A strong Trump America requires a strong Federal Government

Politicians fall every few decades for an impractical fantasy of ideologists: the fantasy about dispersing Federal departments away from Washington. This would do nothing for freedom and nothing for American power. But it would do a lot for making government more costly and inefficient. 

Politicians fall for this because ideologists keep falling for it. A lot of passion and rhetoric in America – libertarian rhetoric on Left and Right, Southern rhetoric, authoritarian rhetoric – is spent on confusing individual freedom with states rights. It is also spent on confusing actual liberty under law -- rights of buying and selling without coercion, rights of conducting business without hindrance from crime, rights of walking the streets without fear, rights of discussing without threat from ideologists who want to control the space -- with libertarian anti-government ideology. 

 

Undermining America

Much of this passion is a matter of people taking out their resentments on their country. Resentments are always harbored by a lot of ideologists against their society; it is a natural thing in the ideological class. Which is why this rhetoric is in reality about undermining America, not making America great again.

A proper Federal government has a capital. It does its basic work there. It tries to do it coherently and reliably, so that -- as Alexander Hamilton explained -- people can count on the constancy of the laws and plan their lives and business intelligently. It may send some specialized technical agencies around the country, but it does not waste its money dispersing its core policy and power agencies to distant cities. 

It also does not let state governments oppress their portion of its population. Or obstruct national policy and divide the country.

From Washington to Jackson, from Hume to Hamilton, actual conservatism has been for strong government. That has meant a strong central authority, as the Founding Fathers knew well. 

 

A paleoconservative forerunning of Trump on the need for strong government

This was explained well by Thomas Molnar, a founder of paleoconservatism and thus a forefather of President Trump’s movement. Molnar taught that, while conservatism is for strong government, the Left has always tried to weaken the country by undermining the government in its core functions: strength in maintaining the public order and upholding the society and its security, and the ability to make hard decisions for steering the country safely. The Left's undermining of core government authority serves to reduce government to a services agency for interest groups. Left libertarian rhetoric easily tempts Right libertarians into joining the Left in undermining this authority. The government ends up compulsively expanding its services, as a kind of compensation for its weakness and loss of its real identity. Thus we get big,  expensive, weak government -- flabby without being effective, authoritarian without being authoritative.

Conservatism, by contrast, was supposed to be – and mostly has been, ever since Washington and Hamilton -- for a government that has real strength for implementing those basic functions of government: maintaining public order and national security; maintaining a stable currency and a market, with nationwide scope for free movement and exchange; conducting effective foreign policy; fighting enemies and epidemics; and growing and upholding nationwide loyalty.

In other policy areas, such as education and welfare, conservatism has taken varying postures. It views them as a practical matter: Federalized where needed, State where as good or better there. How big at the center, how much limited there? Hamilton's rule was: Neither minimalist nor bloated -- both are ideological postures -- but practical. To be adapted for each issue, to fit what works best on it. But big enough to maintain the nationwide cohesion of American society and prevent rebellions. And bound to grow more national with time, as Americans bought and sold more nationwide and moved around more.

The actual American Constitution is in fact for such a strong, effective, authoritative Federal government, with supreme authority over all the aforementioned core governmental areas. It supports at the same time effective, authoritative State governments in other areas of business, in partnership with a gradual development of Federal authority in those areas when it too is useful there.

 

The strong Federal government has built up our liberties

The view that central strength builds liberty was the view of the original American Federalists, as anyone can see by actually reading The Federalist Papers and noticing what they say. Their real words are very different from the words that our many ideological writers and teachers have tried to put in their mouths. They actually say that the old, pre-1789 confederation hadn’t been very good for either individual freedom or for government effectiveness, because it allowed State governments too much power to interfere with what have to be nationwide Federal tasks, too much power to disrupt the functioning of the Federal Government and the nationwide economy, and too much power to act on the whims of local majorities. And that the new Federal Constitution was needed to cure those problems.

Hamilton and Madison alike argued that a stronger Federal Government will be better for our liberties. They proved right. American freedom survived for more than 200 years since, contrary to pre-1789 expectations. And not only survived but grew stronger and fuller. It overcame the horrible tyranny of slavery. It gradually extended more protections of freedom to the majority – women and children.

