Here is David Brin, who I deeply admire despite the fact that he finds my Popular Front-liberal coalition historical perspective distasteful.
I am sad I am making my first MFBTS post for one of David Brin's blog posts one where I disagree more than I agree with him in terms of his subject matter, for I have found most of his posts compelling over the years, and especially since the rise of Donald Trump, the politician.
First, I have a hard time believing Republicans and Democrats will together decide to remove the president under the 25th Amendment. I get that one does not need to show mental incapacity, but I question whether an elitist removal on the basis of "political" "incapacity" (not policy based, but based upon ability to govern) is a good thing. I am concerned such a procedure will end up backfiring and creating even further conditions for a renewed violent Civil War--sorta the way the elite opinion in Washington, D.C., including then-incoming President Buchanan, thought it would be a good idea to have the Dred Scott case come down hard one way or the other on the slavery question to supposedly settle the matter.
Besides, unless we also remove Pence, we fall into the trap Brin has consistently and correctly warned us about: Pence is worse from any public policy stance that has anything to do with the Enlightenment.
Second, Brin's love for Pax Americana is naive at best, which I also get can be an insult for someone such as Brin, who is both eminently practical and deeply knowledgeable on so many subjects, including world and American history in addition to his immense scientific and mathematical knowledge. But for him to say Pax Americana is 90% benign and 10% malignant shows grave ignorance of U.S. history in Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa. That's a lot of territory, though with Africa, the U.S. role has been relatively limited compared to other European nations, including the U.K. in the definition of "European."
And it matters very little that previous Empires were as bad or worse. One can make the argument, for example, and Gore Vidal was very insightful on this particular topic, that once the Romans vanquished a region, they gave back a lot of autonomy as long as a portion of the agriculture produced and manpower were provided to the then Roman Empire. The British gave a lot to India too under the type of rhetorical gloss Brin wants to make for Pax Americana. What the British Empire gave, and we too give, is hypocrisy of the reality of its oppressive nature and its most outstanding and brilliant ideals, something perhaps earlier Empires did not have--though perhaps Athenian hypocrisy was fairly well developed, too. More recently, meaning the last fifty years, the Russian Soviets built many hospitals, roads, and schools in Afghanistan, as that nation descended further into religious-based tribal warfare. Where the U.S. did well was with Europe, and there much better than the Soviets did for Eastern Europe. In a way, Brin sounds like those old Stalinist apologists who liked to quote Mao in saying Stalin was 70% good, 30% bad. I went "ugh" when I was in college in the 1970s and go "ugh" now. I would be more willing to go 80/20% with 80% being malignant with respect to the American Empire. Stalin? Not worth 1%. I know too many of us believe we are supposed to root for our nation the way we root for our sports teams, but one is capable of loving our nation's land and people while recognizing the history of our nation is not all clean and perfect.
But having said all that, I find I agree with Brin that it is very, very dangerous for us to lose economic leadership, beggar our consumer society and undermine our advanced learning. It is also very dangerous to undermine our civil servants, especially those performing detailed analytics, metrics and other research. I too respect our military leaders who think about facts, circumstances, human power, and tactics when being asked to weigh military options, and care about the morale and readiness of and care for our nation's soldiers. I also strongly believe we as citizens owe a duty to our military not to put them in harm's way to oppress other nations, but to truly use them as a last resort when diplomacy fully fails.
And so, when we review his entire post, I feel confident in saying that while I disagree with more of his blog post than agree, what we agree on is actually more vital. For the first disagreement is merely one of theory and the second disagreement is about American foreign policy history which we can't go back and change anyway. Where we agree is standing athwart against the destructive behavior of the Republican-led Congress and this administration, which each appear to want to govern without a majority of voters' consensus.
