Author: photog

I said at the end of the third installment that we need to continue with the clean-up program. A lot will have to be fixed to get us back to a sane place to live.  Ain’t that the truth!

And the epicenters of this dysfunction are the urban centers.  Think of the states that are typically considered the red states and would probably be included in Goodenoughia; Missouri, Texas, Louisiana, Indiana, etc.  Some of the large cities in these states are war zones.  There are permanent populations that do not work and live off of welfare and crime of various types and are basically illiterate and anti-social.  These areas are the headquarters of criminal organizations that sell narcotics and engage in human trafficking of various sorts.  And since the George Floyd riots the police have abdicated responsibility for protecting the remaining portions of the urban population from these criminal elements.

This must be corrected.

First and foremost, the authority of the police must be reestablished.  The governors and legislatures of the effected states must produce laws that allow emergency powers to round up the worst and most dangerous criminals and take them permanently off the streets.  After that “broken windows” policing must be reestablished.  The ghettos need to be as safe as the business district.  All of this will require a very large prison system.  That is just the price of being a society.  And it makes sense for the prison system be as technologically advanced as possible to eliminate as much of the prison violence as is practical.  One thing that might help is restoring capital punishment for repeat violent offenders.  It would be a kindness to everyone.

So, there’s the band aid.  Now to attack the underlying problem.  Welfare does not need to be reformed.  It needs to be eliminated.  The idea is if you don’t work you don’t eat.  Certainly, this will have to be eased into but the idea is to force useless people to become useful.  This will require a lot of creative thinking on the part of municipal authorities.  But considering the number of pot holes currently existing in urban streets, road repair comes to mind.  But however it is done, we have to end the idea that we pay people to sit around on their streets shooting each other and playing basketball.  Those that prove that they can only rob and kill will be fed into the prison system.  Everyone else will adapt.

And next in the program is school.  School for the urban poor will also have to adapt.  For the cooperative, intelligent cohort it can be the normal public school; reading, writing, arithmetic.  For the unintelligent, it can be some kind of vocational training.  Even learning to use a broom and a mop is a viable skill that has some value.  For the uncooperative there is the road to prison with a last chance in a reform school type environment.  But what is uppermost is that the kids who actually can and want to learn are separated from the cretins and criminals.

The fact that our cities have been allowed to become war zones is the clearest proof that those in charge are unfit to serve.  Any city that doesn’t quickly adopt an improvement plan like the one I’ve outlined must be taken over by the state and forced into line.  Rudy Giuliani in the late 1990s proved unmistakably that empowering the police to combat crime, head on, works.  New York City’s subsequent relapse into chaos is clear proof that the correct political orientation must also be there.  In Goodenoughia any city administrations that allow anarchy and crime to go unchecked will be impeached by the Governor and replaced by a commission to oversee the administration of law and order.  And this can become a permanent arrangement if the locals refuse to maintain order.

I consider fixing the cities the emergency action needed to restore order.  Next up I’ll think of what other changes will turn Goodenoughia into a photog’s paradise.

 

Updates

Glenn W

I completely agree with everything you wrote. All hail photog! I would like to add another related item. A major driver, if not THE major driver, of these societies disintegrating is the breakdown of the family. This is another thing that will take some time to reverse but most of the feminist “reforms” that have discouraged two parent families need to be dismantled. To have well adjusted children the norm must be two parent families.

The thing that I think will be very difficult to do is to re-establish trust in the police in these nearly lawless areas. There are people I trust (not BLM types!) that have told stories about some really lousy things local police have done. Truth be told, I have a neighbor that is a policeman who has anger management issues. I do not feel more safe having him so close to my home. I really and truly hope I don’t get on his bad side.

You are correct though, law enforcement is a basic function of government and it needs to be reestablished everywhere immediately.

Glenn, I know that there are some very bad cops and I have very close relatives who are very negative on the police because they feel that policing often violates protected civil liberties.  Nevertheless trying to run a large city without the police doesn’t work.  Living in a city requires certain losses of freedom by definition.

What should be easier to define is behavior that requires the perpetrators to be incarcerated.  Theft, assault, reckless endangerment; all of these trample on someone else’s rights and require someone to apply force to stop their commission.

Things like helmet cams make it easier for cops to be monitored.  It will never be a perfect system but in places like New York and Los Angeles we are learning what it means to have no police force on duty.  It doesn’t work very well.

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.