 

False allies would paint Trump, like Andrew Jackson, into a corner

When Calhoun tried to draw President Jackson into a corner with his doctrines on sovereignty and secession rights for the States, the President down put him down sharply: Jackson reminded Calhoun that our highest loyalty is to the Union. 

Today, Trump's enemies and his false allies alike are making the same attempt to paint him into a corner of weakening the country. The media and Democrats, knowing that most Americans are against weakening the country either at home or abroad, constantly say that that's what Trump is really about. Some of Trump's false allies on his ideological fringe, always trying to be more-extremist-than-thou, jump in and say "Yes, yes! That's what we're for! That's what Trump's really for!" The symbiotic din on Left and Right often drowns out Trump himself. It can make it sound like that really is what Trump is about -- until Trump steps in and does the opposite.

Fortunately Trump is a great admirer of President Jackson. His false allies should remember that. He is capable of giving them an even harsher rebuke than Jackson gave to Calhoun.

For now, it was only a mild rebuke that Trump gave when a journalist tried to back him into the corner and name Vance as his successor. He reminded the journalist that there are other good people around, specifically Marco Rubio. 

Rubio in fact has represented Trump much better than Vance on foreign policy.

 

Antifederalist Rhetoric Keeps Misleading America

Our Antifederalist rhetoric has had a way of misleading us time after time into self-defeating steps. Thus, in recent decades, two great presidents, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, fell for the bad idea -- essentially an Antifederalist one -- of dispersing Federal departments all around the country. Nixon never had time to act on his talk about this, but if he had, he would have reached the same conclusion that the Reagan Administration was later brought to from experience: that very little can be done this way, it isn’t worth the cost, and the real problems for our freedom lie elsewhere

This hasn’t stopped some Rightists from falling for it again, and talking again under Trump about dispersing the Government around the country. It is, for many libertarians, another go at deconstructing the government. 

 

American Success or American Self-Denigration: Which will prevail?

The success of American freedom for more than two centuries doesn’t stop the ideologists in both parties from believing and saying, year after year, that our freedom is dying and we have to say it by deconstructing our government. They invoke what they make sound like a wonderful freedom from 250 years ago, now nearly gone. It is a rhetoric that is false to who we have been and who we actually are. We have sometimes paid a high price for it.

The worst case of self-destructive action on the libertarian rhetoric was the secessionist movement of 1861. It nearly brought our country down. Fortunately it failed, but only at a terrible cost.

Most of us thought we had learned better after this. Yet polls nowadays show that large minorities still say they favor break-up. Up to 40% among Southern Republicans say this, and nearly as many among West Coast and New England Democrats.

Fortunately the Federalist understanding of America -- the understanding that they made the Constitution to unite America into a strong, coherent, prosperous country, not to keep it divided -- still predominates among our people, and in the elected leaderships in both parties if not the louder talking heads on TV. This majority always in the end overcame the terrible damages that the Antifederalist rhetoric kept seducing us into. It has prevailed at every turning point in our history and seen us through to still greater things.

The good people of America must make sure it prevails again today.

 

Both Sunlight Reflection and Carbon Reduction -- the only way to head off catastrophic climate risks

by Ira Straus

 

 

In the near-medium term, only one thing can plausibly stop global warming and head off the growing dangers from its continuation -- and so give carbon reductions time to work. It is: reflecting away more of the incoming sunlight. This is technically called "Solar Radiation Modification" (SRM).

In most media articles, sadly, carbon and emissions reductions are misleadingly described in as the only answer. The proposals for them often are quite extreme, on the theory that they must become more extreme since they're the only thing to do. Yet at the same time they are inherently inadequate for dealing with the dangers of warning.

SRM is a less extreme solution than many of the instant-reductions proposals on emissions, because it does not severely damage to the economy. And unlike emissions reductions alone, it has a good chance of actually working to get the problem under control in a short enough amount of time. 

That makes SRM, in reality, the precondition for success with carbon emissions.

In return, carbon emissions reductions are needed alongside the SRM. They are necessary for an enduring solution. But they can help significantly only in the longer term. By themselves, they cannot stop the warming from continuing to worsen for decades. SRM is essential for the short-medium term: it alone could reduce the global temperature in real time.

