With President’s Obama’s approval ratings down to 44% and his approval index at its lowest points ever, the administration may have difficulty getting the 60 votes needed to obtain health care “reform”, even after a proposal to appeal to voters aged 55 to 64 was included. Megan McArdle writes that Joe Lieberman’s opposition even to the current compromise will make “progressives … livid”. While the numbers may be against the Democrats now, they will move heaven and earth to get the votes and will stop at nothing to get them.
It’s highly unlikely that Democrats will keep exactly 58 seats plus Bernie Sanders. At that point, one way or another, Joe Lieberman becomes largely superfluous. And the Democrats are going to have their knives out.
But the answer to her self-posed question is elsewhere on the Atlantic article. Maybe it’s not Lieberman who’s cutting his own throat but the Democrats themselves. The harder they try with health care “reform” the lower they fall in the polls. Why? maybe because many voters have concluded that health care not about health so much as about money. The trust is gone; the words remain the same by the melody is broken; the administration has lost that lovin’ feelin’. McArdle notes that the louder they sing, the more the audience stops its ears.
Every time health care makes the news, its poll numbers drop further, and at 54-38 against, it’s already dangerously close to “Republican landslide if you pass it” territory. Outside of coastal enclaves, Democrats cannot win the next round of elections with no one but their base. And independents, already against the plan, especially hate partisanship. This makes it especially unhealthy to pass a bill they don’t like on a straight party line vote.
What went wrong? Like a house of cards the collapse of one pillar is affecting the others. The progressive “brand” has taken hits across a spectrum of issues, from climate change to Afghanistan to health care and contagion of mistrust is spreading. This precisely what is being reflected in the declining poll numbers. The linkage between issues was highlighted by efforts to swell the government debt by another $2 trillion this year so it wouldn’t have to be done in an election year. The harder they pull on one thread, the more things unravel in the other.
Trying harder under these circumstances can be counterproductive. What they may have to do is stop digging. But with the glittering prize beckoning so temptingly before a whole host of constituencies, the impulse will be to lunge one more time. The President recently called on banks to increase their lending in “every responsible way” — by which he must certainly mean the opposite to boost an economy and a job market that has been jolted and wasted by unwholesome stimuli and unnatural financial currents.
Still the electric paddles are applied.
The financial crisis which propelled the progressives into power might in retrospect been a poisoned pawn. It may have caused them to grab onto too much, to overreach. Now, like the proverbial monkey who has seized an article of food through a mousehole, the progressives must either let go of the banana or find they cannot withdraw their hand into safety. They’re caught between greed and the instinct for survival. History is full of examples of leaders who went that bridge too far.
Maybe it’s too late to turn back now. If they do it will bring difficulties of its own. Orderly retreat is one of the hardest things to lead, if only because something has to be left behind. Some baggage, some agenda, some impedimenta has to be left to the wolves as the rest straggle to safety. If President Obama has not shown himself decisive in the advance, he will be doubtly tested in retreat.
Most retreats cure themselves and end when the fleeing party regains the wellsprings of its strength as the pursuers distance themselves from theirs. The progressives have a vast network of institutions in which to go dormant: in schools, in the arts, the bureaucracy. But first they must survive the winter; the financial winter of their own making or at least of their own compounding. Once the retreat is over, their recovery can be quick as the dormant cells spring back self-righteously into active existence.
But for the moment, they are on the backfoot. How long they will remain off balance, only time will tell.
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Every cost estimate has been significantly on the low side. Even people who are strongly in favor of the theory of universal health care must be very skeptical about this admin’s/congress’ ability to come up with something workable.
What will be worse? Passing a deeply unpopular measure on a party line vote, or failing to pass the signature legislation of a generation of their party?
I suspect if the bills fail to work their way through reconciliation to the President’s desk, the howls about how the other party refused to participate or cooperate in this historic reform will be highly counterproductive. But maybe not as counterproductive as actually signing a bill that is exposed as the worst kind of toxic byproduct of the grubby sausage-making house that is Congress.
How a Congress at the lowest double-digit levels of voter esteem thinks a partisan mash-up of corruption and policy incoherence can rebound to the institution’s benefit, or even the majority party’s benefit, is beyond me. The frenzy for power seems to overlook the long term benefits of trust, something the independents seem to no longer associate with the political class, and which applies especially to the majority of this Congress.
How long they will remain off balance, only time will tell.
“How long?” Hell, now that they’re off balance is the time to punch them in the teeth and kick them in the crotch. Give money and time to their enemies. Write your congressman again and again and call their offices. Chase the Leftists’ sorry asses back to their holes and burn them out. Organize teach-ins on campuses nation-wide about how capitalism and democracy work. Send a donation to FIRE. UP! UP! UP! NOW! NOW! NOW!
“It was Lenin who used the phrase “commanding heights” to refer to the segments and industries in an economy that effectively control and support the others, such as oil, railroads, banking and steel.”- Wiki
Well in the year 2009 that phrase applies to health care and if Lenin were alive today he would add it to the list. 18% of GDP doesn’t require the intuition of a genius nor of a sharpened steeled soul to spy out.
De l’audace, encore de l’audace, et toujours de l’audace!
From one revolutionairy to another. Obama will push for everything he can get while the gettin’s good.
Of course, Georges Danton was eventually guillotined by the other progressives in his camp, not much more than a year after Danton voted for old Louis XVI to lose his own sovereign head. Danton’s second most famous quote, after the above, was “The kings of Europe would dare challenge us? We throw them the head of a king!”
No one much cared if Danton’s head was thrown at them the next year. Just one more bloody statistic from the Thermidor.
I don’t think Obama, Pelosi and Reid are actually going to be executed (we are after all, much more civilized than the French) but I do think their political careers are going to suffer the equivalent. Reid might lose his Senate seat, Pelosi may well lose her majority (and if not, may lose her leadership position anyway). Obama, if he’s lucky and our grandchildren are not, will someday be mentioned by way of criticizing a dreadful president.
“The question is Fred, is President Porkfettle as bad as Obama? Or worse?”
“Worse, undoubtedly. Porkfettle is the worst President we’ve ever had.”
“Well, he’d have to be Fred, to be worse than Obama.”
They’re all going to be eaten by their own first. Except maybe Reid, who might be eaten by a shark, er I mean a Tark.
“Maybe it’s not Lieberman who’s cutting his own throat but the Democrats themselves.”
The Democrats are flirting with political oblivion on a national level. They are rapidly becoming the party of only safe-seat blue-staters. Purple and red state legislators are running for the exits. There are rumors circulating that even Senator Patty Murray of Washington is in deep trouble. She was previously considered to be a very safe bet to be reelected in 2010. There is only about a ten percent chance that a health bill will make it to Obama’s desk. It would be political suicide. The Republicans would like win back both houses of Congress.
My mental image is Typhoon — that last lunge to the gates of Moscow by which time senior commanders are being yanked.
Cap ‘n Tax was Kiev: a complete misdirection of focus and a false prize. It put a lot of wear and tear on the Party.
I thought it was a monkey grabbing an orange in a jar.
This is what you get when you have morons like Pelosi and Reid trying to deal with trillion dollar issues. Just how did such useless twits get into positions of power?
–
Sorry, for a moment there I forgot about our POTUS.
–
Well, if the bill does NOT pass, score one more point for democracy having preserved itself in the face of one more opponent – stupidity.
That is, I think a competently assembled bill would pass with bipartisan support. The problems are tough, but the current system is pretty terrible, and the bipartisan consensus for several changes has been there since the early 1990s, when Hillary’s hyperpartisanship first killed it. If only the Republicans had a few decent candidates and could sell their ideas. Saw Rep. Cantor on ABC yesterday – smart guy, but terrible presentation. Any way we can cross-breed him with Sarah Palin in time for the next election cycle?
It has been noted that Blue Dog Democrats are announcing that they’ll be retiring and won’t run in 2010 at a current rate of one per week.
I think it was some writer at the Atlantic that said that the upside is than now that they don’t have to worry about re-election they can vote for the hard stuff…..I wonder about that. It could be that their resentment of the hard left leaders and the threats that they’ve received from the Soros funded crowd will lead them to spike Pelosi big time???
I am not real big on conspiracies but a part of me wondered if the great financial meltdown of ’08 wasn’t one big poison pill to keep the radical progressives from spending too much. Frankly, Bush got a crisis handed to him and used it to grow government beyond all others before him. You got to know the progressives were waiting in the wing hoping to get their chance of changing America as well. If there was an attempt to thwart the tax and spend progressives it didn’t work. At least it hasn’t yet these guys keep doubling down and I think sooner or later they will find their crisis. It brings shivers up and down my spine and not in a good way. The monkey trap seems apt.
Take it from a lifelong center field bleachers seat denizen…watch out for the sucker punch.
Historically, speaking of punches,…leftists are notoriously better counterpunchers. They are better at sniping than they are at leading.
It is precisely when they are NOT getting their way, that they are at their most dangerous. Remember, this is the fringe of the spectrum that controls the media, controls Hollywood, controls academia, controls world opinion about the U.S.
Think about this for a moment. A rather small group of elitists that really don’t like this country very much, don’t like the vast majority of countrymen who live here, don’t like our free market system and don’t like our money, our military or our muscle…have seized control of virtually EVERY medium for mass dissemination of information. They control Congress. They have the White House and they are making inroads in the Supreme Court.
The vice grip control over the “pop culture” info flow is so complete, that legacy ink stains would rather commit hari kari than tell the truth. Movies bomb, “the paper of record” bleeds red ink, news room rating wars issue crushing defeat night after night…and still they plunge the knife into their own belly, in sacrifice to the New Big Lie.
To think that a small thing such as an interim election will have them quaking and rolling over in defeat, is to think too much of their conscience or too little of their deceit.
Sticky hands
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCkebTAQSGo
Short version of cfbleachers @11:
It’s going to get worse before it gets better.
At this time, it’s hard to predict what will really happen next fall in the polling booths. And that is frankly the only poll that really matters.
cfbleachers is correct—Much too early to count out nationalized health insurance or cap-n-trade or card check. The Dems will keep coming as long as they can. The arguments never made sense either as a matter of policy, and in the lats month or 2 even the political arguments are appeals to stupidity, but none of that means they’ll give up.
And in the long run, unless the Republicans change mightily and become a genuine party of the people, for less intrsive govt, the Dems are right–the ratchet only goes one way and in teh end they will get what they want, whether this year or decades from now.
If this year hasn’t been a wake-up call, I can’t imagine what would ever be.
Sauve qui peut, ‘rats.
The progressives must be purged. Independents and RINOS won’t like that, but if they are not vigorously pursued, routed and decimated, they’ll be back.
Who has the fire in the belly for that?
The snow so deep, the wind so cold
The city far away
There’s warmth and food there we are told
Press on another day!
We struggle on, the horses die
And still the city sits
A shimmer ‘gainst the winter sky
So far from Austerlitz
We gain the prize, the city’s ours
But neither warmth nor food
The population hides and cowers
A hungry, murderous brood
A tinsel prize, a barren dream
We starved and headed home
Through snow and sleet and cold that seem
To mock each onion dome
We died by roadside, died by wood
We watched the death toll grow
We ate our horses when we could
Then lay down in the snow
But I’m not dead, I’m still alive
Bemused, I watch the scene
As others force the snow and strive
To go where we have been
A tinsel prize, a barren dream
Health care and cap and trade
They never learn, so it would seem
For some dreams never fade
So they press on, alons! No fear!
