The tribes of Afghanistan will work it out

The Empire Stopper makes apparent the tribal quagmire that Afghanistan is and Erik Prince's A Third Way in Afghanistan  misunderstands the CIA's success was from working with tribal leaders to counter the Taliban's centralizing effort and that his mercenaries will fail because of the mission which is to defend a dysfunctional Kabul central government.  The plaintive town's person plea to "please leave" in War Machine  with Brad Pitt depicting McCrystal is hauntingly correct. The tribes of Afghanistan will work it out. If one gets out line and the others want to coordinate an American airstrike to keep them in line then that's different and all we are good for.

Evangelical Panel should have been first to resign over Nazi Christian Soldiers

Seeing Jerry Falwell Jr. trying to defend Trump’s mention of good people among the White Supremacist brings to mind the great Christian failure to teachout racism. Teach it out because discrimination is antithetical to the teachings of Christ. That the business groups advising Trump disbanded but Falwell’s Evangelical Panel remains speaks volumes.  It seems to be me that they should have been the first to withdraw and the first to denounce the Nazis claiming to be Christian soldiers.                       

Experts imposing their will on communities that later turns out to be wrong

If there is one lesson from the 20th century worth learning, it is that an exclusive focus on the defense of liberal fundamentals against a supposed totalitarian peril often exacerbates the social and international conflicts it seeks to resolve. This approach to politics threatens to widen the already yawning gulf between liberal groups and their opponents, while distracting from the deeply rooted forces that have been fueling right-wing populist politics, notably economic inequalities and status resentments.

The above comes from Moyn and Priestland's editorial today in the Sunday New York Times which I best explain as the tyranny of experts imposing a will on individuals and communities which over time has proven to be mistaken. For an example of a nonpartisan health issue let's use the sugar lobby funding research that labels fat as bad suggesting that it's intake in the diet should be reduced with fat free, oh by the way many made from sugar, alternatives. Our government's experts, The Food and Drug Administration, then go out and promote low fat diets and create an obesity epidemic.  Oops, now sugar is the culprit, and the FDA the dummy who had a hand in shortening and ruining thousands of lives. Get the picture about experts? They aren't. It's the same in foreign policy and finance.   

Trump's Washington paralysis forcing awareness of State power. Jerry Brown gets it

How American Politics Went Insane is a podcast interview of Jonathan Rauch where he speaks of the demise of machine politics and its central command and control discipline to moderate and drive debate to the political center.  Now politics is fragmented and Washington unworkable. Rather than wishing for what was he should look around and consider what has happened to other institutions, such as network nightly news,  whose hierarchies have leveled and power dispersed for the last twenty years. Ron Chernow's Hamilton  and Henry Adam's History of the United States show the  political scene in our country's early years as rampant with fake news and vain glorious individuals who make our current political debate look tame. The difference was that Federal government was in its infancy with little influence and power and it was for the States to resolve political issues locally. Its called Federalism. Trump's tweet storm paralyzing Washington today is forcing awareness of State power. Governor Jerry Brown of California is the first to recognize it.

We have come full circle to the condition our forefathers found when devising Federalism

Our founding fathers had an expansive geography and dispersed populations from which to form a government. So they devised a framework from which faraway states could resolve local issues in a coordinated yet self developed manner. This splitting of power between central and state governments is called Federalism despite that the original Federalist,  Alexander Hamilton, had an inclination for central governance.  As a century passed communication improved and businesses used it to grow large command and control hierarchies that government felt compelled to imitate when trying to solve the Great Depression. Big government really came into its own with its successful prosecution of World War II which gave an afterglow of goodness and effectiveness to which it rode to a zenith with the implementation of LBJ’s Great Society.  Then came the reaction best expressed by Ronald Reagan in his 1980 election campaign as the scariest words in the English language: “I’m from government, I’m here to help.” By the new millennia many institutions with command and control structures were replaced by flat dispersed ones coming full circle to the condition our forefathers found and which now frays the bonds of the last holdout, our government in Washington.

Federal over State authority has always been tempered with a need to cooperate where today States legalize Marijuana understanding Washington has the law to stop it but which the Justice Department chooses not to pursue and thereby antagonize. Today's departments and agencies are further tested by Governor Jerry Brown of California. First he popped EPA Secretary Scott Pruitt’s trial balloon to relax fuel economy standards by insisting California’s will remain and since his market is most important to automakers he effectively trumped Trump. This skirmish so emboldened the Governor that he now circumvents the State Department to assure world leaders that California will counter Washington’s pullback from the Paris Climate Accord. And with regard to immigration one can only  imagine the hamstringing of Homeland Security’s ICE division perpetrated by the Governor for a State with an economic need for immigrants.

Meddlesome top down thinking types believe that States are incapable of legislating and then implementing beneficent social programs on their own. But  in 2006 Massachusetts passed a health plan under Republican Governor Mitt Romney’s watch. It was legislated in State with local support rather than in Washington where support can be scattered and resistance easy to drum up. What the last Presidential election made clear is that the electorate is tired of Washington’s one size fits all solutions to unclear market deficiencies. For Congress to restore trust in government, government must first trust the people know, even in their ignorance, what’s best for themselves. This is particularly so for Democrats who yearn for the blunt instrument of the FDR era which now does little more than dole out favors to rent seekers who know adding to the labyrinth of laws and regulation enhances their monopoly pricing power.

Shiite Iran allies Sunni Taliban, Saudi Arabia continues holy war against brethren

Iran Flexes in Afghanistan as U.S. Presence Wanes clarifies how strong the urge to dominate and thereby secure the neighborhood from falling into enemy hands that Shiite Tehran is willing to forget Sunni Taliban murders of Iranians and work with them. Contrast its primordial need for security with Saudi Arabia's emotional holy war against their brethren in Islam.