Political Philosophy

Portland and Closed Systems

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The attempted terrorist attack in Portland was thwarted by the FBI. Ironically, in 2005 the Portland city council voted (by 4 to 1) to withdraw their city’s police officers from participation in the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force.

Now, Portland’s mayor says he might ask the council to reconsider the decision about participation in this task force. Is it because he realizes that the threat of terrorism is real, and that anti-terrorism efforts like those being conducted by the Joint Task Force were indeed justified?…ie, that Portland was wrong in its initial decision? Not at all:

“[Adams] stressed that he has much more faith in the Obama administration and the leadership of the U.S. Attorney’s office now than he did in 2005”

I was reminded of something Arthur Koestler wrote about closed systems and the people who believe in them.

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Publius on Throwing the Bums Out

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Here is a reflection from Federalist No. 57 relating to the faithless congressmen who lost their seats last week:   “All these securities, however, would be found very insufficient without the restraint of frequent elections. Hence, . . . the House of Representatives is so constituted as to support in the members an habitual recollection to their dependence on the people. Before the sentiments impressed on their minds by the mode of their elevation can by effaced by the exercise of power, they will be compelled to anticipate the moment when their power is to cease, when the exercise of it is to be reviewed, and when they must descend to the level from which they were raised: there for ever to remain unless a faithful discharge of their trust shall have established their true title to a renewal of it.”

Who Does Obama Get Really Mad At?

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Anyone else notice that the President seems to reserve his most forceful rhetoric for comments directed at his fellow Americans?

Where is that kind of rhetoric when it comes to people who are actively shooting at us? He has virtually groveled before hostile foreigners while the first bit of emotion he showed was directed at BP (“going to kick their asses”). Heck, he won’t use the term “enemy” when talking about, well, the enemy but he will use it in the context of internal politics.

After badmouthing everything Bush did in Iraq, he kept on Bush’s Secretary of Defense. Then he put his primary Democratic rival in as Secretary of State. By doing both, he signaled he was marginalizing foreign policy in his administration. He simply doesn’t care what foreigners do good or bad.

Leftists have long accused non-leftists as vilifying and seeking to attack “the other”. Leftists have lectured us for decades about how non-leftists mark out those deemed outgroups, e.g., foreigners and our own native criminals, and then sought to direct the violence-based coercive power of the state against those outgroups. In short, non-leftists like to shoot Nazis and hang serial killers.

However, leftists also wish to direct the violence-based coercive power of the state against other human beings. However, they make it clear that directing the power of the state against foreigners and native criminals is barbaric and seldom, if ever, needed. Attacking foreigners and criminals is beneath them. Only Neanderthals think like that. All dictators and criminals need is a stern talking to. Who then do they wish to direct the power of the state against?

Their neighbors.

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A Note on Communism and Fascism

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In this post, OnParkStreet cited Walter Russell Mead on the similarity between communism and fascism. I totally agree that there is much similarity between these systems–in their theory, in their practical effects, and in the psychology of their supporters. I also believe, however, that there are some significant differences between communism and fascism, and I discussed some of these in the comment thread at OnParkStreet’s post.

Yesterday I picked up a book called Dark Continent: Europe’s Twentieth Century, by Mark Mazower, which contains quite a bit of information and analysis relevant to this discusion.

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“Blogging Through Georgia”

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Communism, it seemed to me then and still seems to me now, is not the opposite of fascism: it is fascism’s blood-brother, its complementary twin. The two live together in a vicious symbiotic relationship; scratch a Red and you’ll find a Brown. Better yet, scratch either one deeply enough and you will find a Black: someone so caught up in the will to power that crimes and atrocities don’t even count anymore.

– Walter Russell Mead (via Instapundit)