The world is struggling toward a free market

In China, although State capitalism is misguiding the market spirit, there's still the market awakening which affects the Chinese people and will drive them to want more freedom -- the same is true in India and other countries joining in the global economy. Russia is also making great strides. Ironically, America's having difficulty understanding this struggle which it should be leading and supporting rather than hiding from as if the global market spirit is a threat.

How sad would it be if America and Europe collapse in statist insanity as China, Russia and other countries who were once anti-capitalist move closer to free market principles and become the movers and shakers of economic growth? We should cheer these countries on, compete with them, cooperate with them and grow with them. The last thing America needs to do is shrink cowardly in protectionism.

War drums and hyperbole

When someone on the Right goes too far with slippery slope arguments and has us all under communist rule in a few years if Obamacare is not repealed, they are castigated and ridiculed by more reasonable and sober thinkers -- however, this morning, Romney was asked what he will do about Iran, and Romney went from Iran's blustering to Hamas and al Qaeda with nuclear weapons threatening America. Patriotic warriors and progressive hawks do this all the time, and hardly anyone calls them on the hyperbole, yet Ron Paul is called an extremist because he does call the hawks on the hyperbole and takes a more reasonable, sober approach.

If Iran developes a nuclear bomb, will they arm Hamas and al Qaeda with nuclear bombs, and will these terrorist groups obliterate Israel and attack America with nuclear weapons? What do you have to believe to accept this scenario as viable? First, you have to believe that Iran is going to create a nuclear and delivery capacity necessary to be a real threat to our national security, then you have to believe that Iran would arm terrorists with the weapons and delivery mechanisms, then you have to believe that the terrorist groups would use the nuclear weapons against Israel or the US.

Who in the world stands to gain from a nuclear attack on Israel or the US? No one. Also, Israel has the nuclear capacity to deter attack through assured mutual destruction. Given this fact, the hawks' whole argument is predicated on terrorist insanity -- we have to believe that at the leadership levels, there are insane men who will destroy themselves, their families, their countries and their religion just to bomb Israel or the US. If Iran arms the terrorists and has led the nuclear attacks, Iran will be destroyed. Who would even back the idea of Iran attempting to destroy Israel and the US? Not China, because China depends on our economy being strong in order to sell us their goods -- the same with Russia, India and many other nations. Europe certainly wouldn't stand by, fearing they are next. It would be beyond insanity for Iran to put itself in a position against the world to start with, but if they actually launched an attack, Iran would be nothing but a memory.

These scenarios are fantastical, and it's easier to believe that America could turn red. Seriously, these hawkish nightmare scenarios are just as kooky and extreme as the rightwing fear of Obamacare creating communist rule. America doesn't have to live in fear -- we're better, more reasonable and courageous than that. The hawks are simply justifying expanded military intervention for other purposes, but national defense is not one of those purposes. 

Paternalistic revolution

When we think of revolutions, paternalistic is not an inspiring adjective -- the paternalism of the USSR turned off many 20th century communists -- but it appears today that State paternalism is embraced by Leftist revolutionaries. Are they really revolutionaries, though, are or they State dependents sacrificing personal sovereignty and individuality for advantage, security and the illusion of equality and social justice?

The State has always needed "useful idiots", and the supply never runs low. Useful idiots is too harsh, though, and what I mean is that the State takes advantage of idealism, envy, fear and the desire for security. Eugene Robinson asked on Morning Joe today if we need a new Bretton Woods to rearrange the global economic order, and the question revealed Washington's position -- yes, he and many others do think we need a new global order, now that China and Southeast Asia are seen as major economic players. Many on the Left are working diligently for a New Order built on the vague ideas of social justice, redistibutive justice and anti-capitalism. The underlying inspiration is socialist, in that economies should be guided and controlled by States in a global union of major international players. They can guide redistribution, environmental concerns, and they can assure minimum living standards for all people across the globe, and they can empower workers, women and minorities freed from the oppression of capitalist overlords.

