Chester, Virginia Oct 29, 2009

        If you go to Vegas or Atlantic City they take no special cut. That's because you're playing against "the House". But if you've ever rolled the bones, or played Texas Hold' em in Deadwood in what the LA cops call "off-premises" gambling, you're playing against the other players, and the House simply takes a cut....for providing the venue, and the table and the chips, and sometimes, protection. It's not a lot. Reasonable.
 
        In Government it was always assumed their House man would take about 20%, for handling or admin costs. This was more than speakeasies charged, but was still considered reasonable...for government. This is the cost we (the taxpayers pay) pay when we send our money to Richmond or Washington or Lansing, and they in turn send it to the Highway department, Defense or various entitlement programs.
        It's important to understand this concept, as it is never taught in school. But it has always been understood that government bureaucracies want to scrape off as much as they can, when they can. In the Third World, from Mexico to Zimbabwe, this "take off the top" runs closer to 80%. Western Europe's socialist governments runs 50%-60%, depending on the program. In the US, we've been pushing toward 40%-45% for years, and consider under-achievers for the effort of keeping costs down. ("Damn constitutional republics, anyway!") The United nations, of course, the paragon of cost control, always runs 100%. Even in Virginia, where the big line item is the highway budget, they charge approximately 40%, which goes to admin costs in two tiers as a kind of sleight-of-hand. Very high for states. But wait, look at your state university, or even your local school budget, where costs are sky-rocketing (even worse than medical care), and see how much of those tax money goes to people who have nothing to do with delivering education  to our children.
        When looked at from this perspective, it's easy to see what the real game of most government programs is. Feed the Beast.
        We always knew the Obama Administration would push America closer to the 60% European model but the Cash-for-Clunkers program ($2 billion) made us stop and look again. For every $4000 given to the car dealers to give as trade-in's to the buyers of new cars (mostly Japanese, which they were going to buy anyway), the government kept $24,000!
         That's a whopping 84%!
         It seems we may be by-passing Sweden altogether and going straight for the Mugabe formula.
         So look out!

Robert Hightower
President, TekTrans
        
        

      

Richmond, October 29, 2009
 
          Yesterday marked the 45th anniversary of Ronald Reagan's coming-out speech at the 1964 Republican Convention, just before Barry Goldwater was nominated. I was a college freshman and watched it. On listening to some of it yesterday I noticed it had a greater impact on me now than when I was 19.
           And therein lies a tale.
           You can find that speech on RedState.com, as well as comments by several  prominent columnists. Along with George William Curtiss' "Doctrine of Liberty Address" in 1863 at Harvard, it should be reprinted in pamphlet form and passed out as a permanent addition of conservative constitutional literature, which children should have to learn to recite, right alongside John3:16.
           But Rush Limbaugh lamented about how so many younger (RR's speech was actually even before Rush's time, he would have been 12-13 at the time) people didn't know of this speech, or worse, that so  many young, young people don't even know who Ronald Reagan was, other than a president, in a long list of other presidents.

          The problem before us is how do we keep a flame alive without turning it into a "vain repetition" to be uttered by the mindless on street corners? I know, "workers of the world, unite" or "kill the pigs" fits this description better than anything RR ever said, but still, it seems we have lost sight of certain truths about the passing on truths.
           The biggest problem I'd found in my factory consulting had been the anger of older, senior managers when their factories turned over to a younger generation. They were angry because company loyalty no longer existed. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, management has changed, a lot of things have changed, but most of all, above all, loyalty is not genetic. It is not passed on by nature. Nor osmosis. Loyalty must be re-earned with each new employee and each new generation. I have yet to meet the management team that ever understood this, which explains, in part, why companies are so willing to pull up stakes and move every forty years or so.
           As I have written before, formal teaching (schools) usually run in forty year cycles. Virtually every national value Reagan spoke about in 1964 was understood and known by almost every (English-speaking) school child in America in 1880. That's because for the couple of years leading up the Civil War and approximately 35 years after, the ideals of Liberty were on the tongues of just about everyone. It was in the water. And you can thank George William Curtiss for much of that.
         So, when the fellow lifted a pint of draught beer and shouted a loud "Huzzah" on July 4th, 1888, he knew what he was huzzahing about.
          How it was lost should be of interest to us, since it was replaced by "Progressivism", which by 1900 had replaced "Liberty-ism", in part out a simple dearth of new and clever things to say, and teach, about Liberty. The ideal of Liberty became passe first, of course, in academe, our colleges and universities, but not just out of boredom of teaching tired old saws, but because of the new rage in Europe, called Marxism, which had a still unmeasured appeal to the can't-get-no-respect academician.
         In time those ideals of Liberty were no longer taught "with enthusiasm", and it would not be long before the enthusiasm first, then the factual heroic content, would be diluted in the formative places of teaching; 4th through 12 grades. It takes a while for this sort of jerking the Liberty teat out of children's mouths to trickle down, but by the 1930s American history was taught about as mundanely and pharisaical as a Ben Stein slide-lecture on hygiene. Only men such as H*Y*M*A*N  K*A*P*L*A*N (Leo Rosten) would find these ideal of Liberty still new and fresh. That fellow in the saloon or public gathering would still hoist his beer, still does in fact, but most often at the lake, in the backyard, on whichever Monday comes closest to the Fourth, but will give no thought to Liberty...only to the Day Off, which has become the only real national holiday in America.
         Hyman Kaplan, and the millions who preceded him, and have followed are the one argument as to why we should keep bringing immigrants in, I suppose, for as long as there are people here with a memory of how life is without liberty, the love of liberty will continue to burn. Or have we forgotten that Liberty alone is a beacon to the world, and for over 200 years, that sole beacon has been Amerika?
           But still, what about our kids? What about that parade of millions of little boys and girls, who it seems, with each generation we seem to be losing to the popular culture at an earlier and earlier age?
          It would help if we all understood that the assault by the popular culture is and always has been on purpose. The sooner we strip them of the "at Mommy and Daddy's knee" virtues, the sooner someone can step and and implant others more useful to their purposes.
          I'm not an educational scholar by any means, but as Moses Sands said, I can tell a horse from a mule. I know what works and Daddy's knee works. But only if he'll use it. Public schools can work but only so long as they augment what is taught at Daddy's knee, which means the public schools must be firmly under the thumb of Mommy and Daddy, while Mommy and Daddy have to become, once again, the chief carriers of the virtues of the cultures. The Founders understood, even presumed this.
         I'm sure you are with me so far, although taking back the public schools, even in Ronald Reagan's day, was a daunting task.
         But it is one thing to be able to rewrite text books, or re-educate teachers as to how to teach American history and government to fourth, sixth and eleventh/twelfth graders "with enthusiasm". It is another to actually plant the seed.
         Sorry, I don't know how to plant that seed, but I do know how it is planted. We see it every day. We have all watched it for the past two thousand years, for there is an almost exact parallel between the seeking and finding and holding onto Liberty in the secular sense and the seeking and finding God in Pascal's religious sense. In each case people find something they have always been looking for. They have been found.
         (I could go all Christian on you here, for Christianity does spread a special tentacle of "love", a universal emotion as well as a philosophical precept, that other religions seem to lack. Some people come to God through much philosophical study, but most come to it through a feeling inside them that is indescribable and which they would not exchange for any other thing. Some can do both (C S Lewis, Muggeridge) but inasmuch as there is factionalism inside Christianity, it is this reason vs emotion "academic argument". Personally I like them both.)
         To avoid a more-refined argument taking us in a direction that is not useful for this narrow purpose, let's just say that when the scales falls from one's eyes and he/she sees "the truth" it represents a freedom, however one may wish to express it, that is beyond all measure or value. It encompasses a knowledge than even the most simple mind can comprehend, or that "passeth all understanding". I refer to this expression as "love" for there is a flip side, as we've seen in recent decades, and that is "hate", which is reachable and teachable by almost the same means. Marx touches exactly the opposite chord as Christ, and that chord, as I have written before, has absolutely nothing to do with economics, wealth, or the equality of Man. Marx hated, and his special use of words reached out and touched those who similarly had an indefinable hole in their souls....that passeth all understanding.
         To this I can only add that in the secular sense, finding Liberty or "being freed" have the same effect as being "saved" in the religious sense, for it is a thing a person has been searching for all his/her life.  (But this too, has an opposite side, for serfdom, a power over others offers a similar elixir, only an acquired taste for the more discerning palate, which interesting is held by, among others, by Marxists.) Once a person catches sight of this Liberty, once a person sees within his grasp a thing that for millenia in most of the world had been desired but denied, he grabs it with the same fervor and zeal as that person who suddenly leaped from his pew and rushed to the alter during Pentecost. In both cases, there is usually no turning back.
         Moses Sands called the universal aspect of this Liberty the desire to "build and own one's own House, and to be able to pass it on", etc. Of course, that doesn't make much difference to a fourth grader, especially a few generations removed. They have to be taught, and taught early.  But standing up for right, and Good, and going to the aid of your neighbor or friend, and freedom, they do need to be taught...just as stories of the heroes who came before them and actually did those things, from Bunker Hill to Montezuma, also matter. Tis was what the child in 1888 knew that the child in 2009 does not.
         Children can learn to choose a banner, then stand under it and defend it at an early age, and those who will spend a portion of their lives reading about and revering others who have done the same. It is for the parent, at the knee, to teach the child which banner is Good, and which banner is not. And on July Fourth, they will now only raise that pint, but bow that head in grateful remembrance.
        I believe this is the proper context to determine how we keep Reagan's flame, which, after all, he was only passing on, alive.
         Just a thought.
Vassar Bushmills
    

