PERSONAL NOTES II
WHAT IS JIM SOHMER ALL ABOUT- AN INTERVIEW
04/14/07 I think full disclosure requires that I report that as of yesterday I have re-registered from "unaffiliated" (independent) to the Republican Party. When I left the Republican fold in 1995, I was angry. Yesterday I signed up again because now I am really angry. After a very long debate with myself, I came to decide that with the time I have left and the much collapsed state of the GOP, it would be a better to use of my time to scream at them from the inside rather than from the outside. I am under no illusions. However, fair warning to Republicans around me: put on a hard hat because if you aren't Conservative I will be coming straight at you. JES
03/16/07 I am off the trucks. I am home to stay, here in Jefferson, Park County, Colorado, USA. Over the last 16 years I have seen the USA to the extent of probably some 1.75 million miles, all 48 contiguous states; a priceless experience. I have met the American people, face to face, an experience frequently gratifying however too often disturbing. Originalist Americans have a tussle before them. God help the USA.
My cabin is officially complete, although much work actually remains to be done. However it is a beautiful little place, and it is now "home". Still need to lay down finish flooring; the rest is peripheral, and none that remains to be done is urgent. That is a good thing because I have come to the point in life where "urgency" about anything is silly and pointless. My introduction to the world was Pearl Harbor and the Holocaust. Very, very incredibly, nothing has changed, and no lessons seem to have been learned by succeeding generations. That this could be so is beyond my comprehension. Civilization is absolutely fragile, and the central truth in this life is about our own blindness about life itself, and our Creator.
12/26/06 Politics, internationally and nationally, is in the midst of a vast sea change. Perhaps this is a good time to begin PERSONAL NOTES II. This is essentially an administrative move. For background, I refer you to ORIGINAL PERSONAL NOTES , still as relevant as ever. However, in addition, changes are going on in my personal life, for the better, and in the world around me, for the worse, that lend a certain logos to this minor reorganization. I would also call your attention to an upgraded mission statement. Go to MISSION STATEMENT 12-06
Q. Tough election result in November?
A. Certainly, but the GOP had it coming. They ran away from the promises of 1994. That, and the burden of Iraq, which the American people are unwilling to endure, crushed the party. That will lead to an international disaster. In the larger context, the nation is continuing its slouch toward mob rule. I do not, and never have, shared the optimism of my many Conservative friends. Eventually Conservative ideas and principles will prevail for the simple reason that they are framed on objective reality. But that time is a long way off and some serious domestic and international turmoil later.
Q. Are there any "positives" here?
A. Oh, yes. Democrats will be forced to act and make decisions, revealing themselves for who they really are. But nothing constructive will come of it in the next 2 years, in fact, quite the opposite.
Conservatives are relived of any obligation to carry water for the GOP. Yet at this point many are still wandering around in the dark. It is sad to see the writers and editors of National Review, long the flagship of Conservatism, sounding more and more like Rockefeller "get along" Republicans. A Rudy Giuliani would only drag us further into the hole.
Republicans will be forced to re-examine themselves. The finger pointing is now in high gear. For years I have been trying to point out the basic fissure within the GOP that has lain dormant since 1964. Some refer to it as the experiment in "fusionism", the alliance of convenience between traditional values oriented Conservatives and neo-Libertarians more focused on economic freedom and the downsizing of government interference with the market, except when downsizing would run contrary to their own parochial interests.
This "fusion" has worked for years, because the overlap of agreement has been substantial. What I refer to as the northeastern, Rockefeller, or coastal GOP has, in some respects, been more comfortable with the neo-Libertarian side of this equation. The Southern, Midwestern and interior western GOP has been more fertile ground for traditional Conservative values and traditionally Liberal (free market) economics. This is an over-simplification, but a rough description of the point.
Q. So has the "fusion" finally fractured?
A. I think that process has begun, and it does not bode well that the GOP, at least at this point, is officially denying the matter. Not a great way to start the march toward 2008. A key example of this fracture has to do with immigration policy. Libertarians are all for open borders for a complex set of reasons, but principally for cheap labor. Traditional Conservatives have grown increasingly restless since 1986 about the impact on our culture, the fiscal burdens on government, and the corruption of respect for the law. All by itself, this is a bust-up of "fusionism" within the GOP orbit. The public at large has little or no understanding of what it is I have been describing here. The popular belief is that all Republicans are conservatives and all conservatives are Republicans. Street level ignorance and nonsense.
