why world governance won’t. hasn’t. cannot.
yakima ridge runs almost due east from yakima, washington to the shores of the great columbia river. on the south side of the ridge is a nice little valley with grape vineyards, fruit orchards of all descriptions, hop yards, hay field and pastures, and little townships and residences, … , all part of a very large agricultural economy the direct rival of california’s salinas & sonoma valleys, … , and from the air, the disciplined order of a landscape conforming to the planners pencil & plotter. and, the plots and businesses conform to the legalities of title, taxation and unified county and state planning.
to the north of the ridge, and between the yakima and columbia rivers, lies the yakima firing center, a military reservation belonging to the united states which is a major gunnery range, and place for tanks, armored personnel carriers, stryker brigades and infantry to practice combined warfare and live fire exercises. the citizens of yakima rarely take note of the happenings there, and the dull thud of artillery fire just north of the ridge passes without attention from the town’s folk. if a live fire maneuver is going on, and troops are in, the passage of military helicopters to the helipad of a local hospital will capture some attention, but for the most part the activities of the firing center go unremarked upon.
if ever anything exemplified ordered governance, it might be thought to be yakima ridge.
yet, within the view of a spotting scope from the third floor of the yakima county courthouse rages a chaos of nonconformity, lawlessness and persnickety defiance of governance such as would do a pakistani hill province a run for its money. for on the top of the ridge, just exactly between the u.s. army and its live ammunition and the planning commission of yakima county anarchy reigns, and sovereigns regularly get dirt kicked in their faces.
not ¾’s of a mile from settlements where every building and zoning code requirement know to man is willfully complied with, up twisting and snaking dirt lanes and nearly impassable dirt scrapes where no county sheriff or military police dares to go, lies a mess of cobbled up shacks, trailers, and the imagined mansions of crazy people as protected from the exercise of law and command as is a hornet’s nest.
this anarchy sits atop the ridge with the rattlesnakes and circling vultures, replete with gullies stuffed with stolen cars on blocks, the aluminum wheels and electronics stolen for easy sale, and travel trailers and mobile home set on dusty lots without water or electrical service or sewer lines, and multiple story houses built with a reckless abandon and romantic disregard for building and wiring codes, often clad with a combination of weathered plywood and chip board. porches, balconies, decks literally sprout from the sides of the homes, and widow’s walks grow in profusion on roofs, and the free for all just goes on with inspector or sheriff, for none want to confront the intransigence of the crazies who live there.
they are, as a matter of fact, outlaws living “beyond the pleasure dome.”
i worked as a prosecuting attorney on the nuisance beat in both yakima and clallam county, working very closely with compliance officers and inspectors of health, building and electrical code, and nuisance abatement.
from that work i formulated “jay’s law,” which states there is no law 40 miles from the county seat, or 40 miles from the boundary of a metropolitan area. when you get out into the empty reaches, law enforcement simply does not go there alone, … , it can be an awfully lonesome feeling driving up a cat track through the woods, scrub timber and rock outcroppings of washington’s back country, knowing that a very hostile reception awaits you.
so they just don’t go up there.
up there is where the marijuana is grown. and, where the meth labs run until they burn down along with the cooks, or the cooks simply inhale enough fumes to be driven into a deluded psychosis, or wherever it is that their minds go.
distance and circumstances may vary in other locales, but not so materially as to defy the principles involved.
there is nothing magic about it. it is simple. as you get farther away from the center of a circle, along an expanding diameter, the area grows in a mathematical progression, until you reach a point that the forces of governance cannot reach sufficient density in all places within the geometrical dimension to govern. this is well illustrated in washington and california by marijuana grows: sheriffs and forest service cops can make splashy raids for the cameras and knock down a grow, but there is a lot of room in california and washington and british columbia for a 100’ by 100’ plot of marijuana, out in them thar hills.
the fact is, there was at one time no law west of the pecos, and right now, there is no law west of tampico and cowiche mill road in yakima county, washington.
