Month: April 2024

I said at the end of the second installment that we need to figure out a way to rein in the federal government.  And that is no mean task.  We are the victims of the wildly successful growth of the American Empire.  Our culture, technology and industry have transformed the world.  We have created whole industries that allow us to produce weapons of staggering power and destructiveness.  We have created an information infrastructure that allows us to control the news that the whole world receives.  We’ve even convinced the entire developed world, with a few exceptions, to believe in things that couldn’t possibly be true and to punish any of their citizens who dare to deny these lies.  We’re even disassembling a lot of the industrial infrastructure that initially created our dominance.  And now we’re even going down the road of eliminating our own citizens just because they’ve become politically inconvenient.

It would be laughably stupid to claim that displacing this establishment would be easy.  Eisenhower warned us about it.  Kennedy may have taken a bullet defying it.  Most presidents have kowtowed to it.  And Trump got poleaxed for even trying to slow down the forever wars that this shadow government stokes.

But that is the only way to upend their rule.  The money they feed to the defense contractors and all the other players in these global games fuels their power.  Cutting off that funding would bring the whole thing toppling down.  That is why every Republican in Washington bends a knee to them and why Donald Trump is in court right now preparing to be railroaded into prison.

But remember, we’re talking about Goodenoughia.  We don’t have to conquer that monster.  We just have to keep it at arms length.  Leftwingistan is where that monster now lives.  We just have to keep it from reaching out and dragging us back in.  I would say that the first most important point will be maintaining some part of the nuclear arsenal in our hands and promise the people in Washington that mutually assured destruction exists between both sides of the divide in Central North America.  After that we can set up our government along more moderate lines than what exists now.

First and foremost, the foreign policy of Goodenoughia will be neutral and anti-expansionist.  I think that Switzerland might be a good model for our foreign policy.  I think we should eliminate the federal income tax and fund the federal government with appropriations provided by the states in accordance with a budget agreed to by the senators that have been appointed by each state to serve.  I think the House of Representatives should exist to provide the people with a check on the activities of the executive branch.  And that branch should be kept in check by keeping its budget severely anemic.

I would eliminate the FBI.  I would eliminate the CIA.  The military should be quite small and professional.  In time of war a military leader would be appointed by the Senate and given the powers to marshal the resources needed to put the country on a war footing.  And the House would be the body that declared the beginning and end of war.

There would be no barrier to a state seceding.  Groups of states would be able to enter into limited enterprises like road building and financing projects and setting up policies that couldn’t find approval in the federal government.  Also a four fifths vote in the House of Representatives could vote to eject a state from the Union.

The Bill of Rights (and the Bill of Wrongs) would be unalterable within the framework of the laws.  Only the dissolution of the Union would allow for such changes.  And the right to bear arms would be unchallengeable anywhere within the Union.  The police would just have to work with it.

So there you go.  Have at it.  Next up I’ll continue with the clean-up program. A lot will have to be fixed to get us back to a sane place to live.

Updates:

ArthurinCali

Excellent steps to getting us back to being a real nation again and not just a global economic zone.

 

Milo Mindbender

“The military should be quite small and professional”
The original intent was to have a small cadre dedicated to maintaining the sinews of war, and to act as trainers for the new entries if there became a time we had to spool up for defense. We now have a semi professional military class that is scorned by our “betters”, and only useful for advancing their power and career.

 

War Pig

Unfortunately, as much as I dislike spooks generally, we do need some form of CIA, along with the NSA and NRO. We need to keep agents all over the world so that a finger on the pulse of a possible opponent can become a hand around the throat if necessary.

The problem with the most general form of isolationism is that it is only reactionary, and in these times, waiting to react can be too damn late. We have to be able to fight on almost no notice with the troops and equipment and weapons on hand. There will be no time to ramp up production as in WWII.

