Politics and Trade

Folks,

This essay is long, so I've also attached it as a .pdf if you want to download
it...

Politics and Trade

Once you start trading internationally, discussing politics with people around
the world
becomes part of the deal. Aristotle said for something to be interesting it had
to be different,
and certainly foreigner's views are different. And crafting worthy views can
be a fun
challenge too. Back in the 70’s people trading both with the People’s Republic
of China and
Taiwan were obliged to carry two passports, one to present in Taiwan to the
Taiwan
government and a different one to present to the communists, with each leery of
anyone
trading with both. In this instance having two USA passports was allowed by the
US State
Department, a different passport for each border. I recall being pressed in
Canton by one
particularly rude young woman, who asked me directly if I traded with both
Taiwan and
China. I wasn’t going to lie, so I said yes, which gave her the opportunity to
raise righteous
indignation and begin a tirade. I cut her short by asking are not China and
Taiwan one
country? (Certainly both Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China said so,
their argument
was over who was the legitimate government of China.) When Chairman Mao said
Chinese
should trade with the Americans, didn’t that mean Guizhou and Zhejiang and Hebei
and
Taiwan and Sichuan and all of China? She considered this for a moment, and
then said my
politics were very good.

I wish that were true, for today President Bush says if we are not with him, we
are against
him, possibly equating himself with He whom he quotes with that phrase, Jesus.
Now I don’t
doubt at all President Bush believes he is called to do God’s will. Indeed, we
all are. I am
confident that like every single other politician called to do God’s will, he
has flubbed the
effort. Politicians are not prophets, and we err when we give honor and power
and credence
due a prophet to a politician. In essence, this is the counter argument I give
my opposites
overseas when they want to hear me critique the USA. I critique the universal
problem of
giving politicians any power. And here, outside of say Switzerland, San Marino,
Singapore,
Andorra, the Vatican, Iceland (they managed nearly 300 years without any
government
whatsoever!) Liechtenstein, Hong Kong, etc., people all over the world give
their
governments too much power, contrary to self-interest of the governed.

The revolutionaries who formed the USA took the Greek and Roman experience, with
which
they were quite familiar, and applied it to USA. The essential America is
conforming to what
God recommended to Samuel in 1 Samuel 8-10, and as further informed by Socrates,
Jesus in
his “render unto caesar...” formulation, the barons at Runnymede in 1215, and
the Spanish
scholastics who argued for the right to revolution. Montesquieu’s separation of
powers meant
to hobble government was the premier political thought in America, with Kant
taking it a step
further, pointing out a natural conflict of interest with lawyers, as officers
of the court,
serving in the legislative or executive branch. (How come that was left out of
the
constitution!?) Drawing lessons from these centuries of history there were three
premises of
the American revolution: that rights are God-given and inalienable, that
governments are
formed to secure those rights, and lastly, we can overturn the government which
fails to
secure those rights. The central fear was what Augustine identified in his City
of God, the
libido dominandi or “lust for power” that captures most of us, but is disastrous
when
leveraged with government power.

With Rome as a model, the Jeffersonians saw the Constitution as a way for the
common man
to be secure in his person and property as he pursued life, liberty and
happiness as in the
earlier Roman republic. The Hamiltonians saw it as a way for the elite to lead
the nation to
greatness as in the later Roman Empire. The tension between the two has always
been with
us.

George Washington in his farewell address warned of entangling alliances.
Cincinnati is
named after George Washington, who, like the Roman Cincinnatus went back to his
farm after
service, eschewing power for himself and his family. Admirable.

But rules reflect weakness. George Washington had to make such an address,
because there
was so much agitation for us to strive for “national greatness” by copying the
Europeans in
the competition for empire. To do so the Hamiltonians needed the ability to make
war
without the consent of congress and the ability to print currency without its
value constrained
by money (gold historically), but each were contrary to the constitution, and
the American
Revolution. In time they would get both.

Indeed, USA is considered exceptional in its form of government and relative
freedom, with
the people sovereign. George Bush does not represent USA, he is not our
“leader,” in the
sense that so many countries see their top politician as “leader.” He represents
nobody. Bill
Gates may represent Microsoft, but in no useful sense does the President
represent American
citizens. Our president is merely the CEO of one branch of the federal
government, a branch
ultimately under the congress, which represents the people to the federal
government, that
strictly limited entity. Or so the theory goes.

My view is probably just an opinion, but one with an orthodox pedigree in USA.
A pedigree
that goes back at least as far as the Bush family, who have been here since
before
revolutionary times as well as their progenitors, the Walkers and Prescotts.
Indeed they’ve
been here quite a while, almost as long as the Spiers.

