1. Concluded nuclear arms reduction treaties are as such not a bad thing. Are they then a good thing? Not necessarily. In food terms, some deals remind one of an Indian dish without curry. “Bland” is the word. In his last show, Obama achieved a deal by which Russia and the US contract to reduce their arsenal by a bit. The notable extra attached to the American’s trade is a derivate of the powwow’s final terms. It is the US’ promise not to use nukes against those foes that are signatories to the non-proliferation agreements even if they resort to chemical or biological weapons. The sense this makes and what it encourages by not discouraging it, is not the subject of this commentary. The notable achievement of the summit was that, nothing significant has been agreed upon to prevent proliferation. It so happens that, proliferation – aided by the massive involvement of Western suppliers out to earn a buck – is the main threat to our future security. Ignoring this fundamental will not make proliferation go away; it assures us that it will happen.

 

 

2. “XY Ungelöst” (File YX Unsolved) is a German-language TV program that started in the 60’s. In it, once a month, with the active cooperation of the police, unsolved crimes and the available evidence is presented to the viewers. The hope is that the impostors can be caught with the help of the population that recalls a person or a car close to the scene. Originally, German, Austrian and Swiss TV broadcast “XY”. With the public’s help, the rate of apprehension has been quite high. Meanwhile the Swiss have dropped out. This can be attributed to the good offices of the Left. The Left tended to oppose the program by claiming “witch-hunt” and “hysteria” while alleging that publicity violates the right to privacy. This has certain logic. Since Marx, the Socialists are inclined to blame for crime not the criminal but the inequities of those societies whose order does not conform to their concept. In the last broadcast, a little item was made public that deserves the publicity it receives here. The month before, among others, the traces of a twenty-time rapist has been pasted on the “wanted” list. With the information furnished, a viewer in Belgium connected a few dots. He alerted the police and the fugitive could be arrested in Germany. The rest is hard to believe. Once in custody, the “suspect” complained bitterly. He claimed to have gone through hell. Due to the program and his attached picture, he could not go out on the street. Consequently, he was limited in his personal freedom as he was unable to move freely in public.

The objection provokes two responses.

a) That bemoaned constraint is the whole idea of the program.

b) The arrestee’s grumble points at a distortion of values and attitudes that are, wide spread in society. His implied demand is that privacy considerations be allowed to protect one from effective investigations. Indeed, the invoked rights and the point of view of law-breakers are emphasized and their comportment is rated as “normal”. Meanwhile, in the spirit expressed by the objection, the interests of the law-abiding majority are surrendered, or at best, they are rated at par with that of criminals.

 

3. Justice, to be achieved by economic redistribution, is becoming the frequent practice and the accepted mantra of our days. State-run transfer services can only protect recipients from abject poverty. If used to provide relief from personal shortcomings, the implications run counter to the core of the concept of freedom and of justice. Alas, to mention this takes courage and runs counter to the norms of PC.

 

4. Dependence is a sign of the inability to live in liberty. Furthermore, redistribution is more than a game played by a generous and just state and a receiver in need. The forgotten party is the achiever that pays the bill. Let us recall that no state has ever managed to make gifts and meet its payroll by taking from its own and not from society’s pocket.

 

5. Fox News is a source I regularly consult to get part of the story from “home”. Inadvertently, at least in the version I can reach in Europe, unintentionally, two of the headlines that appeared next to each other told a revealing story. Put together they had much more to say than the entire content of each item if scrutinized separately. a) “…it may take Iran a year or more to produce a nuclear weapon.

b) Obama: Agreement to secure nukes within four years.” Take time to ponder this realistic but, by the spin-makers behind the story unwanted, revelation. While you do so, you might remember a bit of news generated earlier by a conveniently released and exploited US intelligence estimate. Being pliant to the news-needs of “above” but not to the best facts on the table, it concluded something that even at the time only a few could take seriously. Accordingly, it was asserted that Iran has shelved its weaponization program. It is with interest that we take notice of the fact that, apparently, Iran can build a bomb even while she is, even according to official Washington, trying not to.

 

6. Off Center. Effective parties that rule tend to want to be called centrist. The remaining Communist states and berserk theocracies are exceptions. In the real world centrist means that within the local electorate – and electorates differ significantly – the party includes the center of the political spectrum. It is rather probable that the bulk of such a party’s membership and its advocated policies are either left or right of what is in theory the center.

In the case of left-of-center parties, it is likely that they will protest vehemently if, for this reason, they are called “Communists”. Even the term “Socialist” might cause protests for unfairness. The more so when the crew that sails under the democratic socialist flag keeps the hammer and sickle, to be displayed upon landing, rolled up in a secret compartment of its vessel. The protest will be especially loud if there is a small and unelectable Marxist movement left of the Socialists. Often in Western Europe, Social Democrats like to have a youth section running amok left of the official platform. Doing so helps to gather, without paying the price before the court of the average and unaware voter, for extremism and attraction to the inebriating nostalgia of failed ideas. With the consent of the allegedly centrist media, emphasizing the relationship will be labeled as being unfair and in bad taste.

Now, to the other side of the coin. Let us politely make an assumption that relates to concrete cases. Imagine a socialist-run government of ex communists that have managed during their terms to be proven, even by their own admission, to be liars and cheaters. Complete the picture with internationally expected imminent bankruptcy. Round it out with the collapse of public security that is attributed to the immunity granted to a welfare-dependent minority that bolsters its income by a way of life mired in crime.

Add an election to the story. The public’s disgust will be strong enough to make the results unmanipulable regardless of trying hard. What you are likely to get is a vast, right-of-center majority. Its mandate will be to correct the socialism’s mistakes. Not unexpectedly, analogously to the hard left positioned on the fringe of the Socialists, a genuinely radical – authoritarian – right-wing party’s emergence is to be expected. The trend toward this wrong right will be the product of an irrational move. During and after the last world war leftists benefited from the naïve assumption that ignored Hitler’s and Stalin’s alliance when the conflict began. The total opposition to the totalitarian Right was thought to be achieved through the support of the extreme on the Left. Nowadays, the politically uncouth and uneducated tend to react to leftist abuses by drifting to the authoritarian right. The upshot will be a large extreme-rightist protest party. Most of its votes will come from the uneducated and it will be gathered in districts that, hoping for a free lunch, used to vote left. Typically, this movement will lack the strength to govern.

Regardless of the above, certain circles will find the rise of such a barefooted ignorance-fed rightist crowd most convenient. There are those that still do not oppose totalitarians but make their opposition to totalitarians depend upon whether these are right or left totalitarians. Even after WW2, when the perennial threat came from a new direction, they conveniently preferred to fight, while assuming heroic poses, the long defeated Nazis. The neo-rightist threat will come in handy for this element. Fighting it will enable them to support the defunct cleptocratic Socialist – without exposing themselves on their side. Therefore, the actual winner, the right-of-center conservatives can also be maligned. This is what is happening in Hungary. The media talk of a shift to the right and illustrate that by mentioning the neo-Nazis and the conservatives in one sentence. The innocent reader/listener will be misled, as he will associate both forces with resurrected fascism.