One reason we study the past is because at its core, human nature is constant. Our fundamental needs and our capacity for good and evil can be recognized in any era. How people in the past reacted to circumstances can be predictive of how people in the present might react when faced with similar circumstances.

I’ll share an example of this. In a well-known passage in his History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides records (more like imagines, as he wasn’t there) the Melian Dialogue (Book 5, 84–116), a (one-sided?) conversation between Athens and the people of the island of Melos in 416 BC.

At this point in the Peloponnesian War, Athens was still feeling secure in its naval power. In the first part of the war, Athens had major successes against Sparta at Naupactus, Pylos and Sphacteria. Defeats at Delium and Amphipolis though led to the Peace of Nicias between the two in 421 BC. Meant to last 50 years, it barely lasted 6.

In 416 BC, then, as the peace was unravelling, Athens sent a sizeable force to conquer Melos, the reasons for which aren’t relevant to this discussion. I’ll just add that while it’s easy to think of the ancient Greeks as a bunch of bearded guys sitting around in white robes yammering in the public square about philosophy and democracy, they were very much tribal people.

SCENE: Mitch BERG is at a coffee shop. He orders an egg souffle – the last one in the fridge. As the CASHIER is giving him the egg souffle, Avery LIBRELLE steps, unbeknownst to BERG, up into line behind.

LIBRELLE: Merg!

BERG: Oh, fuuuuuuor criying out loud, how ya been…

LIBRELLE: President BIden is showing the value of having a season hand with decades of experience in foreign policy in control.

BERG: Uh…

LIBRELLE: (Ignoring BERG for the moment, speaking to the CASHIER) I’ll have one of the cheese and onion egg souffles).

CASHIER: I’m sorry, ma’…er, si…er (Looks at BERG, terrified. BERG shrugs shoulders) …uh, we are out. We just sold the last one.

LIBRELLE: (Looks at BERG). So you got the last egg souffle.

BERG: Yeah, sorry – they are apparently lo…

LIBRELLE: I wanted an egg souffle.

BERG: I know, right? They’re keto, and they’re…

LIBRELLE: We need to sort this out.

BERG: I mean, I’m sorry. I didn’t plan it this way.

LIBRELLE: We need to reach a negotiated settlement on this impasse.

BERG: I mean, I already have it. I paid for it, I’m about to eat it. What “negotiated settlement” did you have in mind?

LIBRELLE: Someone needs to remove you from this coffee shop, and leave me the egg souffle.

BERG: I find your terms unacceptable.

LIBRELLE: Perhaps you need to just disappear.

BERG: You’ve followed a bag negotiating strategy with an even worse one, one that might be chargeable as assault.

LIBRELLE: It was just a harmless ad lib from my internal monologue.

BERG: Sort of like our putative President’s negotiating style.

LIBRELLE: Hey. That was a Biden joke. And you should talk; your Saint Ronald did the same thing when he told the Soviets to tear down the wall.

BERG: Calling for real estate improvements aren’t the same as asking someone to disappear the leader.

LIBRELLE: What are we going to do about the souffle?

(BERG takes a big bite).

LIBRELLE: Fascist!

BERG: (Muffled, with souffle in his mouth) Naturally.

And SCENE.

This Thursday piece in the Washington Post caught my eye for reasons I’ll explain in a moment, but it is illustrative of how when war is unleashed, the shrapnel goes in all directions.

In a Minnesota classroom, two weeks after Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, a high school teacher asked her class where they would travel if they could go anywhere in the world. Barrett Buck, 16, who was adopted from Moscow at 15 months old, began replying, “Russia, because —” A scoff cut her off before she could finish the sentence.

Buck continued, saying she’d like to experience more of the country of her birth. Then she added, “I don’t support Russia and what’s going on.”

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has complicated the lives of kids like Buck, one of tens of thousands of children adopted from Russia in the 1990s and early 2000s, and their families, as they navigate layers of feelings about their Russian identity amid the backdrop of an unprovoked war.