there is the force of law in yakima, washington and in the other places in the county were population densities and economic activity will support compliance with law. where there is not those conditions, there is no law, period.
trust me. i tried to enforce it in the civil departments for my friends in the planning and zoning departments, and i tried to enforce the law in juvenile court with regard to truancy violations, and dependency actions and the like, … , and, i know for a matter of fact, that the law has precious little hold on areas much beyond the paved road.
it is, if you will, as simple as that.
governance has limits.
beyond which, it does not govern.
even world government, which has amply demonstrated in any number of fashions, that it is no government at all, and is not likely to ever be. pavement factors, and all that.
let us look to an international organization which is truly governmental in scope, and that is the international atomic energy commission, or agency, i cannot remember. in theory, they have wide scopes of governance, including inspection and like functions, and can order compliance, and implore the security council of the united nations to impose sanctions upon countries and entities that will not comply with i.a.e.c. recommendations.
in theory.
in theory, the i.a.e.c. should all by itself have been able to have stopped iran and north korea and venezeula and saudi arabia and brazil and argentina and egypt and poland and ukraine and georgia from acquiring, or trying to acquire, fissile materials by which to manufacture atomic weapons.
and, this illustrates the limiting factor of international governance.
it has no sheriff.
or, put more precisely, it has no sheriff unless the united states is willing to be the sheriff. in short, abandoning the metaphor for the factual description of the matter, international law is not international law because it cannot exercise the brute force necessary to exact compliance to its edicts, and, that is folks, in a political scientist way of looking at it, just exactly what the law is. law is applied force, and to the extent that the law is enlightened, the application of force is just, equitable, enlightened and humane. on the other end of the scales, we have the example of law and its application in iran, which demonstrates that the force of law is not always a good thing: it can be, and usually has been throughout history, quite brutal.
all those people who live out beyond the pavement? they live there on purpose. not because they are afraid of the law, but precisely because they are willing to say, … , come get me, bring it on.
i have skipped to this point, because it leads to my final observations.
since world war i the united states has been world law, in the formation and execution (metaphorically, a perfect description) of the league of nations, and in the formation, funding, organization and execution of the edicts and policies of the united nations. in every major operation put on by the united nations to enforce international law, the united states has provided the manpower and the financial wherewithal to carry out such policy, even to the extent of fighting wars in the name of the united nations. and, in those instances where the united nations has not provided the unanimous “mandate” for such efforts, the united states has carried on the policies of the “free(loading) world,” even when to do so such has not been popular. i suppose the prime example in contemporary history would be the seeming dichotomy of unanimous support for bush i in iraq, and the cacophony of objection to bush ii in iraq, even though that operation had the sub rosa support of most of the world, including a major portion of the arab world. how do i know that? well, it is obvious. had such not been the case, even unto the very moment at which you read this, it simply would neither had occurred nor continued. Yet it did, and it is. Think about it for a while. The point is obvious.
The following point is equally obvious. international law, the united nations, such as they are, do not exist without the monetary and military might of the united states.
and, dear friend, there is no other entity that can step forward and take the place of the united states, and perform either the monetary or the military function necessary to carry out international law, in the stead of the united states.
doubt it? doubt the assertion, doubt the proposition?
o.k. gimmee a “fur instance,” as we say out eastern oregon way.
which observations if demonstrable, and i think they are, lead me to these perplexities.
they can be summed up in this simply question, within the context of this little essay, and that is, why are obama and the international community trying to kill the goose that has laid the golden eggs, international peace wise?
the u.s. near financial crises induced by a festering corruption fueled by the financial and political incompetence of freddie mae and bernie mac, oversight courtesy of barnie frank & christopher dodd, a gallery of rogues, charlatans and idiots of there ever was one, and the financial stimulus introduced by obama, which will drive the united states government into financial oblivion if it is allowed to go to its fruition.
other little entities here and there promote new currency systems to replace the dollar as the medium of international trade, and by which to float the values of the various national and euro currency.
