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George Santayana once warned us about not learning the lessons of history: "Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it." Over 6 of the past 7 decades I've seen this axiom proven again and again, yet somehow we still ignore history and go on to repeat the mistakes of the past.

One of the biggest mistakes we, meaning the US, have made over and over again during the past 234 years of our nation has been cutting defense spending too deeply and too quickly after a conflict has ended. Every time we have done that we have been caught with an unprepared and undermanned military that ended up causing much greater loss of American lives than if we had been prepared. That presumes, of course, that such an event would even have occurred if we'd still had a credible military. History abounds with examples where we made the wrong decision and ended up paying the price for it, sometimes for decades.

The prospect of an exit from Iraq and Afghanistan has sparked rumblings on Capitol Hill that it's time to cut the defense budget.

If there were ever evidence that it's impossible to learn from history -- or at least that it's difficult for politicians to do so -- this is it. Before they rush to cut defense spending, lawmakers should consider the consequences of previous attempts to cash in on a "peace dividend."

After the American Revolution, our armed forces shrank from 35,00 men in 1778 (plus tens of thousands of militiamen) to just 10,000 by 1800. The result was that we were ill-prepared to fight the Whiskey Rebellion, the quasi-war with France, the Barbary wars and the War of 1812 -- all of which might have been averted if the new republic had had an army and a navy that commanded the respect of prospective enemies, foreign and domestic.

After the Civil War, our armed forces shrank from more than a million men in 1865 to just 50,000 in 1870. This made the failure of Reconstruction inevitable -- there were simply too few federal troops left to enforce the rule of law in the South and to overcome the ruthless terrorist campaign waged by the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups. Segregation would remain a blot on U.S. history for another century.

The same thing happened after World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Cold War, and the Gulf War. And each time it ended up crippling our military and causing far more problems and costing more than if we'd maintained some semblance of a strong military.

As the old saying goes, "If you want to preserve peace, prepare for war."

With a weak military, or one perceived as weak, enemies are more likely to push the limits, up to and including an attack on American forces or civilian targets. That has been the pattern throughout history, where an aggressor takes advantage of nation's weakness. Just because it's the 21^st Century doesn't mean there aren't nations or ideological groups out there waiting for us to cripple ourselves, allowing them to move with impunity. But if they know without a shadow of doubt that we would retaliate with the full force of our superior military forces, such an attack would be far less likely.

It's too bad our present occupant of the White House and the members of Congress are choosing to ignore the lessons of history and will be trying to send us down the same path to the same ends as many of their predecessors have.

Henry Louis Gates in the NYT, he of the "beer" summit:

{snip} The historians John Thornton and Linda Heywood of Boston University estimate that 90 percent of those shipped to the New World were enslaved by Africans and then sold to European traders. {snip}

And it's about the Lowell Mill Girls, which I am researching for my new American literature textbook. You should check it out. You may even enjoy the oldies.

I had an outstanding history teacher at West Point my plebe year. Maj. Christenson had gone to Wisconsin and played both football and basketball on scholarship. He settled on one, which I can't remember, though I think it was basketball.

Well, he went to Officer Candidate School (OCS) after he joined the army, which he did after he received his master's in history. It was a very tough program, esp. for him being so educated. A real stud who did his best playing against the toughies with the Department of Physical Education in the intramural basketball games--an Academy tradition.

Fluent in Italian and posted there when Gen. Haig was somehow present there in the 1970s, he was told to acquire a Lamborghini for the general. Which he did. Then he got to ride with him. Just imagine Scent of the Woman with eyes.

A larger than life figure was Haig, obviously. Christenson admired him enormously.

P.S. I also learned to date all my work from that semester's work. I earned an A minus from Christenson's world history second semester class that never made it to my official transcript. A roommate discovered this looking at my grades the following semester. (I had struggled with chemistry and barely passed, and so wasn't inclined to even glance at the report.) So off to the registrar's office I tramped. After being contemptuously treated for a brief time--Was I the one in error?--they eventually turned me over a few days later to a colonel who headed the history department. A great guy. But by this time Maj. Christenson was stationed in West Germany (Yes, I know, it was a long time ago.) and had advanced up to LTC (lieutenant colonel). He was a air defense artillery person, and quite proud of it, thank you very much.

