The Unlearned Lesson of World War I

World War I will always be remembered in history by many as a colossal waste.  Millions died; billions were spent.  The accumulated accomplishments of centuries of European history ground away to prepare for an era more known for evil.

The spark that lit it happened a century ago this month.  Serbian terrorist Gavrillo Princip assassinated the next in line to the Hapsburg imperial throne.

And yet, the war could not have been prevented.

Each nation involved played by the rules of national ambition and/or rose to defend historical obligations or interests.

Each followed a logical path that brought it into conflict with others.

Hindsight tells us that World War I's nihilistic effect on human history should render it tragically absurd, especially since that era had no leaders like Hitler and no nations with the ambition of 1941 Japan.  World War II actually may have colored our perception of what causes war.  Surely it must be an implacably evil madman behind it; no one could go to war otherwise.

No mad men here.  Truth be told, all of the major national leaders, Czar Nicholas II, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Franz Josef, H. H. Asquith, and France's premier of the month in the Third Republic were all fairly average men.  Not a brilliant visionary among them.

True, Germany under the Kaiser aggressively pushed itself into every territorial dispute and sought international parity with Great Britain and France. This, however, was one of many intertwining factors leading to war.

Anyone can look into the buildup to the war, but it would be challenging to find a decision made by any party which was not consistent with its national interest and explainable logically. One may not agree with the decision, but no country, for example, invaded peaceful and non threatening neighbors. Germany backed its ally, Austria-Hungary, Russia backed Serbia, Britain backed Belgium, and so on.

Point here is that the potential for war cannot always be discounted when all states have rational leaders.  States can avert war, certainly.  Pretending that major wars require some element of insanity or evil, however, remains a dangerous delusion.

Egypt's Least Bad Option: Military Coup

As of right now, the Egyptian military has launched a coup to remove the Muslim Brotherhood party and President Mohammed Morsi from power.

Military leader General Al Sisi held meetings with national leaders, including the Coptic Christian pope, to secure support for removing the radicals from power.  Meanwhile, BBC reports portray a rabidly angry Muslim Brotherhood equally willing to take to the streets "with martyrdom on their minds."

Tanks have taken to the streets of Cairo and, according to Reuters, hundreds of soldiers are ostentatiously marching on parade near the Presidential Palace.  Some have claimed that the president now lives under house arrest. Armored vehicles defend national broadcasting outlets.  The opposing sides even took to Facebook to launch rhetorical attacks.

Since Morsi ascended to office, the international community has watched his regime with concern.  Relations with Israel and the United States cooled.  Unprovoked and unpunished attacks on women and Christians rose.  Morsi also unconstitutionally centralized power into the executive branch and attacked the independent judiciary.  These almost always preface the evolution of a quasi democracy into a dictatorship.

Their goal was the implementation of Islamic religious Sharia Law.  This is the code that mandates punishments for raped women, for educating girls, and oppresses millions across the Eastern Hemisphere.  Egyptians have rallied against the imposition of religious totalitarianism, to their credit.

A coup would be the least bad option for Egypt.  Its strategic location means that any increasingly radical state could play a very destabilizing role in the next few years.  Military seizure of the government is the best chance of returning moderation to the country's foreign affairs.

It would also restore order, although in the short term any upending of a constitution disrupts rule of law. 

Rarely is the case that a nation should go to such extremes to ensure order, even over law.  But some cases beg for this step.  Wouldn't history have taken a better course if the German Army's aristocratic officers overturned the elected Hitler government that they despised?  Waiting would only entrench Morsi more securely.  We can't wait for the Islamofascist Muslim Brotherhood to grow confident enough to attack Israel or even U. S. interests in the area.

Fortunately the Egyptian Army obviously feels the same.  Thus the reason for launching the least bad option.

"If they give you ruled paper, write the other way."

Thank you Mrs.Thornton, wherever you are. In eighth grade you assigned Fahrenheit 451 and changed my life.

The little line that serves as the title of this piece was used by Ray Bradbury to introduce this book, written by him in a college typing lab. I thought of it today while in a Facebook conversation about snacks sent to an elementary school.

One mother expressed exasperation because she made homemade snacks for some school function, only to find out that the school required all snacks to be storebought. Another parent said they made brownies, found out the same thing, and brought them anyway. The first parent said she was tempted to do the same, but was afraid that her daughter might learn that it was OK to break the rules.

