We Interrupt The Apocalypse For This Message From Our Sponsors

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

 

 

Okay, guys, pardon me as I interrupt your strumming up of cords and picking up a good spot on the hills, in preparation to watch Rome burn.

All of you who are waiting to be witnesses to the apocalypse – please stop saying we’re going to collapse like Rome.

Yes, it’s a thing everyone says.  Yes, it’s something that much more erudite people than I have said.  That is because it is a … “intellectual meme.”

Everyone has been comparing every power that rises… well, since Rome, to Rome.  And  EVERYONE has been comparing every time when life gets relatively easy and prosperous to the Rome of the decadence.

Sigh.  Roll of eyes.

Look, it’s been an awful long time since I studied Rome in detail.  The way I work, and the reason I can write historicals in various centuries is that I don’t have perma-memory for details.  I’m pretty good with general framework – and this is what my education strove for.  Yeah, we got some details too, but our history classes were less about names and dates (It shocked me very much that’s what American history classes were about when I moved here) and memorizing who said what, than about the movements.  For instance, until I had to read up on the French revolution (years ago, I had this idea bout a series of mysteries set in the French revolution.  It didn’t happen because the French revolution depresses me to an unbelievable degree.) I just had this idea of a few reasonable demands going off the rails due to both what we could call the “radicalization” of the populace (which was primed for it by the broadsheets, etc) coming up against a very incompetent (and reluctant, weirdly) king, the whole thing exacerbated by debt from helping the American revolution, which in turn was also a spark to the radicalism of the French populace.  (Yes, across the pond equal before the law became “equal” with horrible consequences.  Also, next time you look at a revolution full on, be suspicious of any which promises to bring fraternity.)

Yes, if you look at it close up it’s not quite like that, and there’s all sorts of other things.  BUT I have the framework, and can research the details and deepen it very rapidly.

(Practically the only era in which I have more detailed research is Tudor England, and even there I need to research the particular people/time for a couple of months before writing a book – which is why book four and five of the Shakespeare series, should there be enough interest, might be a kickstarter.  So far, not seeing enough sales to justify it, though.  I was putting up the first two books on Barnes and Noble yesterday – since the first rolled off Prime – and kept looking at the names of friends and neighbors and people in that era and going “good Lord.  I’d have to re-learn all this again.”  Of course, it’s been a dozen years.)

By nature, at any rate, I’m a generalist/synthesist.  I can glue on the details for a project but I don’t remember them unless I’m working on that project.  (And then they come back very quickly.  Same thing with languages.  I would probably take me six months to get Portuguese, French and Italian to the “doing scientific translation to and from” level again.  Probably a year for German and Swedish.  Of course, it would destroy the colloquial nature of my English, which is why I don’t do it.)

My peculiar brain aside, and explaining why I can sound abysmally ignorant on details, you don’t need details to see how different Rome was from the United States.

Yes, yes, it was a melting pot of sorts, but then every “lead civilization” of the world has been, just not acknowledged.  It was a melting pot because it was wealthy and people flocked to it.  And yeah, okay, in the beginning, people might even have flocked to it out of loyalty to an idea that was SOMEWHAT similar to America – the idea being that a Roman citizen had some rights, while in the more Eastern Style monarchies they had none.

This is of course where our founding fathers got the foundational ideas for our own republic… but…

But  you’ll admit the republic was of a different kind and order, and more concerned with families than with the individual.

And then there’s the fact that the Rome that fell not only wasn’t a republic, but hadn’t been a Republic in a long, long, long time.

We’re not going to argue on whether the conversion to Empire prolonged the existence of Rome.  And we’re most certainly not going to argue on whether the US is an empire.  It isn’t.  Not an empire on the framework of Rome.

Rome might have started as an agrarian and trading republic, (and no matter how much the founding fathers admired it, NOT a republic on our terms.  Don’t forget the founding fathers built in stuff to make us different.  But also, and beyond all that, despite the self-conscious imitation of Rome, the Rome these people admired had never existed.  It was an idealized, cleaned up thing, a Rome as it never was but should have been) but it took a sharp turn weird after the attack by Hannibal.  Mostly because the Punic wars exposed (if you forgive me mixed historical metaphors) the Achiles heel of the Republican system.  You can’t have a war when your leaders keep changing mid-stream.  (We’re discovering that same thing with our own war with the descendants of the Phoenicians.  Even if our stream is longer)

That was the beginning of the end for the Republic and the beginning of military leaders as rulers.  But that was the BEGINNING.  From there on, the system rapidly became one of those oriental monarchies, including a god-king.

Okay, I often call the president godemperor, because he is to his followers, but the majority of the country would rise up if he were to declare himself just that.

Even before that, the Roman Republic was of a different… kind than the US.  The US started as a colony.  (Oh, don’t argue that so did Rome.  Go back far enough every country did.  Yes, Rome started as a band that conquered the natives.  But they didn’t do so in the service of a compact of beliefs.  At least that we know.  And they didn’t win independence against a colonizing power – at least that we know – and they started off as a kingdom, that we do know.)

We went from colony to Republic.

Rome on the other hand started the way normal nations do, kingdom.  Then Republic.  Then Empire.  And all through it, it sent out colonists and created colonies.

Yes, you could compare the taking over the Italian peninsula to our own conquest of most of the continent.  You could but you shouldn’t.  It might look the same if you squint and shake up the snow globe, but it isn’t.  European colonists came from a densely populated land to one not only sparsely populated, but populated by natives who lived in a completely different way.  (Some of them.  Yes, I know it’s not all.  But the ones who remained hunter gatherers simply didn’t hold the land in a way Europeans understood.)  Rome was a power of that time and region doing what powers of that time and region did.

And by the time Rome became an Empire, it had more in common with the USSR than with us.

What exactly do I mean by that?

Well, first, while Rome had in common with us a genius for synthesis – for taking bits from everywhere and making it into something different – it was not, that I know, at any time the driving innovator of anything.  Greece, if anything, deserved that title.  I was thinking the other day that our relationship with Japan is similar to Greece and Rome, except for THAT. Rome conquered Greece but took Greek culture.  However, Greece also had more innovation than Rome.  This is not true between us and Japan, except perhaps in entertainment (and I’m not sure that’s innovation so much as their mixing in their traditional forms which, of course, are quite new to us.)

Perhaps in the early Republic people came from all over bringing their skills.  By late republic, let alone the Empire, people came to Rome for the bread and circus.  And Rome had colonies.  No, not economic colonies.  Real colonies, which required real legions to keep them in check.  Protect them against the barbarians?  Sure.  But also protect against uprising.

Before you bring up stuff like American troops abroad… Guys it is doubtful we could protect anywhere against real determined barbarians.  I’ve heard our troops in South Korea called “the trip wire.”  Their function is to go down fighting and give us an excuse to send our REAL forces in.  And that’s in Korea, where the danger is greater.  Say that Germany, of one mind, decided to become a Russian Satellite and toss us out (it might very well, btw, these days.)  Do you think we’d do anything other than politely apologize and leave?

We were invited in and stayed not as a force of occupation but as defense against Russian aggression.

The people who came in and occupied were the USSR.  The people who treated lands they “protected” as colonies and occupied land were the USSR.  The people using foreign, “colonials” as their shock troops were.. the USSR. (What is Cuba and Africa?)

More importantly, like the later day Rome, Moscow because sort of a central bureaucratic hold, with the “provinces” producing anything that was useful or new, or…

Rome of its kind was less abusive and in the end less oppressive than the USSR only because it was an agrarian empire with slower transportation and communication.  The USSR was trying to be a Roman empire on a foundation of industrial might.  Apparently, it doesn’t translate well.

It translates even less to us, because we don’t take lands and hold them.  We don’t make conquered peoples citizens.  We don’t take their natural (and unnatural ;)) resources to feed a huge central bureaucracy.

As bloated as our bureaucracy is – and guys, I’m not arguing that – it’s only bloated for US, not in comparison to the USSR, and not even in comparison to the rest of Europe which operates on the French model.  (Aka “we  will generate as much paperwork as possible.”)  I grew up with an ID card, without which it was impossible to operate.  It is normal in Europe.  Here we use a patchwork of driver’s license and social security, but at least it’s not ONE centralized number you’ll wear through life and which is used for EVERYTHING.  (Yes, okay, our SS# is close enough to that, but at least it’s being used for that illegally, and we can claim that and use that to fight it.)

And we’re certainly not plundering the resources of everywhere else in the Empire to feed the central, restive population.

Yes, I know, Marxists say that we’re an economic empire, and we’re plundering our economic colonies to feed our prosperity, but that’s poppycock.  If we were that, we’d take all the oil from the Arab countries we’ve been fighting in, instead of letting them do their own deals (with FRANCE!)

The Marxists believe that because they’re working outward from the “finite pie” model, and can’t figure out how the US got so rich, so it must be taking from other countries which are poor in comparison. They fail to explain how every country in the US sphere also got richer.  Maybe they don’t know it.  Or maybe they REFUSE to know it because it conflicts with their religion.

(We used to dream of being invaded by the US back in the seventies.  And no, I’m not joking.)

Curiously, in the seventies, the USSR and its satellites promoted the idea of The-US-As-Decadent-Rome.  I still have clue zero why or how they could think that, except of course that by that time they’d given up on their model being as prosperous as ours, so they had to hold themselves as being “virtuous/Spartan” against our decadent “too well off” ways which were corrupting the moral fiber, etc.

In fact, by signs of decadence as such, they were in far more trouble.  As it proved.  Real signs of decadence: failure to reproduce.  Failure to marry. Failure to take up useful work.  Disengagement from the ideological frame work of the empire, failure to look after one’s own kids already born…. Etc. (And no, again, yep, we have some of that, every society does, and now our leaders are doing their best to drive us to a crash, so some of that shows, but that is nothing compared to how bad it was in the USSR at that time, or in Rome before the collapse.)

We tend to confuse the “signs of the decadence” with “excesses of wealth” partly because our view of the late Rome is tainted by the early church fathers.  Let’s remember the church started as a slave religion. Talking about how “pure” they were in opposition to the people better well off and how this would win them heaven was a great part of the selling pitch.  (Yes, yes, moderation of physical appetites is Christian praxis too, but that’s not why they spent so much time describing the decadent Romans eating sandwiches made of skylarks’ tongues.)

The excesses seen in “the Rome of the decadence” are seen in any society that becomes affluent enough.  It’s just human.  Make enough money and get everyone well off enough, and soon you’ll see people wanting to eat chocolates modeled on some “anus model’s” relevant part.  (You think I’m joking.  David Burkhead posted this on Facebook.)  It’s the way humans are.  Only our “decadent waste” (waste according to whom, Tovarish? Did you buy Marxist lies?) is – particularly in Roman terms – spread throughout every class and all through our sphere of influence.  When a “poor” person has a choice between more than one kind of food, it’s sybaritic “decadent waste” in Roman terms.

And if you look at it, the USSR’s collapse modeled Rome’s pretty closely.  It was just faster because well, they started truly from an Empire, even if not called that, and because I would guess that empire frame work translates badly to an industrial model which requires skilled workers, not slaves.

But the USSR was HATED by all its satellites, and they were gleefully waiting its fall (so was Rome) but when it fell, they still looked for orders from Moscow, and many of them, even the ones that proclaim themselves free, are working on a modified communist/socialist system.  If they fall out of it, it will be slowly, as people fell out of the Roman system.

We?  Heaven knows.  Again, despite the self-conscious classical influence, it was given a twist and a change by our founding fathers.  And then the technology spun it up more.

For one we’re not hated in Europe – not really.  Mostly we’re despised, which neither the USSR nor Rome were.  We’re not taken seriously.  (And part is our rotating leader thing, and complete change of policy.)  We’re seen as a little mad, and not just in our sybaritic excesses.

As I said before, the other nations can’t make heads or tails of us, because we’re the Aspergers kids of the international community.  Depending on what is being taught over here, we actually try to do things no other nation ever did.  Like declare a war over without thoroughly reducing the other country to rubble.  (And it’s not working in the Middle East, but that’s a problem with what is being taught/believed by our leaders.  Honestly anyone asking about an “exit strategy” at the beginning of a war should be kicked fifty times around the room, and then told “we break everything first, then they beg us to stop and promise to do what we’re told, then we exit.”  What?  These people never fought in pre-school?  Well, maybe not.  Our idiot educators stop that because “violence never solved anything.”  We’ll pay for that nonsense.)

So, we’re going to crash.  But will our crash be like Rome’s/the USSR’s?

Oh, please.  Pull the other one.  It plays Hail to the Emperor.

Look, first, Europe NEVER used our system.  Their system is closer – though not the same – to the USSR.  And part of that perhaps is because they feared the USSR and USSR infiltration more than they feared us, and they trusted neither our numbers of troops nor our resolve to keep us safe.

They’re not going to be holding on for centuries, trying to imitate a lost system and looking to us for direction that never comes.

As for our states doing that?

Oh, PLEASE.  Do think of different technologies.  We might hold more land area than the Roman empire at its apex, but you can travel from one end to the other of it in less than a week – which you couldn’t.  And you can communicate across it instantly, which the Roman Empire never could, unless you’re counting an alternate Roman empire where they had magic.

If you think that makes no difference in a collapse, we need to talk.  I mean, seriously talk.

That’s leaving aside all the rest, including that we’re not holding the country together by force.  Yes, there IS the civil war, but that was more than 100 years ago, and do tell me where our troops had to be sent in to pacify a state recently.

It’s leaving aside too the fact that until very recently people came here to work, and because they believed in Freedom.  It’s leaving aside the inherent American “ungovernability” or the tendency to hold up a middle finger skyward when the people in Washington get TOO funny.

Rome to an extent was a creature of its legions.  This is like the USSR was a creature of its armies.  When it could no longer support its armies, it fell.

We’re a country that reluctantly engages in war to protect our right to be left alone (though the foreign adventurism of the left side of our politics can’t be erased.  And don’t tell me that’s not the left side.  Go look at ALL our major wars.)  Or, in the apropos phrase of Dave Freer “Americans are horrible imperialists.  All they want to do is go home.”

Do we have similarities to Rome?  Well, we’re the most prosperous land of our time; we sometimes get a bit funny with our chocolates and our sexual behavior in a way that no doubt would shock the goat herders of Afghanistan or the slaves of Rome (but then, dears, their behavior would shock us too) and have a kickass military.

But we don’t use the kickass military the same way.  We not only don’t take over and integrate the lands we conquer, we don’t even demand they mirror our model.  Most of them end up mirroring the European model.

And our sybaritic excesses are distributed in a completely different way.  In the US, butthole chocolates are NOT “too good for the common people” provided the common people are out of their minds and pay for them.

As for leading the world, mostly we do it not through our legions expropriating other countries and forcing them to wash behind their ears, but through shopping.  “Stop acting like idiots, or we send over legions of grannies with American express” might be a terrible threat (have you met some of these women?) but it’s not on the same order as “we’ll crush you flat beneath our heel.”

Will there be a crash?  The magic 8 ball says “the probability is high.” I mean a miracle could occur.  The thin air we’re running on could become solid rock.  Or in other words, there could be some breakthrough in energy production or otherwise, that fixes everything.  To an extent computers saved us from the sure crash we were headed to in the seventies.  It could happen.  Who was it who said G-d protects children, drunkards and the United States of America?

But the chances are high there will be a crash. Will it mirror Rome/the USSR’s?  Um… not a chance.  We’re a different sort of animal altogether.

Will the rebuilding be fast and will we keep the Republic?

Making predictions is hard, especially about the future.  BUT look, guys, those who are disengaged from the Republic are mostly our Eureopanized leaders. (Totally a word) Yes, its fashionable to make sounds like we are.  But when the excrement hits the rotating object, like, say, 9/11, suddenly the fashionable lefties go around complaining they’re being oppressed by all these yahoos with American flags.  And when the people who despise our model take DC, the populace arise in untold numbers for working people who have to earn their keep, and in a model expressly harking back to our founding.

So, after the collapse, will the “elites” and the “intellectuals” want to keep the Republic?  Chances are no.  Chances are they’ll offer themselves as nobility.  But this surprises you because?  I just hope we retain the sense not to chase them out of town by hitting them over the head with their “no blood for oil” signs.

The rest of us?  My guess is we’ll spit on our hands and get back to rebuilding.

Is that guaranteed?  No.  See above where making predictions is hard, particularly about the future.  Also, my crystal ball is out of batteries.

BUT from the movements of history and the trend of our culture, I’d say it was the most likely.

What turns likely into history?  The way people act when the crunch comes.

That means you.  And you.  And you.  Your input might be fractional, but your aggregate isn’t.

It all depends on your preparation, your fortitude, your strength, your dedication to the principles we were founded on.

Do you think it’s ever been otherwise, since our founding?  This oddity of a nation can only subsist as is because of the devotion of its citizens.

