R-Utah
The Wall Street Journal characterizes the inability of incumbent Robert Bennett to secure the GOP nomination for the Utah Senate seat as “an early, if imperfect, test of the tea-party movement’s power … The remaining candidates, businessman Tim Bridgewater and lawyer Mike Lee, will compete in a June 22 primary. Running on populist platforms, they both have backing from tea-party supporters and have pledged to reduce the federal government’s size if elected.”
Many delegates, who tend to be more ideological than the average GOP voter, said they felt Mr. Bennett had been in Washington for too long. Populist candidates criticized the senator for trying to increase the scope of government by voting for TARP to provide funds to rescue strapped banks and by co-authoring a health-care plan with a Democratic colleague that included a requirement that individuals buy insurance for themselves.
Mr. Bennett lost his nomination despite his efforts earlier in the day. He had 2008 GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, one of Utah’s most-popular figures, introduce him before a speech to state delegates. The senator told delegates that his seniority in Washington made him the best candidate to represent Utah. “I understand how to do it,” he said. “Don’t take a chance on a newcomer. Keep the veteran on the floor when you’re playing a championship game.”
That still wasn’t enough to woo delegates such as Carol Jeppson.
The game was redefined in a single place and time from “one of Republicans versus Democrats” (Romney’s reference) to that of “Small Government versus Big Government”. In isolation the Bennett defeat is insignificant, but it now raises the wider question of whether the ‘Smaller Government’ idea can catch on. If it does then it has the potential to redefine the political landscape in ways that are both a threat and opportunity to different communities.
The Tea Parties represent an asymmetric threat to political organizations optimized for party-line warfare. The threat is no longer across the aisle but outside the building. As such, two possibilities suggest themselves. The first is that the Washington elite will circle the wagons, bury their minor differences and concentrate on keeping the money and power flowing to the capital. A threat from outside the building is after all, a threat to everybody inside the building. The other possibility is that enough members of the elite will realize that jig is up and strive to accommodate themselves to the new reality. In the coming months we are likely to see both gambits. Some politicians will opt to tap the tide; others will seek to master it.
That new reality is driven by economics. The real problem is that Washington — and Brussels globally considered — is running out of Other People’s Money (OPM). The Tea Parties are not the cause but the expression of the underlying problem. By all the standards of power the Tea Parties are a nothing. But that is to misunderstand their nature. The political elite can infiltrate the Tea Parties, revile it in the press and put it down as hard as they can, but like the weighted doll it will rebound incessantly because the deficit, unemployment and the declining confidence in the elite system will keep pushing it up. The Tea Parties are the elite’s dark political dual. The only way they can vanquish the doppelganger is to leave the stage themselves.
The evolution of the Tea Party “threat” in the media has followed the classic trajectory of recognizing asymmetric threats: it was at first dismissed, then denigrated, then patronizingly understood and is now going through the stage of being set up as a national security threat boogeyman, when as it turns out, its main effect so far has been to eliminate a three-term Republican candidate for Senator. At some point the Washington insiders will understand they are facing a real, bona fide political challenge. But although the elite may go out clinging with their fingernails to the carpets of their offices their real enemy will always be not the Tea Partiers but the repo men. It’s the lack of money that will be their ultimate downfall.
The Bible says the love of money is the root of all evil. “For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” But the political Bible says the lack of money is the root of all electoral failure. Having run out of OPM, the current towers of power are despite their outward strength, seriously cracked. For that reason Utah is probably the beginning and not the end. The WSJ article ends with this observation:
Another delegates said they wanted to give another candidates a chance in the Senate. “I gave him two terms,” said 68-year-old Gordon Jones, minutes after he voted for Mr. Bridgewater in the first round of voting. “He got three. That’s enough.”
Maybe the party is over, but not the Tea Party.
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If the folks inside the building were smart, they would walk out peacefully, saying to the Tea Partiers: “OK, here; you take a crack at it.”
The TP might then find themselves like the dog that suddenly caught the car, or Robert Redford in “The Candidate”–”what do we do now?”
I don’t think that will happen because the process is going to be long and drawn out, reversing generations of welfareism, overspending, and featherbedding bureaucracies. Those who have a vested interest in the status quo will be quick to point out all the pain involved in changing things.
But, as many are starting to say now (including–can you believe it!!–Brian Williams) we are indeed running out of money. So maybe the fight will shift from fighting for the pie to fighting to make sure you get at least some of the smaller pie.
This is my favorite site for analysis but one little quibble: Which translation of scripture did you use. Most translations say “a”root, not “the” root of all evil. Keep up the good work.
So let it be written, so let it be done.
My hope is a culling of America, part of me wants it to be violent, bloody, as to leave a lasting scar. The more rational part of me wants to do it peacefully, so the rest of the world sees how it’s REALLY done. I don’t think we have to exist with a smaller pie, I think that if we can destroy the public sector unions, peacefully of course, we can start to regrow the pie. The school unions definately need to be broken, forever. BTW my little nieces, (two of them) are with me right now, asking questions about politics. We are listening to Mark Levin replay. This is my education to them.
This is not about small government and taxation and abstruse theories of government.
It is about race and power. You can see a UCLA Professor call for a Universal Mexican Revolt in the US to establish a hemisphere Wide Revolutionary Movement. Link was from Drudge. Very interesting. Solidarity with Castro and Chavez. The US “stolen lands” from Mexico.
Bennett did not lose over votes for bigger government. He lost because he went along to get along with Democrats who play with those La Raza guys. Who in turn are getting too powerful.
You can’t show the flag on Cinco De Mayo. Its forbidden. Lack of “respect” to the people who run the US: Mexicans. Or complain about the Mosque at Ground Zero, to be dedicated one year to the exact DAY of 9/11 (in celebration). You must “respect” Mohammed or face the violent consequences. The Tea Party is not even mostly about taxes. Its about White people being made into the Back of the Bus, third class losers in multicultural paradise.
Utah is a “Whitopia,” a place like Idaho or Montana or Oregon or Washington, the White people go to get away from Blacks and Hispanics. Because White people don’t like living near either. As much as they love “diversity” downtown someplace, or on TV, they abhor it in living. Particularly if they have kids (easy targets for beatings in “diverse” schools). White folk move heaven and earth to keep their kids out of non-White majority schools. But even Utah is feeling the human wave of Mexican illegal immigration as Mexico falls apart, and people are angry and reacting. They don’t have the money to move again, and there is no more Whitopias. As a Longtime Californian, this place was paradise as recently as the 1980′s. Now its a dump. A “mere” $2 billion deficit turned into a $20 billion sinkhole because of illegal aliens, 99% of them from Mexico. Which has exported Tijuana and its ills all throughout the formerly Golden State.
What was interesting to me about Morgan Hill was a formerly White school district is 40% Mexican. Multiply that by every working/middle class family, and you have a very interesting dynamic. [It seems the kids will have to be removed from the school system and home schooled, due to Mexican gang threats.] Where can parents go to keep their White kids from getting a beating by the Mexican ones? Since every day will be “beat up Haole day.”
SOMEONE given the running out of other people’s money, will have to be on the Back of the Bus. Back of the Line. LAST. So others can go first. As Michelle Obama said, some people are going to have to give up what they have so others can have more. Obama’s diversity Czar put it bluntly: White folks will have to give up their positions so a Latino or Black can take over.
What did the UCLA prof say?
“Why do these frail racist White People want to keep us out of their country? Because at the forefront of a struggle of 6 billion people, is LA RAZA! Che Guevara knew every single country will go revolutionary. We will no longer fall for these lies called borders. We see ourselves as the Northern Front of the Latin American revolutionary movement. There are more than 40 million of our people NORTH! of the Rio Grande. More than 40 million revolutionaries inside the belly of the beast. We are the culture of revolutionary spirit. Our enemy is the same enemy Hugo Chavez has. Our enemy is Capitalism and Imperialism.”
This is it. America will either remain a White majority nation, run according to middle class values and culture, or it will be run by … this guy, according to La Raza, with a side dish of Farrakhan.
This is why Bennett lost. He voted for the Democrats in a mistaken belief in polite accommodation when there can be none. A debate over Midnight Basketball, “end of Welfare as we know it,” or Clinton’s impeachment over perjury and Monica is one thing.
But there will either be a border or there will not be. If not, then LA RAZA will RULE. In a permanent, Revolutionary Movement to institute communist rule against Capitalism and Imperialism. Translation: All White people report to the back of the bus please! All White people to the back of the bus IMMEDIATELY!
No, no one will cop to the real reasons. They don’t want to be called “racist.” But eventually even that “shame” will drop as this stuff gets out.
Post got eaten.
Short version: its not primarily about voting for Healthcare or small government.
It’s about THIS GUY. And millions like him.
Whoops, NOW it shows up. Pajamas wonky today. Sigh.
Nevertheless, the issue now is … will America be America (that is, a White majority run according to the White majority) or will it be the vision of La RAZA and the permanent revolutionary movement.
This guy is going viral, he’s linked on Drudge. He brings it to stark terms. No we can’t all get along. No there is no multicultural rainbow or colors of Benneton. Its either the preservation of Whitopia and kicking out of most of the illegals, or the end of what used to be America.
Somewhat related, that is what passes for higher education today. Racial demagoguery, fairly obvious hatred of Whites, America, borders, LA RAZA (or other groups) racial supremacy and ideology, repeated ad nauseum among Blacks, Muslims, Feminists, Gays, what have you.
Obama has thrown in with these guys (yeah, like he’d ever even thing about it) and now he’s going to pay the price. I do think things will come to a head. It will be exceedingly ugly.
And so the Great American Insurgency begins…
For the last 5 election cycles, incumbent Republicans running for re-election for national seats won the GOP primary 99% of the time. There were a total of 12 incumbents who lost their re-election bids. Over that same time period, 13 died in office. God was doing a better job of enforcing term limits than voters.
No more. Incumbents beware.
And this new incumbent vulnerability won’t be limited to the GOP. It may be too late in this cycle, but fiscally responsible Democrats (yes, they do exist) will be running for their party’s nomination in 2012 against the big spending incumbents in safe Democratic districts. And the small Federal government D’s will win with the help of enlightened and engaged independents. It takes surprisingly few votes to win a primary, and primaries are where the game is at.
What does this all mean? Well, I think you can expect to see a new political brand emerge for the folks who want to bring Washington to heel. But this brand will be like “Intel Inside” – a signal of what is at the core of the candidate, regardless who is selling the metal wrapper around it. That brand will not be the Tea Party. But it will be true to the spirit of the Tea Party movement.
It will not be a third party, but a movement that appeals to Americans of all stripes who refuse to allow Washington to drive us into bankruptcy.
It will be the means by which the people reclaim control of their government from the political class that thinks it is entitled to run our lives, but has acted in a way that has resulted in only 22% of the people believing that the government has the consent of the governed.
It will be the coming together of average Americans to do what they have done every century since coming to this continent: renew our system of governance to prepare us for the next 100 years.
Exciting stuff. Stay tuned…
L3
wretchard:
Hasn’t this been happening for years already? Remember Bush, McCain and Lindsey Grahamnesty telling us that if we opposed their immigration “reform” we were racists?
Establishment Republicans declared war on conservatives years ago and have been trying to read us out of the party ever since.
Why? Because they’re inside the building and we’re not.
The unread stimulus passing got me going and into the TEA Party movement in February 2009, picketing one of my senators and my representative and standing on corners since mid August challenging my fellow Americans to wake up.
The arrogance of politicians to stay in office seemingly forever speaks of their desire for power, not a desire to represent their constituents. My own belief is that 12 years in office is enough, period. I say throw out all incumbents and let’s start from scratch with some who may be more sensitive to public concerns and reasonably uncorrupt. If Bennett goes the write-in route, with Crist running as an independent, that will prove my point.
While everyone in the mainstream media and other media venues was hyperventilating about those dreadful, dis-organized Tea Partiers, and wondering (or insisting) that they were dreadful, rednecked and ignorant racists, only focused on their stupid and pointless protest events … those sneaky Tea Partiers – they were (gasp!) getting involved! They were working within the system at the lowest and local level! They were supporting fiscally conservative, strict constitutionalist candidates for local offices! They were organizing and supporting candidates who would never, never before thought to run for office! Oh, the humanity – these outside-the-Beltway ordinary citizens actually think (insert sarcasm tag) that they actually have a right to a voice in the way they should be governed! And that a career politician who serves at the pleasure of the people who voted for him or her, must eventually answer to them? Those peons?(end sarcasm tag)
Yeah, this may happen more and more over the next few months. We’re tired of go-along-to-get-along political tools, tired of the same-old-same-old career pols.
Look for a falling of career incumbents and RINOs. The Tea Partiers have been doing their homework, although don’t look to the usual media tools to report that fact. There will be a hemorrhage of incumbents after the next mid-year. Depend upon it.
I can see November from my house…
Agree that Bennett lost out because he went along to get along once too often; after all, politics is the art of compromise, no?
But for too long the RINOs have made significant compromises while the other guy gave little or nothing, over and over. And, there’s always something in it for them: a little pork here, some earmarks there. And you get treated special, lots of overseas trips–just make sure the folks at home keep sending you back.
But now the scales are falling from the eyes of the masses; they finally woke up and started noticing. One of the historic effects of the web and internet will be the ability of the Great Unwashed to get a good look at the man behind the curtain.
Yes, it’s good politics and that’s good for politicians, but it ain’t good leadership and that’s bad for us.
Oh, I forgot to add this. The Republicans, once in the majority, had better not return to their pre 2006 methods, because people like me will go after them as hard as we are now going after those that now irk us.
Kudos Mr Fernandez,
I have only just started reading your editorials and I must say that I am pleasantly surprised to read that your writing is so very intellectually versed. And I thought that I was the only muy intellectual Latino.
Bipartisanship from dictionary.com: –adjective
representing, characterized by, or including members from two parties or factions: Government leaders hope to achieve a bipartisan foreign policy.
2) Doing what the Democrats want with minor fudging around the edges.
For most of the people who are presently serving in Congress changing their behavior to support Small Government simply isn’t possible. Most of them have built their political careers by allying themselves with large interest groups that they cannot dispense favors to without the mechanisms of Big Government. Without the favors there will be no support. And without the support the political futures of the current ones in office will dry up and be gone with the wind.
I think the political class will fight back, and there is nothing so desperate as a cornered animal. What hideous form it will take I do not know, perhaps something along the lines of a law to make a “uniform” way of conducting primary elections that would weigh heavily in the favor of incumbents, or by making modifications to the McCain-Feingold law that would achieve the same end.
It never ceases to amaze me the lure that dictatorship has on many university students. The UCLA professor was basically calling for a race based totalitarian dictatorship to the cheers of the audience. I can easily envisage this “professor” as a Mexican Amon Goeth killing these “frail white people” who were unfortunate enough to fail to escape the revolution. (The sign in the background stating something about “Hate speech …” shows how irony impaired these future brown shirts are.) I am a second generation Californian although I no longer reside in the state and have no desire to live there ever again. I have heard these Mexican fantasies since I was a boy. As a result I have never visited or vacation in Mexico and never will. I do not consider Mexico a friend of America.
The true irony of what La Raza wants is that if they were to ever achieve it, how many of these cheering students would fall victim to revolutionary executioners and how many would manage escape to what remained of America, a nation they so eagerly destroyed, seeking political asylum. Except this time, and I know it sounds cruel, I hope that they would not be welcome but instead returned.
In truth the political elite classes tend to win these tussles most of the time.
In WWII for example the French governing elites drove the nation into a ditch, for the most part made themselves scarce during the war, then re-emerged and took over again very quickly after 1945. ‘The Resistance’ had been tiny during the war but mirabile dictu ballooned in size the day after the war ended.
A few years ago there was a widespread populist revolt in the UK over gas prices, but it was quickly dispatched, leaving not trace.
I’m an optimist, but it’s smart to recognize that political elites are entrenched, resourceful, wily, determined, and as you point out yourself more united than their opponents. They don’t even have to destroy a popular movement in order to defeat it – all they have to do is confuse it.
I seem unable to have a comment accepted today, either her or in the previous thread, so I’ll go off topic and see if that works. Since Sunday is Mother’s Day, I pen an ode to mothers everywhere
MOTHERS DAY
The Mommy State is with us, as evidenced by the overwhelming number of women who voted for Barack Obama, as well as for the general state of the culture that is becoming more and more like France every day. Women are different from men, in that their first thought is the protection and maintenance of their children. Where once a woman depended on a man for these services, she now depends on the State, and so will continue to vote for those who agree to provide for them. Men are no longer needed. The State is now husband and master. But can it last?
We find us poised with quite a daunting thesis
An argument with which I must agree
When Mommy State implodes who gets the pieces
Is something I at present cannot see
Some say in eighteen one a Brit named Tyler
Proclaimed democracies not long to run
He didn’t say it just to be a riler
He said that in the best case, number one
Democracies last only ‘til the voters
Find out their votes breed governmental doles
He didn’t know that once invented motors
That women could be driven to the polls
They voted in the guys who’d give them power
They’re voting for them to this very day
They disengaged the cradle from the bower
And now we find we’ll soon have hell to pay
The Mommy State has fastened on our culture
But surely it has finally run its course
That shadow overhead is from a vulture
Just waiting for some unforgiving force
To put a noisy end to all this posing
To see such nonsense put at last to bed
I see this lefty chapter quickly closing
If lucky we shall not have many dead
The Mommy State will last until some tragic
Event now clearly seen as tipping point
Will clean the slate again as if by magic
And once again the men will run the joint
Ashes to ashes they all fall down.
Beyond the muck and the mire there is a true desire to clean house. Will it matter much when the Ace of spades and the Queen of hearts are dealt us in the same skin?
There is a vast network of angry people. An upset if you will. A people who have toiled and labored all of their lives and have their futures up in the air now.
Can a populace of creature comforts face calamity on an epic scale?
I think not.
I pray for peace and God’s guidance.
That’s all I can do any longer.
Seems like a good first step.
This will not lose a Republican seat.
It does make one hell of a point.
The sheep look up.
