To Hell with the Political Class
It’s no big mystery why President Obama’s poll numbers have dropped like a scorching potato on a summer day in Houston. He’s stinking it up. The man came into office with a 72% approval rating. Nearly everyone gave him the benefit of the doubt. Six months of flimflam have soured all except his most adoring sycophants.
The press still loves Barack Obama. Enough said.
For everyone else, for those who hoped for change, disappointment mounts. Maegan Carberry expresses the frustrations of young Obama voters:
To single out health care is myopic, when what’s really happening is a collective re-evaluation of Obama’s delivery on his campaign promises to our generation. Young people, many of whom were first-time political participants in ’08, are often not seasoned in the way governing works. After disappointments like failed bipartisanship on the stimulus bill, lip service on torture, a perplexing stance on gay marriage that even Dick Cheney’s got right, half-hearted transparency and use of new media tools, and an ambiguously undefined and possibly unwinnable war in Afghanistan, we’re frustrated. We signed on for change in Washington, and our leader is not cracking down on the Democratic Congress and its futile leadership, which has disappointed us for almost a decade.
Strap on your boots, liberals. It’s about to get worse. An Air America host called President Obama a “charming liar.” That’s being charitable. By years end, the word “charming” will be dropped.
To liberals and Democrats hoping for the socialist promised land, conservatives feel your pain. They’ve been there. Hell, they’re still there. Those who voted for Republicans hoping for sensible government, fiscal restraint, and less intrusion got none of it — even when Republicans controlled the House, Senate, and the presidency. Can you say drug plan to buy off seniors and drug companies? Can you say TARP?
But the reason President Obama is tanking so quickly is that he has a problem that President Bush didn’t have. Candidate Obama promised the world, sun, stars, and moon to everyone. People pinned their hopes and dreams on him. He stayed vague and hope-n-changy enough that all people felt reassured when he spoke to them. The problem is, he said whatever worked to whatever crowd he stood before. Or rather, his words were suitably bland that people projected their desires on his words. They heard what they wanted to hear, but what was he saying?
George W. Bush governed exactly how he campaigned. The term “compassionate conservatism” was wince-inducing. We believe being conservative is compassionate. When President Bush “reached across the aisle” to Teddy Kennedy, it seemed the height of naivete. The split was coming, and it did. And to burn credibility with the base over education reform, of all things.
Still, the magnanimous ways and the mushy center were classic blue blood Republican and for all the twang, which so irritated liberals, President Bush governed and was motivated by noblesse oblige. He campaigned this way. No surprises.
So President Obama has a problem that President Bush didn’t: deception or delusion. But more than that, President Obama comes into his presidency after Democrats spent years in the wilderness nursing notions of a stolen presidency. They feel owed, man. They are entitled to some legislation going their way for once.
“The government needs to relearn its place.”
Exactly!
The GOP needs to wake up and be quick about it, there is a grass roots Conservative Movement in this country that is lunging in the traces and gaining momentum daily. It is not the the Republican Leadership that is supplying the impetus nor is it Fox News; it is the internet and blogs like this, with help from talk radio. Conservatives are realizing they don’t need a group of Rinos and Blue Blooded East Coast Republicans to lead them. The GOP had better find some leadership that isn’t afraid of Wee Wee man and his promises of Stimulus Pork or the Conservative Movement will go to the polls without them.
A sleeping Giant is awakening and there will be a bloodletting at the polls. Progressive Socialism has been identified as a thief of Freedom and a destroyer of economies. It belongs in Europe and Asia, Americans love Freedom, the fact that our young people are overcoming the indoctrination of a Progressive Socialist education is a heart warming sign. Thank Goodness that Obama has been such an incompetent fool, he has made our job that much easier. Despite a good speech writer and a smooth delivery, the mindless glancing from left to right and occasional off teleprompter speaking has exposed Fearless Reader Wee Wee Man as the Village Idiot of Washington.
We must now work at damage control to try and neutralize the damage the Marxist in the White House can accomplish in the next three years.
Some just take longer to learn than others…
http://www.iamsorryivotedforobama.com/
What we need is less government, less parachute for them when they retire, and what we are getting is larger (czars) government with obscene spending (Michelle’s 20 aides, each with a million dollar salary compared to 1 for the most recent first ladies). Eliminate the pork from the bills and fat from the offices, doing more with less as my father put it.
“It is the responsibility of the patriot to protect his country from it’s government.” – Thomas Paine
Truer words have never been spoken!
You’ve rekindled my faith in….chiropractors.
Amen to the article.
Though this charmin’ neospecimen *does* whine a bit like some conjectural stepniece to Neocomrade Grover, Lord Norquist, I believe that after the student has examined its noises attentively, she (the student) will conclude that it (the specimen) cannot be exactly that.
There is simply too much badmouthin’ of the Party o’ Wisdom ’n’ Virtue for any such hypothesis to be workable. The Mecca of militant extremism here gets called, among other discouragin’ words, “tremulous,” “attemptin’ to curry favor with the [intellectually respectable] press,” and “[guilty of] mismanagement when they [1] had the reins” and . . .
. . . but the performance is right here, so compilation of all the symptoms of Wingnut City self-hatred _chez Clouthier_is an elementary exercise that may safely be left to anybody at all.
Silly season or not, it would make poor sport to break this gaudy little neobutterfly on the wheel. Very briefly, then:
(1) The specimen probably considers itself a ‘libertarian’.
Scribblers who are illiberal and antidemocratic and (neo)reactionary in their general tendency, but also like to play at “A plague on both your houses, ye Capulets and Montagues!” on occasion, usually *do* turn out to be casual daytrippers from Planet Dilbert.
This handy rule of thumb has never yet, that I know of, been subjected to exhaustive testing in the secret- or private-sector labóratories of Social Scientism®. Nevertheless, it is good enough for us humble lay sheep in practice. (Plus anyway, in this case who cares?)
(2) Actually, Pajama #1 cares, as may be seen at “Aug 23, 2009 – 1:09 am” — the flag-flag-flagrant neocomrade seems quite taken with “The government needs to relearn its place.”
’Twere a pity if some unkind political grown-up went and told the innocent laddie prematurely that headlines do not always come from the scribblers whose scribbling they stand above!
(3) Over on the better and brighter side of the aisle, I assume Ms. Student has already run into one or more of those fun cases in which a laid-back Mr. Editor completely misunderstands the thrust of the, _Deo volkente_, incomparable Mme. d’Ouignenutte before attaching his ridiculously inappropriate label to it.
