How to Resolve the North Korea Crisis!

When back in the days of President Jimmy Carter, the U.S. gave North Korea technology for nuclear reactors and a few billion bucks on top of it, only gullible liberals believed that the regime would use atomic capability only for peaceful purposes.

Every serious scholar and student of international relations, then as well as today, knows that nuclear armament – even when it’s only a few warheads – is the big equalizer in terms of national security. It balances out any inferiority in terms of conventional armed forces, size of the country, demographics, and economic capacity. During the roughly forty years of the Cold War, it was the paradox of nuclear deterrence and the so aptly abbreviated (MAD) Mutually Assured Destruction that prevented any severe conventional wars from breaking out. The likelihood of any conflict escalating to the level of nuclear warfare reduced the chances for a conventional war on a larger scale.

Given the historically burdened ideological antagonism toward the West, it was to expect that North Korea would strive to become a nuclear power at all cost – even at the expense of lying to treaty partners and the international community and making pledges it never intended to keep. After all the leniency and unsuccessful attempts at appeasement under Carter in the 1970ies, Clinton in the 1990ies, and the do-nothing strategy of so-called strategic patience under Obama, it is now too late to prevent North Korea from becoming a nuclear power, albeit it a minor one.

It appears that we have somehow returned to the conditions that dominated a particular dimension of international relations during the Cold War, which means the hysteria on the part of the Strategic Community in the U.S. is unwarranted – and so is President Trump’s martial rhetoric.

Against the backdrop of the U.S.’ unmatched military means in terms of global power projection and nuclear capabilities, I propose a two-tier solution to resolve the conflict with North Korea. These measures would allow avoiding further escalation and avert unnecessary distress for international relations and potentially affected populations:

1. The stratagem of ‘Deterrence by Denial’ has to be applied by implementing all capabilities for missile defense and interception on the Korean peninsula and all other potential target areas for North Korean ballistic missiles, be it the west coast of the U.S., Guam, or other regions and locales. These aggressive military steps have to join hands with civil defense measures for the protection of populations and vital military and civilian infrastructure that help minimize any damage in the unlikely event of being impacted by the use of weapons of mass destruction.

2. The promise of ‘Annihilation upon 1st Strike’ has to be plausibly and assuredly threatened to the regime in North Korea. The U.S. must unmistakably convey through diplomatic channels and public discourse that it does not intend to use nuclear weapons against North Korea first. However, it will annihilate North Korea if North Korea uses nuclear weapons against the U.S. or any of its allies. Despite its seemingly irrational rhetoric, the regime of Kim Jong Un will not invite destruction upon themselves and their country.

There is no need for preemptive strikes to take out North Korean weaponry or delivery systems. The cost in human lives would be too high, total success uncertain, and retaliation most probable. If it comes to this, the U.S. and the rest of the world would be able to live with the fact that North Korea and its autocratic regime avail over some nuclear armament and feel powerful and on level par with other nuclear-armed nations around the world. However, like all the others, it will be condemned never to use them unless they want to bring Armageddon over their people.

While implementing this strategy and defusing the danger of thermonuclear, all diplomatic and other means of conflict resolution and appeasement can and should be used to keep the radical North Korean regime in check and further neutralize the threat.

Dealing with North Korea in the proposed way should usher the United States into a long-overdue new era of measured foreign affairs and national security policy that relinquishes the overly self-centered geostrategic arrogance and hubris of the past two decades.

A Sick Republic! (Yeah, dude, I’m talking about the U.S.)

While still claiming strategic superiority in global relations backed up by her unmatched military power, the US' political bankruptcy becomes ever more visible and undeniable. In terms of foreign affairs and international relations, the US, by desperately trying to keep its position as the sole superpower, devastated the world with its support of terrorists, interventions for regime change, and its irrational and unwarranted stance vis-à-vis the Russian Federation. Yet, foreign affairs blunder doesn't make for a sick republic. The sickness factor lies within. 

 

In domestic terms, the US society appears to have degenerated into what the ancients called an Ochlocracy, a mob reign, the intimidation of government and legitimate authorities by a specific group of people. Stunning in the US American case is that this authoritarian mob is not merely recruited from vulgar, lower-class people of the electorate, but recruits itself from all society's strata. It is made up and even led and represented by elected officials of the Democratic Party, supported by a significant number of neoconservatives, the central part of the mainstream media, and exponents of academia and the world of arts and culture. A clear indication that ill-education knows no bounds. And neither does lousy morality. 

 

The level of political illiteracy and moral inferiority is unparalleled in Western civilization's recent history. The leftist mob's machinations to reject and potentially overturn the recent presidential election results are unprecedented. Any healthy level of antagonism appears to have vanished that usually characterizes the political struggle in open societies. 

