Pulling Federal Funding in Academia

If President Trump is taken seriously about his tweets (and why not at this point), he is not likely to sit idly by and let federal money to flow to Berkeley and other hell holes (see the fires blazing) of academia.

One comment that I have seen in response was very defensive about allowing federal funds to be withdrawn. "But there is so much good research going on. We can't afford to withdraw the money!"

Let's play out the thought to test the validity of the critique.

Let's say we have the cure for the common cold that is on the verge of being resolved or the next DNA sequencing to forever remove cancer as a risk in our lives. Significant issues both.

If federal funds were withdrawn from the researcher because he is being paid by Berkeley, then he cannot continue his research at Berkeley. Does that mean he is forever forbade from doing research again, I would agree with the complaint.

If federal funds were withdrawn because Berkeley was a conduit (and kept a percentage for overhead expenses), then the researcher may start strategizing on how to reopen the funds' flow. "Could I get the money directly and then pay Berkeley rent? Could I move operations to another university to serve as the conduit?" If Berkeley were forbade from any benefit, the researcher would be stuck moving.

So now we end up with a prospective tenured professor that quickly is incentivized to put himself on the open market. He can shop for a better deal. His contract with Berkeley is probably an issue, but a few precedents of professors/researchers winning because of the university failing to provide the agreed work environment should bring the costs of contract disputes down rapidly in the first year.

So now this calcified university market suddenly springs a free-market leak. What are the incentives for universities to clamp down on threats to the life, liberties, and property of university staff and students?

Sounds like it is a win-win for society-at-large. Good professors have a sudden desire to move away from nut cases. Formerly undesirable universities or liberal arts colleges suddenly have the prospect of good professors knocking on their doors. Their students get an upgrade. Professors can negotiate to maintain their tenure (oh well, it is not all perfect).

One or two high profile professors jumping ship, the universities will find the merits of law and order.

What this tells us is that the Obama Administration and Democrats in Congress were really subsidizing their rabble-rousers with student loans and federal grants. The threat of losing a few grants would likely make the rabble-rousers persona non grata on any campus or to any liberal.

Isn't the best system of government where the citizenry hold one another accountable without the call for intervention to police, courts, or school administrators? Professor to a student: "Knock off that rioting." Student: "Why should I you, old fuddy-duddy?" Professor: "I will lose my grant and my job." Student: "The man is just keeping us down!" Professor: "Write the man a letter. Draft a petition to send to the man. But quitting destroying property! I need to be able to pay my mortgage! I am not going to let your misbehavior cost me my mortgage payment. I will turn you in." Student: "Aw, professor, I am not after you." Professor: "It doesn't matter. Your behavior affects us all, even if you can't see it."

Ah, the joys of societal norms being used without court intervention.

Yes, it is clear, the professor or research seeking a cure for cancer would be inconvenienced and might have to move, but the corrective effect would be quick, profound, and manageable.

Let's do it.

Trump 845 versus 924: does he need 1237?

The supposed debate in the RNC's circles is whether Trump needs 1237 to win the nomination. Just another example of people who believe themselves to be smarter than they are.
Of course Trump needs 1237 to win. Why?
Because that is when all other options are over. If Trump has 1237 committed delegates, nobody else can get them.
There is no more gamesmanship by Cruz or Kasich that can be attempted.
There are no more articles to be written with different scenarios.
There are no more opinions to be offered that seem credible.
With 1237, any other answer than "Trump wins" sounds stupid.
So if Trump must have 1237, what is this about "less than 1237" can win? It is poor writing and thinking mascarading as Jack Handey's "Deep Thoughts" from Saturday Night Live of old.
These discussions are really about analyzing uncommitted delegates to vote Trump.
Right now Trump has 845 delegates on the first ballot. There are 924 delegates that are committed to other candidates or are uncommitted. After Pennsylvania, the number of uncommitted will go up substantially. New England offers around 104 delegates. Then Trump has to deal with some less favorable locations. No doubt he will leave those states with close to 949 delegates. Only 20 up on the field.
There will still be more than 300 delegates in play. He will like do well with those 300, but he will have to do overwhelming well to get to 1237.
In the meantime, we get to experience the joy of simple minds writing overwrought logic. Lovely . . . .

