Government

What Russia Is Up To -or- The Election of 2016 Predicted

March 18th, 2014 // 10:04 am @ Oliver DeMille

Understanding Putin

When Mitt Romney said during the 2012 presidential campaign that Russia is America’s biggest international foe, President Obama and the entire national security establishment laughed and poked fun at him.

They collectively called his views outdated. Quaint. Out of touch.

Nobody’s laughing today. The experts were wrong. Romney was right. Moreover, he did something that may be the most important trait for a U.S. president to display: he read foreign leaders correctly. Despite the experts, even in the face of widespread ridicule, he understood Putin.

In contrast, President Obama has proven that this is a major weakness of his leadership. Reading Putin wrong is a serious problem. Obama read Putin wrong during the Syria crisis, when deciding whether or not to remove strategic missiles from Eastern Europe, regarding Iran, on harboring Snowden, and most recently during the Crimean emergency.

President Obama warned Putin that there would “be consequences” for Russia if it pursued these power grabs. But so far this has been mostly bluster, hardly any meaningful consequences.

Clearly Putin has read Obama right: a politician, someone who thinks words matter more than might, a head of state who shies away from real conflict, a president who will back down in the face of actual force.

Putin’s policy has been to nod, agree, and make nice when words are at play, then to stay silent and let the politicians debate and posture while the troops march in. He has does this in each of the cases mentioned above.

Putin isn’t a politician, not in the Western sense. He is an old KGB operative, trained and conditioned that physical actions speak louder than words. He is convinced that the Obama Administration will rise to mere words when a debate is needed, but back down from physical force.

Putin is also following the old KGP agenda of reestablishing the Russian empire—one piece at a time. For Putin, it’s two steps forward, one step forward.

Looking the Wrong Way

Meanwhile, the NSA and other agencies under Obama’s watch use massive resources spying on Americans, resources that could be utilized spying on Russia and other true security threats.

The clip of President Obama telling Putin that he’d have more flexibility to work with Russia once he won the 2012 election has been played repeatedly.  Since it was captured on an open mike blunder when Obama didn’t realize he was on the air, it has fueled numerous conspiracy theories.

But few have pointed out perhaps the most interesting part of this clip: the look on Putin’s face.

The operative, the bully, the bad cop, realizing that his biggest foe, the American president, is a talker above all, that he wants to be liked, that his words don’t directly correlate with his action.

That he can be swayed, even shocked, by violence.

That raw physical force is outside his comfort zone.

That he probably won’t pull the trigger unless he can be almost entirely sure that the other guy can’t fight back.

Is this what Putin was thinking?

Whether or not this is actually President Obama’s character, it is clearly how Putin has sized him up.

They’re Not Playing Games

The Administration makes war on Fox News, Edward Snowden, Ted Cruz, Bill O’Reilly, anti-Obama Care Republicans, or conservative groups seeking IRS approvals, but Syria, Iran, North Korea, and Putin get to do whatever they want.

Putin has apparently decided that he can operate without any real opposition from the White House. No discussion, no diplomacy, no talk needed, until the power has been wielded.

Afterword, once the troops have done their work, Obama will be only too happy to talk with Putin, to smooth things over, to declare “peace in our time” based on nice words and promises.

For Putin, Obama is Neville Chamberlain, so interested in peaceful words that they can be used after aggression to cover any sin. No need for permission when apologies will suffice.

While the phrase “Putin is playing chess while Obama is playing checkers” makes its rounds inside the Beltway, the truth is a bigger concern:

Putin is playing Stalin and Obama is playing Carter.

What we need from our president in national security is a Truman, a Churchill, a Thatcher, a Reagan—someone that a Khrushchev, Brezhnev, or Putin has no choice but to respect.

Because even though Putin doesn’t bother anymore to care what Obama is doing or thinking, now that he has pegged him as an easy mark, China and Iran are watching. Closely.

How did we get to this point?

High School Politics in Washington

Americans elect the “cool” candidate as president in the Entertainment Age. Carter was cooler than Ford, Reagan was cooler than Carter and Mondale, Bush I was cooler than Dukakis but not as cool as Clinton, Clinton was cooler than Dole, Bush II was cooler than Gore and Kerry, and Obama was cooler than McCain and Romney.

A simple “cool” test (who is more likely to sing, dance, play the saxophone, fuel high school ambitions in the youth, etc.) would have accurately predicted every one of these elections.

It’s High School Musical at the White House.

As for the 2016 presidential election, no potential candidate so far is nearly as “cool” to a majority of the national electorate as Hillary Clinton. Nobody is even close.

