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I, Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States of America, do declare that said national emergency still continues to exist and pursuant to said section to do hereby prohibit the hoarding gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates within the continental United States by individuals, partnerships, associations and corporations…

~ President Franklin D. Roosevelt, April 5, 1933

Well, they went and did it.

Proving that they have learned nothing from history, Congress passed the massive $700 billion "bailout" bill that is allegedly going to save our insolvent banking system. I was hoping against hope that a populist rebellion might somehow stop the oligarchy from helping itself to the taxpayers’ wallets, but it was not to be. In the end, the plutocrats got their money.

Frankly, the logic behind the House of Representative’s final vote was incomprehensible. When the bill was a straightforward handout to the banks, they rejected it. But after the bill went through the Senate — which added dozens of pork-barrel spending projects and granted new Orwellian powers to the IRS — the House approved it.

How on earth could anyone rationalize voting for the second bill after they had voted against the first one?

Beats me.

Either way, our government took a fateful step down the road to perdition. This payment won’t be the last, since the solvency problem is much bigger than a mere $700 billion. By some accounts, trillions of dollars of bad mortgage-backed paper is sloshing around in the financial system. Most of it has no market, because no one knows if any of it is actually worth anything.

What’s more, the federal government is bankrupt. By any honest accounting, this year’s budget deficit was already heading toward the $600—700 billion range. Since the government can’t pay its existing bills, where will it get the money for this bailout?

The feds will either have to find new suckers to loan them more money, or they will have to turn on the printing press and ignite a nasty bout of hyperinflation.

But the scary truth is that still more disasters are lurking just over the horizon.

First, as Senator Harry Reid let slip the other day, our insurance industry is teetering on the brink. AIG has already gone under, and at least one more major company is allegedly about to give up its ghost. Once that domino falls, who knows how many more will follow?

And close on the heels of the insurance meltdown is the impending debacle in commercial real estate. Greenspan’s bubble not only inflated residential housing prices far above rational market levels, it also created a similar bubble in office buildings and shopping malls. Many banks and investment houses are just as awash in bad commercial real estate paper as they are in subprime mortgages.

Is the federal government going to take on these bad loans too?

If that isn’t enough to raise the hair on your neck, the horror doesn’t stop there. Since most state governments rely heavily on property taxes, their balance sheets are starting to drown in red ink. When housing prices drop by 25 or 30% and commercial real estate goes belly-up, so do tax receipts. Yet, unlike the federal government, the states do not control the printing press. They can’t inflate their way out of their predicament.

Governor Schwarzenegger of California has already asked the feds for a multi-billion dollar "loan." He won’t be the last. (After having thrown huge piles of cash at banks and insurance companies, can the feds refuse to rescue a bankrupt state government? Politically speaking, I seriously doubt it.)

Also waiting in line at the pig trough is a gaggle of corporations. During last week’s chaos, not many folks noticed that the big-three automobile manufacturers got a multi-billion dollar handout from the taxpayers. And now that a precedent has been established, look for other industries (the airlines, for starters) to belly up to the taxpayers’ bar for a shot of free "liquidity."

Can the government possibly do this? Can it absorb the entire residential and commercial real estate losses, bail out dozens of state governments, resuscitate the insurance industry, and hand out cash to unprofitable corporations?

Not hardly…at least not without resorting to the printing press, which will set off a tsunami of hyperinflation. As history has shown over and over, governments that spend themselves into a corner will inevitably try to escape their predicament with counterfeit money. Although this scam works in the short run, it causes much bigger problems down the road. Hyperinflation destroys the very basis of economic growth by poisoning the value of money. Without a stable currency, businesses and individuals cannot make long-term plans, since no one knows what anything will cost even weeks or months into the future.

Which brings us to gold.

Libertarians and paleoconservatives have been discussing just such a hyperinflationary scenario for years. For the most part, the consensus opinion has centered on precious metals. Since governments can’t counterfeit metal, gold generally holds its value whenever fiat currency is debased.

While this investment strategy is a good one, it comes with one major risk.

The reason governments inflate their currency is to surreptitiously confiscate wealth from those individuals who store their wealth in that currency. If too many citizens shield their wealth by investing in gold, they nullify the entire scam. Inflation "works" because citizens are forced — by legal tender laws — to store their wealth in a medium controlled by the government. As a government counterfeits its currency, it sucks wealth from all of those people who hold that currency.

The government cannot tolerate too many of its citizens successfully evading inflationary confiscation. In a worst-case scenario, a headlong rush into gold would destroy the dollar completely as individuals replaced it with gold as a medium of wealth storage and exchange.

This cannot be permitted under any circumstances, since it would undermine the very foundations of our governing elite’s power.

That is not to say that hyperinflation is the government’s only option. When faced with bankruptcy, the government could behave responsibly. It could bring its expenditures into balance with its revenue. It could slash the welfare state, defund the military-industrial complex, and withdraw it forces from the overseas Empire.

Unfortunately — from the plutocracy’s perspective — such a policy would also massively undermine its power and is, therefore, completely unacceptable.

If responsible management of public finances is a non-starter, the only other alternative is to rescue the dollar by banning private citizens from buying or owning gold.

Given these two options, does anyone doubt which one the government will choose?

If history is any guide, those individuals who have correctly predicted that our government’s policies will end in disaster — and who invest heavily in gold — will be demonized as "hoarders" and "extremists." In keeping with the theme of our age, such investors might even be accused of "terrorism" (Which, in a twisted way, makes sense. After all, if the government is going to continue to fight the "War on Terror," it needs money. And if the only way it can get money is by confiscating gold, then those who resist the confiscation are "aiding and abetting terrorism.")

Ominously, this logic would permit the government to invoke the Patriot Act and the infamous Military Commissions Act.

In practice, actual confiscation would be easy. Most gold is held in ETFs or bank vaults. The government could simply order these institutions to hand their gold over to the US Treasury. In return, the depositors would be issued compensation in the form of increasingly worthless Federal Reserve Notes (probably at an exchange rate that heavily favors the government. After all, the feds couldn’t allow "hoarders" to make "windfall profits").

Those citizens who hold physical gold would be somewhat more problematic. They would presumably be given a "grace period" to hand over their stash. After that, the feds might have to get a bit rough.

Since many folks would probably try to hide their gold, President Obama would ultimately have no choice but to send federal agents into the countryside and seize it. Given the recent demise of quaint Anglo-Saxon legalisms — such as search warrants and Habeas Corpus — this enterprise might not be as difficult as one might think. (Maybe this could be a job for those creepy, Mugabe-style youth brigades that have been popping up around the county.)

I realize that a potentially violent government seizure of private property seems farfetched — or even apocalyptic — but those who dismiss it out of hand should remember their history. After all, our government has done this before.

Steven LaTulippe [send him mail] is a physician currently practicing in Ohio. He was an officer in the United States Air Force for 13 years.

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Contemporary America is rather like an overdosed crack addict sprawled face-down in the gutter. For decades, our economy has been smoking the heady drug of cheap credit, which served to "stimulate demand" and produce pleasurable but artificial booms. Unfortunately, each boom was followed by an inevitable bust as the credit-fueled bubbles burst — first in internet stocks, and now in real estate.

Like every addict who finally "hits the bottom," America now faces a stark choice: Do we suffer through a violent, shaking withdrawal, or do we turn away from the painful rigors of "going clean" and reach for the bong one last time?

America’s addiction to cheap credit has ridden the nation into a box-canyon of sky-high debt and misallocated investments. The collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market has sent the balance sheets of our major banks into a sea of red ink. Strapped to a gurney and screaming for another hit, bank executives are now demanding a massive infusion of government (read: taxpayer) capital to re-inflate the bubble.

But this would only serve to "throw good money after bad" by perpetuating the ever-expanding mountain of malinvestments.

A better, "tough love" approach would be to simply allow the rotten structures to fall. This would liquidate bad investments and save precious capital for the rebuilding process.

Unfortunately, the folks with the most to lose by "going clean" are the ones with the power. The daisy-chain of collapsing financial structures has laid bare a horror-show of cronyism and corruption at the very heart of our financial and political system. The revolving door between quasi-governmental financial entities (like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) and the Washington power circuit has created a dysfunctional New Class that is determined to keep the racket going at all costs. If left to their own devices, this clique will eventually transform America into a giant plantation, with the vast majority of the population reduced to toiling under a lifetime of indentured servitude.

As I watched this circus of preposterous bailouts unfold last week, two distasteful ideas came to mind:

First, the quaint notion that America has a free market economic system is gone. In reality, our government is manipulating nearly every aspect of our economy in an inefficient and horribly unjust manner. Market forces, which normally function to sort out winners and losers, have been largely replaced by arbitrary government diktats.

For instance, our government is straining every fiber of its regulatory muscle to raise real estate prices (in a vain attempt to re-inflate the housing bubble). But this is not a socially neutral endeavor. After all, for every person who sells a house, there is also a buyer. When the government manipulates housing prices upward, the practical effect is to steal money from buyers and give the loot to the sellers.

Or consider our interest rates. The Federal Reserve has been holding interest rates at absurdly low levels (even below the inflation rate) for years, because easy credit policies give a short-term "stimulus" to the economy (and help to keep the bankrupt federal government from paying higher finance charges).

But for every borrower, there is a lender. If the government uses its influence to lower interest rates, it is essentially stealing money from lenders for the benefit of borrowers. Thus, folks who buy bonds or CDs are getting a far lower return on their investments because of the interventionist policies of their own government.

Another example is the carefully orchestrated campaign to keep stock prices inflated. It is a poorly-kept secret that our government maintains a "plunge protection team" whose main duty is to prop up the Dow and prevent any major downturns in stock prices.

Aside from the issue of whether stock prices are any of the government’s business at all (they aren’t), the government’s actions are again unfair and confiscatory. If a hypothetical investor analyzes the market and decides that stocks are overpriced, his most logical strategy is to sell short. If this assessment is correct and the market falls, he’ll make money. But government intervention to re-inflate stock prices steals wealth from the short sellers and gives it to long buyers.

In essence, our government has implemented a series of massive interventions in the marketplace which harm certain individuals for the unearned benefit of others.

By what right does the government do this? Why should a person who buys a house, or lends money, or short-sells stocks have his financial livelihood undermined by his own government? Are not lenders also citizens of our republic? Don’t short sellers pay taxes too?

And why should those who sell houses, borrow money, or take a "long" position in stocks be the beneficiaries of arbitrary government interventions? Is the world somehow a better place because these individuals make money at the expense of those on the other side of the trades?

The answer to these questions brings me to my second observation: The events of last week should make it abundantly clear — beyond any possibility of denial — that America is now a one-party state.

The great political division in this society is not conservative vs. liberal, or even Republican vs. Democrat. The great division is between a small group of plutocrats on one side, and the rest of the population on the other.

Time and again, high-powered, closed-door meetings were held to address the deepening crisis. Almost every major decision was made by people — like Fed Chairman Bernanke and Secretary of Treasury Paulson — who were never elected to anything and who are in no way accountable to the taxpayers for their decisions.

On the other hand, our actual elected officials were reduced to mere bystanders. Almost to a man (and woman), congress offered little, if any, objection to the plans hatched by the moneymen — even though trillions of taxpayer dollars were at stake. Despite some grousing and posturing, Barack Obama and John McCain were united in their support for a government bailout. Not even the heat of a presidential campaign could elicit a hint of disagreement or debate between them.

So the fix is in, and nothing is left for us but to watch events unfold.

By engineering a multi-trillion dollar bailout of the financial system, our ruling elites have decided to save themselves at the expense of main street America. They have elected to shun the rigors of free market economics, opting instead to reach for the enticing crack-pipe of government largesse.

And our bipartisan political class condoned this heist without any major objections.

When the day of reckoning finally arrives, the results will not be pretty.

Steven LaTulippe [send him mail] is a physician currently practicing in Ohio. He was an officer in the United States Air Force for 13 years.

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Although the unfolding drama in the Caucasus has been a tragedy for its innocent victims, the response by America’s political and media elites has been an entertaining and delusional farce.

To recap events, the government of the former Soviet Republic of Georgia launched a surprise invasion of South Ossetia (an autonomous republic within Georgia that has been functionally independent since the break-up of the Soviet Union). On the night of August 8, the Georgian military — armed and trained by America and Israel — stormed through South Ossetia and overran the region’s putative capital city (leaving it a smoldering ruin). Thousands of Ossetian refugees poured northward to Russia, bringing harrowing tales of Georgian brutality. As the Georgian army swept through the countryside, they encountered groups of Russian peacekeepers, who had been stationed there years ago to monitor a previous ceasefire. Several of those Russian soldiers were killed by the advancing Georgian forces.

As anyone with a remote understanding of Russian history (and human nature) should have been able to predict, the Russians reacted rather badly. Before the Georgians could consolidate their "victory," the Russians unleashed a devastating counterattack.

All in all, the Russian operation was a fairly impressive combined arms campaign that involved tactical air support, armor, mechanized infantry, and naval assets. The Georgian air force was destroyed on the ground, and the Georgian navy was sunk or neutralized. Russian forces quickly retook all of South Ossetia and seized critical chokepoints along Georgia’s highway system, effectively cutting the nation into three parts.

The smoke had barely cleared when the Bush Administration, the neoconservative pundits, and our lapdog media started crying foul. Russian leader Vladimir Putin was, inevitably, likened to Adolf Hitler. Georgia was portrayed as an innocent victim of unprovoked aggression. The Ossetian victims were quickly relegated to the Orwellian memory hole.

Although I am not a fan of Vladimir Putin (he is certainly not a libertarian), it’s hard to garner much sympathy for the Georgians. The Russian counteroffensive merely gave the Georgians a stiff dose of precisely the same medicine they were planning to give to the Ossetians.

All in all, it was a humanitarian tragedy, but hardly a heartrending tale of Georgian victimhood.

But America long ago ceased to analyze events with anything remotely resembling an objective moral standard. Nowadays, the only yardsticks our imperial elites understand are power and self-interest.

Over the past seven years, the Bush Administration strove to "contain" Russia by establishing Georgia as a regional proxy. This was quickly followed by the now-familiar horror-show of Washington special interest groups. The petroleum lobby wanted to control a vital pipeline that transports Caspian oil to the Mediterranean. The military coveted Georgian territory for "lily-pad" bases. The arms industry saw Georgia as a lucrative market for its new geegaws and gizmos.

It was a wonderful little playground, and everything was going swimmingly until Putin came along and kicked over the apple cart.

But from all the whining in the media, you’d think it was the Russians who actually started the war.

The most telling example I’ve seen of neoconservative bellyaching was published by Leon Aron (a Russia scholar at the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute) in the August 13 edition of USA Today. Most of his article consists of ad hominem attacks on Vladimir Putin and petty ethnic slurs against the Russian people, but the real meat of the piece involves Aron’s description of a newfound menace he calls "Putinism."

"Putinism" is, he claims, a dangerous crypto-fascist ideology that is engulfing contemporary Russia. In the article, Aron lists the main tenets of "Putinism," and, in the process, reveals more about himself and the American Enterprise Institute than he does anything about Russia or its leaders.

There are, according to Aron, five major characteristics of "Putinism":

1. The intensely personal system of power in which the "national leader" rather than democratic institutions rule.
2. The state propaganda themes of loss and imperial nostalgia.
3. The idea of the besieged fortress Russia surrounded by cunning, ruthless, and plotting enemies on every side.
4. Spy mania
5. The labeling of political opposition as the "fifth column" traitors.

To the wearied libertarian ear, this newly discovered ideology should sound eerily familiar.

In truth, each and every one of these principles has already been embraced — and even glorified — by the very neoconservatives who now so viciously denounce Putin.

Take the first tenet, for example. The intensely personal system of power in which the "national leader" rather than democratic institutions rule.

Haven’t the neocons been claiming that our president reigns supreme in times of war, and that he is free to discard the constitution’s limitations on his power as he sees fit? Haven’t they supported policies that allow the president to finger anyone as a "terrorist sympathizer" — a designation that permits our government to imprison suspects without access to a lawyer or a court? (Or, even worse, to "rendition" detainees to overseas dungeons for a healthy dose of "enhanced interrogation techniques"?)

As for the part about "state propaganda," didn’t the Pentagon get caught paying pundits to plant pro-war op-ed articles in American newspapers? Haven’t the neocons been glorifying war as a necessary and desirable strategy for American "benevolent world hegemony"?

As for the part about "spy mania" and fomenting paranoia, can anyone rival the neocons in that department? It was the Bushites — not Vladimir Putin — who gutted the Fourth Amendment with a massive telephone and email wiretapping program — all executed without court-approved warrants. And what about the endless stories of grandmothers and handicapped people being roughed-up and strip-searched at airports because we are allegedly "surrounded by cunning, ruthless, and plotting enemies on every side"?

And what about the Putinesque strategy of "labeling political opposition as traitors." I vividly recall, during the run-up to the Iraq invasion, that anyone who disagreed with the administration’s war plans was promptly smeared and driven from public life by packs of slobbering neoconservative pit bulls. (Has anyone heard from General Shinseki lately?)

And let’s not forget some of the other memorable moments on the Bush II highlight reel.

Did Vladimir Putin suggest to his cronies that they should paint Russian warplanes with UN colors and buzz Georgian cities (thus providing a convenient casus belli if the Georgians should shoot one of them down)? Did Vladimir Putin sow fear among his people with stories of an imminent attack by fictitious, chemical-spraying drones?

Given recent history, the rest of the world must be watching Washington’s anti-Russian hissy fit with slack-jawed disbelief.

Although the reptilian nature of our ruling class long ago ceased to amaze me, there is one question that still piques my curiosity: When our elites write articles like this one in USA Today, are they aware of their hypocrisy? Are they totally deaf to the screams of their own irony, or are they coldly cognizant of their actions?

To put it another way, when the doors are closed and the cameras are turned off, do the neocon pundits kick back in the paneled AEI smoking room, light up a few cigars, and laugh at how stupid they think we all are? Or does some massive wall in their psyche prevent them from gaining true insight into their own nature?

Either way, I agree with Leon Aron about precisely one thing: Putinism — as he defines it — IS a dangerous and destabilizing ideology. But he needn’t go all the way to Moscow to find it.

Steven LaTulippe [send him mail] is a physician currently practicing in Ohio. He was an officer in the United States Air Force for 13 years.

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Iran’s President Ahmadinejad’s regime is a threat to all of us. His words contain a chilling echo of some of the world’s most tragic history.

~ Senator Barack Obama

Everywhere one turns these days, we find a politician screaming about Iran and the dire threat it supposedly represents to America. President Bush has been spinning dark tales about this for years, his claims dutifully echoed by most of the presidential candidates (with the musical score provided by Senator McCain). Even Barack Obama, ostensibly the "antiwar" Democratic nominee, has taken to rattling sabers at the behest of his new neocon handlers.

But if we brush away the rhetorical fog, does a tangible threat really exist? Is Iran actually a danger to our way of life? And if so, what does this threat look like?

Let us suppose for a moment that Iranian President Ahmadinejad decided that the time had come to launch a glorious mission to conquer the United States of America. Suppose, furthermore, that he proceeded to order the massive Iranian Army (actually, Ahmadinejad is not the commander of the Iranian military…but let’s put that aside for a moment) to board transport ships of the mighty Iranian Navy (although Iran doesn’t really have a navy, but let’s put that aside for a moment too) and set sail.

In concrete terms, how would this scenario unfold?

If the neocon warnings are accurate, this armada would have to sail out of the Persian Gulf, up the Red Sea, and through the Suez Canal (though why the Egyptians — Sunni rivals of Shiite Iran — would allow a massive Iranian military force to pass through the canal is another mystery).

Picking up speed, the armada would then sail across the Mediterranean Sea and through the Straits of Gibraltar. Once in the open Atlantic (though still without air cover or any logistical supply-chain whatsoever), the Iranian armada would then race across the ocean, presumably making landfall somewhere in New Jersey (where they could no doubt link up with their many secret agents posing as convenience store cashiers up and down the Garden State Parkway).

Once reassembled on the ground — but still without air cover or re-supply — this force would, according to our warmongering politicos, fight its way across the continental United States, thus completing Ahmadinejad’s mad plan of global domination.

This is, without embellishment, the actual threat that Iran poses to the United States.

Now some folks might raise an objection to this scenario, noting that Iran’s threat isn’t conventional, but nuclear. Iran is, they claim, working on an atomic bomb that could be used against us.

That, too, is sheer nonsense.

First, America’s 2008 National Intelligence Estimate concluded that Iran had ceased working on a nuclear bomb several years ago. Second, Iran does not have a delivery system capable of reaching the United States. Third, Iran knows that its hypothetical nuclear weapon could easily be traced back to Iran, meaning that its use against America would result in Iran’s immediate and total annihilation. And fourth, let us once again remember that Ahmadinejad — while he may be crazy — is not, in fact, the commander of the Iranian military and would have no control over this hypothetical nuclear weapon anyway.

The hard, cold truth of the matter is that Iran represents exactly zero threat to the American people or our constitutional form of government. Its army is small, its navy even smaller, and its air force nonexistent. Iran’s economy is in a shambles and its people are increasingly disillusioned with their government. Even if the Iranians somehow succeeded in developing a nuclear weapon, they have no delivery system, and they would have every reason not to use it against America.

Yet the war drums continue their ominous beat. President Bush persists with his bellicose rhetoric. John McCain continues to sing his deranged war songs, and even the saintly (toady?) Barack Obama has jumped on the war wagon.

The only civilized and proper response to this war hysteria is a healthy dose of disparaging humor. Those who, with a straight face, claim that Iran represents some sort of actual danger to America deserve only derisive laughter. They are ignoramuses (or…even worse…they know the truth and are trying to play us for ignoramuses).

Either way, we’ll be seeing those Iranian nukes about the same time that Saddam unleashes his legendary fleet of flying, chemical-spraying drones.

Until then, America should mind its own business and stay out of the Middle East. As our experience in Iraq has shown, nothing good awaits us there.

Steven LaTulippe [send him mail] is a physician currently practicing in Ohio. He was an officer in the United States Air Force for 13 years.

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“Naturally the common people don’t want war: Neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

~ Nazi Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering

It has often been said that "truth is the first casualty of war."

While this cliché is undeniably true, it reveals, like most clichés, a certain world-weary cynicism that is unflattering and downright dangerous, for it betrays the blithe acceptance of something that, in my opinion, should never, ever be tolerated: Leaders who lie about wars.

The American people are not, contrary to the assertions of our postmodern professoriate, an innately warlike people. For the most part, they prefer to be left alone to raise their children, toil at their work, and worship their God in relative peace.

Unfortunately, almost from our nation’s founding, Americans have been plagued by a political elite harboring globalist and utopian pretensions, a dark coterie of decision-makers who believe that no skirmish anywhere in the world should occur without American soldiers partaking in the bloodshed. Time and again, the American people have been manipulated and cajoled — sometimes kicking and screaming — into wars that were ultimately irrelevant to our national security.

Historically, this bloody trail began with phony stories about the sinking of the USS Maine, the casus belli of our involvement in the Spanish American War. The scam was perfected by Woodrow Wilson and FDR, who campaigned on platforms opposing our entry into European wars, even while they simultaneously plotted the opposite.

Having learned nothing, the American people fell for the same trick when LBJ staged the Gulf of Tonkin incident to precipitate our involvement in Vietnam, and yet again when George W Bush fabricated WMD intelligence to justify our invasion of Iraq.

Through the years, at cocktail parties and the like, I’ve had many occasions to recite this litany of lies and infamy to members of the "establishment" (journalists, foreign policy intellectuals, or sometimes just particularly well-informed friends). They listen, respectfully and patiently — but unmoved — until my outrage is exhausted.

And then IT happens.

Sometimes IT is blunt and without shame, while at other times IT is carefully veiled with innuendos and code words. But the essence is always the same.

Inevitably, the "sophisticated insider" will hunch his shoulders ever-so-slightly and glance shiftily around the room, as if to ensure that no one else is listening. And then he’ll say something like: "Steve, what you’re saying is quaint, but it’s also unreasonable and more than a little nave. Of course people don’t want to fight wars, but what are our leaders supposed to do? We all know that some wars need to be fought. Unfortunately, the American people are selfish. They’re provincial. They are too wrapped up in their own little lives to care about what is happening in the outside world."

Then, he’ll lean forward and put a soothing hand on my shoulder. "I know it’s an ugly business, Steve, but sometimes our leaders have to tell noble lies. They do it for the greater good."

For a pregnant moment, this drivel sits there, simmering and smoking like a lump of molten sulfur from Hell.

Even now, safely removed from one of these exchanges, I can barely express my disagreement in a manner that won’t surge through the internet lines and detonate everyone’s motherboards.

Obviously, politicians tell lies, early and often. Such behavior seems to be an unfortunate but eternal vice plaguing our fallen race.

But that’s where the comparison ends.

If some small-town mayor claims that a new sewage project is vital to his community — although his real motive is to dole out contracts to campaign contributors — he is without doubt acting immorally. When a congressman swears he’ll never vote for a tax increase, and then does, he is committing a grave offense.

But the leader who uses fear-mongering and deliberate falsehoods to start a war resides on an entirely different plane of evil.

War is an utterly profound and tragic event, far different from sewage pipes and tax-hikes. When the dogs of war are unleashed, men and women are sent to fight, kill, and die. Children lose their fathers and mothers, parents bury their sons and daughters, and survivors return crippled, both physically and emotionally. As the "collateral damage" mounts, hospitals are flattened, schools are destroyed, and cities are burned to the ground.

How dare anyone defend lies of this magnitude with such casual and patronizing indifference?

Yet this morally bankrupt argument is accepted, verbatim, by the vast majority of our political and intellectual leadership.

Contrary to such elitist assertions, the American people are not ignorant cannon fodder, to be marched off at the whim of their liege-lords, nor are they calves to be fattened for the slaughter. Although our leaders often seem to forget, Americans are free citizens of a free republic.

Admittedly, the world is a dangerous place, and sometimes it is better to fight than not. But if a president becomes aware of a situation that he honestly believes might endanger our nation; he is obligated to address the people and to describe the nature and origins of the conflict. When he does so, it is his sacred duty to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

With so much at stake, there can be no room for lies, no place for exaggeration or manipulation.

Once the president makes his case, it is up to the American people to weigh the arguments and make a decision (which they can express through freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and through their elected representatives).

Without doubt, this republican system exposes us to a certain peril, for it is entirely possible that, having heard the truth from the president about a gathering threat, the American people might decline to fight (Though I consider this to be extremely unlikely. Americans have never walked away from any danger that truly threatened our nation and our constitutional form of government). Nevertheless, through some combination of cowardice, indifference, and slothfulness, the American people might someday decline to fight just such a war. As a worst-case scenario, our nation could even be overrun and our people reduced to languishing under the boot of foreign domination.

In that case, the American people will have reaped the consequences of their decision. They will have purchased their enslavement with the coin of their cowardice. (One could only hope that someday a better generation would arise, one more willing to make the sacrifices that freedom sometimes requires.)