 

The intrinsic concept of the Political, namely to consider the opponent as a legitimate force that needs to be defeated for political gain and governing power, but not physically terminated, is in danger. When the political's essential character gets lost, it threatens social stability and may lead to violence and potentially to civil war. 

Let's identify and explain the significant determinants of this sick republic. I shall emphasize three essential subject matters and remedies described before a somewhat optimistic outlook may conclude this exposition. 

 

First: The deranged political mind! Large parts of the US society have forgotten or intentionally negate the prime feature of democracies, namely that governing regimes can change due to the people's decision in periodic elections. 

 

Significant numbers of the populace have lost any respect for governmental institutions, including and predominantly the presidency. The minimal deference to a governmental authority, necessary for a working political system, is missing, including disregarding the recent presidential elections' outcome. Their electoral loss so mortifies the US's political left that they are consumed by a sheer unlimited sense of hatred and destructiveness. 

 

Violence in the streets, open calls for assassination, utter baseness in language, and destructive facts dominate the reportage fabricated in the editorial offices of print and electronic media. For the most part, news outlets are no longer the medium to communicate factual information between government and people. Instead, in unprecedented fashion, they have turned themselves into distortion and ideological agitation instruments. 

 

Irrespective of political orientation, never before had a president spend his first few months in office to such a degree with his back to the wall, warding off most vicious attacks mostly by tweeting directly to the public, circumventing the largely hostile and dishonest reporting by the media. And never before had a president cope with such a degree of nasty obstructionism from the political opposition.

 

Most commentators consider some of Mr. Trump's tweets' aggressiveness to be irreconcilable with the office's dignity. But this judgment is clearly false and just another attempt to diminish his standing. Proportionality is a principle in self-defense. And self-defense is what the man does as he is reacting to an unparalleled onslaught of denunciation. 

 

The viciousness with which this man and the office he is holding has been and still is being attacked requires proper confrontation and resistance to a degree hitherto unknown. The wrong and evil must never be encouraged by inactivity or misguided leniency. So yes, indeed, Mr. Trump should continue to tweet and give the wrongdoers what they deserve.

  

Solution/Prediction: There is hope that Mr. Trump will prevail. Most of all, the fake media, CNN, MSNBC, New York Times – are virtually imploding. They will have to purge themselves and return to some measure of decency. The same applies to the Democratic Party. The silent majority of the party, which consists of decent citizens just led astray, will have to reign in and bring back sanity to the Senate and Congress's hysterical voices. On attempting to damage Trump, they brought devastation over their political movement. Beyond that, the progressive left, fascist in their strategies and violent in their means, cannot be reasoned. Since they have no arguments that withstand the lessons of history or common sense, they only understand the brutal fact of apparent political, economic, and societal defeat and failure, which has been presented to them and will continue to haunt them. The charlatanry of Mr. Obama, supported by the hardcore political left in this country, has already come to the fore and must be defeated. For, if not, this country will descend into societal chaos and violent civil war. 

Second! The globalism fallacy! The near existential struggle between the globalists and one-world government/open borders factions versus the traditional nation-state and My Country/MyCulture/My Religion First exponents has taken center stage within the US and the European Union but challenges the entire western civilization.

 

As an inheritance from the disastrous Obama presidency, the political left and the entire Democratic Party are in the tank for a globalist utopia, pursued by progressive social and cultural policies, both domestically and internationally.

 

They found their political complement in the failing governing administrations in Germany, France, and the UK. The philosophical illiteracy resting at the bottom of all this globalist nonsense is astounding. A united world republic, a one-government global system, is forever impossible for many ontological and epistemological reasons, not to speak of religion and cultural dimensions. The critical error is confusing truly globalist developments – i.e., in the economy, trade, communication technology – with a profound alteration of the general ontological conditions of physical human coexistence. For the latter by in large remain unchanged, indifferent globalism is probably the most pernicious error in the political thinking of our day and age. 

 

The nation-state (or alliances of nation-states), characterized by separation of powers and monopolization of force, is certainly reduced in its significance and transcended by the impact of globalism. However, it will persist for generations to come as the preeminent model for how people coexist together. A more elaborate blog essay on this specific aspect alone is forthcoming.

Solution/Prediction: The significance and, indeed, indispensability of borders and clear demarcations between citizens and immigrants, in short: healthy nationalism will return to the decision-making bodies of western societies. It will take time and cost a lot of pain and a tremendous waste of resources, as it already has. Still, sanity in the arrangement of human affairs will have to return if Western civilization is supposed to survive. Mr. Trump finds allies in this endeavor within the European Union, where nations like Poland and Hungary have resisted accepting the quotas of Muslim immigration imposed by the European Commission. And they have been successful as the only countries avoiding an internal terrorism problem and a shake-up of their social stability. 

