Duly Noted. George Handlery about the week that was. The imperfections a functioning democracy do not prove the validity of extremist ideals. The left-right axis connects totalitarian extremes. A challenge to dragon-killers. Foreign conquest needs be followed by forced assimilation. Mass movements and the dictatorial trap. Aiming at Obama: do not use slingshots. The future’s bliss and the evils of the present.

1. Just before submitting this material and while clicking to re-check the final draft, the news appeared that BO has received the Nobel Peace Price. Stunned, I double checked the info. It is serious. For some time, and I was not alone, I had the impression that the value of the non-science prices have sunk. I now know that “sunk” is the wrong word. Replace “sunk” with “crashed”. No! the analogy is a U-Boat on a one-way mission. As in down “yes”, up, “no”. Even if I would be an BO fan, after only a few months in power, such a price would be disturbing. The more so, since BO had unfolded his tent in the Oval Office only recently. Not surprisingly, besides announced good intentions, there were, and there could be, no results. The conclusion: The Nobel committee votes, albeit a few months late, firmly Democratic. It will remain resolutely committed to this position until it becomes clear that the ruling Dem is, alas, on a part time-basis also an American.

2. The view here is that Chicago did not get the Olympics of 2016 for several reasons. Some are good others are less than valid. South America has never organized Olympics. Chicago’s bid was less than convincing. Obama’s intervention pleased all who wanted their picture taken with him. However, the performance also suggested arrogance by a couple that betrayed that it thinks it is irresistible. Lastly, an anti-US reflex sealed the deal. Perhaps reduced American involvement in the movement would help her case by making her more appreciated. Meanwhile, the writer counsels against the temptation to blame Obama for the failure. Any US President would have failed to bring the circus to the States. Knowing this it is prudent not to bagatellize the arument against BO by picking questionable issues of secondary interest. A better case can be built than the one suggested by the automatic reflex at hand.

3. Our prevailing approach to discussing public affairs likes to create a box that has separate sectors for the doctrinal Left and the Right. In the game that follows some issues become distorted by the method applied. The pain of discriminating thinking can be avoided as the support or the opposition of a matter that is assigned either to the Leftist or Rightist corner, can be invoked without effort. It might be more realistic but less comforting to face up to a reality. It is that, regardless of where the support or opposition is rooted, we might be dealing with not more than tactical differences. These are between extremes that are both housed within the collectivist camp. If a version that is closest to your own position on the left - right axis explains the choice, there might be no reason to prefer it simply because it represents the more sympathetic version evil.

4. It must be granted that government by persons that were ordained by God, the Rich or a voting majority might not be optimally wise, just or successful. At the same time, the decisive question is not the immaculate perfection of governance. The issue to be decided is why such authority should be regarded, on the basis of logic and experience, to be less benign than the dominance by those who feel deputized by the “logic of history” or that are bureaucratic planners implementing “progress”?

5. According to the program of some parties, their taking power results in the change of ownership of some enterprises. This might lead to a change in the personnel staffing entrepreneurial hierarchies. Some see a move toward equality, fairness and, through the break with the past, worldly bliss in this. They should be reminded that regardless of the transformation, there would be no change in one respect. There will always be powerful bosses. The alternative to the baron of privately owned industries is that those directing the economy become a department of the institutions that exercise political power. This will not induce those directing to mute into servants of the public interest. Their power, comportment and self-perception will propel them to become privileged members of the power elite. Once politics and economics are connected in this fashion, the result is more political and economic power. Facing a two-headed dragon instead of a single-headed one has one indubitable effect. The task of the dragon killer becomes more difficult.

6. As a dominion grows in size, population, and complexity (ethnic & cultural composition) a danger unfolds. Unless a federal system is adopted, the central power will tend incessantly to expand its sway. This will be a response to an inner pressure. The same enemy will be detected in the diverse components of the enlarged realm that had been successfully combated in the previous process of cross-border enlargement. That process led to the conquest and the annexation of regions that will be suspected of separatism after their takeover. The process of foreign conquest needs to be irreversibly completed through forced assimilation within. The foreign enemy, once defeated and deprived of his independence, remains a threat to the unity of the system that swallowed it. The problems of digestion are to be reduced by grinding the large slivers of meat into fine-cut paste.

7. The impetuosity of masses made impatient threatens not only the structures of their existence but also their long-term interests. Their boredom an irritation might be understandable and justified. Nevertheless, these attitudes might be quickly enlisted by forces that make the disquiet to serve as the motor of a mutation that ends in dictatorship. As a witness of the French Revolution of 1789, it was Burke that formulated the insight with which this observation shares its premise.

8. In Greece, the voters decided to dismiss their government. The new governors will be the crew that had been sent away in disgust two legislative terms ago. Now the socialist Papandreou will replace the conservative Karamalis. The conservative was elected to fight corruption and to cut the creeping tentacles of government. He had to learn that, regardless of how you wish to govern, you could only exercise power through the inherited bureaucracy. This apparatus (as in apparatchik) stays in place while governments go. The upshot is that, ultimately, much of what is bad cannot be eliminated. Greece will soon find out that she has not changed the system.  They have only switched the crowds that run it. New scandals involving old tricks but staffed by new people and benefiting new gainers will follow.

9. Germany’s recent election demonstrates that her left is sick and that some of her right is not doing that well either. From once being able to be a majority, the Social Democrats have receded to the mid twenties percentile of the vote. The party could do three things. The first alternative is one on which no one places bets. If it believes in its own program, the SPD could hold its course until events prove it to have been right. The second possibility is to move further to the right were the centrist voters are. The third and most probable scenario is for the pinks to shift in the direction of the purple reds. These are the unreconstructed communists. “The Left” as it is called, is the beneficiary of a successful spin on reality. They manage to stand not on their forty-year success running the defunct GDR. Newly they can sell themselves based on ideals that, for unconsidered practical and theoretical reasons, belong in the realm of fiction. However, since the promises are beyond reality, the ideal world they suggest is more attractive for political amnesiacs than competing real-world programs. At the same time, the party’s cadre, while invoking democratic socialism, secretly reveres Stalin, wishes the USSR back and likes the stability provided in the GDR by the Stasi (the internal security).

10. In this respect, those who wish to liberate mankind from its tradition-rooted mistakes do not advocate anything new. The modern era of history is full of movements that have promised to achieve this. The only difference between these is that the root of misery -the secular version of the original sin- has been found in different causative factors. To the extent of their success, these movements have discovered that, to do much good in the future, some harsh measures are indispensable in the present. Whether the blame of the ailment is correct or based on an error plays little difference. Trying to liberate through a radical and total break mankind from its organically developed and accustomed ways implies a revolutionary leap ahead. Such a move must lack the consent of the tepid, stand pattish, or perhaps realistic majority. Therefore, to the extent of the natural reluctance found among the contemporaries, this hindrance is to be overcome through coercion. It will be exercised by those that have a dream and who, to improve mankind, do not hesitate to shed its blood. The coerced amputation of limbs declared to be redundant is justified by the perfect society to ascend from the ashes of the old one.