Month: August 2016

There are three levels of stupid in international affairs.   There’s stupid, really really really stupid, and getting in a war with Russia.  So says Fred Reed at Unz.com.   This is World War One level stupid.  So before you start huffing and puffing about how evil Vladimir Putin and his Russia are, put on your thinking cap.  What are we supposed to do about it?  Try to overthrow him?   Or learn to live with him?  Which sounds like the more prudent course to you?

Hillary Clinton tried messing in Russian politics a few years ago and Vladimir Vladimirovitch has a good memory. My hunch is that he’s going to return the favor.  I don’t appreciate it, but it’s actually better to have him do it rather than Dr. Evil, George Soros, who hates this country.   I don’t think Putin does.  Putin doesn’t want conflict with the United States.  He’d be willing to partner with us in the Middle East, is my bet.  He prefers an American regime that doesn’t want conflict with him.  So do I.  So when we get our October Surprise, it will be from Russia with love.

It may make Clinton simply unelectable, a criminal convicted in the court of public opinion.  Then we’d have to decide between Trump and Johnson.  I think Johnson gets the lion’s share of Clinton vote when she begins to lose it.  It could elect him President.  At least it would make a good novel.

Actually, if Putin’s going to do it, he should do it in September, before the debates.  It might propel Johnson into them, which he needs.  Johnson has a plan, according to Politico.  He’s concentrating on Utah, the Mountain West, and Alaska.  As you’d expect.  But no mention of the Transfer of Public Lands, which is a hot issue in all of these states.  This is a mystery to me.

The FDA has ludicrously decreed, yet again, that marijuana is the most dangerous type of controlled substance, the same as heroin.  Debra Saunders has a good article on it.  The pharmaceutical industry is behind this, and Johnson should talk about it.  Marijuana is, in fact, medicinal, as most people in California are aware.  In states with lax marijuana laws the rate of opiod addiction is way down.  The country would be better off if all the opiod users switched to marijuana.  But marijuana is natural, and cheap, and the “right” people wouldn’t be making any money off it.  So addict the nation to opiods, for the profits of the drug companies.  This is a scandal of major proportions, and Gary Johnson is the man, and he’s in the place, to raise hell about it.  Why he wouldn’t is beyond me.  There are tens of millions of voters who consume marijuana.  Why not reach out to them?

I call this the WTF election in another article I put in to American Thinker.  I don’t mention Russia, so maybe they’ll run it.  I preface it with a description of the Great American Eclipse of August 21, 2017.  My whole family will be in Jackson, Wyoming, along with a lot of friends of the family from around the country.  We may even have a new addition.

If Clinton is elected, I think we should use this eclipse as a starting point of a new campaign to revive this country through the use of Article V.  A Clinton election would be low point for this country.  The lowest, really.  But sometimes things just have to get worse before they can start to get better.  A Clinton election would be a clarion call.  The opening bell of the final round.  We either take her down, or lose our country.  I think we’ll take her down.  And use Article V for the first time in our history in the process.  I know what I’ll think is she gets elected.  Let’s get ready to rumble.

Trump hasn’t turned the tide, and the election of Clinton would be the last gasp of a dying order.  They’re on life support, and will go down quickly.  When she’s sworn in everyone will know how she did it.  She helped Trump hijack the Republican Party.  Grand Theft Politics.

I can’t write or think about Donald Trump for a while.  I have Trump fatigue.  Thinking of him as the nominee of my political party drove me back to the Good Book.  “Remember, O Lord, what has befallen us; behold and see our disgrace.   Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our homes to aliens.”  —   the lament of the Prophet Jeremiah.

Pat Buchanan thinks a Clinton victory would be a bad moon rising, and the time for pitchforks, tar and feathers will be upon us.  It would be a time for an American Spring, for as John F. Kennedy said “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable.”  Old Pat is suggesting civil unrest from the American Heartland, as opposed to the unrest of its enemies.

Part of his despair is the packing of the Supreme Court by Hillary Clinton.  The Second Amendment, and the Heller decision, will be the first casualty.  The two are the same.  Clinton does, in fact, want to repeal the 2nd Amendment.  The Heller decision is the 2nd Amendment.  If the right to keep and bear arms refers to the right to join a state sponsored militia, the 2nd Amendment isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.  Heller affirms the plain meaning, and clear intent of the authors, of the 2nd Amendment.  The right to keep and bear arms is the individual right of every American.  And we will not lose it.  The First American Revolution was sparked by the attempt of the British to disarm the Minute Men.  If there is to be a Second, it would start the same way.

