Progressivism's New Man

Progressivism has been about the expansion of government authority and power into realms that it has been barred from in the United States both via Constitution and via custom.  This type of law goes back deep into the English law system as seen under Bracton (as I explored in this post), in that there were few written laws in England and many local laws of custom as explained thusly from Bracton on the Laws and Customs of England:

[010] Though in almost all lands use is made of the leges and the jus scriptum, England
[011] alone uses unwritten law and custom. There law derives from nothing written [but]
[012] from what usage has approved.4 Nevertheless, 5it will not be absurd to call English
[013] laws leges, though they are unwritten, since whatever has been rightly decided and
[014] approved with the counsel and consent of the magnates and the general agreement
[015] of the res publica,6 the authority of the king or prince having first been added
[016] thereto,7 has the force of law.8 9England has as well many local customs, varying
[017] from place to place, for the English have many things by custom which they do
[018] not have by law, as in the various counties, cities, boroughs and vills, where it will
[019] always be necessary to learn what the custom of the place is and how those who
[020] allege it use it.

In the 13th century England had local laws (leges which were unwritten) as well as a modicum of National laws from the Monarchy and Ecclesiastical law from the Church.  Thus, as a whole, those who sat as judges in England had to be able to differentiate between what issues were to be decided and which venue they belonged in and how to then interpret the law so as to come to a consistent and just ruling.  What Bracton called for was the institution of written legal rulings so as to build a body of work that would allow for future judges to see how past decisions were made and attempt to create some regularity in the judicial system so that there would be a regularity in social understanding of the law and its three domains.  This is the concept that would prove to be a foundational one in the English Common Law and the US law systems (Civil, Military and the Civil/Admiralty) for criminal and non-criminal cases that would also add layers of State and Local law to federal law.

The United States has as part of its make-up not just a multi-tier code system in the federal realm, but a multi-layered multi-tiered system when the States and localities are added into the mix.  Indeed one can break local law while not breaking State nor federal law, which means that accountability to the legal code must be understood at all levels of legality.  This also forms a multi-layered and multi-tiered judiciary with recourse to higher levels of authority up to the level of the State and to the federal at the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS).  The federalist doctrine embedded in the US Constitution is to put as much power (and thus law making) into the hands of the States and the people by restricting the scope and breadth of the federal system.  The rationale for this is that the finer grained the power structure at its basis, the less that coarser grained systems need to interfere and that problems are best solved at the personal and local level, not at the federal and Nation State level.

What the Progressive Era sought to do was to start shifting this power pyramid so as to put the National level into more control over individuals and States via multiple means.  One of the major ones is direct taxation on income, something that was expressly forbidden by the Constitution as it can be used as a punitive system against those who are merely out of political favor.  Another method is to expand the scope and power of the federal government to intervene on things like international drug trafficking via items like the Shanghai Treaty and through the use of internal tax stamps where stamps would never be issued and, thusly, no one could actually obtain the goods without the stamp nor safely acquire a stamp for such goods in the first place.  From these modest beginnings of corruption the US tax code has grown over the decades to become a behemoth of rules that were put in place due to political favoritism and punishment for the disfavored.  Likewise regulations to safeguard food and medicines (arguably a part of assured inter-State trade so that citizens could know what was in the products they were getting from other States) were layered over with laws against medications of various sorts to usurp local jurisdictions for such goods.  Instead of merely assuring such goods had a measurable purity and that they would have National safeguard in transport through districts that banned the sale of them, the inverted idea was to 'regularize' the patchworks into a whole: regulation had changed its meaning from assuring movement of goods through hostile jurisdictions to prohibiting their sale Nationally.  'Regulation' had gained a new meaning in federal trade realms that was far different than the old 'regularizing' and harmonizing of codes between States and became one of imposing laws on trade between States at the federal level.

This inverted pyramid of power, that is one where law flows from the top-down, is not new nor Progressive in nature as it has been the lot of mankind to have such inverted power structures for thousands of years.  Indeed the first records of governments in all societies, no matter what their geographic location or ethnicity, is that of this form of top-down government.  They have typical names to them of: dictatorship, monarchy, oligarchy, and empire.  These Nations are ruled by a State apparatus that concentrates power in the few and distant, not recognizing that transactions and administration is all local and distributed.  To early civilizations there is a form of order that comes from these centralized authoritarian States in that they put down a regularized form of law.  The negatives are that such law systems often tread on local custom, they are not amenable to localized input from those not affiliated with the regime, they are brittle to change and they are tyrannical because of these artifacts.  Wherever you hear the new or Progressive meaning of 'regulation' you are hearing the old word of tyranny.

Modern 'regulatory' States governing Nations have been tried in various guises called Communist and Fascist, along with variants of the Anarcho-Syndicalist and National Socialist types, and all are socialistic in their scope.  The generalized vision is that society is reformulated to be governed by a centralized body composed of Party Elites that then tell what everyone else should do.  These systems can have differences, say in the 'worker's councils' of the Anarcho-Syndicalist variety, but they all culminate in a central organized body running the government and the economy, and thus society, by a given doctrine.  It is, in short, a deeply religious form of government as it tolerates no other doctrinal views nor variation of anything which makes it totalitarian in scope.  Progressivism comes from this formulaic background in America (and partakes in great part in founding Anarcho-Syndicalism in Spain and Italy) and asserts that Marx's revolutionary goal will be achieved by evolutionary means.  These means include the slow erosion of capitalist economies, culture, and States through the methodology of applying socialized doctrine to regulate segments of the economy and increase control of the Nation State government over society in that doing.  It is fascinating to see that socialism and Socialists see capitalism and Capitalists as corrupt, but the only way they can get a corrupt system is by corrupting it themselves as Socialists in the name of socialism.  Which does beg the question: if capitalism is so corrupted, then why do you need to corrupt it further via socialist methods?  Those from the First International would actually criticize these Socialists on these grounds and that anything done to 'soften' or 'humanize' capitalism would draw out the agony of the capitalist States and that the greatest good that Socialists can do is to reinforce capitalism, push it to its few good ends (which even Marx enumerated) so as to get to the great socialist change faster.  An evolutionary approach was seen as making things worse for a longer period of time and could wind up with an even worse system which was State Capitalism which removed the minimal benefits of private capitalism and put in place a tyrannical system of State control that had no socialist goals.

Be that as it may, the Progressive system of socializing segments of the economy which directly impacted individuals (banking via the Federal Reserve, retirement via Social Security, medicine via Medicare and Medicaid, residential housing via Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae with the last to destroy the local lending market) was started in the 1910's and carried out all the way to President Bush (43) and Medicare Part D and President Obama's multi-pronged attack on the medical system via private insurers, student loans and shifting regulatory regimes from merely restrictional to those seeking to destroy large sections of the energy sector of the economy via 'green' energy and jobs.  The tax code was already blossoming, but further regulation of industry was needed via acts on labor, occupational safety and health, the 'environment' and taxation on specific goods and services (usually by rubrics of pre-existing regulatory regimes).

Many have stated that the end result is that at any given moment you are violating a host of regulations, laws and other rules at multiple levels of government who see fit to try and manage you via such laws.  As these law formulations are dense, complex and not well stated to the point of being incomprehensible to the common man, the lawyer has been elevated to a position of high status to just try and figure this stuff out.  Ditto the tax preparer.  This is a state of being that has a sociological description to it:

Environmental questions on how crime is enacted are perhaps regularly asked in criminology, but elaborated theories that explain behavioral variations are rare. Sometimes, routine activities theory (Cohen and Felson 1979) is used to answer such questions. According to this theory, crime arises from patterns of ordinary legal activities. When these patterns lead to motivated perpetrators and unprotected targets being present in the same place at the same time, the necessary and sufficient conditions for criminality are fulfilled, and crimes will occur. By this theory, crime is thus a question of “systematic coincidence.” An objection to this approach is that it does not take the goal-oriented behavior of many perpetrators sufficiently into account. For many of them, committing crimes is an everyday routine. Moreover, many criminals do not merely encounter unprotected targets by accident but consciously go in search of them, as is shown by the findings of many ethnographic studies (e.g., Wright and Decker 1997, 1994). Rational choice theory (Cornish and Clarke 1986) is also frequently used to answer environmental questions on crime. This theory is not concerned with criminal motivation either, but in this case because it assumes that every person is in principle prepared to commit crime. Rational choice theory regards every form of behavior as a goal-oriented choice directed toward accomplishing objectives. The point of departure is that, after weighing the advantages and disadvantages of various alternatives, a choice is made which is optimal given the aim (benefit maximization). Rational choice theory itself is abstract and requires supplementary empirical content through specification of the relevant aims and choice situations. To be able to apply rational choice theory to questions of how crime is enacted, a supplemental theory is therefore often necessary with respect to the choice situations with which individuals are confronted as they make decisions about when, where, how and against what target an offense will be committed.

When regulations so overwhelm good sense and regular trade, when they intrude upon the smallest of activities in daily life, then the natural instinct is to seek the unprotected means around such regulations and to consciously seek them out.  Progressivism, and all totalitarian regime types, seek to control so much of the human interactive environment that the object of actually just living day-to-day requires criminal outlook and intent: the authoritarian system creates criminals. What that creates, as described above by Wim Bernasco, is Homo Criminalis: Criminal Man.

The centralization of power and authority does not get an enlightened State but one that becomes more barbaric over time.  Regulations at the highest level of the Nation are the hardest to overturn due to the power of the State's ability to gather income resting behind the enforcement of such regulations and laws.  No matter what the stated set of goals for such laws and regulations are (be they to 'help the poor' or 'clean up the environment' or 'regulate banking') their end result is a profusion of rules and penalties that become denser, more complex and harder to avoid breaking with each and every page added to the mass of the regulatory code.   At each point of government below the Nation State level, there is less income and backing for such laws until you get to the local level of representative government (when you can get representative government and apparatchiks aren't merely appointed from the State).  At the lowest level is your self-governance which is the point of making the plethora of rules, laws and so forth.  Your personal self-governance is to adhere to that of the Nation State's dictates, and you are to have very few choices in your life at all.  For you to survive in such circumstances the rational viewpoint on a day to day basis is to work around the regulations, rules, codes and laws, and circumvent them just to be able to feed yourself and your family.

