Neil Armstrong

A good man, a great American, a Navy fighter pilot (VF-51) and the first man on the moon; died August 25^th, 2012.  About 25 years ago I ran into Neil Armstrong – or sort of did.  I was sitting in an airport lounge waiting for a connecting flight.  A man and his family walked in and several people recognized him and immediately a small crowd gathered around him.  The man was the head coach of a professional football team that had won the Super Bowl the year before.  I sat and watched the light flurry of noise around this man.  After several minutes I noticed another man, sitting against the far wall, watching the scene, a slight smile on his face.  I stared at him for a second and realized it was Neil Armstrong.  I was about to get up and walk over to him when a small ‘voice’ inside told me to stay seated: something told me that he was enjoying the idea that he was ‘unrecognizable’ while the coach of a football team was nearly instantly recognized.

It is far too easy, at this distance in time, to think that the entire Mercury – Gemini – Apollo effort was a ‘given,’ that of course it would work.  What the NASA spaceflight team, and the astronauts did, was remarkable by any measure.  And the men who flew and led those missions were exceptional characters.  And in listening to them and reading their various books one thing stands out again and again: they all had the highest regard for Neil Armstrong.  We need to remember him, we need to remember what they all did, and we need to consider what they did as an example of what we are capable of if we put our minds to it.

His family said it best:

"Honor his example of service, accomplishment and modesty, and the next time you walk outside on a clear night and see the moon smiling down at you, think of Neil Armstrong and give him a wink."

NEIL ARMSTRONG - RIP

General Dempsey, OpSec and Citizenship

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs thinks that “If someone uses the uniform, whatever uniform, for partisan politics, I am disappointed because I think it does erode that bond of trust we have with the American people.” This is in response to some citizens – all of whom have served the nation either in uniform or as intelligence officers, none of whom are now working for the government – who castigated the Administration for what they believed was using the actions of military personnel (and in particular the raid on Abbottabad that resulted in the death of Usama bin Ladin) for political gain, while leaking operational details that they believe place at risk US personnel.

There are several points that need to be made.  The first is that whoever was advising President Obama to say what he said, and use the phraseology that he did, in regard to the raid, belongs on Ted Mack’s Amateur Hour.  Every President gets the chance to shine in the glow generated by the deeds of others – it goes with the job.  But if they want to take advantage of it to best effect, the answer is to say a whole lot about ‘them’ and ‘those guys’ and point at a bunch of folks around you who did all the real work, and use the word ‘I’ as little as possible.  When someone asks you “What was your role in all this, Mr. President?” you shrug and say “Me, I didn’t do anything, I just sat there and signed the order they put in front of me.  These guys did everything.”  And while that is, for the most part, true in every case, everyone will nod and say “Damn, he’s humble, but they couldn’t ‘a done it without him.”  So, for the buffoons in the White House who let the President do this, go back to high school – you need to start all over.

Second, while the security and OpSec issue is serious - glaring, the guys who are running the video suffer from a similar – though not as egregious – problem: simply put, they look petty by focusing too much on the President.  Forget the President for just a second; if you hate him, fine, that’s politics and democracy, we are all free to love or hate our elected officials, and I certainly don’t have any love lost for the President or many in Washington.  But the issue is OpSec – not the President.  Stick with the issue, focus on the facts and the events, and if there is ‘stink’ that should belong on the President or someone else in the administration, it will eventually find its way there.  Your credibility rests on your professionalism, so, stay professional.  You can call for better Opsec, you should call for better OpSec, you can call for the President to do a better job providing OpSec, but you maintain the ‘high ground’ by focusing - as a friend of mine says - ‘like a laser beam on OpSec.'  As for the President (and much like the President’s own statements), sometimes, understatement of some facets of an issue is the best way to make an impact.  In this particular slice of the issue, less is more.

That being said, you need to show that the issue is OpSec.  The word has now come out in the press that a member of the raiding party has written a book about the raid.  Further, it has not been cleared by either the DOD or CIA, as it must per the documents that everyone must sign.  If these reports are accurate, that is a violation of the rules and shouldn’t be tolerated.  Further, assuming that the book contains additional details of the raid, it too constitutes a breach of OpSec and you should condemn it as well (again, assuming that the facts released in the paper are correct).

