*For the clueless or humorless, I do know Don's stuff is parody - which is why it was a good lead-in for The Rest Of The Post.

� Secure this line!

I’m a Californian. I was born there. I was raised there. Did all of my education up thru my BA in chemistry there. I’ve driven up and down roads most other Californians don’t even know exist. I know California pretty well. Except for the fancy places to eat since to me Napa was a place to pick up and drop something off.

If you drive along the 5, there’s a really great trucker stop in Tracy by the way, or the 99 freeways between Sacto and Paso Robles you’ll spend your entire time in the central valley which is nothing but agriculture. Well, agriculture interspersed with lots of sage brush and some nice rolling hills around Kern country. Kids can still find summer jobs picking apricots or almonds in the Turlock/Denair area and any other kind of field work throughout the valley. On the southern side of Stockton, 45 minutes to 20 minutes, been a while since I’ve driven it so I’m not sure how far out anymore, you turn on the AC and put it on recirculate or your car/truck cab winds up smelling of cow chit for the next hour.

Simply put, I know how important agriculture is to the Central Valley. The smells around Stockton, the kids working strawberry fields, the miles and miles of pvc pipe for spraying of crops are all indicators of how important agriculture is to the state. That’s how hard core the region is devoted to agriculture. They live and die by it in the Valley.

Drought in the central valley, or someone living north of Sacto messing with the Colorado River allotment to the valley, means the cost of most of your produce goes up in the rest of the US. It is that major a contributor to the US food supply---even if Louisiana claims to grow better rice (but do you guys grow Basmati rice in LA, huh?).

And yet, when I heard about this story of hard times from labour shortages in the valley over at the NYT. I couldn’t help but smile. About damn time.

I’m not unsympathetic to the farmers and cattlemen who live there. Quite the contrary. I just know a dirty little secret about the whole deal. Yup, this example absolutely shows that being a farm hand is a hard job that no American wants, for $6.25/hr that is---though you can find broad shouldered and tow headed kids working those fields when school, activities, and the law allows for it during the summers. Yup, shows that nobody has bought the machinery, that does exist, that eliminates the need for mass manpower in the fields because it is cheaper, currently, to hire seasonals. Yup, it shows that we’re all going to wind up paying a bit more for things in the coming months. It shows that we’ve placed the almighty dollar before lots of things in this country.

See, every year in California there’s a cry to institute a higher minimum wage or a ‘living wage’ in some municipality and the state senate. But one thing nobody ever wants to deal with there is that the wage is suppressed, costs of product are suppressed as well, by illegal immigration, whether that is busboys, line chefs, cleaning crews, or field hands.
One would almost be moved to call it an open secret of institutionalized sweat shop labour since the avg wage these guys make is far below, and they receive raises far slower than, the norm while the entire economy is predicated on costs being this low in CA, but that’s racist to say dontchaknow.(And impolitic to say. Kind of like knowing who is in the Klan but not telling the FBI back in the day.).

So every year we pretend that we’ll raise the minimum wage to help the poor farm worker, when it won’t since he’s mostly off the books to avoid Federal heat, and pretend we aren’t going to continue to use sweat shop labour to keep prices low so we can buy that new keen i-toy Apple released (while living in karmic bliss because we bought ‘fair trade’ coffee to boot). So every year we toy with the idea of raising the minimum wage when we know that if we actually do change it and actually change the plight of the farm hand here illegally it’ll send nasty ripples thru the national economy.

It proves many of the talking points hurled about by both the open border and closed border advocates, and puts just as many into the grave.

I say this looming instability is all to the good.

With things like towns in Alabama turning into ghost towns and serious economic threats to the folks in the Central Valley we’re now faced with a situation where we’ll have to get real about what the real cost of living should be because we’ll have gotten rid of, as much as possible, black market labour. That in turn then allows us set the state/national minimum wage where it should be to fit the definition it’s had since its inception (the wage necessary to support a family of two adults and two minors on a single income). We’ll be able to assess how hard/if immigration has taxed the Californian/national health care system and how much/if it has fueled the complete over valuation of housing in the state. But most of all, it’ll force the nation to make up its collective mind on how it wants to handle the labour flow (and other flows: labour, security, financial) once and for all. Will we go for a system the aids global dysfunction or for one that seeks to rectify dysfunction (I’m hoping for the latter, but not holding my breath)?

Currently, we live with a dysfunctional set up. Much of South and Central America’s brightest and hardest working come to the United States to increase their standard of living and to join in the prosperity. Right now roughly a third of Mexican college graduates want to come to the US to work even if that means working well below their skill and intelligence level. Guatemalans are leaving their country to do work in Mexico *Mexicans* aren’t willing to do for the wages available in Mexico that are a far sight better than what’s available to them Guatemala. That’s good for us as we get cheap goods/labour here and whatever is produced in Mexico is kept really cheap too. But in the long term is that bad for the collective them? If we keep much of the work here, skilled or unskilled work, while suppressing the minimum wage we seem to only be isolating both prosperity and capital here. That doesn’t improve our lot much though it cements their lot at the status quo.

If people are angry about the disparity in quality of living, which some are, and if you think a lack of prosperity/wealth with the attendant tendency toward liberalized, classical liberal, governance is a cause of anger that leads to either gravitating toward Bolivarism( subscription required at USNI, but freerepublic also has it here for free), which is hostile toward the US or any other Western power, or terrorism is this a smart policy?

