An American Manifesto

Wednesday, April 1, 2020

Tribalism in Brief

Everybody knows that tribalism is primitive, a vestige of olden times. But everyone in wrong. We modern humans are as tribal as ever. Only now we belong to tribes that reflect our class rather than our kindred.

The tribe of the modern upper class is the tribe of educated people all over the world. The tribe of the middle class is the nation. The tribe of the urban lower class is the ethnic community.

Humans, writes Jonathan Haidt in The Righteous Mind, are "groupish." We love to belong to "teams," from families to tribes to religions, and we do our best work as part of a team. Also, we love to belong to armies, sports teams, nations, corporations, political parties, mutual-aid societies, kaffee klatsches.

Now, we like to think of primitive humans as "tribal" whereas we moderns are, well, post-tribal.

But according to anthropologist C.R. Hallpike, humans didn't become "tribal" until they started to live in villages with a population of 2,500 people or more. Back in the hunter-gatherer days humans weren't too tribal at all. They lived in "bands" and if, say, a young man got fed up with the other men in the band he could go join another band.

So I say that all human groups are "fake tribes." What I mean by that is that all human groups are based upon a faked-up narrative of something in common. It could be the ties of blood. It could be the ties of religion. It could be the charmingly fake "brotherhood" of the fraternal associations: that the members were all Masons. Or Odd Fellows. Or Elks. It could be what we now call "race."

Now I say that the most significant and dangerous "fake tribes" -- other than religions like Christianity, Islam, Socialism, Fascism -- are the political tribes: baronies, princedoms, kingdoms, nations. And do you know what they all have in common? They are all based on the sense of belonging created among the men that fought to create them. In war. Here's a "tell." After the Revolutionary War, the veterans were customarily addressed by their final rank in the war: thus Colo. Hamilton. After the Civil War, the veterans were customarily addressed by their final rank: thus Major McKinley.

I say that the twenty years of virtual unity in the US after World War II were caused by the sense of camaraderie among the veterans of that war, that the squabbling white ethnics of the previous half-century all came to see themselves as Americans first, and Jews, Italians, Irish, British second. (German-Americans had been forbidden to identify as such in World War I).

In the US we haven't been united in a war for eighty years. And it shows. We have a veritable zoo of "fake tribes" that cultural and political activists have invented in order to divide Americans off into "silos" that don't talk to each other and that can be deployed in a Cold Civil War. That's what Critical Race Theory is about.

Donald Trump with his America First movement is attempting to create another "fake tribe." This tribe proposes to enroll all middle-class citizens of the United States of America into a national MAGA "fake tribe" opposed to the educated globalist elite "fake tribe" and their underlings, the "fake tribe" of the "oppressed peoples."

Do you see what this means? It means that if you want to understand the world around you, especially the political world, you need to know that it's all about the tribes.

The tribe of the middle class is the nation. The tribe of the lower class is the ethnic group. The tribe of the upper, educated class is the class of educated people all across the world.

So, the politics of the middle class is to celebrate the nation against the globalist fantasies of the educated class and the irresponsible victims of the lower class.

The politics of the upper, educated class is to vilify the middle class as white oppressors lording it over the innocent oppressed peoples.

The politics of the lower class is to attach itself to any generous patron that celebrates its ethnic tribalisms.

Tribalism Table of Contents

Two Cultures in Brief

Men and women live in two different cultures. This arises out of the different culture of honor experienced by each sex. I first began dimly to understand this when I read James Bowman's Honor: a History.

[In] spite of the discrediting that honor has undergone, the basic honor of the savage -- bravery for men, chastity for women -- is still recognizable beneath the surfaces of popular culture what has done so much to efface it. If you doubt it, try calling a man a wimp or a woman a slut.

Honor for men is courage, the courage to stand with his brothers-in-arms under fire. Honor for women is to be good, with nary a blemish on her pinafore or her reputation.

Of course a woman's honor is not just about her sexual chastity; it is more a question of her being a Good Little Girl that has done everything Mother or Teacher has demanded.

I call this the Two Cultures. In fact, there are four cultures, two each for men and for women.

Taking the negative first, men have a Culture of Insult. This is what the ancient principle of the bar fight is all about. Some drunkard at the saloon has dared to question my courage, and so I am obliged to teach him a lesson and defend my honor. A more upscale version of the bar fight is the duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. Hamilton accepted the challenge because he felt, as a General in the United States army that might be called upon to lead his nation on the battlefield, he needed to defend his reputation for courage.

