Long before Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon, the Roman Republic stopped being a serious political entity. The system was still a well thought out and conceived system of governance, but the people operating could no longer be trusted to operate it. The Roman political class could no longer trust itself, because the political class was no longer dominated by serious men. The proof of that was not just its collapse, but the fact that men like Marius and Sulla existed and needed to exist in order for the system to stagger on.
The old line about people getting a government they deserve always comes up whenever someone points out the defects of democracy. It’s circular reasoning but an effective way of not addressing the real issue. That is, a people with a capable ruling elite can get along and be happy with just about any form of political system. A people who need the restraint of democracy or a strong constitution to tame their ruling classes is a people with a ruling class incapable of operation a constitutional government and abiding by its limits.
What this means is the people don’t get the government they deserve, so much as they get the government their ruling class deserves. Even that does not explain why it is that the ruling elites of a society can go rotten within a generation or two. The human capital of America in the 18th century was certainly different than that of today. The ruling elite it produced was very different from today. But, the population of America a century ago was not that much different than today. We’re a little browner, but materially much better off.
As the circus of the Kavanaugh confirmation unfolds, it is important to note that the people creating the circus are not the brown ones. Sure, they were the opening acts, but the main stage is populated with geezers produced by the ruling class of a half century ago. Diane Feinstein is the representative of a the generations that produced the cultural revolution of the 1960’s, not someone from the current age. In other words, the American ruling class started going sour a long time ago. We’re just getting to smell the rotting corpse of it.
You have to wonder if if events like this are what gives the remaining serious men the idea of toppling over the system. In the Roman Republic, the one place where merit counted was in the military. There were plenty of politics, of course, but ultimately a man was what he showed on the field of battle. Read accounts of Caesar in Gaul and the man was not just a great general. He was a lion on the field. While there were plenty of old men in the Roman senate who served their time in the legions, none were the equal of Cesar.
No matter how sophisticated a society, men judge other men by the simple calculation of whether they can take them in a fight. You have to think that the men running the military look over at their civilian leadership and wonder why they are taking orders from clowns like they see in the Senate. This must be especially true of the junior officers, most of whom by this point have done tours in Afghanistan and the Middle East. As patriots, they have to be looking at the civilian leadership with nothing but contempt.
That’s not to say we are about to have a military coup. It’s always possible, but the one place where civic nationalism is strongest is within the military. The one place where multicultural lunacy is strongest is within the senior leadership ranks of the services. The civilian leadership remains cautious enough to make sure the top brass of the military are just as feckless and craven as the civilian side. Even there though, the ingredients are in place for a young and ambitious officer to start thinking about a short cut to the top.
Putting the military coup aside, watching the Kavanaugh circus should be a reminder that America is one serious crisis away from collapse. The financial crisis of 2008 was so terrifying to the elites, because they sense the fragility of their position. The central bankers were able to contain it and limit the damage to the public, by pushing the costs off into the future. The US debt now stands at $21.4 trillion for a reason, but you can only charge off the costs of a crisis so many times. At some point, the elites must act.
It’s clear that the political elite of America is incapable of handling a genuine crisis. They struggle to do the basics of government now. They still have not written and passed a budget for next fiscal year. This is ground floor stuff. If they cannot handle the simplest of tasks, how will the “world’s greatest deliberative body” manage to debate a response to a genuine crisis? The answer, of course, is they won’t because they can’t. Instead, they will look around for the strong man to arrive and take over the task from them.
That’s what we are seeing with the Kavanaugh hearings. Serious men would never have allowed a handful of deranged matrons, suffering from the typical middle aged female hysteria, to disrupt this process. Generation after generation since Gettysburg, the political elite has grown weaker as the quality of the ruling elite has declined. Maybe the system is to blame. Maybe the breeding patterns of the elites are to blame. Maybe it is just an example of reversion to the mean. Either way, our elites are no longer elite.
I’ve long had a theory about the elite class. They have an expiration date. The very nature of living an elite lifestyle causes that family to become withdrawn and out of touch with normal society. It also gives the elite family the ability to protect and nurture their idiots. We all have morons in our family but we love them and if we could we would protect them, from themselves.
However, the elite class has that power, and they do protect their morons and secure them away in high paying but ultimately “safe” positions where they can do no harm, but this creates an important measurement within the elite class. Call it the moron value, once you get a critical amount of morons, once your moron value reaches a critic number then your elite class becomes incompetent, and that’s when the fun begins. Their incompetence will create the crisis that fitness tests them to ensure they deserve to be “elite”.
They will be faced with a challenge of their own creation that will threaten their way of life and perhaps even their very lives. Considering that the moron value has risen to a dangerous level most won’t survive, or at the very least maintain their elite status. There is opportunity here though, As our elite class fail people turn to individuals who are not of the elite class and offer them the opportunity to fix the problem, and if they succeed then they will become a new member of the elite class and infuse it with new blood and vibrancy. Crisis both purges our elite class of poor stock and also opens the door for competent worthy new blood.
While I might not go as far as attributing to black magic the problem here is that we aren’t seeing the man behind the curtain. Their is a world order that is entirely covert and only seen through a glass darkly, a breakaway civilization that is running the world for its own interests. Various people have alluded to this in unguarded moments – most famously in the UK the Queen is reported by a member of the royal household to have said, “There are powers at work in this country about which we have no knowledge.”
See also the missing 21 Trillion $.
Ephesians 6:12 KJV
My daughter the recently retired Lt. Col. told me that many junior officers, captain and below, were not retained after the withdrawal from Iraq so no hope there.
Except that they are out here now, among us, and free to let their frustration and anger flow, to awaken fully to the “rules of engagement.”
And to apply their training and experience truly in the cause of their own people.
Semi-off-topic: the Kavanaugh hearing is fascinating in that it’s providing enormous rage-justifying confirmation bias for both sides.
I mean, I know that we’re right, and that this is just a rerun of the Duke rape case, Roy Moore, etc. They’ve gone emotionally all-in to defend a character-assassinating lie.
But the reaction of both sides is, “this proves just how evil the other side is.” It’s a very interesting event in political psychology.
