Political Developments

One of the biggest problems that anyone claiming to be a leader faces is the possibility of losing the support of those the leader purports to lead. Talk about an embarrassing development, where a leader is trying to lead and the tacit led just roll their eyes. Nobody wants to be in that position, especially people with the kinds of egos that compels them to, for example, run for public office. The reason that most governments throughout history have tended towards caution and conservativism is that a certain amount of caution serves leaders well. Any fool knows that decisions made quickly are MUCH more likely to result in the decider having to explain later what the hell he was thinking. Add in the fact that, these days, any sort of political decisions can have vast repercussions that must be considered. The end result is that any call for hasty action is likely to draw - at the very least - suspicion from the leader's constituiency, and the leader who makes such calls is sooner or later going to have to explain himself. Generally, people are smart enough to know that things done quickly get done poorly.

People tend to complain that the legal system - including both the Courts and the legislative process - takes a whole lot of time to do a whole lot of nothing. Well. Here's a newsflash: THAT'S THE WAY IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE. When things go quickly, that is when mistakes get made. That is when unintended consequences arise. That is when heads roll after the fact. It is not supposed to be easy or convenient to enact new policy or to make new law. When a system of government reaches the level were setting policy is as casual as, for example, lords telling the people to eat cake, revolutions quickly - and rightly - follow.

The process is supposed to be slow. It's supposed to be time consuming. Because that is the best way - and really the only way - to get it RIGHT. When things happen quickly, they happen badly. Take for example Obama's recent victory in the house over green energy (the cap-and-trade legislation). As Americans, we should be embarassed about the way that went through the House of Representatives. Setting aside the extremely poor economic reasoning behind the legislation, just consider the process of its passage: The final draft of that bill, which was over a thousand pages long, was completed and circulated among the House THE MORNING OF THE VOTE. That means that when the vote came, NOBODY WHO VOTED FOR IT HAD EVEN READ THE FINAL VERSION OF THE LAW. The bill was pushed through the Democratic House by a Democratic President so fast that nobody could even read it, based on little more than the force of his personality, and with those supporting the bill not actually knowing the terms they were approving.

Kids, this is exactly why there is a separation of power between the White House and the Capitol. Congress is supposed to do their own jobs, not just toe the line set by a President who happens to claim the same party affiliation. If your congressman voted in favor of that bill (here's a list) they sold out this country's energy industry on nothing more than the word of a President with questionable political agenda, even more questionable social connections, and no track record of successful leadership. They rushed it through. They treated sweeping legislation like a vote for high school class president, and checked the box that the popular kids told them to.

Now, Barack is trying to take the same measures in forcing through his healthcare agenda, by doing things like placing short deadlines (August) on Congress' reaching a vote on restructuring healthcare FOR THE ENTIRE COUNTRY. Healthcare is an issue that Congress has been trying to work out for years, but Barack was demanding results within 8 months of his taking the throne. He Ordered it to be so. Clearly, national socialized healthcare is Obama's sine qua non, and is probably what he intends to be his legacy as president. He wants history to say that he got healthcare for everyone, which is a project - he says - tantamount to putting a man on the moon. He could be right. But he doesn't seem to realize that the Apollo program took 9 years to make the dream a practical reality. Can you imagine what a disaster it would have been if, eight months after announcing the Apollo program, Kennedy expected there to be a rocket ready to be launched? Almost inevitable result of that timetable is a KA-BOOM on the launch pad. Do we want to risk that sort of explosion where the rocket in question is our healthcare system?

Fortunately, our Founding Fathers set things up pretty well, and there's still hope. We have a two-house legislative system, and the Senate will, for example have time to actually read the cap-and-trade bill before voting on it. As I'll get to, lawmakers - even democrats - are steadily realizing that Barack Obama has no idea how to run a country, and are no longer being coerced into idiotic action by nothing more than his charisma. Hopefully the bill will never make it out of the Senate committee process.

There are other good signs as well, which indicate the process is continuing to work, notwithstanding the Administration. The House has just passed a "pay-as-you-go" (PAYGO) measure, which if endorsed by the Senate, will require the Federal Government to come up with a dollar of savings for every dollar spent in new legislation. When then send more money somewhere, they have to take that same amount of money from somewhere else, rather than just printing more money or assuming more debt. Essentially, it's a bar on deficit-spending. Unlike pretty much everything the White House has sent to congress, this type of law has a solid track record. A similar measure was enacted in the early 90s to reign in deficit problems back then, and actually resulted in a $5.6 trillion budget surplus. Which was wasted, of course, but it was there.

The passage of this bill is political wrangling in action, and frankly bodes poorly for the President. As charming and dynamic as he is, he doesn't have the experience, support, or slipperiness to take on congress in a straight-up political fight. While there is no single politician in America that can out-charisma Obama, that charisma really gets mileage only in campaign years. The rest of the time, being an American politician means practicing politics against opponents of the highest level. Obama's short history in the game means that, when it comes to political maneuvering, Congress is going to take him out behind the woodshed for an asswuppin.

