Paving Materials on the Road to Hell

Recent tragedies in Connecticut and elsewhere, in which large numbers of innocent people were killed by deranged gunmen, have led to a flurry finger-pointing, as polticians of every stripe try to convince voters that they can solve the problems of gun violence in America, while looking for scapegoats to blame.

Predictably, some blame the gun lobby for its tone-deaf intransigience about setting rules and limits on guns; some blame the video-game industry for encouraging a culture of violence.  Some blame our existing gun restrictions, for preventing law-abiding citizens from coming to the rescue with guns blazing whenever there's trouble.  Some even blame our Constitution for elevating the "right to bear arms" to the level of a constitutional right --- or heap the blame on our Supreme Court, for recognizing in the text of the Second Amendment a personal right to bear arms for our own self-defense.

On this last score, some gun control advocates point to the pre-existing case law --- effectively acknowledging that the Second Amendment precluded only Congress from enacting limits on the right to bear arms --- to argue that the current court has made the "activist" decision to rewrite the Second Amendment, and pointing to the Supreme Court decision in McDonald v Chicago as Exhibit A.  The reason we had "a body of law" through the 1970s that has been revisited today is not because of "judicial activists" on the bench today, but because of the judicial activists of the 1960s.

From our founding until the middle of the 20th Century, the US Supreme Court had routinely held that the Bill of Rights applied only to restrict the power of the Federal government over its citizens...and had no application against the state. States, through their own laws and constitutions, were largely free to organize themselves, and to write whatever laws and rules their citizens saw fit to impose upon themselves. In this context, the Federal Government could impose no rules respecting weapons in the possession of its citizens of any kind --- with the possible exception of those being transported in across state lines, in interstate commerce. Any such rules and regulations were left to the states, which were free to impose any rules they wished.

Building upon various threads of developing legal thought, and beginning in earnest with the 1960 Supreme Court decision in Mapp v Ohio, the Supreme Court effectively rewrote our Constitution, extending protections designed to prevent tyranny at the Federal level by applying them to the states. Though largely intended at the start to rectify obvious injustices being visited on black defendants in the Deep South, this morphed into what is known as the "incorporation doctrine"...by which language in the Fourteenth Amendment --- which read that "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States" --- transformed the Bill of Rights into general limits on state power, a bit of legal alchemy that had somehow escaped the attention of jurists until the middle of the 20th Century. Though most modern liberals insist that it only applies to those "privileges or immunities" that they approve of --- such as the right to counsel, or the protection against unreasonable search and seizure (all of which were generally granted in one way or another in the various state constitutions) --- inexorable logic, as well as the law of unintended consequences, made it inevitable that the same "incorporation doctrine" would someday come to apply to the Second Amendment as well as the rest.

Today, rather than a system in which Washington is prohibited from disarming its citizens but States are free to regulate weapons as they see fit, we now have a system in which the same limit on Federal power relating to weapons is being applied against the states...with the result that what seemed a good idea to the "Perpetual Committee on Constitutional Revision" that the Supreme Court became in the 1960s is running into the reality that the Founders tried hard to accommodate in 1787: ie, the fact that a "one-size-fits-all" government is a recipe for disaster, and that liberty is better preserved by placing strict limits on Federal power, and letting the People govern themselves as much as possible at the state and local levels. In the context of trying to control gun violence in our society, this means that local communities across the country have to abide by the same constitutionally mandated limitations --- even though farmers in rural Montana and neighborhood watch volunteers in Detroit may face different local problems, requiring different local solutions.

If we are going to decry "judicial activists," we should probably begin by studying how the Constitution changed in the 1960s. We are still grappling with the consequences, but at least you'd have a sense of the nature of the problem...and why it's proving so hard to get things right: judges are terrible at crafting the kinds of political compromises we need to govern ourselves intelligently, and make most people happy with the result; and once they assumed the power to rewrite the Constitution, they became a third political branch of Government, rather than simply serving as the referees. And so therefore, in the context of our current debate on gun control, rather than being able to rule simply that "the Second Amendment does not apply to the States; therefore, the State of (fill in the blank) is free to regulate firearms in whatever manner its citizens seem fit," it now has to craft constitutional rules relating to firearms that apply across the board to everyone, everwhere in the country...and determining which state laws and regulations can pass muster with five members of the Supreme Court. Multiply that by the number of issues now deemed to involve someone's "constitutional rights," and you have a recipe for the chaos and dysfunction we see everywhere in this country, at all levels of government.

Personally, I think the Founders gave us a much better system; it's too bad we had to muck it up.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a retired public prosecutor from Michigan, writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the Guardians of Peace-tm science fiction adventure series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

The Path of Great Nations

Our ongoing debt crisis is raising tempers throughout our political chattering class. Hidden away, however, are several underlying trends that are threatening to crack our political fault lines in ways that should send shudders through our collective consciousness. Instead, it will likely lead to boredom within a matter of weeks, as most people return to their own lives in hopes that the Future will take care of itself. Unfortunately, the cliff we occasionally sense ourselves approaching isn't terribly far away, and we're still heading toward it.

A friend of mine recently commented that Capitalism was, in many ways, an extreme form of economics in that only the financially strong survive. He is, of course, right in many ways, though his prescription (a more socialistic economy and political structure) strikes me as completely wrong.

Cruel as it is, Capitalism seems to reflect the Darwinian world in which we live, where the strongest, most adaptable survive. Socialism, on the other hand, recalls to mind Churchill's observation to the effect that Capitalism was the unequal sharing of prosperity, while Communism was the equal sharing of misery. Hoping to split the difference, Socialism seems to prevent prosperity, while being unable to escape the misery that comes from trying to maintain a perpetual state of equality in an inherently imperfect world.


