Tag Archive for: peace

What House Of Dragon Can Teach Us About Power And Wealth Creation

House of Dragon, like its predecessor Game of Thrones, is The Godfather of epic fantasy. Westeros is a land where power rules and individual rights do not exist.


The first season of HBO’s House of Dragon is nearing its conclusion, and the Game of Thrones prequel has not disappointed.

Based on George R. R. Martin’s novel Fire & Blood, the new series depicts House Targaryen’s efforts to rule the Seven Kingdoms amid its own internal power struggles. The story takes place about 170 years before the events depicted in Game Thrones and centers on Rhaenyra Targaryen, a princess who’s named heir to the Iron Throne by her ailing father King Viserys. This puts her at odds with her uncle Daemon (Matt Smith) and later her infant brother, who also have claims to the throne.

While I was initially skeptical that House of Dragon would bring back the magic of Westeros, the series has managed to live up to the hype (so far). The show’s writing and acting are superb, and just like GoT, the series explores power and morality through the gritty lens of realism. The realism is conveyed not just through the show’s ample sex and violence, but also the promise that the hero might actually not win or may not do the right thing. House of Dragon, like its predecessor Game of Thrones, is The Godfather of epic fantasy.

Viewers may be pleased to notice that, with the exception of the size of Targaryen dragons, almost nothing has changed in the Seven Kingdoms, even though nearly two hundred years have passed. Armies still fight with swords and arrows. Most of the people are still poor. Soldiers ride horses. Farming is presumably the primary occupation for the vast majority of people who are not lords or ladies.

To understand why so little has changed in Westeros, one need only look to our own world. Though many of us have personally witnessed massive change and innovation in our own lifetime, this was the exception, not the rule, in history.

Economist Brad Delong has noted that the standard of living didn’t change much for most of the last two thousand years, and GDP figures from Our World in Data confirm this.

In 1 AD, the GDP of the entire world was less than $182 billion (in 2011 US dollars). A thousand years later, global GDP was higher, but not by much—an estimated $210 billion. A few hundred years later, the world’s GDP was actually lower. Four hundred years after that, in 1700, the world’s total GDP was still only about $640 billion.

In other words, the world had changed very little over a period of 1700 years, at least in terms of material wealth.

That changed the next century, however. By 1820, global GDP had increased to $1.2 trillion. By 1870 it was $2 trillion. On the eve of World War I, global GDP was $4.74 trillion and by1950, despite the two most catastrophic and deadly wars in human history, it was up to $9 trillion. By 1998, it was $58 trillion and by 2013 it was $101 trillion.

The evidence for this miraculous growth in wealth is visible all around us. From automobiles and computers, microwaves and laundry machines, to sunglasses, TVs, and cell phones, most middle-class families own goods that were scarcely imaginable a century ago. Things as vital as toilet paper, toothpaste, and hot showers are available to most of the people in the world.

It’s no coincidence that the rise in material wealth the world witnessed over the last 250 years coincided with the global rise of capitalism.

When Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations in 1776, he offered the world a roadmap to wealth creation. It was surprisingly simple. Peace and trade—not brute force, coercion, or the yolk of slavery—was the formula.

“Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things,” Smith wrote in The Theory of Moral Sentiments.

The formula might be simple, but its execution is not. The world of Westeros shows us why.

While many of the characters in Game of Thrones and House of Dragon are interesting, and some are even good, it’s impossible to miss that Westeros is a land defined by war, injustice, power, and plunder.

In the first season of Game of Thrones, we see the Crown is basically bankrupt. King Robert is spending money the Crown doesn’t have, and “beggaring” the realm in the process, placing an immense burden on his people (who will eventually be the ones to pay off the Crown’s debts). Over the course of eight seasons, viewers witness what is largely a bloody power struggle to rule.