But the avoidance of such a tragic outcome does not legitimize the use of lies, fear-mongering, and deception on the part of our leaders. There is no philosophical justification, no twisted concoction of logic, which can claim otherwise.

When men march to war, they have an absolute, sacred right to understand the exact nature of the conflict and the precise reasons for their involvement. Any leader behaving differently, any official who tells "noble lies" or, even worse, incites wars at the behest of powerful special interest groups harboring ulterior motives, is not really a member of the human family at all. He is, rather, a being of abject evil.

Such practices may have been acceptable in Hermann Goering’s Germany, but they have no place in a land that claims to be free.

Steven LaTulippe [send him mail] is a physician currently practicing in Ohio. He was an officer in the United States Air Force for 13 years.

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It was to be the election they literally couldn’t lose.

Under Republican misrule, the value of the dollar has plummeted, we’ve blundered into two endless wars, and our economy is headed over a cliff. For seven years, corruption and incompetence have oozed from every pore of this administration’s mangy hide, and the president’s popularity rating rivals that of a bad case of head lice.

It would take an act of stupidity so implausible — a series of blunders so colossal — that the very idea the Democrats could let this presidential election slip away shouldn’t even be in the realm of possibility.

Yet somehow they are doing just that.

In all likelihood, Barack Obama will get the nomination, but he is a wounded candidate who probably cannot garner enough white working-class votes to win the crucial rust belt states. While the espresso-sipping NPR crowd may have been impressed by Obama’s race speech, it tanked with Joe Six-pack — who is the most critical swing voter on our contemporary electoral map.

Yet the only other plausible outcome would involve Hillary stealing the nomination (presumably through some trademark act of Clintonian chicanery). While she may enjoy slithering into the nomination, her victory would be Pyrrhic. Such an outcome would tear the Democratic Party apart. African-Americans, who have long been the most loyal Democratic voters, would rightly feel betrayed by the party machine. They would rise up in fury, or merely stay home. Either way, Hillary would be crushed in the general election.

Normally, this wouldn’t be much cause for concern. After all, neither party has shown itself to be honest and competent enough to properly govern America, so why should anyone care if the Democrats are forming a circular firing squad?

While I sympathize with this attitude, there is one little fly in the ointment: the Republican nominee.

Our country is collapsing under the financial and moral burden of imperial hubris. The system of government bequeathed by our Founders cannot long survive a policy of perpetual war for perpetual peace. The federal budget is skyrocketing, the national debt is exploding, and the government is systematically undermining the Constitution…all in the name of fighting an ever-increasing number of unseen "enemies."

In this regard, John McCain is even worse than George W Bush. With a maniacal look in his eyes and absurd war songs on his lips, McCain seems bent on escalating our existing wars and adding a few new ones for good measure. For the voter who loves the America of our Founders, a McCain presidency is the worst-case scenario. While the Democratic candidates admittedly may not be much better, it is nearly certain that they can’t be worse.

Thus, at the very moment when America needs the Democratic Party most, it is devouring itself with shocking blood-lust.

How did it come to this?

The answer to this riddle lies in the make-up of the Democratic Party.

The Democratic Party is not a coherent entity, but is actually a coalition of identity-based "groups" (feminists, blacks, gays, etc.) united by only two things: a deep-seated sense of victimization, and a burning desire for government largesse and/or preferential treatment.

Aside from these two things, the various groups have little in common and don’t even particularly like one another. Their marriage is strictly one of convenience.

For many years, the white liberal elite sitting atop this simmering stew has empowered itself by radicalizing these "groups" with brazen propaganda. This strategy engendered each constituency with a fanatical belief that they has been wronged by history and that they have a right to unlimited compensation.

In short, identity politics was a strategy used by the white liberal elite to leverage political support for their program of activist government.

The system worked fairly well until the "groups" began wondering why the white liberal elites were the ones forever sitting in the driver’s seat.

After all, why should the presidential nominee always be a liberal white guy (Mondale/Dukakis/Kerry/Gore etc.)?

Why not a feminist? Why not a black man?

And if the nomination is no longer restricted to liberal white guys, then which of the other groups should get the prize?

By itself, this turn of events shouldn’t have been a major problem for the Democrats. It could have been contained within the dynamics of the party, but fate intervened to throw a curveball.

So long as there was only one "identity group" candidate in the race, everything could have worked reasonably well. But unfortunately for the Democrats, two of the "groups" found a champion in the same election cycle: one feminist and one African-American.

Consequently, what could have been a propaganda-laden "historic campaign" for "equality" quickly became a dog fight between two competing "groups." In the process, the brawl has exposed the ugly, seamy side of identity politics.

So now the Democrats are trapped between two petulant, angry constituencies who each believe that "their time has come." Neither group particularly likes the other, and neither group believes the other has grievances equal to its own. Each group furthermore believes that if its champion should lose the nomination, the loss would represent yet another injustice in a long train of historical abuses.

Simply put, the Democrats have lived by the sword of identity politics, and they are now dying by that same sword.

In ordinary times, one could merely sit back and enjoy the poetic justice of it all.

But these are not ordinary times, and the outcome of this debacle may well be a McCain presidency.

And that, my friends, is no laughing matter.

Steven LaTulippe [send him mail] is a physician currently practicing in Ohio. He was an officer in the United States Air Force for 13 years.

DIGG THIS

I wander across the deck, sloshing my way toward the wet bar for one, last martini. The waves lapping against the gunwale gently spray my face as the solemn strains of Nearer, My God, to Thee float through the crisp night air.

Improbably enough — given the situation — it is the words of King Théoden of Rohan that haunt my thoughts:

Where is the horse and rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?
They have passed like rain on the mountain, like a wind in the meadow.
The days have gone down in the West, behind the hills into shadow.
How did it come to this?

How, indeed?

The signs are everywhere now. One needn’t be an apocalyptic LewRockwell junkie to notice that something is wrong.

Just for the heck of it, I’ve been keeping a little journal of events that I call "Milestones on the Road to the Depression."

In the past few months, I’ve had to make a slew of new entries.

#1. First run on a bank: Northern Rock Bank, September 15, 2007

The International Herald Tribune caught the mood quite nicely:

Terry Mays and his wife, both British retirees, decided during the weekend that a promise by the Bank of England to provide emergency financing for Northern Rock, the troubled British mortgage lender that has most of their savings, was not sufficient to calm their nerves.

The couple joined hundreds of other Northern Rock customers Monday as lines formed for a third day in front of branches where people waited to withdraw their savings.

“I don’t think the bank will collapse — but we just don’t have the nerves,” he said, surrounded by a group of depositors who had traveled with him to the central London branch from a southern one after being told that the wait there would be at least six hours. “I took some financial advice over the weekend, and I’m taking the money out to get peace of mind. We’re relying on this money for our pension.”

All I can say is, "Good luck, Mr. Mays."

#2. First Nationalization of a Bank: Northern Rock Bank, February 17, 2008

Unable to find private investors crazy enough to take over the failing institution, the British government went ahead and nationalized it. They will, no doubt, run it just as efficiently as the coterie of con-artists who were running it before.

The Washington Post quoted the polished and soothing words of UK Treasury chief Alistair Darling:

Darling told a news conference that the mortgage lender would be placed under temporary public ownership because both bids had failed to meet the government’s criteria for protecting taxpayers.

“The new board and the company will operate at arm’s length from the government, with complete commercial autonomy for their decisions,” Darling said.

I have no comment on this last assertion. I’m sure they’ll be every bit as independent as is our own Federal Reserve.

#3. First Housing Riot: Florida, March 12, 2008

The official policy of our government over the past several decades has been to help people realize "the American Dream." In practice, this has meant wholesale government interference in the mortgage industry for one purpose: cajoling financial institutions into making loans to marginal customers who wouldn’t ordinarily qualify for a mortgage.

In essence, the feds demanded easy loan policies, prompting financial institutions to loan money to practically anyone who could fog a mirror.

And now (surprise!) we come to find that people with bad credit are, well, bad credit risks!

Moving forward a few years, these sub-prime borrowers are now being tossed out of their homes en masse (although they should never have gotten a mortgage to begin with). And they are getting angry.

The Palm Beach Post describes the scene:

The overwhelming turnout of people desperate for housing money came as little surprise to Suzanne Cabrera, president of the Housing Leadership Council of Palm Beach County.

“This is an indication that housing it’s still a huge problem,” Cabrera said this afternoon. “It’s a reflection of people’s concern for housing, their uncertainty. I got people today asking me: was this my last chance to get housing I can afford?”

Several other things, such as mortgage foreclosures and high gas prices, are contributing to that feeling of insecurity and desperation, she said.

So whenever word gets out that voucher applications are being handed out, which she said doesn’t happen very often, people get full of hope

It appears that the government bureaucrats were unprepared and didn’t bring enough applications (…no shocker there), and the crowd turned ugly:

People grew agitated. Several fights broke out. Police and firefighters said they were prepared if things were to turn violent on a large scale. Nearly 50 firefighters and paramedics from the city, county and Delray Beach set up across the street in the Town Center mall parking lot.

Then an official came out of the housing authority building and announced through a megaphone that disabled people should come forward.

Instead, the entire crowd surged forward. People fell down and were close to being trampled, witnesses said.

“That’s when all hell broke loose,” said Shannon Pierce, 26, of Lake Worth. Pierce, who is six months pregnant and had been waiting in line since 6 a.m. “We almost got trampled over.”

What can you say? It’s subprime behavior from subprime borrowers.

This may have been the first housing riot, but I doubt it’ll be the last.

#4 Gold surpasses $1000 per ounce and oil passes $110 per barrel: March 13, 2008

There’s no real shocker here, either. When a government begins to "expand the money supply," the effects eventually manifest themselves in the price of those commodities that the government cannot manipulate or create out of thin air. After Bernanke cranks up the presses, more dollars end up chasing a finite quantity of oil and gold.

So, unsurprisingly, the price goes up.

But there could be something even more disturbing at work here. Namely, Bush and company may be preparing another war.

Iran? Syria? Lebanon?

We "wee folk" won’t find out until the bombs start to fall.

In a republic, the process of making war is simple and open. The people and their leaders debate the issues, weigh the opposing arguments, and then they make a decision. If they decide for war, the men go home, get their rifles, and form up on the village square (with their leaders in the front row).

In an empire like ours, wars are the result of the fog and mist of imperial politics. Lies and propaganda become the coin of the realm as competing factions struggle for power. Outside observers must learn to operate like Kremlinologists of old.

Which advisor is the most favored? Which lobbying group has purchased the most senators? Which general is about to get fired?

Without inside access, we are reduced to watching in horror as the various interest groups struggle to gain the upper hand, leaving us merely to wonder who our next "enemy" will be.

Conclusion:

America is heading into a deep systemic crisis. Our currency continues its free fall, unemployment is rising, and inflation is surging. Our political system has become radically dysfunctional. Our next Great Leader will be either Dr. Strangelove, The Wicked Witch of the West, or a genteel facsimile of Louis Farrakhan.

As the French foreign minister so undiplomatically observed, the magic is over.

America’s days as the world economic hegemon are winding down.

The sad thing about this mess is that it was completely avoidable.

The underlying cause is both simple and obvious: activist government (with a healthy dollop of incompetence and corruption).

Our ruling elite actually believed it could bring democracy to the Middle East by military force. The numbskulls actually thought that they could make every American a homeowner by the magic of regulatory fiat. They were absolutely convinced they could maintain an eternal "Goldilocks economy" through the wizardry of fiat currency expansion.

Like the Good Book says: Pride goeth before a Fall.

To be honest, it has been somewhat depressing to have spent years writing about this…all seemingly for naught.

So what’s left but to throw back that martini?

And hold the ice…there’s plenty of that where we’re all going.

Steven LaTulippe [send him mail] is a physician currently practicing in Ohio. He was an officer in the United States Air Force for 13 years.

DIGG THIS

Good God! What a terrible election this is!

I keep reading about the huge turnout in various primaries, and I’m dumbfounded. How on earth could anyone be enthused about this slate of candidates?

Am I missing something?

At the onset of this election season, I vowed that there were two candidates I absolutely, positively would never support. For a plethora of reasons, I consider both John McCain and Hillary Clinton to be totally unsuited to occupy the office of the presidency (actually, Rudy Giuliani was a third, but his candidacy thankfully never got off the launch pad).

So, as if to mock my concerns, the black-hearted gods that rule American politics have seen to it that these are precisely the two candidates who may well win their respective nominations (with Barack Obama as the possible spoiler for Hillary).

John McCain is on my verboten list for a simple reason: he’s crazy.

Polls show that Americans are overwhelmingly disgusted with our dual, no-win wars in the Middle East. But that hasn’t stopped McCain from telling crowds that he wants to occupy Iraq for another "50 or 100 years." Not satisfied with only two quagmires, he has darkly warned that there will be yet "more wars." He even sang the "bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" spin-off of the old Beach Boys tune at one of his campaign rallies.

And alongside his warmongering, he has an explosive temper and a fanatical look in his eyes that should unsettle even the most militaristic of voters. (To be brutally honest, whenever I see him speak, I half expect him to start ruminating about "fluoride" in his "body fluids" like that character from Dr. Strangelove.)

Lest I seem unkind, I should add that I harbor genuine sympathy for what Senator McCain endured as a POW. His suffering during those long years in captivity is beyond the imagination of the average person.

Unfortunately, sympathy for John McCain the man must not blind us to the policies of John McCain the candidate.

One would think that McCain’s experiences would have made him all the more skeptical of military misadventures. After all, if America hadn’t been involved in the ridiculous Vietnam War, John McCain would have been spared the entire horrific ordeal. He would have been home enjoying a normal American life instead of being tortured in the Hanoi Hilton.

But by some strange logic, McCain’s experience seems to have made him even more eager to start new wars. Perhaps it’s one of those odd, Freudian syndromes where the victim is compelled to repeat the same mistake over and over again, in the vain hope that he can "get it right" the next time.

Whatever the case, the last thing this country needs is to be dragooned into John McCain’s Kafkaesque psychodrama.

Simply put, his election would be nothing short of a catastrophe.

As for Hillary Clinton, I am stunned to disbelief that she has even gotten this far.

Before any Democratic voters pull the Hillary lever, they need to ask themselves a few simple questions:

Given the political freak show that we were forced to endure the last time; do we really want to go there again? Do we really want the Clintons — along with their retinue of clowns, court jesters, and small-time con artists — back in the White House? Do we want to read about new semen-stained dresses? Or more purloined FBI files? Or new stacks of missing law firm billing records?

And how is this woman getting any votes at all from a party whose members claim to be opposed to the war?

After all, Bush’s hideous bloodbath in Mesopotamia has the Clintons’ fingerprints all over it.

Hilary likes to brag that she gained valuable experience serving as her husband’s most trusted advisor.

OK…fair enough.

Would that be the same husband who slapped crippling sanctions on Iraq that killed over a quarter of a million Iraqi children? Would that be the same husband who bombed and strafed Iraq for eight long years, degrading its infrastructure and spreading death and misery in his wake? Would that be the same husband who signed the Iraq Liberation Act into law, thus making regime change in Baghdad the official policy of the U.S. government?

And what about Hillary’s own actions concerning Iraq?

In the Senate, she voted for the resolution that gave President Bush the authority to invade Iraq, and she enthusiastically supported the war in its early stages. And just like McCain, her current plans call for residual American troops to remain in Iraq indefinitely.

So can someone please explain to me the twisted logic by which Hillary Clinton is an antiwar candidate?

In truth, if the Democrats nominate her, they will make a farce of any claims that they were truly opposed to this war. They will, instead, make themselves and their party an accomplice to the whole bloody mess.

Since McCain and Clinton should be excluded from any reasonable voter’s consideration, we are left with Barack Obama.

On the surface, he seems like a nice enough guy. He has none of McCain’s psychological instability, and he doesn’t come off as a shrill ideologue like Hillary.

But when I listen to his speeches, I come away without any clue about his plans or policies. His orations are short on substance and laden with vague banalities and marketing jingles. I’m reminded of that old hamburger commercial where the two old ladies ask, "Where’s the beef?"

Furthermore, I’m suspicious about the motives of his followers. His rallies have the whiff of a Moonie conclave.

This celebrity adulation may be just harmless nostalgia, but it doesn’t make Barack Obama presidential material.

Truth is, he is too inexperienced to be trusted with the power of the presidency, and he is far too vague about exactly what he will do if he takes office.

Perhaps if everything was going swimmingly, we could indulge in this sort of politics, but America finds herself in a situation that is more precarious than at any time since the Great Depression. We are losing two wars, our banking system is insolvent (thanks to the Feds’ reckless monetary policy) and our government is spiraling toward bankruptcy.

Despite the seriousness of our predicament, the way out is simple (though not easy). We need a leader who clearly grasps the fundamentals of market economics and who appreciates the basics of our republican form of government. We need a leader who will reduce our overseas commitments, balance our budget, and restore our constitutional liberties.

In short, America needs a president with a solid, rational plan based on fundamental principles.

Looking at the polls, it’s becoming apparent that the American people want none of this. A significant portion of our population still thirsts for imperial glory. Another healthy slice wants the government to serve as a giant teat in the sky, regardless of the financial consequences.

Very few, on the other hand, seem willing to take the hard path that an authentic American restoration would require.

So instead, it looks like our next president will be a deranged militarist, a shrill neo-Marxist, or a sloganeering lightweight steeped in cultish adulation.

And all the while, the USS Titanic churns ever closer to its rendezvous with the icebergs.

Steven LaTulippe [send him mail] is a physician currently practicing in Ohio. He was an officer in the United States Air Force for 13 years.

DIGG THIS

A friend gave me the Lord of the Rings trilogy on DVD this past Christmas, and I finally got around to watching them the other day. Since I hadn’t seen the series in a few years, I’d forgotten just how magnificent the movies really are. Before their release, I had been openly skeptical that anyone could do justice to Tolkien’s marvelous trilogy, but director Peter Jackson and his cast and crew did it; they hit a grand slam.

As I watched the movies, I was struck by the timeless and universal themes woven into Tolkien’s tale. Power, and the seductive pull it exerts on the human psyche, is at the heart of the human experience and at the root of most of our tragedies.

By the time the final credits rolled, I got a sinking feeling that many of the movie’s characters and plot themes were being repeated all around us in a tragic example of life imitating art.

With several ongoing wars, an economy in peril, and a farcical electoral season upon us, the pursuit of power is the narrative of the day, and our cast of characters is veritably Tolkienesque.

Here, then, are my nominations for our very own Americanized version of The Lord of the Rings:

Saruman the White: Alan Greenspan

Alan Greenspan was once a white wizard of libertarianism. He preached the gospel of individual liberty and free market economics all over the world. For years, he collaborated with Ayn Rand, and he even wrote an eloquent paean on the virtues of the gold standard.

But as the years passed, he ensconced himself high atop the Fed Tower in Washington and hungrily stared into Sauron’s crystal ball. Seduced by the dark side, he sent forth swarms of counterfeit dollars, more destructive than any horde of uruk-hai, to obliterate our economy and wreck the livelihood of our people.

Frodo Baggins: Ron Paul

Long ago, America had rulers who respected our constitution and actually believed that there should be reasonable limits to the federal government’s power. During that time, the nation prospered and the people lived in peace. But when our Founders’ line disappeared, a succession of power-mongering con artists took over. Now, we teeter on the edge of bankruptcy in an age of intrusive government and ceaseless warfare. Ron Paul, a diminutive, humble man from a shire somewhere in Texas, seeks to take the One Ring and hurl it into the fires of Mount Doom. While there is always hope, his is a long and difficult journey, and his chances of success are slim.

Sméagol: Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton had the One Ring for eight long years. She reveled in its power and glory until it was taken away by George W. Bush. Ever since then, she’s been trolling around the countryside in a desperate quest to get it back. (Rumor has it that she goes to bed at night caressing a miniature copy of the Presidential Seal while mumbling "my precious.")

A coincidence?

Sauron: Alexander Hamilton

There are many candidates for the role of Sauron in this American morality play, but after some deep thought I believe the dubious distinction belongs to Alexander Hamilton. In many ways, he was the weasel in the Founders’ woodpile, the serpent in the Garden of Eden. While the other Founders were envisioning a radical new republic based on individual liberty and limited government, Hamilton worked tirelessly to fashion something very different. He believed in an omnipotent central government, an activist foreign policy, a powerful standing military and the benevolent effects of central banking. (One government to rule them all…and in the darkness, bind them). Though Hamilton has long since passed from the physical world, his fiery eye still hovers over Mordor-on-the-Potomac, a mortal threat to the remnants of our republic.

Gandalf the Gray: Lew Rockwell

Lew Rockwell, following in the footsteps of Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard, has walked the earth these past decades warning of the coming tempest. He has organized a small band of partisans and sent them forth to save Middle America from the evil hordes of Mordor.

Grima Wormtongue: Dick Cheney

In Lord of the Rings, Grima is the archetypical court manipulator. An inveterate liar and flatterer, he works his wiles on the hapless King Theoden to deliver Rohan into Saruman’s clutches.

Dick Cheney plies a similar trade in the White House, where he whispers his dark plots into the ear of our imbecilic president and moves his agenda of war and state capitalism inexorably forward.

The Dead Army of Dunharrow: The American People

Many years ago, these soldiers, also called the Shadow Host, pledged their lives in defense of Gondor. But at a crucial moment they betrayed their oaths. Instead, they fled into the caverns below Dwimorberg Mountain where they were condemned to a living death until the day they should somehow regain their honor.

The American people, likewise, were bequeathed a free republic courtesy of the sweat and blood of their forefathers. Through the years, that republic has come under relentless assault from those who would replace it with a militarized, authoritarian empire. And rather than fulfill their oath to defend that republic, the masses of the American people have retreated into a sheep-like, narcotized state of willful ignorance and indifference.

It remains to be seen whether some Aragon will appear and shame them into recapturing their birthright. But America may not be as lucky as the denizens of Middle Earth.

From what I’ve been seeing on the campaign trail this year, Sauron is coasting to victory.

Steven LaTulippe [send him mail] is a physician currently practicing in Ohio. He was an officer in the United States Air Force for 13 years.

DIGG THIS

"U.S. policy must be clear and unequivocal: We cannot, we should not, we must not permit Iran to build or acquire nuclear weapons. In dealing with this threat, no option can be taken off the table."

~ Senator Hillary Clinton

The world must work to stop Iran’s uranium enrichment program and prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. It is far too dangerous to have nuclear weapons in the hands of a radical theocracy. And while we should take no option, including military action, off the table, sustained and aggressive diplomacy combined with tough sanctions should be our primary means to prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons.

~ Senator Barack Obama

In this postmodern age, when marketing and media stand athwart our culture like titans, intellectual issues are often reduced to trite slogans. Our leaders discourage complex thought and assume that the masses have neither the capacity nor the desire to analyze anything more complicated than an advertising jingle.

For those following the Democratic Party’s presidential campaign, the latest example of this trend involves the debate over Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program. The major candidates have been mindlessly repeating the same mantra: Nothing can be taken "off the table."

But when we brush away the rhetorical fog, what are they telling us?

What the slogan means is that the Democrats, whose complicity and cowardice paved the way for the Iraq War debacle, are doing the same thing all over again. They are once again writing a blank check for the Bush Administration to run the United States over yet another Middle Eastern cliff.

So, for the benefit of the morally impaired Democratic candidates, allow me to list a few things that most assuredly should be taken off the table:

#1 Don’t incite a race war in Iran

Over the past year or so, stories have been bubbling around the media about a covert CIA war being fought inside Iran. Apparently, the Bush administration has decided to arm and train various ethnic militias in an effort to destabilize and intimidate the Iranian government. These militias have been carrying out a campaign of bombings, kidnappings, and assassinations.

ABC notes that one of our hired guns, a Baluchi ex-drug-smuggler named "Regi," has been particularly busy:

Regi is essentially commanding a force of several hundred guerrilla fighters that stage attacks across the border into Iran on Iranian military officers, Iranian intelligence officers, kidnapping them, executing them on camera,” Debat said.

Most recently, Jundullah took credit for an attack in February that killed at least 11 members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard riding on a bus in the Iranian city of Zahedan.

By what twisted plan has our government — which allegedly is intervening in the Middle East to "stop terrorism" — become a sponsor of state terrorism?

Iran is an ethnically complex society. Only half of its population is Persian, with the remainder comprised of Azeris, Kurds, Arabs and others. Since many of these groups have significant historical animosities with one another, the Bush administration’s actions could easily ignite a horrific conflagration.

Do we really want to be responsible for a massive, Bosnia-style race war in the heart of the Middle East? Will such a policy somehow advance the legitimate interests of the American people?

And if the sheer evil of such a policy isn’t enough, how would we feel if a foreign nation began to arm and finance racial and ethnic terrorists right here in the USA? What if another country armed Hispanic terrorists to kill whites in the Southwest, or armed whites in the South to kill blacks?

Would not such deeds be an act of war? Would we not view such a policy as a legitimate cause for retaliation?

The questions answer themselves.

#2 Don’t launch a first-strike nuclear attack on Iran

Were we not living in Bizarro World, this assertion would be more or less self-evident.

Even under dire circumstances, the use of nuclear weapons is fraught with moral hazards. These terrible weapons are capable of wiping out whole cities without discrimination between friends and foes. In the ensuing holocaust, both the guilty and the innocent die together.

While these effects are bad enough, the actual explosion is just the beginning. Nuclear weapons seed the atmosphere with radioactive debris and render whole regions uninhabitable. Even decades later, survivors often suffer debilitating diseases and their children have drastically increased rates of birth defects.

Nevertheless, the Bush administration has been kicking around the idea of surprising the Iranians with a nuclear first strike. Since Iran’s alleged nuclear sites are hardened, the neocons believe that only atomic weapons can "get the job done." (Lest anyone accuse the neocons of being heartless and cruel, administration sources claim they’ve decided not to use regular nuclear weapons, but rather "mini-nukes." If you believe the propaganda, using these cute, cuddly little weapons will avoid some of the nastier side effects of bigger bombs.)

That such a policy is even being considered speaks volumes about the contemporary American political landscape and the depths of depravity to which our government has fallen.

#3 Don’t ignore the Constitution

Article I Section 8 of the Constitution invests Congress with the following powers:

To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water; To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years; To provide and maintain a navy; To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;

Clearly, if the Bush Administration wishes to launch a surprise attack against Iran, it can only legally do so with a formal declaration of war. Congress wormed out of its constitutional responsibility before the invasion of Iraq. The result was a tainted military escapade that continues to bleed our nation of blood and money all these years later.

Congressional apologists argue that the post-9/11 atmosphere of panic and fear created an unusual circumstance that was craftily exploited by the neocons. After all, who wanted to quarrel with the administration at such a critical moment in history?

Whether that assertion is legitimate or not (and I think it’s a load of horse manure), the post 9/11 moment is gone. However pathetically Congress behaved during the Iraq War debate, the situation now is dramatically different. The American people have turned against the Iraq war and do not support a war with Iran.