Any serious attempt to disarm the American people would result in the immediate secession of Alaska from the Union, and a lot of States would join it.  But that’s not on the horizon for a while.  They’ll start chipping away at the 2nd Amendment, and only enforce its repeal in stages.  So there’s still time.

Once we’ve lost the Supreme Court for a generation it will be time to have a serious conversation about the structure of the federal government.  For this discussion to be meaningful, and fruitful, it must take place at an Amendment Convention called by 2/3 of our State Legislatures.  The Convention of States campaign has, I believe, ten of the required 34.  The scope of the call under the language of the Convention of States Resolutions would allow the Amendment Convention to propose an Amendment which, if adopted, would allow the States to overturn a decision of the Supreme Court by a vote of a supermajority.  The decision which overturned Heller would, itself, be overturned, by a vote of the States.

It’s a long way from ten to 34, and the CoS approach needs a boost, which would come from a successful Balanced Budget Amendment Convention.  We have 28, and, if Trump doesn’t cost us some state legislatures, we could get to 34 next year.  CoS would be right behind us, and this could be the defining political issue of the early twenty first century.

A loss to Clinton isn’t the end.  It’s the beginning of a movement to overturn the result of that election.  A New Tea Party, bigger and better than ever.  Except this time, it’s got a specific agenda  – – the use of Article V to save our country.

Anybody here seen my old friend Ronnie?  Can you tell me where he’s gone?  I thought I saw him walking up over the hill, with Abraham, and Martin, and John.

So does Donald Trump.  He flies about the country like a Roman emperor, gathering multitudes of his faithful to come and behold him.  He struts and frets his hour upon the stage, signifying nothing.   The believers revel in his strength and righteousness, and he draws power from their ringing acclaim.  His wrath is mighty, and he smites his enemies with the power of his word.  He is a prophet, delivered  to his people that they, too, may be delivered, and partake of his righteousness.  Through him, the people speak with one voice, and a mighty sound is heard across the land.  “Make us great again!” cry the multitudes, and he takes them to his mighty breast and succors them.

It seems like a very manly way to run for President, and I’ll bet he loves every minute of it.  It just won’t work.  There aren’t enough believers.  At some rally today he said to those who object to his style, “Go home to Momma!” and the crowd went wild.  Trump’s the kind of guy who can never walk by a mirror without taking a look at himself, and his conceit is what these crowds feed.  He’s turning off 2/3 of the country, but that one third that he does have is apparently enough for him.   It’s more like a love affair than a political movement.

And when it’s over he’ll take a nice long vacation, and find out the brand that he’s spent his life building has turned into a big turd.  It will be the name of a man who, through his own vanity and ignorance, squandered one of the greatest political opportunities in American history.  The country is ready for his message, but it’s not really fun to spend your days talking about serious issues of public policy, so he’ll run off to another worshipful crowd.  What a dope, and what a loser.

This election should be about American nationalism.  But it’s about Trump, and American nationalism will go down with him.  Maybe for four years, maybe forever.  The stakes are very high, and we have a buffoon for a messenger.  His message cries out to be told.  Securing the border, and adopting America First immigration, refugee, trade and foreign policies.  These are big, and in some cases very complicated issues.  They deserve public discussion, and debate, and on each one the majority of the country is with Trump.  But he won’t shut up.

It seems to me that people clinging to the old Post Cold War order, in which we are vastly over committed, are the kind of people who like to keep things simple.  A bipolar world is like playing checkers, and they know how to play.  A multipolar world is tournament level chess, and these guys don’t know the game.  It requires brains, and knowledge, and judgement.  But that’s the world we live in, whether they like it nor not.

Speaking of brains, knowledge and judgement reminds me of the man who won the Cold War, St. John Paul II.  Reagan, and America were indispensable in holding the Communists in check.  But it was John Paul who brought them down.  He, and his people, the Roman Catholics of Poland were the ones that did it.  They were about to be invaded, just as the Hungarian and Czechs been invaded in 1956 and 1968, but the Pope sent the Soviets a message.  If they invaded Poland he would come there from the Vatican and stand with his fellow Poles.  Brezhnev blinked, and the rest is history.  The Warsaw Pact was dead, and the USSR was doomed.  Because as George Kennan predicted, once the Soviet Empire began to shrink, rather than expand, its internal contradictions would cause it to collapse.  It happened in the blink of an eye.  If ever a man deserved sainthood for his deeds, it was the man who killed Communism.

I’ve studied the life of St. John Paul more closely than that of any other man.  Of him it can be truly said:  He had the spirit of the Lord within him.