House of Dragon offers its own examples. We quickly see that the Crown is a source of aggression, not benevolence. In the very first episode, Daemon Targaryen, the king’s brother, descends on Flea Bottom (the most poverty-stricken party of King’s Landing) with his Gold Cloaks (i.e. the city watch) to bring “law and order” to the district.

“My brother’s city has fallen into squalor. Crime of every breed has been allowed to thrive,” he says. “No longer. Beginning tonight, King’s Landing will learn to fear the color gold.”

In the darkness, men are accused by the Gold Cloaks—”thief!” “raper!”—and rounded up. They are not tried, but executed on the spot. Daemon himself takes at least one man’s head. All it takes is the accusation from a Gold Cloak.

While there is some fuss the next day over Daemon’s actions, the king’s council ultimately overlooks the carnage, reasoning that Daemon’s actions, draconian though they may be, project strength and power.

This is why nothing changes in Westeros. It’s a land where power rules and individual rights do not exist. Whatever wealth people manage to accumulate can simply be taken from them by anyone—whether it be their lord, pirates, or the Crown itself—who has more power than they do. The king’s justice is rarely to be found.

Adam Smith was correct when he observed that the formula to wealth creation is surprisingly simple: easy taxes, peace and the adequate administration of justice. But Westeros shows us this is hardly easy to achieve, especially where power is concentrated and those who wield it are rarely held accountable.

AUTHOR

Jon Miltimore

Jonathan Miltimore is the Managing Editor of FEE.org. His writing/reporting has been the subject of articles in TIME magazine, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Forbes, Fox News, and the Star Tribune. Bylines: Newsweek, The Washington Times, MSN.com, The Washington Examiner, The Daily Caller, The Federalist, the Epoch Times.

RELATED ARTICLE: What Is Entrepreneurship?

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

INDEPENDENCE DAY TRUTH: Equal People Are Not Free and Free People Are Not Equal

“Human beings are born with different capacities. If they are free, they are not equal. And if they are equal, they are not free.” ― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

“I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., from the “I have a dream” speech in Washington, D.C.


Today we are hearing about equality, equity, along with the big lies of “Wokeism.” These words are Marxist false flags that force, via government mandate, the elevation of one group over another group for political purposes.

MAKING PEOPLE EQUAL

The goal of Marxism is to make everyone equal as humans, as workers and as a people. The problem is when this is put into practice the individual is replaced by the state. As the powers of the government increase the freedoms of the individual shrink or disappear completely.

History tells us repeatedly that as government grows the individual shrinks. Just look at the former Soviet Union to understand what is now happening in America.

QUESTION:  Will Independence Day 2021 go down in history as the day we the people lost our freedom?

In The Revolution Betrayed Leon Trotsky wrote:

The old principle: who does not work shall not eat, has been replaced with a new one: who does not obey shall not eat. Exactly how many Bolsheviks have been expelled, arrested, exiled, exterminated, since 1923, when the era of Bonapartism opened, we shall find out when we go through the archives of Stalin’s political police. How many of them remain in the underground will become known when the shipwreck of the bureaucracy begins.

The people are replaced by government bureaucrats. The laws change from defending individual liberties to taking away the individual and replace the people with crushing state mandates, take the Covid pandemic as a recent example.

Covid shifted power from the individual to that state overnight. The pandemic was used by bureaucrats to take away individual freedom to assemble and replaced it with lockdowns and social distancing.

Covid took away the rights of business to remain open and prosper. It took away individual livelihoods and replace it with government hand outs.

Rev. William J. H. Boetcker spoke of the “Seven National Crimes.”

  • I don’t think.
  • I don’t know.
  • I don’t care.
  • I am too busy.
  • I live well enough alone.
  • I have no time to read and find out.
  • I am not interested.

These seven crimes are the fundamental laws of Wokeism writ large. When we stop thinking, understanding, caring and find ourselves alone, bored and uninformed then our freedom is lost!