          

Richmond, October 28, 2009

          It's really simple and can be summed up in one term: Self-interest.
          You know my feelings about needing a Ben Franklin, a "constitutional-conscience" in Congress, in the GOP front office, Wall Street, everywhere. In  1994, when he was as much teacher as political activist, New Gingrich owned that title. he was the conscience of conservatism...with an attitude. Even today, Gingrich would be in my top five or ten in America to fill that role, but only so long as he was quietly watching and listening rather than scheming to see how he could get that job at the head of the table.
          That's the whole point. When you adopt the mantle of "true constitutional conservative" you lay aside the cloak of self-interest. I'm a consultant, and know that 99% of all analysis that comes down the pike is made with a view of the self-interest of the analyst. Consider lawyers, who are merely legal consultants. Doctor are guilty much less, but they are imbued with an ethical duty to their patient which far exceeds that which the lawyer employs. Every analyst struggles with adding new roles, new powers, more money, etc in the solutions they offer their clients. We write here on Townhall because there's nothing in it for us, which at least adds a little to our credibility.
          The simple fact is, Newt Gingrich couldn't lead me out of barn. While he is known and respected as the architect of the Republican Revolution in 1994, with the takeover of the House, it is largely forgotten that he was also the architect of the GOP's fall there, beginning with his own misconduct...and I don't mean the PAC money. The GOP was on its way out when Newt departed in 1999, even though it took three more voting cycles to seal the deal. It was all because of his lack of leadership...although boning a secretary over a perfectly unsuitable oak desk did add a disgusting touch.
          That said, we (the constitutional republicans, with a little "r") need Newt Gingrich, but in the role I've already laid out. Instead it seems he has allied himself against us (NY-23) for reasons that can only be based on political calculations and self-interest.
          What a loss.
VB
          

Portland, 28 October, 2009

           Interesting segue, don't you think?
           But I'm sure some of you have wondered, other than how they get away with it (which is a condition we at SICCM try to attend to) what compels a school teacher to actually line school children up to sing a song of devotion and worship to a man barely out of his own diapers.
           I first saw "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" in 1969, and had forgotten the context. Last night I saw it once again, and the source of Obama-worship came rushing home to me, as I watched a school teacher in a fashionable girls school in Edinburgh, a "women without a man" (one of Moses Sands' early warning signals of a bad moon rising) fall head over heels for the statuesque dictatorial authority figures of Mussolini and Franco (the film is from the Spanish Civil War era), then pass that awe and respect on to her school girls. She was something of a sexual free spirit, as well.
           In any case, she gets sacked in the end for her fascist sympathies...which was the major theme of the story...and one which I am sure, completely escaped young grad students such as myself...as there was some nice nudity in it as well.
           Such worship for strong fascist types was common in those days leading up to the war, especially in countries where the men were emasculated go very young. If all that sounds familiar, it should, so I recommend the film as a good reminder. Maggie Smith, a young Maggie Smith, is superb.

           Interesting too, was the give and take between Miss Brodie and the Headmistress, in her first attempt to sack her....for her tactic was also a mainstay of Clinton Administration hacks as they were called before Congress in the late 90's...I remember especially Fred Thompson inability to deal effectively with Harold Ickes. The tactic, which still works well, as Republicans almost never catch onto the gambit, is when caught red-handed, go on the attack. By beginning your defense with a dare, you raise the ante, a bet your interrogator is always reluctant to call. Had Fred Thompson simply stood up and walk over and grabbed Ickes by the collar (popinjays are always easy to jerk around that way) then ordered him frog-marched out until he was ready to talk (how come only Democrats get to issue Contempt of Congress citations?) Thompson would be president right now.
         Oh, well.
BC

Richmond, October 28, 2009
 
          ...is that it is an issue you have to raise first, not last. And by raising it, you have to demur on everything else as being constitutionally moot.
          Most legal scholars agree that this, or any federal intervention into the private sector health services is outside the scope of the Constitution, including the vaunted "welfare clause". In fact, most legislation this past year would fall into that category, especially the federal take-over of the banks and car industry. (E.g., when Paulson "forced" TARP on some reluctant banks/financial houses last year, the CEO's had no authority to contract away the companies' sovereignty. Only the Boards of Directors could do that. The whole sheebang was a constitutional, and legal fraud.)

          Of course, pragmatists know that nothing is illegal until a judge brings a gavel down and says it's so, and in these cases, that final gavel rests with the Supreme Court, a process which (surprising to me at least) hasn't even begun yet...in any sector of business.