 

Warming is perpetuated by policy planning obstruction

Unfortunately, there has been a dangerous obstruction of SRM on the policy discussion and planning level. SRM has not been sufficiently researched to know how to do it well and safely -- or even to be entirely sure it can be done well and safely.

The necessary research has been long delayed, sometimes actively suppressed. Some dislike it ideologically -- as a competition to their own preferred program, or even for not punishing the Western economy and society severely enough. 

It is a bitter situation. 

Some entrenched interest groups have preferred to add to the damages to the world from warming rather than solve the problem. Solving it could threaten their belief systems and political arguments, and could reduce the costs spent on their programs.

Other groups, fearing the extreme costly programs often proposed for emissions reductions, and suspicious of the motivations as hostile to their society, have turned to denial of the problem of global warming. While many use as a proxy for avoiding the proposed policies, some have come believe in the denial and oppose any action.

The two sides focus more and more on their mutual enmity, at the expense of what is needed. This has obstructed progress far too long and dangerously.

More and better research and development on SRM is something that has come to be urgently needed. It is, in fact, the only thing that could turn the program of carbon reductions into a relevant and realistic solution for global warming, by supplementing its long-term usefulness with means also for managing the near-medium term risks. 

 

Can we break out of the vicious circle in the warming debate?

Too much of our discussion refuses to face this reality. It ends up in a deadly cycle of symbiotic denials – and an escalating cycle of unrealism:

 

1. First, a “believers” side shows, mostly accurately, a catastrophic climate danger.

2. It demands increasingly costly measures against the danger, yet inherently insufficient ones.

3. It avoids adding, and usually avoids even mentioning, the only measures -- basically SRM -- that could potentially enable us to prevent the catastrophe.

4. Instead it calls for ratcheting up the old, inherently insufficient measures still higher; still without getting even close to adequacy for managing the problem.

5. Others – the “skeptics” -- reject this believers’ program as both extreme and irrelevant; and often deny the danger itself. They often win politically, in face of the costs and seeming inefficacy of the believers’ program.

6. The believers call the skeptics “deniers” and blame them for the problem, without facing their own, symbiotic denial of what is needed for policy realism and even for basic adequacy for tackling the problem.

7. Reason is squeezed out by the symbiotic blindnesses on both sides.

8. The feeling of helplessness grows. Given the constriction of the debate to a framework that rules out any solution, it makes sense to be left feeling helpless. It is the only logical point in this cycle.

9. The cycle repeats itself, but at a ratcheted-up level: in worsened conditions, with heightened dangers, nearer dangers, more damages already endured, greater irrationalities on both sides -- and the discussion focused on costlier yet still inherently inadequate policies.

 

It is truly a vicious circle. It ensures that the dangers from the warming will continue worsening. We need to break out of it.

The Way Out

To get out of the cycle of helplessness, we must enlarge the discussion and start talking about real solutions, beginning with SRM.

Fortunately there are new sprouts shooting up for this larger discussion. A few of them are more significantly placed in the public square than in the past. I link one here, to which my own feeble efforts contributed. It shows that, no matter what the seeming odds, the effort is worth making.

The bulk of the discussion is still, to be sure, trapped in the vicious circle. But a growing part is not.

This is a reason for hope. And a reason for proceeding with greater confidence in moving the larger discussion forward.

Our New Option in Post-Coup Russia

Lessons of the Coup Attempt: Putin shaken, West ill-prepared

 Gorbachev, the Tragic Hero of Federalism

                       By Ira Straus, in New World Federalist Papers

to read, go to  

https://www.wfm-igp.org/federalist-paper/gorbachev-the-tragic-hero-of-federalism/

How Russia talked itself into war

Ira Straus

This is the story of how a great country, Russia, piled lie upon lie in its mind, until it talked itself into invading Ukraine.

“How can we disabuse Russians of the notion that we want to break up their country?” 

What are the risks of America breaking apart? Russia breaking apart?

 The myth of the Nuland-organized coup in Ukraine

Putin’s American choir has lied for years about this. Its little lie has grown into a big prop for Russia’s return to war.

by Ira Straus

Sunlight-deflection and/or emissions-cutting: modeling their time-lags and warming consequences