I don’t think so either.

But neither is building a moat backed it up with a mine field and a division of troops down on the southern border going to fix the problems caused by illegal immigration to the US. If we keep all the jobs, all the prosperity, all the things that drive people toward liberalism, here then there’s little hope of liberalism taking root elsewhere. We benefit from liberalism (not progressivism) taking root instead of Bolivarism ala Chavez and Emo Morales or the Marxism of Obrador in Mexico. This is analogous to benefiting from a liberal regime springing forth from the corpse of Hussein’s Iraq to usher along changes to the ME that will cut down on terrorist groups using that region as a base from which to attack the collective West.

So, what is it we should be doing? This is tough. It takes will and brains instead of soft/hard hearts.

Soft heartedness tends toward a sense of selfishness in this matter and leads to quick and easy moral gratification: ‘I let them make their lives better. I’m a good person.’ Of course, this approach doesn’t really take into account the effects back in ‘the old country’. Movement of capital and brains weakens the parent country. If you can see this when talking about natural resources, or even be so bold as to call it raping the country, why can’t you see it when we’re talking about human capital? We worry here in the US that so many of our engineers are of foreign extraction and may just go ‘back home’. If it applies to us then why does it not apply to others as well?

A hard heart approach is just not going to make the world better, and, much worse, it doesn’t help make this country any safer, quite the contrary. Locking people into poverty rarely produces real security. Draining off those who would be against Bolivarism and other stripes of socialism and victimhood does not make the other country resistant to those ideas since they’re almost all here, now does it?

Neither approach feeds the bulldog.

What we have to do is governed in part by Barnett’s definition of Connectivity (http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/glossary.htm#Connectivity ), or for those who actually have PNM the 4 Flows and the 10 Commandments of Globalism. There’s no doubt that the influx of immigrants from south of the Rio Grande has helped keep labour and goods costs down here in the US. That’s indisputably a good thing---money to spend elsewhere on other things across the board. But the brain and ‘gumption’ drain is taking its toll south of the Rio Grande---brain drain is not helping those countries fire up their economies. The capital flow from the US south of the Rio Grande definitely aids both parties---face it, a collapsed Mexico that underwent a civil war would *not* be good for the US at all as guerillas hiding in San Diego or other border cities, like Nogales, before striking at places would just bring their war here. (Always surprises me to hear regionalism here in the US. “Not my problem. I live in Idaho/Florida/wherever.” Gee, thanks. Am I your countryman or not? Regionalism is all well and fine in sports and such, maybe even BBQ competitions, but when deciding national policy, it’s a real jack@$$ move since you’re willing to screw over people you shouldn’t for your own benefit.)

So we have to keep capital flowing to Mexico and places south of the Rio Grande since stopping has a good potential for either a Chavez or a civil war in Mexico is not good for the US in any way, shape, or form. That’s leaving the people who demand permanent revolution in power. That’s giving people the victim card to play and get control, as el president for life, of a country; and subsidizing it too.

We need to keep the people flow into the US to keep our economy moving, as I’ve been told that at 5% unemployment everyone who wants a job has one by economist friends, and to improve our image abroad (something anyone who’s looked at the H1 visa fight is familiar with is that students who’ve trained in the US trend toward having a favorable opinion of the US. Not always, but the trend is there.). This keeps us moving forward, money flowing into regions that would otherwise be disposed to becoming havens of revolutionaries or terrorists, and people with favorable opinion from experience effecting people in the ‘old country’ to our benefit. It helps our poor schmucks and theirs simultaneously, not to mention making a career in terrorism really un-attractive since there are both internal and external factors now being applied since the bulk of the pop now have something to lose and the US has more leverage on the country.

We don’t keep the current set up as it is deleterious to both for a host of factors. We are not the nation of Emma Lazarus’ time , but neither must we be cruel and stupid about the issue. Yes, we want ‘them’ to have better lives by not living destitute and with the means to pull themselves up out of it. Yes, we don’t want them to flood our country. We can satisfy both conditions if we’re smart and have the will to take some hard choices. Yeah, allowing some manufacturing jobs to go South means less here. That hurts. In the long run though is it better since this will lead toward wage parity, meaning it isn’t so much cheaper to have it made over there? This means keeping host upon host of people out. But in the long run it means their countries get fixed and allow them similar standards of living as we enjoy here, or reasonable facsimile that they choose for themselves, while keeping the rage that leads to revolutionaries or terrorists to a minimum. Make hard choices that really satisfy nobody for 50 years or instant gratification that gets us what we’ve gotten? I know which one I’m choosing. How about you?

� Secure this line!

I dont want to part of any damn NORTH AMERICAN UNION i mean to disolve our borders smacks a treason its not what our founding fathers wanted

Huh? You free basing WND or something? How do you get 'fix the borders in a smart way and make it possible for them to enjoy prosperity in their own damn country' and turn that into 'NAFTA as gov't'? That's not what I said. Not in any way shape or form.

Maybe you aren't speaking directly to what I wasted 'trons on, and maybe that's what I'm tweaking on. Yet, still, how do you turn 'wow, I'm glad the peach growers are feeling a pinch because of their long tradition of using illegal immigrants because that means we'll fix the system such that illegals no longer supress the minimum wage' into a black helicopter conspiracy of a single gov't presiding over N. America.