Equally depressing are Alexander Tyler's observations on the ebb and flow of human forms of government:

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.

"The average age of the worlds greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

"From bondage to spiritual faith;

From spiritual faith to great courage;

From courage to liberty;

From liberty to abundance;

From abundance to complacency;

From complacency to apathy;

From apathy to dependence;

From dependence back into bondage."

If I had to place America in the early 21st Century, it would be somewhere in Tyler's Stage 5: Abundance, heading toward Complacency (though an argument could be made that we've shot past Companency and are rushing headlong toward Apathy...possibly due to the proliferation of video games in modern times). From that point, I think Rome took about 400 years to fall; though I'm enough of a hopeless romantic to think we might be the first civilization to escape their fate, I'm not sure we'll last as long.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a retired public prosecutor from Michigan, writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel Clouds of Darkness, the compelling third volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Another Moment of Truth, or Paying the Piper

In a democracy, by and large the people tend to get the government they deserve. And throughout history, a democracy's moment of truth comes when its citizens discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasury. Since that discovery, about 50 years ago, we've tended to vote for whoever promised us the most goodies, and have largely ignored the Cassandras in our midst who were warning that nothing in this world is free, and that a day of reckoning would come one day when we'd have to start paying our bills.

The spectacle we're watching this week in Washington on raising the debt ceiling is our modern heritage, and our penance for wanting everything, and expecting others to pay for it all. Unfortunately, there is no way to avoid the fiscal and financial pain that is in our future; and listening to those who are promising quick or easy fixes --- whether calling for "taxing the rich" to pay for everything, or cutting spending (except for any that happens to benefit us) --- are simply trying to advance their careers at their country's expense.

It's often said that the first step in getting yourself out of a hole is to stop digging; let's just hope we haven't already sold the ladder to the Chinese.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a retired public prosecutor from Michigan, writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel Clouds of Darkness, the compelling third volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

The War on Laughter

The impulse to control others seems inbred in some of us.  I've always suspect that it burns with particular fervor in the hearts of those intent on saving humanity from itself, and willing to force the rest of us to endure hardships fof our own good.  In some dark corner among those self-annointed saviors, there are things beyond their comprehension, that they feel the urge to crush in their fellow human beings...laughter and joy foremost among them.

In this country, we can see it in the self-righteous prudishness of true believers of many different stripes, religious as well as secular.  Perhaps because of an emptiness in their own souls there is, among some eager to save the world, a bitter undercurrent of resentment that people can smile amid sorrow, or find joy and pleasure in life when misery exists all around them.  Among the truly serious-minded, laughter is a frivolity that must never intrude on the task at hand...whatever that task might be.  Thus, some religions ban dancing and frown on music; and some secular "true believers" would ban any form of entertainment---from video games to musical genres---that conflict with their vision of what the "correct society" would look like.

Fortunately, Americans traditionally have little patience with busybodies, and usually ignore them.   But that tactic carries its own risks:  while most of us are too busy living to worry about what other people are doing for fun, the busybodies are too busy fretting to have much of a life---and, unfortunately, busybodies with nothing to divert their attention can still manage to capture the ears of our politicians, who are too busy running for office to waste time thinking.  The growth of the Nanny State is one outcome, one that we are free to ridicule and, if it gets out of hand, to change.  The rest of the world isn't always as lucky: totalitarians, it seems, are puritans at heart, and tend to take a dim view of joy and laughter.

In Soviet Russia, the communists reduced art and literature to propaganda arms of the state.  Lenin, its founder, dismissed music as tending to make people soft-hearted and tender---hardly the sort to kill each other for the sake of making a revolution.  Islamic fundamentalists seem enraged by the tendency of ordinary people to savor the joys of life:  Aytollah Khomeini, the founder of the theocracy that currently rules Iran, once remarked that "Allah did not create man so that he could have fun"; rather, the whole point of creation was to put us through "hardship and prayer."  While this may explain a lot about the regime's behavior during the past thirty years, it doesn't make them easier to live with.  And the Chinese, though discarding Mao's approach to economics, seem to be adopting his approach to dealing with humorous irreverence, silencing one of their people's favorite comics---a gifted comedian named  Guo Degang---for committing the offense of Wit Against the State.

In the end, I suspect that the self-annointed saviors of the world are fighting a losing battle. The human spirit is stronger than any attempt to stamp it out.  Joy is, in the end, a more attractive lure than the promise of endless misery.  And ridicule being the best weapon in the battle against pomposity, laughter will always prevail over prudishness.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a retired public prosecutor from Michigan, writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Burning Books Instead of Reading Them

In one of the low moments of our current interval of xenophobic exhuberance, it seems that a church in Florida is planning to reinstitute a centuries-old tradition of small-minded people throughout the ages: burning books they don't like.



In 1821, the writer Heinrich Heine wrote: "Where they burn books, they will end in burning human beings." We regard the Nazi book-burning rituals with horror: one of my favorite lines from the last Indiana Jones movie has Sean Connery telling one of the evil Nazis that "goose-stepping morons like yourself should try reading books instead of burning them". And Ray Bradbury's novel Fahrenheit 451 gave us a vision of a futuristic society where the authorities institutionalized the practice of burning books they deemed unfit to read. I find it depressing that in the 21st Century America---the Land of Liberty and home of the First Amendment---we are facing the prospect of another round of book-burning.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a retired public prosecutor from Michigan, writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Under the Bus

Though we have all experienced it while growing up, there are few things more cruel than to be punished for something you didn't do. Even worse is to be punished for doing something noble...especially if you show some personal vulnerability while doing it.