          But this does not alter the political notion that if you believe an act to be unconstitutional, that should be first thing out of your mouth. You can then debate details in that context instead of appearing, as it does now, that you are a co-conspirator in evading the broader constitutional issue. How the Republican Party allowed themselves to be boxed in this way, I have no idea. For Godsakes, they're almost all lawyers, and probably even a couple of them are good at it.
          Politically I can't understand being a nay-sayer to a bill you really don't like, or want, but fighting it up with a pea-shooter instead of an easy-to-reach .357 magnum.
          But by doing so, we out here, also politically, have to assume the GOP agrees with the fundamental premise...
          ...that the Constitution is a goddamned impediment, and should be circumvented whenever possible.
          It pays to know yer enemies.
VB
              

Richmond, October 27, 2009

      People sometimes forget that Marx and Engels first posted "The Communist Manifesto" in 1848, before our Civil War. America was still an intellectual backwater in those days, so while this new academic nihilism was being passed around from coffee house to coffee house in Vienna, Berlin and Paris, America was launching a new type of academia altogether, the land grant university, and our private colleges were still largely founded by churches. Yale was a school for soon-to-be preachers. Still is...at least in one wing. Not a large wellspring for recruitment for European intellectuals...yet.
      So while Europe was foaming at the mouth about a style of capitalism we only made a half-hearted attempt to copy here, America was lost in an intellectual argument going in an entirely different direction. It was not so much about slavery, but the underlying reasons slavery was so very wrong...to both a moral and a free peoples.
      It culminated, of course, in the Civil War. But before that Civil War was the Republican Party, who first brought Fremont, then Lincoln, whose mere election lit the fuse. And that Republican Party was very much wrapped up in the philosophy and ideology of one man, a fellow named George William Curtis. While Europe first began toying with the idea of what was right for the state to take which it did not own, America was contemplating the idea of giving away that which it morally and politically could not own. Curtis referred to that as the "American Doctrine of Liberty" in an address to Phi Beta Kappa at Harvard in 1863.

      Thus it was in 1860 that Benjamin Franklin had been invited back into the congressional chambers and corporate board rooms in America, from whence he had been quietly dismissed at the end of the Monroe term, or what historians call the classical age of America history, when all the presidents were veterans of the Revolution.
      It's funny that American history seems to run in the biblical forty-year cycles. The classical age was when American governance was still imbued with the founding ideology of liberty, since the first five presidents had all been there.  That's what I mean by Ben Franklin being in the chambers, just as he had been in Philadelphia both in 1776 and again in 1787. Franklin was the ideological conscience of the nation, and liberty, always sitting in the corner, sometime snoozing during tiresome debate about administration, only to pipe up from time to time to remind the rest of the group about some natural rightness or wrongness of an act.
      For forty years his spirit sat in Congress and the White House, a constant reminder of those hallowed tenets of liberty, which we today call "conservatism". Then, abruptly he was waked up and ushered out, as a more robust style of governance came to Washington, under Andy "By-God"  Jackson. Commerce, expansion into the West, an embarrassing war south into Mexico, all took center stage, while the rights of man, well, they were still there, only no one had moved to take care of that one untidy little "rights of man" problem their great grandparents had first addressed in 1776; slavery. And there was no Ben Franklin snoozing over in the corner to pipe up from time to time about this major "philosophical" impediment to liberty they had omitted.
     The Republicans took that "one thing" and laid it square in front of the American people's nose, so they could no longer avoid it...which always happens when you postpone a thing too long...and it was during this terrible struggle that Curtis undertook to capture in a few orations and addresses that which Franklin and the Founders seemed to understand instinctively. Still, Ben was back in town, and better, he was all over the place, for the new public school systems, the churches, the public square, even the universities and board rooms around the country sang the song of liberty as a part of an ethic that one had to adopt just to be a true-blue red-blooded American. The theme was simple "If you believe in these things, 'be ye ne're so vile', you're one of us. If not, get the hell over on the other side of the track."
     
       I can't say with any precision just when they tossed Ben out again, but it was near that biblical forty year cycle, around 1900, give or take. When that had happened before, and Jackson introduced nepotism, centralized governments and all the other seeds of what is now the Democrat Party, America was rough-hewn and still more backwoods than front lawn. By 1900 we had been invaded by European fashions, politics and woes. It was the early era of "progressivism", which has been much misunderstood of late, since it meant not only a political ideology, but perhaps even more, a social ideology, and an ideology built two different notions of class.
       People forget, but liberals were not always little limp-wristed microbes spewing out hatred against the less-intellectual, and less limp-wristed 85% remainder of society. Liberals weren't even anti-American at one time. Indeed, they were said, at one time to "speak softly" but "carry a big stick", and thought nothing at all about killing bears. New Yorkers at that.
       What bound Progressives together in 1900 was 1) a sense of class...but of two very different kinds, which by the later 1960s would divide them permanently (except when there was a Republican in the room) and 2) an agreement to keep Ben Franklin out of their chambers, again for two very different reasons.
        Noblesse oblige is an idea we probably need to write about some day in a purely American context, for it explains the idealism of Teddy Roosevelt, who felt that it was the duty of true blue-bloods to pass on, not just by example, but through legislation, to help make the masses a cleaner, more hygienic, better read, more civilized people...faster. After all, he had to contend with those "huddled masses" no right standing Republican in 1900 really wanted to have to manage. Supreme court justice, Louis Brandies, also a progressive I like, echoed pretty much the same sentiments. Law and legislation, not this "leading by example" stuff, which was just too slow for a robust 20th Century nation, brimming with muscle and power, was the best way to "rise low-born, rough-hewn people". Besides, Ben Franklin 's cautions would take all the "noblesse" out of the "oblige", and no nobleman gives  it without an expectation of positive feedback.
        Set against this class view of Progessivism in that era, as I've had so much fun in pointing out elsewhere, is the different way the Marxist academicians despised the masses for simply being beneath them intellectually, but doing so much better than them economically. There had to be something wrong with the whole template of democracy, for the outcomes to repeat themselves every time a kid dropped out of school and opened up a beanery. Or a burlesque show. This wing of Progressivism was truly ideological, and as I said, by the late 1960s had pretty much expelled the noblesse oblige crowd, except for the preening bastardized kinds, such as John Kerry, who, when viewed from this context, comes off as a phony intellectual married to wealth (twice over), looking more like Tommy Kirk mid-change in "The Shaggy Dog" than a serious man of deep thought. This is not the "American nobleman" every kid should grow up wanting to emulate, as Teddy envisioned it. Seriously, name one person who wants to be like Kerry!
        It would be 1980, almost 80 years, and two world wars, before Ben would be invited back to the White House, but by then he had been expelled (almost) permanently from academe and most of America's boardrooms. It was a brief sojourn.

        And there's the rub. Just as the need for an honest press (quality control) is essential for effective governance, as laid out by the Founders, the need for a conscience, some call it "libertarian", others "constitutional", still others "conservative", in every thing we do.
Ben has to be there. And Ben, more than Madison, more than Jefferson, Washington, and De Toqueville, needs to be a part of every aspect of American public life.