It’s a re-run of the Thomas hearings, except the racial angle this time is that it is Ok to accuse a white man of anything.
His speech today should be enough to get him confirmed. Lots of women crying while watching him talk about his kids. Everyone assumes women will naturally side with the woman, but it often works the other way. Women know exactly what Ford is doing. they see right through her. Not the rage heads, of course, but they don’t matter. Normal women are not fooled by the Ford performance.
Damn. Good to hear. I’m gonna have to watch this crap now.
Watching it now. Good to see him acting like a man finally.
Acting like a man? He’s crying like a girl, for heaven’s sake! I had to turn it off, it was so cringey.
“Man” was an unfair word to begin with. How about feisty? Pissed? Human? I’d like to see you perform under the world spotlights, guy named Felix.
I’m not running for SCOTUS.
Pingback: The elite’s universal self chosen damnation. – Dark Brightness
Speaking of serious men, I’m waiting for our precocious CIA psych professor, little Chrissy Ford, to show up in pigtails and a flouncy gingham dress, with a lollipop.
Winner!!!!
The devolution from Shirley Temple’s America to that of the Soulless Sold Out Bought and Paid For Bitch Whose Name(s) I Cannot Type is nauseating.
That the most important job of the state is the nurture of the next generation of the elite has been known since forever. Historically that work focused on the existing elite and their kids. But even at the most intellectually advanced level that job has been, in the terms of the Current Year, “problematic”. Plato made kind of a mess with Dion of Syracuse, and Aristotle’s much more spectacular experiment with Alexander the Great was similarly unstable. Our founder’s experiment was to treat everyone (well, every free European propertied male, anyway) as a potential elite and let the best man win. No hereditary aristocracy. That was probably doomed from the start, both because of the natural tendency of any existing elite to want to pass their status on to their sons, however feckless and/or idiotic, and more importantly the political advantages that might flow to one faction from expanding the base of the potential elite (citizens). If every sentient mammalian biped is a citizen, the task is hopeless.
So we stagger along waiting for our version of Z-man’s Alaric.
If Kavanaugh isn’t confirmed, then… then… then… conservatives will piss and moan about it for a few weeks, write long screeds about how the Republic and Rule of Law are dead, threaten dire consequences when the NEXT bad thing happens, then quietly go back to work and pay taxes to the guilty parties.
That’s the problem: no consequences. The deranged lunatics on the left are a pretty horrible way to maintain party discipline, but they are effective.
Trump has not signed the spending bill yet. I suspect he is holding that over their heads. It’s why the GOP has scheduled votes on Kavanaugh and claim they have the votes. That and this does seem to be blowing up in the Dems face.
Nah, Trump knows he can’t win on the spending bills. It’s been mentioned before, but the second there’s actually a shutdown, the boomer base suddenly remembers how important the government is. We all like to think that a shutdown ought to be good for Republicans (yay limited government!) but every single time they try, it’s a disaster.
Unless you mean that Trump is threatening to burn his own house down and veto the spending bill in order to torpedo Republican re-elections. I think they’d call his bluff, though – they know that he knows they can’t afford to lose the Senate.
Doesn’t mean it’s all over. The silver lining is that these accusations are so ridiculous, even the cuckier Republicans are getting pissed off. Every time Dems double down, support for Kavanaugh goes up. So this might still play out in their favor.
But that doesn’t change the lack of consequences for defection. It’s becoming increasingly obvious that every group on the right is either too weak or too complacent to actually do anything about the constant betrayals, other than rant and rave when they happen, which accomplishes nothing.
Nope. Trump acceded to McYertle’s begging for FBI b/c Trump knows that the shit here is spattering all over the Democrats and the stinking ‘women’ of “me too.”
Trump reads the public so well that it’s almost preternatural. It’s proven (see the election) that he reads the public FAR better than any pollster.
I’ve only seen Kavanaugh talking a bit. I could be wrong, but he seems too conciliatory or “understanding” with his voice and demeanor. If he acted like more of a man, and had more attitude, he might not be so easy to push around. Again, I could be wrong. Maybe he’s speaking the way he has too nowadays.
Dilbert man made the argument that in the face of sexual assault allegations coming off as a timid nerd was probably better than angry alpha.
I could not disagree more. He is really pissed about what this has done to him and his family. He’s actually mocking some of these Democrat shit heads.
That’s good to hear. I have only heard him talk when Kamala Harris was trying to grill him a few weeks ago. I believe he was too defensive during all that. I can’t watch this whole fiasco as it would make me crazy. But I know what’s going on. I hate my country.
I am watching the hearings. The Democrats are throwing Ford under the bus, using the hearings to score political points and argue for an FBI investigation in order to delay the nomination process. Ford is too stupid to get it.
My understanding is that no potential independent and ambitious man, as the military is currently run, is be able to get above lieutenant colonel. And it really would have to be ambition and glory, not patriotism, that drives such a man.
fond;
That was my experience, starting with the Clinton I regime. Apparently once the Cold War ended the Cloud concluded that having capable men on top was a danger to their rule.
Well, they probably always felt that way, it’s just the capable Soviet men were seen as a greater danger, so ours had to be tolerated.
My father was career Army from WWII said the same thing. The elites made sure the fire breathers and straight shooters didn’t get above short colonel or colonel in rare cases. They would never be allowed to make general. This is why Congress approves all promotions to general.
This is why we never had a general who resigned over our insane and useless wars, even though they would write in their memoirs that the wars were unwinnable. These men have no guts just obedience to the system. Powell and Patreus are great examples of this.
And why very bright officers with a independent thinking streak like MacGregor could only make Lt. Col.
Worse, this guarantees, that if mass civil disturbance happens, these generals will obey ANY order the elites give them. Including ordering their men to shoot civilians on sight.
Rod, did you ever read HR McMaster’s Dereliction of Duty? It’s fascinating. It’s one giant catalog of our stupidity in Vietnam. While LBJ and McNamara were “dialing in” “graduated pressure” to “communicate” with Hanoi, the Army was running the SIGMA war games. McNamara said Ho Chi Minh was getting the message because all the metrics were pointing that way… meanwhile, by the end of SIGMA II the army had half a million troops in SE Asia and was gearing up for a full scale invasion of North Vietnam — and all this in 1964!!