No matter how 'fair' the tax system is purported to be, it withdraws productive wealth from the private economy and puts it in the unproductive hands of bureaucrats who seek to expand their sphere of influence and power not out of malice but out of bureaucratic necessity to justify their job and those that help to expand the power of the bureaucracy are elevated. This is best described by Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy (from Jerry Pournelle):

Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representative who work to protect any teacher including the most incompetent. The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions.

Whenever we hear of cuts that are to be done at the most local of levels, who's jobs are threatened?  Why, at every turn it is the jobs of teachers, policemen, firefighters, and librarians.  Never is it the job of the line supervisor, the secretary, the back office staff, the functionaries, the paper-pushers or those who have entrenched themselves in useless jobs in the bureaucracy.  Not only is the Progressive State tyrannical, but those working in the State apparatus have a vested interest in increasing the power of the State via that very apparatus.  Thus the Progressive State is pernicious not only for the nominal expansion of government power and control mechanisms, but the control mechanisms themselves begin to become the point of the State.  For the USSR the saying was that they had replaced the Czar with the Commissar:  the tyranny of the King for the tyranny of the Bureaucrat and Apparatchik.  And as any level of bureaucracy sees the need to add more layers to itself via various reasons (to increase 'compliance', to increase 'efficiency', to increase 'productivity) what happens, instead, is that additional layers of bureaucracy are created to entrench power and isolate it from scrutiny via not just the public but by the State as well.  Thus those who create the monstrous bureaucracy will, in time, become its victims although the progenitors do not live to become direct victims, their children or great-grandchildren do, and their society becomes a direct victim immediately.

What those is the bureaucracy do not comprehend is that they become as much Homo Criminalis in regards to other parts of the bureaucracy, and they are subjected to the same problems that they inflict on others.  Those who seek more power and authority, more backing for their control systems are, themselves, ground down by it and their very humanity and civilized patina starts to rub thin.

This is not an advanced or modern State of being, but one more akin to the Celestial Emperors of China where the bureaucracy controlled the Nation and the nominal King was more a figurehead and had very little power over the bureaucrats who decided who would be amongst their number and who would not.  While China had many great technologies, the rule of stability that was part and parcel of a wide-ranging bureaucratic State saw technological advances as threatening to the stability of the overall system.  In theory the King or Emperor had absolute power, but the fact on the ground was at the local level the delegated power was used to reinforce the stability of the Empire and actually hinder technological change.  Military technology would still change due to advances by adversaries, but these then became heavily regulated by the bureaucracy in turn.  Yet when thousands, if not tens of thousands of soldiers are cut down due to new technology the very existence of the Empire required advancement.  Even when the top or ruling class was overturned or the Empire invaded successfully, the system of powerful bureaucrats tended to remain as the new rulers also wanted stability.  Until, of course, a radically different culture with highly advanced technology appears that has not the top but the middle in its sights, and then the very guarantors of stability become the victims of that very stable system.

That is the end state of being for such systems: decay, stagnation, a feeling of inward looking support, and a stultification of society so that a very few arts become lauded because nothing dangerous can be created from them.  In the USSR the various factions were a bit more aggressive at the sub-State level, but they all lacked excellence in production, excellence in engineering and excellence in productivity because they did not reward those things but, instead, merely making quotas with whatever quality of goods would pass muster.  Mao in China could kill millions to get compliance and thought he could end the opium trade by just killing everyone in it and their families... and their friends... and yet that trade continues to this day.  China under Mao had a terrorized populace who were forced into absurd schemes of backyard industry (which failed) and then put into factories when he changed his mind.  It is one of the few Nations that has consciously sought to change its demographics via a 'one child policy' and is on the road to demographic suicide in less than a century after implementing such policy.

The tell-tale sign of an overly bureaucratic State appear at the low end, not the high, however, with the Black Market.  The Black Market isn't just men selling dubious goods in back alleys or fake Rolex watches on a blanket on the sidewalk in New York City, but encompasses a wide range of activities from legal, semi-legal to illegal in nature.  Wait, a legal Black Market?  Isn't that a contradiction in terms?

No, a legal Black Market is a way to utilize the rules so as to avoid other parts of them, such is the case with tax evasion.  Tax evasion skews the tempers of Progressives in a twist because it is people using rational means to analyze the system to 'game' it to their advantage while going against the very things the system is purported to do.  I looked at this from the Petty corruption of tyranny and in that I found an article by Pierre Lemieux from the Globe and Mail in Canada in 1994 on the subject of their VAT in Canada called a Goods & Service Tax:

As budget day nears, politicians of all stripes warn us that tax evasion is rampant in Canada. Before he started talking about tax increases, Finance Minister Paul Martin had declared that "hundreds of thousands of otherwise honest people ... have withdrawn their consent to be governed" by escaping in the underground economy.

The problem is that the politicians do not seem to draw the right conclusions. Pressed for money -- actually, nearly bankrupt --, the federal government, as well as some provincial governments, has decided to clamp down on the underground economy. Revenue Minister David Anderson has declared a war on tax evaders.

After shopkeepers defied the law by openly selling smuggled cigarettes in Saint-Eustache, Qué., Bloc Québécois leader Lucien Bouchard came out against what he sees as a new state-cheating culture. He apparently thinks that citizens should always obey the rulers. Indeed, the governing class shows a rare unanimity in bringing the Canadians back under the government's rod of iron.

Yes, we hear similar problems whenever governments choose to spend unwisely, and their answer is always the same:

First, how did tax evasion develop among so docile a people as the Canadians? The answer lies, of course, in the tax burden they have to shoulder. Tobacco, on which federal tax rates have increased by 150% over the last five years, is only the tip of the iceberg. The total tax take by all levels of government now amounts to nearly 40% of the Canadian gross domestic product. If we include the deficits, which are just future taxes, government takes close to one half of what people produce and earn in this country. In two words, tax evasion is a response to tax invasion.

[..]

Galloping regulations are another factor. Some of them come with taxes: Small businesses now have to perform time-consuming GST accounting, and prepare a complex quarterly report. I don't know if we ever were a nation of shopkeepers, but we are certainly becoming one of tax collectors and accountants. Other forms of regulation -- labor regulations, for instance -- make it much more simpler and cheaper to go underground, for consumers and suppliers alike.

The second question is, How could we ever accept such a tax burden in the first place? One hundred or 200 years ago, the great Western thinkers to whom we owe whatever liberty we have left would never have thought this could happen in a free country.

[..]

The third question relates to the state's reaction. Politicians argue that the individuals who do not pay their "fair share" thereby increase the tax burden of other citizens. The main thrust of the coming federal and provincial budgets may well be to increase the effective tax burden under the guise of "fair shares."

This is a naïve cliché which assumes that political and bureaucratic processes naturally lead to the optimal amount of taxes required to finance unanimously demanded public services. What actually happens (at least if we agree with the Public Choice approach in economics) is that the government will take as much as it can, it will charge what the traffic will bear. Governments satisfy minority pressure groups and buy votes through spending. If Canadians in the underground economy were to start paying their "fair" taxes, government revenues and expenses would just increase by the amount of the new taxes. In this perspective, the underground economy is a useful restraint on Leviathan, and a benefit to all taxpayers.

Taxed Enough Already?

Art Laffer indicated that up to a certain level of taxation governments will get increased revenue, but after that point revenue actually decreases per increase in taxation.  Taxes are avoided.  From personal experience I can say that I was welcomed as an outsider by various small businesses in Canada when I visited there during this period as they did not have to pay a tax when foreigners purchased from them.  Taxes were avoided via every legal means possible and the more loopholes the politicians put into the system, the more taxes were avoided by the exploitation of those loopholes beyond just the expected favored class involved.  Germany has seen other artifacts, like people taking their money to foreign banks so as not to face taxation for it in Germany, and Germany got pretty irate about that but could do nothing about it as other regulations were preventing such tracking not just inside Germany but in other Nations, as well.  That fellow that scored a crate of fake Rolex watches and selling them on the streets is nothing compared to the weekly income that can be shipped out of a Nation to avoid taxes in those Nations with onerous tax policies.  One gets you red in the face politicians who feel cheated by a system they created, the other gets a small time operator in the slammer for a few months.

Every Nation has a Black Market, which is to say every Nation has goods they wish to restrict and don't want their people to purchase.  Even worse is that most Nations have internal taxation to try and put a penalty on purchasing certain items (liquor, cigarettes) that has a tax stamp on it, and when that happens there are those willing to fake, forge or forget the tax stamp to sell you the good in question and just slightly undercut the fully taxed cost of the good in question.  Hezbollah ran a cigarette smuggling ring from its quarters in Toronto, going to North Carolina to purchase untaxed cigarettes and then sell them in Detroit for a net profit of $10m/yr. remitted to Hezbollah, until they got caught, of course.  The behavior that drives this is rational avoidance of taxes to get a desired good, and when the taxes become high enough, less than legal to illegal means that can deliver that good at a lower price then become something sought after by normal people who consider themselves as not doing a truly illegal activity, just avoiding taxes.