This New Order, though, will not likely empower anyone but the elite, many of them Multi-National Corporate chieftains, who would eventually control the New Order, and it's not likely the power elite will be represented by women, workers or poor people of color -- nor will any of the now-supportive intellectuals find representation unless they give up free-thinking. Most revolutions are ostensibly about freedom, but this revolution, as it materializes in America, at least, appears to purposefully embrace submission to State power.

The problem with centralized control which needs to coerce those resistant to control is that it winds up coercing everyone except the most malleable and submissive who just go along with whatever they're told to think, say or do. Paternalism has to keep its subjects as children or it loses control. In order to make the type of omelette revolutionaries say they desire, cracked eggs are inevitable, but who's egg? It's not always the egg of your enemy (the recalcitrant freedom-lovers and free market kooks), if centralized power finds it necessary, they crack the egss of anyone who strays from Papa's control. We've seen it all before in Russia, China, the French Revolution, Germany, North Korea, Cuba, etc. -- the power-elite is almost always male-dominated, older males, authoritarian males, and they almost always turn on early, idealistic supporters, like feminists, young firebrands with the wrong dreams and poor people of the wrong color/religion/culture/whatever who don't fully submit to the centralized Plan.

Of course, the great majority of liberals, centrists and progressives who join the Leftist parade and flirt with the revolutionary/statist spirit and denigrate anything resembling wealth, promotion of limited government or indivdiuality aren't consciously embracing a tryannical New World Order, it's just where these ideas lead when you believe Smart State Power is the purveyor of collective morality and welfare, and that economic liberty, free-thinking and free choice are no longer desirable.

The war on the Tea Party

Government is prone to starting wars for all kinds of reasons, to save us from terrorists, to stop illegal drug sales, to end poverty, and, now, to save the country from rightwing terrorists/hostage takers/extremists/loons/racists/homophobes/xenophobes -- yes, The War on Tea Partiers.

The vicious rhetoric on the Left used to marginalize the Tea Party is sometimes infuriating, sometimes hilarious and always hyperbolic and unfair. Anyone who has listened to Tea Party members being interviewed on one of the tv news shows realizes that these people are average Americans concerned with expansion of government power and our national debt. There is also rhetoric coming from some Tea Partiers that harshly criticizes the Left, but the Tea Party is not backed by the State and the media. The Tea Party is hardly radical, though. There has been no violent activity on the part of the Tea Party, no calls for armed conflict with government, not even any calls to dismantle government -- the Tea Party has merely protested current government spending and regulation, and it has campaigned for representatives who will bring their complaints to DC and work for change. It goes without saying that no one has to agree with their complaints, just as many have never agreed with other protest groups and political movements in America, but they're all within in their rights to protest and work for political and economic change.

In the debt ceiling fight, the Tea Party favored some form of Cut, Cap and Balance, but they didn't get it; however, most of the media coverage has framed the Tea Party as controlling the outcome. This media angle is truly bizarre. A record rise in the debt ceiling came about, with some useless commission put together to block any serious cuts of caps or balanced budget, and the media says the Tea Party hi-jacked and controlled the process and outcome -- many disingenuously congratulated them on their victory. There was no Tea Party victory.

It's fairly easy to see the State/media Orwellian twist, spin and propaganda -- create an evil entity on which to focus, then mold public opinion against the evil entity, obscuring the statist manipulations that continue to drive us further into debt and closer to collapse. The progressive movement thrives off crises -- it's the best way to ram through the progressive agenda. If the Tea Party, and by association the Republican Party, can be demonized and framed as immediate threats to our economy and to social justice, then government interventions are necessary to combat the threat. If the Tea Party is threatening the safety net and putting the most vulnerable in society at risk, and if their unreasonable rightwing extremism contributes to high unemployment by resisting government spending in recession, then the threat has to be neutralized so that people receive the necessary assistance, and jobs can be created. The Left has used the Bushian claim that you are either with the benevolent State or you are against it, and many establishment Republicans are siding with the State. Alan Simpson called for government investigation of Grover Norquist, or rather Simpson is advocating bullying tactics to silence and marginalize Norquist by investigating his connections, his backers, his credibility, and so forth.

