in materialistic terms. The Soviets had that jazz about "from each according to his abilty, to each according his need", and we had the general attitude of "jump in there, do something and be somebody." We won.

-Somewhere along the road, we became intoxicated with our own moral certainty, and decided that if we were prospering as a people, then the rest of the world would be well-advised to follow suit. By the start of the 20th century, we were knocking on other nations’ doors, giving them our sales pitch, and if they didn’t buy it, we shot them in the head and moved on to their neighbors. (Yep, shot the whole nation in the head.)

Figure of speech. Ask the Libyans what they think about Teddy Roosevelt and his war on the Barbary pirates. We overthrew a whole sovereign country with one company of Marines and a couple of battleships sitting offshore. Actually, you don't have to go that far. Ask any Native American what they think about the doctrines of Ulysees Grant and Billy Sherman. Them heathen Injuns were sovereign nations when we got here.

-Today, the “War on Terror” is not a declared war, by the tenets of our Constitution. Terror is not a city-state, or a country. It’s a state of mind... There is no specific geographical region or society to declare war on. It’s like playing whack-a-mole (So does that mean we shouldn't fight terror any more? Thomas Jefferson was fighting the Muslims, aka the Barbary Pirates, as far back as 1802. The Poles were fighting the Muslims and saving Europe as far back as 1683. This is a very old war.)

What I mean when I use the terms "ruthlessness and efficiency" in regards to contemporary foreign policy and opposing terrorism is very simple: kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out. Any act of terrorist aggression should be met with an overwhelming surgical response, i.e. total annihilation of the perpetrators. We should get a clue from the Israelis; we don't need to march into a country with a "coalition" army of the unwilling ready to perform the unspeakable, after obtaining permission from the UN to wage an undeclared war of opportunity. As one of my mentors said: "If somebody slaps you, you don't turn the other cheek. You cut his hand off. If he then cuts your ear off, you cut his f---ing head off." If we stand on our strength and that principle, and fear no evil because we're the meanest motorscooters in the valley, then we don't need to be dictating half-assed terms to the rest of the world. The Soviets had a decided military advantage during the Cold War, but they never jumped off because of the MAD doctrine of mutually assured destruction. To their bitter end, the Soviets kept their bets on an ideological triumph, not some precipitous action that would've left them a smoking ruin. They knew their ideology had a chance if they survived as a society. If we strike hard and fast at terrorism and aggression, kicking ass and taking names, and then settle back in our collective national lawn chair to await responses, we might soon find that there are none.

-we started fiddling in earnest with the destinies of other countries and cultures, starting in Korea. One undeclared war of opportunity led to another, and has not ceased. Like a heroin addict seeking to recapture that first orgasmic high, we are fighting the “war on terror” like War II, replete with nation-building and “my-way-or-the-highway” proclamations. (So I guess it would have been better if we left Korea to the communists? The South Koreans would be better off today if they were part of the North? Maybe it would have been better if we just left the whole world to become Nazis or Japs or commies? And now you want to let them all submit to sharia?)

I think that if we had left communism to run its inevitable course to ruin, without providing them a common, general enemy to oppose by perpetuation of their ideology, we would've won the Cold War a lot sooner. Instead of Radio Free Europe and the endless bush wars, we should have stood off with the attitude of "Okay, if you've got such a great idea, make it work." The ruthless part of that is no foreign aid, no charity, no "humanitarian outreach". When slavery and parasitism turns to famine, anarchy, and genocide, the basics of human nature--what the Founding Fathers called "our God-given rights"--will kick in, and the people trapped in a no-win situation will rebel and set things a-right. The uprisings in Iran that Jughead failed to back were proof of this. It will be a terrible thing to watch from afar, but if we're not involved, we can be here as a guiding light of the better course to take when the dust settles.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying America never made a mistake, but you're starting to sound a bit cynical Possum.

America made plenty of mistakes, but they never deterred my devotion to the basic concept of the United States, as the Founding Fathers envisioned it. What I'm lamenting these days is my 30 years of service to sinister causes that I deluded myself into believing were the best for everybody. As I said in my earlier comment: a cynic sees the glass as half-empty, not half full. I see the glass as shattered, and the water already absorbed on the desert floor. We passed the tipping point when the national debt surpassed the GDP. It's now "deja vu all over again" as we re-live the fall of the Roman Empire.

A number of big-brain genome specialists say there's a "death gene" that triggers in our bodies about the age of 45 or so, leading to physical decline and ultimate discorporation. I'm glad mine is already active, so I won't have to see the worst of what's to come. We're going to lose the election this fall, and when fully unleashed, our foreign-born Muslim socialist president will place us at the mercy of the world. The Koran makes no allowances for mercy for infidels, so this ain't gonna be pretty. The rat race is over; the rats won.

For some reason, I'm hearing Freddie Mercury singing the last lines of "Bohemian Rhapsody": "Nothing really matters...nothing really matters any more."

Friday, March 02, 2012

Why I voted for Ron Paul

There are a number of reasons why I voted for Ron Paul. They can all be summed up in one word: Afghanistan.