Also, given the chance, I always prefer to make the opponent support war on his own ground, not ours. So I’ll fight or send troops, money and machines to oppose the dastards as far from our shores as possible. Our keeping at least one, and usually more, generations ahead in weaponry, tactics and equipment, including cyber, has kept the world rather stable since Korea. You may look around and say; “Stable? You’re kidding, right?” I am not kidding. Sure there are some regional catfights going on and a genocide attempt or two in places like Rwanda, but overall things had been quite stable until Putin got uppity and the Iranians backed the wrong players. Do NOT annoy the Israelis by raping and murdering hundreds of their women and children. Yet even with those two blunders, American (and Israeli) intelligence, reconnaissance and military technology are keeping a lid on things, if only a loose lid. Hamas and Iran have both been surprised at the depth of Israeli penetration into their plans, organization and personnel. Putin has been stymied so far by the technology, intelligence and tactics the US and NATO have been supplying to Ukraine. The weakness of Ukraine is manpower. They may run out of men to fight. Worn down by Russian war crimes of targeting civilians and infrastructure such as targeting hospitals and the like.

While we suffered a political defeat in Vietnam and Afghanistan, both the enemy and the rest of the world knows we cannot be defeated militarily. That was the genius of General Schwarzkopf. Go all out, balls to the wall, and win the damn war before the politicians have the chance to muck it up. Barring nuclear weapons deployment, one US corps could roll up Ukraine and be in Moscow in less than two weeks. All Russia’s aircraft would be destroyed, their fleet sunk, tanks turned into scrap. Putin is not stupid. He knows that, which is why he has been careful not to trigger Article 5 of the NATO charter by doing more than some occasional teasing of Poland, and giving a very wide berth to Romania, where over 3,000 troops of the 101st Airborne/Air Assault have been relocated.

 

Glenn W

In reply to War Pig.
I agree with much of what you said but, to be honest, I do lean isolationist. I certainly agree that we should be able to defend American interests (or the interests of Goodenoughia) but I would be fairly restrictive in defining the national interest.

I really don’t think we should be the world’s police force. I told a good friend of mine a while back that we need to call the legions home and he disagreed with me (you may as well). He felt there are a lot of bad people out there that need killing. That is undoubtedly true but do we really need to be killing people on most every continent in the world? How do we benefit from this?

 

Glenn W

Once again I think there is much food for thought in this installment of your Republic. I think right now the U.S. states have the ability to call a constitutional convention by a two-thirds vote (see this article).

As far as states being able to secede at will I think the idea might work if the states were always to act in good faith. However, not all states will always act in good faith. It is easy for me to imagine states using the secession option as a force multiplier and, in the end, to cause a tremendous amount of instability.

photog:

In reply to Glenn.
Glenn, in defense of secession, I’ll say that this scenario is contingent that we’ve already had the bust-up of the USA. At that point we will have failed to bridge our differences and I would think everyone will have become leery of tying themselves together too tightly going forward. If some time in the future even Leftwingistan sees the error in their ways and wants to patch up the Union it’s possible it could be done but I guarantee that after what we’ve seen many would prefer an escape hatch.

 

Glenn W

In reply to photog.

Hi photog,

I don’t disagree and I acknowledge you make some very good points. I also admit that I have an emotional attachment to what has been and don’t want to see it disappear. An emotional attachment does not necessarily mean an irrational attachment. Even if the Union had acceded to all the South’s demands and left Ft Sumter before any shots were fired there was still going to be war in the west.

I know we’re talking about Goodenoughia here but James Lindsay had an interesting article titled “National Divorce is National Suicide” which has some good points but is wrong on other points. For example, he can stay in a blue state and sacrifice his family’s safety so we don’t become more polarized.

I readily admit that there may be no good choices. I am enjoying your series so far, thank you!

photog:

I’m glad you’re enjoying it too.  Why should Plato have had all the fun?  Plus thought experiments are intellectually stimulating.  Put aside reality and look at the possibilities.  In Goodenoughia I’ve shed the most extreme partisans of the far left and the far right and I can try to imagine how the people in the middle can try to muddle along based on common sense and a little bit of tolerance.  Not too much mind you,  Just enough not to have to throw the well meaning people overboard over skin color but not enough to allow us to be guilted into being ashamed of who we are.  Good enough.