_Mais que sçay-je?_ And furthermore: Father Zeus knows best!
Healthy days.
___
[1] Mark, Ms. Student, how Neocomradess M. Clouthier declines to refer to the empowered Busheviki as ‘we’!
Less obviously, mark how the present keyboard breaks off with the neospecimen’s management-based self-hatred. That reining in was perfectly deliberate, for the very worst thing that one can accuse the Baní Norquist (proper) of would be a failure to live up to the lofty standards of Big Managerialism, as expounded by, and to, and amongst, and above all for the pecuniary benefit of, the HVS MBA classes of our holy Homeland™.
(( For those of you at Rio Limbaugh, HVS family or dynasty values may be studied in the general vicinity of http://tinyurl.com/mzglzk , _i.e._, of the former Allston (Massachusetts) College of Barbers and Chirurgiens. Tell ’em http://tinyurl.com/msk7qc sent you! ))
Neocomradess M. Clouthier is unimpressive even for a Pajamastání guruette, so she may never have heard of the rule I invoke. Of course that makes no difference at all: _Ignorantia Juris non excusat_! (( http://tinyurl.com/26cjty ))
A well written summation of our current situation, I must say. My only quibble is I don’t think Palin is as alone as you imply. What’s Jim DeMint, chopped liver? I’ll be the first to admit he’s not as good looking as Sarah, but I’ve never known him to be shy about saying what he thinks and as a conservative I have seldom disagreed with what he had to say. How’d you miss his frequent comments that have regularly irritated the democrats up to and including “The One” himself? Is his being an incumbent sufficient reason to ignore him and any other incumbent actually taking a stand? Other than that, I say again, excellent article.
Only if the real majority of Americans stays involved can we roll back the power government has unconstitutionally taken upon itself. I hope those who have only recently realized that they have to actually show up and participate rather than just vote now and then never let themselves be lulled back into their business as usual rut. Elected republicans have been more concerned about how they’re seen by the media than they should have been, but in all fairness, it was only the RINOs or democrats who ever were staying on their butts all the time by showing up at town hall meetings or bombarding them with mail and so forth. I’d wait and see where they sort out once people who don’t believe in the “compromise is beautiful” mantra are actively involved before I declared them all near worthless. Eighty percent of them may well be worthless, but not all of them are RINOs who have a voting record that justifies tossing them as fast as possible.
Democrats will keep a democrat in office even when they detest them if they don’t have an alternative candidate who they think can keep a republican out, something republicans could learn along with learning how to bring along replacement candidates strong enough to both beat their own incumbent in the primaries and then win in the general election. That’s quite a challenge in our system, actually. The value of taking back the majority in the House and Senate outweighs the joy of ridding ourselves of some of these folks, though. Once the majority is no longer democrat, incumbents should be on notice that their base isn’t automatically going to toss them their seat back in spite of their seniority and whatever perks they claim that seniority buys their district. Some of these folks, however, are going to eventually have to be replaced with other republicans with more backbone and a more honest connection to real republican conservative values and goals. Again, though, until the democrats don’t have a majority, it should be less important to dump a republican than to replace a democrat.
Besides, revenge is a dish best served cold, and I’d rather some of the so called republican dimwits think they’re doing fine right up to the point at which a well funded challenge from their own side kicks them in their tender primaries.
Regards
One problem: Some of The One’s drop in popularity is from liberals (gays, anti-war activists, greenies, etc.) who don’t think he’s moving fast enough on his promise of change.
“All politicians, both Republicans and Democrats, would like the grassroots people to just go away. It seems evident that these folks are just getting warmed up.
Call them the mob, terrorists, haters, un-American, disloyal, treasonous, immoral, racist, deranged. They’re not going away. They are Americans. They deserve better than what they’re getting from the ruling class.”
Somebody said:
“This is, at its core, yet another battle in an unspoken class war. A group of Americans have unwittingly been conscripted into service for the wealthy establishment that oppresses the poor and robs the middle class. Don’t believe me? Just look at the past eight years under Bush. The past is prologue.”
2. Steve Sampson:
“Conservatives are realizing they don’t need a group of Rinos and Blue Blooded East Coast Republicans to lead them.”
These are your ‘leaders’:
FreedomWorks, Dick Armey, Rick Santelli, General Electric, General Motors, Verizon, SBC/AT&T, Koch family, John Birch Society, Howard Ahmanson, Tom Monaghan, Rev. Moon and the DeVos family.
I had idea, and was wondering how it might get implemented:
Cut Representatives’ and Senators’ salaries.
Our members of Congress get paid more money per year than most Americans ever will, and their benefits are beyond lavish.
Add on how much public money these people spend — individually — doing “research”, flying first-class or jetting around in Air Force aircraft.
Right now, Representatives’ salaries start at around $174,000 — crazy, right? I say we should cut that number down to $100,000. And no more flying on private planes or first-class commercial on the public dime — we will pay for them to fly COACH, just like the majority of us do. If they want to upgrade their tickets, THEY can pay for it.
What do you think? Petitions, state-by-state referendums?
We live in amazing times. We have to vote in new representation that understands government is not the answer, FREEDOM is. It will be a difficult transition. Big government has trained millions of our citizens to expect something for nothing.
You think there’s a chance the Nelson Rockefeller Country Club Yalie GOP will help America? Are you nuts?
For generations the RCCYGOP hid paralyzed in the wings, just like both Georgie Porgies, they don’t raise a pinky to rebut the non-stop slanderous AND libelous, attacks by the Bolshis.
The Emanuels and Axelrod gangs are in charge with tax funded redshirts, purpleshirts and cami-shirts. They’ll bring us another 70-year scourge of Soviet style collectivism costing another 100+ million lives. Lay the horror that’s coming at the feet of the NRCCYGOP, academia and the media.
Escape, though difficult, remains the only patriotic option. Go Galt.
Of course the Democrats feel “entitled” to pass legislation designed to transform America into their vision of Utopia.
In their minds, they are always entitled to do whatever they want, without interference from the great unwashed (i.e., us), because they are smarter, more insightful, more “sensitive”, more “in touch with their feelings”, better educated, and just inherently more wonderful than everybody else on Earth.
(They’re even a little bit better than foreign entities who share their worldview, as of course those entities did not have the advantage of going to Harvard for the most part.)