obama wants to downsize the united states military, and is desperately trying to destroy and abandon every geo-political and geo-strategic advantage achieved by the united states over a course of 80 years of diplomacy, war and conflict. he abandons missile defense to the imperatives of soviet diplomacy. he gives up eastern europe to the soviets and abandons staunch and welcoming allies there, some of whom were and are among the last entities to supply troops to iraq and afghanistan, to help our efforts there.
he abandons israel to islam, and has helped push turkey into the fold of islamic fundamentalism. the ghost of kamil ataturk vanishes as a wisp upon the tides of events in the mediterranean, gone forever, as though he had never existed.
now, my perplexity, my question is, who is going to enforce this brave new world order that obama and his rabid commie bastard friends, foreign and domestic, wish to impose upon the world?
and, a moment’s thought will suggest the magnitude of the problem posed.
the chief beneficiaries of the most massive and bizarre transfer of wealth in the entire history of the world, the third world? they haven’t collectively a pot to piss in nor a window to throw it out of right now, and as soon as they receive the ransom money for europe’s imperialistic guilt, they will piss the wealth down the same rat holes they have been pissing it down since colonial liberation?
africa is going to grow from this infusion of capital? yeah, right. the muslim world is going to grow into an economic colossus from this infusion of capital? with all the petro dollars in the world, with money growing out their ears, the muslim shit holes of the world remain the muslim shit holes of the world, staggering under social and political ineptitude, graft, corruption and stupidity hardly helped by being capped with the most intellectually stifling and barbaric religious and political system ever conceived?
how is this to change, this situation with africa and with islam? the simple fact is, cash assets does not economic dynamism make. something lost on most socialists economists, who cannot figure out what it is that makes money in the first place.
the russians. are the russians going to become the policemen of the world? now, the difficulty with the thinking of some people is that they imagine russia to be as strong as the soviet union, which it is not, and they also think russia/the soviet union could have taken on this task in its heyday, which it could not. it could not police the eastern bloc much after hungary and czecklovakia, and it certainly did not have the reach to the rest of the world. and, as a matter of fact, russia does not have the reach to do very much in georgia even after the invasion, and does not have the reach to discipline the ukraine and the eastern bloc countries right now.
and, in this i speak both in terms of economic and military might.
france? germany? the combined might of the euro union. we shall come back to this.
finally, the most likely candidate of all, and that would be china, which would love to be beneficiary of a geo-political bonanza such as the west is delivering into its lap and larder, but, which, oddly enough, it will not be able to take advantage of.
for several reasons, which become obvious upon thought and comparison.
so many times that i get blue in the face from expenditure of oxygen, so many times have i been ignored by the world at large that i shrink from the utterance, … , but, i will say it again, … , international commerce and international trade has been subsidized, protected and allowed to flourish upon the keels of the united states navy, the greatest blue water force ever accumulated in the history of man. no other navy in the world, no other congregation of the world’s navies, even remotely matches the might and the reach of the u.s. navy.
the united states navy sustained and made profitable the shipping upon the high seas that allowed international trade to flourish. do you doubt this? well, have you seen any toyota’s shipped by overland motor carrier to the united states? or to europe? do you see any korean steel going overland or by rail to brazil? brazilian grapes and bannana’s coming into european ports by diesel truck?
the united states navy has kept the shipping lanes of the world open, and free of local contention and attempts to exercise control or exact tariff, excise and duty upon such trade. it has protected such trade from piracy, and it has protected such trade from the impressments of goods, and people, by localized navy.
only so very recently, have the somali pirates been allowed to flourish and this is because the united states navy has been withdrawn from its duties as policeman, by stupid, bumbling, craven politicians who haven’t the slightest notion of the dire consequences of their stupidity and lack of foresight.
by contrast, ask any naval officer what it means to let the somalis get away with this.
