The Great Wall of America
I often think of America as the modern equivalent of the late Roman Empire, however, this really is an inaccurate observation considering one must take into account how America is still weighed down by the constitution. I know many would object that this cannot be because the constitution has been so watered down in the past 70 years that it is almost non-existent in terms of its ability to bind down the federal government. However, it still is a force that if a political party acts upon it then can be used to great effect to either further the bureaucratic centralization of Washington or disperse its strength to the 50 states of the Union. The Right or the Left therefore will use the constitution in the coming years as the means to pull America away from the position she currently holds as the Shield-Maiden of the Anglosphere which will result in the political atrophy from the world scene as the global policeman.
The destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11, which I have now come to conclude only lately, has left a bigger scar upon American than I first realized. When it occurred, I knew it was war but with whom and where and for how long? I have always felt that it was right to not only attack Saddam's regime for their covert and overt connections to terrorism/wmd's but for also having the audacity to attack our aircraft throughout the '90's and after 9/11 over the "No-Fly Zone" that was established after the First Gulf War that encompassed both Northern and Southern Iraq with the Central area left to Saddam for an operational "airspace". The war with Iraq was absolutely necessary to establish a large geographic base of operations and a jumping off point to other nations such as Syria and Iran. And so, here we are with spring upon us and war with Iran almost an inevitability and rightly so. We will be victorious, but why is it that I sense a new paradigm shift upon us? One in which the United States will retreat from the world and return to its old ways of nationalistic neutrality much like that of a Switzerland or a Sweden?
Illegal aliens, Islamic international terrorism, an 8.2 TRILLION dollar federal debt (which the debt ceiling was recently raised by congress an additional 780 billion), political and economic "open" borders, politicians too weak to jealously guard their own power in both the House of Representatives and Senate, a baby-boomer generation that has finally expended their vigor that social security, viagra and prescription drugs cannot bring back their "glory" days, and their offspring that will not and can not understand the things of the world or its history. Nationalism, in spite of both political parties predilection towards Wilsonian interventionist policies, has sprung up in the most unlikely of places: Congress. With each Islamic terrorist attack whether in the form of truck-bombs or hijacked aircraft or a "lone" sniper, Americans are increasingly demanding a fortress like defense that so many in Washington are reluctant to embrace for political and economic reasons. However, with the advent of the internet, radio and blogosphere Americans are able to reach the highest echelons of government with their viewpoint and politicians are responding. Even President Bush created the Department of Homeland Security, whether it works or not is a different story, that has nationalistic repercussions. Hence, the Left's aversion to its implication and virulent attack upon its very purpose: to defend America.
The President's Dubai Ports Deal was intercepted by the Democrats and cynically played upon by them to block the President and embarrass him. This they succeeded, however nationalistic jingoism was the means by which they used to block President Bush. Has a new precedent been established by Democrats?
From an article on Law.com regarding the Dubai Ports deal:
The Dubai Ports World acquisition of Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co. closed in London last week. Both companies operate port terminals all over the world. DP World is controlled by the government of Dubai, one of the United Arab Emirates, and P&O is based in London.
Only 10 percent or so of the P&O business is located in the United States. It operates terminals at five American ports, including New York and New Orleans. The purchase of the American operations ignited a grassroots bushfire that enveloped Washington, D.C. Irate callers clogged the lines of radio talk show hosts and then of their congressmen.
Congress refused an offer of a 45-day formal investigation of the national security implications of the deal. Members of Congress from both parties rushed to propose over two dozen bills aimed at halting the acquisition. After a quick 62-2 vote by a panel in the House of Representatives to block the transfer of port operations in the United States, DP World threw in the towel.
Amazing how Congress moves when Americans really get exorcised over an issue, logically or not. But more important was the implication of Congress' actions in the House to the future of other acquisitions.
The public learned late three salient facts about our ports: First, terminal operators do not own the ports, government port authorities do. The terminal operators lease space to run loading cranes and dock ships. Second, 80 percent of the terminals in the United States are already run by foreign-owned operators. Some of the port operators are state-owned (China and Singapore), some are publicly traded and others are privately owned by families. Third, port security is in the hands of federal customs officials and the Coast Guard, not the terminal operators. Moreover, the laborers the terminal operators must use to load and unload ships are unionized dock workers.