In Poland under the Soviet Bloc the academics and researchers found they could piece together an IBM PC that would do more than their Soviet supercomputer for only a few thousand dollars and a few trips to West Berlin to buy components, not a full computer.  Within 6 months they had a full IBM PC and used the Soviet system to heat their room.   Goods get smuggled in via familial associations, via forms of smuggling, via Black Market money exchanges on the street that give a much better deal in local currency than the State shops do.  Saudi Arabia has smugglers smuggling guns out to terrorists and then finds the same smugglers are smuggling prohibited video cellphones back into the Kingdom for the teenagers who want to know what each other look like before arranging a date.    Similar happens in Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, China, Russia, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico (although there it is more of smuggling worthwhile goods out to get Black Market arms), the US and Canada.  As seen under Mao you can even make the penalty that of death, not mere taxation and criminal prosecution, and you still can't get rid of the Black Market.

Any Black Market is a warning to the government and the people of the State involved: you are treading on thin ice.  To get public morality requires more than just punishment but the putting forth of a positive moral view and ideology that tells why such morals are positive, what their effects are and how they can be utilized to better society.  Punishment of individuals is a necessary means to protect society, but it is not the creation of a positive public moral environment and, when used to gain that environment, starts to unravel the very public morality it is meant to uphold by creating rational actors seeking prohibited goods at a low cost.  The sales point of such public laws that enforce a moral good via the negative powers granted government is that they lead to a better functioning society.  Like the Laffer Curve that is true, up to a point, and then you get diminishing returns for each new law passing itself off as supporting a positive moral good.  The hard case to make is that something should be legal to purchase, taxed normally, and that you agree to work with your fellow man to create organizations to help others see the problems of using such goods or services, and to reinforce society so that those goods and services become less popular, gains fewer users and slowly dies out.

That is the unwritten law, the leges, and Americans no longer do that as we have come to believe that the written law is all.  And yet all of society, all of civilization, is formed on the leges and common morality and decency, espoused by the majority working towards more people so as to lessen the effects of immoral behavior and consumption of goods leading to immorality.  You can legislate for morality all you want, yet you do not get a moral society from it and, instead, you get bureaucrats.  Really, do you want morality enforced by bureaucrats?  It is so cheap and easy to say 'there ought to be a law' instead of doing something yourself to address the wrongs of society, and that is what Progressives want: your non-involvement in society.  Then they can make up all the rules you have to follow, no thought required from you, until they stop you from doing the necessary things in your life.

Then you become just what they want: Homo Criminalis.

Stop asking government to do the things you should be doing.

These things aren't done because they are easy, they must be done because they are hard and you are the best person to do them.  Only you can create a positive moral environment for yourself and society.  And no law ever passed can stop you from doing that, even if it threatens to kill you... and then you know the State really does see doing moral good as an evil, and it has become, itself, a pure evil in that doing.

A Dangerous Enemy

This is a personal outlook paper of The Jacksonian Party.

An interesting question cropped up when I was reading commentary at Hot Air looking at the difference between what President Obama said as a candidate and what he has done since taking office. Part of the outcome is looking at the concept that every promise by President Obama 'has an expiration date': it will have a time when he will come out and say and do the exact opposite of the promise. The Gay community has felt this in his promises on what he would do and his inactivity on those promises, but that is a smaller part of the overall set of promises on Guantanamo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Terrorism, and the Economy that have all been put forward one way, while campaigning, and then done another way while in office to date. Problems which look 'simple' to the candidate become 'complex' to the office holder, which is a normal part of human affairs, but how one approaches those complexities reveals much about the individual in question. Without exception President Obama has sought for more power and control to be vested in the federal government, the least accountable government in the Nation, and not trusted individuals to find their own use of liberty to sustain the Nation by using that liberty to create prosperity and freedom.

The reprisal of 'helping the poor' puts forward that only the federal government can do this, but the reason to being poor is so various, from a string of absolute bad luck to poor decision making to mental illness, that no one, single, unitary way to approach poverty can be performed. If it were 'just' money, then the hundreds of billions spent on anti-poverty programs would have ridded the Nation of poverty decades ago. Instead it has put individuals into situations where not working, not using your liberty and being rewarded for that has endangered the overall economy to actually sustain productivity so that there is a source of wealth to help the poor. Government does not create wealth, but currency: it is not the maker of things, but puts in place an established exchange unit that is worked with to create wealth. It is this simple understanding, that government is only the backer of society for creation of wealth and not the engine of wealth, that has, apparently, driven much of the policy of the federal government for nearly 80 years. Herbert Hoover was a Progressive Republican and FDR continued on many of the exact, same Progressive policies and then added his own into the mix, and none of them addressed that government taxing money, printing money, and distributing money for make-work jobs was not helping the overall economy but making it worse. By 1937 the actual recovery had been established, but the increased taxes put in from 1934-36, especially Social Security, would take a major bite out of that recovery, create the recession of 1938-39 and then stall out the overall recovery at a lower employment plateau. Double digit unemployment would not end until WWII was utilized as a means to move unemployed young men out of America, give them money they couldn't spend, and put the remaining population to work, thus utilizing the underutilized work of women and those who were too old to find jobs in the previous economy. Unless you were getting SSN, then you had to be offered a federally subsidized stable of 'goodies' in the way of health care that would outlive the war and haunt us to our current times.

One of the prime culprits of making the Great Depression possible was the fiscal policies of the Federal Reserve, the institution put in by President Wilson to centralize banking and finance under federal 'regulation'. And yet that 'regulation' called for fiscally unsound lending practices that led to the Great Depression and made it worse under Hoover and FDR. This is the manifestation of political power into the regulatory system, so as to reflect ideology and not sound fiscal practices, and it has spread to the SEC, FHA, Fannie and Freddie and numerous other 'helpful' government systems. By coupling political influence with garnering such positions in the regulatory system, regulators have become part of the political process, as particularly seen by Freddie and Fannie, both lobbying Congress directly with taxpayer backed funds at their beck and call. The appointment process to those two organizations has been one of politically well connected individuals getting appointment positions and then using those positions to further their political and ideological goals. The overall system described is one that the United States had discarded in another form after closing down the National Bank system that was, itself, not fiscally sound, having political appointees setting policy with little oversight, and allowing for outside influence to sway decisions that helped the well connected but did little for the common man. The elements brought up in the Bank Veto Message of 10 JUL 1832 sound as clear today as they did then and the second paragraph is clear on that score on what the dangers are:

A bank of the United States is in many respects convenient for the Government and useful to the people. Entertaining this opinion, and deeply impressed with the belief that some of the powers and privileges possessed by the existing bank are unauthorized by the Constitution, subversive of the rights of the States, and dangerous to the liberties of the people, I felt it my duty at an early period of my Administration to call the attention of Congress to the practicability of organizing an institution combining all its advantages and obviating these objections. I sincerely regret that in the act before me I can perceive none of those modifications of the bank charter which are necessary, in my opinion, to make it compatible with justice, with sound policy, or with the Constitution of our country.

A National Bank or Federal Reserve system is, indeed, useful to the Government and the people, but the powers, privileges and capabilities given to get that utility are not only unauthorized by the Constitution, but a deep source of corruption, influence peddling and cronyism, far beyond unsound fiscal policy. This Veto Message stands not just on Constitutional grounds, but practical and reasonable grounds as well, that examine the entire economic activity of the Nation, as a Nation, and then looks to how the corruption of the power is toxic to the States and the people, and ultimately to the Union. It is one of the foremost documents on National Fiscal Policy ever delivered by any President of any era, and yet remains largely unknown due to modern political 'sensibilities' not wanting to examine the deep questions of liberty associated with fiscal policy. Progressive era schooling, thusly, does not allow you to forget such works as it will not teach them to you: you are kept ignorant to meet a social agenda.

This problem was not unknown in the Founding era, and the Drafters of the Constitution had numerous and various problems addressing their critics, the so-called 'Anti-Federalists', many of whom were 'Federalists' as they saw it and criticized the Constitution on Federalist grounds. Even those who were not 'Federalists' and who just wanted a stronger Confederacy are not 'Anti-Federalist' in their insights, many of them based on human nature and the outcomes of past, historical systems of government that were well known in the era. Thus there is a question, or truly a series of questions, at the site Truth and Common Sense, revolving around a 'how would you bring down a democratic republic?' To do that requires little more than delving into the 'Anti-Federalist' archives at Teaching American History and reading as the objections, while diverse, continue to haunt us to this present day. Not all are salient, of course, and there are more than a few 'Anti-Federalist' hot heads who expounded conspiracy theories, just like our modern 'Truthers', those seeking the 'real assassin' of JFK, or how we got velcro which normally involves UFO cover-ups. Conspiracy theories go far back in history beyond the Knights Templar and into the plots and counter-plots of Kings, Emperors and Potentates very close to the beginning of actual recorded documents on clay tablets.

The need to explain the mundane, how a disturbed Communist sympathizer can assassinate a US President and then, in turn, be killed by a man who is not playing with a full deck but clearly was a patriot and did not want the President's death and widow to be un-avenged, puts two disturbed men influencing the course of the Nation and to many people there is no balance in that scale and, thusly, needs something 'deeper' to be playing out. Arch-Duke Ferdinand was assassinated by a Serbian who wanted Serbia to gain some freedom for the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and yet we get World War I as the result, thus putting a disturbing balance between those in power, those out of power and the mechanisms of government via a direct juxtaposition. Yet we accept that set of happenings and the millions dead that followed as they are, while not accepting the far lesser assassination of a President as somehow being 'proof' of a conspiracy. The first changed the course of world history, for the worse, and the second was a brutal assassination done by a committed ideologue who sought personal infamy and recognition. Of the two the first had dire consequences for the modern world, the second some ripples in the United States, yet it is the second that gains the conspiracy theory while the first is seen as a tragic happening normal in global affairs.

