Why an investigation is necessary

I'm cribbing from some of my online commentary...

Just as investigating the cover-up of Watergate revealed what was being covered-up, so too it will be here.

And the best part is getting the people from the CIA Annex and asking them if they had to sign an NDA.

Really, the Administration forcing people to do that shows that there is something to cover-up. And that would be signed under duress, and thus null and void.

The President has responsibility for those that serve under him, especially a hand-picked Ambassador sent to a place undergoing a civil war with terrorist attacks on-going. That is HIS representative there, HIS Ambassador sent there by HIM to do this job.

Where were the assets to extract him and his team in case things went south? Where were the naval and air assets necessary to do that in a place that is undergoing such turmoil? Who sends an Ambassador and critical national security personnel to such a place WITHOUT AN EXTRACTION PLAN?

Why was Stevens and, indeed, all the personnel put in such a vulnerable situation with no way out?

Why?

That isn’t a political question. It is a question that involves the Head of State, Head of Government and CinC: that is his responsibility to make sure that those people are protected with all means necessary and NOT having a way to get them out is dereliction of duty of the highest order because it was done ON HIS ORDERS.

That is before you even get to the cover-up. Investigating the cover-up will shed light on these questions because they are integral to the cover-up, itself.

The power of the Legislative Branch is to check the power of the Executive via ensuring that the Executive is executing the laws properly and carrying out the duties of President.  Watergate was a cover-up for a burglary for political gain, and this investigation into Benghazi will have that as a side-show, as well as the lack of care shown to those under the President's direct guidance and protection was done in an attempt to win an election.  That is political in nature.  The acts of neglect are matters of State directly attributed to the Presidential duties and no President is beyond such review.  I cannot think of a case similar to this one in which a personally appointed Ambassador for a specific mission in such a dangerous area was left without adequate protection and ready forces to get him out if things went to pot.  That is because Presidents take their job seriously and don't do such things unless it is absolutely and positively vital to the US and he is ready to explain that vital interest if things go wrong.

To date we have not gotten that, which is, in itself, dereliction of duty as Head of State.  Blaming the exercise of First Amendment speech as the focal cause for the attack is a gross attack on the rights of American citizens which is beyond the pale for any politician of any party to perform, not to speak of the President doing so and having cabinet members back him up on that.  There was zero justification for that, but that, as awful as it is, is just part of the cover-up and meant to be inflammatory and distracting from the actual events they are meant to hide.

Anyone trying to paint this as merely politics is missing the actual job of the President that was not done on multiple counts.

Even President Carter tried to rescue the Embassy personnel in Iran.

President Obama couldn't even manage THAT.

Or ordering the military to sanitize the site where this took place so that the INTEL carried by the Ambassador on operations in-country and in-theater would not fall into the hands of our enemies.  That was never done and that is the job of the President as well.

Why wasn't any of this done?

What is being covered up is woven into the fabric of the lies told after it.  And the best place to start with any after-action investigation is with the survivors.

Decade of war amidst unending war

There are two kinds of war, which is to say that there are two distinct and separate categories of warfare.  One kind that we know is that waged by Nations against other Nations and that is formal, legitimate war or war that takes place within the accountability structure of Nation States.  Nations are accountable actors and they are all equal as to type: while some are larger and more capable and others weak and less capable they are all Nation States as a category and represent a place on earth, a people living within that territory and even when inflicted by forms of dictatorship or despotism that government is one that is accountable to its fellow Nation States for its activity amongst them.  Accountable military actors represent that Nation, are held in an accountability structure by that government, fight under a banner and wear the uniform of that Nation and are amenable to the formal structure of war which includes cease-fires as a form of treaty (indeed the highest form, even when temporary) and can be officially ended by the governments involved, even to the point of extinguishment of one of those governments to end it.

Formal, declared war is a way for a Nation, large or small, weak or powerful, to assert its standing as a legitimate actor for its people to act with respect to them so as to assert their standing as a Nation amongst all Nations to be treated like any other Nation.  It is an understood venue of war that, even in the era of Total War, has limits to it which is the ending of one (or more) of the governments involved as institutions.  The people who had been under that form of government now have the right, as a people, to decide their own way in the world and settle internal problems and re-establish legitimate government.  Often that has not been the case in the history of mankind and the results can be ethnic populations that undergo unrest, cause civil war and otherwise seek to reassert their people's right to having a definite and defined government that is different than the one imposed on them.  When that government is defined, when it raises a banner, when those fighting to establish it put on uniforms and place their military actions as accountable to their rebel government and to the people for which they are fighting, they are performing an act of legitimization in seeking to establish this government to represent these people.  This, too, is legitimate and if but one Nation amongst the brotherhood of Nations recognizes and supports them then this organization is considered a Nation coming into being.

In summary that is one category of war and while war is a horror at least this type of war can end and reach a settlement.  That is desirable amongst the affairs of men.  No matter how many die, no matter the brutal logic that it entails, this formal form of warfare is desired when peace cannot be sustained due to the differences amongst men within the brotherhood of Nations.

There is another form of warfare, however, as war is not born amongst Nations but within the hearts of men as an inalienable right and power that cannot be divorced from individuals.  Indeed we recognize that this happens amongst animals who have a right and power to defend themselves against predation, and those seeking such predation we call predators.  The actions of such warfare is, then, depredation: that of acting like a predator upon others with no formal recourse against such actions.  This form of warfare, by its nature and source, is informal and takes place by men as individuals who can form groups but form no government and seek to establish no Nation.  If civilized man recognizes that Nations and the State system used to run a Nation are limits upon passion to which we submit so as to have a protection of our society as distinct from other societies and to be represented, then it is to be recognized that those adhering to this framework agree to quell their passions and allow for only accountable actors to declare war.  Those that seek to act with the power of war on their own, no matter their reasons, if they become an unaccountable actor amongst Nations, then we are to call their actions depredation.  By renouncing to utilize the civilized form of accountability, they reduce themselves to their savage nature, which is base in all regards, and that they have reduced themselves to savagery as they now put their actions into only one venue of accountability: warfare.

This kind of warfare is of a separate kind and nature from formal war and it is informal and illegitimate war.  If the formal kind is that done in public with accountability and, thusly, Public War, then this form done in private with no accountability is Private War.  These are distinct and separate categories of warfare and have been recognized as such since the dawn of mankind and the first Nations created by man to represent a people.  If a Nation is a creative framework to foster an understandable system amongst men, then those performing Private War are antagonists to this agreement and see that only the natural, savage predation structure is valid and legitimize that viewpoint by their actions.  We call these people by various category names, yet they all have the same underlying viewpoint to them: pirates, brigands, corsairs, freebooters, armies of thieves and terrorists.  That list is not all inclusive, but demonstrates that the supposed cause to perform such Private War is not limited to any ideology nor religion, but is universal in its scope.  Thus no matter what stated cause those performing such actions are claimed, their activity is, one and all, savage and against the structure of Nations in all regards.  This is not a 'clash of civilizations' as that puts forth that there is a structured environment for such a clash to take place amongst men to sort out their differences.  No this clash is amongst the civilized of all kinds and against those seeking to assert their will upon all mankind no matter if it be to plunder or booty, or just to become a warlord over a people and subjugate them to the will of that savage predation.

Private War can have many stated causes but its effects are the same, universally, and it is to tear at the civilized nature of man who works hard to put his savage nature aside and assert his positive natural rights on behalf of himself to his own betterment and, thereby, to the betterment of all civilized men.  Civilization is an agreed set of limits upon the actions of individuals to which we hold each other accountable.  Those performing illegitimate and informal war hold themselves and their sole standard as individuals up as supreme amongst men and will inflict it upon any they come across if they so like and have no limits upon their actions.  If civilizing oneself is an act of construction, then reverting to savagery can only result in destruction of the works of man both physically and as a mental framework that we agree to abide by.  Times can, indeed, change and bring forth great and new excitements and stimulation via the heights that can be achieved amongst the civilized of the earth.  Unfortunately the nature of nature does not change and is unchanging, and by being part of that framework and natural in all regards (no matter what we create it is all within this realm of nature) we are under threat of reverting to savagery.  While man does have a social instinct, as all animals capable of any thought so acquire, it can be put forth that if a single generation of man were to lose the ability of understanding what the limits of his actions are, then the entire edifice of civilization would collapse into savagery and that civilization would need to start all over again from that most base of states within Nature.

It is desirable, indeed part of the foundation of, formal war that there be an end to it and that a regularized course of affairs resume amongst Nations.  Nations and their governments called States are not permanent edifices amongst men, however, and it is sobering to see how often mighty Nations crumble under savagery.  Sophisticated systems of trade, discourse and intercourse amongst Nations can fall away as dust under savage man and his actions.  Building, construction and creation of artifacts and governments is a long and laborious process and yet, apparently, those that seek to end them can do so in very short order as depredation creates isolation from the very civilized structures created by men and those structures are seen as not safeguarding civilization itself.  Such governments can implode by ill moves (no matter how noble in cause) and their own weight causes them to implode, yes.  Such structures, even those that are lean and capable, can also implode at the slightest hint that they are no longer capable in safeguarding the very structure that allows them to exist.

