The Ideas Versus The Man

Some ideas are good in themselves, and others are bad in themselves. Most ideas though are neither good nor bad in themselves, but rather a means to an end. The end can be either good or bad. This class of ideas are rather like tools. Tools are morally neutral. They may be wielded for good purposes or for evil ones. In either case the outcome is not due to the tool, but rather to the person who uses the tool. The tool is not responsible for how it is used, but rather the man should be responsible for how he uses it.

Donald Trump is now the President-elect of the United States. I will pray for him, as I prayed for Barack Obama, though I voted for neither man (why do Americans continue to vote for candidates from the two DC-run, globally funded parties which have done so much to bankrupt the nation both morally and fiscally?).

Though he changes his story so often that it is hard to say exactly what his real policies will actually be, during the campaign he suggested many ideas which a localist should support. He expressed a desire to leave or re-negotiate trade deals which undermined our national sovereignty. He supported de-escalation of tensions with Russia which have come about by the actions of prior administrations acting as self-appointed "world police." He wants secure national borders. He has suggested that tariffs are a viable option for cheating trade "partners". He expressed support for the idea that even our political elites should be prosecuted if they have committed crimes- instead of our current situation where we have a ruling class which is effectively above the law. He said he was opposed to Common Core. He grumbled (vaguely) about the Federal Reserve system. He has declared that many controversial issues should be left to the states.

It really is an agenda that a localist could get behind even though the media has not called it by that name. They are stuck on calling him a "nationalist" even though some of his positions- like leaving many issues to the states and fuming about the federal reserve, actually indicate a man who wants much of government pushed below the national level. A nationalist is the second worst type of political outlook to have - next to a globalist. But Trump is not even pure nationalist. There is some bit of decentralization in his campaign rhetoric. Nationalism is better than globalism. True federalism is better than nationalism, and localism is best of all. At least this side of heaven where government is necessary.

In spite of this I did not support him. This is because I looked beyond the tools the man was proposing to use and firstly considered the character of the man who would be using them. Donald Trump is not a just man. He has never made justice a goal of his walk in life and it is highly unlikely that he will start now. Because the man is not virtuous, his use of the tools that I agree should be used will not be virtuous either. If he follows through on his campaign promises at all, which is very much an open question with him, I fear he will put the proper tools to an improper use. I fear he will give the tools themselves a bad name by his poor use of them. If so, for decades hence the thoughtless masses will not give a fair hearing to the idea that those tools should be used, but used properly. Instead of a real argument, the detractors will say "that sounds like Trump" and sound proposals will be unsoundly dismissed.

For example, tariffs are properly used as a firewall between an unjust economy and your own. It is just and like paying insurance premiums to protect your own economy from going down when the unjust one inevitably collapses. If an economy has a captive labor force for example, a tariff could  make the cost of doing business with them more like a true free market transaction if they actually had a free economy. That is a proper use of tariffs. Another just use of tariffs is when substituted for an even worse tax- like individual income taxes. This is with the understanding that government has to be funded somehow and tariffs are bad but not so bad as what they would replace.

I don't think that is how President Trump would use tariffs. I think he would protect specific industries, not specific just values. I think whoever was good to him would get a break and whoever was not would not. Tariffs are a policy tool, There is just and an unjust way to use them. He is not the man to lean on for a just use of tariffs, or anything else. His complaints about the federal reserve for example, could be turned into a demand for more reckless spending without financial consequences (until the imbalances caused by that become so great that even the fed loses control and the dollar crashes). Every idea he has that I like can be used in a way that I don't like.

I want the tools which he was proposing in his campaign. I probably favor them more than he does. We will see how many of them he was just saying to get elected (which shows how popular these anti-globalist tools are) and how many he is really committed to. But because I do favor these tools, I don't want to see their use discredited. The tools are not to blame for the use which they are put to by the unjust. Rather, the workman who used them poorly is to blame- him and the ones who handed him those tools to being with.

Tech Guru Discovers Appeal of Localism in Wake of Trump Victory

The Wall Street Journal had a piece up recently entitled "New Populism and Silicon Valley on Collision Course." Basically, left-leaning globally orientated techies are in shock that the nationalist Trump won the election. When Barack Obama was holding the gun, they didn't seem to mind so much. After all, they largely agreed with him. Since it was pointed at those loathsome heartland rednecks it was perfectly understandable that there should be only one set of rules for the whole nation- and that the central government should enforce those rules on the backwards hinterland whether the inhabitants liked it or not.