Third: The disastrous foreign affairs paradigm! As the statesman is aware, nothing is more critical for prosperity and domestic stability and security than a comprehensive and meaningful foreign affairs policy that does not exhaust itself in economic profit-making and geopolitical bullying.

 

As I have shown in several of my blog essays over the past years and, alas, have been proven right by how things unfolded, the US's foreign affairs and national security policies have been catastrophic. Aside from individual instances of failure and folly most conspicuously in the general application of a flawed national security paradigm that highly damaged international relations ever since the end of the Cold War, thus roughly in the past quarter-century. The attempted Pax Americana turned out to be an utter failure, brought destabilization and terrorism to Europe, caused endless years of bloodshed and refugee crises in the Middle East, turned established political entities into rogue states, deteriorated political conditions by instigating regime changes and supporting insurgent terrorist movements, and devastated US-Russia relations. 

Solution/Prediction: The first meeting between Presidents Trump and Putin at the G-20 Summit is only a few days away from the time I write these lines. It might turn out to be the most critical meeting of the two Heads of State of these two countries in decades. What Trump has to achieve is of a tall order. In the wake of this meeting, he will have to silence the Russophobe forces in the US government and anti-Russian hawks in the Republican Party. He will have to stop the nonsense of considering Russia an enemy rather than a geopolitical rival who has to be collaborated with as a strategic partner and ally for defeating the global challenge of Islamism and assuring Western survival civilization.

  

It will be a tough challenge, but Mr. Trump needs to overcome the pressure from Congress, Senate, and the bulk of the media and put the US's foreign policy, particularly vis-à-vis Russia, on a new footing. Most problematic in this regard and posing a hurdle hard to overcome is the near-identical stance on foreign affairs espoused by neoconservatives and neoliberals. But President Trump must not fail in this endeavor as a further deterioration of international relations to the point of configuring the stakes for a new global armed conflict would be the result. 

Overall, it is going to be a colossal task for Mr. Trump to cure this republic. 

In his goal-oriented, pragmatic, and non-ideological intuitive way, President Trump has achieved a lot in the first half-year in office. The success goes mostly unnoticed as the media is more focused on character assassination rather than reporting on his accomplishments. But it is a fact that he managed to boost business and economy by decisively reducing regulations and reversing ideologically driven impositions of the former administration. Consumer confidence is up, and unemployment is down, and so is illegal immigration. A decisive improvement of the health care system and massive tax reform is imminent. Christian values are on the rebound, and the reversal of recent years' cultural decline is at least in its initial stages. 

 

What still gives a reason for concern is the president's failure to come through on the campaign promises of correcting the United States' foreign policy – reducing its overseas engagements, ending the meddling in the Middle East and the endless wars, diminishing the imperialist posture in general. Trump's recent trip to the Middle East and the Gulf States appeared to accomplish some improvement in terms of reducing the funding of terrorism and cooperation in defeating ISIS. His upcoming meeting with relevant heads of state such as the President of China and the Prime Minister of Japan, but most of all Russian President Putin, at the G-20 Summit will hopefully bring about solutions regarding the North Korean threat and lay the foundation for a new collaboration with Russia. 

Important days and weeks are lying ahead. We soon should find out if the long-overdue alterations in the United States' foreign affairs posture will occur and whether or not the sick republic has put itself on the road to recovery.

What the Hell is Wrong with President Trump and His Foreign Policy?

Without a doubt, bombing the airfield in Syria and dropping the giant bomb on the I.S. stronghold in Afghanistan demonstrates to the world that with the new President in charge, the game has changed. Trump showed that he cannot be messed with and is determined to lead and to take action.

However, in a time of cyber manipulation, with mainstream media operating as ideological propaganda tools and politics deteriorating into a madhouse of hateful obstructionism and partisan malice, reality can only be grasped by sound intuition good judgment in combination with inclusive and critical reflection. 

The so-called facts presented by news outlets, intelligence services, and congressional investigative boards too often make up facts, intentionally distort, and tailor them to political expediency. Utilitarian convenience has created a climate that condones lying and cheating, the shirking of accountability, and the denunciation and demonization of political opponents, including their opinions. Certain media outlets, the CIA, the FBI, have all lost their credibility. Nothing they present can be taken cum grano salis anymore. The primary requirement for professionally operating government organizations - political impartiality and neutrality - is no longer a given. No doubt, in many respects, the political culture in the U.S. has deteriorated to alarming lows. 

In light of all this, one has to ask who is advising President Trump and what happened to Trump's pragmatic judgment? Rhetorical excellence is, for the most part, natural talent, and Trump's plain and straightforward language might serve him well in certain respects. But how is it possible that a sitting president calls the President of another country an animal and a butcher? Somebody should advise Mr. Trump that if he makes such statements, they ought to be put in a conditional form: "If President Assad has personally ordered the gas attack, we would certainly have to consider him to be a merciless butcher, a vile individual?" 