After giving the colonel my notebook that I luckily still had in my possession and his having made a few calls to Europe, the problem was ultimately corrected. The colonel, though,  did give me kindly words of wisdom: date all my work. The copious notes--which I had no intention on throwing away and, in fact, still possess--lacked that.

Now I'm a teacher and a stickler for just that, telling the students the same story I've told you. Minus the souped-up car.

When the Dems were in the minority Republicans inveighed against the use of the filibuster. In 2005 David Boaz, executive vice president of the Cato Institute if memory serves, rightfully warned them then that what comes around goes around.

Now in the distinct minority Republicans--I almost said "we" but I'm much more of a conservative than a Republican--could use some of that filibustering.

And these words that open his very fine blog entry should be committed to memory:

The United States is a republic, not a majoritarian democracy. The Founders were rightly afraid of majoritarian tyranny, and they wrote a Constitution designed to thwart it.

So true. The Constitution, whence are laws spring, does not use the word equality until I believe the Fourteenth Amendment. The document is a conservative one, in which the writers purposively use less "small d" democratic language than the Declaration.

I really wish Bush II had not used all that democracy talk with respect to Iraq. What a thankless task he set us up to do!

There's far more intellectual diversity on the Right than the Left.

For instance, I can't decide about Lincoln. Have you? Can you tell what Professor Clyde Wilson, who is an expert on John C. Calhoun, thinks of the greatest tyrant, er, President in history? Personally I side with Lincoln being a great President but the list is simply amazing. Take a look for yourself.

Monstrous graph from the American Enterprise Institute over at our compatriots at GraniteGrok. Monstrous.

But Bertrand Russell, of all people, explains it:

...when great changes occur the theories which justify them are always a camouflage for passion.  And the passion that has given driving force to democratic theories is undoubtedly the passion of envy.

The Conquest of Happiness, p. 68.

I would like to thank one of my most important mentors for first indicating this passage to me, the late Erik Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn. It was a great, great privilege for me to correspond several times with him. He gave me a number in the States when he made his annual foray here. I called it mid-morning. He had written he was in Chicago. But the number was for San Francisco! He mildly rebuked me, but later sent me a nice post card of one of his own paintings of a parrot/chameleon amalgamation. Hideous. But that's where the man clearly saw where we were heading unless we kept true to our principles in the Founding: liberty, not equality. Where's our Equality Bell?

The fault, dear sirs, is in our un-American system of democracy. I have vowed not to shed a drop of my blood for it. A republic, yes. Certainly, yes. That's what we're supposed to be, after all. That's what Dr. Franklin said to the lady.

Dr. Leddihn said democracy was an importation from the French Revolution, a real topsy-turvy affair, unlike our own much more modest War for Independence. Our principles in the Declaration are eternal, but we didn't change the calendar, destroy the churches, or engage in a genocidal precursor of the horrors of the Twentieth Century.

Leddihn and Marx both share--coming from opposite poles, though the former was adamant to avoid the confusion that extremes can meet--in their outlook of the extreme importance of the French Revolution. For Leddihn it was a hideous developent; Marx embraced it.

The teaching of the French Revolution is hideously sanitized by most American textbooks and educators. There was a notable revisionist effort by Simon Schama about twenty years ago, with his book Citizens.

P.S. And, Will, it's because the doctors and lawyers read newspapers like the New York Times that espouse egalitarianism. Since they have no pride in blood (heritage) and often lack optimism for the future, which means they have few if any children, they are susceptible to take on surrogate religious movements. They are taught to feel guilty for being rich and seek redress by voting for the Left, which Leddihn always capitalized.

