A Word About Parliamentary Systems

     There aren’t many polities structured as is the United States. Most other First World nations have parliamentary systems, which vary from the American Constitutional model in several important ways:

1. The legislature is elected at irregular intervals.
2. The executive branch is not elected; the dominant party or coalition in the legislature determines the control of the executive.
3. Within limits, the executive determines when elections will next occur.
4. All members of the executive have seats in the legislature.

     The progenitor of modern parliamentary systems was England of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Note that its descendant, the United Kingdom of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, lacks a written Constitution. Long ago I read a claim from a British commentator to the effect that the lack makes British parliamentarianism “superior” to the American system. His argument was that a written Constitution “can be an impediment to doing what’s needed.” I have no idea if that commentator is still alive; if so, I’d like to ask him if he feels the same today.

     Parliamentary systems are friendly to small parties. That’s because there are no national elections; the voter votes only for local officials and his member in the legislature. Thus, elections tend to concentrate on local issues. Unfortunately, there are national issues, especially in a nation which lacks Constitutional guarantees of individual rights and limits on government. So it matters very much, as you’ve probably already guessed, who controls the national executive.

     In the practical realm, such a system will have two major parties, just as does the U.S. Those major parties will differ sharply in their policy prescriptions, just as do the Democrats and the Republicans. Yet in practice no major party will exercise complete control over the national agenda, whatever it may be, because it will need to form a coalition with one or more minor parties to achieve control of the executive.

     Those minor parties can be terribly difficult to control, even after their legislators have agreed to form a coalition with a major party. They know that they can bring down the executive by defecting. That gives them outsized political power – and that gives the major parties a strong incentive to find ways to dampen the influence of minor parties that are regarded as particularly fractious or unruly.

     So political dominance in a parliamentary system requires a coalition and mutually agreed suppression of minor parties regarded as unacceptable. This is an important political influence in Europe today. The reason is an effect similar to what’s happening in America: the major parties and the coalitions they build have demonstrably failed their peoples. Thus, new parties better attuned to popular sentiment are on the rise – and the major parties want nothing to do with them.

     The best observable example of this is Germany. Two parties, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Social Democratic Party (SDP), have dominated German governance for decades. But those parties, both of which are Euro-socialist, have largely lost the allegiance of German voters. The Alliance for Germany (AfD) has attracted so much support that, were free, fair, non-fraudulent elections to be held in Germany today, the AfD would outpoll the CDU and the SDP combined.

     But the AfD is explicitly nationalist. It’s also far less socialist than the older parties. That has thrown the ruling class of Germany, and indeed much of Europe, into a panic. Without German participation in and support of the European Union (EU), that union would dissolve. Continent-wide policies would cease to bind. Establishments throughout Europe would totter and fall.

     So the CDU and the SDP are straining to assemble a coalition whose sole purpose is to exclude the AfD from the selection of the German executive branch. They’re pleading for support from other European powers as well. Their sotto voce appeal is to stability. Whether German voters value stability more than national policies that strengthen Germany and ethnic Germans is uncertain.

     Analyst and commentator Haretina Kukuri, whom I admire greatly, has this to say:

     The CDU governs with a partner that blocks the reforms it needs. The SPD governs with a partner that demands them. Both leaderships are under internal fire. Neither can deliver anything, and neither can walk away, because there’s nowhere left to go.

     BUT if the AFD rules then we are talking about a divided Europe. They are against Europe as a union.

     Clearly, Haretina views that unfavorably. In a reply to a comment, she adds this:

     [B]e careful what you wish the AFD will take us some decades back

     Would the dissolution of the EU, a “mock,” pseudo-parliamentary federation of European nations headquartered in Brussels, whose policies have inflicted a great deal of damage on the Old World, really “take us some decades back?” “Us” being Germany and / or Europe, that is.

     I’d like to say that “German voters will decide,” but there’s a strong possibility that their preferences will be overridden by Germany’s courts, or ballot manipulation, or a continental “super-coalition” unprecedented in European political history. It’s happened in these United States. German nationalists must not imagine that “It can’t happen here.”

Political Ransom

     The people of Britain expressed themselves in a referendum a few years back: They want out of “Europe,” politically, and want to see a clean break for the sake of British sovereignty. The Eurofascists in Brussels, however, dislike the idea and are trying to discourage it:

     Boris Johnson, the leading candidate to succeed Theresa May as Britain’s next prime minister, said he would withhold a previously agreed 39 billion pound Brexit payment until the European Union gives Britain better exit terms.

     The EU has repeatedly said it will not reopen discussion of the Brexit transition deal it reached with May last year, which British lawmakers have rejected three times, prompting May to announce her resignation earlier this month….