The argument for Civil Service systems is that if people are granted job security and the expectation of a generous pension then they will accept a lower income and offer greater loyalty and discretion in return. They also were expected to accept the burden in a free society of voluntarily restricting their political activity. If there is any empirical evidence to support this position then I am unaware of it. 200 years ago the term Civil Servant was used for both the elected Members of Parliament and the nonmilitary appointed members, literally servants, of His Majesty’s Government. The three civilian elements of the government, the elected, the appointed and the career promoted became distinct in America. In the UK, but not the US, most of the appointed are drawn from serving members of the elected.
Now we appear to be going full circle as the supposedly impartial employees of the government are selected in a process that is rife with favoritism, enriches them beyond the level that comparably skilled people gain in the private sector, and grants them extraordinary pensions and benefits. At the risk of repeating myself any expectation of loyalty, discretion or apolitical impartiality is completely derisory. At the same time the elected Masters of the government have also gone full circle by merging their identity and values with the civil staff that they had once separated from. Not only is there now a revolving door between elected and appointed positions that was rare in the past, with a great blurring also between the appointed and career ranks, there is as well a common indeed collegial association and interchange between the senior levels of regulatory agencies and the officers of regulated entities. Where the 19th to early 20th century saw the elements differentiated the more recent record is one of centripetal integration back into a common mass.
Elected politicians now get to enjoy generous pensions after short periods in office. This began in America with some embarrassment over the financial distress of Mary Lincoln. It has now reached the point where a Congressman or Senator is encouraged to extract as much money as possible from corporations and constituents, often with the lively expectation of future benefits and then retire precipitously and keep the windfall. In any other circumstance that would constitute fraud. The protection for the legislator, aside from their having written the laws to give themselves this loophole, is that in order to sue for the absconded money the donors would have to confess to their intent to bribe. There was a case in England in which a Highwayman attempted to sue his partner for not splitting the loot. He was hanged for his trouble and the doctrine of “Unclean Hands” was discovered.
Can anyone articulate an argument for granting a politician a pension? If there was none then the pressure for term limits would ease. There would be less pressure for hypocrisy in worrying about their future rewards from corporate interests, they could be assumed and discounted. Each proposed act could be honestly debated on its merits with the future benefits and costs considered and the possible benefit to the legislator accepted. This does not mean that I would suggest accepting the corruption of serving politicians, only that I would not worry about the compensation of the retired. Why not have politicians restricted to receiving no benefits except from their public salaries and disclosed assets placed in trust while in office? If they gained no other benefit from their office while they exercised it, and none from the public subsequently, would it be worse than the present system?
My grandsons (unknowingly) assume that I won’t smash their little heads against the wall when they kick baba in the leg in which they’d be right. This jackhole (the la raza loving puta upstream) isn’t one of my grandsons.
This time around, money (or rather the lack of it) may possibly be the root of something good.
Back in 1988, archaeologist Joseph Tainter wrote “The Collapse of Complex Societies”. There have been an astonishing number of complex civilizations over the millenia, almost all of which have collapsed! To oversimplify, Tainter’s argument is that unproductive overhead grows as a civilization matures, and keeps growing until its unaffordability brings the whole society down. Sound familiar?
Clearly, modern Big Government has already run out of the ability to tax enough to pay for all the things politicians want. Big Government is now in the process of running out of the ability to keep borrowing enough to make up the difference between what those politicians want to spend and what they can actually cover with taxes. We are rapidly coming up on Peak Government.
The challenge is — what happens next? Does Peak Government lead to the collapse of modern civilization? Or can we contain the collapse to Big Government itself, leaving civil society to continue, just with a smaller governmental overhead?
Reading Tainter’s examples, the odds are on a complete collapse of civilization. But we have the opportunity to learn from all those earlier collapsed civilizations. If we can make sure that this time the collapse is focused on government itself, the human race may finally break free of the cycle.
When Big Government runs out of funds, it is going to put great strains on the “progressive” coalition. All those different interest groups will have to decide which now-unaffordable expenditures to eliminate — Social Security, or Medicare, or subsidies for windmills, or Midnight Basketball. When all the left-wing interest groups start fighting with each other over the remaining governmental scraps, that will be the opportunity for Tea Party-type movements to push through a root & branch roll-back of intrusive Big Government.
But it is not going to be easy. The archaeological record suggests that the odds of successfully cutting the overhead while leaving civilization standing are not good. Get ready for a hard struggle.
I’m a Utahn and I’m not at all surprised that Bennett got ousted. He’s not necessarily defeated, however. He could still run a write-in campaign. I don’t consider him a RINO, because he’s such a mainstream Republican, but I do agree that he’s been in Washington too long, and I’ll vote for Mike Lee, based on reading the bios of him and Bridgewater.
I don’t believe that incumbents should be exempt from primary challenges, but that’s the way both major parties work. I’ve wished for years for an conservative alternative to Orrin Hatch.
The main point I would make here is that the Tea Parties weren’t the major force in this. Most Utah Republicans were as conservative, or more so, than the Tea Parties all along. There’s a strong feeling of resentment to being dictated to by either party, and the presence of viable choices besides Bennett was welcome. Former Congressman Chris Cannon can tell you about how that works.
Both major parties are in a rut that includes pork barrel spending, continued deficits and bigger government. Republicans talk about being opposed to those things, but we saw how much they were when they controlled both houses and the White House. I think the grass roots have seen that booting out Republicans isn’t the answer if it only results in the Democrats in charge. This time around, I wouldn’t want to be an incumbent.
Kinuachdrach/22
What usually happened that once the civilization collapsed, there were enough marauders to pick the bones clean, even break them and extract marrow.
Not sure how to preempt that phase.
Things are of course a bit more complicated. I have no doubt that a world war is coming. The first rounds may be fired this summer. Iran, with help of Syria and Hezbollah are up to something. They will attempt to preempt Israeli preemption. I’m sure IDF is doing what they can to be prepared and they would not make the same mistakes as in 2006. But the conflict would be costly. After the initial destruction, the conflict would wind down a bit to an attrition type of warfare and simmer for the next few years. Sometimes about 2013-2014, it will flare up again and by that time more nations will get sucked in and general mayhem will ensue, lasting approximately 5 years.
After the war, the card deck would be reshuffled. But if I can predict, the American civilization would survive (there won’t be much of “western civilization” left), with a government form that would resemble the one after the American Revolution. The new society won’t suffer the hedonistic, indulgent, narcissist types at all.
Man that La Raza guy really boils my blood. He can take his Fidel and Che and stuff it. What a bunch of fools who believe these things, and how long must we suffer them? There’s a huge problem with immigrants, all immigrants not just Hispanics. I saw this big time with the Yankees who fled the Rust Belt in the 70′s and moved in all around us in Texas. You see it all over south Florida, today, or any hapless place out West where the Californicator refugees have landed en masse. Immigrants, whether from the Mexican south or the rusting North or Kalifornia, flee their troubled lands only to set about changing their new place up, making it more like back home from whence they fled. They carry their viruses well.
On the other matter regarding Bennett: if we could get a senator elected here who’s half as conservative as Bennett I’d consider it a coup. The man is no RINO such as Snowe, Graham, et al., and it’s not fair to put him that category. So this should be seen as a tremendous shot across the bow of those who actually are RINOs that his constituents insisted on identifying him as one. John McCain is probably shaking in his boots right now!
I certainly hope this leads to a serious effort on getting spending under control and the size of government reduced, and it does not become yet another wasted exercise. Voters, even in Massachusetts, elected Scott Brown to stop Obamacare, and we see how well that worked. Someday, with hope, the will of the people will account for something.
if white folks let race-separatists egg us on into us-them race-war thinking, we will be doing exactly what the race-separatists want us to do –make them into tribal chiefs and medicine men. USA has been a notably successful multi-racial society for a good many generations now. We don’t have to bite that weenie if we don’t want to. Big media should wake up and smell the coffee and train their Watergate sights on these riot inciters.
26. buddy larsen
“I wish I were an Oscar Meyer…”
Bud, we had a society that believed in GOD.
Now, we have become a GODless society.
I think there is something in the bible about this.
Anyhoo, it doesn’t end well.
RINO’s beware. Kay Bailey Hutchison was actually the first to feel the wrath of the Tea Party. Now Bennett. More will fall. McCain, Hatch, McConnell, Lugar, Cornyn, Corker, Cochran, Graham et al are all potential targets. I hope Jim DeMint runs the table with his backing of true conservatives against all these RINO’s.
#7 Leo Linbeck III
but fiscally responsible Democrats (yes, they do exist) will be running for their party’s nomination in 2012 against the big spending incumbents in safe Democratic districts.
It is with some trepidation that I disagree with you, but I gotta on this point. I used to be a Democrat [gave up in 1980 when it was plain that 4 more years of Carter would destroy the country], and actually have not changed my personal convictions over time. What has changed was the Democratic Party. I have watched it march steadily left. In the course of that march, all who were fiscally responsible, loved the country, and revered the Constitution were driven from the Apparat of the Democratic Party. I have a friend who is an LEO in Texas now, in your neck of the woods. He was passing through on a family trip to a graduation yesterday and stopped for lunch. He has always been a believer in the existence of “Conservative” or “Moderate” Democrats, but he gave up on it in our mealtime talk. The quotas for special interest groups at every level make it impossible for a “Conservative”, a “Moderate”, or a “fiscally responsible” Democrat to be a candidate or a party official. The party is infected beyond cure, and will not permit any moderation in their pursuit of totalitarian power. There will be no fiscally responsible candidates allowed. IF they fail to seize and hold power and are beaten at the polls [the existence of which I am no longer sure of], it will not result in changing directions internally, but they will be abandoned by a sufficiency of the rank and file to reduce them to true Menshevik status. And I am pretty sure that they will still be willing to try to seize power by non-electoral means. Your mileage may vary, but the term TWANLOC fits the Democratic Party Apparat perfectly.
Wretchard
The Tea Parties represent an asymmetric threat to political organizations optimized for party-line warfare. The threat is no longer across the aisle but outside the building. As such, two possibilities suggest themselves. The first is that the Washington elite will circle the wagons, bury their minor differences and concentrate on keeping the money and power flowing to the capital. A threat from outside the building is after all, a threat to everybody inside the building.
I have every expectation that those inside the building will band together. Keep in mind the contempt that the Institutional Republicans have not only for the Conservatives in their own party, but also for the TEA Party people who are not, by any means, all Republicans. They just not dare speak it openly. Bennett’s loss today surely sent shock waves through the RNC. I am assuming that they airdropped an emergency supply of Depends into McCain HQ. The phrase, “the Peasants are revolting” how holds in both meanings for them. I expect a confrontation soon.
The RNC Chairman, Steele, is not known for any attachment to either Conservatism or for that matter to winning. He is a walking “friendly fire” incident, that in the best of times is known for putting not one foot, but both, feet in his mouth and tap dancing. The Republican establishment already has its own preferred candidate for 2012, if there are elections. It is not Sarah Palin or anyone she [or the TEA Party] would approve of. We are going to see a closing of ranks between Institutional Republicans and Democrats against the vox populi. Both are merely wings of the Incumbency Party and have more common interests in maintaining power than devotion to the good of the nation. Bennett’s defeat will bring a hostile reaction from all those of like mind who are threatened.
Subotai Bahadur
Delia/27; alas true but not yet, i don’t think, past the point of no return. we’ll know if and when we’ve truly split the sheet with Providence. As in the good book, our lamentations will be vast and widespread and piteous to behold.
Subotai, I am not sure that they want to risk a civil war by suspending 2010 elections. They don’t have a support infrastructure in place yet (0-troopers and 0-stapo). More likely strategy is a an induced financial crash at some point before 2012, to pickle GOP hopelessly in it and sweep the presidential election. I am not sure that We The People would buy it, but I think that is the plan. They’ll start organize the cores of the supporting structures right after the elections based on funds that were part of the stimulus package (the funds dispensed to non-existing districts, which were quite a few as I recall and they are unaccounted for) and other funding sources (Soros network). I suppose that the crash would be another way to acquire more resources.
One can consider the Sept 19 2008 a dry run to test the system (beside the additional benefit of flipping the trend of the presidential elections). It is likely that they worked out (or are at it) how to by-pass the system checks established after the crash.
I wonder if there’ll be widespread lamentations, Buddy. I can readily imagine the opposite, as in widespread anger, a la Greece and worse. Those who are given towards lamentations probably already started, at least I did, in October, 2008.
We have a crew who looks at a crisis with relish, as if it’s an opportunity.
That’s how sick it is these days. When bad things happen in general, it’s good for some folks to a particular and disgusting way of thinking.
Dear Dr. Bones,
Neocomrade (Fourth Class) R. X. Fernàndez is, I think, unduly alarmed on behalf of regular Republicanianism. “Reformers are only mornin’ glories” [http://j.mp/95nB2s] may come from the mouth of a jackass, but Dr. Plunkett was one very smart jackass.
The fact that what the AstroTurf™Baggers have been up to recently looks more like neodeformation than reform to all decent political grown-ups is (mostly) mere de gustibus stuff beneath the dignity of Soc. Sci. in general and Neocomradology in particular. The ATB gentry are bargin’ in on the militant extremist Party of Grant from the outside like Captain Hook assailing the good ship ‘Lollypop’ — THAT is the main feature of the present correlation of farces at Wingnut City; what the ’baggers would do if they actually managed to board and capture America’s Otherparty is, at best, secondary. Less than secondary, for anybody who shares my own faith that they have not a snowball’s chance at AEI of actually takin’ the TopPercenter racket over.
For one thing, neither GOP geniuses nor Party base an’ vile can be wishin’ to have a Glorious Reformation every mornin’ of the week. As Neocomrade D. J. Frum, Freelord Judas in the peerage of Wingnut City, recently pointed out[1], America’s Otherparty has just recently been taken over by Neocomrade K. R. Murdoch, Firstlord and Kiddiemaster Folxcuckoo, who is unlikely to stand aside for a bunch of rank amateurs. And even less likely to be outpirated by them. Or make that ‘outspent’.
Looking in from out beyond the chainlink fence around the l@@ney bin, I am not even entirely sure that the ’baggers are really independent of Kiddiemaster Folxcuckoo in the first place. Of course if they are not, the whole m’gillâ is show biz à fortiori and scarcely worth discussion. [2]
Assuming the contrary, then, so as not to be obviously wasting our own time, I would suggest, Dr. Bones, that the amateurs are doomed because they are many, whereas Folxcuckooland is a monolith. Kiddiemaster Rupert can impose a Party Line and create serious inconvenience for many Party-of-Grant operatives who toe it not, and that far beyond the narrow circles of his freelordship’s own wage slaves. By contrast, a gaggle of wealthy and under-IQ’ed amateur reactionaries is bound to “mount their horse and ride off in all directions,” as the jokester joked.
The Rev. Kirkegaard, of all wingnuts!, almost hit the turfbag on the head: “Purity of heart is to swiftboat one sittin’ duck.” [3]
And I wish you, sir,
Healthy and affordable days.
_
[1] Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us and now we’re discovering we work for Fox. And this balance here has been completely reversed. The thing that sustains a strong Fox network is the thing that undermines a strong Republican party.
(( Presumably this ‘thing’ of which his freelordship whines is that in Folxcuckooland the Dan Quayle brand (®) couch potatoes generally get what they like rather than what, say, the Little Friends of Eddie Burke, LLC, think their weaker siblin’s ought to get, like it or not.. But Father Zeus knows best. ))
[2] That polls suggesting that the patients or victims of ’turfbaggin’ were chiefly Republicaniac voters already arrives at essentially the same destination by a different route. The consilience seems to me to recommend the destination in question — that AstroTurf™Baggery does not much matter in practice one way or the other — pretty strongly.
Still, if you think I (or Party Neocomrade Dr. S. W. Rasmussen) have missed something here, by all means tell me what it is.
[3] Form trumps matter, sir: Folxcuckooland and regular Republicanianism can hardly lose this fight no matter what particular vessel they pick to swiftboat. Kiddiemaster Rupert, like Vicefreelord Roger of Ailes et nonnulli alii, is a pretty smart cookie monster, though, so I expect something of strategic importance will be selected. Were I permitted to play his firstlordship’s hand, I should zero in on what the Muses and you and I have called “the War against the Wetbacks,” but is known in the language of kiddie selfservatism as more like “¡I want my [exp. del.] country back!”
…the wider question of whether the ‘Smaller Government’ idea can catch on.
This is indeed the big question. If Republicans regain control of the House this November 2010, will they hold the line on appropriations? And will they propose legislation similar to Rep. Ryan’s on rebalancing entitlement spending? I hope Virginia and New Jersey hold the answer.
Tea Partiers have Passion, and that matters. During the American Revolution, a patriot said something like, “We fight for Liberty; the poor British soldier fights for nothing but his shilling.” The principle still applies.
/33
My babelfish isn’t working. Just wish I could get 5 minutes of my life back.
2×4,
Concur, if he has something to say in there he can say it in English. Tell me if I get that bad.
I cannot find the quote but I think Lenin may have said something to the effect that there is more in common between two members of a parliament one of whom is a bolshevik and one of whom is not than between two bolsheviks, one of whom is in the parliament and one of whom is not.
The Tea Party Movement is the most interesting thing that’s happened in American politics since the 60s. The weird part is that it is likely mostly comprised of the very same people. Older and wiser now? Shuffling a few seats around in November and in 2012 may be enough to slow down the behemoth for awhile but can do no more than that.
Politics is about the quality of life. How you live. How you raise your children free from the interference of the other. If that is the core motivation of the Tea Party than something revolutionary is truly happening. It’s still too early to tell how deeply these currents run.
Changing things in Washington by swapping Ds and Rs ain’t going to do it. The monster is too big and provides too many sweet incentives for any man or woman to resist it for very long. The Government has to be defederalized. The only way to prevent big government from abusing its citizens for the benefit of the nomenklatura is take the power to do so away from them.
America is unique because the institutional framework to do exactly that is already built into the system. You could say that it is the system, or was until it was twisted out of shape by the cultural sweep of progressivism.
Progressivism has failed as completely as communism did in the Soviet Union. Whatever the great thoughts that might have propelled the movement through the 20th Century, progressivism has devolved into a naked grab for control of the public treasury to use it for vote buying and the continued comfort of the nomenklatura.
We need what amounts to a Constitutional Crisis. A 2nd civil war of ideas that puts the discussion of quality of life issues back in the States where the character of the people who live, work, and raise their children in that State can decide them free of the federal behemoth.
