Compromise

    
     Compromise is not a policy.  It's what you do if you must do it in order to get something you need or want very much.  You would rather get the whole loaf and you may hold out for it.  If you stand firm there may be no deal.  That happens.  But you don't say, before there are any negotiations underway or before anyone has said anything, "I'm here to compromise".
      Conservatives are accused of  taking a "hard line" on the deficit, taxes and other matters.  But how else can you take a position about anything if not at least in the beginning taking what the liberals and their media friends call a "hard line"?  Do you say "I'll pay you $10,000 for that painting but I don't really mean it and I'm willing to compromise"?  That's not compromise.  That is setting a floor on what you will be willing to pay.  In effect you are saying that you will pay at least $10,000 and you may go up from there.  Another way of looking at it is to say that you have made the prospective seller's first offer for him and you have thereby started  negotiations by negotiating with yourself.  The Tea Party people were elected to Congress in November of 2011 on their promise to the voters to reduce spending and the deficit if at all possible.  They believe that it cannot happen if the debt ceiling is continually raised.  So they promised the voters that they would take a position on those matters and in so doing they were doing what the voters wanted .  That's democracy.  The left, as expected, charged them with being unreasonable and, also as expected, the "moderates" in the GOP were ready to agree with the left as  they almost always are.  But what were conservatives supposed to do?  Should they  have said "we won't agree to raise the debt ceiling --- but we might"?  That is almost like saying nothing at all.  If you offer to buy someone's painting for $10,000 there is nothing to prevent him from making a counter-offer.  You may accept it, or you may not accept it.  Nothing prevents a prospective buyer from taking his own position and seeing where he can get with it.
     Frequently negotiations take an if-then form.  For example, the Democrats might say "if you will agree to raise the debt ceiling we will do such-and-such".  If that is to have any reasonable meaning the such-and-such part has to be specific and firm.  What the Democrats do in reality, to the applause of their media and moderate friends, is to say "if you will agree to  raise  the debt ceiling by X amount we will agree to talk about such-and-such.  No sale, or it should be no sale.

What Now in Afghanistan?