Same as it ever was.

A republic, if you can keep it.

391 thoughts on “We Interrupt The Apocalypse For This Message From Our Sponsors”

  1. > And we’re most certainly not going to argue on whether the US is an empire. It isn’t.

    Well, if you don’t want to argue, I won’t be a bad guest and start a fight.

    …but I will sulk over here in the corner, disagreeing.

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    1. Quite frankly, I’d like to know why you think the US is an Empire?

      While I can’t speak for Sarah, I don’t think she’ll “whack” you if you give a reasoned argument for the US being an Empire.

      Oh, it helps to “define your terms”.

      So your mission, if you chose to accept it, is to tell us what is an Empire and why the US is one.

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      1. My copy of the OED is packed (moving out of Massachusetts to Free State New Hampshire- woo hoo!), so a quick web search:

        empire – noun – an extensive group of states or countries under a single supreme authority

        I would argue that 2/3 or 3/4 of the states in the world are effectively under a single supreme authority, which is (pace Moldbug) the { New England / Blue State} { Harvard / NYT / Puritan} Elite.

        I don’t mean this in some sort of crazy tinfoil hat way, that the Illuminati are pulling the strings.

        I merely mean it in a realpolitik sense. Vox Day once said that you can figure out how many sovereign nations there are in the world by counting those that offered Snowden asylum, then adding one for the US.

        The US government has military control of the biggest economy (that of the US citizenry) and control of the world’s ocean trade routes. It also has nearly complete control of the world’s telecommunications. That in turn leverages it into being a global hyperpower that can intervene anywhere on the planet, cause civil wars to go one way or another, blackmail world leaders, pressure small nations into trade deals or out of them, etc.

        For the record, I think that it’s much better that the US occupy the “hyperpower” spot than anyone else – as much as I hate Harvard faculty, I’d rather have them running the world than, say, the Chinese.

        My argument boils down to this: is there anything the US government might like to do anywhere in the world that it can not?

        The answer is, yes, a few things: it can’t force changes inside Iran, or North Korea, or Russia, or China.

        …but everywhere else, it can. This is not a remotely symetrical situation. England has less power in the Republic of Ireland than we have in every nation in Africa.

        QED: the USG is the world’s most successful and powerful empire.

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        1. Eh, gods. There’s TONS of things the US would like to do in the world that it cannot do — if our government had their way (our current government) they’d take down England, etc. They’re restrained by the US populace.
          Other things you’re missing include that our military has limits and we don’t have nearly enough to “pacify” the world if they wanted us off.
          Besides, the fact remains, we don’t TAKE stuff from other countries, we negotiate for it/buy it. QED not an empire.

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          1. > There’s TONS of things the US would like to do in the world that it cannot do — if our government had their way … they’d take down England

            Empires don’t [ usually ] crush their constitutent states; they use them as cut outs.

            Why would the US want to crush England? Far better to let it pretend to be a sovereign entity- that way the US gets an extra vote on the UN Security panel, the appearance of allies in various colonial wars, etc.

            > you’re missing … that our military has limits and we don’t have nearly enough to “pacify” the world if they wanted us off.

            Indeed. This is why empires rule through client states. Let the Mexicans pay the salaries of the Mexican police, let the English pay the salaries of the English police, etc.

            > Besides, the fact remains, we don’t TAKE stuff from other countries,

            I agree. However, this is not part of the definition of empire. Note the British Empire.

            Anyway, you said you didn’t want to fight about this, and I fear that I’m distracting from the point that you wanted to make, so I’d be happy to drop this.

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            1. Yep, the US is an empire. That’s why operation El Dorado Canyon didn’t have to divert 1,300 miles out of the way over the Atlantic, and why Saddam’s WMD stocks were captured on the road to Syria by the 4th ID attacking from the north out of Turkey.

              Idiot.

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          2. Hmm. But empires are restrained by political opinion. Even totalitarian ones. For instance, the Japanese Empire had to use subs to smuggle supplies to the Japanese soldiers cut off by our leapfrogging tactics in the Pacific and being starved out. Public opinion demanded it, though it was counter-productive in war terms.

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        2. Nope, IMO the US has the potential for being that sort of Empire *but* isn’t one now.

          When we see how George W Bush was *unable* to get all of Western Europe to support the invasion of Iraq, it seem silly to say the US is that sort of Empire.

          When smaller countries around the world can “get away” with openly defying the US, then we’re not an Empire.

          How long would a Hugo Chávez (of Venezuela) gotten away with defying Rome or even the early British Empire?

          He only got away with it because the US let him.

          IMO Vox Day is incorrect because in spite what happened with Snowden, there are too many examples of other nations defying the US.

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        3. I would argue that 2/3 or 3/4 of the states in the world are effectively under a single supreme authority, which is (pace Moldbug) the { New England / Blue State} { Harvard / NYT / Puritan} Elite.

          You are confusing “leadership” with “authority.” America is the leading World Power, but we do not exercise “authority” over our allies. In particular, we neither claim nor act upon the right to force them to do our bidding.

          You also over-estimate the influence of the Northeastern Elites both within the United States of America and within the world. Indeed, right NOW their power has waned, because Obama and the people he collects around him have been hostile to their interests. (For instance, the Northeastern Elites tend to be pro-British, Obama’s policy has been anything but).

          I merely mean it in a realpolitik sense. Vox Day once said that you can figure out how many sovereign nations there are in the world by counting those that offered Snowden asylum, then adding one for the US.

          Why do you assume that if a Power will not shelter our traitors that this means that we “control” it? If they shelter ourtraitors, we might shelter theirs, which would be detrimental to their interests, and what benefits would they get by having Snowden to compensate the benefits they might lose by having him?

          The US government has military control of the biggest economy (that of the US citizenry) and control of the world’s ocean trade routes. It also has nearly complete control of the world’s telecommunications.

          But the United States cannot close the trade routes to a country without blockade, and blockade is an act of WAR — something politically almost impossible for the US Government to do short of acts of war by the target against ourselves (notice how badly and humiliatingly Obama failed when he attempted to levy war against Syria without perceived good cause). The same applies to telecommunications, only more so because telecommunications are far less easy to interdict than are sea routes.

          Empire without the claim and successful exercise of the right to use force on the provinces is no real empire — it’s “business empire” at most.

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          1. I have to take exception to your characterization of Snowden as a traitor. He exposed people who were in violation of their oaths to uphold and defend the constitution. I’d argue that the people in the NSA who think the fourth amendment doesn’t apply to them are a lot closer to traitors than Snowden.

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              1. The problem with that criteria is that Aid can consist of any information at all, and Comfort can be the comfort of knowing that there are citizens who disagree with the government

                So providing any information about what’s happening to voters, or any criticism of government can be interpreted as ‘providing aid and comfort to our enemies’

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                1. I’m not going to argue that the NSA aren’t traitors, I would have to do some more indepth study of what they are doing to see if it is treason, or simply illegal. But yes Snowden is a traitor. He ran to our enemies and gave them classified information. It doesn’t matter whether that information should have been classified or not, whether that information was gathered illegally or not, or whether the people gathering and using the information were doing so legally or illegally, or whether they themselves were traitors. Intentionally revealing classified information to an enemy (or in some cases an ally) of the state makes you a traitor. Since he worked for the government and had clearance to access at least part of the foresaid information, I am positive he had been briefed and had clear orders not to transfer such information into the hands of any other sovereign nation.

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              2. He released information to an English journalist (Glenn Greenwald), an American journalist (Barton Gellman), and an American documentary filmmaker (Laura Poitras). If those are enemies that we must worrry about “aid and comfort” being given to, then we are in serious trouble.

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                1. Carl, and those individuals released the info he gave them to the entire world. There was a line about reporters that went something like “you didn’t have to bribe them into giving secret info to their nations’ enemies, they would do it for free”.

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                    2. No, we are just pointing out that releasing classified information to people we aren’t cleared is illegal, and anyone with half a brain cell knows that releasing such information to reporters, whether native or foreign, means that they will publish it in the public domain. Meaning it goes straight to our enemies. Arguing otherwise is like arguing that all you did was post the information on a bulletin board, you didn’t give it to anybody, and didn’t know if anyone would bother to read it or not, so you didn’t break OPSEC.

                      All of that aside, he then ran to our enemies seeking asylum, with additional (at least more than said reporters had yet released) classified information.

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                    4. A lot of the people I’m debating Snowden actions with here seem to automatically associate releasing classified information with treason. I don’t think it is that simple.

                      As a nation grows more statist, invariably the elites in power declare more and more information to be secret. Why? Because they don’t want what they are doing to be revealed to the public and they want a handy legal club to use on dissidents.

                      Ask yourself these questions:

                      How do we know that Snowden released specific information damaged US national security? (Embarrassing the administration is not the same thing as endangering US national security, no matter how much the administration would like it to be.)

                      Who are the people telling us Snowden’s disclosures harmed the US? Most of them are government officials or their camp followers. Isn’t it possible that these people have a vested interest in making someone who revealed the extent of their spying on the American people look as bad as possible?

                      Why should we trust what those authorities say about the impact and extend of Snowden’s disclosures? They have certainly proved to be very untrustworthy in many other regards.

                      Based on our government’s recent behavior in regards to whistleblowers, it’s abuses of civil liberties, it’s media and legal attacks on those that it sees as its “enemies”, and numerous documented cases of wrongdoing at the Justice Department, why would any rational person in Snowden’s position trust that same government with his life and freedom.

                      Finally, where in the constitution’s enumerated powers for the executive or legislative branches, is the government given the power to declare some information secret in the first place?

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                    5. Actually, Carl, the people here debating the Snowden matter with you “associate releasing classified information with treason.” We have quite carefully expressed the view that it is the conversion of encryption technology which raises this to treason.

                      I realize that it makes “proving your point” much easier when you set up straw men for your opponents, but it is very ineffective for persuading the kind of people who hang around here.

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                    6. I’ve been making my living in data security for the last 16 years (managing the security for about 2000 banks)

                      revealing encryption methods does not significantly hurt security, at least not if the encryption is done competently.

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                    7. David – on what basis do you assert that the same US government which granted access to Edward Snowden is doing their encryption competently?

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                  2. The problem is that if it’s treason to give information to the public that reveals government misconduct (and face it, almost anything that really proves serious government misconduct is going to involve classified documents, if only because the government is going to claim that anything that inconvieniences it is, or should be, classified), then it’s going to be impossible for the voters to restrain the government.

                    the phrase “give aid or comfort to the enemy” used to be interpreted rather strictly as providing direct money or equipment to the enemy, or caring for enemy combatents.

                    interpreting it as broadly as possible makes a democracy or republic impossible to sustain because it is impossible to provide information to the large number of people who need it without that same information getting to the “enemy”

                    And when “comfort” in interpreted as “anything that makes the Enemy feel better”, then any disagreement with the government becomes “comfort to the enemy” because it encourages them to disagree/fight the government as well.

                    I’m not happy that Snowden ended up in Russia, but given how hard the US government was leaning on all it’s allies, he had the choice of ending up someplace like that (or worse, think N Korea) or ending up in solitary confinement for the rest of his life, assuming he didn’t suffer some ‘accident’ along the way.

                    I don’t think he’s the unmitigated Hero that some people do, but I also don’t see him as the utter Traitor that others do. I think his revealing the problems (with enough proof that they couldn’t just be dismissed the way prior whistleblowers from the NSA have been) is a huge service to the US as a country, even while it is very bad and a betrayal of the trust that the people in the US government put in him.

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                    1. The problem is that if it’s treason to give information to the public that reveals government misconduct (and face it, almost anything that really proves serious government misconduct is going to involve classified documents, if only because the government is going to claim that anything that inconvieniences it is, or should be, classified), then it’s going to be impossible for the voters to restrain the government.

                      Already thought of that. Look up the Whistleblower Protection Act.

                      Which is why we know he’s a traitor, not a whistleblower.

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                    2. As noted elsewhere, he did more than reveal government misconduct, he revealed trade secrets (encryption methods, at the very least) to our enemies (or do you want to argue Russia is our friend?)

                      The first is not, on its face, treason, the second unquestionably is.

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                    3. revealing encryption methods is not really significant, reveaing encryption _keys_ would be.

                      If you have a goodn encryption method, it doesn’t matter who knows what method or algorithm you are using, as long as you don’t know the key. In fact, most network protocols pass the list of encryption methods that each side is willing to use to the other side, some in plain text.

                      also, someone earlier mentioned the whistleblower protection act, doing a little reading on it seems to show that it’s very little protection, if any for federal employees, so it may as well not exist. and we are back to the question of how the voters are supposed to be able to learn about government misbehavior.

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                    4. Yeah, the whistleblower protection act is kind of a joke. I’m not saying that the information didn’t need to get out for us voters to see (which means it would be found out in large part by our enemies) but revealing classified information to our enemies makes Snowden a traitor, regardless of his reasons.

                      Let me use a less controversial (to Americans) example. George Washington, Patrick Henry, John Adams, etc. were all traitors. It doesn’t matter if you are American and view their actions as a good thing, or English and view them as traitorous, rebelling insurgents, they were traitors to their country. If you are a citizen of a country and betray it, you are a traitor, regardless of how good and pure (which I don’t believe Snowden’s were) your reasons are.

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                    5. With regards to encryption methods, I would like to add a couple of thoughts.

                      First, it’s a tenant of modern cryptography that if your cryptographic system has to be kept secret in order for it to work, that’s a serious flaw in the system. Now, there may be other reasons to keep it secret (it becomes yet another barrier to overcome, for one), but there’s even good reasons to announce it to the world: others can look over it, determine if it will work as advertised, and even suggest improvements to the system.

                      Second, the US Government has historically been very weird when it comes to cryptography. In the 1990s, for example, the simple RSA algorithm was considered “munitions” when in computer source-code form; thus, to export it to Europe, the code had to be printed out, taken over on an airplane, and then OCR’d into a computer over there, and this didn’t count as “exportation”. Of course, had they not done this, it wouldn’t have been all that difficult to code it from scratch! (As algorithms go, it isn’t all that complicated…)

                      So, if Snowden leaked encryption methods, I don’t think I’m going to lose all that much sleep over it. If he leaked keys, that’s considerably more serious, but keys are also easy to generate, so the issue becomes “how long will people be listening before we could generate more keys?”

                      I’m not sure if Snowden is a traitor, or if he’s a hero (he could be both, BTW, or even neither), but regardless, I’m glad he leaked some of the information he leaked, and I understand why he wants to preserve his own skin…and it’s fun to watch this Administration’s government squirm while trying to figure out what to do about him! :.)

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            2. Snowden violated the fundamental principle of civil disobedience and whistle blowing, no matter to what extent he tries to clothe himself in those costumes. The treasonous behaviour* of the NSA does not make Snowden’s actions less traitorous.

              It ought also be acknowledged that we’ve no idea what levels of encryption technology he has transferred to our not-exactly-friends.

              *Stipulated as a debate for another time.

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              2. So if he gave stuff to the Russians that he did not give to the reporters that he gave his infodump to, it is possible that the Russian FSB might now be able to invade my privacy as badly as my own government?

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                  1. Irrelevant to him being classified as a traitor, although it would be ANOTHER act of treason, not necessarily irrelevant, however. I doubt the Russians would have near the interest in reading Carl’s emails as our own benevolent government would, however.

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                  2. I find it very relevant. I grew up back when the US government was the good guy. Or at least the better guy.

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                    2. Carl, you don’t really want to get into that argument, do you? Name your decade in which you “grew up” and I will name the abuses of citizens foreign and domestic by the US government. Pretty much ALL of them far greater sins than the NSA monitoring.

                      To make matters simple, eliminate the entire era of Jim Crow, covering the first six decades of the 20th Century.

                      Moreover, you yet evade the point: the sins of the NSA do not, repeat NOT, wash away Snowden’s transgressions.

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                    3. Maybe I’m naive, but for most of my life, the United States has overall been a force for freedom and for good in the world. I’m not blind to our history. I know that this nation has done outright evil and has been forced into uncomfortable compromises during its history. But overall America has done more to help humanity–to advance freedom, prosperity, and the rule of law–than any previous great power, and has used its powers far more wisely and with for more restraint than any other dominant world power in history.

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                    5. I’d have to rate “best government in the world” as being one of those pseudo-distinctions like “tallest midget in the circus” or “healthiest patient on the Intensive Care ward”.

                      That being said, if one _must have_ a government (and much as it chills the anarchist in my heart to admit it, government of some sort or another does appear to be inevitable…even if we completely smash the one we’ve got, another will emerge spontaneously from the rubble, answering to the description of a government even if it denies the title), then by all means it is a good thing to have the best one around at the time.

                      I’m not convinced that USG holds that title anymore. But I’m not convinced it doesn’t, either.

