You won't venture to offer an opinion but I will, without restraint. No restraint, but reason, I hope.
The war is such folly that it breaks my heart.
Obama's 'nuclear deal' included a payment of 1.7 billion dollars (see Stanford Law School blog:https://law.stanford.edu/2016/08/12/the-400-million-payment-to-iran-was-american-diplomacy-at-its-finest/). This money included the release of funds withheld for Iran, + interest (see the same blog). That deal included free access by the IAEA to all Iran's nuclear facilities, both known and unknown. If new activity was detected (easy enough to detect), the new sites could be inspected with 24 hours notice. There was no sunset provision in this agreement, no date on which Iran could resume development of a nuclear weapon. (See Obama White House blog: https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/node/343726).
In a nutshell, Obama's deal neutralized indefinitely Iran's nuclear program and its ambitions. For 1.7 billion, much of which was money owed to Iran already.
What do we have now? We have a war that may be costing as much as 2 billion dollars a day (see Harvard Kennedy School blog: https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/node/343726. Also see Brown University's daily cost tracker: https://iran-cost-ticker.com/ ). As you rightly state, we have a burden on taxpayers and consumers around the world that is growing daily and that is anticipated to continue growing.
It's not just gas. It's the cost of just about everything. What about that promised cut in the Fed rate? How does that look with inflation rising?
Then there is global instability. The breakdown of traditional alliances, already frayed by Trump before the war began.
How much harm can one man do? You wrote a previous blog about examples from world history where empires have fallen. Where are we now in that historical perspective?
A lot. In the right position and highly neutralized congress with little checks and balances......a lot more.
Feel free to write opinions, you virtually know my opinions already. My problem is, if I start writing my opinion on this matter, I might totally go to the dark side, and I try not do that.
There must be hope for the American People somewhere, otherwise as a parent why am I raising my kids here?
The problem with a great empire is that when it declines, it does not decline alone. The influence of this country on global affairs is so great that the repercussions of our decline will be felt just about everywhere. It is a global event.
Where will the safe havens be? Will we be able to recoup, here, in the US? We still have vast resources, including people, education and natural resources.
It's not just a matter of economics. Some of the changes he has made will have devastating long-term consequences. Others may be turned around...like his golden oval office, the Gulf of America, the Trump Kennedy Center. If we are lucky, there will be a sea change with the 2026 midterms (if they are allowed to proceed unimpeded). With a working Congress maybe the worst of this administration will be choked off.
Meanwhile, I think we should all be flexible in assessing our futures. I know you will be because you have made dramatic changes over the course of your life. I try to tell my kids to be ready for an evolving future, to not count on stability but be ready to adjust. I hope the same for my granddaughter.
One thing Trump has done for us is remind us that the world is and always has been a scary place. In the U.S. the domestic population has been insulated from that. No war here since 1812. Maybe we are waking to a new reality.
I know I'm going on...but that's just my mind as I reheat a few slices of pizza for lunch. Life goes on, we hope.
I have always mentioned this to my family. I have choices to live anywhere in the world, but I live here because I want to. They know that I have travelled the world and yet, even today, after all the problems that we have in the United States today, I still want to live here and raise my kids here. I don't know if I am right or wrong, only time will tell. But I have hope that I am doing this right not just for me, but for my children. I don't want to be anywhere else. Where else I will find such friendly and accommodating society? No where, still. Yes, people will be surprised by it, but it remains true today, at least inside my bubble!
True for me too. Here I can be myself, and myself is a rather odd bird. Where else would I have that comfort? The choice for me is to work at improving where I live, not to flee.
Not by any definition I can support. We are ruled by a nest of vipers, and the few exceptions are only allowed to give us false hope the system of governance can be saved.
SCOTUS stated clearly in the Heller decision what hope we have, and history reveals the truth of that decision. It is sad, but the bare fact is that when the ballot box fails, the bullet box succeeds. From time to time the verminous knaves that worm their way into power exceed the people's ability to tolerate, and then, beyond reason, people act with authority to eliminate the vermin.
That will happen. I have no doubt. The real answer to our dilemma is what follows the pest removal process? My money is on decentralization of production and wealth. My recommendation is to seize the means of production suitable to your personal circumstances, in your case probably aquaponics, because you already garden. Adding fish and hydroponics would be relatively facile for you. For me it is aquaponics - which is in motion - and wood gasification, because I am surrounded by almost unlimited free wood I can gasify to produce electricity. That is also in progress, and I am intent on spreading that power - ahem! - as far and widely as I am able. 3D printers, CNC, Laser cutters, inkjet printers, all these tools enable people to make the goods they need, such as dinnerware, parts, and solar panels.