If America is going to embroil itself in a third Middle Eastern war, let us do it the right way. Let Congress do its duty. Let the members stand up, be counted for posterity, and take personal, moral responsibility for our government’s actions.

After all, given the consequences for our troops and for the Iranian people, such a demand is hardly unreasonable.

Conclusion

The leading Democratic presidential candidates seem to be having difficulty finding anything to take "off the table" regarding Iran. This odd intellectual deficiency is all the more curious given the overwhelming opposition to another war among Democratic primary voters.

But even if we discount political expediency, what about simple humanity? Is it too much to ask that a candidate should foreswear the unprovoked nuclear incineration of innocent people? Is it too much to ask that our aspiring leaders should declare the instigation of racial and ethnic wars to be off-limits? Is it unreasonable to insist that they should promise to obey the constitution and to seek congressional approval before launching an unprovoked attack?

If any presidential hopefuls are so morally impaired, so intellectually crippled, that they are incapable of making such simple ethical distinctions, it is their candidacy that should be taken "off the table."

Steven LaTulippe [send him mail] is a physician currently practicing in Ohio. He was an officer in the United States Air Force for 13 years.

~ Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright

Can Ron Paul really win? Does he have a snowball’s chance of becoming the next president, or are we all kidding ourselves?

At the moment, Rep. Paul’s quixotic campaign seems to be picking up steam. His recent fundraising statistics reveal a blossoming, internet-based movement that is uniting libertarians and other concerned citizens from across the political spectrum. His performance in the media has been sharp, and his organization seems to be honing its message.

While there are plenty of reasons for optimism, I think we need to be clear-eyed about the road ahead. If Rep. Paul somehow manages to remain a viable candidate and to seriously challenge his mainstream opponents, things will get extremely interesting. He faces a set of obstacles unlike any other candidate in my lifetime.

When evaluating his chances, it’s important to accept one fact about contemporary America: This is not a democracy, and certainly not a constitutional republic. America is actually a carefully concealed oligarchy. A few thousand people, mostly in government, finance, and the military-industrial complex, run this country for their own purposes. By manipulating the two-party system, influencing the mainstream media, and controlling the flow of campaign finance money, this oligarchy works to secure the nomination of its preferred candidates (Democratic and Republican alike), thus giving voters a "choice" between Puppet A and Marionette B.

Unlike the establishment’s candidates, Ron Paul is a freelancer running on three specific ideas:

1. The federal government must function within the strict guidelines of the Constitution.

2. America should deconstruct its empire, withdraw our troops from around the world and reestablish a foreign policy based on noninterventionism.

3. America should abolish the Federal Reserve Bank, eliminate fiat currency and return to hard money.

This is not a political agenda. This is not a party platform. It is a revolution. The entire ruling oligarchy would be swept away if these ideas were ever implemented. Every sentence, every word, every jot and tittle of this agenda is unacceptable, repellent and hateful to America’s ruling elite.

The reasons for this are fairly obvious.

Through its control of the Federal Reserve, the banking elites make billions of dollars in unearned profits and exert enormous influence over the American economy. Countless industries and special interest groups (both foreign and domestic) have sprung up around our defense and national security budgets. The bureaucratic elites who dominate the federal government despise the Constitution’s limitations on their power and view the document as just an archaic "piece of paper."

Anyone who believes these folks will simply "walk away" if Ron Paul is elected president obviously doesn’t understand with whom they are dealing.

When its authority over the Southern states was challenged in the 19th Century, the oligarchy suspended the Constitution and launched a bloody war that killed three quarters of a million people. They arrested newspaper editors, deported antiwar congressmen, and burned down several American cities.

A century later, the oligarchy nuked two Japanese cities, killing thousands of civilians in the twinkle of an eye.

Victim of the Hiroshima atomic bomb

When its marginal interests were threatened in Southeast Asia, the oligarchy launched a devastating war that killed over a million people and left the region marinating in toxic defoliating chemicals.

Vietnamese civilians fleeing an air raid

To further its interests in the Middle East, the oligarchy slapped horrific sanctions on Iraq that killed 250,000 children (and then trotted out Madeleine Albright — one of Clinton’s blood-stained trolls — to smugly declare that the deaths were "worth it").

Malnourished Iraqi child

Keeping these facts in mind, we must ask ourselves a simple question: If the oligarchy was willing to behave this way to protect its often marginal interests, what would it do to stop a devastating assault on its very existence?

The attack on Ron Paul’s candidacy will begin in earnest when it appears he has an even remote possibility of winning. It will follow a fairly predictable path:

The first step is already in play. The establishment will start by simply ignoring him, by using its power in the mainstream media and their influence over campaign donors. If possible, they will find ways of excluding him from the debates.

This strategy is already failing. The internet and talk radio are outside the elite’s direct control and are being used effectively by Rep. Paul to "get the message out." (And mark my words, sooner or later the oligarchy will come for the internet. This medium has been a royal pain in their derriere from day one).

If this strategy fizzles, the establishment will move on to ridicule and fear mongering. Ron’s ideas will be grotesquely distorted in establishment media "hit pieces." They’ll say he wants to permit heroin use in public schools, or that he wants old people to die in the streets without their social security checks, or that he wants to allow greedy industrialists to dump toxic waste into our drinking water.

The next arrow in the oligarchy’s quiver will be scandal — real or fabricated. Usually, this takes the form of pictures, billing records, etc. involving financial or sexual hi-jinks. For folks with the right motivation and abilities, it would be child’s play to implicate him in some sort of phony ethical, moral, or financial skullduggery (e.g., doctored pictures, sordid media accounts from "eyewitnesses," etc.).

If Ron somehow survives this assault, the oligarchy will move on to the criminal justice system. On some fine day, a stretch limo will pull up to the Capitol Building and one of the establishment’s consiglieres (Jim Baker…or maybe Vernon Jordan) will ooze into Ron’s office for a "chat."

Maybe Rep. Paul forgot to fill out Form X109/23W on his 1997 income tax return?

Or maybe he drained a mud puddle when he built his new house…and maybe that puddle could theoretically be classified as a "wetland?"

Or, even better, maybe a close relative is in hot water with OSHA/FDA/IRS/you-name-it (federal prosecutors love to go after relatives in order to gain "leverage").

Rep. Paul’s sentence could be lessened, of course…provided he agreed to drop his candidacy as part of a "plea bargain."

Ayn Rand once stated that the hallmark of authoritarian systems is the creation of innumerable, indecipherable laws. Such systems make everyone an un-indicted felon and allow for the exercise of arbitrary government power via selective prosecution.

If this tactic somehow failed and it appeared that Rep. Paul was still a credible threat to win the presidency, then things could get dicey.

The establishment may decide to let him take office and then use their considerable influence to ensure his presidency ended in failure — mostly through their control of Congress, the federal bureaucracy, and the mainstream media.

The problem with this strategy (from the oligarchy’s perspective) is that it entails considerable risk. As president, Rep. Paul could use the substantial powers of the office to inflict untold damage to the imperial structure (especially if he chose to withdraw American troops stationed overseas). Worse, he could appoint anti-government u201Cideologuesu201D to a variety of positions in the federal government.

The damage could take decades to undo.

If these options fail, the oligarchy could resort to various u201Cextra-legalu201D strategies — anything from vote-rigging to trumped-up impeachment charges.

Either way, one thing is certain: The American establishment controls a world-wide empire, has the power to print the world’s reserve currency at will, and can enact virtually any law without constitutional constraint. Such power is rarely surrendered without a long, bitter struggle.

Steven LaTulippe [send him mail] is a physician currently practicing in Ohio. He was an officer in the United States Air Force for 13 years.

Steven LaTulippe Archives

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Never in my lifetime has America’s political elite been as disconnected from the people and as nakedly self-serving as it is today. Never has it been so self-absorbed, so disingenuous, and so full of unmerited pomposity.

While watching the South Carolina Republican debate a few weeks ago, I finally succumbed to Justin Raimondo’s theory that 9/11 ripped a hole in the space-time continuum and transported us all to Bizzaro World — an upside down universe of fun-house mirrors and distorted thinking.

I am, of course, speaking of Rudy Giuliani’s reaction to Ron Paul’s statement that our foreign policy has fueled Muslim anti-Americanism. Rudy seemed surprised and angry as he pandered to the crowd and demanded that Rep. Paul retract his statement.

Ron Paul, to his credit, stood his ground.

But as ignorant as Rudy’s comments were, the real strangeness is to be found in our mainstream media’s reaction to the incident. Even establishment liberals like Chris Matthews have treated Rep. Paul with bemused disdain and have written off his assertion as sheer quackery.

Since the debate, I’ve been scratching my head and wondering how the "mainstream" candidates and the "mainstream" media develop their opinions. At the very least, one would expect media analysts to objectively scrutinize the competing theories explaining 9/11.

After all, what else are "media analysts" for?

On one side, we have the "Rudy theory." This view — held by our entire political and media establishment — asserts that Muslim extremists are attacking America because they "hate our freedom."

Even a cursory examination of this hypothesis exposes its sheer absurdity.

Are we to believe that waves of Muslims have spontaneously decided to immolate themselves in suicidal attacks because we have freedom of the press and freedom of religion? Would the Muslim world initiate a horrific war with the most powerful military in history merely because we have elections and jury trials? Do they really hate Britney Spears so much that they would blow themselves up just to take a few of us down with them?

The questions answer themselves.

That this theory is the only one "permitted" in public discussions is proof positive of our descent into Bizzaro World. No other evidence is necessary.

On the flip side is the "Ron Paul" theory of 9/11.

Since WW II, America has been continuously inserting itself into the affairs of the Middle East. We have overthrown governments (Iran), financed dictators (Egypt, Pakistan, Jordan, Iran and others too numerous to mention), taken sides in sectarian conflicts (Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon), devastated Muslim societies with embargoes (Iraq, Libya, Iran, Palestine), launched campaigns of aerial bombardment (Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Sudan), stationed troops where they aren’t wanted (all over the Middle East, but particularly Saudi Arabia), and embarked on the occasional military conquest (Iraq, Afghanistan).

Given this legacy of death and destruction, is it so outlandish to suggest that these policies just might have something to do with the 9/11 attacks? Might not these policies be an underlying cause of the widespread hatred of America across the Muslim world? Is this idea so crazy that it should be excluded from "acceptable" political discourse?

Even if common sense doesn’t make the argument by itself, we don’t have to speculate as to why Muslims harbor such hatred toward America. All we have to do is ask the Muslims. In poll after poll, people across the Middle East have made it abundantly clear why they are angry with us, and it doesn’t have much to do with our freedom or our democracy, but it does have everything to do with our destructive foreign policy.

In the South Carolina debate, Rudy stated he’d "never heard" the theory that our bombing and strangulation of Iraq had any relation to 9/11.

What are we to make of that?

Is Rudy devoid of common sense? Is he totally ignorant of our government’s activities in the Middle East? Does he not have access to Google?

Or, alternatively, is he lying? Perhaps he knows full well that our foreign policy is inciting virulent hatred against our nation, but he has some ulterior motive that prevents him from acknowledging that fact.

Whichever is the case, one thing is evident: When our political situation has become so distorted that an obvious truism is discarded outright while an obvious falsehood is universally acclaimed, then something is seriously wrong.

Perhaps it really is Bizzaro world…or maybe it’s something more sinister.

Either way, given what I saw in South Carolina, it’s obvious that our political system is nowhere near curing what ails us, and we can expect more of the same for as far as the eye can see.

Steven LaTulippe [send him mail] is a physician currently practicing in Ohio. He was an officer in the United States Air Force for 13 years.

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Since I started writing for LRC, I’ve received a constant stream of emails from readers around the world. Every so often, I come across a few interesting ones that I feel obligated to share with the readership:

Dear Steve,

I’m the highest-ranking woman in the American government, and I recently took a trip to Syria. I had a wonderful time, but now I’m the target of ugly accusations and calls for my prosecution (for violating the "Logan Act").

Was I wrong to go?

Sleepless in San Francisco

Dear Sleepless,

Before we proceed with the specifics of this allegation, I should make one point perfectly clear: The Logan Act is a load of horse manure.

Specifically, it states:

Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

When America was a free country, a citizen had the right to go wherever he wished and to say whatever he damned well pleased.

But those days are long gone. The Logan Act directly impinges on our freedom of speech and our freedom of travel, and it proscribes this speech and travel for expressly political purposes. As such, it is an utterly un-American law and is completely unconstitutional.

You are the leader of a co-equal branch of government. The constitution grants you numerous powers for the conduct of foreign policy (the Bush Administration’s claims that only the executive branch is authorized to conduct foreign policy are also a pile of horse manure).

The American public is becoming impatient with a belligerent administration that refuses to talk to its enemies or listen to its friends. Our country is bogged down in two no-win wars and is teetering on the brink of a third. The people have lost confidence in this president and his cronies, and they desperately want someone to find better ways to deal with the problems of the Middle East. By opening a channel of communication with the Syrian government — a secular regime in no way allied with Osama bin Laden — you have advanced the cause of peace and helped to undermine the more Neanderthalic elements inside this administration.

As for the possibility of your being prosecuted, don’t worry. In the run-up to the Iraq War, the president violated numerous statutes, disregarded the Constitution, trampled the norms of international law, and flouted the basic principles of the Christian religion he claims to embrace.

If he indicts you, then you should impeach him.

We’ll see which one sticks.

Steve

Dear Steve,

Just a few short years ago, I was the highest-ranking African American in the history of the United States military and the first African American Secretary of State. The media loved me, the public loved me, and I was everyone’s golden boy.

But nowadays, I can’t get arrested.

What gives?

Woeful in Washington

Dear Woeful,

Let’s start with the positives. Over the course of your career, you did some amazing things. You served with distinction in Vietnam and then climbed the ladder of success to its very highest wrung. You occasionally provided a voice of reason in the face of ignorant belligerence. Along the way, you overcame many roadblocks and never stopped believing yourself and in the American dream.

I mention these things because I don’t want rest of my comments to minimize your accomplishments.

But unfortunately, the job of an advice columnist often requires "tough love."

You were inside the corridors of power when the Iraq War was being planned. You saw the scams, the lies, and the distortions. You knew from your experience in Southeast Asia that a war of occupation usually ends badly. You even accurately predicted this disaster with your “Pottery Barn” analogy.

Nevertheless, when the time came to make a decision, you sold out. You went to the United Nations and gave a presentation on Iraqi WMDs that you knew was complete twaddle. At that crucial moment, when everything hung in the balance, you decided to be a "team player" instead of standing up for what was right.

You are a good man who was called upon by history to be a great one, and you didn’t deliver. Now, everything you have accomplished will be overshadowed by your complicity in the sordid run-up to the Iraq war.

I feel badly for you, but not nearly as badly as I feel for those who have lost their lives, their health, or their loved ones to this wretched war.

Steve

Dear Steve,

I’m the leader of the world’s largest jihadi organization. After our attack on 9/11, I had a close brush with the US military at Tora Bora. They had us surrounded and were moving in for the kill, but for some strange reason they declared a cease-fire. During the lull, I successfully slipped across the Pakistani border to plot my comeback.

While I praise Allah for my luck, I still don’t understand what happened. Why did the Americans do something so stupid?

Bewildered in Baluchistan

Dear Bewildered,

As strange as it may seem, your attack on 9/11 was seen in some quarters as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Many powerful interest groups used the shock and horror of the incident to their own advantage.

The military-industrial complex, for instance, wanted a long, drawn-out "war on terror." The decades-long Cold War had been an endless money machine for them, and when it ended they were forced to suffer through years of relative peace (and lower defense budgets).

AIPAC and various groups of religious zealots saw Israel’s geopolitical situation slipping badly in the 90′s. They knew that something had to be done to "shake up the game board" and turn the situation in a more advantageous direction.

The oil industry wanted control of the Iraqi oil fields and pipeline routes through the Middle East.

The imperialist ideologues in our media and think-tanks wanted to construct an American Empire — complete with "lily pad" bases across central Asia — to facilitate American "full spectrum dominance."

The government’s national security apparatus exploited the public’s fears and pushed Congress into passing draconian new laws permitting the torture of prisoners, warrantless wiretapping of American citizens, and the suspension of habeas corpus.

None of this would have been possible if you had been captured or killed in the early days of the war. If you had been eliminated, the American people would have rightly assumed that the war was over. They would have taken a deep breath, thanked God you were gone, and expected things to go back to the way they had been before 9/11.

That would have been a disaster for those who harbored ulterior motives. How could they have justified the invasion of Iraq? The suspension of civil liberties? The doubling of the defense budget? The proliferation of no-bid contracts?

Do you have any idea how many hundreds of billions of dollars were at stake?

These groups needed an endless "war on terror" to achieve their objectives, and they required a poster boy/boogeyman to keep the people scared.

You can thank Allah if you like, but the facts suggest a simpler explanation: They let you go.

Steve

Steven LaTulippe [send him mail] is a physician currently practicing in Ohio. He was an officer in the United States Air Force for 13 years.

Steven LaTulippe Archives

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Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.
~ Henry A. Kissinger

Things are starting to get interesting.

Global markets, puffed up by the Feds’ loose fiscal policy, took a nosedive the other day, sending ripples of fear through investors. The mortgage industry, after years of irresponsible lending practices, is being wheeled to intensive care. Our troop "surge" in Iraq is producing an all-too predictable wave of violence, and our soldiers in Afghanistan are bracing for a brutal summer offensive by the Taliban.

The casual observer could be excused for wondering if anyone is steering this ship. And if so, do they have a plan? Is there a method to this madness?

The answers to these questions can be found, in my opinion, by examining the needs and wants of our ruling class.

Any honest analysis of history reveals one sober axiom: All statist political systems exist primarily to perpetuate the power and privilege of the elites who control the system. This axiom is true even for those systems that claim to oppose class-based privilege.

It has long been noted, for instance, that socialism is a failure because it "doesn’t work." While that may be true, it fails to account for the cold reality hiding behind the façade of socialist ideology. In truth, socialism "works" perfectly well for those who control the levers of political power. As was the case in the Soviet Union (and in our own statist, mixed economy) the governing elites who possess inside access to decision-making authority do quite well. They enjoy a guaranteed income stream, superior health care services, and a cornucopia of luxuries unavailable to the average citizen.

The key (for the elites) is to find a way to keep the scam rolling despite the negative effects of their own depredations, lest they "kill the goose that lays the golden egg."

The ultimate end-game of such systems is portrayed beautifully in Mel Gibson’s recent movie, Apocalypto. The Mayan Empire depicted in that movie faces a series of social, political, and economic crises that its governing class is at a loss to address, because the disasters stalking it are the creation of the very corrupt forces on which the rulers depend to perpetuate their rule.

In their desperation to maintain control in the face of mounting crises, the king and his feathered priests resort to the crudest method imaginable: human sacrifice. They gather the masses around a grand step pyramid and treat them to endless, demagogic harangues about the glory of the Mayan people, the invincibility of the empire, and the utopia that lies just around the next corner. The priests proceed to brutally kill innocent people in order to demonstrate their special relationship with the gods (and to send a thinly-veiled message to any dissenters in the audience).

Their argument is crude but effective: Only through such sacrifices — which conveniently must be mediated by the rulers — can the crisis be solved and the glories of yester-year return.

In a disturbing historical parallel, the depredations of our own ruling class are eroding the foundations of our society. Our massive, unsustainable deficit spending, our geometrically expanding regimen of stifling regulations, and our never-ending series of military misadventures are slowly but inexorably grinding toward a destructive climax. Our rulers are unable to address these problems because doing so would undermine the very privileges they seek to perpetuate. Thus, they have resorted to a variety of morally bankrupt strategies not unlike those of the Mayans.

This is, in my opinion, the ultimate truth behind our "war on terror."

Unfortunately for our ruling class, the current emperor is singularly inept. The military adventure in Iraq has the potential to backfire badly. Rather than perpetuating the rule of our elites, this war may well fatally undermine it.

President Bush and his dark retinue of feathered priests have, through a series of misjudgments and tactical errors, run the empire into a ditch in Mesopotamia. The president cannot go forward, and he cannot go back. He cannot win (and, from the elite’s perspective, he must not lose).

The Iraq war cannot be won because the objective was impossible from the start. America cannot "bring democracy" to Iraq through force of arms. To make matters worse, the war has badly sullied America’s reputation. Most of the world is disgusted by the war’s destructiveness, and much of our own population has become dimly aware of the underhanded methods used to promote it.

The only way America could win the Iraq War would be the Roman way, which would mean killing most of the Iraqi population and destroying most of the nation’s infrastructure. Having done that, we could then crawl atop the smoking ruins and proclaim our "victory" to the world.

Unfortunately, such a strategy would utterly discredit the empire and thus undermine the central purpose of the war (i.e. it would imperil the power and privilege of our elites).

But while victory is not an option, the empire can’t leave either.

Empires rule through force and threats. For the threats to be credible, the force must be effective.

What would our enemies think if we "turned tail" and left Iraq? Would they not sense weakness? Would they not assume that America is a paper tiger? Would they not pursue policies at our expense that would, in turn, threaten the power and prosperity of our elites?

This must not be allowed to happen at any cost.

To further complicate matters, a withdrawal would not only send a dangerous message to our enemies, it would send an equally dangerous message to our friends.

All across the world, America has cultivated a network of kings, dictators, and thugs who depend on the empire’s gold and lead for their continued rule. These satraps are now standing with their own feathered priests atop their own step pyramids and carefully watching what we do.

If we "bug out" and leave our Iraqi puppets swinging from the lamp posts, what will these allies think? Might they not doubt our value as patrons? Might they not begin to make alternate arrangements?

This would, in turn, threaten the power and privilege of our elites.

This "Catch-22" is, I believe, behind the curious paralysis demonstrated by the Democrats in responding to this war. The Democratic Party is, at its highest levels, very much a part of our elite class. They stand to lose as much from this debacle as the cronies surrounding President Bush.

Senator Clinton’s tortured approach to the Iraq War is a perfect example of this phenomenon. She voted for the war and, in its early stages, enthusiastically supported it. Since then, she has changed her position numerous times and has criticized the war without ever actually doing anything to stop it.

This erratic behavior is, I believe, a consequence of her ambition. She does not despise the corruptive power of the imperial presidency, she covets it. She realizes, at some deep, dark level of her psyche, that our defeat in Iraq and the humiliation of President Bush would have devastating consequences both for the American imperial project and for the office of the emperor itself.

That is very bad news for someone who wants to be the emperor.

But the plebeians are becoming restless. They are starting to ask uncomfortable questions.

Why are we in Iraq? What happened to the WMDs? Why are the military contractors all driving Bentleys?

The perilous situation in which President Bush finds himself is thus striking fear into the entire bipartisan ruling class. However much they may dislike Bush, his fate is inexorably entwined with theirs.

As I see it, only two things could rescue the imperial project from Bush’s ineptitude:

The first is another war.

The theory is quite simple. In times of war, the American people "rally ’round the president." Old sins are forgiven. The government is given a green light to further restrict civil liberties, to go further into debt, and to enact more controls over the economy. Dissent is suppressed and the governing elites once again become the object of popular adulation.

Thus, giving the wheel of war yet another spin is a tempting strategy, and Iran is an inviting target.

Unfortunately, there are some risks involved. America is on the verge of bankruptcy, a process that will be hastened by an additional war. The people are already frustrated by our stalemates in Afghanistan and Iraq (actually, calling them "stalemates" is a bit generous), and even our allies are expressing dissatisfaction with our aggressive foreign policy.

While a glorious victory in Persia could help transform our rulers from goats to golden boys, another failure would be catastrophic. A Shiite offensive in Iraq and a calamitous spike in the price of oil are but a few of the potential pitfalls.

While the masses may love a winner, they despise a loser (just ask Czar Nicholas II or Benito Mussolini).

If our ruling elites have their wits about them, they won’t allow the president to exercise this option. There are simply too many things that could go wrong.

Nevertheless, depending on how powerful Bush’s neocon Svengalis really are, the possibility shouldn’t be written off entirely

The second thing that could save the imperial project is another mass-casualty terrorist attack.

Let me first note that I doubt our rulers would actually stage a terror attack (if for no other reason than the risks and consequences of discovery would be enormous). However, if one should happen to occur, it would benefit our rulers immensely.

Before 9/11, the neocons were openly daydreaming about the positive effects of "another Pearl Harbor." They claimed such an attack would, at long last, focus the American people on foreign policy and prompt aggressive action against "our enemies."

A replay of 9/11 might well infuriate the American people enough to allow the government to "take the gloves off" in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our rulers might also regain their status as the objects of anxious hope and comfort for the frightened masses.

This could lead to more emergency diktats, more deficit spending, more no-bid contracts, and a more aggressive prosecution of the war on terror. In the ensuing violence, our ruling elite would probably emerge in a more secure position.

On the other hand, there are risks involved. If an attack succeeded, government officials might be blamed for incompetence (something they somehow avoided after the first 9/11). Also, rather than fury, the American people might react in the opposite way. Like the Spaniards after the Madrid bombings, they might begin to ask hard questions about the value of our interventionist foreign policy.

While these are very real possibilities, I believe they are unlikely. The American people are very different from the Europeans.

My guess is that Americans would be baying for blood.

There is, of course, a third option available to our ruling elites. They could reconstitute our republic. They could withdraw our troops from foreign lands and announce a new policy of noninterventionism. They could drastically downsize our government, repeal laws that suppress civil liberties, and reinstitute states’ rights.

This strategy would get us out of Iraq and Afghanistan, rebalance our budget, and remove the policies that have stirred much of the Muslim world against us.

Despite the obvious advantages, this idea is a non-starter.

The reason it is a non-starter can be found in my original assertion: All statist political systems exist primarily to perpetuate the power and privilege of the elites who control the system.

A policy that drastically downsized the federal government and ended our imperial foreign policy would have a dramatic, negative effect on our ruling elites. As members of a class that controls the world’s dominant nation, they live as Olympians. They wield power on a scale undreamed of by Moguls or pharaohs. The fame, the wealth, and the sex are just too seductive for them to ever contemplate "throwing it all away."

Why would they willingly abandon the one thing that our entire political system exists to perpetuate? Who, having worn the laurels of Caesar, would ever consent to being a mere Cincinnatus?

Even the remote possibility of reconstituting our republic strikes dread into our rulers’ hearts. It is the one thing to which they will never voluntarily consent. Anything — even starting another war or enduring a nuclear terror attack — would be preferable.

Thus, like Cassandra, we libertarians are fated to watch as the tragedy unfolds. Those who have the power to stop it, lack the will (or even the desire)…and those who have the will, lack the power.

Steven LaTulippe [send him mail] is a physician currently practicing in Ohio. He was an officer in the United States Air Force for 13 years.

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Then out spake brave Horatius,
The Captain of the gate:
“To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.

And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his Gods,

~ Thomas Babington Macaulay from "Horatius at the Gate"

The Soviet Union was perhaps history’s most illustrative example of the Total State, of statism run amok. During its lifespan, the Soviet government metastasized to all sectors of Russian society. At its height, it completely dominated Russia’s social, economic, and political life. Most expressions of authentic Russian culture were suppressed, corrupted and ultimately destroyed by the voracious monster that was Soviet communism.