 

The world is in flux, as the post Cold War settlement unravels.   NATO, designed to keep the Germans down, the Russians out, and America in, is obsolete, and a new international architecture is emerging.  Signs of the disintegration of the old order, and the beginnings of the new, abound.

A partial list includes the warming relations between Israel and Russia, between Israel and Saudi Arabia, between Turkey and Russia, between Britain and Russia, the unravelling of the European Union, and the impending cooperation between the United Sates and Russia in the Middle East.  Vladimir Putin is leading this world reorientation, and acting strictly as an old fashioned Russian nationalist and imperialist.  Imperialism seems to be in the Russian DNA.  That’s a reality of international relations that has been constant ever since Russia became a great power hundreds of years ago.

But Russia is not our permanent enemy.  Nations don’t have friends or enemies.  They have national interests.  Rivals are not necessarily enemies if they are able to accommodate one another.  Since the fall of Communism and the break up of the Soviet Union, Russia’s imperialism is not a drive toward world hegemony.  Russia’s hand is far too weak for any such ambition.  Putin wants to reassemble the old Soviet Union.  He’s not a threat to us, or to Western Europe, but to his neighbors, particularly Ukraine and the Baltic states.  He needs to be restrained by diplomacy, not threats of war.

By seizing the initiative in breaking up the old world order, Putin hopes to profit financially as well.  He wants, above all, high oil prices.  He needs them to keep his economy afloat.  The Saudis are the key to the price of oil, and Thursday’s announcement that the Saudis are ready to work with non-OPEC partners (read:  Russia) to “help the market rebalance” has led to a 5% spike in the price of crude.  Mr. Putin knows how to play the game.  He’s in the Middle East for the same reason we are: oil.  We wanted its free flow.  He wants a high price.  Not long ago, American access to that oil was a vital national interest.  But with the fracking revolution, that is no longer true.  As we gradually join Russia as one of the great energy exporting countries of the world, our interests and theirs may coincide to a certain degree.  China, Japan and Western Europe do need that oil, and we should all be cooperating to keep the situation somewhat stable.  Everybody needs to sit down and have a good talk.

As it was 200 years ago, there are five main players in the game of international geopolitics.  Back then it was France, Russia, Britain, Prussia and Austro-Hungary.  Today it’s the United States, China, Russia, Western Europe and Japan.  India appears to be ready to join the club soon.  Each great power pursues its own interests, in cooperation or competition with the others.  In a mere quarter century  we’ve gone from a bipolar, to a unipolar, and now, once again, a multipolar world.  As one of the five powers of the world, we seek friendly relations with all, and among all.  All the powers are nuclear armed, excepting Japan, and that will probably change soon.  The United Sates is uniquely positioned to be the balance of power in the world, in order to prevent the outbreak of war.  Unlike any other great power, we are threatened, and are a threat, to no one.  We are isolated and secure.  Just as Theodore Roosevelt  was the mediator in the dispute between Russia and Japan after their 1906 war, the United Sates can mediate disputes between Russia and Western Europe today, and between other great powers in the future.

After the Congress of Vienna in 1815, Europe had a century of almost uninterrupted peace.  The powers were roughly in balance, and Britain was resolved to keep them that way.  No one power would be allowed to emerge above all the others, and pose a threat to all.  To work most effectively, each power must be free to align itself with any of the others.  Then the Germans painted themselves in a corner by taking Alsace Lorraine from France.  This made France Germany’s permanent enemy, and restricted its freedom of maneuver.  Ideally, in a multipolar world, no one has permanent enemies.  Everyone is both a rival and a potential ally, depending on circumstances.  In a nuclear world, that’s more important than ever.

In this new world order the United States is the key to world peace.  Britain and the Anglosphere may want to join us in this function.  But in order to play this noble and indispensable role, we must be seen as a friend to all, and an enemy to none.  Our one non-negotiable demand is freedom of the seas, and the United States Navy must continue to rule the waves as the British did not so long ago.  The oceans around us are the source of our security, and our beneficent control of them is in everyone’s interest.

I like to think that Donald Trump discussed all this when he visited Henry Kissinger a few  months ago.   Trump may have an intuitive feel for the geopolitics of today’s world.  He clearly wants to reach an understanding with Russia, and is not tied to the dogmas of the wizards of the post Cold War world, who have needlessly pressed America to overextend itself around the world.   He knows NATO is obsolete, and has said so.  He hints broadly that NATO’s Article 5 blank check that we gave to Western Europe after the Second World War will not be cashed today.  Naturally this upsets the neocons and the other war hawks.  50 of them recently announced their opposition to him.  The world they helped create, which is falling apart before their eyes, is a mess, and their solution is more of the same.  For a definitive analysis of their failures, see this David Goldman piece.