        Just as with 1776, this civil war has been passed over to the masses. Getting Ben back into the chambers of Congress may be much easier than returning him to Wall Street or Harvard, but it has to be done, across the board.
        The problem is, we, the magnificent rabble who make us this army, may not be the ones best suited to do this. The Soviets had their Lenin, just as we did our Frankilin, only they institutionalized him and gave him a veto. With a pistol. You may not recall that Nikita Kruschchev was the political officer, not commanding general at Stalingrad. Still, he called the shots there...litrally. What we want in the schools and boardrooms (and Congress) is a conscience and a flag bearer, not a commissar.
        It's our duty to insist that the conscience of Benjamin Franklin be in our public institutions, and let the marketplace punish those who fail to keep him in their board rooms.
        It would help, too, if Michael Steele invited him back into his inner sanctum, as well.
Vassar Bushmills

Portland, 23 Oct 2009

            Vassar Bushmills writes a lot about the things we have to be preparing to do once the talk stops. That time is drawing nigh as it has been clear since February that the Obama people have no intention of allowing the 2010 elections to mean a thing. They are front-end loading power in all the right places; industry, banking & finance, media control, with Cap & Trade and Health Care giving the government control over every aspect of our lives...it's the "enabling language" of control, folks, not the pocket book pinch we'll see next year. This quiet coup d'etat of the United States government, and the dismantling of the US Constitution will be complete by the State of Nation Address in January if everyone plays predictably, and stays within their box. There's no need to tell Harry Reid that once we throw him out we'll book him. Obama will spring him with a pardon before the ink even dries on the indictment.
             That is the confidence they feel.
             Here, we've been discussing ways Americans can fight back now, while the gate is still open to hold onto control, or later, as Vassar calls it, when we are "on the outside looking in", in full guerrilla mode.
             Tactically and strategically the Obama Gang has played "us" like fiddles. Every action they take comes with a list of expected re-actions by us, so their plans also include counter-actions to our reactions. They have very good play books, and this time, the cadre of people willing to carry it out.
             They have been largely right, for their plans all are based on all our players staying "within their box." The GOP certainly has obliged, although we've urged them to at least plan for extraordinary exigencies, and try a few sorties outsde that box to to see what the taste of a bloody nose, and manhood, feels like. Fox News could easily have preempted what is now a White House prepping this sick patient for major surgery early next year. Glenn Beck says Fox News is one of two lone voices out here, but in fact, they've played their hand fairly predictably. When they finally get "Chavez'ed" almost no one will notice.
            Even Rush Limbaugh, still the best analyst and biggest voice, (Bushmills call him America's "Sergeant Major") has stayed within his box. The Obama Gang knows Limbaugh's one big weakness is the power of his opinion about his opinions. He seems to think that once he's said a things Nothing else need be said. He has put his call for "action" into the "political reaction" basket, and hung every hope for a political reaction to Obama with the rise of a real leader within the GOP, which in theory could happen any day.
            Any day might be in time, I'm not sure, but Rush's analysis may be a little self-serving in that he insists on finding real men inside the GOP just as he does corporate America, as a way to avoid stepping out his comfortable box. In fact, no real men exists there anymore. None are allowed to exist. This has been a growing rule for nearly thirty years now. America's "real men" are in small business, and at least half of those are women, and they can't get within a thousand yards of a GOP or corporate front office...by design.
         The Obamailis believe there is a point, although they don't know where (they probe as I write this) that Mr Limbaugh will simply "go corporate" and do what other corporations are doing, and as Fox News eventually will, and pack it in (he's been mentioning New Zealand, where the golf is good year round) in order to protect his assets. This New Zealand talk may all be a feint, I can't say, but we wish Mr Limbaugh would step outside the box, and become one large onion in Obama's Slurpee.
          But alas, I believe he cannot.We'll see.
            
          The only thing(s) the Obamailis cannot plan for are those who do step outside the box.
          To date, that lone person has been Glenn Beck. We have our issues with Mr Beck, but he clearly sees that things have to be done and done now...not just said. I'm not sure we agree with all his remedies, since, at the strangest times, he goes all Gandhi on us. He reminds me of a revival preacher, filled with fire, telling the congregation that the Devil is just outside the door, about to break it down, to take their children, their freedom, their property, and they must fight back. As they hear the door being pounded, in part anger and part terror, the congregation begins to rise, to find a gun, a broom handle, anything, then Glenn quietens down and tells them "No, sit down. And pray. And if they hit you turn the other cheek. Don't give into violence. Let it be on their heads."
             I think Glenn Beck is still struggling with some inner conflicts, but still, he sure has discombobulated the Obama Gang....so much so they're going after talk radio and Fox News more quickly than they had planned, which, if you know anything of Chaos Theory, or maybe just Murply's Law, is a scary thing for the handlers of such a precise operation as taking over the world's only practicing republic, to have to start editing their Plan beyond contingencies they've planned for.
             What Glenn Beck has done is cause millions of Americans to step outside their boxes, and those are boxes that possibly can never be re-stuffed. This has left the Obama Mob scurrying for still more contingency plans, none of which fall within their personal knowledge or their textbooks, for a free people unleashed is a thing that is as far removed from their imaginations as the downfall of Liberty once was to the rest of us.
             It is now a foot race to see who can get to finish line, and the proper remedy, first.
             But at least we are still in the race. The chattering Left is even angry that Obama hasn't already nailed our coffin shut. Never forget that the Japanese and Germans both lost world wars because their officers, who had contingency plans from A to Z for every possible battlefield exigency, when they reached into their satchels for Plan AA and found it empty, they also found themselves staring into the angry eyes of a sergeant, or a corporal, or even a PFC, one of the little guys, who had taken over command after the general, then the colonel, then the major, then the captain had been shot.
             That's our advantage, the little guy. It is also our reason for being America in the first place.
Bernard Chumm

    

Portland, 20 Oct 2009

             Since Mao's on everyone's mind these days, I think it would be wise to draw some distinctions between the type of genocide as carried out by Hitler, and the genocide as carried out by Stalin and Mao. They were different, and by the way, no one's bothered to check in on Pol Pot or the Hutus or the measure of the men who stood by and did nothing.
             Hitler's genocide was fomented by a deep, deep hatred...not just for Jews, but also the weak of mind, Slavs (but I repeat myself, at least in the Teutonic vision of things) and the truly filthy (Gypsies). That it was carried out with such efficiency, calling on resources inside some of the most respected of German professions, e.g, law, medicine, civil service, raises other issues, but it still was built on really one man's hatred.
            On the other hand, Stalin's and Mao's murders were, well, ordinary. Any Commie up and down the line would have seen the political necessity for those deaths and made the same orders. There was no no hatred, no vanity, not even megalomania.
            There was only indifference.
            That Obama has surrounded himself with Maoists raises some interesting considerations. He both hates and "indiffers".
BC

