At any rate, the political quacks in D.C. are at it again pretending that they are going to do something responsible about spending the taxpayers’ money. On one hand, you have the Republiquacks saying that they can find $700 billion in spending to cut–yes, these are the same Republiquacks who voted for the $400 billion and growing Medicare drug benefit. On the other hand, you have the Demoquacks waiving their hands in the air saying that cuts would have to come from veterans benefits and the like.

In the middle, you have an economy that is still shrinking by something like 2.5 percent per year–yes, the economy has to be growing faster than inflation to actually be growing–and is overdrawn to the tune of $19 trillion or so–a value that would take more than 100 years to pay off if it grew at a rate greater than 10 percent for the next 100 years and all of that growth went into paying the debt.

Now, if I were imperator of D.C., I would fix this problem by setting up an independent commission made up of taxpaying citizens–these citizens being defined as people who pay more taxes than they receive in refunds and whose income is not completely earned from tax spending–whose job it would be to identify any law authorizing the expenditure of money not authorized by the actual Constitution and recommend it to Congress for elimination before I eliminated it by decree anyway. Since I’m pretty sure that would strike down 2/3 of the federal executive, I’m pretty sure it would also eliminate 3/4 of the spending and the problem would be solved.

But that’s not going to happen, so how would you solve this problem? Post your answers in the comments.

DLH

It’s too easy, in our current era, to believe that things will somehow continue to improve, yet history tells us that there is no evidence that this theory of constant advancement is true.

In fact, history is filled with examples that reveal that our own era of advancement may have reached its peak and that a long era of decline may be what lies ahead. The irony of that observation is that it is in the fertile soil of the decline of one era that the seeds of the rise of the next are sown.

What separates those who are swept away by decline from those who survive it and prosper is the mindset of readiness for whatever comes next. In the dark days of the fall of the Western Roman Empire, it was the astute wisdom of farmers and former soldiers who chose to band together for common purpose and security that sowed the seeds of the Renaissance. In the turbulent era of the stranglehold of tyrannical monarchy on Europe, it was the waves of colonists willing to venture into uncharted lands that sowed the seeds for democracy and liberty. In the troubled times of the Depression, it was the people who accepted what had happened and learned to rely on themselves and live within their means that sowed the seeds of the unprecedented prosperity that marked the last half of the 20th century.

In every example history provides us, the people who weathered eras of decline were the ones with enough forethought and wisdom to glance at the future’s horizon and see the storm clouds gathering. These people were the ones who bothered to gather the kinds of resources they knew they would need in the hard times they knew were coming and who learned to rely on themselves for their wellbeing. It was from the determination and resolve of these kinds of people that the next eras were born, and this time around will be no different.

So, what will you wish you had if disaster strikes? Why don’t you have it now?

Take a look at the future’s horizon and ask yourself those questions again.

Now, ask yourself what you are going to do about it.

DLH

Needless to say, everyplace from Alabama to Hattiesburg to Stennis where we finally ended up was in complete chaos after that monster storm, yet it still pains me to hear the media and, as a result, the popular characterization of the events of those first days. You see, any disaster response is chaos at first. No one knows what’s going on, the lines of command and control are blurred between individuals, and local, state, and federal agencies. No one was sure how bad it really was. The flooding in New Orleans had just started. People were rushing to provide aid and to help those who needed to get out.

Yet, in spite of that chaos, amazing things occurred. All four branches of the active military, the Coast Guard, multiple states’ national guards, the Red Cross, hundreds of emergency management agencies, and countless others were already on their way. Helicopters were already plucking people from the floods. Methods of moving the displaced from the coast to places where they could be cared for were already in place. In some places, like Stennis, the crush of those coming to help would raise the population from what it had been before the storm.

Yes, bad things did happen, but they always do in those kinds of situations. You see, what happened on the Gulf Coast on 29 August was, in a lot of ways, like what happened to the great cities of Germany or Japan during World War II. The Gulf Coast, from Mobile to Galveston, was thoroughly destroyed in a fashion unimaginable by even those who were there and in a fashion rivaled by very few other natural disasters in US history.