So make no mistake, PAYGO is a political attack on the President by Congress. If the PAYGO measure gets through the senate, Barack's political ass will be on the line when the bill comes to him to be signed into law. Here is the dilemma he will face: If he vetos the PAYGO bill, he will be vetoing cost controls, and essentially telling the world that his Administration cannot operate without deficit spending. He will have to admit that his programs rely on the ability to pass off their bills onto whatever Administration (or generation) comes next. Not a good message to send, as even left-leaning polls indicate that many Americans fear overwhelming deficit more than they fear a slow economy.

However, if Obama signs PAYGO into law, it will effectively kill his healthcare plan, and throw high hurdles in the way of most of the other far-left social reforms that he champions. There is no way that the Federal government is going to be able to balance several trillion dollars of healthcare and social welfare spending into an already exceeded budget, if they are unable to simply assume the cost as debt. PAYGO is actually a brilliant move by Congress, which has all the experience and political savvy that Obama lacks: Passage of PAYGO will kill nationalized healthcare, without even requiring congressional democrats to openly vote against nationalized healthcare.

Strangely enough, this crunch between congress and the President is actually the system working the way it is supposed to. Clearly - and notwithstanding one-liners from Administration mouthpieces (read: Harry Reid, Nancy Pulosi) - congress as a body opposes Obama's plan. America cannot afford and will not support his sweeping reform agenda. Google "blue dogs" for an account of how even Democrats are publicly refusing to toe the line. Those rumblings of non-support have been going on for weeks.

A politically savvy president would have and should have responded to those rumblings accordingly: backing off the push, or redirecting efforts into something that would get widespread support, at least from his own political party. But Obama is not politically savvy. He ignored those polite indicators of dissent from congress. So, polite messages having failed, congress has thrown down the gauntlet. You think it's coincidence that PAYGO comes through concurrently with congressmen asserting worries about cost controls on healthcare reform? If he continues his frantic, fanatical crusade on healthcare reform, congress is going to put Obama in a politically untenable spot, the softest results of which would be forcing him to back down on healthcare. In the face of PAYGO, he will need to come up with some economically viable middle ground for healthcare, abandon his healthcare quest, or else concede (through a veto of PAYGO) that America cannot afford his programs without mortgaging the future.

Nobody who knows politics should be surprised by any of this. Barack, I guarantee you, is surprised by this, and probably outraged that people are not simply rallying behind him the way they did last November. I'm actually kinda eager to see how he responds to this, including wondering if he's going to take note of the PAYGO thing and its implications before law reaches his desk for signature. But regardless, for all his personal charisma, he has not been politician enough to avoid this ultimatum from congress, and I cannot imagine that he is politician enough to manage the ultimatum well. We'll just hear more dazzling rhetoric, which will have less and less attention paid to it. For all his personal charm and charisma, I expect Barack to be outed as what he is: a charming, intelligent egomaniac who is way over his head in politics he has not the experience or support to deal with.

With the recent admission by Congressional principals that there will not be a healthcare bill going to vote before the August recess, momentum for that bill is fading. The passage of PAYGO is clear rumblings from congress that wild spending is not going to be signed off on by the House. If the senate approves the PAYGO measure before any sort of viable healthcare bill is passed in law, there will be no healthcare bill passed. I expect the end result will be PAYGO reaching the President's desk, followed shortly by the demise of nationalized healthcare, without Democrats even being forced to publicly vote contrary to party Presidential leadership. Which will work, and allow everyone to save face.

Except for the President.

Obama is already looking like a jackass. No clearly beneficial steps have been undertaken under his leadership. The economy now is worse than it was before, and people can only blame prior administrations for so long. Eventually, people are going to realize that we've gone from the Bush Recession into the Obama Depression, based largely on Obama trying (and sometimes succeeding) in jamming through legislation the kills business to provide welfare and healthcare to people who don't earn it.

Further, the crown jewel of Obama's first months in office, national healthcare reform, is on the verge of being rejected by a congress controlled BY THE PRESIDENT'S OWN PARTY. While this is good for America, it's also bad for America, as it shows that world that the American President is really not even in control of his own nation. Obama's conduct and comments fully dictate that he needs to have his political dick cut off and shoved up his ass. However, if that happens, the end result will be at least three years under the rule of a crusading president who has lost the support of the army he tacitly leads. While that situation is infinitely preferable to one where he leads us all to our deaths in pursuit of his glorious ideals, it doesn't bode well for the country either.

The Will

In the monologue which really made his Hollywood career, Marlon Brando spoke of conflict, and of the importance of will. How victory went not always to the army with the largest battalions, but to the combatant who would go to the greatest length to either prevail, or to avoid defeat. When a man will cut off the arms of his own children because those arms have been invasively handled by the enemy, how can you hope to match that level of determination? This is the problem with terrorists. They hold their convictions so deeply, that - delusional or not - they value the killing of the enemy above their own lives. With such an enemy, there is no real alternative to ongoing struggle, until such time as you yourself are willing to concede defeat, or else where you are willing to slay the enemy to the last man. Wars are won in the will.

But beyond the issue of the philosophical value placed on victory - deciding the moral and practical price that your society will pay to prevail - there is also the will of the indivdual combatants. In order to cut off the limbs of infants in pursuit of total victory, you must have among you a soldier who will wield the machette, not against an enemy, but against the children of his own people. Besides the philosophical desire for victory at any costs - something politicians are not shy about extolling - there must be soldiers who even if not eager, will do what is necessary. Who will pay the price demanded by the situation.