The women's version is the Culture of Complaint. This is because the culture of women is that you do not directly challenge another woman. What you do is complain about a third woman in a one-on-one with another woman in the community, using the time-honored complaint of "I can't believe she said/did that."

Of course, when a woman complains to a man, that is different. She is telling him, indirectly, to step up to the mark, to be a man and protect her. Alternatively, as George Eliot suggests in Adam Bede, she complains because she wants to be "soothed."

Enough of the dark side, let's look on the bright side.

When men are just behaving like good courageous warriors, standing beside their brothers, we have a Culture of Courage, and they are using their courage to do good things, whether it's defending the border, or being a good husband and father and going down the mine to earn wages to provide a home for his family.

Equally, when women are behaving like loving wives and mothers we have the Culture of Kindness. The kindest woman that ever lived was of course George Eliot's Dinah Morris in Adam Bede. But later Eliot evidently thought that Dinah was a bit over the top, and so she revised and expanded the concept and so created three heroines in Middlemarch: Dorothea Brooke that wanted to do good; Rosamund Vincy that is convinced that she is good; and Mary Garth who actually lives doing good. Mary is the daughter of a land-agent just like George Eliot was.

The precipitate of the male Culture of Courage is the male hierarchy, that Nature has invented to reduce violence among males. To raise your position in the hierarchy you need to demonstrate courage under fire, and so men engage in all kinds of activities -- from business to politics to climbing Mt. Everest -- to demonstrate their courage and hopefully raise their position in the hierarchy. And that is where the Culture of Insult comes in.

The consequence of the female Culture of Kindness is the formal equality of the neighborhood community of women. In that community no woman is better than any other, or the Culture of Complaint will go to work. Obviously, if you are chaste and pure -- and who dares tell a woman she is not -- then no other women in the community, be she ever so beautiful and rich, is better than any other women in the community. Thus Lizzie Bennet in Pride and Prejudice can tell Lady Catherine de Bourgh where to put it.

You see the Two Cultures at work any time you go out for a walk in the neighborhood. The men you will encounter call boys and dogs "Buddy" and expect them to come to heel. The women you observe will seek to persuade boys and dogs rather than order them.

The Wrong Turn in Brief

In my idea of the German Turn I argue that the Germans, starting with Kant, have redefined the world on the basis that we cannot know things in themselves and, moreover, cannot definitely proclaim the one and only meaning of "life, the universe, and everything" for all time.

In other words, although we humans are eternally trying to figure out the meaning of "life, the universe, and everything," our latest wizard wheeze on the subject -- whether the idea of the gods on Mt Olympus to Jesus Christ dying on the Cross for our sins or Nietzsche's Zarathustra chappie, or Martin Luther King Jr's faith that the arc of history is moving towards justice -- is merely the best we can do to figure out the impenetrable mystery of our lives and the universe -- for now.

But we humans are forever tempted by our human conceit to proclaim The Truth for all time and to impose The Truth upon our fellow humans -- in their own best interests, of course. Any such effort I regard, in my wisdom, as a Wrong Turn.

And the worst of all is the secular religious faith of our lefty friends, that the meaning of "life, the universe, and everything" can be found in the application of left-wing politics and political power for the noble and just purpose of bending the arc of history towards justice.

I say that in their sanctification of politics and political activism, our lefty friends have made a Wrong Turn that will lead to nothing but misery and death until it collapses on account of its errors, its crimes, its conceits, its lies, its internal contradictions and its butcher's bill.

In the first place I believe it is an error to imagine that politics can do anything to create justice. Politics and government, in my understanding, are only useful in rallying humans -- men -- to defend the homeland against an existential threat like Mongols and Nazis. Thus did Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt understand the political as the question of the enemy, with whom conflict is possible.

As soon as the existential threat has receded, then government turns to the business of loot and plunder, or injustice, straight up. You can dress up your loot and plunder in all sorts of fetching costumes, and declare moral emergencies such as racism, sexism, and homophobia, but loot and plunder is loot and plunder.

Our lefty friends instinctively understand this; that is why they always declare a moral emergency to justify their use of politics and force. But it is all a lie.