Richmond, October 20, 2009
     
              This subject comes up a lot, for we often mention, and recommend strongly, that public officials, all the way from those who are elected to the pettiest of bureaucrats and factotums and other civil service hirelings, be kept in constant fear of their employers.
              Us.
              Actually, this a natural condition, having nothing to do with violence, even vocal violence. It is normal, even expected that a man who is hired by another is constantly looking over his shoulder, worried or fearful that the boss, or his agent (a supervisor) might catch him doing his job poorly, or dawdling, etc.
              Indeed, without this element of fear the hireling will usually let nature take its course and set off on a course of idle self-indulgence and daydreaming that may not only cost him his job, but his boss a lot of money in lost production, or damage to the goods or customer relations.
             In the private sector, the boss, whose own money is invested, is aware of this shortcoming in human nature, and tries to keep as many hawks hovering overhead as is economically possible to keep screwing up or screwing off to a minumum.
             But not so government, where this shortcoming is even celebrated (if you stop to think about it). There are several reasons for this, which I won't go into, but primarily, the principal managers haven't a cent of their own money invested, and this attitude is soon, after a  probationary period, passed onto the rank and file white collars. So you would think the Rule of Vigilance should go double, no, quadruple for the petty bureaucrat, especially since his job is mostly defined by sitting down, and his natural appetites were in finding just such a fat, cushy, sit-down position in the first place. Staring off into space, or a computer screen, playing Solitaire, or (it seems) peeking at porn, makes up a good part of a bureaucrat's day, umbrella'd by a job description that was defined by a higher ranking bureaucrat whose only purpose in creating it in the first place was to be able to add a feather (staff employee) in his/her cap. (Parkinson's Law) . Most bureaucrats work in regimes where no more than 70%-80% are actually needed to carry out the assigned mission of the regime. (You can look it up.) So none of them are entirely sure why they are there, what they are supposed to be doing...at least for eight solid hours, maybe more like two-three...but they do know this job, this sweeeet! gig is worth fighting (and killing, as Hitler proved) for.
            This is what you get without hawks.
            So what they also know is that the boss, the real bosses, are several miles, even several hundred miles, and at least one security check point away. This is also sweet. The snooping supervisor in the front office, or his boss, upstairs, they fear the hawks...but only just a little. After all, they have the best job protection plan this side of the NEA. The real bosses, Us, they fear not at all.

            It is this lack of fear that has brought us to this point in American history, for almost all politics involves their care and feeding. For you see, our elected officials, who are supposed to be our guardians, our bloodhounds, our eyes at the keyhole and our ears at the transom, have become their protectors rather than our defenders.
            So we need to notch this "fear" thing up a grade or three. And here, it gets personal. We have to put a face and a name to the faceless and nameless bureaucrat.
            When we can, we (SICCM) do this for a living, since, next to dancing with a Greek man, it is about the most fun a fellow can have with his clothes on. So, as to specifics I have to remain silent.
            But I can remind you of the "American template" for re-establishing this "fear factor" in public officials. You've heard terms such as "tarred and feathered" and "run out of town on a rail". Well, these 19th Century citizens' actions were reserved for crooked card sharks, pettifoggers (shyster lawyers) and crafty bureaucrats who either got caught with their hands in the till, or worse, refused or failed to carry out their sworn duties. These were things that could not wait until the next election to remedy.
           This is what I call the appropriate "fear threshold" public officials should feel about their employers (Us), only I am not suggesting that any citizen's group (even I would call them a "mob", right alongside MSNBC), should break into a person's house, and drag him/her into the street, dip him/her into (only mildly warm) oil and cover him/her with chicken feather.
           As nice as it sounds, this doesn't need to be done. One, it is harmful, and two it is illegal.
           But what is not harmful or illegal is to let a bureaucrat who is not doing his job correctly know that such a thing might happen. That is the Fear Factor. And it is easy.
           You see, most bureaucrats know when they are supposed to do something ...but didn't. Or wasn't supposed to do something. but did. This failure could be out of laziness, incompetence, or mercenary intent; no matter, all have a guilty state of mind. The dark truth is that the public employers (Us) can never know for sure (unless they brag about it on Facebook), so we have to dispense the "fear factor" across the spectrum equally...assuming the worst (crime), not the least (laziness). I repeat, we have to assume the worst in this political climate.
           This guilty state of mind is important, for between Phase One, the guilty act or omission and Phase Three, that moment when the door is kicked down and the malefactor drug into the street, is Phase Two, the knowledge that a public airing of just who they are has occurred.. You can't imagine what this means to a bureaucrat...exposure. Hell, he could live next door to you for ten years, you only knowing he was down at the county building, never knowing he was the guy who signed off on turning down your building permit for a new garage.
           Bureaucrats try as much as possible, even within their own offices, to remain anonymous. Their rice bowl, the sweeet! gig, is all that matters. Unless unusually ambitious, they don't even want the GS-14's upstairs to know their names. Never draw attention to yourself. (I've known factory managers who've paid thousands of dollars to the Police Relief Fund to keep their names out of the newspaper over a lousy $190 DUI...while the county judge built a home on the lake from the proceeds...so this impulse runs deep.) Having their name tied to any public act is instant chill for bureaucrats. They don't want their signature on anything controversial....for the public or their bosses two levels upstairs to see, much less the mayor, the board of supervisors or the media. Most of their professional lives is spent in avoiding accountability...or taking any risk. (It's in the water, so please don't read their mission statement then become judgmental. They can't help it.)
          Fighting back: Break down that wall and remove from the bureaucrat 1) his anonymity and 2) the protection provided by his unions, as when the public (Us) declares in public they are guilty of a wrongful act and they realize there is no union (bureaucratic) recourse. When you post their name on YouTube, or GreatAmerican Zeroes.com, or Facebook, something local, something for everyone to see,  you don't have to kick down their door. Every night they will go to bed thinking it's about to be kicked down anyway. They may even move to the next county. They may begin sneaking to work incognito. They may buy an old '79 Datsun from an illegal at the flea market to drive them there.
         That's how it works with the guilty state of mind. Publicly "out" them and nine times out of ten they'll start doing what they were supposed to do, or stop doing what they weren't. No one likes to see his/her name in the local press, or on Facebook or a website for great American/Kansas/Lawrence zeroes. (Once done, it's the other 10% you have to seine out through this net to identify as true enemies and crimnals. These are the Enemy's core constituencies. But once isolated, they are easier to target, and once thery can can feel the gaze of the hawks overhead, their effecrtiveness is reduced by three quarters.)
          See where I'm going?
      
