But She’s Not There
Ross Douthat argues that Angelo de Codevilla‘s argument about the existence of an American ruling class trying to impose its will on the people is overdrawn. The ‘overclass’, he argues, is on closer inspection not there. And if even it were, it is by no means monolithic in its views. So how can a group itself divided be a conspiracy? Douthat takes the issues of free trade and small government as an example of how ‘left’ can somehow think ‘right’.
the line between statism and small-government conservatism runs through many human hearts, rather than cleanly dividing Ivy League graduates from Tea Partiers and Middle Americans. And it’s essential to recognize that there are economic issues on which the American overclass — which, after all, includes the corporate as well as the political and intellectual elite, and thus tends to be center-left and Clintonian rather than deeply left-wing — sits to the right of the country as a whole. There’s a lot more support for free trade in Wall Street and Georgetown than in Topeka or Little Rock, for instance, and historically (though this may be changing somewhat) the same has been true of entitlement reform as well.
But the characteristics of a ‘class’ are not as important as the existence of the means by which a clique may exercise power. Jay Cost argues in the HorseRaceBlog that the longest running problem in American political history has been the back room. When a backroom exists someone eventually goes there and tries to run the show from behind the scenes. Just who in particular occupies it at a given moment is a secondary problem. Cost argues that the explosive reaction to groups like Journolist arises not from an objection to journalists holding opinions, but with the idea that they are inside the backrooms and covering up for their existence. So when Douthat says there’s no ‘overclass’ the existence of Jourolist impugns not just him but everyone in his trade, perhaps unjustly. But that’s the problem with backrooms. We don’t know who is in them because they are in back. Cost writes about the long running struggle between cliques and political process in American history:
Our system of government provides for an open process in which free-wheeling debate is encouraged. That’s what happens when you combine freedom of speech with regularly scheduled elections. But certain partisan practices can take the most vital parts of the debate behind closed doors, as allies meet in secret to work out disagreements among themselves before they offer a public message to the country …
This is what gave birth to the party caucus – the closed-door meeting of like-minded partisans to work out differences without the public nosing in. …
War with France or Britain? A federal debt? A national bank? – the accusations that they traded in public were extreme. Adams was portrayed as a monarchist who was secretly coordinating with his perfidious allies, Hamilton and the Arch-Federalists, to impose uniform religious practices upon the country and install a Federalist King, all backed by a standing army that had been justified by ginning up war fever. Jefferson, on the other hand, was tagged as an amoral atheist and Jacobin leveler whose radical ideas would bring the violence and anarchy of the French Revolution to the United States. And sure, both sides swore that their intentions were not so treacherous, but really how could anybody know? The parties were too much like secret societies back then. Nobody was really sure why they made the pronouncements they did. …
Secret caucuses turn Americans off. They long have. This is why the Democratic party in 1828 instituted the practice of the party convention, a broad, open public meeting of the party’s members to work out differences in the light of day. Over time, the convention degenerated from an open and inclusive process into the “smoke filled” room that nominated Warren Harding.
So the problem with Journolist is it reminds us that the secret caucuses have returned. Not that they have ever left. But a glimpse into Ezra Klein’s discussion forum among journalists tells us how far up and down the line it has spread. In the movie Three Days of the Condor a CIA operative played by Cliff Robertson asks the Robert Redford character about the blow the whistle how sure he can be that the New York Times wasn’t part of the backroom.
Higgins: Hey Turner! How do you know they’ll print it? You can take a walk… but how far if they don’t print it?
Turner: They’ll print it.
Higgins: How do you know?
How do you know? Well thanks to Journolist we know. So when Codevilla asks whether “the revolution it [country class and ruling class] continues to press upon America is sustainable” the offending term is not, as Douthat imagines, the precise definition of the “country class and ruling class” but the definition of the word “revolution”. Historically revolutions are part of the system design if it follows the political process. It is not ok if it occurs in the smoke-filled back room. Sooner or later those who ‘live’ by the backroom will ‘die’ from plots hatched in another backroom. Either that or the backrooms must be abolished. In this sense Douthat misses the point. The definition of who precisely comprises the overclass is less important than the existence of underhand methods it uses to impose its revolution. ACORN and the UAW and La Raza might be composed of blacks, latinos, blue collar workers and bureaucrats — groups that are not obviously members of an ‘overclass’. But that’s irrelevant. It is not who they are but whether they can change the rules of the game that is the key to the problem.
And there is some concern there is. One reason the so-called Great Right Wing Conspiracy has gotten a lot of traction — as evidenced by the administration’s decline in the polls — is because a lot of people feel they have been dealt out of the game. When sites like Emerging Corruption make available lists of Obama donors and allege that the NYT has not been looking at collusion between the President’s 2008 campaign and ACORN, they are pointing a finger not just at the Democratic Party but at the system itself.