In short, without America following its motto in the "Star-spangled Banner," (last stanza) [Why is it the best stuff in songs like this are at the end?] we're doomed. We probably are, which is why I preordered and read John Derbyshire's new book with pessimistic delight.

I must admit I've missed Steven Den Beste since he pulled the plug on USS Clueless a few years ago. When he resurfaces from time to time his postings are poignant and to the point, just as they have always been. His latest is no different.

In his new screed he ties together ancient Greek philosophies, modern Western society, and our Teleologist-In-Chief.

It does not bode well for the U.S. at all.

I came across this in the comments to the Ayn Rand piece I linked to yesterday. It is fitting, reminding us that great leaders aren't always the ones we'd like as neighbors or colleagues. I've taken one liberty with this one, changing the formatting to make it a little more readable.

The first candidate slept until noon, probably because he drank an entire quart of brandy every night. He began his career at one end of the political spectrum then switched to the other end. He used to smoke opium. He presided over one of biggest military disasters in history. Twice, he was booted out of office.

The second candidate cheated on his wife. He listened to astrologers. He chain smoked, talked compulsively and drank between 8 and 10 martinis a day. On top of all that, he was suffering from a debilitating illness.

Candidate three was a decorated war hero and an astonishingly successful leader of singular determination. He had a sweeping world view, ambitious goals, a plan for reaching those goals and the determination to follow that plan. He never committed adultery. He didn't eat meat, didn't smoke, and seldom drank, never to excess.

Three different people, three different lifestyles. The first two had personal lifestyles that would have been abhorrent to most people. The third sounds like someone most folks would get along with.

Care to hazard a guess as to who they were? The answers are below the fold.

Watching what's happening to our economy today it's easy to forget that this isn't the first time we've been through this, with government trying to spend its way out of a recession. The effort back in the 1930's failed miserably, extending the Great Depression for years, as did the 'stimulus' of 1962, which prompted Ayn Rand to comment on the error on the part of government in thinking such spending would do anything but have negative effect, that our economic IQ was sadly deficient. From her column in the L.A Times back in 1962:

Since "economic growth" is today's great problem, and our present Administration is promising to "stimulate" it--to achieve general prosperity by ever wider government controls, while spending an unproduced wealth--I wonder how many people know the origin of the term laissez-faire?

France, in the seventeenth century, was an absolute monarchy. Her system has been described as "absolutism limited by chaos." The king held total power over everyone's life, work, and property--and only the corruption of government officials gave people an unofficial margin of freedom.

Louis XIV was an archetypical despot: a pretentious mediocrity with grandiose ambitions. His reign is regarded as one of the brilliant periods of French history: he provided the country with a "national goal," in the form of long and successful wars; he established France as the leading power and the cultural center of Europe. But "national goals" cost money. The fiscal policies of his government led to a chronic state of crisis, solved by the immemorial expedient of draining the country through ever-increasing taxation.

Colbert, chief adviser of Louis XIV, was one of the early modern statists. He believed that government regulations can create national prosperity and that higher tax revenues can be obtained only from the country's "economic growth"; so he devoted himself to seeking "a general increase in wealth by the encouragement of industry." The encouragement consisted of imposing countless government controls and minute regulations that choked business activity; the result was dismal failure.

Colbert was not an enemy of business; no more than is our present Administration. Colbert was eager to help fatten the sacrificial victims--and on one historic occasion, he asked a group of manufacturers what he could do for industry. A manufacturer named Legendre answered: "Laissez-nous faire!" ("Let us alone!")

Apparently, the French businessmen of the seventeenth century had more courage than their American counterparts of the twentieth, and a better understanding of economics. They knew that government "help" to business is just as disastrous as government persecution, and that the only way a government can be of service to national prosperity is by keeping its hands off.

Regardless of the purpose for which one intends to use it, wealth must first be produced. As far as economics is concerned, there is no difference between the motives of Colbert and of President Johnson. Both wanted to achieve national prosperity. Whether the wealth extorted by taxation is drained for the unearned benefit of Louis XIV or for the unearned benefit of the "underprivileged" makes no difference to the economic productivity of a nation. Whether one is chained for a "noble" purpose or an ignoble one, for the benefit of the poor or the rich, for the sake of somebody's "need" or somebody's "greed"--when one is chained, one cannot produce.