 

War Pig

In reply to photog.
The spies are necessary and have been in use since before the Roman Legions and the Huns. You keep them in line by a strong President and a watchful congress who are not afraid of mass firings and even prosecutions. I don’t like THIS particular CIA. We need one, but the one we have now needs to be severely trimmed and reshaped.

Know who began the downfall of it all? Smiling Jimmy Carter. His edict and bullying thru legislation never to use “human rights abusers” as paid informants. It pretty much demolished our HUMINT capabilities and sowed mistrust thereafter. In fact, Carter’s decree led directly to 9/11. Who the heck did he think we should be paying for information on terrorists, Mother Theresa?

 

photog

in reply to War Pig

Prosecutions are definitely already in order.  But we get nothing.  The Intel agencies just close ranks and declare that the info is too sensitive for the Congress and the President.  If we need them we need a whole new bunch and we’ll have to start by firing and then prosecuting the whole bunch of them.

 

War Pig

In reply to photog

Didn’t say it would be easy. The CIA cannot refuse the President and the senate. If they try, President can just fire them and demand access. As chief of the executive branch, CinC of the military and of the intelligence services he can override any of them. Now, the intel services can misdirect by omission. If the President and Senate do not know certain documents exist, they cannot demand them. But if the President orders the Director of the CIA to bring him documents a thru z, unredacted, the Director must comply. Else he is guilty of a first degree felony, at the least.

 

photog

In reply to War Pig

They don’t seem worried about felonies anymore.  They just get a convenient Obama appointed judge to drop the charges and move on.  We’re in a bad spot.

So here I am playing Plato in drawing up my Republic.  I have no philosopher kings.  All I have is the experience of where our country went wrong.

The first order of business is analyzing this calamity.

The current theories about why everything fell apart can be broken up into a few schools of thought.  The most extreme diagnosis is that the Enlightenment is the source of our problem.  The idea is that changing the focus of human thought from God to the individual is the root of all the problems we are experiencing.  Now I don’t want to go through all of this theory but basically, it’s saying that eliminating God from the human world eventually leads to pathological selfishness that destroys human society.

Maybe that’s true but I’m not about to bring us back to the 1300’s where most of us would be serfs working in an agricultural field for whichever landlord ruled the county.  Instead let’s look at the basic problems that have erupted over the last century or so.

The first thing that has to go is identity politics.  In Goodenoughia we’re all Goodenoughians and any hyphenated Goodenoughians would just be too many letters to manage so we’re banning that.  If you have any grudges against anyone because of race color or creed keep them to yourself because the government doesn’t want to know about them.  And in fact, if you say you object to how your people are treated in Goodenoughia you will be given a hearty handshake and a one-way bus ticket to Leftwingistan.

And if you find your personal pronouns or your desire to dress in drag are disrespected you will be sent (by bus) where these idiosyncrasies are embraced and celebrated.  So, a win/win!  In general, the government will spend its time and energy encouraging things that enhance the stability and social cohesion of the population.  Policies will be established that tend to strengthen the middle class.  From the top, industries that provide employment will be discouraged from sending jobs overseas by tariffs and incentives.  From the bottom there will be direct incentives for young people to get married and have children.  Married couples will be given tax breaks and school vouchers to encourage family building.  And there will be a complete abandonment of any government programs that advantage women over men in school admissions or employment.  Women will no longer be considered a protected class.

And in fact, there won’t be any protected classes.  Everybody will have to find their own friends without the government doing it for them.  And right there most of our problems would be solved.  I guess we could add a section to the Constitution to outlaw the idea of special privilege but it’s really already there.  All we might have to do is add a death penalty to any government officials who try to sneak any in.

But for the next installment we’ll talk about what changes have to be made to the government to keep us from being persecuted by our own government again.

 

Updates:

Nostradumbass

So…It seems Leftwingistan has a “religion” (a creed if you will) based on leftwingism. If Goodenoughia does not allow me to air my grudges against certain creeds, my prodigies will be uninformed of the perversion of language and art that takes place in Leftwingistan. Moreover, they may be lulled into allowing illegal Leftwingistanian migrant “newcomers” to overrun our borders. God save Goodenoughia.

