I did some checking and from what I can tell, the low end estimate for the number of people killed in war since the end of World War Two is 13.4 million people. I’m sure they are all happy that at least they weren’t killed in a Great Power conflict.

The other day, in the bruhaha over the firing of Tillerson, I saw a quote on Twitter which said that in a long discussion on foreign and defense policy, Tillerson and some others were taking the position that the post-WWII settlement was excellent and had to be defended at all costs while Trump kept on objecting that it wasn’t all its been cracked up to be. It was after this meeting that Tillerson allegedly called Trump a moron over his views. I had always doubted that Tillerson ever said such a thing, but in that context I believed the statement true – if not in verbatim quote, then at least in spirit. People like Tillerson do believe in the post-WWII order. In fact, most people involved in the higher reaches of government and business believe it. It is their received wisdom. They can’t imagine anything other than what we’ve had since 1945.

This is why there are plenty of people, including high up in the Trump Administration, who are still defending the Iran deal; the UN in general; the so-called free trade agreements. This is what you do. This is how things are done. You don’t question them. To such people, it would be as if a priest had chimed in during a meeting with the Pope with the observations that he didn’t believe in the divinity of Christ. They really believe it in that sort of way – as a matter of religious dogma.

Just last night, I decided to watch The Good Shepherd. It is an odd movie and a bit difficult to follow as it continually flashes back and forward in time. The crux of of the story is the development of a CIA official in charge of counter-intelligence from his earliest days in the WWII OSS through to the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs invasion. One particular scene caught my eye: the CIA official is in conference with a mob boss in order to get the mob boss’ help in return for getting the heat off the mob boss. Par for the course stuff – but the mob boss says at one point, “you guys worry me: you’re the people who make big wars.” To which the CIA official says, “no; we’re the people who keep the wars small.” That is, I think, a pretty accurate reflection of the mindset of the people who run our world: they keep things under control. Out of our hands, you see? Because the regular folks can’t be trusted with actual power – there needs to be a group of people who know best, and who can manipulate things in order to keep things running smoothly and ensure that nothing too bad happens.

The support for this theory is that some how or another, it was the foolish passions of the common people who had made the two World Wars. The elite since World War Two has been determined that there be no repeat! That the wars were actually caused by the fumbling idiocy of the elites in charge doesn’t enter into the equation: the elites will not accept that it was their error, and as someone had to be at fault, they decided it must have been you and me. I will grant that we haven’t had another World War, but it isn’t like we’ve had peace, either. Those 13.4 million corpses are testimony to that. In addition, each time you get ready to be patted down by the TSA, you are demonstrating our lack of peace. You see, if there was peace, then you’d be able to buy a plane ticket for cash at the gate and get on the plane without even showing your ID.

The post-WWII order has been an utter failure. The supposed success of the order – the increasing material prosperity of the world – was an accident; the elites didn’t call it into being, as the advances in science were going to do their thing no matter what. In politics, we’re finding ourselves increasingly balkanized into mutually hating groups. War is continual around the world – often accompanied by atrocities which would have made Attila the Hun blush. Populations are being uprooted; ancient ways of life are being destroyed; scores of millions are aborted; birth rates drop around the world; an increasingly wealthy and out of touch Ruling Class develops ever more astonishing lies to justify it’s continued existence. This must come to an end.

And, in fact, it will come to an end – it is only a question of how and when. This isn’t sustainable (to take a word our elites love to use). We can’t continually move people around from one end of the world to another. We can’t continue to be sterile. We can’t continue to undermine the very concept of family. We can’t keep attacking religion. It will all go smash – in fact, it already is going smash. The underlying foundations of all civilizations in the world (Christian, Muslim, Chinese, Indian) are crumbling…and it isn’t leading to peace and prosperity but to social dislocation and a madness which manifests itself in monstrosities varying from people tattooing their bodies to blowing up shopping malls.

Do not speak to me of saving the post-WWII order. I hate and despise it. It has brought nothing but an infinity of woe upon the world. Let us replace it. I want a Distributist future, and I hope that more people embrace it, at least in some form. But whatever it is, it can’t be as hideous and as anti-human as what we’ve done since the end of World War Two.