‘Turf-tastic: “Occupy” protester says he was paid $60 to protest CPAC

Rand and Ron don’t seem to understand the significance of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of Communism. The moment American Airlines flight 11 plunged into the North Tower of the World Trade Center, it was made tragically clear that warfare will likely never again be about superpower versus superpower or nation state versus nation state. Warfare is now asymmetric, where non-state actors carry out acts of war in a global battlefield.

I think that they process that fully and understand that the forces of the Nation State have a limited role to play, while a crucial one for long term effectiveness these forces cannot be committed to a fight of forever. They can only be used on a fight of eradication but to do that requires the weeding out of the global terror systems on an asymmetric basis not just via military means but via commercial and civil means as well. That requires using the older paradigms of the Piracy Codes and going after groups and individuals via sanctioning of Americans who want to take them down where they can least afford to expend resources: getting goods to stay alive, train and supply new fighters.

That old way of doing things can now be put into the modern world of accountability so that rogue actors don’t decide to go Pirate as their goods, assets and so forth are tied up in the permitting Nation State. Take that list of international terrorists and terror groups the State Dept. generates and have Congress weigh in with their powers that these are Private Enemies of the Nation, indeed of all Nations, and put forward a way for citizens and citizen organizations to start going after not just the personnel but their supplies, their helpers in the commercial world and those who give them active aid and shelter. The world can be duly put on notice that helping these groups and individuals has a cost to it in the seizure of not just goods but the transporting vehicles for them, and the rendition of those helpers to the US for prosecution under the Piracy Codes.

Liberty as the Classical, post-Westphalian concept grew up in an era of global war by small groups able to act independently or in concert without the backing of Nations to wage war for their own ends. Those ends were not limited to mere capture of goods but the enslavement of individuals for profit and even the taking over of some towns, cities and small Nations. The Progressives and their ilk are not prepared to cede that personal liberty and freedom under sanction to go after our Private Enemies is the way to combat them… yet these asymmetrical enemies cannot be fought by the large, lumbering Nation State that cannot react well, swiftly and with precision beyond those lovely little drone attacks that do nothing to organizations and only kill people. The drones aren’t working, in case it has been missed, and new followers fill the smoking shoes of old, killed commanders in jihadi and terror ranks. Even worse is that new blood brings new approaches so as we weed out the older, known idiots a fresh batch of idiots who are learning from the mistakes of the dead are now coming forward, making for a much harder and more intractable problem.

It ain’t working the 20th century way, so why not try the 18th century way? You have nothing to lose but your freedom and liberty in search of ephemeral security if you don’t, and a more civil world to gain if you do. A number of Libertarians understand this… the elite intellectuals fear an empowered American citizenry able to go after their enemies. I know which side sounds much better to me, and it isn’t on the side that thinks drone are the panacea, that’s for sure. And soon they will become known as flying targets. That day is coming. Then you are back to either believing the Nation can do it all or that the people who make up a free Nation are the ones who must figure out what must be done. Your choice. The clock is ticking. Liberty or State impressed security which never works? Better think fast, the days are growing short on Liberty.

ajacksonian on March 18, 2013 at 7:05 AM