With President Obama under fire for any number of reasons, and the NAACP taking heat for casting the Tea Partiers as racists without anything as mundane as proof, it seemed the obviously wise political move to react swiftly and forcefully when a member of the Administration---speaking at an event sponsored by the NAACP---made remarks that could be construed as overtly "racist": talking of her attitudes about helping a white farmer facing the loss of his farm while a lower level employee at the Department of Agriculture, she spoke of viewing it through the prism of race, and "not doing all she could" to help him. So, she was promptly fired from her job with the Obama Administration, and the NAACP issued a statement denouncing her. All without bothering to check with her first...since, after all, there is simply no excuse for racist comments.

The only problem was that the remarks quoted were not racist at all. Rather, speaking of her early days as a USDA employee, she was speaking over her personal struggle to overcome the racial attitudes she grew up with...and the need to overcome prejudice of all kinds in order to work for a better world.

Shirley Sherrod is probably not perfect; I may not like her politics, and it's entirely possible we wouldn't get along if we met at a party. But there's something sad---and curiously ironic---in having our purported guardians of racial attitudes rush to judgment, hurl insults, and threaten the livelihood of someone who's only crime was speaking candidly and openly about her own personal struggle to move past race and toward a place where people view each other simply as people.

Of course, this morality tale probably won't give our modern day race-baiters and civic Morality Patrol cause to pause the next time someone is quoted on a blog saying something that, at first blush, sounds a bit odd. But, at least, it should give the rest of us something to think about.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a retired public prosecutor from Michigan, writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

A Modest Proposal for Balancing the Federal Budget

It's no secret that people in this country are furious with our Federal Government for wasting our money.

In any given year, we spend billions on pet projects for various congressmen that do nothing for the country, but which they deem indispensible to their own bids for re-election.

Various proposals have been floated over the years, from a balanced budget amendment, to priority-based budgeting. But the red ink just keeps piling up, and the Government keeps on doling out money like drunken sailors. And in recent years, it doesn't matter much which party is in charge; the only thing that changes is which set of well-connected cronies gets to gorge itself on our hard-earned money ---money which we give up because we can't boycott paying our taxes without going to jail.

I think the better solution is not to keep forking over more money to the government; we'd be better off demanding that they spend no more money than they take in. To that effect, my own modest proposal has been to pay the President and Congress out of any surplus funds---ie, money left over after we paid all our bills. Kind of like what happens to the proprietor of a small business, only with free health care. If we don't have a surplus...or we're bleeding money that year...they don't get paid. I think that probably would do more to balance the Federal budget than any number of laws, amendments, or protests by angry taxpayers.


JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a retired public prosecutor from Michigan, writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Presidential Implosion in the Gulf?

Unfortunately, Obama's reaction to events in the Gulf are starting to reinforce all the doubts many people had about him during the election campaign. Even his erstwhile supporters are starting to turn against him. And once a liberal loses Jon Stewart, disaster is already nipping at his heels.

I guess we'll see if he can turn it around...but each day the oil keeps gushing, it will only get worse for the president's image.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a retired public prosecutor from Michigan, writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Getting Started

I actually submitted a short piece to one of the local papers the other day.

It was (if I do say so myself) a rather interesting take on the current "panty-bomber" controversy du jour...making the point (largely unmade by others in the legal profession) that there was no earthly reason to Mirandize the panty-bomber and cut off their access to what he knew. Since the only consequence of failing to read a suspect Miranda rights is that the State can't use any ensuing confession, and since the Feds didn't need his confession to make the criminal case against him (give his charred underwear, smoldering body, and 200 witness who can testify that he tried to blow up the plane), they didn't need his confession.

What the Feds did need --- the information he possessed about the higher-ups who sent him --- wasn't relevant to the criminal case either. Just to how to strike back at the bad guys.

But...for one reason or another, this doesn't seem to interest the media...or, at least the big-town papers here in Detroit.

I may still try to peddle the story to a smaller outlet (and try to remember, next time, to reserve the right to make "simultaneous submissions" so I'm not stuck waiting around. Or I may just post it here in a few days.

But...I am getting excited about getting a chance to do a few different things in the coming months.

With any luck, I may even start getting others to publish what I write.

And that, wuuld be a real boost for my self-confidence as a writer. And for my ego. Actually, mostly for my ego...but it is nice to see my name in print, now and then.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Debating Point: Gays in the Military

I suppose that I may simply be losing touch with what's going on in the world. But I wonder if anyone seriously thinks that the military should switch to having co-ed barracks...other than perhaps as a plot for a comedy. If not, I'm having trouble understanding the difference between forcing a woman to undress, shower, and sleep with men ogling her every move, and forcing a man into same situtation...the only difference being the gender of the recipient of unwanted attention. But the recent obsession with undoing the military's policy of "don't ask-don't tell" strikes me as rather an exercise in looking for problems...perhaps to distract us from the very real financial, economic, and foreign policy problems that are being crowded off the public stage.

I think that the military exists for one purpose, and one purpose only: to neutralize or destroy any threat against the country, and to do it as efficiently as possible. Anything that detracts from that mission --- such as introducing internal sexual tension into a unit that should be concentrating on destroying the enemy --- is a luxury. We can do so if we choose, because at the present time we're far more powerful than any country on the face of the earth. But there is a reason why all military units in history have separated men from women...at least, until the present day: they don't want romantic thoughts and conflicts to intrude on battlefield responsibilities. Introducing the same thing into all-male or all-female barracks isn't something to do lightly, or out of some sense of political correctness.