I don't want that. I don't think I implied that at all.

Two Comments:

Re: comment 1. I expect anyone that inarticulate really doesn't have much of a clue about what our founding fathers wanted, nor about what Ry meant.

Re: the geat meandering post (you could have said the same thing in half the words, though): Ry! good Deal!! Interestingly, my Masters' Thesis is to be about this very subject, and a lot of what you wrote is going into that [ albeit I'll need to cite sources for my conjectures. :-) ] That said, I'll add this, just to stir the pot:

1) I am all for an American Union--a complete and utter aggregation of all three major countries on the North American continent. As soon as the other two agree to abide by and support the Constitution of the U.S. without much in the way of modification. This is NOT as far fetched an idea as it seems, regardless of the language issues. Really. The issues are not nearly as complex as most people think, considering that the ruling class of Mexico is much more European than most Americans realize... The devil's in the details, but in the long run, the U.S. and Mexico would benefit beyond imagining from a joining... Imagine being able to travel from Maine to Cancun in a country under a single rule of law, with one currency, one government. Does anyone imagine all Americans would stay in the current U.S. or that all Mexicans would stay in the current Mexico? And would it really be so damned terrible if people in this country learned to speak two languages or if the two blended (in a couple hundred years), so long as the priciples we value today are still important then...

2) NAFTA is better by far for the U.S. than for Mexico, regardless of dumb ol' Perot's giant sucking sound nonsense, for all of the reasons you mentioned.

3) As for minimum wage, I believe that's just liberal wealth distribution based on incorrect notions of what actually makes people well off. I am adamantly opposed to minimum wage laws. If people can't eat on what they earn, then they won't do the work, no matter what people think... Especially if they can get enough to eat by going on the dole... Minimu wage is a sham, the same way its a sham to cheat waitresses by allowing restaurants to include tips in the their salaries.. And I don't hear many people complain about that bit of g restaurant lobby shyterism. No, that's all just crap that has no meaning, considering that McD's pays above minimum wage to start, and people who work the fields, like the seasonal likely-illegals who work for my brother-in-law in South Texas are earning what they are willing to accept. And THAT keeps the price of cotton down, and it keeps people gainfully employed who would NOT be employed, either here or in Mexico. People need to eat, and the idea that illegals are taking jobs from Americans is bull$hit, just as is the notion that they are using an inappropriate amount of public resources. I have a step-brother who's an oxygen thief and a sister-in-law who's been more of a drain on the public good, and of absolutely no use to this country in any way shape or form for the 25 years I've known her, to say nothing of the time she spent in prison for bank robbery. So tell me how it is that she is more deserving of welfare and public child care than some mexican family who comes here, lives in hovels in fear of the law, who does grueling work from before sunup to after sundown in all weather, and still feel like they've made the big time if their kids can get an education in an American school!?!?

Yeah, I realize that became a mild rant, but this is a subject near and dear to my heart! I am certain I am alive ONLY because my great grandparents were fortunate enough to leave Europe before America's close relations the Germans were able to turn them into soap!

Immigrants are why this country is great. Our divinely inspired constitution gives immigrants the room to succeed, but it takes the will and the drive to do so....

I say, 1) open the borders wider to anyone who wants to come here legally and work, 2) grant limited amnesty (leading to citizenship) to most folks who have been here at least 4-5 years and have a record of working, and 3) grant rapid exit visas to anyone who doesn't want to get off his or her dead a$$ and work. I'm sure they'd find a much more hospitable envrionment elsewhere. Canada or Britain would be good. . .

"so long as the priciples we value today are still important then..."
That's the important thing. Classical liberalism is really not more than a handful of ideas. Once that meager handful are adopted and institutionalized it doesn't matter what language or culture we're talking about. It is that handful that's the key. That's the only threat from mass immigration this country really faces(even if there are issues about overloading infrastructure since those aren't grave).

"NAFTA is better by far for the U.S."
That seems to be the majority opinion of honest economists. Which makes me wonder why Walmart is hated so much?

"and the idea that illegals are taking jobs from Americans is bull$hit, just as is the notion that they are using an inappropriate amount of public resources."

I'm not sure I agree with you entirely, SAnger. It may just be a regional thing, which would require a regional solution instead of a global one. But in So. Cal it does work out that there's a work shortage and not a labor shortage. Families live in single family homes, often 20-30 people with the cars needed to move that number of people around, and that does put a strain on infrastructure(schools, roads, sewage etc). 3 families paying only property tax on a single piece of property while sending 4-10 kids to school is gaming the system somewhat. As is the healthcare angle of the same set-up. That may not be the case in TExas. It's not quite like how I described it in Bakersfield, CA, but it definitely is in the OC/LA area.
THe worst part of it is that it doesn't have to be this way.
"If people can't eat on what they earn, then they won't do the work, no matter what people think"
Here you've hit on something that bothers me greatly: people think that what they want equates to what they need. People think that gov't should ensure that employers pay wages that get them that lifestyle.
I know economists like Sowell and Williams will shake their heads but I'm not entirely sure I would go so far as getting rid of a minimum wage. There's a reason why it was made and that reason was abuse by employers colluding to suppress pay below survival level. The way it is used now most definitely sucks since people seemingly think that min wage should make you middle class and allow you to buy all kinds of toys, but it is a safeguard against the need for incidents like the Molly Maguires.