now, pay attention, because i am gonna to say this quickly, and you are just gonna have to grasp the significance of this on your own.—
china has no blue water navy, even remotely comparable to the united states. it, moreover, has not the military force necessary to project power the world over. sits quietly, across the narrow reach of the straits of formosa, the tiny island nation of taiwan, as conclusion factual assertion and persuasive argument for what i have just said.
even given our abandonment of every ally we have ever had, this abject surrender of responsibility to others the idiot obama so cavalierly bumbles away, even though formosa lies ripe for the taking, … , china cannot take it.
no, china cannot police the world’s oceans, nor can she use the oceans to get to other places in the world that need policing, and will need policing in this brave new idiot's world, being crafted by the world’s greenies and commies.
the only country in the world that can reach the rest of the world with monetary policy and military force is the united states. the military part is rather obvious. the united states has an active service military of nearly 900,000 men, and with reservists and national guard the u.s. could put 1.5 million men under arms in a very quick period, and that means fully equipped and ready to go into battle with weeks, in most places in the world, even unto its remotest reaches. say, tampico and cowiche mill, washington.
the u.s. can do it by sea lift, and by air lift, and with a logistics train stretching over the world fully protected by land, sea and air power. friends, did you ever wonder why the russians/soviets did not put military forces into the mediterranean during any of the isreali/arab wars? didja? well, i am gonna tell you, and the answer is not so obvious as you might assume. well, it is because they could not. they could not, because they did not have the strategic and logistic reach to do so, even though they had more than enough men to spare. (and, i will give you a further insight into geo-political history, and tell you that that is the precise reason they did not invade western europe through the fulda gap right into germany. and that is, they could not, because they did not have the logistic and geo-strategic reach to do so. simple as that.)
no other separate economic and military entity has the ability to do this, in the world.
no other economic and military entity has the ability to police the world as the united states does, and has. so, the question becomes, if the american radical leftist communists and the world’s radical leftist communists succeed in dismantling the economic and military might of the united states so as to remove from it its hegonomy and dominance of the rest of the world, … , a devout goal and aim of international socialism since there were american capitalists to spit on, … , if these internationalists remove the chief impediment to imposing world socialism, and one world government, … , then just who is gonna be the police officer for this new world.
you can see yakima ridge from the yakima county courthouse. you can see the anarchy which thrives there in field glasses. tampico and cowiche mill roads are less than 30 miles from the yakima county sheriff’s office, and they might as well be in another universe as far as the enforcement of the civil and criminal law goes: there just aren’t enough officers to get there, and not enough money to pay for enough to do the job. so marijuana patches, stills, chop shops, truancy, domestic abuse, incest and sexual offenses rife enough to make you want to wear rubber boots on your feet when you go investigate a crime scene, abide and abound there.
this new world order, say the slaughter does not abate in darfur, the killing does not stop in nepal, the jihad does not abate in thailand, and the somali piracy does not end and islamic piracy begins off the barbary coast and the coasts of libya and egypt, and entry into the med is at the cost of an entry fee at the mouth of the gibraltar, and the russians wish to press into iran, … , say these things go on, … , who is going to exercise the diplomatic and the military presence to deal with these things, as policeman of this new world order.
with the united states conspired into economic collapse, engineered by the money mavens like soros and his ilk, with the u.s. intelligence apparatus dismantled and the united states military abandoned in favor of a domestic thought police, throwing this grandmother and that grandpa into the thought control dungeons because they have the temerity to oppose their death sentences, … , just who is gonna supply the military strength, the strength and force which is the essence of forcing compliance with legal edict, … , just who is gonna be the policeman of the world for this new international order, if not the united states.
well, the clearest answer is nobody, not on a global scale.