That bothered me a little. Our country's entire history has been shaped by people breaking the rules. Some saw it as unfair to pay taxes when not represented in government. Others rebelled against Jim Crow laws and the earlier Fugitive Slave Acts. Tomorrow we may need a rebellion against confiscatory taxation, gun confiscations, or some other example of authority abused. One of our shining moments earned us the condemnation of the world; we deliberately ignored Hitler's instructions to all Olympic teams in Berlin in 1936. Our athletes refused to perform a Nazi style salute or dip our flag to the swastika. Hermann Goering told his furher "Americans dip their flag to nobody."

Perhaps elementary school snacks is a battle worth fighting, perhaps it is not. I strongly disagree with teaching children that rules ought always be followed. Sometimes you have to think about the rules, about who made them, where they come from, and why they are there. You may come up with the idea that the rules are unjust or foolish. At that point you must decide what, if anything, you have to do about them. What you should not teach, unless you are in the military, is that rules must always be blindly obeyed without question or thought.

Thank You Sarah Palin!

I do not mean to be a copycat, but this is way too important to not share.

Hat tip to Don Surber for the following:

Via Mickey Kaus, this exchange with David Leonhardt of the New York Times:
OBAMA: “I mean, the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill out here.”
LEONHARDT: “So how do you — how do we deal with it? ”
OBAMA: “Well, I think that there is going to have to be a conversation that is guided by doctors, scientists, ethicists. And then there is going to have to be a very difficult democratic conversation that takes place. It is very difficult to imagine the country making those decisions just through the normal political channels. And that’s part of why you have to have some independent group that can give you guidance. It’s not determinative, but I think has to be able to give you some guidance. And that’s part of what I suspect you’ll see emerging out of the various health care conversations that are taking place on the Hill right now.”

This is not too far from another political leader musing changes in how his country approached "end of life care."

"Reich Leader Bouhler and Dr. Brandt are charged with the responsibility for expanding the authority of physicians, to be designated by name, to the end that patients considered incurable according to the best available human judgment of their state of health, can be granted a mercy death."

Guess who that is. Both statements reek of administrative language hiding the fact that the government will decide who lives and who dies.

Thank you Sarah Palin for bringing the focus back to the "Death Panels."

Obama Executive Branch Called Dangerously Top Heavy

An analytical story that crossed the wires yesterday afternoon raised an alarming point. Obama has not only appointed traditional Cabinet secretaries, but also an amazing number of issue "czars," special advisers, and special diplomatic envoys responsible only to him. An expert noted that Obama seemed "addicted to czars." Five separate executive branch officials can claim a leadership role on the climate change issue, which many Americans by now have come to understand is no issue at all. Special envoys will be sent to Pakistan and other Middle Eastern countries, a move that undercuts the ambassadors to those nations and Her Royal Hillariness in the State Department.

Obama did not invent this style of government and it remains to be seen if this is intentional, or just the president muddling through, building legitimacy by appointing as many experts as he can find to do the same jobs. Franklin D. Roosevelt intentionally followed this pattern. Several people worked the same job independently, meaning that if a conflict arose, FDR would arbitrate, ensuring that he was kept informed and maintained his power. Accomplishing this meant that FDR presided over one of the most secretive and deceptive administrations in history at a time when the press was not only friendly, but by and large served the function of adoring accomplices. Obama will get no such treatment if he continues to try and intimidate hardened White House reporters with stare down tactics.

Other historical figures who have created ponderous and unwieldy systems such as Obama's include Russia's Czar Nicholas I and Adolf Hitler.

Obama is likely trying to establish these special offices and departments to get around his own Cabinet selections. He certainly wants to keep Hillary's wings clipped. His opposition includes the moderate and conservative Democrats as well as Republicans. Obama may believe that these special positions will lead to him keeping control of his own policy. Unless he has the intellect of FDR, it will more likely lead to a jumbled mass of ego, contradiction, and inactivity.

Of all the possibilities of a left leaning administration, socialist policies caught in the quicksand of a byzantine Executive Branch sounds like a less horrible result than others.

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I read yesterday where Obama and other local elites dined at Washington's Georgia Brown's. We walked past that place the other weekend. It had $30 entrees. Was this fancy food? Nope. $27 or so for a meal that included fried chicken, mashed potatoes, biscuits, and collard greens. It must be nice to be able to pay $30 for a meal you could get for one third the price at the same quality. Combine this with $100 per pound beef and you see how differently Obama and his friends are used to living than the rest of us.

The Orwell Doctrine

George Orwell's novel 1984 reflects the fears of his time, a resurgence of totalitarian regimes. The dictatorship he created was based both upon the terrifying regimes of Hitler and Stalin complete with a personality cult around the unreachable Leader named Big Brother. Totalitarian regimes love to play with words, for example the People's Republic of China was one of the main perpetrators of massacre and artificial famine in the past century. It had much to do with the power of Mao and nothing to do with helping the people.

