Why are some things so unassailable, they are said to be etched in stone, and other things are meant to be adjusted if and when it is necessary, thus are said to be a living document?
Commands that are etched in
stone, such as those which God supposedly gave to Moses, as well as the
Hammurabi Code of Laws, are meant to be permanent. Whatever else future
legislators may come up with, must conform with the commands etched on the
stone tablet.
The reason why the
constitution of a country is treated as if it were etched in stone, is that it
is made coherent in all of its parts. Because of this, everything that's
legislated later on, are made compatible with the constitution so as to be coherent
with each other. This is necessary even though the laws which are meant to work
for their time, deal with circumstances which are markedly different from when
the constitution was framed.
Like it or not, there are
three levels of accomplishment in the endeavors we undertake as human beings.
Such levels would be detected, for example, in a report that was written by a
single author, or one that was written by a committee. You'll find that the
first is coherent and that it flows smoothly. And you'll find that the second
looks like a quilt made of parts stitched together when they match and when
they do not.
But there is also a third way,
which is referred to as team work. The image here is borrowed from the sports
where a team is well rehearsed, and the many players work so coherently
together, they perform like one and the same operator. Thus, to sum up, the
three levels of human performance boil down to the single operator, the team
players and the committee of operators.
Anything that is accomplished
in life, is done by human beings operating at one or the other of these levels.
It is detected in every field of human exercise, especially in international
diplomacy where the foreign policy of a country ends up looking coherent,
semi-coherent or totally incoherent.
Observers who specialize in
tracking the performance of countries in the field of foreign affairs, easily
detect the defects in a country's work when its team of diplomats performs
below par. This has been the case with the United States of America for several
years now; a case in which you could not see the difference between America's
team of diplomats and teenagers pulling pranks on each other in the schoolyard.
This is what upset Daniel
Davis so much, he wrote about it in an article that came under the title: “End
decades of foreign policy disasters with principles that stand the test of
time.” It was published on December 19, 2020 in The Washington Examiner. What
follows is a condensed version of what Daniel Davis said about the subject:
“America's foreign policy
since September 11, 2001 has been one of perpetual conflict abroad. Our
military-first policies have failed to make our country more secure. A better
way to do foreign policy was used in the past. Three presidents produced a
booming economy and a secure nation. In 1965, the Soviet Union sent tanks into
Hungary, and Eisenhower kept America out. In 1962, Kennedy was faced with an
existential threat when the USSR deployed nuclear missiles to Cuba. Kennedy
negotiated an end to the crisis. Reagan sent a contingent of Marines to Lebanon
in 1983 where a terrorist blew up the Marine barracks. Reagan pulled the troops
out of Lebanon. We need a policy based on three principles: Reduce or eliminate
engaging in small wars. End all our current unnecessary forever-wars.
Strengthen our national security by focusing on the adversaries who may someday
pose an existential threat”.
The main point here is that
the current situation is one of those rare moments in life when the right thing
to do is having your cake and eating it too. Three presidents have shown that
you can produce a booming economy and a secure nation, says Daniel Davis. All
you have to do, is mind your business unless there is a clear existential
threat to America, in which case you respond militarily where necessary and
when it is appropriate.
This is how America behaved in
the past, says Daniel Davis, but then America adopted the foolish policy of
forever-wars. The change happened because the team that used to play the foreign
policy game coherently, was pushed out and replaced by high school level bunch
of amateurs.
Unfortunately, this group
cannot change because it is a fundamental precept of their system of beliefs
that they must never change what was promulgated for them and their descendants
since the Stone Age of biblical time. They are Jews, and the tablets in the
hands of Moses will wear out long before they'll learn to interact
diplomatically with their counterparts around the world.
And while they remain in charge
of America’s foreign policy, the country pays the price and suffers enormously
in the way that it is perceived around the world.
Not only that, but the fact
that America’s military is spread out thinly, as it fights small wars around
the world, it is kept from preparing to fight a big war if and when it will
come knocking at its door.
A new administration is about to take over the governance of America. It should know by now what needs to be done in terms of personnel change and policy change to become respected again around the world.