From this it can be seen that those waging informal war can wage it not just on individuals, but upon the creations of those people in the form of States to run their Nations.  Informal, predatory and illegitimate war can be waged against Nations and by their very informal source there is no easy formal way to go to war against those doing this.  Military actions without an obvious object cannot be brought into being and only responses given to attacks as the only and defensive venue against those savages seeking to end a Nation and its State.  While war can be declared against those creating a safe haven for such actors, those actors are not attached to those people nor that territory and may basely flee to create a new predatory atmosphere for themselves elsewhere.  These ones flee the judgment of war against them and seek to inflict it upon the weak so as to weaken all of mankind and liquidate civilization at that most low of levels.  The power of any Nation, no matter how mighty, is brought low by such savages as they, by their chosen path, seek to remain unaccountable to anyone on this earth.   

Yet, for that, there is a venue that Nation States can take beyond the formal military means and that is to declare such actors who oppose them from the informal realm as being pirates, savages and an enemy to all mankind.  These are then not the Public Enemies of a Nation but its Private Enemies and a Nation State can then exercise specific articles against individuals and organizations that are in the Private realm.  Within this realm is the authorization of private individuals of that Nation State to be given papers and limits to their actions to predate upon the predators.  These are known as Letters of Marque and Reprisal, as they can be given not just to go after a particular asset of such savages, but to bring a fight to them wherever they are within the limits of warfare done by accountable actors.  Thus a Public action may be taken and authorized to put Private individuals into the role of accountable and self-organized military to go after the assets of those who seek and make war from the Private realm upon a Nation and its people.  Such counter-predation is under the oldest form of understandable warfare that is part and parcel of the savage realm: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.  A simple dollar for dollar accounting in which every dollar of destructive cost that has been inflicted by an individual or unaccountable organization may be legitimately seized by them to yield up Private returns for those risking their lives to do so.  This, too, is limited warfare in that it does have an end once dollar amounts of cost value are reached: the score has been evened and settled with as much damage inflicted as has been given.  Amongst even the most savage of animals it is understood that the horn of an antelope may gore a lion, that a puffer fish may injure the mouth that bites it and perhaps even inflict a mortal wound where one is being administered.  That is savage justice and yet one that is comprehensible to civilized man as we are all creatures of Nature and see this form of reprisal as legitimate as it is not only codified into civilized law but is based in Natural Law.

What this creates, and civilized man is one that asserts creative nature above base predation, is a two-fold system of justice to hold those waging war against Nations accountable.

The first is the martial realm in which such illegitimate actors can be put to death with only the most basic of trials to see if they are fighting for a government in a declared war while wearing a uniform and being accountable to a Nation State's government.  Fight without these things and you are subject to the laws martial and your end is summary execution.

Within the realms martial are also the private takings of goods and artifacts and despoiling the very things utilized by savage man to wage war upon civilized mankind.  Here the act is to be authorized to do so and then seek out and predate upon the predators, strike where they are weak and take anything of any value or destroy that which they use, and then yield it up for cash payments usually at auction.  Demonstrate that these are the goods of such savages and the payments begin to defray the cost they have inflicted in the private realm and the funds flow in from that private realm via the Nation's authorized and legitimate actors.  Once the dollar cost of inflicted damage has been reached, the Letters are then withdrawn and those actors formerly utilized go back to purely private concerns.

Together those are the complete martial or war track of accountability: end actors that you run across militarily or those actively waging war against the Nation, and send private actors out to start putting the pain of attacking the civilized upon the wallets and goods of those doing the attacking.  This is rough justice but it is the venue that the savages actively seek, thus a wholly vital realm that they will easily understand in their most base of states.

The other realm is that of public law in which the crimes of piracy are applied to those who are caught when not actively engaged in warfare or just at large in the civil venue.  Piracy is a simple charge to prosecute as it has a touchstone of waging war without any legitimacy granted by a Nation State.  War waged illegitimately can also fall into this venue, but rarely elicits a civil trial save when there are no authorized military actors to take such people into custody.  These savages caught in the civil realm an be put on trial and found guilty of their crimes and the proper punishment performed for their actions.

Unlike other forms of civil prosecution, the crime of piracy being both civil and military allows for trials in both venues to occur, although because of the savage nature of such actors the military is preferred as they are the ones best suited to sort out just what is and is not a legitimate military action.  Even those prosecuted by civil means for piracy can undergo a separate trial for military crimes associated with piracy: the civil penalties due to death and destruction of property is a separate realm of jurisdiction from waging war illegitimately and while the action may overlap those two realms they each are separated in the accountability chain for that activity taken.  There is no 'double jeopardy' between mere civil crimes and crimes of warfare, and both venues are open to civilized man against those waging war without legitimacy and predating upon civilized man.  An act of blowing up a building, say, can be both a civil crime (call it terrorism or simple destruction of private property with intent to kill or injure) and a war crime (that of waging war without legitimate basis).  Do note that while civil punishments may vary, the military punishment is without variance and must be so to uphold the formal and legitimate form of warfare: by putting such actors to an end there is a clear and decisive statement of what is and is not acceptable in the realm of war by a civilized military structure.

Upon informal war there is a value judgment but it is not one based upon the supposed causes brought forth by those actors, but a judgment that such form of war is illegitimate no matter what the stated cause is.  Thus the judgment upon why people revert to savagery is set aside to deal with the fact that they have decided, on their own, to reduce themselves to the savage state of being and become a predator and wage a war of depredation upon all mankind.  That martial realm of judgment is hard, nasty and justified as it is not we, the civilized, forcing men to act like savage predators but they who become predators forcing this realm of decision upon us.  Sad that they could not take up the myriad forms of civilized discontent to express themselves and create a better world, but that decision is not forced on them to become uncivilized.  No matter the supposed 'justice' of a cause, to take up savage war is to wash away all of those arguments and put the most base fact of savage war taken up by individuals into clear stark light.  Woe befall those who seek to muddy this starkness and they do no benefit to mankind and can even be seen as trying to debase man to a lower standard by trying to legitimize savagery.  No matter how noble the calling, there is not elevated basis for those that choose savagery willingly and no trusting them in the future to be reformed as they have so easily shrugged off the burdens of being civilized once and can easily do so again.  There is not a gray area to be seen between these realms, no hint of shading on the border: one is civilized and adheres to civilized formal war, or one does not.

It is a life and death decision.

One not forced upon any individual but chosen freely each and every moment of every day, and only once one steps from civilized action does the choice to return get barred. 

It is hard work to remain civilized.

Sad that there are those who seek to legitimize savagery.

No good shall ever come of that.

Getting out of the fiscal hole

Our Nation has plied blithely past $16 trillion in debt, equal to our entire GDP, and barely rattled as it did so.  In truth the whole world is rattling and a bit more on our part isn't going to be quickly identified, although its longer term consequences will have a drastic impact on events at home and globally.  If the state of the federal level of government is unsustainable, a number of our States are as bad off if not worse off than the federal government.  CA is seeing an exodus of businesses and jobs as the tax rate, crony kick-backs to politicians, and bureaucracy seep into every area of life in an attempt to control it from the governmental level.  Like IL there is a huge debt problem of what is 'owed' to civil servants who have been lucky enough to get unionized and then enrich politicians via their unions so that they can have a say on both sides of the negotiating table.  Other States like NY, MA, PA, NJ and WI are not immune to this problem, as well, and each have similar problems of too much government promising and too little forethought as to what those promises actually mean.  WI is digging itself out the century-long hole of Leftist policies by simply cutting spending, requiring workers to put more into their own care and freeing up local counties and districts to be able to chart their own courses on fiscal needs.

The simple removal of bureaucratic overhead, spending mandates, and requirements to adhere to contracts that were done to reward the minority with the wealth of the majority in an unsustainable system are critical.  Sovereign governments are the source of contractual authority and, being that source, cannot be bound to the same laws that they pass for everyone else at all times.  That is a perilous thing to have sovereign government do, but it is essential to have a system of regular laws that are upheld for the benefit of all to the detriment of none, and that is part and parcel of the sovereign power, as well.  A sovereign government can, thusly, break promises and contracts for the survival of the sovereign entity.  Just as at the National level a sovereign government can break treaties with foreign Nations when they put the sovereign of the Nation at peril so, too, can lesser sovereigns exercise such authority in their domains of power.  Throughout history this is exercised only by the most corrupt of regimes or when a government is in dire peril of being liquidated for past problems it has caused: better to break the contracts, reform government and pursue the goals of the people as a whole than to be dissolved by that whole and start over.  Yet, as sovereign governments are the representation of the people who create the Nation, they can change or abolish the State (the government) when it no longer meets their needs and imposes unjustly upon them outrageous costs that no people should ever bear.

This part of the debt burden held by States is, then, amenable to State sovereign power which is recognized as distinct from the federal Nation State sovereign power.  The reason we have no laws for bankruptcy of States is that it is expected that this sovereign power will be used to address the localized problems and allow the people of a State to reform, amend, change, or abolish and create anew their government.  It is perilous to renounce debt as those depending on debt servicing get the shaft.  Russia learned this, to its dismay, when it renounced Czarist debt, Nationalized companies and then found that skilled management at home was absent and that no one abroad would invest in such a place that could not recognize its debt obligations.  When the USSR began to finally honor the Czarist debt and pay it off in the early 1980's, the end for their system was written in the need for outside help.  Socialist and Communist regimes are always born in debt and find it hard to do much of anything because they will not recognize this debt payment obligation. 

