[extropy-chat] What if I was president?

[Robbie Lindauer]

Lorry didn't like my word "appease" possibly because his Neanderthal 
mind can't fathom that keeping the peace and thus appeasement is a 
primary goal for -real- politicians.

But since I wasn't completely clear and since I didn't take the 
question seriously because, again, the idea that I would be president 
is too absurd for too many reasons.  Let me start there.

Here's why I won't ever be president:

1)  I don't do appeasement well - look how well I've pleased so many 
people already (if you know me).
2)  I don't do public appearances well - I tend to be a loner/loser and 
stick to my close friends.
3)  I don't desire power of that kind.
4)  If I had power of that kind I would destroy it as quickly as 
possible by dismantling our government from the top down.  I'm an 
anarchist with a strongly humanitarian bias - I feel no sympathy for 
large or small corporate ventures, military groups or frankly anything 
more than individuals  and their natural families and friends.    For 
the most part I blame human institutions for the suffering and abject 
poverty in the world, in particular the wealthiest people who use 
military force to protect their fat-assets while children starve.
5)  A bridge club is a little too organized for my taste.
6)  I don't have enough money or the desire to get enough money to fund 
a serious, let alone successful, presidential campaign.  (this, btw, is 
why the Libertarians shouldn't bother running a presidential candidate, 
it's fiscally irresponsible and just makes them look more and more like 
losers).

Consequently -if I were president- I would never have been in the 
situation that Mr. Bush was since I would have already put all the 
people at the pentagon and the world trade center out of business, 
they'd have had to find -real jobs (or just go home and sulk) - doing 
things like producing valuable goods and services for the betterment of 
mankind rather than being the leaches and killers they in fact are.  If 
Bin Laden had decided to bomb them anyway it wouldn't have been a 
tragedy, there wouldn't have been anyone there.

But, to take up the absurd hypothetical that if Bush had been president 
up until 9/11 and then I got the office on 9/12, as I said, I'm not 
sure what I'd have done mostly because the President hasn't chosen to 
share with the rest of the nation the "intelligence" that led to his 
course of action which from the outside has to appear complete idiocy 
at this point.  Who knows what I'd find when I finally got to read the 
actual cia and fbi reports first-hand?

I don't think there's any definitive answer about who is responsible 
for the matter, so again, I'd have listened to the CIA and FBI on the 
matter and see who the experts really thought were involved.  I note 
that this is not what our President did who instead had a definitive 
target - the Taliban and Iraq - and fixed his intelligence around his 
definitive targets.  Note that this policy has left Al Quaeda stronger 
than they were before.  Brilliant monkey IF he and Mr. Bin Ladin really 
were in cahootz, huh?

IF the cia/fbi came up with Al Quaeda then I'd pursue them as 
criminals.  If they received the protection of Afghanistan or any other 
nation, I'd have used political and economic pressure to get them 
extradited.  If that didn't work I'd hope that a good team of 
kidnappers/assasins was available (this is what I meant by using a 
toothpick instead of a hammer).  Then I'd try them in open court to 
avoid turning them into martyrs - if we got the wrong guys, I'd go get 
the right ones.  If the Afganis flatly refused AND claimed that Al 
Quaeda was an official arm of the Taliban and that we should expect 
more, I'd have considered the WTC incident a first-strike and have 
retaliated militarily and with a tremendous sadness and reluctance.    
Simultaneously I'd be developing as many Arab allies as I could in the 
effort probably by promising them the spoils of the war - in particular 
gaining the trust and friendship of Iran and Iraq.  I may have made 
that a condition of their spoils having that they return to the UN 
inspections regime.  Carrot/stick.  I don't know exactly what 
combination of carrot/stick would work, but I'd try a few things.

When I talk about "appeasement" I don't think of it as a bad thing, 
just another thing in the bag of tricks.  Carrot/stick.  A good 
strategist has to know when it's best to fight and when it's best to 
pay them off and what all of the in-between options are.    The chinese 
tell the story of the general who's adversary asks for a tribute of 
1000 pieces of silver and he sends it.  He asks for 10 virgins and he 
sends them.  He asks for the general's daughter and he sends here.  He 
asks for a piece of land and he refuses and takes his entire army and 
destroys the adversary.   His lieutenant asks why.  He says that 
virgins and silver and even daughters are inessential to a country, but 
a country's land is essential to it and no compromise is possible 
there.