If you want a certain lifestyle you have to earn it and acquire the skills to attain it. Minimum wage is supposed to be just that: the minimum. You've got shelter. You're not starving. That's it. No cable. No designer clothes. No cell phones. No money for a phone at all. It's the minimum to keep a family of four alive.

From a purely economic standpoint it does seem like wealth redistrubution, but from a policy pov it makes sense because it keeps employers honest. If only we could get the public to be honest.

Thanks Sanger. You're not the only person I know who has your opinions. Maybe I should put you in contact with a guy I know who lives up in Alaska(former Squid). He's got some data and annecdotes you might find interesting.

And you're right. I probably could've said the same in 1/2-1/4 the words. But that wouldn't be me now would it?;)

1) Protection by Massive Attack. Song reminds me of me and Jess, how we got together, and how we never figure out who is actually protecting who in this relationship.

2) Aenema by Tool. Lex said it best when he listed this song for a different meme: It’s a Southern California thing.

Sure, it’s a beautiful place. Many of the people are great. But there’s just something about the place that you wouldn’t mind if the San Andreas went so you could take a refreshing dip in Arizona Bay. I was born there, raised there, and lived there up until six years ago (26 years all told) by the way, so don’t get huffy about me CA hating.

3) Lullaby by The Cure. It annoys Miss Thang. ‘Nuff said? Not quite. For some odd reason it motivates me about grading and gets me into ‘the zone’ when grading. Maybe that’s because it feeds into my darker instincts and gives me reason to be an uncompromising of my principles and responsibility to the chemistry community grader? Maybe. You better study, chuckleheads, because otherwise Spiderman is having you for dinner tonight.

4) Sea of Sin by Depeche Mode. This is definitely not a song for kidlets. I’m not always a prude, only about 99% of the time.

5) ‘Cowboy’ by the Vandals. Another So. Cal. band, with Tool being the other. Something I've listened to from my early days up until today. Also annoys Miss Thang (bonus!). This is an anti-suburbanite poseur anthem. That's the element which is the element that annoys Miss Thang since I explained it to her as such when she asked (double bonus!). Plus, who can pass up the guitar part from ‘The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly’ theme, even if it is buried in a punk song?

6) ‘Voices’ off of the Macross Plus soundtrack. This is just something I find really, really pretty and sometimes I just need to hear something really, really pretty (before I go postal, burn down my lab, and slaughter Miss Thang).

7) Elevation by U2. This is just a good tune in my opinion. A rather feel good about the world after listening to pop song.

As usual, Argghhh! is where memes come to die. I’m not tagging anyone but you’re welcome to leave your seven songs if you wish.
--ry

� Secure this line!

Meme-killing is a tough job, but someone has to do it, Ry.

Are thumbs fingers? If so, yer instructions are fine... but if they're diff'rent, then yer instructions are wrong.

Just... sayin'.

Those weren't my instructions. I copied those from Cassies site, who copied them from somewhere else.(I can't believe we're going over the taxonomy of digits. I should walk away shaking my head, but this is actually pretty tame for this place.)

Thank you ry :)

I will have to look those up. The Armorer IS a worthless putz, is he not???

Not so sure about the worthless part, but I'm leaning toward agreement on the putz part. Split the difference? Putz of some worth?;)(flees in terror)

Look Ry - up in the sky! There's a word up there! But I don't see an airplane... and why would anyone fly a banner that said, "Vibram"? Wait - izzit getting closer? Why is it getting darker...

To. Tired. To. Pull. Myself. Out. Of. Crater.
(But, but, but, I put an emoticon in!)

For a guy who never did pot you sure like some psychodelical music. Henry Chapin?

Harry, please. Harry. He told stories. Great ones. Funny ones. Silly ones.

I even saw him in concert. I also saw, gee, Elton John, Jefferson Starship, the Beach Boys, Heart, Pat Benatar, Blondie...

True, but then you worked as a security guard in college(if I remember the story correctly). Not sure it means you didn't just see them while you were supposed to be patroling. Pass on EJ, and JA(airplane. Never liked them, and liked them less when they changed their name to the various starship forms.), and Blondie. Heart (Barracuda) and Benatar(Love is a battlefield) I can still listen to.

And how the hell am I supposed to get the waffling outta me body and clothes? Jeez. Jess is going to be pissed. Does seltzer water work for this?

Cop! Jeez, Cop! Not a security guard. Geez!

What's yer point? D'you know how much fun it is to send a whole section of doped-up potheads down the stairs thinking they're headed into the paddywagons?

Oops. I thought you did that while you were still between 18 and 24 wearing the 'Staff' windbreaker before you went off to be a big bad Armorer and walked a beat with a badge? I've got the chronology wrong? Opps. My bad. No attempted shenanigans, this time.

My point? Oh, like *your* musical tastes really got you out to see these people as opposed to doing it for work? Sure.;) Like I really enjoy tea and looking at scribbles on a paper hanging on a wall instead of just going to prevent being banished to the couch.

nope, wouldn't know anything about freaking out potheads, but I'm sure it feels good.:)

Actually, Ry, I liked Pink Floyd, Iron Butterfly, ELP, and a whole lotta other stuff.

All they really have to do is... "Shut up and sing" When they decide to get all social consciencey and I can't detach them from their oft-times silly politics, *then* I lose interest.

