Enlightened dictatorships? This is very topical: a key change the US seems to be proposing (the precise details are secret) for next month’s World Summit is that trade, foreign investment, and aid should be conditional on good governance and sound economic policies.

Who is going to set the example for these essentials?

“The real purpose of WWII was to channel working class hostility against the ruling class itself, through racism. It worked. Today, George and Osama are doing the same thing, except this time around they are using religion.”

It also sucks in far too many well intentioned, otherwise thoughtful, respectfully idealistic, passionate, dedicated, and caring young people of upstanding personal character who who are hooked into the vision of the world of the left because they are often exposed directly to very little else. But that vision corrupts, and over time even those bright lights dim because of it.

Get out while you can.

Which has put a kink in pointing to B. J. Clinton “the most popular elected leader since Adolf Hitler” …

The main consideration is the overwhelming, undeniable popularity of these guys. Adolf Hitler. Jo-Jo Stalin. Mao. Pol Pot.

Now if the people who tore down the statues of Stalin or Sadam had stopped to consider how much they could get on eBay …

Today, George and Osama are doing the same thing, except this time around they are using religion. Duh!

The Coming Anarchy thesis and what it has led to has a big, glaring, gigantic flaw: If it is true that raw, centralized power is necessary to prevent the outbreak of anarchy, then why in the world was it necessary to topple that paragon of raw, centralized power preventing civil war called Saddam Hussein? Can you tell me WTF the logic is here? Because it does seem to me that there is a BIG contradiction in your logic.

Mr. “Curzon” would have everyone believe that leftism is idealistic and naive; it is, however, ironic that, when it is once pointed out to him that the purpose modern wars has been to kill-off the working class, his hard-edged “realism” is found wanting: appartently, the world is a nasty and brutish place, but not so much that the ruling class would actually have the working class kill itself off by nurturing its racism and religious fanaticism.

Alas, it seems to me smug Mr. Curzon’s fate is the same as that other nihilistic “realist”: hanging from the neck of a whipped horse, crying like an innocent babe.

“The River War” and Churchill’s World War II speeches are all examples of a particular kind of hardheadedness- the ability to establish moral priorities. The appeasers found it morally repugnant to seek an allance with Stalin or to support a military coup against Hitler, since he had come to power democratically, notwithstanding postelection backroom deals. The appeasers, writes Professor Rahe, indulged their moral sensitivities at a terrible cost; “they were more nice than wise. In refusing to commit the smaller sin, the incurred a far greater wrong.” (p. 26)

Regarding our present intrigues, does any of this sound familiar?

Speaking of Coming Anarchy, Curzon wrote an entry yesterday about the rise of Hitler that I don’t really have words for. It’s very good. Read it here….