we are seeing, before our very eyes, the collapse of the world into little quarreling spheres of influence, and the fight of regional powers to control world segments. nowhere, nowhere is this assertion more provable or self evident than the situation of the middle east, and the iranian acquisition of nuclear weapons and missiles capable of delivery of the same. the united states and israel have bowed to “world opinion,” shaped by radical leftist euro twits and the o.i.c. propaganda mills, and have not destroyed iran’s ability to develop and manufacture nuclear weapons. (has anybody given any thought as to the inevitable arrival of nuclear weapons in the western hemisphere via cuba and venezuela, as proxies of iranian influence: it seems to me as inevitable as tomorrow’s sunrise, though tomorrow’s sun rise is a bit shaky if iran gets nukes, now, isn’t it?)
iran has missiles that will nearly reach paris and bonn, or will come close enough to make it really a near thing, and, missiles that will easily reach moscow, and will cover the mediterranean ocean past rome. (who in the hell would bother bombing the italians?) and, to cover major portions of the indian ocean.)
the russians?
the u.s. may or may not stay a unified entity upon the north american continent if this continues, all of this stuff. if this bald imposition of socialism continues apace and unabated by the radical leftist who have seized control in this country, this country may very well be wracked by civil war, or perhaps revolution or rebellion. if such a conflict were to grow to a conflagration as was our first revolution or civil war, it might see the collapse of the united states as a world power for generations, such might be the carnage and devastation.
if the machinations of the radical leftist greenie commies and our own domestic radicals succeeds in diminishing the united states economic might and influence, and in dismantling our military, just who then will police the world. i suspect nobody, and that the world collapses into the regional wars and anarchy, and into a modified colonial system of spheres of influence, just as it emerged from this situation under the influence and political leadership of the united states in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. (i will emphasize it here, as i have many times before, but americans have forgotten under the constant onslaught of marxist “criticism” just how radical an influence upon the liberation of peoples this country has been throughout its history. and, how radical the notions that underpin this democracy remain to this day, though if obama has his way all of that disappears tomorrow morning.)
what about the united nations?
who, my friends, upon the diminution of the united states, is going to fund it? which economy in the world will fund the general operations and the special funds as has the united states? the african bloc? the o.i.c.?
who, my friends, will furnish the soldiers to enforce its edicts and fight its fights? and, who might friends, is going to inform, form and enforce the diplomatic consensus necessary to pursue such matters. whatever your political situation, do you really seriously consider that hugo chavez, momar quack daffy, and ahmadinejhad are going to lead the world into a brave new order of peace, prosperity, good will and consensus.
the fact is, the world wants to take down the u.s., and so does a generation of meat head americans who share the anti u.s. bias.
assuming you understand my case, and that i make my case that the peace of the world for the past 80 years on this planet has been an american informed and an american enforced peace, the pax american, if you will, … , just who is going to inform and enforce that peace in our absence.
and, how long will that peace last, without the american presence.
do you remember the consequences of the fall of the roman empire? you didn’t used to care very much, really, did you? you may have occasion to where the matter is of more than just passing interest, in the not too distant future.
i am not even going to touch upon israel in this new scheme of things. israel, judaism, western civilization, … , well, they are just all on their own in this brave new world.
john jay @ 10.17.2009
p.s. for those few who have read my essays before, chances are you have heard me discuss similar observations about america’s ability to project geo-political and geo-strategic power in ways that other nations or congregations of nations simply are not able to do. and, you have all heard me describe the inability of russia or china or even the euro union to be able to project power as the u.s. it is just fact that no power on earth has the ability to project military and diplomatic power as does the united states.
similarly it goes with economic might. for years now, people have complained about american profligacy, and for years americans have admitted and acknowledged it, and agreed that it has impaired the dollar and the dollar’s ability to be the medium of exchange for international commerce. but, we miss two salient points. first, the rest of the world, including china, is not really a whole lot better off with their currencies, and no less culpable in parallel economic policies that spawned the u.s. debacle. and, the u.s., having a $13 trillion economy, is a hell of a lot better situation to address its problems than the rest of the world. (no, i don’t forget obama’s stupidities, and the debt he has burdened the economy and the government with, but, the rest of the world has been as and so stupid.) second, these currency advocates, the traders in international currency commodities markets, these monster traders like soros who will cripple an economy or a currency for his own gain, as he did with iceland’s, are most certainly and absolutely not a bunch of dewy eyed naïf’s who don’t know how to engineer a bailout, or to switch life boats in mid ocean wave, … , in short, if they had a better currency that was more suitable to their purposes by which to conduct international trade, or if they could use the weakness of the dollar by which to steer a scheme to rob it and jump someplace else, why they would have, the second they recognized the opportunity. fact is, there is no currency which is better to carry on economic trade, and there is no economy in the world by which to bulwark it, by which to be its foundation, its mooring, its anchor, and, ultimately, its engine.