 

Chemist

Good start. I like it.

 

Chemist

In reply to Nostradumass.
I’m pretty sure that photog will get around to education. Not to steal his thunder, but I expect that schools will be required to teach the true history of Goodenoughia – that it is a good place and a place worth defending and preserving.
One of the problems with the US today is that we have taught the last generations that the US is an evil place: Born in colonization and built on slavery and that “Original sin” can never be washed away.

 

Nostradumbass

In reply to Chemist.
The Problem with the US today is that it really is an evil place.

 

TomD

A/the major killer of employment in the US is the maze of laws too numerous to count and too complicated to fathom, all of which have one main result: make it too expensive and difficult to employee Americans.

The ADA, family leave act, the 10’s of thousands of laws mandating this and that.

I listen to talk radio as I travel around and hear a common ad from an HR outfit. One of the ads goes “One of my employees never shows up when he’s supposed to. What do I do?” Employment law has become so insanely non intuitive that the most obvious situation on earth requires the input of a lawyer.

SEVERELY limit the legislative capability of government. All laws have a 5-year sunset term after which, unless the proponents of the law can demonstrate the financial and results oriented metrics demonstrate the efficacy of the law to a neutral panel, it’s gone. And 5 years later, do it again.

Term Limits!!!!!!!

Severe penalties ruthlessly applied for corrupt politicians. The corruption police not subject to the politicians and themselves strictly term limited.

photog:

Tom, the good thing about starting over means you can keep what works and jettison the rest.  All you need is a wise editor.  Luckily we can be those arbiters.  And the best way to keep things lean is to limit the budget they have to work with.  No income tax should definitely help.  That’s on tomorrow’s post.

 

Glenn W

Hyphenated Goodenoughians are what the Founders called Faction and they considered it to be a major threat to the Republic.It appears they tried to suppress faction in the early days of the Republic but that faded away as they died off.

James Madison acknowledged that parties were inevitable. He did advocate ways to combat the formation of parties which surprised me a bit (probably because I’ve spent too much time around Libertarians):

1. By establishing a political equality among all.

2. By withholding unnecessary opportunities from a few, to increase the inequality of property, by an immoderate, and especially unmerited, accumulation of riches.

3.By the silent operation of laws, which, without violating the rights of property, reduce extreme wealth towards a state of mediocrity, and raise extreme indigence towards a state of comfort.

4.By abstaining from measures which operate differently on different interests, and particularly such as favor one interest at the expense of another….

If this is not the language of reason, it is that of republicanism.

photog

Glenn, I’ve of late changed my mind about campaign money.  I think the campaigns should be funded by the government and levelled so that it’s as equal as possible.  How that will work I don’t know but the current system is an abomination and adds to the corruption of our government.

I was having a discussion with a friend recently and we were talking about the Dissident Right.  Now I’m using that term in a restrictive sense.  Casually speaking, anyone who would like to see Mitch McConnell retire is considered a dissident in Washington.  But I guess specifically I mean people for whom the only solution to the present state of the country is setting up separate ethnostates for the various ethnicities and races.  Basically, folks who have made up their minds that, “We all can’t get along.”

And after our discussion it got me thinking about just how big a range there is in the opinions of non-leftists.  If tomorrow the Left magically disappeared what would happen on the Right?  Let’s say that the much-anticipated civil war was avoided by an amicable divorce where each state voted to go left or right.  So, the Left Coast and the Northeast all the way down to DC and the Great Lakes and a few other odds and ends all form the happy People’s Republic of Leftwingistan.  And the folks that didn’t like the way their states voted on both sides were given generous relocation packages and allowed to move to the other side.  So now each side is only one thing.  Then what would our side do?