As for the Chairman – he sounds like he’s ready to retire.  Maybe he hasn’t kept up with US history but one or two soldiers have run for office in the past, and their comments on military duty have figured in their campaigns.  Some of them were fairly senior officers: Eisenhower, Grant, Jackson, Taylor, etc.  All were supported by other military personnel as they ran their campaigns, using their professional reputations for political purposes.  Others who served include Kennedy, Truman, Roosevelt, and well, you get the picture.

And one other point: the guys who are commenting are not on active duty.  They are citizens.  General Dempsey: do you think that folks who leave active duty shouldn’t be involved in politics?  Or that folks who were in the military and who are now engaged in public life shouldn’t refer to their military careers to establish their bona fides?  It makes me wonder what planet you are from.  And what Constitution you swore to protect.

Here’s a little something from some other general who led the army in wartime, a fellow who knew a little bit about ethics, and leading men and a nation through difficult times.  Maybe General/Citizen Dempsey has heard of him:

“When we assumed the soldier, we did not lay aside the citizen.”  - George Washington

Oscar Pistorius, Ray Kroc and President Obama

He didn’t do it.  He didn’t perform the surgery, he didn’t make the prosthesis, he didn’t force him to go outside and play with his brother, he didn’t change the rules of the International Olympic Commission, he didn’t pick the South African track team, he didn’t make the uniforms, or the blades, or fly the airplane that got the team to London.  In fact, once you consider it all, Oscar Pistorius didn’t do much of anything.  At least if you use President Obama’s logic.

Because that is exactly President Obama’s argument about business.  Substitute mentors, parents, business partners, infrastructure and joint ventures and you have precisely the same argument.  Let’s face it, that’s a pretty goofy argument.

The simple truth, and one understood by everyone who watched even a few minutes of the Olympics or read even one or two articles about it, is that Mr. Pistorius is a remarkable guy, with a lot of grit, and we should all tip out hat to him.  What he has done is remarkable.  And HE did it. 

Every step has been a struggle, every step a challenge, every step an opportunity to quit.  No one else kept him from quitting, no one else did the training, no one else ran those races.  It is an example we need to take to heart, and no one more than President Obama.

The fact is, the market place is as unforgiving as the running track.  If you don’t put in the time, don’t train, don’t watch your diet, then you won’t win, you won’t place, you won’t even show. We all know that the small businesses fail at alarming rates: 50% fail after 5 years, 70% fail after 10 years.  But here is a better statistic: the average billion dollar per year business lasts 12 years.  Only 12 years.  Of course, there are some that get bailed out by the government, and some get absorbed by other companies or merge with other companies, and in some of those cases the stockholders do well.  But many just unravel, and fade away – even when everyone is working hard some don’t make it.

Consider that of the original Dow Jones 30 Industrials of a century ago, only one remains on the list – General Electric.  The others are gone.  Or consider how many aircraft companies were in business in the US in 1945 and how many remain today.  Airlines, shipping firms, steel corporations, etc., etc., etc.  They get started, some survive, some thrive, and then many unravel and die off, their remains bought up by their competitors.

What part of that did the government help in?  What part of that was a ‘gimme,’ a term with which the First Golfer should be familiar?  The problem with many politicians is that they have so little exposure to the real world and the real economy that these facts mean nothing to them.  For many in the White House, the idea of a Ray Kroc risking every dime he had, and committing every waking moment for years and years, to buy five hamburger restaurants from the McDonald brothers is an alien concept.  More disturbingly, they don’t seem to see that Kroc’s acceptance of risk, his willingness to not accept things as they are, but to act on his own despite what anyone else might think or say or do, is the essential foundation stone of progress – economic, technological or cultural.

Oscar Pistorius would understand Ray Kroc, and vice versa.  The problem is, President Obama and his staff understand neither of them.

Syria

The situation in Syria is going to get worse before it gets better.  We all need to accept that it will also go in directions we have not anticipated.  And we need to accept that we – the US – are now involved, and in a major way.

We saw in the press that a White House source announced that the President approved support to the Syrian rebels and, in one way or another supports the ouster of President Assad.

Assad is a butcher, and the world would be better off without him.  But we need to be clear as to what the President just did: he de facto declared war on Syria.  And he declared unlimited war.  Calling for the removal of the current government is the true definition of unlimited war.  Simply put, there will be no negotiated settlement.  All well and good if you are prepared to pay for the costs.  But what that effectively does is remove any inhibitions on the part of the other party in the fight.  It means the fighting is going to get dirtier, and it means that if the other side can strike at you he will.