The 17th Amendment was a huge mistake. We do not hear anything about repealing it or why that may be a good idea, but if the Tea Party Movement is a genuine quality of life reaction, we will.
It wont matter who is elected until the system financing the USA is changed. Today all of the interest goes to pay European banking families that own the Federal Reserve. Until America takes back the power to coin, regulate and value its own currency we will continue to fund these European Families.
Peter Boston @ 37,
Well said! Reagan bought us about 30 years, but we need a genuine, structural reform of the same magnitude but different direction as the Progressive Movement of 1890-1920. There are only two choices: steadily deflate the Federal Government bubble, or wait until it bursts.
Subotai @ 29,
The fiscally responsible Democrats I know live in areas that have never elected a Republican. There are lots of areas like that, especially in places like South Texas. There are very few legislators who fit this description, but there are a few. They tend to be young Hispanics who were “mugged by reality” but keep their counsel. But there are a handful of old soldiers as well.
Most of the fiscally responsible D’s are like Hollywood conservatives: talented, prudent people who are biding their time until the coast is clear.
But no matter. If you’re right, the Democratic party will be crushed by the insurgency. My guess is that, at the end of the day, their survival instinct will force them to adapt. They may not have a true change of heart, but once the citizens of our nation re-assert their sovereignty, they will no longer be a danger to the republic…
…until history echoes again in another 100 years. But that is all we can hope for anyway: to summon the courage to rise to the challenge of doing our duty when it is our time. The rest we leave to God.
Cheers,
L3
James Just@13,
Welcome. Pass it on.
2X4@24,
The new society won’t suffer the hedonistic, indulgent, narcissist types at all, i.e., it’s the end of “mandated compassion.”
Buddy@30,
Need your insight. As I heard it, one F50 stock went from $49 to 8 cents. Recovered to near its pre-fall level of an hour earlier. If one was prepared (foreknowledge) for that 1,000 “false” down-move last week, couldn’t one have made a fortune buying back on the upticks?
2X4@31,
Wasn’t last week another test? 1,000 point loss in under an hour. Not a “fat finger,” now attributed to a lot of selloff from Chicago brokers.
Cowboy@32,
I started lamenting when Barry Goldwater lost; to the point of alienating family and friends. And, I gained nothing in having been right.
Peter Boston@37,
“Changing things in Washington by swapping Ds and Rs ain’t going to do it. The monster is too big and provides too many sweet incentives for any man or woman to resist it for very long.”
However, a “clean slate” approach does:
A) impose actual term limits – every 4-6 years from now on, removing the retirement incentive as an automatic perk
B) end the “seniority” spoils system in Congress
C) deliver a chance to end earmarks and pork
D) a chance to deregulate, defund and defend
E) enable US to obstruct new takeovers
As far as I can determine, there is no other corrective action availed to US, which does not require violence.
I’ve supported the club for growth to push for more conservative/libertarian candidates in primaries since it was founded. This happened after I spent time with Gillespie and others who observed that a party that doesn’t stand for its incumbents will destroy itself, and change (in the primaries) has to come from the outside. Similar to Elting Morison’s observations about all closed societies. So, now we have the TP increasingly effective in this role. Is it possible once they become the party, they’ll find themselves behaving the same way? Is that what we want? My sense is we need a fundamental return to federalism, but at a scale where there’s no central power save for what truly is in the national and common interest. i.e. little or no rule making from the center. What problem today do we have that wouldn’t/couldn’t be solved by sovereign political units of the power of the Founder’s states (of ~300 to ~500K citizens, redrawn regularly to follow population trends). Where they would contract with some (tbd) service provider(s) (perhaps competed) for the common defense, currency, and a court-of-last resort. With a constitution closer to the declaration of independence, with the bill of rights attached, and a framework that includes tax and regulatory competition, and a right to vote-with-your-feet, and transit any state. Declare the existing union bankrupt, and give every citizen “a share” of the obligation, as well as a share of all federal assets.
I can’t think of a current challenge this does not solve. Save for those who would like to dictate to their fellow states (always with the best of intentions, even if it kills the patient).
Call it civil libertarianism (a form of civil society..). The new states will be able to behave like free individuals, and some states may be able to reach the libertarian ideal. But those that love big government, even communitarians, etc. can gather together and run their own state, and be solely responsible for the results. Some may even succeed. We could call it a return to the Founders Federalism, but even this term has been overloaded, diminished and compromised. And Hamiltonian-ism is less-and-less necessary in the connected-internet world (just like the Carnegie and Sloan hierarchical, command-and-control corporate hierarchy evaporated as it became non-competitive in the information-enabled 70s and 80s). Time for our governments to escape from the 1800s (good news is many small municipalities already have adopted modern efficiencies, we just need to throw out those parts that have not (that dictate inefficiencies downward), similar to the exodus in corporate headquarters’ staff in the70s and 80s). An aside.. when did CXO salaries spike? When their HQ support staff shrunk from 100-1000s to 10s (due to information technology. See MIT Sloan Malone and Brynjolfsson)
The current framework rewards bad behavior. Placing small government leadership in charge even for generations is guaranteed to fail given the pressures we’ve already built up in terms of debt and nanny-state expectations. Time to move orthogonally, restructure the problem so citizens/smaller-units-of-government can suffer the effects of their decisions much more quickly. By saying we want smaller government, more local government, I think this means “DC” as we know it must go. We have the tools. We also have maybe a 1/3rd the population willing to support fundamental change. The Founders only had a third.
What of our current challenges would a move to civil libertarianism, ~1000 sovereign new states organized as above not naturally sort out and solve over time? Including letting our statists citizens attempt to create their own heavens-on-earth? They might even support such a move given it would allow the New-States in the San Francisco area to go just as far left as they’d like. And others theocracies. As long as we’re free to vote with our feet (and a few other rules about “takings”) I shouldn’t care. And there’s little a state of > 250K citizens can’t do for itself or (voluntarily) contract with others (meaning the wealth and intellect of that population can deal with any problem that existed for the entire U.S. prior to, say, WWII).
A new GOP, even continually disciplined by the TP and their kin, dedicated to smaller government can’t do the job alone, we have to change the environment fundamentally to insure success. Good news is we already have the model (the corporate transformations of the 70s and 80s), and the Founder’s original rules provide a good template to simplify and clarify.
“All politics is compromise”
Republican politicians compromise principles, democrats compromise priorities.
From someone who categorizes himself as neither liberal nor conservative (maybe classic liberal, or small l-libertarian would be closer), but I believe a fair observer of both. The nature of the compromises on each side are fundamentally different. Republicans keep permanently abandoning conservative hills they should stand and fight on (medicare expansion, NCLB, TARP), Democrat compromises tend to be their priorities are just delayed a few sessions (amnesty)…they will still get what they want…just later.
Even Reagan could not shrink the beast.
The USA is en route to becomming Greece unless Middle Americans take a stand. Greece has become dominated by socialist/unionists who will and are rioting and killing to acquire other peoples money. We have become them through teachers unions, public employee unions , ACLU lawyers and their chief exploiters in the democrat party. Obama must continue his ever more direct divide-and-incite strategy (ie Mexico vs US) to hope for his own reelection in 2012. Middle America must begin by throwing out ALL incumbents. Utah is the latest and most encouraging example. This will be ugly as those in power will fight and tax to the death to hold on to their agenda to transform the USA into Obama’s United Socialist America. STAND UP AMERICA !
Lifeofthemind: In 1983 the retirement plan for new members changed to place them under the federal employees program. I agree that they should not have a federal retirement for being in congress since that promotes life time tenure. The state legislatures should also outlaw said pensions. That would help limit incumbents staying in office if we can’t get term limits, but congress would have to change the law on pensions. Fat chance of that!
geoffo @41
We cannot rely on the politicians to clip their own wings. How many politicians have there been over the last 2,500 years, and yet, we can identify only two, Cincinnatus and George Washington, who refused to be king when they had the opportunity. Those are pretty long odds.
The Founders understood the limitations of human nature and established a pretty good framework within which people could balance the often opposing ideals of equality and liberty. The 1860s proved that liberty at the expense of equality would not work. Progessivism is proving that equality at the expense of liberty may lead to the same dark place.
The only way to defeat the monster of big government is take away the keys to the treasury. Repeal the 17th Amendment and assert the 10th Amendment to decide quality of life issues at the State level. That’s why I say that we need a major Constitutional crisis between the States and the Feds to get these issues into the public square.
OPM. In the 80s corporate raiders would buy companies and sell off the assets and then dump the company. Politics is doing the same today. The asset they are selling off is the credit rating of the country. The problem is there is only one country so you can not dump it and move on to the next.
suboatai @ #29 – one thing you discount that I believe negates your thesis; These are not men of courage or strength, who know how to take strong action when they are threatened. These men, even though they may hold power, are cowards and fools to a man and when threatened they will scurry, and panic, and grovel, and fold like cheap lawn chairs. That is all they have in them – we have lived in a perverse system which has served to elevate men who are good at those types of things to high levels. But as soon as the wind changes, as it is changing now, they will be swept away like dust, because they have not the will to resist within them.
if you want to fear someone, fear the men who will replace them, because they will be a different sort of man altogether – the type that always rises at a time like this. For now, I prefer the new to the men they will be replacing.
regarding #33 – check out the timestamp – 2 am on a saturday night, and nothing to do but post strange political screeds. That’s a long night of lonely drinking.
Bennett is 76 years old and had served several terms; he needed to retire. A Senate seat is not a life-estate; if these guys won’t relinquish power, then power has to be taken from them by the people. I applaud the GOP in Utah for sending this guy out to pasture.
Well, well, well. It seems that someone has been doing a little digging into Señor La Raza.
Ron Gochez, Anti-Semitic Social Justice Teacher and Reconquista Activist, Connects With Underage Student Hotties on MySpace
G/40; it’s simpler than it looks, really. Quoting the Investor’s Business Daily editorial of May 07, “Short-sell short orders had few controls to prevent them from worsening the declines. When NYSE circuit breakers slowed trading in selected stocks for 90 seconds (wow, such a long time!), giant sell orders simply migrated to ECNs or the Nasdaq, where no similar collars existed, seeking any bid.”
“No one applied the emergency brake. That is what can happen in fragmented markets with no central system of price discovery. Volume is spread among so many trading platforms and exchanges with different rules and oversight (the NYSE transacts only 28% of total volume). It’s like the Wild West with no sheriff.”
IBD is an old and well-respected financial journal, the editorials are almost too succinct, give this one two or three minutes.
The Wiki titled “Uptick Rule” is also a must, just for the exhausting revelation in the timeline of news on the rule demonstrating how the rule was eliminated in the now-so-familiar below-the-radar “study group recommendation” process, and now –read the timeline –is suffering the excrutiations of Sysyphus trying to get re-instated, trying to merely return the system back where it had been in July 2007 before Uptick was eliminated.
One more click for you, “bear raid” –these articles will get specific about your question, and you’ll see that though the experts strain to call them illegal, they aren’t, really, unless deliberate non-factual data is used to create transactions. The electronic trading, the program trading, quant, algorithm, black box, et cetera, all that is the same thing, just different terms. what they do is recreate the old bear raid ‘rumor mill’ without even needing the rumors, in order to collapse bids and drop prices. see the end of the first para of the IBD quote, “seeking any bid”. What this means to a stock price is, if the program is to sell at the market, the assumption is the normal condition of bid/ask gaps, they are tiny at any point in time. however, once the so-called ‘away’ trading moved around the NYSE slow-down controls, huge gaps opened, due to the overall nervous ‘Greece’ mkt having sent the day’s already thinned-out layer of buyers to the wait & see mode (already-thinned out due to the overall thin bid under this mkt ever since the crash of 08 –a thinness that shows in the very low daily trading volumes that pertain despite the big traders trying to disguise same for a year and a half now by trading back and forth with each other trying to pump up volume and interest –see Denninger’s many rants on this).
So the program is selling ‘at the market’ assuming ‘at the market’ will be as usual a bid of a penny or less below the last sale.
But if the sell orders have blown away the bids there may be NO bids –for the next hundred or thousand cents below ‘last sale’.
Here, a human would cancel his sell order of course, but a program won’t, it has orders to sell at the market, so the sales happen lower and lower, triggering more of the same.
A human looking on understands what is happening, but also knows that a price is a price, and “real” or not maybe he better protect his capital and sell, too. Along in here, delighted shorts are buying to cover their short sells. Maybe they sold a borrowed share of XYZ that morning for $100, now this afternoon they buy it back for $1 and put the $99 in their pocket.
Of course, without any doubt whatsoever, we need to bring back the uptick rule now –we could lose our capital markets to Hong Kong or some other exchange run by, hmmm, a less greedy mafiosi. The argument against bringing it back is that “it’s so difficult, you know, to get things done in congress”. If we end up vassals of the Kremlin, and we may well, the One World HQ ought to be in the center of the World Island dontcha know, it won’t be because they were so smart, it will be because we let ourselves get so blinking stoopid.
Peter Boston @ 47:
The 17th Amendment is indeed the key. The Founders designed the Senate to represent the states (actually, the state legislatures). The 17th Amendment severed a crucial check on the power of the national government. Congress is awash in money while the states rummage in the sofa cushions looking for loose change. Why? Because there is no longer any voice in Congress to speak for the states’ interests.
Imagine that senators were once again sent to Washington by their legislatures. Any senator with the temerity to support policies detrimental to his/her state would very shortly find themselves recalled and replaced. With this key element restored, things would tend to work themselves out without the need for term limits, balanced budget amendments and other nostrums.
There is already discussion and planning for state sovereignty here in Oklahoma, as well as Texas and other states. Smitty over at The Other McCain is beating the drum for repeal of the 17th. I would like to see a series of non-partisan 30-second spots on TV explaining the Founders’ purposes in the design of the Constitution. Perhaps something like the Heritage Foundation could take it on. I haven’t quite figured out how to help get it started, but I’m going to keep working on it.
“But for too long the RINOs have made significant compromises while -”
Its not about RINOs. Its about corruption.
I have seen and read the many arguments, here on BC and elsewhere, advocating repeal of the 17th Amendment. Forgive me, but I just don’t see it as the Holy Grail of the restoration of federalism that others do.
Maybe it’s because I live in Pennsylvania, home of the Super-Gigantic, Needlessly Overbloated and Disgustingly Corrupt State Legislature. I would not trust those clowns and thieves in Harrisburg to produce anything better than Arlen Specter if their lives depended on it. All a repeal of the 17th would do here in PA is put yet more power into the hands of career cheats. For those who haven’t been following the news, google “Bonusgate.” Read & weep. This is just the tip of the corruptocrat iceberg. Until Harrisburg is cleaned out, IMO, repealing the 17th is AT BEST a wash, and quite possibly could be much worse than what we currently have.
If there are Pennsylvania residents who see things differently, I would be interested to hear your thoughts on this.
Why is repeal of the 17th assumed to be such a game-changer whereas repeal of the 16th (usu. completely ignored in discussions of this sort) is not? I’m asking out of genuine curiosity. Tax revenue is D.C.’s lifeblood. The U.S. Tax Code is the practical expression of the federal boot in the citizen’s face. If we are serious about the necessity of distributing power away from Washington back to the states and individual citizens, why is repeal of the 17th supposed to be the “silver bullet” whereas a major reduction & restructuring of the federal tax system is not even contemplated?
Or is this chicken/egg?
The only way to turn this sows ear into a silk purse is to do something that I’ve mentioned on this blog for 5-6 years. Announce a policy to collapse the cost of water desalination and transport with the stated goal of making it economically feasible to make desert areas commercially available for farming 1000 miles from any seacoast–thereby making it economically possible to turn all the world’s deserts green and double the size of the habitable planet. The adjunct to that policy… would be to return people to their homelands–(because their homelands would become the lands of promise.)
The best model for this was the NASA mission to the moon announced by JFK in 1961 and accomplished in 1969. Half or more of the technology to get to the moon had been developed by 1961. In the case of water desalination and transport more than half of the technology to get to the goal has been developed–and the research avenues to accomplish the goal are already pretty well defined.
My latest post on desalination technology is here. My latest discussion of water transport issues is here.
Here’s a post this year in which I delineate the relationship between space exploration and water desalination. Basically imho the way to the moon and the outer planets is through the desert.(why? because the technologies developed to turn the world’s deserts green will map well over onto creating habitable biospheres in space.)
zhombre @ 50: Bennett is 76 years old and had served several terms; he needed to retire. A Senate seat is not a life-estate; if these guys won’t relinquish power, then power has to be taken from them by the people. I applaud the GOP in Utah for sending this guy out to pasture
Entirely agree. 76 is too old to reelect.
55. bogie wheel
You’re right; the 16th and 17th both need to go. Actually, I see it the opposite way that you do. I’ve heard of people advocating repeal of the 16th for years but thought that the 17th was neglected. The focus on the 17th seems to be a new phenomenon.
No, it wouldn’t be a magic bullet, but I think it would bring back one of the original checks and balances. The House and Senate were supposed to be different from one another. But now Senators as well as House members are elected by simple majorities of the popular vote. This was a giant step away from the republic in the direction of pure democracy.
I too live in Pennsylvania and I’m ashamed to say that I don’t know enough about the goings-on in Harrisburg. I need to educate myself about it but I don’t read a daily local newspaper. Do you know of any blogs or other Web resources that concentrate on PA state government?
Jack Okie @ 53:
You and I were posting at the same time on the same topic.
Some questions I have:
First: Practically speaking, with the current spoils system of doling out federal dollars to the states, and steering businesses & jobs to their states via preferential tax treatment, isn’t “bringing goodies home” exactly what the Senators do now? How is that spoils system, and the corrupt triangle trade of “Congressional earmark — lobbyist — campaign contributor” going to be automatically improved or eradicated just because the state leg selects the Senator rather than that state’s citizens? IOW, why are we supposed to assume that state legislators are automatically more honorable & wise than the citizen voters, and thus immune to the “bring the goodies home” system of legalized looting that D.C. currently embodies?
Without completely dismantling Washington’s power & role as distributor of federal largesse, why would repealing the 17th make things any different? Would Harrisburg politicians mind if tax dollars from Texas and Wyoming and Delaware were steered here? Hell no! “Go get everything you can while you can” would still be the mandate for each state’s Senator. As long as it’s not YOUR ox being gored …. How is that different than what we currently have?