I say that the left's Wrong Turn is manifest in several identifiable movements. The first is what I call the Activism Culture, that proposes political activism as the highest and best way to live, fighting for the oppressed. I say that activism is a new form of the medieval romance. Back at the end of the Middle Ages the upper class -- including upper class women -- created the idea of the noble knight that used his martial skills to save helpless damsels from a fate worse than death. It was the historical role of Miguel Cervantes to satirize this upper-class conceit in Don Quixote. Now we have educated-class youth practicing a new knightly romance imagining themselves as "allies" rescuing "oppressed peoples" from the clutches of "white oppressors." Only the Age of Revolution is over.

Activism Culture has developed a specific subculture, Allyism, that experiences the world as the moral interaction of "oppressed peoples, their allies, and white oppressors."

The second is what I call Little Darlings. The modern justification of political power is based on the neo-medieval romance and its noble succor of the helpless victims of the time, the damsels in distress. Today the romance of rescuing damsels in distress has faded somewhat, and so our rulers have invented new helpless victims to succor. I call these helpless victims Little Darlings. Don't be a Little Darling, any more than a young woman should become the little darling of some rich Uncle Sugar. Sooner or later Uncle Sugar will tire of his little darling, and sooner or later the ruling class will tire of its latest helpless victims and go find some more. This has been the fate of the white working class, once the eternal love of the educated youth. Now the Little Darlings are People of Color. There are also fake victims such as educated-class feminist women and educated-class homosexuals and the various LGBT quarterings.

The result of these two Wrong Turns is what I call the Great Reaction. I say that the Activism Culture and its worship of Little Darlings has resulted in a Great Reaction, a lurch back to the primitive, for

Socialism is a return to slavery; the welfare state is a return to feudalism; identity politics is neo-tribalism; reparations is neo-vengeance.

And so on. It all comes down to Curtis Yarvin's maxim, that

There is no politics without an enemy.

I say that, instead of strutting and fretting its hour upon the stage of politics, our educated class should be turning inward, examining its assumptions, its beliefs, its conceits in an arduous journey into the underworld of the unconscious. And those not up to the terrors of the journey into the unconscious should just shut up and, like Dorothea Brooke in Middlemarch, live an unhistoric life, a hidden life, and be content, in the end, to rest in an unvisited tomb.

Next step: Left's Wrong Turn Table of Contents.

Marxist Wood -- Contents

The Marxist Economics of Ellen Meiksins Wood

Making Things Worse -- Contents

Government Always Makes Things Worse

Commentary

Left's Wrong Turn -- Contents

Wrong Turn: the Left's Conceits, Crimes, Errors, and Oppressions

0. Wrong Turn in Brief

49 Up: Oral History as it Happens
Stupid Left Tricks
Chavez Will End in Tears
Left Brimming with New Ideas?
"Make Price Gouging Illegal"
Come Back to Class, Says Duke Administration
Coercion in the Liberal University
Liberals are Different From You and Me...
Vanity of Vanities
BritCons Challenge Labour on "Fairness"
Poisoning the Chalice
Back to Basics
Our Liberal Dominator Hierarchy
New Deal Put "Great" in Depression
The Stealth Repeal of Welfare Reform
Where the Liberals Went Wrong
The Three Liberal Conceits
Three Liberal Delusions
The Wages of Centralism
"Care About" or "Care For"
Social Darwinism and Liberal Programs
Liberals Out of Touch
After Obama, A New Birth of Freedom
America's Moral Challenge
The History of the Ego
Obama and the Liberal Bubble
The Next Great Moral Movement
Three Liberal Injustices
The Kids are All Right. But...
Rush Limbaugh Gets It
Remember, The Left's God is Liberation
Marx: Five Big Mistakes
The Shame of the Liberals
Ruling Class and Country Class
How's That Fundamental Transformation Doing?
Note to Hegemons: Slaves Don't Tell You What They Really Think
When Stupid LIberals Become Evil
"I Will Defend Americans from the Bullies"
How Liberals Wrecked Upward Mobility
The Shallow Conceit of the North London Luvvie
The Three Liberal Conceits
There is No Such Thing as "Peaceful Protest"
"Who Killed the Enlightenment?" is the Wrong Question
How Humans Can Cooperate Without Being Forced
The Wages of Division
The Straight Line from The Klan to #BlackLivesMatter
Playing Out Obama's String
The Liberal Syllabus of Errors
"Fools, Frauds and Firebrands" Building Their Secular Theology
Fundamentalism and Denialism on the Left
What Our Ruling Class Gets Wrong
Government is Always Clueless
The Fundamental Reality of Our Times, Four Ways
Think of Liberals as Trapped Rats
How to Turn Left Through Modernism and Postmodernism
President Obama's Divisiveness: What Does He Mean?
When Will Democrats Realize That Obama is Killing Them?
It is not "Good Government" Reforms that Wrecked the System
When Will Liberals Lose Control of their Identity Politics?
Everything the Left Believes is Wrong
The Muddle of Liberal Thinking
What About the Victims of Politics?
Sorry Liberals, Protest is for People Outside the System

