His original OPINION blows and is below. 😉
Barr was correct in writing “In 2020, Republicans again trotted out weak candidates in 2022 who mistook bombast for vision, the politics of grievance for a winning platform.” But is not just the GOP that will lose again if they “don’t learn from that mistake”. Our nation will sink further behind in whatever global leadership ever had.
It goes far deeper than “America’s ability to face down
communist China, which threatens our security and prosperity.” Our
nation does need “fresh leadership and a vision for how we will reverse our
nation’s drift” but it's far more than taking on just “the Chinese dragon.” To win the “central contest of our time” Dave
McCormick’s new book, “Superpower in Peril,” offers just more of the same dysfunctional
superpower mentality and reactionary actions that have got our nation on the
ropes.
Mr. McCormick (a former CEO and PA Senate candidate poses a
question he believes should be on every politician’s mind. “China has a plan for global supremacy.
What’s ours?” But the question we all
need to ask is whether supremacy is really the end goal?
The best question is
“How can “we the people” transform our current dysfunctional government to actually
achieve the seven intentions stated in the preamble of the US Constitution? Given the speed and
evolution of weaponry, war, pathogens, environmental degradation, and
government debt – each a consequence of reacting to problems instead of
investing in preventing their root causes we need to act quickly.
A constitution is supposed to represent the principles of how a government determines its
laws and what the laws will protect. Unfortunately,
the root flaw in our Constitution is that it is based on a human concept that
exists nowhere in nature or our known universe.
The illusion of independence.
In fact ““Everything is connected, everything is interdependent, so everything is vulnerable.... And that’s why this has to be a more than whole of government, a more than whole of nation [effort]. It really has to be a global effort....”. These are not the wise words of some progressive liberal. They came from Jen Easterly, Director of CISA, our nation’s newest federal agency (Cyber and Infrastructure Security Agency) in a speech Oct. 29, 2021. [CISA was established by the Trump Administration in 2018].
Define “everything”!
It literally means everything. We
all know how much we ‘depend’ on electricity for everything we value. Few people know how vulnerable our electrical grid
is to at least six threat elements or nation that is unable to control. Even if we could control one...we cannot
control them all 100% of the time. An
even greater threat to every aspect of our lives is infectious diseases. Both
cyber and biosecurity are similar in that they are made up of tiny bits of
information that can be used to do amazing things or destroy everything one
holds dear. And both of these are
dependent upon a healthy environment, economy, and global governance system. A system
we have now that is ever more dysfunctional than our Consitution. The UN system of international law is as
useless as the nipples on a man. They might offer momentary pleasure but are
ultimately useless when survival is at stake.
The US Constitution at least has enforceable laws that offer some protection of inalienable human rights. Like the right to defend one’s self, loved ones, and property against any threat. An AR-15 is useless against a tyrannical government or hemorrhagic virus released from a lab or nature’s Petri dish. But it would come in very handy when a government collapses or hungry deer or human hoards are trying to steal food from your garden.
Until we have a global governance system that upholds the supremacy
of protecting human rights over the flawed concept of national sovereignty
there is not a system in the world that will protect humanity's most basic
freedoms and valued security.
This may sound un-American.
But it is fundamentally American.
Read Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense”.
The first few pages make if crystal clear that no man is independent of
others. And that government is essential
because humans are flawed angles. He
summarized that the only legitimate purpose of government is to protect human
freedom and security.
Originally our constitution failed to protect the freedom of
slaves. That led to the civil war killing more Americans than all the other wars our nation has fought in since then...combined.
Mr. McCormick's two-pronged attack fails to address this
fundamental reality. There is no sound
strategy that can preserve our nation as a superpower sustainably...except by
following the idealism of Abraham Lincoln's wisdom when he wrote that the “Declaration
of Independence is our Apple of Gold” and our “Constitution is its frame of Sliver.” Within the first paragraph of the Declaration, we are offered two sets of laws that were ignored in the creation of our
Constitution. The “Laws of Nature and Nature’s
God”....all Men (humans) are endowed...with certain inalienable rights.
President Jimmy Carter attempted to put the
protection of Human rights as the driving authority of US foreign policy. That was rejected by many Americas and Reagan
took the Solar panels off the White House.
Far worse, President Reagan and the American people ignored the warnings
of Carter’s 1980 bipartisan Presidential Commission on World Hunger. Its commissioners concluded and specifically warned that “The most potentially
explosive force in the world today is the frustrated desire of poor people to
attain a decent standard of living. The anger, despair, and often hatred that
result represent real and persistent threats to international order… Neither
the cost to national security of allowing malnutrition to spread nor the gain
to be derived by a genuine effort to resolve the problem can be predicted or
measured in any precise, mathematical way. Nor can monetary value be placed on
avoiding the chaos that will ensue unless the United States and the rest of the
world begin to develop a common institutional framework for meeting such other
critical global threats… Calculable or not, however, this
combination of problems now threatens the national security of all countries
just as surely as advancing armies or nuclear arsenals.”
They also stated “that promoting economic
development in general, and overcoming hunger in particular, are tasks far more
critical to the U.S. national security than most policymakers acknowledge or
even believe. Since the advent of nuclear weapons, most Americans have been
conditioned to equate national security with the strength of strategic military
forces. The Commission considers this prevailing belief to be a simplistic
illusion. Armed might represent merely the physical aspect of national
security. Military force is ultimately useless in the absence of the global
security that only coordinated international progress toward social justice can
bring.”
Today’s world is experiencing the consequences of
ignoring those warnings of increases in “diseases”, “international terrorism”,
“war”, “environmental problems” and “other human rights problems” (refugees,
genocide, human trafficking…).
Combined, these global pressures have fueled the
anti-democratic populist movements thriving today. Independent
governments' “self-interests” can no longer be more important than humanity's
potential to thrive and survive in the face of these accelerating
threats.
Dozens of other prestigious, bipartisan studies
and academic reports have followed since that 1980 report. Each clearly
documents the direct and indirect links between world hunger, human rights
violations, global instability, and the growing array of other threats to our
freedoms, national security, economy, and political stability.
The best thing Reagan did was promote America's foundational idealism regarding our nation's potential leadership in defending freedom from tyranny. As Russian troops closed in on Kive, President Zelinsky said "freedom must be better armed than tyranny". One year later Putin's invasion is now capable of sparking another expansion of war. Reagan's nation failed to take the right path after the end of the Cold War. Instead, he championed the 'capitalism won, communism lost, live with it!' mentality. So now, we are heading towards Cold War II or World War III where China, Russia, Iran, N. Korea, and other authoritarian nations join in an Axis of Tyranny. Say goodbye to cutting defense spending, meeting basic human needs, and solving our nation's debt crisis. Count on our collective freedoms and security being increasingly diminished if not destroyed simply because we failed to keep our flag pledge of "liberty and Justice for all" at a time in history when we had the opportunity to do it while we wallowed in unprecedented wealth, health, freedom, and power.
McCormack, Barr, and any other American are
delusional in believing that by protecting our national sovereignty (our independence)
that our nation can remain free and secure if any government is allowed to unleash
tyranny on others.
It is “a simple fact: Our
nation’s adversaries are gaining on us.”
Simply because Communist China has harnessed capitalism for funding its
own economy, military, and technological power.
American corporations wanting to maximize profits and Americans wanting
to consume cheaper goods and services for two decades is what diminished our
superpower status. While we were sending
troops to troubled nations and the CIA to undermine democracies while China was
building its infrastructure, a middle class, billionaires, and making friends in
faraway places.
As CEO of Bridgewater Associates, McCormick “oversaw investments
there, and he describes the moral and fiduciary hazard that came with that
exposure.” And China took advantage of
our “free-market principles”. Now they
are dominating “our supply chain” with investments in shipping and Artificial Intelligence. Our security is far more dependent on these
than China.
Barr states “Republicans are right to have grown weary of ‘zombie
Reaganism’ in policy”. , But we have little to learn from the politics and
leadership from the Gipper. The costs of
deregulation and government, plus the flawed sunny optimism over our victory in
the Cold War, we are paying for today. Trump's
debt and deadly approach to Covid-19. Weakening
of NATO and getting Chummy with Putin.
Reagan’s resoundingly electoral victories in 1980 and again in 1984 reflect
the foolishness of voters at that time in thinking we could go it alone...and would
remain a superpower.
Mr. McCormick’s book title sounds ominous but offers
no rational agenda for American renewal. Only our continued decline and dysfunction. We must reject our America first mentality that
is pervasive on the right and design a new template for victory and governance that
literally ensures ‘liberty and justice for all”. Bill
Barr’s experience as an American attorney was profitable. Serving under Bush and Trump was disastrous
considering 9-11, Katrina, Afghanistan, Iraq, Covid19, and now Russia’s tyranny over
Ukraine's freedom and security.
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