          With this in mind, between now and October, 2010, we need to focus our attention on the vote-stealers at the county and state levels. Some are assisted by ACORN, others work alone, "in the dark" as we say. They can steal or deny voters in many ways, and in some safe precincts, just a few, they may do it just to keep in practice. (We noted this practice in the last election, where votes were stolen for no reason...other than possibly to see whether it could be done or not...and where those votes wouldn't affect the outcome, went un-investigated. This is also how Al Qaeda operates. Push, test, push, test.) State and county voting officials should be held to the same standard that a bank cashier has to be accountable for...down to the penny...when they open and close their drawer. Impose that sanction from now til late summer 2010, from an unyielding and unflinching hawk-like public, and they will toe the line. A few will also suddenly quit and move to Minnesota.
          This should be a nationwide effort, but carried out at the most local of levels.
          More later.
VB

Portland, 19 Oct 2009
             My friend Vassar Bushmills continues to trumpet the notion that constitutionalists have to take back the Republican Party rather than striking out on their own. There isn't time, for we are quite certain that once lost it will take either an armed insurrection or 40 years, minimum, to take it all back...and even then, in a world that will be ten times more hostile to a democratic America than they are now.
             Think about it.
            One of Moses Sands' best quotes, from a few years ago, is that America's greatest threat is "...women without and men without willies...and they both vote."
            So, if the Democrat Part is a party of women and the GOP the party of emasculated males, which one do we take back?
           (Please Ladies of the Right, I know that in much of the 9/12-Tea Party groups around the country, women are the leading spirits. I'm using "manhood" allegorically and indeed, in most places, you are our "best men" in keeping with the historical notion of manhood.)
            It's a crap shoot, but at least the GOP has all the right banners. Our job is simply to go to their closet and help them find them and unfurl them.
BC

Richmond October 17, 2009
             You don't really have to have been following the Rush Limbaugh-St Louis Rams-racism lies stories to know the final lesson learned here.
             For reasons that may eventually prove to be more about dirty business dealings than political ideology, and for which Mr Limbaugh has plenty of money not doing anything this month that can make the malefactors on the other side, whose money is otherwise engaged, think twice about that sort of tactic again.
             But as the various patent lies about racist comments attributed to Mr Limbaugh have been exposed, with some fanfare on Fox News (thanks), the tepidness of the half apologies by the so-called journalistic repeaters of those lies, reveals a lesson we all need to keep in mind.
           It is this: Most members of the Left, The Other Side, The Enemy, however you want to call them, live in a separate reality. What they said about Rush Limbaugh wasn't a lie. It wasn't even a falsehood, or untruth. The reason it wasn't is not because the world has told them so, but because they cannot look themselves in the mirror and tell themselves so.
          An honest liar, when caught, will swear under his breath, "Damn...got caught" and move on, taking whatever lesson (there are several, among which 'not doing it again' is but one) with him.
          The delusional liar will never admit he was caught, but rather the forces of evil (as he sees us) simply outnumbered him on this occasion. He will take far fewer lessons with him.

          The lesson learned is that this is not the sort of person, and there are millions of them now, just hatching in the 7th Grade alone, who will ever be talked out his "beliefs". At some point, we can all hope, that he/she will simply bury this part of his/her life in the deepest recesses of memory and attempt the fiction of carrying on the rest of his life as a normal person. We cannot save him. There will be no Come-to-America moment at the altar of humanity and humility. All we can do is detach him from the rest, and defeat him at every turn.
          The good news is that most are lazy and will quit altogether after two-three consecutive whompings. The bad news is that those who don't, like Bill Ayers has proved, will be a pain in our side forever. So be vigilant. Just make sure it is they, not us, who are the guerrilas.
VB

Richmond, 16 october, 2009
            Moses Sands, in his still-to-be-published book on the blueprints of the common man's House, said that one of the cornerstones of the House is gratitude.
            We've written a lot about gratitude here, "the shoulders we stand on", as Moses called it, especially as it pertains to the ingratitude of American youth since the 1960's.
             In a long essay earlier, The Mother of Liberalism, I traced the "modern liberal's" world view to a "hole in the soul" that began first with the ancient Greek philosophers, then through Marx, to modern academe, thence to just about every 90-pound weakling who has read a book, as being largely based on an anger and jealously that the majority of the world holds high attributes of human achievement that are lesser than their own. The contorted logic of that view is that if the majority (the masses) favor athletic heroes, self-made millionaires, or girls whose gams runs all the way up to their magnificent behinds, and can be seen by all...then the majority should be denied any say in the matter. Since free markets give the masses that sort of vote, be done with it. Since the Constitution and modern ideas of Liberty give the masses those kinds of choices, be done with them. Then we will be ruled, in the words of Mr Shunderson (People Will Talk, 1951) by men and women who may also be small of stature, but always of character. I give you Robert B Reich, as jealous a man ever walked.
             It's that simple. When you condense all that anger the Greeks felt about the Romans taking the beauty out of their observations by actually building things with them, you come up with a deeply felt anger, a hole in the soul, that transcends all politics. Indeed, as I pointed out, it is the mother of all politics Left.
            Bernie Chumm called me after I finally posted that essay, and asked me if I thought they (the Left) felt no shame in pissing on the shoulders they were standing on, since we all...we all...even John Kerry, arose out of some pretty ordinary loins. As the French might say, "How dare we take on such airs, the children of dustmen, garbage collectors, slaves, dirt farmers, and a few Irishmen to boot."
            I thought about that and decided they do not feel shame about peeing on their ancestors shoulders, but do feel shame, nonetheless. In fact, they are ashamed of their ancestors. Besides a general violation of the 5th Commandment (who heeds those anymore, anyway?), stop to ponder the enormity of this craven sin...to be ashamed, out of hand, of the persons who first laid the place for them the sleep out of the cold and wind, who first laid the place, and the plate, for them to eat, who first insured they would not have to go out of the door armed with a knife or gun...since, almost every American House, every set of shoulders, bears the scars and pangs from a wont of these simple treasures at some time.
           For years I have reminded plant and corporate managers that "gratitude" is not passed on genetically, as they complain about the growing indifference of each new generation of worker. It must be retaught, and that teaching, as with so many other things should be taught first, at the parent's knee. We've written of those things as well. But what we now see, sadly in hindsight, as this hole-in-the-soul hatred and shame has almost completely engulfed three generations, is that this sense of gratitude, this honor-the-shoulders-thou-standest- upon, is the only salve, the only preventative of such that bile rising in the bright child's stomach, as he grows to find out that he has neither the size, speed or temperament for athletics, or he hasn't the best house in the best neighborhood, the best labels on his clothes, best looks...or worse, likes books, or history or math, or gad!, engineering or poetry....and maybe not so much, girls.
          Today, the institutions of the state, the schools, advertising, film and television, music, all are arrayed against that gratitude seed ever taking root, for in each case, what they are selling today sells best to an incomplete, unfulfilled, ungrateful, audience. Their meat and potatoes is our failures as parents.

          But this isn't about philosophy, or ideology, it is about politics; specific political strategies. It is easy for me to say to you what must be done to a child when he or she is seven. It is impossible for me to say to you what must be done when that child is thirteen, or seventeen or twenty..if your intent is to restore the proper harmony to your House.
          But what I can say is that if the Constitution is to preserved, and free markets and Liberty saved, those people must be isolated. They must be cast out if they cannot be saved, and the public has neither the time, the money, nor, quite frankly the duty to try and save them. If there is a to be a guerrilla war in this country, let's try to make sure it is them, not us, who are the guerrillas, for we are less than a year (yes, less) to being on the outside looking in.
         I wrote earlier about three steps, political, institutional and cultural, that the concerned citizen must keep in mind as this long, long war to restore Liberty plays itself out. Restoring this sense of gratitude is a perfect example, in that it requires a changing of course in the House and in the public streets (cultural) as well as the institutions, such as schools. But it also involves politically isolating the Hole in the Soul Gang, and driving a wedge between them and the thugs, the brown shirts, the rent-a-goons, they use to carry out their policy...for if those goons only knew what their bosses really felt about them, as people, they may think twice about choosing that side just for a few bucks. Even thieves like the freedom to be able to choose their own marks.
Vassar Bushmills

         ....but I hear King George turned down John Adam's request to buy a piece of the Boston Ten-Pins franchise in 1770. Goes with the territory.
   