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                    6. I’m not evading your point. I am just disagreeing with it. I think revealing the blantantly unconstitutional abuses of the NSA more than makes up for any damage our government may claim Snowden did to US national security.

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                    7. ” I think revealing the blantantly unconstitutional abuses of the NSA more than makes up for any damage our government may claim Snowden did to US national security.”

                      That may or may not be true, but it is a strawman argument. It doesn’t matter, he is still a traitor. Look at my example above using George Washington. I doubt many here will argue with the statement that he was a great man and did great things for the US. But he was still a traitor, a British citizen who committed treason.

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                    8. Okay. You win. Snowden is a traitor just like George Washington. I can live with that.

                      And in related news:

                      “NSA Takes Huge Amounts of Data from Google and Yahoo

                      America’s spy agency has been tapping links between global data centers of the Internet giants.

                      The National Security Agency has gained access to Google and Yahoo’s cloud networks and downloaded massive amounts of data including from Americans, according to the latest revelation on leaks from Edward Snowden, this time in the Washington Post.”

                      Full article at: http://goo.gl/QBvc2K

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            3. There are routes for that. Heck, a lot of Republicans would’ve gone to the mat for him if he’d done that– other whistleblowers that actually followed the procedure have been defended when this nasty bit of work group tried to smash them.

              He chose to be a traitor, instead.

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            4. When he revealed information about the NSA spying on American citizens on US soil and on the NSA subverting domestic network security/cryptographic algorithms he was being a good citizen (note that others had tried to do this within the system and been heavily punished).

              When he exposed the NSAs international information gathering he was a traitor–that is the job of the NSA as Congress and the President (at least in the past when presidents paid attention to what was going on) mandated.

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        4. “I merely mean it in a realpolitik sense. Vox Day once said that you can figure out how many sovereign nations there are in the world by counting those that offered Snowden asylum, then adding one for the US.”

          Which basically comes down to Russia, Hong Kong (which is a satellite of China), Venezuela (which is a Russian “post” “communist” satellite these days), Ecuador, and Bolivia (both of which are following the Venezuelan pattern).

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          1. And for the record, I Am Not A Communist. And I’m trying to do this without falling into the “No True Scotsman” trap. Anyway, the Communists always advertised themselves as doing what they did for the poor, the working class, et cetera… but in reality they had all the evils they pretended to abhor: poverty, inequality in income (hidden by multiple currencies and class-specific employee benefits… dude, where’s my dacha?), also et cetera.

            (Rather like the left here).

            Anyway, what does it mean when they say they’re no longer communists when if we measure everything by what Marx said the Marxists would actually achieve if they ever got the blank check… they were never communists to begin with?

            People weren’t scared of Stalin because he was going to come into town on a white horse and make the Big Bad Bossmen treat the shift worker at the local McDonald’s better.

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            1. Er… we didn’t think you were a communist?
              Everything you say is right, but still doesn’t mean these are the only “true nations”. More that nations align in broad blocks, but we already knew that. It’s “Real Politic” Saying that every aligned nation is part of an “empire” is like saying that the US was part of the French Empire, because the Frenchmen helped us in order to annoy the Brits. I mean…

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              1. I think Venezuela passed the ‘aligned’ exit about half a decade ago (probably more; whatever time it was they started selling oilfields to China outright in order to make the budget that year) was probably one significant milestone along the way. And I think they’ve got the bus rigged to explode if it drops below fifty miles an hour. (Basically, guns have been banned for ordinary citizens, but they imported an entire factory from Russia on typical satellite terms to arm the Bolivarian Circles from.)

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                  1. You have my sympathies. Back in the 90’s my late father did a lot of consulting work in Venezuela, and was thinking of moving there to retire He also had a customer in Santa Cruz, Bolivia.

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            2. … And I’m trying to do this without falling into the “No True Scotsman” trap. …

              After scrolling through the discussion above, I read this as “No True Snowden”. Several times, even: it took significant effort for me to make my brain read the words you’d actually written. :-)

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          2. I seem to recall that Iceland was also considering giving him asylum, but I think it fell threw. It may have been something to do with Icelandic procedure, though: you have to be on Icelandic soil to petition for asylum, and if you don’t get it, you might get extradited, if I recall correctly.

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        5. US government might like to do anywhere in the world that it can not?

          Build a health care website.

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            1. The amount of denial they have going on. “The website is functional, really! These are just glitches! There was an earthquake. A terrible flood. Locusts! IT WASN’T OUR FAULT, WE SWEAR TO OBAMA!!!”

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              1. Not necessarily. If it was non-functional, then most potential subscribers fall into the “penalty tax” hole, and get subsidized, and still get care if they need it. Then they can come back and say, “See? we don’t need the insurance companies at all.”

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      2. Actually, at one time the US WAS an imperial, colonial power. Note I do NOT say “empire”, because we have never been one — we don’t have an emperor, as Teddy Roosevelt found out when he tried a few things the American people didn’t like.

        When the US defeated the Spanish, it didn’t invade Spain and control it, it just took most of its remaining colonies away from it. That included Puerto Rico and Cuba, the Philippines, and Guam. These “overseas” territories joined Alaska (purchased from Russia in 1863) and Hawaii (unified with the United States due to a revolution initiated and managed by American business interests in the islands). The Panama Canal Zone joined the list in 1903, and the Virgin Islands in 1916. The Panama Canal Zone was established by treaty with the Panamanian people when the United States helped them overthrow Colombian rule and become independent (a few people would say that the United States instigated the revolution, and they wouldn’t be totally wrong).

        The United States invaded several Latin American/Caribbean nations between 1900 and 1940, mostly to protect American citizens in those countries, and to stop violent riots that threatened them. That included several invasions of Nicaragua, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic, US military troops in Siberia to help evacuate US personnel during the collapse of Russia, and offices in China and Japan independent of the State Department. Cuba, the Philippines, Nicaragua, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, and Panama are all independent nations today, because the United States did not wish to build an empire (though some of our “leaders” did. Another story).

        As for the Northeast “leaders” running the world, all I can say is this: if they are, they are the most incompetent people in the world, more than an equal to our incompetent president.

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        1. Everything you say is true, also if you go back farther you get to our westward expansion, obviously we grew a little bit from the original thirteen colonies, but no we have never been a true empire. We had some leaders with empire-building tendencies, and sometimes looking at areas like the Middle East and how we handle those situations (or Cuba, boy was that a bright idea on our part) I don’t think such tendencies are unilaterally all bad. But the American people as a whole have never wanted an empire, and we hold enough power over our leaders (unlike if we had an emperor) that we will round-file any leader who gets to carried away.

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          1. Sit, children, whilst I tell you the tale of Aaron Burr, who thought to make himself an American Empire, and Philip Nolan, his accomplice.

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        2. Mike, I would assure you that the Northeast “Leaders” are at least running the United States (how many Presidents and Supreme Court Justices come from either Yale or Harvard? Most of them, at least in modern times); and yes, they are as incompetent as you can imagine (probably a little more so).

          We *are* talking about Yale and Harvard grads, after all!

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    2. You can sulk wherever you want. We’re NOT an empire. Empires occupy other lands and draw sustenance from them. period. We’re only an “Empire” in crazy marxist parlance.

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      1. Yes and No Sarah. While I agree that the US isn’t an Empire, I include “controls other countries” in the definition of Empire.

        For example, I’ve heard arguments that the British Empire had a strong level of control in Latin America because those countries had outstanding loans from British banks and Britain wasn’t afraid to use those loans to “influence” the countries (ie you get more loans if you do what we want).

        Part of the US’s “failure” at being an Empire is because we don’t do the same. [Wink]

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        1. For example, I’ve heard arguments that the British Empire had a strong level of control in Latin America because those countries had outstanding loans from British banks and Britain wasn’t afraid to use those loans to “influence” the countries (ie you get more loans if you do what we want).

          That’s bribery rather than conquest. The difference showed the moment that Britain wanted the Latin states to do something which the Latin states didn’t want to do. The only leverage the British then had was to stop offering loans, and if the Latin states decided to take the economic damage of not getting those loans, that was it: the British weren’t willing to go to war to hold on to them.

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      2. Agreed, we are NOT an Empire. Currently. I see the potential to BECOME an actual Empire, given certain kinds of events and outcomes.

        And THAT, is frightening enough. As for “keeping” being a Republic. . . . Those of us in “flyover country” and really, all of us outside urban areas, “republic” is problematical, given the ability of the Urbs to pack legislatures at both the Federal and State level. . .

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        1. Agree. And I’m afraid of what it would take to give the general population the “Imperial Mindset” or even the mindset of “Leave us alone or we’ll really hurt you”.

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    3. The US is not an empire. If it was an empire, Mexico, Central America (If not South America), Cuba and the Philippines would be under US domination. The state governments would be appointed by the President. Perhaps after WW 2 most of Europe would be as well.

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  2. > the system rapidly became one of those oriental monarchies, including a god-king.

    Ever do a Google search for “Obama halo”?

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    1. I’ve seen it but it was treated as a joke not something Obama and/or his supporters used to increase his image.

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          1. “Exactly”? What does that mean? The fact that his fawning supporters did things like that doesn’t prove anything, except that they’re drooling idiots, since all it did to their opponents was make them mock the man and his sycophants even more.

            For us to have become an “Oriental Monarchy, including a god-king”, WE would have to support that view, and despite what some in the media want you to believe, the vast majority don’t.

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            1. Liberal Fascism makes a good argument that Wilson was the first Fascist. Unfortunately for him, elections were still held.

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        2. They also thought an economic system based on Marxist principles viable, Obama a “great” orator, that the “Health Care cost curve” could could be “bent downward” by increasing demand and constricting supply and that there can be such a thing as a free lunch.

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      2. I do not assert that the halo picture was used as a literal argument by lefties that Obama was a god, but it was part and parcel of their iconography showing that Obama was some sort of secular “Promised One” who would lead us out from our 300 years in the desert of racial relations and non-socialized healthcare.

        Of COURSE none of the rabid partisans are arguing that Obama is literally a god; how could they when few of them believe in God or gods at all?

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    3. I saw several apparently un-ironic “Obama halo” and “Obama aura” magazine covers back in 2008. I’m sure it was intentional.

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        1. True enough. Our modern media is acting like an unelected branch of government these days.

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              1. If Hillary runs in 2016 and ever makes the mistake of allowing an open mic for questions at any event she’s at, someone needs to shove that phrase down her throat. Ask whether, given her previous attempt at passing a sweeping health-care bill when her husband was present, she was in favor of Obamacare from the get-go, and whether she’s still in favor of it — then interrupt yourself with, “But at this point, what difference does it really make?” Turn around and go sit down without listening to the answer. (Which should, unless the crowd is COMPLETELY packed with partisans, be drowned out by the laughter anyway.)

                Repeat the phrase over, and over, and over. Make her the laughing-stock she should be.

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  3. All of you who are waiting to be witnesses to the apocalypse – please stop saying we’re going to collapse like Rome.

    *looks at the UK* Did Rome collapse like Rome? ‘Cus it sure looks like the heart died (simplified), and everybody else just sort of oozed back towards what they use to be, and then got over it. (eventually)

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    1. But also, and beyond all that, despite the self-conscious imitation of Rome, the Rome these people admired had never existed. It was an idealized, cleaned up thing, a Rome as it never was but should have been) but it took a sharp turn weird after the attack by Hannibal. Mostly because the Punic wars exposed (if you forgive me mixed historical metaphors) the Achiles heel of the Republican system. You can’t have a war when your leaders keep changing mid-stream. (We’re discovering that same thing with our own war with the descendants of the Phoenicians. Even if our stream is longer)

      Ah, different direction– Rome wasn’t even like Rome. *grin*

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      1. I fear I have to disagree with Sarah, here.

        Rome did not “almost lose” the wars with Carthage due to ever-changing leadership. Sarah has mistaken a fundamental strength of the Roman system for a crippling weakness, which was that Rome had an completely firm and sold corporate base. See, Hannibal could wipe out entire Roman armies, down to almost the last man. And, instead of the Romans going “Oh, we lost… Sorry, let us fold and die.”, the Romans simply raised another set of legions, handed over command to another set of more-or-less faceless tribunes, and the war went on. By the end, Hannibal had managed to account for what, five full Roman armies? And, the Romans were still there, steadily doing their thing. They were that sure of themselves. “Well, sure, he beat us at Cannae, and it was bad, but we’re going to get him in the end…”.

        That was Rome. They may not have had the best generals and leadership, but what they did have was a solid sense of who they were, and a harsh certainty of conviction in their identity as Romans. This confidence continued on, right up until the late Empire, when things started to go south for them, and it’s arguable that the loss of that confidence and certainty in their cause is what really did them in.

        That’s where the parallel with Rome lies: It wasn’t until the end that their elites lost confidence in their nation and their people. Early Rome? The family matriarchs were decisively with the Spartans: “With your shield, or on it, boyo… Nothing less.” Late Empire? “Here, son… Let me cut off your right thumb so the draft won’t take you…”.

        There is a certain ineffable quality to the whole thing. You can’t imagine some Roman from Hannibal’s time making peace with him. If he’d managed to have taken the city, odds are the Romans would have surrendered the place, set up shop somewhere else with the Senate, and continued to churn out legions. The Carthaginians had Hannibal, his brother, and… That’s it. Rome? How many Scipios were there, again? Carthage died, in large part, because they had no depth of field when it came to their military. It was all the Hannibals, and mercenaries.

        Conversely, I cannot imagine any US President before Obama sitting on their thumbs while an embassy was under attack. That, right there, is what smacks of decadence, impotence, and a massively diminished place in the world. Then, when the electorate lets him get away with it, and he’s reelected?

        The last dwindling years of Obama’s presidency are going to be a litany of horrors. If they aren’t, then I’m going to be surprised. I can’t wait to see what comes in the spring, though–Probably an attack on India by Pakistan.

        Bugger the idiots that enabled this charlatan to gain office, even for a day. The man is patently unqualified to run a dog-catcher’s office.

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    4. Well, Rome continued on, in an altered form, in the guise of Byzantium for another millennium. People tend to forget that.

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        1. Rome had an essentially Greek culture too. Just ask any educated Roman, or all the Greek-speakers in Rome’s streets.

          Latin almost died out, except as a legal and bureaucratics language. It didn’t come roaring back until the Empire fell, at which point the lawyer language suddenly became the patriotic language of love and religion.

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    5. …back towards what they use to be, and _sort of_ got over it. A lot of Roman administrative ideas & structures kept, and AFAIK still part of European infrastructure.

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  4. But the ones who remained hunter gatherers simply didn’t hold the land in a way Europeans understood.

    I need to make a file of subject-starters.

    This one is going into the “philosophy matters” one…for when the kids are old enough to know what the disagreement on “land rights” meant for the poor farmers that spent a decade building up a farm….

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    1. Foxfier, shoot me an e-mail (AlmaTCBoykin at AOL dot com) if you want some sources on colonial Spanish and Comanche ideas of land/resource possession to use for comparisons.

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  5. ” Real signs of decadence: failure to reproduce. Failure to marry. Failure to take up useful work. Disengagement from the ideological frame work of the empire, failure to look after one’s own kids already born…. Etc. (And no, again, yep, we have some of that,”

    We have entire cultures of that. The question is whether it can be localized.

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    1. Yes, but we’re STILL not to the level the USSR was. Note those cultures embrace the same materialistic nihilistic view the USSR had. I’ve been meaning to write on how man doesn’t live by bread alone, but I don’t want to sound like a raving socon. (MOSTLY because I’m not. I do however believe if you restrict humanity to the physical, you destroy it.) I need to figure out a way to express it.

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      1. Well, anyone who listens to “The Gods of the Copybook Headings” with approval has SOME socon traits. Can’t be helped. The gods will descend with fire and terror on a pure libertarian society too — probably when the kids grow up, and it turns out that the way people free to do as they please do not raise children in such a way that they will grow up to maintain such a society.

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        1. The funniest thing is to hear some libertarian complain “The government should get out of X, and we should replace it with private contracts!” Who, exactly, do they expect to turn to when they need that contract enforced or when they need to seek redress? Marriage is a perfect example. If the government “got out” of the marriage business, divorce and family courts wouldn’t go away. In fact, if anything they’d get busier, since many things that the government assumed before would now be subject to endless litigation.

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          1. Um…contract enforcement (or litigation) is generally considered a legitimate role for government (at some level). Doesn’t mean you need government in the marriage business, just that you might need them in the dissolution business.

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            1. Minarchist libertarians would never make that argument. Anarchist libertarians just might. Some believe that the correct form of government (usually in the form of idealized “socialism without the Party”) will grow up out of the resulting chaos.