The kicker — McMaster went on to be Trump’s national security adviser, and started doing the exact same stupid shit in Afghanistan. He literally wrote the book on how to terminally fuck up an unwinnable conflict, and then followed his own advice.
If that’s the kind of guy who regularly makes rank in the modern military, we are well and truly screwed, beyond all hope of redemption.
Severian
No I didn’t, I did dig into McMasters bio and found he was stalled at Lt. Col until he hooked up with Patreus’s staff and started making promotions real fast. He said all the right things, embraced the Neo-Con/Globalist POV and the rest is history
Yes he’s a sell-out. he knows damn well the strategies he promoted to Trump were batshit crazy. But that’s whet the military establishment wants.
Is he the sort of man who makes rank? Yes. Many are worse.
Here’s a link below to a Army briefer’s view of our higher ups in Afghanistan. It’s funny, sad and scary at the same time. It’s like something out of a old SNL skit.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26263.htm
you will have to add the http stuff because blogger won’t take active links.
Saw a couple of good ones make it to full-bird, but that was it.
Some of you are missing the pack of pachyderm in the parlor:
Independent, free-thinkers tend not to be military men in the first place. After all, military men:
(1) feed at the public trough;
(2) they do not make or invent or provide any service upon a voluntary exchange basis;
(3) they pledge fealty to Caesar;
(4) they have been conditioned to obey orders; and
(5) they want and rely upon their government pensions.
I once owned those same ignorant opinions. Then I got to know a number of executive officers who blew my mind. Pure talent, creativity, and independence of thought. That any existed meant that more existed. Where we find the people you are talking about is in academia.
Yes !!!! Certainly the military is populated with all the bad characters making up humanity at large. But the above is an over simplification. There are many standouts among the dirtbags and rat-bastards who unfortunately do survive far up into the senior ranks due to persistance, naked political skill and an appalling absence of shame. But please don’t fall for such over-simplifications. There are tremendously selfless and dedicated performers functioning up through senior field grade ranks …. men not driven by your ascribed motives of “pension” and “trough”. Often, their sacrifices range far beyond those of their civilian counterparts.
Now, GOs are a different story, especially since Clinton et al. And yes, there is a tremendous institutional pressure to buy in to the corrupt ethic as one aims for stars. But to paint all alike as substandard losers demonstrates anfundamental lack of understanding concerning the military, its deepnproblems and real strengths.
Did you overlook the word “tend” in my assertion?
In service to your position, you appear prepared to jettison language precision.
It would also appear that you think that I have had little, if any, experience with military men.
To be sure, I have known military men who do have creativity and independence of thought.
They, however, are the exception.
To add to the military capabilities conversation above:
Keep in mind the US has the most combat tested military over the last 15+ years. Highly trained and effective at winning battles. That’s a full generation of warfighters. Pretty good kit & technology. Aging technologies. But still leading the world, albeit for the time being. Not large enough Force to invade Russia or China. Why would we? NeoCONjob fantasies?
On the converse, Russia nor China are coming here anytime soon.
The lack of massive Quantity of US armed Forces also mean they aren’t big enough as construed to control the entire country…. So, we’ve got ‘that’ going for us… Not to mention that some absurd percentage of total world firearms are in the hands of private US citizens. Out of ‘arms’ way… Doesn’t mean that The Evils aren’t dreaming of conquering their own country. Just real hard to do.. For now…
I want and expect the US to break up and I hope to end up—in my lifetime—in a new Christian nation governed by laws, free of Satan, at least mostly free. My hunch is that it will include the present states of Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana and the “oustate” areas of neighboring states. I hope economic collapse brings this on but I have a feeling it will come about through bloodshed.
T. S.;
Geopolitically, you need a seaport and defendable natural barriers. Sufficient good growing land is also important but not 100% essential (e.g. Japan & England).
The grouping you propose has none of these features, except maybe barriers. So unless it’s back to pre-industrial technology, your grouping would have to either expand to achieve these attributes of survival against hostile neighbors or eventually be crushed.
The center of the continent bounded by the Appalachians on the E and the 2nd range of the Rockies (or the Sierras) on the W *could* work (New Orleans is the seaport). Of course Canada would have to be dealt with some way or other (nothing personal) on the N. The Mexican desert on the S would be an effective barrier if enforced.
My main point is, there is not a geopolitically viable long-term separation solution that is much less than most of N America: Bad implications.
@ Al
Re: ” Of course Canada would have to be dealt with some way or other (nothing personal) on the N.”
If the kind of Balkanization or fracturing of which you speak comes to pass in the United States, it may well ignite something similar in Canada, where the more-traditional and conservative central-western provinces have been chaffing under the bicoastal leftists for years.
My point being, is that a rancher or farmer in Alberta has more in common with his counterpart in Wyoming or Nebraska than he does with the liberal-left elites in Ontario.
We’d best not write off our northern neighbors just yet. Hey, any nation hip-enough to invent hockey can’t be all bad, can it?
G. B.;
Your are entirely correct about N-S regional similarities between the US and Canada. But such a realignment of those similar territories necessarily entails breaking up one or both countries, indirectly making my point.
My main intended point re Canada was more a geo-strategic one. Fond as we all are of the Great White North, objectively, Canada exits at the sufferance of the US.*
Canada is 1/10 the US in population and economy. Those folks are almost entirely all strung out within 100km of the US northern border. This means that *opposed* US forces could cut Canada into pieces by severing their lateral communications in about 4 days, *marching on foot*.** This situation (+ StratCom; = nukes) would preclude overseas forces using Canadian territory to interfere directly in any US-located unpleasantness so long as we maintained the capability to move against Canada promptly.
So why would we possibly want/need to do this_?*** As I said, nothing personal, but the Canadian elite are almost entirely hostile and seem too rottenly stupid to block likely long-term Chinese or Russian^ interference efforts via British Colombia in the West or via the St Lawrence Seaway in the East. Hell, they’d probably propose this folly themselves. So it is regrettable but simple strategic logic that pre-emption might be necessary regardless of whatever US segmentation was in process.