Pre-Revolutionary Spiers were sailing merchants, landowners, slave owners.
Henry Spires
(the spellings changed often before Webster and Johnson standardized spelling)
was given a
land patent in Virginia for 100 acres by the King in 1744, and John Speirs got
600 acres 80
years earlier. Our lines run back to Scotland, to Arundel and to Howard, duke
of Norfolk, thru
Lawrence Washington, George’s elder half-brother. There is even a medieval curse
on the
Spiers name, wherein no firstborn is ever male. Who cast the curse, why, or how
“no firstborn
ever male” is much of a curse, all is forgotten. Spiers were wealthy and active
in the
revolution, indeed, quite well-to-do financially until, at least in my line, the
fortune was
wiped out in the stock market crash of 1929, before government policy caused the
depression. I have copies of family papers, reckonings after some slaves were
auctioned off,
on Christmas eve, 1854. The reason we no longer have slaves is that word
“inalienable”
associated with rights, which made inevitable the end of slavery in USA.
Whether Jefferson
foresaw this effect downstream is debatable, but the fact is he wrote the words
and the words
led to the end of slavery, the ultimate expression of libido dominandi.

My grandfather is named Edward Howard Spiers (after the duke), and grandmother a
descendent of the Pope family, whose plantation is now the town of Pope’s Creek,
Virginia.
And both my grandparents were Spiers, second cousins. As were, ahem, their
parents. All
rather Pharaonic.

When my father was de-mobbed from the navy in 1945 in Seattle, his father told
him to stay
here, for fear my father would marry a cousin in Virginia. A dutiful son, my
father stayed in
Seattle and married the Irish gal who handed him his walking papers at the navy
office. They
were disconsolate back in Virginia that my father married a Catholic. “At least
she isn’t a
Jew...” grandad wrote, philosophically.

Privately this family history is no more important to me than the genealogy of
Gwyneth
Paltrow. But it is terribly important to some family members who keep careful
track of it all.
How else will my daughters assume their place in the Daughters of the American
Revolution?
The genealogy must be exact. There is a certain entitlement that comes with
being of
revolutionary stock, and we must not lose our patrimony through neglect. On the
other
hand, if one had an ancestor executed by Berkeley during Bacon’s rebellion, then
perhaps
anti-tyranny is in the blood.

So both the Spiers and the Bushes go way back, and both know the history of this
country.
And everyone makes a choice, Jeffersonian or Hamiltonian? As many have observed,
we honor
Jeffersonian ideal, but we live in a Hamiltonian milieu, since the liberals and
conservatives in
USA politics are both Hamiltonian. Both want “national greatness” which for
either is merely
aesthetical differences in the exercise of libido dominandi.

Conservatives want to intervene overseas, think Fallujah. Liberals want to
intervene
domestically, think Waco. Moderates want to intervene everywhere. Think
Fallujah and Waco.
They are all Hamiltonians, to a degree. Radicals want to intervene nowhere.
Think Monticello.

The word radical stems from the word ‘root’ meaning the original and essential
part. I am
radical.

In pursuit of power, the political branch of the Bush family feels the need to
muddy their lines
for public consumption. Hence the move to Texas, the ranches, cowboy boots, and
the oil
industry. Our current president, Texan and methodist George Bush, was born in
New Haven,
Connecticut. He is about as Texan as Hillary Clinton is a New Yorker. Another
Bush, the one
who had Florida given to him, became a catholic, coincidentally very important
in a state with
a huge Cuban voting bloc.

The Kennedy's had to go the other way, putting on blue blood airs, attending
Harvard,
seeking high government service when they are potato famine refugees, rum
runners at that.
But since the Bushes are in power right now, I’ll pick on them.

Our president’s grandfather saw no particular problem selling oil to the Nazis
in spite of the
fact we were at war with Germany. Where he got caught Congress would seize the
assets. Five
of the Bush family companies were seized by Congress in this manner. Congress
invoked the
Trading with the Enemy Act and seized the Bush-Harriman-managed Thyssen entity
Hamburg-American Line, under Vesting Order No. 126. Thereafter, under Order No.
248, and
then Vesting Order No. 259, and ultimately Vesting Order No. 261 various other
businesses
were seized. None of this is secret, it is all in public records. There is
evidence there were
more going on, which were not caught. A lot of pilots were shot down in WWII in
the Pacific.
Extremely few had submarines dispatched to pick them up, as in the case of GHW
Bush. To
this day the Bushes are co-investors with Osama bin Laden’s family. When
national greatness
is at stake, there are no rules.

The liberal side has nothing to crow about, Gore is no better than Bush when it
comes to
trading with the enemy. The Al Gore family was backed by Armand Hammer whose
convict
father was a founder of Communist Party USA, and who kept hard currency flowing
into
Soviet Union so Stalin could keep the gulags going. Armand Hammer and was given
the
Order of Lenin by Stalin. Check out the Gore’s zinc mine to see where his
money comes
from, and what an enviro-disaster it is. (I can criticize Armand Hammer now
that his Museum
no longer buys from me).

Now clearly, I am no better than the Bushes, no worse. My grandfather was a
civil engineer, a
surveyor, like his ancestor George Washington. My grandfather led the crew that
surreptitiously surveyed Panama so that when the USA stole it from Colombia, we
would be
able to define precisely what we were stealing. If it were up to me each school
day,
kindergarten through twelfth grade, would start with a good stiff drink for each
student. This
policy would be no more bizarre than most other government policies. The problem
is the
power, and having it to exercise. And the leverage being ‘government’ gives to
power. The
American revolution was about limiting the power of the government to keep us
out of
imperial adventures, foreign and domestic.

