Averting Soft Tyranny - Why the 2010 and 2012 Elections are Vital to America
A cry of warning sounded by Joseph Ashby:
From "When tyranny calls," (American Thinker, http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/10/when_tyranny_calls.html)
History is calling with the warning that tyranny is at our doorstep ( Read more... )
From "When tyranny calls," (American Thinker, http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/10/when_tyranny_calls.html)
History is calling with the warning that tyranny is at our doorstep ( Read more... )
England's colonial empire, not to mention the UK itself, were in decline before WWII even began- hell, before WWI even began; the decline actually began around the turn of the century, and the Boer War was a harbinger of many of the problems to come. The UK had lost anything resembling a firm grasp over their empire by 1918, and by the end of WWII, nationalist movements (which had begun decades before WWII began) were strong in all colonial empires, not just English colonies.
Internationalist and anti-colonialist ideals, also of the Left, hampered British attempts to hold on or even grant inndependence in an orderly fashion to the nations of her Empire.
It is preposterous to blame the civil conflicts in former colonial territories on the left (or the right either for that matter). The people who lived in the empire were not dolls or chess pieces; their nationalist movements were based on the idea that they did not want to be controlled by a foreign power, and the U.K. had long since lost the means and money to crush those movements, and good for them if they didn't have the stomach for it. Look at what the French did in Algeria.
It is also just plain silly to suggest U.S. thought all or most or even some of the nationalist movements in colonial territories were based upon U.S. political ideals. The U.S. harbored no illusions about the motives of these nationalist movements.
Mountbatten is not to blame for the India/Pakistan conflict, and in fact, the Labour government in England granted independence in a more peaceful, orderly and stable way than other colonial powers, right or left. Just check out former Belgian colonies, like Rwanda.
Both the USSR and the U.S. both did some unconscionable meddling in the third world, and it was that Cold War wrangling, far moreso than any action of Lord Mountbatten, which spawned the Taliban.
Rationing of sugar did not really have much to do with the post-war depression in England, nor did the end of sugar rationing (and other rationing systems) do much good for the English economy. The U.S. decision to end the Lend-Lease program did more damage than any rationing system, but the end of Lend-Lease was but one tiny drop in the pool of problems, which had been created over a very long period of time.
There is no reason, other than socialism, that Britain could not have resumed her role as a major industrial and commercial power...
Nonsense. First, the Torys have held the majority more than Labour since WWII. Additionally, the British economy, domestic and colonial, was in decline long before any socialist elements had any power in England, and other European countries, wherein socialist elements have held considerable power, are not in the same boat as the Brits. Nor is the UK educational system responsible for England's loss of commercial power. England does not exist in a vacuum, and the conditions allowing her to rise to her status as a great commercial power (something that took literally hundreds of years) changed over time as all geo-political and economic conditions tend to do.
There are still gentry and workers honored in Britain, but the merchants, industrialists and financiers are despised as "greedy."
Again, this is simply not true. Depending on who you are speaking with in England, you will hear nobility, workers and the middle class trashed or praised, but there is still a decidedly classist outlook in England, which has never taken hold in the U.S.
The catalyst to this permanent leftist political climate is health care
It is not so simple to claim universal health care is some "socialist" stamp of economic doom. The Germans, for instance, instituted a national health system in the late 19th century, and the architect was Von Bismark, a right-winger, who felt that this health care program would work as a bulwark against socialism. The German health care system has endured for over 100 years, through both right and left-wing governments, and the German economy is not as bad as that of the UK.
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I am not arguing that it was solely because of the World Wars, the Cold War and postwar socialism that Britain lost her Empire qua empire. I am saying that it was for those causes, and particularly because of the weakness resulting from World War II followed by socialist policies, that Britain's empire failed to evolve into the sort of Commonwealth imagined by planners c. 1900.
It was inevitable that the former Imperial possessions would become first Dominions and then fully-independent countries. What was not inevitable was that they would cease to be a diplomatic and political alliance, nor was it inevitable that the former British colonies in Africa would develop into chaotic, decivilizing despotisms. That was largely the fault of the speed and chaos with which the decolonialization happened.
Internationalist and anti-colonialist ideals, also of the Left, hampered British attempts to hold on or even grant inndependence in an orderly fashion to the nations of her Empire.
It is preposterous to blame the civil conflicts in former colonial territories on the left (or the right either for that matter).
I do not blame the conflicts on the British Left. I blame the British failure in many cases to crush the nastiest factions of rebels before independence, thus dooming the new nations to continued civil war or bloody despotism, on the British Leftist idealization of "anti-colonialists."