Part of this belief system is that they are always right, in fact totally incapable of error. Whenever one of their plans fails (often spectacularly), you will never hear anyone say “OK, maybe we didn’t have such a great idea to begin with.” No, failure was invariably due to insufficient funding, (other) people not trying hard enough, (other) people not “believing” hard enough- or, of course, deliberate sabotage by those never-to-be-sufficiently-d**ned “reactionaries”, who are of course sinister, all-powerful, etc., etc.
Any resemblance between this sort of justification and the plot of an Oliver Stone movie is probably not a coincidence, as Stone is not only himself a self-defined “ultra-liberal”, he is also a nearly perfect example of what Hofstader referred to as the “paranoid style” in American politics.
And the number of “progressives” in Hollywood who believe that their celluloid fantasies equal objective reality is exceeded only by the number of progressives outside Tinseltown, especially in academia, journalism, and Washington, D.C., who agree with them. Have you ever noticed how many determinedly-”progressive” members of the Hollywood glitterati are constantly testifying in front of Congressional committees- and are always demanding “instantaneous action” on their personal pet “Cause of the Week”? (And getting it?)
As for Obama’s own claims of being a “centrist”, practically every liberal makes that claim; they’re all about “governing from the vital center”. The problem is that they believe that mythical place is to be found on the philosophical spectrum somewhere between the weekly meetings of the Berkeley Faculty Club and the Fabian Society. (From there, even the Weather Underground looks at least a bit “reasonable”, while the Heritage Foundation is obviously a terrorist group.)
Living in this sort of mental “parallel universe”, no wonder Obama and Co. are calling anyone who isn’t 110% on board with their grand plans assorted nasty names. With that sort of worldview, they honestly believe that they are right about everything; so anyone who disagrees with them must be not only wrong, but crazy and probably demonically-inspired into the bargain.
This, by the way, is why debating reasonably, rationally, and honestly with a “progressive” is nearly impossible. They rejected Western linear logic as “patriarchal” and “narrow-minded” long ago, preferring the more “mystical” Eastern view of everything, in which what “feels right” trumps everything else. When you try to use logic and facts to show them where they are in error, you are the equivalent of someone trying to explain the Copernican system of a sun-centered solar system to a Babylonian astronomer-priest of Cyrus the Great’s time. He “knows” that those lights in the sky are not “planete’” moving due to immutable physical laws; they are gods, who move back and forth at their whim, so as to send messages to mortals as to how to live- and it is the priest’s job to interpret those messages for “the good of all”, and incidentally for his own power and prestige. Now you know why the reaction tends to be nasty, and vicious; you’re not just wrong, you’re not even reasoning “properly”. (And oh yes, you’re an apostate, too, you heretic.)
This of course leads us to the standard liberal view of the populace as a whole, whether the subject is health care, taxes, the right to keep and bear arms, freedom of speech, or whatever. That being that we are, individually and collectively, too stupid to be allowed to run around loose. (I’m sure the European nobility of the Middle Ages felt exactly the same way about their serfs.) Thus, we must be ruled by the “enlightened elite’”- for our own good, naturally.
Oddly enough (or maybe not so much so- see above), their overall philosophy vis-a-vis the rest of us was best summed up by an exchange between Will Smith (Agent Jay) and Tommy Lee Jones (Agent Kay) in the movie “Men In Black” (1998). Discussing the wisdom or otherwise of letting the public know that (a) there are other intelligent species in the Universe and (b) some of them actually come here now and then, Jay says, “They can handle it. People are smart.”
Kay replies, “A person can be smart. ‘People’ are mean, panicky animals, and you KNOW it.”
Three guesses which view of your intellect and emotional stability, and mine, the average “progressive” politician, notably the present President, holds.
Two don’t count.
clear ether
eon
#9 I prefer every single one of our “leaders” over Obama and his illegal czars!
Excellent article btw!
Gee, JHM dba ‘Neocomradologist,’aren’t you just so very brilliant? Seems like you ought to be one of the intellectual elites deciding for America. The fact that we would hardly ever know what the hell you’re talking about would only serve to show how grateful we should be to be ‘ruled’ by someone of your great intellectual gifts. I, for one, can hardly wait.
“It is the responsibility of the patriot to protect his country from it’s government.” – Thomas Paine (Or maybe its intellectuals, too)
Pelaut – (12)
“Escape, though difficult, remains the only patriotic option. Go Galt.”
Now, there’s the ticket, just look out for yourself. How’s that any different than throwing Granny under the socialist healthcare bus if it makes life better for you?
In reality and with all due respect to Ayn, there’s not a dimes worth of difference between slaughtering another 100 million because it’s good for you and your socialist pals and hiding in the mountains watching those 100 million be slaughtered while you cower in your safe little nest. Only the Sheepdogs count, bub, not the wolves, and not the neutered puppies hiding among the dumpsters stealing scraps for themselves.
Have a nice neutered day
@ #10. JR Dogman:
Good idea, though I believe they should make no more than 50% over the AVERAGE salary in their state, this would motivate them to improve the conditions of their own workers above the benefit of the special interest groups
Melissa, great article. You “put the cheese on the cracker”(!) regarding the Reps and the Dems. This is an elitist, power hungry oligarchy that is ruling us and they deserve their comeuppance. Thanks for your direct, cogency.
A pox on both their houses, eh? Everyone, everywhere must decide if they are a people that have a government or a government that has the inconvenience of having people.
Actually, casting this problem as left/right or Dem/Repub is taking the easy way out. It’s generational, my dad used to say “When people are three generations off the farm they lose all their common sense.” Well folks, here we are.
This uncontitutional ergo illegal power grab over our health care is a war against Americans liberty. This must be stopped at all costs and if illegalling passed must not be enforced.
This is worth having a civil war with our political tyrnats over and losing is not an option.
The only way the government can cut costs is by denying coverage to the sick. Their will be death panels. The whole thing is a death panel.
The government will have access to all your medical records which will be at their fingertips. They will use any information they can to keep in line to shut you up and have you submit to them.
New cures will fade since the private sector will be under assault by our government.
Their will no competetive forces at work. All administrative services will eventually fall under government control. Think of the Posal workers, they will be your new “healthcare” workers.
Racial quotas will determine how many physicians, nurses etc. will be in the workplace and where they will be. Quality care will evaporate.
This is worth fighting against with every fiber of your being. These politicians are lawless tyrants and need to be brought down by any means necessary.
If they pass this illegal power grab, don’t enforce it. Tell them to go to hell. This is a criminal act. They are not empowered by law to pass this. We will never submit to this loss of liberty nor will we submit to socialism/communism.
