<Jerry Pournelle always comes up with some thought-provoking stuff, and this is no exception. I have no easy answers to many of the issues raised here.

A short disquisition, not well organized.



It's hard to read the situation regarding the coming war. The President made a good case, and Saddam Hussein has a long record of defying inspectors and playing obfuscatory games. That's the Arab way, but playing that this time will probably get him killed, or at least deposed. I believe he has already exhausted the patience of our President and his advisors; soon he will exhaust the patience of the American people, and his doom will be sealed. So be it.

If the United States is determined to be involved in the affairs of the Middle East, and absent a vigorous energy independence program I suppose we have little choice, then a change of regimes in Iraq is probably a good thing in the long run. The danger to us is what may do with that victory. The first fruits of empire are often very sweet, and lead to a lust for more.

At home, my quarrel with current events is that war always brings about more centralization of government, more conversion of republic to empire, and that trend often accelerates when the war isn't so popular and law and coercion have to be used as well as national enthusiasm to enforce policies necessary to the war effort. By empire I mean centralization, concentration of political power in one city and in one small group whose decisions affect everyone.

The old republic I remember, when Washington D.C. was a small town in Maryland and the local sheriff and mayor were more important to your life than the President; when the major Federal presence in rural Tennessee was the County Agent who had really good information about terracing and contour plowing and land conservation; those days are pretty well gone, and it's unlikely we'll ever devolve enough power to the states to bring them back.

It may be that those of us who loved the old republic, and who believe that minding our own business is hard enough, may need to rethink who we are and what we call ourselves. I used to say I was conservative, but I don't have much in common with the people who are now the leaders of what calls itself the conservative movement. I don't thirst for overseas adventures, I don't want vexillations of US legions scattered all over the globe, I don't want our pro-consuls governing people with our Special Forces enforcing their will; and if those things come to pass because we have no choice, I may cheer our soldiers but I will not cheer the outcome; and I will continue to look for ways to give us other and better choices.

Those who now claim the leadership of the conservatives rejoice at our lack of choices. They long for the thrill of American parades in foreign capitals. When I was young, I recall a British friend of my father's who told of his joy at seeing more and more of the world map turn pink. He thought that grand, and I can understand that thrill. It is seductive. And you can make a good case that much of the world was better off under the British Raj than it is now; that the world is a better place for the former existence of the British Empire. But is Britain?

I am not an ardent free trader. I recognize that international trade is a way to keep out own industries efficient, and that lack of competition leads to stagnation; I know that without efficient industry there are fewer goods of fortune to distribute and that rising tides float all boats, etc., etc. I know that free trade maximizes the choice of goods at minimum prices; but I also know displaced people are unhappy and restless, and become more dependent on government. I know that a nation of rootless people who can be thought of as that commodity "labor" and moved from place to place with no more concern than we would have for where we ought to locate a new pig farm or chicken ranch is a nation that will need more and more police and "law enforcement" and welfare and the rest of it, and is a nation whose citizens are more and more dependent on the government for their lives; and I think unrestricted free trade inevitably leads there.

I am not a libertarian as such. Libertarianism is a vector, not a goal, and for the moment we ought to be headed toward less government control rather than more, but there are exceptions there as well. The world is a dangerous place. The public safety can be endangered by a very few, especially if they have the resources of a foreign government. I have always know that; after all, I was a Cold Warrior most of my life. I may know more about how a small conspiracy well supplied with foreign gold can endanger the republic than most people alive today.

But the world has always been dangerous, which is why governments are instituted among men: left to themselves, most people live quiet and decent lives, but there are plenty enough to disrupt the public peace and order. For every right there are those who think to enjoy the fruits of others by violating those rights. These include thieves and robbers and petty bureaucratic tyrants as well.

Rights don't exist outside a mechanism to enforce them; even the old Roman Republic found that out, when a Roman court might award you possession of a farm but it was up to you to find ways to enforce that. The result was inevitably the patron/client system, in which the clientes were in theory free, but in practice had little choice but to call on their patron at his bidding and whim, and at all times to "show respect." If that sounds familiarly like certain extra-legal organizations, I leave you to draw your own conclusions.

We need government and it needs to be strong; but its jurisdiction and scope needs to be limited, and the more power it has to stick its nose into your business, the closer to you, and the more local, it ought to be. Every case ought not be a federal case.

The above are unorganized and random observations about important matters. I'll leave them stand, but do not consider the above as anything more than musings over coffee; one day I'll write a more coherent essay.

But the conclusion I draw, reluctantly, is that we will never restore the old republic; and given that, the goal ought to be competent empire that serves its citizens; and ought to maintain the fiction that the purpose of government was given in the Declaration:

To secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

That is no longer true and we all know it; but perhaps if we try to act as if it were true, the changes will be a bit slower and less fearsome. And as we try to determine who we -- the American people, the American nation -- are, we need to be mindful that there are those who hate us, and the more we inject ourselves into their part of the world, the more hatred there will be. Republics generally don't have friends, but they often lack for enemies. Empires have friend and supplicants and clients; and they seldom lack for enemies.

Empires must serve their citizens; inevitably, though, they serve others, often to the detriment of the citizens. Keep that always in mind.

And I almost ceaselessly repeat, we really do need to use our technology to make ourselves as independent of others as we can be. Gold may not get you good soldiers, good soldiers can always get you gold, but it's even better if you own the gold mines so no one resents you the wherewithal to pay your good soldiers....