USS Clueless              Voyages of a restless mind

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Stardate 20011010.1021 (On Screen via long range sensors): This is an extremely profound and prophetic essay (published in 1998). It perfectly defines the difference between us and our enemies in this war. Ordinarily my log entries can be read without following the link, but this time you really should go read it before proceeding, for what Peters says is much more important than anything I'll be able to add. His seven signs of failure are extremely well chosen; when I think of nations in the world and think about how successful they are, I can see right off a strong correlation between how many of these factors apply and how badly they've done. The nations in the world which have done the worst, representing total economic and social breakdown, suffer from nearly all of them.

One thing that is interesting is that the so-called "Religious Right" in the US, epitomized by Jerry Falwell, seeks to reimpose four of these seven on us: Domination by a restrictive religion (obviously), family or clan as basic unit of social organization (i.e. "Family values", neighborhood schools [i.e. apartheid], etc.), Restrictions on free flow of information (suppression of science and "secular humanism", other forms of censorship), and arguably also the subjugation of women.

The American far-left actually also suffers from four of them: restrictions on information (in the name of "political correctness", suppression of everything which could conceivably offend anyone else's sensibilities), inability to accept responsibility for failure (the cult of the victim), domination by a restrictive religion (actually, a restrictive belief system of political correctness and cultural relativism), and low prestige assigned to work (anti-capitalism).

When the United States passed the First Amendment, it clearly ended two of these (restriction of information, domination by religion). It already had a valuation for education and a work ethic and has never been susceptible to the cult of victimhood (which is a modern invention). The Industrial Revolution and the rise of the cities ended the power of families and clans. And it's interesting that the rise of the US to status of a world economic and military power coincides almost exactly with the process of emancipation of women, ending the seventh and last one. The US began to be a world power at the same time as the Suffrage movement, and arrived just as the 19th amendment (vote for women) was ratified. The US became the world power in the 1950's and 1960's as its women began to be a major and important part of its workforce. (discuss)