That has been the story of my life, whether politically, in job terms, economic terms, or even personally. I won’t burden you with my problems and I have been incredibly fortunate in my marriage but other than that I haven’t achieved any of the goals at my advanced age that I imagined for myself when younger. C’est la vie.
Let’s limit this to politically. In an earlier post I made my best guess as to what is likely to happen tomorrow in the election. Now let’s turn to my broader objectives. They’re easily stated. I want the United States to be at peace both at home and abroad, both domestically and internationally. I don’t want us to be at war with each other or with other countries.
My “Best Case” scenario in the post mentioned above approximates what I wish would happen, at least domestically, but I think it’s vanishingly unlikely that will come to pass and everything I’ve read today supports that view.
To be at peace domestically we would need to embrace a radically different view of politics that most presently hold. Many countries in the world have consensus-based societies. Under such conditions there is general or, at least, widespread agreement among the people about norms, rules, and regulations. In my ancestral Switzerland, for example, there are three levels of government (local, canton, and federal) and each level largely goes its own way so long as it doesn’t contradict the laws and regulations of the next higher level. At the federal level laws are enacted by the Federal Assembly but most laws are turned over for referendum to the people. To become law they must be approved both by a majority of the people and by a majority of the cantons. That’s not as chaotic as you might think. There’s a broad consensus among Switzers about the nature of Switzerland, its place in the world, and the relationship between its government and its people.
The consensus among Switzers is so strong I have occasionally amused myself when meeting a Switzer for the first time by “pushing their buttons”. If ask them certain things you are practically guaranteed of getting the same answer from most Switzers.
There is no such consensus in the United States and major disagreement among substantial portions of its population about the United States, its place in the world, and the relation between government at any level and the people. Such consensus should not be unexpected in a country as large and diverse as this. For the U. S. to be at peace with itself such differences of opinion need to be tolerated. For many years they were but that is not longer the case and, bit by bit and increasingly, the federal government is pushing itself into every aspect of life. Sometimes that’s fully justified, e.g. when Eisenhower used federal troops to enforce the integration of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, but not every expansion of federal power is justified.
The crabbed version of democracy that some are embracing these days is not a step in the right direction.
Internationally, we have not been at peace for most of my life and we are not at peace now. I have been dismayed at the willingness of a succession of presidents—Reagan, Bush the Elder, Clinton, Bush the Younger, Obama, and Trump—to use military force unjustly and without the permission of the United Nations Security Council, as we are obligated by treaty, or the authorization of Congress, as the Constitution requires. To his credit President Trump hasn’t started any new wars but he hasn’t ended any old ones, either, and we continue to support illegal wars by allies who aren’t actually our allies like Saudi Arabia. He has actually expanded the illegal and immoral use of armed drones.
I have no hope that regardless of who is elected president that we will see peace either domestically or internationally and, indeed, both our present low level civil war and our various international conflicts may well heat up.
A consensus in a multicultural, multiethnic society is impossible. It is hard in a homogeneous society. What consensus the US once had depended on the existence of an overwhelmingly White, Christian population, 85% as late as the early 60’s. But even then, there were serious disputes among the Christian churches, and Catholics were not accepted as fully American. You might remember the hoops John Kennedy had to pass through. By the way, now it is the atheists who dispute the American status of Catholics, viz. the hearings for Associate Justice Barrett.
Without a dominant majority, multicultural, multiethnic societies are ungovernable except by brute force. What that means is that as the White majority disappears, our representative democracy will disappear, too, to be replaced by some sort of dictatorship. The BLM/Antifa riots, largely White, young, and middle class, show the future.
“What consensus the US once had depended on the existence of an overwhelmingly White, Christian population, 85% as late as the early 60’s. ”
Yup, if we had that many white people again then we would never have anything like, say, a war between the states.
Steve
You know, Dave, that’s as close to letting a real (I mean real) personal side of you be exposed. Not just the analytical. I bet there is not a person here who hasn’t developed some odd bond just on the strength of the analytical content here, no matter if it might some times infuriate. People keep coming back.
You know me, its your blog, not mine. But it might be OK to explore how this “community” has encountered challenges, overcome issues, developed their viewpoints and come to grips with their realities.
“White majority“
That’s not gonna go away.
It’s going to expand to include white Hispanics. Their numbers will grow with or without a wall,
Most are socially conservative and prefer to be recognized as
“Whiteâ€.
“armed drones.â€
Yeah. That’s covert war on the cheap. To people on the receiving end it must be like land mines, death out of the blue.
Are there any international agreements regarding their use?
I’m sure they try to be selective,
but you know how those things go.
‘to use military force unjustly and without the permission of the United Nations Security Council, as we are obligated by treaty, or the authorization of Congress, as the Constitution requires. ‘
Are we actually supposed to say ‘mother may I’ to the UN? That is news to me. It certainly didn’t stop Saddam and other tyrants from invading other countries. As for not getting permission from Congress to declare war, it’s on Congress to reclaim some of their damn powers.
‘A consensus in a multicultural, multiethnic society is impossible.’
Agreed. Take out the multicultural portion of that statement, and it might work. The dominant culture of America has a Judeo-Christian foundation. The skin color or ethnicity IMO is irrelevant. ‘White’ in that context is simply a Leftist dog whistle to damn anyone who dares to defy their CRT ideology and join the dominant culture. East Asians are assimilating. Hispanics are assimilating. Nigerians are assimilating.
Sorry to hear that many of your life goals have gone unfilled. I too don’t feel like I’ve accomplished all that much in life. Many personal projects, some of them begun in my teens, I’ve had to delay or simply forget about due to the family business. A consolation has been a wonderful and extremely patient wife who had to put up with a part-time husband for decades, a period which is now thankfully over. Despite all that, I have a lot to be thankful for; Other than a few scares I’ve had a relatively uneventful and comfortable existence, and hopefully I’ll be able to finish a few things while I still can.
‘mother may I’ to the UN?
Not at all, but the President should certainly have to personally sign off on any preemptive murders America’s military commits in places like Libya or Yemen.
At present I doubt he’s even informed. And especially not if the target is low profile.
That’s what we agreed to when we signed the UN Charter. Note that the First Gulf War was authorized by the Security Council.