With the Taliban and with Al Quaeda (remembering that they aren't 
technically the same and weren't technically the same) one has to 
separate what is essential for them from what is accidental to their 
cause.  I sincerely believe that they want significantly what most 
Oregonians want - for the US Federal Government to leave them the heck 
alone.  I agree with this desire and so would promptly ensure as much 
as possible that the US Federal Government would never interfere in the 
operations of Afganistan or any other foreign country again.  I don't 
believe that Islam is an essentially evil "kill all the infidels" 
religion and do believe that when left alone to do their business they 
tend to mind their own business.  Bin Laden doesn't actually care much 
about people wearing bikinis in Ft. Lauderdale, he just doesn't want to 
have to see it on TV in his country (and obviously secretly he finds it 
fascinating and no doubt this is how he knows he doesn't want it in his 
country - YET!).  Fine, it's not our country, they can do what they 
want.  I believe, eventually, that all cultures must change in order to 
survive as cultures ("the only living things that don't change are long 
dead.") and that traditional Islamic cultures will change as the eons 
pass AND since I am an optimist, I think they'll eventually come to 
think of different cultures as acceptable.  I don't think they'll ever 
be able to match the technological development of the western world 
without simply joining up and so at least for the foreseeable future 
aren't a genuine military threat but only a terrorist threat.  I 
sincerely believe that rooting out terrorist activity in third-world 
countries is best done by simply being nice to them - not taking what 
isn't ours, not forcing them into poverty positions, not propping up 
puppet governments, etc.  In general, staying the heck out of their 
business.  This is what I'd like to call the "Natural Libertarian 
Foreign Policy" is - our government should leave them alone just like 
it leaves us alone.  If they want to have ritual sacrifices of goats 
and young children to Baal, may God take vengeance on them but unless 
some prophet tells me it's literally my problem, it's not.  "Vengeance 
is mine, saith the Lord".  And as long as they're on their side of the 
fence and aren't killing our kids, hey, it's their country.  If someone 
wants to push a gerbil up his ass, that's his ass, none of my business. 
  Same principle.  Some people say "poor gerbil" and then want to start 
making laws and having police around.  This is what separates real 
libertarians from power-hungry statist apologists pretending to be 
libertarians.

This is not to say I wouldn't respond to a desire by their oppressed 
masses to leave by letting them come NOR does it mean that if they were 
setting up concentration camps I'd recommend twiddling our thumbs - I 
wouldn't.  It just means that UNLESS there is some specific moral 
imperative that overrides the general principle of "leave them alone", 
I wouldn't do anything at all.  And when there is a moral imperative 
I'd try the carrot before the stick.  That's just who I am, I like the 
carrot, so does everyone else.  I recognize that having the stick for 
backup is a good idea, but that it's FOR BACKUP is important to 
remember.

As a martial arts student I was taught that violence is a last resort - 
only a fool gets into a fight he could have avoided.  This is, perhaps, 
the lesson that Mr. Bush failed to comprehend.

_____________

Mr. Lorry seems to think that when I said "alternative energy" I meant 
burning peat moss.  Mr. Lorry, you didn't invent nuclear power nor the 
idea of using it.  At the same time, here in Hawaii, for instance, we 
have operating geothermal and tidal power plants that could also serve 
as a model moving forward.  There are LOTS of possibilites.  My 
favorite toy-idea is using fast-growing trees to produce alcohol for 
fuel.   It couldn't replace oil alone, but it wouldn't have to.

But with our new-found 200 billion a year in unspent military funding 
we could (well, we'd have to shut down the government for the most 
part...but if we insisted on keeping the government running and I'm 
still president after I shut down the Pentagon and the Federal Reserve 
System) we could spend our budget on things that are valuable for our 
people like long-term energy, food and raw materials supplies - three 
things this government continues to fail to recognize as important and 
so consistently fails at its supposed primary role - promoting the 
general welfare of our people.

Finally, Mr. Lorry, your total misunderstanding of national and 
international politics alongside your blind ignorance of the material 
facts and tendency to prevaricate is contributing to the continued 
failure of the Libertarian Party to make any significant contribution 
to American National Public LIfe  (I was a card-carrying member but the 
magnificent incompetence of the party leadership was too repulsive to 
continue giving money no matter how lofty the ideals).  For that reason 
I hope you'll have the decency to resign and look for someone smarter 
than you to replace you as soon as possible.  Better yet, just resign, 
let someone smarter than you find someone smarter than you to replace 
you.

Robbie Lindauer