The Invisible Empire

 

I understand that Russian popular propaganda is more often targeted against the British than against the Americans.

This might seem odd, since either militarily or economically, the Americans are stronger.

But Russia is run by the secret service, and long has been. I remember talking years ago with a well-educated Russian émigré who had Marxist sympathies, and probably once moved in high circles. He expressed with grudging admiration the opinion that nobody could touch the British civil service for efficient bureaucratic control.

I suspect the Russians think the British MI5 is worth more than all the American factories and armaments. And perhaps they are right.

I also suspect that the Russians believe that, for all the USA’s strength on paper, they can be managed. Largely due to their incompetence at intrigue. The Russians probably figure they can control key people. Notably including Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. The evidence of this is more or less in plain sight, on Hunter Biden’s laptop, and in Hillary Clinton’s storage of all her government files on a private Ukrainian server. The claims from the very same people that Trump was a Russian asset, or that Tulsi Gabbard is, were classic examples of misdirection.

I suspect China is playing the same game. Why wouldn’t they? Biden just began selling off the US strategic oil reserve, at a time of growing international tensions—and sending some of it to China. It is hard to account for some of the things he does with mere incompetence. It looks like deliberate sabotage.

Other Western governments seem to be doing self-destructive things. Notably Canada’s. Might other politicians be owned?

We know the current elite is selfish, and look to their own interests instead of the general welfare. So why wouldn’t they?

Britain may be relatively immune for a variety of reasons. Long experience at espionage, for one. The remarkable ability of the English to conceal their true feelings, making them ideal spies. Global contacts thanks to the old empire. And a surviving tradition of personal honour and duty; the code of the old ruling class.

Cashing Out and Crashing Out

On Brexit, I don’t think Theresa May bears any blame. Underneath the posturing, there is a simple reality. The EU does not want to make it easy for any member to leave; what higher government ever does? How sanguine was the US when the Confederate States wanted to leave? The UK, when America did? Not only does it involve an immediate reduction of power for the folks negotiating the exit on the European side, but an easy exit will encourage others to leave. No federation can survive if it makes it easy.

By this logic, it is probably inevitable that any deal on offer from the EU is going to be worse for Britain than simply “crashing out.” They have no incentive to make it easier.

And so crashing out seems to be the best option.

Once the UK is out, it makes more sense for the EU to play nice. The deed is done, the bluff failed. Now the economics make it in the EU’s interest to conclude a trade deal. If they do not find some accommodations in good time, there will especially be troubles for Ireland. In the meantime, Britain can be making trade deals with the US, the rest of the Anglosphere, India. She is a big economy. She is a desirable date. There will be other suitors.

Scarred for Life. And Perhaps Longer.

My place, or yours

It is close to impossible to overstate the importance of abortion to our current culture. It is our central issue, just as child sacrifice was central to Canaanite or Punic culture in their day.

Because those who do wrong, and know they do wrong, hate anyone, however innocent, who reminds them of the fact, the Catholic Church's steadfast opposition to the practice, joined later also by Protestant evangelicals, has brought the entirely predictable retribution down on their heads. Why the sudden burst of concern and sympathy for homosexuals over the past few decades? Not due to their own efforts: they are a small minority. They and their concerns are front and centre entirely because homosexuality is opposed by the Catholic Church.

So too, to a large extent, with feminism. So the “New Atheism.”

So too with pedophilia. It is now an unspeakable crime entirely because Catholic priests were found doing it; and because there appeared to be some poetic justice, some evident hypocrisy, in the Church opposing the murder of children yet supposedly abusing those in their care.

However, it was always true, and known to be true, that pedophilia was less common inside than outside the Catholic priesthood. Now that it has been identified as the supposedly single worst crime known to man (as opposed, say, to abortion) a lot of other heads must inevitably start to fall. Sports teams, reformatories, public schools, and so on will inevitably be discovered to have been far worse.

Now “the coin has dropped,” this author says, regarding British boarding schools.

Which raises and interesting question. Since the rest of us were obliged to publicly apologize to Native Canadians for what happened many years ago at church-run residential schools, do the Native Canadians now owe a public apology to the British ruling class?

Angus Reid Poll Suggests Plurality of Britons for Leaving EU

http://www.angus-reid.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/2012.08.14_EU_BRI.pdf

Sounds as though, if Cameron is serious about holding a referendum, it might really result in the UK leaving Europe.

Not that I think it would be a good idea in the modern world for Britain to try to go it alone. Just that I think they're in the wrong trading block. I'd rather see a combined NAFTA-Commonwealth Bloc, with a few other members (Ireland, The Philippines...)--roughly, the "Anglosphere." The combination is far more natural, in terms of shared political, legal, and economic traditions. It would be much bigger and more powerful. And I think it makes more economic sense--a more diverse bloc has more to trade profitably.

Britain's Choice

The current “Eurozone” crisis really does seem to be moving in an interesting direction. The response of France and Germany seems to be to push for an “ever closer union,” but a more restricted one, to counter the sorts of stresses now apparent in the monetary union. This is fundamentally a plan to break up the EU.

Britain now faces the choice of throwing in its lot with a monetary union that has so far looked like a very bad idea, and surrendering a good deal of its sovereignty, or being relegated to a second-tier status within Europe.

Time to propose again my own preferred alternative: an Anglosphere union. Britain should instead leave Europe and join what is now called NAFTA. Trade ties would probably almost automatically bring Ireland with it, possibly some Scandinavian countries. Australia and New Zealand would find it hard then to stay out, given the cultural ties. Most of the English-speaking nations of the Caribbean would probably join in a flash if the opportunity was offered—they've ben seeking union with Canada, the US or Britain for some time anyway. Voila! More or less the union I've been speaking of.

It makes sense not just on grounds of shared culture or shared trade, but a shared historic political and economic philosophy. The Anglosphere is the home of the social philosophies of John Locke and Adam Smith, not to mention the legal traditions of Common Law and Magna Carta. I think they would find it much easier and more comfortable to work together in a tighter economic or political union that Britain would with the rather different traditions of Europe.