Is Trump the 21st Century Hoover?

If you read Amity Schlaes's The Forgotten Man you will learn about Herbert Hoover the great engineer and business manager. His penchant for micromanagement (duplicated by FDR) fed many of the problems worsening the Great Depression. Hoover came to office on the heals of his unambiguously great success in helping Europe recover from WWI.

Now Trump seeks office with a smimilar resume and goal. He wants to manage the bureaucracy better.

Does that make Trump the second term of Herbert Hoover?

Hoover came to regret his presidency and sought to teach others how to avoid his errors through the great Hoover Institute at Stanford.

If Trump learns the right lessons, he could lead better than Hoover without the notion of managing the economy to health. He could manage the bureaucracy to empower law and order and self sufficiency.

If Trump repeats Hoover's errors, he would be arguably Obama's third term.

I don't trust Trump. He's philosophically unmoored. He is clearly a great student of human nature and organizational management and motivation. So was Hoover.

Hoover was a poor student of economics at a national scale. He learned that too late.

If Trump learns the power of Harding, Coolidge, and Reagan in managing the economy, then his managerial skills could make Trump extraordinary in office.

If Trump's lack of learning of philosophical lessons were to hold true, he could be more damaging than Hoover. 

Trump has the big personality of Harding, who slashed the government budget in half on entering office and set off a huge economic era. While history treats Harding as corrupt, little evidence suggests this playboy was corrupt, just egotistic. I doubt Trump would have the real courage to cut the budget like Harding, so I pass on the subject. 

 Hoover is an object lesson for Trump. What lesson will he take?

Liberals will complain conservatives blame them for everything.

Today, Drudge linked to a Financial Times of London article about the squabbling between the Saudi oil minister and a leading prince. The oil minister said not to worry about falling oil prices below $80 a barrel. The prince suggested that was malarkey.

Apparently, the Saudi government budget requires 90% of revenues come from oil revenue. On top of that, the budget requires $89 per barrel to avoid dipping into the rainy day fund. Since the Saudi government has 100% of their budget in rainy day funds, the oil minister suggest there's not much risk to a short-term drop in oil prices.

At the end of the article, the author points out that the IMF is raising concerns to many Middle East countries about their high dependency on oil to meet their breakeven points.  These governments need to be careful of overly generous welfare budgets. The author emphasizes the following oil revenues could lead to social disruptions as soon jihadists start using the coming financial distress as a motivational tool. At the same time, these governments may not be able to finance the military to keep these jihadists in check.

Part of the fallen oil revenues comes from increased oil production in the US. At the same time the international energy agency is warning that the demand for oil is falling due to a collapsing world economy.

So why does the dispute between two Saudi princes have anything to do with American politics? Is there anything more than simple foreign-policy politics?

US stock market is showing signs of beginning a collapse. Many collapses begin with prices starting to shoot up and shoot down in irregular cycles. After the instability comes the fall.

Essentially, Democrats have been so interested in pushing their nonsensical political goals without any regard to its effects on people and businesses. The number of Americans who remain unemployed many years into the Obama Administration is no small part of this problem. The American consumer does not feel comfortable spending money on anything beyond the necessities of life.they feel very limited in their ability to invest in the future. Owners of businesses are not willing to hire full-time employees because of healthcare costs arising solely from Obamacare. They are cutting healthcare insurance expenses as fast as they can just to maintain a breakeven point. 

America has been the engine of worldwide growth since at least 1895. In the name of democratic political goals, we have steadily destroyed what made our economy the envy of the world. Economic strength allows deep pockets to finance the ability to create and maintain a cutting edge and powerful military. 

This military allows the use of threats of force to bring wayward regimes into line with peaceful intents. This limits the amount of war that America needs to fight. Every war avoided by a projection of force is cheaper than any war actually fought. All you need to do is simply compare the costs of the Iraq war and the Afghanistan war with what we had followed throughout the term of the Cold War. During the Cold War America could project more force around the world and limit the amount of money that was spent in any one region of the world. In the current environment, America does not have the ability to project force and has spent money in a very limited region of the world.