Did we learn nothing from the Soviet Union’s adventure there in the 1980s? Did we learn nothing from our own adventure in Vietnam?

Why the hell are we still in Afghanistan after ten years? We took a shot at bin Laden, and missed. As long as we were deployed, we kicked the Taliban out of the country. Okay. We did a good thing. Why must we follow it up with nine years of needless deaths, horrendous expenses, and a national moral stance that reeks of the American imperialism of the 1950s and ‘60s?

I’m reminded of a line from “Full Metal Jacket” wherein a pogue colonel confronts Private Joker about the peace sign on his helmet, and ends by assuring him that “inside every Vietnamese there’s an American trying to get out.” It’s a brilliant bit of screenwriting, but do we really believe that? Do the hacks who run our government truly believe that other people, from societies that are totally alien to our own, want to be just like us; just because we were once the good guys and a moral force in the world?

We sold “Americanism” door-to-door in Vietnam, like encyclopedias or Bibles. We knocked on the door of the hooch, explained that we were there to help them, and if the hapless peasants didn’t buy it, we either shot them or relocated them to re-education camps, and moved on to the next village.

In the ‘80s, I wrote a song about “all the Red Chinese with their little red TVs”. Maybe, like the Russians, all they really wanted in life was a washer-dryer combo, a microwave oven, something better to drive than a state-manufactured car that caught fire faster than a Chevy Volt, and a generally decent life that made some allowances for their personal preferences over state mandates. The Soviet Union ultimately collapsed, and it’ll be interesting to see if the odd police-state capitalism of communist China—and the United States—will survive longer than I do. Maybe people really do want washer-dryers, microwaves, and a say-so in how they live their lives.

When Ron Paul first espoused his isolationist philosophy in one of the endless debates last year, I was horrified. Leave Iran alone, and let them obtain a nuclear weapon they’ll surely use against Israel, or us? Let the Taliban return to rule Afghanistan? Let Iraq dissolve into sectarian civil war after we sacrificed so many lives to liberate them? Let the Muslim Brotherhood become the ruling power in Libya, Egypt, and Syria? Close some of the 900+ military garrisons we maintain outside the continental US?

Then—unlike the poor state-schooled student I was back in the day—I did my homework. I reached my own conclusions. I arrived at my own answer to the questions posed above:

Yes. If that’s what they want, let them do it. We, as a nation, can lead by example. We cannot lead by force, compulsion, or an endless series of undeclared, unconstitutional wars of opportunity. Our own domestic situation is critical, and if we can rectify the decline of the misguided national policies of the last 50 years, we will prove the case for individual liberty and freedom from state mandates and theological coercion. The Founding Fathers knew this was the way to go, and set us on the path.

Somewhere along the road, we became intoxicated with our own moral certainty, and decided that if we were prospering as a people, then the rest of the world would be well-advised to follow suit. By the start of the 20th century, we were knocking on other nations’ doors, giving them our sales pitch, and if they didn’t buy it, we shot them in the head and moved on to their neighbors.

When the Germans and the Japanese came into ascendancy in the 1930s, we were pretty much minding our own national business, and coping with the Great Depression and the quasi-socialist policies of Franklin Roosevelt. As late as 1940, a majority of Americans wanted no part of a war in Europe. Japanese imperialism was regarded as a local problem for Asians to deal with.

That all changed, of course.

When Hitler rode his personal train in triumph from Paris to Berlin in June 1940, the train was named “America”, as a benign gesture toward the US. Hitler didn’t want any American intervention in his wars of opportunity in Europe. Famed for his temper tantrums, one has to wonder what kind of hissy-fit he pitched when he learned that his Nipponese allies had declared war on America, and botched it horribly at Pearl Harbor in the process.

When Admiral Yamamoto was receiving congratulations for his strategic strike on 7 December 1941, he demurred with the comment “I fear we have wakened a sleeping giant.” The Japanese didn’t want a war with us, either. Their tactic was to cripple our Pacific fleet under color of a legally declared war, then immediately sue for peace when our ability to intervene in their expansionism was destroyed. Both Germany and Japan were ultimately embarked on wars of territorial conquest, not some insane quest for ideological or theological supremacy.

True, the Germans were driven by some bizarre Aryan occultism, and the Japanese were motivated by obscure racism, but at their core, both were rational societies. When they realized the error of their ways, they surrendered and threw themselves at the mercy of the world, specifically the United States. We hanged some war criminals, garrisoned both countries, and rewarded their initiative to change with things like the Marshall Plan for Europe. Like my daddy told me the first time I came home from school with a bloody nose: “Sometimes when you have a fight with someone, you’ll end up being their best friend.”

Today, the “War on Terror” is not a declared war, by the tenets of our Constitution. Terror is not a city-state, or a country. It’s a state of mind held by irrational people possessed only of animal cunning to survive, and fanatical distortions of theology and political ideology. There is no specific geographical region or society to declare war on. It’s like playing whack-a-mole; we have to deal with things as they pop up. As evidenced by Osama bin Laden’s purported demise, this can be an effective policy if pursued with adequate ruthlessness and efficiency.