              This is why there can’t be guns. Because thugs/war leaders did not exist before we invented guns. *rolls eyes*

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                1. Ahh. But those have a clue about how law actually works. He thought that fairwitnesses could take care of everything on a volunteer basis. I’m sorry, the first Libertarian I ever met was of teh “Legalize” crowd. He was actually an anarchocomunist who used the Libertarian label. And maybe it was the 1990’s. I hear that in certain places it’s a thing. Considering some of the things he talked about, it might be a big thing in some west coast type places. Especially since the big ship California is sinking into the Pacific, and we can’t blame San Andreas.

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                    1. Yes. This is why I want to spread awareness. Because this view is persuasive, and if you aren’t thinking you can imagine you have a lot in common with them. Or others can think that they represent real libertarians.

                      This is why I was hesitant to check out the movement for so long. Then I fell in love with the real deal, and everything changed. But only because he educated me not only about his own views, but those squirrels in sheeps clothing.

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          3. Going to ignore the marriage example, because that has been hashed out here several times before, and nobody is going to change anybody else’s mind on THAT subject here. Contract enforcement or redress are a totally different ballgame than controlling something. I don’t need to control the supply of X material, or the manufacture of Y product from it to litigate the contract. In fact I don’t even need to know jack about how Y is made from X, all I need to know is there is a signed contract in front of me that company A promised to deliver 2,000 tons of X to company B by February 23, or pay for all losses of sales of Y by company B. Since it is March 1, and company has only delivered 1200 tons, they are liable, now we just need to determine how much they are liable for. Frankly if government got out of the litigation business also, it would be a mess for a little while, but then it would pretty much work itself out. Word would get around that company A was unreliable, and nobody would contract with them, either they would go out of business or at best would be able to sell raw material for cash on the barrelhead at time of delivery, and probably at a discount, because nobody would rely on them to deliver.

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            1. Also leaving out the marriage one, but if Government is in the business of providing goods or services, then, when something goes wrong, who do you propose to go to to enforce the contract? If these things are handled by private business, then you have the government, in the form of the courts, to seek redress. the government, however, is notoriously hard to sue successfully.

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              1. I would also add that one factor that’s often ignored when deciding whether or not it’s possible to enforce a given contract, is the cost involved in suing someone. Sometimes it’s just too financially burdensome to sue someone for a contract violation. Incidentally, this is something that would happen even in an anarcho-capitalist “paradise” (although it *may* be possible that private judges will sell their services for less than a government court would…but you will still have to pay the lawyers, and take the time off from work, and so forth…)

                (While I don’t want to get into a copyright/patent debate at this moment, this is one reason I disagree with our host on copyrights and patents: in order for them to be of any meaning, I would have to be willing to sue others for infringement–and for patents especially, but even for copyrights (under certain conditions), this will likely destroy me financially. Thus, these “rights”, in practice, are meaningless, because they cannot protect me when I need protection the most–when I am small and vunerable!)

                (I would also add that I consider myself an anarcho-capitalist, to the point where I’d be willing to seek private judges to settle differences, if those who I make contracts with are willing to do so as well–why wait until Government goes away, when we can act immediately?–but I don’t expect anarcho-capitalism to produce a paradise. I think all political discussion falls into this trap, though, but the worst offenders are obviously the Marxists…)

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                1. I think Our Beloved Hostess, when speaking of copyrights and the importance of paying attention to them, is thinking mostly in terms of “be careful what you give away, because if the people you’re giving it away to turn out to suck, you’ll have a hell of a time getting it back, and _they_ have the resources to use that contract against you as a weapon”.

                  You know…seeing as how that’s actually happened to her several times. :)

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                2. “I’d be willing to seek private judges to settle differences, if those who I make contracts with are willing to do so as well”

                  Those aren’t private judges, those are arbitration. Binding arbitration, perhaps.

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                    1. They best not try judging my privates!!!! Them’s purely between the Beloved Spouse and meself and we’s a’keepin’ ’em that way!

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        2. Perhaps trying to reformat it as “recognition of human nature existing” would work best? With some details of what the author thinks human nature includes?

          That– to jump back to my “libertarianism is conservatism reverse engineered by liberals”– is the single biggest difference. Both have big ideals, both have limited respect for things being done just because that’s how they’re done, but libertarians recognize people aren’t a blank slate or interchangeable units. We’ve got a nature, and it must be respected in any theory.

          Liberals, when they talk of human nature, tend to make a really horrible mistake where they think the hold-overs from them being post-Christian in culture are basic human traits.

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          1. In modern American society, the notion that you have to take human nature into account is definitely conservative. There are a good number of liberals who don’t really believe that the mass of humanity is human. They think they are chessmen, to be moved about on a chessboard. This is why they think bringing up the intent of a program is an argument. That it can produce additional effects, or even the reverse of the intention is something they can learn sometimes in isolated incidents but they never learn to generalize the lesson

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      2. THAT should be a fun challenge. :|

        It’s that thingy, whatever it might be, that takes us from ‘brain’ to ‘mind.’ Something that elevates us from just another animal. (and has an odd effect on some animals…pay close attention to dogs…)

        I wanna read that post, by the by.

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          1. Every soul has differences from every other soul, but not fundamental ones, as witness they are all souls.

            Just as every comment in this thread is different, but all consist of letters and spaces.

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            1. And punctuation. First they came for the semi-colons, but I never used semicolons, so I was silent . . .

              Don’t think that some of us don’t see your attempt to ethnically cleanse the writing . . . Oh. Sorry, we were talking about souls? And gods? Or cultural differences between internalized definitions and desires? If we’re talking something along the lines of a “collective subconscious,” yeah, there might be differences in the “gods,” and we may “create” “their” characteristics according to local consensus. On the other hand, if you’re talking about real gods, I suspect he, she, it or they have fairly strongly held preferences of their own, and they will influence us, not the other way around.

              Speaking of mythical whatsits. Is America an ideal we’re trying to make real, handed down from above? Or is it wholly a human endeavor, from concept to fruition?

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      3. This might be saying this badly, but I hold that you don’t need to resort to God (hairy thunderer or cosmic muffin) to prove God (uncaused first cause).

        It’s my not-so-very-humble opinion that a great deal that passes for religion is sadly lacking in both faith and imagination, that the truth of “God” (however you conceive him/her/it to be) is far greater, far more awesome and wonderful than we can possibly imagine. Our attempts are poor, sad little things by comparison. Yes, I do mean Bach and cathedrals.

        So treat it as a writing exercise: resolved — an uncaused first cause exists. Argue pro or con. Also: resolved: faith is necessary to morality, but a divinity is not. (That last sounds lame to me. Needs work.)

        M

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        1. I once was in an online discussion in which someone said that the cosmological argument only showed that a being existed whose existence was necessary, not contingent.

          To which my reply was, “Duh.”

          (I then added that further refinements went on to establish other things about the Uncaused Cause, but the basic form was only after that.)

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        2. I’ve always contended that the only true validation of God is a personal experience of Him. Just as Jesus said “wherever two or more gather in My name, there I will be, also.” I’ve left a number of churches after attending services a Sunday or two, because you could NOT feel God’s presence there. I HAVE felt it in other churches. YMMV.

          Most of the “churches” in the United States (and in most European countries) are Sunday morning social clubs, not a gathering of believers who wish to praise God, and seek His presence.

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          1. So when Jesus was screaming, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”, He really was forsaken by God?

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              1. Sorry to say, you are wrong here. Christ was quoting Psalm 22. Psalm 22 is a prophesy of the death and Resurrection of Christ. “They divided my garments among themselves and for my clothing they cast lots.” (v 19). This is, of course, quoted in one of the Gospels.

                King David begins with describing how wretched and unworthy he is, his condition and his need for God’s help, it then turns to God’s eternal love and aid for those who turn to him. “For He has not despised nor scorned the beggar’s supplication.” (v 25).

                The Jews who witnessed the Crucifixion were all observant enough to know the beginning of the Psalm, known the reference and what Jesus was saying. Perhaps some could see the Romans playing dice for his clothes. . .

                The point is, God the Father never abandoned God the Son. God the Son never fell into the sin of despair. BUT God the Son did need to experience the entire range of human feeling and emotion — not for His sake, but for our own. That is why he chose the most demeaning, painful and humiliating death to experience.

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                1. His mom was already there*– why not call for dad?

                  *and that’s a special sort of horrifying to think about, even if he did make dang sure that she’d be taken care of… it was bad before I had kids, but Mary took a level in bad ass after the first time one of my babies got hurt.

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                  2. “… and a sword will pierce your own heart soul* also.”

                    * I thought it was “heart” until I looked it up.

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                    1. Gah, stupid lack of edit: I noticed the failed close tag JUST after I hit “Post”. Oh well, just consider the strikeout as only striking the word “heart”.

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                    3. I suspect it was “heart as the seat of emotions” equals the “soul” idea. It would be interesting to know the meaning of the Greek phrase that phrase was from.

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                    4. {2:34} Et benedixit illis Simeon, et dixit ad Mariam matrem eius: Ecce positus est hic in ruinam, et in resurrectionem multorum in Israel: et in signum, cui contradicetur:
                      {2:34} And Simeon blessed them, and he said to his mother Mary: “Behold, this one has been set for the ruin and for the resurrection of many in Israel, and as a sign which will be contradicted.

                      {2:35} et tuam ipsius animam pertransibit gladius ut revelentur ex multis cordibus cogitationes.
                      {2:35} And a sword will pass through your own soul, so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”
                      http://www.sacredbible.org/studybible/NT-03_Luke.htm

                      So… who has some latin?

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                    7. Why stop at Latin? Go back to Greek, since that’s the language the original source was written in. Seems kind of silly to argue over a translation without checking the original source language. :-)

                      In Greek, it’s πσυχηε — psyche — which is soul. Thanks go to the NET Bible project for letting me go to https://net.bible.org/#!bible/Luke+2:35 and click on the Grk/Heb tab on the right. Very well-done site; made it really easy to find what I was looking for.

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              1. Mary and John *at least* were there. But there are also multiple layers of “is” when it comes to God. Because technically, God, being existince Himself, is everywhere, even at the cross, on the cross, in the cross, below the cross, etc. But also, where Mary and John (his most beloved aposle) are, he’s there. And two people gathered in his name, are there too. Then there’s the Blessed Sacrament, which is another level, too.

                But Good Friday is a different thing. Because he went to the place of the dead to retrieve Elisha and Abraham and Moses and all the riteous pagans throughout time, he had to die. Being God in three persons, that means “only” a person of God died. But resurrected to show us the way.

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          2. Most of the “churches” in the United States (and in most European countries) are Sunday morning social clubs, not a gathering of believers who wish to praise God, and seek His presence.

            This is true, whether in the Bible belt or Catholic Europe. The club here, though, is mostly older women dressed in black.

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            1. I never had a friend in any of the churches I went to for years (since I left home) until I started going to the church I go to now. And I chose it because I really liked the pastor. (after the pastor in my previous church died I didn’t like the replacement and basically quit going for a while until I found this one, which is actually close to my house). While I admit standing around visiting with friends after the service is pleasant, I don’t go to church for the social aspect, and most who form the ‘social clubs’ are stuck in the nose prigs that I don’t care to be around.

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      4. On a similar note, one could make an argument that all we have to do is wait and the Mormons will outbreed the liberals entirely.

        Any culture that restricts itself to current generations without creating more of it’s own is doomed to dissolution.

        Sarah, to avoid the raving socon appearance, come at it from a morality standpoint, instead of just religious. It doesn’t matter what religious group, if any, is involved as long as there is a body of parables and moral reasoning for social and individual responsibility that makes teaching it easier.

        Morality’s effect on a given society is a multiplier of enormous proportions when it comes to measuring that society’s strengths. Religion and it’s associated structures can help with that in a way many other organizations can’t, but it’s not necessarily required.

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        2. “On a similar note, one could make an argument that all we have to do is wait and the Mormons will outbreed the liberals entirely. ”

          That same basic idea has been mentioned with regard to abortion – i.e. the people who don’t support abortion will, all other things being equal, eventually breed themselves into the majority. After all, they’re not killing off their fetuses. Of course, it hasn’t happened yet…

          Getting back to the Mormons, part of the reason why that *won’t* happen, I suspect, is that much of the mores that the Latter-Day Saint culture teaches is directly contradicted by society at large. The LDS population’s greater birth rates will only come into play insomuch as the people born into the culture stay in the culture. Having a large family of three kids (saracastic *gasp*) only boosts the birth culture if all three of those kids stay within the culture as they grow up. And society as it exists today seems designed almost explicitly to wean those kids away from their birth culture before they reach adulthood.

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          1. Evolution works on the scale of generations. Even if it were completely eliminating one generation’s manifestation of a trait, it would arise in the next owing to reconfiguration of the genes in children.

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          2. … society as it exists today seems designed almost explicitly to wean those kids away from their birth culture …

            Call it the Reverse Cuckoo Effect.

            The RAH antivirus program is an effective prophylactic procedure, especially in combination with the K.I.Pling.dll installed*.

            *Yes – I am recycling the joke.

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        3. Contraception is a new condition that is leading to evolution in overdrive.

          It’s selecting for
          1. Wanting to have children
          2. not using contraception and abortion for any reason
          3. susceptibility to pressure to have children AND living in a society where such pressure is

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            1. Well, I suspect that the original comment by wolfstarr was made half in jest. But something similar has been mentioned with regards to support for abortion. As for LDS birthrates… they’re decreasing as noted. But they still seem to be larger than that of society as a whole. An LDS family with three kids is not at all unusual (and the same applies to other groups as well, of course). But there are large chunks of the population that are quite content with just one… or even none. And can’t figure out why anyone why want to have more (never mind the complete lack of logic that applies in such a situation with regards to the continuance of the species).

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              1. Survival of the species is an abstract concern, and Someone Else’s Problem. Children are a burden, and with no reason to worry about being cared for in one’s old age (that’s what Social Security, Medicare, and Uncle Sam are for!) the long-term economic incentive to have children is gone.

                Where are the aliens? They auto-darwinated when they didn’t need children to care for them anymore. See Japan.

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                1. And as Douglas Adams noted, the one true form of invisibility is to make something someone else’s problem.

                  :P

                  (in his case, implemented via the “Someone Else’s Problem field”)

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              2. From the species POV selecting out the genes of those who don’t want to reproduce is an advantage. True, heretofore we’ve had the social pressure to keep their genes in but now we have evolution on overdrive.

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                1. The genes of those who “don’t want” to reproduce are not selected out unless there is something about the genes themselves that create that desire.

                  In the absence of such genetic specific desire not to reproduce, the people who do “want” to reproduce would have the same population of genes.

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                  2. I think I understand what SPQR is saying… I am childless so my genes are not in the gene pool… but I have eight brothers and sisters with five of them who have reproduced. Our particular genes are in the gene pool whether I reproduce or not. Now my hubby has two daughters and one who has reproduced so his genes are in the gene pool as well. The one that is not in the gene pool is my genes combined with his genes.

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        5. This is why Liberals control the education system. Since they don’t breed their own kids, they have to take over ours.

          (I wanted to make an analogy to it being a reverse-[insert name of bird that sneaks its eggs into the nests of other birds] but clearly I forgot the name of that sort of bird.)

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            2. Oops — my original comment (see above) apparently replicated these thoughts from earlier in the day. My checks for points already made clearly missed this, leading to my re-making a point already made.

              Oh well — grating minds stink alike and all that rot.

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          3. Yup. Which is why it’s so important for parents to keep a close eye on what their kids are being taught.

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            2. I’m wary of examples of enemy actions that too closely support my own prejudices. Thus, I would not be surprised to find that the linked quiz is not what it’s purported to be. If anyone has information to authenticate it (beyond Infowars), such would be appreciated.

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      5. One way to avoid the “socon” label somewhat, is to observe that just because we need to be moral, doesn’t mean that we can or should enforce morality. To this end, I consider myself a “libertarian conservative”.

        Indeed, I would go so far as to say that only moral societies that respect individual rights can prosper (and the more moral they are, the less they need law); while amoral societies that focus on collective rights will degrade over time (and no amount of law will save such a society, because the people will be lawless).

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          1. … just because we need to be moral, doesn’t mean that we can or should enforce morality.

            1) If it is forced it isn’t actually morality. To be moral requires free will.

            2) All law is “enforced morality”. The degree to which it is obeyed reflects the underlying morality’s acceptance. A speed limit in a school zone is more likely to be observed than a speed limit on a stretch of empty straight highway. By limiting the available moral choice law reduces the question of moral choice to adherence to law. The question of whether it is moral to speed in a school zone becomes “is it moral to ignore the law.”

            3) It follows from this paradox that laws should reflect widely held moral views and should be limited in their efforts to restrict the capacity for moral choice.

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        2. just because we need to be moral, doesn’t mean that we can or should enforce morality

          Well, why shouldn’t we? Would it be immoral to enforce it?