Any senator with the temerity to support policies detrimental to his/her state would very shortly find themselves recalled and replaced.
“Recalled and replaced” … how, exactly? And in what time frame?
A repeal of the 17th Amendment would return the Senator selection system back to its original method, as described in Article I, Sections 3 and 4 … yes?
Section 3 states that a Senator’s term is six years. Section 4 states: “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Place of Chusing Senators.”
You are assuming that repealing the 17th will kick in some kind of automatic instant accountability system for Senators, where they will be kept on a micro-leash by state legislatures. From what I’m reading in the Constitution, repeal of the 17th will merely re-set the selection system back to each state deciding the methods for elections and recollection, indeed, whether there is to be any such thing as recollection at all.
I don’t know enough about each state’s historical process, pre-17th, to say what their Senator selection laws were before Feb. 1912. I’m assuming that Arizona, Hawaii and Alaska might not even have them, since they all became states after ratification of the 17th.
My overall point is that the pro-repeal position as you have stated it assumes a lot of things that I don’t think can be assumed. First, that the incentives for Senators would practically be any different than they are now. Second, that there are quick cut-and-dried recall laws in place in each state, ready to kick in, in the event of a 17th repeal. I question whether such laws exist.
–the 17th Amendment –making the Senate into a second House and leaving no Senate as it is the founder’s design –was a paen to “activism” –to spur more output from a body specifically designed to retard government output. Repeal would be huge –it would repair a smashed foundation cornerstone.
I tend to agree with bogie wheel at 55. I think repeal of the 17th amendment might be helpful, but is no panacea. If I could add an amendment it would simply be:
My proposed XXVIII Amendment:
Go back and re-read the tenth amendment. Again.
As sad as it is, I don’t think we will ever be able to elect federal legislators to put controls on themselves. I think it will have to happen through the courts…which will require Presidential and Senate elections. And even that is a very, very long shot. The states are key, but it won’t be state legislators selecting their senators, it will be states standing up to the Feds in court.
The Arizona immigration law is only the start. Different states may stand up for different issues, but it is important they start to stand up against the Feds for something. The problem will be that many states (CA, NJ) are so screwed up, they will be dependant on the Feds to bail them out…they have made themselves dependent vassals to the federal king.
I look forward to hopefully seeing the day that the phrase “The United States is…” is replaced with the original “The United States are…”
re: Bob Bennett’s remarks. ” “I wouldn’t have voted for any of them any differently even if I had known they would cost me my career…” Oh my. A “career in government” sounds like a disease, not the cure.
I’ve spent time w/ Bennett when he was the Y2K owner for the Brethren (amazing what a club it has turned into). Not a bad guy, but very much someone who thought government work was a (noble) career rather than a (part-time) service / obligation. Perhaps with a return to the Founder’s principles (and size of states) we can recast government work as a service & obligation (at least in some of the new states which want to be more free than hiring a mostly-permanent government class). If it works for open source content, software, … why not government? (call it a hobby, not a job, where there’s little money to be made, little (long-term) power to leverage for personal gain).
Well these “La Race” folks are welcome to start paying the bills anytime now, of course they won’t and can’t. And these “La Race” folks want to eliminate the only group that is paying the bills. Brilliant strategy you idiots. If they are really that stupid they aren’t much of a threat, except to young white children in school. Probably like the Muslim terrorists, cut the stock off an AK so you won’t be able to hit a dang thing with it, or hold their automatic “nine” sideways “gangsta” style.
It is amazing, our times today have more racism than any before, blatant overt stand up and shout racism from these minority/immigrant groups and their defense by mostly white commie marxist elite “intelllectuals”, many of whom serve in government positions. And it’s the Tea Parties that are accused of racism! And those doing the accusing, well I’ve come to the same conclusion as the rest of working private sector America, the accusers are the biggest racists of all, race baiters.
You Tea Partiers, “go back to work, pay your taxes, and shut up!” we are told.
Remember one thing good, you marxists, we will remember dang good who, what, when, and most of all, where!
Was hoping for a 4K drop in the market the other day after Skynet burped. Didn’t happen, but I have renewed confidence it will! It does seem more and more people are wising up and cashing out.
Sooner or later the ponzi scheme will collapse, and all the free checks will stop, and some of you will be really glad you followed Papa Ray’s suggestion to BUY MORE AMMO.
BW/59; there’s that old story about a couple guys out coon hunting. They tree what they think is a coon and one of ‘em climbs the tree to dispatch said game. But it wasn’t a coon, it is a bobcat, and a screaming hissing biting scratching wrestling match ensues up there in the foliage. The hunter is screaming “shoot! shoot!” but the guy on the ground is hollering he can’t see which is which of ‘em. finally the distressed hunter screams “Hell just shoot up here AMONGST us –one of us has just GOT to get some relief!”
bogie wheel,
A desire to repeal the 17th is not based upon a romantic assessment of State legislatures. Quiet the opposite since state governments are generally founts of corruption. With few exceptions you should be able to string barbed wire around any state capital in America under the assumption that people who live there must be guilty of something. The
problemunintended consequence with the 17th Amendment was that it moved the corruption of the States into the Senate by two means;1. it interjected the apparatus of urban party politics more directly into national politics in a manner that made all politicians more dependent on the money and power of parties and outside, increasingly national or even international, interests,
2. it eliminated the system of checks and balances that had served as some brake on corruption by a local political machine.
The Federal government could be usefully occupied in prosecuting corruption at the local level. If the Senators were not directly elected machines controlled by national or even trans-national interests then other state interests and the national interest of the Department of Justice would find it easier to investigate and prosecute politicians in local cesspools. The same general argument applies to the election of the President. The decline of the Electoral College has been accompanied by the increase in corruption and outside manipulation. That reached a climax in 2008.
One reason that state governments are so corrupt is that they have no real authority except to arrange side payments. If more power was transferred back to the states then there would be more pressure to replace the current crop of hacks with serious lawmakers. Kicking power upstairs rarely works. The solution for the feckless conduct of the NY City Council is not to transfer all local oversight to Albany. The remedy for the venality and incapacity of the NY State Legislature is not to transfer its duties to Washington.
wws,
#34 by my count, was something moved?.
Also re Ari Tai‘s plan, there is something ghastly in the willingness of people in the name of ideological purity to continuously chop and shuffle associational units like the states. It traces back to the murderous logic of the French Revolution. That does not mean that smaller states would be a bad idea but we need to encourage more historical associations and attachments, not fewer.
There is a good argument for doubling or more the size of the House of Representatives to combat the vices of gerrymandering. If the UK’s House of Commons was 50% larger then the damage caused by tactical voting and the dozen some cases where the Conservatives lost by less than the UKIP vote would have been no bar to a clear Tory victory. The Lib-Dems while repudiated at the polls are benefiting from constituency sizes based on the number of places to sit in Westminster.
To be blogged under the title “Notes on Federalism.”
rickl @ 58:
I’m not aware of any blogs heavily covering the Bonusgate/Harrisburg angle, but then again I have not gone searching for them, so there might be a few. I have followed Bonusgate mainly via local newspapers. Mike Veon (*spit*) is from Beaver County, so the two local papers (Post-Gazette and Tribune Review) have been covering his trial & those of the other defendants pretty closely.
For an overview of the problem of the legislature being too big and too expensive to begin with, read Brian O’Neill’s recent column in the PG:
http://tiny.cc/w9odt
O’Neill has been writing about this problem, and Veon/Bonusgate, with semi-regularity. Search through O’Neill’s archives for additional columns.
I know there is much more out there but that’s all I have time to dig for & link to right now.
And just to clarify: I’m not *against* repealing the 17th, per se. I’m just skeptical how effective it would be, in and of itself. Moneymoneymoney is the fuel for the Washington engine. Hence my preference for putting an emphasis on repeal of the 16th. But repealing both 16th and 17th would be fine by me.
Dang there are great comments here to an outstanding post.
As always.
I’m a wishing that at least staffers to our Senators and Representatives are reading them. But even if they are, their reports and summaries to their bosses – will in translation lose 80 % of the meaning and fervor of the originals.
But then again my wish is most likely just a dream unfulfilled. Those aides and staffers have other “more important” things to do.
So that leaves it up to each of us to get our ideas, concerns and fears out to the uninformed, illiterate American public, so that they, in mass, can raise enough cane to get their attention.
There have been ways to do that discussed here by others and myself. But the real and desperate reason for doing rather than just talking — Is that our opposition…from the Democrats to the Islamics to the illegals, and to the other unseen – but real forces – that are determined to destroy us and our Republic,
Can not be stopped just by words.
Words here or anywhere on the Web or even on the radio and TV.
It certainly helps and can be powerful – but it is not enough.
This is a great place, this Belmont Place. But don’t deceive yourself that it is anymore than a tiny place in the great universe of the Internet. No dis-respect to our Host intended and I’m pretty sure that he would acknowledge this as the truth. And then you have to consider what the Internet is (or at least what blogs are to the Internet) in respect to the real world on the street. It is of course becoming more influential and important, but as far as the masses of people in the world, it is still just an idea in development.
Most Americans still use their internet for recipes, social contacts, weather, local news, entertainment and porn.
Many American’s that I think could use the education and edification of this place and other blogs will never see them and in actuality, wouldn’t give a dang about them even if you gave them free internet, a computer and a favorites list already made up of a diversified blogs and news sites. They would say they have better things to do with their time than read stupid stuff.
Therein is one of the biggest problems America has. You can call it whatever name you want, label it however you want but it is a huge problem facing those of us that want “change”.
For both the left and the right, the liberal and the conservative.
The democrats know and acknowledge what I just wrote and they have plans to overcome this problem and to get Americans to vote and vote for them.
What do we have? From what I can gather from my group (who are trying to get the conservative vote out) we have a real problem and it appears that not a whole lot is being done in their local areas and by extension in the state. But there is evidence that the democrats have a lot of people actively involved and working out on the streets and in local meetings and such. They are going to be ready for the elections and they will have their voters lined up and ready.
Will we? Will we get out from behind our computers, out of our homes and onto the street? Will we gather people for meetings, get them out, or go to them?
Will we be at the voting places making sure that the vote is honest and true?
God helps those that help themselves and other than the Tea Parties it appears that the average conservative is still too busy with other things. That has to change or we will lose the elections even if they don’t cheat, which I predict that they will…big time.
Think about it, make a plan, then get to work.
Papa Ray
whiskey, I might have said this tongue in cheek before, but now I’m deadly serious: you need to get out more. Washington is nothing like what you think, certainly not in the population centers. And I don’t just mean Seattle, either: nowhere in the Puget Sound bears the slightest resemblance to your stereotype.
RE the 17th Amendment, it should be repealed at least, but I think more ideally replaced with one which at least permits the executive of the state to make an appointment to the Senate within 7 days of a new Senate session being convened, if the legislature of that state has not made a selection. I think we should entertain the idea of differing classes of Senators, where one is chosen by the net taxpayers of a state for a term, but two are appointed by and serve at the pleasure of the executive and the legislature of a State–again, the executive of the state being able to appoint Senators to serve in seats left vacant.
RE the 16th amendment, I have less problem with a fair and simple income tax than I do with a tariff. A tariff is inevitably a distortion of trade based arbitrarily on the point of origin of a good or service–it’s not something which can be justified, it is mercantilist. The income tax should be equal for all dollars of income, regardless of how many dollars of income you have or where your income is from. The return should fit on a postcard. An income tax with a single per person deduction also does not provide opportunities for circular flows of money as does a national sales tax, where what is and isn’t a taxable good and to what degree becomes a path to graft.
RE term limits. I see no evidence there are so many good people willing to serve, that we should forbid ourselves from sending a good person to Washington more than once. Instead of a one term limit, there should be a prohibition of consecutive terms. Then there are no incumbents.
“A” root or “the” root… What’s the difference!? What should follow rather is the link to Francisco’s speech on money, that’s all.
LOTM @ 65:
Thanks for taking the time to discuss.
It may be that I’m just obtuse, and/or that I have not worked directly on political campaigns and so I don’t know what percentage of a candidate’s moolah comes from the state party and/or from the national party ….. but I’m not seeing the logical connection between your header and the two supporting points:
The problem unintended consequence with the 17th Amendment was that it moved the corruption of the States into the Senate by two means;
1. it interjected the apparatus of urban party politics more directly into national politics in a manner that made all politicians more dependent on the money and power of parties and outside, increasingly national or even international, interests,
2. it eliminated the system of checks and balances that had served as some brake on corruption by a local political machine.
How did repeal of the 17th “interject … urban party politics more directly” by taking the selection of Senators away from state legisatures and having the state’s citizen’s vote directly for Senators? Are you saying that what happened was the ugly side of democracy, i.e. the cities (where the bulk of the population resides) now effectively elect Senators and the votes or rural residents are drowned out?
Okay, I’ll go along for now.
But can you demonstrate how the urban/rural equation is different with a state legislature (or, how it used to be different pre-1912)?
The Pennsylvania General Assembly is bicameral. The State Senate, the upper house, is not structured like the U.S. Senate, however, with regards to the # of residents each senator represents. It’s not a case of each county sending, say, 1 senator to the General Assembly. The State Senate runs according to districts, and each PA state senator represents approx. 245,000 residents. Therefore, urban areas STILL get more sway in the State Senate than do rural areas.
(FWIW, the State Senate is 30 Republicans, 20 Dems …. while the House of Reps is currently 104 Dems, 99 Republicans.)
The effects of urban party machines, and all the corruption that goes with them, is ameliorated in the pre-17th system of U.S. Senator selection *only if* rural districts can punch above their weight in at least one of the state houses, IMO. Since that is not the case in Pennsylvania, you are still going to get U.S. Senators who are largely the products of urban party politics.
And I’m not sure exactly what you mean by point #2. Are you saying that the pre-17th system “had served as some brake on corruption” by preventing urban party politics from infecting upstream to Washington? Or are you saying that the brake was that it set corrupt state legislatures against corrupt D.C. interests as competing spheres of power?
I’m almost more inclined to believe the latter. But D.C. and so many state governments are bedroom partners today, with (as someone pointed out above) a number of states being heavily dependent upon federal $ to keep their state budgets from collapsing, that I don’t think the “competing spheres of power” paradigm would necessarily hold true today if the 17th were repealed. That’s the tragedy of Washington’s monster growth. Back when the states could effectively be competing spheres of power, at least the state legislators were “our bastards.” Now too many are “their bastards” whether they reside in Harrisburg or Georgetown.
The Federal government could be usefully occupied in prosecuting corruption at the local level. If the Senators were not directly elected machines controlled by national or even trans-national interests then other state interests and the national interest of the Department of Justice would find it easier to investigate and prosecute politicians in local cesspools.
It’s a nice thought. And maybe in some places it works that way. That’s certainly the way “The Untouchables” presented it …. since Chicago/Illinois was incapable of and unwilling to clean up its own Capone mess in the 1920s, a “disinterested third party,” in the form of U.S. Treasury Agent Elliot Ness, was brought in to do what the locals would not.
But again I question whether the bonds between feds and state/local pols have grown too incestuous. Our local U.S. Attorney, Mary Beth Buchanan (R), has not convinced me that she would be materially different than our current Congressman, Jason Altmire (D), whom she wants to oppose in November. Altmire voted for the porkulus, but against Obamacare and against Puerto Rico statehood. The unions are furious and gunning for him because of his Obamacare vote, which the seniors (a big constituency in this region) were screaming at him to vote against back in March. So it seems Obamacare split the senior-union vote, and both are equally important esp. to a Democratic politician in this area. Altmire has what I believe is called a “thankless job” these days.
But I digress.
There has been considerable poisoning of state politics due to the dole from D.C., IMO. From D.C.’s point of view, that is a feature, not a bug. I would like to return to 10th Amendment federalism. But a lot of gordian knots, in terms of the incestuous state-fed relationships, are going to have to get hacked. I don’t pretend to even begin to comprehend how difficult this will be. I just know that the current path is unsustainable. And if it means returning to a system of “our bastards in Harrisburg” versus “their bastards in Washington” then I will at least agree that that is less rotten than what we currently have.
#4 Whiskey
I guess it depends on which tea leaves you are reading. The problem in predicting race war is that racism is a problem except when it isn’t. Don’t become a mirror image of the left which cries RACISM at every opportunity. The left’s quest to stomp out racism is really a means to keeping it alive. The left wouldn’t know what to do without racism. Don’t fall into that trap. My ten year old’s South Seattle integrated little league team gets along great. Should I break it up because Whiskey thinks a race war is on its way? I’m trying to say that racism is a problem until it is not a problem. The left is invested in the problem of it and so keeps it alive however it can. We counter racism not with more racism but with life, investing in life and living life. So when racism dies down or seems to the left looks for it in the most absurd places. They will lock a bunch of white people in a room and Maoistically make them confess their feelings of white racial superiority – or get fired from their jobs. Or when some cop lets fly with a racist comment caught on cell phone camera (as happened recently in Seattle) the left moves in to make sure the whole society knows that it is racist. But the whole of society cannot spend its time proving a negative (“I’m not racist!”) So we just have to go on living and investing in life and loving our neighbor.
rickl and any other PA residents who might be reading -
Okay, this isn’t a state legislature debacle, rather a City of Harrisburg FUBAR of sizeable proportions. But it illustrates my point that the maroon mentality is not confined to politicians at the federal level, and why our tax dollars need to be kept away from politicians as much as possible, regardless of their level of office.
Besides, the debt-inflicting incinerator is contributing to the air that everyone in Harrisburg breathes. Surely that has something to do with why they so readily burn through our tax money?
I kinda like “Harrisburg Incinerators” as a sports team name. Takers, anyone?
“Incinerator Debt Might Sink Harrisburg”
Central Penn Business Journal, Sept. 2009
http://tinyurl.com/2vc27k6
Bogie Wheel @ 55: “Tax revenue is D.C.’s lifeblood.”
Exactly. Well, that and the ability to borrow money in your name.
Originally, the Federal government was funded by customs duties and such like. That’s probably not practical in a world where we all benefit from globalization & low tariffs.
It would be better to replace the 16th Amendment with a provision that the Feds could tak only the States. And set it up so that the Fed’s taxation on the States required the approval of 2/3 of the States, each year.