For snow-bound sixty votes
But coming closer they can hear
The failing bugle notes
Moi, pour un. The Cannoneer is absolutely correct. No more allowing them to retreat to their strongholds, lick their wounds, and launch their next attack when we are again busy with life. It is a long, long list, and it will cause all sorts of squaking. To avoid overreach of our own, we should probalby select one or two deep thrusts immediately upon regaining control, followed by a slow, steady, rollback of the rest. They didn’t build this up overnight, we won’t tear it down overnight either.
I’d suggest starting with Public Schools (vouchers for everyone) and Public Sector Unions (outlawed – you don’t need a union when you can vote for your boss). Easy to do the first if you are committed to the second (if you don’t fear the Teacher’s Union, you can easily pass Vouchers). The second will be easy enough once the public pension timebombs start going off and private sector folks realize how much like bandits public employees have been. Instapundit had a link today to the growth of government salaries and benefits while the people who pay those have beens struggling to keep afloat.
If you couple those attacks with serious atacks on corporate welfare (which is a leftist thing anyway, as Wall Street 2008 should have shown everyone), I think it goes over quite well.
Then settle down to grinding away at the Trial Lawyers, University Leadership, and NGOs. Do them slow and incremental. Get them fighting with each other too. Create a legislative agenda that has, for example, Tort Reform, University Oversight, and NGO tax status review all on it, but signal there’s really only time for one. Let the leftist groups try feeding each other to the alligator…
But first things first, win back power. One of the reasons the Left is so aggressive in their agenda is they think they can win even if they piss the public off royally because they’re counting on making a characature out of anyone the Republicans run against them. I think they underestimate the damage their credibility, and the credibility of the MSM, has taken over the last year. So far though, I don’t think they underestimate the ability of the GOP to run terrible candidates. We gotta fix that.
The real prize is control of the election process. The teleprompter and its writers are little concerned with the distractions of Afghanistan and the economy.
The health bill is more than a distraction, being a powerful promotion for the unions, but it is not essential to the program.
The labor unions and community organizers are close to that ultimate prize. Honest elections are not a likelihood and hence true unpopularity is not an issue. Just as Carter was willing to certify the election of Chavez, so Holder and the several Secretaries of State.
It seems to me that the only way the Dems know how to garner more votes is to buy them. So every time their polls drop, they think they have to ladle some more pork onto the platter. What? Healthcare is failing? Let’s extend benefits to the 55-64 age group!!! Then their polls go down again. And they honestly don’t know when to stop. How big a bet do they have to have on the table before they begin to think that elections are just too dangerous to allow?
Now is the time to steal their thunder. If the GOP would simply hold a press conference announcing a HEALTH INSURANCE reform bill that:
Allows Companies to sell across state lines.
Ensures no one gets dropped for existing conditions while changing companies.
A bit of tort reform that eliminates useless tests that are run simply to cover the doctor’s six.
Health savings plans can be an option, tax deductible if used for medical procedures.
And add that things can be improved once we see how these changes work out.
Most importantly, keep it short, simple and in plain language. At the end of the press conference, ask Americans to respond if they favor this over the Democratic power grab. This seems like a win-win for the GOP.
Josh @ 8
“Just how did such useless twits get into positions of power?”
http://www.scribd.com/doc/21397303/STITH-THOMPSON-MYTHS-AND-FOLKTALES
Skim each episode guide of these:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/features/century_of_the_self.shtml
and…
http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/1999Q2/bernays.html
(we are after all, much more civilized than the French)
uh, your english ancestry used to cut some kings heads too, even the queens weren’t spared
BTW, Walt, you are awesome.
Salt Lick and JMH have exactly the right idea. Approval numbers for liberal issues and personalities are sliding. Now is the time to press harder with money.
And then, of course, there is always the rhetoric. “Death Panels” was brilliant. Given the intellectual firepower I consistently observe (the reason I always listen and seldom speak) here, it would seem reasonable that BC members could come up with similar phrases to frame every policy debate. Of course, most of these won’t stick, but it doesn’t take many, especially when someone comes up with the right one. Why should professional speech writers have all the fun? I’m just sayin’ . . .
As always, I thank you all for contributing to my continuing education.
Wretchard, be prepared for some PC blowback regarding the name of your post. References (sincere or not, intentional or not, malicious or not) between African Americans and our genetic cousins in the animal kingdom tend to bring the PC police crying for scalps. Oops, with that comment now they will now want my scalp. Doggone it, I did it again! Time for remedial self-administered sensitivity training.
Trust is a valuable thing. It was theirs to lose.
The ‘unraveling’ begins with lack of cred. They have lost it at an amazing pace.
VDH lists reason some of the reasons in his most recent PJM post. Here’s the list with a few sprinkled in by YT for good measure.
Bill Ayers, Tony Rezko, Jeremiah Wright intimacies.
Justice Department drops prosecution of Black Panther thugs.
Constant apologies abroad for everything from slavery to Hiroshima
Bows to Saudi royalty, the Japanese emperor, and Chinese autocrats
The on-again/off-again Guantanamo shut-down mess
The fight with the former CIA directors
The public show trial of Khalid Sheik Mohammed
The reach out to Ahmadinejad Castro, Chavez, and assorted thugs
The Honduras fiasco
Czars everywhere
The serial “Bush did it”/reset whine abroad
The Queen of England/I-pod fiasco
Gordon Brown gets snookered in his gift-giving
Unceremoniously shipping back the Churchill bust
The end of the special relationship with the UK
The New York on-the-town presidential splurge
Anita Dunn and her Mao worship
Timothy Geithner/Tom Daschle/Hilda Solis and their taxes
What ever happened to Gov. Richardson?
“No lobbyists” = gads of them
The Podestas’ insider influence-peddling empire
Sotomayor’s “wise Latina” chauvinism
The Special Olympics silly quip
Trashing Nancy Reagan
The Skip Gates/police acting “stupidly” mess
The get-Chicago-the-Olympics jaunt to Copenhagen
Cap-and-trade boondoggle
“Millions of green jobs”
Ignore gas, oil, coal, and nuclear power production
Cash-for-clunkers
The Joe Biden gaffe machine
Jobs “saved” or “created” rather than references to the actual unemployment rates
Van Jones, the racist and truther
Desiree Rogers won’t testify
The blowback from, and silence about, the Rangel/Dodd corruption
The White House party crashers plan to take the 5th Amendment
The ‘bipartisanship’ con
The pork-barrel stimulus spoils
The demonization of the Town-Hallers
The Acorn Mess
The Kevin Jennings/Safe School Czar embarrassment
The SEIU direct access to the White House
The Asian Tour comedown
The politicization of the take-over of GM and Chrysler
The Obama readjustment in the order of paying back car creditors
Car dealerships closed on shaky criteria
Obama as “Caesar”
The Emanuel “never let a serious crisis go to waste” boast
The Black Caucus/Rangel/Waters bid to bail out the inner-city radio stations
Yosi Sergant and the NEA
$1.7 trillion deficit
The planned $9 trillion added to the national debt
New income tax rates; health care surcharge talk; and payroll tax caps to be lifted
Rahm Emanuel’s promised payback to those states that trash the stimulus
The supposed C-span aired health care debate
The promised website posts of pending legislation
Czechs and Poles sold out on missile defense
Sermons to and finger pointing at the Israelis
The failed ‘Putin helps to stop a nuclear Iran’ gambit
Voting present on the Iranian reformers in the street
Serial but empty deadlines to Ahmadinejad
The good war/bad war twisting and turning on Iraq/Afghanistan
The months-long dithering over Afghanistan
Renditions, tribunals, Patriot Act, etc. once trashed, now OK
Health-care take-over
The stealth 2,000 page proposed new health code
The embarrassing Nobel Peace Prize nomination
The attacks on surgeons, Chamber of Commerce, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, etc.
The Islam mythologies in the Cairo Speech
The al Arabiya “Bush did it” interview
Obama’s TV “my Muslim faith” gaffe
“Reagan embraced perestroika” alternative universe re-write of history.
…and that infernal teleprompter.
Hat Tip – Victor Davis Hanson
DB71/25–
You’re right, they’ll be on the warpath! (oops). I mean … they’ll be running amok (yikes!) It’ll be tabu to speak … oh, no. Watch out for a vendetta, I mean … they’ll have their Irish up … rather, those mental pygmies … it’ll be a regular Tong war … no, more like a Mexican standoff … oh, never mind–I don’t mean to sound like some kind of swami.
Sometimes, if you ask for too much, you end up getting nothing at all. The “Progressives” may learn this soon.
It’s about results.
Obama got elected to fix the economy and end the war. Since neither has happened, of course people are disenchanted.
I wouldn’t read too much into polls one year out, as the economy may improve and employment may rise. The war may go well. Also, I don’t like it when politicians seem invested in failure for the country as a whole.
That said, it’s a hell of a reality check for a lot of people who thought that just getting rid of Bush would magically fix everything.
Enscout, that’s a hell of a list. I have to make sure I save that for future reference.
Problem is, I’d guess about 30% of the American electorate couldn’t tell you about more than five things on your list. And they probably think a few of those five things were great ideas (e.g. Cash for Clunkers) because they believe the spin.
How many people really get the full scope of it all? I wonder.
Plus, while I agree with those above that say we need to unravel the Lefist dens, who’s going to do that? Republicans? Not as presently constituted. The bulk of them are still lame pigs happy to feed at the trough for a few minutes a day when the Uber Pigs let them have at the swill.
It’s also a very long way to 2010 elections. Look at Enscout’s list. It’s around 70 items! Any dozen of them would have destroyed a Republican many times over. Yet Obama and his ilk live to fight another day, and they’re barely getting warmed up. Forget polls, forget public unrest. They care? Obama had no problem dismissing the big 9/12 event plus the tea parties. Not on his radar, you know.
There is plenty of time for the next manufactured crisis. Plenty of time for chaos to be unleashed giving them the excuse to bring down the hammer (elections? sorry, they’ve been “postponed”).
Some Dem Senators and Congressman may seem to be getting a bit nervous, but they’re pishers, out of the loop. The machers in the White House don’t seem one bit nervous.
They could just be stupid. And of course they are stupid, in the most meaningful sense. But they are cunning and wicked and ruthless. That goes a long way. Americans have no experience of ruthless tyranny being unleashed on them. How will they react if and when it happens?
I posted almost 1,000 words on Obama’s decline topic under the title The Full Meltdown. It would be kinder to our hosts bandwidth not to repost it here. If any care to look at it and comment here in the BC on this thread please do.
Personally I think that trying to ban Public Employee Unions will prove ineffective. The problem is that politicians buy votes and the public employees buy politicians. The only way to break the cycle is to stop civil servants from voting for anyone who votes on an appropriation that determines their income. Here is my proposed Constitutional Amendment;
1. All persons shall make an annual declaration of all income from all sources
2. No franchise for a person to serve as an Elector in an election for the US House of Representatives for Federal civil servants or military officers, except those in temporary training or called during hostilities, or for any person who received the bulk of their income from foreign sources or from the Federal treasury, either directly or by contract payment
3. The 17th Article of Amendment to the US Constitution is hereby repealed
4. The 14th Article of Amendment is Amended as follows, the Census shall identify all persons as to citizenship and the apportionment of Congress shall be strictly in accordance with the numbers of citizens present or serving with the armed forces and eligible to vote
5. No person who would not under these terms be eligible to serve as an Elector for Congress but who is not a resident of a State shall be eligible to serve as an Elector in any election in a territory of the United States organized by and subject to the exclusive authority of Congress or in the District that constitutes the seat of government, however such persons may serve as Electors for administrative boards within such a territory or district in a subsidiary district within which they reside that has a population of 50,000 or fewer
6. No person who is derives the majority of their income from sums allocated from the public treasury of a State or at the behest or allocation of the legislature of a State shall be eligible to serve as an Elector for any office in that State or in any component thereof, however they may be granted the right to serve as Electors for administrative boards in a subdistrict in which they reside that has a population of 50,000 or fewer
7. In all cases the determination of ineligibility under the above provisions shall be made for any person the majority of whose income came from a disqualifying source in either the year of said election or the preceding year
8. No person shall be eligible to hold any elective office that they are not eligible to serve as an Elector for
9 . Congress shall have the power to enforce this and every article by appropriate legislation.