Democrats have used teachers unions to miseducate our youth and college age students that the military force is about empire building. Nothing is further from the truth. The projection of force is necessary whenever small groups of people are together. In cities we call a projection of force a police department. In statewide situations it includes the National Guard and state police. In federal circumstances it includes multiple law-enforcement agencies and the US military. 

From our nation's founding, it has been widely understood that the ability to project force is a necessary component of maintaining peace. The ability to project force is also one of the key characteristics that should be fulfilled by government. 

Since liberals completely misunderstand the role of force in maintaining peace they misunderstand the need for individuals to bear arms. They misunderstand the need for police to be able to maintain a threat of force to avoid actual conflict. They misunderstand the need for the US military to be able to maintain a threat of force to avoid conflict overseas and for border agents on our borders.

The ability to maintain the threat of force, the ability to pay for the threat of force, the ability to provide for oneself, and the ability to grow business enterprise or inextricably linked. When those links are broken, you end up with a series of chaotic events. 

Throughout history there have been many fools who have persuaded themselves that they can create chaos and then ride to the rescue to receive the accolades of the many for the fool's efforts at taming chaos. All too often these fools are consumed by the chaos they create. The problem is they are not often consumed quickly enough to prevent the chaos. They often are allowed to survive so that the chaos has its opportunity to reach its maximum force. 

Obama seems to be one of these fools. He has worked actively to undermine the US economy. He has always said that he was doing this in the name of equality and fairness. The result of his equality and fairness is creating a series of opportunities for thugs and criminals to end up equally stealing from all members of American society until all are impoverished, except the most criminal. He believes that all businessmen are criminals. Instead he creates an environment that creates a self fulfilling prophecy. Only crony capital behaviors can make money in the environment that Obama seeks.

He creates situations where money can only be compiled in large masses by major corporations under the thumb of US government and government agencies. Then those agents of the government, whether direct or indirect are then only allowed to use money in the ways that government allows. Each step along the way individuals have an opportunity to become the criminal that misappropriate some money.

This completely works in opposition to all tenets of American government from its founding. In those situations the individual is empowered to protect himself and his property. He is not able to accumulate nearly as large as some of wealth because other people are accumulating wealth at the same time. The competition results in better goods and services with smaller accumulations of wealth in any one person's hands.

 Large accumulation of wealth are most likely in situations where the government has tried to intercede. It happens most in current American society whenever the Security and Exchange Commission has set up rules blocking the use of small investments and less large regulatory hurdles are overcome, leading two large sums of wealth in fewer and fewer hands. Essentially government asked to lower the costs for wealthy people to acquire more assets and raise the costs for smaller competitors to be involved in the market. This is all done in the name of protecting the many.

It happens when government decides to improve everybody's health care by raising the cost to entrepreneurs for running their business. They trying to keep the cost of paying for healthcare to businesses. They played this game since World War II by creating tax deductions in high tax rate situations. The population becomes dependent on the employer to pay for healthcare. The population has no idea what the real health costs are. They just know they need a job to get healthcare. With the cost of healthcare continuing to go hide because the customer has no idea of the costs, government continually intercedes and creates repeated problems that continually escalate the cost of healthcare.

Obama only accelerated this historic process. In effect, this  acceleration provides a counterbalance to the accumulation of wealth by individuals. It makes it nearly impossible for breaking even Enterprises to stay in business. The revenue generation collapses. They're no longer able to pay taxes to the government. The government has to cut back on spending in order to justify it. In looking for cuts it looks for the biggest place that cuts can be made the voters will not feel. The first place to look is the military.those cuts or harder for an individual to see unless he is in the military. The general public feels better about themselves. At the same time the US is able to project less power.

Essentially the restriction of US economy both drives down the cost of oil and creeds and stability in runaway pricing countries such as Saudi Arabia while making the US less safe.

Democrat policies to discourage oil exportation from the US, limiting drilling in the US, and putting overly burdensome environmental regulations on any drilling efforts have served to keep the US limited on it's own oil production. Given the fact that the oil that is capable of being extracted from the US is far larger than the amount that is considered part of our oil reserves,this leads to many questions about how we serve to artificially raise the price of a barrel of oil.The recent boon in production in the US from the Bush administration energy policies has led to this new reintroduction of market economics to the international oil market.