How normal? Presidents McKinley and Garfield were assassinated, and yet no real conspiracies grew up around their deaths. We remember President Lincoln because of the Civil War and see that assassination as its tragic capstone and the man a martyr to the cause of the Union. That actually did have a set of conspiratorial actors attempting multiple assassinations that night, but we downplay that conspiracy and play up one where there is no evidence of it. Negative proofs, by eliminating all other possibilities and then demonstrating something is or is not present by the lack of those things, are hard sells in mathematics, and the positive proof, the evidentiary proof far easier to piece together, even if it does not create an emotional sense of well-being in doing so. By trying to not accept the actual proof and testimonies of those involve, those pushing conspiracy theories want a negative proof as the standard so that anything that isn't directly recorded, but that can be accounted for, is proof of a 'conspiracy' covering up 'evidence'.

What this all too human need points to is trying to impress upon reality our emotional sensations. When done to a set of ideologies that have few connections to the real world, we get a fantasy ideology forming in which all the 'positive' evidence is retained and the 'negative' evidence discarded. Often we find forgery or fraudulent manipulation of the historical record both to make 'positives' appear and to make 'negatives' disappear. An old photograph of dinosaur tracks in a creek bed show later manipulation by 'creationists' trying to 'prove' that man walked with dinosaurs and the photography shows the differences decades apart: a simple field photo to show a representative sample of tracks against a modern photo of the same tracks shows manipulation of the tracks, themselves. Stalin had people removed or added to historical photos based on their current position in the hierarchy in an attempt to manufacture a 'perfect' history. That goes to the modern United States where you are not taught about the Bank Veto message or, indeed, given the actual words of Presidents beyond a few kept as 'samples' but often taken out of context. Thus something like The American Presidency Project that brings forth the actual documents of the Presidents allows us to see the actual office holders as they said they were and we need no longer resort to a bit here and a bit there chosen by those compiling books for selling to schools.

Much have I heard those on the Left on one such happening, that of the 'Trail of Tears' and they point to President Jackson with accusations of racism, and yet his First Annual Message on the State of the Union deals with the problem as seen then:

Your particular attention is requested to that part of the report of the Secretary of War which relates to the money held in trust for the Seneca tribe of Indians. It will be perceived that without legislative aid the Executive can not obviate the embarrassments occasioned by the diminution of the dividends on that fund, which originally amounted to $100,000, and has recently been invested in United States 3% stock.

The condition and ulterior destiny of the Indian tribes within the limits of some of our States have become objects of much interest and importance. It has long been the policy of Government to introduce among them the arts of civilization, in the hope of gradually reclaiming them from a wandering life. This policy has, however, been coupled with another wholly incompatible with its success. Professing a desire to civilize and settle them, we have at the same time lost no opportunity to purchase their lands and thrust them farther into the wilderness. By this means they have not only been kept in a wandering state, but been led to look upon us as unjust and indifferent to their fate. Thus, though lavish in its expenditures upon the subject, Government has constantly defeated its own policy, and the Indians in general, receding farther and farther to the west, have retained their savage habits. A portion, however, of the Southern tribes, having mingled much with the whites and made some progress in the arts of civilized life, have lately attempted to erect an independent government within the limits of Georgia and Alabama. These States, claiming to be the only sovereigns within their territories, extended their laws over the Indians, which induced the latter to call upon the United States for protection.

Under these circumstances the question presented was whether the General Government had a right to sustain those people in their pretensions. The Constitution declares that "no new State shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other State" without the consent of its legislature. If the General Government is not permitted to tolerate the erection of a confederate State within the territory of one of the members of this Union against her consent, much less could it allow a foreign and independent government to establish itself there.

[..]

There is no constitutional, conventional, or legal provision which allows them less power over the Indians within their borders than is possessed by Maine or New York. Would the people of Maine permit the Penobscot tribe to erect an independent government within their State? And unless they did would it not be the duty of the General Government to support them in resisting such a measure? Would the people of New York permit each remnant of the six Nations within her borders to declare itself an independent people under the protection of the United States? Could the Indians establish a separate republic on each of their reservations in Ohio? And if they were so disposed would it be the duty of this Government to protect them in the attempt? If the principle involved in the obvious answer to these questions be abandoned, it will follow that the objects of this Government are reversed, and that it has become a part of its duty to aid in destroying the States which it was established to protect.

Actuated by this view of the subject, I informed the Indians inhabiting parts of Georgia and Alabama that their attempt to establish an independent government would not be countenanced by the Executive of the United States, and advised them to emigrate beyond the Mississippi or submit to the laws of those States.

Our conduct toward these people is deeply interesting to our national character. Their present condition, contrasted with what they once were, makes a most powerful appeal to our sympathies. Our ancestors found them the uncontrolled possessors of these vast regions. By persuasion and force they have been made to retire from river to river and from mountain to mountain, until some of the tribes have become extinct and others have left but remnants to preserve for a while their once terrible names. Surrounded by the whites with their arts of civilization, which by destroying the resources of the savage doom him to weakness and decay, the fate of the Mohegan, the Narragansett, and the Delaware is fast over-taking the Choctaw, the Cherokee, and the Creek. That this fate surely awaits them if they remain within the limits of the States does not admit of a doubt. Humanity and national honor demand that every effort should be made to avert so great a calamity. It is too late to inquire whether it was just in the United States to include them and their territory within the bounds of new States, whose limits they could control. That step can not be retraced. A State can not be dismembered by Congress or restricted in the exercise of her constitutional power. But the people of those States and of every State, actuated by feelings of justice and a regard for our national honor, submit to you the interesting question whether something can not be done, consistently with the rights of the States, to preserve this much- injured race.

As a means of effecting this end I suggest for your consideration the propriety of setting apart an ample district west of the Mississippi, and without the limits of any State or Territory now formed, to be guaranteed to the Indian tribes as long as they shall occupy it, each tribe having a distinct control over the portion designated for its use. There they may be secured in the enjoyment of governments of their own choice, subject to no other control from the United States than such as may be necessary to preserve peace on the frontier and between the several tribes. There the benevolent may endeavor to teach them the arts of civilization, and, by promoting union and harmony among them, to raise up an interesting commonwealth, destined to perpetuate the race and to attest the humanity and justice of this Government.

This emigration should be voluntary, for it would be as cruel as unjust to compel the aborigines to abandon the graves of their fathers and seek a home in a distant land. But they should be distinctly informed that if they remain within the limits of the States they must be subject to their laws. In return for their obedience as individuals they will without doubt be protected in the enjoyment of those possessions which they have improved by their industry. But it seems to me visionary to suppose that in this state of things claims can be allowed on tracts of country on which they have neither dwelt nor made improvements, merely because they have seen them from the mountain or passed them in the chase. Submitting to the laws of the States, and receiving, like other citizens, protection in their persons and property, they will ere long become merged in the mass of our population.

It is plain that he is addressing a complex problem and pointing out the obligations of the United States from the start of this section on Indian Affairs. If he was 'racist' then why would he care that any Indians gaining funds promised to them had a shortfall in such funds? That is an embarrassment to the Union not to meet its obligations to the Sencas, and yet I have never heard this passage mentioned by those pointing at the 'Trail of Tears'. Right after that he points to the injustice of the Government's policy towards the Indian tribal lands and that the policy has driven Indians into a wandering state of affairs that helps no one and makes things more costly to the Union.

Yes, the great one who started the 'Trail of Tears' is railing against the injustice of the policy that will bring that 'Trail of Tears' about! Amazing, no?

And pointing out that it would be unconstitutional for the federal government to demand that the States cede portions of their territory, and that the States are sovereign in determining their territory and that no one else can force them to give up any of the territory, he then does what he can to inform the Indians wanting a carve-out that they are out of luck unless they can convince the States to otherwise recognize and hand over territory to them. He is begging with the States to do just that as the federal government doesn't have that power. He does what he can and offers territory that is, as yet, unsettled and unclaimed by the Union. He asks for a voluntary emigration and setting up of a regular set of governments in that territory. He does not want to see force used, and says so, clearly. He wanted an Indian Commonwealth beyond the Mississippi - a recognized government and Nation to deal with. The injustices had already been done by his time and he could not right those wrongs if the States did not help to do so.

If you have only learned the 'President Jackson was bad' meme, then you are being confronted with something that totally crosses that up. How you react depends on how you view the world.

A person with a fantasy ideology will find excuses, criticisms, and do anything to NOT deal with the historical facts present. These are facts by that President years before the 'Trail of Tears', and he is saying that he doesn't like the course of affairs, that it is unjust, that it is long standing, and that there is damned little he can do about it. Later Congressional actions will drive the course of affairs to a large degree as it is Congress that will have to pass and support the military means necessary to star the ball rolling. That inconvenient fact is also overlooked in the meme. Jackson has basically said he will carry out his Constitutional duties, and continues to do so in all other policy areas during his time in office: from working on Treaties (some with other Indians!) to getting the National Bank removed to ensuring that military veterans of the Revolution get a proper pension and forgiving current soldiers who have been out AWOL and otherwise disorderly, then discharging them. By resorting to a modern view of what 'racism' is, and attempting to put those views on the past, one overlooks that they were not the views then and that the ones given were the actual ones cited not just by President Jackson but by the States and Congress.

A person who finds themselves presented with actual facts that contradict what they have been taught who is willing to re-examine the record and not revert to easy, fantastical and ahistorical reasons for past actions will then re-examine the issue and start to ask some serious questions about what they were taught. Clear and contradictory evidence to what one is taught indicates something lacking in the teacher and the teaching establishment. One cannot say if it is because the instructor was ignorant, or the texts and teaching curriculum slanted and biased, or both, but one can say that it did not properly represent the era, the activities and the reasons given at the time by those involved. One cannot mind read into the actions of the dead and when their own, stated reasons that are then followed through on are brought to light there is a high coincidence of correlation between what is said and what is done. Imputing motives not given is an act of not believing what has been said in support of those actions and can only be done with contradictory evidence. In this case President Jackson is telling everyone that this will not end well along the current course of affairs and that he had limitations on what he could do as President.