When the inevitable collapse came, it left behind a people with almost no vestige of their organic culture. Nothing remained but twisted wreckage, a social wasteland inhabited by alienated and deculturalized refugees.

The statistics are well known. Since the fall of communism, a generation of Russian men has died early deaths due to alcoholism and disease. Hundreds of thousands of young women have been sold into the sexual slavery of a voracious international prostitution industry.

As a result, Russia has been in a state of demographic implosion, with plunging birth rates and a plummeting life expectancy. By some estimates, 70% of all pregnancies in Russian now end in abortion.

These statistics are all the more alarming when one recalls that, historically speaking, Russians have always been a prolific people, deeply immersed in a Christian, Slavic culture. That statism was able to create such a disaster in a relatively short period of time is a grim testament to its destructive powers, particularly in the realm of culture.

This tragedy illustrates a fundamental maxim: Culture is what people do instead of government (and, conversely, government is what people do instead of culture). Like bad money driving out good, statism advances at the expense of authentic, organic culture.

In two previous articles, I described the death of Western culture and its replacement by post-modernism. Those articles generated a lot of email, with many of the correspondents asking variants of a few simple questions: Was I advocating government action to enforce the dictates of organic culture? Do I wish to transform America into a medieval society? Do I want to force people to live like the Amish?

My answers are, quite obviously, no, no, and no. If I did, I could hardly call myself a libertarian (and any attempt to do such things would be destined to fail anyhow).

These correspondents are, in my humble opinion, misguided as to the true nature of where America is right now, culturally and socially, and how we arrived here.

Genuine, organic culture need not be imposed upon a society, because it sprouts from a particular people, their heritage, and their history. It is a spontaneous and natural expression of who they are, and it arises from the need to cope with the challenges of life and the profound, haunting questions of the human experience. Organic culture encompasses a collection of institutions, such as extended families, churches, fraternal societies, and ethnic associations, which function to insulate individuals from the perils of life and to place it in a coherent moral and philosophical framework.

Post-modernism, on the other hand, is the bastard child of statism. Like an evil doppelganger, it mimics organic culture in form, but it leads only to hopelessness and destruction.

As I noted in those previous pieces, the American version of statism is a four-headed monster. Economically, it expresses itself as a crony-capitalist system in which corrupt manipulators gain fabulous riches through the exploitation of "inside connections." In foreign policy, it expresses itself as imperialism (either the liberal kind, such as our assault on Serbia, or the conservative kind, such as our destruction of Iraq). In domestic politics, it takes the form of social democracy, with its choking, all-encompassing micromanagement of our lives. In the realm of culture, statism expresses itself as post-modernism, the disconnected, degenerate lifestyle that has spread throughout the Western world.

None of these manifestations would be possible (in any significant frequency) without the coercive interference of the state. In the process, post-modernism has taken over the functions of organic society and operated like a "cultural agent orange," defoliating everything in its path and leaving nothing but charred ruins in its wake.

While I do not advocate a statist program to impose organic culture, I do believe that organic culture can and should be reinstituted as our dominant civilizational paradigm. This could be achieved with several simple actions that are entirely consistent with libertarian philosophy:

#1 Abolish the welfare state

The family, both nuclear and extended, is the fundamental unit of civilization. It is the indispensable mechanism for the transmission of myths, values, ideals, and historical memory to succeeding generations. Without these things, as beautifully expressed in Horatius at the Bridge, every other human endeavor diminishes to the point of irrelevancy.

Whosoever lays a hand on the family, sets a match to the fabric of civilization.

As has been exhaustively noted elsewhere, the welfare state functions primarily to replace fathers with government subsidies. The practical effect of this policy is the debasement and disintegration of the family and, therefore, of civilization itself.

The methods by which this post-modern, matriarchal family system destroys civilization are legion.

First, a woman and her children are not, in the majority of cases, a viable and independent economic unit. Thus, this system is inherently parasitic and requires geometrically increasing statist interventions to subsidize it and to administer its manifold social pathologies.

Second, by replacing the responsible functions of men — and by ameliorating some of the negative effects of illegitimacy — the welfare state promotes dysfunctional masculine archetypes. That is a fancy way of saying that the welfare state permits women (and the culture at large) to devalue positive masculine attributes (such as loyalty, foresight, diligence, and emotional maturity) and to glorify negative masculine attributes (the reader need only watch a few minutes of MTV for innumerable examples of those).

Third, due to the absence of fathers (whose presence is actively discouraged by welfare), post-modernism short-circuits the intergenerational transfer of culture and values, with particularly tragic consequences for young men. In healthy, organic societies, the preparation of young men for their future roles as fathers and leaders is the single most important task of the entire culture. Using structured educational institutions, ancient rites and rituals, and arduous trials of the mind and body, a culture’s elders work diligently to channel young men’s aggressive nature toward socially desirable goals.

Without this guidance, young men become loose molecules, a danger to themselves and everyone around them.

Fourth, is welfare’s tragic effect on man’s quest for a legacy. The most important engine of civilization is the desire within a young man’s heart to build something better for his children (and, simultaneously, to honor the contributions of his forefathers by expanding upon their achievements).

In the post-modern system of family disintegration, young men are not sure who their children (or their forefathers) actually are. Families consist primarily of women and their children by various and sundry paramours.

Because of this break in the organic "chain of being," men’s time preferences collapse into a hedonistic pursuit of instant gratification.

After all, they have no ancestors to revere, and they have no descendants to bequeath.

Thus, the net effect of post-modernism, like all matriarchal systems, is an anti-culture marked by indolence, lassitude, and epidemic levels of criminal violence.

By simply unplugging the welfare state, this dysfunctional family system would immediately begin to unravel and be replaced by a more stable and self-sufficient paradigm based on solid, organic culture (without necessitating any "imposition of morality" whatsoever). The "invisible hand of the marketplace" would work its wonders as the cost of the post-modern system would shift to its participants, rather than be inflicted on the shrinking portion of society still capable of producing an economic surplus.

Also, in a culture without a welfare state, immature and dysfunctional paradigms of masculinity would quickly become devalued by women, and admirable masculine traits would become distinctly more desirable. And since young men are keenly attuned to young women’s preferences, those attributes would swiftly become the model for young men as well.

#2 Privatize marriage…and illegitimacy

Throughout the Western world, the state’s involvement in the institution of marriage has been nothing short of a disaster. What is supposed to be the central institution of civilization has become a political football for a bewildering variety of charlatans and ideologues who have encumbered it with a myriad of regulations, taxes, and complicated legalisms.

As should be no surprise, marriage has weakened in direct proportion to the advancing interference of the state. In addition, those institutions of organic culture which have historically functioned to define and enshrine marriage are withering in the face of this assault (yet another example of the maxim that statist "culture" drives out authentic culture).

On top of being destructive, government marriage policies are also unfair and intrusive. It is no business of the government’s whether a particular individual is married or not, and the government certainly has no right to treat citizens differently based on their marital status.

The solution to this whole mess is to divorce (no pun intended) government from marriage.

In practice, this means abolishing civil marriage, common law marriage, and any other laws that define, promote, or interfere with marriage in any way.

Marriage is a private contract between two people. It is not an opportunity for social engineering.

The practical result of the privatization of marriage would be to reinvigorate those institutions of organic culture which have traditionally administered it (which, for the most part, means churches and other religious organizations). These institutions could define their own marriage contract or oversee the negotiation of such a contract between the individuals in question.

For instance, if a couple wished to be married in the Catholic Church, they would have to accept the Catholic Church’s marital contract (or go elsewhere). This contract could define the tenets of the relationship and could predetermine the consequences (including child support) of a divorce. A divorce, should it occur, would then be handled by the Church’s ecclesiastical courts or in some other way as defined by the contract.

The state need not be involved in any way.

In addition, any institution, corporation or individual would be perfectly free to recognize (or refuse to recognize) any marriage contract.

The flip side of the privatization of marriage is the privatization of illegitimacy, which means that the government and its courts should not impose or enforce a marriage contract where none, in fact, exists.

For instance, if a man fathers a child outside of wedlock, he should have no enforceable rights to that child (visitation or otherwise). If he wanted such rights, he should have arranged for the formalization of the relationship before the child was conceived (or, alternatively, he should form a marriage contract with the mother after the fact).

Either way, it’s none of the government’s business.

On the opposite side, a woman who bears a child without a formal agreement with the father would have no right to child support (providing that support is one of the major reasons for the existence of marriage in the first place).

If the couple can’t — or won’t — reach an agreement on their own, the government has no business forcing one upon them.

This does, of course, raise the question of what happens to the woman and her child if she is unable to support herself and cannot rely on either welfare or government-mandated child support.

This eventuality is a major concern of all organic cultures, which have historically spared no effort in dealing with it. Each of the answers provided by organic culture, in addition to being preferable to post-modernism’s plague of family breakdown, would have numerous positive side effects for society in general.

Specifically, a woman could:

1. Form a contract with the father (i.e. get married): This will have the positive effect of encouraging family formation instead of family breakdown.
2. Rely on her family for support: Extended families are a centerpiece of healthy, organic cultures. They exist to pool risk and help with hardships that may befall its members. This option would thus strengthen this vital institution of organic culture by increasing its members’ interdependence. Also, this option would encourage families to be more inquisitive about the activities of its younger, female members (after all, the family may end up footing the bill).
3. Allow another family to adopt the child: There are plenty of good parents looking for children to adopt.
4. Rely on charity: This option would strengthen these important institutions of organic culture. Since most charities are religious organizations (rather than soulless government bureaucracies) they will be able to more effectively address underlying causes of social pathology rather than merely subsidizing them. Also, given the voluntary nature of charities, this option would eliminate the "entitlement" mentality that plagues government-run programs. Charitable institutions could impose a variety of rules and behavioral requirements by which the recipient must abide, or go elsewhere.

Again, whichever option she might choose, the framework of her relationship with the child’s father is none of the government’s business.

Some may object to this analysis by arguing that these policies are not in the "best interest of the child." In reality, there is absolutely nothing about post-modern culture that is "good for children." The situation today, which is rife with illegitimacy, abandonment, and abuse, has created the worst circumstances for children in America’s history. Children need a healthy, organic culture, not the degenerating morass that our statist system has become.

Some might also object that these policies will "let men off the hook," since men could make free with women’s sexuality and suffer no adverse consequences.

My response to this concern is: look out your window. Never in the history of Western civilization have so many men so blithely misused so many women with so few social consequences.

In Victorian England (a much less statist and much more organic culture than ours) a man who seduced a woman outside marriage was considered a scandalous cad. If he fathered a child out of wedlock and refused to marry the mother, he was a blackguard, a social outcast. Frequently, he would be disinherited by his own family, and not infrequently he would be violently confronted by male members of the woman’s family (and the fear of being skewered by an angry father’s rapier is also a remarkably effective form of birth control).

In reality, it is the corrosive effects of both welfare and government-mandated child support that have removed the social stigma of illegitimacy. That has allowed men to indulge in levels of sexual predation never before seen in Western civilization.

Welfare and state-mandated child support are the twin air hoses of the dysfunctional post-modern family structure. If we are to ever have a healthy organic culture again, both of these must be "tied off" so that institutions of healthy culture can grow in their place.

Otherwise, we will continue to spiral into the abyss.

#3 Abolish the Federal Reserve and privatize currency

Our society regularly throws people in jail for the crime of "grand theft, auto."

What, then, should be done with people who commit "grand theft, civilization?"

The Federal Reserve System is essentially a racketeering-influenced corrupt organization (RICO). It functions to debase currency and to hold interest rates below market levels for the alleged purpose of "stimulating the economy." The net effect of this policy is to slowly drain real value away from individuals who store their wealth in the inflated currency.

Central banking is thus little more than theft on a massive, societal scale. The purpose of this policy was summed up by none of than Alan Greenspan in a paper written before he turned to the dark side:

Stripped of its academic jargon, the welfare state is nothing more than a mechanism by which governments confiscate the wealth of the productive members of a society to support a wide variety of welfare schemes. A substantial part of the confiscation is affected by taxation. But the welfare statists were quick to recognize that if they wished to retain political power, the amount of taxation had to be limited and they had to resort to programs of massive deficit spending, i.e., they had to borrow money, by issuing government bonds, to finance welfare expenditures on a large scale.

Under a gold standard, the amount of credit that an economy can support is determined by the economy’s tangible assets, since every credit instrument is ultimately a claim on some tangible asset. But government bonds are not backed by tangible wealth, only by the government’s promise to pay out of future tax revenues, and cannot easily be absorbed by the financial markets. A large volume of new government bonds can be sold to the public only at progressively higher interest rates. Thus, government deficit spending under a gold standard is severely limited. The abandonment of the gold standard made it possible for the welfare statists to use the banking system as a means to an unlimited expansion of credit. [Emphasis mine]

That is an elegant summation of the monster that is now devouring America. By some estimates, the present value of our government’s outstanding financial obligations is somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 trillion dollars.

As terrible as that is, some people might ask what it has to do with the degenerate post-modern culture currently plaguing out society.

The answer is: plenty!

First, as noted by Greenspan, fiat currency allows the government to spend far beyond its means. This enables it to finance the plethora of destructive programs that are choking off organic culture and replacing it with dysfunctional, statist anti-culture.

Second, fiat currencies encourage vice and punish virtue. As the value of money is continually drained by government counterfeiting, the entire culture shifts to accommodate this fact. Borrowing is rewarded over investing. Spending is rewarded over saving. Profligacy is rewarded over thrift.

The net effect is to collapse time preferences toward instant gratification.

The third problem with fiat currencies is that government inevitably uses this power to create artificial booms. By "expanding the money supply," government can create the temporary illusion of wealth. Like all "free lunches," this infusion of unearned wealth exerts corrosive effects on the culture. Those historical periods of credit-stimulated booms always coincide with giddy, gin-soaked episodes of cultural decadence (the two most illustrative examples of this phenomenon were the "roaring twenties" here in the USA and the "cabaret culture" of interwar Berlin — a period which is still glorified by statist academics as being a wonderful age of "avant-garde").

Since there is no such thing as a free lunch, these periods of "boom" are always followed by periods of "bust." Unfortunately, by the time the average citizen catches on to the scam, it is usually too late.

The solution to the plague of fiat currency is the gold standard. Preferably, currency should be removed from the government’s grasp altogether and replaced with private sector currencies. Banks and other financial institutions could print their own gold or silver-backed money, which would compete with each other on the free market. Any attempt by these institutions to "expand the money supply" (i.e. counterfeit their currency and steal from their depositors) would constitute felonious fraud. Individuals could choose whichever currency they like for any particular transaction — based on its soundness and reputation — since legal tender laws would also be repealed.

This system would end the corrupt influences of politically-motivated currency debasement and would cut off an important source of statist contamination of our culture.

Fiat currency is like a prostitute with a mini-skirt and a case of Champagne. She may show you a good time tonight, but there will be some serious regrets in the morning.

The gold standard, on the other hand, is a pious maiden who zealously guards her virtue. If you want something from her, you have to obtain it the old fashioned way…you have to earn it.

#4 Abolish the public school system

The public school system is like a decomposing corpse dressed in a tutu and masquerading as a ballerina. While it may look like a functioning cultural institution from afar, the view from up-close is quite different.

Schools are, aside from the family, the most important institution of civilization. An absolutely critical attribute of any educational system is that the particulars of a specific culture be intimately integrated into the fabric of the curriculum. Students must learn their culture’s literary canon, its mythology, its customs and etiquette, and its historical narrative interwoven with their daily lessons. The development of the students’ character must be carefully supervised according to the tenets of a well-defined, consistent code of morality.

These goals are critical to the maintenance of a healthy, organic culture and are more important than the mere transmission of purely academic skills (of what use to society is a compulsive criminal who knows passable trigonometry?)

Our public school system is incapable of fulfilling this function for a number of reasons.

First is the notorious incompetence and inefficiency of any government bureaucracy. That the public school system is, in fact, failing to convey even basic academic skills is too obvious to merit further discussion. Likewise, the well-known deficiencies inherent to nearly all government institutions are also obvious to the point of being self-evident.

Second, America is simply too diverse (polyglot?) for any single school system to adequately address the demands of cultural education. Whose religion, for instance, should it teach? On whose history should it concentrate? Which sacred language should the students learn? (Latin? Hebrew? Arabic?) Whose system of morality should be conveyed?

The public school system has no answers to these questions. Its solution has been to simply divorce organic culture from education altogether (and substitute it with the worship of the state).

The result has been an unmitigated disaster typified by several generations of students disconnected from any organic culture whatsoever.

The public school’s alternate solution has been multiculturalism, the notion that each and every culture should be given equal time and emphasis in the curriculum.

This option is a dismal failure because it conveys nothing but an incoherent mishmash of conflicting (and even mutually-exclusive) cultural principles. A curriculum that tries to be all things to all students ends up being nothing to anyone.

A quick glance at the National Education Association’s curriculum recommendations says it all. It is a horror show of every conceivable post-modern intellectual fetish. It combines the politics of Michael Nifong, the moral philosophy of Paris Hilton, and the social psychology of Dylan Klebold. If this toxic brew fails to turn every student into a gun-slinging drug addict, it certainly isn’t for lack of trying.

A society cannot take a young person who is already being raised in a disastrous system of post-modern family breakdown and send him through an educational system based on these principles.

What pops out the other side is simply not capable of maintaining our civilization.

Conclusion

Since starting this series, many folks have asked me for my predictions.

How will this situation end? Am I optimistic about the future?

Not to sound "Clintonian," but my answer depends on how one chooses to define "optimistic."

Of one thing I am absolutely certain: our contemporary statist system, including its post-modern anti-culture, will eventually collapse. It is based on hallucinogenic debt levels, wildly metastasizing government, and a pompously messianic foreign policy.

It is actually somewhat amusing to hear our elites — especially in academia, government, and media — brag about this system’s alleged virtues (for the best example of this, one need only read the title of neocon Francis Fukuyama’s infamous The End of History and the Last Man). Our elites believe that all human evolution, from the acquisition of the opposable thumb, to the discovery of fire, to the invention of the wheel, has been mere prologue to contemporary Western statism. To hear them tell it, humanity has reached its zenith in our society, with its sleazy, Haliburtonized economy, its corrupt "Duke Cunningham" government, and its underwear-deprived "Britney Spears" popular culture.

That is clearly a self-serving delusion.

In my opinion, the only real question is how this system will die. Will it be methodically deconstructed with wisdom and foresight? Will America consciously decide to shrink its government, re-balance its books, and clean up its culture?

Or will the situation be corrected the messy way, with a Soviet-style economic, political, and cultural collapse?

Obviously, I hope the former is the case, but history shows us that statism is usually defended to the bitter end by those who profit from it the most. While each of the steps outlined in this article would help avoid a catastrophe, they would also seriously disempower our elites.

And pharaohs rarely yield their power voluntarily.

Early 21st Century America has the smell of Brezhnev’s Russia hanging in the air, and judging by the Soviet experience, what comes next is not pretty.

Steven LaTulippe [send him mail] is a physician currently practicing in Ohio. He was an officer in the United States Air Force for 13 years.

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What attributes make a given society "good?" What attributes make another society "evil?" Why does a society, at one particular point in time, rise to dizzying heights, only to later collapse into despair? How could the same culture have produced both a Cincinnatus and a Caligula?

These were the questions plaguing my thoughts over the past week as I read a variety of news stories concerning the degenerating situation in Iraq, the machinations of our political class in Washington, and the increasingly worrisome state of our economy. (I was also pondering these issues after seeing Mel Gibson’s latest movie, Apocalypto, which raises a myriad of disturbing questions about the nature of man and civilization).

Several weeks ago, I wrote a piece for LRC titled Statism, Post-modernism, and the Death of the Western World. In that article, I attempted to describe two alternate forms of social organization (which I called post-modernism and organic culture) and argued that the former is ravaging our culture. Since then, I’ve received numerous emails requesting that I develop those ideas more fully, and the above events finally stirred me to action.

Post-modernism is my name for a family of policies and practices that have taken over the Western world since the demise of organic Western culture, a demise that began with the French Revolution and culminated in 1914. Post-modernism is not, strictly speaking, a culture. It is an anti-culture; it is what people do in the absence of authentic culture. It is like a throng of weeds overrunning a flower garden after the rose bushes have died.

Statism, post-modernism’s antecedent, manifests itself differently in different areas of human endeavor, and a quick examination of our contemporary society reveals each of these vividly. In our domestic politics, statism is expressing itself as authoritarian social democracy. In foreign policy, it expresses itself as crass imperialism. Economically, it has evolved into a corrupt system of crony-capitalism. Culturally, it has morphed into a strange series of degenerate and dehumanizing habits and practices (post-modernism).

Each of these expressions of statism, like the threads of a sweater, is intimately intertwined with the others. They each act to reinforce one another, and each, in turn, promotes the growth of yet more statism.

Our domestic governance is, for instance, quickly shedding its constitutional boundaries and evolving into something wholly outside the visions of our Founders. Staffed by a bossy, overweening bureaucracy, our government is intruding into every trivial detail of our lives (or, as Lew Rockwell recently put it, the state treats us like Pavlov’s dogs, demanding the right to fine-tune our behavior through a variety of "carrots" and "sticks").

This policy, when projected outward, manifests itself as imperialism, which is typified by the accelerating frequency of American "nation building" and "democracy spreading" operations that are currently plaguing the planet.

Each of these policies, in turn, greases the wheels of the state capitalist system that dominates Washington. With ever more frequency, wealth in this country is not being accrued by those who "build a better mousetrap," but rather by those who excel in the favor-swapping, influence peddling, and no-bid contracts that dominate the Imperial capital (for an example of state capitalism at its finest, I ask the reader to investigate the history of the Carlyle Group.)

But these manifestations of statism have been fairly well-described and are almost too obvious to merit further comment. It is, rather, my intent to focus on statism’s cultural manifestation: post-modernism.

As mentioned above, organic Western culture is essentially dead. It survives only in a vestigial form among part of the middle classes and, in a purer form, among certain isolated, relic groups. In the process of destroying Western culture, post-modernism has replaced it with a dehumanizing system that has marginalized men, debased women, and discarded children. The resulting cultural debris, not coincidentally, has provided fertile soil for the growth of yet more statism.

Let us consider each of these in turn:

The marginalization of men

In a healthy, organic culture, boys are raised with the central goal of harnessing their aggressive nature and channeling it toward socially desirable ends. First among these is to prepare every young man to fulfill his future responsibility as the leader of his family.

Note that I have not said tyrant, or dictator, or bully. Such words are often substituted for the leadership concept by those who despise the idea of male leadership and who wish to misconstrue it as being something it is not.

Leadership is a call to duty, not a license to oppress.

As anyone who has ever been the captain of a sports team can confirm, leadership is the willing acceptance of additional burdens. A leader must be the first to hoist the load, and the last to put it down. He must rally the team when the chips are down, and he must serve as the rock upon which other members of the team depend.

Nature has, despite an avalanche of political bluster to the contrary, uniquely suited men for this role.

Post-modernism, on the other hand, has spared no effort to diminish and hide this fact, and it has displaced men from this critical role by a myriad of obnoxious political and social policies.

For instance, our education system, rather than preparing boys for this leadership role, actively defames and vilifies them. Our popular culture lampoons men and devalues their contributions to the family unit. The welfare state and our increasingly fascistic child support laws have promoted the displacement of men as well.

Thus bereft of their central social function, and viewed by popular culture as essentially disposable, young men have drifted into other, more destructive behavior patterns.

After all, where else can they go? What does anyone expect them to do?

Post-modernism is perfectly at ease with man-as-gangster rapper, or man-as-promiscuous cad, or even man-as-axe murderer…but it is not at ease with man-as-family leader, because such a role would threaten the fabric of the post-modern social order. (A society of disconnected rabble hopelessly addicted to "bread and circuses" will, on the other hand, always require a Caesar to lead it, and is thus more acceptable to statist ideologues.)

To experience a cinematic representation of man-as-leader within the framework of a healthy organic culture, I refer you again to Apocalypto. I won’t spoil the plot for those who haven’t seen it, but suffice it to say that it involves a man (an Indian named Jaguar Paw) who fights his way through the gates of Hell in order to rescue his pregnant wife and his son. His ordeal is one of the most gripping and emotional struggles you will ever see on the big screen, and the idea that his family would be somehow better off without him (and make no mistake about it, post-modernism does, in fact, believe this) is a moral obscenity of the highest order.

The debasement of women

Organic cultures go to great lengths to carefully define the proper avenues of sexual expression. They set forth rules for courtship, marriage, and child rearing (which are based on custom, etiquette, and religious principles). They do this both to protect women from sexual predation and to provide a stable environment for raising children.

Post-modernism is, on the other hand, a system of moral, ethical, and cultural relativism (post-modernism often claims that it is multicultural, but that assertion serves merely as a "cover" for the deconstruction of culture altogether and its replacement by nihilism). Post-modernism disdains any consistent set of ethics as naïve and oppressive. Being an anti-culture, post-modernism is a vacuum, little more than a self-indulgent lifestyle wedded to a series of addictions. As such, it should come as no surprise that the circumstances of most women’s lives have eroded steadily as post-modernism has progressed. The objectification of women’s bodies, the commercialization of female sexuality, and the woeful statistics concerning such issues as abortion and illegitimacy should give pause to anyone who believes that women are better off under the reign of post-modernism.

I first realized that Western culture had essentially disappeared when I read about Germany’s preparations to host last summer’s World Cup soccer tournament. The German government, with typical Teutonic efficiency, had constructed a series of elaborate tent cities near the soccer stadiums to be staffed by nearly a hundred thousand prostitutes.

I could only stare at the page in horror.

What can be said about a society that spends such enormous amounts of time and effort to facilitate the industrial-scale exploitation of its own daughters for the sexual amusement of visiting soccer fans?

Words failed me then, and they continue to fail me now.

By way of contrast, I remember seeing a movie some years ago about the Amish (who are, admittedly, a rather extreme example of an organic culture). The movie noted that when Amish women appear in public, they wear their hair up and cover it with a small, white cap. They do this because they believe that a woman’s hair is her crown, bestowed upon her by God, and that only her husband is worthy of seeing it in all its glory.

The distinction between these two cultural paradigms could hardly be more dramatic.

It is also important to note that the Amish are actually Germans. They share the same language and heritage as their sisters back in Europe…the only difference being that one group lives under post-modernism, and the other does not. And this is not an idle, philosophical distinction, since the consequences for the women in question could hardly be more divergent.

Aside from women’s exploitation and abandonment, post-modernism has also treated us to several other oddities. First among these is the emergence of predatory female sexuality.

Post-modernism has encouraged young girls to adopt sexual mores and attitudes that have been traditionally reserved for adolescent males. I’ve lost count of how many mothers of young boys have commented to me about this issue. These mothers are shocked at the forwardness and aggressiveness of young girls in pursuit of their sons (and I’m not even referring to teenage girls here, but rather 11 and 12 year-olds).