Music itself affects my brain like most people - I like the pretty noises and structures. If the words are so stupid as to threaten making my head explode, well, I learned long ago how volume, fast-forward, and mute work.

And now, I just load up the songs I want.

Janis Ian, Sara Maclachlan, Enya, the Corrs, pretty voices singing pretty songs.

Shoot, John Phillip's "San Francisco" is a pretty song. And I love "Alice's Restaurant" - probably for all the wrong reasons... simply because it's - funny. Hell, Ry, I like ABBA. Not because it's great music, but because it just tickles the right parts of my brain.

I liked early Madonna, before it became all about her reproductive organs. My favorite album of hers is the one she did after Penn dumped her. But I like the early stuff, too.

And the world still had problems. I pooh-poohed going to Somalia because it was not the US’s fight. Ditto for Kosovo. That was what I thought at 22. Was not our fight and little real gain to be had by sending them there—like Vietnam, right(wrong, as I was to learn much later, like so many others when we began to find out how terrible the Vietnamese were doing, and much of SE Asia for that matter after the communists had their way with the region.)? So why did we do it?

I was still arrogant at 22 and had little idea of how the world worked; and even less about how to get ahead in it. So this HS drop out went back to school. First I went to a junior college and then on to a four year to earn a Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry, where I met my Fair Jessica (not to be confused with the Blog Father’s---mine’s better, but I’m biased.).

At the junior college I ran into things that started to put other earlier experiences into context. My Cambodian born friend, who had a shrapnel scar of his calf and a chunk of meat missing where the scar was, gave me a little perspective. And the African students who spoke French better than they did English gave me an education about the world too. Seeing Vietnamese girls with the same scar on their throats I’d seen ever since grade school started to make sense---a little boy doesn’t understand rape and so can’t connect the evidence to the crime.

I started to learn something cold, hard, disturbing, and utterly unforgiving: there are Wolves out there and if we let them have their way they’d eventually spread their disease where ever they could; they’d wreck things simply to make themselves big chits (even if being big chit didn’t amount to much at all). So, I gave isolationism the deep six.

It just was not realistic. Particularly when I started studying how people around the world blamed us (The West, the US, and the Anglo-sphere. Take your pick.) for what ailed them (and to be honest, sometimes they were right as we did do wrong by them, but other times they were wrong). We couldn’t pretend that if we just stayed home and left the world to themselves we wouldn’t be placing a crosshairs on our chest. We already had one, sometimes earned and sometimes not. As Barnett himself would say: we can’t just firewall them off. It just wasn’t realistic anymore.

So we went to Somalia. It was a good thing (something hard to accept for those who lost loved one’s there and in light of recent events). So went go to Kosovo. It was a good thing ((except for those who had to go on those long, boring flights in the webbed chairs of Starfrogs, got hurt, or had to do the actual heavy lifting)). We were exporting security and connectivity to these parts of the world. We were making their lives better. We were giving them fewer reasons to reach for a gun and more incentive to reach for a lawyer to settle their problems, and thereby making ourselves safer. We were living up to our ideals, but it was costly. Oh so very costly to live up to them.

Vietnam started to make sense to me seeing as how I grew up around the thousands of refugees who came here, continue to come here, and I listened to the horror stories the old ladies with the black teeth, wore the black aoi dai, and had breath that smelled of hoc nam had to tell about how their oldest sons were slaughtered by the followers of Ho Chi Minh. How it was done long after the war was over. How the drug trade and human trafficking were the best ways to make a buck and get ahead in SE Asia became very real to me when I had to see it, and the even worse aftermath, up close and personal. It made sense to me why we went to that far of land then, even if others around here agree with David Drake that going there didn’t do the Vietnamese, or those who went to fight, and damn good at all (You guys did do them some good. You really did, and those that were the people you were helping appreciate it---I’ve met them, I've eaten cross legged in their homes. Never let anyone steal that from you. You’d be kings for a day if you weren’t such humble bast-turds and contacted the folks in Westminster, CA.) We’re idealists here in the US. We’re the brother of the world, part of our multi-ethnic heritage. And a brother’s love is a wondrous thing. A brother’s love is something that’ll get a brother to fight in fights that really aren’t his own or of his choosing; and make him fight harder than he probably should. We’d done it before. We continue to do so. It costs us big. It ruins the lives of some of those very dear to many of us. But still we send them. We’re idealists. We want a better world than we woke up to today. Making that world better costs mega, and not in dollars and cents. A future worth creating has an immense human cost, for us and for those we aim to help. Getting the killing over fast keeps the cost down, but it doesn’t ever make the cost disappear.