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              1. Yes. I plan never to let you have enough power to enforce morality and to fight mightily to get you out of office if you get in it. My morals require it. And that’s why I came out of the political closet and fight Barry and his morals dictated by his Marxist religion.
                And now we’ve gone full circle, haven’t we?

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                    1. While I see your point, in the Modern World, “Morality” is what the “people I dislike want and what I want isn’t Morality”. [Sad Smile]

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                    2. No, Paul. It is normal for people to call what they want “moral”. The prohibitionists thought that stopping anyone drinking alcohol with the force of the state would stop all sorts of social ills. Their “morality” was “right” for the state. It stopped disorder. We know where that ended.
                      I want the SOBs to have as little power as possible. Preaching is more effective than laws, anyway — look at where we are now with alcohol consumption versus even fifty years ago. To the extent we still have a problem it’s the 21 year age limit Francis mentioned elsewhere. It glamorizes the whole thing.

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                    3. Well, I guess we’ll have to disagree on this one. As I see it, all laws are morality laws. The main question is where to draw the line of legitimacy. An obvious one would be anything that can be shown to directly harm another, as in the “Your right to swing your fist ends at the nose on my face” definition.

                      In this way, drinking, per se, is not a legitimate thing to make the subject of a law. Naturally, there are difficult subjects with that definition, too. Driving while drunk, for example, is more questionable, as it significantly increases the danger of driving, but does it directly harm others? Or is it more reasonable to only pursue penalties against those who actually do harm when intoxicated, say, as a multiplying factor ?

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                    4. “They enforce order, which — like it or not — is a legitimate interest of the state.”

                      “Legitimate” is a moral consideration. (Or a legal one, but since we are discussing establishing the law here, it can’t be defended on the grounds that the positive law says it’s legitimate.)

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                    5. An obvious one would be anything that can be shown to directly harm another, as in the “Your right to swing your fist ends at the nose on my face” definition.

                      Not if your nose is poking in my window in the middle of the night. Which is where things start to get lively, since in fact, your breaking into my home does me no direct harm. Even no economic harm as long as you damage nothing in the process.

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                    6. The problem with that comparison is that you’re adding conditions that were not implicit in the formulation of the original. While we all know about “ass-u-ming”, no statement can be made without unspoken assumptions, and the one in the comment I made is that I’m not infringing on your rights at the time, either.

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                    7. So, is poking your nose into my home in the middle of the night direct harm? How so? If not, the line proposed may be obvious but it’s also unworkable.

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                    8. There would be an argument that it was direct harm, in the sense that they have invaded your property, thus violating your rights (harm need not be physical).

                      However, not unworkable, even if not considered direct harm, because invading your space is justification for ejection from said space, and if a simple verbal injunction is not sufficient, then physical force is justified.

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                  2. To quote Taranto in the WSJ today:
                    In “Mere Christianity,” C.S. Lewis answered non-Christians who espoused the “foolish” view that Jesus was “a great moral teacher” but not the Son of God. He posited what is known as Lewis’s trilemma:

                    A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic–on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg–or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

                    Leave to Caesar that which is Caesar’s and leave to G-d that which is G-d’s.
                    (And no guff, Iulius!)

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                  3. But But Mary! That isn’t enforcing Morality! Being against Murder is just Rational and has nothing to do with Morality!!! [End Sarcasm]

                    Seriously, in my experience, too many people who “rant” about the evils of “enforcing morality” play the game of “whatever they want the government/society to do IS NOT Morality”.

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                    1. Being against murder and mayhem is avoiding disorder. There’s a sliding scale, Drak. yes, murder is also a sin, but it is not for HUMANS to punish the sin. That’s left to another authority. We just remove the offender from our midst (and since the most effective removal is the death penalty I’m for it. Because it’s to preserve order. You try to justify the death penalty under “murder is a sin” — so it’s not a sin when performed by the state?)
                      The state has an interest in order, and to that effect it can go way too far in punishing things that shouldn’t be any of its business — gun ownership, say. Which is why we must keep it in check.
                      Let it go that the state can enforce morals, and really, where does it stop Drak? Laws against gluttony? why not? It’s a mortal sin. So, let’s ban candy bars.
                      Let’s take a step back and a deep breath. You can preach as much as you want, but you do not have the right to use force to stop your brother from sinning. And the state is force, ALWAYS.
                      Why don’t you have that right? Because we don’t all believe the same thing, and if you think you’d like to live in a society where believing the same things is enforced, I’ll just tell you “Hell, no.” (or you could try Saudi Arabia!)
                      Also because where do you draw the line? You can stop the behaviors you think your neighbor is committing as “sin” — but it will inevitably come back to you.
                      To all of you so desirous of making “moral” laws, I’ll say “PROHIBITION” — man, that was a success, wasn’t it.
                      And for the one thing you’re talking around, look guys, you’ll hang my gay friends from cranes the minute after you hang me. And if you say “but we just want to imprison them/confine them for their own good” take heed. Hangings don’t stop it in the Arab countries, and you think prison will here?
                      And no, the State does not have a legitimate interest in stopping even that.

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                    2. Sorry Sarah, call it “Morality” or call it “Order”, it is still enforcing Standards of Behavior.

                      There are too many SOBs (few here) that are willing to force their standards of behavior onto others via the Power of the State *while* Screaming About the Evil Of Enforcing Morality.

                      Of course, this may very well be an “agree to disagree” matter because I believe this may well be a matter of terminology not substance.

                      PS, I still remember people screaming about those Southern Baptists and their crusade against smoking. Too many of those types are now screaming about the “Dangers Of Second Hand Smoke”. [Evil Grin]

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                    3. For my part, laws properly applied are not enforcing morality or standards of behavior. They’re prescribing punishment for infractions of public order. Nothing more. The law itself has no power to correct behavior or prevent the infraction, no standards are enforced, moral or otherwise.

                      The egregious failures of state action stem from attempting to craft laws that would ‘correct’ behavior.

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                    4. You try to justify the death penalty under “murder is a sin” — so it’s not a sin when performed by the state?

                      Of course not because while it’s killing, it’s not murder. Any more than self-defense is. Then, “murder” is the group of intentional killings that are illegitimate — recursively enough.

                      (Fun fact: Semantic drift is involved. In Tudor England “to kill” meant “to murder.” If you wanted to say someone just killed (modern sense), you used “to slay”. David slew Goliath, not killed him. This is why we get “Thou shalt not kill.”)

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                    5. Then there’s the question of What Do You Do when someone else insists on using that sort of language about laws. When some rabble rouser tells people to vote for public officials on the basis of whether they “do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God.”

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                  4. You are working with differences in semantics, mary. Its true that our criminal code enforces a set of “morals” but they are strictures that can exist outside of morality and be justified on pure utilitarian precepts.

                    When people say that they don’t think the state should enforce “morality”, they usually mean rules independent of utilitarian justifications.

                    The boundary is subjective, obviously.

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                    1. Its true that our criminal code enforces a set of “morals” but they are strictures that can exist outside of morality and be justified on pure utilitarian precepts.

                      With some baselines, like “humans are people” and “a person’s work is their own.” (Yeah, it’s more complicated, but that’s to contrast with baselines like “if I can take it, it’s mine.”)

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                    2. At root, definitions are moral — your definition of “property” and mine each express a fundamental understanding of the moral universe as significant as the definitions of “you” and “me.” In that sense all laws impose morality as surely as many people will sloppily employ bad* arguments in debate.

                      *bad: false, invalid, logically incoherent and/or contradictory, emotionally premised. Other interpretations may apply.

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                    3. Ain’t it the truth… spent the last day or so arguing about the definition of “person” with two people, one of whom thinks it comes down to “because other people (mostly me) think they’re a person” and the other who thinks “well, if I say that they’re not people but they should have some rights, that means there’s no way that defining that group of humans as non-people could possibly turn out Nazi level bad.”

                      Although the “but if all humans are people, why do we have both the words– people and human?” justification was pretty memorable. The fox-head says to the wallaby.

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                    5. Does it help to know that only two rounds later I threw my hands in the air, pointed out that they were using “because I said” logic, and left?

                      ME?

                      ….then had to go buy dinner with the kids, just to get out of the house and funk. Holy crow, I get hot with that level of oblivious, and it’s not like they’re inherently dumb…..

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                    8. “they are strictures that can exist outside of morality and be justified on pure utilitarian precepts.”

                      Nothing on earth can be defended on purely utilitarian precepts because utility can only be judged in terms of an end. You can not tell the utility of a king’s ordering the tide to go back out until you know whether he’s a Caligula declaring war on Neptune or a Canute trying to silence flatterers. And that end can obviously not be judged on utilitarian grounds because then it’s not the end, it’s a means to another end.

                      Utilitarian arguments can tell you whether laws against murder are useful in preserving order. But they can’t tell you whether order is a Good Thing, unless you argue that, say, living peaceful and quiet lives is aided by it — and then you just raise the question of whether such lives are Good Things.

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          2. Mary, here’s the easy answer: if you try to enforce your morality on me, I’m likely to try to enforce my morality on you. If you mind your own damn business, then you don’t take the risk.

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            1. So if I see you murder someone, I should mind my own damn business? I think I won’t. I’ll take the risk of your morality.

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  7. I thought Rome was started with a wolf pack? :)

    Seriously (for certain values of serious) I just had this WAG theory that the way that story started was some poor guy whose wife died in childbirth. He didn’t have a wet-nurse available, but he did have a quarter wolf bitch who had just had a litter. So he took most of the puppies for an early morning swim, and presented the bitch with the newborn twins to suckle. As young men when people complained about the boys manners they would explain/excuse them by saying that they were raised by wolves.

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        1. No, it’s because they were both werewolves who fought each other to the death for the right to rule. ;-)

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  8. For a “Real American Empire”, read Tom Kratman’s _Caliphate_.

    Also, google Scott Palter’s “Dark America” Time Line and his “Panay War” Time Line.

    Scott Palter disliked all the talk about America as an Empire (especially a Fascistic one) so he worked out two alternate histories of Real American Empires.

    Oh Christopher Nuttall (an indie writer that many of us know) wrote an unpublished novel _United States Starship_ semi-based on “Dark America” (although not quite as bad). A Starship from that universe finds itself in our time line. While the crew didn’t try to “conquer” our America, there were “interesting” Cultural Clashes especially when other countries assumed that the Alternate Americans would react the same way as “their” America. [Very Big Evil Grin]

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  9. What? These people never fought in pre-school? Well, maybe not. Our idiot educators stop that because “violence never solved anything.”

    No fighting in preschool, you’re not “supposed” to have another kid until one is established in school, your cousins aren’t anywhere around… sometimes I wonder how much of my conservatism is because I actually had to deal with people without an ever-present authority figure.

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    1. Eh. My cousins THOUGHT they were the authority figure. Excusably, mind, the youngest who lived nearby was 14 years older than I (I had one my age but he lived/lives in Venezuela.) However I read them as “peers” in the family structure and visited awful revenge on them for enforcing dictates on me. I couldn’t fight them, but I could destroy their makeup, write on their books, and generally make life impossible till they left me alone, because it was less trouble.
      Now that I think about it, that explains WAY too much about me…

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  10. For those interested in how Christianity could spread without divine intervention (or Constantine), I highly recommend Rodney Stark’s book, “The Rise of Christianity.” He’s a sociologist who wanders into history, and his argument is pretty convincing.

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    1. There’s an old joke about Reconstructionist Judaism: “There is no G-d and Mordecai Kaplan (founder of Reconstructionism) is his prophet.

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    2. Well, there were two this worldly factors that unquestionably helped:
      1. The codex was invented about then, and the Christians LOVED it and the pagans did not. You dig up sites and you find that over 90% of the Christian works are codices, and over 90% of the pagan ones are still in scroll form.
      2. Christians raised all their children and indeed took to gathering foundlings and raising them as Christians. This not only meant the population, as separate groups, increased differently, it meant that women were disproportionate Christian, and the result of a Christian mother and a pagan father, it turned out, was Christian children. (There were also demographic effects from the way the Christian community nursed the sick during the Antoinine plagues.)

      I also note that Constantine’s influence has been overrated. If he made the empire Christian, his son made it Arian, and his son’s successor made it pagan again. Yet we ended up Christian.

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  11. Oh Sarah. You’re missing the point. Whether the US is an empire or not (and I would contend that it’s an economic empire instead of a military/political one) has zero to do with the possibility of a collapse. Societies fail when they begin to value people who do not produce over people that do and mediocrity over excellence.

    The evidence of our impending fall is far greater than mere control over foreign territory. It can be seen in the fact that the US has more people on welfare than it does working. It can be seen in the creation of a nanny state and the surrender of personal freedom. When a library can hold an annual reading competition and then cancel it because the same kid always wins and kids sporting leagues stop taking score it’s because we have no moral fiber left as a country. That’s where the danger of collapse comes from. When we’re told that we’re racist for expecting immigrants to accept the values of the country they moved to it’s even worse. When our kids are told that the country they grew up in is evil it’s time to prepare for the fall. It’s gonna be ugly. What you were right about is that we can pick up the pieces afterward.

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    1. No, no, you missed what I was saying. I agree with you we’re likely to collapse. BUT our collapse will not be like the collapse of empires. Btw, “Economic empire” is a non sequitor. It’s something the commies dreamed up to say “you’re an empire too.” Empires are military occupiers, not trading partners. “Economic imperialism” presupposes a whole lot of things like clients having no choice.
      No, what I’m getting tired of is people looking to Rome as a model for our collapse. It worked pretty well as a model for the Russian collapse, but NOT OURS.
      As for more people on welfare than it does working and all that — um… how many would rather be working?
      And sorry, outside academia “a trophy just for playing” is pointed at jeered.
      CULTURALLY our elites are rotten, but we aren’t. Economically, we’re going to crash but good. The question is, HOW will the crash look. I’m earnestly looking for models, because I want to know how to prepare. Again, so far coming up blank, and Rome isn’t a model because “They ain’t seen nothing like us yet.”
      But collapse? Sure as check, unless we get a miracle.

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      1. Pekka Hämämälainen (yeah, you type that three times fast!) has an interesting take on what defines “empire,” including economic and territorial aspects, in the intro to his book “Comanche Empire.” I’m inclined to agree with his definition for that specific time, place, and culture.

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          1. Sorry, was typing from memory. There’s a reason everyone on this side of the Atlantic just refers to him as Pekka. :)

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  12. Nope, I don’t think the country will crash like Rome, but, as I said in the previous thread, I think it’s quite possible that some large cities might.

    If someone manages to blow up a power plant near a large city, I’d guess it’s almost certain.

    The rest of us will break out the s’mores.

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    1. I know this is in jest, but it just keeps poking me in the eye. If we sit back and watch one city burn in schadenfreude America is likely lost.

      I’m a stick in the mud, yes, but I’ve seen this argument in earnest elsewhere and it makes me twitch. Do please forgive.

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      1. If we sit back and watch one city burn, it will be because it’s past saving. Because it’s not worth the lives of the firemen and police who will be greeted with hailstorms of thrown rocks, if not sniper fire.

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        1. I can see the logic, Mary, but we’re not always a logical race. We routinely risk the lives of many to save just a few- one of the reasons Benghazi still raises my ire. If a city gets to that point, more than likely there will be martial law declared.

          When you send in troops with bayonets fixed, you do not do so with the open hand of peace. But even then, as much as possible, we try to limit ourselves. We wouldn’t likely drop bombs and flatten the place, until no stone rested on another. Surrenders would still be accepted, with discretion. Some of those there may not remain of their own choice.

          Even with the Branch Davidians, as messed up as that was, with fire coming from *both* sides, some lived. As someone around here once mentioned, we Americans are like cockroaches- tough to kill off completely. *grin*

          If there’s truly nothing and no-one left but savage, unrepentant souls, I can see letting it burn itself out… But that is a tough choice to make, and one I’d not take without making damn sure all that could be saved, was. Past saving, in other words.

          I think we agree, there’s just a streak of cussed stubbornness in me that refuses to give up on something as vast as a city without paying the cost to know for sure. In the long view, that may be a foolish choice. But it is the only one that would let me sleep at night.

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          1. We’re not a logical race may mean we go in. OTOH, it may also mean we stay out even when it would be more logical to go in.

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            1. I agree that both are possible. I just think that the balance of probabilities trends towards going in more than not. The type of person that wants to go in seems to have a predilection to ending up in the sorts of jobs that have the training and make that decision.

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        2. If we’re talking neighborhoods, maybe. If we’re still talking cities? No. This ain’t Mogadishu, nor even Baghdad.

          There is no American population center so far gone we should abandon it to disaster, collapse and barbarism while we sit on our hands and do nothing. I’ve walked through far worse than an American city in crisis, and if people remain that need help I’ll walk through it again.

