Ten years ago libertarianism was all the rage in conservative circles. The short version was they didn’t like ‘losing’ the culture war all the time and thought they could just skip all that culture stuff and worry about important things like freedom and not spending ourselves into oblivion.
Didn’t actually work so well. Turns out, culture informs politics more than politics informs culture. This little tidbit is what is destroying the Democrats at the moment. While over time politics can influence culture, culture will win any short term battle. Hence ‘wokeness’ never stood a chance. The more the leftists tried ramming it down culture’s throat, the more resistance it met.
The midterms have been a predictable disaster for the last twelve months. Human shortsightedness is why the Democrats never saw it coming. The two of you who have been with me a while may recall that I’ve said several times that normally, election results aren’t predictable until very close to the election but this year was different and the midterms would be a Democrat disaster. Long before the pollsters were thinking maybe the Republicans pick up 40 seats in the House I was saying it would likely be 60 to 80 and that they would also take the Senate. Polls have a place but they are not a substitute for good analysis.
There were a bunch of factors to look at: the 2020 election and the pathetic response to the so called January 6th Insurrection (if that’s an insurrection, I have a couple of bridges to sell you really cheap), Biden’s policies and the backlash to them (honestly, I knew the Dems were doomed the first time I heard the ‘Let’s Go, Brandon’ chant), the oddly ‘polarized’ polls and regions that didn’t match any other indicators (while the BLM riots were at least real riots, they were a joke compared to their historic counterparts. Scary to the young ‘uns but not a good indicator of ‘polarization’.) Basically, none of this added up to what the media said it should.
What’s this got to do with libertarianism and why is it a Monday blog? To answer the first, libertarianism is part of what got us to this point. The answer to the second is I’d prefer they not do it again.
You will never hear this in the main stream: Obama is the catalyst that lead to the destruction of the Democrat Party. He did it with one little policy: gay marriage. No, not because there was a cultural backlash (there was but it’s not the problem) but because it opened the Pandora’s box that had been Democrat Big Tent politics for thirty years.
The insane conglomeration of antithetical political groups that made up the Democrats was held together by one main linchpin: gay rights. As long as they could legitimately say ‘hang on, everybody, we have to win this fight first’ and placate the ranks, they could keep the mishmash together and moving in one direction. A win here and there only strengthened the party as all the factions semi-patiently waited for their turn.
Then Obama threw the cherry on top – gay marriage, the holy grail of gay activism had been realized. Gays had won. Yay, cookies and ice cream for everyone! And now – all those impatient factions wanted their turn. NOW.
Within six years the Democrats no longer represented blacks (largely Christian and had begun to figure out that the Dems weren’t getting them where they needed to be), Hispanics (now losing jobs to illegal aliens on Aisle Five), gays (wait, why are we suddenly an entire alphabet?), suburbs (you want to teach my kids WHAT?!), women (no, I don’t want a rapist to have an excuse to be in the ladies room, thanks) and white men who don’t hate themselves (why any white men remain Democrats is more of a question). The anti-racists have become epic racists as they denigrate minorities and hate whites. Hint: this is not a good idea if you want to remain in power as a political party.
Basically, the Democrats took on ‘wokeness’ as their new vanguard to replace gays and managed to alienate almost their entire base.
Don’t get me wrong – the Democrats would have found other ways to shoot themselves in the foot – but it didn’t have to be this bad. For that little extra, we can thank the libertarians. Their little ‘marriage isn’t a state concern’ backstab helped Obama push over the applecart. Because they didn’t want to fight a cultural issue then, we’ll be cleaning up the mess for decades to come. Gee, thanks guys.
To their credit there are now a lot of former libertarians. They have gotten older and more conservative. They have also come to the realization that culture MATTERS. If we want a free society we have to have a culture that values freedom. If we want a functional society, we have to have a culture that can tell freedom from insanity. No, sweetheart, feeling like a boy doesn’t make you a boy. Your brother can still cream you in a fight. No, sugar, you can’t have babies if you weren’t born with a uterus. Count your blessings, periods aren’t that much fun.
Having separate bathrooms for ‘people of color’ is stupid. Having separate bathrooms for women is a massive public good. Figuring this out is messier than a few slogans and soundbites. Where are the limits? Should there be limits in a free society? That first one is tricky but the answer to the second is YES. Without limits there is no freedom – traffic laws may be annoying but they get you home in one piece.
