Tag Archives: Empire

Not All It Was Cracked Up to be

16 Saturday Nov 2019

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Thomas Dilorenzo states the manifest problems with Muh Constitution and the resulting subverted state.

All governmental power is propped up by an avalanche of myths and superstitions about the alleged benevolence, omniscience, honesty, selflessness, and magnanimity of the state, coupled with critiques if not outright demonization of private property, free market voluntarism, private enterprise, limited government, the rule of law, the free society, and all those who educate about and advance such concepts. Your author once co-authored a book entitled Official Lies: How Washington Misleads Us, about mountains of such myths and superstitions. A case can be made that at the top of the list of statist myths and superstitions is the myth of American nationalism — about the supposed “superiority” of a virtually unlimited, centralized and consolidated government, coupled with the never-ending hatred and demonization of federalism, states’ rights, nullification and secession, and anything else that challenges the notion of the “supremacy” of the central government.

In this regard American “nationalism” has nothing to do with the older concept of a people with a common language and culture, living within the borders of their own nation state. The unique American version of “nationalism” was invented at the time of the founding by a group of conniving, Machiavellian politicians who sought to overthrow the results of the American Revolution – the casting off of the centralized, oppressive, mercantilist/crony capitalist British empire – and adopt the very same system in America – the British empire without the British. There is nothing wrong with a corrupt, tyrannical, mercantilist empire that uses the coercive powers of the state to enrich the ruling class at the expense of the working class, these men said, confident that they would naturally assume the position of the ruling class.

These men were led by the likes of Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, Sam Adams, John Hancock, Thomas Paine, and other “Federalists,” many of who were “defectors” to the cause of liberty – the cause of the American Revolution – as Murray Rothbard wrote in Conceived in Liberty: The New Republic: 1784-1791.

The Americans were a real and distinct People, scattered amongst several coherent Nations. No more. Both have faded away, their legacies perverted into the worship of a nonexistent, but all too real (too powerful) Empire. Thank God it is at its end.

BTW, Rothbard made some good points but he was not one of Us.

The Fading Empire Fades

30 Monday Sep 2019

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As it has for some time. A great article on the subject, the first of two.

Insurgents have repeatedly battled US forces to a standoff or worse. Two major powers have weapons that can stymie or destroy significant parts of America’s conventional offensive capabilities, that can be used offensively with devastating effect, and for which the US has no defensive countermeasures.

This set of facts is plainly incompatible with the control the US establishment believes it can and should exercise around the world. Russia and China appear to have no such hegemonic aspirations, concentrating their efforts in their own backyards and letting the US waste its blood and treasure on imperialistic adventures. The US’s unipolar moment began fading in 1949 when the Soviet Union detonated its own atomic bomb, but repeated encounters with reality have done little to shake the illusion of control. Economic, financial, and political developments at home render the illusion delusional.

This week’s TPC column will cover some of these issues, from the perspective of my special interview guest. He says that the US shouldn’t be so keen even on relying on that nuclear threat – which it so happens is also fading. Coming soon!

Ron Paul on the Three Crimes

21 Tuesday May 2019

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Delineated in the Constitution: piracy, counterfeiting, and treason. VAWA is, as Dr. Paul notes, utterly illegal (as are most of the Empire’s “laws”).

Another great example is the Violence Against Women Act. Passed in 1994, the Violence Against Women Act provides federal grants to, and imposes federal mandates on, state and local governments with the goal of increasing arrests, prosecutions, and convictions of those who commit domestic violence.

Like most federal laws, the Violence Against Women Act is unconstitutional. The Constitution limits federal jurisdiction to three crimes: counterfeiting, treason, and piracy. All other crimes — including domestic violence — are strictly state and local matters.

Not that the Constitution matters, at all, anymore. But, where have we read about these three “real” crimes before?

Strange but True, Barring MAGA, All Bets are Off

12 Wednesday Sep 2018

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The Fake News “Resistance” now, after decades of atrophy, seeks to protect the Constitution. Or something. Whatever it is, they’re aiming to protect against The Trump. Oddly, said Trump is the last vestige of hope for possibly restoring any semblance of Constitutional order. If he fails, then it’s over and we might as well let it go. “It” being the old Republic, now more of memory than an institution.

Trump. Trump. Trump. Russia. Russia. Russia. Fake news, impeachment, and indictment.

My old friend, Ken Starr says a sitting President can, in fact, be indicted for crimes.

“I think the president can be indicted,” said Starr, who led the investigation into former President Bill Clinton‘s sexual misconduct with Monica Lewinsky. “But that is not the position of the Justice Department traditionally.”

“The basic point is we do not have an authoritative resolution on the issue,” he said, noting it “cannot happen, as I see it, under Justice Department policy that’s enforceable on [Special Counsel] Bob Mueller.”