Yet, there is no evidence that Assad ordered the use of chemical weapons. There is not even clear evidence that Syrian government troops used those weapons. Instead, every reasonable calculus points to the fact that the rebels exploited an air attack by a Syrian government fighter jet to release chemical substances themselves to blame the government and, at the eleventh hour, reverse the fortunes of war. Everybody knew that the government forces, with Russian support, were winning and pushing the insurgents back. Everybody knew that it would be outright insane and counterproductive for the Assad regime to use chemical weapons at this point. Not only would it not serve any meaningful purpose as conventional warfare was doing the job, but it would also turn the public opinion against the government. Who would order such a stupid move, even at the chance that the public would blame the use of chemical weapons on the rebels? 

Undoubtedly, the ideas of neoconservative hawks, dangerous madmen like John McCain or Lindsay Graham, most likely pushed by lobbyists of the military-industrial complex, have somehow found their way into the White House and have clouded the judgment of advisers and the President himself. When an American Secretary of State shows up in Russia and, as far as the government of Syria and its support by Russia is concerned, stipulates an ultimatum of virtually unconditional surrender, he leaves the Russian counterparts no room for negotiations. Moreover, he also compromised the principles of diplomatic conduct.

Aside from demonstrating to the world that President Trump is a strong leader, the reaction to the use of chemical weapons in Syria has been an unjustifiable one, strategically as well as morally. 

One of the Pax Americana's pernicious errors attempted since the end of the Cold War was the disregard for international players' legitimate strategic interests. While other global players might pretend to bow in the face of the U.S.'s overwhelming military might, it certainly does not help establish a just and balanced world order. It only accomplishes further destabilization and weakening of international relations and increases the animosity toward the United States in many parts of the world. 

Trump raised hope and was elected not the least for the essential turnaround in U.S. foreign affairs policy after the dreadful Obama years. With Trumps premature and gullible reaction to the use of chemical weapons in Syria, his excessive interpretation of U.S. national security interests, and his further alienation of Russia, he is about to betray the expectations for the urgently needed change in U.S. foreign policy along the lines of stopping regime change and nation-building around the world. Instead, what he should pursue is cooperation with Russia and China and the partners in Europe and NATO to fight the real threat – radical Islam and its affiliated terrorist organizations. 

At this juncture of events and less than three months into Mr. Trump's presidency, the only hope remains that the President and his advisers and foreign affairs counselors come to their senses. Mr. Trump must live up to his campaign promises and disentangle the U.S. from the endless involvements in unjust wars in the Middle East, stop regime change interventions, and overcome the Russophobe stance in U.S. foreign affairs.

Russophobia - Achilles’ Heel of US-Russia Relations

The demonizing of Russia and specifically of Vladimir Putin has been profoundly regretful and damaging to global affairs in recent years. It appears the U.S. could not rise above the old animosity vis-à-vis the follower nation to the Soviet Union that dominated bi-polar relations during the Cold War. In the quarter-century since, the United States, in its leading role in NATO and cooperation with the European Union, has pursued interventionist policies. Those aimed at global predominance and strengthening its position as the sole remaining superpower.

The U.S. and its partners wasted the opportunities to establish a righteous new world order the post-Cold War security environment offered. As I've made clear in my blog entries over the past years, geopolitical misconceptions paired with strategic hubris and ideological delusions as rampant in the White House and the State Department regimes led to utterly folly in foreign affairs international relations. Besides the undermining and destruction of nation-state structures in the Middle East and the intentional armed support of extremists and insurgents, color revolutions have been backed by the U.S. and E.U., for example, in Georgia and Ukraine. Central to the failed policies was the stunning neglect of legitimate national and strategic interests of other players in international relations.

The latter fact became painfully visible in the wake of the regime change in Ukraine. Every reasonably informed scholar of strategic and security studies could have foreseen the control of Crimea and eastern Ukraine's support by Russia. The installation of a puppet regime in Kiev by Washington and Berlin was unacceptable to Russia after the U.S. had pushed toward her borders through aggressive NATO expansion. To drive Russia out of its Black Sea ports and potentially prepare full-fledged membership of Ukraine, as the geostrategic 'Near Abroad,' in NATO would be intolerable for Russia. The blatant disregard of legitimate Russian interests went along with the infamy of blaming Russia for imperialism that had been clearly and unashamedly pushed by the U.S. and the transatlantic alliance.