For the US, our States in the most dire of need will have to recognize the error of their ways, re-organize debt and stop accumulating new debt, which means breaking promises on retirement amounts (or even having any funds dedicated to such from government) so that the government can down-size and do its few basic functions and continue to pay its debt off.  Such debt can be re-negotiated, however, and offer pennies on the dollar but for those pennies it is expected that the debtor (the State) reform its ways and walk the straight and narrow and actually pay that amount.  If you want an example of what happens when that falls through, look at Greece, Italy, Spain and the rest of the EU that has huge debt and getting even pennies on the dollar is a pipedream.

To bring around States to the realization they can't finance their promises requires that those purchasing such debt recognize that it can't be reasonably repaid and stop purchasing it.  This has already happened at the Nation State level with the Federal Reserve now holding a massive portion of US debt.  That is to say that the ones running the printing presses get to call the shots in the very near term.  The flip side of easy lending to a government by a central bank is that the government becomes beholden to that central bank when spendthrift ideas are backed and paid for with debt obligation.  Once the Federal Reserve just acted as a for-profit pass-through of US debt (we paid for that service) but as our creditors have started to dump debt (read: China and Russia) the Federal Reserve holds such debt and can only balance it by creating new funds to pay in inflated dollars.  There are only two things the Federal Reserve knows how to do to deal with fiscal problems: inflate currency by printing more money or increase the interest rate to burn more money.  For all the window dressing on the Federal Reserve, that is what they do.

Total debt obligation for the US government and all the States is in the range of $70 trillion with some estimates putting it over $80 trillion, and none of that can be paid off with the current economy.  Even a booming economy for a decade can't do it.  Or two.  Why?  The spending doesn't stop and always outstrips tax revenue.  I've gone over the so-called 'entitlements' (basically taxes paid in to pay to current beneficiaries with IOUs from the Treasury for future payment now coming due) and would be remiss to point out that the next largest growing portion of the federal budget is debt servicing.  At some point in the near future the question will be: you can have 'entitlements' with debt servicing and NO other government, or you can have government's necessary functions with debt servicing and NO entitlements.  That choice will be yours.  The folly of the USSR points out what happens when you reneg on debt and it isn't pretty.

If the theme of the 2010 Tea Party election was 'Stop The Spending' then this message must be reinforced in this election to put it as 'Stop The Spending Now Damn It'.  Politicians, generally lacking in spine, find saying 'no' to goody giveaways very hard.  These politicians must be replaced, and if their replacements fail then they must be replaced and so on in a process I call 'Fire Until Competence Is Found'.  It is what President Lincoln did with Union Generals, and it works quite well and is eminently suited to the electoral process at all levels.  As citizens our duty is to get this message across AT all levels of government, and I heartily endorse taking part in any election at the local, county, State and federal level to drive this message home.  If we can get just a few more States beyond TX and VA into solvency, then a real path out for the spendthrifts can be pointed out as good examples to follow.

Stopping the spending is the most important part of this equation, and can (indeed must) act in concert with other portions of it to bring home the true bankruptcy of the 'entitlement' system.  Most citizens when they hear of the insolvency of, say, Social Security will point to 'guarantees', which were made by politicians.  Remind them that believing in a politician is the surest way to get in the hole and that these politicians must be held to account for their ill-actions.  No matter how 'good' the cause, the actions, themselves, are ill and need to be rethought.  With that said there now needs to be trust garnered by the federal government (and the States as well) that they understand that things not given to them to do in the small realm must be lopped off to show that government understands dire fiscal times.  At the federal level this means antiquated departments like the EPA, Education, Energy, Agriculture, Labor and choice portions of Interior that is holding land in States that the State legislatures have not signed off on the federal government having to control per parcel.  Perks must go, including large Secret Service details, flying first class and huge staff sizes at all levels of government. 

Structural reforms to get the federal government out of the home lending market ENTIRELY and to remove the ability of commercial banks to operate in that realm are necessary: a local banking system offers depth and flexibility that a larger system cannot achieve while remaining profitable and requiring local judgment on who is worthy of getting a loan.  The only requirement is that loans are given out based on fiscal background, type of loan, and if said loan actually is not at risk for being lost or devalued for the customer once given all of which are local decisions and can be handed to different officers in a company to judge just those factors shorn of all other outside factors completely.  This entire concept goes for student loans, as well, as we are moving out of the 13th century bricks and mortar schooling realm and into a 21st century realm with on-demand courses and self-paced systems now coming out to allow the bright to excel as fast as they can and the less bright to realize just what their limits are quickly so as to adapt to a better suite of skills to meet their individual talents.  For we all have talents in different proportion and they are least well served by diploma mill physical education institutions with a 'One Size Fits All, Fits None Well' approach.  And this is at the Primary, Secondary and Post-Secondary levels of education, not delimited to Colleges and Universities, although the loan part is aimed at them.  As a society we will adapt to the changing understanding that education is life-long, that touchstones are what one can do not how many classes one has attended, and that the greatest drive for education is self-education.  This will mean that what we consider 'vocational' systems will revive as those not suited to book learning but can learning engineering, physics, and chemistry by hands-on application will require these venues to expand, not diminish and they do require physical structures as they deal directly with our physical reality.

Trust building is a two-way street and government is ill-served by seeking power to control those things it is not designed to do.  Reduction in federal regulation and putting that burden on the States means adaptable responsiveness to local and regional problems as States can work with each other without the requirement of federal oversight.  So long as they do not put bias in the internal trade system of the US, States can work together to solve regional problems via State to State agreements run by the States and held accountable by the people in them.  Handing back control of natural resources (i.e. having lands held by the federal government go back to State control) means that these localized system which are adaptable to local concerns can be put into play without a straightjacket of having to put in tropical screening in facilities above the arctic circle.  As ND has shown with some spillover to MT and SD is that State and regional resource exploitation can be done competently, within reasonable accommodation to the environment and still get one heck of a return.  CA has so much oil off its coast that it comes out in seeps, but because of regulations the pressure can't be relieved by drilling because of environmental fears... which are being realized by not drilling the oil pockets.  Not everyone will succeed equally and some States may never get a clue, but that should not be for lack of good examples by other States.  As the States have demonstrated good and responsible capability for near-shore drilling and exploration, they have a track record of success and the federal government should withdraw its regulatory schema for economic zone drilling and put that in the hands of the coastal States as well.  Pipelines that cross international borders only need Nation to Nation agreement on the crossing and the internal apparatus of each Nation in Provinces and States be allowed to find the best routing solution for them.  As the Nation needs refining capacity (we are now exporting crude oil for refining) the States should serve as the focus for this local concern, as well, and perhaps provide federal land that is too contaminated to be used for much of anything to the project.  In short the federal government really can demonstrate trust by removing regulations and supporting States and the people to figure it out for themselves.

In short removal of regulations for labor, environment and agriculture, along with a host of others for education, energy and land use, puts the most capable and local of government in control of their own destiny.  Yes there will be those who don't do so well, better a few fail and we garner good examples from others, than to fail everyone by doing nothing or doing a little poorly or not well by fiat from the federal government.  Getting prosperity back requires these things and a comprehensible tax code.  As I pointed out previously to this article, exemptions must be eliminated as tax rates are lowered to get a net tax rate that is lower than the purported rate, but is closer to the rate already paid with exemptions and other write-offs.  The entire set of write-offs can be eliminated to get a flat tax, payable by all who earn income of any sort, with only some lowering of rates below the poverty line so as to lessen the impact on the poor so that their amount steps up towards the norm for those above the poverty line as they make more.  This is equality of the tax code and puts citizens into the drivers seat by not collecting taxes by having businesses do it, but by those who vote understanding the direct cost of what they vote for once per year.  This would also mean rolling in separate taxation for 'entitlements' (like FICA for Social Security) and removing them as separate line items, which simplifies the tax code.  Former Soviet States like Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Albania, Russia and others have all concentrated on this as it eliminates tax avoidance and puts a stronger assurance on compliance and a better feel for revenue over time.  An assured revenue stream is mandatory for paying down debt obligations.

Now as I am not a set-size pie person, the way to remove debt is to make more in hard currency: produce more wealth.  Remove the wealth reducers in regulation, tax policy and other bureaucratic overhead is necessary and often results in economic expansion with diminished boom and bust cycle depth as artificial causes of bubbles from government disappear.  You still get such cycles, but that is because of increased technical capability removing older industries and that takes a hard change-over as expectations for existing industries go down and new ones arise.  Creative destruction is for the betterment of all mankind, to produce more worthwhile goods at a lower cost so that more people can afford them to lead better lives.  Luckily, this is a very profitable endeavor and can't be done without the profit motive to do more and gain more for any given produced unit of an item or service.  Thus the future must be examined for what it brings.