          There are solutions to hostile elements in a population attacking relief forces. They don’t start with writing the whole she-bang off.

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          1. There is no American population center so far gone we should abandon it to disaster, collapse and barbarism while we sit on our hands and do nothing.

            Yet.

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            1. I’ll be more explicit: if we abandon an American city, we’ve abandoned America. If we’re willing to write off large swaths of the citizenry as a consequence of the depredations of a few we’ve corrupted our legitimacy.

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              1. I’ll second Mary’s yet. A lot may depend on how fast a collapse happens, if it happens slow enough all those worth saving may have already left. There may be some souls left that are not ‘savage and unrepentant”, but at some point stupidity must reap its rewards. I hope we never see a US city lower itself to the level of Mogadishu, but if we do the best option may well be to let it burn.

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                1. As Mr. Lane said upthread, I can understand the rationale. It just doesn’t play for me.

                  I had the privilege of a post here a bit back, and I tried to explain one of the things that makes us a beacon in the world. I talked about an attitude held by many in the military, that we will come. I made that commitment myself, and it wasn’t because everybody in uniform was a paragon of virtue. Nothing about the uniform bestows nobility of character. Some of us were right bastards. But I still made the commitment without checking on politics, or religion, or value to society or anything else.

                  Not even in Mogadishu do they all deserve to burn. There are people caught by circumstance, by birth, by timing, by life stuck in that particular hell. That we might let an American city descend that far…

                  Listen, if we’re positing a collapse so far down that sheer hand to mouth necessity dictates that we write off our people…well, you can bury my corpse with the rest because I want to go out with the last light of America trying to hold the chaos at bay. And the fractured groups that come after can try and build something new.

                  That we might consider the premeditated stance of leaving some to their fate, of letting stupidity reap its rewards, of giving in to the descent into barbarism, that leaves me cold. We don’t abandon our own.

                  Or we shouldn’t.

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                  1. Your mistake here is assuming that we always COULD go in and save the day. That if we forbear, it is merely because we have chosen to.

                    In smaller scale emergencies, the first rule is: do not add to the number of victims. You do not break into a burning house even if people are trapped inside when you know you will collapse of smoke inhalation and rescue no one.

                    “By no effort of mine can I reach an aim that is beyond my power” is one of the copybook sayings. Which is a vague memory of mine from an Indian epic, I think. For those who would like a more American phrasing: “A man’s gotta know his limitations.”

                    Indeed, very likely the saying that the gods thereof will say over America. The sulky college graduate who can’t get a job in her field and whines, “Aren’t you supposed to follow your dreams?” being the prime example — you can’t just find a high-paying job in a low-paying field.

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                    1. Actually teaching people not to add to the number of victums is one of the harder things to do. There is a very strong tendancy to take very significant risks to save others.

                      Not everyone has such a tendancy, but there are a significant number of folks who will break into a burning building to try and save people, even when they do not have proper equipment to do so. In a fire situation this is fairly obvious, but in Search and Rescue you get a LOT of people who want to help search and who then go out and add to the problems because they are not prepared.

                      Restraining (or redirecting) such people is one of the hardest things for the trained people to do.

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                    2. I think we are talking across each other here, and we agree more than not. In your burning building scenario, or any other where things are truly beyond all hope, you prevent the crisis from spreading as best you can. Or you tend to the victims that need help. Not adding to the victim count is the right thing to do on that scale.

                      When we are talking about a whole city, this is a far different thing than a single building. If the city is in utter chaos, rioting, looting, and significant amounts of violent resistance to any attempt to regain control of the situation, you don’t go in with a single squad and expect to get any results but dead, wounded, and possibly leaving bodies and equipment to be used by the other side. Faced with that, the man on the scene does as above (don’t add to the body count)- and calls for backup.

                      For us to let a city burn, there would have to be *insufficient* forces available to quell the violence and aid the victims. With our logistics and transportation assets, that would mean that the whole country (or great swathes of it) would have to be in flames, essentially. Or invaded, or facing severe quarantine scenario… We’re all readers and some of us writers here. Vivid imaginations. *grin* I can indeed imagine a scenario where the right thing to do would be to preserve our forces until we can concentrate enough to do some good.

                      With all the materiel and trained bodies we have even outside the armed forces in this country, it would take a truly desperate situation for us to triage a whole city as a single unit. Nuclear/Bio/Chemical attacks could do it. Large scale insurrection (I’m talking multiple states declaring), same. Invasion. Plague on a scale not seen in centuries, possible (could quibble on this- it would require further complications).
                      As Eamon said, this ain’t Mogadishu. Even just one city, a tiny percentage of the country, we’d spend lives and treasures beyond the dreams of average to get it back. I don’t want us to think that this sort of thing is inevitable. Or even likely. Even in Detroit, or parts of NYC, or the worst slums in the worst place in the country right now (ironically, DC, I think), it’s not quite that bad.

                      There’s undoubtedly horrors happening even as you read this in the U.S., somewhere. On the whole, though, we are so far beyond the septic human sewer slums of the world where writing off a whole city has happened that the comparison is laughable. We might sit and watch it burn for a short while (if what we have on hand in insufficient to make a difference), but only long enough for us to get our act together and do something about it.

                      Knowing your limitations is important. I just don’t think we’ve reached them yet

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                    3. The city is not fundamentally different in a way that would preclude its operating in the same way. Sometimes you can’t stop stuff.

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                    4. First, I hope Dan Lane is right, and we’re simply talking at cross purposes here. Seems entirely possible.

                      I am not making any mistaken assumptions. I’m well aware of the tenets of emergency response and rescue operations. For your burning house, no you don’t rush to your own collapse. You go get equipment and you come back. You evaluate the structure to determine if you can assist from without. You put your brain to the task of solving the problem. You don’t roast marshmallows.

                      What I am vehemently opposed to is the apparent fatalism and the scale. Yeah, sometimes you can’t stop stuff. Nobody was going to stop the towers from falling. But they spent untold man-hours climbing the pile and searching. If we’re going to scale up to something the size of an American city, hundreds of thousands up to millions of people spread over square miles of terrain…

                      A city is fundamentally different in a way that precludes it operating in the same way as a structure fire. Unless it is obliterated by some massive event. Then you clean up the hole and build again.

                      You don’t rush in to your certain and lonely death. You go get the equipment you need, and the manpower, you examine the situation and see what you can do from without, you put your brain to the task and find solutions. You save everything that can be saved. And when enough people are on hand you go in and deal with the thugs and take the damn city back.

                      I’ve already noted the possibility of a collapse so far down that the resources to keep a healthy city alive are stretched or non-existent and therefore saving a city collapsing into violence is out of reach. Lets set that one aside, as it’s not really the premise that started this thread.

                      We’ve already seen the sort of top-down, dot the i’s control that prevents organized aid from reaching disaster sites. Bureaucratic turf wars inhibiting response. Failed government doing its best to make it worse. If we make the premeditated decision that some whole cities may not be worth saving because of logistical hurdles, particularly if they fail to meet the political expectations of whichever group (they were too stupid to vote in the right people/get out), then I maintain we have given up the American spirit.

                      “By no effort of mine can I reach an aim that is beyond my power.” So I’m gonna grab this guy, and that guy, and those folks over there and we’re going to start doing what needs doing. I’m going to send a runner down the street to get those gawkers organized, and get a call out for more trucks. I’m going to work my patch and trust that all around me people are working theirs and that in the aggregate we are doing what must be done to fight the inevitable and save whatever can be saved.

                      And I’m not pulling out marshmallows.

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                    5. Dan,
                      Yes we agree, what I was picturing and failed to articulate is that if the collapse happened slowly we would have had time to evacuate those both willing and worth evacuating. Then we sit back and watch it burn. I stumbled on using Mogadishu as an example (and wouldn’t have used it myself, except it had already been held up as an example) because I had an uncle there when it burned; and he left a wife and child there. While he never spoke of it, since he was SF I very much doubt he willingly sat back and watched it burn.

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        3. Aye. The likely scenario will be a lot like Katrina and the aftermath. City X dissolves in riot and flame, the governor declares a state of emergency, the guard goes in, FEMA goes in, volunteers go in, it’s a giant charlie foxtrot, and things get more or less sorted. Same with a major terrorist attack, only with that, we then gear up and go after the perpetrators in a major way. Like we do.

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  13. There was a very interesting interview on Antena 2 Portuguese state radio about Hannibal. The interviewee was a history professor at Coimbra. So saw a parallel.

    Hannibal reminds me of the Republicans. He won every battle until he tried to negotiate with Rome while occupying much of Italy. Hannibal never had the idea to attack Rome but to restore Carthage rights. Rome, like the Dems refused categorically to receive the Carthaginian delegation or negotiate in any way. Romans had a motto, Carthago delenda est, Carthage must be destroyed. Republicans delenda sunt has been Dem motto all my life, but now they really mean it.

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      2. “That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.” — Aldous Huxley

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  14. The US will not crash JUST like Rome. As pointed out the whole game is different now. But I will point out Rome and France and other nation states failing almost all have one feature – They degrade their money.
    When the money is coin they lower the amount of silver or gold. They reduce the weight.
    When the money is paper unbacked by metal, historically such currencies last around 40 years max.
    The US dollar stopped being redeemable to foreign governments in 1971 when Nixon closed the gold window.
    The value of the dollar is going down faster all the time the more qualitative easing they pursue. Right on schedule from past experience.

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    1. Tell me about it…

      So my books sell mostly through Amazon.com, I live in Finland. Would be much nicer for me if dollar got a bit stronger in comparison to euro. As things seem to be going, if we were to assume I will start selling noticeably in three to six years… maybe not the best possible retirement plan. Not that I trust euro much either.

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  16. > We used to dream of being invaded by the US back in the seventies. And no, I’m not joking.

    Ever read the Mouse that Roared?

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  17. “I’ve heard our troops in South Korea called “the trip wire.” Their function is to go down fighting and give us an excuse to send our REAL forces in.”

    Certainly, that is the public rationale. But since at least the early ’60’s the South Korean Army has been powerful enough to successfully invade North Korea, absent intervention from China or Soviet Union, by itself. Throughout the ’60’s and ’70’s the real reason the US kept forces in Korea, and titular command of both US and South Korean forces, was to prevent South Korean generals from launching that invasion.

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    1. Also as a warning to the Soviet Union and China. They knew they couldn’t invade South Korea without engaging US forces, and you kill US forces in open battle and historically we have set a precedent of what happens next.

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  18. The war has begun.

    http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013/10/gop-establishment-plans-to-exorcise-tea-party-in-2014-election/

    I think the wisest thing the TEA Party could do at this point is pull 100% of its support from the Republican Party, put it into a third party, and run against every Republican that stays with the brand. I don’t think the Republican Party has thought this through. They are announcing to the entire world that they are nothing but Democrat Light, and literally stand for nothing. From this point on, I will never again vote for, support, or help, a Republican (I won’t vote for Democrats, either). I will let that be known to every candidate that runs for political office.

    As for the collapse of the United States, I see the BLUE half collapsing into chaos, and the RED half standing back and watching it until the bottom is reached, and then taking over. As Walter Russell Meade has stated more than once, it’s the blue model of society that is collapsing. We conservatives just have to make sure we can survive the blue collapse. We will be the only source of power, food, water, and production afterwards.

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      1. The original source is National Journal, and it looked like a pretty slanted piece to me, starting with a statement that the TEA Party had “ruined the Republican brand” with the shutdown.

        Besides, we need to give the TEA Party more time to take over more of the party, rather than throwing the next 3 election cycles to the Dems by voting 3rd party.

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        1. Look, first the media is TRYING to separate the Republicans and the tea party. 3rd party has no chance right now. NONE.
          Second, yep, some of the idiots will say stuff like this. Mostly the ones who want to be in with the media and want the media to love them. I’m looking at McConnel and what’s his face who ran on Palin’s coattails.
          They’re not the party. They were always democrat-light. They think their way into nomination for the presidency is to have the media love them. It worked in the past. We do need to battle those asses, but we need to battle them from within the party.

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          1. Well, at least we have someone who seems decent challenging McConnell this coming year. Of course, he’s being attacked, but the interviews I’ve heard on the radio seemed pretty promising.

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          2. If I’m ever in a position to propose a Constitutional amendment, putting a cap in place that you can’t serve in Congress or the federal judiciary if you are over 75 years of age is going to be what I wish for. Hairy Reed, McC of AZ, McConnel, Strom T, and a whole bunch of judges will be exhibits A through ZZZ.

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          3. Yeah, by the time you got a third party up and running, you’d be living under one-party rule.

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        2. Rasmussen poll of voters Oct 26-27 found that 42% thought that Obama shared their political philosophy and that 42% thought that the Tea Party was closest to their philosophy.

          If the Tea Party “ruined” the GOP brand, it was only by contrast …

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          1. Which shows how out of touch the GOP establishment is. That shows that AT BEST a McCain/Romney would have 16% (and in reality that 16% will be split twenty ways) of true believers and be trying to convince enough of 42% Tea Party supporters that they were enough of a lesser evil than Obama to bother with getting out and voting. IMO starting out with 42% supporters and attempting to pull enough of the undecided 16% to beat an opponent starting at an equal level of support seems like a lot better bet.

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  19. May I suggest the Weimar Republic model as a credible warning of American collapse? It matches your suggestion that we won’t go into the stone age, we’ll just all become poor. Inflation allows the Feds to tax all our 401k plans at once without bothering to pass any laws. The Black Obelisk shows the way forward. What it doesn’t show is whether the dictator who follows the collapse will be Democrat or Republican.

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  20. I only wish that our fall would be like that of Rome. By that standard, we would have little to worry about. What with the fact that we have a Senate and House unable to do what the elites don’t wish them to do, a President who is fiddling about (NOT playing the fiddle) while Detroit is in its slow burn, and we’re just beginning the process of authorizing gay marriage, I’d say that by that standard we’re just beginning to get to the point of the Emperor Nero’s reign in that spectacular slow-mo tragedy which was the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. Another four or so centuries left for the Western Empire, and another millennium after that for the Eastern Empire (AKA Byzantium). Hell, it would be a consummation devoutly to be desired. I’d buy that for a quarter.

    The problem with that comparatively rosy scenario is that, as Ms. Hoyt has pointed out, we’re most definitely NOT an empire. Empires are much better at keeping territories they’ve conquered. We USED to be a republic, but we have effectively screwed that into a democracy instead, at least since Woodrow Wilson’s time. And, as eminent philosophers from Plato and Aristotle right up to Marx, Mao, and Pol Pot have noted, democracies tend to have a rather limited shelf life.

    I would agree with Ms. Hoyt that it would probably be better for the United States if we were to restore her as a republic. Those last for a longer time, and when they fall to monarchy again, as Rome did, they are at least efficient empires. It certainly would beat the present trajectory toward corporate fascism which we seem in the process of undergoing.

    But what I am afraid of is that we, like Periclean Athens, are an insufficiently able democracy, currently hegemons of the world by virtue of having survived several would-be empires, but just one plague, or one disaster, away from ruin.

    Sweet dreams, kiddies.

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  21. Is the US Rome? Even Republican Rome? Nope. Romans from before Sulla, let alone from around the rise of Gauis Iulius, through to the fall of the West in the 400s, would not recognize nor embrace the US as anything like them. We’re far to weak to count as a Roman analog. As Sarah pointed out, Romans would likely see the USSR as more along their lines, except that it was overlayed with that goofy “Marxism” religion, which directly caused that empires downfall.

    Is the US Carthage? Well, the parallels are closer, given the maritime nature of US power and the whole “leave us alone” aspect of Hannibal’s efforts, but we’re not just a city-state, though the DC inside-the-beltway area might qualify as one, and their political system was way different.

    Is the US Athens? That’s a VDH question, but aside from the city-state thing I think we’re not that myopic, at least I hope so.

    Is the US pre-1900 China? Nope. We don’t have the inertia of 6,000 years of rule by bureaucrats like they did, but the US 20th century sure looks like parts of Chinese history – especially in our abandonment of exploration after a magnificent and successful series of voyages into the unknown, that nobody else at the time could have executed, with the reason given as “there’s nothing out there we need to spend state resources on going there to get it.”

    Is the US pre-Perry Japan? There’s a lot of indications that we would like to be that isolationist, but at this point there’s enough recent history to counter that impulse.

    I don’t think there’s any entirety we can point to that’s just like us – Basically, as Dona Sarah points out, we’re unique. No one has ever assembled the people we have, with the rights we have, and the responsibilities we have, and then screwed around with them the way we’ve been over the last 100 years. Maybe future PhD candidates will be able to assemble some jigsaw of facts to say “Aha -see, the US was really just like pre-colonial Tasmania, as colonized sequentially by the Phoenicians and the Mongols!”, but hey, that’s academia, not real life.