#29 John Lynch—
The people who thought George Bush was the root of all evil wouldn’t know reality from a hole in the ground. Reality check–for them that would require a big change in the quality and quantity of the meds they’re taking.
Ah, the everlasting mistake of Europeans – thinking us Americans are just overfed Britishers with funny accents and cowboy hats. And guns. Can’t forget the guns.
There was a civil war here back in the mid-19th Century. You may have heard of it. Half the country went rebel and started shooting at the other half. Five years and five hundred thousand dead American soldiers later, the rebellion was put down and the leaders of the Confederacy captured.
Q: How many Confederate leaders were executed?
Short hours ago I resembled “The Elephant Man”
Through the wonders of high tech dentistry an impacted tooth split to the upper jawbone was yanked out in several pieces.
Yes, it is draining now nicely, thank you.
This is by way of explanation for the link mad fiend I have this evening become.
Off topic? Hell yes. But in a good way.(H/T SmallDeadAnimals)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrqIbJIHJOY&feature=player_embedded
hykgoml,
This is like Saturnalia day for you. Enjoy all the drugs, When I had my Wisdom out (which explains why I show none here) at OCS they pumped me full of valium and I did say to the Doc “I’m fine, you want to take anything else out?” Before I went in for my appointment I carried in a girl, and I never was Charles Atlas, who had an infection and made them treat her first. They were annoyed at a lowly OC telling them what to do but I stood my ground. They botched it too, I got a nasty infection. How I handled that actually worked out OK. Folks treated me better after.
Navy doctors were good but the dentists!
LOTM,
I’m a proponent of suspending the right to vote of people when they recieve income from the government (I’d even make it a strict zero limit – take a dime and you don’t vote), but I was talking about things to do immediately without engaging in the same overreach as Obama et al.
Constitutional ammendments (I’d add serious modification of the 16th to your list) are a huge potential tar pit. Assume they’ll take time and groundwork. Meanwhile, bust the purpleshirts. Oh, and defund ACORN.
JMH,
in the 1860 years, we did not executed war prisonners too
# 13 E. Nigma
At this time, it’s hard to predict what will really happen next fall in the polling booths. And that is frankly the only poll that really matters.
Truer words rarely spoken. However, we are dealing with people for whom it has been shown that the rule of law means absolutely nothing. Keep in mind that registration fraud is a massive Democrat funded [see ACORN] enterprise, and presumably vote fraud because otherwise why create all those false registrations [150,000 known false registrations accepted by the Democrat Secretary of State in Ohio in 2008 alone]? One has to wonder at what point the legitimacy of the vote count comes into question.
Having spent a fair amount of my career trying to figure out what was the truth behind the actions of various felons, witnesses, and victims [everybody lies sometimes]; I have learned that the first thing to look out for is when people suddenly start acting out of character. People are creatures of routine. They do not change those routines unless compelled to, or unless they believe that conditions have changed and a change is to their personal benefit.
I have been an observer [and activist] in politics since the 1960 election. I won’t reveal my age, but I started getting involved in politics young. Observing politicians gives a certain insight into their motivations. One of the prime motivations of politicians is self preservation in office.
They do not normally go out of their way to take a stand on anything for fear of angering blocs of voters. They will straddle any issue, talk out of four sides of their mouths [double talk on both sides], and watch polling religiously twisting in the breeze of public opinion. What do you call a politician who has consistent principles and who stands on them? Either a myth, or out of work.
Fear of repercussions at the polls over-rides all. While they may have contempt for us [and most politicians do], they do their best to conceal it behind a smile and fake concern.
Politicians acting out of character indicates a change in the rules, whether we know it or not.
This regime has upset me almost from the beginning. It began to cause grave concern when the Town Hall movement began. What did we see?
Democrats, Democrat party officials, and the government controlled media chose to deliberately insult and attack citizens who accepted what was in fact the invitations of the Congress-Critters to attend Town Hall meetings, and who dared to ask real questions and insist on answers. This was followed by the White House insisting that the Left “push back” against those citizens.
Shortly thereafter Democrat Congress-Critters started having ACORN and SEIU security forces at these events. Citizens were threatened, blocked out, and eventually physically assaulted. The assailants, it seems, have judicial immunity.
Here is where things really got out of character. If you were a member of the political elite who still had to face the voters, this turn of events would terrify you. You would be screaming bloody murder about how you were not responsible for any of it, and how you were not going to put up with thugs attacking your constituents.
Anybody hear anything like that? I sure did not, and in fact what transpired was that the Democrats circled the wagons and increased their insults and attacks.
By the way, this is not to praise the Republicans. If they had half a lick of sense, concern for the country, or even for their own skins; the Republicans would be screaming like ruptured Bann Sidh about the conduct of the Democrats as a corollary to their attacks on the substance of both Health Care Nationalization and Cap and Tax. Once again, only the sound of the chirping of crickets. Another anomaly. Are they stupid, cowards, or do they know something we don’t?
Following this, there was the 9/12 march on Washington. While the media and the White House tried to claim that it was only a few thousand, but old aerial photos published in the Washington Post of the Inauguration, and a contemporary one taken 9/12 showed that the 9/12 demonstration filled more of the Mall, plus blocks on each side. And there were a similar number at local demonstrations around the country. It was somewhere on the order of between 1 and 2 million in DC, plus locals events. The largest political demonstration in the history of the country, with participation by as many people as were in the country at the time of the Declaration of Independence, was deliberately ignored by the political elites.
Despite the huge hostile reaction, despite polling showing that Health Care Nationalization is NOT wanted by the population, they press ahead. They take the votes on weekends in a closed Capitol building. In the days leading up to the votes, they cut off phone communications with their offices. In Colorado, Senator Bennett literally had the telephone line to his Colorado Springs office disconnected so it could not be called by constituents.
Now there is a strong possibility that despite knowing that this is likely electoral suicide, knowing that it probably will finish off any hope that the economy will recover; that they are willing to publicly be seen as willing to pay off any Senator at any cost, pull any trick parliamentary maneuver, all to pass a bill [which they have not read, as with all major regime initiatives]. This bespeaks an arrogance worthy of the 1788 French nobility, a faith in a Socialist future worthy of a zampolit, or a sure and certain knowledge that they will never again be at risk of being held to account by the voters.
I will not doubt the arrogance, but at this level? Democrats are Leftists, but they hold faith in very little. “Ockham’s Razor” keeps popping up.
At this time, it’s hard to predict what will really happen next fall in the polling booths. And that is frankly the only poll that really matters.
Indeed. I would offer the thought that if they manhandle this 5 pounds of organic waste in a 4 pound container through; that the third option above is definitely something to be concerned about. IF the elections take place as scheduled, we should keep a quote attributed to Iosef Vissarionovich Djugashvili in mind:
“It’s not the people who vote that count. It’s the people who count the votes.”
Subotai Bahadur
Life of the Mind
Thank you
Rest assured I understand that correlation is not causation but I seemed to have hummed Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” far more times than I think is completely advisable.
It is my fervent contention that that is merely pure happenstance.
Oh look, its nap time.
peterike @ 30 said:
Actually, we do. I seem to remember it turned out rather badly for the Brits. And the Germans. And the Germans, again. And the Koreans.
EDS @ 33 said, in part re; Sen. Liebermann:
Go peddle your racist sh-te elsewhere. Get back under your bridge. [wretchard - Violation of comment terms on aisle 33.]
The Progressives and The Juan knew they had a one year bite at the apple to do as much “damage” as they could. Being a fairly smart political critter (not so much smart people, but…), pResident Pantywaist knew he had to get it done in that amount of time before he made his tack back to the center for 2010. Watch him tack over this next year. In fact he is already triangulating. See:
Obama’s surprising Nobel speech by Thomas Lifson @ American Thinker
The Won is going to run to the center so that the Progressives can retain Congress in 2010 then make another putsch for the radical Left side in 2011. Then back to the center for 2012 or the thing will be done by then and elections will have been suspended. I am going to be surprised if there are elections next year at all.
RagnarD,
A point of etiquette if I may. Some things should not be quoted as in doing so you perpetuate and expand the initial offense. Indeed that which should be expunged now includes your comment. In laying yourself open to deletion you would deprive us of the other parts of your commentary. It may be best to roll your eyes, count on the good judgement of your fellow members of the Club, and send a private word to our host or someone similar in authority.
LOTM – Point taken. It just really, really pi$$e$ me off these kinds of fools. One of my old (as in aged) friends was a SOLE survivor of her family of Auschwitz. The only one. She came from the Warsaw ghetto. I saw her tattoo. I have also spent a lot of time in Israel but am not a Jew.
Lieberman is a pretty good guy it seems. It may be he is trying to save the Dems from suicide.
I have a little more faith than Subotai “IF the elections take place as scheduled”. I really thought Bill Clinton would do something to get a third term. If the democrats monkey with the election schedule, I suspect that the people will finally realize that we are currently under the ‘Dictatorship of the Proletariat’ (ALL our regulatory agencies constitute the Proletariat) and it has gone from soft to hard. Under those circumstances our side may come to understand that their jobs are secondary to our total loss of freedom. If they do little or nothing, an old quote from Alexander Hamilton comes to mind. “A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one.”
Alexander Hamilton, Speech on 21 June 1788 urging ratification of the Constitution in New York
#38 Marie, I believe the Union did execute at least one Confederate prisoner. The commendant of Andersonvile prison I believe. We also executed several Nazis that landed in the US to blow things up.
Many good comments, but one thing bugs me.
Do many of you truly believe the DEMs or O are going to attempt to postpone elections to maintain power? How much power do you believe they have?
If they attempted this they’d get their butts handed to them on a silver platter.
So what will we see next: The long hibernation through the institutions?
Re 17:
>>Public Sector Unions (outlawed – you don’t need a union when you can vote for your boss)
Unfortunately, you’re wrong. Teachers NEED unions. The legal liability is just too high for a teacher to “go it alone”.
Fortunately, most teachers hate their necessary union as much as you do. The reason being that the union has figured out all the HAVE to provide is that liability coverage. They can take the rest of the teachers’ union dues and spend them on politics.
Teacher know they are abused by their unions, but need that liability coverage to keep from going bankrupt.
Here’s an off the cuff idea regarding their institutions.
a bill is offered allowing the MSM to be declared non-profits, or props them up in some other way. GOP promises not to filibuster if something that’s actually good is included in the bill. Bill passes.
Short term pain – the MSM now becomes the mouthpiece for the Democrats. Hah! How much worse could they get?
MSM immediately rearranges their finances to take advantage of their new found prosperity. Bonuses must be paid! Wasteful spending by the bucketfull.
GOP regains power, discovers that there are Constitutional issues, and rescinds the benefit. Many outlets collapse. A liberal institution is weakened tremendously.
