Everyone likes to be flattered by being called “great,” especially Donald Trump. Equally as flattering is to have one’s entire country called “great” if not “the greatest,” “exceptional,” or “indispensable.” Or perhaps even “a shining city on a hill,” reminiscent of “The Emerald City” of The Wizard of Oz.

In the political world, however, there are different meanings of “great” or “greatness.” When the Cold War ended a group of influential, well-funded, and politically-connected pundits and political activists led by Bill Kristol labeled themselves “National Greatness Conservatives (NGCs),” sounding much like today’s “Make America Great Again” movement.

The NGCs announced that with the end of the Cold War Big Government must be employed to “physically and spiritually unify the nation” according to David Brooks in a 1997 Weekly Standard article. Brooks, Kristol, and other NGCs called for “grand federal crusades” that would divert peoples’ attention away from living their private lives to such “crusades” as compulsory “national service” for America’s youth, reminiscent of the notorious Hitler Youth; a “mission to Mars”; building a tunnel in the Atlantic Ocean all the way to Europe; and the military invasion of other countries in the name of asserting “moral assertiveness abroad,” said Brooks. Since then we have seen that “assertiveness” in the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere in the Middle East. Needless to say, all of this is all un-American statist hogwash to freedom-loving Americans who do not want their children conscripted by the state for any reason and who do not want their lives planned for them by the likes of scribblers in the now-defunct Weekly Standard tabloid. …

President Trump also seems to be adopting a Bill Clinton/Robert Reich style of “industrial policy” (a euphemism for fascistic central planning) that favors certain industries at the expense of others. A good example would be his recent attempt to impose 50 percent tariff taxes on imported steel. The steelworkers’ union is celebrating, and for the time being the stock prices of American steel manufacturers are rising, but what about American steel-using industries? The American automobile industry uses a lot of steel and aluminum and will be made less competitive and less profitable by the new tariff taxes on imported steel. Autoworkers’ jobs will be less secure so that steel workers and their employers can profit. …

Peace, not never-ending aggressive military conflicts and the intervention into foreign wars is what best allows the world to prosper under the international division of labor. War breeds isolationism, for no one wants to do business in a war zone. It is war that creates “isolationism,” not opposition to war, as the warfare statists claim.

Since God made everyone unequal in thousands of different ways, income inequality should be recognized as a natural human trait and not as an impediment to the latest version of communist Nirvana -- or a reason to construct a massive, vote-buying welfare state. It should be understood that successful people who have become wealthy through hard work and entrepreneurship incentivize others to do the same, pursuing what used to be called “The American Dream.”

Radical governmental decentralization, including restoring the rights of secession and nullification that the American founders believed in and valued, is also a key ingredient of a free society. Socialist central planning was the worst idea in world history, yet Americans cling to it with the Fed centrally planning the entire monetary system, the Departments of Energy, Education, Agriculture centrally planning energy, education, and farming, and dozens of other federal planning bureaucracies, all of which should be abolished. And that’s just at the federal level of government.