A FREE PEOPLE ARE NOT EQUAL

In a truly free society people are never equal. They are different and do things differently throughout their lives. From birth people are influenced by both nature and nurture. No two people are exactly the same when born. The same is true about people who have different life experiences. Even biological twins do not have the same life experiences.

It is fundamental that society understand that it must create opportunities that encourage and use these natural inequalities for the good of all.

The following sentiments were created by the Rev. William J. H. Boetcker, who lectured around the United States about industrial relations at the turn of the twentieth century. They are all the truth.

  • You cannot bring prosperity by discouraging thrift.
  • You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.
  • You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
  • You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
  • You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich.
  • You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.
  • You cannot further brotherhood of men by inciting class hatred.
  • You cannot establish security on borrowed money.
  • You cannot build character and courage by taking away man’s initiative and independence.
  • You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.

There are those who are hell bent on tearing down big men, weakening the strong, destroying the rich, inciting class hatred and taking away man’s initiative and independence.

The founding fathers understood this and that is why they wrote the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution.

CONCLUSION

QUESTION: How many American patriots have been expelled, arrested, exiled, exterminated, since the 2020 election?

As we Americans approach Independence Day 2021, let us reflect on our freedoms and defend our liberties. If we fail to do so then American, as we have known it, will cease to exist as One Nation Under God and become one nation under big government.

Is this what we want for our children and grandchildren?

I think not.

Have a blessed July 4th.

©Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

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Trump: ‘Another HISTORIC breakthrough today! Our two GREAT friends Israel and Bahrain agree to a Peace Deal’

VIDEO: President Donald J. Trump announces Bahrain, Israel will normalize relations.


“Another HISTORIC breakthrough today! Our two GREAT friends Israel and the Kingdom of Bahrain agree to a Peace Deal – the second Arab country to make peace with Israel in 30 days!”

This is extraordinary. Trump is achieving it by refusing to heed the conventional wisdom that has guided U.S. foreign policy into disaster after disaster for decades. I rated him very high in Rating America’s Presidents, and he keeps on vindicating me. But his defiance of the mainstream analysts and demonstration of their failures is one reason why they hate him with such passionate intensity.

“Bahrain agrees to normalize relations with Israel, Trump announces,” Jerusalem Post, September 11, 2020:

Bahrain has joined the United Arab Emirates in striking an agreement to normalize relations with Israel, President Donald Trump said on Friday, a dramatic move aimed at easing tensions in the Middle East.

Trump tweeted out the news after he spoke by phone to both Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the White House said.

Trump also tweeted: “Another HISTORIC breakthrough today! Our two GREAT friends Israel and the Kingdom of Bahrain agree to a Peace Deal – the second Arab country to make peace with Israel in 30 days!”

“This is a historic breakthrough to further peace in the Middle East,” the United States, Bahrain and Israel said in a joint statement.

“Opening direct dialog and ties between these two dynamic societies and advanced economies will continue the positive transformation of the Middle East and increase stability, security, and prosperity in the region,” it said.

Netanyahu says the agreement marks a “new era of peace.”…

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

U.S. T-shirt company sells Nazi swastika design as ‘symbol of love and peace’

“The company even made a promotional video claiming that the Nazis ‘took the swastika, rotated it 45 degrees, and turned it into a symbol of hatred, fear, war, racism, power.’…On some of the tee shirts sold by KA Designs, the swastika remains turned by 45 degrees, similarly to the Nazis’ use of the symbol.”

Get the picture?

Given the Left’s fanatical hatred of Israel and wholesale acceptance of “Palestinian” jihad propaganda, this is unlikely to have been an accident.

“US T-shirt company sells swastika design as ‘symbol of love and peace,’”

by Danielle Ziri, Jerusalem Post, August 6, 2017:

The US-based clothing design website Teespring is selling T-shirts and sweatshirts branded with swastikas, aiming to make them a “symbol of love and peace”.

