by Jim Quinn, The Burning Platform:
“A phenomenon noticeable throughout history regardless of place or period is the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests. Mankind, it seems, makes a poorer performance of government than of almost any other human activity. In this sphere, wisdom, which may be defined as the exercise of judgment acting on experience, common sense, and available information, is less operative and more frustrated than it should be. Why do holders of high office so often act contrary to the way reason points and enlightened self-interest suggests? Why does intelligent mental process seem so often not to function?” ― Barbara W. Tuchman, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam
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The term “folly” is particularly apt at this stage in the decline of the great American empire. Folly is defined as: criminally or tragically foolish actions or conduct; an excessively costly or unprofitable undertaking. If ever a word captured the actions of American political leaders in the 21st Century and reflect the tragic downfall of an empire borne out of the ashes of the Second World War, it is the term “folly”.
For the last two decades I’ve been befuddled by the inane foolishness of our leaders, as they have driven the nation into a bottomless pit of debt at an astoundingly ridiculous pace, initiated military conflict across the globe, and in the last three years initiated anti-human policies guaranteed to destroy our economic system, depopulate the planet, increase human suffering, and turn the world into a techno-gulag where we will own nothing, eat bugs, and bow down to the commands of globalist overlords.
None of what is being jammed down our throats is based upon reason, facts, or common sense. Why do governments initiate policies destined to destroy the nations they have been entrusted to administer? Is it purely incompetence and stupidity, or is it purposeful and evil?
When I heard the term folly last week, it triggered a memory of reading Barbara Tuchman’s 1984 book – The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam. After reading her Pulitzer Prize winning treatise on the opening days of World War I – The Guns of August – I immediately became a huge fan of her work. She had the ability to bring the boring dry facts of history to life with her vivid descriptions of events and making it interesting for the average person.
Her storytelling acumen was second to none. She made you feel like you were part of the story. I subsequently read her other Pulitzer Prize winning tome – Stillwell and the American Experience in China, along with The Zimmerman Telegram, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World before the War – 1890–1914, and A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century. But it is her March of Folly book which captures the absurdity of our world at this time in history.
Tuchman addresses four instances throughout history when, paradoxically, governments pursued policies clearly contrary to their own interests. The first three were: the Trojans’ decision to move the Greek horse into their city, the failure of the Renaissance popes to address the factors that would lead to the Protestant Reformation in the early sixteenth century, and England’s policies relating to American colonies under King George III.
But Tuchman spent half of her 1984 book discussing the most recent government folly – the Vietnam War. Vietnam was still an open wound in the mindset of Americans, after the deaths of 58,000 U.S. boys, over 150,000 wounded in action, and the emotional and physical toll on those who came back haunted by what they saw and had to do to survive. This epic folly also resulted in the deaths of over 2 million Vietnamese. It appears the arrogant leaders of all empires fall into the trap of committing foolish acts out of hubris and overestimation of their intellectual and political power.
“The follies that produced the loss of American virtue following Vietnam begin with continuous overreacting, in the invention of endangered national security, the invention of vital interest, the invention of a commitment which rapidly assumed a life of its own.” ― Barbara W. Tuchman, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam
For an empire which only came into existence in 1946 through the destruction of Europe and Japan, along with agreement by the vanquished and the nearly bankrupt victors to elevate the USD as the currency to rule the world, an avalanche of folly has led us to near ruin. This path towards empire began shortly after Jefferson warned to not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt and Washington warned to not engage in foreign entanglements and costly alliances. Lincoln’s consolidation of Federal power, while pushing the nation further into debt, and setting a precedent of using military might to accomplish political ambitions.
As our industrial strength grew, imperialist tendencies continued to blossom, with the government and media (Randolph Hearst) joining forces to instigate the Spanish American war. After being elected on a platform of not getting the U.S. into World War I, Woodrow Wilson reneged on his promise and sent American troops to fight in a war we had no business entering. This after he had already handed the financial future of our nation over to a private banking cabal and set in motion the perpetual creation of debt and taxation which would eventually create the dynamics of collapse, now on our doorstep.
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