In an under reported move, Mr Obama has cancelled the Reliable Replacement Warhead programme, which would have allowed the United States to replace its current nucelar stockpile with one that is more reliable and cheaper to maintain. Now, in a burst of misguided idealism, Mr Obama has guaranteed that for the next decade the US will have the oldest, least reliable nuclear arsenal in the world at a time when Mr Obama also wants to make swinging stockpile cuts that have all the makings of the sort of grand moral gesture that ended up destroying the British Empire.Sleep tight, everyone.
4 comments:
"Grand moral gesture"? I thought Britain gave up her empire because after bleeding, literally and financially, through two world wars, empire and solvency were no longer compatible. As de-empirizings go, this wasn't the worst---much softer crash than Rome's, for instance.
As for Husseinovich, I think that a lot of what pass for his policies can be summed up as, "we should be more like Europe". To be honest, Europe changed my own view of socialism. I used to think that going commie invariably leads to millions dead, but Europe convinced me that it can work, but is amazingly inefficient. If you've got the US supplying your army, you can make it work. If like Britain, you do your own defense, you have problems making ends meet. If like the USSR, you have a superpower-sized army, and also help overseas allies, you will not be a country full of happy campers.
Of course, the corollary of dropping empire is, you now have to listen to other countries. Countries that have their own interests. That might not coincide with yours. Let's see who emerges as the world goes multi-polar. It will be interesting (not in a fun way) when "I'm the US! You have to listen to me!" meets "Eh, get in line, Yankee".
Socialism is control over economy to make it work better and to prevent the development of useless manufacturer/consumer "loops" like Barbie dolls, official Star Trek sporks and the like.
Sounds like lots of fun if I get to be the president or the minister of defense(I can play with tanks).
Did I roughly get the point ?
However, humans, irrational as they are, are somewhat dependent on such seemingly useless stuff. If it is taken away from them, they starve emotionally, wont work and contribute to the breakdown of socialism.
But what makes the EU a socialist system ? If this seems like a stupid question, maybe I should say that the politicians in my country desperately want to join even though they are very conservative.
Croatian prime minister:
"At last we join Europe, our century-long cultural brethren!"
EU:
"BUAHAHAHA!! Gimme all your precious bodily fluids!"
I am not an expert on the subject (which makes me qualified to shoot off my mouth on the Internet!), but I see a continuum of government control. On the minimally obtrusive side, the central government makes sure that weights and measures are uniform, provides for the national defense, maybe keeps cities from dumping raw sewage into rivers that have other cities downstream. On the other extreme, blue Mao suits and daily songs about the Party, or at least subbotniks and parades at which it is necessary to wave red flags. The complementary question is, how much freedom does a government leave to its citizens?
When a government takes firm control of something, it can set that something's broad direction. When decisions are left to people, with profit as a reward, no resources will be left unexploited. Potentially then, it is a question of large-scale vs. small-scale optimization.
Problem I see with strong government is, economists' models are often grossly---stupid!---and following them can lead to blundering into Great Leaps Forward or Khruschov's agrarian reforms. Meanwhile, unless the punishment for doing so is extremely high, individuals still find ways to make their lives a little bit better, even (especially?) if it's at the expense of the Central Planning Committee on Having a Big Opinion of Oneself. As for the human spirit, make life as easy for the lazy as for the hard-working, and people will take a lot of vacation. Move all the best minds to Important Projects (USSR's closed cities in Siberia), and artifacts of ordinary life will be gray and uninspired, and people will compete for small pretty things. My mother still remembers, with a shudder, the joy of buying a crappy nylon umbrella from China, back in the Workers' Paradise.
Problems with leaving too many decisions to people are as you notice, poor taste. No, I do not need a Star Trek spork (but I want one!). Also, there is the tendency to myopia. Why spend on things that are not toys, when it is not yet Almost Too Late? This is a serious problem, and requires a certain amount of inspiration in the leadership. I can't see a lot of my own Congress-critters standing up with a "Carthago delenda est" speech, even if one were needed.
My personal opinion? I'm an American and my tastes are American. I think that a government should support a strong military, and set up conditions for trade to thrive, in that order. If it provides a safety net so people don't starve if they make one bad decision or get some bad luck, so much the better. As you may have gathered, I'm not a huge fan of having Washington choose my dentist for me, or make spare parts for my Jeep.
Yes, it must be kept in mind that every ideology tries to make an individual happy. To think that people would be happy living the way I live happily is just dumb.
And if I want people to be more monolithic for patriotic reasons, I guess I just expect too much. The countries of the world would slaughter each other in short order if that would come to a reality.
Living here where I live gives me a very disturbed view of how problems should be dealt with. It's a long story and I gotta go to sleep.
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