So what should Canada do to avoid this_? Only a prompt, well enforced declaration of neutrality coupled with prompt expulsion of all Chinese (particularly) and Russian agents would likely suffice.
______________________________
* Before the end of the British Navy, we had an interesting standoff situation. Canada was a useful hostage against English interference in our affairs, for example during the US Civil War. Likewise the Brits were potentially able to cause us considerable trouble if they cared to via The St. Lawrence to cut off N England with forces brought in from overseas: Just like they tried to do during the Am. Revolution.
** By Canadian accounts the state of the Canadian military is parlous. Even were their hostile, globalist elite thrown out by Canadian nationalist patriots tomorrow, rebuilding it would take longer than the 6 years it took that mustached dude in Germany to rebuild his.
*** As Pres. Lincoln said when an opportunistic invasion of Canada was proposed during the last US Civil War, “One war at a time, gentlemen_!” But then Britiania ruled the waves, giving a strong strategic point to his sentiment.
^ Fishing in troubled waters for national advantage is a Russian core strategy from the middle ages on.
I’ll be there with you. House on market.
There is a reason the moral stock of our leaders was much higher 150 years ago and that reason is our society was mostly Christian. The values of Christianity have withstood the test of time:
Male leadership of the home and workplace.
High value and commitment to marriage and children.
High value of sexual purity and rejection of sexual deviancy.
Rejection of excessive use of alcohol and drugs.
Honesty in our judicial system.
And on and on…
It is no coincidence that the moral slide in our country goes hand and hand with it’s rejection of biblical Christianity.
The point Z-man has made in past posts is we can’t get back to the early 1800s. I agree with that. However, if our country is broken up into pieces in the future which I think is the inevitable end game of all this, a good start to the new country would be white/christian. Then a good form of government could be worked out from that starting point.
Yes.
We see quotes from some of the Founders about how the Constitution is meant for a religious, moral people and will not work for any others. We steadfastly ignore this because so many of us “know better”. There is no end of solutions proposed to bring sanity back but they all have no chance of being implemented for the simple reason that only a religious, moral people will go along with them and we no long have that. We have a mass of people who no longer even try to understand morality let alone the religious doctrines that give rise to morality.
“There is a reason the moral stock of our leaders was much higher 150 years ago and that reason is our society was mostly Christian.”
Absolutely correct and to the point to which I was alluding way up yonder.
Umnnnhh….yah….except this society remains ‘mostly Christian,’ at least nominally.
Perhaps the better term would be ‘mostly straight-laced Christians’–which is a far smaller cohort, perhaps as little as five percent.
“Short cut to the top.”
Can you spell T-R-U-M-P?
Yes, and I can spell “strawman.”
Can you spell, troll?
Leftists radicals became deeply entrenched in the principal institutions of society. That had much to do with what happened when my generation came of age in the 1960s. Perhaps the nation became ungovernable at that point and it’s more a matter of the elites pandering to the masses in order to keep the whole thing from going off the rails rather than a decline in the competence of the elites.
“became deeply entrenched….in the 1930s.”
It amazes me that people on the right in the here and now do not recognize the inevitably failure of the experiment of 1789 was finally achieved in 1933, and this is irreversible.
If you have been a dependent parasite for most of your life, the coming crisis (or perhaps collapse) is indeed a trauma of existential anxiety because you understand that you’re likely to die off due to a lack of productive contribution or even survival skill. Conversely, the able-bodied citizen views this event as a necessary catharsis and remedy for what ails us. The former will respond with handwringing, pouting, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. The latter will get to work and fight off all threats before rebuilding the next civilization. The crisis, when it comes, will be a cure, not a catastrophe.
Vomiting up last night’s party is never fun, but it is necessary.
With all due respect for your military, it is not the military of days past. To be fair, the US hasn’t won and held anything since occupying Japan and Germany.
Additionally, there have been plenty of top level military scandals including corruption, dereliction of duty, sexual harassment, abuse of power, etc. They may be wearing a uniform, but the only way you get to the top in any organization, especially a peace-time military, is through politics. The closest thing you had to Caesar was Eisenhower and there hasn’t been anyone like him in American military or politics since.
The aged hippies of the 60’s have been running things for years. In Europe it’s even worse since your liberals are not nearly as liberal as ours. Somehow we’re convinced it will always be this way and there are no consequences for idiotic political actions simply because our intellectual elites believe it to be true.
To your point of men sizing each other up in who could win a fight, that could not be more evident than meetings between Obama and Putin and Trump and Putin.
Please understand I have the full respect and appreciation of your young men and women in uniform. But I, as all men should, question the leadership that puts them in harms way.
To be fair the United States hasn’t been in a war since WWII. There have been many political actions that the US has engaged since then, but no wars.
I will say this about the neocons, you can’t have an effective military unless you practice practice practice. It’s the only way to effectively build up the noncom ranks and test equipment.
Russian equipment has always been significantly inferior and have the Chinese ever won a war that wasn’t against other Chinese in their entire history?
Most Russian equipment has been monkey models used by Third World armies.
A significant portion of what Saddam had in the first gulf war was the best the Russians had to offer. From the tanks to the air defense. Hot knife through butter is how I’d describe it. The rest of the world parades and brags about the best equipment in their respective militaries. I have zero idea what the best the U.S. military has to offer and, with all respect, neither do you or 99.999% of the people.
I can’t think of a single platform in which the U.S. is currently, or likely in the near future, outmatched. There has been some public noise about artillery, but I don’t know how much I’m buying even that.
The US is outmatched with ICBMs, we are using a vintage 70s model, while the Russians have continued developing them. I agree that isn’t a point in Russia’s favor, as they can’t afford a stealth bomber.
In ’91 the Iraqis had longer range artillery they bought from South Africa. I spent an unpleasant night with that stuff falling around me while we fired back with Rocket-Assisted Projectiles (RAP) rounds that didn’t seem to do much.
Then the sun came up and Marine Harriers went hunting and annihilated their arty.