Trump is much more suited to lead the United States safely through this period of transition than Hillary Clinton.  She is the international missionary, smiting evil, as in Libya, for no other reason than she can.  That’s pure Wilsonianism, and it’s the way to war, as it has always been.  She doesn’t want to fight for America’s national interests, which are modest, and not a threat to any other power.  She wants to fight for a higher cause, for human rights or some such.  She’s a starry eyed idealist, and these are the really dangerous people when they have power.

After the death of Muammar Gaddafi, and before chaos and ISIS descended on Libya, Hillary Clinton, channeling the Roman tyrant within her, said, “We came, we saw, he died.”  And then, as payback, we got Benghazi.  Hillary Clinton broke it all, and she owns it all.  And even at this point, it does make a difference.

If peace is your priority, it’s Trump over Clinton.  It’s not even close.  A deal maker over a crusader.  An American nationalist against a starry eyed believer in one world government.  A realist, not a naif.

 

[This piece was rejected by American Thinker because Putin is a bad man.  The United States should only have friendly relations with countries ruled by good people.  Admirable idealism, which, in foreign affairs, helped lead to the cataclysms of the 20th century.  Crusading Wilsonianism is alive and well on the right.  The national interest, even international peace, must be subordinated to making the world safe for democracy.]

 

 

When a man has proven you not only wrong, but made you look like a fool to your own wife, you hesitate to tell him what he should do.  But for the life of me I can’t see why these rallies keep coming.  I know he likes being a newsmaker, but there are other ways to do it.

First he goes to Britain and meets the new Prime Minister, Teresa May.  Trump was right about Brexit, and she was wrong, and he can exploit that to show that the British nationalism demonstrated by Brexit is perfectly compatible with his own American nationalism.  We want trade with Britain, as much as we can get.  They’re not the ones taking our jobs.  Being seen as an equal with the British Prime Minster is good TV.

Then to Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu, a great man and a great leader.  He must stay scrupulously neutral in our politics, but most think he favors Trump, which would make sense.  These two will hit it off fine, and it will show.  Bibi will make sure that Trump is treated with all due respect, and it will be good TV.

Then to Poland, and at least a couple of the holy places of Poland that are so closely associated with St. John Paul II.  I wrote a book about John Paul 25 years ago, which was never published.  There are some very powerful places in Poland where Trump could go.  There’s a site in southern Poland where the Polish Pope held an outdoor Mass, attended by something like 1.3 million people.  I could go on and on.  And he must visit a death camp.  Every person who goes to Europe should go to one of these.  I think of them as not only monuments to their victims, but monuments to all the victims of totalitarians in the 20th century, Communist and Fascist, which are two sides of the same coin.

Then to meet the leaders of Poland, who I believe are currently conservative nationalists, but it doesn’t matter.  They represent the Polish people.  He should tell them that we believe in a free and independent Poland, but we will not send our sons and daughters to their country to defend it.  We believe that Poland is part of the western Europe sphere of influence, and not Russia’s, and Russia has no right to any Polish territory or Polish self sovereignty.  Poland is not Finland, it is part of Europe.  We can tell them that we seek a new understanding with Russia, and part of that understanding, which we will insist on, is a free and independent Poland.  But America wrote Western Europe a blank check when we entered NATO.  And that check will no longer be honored.  One generation can not bind another.  These statements are made in private.  They are not part of the news.

These trips would make front page stuff, and would make Trump look  normal.  A twofer.

I wrote another article for the American Thinker about the new world order, and the role we can play in it.  We can be like Bismarck was in Europe for twenty years, the man in the middle.  He wanted nothing for Germany, which had all it needed.  He wanted to be everybody’s friend, but never settled for less than two at a time.  Germany was in the process of becoming the naturally dominant power of Europe, and he didn’t want to rock the boat.

Now, Bismarck was a genius, and I’m not suggesting we have another Henry Kissinger out there to pull the strings like Bismarck did.  But we don’t need to be afraid of anybody.  Germany was surrounded, in the middle of Europe.  It had potential enemies all around it.  But we’re on a continental island, and no one’s going to try and invade us.  Ever.  So my motto would be Baron von Bismarck’s motto, if he was an American.  Peace through friendship.

When the Russians tried to kill the Pope, Putin was a 27 year old KGB man.  He had nothing to do with it, but I imagine he didn’t object.  Or maybe he did.  If he did, he should say so.  And if he didn’t, he should apologize.  Come to think of it, he may have met one of John Paul’s successors, and already has.  The Russian Orthodox Church believes in the sacrament of Confession, so I guess he probably has.