“No one is above the law,” he said. “And so in my judgment the president can in fact be indicted.”

I respect my friend’s learned judgment – as to his theory. But he seems a little caught up in the past. We are in a new and different place, legally. He’s probably correct – in theory – the president could be indicted.

However, a sitting president could now use (“legally”) something like the following to preempt any criminal proceeding:

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Paper indictments do not stop AGM-114’s. NRO.

Do you like the new legal/political landscape? You know, if we’re honest, you voted yourselves into this imperial place. Pleased? If not, then say five “Hail Constitutions,” go forth, and vote no more, my children.

That, or hope Trump has a cool head and an iron constitution (not one of paper). Trust the plan?

Pat B. on the only N. Korea Option that makes Sense (and More)

11 Friday Aug 2017

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If you haven’t read A Republic, Not an Empire, you should. Eighteen years later and Pat’s thinking is still timely:

If the past is prologue, and it has proven to be, the future holds this. A renewal of ICBM tests until a missile is perfected. Occasional atrocities creating crises between the U.S. and North Korea. America being repeatedly dragged to the brink of a war we do not want to fight.

As Secretary of Defense James Mattis said Sunday, such a war would be “catastrophic. … A conflict in North Korea … would be probably the worst kind of fighting in most people’s lifetimes.”

When the lesson sinks in that a war on the peninsula would be a catastrophe, and a growing arsenal of North Korean ICBMs targeted on America is intolerable, the question must arise:

Why not move U.S. forces off the peninsula, let South Korean troops replace them, sell Seoul all the modern weapons it needs, and let Seoul build its own nuclear arsenal to deter the North?

Remove any incentive for Kim to attack us, except to invite his own suicide. And tell China: Halt Kim’s ICBM program, or we will help South Korea and Japan become nuclear powers like Britain and France.

Given the rising risk of our war guarantees, from the eastern Baltic to the Korean DMZ — and the paltry rewards of the American Imperium — we are being bled from Libya to Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen — a true America First foreign policy is going to become increasingly attractive.

Kim’s credible threat to one day be able to nuke a U.S. city is going to concentrate American minds wonderfully.

Here the best common sense solution is also the easiest. Sadly, common sense usually doesn’t coalesce until after an Empire falls and fades away. Ask Gibbon.

There was a recent glimmer of hope on a related matter: privatizing the war in Afghanistan (still fighting 16 years later, you know). But it was a false hope. Rather than a privateering program like the one that withstood the British Navy during the Revolution, they propose a mass extension of, a monopoly trust system for, the corporate welfare. More imperial faliure awaits.

And all the while, as we chase phantoms in places we don’t belong, the enemy within our own nations Aloha Snackbars away. Again and again.

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Reuters.

Always from within, never without.

The Military-Industrial Complex Notices the Collapse, Wants More

20 Thursday Jul 2017

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Of course, the solution is to spend more and grow the MIC even more. Please read:

In the first of a series, we report on stunning new evidence that the U.S. Department of Defense is waking up to the collapse of American primacy, and the rapid unraveling of the international order created by U.S. power after the Second World War.

But the Pentagon’s emerging vision of what comes next hardly inspires confidence. We breakdown both the insights and cognitive flaws in this vision. In future pieces we will ask the questions: What is really driving the end of the American empire? And based on that more accurate diagnosis of the problem, what is the real solution?

An extraordinary new Pentagon study has concluded that the U.S.-backed international order established after World War 2 is “fraying” and may even be “collapsing”, leading the United States to lose its position of “primacy” in world affairs.

The solution proposed to protect U.S. power in this new “post-primacy” environment is, however, more of the same: more surveillance, more propaganda (“strategic manipulation of perceptions”) and more military expansionism.

[MORE OF THE SAME]

The document concludes that the world has entered a fundamentally new phase of transformation in which U.S. power is in decline, international order is unravelling, and the authority of governments everywhere is crumbling.

Having lost its past status of “pre-eminence”, the U.S. now inhabits a dangerous, unpredictable “post-primacy” world, whose defining feature is “resistance to authority”.

Danger comes not just from great power rivals like Russia and China, both portrayed as rapidly growing threats to American interests, but also from the increasing risk of “Arab Spring”-style events. These will erupt not just in the Middle East, but all over the world, potentially undermining trust in incumbent governments for the foreseeable future.

The report, based on a year-long intensive research process involving consultation with key agencies across the Department of Defense and U.S. Army, calls for the U.S. government to invest in more surveillance, better propaganda through “strategic manipulation” of public opinion, and a “wider and more flexible” U.S. military.

The report was published in June by the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute to evaluate the DoD’s approach to risk assessment at all levels of Pentagon policy planning. The study was supported and sponsored by the U.S. Army’s Strategic Plans and Policy Directorate; the Joint Staff, J5 (Strategy and Policy Branch); the Office of the Deputy Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Force Develop­ment; and the Army Study Program Management Office.