What is the US equivalent of the Iskander?
Some of the American MLRS have long-range capability with smaller rockets. American Army never bought into the big tactical surface-to-surface ballistic rockets like the Russians.
The US also never put much into SAM systems, since the Nike program was cancelled. The Fighter Mafia ensured of it. Cash strapped Russia was therefore forced to invest its limited resources into the S-300, S-400 and S-500.
That’s mostly due to civilian leadership. A serious country would have fire bombed Kabul after 9/11 and then sent a list of demands to surrounding countries. The military itself is more than able to the job. It’s why the feckless civilian leadership likes having the military station all over the world, rather than at home it barracks, watching the circus of American life.
It is an interesting question though, with regards to the US military in a domestic setting. Could our government call out the national guard in an emergency? The response to Katrina suggests no. If you can muster the guard units in a natural disaster, how can you call in the regular army to quell civil unrest? Would the army even respond?
I would assume there are people sitting around studying these sorts of scenarios, but maybe not.
A serious country wouldn’t have been meddling in that hornets nest for all these years.
A serious country would have seriously investigated 9/11 instead of blaming it on Kabul.
The Israelis, ably assisted by US Neoconservatives, did 9/11, not Osama Bin Laden.
The bigger question is whether or not conflicting organizations (e.g. Army, vs. Guard vs. FBI vs. Local SWAT) would end up turning on each other.
Karl;
Given that the National Guard answers to each states’ governor, you could count on it happening in some states. How many, who knows.
Locally-situated FBI (and other such locally situated armed Fed police forces – and there are many of them) plus any hostile locally-controlled SWAT teams, (who are each not even a full platoon, BTW) would have to be awfully lucky to escape being rounded up by the guard in a full-on scenario. But the sorting would be ugly indeed and no sane man should wish for it.
If I had to guess, I’d say that something like a Spanish Civil War scenario would be most likely if it came to that. And we know how ugly that was.
Al – If your State Guard is comprised of local residents of each state, and they report to the State Governor, then it would be very interesting to see if they stand with the local population against Federal enforcement. I read that some states are taking a reverse stand against gun control laws just as sanctuary states for illegal immigration, so there may be something to it.
Historically the NG has had zero qualms shooting dead men, women and children when ordered to as in the case of striking mine and foundry workers.
They don’t teach this anymore, but the NG was a favored blunt instrument of the elite along with Pinkerton Men(forerunner to Blackwater) to crush worker uprisings. Because they were seen as the personal goon squad of the governor whom the elites owned.
People have no idea what rotten, ruthless SOB’s those elites were like at the turn of the last century.
The regular Army is no better. Though if the order is given it will cause the Army to shatter. It won’t exist in it’s current form within a week of being called to shoot American citizens.
The police will likely sit out any civil war if they are smart. They will let FBI/DHS goons do the bleeding.
Yup. The NG’s also shot up a bunch of strikers at a Milwaukee foundry in the late 1800’s. A (R) governor–Rusk–ordered the shooting.
That’s one of the two big reasons that Wisconsin Catholics have voted (D) for near 100 years. The other was the early 1900’s (R) support for wacko-bird psych-experiments of a certain Dr. Rogers of UW-Madison. (Rogers Memorial hospital in Oconomowoc is named for this troglodyte.)
Karl;
A National Guard unit dual-reports to the State Adjutant General who is a two-star general officer appointed by the State’s Governor and to the Guard Bureau in DC which is part of the Dept. of Defense (DoD). In theory the Guard Bureau is simply there to ensure training and equipment (paid for largely by the Feds) standards are maintained. But in practice the Guard Bureau controls all senior guard officer promotions and so it and the DoD have considerable influence.
A National Guard unit can be activated by either the Governor (for flood relief, etc.) or by the President (via the DoD) with the theoretical consent of Congress and also the consent of the Governor just like a regular, full-time military unit.
In practice, so long as some units are available for local contingencies, the governors don’t make trouble about some of ‘their’ units being called up and deployed overseas on a rotating basis as part of our never-ending excellent Mid East adventures.
As if this were not complex enough, some states have actual State Guard organizations which are exclusively creatures of those states and not available for federal service as units. On 9/11 the New York *State* Guard was of notable help, particularly in evacuating Manhattan by boat.
There are also considerable Reserve Units of all five military services which used to be locally situated and are not under any state’s control. In normal practice they are ‘weekend warriors’ just like the National Guard (1 weekend a month for individual training and 2 weeks of annual training by unit per year). In theory the President via the various Reserve Commands in each military service in the DoD can call them up for Federal Service given Congressional approval. The idea was that by requiring Congressional Approval to activate the Guard and Reserve Forces, Executive Branch military adventurism would be curtailed. Sec. Def. Rumsfeld blew right through all such restraints tight after 9/11 and Congress, by their supineness, endorsed it.
When competent people with a common political culture are in charge this seemingly hopelessly complex situation can work (just) OK. The value in the US system is that it can provide considerable ready-to-go military strength when needed at minimal cost, just like the old Prussian and German Empire reserve systems (which it was modeled after) did.
Given the rotten elite we have now, who can know what a crisis might bring. Unit commanders will likely have jump some way or other with little time to decide. And their decisions will only prevail with the passive consent of the sergeants and mud-level officers.
“…it is not the military of days past.”
On a slightly related note, I’m always running across the firmly-held belief of those on the Right that “the military would never fire on its own citizens” and similar sentiments. Basically, the Left could never successfully use the military against the Right because all order takers (if not all order givers) lean Right. But my experience – admittedly, it’s a small data set, ~20 – runs about 50/50 for ex military guys leaning Right (usually Moderate) vs Left (always Far Left). Maybe that’s specifically a result of no longer being active duty (although why, I couldn’t say), but I do wonder what the split is among active-duty soldiers.
They wouldn’t even risk seeing how much they could trust regular army units. The point of drone warfare is that it can be tightly controlled by a small central group.
Besides, any war against civilians would consist entirely of atrocities and false flag attacks.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that these people are constrained by any form of Christian morality.
Especially since they’re Jews.