The dispute has also brought focus on the otherwise obscure Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, an interagency group delegated with the responsibility for reporting to the president on foreign acquisitions that threaten national security. A 1988 act, known as the Exon-Florio Amendment, empowers the president to investigate and, if necessary, to block foreign acquisitions that "threaten to impart the national security." Investigations are voluntary if the foreign buyer is privately owned, and mandatory if the foreign buyer is state-owned and the acquisition "could affect the national security."
The more Americans come to understand the inner workings in the Halls of Congress the less they are likely to embrace the policies of Wilson. The article continues:
In practice, CFIUS has recommended that the president block only one takeover after a formal investigation (the proposed sale of a Seattle defense contractor to a Chinese company) and has threatened to recommend that the president block four or five others. The CFIUS threat of an adverse recommendation is usually enough to stop, or modify most acquisitions; a formal report to the president is not necessary. In the DP World acquisition, CFIUS had determined initially that a mandatory 45-day investigation was not necessary even though Dubai is state-owned. After the public outcry, CFIUS had started a formal investigation.
Some members of Congress, not content with the CFIUS procedure, have proposed legislation to give Congress a greater say in foreign acquisitions of "critical infrastructure industries," which could include everything from water and energy companies to those involved in telecommunications or media. Such legislation has two dangers.
First, it could very quickly mix national security concerns with economic protectionism and radically change the position of the United States in the world economy. International investment is a mutual game; our companies invest abroad because foreign companies can invest here. We cannot cherry-pick those investments we want in the United States (let Honda own an Ohio automotive plant but not a trucking company, for example) without having our companies excluded abroad.
Second, giving the power to Congress to, in essence, charter foreign companies, will return us to the days of the early 1800s when states chartered domestic corporations one-by-one. The result was organized graft and corruption and government-sponsored monopolies as state legislatures took payoffs to refuse charters of new companies that would compete with established ones, unless the new company could offer more.
Government has always been corrupt hence the need for a constitution to protect the people from its egregious and voracious appetite of government largesse. If corruption cannot be exorcised from our government then better to diffuse it in the direction of the 50 states than have it congealed in one large mass in Washington DC. Shall America maintain a state along the lines of Bismark's Germany where the Kaiser ruled as the single head over the disparate and petty states of the Reich or shall we return to a time when the Junker Barons ruled Germany without the strong arm of the Kaiser? You must decide.
The destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11, which I have now come to conclude only lately, has left a bigger scar upon American than I first realized. When it occurred, I knew it was war but with whom and where and for how long? I have always felt that it was right to not only attack Saddam's regime for their covert and overt connections to terrorism/wmd's but for also having the audacity to attack our aircraft throughout the '90's and after 9/11 over the "No-Fly Zone" that was established after the First Gulf War that encompassed both Northern and Southern Iraq with the Central area left to Saddam for an operational "airspace". The war with Iraq was absolutely necessary to establish a large geographic base of operations and a jumping off point to other nations such as Syria and Iran. And so, here we are with spring upon us and war with Iran almost an inevitability and rightly so. We will be victorious, but why is it that I sense a new paradigm shift upon us? One in which the United States will retreat from the world and return to its old ways of nationalistic neutrality much like that of a Switzerland or a Sweden?
Illegal aliens, Islamic international terrorism, an 8.2 TRILLION dollar federal debt (which the debt ceiling was recently raised by congress an additional 780 billion), political and economic "open" borders, politicians too weak to jealously guard their own power in both the House of Representatives and Senate, a baby-boomer generation that has finally expended their vigor that social security, viagra and prescription drugs cannot bring back their "glory" days, and their offspring that will not and can not understand the things of the world or its history. Nationalism, in spite of both political parties predilection towards Wilsonian interventionist policies, has sprung up in the most unlikely of places: Congress. With each Islamic terrorist attack whether in the form of truck-bombs or hijacked aircraft or a "lone" sniper, Americans are increasingly demanding a fortress like defense that so many in Washington are reluctant to embrace for political and economic reasons. However, with the advent of the internet, radio and blogosphere Americans are able to reach the highest echelons of government with their viewpoint and politicians are responding. Even President Bush created the Department of Homeland Security, whether it works or not is a different story, that has nationalistic repercussions. Hence, the Left's aversion to its implication and virulent attack upon its very purpose: to defend America.