Meanwhile, spending in upcoming budget is up 20% across the board for just about everything, save missile defense, not counting $300 billion and counting from stimulus.
Couldn’t spend $12 million to continue charter schools in DC, tho.
Poor black kids screwed by the Goldman and Sachs political booster club.
Job market worsens for recent college graduates
Unemployment among young adults is worse than the U.S. average. Little relief is in sight.
For 20- to 24-year-olds, the jobless rate rose four-tenths of a percent to 16% in November, even as unemployment nationally slipped to 10% from 10.2%.
“The Won is going to run to the center so that the Progressives can retain Congress in 2010.”
You should go and read some of the commentary this morning on sites like DU and Kos. Kos himself is now calling for the bill to be killed by progressives; he and the progressive caucus are deeming it a total sellout to the insurance industry. (it isn’t, but that’s the problem with getting so far out on the edge of an issue) Also, there are now public calls on most “progressive” sites to oppose any Senator who votes for this bill. Yes, crazy, isn’t it?
The real point is this – the Dems are already in trouble, since the right is energized. Any move back to the center will not possibly be enough to cool off their ardor, and yet also will serve only to demoralize the leftwing base even more. A move to the center could cause Obama’s numbers to drop into the 30′s, if not the 20′s, because the right won’t come back while the left would leave.
What a strategic genius! He and Harry Reid have managed to energize the right while at the same time demoralizing and enraging their entire base. And they’ve left themselves no avenues to walk back from this except admitting defeat, scrapping the project and starting over from scratch. Which they don’t have the nerve or the foresight to do.
Time for a Real Men of Genius commercial.
EDS, picking up the baton from C4 I see. Funny how the progressives are the first to highlight someone’s religon, race or what have you. First of all, Joe owes the Democrats not a whit of loyalty. It was they, not he, that stabbed him in the back. He is an (I), not a (D) Senator. He won his seat over both the Republican and Democrat candidates. Take away his chairmanship and he promptly walks over to the Republican aisle and the Senate goes to 59-41. 41 votes = all bills in the Senate are DOA that the Republicans decide to stop. Even Harry Reid isn’t that stupid. So continue gnash you teeth and beat your breast in vain. Joe is not about to help drive the country over a cliff. Despite his dual citzenship.
The dems are giving lieberman everything he wants and threatening ben nelson of nebraska with all kinds of cut offs of federal aid & government installations.
Doug,
Unemployment among young adults is worse than the U.S. average.
The Unemployment numbers are as cooked as the Global Warming numbers. The growing realization of that creates a synergy that feeds the accelerating moral bankruptcy and rejection of the Administration.
I have been officially unemployed for over a year, because I had a period of temporary employment I am ineligible for an extension of benefits that I would have received if I had simple stayed out of work. Things are now getting frankly very bad. There must be hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of people like me who are simply not being counted because they do not register for weekly benefits.
They are going to hire several million minorities in their 20s and 30s using the Stimulus slush funds. That will drive down the reported Unemployment numbers before the 2010 election. The real rates for young people, who are unemployable by the private sector, and for Caucasian males over 50 will be astronomical.
Also the four footed friend has had a relapse of his myelopathy and can no longer stand unaided.
To be blogged under the title “Cooked Books.”
Just as when shooting a flintlock weapon, following through is vitally critical in this political arena. We must not let any flash in the pan distract and alter our aim. Targets such as de-funding Acorn, removing RINOs and defending the Country must be acquired. Reload and engage the next target quickly.
Not sure it’s been mentioned yet, but the woman who runs the Leftist website FireDogLake is calling for Lieberman’s wife to be removed from her position with some international charity/aid group. Expect this to be the first of many retaliations.
I sure disagree with Joe-Mentum on several issues, but he has my sympathy these days. As Alger Hiss remarked to Whitaker Chambers, “Yes, Stalin plays for keeps, doesn’t he?” The more things change, the more they stay the same.
“Yes, the Left plays for keeps, don’t they?”
OT: Regarding the UN and global warming, the Copenhagen conference issued over 32,000 registrations to a center that can only hold 15,000. ’nuff said.
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/12/copenhagen-diaries—a-stagger.html
This makes no sense. Doctors have even worse liability problems, and they don’t need a union to procure insurance. And anyway, it’s using one leftist roadblock (lack or tort reform) to justify another roadblock (letting teacher’s unions control the public schools). Nobody NEEDS a union. I’m somewhat agnostic on private sector unions. A few reforms to make union membership 100% voluntary on the part of workers, give companies the choice of whether they want to negotiate with a union or not, and apply the same level of antitrust scrutiny to unions as to companies (e.g. if Ford and GM wanted to merge twenty years ago, the DOJ would have been screaming bloody murder, but the UAW is allowed to monopolize the labor market for auto workers?) and they’re fine.
But public sector unions are just bad news. Even when they’re not flat out politically corrupt like SEIU, they distort what ought to be public debate.
PS: regarding suspending elections. I have zero fear that Democrats will attempt to suspend or cancel elections. C’mon, that’s so early-20th Century. Even Saddam had elections. The danger is that Chicago style vote fraud will steal elections. THAT is a definite problem.
“Yes, the Left plays for keeps, don’t they?”
Hoodlums guarding the polling place, gangsters running the unions, traitors in the WH, thieves in Congress. It’s understandable and encouraged, as there are no penalties to temper their seditious behavior. Tanking the US economy during wartime is probably the most egregious act of treason that an enemy could inflict on US.
None dare call it treason…
They all get to retire on your nickel, if they unexpectedly lose their 2-term incumbancies. We’ve made it very easy for our enemies to play for keeps, and extremely difficult to reciprocate in-kind.
I really don’t see how things ever improve, without extreme prejudice applied widely – leads me to conclude that US becomes a single-party political system. That’s already a given for the Left. What does the conservative plan for the aftermath look like? This is where “playin for keeps” will determine the outcome, no matter who wins.
dtmack:
I think the issue is not how much they have but how much they WANT. The answer is ALL OF IT. All they can get their hands on. The actions of this regime have been nothing else but to consolidate more and more power in their hands according to the means of the Marxist revolutionary, which means economic power. Am I wrong? See: GM, Chrysler, banks, TARP, Porkulus, etc for verification. Heck, The Juan want to treat TARP & Porkulus as the biggest slush funds EVAH!
LOTM @ 54: I am in the same shape = old and in the way.
20. SpeakEasy:
Now is the time to steal their thunder. If the GOP would simply hold a press conference announcing a HEALTH INSURANCE reform bill that:
I add:
Forces CONGRESS to submit to the same health care plan as everyone else, stripping away the “Cadillac” plans they currently have…
—
If they will not suffer to eat ‘their own dog food’, then they should not be making dog food, nor prescribing what will be OUR dog food…
tom
EDS
Some of here in Connecticut view Senator Lieberman as a hero. The Lefties tried to unseat once and that has only made him stronger.
He has betrayed no one. It is his former party that has betrayed this country. Senator Lieberman has class and you, EDS, do not.
I agree with the thought that the GOP should get out front with a nice, tight, understandable health insurance reform package. It seems pretty obvious.
So, what does it tell you that they haven’t done so? That’s not a rhetorical question; I’m not sure what it (lack of such action)means but it has to mean something.
So, what does it tell you that they haven’t done so? That’s not a rhetorical question; I’m not sure what it (lack of such action)means but it has to mean something.
Wish I had the answer to that.
But I’ll rant a bit anyway.
For one thing, they don’t have MSM support.
For another, they don’t have any individual leaders who are any good at communicating.
Yet another, they are uncertain as to the dogma. Rush has spent all morning ranting about how the Republicans should not help the Democrats make this bill more palatable. Well, perhaps not, perhaps this bill is not salvagable. But the very idea that major changes of some kind might be beneficial and within the scope of reasonably limited government, gets lost in that shuffle, too. Which brings us back to the original point – what *should* be proposed, and how do we get it out front?
What should be done is some Republican leaders need to seek Democratic support for the Republican plans – but with Pelosi and Reid in charge, much less Obama, would any Democrat dare support a Republican plan? That Hideous Strength holds all of Tellus in its claw, … oh, sorry, slipped contexts there.
If one wants a politician’s support on something, it is best not to demonize him relentlessly. That is a key problem for the modern Left. When leftists demonize their opposition, they often find out that their target is no longer loyal to them on issues they care about down the road. Well imagine that!
If leftist Democrats had truly wanted Senator Lieberman’s help on health care reform, they should have thought of that back in 2006 when they basically booted him out of the party. Senator Lieberman’s constituency is centrist, so if he owes anything to anybody, he owes it to those who voted him into office to adhere to neither the Republicans nor the Democrats (and exasperate fanatics on both sides of the aisle). His behavior is completely predictable for any politician who has been treated the way he has by the Left.
Health insurance reform can still be done, but it would require a bipartisan approach that lets moderate senators save face. Good grief, if enough leftists had had half a brain, they would have accepted (and applauded) Nixon’s proposal thirty-five years ago, and they probably could have convinced George W. Bush to do something similar if they hadn’t gotten drunk in an orgy of Bush hatred that prefigured their later orgy of Obama worship. The fact is, many leftists are more interested in rubbing the noses of their opponents into the manure than they are in even getting their own reforms accomplished.
In my experience, leftist politics is often less about saving humanity and more about finding an altruistic pretext for being a jerk.
I predict that if Sarah Palin ever came up with a socialist health care plan, the Left would be vilifying her to the nth degree and her proposal wouldn’t get anywhere. As a rule, socialists will oppose any form of socialism that they can’t take credit for.
This is a paraphrase of what I’m sending to my rep and Senators:
Honorable ___________,
Several months ago my brother downloaded the proposed healthcare bill and began doggedly to read through it. From time to time, I’ve joined him in reading the original and various subsequent versions. What I’ve seen is that you don’t have to be any sort of genius to identify the process as deliberate dodging, overweening pride and plain spite. Over and over I’ve seen specific denials by government officials that plainly contradict the language in the official documents downloaded from the government printing office website. This is deliberate lying, or incompetence worthy of dismissal, if not prosecution.
Compared to this game of cups and balls, I’ve worked downwind from sweeter-smelling feed lots.
Please vote against this sweeping disfigurement of America’s healthcare system, standards, education and potential. This punitive imposition of a Gordian knot of civil service layers on U.S. healthcare, doctors, nurses, educators, administrators and patients is doomed to result in immense increases in expenses and anguish. For all the inequity and unfairness of the system as it is now, this haphazard rig of shackles promises to dwarf them with a jumble of contradictory regulations, taxes, rules, fees, secretariats, costs, organizational mazes, and more taxes.
This country would be served more competently by ten thousand troops of Boy Scouts with merit badges in first aid.
In addition, apart from specific legislation, I am deeply disturbed and sickened by the current leaders in the U.S. House and Senate. These crooks call me a NAZI and enemy of the poor for questioning their unchallenged wisdom. The more they try to sneak in their half-assed fascism by stifling debate and rescinding “Town Hall Meetings” or packing them with hand-selected thugs, or calling votes when their constituents are asleep, the more willing I am to give sweat and gold to any candidate who will kick their sorry butts out of elective office at the next ballot.
Representatives and Senators shouldn’t overestimate the evaporating patience of voters. Many of us were willing to give the new president and congress the benefit of the doubt. But incumbent misbehavior has turned citizen’s hope to disappointment, then to outrage and worse. The arrogance of current elected officials is likely to provoke a response in coming elections that will take away their toys with a vengeance.