We transcend a clinal boundary today that has not before occurred in history, as the laws of physics mandate the decentralization of the means of production, which decentralizes wealth. This transcendence will not be easy. It will not be gentle. But, it will be a permanent change in economic power, eliminating overlords forever.
Be good to good people and they will be good to you. That is the best we can do while we imprison dragons in their deep, dark caverns with their hoards of shiny gold they think is wealth, and create the world to come with our good company.
Hello @valued-customer,
Thank you for that impassioned response.
I cannot endorse the bullet. While I agree that by the time people reach the higher echelons of government they are already corrupted (because of compromises they make to get to those positions), I don't have much more faith in 'people' than I do in 'government'.
It is my experience that in the absence of order bullies rise to the top. It is (in my opinion) an unfortunate truth that humans are aggressive. Throughout history they have organized themselves into groups. It's just what they do. Inevitably the strongest (generally the bully) rises to the top. We are a lot like our primate relatives in that regard.
Do I want the government to go away and marauding individuals (armed to the teeth because everybody who wants one has an assault weapon) marching down the street and knocking down my door? Do I want them to seize my vegetables and laser-printed goods? Do I want them to carry off my granddaughter, because they can and there is no one to stop them?
Your idea of a free society is lovely. I do believe in self-sufficiency. However, I also believe in order. We need to have that order imposed, unfortunately, by some sort of organizing authority. We need better government. What we really need is for people to take notice and to rise up, not with bullets but with their voices, with their ballots. We need them to take note of the people who govern them, even on the local level.
We are lazy. We leave it to others to stand up. We leave it to others to run for office, to campaign. Our reward for laziness is that the worst of us rise to the top.
The remedy for bad government is good government, but people have to want it and work for it. That, my friend, is more a fantasy than a realistic goal I am afraid.
First, I'm not endorsing violent uprising. I'm certain it's going to happen, because that's what happens when corruption becomes intolerable. In the 17th Century the Dutch killed, cooked, and ate the liver of their despised Prime Minister. Saying that isn't endorsing cannibalism. Rather I lament that the execrable corrupt rulers we get when we accept rulers indoctrinate and blow smoke up our skirts until we can't agree water is wet. The only time things change is when we are so outraged we cannot tolerate that corruption anymore, and mobs slaughter anyone they think did them dirty.
Something you don't acknowledge is that you are permanently sovereign, and only you can rule you. Only you can will your heavy hand to rise to your weary brow and wipe away the dripping sweat of your hard labor. You, and you alone, will rule you while you live. If the history you know has taught you anything, it will include that institutions created to govern all become corrupted, and all end the same way, collapsing and being replaced by the next mob boss.
I am not propounding my preferred vision of society when I talk about decentralization. I'm talking about physics. The laws of physics determine what technology can be invented, and we clever monkeys tinker and occasionally invent it. You can observe that the laws of physics are today decentralizing production on the battlefields of the world at war today. <$50k drones are defeating >$B weapons platforms, and last month <$100 manpads grannies can print on their kitchen tables, like knitting doilies, advented that enable communities and even individuals to be secure from $50k drones and $B bombers alike. We see this first on the battlefield, but the same thing's happening in every field of industry today.
That's not my preference. It's not my vision. It's what the laws of physics mandate. The last oil we're going to get from the ME has been delivered. A lot of the infrastructure to produce oil has been destroyed, and will take years (years without war) before it can be rebuilt, and the war is still ongoing, the Strait of Hormuz is still closed. The costs of that shortfall haven't begun yet, but they are guaranteed because that shortfall has occurred. 70% of American farmers haven't planted crops because they can't get the fertilizer to grow them. Farmers in OZ have left crops to rot in the field because they can't get diesel to harvest them. The goods and services that are necessary to us to enjoy the blessings of civilization are going to be short this fall.
It doesn't matter that we're lazy. It matters that we eat. Them that will eat are growing food today. We'll either make what we need or we won't get what we need, and we'll die. It doesn't matter what I prefer. It matters that I do what I need to do to live. That's what's coming. If someone comes to harm you, and you haven't prepared to secure yourself from harm, it will be your fault you governed yourself so poorly as to fail to defend you. If they come for your granddaughter and you can't defend her, it will be your fault if she's harmed. It doesn't matter what you like, or don't like, to do with your tools and time. It matters whether or not you secure you, yours, and have people you protect that protect you.
You govern you, whether you want to or not. Anyone that says they govern you is a liar. Because you have the authority to rule you, you are responsible for your rule. As your ruler you are responsible for your security, and nothing anyone says otherwise is true.