It is impossible to accurately verify the degree to which strategic ignorance, national hubris, indifferent imperialism, pseudo-democratic universalism, or apparent economic interest and pressure from the military-industrial complex have led to the failed policy design. Yet, the miserable Pax Americana attempted in the last quarter-century was certainly a conglomerate of all these and probably more factors. In conjunction with Putin's demonization and the artificial preservation of Russia as the primary geopolitical enemy, western powers set the course for missing out on establishing a functioning global post-Cold War world order, including meaningful collaboration for containment of radical Islam. The outrageous claim of the Democratic Party that Russian hacking and cyber intervention lost the election for Hillary Clinton –probably one of the biggest scams in politics ever suggested– further exacerbated the relations with Russia. Mr. Obama's decision to expatriate Russian diplomats and impose additional sanctions under the pretense of Russia's alleged interference in the U.S. presidential elections will rank prominently among the many political follies this man has perpetrated.

The new administration under President Donald Trump, which alone gave hope to conquer the old resentments toward Russia and alleviate the damage the previous administration had caused, appears to be succumbing to the Russophobe and Putin-hating pressure forces in the U.S. Senate, the U.S. Congress, and the media. The new U.S. Ambassador's aggressive speech to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, and the ousting of security advisor General Flynn based on informal conversations with the Russian ambassador provides sad testimony to that assessment.  

Overcoming the hysteria vis-à-vis Russia and its leader Vladimir Putin has to be considered the number one priority in U.S. foreign affairs. Maintaining Russia artificially as an enemy image for a new Cold War and conventional arms race must be ended. A mindful and critical, yet simultaneously constructive and respectful relationship with Russia from the part of the United States is long overdue, for whose materialization the numerous challenges to international relations and global security offer ample opportunity. Russia has to be part of fighting the Islamic State and radical Islamism worldwide and has to play a role in stabilizing the Middle East. While mutually respecting legitimate national interests, a balance of power should result in the pursuance of common objectives and joint ends in global affairs.

But this might require prominent representatives of society and state in the U.S. to stop calling Mr. Putin a murderer, abandoning the sanctions regime, and acknowledging Russia's legitimate strategic and economic interests concerning the Caucasus, Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East. It will also necessitate the easing up of U.S. and NATO forces' aggressive posture in the Baltic States and Eastern Europe.

The new administration must not continue the insanity of the Obama years. The step from considering Russia as a geopolitical enemy toward Russia as a geostrategic counterpart and potential collaborator in global affairs must take place now. In light of Western Christian societies' Islamic subversion, this appears to be a strategic necessity and social obligation.

New Despotism - The Tyranny of the Mob

A new form of totalitarianism is upon us. It has arrived in the form of ideological despotism, wielded by the aggressive and intolerant leftist mob. It is the bold attempt of the culturally and morally degenerate of our time to implement a kind of 'mental dictatorship.' The plebeians of our day are no longer a class of citizens unable to read and write. They are those ill-educated and ignorant, rationally and/or morally wanting individuals who can potentially come from all strata of society teachers, journalists, and academia, scientists and politicians. 

 

Besides third-wave feminists, Black-Lives Matter activists, and Never-Trumpers, the most prominent representatives of this vast group of misguided people, who combine education with moral deficiencies, are well known. I count many of the Democrats (Reid, Clinton, Pelosi, Schumer, and the like) and Republicans (McCain, Rubio, Graham, to name a few) in Congress and Senate plus the neo-conservative and neo-liberal nomenclature in the State Department to this group. Yet, to be found at the peak of this particular deprivation was the previous holder of the most powerful political office globally, B. Obama.  

In recent years, the intellectual-educational and moral-ethical decline in culture and politics became ever more tangible in all society and state segments. In my blog entries, I have criticized the idiocies regarding the destruction of the nation-state by open border policies and the interventionist foreign affairs approach, combined with astonishing neglect of strategic and geopolitical parameters in international relations by the U.S. government and the transatlantic alliance. I also addressed the self-destructive equating of the Muslim religion, the bewilderment over (trans-) gender relation, and the general cultural decline in western societies.  

The confusion reached a sad apex in the race for the White House and specifically in the open war waged by the bulk of the mainstream media against the new president and his administration since his inauguration. The level of injustice and sheer destructiveness of the political opposition and most of the press is almost incomprehensible. It has reached a degree indeed unparalleled in Western post-World War II societies and is seriously putting in question the U.S. political system's maturity and proficiency. 

What shook up our civilization's societal fabric to such a degree and corrupted the sanity and sound judgment of politicians, educators, communicators of essential parts of the citizenry? I have addressed the reasons in my blog essays over the past few years. I alluded, among others, to the absurdities of the ideological tools such as the exploitation of political correctness, the undifferentiated interpretation of the notion of equality, the anything-goes of value relativism, the socialization of the young generation along the lines of egotism and individual hedonism, the absence of character-building efforts at home and in the places of education and culturization. Finally, I addressed the corruption of the educational culture by depriving it of classical art instruction ingredients. In other words: At the bottom of the dilettantism in politics and political relations in domestic and international affairs lies the utter lack of philosophical depth and wisdom.

