Blogs For Victory

Should We Go to War in Syria?

August 24, 2013August 24, 2013Mark Noonan25 Comments

As the Obama Administration lets on that it is planning US military action against Syria and our forces move in to position we do have to ask, is such a war necessary?

First and foremost, is there any vital US interest at state in Syria? To a certain extent, yes. Syria’s government has long been allied with Iran and has fostered the terrorist group Hezbollah. Destroying the Syrian regime, though, would only be useful if the potential successor regime would no longer be allied with Iran or any other US enemy and/or if such a regime would cease supporting terrorism…given the grab-bag collection of Islamists who make up the bulk of the Syrian opposition, it is almost certain that if they gain power they will continue to support terrorism and if not allied with Iran, would ally with some other enemy country, or countries. Indeed, a successor regime run by the Islamist opposition might even re-ignite Syria’s war with Israel (which has never officially ended).

Secondly, is there a moral demand that we act – some times a nation must go to war even without a vital, national interest at stake simply because there is a vital, moral issue at stake. Given the very nasty brutality of the Syrian regime, there is a moral case to be made for war. Though if we were to move on this, it would smack a bit of hypocrisy because the Syrian government isn’t doing anything it hasn’t been doing for decades, accompanied by a resounding silence on our part. Additionally, the Islamist opposition to the Syrian regime has been engaging in routine brutality of its own – especially, it appears, against Syria’s Christian minority. Given their nature, we can expect an Islamist regime to crack down even harder on Christians, and on any Muslims who don’t live up to the Islamist ideal. Morally, there is no problem with targeting the Syrian regime, but the result of knocking off the Syrian regime is almost certain to be a regime even more horrific.

Overall, the result of a successful military operation against the Syrian regime appears to be something worse than we have now. That Assad is a brute and his regime inhuman is beyond doubt, but given the nature of the opposition, a successor regime would be at least as bad and, perhaps, more destabilizing to the overall region. A tenet of the Just War Doctrine is that the war must not cause a worse situation than currently exists – given the strong arguments against a good result (ie, getting something better than we have now), an argument can be made that a war against Syria does not meet the Just War criteria.

I tend to come down on that side – in Syria, we can’t make a result better than the current state of affairs and our efforts will, indeed, very likely make a worse result. We should, therefor, stay out of Syria. Our goal in this mess should be, instead, to work against overall enemy forces – which include both the Syrian regime and those fighting it. Right now, with Syria wracked by civil war, proper American policy should be to leverage Syria completely out of Lebanon and by so doing also get Hezbollah out. We cannot fix the whole world, but we can take advantage of this situation to help fix a small part of it – Lebanon has been a stomping ground for Syrian imperialists and Islamist terrorists for decades. It has become a standing threat to Israel and the non-Islamist population of Lebanon suffers grave injustice from the Syrians and the terrorist groups. Getting Syria and the terrorists out of Lebanon won’t usher in global peace, but it will help out the Lebanese and the Israelis as well as strengthening the overall US position in the area. We should be doing what we can – directly and indirectly, to clear out Lebanon while sealing off, as far as possible, the Syrian civil war. Once a winner emerges, then steps can be taken depending upon the circumstances.

Welfare Must End

August 21, 2013August 21, 2013Mark Noonan40 Comments

Two things about welfare – first off, a Cato study which shows that in some States you can “earn” more being on welfare than by working a full time, minimum wage job. Then a sensible, liberal critique of Cato pointing out that if Cato gets its way, low wage jobs will go to hordes of immigrants, thus depressing wages even more, in turn making welfare even more appealing. The sensible liberal – Mickey Kaus – also points out that a huge problem of getting people to get off welfare and start working is that, well, working requires work. A lot of our senseless liberals will claim that no one wants to be on welfare – which is complete twaddle because for a lot of people it makes no sense to bust one’s hump working when you can get as much, or a little more, by doing nothing…and even if you get a little less, there’s still the compensating factor of not having to get up in the morning and go to work. I think I can speak for everyone when I say that even those of us who wouldn’t dream of using welfare except in a crisis still wake up, from time to time, and say “good grief; do I really have to go to work today?”. Work isn’t always fun – which is why its called work, rather than play.