Karl:
Here in the USA (and as in Germany I suppose), the best of us are not currently in the military. That dynamic only changes during wartime or a draft when the general population gets raided for manpower. Which is not to say that our current military is impotent, but rather that numbers matter. There are less than a 100,000 able-bodied fighting men (front line combatant types) in our Armed Forces. You can find more than that in rural Texas alone right now.
The military is built to win battles. I guess Mogadishu was a loss (Les Aspin denied the Rangers armor support and left them badly outgunned). Before that there were a few early losses in Korea, but when deployed in strength, the American military has rarely lost since the early days of WWII.
But it is politicians who decide when wars start and end. Afghanistan should have been a raid and over in a year. If it had been presented that way it would be viewed as a win and a warning similar to the British expedition to Abyssinia. Instead, the neo-cons decided we should stay there forever and make Afghanistan into a Democratic Republic – as if any army could do that without killing everyone there.
The US military has consistently failed at its modern strategic goal: build legitimate local governments.
Once the country cracks, the US military does not have the acumen to put it back together. You gonna lie down when some grunt calls an air strike on your house?
Eisenhower …. Not hardly. MacArthur perhaps. Eisenhower was a politician from the start. Not a fawning MacArthur groupie; on the other hand, Eisenhower just doesn’t have the martial creds — great administrator though. As to not winning …. spent 34 yrs in uniform — E-1 to O-6; no politician. I can tell you there are tremendous performers in the upper field grades — combat leaders and thinkers. Bear in mind most military coups are lead worldwide by Lt Cols / LTCs & COLs …. the generals and admirals are seen by those actors as part of the problem.
@ Karl Horst
Re: “With all due respect for your military, it is not the military of days past. To be fair, the US hasn’t won and held anything since occupying Japan and Germany.”
True, but this is partly due to the revolution in military affairs brought forth by the development of nuclear weapons by the U.S. and her Allies, culminating in the two atomic weapons dropped upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki in summer, 1945.
The invention – and just as importantly, spread – of nuclear weapons technology to the Soviet Union and then the People’s Republic of China, et al., changed the nature of warfare forever. Specifically, it made peer-versus-peer wars by major nation states too-potentially-costly to fight, and inaugurated an era of war-by-proxy, 4GW, and the various anti-colonial conflicts and revolutions since WWII.
Re: “They may be wearing a uniform, but the only way you get to the top in any organization, especially a peace-time military, is through politics.”
You are certainly right about that. There is a saying which you have perhaps heard, common amongst American military men, which says, “Warriors interfere with the smooth running of the peacetime military.” Fighting men – warriors – tend to make bureaucrats uncomfortable, and peacetime militaries must function bureaucratically if they are survive in Washington, D.C., that most bureaucratic of towns. The genuine fighters, the performers whose mettle is tested and proven on the battlefield – whether enlisted, NCO or officers – come to fore only during wartime. Generals like Patton and Rommel thrive only during wartime; they are not tolerated otherwise.”
Re: “The closest thing you had to Caesar was Eisenhower and there hasn’t been anyone like him in American military or politics since.”
Eisenhower’s strength was that he was a “general’s general” – a leader of leaders. He was not, in strictest terms, a combat soldier, since he lacked combat experience at the squad, platoon and company levels, as a junior officer – and did not command any combat units while a mid (field)-grade officer, either.
Eisenhower, as a young officer, had requested combat (overseas) service in France, but was repeatedly denied. When his request was finally approved, it was too late as the armistice was signed soon after. Most of his years as a mid-grade officer were between the wars, so Ike didn’t have the opportunity to command troops in battle during that time, either. He had led in various training and other commands throughout the 1920s and 1930s.
By the time the U.S. entered the war after the attacks on Pearl Harbor, Dwight Eisenhower was a brigadier general. Customarily, a battalion is commanded by an O-5 (lieutenant colonel); a brigade by a colonel (O-6). Some military organizations term a unit of this size a group or regiment. The smallest unit Ike could have commanded at that time was a division. Typically a division is commanded by a two-star (major) general, with a brigadier as his XO or 2IC.
In short, Ike’s career trajectory was such that he did not have the opportunity to command men in battle as a junior or mid-level officer, and since promotion into combat commands typically depends on previous experience as a combat leader, Eisenhower’s career path was effectively sealed. Like General George Marshall, his greatest contribution was to be as a leader of leaders.
Ike had no pretensions to be a modern-day Julius Caesar. He was much too down-to-earth for that. George Patton was another matter, since he was so well-read and expert in the classics of Greece and Rome, as well as in military history and theory.
As far as being an “American Caesar,” that distinction goes to General of the Army (five-star) Douglas MacArthur – in fact, that’s what noted biographer the late William Manchester entitled his book about MacArthur – “American Caesar” – and quite aptly, if you know anything of his life.
Re: “To your point of men sizing each other up in who could win a fight, that could not be more evident than meetings between Obama and Putin and Trump and Putin.”
When President Trump came into office, I had high hopes that Putin and Trump would see in one another kindred spirits and souls, and thereby be able to work together on that basis. Whether those hopes will be realized or will be in vain, remains to be seen.
Re: “Please understand I have the full respect and appreciation of your young men and women in uniform. But I, as all men should, question the leadership that puts them in harms way.”
Quite rightly, and well-said. It is the people who pay the price when their so-called “leaders” involve them in unnecessary wars, or blunder into them, blind and incompetent. “Adult supervision” definitely required.
Say, speaking of dangerously incompetent so-called leaders, when are you lot going to remove Merkel from power. She is a dangerous one, that one – and will bring Germany to ruin if she isn’t checked somehow.
@ Georgiaboy61 – Good question on Frau Merkel. Her position and coalition has been in serious jeopardy for a while now. The AFD was as you say “a wake up call” to Germany and her party that people are not happy and really quite fed up with her. Nationalism is rapidly spreading across Europe as we’ve seen in Italy and Greece with the EU doing everything it can to stop it.
As it stands, Germany and France remain the dominant EU members so they will continue to drive the course of Europe without without the “blessing” of the US. Countries like Spain, Portugal, Greece and Ireland and other old East Bloc countries, receive significant EU hand-outs for roads, schools, museums, etc which they could never generate on their on economies without breaking the backs of their own populations.