So here we have the dissident right and they want to be free.  They don’t like these people over here or those people over there.  Let’s be measured and say they’d only be happy in a state where everyone was descended from northern Europeans.  Okay fine.  They are convinced that genetic pedigree will determine the character of the government and the culture of a society.  Then maybe they should have their own experiment.  And let’s say they could all live in Kansas or Nebraska or the Mountain West or pick a place.  Is that what they’d want?  Maybe.  And what kind of laws would they want?  I assume immigration into their state would be among the most important laws because maintaining that ethnic specificity wouldn’t happen automatically.  So possibly this “state” would have to be a separate country.  But my people were from Southern Europe.  From the dissidents’ point of view, we’re just some mutts or other and don’t belong in their thing.  Okay, that’s fine.  That choice is not for me.  I’ll wish them well and wave them goodbye.

So right off the bat I can see that even without the Left we’d still be divided.  Continuing my thought experiment, what about what’s left of the population?  What are we looking at?  We’ve removed the Left and all those who either believe in what they believe in or think they’ll get a better deal with them.  And the Dissident Right have their paradise.  That leaves us with either the people who believe in the American proposition or who know that life in Leftwingistan will turn into a chaotic hell and are going along with us for the ride.  The people making up this third group are a pretty motley crew.  But let’s see what they could do to make their “Union more perfect.”

Let’s assume that what’s left is in disarray.  The whole thing is a bit of a dumpster fire and a solution is needed to re-establish this republic.  In the past, in places like Athens or Sparta, when the state was in disarray and they needed to fix it, they’d go to a “Sage.”  A Lycurgus or Solon would step in and write new laws that could re-found the state and balance out the inequities and fix the problems.  There would usually be a debt forgiveness and a tax holiday to start things off on a happy note.  But the new foundation tried to learn from the lessons of the past and correct them.  And when the Athenian Democracy crashed and burned at the end of the Peloponnesian War Plato wrote a thought experiment about founding a new state in his dialog “The Republic.”  And because of who Plato was, needless to say, this was a pretty abysmal roadmap for setting up a state from a practical point of view.  Really effective philosopher-kings have always been in very short supply when you need them.

But, be that as it may, I will attempt to soldier on and take a swat at it.  I, photog will lay down the foundation for a new nation that I will provisionally call “Goodenoughia.”  A better name may occur to me later.  And this is how the game will be played.  Anyone can call me out in the comments section where it seems I’m going wrong and I’ll give him equal time by adding those comments to the post as updates.  Hopefully by the end of the exercise we will have come up with a rebooted America that only has to be put into effect by following our brilliant roadmap.  Of course, when Plato attempted to have the tyrant, Dionysius II of Syracuse apply his Republic as a blueprint for his rule, I believe Plato almost got his head chopped off.  But those were less enlightened times and I’m sure I will be treated in a more humane way today because of …, reasons.  So here we go.  Oh boy!

Update:

TomD

“Assuming that Goodenoughia will have democratic DNA be it representative or direct, I think that voter status should be limited and prized with significant requirements for entry.

Problem being that the bulk of the people would tend to think that the required characteristics for voter status should whatever characteristics that they themselves possess.”

photog

Tom, I agree with both those statements.  I think a minor change would be to increase the age to 25.  Most eighteen-year-olds lack maturity when it comes to politics.  I’d also say remove women from the franchise.  Now that will cause an explosion.

War Pig

Follow Heinlein in Starship Troopers.

 

Glenn W

I’m looking forward to reading your approach. Who knows, you might be the next Solon!

Everyone seems to be throwing ideas around about how to fix our broken society. I suppose there is a kind of broad agreement on the dissident right that any system that involves participation in government by the governed is a bad idea. I personally don’t like the idea of being changed from a citizen to a subject.

On the Christian side of things we had The Benedict Option a few years ago. I read it and was completely underwhelmed.Now there is The Boniface Option which I have no intention of reading. I’m going to wait until someone publishes the John Locke Option before buying another one of those books. I think I’m going to be waiting a long time.

photog

I have to admit I’m having fun writing my edicts.  It feels good to be king (or Solon as the case may be).  Of course I’m not addressing how we get to the bust up of this unhappy disunion but I’ll let this thought experiment play out first.