This does not mean that homosexuals should be hounded out of the service, or beaten within an inch of their lives merely because of their sexual orientation. If push came to shove, I'd be standing shoulder-to-shoulder with those trying to protect our comrade who was being attacked from within. And away from the front lines, there are many jobs in the military for which "sexual tension" in the ranks simply wouldn't matter. But we don't train our military to be enlightened philosophers: we train them to kill enemies on command, and without mercy. And when our surival is on the line, we're better off being defended by a division filled with Conan the Barbarian, rather than one consisting of Mr. Sensitivity.

Unlike most people voicing opinions on the subject, I don't pretend to know the answer. But I do know that we are not asking the right questions. As a result, the current "gays in the military" debate is missing the whole point of having a military in the first place: we should be concentrating on what makes our armed forces stronger, more powerful, and more ruthlessly effective. We should not be using it as a laboratory for conducting experiments in human sociology.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Crony Capitalism

Just in case anyone needs help getting depressed over what's happening these days, we can always learn about how big business makes things worse for us --- and better for themselves --- by making small investments in our elected representatives.

I watched one of John Stossel's shows on the Fox Business Channel last night...and was even more appalled that usual at the spectacle of our government selling itself. At firesale prices, no less!

I think it's obvious that our Federal Government is too big, and careening out of control. Many of the regulations we see --- like the ones on kid's toys, which do nothing to make anything safer, but do one heckuva job at crushing small toymakers, and are putting thrift stores out of the used toy business --- serve no real purpose except to allow big business to avoid the messiness of competition.

I suppose in a democracy, it's always possible for us to take our country back from the special interests. But I suspect there may well be a point of no return for us. And the bigger and more powerful our government becomes, the closer that "point of no return" may come.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

The Current Forecast: Cold and Gray

The Government, it seems, is up to its old tricks, ignoring pressing problems while solving problems that largely aren't there. This time, though, we may be stuck with an even bigger-than-usual bill for the mess.

Geithner's current plan contains a number of flaws, many of them flowing from the notion that our current problems are "fixable" through governmental action. From this neck of the woods, it seems that our problems---self-inflicted though they may be---are simply not amenable to quick fixes. Sadly, this means that we may be in for a long downturn, one that will not end until the excesses of the past---the overspending and speculation that came along with the wild rush after riches of the past fifteen years---have been paid for.

The Economist carries a piece on Obama's domestic shortcomings to date...which are beginning to become apparent. Unfortunately, though, there are no easy answers: if there were, we'd have done them already. And though it's depressing to think about it for too long, no "plan" we adopt will be perfect. And figuring out what we should do, and where we should go from here, will simply be the harsh and unavoidable ordeal of picking the least terrible from among a host of awful options.


JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Thinking Outside the Box

As we face our current economic crisis, there is one obvious solution to all of our problems that appears to have escaped everyone's attention. It is far simpler than the ones presently being debated in Washington these days, but poses much less of a risk to our future well-being. And, from the looks of things, it stands just as good a chance of making things better, without carrying the added risk of sacrificing our principles for the sake of expediency.

If we simply sacrificed a virgin instead, we'd be doing no real harm to the economy. In fact, by diverting attention away from some of the counterproductive measures currently under consideration, we might actually help things along. And this could easily be turned into a "two-fer" kind of solution, since it would be just as effective at combatting Climate Change (nee Global Warming) as anything the High Priests are currently trumpeting, and far less costly.

And just thinking ahead, hoping to avoid any obvious pitfalls in the plan...in the event that we have problems locating a virgin, we could probably substitute a goat. Or, if we were really serious, a sheep. If I understand the protocol, goats and sheep don't have to be virgins. Historically, the fact that they had to spend so much time hobnobbing with Greek herders in the Good Old Days meant that the requirement simply never occurred to anybody). That's why they're the customary substitute in cultures where virgins are largely unavailable.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Signposts on the Road to Disaster

This past week wasn't a good one for those who still hold hope for America---or for the world.

We've seen the rampant greed demonstrated by the various bonus-laden Wall Street executives who led our economy into the sewer. Right beside them were a host of preening, self-important politicians, who gladly accepted whatever perks their fat-cat buddies were willing to slip them in order to look the other way. Between them, we have the American public---being led down the road to disaster by people we trusted to know what they were doing---and by the very people we elected to tend to the public welfare.

I really hate to say this, but I think that in many respects our current problems just reflect the reality that our country---or, at the least, the "elites" that define our country for us---has become. When it became more important to protect "self-esteem" than to be concerned about accomplishments, I think we entered a dangerous stretch of history for ourselves.

Among the critical moments in a democracy is when the public realizes that it can vote itself money from the public treasury. For us, that moment came during the Great Depression, when we first turned to the Government to rescue us from a crisis. Over the last 75 years, we've seen the role of government gradually expanding, at the same time that cultural influences were undercutting our traditional notions of personal responsibility. Now, I think we're facing yet another critical moment...and it's not looking pretty.