Q. How do the so-called neo-cons fit into this picture?
A. On the issue of fighting IslamicFascism, they are clearly on the Churchillian Conservative side, Buchananites notwithstanding. On domestic issues, there is an inclination toward the neo-Libertarian: they equivocate about the size of government, and have given rise to the notion of big government conservatism, an oxymoron. That is the danger of over-simplifying the fracture, however, I don't think neo-cons are the electoral base of the GOP.
Q. So what is the fracture all about?
A. Traditional Conservatives generally support small government, private enterprise and respect for the law. However, this occurs in the context of a primary concern about what Conservatives see as the erosion of secular cultural values directly correlated to the larger public's abandonment of Judeo-Christian values, and the historical foundation of those values. The point traditional Conservatives make is that strictly secularized concerns over cultural and economic issues, the focus of neo-Libertarians, cannot be addressed in the cultural vacuum that has occurred with the abandonment of Judeo-Christian sensibility and values. Traditional Conservatives would point out that their perspective is in total harmony, with the de-facto exception of slavery, with most of the founding fathers. George Washington was a traditional Conservative.
Libertarians, correct as they are most of the time (I'll come back to that) on economic issues, generally, culturally are Liberals, and really get upset by what they consider to be the illicit entrance of God into the discussion. The modern Liberal is socially "progressive", a long story that elevates material over the transcendent, and Man over the Universe.
Q. So how do Libertarians fit with Democrats?
A. If you begin with the premise that all Democrats are Liberals (they aren't), then even now there are discussions going on between certain Libertarians and certain Democrats. The problem that will emerge for both sides is that serious Libertarians mean it when they speak of downsizing government, while Liberals thrive on huge government and the dependency of captive taxpayers. What motivates these discussions is a common agreement on keeping the transcendent at bay. I don't see how this goes anywhere; their differences are worldly and unbridgeable, as they agree that God is a nuisance. It will be useful in forcing exposure of Liberals hiding under the skirts of Libertarianism, and vice versa.
Q. What about the Democrats who aren't actually Liberals?
A. Since 1995, they have coalesced in Congress as "Blue Dog Democrats", tending to be rural and southern. In the new House of Representatives it appears that there will be at least 44 "Blue Dogs". In the new 110th Congress, Conservatives in the GOP will be watching to see whether the Blue Dogs are open to new political alliances, or if all the big talk during their years in the minority falls by the wayside. Has November's election planted the seeds of a new major re-alignment of the political parties? No way of knowing at this point.
NOTE: Democrats, Republicans, Liberals, Conservatives, Libertarians. For additional perspective on these terms, check in at POLITICS 101.
Q. So what about the international scene? What about Iraq?
A. Bush trusted Rumsfeld for plans and advice, and both trusted the Generals on matters military. I have a theory about this that goes back quite a long time. Can't prove it; just gut feel. What I suspect is that we are still dealing with service academies, and a general staff, still not fully recovered from the 1960's and the traumatic effects on the military of the Vietnam era. The George Patton's, the Douglas MacArthur's, the Dwight Eisenhower's, are gone. Perhaps what we have on our hands are a military, and a Pentagon, temporized by politics, 8 years of OJ Billyboy not helpful. General Powell is a classic example of my point, and out of respect for those on active duty in wartime, I will stop there. The President, and the Country, have a right to expect that our military is professional in their duty to kill people and break things. The military's problem is that they have not always been allowed to do so. Military leadership's problem is that over the years they have been drawn and quartered by new age politicians; sound military judgment and advice not consistent with the principle of civilian leadership in this new age. So perhaps as a matter of personal survival, much accommodation has been made subtlety, even unconsciously, in what constitutes sound military judgment and advice. Donald Rumsfeld, being of the old school, apparently failed to fully grasp this problem. So too, the President, himself arguably vulnerable to the disease. However, the President is ultimately responsible for today's military, and the direction by which it operates, and the electorate passed judgment on his performance on November 7th.
Q. What about Iraq?
A. Part of the problem is that that is the wrong question. Sorry, but the question you mean to ask is what about IslamicFascism? The first problem is the persistence of the myth that Iraq is somehow a separate and isolated issue. The President's understanding of this, and his decision to go in after Saddam Hussein was absolutely correct, with subsequent follow-up sometimes flawed on various levels. I have beat these matters to death in the Mountain Observer letters, and I am not going to repeat that all here. As to what we should do now, I would suggest as a first step that we shred the so-called Iraq Survey Group Report and remove it to the National Archives.
1). We need a bigger special ops, army, and perhaps more marines.
2). We need to follow through on the Rumsfeld initiative to expand and utilize Special Operation more effectively.