This would end the silliness of people sending their taxes to the Feds to give back to the States with strings attached. And it is much easier for people to vote with their feet when there are 50 States to choose from.
“Whiskey” writes in comment #4:
Sorry, but do you live in Utah? Because what you are describing is an utter crock of sh*t.
I’ve lived here for 20 years, having previously lived in Delaware for 25 years. I know many people who have moved here for a variety of reasons, the most common reasons being simple economics, geography or religion. Many people move here because the economy is better. Getting shafted with high taxes and overregulation in California? Move here and have less of it. Tired of living in a flat, muggy, swampy peninsula like Delaware? Move here for mountains and canyons, 20 mile views and dry weather that won’t curl you hair. Converted to mormonism and want to be “in the thick of it”? Move here and be surrounded by mormons everywhere.
There’s a reason that Bennett picked Romney to pump him up, he’s the mormon pretty boy of local politics and a sure-fire way to tap into that mormon feeling if you’re feeling desperate. That even Romeny couldn’t pull Bennett’s ass out of the fire is telling you something really important about the grass roots feeling in Utah, and it has f*ck all to do with race.
I fear the Aztlan “situation” has already passed beyond the point of a peacefull resolution.
Here in California, the small government Republicans are making a showing in the primary races but are as of yet unlikely to prevail and take the battle to the Democrats in November general election.
We’re still in a place just like the McCain campaign. The person we will have to support is not that much of an improvement over Brand D. Still, any improvement is an improvement.
Even Sarah Palin’s endorsement of Carly for senate is a disappointment. Governor Palin seems to be playing a huge game of suck-up to the Republican establishment. She is losing my respect by so doing. She should take a higher road and focus on the issues of the culture war and general political principles. There she is on solid ground.
BTW, repeal of the 17th amendment will make things WORST, at least in California. Our legislature is so gerrymanded Democrat that even Feinstein would not have made the cut. I’ll grant that Boxer would not have been appointed since she was not so much the machine candidate but put together a coalition of radical special interests to get seat.
In other news, the all-knowing and all-wise Thomas L. Friedman restates the obvious, thus ensuring his reputation as the divine omphalos of worldly wisdom.
Ignominious @ 78:
Well, Ig, take some small consolation in this — that it may be the first time NYT readers have had this stuck right under their noses. If even *Tom Friedman* is sensing that Something Wicked This Way Comes ….
That said, I read his column, and he still doesn’t get it.
Excerpt from right near the finish:
My takeaway is that U.S. and European politicians — please don’t laugh — are going to have to get a lot smarter and more honest.
To be the Regeneration, they’ll have to figure out how to raise some taxes to increase revenues, while cutting other taxes to stimulate growth; they’ll have to cut some services to save money, while investing in new infrastructure to grow economic capacity. We have got to use every dollar wisely now.
He’s still old paradigm: The *politicians* are going to have to do X and Y. The *politicians* are going to have to figure it out. (Figure it out? You mean the same pols who got us into this mess?) “Raise some taxes.” “Cut some services.” Don’t you just love the moderation of “some”? I’m sure he’s convinced that makes him sound oh-so-reasonable. But it’s like telling a 900-lb person they are going to have to “cut some calories” and “exercise some.” HellOOOOO! The time for “some” was back when you blew out your scale at, say, 300 pounds!
Friedman’s column would have been downright visionary coming from a Dem way back in the 1980s, for instance. But a quarter-century later, Friedman still hasn’t even caught up to where Reagan was back then. Friedman still lives in the land of We the Government. Reagan was speaking We the People.
BTW, I’m still waiting for Obama to say to Friedman, “I do think at a certain point, Tom, you have enough house.”
For Mark @16. Once you’re in Mexico and you have good manners the genuine hospitality is amazing. Especially off the main tourist routes where they haven’t been burned out by rude gringos. But for some reason as soon as some Mexicans cross the border they get a chip on the shoulder, maybe they are overwhelmed by the marked difference in affluence. Then their kids are brainwashed in ethnic studies and never get over the inferiority of their parents. So don’t write off Mexico. Spanish is a great language that is more suited to singing than the Heinz 57 English we have. Right now our pop music is mostly garbage, in Mexico they are having a golden age like we’ve have from time to time. In my misspent youth I traveled through Mexico three times hitching and riding freight trains. Once in Reynosa, in the Rio Grande Valley, I waited for a southbound train for three days. I got adopted by a restaurant owner who wouldn’t take my money. His neighbor merchant arranged his yard full of appliances in a spiral so I could sleep without being surprised at night. The local kids insisted they shop for me to get better prices. Someone crossed the tracks to lay a US dollar on me for my trip to Oaxaca. When a suitable train showed up, the restaurant owner emptied his pockets for my trip. I hooked up with two Mexican tramps on that train who had been ejected from Texas. They were a little hostile to this gringo at first, then relaxed slightly after we got away from the border. When I hustled enough dry kindling to build a fire in the rain they decided I was one of the family. People living along the tracks freely gave them food right off the stove, tequila, and cigarettes. I rode with them all the way to the “City of the Palace,” the Indian slang for Mexico City. I found that hospitality all over Mexico and Guatemala, with the exception of areas where the Guatemalan Army was murdering the Mayans in ’79. So with all the violence these days I can wait to go back.
The tea party is taking over the republican party. As it should be. The republican party used to be about the principles laid down by the tea party. In trying to be the party of moderation and appeasement they became RINO”S and democrat light. We are fed up. This is about the second emancipation of the people. The day of reckoning is at hand. We want our country back as founded and guided by the timeless principles of our founding fathers and our constitution. We don’t like what our country is evolving into. It is now or never. November the most important election of our life time. We will either reclaim our country or all is lost. The stakes are very high indeed. Things appear to be falling into place for the salvation of our country but we must work hard and not rest on our laurels. My mission is to convert everyone I can to the tea party and I am having amazing success. I won’t rest until Obama and his ilk are driven out of our whitehouse .
Implementing the method of selecting senators as it appeared in the Constitution is not a panacea. We are way beyond a simple solution for saving the Republic, if it is not already lost, but do not make the perfect the enemy of the good.
If state legislators selected the two senators from each state that would remove the selection process one step from national parties and national or even international interest groups. Current senatorial elections are determined very much by money, and that money can come from anywhere. As a practical matter it would be much more difficult for a MoveOn or a GE to get to enough state legislators to dramatically influence the selection of a senator who is guaranteed to vote for Cap n’ Trade.
The fact that state legislator’s are no less whores than their federal counterparts works to the Republic’s advantage. Under the current system there is zero probability that any of the massive federal bureaucracies will ever be eliminated or even brought to heel. Once state legislators get the idea that the $10.5 billion budget of the EPA could be up for grabs to be spent in their own states, if the EPA, for example, went away, there would be tremendous motivation to select senators willing to defederalize the center and move the goodies to the states.
State legislators are not beholden to the national parties, at least not to the same extent as a directly elected Arlen Specter who threw his constituency under the bus for Democrat money and campaign workers. That is not to say that Pennsylvania state legislators would not select an Arlen Specter but they would have to do so with the knowledge that they may be putting their own political careers on the line. Nothing motivates a politician more than keeping his own ass exactly where it is.
Until the system is shocked by something as dramatic as a repeal of the 17th amendment and a constitutional crisis precipitated by a states right claim the federal behemoth will continue to grow and consume everything in its path.
“Don’t take a chance on a newcomer. Keep the veteran on the floor when you’re playing a championship game.”
Baloney. Down with all incumbents.
We have nothing to loose and a country to gain
Wally…my understanding is that membership in the Maquis peaked in 1956.
64. buddy larsen
Jerry Clower – A Coon Huntin Story
#32 twobyfour
Subotai, I am not sure that they want to risk a civil war by suspending 2010 elections. They don’t have a support infrastructure in place yet (0-troopers and 0-stapo).
Such an act depends on preparation, creating a sense of crisis that makes the suspension seem to be a reasonable act to at least a significant enough portion of the population that the issue is muddled. You have to remember, that the Democratic Party and the entire state-guided media would stampede in favor of a “temporary” suspension of elections due to a crisis. Those who oppose such would be smeared as dangerous, radicals, etc. who would place everyone at risk in these dangerous times for the sake of archaic tradition. In the absence of a population that is knowledgable and devoted to the Constitution, such a tactic has a great chance of success. Sadly, the average American [We are a self-selected sample far above average for historical and political knowledge, and far more communicative than most of our fellow citizens.] cannot tell the difference between quotations from the Constitution, the Declaration, or the Communist Manifesto. Literally.
I have before referenced the book Coup d’Etat by Edward Luttwak, on the political theory and practice of the act. I again recommend it most highly. Note that in almost all of the non-electoral internal [not caused by a foreign occupying army] changes in government for well over a century in the West; the beneficiary of the coup did NOT BY ANY MEANS have the resources to enforce his will on an actively resisting population before the coup. It is done almost exclusively by misdirection of parts of the security and/or defense organs of the state to overwhelm the political organs; or by stampeding the political organs into signing their own death warrants.
I offer for your consideration, Napoleon’s 18 Brumaire in 1799, the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, or most commonly cited, the German Enabling Act of 1933; and leave it to you to find other examples.
This is a period of time when every possible crisis is coming to a head simultaneously. We see a coming economic collapse in Europe and here at home [both quite possibly being deliberately engineered], another war in the Middle East imminent, we are at war in Afghanistan and are deliberately placing our forces in harms way in such a manner as to risk a re-creation of Xenophon’s Anabasis if we are lucky and the Brit’s First Afghan War if we are not. A nuclear armed North Korea is sinking South Korean warships with impunity. Iran is becoming a nuclear power with the open help of the Russians, the Chinese, the North Koreans, and the Pakistanis [the latter sitting astride the sole supply lines of our forces in Afghanistan]. Iran is threatening to nuke Israel and furnishing SCUD missiles to Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon via Syria. Israel is deliberately denied access by the United States to the conventional weapons and flight paths that would enable them to try to deal with the threat short of nuclear war. Given the choice between submission/extermination and their own nuclear strike; they will have to act soon. All of our allies have de facto been put on notice that a defense treaty with the United States means now that they can assume that we will probably side with any aggressor that attacks them.
And this is just the short form.
And I have to keep returning to what some may term my obsession. Having dealt with politicians for decades, up close and personal, our ruling “elites” are acting far out of character. They are deliberately insulting, attacking, and abusing this country’s people and institutions. And supporting groups threatening violence against the citizens. They are micturating on everyone, and telling them to enjoy the rain. These are not the actions of politicians who believe that they can be held to account either by law or election or that they are at any future risk of being held to account.
I would also offer as a subject of research; the numerous “Emergency Powers” granted to the president by existing statutes for use in time of declared national emergencies. We are under about a dozen declared states of emergency right now. A president does not have to pass a bill through Congress. He just has to sign a paper and convince the majority of Congress to sit there and shut up. Keeping in mind that the Democrats right now have a majority in both Houses [before any election], and [sorry L3] especially at the national level there are no “Moderate” or “Blue Dog” Democrats. They will tug their forelocks and do exactly as they are told to. They have offered proof after proof of such since January 2009. The Democrats in office and in party positions are literally TWANLOC and would happily destroy the Constitution. And they would be joined by far more than a few elected Republicans, seeking to keep their personal privileges.
To make the working assumption that there definitely will be free, open, and honest elections in November requires far more optimism than I can muster. I will of course work my [insert crude portion of anatomy of choice] off to support Patriots in an election, but I will expect that elections and a subsequent swearing-in have a likelihood of not being allowed to occur.
#40 Leo Linbeck III
I won’t argue with you about the existence of such [at least some few], since you know them personally. My friend from Houston was expressing faith, and could not bring to mind any actual examples. However, if they are under deep cover, hiding from discovery [like Conservative Hollywood types], and noting that the Democrat Apparat is more than willing to purge dissidents from the Party line; how will we a) be able to tell them from loyal supporters of the Party Apparat when the crunch comes, and b) how will we know that they are not the political equivalent of double agents?
#49 wws
suboatai @ #29 – one thing you discount that I believe negates your thesis; These are not men of courage or strength, who know how to take strong action when they are threatened. These men, even though they may hold power, are cowards and fools to a man and when threatened they will scurry, and panic, and grovel, and fold like cheap lawn chairs. That is all they have in them – we have lived in a perverse system which has served to elevate men who are good at those types of things to high levels. But as soon as the wind changes, as it is changing now, they will be swept away like dust, because they have not the will to resist within them.
A coward when faced by an unexpected mortal threat by those they had previously held in contempt can lash out with deadly effect. Think cornered rats, which may be an insult to the character and morals of rats when you consider who they are being compared to.
And yes, I do fear the man on horseback who follows. Sadly, we will have no sure foreknowledge when the point of decision comes. It will be a choice between enduring the unendurable, and wagering it all. Lives, Fortunes, and Sacred Honor as far better men than any who exist now once put it.
#67 Papa Ray
This is the very last place that any member of our governing class, or their staff, would be reading. There are others, employed by them, who may be reading for more coercive reasons. I would not rule out that the computer network in the Capitol has a filter blocking PJM, just as they tried to block Drudge a few weeks ago. The leadership in the Capitol cannot risk having members of either party being exposed to thoughtcrime. [only minimal sarc, given what they tried with Drudge]
Yes we talk. And those who appear here are usually well worth considering, far above the normal level of conversation. Talk will not replace actions. But it can shape them. In this forum, we are not Captain Parker, Ethan Allen, or Henry Knox. We are most definitely not Thomas Jefferson or George Washington. Some of us, someday, may aspire to be Alexander Hamilton at Redoubt #10. But almost all of us will be at most Joseph Plumb Martin. Which is neither a bad or unworthy thing, just the opposite in fact.
We are talkers, we are a Committee of Correspondence. We are read by relatively few, outside those who are designated as our minders. But we act to add our small bricks and braces to the intellectual structure that is being built; and hope that it is not Babel, but rather the foundations of a renewed city on a hill. We do what we can, where we are, with what we have. We create ripples that go we know not where. May it be enough to help.
As my blog namesake might have said; “Only the Great Blue-Sky Tengri Nor knows the result.”
Subotai Bahadur
“I do not consider Mexico a friend of America.” I don’t want to be Pat Buchanan here, but it seems like Washington conservatives (here’s looking at you Frank Gaffney) have been hyperventilating about Russia as a threat to U.S. national security for years (he even wrote columns back in 1989 saying Gorby was just a sucker punch, cue the John Bircher Theory that all those millions of Russians dislocated and led to early graves were just casulties of an elaborate Commie plot to make us let our guard down) when the real threats were always much closer to home.
Mexico of course wouldn’t have started to implode violently if we were a society that had the self-confidence not to allow Mexicans to go to the head of the immigration line. That is, if we gave someone from India or Kenya equal opportunity to enter this country as a Mexican who slipped across the border ten years ago and now wants amnesty to stay ahead of all those even-darker skinned and even poorer folks (think Moldovans, who although ‘white’ are poorer than the average Mexican and emigrate to such affluent places as Turkey or Russia rather than the U.S.) still patiently waiting their turn.
But common sense says you cannot remove 14 million people from a country who would have made up its working and even lower middle class and not leave behind only old men and women and a few children to oppose the narcotraficante gangstas in many of the areas where violence is the worst. The blame therefore lies on both sides of the Border, in the corrupt bargain between Washington and D.F. against both of our peoples. If political correctness hadn’t triumphed over here folks like the La Raza professor Whiskey described would be as marginal as the KKK.
My other point is it’s no surprise Pat Buchanan likes Russia. The Russians still have the confidence to enforce their immigration laws even though their percentage of immigrants in the workforce is almost the same as ours. But any Tadjik professor rambling about the descendants of Ghenghis Khan conquering the Slavs would find himself deported fast.
#4 Whiskey:
“Utah is a ‘Whitopia,’ a place like Idaho or Montana or Oregon or Washington, the White people go to get away from Blacks and Hispanics.”
WTF? I can’t tell if you’re trying to be sarcastic, or serious, or what. I’ve lived in Utah most of my life, and I can tell you all that this is NOT what Utah is. We love ANYone who comes here to live according to conservative American values, I don’t care what race or ethnicity, religion or creed. Even if you *don’t * believe in conservative American values, you’re still welcome; I’d just ask that you please don’t start trying to change Utah into something it’s not, because we will resist these efforts.
We have welcomed people from all over the world; we have since the time of Brigham Young. We’re home to Mexicans, Vietnamese, Pacific Islanders, and many others. I’m always saddened that there aren’t as many African-Americans here as in other parts of the country. It’s just a natural consequence of the demographics of the westward migration 150 years ago. Because so many of us are white, people assume somehow it’s because we’re keeping black people out. Absurd! But because of that, people assume we’re racist from the start, and we have to fight DAMN HARD to convince them otherwise. Which is why, “Whiskey,” whoever you are, I hope to hell you’re NOT from here, because it’s rare racist remarks from the likes of you that tear down everything we’ve tried so hard to build.
Many African-Americans were flown to our military bases for shelter after Katrina hit. Many came to the barracks at Camp Williams, a few minutes down the road from where I live. We welcomed them with open arms! We gave them homes and communities to live in. We were excited to have them share their heritage and share in ours. Look it up!
Judge Utah by its actions, not by the racist words of some anonymous commenter that doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about.
This is just the beginning! Let’s get to work on the colleges,the unions, the cultural rot factories,and other institutions infested by the left’s long march,and begin the political intimidation of rogue judges and bureaucrats.Let’s roll back the sixties!
Well said, Kendall, same goes for Idaho, where I’m from.
Jerry Clower is a great story teller with an eye for detail and an ear for cadence and rhythm. imho he’s also very funny. Here’s another one.
Jerry Clower – Repair Man
Heh. Steyn
A year or so back, I was talking with Ezra Levant about our travails in Canada, and he remarked on the way the media accept self-described “human rights activists” at their own valuation – ie, a statist control freak who supports ever vaster government powers can label himself a “human rights activist” and the press will generally string along with it. And Ezra said that, as someone fighting to restore real human rights to Canada, he might start describing himself as a “human rights activist”.
Well, a while later, it was time to update my bio, and someone said we should have a line in there about the “human rights” fracas. So, taking my cue from Ezra, we put in: “Mark Steyn is a Canadian human rights activist. That’s to say, he’s actively trying to destroy the Canadian ‘Human Rights’ Commission.”