This strange, masculinization of female sexuality has also manifested itself in the bizarre epidemic of female teachers seducing their male students (sometimes as young as junior high). While this behavior has, tragically, long been associated with male predators, I don’t think it has ever been seen in women with any frequency…until now.

But alas, with post-modernism, all things are possible.

Overall, it is incomprehensible to me that anyone could believe that women living in this post-modern system are better off than those residing in a strong organic culture. In fact, I contend that women are worse off now than they have ever been in the history of Western civilization. Never have they been so exploited, so abandoned, and never has their sexuality been so crassly manipulated and commercialized

Nevertheless, some dare call it "liberation."

The abandonment of children

In my first article on post-modernism, I described its relationship to child-bearing thus:

Post-modern culture treats children as an expensive and peculiar hobby, something like a curious fashion statement. Children are, after all, expensive, messy, and they interfere with an active dating life. And if children are seen as a mere fashion accessory or an emotional indulgence, then one will do just as well as two (and much better than three or four). This attitude reveals itself in the demographic statistics of all societies that have adopted post-modernism.

While post-modern culture undeniably promotes sterility, it is also worth noting how it copes with the few children who do manage to be born.

The American family has survived revolutions, civil wars, famines, and plagues. It has emerged relatively intact from almost every calamity that man and nature could throw at it…until now.

The statistics are both depressing and well-known.

In a social democracy, society always degenerates into an institutionalized war of all against all, as each "group" desperately attempts to seize the reigns of public power and wield it against the other groups.

Since children do not have a voice in this system, and are not capable of organizing themselves into their own "group," they have largely been left behind. Post-modernism instructs individuals to seek their own pleasure with callous disregard for the effects on others, and it sternly admonishes anyone from voicing concerns about the moral consequences that result.

Under the destructive influences of statism and post-modernism, the family fabric first began to unravel in the black community. Their families had survived the additional traumas of slavery and segregation, only to be sucked into the bosom of the welfare state. They are now three or four generations into a dysfunctional, matriarchal family system that is awash in chronic welfare dependency and sky-high crime rates, fueled by an illegitimacy rate hovering in the 70—80% range.

The Hispanic community is following closely behind. They are being rapidly assimilated into post-modernism, with rising welfare dependency rates and an illegitimacy rate around the 50% mark.

Not to be outdone, the white community has been experiencing a slow-motion disintegration of its own, with recent rates of illegitimacy at nearly 30%. When one adds a burgeoning divorce rate to the mix, only a minority of white children in this country will make it through their childhood with an intact family structure.

The result of this cultural dysfunction is a generation of children largely left to their own devices (and to the tender care of a deplorable state-run education system). For the most part, they raise themselves, usually with some help from television and their peers (in the form of a violent, Lord of the Flies youth culture). Having no exposure to an authentic heritage, they are bereft of the most precious parts of the human experience. They are taught no myths, they read no literature, and are exposed to nothing sacred. They live in a starkly materialist world without even rudimentary knowledge of the thoughts and deeds of their ancestors.

In organic cultures, enormous effort is expended to socialize children into the values and norms of their society. Surrounded by their parents and their extended families, they are never far from the watchful eye of their elders. They are usually given productive chores at an early age, and they receive additional, intensive instruction in their history, culture, and value system by the elderly (who, by the way, are also typically abandoned in a post-modern system) and by their culture’s religious leaders.

By way of example, I am still haunted by an early scene in Apocalypto, where Jaguar Paw’s small tribe (which is really just an extended family) all gather around the fire to listen to its eldest member, an impossibly wrinkled and toothless old man, recite their culture’s creation story. It is one of the most moving and soulful moments in movie history.

Again, the contrast could not be more absolute.

Conclusion

The Western world has descended into a post-cultural state that has despoiled everyone involved. This process, while partially promoted by technological advances that are not necessarily related to a particular cultural or political philosophy, was nevertheless not accidental.

Many ideologues (Antonio Gramsci being the most famous) consciously promoted the deconstruction of Western culture for the purpose of rendering it more susceptible to the advances of statism. With malice aforethought, they tore asunder the cultural underpinnings of the Western world and left it with nothing.

The result has been twofold. First, this process has led to the death of a cultural tradition that was responsible for enormous beauty and creativity in its own right. Second, the demise of authentic culture has left an enormous human tragedy in its wake (about which most of the Western world is still in denial).

In my third and last article on post-modernism, I’ll discuss what I believe can be done, within the strict confines of libertarian philosophy, to create a better and more genuinely human form of social organization.

Admittedly, the most probable end-point of post-modernism is moral, social, and financial bankruptcy, which I believe is approaching just over our collective horizon.

Although I am not overly optimistic, history does have a way of turning in unexpected directions. The odds are long, but stranger things have happened.

Steven LaTulippe [send him mail] is a physician currently practicing in Ohio. He was an officer in the United States Air Force for 13 years.

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Christmas season is the traditional time to take stock of the year’s events and to reflect on the "big picture." Since there’s been no shortage of things worrisome and downright ominous this year, it’s important to occasionally focus on the positive. After all, one can’t go through life perpetually angry or depressed. While toiling in my daily routine, I’ve stumbled upon a variety of little gems that made me smile and remember what a wonderful world it really is.

So, with that in mind, here are a few of my favorite things:

Favorite New Artist: Carmen Monarcha

An acquaintance recently gave me a DVD of classical music’s preeminent gadfly, Andre Rieu, performing with his Johann Strauss Orchestra in Tuscany.

I should confess that I received the gift with well-concealed trepidation. Although Rieu is undeniably a talented violinist, there’s just something about him that rubs me the wrong way. Nevertheless, since I didn’t want to slight a friend, I eventually sat down and watched the concert.

As always, the music was wonderful. The musicians looked magnificent in their gowns and tuxedos, and the special effects were delightful.

Unfortunately, Andre was his usual self too.

But about twenty minutes into the concert, the lights dimmed and Andre announced the next piece, which was to be "O Mio Babbino Caro" from Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi. He then proceeded to introduce the soprano, one Carmen Monarcha. I sat, mesmerized, as she glided onto the stage like Venus rising from the sea foam. The song, which I contend is one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written, became nearly ethereal in her hands. Her voice resonated with almost perfect pitch and timbre. Each of her movements revealed that subtly coquettish yet paradoxically innocent sensuality that women of Mediterranean extraction somehow find instinctive. By the time her last note had echoed away, the audience was eating out of her hand. Young girls were twirling in their chairs. Couples were snuggling together. Old men were crying.

Her performance was nothing short of miraculous.

Later in the concert, she sang several duets with Carla Maffioletti (another Italian-Brazilian soprano who tours with Rieu), including Beethoven’s Ode to Joy.

Each song was more astonishing than the next.

Since seeing this concert, I’ve scrounged around for Monarcha’s other performances. For whatever reason, she hasn’t cut any solo CDs (what kind of a twisted world is it that permits a major talent like hers to be without one, but that simultaneously rewards huge recording contracts to bozos like Snoop Doggy Dogg and Kevin Federline?).

But she does, thankfully, appear on several of Rieu’s other DVDs.

If you enjoy classical music, you will be literally blown away by this young soprano. Hopefully, she will move past Rieu’s orchestra and into more mainstream opera circles, because she has talent and stage presence that appear only once or twice in a generation.

Favorite New Wine: Ridge Monte Bello 2000

Every Christmas season, I gather with a small group of friends who, due to our divergent schedules, I rarely see during the course of the year. We’ve made it an annual ritual to enjoy fine cuisine, share the year’s stories, and imbibe in adult beverages. This year, we chose a restaurant that is well known for its outstanding chef and its extensive wine cellar.

Upon arrival, and much to my chagrin, I learned that this establishment’s "extensive wine cellar" was limited to American labels only. While I don’t begrudge the owner his right to stock whatever wines he chooses, I’m not a big fan of American reds. Although Californian whites (especially Chardonnays) have a considerable international reputation, I don’t like most white varietals and seldom drink them.

Since Californian reds are not, in my opinion, very good, I was in a bit of a bind.

After I explained my dilemma to the group, one of my friends made a suggestion. I should, she claimed, set aside my prejudice and try a bottle of Monte Bello from the Ridge Vineyards (of Santa Clara California).

She promised I wouldn’t regret it.

I hemmed and hawed…and even considered ordering a pinot grigio. But, again not wanting to slight a friend, I grudgingly followed her suggestion.

It was an eye-opening experience, to say the least. This winery produces one of the smoothest and most delightful cabernets I’ve ever tasted. It left me literally flabbergasted. Later in the evening I sampled their zinfandel, which was also extraordinary. (NOTE: I have no financial interest in this product whatsoever.)

I don’t know what they’re doing at this winery, but they’ve smashed my bias against California reds to smithereens. These wines are as good — or better — than anything coming out of Europe or Australia.

Give them a try…you won’t regret it.

Politician of the Year: Representative John P. Murtha

Stretching back to my days in elementary school, my hometown’s congressional representative has been one John P. Murtha. He was a constant presence in our community, and I grew up regularly seeing his face on the local news.

Since familiarity with politicians often breeds contempt, I never really had a high opinion of him (which isn’t too surprising, given that I don’t have a high opinion of anyone in Washington). He is a liberal Democrat in the old Tip O’Neill/Dan Rostenkowski mold. He never met a tax hike he didn’t like. He slings more pork than a cook at Bob Evans. I’ve even suspected he has a secret desire to turn the entire country into a giant version of the Tennessee Valley Authority.

But all that is forgiven.

Over the past year, John Murtha has embarked on a one-man crusade to end America’s involvement in our Iraqi quagmire. Almost alone among congressional leaders, he has withstood the neocons’ smear campaign and has stuck by his convictions.

Given that he is a reserve colonel in the Marine Corps and a decorated Vietnam veteran, he has the credibility to call for a withdrawal without being disregarded as an anti-American liberal. Even more importantly, his well-known connections with senior brass at the Pentagon have sparked whispers that he has taken his cue from the generals, who think it’s time to end the war.

The social and political nature of his district makes his stand even more astonishing. He represents an area of southwestern Pennsylvania that is populated by hard-nosed, blue-collar workers and small town conservatives. This is a region where schools close on the first day of deer season and the only sushi you’ll find is in bait shops.

San Francisco, it is not.

The mere fact that Murtha could come out publicly against the war and not suffer a political debacle back home is a measure of just how low support for the Iraq war really is.

Nevertheless, the nation desperately needed someone of military stature and political prominence to stand up and speak the truth.

So, despite a lifetime of tax-and-spend liberalism, I applaud John Murtha for that rarest of Washington commodities: the willingness to speak out and risk one’s career to advance a noble cause.

Gadget of the Year: Flash Drives

For too many years, I’ve been struggling with the inadequacies of floppy disks.

Since I’m usually working on several columns at any given time, and I’m also finishing my first novel (if there are any agents or publishers out there who handle genre fiction, please feel free to drop me an email), I use a lot of memory. Back in my floppy disk days, I’d often run out of space while trying to save new data or while updating a large file.

Worse yet, the data would sometimes disappear altogether, for no apparent reason.

And if those perils weren’t bad enough, my toddler daughter took a mysterious liking to floppy disks and frequently absconded with them. Days later, I’d find the pilfered disk stashed inside a doll house or jammed into her toy music box. She had a peculiar fascination with tearing the little metal things off the end and bending them into modern art masterpieces (don’t try that at home…it leaves the tape exposed, which usually results in an unrecoverable data loss).

These tribulations came to a screeching halt when an employee suggested I switch to flash drives.

Since I’m conservative by nature, I was suspicious and skeptical. Are these gizmos reliable? Do I need to load a lot of complicated software to use them? Am I really ready to make this sort of commitment?

Thankfully, I went ahead and gave it a try…and I’ve never looked back.

These things are absolutely amazing.

My first flash drive only cost 25 dollars and had 512 megabytes of memory! I can remember PC hard drives with less memory than that! The thing is the size of a butane cigarette lighter, plugs straight into a USB port, and requires no additional software (if you’re using Microsoft XP).

On top of everything else, they are lightening-fast compared to old floppies.

So if you’re having portable data storage problems, run out and get a couple of these wonderful gizmos. They’ll make your life a lot easier.

Steven LaTulippe [send him mail] is a physician currently practicing in Ohio. He was an officer in the United States Air Force for 13 years.

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It couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch of guys.

I am, of course, referring to the 2006 election blow-out which saw the Democrats gain control of both houses of Congress. In some ways, as I mentioned here, this was an absolutely critical election. History demanded that the perpetrators of our reckless foreign policy be brought before the bar of public opinion. What would future generations, those suffering in the aftermath of these policies, have thought of us had we not acted? What precedent would have been set for future administrations?

Despotism, without political or legal consequence, would have become the order of the day.

One shudders at the thought.

So, in that sense, we can all rejoice that a measure of justice has been done.

Conservative radio hosts are claiming that the Republicans’ defeat was the result of their abandonment of conservative ideals. The talking heads claim the Republicans were seduced by power and that they detoured into the realm of profligate spending and cronyism.

While there is much truth to that assertion, it is also worth considering just how much the Republicans’ performance was not a betrayal of their true selves, but rather an unmasking of it.

When one looks at the history of the Republican Party, it has always been the party of state capitalism (or, more specifically, state corporatism). It was founded for the express purpose of seizing the levers of power for the Northeastern banking and industrial establishments.

Why, then, should we consider their behavior these past years to be a "betrayal?" Could it not, more accurately, be called an "actualization?"

While keeping these thoughts in mind — and without trying to sound too paradoxical — this election was also completely irrelevant. It was irrelevant in the sense that our new congressional Democratic overlords will not address either of the two major crises which imperil our collective future.

The first danger is our nation’s rapidly eroding financial situation. We are, simply put, sliding into bankruptcy. Our government, and indeed our entire economy, is buckling under the weight of debts ranging in the trillions of dollars. When deceptive "off-budget" expenses are factored into the equation, the federal government is spending some five hundred billion dollars more per year than it collects in taxes. Our annual trade deficit now hovers around eight hundred billion dollars per year, and is rocketing toward the trillion dollar mark.

For how long can we expect to live beyond our means to this ridiculous extent?

I’m not sure, but my guess is "not for very long."

Thus, the question of the hour is this: Will the Democrats act to reverse this trend?

I expect not. The Democratic Party is, above all, the party of wealth redistribution. They are watered-down European social democrats. Seeking government solutions to any and all social problems is the religion of our liberal elites (and is, in fact, the only religion they possess).

While the Republicans showed themselves to be experts in pork-barrel spending and dirty dealings, can we expect the Democrats to do much better? What is it about the history of the Democratic Party that suggests it will respond to our nation’s financial crisis with a program of fiscal austerity?

Nothing.

The beneficiaries of the Democrats’ redistribution and corruption schemes may be somewhat different from those of the Republicans, but my hunch is that the overall mathematics will remain the same.

The second danger confronting us is our chaotic, interventionist foreign policy and the consequences of this imperial overreach.

Where do the Democrats stand on this issue?

Last summer, I attended the first week of the annual Chautauqua Institution. The topic was "Russia." The seminars were organized by the Brookings Institution, a prominent liberal think-tank.

For several days, I sat through lecture after lecture (given by academics and ex-government types) on various topics including Russia’s economics, foreign policy, and social development.

The experience was, to put it mildly, alarming and depressing. Each speaker was worse than the next. Their lectures all amounted to bossy, patronizing diatribes demanding that Russia change every minutiae of its public policy.

Finally, at the end of the week, while sitting through the final panel discussion, I had had enough. I approached the microphone at question time and asked Strobe Talbot (the President of the Brookings Institution) some simple questions: "What gives us the right to dictate policies to the Russians? After all, are they not a sovereign nation?"

At first, he stared at me blankly, as if he didn’t understand my question, or as though I’d spoken in some strange, foreign language. Then, when the truth finally dawned, his look changed to one of condescending anger, as if his butler had just challenged him to a duel. When that reaction passed, he settled for mere contempt. He brushed aside my point and said (to paraphrase) "Of course we have the right to dictate Russia’s policies. We have the obligation to spread our values. We’re the world’s only superpower."

I hasten, at this juncture, to remind the reader that the Brookings Institution is a Democratic think-tank. Strobe Talbot is a liberal and a close associate of the Clintons. It was quite clear that he thought the idea of respecting Russian sovereignty, or of America minding its own business, was puerile and absurd.

This sums up the general opinion of our entire bipartisan political establishment.

Those who believe that this election will somehow end our imperial foreign policy are in for a deep and nasty surprise. America spends more on defense than almost every other nation combined. We have troops stationed in over a hundred foreign countries. We are bogged down in two no-win wars.

There is absolutely nothing in the history or ideology of the Democratic Party that leads me to believe it will reverse these policies.

So where does that leave us?

It leaves us sinking toward bankruptcy and trapped in a policy of perpetual war for perpetual peace.

And, rather than offering solutions, the Democrats will prove themselves to be a substantial part of the problem.

Steven LaTulippe [send him mail] is a physician currently practicing in Ohio. He was an officer in the United States Air Force for 13 years.

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Being "right" can sometimes be an unwelcome, and even dreadful, thing. Take, for instance, a boy who is convinced that a monster lives in his closet. He may hope he’s wrong. He may take solace in his parents’ soothing reassurance that the alleged monster is just a figment of his imagination.

But what if the door swings open and a beast really does emerge? The child may have a fleeting thought of, "Ah ha! See? I told you so!" But his glee will quickly evaporate in the face of his new, perilous situation.

On September 20, 2004, I wrote a column entitled It’s Almost Scapegoat Time. In that piece, I predicted the war in Iraq would end in failure and, when the failure became undeniable, the neo-conservatives would begin searching for a "fall guy" to take the blame:

My prediction is that the Iraqi situation will continue to deteriorate over the next year or two. At some point, the American people will then rise up and demand answers. Any number of things may be the final straw, such as the initiation of a draft or the extension of hostilities outside of Iraq. But whatever the underlying cause, the American people will not continue to bleed in Mesopotamia indefinitely.

At that time, our good friends the neocons are going to be in a serious bind. Having agitated for this war based on dubious arguments and questionable political maneuvering, they may find themselves in the spotlight.

In an honest culture, the neocons would stand up and take the blame. They would admit that this whole debacle was their idea, and that they were being deceptive when they sold it to the American people. They would offer sincere apologies and then fall on their swords as a way of making amends to their fellow countrymen.

But, alas, we live in foul times. And the neocons do not follow the code of the Samurai. So in keeping with America’s degenerate contemporary culture, what they really need is a “fall guy.” The neocons need to find a sucker to whom they can pass the buck while they lick their wounds and live to fight another day…

Over the past several months, things in Iraq have, indeed, descended into a full-scale melt-down. And, true to this prediction, the neocons have emerged from their lairs to discuss the war in a breathtakingly mendacious and utterly unbelievable article in this month’s edition of Vanity Fair Magazine.

In my earlier commentary, I guessed that the neocons would try to deflect blame onto one of several targets:

#1 President Bush:

In practice, this would be simple. Rummy and Wolfie would merely have to resign, while stating that their plans were brilliant but that Bush lacked the brains and courage to carry them through. They could point to numerous incidents where he disagreed with their proposals or allowed other White House factions to influence him. Cheney and Feith could write memoirs claiming that they begged Bush not to do X or Y…or claiming that they were just “following orders.”

#2 The military:

The second, more feasible route would be to blame the military leadership for corruption and incompetence. Perhaps the brass prefers to sit in comfy offices instead of being out with the troops? Maybe they were receiving kick-backs from contractors? Or possibly they were just too inept to prosecute the war to a successful conclusion?

After all, you can hardly blame Wolfie for the fact that the generals couldn’t comprehend his brilliant strategy. Clearly, what is needed is a thorough house-cleaning of the Pentagon brass so that outrages like this never happen again.

#3 The American people:

This alternative is usually reserved for megalomaniacs facing their final Götterdämmerung. Think Napoleon at Waterloo or Hitler in his bunker.

When things were going up in smoke, they turned their wrath on their own people, accusing them of being un-deserving of their grand visions.

As quickly became apparent in the Vanity Fair piece, the neocons have chosen option number 1, and have decided to toss the president overboard:

According to Perle, who left the Defense Policy Board in 2004, this unfolding catastrophe has a central cause: devastating dysfunction within the administration of President George W. Bush. Perle says, “The decisions did not get made that should have been. They didn’t get made in a timely fashion, and the differences were argued out endlessly.… At the end of the day, you have to hold the president responsible.… I don’t think he realized the extent of the opposition within his own administration, and the disloyalty.”

To David Frum, the former White House speechwriter who co-wrote Bush’s 2002 State of the Union address that accused Iraq of being part of an “axis of evil,” it now looks as if defeat may be inescapable, because “the insurgency has proven it can kill anyone who cooperates, and the United States and its friends have failed to prove that it can protect them.” This situation, he says, must ultimately be blamed on “failure at the center” — starting with President Bush.

Kenneth Adelman strays briefly into an attack on the military and CIA with his comments:

“The most dispiriting and awful moment of the whole administration was the day that Bush gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to [former C.I.A. director] George Tenet, General Tommy Franks, and [Coalition Provisional Authority chief] Jerry [Paul] Bremer — three of the most incompetent people who’ve ever served in such key spots. And they get the highest civilian honor a president can bestow on anyone! That was the day I checked out of this administration. It was then I thought, There’s no seriousness here, these are not serious people. If he had been serious, the president would have realized that those three are each directly responsible for the disaster of Iraq.”

While the neocons (surprisingly) didn’t attack the antiwar movement in the excerpts, they did take a few shots taken at the American people:

As the author, Vanity Fair’s David Rose, notes:

Their [the neocons] dismay extends beyond the tactical issues of whether America did right or wrong, to the underlying question of whether exporting democracy is something America knows how to do.

While these arguments were predictable, the neocons are nothing if not resourceful. In the course of the Vanity Fair piece, they also managed to come up with a few additional arguments that I hadn’t anticipated. These are real gems…unabashed signs of psychopathology.

The first of these is the "Adam-and-Eve" defense (as in, "Don’t look at me, it was all her fault")

Michael Ledeen, American Enterprise Institute freedom scholar:

“Ask yourself who the most powerful people in the White House are. They are women who are in love with the president: Laura [Bush], Condi, Harriet Miers, and Karen Hughes.”

That one is bad enough, but their next excuse is so breathtaking in its gall that I wouldn’t have dreamed it possible, even for the neocons. If anyone still doesn’t "get it" when it comes to this crew, I give you the incomparable Richard Perle:

Huge mistakes were made, and I want to be very clear on this: They were not made by neoconservatives, who had almost no voice in what happened, and certainly almost no voice in what happened after the downfall of the regime in Baghdad.

One can only stare at the words in stunned silence.

Frum, Perle, Ledeen, Wolfowitz, and the rest of them were just wandering around Washington, minding their own business, when, lo and behold, the government decided to invade Iraq. Forget all that nonsense about the Office of Special Plans, ignore the reams of propaganda, and discard all those silly pronouncements from the Project for the New American Century. Heck, the neocons were just as shocked and surprised by the whole thing as the rest of us.

No matter how low my opinion of the neocons might have been (and it’s always been very low), even I hadn’t have thought them capable of this level of disingenuousness. I’d like to say this whole Vanity Fair piece merely represents a case of rats jumping from a sinking ship, but after all the death and mayhem these people have caused, that would be an insult to rats.

Nevertheless, this isn’t just about the past and the present. Amid these revelations are important issues with serious ramifications for our future. America is about to enter one of the most critical periods in its history. The American people are going to want answers regarding this mess, and those answers will shape their opinions regarding our foreign policy for decades to come. Our entire political class, from Madeleine Albright and Hillary Clinton to Dick Cheney and Henry Kissinger, are going to strain every muscle and sinew to steer the public away from a systematic criticism of American interventionism. The establishment will be aided in this effort by a bewildering assortment of public and private institutions.

There are simply too many people making too much money and wielding too much power from the imperial project for it to go down without a fight. The military-industrial complex makes billions in profits. The diplomatic corps gets to stick its collective nose into every corner of the world. The various think-tanks garner millions of dollars in grant money to study our global "policy options." The generals get to move little figurines around on great big maps and play Napoleon Bonaparte.

Like a giant tapeworm in the alimentary canal of our body politic, they’ve engorged themselves on our blood and taxes for far too long to go away quietly. None of these groups is going to abandon interventionism just because a few thousand soldiers (and a few hundred thousand Iraqis) died in this war. Those lives simply don’t mean that much to the folks who control and benefit from these policies.

But we libertarians know the truth. Frum, Perle, and the others notwithstanding, this war was not a failure because of poor execution. It was not a noble idea messed up by an idiot president and some incompetent generals.

"Democracy-spreading" in Iraq was a bastard child from the moment of its conception. The entire idea of preventative war is insane. The idea that America can be the world’s policeman is deranged and totally at odds with the beliefs of our Founding Fathers.

We libertarians must drive these points home, or this obscenity will be repeated over and over again.

The neocons have been flushed from hiding and are taking flight. We must not lose this precious moment.

Steven LaTulippe [send him mail] is a physician currently practicing in Ohio. He was an officer in the United States Air Force for 13 years.

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America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without creating a civilization in-between.

— Oscar Wilde

Some time ago, I was at a friend’s house and happened to catch an HBO TV show called Sex and the City. Since I don’t watch much TV, I hadn’t seen it before. But after a few minutes, I was riveted to the screen and remained glued to my chair through several episodes.

The show is, in a word, horrifying. To give the Devil his due, it is also brilliant…in the sense that Hannibal Lecter is a brilliant criminal or napalm is a brilliant weapon. The writing, acting, and cinematography are amazing, the women’s lives are intriguing, and the comedy is truly hilarious.

But brilliance of production aside, Sex and the City has a number of profound socio-political nuances that dovetail with an issue I’ve been kicking around for quite some time; namely, that the Western world is experiencing the final stages of a cultural struggle between two radically different versions of social organization (which I call "organic culture" and "post-modernism"). This struggle is the single dominant issue of our age, and it defines a variety of conflicts both within Western civilization and between it and other civilizations, stretching from the relentless expansion of our government to our misbegotten "war on terror."

For those who haven’t seen it, Sex and the City tells the story of four thirty-something single women living in New York City. They live a life that, while all too common today, is perhaps unprecedented in human history (especially for women). They are completely deracinated and homogenized, having no discernable family, either nuclear or extended. They have no religious convictions. Their life consists mostly of wandering around Manhattan, eating in chic restaurants, maxing-out their credit cards in fashionable boutiques, and engaging in a bewildering variety of casual sexual relationships.

Despite the glitz, I came away from the show with a profound sense of melancholy, especially for the women themselves (and, more importantly, for any real women whose circumstances might actually mimic those of these characters).

In essence, their lives are more akin to that of animals than to anything that could be called genuinely human. They live lives dominated by impulses and sensations rather than by the intellect or the spirit, lives of indulgence rather than of purpose. They reside in the "eternal present," without regard for the future and without reverence for the past. Even more disturbingly, their lifestyle has a spooky passivity to it, a sense of slavery to their vices. If someone takes them to a swanky Thai restaurant, they’ll eat. If someone hands them a martini, they’ll drink. If a handsome guy appears, they’ll copulate.