While a short-term transition will lead to instability throughout the Middle East, over the long term it has the potential to create new stability. Unfortunately, that new stability needs the projection of force to allow the transition to move towards an orderly settlement as opposed to the increase in chaos that is most likely without a projection of force from a stable player like the US. 

And more logical set of circumstances to create long-term stability would be to reduce the burden is on American business, make drilling easier in the US, remove artificial financial support for alternative energy sources that do not generate economically efficient BTUs, and increase the size of US military. With these policies in place there would be a push on the price per barrel of oil to actually come to a economically driven equilibrium. The force available from the US military would be able to limit the effects of national and large-scale military operations for groups seeking to promote chaos.deployment of rapid response groups would be able to limit the effects of partisan military tactics by smaller military groups. Then jihadists and other chaos inducers  would be put back in their place because they would find it less useful to get killed with no gains to show for their death. The threat of their death would become more valuable for US policy. The US would need to be involved in fewer actual military conflicts.

Simply put Democrat ideals inevitably lead to chaos. They promote chaos. They aspire to chaos. They don't understand how much death and distraction they leave in their trail. They claim to be improving an individual's life. They see the individual voter they wish to persuade. They pay no attention to the unseen thousands of people that are destroyed by these policies. There is no moderation or balance in their thought. Since they cannot think past due one person standing in front of them as a possible voter, they cannot claim to actually be rational and reasonable. To be rational requires thinking through the logical consequences of inaction. The hardest part of rational thought is to seek out unseen and possible, unintended consequences. A Democrat will avoid these thoughts at all costs. The voter today and tomorrow supersedes all other concerns.

Frankly, the cost of the price of oil tells more about what is likely to come in the near future than many other elements of economic analysis. High oil prices mean more money is available for destabilizing forces that thrive on chaos. Lower oil prices lead to thriving orderly economic units. 

So tell me again, why oil is so evil?

Holder's replacement

Confirming Holder's replacement?

I question if that is the correct statement. Reid will either rubber stamp with no filibuster or Obama will wait for the inter-session recess that will happen before Jan. 3, 2015. Either way the Republicans will have no say on Holder's replacement. The replacement will likely be even more corrupt.

Tolerating Intolerance

If you favor Democrat politics, odds are that you enjoy the power of political correctness to silence opposition to your cause de jour. You state your position and shut down any logical response as racist, bigoted, homophobic, hateful, or violative of history's progress. You will not tolerate to hear the contrary position. You will shout down opposition at the dining table or the lecture hall. You will march out of the room or in the streets. Your ears burn to hear a different point of view. The Spanish Inquisition would be proud of the power of your ability to avoid hearing sinful comments.

In that Democrat positioning you cannot tolerate to hear intolerance. Are you proud of your intolerance of intolerance?

Philosophers as deep as Karl Popper have argued about this proposition. Usually they come across as erudite simpletons. Like most philosophical debates well versed on Kant, they make the issue too complicated and impractical to resolve.

Long before Popper, Lord Justice Blackstone wrote about the implementation of freedom of speech and press. He insisted that such freedoms were to be free of restrictions on expression before the expression is made. To deal with truly intolerable speech or publications was best handled by having consequences for wrongful expression. He used the torts of libel and slander as his examples. A potential slanderer should be allowed to utter his defamatory statement, then there should be a consequence in punishing the slanderer after the defamatory utterance. 

His counter-example was to require licensing of the speech's content before its utterance. The licensing is intended to prevent future harm. In practice this allows too much power to the bureaucrat to abuse the licensing process for the bureaucrats' own or his patron's benefit. It forestalls speech that simply undermines the powerful or the corrupt while providing little real benefit to society.

Political correctness is merely the social version of Blackstone's licensing counter-example. Politically correct speech is intended to prevent contrary opinions from being heard by giving the target of an attack to forestall the attack without regard to the truth of the attack or the benefit of society at large. It avoids Blackstone's problem of government bureaucratic power by shifting to the appearance of using etiquette to avoid intolerable speech.