Mara Kamen, chair of Families for Russian and Ukrainian Adoption (FRUA), a volunteer-run organization shepherding a network of about 7,000 member families who have adopted children from the former Soviet bloc, says kids and teens adopted from Russia have felt intense hurt these past few weeks.

My son and daughter are both adopted from Russia, though at different times and from different places. We made a total of four trips to Russia, two for each of them. With our son, our first day with him in the orphanage was 9/11. With our daughter, the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 started the day after we got to Moscow (which, looking at the calendar, within the last week was exactly nineteen years ago.) I might share those stories at some point down the road.

…somebody tells you what a genius and go in miracle was, or how she was the “leader of the free world in pro for four years, just mention this.

…I’ve seen in my lifetime is this: when I was a kid, famine still stalked Africa and Asia.

And today, worldwide, obesity is a bigger problem than hunger, in the third world. This has never happened in all of human history.

And it can all end tomorrow.

They’re Iran’s combination of the Saudi religious police, the KGB and the Green Berets.

They were behind the Marine Barracks and US Embassy bombings in Lebanon in the ’80s, which killed hundreds of Americans.

They are known to be directly responsible for killing 600 American service people in Iraq.

They’ve been directly tied to destabilizing most of the governments in the Middle East and Africa, not that many of them need a lot of help in that regard.

They brougth Lebanon and Syria to their knees.

They’ve been waging a horrific war in Yemen.

They are behind most of the attacks against Israel for the past 30 years, and are HAMAS’s main sponsor.

So of course the Brandon administration wants to destigmatize them:

According to Barak Ravid, reporting for Axios, three Israeli officials and two American sources have told him that the Biden administration is considering removing Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from the terror blacklist if Iran issues a public commitment to de-escalate its activities in the region.

Look at the bright side; it’ll free up CIA and FBI resources to go after the real terrorists, like the Heritage Foundation and the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.

Kevin Williamson successfully articulated something I couldn’t quite, myself, over this past few weeks, as American “liberals” have gone from flirting with police defunders to cheerleading for no-fly zones: it’s the dawn of the neo-neocon. All of the neo, none of the (visible) con.

The war has produced a bull market in what I suppose we have to call neo-neo-conservatism, with Democrats and center-Left figures suddenly rediscovering the uses — and necessity — of American hard power. You won’t find a better example of this than Professor Shadi Hamid of the Brookings Institution, who in a recent conversation with Jonah Goldberg was at pains to distance himself from anything that might be called “conservative” or “Bushian,” in his words. Instead, Professor Hamid insisted, responsible liberals such as himself (1) have kept true to their principles while other elements of the Democratic coalition have descended into mad radicalism and identity politics; (2) understand that the alternative to American hegemony is Chinese hegemony or Russo-Chinese hegemony; and (3) being worldly cosmopolitans, admit that it is entirely understandable that Europeans take a different view of European refugees than they do of, say, Muslim refugees from Syria, whose culture and religion inevitably make it more difficult to assimilate them.

For those of you keeping score at home, Professor Hamid here has channeled (1) Ronald Reagan (“I didn’t leave the Democratic Party — the Democratic Party left me!”); (2) George W. Bush (an axis of what, now?); and, perhaps most surprising, (3) Pat Buchanan, once denounced as a vile racist for asking hypothetically whether Virginia would have an easier time assimilating 1 million English immigrants or 1 million Zulu immigrants.

Everything old is truly new again.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

The US keeps troops in the Middle East to prop up the governments of Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates so we can buy their oil at favorable prices. All the sudden, Saudi Arabia and the UAE won’t take our calls?

Might be time to think about redeploying US troops elsewhere. Those Yemeni Houthi rebels we’ve been keeping off your backs? Have fun with that.