  

The political illiteracy and moral confusion led to the described and criticized follies in domestic (i.e., immigration) and foreign affairs (i.e., support of insurgents and destruction of nation-state structures). Based on their misconceptions regarding the ontology of political and social coexistence (see my blog essay of November 2015 https://www.edwinseditorial.com/2015/11/immigration-us-and-europe-governed-by.html), governing authorities in the U.S. and Europe engaged in unjust interventions in the Middle East, in the Caucasus, in Asia, severely damaged the social fabric of the U.S. and European societies, and widened the domestic ideological divide to the point of irremediableness. 

The portrayed intellectual and moral decline became forcibly apparent in the wake of the U.S. presidential elections. Blind individual prejudice and pride, assertiveness, and stubbornness seem to be more important than objectivity, dignity, truth. Personal vanity not to have been wrong seemingly trumps all insight and appears to override all disabusing by experience and learning from actual failure. People and governments maintain their positions of prejudice and ideological bias at all costs. Political discourse appears to have degenerated into nothing more than turf warfare over partisan policy notions and the constant denial of responsibility for failed decisions (shining example in its negativity again B. Obama - Syria, Libya, ACA)

The epitome of the intellectual and moral carnage that has characterized the political rivalry of recent weeks, months, and indeed years is the apparent attempt to delegitimize conservative opposition and virtually destroy the newly elected U.S. president and his administration. Instead of partaking constructively in the political business and contributing to the bonum commune despite contrasting and opposing stances, large parts of society engage in outright destruction and annihilation, including media and representatives of the legislative estate. The decadence has reached an alarming degree. 

Short of outright civil war, things could barely get worse. Think about this: The oscillation of governments is natural to democratic republics. Thus, the alteration of governing regimes astounds only the under-educated and ideologically stultified. And probably those few who fantasize about an authoritarian one-party rule in the People's Republic of China style. The apparent attempt to disregard the outcome of the presidential elections and delegitimize President Trump's governance is not just the political left being a sore loser and incapable of accepting the rebuke of their Marxist-utopian globalist ideas by the electorate. In essence, it is a fascistic move on the part of those liberal and progressive elements in society and state who, in their arrogant hubris to govern unimpeded for the foreseeable future, might not even be consciously aware of the baseness of their doings. 

As I made clear in my blog essay below on "Truth in Life and Politics," to acknowledge existential verities and show dignity in the face of a legitimate opponent's victory requires proper knowledge and understanding of human relations and necessitates ethical disposition and moral strength. The current state of social and political affairs in the United States of America demonstrates most ostensibly the interconnection between the theoretical and practical judgment, the inescapable bond between knowledge and action, cognition, and morality. 

When the intent to see elected officials fail becomes more important than helping them succeed, an existential threat emerges. When, in a democratic political system, partisan dogmatism and party-political arrogance gain the nation's best interest over partisan dogmatism and party-political arrogance, the disconnect between those two intrinsic components of sound practice and meaningful human behavior amplifies.

The victory of Donald Trump has shocked the radical left in this country and united them in their desperation. The plebeians of our day have taken to the streets. Countrywide demonstrations peak in calls to remove Trump from office, with individual exponents even bluntly calling for his assassination. Rather than bringing people to their senses and quelling the riot, pundits and elected representatives stir the hatred and encourage the firebrand.  

Over time, the plebeians have managed to turn values and righteousness upside down through their aggressive agitation. They've turned right into wrong, straight into crooked, the upstanding is now considered insincere, and termed the reasonable 'un-American.' 

They deprived our societies of their religious foundation and are fervently working on dismantling any possible common denominator that could serve, beyond the pluralism of values and political stances, as a unifying force. (On that destructive aspect, read my blog essay on "The Crisis of Morality" of March 31, 2015, https://www.edwinseditorial.com/2015/03/the-crisis-of-morality.html). The plebeians of our day usurped the editorial offices of mainstream media outlets, they populate the academic quarters on the college campuses, and they became hateful obstructionists on Capitol Hill. 

At this juncture, perhaps the most pressing question is whether or not this culture war that is in full swing will escalate into what some commentators have already heralded as the Second American Civil War. We shall find out soon if the left's tyranny will ease up on their mental authoritarianism or drag this nation into a large-scale violent uprising and outright civil war.

2016 U.S. Presidential Election - Political Intuition TRUMPS Propaganda

The United States, and with it the world, got a respite. The utter catastrophe, namely the prolongation of the past eight years' nightmare, so it seems, could be averted. A horrific and ultimately devastating third Obama-term was prevented by denying Hillary Clinton the presidency. Something already to be considered the political miracle of the century. 