How to Help an In-denial Liberal
The Left's Catalog of Errors
On wage labor, immiseration, exploitation, government social services
The Left's Murderous Cult of Power
Democrats Blundering in Denial
The Left's Trifecta of Delusion, Incompetence, and Spite
The Left's Conceit About "Resistance"
The White Working Class Again
Yes, Liberals, Critical Theory Applies to Your Ideas Too
"Whatever the Left Touches, It Ruins"
Because politics with everything ruins everything
Getting to the Why of Marxism
It looked to excitable youngsters like Marx that things were spiraling out of control
The Left's Syllabus of Errors, Part One
Nine little errors, starting with the French Revolution
The Left's Syllabus of Errors: Postmodernism
No doubt everything is a narrative of power. But that includes postmodernism, sister
No, Political Power Does Not Effect Beneficial Change
There is a Reason Why the Left is Always Attacking Middle-Class Values
The left needs subordinate victims to maintain political power.
What Fools These Liberals Be
They want a hierarchical society like back in feudal times
Was It Really "Prestige" That Made Our Ruling Class Larger Than Life?
The Six Worst Injustices of the Liberal Domination
Keeping workers down, attacking middle class, wrecking education, retirement, health care, charity
Militarism vs. Activism: Ruling Class Culture Then and Now
The ruling class used to teach honor and glory. Now it teaches justice and activism.
Civil Rights Vs. the Right to Discriminate
What Do #MeToo Want?
Real Critical Theory: How About a Critique of Leftism
Lefties have taught us to critique capitalism. Now let´s critique lefties and the educated ruling class.
Great Reaction: The Left's Neo-Tyranny
Unlike the capitalists, the left is really interested in power. That leads to tyranny.
The Grand Narrative of the Postmodernists
Pomos don't believe in grand narratives. Except their own.
The Plague of Fake Politics
Fake Politics from Marx to modern "activism."
When a Lefty Comes to Visit
Lefties need to be carefully taught that their activism is really all about them.
On the Receiving End of the Ruling-Class's Cultural Narrative
Anti-Barker: Don't Know Much About Philosophee
In America you are not allowed to disagree with the privileged educated elite
The Alt-right Takes Out After Jordan Peterson
Peterson isn't defending the Christian culture and the nation state
Jordan B. Peterson's "Maps of Meaning:" It's a Start
Can we emerge from our need for safety to the challenge of the Sacrificial Hero?
Tom Wolfe: Pricker of Liberal Balloons
The Many Oppressions of Liberal Cultural/Political Hegemony
An indictment of socialism, big government and war on middle class and religion

Oppressions of Liberal Cultural/Political Hegemony, Pt. 2
An indictment of education and welfare and government pensions

Oppressions of Liberal Cultural/Political Hegemony, Pt. 3
An indictment of government housing programs and subsidies

Oppressions of Liberal Cultural/Political Hegemony, Pt. 4
An indictment of government programs for the homeless