Joe Doakes

I don’t know. I take that as more of a “this is how bad things have gotten on the foreign policy front since Joe Biden came along to save our worldwide…”

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

The US keeps troops in the Middle East to prop up the governments of Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates so we can buy their oil at favorable prices. All the sudden, Saudi Arabia and the UAE won’t take our calls?

Might be time to think about redeploying US troops elsewhere. Those Yemeni Houthi rebels we’ve been keeping off your backs? Have fun with that.

Joe Doakes

…when Joe Biden was going to “restore the world’s faith in America.”

A Tale Of Two Mayors

Minneapolis mayor: Jacob Frey appears in Vogue magazine and, well…:

Kiev Mayor appears in Ukrainian Badass.

Who would you rather have dealing with carjackers?

On Saturday, I was listening to NPR News.

Betty McCollum was apparently part of Vice President Harris’s dlegation of elite foreign policy experts that President Biden dispatched to Munich to try to avert disaster…

…and I know what you’re saying; that’s gotta be the punch line, right there. Right?

Under normal circumstances, you betcha.

There was an interview with McCollum in which she said (paraphrasing very closely here, since I was in my car, not recording anything) “there will be severe sanctions if Putin invades Russia”.

Good job, Mr. President.

Good job.

Getcher ice cream.

After reducing the size of the German military by 85% in the face of a resurgent Russia, decommissioning all of Germanys nuclear power plants and actively making the German economy in effect entirely dependent on Russian natural gas (as the German “green energy program” – could could have seen this coming? – ignominiously flopped), and essentially setting Germany up to be a commercial patsy of the oligarchs, could we stop referring to Angela Merkel as a political genius?

And by “we”, I mean the Western “intelligentsia” and pseudo-intelligentsia?

…that American ingenuity, inventiveness and just plain cantankerousness, is not dead

Given the situation between Russia and Ukraine, could we finally stop gushing over Angela Merkel’s brilliance at realpolitik?

She’s put the majority of the largest continental economy in NATO directly into the hands of Vladimir Putin. Over half of German energy is now supplied by Russia, with the failure of Germany’s green energy initiative and the attendant dismantling of Germany’s once awesome nuclear power capability. Germany’s economy can be thrown into a cataclysmic depression with the turning of a couple of valves.

Thus, NATO’s largest continental economy and military is at Putin’s dubious mercy.

Germany has to be calculating that if it participates in harsh sanctions against Russia, it makes itself vulnerable to Russian countermeasures. Already, Russia has been squeezing Europe’s gas supplies. It’s not at all clear that Germany would give up on the pipeline even if Russian tanks roll for Kyiv.

The Germans, meanwhile, aren’t willing to make even the slightest gesture toward deterring Russia. They are blocking Estonia, a fellow NATO ally, from sending howitzers to Ukraine that originated in Germany.

Why it’s almost as if this is another thing Trump was right about.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Ukraine and Kazakhstan border on Russia. They are all mobilizing troops along the borders.

Secretary of State Blinken says NATO never promised not to admit new members, and that the United States is fully committed to defending the principles NATO stands for. The US has moved an aircraft carrier group into position in preparation to defend those principles.

China and Taiwan both agree there is only one China; they disagree whether the mainland or the island is the wayward province which should be ruled by the other. Lesko Brandon said the United States will defend Taiwan if China moves against it.

Defense experts argue over whether Brandon should get the US involved in a two-front war, or only one land war in Asia.

I ask why the United States is promising to go to war against Russia and China at all? What is our vital national interest in Ukraine? How many Americans should die for Kazakhstan? We already have hyperinflation caused by dumping Covid money into the economy – how will we pay for a war against China?

The United States played World Policeman for a century. It’s time to end the farce. We should solve our problems at home before attempting to solve problems elsewhere.

Joe Doakes

I don’t know about you, but I’m half expecting a whole lot of government push on the patriotism of supporting the war effort. Just like our victorious vaccination drive.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Richard Fernandez at The Belmont Club asks whether the Lesko Brandon administration is strolling into our next quagmire.