It was discouraging to watch the establishment Republicans, one by one, capitulate to the Left's War on the Tea Party and  come out against them during the debt ceiling debate. This should frighten independents who want change in Washington DC. It should frighten minorities who could see the State use its power against their political action efforts one day. It should frighten all free people who cherish the right to dissent. It should frighten all Americans who care about objectivity and truth in media. The media have lied and used their power, subsidized by the State, to destroy the Tea Party.

Again, you can disagree with the Tea Party, but there's no honest way to support the statist, propagandist attacks against them. In the marketplace of ideas, America has mostly been an oasis for freedom of expression, even harsh expression and disagreement, and  open debate, but we're turning into China or Russia when State power and media collusion are used to silence and demonize dissenters and political activists. This is the difference, when the State is involved. You can call tit for tat when both sides use heated rhetoric against one another, but when government. media and the whole State machine comes down against a faction of dissenting American citizens in the private sector, we've got a problem.

Andrew McCarthy on Iran

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/271423/iran-war-us-andrew-c-mccarthy?page=2

When we first went into Iraq, I said that Iran is the real problem. I've even predicted that Iran could wind up temporarily contolling both Iraq and Afghanistan. I agree with McCarthy when he says if we are not in a war to win, then we should leave. We should leave because our involvement in the Mideast is basically a political undertaking, but our soldiers are in a war situation. America has no intention of winning, which would mean totally defeating an enemy and setting the terms of the peace. We're not real sure we can identify the enemy.

This is not the first time we've been in situations like this in the Mideast, and we should have learned from Britain's mistakes dealing with the Mideast during WWI -- the history would be comical if not so filled with needless death and destruction. Winston Churchill told the Prime Minister's daughter, Viloet Asquith, that "I think a curse should rest on me because I am so happy. I know this war is smashing and shattering the lives of thousands each moment-- and yet-- I cannot help it-- I enjoy every second I live." Well, the Ottoman war might have been invigorating to Churchill's ballistic spirit, but it wasn't good for Britian or Turkey. Our Mideast wars might be politically useful to our administration and a few congress people, but they're not good for our soldiers or our nation. If we were to leave, and if Iran managed to gain control of the Mideast, it wouldn't last. The Ottoman Empire never had complete control, and it disintegrated trying to maintain control. If America and other countries became energy independent, the whole region would collapse. I pity any nation that tries to control the Mideast -- it's a region propped up by oil money, and that can't last much longer.

Is Iran really capable of taking command of the Mideast and threatening the existence of Israel, then Europe, then America? It would be a suicide mission. Iran might want the image of a world power, but they don't want to be exterminated. First, they have to get the other nations, with all their diverse internal/cultural/religious squabbling, to go along with a Grand Scheme. How long would it take for the Mideast nations to turn on Iran? What would Turkey have to say? What would Russia's role be? How would India and China react? Much of the world outside the Mideast is now dependent on trade, not imperialist conquest. There's a lot at stake if another WW breaks out, and only the mad and insane would risk it. Even if Iranian leaders are mad, the rest of the world could quickly stop the threat.

We make a big deal over Israel being only a small country surrounded by large unfriendly nations, but they have the military capability to defend themselves, just as we could put all our military power in the state of Utah, and this little area of the world would be more than a match for the rest if nuclear war is the issue.

I don't know to solve the problem of Israel's physical position in the Mideast surrounded by unfriendly nations, but fighting political wars in 5 Mideast countries is not helping, and it's not making us any safer from a terrorist attack which can be planned and executed from anywhere in the world. So, what is the  plan? Destroy Iran completely and attempt to control the Mideast? It will be much easier to allow Iran to destroy itself.