Fantasy ideologies that become embedded in individuals are hard things to remove as they offer a comforting, non-reality based way of viewing the world that offers a form of reassurance that actually dealing with the world doesn't afford. Religion, itself, is trying to understand one's world and their place in it, but when it becomes an obsession that puts one out of touch with the world, as the Millerites did in the 19th century, the consequences can be troublesome. With a Jim Jones they become lethal to the believers and to a group like al Qaeda it becomes lethal or potentially so for everyone who does not see the world their way. There is a difference in believing in UFOs and believing a Mothership is trailing a comet and that all one has to do to get to it is kill yourself: one is an observation that there is unknown phenomena that cannot be easily explained and is unidentified, the other is believing that such things are a path to heaven via suicide. To those with a fantasy ideology no amount of actual, real world and demonstrable proof or evidence that goes against the world view of the fantasy will change their minds. Indeed alternative ways to explain such things, that are themselves fanciful and go beyond normal causality to look for a 'deeper truth' is what is sought. Anything that allows the fantasy to exist by twisting actual factual data to indicate something other than they do indicate is the goal of any believer in a fantasy ideology.

Looking at one of my previous works in regards to Socialism, my second critique goes to the actual Scientific Socialist view of Marx's works, and they are individuals who have most tried to apply some scientific principles to Marx, and yet find that when their analysis leads them out of real world human nature, that Marx is to be preferred over accounting for reality. This is part of the Theory and Practice Conundrum:

In theory there is no difference between theory and practice.

In practice there is.

Thus, accepting Marx's end-state analysis of how Socialism comes about as the final social order of humanity, one can then examine those end conditions and ask 'what satisfies these conditions?' In doing that one finds a wealth of problems in Socialism that requires not just technological achievement, but deep and profound changes in human nature that have been evidence at no time in human history on any scale. Even better is that Marx, himself, followed up on his beliefs and did things that modern Marxists/Socialists wouldn't understand, like support the North in the US Civil War as it was a power for advancing mankind and industry. The Scientific Socialists kept up with that, however, and the stories given me as I was growing up of Socialists who would resolutely stay at their jobs during the World Wars so as to support the betterment of mankind through the expanse of capitalism, so that capitalism can do its necessary work and then be supplanted, is one that does shock the modern Socialist Left and even the Socialist Right, come to think of it. Schismatic Socialist movements splintered from the main of Socialism, so that everything from Communism to Fascism to the 'feel good' NannyState have become its hallmarks. And yet each and every venue that is Socialist depends on the solid foundations laid out by Marx, and if one examines the foundations, they are less than sturdy and less than stable. And that was done in regards to my first article on Socialism.

That list of premises that must make the foundation of Socialism possible, the actual things that must come about, I will extract from my second document:

Premise 1: All working hours are equal, no matter the time investment into gaining the skills to do them.

Premise 2: One man shall *not* gain over another's work on an hour by hour valuation.

Premise 3: Workers know how best to do their work.

Premise 4: The amount of labor to complete a given task is static over time.

Premise 5: Work is its own reward in keeping society running.

If we recognize Liberty as self-evident in the nature of mankind, then utilizing Liberty means that each person prospers in accordance to their ability to apply their skills and receive recognition for those skills in the way of actual payment above and beyond the normal. A skilled craftsman is recognized as being above and beyond the norm and their works are appreciated as such. While one can argue that a cinematographer like Vertov, say, would not have appeared under Czarist rule, it is more than possible he would have appeared under capitalism with a generally liberal representative democracy in place that gave freedom of the marketplace to value some works more highly than others. Dziga Vertov demonstrates just the opposite of spreading skills under a non-rewards based system: no one in later years would ever accomplish such grand works in film as he did as the system did not reward invention, innovation or even good taste. It was in capitalist countries that his work would be influential, not in the USSR.

At this point many of the Scientific Socialists would point out that the USSR had not met the industrial pre-conditions put forth by Marx as necessary for Socialism and that the USSR was not 'socialist'. That is true, so far as it goes, but the shift from a form of serfdom to a society that did try to get an equalized end-state is ignored and the status of the USSR as a demonstration point on the feasibility, or lack thereof, of getting to that lovely end-state is tossed away in that analysis. The question is: would satisfying the industrial precondition change the result of the outcome of the Soviet experiment? Was it a matter of not having enough capitalism, not enough technology that makes the difference? Or is it in the nature of man, himself, outside of the preconditions that made achievement of such an end-state impossible or even desirable? Each of those premises has backing in a viewpoint of what human nature is and how human nature makes those end-states come about. Yet if the actual human nature is at variance with what is expected, then trying to change human nature, to shift it out of the nature of man as mortal, fallible, and prone to his own weakness, is folly and lethal simultaneously.

Our modern Transnational Progressivist Left and Right, like their antecedents in the various Socialist movements, likewise put forth broad and disturbing generalities of mankind in an attempt to undermine the Nation State system on an international scale. John Fonte has detailed the outlines of the goals of Transnational Progressivism which are little different on the Left or Right of that movement, save for emphasis on societal or industrial means:

Groups are what matter, not people. You are "Black" or "Christian" or "Mexican" or "Afghan" or "Sunni", you are not yourself. You also don't get to choose your group; it's inherent in what you were when you were born. Someone else will categorize you into your group, and you will become a number, a body to count to decide how important that group is. And your group won't change during your lifetime.

The goal of fairness is equality of result, not equality of opportunity. It isn't important to let individuals fulfill their potential and express their dreams, what's important is to make groups have power and representation in all things proportional to their numbers in the population. Fairness is for groups, not for individuals. The ideally fair system is based on quotas, not on merit, because that permits proper precise allocation of results.

Being a victim is politically significant. It's not merely a plea for help or something to be pitied; it's actually a status that grants extra political power. "Victimhood" isn't a cult, it's a valid political evaluation. Groups which are victims should be granted disproportionately more influence and representation, at the expense of the historic "dominant" culture.

Assimilation is evil. Immigrants must remain what they were before they arrived here, and should be treated that way. Our system must adapt to them, rather than expecting them to adapt to us (even if they want to). The migration of people across national borders is a way to ultimately erase the significance of those borders by diluting national identity in the destination country.

An ideal democracy is a coalition where political power is allocated among groups in proportion to their numbers. It has nothing to do with voting or with individual citizens expressing opinions, and in fact it doesn't require elections at all. A "winner take all" system, or one ruled by a majority, is profoundly repugnant because it disenfranchise minority groups of all kinds and deprives them of their proper share of power.

National identity is evil. We should try to think of ourselves as citizens of the world, not as citizens of the nations in which we live, and we should try to minimize the effects of national interests, especially our own if we live in powerful nations.

Fonte's descriptive analysis serves as a handy test to see if a political position put forth is bound by this ideology. There is no handbook of the Transnational Progressivist just as there was no ready handbook of Progressivism: the days of actually having to state what you believe in as a coherent view of society and man's place in creating it are no longer the goal of Progressivism, save to put both society and individuals under the rule of a self-described elite. This system is not just Transnational, but anti-Nation State at its core. Yet the Nation State is the creation of mankind across the globe, and wherever man has created culture of any sort, man has created States and Nation States. While there are technological gulfs between the Incan Empire and the Roman Empire, or between the Iriquois Nations and Swiss Confederation, the actual utilization of Nation State diplomacy, many of its features and ways to address other powers was highly similar. As was examined in the 17th to 19th century, this is due to the similarity of the nature of man and how he derives culture, self-governance, States and then Nations to deal with other States. The Nation State is the creation of mankind to protect cultures that are different, and yet recognize that other cultures are valid and recognizes other Nation States as equals in those terms, if not economic, social or military terms. Indeed it is talked about from ancient times through the 12th century in England all the way up to the 19th century and the forms and formulas of embassies, treaties, Nation to Nation agreements, pomp and circumstance is all guided by those understandings that we now accept as common.

Progressivism wanted to co-opt the power of the State and such social organs as Labor Unions as a means to break up the 'dominant' culture in the United States and elsewhere. Yet there was a major setback in that agenda that still exists to this day, as described by Walter Russell Mead in The Jacksonian Tradition (archive of that article here):

Most progressive, right thinking intellectuals in mid-century America believed that the future of American populism lay in a social democratic movement based on urban immigrants. Social activists like Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger consciously sought to use cultural forms like folk songs to ease the transition from the old individualistic folk world to the collective new one that they believed was the wave of the future; they celebrated unions and other strange, European ideas in down home country twangs so that, in the bitter words of Hiram Evans, "There is a steady flood of alien ideas being spread over the country, always carefully disguised as American."

What came next surprised almost everyone. The tables turned, and Evans’ Americans "americanized" the immigrants rather than the other way around. In what is still a largely unheralded triumph of the melting pot, Northern immigrants gradually assimilated the values of Jacksonian individualism. Each generation of new Americans was less "social" and more individualistic than the preceding one. American Catholics, once among the world’s most orthodox, remained Catholic in religious allegiance but were increasingly individualistic in terms of psychology and behavior ("I respect the Pope, but I have to follow my own conscience"). Ties to the countries of emigration steadily weakened, and the tendency to marry outside the group strengthened.

By the late 20th century this force was actively being opposed by the cultural elite who were adhering to a fantasy ideology of there being some societal equivalence at the society level between all societies, and that it was politically correct not to refer to the differences and problems in other societies and, instead, vilify your own society's problems and equalize them with those of other societies. Thus workplace discrimination in America is equated with discrimination in totalitarian regimes, such as China, that have even worse records of humanitarian discrimination and xenophobia behind them. The lack of gays having 'equal rights' in America to government recognition of things like marriage, are directly equated to the lofty elevation of gays in places like Iran who consign them to the grave. 'Enlightened' European Nations have socialized medicine that is costly to their Nations, bankrupting them, and often hard to get or have governments unwilling to even find out the quality of health care received, and that is directly equated to America where there are no dead on the streets and willingness to not purchase 'health insurance' is an exercise of liberty and a personal assessment of risk and benefits. At all points State control and telling the individual what to do is elevated over individual liberty and freedom to decide one's life for oneself.