The designs, created by KA Designs and sold on the site, all display large swastikas in the front. One shows the Nazi-associated symbol in rainbow colors with the word “Peace”, another one with the word “Zen”, one reading “Love” and a third design, in black, shows a spiral of swastikas. They range in price from $20 to $35.

“Here at KA we explore boundaries. We push them forward.” the company wrote as a description for the products. “Let’s make the swastika a symbol of Love and Peace. Together, we can succeed.”

Before being used by Hitler’s German Nazi regime, swastikas were commonly known as an ancient sign used by Hindus and Buddhists carrying positive associations such as auspiciousness and good fortune. KA Designs is attempting to relate the now negative sign to its origins.

The company even made a promotional video claiming that the Nazis “took the swastika, rotated it 45 degrees, and turned it into a symbol of hatred, fear, war, racism, power.”

“They stigmatized the swastika, they won, they limited our freedom, or maybe not?” the video continues. “The swastika is coming back.”

On some of the tee shirts sold by KA Designs, the swastika remains turned by 45 degrees, similarly to the Nazis’ use of the symbol….

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Tell Me Who You Are and I Will Tell You What Is At Stake For You

“The more people chant about their freedom and how free they are, the more loudly I hear their chains rattling” – GEORGE ORWELL

ARE YOU A MAN?

If you are a man, your entire being, the appreciation of it, and the idea of your importance are at stake. Hillary takes any opportunity she can to eviscerate and emasculate men. I mean, we shouldn’t blame her, look who she married. Nonetheless, under a Hillary administration, affirmative action will be set up to target men. She will, without a doubt, come after you with a vengeance. Do not be surprised if men began to abandon their country in response to the persecution that she will unleash upon you for nothing else other than your gender. A globalist president would seek out to emasculate the country as a way to bring us down a notch, or two, or three in order to put us on an even playing field rather than the rest of the world, so why not begin with the men at home?

With Hillary, we will live in a nation that will have gone from “no means no” to even “yes means no” and every man guilty of having consensual sex with a woman will also potentially be guilty of rape as well for no other reason than that he is a man and men are rapists in Hillary’s America. Think I am being dramatic? Don’t risk it. This election has come down to self-defense and preservation of your rights and treatment as a man; do not let go of that just because society has been programmed to make you feel bad about it. Fight for yourselves. Take this country back. As a man, to cast a vote for her would be to vote to wage a war against yourself.

ARE YOU A WOMAN?

If you are a woman, you are a pawn to Hillary in her game of lies and deceit. She is using you. She is using you because you’re the easier target against her opponent. Although she wants you to think that you need her, she would be nothing without her ability to manipulate your support. She knows that Obama was the race president and she wants, very desperately, to be the gender president. Compare race relations and what is happening to the African-American population under Barack “The Race President Obama. Look at the beginning of Obama’s time in office to now, do you want to see the same thing happen to you as a woman just because Hillary wants to use you as a platform?

She wants to go down in history and a feminist trailblazer at any cost; even if that means women have to pay the price without even realizing it. She wants you to think that abortion is liberation, that the “wage gap” is strictly due to sexism, and that you’re a walking victim no matter where you go or what you do—which immediately puts you at a disadvantage at all times. How can you say you are empowering someone if you are always making that person the victim? Think about it.

ARE YOU AFRICAN-AMERICAN?

If you are an African-American, let me ask you, what do you have to lose? I mean that in the most respectful way possible but really, what has the current administration done or has Hillary promised to help heal the race relations in this country? Hillary Clinton has expressed her profound admiration for Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood. Sanger was a leader in the eugenics movement in which she promoted the reduction of sexual reproduction and the sterilization of those individuals that she believed had “undesirable traits”. She fervently, yet discreetly, worked to place most of her clinics in primarily African-American neighborhoods. She undoubtedly believed in white supremacy and once wrote, “It is said that the aboriginal Australian, the lowest known species of the human family, just a step higher than the chimpanzee in brain development, has so little sexual control that police authority alone prevents him from obtaining sexual satisfaction on the streets.” It is important to know the origins of the people and the things we are supporting before we do so. Planned Parenthood was born out of the idea of white supremacy; do you want to support the candidate who admires the woman responsible for that?