     “I always thought it was extraordinary that we should agree to write that entire cheque before having a final deal. In getting a good deal, money is a great solvent and a great lubricant,” Johnson told the Sunday Times.

     Britain is due to leave the EU on Oct. 31. If Parliament does not approve a deal - and the government does not ask the EU for another delay - there risks being major economic disruption from a disorderly departure.

     At least Johnson is showing some spine by withholding the ransom before the kidnappee is returned to its parents. But what’s wrong with Parliament issuing a simple “We’re out” statement and reinstituting British laws and customs without further adieu? You know, the way it was done here;

     When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation….

     Recognize it? You should.

Against Whom? Against What?

     I have a ton of things to write about this morning, and it’s impossible for me to address all of them, so I think I’ll just pick the top card off the stack, write about that, and call it a day. Here we go. Let’s see, now...ah, NATO!

     President Trump’s upbraiding of the underperforming members of the Atlantic Alliance has been very much in the news for several reasons. Not the least of those is Trump’s forthrightness about their parsimony on defense: something no other president has properly addressed. But to be candid, the “alliance” has been on my mind for other reasons, anyway.

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     The North Atlantic Treaty was ratified in 1949 by its original twelve member nations: roughly, the ones we normally mean when we refer to “Western Europe,” plus the United States. That treaty committed its signatories to regarding an armed attack upon any one of them as an attack upon all of them, and to rendering appropriate assistance to the attacked nation(s). The principal motivating force was the Soviet Union, which in subjugating and garrisoning ten Eastern European nations (which the Soviets would later weld into the Warsaw Pact) had created an immediate and menacing threat to the security of the Western European nations. As the nations of Europe were still in a condition of military and economic exhaustion from World War II, the Truman Administration deemed it reasonable to “guarantee” their security by pledging America’s forces, especially its nuclear deterrent, to their defense.

     Owing to the persistent representation that only NATO kept the Soviets at bay, the U.S. poured tens of thousands of men, thousands of tons of war materiel, and trillions of dollars of expenditure into NATO over the forty years that followed. The consequences were many. Three were notable above all others:

1. The swelling of American expenditures on our military, emphatically including our forces positioned in Europe;
2. The eventual severing of the dollar from its backing by gold in August, 1971, which gave rise to the rapid inflations of the succeeding years;
3. The rapid expansion of Western Europe’s “welfare states,” as the militaries of those nations were starved of funds and gradually declined to effective nullities.

     In 1989, one by one the Soviet satellites rebelled against their overseer and overthrew the Communist regimes that had hagridden them. The Warsaw pact was no more. Shortly thereafter, the Soviet Union dissolved as well. But NATO continued, as did the decay of Western Europe’s self-defense capabilities and the deterioration of the dollar.

     Questions immediately arose about the significance of NATO in a post-Soviet / Warsaw Pact world. What threat was the alliance directed against now? No answers were forthcoming. Today, nearly thirty years later, we still don’t have any.

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     The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have none, or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities ... it is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements. – George Washington, Farewell Address.

     Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer. If it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide. – Abraham Lincoln, the Lyceum Address.

     Massive reluctance to involve itself in the quarrels of other nations and other continents had marked American foreign policy from our founding up to our entrance into World War I. For 125 years the U.S. forged no alliances with other nations. Indeed, even upon entering the Great War, we formed none; we fought alongside the forces of the Triple Entente but remained formally outside it as an “associated power.” It took our involvement in World War II – Say, remember FDR saying “Your boys are not going to be sent to any foreign wars” -- ? Charming, wasn’t it? – to bring about the reversal of that attitude.

     America felt secure, divided from the quarrelsome Old World by two immense oceans. She was secure. Excepting an attack by ICBMs, she still is. To form an enduring alliance with European states, immediately after having shed the blood of thousands of young American men to liberate them from Hitler’s regime with the assistance of the Soviet Union, seemed questionable even at the time. The rationale provided for the alliance was largely charitable: exhausted Europe simply couldn’t “go it alone” in the face of the huge Soviet military, especially given its forward positioning along the western borders of the satellite nations. The devastated nations of Western Europe needed defensive help, and only the United States, with its vast manpower, intact economy, and nuclear forces, could provide it.

     It was plain at that time that NATO was a one-way commitment. Should we be attacked, the European members of NATO could (and would) contribute nothing to America’s defense. Indeed, the matter is even plainer today.

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     A military alliance between (or among) nations unequal in size and power will always be represented to the common citizen as something other than it really is. The plain words of the North Atlantic Treaty make it sound like a mutual commitment among equals. Yet anyone looking at the conditions of the signatories would immediately have known better.