We canceled pipelines and oil leases at home, to signal our virtue on climate change. The price of gas at the pump, and natural gas for home heating, is going up. We’ve called on Saudi Arabia to pump more oil for us but we’ve also removed sanctions on Iran, which is funding Houthis in Yemen, who are attacking Saudi oilfields. The US could back the Saudis with arms sales or troops so they could keep pumping the oil we want, except Progressives insist the Saudis are repressing the Yemenis so we must not help them. Can “no blood for oil” be far behind?

We’ve caused a world-wide oil shortage and are about to stumble into another war in the Middle East with conflicting policy goals and no clear mission. But all the Left wants to talk about is Kyle.

Joe Doakes

If it weren’t for gullible, low information voters, the Democrats will be pulling somewhere below the libertarians.

One of the great, largely untold, stories of World War 2 was that in the post-war era, the American occupation made such an impression on German society that they ended up taking Federalism to heart to a degree that Americans would feel jealous of, if most of them knew better.

And while it’s not a specific point in the article I’m linking, I’m going to go out on a short, sturdy limb and say that their relatively strict observance of federalism has helped them keep a pragmatic approach to Covid that has largely eluded our centralized public health bureaucracies.

Untrammeled central government hurt Germany terribly, 80 years ago – far worse than Covid has harmed the US. So far.

The power of federalism, not only to help people who don’t like each other much to co-exist politically, but to sand down the rougher edges of government stupidity, is a lesson this country would be blessed to learn, while we can.

About this time seven years ago, I was writing the series of blog posts that eventually become my book Trulbert.

The book described a fictional breakdown of society after a financial cataclysm. I did it as satire because, honestly, it seemed like a more effective approach to the subject; Kurt Schlichter is going to put his kids through medical school with the proceeds from his fiction about a second Civil War, and he’s far from alone. And sometime humor is the best journalism.

Which isn’t to say Trulbert was “the best journalism”, but sometimes the indirect approach is the best one.

I’ve pondered doing a follow-up.

And I’m having a really, really hard time getting to “satirical” again. And I think it ties into the G.K. Chesterton quote – “when everything is absurd, satire is impossible”.

The Brandon Administration, and the times it rules over, are impossible to satirize.

I’m trying to figure out the angle for the next book.

A children’s story?

A musical?

I got nothing.

And with this, let’s see if we can do the same in Minnesota someday.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

So the US got tossed out of Afghanistan, so what? How does our retreat-in-disgrace affect the rest of the world?

Maybe not so good. If the US isn’t willing or able to exercise competent military actions, the nations which have been relying on us for defense, begin to look vulnerable. They might need to arm themselves to defend themselves, or risk be conquered by rivals.

Domino theory is back and I’m wondering how many weapons and how much ammunition will be required to survive the fall of the final domino.

Joe Doakes

Japan has got to be seriously rethinking its post World War II agreements on military posture.

… Jimmy Carter is hitting his knees and thanking God that, while he is still alive, there is going to be a debacle and hostage crisis worse than Iran.

Cubans, actually suffering the oppression that a few million “progressive” snowflakes fantasized they were suffering during the Trump term, are thinking, again, about risking it all to come to America:

And our administration will have none of that:

 Note to Cubans:   it’s a rookie flub.  As long as Biden Harris is in office, you need to come via the southern border.

Problem solved. 

Question:  Mayorkas didn’t put this out via a mean tweet.  So why am I feeling ashamed to be an American, right about now? 

…to remember when there was no how, no way, the Coronavirus was a Chinese biowarfare experiment, and it was racist to suggest as much.

I guess they’re right – elections have consequences.

UPDATE: Remember – it was only pro-Trump fake news propaganda outlets.

…you are old enough to remember when BIg Left referred to colluding with a foreign power as “Treason”.

And yet it seems so long ago.