Yet that is the role of government: to restrict, to punish. It is not a provider of 'good things' save in what it doesn't do, which is to straightjacket society with regulations in an attempt to force people to become 'good' and 'socially aware' by punishing them when they are not. Socialism had, at least, the belief that man saw work as its own reward, regardless of station in life, and that one got according to one's needs. When those needs are dictated to you, then you are no longer a citizen but a subject of the State. That is Transnational Progressivism's ideal: to make all individuals subjects to their States, beholden to their government and to force elitist views on what is and is not good upon all people.

Save the Elites, of course, they are above any rules, any laws, and any accountability.

That is the end of forcing people to 'do good' and punishing them if they do so in ways that are not acceptable to the State. It is a fantasy ideology that we can all think alike and 'be different' at the same time, and that human nature can, indeed, be overturned by government fiat. And yet those that come to power are no less human, no less susceptible to the temptations of mortal life than those they seek to rule, and often their excesses are made the worst because they feel that any 'good end' justifies their activities. That is not a description of freedom but of tyranny.

It is strange that so many want that tyranny because they believe it really will turn out 'all right' and 'better' for all concerned.

Don't mind the governments, States, Nations and Empires that have all ruled this way to the non-benefit of their people.

Only good intentions matter, even as the blood to get those intentions put in place run under the boots of those bringing it about and stain their hands, spatter their faces to put a red tinged haze around those 'good intentions' as that is the end of Elite rule wherever it is tried.

Straw, stuffing and notation

A lively look at the use of strawman-based arguments is going on at Hot Air and it is interesting to go through, if you can weed through it to get to some of the views on the use of argumentation style.  This started with a citation of a recent NYT article that actually points out the flimsy use of strawmen by President Obama.  Over at Powerline John Hinderaker begins the analysis of the President's anti-terror speech, as part of an overall analysis of it, in Part II in the series of articles on the dueling speeches of President Obama and Vice President Dick Cheney.  In Part III he then starts to examine some of the views presented by the President and sees if they are honest positions taken in reference to some actual problem or a dishonest presentation of them (and continued in-depth at Part IV).  Scott Johnson, also at Powerline, continues the review in this post, and examines how dishonest presentation of actual history is used to try and bolster non-existent political cases for policy.

Between these two things we see the differences between 'strawmen', which is an assertion of a viewpoint with no attribution to it, and something that I call stuffing or 're-packaging', which is the taking of honest policy and its reason for being and saying that it has no basis for being or that events have somehow indicated policy failure when, by examining actual events, the policy is a demonstrated success.

There is a third type of argumentation style that falls into similar headings, and it is meta-analysis  or 'tagging' or notation: the attempt to identify a block of individuals and put them into a singular category that you create and then mock or otherwise admonish based on the category title you have put on.  This latter is frequently as a positional basis for arguing that can also include strawmen and stuffing: caricature presentations of positions, dishonest historical analysis and then deriving a 'theme' from those that is then used against a swath of people so as to remove individuality of argument from that entire group and demonize the entire group as supporting that caricature and stuffed ahistorical review.

 

Each of these types of argumentative bases have legitimate counter-parts.

Consider in the realm of military analysis the inter-war years and the examination of the use of airpower in future conflicts.  Gen. Curtis LeMay was a leading proponent in the utility and capability of airpower in future engagements and was following the works of Giulioi Douhet that examined the issues prior to WWI and would start the works on strategic bombing in 1921.  Strategic bombing as a military tactic differed from sieges and assaults by artillery or other long distance attacks in two main venues:  1) deliverable ordinance load deep into enemy territory, and 2) accuracy.  By reaching beyond where conventional artillery could go, as it is based on ground units, air mobile delivery platforms offered a means and methodology to remove the sustained ability of a Nation to field an army by attacking its infrastructure base.

This form of theory is that of total war theory, which had been seen in previous eras to one extent or another, but was first practiced by General Tecumseh Sherman during the campaigns of 1862-63 which recognized the logic of emerging modern warfare: the ability of a Nation to field an army is based on its ability to sustain it.  Attacking an infrastructure of communications, re-supply routes and actual supply sources led to chaos and collapse of the Confederate economy and caused a marked decrease in the ability of the Confederacy to support its soldiers or even protect the internal components of the Confederacy itself.  That has gone on, in one form or another, since the dawn of mass warfare either in the burning of cropland (scorched earth policy) that the Gauls used against the Romans, or in the somewhat misnamed 'Siege of Troy' by the Achaean Greeks which was a multi-year campaign to denude Troy of its outer allies and easy supply lines overland to the Hittites, thus reducing the ability of the city to sustain itself.  All later war theory would recognize this formulation of strategic warfare and even when Grotius was drafting his works on war, peace and the seas, the restrictions on attacking purely civilian holdings that had NO strategic value was seen... anything that did have strategic value was a legitimate target in warfare.

Douhet, LeMay and other theorists like Capt. Basil Liddell-Hart, would examine the use of airpower as a potent mix within the concepts of limited and total war based on analysis of the directions seen in WWI and where they were headed.  What was not known, however, was what the consequences would be on civilian morale of such targeted areas.   The predictions, however, were dire and would postulate casualties and loss of morale that could not be achieved by the weapons of that time nor by the examination of past conflicts as no one had the capability to so destroy the infrastructure of a city that was not in direct contact or within bombardment range, of a conflict.  Unless you look at Troy which is only coming to terms in modern views and the view of it then being a multi-year actual siege with the city taken by trickery was current (and still is in most quarters).  Even that should have given the theorists pause as no actual attacks on the infrastructure of city had taken place, but its entire contact with the outside world and trading partners had been removed.  Thus by the then current view, it was a city in desperate straights that fought on for YEARS while under siege.  Still one cannot blame the theorists as it was 'speculation', and post-WWII analysis would claim many things 'obvious' that weren't when the original work had gone on.

How does this play out with 'strawmen'?  Well, WWII actually did put the the postulations to the test, and found theory wanting in many areas but not completely so.  If bombing of major cities and factory complexes in Germany did not create a situation of sudden German collapse (just as the Germans had been unable to do with Britain), what it did see is an incremental reduction in the ability to supply modern forces.  The equation that arrived of delivering massive destructive capability at low aggressor cost in manpower would play out successfully in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  There the collapse of the government was a very near thing as the ruling military elite were very close to staging a coup if the Emperor surrendered, and that was a deal of minutes and hours and an extremely close call.  Using conventional weapons and forces, the US was planning a huge invasion of the Japanese main islands and expecting Okinawa and Iwo Jima proportional losses.  The Purple Hearts minted for that invasion have still, to this day, not been handed out even with conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, the Middle East and Afghanistan between 1945 and now. 

Thus if later historians deride the proponents of strategic air bombardment in the concept of total war, the originators can point to Hiroshima and Nagasaki as actual proof of their concepts.  Their hypothetical conclusions were backed, yes, but by scanty evidence: they had firm basis on the technical and military side, but little to none on the social side.  The effects of those hypothetical conclusions playing out and have been used in 'strawman' attacks against those who put forward their views.  Yet they had little actual evidence in any venue to help demonstrate the effects on larger populations of what they were talking about, and so you get projections that had assumptions built-into them of the ability of the general population in a city or Nation to hold up to such bombardment.  In a sense they were straw-propositions, not descriptions, as there was no hard and fast theory of strategic bombing and what its impact was.  Working from knowns they moved into unknowns, and if some postulations proved wrong (collapse of morale amongst the target population in conventional raids) they also proved very correct in their overall assessment of strategic airpower.  In looking towards the best possible outcomes, the analysis, itself, was faulty and the straw proposition, it was hoped, would never be put to the test.

Thus while the rose-colored expectations of airpower of the original theorists was misplaced, it had a basis in fact and within theory: they lacked the understanding of civilian population resilience while under attack in the modern era, indeed, all heads of State and governments had no good guiding light on that.  The horrific calculus of reduction in morale and ability to fight was one that required a shift in deliverable capability outside of normal expectations, but that, in turn, would have a large influence on governments.  For modern critics to miss the salient points of strategic airpower is disingenuous: the theory behind it was sound, as far as it could go on the knowns, and only failed in extrapolation into the unknowns as the social sciences then, as now, cannot tell how large, national populations will react to strategic use of airpower.  We now have markers to understand it: the Battle of Britain, the Battle for Stalingrad, the bombing of Dresden, the attack on ball bearing plants in Germany, the attacks on the dams of the Rhine, the bombing of the Ploesti oil fields, the firebombing of Tokyo and other cities, and the use of nuclear devices on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Only at the last was more than large scale air assault, where a single aircraft could destroy entire cities, did the internal domestic understanding fall into line with strategic airpower theory.  And that part was also a hypothetical before WWII.

Before the war only a few physicists understood that this was possible not only as a matter of physics theory, but as engineering, and they were at the highest point in the physics establishment and worried that the German technical and scientific communities would hit upon a successful combination just as they did in WWI with poison gas.  No one could know, with any certainty, that these postulation would prove correct.  Both were extrapolations with backing, neither had high predictive value, however, but had high descriptive value in examining past work and understanding the underlying social trends behind them.  Physics is a different realm from strategic airpower theory, since it is a description of the physical universe and based on experimental confirmation of hypotheses to put together an understood framework of how the universe manifests itself.  There are, by the way mathematics works, isolated pockets of information and facts that will be unattached to the greater framework, as was demonstrated by Kurt Gödel, but extensions to what we would come to call 'the standard model' of physics as a body of interlocking work examining the known parts that can be easily observed and understood are things that anyone can find out via experimentation. 