Against almost all polls and the united predictions of media pundits and news outlets, Donald Trump got elected to become the 45th president of the United States. The good intuition of some 60 million Americans made them vote for Mr. Trump, despite unparalleled disinformation and defamation campaign against him, carried forth by the mainstream media and advanced on the school grounds and college campuses in the months leading up to the election. They voted for him despite the vitriol spewed at Trump not only from his Democrat opponent in the race but also from certain elements in his political party. But most importantly, they voted for him because their political instinct made them see through the concerted attempt of almost all forces of public information and discourse to cover up for the colossal failure of the first African-American president's presidency. 

Over the years, I have commented on the utter follies of Obama's policies in previous blog entries back to 2009, criticizing the pursuance of his Marxist-utopian notions of politics in domestic and international affairs. Imagine that after that sham of Obama's presidency, some people dare to consider anybody else unfit for that office! Mind-boggling political shortsightedness, cultural parochialism, and ideological prejudice of those who still approve of Obama's job performance. Yet, signs that he had turned the Democratic Party into an ailing enterprise and that he doomed Hillary Clinton's run were already tangible to all those who had kept an open mind, and heart for that matter. As the Daily Caller reported, under Obama, Democrats had lost more than 900 state legislature seats, 12 governors, 69 U.S. Congress, and 13 Senate seats.

On regional and local levels, significant numbers of American people had already rejected the advancement of Obama's delusional globalist policies. They neglected human coexistence's ontological necessities and were therefore highly damaging to our social and political coexistence. (for more on the 'Ontological Principles of the Political,' compare my blog essay of November 15, 2015, on "Immigration – U.S. and Europe Governed by Lunacy" https://www.edwinseditorial.com/2015/11/immigration-us-and-europe-governed-by.html). 

However, I emphasized that the lunacy of such policies not only occurs on the side of the progressive Left in this country—the neoconservative elements in the Republican Party also support these ideas. Domestically, out-of-their-mind proponents like Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan propped up Obama's policies of open borders and uncontrolled immigration. Internationally, prominent Republican politicians such as John McCain or Lindsay Graham went along with the Middle East's destruction by arming and supporting dubious insurgents and bringing down established nation-state structures. They also endorsed the U.S. government's idiotic stance toward Russia, most of all the aggressive posture and saber-rattling of the U.S. and NATO in Ukraine and the Baltic states. Quite clearly, neglecting other stakeholders' legitimate national interests in global affairs and negating the significant stakes of strategic thinking had turned the attempted imposition of this type of Pax Americana into an absurdity. 

As I made clear in a blog back in April of 2016, after the dropping out of Rand Paul of the Republican presidential preliminaries, only the election of Donald Trump could raise hope for an urgently needed turnaround to bring U.S. policies to its senses. Alas, the overdue reversal of U.S. foreign affairs policies is not a given now where Mr. Trump got elected. It will all depend on whether or not he will prevent the influence of neoconservatives from altering his policy promises. Of paramount importance will be the person the President-elect is going to assign as his secretary of state. Politicians of statesmanlike stature have always acknowledged the supreme significance of foreign affairs in governance and thus dedicated their prime effort and attention to it. 

The radical policies of ignorant and deluded people, who happened to reign over global affairs in the quarter-century gone by since the collapse of the Soviet Union, drove the United States and Western civilization in its entirety to a crossroads. They wasted the chances the post-Cold War order offered by a reckless U.S. strategy aiming at singular global dominance. At the bottom of this move toward a centralized world stood the weakening and indeed dissolution of the nation-state concept, combined with a pseudo-messianic democratic universalism, manifesting itself in attempts and support for interventionist regime-change for instance in Libya, Syria, in Ukraine and the Caucasus, as well as in imposing nation-building in the Middle East and Asia, most foolishly in Afghanistan. This strategic design for a new world order presented us with a new face of contemporary warfare, featuring the advancement of militant progressive secularism and the ethnic and cultural subversion of western societies by pushing and facilitating disproportional immigration from non-western nations and regions. Such strategies aimed to synchronize the masses and prepare the ground for continuous governance by liberal and progressive regimes.

 

In the face of all this, Mr. Trump's victory came at the eleventh hour. His empowerment by way of sufficient Electoral College votes was a clear rejection of globalist policies and politicians, against which Mr. Trump waged his presidential campaign in the first place. His victory also delivered a devastating blow to the hubris of those liberal and progressive elites who thought they had already won the struggle for the political future of the lead nation of the free world. 