This will be worse than the UK and Canada by light years since their will be no “United States” for us to fall back on.
Americans will tolerate a great many things, but actively destroying the best country in the world in the name of socialism isn’t one of them. Unresponsive politicians are on notice; ignore the will of the people at your politicial peril.
2010 might very well signal the end of our fling with leftism for a long, long time. Reid, Pelosi, Frank and others can be replaced with someone who actually likes this country and trusts the wisdom of its people. Think of the message that their ouster would send to Obama and George Soros.
“It is the responsibility of the patriot to protect his country from it’s government.” – Thomas Paine
Amen. The time is now. The patriots are assembling at their town halls. Let’s roll!
That’s a terrific quote from Thomas Paine. I predict it becomes the motto of the anti-Obama “mob”.
With respect, JR, the problem is two-fold:
1. For quite some time, the Constitution has been mangled by the Supreme Court. For example, from the Aug 22 Washington Post Op-Ed by Rivkin and Casey:
In Wickard v. Filburn (1942), the court upheld a federal law regulating the national wheat markets. The law was drawn so broadly that wheat grown for consumption on individual farms also was regulated. Even though this rule reached purely local (rather than interstate) activity, the court reasoned that the consumption of homegrown wheat by individual farms would, in the aggregate, have a substantial economic effect on interstate commerce, and so was within Congress’s reach.
Link to full article: http://tinyurl.com/meywlp
2. The legacy news media is in the tank for the Democrats rather than doing its job of independent news reporting. That is slowly changing, but too many people today are misinformed by the national media.
In times of crisis, it’s common for people to deny the need to act (Jews getting the hell away from the Nazis, for example). “Things have rocked along OK up to now”, we tell ourselves. “Surely you’re overreacting”. But things are not OK now, as the statists have now shown their hand. The only solution in sight is the State Sovereignty / 10th Amendment movement. Go read Patrick Henry’s famous speech again. Read the Federalist papers. Read the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Ask yourself if you’re really ready to let it all slip away on your watch. We are going to have to push back hard to restore our Constitution. Summer soldiers and sunshine patriots need not apply, because it will probably get pretty tense before we get things squared away. If you’re not ready to go the distance, like those heroes at Valley Forge, then all these tea parties, columns, comments etc are just a circle jerk.
We need to go to Washington DC on 9-12 in the millions.
Try to encourage as many people as possible to join you.
6
We’ve all read James Joyce, dude. Give it up.
Let’s not forget that it is the American people, about whom hosannahs ring out at the drop of a hat, who were and are the consistent enablers of our full of itself ruling caste.
I thought this writing was exceptional. I don’t send out many emails where I forward articles or writings.
I just sent out this article to others.
Saying Well Done is not enough for this author, who by the way, I had never heard of or read.
Thanks for saying much better what I have been thinking and trying to say.
Papa Ray
West Texas
“When President Bush “reached across the isle” to Teddy Kennedy, it seemed the height of naivete.”
=========
Would this “isle” be Martha’s Vineyard? Whatever happened to copy editors?
“President Obama has a problem that President Bush didn’t: deception or delusion.”
Now, where the heck are those damned WMDs…?
“Call them the mob, terrorists, haters, un-American, disloyal, treasonous, immoral, racist, deranged.”
OK, that works.
JHM, I used to think like that when I was smoking angel dust. Try upping your dose of Meloril. It is supposed to curtail schizophrenic delusions. Did you lose your job when the Weekly World News folded?
Remise – (29)
“Whatever happened to copy editors?”
Alas, copy editors have inflated their own egos to the point that most of them floated away and are now are now pure ego. Now most of them roam the Internet and Usenet sustaining themselves with their own snide remarks regarding the work of others. They are always ready to toss out a remark but seem to be especially fond of making their comments when they disagree with a particular post but would rather not come right out and say so.
The Internet Wildlife Rangers have to keep eye on them, though, because every now and then one of them goes mad and starts screaming insults at the ducks for not quacking just right. All you can do at that point is euthanize the offending copy editor. Yes, it’s sad, but we have to make these tradeoffs in life. Besides, everyone knows that ducks are easily offended and that sparing a single duck offense is much more important to society than is the “life not worth living” of your average copy editor.
Have a Quackerjack day
Excellent artice. The Republicans come begging for money on a regular basis. I wrote them a letter that they were not getting one thin dime until they began to return to a conservative platform, forcefully confront Obama on his policies and proposed legislation and begin to recruit and run conservative candidates. No more McCains, Huckabees and Romneys. I have received no response other than a form letter thanking me for my letter.
Is it time to abandon the Republican Party? I am serious! Conservatives need to forcibly confront Republicans and refuse to fund their candidates and initiatives until they drop the milquetoast moderate platform and embrace conservatism. If it’s no, it is time for the Constitution Party.
9. vivo. “These are your ‘leaders’. FreedomWorks, Dick Armey, Rick Santelli…”
Who are your leaders vivo?
@13. eon: – This, by the way, is why debating reasonably, rationally, and honestly with a “progressive” is nearly impossible. They rejected Western linear logic as “patriarchal” and “narrow-minded” long ago, preferring the more “mystical” Eastern view of everything, in which what “feels right” trumps everything else.
eon: BRAVA/O!!! So very well put!
The irony I find most delicious about America’s downward spiral right now is this: the ONLY person who’s actually examined the root causality, and revealed the reason for this phenomenon is a self-described “liberal” academic: Jon Haidt.
Haidt’s research has clearly demonstrated WHY people become so-called “liberals” (actually, leftists). The reason is that leftist ideology appeals to people whose morality is (still) equivalent to the partly-developed, incomplete sensibility of an adolescent.
Why is it that “[i]f one is not a liberal at 20, s/he has no heart…”? Because at 20 and prior, the vast majority see morality in terms of “fairness” and preventing harm to others (notably, preventing the actions of other people from causing harm, but that’s another issue entirely). At 20, most are completely and blissfully unfamiliar with the full complement of moral foundations required for a sustainable society.
In youth, that is as it should be. But many cling to this stunted, 2/5ths morality all their lives.
With each new American generation – primarily because of the Deweyite, marxist head-lock strangling our academic institutions – an increasing number of individuals are failing to grow out of this moral adolescence. Fewer and fewer people achieve a comprehensive, holistic moral maturity where they have come to recognize the importance of the remaining critical intuitive ethics.