Throughout history, such soldiers are among the rarest and greatest commodities a nation can possess. In ancient Greece, a man named Hereclitus was charged with raising and training armies. Speaking to his overlords, he asserted that for every 100 men that were sent to him, 10 should not be there at all. 80 were nothing but targets. Only nine were real fighters, and they were lucky to have them, for those men make the battle. Then there is the one that remains of the hundred. "Ah, the one. One of them is a warrior, and he will bring the others home." There are among us on this planet people who have the gift for being soldiers comparible to child prodigies with the piano. People who, in the midst of armed combat, seem to transcend the situation around them. Watch 'Troy.' Read 'Armor.' Or just google 'Sgt. Alvin C. York.'

Those individuals can actually have an astronomical effect on the outcomes of battles. Amazingly enough, one of the greatest problems armies have had through history is getting their soldiers to actually kill the enemy. In digging up civil war battlefields, researchers have found many muskets that have as many as nine or ten loads in the barrel. Where the soldier would load, not fire, and then load again, many times in a row. Perhaps this could be accidental if there were one or two loads in the barrel; some error, or a mechanical problem with the weapon which cause a failure to fire. But eight or nine? The only rational explanation is that the soldier - standing in rank and file with his fellows - did everything his fellows did, loading and pointing his rifle appropriately so as to not stand out from his fellows. He did everything he was told to do as a soldier, except pull the trigger when the order came to fire. Based on the archaeological evidence, this was not a rare or isolated occurrence in civil war battles. Even as high as the body count in the Civil War was, it really is remarkable - with armies standing within a few hundred yards of each other, shooting for literally days on end - that casualties added up as slowly as they did. The explantion was that many of the soldiers were simply unable to bring themselves to fire at the tacit enemy. No matter what you see on the news about violence and brutality, men are genetically programmed to NOT kill each other, which is a hard program to evercome.

It can be done, as evidenced by - for example - operant training methods which make the United States Marine Corp both so feared and so respected. Among enemies of the United States, it is a common story that Marines must kill a member of their own family before being awarded the Globe and Anchor. This reputation exists because in the Marines, nearly every man is a fighter. Perhaps every Marine is not every one the One described by Hereclitus, but he is at least one of the Nine that make the battle. It doesn't work that way in most armies around the globe. With most armies, they do their fighting with maybe two or three men our of every ten affirmatively, consciously trying to kill the enemy. So while foreign armies continue to face the age-old problem of more than half their men cowering instead of fighting, the United States military fields forces where nearly every man is a combatant, instead of just being a man in combat. When you consider the capabilities of forces like the Navy SEALs, or Army's Delta, where every single man in the unit IS the One, enemies rightly quake. A substantial fighting force where every man actually fights, while something that civilians take for granted, is largely unprecedented in history, and this is reflected in the speed and relative surety of victory wherever the United States is capable of readily finding enemies to send hard me to go kill.

The point of this is that - regardless of philosphical bent or source of motivation, and regardless of imperatives created by politicians far from the fighting - when a state or a nation has a goal that must be met or achieved, hard men must go and obtain the goal. Soft men, even with the best of intentions and highest of moral goals, will not be able to do what is necessary to win the day. Even if they stand in formation, even if they keep loading their rifles, and even if they truely do see the necessity of the battle (even to the point of believing that the enemy must in fact be killed), history, psychology, and genetic imperative all indicate that soft men will not be able to make the hard choice, and actually pull the trigger. When lives and nations are on the line, it is the hard that tend to survive, because the soft lack the will to do what is necessary.

This has been on my mind lately, after a conversation with my brother, GL. Strange as we are, we talk about things like zombie uprisings and the collapse of society, and how one might fight through it. When asked how the hell he expected to last, living in the overpopulated, extremely liberal city of San Jose, California, GL had a simple response. No, he would never starve, regardless of the breakdown of social order. He was not above cannibalism, he said. "When I look around, all I see is steaks." Of course, he was joking. Mostly. But neither of us doubted that if GL did happen to die in some apocalyptic breakdown of law and order, he would not be dying of starvation. Just as in armed conflict: when pushed to the extreme, the strong survive because they will embrace means for survival that others would not resort to.

Hardness and softness is applicable to less than armed conflict. The ruthless and agressive, those who strive through difficulties instead of yielding to them; those are the successful and productive. While their mindsets (hopefully) do not extend to dismembering children as the Viet Cong did, they are the warriors of our modern society. All of us, to one degree or another, can often times tell with just a few minutes contact whether a person has that sort of drive, focus, and/or capability. Although it does sometimes take something to draw it out (Alvin York was a pacifist farmer who initially refused to fight in WWI), the lengths to which people are capable of pushing themselves, or the lenghts to which they will go to obtain the end they desire, is often a function of who people are. Hardness and softness exist largely independent of morality, philosophy, or education.

Hereclitus' Nine (and even his One) are not all that difference from the rest of us. But they ARE different, and something inside us will often spot that difference. Think about it. If you were tossed into a situation where your survival was in doubt, and where you and your groups' lives depended on the choices you made (or the depths to which you would sink to survive), do a few people you know not immediately come to mind as those with the best chance to get through? Among your friends, is there not some One who you would trust to bring the others home? I'll bet there is. And I'll bet the people you're thinking of tend to be capable and dynamic; able to make hard decisions, and to pay the price those decisions require. Not all of those who would be the One end up as soldiers.

