2016 U.S. Presidential Election and the Future of the West

The future of the United States and the future of the entire Western world are at stake with the U.S. presidential election outcome. The presidency of the incumbent B. Obama has been a sham throughout. A notorious liar (you can keep your doctor; Syrian red line; Russia's aggressions), political dilettante (caused unparalleled domestic and international damage), and incorrigible partisan politician (intolerant left-wing ideologue), he divided the country culturally as it has probably never been the case since the Vietnam War.

Although being a Democrat, he has persecuted a neo-conservative foreign policy of interventionism, supported by Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State and quite a few out-of-their-minds Republican senators and congress members, like John McCain, Lindsay Graham, Marco Rubio. He urged interventions where none were necessary or legitimate, which caused chaos in Libya, Syria, and Iraq, fostered the emergence of ISIS, and further deteriorated relations with Russia and Europe.

At this juncture, toward the end of Obama's tenure, one can predict that Hillary Clinton as president would continue the pernicious path of US-American politics, both domestically and internationally. Her Supreme Court judges' appointments would push American society's cultural decline and moral nihilism further. Indifferent immigration and open borders will advance the dissolution of the proper structure of a healthy nation-state as the only guarantor for sound legal and social policies.  Europe will be brought closer to a military conflict with Russia by advancing the destructive policies of NATO in Eastern Europe and the Baltic States and American power projection into the South China Sea. It is to expect that the overstretch of U.S. foreign policy and the American military forces will continue and drive Russia, China, and Iran closer together to ally against what they rightfully may consider excessive imperialism.

As the White House run unfolded, there was one candidate who gave hope that if he got elected, we could expect an overdue turn-around of U.S. policies; Rand Paul. With his dropping out, only one candidate remains, who, despite his deficits, could ensure us of policies that might save the U.S. and the West if it is not already much too late. This candidate is Donald Trump.

Yet, the moral nihilism that has taken hold in American politics might make his success impossible. The way his opponents and even members of his party treated him was so shameful that one has to ask if the U.S. has already degenerated into a banana republic. The dumbing down of the U.S. and its citizens has dwindled to an alarming low. Driven to accept the ideology of affirmative action and political correctness, neither reality nor truth matter anymore. Despite his first term's dismal record, the American people reelected a half-black guy because of the color of his skin and the fact that he carried a "D" in front of his name. The next president might be elected because of her gender and having a "D" in front of her name.

If that happens, the U.S., as well as the West, will be finished.

Is the U.S. turning into an "Evil Empire"?

In transparent and objective consideration, there can be no doubt that the creation of ISIS, the destruction of Libya, the devastation of Syria, the destabilization of Ukraine, and the deterioration of the relationship with Russia owe to the atrocious foreign policy of the U.S. under the incumbent administration of Barack Obama. While some politicians and pundits seem to be wiser in hindsight and acknowledge the committed blunders, others remain stubborn and unconvinced. Of course, among the latter, Mr. Obama himself, who diverts from his dismal record on foreign affairs by focusing on subordinate problems like global warming and gun control. 

During these disastrous policy decisions, in my blog entries of 2011 (Libya) and 2013 (Syria), I warned against supporting violent and extremist insurgent movements while letting down established heads of state and governing political administrations. Here is what I wrote in August of 2014 after ISIS appeared on the scene and introduced a new concept of radicalized warfare: "If further damage to global affairs ought to be prevented, a swift turnaround is needed to bring American (and Transatlantic, for that matter) foreign policy to its senses. Given Mr. Obama's stubbornness, hubris, and conceitedness, there is little hope things will get better in the two years he has left in office, unless his ignorance and ideological prejudice will be reined in by the Senate, by Congress, and by a significant majority of the American public."