This phenomenon has led to dominance by the post-modern, moral-relativist, “progressive” leftist. These are individuals who are mature in almost every way except for their morality. In a nutshell, they comprise the rampant “entitlement mindset” and espouse the notion that government (i.e., Mom and Dad or the Nanny) is the answer to any problems that arise.
From the standpoint of social policy, debating reasonably, rationally, and honestly with so-called “progressives” is not only impossible, it’s socially suicidal. And we have 70 years of clear, unrelenting, undeniable proof of this.
Since the beginning of the 20th century, conservatives and classical liberals have debated and compromised endlessly with moral adolescents who insist – ignoring all common sense and 100 years of proof to the contrary – that 2 + 2 =6.
Today we look around, blinking in confusion, wondering how we landed in the 2 + 2 = 5 world we now inhabit. The answer is compromise. Compromise of principle. Compromise of conviction. Compromise in direct opposition to the objective truth. All because we mistake these moral adolescents for fully realized, rational, reasonable, morally mature adults. They are not. And the proof of this is the ongoing destruction of our Republic.
By unleashing the power that resides in every individual – through individual freedom and individual responsibility – classical liberalism, republican-style democracy and capitalism made America the envy and benefactor of the world in a miraculously short amount of time.
If you want to get America back on that track, you’ll need to stop asking the children how to manage the family finances and run the household.
If you want to see the Republic go quietly into the night, like every great civilization and culture in history, then by all means, keep on “debating” and compromising with the moral adolescents of the left.
The answer to out-of-control, bloated, spend-a-gasm government is most certainly not more government.
Is America “The Land Of The Free” immune from being run into the ground by power hungry political dictators? Is it too late by the time we are faced with insuperable figure heads we the people have put in high positions of authority who are then exposed as only having their destructive, self-serving, power-clutching, id-interests at the heart of every matter they engage, even as ‘they’ continue to spout their rhetorical, phony message of an impossible panacea under the thinly veiled guise of ‘greater good’ for all at the generational sum price paid by a supposed villainou$ few? Who will be the ‘untouchables’ when the ‘all-inclusive’ deeds have been said and done? Who will have to be lumped in with the villain$? Who will truly benefit? Who will suffer? What will be the final cost when the ultimate outcome is revealed?
@20. glenn
So true.
How many more wet Ponzi dreams and failed pyramid schemes can America afford before her back is broken beyond recovery?
I am still hoping that Obama will change his speeches to include more often than almost never the word “freedom.
If the government takes over the healthcare industry, there will be significant objections throughout the United States.
Melissa,
Thank you. You eloquently state the unfortunately obvious. You are right. We are Americans. And, we are pissed.
–The UnPatriot
A very serious problem not mentioned in your perceptive article is Obama’s attempt to sell Roman rule as Christianity. See “Jesus Christ answers Obama Health Care:”
http://constitutionparti.blogspot.com/
venividivici #26: AMEN! JHM is so full of itself, there’s enough of “it” for every reader on this site and the “it” is, well, I think each of us can figure that one out for ourselves.
vivo #9: General Electric? You’re kidding yourself. GE owns the Obama Network known as MSNBC.
As for the Republicans doing anything constructive, forget it. The only real solution left is to dismantle the two-party system, get rid of the bed-wetting third parties, and create a lottery for congressional service that mandates a single term of service before returning to one’s personal life. Of course there would have to be some pre-requisites for having one’s name placed in the “service lottery” — such as paying taxes (on time, Obamaites) and not being a felon. Those two pre-reqs alone wipe out nearly 80% of the Democrats’ support base as potential representatives and renders the most radical leftists impotent, lobbyists would cease to be a major player, and we could save millions on lifetime benefits for the pampered-perfumed-princes and princesses of the beltway.
We need a constitutional convention, convened by the states, to do two things. One, impose term limits. I am tired of corrupt, career politicians (can you say Ted Kennedy?). Two, we need to drastically reduce the length of Congress’ legislative session. Being a member of Congress should not be a full time job. Additionally, Congress has too much time on its hands to create legislative mischief. I think this is doable. How do we get started.
This is the third article I’ve read by Melissa Clouthier. All three have been excellent. I must agree about proofreading. I’m pretty sure Thomas Payne did not say “it’s government”, rather than “its government”. He probably knew about possessives.
The interesting thing I note is that Obama’s numbers are tanking quickly, despite the sycophantic media. Perhaps, this is because their numbers are dwindling daily, as well.
The numbers for FoxNews, by contrast, are just massive, now. They occupied all ten top spots in June (July?). Glenn Beck, who was a nothing program on CNN, has become an absolute ratings monster on Fox. He’s a Libertarian, and I think the middle has tuned in. Fox has come to beat out CBS news, a heretofore impossibility for a cable news outlet, because of the lack of local coverage. (People want to hear about the weather, usually, but not anymore.)
As the dinosaur media also begin to turn on him, his numbers will just plummet all the more rapidly. Down with the King!
@41. Mark “Still on the Enemies List” Epstein: – The only real solution left is to dismantle the two-party system, get rid of the bed-wetting third parties, and create a lottery for congressional service that mandates a single term of service before returning to one’s personal life.
I’d say yes on the second, no on the first.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with a two-party system. In fact even in the context of morally adolescent politics, it has proved itself perfectly serviceable and even superior to other multi-party systems (which, by the way, is what you’ll get if you go to a lottery; people naturally group into teams and tribes to influence social outcomes – it’s human nature).
The real problem is the elite mindset that pervades both parties. And Dr. Clouthier’s prescription here is the right one, IMHO: teach them their rightful place. They are servants, not rulers. The Constitution was written specifically to address that aspect of human nature and it is on a strict interpretation of the Constitution – with its deliberately weakened central government, restricted to a short list of enumerated powers – that we must rely if we’re going to teach these children their place.
As far as wiping out the real support base of the Democrats – BHO’s entrenched, lying, Fifth Column media shills – a nationwide boycott is in order. Every major advertiser funding propaganda for the left needs to be put on notice: your business will fail if you continue to support the rise of corporatist/fascist policies supported by the left. It’ll either happen sooner, as we stop buying your stuff, or later, as the government absorbs your sector into its collection of “managed” industries.
30: Yep, deceived at first by Slick Willie in 1998 when he bombed Iraq, with the speedy and glad assistance of Dems in Congress, for…get this…WMD’s. Not a peep from the olive branch crowd then. Nor, after 9/11, after both parties had seen the intelligence, they both gladly deceived the populace with affirmations of WMDs.