The risk we have is that we’re building up a dependent class which has been on welfare so long that they lose all inclination to work and start to build up a sense of entitlement to welfare. A nation can carry on with 10% of the population freeloading, but once you start towards 20 and 30% or more doing it, collapse stares you in the face…and I’m talking civil war, end of the country sort of collapse…because those who do work will increasingly resent having to support those who don’t. We’re at that point – and its time to get off the welfare treadmill to destruction.

The receipt of any aid for a working-age, physically fit person must be dependent upon working, period. We can make it so that for the first month after losing the job or suffering other catastrophic financial loss is covered without having to put back in, but once we get past that first month, the recipient better have a job, or that person will have to be put to work on something in order go give back for what is obtained. I don’t care if its picking up trash around the city or scrubbing graffiti off of walls – something must be done by every able-bodied person. Not full time – we do want them to have the time to seek education, training and new employment – but at least 15-20 hours a week doing the grunt work of society in return for benefits. This is only fair; those who are paying the welfare bills will see that work is being doing and those who are getting the benefits will have the sense of pride which comes with contributing to the overall benefit of society. And those who have to do such work will have a vested interest in getting off such work and in to something which works out better in the long run. We make a deal – if you are in a financial crisis we’ll see to it you don’t starve, you keep a roof over your head, you are clothed and have essential medical care; you’re job is to stop needing such assistance as soon as possible or, lacking that, putting your back in to it a bit for what we give.

And just in case any of you liberals out there think I’m being un-Christian, I direct your attention to 2 Thessalonians 3:10:

In fact, when we were with you, we instructed you that if anyone was unwilling to work, neither should that one eat.

Remember, it is “unwilling” to work – not “can’t find a job”; not “I’m disabled”. You only get stuck in the “neither should that one eat” if you can work and refuse to work. The basic concept here it to return to the truth of the matter: living requires working. No one gets a free ride.

Secession is the Answer

August 20, 2013Mark Noonan27 Comments

From the Washington Times:

You’ve got North Carolina and North Dakota, so why not Northern Colorado?

Voters in several rural Colorado counties will be asked whether they want to form a new state tentatively named Northern Colorado the November election, a reaction to the Democrat-controlled state legislature’s “war on rural Colorado.”

The Weld County Commissioners voted unanimously at Monday’s meeting to place a measure on the Nov. 5 ballot asking voters whether they want the county to join other rural counties in forming another state.

“The concerns of rural Coloradans have been ignored for years,” William Garcia, chairman of the Weld County Commissioners, said in a statement. “The last session was the straw that broke the camel’s back for many people. They want change. They want to be heard.”

Three other rural counties — Cheyenne, Sedgwick and Yuma — also plan to place the 51st state referendum on the fall ballot. At least three more counties plan to consider the proposal this week at their commission meetings, said Jeffrey Hare, spokesman for the 51st State Initiative…

I’ve long argued in favor of this – you see, the government is just not responsive to the people, on the federal or State level. This is especially true in the Western States where the States were created, willy-nilly, when they had tiny populations. Gigantic geographic areas, mostly empty at the time of Statehood, were pushed within State boundaries and since that time, with population growth and economic development, the interests of the various regions of the States have often diverged. More extreme than the Colorado example is the example of California.