     The question 'why are we in Afghanistan' should really be 'why should we still be there with ground forces'?  Is there  even a good argument for continuing  that presence?  If not, we should get out in an orderly way which minimizes harm to the Afghans and ourselves.  If so, the question is 'to what extent' and with what force', a question with which I am not concerned here because I do not have the military expertise to discuss it and, anyway, it would require a detailed and extensive consideration of goals, timetables, etc. and this is an essay, not a five hundred page book. The practical question is how are our own national interests advanced by being there at all, if indeed they are?
    It was by any measure necessary to send the military to Afghanistan in the first instance.  The United States had been the victim of a murderous attack on September 11, 2001.  Two New York skyscrapers were bombed and destroyed, the Pentagon was damaged, a passenger jet full of people crashed in Pennsylvania and the White House and Capitol in Washington were threatened.  If there ever was an act of war this was it.  It eclipsed Pearl Harbor.  But with Pearl Harbor we knew what nation had attacked us, the Empire of Japan.  Here the enemy was an insidious extremist organization named al Quaeda, not a nation state.  However, as President Bush said, and almost everyone agreed at the time, if any nation was aiding, abetting and sheltering the guilty parties and refusing to turn them over to us that country would be held responsible for the attack and would be at war with the United States.  There was such a nation, Afghanistan, ruled by another terrorist group called the Taliban, which was closely allied with al Quaeda and was acting as its protector.  We had to react with decisive military force and we did.  Democrats and Republicans, Liberals and Conservatives all agreed on that.
     The Taliban was deposed, thrown out, and our forces occupied Kabul, the capital.  Immediately women were liberated after having been reduced by the Taliban to the status of slaves.  Other benign and civilized reforms were instituted.  There was one major problem, however.  The Talliban remained alive and well in the mountains of Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan, simply waiting to come back in after we had left and, for that matter, while we were still there.  Most of Afghanistan was still either a target for the Taliban or was ruled by a confusing conglomeration of warring tribes.  We set about trying to create a nation where there never had been one, a nation strong enough to fend off the Taliban and control warring tribes.  Were we successful in doing that?  Well, we're still trying, and it apprears that we have made some progress.  Should we stay until the process has been completed or until we conclude that it never will be?  Our original goal having been to bust up al Quaeda and kick it and the Taliban out, which was accomplished in large part, what is left which requires our continued presence at great cost and at a time of serious domestic economic difficulties in the United States?  We should face two salient facts:    (1)  The  fighting in Afghanistan cannot end with a peace treaty or a national surrender as did Word War ll.and (2)  It could therefore go on indefinitely, though possibly at a reduced level of combat, unless the enemy is crushed completely.
     So it comes to this.  Is there now a compelling reason to remain in Afghanistan?  It isn't nation-building.  The Afghans themselves must do that if that's what they want.  When we invaded Afhanistan we did assume some responsibility for its people, just as we once did for Germany and Japan.  We have helped the Afghans and we can perhaps continue to help them up to a point but we cannot stay there forever waiting for them to resolve their internal and external squabbles and difficulties.  Indefinite nation-building is not, I submit, a good reason for remaining in Afghanistan.  However, there is a good reason to remain there at some level of force.  It is that by remaining in a strategic location in the Middle East with air and ground fighting forces we are in a position to check, and go on checking, the progress of jihadist extremism.  If you want a WW ll analogy, the fact that we stayed in Europte gave us a barrier to Soviet expansion, just as our armed opposition to Hitler prevented him or his friends from bringing his insanity eventually to the United States.  Afghanistan is strategically located.  If it ever becomes necessary to defend Israel, which is hardly a remote possibility, we have a distinct advantage by having a presence there, and in Iraq.  Once we leave altogether, we're gone.  And remaining doesn't have to mean maintaining a presence at the current level.  It can be  reduced to suit the circumstances.
     I submit that it would be less than responsible for the United States to withdraw all military forces from Afghanistan and Iraq, including naval and air forces in that region of the world.  It would simply be an abdication of our position in the Middle East and we cannot afford that in a region of such conspicuous importance to the world and such great danger of drawing the world into ever greater dangers and complications.  I agree with Leon Panetta who recently said;  ". . . the mission [in Afghanistan] is to safeguard our country by insuring that the Taliban and al-Qaida never again find a safe haven in Afghanistan".  We need not confine this principle strictly to Afghanistan.  Any region as dangerous and sensitive as the Middle East requires constant attention for our own security.  If and when we become energy independant, which we are perfectly capable of doing if politics can be swept aside, the need for vigilance in the Middle East may be reduced.  But we are now faced with the world as it is.  The whole region --- Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Egypt, Syria, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia --- is simply far too dangerous not to have a strong military presence there.
    

Thought for the Day

When a tong banging on the wrong gong goes bong I sing a song along with Tommy Chong and Long Dong Fong from Hong Kong, who plays ping pong with King Kong.
                                                                                                                      Anonymous Poet

The ACLU and the First Amendment

     The ACLU is on perpetual paroxysms of rage against Christianity.  Everything 'religious' is ripe for attack, from a cross in the middle of the Arizona desert to the Ten Commandments in a courthouse in Alabama or a voluntary prayer in a school room.  The ACLU's atheist-motivated hatred of Christianity and Judeo-Christian tradition knows no limit.