The President's Dubai Ports Deal was intercepted by the Democrats and cynically played upon by them to block the President and embarrass him. This they succeeded, however nationalistic jingoism was the means by which they used to block President Bush. Has a new precedent been established by Democrats?
From an article on Law.com regarding the Dubai Ports deal:
The Dubai Ports World acquisition of Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co. closed in London last week. Both companies operate port terminals all over the world. DP World is controlled by the government of Dubai, one of the United Arab Emirates, and P&O is based in London.
Only 10 percent or so of the P&O business is located in the United States. It operates terminals at five American ports, including New York and New Orleans. The purchase of the American operations ignited a grassroots bushfire that enveloped Washington, D.C. Irate callers clogged the lines of radio talk show hosts and then of their congressmen.
Congress refused an offer of a 45-day formal investigation of the national security implications of the deal. Members of Congress from both parties rushed to propose over two dozen bills aimed at halting the acquisition. After a quick 62-2 vote by a panel in the House of Representatives to block the transfer of port operations in the United States, DP World threw in the towel.
Amazing how Congress moves when Americans really get exorcised over an issue, logically or not. But more important was the implication of Congress' actions in the House to the future of other acquisitions.
The public learned late three salient facts about our ports: First, terminal operators do not own the ports, government port authorities do. The terminal operators lease space to run loading cranes and dock ships. Second, 80 percent of the terminals in the United States are already run by foreign-owned operators. Some of the port operators are state-owned (China and Singapore), some are publicly traded and others are privately owned by families. Third, port security is in the hands of federal customs officials and the Coast Guard, not the terminal operators. Moreover, the laborers the terminal operators must use to load and unload ships are unionized dock workers.
The dispute has also brought focus on the otherwise obscure Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, an interagency group delegated with the responsibility for reporting to the president on foreign acquisitions that threaten national security. A 1988 act, known as the Exon-Florio Amendment, empowers the president to investigate and, if necessary, to block foreign acquisitions that "threaten to impart the national security." Investigations are voluntary if the foreign buyer is privately owned, and mandatory if the foreign buyer is state-owned and the acquisition "could affect the national security."
The more Americans come to understand the inner workings in the Halls of Congress the less they are likely to embrace the policies of Wilson. The article continues:
In practice, CFIUS has recommended that the president block only one takeover after a formal investigation (the proposed sale of a Seattle defense contractor to a Chinese company) and has threatened to recommend that the president block four or five others. The CFIUS threat of an adverse recommendation is usually enough to stop, or modify most acquisitions; a formal report to the president is not necessary. In the DP World acquisition, CFIUS had determined initially that a mandatory 45-day investigation was not necessary even though Dubai is state-owned. After the public outcry, CFIUS had started a formal investigation.
Some members of Congress, not content with the CFIUS procedure, have proposed legislation to give Congress a greater say in foreign acquisitions of "critical infrastructure industries," which could include everything from water and energy companies to those involved in telecommunications or media. Such legislation has two dangers.
First, it could very quickly mix national security concerns with economic protectionism and radically change the position of the United States in the world economy. International investment is a mutual game; our companies invest abroad because foreign companies can invest here. We cannot cherry-pick those investments we want in the United States (let Honda own an Ohio automotive plant but not a trucking company, for example) without having our companies excluded abroad.
Second, giving the power to Congress to, in essence, charter foreign companies, will return us to the days of the early 1800s when states chartered domestic corporations one-by-one. The result was organized graft and corruption and government-sponsored monopolies as state legislatures took payoffs to refuse charters of new companies that would compete with established ones, unless the new company could offer more.
Government has always been corrupt hence the need for a constitution to protect the people from its egregious and voracious appetite of government largesse. If corruption cannot be exorcised from our government then better to diffuse it in the direction of the 50 states than have it congealed in one large mass in Washington DC. Shall America maintain a state along the lines of Bismark's Germany where the Kaiser ruled as the single head over the disparate and petty states of the Reich or shall we return to a time when the Junker Barons ruled Germany without the strong arm of the Kaiser? You must decide.
posted by Bruce R. McConnell | 4:15 PM
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