The Problem is Clear

The Solution is Scary….

The ultimate end of tribalism is an odious reductionism, in which all art, music, literature and history is distilled down to the issue of race. And as we learned from twentieth-century communism, when such ideologies destroy other considerations, opportunists and mediocrities fill the void, substituting their political purity and correctness for want of merit and competitive talent.

Victor Davis Hanson, The Dying Citizen, page 143

As I watch Los Angeles burn, I grieve. My wife grew up in Arcadia. My in-laws evacuated their home in Sierra Madre. Friends have lost their houses and all their earthly possessions. This has happened in one of the most affluent, advanced cities on earth. Yet, day after day, the authorities seem powerless to stop the relentless onslaught.

People ask “Why”?” Why did the fire hydrants run out of water? Why were the reservoirs not filled? Why were no new ones built? Why were dams destroyed and water just flushed into the ocean to preserve the habitat of a small fish? Why were no fire breaks maintained? Why were no controlled burns done as they used to be? Why? Why? WHY??

Why was millions cut from the Fire Department by the Mayor of Los Angeles? Why was she in Ghana to celebrate an election instead of in her home city? Why was fire equipment, which could have helped the situation, sent to Ukraine? Why was help from the NYFD turned down? Why were so many fire insurance policies cancelled this past year?

Why? Why? WHY??

Why does the LAFD pay $300,000/year for a “Diversity Chief” who stresses it is important for a person to see a fire-fighter that “looks like them” but if they couldn’t rescue them, it was the victim’s fault for getting themself in the situation to begin with? This Diversity Chief was, even though most likely unwittingly, making the precise point of Victor Davis Hanson on the dangers of Tribalism!

It is the same wording used by those who try to make the case that how a physician “looks” is more important than the ability they have. In a 2022 article in The Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities (yes…that is a real journal) researchers from Georgetown and Louisiana State Universities stress the importance of racial concordance in patient outcomes. While I have no doubt that the findings are real, it is the recommendations the authors put forward that are troubling. First, they recommend we should increase pairing of patient and physician based on race. Secondly, when that is impossible due to a shortage of physicians of the appropriate race, we must foster race humility. Both of these recommendations will do nothing to reverse, and will even accelerate, Tribalism in health care.

True to form, one democrat senator has the answer, at least to the fires in California although it seems to be the same answer from some politicians on the root cause of all problems we face. Ed Markey thinks this is all due to “Climate Change” and Donald Trump being bought off by “Big Oil”. Not to be outdone, Elizabeth Warren used the tragedy to solicit contributions to an agency that skims some of the money to support democrat party politics.

Is this just another case of political incompetents in over their heads and being able to bamboozle a naïve populace into supporting them? I guess I hope that is the end of the story. But what if there is another, more sinister element? Is it just a coincidence that clearing this wide swath of land could set the stage for development of the 15-Minute Cities so favored by globalists? Los Angeles already had a “Livable Communities Initiative” in place. I hope not.

Similar questions are working themselves out following the equally tragic and confusing fire in Maui where a local land trust was formed to guide the reconstruction.

This is not without historical precedence. The disastrous fire in Rome under Nero cleared the way for him to build his Domus Aurea, or Golden House, the next year. It is still unclear as to whether the fire was started intentionally or if Nero “never let a crisis go to waste”. Just as some politicians somehow put the blame on Donald Trump, Nero blamed the Christians, resulting in a wide-spread persecution.

The front page of The Wall Street Journal on January 13, 2024 carried the headline, L.A. Officials Race to Fight Rumors, Conspiracy Theories. The article goes on to blame “misinformation” “disinformation” and the relaxation of suppression of free speech on social media, as well as Donald Trump, for the problem. There seems to be a pattern here…Nero blaming the Christians and democrats and the media blaming Donald Trump.

Perhaps the solution is not to suppress discussion but simply tell the truth, as uncomfortable as that may be. As we saw so often with COVID, the difference between a “conspiracy theory of misinformation and disinformation” and the truth was just a matter of time. The public has finally caught on. Do a search on the “difference between conspiracy theory and truth is 6 months”. I did on January 13, 2025 and got over 12 million results. At least to me, anytime people resort to the words “misinformation”, “disinformation” or “conspiracy theory” they are only engaging in propaganda. Indeed, before COVID, the terms “misinformation”, “disinformation” and “malinformation” were primarily used in political campaigns. The simple fact is that politicians tend to lie.