     So we should be reminded what the First Amendment really provides regarding the "establishment of religion".  If there is a law 'made' by Congress, which purports to establish a religion, that law is unconstitutional, though even that conclusion was not actually the main purpose of the drafters the First Amendment, which was to prohibit the Federal Government from interfering with religion in the states, some states having had, and having continued to have, an established religion.  Nothing in the Constitution establishes atheism as the official religion of the United States or requires Americans to cease recognition of their reliance on Divine Providence for their liberty. Those are the purposes of the ACLU and others who wish to banish God from society

Boredom and Wars

     I wrote in a previous essay that fanaticism has been the chief source of wars, riots and other violent disturbances throughout history.  Parenthetically, I said that boredom was probably next in line.  Here's why.
     Shakespeare enthusiasts are familiar with the opening soliloquay in Richard the Third.  The play opens with Richard telling us that he is bored.  There is peace in the land, everyone is enjoying life by pursuing a variety of worthwhile interests like drunken parties and jolly bedroom romps with castle babes --- everyone except Richard.  Richard has nothing to do all day.  He could of course wander the castle grounds observing nature, or he could take up knitting sweaters, but that's not enough.  So he started a civil war.  It didn't turn out well for him, he lost, but at least he wasn't bored any more.
     Think about this.  In Shakespeare's time and throughout the centuries before and thereafter there really wasn't much in the form of canned entertainment for anyone to enjoy.  There was work, of course, but the leisure class had no real work which had to be done in most cases.  There was no radio or TV, no computers, no cell phones or movies.  And you couldn't go to Paris or London if you lived somewhere else, at least at any reasonable speed.  In fact up until the twentieth century there really weren't all that many ways to fill up leisure time.  There were  parties and athletic events, and romantic assignations in the castle, but that wasn't enough for the restless spirit of man.  Anyway, Richard wasn't cool enough to have even that.  He was bored.  What better to do with time on one's hands than start a war?  War can be a real hoot if you win and you don't need to think about losing.
     But we still have wars, oodles of them; two world wars, Korea, Vietnam, the middle east, war here, war there, war everywhere.  Why?  Because there is no end to the human desire for stimulation and excitement.  And a lot of world leaders aren't ready for a rocking chair and a pension. They still need stimulation and excitement and are ready to satisfy the need with their expertise at starting wars. 
     Anyway, our old companion fanaticism is and always will also be around.  This tribe doesn't like that one.  That means that that one is evil.  And of course this religion doesn't like that one; nations, ethnic goupings and races don't like each other.  So you still have plenty of reasons to start wars even with TV and movies to fight your boredom.  To help us resolve any boredom still remaining, and supply plenty of fanaticism, along come charismatic leaders --- Hitler, Tojo, Castro, Mao, Ahmadinijad and Khadaffi (or however they spell their names this week) to start our riots and wars for us.  Bin Laden is gone but there are plenty of other psychos, sociopaths and crackpots to take his place.  Who really needs nutty dictators anyway?  We've got plenty of politicians in both parties to take up any slack.  And it's actually easier to start a war in some ways now, possibly with the hope of winning, than it used to be because if you can buy a few atom bombs from Pakistan, Iran or China, which shouldn't be too hard if you look funny and wear a turbin, you don't have to be a dictator of some important country.  Any old sink hole or banana republic will do and there's only so much TV.  So we can always count on fanaticism and boredom.
    