There is no difference in the ultimate fate of all chained economies, regardless of any alleged justifications for the chains.

It seems that we still haven't learned that lesson four decades or four centuries later. As the late Ronald Reagan said more than once, "Government isn't the answer. Government is the problem." It was true back during Louis XIV's reign and it's true today. Our government is bent on controlling more businesses, either through direct take over like GM, Chrysler, the banks, and health care, or through onerous regulation and taxation, all in the name of 'stimulus' and 'fairness'.

Apparently our leaders have learned nothing from past attempts to tighten control over economies and businesses that their attempts won't work, won't create the results they want, and won't lead to anything but more poverty, less business, and a weaker economy than if they'd just left everything alone. But government is incapable of not fiddling about with things they really don't understand. And that's our biggest problem today.

For some time now I've seen protest signs, blog posts, and comments in a number of forums equating President Barack Obama to Adolph Hitler. As I was reminded the other day, there's no way Obama is an incipient Hitler. Such claims are demeaning and insulting. But that's only because President Obama is...

...Neville Chamberlain.

As Bill Whittle tells us, "It is the men Liberals label as warmongers that make the peace, and those they call peacemakers that bring the wars."

And so it is with Obama, abandoning our allies in Eastern Europe with his cancellation of the missile defense shield, leaving them to the predations of Russia and Iran, while coddling up to those same adversaries in the hopes of peace.

Chamberlain, seen as a peacemaker, did the same thing back in 1938, handing Czechoslovakia over to Nazi Germany in return for promises of peace. A little over a year later the Nazis invaded Poland and the world was at war. Hitler's promises meant nothing. Chamberlain's assurances of "peace in our time" became the ashes of a funeral pyre piled with bodies of over 50 million war dead.

Obama may come to learn the same thing, only this time it could mean the nuclear annihilation of Israel and a good portion of the Middle East. He's also dithering on Afghanistan. In the mean time American troops and those of our allies in the area are fighting and dying while they wait for him to make up his mind.

At this point Obama needs to be a hawk, not a peacemaker. The situation demands it.

"Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it." - George Santayana

"A generation which ignores history has no past - and no future." -Lazarus Long (aka Robert A. Heinlein)

We cannot say they haven't been warned. There's no way they can claim ignorance about the outcome of actions they've taken or are planning to take. When the "fit hits the shan" and the economy grinds to a halt because they've singlehandedly managed to kill trade, and with it millions of American jobs, we know they'll claim "But we didn't know this would happen!"

Anyone with even a fair to middling understanding about trade protectionism, and particularly about the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act would know such protectionism in the name of saving American jobs usually has just the opposite effect. Sometimes only a few thousand people find their jobs disappearing, along with their customers. And other times, like just before the Great Depression, tens of millions find their jobs and customers have gone the way of the dodo.

The effects of "unintentional" trade protectionism built into the $787 billion stimulus package has already been felt, with some American manufacturers being locked out from being able to bid for local, state, or federal government contracts because they can't meet the "Buy American" provisions of the stimulus bill.

On paper, Tom Pokorsky would seem to be a clear beneficiary of the government's $787 billion economic-stimulus package.

Mr. Pokorsky runs Aquarius Technologies Inc., a company in Port Washington, Wis., that makes equipment to treat sewage. The stimulus plan earmarks some $6 billion for municipal wastewater projects that are right in his company's sweet spot.

But the bill's Buy American provisions -- meant to give U.S. companies a leg up on foreign competition -- are causing Aquarius and other U.S. companies a lot of grief with both suppliers and clients in Canada.

It hasn't helped that some Canadian business opportunities formerly open to American companies have now been closed because of "Buy Canadian" campaigns organized in retaliation.