 

This swift turnaround in American foreign policy did not occur; instead, the administration doubled down on its failed policies, heavily protected by the bulk of the mainstream media and supported by significant representatives of the Republican Party in both Senate and Congress. The ever more hardening and downright ridiculous stance of senators John McCain, Marco Rubio, and Lindsey Graham should disqualify them for serious foreign affairs business forever. In the place of substantial critique and the building up of public pressure on the Obama administration to reconsider their approach to world affairs, the pernicious propaganda against Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin continued and intensified. In depicting Assad as a murderous tyrant and "New Hitler" of the Middle East, the Obama administration propagated regime change under the pretense that Assad had used weapons of mass destruction on his people. The media could only present questionable evidence that the Syrian people needed liberation from their oppressive government and president. Barely a critical word mentioned on the murderous and illegitimate conglomerate of insurgents, who even received financial and material support. 

The Pax Americana the U.S. attempted to impose upon a large part of the world turned out to be an utter failure. But what to do about the chaos in the Middle East, large sections of Africa, the Caucasus, Russia relations, and China? The candidates lining up for the presidential elections do not raise much hope. Whoever watched the recent debates of Republican presidential candidates from an international security and foreign policy standpoint must have been terrified! Among the candidates, the only exception to the incumbent administration's hawkish policy against ISIS was Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, who just suspended his campaign and dropped out of the race. The polls' leading candidates - Cruz, Rubio, and even Trump - all espouse a somewhat interventionist stance. With differences in detail, they seem to be willing to continue the past and present Obama policies. 

Who and what could bring the United States to its senses? At long last, who will reject the pernicious post-Cold War foreign policy approach to shape international affairs and implement a global security order exclusively according to American principles and interests? And in the context of the ongoing race for the White House: Where is a president who is not a petty partisan politician, but rather a statesman, acknowledging the legitimate national interests of other global players and, above all, of his country's European allies?

If the U.S. is not able to steady itself from within, it will be on its way to become in reality what the headline formulated as a question. The result most likely being that more or less the entire world will eventually unite to bring down the imperialist Leviathan.

Guns in Private Hands - What to Do With the Second Amendment?

One major characteristic of our open societies, organized along with the principle of separation of powers, is the monopolization of force. In essence, this means that the individual citizen foregoes his/her natural right to use their physical strength to establish or upkeep and restore justice. Citizens transfer this responsibility to the enforcement authorities of the State, tasked to protect citizens and preserve and restore justice wherever and whenever required.

Every developed nation establishes a legal order that is also just as it allows for individual freedom and personal responsibility. It opens its monopoly of force toward its citizens only to a clearly defined extent. The State does this in acknowledgment of the fact that no monopoly of power can ever be absolute. Potential situations for individual citizens might occur. At least temporarily and specifically in the initial stages of threat and danger, the monopoly of force is not immediately present to protect and prevent harm from taking place. The possibility of such situations is why a (Nation-) States' monopoly of force restricts itself and allows for individual (self-) defense in clearly limited circumstances.

Legitimate and well-informed governments are aware that the right to self-defense and gun ownership, within clearly prescribed confines, fosters and consolidates the monopoly of force. The monopoly of arms and private gun ownership provides a synthesis for a nation's most efficient internal safety and security. The United States Constitution offers proper evidence for this claim to ensure the military forces' effectiveness was one objective the framers of the U.S. Constitution had in mind. The constitutional intent to provide for "a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State," together with the vastness of the country and the remoteness of specific areas and settlements provided for generous authorization as well as demand to have firearms in the hands of private citizens ever since the inception of the republic.
 
Beyond the U.S., history proves that the more totalitarian a society becomes, the more restricted is the right to self-defense and the right to bear arms. There were no such laws, for instance, in the Soviet Union or Hitler Germany.

It appears that with the infiltration of radical elements of Islamism by migration as well as the potential threats arising from homegrown terrorism, the desire to own guns and enable themselves to self-defense is significantly increasing among citizens not only in the United States but also in Europe. The rising numbers of applicants for gun ownership on both sides of the Atlantic speak volumes and give testimony to that fact.