On Wednesday, down in Bedford, New Hampshire, I gave a speech at a fundraiser for the Vesta Roy Excellence in Public Service Series. Before the dinner, I was interviewed by The Union Leader. The reporter had evidently read the bio, or at any rate skimmed it – for, in Thursday’s paper (print edition only, alas), the story begins:
Yes, indeed. It’s official now: “Mark Steyn, human rights activist.”
In 1932 Washington was a desolate place. Homes were for sale or abandoned, businesses were closed, people were moving away, the place was dried up. And then, in 1933, it rained.
It is still raining, but now it’s going to flood.
go deguello! remember, tho, we *lost* that ‘deguello’ battle –but won the war –
Subotai/85; re your I offer for your consideration, Napoleon’s 18 Brumaire in 1799, the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, or most commonly cited, the German Enabling Act of 1933; and leave it to you to find other examples.
–have you noted that the dictatorships in all three cases were foreign to the cultures and nations they seized? France seized by a Corsican, Russia by a big three (the german Marx, Lenin, the georgian Stalin) of whom two of three were foreign, and then Germany by an Austrian? Why is this, one wonders, Obama on the mind.
***
re “human rights” –a phrase of diminishing returns, the need is to consider “human wrongs”. Such as having to stand helplessly by and watch an abstraction such as ‘office’ allow a congeries of legal outlaws to devalue us where we stand.
They can lie, smear, mischaracter and insult all they want NO ONE is buying their nonsense anbd sees it for the desperate lies that they are
Kendall, #88. Why are you so terrified of being called a racist? Do you ever stop to think who these people are who like to race-bait European Americans? Calm down. I envy Utah. The race-baiters might stay away and you won’t end up like California.
#94 buddy larsen
At the risk of jumping a couple of generations in slang.
“Word!”
#88 Kendall
If I may add to your post, I am, as I have stated previously, Chinese in ancestry. Back in the 1980′s, a friend of mine was stationed in San Francisco and he invited us to stay at his apartment if we came there. My wife and I decided to take an on-a-financial-shoestring vacation there for Chinese New Years. A good time was had by all, but the important point for this sub-thread was our travel itself. We were driving from Colorado and before we left we were warned by a number of people to watch out for the racist Mormons in Utah. They were described as being akin to the Klan, and especially not too happy with mixed marriages. They had no data to back it, but were downright vehement.
Driving through Utah, we got hit by a sudden blizzard. Y’all in Utah got some real strange land forms in broad daylight along I-70. Driving in them at night in a blizzard is real spooky. We ended up deciding that we needed to get off the road, and stopped several hours earlier than planned in a small town. Stopped at a restaurant to get something to eat, and told the waitress our situation and asked if there were any decent cheap motels in town. She went off and apparently called around and found us a decent room that was not expensive. After we checked in, the manager told us about a nearby restaurant where we could get breakfast inexpensively. Literally everyone we met was as nice as they could be and bent over backwards to help us. NO sign of any racism or hostility at all.
The only Mormons I had met before that were some neighbors in an apartment building in Denver. He had been a SEAL who had been medicaled out of the SEALS due to a shipboard injury and later given a general discharge due to … anger-management problems. He was a good enough guy if you got along with him, and handy for some applied violence to some local thieves; but was a tad twisted. That was my only previous contact with Mormons, and I found out that he was an anomaly, to put it mildly.
I since have made friends with a number of people in town who it turned out were Mormon. Their kids babysat my kids, we worked together, and got along great. From what I can see, a devout Mormon is probably about the best neighbor or friend you could have. Not being Christian I will not get involved in the theology. But from what I have seen, a state full of Mormons might not be too bad a place to live; so long as you note that no group is perfect and there are ambulatory anal orifii in any group of people.
To go back to the different slang:
“I ain’t diss-in any Mormons.”
Subotai Bahadur
“The first is that the Washington elite will circle the wagons, bury their minor differences and concentrate on keeping the money and power”…
And by G_d…they do this at their own peril. If they insist on the status quo….they’ll be dragged out of their cushy offices and draped on a rack. And if they don’t get the sense of the first stage of this revolution by the ballot box….they’ll surely get the second phase as indicated by states like AZ, UT, TX and many to follow.
Anybody else get the impression that AKW @98 is a phony trolling for a certain kind of response?
85. Subotai Bahadur“We are talkers, we are a Committee of Correspondence. We are read by relatively few, outside those who are designated as our minders. But we act to add our small bricks and braces to the intellectual structure that is being built; and hope that it is not Babel, but rather the foundations of a renewed city on a hill. We do what we can, where we are, with what we have. We create ripples that go we know not where. May it be enough to help.”
And this is still my answer and plea:
“So that leaves it up to each of us to get our ideas, concerns and fears out to the uninformed, illiterate American public, so that they, in mass, can raise enough cane to get their attention.
There have been ways to do that discussed here by others and myself. But the real and desperate reason for doing rather than just talking — Is that our opposition…from the Democrats to the Islamics to the illegals, and to the other unseen – but real forces – that are determined to destroy us and our Republic,
Can not be stopped just by words.”
SB “To make the working assumption that there definitely will be free, open, and honest elections in November requires far more optimism than I can muster. I will of course work my [insert crude portion of anatomy of choice] off to support Patriots in an election, but I will expect that elections and a subsequent swearing-in have a likelihood of not being allowed to occur.”
I know that you and many others (especially here at BC) know and understand that. I have said it myself many times. But the average American still believes that elections are honest or worse he doesn’t even care one way or the other.
And that person is just as apt to not even vote.
We that do know and care have got to get out among those that don’t and convince them of our position, our beliefs and that they must vote
All I am basically saying (trying my damnest to not shout) is that words here or even elsewhere is not going to be enough to get this mythical average American to vote without being educated to some degree in person face to face and by either convinced to vote or shamed into voting.
You can’t do any of that, nor organize meetings, put out signs, or any of the other dozens of chores needed to get someone elected or someone to take off work or get off the bong and go vote, just by words on a blog.
Millions of Americans are not even registered, the democrats saw to it last election to register millions of them, but they didn’t get them all even when they registered those long passed, registered in other states or countys or even only famous by their Disney names.
We are going to have to all work (our A$$ off) to get out from under this madness, save our children and our Republic. To do it the right way, the way void of violence.
You can be sure if we can’t do it that way… we will have to do it the way nobody wants, and prays will not happen.
Like my Mama said. “If you don’t like something, then you have to DO something about it.”
Papa Ray
“The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed – where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once.”
2009 Judge Alex Kozinski
peter boston @ 99:
We know who the regulars are around here. The regulars have been discussing Constitutional Amendments and the Tea Party’s defeat of Bennett in Utah (the theme of the original post).
When some stranger with a new handle suddenly parachutes in and starts tossing around language that intrinsically defies everything we have been talking about, yeah, I would call it trolling, in one sense or another. Sure doesn’t represent us, as any reading of this thread would indicate.
“peter boston @ 99:”
An interloper like at Tea Parties? Of course….what’s to stop them except…..vigilance?
Wasn’t the point of state legislators electing senators that it diluted the power of highly populated urban areas, giving more weight to less populous (generally more conservative) rural and small town areas?
That being said, the real answer is to fix the tax system. The graduated income tax has got to go.
Let me add, the “American Factfinder” on the Census Bureau site has Utah at around 90%, with about 10% or so Hispanic and Black non-existent.
Do Whites like to live near lots of Blacks? Nope. I don’t think many would mind being Bill Cosby’s, or Will Smith’s neighbors, but they could not afford the zip code. Whites certainly don’t like living near lots of non-Rich, non-Celebrity Blacks or Hispanics however, and housing/education patterns over and over and over show that Whites prefer to live away from Blacks and Hispanics as much as possible. Black author Rich Bennett’s “Searching for Whitopia” examines that, and as a Black man found very little racism, but also very little sentiment that “Whitopia” is lacking because it does not have “diversity.” There were almost none who agreed with P. Diddy that Palin was a poor choice for VP candidate because Alaska lacked enough Black people.
Among the benefits Bennett found was a much lower crime rate, lower housing costs, lower incarceration rate, and thus vastly lower taxes and social services required. Steve Sailer noted mockingly that mysteriously, states near the Canadian border seem to do better in social measurements, than those more southerly. Therefore, since “race does not matter!” if we moved every state next to Canada, things would be just peachy!
It is not just Utah. Seattle might be described as one of the Whitest cities in America. It is 71% White, about 13% Asian, the rest Black and Hispanic. The home of terminally hip trendsters, it too faces a huge challenge. One that “events dear boy events” are driving.
Either the border exists or it does not. If the border does not exist, then demographics makes the US into Mexico. A bigger Mexico, a wealthier one, perhaps, with more sheer resources. But still Mexico. With all the massive social costs, wealth transfers, high crime, and anti-Gringo sentiment that you’ll see everywhere else.
If the border exists, then Whitopia still exists. California, my native state (I’m native born and raised) used to be paradise. Now it is a pit. Much of the same policies existed when it was paradise, as do now when it is hell.
It is a rude shock to people indoctrinated into terminal PC, “Diversity” nonsense, multicultural rainbow propaganda on advertising, ala the Gap or Colors of Benneton, but RACE DOES MATTER. IT MATTERS MORE THAN POLICY. Because it is in fact policy.
California, when it was mostly filled with sober, working and middle class Whites, who wanted a better life for themselves and children, could afford “progressive” policies that built big school systems, world-class universities, massive freeways, and massive public water systems. It was fairly “progressive” and “Liberal” in the Pat Brown sense. But because most of the people who paid the taxes also got the benefits, there was relatively little “cheating” and a high-sense of trust. Even though California politics had been since Statehood (and even before) massively corrupt and best characterized by the corrupt regime of Mayor Shaw in LA, the demographic transformation of the state into an “Iowa by the Sea” made it into … Iowa. By the sea.
The same policies with lots of Mexicans (the presence of Blacks is basically negligible statewide, and always has been) has been a disaster. The Prof told you what California is, “stolen land.” No trust. No paying of taxes. No investment. No possibility either, because people of different races and cultures and languages don’t get along. Quebecois and the rest of Canada don’t get along — what hope is there for Mexicans and Whites in California? At best, one will rule the other based on sheer demography. Which has already happened.
Seattle is very progressive. It went for Obama in a big way. It’s a stereotype of drum circles, hippie, coffee, and grunge. The city works, however. It is a mostly pleasant, mostly safe, mostly high-income place filled with middle class Whites and Asians, dominated by the former, and mostly works. Fill it with lots of very poor, very White antagonistic, very high-use of social services and tax revenues, and Seattle collapses.
That is the challenge. If “Race doesn’t matter” then why is that guy at UCLA calling for a Mexican led Communist Revolution to make America into Mexico? His students at UCLA, are applauding. Apparently they uploaded the video. THAT is the level of integration we can expect, and it presents a direct demographic challenge.
EVEN Terminally hip White trendsters in Seattle will vote against it, if in secret, because they want their very, very SWPL Coffee houses, trendy bars, and other places to stay as they are, not resemble East LA meets Juarez or El Paso (the latter possibly the most depressing American city on earth outside Detroit). You can drive through some of the most grinding poverty and sets of bail bonds, strip clubs, and signs warning not to take in hitch-hikers because of the prisons around (escapees) and then see over the border to WORSE poverty.
I know we’d all like to believe, just like Liberals believe, that there is a magic bullet of policy. In many ways, Conservatives are far too often mirror this naive, utopian belief. Liberals emphasize that just enough socialism will transform human nature into a Colors of Benneton Ad, or perhaps the Gap, where multi-racial, vaguely gay, or anorexic models prance around. Conservatives think that “just enough” small government will make Blacks and Hispanics abandon race-centric views, embrace solid middle class values, and act like Urkel on Family Matters. That guy at UCLA proves otherwise.
There is no magic wand. Nothing magic at all. At best, America can mitigate permanent, and divisive, racial interests that fundamentally oppose each other, by economic growth, and an honest, above board spoils division. Be “up-front crooks splitting the loot.”
People are policy. Oh sure, higher or lower taxes, or regulation, can make things worse or better. Houses in South Central LA are cheap. I don’t see Whites moving there. I do see lots of folks moving to the Mountain West for a variety of reasons, mostly having to do with the kinds of people who will be around them.
Thought experiment: move to the Alternative Universe where Barney Frank is President. America is about 90% White, about 10% Black, and no real amount of Hispanics. The same social spending policies have been in place for forty years, or more. A solidly Democratic Congress has passed “Frank Care” … is this a problem?
No. The vast amount of middle/working class Whites, being far smaller users and spenders of taxes and social services, produces at worst fairly small deficits easily managed.
What the Tea Partiers want is simply not to be Mexico. Stop the human wave attending Mexico’s slow-motion (for now) collapse to the Narco-trafficantes, who have degenerated into West African style mayhem. The Zetas killing just to kill, because they know nothing else, and the drug money is running down. Cedar City and Salt Lake City are nice places. So is Orem, and Provo Utah. Put about 3 million inhabitants of Mexico in them, and they won’t be very nice any more. And there won’t be any more Whitopias to move to.
Richard Benjamin’s site here. Utah has 11 Whitopias according to Benjamin. From his site: “A Whitopia is whiter than the nation, its respective region, and its state. It has posted at least 6 percent population growth since 2000. The majority of that growth (often upward of 90 percent) is from white migrants. And a Whitopia has je ne sais quoi — an ineffable social charisma, a pleasant look and feel. “
It would be better to replace the 16th Amendment with a provision that the Feds could tak only the States. And set it up so that the Fed’s taxation on the States required the approval of 2/3 of the States, each year.
This would end the silliness of people sending their taxes to the Feds to give back to the States with strings attached. And it is much easier for people to vote with their feet when there are 50 States to choose from.
I like this idea a lot, Kinuachdrach. First half of it, anyway. Making the feds get their revenue from the states means a lot less mischief in how the federal govt treats the individual citizen, since the states would stand between citizen and fed on the taxation issue. Moreover, one or more states threatening to withhold tax revenue as a protest against legislation from DC (or failure to enforce federal responsibilities, as in the current case of AZ), will get Washington’s attention a lot faster, and be far more effective, than Joe Citizen’s attempting to do the same thing. (Action which will get Joe Citizen heavily fined and/or imprisoned in the current state of things.)
My only quibble is with the second half of the idea. I haven’t thought this out very far but it seems to me that a year-by-year arrangement might cause too much chaos even if the federal government’s responsibilities are restricted to constitutional limits. Could the federal government prosecute a war, for instance, on that sort of arrangement? What about developing weapons systems … endeavors which often take 10+ years?
I think I would rather refine the proposal somewhat. Say, tie the amount the federal government gets to some index (like GDP), and then, require 2/3 approval from the states if the feds want to request anything in excess of that percentage.
There should also be some sort of mechanism in place in the event some state goes deadbeat due to fiscal mismanagement & not just reasons of principled political dissent (in which case it would likely have other states who share its POV). I mean some sort of state-to-state enforcement/accountability system whereby responsible states can fine or punish deadbeat ones who don’t contribute their share b/c they spent what they were supposed to turn over to the feds. Otherwise IMO you *will* get a Greece on your hands. If in fact we don’t have one already (California).
What is likely to be the plan of action for Whitopia Tea Partiers wanting to keep their Whitopias?
1. Voting. Registering and massive GOTV candidates.
2. Donations, money bombs.
3. Takeover of State and local Republican Party apparatus, already under way.
4. Protests.
Why? Because the people doing this are OLDER. Richer. Women (most of the Tea Partiers are women) and older, but not too old. Middle Aged women don’t do well in street fights. So they avoid them. Their strengths are money, turnout, organization, and to a lesser extent, media persuasion.
What they ARE vulnerable to is violent intimidation. I do think there will be riots, and such like, as all across Western nations (you can see this in Greece) people who depend on massive government patronage use violence to stop spending cuts when they don’t have votes.
Middle class White people get almost no services, and pay most of the taxes. The non-White populations of Blacks and Hispanics are the reverse. So that’s a struggle right there, over raw spoils. It is not “racist” for Whites to want a stop to being the piggy bank while being in the back of the bus. Or perhaps it is, but then Whites have simply mostly stopped caring under huge financial pressures.
If three million Mexicans move to Utah next year, what happens to property values in Orem, in Provo, in Salt Lake City, in Cedar City? The entire STATE is around 10 million. And thats not a trivial projection either, Mexico is on shaky ground financially and politically with massive Zeta challenges and one big oil drop (pricewise) from fiscal crisis. Of course for existing Mexicans in Utah, that’s a plus, because it means demographic takeover, very shortly.
Bottom line: there are indeed, about 6 billion people in the world. Most of the, dirt, dirt poor. So poor (and non-White) they make Mexicans look rich. And would consider them so. Can they all move to the US? Nope. Pretty much the door is closed or closing. We’ve run out of money, out of work, out of open land.
It will be a race between the older, richer, organizing rich but easily threatened by violence Whites in Whitopia vs. the younger, poorer, organizing poor and lacking resources but easy to use intimidation non-Whites in various non-White majority locales.
Wasn’t the point of state legislators electing senators that it diluted the power of highly populated urban areas, giving more weight to less populous (generally more conservative) rural and small town areas?
Patty – It depends on the structure of the state legislature, i.e. whether one of the houses (in a bicameral leg) has a set-up like the U.S. Senate where each entity (say, county) gets 1 or 2 legislators regardless of population.
If your state does not have that arrangement, and here in Pennsylvania we do not (see my post @ 71), then the votes of the state legislature are tilted towards the metro areas, and in the case of U.S. Senator selection, the choices would likely bear the stamp of the city machines. Which is what LOTM and, presumably, others who are pro-repeal are trying to get away from.
Insanely gerrymandered states like California, where the state legislature is to the left of Bill Ayers and has been so for a couple decades now, are not going to produce selections better than Feinstein or Boxer, and quite possibly would produce much worse.
Boxer was so far to the left that when she ran for re-election 1998, the LA Times endorsed her opponent, Matt Fong. A Republican. Fong proceeded to shoot himself in the foot over something or other, and Californians were stuck with “Call Me Senator” Babs for yet another term. (IIRC, this is reaching back a ways in the memory.)
