Opinion
By Sigrid Weidenweber
07-12-24
As I try to find my way through the jungle of politics in our Bidenana Republic, I adhere to the thoughts and research of a few great minds, who reliably, and with wisdom, analyze our political situation. Disconcerting is the fact, that, except for Mark. R. Levin, their outlook for the country is gloomy.
The most erudite in my mind is Mark R. Levin still sounds hopeful. But Jeffrey A. Tucker, founder and president of the Brownstone Institute, and Victor Davis Hanson speak of annihilation and the end of everything. And then, there is Peter Zeihan, who entitled his masterful book on geopolitical strategies THE END OF THE WORLD IS JUST THE BEGINNING.
Jeffrey A. Tucker writes a weekly column for the Epoch Times and his insights and commentaries are always reaffirmation of my reality, as are Lavin’s commentaries and Hanson’s discussions. Having talked about these thoughts, I dig into the last observations by these men concerning our freedom and the continuity of America, as we know it.
In an opinion piece in the Epoch Times, May 15—21, 2024, Jeffrey A. Tucker takes on Polylogism, calling it the Root Problem of our time. The term Polylogism is derived from the Greek word poly—many, and logos—words. The term was coined by the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises to describe what he perceived the root problem in the philosophies of Russia, Germany and now America. Mises encountered and understood that harmful doctrines, germinated in the academies of Russia and Germany resulted in massive suffering and deaths and fundamentally undermined and threatened liberty. In the case of Germany, this doctrine caused war and the end of the former political entity.
An adoption of polylogism results in a muddle of paths, close to denying reality altogether, as we see in our lives, leaving us with bewildering biology of genders and sexes, theories of race (all whites are racist), and America’s history is racist, without considering the realities of time, culture and politics.
With this, the problems of polylogism become apparent.
Polylogism denies the uniformity of the logical structure of the human mind, without ever logically explaining why the differences of thinking arise, and how the scrambled ideas could hold a society together in the end. Mises states, Consider the implications. There can be no human rights under these conditions because what is right for one group isn’t necessarily right for another.
He then goes on to point out that there can be no law or constitution because they presume a uniform structure of human aspiration. The implications are that the underpinnings of civilization, laws, language, culture and religion are merely audio-specks because no meaning underlies the noise. Example: the fifty or so new genders, or the pronouns people insist on using, which no one understands and cares about. And yet, the nonsense is forced down our throats by the country’s leftist party.
And, with that in mind, one understands why certain people would like to do away with the constitution. Do away with religion, do away with guns and the rights to own them. Anyone with another new idea how to gain political power can claim that their idea will bring about global unity, and within a polylogistic framework that is valid, as was the case with tyrants, like Hitler, Stalin, Mao Tse Tung and others, who made certain there were no logical debates about their polilogismic belief systems.
And there is Victor Davis Hanson’s book The End of Everything HOW WARS DESCEND INTO ANNIHILATION
Hanson, a classicist and military historian, explains in his book how major civilizations were degraded to the point where their civilization and culture were obliterated with few traces left to remined us of their greatness. His examples are Boeotian Thebes, Punic Carthage, Byzantine Constantinople and Aztec Tenochtitlan. In Hanson’s words, each of these empires “had a rendezvous with finality.” Doom awaited each of these empires and their people, and yet, they seemed blissfully unaware of their impending fate, although the signs of the apocalypse were everywhere. Hanson points to the primary causes of each of these societies’ collapses. First, they were in denial, that their civilization was in decline and lived lavishly. Second, each of these societies failed to perceive that their enemies were gathering power and wished to obliterate them in totality. When time of the final assault came, they found to their chagrin that their allies left them standing alone. In particular, Henson points out, that their governing entities underestimated the extraordinary leadership of their opposition, such as Alexander the Great, the great Scipio Aemilianus, Mehmet II, and Hernan Cortez.
These empires and city states were judged, in their glory, by their enemies and allies as indestructible and viewed with envy, whereas their allies often viewed them with resentment for their treatment of their vassals.
These observations remind us forcefully of America today and the situation in which the country finds itself.
Hanson sums up Americas dilemma as follows.
We’ve become a very rich, leisured, insular, Self-congratulatory, and self-deluded society that believes we are eternal, even as we run up $36 trillion in debt and are dangerously short in munitions and a deterrent military as in the past. The country is divided and perhaps more sectarian than at any time since 1860. There is a new Russia/China/Iran/ north Korea axis, and old allies like Quarter and Turkey act like new enemies. The military is short recruits and has been politically weaponized along DEI lines, even after it suffered utter humiliation in Afghanistan and saw US foreign policy collapse in the Ukraine, the Middle East, and the Red Sea. Each new weapon system, from hypersonic nuclear-tipped weapons to viruses and satellite killers, inches us toward Armageddon—if enemies feel we’ve lost deterrence and therefore dare something stupid.
It is hard to be optimistic when you see the country run by ideologues and corrupt, self-serving government entities who fail to perceive the legitimate threat posed by our enemies abroad.
As if the previous two thinkers did not provide us with enough real gloom to cloud our days, I feel Peter Zeihan’s book deserves at least a mention. Zeihan is a geopolitical strategist and as such advises our military, financial institutions, business associates, and agricultural ventures through his consulting firm Zeihan on Geopolitics. He sees our global influence and interconnectedness reduced, and crumbling. He postulates that our global trade and the political climate allowing the enormous interchange to occur, is coming to an end. In his book he is setting the stage for what is to occur as follows: After WWII the American led Order (big O) did more than change the rules of the game; it institutionalized order (little o), which in turn allowed industrialization and urbanization to spread everywhere.
However, that global spread was only possible because global trade was secure, being insured by America’s and the Allies’ might. What makes the inter-continental business with its thousands of ships crossing the oceans possible is the promise of safe conduct and continuation. Unfortunately, lately that promise has been broken. We have seen ships assaulted and sunk by Houthies in Yemen and harassed by Iranian speed boats. We observed Chinese marine forces threatening trade in the South China Sea and surrounding maritime shipping lanes, and yet, we have not seen serious deterrent. The present government’s foreign policy is appeasement as opposed to showing strength—as it might cause war. By abdicating supremacy world-wide, America is allowing the break-down of trade with horrible consequences. The wars ignited under this president will assure that trade and global interconnectedness will suffer. In his book Zeihan lays out scenarios for what will occur in different regions of the world, as trade first slows down, and then may stop.
I found the END OF THE WORLD IS JUST BEGINNING not only an amazing look into the future, but well beyond, a great read, witty and fast-moving. It should be required reading for all twenty-somethings, for they will need to know.
Born in Germany in 1941, Sigrid Weidenweber remembers the horrific aftermath of Fascism. At the end of the war, she found herself living under Communism. Both of these totalitarian regimes left indelible marks on her psyche. She developed a healthy distrust of governments usurping too many powers in order to control people supposedly for their own good. MORE
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The views expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida
