I've often wanted to research what caused the downfall of nations and empires to see if there are similarities and lessons to be learned to ensure America doesn't travel down the same path. Or perhaps nations falling is inevitable. There is ample evidence - Rome, Great Britain, Spain, Portugal, France, the Mongols, ancient Greece, the Soviet Union and many others all eventually fell by the wayside or simply faded from greatness.
Many people have looked into the decline of various empires. Here's a recent example worth watching (NOTE, it's preceded by an advertisement that you can skip if you like). There's not an in-depth dive here but the book seems like it might be worthwhile.
Last week I mentioned that a lot of music from yester-year was far superior to the music of today. While as a generality I believe that is true, there are some excellent and very talented bands out there today with some great songwriting behind them. Of Monsters and Men is one such promising new band. The group from Iceland has a very folksy, southern feel on their hit Mountain Sound. It's their second hit in North America after their "debut" hit Little Talks. Both songs are quite catchy.
Is it just me or does the female lead singer, Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir (yes, I just typed that) sound similar to Bjork?
Forget for a moment about the Orwellian Big Brother aspects of government agencies that feel nothing is wrong with targeting certain groups for harassment (for example the IRS, Justice, and even the EPA though there's no headline scandal right now). Instead, let's focus on what the underlying problem is - that which enables the government agency to feel they are insulated from having to answer to anyone about anything.
There are three reason I can think of that might account for that type of behavior - political motivations aside. These reasons are not meant to be collectively exhaustive but they likely explain a significant percentage of why agencies think this sort of behavior is acceptable.
Firstly, these agencies may feel that they are the government's equivalent of too big to fail, i.e. they are too big to answer to anyone because of the sheer titanic mass behind them. That's distressing from the perspective that they are relying on their size to intimidate or to squash any potential resistance. That sounds a lot like tyranny.
Another possible reason is that because these agencies have become so large, there is no sufficient locus of responsibility. In other words, no one answers directly to anyone that can be tied back to anyone in an administration. That seems suspiciously convenient. Those in charge of the executive branch can speak some ideology and have it obeyed without any accountability on their part or the part of their subordinates. Either that means a structure prone to abuse due to that lack of specific responsibilities, or a structure prone to abuse because it can be blamed on the expanse of the government and it being beyond manageable.
That's the type of thinking that led to Nazi Germany's death camps. "I was just following orders" is a way to abdicate personal responsibility;
Large-scale evil requires surrender of autonomy, coercion by a central authority and a willingness to follow orders.
With no personal responsibility to stand up and say no to unfair policies and processes, government agencies become especially subject to misguided actions. It's always someone else's fault. It's always above everyone's pay grade.
That does nothing of course, to excuse inexcusable behavior. Nor does that lack of locus of responsibility preclude the "too big to answer to anyone" mentality either.
Another possible motivating factor is that a government department's mandate, by being expanded and growing, continues the justification for that department's continued existence. In other words, job security is a factor.
As Oscar Wilde said, “The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.”
Government departments are genetically encoded to expand - to propel forward, and find new reasons to justify their own existence. That leads to massive spending requirements to support these departments and continually diluted and expanded mandates that go well beyond common sense.
Some of the lessons of history still have not been learned. Governments are still designed without brakes. And anything unable to stop, eventually crashes into something.
Despite the fact that the public's confidence in the above-board nature of the Obama administration has taken a hit (as a result of the Benghazi scandal, the IRS scandal and the Associated Press Justice Department scandal), there has not yet been a crisis in confidence per se. But taking a page from the White House playbook, this impending potential crisis represents an opportunity for Republicans:
You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.
Rahm Emanuel
Liberals used that motto to great effect - Dodd Frank, Obamacare, election victories all were outcomes that liberals felt they had enough of a crisis to push their own brand of solutions onto the nation.
While these scandals all are still unfolding the GOP should be getting it's act together behind the scenes in preparation for ways to react as they unfold individually. What do I mean by that? There are ways to capitalize on these crises. It is unfortunate that politics needs to be a part of this but when you are fighting a rabidly political administration you simply cannot afford to ignore the politics of these situations. Furthermore, by exposing these scandals fully, conservatives can ultimately stem, halt or reverse the damages done to the country, so being political is not all bad.
What can be done in light of these scandals? There are myriad possibilities including censure, impeachment, IRS re-organization, Justice department house cleaning, and State Department accountability. There's also a possibility that the public's perception of not just this administration but of the value of liberty and the negatives of invasive government can be changed for the better.
Liberals clearly have an agenda that will come out of this should Plan A (deny, blame others, and distraction) doesn't work. Their Plan B will be the requirement of more government oversight into each area the scandals have occurred. That means yet more government. They aren't going to let the crisis in confidence go to waste. To not counter that is to roll over and play dead.
Canadian Victoria Day will have political fireworks this year
Today in Canada there's a national holiday. Well, it's almost national, but more about that later. Victoria Day is a celebration of the birthday of Queen Victoria. Canada is still a part of the British Commonwealth, and the holiday predates Confederation of Canada as a country. In other words, it's been around for a long, long time. But there are rumblings today about changing the holiday. This should serve as a cautionary tale.
The number of Canadians who you could call avid monarchists is pretty small, and the holiday has evolved for the most part into an excuse for a long weekend, the chance to launch some fireworks and the first weekend of the summer season that many use as a cottage weekend. But despite that, there is still some cache with the notion of the holiday as a tradition. Tradition matters. But apparently not to everyone.