Abdicating on the messy part – what are the limits – got us into this mess where a major political party is arguing there are no limits unless you say things they don’t like.
Could we please not do this a second time?
I get you don’t like spending money on the war in Ukraine. But the argument against it is just asinine. Forty-four billion is a lot of money but we’re going to be getting it back some four to ten fold. I wish I had an investment opportunity half as good.
No, not from Ukraine directly. They will be rebuilding for a couple decades. But that’s not where we make our money here. We make our money from our new and VERY happy military hardware customers – most of Eastern Europe (Serbia is still sulking). Remember all that hardware they dumped in Ukraine? Ever wonder why Poland and Lithuania bothered to keep old Russian hardware?
Well, here’s why: they couldn’t afford to completely rebuild their militaries from scratch. Tanks and jets ain’t cheap and were way down the list of things to straighten out as they joined the western economies. Still, in order to join NATO they had to be compliant meaning their systems had to work with NATO systems. Eastern Europe spent a LOT of money getting Russian stuff capable of firing NATO compliant ammo. Refitting an SU-25 to fire an AMRAAM ain’t cheap but it’s a LOT cheaper than replacing all the SU-25’s with F22‘s.
This left the new NATO members with a lot of hybrid systems and old Russian systems rather than the shiny new Western systems they were drooling over. That is, until Uncle Vlad stepped in and invaded Ukraine. Ukraine was no more NATO compliant than the rest. They knew how to handle the logistics on the Russian stuff and had a lot of that already in place. A newer Russian system would be no problem to adapt for immediate use. Suddenly, all these old Russian systems that NATO members didn’t want had a use.
But they didn’t want to disarm while Russia was acting all crazy. Enter the USA with a sweetheart deal: you guys ship all that old stuff to Ukraine and we will backfill your stocks with nice, new US Military grade stocks of systems and ammo.
They were signing before the rep finished the presentation.
All these years since the fall of the Soviet Union, Eastern European nations – even NATO members – have been purchasing new weapons from Russia*. This wasn’t because they wanted the spiffy Russian toys but because the Russian systems would integrate easily with the stuff they were already stuck with. They ended up with some weirdly hybrid systems as they slowly tried to buy the NATO systems they wanted but were also filling out their needs with the Russian systems they could integrate.
All that stuff not designated for a museum is in Ukraine now. The member states that signed up no longer have to worry about integrating new systems to their old Russian systems. They are getting the new Western systems and the training for operation and maintenance. Christmas came really early this year.
So, how do we make our money back, you ask? Simple. None of these new customers have reason to buy from Russia any longer. Even Russia’s spiffy S400‘s have been tainted by the war, but more importantly, all their new shinnies are NATO compliant. When the time comes to upgrade, they will be buying from us. New updates? Us. New systems? Us. New training? Us.
When the time comes, why buy an SU-57 when you can have an F35? Need to sharpen up on your warfighting without fighting a war? Hiring a trainer that not only has more and better experience but also uses all the same systems is a no brainer.
It puts pressure on US R&D but that’s a good thing. We need better interception systems and our new customers are going to want bright shinnies that outperform the S400. Want (probably overhyped) hypersonics? Well, the US had better get cracking if we want to keep our customers happy.
Regardless of the newer systems. our new Eastern European customers will be coming back to us for decades to come. All we have to do is what we do best – add value by producing excellent products – and they will be lining up to give us money for the next century.
As long as our recovering libertarians don’t screw it up. Supporting Ukraine is an investment both in our long term political best interest and in our financial interests. Of all the hairbrained, idiotic ways that Biden wasted a couple trillion dollars, why on Earth are y’all obsessed with 44B that we will certainly get back in spades?
You didn’t look under the hood about gay marriage and look at the mess that made. Come on guys, look under the hood – this isn’t the jalopy you think it is! At the very least, take a closer look at both sides of the argument before tossing out baby with bathwater.
Because Republicans will take the Congress in November and we have to be ready to make good decisions by January. Don’t be a Democrat – use your heads.
For more than a hat rack, please.
*The US objected to Turkey’s purchase of S400’s because of the integration required. The US did not want its F35 tech in close proximity to Russian experts working with the S400s. No one cared when Romania bought Howitzers as it didn’t risk tech security.