At heart, I remain a hopeless romantic, and so I'm still not convinced that things will end in disaster. I hope, instead, that the public will recoil from the spectacles we see in Washington and Wall Street...cashier the lot of them...and start anew, having been chastened about being too trusting when it comes to spending public money. But I've also read about the various stages of development in a democracy...from Despotism to Liberty and back again...and we do seem to be a bit more than half-way through the cycle. And just as Rome collapsed as a result of its own excesses (and was promptly overrun by barbarians), I don't think America is immune from the same fate, if we allow ourselves to be guided by our greed and passions, rather than our ideals and principles.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

A Modest Amendment

Looking out over the morass that is currently the US economy, it is clear that changes are needed. Everywhere we look, greed and stupidity seem to reign supreme, and from the sounds of the squawks coming down from Capitol Hill, nothing seems likely to change. Blithely ignoring its own complicity in creating the mess, Congress is preening like an oversized, waddling turkey, with every member rushing to denounce the outrage du jour arising as a result of their various hastily-conceived, hastily-crafted, and never-quite-read-or-even-looked-at-too-closely bailout packages.

If produced and choreographed professionally, the result would be a hilarious, if wildly improbable farce, filled with pratfalls by the pompous and well-earned comeuppances abounding. Unfortunately, the price tag for this production is proving well beyond the means of its target audience. While it might be amusing at matinee prices, having the country pay the $1 trillion price of admission has removed most of the show’s humor, and left the troupe’s backers—the increasingly angry taxpayers of this country—up in arms.

The play’s traditional next act—sharpened pitchforks, hot tar, and plenty of feathers—strikes at least one observer as entirely too predictable. While venting outrage on the chorus line of fools and incompetents who led us into this mess may satisfy us for the moment, there is no guarantee that a new cast of characters would do any better. Replacing our current set of fools with another would, it is true, carry the advantage of sending the whole sorry lot packing. But just replacing them with an entirely new set of fools will hardly solve our problems. It might provide a few more sordid plot lines to the melodrama that American Politics seems to be trending toward, but it will do little to fix our present train wreck of an economy—or keep us safe in a world filled with people who hate us.

On the other hand, the simplest solutions often work best, merely because there is so little that can go wrong with them. So perhaps it’s time we tried applying to Congress a lesson in reality familiar to every small business owner or working parent. In short, giving to Congress a slice of life from the “little people” who appear to factor into none of their equations.

Congress and the President often pay lip service to the role of small business in this country. But they do not understand what real responsibility is like at the level where people work and earn a living. Unlike the Federal government, the millions of Mom & Pop operations in this country can’t live on non-existent earnings, year after year. They have to make their payroll. And pay their bills. And pay their taxes. And if there’s nothing left over for them to take home after all their expenses are met, they can’t simply print money to pay themselves.

Our elected leaders, on the other hand, have billions of dollars in other people’s money to play with. And can always get more—either by raising taxes, or by printing it. Predictably, this has led them to be a mite careless in their stewardship.

The solution, it seems to at least one petulant observer, would be to give them an “ownership stake” in the bottom line: simply put—they should be paid out of the money left over after paying all the bills. If there’s none left—if, for example, the country is running a deficit—then they’ll get an IOU for their salary. Just like all the naive taxpayers in California, who thought a tax refund entitled them to actual money. Or, better yet, in addition to the country’s thanks for doing such a wonderful job, they’ll just get a dollar. After all, if it’s good enough for the CEOs of the various and sundry failed companies we’re bailing out by the billions of dollars, it should be good enough for Congress—whose spending habits We The People have been bailing out for years. In fact, we could probably even raise their official salary: by the looks of things, it wouldn’t cost us anything. And who knows—we might even attract a few people to public office who knew what they were doing. Or some naive souls who still think of public service as a sacrifice made for the Public Good, rather than a means of helping friends and colleagues help themselves to other people’s money.

Of course, there may be a few bugs to work out. We wouldn’t, after all, want to let Congress guarantee their salary simply by jacking up tax rates too high. (That risk would be nearly as obvious as the risk of giving billions of our dollars without strings to people whose chief claim on the money is their ability to squander billions of their own dollars). So we might want to add a provision to restrict the Government’s share of our money to a reasonable amount—enough to do everything it needs to do, but not enough to get into too much trouble. Twenty percent of our Gross Domestic Product should do it (though the amount isn’t cast in stone; the modesty of this proposal does not, after all, include an immodest claim of infallibility). After all, that’s twice the amount they’d get if everyone simply “tithed” their income. And we could always include a provision letting Congress go above their new constitutional “Cap” by declaring a state of National Emergency—during which, of course, all elected Federal officials would gladly defer all but a nominal dollar of their salary until the crisis they led us into is passed.

Assuming that most state legislators would be more willing to impose some sort of control on Congress than they would be to face the pitchforks of their disgruntled constituents, getting three-quarters of the states to approve the amendment should pose few problems. This means that all we’d really need would be a two-thirds vote of each House—which, given their adamance that those in charge of failed companies should be willing to serve for a dollar a year, would only be a problem if hypocrisy dared to show itself publicly in the halls of Congress.

Proposed Amendment to the Constitution of the United States

(1) The salaries of the President, Vice-President, and all members of Congress shall be payable on the first day of January of each year, for the ensuing year. Such officers may elect to defer their salaries over the course of the ensuing year; the salary of newly elected officers will become payable upon taking office.

(2) Except for any officer mentioned in Section (1) who was newly elected to a first term of office during the preceding year, and notwithstanding any other provision of law establishing their salaries or other remunerations, neither the President, Vice-President, nor any member of Congress shall be entitled to draw more than one dollar ($1) in salary, in any year in which the budget of the United States runs, or is projected to run, a deficit. For purposes of this Section, all federal expenses, including trust funds and any and all special appropriations, shall be included in the calculation of a deficit. The refund of any salary paid to an affected officer during a year in which the budget is in deficit shall be payable by the officer to the Treasury of the United States on April 15th of the following year. Failure to make a timely payment of excess salary shall be grounds for removal from office.