These days, I just wish some of them would find their way into politics. As a country, we have some hard decisions coming, and I would really like to see them made by men hard enough to make the right choice, instead of just seizing the easy choice.

Energy Markets

Our savior Barack has been busy. Besides vowing to get the economy back on its feet, he is also waging a minor little battle over healthcare reform. I think it's a joke the way he's handling the economy and an even bigger joke the way he's handling health care, but we'll save most of those points for another day.

Today, we'll go back to the issue of energy, a subject near and dear to my heart. Previously on these pages, I put up commentary in support of high gas prices, as such high gas prices provide an incentive for the use of alternative fuels. With current technology it is in fact possible to manufacture light crude oil from things like medical waste, raw sewage, or old tires. We can do it. The problem is that the production cost for gasoline, for example, hovers at around $4-5 using those techniques. While the technology is already there, its not being used, because we can pump oil out of the ground, ship it where in needs to go, refine it, and get it to customers in such a way that the customers only pay about half that amount per gallon. There are alternate sources of oil and power available. We just rely on oil because, believe it or not, oil is an exceptionally cheap form of energy. As oil becomes more scarce, that equation will change, but much slower than most people really think. And in the meantime, people will best continue to rely on oil as the cheapest option, which it unquestionably is.

That cheapness is important these days. Energy costs are a primary controller of economic health, because nearly every exercise of commerce requires something to be moved. Crops from fields to processing plants. Goods from manufacturers to wholesalers to retailers. Even you getting from your home to the grocery store and back depends on an expenditure of energy, and no matter how well-stocked any single link of the distribution chain is, it's only the movement of goods along that chain that creates commerce. That movement takes energy. Fuel for trucks. Fuel for trains. Fuel for planes. Energy IS commerce, and for better or worse oil IS energy. As I've stated before, the closest thing that America will ever have to a guarantee that its businesses and economies will continue to function is a healthy oil industry.

Thus, while I am all for the development of alternative power, I think that that needs to be driven by economic factors. The price of oil WILL reach the point where those alternative power sources become viable. And in the meantime, we kind of need energy to stay cheap, what with this pesky recession thing, and all. You think things suck now? Imagine the economy also having to deal with $6/gallon gasoline. That means not only that you have to pay higher prices at the pump, but also that every single plane, train, and truck that is involved in commerce has to pay that higher price as well. Guess who that added cost gets passed on to. As a consumer, doesn't that sound like fun?

Clearly, it is in the interest of America for oil and energy to remain cheap. While there is certainly room for the expansion of green energy, let's aim for a slow, gradual change. Preferably one that allows a gradual rise is the costs being bourne by the consumer; we are the ones who will be footing the bill for the change to green energy, after all. Maybe we can rely on oil at least a little bit for a while? You know: build those big, expensive, inefficient solar plants a few at a time?

But our President has only a limited term in office, so we don't have time for a rational solution. Notwithstanding the fairly dire need that critical commodities (oil) remain cheap these days, our President has taken action to the contrary, trying to force through a "green energy" bill. While it's not getting nearly the press play it deserves, I believe that this bill, if passed, will have a FAR more substantial effect on National and World politics than anything else he's doing, and I include in that comparison the billions being spent keeping auto makers afloat and the trillions expected to be spent providing cheap, bad, and hard-to-get healthcare to the American populace.

Because it's not an energy bill. It's a tax bill. Barak has proposed an energy tax. The specific stated goal of this tax is to increase the cost of traditional energy sources, such as coal and oil. Rather than letting the economy dictate the market, our politicians are attempting to dictate the market: they are going to make alternative energy viable. However, they are not doing this by lowering the price for alternative energy. Rather, alternative energies are to be made competitive by increasing the cost of traditional energies. In short, the bill does not and is not intended to make green power more viable. Rather, the focus is to make traditional energy LESS viable, by placing huge tax burdens on producers and users of such energy. The plan itself is based on "cap-and-trade" (which, incidentially, was tried in Europe, without success): it will place a moritorium on greenhouse gas emissions from large producers, and sell pollution permits to manufacturers of energy. Manufacuters will not be allowed to generate energy beyond the levels of their allotted emission of CO2. Any power needs beyond those levels will have to come from sources that don't require those emissions permits: inefficient, expensive processes like solar and wind energy. All in an expressed attempt to make green energy more viable by making traditional energies drastically more expensive.

I've written before about what happens when governments decide that they know the economy better than the business do. Hopefully, this instant bit of Democratic Party hubris is not going to lead to the catestrophic meltdown that California suffered under Grey Davis, but frankly, I don't see it going any other way.

First of all, the cap-and-trade plan is about as close as you will EVER find to blatant political/economic cronyism. Since the ability to produce oil or coal energy is tried to whether or not you have the permit to produce the related gases, and since the government is the party that issues those permits, the government essentially decides what businesses are going to be able to function. Add in things like some companies being either grandfathered in or granted legislative exceptions.