I know that the media has instilled the idea that a white male president couldn’t possibly unify the country, but look what one of color has done in just eight years. People are worried that Donald Trump is going to take us back to a 1960’s America but, racially, we are already there, or at least on our way there, aren’t we? Agitating this race war is getting African-American people killed in the streets on what seems to be a daily basis.

Donald Trump has not only promised to work to heal the unruly situation between cops and the African-American community, but all crime against blacks—including black on black crime, which is the number one killer of black people in the united states. If black lives matter then they have to matter all across the board, not just the black lives taken by different races, but the black lives taken. Period. We can all agree that race relations in this country need to be healed, but protests and violence are not the ways to do it.

You are being crippled by the welfare state, making it possible for fathers to be taken out of your homes, for providers to be essentially useless and replaced by the government so that you’re forced to depend upon them rather than yourselves—the opposite of empowerment. FDR once said, about welfare, “The lessons of history, confirmed by evidence immediately before me, show conclusively that continued dependence on relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber.  To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit.  It is inimical to the dictates of sound policy.  It is a violation of the traditions of America.” Donald Trump wants to take you off the narcotic that is welfare and has said repeatedly that he will work tirelessly to bring jobs to the inner cities as well as give you and your children the option to go to the best schools in the area you live.

Vote to heal this country, vote for unity.

ARE YOU A LEGAL IMMIGRANT?

I may be preaching to the choir here because you know what it means to abide by the laws and to work for what you get, but voting for Hillary means voting for open borders. Voting to open the borders and flooding the country with immigrants just invalidates the work and dedication that it took you to become a proud citizen of this country. It also makes it extremely difficult for you and your fellow immigrants to assimilate into the America you have a right live in.

ARE YOU A HOMOSEXUAL, BISEXUAL, OR TRANSGENDER?

Let’s face it; the LGBT community has been told, for much too long, that they had to vote democrat for in order to vote for equality. Things are different for you in this election. You are now in a post-Marriage Equality era, which means you no longer need to feel pressed to vote for all of the other damaging policies that fall under the umbrella of the liberal “equality” train. There are so many more important issues facing you today and there is a lot at stake for you in what may come next. You fought so hard for you rights but you can’t have rights if you don’t have a life. Hillary wants to bring in 550% more unvetted Muslim refugees into this country. Many of who are practicing a 9th century form of Islam that believes homosexuality is a sin. However, this is different than the Christian belief that homosexuality is a sin. What you have to remember with the Islamic faith is that it is not only a set of beliefs and teaching, it is a legal system as well. What does that mean? It means that, under their legal system of Sharia Law, it goes from a sin to a crime.

Now, let me preface what I am about to say by saying, I do not think all Muslims engage in the type of Islamic practice I am about to describe. There is such a thing as a moderate Muslim, one who follows a civilized form of their faith. However, there are many Muslims who don’t follow a civilized form, but a radical one. This is why Donald Trump has called for extreme vetting of refugees in order to keep us safe as well as protect law abiding Muslims in this country. With that being said, as a homosexual, bisexual, or transgender you need to understand that those who believe in the most extreme teachings of their Islamic faith believe that you should be thrown from rooftops, stoned, or even have “a wall toppled upon you as an evil-doer” according to the teachings of Abu Bakr.

Remember, just because the LGBT community has primarily voted democrat doesn’t mean that you can’t be the change in this election. Do not be shackled by the past. Embrace the candidate whose first priority is national security in order to preserve your safety to preserve your rights—your future depends on it.

ARE YOU A POLICE OFFICER?