Ever since the end of War II, tacticians and pundits have pointed out that we prepare to fight the next war on how we fought the last war. Last time out, we kicked ass with everything from nuclear weapons to overwhelming numbers of inferior tanks, and The Greatest Generation prevailed. We threw some money at the defeated nations, so as to not repeat the mistakes of War I, and then we called it a day. However, intoxicated with the triumph of our victory and moral supremacy, we started fiddling in earnest with the destinies of other countries and cultures, starting in Korea. One undeclared war of opportunity led to another, and has not ceased. Like a heroin addict seeking to recapture that first orgasmic high, we are fighting the “war on terror” like War II, replete with nation-building and “my-way-or-the-highway” proclamations.

In light of all this, Ron Paul’s disturbing assertions made sense. I initially said that his isolationist policies were a threat to our national security, but if he can enforce them with the ruthlessness and resolve of our strength as a nation, they can work. Belligerent nations don’t have to like us; they merely have to fear us. Germany and Japan didn’t want us taking issue with them over their malevolent ambitions in the last century. The radical Islamists of today would rather not deal with the Great Satan. By the lights of what they believe in, they would like to destroy any culture that doesn’t conform to their world view, but they lack the practical means to accomplish this end. Yes, Iranians are sophisticated enough to build a nuclear weapon, but Israel already has 30+ nukes, and I wouldn’t want to be a resident of Tehran if you mess with the Jews.

In the end, I voted my conscience. Americans are being assassinated in Afghanistan as religious zealots riot in the streets. We are no more welcome there than the Soviets. Why are we trying to “democratize” the most untamed nation on earth; a society that has resisted conquest by the Mongols, the British, and the Soviets, among others? Ron Paul supports basic Libertarian tenets, and those include Ayn Rand’s assertion that people who want to follow irrational ideas should be left to perish or flourish by their own devices.

In the end, it came to a toss-up between Newt Gingrich—the heart—and Ron Paul—the soul. The good doctor has no chance of being elected, but he is the only voice of radical change, and his moral compass is properly oriented. Perhaps that’s why he has been so ineffectual in Congress during his career.

When I finished brushing up on my history of the world, I looked at the records of the other three candidates:

Rick Santorum was never a serious consideration, but after viewing his two public assertions that he has “tried for most of my political career to keep Libertarian influences out of the GOP”, he was off the table for good. The icing on the cake was when he spouted that religious ideology should play a part in the formation of governmental policies. Wrong! I’m a person of faith, as were the Founding Fathers. What Santorum fails to grasp is the essential concept that freedom of religion can also be freedom from religion. As Brother Dave Gardner—a true man of the people, as opposed to Santorum’s opportunistic populism—said: “Let them that don’t want none have the pleasure of not getting any.” I spoke in the last post here about Santorum’s disturbing predilection to want to legislate morality; apparently it’s in his DNA, and he couldn’t control his compulsions. That he’s even a serious contender scares hell out of me. He’s a big-government, endless-wars Republocrat.

Mitten Romney is still the used car salesman who’d make me walk off the lot rather than do business with him. He might be pulling a trainload of business acumen to reverse Barry O’s socialism, but he’s still a big-government, endless-wars Republocrat, and extremely dubious in his demeanor, in the process.

Newt Gingrich is a man after my own heart: a corrupt, cynical political careerist who embraces unproven ideas on a whim, and becomes “Network”’s Howard Beale when he doesn’t get his way. “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it any longer!” I saw him as an avenger; someone who’d take it to Barry O. and tear him a new one on the issues. I think he’d make an excellent chief-of-staff or Vice President, but in the end, he’s yet another big-government, endless-wars Republocrat.

So, I mailed in my absentee ballot the other day, and voted for the candidate who most truly represents my core belief system, and promises radical changes, dumping salt on the slippery slope the nation’s coasting down. The presidential preference primary is mostly a beauty contest or an episode of “American Idol”, and the only opportunity I’ll get this time out to vote for what I believe in, as opposed to the leadership ideals of the ultimate nominee. I was profoundly depressed by the thought processes that led me to my last-minute vote. The depression set in shortly after I mailed my ballot, when the realization set in that although I had voted according to my principles, it didn’t matter once the envelope left the house. The nominee to oppose Barry O. will be chosen on the basis of good hair, unrealistic promises, or what my grandmother called “slick preacher-talk” on social issues that are irrelevant to the crises that confront America today.

Although I cherish my right to vote like a refugee from an Eastern European dictatorship, the exercise of that right brought me no joy or sense of personal empowerment this time. Instead, I felt like a tool; a stooge being manipulated into voting for the lesser of two evils, which in the end is still evil. That disconcerting feeling will come to full fruition this November, when I mark my ballot and scrawl my “X” for whatever mangy yellow dog opposes the knucklehead currently occupying 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Sure, I voted according to my principles, for a candidate who has no chance of winning, but come this fall, it would be a blessing to vote for someone who is truly representative of what I believe, instead of voting against an arrogant, effete, ineffectual ideologue who brings this nation closer to ruin with each passing day.