3). We need to take charge of Baghdad, and kill Moktada al-Sadr. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki may need to be replaced. The rules of engagement need to be changed allowing our guy's the freedom and authority to shoot back when shot at without necessarily identifying specifically who shot first. This is a war, not a courtroom.
4). We need to close the borders with Syria and Iran.
5). We need to continue to train and develop the Iraqi army and police, and deal with treachery and corruption harshly, and we need to do so ourselves, if necessary. The truth is that what is needed is some benevolent colonialism that creates a friendly climate for friendly Iraqis pursuant to a truly free and independent Iraq. We are not just dealing here with the ravages of Saddam Hussein. We are dealing here with the centuries old ravages of a dysfunctional religion. It is not our duty to impose a religious solution. It should not be our duty to impose democracy as we know it, only some form of accountability that does not pose an international threat. That sort of standard may require some form of indigenous democracy, probably does, but that is not up to us to say. Our standard should be the permanent removal of an international organized threat of violence from wherever it may originate, Iraq or elsewhere. There is no call here for the destruction of Islam, per say, or the imposition of Christianity. It is a fundamental matter of our own security, defense and survival to eliminate the threat of physical force by IslamicFascists determined to impose their twisted concept of Islam on others. Peaceful muslims, if such exist, need to sort out their own affairs.
6). Both the Iranian and North Korean nuclear threat capabilities need to be bombed out of existence.
7). To be continued
Q. Sound like we should be the world's policeman.
A. Absolutely not. That is not an American interest or purpose, never has been, never will be. The harsh reality is that, as a matter of our own defense and survival we have, in fact, been thrust into that position. There is no one else in the world capable of taking on the task. Not the Europeans (EUarabia), not the United Nations (totally corrupt), not Russia (collapsing back into Sovietism).
Q. What about China?
A. China is the real problem, and has been since 1949. I tried to point this out pre 09/11. I continue to believe this to be the case, IslamicFacism notwithstanding. The Chinese leadership must just be standing by and smiling because we have allowed the IslamicFascist challenge to distract us and linger unnecessarily. At the same our military preparedness has been stretched. As a priority we have had to deal with the IslamicFascist challenge, however, because of some mis-steps, both military and diplomatic, we have paid a higher price, and will continue to do so, distracting our attention from a greater long range challenge in the Far East. Time is running against us.
Q. How exactly does China threaten us?
A. To begin with, the Chinese are very intelligent as a race. My concern about the Chinese back during the Cold War was that compared to the Russians, there was no contest. Stand up a Russian peasant against a Chinese peasant for intelligence, grit, initiative and hard work and I'll bet on the Chinese guy any day of the week. Couple that with a certain sense of Chinese nationalistic chauvinism, and you are faced with the potential for trouble. The threat to us has two parts: First is all the self destruction we are doing to ourselves as a culture, secondly is the Chinese determination, as a nation and a culture, to eventually dominate the world, and they may very well succeed.
09/29/07
Q. Pope Benedict XVI has directed the reintroduction of the traditional rite. What do you think about this?
A. God bless Pope Benedict XVI. I would predict that eventually it will be recognized that this development saved the Church of Rome, and perhaps the whole of western culture. I have no doubt that the hand of the Holy Spirit was on the tiller.
Q. Except for Roman Catholics, should anyone else care?
A. They should, and will. These changes reorder the Church as the primordial framework of western civilization, including a more correct perspective on the critical contributions of the Greek philosophers coupled with Roman law. It re-elevates a complex history beyond the scope of what we are about here. Just in summary, what we now have is the necessary foundation for the re-balancing of contemporary western culture, including education. For a much more detailed, and informed, study of the return of the Tridentine Mass, I would recommend going to the Vol. 16, No. 4 Fall 2007 issue of The Latin Mass. E-mail jwblewett@msn.com for contact info. I am delighted with these developments beyond words
Q. Any second thoughts about the decision to invade Iraq?
A. That is a question that I have reviewed with myself many times; intellectual and moral honesty has demanded that. The answer is no, except that it should have happened 6 months sooner than it did, exclusive of the pandering in the United Nations, and more aggressively robust. There was an argument at the time defending the delay that we were buying some time needed for preparation, partly as a consequence of the 8 years of depredations against our defense establishment by OJ Billyboy, and that was no doubt a real issue.
However, in retrospect, there is a legitimate Conservative argument to be made against the invasion decision, with which I disagree. For reasons of national security at this time I will not lay it out here, and will only discuss it off the record with legitimate and qualified people. It is an argument that is now specious, irrelevant and, I believe, simply wrong. However badly executed the effort has been, the invasion decision was correct.
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UNDER DEVELOPMENT
FMOWEB 900-002 PERSONAL NOTES II