Just for fun, I decided to Google “Cops for Clinton” and “Cops for Trump” and not surprisingly, I found nothing for the former and plenty for the latter. Maybe I am, again, preaching to the choir but humor me for a moment. Voting for Hillary will continue the disarmament of you and your fellow brothers and sisters in blue. If you value your lives and your jobs, do not give the most powerful position this country has to offer to a woman who has repeatedly vilified you for nothing more than doing your job. Recently, in Chicago, a female officer responded to a call for a car crash when she was savagely and ferociously beaten by a man under the influence of drugs, yet refused to use her weapon for fear of public backlash. This is a direct result of the war that the Obama administration has waged against police officers in America—the same war Hillary Clinton has begun to fight and will continue to fight if she wins on November 8th. Vote to protect yourself and your brothers and sisters.

ARE YOU IN THE MILITARY?

If you are in the military, most likely you, more than anyone else, do not wish to go into World War III. You probably understand, better than anyone else, that over the last eight years, our military has been depleted and weakened. Putting the Benghazi situation aside, it is as simple as voting for war or voting for peace.

Hillary Clinton’s gross inaction as Secretary of State should be enough to disqualify her for the presidency altogether but since there can be no way you haven’t already thought of that, think of this: Do you want war? Or do you want peace? It’s as simple as that. Donald Trump, on Monday, said he would meet with Vladimir Putin as soon as November if he were to be elected. This shows leadership that would be unfathomable to the Clinton campaign. She relentlessly insults Putin and is salivating at the thought of sending you and your comrades off to war. We are not ready for a nuclear war with Russia, nor do we want that. You get to decide who will command you and who will fight for you rather than who will only ask you to fight for her. What will you choose?

ARE YOU A STUDENT?

Are you a college student working hard to educate yourself and acquire an education that will better your future? What if I told you that soon, there would be students who don’t have to work for what you are working to give yourself? What if I told you that the free tuition that Hillary Clinton is promising would nullify the degree you’re working towards? How would that make you feel?

Everything you have worked for or are working toward will be much nearly useless if it’s handed out like candy under another Clinton administration. Vote to preserve the work you’ve put in and the pride that comes with knowing that you created that opportunity for yourself out of hard work and dedication.

ARE YOU A CHRISTIAN?

Christian values are traditional values. Although Donald Trump has had a rocky past as far as marriage goes, the man he is now represents traditional values. He will fight for religious liberty rather than persecution of the values we’ve held tight to since the birth of the nation. Hillary Clinton has proven herself to be a lying, murderous thief who has no respect for the sanctity of life. She ridicules Trump for denying that global warming is a problem, citing that he must not understand science. How could a woman who denies that there is life inside the womb, according to science, claim superiority in the subject?

If you vote for nothing else but this one issue, you still have at least done your job as a Christian to fight for the unborn and the right, that every human shares, to life.

ARE YOU A LAW ABIDING CITIZEN?

If you are a law aiding citizen, you not only value the law but you respect it as well. If you elect the criminal that is Hillary Clinton, you are sending a message. You are sending a message that not only are you okay with her previous crimes but that no matter what she does as president, you condone. If she commits criminal acts as the commander-in-cheif, you will have no ground to stand on in opposing her. You’ll have known who she is and, even worse, you’ll have put the power in her hands to commit these crimes. She has been a criminal her entire life. Lying, cheating, stealing, and murder have been instrumental in getting her where she is today. Just this week, we found out that officials under her in the State Department attempted to bribe FBI agents to unlawfully change documents AFTER they had been subpoenaed and accumulated as evidence in a criminal investigation.

In the legal system, legal precedent is a legal case or incident that establishes a rule. That rule is later taken in other cases to determine the case at hand with similar issues or actions. If we let Hillary Clinton’s past crimes go unpunished, it will set the precedence of the Clinton administration if she is elected.

Hillary Clinton, herself, has been repeating the words, “America is great, because America is good.” Well folks, Hillary Clinton is not good. She doesn’t do good, she doesn’t represent goodness, nor have her actions shown any interest in the common good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.

Vote for goodness. Vote for greatness. Vote for America.

