VASSAR BUSHMILLS & FRIENDS
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My first trip to the old Soviet Union was in 1991 and there I met a Red Army colonel who had commanded a SAM battery in
North Vietnam in the 1970s. Over the years I’ve met Bulgarians, Hungarians, Germans all who served militarily in the North.
the visor.
Throughout the Vietnam War there was little mention of active Soviet involvement in the war, although we knew they were there
and they knew we knew they were there. Fighting on and over friendly soil insured against the likelihood any would show up
publicly.
The Russian invasion of Georgia is a win-win for Putin & Co. The UN can do nothing, even if it really wanted to. And if the West
does nothing, a democratic at least, Georgia may fall, and a new reality in the region will be established. Cold War II. If the
West does something, from serious (not empty) sanctions, up to an including some level of military involvement, the Russians
at least come away knowing how far they can push the envelope…under this administration at least. As I said, a win-win.
But all this assumes Russian can’t lose on the ground. Well, actually, they can’t, but like Afghanistan a generation ago, they
can get a black eye and once again become an international laughing stock as the bully who can’t shoot straight.
Unlike the Germans in World War II, who had their share of cake-walks early in the war, the Russian military is little more than
it was under Brezhnev, poorly-trained, poorly-equipped, and poorly-led. Thuggery is just about all they can do. Moreover, the
Russian people are simply not invaders at heart. Like Konrad Lorenz’s forest animals, they will defend the Rodina five times
as hard as they might sally forth to attack from her. With them it is instinctive.
It’s not for me to say how many, but a well equipped discreetly inserted units should be able to slow them down enough to
make them think twice
North Vietnam in the 1970s. Over the years I’ve met Bulgarians, Hungarians, Germans all who served militarily in the North.
the visor.
Throughout the Vietnam War there was little mention of active Soviet involvement in the war, although we knew they were there
and they knew we knew they were there. Fighting on and over friendly soil insured against the likelihood any would show up
publicly.
The Russian invasion of Georgia is a win-win for Putin & Co. The UN can do nothing, even if it really wanted to. And if the West
does nothing, a democratic at least, Georgia may fall, and a new reality in the region will be established. Cold War II. If the
West does something, from serious (not empty) sanctions, up to an including some level of military involvement, the Russians
at least come away knowing how far they can push the envelope…under this administration at least. As I said, a win-win.
But all this assumes Russian can’t lose on the ground. Well, actually, they can’t, but like Afghanistan a generation ago, they
can get a black eye and once again become an international laughing stock as the bully who can’t shoot straight.
Unlike the Germans in World War II, who had their share of cake-walks early in the war, the Russian military is little more than
it was under Brezhnev, poorly-trained, poorly-equipped, and poorly-led. Thuggery is just about all they can do. Moreover, the
Russian people are simply not invaders at heart. Like Konrad Lorenz’s forest animals, they will defend the Rodina five times
as hard as they might sally forth to attack from her. With them it is instinctive.
It’s not for me to say how many, but a well equipped discreetly inserted units should be able to slow them down enough to
make them think twice
Bet you never thought you’d see those two names in the same sentence.
A friend and I were discussing ethnic minorities in China. He raised the point that America
assimilated (some could say “subdued”) its minorities in much the same way China is now, so what’
s the difference?
Did we? At the most superficial level, it would appear so, a dominant culture, and one rather proud of
itself and it accomplishments, taking up under its wing (sometimes by force) people it sees as more
backward. I’m sure the majority Chinese today feel this way today, wearing a certain virtue in bringing
all those people around them around to their more civilized points of view.
So why is America different, my friend asked? Again, some would argue, we’re not. But on reflection
there are three things that makes us so; the Rule of Law, free markets and religious freedom, the
three deepest pillars of our constitutional republic. Of these three, only one has been cut loose from
China’s state seine net, free markets, which in my view is setting up for a collision of immense free,
and the rule of law requires religion to remain fair. One side has to give.
In America, religious freedom speaks for itself, as it had been around from the beginning in America,
imbedded in the soul of our people…until recently at least. To be sure there have always been local
dust-ups, the Anglicans carrying much of their anti-Catholic biases to these shores, most of which
was as much class-based as religious, the English never liking the Irish all that much. Baptists and
Catholics never got along all that well in the South either, the minority Catholics once again getting
the left hand of good fellowship. Church burnings, for instance, are still more a thing of recent history
and more about class (and race) than religion. Only now is anti-religion on the rise in America, and
more or less state-sponsored, a sort of atheistic bi-partisanship, so we seem to be rushing
backward to catch up with the place the Chinese are now.
