Angela Merkell's Response to Trump's Call for NATO Members to pay up!

At a recent meeting of Germany's legislature, Angela Merkel reflected upon President Trump's insistence that the member nations of the military alliance NATO should update their financial commitments to its support.

It is certainly the case that any sovereign nation should have its own military units to defend itself  and protect its borders.  But it is also true that NATO, as a military alliance, is promoting peace in Europe.

Her discussion caused me to think the usefulness of a singular country's military when multi-nations are threatened.  We've gone far since World War II in our understanding of the usefulness and deployment of military alliances to counter the rise of despots, dictators, hostile groups and nations who would disturb the peace and tranquility of  what world order there is.

Now it is true that the United States has a mighty military whose tentacles of power reach far beyond US shores.  I, and others who argue that its influence has netted more peaceful conditions among the world's populations, note well that it is committed to works together in military alliances to end conflict and political strife wherever they occur.  The US military pursues peace through military intervention accompanied by political negotiations toward cessation of armed conflict.

   

P.M. T. May of the UK struggling with Parliament

It's problematic whether she'll survive in her present position of top leader.  I am amazed that the Conservative Party would be leading the drive toward independence from the EU.  For a conservative stance would be to remain within the established bounds of safety and less risk of the already accepted, which an independent Great Britain would seem to be breaking from.

I followed on C-SPAN her recent struggle to defend her version of an independent GB.  She was adamant that the people of her country have spoken; and she was simply carrying out their directive to show how the country could proceed on its own, but with ties of trade and business with the various EU member states.

This is a momentous venture in the history of the world, to be sure.  We know how union of disparate states can become One; but the course toward independence is most uncertain and its pathway precarious.  Usually, to separate from a national entity, a province or territory would be construed as forcing a revolution--a threat to the national government necessitating in military might have crush  for the preservation of its territorial integrity.  Appealing to the United Nations is not a viable option for a territorial region to defend its cause for freedom from a ruling government desirous to hold onto its entire territory.

The American Revolution is a reminder how difficult and bloody a break-away can be, even when there are enormous miles the new land was distant from its homeland (which nevertheless claimed it as its own).

Be it noted that Scotland has voiced in recent times its desire to secede from GB.  And, the region of Barcelona is struggling to break away from Spain. 

Yet, the human spirit longs to be itself formed into a lasting cultural heritage of a people.  It is that spirit which has led mankind to find an autonomous homeland where it can flourish through language and mannerisms peculiar to its region.  In this way, each member of the community can claim a personal identity and self-respect, contributing to the growth of its people in the territory it resides as independent.

Cato Policy Forum: The Consumer Equation of Demand/Supply Revisited in Preparation for Independence

The thing about creating a situation of economic uncertainty as does Brexit present to  England, is it provides an opportunity to re-examine some basic notions about governmental functions.  At the recent Cato Policy Conference on what government can do to help its citizenry, the supportive role of government was cast in the consumer equation of demands of its citizenry to supplies of goods and services available for their usage.  The speaker was England's Liz Truss, who holds the office of Chief Secretary Treasurer, at the Cato Institute in Washington, DC on September 18, 2018.

She acknowledged that her country is committed to maintaining its socialized medicine as a rightful citizen demand.  They want their healthcare!  But she seemed to refrain from endorsing a demand of several large corporations who aver they are too big for government to let them fail.  Once an enumeration of the demands upon government are clearly set forth, it would seem, the government can then reach out to industry and business to promote goods and services its citizenry may want to avail themselves opportunity to use and enjoy.  That is, government acts also in the capacity of an enabler--one of several-- as the means for business growth.  In this capacity it must impose relatively few regulations upon beginning start-ups and established businesses such as those producing energy, whose products are so essential to industrial expansion.  Specifically, she argued for regulation reform to minimize the burdens placed upon business in particularly new areas of innovation and technological overtake.

As Brexit moves ahead toward its completion date next year, we should expect that the English government will reject avenues of financial support for enterprises and pet projects that lead nowhere but to more debt and mad favoritism at the cost of promoting less those which will benefit the citizenry the more.  One looming large project is to shore up the coastal lands from the threatening rising sea heights.     

Implicit in Truss' Position

There is a corollary to Liz' understanding:  no new direction nor endeavor should impede or disavow a country's commitment to meeting the demands of its people, when the demands are legitimate and bona fide.  That is to say, a government should not double-cross its citizenry to proceed in directions that would deceive its people so as to no longer support their demands to the level it has met in the past nor promised in the future.   

Steve Reeves' Defense of Cultural Independence

Together with the EU leaders, Steve Reeves applauds the many nations of the European Union that support ethnic regionalism.  In this most recent book, Travel as a Political Act, Reeves points out that cultures are tied to lands where they are indigenous and peculiar. A person within a cultural milieu takes on a personal identity, just as the crops and industries are so particularized.  There is indeed worldwide a richness of cultural diversity among all peoples.

It remains through travel to become acquainted with that diversity and respect the ways in which peoples are rooted to their geographical surroundings.  While it may be true there exists babel among us all, it is still to be recognized that we exist as part of God's creation!

South China Seas patrolling of Chinese military working out

Yesterday on public radio a news media offered a public service evaluation of the Chinese patrolling the South China Seas.  It found the Chinese maritime performing well in their policing duties.  This service also provided some tapes showing the military's diligence in real time situations.

Keep up the good work, congrads--Chinese government!

Mayor of Bristol centers on cities as governmental, independent units

I heard a speech of the Mayor of Bristol, England  (yesterday on C--Span) setting forth the view that cities and their county designations are the elemental building blocks of any independent governing structure, including their own--that the cities themselves can be regarded an independent, functional governments.  That may not seem radical, except that, there sits Barcelona, part of Spain, which wishes to retain its own independence from which to form alliances, etc. with those capable of meeting its needs in areas where assistance is obvious, e.g., defense.

Taking cities as the primary building blocks of independence permits a restructuring of national configurations.  Indeed, it opens up the questioning of justification of the present-day configurations along simple, geographical contiguity location. Now, the proposition to demand an accounting of present-day national boundaries to warrant a city's inclusion (and its counties) within a particular nation is just what is lacking; and without it, a city may legitimately claim independent status, should it choose to do so ( I contend). 

By making the cities and their counties independent, we solve the problem of a city's declaring itself independent of its traditional, national incorporation.  It simply reverts to its primal status.

Similarly, has Great Britain asserted its independence from the EU.  Not gaining sufficiently for its people by the union, GB declares it will once again become independent.  Similarly, it is only because of our being accustomed to the current configuration of independent states that we fail to start with the basic building blocks of governmental independence, the cities.  Yet, history has shown cases where cities have been independent of further controlling bodies.    

The only proviso upon any city assuming its independence is that it be a viable course of action, i.e., that it not by so doing, become insolvent and bankrupt.        

Former Russian Satellites benefit from resurrection of the Silk Route

The Central European nations that once were part of the old Soviet Union are now the beneficiaries of trade and commerce across its territories to shorten the travel costs and time to transport goods from the West to the East and vice versa.  This means enlargement of ports and sea lanes and rail connections across Europe that heralds a golden era for the entire European Continent.

You pave the way for world peace and prosperity.