My Critique of the Left. Again.
Trying to understand the left. With a hammer.
At Jordan Peterson's Road Show
We all see the world through the lens of our values
Reality Hits the 19th Century White Ethnics
The Left's Errors: The Programs
How all the left's favorite programs don't work. Imagine!
The Dilemma of the Well-born Human
No, Critical Theorists, Creativity is Not The Only Thing
Creativity stands on the shoulders of responsibility
The Poverty of Power
My Three Peoples vs. the Left's Three Peoples
Lefties turn the Three Peoples upside down.
Let's Apply Three Peoples to This Week's Issues
Such as Covington Kids and Medicare For All
Strange Death of Europe: But Why?
Great Reaction: Activism is Neo-Knight-Errantry
What else do you call riding around in search of helpless victims to save?
Great Reaction: Reparations is Neo-Vengeance
Turning back the clock from law to the lex-talionis
The Left's Practice of Politics
Is There a Difference Between Ethnic Politics and Identity Politics
Ethnic politics is the politics of new arrivals in the city. Identity politics is an intellectual system
Our Ruling Class's Unjust Sense of Entitlement
The New York Times' Problem
Trying to Put Multiculturalism on the Stage
When you are "creative" the easiest thing is to be creative about sex
Understanding the Left
Using political power as an agent of justice
The Left Led the Workers into a Wilderness
It gave them neo-feudalism rather than a road to the middle class
Gut-Check Time for the Educated Ruling Class
Our Ruling Class Does Too Have a Religion. And How.
It believes in equality, education, climate change, by the creative/educated
Forget 1619 NYT. Learn About 1917
Conservatism: What Comes Next
The Left's Dilemma: It Can't Undo Its Mistakes
And so it can't ramp up spending on its new clients
Liberal Crimes of History: The Workers
How the left led the workers into the wilderness
Liberal Crimes of History: The Women
How feminists led women into the wilderness
Cleaning Up Afer Hurricane Lefty
Every political or religious movement leaves devastation in its wake
Is the Left to Blame for All the "Hate"?
If you believe in politics, like the left, you believe in "hate"
Ten Things the Educated Gentry Got Wrong
Our Elite's Crimes Against Humanity
Its solutions for workers, blacks, women and LGBTs were the wrong solutions
Just Because I Made a Little Joke
My letter to the Managing Editor of Right Wing Watch
Pelosi's Far-Left Bill: The Bigger Problem
Lefties legislating their lefty morality
The Two Level Left, and Ne'er the Twain Shall Meet
On China: "Don't Let's Be Beastly to the Asians"
Understanding the Power of "Fascism"
You call someone a fascist if you want to shut them up
Gee, Why Would These Folks Be Rebelling, Liberals?
What is the Current Moral Revolution All About?
Toppling Statues: The Problem with Iconoclasm
Do you really want to erase history?
The Woke Contradiction in CorporateLand
Corporations worship at the altar of creativity. But wokies are the opposite.
The Wrong Turn -- Script
The Crimes of the Wet-Noodle Manifesto Signers
Just Who Are Those Horrible Systemic Racist White Supremacists?
When All the Gubmint Programs Fail At Once
The Third Imperial Age Is (Was) The Lefty Age
Activism and a Meaningful LIfe
Nothing New: Movements that Decide to Cleanse Society of Evil
The Terminal Bossiness of the Educated Gentry
Imagine! The BLM/AntiFa Riots Were The Fault of Infiltrating White Nationalists!
The Mostly Peaceful Hellscape
The Three Peoples and Revolution
All the World's a Social Construct
Suppose the Wildfires in California Are Not Due To Climate Change
Why the Age of Revolution is Over
The Problem of the Left's Woke Religion
The Accumulation of Liberal Follies
The Tell: Cheating When You Start to Lose
OK, So Biden Blundered on Fracking, But...
Ten Reasons Why Our Liberal Ruling Class is in Trouble
"Build Back Better" and "Systemic Racism:" The Horror
Everybody Gets the "Great Reset"
An Indictment of the Ruling Class
What is the Political Future?
The Eternal Temptation of the Ruling Class Scions
Getting a Word In Against Liberal Cultural Hegemony
Let's Kritik Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality
Showing the Ruling Class the Door
Understanding Gender Madness
Postmodernism! We Hardly Knew You!
Hey, Black Americans: Grow Up!
AntiFa Doesn't Want Powell's to Sell Anti-AntiFa Book
"Secret Garden" and Multiculti
Trump's Biggest Failure: The Race Issue
Good Luck, Joe. You'll Need It
Charles Murray's Last Broadside "Facing Reality"
Another Four Law. But What to Call It?
Our Liberal Friends Won't Know What Hit Them
The Problem with Anti-Whiteness
Allyism, Republicans and Democrats
The Political Wages of COVID
Lefties, LGBTs, Liberals and Their Conceit
When a Protest is "Mostly Peaceful" Then Maybe Crowd Control is Needed
Peterson's "Beyond Order"
Google's Little Race Problem
Changing America on a 51-49 Vote
Who is Getting Screwed in Post COVID?
The Small Minority Gig and the Ruling Class
The Ten Woke Ideas from FiveThirtyEight
Is There Really Anything We Can Do?
The Filibuster is Racism, Etc.
What Do You Do About Christopher Lasch
How Does a Politician Do "Commoner Politics?"
Lower Class Lives on Gubmint Checks
Derek Chauvin, Human Sacrifice
War Correspondent Reports from Culture War Front
No, Social Democracy Started the Problem
The Eternal Dilemma of a Ruler
The Eternal Misdirection of Leftist Politics
Four Laws: Government Cannot Reform
A New Three Layer Theory: Snobs, Schmucks, and Scum
"I Will Make You Safe"
A Hollow Elite: The Roots of Wokeism
Dems in Cloud Cuckoo Land
Are We Heading to Civil War II?
Narratives: 1776 Commission, McClanahan, Gottfried, and Anton
A Marxist Misinterprets History
The Left: Just What Is Their Problem?
The Importance of "Victims with Attitude"
Capitalism Isn't Accumulation. Get It?
Abolish Cops and Billionaires? Oh Please!
The Juilliard Raciss Meltdown
"Equality Never Hurt Anyone"
"Wittgenstein's Vienna:" When a Ruling Class is Losing It
"Progressive Fatalism?" How to Miss the Point
The Worse the Better
Where the Biden Budget Bites
Hate is Exploding in North Seattle
The Biden Agenda: It Still Comes Down to Loot and Plunder
What if Wokism is Implied in the Civil Rights Laws?
Politics Equals Us vs. Them Equals Hate
Understand Your Liberal Friends and Be There For Them As Their World Collapses Around Them
The View from the Window of the Ruling Class Club
The "Four Americas" and My Three Peoples
The End of Over/Under Politics
Hey Transgenders, Don't Frighten the Horses
When the Ruling Class is Wrong
How Whiteness Transformed China
Ferguson's "Great Degeneration" and How Things Are Getting Worse
Dueling Narratives: Who's the Fascist?
Our Rulers Don't Have a Clue What to Do
My Three Theses: Wokism Does Not Pay
The End, or the Beginning?
Biden, Democrats, Race and Going for Broke
Humans Are Evil, But Mostly Just Stupid
Predicting the Future When the Universe Changes
Understanding the Left's Big Push on Education
The Bigger Problem with Defunding the Police
The Only Game Politicians Know
Bidenomics and Trash Pickup
Let's Call It Climate Imperialism
Peggy Noonan Always Echoes "Respectable" Elite Opinion
Ignoring Supreme Court: It's OK When We Do It
All is Proceeding as I Have Foreseen?
The Folly of the All-powerful Intelligence Community
Making Things Worse: Introduction, Education and Pensions
Making Things Worse: Healthcare and Mortgages
Making Things Worse: Civil Rights and the Sexual Revolution
Economics and Politics: The Biden Trainwreck
The Democrats' Sticky Wicket
Poor Bloody Germans -- and US
The Political Necessity of White Supremacy
Ruling Class: Hoist with their Own Petard? Or Not?
The Eternal Temptation of Monoculture
Monoculture's Effect on Women
What Does a Culture of Real Criticism Mean?