That is, in a nutshell, the sum total of their existence. Their post-modernism really isn’t a culture, but an anti-culture. It’s what people do in the absence of authentic culture…it is a downward spiral into the abyss. These women are, admittedly, an extreme example. But the beauty of art lies in its ability to harness archetypes for the purpose of making social and political commentary.

At the opposite end of the spectrum lies what I call "organic culture." The most extreme examples of this form of social organization are the Amish and the Hasidic Jews.

Organic cultures are typified most importantly by a "chain of being." In such circumstances, an individual sees himself as one link in a family that extends back through innumerable generations, usually ending in a mythical creation story that connects him with the supernatural (early Romans, for instance, could often recite their ancestry back dozens of generations, ending with one of the Gods or Heroes of their mythology). Such an individual also looks to the future and adjusts his time preferences to account for the needs of future generations. Respect of one’s ancestors and concern for one’s descendants are thus wrapped together in a religious and culture milieu that is of profound importance in everyday life. These families are linked to other, similar families through the bonds of culture and religion. Together, they see themselves as a unique "tribe" moving through history toward some final destiny.

The Western world, beginning with the French Revolution and culminating in WW I (a pointless, fratricidal slaughter if ever there was one), is now drowning in the cesspool of post-modernism. Our intellectual and cultural elites have long since abandoned whatever remnants of organic culture they may have had and now totally embrace this new, dysfunctional cultural Weltanschauung.

This is of importance for several reasons. In particular, like Alexis de Tocqueville, I don’t believe a system of self-government can exist in the absence of an ethical people. A society of self-indulgent, cosmopolitan vagabonds cannot maintain a free republic.

Our system is, in fact, breaking down all around us. To borrow a term from the Marxists, post-modernism carries with it the seeds of its own destruction. This worldview, and its attendant self-destructive contradictions, is causing much of the decay we are now experiencing.

Specifically, post-modernism suffers from three major flaws that are leading to its (and our) demise.

Ethical relativism

Perhaps the most important task of any civilization is to develop a single, coherent system of morality (and to transmit that system to its youth). A functioning society requires almost continual interaction between citizens. And that, in turn, requires a high level of trust. Without that trust, and without a common set of principles on which to base it, the entire system unravels.

Post-modernism is marked by extreme relativism, secularism, and multiculturalism. In fact, post-modernism prides itself in its disdain for any system of ethics, believing this disdain represents "liberation" from oppressive social structures.

We can see the results of this philosophy all around us. We needn’t sail into the controversial shoals of sexual morality to appreciate the political ramifications of this post-modern view (though a deluge of illegitimacy and the accelerating break-down of the nuclear family are ultimately incompatible with a free republic).

On the contrary, we need look no further than our foreign policy and the status of our political leadership. Our attack on Iraq, based as it was on lies and deception, is exhibit A. Our use of torture, the repeal of habeas corpus, the CIA rendition program, etc. represent the breakdown of a moral compass at the highest levels of our government.

But our domestic policy is not much better. Take, for instance, something as petty as our government’s economic statistics. It is well known that such mundane calculations as our unemployment rate, our inflation rate, and our trade deficit are routinely "cooked" in order to deceive the American people about the true state of our economy. The government intentionally distorts our budget deficit figures to avoid making difficult spending decisions.

And whenever a spotlight is shined on Congress, what do we find skittering toward the baseboards? We see a system based, at its very core, on swindling, backstabbing, and favor-swapping. The Duke Cunningham scandal showed the banality of a culture where votes were for sale to the highest bidder. The Abramoff scandal revealed the dirty world of bribery/lobbying that dominates the halls of our government. The Shays scandal showed the seamy, sordid subculture that lurks around Capitol Hill after dark.

Many of these scandals have, as their common root, the amoral quest for the unearned, which is perhaps the final common denominator of our entire political system. But this represents, itself, a cultural and ethical failing that post-modernism has exacerbated to the extreme.

(As an aside, it is no coincidence that the Clinton and Bush II administrations, perhaps the most systematically dishonest and scandal-plagued presidencies in our history, are also the first two of the baby boomer generation. That cohort is the first generation in American history to have embraced post-modernism in toto.)

I, for one, am not surprised by any of these scandals. Post-modernism is locked into a dysfunctional synergy with statism, and each feeds into the other. Unfortunately, they are sucking all of us down with them.

As for organic culture, I’ve often mused that the Amish are a clear and present danger to our system. As Lew Rockwell noted recently, they take no welfare, they pay for their own medical care (in cash), they save for their own retirement, they don’t join our military on its exciting escapades, and they educate their own children.

At some point, I fully expect to hear of government bureaucrats recommending that Amish children be whisked away from their families and redistributed to urban housing projects for a less "antisocial" upbringing.

After all, if the Amish worldview should spread, our entire welfare-warfare system would literally collapse.

Auto-genocide

Post-modern culture treats children as an expensive and peculiar hobby, something like a curious fashion statement. Children are, after all, expensive, messy, and they interfere with an active dating life. And if children are seen as a mere fashion accessory or an emotional indulgence, then one will do just as well as two (and much better than three or four). This attitude reveals itself in the demographic statistics of all societies that have adopted post-modernism. Across the Western world (and some unfortunate parts of Asia), there has been a catastrophic collapse in birthrates. Over the next few decades, parts of Europe may see their populations fall in half.

Organic culture views children in a radically different fashion, which was summed up brilliantly by Oswald Spengler in his seminal The Hour of Decision:

A woman of [tribe] does not desire to be a "companion" or a "lover," but a mother; and not the mother of one child, to serve as a toy and distraction, but of many: the instinct of a strong tribe speaks in the pride that large families inspire, in the feeling that barrenness is the hardest curse that can befall a woman and through her, the tribe. Out of this instinct arises the primitive jealousy which leads one woman to take away from another the man whom she covets as the father of her children. The more intellectual jealousy of the great cities, which is little more than erotic appetite and looks upon the other party as a means of pleasure, and even the mere fact of considering the desired or dreaded number of children who are to be born, betrays the waning of the tribal urge to permanence; and that instinct for permanence cannot be reawakened by speeches and writing. Primitive marriage…was anything but sentimental. A man wants stout sons who will perpetuate his name and his deeds beyond his death into the future and enhance them, just as he has done himself through feeling himself heir to the calling and works of his ancestors.

This describes, in the simplest of terms, the difference between the two cultural worldviews. (As an aside, I’ve often assumed that the partisans of post-modernism understand — perhaps subconsciously — that their culture is doomed because of its inability to reproduce, and that this understanding could explain the overwhelming presence of these partisans in our institutions of education and popular culture, where they can corrupt other people’s children into their dysfunctional paradigm and strive to perpetuate that culture without having to actually reproduce themselves.)

Since the West has adopted this model, it has only two choices: It can throw off the yoke of post-modernism and reestablish an organic culture that is capable of reproducing itself, or it will be colonized and overrun by other, more prolific cultures. Western elites believe they can avoid a demographic collapse by importing replacement populations and corrupting them with post-modernism before the newcomers are able to impose their own organic culture on the host nations. This may work for America and its largely Hispanic immigrant population, but its prospects with European Islam are, to say the least, highly suspect.

The death of the sacred

Post-modernism is a materialist philosophy to its very core. By "materialist," I don’t mean greedy (though Heaven knows there is plenty of that), but rather I refer to the Marxist sense of the term. Post-modernism is anti-spiritual. It recognizes nothing beyond the immediate, concrete world. It has no higher aspirations and provides no spiritual sustenance to its adherents. If a man has food stamps, a welfare check, and a place in a government housing project, it believes he has everything he could possibly need or want. (Actually, that is true only as far as the commoners are concerned. For the post-modern elites, they require exotic ethnic cuisine, cheap immigrant household labor, and a custom Maybach…but this is a difference in degree, not kind.)

Despite these materialist assertions, mankind needs a "reverence for the sacred" to inspire him to loftier heights. One need only walk into the Sistine Chapel or enjoy a Bach requiem mass to see the results of an artist’s soul being touched by the divine.

The increasingly ugly and vulgar creations of our contemporary artistic world are, on the other hand, more likely a manifestation of post-modernism’s degeneration to its ultimate endgame: nihilism.

Conclusion:

It is difficult for contemporary generations to even imagine what has been lost. One of the reasons I enjoy cinematic productions of Jane Austen novels is for precisely this reason. It is fascinating to see what Western culture actually looked like before the collapse and to see how the people thought and acted. I’m fascinated by their complex manners, their vibrant sense of right-and-wrong, and their organic connection to their history (in Sense and Sensibility, even the bad guy, a total cad, carries a copy of Shakespeare’s sonnets in his pocket). Western culture has been withering since the early 20th Century. Those of us born during or after the sixties social revolution have no living memory of even a vestigial remnant of Western culture, but rather have experienced only the degenerate post-modernism, drenched in stifling humanism, absurd universalism, and fatuous egalitarianism, that has dominated ever since.

As Hans-Hermann Hoppe noted so trenchantly, democracy has led us down the primrose path to decadence, which in turn has provided continuous justifications for yet more statism. This system of decadence, however enticing and delectable it may sometimes be, is unsustainable. This cannot go on. It will ultimately end in bankruptcy, demographic implosion, or Road Warrior-style chaos.

If one believes in Spengler’s view of civilization as akin to an organic life form, then the West cannot recover its earlier, more pristine self any more than a senior citizen can be reborn as an adolescent.

In that case, the die is cast and we are finished. The women of Sex and the City will be our civilizational epitaph.

But if Spengler is wrong, then the possibility of a rebirth exists.

Only time will tell.

Steven LaTulippe [send him mail] is a physician currently practicing in Ohio. He was an officer in the United States Air Force for 13 years.

DIGG THIS

Every election season, various pundits and politicians declare the upcoming contest to be the most important one of our lifetime. The very future of the universe, they claim, hangs in the balance. But given the enormous inertia of American statism and the fuzzy distinctions between the major parties, that assertion is usually pure hyperbole. No matter which side wins, the erosion of our liberties and the growth of government continue more or less unabated.

Nevertheless, in the particular instance of the upcoming 2006 midterm elections, I think this cliché is spot-on. In all probability, the Republicans will suffer a crushing defeat this November, most likely including the loss of at least one house of congress.

Before I get reams of nasty email from those unhappy with this forecast, let me make one point absolutely clear: Predicting that the Republicans will lose is not the same thing as believing that the Democrats deserve to win. The Democratic Party has inflicted unconscionable damage on our republic. Their history is replete with militarism, statism, and socialism. They lied us into WW I, WW II, Korea, and Vietnam. They’ve been indefatigable in their promotion of ever-bigger government. They’ve overseen the creation of several gargantuan and unsustainable entitlement programs, and they’ve inflicted the plague of mindless political correctness on our culture. The Democrats are, in short, a pack of shameless, government-worshipping charlatans.

That said, due to the realities of our two-party political system, the only way the Republicans can lose is if the Democrats win, and numerous facts surrounding the upcoming election point to a decisive Democratic victory.

I base my prediction on three assertions:

#1 The American people will demand accountability

If the neocons should win this election and retain control of congress, it would set an appalling precedent for future generations. The administration engaged in a conscious policy of lies and deception designed to fool the American people into supporting their wars. They stoked the people’s fears and manipulated us in the most cynical ways. These wars have left much of the Middle East a smoking ruin and have caused the deaths of thousands of innocent people. In the process, the neocons have run our nation to the brink of bankruptcy and have soiled our reputation before the rest of the world. And if that were not enough, they have exploited the situation to enrich themselves and to gut the Constitution with a myriad of shady policies and programs (e.g., NSA email monitoring, extra-judicial wiretaps, torture, renditions, etc.).

It is inconceivable that they could get away with this, that there should not be a day of reckoning. It is unimaginable that they should maintain control of the government and win yet another election.

The American people, for history’s sake, will issue a verdict from the court of poetic justice. They will hand the Republicans a crushing defeat this November. To do otherwise would be to reward the neocons’ schemes and set a horrifying example for future generations of aspiring demagogues.

#2 The virtues of divided government

Describing the Republicans and the Democrats as political parties is somewhat of a misnomer, since it implies that they harbor some sort of transcendent philosophy that guides them in their policies and programs.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The Republicans and Democrats are actually more like carrion birds, like two vultures fighting over the eyeball of a dead wildebeest. They serve as bagmen for two antagonistic sets of special interest groups. Their sole purpose is to wrest control of the government’s machinery from the opposite party so as to siphon as much money as possible into the pockets of their patrons.

When viewed from this perspective, it becomes obvious why divided government works better than one-party rule. During the 1990s, when Clinton was president and the Republicans ran congress, the growth of government spending was much slower than it has been in the era of Republican dominance (despite their alleged belief in small government and fiscal conservatism). Over the past several years, the Republicans have embarked on a feeding frenzy of pork-barrel spending, no-bid contracts, and outright fraud. They’ve used their power to suppress investigations of malfeasance, undermine the Constitution and give free reign to the necons’ irresponsible foreign policy.

Since these excesses are becoming more apparent, even to mainstream conservatives, I believe that the voters will return to their preference for divided government this November.

#3 Apocalypse now

As unimaginable as it might sound, it’s looking more and more like the neocons are planning to attack Iran sometime after the next election. Yes, our military is overstretched. Yes, we’re losing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yes, we’re heading over a financial cliff. Yes, we were cynically manipulated into the last war. And yes, public opinion has turned decisively against the Iraq occupation.

But President Bush is, by all accounts, in the grips of a messianic dream in which he stars as the new Winston Churchill. He is the savior who will one day be proven right. He is willing to endure vilification (or, given his messiah complex, even enjoy it) as the personal price of saving the world from a nuclear Iran.

The consequences of such an attack would be catastrophic. The Middle East would explode. Our soldiers in Iraq would be engulfed in a massive Shia uprising. Hezbollah would enter the conflict by attacking Israel. Iran would aid the rebels in Afghanistan. The Persian Gulf’s oil could be blocked from the marketplace, causing a cataclysmic spike in oil prices.

There is no sane reason why Iran’s nuclear program should threaten us or prompt us to attack them. Iran is wedged between several nations with more powerful militaries than itself (such as Russia and Turkey). Nuclear-armed Israel and Pakistan are close-by as well.

This issue is simply none of our business, and we’re in no position to fight Iran even if it were. The American people are growing weary of endless war in the Middle East, and they’ll conclude that only a Democratic victory in November has any chance of stopping it. A Democratic House or Senate might launch ugly and contentious investigations into the events surrounding the Iraq War. They could expose the neocons’ lies and the propaganda campaigns, which might even lead to the indictment of a few of the more loathsome villains.

If this happened, it might…might…stop the administration’s march to war against Iran.

Conclusion:

In many ways, our republic stands at an historic crossroads. I do not claim that a Democratic victory would signal a return to limited government or a saner foreign policy. Rather, I predict the people will decide that a government divided between two warring parties would freeze the system and avoid some of the nastier excesses of single-party rule.

That is not exactly the same thing as having a government committed to individual rights and the rule of law, but it offers a hope that I believe voters will seize decisively come Election Day.

Steven LaTulippe [send him mail] is a physician currently practicing in Ohio. He was an officer in the United States Air Force for 13 years.

DIGG THIS

Over the past several months, while working on other projects and taking a quick vacation or two, I’ve been receiving a steady stream of emails from friends and readers concerning America’s deteriorating situation abroad. Mostly, they’ve inquired about my opinion of our various wars and of the future direction of the Middle East.

Simply put, in my opinion, things have taken an ominous turn for the worse.

Iraq

America invaded a sovereign nation based on lies and fabricated intelligence. The general goal seems to have been a form of militarized nation building. This ideology (which I call "Reconstructionism") is based on the belief that the Middle East must be destroyed to be redeemed. Like Sherman burning Atlanta or Truman nuking Nagasaki, the proponents of this theory believe that bombing the Middle East and leveling its cities will create, somehow, a new beginning for the region.

Once America has finished trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored, the neocons contend, a more just and modern Middle East will arise from the ashes.

This view is, of course, insane.

But nevertheless, it seems to have caught the fancy of our foreign policy elites.

After America destroyed Iraq’s infrastructure and disbanded its military, the country fell apart along sectarian lines. Anyone understanding even a smidgen of Iraqi history could have predicted this disaster. For all intents and purposes, the Sunnis and Shiites are now at war. Bombings, beheadings, and kidnappings have become so routine that they hardly make the news. Our troops are caught in the crossfire, undermanned and under equipped.

Other than partition or collapse into chaos, I don’t see a way out of the situation. In all probability, it will continue to degenerate until we withdraw.

While none of this is new, there is an interesting sideshow emerging that could cause even more trouble. This involves the Kurds, the Turks, and the American occupation forces.

The Kurds are now nearly independent in northern Iraq. They have their own militias and have been fighting side-by-side with American forces since the beginning of the war. Given that both the Sunnis and the Shiites hate us, the Kurds are our only major ally in the country.

Unfortunately, the Kurds also have longstanding hatred of the Turks. Southeastern Turkey has a large population of Kurds who have an extensive litany of complaints about their treatment. As our leaders should have predicted, the Iraqi Kurds are funneling support to their brethren in Turkey, who have begun launching guerilla attacks and bombings against the Turkish "occupation".

The Turkish government is, needless to say, very upset about this and is now threatening to send troops into Iraq to crush the Kurds.

But America has forbidden them to do so.

Turkey is our NATO ally. The Kurds are our only friends in Iraq.

How will it end?

I’m not sure, but it could get mighty interesting. In addition to the three-way war between the Sunnis, the Shiites, and the American occupation forces, Iraq may host an additional conflict between the Kurds and the Turks (or, if things get really exciting, between America and the Kurds…or even America and the Turks).

What will Iraq look like after a five-way free-for-all?

I don’t know, but we may soon find out.

Lebanon

Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to chat with folks who visited Lebanon in the ’50s and ’60s. With faraway looks in their eyes, they described a land of beautiful, pine-covered mountains and spectacular Mediterranean beaches. The glitzy hotels and casinos created a nightlife that was, they claim, extravagant and perhaps a bit racy.

In a way, I’m glad I never saw it. Such memories would make the current situation all the more painful.

Lebanon had only recently crawled out from under two decades of civil war and years of Israeli and Syrian occupation. It had a democratically elected government and a prosperous, modernizing economy. The major religious sects had finally come together again to build a better society. It was an exciting season of renewal.

I’m still haunted by images like this one of Lebanese who rallied only a year ago in that bid for freedom. Encouraged by America, thousands of them risked their lives in the streets of Beirut. They represented a modern, middle-class yearning to move Lebanon into the 21st Century.

What must she be thinking now?

Is she a refugee?

Is she even still alive?

And what did the Lebanese get in return?

What they got was systematic destruction of their country in retaliation for a border skirmish that was beyond their power to prevent.

A model of Arab democracy is being shattered before our very eyes. America encouraged Lebanon to hold free elections. America encouraged them to throw out the Syrians. But that policy is looking more and more like a cynical ploy designed to remove the Syrian military so Hezbollah could be more easily destroyed.

Without doubt, Hezbollah bears a large share of the blame for this disaster. But America’s machinations and Israel’s ruthless response have helped turn a border skirmish into yet another failed Arab state that will haunt us for years to come.

Afghanistan

While most people are focusing on the brutal wars in Iraq and Lebanon, I still believe that Imperial America’s Little Big Horn will occur in Afghanistan. The trajectory of our occupation is following the approximate timeline of Russia’s two decades earlier. They invaded in 1979, complete with propaganda about Islamic extremism, promises to liberate women, and plans to rebuild the economy. They set up a puppet government and held bogus elections. They even tried to eradicate the poppy trade.

It took about four or five years for things to unravel. By the late 1980′s, the Russians had had their fill of Afghanistan.

America has alienated the Pashtuns, the largest ethnic group in the country. We’ve angered the poppy farmers. We’ve offended the traditional Muslims. Our hand-picked president can’t leave his capital city.

Just about the only thing we’ve done right is dragging NATO along for the ride (they’ll take some of the casualties instead of us). The Brits, who never seem to ask themselves why they fight wars in Afghanistan every half-century or so, are involved in almost daily heavy combat in the southern provinces.

Slowly but surely, like creeping mildew, the Afghan war will fester and grow progressively worse. Our NATO allies will cut and run. The attacks will become bigger and more coordinated.

The country is too wild, the terrain too rough, and the people too fanatical for anyone to occupy it indefinitely.

Yet, like Mesopotamia, Afghanistan seems to draw imperial powers into itself like moths to a campfire.

Conclusion

Things aren’t going particularly well in the Middle East. It has been a bad summer, and the winter promises no respite (except in Afghanistan, where guerilla armies usually lay low and rearm until the mountain passes open in the spring).

Osama bin Laden’s plan was to use his attack on America as the matador’s cape. He hoped to draw America into a series of endless insurgent wars that would eventually demoralize the American people and bankrupt our government. In the process, he hoped to show his fellow Muslims that the West has nothing but ill intentions toward the Middle East.

His plan is moving along quite nicely.

Steven LaTulippe [send him mail] is a physician currently practicing in Ohio. He was an officer in the United States Air Force for 13 years.

When you look at a map and identify Germany’s adversaries in both world wars, it is staggering that a comparatively small nation tucked away in the corner of the Eurasian land mass actually believed it could win two successive wars against most of the rest of the planet.

But with a toxic mixture of arrogant leadership, cultural hubris, and rampant statism, all things are possible.

Since 9/11, America has embarked on a strategic offensive that is proving just as successful as the Kaiser’s. The neocons, who engineered the invasion and occupation of Iraq using falsified intelligence and cynical propaganda, have exposed America to the virulent hatred of virtually the entire Muslim world. The war has already claimed the lives of thousands of our soldiers, and its geometrically increasing costs threaten to bankrupt our government.

And there is no end in sight.

One might think that such a predicament would give rise to a more sober mind-set among our rulers in Washington.

But alas, such thoughts are not part of the contemporary zeitgeist in the Imperial City.

Not satisfied with the debacle in Iraq, the Bush Administration has been beating the war drums against Iran, which is several times larger than Iraq (in land mass and population) and which has much more inhospitable terrain.

And it doesn’t end there. (After all, Kaiser Wilhelm, having gone to war with Russia, France, and Britain, apparently decided to toss America, Italy, and Serbia in for good measure).

Not to be outdone by the German Emperor’s well-known geopolitical genius, the Bush Administration recently launched rhetorical broadsides against two other regional powers.

This curious geopolitical strategy began with the recent Washington visit by Chinese President Hu.

The Chinese president received a hostile and often insulting welcome in Washington last month. The administration refused to host a formal state dinner for him (which is customary when meeting with a leader of another large nation and which was correctly interpreted by the Chinese as a slap in the face), and the White House allowed a Chinese dissident into the press corps, who proceeded to harangue and threaten the President Hu during a news conference.

Not satisfied with the Chinese debacle, the administration proceeded to launch a nasty public attack on Russian President Vladimir Putin. Vice President Dick Cheney, speaking in Lithuania, made a laundry list of accusations against Russia, including bullying of neighboring nations, engaging in energy blackmail, and suppressing the rights of its citizens.

Many observers were surprised by the scathing tone of Cheney’s comments.

This leads one to an obvious question: Why on earth is our president picking fights with China and Russia when we are already up to our neck in a quagmire in Iraq?

China is a rising power with a burgeoning economy, a huge population, and a formidable military. China and America have no fundamental geopolitical conflicts. China does not present a realistic threat to the American mainland and has no particular reason to want anything but mutually prosperous trade with us.

While I have major philosophical disagreements with the way the Chinese government operates, its domestic policies are none of our business. If the Chinese people wish to alter their government, it is up to them.

As for Russia, this administration has no room whatsoever to accuse Putin of "creeping authoritarianism". Not a day goes by that the neocons don’t cook up yet another outrage against our constitution. Nor can they credibly lecture the Russians about using blackmail and threats against other nations when such tactics have become an integral part of Washington’s geopolitical armamentarium.

As for claims that Putin is a dictator, Cheney should remember that Putin was democratically elected (and probably has a higher approval rating in Russia than Bush has over here.)

So what are we to make of this?

Our country is embroiled in several hot wars in the Middle East and is drifting toward a generalized civilizational war with Islam. Add China and Russia to the mix, and things start to look pretty grim. Even our situation in Latin America is badly deteriorating, with hostile leaders in Cuba, Venezuela, and Bolivia. Peru, Nicaragua, and Mexico may also soon fall into the hands of virulently anti-American demagogues.

The only countries with which we currently have warm relations are various Eastern European satrapies (though recent events in Bulgaria show that things may soon turn sour there too).

Try as I might, I can only find two explanations for the administration’s new tone of hostility toward China and Russia.

The first possibility is that America is being led by morons. Only someone with an extremely limited intellectual capacity would cho ose, at the precise moment when America finds herself embroiled in a war with radical Islam, to pick fights with two of the most powerful nations on earth.

While the president himself may fit this category, I reject this as an overall explanation. Too many of the folks surrounding Bush have enormous experience in foreign relations and have track records of academic achievement. Writing them off as mere cretins would be a dangerous underestimation.

That leaves the second explanation. Namely, the Bush Administration is attacking Russia and China because those nations are using their seats on the U.N. Security Council to stonewall our march to war with Iran.

Factions within the Bush Administration desperately want war with Iran to stop their alleged nuclear program. They want a new Security Council resolution condemning the Iranians and threatening future "unspecified action" if the Iranians don’t back down (resolutions which, just like the pre-Iraq War resolutions, can be conveniently reinterpreted by the neocons to "justify" an attack).

The Russians and Chinese, who’ve seen this movie before, are having none of it.

Thus, the neocons are baring their fangs and going after them with threats and intimidation.

It truly is a strange world when the presidents of two foreign powers (nations with whom we have had hostile relations in the past) are the ones who are, albeit unintentionally, looking out for the true interests of the American people. While our own government is scheming against us, Presidents Hu and Putin are attempting to abort America’s drift toward another senseless conflict. War with Iran would be a disaster for America (though it might add another healthy dollop of the “creative destruction” to the Middle East that the neocons seem to love so much). But our government is already bankrupt and our military is already stretched past the breaking point.

We can only hope that the Russians and the Chinese hold firm and don’t give this administration the authority, in the form of a vaguely worded U.N. resolution, to plunge America into yet another Middle Eastern war.

Otherwise, like poor Kaiser Wilhelm, the neocons just might bite off more than America can chew.

Steven LaTulippe [send him mail] is a physician currently practicing in Ohio. He was an officer in the United States Air Force for 13 years.

Each of these trends is long-term and may not come to a boiling point for decades. Nevertheless, it is an interesting exercise to revisit these trends periodically to keep track of how events are unfolding (I also hasten to add that these are not based on how I think things "should" be but are rather predictions based on an analysis of history and current events).

America slides toward bankruptcy:

Nothing particularly new has happened on this front except that the trend continues unabated. Recent data on the US trade deficit and the federal budget deficit have been predictably appalling. The federal government recently borrowed over 100 billion dollars in a single month, which is around 10% of our GDP (a deficit of 6—7% of GDP is typical of a disintegrating Central American banana republic).