Regardless the mechanics, the results are the same. Speech and publishing are impeded unless the message is deemed acceptable in advance by the elites. The damage on free thought and the exchange of ideas is impeded in favor of maintaining the power of a preferred group that is seeking power and influence over the people-at-large.

The etiquette imposed is like a protocol in the court of Versailles with all ministers, lords, and ladies knowing their place and the correct steps in the preferred dance of the day. All act in accordance with the Sun King's wishes in order to maintain their position of power and ambitions of seeking ever greater proximity to power and influence.

What is tolerable is defined by the king's ministers while the peasants, craftsmen, and bourgeoisie not at court have no say.

The intolerant define what is tolerable. 

Karl Popper gets lost in philosophical gobbledygook to unentangle this mess.

Once again the United States' founding fathers had a logical method to deal with this type of problem. They used it in defining the only crime written in the US Constitution: treason. To prove treason, the government must show that an act to take down the government was committed before two witnesses. This requirement shifts the criminalty of treason from the thought to the act. The message to the commission.

Disagreement and lack of acceptance of differing philosophies or religions is not intolerable. Harm to life, liberty, and property is intolerable. It violates the basic purpose for coming into society and then governmental organizations in the first place, according to the tenets of John Locke. That harm is where civil tort and criminal law come in to play. Defamation, property damage, violation of natural rights, murder, rape, theft, and run away licensing and regulation are intolerable violations of life, liberty, and property.  Action to steal elections through ballot fraud, to install illegal candidates in office, or to blow up legal government agencies, property, or personnel are intolerable. They prevent the regular exercise of life, liberty, property, and the voting franchise for the ordinary citizen.

Islam is not intolerable for preaching the Quran or teaching about Sharia. Islam is intolerable when it forces its daughters and wives to live according to Sharia against these women's individual will. Islam is intolerable when it takes a concrete step toward an attack on the life, liberty, or property of an American citizen or its duly elected or appointed government. Islam is intolerable when it conspires for a group of Muslims to do intolerable acts.

Tolerating the intolerate is intolerable. The intolerate are those who would act or conspire to deprive us of life, liberty, or property in the name of their philosophy or religion. It is not that difficult, Mr. Popper.

Why should great scientists be humble before God?

Recently our young teenager announced that he was interested in being a theoretical scientist. We were duly impressed by his interest in such a profoundly deep career.

It changed the tenor of some of our conversations about what a human being can and should be.

I have had times in my life when I have moved toward an agnostic or atheistic view the world. Even so, as I have reached middle-age, I am less comfortable with those points of view.

As I thought about this change in my life and the conflicts that it creates for scientists, I struggled to explain to my son why he, as a budding scientist, should take religion seriously.

I have always been impressed with the book of Job. While the set up for the story is a battle between God and his adversary, the real poignancy of the story is how Job handles stresses put on him.

As a humble man, he weathers the quite literal storms that he faces. To me, this ability to handle problems is one of the great strengths of religion.

Every person in life will face stresses and strains. What makes a humble person great is his ability to handle those stresses and strains while not losing his focus on what is important in his life.

In an ever competitive world of science, this ability to handle stress and maintain focus is paramount for a great scientist.

A great scientist also needs to be able to use that focus in order to work logically through problems. The most logical and efficient people that I have ever met take big problems and break them down into ever smaller parts. Only when they have mastered the smallest detail do they move forward with their project. The accumulative affect of this detail is the ability to move a project forward with great efficiency toward a very large vision. Most importantly, when the project moves forward, it needs to be rewritten or reorganized far less than a project done in bigger leaps.

In my study of great thinkers like Einstein or Newton, there's a great deal of emphasis on slow, small, and methodical analysis. The world sees the great leap forward, but the scientist works quietly on the small steps. His announcement of his new theory is left to appear to be the largest leap.

A religious scientist allows himself these small steps and attention to detail because he is aware of his place in God's universe. He does not assume that he knows more than he can observe or analyze. He assumes the system is beyond his full comprehension. He does not mistake his methodical science for a full-blown acceptance of theologians. Yet, he is fully aware that he is but a small part of a greater system.