Until we get to quantum computing we will see an expansion and filling-in of the now old cyber structure of the digital age.  With hard physical limits for silicon and reduction in circuit size now being reached the realms of nanotech, quantum tech and biotech will all serve as future platforms for expansion and they are in their most nascent stages of development at this time.  Even awaiting those areas (and the new companies and industries that will make them) the older technology for personalizing computing and laboratories will create labs on a chip for home medical diagnostics when, coupled with expert systems, will expand and reduce the cost of everyday medical care.  Put robotics in with that and you get Larry Niven's autodoc, where you step into a booth or lay down on a bed with automatic scanners and medical tools to do everything from examine your daily health to stabilizing the condition of someone who has been in a horrific accident, perhaps with some surgical needs addressed immediately and specialists on-line to deal with the worst that can happen to an individual.  This will remove Medicare, Medicaid, and even medical insurance once done and the technology is starting to be integrated today to put scanners together with expert system software.  Autonomous robotics is also advancing and when applied to medicine and surgery, the cost of everyday care and even minor surgical procedures will drop as they become mass-customizable by technology.

I have already addressed schooling and the manual arts, and these, too, will be augmented by low cost computing platforms that are autonomous or semi-autonomous.  Because our structures are not designed for automated maintenance, there will always be a requirement for manual labor to repair existing infrastructure until we can adapt technology to it or supersede it with better ways of doing things.  If you do construction in New York City you must deal not only with modern pipes, power cables, conduit, etc. but those left by previous utilities dating back to the 1840's if not earlier, and that is not something that robotics or autonomous systems will handle well for some decades yet.

Returning to space for commercial activity is already on the drawing board, and going back to the moon to exploit its resources (mostly for space use and for those items that can only be made in micro or zero gravity) may start out with remotely operated vehicles or semi-autonomous vehicles, but will require some amount of direct human oversight at some point in time.  A minor asteroid brought into Earth orbit (or Lunar orbit come to that) can be easily rendered into separate elements by the process of solar mirror melting.  Put a bore hole into the interior, deploy a few square kilometers of thin film reflector to concentrate sunlight into the center of an asteroid and perhaps a thin film enclosure to capture escaping gasses and just let nature take its course.  When thoroughly melted the micro gravity will separate out the elements and then when it cools you get concentric shells of denser and denser elements presorted by atomic mass.  Other methods can be used to remove hot melt by layer and re-melt layers so that they are more easily dealt with when solid removal can't be done quickly or efficiently.  An asteroid of just a few hundred tons might yield a ton of gold or silver, and many more tons of iron, cobalt, nickel and copper.  Essentially the same can be done on the moon, as well.  In all, expansion of an economy when done on this scale is no longer that of a Nation State as we now know it, yet the basic economics never changes and no matter how much money comes into a government, it always seems to expand to absorb more and more of it.

For all the good news to come about, it is up to the citizen to put government on the strictest of diets and boil our social questions out for open and frank discussion.  The morality of taxing the unborn to pay for the current elderly and sick is one that does need to be in the open as the deceitful discussion led over the prior century has attempted to sugar coat something that no one in their right mind would agree to.  It is up to each of us to learn how to deal with the things life hands us for good and ill.  I've made no plans based on: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, or any other 'entitlement'.  They will not last forever no matter HOW MUCH MONEY the government gets because any government that sees fit to remove liberty for this cause will do so for ANYTHING and then use its removal as a club against free men.  That money is gone and overspent many-fold, and isn't coming back, isn't in a 'lockbox' and treats our children and grandchildren as our ATMs.  We have garnered much material wealth and a bit of better health with that, and if we must do without we now have that as a cushion to fall back on when we realize that government is not a guarantor of retirement, health care or any other thing. 

We are.

As individuals and in our cooperation with each other to create accountable systems that meet our needs outside of government.

That is why we seek to have a just government that can uphold contracts amongst us, and understand that it must guarantee that system while we understand that often our best impulses come to the worst ends via government.  Our essential duty is to learn this and teach it to our children: free men take their lives into their own hands for good and ill and we also must create the means to catch those who fail in this.  That is not the task nor role of our government, to be positive to us, but to simply uphold the just means so that we can achieve the good things that create a strong society and a free population.  When we do wrong, even for the best of reasons, we admit to it, mend our ways and pay off our debts and NEVER burden others with this especially those who have NO SAY IN IT.  Which is our children and grand-children.  If we are far on the side of lax morals now, we can always straighten up, take our lumps, admit our humility and uphold our duty and right to pay off our debts and stop doing the asinine things we currently do with such good words that belie such ill outcomes.

We are can create that future and get out of this fiscal hole by forcing our government to stop trying to provide an easy life that none can afford.

Life isn't worth living because it is easy.  No it is death, death is equal to all and easily found at all times across all classes of society and respects none.

No, life is hard to fight for, hard to keep, hard to maintain and must be all those things so that we can create a better world for all mankind to enjoy the fruits of their life.  And not have it picked from them by government to go begging for the rind of the fruit while government sucks the succulent flesh from it.

It is for these reasons I vote.

I am happy to vote, but it is too important a task to not take as an earnest duty and obligation to my fellow citizens so we may all be free from government's tender mercies.

Liberty, security and those giving both away

“Anyone who trades liberty for security deserves neither liberty nor security”

- Benjamin Franklin (via Thinkexist)

The rights secured against government are particular and many, especially with regard to the US federal government and by incorporation to the States.  Additionally those powers not granted to the federal government are retained by the States and the people.  These are not new securities, by any means, and many go back not just to the Magna Carta and the pre-existing contracts between the people and their sovereigns, but also through the works of the post-Westphalian West that helped to delineate the differences between Moral Law, Natural Law and Civil Law.  As Natural rights and liberty are granted to us because we are part of the natural universe, there is no way that those rights can be severed from people as individuals and we can only agree to not exercise certain rights and liberties when we create government at the personal level and then at every level thereafter.  Of all governments it is self-government that is the strongest since it starts with each individual.  All other governments must utilize exterior power to enforce any larger agreements upon individuals as governments.  As Tom Paine puts it, government is the Punisher and all governments are created from the bowers of the ruins of paradise.

Freedom of speech is one of the prime rights secured against government as it is the way we communicate our inner-most feelings and ideas with each other as people.  As a people we are guaranteed that communication via the freedom of the press so that all means to communicate with each other are open to us.  With these two is the freedom of religion, the right to communicate our inner-most feelings to the Creator.  Together these are all descriptive of freedom of thought, the freedom to be oneself to oneself as you are.  Individuals who secure these rights are known as citizens, others that do not secure them properly are subjects as they allow their interior self to be defined by exterior forces.  Yet, within the heart of every subject is a free man, a citizen, if they would but allow themselves the freedom to think as they will unfettered by exterior forces.  This is the most powerful of rights as it allows self-direction, self-creation and the ability to reshape the very world by daring to find a way to do the impossible.

In our world there are those threatened by citizens, by free men, who dare to express their own ideas freely.  This is not the mischievous negative liberty to scare others (the yelling fire in a crowded theater paradigm) which is an attempt to subjugate others to fear of physical pain so as to cause pain.  In that same category is the incitement to riot which is a calling on the fear and hatred of others of some object, person, people, race, religion, or other demonized other of the moment.  Nor is there a thing known as 'hate speech' as there are only hateful people, and such people deserve the right and liberty to espouse their inner-most self so others can see just how small and hateful such people are.  Such speech is not applauded, but is counter-acted by various means, including just pointing out how hateful and baseless it is.  Thus even the worst, most vile of speech is not remedied by censorship on the outside, but through reasoning of individuals to understand just what the impacts of such speech are and why it is not good for individuals to do it.  Either that or learn to cope with the effects of such speech, that choice is up to individuals, not governments.

Current events always bring forward Franklin and his wisdom is one to be heeded as he helped to bring so much common sense to our Nation and because it is common sense and easy to understand it accords within free people to abide by it.  Events are within a time frame or period, and yet how we decide to deal with them help to chart the course of ourselves, our Nation and all humanity.  Thus your decision on how to deal with speech you do not agree with is up to you.  Sadly, there are those who want to vest that into bureaucracy we call government.  Take Eric Posner, at Slate, in has article of 25 SEP 2012 The World Doesn’t Love the First Amendment:

The universal response in the United States to the uproar over the anti-Muslim video is that the Muslim world will just have to get used to freedom of expression. President Obama said so himself in a speech at the United Nations today, which included both a strong defense of the First Amendment and (“in the alternative,” as lawyers say) and a plea that the United States is helpless anyway when it comes to controlling information. In a world linked by YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, countless videos attacking people’s religions, produced by provocateurs, rabble-rousers, and lunatics, will spread to every corner of the world, as fast as the Internet can blast them, and beyond the power of governments to stop them. Muslims need to grow a thick skin, the thinking goes, as believers in the West have done over the centuries. Perhaps they will even learn what it means to live in a free society, and adopt something like the First Amendment in their own countries.

But there is another possible response. This is that Americans need to learn that the rest of the world—and not just Muslims—see no sense in the First Amendment. Even other Western nations take a more circumspect position on freedom of expression than we do, realizing that often free speech must yield to other values and the need for order. Our own history suggests that they might have a point.

Note that first part I put into boldface, about the means of communication and what is said: that is the power of free speech and the press, both.   I will repeat it as it is a complete logic construct in its own right:

In a world linked by YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, countless videos attacking people’s religions, produced by provocateurs, rabble-rousers, and lunatics, will spread to every corner of the world, as fast as the Internet can blast them, and beyond the power of governments to stop them.