My long, odd, and oft times unconventional education has also shown me that at times corporations weren’t evil incarnate, most times actually. They have their moments of duplicity, but often times they’re motivations are misunderstood because people use lenses and prisms to interpret what they’re doing, a sort of circular logic game people play to justify hating Big Business regardless of the good they actually do (we on the right often do the same for NGO’s). Does anyone actually think the guys in the lab at Pfizer just want to bilk joe avg? Does anyone think I went into chemistry because I had illusions of being a millionaire living in Malibu with a 40’ yacht? I went into chemistry a) because I was pretty good at it and b) because when my grandmother died in my arms there weren’t drugs cheap enough to prevent what happened to her (brain aneurysm) or pain meds to prevent her from suffering more than she should have, farkin’ entropy. I sure wasn’t going to find the next super cheap anti-clotting medication on my own in a garage lab (sorry, chemistry does not work like the tech industry does where decentralization is better or even preferred.). But with a contract at Pfizer, or Eli Lilly, or some other pharma firm I just might (unfortunately kerataconus reared its ugly head and put the end to that little plan). Corporations are peopled with individuals who aren’t jackals by and large, even the executives (Not as sure about the marketing and accounting departments though. I think they really are jackals.). Unfortunately, the rules, gov’t implemented rules to protect people who have invested their pensions in these companies or to protect you from when we well intentioned scientist types make mistakes in the lab, prevent them at times from being charities. Like gov’t, businesses have a bottom line they have to toe. That’s an angering but true little factoid.

So that’s how I got to be a neo-con, a living breathing neo-con with a conscience and a desire for a better world than I found. Not just some caricature of one. Not some nebulous thing you can demonize out of fear. Not something you can hate simply because you don’t or won’t attempt to find out what my motivations really are and instead toss everything and the kitchen sink at.

I wanted, and still want, the same world Dr. Barnett and Andy Barnett want. A just, fair, and free one full of plenty for all and little need for people to wage wars over things. I just disagreed, and continue to disagree, on how to get there. That meant there was only one party for me. The GOP since the Dems really weren’t that interested in this kind of thing when I was getting started. They were still bashing Reagan for trying to bring down the Sov Union---that jerk who was upstaged by a monkey, war-mad cowboy who, and dolt . They were still calling the ‘buy American’ plan jingoism and fascism (only now they use that very same thing, in a modified form, to bash off shoring---except Dr. Barnett. He sees how this pushes us toward the end zone.). They were making fun of a man who’d had his arm shattered by machine gun fire fighting real fascist bast-turds in Italy over his infirmity. They were pushing platforms that called for the worst, least efficient, least actionable on the personal level and operational level plans I’d ever heard for helping the greatest number of people. Father Scanal’s plans worked and he wasn’t buying their plans. Their plans couldn’t and wouldn’t work as I’d seen from the worm’s eye view. They were for interventionism only when their guy sat below Damocles’ Sword, but called anyone else doing it the worst names imaginable. They thought Vietnam was the worst thing possible and a stain on our national honor; but I’d seen, first hand, that the real horrors of Vietnam were living next door to me and in Westminster, with broken bodies, stolen virtue, ravaged minds, broken hearts, and a home they could never go back to. I had no choice but to become a Republican. The Dems had no freakin’ clue (welfare reform’s done pretty good, even if there are problems with it, ain’t it? And Clinton was forced into that.), even if they won back then.

Odd that I'm a neo-con since I would’ve voted for JFK had I the chance to do so.

So, I sit here wondering, why is Dr. Barnett’s brother calling me Beelzebub? I mean, I want the same things (90% homology) as he and Dr. Barnett do. So what gives?

Largely, it’s an election year. Hyperbole is bound to happen. That’s what happens during silly season. As Chick Hearn used to say, ‘No harm, no foul.’

Then there’s that Andy Barnett has two sons serving in the Gulf and a third seems to have retired from the Reserves of one of the Services (May they come home sound of mind, body, and spirit. May the Lord protect and guide them home to you soon, sir.). Hey, worrying about your kids is a fine reason to be mad at any president by me. I just wish he understood our, we neo-cons, motivations a little better before he hauled out his rhetorical claymore. Or had better aim.

But, man, don’t insult my intentions or my intelligence. Don’t pretend you and yours alone hold the keys to virtuousness. Don’t pretend you alone have our nation and world’s wellbeing at heart. Don’t pretend that you alone have the fair treatment of our retired or injured service people as an imperative. Don’t do that just so you can climb up on a soap box to bash us with a Nerf hammer for political gain. Mostly, don’t do that because it is not true, not by a long shot. We're willing to work with you and not against you on quite a few things if you'd stop to find out who we are and what we're about.

Particularly don’t dis me and all the other neo-cons with the same slander that the left has hurled at the right when we’re on the same side for all intents and purposes of working for a future worth creating; and with that future looking very, very similar. There’s so much more that could be accomplished if neo-libs didn’t see domestic political profit in taking a pound of flesh out of us moderate conservatives or neo-cons. RINO’s and neo-cons really aren’t that much different than neo-libs. If you really look at the nuts and bolts of what we’re about we really aren’t that different than Tom, even if there is a need, which I don’t deny, for you to show where such difference lays.

But you know what? I proll’y could get along with you Andy Barnett. He sounds like a good man, really. Kind of like John’s sister the liberal teacher. Good people with their hearts in the right place but different ideas of where the end zone is and how to get there. Seeing as how Mom grew up in backwoods Wisconsin and raised her two boys as if it was 1964 and a healthy diet of sports (well, for my flesh and blood older brother it really the Sixties. For me it was the 1980’s.) I think I could get along with the guy just fine as he and Tom are Wisconsinites from a middling sized town and raised on sports. Right up until he pisses in my soup, insults me, and tells me that I’m the closest thing to Satan there is on this planet (which he would proll’y say if I was a paleo-con, or any other con for that matter) we’d get along great. But hey, we get you Andy. We get the anger. We get the why of it. We get you and your brother both on an intellectual level. We get what it is you’re trying to create and the reasons behind it. We here at Castle Argghhh! by and large want the same things, just disagree about how to get there or where the there is.