Tuesday, March 31, 2020

Mandatory or Discretionary? You Make the Call

You may know, or you may not know, that federal spending in divided, like Gaul, into three parts. There is Mandatory Spending, which does not require an annual appropriation by Congress. There is Interest Payments, which go without saying. And there is Discretionary Spending, which is legislated every year by Congress.

At usgovernmentspending.com our crack analysts have just completed a Mandatory Spending Analysis page. Here is a look at the overall picture from 1962, the first year of the Historical Tables that are published each year by the Office of Management and Budget.

The overall story is that year after year, the Mandatory side of the budget keeps getting bigger. And the main reason is the expansion of health care programs, which are mostly Mandatory.

And, of course, the defense budget is almost all Discretionary. Go figure.

Actually, it makes sense. All government is force, and the number one government program, after selling the debt, is paying off supporters. This has been true at least since the good old days of the Frankish Empire operating out of Trier in western Germany after the collapse of the Roman Empire.

And, I have determined, the only government program that ever gets cut is the defense budget after a major war. Everything else is sacrosanct.

So you may think that, probably, the only thing the government should spend money on is defense.

Because if you, the great leader of the nation, create a program that can never be cut, well, you are an idiot.

Oh well, I guess that's why they say that history goes in cycles. Because political leaders are members of the Lina Lamont Fan Club. Their motto, like hers, is "What d'yer think I yam? Dumb or somep'n?"