Without a free press the ability to disseminate ideas to point out tyrannical moves to punish people to think freely is then put into the very hands of those who seek more power via government.  Indeed, if government has not the power to stop such speech, as Mr. Posner implies, then there is no governmental remedy for such speech.  That is pure and absolute logic and proposing to make law of any sort that intrudes into this realm is backward, not by my logic but by that proposed by Mr. Posner.

The second part I highlighted is a call for self-censorship in appeasement of those who cannot or will not handle other people's freedoms well.  That is, individuals must censor themselves so as not to arouse the hatreds of those who will find any reason or rationale to express rage.  If it is not a video it is cartoons.  If not cartoons it is a book.  If not a book, then a poem.  The point is that it isn't the medium of expression that is at fault, nor those doing the speaking, but those doing the listening or receiving of such information that they cannot stand you not thinking and believing as they do.  To censor oneself in the face of such barbaric rage that seeks to impose its beliefs on others by silencing it is to give up that most especial of freedom: the freedom to be oneself.

That is not a 'response' but appeasement in the face of barbarism.

This is inviting more barbaric activity by becoming silent and passive.

It is acquiescing to barbaric actions by silencing oneself about them.

And no free man would ever consent to doing that.

This is not an 'alternative': it is inviting the death of civilization via the veto of the violent and intolerant.

To ask people to give away such rights and the liberty to use them, after going through the vagaries of the Left and Right, Mr. Posner puts this up as a reason to become silent in the face of barbarism:

We have to remember that our First Amendment values are not universal; they emerged contingently from our own political history, a set of cobbled-together compromises among political and ideological factions responding to localized events. As often happens, what starts out as a grudging political settlement has become, when challenged from abroad, a dogmatic principle to be imposed universally. Suddenly, the disparagement of other people and their beliefs is not an unfortunate fact but a positive good. It contributes to the “marketplace of ideas,” as though we would seriously admit that Nazis or terrorist fanatics might turn out to be right after all. Salman Rushdie recently claimed that bad ideas, “like vampires … die in the sunlight” rather than persist in a glamorized underground existence. But bad ideas never die: They are zombies, not vampires. Bad ideas like fascism, Communism, and white supremacy have roamed the countryside of many an open society.

The First Amendment is a securing of our Natural right of freedom of self, which is independent of the US Constitution.  The so-called 'contingency' misses the fact that this right had become an established one under the common law, with roots dating back not just to the Magna Carta but to the earliest law frameworks worked out in the House of Wessex.  In fact the concept that is embodied in this framework of law is that known as a 'contract' between the people and their government.  Contracts have varied over time, yes, and the extent of the limits of government start with these very first contracts that stipulate a concept of there being no taxation without representation by the governed to agree to such taxes.  The changes in these contracts and the limits of government are not ones on paper as those only come after countless changes of government, kings, and virtual despots.  These agreements are written after the blood has been spilled, victors found, and then limits on victory also found.  This Anglo-Saxon concept of limiting government and getting representation into it can be dated back to the 9th Century AD.  Where other peoples were having their laws and taxes dictated to them by government, the Anglo-Saxons were putting government on notice that it is by the consent of the governed.  As a Swedish King acknowledges that the Crown cannot go where the people do not want it to go and that the head wearing the Crown is liable to the same laws as the governed.

The Universality of Natural rights only came after 1648 and the Great Peace of Westphalia that got government out of using religion to gain more power and prestige for the rulers via religion.  This post-Westphalian European concept marries up with the English Common Law very well, as the latter is based on low-level contractual assurance, checks, balances and agreement, not sovereign dictates from the ruler.  With the Enlightenment the Natural Law is seen as universal and, thusly, the rights and liberty that they endow go to every man at every time, if they have but the wisdom to see them for what they are.  This is not a dogma but a piece of knowledge that put to an end the Divine Right Monarchy concept and helped to install a concept of sovereign power being accountable to the governed.  It is not universal because of dogma, the dogma comes from the understanding of the self-evident universality of these rights.  Clawing out positive rights from the negative power of government has been a fight going on for nearly two millennia, not since 1787 or 1776 or 1648.

In seeking censorship, Mr. Posner puts forward that 'bad ideas never die'.  That is correct.  And censorship only makes them more attractive, not less, if the Banned in Boston booklist is any measure of such things.  Bad ideas need to be countered, discussed, and the reason they are bad refreshed on a continual basis so that people know why they are bad ideas.  Not doing so, not speaking out against the atrocities of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and lesser tyrannical systems like the Ba'athists that grew from Nazism, ensures that you get lovely artifacts like a President having a Mao Christmas tree ornament in the White House, or children wearing apparel festooned with Che the torturer and killer on them.  You can't stop a bad idea by not talking about them, by not calling attention to how bad they are, by not seeking to show how bad they are by the fact that those you seek to talk to will call you racist, phobic or any of a million other names to distract from the fact they are unwilling to talk about how bad their ideas actually are.  Not talking about them allows them to spread because they are malignant and when not countered by simple logic their interior emotional venom allows people to justify all sorts of activities.

Like invading the grounds of Embassies.

Like killing Ambassadors and other protected individuals, which is an Act of War.

Like mass murder.

Like subjugation of the meek by tyrants.

In the end Mr. Posner puts this out:

The final irony is that while the White House did no more than timidly plead with Google to check if the anti-Muslim video violates its policies (appeasement! shout the critics), Google itself approached the controversy in the spirit of prudence. The company declined to remove the video from YouTube because the video did not attack a group (Muslims) but only attacked a religion (Islam). Yet it also cut off access to the video in countries such as Libya and Egypt where it caused violence or violated domestic law. This may have been a sensible middle ground, or perhaps Google should have done more. What is peculiar it that while reasonable people can disagree about whether a government should be able to curtail speech in order to safeguard its relations with foreign countries, the Google compromise is not one that the U.S. government could have directed. That’s because the First Amendment protects verbal attacks on groups as well as speech that causes violence (except direct incitement: the old cry of “Fire!” in a crowded theater). And so combining the liberal view that government should not interfere with political discourse, and the conservative view that government should not interfere with commerce, we end up with the bizarre principle that U.S. foreign policy interests cannot justify any restrictions on speech whatsoever. Instead, only the profit-maximizing interests of a private American corporation can. Try explaining that to the protesters in Cairo or Islamabad.

Again, note the bolded part of this.  Google, as a corporate entity (which is to say an incorporated person) exercised judgment and did what it thought was best.  This is a very exercise of the First Amendment right of Google which is a positive exercise of that right.  Of course this isn't what the government we currently have would have wanted, but so what?  Our rights do not come from government, we only ask that it protect those rights.  And the ability to exercise prudence, caution and adapt circumspection to individual actions is fully and completely within the realm of individuals.

But Mr. Posner decries that very 'profit making entity', which means that if Google were a charitable outfit, that its decisions would be OK?  Those are incorporated entities, as well, yet they do not seek a profit.  The implication is that the US government should impose laws on corporations to make them abide by the will of government policy.  Yet that is not a power handed to the federal government via the contract we call the US Constitution.  If the US government wishes to restrict all civil communications with certain governments then it can do so, of course, but that isn't what Mr. Posner is seeking via his construction of the equation.  He is posing that corporations should become an arm of government policy.  That means every religious organization, every charity, every small business, every thing that we do when we agree to work together and incorporate an entity comes under the control of the US government for speech and, by implication, all foreign policy.  Yet it has not the power to do so because we do not grant such powers to the government.  Nor to any government.

What you hear is the beg for totalitarianism under the guise of anti-capitalism.  Even worse it is a begging to destroy the meaning of our contracts writ small, between individuals, and writ large, between the people and their government.  Mr. Posner doesn't seek a trade in liberty for security, but a trade in liberty for tyranny with no interceding points.

The return of 1979

In one of my very first posts I wrote was about the concept of Jus ad Bellum or 'Just War', which are the instances laid out in Law of Nations by de Vattel (1758) of when a Nation State may go to war.  This I expanded upon in Where Angels fear to tread, because in our modern age we have glossed over and completely excised the differences between Public and Private war and what responses are appropriate to each.  Law of Nations is descriptive law that attempts to encapsulate unwritten law which was differentiate by Bracton on the Laws and Customs of England (circa 1250) as the law leges, as opposed to the jus scriptum or written law.  In fact Bracton describes Law of Nations as jus gentium:

What the jus gentium is.

[017] 33The jus gentium is the law which men of all nations use, which falls short of
[018] natural law since that is common to all animate things born on the earth in the
[019] sea or in the air. From it comes the union of man and woman, entered into by the
[020] mutual consent of both, which is called marriage. Mere physical union is [in the
[021] realm] of fact and cannot properly be called jus since it is corporeal and may be
[022] seen;34 all jura are incorporeal and cannot be seen. From that same law there
[023] also35 comes the procreation and rearing of children. The jus gentium is common
[024] to men alone, as religion observed toward God, the duty of submission to parents
[025] and country, or the right to repel violence and injuria. For it is by virtue of this
[026] law that whatever a man does in defence of his own person he is held to do lawfully;
[027] since nature makes us all in a sense akin to one another it follows that for one to
[028] attack another is forbidden.36

The Law of Nations, then, is universal to thinking beings  capable of having families and of defense of self and Nation, as Nation arrives from the union of thinking man and woman in families.  As the presence of families seeking to protect themselves and working with other families is universal in mankind, so are Nations, and yet the jus gentium does not come from Natural Law but from the application of reason and self-governance to our natural liberties and rights.  Thus law of nations is usually spoken of in the lower case, encompassing the entire unwritten part of mankind's activities that fall into it, and in the larger case when citing an individual work within it.  As de Vattel had worked with Blackstone prior to the colonies separating from the Great Britain, that work is predominant and guiding not just in the thought of those Founding the Nation and Framing the Constitution, but actually has direct, upper case citation in the latter.