Obama is not Mao, nor is he Hitler nor is he Stalin. However, he and his Democratic Party want to attack basic freedoms and cloak these efforts with language. The Left are itching to reenact what they call the "Fairness Doctrine."

This doctrine emerged in the late 1940s as a power assumed by the Federal Communications Commission to force radio broadcasters to grant equal time to all sides of a political issue. If enforced today, this would force a radio station to provide three hours to a liberal host if they run the Rush Limbaugh show for three hours. Local boards would be erected to ensure fair access.

It is telling that liberal presidencies and Supreme Courts have supported the concept while conservatives have opposed it. In the 1980s the Reagan Administration revoked the doctrine, citing the fact that it violated a radio station's right to free speech and also inhibited a station's right to operate in a free market. This allowed a proliferation of conservative talk shows to emerge on AM radio in the 1990s that proved popular and profitable. Meanwhile, well-funded attempts to establish liberal talk radio failed miserably. Seems that people did not want to listen to their ideas.

This attempt to squelch conservative radio is an outrage. If President Bush had used government action to silence Michael Moore or the liberal newspapers, the nation would have risen in outrage whether they agreed with the liberals' ideas or not. It's a question of free speech. Left wingers now have started feeling their power and arrogantly want to display it. It will start with the radio. Next they will come after people's guns. Then what? One shudders to think.

Triumph of the Shrill

In the 1930s Leni Riefenstahl became the filmaker tapped to document the political rise of Adolf Hitler. Tremendously talented, she crafted an image in her Triumph of the Will for the new leader that distracted Germans from his bizarre beliefs and buffoonery and manufactured a vision of a powerful, wise, all knowing savior. Joseph Goebbels masterminded this image production and helped by staging spectacles. The larger the stadium, the more attendees, the more references to German and classical history and culture, the better Hitler could appear. In other words Goebbels and Riefenstahl sought to clothe the inadequacies of a lunatic in the robes of a demigod.

The 2008 Democratic Convention is no Nazi spectacle and Obama is no Hitler. This attempt at savior manufacturing looks more like a Mel Brooks parody of Riefenstahl's work. You half expect to see "PREZ" emblazoned in white on Obama's back. The goal is to unite the loud, neurotic, Bush haters with moderate and loyal Democrats in a last ditch effort to derail the McCain train.

Fortunately, Americans rarely accept this kind of stage handling in their politics. Anything so packaged raises suspicion in the eyes of most American voters. Only George Washington and, to a much lesser extent, Franklin Roosevelt ever enjoyed demigod type popularity and loyalty. Washington actively shunned any material manifestation of his authority, preferring to maintain tones of republican simplicity.

In 2008 the choice is clear. In McCain we have an accomplished man who acts in Washington's mold of republican simplicity. In Obama we have a demagogue seeking to win the presidency through the triumph of the shrill.

Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Lyndie England, Which of These Doesn't Belong?

National Geographic Channel, which now irritatingly refers to itself as "Nat Geo," will be shortly running a new special on evil people in history. Amazingly Keyser resident Lyndie England will be featured.

Let's see. Adolf Hitler murdered 12 million people because of their religion, lifestyle, and politics. Stalin murdered tens of millions because of their economic class and politics. Just this week we saw some demented man in Georgia decapitating female hikers. And Lyndie England is evil?

At worst she was unprofessional. She held a position of trust in a prisoner of war camp in Iraq. At the camp, terrorists were humiliated by being forced to be leashed and photographed. England's main offense was being in the pictures, enjoying the humiliation of these people whose lives were dedicated to blowing up women, children, and US soldiers. She was a young woman in a stressful environment who made a poor choice, so therefore she is evil. Incredible.

In the hands of the media, concepts most people take for granted get skewed. Any form of psychological pressure gets redefined as "torture." Torture is something we generally see as negative. There is a huge difference between US interrogators wiping red ink that they claim is menstrual blood on prisoners to get them to talk and when the Soviet CHEKA peeled skin off people's arms and fed priests feet first into crematoriums. Liberals love to try and establish moral equivalence to confuse the issue. This television program seeks to establish moral equivalence between unprofessional behavior in our army and the worst in human history. They hate the army and its missions. This is how they discredit it.

Of course this "evil" woman now has paid her debt to society. She now is a productive member of the Keyser community, having joined its Board of Parks and Recreation last year. I suppose she is hatching her plans of world domination using that base. Today North End Park, tomorrow the world.

Another ridiculous example of the liberal media pushing its agenda.