The people who lived in the empire were not dolls or chess pieces; ...
Unfortunately, most of those in Africa might as well have been: there you had tiny, European-educated elites who essentially manipulated hordes of ignorant tribesmen, and in consequence made themselves autocratic rulers.
... their nationalist movements were based on the idea that they did not want to be controlled by a foreign power, and the U.K. had long since lost the means and money to crush those movements, and good for them if they didn't have the stomach for it. Look at what the French did in Algeria.
The analogy would be what the British (successfully) did in Kenya -- to the benefit of the nation which ultimately emerged. Had more of the Mau Mau survived their uprising, they would have turned the country into a hell for its people.
The local French colonials actually won the Algerian civil war, only to be betrayed by DeGaulle (who was more interested in defending the French mainland). If it hadn't been for their fight, however, even more extreme and radical elements of the anti-colonialist movements would have taken over Algeria, so their defense of the colony did some good.
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As for what happened in Rhodesia, the British were so busy playing footsie with the Marxist rebels that the Rhodesians had to declare independence. This continued even after that, and Margaret Thatcher herself -- not what one usually considers a leftist -- refused to help the British people in Rhodesia. I'm not sure if this was due to injured pride over the Unilateral Declaration of Independence, or crying crocodile tears over "racism" and "colonialism", but either way, she sold out her people.
And the Rhodesians did fight a valiant fight, but in the end they caved in to world pressure. Then there was another Henry Kissinger disaster, and the rest is history.
Before:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzdVx4HhTfA
After:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UrpciPVOdk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPKGZreusoQ
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My point is that the empire was never going to evolve the way the planners of 1900 imagined (and who are you speaking of, specifically?) because the empire and UK economy was already in decline before 1900, and this decline had nothing to do with socialism.
It was inevitable that the former Imperial possessions would become first Dominions and then fully-independent countries...
The English didn't see it as inevitable, which is why they expended so much time, energy, resources and money trying to cling to that empire. Regardless, if you actually examine the history of European colonialism, especially in Africa, a rather striking trend is that former English colonies made the transition to independence with less violence and more stability than those of any other colonial power. Most of the 20th century upheaval in Africa has been in nations who were under the control of other colonial powers, many of which only granted indepence after a long, protracted process. The current problems in Nigeria, Kenya, etc. are not the result of a hasty process of independence-granting.
I blame the British failure in many cases to crush the nastiest factions of rebels before independence...
But that would be an inaccurate assessment of the historical realities of colonialism, especially seeing as how some colonial policies of the English (and other colonial powers) contributed to the radicalizing of certain factions within nationalist movements. It can certainly be argued that colonialism leaves chaos in its wake, but this had very little, if anything, to do with left-wing idealization of anti-colonialism, and it does need to be noted that there was right-wing support for anti-colonialism and plenty of right-wing idealization of nationalist ideas.
Unfortunately, most of those in Africa might as well have been [dolls or chess pieces]:
Maybe those anti-colonialists had a point?
The analogy would be what the British (successfully) did in Kenya -- to the benefit of the nation which ultimately emerged. Had more of the Mau Mau survived their uprising, they would have turned the country into a hell for its people.
Dude, the English colonists forced over 1,000,000 people, mostly Kikuyu, to live on a "reservation" of a couple thousand square miles; the colonists (between 30,000 and 40,000 people) grabbed over 10,000 square miles, which contained the best agricultural land in Kenya. The Land Commission Reports of the early/mid 1930s basically left most of the native population with no land rights at all, which created crushing poverty. The colonial government repeatedly refused to create a mechanism whereby complaints of native Kenyans against colonists could be heard and settled properly, but they also flatly refused to hear the moderate nationalists.
There were a lot of other problems caused by the (not left-wing) colonial government which directly led to the radicalization of the Kikuyu (and other smaller ethnic groups in Kenya) and the uprising, wherein tens of thousands (if not more) Kikuyu were killed. These murders did not contribute to the stability of the state. And the last couple of years demonstrates that Kenya is not so stable.
The local French colonials actually won the Algerian civil war, only to be betrayed by DeGaulle (who was more interested in defending the French mainland). If it hadn't been for their fight, however, even more extreme and radical elements of the anti-colonialist movements would have taken over Algeria, so their defense of the colony did some good.
The French defeated the initial Algerian nationalist movement through some of the most brutal, inhuman actions ever taken by a Colonial government (and you have to go a long mile to beat out the Belgians). These actions did considerable damage to French reputation abroad and their international relations. The next nationalist movement which emerged and eventually won independence for Algeria was far more radical and extreme than the initial nationalist movement the French crushed, so no, crushing the first nationalist movement did not do any good.