DWB, regarding will they or won’t they: the thrill of “pulling it off again” might help tempt them to commit to exactly what Subotai has suggested. It’s the euphoria of it, as well as the fact that they’re running out of cover and time.
They have to know the backlash against them in 2010 will be strong. The patience of those first generation “progressives” isn’t apparent in this crop, I wonder if they’ll decide it’s time to go for broke in the whole game, just as they’ve done with the bailout and healthcare? Or will the old, time-biding heads prevail and count on fraud and gerrymandering to see them through the rough election waters on the horizon?
EDS doesn’t believe the words he’s spouting. He’s pretending anti-semitism to help ‘mark’ this site for being labeled as a haven of ‘right-wing bigots.’ I would advise Wretchard to delete EDS’s posts immediately. Then delete this post of mine.
Marty – “So, what does it tell you that they haven’t done so?”
I hope the reason the GOP doesn’t jump in is because they believe in free market principles to be flawed but considerably better than Marxism. Big medicine is all over DC and it is impossible to get anything passed without going to the doomsday plan. I don’t want my representative’s fine tuning a doomsday plan though I would like to see the interstate markets opened up. Portable health insurance would be good. There are a lot of free market answers to the problems and the least amount of government intervention is the best. Everything moving through congress has been a colossal piece of crap and the process has exposed Washington of being the sleaziest place in the nation and perhaps the world. I am personally appalled at the process of fashioning bills, how someone puts in a bill to help the veterans, then guts it and fills it full of high grade toxic garbage, then without revealing its contents have a midnight vote on it. I am not a constitutionalist but I am dumfounded that such things can be done without a hint of public hangings. I really can’t. Maybe we need to go back to the charter and figure out if the old constitution was good enough or whether there is a way to settle the matter without an all out civil war.
The barbarians are not longer at the gate.
Alexis – “In my experience, leftist politics is often less about saving humanity and more about finding an altruistic pretext for being a jerk.”
Very nice. Says quite a lot and it is hard to argue against.
LoTM,
Your suggested amendment looks good. I particularly like the income reportage mandate in #1 of the amendment: it confirms the civil servant’s subordinate relationship to the voters’ hiring authority. In fact, the psychological effects of this annual, verifiable ‘reality check’ may serve to reset civil servants’ attitudes as well as an outright ban on public employees’ unions.
Me, I’d still like to see them banned. But, I suppose we could keep that, what I call the ‘nucular option,’ off the table for later.
Let’s wait to see how the Federal employees unions handle the draw-down of our nation’s airport security measures now that the “War on Terror” is (supposedly) over. If they or their political proxies resist the personnel reductions and pay cuts that “peace” should predictably bring, then we may have to go ‘nucular.’
Which is a good segue to the man who held our nation’s security hostage to the federal employees unions after 9/11: Joe Lieberman. Above in this thread is a comment whose author surely regrets its publication (if he doesn’t yet, he should). Joe Lieberman attracts cat-calling, and sometimes it is deserved. He demonstrated a ‘greasy’ cat-like facility during the Clinton years (you could almost call him “slick”) that unfortunately tarnishes the sterling appearance of Principled Policy Pivot he’d like to sell us today.
I’m with Mark Steyn on the so-called health-care bill: the left’s goal is to pass something, then make a political game out of expanding it later. Despite his public advertisements in opposition to this or that aspect of the House’s “Reform” bill, and despite his cosmetic switching of party-affiliation, Joe is still doggedly helping the Reid Senate to pass the skeletal something it desires. So, just a caution: as we laud Joe for an apparently principled stand in support of the market-based health-care system, it’s important to watch your backs, too. He was Al Gore’s running mate in 2000 after all!
On the “Monkey Trap” Wretchard, you nailed the metaphor so well that I got a tingle up my spine when I read it.
Another trap metaphor that today’s political jungle calls to mind is the “Pigeon Trap.” An old cowboy whose family carved out a life during the fifties eating tumble-weed and stewing prairie dogs told me this one (his old Mum could cook anything). You make a 2-foot wide column out of 4-foot tall chicken wire, place it on solid ground, and sprinkle some grain inside the enclosure. Mourning doves, wood doves and pigeons are able to drop in vertically to land, but they can’t take off vertically. And all you gotta do is set the trap then sit back and watch it fill up. The more birds that fall into the trap, the more others try to join them.
The pigeon trap exploits two of the doves’ innate flaws: they hide in crowds, and, once spooked, they need a lot of elbow room if they’re to make a clean escape. And these same traits could be said to describe our “shock’n-awe” industry of media brands, their political clients, community organizations like ACORN and even bomb-throwing Islamicist terrorist groups like Hamas. So, if you were to bait a similar circular trap, say, with Nobel prizes, or with oil-properties in Kurdistan, or with a patronizing intelligence product concerning a crucial national security issue (like the most recent NIE), or with a ceremonial Presidency at some UN confab, or with an honorary degree from a Southwestern state university, or [...write in any attractant for the vain careerist civil servant], then I think that you’ll catch a flock of a different feather.
Lieberman has over the years proved himself to be more or less honorable to the nation, his heritage and his faith; he has also proved to be rather obtuse when it comes to understanding what the Democrat Party is actually about. It has taken him a long time to come around, but his current political affiliation attest to the fact that he is not completely a fool. One is reminded of Patrick Moynihan when one regards Lieberman. In the end Moynihan disappointed; one suspects that so shall Lieberman.
They are of a piece: Born and raised in the heady years of the New Dealer’s ascendancy, intellectual and expressive by nature, they were enthralled by the New Dealers’ lofty rhetoric and invigorated by the their false promise of towering, glittering possibilities. They will never recant of this. In the end they worship the state. In the end they are liberals–they are merely what we once called “honorable liberals”. But they were used by the left; they were rolled by the Marxists. It is doubtful that their honor was a ruse or self-serving, but does this matter much?
But the honor is not as pure as it could or should be: They well knew what was happening to their party but could not face it squarely in their own hearts, nor face the implications of their own statist beliefs in their own minds.
In this particular instance, Lieberman will stand for his principles and see the Democrat leadership meet those principles in the pending bill.
Then he will vote with them to get it out of committee and on the floor, vote it through, get it into conference and then the Democrats will put everything back in to the bill they promised old Joe that they would leave out.
Surely he knows this. Is he then in this case behaving honorably or not?
Delusion of the self is just as deceitful as any other sort.
In many ways, one is better off dealing with a known lying bastard than with the lying bastard’s apologist.
Among the leaders of Congress and this administration, it is not possible to find anyone I would trust to look out the window and honestly tell me “night” or “day.”
Annoy Mouse–
I guess I was trying for brevity and wasn’t clear–I was referring back to earlier comments (esp. SpeakEasy @ 20) about the GOP rolling out a package of simple, commonsense reforms that would be market-improving, like purchasing across state lines, equalized tax treatment, endorsing HSA’s, etc. NOT a big unwieldy counter-proposal that accepts the Democrat’s assumption that govt knows best and just tries to do it better, which seems to be what you assume I meant.
So, my question still stands, why have they not rolled out something like that? There is a bill, I believe, that they gave some attention to for about a day, like a month or 6 weeks ago, and then stopped.
Why are they not getting out in front on what should be a big issue for them? I can think of any number of possibilities, but don’t really know, and wonder what others may think.
I think Mongoose has nailed Lieberman.
Lieberman certainly is honorable, as politicians go, but that may be damning with faint praise.
Of course, the pols in Congress are all there because the voters put them there (well, except for Roland Burris)–they are the proven experts on how to get elected.
So, who’s fault is all this, really? Let me suggest, about 53% or so of the 2008 voters who pulled for Obama and the Dem candidates in their districts or states, when a result like this should have been obvious to anyone paying attention. And a special shout-out to those conservatives who stayed home because McCain wasn’t pure enough, esp the ones in Minnesota who gave us Franken instead of Coleman.
Mongoose,
I’m with you mostly, but I can’t forgive Lieberman for his role in filibustering the Bush/Cheney energy plan.
That was puerile partisan politics and he knew it. His rebukes of the administration’s plan were all petty process complaints, and not once did he substantively contest a single proposal from the commissioned plan.
This makes him a demagogue, not a democrat – that’s gonna be hard to live down, and we shouldn’t forget it.
I say, let’s watch Lieberman’s Senate cut the TSA union-rolls without complaint. His stance on that issue will reveal his real character. It’s the only way we’ll learn whose Lieberman, America’s one or the international unions’ one, it is that we’re really dealing with.
Marty, at first glance I thought your retaliatory plan made sense for the GOP: the timing is right, and the message fits well.
But then I thought twice.
I think the GOP smartly hasn’t offered up a plan (although they have floated some tenets of a “plan”) because polls show that Americans are generally satisfied with their health care options. Furthermore, if the GOP were to offer up “a plan,”then this could be construed as Republicans’ de facto acknowledgment of the Democrat’s fictional rationale for legislating health-care in the first place. Which would only make it harder for a GOP Senator to debate the nation’s general funding priorities outside of that rationale at a later date.
To sum up my point in a question: Why should the GOP yield rhetorical and tactical high-ground in a legislative debate that the party appears to be winning by degrees?
That’s my guess as to why they haven’t taken your suggestion, Marty.
LOTM @ #54:
I am saddened to hear of your “four-legged friend’s” plight. I’ve been through similar circumstances several times and I know that it is like being stabbed in the heart. Our veterinarian commented that the only fair solution would be that we would get a dog at birth and it would live exactly as long as we did. Take care of your friend.
NP
Places to Hide:
Those have been under attack to a greater and greater degree. FIRE, the internet blogs, talk radio, have all been biting the educational hides. Local news even high lights the excesses of “Zero Tolerance” and other follys. More and more attacks on the tenure system being a large fail when it comes to “academic freedom”. MSM jobs availability shrinking. The left depended on the robust Western economy as much as anyone to exists. Now through their efforts it is going away. There will be less and less tolerance for non-productive drones when there are so many people willing to actually work for a living. Trends up and trends down do not always function in a linear manner. The downfall could well be exponential.
And the French were so kind and gentle to the Algerians and the Vietnamese prisoners.
And the French were so kind and gentle to the Algerians and the Vietnamese prisoners.
the reverse is also true, but even harder, some were rost on BBQ with their dick into their mouth
I happen to know that the Viets weren’t even more charming to the american prisonners than to the french’s
LOTM, sorry to hear that, I have an elderly dog too, my heart goes out to you.
In terms of power, I think the other shoe is yet to drop, and that shoe is immigration “reform.” If the Dems can legalize 20 or 30 million persons-of-unlawful-origin, then it’s game over. The invaders know full well who fills the trough they get to feed in, and they’ll line up dutifully to vote for the bosses.
I think that’s the battle that will happen early next year.
LOTM —
Fellow dog-lover here. Have you ever seen the clip of Jimmy Stewart reading a poem about his dog “Beau?” Get out your handkerchief.
# 46 dtmack
Do many of you truly believe the DEMs or O are going to attempt to postpone elections to maintain power? How much power do you believe they have?
It is less a matter of faith type belief, than a process of watching them systematically remove every other option to political suicide. Once all impossible explanations are removed, whatever remains, however improbable, is the likely explanation.
First let us deal with Barack Hussein Obama. There is nothing in his actions as far as he is known; politically, avocationally, or in his life history [what little that we have been allowed to see filtered by the state and its controlled media] that would indicate that he has any love, affection, or respect for this country, its Constitution, its laws, or its people. It is the respect for agreed precedent, due process, and proper form that separates politics in any non-tyranny from the Realpolitic that ends with Nights of Long Knives. There is nothing to indicate that any such respect exists, or that there is any countervailing fear of physical consequences that would restrain him.