Our soldiers are in Middle East because oil is there. The Bushes are in oil
because money and
power is there. Savings and Loan scam? Count Jeb in. Big league sports? Buy
George jr. a
team. The Bush oil company Zapata changed to fisheries when that seemed to be
important,
then it became a dot.com during the dot.com boom. If the real money and power
was in ice
cubes, then the Bushes would be there in a big way. And we’d be at war with
Greenland.
We’d have a no-fly zone over Antarctica. Global warming would be a Republican
issue.

Republicans have war on terror and painkillers, and democrats have war on
poverty and bad
weather. Both cost the same, both are useless. And both are good for feeling
superior to the
other. Bush promises freedom from terror. Gore promises better weather. Both
say big
government will deliver. From them we get more terror and worse weather.

Hamilton was very popular within that spectrum that was pro-centralization for
the purposes
of pursuing national greatness. Like any movement, the American revolution was
40% for
and 40% against and 20% undecided. The political spectrum was as wide as any
time in
history. The tension was very strong.

The counterrevolutionaries, the Hamiltonians, know exactly what to do to assume
power, and
it takes unconstrained “money” and the ability to make war without restraint.
Hamilton
created the First Bank of the United States, so controversial that is was given
only a 20 year
run. Jefferson resisted Hamilton. Eventually Aaron Burr shot and killed
Hamilton, this while
Burr was President Jefferson’s Vice President of the United States. Perhaps VP
Dick Cheney is
bringing back the good old days.

Our legal history shows an evolution from the common law principle that if a
factory should
open and make mom’s laundry dirty 30 miles a way, mom may complain to a judge
and the
judge stops the factory and makes it pay for new clean sheets for mom. 800
years of
common law and property law required the ruling. But in time the judges started
ruling for
the factory, since the factory was more important than mom’s laundry, as a part
of the
change in legal theory preceding and accommodating empire. Thus the polluting
of rivers,
shoddy products, all sorts of mischief, attendant to and necessary for
imperialism, gained
traction. The victory for imperialists came with Lincoln and the civil war,
ending the
Jeffersonian ethic, or at least putting it into a deep sleep.

The constitution limits the right to create gold and silver coins to the Mint,
but in 1913 in a
legal fiction, congress created a private company (which reports to congress)
that controls
currency, the paper stuff. The reason for this is everyone knows a government
cannot be
trusted, ever, with control over money, so this legal fiction allowed the
imperialists a way
around the objection. (In Hong Kong, private companies print and issue
competing
currencies, not the government, the way it used to be in USA).

By 1951 Truman could enter a war without a declaration by congress, by calling
it a police
action. Congress still controls the purse strings, but the revolutionaries
assumed no standing
army, ever. With a massive military in place, that military-industrial complex
which General
Eisenhower named and warned us about in his farewell address, a president does
not need
any stinkin’ congressman to go ahead and start a war. Commander-in-chief of a
million men
and a year’s worth of supplies, we can be deep in the big money, obliged to
honor those
who’ve already died, before congress can rally.

So now we have an America capable of what the revolutionaries fought, that
Hamiltonian
imperial power. The Bushes, as do the democrats, no matter who they run as
candidate,
represent the Hamiltonian strain of USA politics. They are wrong, wielding
power gained
from foreign entanglements and war. It is counter revolutionary to side with
with the
Hamiltonians, and support the Bushes (or the Kerrys if he was in office).

Imperial power ends. It always has. Whether Persian, Maurya, Greek, Roman,
Chinese,
Moslem, Moghul, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Japanese or English, they all go
eventually.
And when they do, those “homelands” revert to their natural state. Is Italy
despised now that
it is no longer Imperial? Do tourists avoid Kyoto now? Is Patna miserable?
Will Los Angeles
be uninteresting when we inevitably bring our troops home from the some 136
countries
where we maintain a military presence (and not counting just marines as embassy
security)?

So how to solve the problem, if you accept it is a problem? Live and work, like
the
revolutionaries, as though our primary concerns were the good, the true and the
beautiful.
Introduce products that will still be here in 200 years, like Keillor’s
Marmalade introduced in
Dundee in 1797, during the height of British Imperial power. This is necessary
and sufficient.
This is true of everyone self-employed, we who freely choose what field to
enter, then find
ourselves obliged to closely follow in order to serve our customers. In this way
we may feel
the urge of libido dominandi, but age quad agis, we can’t get around to acting
on the evil
impulse. It is not enough for our constitution to be exceptional, we Americans
have to be
exceptional too.

Of course this is harder than simply picking up a gun and forcing others to do
you will, but in
that measure it is harder is the measure it is the more persuasive. Instead of
Americans
trying to become imperial masters, it is better that we model a better way for
the royalty try
to become like us, by starting a small business. Princess Kinga von
Liechtenstein has started
her own company, a fashion outfit. She could spend her life taking pleasure in
having others
serve her, but she instead will serve others. She is doing her part to make the
world a better
place.

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