By accepting his role in the larger system, he allows himself the artistry to think like something other than himself. He can imagine himself in God's position creating the system and allowing it to work. He can allow himself to think like in a small part of God's universe. Einstein reportedly came to his theory of relativity by trying to think like a photon. He imagined himself in a place far different than he found himself.

Einstein did not presume that he knew the answer. He allowed himself to think in a way to discover the majesty of what he was attempting to be.

In modern science, particularly among scientists who seek publicity, there's a complete failing to even achieve this ability. They wish to have the notoriety of Einstein after the theory of relativity, without the thoroughness and solitude that Einstein had to endure prior to the theory of relativity being published.

These modern scientists are more childlike and demanding of respect than even the least humble 10-year-old.

When man removes himself from being the master of all he surveys and realizes that he is only the master of what his Master has given him, only then can the scientist as a mere mortal reach his full potential.

Indeed, great scientists do not need to be extremely religious. Often great scientists fall away from religion after achieving their greatness. Even so, the need for small steps of great science suggests that any scientist wishing to achieve would err in ignoring God having a greater place in his life.

Can these lessons be applied to modern science? I think it needs no further analysis than looking at the development of Global Warming or climate change or whatever the name of this ever-changing theory is today.  These purported scientists have sought to take great leaps in science by taking great leaps in methods. Instead all they have accomplished is a theory that is battered and bruised despite making the scientists very rich. They have hindered science rather than helped.

Obama's "Lord of the Flies" Foreign Policy

A thought just popped in my head. The problem is the thought is based on two grave literary sins. Allow me to share the idea and then the self-identified sins.

In watching Bret Stephens from the Wall Street Journal speak about Israel and the history of American foreign policy, I caught a fascinating phrase or two. Stephens points out that the last seven decades of American active, liberty-supporting foreign policy has created one of the greatest stretches of peace in the history of man. Stephens goes on to point out that autocratic regimes are now sensing an opportunity to assert themselves that they have not felt during the Pax Americana (i.e., the term for the American Peace that borrows from the established concept of the Pax Romana from the Roman Empire's period of peace and prosperity).

Last week, many commentators were discussing Hillary Clinton's remarks that Obama's idea of "don't do stupid sh... er ... stuff" is not a foreign policy.

With Stephens' early remarks there is the hint of the concept of the US as the world's policeman. Stephens believes that the US is tired of keeping the world in check.

Frankly, I find the concept of a policeman wrong. The idea is that there is a rule of law and the police are just there to remind the outlaws about what should be done. Police are a modern concept from large urbanized areas with police appointed by elected officials.

I find the concept of International Law laugheable. Eighteenth Century Swiss writer Emmerick Vattel started it by pushing the idea that each country was reflecting the will of its people. The acts of the countries could then be treated as law. Frankly most of the world suffers a despotism imposed on them, so the people's will is not reflected in the government. Vattel's notions fail at first blush. The international scene is not orderly. It is not subject to one legal regime that a policeman can simply enforce.

The better imagery for the international scene is wild west US Marshal. Here is the agent of a far away central and legitimate power that is trying to establish order among the locals who have not organized functioning state governments. The marshal's job is to keep base-line expectations of order. Protect life, liberty, and property.

Truman set the US up as the international marshal. The US has served to keep chaos from breaking out on the international scene while the locals have a chance to build up their organizations. This was the intent in Iraq and Afghanistan.

When Obama entered the White House, he clearly did not see the world with Truman's eyes. He wanted the US to just be another country, not the marshal of the world. Obama thought it stupid to create order half a world away.

Now as Obama draws the US back within its borders, we see the world changing.

We have moved from the US as world marshal and seeking to allow each country to find their people's will (to attempt to bring truth to Vattel's world order?). We have moved toward a world where there is no dominate force to maintain basic order and protect life, liberty, and property.

We are seeing Obama's foreign policy to allow the return of the world of chaos. We have seen the growth of Obama's policy of encouraging a global reenactment of the Lord of the Flies. Obama encourages the most blood thirsty to seek greater chaos and threats to life. Obama shows minimal interest in understanding the life-protective effects of the US military.