There were fewer than 100,000 people living in California in 1850 when it became a State. Most of the State, of course, was completely empty of people. Over the past 163 years, the population has increased to more than 38 million and these people are spread out over the vast territory of the State and have developed lives of their own. California isn’t a unified entity with a strong community of interests – it is a cobbled together grouping of several different communities which, however, are politically dominated by the two largest concentrations of people in the Los Angeles and San Francisco areas. Now, there’s nothing wrong with LA and SF – they are people with a full right to decide for themselves how they want to live…the trouble is that by being in the same State as Victorville and Palmdale, which have vastly different ideas than SF and LA, the people of LA and SF get to dictate to the smaller populations of Victorville and Palmdale. That just isn’t fair – doesn’t matter how Palmdale votes, they will always get a government which adheres to the wishes of San Francisco and Los Angeles. California is not one State – it is four States (at least) forced to live under the domination of one State (the coastal area of California running from Long Beach up to San Francisco).

By breaking up the States along lines of interest, we can have States which reflect the will of their people, broadly speaking, and which take care to protect the interests of the State (no more will northern California’s logging interests be at the mercy of anti-logging San Francisco, for instance). Additionally, by breaking up the States we ensure that representation in the United States Senate more accurately reflects all of the people – right now, both of California’s Senators are from San Francisco and while they heartily and ably represent the interests of San Francisco (and Los Angeles), they aren’t really putting before the United States Senate the interests of the other States currently contained within California’s borders. This break up of the States should also be coupled with increasing the size of the House to at least 601 members – thus making our House representatives more representative of the people.

The one thing I can’t stand is domination of one party by another. People in their localities should pretty much do it as they want, limited only by the strictures of the Constitution. It is way past time that we completely reformed American government to ensure that the local people rule their own lives. Secession is the answer to the problem – by making government smaller and closer to the people, it will be less corrupt and oppressive.

ObamaCare Train Wreck Update

August 19, 2013Mark Noonan12 Comments

Three bits of ObamaCare news today:

Half of all ObamaCare statutory deadlines have been missed.

Forever 21 is cutting the hours of some of their employees to 29.5 per week to avoid ObamaCare mandates. These people were advised yesterday, August 18th, that their health benefits will terminate as of August 31st.

More than 100,000 New Jersey residents in a program for low-cost health insurance will lose their coverage because their plan doesn’t cover all the whistles and bells mandated by ObamaCare. They’ll be lucky if their replacement plans only cost twice as much.

Did you vote for Obama? Then be ashamed. This is just a horrible thing…and it is horrible because Obama and leading Democrats cobbled together a pile of legislation and passed it without reading it or thinking through the consequences.

The Failure of Democracy

August 16, 2013Mark Noonan70 Comments

Which is worse: a democracy where minorities are oppressed or a dictatorship where minorities are protected? Before you answer that question, do keep in mind that every single human being on earth is in the minority at some point – whether its because of your gender, skin color, religion, political beliefs or what have you, at some juncture in your life there are more of them than there are of you. All of us are minorities and thus all of us are a potential target for a democracy ruled by demagogues – ruled by those who single out a minority as the source of evil which must be destroyed.

In a very real sense, the primary purpose of government is to protect minorities – because only when minorities are protected can justice be said to exist to any extent, at all. It doesn’t matter how democratic a nation is or how regularly it votes – if a minority is being oppressed, then it is an unjust society and the government is not carrying out its primary function. Government must ensure that each of us – especially when we are in the minority – are as far as possible allowed to go about our lives without let or hindrance from anyone else. Given this, better, say, a military dictatorship which will protect all the minorities than a democracy which deliberately attacks some minorities.

Of course, vastly better than either is a government of free people which also protects minorities. Once upon a time, our government was the best example of that humanity had ever devised. It is in tatters and shreds right now – so bad that the government is deliberately breaking the law in the matter of the debt limit, domestic spying, ObamaCare implementation and other matters and hardly a peep is raised about it. But it is still to some extent in existence – we are still partially free; partially protected in our minority rights, that is.

