Michael Totten on Diplomacy and Tyranny

"Understand the mind of a totalitarian. 'Probe with a bayonet,' Vladimir Lenin famously said. 'If you meet steel, stop. If you meet mush, then push.'" (Michael Totten, quoting Lenin).

What I find so intriguing about Lenin is not that he was evil. It's not that he was a totalitarian thug, or a Marxist, or a psychopath. It's not that his political strategy was so ruthless, or so cunning. No, the most fascinating thing about Lenin is that so much of what we know about him so profoundly demonstrates that he was a naked coward.

Lenin knew his survival depended on intimidating anyone who might expose his cowardice. He knew he couldn't win an intellectual debate, so rather than engage in one, he intimidated and then murdered his opponents. He knew neither he, nor his political faction, could win a physical fight, so he avoided them at high cost.

Preferring, instead to fight battles against opponents who he knew would offer only mush as resistance. Rather than stand on principle, Lenin simply exploited the soft underbelly of the courtesies and social conventions of his time. People knew he was lying, but they were too constrained by their own conformity to do anything meaningful about it. All the while, Lenin admitted, as demonstrated by this quote (among many others) that he was a weakling.

And, in time, all it took was for enough people to recognize the essential nature of all totalitarian regimes and to act accordingly in order to present an unflinching resistance instead of mush and the perverted creation he birthed crumbled from within.

The world could stand to refresh itself on the lessons taught by history. All the people of Iran need is a little steel-backboned solidarity from the West and the grotesque regime that has so badly abused them would collapse.

Not an Argument, Just a Query...

When the President says he wants America's health care system to be re-designed by "experts", would those be the same experts who run the US Postal Service? Or the same kind of experts who run Amtrak? Or the IRS?

Seriously, when was the last time you chose to use a Federally-provided service over a similar commercial service?

How often have you chosen the Postal Service instead of FedEx or UPS?

When was the last time you seriously considered taking Amtrak between L.A. and San Francisco? Or L.A. and, say Seattle?

Have you ever called the IRS to ask a question and received a competent answer, or been anything less than frustrated?

So, if you're not willing to use a federally-controlled monopoly system for something as simple as shipping a package, why would you even consider letting a federally-controlled bureaucracy get involved in life and death decisions about your medical care?

As far as I'm concerned I have yet to meet anybody more expert on my health care decisions than me and my doctor.

That's not to say I'm unwilling to consider doing something for people who aren't insured. Americans already pay for the medical treatment consumed by the uninsured. We pay for it in our current health care premiums. You don't think that hospitals really "eat" those costs? Of course not, those "unpaid" costs get moved into your bill. So, not only to do we directly pay for Medicare, MediCal, Medicaid, Social Security (with taxes) but we also pay for the "uninsured" through hidden costs.

But, telling me in order to provide coverage for everybody, I have to relinquish important legal and medical decision-making authority to a federal bureaucracy that is completely unaccountable to the democratic forces of the market...well, that doesn't have a good track record.