The Tea Party movement must culminate in a Constitutional Amendment – not a Constitutional Convention. A Convention is just what the American Marxists want – they desire a Constitution which confers “Positive Rights” (Orwellian Newspeak for reversible State-given “rights”) to its subjects. In no way do they wish to live any longer under a Constitution which recognizes and secures “Negative Rights” (Orwellian Newspeak for equal, God-given, unalienable rights to life, liberty and creative pursuit of happiness – labored for property). To be successful the Tea Party movement must promote the Declaration of Independence as law – something the American Marxists will oppose to their dying day – as in Animal Farm they must be the source of your unequal, reversible “rights.”
1. Public proclamation that the Declaration of Independence is America’s supreme un-amendable moral law, and enforcement of Declarational law. Equal unalienable rights to life, liberty and private property honestly earned through labor – pursuit of happiness, trumps even our supreme amendable secular law – The Constitution; particularly the proto-totalitarian arbitrary “Living Constitution.” All Federal laws for example which tax individuals unequally and excessively are un-Declarational and must be nullified – if not by Congress or the Supreme Court – then by local government or States. The concept of “Declarational and un-Declarational” law must find its way into the American Mind and into all levels of American Government.
2. Amend the Constitution – our supreme amendable secular law.
* The 16th amendment will be changed to:
“The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes up to 10%, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration.”
Or
* The sixteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed. Congress shall make no law taxing personal income, property, wealth, or inheritance. Congress shall make no law taxing domestic goods or services greater than 10%. Congress shall tax no domestic good or service more than once.
http://topics.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amen…
* The spending of Federal Government will not exceed its revenues which must only derive through the 16th amendment and foreign tariffs.
* Revocation of the 17th amendment
* Congressional and Supreme Court term limits
* Congressional 2/3 override over the Supreme Court – just as Congress has 2/3 override over Presidential vetoes
…and as far as this one half of the country apparently planning to permanently live off the other half,
“No Representation Without Taxation!”
107. Storm-Rider: Here is another in an interesting series of articles by a guy who says that the Constitution does -not- give the Supreme Court or any other Federal court the power to declare laws uncontitutional. I am not a lawyer (thank God), but I did stay in a Holiday Express recently and I agree with him.
Congress has allowed this to happen because they are only too happy not to have recorded votes on issues such as abortion, gun control, etc.
http://article.nationalreview.com/433347/the-imarburyi-myth/robert-lowry-clinton
Imposing term limits on the Supreme Court is stupid, there is a reason why they are in place for life. It is so they can remain impartial referees concerning laws as to their Constitutionality. They can’t be fired because the President doesn’t like which way they rule, they are in for life, and it would be exceedingly difficult to bribe a Supreme Court Justice with Campaign money because they don’t have to run for re-election. There is also a reason why the Congress can’t override a Supreme Court Ruling without changing the Constitution which is extremely difficult to do. Right now the best hope for the Health Care Monstrosity being repealed is the Supreme Court. If they rule it unconstitutional then it gets thrown out and the Democrats can’t usurp the country.
My biggest fear is that something will happen to the Conservative members of the Supreme Court though, so Obama can stack the court to support his takeover of the country.
As far as RINOs or supposed RINOs are concerned we need to look this over carefully. I don’t particularly like the guy running against McCain, for starters McCain’s primary opponent has a lot of baggage and things he was involved with that gives me some pause. McCain may be misguided at times but at least he’s honest (a rarety for a politician) and will listen to the people. For starters he’s one of the only politicians not to insert earmarks into bills, I don’t agree with him on several issues, but I don’t believe he’s corrupt. I do feel however, he needs to have a serious shake-up of his staff whom probably wrecked his Presidential Campaign. Additionally, we have to look at the facts, if McCain had become President instead of Obama he would never have supported that piece of garbage. On the flipside, I believe Senator Graham needs to be shown the door or given a wake-up call that he needs to change his ways.
Anyways right now, I think the tea parties should focus on putting Republicans feet to the fire in the primaries, and then the tea parties should unite with the Republicans to vote out every Democrat they can in the November elections of 2010. Above all we can’t have a third party because it will split the vote and allow the Democrats to remain in power and continue their destruction of this country.
Sarah Palin is supporting Republican candidates even if she doesn’t entirely agree with some of them because she feels we need to focus on kicking those out whom are deliberately trying to destroy this country and not split the vote so that they remain in power.
Yes, some Republicans need to be kicked out, but quite honestly the bulk of them don’t. Not a single Republican went along with that pile of garbage known as Obamacare. That includes the ones not up for re-election in 2010, that shows that the Republicans can and do listen to us. The stuff Pelosi and Reid have pulled quite honestly make Nixon look like a saint. If it is a Republican that we don’t agree with but will listen to us and knows he works for us then quite frankly we shouldn’t waste the money to kick him or her out of office. That money would be better spent kicking out Republicans that are corrupt, and campaigning to vote out every single Democrat out of office on the National level that we can.
Subotai, I am nor saying that your take is not plausible. In fact, I’d give it 50 points on the plausibility scale. It is just… there are still dots that do not connect. I am working more in a hunch territory, I admit.
Your scenario may be more preferable to our side, because it may force the frogs to jump out from the cauldron. It will make the demarcation line clear.
But there are variables that even the powers that be don’t have any control of. They hate that. They may be not happy with the potential of too many factors screwing with their end game.
What would be better than frogs volunteering to remain in the cauldron, not noticing the gradual temperature gradient rise?
Not that they would not try to fudge the November election results by any means necessary. They always do.
Bogie Wheel @ 104 wrote re a replacement for the 16th Amendment: I haven’t thought this out very far but it seems to me that a year-by-year arrangement might cause too much chaos”
BW, that makes two of us who haven’t thought this out too far!
The key is to put some tension into the system. At the moment, a single body (Congress) gets to decide how much to spend, how much to tax, how much to borrow. It is a recipe for creeping growth in the size of government, since it is always easier for Congresscritters to fail to make choices, agree to more spending, and then expand taxation or borrowing to cover it. We need to put a limit on Congress’s credit card. But it can’t be a hard limit of x% of the GDP, because the world is always in flux.
It would be better to have a system where the responsibility for raising money for the government was divorced from the responsibility for spending it. That’s why it would be good to have an annual 3-day convention of the States to decide how much money they will provide to the Federal Government. Feds can ask for the moon; States would tell the Feds how much they are actually going to get; and then the Feds have sole responsibility for spending the money the States give them. Of course, next year the Feds have to go back & ask again, so they have a game-theory incentive not to screw around. There would also be a lot of negotiation between the States about what they each should pay — which would be good, since one choice in that negotiation would always be to give the Feds less.
Of course there would be problems with funding multi-year projects — but we have those problems today. F22, anyone? And most Federal programs (eg highways, education) would have to be returned to the States — as they should be. The Feds would be left with defending the country, securing the borders, and stabilizing the currency.
And you are right about the potential problem of deadbeat States who refuse to pay their share. Expulsion from the Union on a 2/3 vote of the other States?
bogie wheel and others:
My apologies. I had to leave shortly after my post. You are correct that besides repealing the 17th Amendment we would need to take care of Section 4: The repealing amendment should specify that the states, and only the states, determine how the senators are selected and recalled. This could include giving the governor the power to appoint in case of a vacancy, or specifying that a special session of the legislature would be called. In any case, it would be up to each state’s legislature to specify the details.
As for senators “bringing home the bacon” in earmarks – as far as I can tell most every state is hurting for money. Some, like California, Michigan, New York and New Jersey, are reaping the consequences of their profligate spending. Others, like Oklahoma, are experiencing revenue shortfalls despite being relatively conservative. The problem is Washington DC hoovering up all the money. As Peter Boston @82 implied, greed can motivate the legislatures where principle cannot. Point out to California’s legislature that all that money leaving the state belongs to THEM, and see if they don’t get on the repeal bandwagon.
As someone up-thread said, don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Repeal of the 17th will eliminate the “one size fits all” approach imposed by the national government. I want my state is to be free of the Progressive burden. States that are governed responsibly can spend their money wisely, and states that are hotbeds of corruption can go their own way. I see repeal of the 17th as the lever to restricting the national government to its enumerated powers. When senators once again represent their state legislatures, expect
1. Rejection of budgets and taxes that their state legislature does not approve of.
2. A different kind of Supreme Court nominee (dim view of commerce clause, for example)
3. Focus on the national government’s enumerated powers when drafting legislation.
Repeal of the 17th Amendment will tether senators to their state legislatures; if they get out of line they will be coming home and someone else sent in their place.
I meant to add: With state legislatures in effect calling the shots in the senate, we may not need to repeal the 16th Amendment (much as I would like to see it go). As I said in my previous post, I see repeal of the 17th as THE lever on the fulcrum of getting us back to a true federal structure. With the power restored to the states, other desirable things can be accomplished without necessarily needed constitutional amendments.
bogey wheel: Again I apologize for not being available to follow up on your (and other) posts. Excellent discussion on this thread – one I had been hoping to see on the 17th Amendment for some time.
Garfield, toon cat or kilt president either one you is, you shore do make a lot of common sense.
Garfield @ 110: “Imposing term limits on the Supreme Court is stupid, there is a reason why they are in place for life. It is so they can remain impartial referees concerning laws as to their Constitutionality.”
No it is not stupid, because some Supreme Court Judges, as we now know, are not impartial referees; some of them adhere to an anti-American political ideology which manifests its self as the arbitrary, proto-totalitarian “Living Constitution.”
If it boils down to agreeing with you or Thomas Jefferson – I’m sticking with Jefferson.
“You seem to consider the judges the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges … and their power are the more dangerous as they are in office for life, and are not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves….When the legislative or executive functionaries act unconstitutionally, they are responsible to the people in their elective capacity. The exemption of the judges from that is quite dangerous enough. I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society, but the people themselves….” Thomas Jefferson
“If “the judiciary is the last resort in relation to the other departments of the government,” … , then indeed is our Constitution a complete felo de so. … The Constitution, on this hypothesis, is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they may please (Living Constitution). It should be remembered, as an axiom of eternal truth in politics, that whatever power in any government is independent, is absolute also; in theory only, at first, while the spirit of the people is up, but in practice, as fast as that relaxes. Independence can be trusted nowhere but with the people in mass. They are inherently independent of all but moral law…” Thomas Jefferson
Garfield @100…
penned a clever multifaceted commentary that can be summed up as …
“Vote for McCain”!
We need to drive a stake through McCain’s heart now or he’ll be back in 2012. And don’t blame his staff for 2008, Milquetoast McCain did it to himself and to us!
110 Garfield
“That money would be better spent kicking out Republicans that are corrupt, and campaigning to vote out every single Democrat out of office on the National level that we can.”
Let me correct a small part of that sentence.
Insert “and State level”
And while your at it, flush the democrats out of your towns and counties. Remember houses have to be built from a good foundation.
Papa Ray
And in other news the NIKKEI and TOPIX are starting to slide after opening to a small rise.
Good article with some good points. Here you missed one-
“In isolation the Bennett defeat is insignificant, but it now raises the wider question of whether the ‘Smaller Government’ idea can catch on. If it does then it has the potential to redefine the political landscape in ways that are both a threat and opportunity to different communities.”
Made a difference to Bennett…
You also indicate that the players in the two parties will circle the wagon. They have before and will again. It is all about the money, the power and the elite status they all share. Them elites, us drones.
It will only get worse and as Juan Williams fears, we may end up looking like modern day Brazil.
Interesting reading for those with a sense of humor.
As Always, Life In Academia Imitates Orwell
“They” have built an Insane Asylum and we have all wandered in, the consequences over the years unbeknownst to us, although all the signs were there.
Now we all are walled in and our many insane Academics and politicians are our keepers.
To those of you who are searching for a way out.
Who has the keys and where might they be and what is the cost? To those that have given up, government health offers you and your family an early and easy way out.
Papa Ray
If your going to write, write large:
“Texas Man behind Anti-Obama Billboards speaks out”
Papa Ray
My impression of the Tea Parties is that they are the opposite of radical. I see them as the majority of the middle who have finally had enough of the government bleeding them. A lot of them ARE democrats, so I don’t think it’s a good idea to get too partisan.
I’ve been a staunch conservative all my life and it’s heartening to see the Americans who are responsible for our prosperity moving to yank the chain on runaway government. I just don’t want to jeopardize that by claiming scalps and acting like yahoos. Don’t get cocky!
I’m always saddened that there aren’t as many African-Americans here as in other parts of the country.
Oh lordy. This reminds me of those stories you’d hear every now and then of some all white town deliberately wanting to import a bunch of Africans or whatever. It’s a form of insanity known only to Western white people.
Meanwhile, looks like it’s official that the execrable John Paul Stevens (referred to as “legendary” but the toe sucking AP reporter) is being replaced by Elena Kagan, thereby raising the testosterone level of the court significantly. I don’t know much about her other than to know if Obama is picking her she can’t be good. The only question is will she be even worse? I reckon there will be a thread on this any moment now.
You don’t have to look much further than Utah to see how much influence the Tea Party has had on national politics. Who really thinks RINOs like Snow or Collins would stand so solidly with their Republican brethren in defiance of Obama’s agenda if the Tea Party did not exist?
Keep it up – we need to engage as many of our fellow Americans as possible in the political process – its the only way to defeat these power hungry elitists. We need to put this county back on firm financial footing – spending money isn’t the answer Mr. President.
It depends on the structure of the state legislature, i.e. whether one of the houses (in a bicameral leg) has a set-up like the U.S. Senate where each entity (say, county) gets 1 or 2 legislators regardless of population.-Bogie Wheel #106
No state legislature has had such an arrangement since the Warren Court ruled it unconstitutional in Reynolds v. Sims. I’m surprised none of the well-informed BC folk haven’t already mentioned that.
Looks like open season on RINO’s. I wonder how much it costs to have a head mounted?
Meanwhile, if you want to get rid of any Supreme Court Justice, Impeach them. That is the Constitutional solution. It just isn’t used often enough.
Take chief Justice Warren for example. He is without a doubt the worst Justice ever. Never a Judge before becoming the Chief Justice, he wouldn’t even get in the door today. It was Warren that lite a fire under Court activism in order to increase his political power. A Republican, he was the VP nominee under Dewey. Then he went far left because of something that happened between him and Nixon. He ended up being a disaster of the first order. Did more damage to the Constitution he was sworn to protect then any American before or since.
I think we should do a Cromwell on his ass. Dig him up and impeach him, then bury him again. I know he has been dead for decades, but why should that get him off the hook?
110. Garfield
The best thing that McCain ever did in his career was to pick Palin as VP. The best guidance we can give Palin is to vote out McCain.
McCain is a good man. Likely a better man than most. But any man who can be as totally snookered as McCain was by Obama — needs to go home. (Likely too you can’t find a republican–with a memory– who doesn’t have a piece of major legislation from McCain Kennedy to McCain Feingold and a host of others–about which said republican… doesn’t think McCain was snookered by the democrats.)
Micha, you are right about Reynolds v. Sims.
The destruction of my state, California, began with that decision. I was only a teenager at the time, but I remember it being referred to as “one man, one vote”.
In California, most counties by far, vote Republican. If memory serves, in the last two Presidential elections only two counties south of greater San Francisco voted Democrat for President: tiny Santa Barbara county and LA, and that excludes several counties, including San Diego, Orange, Ventura, San Bernardino and Riverside counties that have over a million residents. The problem for Republicans is that their margin of victory in all those counties was easily wiped out by the lopsided Democratic margin in enormous LA County.
Before the Reynolds decision, the “cow counties” as they were called back then dominated the State Senate. Now LA does.
Not to go all “whiskey”on ya, but LA County has a very high percentage of foreign born, many recent immigrants, legal and illegal from around the globe, (not just Mexico) . It is really questionable that a great number of these people who vote in LA County, (we’re talking millions here) are really legal voters. The DA and the corrupt County Registrar of Voters will never investigate whether they are or not, for all the PC reasons you can imagine.
O/T:
I want to apologize to whiskey and many men who came to his defense.
I’m going to make this as quick and painless as possible:
I made the mistake of internalizing everything whiskey says and thereby taking it personally.
This is exactly why our free speech is being attacked, by people like me who knee-jerk react without understanding it’s okay for someone to DISAGREE with me or to even HATE me for me just being…well…me (yes, I own a vagina).
Cowboy and Twobie deserve my personal apology too (as well as all of the men and women on this board and especially to Wretch).
As far as I think I’ve come, I still take two steps back and falter. You know what I find? I’m a frickin’ ASSHOLE sometimes. I hate that about me. Growing up SUCKS because, yep, I gotta look at me without the blinders of victim status.
The weird part is… I’m not sure if I should embrace my new asshole status or not?
I keed. I keed.
Money has become the root of survival.
Is survival evil?
Or, has survival and money become a quick and easy way to sell our souls?
You will know him by his number…
Carry on…
Delia, thanks. Growing up… it never ends, does it?
The weird part is… I’m not sure if I should embrace my new asshole status or not?
You’ve got powers. You can change your status on the fly.
Money has become the root of survival.
Not really. Time may come when money may not mean much. Knowledge and skills may be means of survival. Money is just means of exchange. Today it’s greenbacks, tomorrow it may be eggs, or a can of coffee, or a round of ammo.
Is survival evil?
Nope. But the means how you survive may involve a degree of this or that.
Or, has survival and money become a quick and easy way to sell our souls?
Wrong premise. See above. One day, someone with billions of dollars (stated on a balance sheet) may be a lot poorer than someone who knows how to fix things, or arrange logs that they would fit together without nails, or know how to extract iron from an ore, or recalls sequences of organic chemistry to derive plastics, let alone is able to produce soap from purely natural resources, or is able to close up a wound or knows what herbs to use for what symptoms.
You will know him by his number…
You may need to read it in original Greek to get an idea what that was about. The number is actually an image that the number, written in Greek letters, represented.
On the issue of term limits, I would suggest a rising bar that incumbents have to cross to get re-elected. Say a newcomer wins with 52% of the vote. The next time, they have to win 56% (or something like that). This could force them to constantly perform better.