Now that grief has boiled over into a major diplomatic row with the largest U.S. trading partner. Canadian communities angered by perceived American chauvinism have started a Buy Canadian campaign to exclude U.S. bidders from municipal contracts.

"If that sticks, well, there goes 25% of my business," said Mr. Pokorsky. "To me, Ontario may as well be Indiana."

Halton Hills, a town of 50,000 people about 25 miles west of Toronto, is one of about a dozen Canadian communities forging ahead with plans to amend their procurement policies to freeze out American companies. "We won't be taking any products from any country that is discriminating against us," said Mayor Rick Bonnette.

For those of you lacking any understanding of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 and the resulting worldwide economic meltdown, the tariffs were created by the act in order to preserve American jobs after the stock market crash of 1929. It did this by restricting foreign goods by making them far more expensive, causing our trading partners to do likewise to American goods. This had the effect of destroying almost all trade among nations. The result was that American companies lost customers (some lost all of their customers), which in turn caused them to fail. Workers lost their jobs because no one was buying American goods. Unemployment skyrocketed to 25%, and the economy collapsed. What had been a moderately severe recession was turned into a worldwide depression.

Here's where the scary part comes in:

Obama is playing the same game Herbert Hoover did, but somehow he expects the results to be different...this time. How is it he believes that if he slaps tariffs or other barriers on foreign goods coming into the country that somehow the foreign nations affected by his actions won't retaliate in kind? As we've seen from the "Buy American" requirement in the stimulus bill, that blowback has already started, and that from a nation that is our closest neighbor and biggest trading partner.

It just shows President Obama is neither a student of history or of economics. And we already know where that will lead us.

It's hard to believe it's been 8 years.

It still hurts, that heartache that never really goes away.

Remembering that awful day still brings tears to my eyes.

So many gone.

So many died.

So many hearts broken.

So many families torn asunder.

So many heroes that never thought twice about their own safety working hard to save the lives of so many others.

Other heroes whose last words were "Let's roll."

Let us never forget that day of thunder, fire, smoke, heroic deeds, tearful goodbyes, and at the end, mournful silence.

Let us never forget.

...One Giant Leap For Mankind."

It was July 20th, 1969 when those words were spoken by Neil Armstrong as he first laid his foot upon the Moon's surface. Any of us that were old enough remember exactly where we were when mankind first stepped foot upon a world that was not Earth.

In my case my family and I were in the living room of my grandmother's beach house in Madison, Connecticut, watching the grainy black and white video from the Moon on her huge 25" color console TV.

On that day we were supposed to have been on our way back home to southeastern Pennsylvania, where we were living at the time. But because we weren't sure when the two American astronauts were supposed to leave the LEM and venture out onto the Moon's surface, we'd left Madison, figuring we'd be home before they did. But we weren't more then 20 minutes from the beach house when we heard they'd be exiting the LEM within the hour. So my father turned our behemoth of a 1966 Chrysler Town and Country station wagon around and headed back to Madison.

The anticipation as we sat in front of the TV made all of us a little jumpy.

I remember Armstrong slowly descending the ladder on the LEM's landing gear, a hop down from the bottom rung to the circular foot resting on the lunar soil, and then back up to make sure both he and Buzz Aldrin would be able to make it safely from the foot of the landing gear back up to the ladder. Once that task was completed, we could see him take a careful step off of the landing gear and onto the moon. And then he said the words.

"That's one small step for a man. One giant leap for mankind."

At that moment we weren't just Americans. Nor were the Russians just Russians or the Chinese just Chinese. At that moment we were all just humans, citizens of Earth.

Two notable quotes that apply to the situation our nation faces today:

"I sincerely believe ... that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale." - Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor - 1816

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free. " - Ronald Reagan

Both our financial system and our freedoms are under attack, all in the name of "fairness" and "equality" and "sharing the wealth", by a President who seems to think the Constitution is something that can be ignored when it is convenient to do so, coddles our enemies, abandons our allies, and diddles with our economic system without understanding how it works, and taking control of some banks because they have been deemed 'too big to fail'.