b. insane obama’s contributions to the contrary, and in spite of the radical left’s attempts to kill the economy, … , the old girl has proven far tougher and far more resilient than anyone could have conceived.
this leads me to the final observation.
america’s hegemony in the world, since world war ii, american’s projection of military power and economic might has also been something else, and that is the projection and establishment of a peace, posterity and tranquility such as never experienced in this world to this scale and to the benefit, safety and security of so many human beings.
and, this highlights the final paradox of this paper.
if the leftists, the radical goonie greenies and the swishy euro marxists and commies do indeed succeed in taking down american power and influence, they achieve their heaven on earth in the form of hell on earth, marked by a disintegration of existing structures leading to warfare and strife, made the more terrible by the acquisition of historically backwards and terribly ignorant persons, of engines of destruction such as they have no conception. latvia beria, the great soviet social thug, once threatened to shoot soviet physicists who had gathered together to demonstrate that they had just created a successful fissile materials critical pile: his ignorance of the physical and applied sciences behind an atomic weapon or pile was that he did not recognize the significance of the Geiger counters going nuts as the scientists withdrew the control rods inhibiting critical mass reactions. not to put too fine a description on it, or to be too prejudicial, but latvia beria was a rocket scientist in comparison to the religious zealot camel drivers who rule iran, and saudi arabia, and the likes of the rest of the muslim world.
this is the paradox of this. one world peace decays almost immediately into internecine warfare, conflict and strife, as the rest of the world is removed from the peace imposed by american might, economic and military.
truly, we descend into the dark ages, marked by a stupidly arrogant and superficially educated political elite, and a world whose political engines are controlled at the throttle by the likes of hugo chavez, a certifiably insane Honduran, and a bunch of latin american tin pot dictators and islamic jihadists. their virtues? they are loud, brash, and ignorant and full of half knowledge just like mickey mouse, when he played so ably the role of the sorcerer’s apprentice, in the movie of the same name.
the world has too many vicious toys for ignorance to control, and the world is hell bent for election to throw the old stern dutch uncle who controlled the whole mess, out into the snow banks with the rest of the outmoded and utility lacking oldsters.
hang on, it is gonna be stormy weather.
pamela:
mr. bolton asks an enormously cogent question near the bottom of his text. and, that is, what will happen if obama honors his pledges to his commanders on the ground in afghanistan, and increases the combat infantry troop levels there by 40,000?
opprobrium.
that will be the reaction of the radical leftist euro's, who want more than anything to see the u.s. fall into "the party line" with the euro path of appeasement to and favor of islam, and muslim political aims (including a tacit euro approval of muslim desire to destroy israel.)
the further question mr. bolton didn't ask, and significantly ventured no answer to, is will obama do anything to incur the wrath and opprobrium of the euro's, especially after he has accepted this "nobel-peace" prize (thank you, nidra poller, for this glorious succinct description of what it is, an award for "nobel-peace.")
no.
obama will not risk the wrath of the euro's. and, he will not incur the wrath of islam, nor do anything to frustrates islam's geo-political aims, especially as applied to israel and the jews.
that is the answer. i only wish mr. bolton had suggested it. if anyone knows full well what all of this portends, it is mr. bolton.
he has laid the groundwork for all our intellectual function & analysis. i just wish he would explicitly state it, instead of leaving it for his readers to fill in the blanks.
john jay
milton freewater, oregon usa