What is happening in Egypt should send a chill down our spines – because that is what democracy becomes when people are convinced that a vote of the majority rules all. The Morsi government won the election fair and square and proceeded to do whatever it pleased – because “the people” had said so. Of course, it wasn’t all of the people – the people will never be unanimous. There will always be a minority which doesn’t agree – and the first duty of the government, even if supported by 99% of the people, is to ensure that the 1% disagreeing get what they want, even (and especially) if that is no more than to be left alone. In the United States there are plenty of Americans who now think like the Morsi supporters: they’ve won the election and so they get to do whatever they want and the minority must knuckle under. That, however, is a failure of democracy – a failure to understand that we have a democracy not to determine what everyone must do, but to ensure that everyone can do as they wish, as far as practical.

For democracy to work there must be built in to it massive prohibitions against government action – for the very purpose of ensuring that a transient political majority doesn’t get it in their heads that victory at the polls is last word in government. Our Bill of Rights is our primary bulwark against the failure of democracy. What many people – mostly on the left – don’t understand is that if they don’t keep up the bulwarks, then the whole thing will come crashing down in to revolt and eventual civil war. Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed – but, remember, only their just powers. Just powers cannot be all powers because all powers cannot be granted to the government for the simple reason that not all people will consent to it.

I urge everyone not to tempt fate. Do not push things too far. Resign yourself to the fact that people will disagree and will have a right to disagree even to the point where you are offended. We are straying very close to a precipice right now – our government has grown arrogant; our political pressure groups think they are invincible. Some people are thinking that “history” is on their side, again (the Nazis and Communists thought that, too). Democracy is failing – here and around the world – because in too many lands a temporary majority thinks it has the right to re-order everyone’s lives. Stop it. Now. And let democracy be a success, again.

Constitutional Rights Open Thread

August 15, 2013Mark Noonan53 Comments

If requiring an ID to vote is a violation of someone’s right to vote, then requiring a background check is a violation of someone’s right to bear arms.

Discuss.

Our Incredible, Static Debt

August 14, 2013August 14, 2013Mark Noonan8 Comments

This report from CNS states that while we were running a $98 billion deficit for the month of July, the national debt – per the Treasury – remained at exactly $16,699,396,000,000.00 during the whole month. This is $25 million below the legally authorized debt limit.

This is, also, not mathematically possible – the Treasury Secretary did advise Speaker Boehner as of May 17th – when our debt officially hit the number it stayed at all through July, and is still at as of yesterday – that Treasury would be putting in to place “extraordinary” measures to keep the debt below the legal limit. What are these extraordinary measures? Not made clear – likely because it is just another word for “lie”.

It is simply not possible that our debt could remain exactly the same over this period of time – it would have to go up or down. Given the amount of spending we’re doing, “down” is not at all likely, and so it is almost a certainty that it has gone up…and probably vastly more than the $25 million gap between reported figure and legal limit. So, Treasury is almost certainly lying about how much we owe and borrowing money it cannot legally borrow…and no one in Congress is calling Treasury on it; neither are the financial markets. A massive lie is being treated as if it didn’t exist by all of the Ruling Class on this country.

Such is the sad state of affairs we live in – a bankrupt country run by cowards, liars and crooks.

And some might wonder, still, why I want a revolution – peaceful, to be sure; at the ballot box, of course (and as our Founders intended); but a revolution, nonetheless. The entire Ruling Class has to be turned out and new people, new ideas and new laws made to ensure that the truth is what governs our nation.

You Want $15 an Hour for Flipping Burgers? There’s an Ap for That

August 12, 2013Mark Noonan23 Comments

From Singularity Hub:

No longer will they say, “He’s going to end up flipping burgers.” Because now, robots are taking even these ignobly esteemed jobs. Alpha machine from Momentum Machines cooks up a tasty burger with all the fixins. And it does it with such quality and efficiency it’ll produce “gourmet quality burgers at fast food prices.”

With a conveyor belt-type system the burgers are freshly ground, shaped and grilled to the customer’s liking. And only when the burger’s finished cooking does Alpha slice the tomatoes and pickles and place them on the burger as fresh as can be. Finally, the machine wraps the burger up for serving.

