Venezuelan Musin'

On this day:

1492
Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic Monarchs conquest Granada completing the Reconquista.
1721
The Committee of Inquiry on the South Sea Bubble publishes its findings.
1900
Second Boer War: Having already sieged the fortress at Ladysmith, Boer forces attack it, but are driven back by British defenders.
1912
German geophysicist Alfred Wegener first presents his theory of continental drift.
1941
President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivers his Four Freedoms speech in the State of the Union address.
1994
Nancy Kerrigan is clubbed on the knee at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Detroit, Michigan.

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Why are there guards for football coaches?

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There is a strange silence in the world over the bombing of Iran, an act that ordinarily should stimulate some discussion. Is that tacitly accepting something solely on its practical advantages?

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Were the doctored BBC's January 6 tapes ever used in court?

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Have we opened a new terrorist battlefield in Venezuela?

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Venezuelan Musin'

A few years ago, the Biden Regency put a $25 million bounty on the head of Maduro. Biden, or whoever was writing fatwas that day, decided that Maduro was not a political leader, he was a gangster in drag, undeserving of the political niceties that exist between even the most hostile of nations. Today, the same politicians are outraged over Maduro's capture.

But there are plenty of thugs out there masquerading as politicians. Who do we excommunicate from the community of nations? And who do we harry and punish?

The pompous insincerity that politics gathers--one day an enemy of the state, the next a put-upon wide-eyed political victim--is soul-destroying. There is no moral consistency, no reliable civilized port to rest. One fears a violent rejection by nature, where suddenly these frauds will just be vomited up. The only sure consequence is the gradual degradation and rejection of the political class itself.

This is the embodiment of a real international crisis: criminals acting as nations or ethnic subgroups, nations as 'fronts'. The Americans have long tolerated the idea of commercializing crime, individuals or groups incorporating as businesses and getting in line to receive the financial goodwill intended for charity. Government funds are always laundered and repurposed for some criminal or political benefit. When does society kick the door in and reclaim the charity? 

But this can be done on an international level, too. The problem is the analog sliding scale. Is the Congo headman a leader? A boss? A striving new Washington? Does he have any vision other than his immediate benefit or that of his crew? When does the proletarian mass murder, said to be retribution for ancient 'class crimes', become just mass murder?

At some point, the intellectual boat must be righted. A pirate ship is not a democracy because the captain is elected, nor is it socialist because the spoils are shared. Nor does it become a privateer with a letter of marque. Racketeering is racketeering. What is gerrymandering? What is 'packing the courts'?

The real fear should be that Trump's simple utilitarianism may be the inevitable coming wave. Strong countries will start policing their sphere of influence. That is nothing new; the world has assigned America that role since WW11. But the consequences will be fascinating and terribly dangerous. The homogeneous world of nations will separate like continental drift into Balkanized regionalism. And America's philosophical basis will slide into practicality. National action will be only that. Russia will attack Ukraine, and America will menace Cuba. China and Russia will want Mongolia. The age of the warlord--now heavily armed and righteous--will return. 

And the world will depend upon that most rare of political qualities: self-restraint.