The spirit of the Obama-Pelosi “stimulus”, and the conscious atmosphere of corruption and payoff that surrounds it, is consistent with today’s negative, if not sour, leftist worldview. The New Dealers believed they were building a more “scientific” and much more prosperous world. There was a great deal of genuine idealism among them. Today’s triumphant political class does not seriously imagine that it will promote economic growth and prosperity. The political class is, at best, ambivalent about whether it even wants such things. What today’s political class wants is a massive transfer of power and money to itself. This is what the “stimulus”, and much else that will follow, is openly intended to do. If there were a spirit of optimism and generosity and idealism about it, as there was among the New Dealers, there would at least be reason to hope that things wouldn’t quickly degenerate into corruption. It seems to me that there is little such spirit, or none at all, today.
Month: March 2009
Clausewitz, On War, Book VIII: Closing the Circle
Carl von Clausewitz concludes his magnum opus with a return to the beginning – but from a far larger perspective. While he began Book I asserting that “[w]ar is nothing but a duel on a larger scale,” he begins Book VIII (“War Plans”) by “… deal[ing] with the problem of war as a whole… cover[ing] its dominant, its most important aspect: pure strategy … the central point on which all other threads converge.”
Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Book VIII, Chapter 3B, The Concept of Cohesion
There are many points one could make in connection with Book VIII of On War. As I mentioned in my first post on this roundtable, Clausewitz deals with different types of theory in the book. I have mentioned the general theory, Clausewitz’s art of Napoleonic warfare, and his theory of politics/political development. This last type could be simply described as his concept of cohesion, since it is the different types of cohesion present which indicate the type of political community we are dealing with. For this discussion I rely on Chapter 3B of Book VIII particularly, in addition to his essay titled “Agitation”, as well as other parts of On War.
This concept has received next to no treatment in Clausewitz literature, or in any treatment of On War, outside of a paper I posted last year on the DNI site. The concept indicates the “cutting edge” nature of Clausewitz in strategic theory even today.
RIP Paul Harvey
As I was growing up I listened to Paul Harvey every day on my parents radios on the way to school. He always seemed to have interesting and inspirational tales to tell. He had a great sense of humor, and frankly, I don’t really know what political affiliation he had. I suppose I could find out if I looked, but I prefer to remember him as a great broadcaster, who just seemed to enjoy his work. Paul Harvey….good day!
Ammo Situation Bleg
There can be little question that the Obama administration will try to assault the rights of gun owners everywhere…eventually. There is already word of an attempt at another silly “assault weapons” ban, which will be no doubt accompanied by the old canard of “we respect the rights of hunters but blah blah blah”. I am not so sure if another ban will go through as there are a lot of Donk senators from states where gun rights is a very large issue.
A more logical approach would be for the Dems to go after ammunition. Right after the election I read in a lot of places about the “Obama bounce” for gun manufacturers and ammo manufacturers alike. I, for one, have been shopping for an evil black rifle and have been stockpiling tens of thousands of rounds of ammo of different calibers for my enjoyment (and/or defense) later on.
The usual place that I purchase my ammo hasn’t raised their prices much, but they have been out of a lot of stuff lately. I just ordered from Cabela’s yesterday, and the prices were just slightly higher than I am used to paying, but I also had to eat the freight. All in all, not too bad of a deal.
I am interested to see in different areas of the country what the ammunition situation looks like, and if you are experiencing any price spikes or shortages.
Cross posted at LITGM.