The folks that accept their responsibility and rule themselves wisely will secure them and theirs from armed thugs. Folks always do, or they die. Them that do will be those that build society after all the brigands, robbers, and psychopaths have been dealth with, and they will have produced themselves the goods and services that enabled them to live, and secure themselves. Those are just predictable from the coming consequences of shutting down the Strait of Hormuz.
Live and die as you please. I am no prophet, not your master, and neither dependent on what you do. You are. Your grand daughter is. You depend on your sight, your laziness or industry, and so does your granddaughter. I hope you see clearly and act wisely to create your security so that your granddaughter doesn't come to grief, because I think you're a kind person, and I want my sons to have kind people to work with after this.
Please do.
To teach them about the Heller decision, and their personal authority to rule themselves and their nation.
I think we as voters deserve everything we voted for... Let this be a lesson to all of those who think that your vote doesn't matter...
Although I doubt that people are smart enough to realize what is happening around them...
It may have the opposite effect. People are so disillusioned. They see their elected representatives (Congress) doing nothing.
I don't agree that voters who make a mistake deserve everything they get. There is the temptation to be angry with people who voted this man into office. Some of them got what they wanted. They still support him. Others were fooled. They believed the lies that were shoveled at them. If someone steals from me because I don't recognize a fraud, do I deserve that cheat because I was ignorant? If I forget to lock my car and someone steals it, sure I share blame, but do I deserve to have my car stolen?
No. Don't blame the victim--foolish though that victim may be. Blame the criminal.
I am sorry, but I disagree. I could buy this argument if we didn't have four years of Trump and the January 6th riots and all the documentaries about Trump and his family going back to his father who was basically stealing from the tax payers while building government subsidized housing. But after all that to vote for an indicted criminal, I am sorry that is just too much to claim that they were fooled and are actually innocent victims.
For whom? For the Russian mob. For Chabad Lubavitch, to whom Zelensky, Putin, and Netanyahu all similarly grovel. The devil is in the details, they say.
Go ahead and blame the victims, as you are one of them. Nonetheless, freedom will arise, and then none will have anyone to blame but themselves.
Democracy is a scam. The whole of the people cannot vote. ~half of people can. A majority of voters is ~1/4 of the population, guaranteeing that a minority inflict on the majority their policies.
In truth individuals are sovereign, and that is why when Ben Franklin was asked what kind of government we had, he answered 'A republic, if you can keep it', because a republic is supposed to insulate minorities from mob rule. But Lysander Spooner observed before the Civil War that the Constitution had failed to protect our rights, and Sherman's March proved that without a doubt, as he destroyed people and their property without respect for their rights. We do not live in a Republic, nor a Democracy, but in a Tyranny, ruled by overlords with excessive avarice.
Government is a crime against humanity. You alone can will your heavy hand to rise to your weary brow and wipe away the dripping sweat of your hard labors. You are ineluctably sovereign. You cannot give away your sole authority to rule you, even if you want to. You cannot be property, not even your own property, because you cannot assign to another the right to do with you as you wish. You will always have the sole authority over you.
So no claim of higher authority over you is factual. Government is the claim of higher authority over the people, and it is a lie. It is a crime against all people, because all people are sovereign. We can agree amongst ourselves to act in ways that limit our autonomy. That can be lawful and just. But no claim to exceed our personal authority over ourselves is true, nor just.
Scribbles on paper defend nothing. Free men with arms defend them. The Heller decision makes this plain, and history reveals the truth of this assertion. More than 1000 times in history head were mounted on pikes, policitians danced, dangling from lamp posts, and in the Seventeenth Century the Dutch cooked and ate the liver of their corrupt, despised Prime Minister. That will happen soon.
This, I believe, will be the last time it happens, because as we seize the means of production we eliminate the parasitism overlords depend on. When you grow a potato you keep 100% of your production. No overlord gets a cut. No middleman earns a wage. No taxable event occurs, and when you make what you need with a 3D printer, a laser cutter, or DIY solar panels, that is just as true. When we eliminate centraliztion we will eliminate overlords, and government. Then we will be free.
It is good to dream :) But permanent elimination of overlords and government is as likely to happen as me visiting a nearby star system ;)
Self fulfilling prophecies are always true.
For me, because I am seizing the means of production suitable to my personal circumstances, I suffer ever less parasitism and enjoy ever greater freedom. Overlords do not make goods and services. They parasitize the work of people that do, and they do that by owning the means of production. When they no longer own means of production that we don't, they become peers, without wealth and power we don't have. I am not dreaming of magical things, but accounting the real income and outgo that people making their own goods and services create. When you grow a potato, no bankster lends you money and collects interest on the loan. No middleman transports or retails it. No taxable event occurs. When you make what you need, you keep 100% of the wealth you create.
As long as you depend on overlords, you will never be free. As soon as you don't, you will be free. That's all there is to it.