One wonders if Gibbon is read at the War College.

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Just not enough being spent… Portside.

Statuaries: Fred on Robert E. Lee on American Decline

09 Friday Jun 2017

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Please consult the inaugural column by Toadstool over at Fred Reed’s place. Toadstool writes in similar fashion to Fred; they may be related. This one is about how General Lee called out the modern Empire.  Actually called it by that name.

“The consolidation of the states into one vast empire, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of ruin which has overwhelmed all that preceded it.” – Robert E. Lee

The column repeatedly calls for a return to the Articles of Confederation, to freedom. That would be a vast improvement to the current failed system. Most anything would be an improvement. We could still heed Lee’s warnings. We won’t.

Instead we’ll just keep taking down his statutes.

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Begone! Civilized free-thinker! Right-think idiocy courtesy of ‘Nawlins, a filthy swamp of a town.

Some Thought-provoking Geopolitical Commentary, if that’s Allowed on a Saturday Night

20 Saturday May 2017

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From Michael Perilloux and Social Matter: Starting with Point Five:

5. Business As Usual Means We’re In Trouble

America’s imperial mode and internal divisions are unsustainable:

Both our imperial mode and our internal conflicts are hollowing us out economically, demographically, and socially. See for example: politicized mass immigration, deindustrialization, divisive anti-white, anti-Christian anti-male, and anti-traditional domestic propaganda and subversion by Blue Empire are generated by the structure of the system. These things will be the end of us unless something changes first.

We have no way to seriously oppose a belligerent China or Russia besides subversion, escalating hostility, and nuclear brinkmanship. If things were different, and we had an economically, demographically, and morally stronger empire, we would have a much stronger negotiating position, and many more options to deal with our neighbors.

Our internal conflicts lead to Putin’s famous comment, “America is no longer agreement-capable”. To be clear “not agreement capable” is a fancy technical term for “not capable of the rational deescalation needed for nuclear peace”, because what one part of our government agrees to might get ignored by another, or torn up once the other party gets in after four years.

We lack the central strength and coherence to re-industrialize the rest of our empire as economic negotiating leverage. Right now, we can’t easily threaten China with cutting off trade, because that would be a domestic disaster, as our wealth is based increasingly on imports from China. This hollowing out of our industrial core originates from a combination of internal conflict, and weak government that can’t act as a unit.

With a weak empire, we can’t impose or enforce treaties to deal with global issues like global pollution, out-of-control African population growth, dangerous transformative technologies like genetic engineering and artificial intelligence, nuclear proliferation, or any other grand problems.

If things continue as they are, we’ll be in a bad spot. Business as usual is unacceptable, but we already knew that. More importantly, any strategy for getting us out of business as usual has to take into account the above basic points of our geopolitical situation. But what does a realistic new geopolitical vision for America look like?

For context please read the first four points. The ending is a little silly but it self-acknowledges as much.

These are weighty matters. They’re not going to happen. Rather, they have happened and, thus, we find ourselves in the sorry “business as usual”. Beer, television, and blind allegiance to a failed, stupid political party won’t fix any of this.

At any rate, there is no going back. Forward it is. Downwards is definitely an option.

The Empire Falters

11 Tuesday Apr 2017

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John Whitehead muses over the new, emerging wars of stupidity in conjunction with all the other wars, programs, policies, debts, and expenditures which are pushing the U.S. closer and closer towards fifth-century Rome.

Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes… known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.… No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. — James Madison

Waging endless wars abroad (in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and now Syria) isn’t making America—or the rest of the world—any safer, it’s certainly not making America great again, and it’s undeniably digging the U.S. deeper into debt.

In fact, it’s a wonder the economy hasn’t collapsed yet.

Indeed, even if we were to put an end to all of the government’s military meddling and bring all of the troops home today, it would take decades to pay down the price of these wars and get the government’s creditors off our backs. Even then, government spending would have to be slashed dramatically and taxes raised.

…

The government is $19 trillion in debt: War spending has ratcheted up the nation’s debt. The debt has now exceeded a staggering $19 trillion and is growing at an alarming rate of $35 million/hour and $2 billion every 24 hours. Yet while defense contractors are getting richer than their wildest dreams, we’re in hock to foreign nations such as Japan and China (our two largest foreign holders at $1.13 trillion and $1.12 trillion respectively).

The Pentagon’s annual budget consumes almost 100% of individual income tax revenue. If there is any absolute maxim by which the federal government seems to operate, it is that the American taxpayer always gets ripped off, especially when it comes to paying the tab for America’s attempts to police the globe. Having been co-opted by greedy defense contractors, corrupt politicians and incompetent government officials, America’s expanding military empire is bleeding the country dry at a rate of more than $57 million per hour.