In the end, history will be made similar to history past: governments weilding that sort of power generally don't make their choices based on economics or reason. Pet projects that are cute or trendy will be given a disproportionate share, while the engines that keep us moving - Exxon/Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, etc. - will be told to suck it up. It won't take long before the prices of energy rise, since the fact of the matter is that, even if distribution of emissions permits is handled will, a multitude of small corps using inefficient "green" production methods will NEVER be able to produce as much energy as quickly or as cheaply as the establishement. Even Barack's own staff estimate that the energy costs will increase substantially. Mark Furman, head of Obama's National Ecomonic Counsel, says the plan is going to cost about $250 billion per year. Other estimates show an across the board increase in American's energy and utility expenses by about 50%.

What's gonna happen then? Especially with rampant unemployment and a weak job market, people start writing to their legislators about the high cost of energy, and complaining that they can't afford their heating/air conditioning bills. And then? That's right. Price caps will be put into place by a democratic government pandering to the needs of the moment, complete with the resulting long-term cluster-fuck. With one hand, the government will sign law ordering the manufacturers to generate energy, but with the other hand, they will sign law limiting the amounts that those manufacturers will be able to charge. The end result will probably be the same as it was in California in the early 2000s. Demand will rise. Supply will stagnate, as energy producers don't have the capitol to build new infrastructure or plants. There will be a crunch, and we will ALL BE FUCKED. Astronomical energy bills. Rolling blackouts. Nothing in abundance except shortages.

If this energy bill gets passed, that's the way it's going to go. I can say that with confidence, because that part has happened before, at the state level. Our current economic situation will not support this, should the resulting hike in oil and coil reach anywhere near the projected levels.

Which brings us to the next point: this bill does not make oil itself any more expensive. It just makes MANUFACTURING oil into into usable fuels more expensive. It's not a change to the commodity, but a change to the tax structure. It doesn't take a genius to realize that a big part of Barak's Master Plan is to pay America's way to health care and welfare reform by wringing the necks of the traditional energy giants. Problem is that, for better or worse, we depend on this giants.

I see serious threat for backfire here. What exactly is stopping Exxon/Mobil, etc., from simply packing up and moving to Mexico or Canada? Why would they sell a barrel of oil here and pay $50/barrel in extra taxes, when there's rampant demand for that same oil in India or China? Why would they maintain their refineries and plants in Houston and New Orleans, and live under the Barack tax burden, when industrial real-estate is readily available on other shores? Why does Barack think the industrial giants will sit still for this, and why can he not see how fucked we are going to be without those industrial giants?

Finally, and least obviously, there is Texas. Which has always been an oil state. I honestly believe that the only way that the United States could fall as a nation would be through a civil war with Texas, and this bill is EXACTLY the sort of thing that will have that entire state in an uproar. I can hear it now: "There's a damn oil pump in my backyard! Why the hell do I gotta pay $6 a gallon for gas?" And they're right. The passage of this bill will be a crippling blow to the Texas oil industry. Thousands of jobs will depart overseas when Exxon decides that it's just not worth it to live under Barack's regime. Millions will be paid by Texans into the Fed in taxes, to be spent on "green" energy projects, like solar plants in California.

If you're a Texan, do you think sticking with this whole United States thing is really worth the loss of a critical grass-roots industry? Are you okay with businesses (and not just small businesses) being taxed into oblivion, so Wall Street and welfare can continue business as usual? If this bill gets passed, count on hearing about the Texas secessionist movement gaining momentum among the mainstream. One step closer to economic collapse and/or civil war.

Thanks Barack. You're doing a bang-up job. With everything that's going wrong with the country and the economy, what we really do need right now is to intentionally take on a discretionary 50% increase in energy costs on top of it all. Good thinking.

WATCHMEN

Still haven't seen the movie, but recently read the novel. Good shit, and deserves the acclaim it received for being good literature. Interesting work by the author in weaving in all the excerpts from books and clippings, and so forth. To say nothing of the pirate sub-plot, and the involvement of its author. Was predictable, but not a bad story. And the character Rorschach is… interesting. Totally alone, totally uncompromising, and comfortable with the fact that a mask is his skin, and that people don’t like him because they lack his strength, and fear it as a result. It’s not normal for a man to be able to actually do what he believes. Rorschach does, and pays the price. A hunted life, stinking, feared, and alone. He would tell you that its worth it. And he would mean it.

It has me thinking about dualities in general, especially in light of recent conversations with people about dominance and subservience. How people who live their lives in one tend to revel in the other. Heroes really are villains who’s failings have yet to be exposed. And they will be, even if their only failing is that they are human. So you either die a hero or live long enough to become a villain. Caesar was hailed as Rome’s salvation at the time be came to power.

How fucked up a species are we, and is there any hope for us? Does Rorschach have it right, and that people are just depraved animals waiting for the right opportunity to fall upon each other? Silly question, actually. We are no better than any other animals. But at least, like other animals, we generally prefer dominating socially over dominating physically. We are inherently destructive, but not inherently destroyers. Things in our local sphere, the things we see every day, that we covet; we destroy to protect those things. Even to were where act aggressively and/or preemptively in protecting ourselves.