Moving from colloquial English more towards terms of art within the field of Political Science; all political systems in whatever society ultimately rest upon the application of the coercive power [including death] of either the state or factions within. Every political system is a way of moderating and limiting the use of that coercive power in a way that is acceptable that society. That means can be as oligopolistic and murderous as either the Eastern or Western Roman Empires, as centered on an all-powerful god-king as the ancient Egyptians, or as essentially self controlling as the Swiss Confederation. It is the acceptance of whatever means and mores that evolve for that society, passed on through the generations via the process of socialization into the culture [nothing to do with Marx, it is a term of art] that creates legitimacy for whatever political system. If factions within a body politic do not accept those means and mores [can you say for instance "Bourgeoise sentimentality" or "opiate of the masses"] their actions are not bound by those means and mores, nor will they be constrained by the rules of the political system absent a literal fear of the coercive power of the state or other factions. To depend on hostile factions to act only within that system after they have demonstrated that they do not believe in it; simply because you yourself believe in the system with all your heart, is folly and perhaps a fatal folly.
I think it can be said that in every society where a change in the political system was imposed by an insurgent faction out to change it to their exclusive benefit; their plans and goals were evident to those who were observant and ignored by the wider society until it was too late.
Moving on to the Democrats and other Leftists in appointed and elected positions [I personally do not believe in the existence anymore of the now extinct "Conservative Democrat". Joe Lieberman is perhaps a near relative of one, but he is essentially a Liberal, and differs from his former party in that he does not hate this country as the rest of the Democrats do. Thus, he was purged. "Moderate Democrats" or "Blue Dogs" are simply Leftists who are more skilled at lying at home, while reliably voting hard Left at every opportunity.] you have to realize that people do not act irrationally from their own perspective. Their reasoning may be irrational, or fantasy, to outsiders; but they have an internally coherent set of reasons [ideology] for what they do. The more people acting the same way, however irrational to the main population, the more likely that they share that ideology, and the stronger it is in the group.
It is a given that amongst the Nomenklatura of any political system, the maintenance of power is the first goal, akin to and frequently in some systems interelated to self preservation in the individual. There is no indication at all that the political establishment of this country [regardless of faction or party] is subject to fits of idealism, self-sacrifice, or what we could call patriotism. They are in it for personal power and wealth. No one who goes to an elected or appointed position in our Federal government comes out anything but rich [even if indicted] and usually powerful, even after leaving office.
The Democrats and other Leftists in office have not deviated from this, and have not demonstrated any inclination to yield power or commit political suicide for principle. Indeed, they have tightened their sole grip on power by means both technically legal [barring the Republicans from committee meetings in the House, and not allowing them to offer amendments to bills] and extra-legal and extra-constitutional [governing by a literal horde of appointed "Czars" not subject to confirmation, election, or judicial review].
They do not intend to lose power, and indeed are expanding their power. Simultaneously, if the law and Constitution are followed, they will have to answer for their actions to the voters in 2010 and 2012. If the law and Constitution are followed, if they continue to [several phrases come to mind, but even in Chinese they would break the house rules]; they can literally lose everything in an honest election. There is an impasse here.
Consider:
They turned the bank bailout and “Stimulus” into a slush fund for their supporters, over the objection of most of the voters.
They took over two of the three American auto companies with government funds, overturning a century of commercial law to literally steal the money of all stockholders and bondholders. The only ones to benefit have been the Unions who kick back part of the money to Democrats, and the government.
They are pushing “Cap and Tax” in the name of environmental purity; literally outlawing most forms of power generation in this country unless extortionate taxes are paid to the government and of course passed on to all consumers. This was passed very much over the objection of the people in the House, and stalled in the Senate when it was revealed that the “scientific research” on Global Warming, Climate Change, or whatever buzzword they are using today was based on a very limited amount of cherry picked faulty data, and that was further altered and faked for years. The response of the Democrats in power has been to impose the power to tax and regulate the same things by decree without a vote.
They are presiding over the absolute destruction of the American economy, with taxes guaranteed to rise, unemployment at 10% officially after the figures have been massaged and the U6 number that comes closest to the real unemployment rate is well north of 17% and maybe according to some calculations over 20%. In some parts of the country, the unemployment rate is 30%, and those areas happen to coincide with decades of Democrat controlled government. [Note, California has a governor who is technically a Republican, but he is a RINO at best, and the legislature has been over 50% Democrat in both houses for over a political generation].
There are no indications, outside of whatever the Democrats and media are smoking, that things will get better any time before November 2010; and every indication that after the first of the year there will be a tsunami of bankruptcies and layoffs.
Spending and appropriations have gone through the roof by deficit spending. Keeping in mind that Democrats have controlled both houses of Congress since the 2006 elections and thus controlled all spending; the deficit in the fiscal year that just ended in October set a record. The first two months of this fiscal year, has already beaten that record.
This spending is done by functionally printing more money with nothing real to back it. The Treasury issues bonds [Treasury Notes = promises to pay later]. The Federal Reserve “buys” those bonds on paper. They then use the bonds [promises to pay later] as collateral backing the issuance of several times the amount of the bonds. More dollars chasing fewer goods [as the economy collapses] = massive inflation once we hit the tipping point. Inflation destroys the savings, wages, and value of the property of the people.
Of the spending done with deficits, almost none of it is being used as claimed to “fix” the problems it was supposedly aimed at. Banks are not having their bad mortgages cleared, people are still getting foreclosed on, the jobs projects have not occurred, and in fact the money has been used to pay for local and state government to fill the holes in their budgets. The only jobs created are government jobs. Literally the only growing part of our labor force is government, even in states that are broke. It is noteworthy that Federal government employment has skyrocketed and it was released yesterday that the average wage of Federal employees is $71,000 with an increase by at least an order of magnitude in the number of Federal employees making over $100,000 a year.
In the midst of this, the Democrats in Congress have, once again literally, met the overwhelming and legal opposition of the people with insults, avoidance, and at times thug violence.
Now they are going to pass a Health Care Nationalization by hook or by crook. The terms that have escaped indicate that there will be massive cuts in healthcare available to the elderly. The commercials promise unicorns and skittles. The reality is that it is almost all paid for by cutting funding for medicare, imposing global lifetime limits on individual health care, imposing annual global budgets for each procedure that mean if the budget runs out that year patients will not get the operation until next fiscal year if at all, and by cutting diagnostic tests and early detection. Yes, they promise money savings and increased quality of care by more early detection; but they have announced new guidelines that cut the number of mammograms and pap smears. They specifically cut the number most in the age group of women where most breast cancers are detected [40-50].
Oh, and the increased taxes for it kick in immediately while the care won’t start for a couple of years. What are the odds that the tax collections won’t be spent on other things?
This will be passed, once again over the objections of the people; by what will be a party line vote, on a weekend, in blatant defiance of what people want. And like all the hallmark bills since January, it will be voted on without having been read.
In all cases, the public polls show massive opposition to the actions of Congress and to the specific programs Obama is pushing. These are massaged before release. The real, private polls commissioned by the politicians have to show worse. And still they do it.
Throughout it all; they are funding a nationwide group whose sole functions are vote fraud, mortgage fraud, tax fraud, and of late child prostitution. Said group is supported and protected by elected and appointed Democrats at all levels.
As I said, we have an impasse. The Left has no intention of giving up power. But they act consistently and almost unanimously in ways that leaving me biting my tongue to find ways of describing it in this forum, and actively infuriating huge swathes of the American people. If there are honest elections a whole bunch of them are going to lose power, quite possibly enough to take them out of control of the government.
Politicians in a group when they act consistently and anomalously against what would seem to be their own interests, are usually operating on information not available to anyone else. One also has to add to the mix the question why the Republicans as a party are only offering token opposition to the Democrats, when standing up would rally support to them? What do they know?
When you rule out the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, has to be considered. The only thing that remains, that I can see, is that no matter what they do, they no longer have any fear of facing the voters in an honest election. The specific mechanisms and basis for that confidence have yet to be determined. If anyone has a convincing alternative explanation that fits the data; I would gladly entertain it. I really would like to be able to accept an alternative that bodes better for our country, our Constitution, and the future of my children.
How much power do you believe they have?
As far as the amount of power that they think they have … I will note that through at least the 1970′s, and perhaps later as I do not have the figures at hand, the most common way that governments changed hands worldwide was by coup d’etat of one form or another. Yet even as a field of political science, it is rarely studied. I have done a bit in the field. I offer to you and to all BC-ers the book “Coup d’etat: A Practical Handbook” by noted political scientist and historian Edward Luttwak.
* ISBN-13: 9780674175471
* ISBN: 0674175476
available through retail booksellers and used book websites.
After reading about the mechanisms of various forms of coup, and the vulnerabilities in a body politic that can be exploited; you might be less confident as to the ability of our current society to prevent such an attempt, by electoral or other means.
As to whether such could be resisted and eventually turned back, I will leave to all to ponder.
I apologise for the length of this, but I wanted to lay out the reasons that, by their own actions, the Democrats have moved the possibility of their committing further extra-constitutional action from being beyond the Pale, to being something that must be seriously considered.
Our host, Wretchard, has more practical experience of dealing first hand with a tyranny masquerading as a constitutional democracy. I humbly request his input on the matter under question.
Subotai Bahadur
Peterike
That is the game, that is why they are so arrogant; that s why they are so dismissive if us.
I expect that will go through, and when it oes you will see civil unrest, and a crack down.
I think the whole thing will go through: cap and trade, card check, amnesty, If they get away with the health care bill there will be no stopping them. That huge 912 march, the huge polling against this now. THEY DO NOT CARE. SB is right about hs fears, if you ask me. There is no other explanation.
We are in a different world now. it is hard work not to despair.
It is a well plan assault, and the most deadly in our history.
2/5 of the nation is not even aware it is happening; 1/5 is scared for their lives ad 1/5 is cheering it on.
You have to hand it to them. They are expert looters and destroyers. As evil as Satan himself, but geniuses at chaos and destruction.
I fear Subotai is right, it is not so much the vote that counts, but its reported outcome. More difficult to cook the results with Acorn (momentarily) de-funded and under scrutiny, but it will be done. They have amassed and are continuing to amass huge slush funds, often with taxpayer dollars, to do just that. For example: http://wp.me/piCpQ-59. The House just passed the nationalization of the finance sector last Friday. Nary a word in the MSM about the former, precious little about the latter.
Thank you friends.
They were surprised by the Tea Party movement, they were surprised that it didn’t go away after a few dismissive statements. If they resort to force will they get surprised again?
I just love how Europeans apply a double standard to US behavior. The US are barbarians, they are however “justified.”
What will they do if they have to deal with a Jacksonian US government that really hates their guts. “Hey Vladimir, Let’s make a deal, You can have Western Europe and We’ll get Eastern Europe and we’ll swap back in 100 years.”
Subotai 84: Excellent disquisition, fully agree. All this was foreseeable in the utterly false accusations made of the Bush administration. Those accusations were and are their agenda.
My favorite poem about a dog. I lost my lovely standard poodle not long ago.
The House Dog’s Grave (Haig, an English bulldog)
I’ve changed my ways a little; I cannot now
Run with you in the evenings along the shore,
Except in a kind of dream; and you, if you dream a moment,
You see me there.