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Depends on to which "U.S." you refer. The American military and intelligence agencies were fairly realistic about the barbaric nature of most of the Third World nationalists. Neither the State Department nor the academic elite were realistic at all about decolonialization. Much of the political infighting in the USA regarding diplomacy in the Third World from the late 1940's through 1980's stems from this difference of opinion.
Mountbatten is not to blame for the India/Pakistan conflict, and in fact, the Labour government in England granted independence in a more peaceful, orderly and stable way than other colonial powers, right or left. Just check out former Belgian colonies, like Rwanda.
I'm not blaming Mountbatten for the conflict (which originated in the medieval Muslim aggressions against and pre-colonial Muslim misrule of India, which left Muslims and Hindus hating each other). I'm blaming Mountbatten and the government which sent him for granting independence in such a rushed fashion that it led to terrible massacres. And I agree with you that the British actually did it better than did most other colonial Powers ... which isn't saying that much, actually.
Both the USSR and the U.S. both did some unconscionable meddling in the third world, and it was that Cold War wrangling, far moreso than any action of Lord Mountbatten, which spawned the Taliban.
During the crucial period of decolonialization, the Soviets were by far meddling more aggressively, and against the stability of the colonies in order to prevent peaceful liberation, which is why I mention this as primarily Russia's fault. Probably our only major mistake during this period -- which led directly to the Taliban -- was to favor Pakistan over India, even though India was culturally a more natural ally.
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The State Department didn't give a fuck about barbarism one way or the other- any more than did the military or any intelligence agency. We've supported a host of barbaric governments and will continue to do so, and political infighting over diplomacy was not the result of dewy-eyed leftists with some utopian ideas about Third World governments.
I'm blaming Mountbatten and the government which sent him for granting independence in such a rushed fashion that it led to terrible massacres.
Indian independence was not rushed, but for the sake of argument, we'll assume it was. The massacres were not the result of hasty policy. They were the result of long-standing tensions between the Muslim minority and the Hindu majority (which cannot realistically be blamed entirely on the Muslims). We have seen time and again that when ethnic/religious tensions are repressed by the force of some government, whether it be colonial or domestic (think Yugoslavia or Rwanda) as soon as that pressure is removed, the tensions ignite. There was no way for the English (or anyone) to avoid the violence because they had never sought to diffuse it while they were in a position to do so. The English weren't quite so bad (at least in India) at playing one side against the other, but they did so none-the-less, and they certainly never cared whether or not there would be violence when they left India.
During the crucial period of decolonialization, the Soviets were by far meddling more aggressively, and against the stability of the colonies in order to prevent peaceful liberation...
Our worst mistake was overthrowing the democratically elected government in Iran and placing the Shah in power, and I tend to think we were just as aggressive in our meddling as were the Soviets. We did not care about "peaceful liberation" and did not do very much, if anything, to further it.
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The continuance of rationing in post World War II Britain in MANY commodities damaged the British economy. When you ration a commodity, you artificially depress its supply by reducing demand. What the rationing was doing was slowing the British recovery. The rationing in the case of sugar, which continued the longest, was just the most obviously egregious imposition upon the British people.
Rationing made some sense for about a year or two after the war, when Britain was still dealing with the consequences of losing her foreign exchange and much of her merchant marine. But a sane economic policy would have phased-out rationing as rapidly as possible, and used some sort of emergency addition to the dole to ensure that the poor still had essential goods. That would not have muffled the economic signals to producers as did the rationing.
Postwar rationing also badly damaged British morale, and resistance to arbitrary rule. During the war it could be accepted as necessary for victory -- after the war, it was too obviously just sadism on the part of the British government against its own people. What the heck was the point of the rationing in a world where German U-boats were no longer sinking merchantmen, anyway?
The U.S. decision to end the Lend-Lease program did more damage than any rationing system, ...
Surely, Britain wasn't expecting America to subsidize her forever, even after the war was won? If the British planned on this basis, they were both very greedy to make, and naive to believe that we would acede to, such demands.
... but the end of Lend-Lease was but one tiny drop in the pool of problems, which had been created over a very long period of time.
This "pool of problems" has a name. It's called socialism. Too many figures in the British government and intellectual elites were willing, nay eager, to impose socialist measures to deal with the problems of postwar economic readjustment. And, in doing so, they choked off postwar economic recovery.
The British industrial problem had been a lack of modernization -- too much of the British industrial infrastructure had been laid down before World War One, and needed to be replaced to remain competitive in the mid-20th. Socialist measures blocked such modernization, since modernization would require changes in work conditions and rules.