Rorschach had nothing in his local sphere to protect. Nothing he saw every day. Nothing he coveted. With no grounding in this world, all he had left was his philosophy. His code. And yeah; there was nothing he would not do to protect and uphold that code, and nothing that would stop him from doing what the code deemed necessary. No compromise. Thank god there are not more like him. All to often, those sorts of personalities spend their lives in uncompromising pursuit of goals far less noble than his. The usual focus is orgasmic in some way, shape, or form. Funny how we really do demonstrate just how base we are.

As Veidt pontificated on in his journal, you can glean a great deal from a society by analysis of its parts, its culture, and – perhaps most importantly – its crimes. What behavior does the society consider acceptable, and what not? What sort of personalities does the society consider dangerous, and who are those personalities dangerous to? And finally, what separates the darkest degenerates from the man on the street? Lack of inclination to do evil, perhaps? Or maybe just lack of opportunities to do evil.

Just For The Record...

...you do not die if you get killed in your dreams.

Last night, I dreamed that I got shot in the head by a kid with a Glock. Straight shot, range of about 4 feet, and the bore I was looking down was definitely larger than 9 mili. Hit me just above my right eye. Little fucker came to rob me, and came up on me when I was in mid-reload with my 1911.

Pissed me off, since I dropped in the dream, and resurfaced in another dream. Kid was gone by then. But I'll remember him if I see him again.

Developments in The Lone Star Republic

Didn't notice this when it came out, but Governor Rick Perry of Texas recently signed a little fuck-you note to the Federal Government of the United States. Details here.

The contents of the note, which was drafted by joint efforts within the Texas State Legislature, focused on the Tenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, which was the final item on the United States Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights was the product of early wrangling in the fledgling US government, when substantial elements of the voting quorum refused to sign the Constitution, on the basis that, without further clarification or restrictions, the Constitution itself allowed for a Federal government that was far too large and powerful. The people didn't ever want to have to battle against another monolithic entity telling them How It's Going To Be Whether You Like It Or Not. They understood the need for government, but also understood that too much government was NEVER a good thing. The Tenth and final Amendment to the Constitution focused specifically on that topic, and asserted that the STATES retained power and sovereignty in all areas and issues other than those specifically accorded to the Federal government by the Constitution. In short, the Federal government's power was established by the Constitution, but was also limited to the bounds of the Constitution, with all other powers being reserved to the states, and to the people.

Of course, things have changed since then, with ever more power vesting in the Federal government. This happened not only through things like drastic political changes (like the Seventeenth Amendment, which changed the senate from a check/balance supporting State Power into just a smaller version of the House), but also through legal acrobatics around things like the commerce clause. The end result is the situation today, where we all generally acknowledge that the United States is our sovereign, and that the State governments are largely just regional managers.

Except, again, for Texas.

In the little note to Barack's Washington, Texas is telling the United States, loud and clear, to back the fuck off. They cite specifically to the Tenth Amendment, and overtly assert that the Federal Government has become too large. The implication is that Washington is usurping power properly held by the states.

Realistically speaking, they're right. While it's all been determined to be perfecly legal in current form, the text and intention of the Constitution would NEVER have allowed the Federal government to do things like enforce Federal drugs laws, firearms laws, or other shit within the boundaries of the States, because it was express that the Federal government COULDN'T do that sort of shit. Yet here we are, where nobody really knows the bounds of power, and the result is a simple clusterfuck. Example: You can go to a doctor in California and get an Rx for medical marijuana (usually for cataracts, cancer, or AIDS). While CA considers it absolutely legal to own and use that ganja, you could still be arrested by a Federal DEA agent enforcing Federal drug law, and get sent to a Pound-Me-In-The-Ass Federal prison. Within the bounds and jurisdiction of California, and acting with a green light from California, you are still subject to being sent to the clink because of a conflicting Federal law. Washington has taken it upon itself to not just oversee commerce, co-operation and defense, but also to try and control the day to day lives of every American citizen.

Apparently, Texas ain't having that shit, and is letting it's displeasure be known. Hopefully people in Washington are paying attention, because if Texas gets frustrated enough with Federal control, they DO have an out, in which case we are all going to lose. The Federal government does not intimidate Texas, and loyalties of love are becoming increasingly strained. Clearly, the Texas political apparatus is concerned of ever increasing Federal efforts to tell Texans how to live their lives.

Perhaps not conincidentally, Barack is currently trying to force through new Federal firearms legislation, which will allow it to remain legal to own guns, but only by offering the soul of your firstborn as a hostage. Have I mentioned that Texans take their firearm ownership issues very seriously?

In any rate, polls still overwhelmingly show that Texans DO NOT support secession. But Texas politicians certainly aren't being shy about creating a rift between Austin and Washington. It will be interesting to see how this goes.

Texas. And Texans.

I’m not one of them. But I am a fan. Even though I realize the downsides. Sometimes they’re loud to the point of obnoxiousness. A literally disgusting percentage of them are morbidly overweight. Not a single fucking one of them knows how to drive. And they’re never even a little bit shy about being Texans. Once upon a time in a bar in Dallas, some big corn-fed boy was standing on a table, talking about how great Texas was, how it was the only place to be, and how he was never EVER going to live anywhere else. I could tell he felt strongly about it. I asked him where else he had lived in his life. He ain’t never lived anywhere else, because Texas was great, it was the only place to be, and he was never EVER going to live anywhere else. I managed to avoid saying anything that would spark a bar-fight. But it was close.