The problem is that when it comes to the main Constitutional role of the Chief Executive (keeping the nation safe from foreign aggression), teenage-style “cool” is arguably irrelevant.

The most important trait may well be the ability to effectively size up foreign leaders and project real strength to them. Rahm Emanuel, Mitt Romney, Bill Clinton—Putin would tread more lightly.

But since we are caught in this Entertainment Society where the political parties pick their presidential candidate based on ideology mixed with electability, and then the American voters reject both of these and simply elect the “cool” candidate, maybe the best we can hope for is a president who demands respect—not from the Nobel Prize committee of idealists but from dangerous world leaders like Putin.

Ironically, this is becoming increasingly important as the current Administration drastically cuts the military (and ramps up debt, inflation, and spending on everything else), and as a number of nations become closer in the balance of power to the United States.

More military conflict will certainly happen in the coming two decades. Russia, China and many nations in the Middle East are actively and specifically preparing for this.

The U.S. is doing the opposite—cutting the military and looking for the next Zac Efron as president—hoping that no conflicts come.

But they will.

Oliver DeMille is the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling co-author of LeaderShift: A Call for Americans to Finally Stand Up and Lead, the co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd.

Among many other works, he is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, The Coming Aristocracy, and FreedomShift: 3 Choices to Reclaim America’s Destiny.

Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.

Category : Blog &Current Events &Foreign Affairs &Government &Leadership &Politics &Uncategorized

Dictionary Freedom: It’s Fun!

March 17th, 2014 // 11:39 am @ Oliver DeMille

Finding Words

Let’s go deep. Or really basic, depending on your viewpoint. Socrates is credited with saying that the definition of terms is the beginning of wisdom. Sometimes defining things can be a bit overwhelming, and that’s the case in our topic today. What am I talking about?

Well, I was reading through the compact edition of the Oxford English Thesaurus (a really fun read—try it sometime), and I came to the word “Political.” The list of synonyms was interesting to me: governmental, constitutional, ministerial, parliamentary, diplomatic, legislative, administrative, bureaucratic; party, militant, factional, partisan.

The first time through, I was struck by the number of ways governments can try to control people. But something else was bothering me, in the back of my mind, so I read through the list again to see if I could figure it out. I still wasn’t sure. “Maybe it’s that there’s a strong legislative and also executive focus,” I mused to myself, “but the judicial power of government is left out. As if the judiciary is really not political,” I laughed.

Then I furrowed my brow. “Or maybe it’s that this list is missing so many synonyms,” I thought. I quickly skimmed through the pages and found the word “government,” to see it if added more depth or nuance. It added the following words: executive, regime, authority, directorate, council, cabinet, ministry, regulation, supervision.

“Interesting,” I thought. I had planned to look up each of the synonyms above, one at a time, so I went ahead and turned to the entry for “constitutional.” It added the synonyms statutory, chartered, vested, official, and sanctioned.

Sharing Discoveries

“This isn’t really what was bothering me,” I realized. “It’s not the need for more synonyms. It must be something else.” I wondered what it could be. While I was thinking about this, I reviewed this growing list of synonyms and shook my head. I said aloud, “That’s a lot of government control!”

Then I got it. Somehow, the thing that had been bothering me made it into my consciousness. It was a Eureka! moment. I walked through the house, looking for Rachel or one of the kids to share my new discovery with. Nobody was awake, since it was very late at night, so I opened my laptop and started writing. This is too good not to share, after all.

What was my big epiphany? Simply this: None of the synonyms seem to have anything to do with the people. The word “constitutional” refers to rules written by the people to the government, but most people today don’t realize this. None of the other words were about the people at all, except the word “party,” meaning political parties.

That’s something. I’m not sure what it means, but in our modern language the words “political” and “constitutional” only have one major synonym that includes the people—and that one refers to political parties. Sad.

My question is, “Why?”

Citizens and Leaders

In the time of the American founding, both words held the connotation of actions and choices by the people. Why isn’t “election” or “citizenship” listed as a synonym under either in today’s dictionary? In fact, I turned to these words and found that the synonyms of “citizen” are subject, passport holder, native, resident, denizen.

“Denizen?” That’s an interesting way to view the regular people. In fact, all of these synonyms are passive, none of them are active. None of them present the citizen as a leader, as the true head of the nation.

This is consistent with our modern world, I guess, but it is still wrong. We’ve come to see governments as rulers, and people as subjects. Period. That’s sad.