So, it is no wonder that, five years on, things still aren’t right, mistakes are still being made, and progress seems to be measured in decades rather than months or years. Even though things have not happened at the pace people want them to happen, they are happening, and just like so many other places have risen from the devastation, the Gulf Coast will rise above Katrina. And they will rise above it because people still care and are willing to go down and lend a hand with their skills, their labor, and even their tourist dollars.

DLH

Are you ready for whatever comes next?

We Americans have lived through several decades of unparalleled prosperity, marked by an almost unchecked rise in consumption and the rapid development of the institutions to support it. If you’re reading this post, the science, technology, investment, and spending necessary to make that possible are an example of what I am talking about.

However, now, I believe the other shoe of history is about to drop. I could write for a long time about what may or may not happen next, but the fact is that neither I nor anyone else really knows. What I do know is that history is a very good indicator of what could happen, and history reveals a dark kind of story.

You see, that several decades of unparalleled prosperity had an ugly underside because it was achieved, among other things, by copious borrowing. Now, governments, businesses, and individuals are all in debt, and the debt has grown so large that it can no longer reasonably be paid off by future prosperity. The pressure on the American–and as a result the global–economy has grown to great, and something has to give way. The fulcrum of this action will be insolvency, but I can only speculate about what will follow.

So, are you ready for whatever comes next? Have you thought at all about how you will feed, clothe, and shelter yourself if your economy is bankrupt, your money is worth nothing, and your government is no longer able to provide for you?

Who will you rely on to provide for your basic needs. Can you do it yourself? Do you need help? Who can you rely on to help you?

For much of the history of the United States, these kinds of questions were nonsensical to most Americans because they were already answered by the things people already did. They grew their own food, made their own clothes, built their own houses, or belonged to networks of people just like them with whom they could exchange goods or services to provide for what they needed. These people did not need jobs, money, or government to help them because they helped themselves.

Why bring up this history? Because it will be that history that will save us from ourselves. If we can do so, if there is still time and there are enough people still able to do so, the only hope any of us have is to return to the state of affairs where we did for ourselves and thrived because of it.

Are you ready?

DLH

It’s been a bumpy year, with big successes and catastrophic failures along the way. I’ve learned more in the past year than I think I have in the rest of my life put together, and for the first time in a very long time, I think I can say I am not the person I was a year ago.

Overall, I think I would give myself a D+ for this year. I had huge ambition and huger plans but very little concept of what I was undertaking. That’s not to say that my ambition and plans for next year are any less grand, but frankly, I was clueless last year at this time, and the past twelve months revealed that lack of understanding for everything it was.

I could go on for a long time about what I have learned, what I have realized, and what I plan to do, but I think the details of those things are best left for different posts. In the mean time, here’s to another year!

DLH

Read more at my Farming weblog...

I think I know how this idea came into being. As scientists and governments conceived of the idea that there were “too many farmers” back in the 20s and after, more and more people stopped farming to do other things. Yet, these people still needed food, so they came to rely on the people who continued to farm more and more. Now, the number of people who farm has decreased to less than 1 percent of the population (which also begs the question what the more than 99 percent of everyone else is actually doing), so the rest of the population is desperate for the farmers to keep farming, whether they realize they are or not.

Further, the non-farmers are often terrified of any suggestion that farming might need to be done differently, because changes that fail could spell no food for them. In a lot of ways, farming has become like social security: let’s not change it because changes might affect me, even though I am doing nothing to contribute to the system’s success as it currently exists.

Meanwhile, the system itself is failing. Because so few people farm, very few people know what it actually takes to feed the world. And what it takes is a huge amount of equipment and fuel, both of which are becoming so expensive that fewer and fewer farmers can afford to continue doing it. If things continue the way they are now, eventually farmers won’t be able to feed the world because the world will have made farming to expensive to be done by anyone.

I understand that many, many people will counter what I am saying here with variations of the argument: “how is paying a farmer to raise food for me any different than paying anyone else to do something for me I can’t or won’t do?” To me, the answer is that most other things you pay people to do for you don’t necessarily have to be done and you probably won’t die from them not doing it.

So now, the question for me is why am I doing this? I know the answers, and I have come to realize that I am not doing it to feed the world. I’m doing it because I want to convince the world to feed itself.

DLH

Read more at my Farming weblog...