But I then realized that this could only lead to politicians wallowing in even more pork in order to expand the ranks of their supporters…
Sigh…
The Wobbly Guy/132
Maybe making it really simple, a cat kind of approach, may be the best: OTS/OTC, KTHXBAI
Of course, that does not address the issue of entrenched bureaucracy. Pols come and go, but a bureaucrat lasts.
Twobie, you honor me with your kindness (unearned). The fact you’re even speakin’ terms with me says muchly about your super-cool-dudeness.
My husband made my ‘mother’s day’ a living hell today. My daughter and I escaped together (something I NEVER have done). It was freeing. I need to live more outside of these four walls. I find the more I hate the ‘other’ the more I hate ‘myself’. What a conundrum.
You will know him by his number…
You may need to read it in original Greek to get an idea what that was about. The number is actually an image that the number, written in Greek letters, represented.
So it’s not 666 but a symbol? Was that what ‘Prince’ was gettin’ at? Oh lordy!
This is going to haunt me all night now!
P.S. I’m an assholeyyyyyy oleeeee oley oleeeeee. A-ss-ho-le! Everybody (Dennis Leary).
Delia, it’s glass houses and bricks issue. There were moments in my life … err, lives, when I’d be a serious contender for the title.
BTW, you’ve apologized. That means awareness and an attempt to transcend your acquired status and a commitment not to repeat that sin frequently. Chanting mea culpa in every posts would look like you are trying to buy indulgences. I suppose that is not your intent, thus don’t do it, if I can offer an unsolicited advice.
Re sign of the beast… wish I could post a piccie. I have it somewhere. Will try to find it, post it live and link it. Not right away, other stuff on my plate, but soon.
135. twobyfour (is this a weird asshole contest, I think you’re tellin’ me I win)? ASSHOLE CUP CHAMP OF THE WORLDDDDDDDDDDD goes to…
Delia?
*shy blush*
Awwww
Enough about me *golf clap*.
You know you’ve outworn your assholiness when it’s not even cathartic any longer.
Soooo. The number of man is really a symbol and not an actual number? This is really intriguing you bewitchin’ bait-n-switcher.
http://www.hol.com/~mikesch/666.htm
(P.S. I hope you get when I’m being a smartass and not being an asshole. Yes, it’s an art I haven’t quite mastered yet).
Delia, your link… a wrong track. I see that someone already put it in a concise format.
Papa Ray,
Thanks for the billboard link. Soon those billboards must read:
Voted Obama?
Terrified Yet?
Toobin on CNN says that Kagan will be a Justice in the role of Powell, White and Warren. Let me dream that we find some young woman that was sexually harassed by her. Unfortunately a debate on constitutional principles went out with the Bork and Thomas hearings.
“Let me dream that we find some young woman that was sexually harassed by her. “
Dang, I thought I had read everything available on her, which is not a bunch.
Where did you get that from? Or is it really just a dream of yours?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Papa Ray
#56/Charles,
Why don’t we just announce a policy to create a low cost method of turning lead into gold?
2×4 and Subotai: concerning boiling frogs and stealing elections…
, but you folks aren’t exaclty internationally known for patience or silent suffering as were previous generations. I’d also wager that the majority of the progs in power are from upbringings that were spoiling… they’ve not had to scrape and claw, let alone work, for any of the luxuries they now consider their just dues. They are the worst examples of any virtue you care to name.
Late to the game here, but consider this. The progressives of today are not nearly as patient as their predecessors. The ones who could bite their words back and then, camoflauged, work from within to advance their ideologies. Not starting a Boomer vs. X war here, oldtimers
The fraud will be there, it’s all they know. They are not patient, they will reach instead of waiting for it to fall into their laps. With luck, this will be an overreach that causes them to politically lose balance, it will break the calculus of their schemes, it will begin a land slide that exposes all the dirty laundry to the sunlight, so the sheep will wake up. A “black swan” that just might work to our advantage.
Maybe then we can still change things the hard, slow, polite way. Else things will be harder, quicker, uncontrolled and noisy. Or darkest of sorrows.
#133 twobyfour – One way to solve that problem (and it is a real one; see “Yes Minister” for details) would be to put all the bureaucrats on term limits (aka fixed term, nonrenewable contracts) as well. Note that this does not include government employees who actually do a job of work; many of those do a very good job and get precious little thanks for it. Examples might be air traffic controllers and firemen.
It’s got to a sad pass, when I (who is on the extreme right of the policies of the UK Tory party) would, if asked by somebody just leaving education what they should do, tell them that the best thing to do is get a nice safe government office job – because of the gold-plated pensions, high salary, excellent working conditions and impossibility of getting sacked, and also because they would never have to do a full day’s work again. This is in the UK; I imagine it’s much the same in the USA.
#143 FC
I’ll see your term limits on all public sector functionaries….
…..and I’ll raise you not giving them pensions, other than social security and whatever they can save on their own.
THAT ought to bring back the humility that they owe to the universe.
141. MarkTheGreat
True. Materials research is not as sexy as genetics research–where Ventor has moved from reading the genetics code to writing it. Here’s how Ventor’s work is currently affecting algae oil yields
While the human condition has NOT changed much over the Millenniums –it would be a mistake to impute the human condition to scientific Discovery/innovation which IS accelerating. Current estimates are that there there will be as much scientific innovation in the next 20 years as there were in the last 120. I blog about that in detail here.
LoTM I just ran across this comment. From a “Mark”, ( and who knows who he might be,or his motives?) But his comment seems to be knowledgeable and he seems (at least to me) to raise good points.
Let’s talk about the identity politics of this.”
What say you?
Papa Ray
Papa Ray – you and I seem to be pretty much on the same track regarding the importance of November (and misc. other things). Please contact me for possible collaboration.
Storm Rider – The idea of a 2/3 Congressional override of the Supreme Court makes a lot of sense. All branches of government should be subject to checks & balances.
Whiskey – This is not meant to be a smart alec remark. I am truly interested in how to approach this hypothetical, given your world view: Suppose I move to Whiteopia (we plan to vacation/recon there this summer), then the SHTF and various refugees seek shelter in our new community. Do we welcome Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Leahy because they are white, but turn away Allen West (http://allenwestforcongress.com/videos/) and Walter Williams (http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/wew/) because they are black?
If anyone is interested I finally got around to creating a blog and posting a few items here
“Liberty for Dummies” (http://libertyfordummies.blogspot.com/)
LFMayor/142
And I thought they are doing it for teh children (TM).
147. jimbo I left you a comment on your blog. If you have difficulty reaching me let me know here on BC.
Ref…whiskey. I think that whiskey would not have a problem with those you mention. I’m not speaking for him of course, but from just what I have learned about him from his writings. And I can relate as I live in the middle of thousands of illegals also.
There are few blacks around here, but from past dealings with many, I can say that they are NOT all the same but that many can be worse than bad while many can be very good friends and have the same values as I do.
Reference the Illegals, I might differ in some respects from whiskey, as a couple of them have become friends over the years. But I don’t think illegals in my part of Texas are anything like the varmints whiskey has to deal with.
Just saying…
Papa Ray
‘A Muslim has no nationality except his belief’
-Sayyid Qutb
“…all of us have a stake in this word “America.” From rock stars in D.C. to street kids in Rio from Harlem to Haiti from Cape Town to Cairo, we all have a stake in this word “America”… because America is not just a country; it’s an idea… and it’s a great idea. So we fight, we argue, we bitch, we protest, we pontificate, we sound off … because we know somewhere in our waters that this place is not just a country… I really believe in the idea of America and I believe in it because at its core is a three-corded strand as important to me as rhythm, melody and harmony. I’m talking about equality, justice and opportunity for all. That’s a catchy melody you’ve got there.”
- Bono
Two Ideas, in conflict. The stronger Idea will win. Or as OBL says; ‘Everybody wants to ride the stronger horse’.
“The use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment; but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again: and a nation is not governed which is perpetually to be conquered.”
- Edmund Burke
I find it amazing that the stoutest defenders of the idea that is America are often not Americans. My theory is that Americans take America for granted. I see the Tea Baggers and the current fization on politics as a sign that American are starting to appreciate what they once had.
My question is did they wake up in time? Purifying the Republican party is just the first step on a long road back to American exceptionalism.
Remember after that, the Democrats have to purify the Democratic party. You think we got it hard.
Rosinante @ 150
“Tea Baggers’ are people like Anderson Cooper. Tea Party members are people that want to save this country from “Tea Baggers”!
I think that we will see a numver of one term senators and congressmen. No returns! No careers and huge pensions. If it is understood that you won’t repeat then maybe you will do a good job for the people and not have to worry about fund raising and doing the bidding of the party. So we could have liverals and conseratives in the same party.
The first is that the Washington elite will circle the wagons, bury their minor differences and concentrate on keeping the money and power flowing to the capital. A threat from outside the building is after all, a threat to everybody inside the building.
One of the biggest favors that polling organizations have done in the last couple of years is to define something called the “Political Class.” Whenever the pollsters survey the general public vs. the political class on a range of major issues, the two groups poll dramatically differently. The political class, according the the polling organizations results, is at odds with the general public on almost everything.
“The idea of a 2/3 Congressional override of the Supreme Court makes a lot of sense.”
We have that already – it’s called a Constitutional Amendment. We do require that the States be on board for it to work, and that’s a good thing – you don’t want the Political Class in Washington to be able to dominate the States on judicial matters.
Just a small point but the proper quote is “The love of money is the root of all evil”
Money its self is just a tool and like a hammer can be used to build or destroy.
Money and other property which is derived through individual intellectual creativity &/or physical labor is good – it represents part of our God-given right to the pursuit of happiness. Desire for the fruit of labor is good and should not be considered “love of money.” Money and other property which is derived through the intellectual creativity or physical labor of others is not good – it represents envy and theft of what belongs to the man or woman who expended the labor – this should be known as “love of money.”
“God, who hath given the world to men in common, hath also given them reason to make use of it to the best advantage of life, and convenience. The earth, and all that is therein, is given to men for the support and comfort of their being. And tho’ all the fruits it naturally produces, and beasts it feeds, belong to mankind in common, as they are produced by the spontaneous hand of nature; and no body has originally a private dominion, exclusive of the rest of mankind, in any of them, as they are thus in their natural state: yet being given for the use of men, there must of necessity be a means to appropriate them some way or other, before they can be of any use, or at all beneficial to any particular man.…Though the earth, and all inferior creatures, be common to all men, yet every man has a property in his own person: this nobody has any right to but himself. The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. It being by him removed from the common state nature hath placed it in, it hath by this labour something annexed to it, that excludes the common right of other men: for this labour being the unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to, at least where there is enough, and as good, left in common for others.” John Locke
http://history.hanover.edu/courses/excerpts/111locke1.html
“Property is the fruit of labor…property is desirable…is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.” Abraham Lincoln
“We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others, the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name – liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names – liberty and tyranny.” Abraham Lincoln
http://home.att.net/~rjnorton/Lincoln78.html
Y’all remember the failed nomination of Carswell by Nixon?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._Harrold_Carswell#Supreme_Court_nomination
In defense against charges that Carswell was “mediocre”, U.S. Senator Roman Hruska (Republican, Nebraska) stated:
“Even if he were mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren’t they, and a little chance? We can’t have all Brandeises, Frankfurters and Cardozos.”
88 kendall: “I’m always saddened that there aren’t as many African-Americans here as in other parts of the country”
Don’t get out much, eh?
IIRC, before the entrenched bureaucracy, public service positions were given based on their loyalties and ties to the elected politician, a spoils system of sorts. It was only after the invention of the professional bureaucrat and the supposed de-politicization of the bureaucracy that the public servant essentially foisted a great deal of his responsibility onto the elected leaders.
To be honest, I never saw anything wrong with a spoils system – the leader picks his henchmen, and if he does well, the whole bunch sticks. If he doesn’t, the whole bunch goes when a new leader takes over and uses his own people.
The Club has been discussing the utility and pondering possible costs or problems as we should, with two possible measures to restore the intended constitutional order. These are;
1. the repeal of the 17th Amendment
2. a political appeal from judicial fiat.
The two issues are related and therefor the solutions can be related.
Under the current system Senators are not selected by the States but by the same electorate as are Members of the House of Representatives. As was noted above by Micha Elyi to the undoubted distress of bogie wheel the Court now holds that the 14th Amendment created a doctrine of “one man one vote” that bars any differentiation between the qualifications to exercise the franchise between different houses in states with bicameral legislatures. In doing so they exercised a breathtaking reach beyond anything intended by the authors of the Amendment that is redolent of Justice Brennan’s discovery of a penumbra of privacy to justify his ruling in Roe v. Wade. The result of this is that both the states and both Houses of Congress as well as the federal Judiciary are all dominated by the same constituency and are subject to manipulation by the same factional interests and passions. This is exactly the situation that the American system was designed to avoid.
Above I referred to this as “urban party politics,” not so much to draw a distinction from some theoretically nobler rural yeoman model in the Jeffersonian sense as Papa Ray may have hoped, but because of the scope this has afforded to money interests and machinery whether foreign or domestic, to gain control over America. I appreciate both the city and the country and while I acknowledge the social and political problems that thrive in the cities I also cherish the many cultural and social benefits the city provides. You can not spell urbane without urban.
Restoring the selection of Senators to the States will go some distance to restoring the Constitution as intended but given the singularity of the electorate and its exposure to manipulation by concentrated interests with access to money and mass media that alone will not prevent the deformation of the system either through legislation in response to an orchestrated panic or by judicial fiat supported by media manipulation. Therefore I propose two other corrective measures;
1. specifying that the most numerous house a State’s legislature must be elected using the principle of “one man one vote” but that other bodies may be established, provided that the criteria for serving as electors for those bodies does not violate standards established under the 15th and 19th Articles of Amendment to the Constitution,
2. specifying that a judge or justice may be removed by means of impeachment or by a resolution of the Senate with three fourths concurring.
The reason for not including the 26th Amendment in the list of bars on the states in determining an electorate for a second body is that there might be an argument for at least some states to experiment with such a distinction. The 3/4s for removal would set the bar higher than for confirmation, which would seem reasonable, and it also exceeds that 2/3s number needed for conviction following an impeachment by the House of Representatives. An alternative that would be less time sensitive would be to empower the States to effect a removal by having 3/4s approve a petition submitted by either body of Congress. Congress already has the power to control the courts by the power to make regulations and restrict jurisdiction as well as the power to amend the Constitution. See Article III sect.2,
PR, I have no special knowledge of Kagan’s conduct. Her preferences are not a secret and her arrogance is on public display. Draw your own conclusions as to what a diligent investigator, if there was such a creature, might discover.
To be blogged under the title “Taming SCOTUS.”
Given that Kagan is mediocre, might she be the best that conservatives could hope for? Here’s the argument – *No* *one* that Obama could ever appoint could be “good” by any stretch of the imagination. But he is going to appoint someone. The true danger would a liberal Scalia, someone who by the force of their rhetoric and the power of their ideas could bring the other Justices in line.
So, if we have to have a liberal, why not a liberal who will be looked on as a lightweight by the rest of the Court and who is too inept to ever make any meaningful contributions to the Court’s deliberations.
I’m suggesting that we’re better off putting up with a joke in that seat rather than a real threat.
Congress has the constitutional authority to limit what the Supreme can review ( for example Congress can say abortion is beyond review by SC and that is that). Congress can shut down the SC when ever it pleases and has done so in the past.
Delia,
It ain’t no thang. Water under the bridge, and not the first time emotions flared on Internet msg board, that’s for sure.
Accept my apology, too.
————————-
How is this judge not exactly like Harriet Miers, only worse? One gets the sense that at least Miers was intent on defending a markedly traditional American view of the Constitution in constrast to Kagan’s activism. Has Kagan ever even been in a courtroom before 2009?
The difference is this: Kagan’s one of the cool kids, knows all the right people, went to all the right schools, and, heck, even kicked the Army off one campus (illegally, I might add).
This isn’t even Chicago cronyism, it’s the worst aspect of high school cliquiness writ large.
wws,
She is 50 years old. If she was 62 and a lightweight that might fly but Kagan could infest the Court for 35 years or more.
PR,
Concur with Mark at Volokh. Kagan is another example of just how narrow the Obama circle is. The argument for her? As a scholar she has produced more than Obama has.
That is known as “setting the bar.”
The argument for her? As a scholar she has produced more than Obama has. That is known as “setting the bar.”
Woot! Best laugh I’ve had all day!
It goes without saying that if Kagan were on the right and nominated by Bush, she would already be a running joke.
The identity politics get thick in this Kagan nomination. She’s most likely a lesbian, and her signature bit of policy back in Harvard related to gay activism (Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell). Ironically, that dictum (DADT) is the Sword of Damocles hanging over her nomination. Obama’s daring any GOP senator to bring it up, hoping they do, so he can make hay over intolerance. Such a question will be portrayed as personal, petty, and un-germane. This is of course a 180 degree reversal since the last nomination, Sotomayor, who won her chair based exclusively on her personal story via the “wise Latina woman” and “empathy” gambits. Sotomayor’s personal stories were the cause celebre that impelled her to the bench, whereas Kagan’s personal story is hoped to be out-of-bounds question mark that also propels her to the bench but with the opposite dynamic.
Positive identity politics made Sotomayor, negative identity politics are hoped to make Kagan.
Neither of them have anything to do with the Constitution, nor with the idea of blind justice. To the contrary, both are bald status plays that actually inimical to the egalitarian ideal, ironically.
cowboy @ 166: exactamundo!!!!
I yield to none in the Club my carefully burnished image as an elitist snob but I also think that there are some responsibilities that accrue to both individuals and institutions that expect to extract servility from the general herd. Harvard Law School has had to put it gently a bad millennium so far. Eliot Spitzer, Barack Obama, Representative William ‘Cold Cash’ Jefferson, Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, and Mary Robinson the prominent Irish antisemite have all recently performed badly on the public stage they entered based on their association with HLS and each other. Perhaps it is time to give Harvard a rest. Surely Yale has not completely closed up shop and I understand that people do run some one room school houses in other parts of the country.
Face it, George W. Bush killed the Republican Party as we know it by throwing the fiscal conservatives under the bus. Bush was the Republican LBJ, right down to his “Guns and Butter” philosophy for financing the war and embracing more big government welfare programs.
The Reagan Republicans didn’t disappear, however. We’re back and calling ourselve the Tea Party Movement. Hear us roar!