Different Rules

We’ve got a constitution that gives a million voters in Montana two U.S. Senators and thirty-seven million voters in California two U.S. Senators. A Montana voter has 37 times the vote of a California voter in the Senate. We also have a constitution that not only is exceptionally difficult to amend, it allows states to Gerrymander their congressional districts to favor incumbents, pretty much giving each rural voter on average at least 25% or more voting power at that level. We have a Supreme Court that believes that corporations and union are effectively “people” who cannot be limited in their financial support of candidates and causes, a tax code that provides substantial benefits to that category of money-making that benefits the rich the most (capital gains).

We have a major American constituency (referred to as the Base) dedicated to inculcating the American legal system with statutes imposing a deep religiosity, ranging from teaching creationism, mandating school prayer to more controversial measures involving same sex marriage and abortion… effectively repealing the First Amendment. Our leaders have spent generations supporting dictators (a host of brutal leaders in banana republics as well as folks like the Shah of Iran, Hosni Mubarak, and even Saddam Hussein in recent years). So we are proselytizing our form of democracy to nascent nations everywhere?

When we have imposed democracy in recent years, our track record is nothing short of horrific. With a government ranked 179^th out of 180 on the corruption scale, we created a “democracy” that has elected the Hamid Karzai regime in Afghanistan. By supporting majority rule in Iraq, we have disenfranchised Sunnis and Kurds, leading to the Kurds establishing their own virtually autonomous regime in the north that ignores the American creation in Baghdad and too many Sunnis venting their frustration with the newly-pro-Iranian Shiite majority government by planting bombs against Shiite targets.

We cheered the Arab Spring, sometimes supplying money, munitions and even direct military support to the uprisings only to find stuttering new governments, dictatorial trends in succeeding regimes and rather clear undemocratic (under our view anyway) tendencies in these new governments as Muslim fundamentalists seem to be the most successful forces benefiting from the change. We just rail at the thought and worry that the world may be entering a modern version of the Dark Ages as a result. The democracies of the European Union are staggering under the burdens of economic missteps, sending a message “don’t follow our model” to nascent regimes.

For the $4-$6 trillion dollars that the Iraq and the Afghan wars have and will (interest, pensions and benefits included) cost the American people, our efforts at interfering in the outside world have been abysmal, and of late, the bigger and longer the interference, the more disastrous the results. Meanwhile, China is snickering in the background, deploying its wealth internally to develop its economy and avoiding military interference far from home base. They are watching the United States decimate its own economy, make new enemies worldwide and hobble their ability to impose their diplomatic will most anywhere… or even attempt to generate support for that diplomatic cause through cajoling and wheedling. We are the “great Satan” to average Muslims in too many countries, demon “Imperialists” to that short insecure dude in North Korea, “Yankee dogs” to several Latin American nations and our government policies are even denigrated among European masses.

What’s the lesson here? Ignore genocide? Not exactly, as our successful efforts in Bosnia and environs suggest. Retaliate against attackers? Sure, but why invade them and stay for years? Always find a country to take down after we are attacked, even if it had nothing to do with the attack? Bomb and invade countries that might be a threat? Perhaps not.

The issues seem to revolve around the complexity of “shoot first, think later” reactions of administrations and Congressional leadership that seem to have skipped every history course they could have taken (or simply forgotten the lessons). Having a massive military with globally-deployed forces makes that violent reactive tendency all too easy. Just think how our policies would be different if waging war required both hire taxes currently assessed to pay for it and a draft to supply the personnel.

I’m Peter Dekom, and as we consider how to deploy our dwindling economic resources going forward, may I suggest that we spend more money on what’s actually good for America and less on what has proven to be a failed philosophy.