Granted, this withdrawal represents a mixed success, but so far Iraq has not imploded, degenerated into civil war, or been invaded by any of its neighbors. For an effort described by defeatists as being a quagmire, a disaster, and a failure, it certainly seems like things have worked out in ways that don’t look much like any of those things.

Now, Iraq still has a chance to become a lot of things, but one of the interesting elements of what it will become is that it will happen because Iraqis decide they will, not because Americans forced them to. Isn’t that part of what we set out to do to begin with?

Sometimes, it seems, endless has a good ending.

DLH

I do not deny that the use of atomic weapons to end the war with Japan was a shocking event that continues to resonate even today, nor do I deny that making that choice created decades-long consequences that very few people could have anticipated at the time, but I reject out of hand the moral revisionism practiced by far too many people today that claims that the actions undertaken 65 years ago today were wrong even if they achieved right results.

In order for anyone to make some sort of judgement, that person must ignore certain facts in favor of a narrowed view that takes into account only those facts that support their own world view. We are all guilty of that kind of relativism, no matter how hard we try, but the kind of relativism that settles on the idea that it was wrong to use atomic weapons even though they saved millions of lives is itself immoral.

War is a horrible and evil thing, yet any rational person can look at human history and realize, despite the best efforts of well intended people, war is sometimes inevitable. Once war happens, whatever its causes, the only moral way to prosecute it is to fight it by whatever means ends it most quickly. In the fight against the Japanese, using atomic weapons achieved that goal.

The end of the war against Japan is also a historical object lesson for our own time. Sometimes war is inevitable, no matter how well intended people might otherwise be. Once war happens, the only moral way to prosecute it is to fight by whatever means ends it most quickly. If we fail to do what needs to be done, we are no longer acting morally, and in doing so we lose whatever justification we might have had.

Imagine how different our view of the end of the war against Japan would be if today marked the first day of the invasion of the Japanese mainland. Now imagine how different our view of world events today may be if we fail to act with the same resolve.

DLH

I know people who will cheer this compromise and who will shake their fists in an defiant “take that” toward their much reviled Bush administration straw man. They will claim that this release is a great triumph for truth over tyranny, and some will reveal their ignorance by going so far as to make wild claims that these documents prove we should abandon Afghanistan.

So blooms the age of the non-state actor.

The non-state actor is a force that, I believe, has heretofore been underestimated and almost ignored by governments and citizens until very recently. Now, the power of unifying forces like the internet and other forms of nearly instantaneous mass communication have given potency to individuals and groups and causes that were once limited to protests and terrorism.

Now it is possible for people of similar mindset and ideology to unite across political, geographical, and cultural barriers to drive forward agendas that were almost unthinkable a decade ago. These groups of unified ideologues can wield power disproportionate to their size and scope, threatening the well-being of millions while being few in number themselves.

In this WiliLeaks release, we see such power in action. Clearly, the website’s founder, Julian Assange, and his compatriots want something very similar to what al Qaeda and the Taliban want: to harm the United States and its ability to operate on the international stage enough that it allows them to advance their agendas unchecked. I do not claim that Assange or any of his fellows sympathize with al Qaeda, but in them they have found the convenient alliance of an enemy of an enemy.

And they have succeeded at their goal of damaging the ability of the United States to conduct military, political, and civil operations in Afghanistan and the nations surrounding it. They have successfully encumbered US operations there, have exposed foreign personnel to additional risk, and have handed new initiative to their allies.

In doing so, they have placed everyone who does not believe in their agenda at risk, regardless of ones polity or beliefs. They have emboldened those who seek to force their ideologies on others and have revealed new, powerful tools for the enforcement of their goals.

Yet far too few people will see this threat for what it is. Most will be oblivious to what has happened, some will simply ignore it, and a tragic few will cheer it and support more events like it. In all those reactions, we see the potential for the failure of the state and the hands of the non-state, a danger that almost no one is ready to face.

DLH

*Editors note: There seems to be some disagreement online about exactly how many documents WikiLeaks released. Some of this seems to be due to how the information is being classified as documents due to the nature of the communications involved. WikiLeaks claims 91,000, the Guardian (who published many of the documents) claims more than 90,000, but earlier reports, now redacted or corrected claimed a lower number. We can safely say it was a lot.