 

It remains to be seen if Mr. Trump and his incoming administration will be able to redress, neutralize, and reverse the policy failures of recent years. The scope of what he needs to accomplish is vast. Above all, it ranges from foreign affairs, the pacification of the Middle East, the resetting of relations with the Kremlin, and preventing the U.S.'s political culture from further decline by overcoming the cultural and moral nihilism that has taken hold in significant segments of society and state. Additionally, an important task will be the narrowing of the ethnic and ideological division within the country. 

While the task is not an easy one, all good-willing people should dearly hope for Mr. Trump to succeed. The hour of decision for the survival of this republic as well as our whole civilization has arrived!

Islam, Western Society, and the US' First Constitutional Amendment

The immigration of considerable numbers of Muslim populations from the Balkans and the African continent to European countries in the decades after World War II has led to significant collisions in cultural and political terms. Enclaves of Muslim populations in Germany, France, and the United Kingdom demonstrate resistance to substantial stakes in Western democracies, such as the rule of secular law and societal values and principles.

Despite the current literal invasion of refugees and immigrants into Europe and the United States from the war-torn regions of the Middle East, despite the rise of the Islamic State (I.S.), and despite the recent invigoration of terrorist Muslim extremism in Western nations (France/USA), the European Union and the current U.S. administration by in large still abide by their policies of misguided globalism and sanctimonious humanism. When will people understand that misguided and self-righteous humanism is nothing but an inhumane blunder that eventually strikes back with atrocious brutality and multiplies the harm it initially intended to prevent? 

  

In the face of violent Islamic extremism, besides the astonishing errors of open border policies and amnesties for illegals, the most striking political blunder appears to be the equal treatment of Muslim communities and the Islamic faith in Western societies. This author has wondered for almost a lifetime why, to his knowledge, neither political and religious representatives nor pundits or scholars seriously addressed the real reason for why Islam has such limited appeal to open and democratic societies and is hard, if not impossible, to integrate. Islam's primary problem is that it has not yet developed a dogma of separating religion from the 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 dualistic Christian doctrine that sees the Church control the spiritual kingdom. 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 dogma 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 nation-state concept evolved and spread across the globe, with its inherent 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 is imposed upon human conditions. Jurisprudence in Islam is merely the expansion and application of Sharia in worldly circumstances. In other words, in its most profound sense, Islam is a religion that aims at enforcing the Kingdom of God upon the Kingdom 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. 

I stipulate two propositions to be of utmost importance and have to be imposed upon the Muslim creed if we seriously envision peaceful coexistence. 

(1) The Muslim creed itself must develop a doctrine for the separation of Church and State. The realization of this requirement pertains to the Muslim dogma itself. Although it would take a long time and its fulfillment is highly unlikely, it must be attempted and urged forward. It is astounding that no serious attempt at it has ever been made or demanded, as far as I know.

(2) The Muslim populations in Western countries have to declare their allegiance to the secular code of governance and decry any attempts to override it by religious law concepts. This second proposition pertains to the Muslim communities in western democracies as they become an ever-growing part of societies based on the Christian heritage. This condition should materialize through declarations of leading representatives of Muslim communities on the one hand; and individually, by every member of such societies when he or she is signing citizenship papers on the other hand. Refusal should lead to immediate expulsion to the country of origin or a Muslim country of choice.  

  

Islam must find a straightforward solution to the separation of Church and State and care for a division between the ecclesiastical and civil sphere, the divine and secular realms. Until accomplished, any representative of this religion will be in collision with either their Muslim faith or the political environment of the Christian-based society they want to prosper. As long as Islam hasn't met proposition (1), proposal (2) as outlined above must come into effect to avoid inner conflict for the individual believer while at the same time enhancing the safety of society overall. 

This circumstance does not impair or curtail religious freedom. Christian societies usually grant other faiths by allowing them the free exercise of their religion. As shown, the necessity for this type of action emerges from the dogma of Islam's religion itself. 

The current outcry in American-Muslim and progressive quarters in Western countries demonstrates the want for proper erudition on significant subject matters of political and cultural affairs in this country and beyond. 

Concerning the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, the discussed aspect highlights the general problem of equal treatment of all religions in society and a political system primarily founded on Christianity's intellectual, cultural, and social heritage. How can 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 treated equally? 

It brings to the fore a weakness in the First Amendment that the founders did not foresee when they adopted this amendment on December 15, 1791. We can assume that in those early years of the new republic, the legislators could not have imagined that this new nation's Christian roots would ever be discredited or put in doubt. They could not have anticipated the deranged hubris of progressivism, the cultural illiteracy of American politicians and presidents, the want of suitable erudition on the populace's part, and the arrogant audacity of certain minority groups.

We can amend constitutions and modify amendments to a Constitution. Both have to be adjusted so that its founders' spirit and the underlying ideas and principles can live on under the ever-changing conditions of worldly existence.