National Security Solutions...

[daybrown]

JR Lowell:"He who is firmly seated in authority soon comes to think
that security, and not progress, is the highest form of statecraft."
While its obvious that Bush does not know what progress is, it seems
he does not know what security is either.

There have already been disease outbreaks from illegals who were not
properly immunized. And as the food prices rise with the rise in the
price of oil, nutrition will decline, which will impair immune
systems, which will spread pathogens, and even more new bugs will be
coming across uncontrolled borders.

Part of the problem is hominid evolution, which was never as a mass
herd animal. DNA reveals Native Europeans evolved over the course of
the last 10,000 years in villages of 150-300, Africans in tribes of
75-150, with other gene pools in this range. Hominid immune systems
never evolved to cope with so many different pathogens, and now we
realize that autism and other neurological development problems are
triggered by infections.

There's a case to be made, that as a civilization become increasingly
urban, it becomes increasingly corrupt and short sighted. Athens
flourished for a long time with the "demes", which were groups of
urbanites who owned rural land and went out to it from time to time to
help work and manage it. Xanthippus was a notorious nag cause she thot
Socrates should have spent more time on the farm, and she was right.

But after Athenian success in battle, they started using POWs as slave
workers and the Athenians became entirely urbanized, and thereby lost
the lessons from agrarian life that sustained their democracy. They
became fat and lazy. And now we know, that because exercise improves
mental functioning, stupid, replacing a competent leader, Pericles,
with a demagogue, Alcibiades.

The Chinese, of all people, show us a solution. They've been
constructing apartment buildings out in the boondox, then tearing the
village down after the folks move into modern flats with all the
standard urban conveniences. The one building frees up a few more
acres of cropland as well.

But psychologically, its still a village. Psychological tests show
that most of us can only remember about 300 people. After that, unless
you are a politician, you need to rely on status symbols to know how
to relate to any given individual. And we all know the problem with
status symbols in terms of needless consumption and faster landfills.

Another part of that is the lesson of honesty to kids. Everyone knows
which kid owns which pair of shoes, jacket, Ipod, or whatever. There
is no place a thief can go to enjoy what is stolen. This has a lot to
do with the common expression by the ancient sages that the country
people (paganus) were hardworking and honest, and the urbanites were
thieves and rabble. Its the same gene pool.

New York city has long been a magnet for young black men who grew up
in obscure villages in Caribbean islands, and we see that they dont
have nearly the crime rate. The villages dont have enuf peers to
really form dangerous street gangs. Nor are there any cracks for kids
to fall thru.

But as we see with the Chinese model, the modern village can still
have broadband and the dish for all the same video and to help with
education by experts in a wide variety of fields.

Then too, my eldest granddaughter just graduated from a state
sponsored residential prep school in Little Rock, which doesnt take
kids until their critical years of neurological development has
passed. It likewise forms its own kind of village life, where the
teens get exposed to a wide variety of modern technologies and career
paths. And- dont have the parents there to rebel against.

While in China, we see the villages are still supported by
agriculture, we also know that small business is the most efficient
form of economic organization- again because everyone knows everyone,
and dont need status symbols to know how to relate.

Tripolye, on the Dneiper, 5500 years ago, shows us a kind of diffuse
city, which is to say a collection of villages strung out along the
river, each with a particular craft- pottery, metal forging, slaughter
house, tannery, weaving, and so on. But yet, each village had agrarian
land that grew most of the food it needed, and with a number of people
on hand at critical times like harvest.

But- in the event of a pathogen outbreak, each able to go into
quaranteen until the disease ran out of new victims. And, since
everyone lived within walking distance of work, there were no traffic
jams. Add modern telecommunications, and the whole system is able to
operate efficiently, yet have no attractive targets of WMD.

Rather than having people driving to shop, if they shopped online,
such a network could offer daily UPS/FED-X type delivery of whatever
was wanted, and do it without the high overhead of retail display
outlets. Yet, with a web presence, each village industry could market
to the local, regional, and global economy.

And- by growing their own food, be sure of the wholesomeness of what
they fed their kids. If adults want to live in a city, that's their
choice, but we should not be exposing our kids to the urban hazards of
drug abuse, streetgangs, and pathogens.