Fanaticism and its Consequences

     No human  condition is more threatening to civilization than  fanaticism.  It reflects a  terrible flaw in the human makeup and most of the mass oppressions, civil disturbances and collectivist ideologies which plague mankind can be traced to it.  (Curiously, as to the causes of war and riots, the second most threatening condition is probably boredom, which in a way is almost the opposite of fanaticism).
     Fanaticism should not be confused with principled advocacy.  You can champion any cause  with  intensity without without becoming a fanatic.  Fanaticism is extreme intolerance of  dissenting views, an intention to supress them if possible, and the refusal to engage in rational debate.  Reason never matters. The fanatic demands that everyone he controls or seeks to control --- frequently the entire human race --- adhere strictly and without question to a party line.  Absolute conformity to ideological orthodoxy, which is the hallmark of fanaticism, is endemic to all collectivism, be it Naziism, Communism, Islamic extremism or radical-left American liberalism.  Some socially conservative positions which are meritorious in and of themselves have been embraced by dangerous fanatics on the right.  The fanatic of left or right insists that devient individualists be converted or actually destroyed with avalanches of propoganda or violence if nothing else works, and in many cases even when the  cause or movement which the fanatic seeks to protect and advance is not seriously threatened.   A despicable example of attempts at personal destruction is the left's campaign to destroy Sarah Palin. Though she has at present not announced her candidacy for President or any other office, the Left is engaged in a massive effort, costing their high priests millions of dollars, to find something, anything, suggestive of some wrongdoing even though there is no reason to suspect that there has been any.  Also, if one believes in a benign existence in the after-life he will tolerate political ideologies and religions he does not like or share because he believes that the imbalances of life will be rectified in the end.  But if this life is all their is, or if some putative god of the fanatic's invention or imagination so directs, two consequences follow:  First, all departure from the fanatic's idea of perfection must be supressed now.  We cannot wait, because the poor, the downtrodden or the spiritually deprived will die without hope except in compliance with the fanatic's self-made 'religion'.  In other words unless the fanatic comes to the rescue with his coercion, rioting mobs and violence their lives will have been wasted.  Second, we are told that we must live under some Command --- the inflexible directions of some book, some ayatolla, some dictator or code of conduct to which absolute obedience will be due.  The fanatic always looks for a source of authority which cannot be questioned but can only be "interpreted" --- interpreted by him of course --- and that results in his refusal to entertain thoughts of alternatives.  "So it is written, so it shall be done", said an Attila-like character in a movie.  Once anyone begins to question the orthodoxy of the fanatic's movement or his heroes, and is allowed to continue doing so, the fabric of lock-step orthodoxy and obedience starts to unravel and the manifest nonsense and immorality of the movement begins to be apparent. 
     Thus some book, god or charismatic leader is substituted for universal principles of honor, decency, kindness, fairness and justice, except as defined and decreed by Command.  The key is innerancy, the denial of any possible or permissable questioning of a Supreme Authority. 
     Corruptions, not real understanding, of the central messages of Christianity and Judaeism lead fanatics into the command-and-obey mentality.  Judeao-Christianity properly understood and practiced requires the faithful to use their God-given intelligence.  General principles are affirmed, of course, those which have always been recognized by decent people at all times --- rejection of theft, murder and adultery for example, or honoring ones parents, but the application of those principles in particular circumstances requires the application of reason and logic, and that is incompatible with fanaticism on any level.  The New Testament does not record a single word spoken by Jesus which applies more than incidentally to the masses or to any collective, governmental or otherwise.  All of His admonitions relate to actions and attitudes of  individuals --- and ultimately to their salvation one by one.  No group, race, tribe, nation or movement is "saved".  Only individuals.
     A church in Kansas produced a bunch of fanatics who went about obstructing the funerals of our men and women in uniform.  Let us pray that this is not a forerunner of things to come.  This is not the Christianity which any understanding Christian will recognize as the Gospel preached by Christ.

An In-depth Analysis of Congress --- the Problem and the Solution

     Five hundred forty-five (545) individuals in Washington have all the political power in the United States to overrule all the politicians and judges in all fifty states.  There are 435 members of the House of Representatives, 100 in the Senate, 9 Supreme Court Justices and 1 president.  They can do anything they want to do.  Yet these 545 individuals and their predecessors have bankrupted the country, created a debt  of over 14 Trillion Dollars which can never be paid, allowed hoards of drug-dealing illegal aliens across the boarder, made this great and resource-rich country energy dependent on a miserable bunch of mad dicatators in the Middle East --- a flock of crackpots and psychos such as the world has never  seen before in one place at one time --- and destroyed the credibility and respect which the United States once enjoyed throughout the world.  If that's not enough they have gotten into three wars in ten years, which is an average of about thirty in a century.
     Why not select 545 people at random from any urban telephone directory and set up a better government than the flop that we have now?  With any luck this new government would consist of men and women with more brains, character, human decency and honor than the miserable collection of clowns, buffoons and bumble-brained morons who are there now (no, not all, but all too many.  I still go for the telephone book method).  Or we can try to persuade Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth to take us back.  Unfortunately she's probably too smart to do that.
     That's my analysis of Congress.  God Save the Queen