…

The U.S. government spends more on wars (and military occupations) abroad every year than all 50 states combined spend on health, education, welfare, and safety. In fact, the U.S. spends more on its military than the eight highest-ranking nations with big defense budgets combined. The reach of America’s military empire includes close to 800 bases in as many as 160 countries, operated at a cost of more than $156 billion annually. As investigative journalist David Vine reports, “Even US military resorts and recreation areas in places like the Bavarian Alps and Seoul, South Korea, are bases of a kind. Worldwide, the military runs more than 170 golf courses.”

…

Add in the cost of waging war in Syria (with or without congressional approval), and the burden on taxpayers soars to more than $11.5 million a day. Ironically, while presidential candidate Trump was vehemently opposed to the U.S. use of force in Syria, as well as harboring Syrian refugees within the U.S., he had no problem retaliating against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on behalf of Syrian children killed in a chemical attack. The cost of launching a 59 Tomahawk missile-strike against Syria? It’s estimated that the missiles alone cost $60 million. Mind you, this is the same man, while campaigning for president, who warned that fighting Syria would signal the start of World War III against a united Syria, Russia and Iran. Already oil prices have started to climb as investors anticipate an extended conflict.

Clearly, war has become a huge money-making venture, and the U.S. government, with its vast military empire, is one of its best buyers and sellers.

Yet what most Americans—brainwashed into believing that patriotism means supporting the war machine—fail to recognize is that these ongoing wars have little to do with keeping the country safe and everything to do with enriching the military industrial complex at taxpayer expense.

These facts and figures are staggering and Whitehead shoots on the low side of the costs involved. But he nails it that, whatever the cost, there benefits are nonexistent. Of course,the usual suspects are cleaning up. The rest of us are fleeced, lie to, and in some cases, maimed or killed.

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Not sure what these numbers refer to, if anything. Symbolism, this. Pagun View.

It’s always the internal affairs that bring down great nations and empires. We are no different. The problem is repeated throughout history: government’s run wild; the people are willfully blind. I can’t and won’t give any date as accurate as, say, 476 for the default – even that is speculative. But it’s coming, happening now, been happening…

“America first” would have gone a long way to “make America great again”. Make it just American again. Sadly, these slogans were empty as any and didn’t even remotely materialize.

The good news is that, eventually, life will go on. The average man in the Italian Alps circa 550 lived essentially the same life as his counterpart from 450. The getting there, getting through the end game, will require a little stamina and preparation. If you didn’t pay much attention to the recent past, at least give a little thought to the near future.

 

Ron Paul Cautiously Praises Trump, Roundly Faults the Fed

01 Wednesday Feb 2017

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Trump is making major changes at warp speed. The markets and the general economy seem to respond favorably. Still, there are forces at work which even a maverick president my find difficult to stop. From Zero Hedge and LRC:

Paul noted that he thinks U.S. policy has created a “failed system” in the country. “All empires end and we’re the empire. It’s going to end and it’s going to be for economic reasons…we’re going to fail because we’re working within a failed system…this is a monetary problem…a spending problem…it’s going to be financial,” Paul emphatically claimed, once again stating the collapse of America is imminent. “We have something arriving worse than 2008, 2009, much worse…It was the fault of the Federal Reserve,” Paul said, adding, the Keynesian economic model contributed greatly to the first bubble burst. Paul said the left will blame Trump for it like the right did to Obama, but he says it’s bigger than the office of the president, and blames the federal reserve and the previous 17 years of governmental spending.

If you think Ron Paul’s comments hold no water, think again. As the Free Thought Project reported last year, even the former chairmen of the Federal Reserve is predicting this crisis.

We are in very early days of a crisis which has got a way to go,” asserted Alan Greenspan to Bloomberg last year. “This is the worst period, I recall since I’ve been in public service. There’s nothing like it, including the crisis — remember October 19th, 1987, when the Dow went down by a record amount 23 percent? That I thought was the bottom of all potential problems. This has a corrosive effect that will not go away. I’d love to find something positive to say…..I don’t know how it’s going to resolve, but there’s going to be a crisis.”

When the man who used to run the very central bank Ron Paul says is responsible for the collapse, also says there’s going to be a collapse – it’s time to pay attention.

Watch the RP video interview. I agree that Trump is doing everything (almost) humanly possible to avert disaster. However, late in the fourth, one Hail Mary (or two or three) may not be enough.

Perhaps, in a worst case scenario, he can ease us down as gently as possible. I still maintain that the best solution to the Imperial end game was to elect Paul in 2008 (not 2012). It’s a little late for that; Trump is who we have and all we have.

The difference between Trump and Obama or Bush is that Trump will not take the unjust blame lying down. And given his ability to keep the press, the opposition, and the GOP barking and clapping like trained seals, this will be interesting, even entertaining – even in the event of calamity.

Developing…