The Sooner We are Rid of Him, the Better

My own view is that this planet is used as a penal colony, lunatic asylum and dumping ground by a superior civilisation, to get rid of the undesirable and unfit. I can't prove it, but you can't disprove it either.

-        Christopher Hitchens*

I will suggest this is certainly true for much of official Washington.  I can prove it.

John McCain gave a speech at the Munich Security Conference (I can rest my case now, I think).  What is the Munich Security Conference?

The Munich Security Conference is an annual conference on international security policy and has been taking place since 1963. …Each year it brings together about 350 senior figures from more than 70 countries around the world to engage in an intensive debate on current and future security challenges.

Nothing fishy going on here…

Since 2009, the conference awards the Ewald von Kleist Award:

The award will be given to prominent individuals who have made an outstanding contribution to peace and conflict resolution.

The theme of the conference is peace through dialogue.  At least that’s what they claim.  Instead, everything you need to know about the true purpose of this conference is wrapped up in the name of the first recipient of this annual award: Henry Kissinger.

Now, returning to McCain’s speech:

My friends: In the four decades I have attended the Munich Security Conference, I cannot recall a year where its purpose was more necessary or more important.

So, it wasn’t more important when US blockades starved 500,000 Iraqi children?  It wasn’t more important before the US invaded Iraq and Afghanistan?  It wasn’t more important when the western attendees of this conference made rubble out of several North African, Middle Eastern and Central Asian countries?  It wasn’t more important when McCain and his cohorts decided to turn Ukraine into a war zone?

Referring to the end of World War II and the time McCain describes as the birthing of the West (what a historical ignoramus):

[Came] a new, and different, and better kind of world order … one based not on blood-and-soil nationalism, or spheres of influence, or conquest of the weak by the strong, but rather on universal values, rule of law, open commerce, and respect for national sovereignty and independence.

There are no “universal values”; to insist on such a thing requires ignoring (or destroying) the different values held by different cultures.  There is no “respect for national sovereignty” or “independence”; otherwise why would you want to ignore a world order based on “blood-and-soil”?  There is plenty of “conquest of the weak by the strong”; McCain leads the charge.

Indeed, the entire idea of the West is that it [is] open to any person or any nation that honors and upholds these values.

Open to those who “uphold these values.”  Sounds very Trumpian; of course, it seems clear that Trump actually means this when he says it; it is obvious McCain does not.

Referring to the post-war generation:

They would be alarmed by an increasing turn away from universal values and toward old ties of blood, and race, and sectarianism.

In this one sentence, McCain reveals the inherent flaw in everything he advocates.  If there is one “universal value” known to man since the beginning of recorded history, it is the “old ties of blood, and race, and sectarianism.”  McCain’s vision of man is the aberration.

And it is precisely this – the ties of blood – which the leaders of the west want to destroy; it is because these ties represent a threat to a consolidated, universal authority.

They would be alarmed by the growing inability, and even unwillingness, to separate truth from lies.

Mmmm.

Why did you lie and pretend?

This has come to an end

I'll never trust you again

It's time you made your amends

Look in the mirror my friend.

-        Dream Theater

OK, John, you can come away from the mirror now; return to the speech, please:

But what would alarm them most, I think, is a sense that many of our peoples, including in my own country, are giving up on the West …

Wrong; we are giving up on your idea of the west.

…that while Western nations still have the power to maintain our world order, it is unclear whether we have the will.

The entire world is tired of this idea of yours; they never asked you to “maintain world order.”  Most of them were doing just fine without your help. 

We must appreciate the limits of our power…

“Hey…here in the back…Can you start to “appreciate” pretty soon?  Please?”

…but we cannot allow ourselves to question the rightness and goodness of the West.

Only self-righteous, self-absorbed, arrogant narcissists think in such terms.  But I guess this didn’t need to be pointed out.

…through it all, we must never, never cease to believe in the moral superiority of our own values…

Only self-righteous, self-absorbed, arrogant narcissists think in such terms.  But I guess this didn’t need to be pointed out.

…that we stand for truth against falsehood, freedom against tyranny, right against injustice, hope against despair…

No, through it all you stand for imperialism, freedom through murder, propaganda instead of transparency, war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength.  You represent a boot stamping on a human face…forever.  Most of all, you stand for despair; just ask the millions of people whose lives you “touched.”

Even now, when the temptation to despair is greatest, I refuse to accept the end of the West.

So do I.  You and I just have a different view on what is meant by “the West.”

I refuse to accept the demise of our world order.

You have no choice; it is crumbling all around you, thanks in no small part to your efforts.  All that is left for you is nuclear war – which clearly you prefer to losing.

I refuse to accept that our greatest triumphs cannot once again spring from our moments of greatest peril, as they have so many times before.

This process began already: our “moment of greatest peril” was the financial collapse of 2008; our “greatest triumph” began with the first of the two most recent presidential runs by Ron Paul. 

I refuse to accept that our values are morally equivalent to those of our adversaries.

I refuse to accept this as well; I would never accept that my values are morally equivalent to yours.  Your values and actions demonstrate a hatred of humanity and are completely contrary to the moral teachings based on traditional western values.

I am a proud, unapologetic believer in the West, and I believe we must always, always stand up for it — for if we do not, who will?

I will stand up for it: I believe in a west made up of traditional western values – not the values you have concocted in the last decades.  I believe in a west of freedom and individual liberty, a west of free markets, a west that holds what are commonly understood as Christian values and morals, a west where property is respected, a west where individuals succeed by pulling themselves up – not by pulling me down.

I believe in a west that goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy.  I believe in a west that is for free commerce with all nations, political connection with none.  I believe in a west where each nation extends commercial relations, yet has as little political connection as possible.  I believe in a west that understands that of all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded.

If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.

That’s the west that I believe in.

It is the west that you have worked to destroy.

Conclusion

Reject what you don't want. Get rid of dead wood.

-        Daryl Hall

Anyone got a match?

*except as noted, all quotes from Brainy Quote