While I was analyzing this, I realized that something was still bothering me. There was still something tugging at the back of my mind. “What is it?” I asked. I still had my bookmark tucked into the page where the word “political” is found, so I turned back to it and reread the synonyms. Then I noticed something, and everything clicked.

A Sharp Contrast

The word right above “political” is “politic.” Just read this list of synonyms of “politic,” and think about how these relate to politics: wise, prudent, sensible, judicious, canny, sagacious, shrewd, astute, advantageous, beneficial, profitable.

What do any of these have to do with the political world? I mean, they should be connected. They really should. But they hardly ever are.

“Wow!” I said aloud. “This is really interesting. I love reading the dictionary.” Just compare these two lists:

Does anyone else see the irony? Bureaucratic paired with Astute? Partisan with Profitable? Really? Governmental paired with Wise? It’s like a Mark Twain Guide to Preparing for the S.A.T.s.

And yes, both words, “political” and “politic”, come from the same root word, the Greek politikos, meaning “statesman,” “leader of the city,” or in modern terms, “leader of the nation.”

Decline is real.

Let’s read more dictionaries.

Oliver DeMille is the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling co-author of LeaderShift: A Call for Americans to Finally Stand Up and Lead, the co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd.

Among many other works, he is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, The Coming Aristocracy, and FreedomShift: 3 Choices to Reclaim America’s Destiny.

Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.

Category : Blog &Citizenship &Culture &Education &Government &History &Leadership

America’s Great Degeneration

March 5th, 2014 // 1:24 pm @ Oliver DeMille

Speaking of how the government runs its finances today, historian Niall Ferguson wrote:

“The present system is, to put it bluntly, fraudulent. There are no regular published and official balance sheets. Huge liabilities are simply hidden from view. Not even the current income and expenditure statements can be relied upon. No legitimate business could possibly carry on in this fashion. The last corporation to publish financial statements this misleading was Enron.”

This basically sums up the modern American problem. The government operates on one set of rules, hides it from the regular citizenry, and enforces a different set of rules on businesses and families.

No such system has ever remained free.

This is already extracting a terrible toll from our economy. As Ferguson put it:

“In a 2011 survey, [Michael] Porter and his colleagues asked [Harvard Business School] alumni about 607 instances of decisions on whether or not to offshore operations. The United States retained the business in just ninety-six cases (16 percent) and lost it in all the rest.

“Asked why they favored foreign locations, the respondents listed the areas where they saw the U.S. falling further behind the rest of the world. The top ten reasons included:

1. the effectiveness of the political system
2. the complexity of the tax code
3. regulation
4. the efficiency of the legal framework
5. flexibility in hiring and firing.”

In short, a number of other countries have more economic freedom than the U.S. We have more regulations, a more complex tax code, and other problems that make business abroad more attractive for about 84 percent of businesses deciding whether to stay in America or leave.

The average citizen isn’t aware of this reality, or the fact that corporation after corporation is moving to other countries because of Washington’s policies.

Our freedoms are being lost, as business leaders see every day. Yet it continues to happen, and most Americans simply don’t realize it. Nor do they realize how much this hurts our economy and the pocketbooks of U.S. families.

As regulations increase, making it harder and harder for businesses to make a profit, more jobs, capital, and corporations are leaving. The American Dream is declining day after day, right in front of our noses.

For most Americans, the only solution in mind is to elect better government officials. But this hasn’t fixed the problem yet — not by a long shot. The problem gets worse (government spending and regulations increase) whichever party inhabits the White House.

Some other solution is needed, and it will require a return to good, old-fashioned American initiative and innovation — from regular people, not government. Yes, the government makes this more difficult with nearly every passing regulation, but freedom is worth overcoming it anyway.

If we rekindle the American spirit of entrepreneurialism in the next few years, this is a battle we can win. Nothing else will fix the problem.

What are you doing to promote, spread, and teach entrepreneurialism?

Oliver DeMille is the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling co-author of LeaderShift: A Call for Americans to Finally Stand Up and Lead, the co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd.

Among many other works, he is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, The Coming Aristocracy, and FreedomShift: 3 Choices to Reclaim America’s Destiny.

Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.

Category : Blog &Business &Citizenship &Economics &Entrepreneurship &Government

Why Freedom is Losing: The Battle for Our Future

February 18th, 2014 // 5:24 pm @ Oliver DeMille

De Jouvenel said it all in one profound paragraph:

“From the twelfth to the eighteenth century governmental authority grew continuously. The process was understood by all who saw it happening; it stirred them to incessant protest and…reaction. In later times its growth has continued at an accelerated pace…And now we no longer understand the process, we no longer protest, we no longer react. This quiescence of ours is a new thing, for which Power has to thank the smoke-screen in which it has wrapped itself…Masked in anonymity, it claims to have no existence of its own, and to be but the impersonal and passionless instrument of the general will.”