What Law of Nations describes is the outcome of what many civilizations have formed in the way of rules between Nations and while it concentrates on mostly European Nations, the form of interaction described is one that can be seen globally between all Nations and the States running them.  It doesn't matter what period of history you search (ancient to modern) or where you look geographically (from Southern Africa to Northern Siberia to the Great Plains to the high coastal regions of South America, all of mankind works under law of nations.  de Vattel devotes an entire book (Book III) to warfare, which shows itself as a major part of the activities of mankind, but for the actions seen in Tehran in 1979 and today in Cairo and Benghazi, one must look to the norms and standards of diplomacy between Nations which comes in another book (Book IV).  Ideas presented in both books receive references earlier in the work, but their full fleshing out happens in them as these are major components of Nations.  To get an idea of how this works, here is paragraph 1 from Book IV:

§ l. What peace is.

PEACE is the reverse of war: it is that desirable state in which every one quietly enjoys his rights, or, if controverted, amicably discusses them by force of argument. Hobbes has had the boldness to assert, that war is the natural state of man. But if, by "the natural state of man," we understand (as reason requires that we should) that state to which he is destined and called by his nature, peace should rather be termed his natural state. For, it is the part of a rational being to terminate his differences by rational methods; whereas, it is the characteristic of the brute creation to decide theirs by force.1 Man, as we have already observed (Prelim. § 10), alone and destitute of succours, would necessarily be a very wretched creature. He stands in need of the intercourse and assistance of his species, in order to enjoy the sweets of life, to develop his faculties, and live in a manner suitable to his nature. Now, it is in peace alone that all these advantages are to be found: it is in peace that men respect, assist, and love each other: nor would they ever depart from that happy state, if they were not hurried on by the impetuosity of their passions, and blinded by the gross deceptions of self-love. What little we have said of the effects will be sufficient to give some idea of its various calamities; and it is an unfortunate circumstance for the human race, that the injustice of unprincipled men should so often render it inevitable.

Peace, then, is amongst the civilized of the Earth and those Nations that wish to practice peace should have intercourse and discourse between them so as to iron out differences.  The brute man, the savage man, wishes no discourse and only force to be the way to settle things, to impose his will upon others without their consent.

You are, perhaps, seeing where this is going, no?  How discussions really weren't present in1979 or today?  Is what we are seeing and did see the actions of peaceful, rational man in his Nations, or irrational, brutish man that is uncivilized?  If one cannot distinguish between these things, then one cannot properly distinguish between war and peace as peace is not just the absence of war.  It is not with emotional fervor that I call these actions barbarous, brutish, savage and wholly contrary to civilized intercourse amongst Nations for that is exactly what these actions are stripped of all emotional content but with the ability to judge what is civil discourse and what is attack to get one's way and enforce one's will.

Now what is the source of these actions?  Not the immediate 'this anti-Islamic film inflamed individuals' for it is possible to have heated passion without running riot, without damaging property of another Nation and without inflicting physical and lethal harm to others.  Thus comes the second paragraph of Book IV and the object is still Peace:

§ 2. Obligation of cultivating it.

Nations who are really impressed with sentiments of humanity, — who seriously attend to their duty, and are acquainted with their true and substantial interests, — will never seek to promote their own advantage at the expense and detriment of other nations: however intent they may be on their own happiness, they will ever be careful to combine it with that of others, and with justice and equity. Thus disposed, they will necessarily cultivate peace. If they do not live together in peace, how can they perform those mutual and sacred duties which nature enjoins them? And this state is found to be no less necessary to their happiness than to the discharge of their duties. Thus, the law of nature every way obliges them to seek and cultivate peace. That divine law has no other end in view than the welfare of mankind: to that object all its rules and all its precepts lend: they are alt deducible from this principle, that men should seek their own felicity; and morality is no more than the art of acquiring happiness. As this is true of individuals, it is equally so of nations, as must appear evident to any one who will but take the trouble of reflecting on what we have said of their common and reciprocal duties, in the first chapter of the second book.

Note the last part I put in boldface, and that the individual and nation are part of a scale-free phenomena called 'peace'.  A moral people, seeking happiness, would criticize those who detract from their religion, perhaps seek to have some understanding of how such a thing could come to be made with it being so hurtful to them.  That is the realm of discourse, where passion can and must still play a part, but it also recognizes the rights of others to have their say and put such matters publicly for the benefit of all to hear and understand.  For such morality to be present it must, actually, manifest in peaceful activities that respect other individuals and nations.  Thus it can be said the activities taken in Tehran in 1979, Cairo and Benghazi in the last two days were not ones that were moral nor ones that respected the rights of other individuals or nations.

Of course as Nations have States to support them, those States fall under the sovereign power of the Nation.  There are responsibilities for those who are vested with such sovereign power and their activities are the ones in which nations interact with each other.  Responsibilities beget obligations and the sovereign has obligations as a manifestation of the power of the nation:

§ 3. The sovereign's obligation to it.

This obligation of cultivating peace binds the sovereign by a double tie. He owes this attention to his people, on whom war would pour a torrent of evils; and he owes it in the most strict and indispensable manner, since it is solely for the advantage and welfare of the nation that he is intrusted with the government. (Book I. § 39.) He owes the same attention to foreign nations, whose happiness likewise is disturbed by war. The nation's duty in this respect has been shown in the preceding chapter; and the sovereign, being invested with the public authority, is at the same time charged with all the duties of the society, or body of the nation. (Book I. § 41.)

If government is to have peace it must seek it not just for its people but for those nations it interacts with.  The obligation to peace is put in trust to a Nation's government, and it is a grant of responsibility, obligation and power (although that will vary from Nation to Nation, the Nation as a sovereign power is said to have the whole power) by those in the Nation to that government.  It may not be a grant by consent, and thusly any government that takes up the sovereign power without consent is doubly responsible for its activities.

In the case of 1979 that was (and remains) the government of Iran, in Cairo it is the government of Egypt, and for Benghazi it is the government of Libya.  The outcomes of such activities are the responsibilities of the governments of each nation and what happens determines the course of that nation: are they to put forward the rule of law and diplomatic discourse or are they to endorse such activities?  And what are the outcomes of these courses of action?  Depending on which course is taken, the destination is set, and that is not by emotions but by the actions of the sovereigns involved.  In Iran and Egypt the governments did not decry such activities, nor did they offer up to have a rule of law applied to the individuals doing such actions.  In Libya, as far as can be discerned, there is a willingness to seek out the miscreants involved in murder of the US Ambassador and bring the proper laws involved into play (whatever they are).

Taking the last case first, as it is the closest we have come to expect from responsible actors as nations, even though the activities are horrific.  Much later, starting in paragraph 80, are how Ambassadors are to be treated, and this is important in the Libyan case:

§ 82. Particular protection due to them.(197)

This safety is particularly due to the minister, from the sovereign to whom he is sent. To admit a minister, to acknowledge him in such character, is engaging to grant him the most particular protection, and that he shall enjoy all possible safety. It is true, indeed, that the sovereign is bound to protect every person within his dominions, whether native or foreigner, and to shelter him from violence: but this attention is in a higher degree due to a foreign minister. An act of violence done to a private person is an ordinary transgression, which, according to circumstances, the prince may pardon: but if done to a public minister, it is a crime of state, an offence against the law of nations; and the power of pardoning, in such case, does not rest with the prince in whose dominions the crime has been committed, but with him who has been offended in the person of his representative. However, if the minister has been insulted by persons who were ignorant of his character, the offence is wholly unconnected with the law of nations, and falls within the class of ordinary transgressions. A company of young rakes, in a town of Switzerland, having, in the night-time, insulted the British minister's house, without knowing who lived in it, the magistracy sent a message to the minister to know what satisfaction he required. He prudently answered, that it was the magistrates' concern to provide for the public safety by such means as they thought best; but that, as to his own part, he required nothing, not thinking himself affronted by persons who could have had no design against him, as not knowing his house. Another particular circumstance, in the protection due to foreign ministers, is this: — according to the destructive maxims introduced by a false point of honour, a sovereign is under a necessity of showing indulgence to a person wearing a sword, who instantly revenges an affront done to him by a private individual: but violent proceedings against a public minister can never be allowed or excused, unless where the latter has himself been the aggressor, and, by using violence in the first instance, has reduced his opponent to the necessity of self-defence.

Libya can try such people, but the place they can, nay must, reach trial is in the domain of the sovereign offended.  If you kill the US Ambassador clemency, guilt or innocence cannot be determined in Libya but only by the US.  That is the normal, ordinary course of affairs between nations that have regularized diplomatic intercourse via the exchange of diplomats.  If the US recognizes such a government then that government has the obligation to seek out those who do such crimes and hand them over.  There can be initial trial in Libya, yes, but any sentence is held in abeyance until they can be tried in the US.

