Getting the unwanted nuke. Right and Left. Illusions about tyrannies. Governing creates enemies. The failing state and society's reaction. Undermining the global order by ignoring the insanity of leading eccentrics. The Dictator's Tantrum.
1. The good news is that reliable sources (Time, August 3) are "reassured" that Iran does not have a bomb-directed nuclear program. Tehran, too, has confirmed our own oracles' finding. It declared that its research seeks energy from fission and not the manufacture of nukes. It is, therefore, of some interest that her government has asked the spiritual leadership for the go-ahead to build a bomb. Whatever the real truth might be, we are not to worry. Ahmadinedjad and cohorts who have recently guaranteed the purity of Iran's elections will comfort us. Such as with an assurance that, should Iran accidentally stumble into the bomb it is not seeking, she will not use it. Well, at least for the time being. Maybe.
2. The August 10 issue of Time had a feature on the "Far Right." The tendency to label everything "far right" that is to the right of Joe Stalin, is striking. Not surprisingly, everything on this side of center-left is tagged with the rubbery term. The main insight comes from a picture that shows counter-demonstrators. Not being rightists these are presented as concerned, which makes them by implication into democrats. In the center of the scene there is a person giving a salute. He does so with a clenched fist which is the Communist version of the Nazi movement's "German Salute" that is given with a stretched out hand. It is being said that the extremes meet. In this case, the point of separation is where the message sent by the hands, open and clenched, connect. In the depicted instance, the Left is using the violent Right to justify its own actual and planned violence. What we witness is how the extremes not only join in their advertised
violence but also complement each other.
3. Those who experience dictatorship at home put up with it because they have no option as long as they fear for their life. Free men observing contemporary tyrannies from the outside like to take their time to react. In doing so they worsen the lot of autocracy's captives by belittling the implications of the enslavement of others. The motive, however, is not outright cruelty but that, being ignorant of the facts, they are persuaded that the example they witness, cannot affect them.
4. Perhaps this is a sign of desperation. Observing US-generated news an impression emerges. As is natural in the course of exercising power, the Democrats encounter opposition from quarters that had once voted them into power. Election-time's support drummed up by offering generalities is eroding under the heat that practical rule generates. The explanation for the southward climb of popularity is "racism." This might be as easy as it is to slide down a greased pole; nevertheless, it is a bad strategy. Ultimately the unfairly accused could react to the smear by concluding, "OK, if having the opinions I have makes me a racist then, that cannot be that bad. So let them call me what they like." The result: racism, so often invoked to club without a cause, becomes legitimized because, through its misuse, the term is deprived of its meaning. It used to be said that nationalism is the last refuge of the scoundrel. In an earlier age, the invocation of religion served the same cause. Nowadays racism and ecology are enlisted in the support of the same purpose.
5. If one looks around it appears that an unfolding trend can be discerned. In a number of countries, the citizen's attitude to the criminality to which he is exposed is changing. It all began with a time when folks did not lock up when leaving their homes. In those pre-historic times, cheap locks whose latch could be pushed back by inserting a credit card in case the key under the doormat was missing, were deemed to offer sufficient protection against the unlikely. The first wind of change came when people locked up while inside their lodging. Then came the age of tiny bolts that were mounted inside the door frame with short wooden screws. The trend went to several sophisticated locks and hefty bars. Then came the electronic alarms connected to some security service. America invented the gated community, sort of a reverse East Germany operated on a voluntary basis. Soon cars got as automatic door locks. Meanwhile guys like the writer discovered a
purpose beyond fitness in being qualified in the martial arts. Nowadays, people who tell about having been robbed will add as an excuse "it was not even late."
Somewhere in the midst of the process, big dogs, or smaller critters with a big voice, had a renaissance. The newest is that self-defense groups, citizens patrols and such are propping up. Various informal organizations that promise protection are also on the rise.
The state's monopoly on power has been a useful invention. In modern times it created a pre-condition for civilized development. As the above suggests, the confusion surrounding the application of laws against the consent of the anti-social implies that the state is retreating from a function that justified its rise. The vacuum created is filled. At first by criminals and then, in responding to general discomfort, fear and insecurity regarding the rule of the law, self-help groups prop up. The unfolding privatization of security, and ultimately of the need to self-assert rights, is a phenomena that reverses a long and beneficial development. PC or no PC, reverting to the pre-modern past will give us reasons to regret accepting this trend.
