Posts tagged: Russia

Arendt of course assumed that the lower or working classes were susceptible to superstition and gullibility but in these times it is the ruling classes that have abandoned common sense in favor of superstition and gullibility. It is they who are alienated from the world. Preconceived notions that contradict the plain meaning of the world is today’s superstition – and it is no less dangerous and irrational than the superstitions of times past.

Let’s take a brief look at these policy decisions by nearly all western countries, regardless of their geographical location or economic outlooks, their demographic trends or the overall culture of their people and their neighbors resulting directly or indirectly of the perilous situation the free world is now in.

Defense Spending and Force Size

The post-cold war “peace dividend” became an idol of western policy makers.  Massive cuts in defense spending even in things that were very necessary to the maintenance of said “peace dividend” – like naval power – was the preferred way of dealing with the end of the Soviet Union. The “End of History” was read simplistically instead of realizing that other ideologies and other powers might very soon challenge the victorious west. Some thinkers, I think of a professor of mine (Elie Krakowski) who back in 1979-80, before the collapse of the Soviet Union, spoke of Islam as the third force which will challenge the West and the East. I studied in a small university and if we were discussing it back then how are policy makers in Washington, London, Tel Aviv and Paris not speaking of it today?

While Edward Said’s “Orientalism” was the talk of the town, Bernard Lewis and Fouad Ajami were, despite their posts at Princeton and Johns Hopkins, not taken seriously enough. If they were, the US Navy would not have gone from 594 ships in 1987 to 275 in 2016. The British Navy  went from about 170 ships in 1970 to well under 50 in 2017. The rest of Western Europe we all know about. But at least countries like Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark don’t face hostile neighbors and were never meant to have forces that would do more than assist in minor operations.

Israel on the other hand has always faced neighbors who have desired to destroy it.  Even the countries with which it signed peace treaters, Jordan and Egypt, have never been able to translate these treaties into popular support and are always a coup away from belligerence. The history of dictatorships in general and of the Middle East in particular ought to have given the Israeli high command at least a hint as to what they might be facing. With the advent of Iran as a major regional power with the means and desire to spread its theo-revolutionary ideology, Israel ought to have realized that the era of wars was not over. Yet, since 2000 Israel has cut 6 divisions and decommissioned 2,000 tanks from its forces. It has cut military service for men from 36 to 32 months, even as it has not increased the mandatory service for woman from 24 months even though it has increased the amount of women in combat and combat support roles. The ultra-orthodox still don’t serve (they are about 16% of the draft class) zero even after October 7 and the number of youth who have received exemptions due to “psychological” reasons has skyrocketed to nearly 13% of the draft class. I don’t mean to belittle those with true psychological issues but rather the high numbers signify that many if not most are of a class that allows them to afford to pay psychologists for convenient diagnoses.

In other words – the IDF, the Finance Ministry and the political class all found it convenient to reduce the size of the army – both manpower and equipment – and used the excuse that there will be no more ground wars to justify the move.

The Ukraine conflict revealed to the world that US arms production of even the most basic arms is not enough for the US itself to maintain minimal levels during wartime.   The current Middle East conflict has magnified this disaster.

Common sense readiness has been ignored throughout the Western world due to sophisticated thinking more wishful than realistic. This is nothing less than a messianic and superstitious belief in the end of wars.

Immigration and Assimilation

If there is one issue that common sense has missed it is immigration. The reactions of average citizens to unlimited immigration in Western democratic countries has been uniform – NO! In some countries the yelling is louder but in all western countries there is significant opposition, on common sense grounds often, to the establishment immigration policies.

I am an immigrant to Israel and my grandparents were immigrants to the United States. Immigration, the movement of peoples from place to place has been going on since people left Africa – and before. But there is no separating immigration from assimilation unless your immigration is due to imperialism and conquest.  The Romans, Greeks, Chinese and Persians of ancient times, the Arabs of late antiquity were all imperialists. There was of course the age of imperialism that ended in WWI. But 21st century immigration is not of national conquest but of individual movement of people and families. One by definition must adapt to the local cultures – in the widest sense of the word. If a cotton farmer from Arizona wants to move to Iowa, he better adapt to the climate and figure out how to grow wheat or soybeans instead of cotton. If an aristocrat from England decides to move to the United States, he needs to know that his family heritage and titles won’t get him much. If a Spanish or Chinese speaker moves to Germany, the expectation is that he will learn to speak German.