No matter how piss-poor the current Libyan government is, they at least are acting by civilized norms and must be worked with and supported in their actions to bring those individuals in for trial.  If they act in bad faith, seek to shield such miscreants or otherwise dissemble their intentions by their activities, then there are other means to go through to ensure compliance with the responsibilities and obligations of the sovereign power in Libya.

That now leaves the similar cases of Tehran 1979 and Cairo, in which the US Embassy grounds were invaded (twice in Tehran, once in Cairo to-date).  This requires a look at the Embassy, which are part of where the Ambassador does his work:

§ 110. The ambassador is exempt from the civil jurisdiction of the country where he resides.

SOME authors will have an ambassador to be subject, in civil cases, to the jurisdiction of the country where he resides. — at least in such cases as have arisen during the time of his embassy; and, in support of their opinion, they allege that this subjection is by no means derogatory to the ambassadorial character: "for," say they, "however sacred a person may be, his inviolability is not affected by suing him in a civil action." But it is not on account of the sacredness of their person that ambassadors cannot be sued: it is because they are independent of the jurisdiction of the country to which they are sent; and the substantial reasons on which that independency is grounded may be seen in a preceding part of this work (§ 92). Let us here add, that it is in every respect highly proper, and even necessary, that an ambassador should be exempt from judicial prosecution even in civil causes, in order that he may be free from molestation in the exercise of his functions. For a similar reason, it was not allowed, among the Romans, to summon a priest while he was employed in his sacred offices:1 but at other times he was open to the law. The reason which we have here alleged for the exemption is also assigned in the Roman law: "Ideo enim non datur actio (adversus legatum) ne ab officio suscepto legationis avocetur,2 ne impediatur legatio."3 But there was an exception as to those transactions which had taken place during the embassy. This was reasonable with regard to those legati, or ministers, of whom the Roman law here speaks, who, being sent only by nations subject to the empire, could not lay claim to the independency enjoyed by a foreign minister. As they were subjects of the state, the legislature was at liberty to establish whatever regulations it thought most proper respecting them: but a sovereign has not the like power of obliging the minister of another sovereign to submit to his jurisdiction: and even if such power was vested in him by convention, or otherwise, the exercise of it would be highly improper: because, under that pretext, the ambassador might be often molested in his ministry, and the state involved in very disagreeable quarrels, for the trifling concerns of some private individuals, who might and ought to have taken better precautions for their own security. It is therefore, only in conformity to the mutual duties which states owe to each other, and in accordance with the grand principles of the law of nations, that an ambassador or public minister is at present, by the universal custom and consent of nations, independent of all jurisdiction in the country where he resides, either in civil or criminal cases. I know there have occurred some instances to the contrary: but a few facts do not establish a custom: on the contrary, those to which I allude, only contribute, by the censure passed on them, to prove the custom such as I have asserted it to be. In the year 1668, the Portuguese resident at the Hague was, by an order of the court of justice, arrested and imprisoned for debt. But an illustrious member of the same court4 very justly thinks that the procedure was unjustifiable, and contrary to the law of nations. In the year 1657, a resident of the elector of Brandenburg was also arrested for debt in England. But he was set at liberty, as having been illegally arrested; and even the creditors and officers of justice who had offered him that insult were punished.5

This is later reinforced in paragraph 113 and elsewhere in Law of Nations.  When the Embassy of another nation is broken into, that is not an act of civil invasions but one of law of nations contravention.  When it is private individuals doing such invasion, it is not civil trespass but a violation of the treaties between the nations involved which gives rise to an escalated tensions between the nations involved.  The government of those people doing the invasion is responsible for a response: is it the course of civil process by the course of law, or is it upholding the law breakers?  When it is the latter case it is giving backing to the action that then moves it from the realm of civil dispute to one of dispute between nations.  In other words it transforms from mere civil trespass, to be sorted out by diplomacy and civil proceedings, to one where an actual invasion is given backing which is a casus belli, a cause for war.

When the sacrosanct nature of agreements between Nations, in exchanging ambassadors or other public ministers in search of peace requires this as it is the civil, rational and natural movement of men to seek peace amongst themselves.  When that is transgressed and backed by the sovereign power of a Nation, peace can no longer be said to be the object of its desire.  There is always an opportunity for diplomacy, of course, but that must be taken by that nation backing the transgressors, not by those being invaded.

Those doing the invasion, not being in uniform, not adhering to the standards of law of nations or the rules of war, are now conducting a military operation outside of both.  This moves us back to Book III, the one on warfare and who gets to make it:

§ 4. It belongs only to the sovereign power.(137)

As nature has given men no right to employ force, unless when it becomes necessary for self defence and the preservation of their rights (Book II. § 49, &c.), the inference is manifest, that, since the establishment of political societies, a right, so dangerous in its exercise, no longer remains with private persons except in those encounters where society cannot protect or defend them. In the bosom of society, the public authority decides all the disputes of the citizens, represses violence, and checks every attempt to do ourselves justice with our own hands. If a private person intends to prosecute his right against the subject of a foreign power, he may apply to the sovereign of his adversary, or to the magistrates invested with the public authority: and if he is denied justice by them, he must have recourse to his own sovereign, who is obliged to protect him. It would be too dangerous to allow every citizen the liberty of doing himself justice against foreigners; as, in that case, there would not be a single member of the state who might not involve it in war. And how could peace be preserved between nations, if it were in the power of every private individual to disturb it? A right of so momentous a nature, — the right of judging whether the nation has real grounds of complaint, whether she is authorized to employ force, and justifiable in taking up arms, whether prudence will admit of such a step, and whether the welfare of the state requires it, — that right, I say, can belong only to the body of the nation, or to the sovereign, her representative. It is doubtless one of those rights, without which there can be no salutary government, and which are therefore called rights of majesty (Book I. § 45).

Thus the sovereign power alone is possessed of authority to make war. But, as the different rights which constitute this power, originally resident in the body of the nation, may be separated or limited according to the will of the nation (Book I. § 31 and 45), it is from the particular constitution of each state, that we are to learn where the power resides, that is authorized to make war in the name of the society at large. The kings of England, whose power is in other respects so limited, have the right of making war and peace.1 Those of Sweden have lost it. The brilliant but ruinous exploits of Charles XII. sufficiently warranted the states of that kingdom to reserve to themselves a right of such importance to their safety.

That step of saying that the citizens have acted in accordance with the sovereign power is one that changes the activities of those citizens and gives them military legitimacy.  They are not legitimate military actors, however, by any standard and any future actions by such non-military actors is one that comes under law of nations as well:

§ 34. Na-

Nations that are always ready to take up arms on any prospect of advantage, are lawless robbers: but those who seem to delight in the ravages of war, who spread it on all sides, without reasons or pretexts, and even without any other motive than their own ferocity, are monsters, unworthy the name of men. They should be considered as enemies to the human race, in the same manner as, in civil society, professed assassins and incendiaries are guilty, not only towards the particular victims of their nefarious deeds, but also towards the state, which therefore proclaims them public enemies. All nations have a right to join in a confederacy for the purpose of punishing and even exterminating those savage nations. Such were several German tribes mentioned by Tacitus — such those barbarians who destroyed the Roman empire: nor was it till long after their conversion to Christianity that this ferocity wore off. Such have been the Turks and other Tartars — Genghis Khan, Timur Bec or Tamerlane, who, like Attila, were scourges employed by the wrath of Heaven, and who made war only for the pleasure of making it. Such are, in polished ages and among the most civilized nations, those supposed heroes, whose supreme delight is a battle, and who make war from inclination purely, and not from love to their country.

That is what such nations are, are they not?  The ones that incite their people to kill not to protect society, not to protect territory or property, not to any sane reason and without justification.  These are so-called 'rogue nations', although getting modern man to understand that civilization is at threat from such nations has been difficult, if not impossible to do.  When private individuals take to war with no sovereign grant or oversight, no sovereign accountability, that is unlawful war:

§ 67. It is to be distinguished from informal and unlawful war.

Legitimate and formal warfare must be carefully distinguished from those illegitimate and informal wars, or rather predatory expeditions, undertaken either without lawful authority or without apparent cause, as likewise without the usual formalities, and solely with a view to plunder. Grotius relates several instances of the latter.⁵ Such were the enterprises of the grandes compagnies which had assembled in France during the wars with the English, — armies of banditti, who ranged about Europe, purely for spoil and plunder: such were the cruises of the buccaneers, without commission, and in time of peace; and such in general are the depredations of pirates. To the same class belong almost all the expeditions of the Barbary corsairs: though authorized by a sovereign, they are undertaken without any apparent cause, and from no other motive than the lust of plunder. These two species of war, I say, — the lawful and the illegitimate, — are to be carefully distinguished, as the effects and the rights arising from each are very different.

§ 68. Grounds of this distinction.