Before Britain had been an industrial Power, she had been a commercial Power. Socialist measures prevented a commercial recovery, since they necessitated very high taxes which choked off the free flow of capital.
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One of England's biggest mistakes was attempting to hang on to an empire full of people who no longer wanted to be ruled by Brittania. It bled them.
Re: Lend-Lease Program:
Surely, Britain wasn't expecting America to subsidize her forever, even after the war was won? If the British planned on this basis, they were both very greedy to make, and naive to believe that we would acede to, such demands.
No, they didn't think we'd keep the program going forever, but they did expect the U.S. not to end it so soon, and regardless of expectations, ending the Lend-Lease program did more damage to the English economy than did post-war rationing.
This "pool of problems" has a name. It's called socialism.
Except that the pool of problems to which I am referring began before socialists had any power in England whatsoever and before any socialist programs were put in place. The socialist programs in England were put in place all over Europe (some had been in place for decades prior to WWII), but those nations did not experience the same kind of economic decline as has been seen in England. It is a lot more complicated than "socialism is bad."
The British industrial problem had been a lack of modernization -- too much of the British industrial infrastructure had been laid down before World War One, and needed to be replaced to remain competitive in the mid-20th. Socialist measures blocked such modernization, since modernization would require changes in work conditions and rules.
Can you provide examples of what you mean? Because changes in work conditions and rules were (a) encouraged by socialists and (b) certainly continued in England after WWII, under both Labour and Tory governments.
Before Britain had been an industrial Power, she had been a commercial Power. Socialist measures prevented a commercial recovery, since they necessitated very high taxes which choked off the free flow of capital.
The tax problems in England were not the result of socialist measures- at least far from solely. Problems with high taxes in England pre-dated any kind of socialist political power (or socialist programs) in the UK, and high taxes were also a hallmark of post-war Tory governments because of the huge debts the UK had incurred during the World Wars and through her attempts to hang on to her empire.
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It is not so simple to claim universal health care is some "socialist" stamp of economic doom. The Germans, for instance, instituted a national health system in the late 19th century, and the architect was Von Bismark, a right-winger, who felt that this health care program would work as a bulwark against socialism. The German health care system has endured for over 100 years, through both right and left-wing governments, and the German economy is not as bad as that of the UK.
It is not socialist health care qua health care which is the "stamp of economic doom," it is any socialist program which becomes institutionalized and acquires dependents who can be relied upon to consistently vote for socialist measures in general. In America, Social Security has filled that role since the 1930's, and national health care, the way that Obama is going about it, would only amplify that effect.
And you are being simplistic by seeing it as necessarily a "right" versus "left" issue. Socialist measures always enhance the power of the governmental elite, regardless of their party affiliations. Otto von Bismarck was attempting to secure the power of the Second Reich elite (remember, this was a new elite over much of Germany), and found government-funded health care a useful tool for the task.
As does Obama today.
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German national health care was institutionalized in the 19th century, and one can hardly say the Germans consistently voted for socialist governments.
And you are being simplistic by seeing it as necessarily a "right" versus "left" issue.
I don't see it as a right/left issue at all. It's far more complicated than that, and with all due respect, you're the one claiming the left is responsible for the UK's economic programs. Socialism certainly didn't solve them, but it didn't create them either, and as far as I can tell, the Tory's didn't solve them, and in fact, some of England's economic problems worsened under Tory rule.
Socialist measures always enhance the power of the governmental elite, regardless of their party affiliations. Otto von Bismarck was attempting to secure the power of the Second Reich elite (remember, this was a new elite over much of Germany), and found government-funded health care a useful tool for the task.
Otto Von Bismark was not simply attempting to secure the power of the German elite. He was attempting to avoid a revolution in Germany and maintain a stable state, which he realized could not be done by continuing the status quo. If he had viewed national health care as a means of preserving the German elite, he failed utterly. The various elites under the Kaiser, the Weimar and the Nazi party all fell in spite of the supposed power given to them by the implementation of socialist programs, and the Germans (and others with these kinds of socialist programs) have shown themselves willing to support autocratic, republican, fascist totalitarian and both right and left wing democratic governments. So even if socialist measures were always undertaken with the idea that they enhance the power of the governing body, clearly, it doesn't pan out that way.
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After which, the only thing that matters is "Were you BORN into an Inner Party family?"
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After which, the only thing that matters is "Were you BORN into an Inner Party family?"
Precisely. Once universal health care is brought under government operation, the government will effectively control access to life, creating a two-tier system in which those with political connections will have an immense advantage over those who do not have such connections. And this will be terribly corrupting.
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