Worldly Philosophers

@CatoInstitute has recently had a number of tweets related to socialism, collectivism, and public intellectuals.

I Googled “Worldly Philosophers” and came up with the book by Robert L. Heilbroner and his Wikipedia entry.

My first major professor at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, Myron L. Good, said, “If you are not a Liberal when you are young, you have no heart; if you are not a Conservative when you are old, you have no head.”

Charles Krauthammer started as a liberal.  Over three decades, he evolved into “the most influential conservative commentator.”  In his book, THINGS THAT MATTER, I counted 88 entries. The book’s subtitle is “Three Decades of Passions, Pastimes and Politics.”  The population should be of the order of 3x10x50 = 1500.  88/1500 = 0.058666667.  The first decade might be sparse.  88/1000 = .08800.  So Krauthammer’s Things That Matter consisted of 5 to 9 percent of his Things.

Krauthammer’s book contains “A WORD ABOUT ORGANIZATION AND METHOD”.  I wish all commentators had to subscribe to Krauthammer’s practice of preparation.

Wikipedia says Robert L. Heilbroner was an outspoken socialist for nearly his entire career.    However, Heilbroner famously wrote in a 1989 New Yorker article prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union:

"Less than 75 years after it officially began, the contest between capitalism and socialism is over: capitalism has won... Capitalism organizes the material affairs of humankind more satisfactorily than socialism."

He further wrote in Dissent in 1992 that "capitalism has been as unmistakable a success as socialism has been a failure" and complimented Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, and Ludwig von Mises on their insistence of the free market's superiority.

Heilbroner emphasized that "democratic liberties have not yet appeared, except fleetingly, in any nation that has declared itself to be fundamentally anticapitalist."  However, his preferred capitalist model was the highly redistributionist welfare states of Scandinavia; he stated that his model society was "a slightly idealized Sweden."

Worldly philosophers who never leave the academy never grow old.

Russian Collusion vs #FakeNews

Has this run its course?

Rusian Collusion

Does not exist.

The Economist View

In 1976, I completed working on the GAMO contract and spent about a year as Joe Braddock’s C3 expert in the BDM “tank”.  [The BDM tank had all the protection Hillary’s e-mails should have had.]

I didn’t know what a C3 expert was but I learned a lot about Soviet/Warsaw Pact command and control.  Bill Bell (a bagpipe player) was also in the tank along with Bernie Dunn [the D of BDM].  BDM had an exercise support contract in California.  Dan McDonald [the M of BDM] was assigned there but I met him once at the coffee pot in the tank.

The Soviets were described as “applying science to command and control.”  I came to realize that the Soviets were “taking the system approach to command and control.”  This looks good from the macroeconomic perspective expected of The Economist.  A lot of academics seem to fall for the seduction of “the optimal approach” frequently associated with socialism/communism.

American Exceptionalism was supposed to include our command and control system can cope with the situation as it evolves.  All we have to do it is get the Soviets out of their pre-planned operations.  Coping with the situation “as it evolves” is limited to the Army command and control paradigm.  The Marines have to report to the Navy.  The Navy reports to no one after the ship leaves the port.  The Air Force is very control oriented.  They are the most like the Soviets.

Decentralized Command and Control

The US Army and the Tenth Amendment have something in common.  They both are consistent with a decentralized command and control architecture.

The Russians, the Democrats, and the US Air Force are not known for decentralized command and control.  The Joint Operational Task known as Ship to Shore movement is high risk and not considered an exemplar of decentralized command and control.

It is a part of the American Exceptionalism Narrative that US Forces are superior because each individual is capable of leading the group remaining.

The opposite of decentralized command and control is centralized command and control.  Centralized command and control is associated with Specified Commands (and in my view, the US Air Force).

Specified Command is defined at http://www.militaryfactory.com/dictionary/military-terms-defined.asp?term_id=5010 as:

A command that has a broad, continuing mission, normally functional, and is established and so designated by the President through the Secretary of Defense with the advice and assistance of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It normally is composed of forces from a single Military Department. Also called specified combatant command. (JP 5-0)

A Unified Command is defined as:

A command with a broad continuing mission under a single commander and composed of significant assigned components of two or more Military Departments that is established and so designated by the President, through the Secretary of Defense with the advice and assistance of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Also called unified combatant command. See also combatant command; subordinate unified command. (JP 3-31)

General Purpose forces must deal with the situation as it is.

Outside the Beltway

A few weeks ago Gloria Borger on CNN said “We don’t want to re-litigate that.”  At the time I thought some of us do.

I moved inside the Beltway in 1968.  I came from Madison, Wisconsin, a liberal city in a conservative state.  I remember thinking of Alexandria, Virginia, as the location where a member of the American Nazi party lived.

I moved outside the beltway in 1997.  With the Monica Lewinski scandal and Bush vs Gore in 2000, my ABC Nightly News was almost the same as when I was inside the Beltway.

Outside the Beltway has two parts

:

1.       Inside the US

2.       Outside the US

Inside the US/Outside the Beltway may have litigated along with Inside the Beltway.  Some people, particularly conservatives, may well want to re-litigate lots of stuff.

Outside the US/Outside the Beltway did not litigate along with Inside the Beltway.  Inside the Beltway people tend to forget that.

Meaning Matters More

The Media elite claim "words matter".  My lawyer says that the other side's closing is "just words it is not evidence."  My thinking about that is that the Court's orders are "just words" also.

The Candy Crowley/CNN fact check debate issue is Crowley’s decision to do a bit of on-the-spot fact-checking of Mitt Romney’s contention that President Obama didn’t acknowledge an “act of terror” in Benghazi, Libya, until 14 days after the Sept. 11 attack.

I reviewed the Washington Post article a Google search presented.

I agree with the Twitter comment included at the end of the article:

To say that President Obama called the Libya Attack an act of terrorism on September 12th on the basis of the transcript is like saying that the Gettysburg Address is about baseball because it contains the word score.

My reading of the transcript is that Obama did not call the Benghazi incident an “act of terrorism” in his Rose Garden speech on September 12.  It would have been improper for him to have done this so soon.  Candy Crowley should have known that.  “Terror” does occur in the transcript.  Words matter.  Meaning matters more.  “Terrorism” does not occur.

Words matter but meaning matters more.