VIDEO: Annex the West Bank and Solve the Arab/Israeli Conflict

Join The United West team as they take you on location inside the West Bank of Israel (a.k.a. Judea and Samaria) at the community of Karnei Shomron.

Memorial Day 2015

We need to remind ourselves that Memorial Day is not just another three-day weekend or a day when all manner of sales are offered to those who want to go shopping. It is a day set aside to honor the ultimate sacrifice of those who have fought to defend our nation and take military action in foreign nations. We honor, too, those who suffered wounds and returned home.

america invades book coverWe like to think of America as a nation that has gone to war only when we had to, but a new book, “America Invades: How We’ve Invaded or Been Invaded with Almost Every Country on Earth” tells a different story based on history.

As documented by its authors, Christopher Kelly and Stuard Laycock, America, “has invaded or fought in eighty-four out of 194 countries (countries recognized by the United Nations and excluding the United States) in the world. That’s 43 percent of the total. And it hasn’t been militarily involved with just ninety or a hundred countries. It has had some form of military involvement with a spectacular 191 out of 194. That’s more than 98 percent.”

“Most people,” the authors note “would probably agree that much of what America has done around the world has clearly been wise and noble (as in helping liberate Europe from Nazi tyranny.) Some, however, have been wrong and/or unwise. And some of what America has done has been in-between. In some sense, it’s like looking at the history of one’s own family. And, indeed, all of it—the liberations, the fiascos, and follies—is, in some sense, part of the history of every American citizen.”

That’s why it is a good idea to pause on Memorial Day because as an American it is part of your history. “Americans are always hoping for peace but usually preparing for war” says the authors who remind us that “the American eagle is an ambivalent bird holding arrows in the talons of one foot and an olive branch in the other.”

Our natural instinct is for peace. Only aggressive nations, usually led by despots, want war. That is not a description of America. We have not, however, shied from war when the enemy was a well-defined aggressor.

“In the twenty-first century, the United States, though challenged by Russia and China, is the sole remaining superpower. The global responsibilities that we began to shoulder in the twentieth century seem today more burdensome than ever. The cost of being the world’s policeman seems exorbitant in terms of both lives and treasure.”

That’s why we need to remind ourselves that, as a former Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, has said of America, “We are the indispensable nation.”

We have learned what happens when our President has retreated from the responsibility to deter war. Since leaving Iraq with no U.S. military ground support that nation which was stable at the end of our war there has come under attack by the Islamic State. The President’s efforts to reach a deal with Iran that would allow them to become a nuclear power is causing Arab states to regard the U.S. as abandoning them and could lead to a nuclear arms race in a part of the world that is far from stable.

The U.S. in the wake of World War Two has a vast network of bases and alliances that span the world. Many of those bases were created at the invitation of the host nation. The result, as the authors note is that “The U.S. military, but virtue of its global reach, is almost invariably the first to respond to natural disasters as they occur around the world. If not us, then who will?”

On Memorial Day we honor our sons and daughters who gave their lives when their nation called on them.

“Today the sacrifice of over 218,000 American servicemen and servicewomen is memorialized in military cemeteries in twenty-four different overseas cemeteries in eleven different countries. The boundaries of Jefferson’s Empire of Liberty, therefore, stretch around the world.”

We worry about the emergence of other world powers, but I doubt that Russia which lost 127 million of its people in World War Two or China which is focused on building an economy based heavily on world trade are serious wartime threats.

That does not, however, exclude the likelihood that events may cause the next President to conclude that the only way to put the lid on the Middle East is to return militarily to Iraq and to make it clear to Iran that its nuclear ambitions are untenable and unacceptable.

The ancient Romans knew a truth they share in the phrase, “Si vis pacem, para bellum.” If you want peace, plan for war.

About the only thing that is predictable is that somewhere in the world there will be new wars and, given its power and its responsibility, America may well be engaged in restoring the peace.

© Alan Caruba, 2015