So leave awhile the paw-marks on the front door
Where I used to scratch to go out or in,
And you’d soon open; leave on the kitchen floor
The marks of my drinking-pan.
I cannot lie by your fire as I used to do
On the warm stone,
Nor at the foot of your bed; no, all the night through
I lie alone.
But your kind thought has laid me less than six feet
Outside your window where firelight so often plays,
And where you sit to read–and I fear often grieving for me–
Every night your lamplight lies on my place.
You, man and woman, live so long, it is hard
To think of you ever dying
A little dog would get tired, living so long.
I hope than when you are lying
Under the ground like me your lives will appear
As good and joyful as mine.
No, dear, that’s too much hope: you are not so well cared for
As I have been.
And never have known the passionate undivided
Fidelities that I knew.
Your minds are perhaps too active, too many-sided. . . .
But to me you were true.
You were never masters, but friends. I was your friend.
I loved you well, and was loved. Deep love endures
To the end and far past the end. If this is my end,
I am not lonely. I am not afraid. I am still yours.
– Robinson Jeffers, 1941
Well there is now some debate as to whether or not Byron actually penned the well known Ode to a Dog, but it matters little. To me it captured the matter perfectly:
Near this Spot
are deposited the Remains of one
who possessed Beauty without Vanity,
Strength without Insolence,
Courage without Ferocity,
and all the Virtues of Man without his Vices.
This praise, which would be unmeaning Flattery
if inscribed over human Ashes,
is but a just tribute to the Memory of
BOATSWAIN, a DOG,
who was born in Newfoundland May 1803,
and died at Newstead Nov.r 18th, 1808.
Poor Boatswain lived not long, but left his mark.
I will tell you that in one of our military bases, in a section of it where the very most elite of our men train, there is a plaque to a dog that served in a Unit during ww2 and died in combat.
The plaque give his name and rank, which I will omit here,
and underneath is a simple motto:
He made better dogs of all of us.
#84 – Subotai Bahadur – your recital and analysis, while painful, appear accurate.
LifeoftheMind – my sympathy and empathy, both for your dog and for your employment situation.
“Hey Vladimir, Let’s make a deal, You can have Western Europe and We’ll get Eastern Europe and we’ll swap back in 100 years.”
uh Toad (crapaud), good luck if you can manage the Poles,
actually things are returning to what they were in 19th century
UK, France Germany Russia,
followed by Italy and spain !
so let start the alliances, it was more fun then !
Greyfriars Bobby
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPWBi_kM8tI
Life of the Mind
I have known this quote in one form or another since the late 1950′s, when, as a family, my father would take us down, on a warm summer’s evening, to the air force base close by in our neighbourhood in Point Grey, Vancouver to watch the Tattoo on the parade ground.
“Fight on my men,
I am hurt, but I am not slain
I’ll lay me down to bleed awhile
And then I’ll rise and fight again”
(from)The Ballad of Sir Andrew Barton
-John Dryden (1670)
MC,
UK, France Germany Russia,
followed by Italy and spain !
That worked out so well last time.
Subotai Bahdur,
Well done. To add a condiment to your superb steak would be wrong but perhaps a little Weber for spice would be nice. Complex societies are held together by Organic Solidarity. Elites within the West have fallen into the what Julien Benda in 1927 called “La trahison des Clercs”, they no longer believe in the values of the society that sustains them. They are asocialized socialists vulnerable to totalitarian enthusiasms from any direction. Also they do believe that they control sufficient institutions and levers of power that they have no fear of being controlled or compelled to conform during a reversion to Mechanical Solidarity.
In America the break between the elites and the community became obvious during Vietnam. As David Halberstam perhaps unintentionally makes clear in The Best and the Brightest the Ivy League elites, who had lead the North American English speaking community for 300 years, brought us into Vietnam but then decided that Lyndon Baines Johnson was just to uncouth to do business with. The rebellion was lead by Robert Kennedy, who was raised in a nest of vipers and who combined the oily charm of Barack Obama with the thuggishness of Rahm Emanuel. The surprise was that his brother Jack, who was not expected to reach high office, did show some affection for the country and the nation’s security.
Mongoose,
It was a joy to watch Pat Moynihan and Jesse Helms work together. They had fun playing off each other and the country was better for it. I would add Scoop Jackson to the dynasty of loyal Democrats.
We need a thread on why Democrats are Cat People and Republicans are Dog People, although I know the virtues of both.
My favorite prayer, Oh Lord, make me the man my dog thinks that I am.
In San Francisco at The Presidio there is a pet cemetery down the road from the National Cemetery, under the expressway.
To be blogged under the title “La trahison des Clercs.”
I remember a comedian who once said that Dogs are like children who never grow up. They are always happy when you return again. It is like a happy surprise.
While I’m allergic to cats, I think it is a disservice to them to associate them with Democrats. They are useful in keeping down the rodent population and do show streaks of independence. My sister-in-law on her house cat, ” I wish she wouldn’t keep showing me the mice, rats, and roaches that she catches.”
LOTM: You can tell a lot about a person by their friends.
Subotai & Others: Just remember that the US ammunition manufacturing capacity is 8 to 10 BILLION rounds per year. And that does not count imported sources. (I have only been able to find affordable .223 REM in Russian makes for a long time.) Try finding the stuff on the shelves of your local sporting goods store. It has only become more available recently in popular calibers.
It is going to be an interesting year, 2010.
Subotai
Thanks for your answer. Many good points, and I agree that we’re in for some very rough times ahead.
But I just have a different perspective on the actions that are being taken. They may be doing these things because they have no fear, but why is that?
It could be because they envision some type of coup that will maintain their power. If so, I think they’ll be very disappointed. I live in the belly of the beast (Maryland). The majority here believe a lot of strange things, but I doubt many would support cancelling the elections, or anything like that.
When you live around a bunch of Dem supporters you find, or at least I do, that most are not fire breathing radicals that want to totally transform this Country. They’re mostly people who are fed the “right ideas”, the ones that are socially acceptable, and tailor their beliefs accordingly, whether those ideas are grounded in reality or not. The vast majority of them love this Country, although they may have some unusual ideas about it.
What would the military do if a coup was attempted, especially by this bunch? Without their support, these are just a bunch of community organizers, union thugs, and college professors. Someone is buying up all the ammunition that the gun dealers can’t seem to keep in stock. Are these people going to sit on their hands if a coup was attempted?
I think the most likely explanation for O’s and DEM politicians actions is simply that they are isolated from the rest of the Country. The media parrots their philosophy, and they only speak to other like minded people. So “everyone knows” one thing or the other, regardless of the actual absurdity of their position. They commission polls that support their views, and draw strength from the “support”. This is why they occasionally say something that would be perfectly legitimate in their circles, and then are astonished when the vast majority of the Country takes offense. Obamas clingers comment or the Gates thing are perfect examples.
In other words, I think they have no fear because they’re insulated, basically clueless people, and they’ve convinced themselves that their opposition is just an ignorant rabble. This is a supreme weakness they have, and I hope we get some leadership on our side that knows how to take advantage of it.
On my side of the aisle we have the exact opposite problem. All of our ideas are ridiculed as the musings of knuckle dragging, racist Neanderthals. So we don’t have an overconfidence problem, but just the opposite. I think that’s a stronger position to be in: having illusions about your enemy is a dangerous thing, especially if those illusions tend to make you underestimate them.
you may believe that I’m doing that exact thing here, but I don’t think so. I hope I’m right.
There won’t be any attempted coup. The real problem is that our side has few real leaders, and most of the supposed leaders are more than happy with the way things are. Oh, except for one thing: they want to be the ones doling out the money and wielding the power.
I’ll be reading the books you recommend – sound very interesting to me.
I said above that the humanity of the past, more precisely the humanity of Europe in the Middle Ages, with the values imposed upon it by the “clerks,” acted ill but honored the good. from “la trahison des clercs”
isn’t it precisely that conducted Germany to promote race purety ?
LOTM, I was talking of 19th century, but if 20th century had to be replayed, then you would have another occasion to rewrite your legend of the Dday heros
when the above sentence had achieved its premises
But in 1870 it was a falsh message “la dépêche d’Elms” which upsetted the French, today it wouldn’t be possible to decleare a war with only such a motive.
Also 1914, the motives would be differently analysed !
Nowadays, it’s rather benefitful to own richnesses and companies through finances Wall Street and London City than to conquer them with arms
In America the break between the elites and the community became obvious during Vietnam.
isn’t it “funny” that our continent has almos 50 years in advance to promote “ideologies”, while yours had up to the last decades 50 years in advance to promote merchandises, not anymore I am afraid, Asia replaced you
Subotai — You laid out a terrific brief for something we all hope won’t happen — well done.
You also wrote, “If anyone has a convincing alternative explanation that fits the data; I would gladly entertain it.”
My alternative is that the Dems simply see no threat to their power from their political opponents. The Republican establishment is ineffectual, weak, and, as you noted, probably interested only in sharing the spoils.
The Tea Party movement (of which I’m a part), though passionate, at this point looks like it will merely split the GOP and conservative vote. Unless these factions unite, the Dems have no serious challenge.
Ergo, look for the media and Left to try to drive these groups further apart.
where “la trahison des clercs” went on the discussions board too :
http://comments.americanthinker.com/read/42323/286654/287214.html#msg-287214
Subotai,
Brevity is the enemy of clarity. You might wish to place your list of Democrat misbehavior, malfeasance and theft in the context of “during wartime” to emphasize just how seditious it has been and looks to continue to be, til we lose.
Diverting funds from the war effort solely for graft, pork and payoffs, plus outright sabotage of the industrial base ought to qualify for prosecution. Clearly, they’ve knowingly violated their oath. And knowingly or as a fellow travelers, they’ve acted as if directed by our enemies. If we can’t go to court for this, then what?
dtmack,
Who will your neighbors support when the battle is truly joined? The leadership of the Left will be doin their “move along, nothing to see here” routine, just as they did for Waco and Ruby Ridge, so will your neighbors believe their lying eyes and do nothing, or will they support the insurgenecy?
LOTM… I’m so sorry, peace and strength be with you. I can’t recall the title of the Robin Williams movie but I am still cheered when I think of how his dog was the first to greet him after he passed. Kipling called the dog our First Friend.
On cats, I agree with not equating them to Dems. Mark Twain said the cat “is the one being who will never submit to the lash”. The progressives deserve no such praise, even by remote association.
LFMayor – What Dreams May Come.
Still one of my all time faves, you don’t have to agree with all of the underlaying philosophy to appreciate what a beautiful and sensitive movie it was. I’ve always been a fan of Richard Matheson’s writing, and this script was the pinnacle of his career.
LFMayor: Yes I remember that scene too. It really moved me. My very first dog looked just like that dog too.
That would be what i would want. That would be heaven to me.
In response to Subotai, #84, in which you asked for other possible explanations of what we have seen:
You have failed to consider that we may have reached the state in our culture where an Elagabulus can become Imperator. He did rise as the result of one families plotting, but not as the result of some great conspiracy. The fact that someone with as little skill and credentials as he had could rise to such a high postion was a failure of all.
Elagabulus also tried to replace the citizen’s ideas of morality with his own, and he also believed that he was going to get away with it, right up until the rather bitter end.
“So he made an attempt to flee, and would have got away somewhere by being placed in a chest, had he not been discovered and slain, at the age of 18. His mother, who embraced him and clung tightly to him, perished with him; their heads were cut off and their bodies, after being stripped naked, were first dragged all over the city, and then the mother’s body was cast aside somewhere or other, while his was thrown into the river.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elagabalus
#99 dtmack
I hope that you are right but I fear that you are too optimistic. Some of the things you mention are true, or may be true, but I do not view them as being necessarily determinative.