Still, Texas really is a great place. Southern hospitality is a very real phenomenon, and Texas has it. People are more than just considerate; they are all the way POLITE. And they seem to actually mean it. Texas is one of very few places in the world where a woman traveling alone, car broken down on the side of the road, can accept a ride from a stranger, and not only be perfectly safe, but also have the Good Samaritan drive 20 minutes out of their way because they know a better auto-repair place than the nearest one, and can get them to cut her a deal on fixing that alternator. And not only that, but they would actually get her a better deal, instead of just collecting a kickback for bringing in the business.

Texas is also a place were personal initiative and hard work are held in extremely high regard. Small businesses abound. Pretty much everyone, besides having a regular day job, also has some personal hobby or interest that they could (or do) perform professionally If Things Were Different. (Auto repair, operating machinery, welding, radiological imaging, and that’s just my brother SW’s list while he lived there working full time as a chiropractor.) People are active. They are sometimes conservative and close minded, or racists, or anarchists, or whatever, but they are just people, after all. And generally speaking, I honestly think Texans are a good people. Maybe better than Americans, when compared across the board. Especially if you limit the comparison to people who are proud to be Texans. People who are proud of their culture and their State show it, by supporting their culture and their State, rather than being supported by it. Proud people don’t end up on welfare.

In any rate, the Governor of Texas recently made headlines by not immediately shooting down the idea that Texas might secede from the United States. They can, actually. In fact, they’ve already done it once, circa 1861. Texas thinks of itself as another country, because it was, in fact, another country. After it won its independence in 1836, but before it became a State of the Union in 1845, Texas was a republic. And it was a real, legitimate, functioning republic, unlike, for example, California, which had a puppet government set up following winning it’s ‘independence.’ But that was just a contrivance so the history books would not overtly state that the United States conquered California from Mexico. Texas had its very own functioning government that the citizens considered THEIR government, and it was only through political process and negotiation between nation-states that agreement was reached for Texas to become a State. Realistically speaking, there are only 14 states that have ever functioned as independent political entities: the original 13 colonies that declared independence from England, and Texas, which won its independence from Mexico.

When Texas joined the Union, its own Constitution was amended to include provisions for Texas to leave the Union. Texas’ Constitution has terms to secede, and those terms have been there for as long as Texas was a state. Joining the Union wasn’t a marriage for all time. It was a mere political alliance, subject to cancellation, should that become necessary. Texas children have it drilled into them, to one degree or another, that they are Texans, and every Texas high school kid knows that Texas is the only state that can withdraw from the Union. Texans implicitly know that their United States citizenship is potentially transitory. They consider themselves Texans first and foremost, although they are Americans as well. Fortunately, Texan interests and American interests almost always coincide.

But that might not always be the case, something that a great many Texans are beginning to consider. Texans pay billions in taxes to the American Federal government. They do receive a massive amount of work from the government and government-subsidized industries. Bell-Textron, which rakes in billions from military and other contracts, is there. The only American battle-tank plant outside of Michigan is in Texas. Rockwell International, primary contractor for space shuttle construction, is in Dallas. But really. How much does Texas need America? And what is that alliance going to cost? Texas is a state with lots of entrepreneurs and small businesses. Its gross state production is second only to California (and it’s a distant second), but unlike CA, it’s not shackled by energy and water concerns. Lots of go getters in Texas, and THEY VOTE. But the important part is that there are lots of people in the tax bracket that Barack is hitting up to pay for AFDC in places like Chicago, and to pay unemployment benefits to people in Detroit. How many Texas small businesses are going to get taxed under so welfare mothers in south Philly can afford their King Cobra? Or so Wall Street executives can have new vacation homes in the Hamptons on Federal bail-out money? Whether or not that’s the reality, that is the perception. Texans are not happy about the idea of dragging all of America along in the wake of their industry, and there is some truth in that idea that they are doing so. Being Texans, they’ll do it, do it with hard work, and take a lot of pride in having done it. They’ll never let anyone forget it either. But if it doesn’t work out, they won’t hesitate to cut the tow-cable when it becomes apparent that they’re about to be pulled down by the wreck they’re trying to salvage. Don’t kid yourself about unbreakable ties binding us together.

Which leads to all sorts of possible political problems. Legally, Texas does in fact have the power to leave the Union. Texas’ acknowledgment of United States authority and the United States’ Constitution is subject to a vote-of-no-confidence by its citizenry. Frankly speaking, the United States really does need Texas quite a bit more than Texas needs the United States. While not quite to the point of Colorado in Atlas Shrugged, I honestly think that Texas is the bright future of our economy. If you’re an investor, you’d be a hell of a lot better off looking for opportunities in Houston than looking for opportunities on Wall Street. If for not other reason than oil, the United States could simply not afford to let Texas get away. And what happens then? What usually happens when Nations try to compel responses from another nation?