Let’s break this down, point by point, to understand it better:

• “From the twelfth to the eighteenth century governmental authority grew continuously. The process was understood by all who saw it happening; it stirred them to incessant protest and…reaction.”

As kings, rulers, and aristocratic upper classes took more and more power to themselves, and increasingly more over the regular people, the regular people saw what was happening and tried to stop it.

This culminated in the American Revolution and French Revolution, which happened within a few years of each other.

The American Revolution focused on replacing the old monarchial-aristocracy with a new, constitutionally established government of freedom for all classes. In contrast, the French Revolution emphasized killing off the old — literally executing royals and aristocrats in the hope that with their demise the regular people would gain liberty.

The American method quickly proved more effective in promoting freedom.

• “In later times its growth has continued at an accelerated pace.”

Today’s regular citizen has less power than people did even a few generations ago, and our grandchildren will have even less — unless something changes very soon.

• “And now we no longer understand the process, we no longer protest, we no longer react. This quiescence of ours is a new thing, for which Power has to thank the smoke-screen in which it has wrapped itself…Masked in anonymity, it claims to have no existence of its own, and to be but the impersonal and passionless instrument of the general will.”

When those increasing their power were kings and aristocracies, the regular people knew what was happening.

Today, when the new ruling class is a nameless, faceless, unknown elite, the regular people do nothing. They don’t know who is taking away their freedoms, or what to do about it.

Yet power is being lost by the regular people — and gained by the ruling elite — at higher rates than ever before. The gap between the 90 percent and the 10 percent is drastically increasing, but not nearly as much as the gap between the 10 percent and the 1 percent. In fact, the power and wealth gap between the 1 percent and the .1 percent is widening even more rapidly than the others.

If current trends continue, a tiny, ultra-powerful elite will rule our formerly free nations in a way never known before in history — and hardly anyone knows who the new rulers are. They rule by policy, influence, spin, currency transfers, behind the scenes. But their power is still growing.

De Jouvenel wrote of this in 1945, and today the power of this ruling elite only increases. In the conclusion to his great book, On Power, he warned:

“We are the witnesses of a fundamental transformation of society, of a crowning expansion of power…A beneficent authority will watch over every man from the cradle to the grave…controlling his personal development and orienting him towards the most appropriate use of his faculties.

“By a necessary corollary, this authority will be the disposer of society’s entire resources, with a view to getting from them the highest possible return…Power takes over…the whole business of public and private happiness and…all possessions, all productive energies, and all liberties should be handed over to it…The business is one of setting up an immense patriarchy, or…a matriarchy, since we are now told that collective authority should be animated by maternal instincts.”

Today’s Americans are the recipients of this prophecy come true. Today’s newspaper of record, The New York Times, announces that the new “Health Care Law May Result in 2 Million Fewer Full-Time Workers.”

Because Obamacare requires much higher costs for employers to maintain full-time employees, there is a nationwide trend to downsizing employee workweeks. People are supposed to tighten their belts, make do on less income, and pay higher taxes. This is a massive shifting point for the economy.

Many corporations are avoiding the increased taxes and health care costs by moving their operations offshore, to other nations, citing less regulation and more business-friendly tax codes. It’s hard to blame them for seeking greener pastures and shores with more freedom.

Families that were once supported by one wage earner now can’t make ends meet with the incomes of both parents — so they go deeper into debt.

The American Dream is dying.

A new ruling class is rising behind the scenes.

A different future — a lowering standard of living — awaits our children and grandchildren.

Unless something changes.

Regular Americans walk past dusty books on shelves (full of real solutions for our current national problems), click on the television, and settle in for an evening of entertainment…

Somewhere there is a fading memory…of fiddling while Rome burns.

Oliver DeMille is the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling co-author of LeaderShift: A Call for Americans to Finally Stand Up and Lead, the co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd.

Among many other works, he is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, The Coming Aristocracy, and FreedomShift: 3 Choices to Reclaim America’s Destiny.

Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.

Category : Aristocracy &Blog &Education &Government &History &Liberty &Politics &Statesmanship

Obamacare is a Disaster

February 15th, 2014 // 10:00 am @ Oliver DeMille

Category : Blog &Economics &Education &Generations &Government &Politics