While the enforcement of existing gun legislation and every measure conceivable to prevent unjustified use of weapons from happening ought to be supported, individual politicians and political organizations' campaign to restrict gun ownership to the extent even of confiscating guns is misguided. It is an ideologically motivated move that blames radical terrorist violence on wrong causes and expects remedy from ill-conceived measures.

I've made clear throughout my blog entries that there will never be good practice without good theory. If decision-makers have no clue about the structures and intrinsic designs that underlie the complex challenges we face in our political life, we can never expect anything profound in their policies and approaches to solutions. Procedures will be a permanent process of trial and error and will always be reactive, constantly corrected after and by the fact, after making some new damaging experience. One good example of this is the current challenge of radical Islam in the wake of the San Bernadino massacre. The non-existent strategy against Islamism and radical exponents of it at home seem to exhaust itself in the tiring repetitive claim for stricter gun laws. It is interesting to observe how the unfolding of a painful reality pushes politicians toward more meaningful and proper policies, step by step leaving behind ideological and partisan prejudice. After the San Bernadino incident, everybody could watch Mr. Obama's embarrassing attempt to talk himself out of his misjudgment and to justify his doubling down on the failed policies that led to such catastrophes.

In the end, hopefully, he, as well as many others, will arrive at efficient policy arrangements an excellent theoretical foundation in human and political affairs would have suggested to them in the first place.

Immigration - US and Europe Governed by Lunacy

If one wants to find evidence for the headline's adequacy, one only has to look at the issue of immigration on both sides of the Atlantic ocean. Buried under would-be compassion and alleged humaneness, the self-destruction of Western culture is pushed forward at a mind-boggling pace. 

Can Europe Survive This Invasion? Asks Pat Buchanan in a column of November 9th, pointing out that the wave of immigrants released on Europe are not Christians, but Arabs, Africans, and Muslims. If the E.U. keeps its borders open, the immigration of hundreds of thousands per year will alter European civilization's face, if not destroy it. As far as the U.S. is concerned, the immigrants (ab)using the reckless immigration policy of the current administration come with an increasing tendency from different cultures and religions.

What underlies these suicidal tendencies is the increasing disregard for the political's ontological principles - to paraphrase the title of Carl Schmitt's major work. The real insanity has to be seen in the softening, if not negation of the significant parameters - territory, citizens, legal order - of the nation-state, combined and held together by a separation of powers and a monopolization of force, as one of the most outstanding political achievements of occidental rationalism. While globalist tendencies in communication and commerce transcend the nation-state's sovereignty, the significance of borders and a clear legal demarcation between citizens and non-citizens by way of immigration legislation is indispensable for the cohesion of societies that determine and organize themselves within the confines of the nation-state concept.

It is worth noting that, although the constitutional dimension of separation of powers is not necessarily equally developed and embraced everywhere, the nation-state concept has been victorious throughout the world. Even Islamic societies organized themselves following the western model and established nation-states, by which they conduct their domestic and international relations. As such, they are present at the United Nations or any other international forum for that matter. 

The western world's pernicious tendency to self-destruct appears to be driven by egalitarianism and democratic utopianism. But to renounce the great past of its history of ideas will come at the cost of its demise. In a blog I wrote back in 2010 (https://www.edwinseditorial.com/2010/08/right-becomes-wrong-arizona-immigration.html), on the occasion of a regretful decision of a federal judge to turn down a specific immigration law in Arizona, I commented in-depth on the difference of what I termed the traditional versus the cosmopolitan approach in politics. 

The misunderstanding, if not total ignorance, regarding the vital ontological implications of human existence, undoubtedly result of inadequate socialization and education of elites as well as the public, by and large, is to be blamed for the terrible and highly damaging domestic as well as foreign policies carried out by most political entities of the West in recent decades.

Once the 'Political' is no longer considered based on human affairs' inner ontological conditions but is considered something to be arbitrarily constructed, we reach the state of delusion and ignorance that characterizes the policies of current political administrations in both the U.S. and Europe. 