Syria of course, is not acting alone.  Syria has a strong ally in Iran, and, Russia and China have both found it politically expedient to back Syria if for no other reason then it is of low (Russia) or no (China) cost to them, and it is of significant political cost to the US.  But it also speaks to what may be happening in the region: the political maps are breaking down.

Over the past nearly 200 years the world – and the west in particular – has become quite fond of the boundaries as drawn on the map.  In the few cases where they have been changed the change has usually been accompanied with some reference to the borders having been ‘drawn by British politicians sitting in London with no regard for the people who live here.’  But the simple truth is that throughout history boundaries have always been drawn by generals and politicians with as little regard as possible to the people of the region at hand.  From Ramses II and Hattushilish III through Alexander, Julius Caesar, Hadrian, Charlemagne, Genghis Khan, all the Mogul emperors, up through Saddam Hussein, borders have been regarded as things to be crossed and then redrawn.  Syria in particular is perhaps the most redrawn parcel of land in history, with nearly every great or want to be great empire in history occupying that land.  The land itself is currently occupied by a patchwork of people who view themselves not as ‘Syrian’ but Sunnis, Shias, Alawites and Druze, as Arabs and Armenians and Turks, Palestinians, Kurds, Assyrians, and Circassians.

In fact, much of the Middle East is a similar patchwork, which upon close examination is further splintered into tribes, huge family networks in which people have real allegiance to their extended families ahead of any allegiance to country.  If you have closely followed the events in Libya over the past several years you have probably seen tribal names such as Awaqir and Misurata and Obeidat – tribes that had major roles in the power structure of the Qaddafi government.  But these tribes can trace their heritage back in time for centuries and centuries, many to before the founding of Islam 1400 years ago.  And it is important to recognize that for many of these people there is little real devotion to nations or boundaries, particularly when that nation, such as Syria, was physically ‘constructed’ by treaty after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, ruled by France, and then gained independence 66 years ago (1946).

But, there is much more to this current problem.  It would seem, in fact, that the violence is already spreading across borders.  There have been intimations that the governments of one or more regional powers played a role in the attack on Assad’s cabinet meeting on 18 July, which killed the Syrian minister of defense and at least 3 other senior members of the cabinet and pushed Assad to seek sanctuary outside the city.  (For the record, this should not be labeled as terrorism; these men were all legitimate military targets as they are all parts of the command and control process of the government.  War may be ugly, but whoever did this didn’t target civilians, they attacked the government.)  Just several days later there was a similar attack on Saudi Intelligence headquarters in Riyadh.  Was it retaliation?  Was it coincidence?  That hardly seems likely.  Was it done by the Syrians?  Or did they have assistance?  If so, who?  Iran would seem to be a good bet, though certainly not a given.

The point here is that the situation is escalating.  And spreading.  The US needs to be well thought out and deliberate.  Perhaps covert aid to the rebels in Syria is appropriate.  But, the US needs to have a clear plan.  One of the problems with wars is that they seldom go the way you want them to go.  And the less your investment on the battlefield the more likely that is to be true.  When you try to fight wars cheaply and through proxies you have essentially no control as to the course of events, you are simply adding gasoline to the barbecue.  And so our ‘plan’ needs to have enough ‘branches’ that there are well thought out – and ‘executable’ – options in the event this war takes a different direction then the one we want.  And if we haven’t done that planning, or there are branches we can’t execute – for whatever reason – then we shouldn’t be doing this.

Politics inside the ‘Beltway’ is fine, but wars require professionals and clear assessments of real risk, not ‘hip-shots’ and stories leaked to friendly reporters so that the administration can look tough for voters.

And meanwhile we have a White House staffed by people who can’t seem to keep their mouths shut, who don’t appreciate the value of secrets, and really seem to believe that it’s all just a game being played in newspapers and TV news shows.  At a time when we clearly need some professionals in the White House we appear to be watching the recreation of ‘Ted Mack’s Amateur Hour.’

Whose Job Is It?

There is a tenet in law, repeatedly restated in courts, that says that the police are not responsible for your individual safety.  To make sure we are clear, the point of the courts is that if a criminal attacks you, the police can not be held accountable that 1) there are criminals on the street, 2) that one attacked you and 3) that you were hurt.  The police provide security to the society, they act as a deterrent to criminal behavior writ large, and they investigate crimes and arrest those believed responsible for crimes.  But they are not responsible for protecting you specifically and individually.