    My point yesterday about Roman Britannia after the legions had left, but before the people there stopped thinking of themselves as Romans, was more along the lines of “history never repeats itself, but sometimes it rhymes” – I’d expect after the ruling DC city-state falls on hard times that something along those lines would happen – At that point, the rest of the country will have a choice to make. Some will advocate spinning off a subset polity under new rules, others will try and set up a basis for trying to re-establish central authority under their control and go take over the entire US (the Flavius Magnus Maximus Augustus gambit), and others will simply try and keep things together enough to defend the area they are in and continue commerce and public life under the previous rules.

    Most folks just want to get on with their lives, so I’d expect the third to be the focus of the majority.

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  22. … next time you look at a revolution full on, be suspicious of any which promises to bring fraternity.

    OTOH, the ones that promise to bring sorority include pillow fights, fabulous* lingerie and chocolate chip mint** ice cream.

    *Definitions of fabulous are idiosyncratic and subject to change without notice.

    **No, I don’t know why that flavour nor whether it is the only flavour, but chocolate chip mint seems to feature in all the commercials. I’m rather fond of butter brickle, myself.

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            1. I’m not overly fond of most mint – chocolate combinations, but there are some exceptions. Mostly just the After Eight mints, and a few other similar products though. Among my Christmas stables (only time of the year I do buy them).

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        2. Madness! Mint Chocolate Chip is second only to Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough at the top of the pantheon of ice cream! How could any human being with functional tastebuds fail to be enraptured by the sublime mixture of mint and chocolate?!

          Apostates! Inhuman apostates! Burn them!!!

          :-D

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          1. You actually . . . eat . . . chocolate ship cookie dough ice cream? *shudder* Don’t worry, your freezer is safe from my ever looking into it.

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            1. Oh, now chocolate chip cookie dough* is one of life’s guilty pleasures. Being in ice cream just adds to the fun.

              *Also, I’m a rebel – I eat homemade cookie dough with raw eggs in it. :-)

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              1. I eat homemade cookie dough, but then I used to crack two or three raw eggs into a protein drink to drink with breakfast every morning in high school. Frozen cookie dough though? No thanks.

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          1. Seriously, I really did think I was the only one to dislike chocolate and mint together. You see the combination everywhere, and when I turn down chocolate mints everyone gives me funny looks. Or when I offer to give my complimentary chocolate mint to someone else at the restaurant table, everyone’s willing to take it. I’ve never yet run across anyone else who admitted to not liking the combination. Classic preference cascade situation.

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              1. I like just mint flavored sweets too – or would if I still ate sweets. Childhood familiarization, one of the sweets my parents sometimes bought me were these mint things which tasted pretty much exactly the same as those toothpastes. Don’t think they are made anymore. :)

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            2. *random tidbit* It’s the one flavor of waste-ice-cream that pigs won’t eat– I’d guess mint is the problem, but who knows?

              I like it if it’s a good combo; there are a lot of bad ones.

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  23. The US is a really awesome club or team. Everybody else in World High School either admires or fears, imitates or deliberately doesn’t, its awesomeness. It is powerful but rarely uses its powers, and mostly its members just want to be friends with everybody else in school.

    We do not have an empire. We have popularity and influence, and we are always doing Cool New Stuff.

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        1. Oooh, this really does have possibilities…. various members have focus episodes, and even if we almost kill eachother we still have The POWER OF FRIENDSHIP!!!’

          (so, who’s the one that is always yelling “UNFORGIVABLE!!!”?)

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  24. I throw this into the “US acts like an empire” pile:

    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/28/rahn-looking-for-lucre-in-all-the-wrong-places/

    The United States has been threatening to criminally indict nonresident foreign bank executives for not complying with U.S. tax law, even in cases when the banks were not operating in this country or violating their own nation’s tax laws. This is causing great resentment, as one would expect. Each country has the right to its own tax and financial-privacy laws, whether the United States agrees or not. Europe and most other countries prohibit capital punishment.

    What if other nations started indicting and imprisoning our federal or state government officials, including judges when they traveled outside of the country, for carrying out the death penalty? The point is, if the United States tries to enforce its laws on non-Americans working and living outside of the U.S. for acts that are not criminal in their home countries, it will put all Americans at risk if other countries start to retaliate, which is very likely, given the increased anger over U.S. actions.

    The latest outrage is the Treasury Department’s Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, which, in essence, demands that all foreign financial institutions prove that they have no U.S. clients or “tax persons.” If they do, however, they must collect taxes from them for the IRS.

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  25. “There is a special providence for fools, drunkards, and the United States of America” — Otto von Bismarck

    Me, I’m betting it looks more like “Snow Crash” than the Fall of Rome. You know…the government lasts effectively forever in some form, but the people who don’t literally _work_ for it have long since stopped taking it and its edicts seriously.

    (Of course, the closest possible parallel to Rome wouldn’t be the crash of America as it is, but if, say, Obama moved to San Juan, renamed the city “Barackville”, declared it the new capital of America, moved the whole government and all the ruling class there with him, and then over a hundred years later, when most people calling themselves “Americans” had forgotten the capital was ever anywhere else, Washington got sacked by some invader. And then, over a thousand years after _that_, Puerto Rico got captured by a bunch of “Cubans” who were really mostly from mainland South America.)

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    1. Now that you mentiond “Barackville”, I had the idea that it would have been nice to capitalize on the popularity of Obama, and rename “Washington, D.C.” to “Obama, D.C.” The Official Purpose would have been because it’s so wonderful that we have such an angel in the White House, this represents Great Strides, etc; my hidden desire would have been for respect for George Washington: I don’t like having the urge to curse when talking about Washington, so it would have been nice to replace his name with one where the urge to curse would have been far more appropriate.

      Unfortunately, I had this idea about a year or two after the Anointed One had become President, so it would have been far more difficult for the Republicans to go along claiming “good will” for the name change. (I think this option would only have been almost somewhat viable only shortly after his first inauguration.)

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  26. Offered here in lieu of resurrecting an old post:

    The Passionate Chris Matthews Rant on Benghazi That Will Probably Leave You Speechless

    Chris Matthews of MSNBC: “I’m going to ask you something,” the MSNBC host began. “If that what your brother or father in there, would you say that’s an acceptable response? ‘Oh, it’s probably over by now, it’s no good to send anybody.’ Or would you say, ‘I don’t care if it’s over or not, I’m going to collect the bodies if nothing else. I’m going to get there and show I cared.’ That’s what I’d do.”

    It actually fits in here, because if Chris Matthews is looking past the brilliance that is this administration in his eyes and pressing such a question, then it ain’t over.

    Hattip: Instapundit

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    1. As Larry put it on Facebook, the election is three years away and the rat bastages are just trying to make themselves sound impartial so they can then tell us Hilary is the best choice. Eleventy! She learned from her mistakes! Do you hate women?

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      1. Oh, I’m not trusting Matthews on anything. I’m not gonna believe him when he tells me about the weather falling on his head. It’d just be the Republicans fault.

        But…he’s talking about it. And the point he makes, however calculated it may be for him or his handlers, is a resonant one. It may in fact be more important if it’s calculated, because it indicates that they believe this is the narrative to reach the people. Which says important things about the people and their attitudes, and that’s where I take encouragement.

        Then again, I have a canted brain.

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      2. I have no doubt she learned from her mistakes, it is what lessons she drew that concern me.
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqw6hg96kE0

        What difference at this point does it make?

        You ask whether I hate women? I ask in reply, What difference at this point does it make?

        Geeze, I so want that in a terse five-second sound clip. Is it out of context? What difference at this point does it make?

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  27. Oy. I go to work and what happens?

    A few thoughts for those arguing over the question of “legislating morality”, particularly Mary and Drak (and those agreeing):

    I guarantee you all that my personal morality has quite a few substantial differences from yours. I’d possibly even be willing to put money on the likelihood that there are things I consider moral and proper that would horrify you. And vice verse, of course.

    Do I have the right to tell you what you should be doing in your homes, your bedrooms, and your thoughts?

    I’d be totally shocked if your answer is “yes”.

    Now, extend this. Suppose by some miracle (and it would take one) I became President and had the ability to convince Congress and the Senate to pass legislation I wanted. Would I then have the right to tell you what you should be doing in your homes, your bedrooms, and your thoughts?

    Again, I’d be shocked if your answer is “yes”.

    If I have no right to tell you what kind of life you should be leading – whether you should be drinking, smoking, using other materials for recreational purposes, reading this book or that book, anything that does not – in Jefferson’s words – “pick my pocket or break my leg”; you have no right to tell me or anyone else what they should be doing.

    By the “pick my pockets or break my leg” standard the proper place of Government legislation is in punishing actions that damage the social trust network – or as Sarah put it, disrupt society. It’s in removing people who refuse to follow the most basic guidelines of any society (yes, all of them have rules against theft, murder, and assault) from society in order that everyone else can continue to work together.

    There are edges and gray areas. There always are. But attempting to legislate who puts which personal equipment in what orifice is absolutely and always out of scope unless one of the parties did not give consent (in which case it’s assault and falls into the pockets and leg standard). More than that, it’s utterly unenforceable and only contributes to a decline in social well-being because – duh – unenforceable laws lead to arbitrary penalties, which in turn destroys trust.

    No trust, and you’re screwed.

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      3. If the dino gives consent you’re okay. If the dino does not consent you’re a snack. Either way there is no legislative need here.

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    2. And you’re missing my position. I’m sick and tired of people screaming “Don’t Force Your Morality Onto Me” while they are “forcing their morality onto everybody else”.

      At its base, Morality (any brand of Morality) is a Belief in “There’s a Standard of Behavior” that people should attempt to meet.

      If you or Sarah supported a Standard of Behavior and pushed for laws that support that standard (at the least set punishments for those violating the standards), then IMO you have no business screaming “Don’t Enforce Your Morality Onto Me” when I attempt the same thing for standards you don’t accept.

      In that situation, it isn’t about “forcing morality”. It is that YOUR STANDARDS ARE SUPERIOR TO MINE.

      Law has always been about Standards of Behavior. At its best, Law reflects a Standard of Behavior that the vast majority will accept.

      No Kate, you talk about me disliking your set of standards becoming law but the problem is that too many laws reflect a set of standards that I think both of us would dislike. And the people setting those standards use as an attack the phrase “Don’t Force Your Morality”.

      You and Sarah aren’t hypocrites but too many who use that phrase are.

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      1. But Drak, that IS the issue. Even if you got your laws in, then the other side would take over and impose theirs. No regime lasts forever. At any rate, I suspect we’re do for an overturn of the current insanity and replacement with double-reverse just as crazy insanity. I don’t expect to like it any better, even if I can pass. (Being rather religious and conventional.)

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        1. IMO you can’t keep morality out of laws. You can limit it by passing laws based on the “lowest common denominator”. Claiming that you can keep morality out of laws is foolishness.

          Thanks to the rhetoric of secularist Left, the phrase “Don’t Force Morality Onto People” is “Fighting Words” especially when they are “Forcing Morality Onto People”.

          Since you are imagining that I’m saying something that I’m not, I’m not going to waste my time anymore.

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      2. Paul,

        I’m not sure either of us is necessarily seeing where the other is coming from. I’m against ANY attempt to legislate morality in ANY situation that does not have a clear link to the picks pockets or breaks leg standard. I don’t care whether it’s trying to make certain consensual sexual behavior illegal or trying to ban mega-serves of fizzy drinks.

        We are all of us free to go to hell in our own personal way as long as we don’t take anyone with us who didn’t choose to join us in full knowledge of what we’re doing and where we’re going.

        And anyone who says differently, well, this is my middle finger.

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        1. When you use the Language of the Secularist Left, you are asking to be “misunderstood”.

          I quit.

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          1. Paul,

            In terms that might be more suited to your temper right now:

            A statist dictatorship is a statist dictatorship whether its rules are something you think are morally good or not. There is no difference whether that statist dictatorship cloaks itself in religious rhetoric, communist rhetoric or any other combination. It is still a statist dictatorship that seeks to control every aspect of your life.

            I am against any form of statist dictatorship, whether I approve of the moral principles behind its laws or not.

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          2. I’m unclear on what constitutes the language of the secularist left, perhaps clarifying that might deal with confusion.

            Regarding a statement upthread, “Claiming you can keep morality out of laws is foolishness.”: I guess I’d need you to define your terms to be certain, but I probably disagree. To the greatest possible extent I believe laws should be as secular and as objective as possible. Without reference to subjective individual morals, an objective evaluation of the impact an actor has on a non-consenting individual allows for setting appropriate punitive responses. This allows the aggregate authority of the society to be used in lieu of the authority of the injured individual to seek redress. In the absence of an objectively ‘injured’ party the aggregate authority of the society has no legitimate place to act.

            There are subtleties and complexities (speed limits, for instance), but this is the foundational principle of legitimate legal authority, in my view. And it is not dependent upon morality, though it frequently coincides with moral evaluations.

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            2. Final attempt.

              Morality does not equal Religion. Unless you want to say atheists are Ill-moral. Now some atheists will claim that they don’t have “Morality” but have “Ethics”. Which IMO is just word-games.

              IMO our Leftish Secularists are imposing their Secular Morality while claiming that they aren’t “Forcing Their Morality” and while bashing any religious person has other ideas about how things should go by using that *hateful* Phrase “Don’t Force Your Morality Onto Others”.

              Of course, we get this nonsense that “Secular is always Good and Religious is always Bad”.

              In addition, talking about “secular” is some what nonsense as well because religious people are bashed even when we express secular reasons for our ideas.

              The same nonsense goes with “objective” because the hate-mongers are always claiming “religious is never objective” and claim our ideas are religious even when we take the time to give non-religious reasons for the ideas being good ones.

              Sorry people, but all this talk about “not forcing Morality” comes across as if you don’t have moral reasons for the laws you support and as if you don’t want to debate with people who have different ideas. You just label any ideas you don’t like as “Morality” and tell others to shut up.

              Good Bye.

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              1. Sir, it sounds as if you’ve had some bad experiences with ill-bred progs. I sympathize, and I detest their ill thought attacks on religion, spirituality and morals.

                I have not used secular or objective to devalue any religious argument or justification, merely to set aside the foundational arguments.

                Whether or not I have moral justification for the laws I support is rather beside the point, from my expressed view. And I rather hope I’m succeeding in indicating my interest in your point of view by engaging in the discussion. It does not follow from my interest that I will agree.

                Finally, I’ve told no one to ‘shut up’ and this leads me to believe I’m standing in proxy for someone else who was evidently a cad. That’s fine, but please don’t take this exchange and ascribe their views to me.

                Have a good evening, truly, and we’ll cry ‘well met’ next we cross.

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              2. Okay, just got in on the bottom part of this discussion, so will have to scroll up and read the part that got Kate and Paul exercised.

                But basically it seems like you are both standing back to back, arguing with a blank wall, instead of with each other. I mostly agree with both of you. One thing, morals do not equal religion, for some reason you both make this point and then insist on arguing like the other one disagrees with you. I suspect Paul has gotten a little too much of the same treatment I have, where you can’t say you believe anything is wrong, because that is “forcing your morality” on someone else; and they are sure to take offense and throw a screaming hissy fit. For example, I believe homosexuality is wrong, I believe it should be legal, that everyone has a right to make their choice, but I still believe it is wrong. Somehow saying it is wrong is “forcing my morality” on others. By the same token those same others support laws requiring my pastor to perform marriage ceremonies for homosexual partners, but somehow that isn’t “forcing their morality” on me. You get fed this line in a screaming, raving, fit a few times and if you’re like me you have a knee-jerk reaction every time you hear the phrase, “forcing your morality” it doesn’t matter what the Webster’s definition is, what matters is the common societal definition. Which is; I’m going to do what I want, and you better agree with me that what I want is right, because if you don’t agree with me and help me do what I want, I’m going to run crying to Daddy Government, and he’ll make you do what I want. Yeah, I’m an American, my reaction is going to be, here’s my middle finger, sit and spin.

                Morality = what you think is right
                A lot of the problem lies in the fact that there is NO agreeing to disagree with the Left, they do not accept disagreement, I think it is against their morals or something. If you dare to disagree with them, they will scream about you “forcing your morality” on them, while all the while they are forcing their morality on you.

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              3. Drak, I *think* I get where you are coming from, but I am not sure. Training in philosophy, anthropology, and being an atheist some years ago (long story, doesn’t matter) I’ve heard a lot of talk about “Don’t force your morality on me!” It ties right in with ethical relativism- trust me, a more pernicious imp of the left you’ll never find. If all the different moral codes are equal, then what standard is there to judge them but the subjective one? The idea is so bloody “open minded” one’s brain falls out *plop!* and leaves one a mindless zombie seeking to eat the brains of others…

                I purely hate that the language and the definitions have been so debased over the years. It turns many a political debate into the sound children squabbling. Without a single standard to relate to, that’s all that happens.