The Federalism Amendment is not a bad idea.
http://volokh.com/posts/1240513704.shtml
I would also like to propose the 17th amendment be repealed in favor of the chief executives of every state having the power to appoint Shadow Senators who vote whenever the Senators the state legislators select (or fail to select) do not.
One further comment: Not all the Pubs are doing nothing. Many are holding townhall events and detailing their opposition to the healthcare takeover. These are peaceful, orderly events which, of course, receive no coverage. It would be very newsworthy, I think, to cover this very fact, to rebut the charges of unruly mobs.
This August is a good time to be a Pub Congressman or Senator. A townhall going your way right now is pure campaign gold!
goy #45: You may be correct on maintaining the status quo of the two-party system. I’ll have to think about it. However, I do not think term limits will solve the problem by itself. There are too many entrenched entities that seek to influence the parties and, therefore, the immediate issue is the dismantling of outside influence on the two parties if maintaining the two-party system is viable. Moreover, because so many people (including the individual states) rely on federal dollars, how do we begin a return to the short list of enumerated powers? The HHS budget alone is anywhere between 1.7 to 2.5 times that of defense, which is specifically enumerated in the Constitution, but used as a leftist funding source any chance the left has the opportunity to rob America as a whole to pay the Democrats local and national “special interests.” Not that the Democrats are alone on this one. The Republicans have spent outrageous sums of the taxpayers’ money on social programs that have yielded little in national benefit. It’s the same as collectivism — why work hard if the lazy bloke next to you doesn’t work at all, but still receives the same paycheck?
Also, consecutive terms should be prohibited, ban incumbency.
An excellent point. The Tea Party movement is not about partisan politics. Most people I know are just plain disgusted with the politics as usual crowd, whether they are Democrats or Republicans.
Its hard to tell if the Tea Partiers will coalesce into a new party anytime soon, but both parties had better start getting their acts together.
2010 is not that far away, and both parties have a long way to go.
Americans are cutting back on their budgets and eliminating non-necessities. Its time for governments to do the same. Instead of adding expensive new entitlements like Prescriptions for Medicare or the so called health care reform, we need to be cutting the waste, and the politicians need to step away from the trough.
I will not hold my breath.
We need to throw all the rascals out.
43, you mean Ted who changes the law to suit his agenda?
I for one will vote against any democrat running for office if the health bill passes. That includes mayor, city counsel etc. they need to get the picture and listen to us.
Exactly right – Most of today’s pols, especially Libby’s, have not taken a risk in their lives. How can you make any kind of meaningful decision without evaluating the risk of that decision? Barry O, Pelosi, Kennedy…. Not one of them has ever taken a risk. Kennedy killed a woman(Kopechne) and fled from the scene – why wouldn’t he feel empowered to do whatever he wanted?
When you spend your whole life working for non-profit political organizations how could you have any idea how to lead and make tough decisions? When they are elected they are immediately vested, barring crimes, into a retirement system that most of us would drool at. Why should they do what’s right? There is no risk…
Have a great day,
One should never incur the wrath of mild and conservative men. They are slow to anger, but once aroused, they are notoriously difficult to placate.
A lesson that our current government has never learned…
eon and goy: Thanks for two remarkable and enlightening comments. Here’s a terrific video describing the immature mind of a Modern Liberal:
Evan Sayet
“You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is the beginning of the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.” – Adrian Rogers
we would be better served as a nation if we picked congress and senators at random from the districts phonebook. at least we would have representation by someone from the real world. As for the issues being too complicated for us, the great unwashed masses, if the current crop of representatives represents the best and the brightest, the nation is in peril because these are the stupidest bunch of yahoo’s i have ever seen.
The incompetence of the political class boggles the mind. Greg Nickels, incumbent mayor of Seattle just lost a primary – he seemed to care more about global warming than snow removal. (http://rattanman.blogspot.com/2009/08/greg-nickels-seattle-mayor-loses.html). I think this is part of the elite hostility to Sarah Palin – she actually believes government should focus on providing basic services efficiently and competently. To much of the political class this makes here a dangerous revolutionary.
We need to curtail the career politicians. We all know they will never impose term limits on themselves, so we need to find a way to do it for them.
Something along the lines of ammending the individual state constitutions that make a person ineligible to hold an office after serving two terms. For example, in Arizona we have the “props” that anyone can get on the ballot by meeting the necessary requirements. Would be curious to know if anyone has an insight into this, as this would be a cause I would be willing to get behind and support.
That would be unfortunate, if it did happen. The party would be overtaken not only by the usual inside-the-beltway bunch, but all of the loose nuts and bolts from Nader and LaRouche to Paul and Buchanan.
Remember what happened to the reform party? It’s better if the tea party movement remained a non-partisan force to be reckoned with. They’ll have a lot more power that way.
Excellent article. I have never in my life heard so many people talking about never having been polically active before. That time is gone. It is time to take our country back from the “ruling” class and elect people who have backbone enough to stand up for principles. We need term limits and election reform. We need someone who is willing to clean house in Washington, rescind all the laws that have had unintended consequences (or perhaps intended!) Pare down the govenment now!
It’s like the politicians live in some dream state where the reality of paying the bills doesn’t exist.
Since neither the chairman of the Senate banking comm., Chris Dodd (D-Conn), nor the chairman of the Senate budget committee, Kent Conrad (D-NK)* were both unaware (uh huh) that they were getting sweetheart loan deals (multiple times) from Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo, well, I’d say that’s a pretty safe assumption you’ve made there.
*also served on finance comm., but that doesn’t mean he should know anything about his own, personal finances
That wording isn’t quite right in #61,I hope it’s clearer than mud.
Charges of knowingly getting multiple reduced rate loans from Countrywide as “friends of Angelo” were recently dropped against both Senators.
#54 Warren Bonesteel: One should never incur the wrath of mild and conservative men. They are slow to anger, but once aroused, they are notoriously difficult to placate. See my comment below.
#55 Moogie: Amen!
#5. Metz: We need to curtail the career politicians. We all know they will never impose term limits on themselves, so we need to find a way to do it for them.
I have a co-worker who thinks there’s a new day dawning where the most precious metals in America will not be gold, titanium, or silver, but brass and lead. If both the Democrats and Republicans don’t begin listening to the people, my co-worker may very well be correct.
…the standard liberal view of the populace as a whole, whether the subject is health care, taxes, the right to keep and bear arms, freedom of speech, or whatever. That being that we are, individually and collectively, too stupid to be allowed to run around loose. (I’m sure the European nobility of the Middle Ages felt exactly the same way about their serfs.) Thus, we must be ruled by the “enlightened elite’”- for our own good, naturally.