As I have mentioned before, we have never seen Russia as a threat as the Americans do, which is interesting given Americans have never been invaded or occupied by them. Discussion of weapons, especially ICMBs are really pointless because you can’t control what you can’t hold. Which, as we have seen for the past 20-years in the middle east, seems to be the status quo for the US military. You hold your military in high regards, but they haven’t learned anything from the Brits or the Russians.
I am curious about when and why the “tyranny of the judiciary” became a thing. This refers to the (supposedly)modern tendency of the court to interpret law so broadly as to function as a legislature as well as interpreter, hence making the appointment of a new justice a matter of such import as to motivate the vilest levels of character assassination. My first instinct would be to think that the cultural divides have grown so deep that there is not the minimum civic virtue to maintain the roles of government as intended by the constitution, but can the divided in modern America be so deep as they were in the days leading up to the civil war? What has changed?
The short answer is that it began to creep into jurisprudence in the 50s but really gained a foothold in the late 60s and 70s as the generation of attorneys steeped in Frankfurt School doctrine matured into command of the legal system.
The next wave of judicial lunacy is beginning now as the generation of attorneys steeped in Critical Legal Theory are coming of age and will soon take command of the legal system.
Yeah, but it must have always been possible, as defined by the system, but people didn’t actually try to subvert the system, ie political interest was seen as more important than the integrity of government, until the 60s and 70s. Similar to this Kavanaugh thing. No one ever tried to invalidate a confirmation with fake rape accusations. Of course classical civilization never allowed for such situations to occur….
Only if both teams agree on the rules. When one team plays by it’s own set of rules and refuses to accept the outcome of a legal election is when we have trouble.
The Constitution pretty well limits the scope of the Federal Government – even with the mental gymnastics that have been performed around the Commerce Clause. This makes Progressives sad because they would like an all-powerful government. So… they want political Judges like RBG who are willing to disregard the Constitution and rule on feelings, the South African Constitution, whatever… Not guys like Kavanuagh who would actually take the job seriously.
The hedge fund manager, Ray Dalio recently addressed the debt problems of the US as a threat to the stability of society. He predicted serious cuts in various social programs to reduce spending. The alternative might be the end of the dollar as a world currency that would have more dramatic consequences for the US. He then spoke about that in his state Connecticut (80% white) 20% of the young didn’t have any qualifications to be in the labour force an money had to be spent to make them a productive asset. We know that that will never happen with 5-6.decades of educational reforms have tried to change that without any measurable effect. He sees the problems but he is also in denial. The interview with him is here and the crisis he sees coming in addressed from 6.min in the video;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C43i3yclec
Thor;
I don’t know why people act like this situation is mysterious. What has happened with sovereign debt that becomes un-payable in recent history is:
– Simple default (various Revolutionary regimes & Hapsburg Spain); – – Currency debasement up to and including hyper-Inflation (Venezuela now and Weimar Germany then)
– Expropriation of the rich but unprotected local institutions inside your borders (Henry VIII).
– Conquest and pillage of your rich neighbors. This was the go-to method in more ancient history and also Napoleonic France. The Romans used all four methods.
Why would this time be different_?
It may be that nukes rule out overt conquest and pillage of rich neighbors, but the other three options are still available. I vote for expropriating Big U and NGO world.
Except that there are no rich neighbors to steal from without debt of their own .
It has been apparent for some time that giving women, and especially single women, the vote injected a lethal, long acting poison into the American body politic…Women are genetically neurotic, inclined to favor invaders, and love the welfare state. That’s a trio of pathologies that invariably prove fatal.
Of course I see the truth in this essay—it’s the reason I find myself awake at night. At the same time, what might we identify as a period with a wholesome, dedicated ruling class? The elites who gave their countrymen the Civil War, World War I, the Great Depression, or the ‘60s cultural revolution? I have no problem asserting that our current batch is especially rotten; but compared to what?
OTOH, is the current ruling class really determinative of the future? England in the Regency period was led by rotten, decadent elites; but they were succeeded by the Victorians, whom I consider to have led a rather exemplary period in the modern age. How did the one lead to the other?
These are honest questions, sketchy and provisional though they are.
The pendulum always swings hard the other way. Like I always say, today’s SJW is tomorrow’s obergruppenfuhrer. The decadents will push too hard, and assuming — big IF — we survive it, the next generation of elites will act hard enough to put Attila the Hun to shame.
From your keyboard to… the Future.
From day 1 in the military there was contempt for civilian leadership, and an acceptance that civilian leadership in how the universe works. The rule was (and I assume still is) that male officers make it up to Colonel based on merit. The jump from Colonel to General (or Admiral) is the jump from combat leader to politician.
I know the post is about our elites… but holy hell, it speaks volumes about the massive problem we have with our women too.
The rise of the hysterical matriarchy is well worth discussion. I’m reading up on the Frankfurt School and something that jumps out to me is that many of them believed that the natural state of humanity was a matriarchy. Capitalism was a part of the patriarchal system, designed to protect the interests of capitalists. It’s more than a bit nutty, but this was an enormously influential group.
And now that many of the desires of the Frankfurt School have reached fruition instead of turning into ‘the natural state of the matriarchy’ the denial of nature is predominant Blank Slate thinking and gender as a social construct as examples of that reveal the falseness of the Frankfurt School ideology and its lack of internal consistency
How do ideas created by creatures such as the Frankfort School come to dominate and become our ruling outline?
Like other ruinous ideas that come into being, they have a receptive audience, at least the ones that even think about ideology.
Tempters and willing sinners like the spiritual realm.
It really is quite amazing. Paul Gottfried has written about the subject quite a bit. I suspect he remains astonished at how such nutty ideas became so influential. Frankly, I get why fans of Kevin McDonald assume black magic plays some role. How could so many smart people support such ruinous ideas?
How? It’s an expression of the inheritable traits of the MAOA gene complex, paranoia married to aggression.
The almond thinkers not only believe their own made-up sh*t, they ACT on it.