     The alliance did provide certain advantages to the U.S. federal government. First, the “need” to keep large forces in Europe provided a rationale for the maintenance of wartime levels of defense spending, which Washington used to prop up employment in that economic sector. Second, the presence of heavily armed American forces in Europe gave the U.S. massive influence over the governments of the European members, especially as regards relations with the member nations of the Warsaw Pact. Third, for a time the American military presence in Europe helped to bolster European confidence in the terms of the Bretton Woods agreement, whose signatories had accepted the American dollar as the world’s reserve currency in place of an explicitly commodity-based standard.

     As long as the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact persisted, NATO could be rationalized to some degree. Yet its shortcomings were plainly visible from early on. The European members refused to meet their treaty commitment to maintaining their defenses, and the U.S. could not chivvy them into doing so. The cost of our forces in Europe rose steadily. The impediment to our capacity to meet military challenges elsewhere became visible over time. American military spending put immense inflationary pressure on the dollar. In combination with the Johnson Administration’s expansion of the American welfare state, federal expenditures became ever more of a threat to the American economy and the soundness of the dollar.

     When the Iron Curtain collapsed in 1989 and 1990, it was time to breathe a sigh of relief and schedule the dissolution of the alliance. We didn’t. While arguments still persist about whether an alliance without a specific threat to actuate it is ever reasonable, the disadvantages of NATO to the United States – to say nothing of those to the long-term health of the European members – have loomed ever larger.

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     “You don’t remove someone from an alliance,” General Barcena said. “It’s simply...not done. Everyone needs allies.”
     “We’re sort of down to bedrock,” Admiral Duvall said, sighing. “This isn’t about establishing and maintaining international relations. This is about the survival of Terra.”

     [John Ringo, The Hot Gate]

     The interstellar warfare at issue in John Ringo’s Troy Rising series is a matter of planetary survival. Everyone in the stories is aware of that. It tends to clarify issues pertinent to defense and “alliances.” Yet even under such terrible threats, “diplomats” will routinely attempt to sell black as white: to represent their participation in an asymmetrical alliance as something other than it really is. Men whose lives are on the line don’t allow such representations to pass unchallenged.

     When lives are not on the line other than in extreme theory, the diplomats whose nations benefit from such an alliance will redouble their efforts. The diplomats from nations that suffer from the alliance will demonstrate in whose interests they really labor: are they those of the State Department, or those of the United States?

     We have reached a point in international affairs where that question should be put to every member of the political class who favors the perpetuation of the NATO alliance, and to every member of the command structure of the American military who feels the same. They must be compelled to give their reasons...and We the People must be allowed to hear them, undecorated. American military protection has been guaranteed, at Americans’ expense, to far too much of the world. The greatest beneficiary of our generosity is a massive continental federation whose wealth and population renders it entirely capable of defending itself. For three decades the threat that would invoke such defense has gone unnamed. It’s time that changed, as well.

WHY The Jews/Zionists Are So Despised by Euros

This is complicated, and there are a few concepts you need to have a handle on, before I tackle that subject.

The foundational concept is Guilt vs. Shame Cultures. The diagram below explains the difference:

I'm beginning to believe that MOST cultures are Shame-type. Their greatest fear is that others will know of their guilt.

In the first quadrant: both the person and others believe him to be guilty of the offense - the result is the same - he admits guilt, and is punished.

In the 4th quadrant: both the person and other believe him to be not guilty - the result is the same - no problem.

The 3rd quadrant is interesting, as the person knows that he is guilty, and others do not. In the Guilt Culture (old-style Christianity), that person would feel guilty, even though others do not know of his guilt. That sense of guilt was strongly reinforced by a culture that believed in God. Even if others did not know of your guilt, God would, and, therefore, you SHOULD feel guilty.

That contrast in culture was written about in The Scarlet Letter - the minister feels guilty, even though his part in the crime of adultery wasn't known. The Scarlet Letter he wore under his clothes was a manifestation of that guilt.

The protagonist, Hester Prynne, follows the judgement of a Shame culture. She has been publicly shamed by being sentenced to wear the letter, but seems not to have been at all concerned about her guilt before her pregnancy made it known, and forced the issue.

The 2nd quadrant brings up an interesting question: as the Germans have erased any mention of Nazis and their actions from their history, are modern Germans adopting the Shame Culture attitude that, since no one knows of my guilt, I am not shamed? Therefore, I can lecture others about their Fascism, while ignoring my own.

In the case of Jews' demonization in modern Euro life, Richard Landes discusses the implications of a Shame Culture anxious to throw off that shame. Read more about it here.