“You can’t make a republic without republicans.” —Stendhal

Just asking—

What happens to a “service economy” when people no longer have the money to pay for service?

What happens when “precision” bombs and missiles are not really as precise as they are supposed to be?

What happens to a country where judges make up the law as they go along?

What happens to a country when presidents, governors, and mayors only enforce the laws they like?

How come Congress can regulate toilets and parking lots but not war and spending?

What happens to a country when the government and the citizens spend borrowed money for years and years?

What happens to a society in which right and wrong and courses of action are determined by charts and graphs prepared by “experts”? And where generals conduct wars by “Power Point Presentations”?

What happens to a generation of people raised on a daily diet of television comedies and music videos?

What is to be said about a society in which many of the most important things are known by everybody but cannot be mentioned in public?

Who said nothing good ever came out of San Francisco? I hear they are naming a sewage plant after George W. Bush.

Why do leftists persist in calling neocons “right-wing”?

What does it mean when have men started wearing earrings, a custom that died out among Europeans several centuries ago?

What does it mean when a society’s musical tastes shift from harmony and melody to rhythm
and loudness?

What good has the CIA ever done? Has an account ever been made of its mistakes and failures? Hasn’t its main accomplishment been to affront the world with the arrogant and incompetent side of the Yankee national character? (Attentive readers will know what I mean by “Yankee.”)

Why did the U.S. not stand down at the end of the Cold War and return to a peaceful demeanour instead of seeking hegemony? (Because of that same Yankee national character. There is a large category of Americans whose natural tendency is to make themselves feel important and righteous by inventing holy missions and interfering in other peoples’ business. That is why it is useless to discuss foreign affairs in practical terms.)

Just asking.