Inveterate columnist George Will speculates on comparisons of today with world history:
Today’s Moscow-Beijing-Tehran axis is, as the 1930s Axis was, watching. Johns Hopkins foreign policy analyst Hal Brands, writing for Bloomberg, reminds us: “Italy’s invasion of Abyssinia in 1935 encouraged Hitler to send his military back into the Rhineland in 1936, just as Germany’s blitzkrieg through Western Europe in 1940 emboldened Japan to press into Southeast Asia.”
We can now see that the great unraveling that was World War II perhaps began with Japan’s 1931 invasion of Manchuria. Without the benefit of retrospection, we cannot be certain that World War III has not begun. [WaPo]
The problem with democracy isn’t its deliberate movements when at its best; this is a positive. No, it’s the fact that the members of Congress are inevitably provincials, as I believe President Truman once complained. They, like everyone does, tries to fall back on experience to guide momentous decisions – but have nothing that’s really applicable, and do not realize it.
And when a Party is guided, in part, by philosophies emphasizing greed, arrogance, and narcissism, then the problem is compounded. Not that I advocate for some other system, as theocracies, monarchies, autocracies, and all the rest are prone to the same problem. The drive to achieve, or preserve, high position is often incompatible with the ability to govern well.
But I shall take this chance to bemoan it while I meditate on something that is probably irremediable via design. Rather, it requires a citizenry that takes its responsibilities, and the requirements of justice, seriously.
