In a surprising article recently appearing in The Hill (although written by someone for the Washington Examiner), a poll is said to say that Americans are “demanding a pivot to restraint.” Whatever that means. (But then, The Hill is for big-time politicians and bureaucrats, so they get off on that jargon. )

In the article, it seems to say that people are tired of the US being the world’s policeman, being obligated to go to war ‘anywhere, anytime’ when almost anyone gets invaded or has internal problems, doing ‘nation-building’ and occupying most of the world.

That is a hard pill to swallow, for those politicians and permanent-government bureaucrats up on The Hill. After all, we’ve been doing just that since 1940 (when we became de facto an ally of the British Empire by providing them war materials against Hitler). That is just shy of a staggering EIGHTY years.

But it shows that the charade is wearing thin. That people in the Fifty States, however patriotic and loyal and willing to give (of themselves or others) for liberty, freedom, and prosperity. Looking at it another way, Americans are seeing the hypocrisy in these words:

“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”

John F. Kennedy, 1961

For almost 60 years, Americans seem to have been willing to pay, bear, meet, and support everyone else in the world – provided that the US government didn’t kill them first. But maybe the “any price” we’ve paid includes the very liberty that we were supposedly trying to save and help succeed.

Despite various anti-war movements, especially in the 1960s and 1970s, and even in recent years against the wars in Mesopotamia and Afghanistan, the vast majority of Americans have at least tacitly accepted the status quo. The massive intervention of their government in virtually every conflict, virtually every government, nearly every society and culture has been costly. It was taken for granted by those who came of age in the two decades between the two big European wars, once their natural isolationism was put down. And even more so by those who grew up during the bloodbath that was World War Two and its sequel, the Cold War.

But today, as we continue to pay the price and bear the burden, while at the same time seeing our liberty squandered along with our treasure and blood, are we changing? Have we finally decided that liberty itself is a price too high to be paid for everyone else’s liberty? Or the simulacrum of liberty and freedom that most of the world enjoys?

Perhaps.

Or have enough people finally woken up to the realization that the real threats to our liberty (and to the liberty of the rest of the world) are not what we are told? Was the real threat really the long secession of tyrants? Kaiser Bill and Vlad Lenin? Benito and Adolf and Uncle Joe (Stalin)? Nikita and Fidel and Ho Chi Minh and Saddam and Muhammar (Khadafi)? Or was it the long list of American and British politicians and the “men behind the curtain?” People like Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt? And like William Seward and Edward House and Harry Hopkins and Felix Frankfurter? I might include Winston Churchill in that number. And should we forget the like of John D Rockefeller, Armand Hammer, Henry Ford, and J. P. Morgan?

In recent times, we can point to a whole host of “worthy successors” to those I list above; George Soros, L. B. Johnson, Henry Kissinger, and more. Richard Nixon. The Bushes. The Udalls. Even the descendants (in management, not blood) of Walt Disney.

Today, we are hearing more and more of the Deep State (the Permanent Government) but is it not possible that there is something BEHIND the Deep State? That the Deep State is just one branch, one arm, of some even more insidious and vast?

I realize this sounds like conspiracy theory. (Or theories!) But we know that historical events have often been the results of various types of conspiracy. It is natural for humans to conspire – as natural as breathing or eating. The results? For thousands of years people have been conspiring to gain power and wealth – and steal it from others. The Fall of the Roman Republic was the result of several conflicting conspiracies. The rise of Islam (and the setting for it) was the result of many. The Crusades were the fruit of many more. (The Templars were accused of conspiracy, but it WAS a conspiracy that destroyed them.) We can trace them through history.

By no means did ALL these conspiracies succeed. Nor were all the conspirators of the “deep state” variety – of what we could call “the elite” (at least in their own eyes). But to claim that all of history is due to “accident” and that nothing was “intentional” is an error.

People of like mind work together – often without any need for formal (or informal) ties and connections. They think alike, they act in similar wars, and they change allies and allegiances as they see fit and the situation “demands.” Even fighting between these powers that be, as they squabble and their goals cancel each other out.

Paul Craig Roberts elaborated on a “revisionist” history of World War Two in Europe and Africa that pointed out the behind-the-scenes reasons and actions that drove both the war’s beginning and the war’s progress. The “elite”

But they do have similar characteristics and goals: power, wealth, and legacy being very high up on their list.