         Some say that's what lit the fuse.

         What you can do that John Adams couldn't is take your football and cleats and move to one of those Sovereign-Nation-of-One enclaves along Hawke Bay in New Zealand.
         My recommendation is you light the fuse. It's time liars are punished,
VB

Richmond, October 14, 2009

      A disturbing comment from a caller on a local radio talk show prompted this message. In response to continued tepidness by GOP leadership in the health care debate, plus just general spinelessness about anything liberal or democrat that goes bump in the night, this caller, a Tea Partier, stated the unthinkable: "I guess I'll just have to sit this one out, too."
      What are you thinking?!!!

       I know there are times when we all want to see Jesus, mounted on a white charger, emerge from the clouds and smite our enemies with one fell swoop of his mighty sword. There actually is an old hymn that draws that image, but there's an awful lot of contradictions in it, e.g., a "sword of peace"?, but no more than the contradictory messages we've sent to ourselves since the passing of conservatism's last messiah, Ronald Reagan.
       The idea that we can only be saved by a messiah is about as self-destructive notion as I've seen. We're seeing that now on the democrat side only, what's being "self-destructed" at their hand is the republic and its constitutional base. The party, as they know, will soon follow, to be replaced by "The Party."
       That process and those people leading it are supposed to be the Enemy here, not some weenies sitting at the throne of the GOP in Washington, or in Richmond, or in Atlanta. They will always make up 30% of some political party. The idea that you (we) will concede the whole of one political party to a bunch of Casper Milquetoast-elitists is sheer cowardice. I wrote not long ago that the Left does not have a corner on the abject teatty-baby market, and you're proving that now.
      You (and you know who you are) stayed home in 2006, handing over the Congress to the Left...not the Democrats. Then in 2008, feeling betrayed by party elitists and guess who?, populist, anti-Mormon (a form of bigotry in these days) voters, party voters chose by election, not back room council, a middle of the road jerk as its candidate, so you stayed home again, just to prove to yourself your moral outrage...and to prove to the rest of us your sheer cowardice in the face of a hard fight.
      But while I'm on a roll I'll go ahead and throw in "stupid" here, for the one player the Left has dancing on a string like a marionette right now is you, not Michael Steele or Mitch McConnell...because they know exactly what you will do, for you have bellowed to the top of your voice for four years now what you will do, and by God, you've kept your pledge.
      What the Left knows you won't do is fight back...
      ...unless Ronald Reagan comes out of a cloud on a white charger, to lead you.
      Yes, I said "stupid" for you are playing a class warfare game against GOP moderates and elitists that neither of you can win. It is a playing field of their design, so naturally it will be you who picks up your ball and glove and stomps home.
      And you are stupid for believing that the Party is the be-all and end-all to political involvement. That is how the moderates see it. You are supposed to be able to look beyond the Party to the foundation the Party stands on, and the banner under which it fights. You, not they, are supposed to have the deeper understanding of what the Party and this fight is all about.
     And you are stupid because you believe, when the right guy shows up, you can just march back and undo everything you've allowed to happen. Wrong-o, Buster!
      To those of who who can actually tell a horse from a mule, I suggest a trip back to your closet where you can work your way through a six pack, assessing what you can do to get back into the fight against the Enemy, the Enemy goddammit, not Olympia mealy-mouthing Snowe. You never, never, never get angry at curs for behaving like curs. If you have to, you will kiss your mother-in-law in order to get back into the fight, and will, if necessary to win the fight, rub her poor aching feet.
      If the Pope can wash the feet of a homosexual, then you can suck up a little humility for the Constitution.

      That said, there are things that need to be done right now by conservatives (true conservatives) in Congress and every state GOP structure.
      This idea is old, for many have been lobbying for the creation of a Conservative Caucus in Congress and the state houses for many years. But the idea that some selfish, thoughtless and stupid conservatives from the only energy source conservatism has right now, the Town Hall-Tea Party-9/12 Movement, will once again throw that big teat fit and walk away under the mistaken notion that they can get all this done by a Third Party, or that they can simply take it all back once the time is more ripe and the GOP finally gets it, say in 2012, or that Ol' Ronnie is out there in the corral right now, saddling up his white charger...is enough to scare the pants off true conservatives who see and know the real Enemy here.
     Moderates come in all gradations, for I consider Michael Steel to be a center-Right moderate, just like Mitch. They both get it. They both know there is far, far more at stake here than better tee-times at Colonial. I'm not sure what drives centrists like M'Cain, who behaves more like a Leftie in many cases, in that he's all about getting even. He defines himself by what he hates. Center-Left members, such as Snow and Collins, or Specter before he came out of the closet, are what we call Sky-determines Republicans. Other then being a bit brighter (who isn't) they are very similar to Barbara Boxer, who simply sees the position as a vanity, a sinecure, and entitlement of privilege. Their sense of nobility, which is not the same as the rest of us, is why France lost almost every battle against England during the Middle Ages.
     The Town Hall-Tea Party-9/12 Movement has been the one thing the Left had not counted on. It has been outside their box, and while they are not stupid, and have already begun to come up with counter-strategies, the one one think they don't have a textbook for, don't know and can't know is what we will do next. Unlike the GOP in Congress, we have always been one-step in front of them. Let's keep it that way.
     With all the power they have politically and economically, they are still weaker than Aunt Lucy's left ankle in the spiritual and guts departments. You (we) already have a knife in their heart, and all it takes is another twist or two...which is why they have distracted you by pointing out lesser enemies..."Hey, lookie over yonder. A chicken Republican...", hoping you'll loosen your grip or drop the knife entirely, and run off to kick that mangy cur you could kick any old day of the week.

      Keeping you focused is our key job now. It would be best if conservatives inside Congress started this, and I plan to pass this message this around myself, knowing such things are rarely read, even by staffers. Most state committees also have a conservative wing.
      My only recommendation is that there be some coordination, beginning with 1) a statement of principles, a rigid statement of principles, 2) a contract signed by each member, with simple rules of admission so Olympia and Susan won't even bother to come knocking, and John Boehner and Eric Cantor won't expect automatic ex officio membership, along with unbending rules of expulsion so that Olympia won't let the door bump her in the arse on her way back out, if she should sneak in, 3) a secret handshake, gestures (winks, nods, etc) and whispered code words, especially if in Latin or Greek, are fun and create a sense of exclusivity, but more, drive the Lefties batty that something may be going on outside their ability to know about it...this goes double for the Congressional Black Caucus, who are so paranoid a simple four note whistle through the teeth sends then into paroxysms of anxiety. A pin would be nice. And just imagine the fun you can have, especially once you get 40-50 members, trying to get special office space and other parity perqs already given to the CBC? Think her Ladyship will oblige?