The seizure of power in a state is not like something out of a Sergei Eisenstein movie. It is a series of carefully crafted moves, akin to the Japanese game of Go</em. It is said that Go relates to Western chess the same way that metaphysics relates to double-entry accounting. In Go, the placement of a single stone can frustrate the plans of your opponent, capturing a large amount of territory and a number of his stones. One may alternately, perhaps, think of the art of a coup as political Aikido, if you are involved in martial arts.
First, you have the difference between being inside the government, or being outside. Being outside the government does not apply to the cases we can consider, because they already have the levers of power.
Without going too much into the details of the scenarios in Luttwak’s book [Possession of which may someday constitute "Thoughtcrime". I was a freshman in college when I read the first edition.], the key in all types of scenario’s is to choose the chokepoints of the system and have your people acting to paralyse any who would oppose. If military units are ordered to remain in barracks by the right place in the chain of command, the odds are good they will do so for the 24-48 hours it will take to make the coup hold. If you have your people at the media [and in the case of Buraq Hussein Obama, his people ARE the media] you can spin whatever story you want to keep the civilian population quiet for that critical period. You need to seize immediate control of key points, political and economic, and you need to remove any obvious persons who could be a center of an opposition.
While there are others that could be in play; there are three variants that are in the heads of a lot of people concerned with the situation.
For the first scenario, remember that those we are concerned with already have control of the coercive organs of state power. Further remember that all of our political establishment considers itself above conventional morality, and the Left even more so. I already discussed in an earlier posting the dangers posed to a political system by factions who do not believe in the mores that limit the exercise of coercive power in a political system.
In addition to the official government agencies, the Democrats have ACORN [admittedly you would not want to use them for any task requiring precision or attention to detail], the strong-arm elements of various unions [especially the SEIU and UAW], and Organizing For America [which was his youth campaign organization that still exists and is now in part government funded through AmeriCorps. They seem to be involved in both street actions and in online activities, both legal such as trolling, and I believe less than legal hacking and disruption of alternate media sites and discussions.]
American history has turned on untimely deaths before. I reference the year 1968, Anno Irae, when our politics were shaped by a series of shootings. Wet work is far more sophisticated today.
The real problem is that our side has few real leaders, and most of the supposed leaders are more than happy with the way things are.
Note that their political tactics already center on the personal distruction of anyone who can be singled out as a leader of the opposition. It has become such a standard tactic, that they are baffled by the TEA Party movement, because it is in fact a grass roots movement that has no leaders. It is telling that the official Republican leadership, and the Republican party as a whole, is apparently not considered to be a threat worthy of the same attention. Something to think about.
The real leaders of the opposition do not hold formal positions of leadership, but rather are what they are. And they are very few in number. If over a period of time there were less than half a dozen “tragic accidents” or even one or two open attacks that could be blamed on “Right Wing Terrorists”, remembering that the government controls the investigations and the reporting of them; what effective opposition would there be to the Democrats in any election? Especially if the vote count is already partially adjusted by ACORN. The opposition to the regime would be demoralized. Your “vast majority who love this country, albeit with unusual ideas” would lap up the media’s spin on the events and would be cheering the deaths. The Oathkeepers would not be triggered to react.
Scenario Two: There is a host of “Emergency Powers” already on the books for the President to declare states of emergency based on a number of situations; military, economic, transportation, manufacturing, world trade, terrorism, internal security etc. that were granted by Congress during the Cold War and afterwards. Under those states of emergency, the president can functionally rule by decree and have it ratified by Congress later. Those emergency powers were always a two-edged sword; necessary for continuity of government if things were disrupted; but dangerous in the hands of someone whose love of the Constitution is so small that it cannot be detected with a scanning electron microscope. The assumption at the time was that if someone abused those powers, that there would be an opposition in Congress to balance him. Can you see anyone in Congress standing up to Buraq Hussein Obama? Of either party?
Your neighbors and their ovine cousins around the country would rally around the President in the time of “Emergency”, and if certain people disappeared during that time or in the aftermath, it would not be noted. And once again, the Oathkeepers would remain in barracks.
The regime does not need to pass a Gesetz zur Behebung der Not von Volk und Reich ["Law to Remedy the Distress of the People and the Nation"], as it already functionally exists, scattered through the US Code. In a thread after this one, “Waiting”, Wretchard opened a discussion of the various evil events that are barrelling down upon us. Any one of them could be used as a trigger. I think that Wretchard is an optimist as he gives two years as a timeline.
Scenario Three: Outright election fraud. This in a way is the most risky variant. Pretty much everybody in the patriotic opposition realizes that the Democrats have been engaged in vote fraud for decades, and that all restraint is now off. The last election was proof, if nothing else.
ACORN has been submitting false registrations nationwide for decades. They have been caught at it repeatedly. And for every false registration caught, how many have gotten through? Keep in mind that it is a violation of the PC rules to seriously look at the validity of votes and voter registrations. Under the Moter Voter Act, those registrations are easily inserted into the system, and are almost impossible to remove. Most states do not require ID to vote. For those who do, all you have to do is send in a request for a mail in absentee ballot. In the last election cycle, in Ohio, they caught ACORN inserting 150,000 false registrations. They admitted that they were not real. IF they were to be accepted [which they should not have been], they should have been sent to the County Clerks under Federal law as “Provisional Ballots” which would have allowed the person named to vote, but would not have counted the votes until the voter provided proof that he/she was the person legally registered. The Democrat Secretary of State ordered the registrations sent to the County Clerks as valid registrations, mixed in with the rest of the polling lists. Interestingly enough, in the legal action that followed, the Democrat appointed Federal judges ruled that no one, neither citizens, candidates, or the Republican party had standing to file suit over the validity of the registrations.
Vote fraud is endemic. Every few years, a story escapes into the media about a Democrat official whose home is the registered address of hundreds or thousands of absentee voters; who are either non-existent or illegal aliens. No action is taken, and the votes are counted.
Somehow, in every closely contested election of import, the Democrats [and only the Democrats] “find” cases of voted paper ballots long after the polls have been closed. Why, in the name of any random half dozen of the “Nine Billion Names of God” are there cases of paper ballots in the garages, closets, cars, and attics of Democrat election officials? And why, since there is supposed to be the equivalent of the criminal justice “chain of custody” for evidence that follows paper ballots, are they routinely allowed to be counted until enough are found to give a Democrat the victory?
Then there is the matter of the signal sent about the right to vote, by the Attorney General. The New Black Panther Party case. Uniformed NBPP thugs with weapons were intimidating whites at a polling place. If it had been KKK intimidating blacks; they would have been a legal free-fire zone. At the orders of the White House, the case was dropped after a plea bargain had been accepted by the court and they were awaiting sentencing.
But that is not all. The US Civil Rights Commission has Federal statutory authority to investigate any violation of anyone’s right to vote freely. They used their administrative subpeona authority [as they have for decades] to ask for the files on the case. Attorney General Holder has told the Civil Rights Commission that the Department of Justice internal review supercedes their statutory authority, and they can in effect fold their subpeona until it is all corners and amaze their proctologist. Vote fraud and physical intimidation by the Left are now officially protected activities.
Having grave doubts about the legitimacy of the vote count in any election conducted by Democrats is not an unreasonable position, given recent history. If the elections in 2010, or 2012 are not cancelled by Scenario 2; any victory by the Democrats [especially one that does not seem rational] is going to arouse the ire of the opposition and of Oathkeepers. I’m pretty sure that your neighbors will just cheer the Democrats getting 110% of the vote.
Those are 3 scenarios, there are others, and variants on all of them. Despite how it appears, I do not think about the subject 40 hours a week. How much faith, given the fact that the Democrats and their allies further Left [as hard as that is to be] give repeated evidence that they do not accept our society’s political mores and methods, can you have that there is not someone in the White House who does put in 40+ hours a week on the subject?
Given the situation, it is apparent from the sales figures of guns and ammunition [the only growing part of our economy it seems] that a large number of people are taking the possibility seriously; thinking tactically, or perhaps operationally or strategically.
YMMV
#102 Salt Lick
I too, am a supporter of the TEA Party. On the July 4th gathering, I gave the opening speech in our small town. Interestingly enough, across the highway from the park we were at, there were a dozen or so people with cameras with very long lenses. They were NOT from our local paper, because up until October it was under orders from the chain that owns it not to cover our monthly TEA Party events because, to quote the memo:”Protesting taxes is rebellion against the government”. I think circulation fell enough that they got permission to cover things in October. In any case, we know the reporters/photographers/stringers in our small town and it wasn’t them. Nor were they from the larger cities’ papers. We are assuming SEIU, ACORN, or OFA; unless they were someone more official.
I fear that at best, the Republican Party [which I am registered in to be able to argue in the primaries, but I consider myself a Conservative]is terminally out of touch with reality akin to the Whigs from which they came in the 1850′s. At worst, whenever they attack Conservatives here in Colorado, I wonder if they have not reached a modus vivendi with the regime. Being a kept “opposition” is a better gig to some than standing up and fighting.
In any case, we will know in too few months if the Republicans will fight for the Constitution, or if they prefer to go along. I would rather fight alongside of them, but if they go Vichy; the TEA Party or whatever movement that Sarah Palin chooses to lead if she does so, is where I will go. And I will hope, with not much real hope, that we do not find ourselves living some of Clausewitz’ text.
But if troubles are to come, let them come now so that I can face them so my children will not have to.
Once again, I apologise for being a wordy bugger, and solicit Wretchard’s comments based on his greater experience; if he chooses to give them.
Subotai Bahadur
I applaud the self-control exhibited by everyone, but I just can’t help myself:
“Monkey trap?” RACIST!!!1!!
[Edit: Oops. I see DonB71inWA addressed the "issue" without using any of my search keywords.]
Don’t count your chickens before they hatch. My view is that the Health Care bill will be sanitized so that Lieberman and Ben Nelson can vote for it. The Sanitized Reid bill will be sent to the House.
In the House the critical decision will be whether or not to pass the Sanitized Reid version or to insist on a Conference Committee to put back some of the omitted items from the Pelosi Bill. This will be a fateful decision.
If the House passes Sanitized Reid, it will become law. If they go to Conference, the new product is not subject to amendment but is subject to filibuster. It will be at that point that they may have over-reached. For if details are reinserted that Lieberman, Ben Nelson, or some others (Bob Casey or Blanche Lincoln for example) objected to during the Senate debate, cloture might not be voted.
On the other hand, since political courage is in short supply and financial enticements are in large supply, Senators who appeared earlier to stand on principle may be enticed to cave in.
“Every exaggeration carries within it the seeds of its own destruction.” This is one of my favorite quotes from Freud. The smart money is on passage of a watered down version in the Senate and swift passage without change in the House.
Regarding the speculation about the electoral cost in 2010 that many here and elsewhere have mentioned, I say again, don’t count your chickens before they hatch. Besides, the left would rather pass something and lose many seats in 2010 than pass nothing and still lose a few seats in 2010 — virtually inevitable after the sweeping victories they had in 06 and 08. Besides, once something is passed, even the Sanitized Reid version, it will be nearly impossible to reverse and can and will be expanded over time in the future.
Finally, with regard to all the sweeping social changes, amendments to the Constitution, rebellions, coup d’etat scenarios, and such mentioned in this thread and in others posted recently on BC, I wonder how it is that so many have turned into a conservative version of utopians.