So, just try not to stick that knife so deep into the back of those of us who you really should consider your allies instead of political hacks like Kos who’d drop you the instant they saw political advantage doing so in the future, okay?

But yeah, as we’re learning around here, a brother’s love is a wondrous thing. To all the Big Brothers out there: salut! The world’s on its way to becoming a great place thanks to you guys.
ry

� Secure this line!

Just to clear up one little thing (and show I read the Whole Thing) - my sister is a liberal psychologist who works for an Enormous State University on a contract with the VA studying pain management and providing services in that regard.

My brother-in-law is the liberal teacher....

Masochist.

Ry, I'm a little older than you--was in on that first wave of punks in the late '70s-early '80s, but have experienced a lot of the same transitions.

I thought Communism was the big answer, workers owning the means of production, equalized income, blabbety blah. I'm happy to say, like you, I've kept my eyes open and paid some attention to why people struggle to leave where they are in the world--risking their very lives to do so--and come to America. The only logical conclusion was to give up the Blame America First stance, and take a good look at what makes America attractive. Not Mcdonald's, not Levis, but the opportunity to make an honest living and be relatively unfettered. Lost some friends over it, but that's the way it goes.

I'm still not taking on the neocon label--probably more neoliberal, but as you note, they aren't that far apart. But the point is, I think a lot of our generation, as we've aged past the twenties and then the thirties, have experienced the same growth as you. I find it encouraging.

You gotta practice your report writing skills especially the Executive Summary part.

I can't say I like labels that much. I even tried labeling myself as a liberal on my first few blog posts and that didn't work all that well. Any queer guy with even the inkling of a conservative thought is supposed to be a paradox which is another example of labels. Maybe it's better Ry just to be you. That's label enough for anyone :P Screw the neocons and neolibs and neonazis punks vamps republicans and democrats and preferably the press as well. You are hardly a conformist no point starting it now is there?

There is a kind of socialist view that one should understand a 'wolf' and look at their childhood abuse etc. I agree and if they are too dangerous to go ahead and shoot them anyway.

There are plenty of wolves in corporations I have no doubt. Yet people sometimes forget a corporation is really just a collective of people, most of whom are like any other.

I have no brother often wondered how they get along.

Ry, that was quite good--I AM impressed (and somewhat awed, really). In fact, I am going to share that with my classmates and with a couple of the professors... Who knows, you might just get attention in some lofty places (not as lofty as at Argghhh, of course, but you know)... I can't begin to tell you how close to the bone that one strikes (nor how close it comes to some of the conversations I've had the past few months!)

In a word, Nice, very nice.

Don't knock the Levi's and McDonald's. To the world, these are the figurative representations of the "streets paved with gold". This is a sign of our prosperity and ability. It may seem trivial or shallow, particularly to those of us who have lived with them for so long and have the luxury of viewing outward signs of prosperity as shallow while philosophizing on the inner or psychological ideology/feelings of "success", but, to a man who plows a field with a lone oxen and a push plow our ancestoral farmers haven't used in almost two centuries, these business are the proverbial gold ring: the ability to leave the plow and feed and clothe your family above subsistence without working yourself to death by time your 40 (better yet,if you are industrious, you can actually be the owner of such a business).

We have time to chat on the internet and talk about the Zen of plowing a field of corn on a john deer tractor. The farmer in vietnam or India sees the field to be plowed as another day of subsistent existence.

that's why we're called "the land of opportunity".

For all the carping about big business and off shoring and things of that nature, Ry makes the point in a round about way: the way to end wars is prosperity. Prosperity does not come at the point of a barrel or through political machinations alone though it requires political stability and security. It requires money and businesses; jobs and opportunities. Viewing these basics of our political and economic structure as inherently evil has always seemed inherently stupid to me.

And,it is my personal view that the cold war was not won by Ronald Reagan, nuclear arms, political ideology or all the proxy wars from WWII on but that the Cold War was won by exactly those things that we view as shallow representations of our prosperity: McDonald's and Levis. Throw in some blackmarket Michael Jackson cassettes, cosmetics and a few other items that might make the idealist cringe and you have the recipe for collapsing the Soviet Union. Simply put, at the lowest street level, the lowest worker with rubles to spend, that worker preferred dollars and the products he could buy with it; the USSR could not compete with us economically thus they could not compete politically, socially or militarily.

It was really that simple.

We have debate endlessly on why the terrorists struck us on 9/11 and what we should have done in response. Why would they strike at innocent civilians and two towers representing our financial success? Was it simply because they saw this financial success as supporting our political and military abilities?

When President Bush talks about how the terrorists "hate our freedom", the people on the left don't get it. That's why they continue to insist that he is oversimplifying the issues and that it is about our involvement in Israel or other political or military endeavors and why some on the right tend to see it in terms of our "political" freedom.

Every good religious fundamentalists/takfiri knows that the destruction of his way of life is not at point of a barrel or from political agreements: it starts the minute a McDonald's opens; the minute one teenager wears Levi's; the minute some guy is driving his landrover listening to 50 Cent talking on his blue tooth technology cell phone (actually, by then, it's too late and the jihadists is fighting a losing battle).