But it turns out there was a whole lot more folks in those backwoods than the tech gurus thought. Now Donald J. Trump is about to hold the gun, make the court appointments, and what have you. Suddenly, centralization doesn't seem so attractive. Now it occurs to them that maybe the entire continent wide nation of 320 million people should not be forced to adhere to the same rules about everything under the sun.

Silicon Valley tech guru (and CEO of Century 21 Bitcoin) Balaji Srinivasan had this to say:

“My Stanford network connects to Harvard and Beijing more than [California’s] Central Valley,” says Mr. Srinivasan. Eventually, he argues, “there will be a recognition that if we don’t have control of the nation state, we should reduce the nation state’s power over us.”

Silicon Valley gurus are talking about how they do not want to live under rules made by people they have nothing in common with. That is exactly the point that the heartland has made about the two coasts for some time. Both are right. Localism provides a framework by which we might all get along. 

If government is necessary, then we can either have a decentralized government or a centralized one. Right now we increasingly have a centralized one. Decisions for the whole nation are increasingly being made by the residents of one city. The nation itself is divided and every four years one side of the divide must live in terror because the other side wrests control of the gun away. Rather than endure this struggle which guarantees that half of our society will always be unhappy, why not let localities make the rules as they see fit, and make it a lot less important who the President is? 

Localism is for people who can sleep well at night even though people they don't know in a city they have never been to are doing things that they don't approve of. In other words, it is for mentally healthy people who are not controlled by the unattainable fantasy that someday the government in Washington is going to force everyone to live just the way they think people ought to live. Sadly, our society has been conditioned to make snap judgments based on emotional outrage on situations from afar where we hear only one side from a news report. Its not healthy, either for the individual or for the society since it produces an environment were demagogic strongmen can thrive for a while.

The New Silk Road Shows Loss of National Sovereignty Not Necessary for Trade

One of the tenants of localism is that nations should never enter into trade agreements in which compliance is adjudicated by some trans-national body. Lateral trade agreements, preferably bi-lateral, are the only type of agreement a national government should be constitutionally permitted to enter into in a localist society. That is to say, only agreements where each participant is a partner who determines for themselves when to enter or leave, and how to administer, said agreements.

The ruling class in the west have been pushing the idea that the inevitable way forward economically is to create supra-national trade zones which give binding authority to some sort of commission to adjudicate disputes as to when one nation or the other is abiding by its terms. This turns self-government into a farce, since any laws your legislature makes which run afoul of this un-elected commission of foreigners can be ruled null and void. This is not a condition which can honestly be called freedom.

There is a competing model though. It is one which is compatible with the ideas of localism, and thus true-self government and freedom. It has taken shape in the new Silk Road. It came together as a network, not a hierarchy. Every nations is participating in a voluntary manner to do something which benefits all of them- without the need for an extra-national body to enforce corporate rule. This Forbes article described it like this....

"There was no clear power structure, no defining architecture, no overarching legal regime. It wasn’t a trade pact, it wasn’t a treaty organization, and it wasn’t a customs zone. It was basically a loosely adjoined, multifaceted array of bilateral and multilateral partnerships interlinking the EU, the Eurasian Economic Union, Eastern Europe, the lower Caucasus states, Iran, and ASEAN with China that would be held together by a newly enhanced transportation and energy grid. It was just a network...." 

It is just a network. But a network is all you need if it is truly in the best interests of each participant in the network. The compulsory aspects of what is often today dishonestly called a "free trade zone" are only needed if pushback from the population of one or more participant nations can be expected. The way the west is conducting international trade is creeping toward global corporations hijacking national governments and using treaties as an end-run around self-government.

Don't let them tell you that such agreements are "necessary" or "inevitable". Another model has spontaneously emerged in the New Silk Road. Its not a new model either. It is simply the way trade has always happened until corporations got so big that they realized they could capture entire governments and pushed a contrived model of trade as part of that plan.

If you are opposed to corporate governance, then you should support the ideas in localism that would prevent it.