And there’s the Rule of law, which, like it or not, is joined at the hip with religion as legal fairness
employs almost exclusively religion-based values. You really can’t have one without the other, Mr
Hitchens.
Enter Helen Hunt Jackson in 1885 and her “Century of Dishonor” about the American government’s
mistreatment of the Indians. It was as much a moral indictment as it was a legal one, and for the
most part, right on the money. She proved that religion and the Rule of Law, side-by-side world views
provided America with a collective conscience, so that every step of the way, until Woodrow Wilson
and the rise of progressivism, at least, every misstep by government, indeed, every step by
government, had some voice of conscience crying out publicly against it.
Enter Miss Jackson’s segue with China. The fly in the buttermilk, as Moses Sands used to say, is
that if Miss Jackson were in China today, she’d be in jail instead of a well-published movement
leader. Her book would never have seen the light of day. There would have been no public
recriminations. There would have been no public reminder that the government is our only “native
criminal class” as Mark Twain once said. There would have been no tomorrow for dissent in
America. Indeed, China’s jails are full of Miss and Mister Jacksons…and no sign of tomorrow
anywhere.
Starting around 1916, our jails suddenly began to fill, too. What happened…and how?
We at the Sands Institute are firm in our conviction that you should never send prosecutors and
grand juries to cure what can be settled with a hard swat across the nose with a rolled up
newspaper. Not all dissent is right and correct, but most debates over dissent can be cured at the
town level in just that fashion. We favor protecting dissenters from government thugs, not the angry
wives of soldiers.
I’m not saying all this as a way to break into song about the wonders of the American conscience
and its ability to nip at our collective heels every step of the way in our national evolution. Contrary to
the party of Barack O’Bama, America has the deepest and most vocal conscience in the history of
the world. (This is just one element of American exceptionalism that is being intentionally
downplayed these day.) I write here only to note that we have been drifting away from that national
conscience and toward a more barbaric power-based system of government favored by imperial
communists and fascists alike…in America…for nearly 90 years now. Our “invasion” of Iraq, which
was at least arguably a “rescue”, was not nearly as barbaric as Al Gore’s suggestion that all dissent
on the very dissent-worthy “climate crisis” be stifled. Which is more like the Imperial Chinese? Bush
didn’t try to send any Iraq war dissenters to jail. Remember Tim Robbins?... who openly stated the
Bush administration was “coming to shut us up” even as he put on a play filled with lies about the
war? There were no arrests that I recall.
Unless your world view is power-based and authoritarian in nature, it’s clear that China is not yet
ready to ascend to the throne of world super power, since, as yet, they have no fixed stars to steer
by…as America does.
In like turn, America shouldn’t be too ready to descend into the same deep pit as China as there isn’t
really anything other than darkness in those lower reaches.
A friend and I were discussing ethnic minorities in China. He raised the point that America
assimilated (some could say “subdued”) its minorities in much the same way China is now, so what’
s the difference?
Did we? At the most superficial level, it would appear so, a dominant culture, and one rather proud of
itself and it accomplishments, taking up under its wing (sometimes by force) people it sees as more
backward. I’m sure the majority Chinese today feel this way today, wearing a certain virtue in bringing
all those people around them around to their more civilized points of view.
So why is America different, my friend asked? Again, some would argue, we’re not. But on reflection
there are three things that makes us so; the Rule of Law, free markets and religious freedom, the
three deepest pillars of our constitutional republic. Of these three, only one has been cut loose from
China’s state seine net, free markets, which in my view is setting up for a collision of immense free,
and the rule of law requires religion to remain fair. One side has to give.
In America, religious freedom speaks for itself, as it had been around from the beginning in America,
imbedded in the soul of our people…until recently at least. To be sure there have always been local
dust-ups, the Anglicans carrying much of their anti-Catholic biases to these shores, most of which
was as much class-based as religious, the English never liking the Irish all that much. Baptists and
Catholics never got along all that well in the South either, the minority Catholics once again getting
the left hand of good fellowship. Church burnings, for instance, are still more a thing of recent history
and more about class (and race) than religion. Only now is anti-religion on the rise in America, and
more or less state-sponsored, a sort of atheistic bi-partisanship, so we seem to be rushing
backward to catch up with the place the Chinese are now.
