Xah Lee's Unixism

[SM Ryan]

# I just don't get it. The stated agenda is either misstated, or grossly
# misimplemented.

You haven't been listenning carefully enough. The agenda is to destroy the UN.
Neo-conservatives recognise that if the UN becomes powerful enough to deal with
people like Saddam Hussein, then it can deal with Bush as well. People
like Kissinger are still running around as big shots in America while other
countries consider him a war criminal.

There are actually idiots that believe the US will remain the most powerful
military forever (or until God ends the world a few years from now). The
rest who know that power is fleeting have two options: construct a world of
comprehensive cooperative political structures, or batter any possible opponents
so they cannot attack the eventually weakenned US.

The first choice was the one (more or less) followed by the US since about 1945
through 2000. It has a long history of success behind: while not yet of that scale,
the notion of uniting disparate political units to a larger whole for mutual
security and mutual trade has worked time and time again: modern England out of the
old feudal lords, or the US out of thirteen colonies. Up side: long term peace and
stability for your grandchildren. Down side: your own power is eclipsed by the
centralised power.

The second choice has been followed by the US since 2001. Again there is a long
history behind, always ending in failure: Persian empires, Roman Empires, Chinese
empires, etc. You can never inflict enough damage on your opponents so that once
you do weaken they cannot strike back and eviscerate your corpse. Up side: you
continue to live in wealth and luxury as long as you die before the bill comes due.
Down side: your grandchildren will curse your name if they survive.

So why follow a course known to end in disaster? Pride? Greed? Delusion that
the end of the world is nigh and God will forgive warmaking and genocide?


There is a second agenda which is also being implemented successfully. Conservatives
want to dismantle government because it interferes with their private pursuit
of profit and power (see also Miliken and Quatrone). Actually repealing the legal
framework has been unsuccessful: no matter how appealing their claims about taxes
and regulation, when push comes to shove, most people want a government that's
powerful enough to provide for the sick and old, stop quacks from killing patients,
stop manufacturers from killing customers, and to have water and air that are not
fatal to touch.

So since 1980 the conservatives still whine about big government, but they are quite
happy to increase the government size and expenditure. While cutting taxes. The net
effect is a government that is increasingly in debt. The long term goal is to get
the government so heavily indebted that it can no longer borrow money. Then it will
collapse of its own dead weight.

--
SM Ryan http://www.rawbw.com/~wyrmwif/
No pleasure, no rapture, no exquiste sin greater than central air.