That makes some sense, whether we like it or not.  The police can’t be everywhere and they can’t prevent someone from doing violence to you, no matter where you are or what time it is.  So, to repeat, the police are not responsible for your individual security.

So who is?

I ask this simple question in light of the evil acts of some gunman in Denver and the tragedy he caused.  Simply put, who was responsible for safety and security of those in that movie theater?  The courts will provide one definitive answer: the police weren’t.

Now, an argument can be made that the answer then is to disarm everyone.  That may sound good, but the track record of that kind of behavior isn’t good.  In those societies where there is little private weapon ownership – say Western Europe – the result has been a significant increase in violent crime.  One of the clever half-truths of some in the media when they talk about this kind of thing is to report the murder rate in the US and compare it to the murder rate in Europe – the US rate is higher.  But what they leave out is that the violent crime rate as a whole is much higher in Europe then in the US, ranging from roughly 20% higher to more than 400% higher, depending on which country you pick.  This is true across all of Europe – including Scandinavia, usually the darling of those calling for change in the US.  Only in Switzerland can you find consistently lower murder and violent crime rates over the years.  And Switzerland is the land where every home is armed.

The economist John Lott has produced a study on the effects of handgun ownership (More Guns, Less Crime), chock full of statistics.  No one has made any serious effort to refute his statistics or his analysis.  Simply put, when people are armed, crime rates drop.  The more who are armed, the lower the crime rates.

So, back to the question at hand: who is responsible for protecting you?  The answer is simple: you are – and no one else.

These two trains of thought – the Police are not responsible, private firearm ownership reduces crime – need to be brought together.  This is an unpleasant idea to some and probably will raise some eyebrows.  But simply ask yourself this question: would 14 people have died in that theater last night, and would another 50 have been injured, if half the adults in that theater were armed and knew how to use their pistols?  The same can be asked about other public shootings, such as the shooting of Congresswoman Giffords on January 8^th, 2011, during which 6 people were killed and another 13 wounded.

No firearms law in the world would have prevented the evil creeps in either case from starting the shootings.  The courts have made it clear that the police cannot be expected to be everywhere and stop every criminal before he acts.  But an armed citizenry could be expected to act.  It might also give criminals a bit more to think about if, when they look down a street, they knew that essentially every one of their potential victims was armed.

Who DIdn't Get Where on Their Own?

The President made an interesting statement the other day in Roanoke, VA.  I will quote it exactly:

"There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me - because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t - look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something - there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.”  

The statement is, if taken literally, true.  No one got anywhere on his own.  There are mothers and fathers, brothers, sisters, cousins, teachers, etc., etc.  There are all sorts of people who help anyone grow and develop in life.

But that is not what the President was talking about.  The President (and his supporters who have rushed to defend him since this statement) means simply that government funded infrastructure, government regulation, government funding of various industries, etc., have all been the sine qua non of economic development in the US.  In short, no government, no economic success.

The President is partly right.  He is also completely wrong.

All economic development beyond the most basic barter economy is predicated on government.  The purpose behind the social contract that we all share is that because we (and more to the point, our ancestors) agreed to come ‘out of a state of nature’ and establish societies that allowed the establishment of governments to perform certain functions (security, money supply, certain public services such as licensing and deeds and standards, etc.), each of us was thereby freer to pursue individual pursuits, to concentrate on one set of skill rather than having to do – in essence – each of those things ourselves.  Aristotle spells it out quite clearly.

No one is disputing Aristotle.  And so, in that sense, the President was right.

But the real issue is simply this: the government isn’t what causes the individual’s pursuit of industry or the individual or collective economic success.  That’s backward.  It is the individual’s industry, and the individual desire for economic success that comes together to develop a collective solution to certain fundamental issues (security, legal framework, standards, infrastructure, etc.) that results in the creation of a government system – and a bureaucracy.  The government is the servant of the people, created by them, for them. 

So, rather than the individual succeeding by standing on the back of government, it is government that wouldn’t exist without the individual.  As I said, backward.  President Obama would have been more accurate if he had said:

"There are a lot of powerful, successful American politicians who agree with me - because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t - look, if you’ve been successful in politics, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by politicians who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something - there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there – people who pay for all those politicians.”