Obama seeks to remove any sense of order other than the order of a form a detente between dictatorial regimes and timid democracies. Obama seems to believe that it is better for the US to be loved than feared by tyrants.

Machiavelli in the Prince, chapter 17, famously asks whether the autocratic prince should prefer to be feared than loved. Machiavelli points out that a man can only control his own passions, so an autocratic prince cannot cause the people to love the prince. Machiavelli also points that a prince can institute fear in his people by the prince's own cruelty. Machiavelli believes the prince is most efficient in using what the prince can control as opposed to what the people control. Control comes from imposed fear. Only after should the prince seek to be loved.

Obama turns this notion on its head. He wants the US of Obama's creation to be loved and not feared. This seems to be because Obama believes that Vattel's fantasy of how the world works is true. Vattel was wrong. There is no international order of law. It is the world that Machiavelli envisions for the prince would seek to rule. (Remember this is not Machiavelli making prescriptions for the world to have an ideal government. It is Machiavelli, as an experienced diplomat in the pre-Reformation era, describing how autocracy do work. Machiavelli writes a more prescriptive view of the world in his less famous Discourses on Livy.)

Obama fails to understand the truths of despotic power in the absence of a functioning democratic order that Machiavelli describes so well. Iran, China, Russia, some of the Soviet break-away "republics" understand Machiavelli's description of cruelty as a means to holding power. Obama wishes Vattel's fantasies were true, but ignores that Machiavelli's portrait of tyrant is near flawless.

The result is a situation where cruelty most foul prevails over democratic principles. Here is the invitation to either anarchy and chaos with the swift imposition of despotism in the name of seeking a false law-and-order. Obama is creating an anarchic world. Since the failed attack by the Turks on Vienna, Islam has not felt its power to inflict chaos and fear to non-believers. Obama is encouraging a world where Islamic threats are growing more powerful. Obama is discouraging actions that lead to spontaneous order where citizens feel safe in their life, liberty, and property. Obama is seeking to become his own lord of the flies.

So now we have the Lord of the Flies metaphor, what about the two literary sins? I hate inaccurate use of literary allusions. They often lead to the misapplication of the literature. The most famous is "Uncle Tom" as an indictment of a black who is loyal to his slave owner. In fact the character is the center of dignity under bad circumstances and helping others at risk to himself.

I also hate when writers act like they understand stories when the writer has clearly never read the work.

Because I have never read the Lord of the Flies, I fear that my thoughts on Obama's foreign policy could be cause me to guilty of both such literary sins.

Lord Acton's wisdom revisited

We all know one of Lord Acton's famous phrases: Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.

As I was looking around today at other intelligent quotes, I ran across several of Lord Acton's other quotes.

"There are two things that cannot be attacked in front: ignorance and narrow-mindedness. They can only be shaken by the simple development of the contrary qualities. They will not bear discussion." This one took some effort for me to completely understand. 

Maybe a different way to put these concepts are that: 'There are two qualities that cannot be prevented in advance: ignorance and narrowmindedness. Even worse, neither one enjoys recognition or tolerates debate of its existence. The ignorant do not know that they lack of facts. The narrowminded cannot imagine that different points of view could exist.' Less poetic. Easier to decode. Harder to remember.

Governing by Polls

Figuring out good public policy requires a thorough knowledge of economics, psychology, politics, science, etc.

Why is it then that we decide policy by polls?

It seems odd.

Isn't policy by polls like driving a car based on instructions from your eight-year old looking at the back window of the car? He can only tells what you  just passed and has no appreciation for how the mechanics of driving the car works. Whatt  he odds that you wreck?

Polls are driven by uninformed people having their dinner interrupted or selected to serve up a desired message. They have little interest how their opinion will be used.

Why do successful companies run with a board of directors? You want informed people with different life experiences to offer considered opinions.

Which tend be rewarded for good decisions and which are rewarded for decisions that reflect what others might believe based on 3 seconds of thought?

Republicans as the party of policy can never win based on polls. They can only win based on strong, well-articulated ideas and a healthy dose of disdainful humor for poll-driven Democrats. Any other response is to become a Democat-Lite wondering why he can never be elected.