Last week, I heard a woman (someone, somewhere in the vast labyrinth of government) say that “personal responsibility” is Republican “code” for ragging on poor people.
An astonishing statement, to put it mildly.
From their condescending arrogance and view of themselves as center of the universe, dispensing free lunches to their “lessers”, so called progressives simply don’t grok the power and value of the individual and that nothing handed to someone on a silver platter (a home, a job, an education, lunch
) has much value, as opposed to working for same and achieving same on your own merits.
It isn’t too far fetched to say that today’s collection of liberals is actively working against the principles of freedom and individual initiative at the basis of our Constitution. Or that all of these measures coming out of government these days are designed to radically overturn those principles.
The PC morons over at powerline are celebrating like its “1993″.
Sorry you idiots. This isn’t just about putting PC Republicans back in power.
Granted the Democrat Party must go forever and can not be fixed. The GOP can be fixed but not if you think like Hannity and the like and think that they don’t need an enema.
No more RINO’s. No more PC suck ups to the media which means MOST GOP’ers must go too. No more racial quotas. No more ignoring the Constitution. We want the 1st, 2nd, 9th’, 10th, 14th amendments secured along with all of our rights.
You gave us the Bush’s and now the worst of all Obama. We want our country back.
Obama is not a fellow American and does not by his own words intend to uphold the Constitution
eon, goy, and Moogie: In addition to your resources for understanding the Modern Left, I highly recommend the book “The Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution” by Ayn Rand. She provides a fully integrated analysis of the psychological and philosophical roots of the Left. Her analysis is still fresh and relevant after 40 years.
Ayn Rand lays out a core driver of modern liberalism…
Envy
“They do not want to own your fortune, they want you to lose it; they do not want to succeed, they want you to fail; they do not want to live, they want you to die; they desire nothing, they hate existence …”
Toss in a little Winston Churchill, and we’re nearly home.
“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.”
~Winston Churchill
@62. tanstaafl: – Charges of knowingly getting multiple reduced rate loans from Countrywide as “friends of Angelo” were recently dropped against both Senators.
And charges of deliberately intimidating voters last November were dropped – with no explanation whatsoever – against Black Panthers who were filmed in the act of committing their crimes.
Billy Ayers was never prosecuted for capital crimes he is known to have been involved in.
Bill Clinton was sanctioned for perjury, yet he was acquitted by Congress for that criminal offense.
Yet, after a years-long fishing expedition, during which it was discovered that no crime was ever committed when Joe Wilson IV caused his wife’s employment status to be publicly revealed, Scooter Libby was “convicted” of misremembering minutiae from years prior.
Anyone else seeing the pattern here?
.
@66. Kim: – … Ayn Rand. She provides a fully integrated analysis of the psychological and philosophical roots of the Left.
Yes, excellent. Like Hayek, von Mises and Friedman, Rand is an unassailable antidote for collectivism.
In fact the only place I fault Rand regarding the left she so astutely characterized is that she never really searched for the root cause of their illusions. Most people don’t – especially those attracted to leftist ideology themselves.
But the root cause of leftist mentality is becoming clear to anyone who recognizes the socially suicidal aspects of the entitlement mindset. It’s always been a part of human nature / human development, but has for the most part been loosed on societies by the changes brought on by the industrial revolution. We missed our chance to inoculate society against it, and now it’s a self-replicating, self-amplifying virus that will dissolve our Republic if we let it.
Let’s not.
Government is a reflection of those it governs, and vice versa.
Put slightly different, before kingdoms change, men must change.
Either lip service will continue to be paid, or people will actually put these words into action.
There is no middle ground.
So, what’s it going to be?
Billy Ayers was never prosecuted for capital crimes he is known to have been involved in.
Charges were dropped due to a (legalistic) technicality, involving mis-handling of evidence, leading Billy to proclaim…”Guilty as sin, free as a bird, is this a great country, or what ?” and stomp on an American flag
Here’s your quintessential modern liberal…
…Professor Alan Singer, defending Ayers as a prominent educational reformer. (Reforming, Ayers style, is using whatever funds he can wheedle to brainwash those poor Chicago students, whose rate of graduation from high school hasn’t much changed from Billy’s heyday of the 60′s & 70′s, at or just below 50%.)
Both Bill & Bernardine should be living behind barbed wire, at best.
Oh, but she did. If you really want to know how deep the problem goes, read her non-fiction work.
Yes, arrested moral development is part of the problem, but that’s an effect of arrested/subverted conceptual development: normative abstractions are not causal primaries, they’re the result of a process of concept formation, just as cognitive abstractions are. If concept formation is undercut, then it has moral implications as well as the inability to think in abstract terms.
The cultural reason for deliberately crippling the conceptual faculty of children is to be found primarily in the field of philosophy, particularly the history of philosophy. Cutting to the chase, Kant is actually the one to blame for releasing a philosophical virus so toxic that it has killed millions, and it continues to wreak havoc to this day in one form or another.
Kant’s categorical imperative isn’t all that different than the golden rule.
Face it folks, there is more to life than the definable, and those who only address the definable
make life more tumultuous than what would be the case.
I have nothing to add on topic (except maybe to say that our problems with the governing class are rooted in each of our 50–or is it 57–states and their gerrymandered districts), but I had to ask, is not JHM dba whatever lame appellative he’s using today just the worst troll ever (and consider the competition)? Is there anything more cringe-provoking than the un-clever pseudo-intellectual who thinks he’s just too clever by half? Gad.
@71. Kim: – If you really want to know how deep the problem goes, read her non-fiction work.
I’ve read everything she published, at one time or another. Rand recognized perfectly the type of psyche that is drawn to collectivist/leftist ideology, but she didn’t know enough about human development to really understand why. She never figured out that it was neither the chicken nor the egg, but the nature of chickens as an evolved species.
What’s more, since we’re just now beginning to understand how morality develops, independently from other areas of maturation, in her defense there’s really no way she could have known. That said, she didn’t seem as interested in searching for the root cause as she was in exposing and eradicating the symptoms and the effects. Which, as I say, is just fine with me.
- Yes, arrested moral development is part of the problem, but that’s an effect of arrested/subverted conceptual development: normative abstractions are not causal primaries, they’re the result of a process of concept formation, just as cognitive abstractions are.
That does appear to be the case (at least in terms few would understand). What seems to undercut this formation most is being shielded from the environmental conditions – living life – that stimulate it. Sheltered lives and all that.