While some statistics look stable, such as unemployment and inflation, this "stability" is most likely the result of what I call the "Wile E. Coyote effect." This phenomenon occurs when the cartoon coyote is lured off the side of a cliff, yet remains stationary for a moment (wearing a sheepish look on his face) before he plunges into the abyss, usually with an anvil or boulder trailing him on the way down.

America’s enormous debt is painting the Fed into a corner in which it is "damned if it does and damned if it doesn’t." If the Fed raises interest rates, it risks touching off a severe recession with waves of personal and corporate bankruptcies. If, on the other hand, it lowers rates and reinstitutes a policy of "easy money," it risks igniting a dollar crisis and hyperinflation.

Either way, it is a time-honored truism that you can’t live on borrowed money forever.

I’m frankly curious to see which way events will transpire, but I doubt it will be pleasant in either case.

The Rise of China:

In the Far East, the situation revolves around the economic revolution occurring in China. Historically, whenever a new power arises, it creates ripples in the global system as the existing powers react to the "new kid on the block." The most dangerous moment in this process occurs when the rising power attempts to displace the existing hegemon and create a "new world order." Germany, for instance, twice failed to displace the British Empire as the dominant economic and military power in the world…a process that was accompanied by two world wars.

Japan is a fading power with an aging and shrinking population. Nevertheless, its close proximity and troubled historical relationship with China create a natural rivalry between the two nations.

As China’s power increases (and the bankruptcy of the USA becomes more apparent), Japan will face a geopolitical crisis. The Land of the Rising Sun will have a decision to make. Will she bow to the Middle Kingdom, or will she rise to struggle for regional hegemony?

There are four warning signs to look for indicating that Japan is preparing a path of resistance rather than acquiescence:

1. Japan alters its pacifist constitution to allow for a "normal" military.
2. Japan builds aircraft carriers.
3. Japan builds nuclear weapons.
4. Japan creates a formal military alliance with Taiwan.

It was with these facts in mind that I read several Stratfor articles last week with consternation.

In Japan: Plutonium and Pacifism, Statfor reports the following:

Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd. (JNFL), operator of the $18.6 billion Rokkasho nuclear fuel reprocessing plant, said March 29 that it has reached an agreement with the government of Aomori prefecture to begin extraction of plutonium waste from spent nuclear fuel. This extraction will be the first step of an experimental program allowing JNFL to manufacture plutonium-uranium mixed-oxide fuel (MOX).

The most obvious reason for the production of MOX is to decrease the quantity of nuclear waste, thereby significantly reducing the costs associated with its storage.

But, as Stratfor notes, this process has other implications:

But there are two notable side effects of establishing a MOX fuel cycle. First and most obviously, it involves the extraction and purification of plutonium.

Japan is a highly developed, first world economy. It is no secret the country has the expertise to manufacture a uranium-based nuclear weapon in a matter of weeks. Perhaps the biggest restraint on any potential Japanese nuclear weapons program comes from the country’s uranium enrichment complex’s being geared toward civilian nuclear fuel production. Civilian fuel only requires uranium enriched to the point that 3.5 percent to 5 percent of its makeup is of the fissile isotope of uranium, aka U-235. Weapons-grade uranium must be at least 90 percent U-235. Concentrating U-235 to that level is difficult — just ask Tehran. Japan certainly has the skill and capital to address the complication should it wish to launch a large-scale weapons program, but that would take time — not to mention thousands of cascading centrifuges that would raise lots of uncomfortable questions.

In other words, Japan’s production of MOX will give it a readily available source of weapons-grade plutonium which could, given the right political circumstances, be quickly diverted into nuclear weapons.

This is not to say Japan is preparing to actually build nuclear weapons, but rather that Japan will soon have the ability to do so at a moment’s notice.

A second interesting Stratfor article involves recent polling data and Japan’s security policy.

A poll by Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun says 71 percent of Japanese want the country’s constitution to “clarify the existence of the Self-Defense Force,” with 56 percent saying the constitution should be modified to take the SDF into consideration. The poll also put the number of those who want the pacifist Article 9 of the constitution revised at 39 percent — the highest percent in five years.

The article also goes on to mention that Japan is building several (admittedly small) helicopter carriers:

Interestingly, Japan already is building its first of two planned helicopter destroyers, which will be the largest ships in the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force and — semantics aside — will be little less than coastal or escort carriers.

I still believe that China’s rise will occur without a major conflict. The region simply has too much to lose by staging a titanic and ugly war for hegemony. Nevertheless, one could also have said the same thing about Europe in 1914.

People do not always act in a rational manner, and several early warning signs are flashing that Japan and China may be slowly moving toward a new cold war.

Europe and Islam:

In the post-war era, Europe has behaved in a manner that is classic for a decaying civilization. A collapsing birthrate, cultural decadence, the death of its foundational religion, and the penetration of its borders by more vigorous neighboring civilizations are all symptoms of an advanced state of Spenglerian decline.

In my previous article, I predicted that massive Muslim immigration into Europe would ultimately end in a clash of civilizations. The two cultures are, in my opinion, too divergent to cohabitate in large numbers under the same government. This cultural incompatibility will be exacerbated by the economic sclerosis afflicting most of Europe due to its socialism and its severely restricted labor market.

There are several milestones to anticipate on this road to conflict:

1. The formation of Fourth Generation insurgent groups by immigrant populations
2. The defection of left wing European political leaders into the anti-immigrant ranks.
3. The formation of Fourth Generation insurgent groups by native Europeans.

The first milestone has already been passed. The French intifada, the London/Madrid bombings, and the targeted murders of anti-immigrant Europeans are all the work of loosely organized immigrant groups carrying out low-intensity Fourth Generation warfare. This will probably increase over the next years and decades.

The second milestone is of critical importance. So long as anti-immigrant political agitation is limited to the usual right-wing suspects, the drift toward conflict will be contained. The center and left of the political spectrum, along with well-established legal mechanisms used for the suppression of intolerance and xenophobia, will limit right-wing influence.

However, radical Islam is incompatible with modern secular liberalism on numerous fronts (especially with regard to feminism, sexual orientation, and the separation of church and state). At some point, the rising power of Islamists fueled by burgeoning demographics will bring the European left into conflict with Islam. This was seen briefly in the Netherlands with the rise of Pim Fortuyn, who was a self-described flamboyant homosexual (although his politics were not classically leftist).

In the Yugoslavian model (which I believe is a forerunner of the coming conflict in Western Europe), it is important to note that Slobodan Milosevic was a life-long Communist and his influential wife was a professor of Marxist philosophy. When Yugoslavia began to unravel due to its decaying economy and its divergent, polyglot demographics, Milosevic abandoned internationalist Marxism and defected to the ranks of Serbian nationalism, whereupon he began supporting his brethren in Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo. That was the moment when the wars started in earnest.

It was with this idea in mind that I watched the recent French labor strife. Leftist students and labor unions have been staging massive demonstrations against a proposed law that would enable companies to fire new employees in the first two years on the job. These students and unionists, who apparently prefer a career in which they are permanently sheltered from performance-based scrutiny, took to the streets and rioted (In yet another sign of civilizational decay, I recently read about polling data showing that the career goal of 75% of French youths is to obtain a government job. Imagine an entire generation of young people whose only ambition is to be a bureaucrat. If that isn’t a sign the end is near, I don’t know what is).

At any rate, what drew my eye was a side-show to these demonstrations. Apparently, loosely organized gangs of Muslim youths were prowling the fringes of these left-wing demonstrations beating student marchers. This was, allegedly, quite widespread and has obvious political ramifications. Specifically, it shows the extent to which Muslim youths are alienated, even from left-wing students who would ordinarily be presumed to be their political allies. The fear of being attacked by these gangs supposedly became widespread among the students and represents a small but notable fissure between the European left and the immigrant gangs.

While no leaders of the French left have defected to anti-immigrant politics, the memory of being beaten by gangs of hoodlums will remain embedded in the personal memories of the rising generation of French leftists. While this, in and of itself, may be of limited importance, it does represent a trend which I believe will continue.

If and when prominent European leftists go the "Slobo route," things will start to move rather quickly. Soon thereafter, native Fourth Generation groups will appear (which will probably take the form of loosely organized street gangs and terrorist cells) and will publicly announce the goal of "liberating" their homeland from Muslim "settlers." (Similar organizations were a nasty attribute of the Yugoslav wars. Groups of insurgents/terrorists such as Arkan’s Tigers perpetrated some of the worst abuses of those wars).

When these Fourth Generation movements appear and begin carrying out paramilitary operations, (probably with the aid of rogue elements inside the European police and security establishments) things will have reached the precipice.

Conclusion

Some time ago, the neocons famously stated that we have reached the "end of history." Western liberal democracy had, they claimed, emerged as the final world system into which all nations would be integrated.

Unfortunately, they forget to inform history of this fact, for she is marching forward as she always has.

In my opinion, the neocons got the situation exactly wrong. Rather than triumphantly conquering the world, we are seeing the decay of the Western dominated post-war world system all around us on a daily basis.

What system will rise to replace it is the great unknown of our age.

Steven LaTulippe [send him mail] is a physician currently practicing in Ohio. He was an officer in the United States Air Force for 13 years.

Writing in the UK Telegraph, Ahmad Ali describes the situation in gloomy detail:

"But this is going to be worse, I think. This may be the start of when it all goes really wrong and the thing that we all fear — the sectarian war that will destroy my country and my children’s future — may be about to begin. "

"This is not the city I knew. I had friends and colleagues who were Shia. My family married into Shia families. Now I am too frightened to be in my home. Maybe we will feel safe to go back when things are calm. But tonight we are fugitives.

How did it ever get to this?"

An interesting question, that.

Just how DID it ever get to this?

Two months ago, after the most recent Iraqi election, I wrote:

A civil war is now almost inevitable. What they cannot win in the voting booth, the Sunnis must now try to win via the barrel of a gun.

The only good thing that could have emerged from this election was a graceful American exit. Saddam is gone. There are no WMDs. A successful democratic election was held.

Any sane American government would take that as a cue to declare victory and head for the exits (although one could certainly argue that a sane government would never have gone to Iraq in the first place…but that is another issue entirely).

Unfortunately, no one ever accused the Bush administration of sanity. They seem to believe that this election was a success and that things are better than ever. And since their original intentions included permanent American military bases, they have no real desire to leave Iraq anyway.

So whether by delusion or design, American forces don’t appear to be leaving anytime soon…which will place our soldiers in a ring-side seat at a nasty, three-way civil war.

While I realize that quoting myself is not exactly in good taste, my purpose in doing so is not to claim some fantastic powers of analysis or some preternatural ability to see the future, but is actually quite the opposite. If I, a common citizen in fly-over country, could see where this was heading, why couldn’t the "masters of the universe" in Washington DC?

Just who in blazes is steering this ship?

Iraq is an artificial country created by British imperialism. It has no historical or cultural tradition of liberal civil society necessary for a modern democracy. What little that did exist was crushed by several decades of Saddam’s authoritarian rule. It is also sharply divided along religious and ethnic lines, making a functioning democracy extremely difficult to construct under even ideal circumstances.

When the United States crashed the gates and toppled the Iraqi regime, we loosed the hounds of hell. In all honesty, any fool should have been able to see this coming (which is why we never should have invaded Iraq in the first place).

So where does this leave America? Our treasury is empty, several thousand of our soldiers have been killed, and a large portion of our army is hunkered down in an Iraq which teeters on the brink of civilizational meltdown.

One might think that amid this colossal foreign policy failure, our governing elites would be roaming the streets in sackcloth and ashes. The neocons, the CFR, the Pentagon brass, and the functionaries in the State Department should be begging the American people for forgiveness and promising not to do anything this reckless ever again.

But the expectation of penance presumes the existence of a conscience and a trace of humility on the part of the offender.

A quick analysis of two recent neoconservative tracts reveals a situation far removed from anything resembling a guilty conscience.

President Bush’s recent State of the Union address was a rambling diatribe aimed at the evils of "isolationism" and a call to "stay the course" in Iraq:

"In this decisive year, you and I will make choices that determine both the future and the character of our country. We will choose to act confidently in pursuing the enemies of freedom — or retreat from our duties in the hope of an easier life. We will choose to build our prosperity by leading the world economy — or shut ourselves off from trade and opportunity. In a complex and challenging time, the road of isolationism and protectionism may seem broad and inviting — yet it ends in danger and decline. The only way to protect our people, the only way to secure the peace, the only way to control our destiny is by our leadership — so the United States of America will continue to lead."

Even more disturbing was a recent op-ed piece by allegedly reformed neocon Francis Fukuyama in the New York Times Magazine. In the article, Fukuyama spends considerable time critiquing neoconservatism, but he also degenerates into a stem-winding rant against "isolationism." Jim Lobe dissected this article quite elegantly in a recent piece that bears quoting:

Fukuyama, best known for his post-Cold War essay proclaiming the historic inevitability of liberal democracy, “The End of History,” argued in the Times article that neoconservatives so badly miscalculated the myriad costs of the Iraq war that they may have empowered their two foreign policy nemeses — realists, who disdain democracy-promotion; and isolationists, who oppose foreign entanglements of almost any kind

But Fukuyama is most concerned that these failures may spur an “anti-neoconservative backlash that coupled a sharp turn toward isolation with a cynical realist policy aligning the United States with friendly authoritarians.”

“What American foreign policy needs is not a return to a narrow and cynical realism, but rather the formulation of a ‘realistic Wilsonianism’ that better matches means to ends,” he wrote in what appears to be a bid to delineate a new foreign policy consensus — some already call it “neo-realism” — around which centrist Republicans and Democrats can rally."

Fukuyama’s (and Bush’s) rhetoric is so shocking in its dishonesty that it is almost beyond comprehension. The neocons, along with their Wilsonian allies in the Democratic Party, launched an unprovoked attack on Iraq that any village idiot could have predicted would end in disaster.

Now, at the precipice of a full-scale meltdown, what are their concerns? Are they apologizing for their mistakes? Are they lamenting the destruction they’ve caused?

No. In reading both of these pieces, it is quite clear that the neocons (even a supposedly reformed one like Fukuyama), are not worried about the death, destruction, and mayhem, but are rather concerned about the possible resurgence of "isolationism" that may accompany their policy failure.

This is egocentricity of monstrous proportions.

For starters, let us be precise with our language. "Isolationism" is a term invented by interventionists to make minding our own business sound like an immoral policy. It is a "straw man" argument that is intellectually dishonest and intentionally misleading.

I, for one, am tired of listening to the "isolationism" smear. In reality, it is the interventionists who are morally bankrupt on so many levels that one hardly knows where to begin. And since it’s their policies that have gone so horribly wrong, let us take off the gloves and discuss a few of them:

#1 The interventionists are un-American

President Bush has proffered the idea that America’s destiny is to "end tyranny in the world." This is consistent with no sane interpretation of the beliefs of our Founding Fathers. Again and again, America’s early leaders warned against America’s involvement in foreign disputes and the formation of "entangling alliances." We should not, they cautioned, go in search of monsters to destroy.

By contrast, the ideologues of interventionism contend that America should sally forth and attack nations for the purpose of "spreading democracy," even as they undermine freedom here at home with increasingly authoritarian policies. We are to be, in their opinion, a "benevolent world hegemon."

This philosophy could be described as Marxist, or perhaps even fascist, but it has little to do with the ideals that accompanied the birth of our Republic.

#2 The interventionists are corrupt

In his farewell address, President Eisenhower warned the American people about the rise of a military-industrial complex. He feared that corporations and bureaucracies involved in overseas adventurism would one day become powerful enough to steer America on a course of perpetual war for perpetual peace. Looking at our nation today, it is difficult to argue that those fears have not been realized. How many of the ideologues who agitated for our Iraqi invasion have personally benefited from the policy? How many neocon tycoons made money peddling influence? How many billions were pocketed from "no-bid" contracts?

And this point goes well beyond mere war profiteering. Washington DC teems with bureaucracies dedicated to managing "global issues" and sticking our nation’s nose where it doesn’t belong. What would happen to these folks in an "isolationist" America? Do they not have a massive, collective stake in perpetuating our current, disastrous foreign policy? Might not their opinions concerning the "evils" of isolationism be tinged with ulterior motives and self-interest?

#3 The interventionists are incompetent

How many disasters have the American people now suffered at the hands of our interventionist foreign policy elite? These wizards gave us the Bay of Pigs fiasco. They gave us the Vietnam War quagmire, complete with over 50,000 dead American soldiers, a million dead Vietnamese, thousands more maimed, and billions of dollars wasted. They gave us the ill-fated "nation-building" expedition to Somalia, the absurd "nation-building" expedition to Haiti, and now the disastrous "democracy-spreading" operation in Iraq.

These policies (along with countless smaller operations) have tagged America as the focus of evil in the minds of people around the world.

The obvious immorality of our interventionist foreign policy should be an adequate argument for isolationism by itself, but the incompetent way interventionism has been executed adds even more weight to the criticism.

The only thing worse than manic imperialism is incompetent manic imperialism.

#4 The interventionists are chickenhawks

Historically, many ideologues of hegemony and imperialism have possessed enough courage to personally participate in their military expeditions. Alexander the Great and Richard the Lionhearted, for instance, led their peoples into disastrous military campaigns, but they led from the front. They didn’t bask in opulence while others paid the price for their hubris.

America’s policy elites, on the other hand, are famous for their rigorous avoidance of military service. President Bush spent the Vietnam War in the Texas Air National Guard. Dick Cheney and Bill Clinton had "other priorities."

How many of the architects of our current war have ever served? How many denizens of Washington’s militaristic think tanks have ever heard a shot fired in anger? How many academic foreign policy theorists have ever been deployed to a war zone?

Hardly any.

Our governing elites are constructing a morally bankrupt system whereby they profit from interventionism whilst carefully avoiding any of the personal risks. It is a Brave New World in which they are the ruling alpha class, who are born to rule, while the working classes are lowly epsilons, fit only for cannon fodder.

#5 The interventionists are pompous egomaniacs

Every one of our military misadventures has, at its core, truly frightening arrogance. President Bush, for instance, claims that our nation’s destiny is to "end tyranny in the world."

This breathtaking assertion is as impractical in its execution as it is hubristic in its theory. But Bush’s goal is merely one of the many crusades into which we’ve been dragooned over the past century. Clinton wanted to end ethnic hatred in the Balkans (something that may not happen until the Second Coming). Bush I wanted to "nation build" in Somalia. LBJ wanted to bring democracy to Southeast Asia. Woodrow Wilson thought he was going to win a "war to end all wars."

Only a person who has a deranged, unbalanced belief in his own omnipotence could believe such goals to be within the realm of American military might.

Unfortunately, humble men do not get elected president or craft American foreign policy (or write op-ed pieces for the Weekly Standard).

#6 The interventionists are liars

Americans have traditionally been suspicious of expansive foreign policy adventures. Our leaders and opinion makers are aware of this trait, and have often resorted to lies and distortions to frighten the people into acquiescence.

The Iraq War was accompanied by an avalanche of deceptive propaganda. The WMDs, Saddam’s "participation" in the 9/11 attacks, his "connections" to al-Qaeda, and the infamous chemical-spraying drones were all conscious falsehoods told by our leaders to scare the American people out of their "isolationism."

In Vietnam, it was the fictitious "Gulf of Tonkin" incident. In Kosovo, it was (false) claims of genocide. In WW I it was the sinking of the Lusitania. In the Spanish-American War, it was the sinking of the Maine.

Time and again, interventionists have spun elaborate lies in pursuit of their goals. Each time, like Charlie Brown kicking the football, the American people have fallen for the fraud.

Nevertheless, the gullibility of the masses does not excuse the dishonesty of our rulers.

Conclusion

The purpose of our military is to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. Its purpose is not to stop ethnic strife, "nation build" or to "end tyranny in the world." The American people, despite being whipped into occasional bloodthirsty outbursts, are a peaceful people. Absent propaganda and deceitful scheming, they are generally content to raise their families, toil at their work, and practice their religion without undue acrimony.

To the interventionists, these humble traits represent pure evil. The interventionists of all stripes believe Middle America’s desire to be left alone is self-centered, puerile, uncaring, ignorant, and anti-social. Only by spilling blood in messianic crusades can America, in the interventionists’ opinion, realize its true potential.

But I think this game is coming to an end. The curtain is lifting, exposing the manipulators and their malicious designs.

After all, everyone knows who transformed Iraq into swirling piles of bone dust…and it wasn’t the isolationists.

Steven LaTulippe [send him mail] is a physician currently practicing in Ohio. He was an officer in the United States Air Force for 13 years.

Pharaoh Tutankhamen on a hunting expedition

Much has been made of the recent tragic accident in which Vice President Cheney shot one of his companions while quail hunting. The incident was described by the administration as a "peppering" or "dusting" by "BB’s" (which is neocon Newspeak for "he took a shotgun blast to the head")

The hunting expedition has played a vital role in imperial courts throughout history. Holy Roman Emperor Louis IV, for instance, was killed while stalking deer just when he was consolidating power over a rival claimant. Roman Emperor Hadrian nearly met an early grave when he fell from his horse while chasing wild boar. (Luckily for his subjects, he only suffered a broken collarbone).

These outings usually included much more than just the God-King and his hunting buddies. Typically, the Blessed One would bring a long train of servants, prostitutes, and jesters. Evenings in the field were spent drinking and enjoying raucous entertainment (though I haven’t heard whether Cheney’s group included any sword-swallowers or juggling midgets).

Imperial expeditions had their serious side too. Courtiers, sycophants, and flim-flam artists desperately tried to include themselves in the imperial entourage in hopes of gaining the emperor’s ear. Exploiting the camaraderie and thrill of the hunt opened doors for lucrative contracts, helped to poison the emperor’s mind against enemies, and allowed one to ascend into the ranks of the emperor’s favorites.

Wealth, power, and celebrity were the real game afoot.

Unfortunately, while the rewards were potentially great, there was significant danger as well. History is replete with imperial courtiers being trampled by the Mogul’s elephants or mauled by Caesar’s hunting dogs.

It comes with the job.

I have no idea whether the unfortunate victim in Cheney’s case was a malevolent imperial manipulator or merely a commoner who zigged when he should have zagged. For all I know, he could be a volunteer for the Special Olympics or an official for the Make a Wish Foundation (though media reports state he is a "lawyer", which certainly warrants suspicion).

Regardless of what he was doing in Cheney’s entourage, we should all wish him a speedy recovery…though I must confess a certain pessimism on this point. In the days of the old Soviet Empire, the peasants used to say "no rumor can be confirmed until it has been officially denied." With that in mind, White House claims that he was only "lightly wounded" don’t bode well for his prognosis.

Steven LaTulippe [send him mail] is a physician currently practicing in Ohio. He was an officer in the United States Air Force for 13 years.

~ Mao Tse-tung

Predicting the future is always a perilous enterprise. As Isaac Asimov demonstrated in his seminal science fiction series The Foundation Trilogy, even the most intricate and scientific of prognostication techniques is bound to be derailed by unpredictable and unlikely events.

Nevertheless, the analysis of trends and the construction of paradigms are necessary for people to make coherent sense out of the events occurring in the world around them. Without these paradigms, our perception of society would be nothing more than a miasma of concrete events unrelated to abstractions. We would be as infants, with every occurrence being a new and unprecedented phenomenon.

We are living in an age of accelerating conflict and tumult. A quick glance at the daily news reveals incidents which, by themselves, may be of minimal import. But when these events are seen as data points on a larger trend line, they rise to a greater level of significance.

It is with these ideas in mind that I decided to compile my nominees for the three major geopolitical trends of our era. These trends are complex, and thus will take years, or even the rest of this century, to "play out."

Since most columnists live in dread that their annual predictions will be exposed as ridiculously inaccurate, forecasting century-long trends has the added benefit that none of us will be around in 2100 to see just how wrongheaded my prognostications actually were. (As another aside, I should also remind the reader that these are predictions based on my understanding of history and human nature. They do not represent the way I think things "should" be…so don’t blame the weatherman for the hurricane.)

With that caveat in mind, my hunch is that this century is shaping up to be one of the most tumultuous in history. Indeed, without trying to sound melodramatic, I believe that events of the 21st Century will threaten the very existence of Western Civilization.

While many hopeful trends are evident, particularly in science, technology, and medicine, I see three ominous narratives which will dominate the next several decades:

#1 America: Brother, can you spare a dime?

The fate of America can be summed up by one simple libertarian adage: there’s no such thing as a free lunch.

Since World War II, Americans haves switched the focus of our economy from production to consumption. We’ve seen a proliferation of industries dedicated to nothing more than the pursuit of unearned wealth (injury-accident lawsuits, lotteries, malpractice attorneys, welfare, etc.).

Americans have come to view the gilded lifestyle as a birthright unrelated to actual productive activity. Since our economy no longer produces enough wealth to maintain the majority of the population in this lifestyle, we have resorted to a variety of scams to square the circle.

Foremost among these scams is debt. As extensively described in Empire of Debt by William Bonner and Addison Wiggin, America is now awash in debt. Consumers are maxed out with staggering credit card and mortgage re-fi debt. The government is slowly sinking under the burden of hundreds of billions of dollars in annual deficit spending. The economy is swamped with some 750 billion dollars in annual trade deficits.

Whole cottage industries have appeared in mainstream academia and government dedicated to propagating the idea that debt no longer matters. Consequently, the American people have come to literally believe that consumption is the key to prosperity and that America can live indefinitely on borrowed money.

While debt is dangerous enough, it is accompanied by an evil companion: inflation. Since our government cannot realistically pay for its outstanding obligations (Social Security and Medicare being the two most unstable of its many Ponzi schemes), its motivation for inflating our currency is obvious. Specifically, paying off loans with devalued dollars saves money and makes the books appear more solvent than they really are.

All of these factors point to major economic troubles on the horizon.

Exactly how it all plays out, I haven’t a clue. We may enter a hyperinflationary scenario which paralyzes the economy. We may enter a long period of stagnation in which a generation of Americans reaches adulthood in an economy sporting double-digit inflation, double-digit unemployment, and double-digit interest rates. Or perhaps there will be a terrifying dollar crisis which drastically increases the cost of our imports and sends interest rates into the stratosphere.

Regardless of the exact scenario, it is fairly certain that our current situation cannot continue indefinitely.

Despite the latest hallucinogenic economic theories being parlayed by the Fed, an economy cannot go on forever living on borrowed money. Sooner or later, the wolf will show up at the door. And when it does, America will cease to be "the world’s only superpower."

#2 Europe stares into the abyss (or, for the more poetic folks in the audience: Gtterdmmerung).

The 20th Century was an unmitigated calamity for Europe. In 1900, Victorian culture still dominated the Old Continent. It was the land of waltzes, ballets, and genteel aristocrats. It harbored the wealthiest financial establishments, the richest cultural traditions, and the most productive industrial economies. The universities of Austria, Germany, and England were world-renowned as the epicenters of learning and innovation.