     I'm not making light of this, for the conservatives at the top, in Congress, in the state and national GOP, need to QUICKLY create an outreach to the Tea Party factions, for many will walk away if they can't stay focused and optimistic. We (conservatives) need their vote. The GOP also needs their vote. But neither of us can afford their abstention again....for last time I checked, the voter fraud arm of ACORN is stiull active and well financed. Expect even runaways (such as the coming VA and NJ gubernatorial races) to be close...and when close, anything can happen. Ask Virgil Goode and Norm Coleman.
Vassar Bushmills
     
      

Richmond, October 11
      Let me make this as plain as I can about this term "Rules of Engagement". These are rules created by men lacking in physical courage as a way to signify how they would react if they were in a brave man's shoes. Bill Clinton proved this axiom when he bombed Serbia from 50,000 feet..."with victories he was swimmin', he killed children, dogs and women" (John Cash).
      Also, being able to design and issue these ROE's is also a way to demonstrate control, i.e., who's in charge, as a way to say it's always the pressed suit back behind the front lines that stands tallest in the pecking order
      In practice, throughout history, this ranking scheme has never worked well...actually, not at all...unless that fellow back at the front office had spent an adequate amount of time in the front lines, getting a taste of what it's really like (reading Red Badge of Courage won't do) having to perform while staring harm's way in the face. It was a rite of passage, as the military academies all required their grads to serve in a combat branch before moving on to their chosen career path. In the private sector, it was common for manufacturing companies to require entry level managers to spent at least a year on the factory floor before moving into that cubicle or office at the front of the building. This began to fade away in the 1980s.
     The Japanese were absolutely religious about this idea of having managers with grease under their finger nails, starting all their managers out in quality control. But again, that all changed in the 1980s when we (American business) elevated their lawyers (bengoshi)  to something above that of coffee-runners. Since our managers brought lawyers to every meeting, they had to bring theirs. Engineers were moved to the back benches.

     Now that we have, in every public and private sector, a management class that has never smelled the acrid bite of gunpowder, or tasted a blood trickle from the corner of the mouth, even figuratively, a new image of the rule-makers has emerged.
     When in total control, and a posse in tow, they become bullies. When government is bully is when government is hated most. But when confronting a force that may strike back, they blink...every time...and try to talk, dance and squirm. (Or they go nuclear.) Anything to keep from getting their pants, or reputations, wrinkled.
      As a military term, "rules of engagement" that go way back, but as a control mechanism of physical cowards, this practice only goes back 20 years or so, beginning with attorneys at City Hall telling cops how to behave in street confrontations. What lawyer is willing to 'rassle a perp to the ground? Really. It's better, we find, to sneak up on him with disguised politeness. "Sir, would you please lie down on the ground and put your hands behind your back?" Then, when the perp (or citizen) asks "Why?", we pounce, with a sudden and immediate whack across the shins. Now he hits the ground involuntarily, and gets shackled a little more roughly than originally planned...and he also gets a resisting arrest charge tacked onto the original complaint.
      Yes, I know in the old days, the cop would've talked him into the cruiser, often never even requiring a cuff. Or he might simply have grabbed the perp by the ear lobe and marched him home to Mom. But for the attorney back at city hall, major markers would have been by-passed. First and foremost, "Why?" is a sign of disrespect for his station. Second, with plenty of back-up, the least little bit of verbal resistance is an excuse to turn bully, which the lawyer secretly wants to do every chance he can get. The whack over the knees is the perfect sucker punch, an immediate sign of control, but borne as much out of fear as control, for it insures the citizen won't sneak in that first punch himself. The experienced, mature cop would've handled that situation much differently. Moreover, he would have been on speaking terms with the neighborhood the next day.
      But what if the perp pulled a gun? Well, we know the cops, all six of them, would retreat behind bullet-proof card doors, a SWAT team would be called in, maybe even a hostage negotiator, ten city blocks would be cordoned off, Channels 3, 8 and 12 news would show up, and for three to twenty three hours, the whole city would thrill at the spectacle of a stand-off.
      Just like the poor fellow still doing eternity for eating a bologna sandwich on Friday back in 1955, when they finally frog-march the poor guy out, now under a list of charges that run to twelve pages, he's muttering under his breath, "It was only a joint. A lousy joint."
      How the experienced cop would have handled it would have been to shoot him dead before he could even clear leather, or, simply crack him over the head with the butt of his service revolver. I don't think they can do that any more. I don't think they're even trained to that anymore.
  
      See where I'm going?
      In the military, this is how attorneys (called JAG's) back at HQ now get to crawl into the foxhole with the unit commander on the ground, without even getting their uniforms dirty. Bill Mauldin called them "garritroopers".
      And, in State, Justice and even CIA, it is how desk bound careerists, as often as not attorneys (do you sense a pattern here?), get to tell men in the field, in harm's way, how they would deal with a situation if in their shoes. If foreign policy were football, it would be a game of punting.

      We've written about this before, for most attorneys are physical cowards, i.e., beta males (at best) on the physical side of any confrontation. But when in control they are natural bullies. They do may have alpha minds, which puts them in a superior position over the Alpha males out there facing down the enemy, but sadly, especially in City Hall and Washington, the tie-breaker is that they almost always have beta-to-omega character traits, and reflexes that are defensive in nature, at best. (Why this equation is so dominant among attorneys...but not doctors...is a mystery to me, but if someone out ca figure it out, and can write a really juicy book explaining it, there's a permanent seat on one the Fox panels, for sure.)

      Just keep this in mind as you watch things develop in Afghanistan. The daintier desk bound hands in Washington (and ain't Joe Biden just the cat's meow at fightin' wars?) are running out of options that will let them keep those hands clean. I see 1) a bug-out and a lot of cynical deaths (murder) of innocent Afghan citizens, a la Southeast Asia in 1975, or 2) a lot of cynical deaths (murder) of our under-numbered soldiers just hanging around for no particular purpose other than conveying to the folks back home we haven't bugged out, or 3) a quick denuding of the Afghan hill country (what they call inside the Beltway "going nuclear"). Just as the US Senate has yet to stand in the well of history for the genocide in SE Asia they walked away from, if Obama and this Congress think they can walk away scot free, they will.
      When I think of lawyers in government and the corporate world, I can't help but stop and think about Bill Clinton, and what just one tour of duty on the front lines of anything could've done for his character. Just one broken nose when he was a kid and Bill Clinton could've been the best goddamned president in America history. Sometimes that's all it takes...one broken nose (in my case two) to separate honorable men from liars, and to separate all men from lawyers.
      The saddest thing, too, is that Moses believed Afghanistan was the easier of the two (alongside Iraq) to plant the basic ideals of democracy and liberty at the grass roots.  (More on that later this week.)
VB