As a brief historical interlude, tangentially on point: The Civil War was not actually about slavery. Slavery was simply the central practical issue of a political problem, which focused on the extent of the Federal government’s power. The Federalist North did not approve of the practice of slavery, and wanted it outlawed. But what brought the issue to war was not whether or not the Federal government wanted to outlaw slavery throughout the United States, but whether or not the Federal government could outlaw slavery throughout the United States. Specifically, could the Federal Government tell the States how the States were going to operate within their own borders. Did the power of the Federal Government supercede the power of the States? We (meaning most of us outside Texas) take for granted that we are Americans citizens first, and simply residents of whatever state we live in. We are okay with the idea that the States are largely just regional managers organizing local people, under the aegis of the United States. But that wasn’t always the prevailing view. When conflict was heating up between the Union and the Confederacy, General Robert E. Lee faced a dilemma: both nations asked him to command their forces. Lee ended up in command of the Army of Northern Virginia because he considered himself to be a Virginian first and an American second. A great many Texans still hold that mindset today.

Fast forward a hundred and fifty years. Can the Federal government exercise control over Texas, if Texas decides it no longer wants to be under Federal control? Should Texas decide to leave, and should the United States realize it cannot let Texas go, what happens? Will Texas be forced into war with the United States? How would that go? It would not be pretty. On one hand, the American military has power beyond anything this world has ever seen. But it is already fighting two wars at the moment. And there are a lot of Texans in the military who would have to decide where their loyalties lie. Robert E. Lee is not a bad precedent to follow in terms of honorable resolution of strong loyalties. And if it leads to open conflict? Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, around 1942, opined that it would be impossible to invade the continental United States, because there would be a gun behind every blade of grass. With 60 years having passed since then, his thoughts are probably no longer true with regard to the United States as a whole. We’ve become not necessarily soft, but certainly not as ambitiously hard as we once were. In much of the country, a firearm is a quirky, eccentric thing to own, rather than something that people just automatically accept is going to be in the house. But that’s not the case in Texas. Even today, it would be impossible for anyone to invade Texas, because there would, in fact, be a gun behind every blade of grass. Firearms and their use are still very much a part of people’s lifestyles. Not all that long ago, a Texan rancher woke in the middle of the night to someone stealing his pickup. He got his Remington 700 rifle and shot the guy behind the wheel of the truck as they were trying to escape down his quarter-mile driveway. A Texas jury acquitted the rancher of the murder charge. They approve of that sort of conduct in that part of the world. With that prevailing mindset, a war between Texas and the United States would be exceptionally brutal, to the point that it could destroy both republics.

It’s not happening. But the potential is there. The legal right to leave is there. And more and more Texans are going to start seriously wondering why their small businesses are closing down under tax burdens, so Wall Street can continue business as usual. New York is a long way from Dallas, after all.

I genuinely hope that Barack gets on top of the economic situation quickly, and that he doesn’t try to jam through any legislation that would sour that segment of the population (like a comprehensive firearms ban, for example). I’m really not worried about the United States’ potential for economic recovery. As it was in the 1920s, the problem is that so much of our economy has been functioning on credit that, without the (now defunct) credit market to sustain it, nothing is worth the amount that was paid for it. Your house is not worth what you paid for it. Nor is your car. Not because they are worth less, but just because the failure of the credit system means that prices no longer enjoy the extra cost padding that credit enabled us to pay. It’s really not that complicated. The collapse of the credit system has meant that more must be done on a cash-and-carry basis, which isn’t working because there isn’t enough actual cash in the system. There never had to be; everything was done on credit! But prices will settle down, the credit system will recover, and equilibrium will be reached. We will recover from this, given time. If nothing else, America still has the most productive agricultural system in the world. Barring an energy market collapse (which controls transportation costs) the American people are not going to starve. Which means that people will (hopefully) not become so panicked about survival that they start acting rash. They will keep working. So long as the populace remains fed, they are not going to revolt; they are going to find jobs, and work. So long as people can eat, they will rebuild, and almost always build something better than what was lost. Economic downtimes are unfortunate, especially for people used to lazy, comfortable lifestyles. But economic downtimes do not by themselves lead to the fall of nations.

But if some economic recovery is not seen soon, and if taxes keep rising without results being seen, more and more Texans are going to start wondering if being an American is really all that great a thing, and might Texas once again be better off by her lonesome. If the status quo degrades enough (or even persists long enough), Texas will secede. Which would be a catastrophe far beyond anything we might do to ourselves economically. American can recover from economic difficulty. That is not the sort of end that will bring down a Nation so powerful. But a civil war based on an internal division, and sparked by contention in a critical market (Texas oil) is EXACTLY the sort of end that would bring down a Nation so powerful.

The economy is what it is, and while there are a lot of things that might happen to make things worse, there are also a lot of things that might happen to make things better. As citizens, all we can really do is live our lives, live each day as best we can, and enjoy the time that we are given. In all probability, not a whole lot is going to change, except what changes we make for ourselves. Life is like that.

But if you ever start to hear serious rumblings of Texas secession, then you might want to consider where you’re going to want to be in event of a breakup and collapse of the United States as a whole. (Personally, I like the looks of Costa Rica.) In the meantime, think about this: if Texas seceded from the Union, even at this point, would you really think less of them? And if Texas seceded from the Union, which side of the border would you want to be on? I, for one, am not worried about the future of Texas. The rest of the nation… Well. We’ll see.