Real, that is livable personal freedom, is a victim of the attempt to bend backward so as to "respect" the alleged rights of criminals. As this was written a teenage boy was convicted. He killed his father, his stepmother and her daughter. Good points were earned because he missed his stepbrother. Give yourself time to contemplate what a lenient sentence might be. Done? So how about this one to reconnect you to reality: he got a nine-month suspended sentence.
6. Swallow a tranquilizer before you cast a glance at a line-up of world leaders. A type dominates, if not in numbers then in emitted decibels and their blinding neon colors. Characters such as the Gadhafys, the General Shwes and the Dear Leaders stand out. We are not to forget the likes of Mugabe, Chavez of Venezuela, the departed Che still thriving as an abstraction on sweatshirts and the Redeemers of ex-Soviet Central Asia. Delusion as a criterion brings to mind bin Laden and his band, Ahmadinedjad, Somalia's Islamists and their pirate affiliates. Meanwhile, apologies are due to the overlooked oddities that escaped the wax cabinet. The inclination to be polite deters one from mentioning some of the eccentrics of Old Europe that are equaled by fruitcake fillings grazing in central Europe and east of that. All these leading bozos have excellent sensors to detect abysses. They have the dictatorial power to command the jumps that initiate the descent.
Much of their noisy theatrics resonate loudly on the international scene. Therefore, the worry regarding the effect of the Nuts United — regardless of their eccentricity they do cooperate – goes beyond the concern for the well-being of the peoples they hold hostage. With Russia and China in the lead, the eccentrics receive badly considered protection. They are shielded as useful instruments because their primary foes are the developed areas of the world. This myopic underestimation of the disruptive purpose of weirdos heading rogue states undermines the international system's stability. The support given to the wackos chips away at the system developed by civilized societies and with which they ameliorate their differences. Granting status to fancy-ridden oddballs and granting them a chance to influence international relations brings disarray to the global order. This weakens the ability to keep within orderly boundaries the change that is natural in an evolving world. The systematized procedures of conflict-management and its public standing emerges as damaged.
7. The Dictator's Tantrum. Final installment. (Could be.) For a year now, you have been exposed to the aftermath of the arrest of Gadhafy's son in Geneva for beating his servants. The man was treated by local police, as any native would have been. Reacting, Libya took two Swiss hostages, withdrew a few billions, announced an oil boycott and demanded an apology. The unlikely has just happened. Switzerland's acting President put on a banana republic act and fed the monkey. Therefore, he crawled to the Revolutionary Leader's tent to apologize (for exercising sovereignty by applying local laws?). He returned without the hostages but with an agreement to submit the incident to international arbitration. Ironically, a TV series is running here about WWII. It commemorates that Switzerland, an island in Nazi-occupied Europe, defended her independence through a combination of military preparedness, principled politics, and some economic cooperation.
Switzerland's self-inflicted shame came about when the terminally ill Lockerbie bomber serving a life sentence was released. It tells a lot about Libya that the returning murderer (on the Leader's orders) got a hero's welcome by the regime that claims another victory. Unlike in the movies, the story involving Bad Guys ends with a unique happy ending. With the help of the unprincipled, the baddies get away. Decency and moderation are hardly going to be the upshot.
#2. The idea of political Right and Left is flawed. Once, in describing a perceived unfairness committed by my boss, I said to my co-worker “I am considering the full range of reactions. I could kiss him or I could kill him.” This is a truly linear way of thinking. Two extreme points connected by a line. In politics, the extremes are totalitarianism (Orwellian Big Brother) and Anarchy (Savage Freedom) rather than liberalism and conservatism. I find it better to view the modern Right-Left concept as a circle with Hitler at 1 O’Clock and Stalin at 11 O’Clock. At 6 O’Clock we find the lawless people of Papua New Guinea, Northwest Pakistan, or the six gun toting cowboys of the Old West. Knowing, as we do, that savagery is a bad way to live, we seek to moderate human behavior, but this is an exercise in overcoming gravity because just as the hour hand on a clock will fall to 6 O’Clock when the center screw is loosened, so will society fall into Anarchy when a government falls. The 3 O’Clock and 9 O’Clock positions are the most difficult to maintain as the leverage is the greatest.