I have provided reflections on Western society's philosophical challenges in a comprehensive essay entitled "Asymmetry and Western Society - Culture-Critical Reflections," in Schroefl/Cox/Pankratz, Winning the Asymmetric War, Peter Lang Publishers, Frankfurt 2009, pp. 23-34.)

It is high time to counter the suicidal tendencies as displayed in the United States and the European Union's immigration policies. The survival of Western Civilization, on the whole, is at stake.

Republicans And The-End-Justifes-The-Means in Politics

The damage the Republican party has done to itself by following the-end-justifies-the-means principle throughout speaker Boehner's tenure is unparalleled. In possession of the biggest majority since 1929, they succumbed to the Marxist policies of Barack Obama, undoubtedly the worst and politically and culturally most damaging president we all have seen and will ever see in our lifetime. The Republicans failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act, they didn't defund Planned Parenthood, and they let Obama get away with his destructive immigration policies. In fear of being blamed for government shutdowns, they avoided them, rather than going all the way and making clear to the public that the blame is on the dogmatically progressive president. 

In November 2013, I published an essay on the troublesome predominance of the ends-justifies-the-means approach in politics (https://www.edwinseditorial.com/2013/11/the-end-justifies-means-but-one.html). At the time, a host of domestic and international issues provided the profound background to analyze the damaging effects of a mere consequentialist approach in political decision-making. 

 

The performance of the Republican Party of the Congress since their landslide win in the Congressional Elections in 2014 adds a new chapter to the book of consequentialist horror. Not even conservatives comprehend that any policy disregarding the principles of righteousness and justice and aims exclusively at temporary opportunistic expediency is doomed to fail in the medium and long term. 

  

This treacherous path to yield and surrender principles the political right in this country is supposed to stand for appears to be continued with the election of Rep. Paul Ryan as the successor to John Boehner. Ryan has a reputation for being pro-amnesty and in favor of quite open borders. His support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (T.T.P.) trade deal, which has been coined "Obamatrade' by hardcore Republicans, is not popular in many quarters of his party. His softness and personal tendency to surrender became visible in his vice presidential debate against Joe Biden when Ryan was unable to rein in the hysterically laughing Biden, losing a TV-debate he would otherwise have won on conceptual grounds. 

The appointment of Paul Ryan as the new speaker of the house heralds the continuation of the unfortunate course of consequentialist politics most likely pursued by the Republican party. The most alerting reason Ryan was not the right choice derives from the fact that Barack Obama and many in the Democratic caucus welcome his appointment. They believe that Paul Ryan will represent that compliant and accommodating counterpart they are used to from the days of Speaker Boehner. 

But let's hope they are wrong and, if Paul Ryan is elected new speaker, he will remind himself of the real values his party stands for, steer a more proper course, and takes the lessons from his poor debate performance into consideration.

U.S. Political System in Process of Degeneration

As the pundits on all major news outlets are surmising over who won the first Democratic Presidential Debate on CNN, I heard nobody mention the only real loser of that debate - the American political system and, therefore, the American people.

The decisive moment happened even before the candidates were introduced and entered the stage. At the outset, Barack Obama addressed the Democratic candidates and the viewers in a taped video message, advising them to work and fight hard to keep the White House in 2016. Mind you, if a Head of State, who has to be the leader of all people, addresses only the candidates of his political party, something is seriously wrong. It was a clear sign that the United States' political system degenerates ever more into a caricature of what it is supposed to be.
   
When it comes to the institutional pillars and the bipartisan principles of the political system he is constitutionally bound to serve, a president ought to rise above party politics and exercise some measure of political neutrality that his office demands. In other words, if Obama addressed both Democratic and Republican candidates, encouraging a fair and constructive race for the presidential elections in 2016, he would raise respect for the office he is holding. To abuse a video message before the debate of Democratic candidates for cheap partisan propaganda is repulsive.

But this is but one manifestation of the decline of the political culture in the U.S., besides the constant lying of even the highest political representatives, the shirking of responsibility for policy failures, and the polarization between political forces to the degree of outright hatred and attempted annihilation.