And there’s the Rule of law, which, like it or not, is joined at the hip with religion as legal fairness
employs almost exclusively religion-based values. You really can’t have one without the other, Mr
Hitchens.
Enter Helen Hunt Jackson in 1885 and her “Century of Dishonor” about the American government’s
mistreatment of the Indians. It was as much a moral indictment as it was a legal one, and for the
most part, right on the money. She proved that religion and the Rule of Law, side-by-side world views
provided America with a collective conscience, so that every step of the way, until Woodrow Wilson
and the rise of progressivism, at least, every misstep by government, indeed, every step by
government, had some voice of conscience crying out publicly against it.
Enter Miss Jackson’s segue with China. The fly in the buttermilk, as Moses Sands used to say, is
that if Miss Jackson were in China today, she’d be in jail instead of a well-published movement
leader. Her book would never have seen the light of day. There would have been no public
recriminations. There would have been no public reminder that the government is our only “native
criminal class” as Mark Twain once said. There would have been no tomorrow for dissent in
America. Indeed, China’s jails are full of Miss and Mister Jacksons…and no sign of tomorrow
anywhere.
Starting around 1916, our jails suddenly began to fill, too. What happened…and how?
We at the Sands Institute are firm in our conviction that you should never send prosecutors and
grand juries to cure what can be settled with a hard swat across the nose with a rolled up
newspaper. Not all dissent is right and correct, but most debates over dissent can be cured at the
town level in just that fashion. We favor protecting dissenters from government thugs, not the angry
wives of soldiers.
I’m not saying all this as a way to break into song about the wonders of the American conscience
and its ability to nip at our collective heels every step of the way in our national evolution. Contrary to
the party of Barack O’Bama, America has the deepest and most vocal conscience in the history of
the world. (This is just one element of American exceptionalism that is being intentionally
downplayed these day.) I write here only to note that we have been drifting away from that national
conscience and toward a more barbaric power-based system of government favored by imperial
communists and fascists alike…in America…for nearly 90 years now. Our “invasion” of Iraq, which
was at least arguably a “rescue”, was not nearly as barbaric as Al Gore’s suggestion that all dissent
on the very dissent-worthy “climate crisis” be stifled. Which is more like the Imperial Chinese? Bush
didn’t try to send any Iraq war dissenters to jail. Remember Tim Robbins?... who openly stated the
Bush administration was “coming to shut us up” even as he put on a play filled with lies about the
war? There were no arrests that I recall.
Unless your world view is power-based and authoritarian in nature, it’s clear that China is not yet
ready to ascend to the throne of world super power, since, as yet, they have no fixed stars to steer
by…as America does.
In like turn, America shouldn’t be too ready to descend into the same deep pit as China as there isn’t
really anything other than darkness in those lower reaches.
We cannot fully grasp the disdain Europe’s political elites’ have for America without
first understanding that from the very beginning, back to our founding, they have
despised the very idea that the dregs of their own societies, their lowest classes,
people who could only dream of rising to the position of groom, or bootman, or petty
tradesman, could instead come to America and sire children who would build
empires.
Frank Capra was right. It has always been about class. But as long as the Left can
make it all about race, we’ll never stop to consider the real enemy here.
The reaction to Sara Palin's nomination from both sides is all about class, one
fearing her, the other celebrating the idea that the common man and woman may
once again gain control of the Constitution.
Vassar Bushmills
first understanding that from the very beginning, back to our founding, they have
despised the very idea that the dregs of their own societies, their lowest classes,
people who could only dream of rising to the position of groom, or bootman, or petty
tradesman, could instead come to America and sire children who would build
empires.
Frank Capra was right. It has always been about class. But as long as the Left can
make it all about race, we’ll never stop to consider the real enemy here.
The reaction to Sara Palin's nomination from both sides is all about class, one
fearing her, the other celebrating the idea that the common man and woman may
once again gain control of the Constitution.
Vassar Bushmills
FRANK CAPRA WAS RIGHT, IT'S ALL ABOUT CLASS Read On