Here’s the point Mr. President: you didn’t get THERE on your own.  You are there, and this government is funded, by a lot of smart, hard working individuals who over 236 years, and still today, have labored and sacrificed and funded this government, and elected officials, and sent them to Washington, and all the state capitals, and all the towns and counties, to do specific jobs, to act as dutiful and conscientious servants of the citizenry, to carry out the tasks assigned, not take from those who sent you, and for whom you work.

President Obama would do well to remember that the Constitution begins ‘We the People.’  The people do not work for the government; the government is not ‘in charge.’  Government is the servant.  He should try to remember that.  As Lincoln put it: Of the people, by the people, for the people.

No, Not Today

There are many people saying that the end is nigh: we can begin with the adherents to the Mayan calendar, move through all the people who advocate hoarding gold, add those who can present a cogent discussion of the rise and fall of the ‘American empire’ and ‘imperial overreach,’ throw in the reasoned arguments of those who point out the growing size of our national debt and the massive unfunded, government mandated annuities that en toto are 9 times larger than that national debt, and finish with the academics who, with an almost childish glee, talk about the decay of America, and the realignment of international power to a multi-polar world where the US would be just one among many nations.  Some suggest that there may even be a darker future, one in which the very nature of democracy in the US is replaced by a ‘savior’ who will seize power and set himself up as dictator.

All of these futures are possible.  But all require a choice.  All require that we acquiesce in the drift of events, that we let the debt overtake us, we let weak-kneed politicians in Congress and the White House continue to spend our future and that of our children and children’s children for current votes, that we let a lack of leadership in the White House fritter away our position in the world, that we let a demagogue arise and usurp the powers of the Constitution.

Perhaps.  But Not Today.  That is what we must repeat every day: Not today.

None of these events is inevitable, none is driven by dark, mysterious forces, none simply appears on the scene with all of mankind watching in amazement.  Nations rise and fall not because of ‘forces or history’ or ‘accidents of geography’ or the presence of some virus.  Nations rise and fall because of the force of will of the individuals in that nation.  Augustus did not simply emerge, Augustus made choices, he took advantage of those around him and those around him let him so act.  The United States is not an accident, not a serendipitous sequence of events, but a result of the choices of our citizens and the product of a series of decisions – among them the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

 

Every day we have to push back.   We need to struggle to fix our problems before they present an opportunity to new Caesars.  Perhaps we need to consider amending the Constitution, further defining and narrowing the powers of government.  But we need to act; each one of us must choose to act.  Chesterton once observed that every generation is potentially the last, that every generation, every man stands on the precipice.  It is only through our choices that we can prevent doom.  It is also only through our choices that we can continue to shape the future of this great nation, that we can build a nation better and greater, freer and more productive, than any that has come before it.  It is our choice: we can decide to decline or we can decide to rise.  It is through our choices that we forge the future.  As it is with man, it is also with our Republic.  It is through our choices and our actions that we can prevent the gloom from overtaking us – as individuals and as a nation, that we can continue to lead the world forward, to be that ‘City on a Hill’ as John Winthrop said nearly four centuries ago.

There are those who wish to change the nation, to make it less then exceptional, to make us simply one among many, to even reduce our liberties, makes us all dependent on the government, to teach us to turn to the government first for a solution, rather than to ourselves.  In the name of freedom they actually wish to quietly usurp our freedom, to control our fortunes and our futures, to dictate to our children, and make our nation subject to the whims of unnamed regulators in Washington, or at UN Headquarters in New York, or worse, in Brussels.  They would not only sell our freedom and our nation’s birthright, they would sell our future.  To these we must answer: Not Today.

Loss of freedom always begins slowly and begins with people agreeing to small steps, to small accommodations that usually involve some increase in security or care at the cost of a seemingly insignificant loss in personal freedom.  This is not new; it has always been so.  Over time, the accommodations grow until the citizens, like the frog dropped into the pot of cool water on a hot stove, find that they are now surrounded by true dangers to their freedoms and even their lives.  But at any time the citizens might have stood up and said ‘No, not today.’  Government, the organs of power, the huge bureaucracies, must always be viewed as our servants, not our masters.  We – the People – must remember that we have the power, not them.  And when they seek more power, when they seek to reach beyond the boundaries we have established, it is our duty, on the peril of our very lives, to say ‘No, Not Today.’