All of that ended with the advent of WW I, which was arguably the greatest single disaster in human history. That brutal, senseless war uncorked the evil genies of fascism, communism, and genocide. By mid-century, Europe was exhausted…demographically, economically, and spiritually.

The Europeans responded to this shock in several ways. Most importantly, they largely abandoned their cultural traditions, opting instead for post-modern secularism with a healthy dollop of moral relativism. Essentially, they turned away from inspirational endeavors and focused their energies on La Dolce Vita.

While there is much to be said for La Dolce Vita, it brought with it two major negative side-effects. First, was a particularly stifling brand of sclerotic socialism. Second, was a collapse of Europe’s birthrate.

Most studies show that people have large families for religious reasons and because they fear poverty in their old age. Socialism and secularism eliminated these concerns and prompted the continent’s birthrate to plummet to less than 1.4 children per woman (2.1 is considered replacement level).

Unfortunately for Europe, a civilization cannot be maintained if no one wants to have children.

Thus, socialism and secularism have brought Europe to the doorstep of extinction. While the economic dangers of socialism are readily apparent (uncontrolled government debt, unsustainable public pension programs, etc), the resulting population collapse prompted European governments to make a fateful step that will dictate the course of European politics throughout the 21st Century. Namely, the Europeans opened their doors to large-scale Muslim immigration.

While I have no particular animosity towards Islam (indeed, having lived in the Middle East for a period of time, I observed many admirable things about Arabic and Muslim culture), the stark reality is that European and Muslim cultures are utterly incompatible. The streets of Amsterdam, for example, are famous for legalized prostitution, hashish bars, and tolerance towards alternative sexual lifestyles. Most Europeans consider things such as fervent religious belief, the death penalty, and the subordination of women to be apparitions from the Dark Ages.

The Muslim world, on the other hand, demands female chastity, despises atheism, and routinely metes out harsh punishment for even petty criminal activity.

Layered on top of these fundamental differences are fourteen centuries of mutual contempt and vicious warfare between the two cultures.

A quick look at the numbers is sobering indeed. Over the next 40 years, Muslims will make up close to a majority of the population in many Western European nations. These numbers do not even require continued immigration. For instance, according to a recent article in The American Conservative by Paul Kohout, Denmark will have an immigrant majority by 2039 even if it stops all immigration today (due to differential birth rates). I’ve also seen reports that in 2005, for the first time in history, the majority of babies born in France were to Muslim parents.

To my knowledge, no population group has ever allowed itself to be peacefully displaced in the land of its origin (much less by a group with which it has considerable historical animosity).

The London train bombings, the murder of Theo van Gogh, and the French intifada are the harbingers of things to come. In many ways, Europe is experiencing a "late Tito" period similar to Yugoslavia in the early 1980s. At that time, Yugoslavia’s socialist economy was starting to unravel even as its society was being shaken by barely-concealed tribal rivalries fueled by changing demographics. The communist government tried to manage these tensions through a choking, all-encompassing program of political correctness.

It didn’t work.

Similarly, the entire European continent is now drifting towards the same poisonous dynamic that touched off vicious ethnic wars in Bosnia and Kosovo.

Since I consider the possibility of peaceful coexistence (inside the same state) between Islamic and European cultures to be unrealistic, the 21st Century holds only negative outcomes for Europe. As the demographic situation reaches a crisis, things will break in one of three ways. In the first scenario, nationalist parties will come to power in Europe and initiate armed confrontations with Islam, resulting in its violent expulsion. In the second scenario, the violence will fragment the continent into Muslim and European cantons. In the third scenario, the Muslims will emerge victorious and impose their social norms on the European population.

This will leave a Europe that resembles Mussolini’s Italy, Lebanon, or Zimbabwe, respectively.

No matter which course history follows, it will not be a pretty picture.

#3 East Asia: Cold or Hot?

It shouldn’t be a revelation to anyone that the world’s economic center of gravity is shifting to East Asia. Most of these nations have hard-working populations, expanding economies, and large trade surpluses. Cities like Singapore, Hong Kong, and Kuala Lumpur are growing exponentially and will likely be the preeminent cultural and financial centers of the future.

While optimism is certainly warranted, there are potential dangers as well. History shows us that whenever one nation is supplanted by another at the top of the world system, it is usually accompanied by a period of instability. For instance, both world wars can be viewed as attempts by a rising Germany to replace the waning British Empire as the world’s dominant hegemon.

In all probability, China will be the major power of the coming century, both economically and geopolitically. The United States, for reasons discussed previously, will be in no shape to realistically challenge China’s rising dominance.

Hence, East Asian nations will likely enter a period of uncertainty, suspicion and hostility as the new pecking order is defined. Some nations, especially Japan, may feel threatened by China’s rise and may attempt to stop its progress.

This competitive dynamic could set in motion a smoldering economic and political conflict similar to Europe’s before World War I. (Some folks point to the extensive trade relationships between Japan and China as proof that conflict is not possible. While I agree that this makes war less likely, it is no guarantee. After all, in 1913 (and again in 1938) Germany and Britain were each other’s largest trading partners. They also shared the same religion…and their monarchs were first cousins.)

In this scenario, the region will segregate into hostile power blocs and experience a new cold war. Japan will collect allies (Taiwan, Vietnam, and perhaps India) in its camp while the Middle Kingdom does the same (probably with a united Korea and maybe a few of the smaller ASEAN nations on its side).

Just a few weeks ago, in an omen of things to come, a diplomatic row between the two Asian giants began after Japan’s Foreign Minister made controversial comments in the media concerning China:

Japan’s foreign minister has said China is becoming a “considerable threat” because of its increased military spending and nuclear weapons, in comments that have sparked a fresh row between the neighbors. China is “a neighboring country with one billion people and nuclear bombs whose military spending has been growing by two digits every year for 17 consecutive years,” Foreign Minister Taro Aso told reporters.

The Japan Times continues with an interesting analysis:

His comment underscores the fact that two processes are occurring simultaneously in East Asia — the “rise of China” and the evolution of Japanese security policy. These changes are pushing Asia into uncharted territory. Never before has the region had to accommodate two “rising powers” at the same time

While this may have never happened in Asia at the same time, it has happened several times before in other parts of the world.

My guess is that Japan is too demographically exhausted (its birth rate is even lower than Europe’s) to provide a serious challenge to China. While Japan will probably stage diplomatic food-fights on occasion, I don’t think this coming cold war will turn hot.

If it does, it will make World War I seem tame by comparison.

But if Asia avoids the mistakes of 20th Century Europe, it will likely see a flowering of technology and culture that will initiate one of the most creative periods in human history.

Conclusion:

This century will likely see Europe and America enter periods of serious distress that will imperil the future of Western Civilization. Meanwhile, the East, if it avoids open warfare, may see the rise of a uniquely prosperous and high-tech civilization.

If things progress according to this paradigm, this will be a century of stark winners and losers:

The Losers:

The United States: Bankruptcy is never pretty.

Europe: Sectarian strife is even less pretty.

Israel: The demographic trends are all in the wrong direction. And once the USA goes belly-up, things will start to look mighty lonely over there.

Japan: The Land of the Rising Sun is destined to become a vassal in the Chinese-run "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" (how ironic is that?).

The Winners:

China: If it avoids a confrontation with its neighbors, it will be the dominant nation in the coming century.

Islam: Demography is destiny.

Australia and New Zealand: Both nations are stable, mature democracies with abundant natural resources. They are also isolated enough to avoid the trouble spots, yet close enough to export their resources to the Asian tigers.

Serbia: I’m not expecting anything particularly great for Serbia in the realm of politics or economics, but they may well appreciate the irony of watching their Western European tormenters become embroiled in a vicious conflict with Islam. And America’s impending bankruptcy might be good for a few laughs too.

Wild Card:

Russia: One must always be cautious when predicting anything good for Russia. It has a disturbing tendency to have its ship go down just when port is coming into sight. Nevertheless, Russia has a few things going for it that could make it one of the few success stories in 21st Century Europe. First, it has enormous natural resources, many of which will be in very short supply over the coming century. Second, having barely survived its horrific experience with secular, materialist Bolshevism, Russia is reconnecting with its cultural and spiritual roots in a way that is not even on the radar screen of post-modern Western Europe. Russia may thus become the first European nation to rediscover some of that which was lost in 1914. Unfortunately, its perennial bad luck, its lingering gangsterism, and its shrinking population could upset the applecart. Thus, it earns the status as the century’s great wild card.

In conclusion, I note that most of these trends are already firmly in place, and little can be done to avoid the days of reckoning (while carefully remembering that history always has a way of shuffling wild cards into the deck). The debt problems in America, the demographics of Europe, and the competitive dynamics in Asia probably cannot now be altered enough to matter.

Thus, the fuses are lit…and the fireworks are about to begin.

Steven LaTulippe [send him mail] is a physician currently practicing in Ohio. He was an officer in the United States Air Force for 13 years.

This is a reasonable query which goes straight to the core issue for many in the LRC family. Without doubt, major problems are brewing in our country. America’s finances are eroding badly, the government is dismantling our constitutional freedoms, and our foreign policy is becoming increasingly delusional.

So, given this situation, what can any of us do? Can any of this be changed? How does one live a moral life in the midst of the chaos? How do we raise our children, run our businesses, and prepare for the future?

Good questions, all.

And for many of them, there are no easy answers.

Nevertheless, after some introspection, I offer the following suggestions:

Despite the mess, enjoy life:

This may seem obvious, even puerile, but it is nevertheless an important point. In many ways, Epicurus was the wisest of the classical Greeks. He counseled his countrymen to esteem happiness as a major value. The Epicurean man cherishes time with his family, entertaining conversation with his friends, and quiet moments contemplating the beauty of nature. He enjoys superb cuisine, occasionally indulges in fine wine and aromatic cigars, and is inspired by art, music and intellectual pursuits.

Inevitably, this recommendation will lead to accusations of defeatism, solipsism, or even collaboration with the various forms of statism currently devouring America. But I am not counseling complete inaction (as will soon become evident below). While we should not passively acquiesce to the damage being wrought on our society or cooperate with the agenda of our destroyers, I draw a distinction between submissiveness to the establishment’s actions and my own, personal worldview. Too many libertarians are downcast, or even apocalyptic, in their attitudes. Hiding in a bunker with a pallet of canned rations won’t do anyone any good. Having a positive attitude, on the other hand, is the key to living a joyful existence.

For the most part, there is little any of us can do to alter the big picture anyway, so why should we give them the satisfaction of making us miserable?

Life is too short. Come what may, it should be lived to the fullest.

Within reason, organize your affairs:

Just because I counsel a joyous lifestyle doesn’t mean I believe everyone should ignore the ominous realities around us. In all probability, our nation’s economy will enter a serious tailspin in the not-too distant future. Our government is accumulating debt at an unprecedented rate. The Fed is manipulating the money supply and debasing our currency. The military-industrial complex is rampaging around the globe, wreaking havoc. Various government agencies are gazing over our shoulders without legal oversight.

The best way to prepare for trouble is to honestly confront it and the effects it will have on your life. First, and most important, is getting out of debt. Pay off those credit cards, make extra mortgage payments, and stash some money away for a rainy day. The more stable your finances, the better you will be able to care for yourself and your family in a pinch.

Unfortunately, this is the exact opposite of what most Americans are doing. Most of our countrymen are maxing out their credit cards, "taking out" equity from their houses, and spending far beyond their means. These folks, like the proverbial grasshopper in autumn, will be out in the cold if the situation hits the fan.

For those even more motivated, I also recommend a nice stash of gold in your portfolio, and maybe some silver too.

But for those at the top of the motivation scale, I advise the cultivation of an "international lifestyle". As part of this strategy, one should diversify some of one’s financial interests offshore. A little place in the Caribbean, for instance, could be a profitable real estate investment…and it might also provide a safe haven if things get rough.

In a dicey situation, a second passport could come in handy too.

As for your immediate environs, I recommend choosing a small, stable community as your domicile. In times of political tumult or economic hardship, most small American towns should do just fine. Their inhabitants are the salt of the earth. They obey the law and they look out for their neighbors. Once there, it would also be a good idea to join a church or other religious organization. When times are tough, these institutions provide a nice framework for cooperation that could prove invaluable.

On the other hand, I would stay away from the major cosmopolitan areas. If we ever have an economic downturn anywhere near the size of the Great Depression, our polyglot cities may well turn into giant Superdomes. Since you don’t want to star in a contemporary remake of Mad Max, it’s best to avoid the major cities altogether.

Educate others:

One of the few practical activities I recommend that may actually have an effect on the future course of our nation is education. Specifically, LRCers need to inform our fellow citizens about the nature of America’s problems and educate them about the individuals, organizations, and philosophies that have brought us to our current circumstances.

One of the great tragedies of the 20th Century occurred when statists successfully convinced the American people that the Great Depression was caused by the "inherent instabilities of the free market". For nearly two decades, the Federal Reserve had engaged in a wildly irresponsible binge of "easy money" and low interest rates. That policy gave us the "roaring twenties", but the subsequent deflating debt balloon caused the downward spiral in the thirties.

Rather than placing the blame where it rightly belonged (i.e. the government’s manipulations of the marketplace) the government and academia successfully convinced the common man that the problems were caused by "too much freedom". Thus, America was given a giant dose of the same poison that caused the original illness (namely, the New Deal).

We libertarians must not let this happen again. As Greenspan’s new debt balloon deflates and the dollar tanks, the American people must have easy access to a simple, accurate libertarian explanation for the whole mess. Only when the population sees the situation through the correct paradigm will there be any chance to enact sound solutions.

Otherwise, we’ll get another round of statism which will effectively end the unique experiment that was America.

Conclusion:

Many libertarians have big ideas about staging political rebellions against the establishment and sparking a wave of individual liberty. While I sympathize with the sentiment, I believe it is unrealistic. We are dealing with numerous, entrenched special interests which will not be unseated by anything short of a calamity.

The military-industrial complex, for instance, is a massive network of defense contractors, politicians, lobbyists, etc. which has a deep-seated, institutional priority in continuing our destructive foreign policy. It is not simply going to "roll over" and allow noninterventionism to become the order of the day.

And that is just one of the many "complexes" which afflict us.

The welfare complex, for instance, is a gigantic network of social workers, government bureaucrats, poverty pimps, and race hustlers. It oversees the distribution of multi-billion dollar programs which function largely to keep its recipients in a permanent state of dependency.

The public infrastructure complex is a web of slum lords, HUD bureaucrats, construction companies, and labor unions which manages our public housing and transportation networks. And, yet again, this complex consumes tens of billions of tax dollars every year and is highly motivated to keep the scam rolling.

None of these complexes will go down without a fight. Preaching a gospel of individual liberty and limited government will not connect with any of the participants in these networks. They simply have no intellectual framework to comprehend the ideas.

It would be like trying to explain Avogadro’s number to a hamster.

Worse yet, the modern Total State has developed sophisticated methods of manipulation designed to continue its rule indefinitely. This establishment has co-opted the mainstream media, taken over the educational system, and has designed intricate propaganda techniques to influence the masses. The whole purpose of these endeavors is to ensure that the game will continue without fundamental opposition.

So we are stuck with this system. Its tentacles are wrapped around every aspect of our lives even as it devours the very substance of our nation like some giant, seamy Whore of Babylon squatting on the banks of the Potomac.

Unfortunately, the regime will continue to build multi-billion dollar "bridges to nowhere" for the foreseeable future. It will continue to randomly bomb, strafe, and depopulate small, defenseless countries. It will continue to corrupt ever-larger populations of marginalized citizens into the nightmare of perpetual dependency. It will continue to miseducate our children, steal our money, and deprive us of our liberty.

But never fear, for eventually the system will collapse. Like the old Soviet Union, it will run out of time, victims, and loot. Its funny-money will become worthless, and its reputation will be nil.

On that day, my fellow libertarians, with a populace properly educated in the paradigms of freedom, a better nation might be born.

Steven LaTulippe [send him mail] is a physician currently practicing in Ohio. He was an officer in the United States Air Force for 13 years.

Don’t get me wrong, I had a wonderful Christmas and a fun-filled New Year’s, but returning to the news this week has been a trying experience (to say the least). So many things have gone wrong lately that one hardly knows where to begin. Every time I start a column, something else happens that begs for analysis and comment.

So, to keep things simple, I’ll just hit the high points:

• The Jack Abramoff Scandal:

Washington is all atwitter about super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s recent plea-bargain in which he allegedly agreed to testify against several prominent beltway power brokers.

As best I can figure, Abramoff is accused of bribing various congressmen in return for "special favors" for his clients. He allegedly threw a lot of cash and luxury junkets around Capitol Hill in order to change policies concerning gambling interests and minimum wage laws.

I’m frankly mystified as to why anyone finds this newsworthy. After all, Washington DC is essentially nothing more than an enormous fencing operation. Every year, the government takes money from hard-working Americans, puts it into a giant pile, and then distributes it to a myriad of special interest groups using a shady, dishonest process involving favor swapping, backstabbing, and influence peddling.

This procedure is not an anomaly or a glitch, but is actually the core function and purpose of the system.

Jack Abramoff was not, philosophically speaking, doing anything out of the ordinary. He may have been a little more blatant and dishonest about it…but is that newsworthy?

No way.

Jack Abramoff is just one of many parasites slithering around in the large abscess that is Mordor on the Potomac. If he goes to the big house, virtually the entire city should go with him.

Either way, there’s not a whole lot we can do about it. My only wish in the matter is that the Washington establishment would spare us the self-righteous indignation.

• The Iraqi Election:

  Iraq held yet another in its seemingly endless series of elections. And yet again, we were treated to seemingly endless pictures of smiling voters with purple fingers.

  On cue, the neocons touted the election as a milestone in Iraq’s transformation into a modern democracy. They took the opportunity to claim their policy is working and that the invasion was therefore justified.

  Whether by conscious intent or mere self-deception, they couldn’t be more wrong. The election was a debacle for Iraq and is leading straight to civil war.

  The Sunnis decided (this time) to participate in the election, hoping to win real power in the future government. They ceased their military attacks, nominated a slate of candidates, and worked hard to maximize their turn-out.

  The results were disastrous.

  Through some combination of fraud and simple demographics, the Sunnis’ share of the vote total was dismal compared to the Shiites and Kurds. Locked out of power, the Sunnis face a bleak future. They see themselves confined to a triangular dustbowl without oil, money, or hope. Even worse, their lives will be at the mercy of a government dominated mostly by their hated Shiite rivals.

  A civil war is now almost inevitable. What they cannot win in the voting booth, the Sunnis must now try to win via the barrel of a gun.

  The only good thing that could have emerged from this election was a graceful American exit. Saddam is gone. There are no WMDs. A successful democratic election was held.

  Any sane American government would take that as a cue to declare victory and head for the exits (although one could certainly argue that a sane government would never have gone to Iraq in the first place…but that is another issue entirely).

  Unfortunately, no one ever accused the Bush administration of sanity. They seem to believe that this election was a success and that things are better than ever. And since their original intentions included permanent American military bases, they have no real desire to leave Iraq anyway.

  So whether by delusion or design, American forces don’t appear to be leaving anytime soon…which will place our soldiers in a ring-side seat at a nasty, three-way civil war.

• Fast times at the NSA:

  The Bush administration seems to be running some sort of contest to see how many constitutional amendments it can violate in a single two-term presidency. I lost track of the running total some time ago, but the Bushites must be outshining the historical competition by a substantial margin.

  The most recent scandal involves revelations that the NSA snoops were ordered to eavesdrop on American citizens’ phone conversations. This is, supposedly, against the law, since the NSA is only allowed to use its snooping powers outside the empire.

  Even more outrageous is the fact that several instances of spying allegedly continued even after the administration was denied warrants by federal courts.

  This is a direct attack on both the separation of powers and the Bill of Rights.

  Without doubt, this constitutes an impeachable offense.

  Unfortunately, impeachment would require an actual opposition party in congress dedicated to protecting our constitutional rights…and all we have are the Democrats.

  Were I a federal judge (now there’s a scary thought) I’d send a posse of marshals over to the NSA to round up the wiretap records. Then, I’d compare the records to the warrants issued by the court…whereupon I’d start tossing people in jail for contempt.

  But that sort of thing only happens in a republic, not an empire.

• Coal Mining Tragedy:

  I closely followed the disaster in West Virginia last week, hoping for a miracle that would find the men alive. It was a particularly cruel twist that the families were told all their loved ones had survived, only to be informed later that the information was wrong.

  Certainly, our nation’s thoughts and prayers belong with these folks in this difficult time.

  

  Doing the jobs that Americans “won’t do”

  Having been born and raised in coal country (my hometown is only minutes away from the Quecreek mine, the site of the dramatic rescue several years ago), I’ve had many friends and relatives in the industry. Miners are a stubborn and unique breed. Scratching for coal in dark, cramped caves takes a certain kind of courage that few possess.

  After the Quecreek incident, and again after this one in West Virginia, my thoughts eventually drifted to a certain cliché I often hear in the media. It is frequently said that America must not guard her borders or interfere with illegal immigration because our nation requires hordes of illegals to do those jobs that Americans "won’t do".

  I’ve always bristled when I hear that statement because I know it is false. Even worse, it is slanderous.

  The men at the Quecreek and Sago mines are Americans, born and bred. Many of their families have been working those mines for generations.

  Perhaps it’s just me, but I’m tired of listening to journalists and academics describe American workers like they’re a bunch of pampered creampuffs. Going down into the mines is a tough job…one that’s a heck of a lot more dangerous than, say, picking oranges. While the folks in Washington and in the media may not think Americans will do these jobs, I know the truth is quite to the contrary.

Steven LaTulippe [send him mail] is a physician currently practicing in Ohio. He was an officer in the United States Air Force for 13 years.

This general archetype was given comedic life by Deputy Barney Fife and Sheriff Andy Taylor, who were Mayberry’s "long arms of the law" on The Andy Griffith Show.

Traditional American Policemen

Unfortunately, as our nation has drifted towards a more aggressive, centralized form of government, the character of policing has changed.

First, law enforcement was relentlessly federalized during the course of the hideous 20th Century. Back when our society actually followed the constitution, the only armed federal law enforcement agents were those of the secret service. They were charged with investigating a narrow spectrum of crimes specifically enumerated in the constitution, such as counterfeiting, treason, and threats against the president.

All of this changed when the government began to discard the constitution’s limitations and moved to consolidate power in Washington. Prior to the FBI, the federal government actually hired private detectives whenever the Secret Service was short-handed. But as the number and intrusiveness of federal laws proliferated during Teddy Roosevelt’s administration, the government began to chafe under a constant shortage of law enforcement agents. As historian John Fox notes:

Prior to 1908, the Justice Department had no organized force of investigators to gather evidence. It relied on detectives hired from the Secret Service and, for a while private detectives. Under President Theodore Roosevelt, this began to change. The vigorous application of older laws and the increase in new ones that occurred during his administration began to tax the Justice Department’s ability to detect crime. In 1906, sixty Secret Service operatives were needed, the next year, sixty-five.

As the "crisis" worsened, calls for new enforcement agencies proliferated. Finally, Attorney General Charles Bonaparte (who says God doesn’t have a sense of humor?) proposed dramatic changes.

Fox continues:

Charles Bonaparte, who was appointed Attorney General in March 1907, quickly became convinced that the practice of using Secret Service investigators was a problem. His lack of complete control over the investigators, he later argued, meant that he "had no direct information as to what they did, and …but an imperfect control over the expenses which they might incur." In his Annual Report, Bonaparte called Congress’s attention "to the anomaly [emphasis mine] that the Department of Justice has no …permanent detective force under its immediate control. He asked that "provision be made for a force of this character; its number and the form of its organization to be determined by the scope of the duties which the Congress may see fit to intrust [sic] to it."

The result was the creation of the FBI.

At first, many Americans expressed dismay that the federal government was treading onto soil that had traditionally been forbidden to it. The consolidation of a federal police force had generally been considered "un-American" and a precursor to "Caesarism." (Note that the attorney general considered the lack of federal agents to be an "anomaly." In a sense, he was correct, given that most systems of government throughout the ages have been despotic and that our republic was unique. But this was clearly not the nuance Bonaparte intended.)

Many were concerned that this development heralded the beginning of the end of our republic.

Teddy Roosevelt swept these concerns aside, citing the need for greater enforcement capabilities on the part of the feds. In so doing, he managed to express an opinion almost diametrically opposite that of our Founding Fathers:

Roosevelt’s position, though not stated at these hearings, was that what was not forbidden by the law was allowed, hence as president, he had wide discretion in marshaling the executive power.

The spirit and intent of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments state that everything not expressly permitted to the federal government was reserved for the states and the people…and everything not expressly forbidden to the states and the people was permitted. Roosevelt, of course, reversed these principles, and heralded the entry of the feds into routine law enforcement.

Once the camel’s nose was under the tent, the power and scope of federal law enforcement relentlessly expanded, culminating in the siege at Waco and the unprecedented growth of federal power accompanying the passage of The Patriot Act.

Federal law enforcement in action

Now that our government has nearly completed the transformation into empire, the aggressive nature of law enforcement is working its way through the system. The rights of our citizenry are being eroded and the powers of the state are being inexorably expanded.

Two symptoms of this trend are the involvement of the military in civilian law enforcement and the overt militarization of police forces (right down to the local level).

Law enforcement in imperial systems

The use of the military for civilian law enforcement is an overt sign of degeneration into despotism. This trend accelerated after 9/11 and the Katrina disaster, when numerous prominent lawmakers (and President Bush) called for a significant change in Posse Comitatus (the law which forbids military participation in law enforcement).

As for the militarization of police forces, I was horrified by a recent story from Miami about that city’s new anti-terrorism plan. Curt Anderson of AP described it as follows:

Police are planning “in-your-face” shows of force in public places, saying the random, high-profile security operations will keep terrorists guessing about where officers might be next.

As an example, uniformed and plainclothes officers might surround a bank building unannounced, contact the manager about ways to be vigilant against terrorists and hand out leaflets in three languages to customers and people passing by, said police spokesman Angel Calzadilla. He said there would be no random checks of identification.

Lest we be too concerned about this plan, an official added the following:

“People are definitely going to notice it,” Deputy Police Chief Frank Fernandez said Monday. “We want that shock. We want that awe. But at the same time, we don’t want people to feel their rights are being threatened. We need them to be our eyes and ears.”

This leaves one at a loss for words.

What could possibly lead people to "feel their rights are being threatened" about a band of ninja-clad paramilitaries surrounding their bank and shoving propaganda in their faces?

When I first read this story, I thought it was a gag…that it was a satirical piece from The Onion.

Tragically, it is not.

Traditional law enforcement is a noble calling and plays a vital role in protecting individual rights. Violent criminals exist in all societies and we should be thankful that there are men and women willing to join the police force and guard against them. But statism is contaminating American law enforcement and causing it to approach the precipice of authoritarianism.

"Protect and serve" is being mutated into "shock and awe."

This is, unfortunately, yet another pothole on our tragic road to empire.

Steven LaTulippe [send him mail] is a physician currently practicing in Ohio. He was an officer in the United States Air Force for 13 years.