And while you fret over how many people you invited to the barbecue, Alpha churns out a painless 360 hamburgers per hour…

Might need just one employee just to monitor the machine…and, hey, they can even pay him $20 an hour…still doesn’t work out too well for the 90% of fast food workers who will be laid off. Careful what you demand people, you just might get what you ask for…

The Hasan Debacle

August 10, 2013Mark Noonan26 Comments

Mark Steyn is cutting, as usual, in his discussion of the Hasan trial – he concludes his piece:

…He’s admirably upfront about who and what he is — a “Soldier of Allah,” as he put on his business card. On Tuesday, he admitted he was a traitor who had crossed over from “the bad side” (America’s) to “the good side” (Islam’s). He has renounced his U.S. citizenship and its effete protections such as workplace-violence disability leave. He professes loyalty to America’s enemies. He says, “I am the shooter.” He helpfully informs us that that’s his gun. In this week’s one-minute statement, he spoke more honestly and made more sense than Obama, Gates, Casey, the Armed Forces Court of Appeals, two judges, the prosecution and defense lawyers, and mountains of bureaucratic reports and media coverage put together.

But poor old Hasan can say “Yup, I did it” all he wants; what does he know?

Unlike the Zimmerman trial, Major Hasan’s has not excited the attention of the media. Yet it is far more symbolic of the state of America than the Trayvon Martin case, in which superannuated race hucksters attempted to impose a half-century-old moth-eaten Klan hood on a guy who’s a virtual one-man melting pot. The response to Nidal Hasan helps explain why, in Afghanistan and elsewhere, this war is being lost — because it cannot be won because, increasingly, it cannot even be acknowledged. Which helps explain why it now takes the U.S. military longer to prosecute a case of “workplace violence” than it did to win World War Two.

Steyn is right – Hasan is the admirable person in this trial. He’s quite clear on who he is, what he did and why. We, on our side, look like a sick and twisted combination of idiot and coward. I’m not quite sure what is best in dealing with Hasan – shooting him is logical (I’m opposed to the death penalty in principal but traitors during wartime pretty much ask for their own deaths), but there is something to be said in denying him “martyrdom” and growing old and dying, long since forgotten, in prison. But whatever we do with him, we’ll still look like cowardly idiots.

In spite of the fact that he’s clearly 100% guilty as charged and there is abundant and indisputable evidence to prove this, it has taken years to bring him to trial. He should have been tried as soon as he got out of the hospital post-shooting. There was the beard issue which took a lot of time – a dispute as to whether or not Hasan should have to adhere to Army regulations about beards (the are forbidden). Tie him down and shave him – though, of course, had we tried him in a rational time frame he wouldn’t have been able to grow such a full beard. The man, in court, is clearly stating he’s guilty – and yet the trial goes on, rather than the sentencing. Once he is sentenced, there will probably be years of appeals. With a little luck, we’ll wrap this up a couple years before Hasan dies of old age – unless we exchange him for someone the Islamists kidnap meanwhile.

In the endless post-mortems of France’s defeat in 1940, one thing which rarely came out in the analysis is the actual reason the Germans were able to conquer France in 6 weeks: the people of France, with a few shining exceptions, were yellow to the bone. They were simply afraid to fight. There are a large variety of reasons the heroic France of 1914 turned in to the cowardly France of 1940, but the fact remains that if they’d had some guts in 1940 the war would have gone very differently. I worry that we have become like that, too – simply afraid to fight…with our fear stemming from a lack of faith in our cause; we don’t believe that we’re any good any longer, that we have to right to be here…that we’ve never done anything worthwhile and so our enemies are right to attack us. For crying out loud, we’ve got a traitor who joined the other side and massacred our soldiers here on our soil – and we can’t even swiftly and correctly deal with something as cut and dried as that…small wonder we’re at our wits end with what to do about the larger issues.

We’d better get some courage back, and right quick. The vultures are circling…