(3) Except during times declared by Congress to be a National Emergency, the tax revenues of the United States shall be limited to twenty percent (20%) of the Gross Domestic Product, as calculated by the Department of the Treasury. Excess taxes collected shall be proportionately refunded by April 15th of the following year, unless Congress has established a proportional system of tax credits to accomplish the same purpose.

(4) During a time of National Emergency declared by Congress, the President, Vice-President, and all Members of Congress shall draw a salary of one dollar ($1) per year, until such time as Congress declares that the emergency is over.


JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

No Shortage of Blame for the Bail-Out Mess

With fingers pointing in all directions, the nation's press and politicians are scrambling to assess blame for the lastest in an unending chain of blunders relating to the country's financial mess. Typical is a recent article in the Washington Post, in which the White House is determined to throw Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner under the bus.

This action comes as the Obama Administration seeks to avoid taking the blame for the failure of Congress to anticipate the level of irresponsibility that bailed-out financial giants like AIG would show, by using bailout funds to provide performance and retention bonuses to the executives and other geniuses who caused the mess in the first place.

In point of fact, it appears that the bonuses were specifically exempted from Federal limitations through an amendment crafted and sponsored by Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut...who was among the vocal critics of the practice until he was reminded that it was the "Dodd Amendment" which allowed the bonuses. And, of course, the amount of money spent---roughly $150 million...or about 0.1% of the amount Congress approved for the hastily-crafted, unread, and essentially undebated bailout package---was too small for them to bother with. Chump change...or so it seemed to them at the time.

Of course, that was before everything hit the fan. Now, our elected leaders are trying to outdo each other in their expressions of outraged incredulity. Simply put, now that they are feeling the heat of an outraged country, Congress is pretending to be shocked---shocked!!---that companies would actually do what Congress permitted them to do. And to prove their outrage, there is talk afoot to impose a confiscatory tax to recoup any bonuses that the executives---some of whom no longer work for the firm that was giving them a "retention" bonus, and many of whom, being foreign nationals, are beyond the range of Congressional sputtering---are too unpatriotic to return.

Of course, changing the law after the fact is unconstitutional: the "Ex Post Facto" clause prohibits Congress from taking action to punish people after the fact. And the "Bill of Attainder" Clause forbids them from passing laws directed against specific people who have roused their ire.

Not that such legal limits will constrain anyone---the Constitution seems to be resemble a giant imaginary sieve these days, and is hardly a thing that politicians bother with when their own self-interest is on the line. But unless people wake up, all the fuss and feathers may very well succeed in distracting enough people to serve politicians' main aim: to divert attention away from themselves---all of whom share a significant share of the blame for our current troubles---and onto the shoulders of a convenient scapegoat du jour.

Of course, some of us keep hoping that the country will wake up and start paying attention to the fools and scoundrels we have in charge of things these days. But then again, some of us are just hopeless idealists...still struggling to hold on to a dream of what this country could be if its people were only wise enough to choose their leaders with the same care they use to pick their breakfast cereal.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Bipartisan Lunacy

Though I still consider myself an idealist, and somethinng of a hopeless romantic, these days I never cease to be amazed by the lunatics of both political parties. From my chair, it looks like the Democrats are doing everything they can to make the Republicans look good; in fact, anyone with a short-enough memory might forget that the Republicans spent much of the last ten years destroying the myth that they were the party of "fiscal responsibility." I think they may well be messing up a once-in-a-generational chance to effect a tidal shift in US politics: figuring that power is of no use if they can't abuse it, they seem intent on shutting out the GOP from any real involvement in trying to figure a way through our current economic troubles, and are insisting on doing things their own way. If I'm right about the likely course of the economy for the next fiver or ten years---and what we're facing is more like 1932 than 1982---then they're likely to own the economic mess that's coming, whether or not they had the power to prevent it. And just like most people have forgotten (or never actually knew) about the Dems' complicity in the meltdown, if things keep getting worse they're likely to forget about the role the GOP played in letting everything spiral out of control. After all, the Republicans' sins of the recent past merely involved bungling a war and squandering hundreds of billions of dollars. The new Democratic Adminstration started out by moving a deciminal point out an additional level on the deficit, and they seem intent on making blunders of their own throughout the rest of the world.

All in all, I 'm starting to wonder if we'd be better off selecting our "elected leaders" by lottery, rather than electing them. We certainly don't seem to be doing such a bang-up job of picking them out by ourselves. Despite my high hopes from Obama, he now seems bent on consorting with the lunatics of his own party. And I'm starting to wonder whether random chance might not at least give us a chance of putting someone in charge with a grown-up's sense of responsibility.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Reaching Across the Divide

A new administration carries with it promises, and the hopes of the people of this country. Unfortunately, in the recent past, partisan bickering has left the public disillusioned with their leaders, and all-too-willing to throw up their hands in disgust, as the politicians preen and posture.

Today the country faces a wide range of problems, abroad as well as here at home. Much of it seems dwarfed by our collapsing economy---for which there are any number of villains, and lots of blame to go around. But today, President Obama headed up to Capitol Hill for a meeting with the opposition leaders and Republicans on the Hill---a Republicans-only meeting with the Democratic president, a gesture of reconciliation that could be a harbinger of a new era of bipartisan cooperation, or a well-intentioned but naive way station on the return trip to business as usual.