Why do rioting Muslims in the Middle East burn KFC right after they burn the American Flag? Not because it represents our political or military efforts, or because it directly causes a woman to lose her chador/abaya/burkah or a man to forsake Friday call to prayers, but because it represents economic freedom. When a man or woman has economic freedom (ie, freedom from traditional methods of making money and feeding himself and his family), they have the ability, time and resources to gain social, intellectual and political freedom.

In closed societies where economic control depends on fuedal tribal allegiances and religious structures, economic freedom is a volcano they can't stop. Further, Islamic religious leaders, organizations, mosques etc are not different than the Roman Catholic church throughout medieval times or even up to and including the French revolution where the French revolutionaries basically destroyed the church and executed many priests along with aristocrats. The Russian Orthodox church did the same thing during the Red Revolution. In short, while these organizations minister to the common man, they tend to support the political or social structure that provides them with power and money, even if that structure is ultimately destructive to the masses they minister to or consistently maintains those masses in ignorance and poverty.

In the end, I don't support the military action in either Iraq or Afghanistan as the final solution to the over all war, but see them as necessary to the need for immediate change as well as to attrit military and political ability to wage war in the immediate future. The long term "war" I do not see as never ending military conflict. The long term war includes economic and political actions. Not simply sanctions, but trade agreements and development of business, creations of jobs, etc.

bin Laden and everyone of his compatriot groups understands that the war will be long and why the political and, most importantly, economic destruction of the United States is necessary. He knows that their end does not come from an M-16 or daisy cutter bomb, but from an all beef patty on a sesame seed bun. Thus, as long as western businesses are able to, want to and continue to propagate in places like Lahore, Pakistan, they will feel threatened in their way of life and we will be at war (whether it is high or low intensity).

A change in foreign policy (that is so generic it is laughable, but people still insist on making such wide reaching statements), the end to our efforts in Iraq, some bizarre change in stance that abandons Israel as an ally or places them in an untenable position, will not end this war. At best it will buy short term good will that has unforseeable destructive consequences for the future.

April: heh. I hear ya.
But Kat does have a point. Consumerism isn't a bad thing in and of itself.It's the over indulgence in it. Same with agression. Below some thresh hold level agressiveness is a good thing. Above that it's a disease. Really, Al McLeod is the guy to talk to about this. Him and The Flea.

Heh. I toss something out and I get Trias, Kat, and Sanger to comment. Now if I could just figure out what it was that brought them out of lurkerdom I'd do that more often. Glad to hear from all of you.

Trias: Executive summary? I don't do executive summaries. I don't do introductory paragraphs, except when writing fiction, well at all. I've had to pay a colleague to write, and re-write, the introduction of my thesis with pumpkin cheesecake(16 of them). I simply am not very good at it.

But being part of a political movement does kind of sort of matter. There is strength in numbers. Not that one has to surrender their individuality to be part of it. I fall under the broad penumbra of conservative, and quite a few conservatives around here probably think I'm barking at the moon mad.

Then there is the ability to quickly describe to someone what one's beliefs and motivations are. It beats spending thirty minutes laying out one's philosophy when there's a name that tells people, quickly and accurately, what you're thinking is. There's always wiggle room. It's not like progressivism is a monolith with a single script to follow either. But it's a good starting point.

I'm sure you have felt this at times too: it'd be nice just to blend it once in a while. So I don't mind joining a crowd that happens to be going to the same place as me.

Sanger: Glad to hear from you! Don't care if I get talked about. Hearing you say you liked it, that you found in it something of value, that's high praise enough for me. But, most of all, glad to see you're not being driven bonkers from your studies and you've still got time to lurk. YOu can have the Rant Mantle back any time you want.:0)

Ket: Very Barnettian. He describes exactly what you talk of here "Ry makes the point..." in much more detail in his own works. Much better than I can. He's a genius. I just can follow his genius.

Security/Law/Economics rule sets. Adopting a good set of those are the troika that leads to prosperity. Read Barnett(I'm kinda sure Kat does on occassion since he's on her blogroll, or I thought I saw him on her blogroll). He's worth the effort. Even if he's a neo-liberal who isn't above taking pot shots at us neo-cons.:)

Horizontal thinking is hard to do, Kat. It doesn't come natural to me either. But, 'seeing the whole mosaic' *does* matter when you're making grand strategic decisions. Believe it or not, teaching the meaning of the Eact graph to undergrads lead to a lot of things falling into place for me. It's an analogy I like to use a lot.

But Ry 'Neocon' *is* an Executive Summary :)

Yeah, but I don't write executive summaries. I just use them when I talk.:0) (snarky bast-turd, grumble, grumble)

Ry,

Look, you don't need MY approval. You do just fine ...really. Way better than I've done for a long while. As for the so-called rantmeister crap, well I've got a lot of other things to focus my ire on lately--and to keep me way too busy. I can't even keep my own site up to date worth spit, let alone come here and aggravate John.

Anyway, this week has been grueling. Wanna know anything about exchange rate risk in international transactions? If you do, get a book, 'cause I can't seem to get my braincells to give a damn about it, no matter how many times I reread the stuff. I guess I'm not cut out to be an economist or a financial wonk... As if THAT was ever a thing that crossed my mind. Bleh!

Anyway, what you wrote was god if for no other reason than it was sincere. A lot of more polished stuff is crap because it doesn't sound sincere. That's part of what I like about your stuff.

--
V/R