It seems that more and more, so do many journalists and physicians. In our Postmodernist Age, “truth” has become a relative term. Ideology is everything. Those whom we thought were professionally interested in objective truth have been seen to be merely pushing things that advance their own financial enrichment or ideologic viewpoint. We don’t believe them because they don’t tell the truth, and we won’t believe them until they start telling the truth.

The Roman Republic had a way of dealing with bureaucratic obstruction and incompetence. They instituted the office of dictator. Power was granted to a “super magistrate”, nominated by one of the two consuls with the consent of the senate and the people. This individual was granted wide powers for a set period, usually 6 months. Initially only used in time of war or great peril, it functioned well for hundreds of years but degenerated into unchecked personal power, first under Sulla and then Julius Caesar. Closer to our own times, Adolph Hitler ended the corruption of the Weimar Republic (“the trains ran on time”), but with a horrible cost.

David Snowden and Mary Boone described the Cynefin Framework in their landmark article, A Leader’s Framework for Decision Making. This is a matrix that divides actions into 4 basic categories (Simple, Complicated, Complex and Chaotic) based on cause and effect and the influence of the system and the agents. The most productive and creative is the Complex domain where interdependent agents and the system share in control and order is emergent, rather than imposed.

While this is preferred and corresponds to a well-functioning constitutional republic, when corruption or incompetence pushes the system into chaos, the only way out seems akin to the Roman dictatorship. However, it is dangerous as it necessitates individuals with high ethics and absolutely no personal ambition, willing to surrender their substantial power when the crisis is past.

Is California at the point of chaos now where that is necessary? Could a leader be found with the huge degree of personal ability and integrity necessary to unwind the mass of incompetence and corruption that led to this mess? Would the population support this “strong medicine”? Would the individual allow a true constitutional government to re-establish function once it was restored?

But is this only a binary choice? Must we either accept the chaotic status quo or take our chances with a powerful dictator who will “make the trains run on time”?

Elinor Ostrom, the first woman to win a Nobel Prize in Economics, faced a similar dilemma in dealing with “The Commons”, and now more than ever, we should listen to her. When faced with how to protect a resource held “in common”, such as a fishery, society must deal with the destructive tendency of overuse on the part of greedy individuals that eventually leads to loss of the resource itself. To deal with this, either privatization or governmental control were thought to be the only effective means of preventing the “Tragedy of the Commons”. Ostrom explored a third way: responsible collective management. She cataloged resources that had been successfully managed that way and formulated 8 principles that make it work:

1. Clearly defined boundaries: The Boundaries of the CPR must be clearly defined, as are those who have the right to utilize the resources.

2. Rules fit the local circumstances: Rules restricting time, place, technology, and units of use as well as labor and material required are related to the local conditions.

3. Collective choice arrangements: Those affected by the operational use rules can participate in their enactment and modification.

4. Monitoring: Monitors of the use of the CPR are accountable to the appropriators.

5. Graduated sanctions: Those who break the rules are sanctioned in proportion to the rules broken.

6. Conflict resolution mechanisms: Rapid low-cost arenas to resolve conflicts are present.

7. Recognition of right to organize: The rights of users to devise their own institution will not be cancelled by a higher authority.

8. Nested enterprises: While most of the governance can be accomplished at the local level, wider cooperation may be needed to avoid conflict with other enterprises.

There comes a realization that the monumental failures of the past decade, be it the current wildfires in California, the complete mismanagement of COVID or the crisis at the border and collapse of the importance of citizenship in the United States have a very similar root cause: Disregard for objective truth, lack of real accountability and a reversion from E pluribus unum to tribalism and identity politics.

The solution has been right in front of our face, but we have ignored it. Our Constitution, had it been followed, would have prevented most of the problems or at least remediated them when they were small. However, by our slow erosion of the principles in our founding documents, we have created the chaos we now see. Our attempts at “making the Constitution more relevant” have instead made our society irrelevant.

I know what we must do…we must get back to a Constitutional Republic and scrupulously value our shared history, core values, purpose and future seen through a diversity of perspective. In short, we must tend to our culture, as it is vital to our performance. We need critical thinking, not critical theory.

The only question is will we do it, as Yoda said:

Do. Or do not. There is no try.