In order fully to conceive the grounds of this distinction, it is necessary to recollect the nature and object of lawful war. It is only as the last remedy against obstinate injustice that the law of nature allows of war. Hence arise the rights which it gives, as we shall explain in the sequel: hence, likewise, the rules to be observed in it. Since it is equally possible that either of the parties may have right on his side, — and since, in consequence of the independence of nations, that point is not to be decided by others (§ 40), — the condition of the two enemies is the same, while the war lasts. Thus, when a nation, or a sovereign, has declared war against another sovereign on account of a difference arisen between them, their war is what among nations is called a lawful and formal war; and its effects are, by the voluntary law of nations, the same on both sides, independently of the justice of the cause, as we shall more fully show in the sequel.⁶ Nothing of this kind is the case in an informal and illegitimate war, which is more properly called depredation. Undertaken without any right, without even an apparent cause, it can be productive of no lawful effect, nor give any right to the author of it. A nation attacked by such sort of enemies is not under any obligation to observe towards them the rules prescribed in formal warfare. She may treat them as robbers,^(146a) The inhabitants of Geneva, after defeating the famous attempt to take their city by escalade,⁷ caused all the prisoners whom they took from the Savoyards on that occasion to be hanged up as robbers, who had come to attack them without cause and without a declaration of war. Nor were the Genevese censured for this proceeding, which would have been detested in a formal war.

We call these modern day actors: terrorists.  They are in the same class as pirates as the objective of war when done by private individuals without sovereign grant is not material: power, lust, greed, or just wanting to see the world burn are all one and the same in Private War which is illegitimate in all circumstances.  A Nation condoning and sponsoring such is an enemy of all mankind.

Unfortunately the State of Iran and Egypt are now in that category and are abusing their sovereign power meant to protect their people and using that power to inspire the activity of war to no lawful effect and no good end for mankind.

I have no hatred for the people of Iran or Egypt.

Their governments are monsters as their actions now tell you that.

It is civilized to wish that the people of these Nations had governments worthy of them to seek peace for them amongst their fellow nations of the Earth.  Such is not the case and the remedy has already been stated, if one can but read and reason.

Brought to you by A Citizen of the Republic

Directions of political parties

USA Today is soliciting input on where the Republican Party should go in the future and, really, that is not my place to say.

What I can and do look at is the future of the entire political landscape over the next 20 to 50 years and when looking at that it does not look anything like our current political landscape much of anywhere on the planet.  As the United States has been a leader in many things, the direction that the Nation is starting to move in is one that is beginning to reflect some of the basics of why I started this particular blog: getting back to basics and seeing that the greatest power for the force of good for all mankind is the unchained individual.  To understand how this stuff works the back to basics part is necessary as I laid out in my very first post for this site.

The concept known as Federalism is embodied in the US Constitution and it depends on a moral people who will do the heavy lifting of creating society to do their job at the lowest, most accessible level to them.  That is not the government of the Nation State which is far too gross and coarse a level to deal with local matters.  There is nothing as important as moving away from the idea that a 'social contract' is embodied by any law at the Nation State level and that the 'social contract' is the agreeable form of government that the people have instituted amongst themselves as upheld in spare, even sparse, written form that delimits power to the Nation State and reserves powers to the State (the interior unit of the United States equivalent to provinces in other Nations) and the individual.  Beyond that it is a Do It Yourself concept at play that revolves around republican form of government.

A republican form of government (as opposed to the Republican Party that seems to have forgotten what a republican form of government actually is) is one that divides power internally amongst branches of government and gives them each separate and sovereign domains of power (not rights) that serve the people and act as a check and balance amongst themselves so that no branch dares to over-reach its power domain to swallow up all of government.

Future political parties are wise to mirror this system of federalism with checks and balances internal to their party structure so that no single body ends up being the 'deciding' organization and that the organization, as a whole, is led by its membership, not by party officials.

That is a very stark direction to go that is distinctly different from anything on the political landscape much of anywhere on the planet today.  Yet it is not a radical proposition, at all, as if you acknowledge that federalism is the best way to put power into mutual check with final over-ride by the people of a Nation, then it is a good direction to go for any political party of such a Nation to model itself on that objective, directly.  This is known as 'Do as You Say' and is a part of the concept of Honor:

Do as You Say.

Say what You Mean.

Mean what You Do.

If you espouse 'conservative values' and uphold the Founding era documents and the Founders, then you must back federalism to the hilt and admit that individuals are the greatest moral actors in this life and that Nation States are a mere and shallow reflection of them.  Any system for any form of human activity that vests unchecked power and authority into few hands without immediate and stiff checks and balances, with limitations, is an authoritarian one.  Political parties that become authoritarian, that have governing organizations that create rules to reflect the impetus of those doing the governing is no longer trusting the members of the party for direction and living by an example that admits that power must be recognized first and foremost at the lowest levels of the organization.  That is going Back To Basics and putting Honor into what you espouse.

I've given outline as to how this works in the modern era in Dawn of a New Era and this means that modern ideas must be incorporated into a party so that its membership can better organize at the lowest levels so as to tell the highest levels what to do based on local concerns.  Most of that will be: Mind Your Own Business.

The drivers for the New Era are ones that address the capability of the individual to process information and network with each other so as to shift data to information to knowledge and personal wisdom at an increasing rate of speed over time.  As individuals do this they will remove older power structures between themselves and higher levels, sharing information with their like minded fellows and from that process will emerge a new and slimmed down, less powerful party system.

An end result is one that I outlined within my first ten posts in what such a party will look like (called The Jacksonian Party as there is no other name I could actually put on it at the time).  This is a party concept that doesn't follow President Jackson, but follows what those who put him into office had to deal with on a daily basis and how that social idea became something that spread and prospered in the United States.  This is a cultural phenomena and it leads to end-states driven by multiple factors to reduce the size, scope and power of political parties over time.  A result is a decentralized, disintermediated political structure in which a political party is a mere framework of ideas that helps individuals as candidates to run for office.  A requirement is that the actual party structure, and those helping to govern it, are given very little money and no say in individual candidates at all.

Again, to repeat that: the governing organs of a party are given no say in individual candidates and no money to back 'preferred' ones at all.

Such a political party is run via the agreeable laws and by-laws that members agree to adhere to. Those are created at the most local level and use a federalist form of system to find across-the-board topics suitable to higher power levels of office that do not infringe on the rights and powers of individuals nor upon lower government structural levels.  Inherently federalism recognizes the sovereign power of the people through its compacts to create government and when government is created at any level it is given a separate and sovereign domain within that sovereign power that may be checked and balanced, but cannot be repealed by, other parts of government or other governments at different power scales unless agreed-to by the people.

We call these social contracts Constitutions and within the United States each State has one.  All States agree to the powers granted to the Nation State government as they are the signatories to the US Constitution, and that sign-off is backed by the people of that State as voiced not just via their government but by themselves in the majority.  Similar is done at the State level although States may have different requirements for amending their constitutions so long as it is in a republican form of government.

Adhering to such structures is something that is done by individuals as part of their daily lives, and to that end the political parties they form will reflect that individuals are capable of leading their own lives with minimal outside government interference.  When citizens are trapped by a web of laws, rules and regulations, the object of the rule of law is lost which is a self-ordered society that has citizens holding each other to account for their actions.  Laws are a framework of accountability for actions, not a coercive means to force people into certain behaviors but as a system of punishments against behavior destructive to the social order.

This does not create the modern socialist/progressive concept of 'the personal is the political' but leads to an understanding that politics is driven by individuals and is reflective of them, and that such politics as are necessary are just that: necessary and not a force for good.  Positive morality is created by individuals and political parties must respect that and must not seek to foster the use of negative powers to that end.  Punishment is punishment, it is not the moral and social good in and of itself and only through the use of the positive powers of individuals is that positive moral life created.  Removing negative actors from society for punishment is the necessary function of that organ of society we call government and it is not the brain, as organs go, but the more process oriented ones that remove unwanted or dangerous items from the body for the overall health of the body of society.  The idea of making the personal into the political creates a cancer within the organs of government as it seeks to cater to each and every individual want, not address the needs of the body, and soon those organs are crowding out the functioning of the body of society and killing it.

As all of these things are based on self-evident truths, that all men are created equal and endowed with their Creator with certain unalienable rights and amongst these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.  Indeed all rights and powers start with the individual and none accrue to higher orders of government that are not already within individuals.  There is no power or right that accrues to any government of any society and that society is, itself, created when individuals agree within themselves to forebear the use of negative powers and rights to save protect their families, their homes and their very selves.  Society must reflect this self-governance, abide by it and recognize that self-government is the highest of all forms of government invented amongst men as it is the most powerful as it uses the power of restraint to create good amongst men.

In less than a century (indeed, perhaps less than two decades) it is this power, unleashed by the distributive forces of knowledge amongst men that will reshape the political and social structure not just of the United States but of the world and all mankind.  As we step into an era where the power of the individual to self-govern becomes paramount, this puts the positive liberties of man to create a moral and just society with limited government as an end product of this recognition, not a goal or end-state by any means.  Our politics will remain as divided as ever amongst Nations as all Nations have the sovereign right of their people to have a free and independent society that has, amongst the powers of the Earth, the ability to create government to suit them.  These things that are representative of such differences we call Nations and they start not at the Nation State level but at the level of family, home and hearth.

Any political party seeking to create a power over all men that isn't God but mere government is seeking an Empire and tyranny.

And their day is drawing to a close as the Dawn of a New Era begins.

My advice to the Republican Party, indeed all political parties: get with the program or your days are numbered.