Obama seems to be entering office with more good will and high hopes than any president I can remember. Even Reagan---who also entered office facing both economic and foreign policy challenges, and also succeeded a predecessor widely considered a complete and utter failure---confronted a larger group of skeptics, and more cynical media scrutiny. Like Reagan, the country wants---and, frankly, needs---Obama to be a great success, so he has a lot of political capital, and the public will be willing to cut him a great deal of slack in dealing with our problems.

But just as Reagan succeeded in appealing to moderate Democrats to win approval for what he wanted to do, Obama must peel off moderate Republicans from the Troglodyte Right if he wants to build a real governing coalition that will last past the next mid-term election. Today, the public is so fed up with the partisan bickering of both parties that the next major realignment will come about when one party finally stands up to its own lunatic fringe and reaches out to claim the large majority of more-or-less sensible people in the middle---those who are looking for solutions rather than ideological purity. There are a lot of people like that throughout the country...sick and tired of being ignored by the ideologues.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

The Middle East Erupts Anew

Conflict is as old as human history, and the conflict in the Middle East is as bitter as any we’ve know. Few nations have ever been willing to give humanitarian aid to an adversary bent on their destruction, and history gives us few examples of real enemies actually settling their disputes peacefully. It is distressing, but not surprising, to see a renewal of violence in the Middle East. As usual, the Israelis find themselves confronted with attacks on its citizens from neighbors bent on their destruction. As usual, their reaction has been to respond in kind. Yet this response has not brought peace in the past, and is just as unlikely to do so now.

Sherman’s march through Georgia provides one conventionally accepted solution: crush your enemy without mercy, and then try to make something bloom from the ashes. Rome did that as well, and was able to govern more or less successfully for hundreds of years. But this kind of attitude rarely produces the generosity of spirit needed to heal wounds and let everyone simply move on. After Lincoln’s assassination, Sherman’s swath of destruction through the south was followed by a punitive reconstruction— and over the next thirty years the scorched-earth tactic was adopted to crush the native Indian tribes into submission. In both instances, the brutality of war was followed by an almost-equally brutal peace. In one way or another, we’re still living with the aftermath.

On the other hand, to find an example of enlightened self-interest in the aftermath of a crushing military victory, we need only look to our own recent history, and what the America did after crushing Germany and Japan in World War II. Both defeated enemies had brutal regimes that had inflicted atrocities on countless innocents...and yet—having learned the lessons of Versailles after World War I—rather than leaving them defeated, impoverished, and bitter, we helped them rebuild. W e even offered to do the same to an adversary that really WAS bent on our destruction—the Soviet Union, a country unfortunately led by a ruler more interested in preserving his own power than helping his people. And so our offer was spurned, setting the stage for a forty-year long Cold War—a war between two bitter enemies that somehow managed to avoid triggering World War III.

Actually, the notion of pushing an enemy into “unconditional surrender,” history suggest that this may be a fairly recent fad. Laying aside the wars of conquest or plunder, or wars of extermination intended to wipe an enemy out of existence, many past wars ended by truce or a negotiated surrender. Our revolution ended with a negotiated peace, and so did the First World War. In fact, the only reason we insisted on pushing the Nazis and Imperial Japan to total defeat was (a) they were evil and needed to be expirpated from the world, and (b) Hitler came to power partly by insisting that the German victory was betrayed by the diplomats in Versailles...and we didn’t want to leave a future Hitler with any such illusions. And our own victory in the Cold War was achieved without firing a shot. Though we fought skirmishes against Soviet surrogates in Korea and Vietnam, in the end our people defeated their people peacefully, through the economic might of a superior economic system. Wisely, we refrained from gloating and imposed no further humiliation, and while our future is uncertain—as the future is wont to be—we managed to avoid a final military conflict between the two superpowers that would have destroyed everything both countries hoped for their people.

The Israeli-Palestinian situation is infinitely complex, but like the Cold War the solution will never come by viewing it entirely in military terms. In some ways, it’s akin to the South in the hey-day of the Klan: decent people in the South were often individually on decent terms with blacks they knew, but the hate-mongers were sufficiently outspoken and violent to keep the decent people in check—and the result was years of oppression and violence that didn’t end until (a) the rest of the country became willing to intervene, and did so in such a way that (b) the decent people in the South were unafraid to help put their own house in order. If the Federal Government had imposed the same kind of brutal sanctions that came in the wake of the Civil War, the result may well have been the same: instead of separating out the hate-mongers from the decent folk, such actions would have driven them together for their own self-preservation. The result would not have been not in the strides we’ve made in the area of civil rights since then, but a perpetuation of the racial hatred and violence.

The problems in the Middle East won’t be solved overnight—but then, we still have a long way to go in this country toward healing the wounds caused by slavery. For Israel, the solution won’t come by lumping the Palestinians together in an effort to crush them once and for all. Unless it ends in a Palestinian extermination, doing so would only perpetuate the cycle of hate. The better course would be a clear attempt to separate the decent people there from the hate-mongers and murderers...and a clear signal to them that they are not the targets. This signal won’t be received by a child whose loving mother is killed by a rocket, or a father whose son is blown apart in an explosion—no matter which side the bombs or rockets come from. And this is the source of Israel’s existential dilemma.

Acting with wisdom and restraint is very hard to do when an enemy is hiding among the civilians and attacking those you love. The instinct to lash out against an attacker is only natural, and a very human thing to do. But there are other ways to eliminate an enemy besides killing him. Lincoln once asked, “Am I not destroying my enemies by making friends of them?” But Israel can’t do that if their attacks drive potential friends into the arms of their enemies.