An immigrant who does not respect the local culture in all its manifestations needs to get permission in order to stay in the new country. That is the way of the nation-state that has protected freedom in the western world so well (if not always so well). We can’t compare the 21st century to the pre-WWI world where borders were porous and people that survived the trip across a continent or an ocean could settle in that new land. Some more successfully than others. 

Common sense dictates that an immigrant that does not respect the laws of his new home has no right to live there. Yet, time and again, immigration policy has been separated from the law and being law abiding has no bearing on future citizenship.  Therefore, there is no demand from the immigrant and no opportunity for the immigrant to assimilate and be part of the social fabric of his new country. That being said, the mass Islamic immigration into Europe could be said to be imperialistic as the leaders of these communities have discouraged any type of rapprochement with Western values and law. That, along with the demographic collapse of indigenous Europe has put Europe on the brink of either a civil war or a peaceful surrender to Islamic imperial forces.  

Free Trade and Social Peace

There is no doubting that free trade brings prosperity and that economic growth better than any other global trading system. Free trade  is also the best way to lift the global poor out of poverty. The U.S constitution understood the importance of free trade, as states were prohibited from starting trade wars with each other.   This has also been the “good” in the E.U and has produced much prosperity in that Union.

Yet, free trade with allies needs to be differentiated between free trade with enemies  – meaning those that oppose our system. Free trade that allows your enemies to defeat you militarily is not free trade but suicide. So too, trade policies need to have social issues taken into consideration. This is not a call for tariffs or against free trade pacts, especially with neighbors, but rather they need to be adjusted with common sense solutions to employment and other problems that will arise from any economic change. 

Social peace is the second half of this section because, besides immigration, the erosion, not to say destruction of physically intensive jobs can and often does lead to social violence for reasons obvious to those with common sense.

Energy and Food Supply

For the most part, you would think that after national defense, it is a government’s first responsibility to its citizens to guarantee the food and energy supply of its citizens. Before we get to luxury and access to travel, the ready supply of food and energy seems to be the minimum that a government ought to do. And yet, when we speak of issues related to climate change (and lets not get into the “is it or isn’t it real” argument) the solutions first mandated to the problem have to do with limiting both of these items without which we cannot live. In California, farmer’s access to water is limited even after the drought due to concerns about some fish and climate, and in the Netherlands they want to pay farmers to stop producing food so that the Earth will not suffer. 

What is the plan here? Regarding energy supply, one would think that shoring up access to alternative energy would take priority over banning current ways of producing energy. In California, they have been having rolling blackouts in the summer for years and they are looking to ban gas stoves and ovens and gasoline powered cars. Private jets and yachts though are off limits for obvious reasons. What is the plan there? Is there any real preparation?

As for food supply, is the  plan to reduce population or to reduce calory intake? To what levels? Is there an expectation that people will starve themselves to “save the planet”? Again – I am not arguing for or against human causes of climate change but rather, for the common sense understanding that securing the world’s food supply takes priority over closing farms or turning them into organic utopias.

A perfect example is Sri Lanka where those in power bought into the organic farming ideology of Western aristocrats and they ended all non-organic farming causing a famine and a depression. People who worked hard their whole lives lost all their savings as they were unwilling participants in a cruel experiment to see if organic farming can feed a small island nation.  

In sum – a bit less nuance and a bit more common sense – a bit more sensing what is “common to us all” would be welcome in political and policy matters. Maybe if we pursued more common sense policies and a lot less superstition and bias there would be less yelling and screaming in the public square. 

Disclaimer: the views expressed in this opinion article are solely those of the author, and not necessarily the opinions reflected by angrymetatraders.com or its associated parties.

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