The physics was known before WWII, but the engineering was not understood, especially on nuclear fission.  Simple questions of types of atoms that can undergo fission and release decay particles to cause other unstable atoms to divide, the mass of material, its necessary density and even such things as timing of the reaction were all in the realm of engineering which is applied physics.  FDR could not ignore the hard physics as explained to him by Einstein and others, and recognized that pre-war Germany was a pre-eminent scientific and engineering power in the world and had the skills (even after driving Jewish scientists away or killing them), manpower and engineering skills to commence such a project.  There was no 'genie' to put back in the bottle as the necessary scientific understanding was one that could be checked out by any competent lab and all that was required was time, money, effort and understanding the physics of the problem.  The engineering necessary for this pointed to a very high state of work, however, which would be limited to a very few highly industrialized nations.  One could not say in 1939 that Germany would not have produced and tested a nuclear device: their industry and scientific establishment was well capable of that, and by then the 'genie' had already escaped as fission had already been demonstrated by Enrico Fermi.  Nuclear scientists soon found themselves at the forefront of nuclear engineering, however, which was a major change for them as they had to move from theory to application and understand the rest of the engineering work around the nuclear part to create such a device.  The predictions were clear due to understanding of wartime needs, the German scientific establishment and the industrial capacity of Germany.

That latter part, however, could not be observed due to the war that had started, and no one could imagine that Germany would inefficiently use its industrial power.  Yet that is exactly what happened, as multiple design bureaus would compete with different designs (post-1941) in aircraft once they understood the suite of aircraft made before the war was going to be supplanted and surpassed during it.  Taking a very few years off on jet aircraft design would prove disastrous, as would concentration on heavier tanks instead of more mobile ones.  Running industry from Government is highly inefficient, and that was demonstrated by Germany having come very, very close to many revolutionary designs only by post-war analysis.  There the societal changes due to National Socialism were not understood nor were the basics of government inefficiency taken into account: both were areas of very low research in the social sciences then and now, and only economics having started to peek into the latter in a serious way post-war.  If the physics cohort that lobbied FDR was wrong in their understanding of German use of industrial capacity, then so were all the leaders of the Allied powers.  What was presented was a 'worst case scenario' that was within the realm of the believable... just like the strategic airpower theorists did.  Little did these two disparate communities come to realize that, together, they had formulated a new area of strategic nuclear weapons theory, which has its own untested conclusions and theories.

In the final analysis the extreme predictions of both strategic airpower theorists AND a handful of leading physicists proved correct.  Their postulations on future conditions were into an unknown but highly reasonable extrapolation of the known, and pure speculation when there was no data to back any conclusion.  As there is no absolute predictive capability in detail or even gross overview of the future, we are left with those who can demonstrate a firm basis of understanding of the present and then look to those trends in the future for understanding what the threats are in the modern world.  Such extrapolations run the gamut from the fantastical (as seen in cinematic presentations) all the way down to the extremely and chillingly indicative like War Plan Orange created before WWII and describing a possible future conflict with Japan.  There are differences in strawmen and postulations, then, between those of caricature of opponents or opposition arguments, and those of postulating future events based on past ones and our understanding of them.  Ones based on known facts and how they work together become hypothetical forecasts, and those used to describe past activities to partisan gain with no backing are an attempt to seek a demonization of those who are getting a strawman put in front of them.  Both can be blown away with factual review: not all strawmen put forward in hypotheses prove correct, in fact most don't, but they serve as points of clarification; and those trying to describe past action and impute impure or poorly based motives when those were clearly stated at the time and accepted are attacking an unsupported figure with no backing at all.  The strawman hypothesis ('If X is true then does Y follow it based on how we understand X and Y?') runs many of the same risks of the caricature strawman used against political opponents: they can support unsustainable work, as Lysenkoism did in the USSR,  leading to ill-based, ill-conceived and un-backed experimentation.  In science even a basically right hypothesis, such as that of plate tectonics, can be deemed wrong when it is not backed by sufficient data or examination of the effects of the postulation.  That is no help to the scientist who loses his scientific reputation, but points to the need for well considered and reasoned points backed by data.

Politically, describing a caricature position without then backing it up to demonstrate a wider venue of thought, is dishonest as it attempts to conjoin separate ideas that the backers of such would not conjoin due to rationale and reason for coming to such conclusions in the first place.  To create a one sentence straw argument, and then bash it down is dishonest in the extreme: later war historians and those wishing to distort history (like that of strategic airpower and total war) utilize emotional content and glib, biased verbiage to portray something that is reasonable and rational and comes at the end of a long chain of understood and accepted reasoning as something that starts out as a disingenuous idea when those that were doing such work had no actual spite or mean-spirit in their work.  Doing such in a biased way and offering no positives to such policies nor their reasoning and rationale behind them is a debasement of human argumentative capability and the ability to demonstrate that you can actually reason through an opponents argument and find problems with the way it is argued so as to come to such conclusions WITHOUT imputing poor moral character, dishonest presentation or other reasons outside of the argument itself.  Machiavelli is often misunderstood in his reasoning and rationale for coming to conclusions, and yet they fit fully within the basis of society of his era and show a deeper understanding of human psychological motivations than can be demonstrated today by political scientists: that is why reading his works as 'classics' still compel readers to this day as he offers insight into human nature and how that drives individuals and Nations.  Any Prince, any leader of a Nation, has certain duties and objectives that they must carry out, and Machiavelli applied reason to those and sought the best way possible for a Prince or any other leader to understand why they must carry those out and what was the best way to do so.  The nature of man and the nature of what we can create in this realm has not changed, thus Machiavelli retains a timeless quality about what those natures are, while those putting up strawman seek purely temporal and temporary advantage.

 

If one is to examine an opponent or their line and methodology of reasoning and its backing, then it is incumbent upon the presenter to do a formal standing up of the case and not put up a glib strawman.  In looking at the works of Oswald Spengler, I examined just how he did that and why his reasoning is deeply moving: he identified larger basis for political and social movements and how those play out over time.  By describing how the human condition drives forms of political and social thought, Mr. Spengler comes to examine outcomes based on such movements and how they use their interior rationale for being to get to such ends.  He does take a clearly biased position, he makes no bones about it, but one arrived at by his own analyses and he does not stint on trying to flesh out political and social movements that he finds abhorrent or misguided.  One can disagree with his rationale and reasoning based on those argumentative points, but no one can say that he is dishonestly presenting a case.  One may not like the tenor or tone of his presentations, they are forceful in the extreme, but he gives a foundation of his understanding, demonstrates it and then looks at those who do not use that set of ideas and sees where they end up due to those differences.

A taste of how that looks from Spengler in Readings from: The Decline of the West and The Hour of Decision (Source: Radical Nationalism in Australia) and I will boldface interesting passages:

Man is a beast of prey. [5] I shall say it again and again. All the would-be moralists and social-ethics people who claim or hope to be "beyond all that" are only beasts of prey with their teeth broken, who hate others on account of the attacks which they themselves are wise enough to avoid. Only look at them. They are too weak to read a book on war, but they herd together in the street to see an accident, letting the blood and the screams play on their nerves. And if even that is too much for them, they enjoy it on the film and in the illustrated papers. If I call man a beast of prey, which do I insult: man or beast? For remember, the larger beasts of prey are noble creatures, perfect of their kind, and without the hypocrisy of human moral due to weakness.

They shout: "No more war" - but they desire class war. They are indignant when a murderer is executed for a crime of passion, but they feel a secret pleasure in hearing of the murder of a political opponent. What objection have they ever raised to the Bolshevist slaughters? There is no getting away from it: conflict is the original fact of life, is life itself, and not the most pitiful pacifist is able entirely to uproot the pleasure it gives his inmost soul. Theoretically, at least, he would like to fight and destroy all opponents of pacifism.

The further we advance into the Caesarism of the Faustian world, the more clearly will it emerge who is destined ethically to be the subject and who the object of historical events. The dreary train of world-improvers has now come to an end of its amble through these centuries, leaving behind it, as sole monument of its existence, mountains of printed paper. The Caesars will now take its place. High policy, the art of the possible, will again enter upon its eternal heritage, free from all systems and theories, itself the judge of the facts by which it rules, and gripping the world between its knees like a good horseman.

This being so, I have only to show here the historical position in which Germany and the world now stand and how this position is the inevitable outcome of the history of past centuries, and will just as inevitably pass on to certain forms and solutions. That is Destiny. We may deny it, but in so doing we deny ourselves.

Even though this is an examination of the political atmosphere of Germany heading into WWII, the reasoning works as well with any movement that tries to deny that man comes from Nature and what the nature of man actually is. 

This view of Spengler's is not one that sits outside the mainstream of thought on political movements or, indeed, Nations, and was actually seen as something so contrary to survival of Nations that in the Law of Nations (1758) by Emmerich de Vattel in Book III about such movements:

§ 3. Right of making war.⁽¹³⁶⁾

In treating of the right to security (Book II. Chap. IV.), we have shown that nature gives men a right to employ force, when it is necessary for their defence, and for the preservation of their rights. This principle is generally acknowledged: reason demonstrates it; and nature herself has engraved it on the heart of man. Some fanatics indeed, taking in a literal sense the moderation recommended in the gospel, have adopted the strange fancy of suffering themselves to be massacred or plundered, rather than oppose force to violence. But we need not fear that this error will make any great progress. The generality of mankind will, of themselves, guard against its contagion — happy, if they as well knew how to keep within the just bounds which nature has set to a right that is granted only through necessity! To mark those just bounds, — and, by the rules of justice, equity, and humanity, to moderate the exercise of that harsh, though too often necessary right — is the intention of this third book.