I looked up the MAOA gene complex, and read a paper on the warrior effect > which opened with, “We need to….interfere with noxious genetic susceptibilities in ways that are fair and decent for everybody. “
Wonderful, More science from the fringes of totalitarianism
Genetic Literacy Project < Tabitha Powledge
How? It’s an expression of the inheritable traits of the MAOA gene complex, paranoia married to aggression.
The almond thinkers not only believe their own made-up sh*t, they ACT on it.
A Jewish poster at Unz explained the high school trips to the Auschwitz disneyland: the kids, traumatized by Narrative, learn that they can trust no one outside the cult.
Normie Jews have been trying to escape their radical brethern for millenia; witness the betrayal of the Ten Tribes in 712 B.C.
They, like German Jews, were comfotably patriotic, and thus traitors to the rule of the bolsheviks of Judah and Levi.
Persuasion is the forte of high verbal IQ.
“Jews are awfully good at creating pseudosciences—elaborate, plausible, and intellectually very challenging systems that do not, in fact, have any truth content—and that this peculiar talent must be connected somehow with the custom, persisted in through long pre-Enlightenment centuries, of immersing young men in the study of a vast body of argumentative writing, with status in the community—and marriage options, and breeding opportunities—awarded to those who have best mastered this mass of meaningless esoterica.”
— John Derbyshire
“Jews are awfully good at creating pseudosciences—elaborate, plausible, and intellectually very challenging systems that do not, in fact, have any truth content…”
Just like modern marxist “academia.”
And jesuits, et alia.
also recommended is the little known Marx-Engels co-production “The Origin of the Family” (compiled by Engels after Marx’s death). https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/origin_family.pdf
part 4, in the middle of the piece, is the most on point as it is where their conclusions are
The thing is absurd pseudoscience but definitely would have influenced later Marxists.
Feminism has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Marxism from jump street. Engels’ work — I believe he was the sole author — is the foundation of modern feminism. The early ones — the Mary Daly, Shulamith Firestone type weirdos — explicitly said so. They embraced feminism (and lesbianism) in order to “smash patriarchy,” which to them was the same thing as smashing capitalism.
I think that there’s a larger thing here, known as “Right Order.” THAT is the target of the ‘smashing’ going on.
Nietzsche called it ‘the transvaluation of all values’. How else to describe the eagerness for “abortion rights” in any sane society?
Industrial society, absent intervention by the state, typically requires both parents to work in order to maintain living standards. Mass immigration only intensifies this. While everyone worked in agrarian society, it was rarely outside of the household. The Internet society could have seen a decentralization of work to home-based consultancies, but the TechBro control freaks preferred to outsource what they could, and import foreigners for what they couldn’t.
When both parents are working, it creates the illusion that somehow women are “equal”, but they are discriminated against in the labor market and the deadbeat husband won’t do his share of chores.
Industrial society, absent intervention by the state, typically requires both parents to work in order to maintain living standards.
That was not true in the USA until the LBJ signed EO 11273 (IIRC) requiring workplace equality for women. He was also running “guns and butter” at the same time.
Then women with degrees joined the workforce and men’s compensation numbers leveled off. But due to “guns and butter” consumer prices rose–particularly housing–and two incomes became a requirement.
It’s also fair to state that what used to be “wants” have become “needs”–which also increased the cost of living. Cellphones are a helluvalot more expensive than land-lines–and for that matter, appliances were repaired, not replaced.
If women believe that abortion rights are truly at risk with Trump’s nominees, it helps to explain their willingness to block Kavanaugh at any cost.
Well, Duh.
Ya think?
Well if abortion is made illegal, planned parenthood would be out of business and there would be no more baby parts to make money off and provide the elite with the hope the said baby parts will enable them to live forever by stem cell technology
Abortion is primary. But in line with Z’s think on this, don’t forget queer “marriage” and transgender “rights.”
Orwell could never dream this stuff up. Those drugs weren’t legal then, nor even invented….
Holy sh*t this subtread just gave me an epiphany; this may be the feminine instinct, or what you would call it, for masochism. Women need and possess a certain level of masochism; to drawn to strong, violent males, to engage in sex knowing that 9 months later that will result in a very painful and, in the old days, dangerous process lasting hours if not a day or more and such.
Assuming masochistic tendencies makes it possible to explain large parts of the leftist mindset, from immigration to softness on criminals to many other things.
Since it is dictated by darwinian game theory for women, masochism probably has a genetic component. And feminine males probably have an element of this as well.
If a society is not led by its best fighters, then it will be led by its best liars.
Human. Nature. Never. Changes.
Frail and Fallen, prone to error, such that all human systems succumb to spiritual entropy. The temptations of Power and the Lusting after it are the most seductive of all and so well known as not to need this restatement, except that this is never the First Premise of most discussions of the ways and means of our destruction.
Few want to admit this or the answer. We can’t relinquish the idea that we can solve the problem(s) through our own intellect and will. Full circle back to Human Nature, the root of all sorrow.
We have free will… choose wisely.
Choose to buy more ammo.
In the natural, certainly. Do all that you can to prepare.
I was alluding to accepting the Principles higher than one’s own predilections and common understanding.
“Elites” now appears to be synonymous with grifters.
We are beyond the “elite” using the levers of government for personal enrichment, and are to the point of the “elite” using their powers to beat their betters down out of insecurity and jealously.
This, as has been said, will not end well.
At the risk of hyperbole, if Scalise had been a Democrat and the shooter from anywhere to the right of Paul Ryan, the crisis would have already been upon us.
At least the Romans had “censors” who in theory could clean the dead wood out of the Senate. The Romans also had patronage so that, like Donnie Brasco, you bring the wrong guy in, it’s on you.
Long essay from Joe Sobran from 1985 and the National Review. Well worth it
https://joeportolano.wordpress.com/2011/12/30/pensees-notes-for-the-reactionary-of-tomorrow/
Fantastic read. Thanks!
I am 60% thru the Sobran article. I concur. It is brilliant! Worth the effort. Amazing how far down we have slid since it’s been written. I was an adult then and naive…. Much less so now…
You re not the only one getting one helluva education these days