It’s obvious that nobody knows the answer. If anybody did, we wouldn’t have the problems we have today. But Israel’s insoluble problem is that they really are fighting against extreme and hateful elements that exist among the people living next to them. As the enemy is the hate that in the hearts of some of their neighbors, they can’t really win their battle militarily, in any conventional sense. Instead, they must either exterminate their enemies, or make friends with them. And they’re far too civilized to kill everyone who stands in their way.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Book Review: The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria

Reviewed by Jeffrey Caminsky

In our turbulent world, it is tempting to view America as surrounded by enemies intent on our destruction. Everywhere we look, we can see signs of American influence waning. Often—and especially in a time of economic turmoil—our mounting troubles can seem insurmountable. But sometimes merely looking at the world through a different lens can help us gain some perspective. And if that lens is held by one of today’s most perceptive observers of the world scene, it might even help us all take a deep breath and relax.

In The Post-American World, best-selling author Fareed Zakaria takes a look at America’s place in the world and explains why we have reason to be optimistic. Zakaria, who was born in India, came to this country as an awkward and naive eighteen-year old in the depths of the recession of the early 1980s. What he found then—and what he still sees all around us today—is a vibrant and expansive country, open to fresh ideas and eager to show the world what it has to offer. What has changed in today’s world, he explains, in not America: rather, it is the merely rest of the world, racing to catch up with us. And while this new era—where American ideas and aspirations have inspired the world to follow us into the future—may pose unique challenges, they need not be as frightening as the pessimists and nay-sayers make them out to be. In his view, the key to understanding our changing world is to realize that America is not really lagging behind; rather, it is the rest of the world that is rising. And if we are tempted to respond by retreating—withdrawing into Fortress America, secure in our belief in our own superiority—then we are playing a game that has failed other civilizations in the past, and would likely surrender our leadership for the future.

Among the cautionary tales the author cites from history is the example of China, another proud country that once stood at the pinnacle of greatness. Nearly a century before Columbus, in the early 1400s, a series of expeditions set forth from China, with several hundred vessels, each larger than a Spanish galleon, carrying thousands of men. They sailed eastern shores, down coast of Southeast Asia and into the Indian Ocean, impressing they met with majesty and might of Chinese civilization, and returning with treasures including precious stones, exotic plants and animals. Yet by the middle of the century, all this stopped: a new emperor had come to power—one who viewed these excursions as needless and expensive extravagances of little use to China. Before the end of the next century, building similar ships was forbidden on pain of death, and vast tracts of forests were burned to make similar ventures impossible in the future. And so China, convinced of its own superiority, turned firmly away from outside contact to withdraw within itself...and before long, the rest of the world had passed the stagnating Chinese culture in all manner of accomplishments. It has taken them six centuries of struggling to approach the pinnacle again; and now, having learned the lesson of history, they seem determined not to repeat the mistake.

Today, though we are beset by dangers on many sides, Zakaria reminds us that we often fail to appreciate just how lucky we are to live in an age of plenty and an era of discovery and adventure. Now that America has led the way, the rest of the world is racing to catch up to us. But, he cautions, we should not treat their efforts with suspicion or disdain, but we should embrace the future envisioned by our own ideals—for it is those very ideals that have long inspired the world.

Foremost among our many resources are the American culture and people. Both are filled with resilience and optimism. The American spirit of innovation derives from the openness of our culture, and our embrace of the off-beat and heretical—as well as the welcome we have shown to the best and the brightest from around the world. And despite the imperfections of our much-derided educational system, the author demonstrates that most of our problems stem from disparities within our own country: there is, the author notes, a greater disparity between students from our typical, middle-class schools and those from poverty-stricken, inner-city schools than there is between our best, and the best from the rest of the world. And while we bemoan our own lagging test scores, others are actually coming to the US to learn our techniques. And what impresses them most are the things we take for granted: the willingness of our students to challenge teachers; their courage to speak out in class; and their ability to be creative in applying what’s taught to their everyday lives. While the rest of the world may beat us at teaching their students to take standardized tests, our system seems to excel at producing people who can be innovative, willing to challenge convention. Our culture seems drawn to the heretical and oddball; and since our schools don’t quite squash this out of our students as well as some countries do, these same oddballs help keep our culture fresh.

Comparing us to the British Empire in its heyday, Zakaria notes that Britain, though blessed with gifted statesmen, was saddled with a dysfunctional economic and cultural system that stifled creative impulses of British society. In many ways America’s challenge is just the reverse: we have a vibrant, dynamic culture that remains the envy of the world—but one that is saddled with a political system that often seems more intent on gaining temporary partisan advantage than moving the country forward. And where our culture benefits from the influx of immigrants—bringing energy, ambition, and new ideas along with them—we often mistake the challenges they bring as well for danger, rather than viewing them for what they are and have always been: a priceless source of renewal.

Insightful and well-written, filled with a global perspective often lacking in today’s commentators, The Post-American World offers hope as well as perspective. It is written not in the lofty tones of academics, but with a precision born of thought and deep understanding. Those interested in understanding America’s place in the world—past, present, and future—would do well to read it carefully. The world, after all, needs an America—embodying the free spirit and sense of adventure we have always taken for granted. That is, the author concludes, this country’s real role in the world—and the reason that most people across the Earth still look to the United States with good will. It would be a pity if, through misguided attempts to hold back the future, we squandered the America we have...and forced the world to go looking for a new one.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.