                Regarding the larger issue of laws, I’m minded of diseases. Odd brain and all that. *chuckle*

                Governments, like all medicines, are a poison. The toxicity is in the dose. After a certain point, as it grows (per Cicero and others) justice, freedom, and prosperity dwindle. Given that we are all flawed human beings, I argue that there will always be that taint of subjectivity to the laws we make. We try to limit that as much as possible, if we are following the spirit of what our founders intended.

                When we put laws in place to enforce order and protect freedoms, or we should. There’s also commerce regulation, and other stuff in the gray areas of the map (codes enforcement: here there be dragons!). Things like sin taxes can be seen both as legislating morality and source of revenue, but the tax code itself is bizarre and strange and in dire need of an Alexander to administer some pragmatic problem solving there. But all in all, we try and protect our citizens from violence and disorder. Things are safer and more profitable that way.

                There is one guiding light that contains my basic morality, closest relating to the political sphere. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It means I have to put up with my immoral, skunk-as-a-drunk neighbor making an idiot of himself (up until it gets to public indecency and disturbing the peace). Also means I can’t just tell the local idiot parade to go home when they want to protest- again, long as its within the laws that protect us from harm, if not indecent signage and colorful language. Putting in legislation that effectively outlaws, say, “No Guns Allowed” signs might be moral to me personally, but it ain’t right or legal.

                Private morals guide what I define as proper behavior for me, personally, and how I view other people in the wild. Immanuel Kant’s universal law tells us “act only on that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it become a universal law.” In that case, it follows that I ought to keep things as simple as possible for those universals. I don’t want my neighbor sticking his snotty nose in my business, so I stay out of his. Make that a law: criminal trespass, and so on. It does *not* follow that I should make a law that says, “Lesbian sex is now illegal. We catch you doing the dirty, we lock you up and fine you.” That would be a remarkably stupid extreme.

                If we’re going to pick one code of behavior and make laws based around that, it had better be a darned standoffish one. No meddling, favoritism, or room for cronyism. The left uses “Morality” the same way Ethical Relativists use it- my Morality’s just as good as yours, so nyah! We don’t want to play into their hand, the same way “gun control” has become a thing that means something quite strange when you consider the individual words. “Don’t force your morality on me” has become something similar. It means something totally different to the Left.

                To them, destroying prayer in schools isn’t about morality, it’s about the separation of church and state. My own read on that is it *is* legislating morality, a twisted and rather sick one, and misreading the language of the document that wanted to allow religious *expression* without the top-down enforcement of a state church. Freedom *of* religion not freedom *from* it. But if we want to allow that prayer, with no penalties other than the social ones when someone keeps talking at a football game or refuses to put his hand over his heart for the national anthem, we’re forcing our morality on them.

                Drawing an equivalency between what we do and what they do by taking up their language means we have to fight all the harder. That’s how they will see it, I think. Fine. My morality says you can do what you like, believe however you choose, within this basic framework. Protest the destruction of the snail darter’s little home all you want, but you’re not allowed to firebomb your opponents. Hate booze, cigarettes, and Christian music on freakin’ Christmas for Bogsake, but don’t try and make ’em illegal. Pursue your happiness under whatever sacred code makes you happy, but your pursuit of that happiness ends where it starts to constrict another person’s legal freedoms. I have a Constitution to back it up.

                I don’t know if this is making any sense to y’all. I think the Constitution and the Bill of Rights represent a fairly simple morality. Those on the far left want to take advantage of some elements of that morality, and lose the others. In a broad sense, when we say don’t kill, steal, or the like, those are legislation that reflects that simple morality. They apparently don’t mind this, as long as it protects them. But oh, when it prevents them from doing something they are straining for, it’s “forcing morals” on them. Yeah. It is. I’m bloody glad it is. A modicum of moral behavior is necessary for a free society to operate with good order and safety.

                Too much meddling in that morality, those laws, and a twisted monstrosity appears that perverts the system of laws we hold dear. Cicero, Kant, Franklin, and a bunch of other folks a lot smarter than I’ll ever be got this, years and centuries ago. Like so many things here, I think we share more than we disagree. It’s okay if we don’t get each other on some things. In the bigger scheme of things, this club is pretty cool. Hope you stick around, man.

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                  1. Ah, it happens, sir. Flawed human beings and all. Like I said, I think I understand where you both are coming from. I just hate that that phrase has been hijacked and twisted into the monstrosity I’ve seen.

                    Glad you’re staying. *grin* We need all the good folks we can get. It makes the conversation more interesting!

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                3. Explanation, and I’m not sure what triggered it but SOMETHING in your post must’ve, because that’s when it came to mind:

                  Drak is objecting because folks are talking about “not legislating morality,” when they mean “don’t try to legislate me into being moral.”

                  Those who yell the loudest about ‘legislating morality’– the Vile Progs, as someone called them (punk band?)– are almost constantly trying to legislate others into being moral.

                  It really wasn’t helped by Kate lumping in laws based on morality (as has been pointed out, the very concept of there being laws involves morality) with laws about what one can think. (which would be trying to make someone moral)

                  Hopefully that distinction will help folks hear what folks are saying, assuming I got it…. Obviously, even with that understanding folks are going to draw lines in different places.

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                  1. *headsmack* That makes sense. And a lot simpler than what I was trying to flail about saying. I get what Kate, Sarah, Drak, and all the rest of you are saying, I think.

                    I first heard vile progs from Boortz, who I think mentioned it might make a good Punk band, too… *chuckle*

                    We’re not just folks, we’re Odds, so communication means we’re going to come at things from very… odd directions sometimes. Makes conversations quite exciting and thought provoking, too. *grin*

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        2. It seems to me that most of the disagreement here is whether “picks pocket or breaks legs” is properly classed as morals or not. I would argue that it is. Once you get outside some fairly narrow parameters, it gets out of the proper purview of government. But it remains a question of deciding which morals are legitimate to legislate and enforce.

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          1. Wayne – “picks pocket or breaks legs” may be a moral issue. It is also an issue of trust and harm to others. No one would care if you picked your OWN pocket or broke your OWN leg. The only person harmed is you. But as soon as you do this to someone else, you break the trust your society has placed in you to not harm other members of it. At that point you have placed yourself outside your society and abrogated your rights to the full privileges of your group.

            Yes, it’s a very utilitarian position – but it’s one that respects the inalienable rights. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – as long as your exercise of these doesn’t prevent anyone else from exercising theirs, go right ahead. If your pursuit of happiness involves smoking mushrooms or licking toads, more power to you. If it involves picking pockets, that’s taking away from someone else’s rights.

            Where morals overlap into the area of inalienable rights, they are legitimate government interests. Where they do not (do I care if someone spends all his time with Mrs Palm and her five daughters? No. Is it moral? Some would say yes, others no. Does he harm anyone other than himself? No.) they are not.

            The cases at the edges should not be taken as the whole of the argument.

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            1. I fail to see how what you just said is different, in essence, than what I said. I merely point out that the question is where do you draw the line. I’m fine with drawing the line at not legislating what doesn’t hurt others.

              But yes, the cases at the edges are at the center of the argument, because the vast majority can agree on the central tenets, though there will be some outliers on that.

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              1. Wayne, the problem with the fist and nose thing — remember I wrote a post about it? — is that totalitarian-inclined regimes use it expertly. Your right of free speech stops where it might offend someone. Your right of owning a gun stops where someone might get hold of it. Your right to not exercise stops where you cost society money.
                Once you start “legislating morality” you get all those. The left thinks that’s morality.
                I was thinking about this — what made me think we needed a post on “not of bread alone lives man” was a law in Pennsylvania that prohibits people touching pregnant women’s bellies without express permission.
                That’s using a hammer to do a fork’s job, metaphorically speaking. So people have no manners, and you make a law instead?
                In the same way making laws to enforce “morals” from any side, beyond the very basic for society, you end up making laws to do the turn of religion, to do the turn of manners, to do the turn of even philosophy.
                For the religious this should be — is to me — particularly offensive. I was just looking at pictures of an abandoned church in Sweden. There’s a lot of them. And the thought went through my mind “What do they have to go back to when the State fails them?”
                They’ve legislated “morals” including share and share alike, and not hurting others, and charity. They think they don’t need anything higher anymore, but in fact, they haven’t outgrown G-d. They’ve just substituted Him with the state. (I don’t know if it’s possible for humans as a whole to outgrow G-d. I know some individuals have or think they have and I don’t argue on that. It’s their life. BUT societies as a whole don’t seem to outgrow the need for something above them. ) What do they do when the State fails — as it has, is and will?

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                1. ANY law is an expression of a moral view of the world, if only that order is preferable to chaos. To declare that laws can be written absent a moral definition is absurd, is itself a moral stance. BUT an act ceases to be moral when it is done for the purpose of compliance with the law rather than its intrinsic moral purpose (which is why Jesus gave the example of rescuing a donkey from a well on the Sabbath.)

                  IT IS IN ORDER that we may be moral that the State must limit its authority, its compulsion. “I don’t want you to apologise because you want me to be happy with you, I want you to apologize because you realize how what you did has hurt me” bespeaks that deeper reality.

                  It is a paradox which must be accepted that laws, which derive from a perceived moral universe, must not attempt to compel moral behaviour because that compulsion voids the morality of the act.

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            2. Sorry, but where I sit the idea that I, a member of the aristocracy, lack the privilege of breaking the leg of a peasant (aka my property, IMRO) or taking from a peasant’s pocket anything, even a pebble, which they have no right to hold, is most certainly a moral issue. It is immoral to deprive the nobility of their privileges except at the will of a superior lord.

              If you disagree, if your deny my regal prerogatives, then aren’t you imposing your morality on me? Proclaiming “it isn’t morality” to interfere with my rights as a member of the aristocracy does not eliminate its moral component.

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            3. It could be argued (and, it seems, has been, by Wayne and others, and I’m going to go ahead and toss my own hat in that ring, too), that the very notion of “unalienable rights” is itself an assertion of a moral principle. Utilitarianism is a moral philosophy. “That which does not cause demonstrable harm to nonconsenting third parties is not a fit subject for legislation by the state” is a moral statement. (And, I think, an excellent one to codify into the laws of any society which values liberty…and, I will note, not self-contradictory at all, as the harm to nonconsenting third parties posed by laws which interfere in the private affairs of citizens has been quite well-demonstrated by history.)

              You can look at the law of any society for issues which don’t one way or another reduce down to moral questions…you’ll probably start with “in the British Commonwealth countries except for Canada, one drives on the left side of two-way streets, while in the rest of the world one drives on the right”, proceed from there through a summary of the procedure for filing taxes, and within a matter of half an hour have completely run through the entire set, without ever touching on any of the issues that virtually the entire human population would immediately agree on as not merely acceptable topics for legislation, but necessary ones, such as theft, assault, rape, murder, etc.

              The problem isn’t “legislating morality”. It’s “legislating on moral questions where there exists a wide spread of opinion in society as to the correct answer, and where the need for legislation cannot be demonstrated by any inevitable harm to nonconsenting parties”.

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              1. Is not obedience to, or even just abiding by, the law fundamentally a moral question? “We have no king but Jesus” was not mere rhetoric but a profound assertion of moral perspective. Were the proponents of those words dangerous fundamentalists bent on imposing their morality on others?

                Yes, I know Ted Kennedy thought so, but I doubt many here are prone to reflexively accept his views as dispositive. In fact, I suspect few here, on being informed by Teddy Chappaquiddick that it was raining would not first look down toward his fly and only afterward look to the heavens.

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              2. Accepting at the outset that some are assuming a position for me that I have not taken, I’ll toss another comment out there in expansion on my theorem stated upthread.

                If we are going to drill every assessment down to a value judgement, disregarding utilitarian analysis, disregarding objective analysis and subsuming ethical analysis to morality then yes, all law must rest on a moral foundation. (I acknowledge the fluidity and interrelated nature of morality and ethics, but in certain philosophical analyses there is intent behind using the words separately. I also acknowledge that drilling down to that level is a valid philosophical distinction. I question whether or not such drilling is always done in good faith.)

                My proposition is to reduce that moral foundation to the simplest and most stark moral evaluation, an objective evaluation of the impact an actor has on a non-consenting individual. Further, to test the objectivity of this evaluation with each application and to the greatest possible extent (which is not an absolute) constrain law to this fundamental evaluation without further embellishment.

                The intent of this foundation is to avoid what it has been implied I was endorsing. “Keep your morality offa my morality while I bury you under my morality!” I acknowledge there are a great number of twits perfectly willing to pursue such inanity. I’m trying to avoid it.

                To address another point, yes abiding by or observation of the law is a moral question (answered quite differently by various subjective moral systems). At foundation, I don’t believe law can be used to coerce obedience to law. Law should be used to set penalties for violations, back to using the aggregate authority of society in lieu of individual authority in seeking redress. But for every individual in each circumstance those penalties form the basis of a cost/benefit analysis and the adherence to their dictates does not depend on the law but upon the individual’s analysis. Acknowledging this might let us avoid coercive laws that violate or otherwise negatively impact someone’s moral precepts. (Still not an absolute.)

                It is my personal belief that paring the legal framework using this theorem is the most effective way to avoid substituting one group’s moral standards for another group’s moral standards in an endless progression dependent entirely upon who is ascendant in politics.

                I wouldn’t think it needs to be said, but I’d be wrong: This does not mean that I believe the removal of a legal prohibition against activity X means there is an imperative for all members of society to now support activity X. I am aware there are inane twits who feel this way, but this has not been my argument.

                Now I’m going to get a snack. Cheers!

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    3. attempting to legislate who puts which personal equipment in what orifice is absolutely and always out of scope unless one of the parties did not give consent (in which case it’s assault and falls into the pockets and leg standard). More than that, it’s utterly unenforceable and only contributes to a decline in social well-being because – duh – unenforceable laws lead to arbitrary penalties, which in turn destroys trust.

      No trust, and you’re screwed.

      Handy military axiom: Never give an order you know won’t be followed.

      Not just because it wastes your time, but because it undermines your legitimacy and authority. Especially if you then have to punish the disobedience.

      This is, interestingly, more true in certain militaries than in others.

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      1. That’s basically it. As soon as you have rules that you know won’t/can’t be followed you have a reduction in trust.

        Low trust means rules have to backed by a lot more force.

        Which is the road to police state.

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  28. Proffered without additional comment beyond the emphasis added.

    You can keep your health plan — if Obama likes it
    By TIMOTHY P. CARNEY | OCTOBER 29, 2013 AT 9:06 PM
    Joe Wilson didn’t know how right he was.

    When the South Carolina congressman blurted, “You lie!” at President Obama’s health care speech to Congress in September 2009, Wilson could have been summarizing the president’s entire approach to passing and implementing Obamacare.

    Most famously, Obama promised, again and again, “If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan, period.”

    Obama knew when he said this — the dozen times he said this — that it was false. NBC reported that the administration understood the law would lead to cancellation of about half of the insurance plans on the individual market (that is, plans people get outside of their employers). Although Obamacare allowed some existing plans to be “grandfathered” and avoid the law’s requirements, the administration tailored the grandfathering rules very narrowly, maximizing the number of disallowed plans.

    Again, this was deliberate. One of Obama’s favorite writers, Josh Barro of Business Insider, put it this way: “One of the key reasons that America needed health care reform is that a lot of existing health plans were bad. There are a lot of health plans that Americans shouldn’t be able to keep.”

    Barro leaves out half the reason Obamacare deliberately killed low-premium plans: stealth redistribution. A central aim of the law was forcing those with more basic plans to buy more comprehensive plans and thus subsidize people who wanted or needed comprehensive coverage.

    Beyond “if you like your plan, you can keep it,” Obamacare was passed and implemented through a series of falsehoods.

    [SNIP]

    Honest Obamacare defenders say the president shouldn’t have promised to let Americans keep their insurance when he really meant that if Obama likes your health care plan, you can keep it.

    “Vast swathes of policy are based on the correct presumption that people don’t know what’s best for them,” Barro wrote on Twitter on Tuesday, defending this approach.

    But this paternalistic mindset, so honestly expressed by of one of Obama’s favorite writers, can also explain why the Obama administration was so willing to mislead on Obamacare: If people don’t know what’s best for them, there’s no reason to deal with them honestly.

    Timothy P. Carney is the Washington Examiner’s senior political columnist.

    I said I would make no additional comment so “I won’t, I won’t. The *hell* I won’t!”

    Start making a list of all the other “existing [things which a]re bad. There are a lot of [bad things] that Americans shouldn’t be able to keep.” Put firearms at the top, and gas-guzzling cars right after it. Add “super-size” soft drinks, cigarettes and bacon to the list.

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