And as I say, the stranglehold of the marxists over higher education (and, more recently, all education) has pretty much erased any vicarious exposure to the aspects of life that help form a mature morality. Study of the classics, symbolic logic, the scientific method and basic economics/statistic – not to mention civics and history. All that has been erased from the curriculum as academia has been transformed into “activist factories” bent on distilling Western Civilization – and American History in particular – to a series of atrocities solely caused by Christianity and corporations.
Time to undo all that. And pronto.
70. tanstaafl:
That was how O.J. Simpson got off, too. The prosecutors hosed up in both cases. We have a lot to blame on prosecutorial malfeasance (including the Duke fiasco).
To add to your reading list: Alexis de Tocqueville, “Democracy in America.”
Tocqueville was a French aristocrat who visited America in the 1830′s. While generally sympathetic to the US, he grasped that at some point, our democracy could fail once people began voting themselves largesse out of the public treasury. He feared the rise of soft totalitarianism as a result – a country where the masses were content to let the government make all the important decisions about their lives as long as they got to pursue their “vulgar pleasures.” I’m rereading Tocqueville now and I’m astonished at how farseeing and insightful he was. He foresaw dangers that nobody else dreamt of back when our country was new.
He’s the French guy to read – not Derrida, Foucault and all the other rubbishy deconstructionists.
69. David W. Lincoln:
Government is a reflection of those it governs, and vice versa.
Put slightly different, before kingdoms change, men must change.
So true, so very true. We are the ones that keep voting the jerks back into office, both Democrats and Republicans. If a bunch of the members of the House of Representatives, hopefully all, are not voted out next year this country is in real trouble and we, the voting public, will only have ourselves to blame. The politicians keep screwing us and then we reward them for it. Why should they change their ways?
Thanks for the tip, Kim.
Good article Melissa! You are correct in saying that the political classes have stolen Government from the people. The only short term solution that I can see is to shake up the political classes by voting every incumbent out of office, Democrat and Republican.
34. Mr Lucky:
“Who are your leaders vivo?”
My conscience.
This is what I love about the the certainty and expertise of the right wing, their deep and abiding knowledge of – and commitment TO! – and respect FOR! – the framers of this great nation . . .
44. Marc Malone:
“This is the third article I’ve read by Melissa Clouthier. All three have been excellent. I must agree about proofreading. I’m pretty sure Thomas Payne did not say “it’s government”, rather than “its government”. He probably knew about possessives.”
Yeah, but did he know how to spell his own name?
Kind of it in a nutshell . . . ya know?
Dear Ms Clouthier: Not until its members work off their crimes in work camps run by the militia!
The general thrust of this correct, but I must point out that there’s a vital difference between reality-based Aristotelian logic and non-ontological symbolic logic. Western Civilization is based on Aristotelian logic, not symbolic logic. For a clear and thorough explanation as to why symbolic logic is invalid, see Brand Blanshard’s excellent book “Reason & Analysis”.
Thanks Goy,
Ever the curious one I’ve long pondered the conundrum that is the left mindset and the theory of adolescent morality is as enlightening as anything on the subject I have seen. Your posts offer much to chew on in that regard and I thank you. Yours is the first blog I have ever bookmarked from this site. Keep up the good work. That vivo, bibio. et. al. chime in here now and again only strenghtens your point by example.
As to the pox on both their houses I think we need to retire that phrase in recognition that our real problem is a single duopolistic house – - and both rooms need fumigation. Nothing, after all, serves to perpuuate the ruling class better than for us hoi poloi to be fighting among ourselves.
@83. Kim: – I must point out that there’s a vital difference between reality-based Aristotelian logic and …
Thanks for the lecture, but that’s outside the scope of the point I’ve been stressing with respect to moral adolescence.
The ability to detect a symbolic logic error in argument – e.g., like the ones incessantly presented by leftist intellectuals, who rationalize the specious basis and consistent failure of socialism through sophistry and informal fallacy – is not taught as a general part of public or higher education. Even back when I went to school it was limited to computer science majors, as if a People can form a sustainable society through rational public policy without the ability to discuss the merits logically.
So should Teddy Kennedy, but…
Well written doc. thanks.
Finally, someone in the pundit class begins to see this.
You’ve come this far; now can you advance the next step?
Do we just need “better Republican candidates,” Conservatives from the grass roots to go to Washington and roll back the worst government intrusions and abuses–perhaps even restore some of our lost Rights?
If you take this view, you have not yet arrived at a true Tea Party Consciousness, in my opinion. You still shrink from Tom Paine’s words put wholly into practice.
THE PROBLEM
Before Reagan, and specifically prior to the Bork nomination, Congress (and Washington governance in general) was run like a Gentlemen’s Club. Both parties knew their respective places and special interests. There was mutual respect, no partisan bitterness, no personal animosity, no one rocked the boat. After a vigorous floor debate (carefully moderated by rules favoring Democrats), a pre-determined result was made official, and the Republicans then went out to play golf with their “colleagues,” the Democrats.
Bit by bit, the American People paid the tab for this collegial Camelot, in money, Freedom, and in a slow erosion of their sovereignty. That is not the way the Two-Party System was supposed to work.
In this Best-of-All-Possible-Worlds for the professional governing class, they served themselves and betrayed our trust, and our faith in the System. They became an extra-constitutional institution, gathering and abusing power not delegated to them.
Today, we are seeing among so-called “Conservatives,” David Brooks, John McCain, and some others, a sighing nostalgia for this pre-Reagan, Golden Age of Autocratic Governance by this gentlemen’s aristocracy.
There is no more chance that this world will be restored than there is that landed gentlemen in powdered wigs will return to govern France.
THE SOLUTION
The Declaration of Independence says this:
“When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them [The People] under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty to throw off such government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
This describes well where we are today, in my view, and we need fundamental, even radical, reform to correct it:
Term limits; a Balanced Budget Amendment; repeal of the Income Tax (see Judge Napolitano); restore the 10th Amendment; reform the Two-Party System.
As I see it, some mix of these measures is the only way to take back our sovereignty from the Washington Elites and restore a correct constitutional balance of mediated power and well-monitored service to The People.
We need to remove the professional political class from power and go to a Citizen Legislature. There is just no way we can trust a professional political class ever again, given what they’ve done to us and to our country in practice.
Will any Party, or even the more edgy members of the punditry, suggest such a radical package for 2010?
Not a chance. Leadership on this can only come from the People themselves, from some new Tom Paine.