Oswald Spengler goes further than de Vattel does, due to differences in the nature of their work, but warning that not only is this view of pacifism (or any other system denying the nature of man) fanatical, but that it is on the move against society and his Nation.  Socialism, like all 'perfect' forms of society only gets to that 'perfection' once it extinguishes all other forms of social interaction and becomes monolithic.  It does not matter if that is National Socialism, which is Fascism, or International Socialism, which is Communism: both are fanatical forms of socialism a political theory that, itself, sees only socialism at the end of all discoveries when we can know no more, have no boundaries to expand and, indeed, must divvy up the universe into guided portions to survive as there is no way to make more of the universe.  To that end all pacifist theorems come to a similar end so that any action taken by any Nation to assert the freedom and liberty of the Nation, that highest of organizing powers we create, is eroded and must become subservient to the elitist, perfect view of the world and mankind.  The greatest 'pacifist' will kill to make their 'perfect world' and leave a bloody trail behind them no matter how much they disavow war, they will kill to get it put in place over their fellow man because that is the 'greatest good'.  Just don't mind the corpses of those who disagree.

You may not agree with the basis of the argument, but it is a coherent one using reason and association of valuations and then applying it to those who seek fanatical, perfect world ends.  No matter who chants they are trying to make 'a more perfect Union' under this guise, they are pushing for full, perfect authority to dictate a new moral and social order without respect to society as a whole.  The guidance of perfecting our Union is to make ourselves, as individuals, more in harmony with each other and not to falsely misrepresent other individuals and then dehumanize them by applying a broad-based political tag or notation to them.  That view is divisive and asserts that people are just the sum of their tags, and if you could only properly tag everything they do then you would have the definition of who they are.

 

Unfortunately the tags never seem to run out, and those seeking to divide society against itself to enforce a perfect order upon society soon find themselves falling into categories that they don't like.  And when the shift becomes Orwellian, to actually move the meaning of words around to their opposites or obverse meanings, then the categories, themselves, become a means to so attack those who were once mere politically opposed as becoming a moral danger to the ones doing the tagging and changing of meanings.  As the attempt is to squeeze more and more people into categories they don't have agreement with, the fanatics find more resistance internally and become more open to attack externally.  By trying to 'protect the Earth' or the 'environment' and shutting down productive means to utilize both and ensure the common good, we are to disarm in front of Nature to become 'more in tune' with Nature... and the Law of Nature, red of tooth and claw becomes the new social order because that is how Nature is under the Law of Nature and Nature's God.  We must live with that.  We must not believe as did King Canute that we can REPEAL them.

Tagging is a form of notation, of course, and so is all of language as we need the representational ability to talk about things that have far deeper meaning than we can ever say.  A tree is not just a plant, or one that makes wood, or that grows in a forest, although all of those are possible.  Trees grow roots in the soil and thus have symbology of greater actions for individuals, and yet that is not fully the description of a tree, itself.  Nor is the shade that it offers in summer a full notation or tagging of it.  Nor its steadfastness in winter and against storms.  Nor is the roughness or smoothness of its bark added in fully a description of a tree.  It is all those things to us and so much more and is not, still, fully, any individual tree.  Our use of the notations we apply to a tree to denote these things is near infinite in expanse, and limited only by our Earthly selves and our perceptions. 

Yet a tree is a part of Nature and the Law of Nature, and while a tree not that red of tooth and claw, it does render us many things and we can appreciate it in many ways, both when alive and when cut down and dead.  That tree has value beyond price, and yet we can value it in just that way for its utility to us beyond those things that is part of its make-up, yet it also has a price valuation as trees have such high utility value to us as individuals and as a society for building and doing other liberty enhancing activities.  Because we can think and we can put a valuation, both price and non-price, and balance them, we can make decisions that cannot be made in Nature.  If we breed trees to serve a particular purpose, to grow faster and harder, say, for the express purpose of building materials, then the innate valuation, while no less different, becomes one put to purpose and use.  And if we worry about how we will impact other species on the planet, we can also recognize that the planet, itself, plays no favorites in what species live and die over time: it is even handed in what it administers and survival is based on factors not immediately apparent before it does so.  Nature is unthinking, and we are at its mercy as beings of Nature and only by rational examination of our actions and utilizing our liberty can we seek to create more from Nature than is provided by her.  To worship a tree as a tree is fanatical, to recognize its many characteristics, weigh them, balance them and see how any single tree fits within a wider context is to use reason and rational thought that in no way diminishes the stature of the tree, itself, but puts it into the context of multiple competing needs and seeks to find a sufficient outcome to those needs that still preserves the larger valuation of all trees while allowing society to still make use of them for purposes of liberty and social need.

When notation is added to individuals to try and separate them by class, by religion, by ethnicity, we are then assumed to have the characteristics placed upon those categories by those doing the categorizing.  Thus the rich are always snobs, say, or those in the Roman Catholic Church are Papists, or all Polacks are dumb (thus Dumb Polska), but those assumptions are, themselves, extremely broad-based and not distinguishing of the differences amongst individuals within a category.  Thus to be authoritarian is to put a descriptive tag or notation on a broad group of individuals that can have a wide variation within that group.  Roman Catholics follow the Pope for their religious views but may not actually believe the Pope is best set up to govern the planet.  In fact, quite a large percentage of people in Europe died fighting over just that qualification: that one individual was endowed to decide who was and was not a legitimate ruler of their lands in Christendom.  Although the Roman Catholic Church did not sign up to the Treaty of Westphalia, the Treaty covered those that had been in the 30 Years War that was fought over the point of religious freedom within Nations.  It is interesting that when a Pope from Poland or Germany is put in charge of the Church those individuals are STILL under the proscriptions of Westphalia... the once active renunciation of the Church would need to be re-iterated for each Pope put in power who comes from lands provided for under Westphalia as it is an eternal treaty between the warring factions and their faiths.

Our heritage provides for a different and, indeed, radical way of doing things as compared to the ancient uses of biased views depending on religion, ethnicity and politics:  judging people solely on their actions.

If one is looking to be 'fair' and utilize biases in culture, religion, ethnicity and such, then 'fairness' is an ever changing set of winds as guided by an elite group determining who one must be 'fair' to and who you can actively castigate via category.  It is an unhinged system that leads to ongoing warfare, factionalism and a slow degrading of civil society to one of harsh tribalism as 'fairness' becomes something that is only associated with given labels and utilized to break up society into those 'preferred' by the elite and those who are not.  To do this strawmen, stuffing and notation are used to put false representations of actions by individuals forward as what is actually happening.  Ad hoc or catch-all reasoning that puts a series of arguments down without connecting them those are pushed into the strawman and then those imputed to having supported those things is done in an attempt to then utilize negative connotations against them so as to silence them.  The disingenuous strawman serves as the basis for demonization via that methodology of placing negative connotations to the strawman that have no basis in fact.

At no point is judgment on the actual actions and rationale behind them examined because to do so requires an honest commitment to examining just what the actions were, their context and their basis for being, both in how they were done and why they were done via the means they were done. Applying a caricature, then, is an attempt to unmoor happenings from history and from the succession of events over time: to try and make a happening to be something done for just one cause when all of history points the opposite direction of multiple causation.  That level of dishonesty is horrific as it is not only destructive to our understanding of history, and attempts to make individual acts as not proceeding from previous ones, but it then puts fanatical application of ideology to single events and attempts to demean those using historical reasoning as being the ones that are a problem.

 

That is what we see, today, as those who opposed one politician running for office were deemed 'racist' even when race was not brought up by them as a set of reasons they opposed that politician.  Indeed, it was that politician who appealed via 'the race card' time and again to deflect legitimate criticism of his lack of experience, lack of character (his own great defining point during the campaign!), lack of political comprehension and a number of ties to crooked and criminal individuals who have gotten gain from politics due to such political corruption as seen in his environment.  To bring up those salient points was to be categorized as racist, even when none of those views has any connection to any race: anyone who has such political problems would have similar problems answering them, save for 'the race card'.  Once in place the deficits in character, lack of understanding of the greater culture, lack of contacts outside the small coterie of friends from a limited political environment, and general lack of ability to even reason through the Constitution in good faith have become apparent.

Yet to point those out is, somehow, 'trying to tear down the Nation' or based purely on political grounds, while NONE OF THOSE are based on political grounds, save for the lack of understanding OF politics by that politician.  Living in a hothouse of ideas means that when you go outside and are exposed to the general environment, the first ill-wind is likely to topple you.  Not great for a young tree, but a small loss.  For a Nation to have such a leader in the highest executive office means that the entire Nation is at peril due to the problems of that individual coming to the forefront as brought out by those who are not affected by any 'card'.  The 'race card' doesn't work against tyrants, dictators and despots: they despise all who are not in their ruling class without exception.  Nor does the 'compelling story card' mean something to those who are leaders of Nations as you are expected to be a leader from the moment you ENTER office.  Nor does the 'peace through disarmament card' do anything but encourage those that hate us to test us and seek out our weaknesses to strike at us as unbacked peace is a weakness and a supreme one.

And to continue playing 'cards' inside the Nation builds a house of cards.  Soon you find that one or two 'cards' divide the house and it will not stand.  As politics leaves unchecked power roaming in the capitol, it is grabbed by more and more 'Czars' who have no backing, no support, no check, no balance, only personal fealty to the President.  That is not how a Republic is run.  As the days pile up, so do the 'cards'.  The rumbling that is heard is not just the debt load of a misguided President trying to make government the supreme benefactor to all.

It is the foundation of Liberty shifting.

Soon one card will shift just slightly.

Then we will be back to Thomas Paine, and in need of Common Sense.