That the political system in the U. S. is degenerating into the lows of a Banana Republic is no longer an unfounded assumption. To initiate a swift turnaround is the call of the hour.

Can A Muslim Be President? Why Dr. Ben Carson Was Right

Dr. Ben Carson got caught off guard when he stated in an interview that he couldn't possibly envisage a Muslim exercising the office of the president of the U.S. Yet, in principle, his answer was right on. The outcry in American-Muslim and progressive quarters demonstrates once again the want for proper erudition on significant subject matters of political and cultural affairs in this country. 

Islam's limited appeal to open and democratic societies stem from the absence of a dogma separating religion from State. What is still missing in the Muslim creed is something similar to the two-swords or two-kingdoms doctrine that Christendom has articulated, reaching back to St. Augustine and his De Civitate Dei. 

When Augustine distinguished the Civitas Dei, the City of God, and the Civitas Terrena, the City of Men, or the Earthly City, he laid the foundation for the separation of Church and State.  By separating the heavenly and spiritual realm from the temporal earthly domain, Augustine paved the way for developing the dualist Christian doctrine that sees the Church control the spiritual kingdom, whereas, in contrast, the State is in charge of worldly affairs. While the spiritual realm stands hierarchically higher and allows the Church to influence politics and societal matters, the doctrine excludes the City of God's enforcement upon the City of Men. In other words, a Christian theocracy would collide with the dogmatic principles of the religion itself.  The wisdom of this corresponds with Jesus' sayings, "My kingdom is not of this world" (as stated in John 18:36) and "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's" (Matthew 22:21). On the basic tenet that the Kingdom of God awaits the Christian believer in a different world, one of divine and spiritual nature, it is proper and suitable to establish and submit to earthly authorities in Man's worldly existence. In the vein of this accepted wisdom of western thinking, the concept of the nation-state evolved and spread across the globe, with its original idea of a separation of powers and monopolization of force by secular political entities.
 
Unlike Christianity, Islam does not separate religion from politics. Attempts to reconcile Islamic tenets with secular governance are barely visible. Sharia law is prevalent, which means, strictly speaking, that divine law imposes upon earthly conditions. Jurisprudence in Islam is merely the expansion and application of Sharia onto worldly circumstances. In other words, in its most serious interpretation, Islam is a religion that aims to manifest God's kingdom in the realm of men. The objective is to establish the Ummah, the community of the true believers, of all Muslim people, sharing the same ideology, culture, and beliefs, dictated and held together by (divine) Sharia law. 

Islam must provide a straightforward solution to the separation of Church and State, religion and politics, a division between the ecclesiastical and civil sphere, and the divine and secular realms. Until accomplished, any representative of this religion will unavoidably be in collision with either his/her Muslim belief system or the political environment of a Christian-based society in which he/she wants to live. 

This circumstance does not impair or curtail religious freedom that Christian societies usually grant other faiths by allowing them the free exercise of their religion. As shown, the restriction to hold individual political offices emerges from the dogma of Islam's religion itself. 

However, particularly concerning the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, the discussed aspect highlights the general problem of equal treatment of all religions in a political system based on Christianity's intellectual, cultural, and social heritage.  The question is how this heritage, as it reflects itself in the customs, laws, and cultural configurations of this very society, be upheld if religions whose traditions and spiritual principles are in many respects irreconcilable with the Christian host environment are considered equal? 

The question directed at Dr. Ben Carson could ensue consequences and entail a public debate that might lead far beyond the aspect of whether or not a Muslim could become president of the United States of America. It brings to the fore a weakness in the First Amendment that the founders didn't foresee when they adopted this amendment on December 15, 1791. 

We have to assume that in those early years of the new republic, the legislators could not have possibly anticipated that the Christian roots of this new nation would ever be discredited or put in doubt. And neither that somebody could seriously raise a question of the kind directed at Dr. Carson.