Thus Codevilla’s essential argument remains telling despite his overemphasis on the sociological characteristics of the ‘overclass’. In that critique the current crisis is about the legitimacy of means and not about who exercises them. When Douthat derides the “blithe conviction that ‘true conservative’ good intentions trump policy substance and deep expertise” there is the implication that conservatives are unwilling to listen to arguments about what government should do. In fact the dispute is over whether government should be allowed to do it in the first place — especially in the way they have been doing it. It is about power and process rather than the fruits of the process. The desire to debate government bureaucrats who have “deep expertise” in health care rationing does not interest those who believe they lack the power to impose rationing at all.
So to Douthat’s assertion that people losing at the casino should simply acquire better “policy substance and deep expertise” to win more chips, Codevilla’s riposte is that you can’t win because the game is rigged. Not the player nor even the dealer, but the deck is under question. Whether Douthat’s or Codevilla’s view prevails is what 2010 election and the interregnum to 2012 are going to about. That election and the year following will decide whether politics will continue to be perceived as a process of power sharing between Republicans and Democrats or whether the current system itself has been judged and found wanting. 2010 and 2011 are not going to decide the answer; they are going to determine the question.
Which it is will be depends on both the actions of the left and the conservatives. If the left — or whatever anyone wants to call it — continues to press for the re-architecturing of American society it must follow that the conservatives will act not only to roll things back but act to break the power of the so-called revolutionaries. The left’s best strategy, one which it has adopted before, has been to fall back before the wire is tripped and when things calm down to tiptoe forward again. The significance of Clinton’s move to the right was to rob the conservative meme of its energy and bring action once again within the ambit of the status quo. Everybody went back to the tables. But Obama’s penchant for doubling down bids fair to achieve the opposite. At some point he may may bet the entire casino and then the chips as such, will lose their value.
Well, no one told me about her
The way she lied
Well, no one told me about her
How many people criedBut it’s too late to say you’re sorry
How would I know, why should I care?
Please don’t bother trying to find her
She’s not there
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Nobody likes a smoke-filled back room, unless they are in on it. It’s the idea that the system has stopped working entirely which upsets people, that Obama doesn’t listen to his smoke-filled rooms, or doesn’t know how to make good on what he attempts, he bungles it with faux 2000-page acts that nobody understands so they can’t grant him credit on their account.
The Pelosi, Reid, Obama class doesn’t listen, and somehow is currently ruling. It doesn’t listen. Let me say it again – it doesn’t listen. It’s not a smoke-filled room, smoking ain’t allowed in DC, it’s all right in the open and it doesn’t listen and it doesn’t work and the people have every right to be aggitated, except that they voted it in.
The idea of a backroom meeting is innocent enough. In my own practice, I try not to show up to a meeting without horse-trading with the likely dealmakers in advance. What is the point of showing g up to a meeting without knowing the outcome as far as a consensus is concerned? A caucus is a show of hands and each hand in and of itself should represent many others.
The question should not be whether or not consensus is arrived upon in a back room but whether consensus is arrived upon at all. There is huge latent power in the majority that is afraid of the power that it can yield. Sooner or later that majority will see no sense in delimiting its power to that of a furtive observer of its own demise. That time is now.
And it is precisely what the “blithe conservative” should do that we can expect the MSM and the hoary halls of the ministry of love to bait the opposition movement with. “This is what you believe in therefore this is how you should think and act”: and they are quick studies of their own prejudice and lather it on to those who innocently have no idea what racist creed drives the Democrats.
The Left has subsumed the language and having broken the bonds of reason they shall soon be proven deficient in truth or poorly informed in the nature of human reason.
The charade of deceit plods along and the only question is which side can stay up with the ever changing momentum and be at the right message at the right time when the lever is pulled. Expect another October surprise.
Great song by the way, caught myself humming it with vague memories of summers past.
When I happened to meet our town’s mayor recently, I told him I objected to the latest extension of our town council’s powers (granting themselves among other things a veto over cutting any tree or shrub on private property with a stem over 5″ in diameter).
His stock answer is that people like me should “get more involved in the council’s policy making process”, even though the council and city bureaucrats conduct round after round of consultation and then proceed to do exactly what they want, claiming of course each time to have detected overwhelming backing for their pet projects (one of which has already led to the mayor being fined over a financial conflict).
I told him I felt as though I was in a Wild West saloon, being invited to play poker by a smooth talking character whose ‘Wanted’ poster is actually displayed on the wall behind him… In other words, no thank you.
As Wretchard says, I’m not interested in debating people paid with my tax dollars to run me around in circles, and then invent a claim that they had my support for what they wanted to do anyway. The sole issue for me is whether we can get rid of them.
Someday these peoples’ casually displayed contempt for the preferences of anyone not part of the ‘gentry/gaia sentimentalist/public employee alliance’ will catch up to them. I look forward to that day.
“Three Days of the Condor” is one of my favorite political thrillers (along with my #1 And Still the Champeen in that genre, “The Manchurian Candidate”). But I must say that events over the last 5-10 years have made me react differently to the ending than I used to. The NYT under Sulzberger has gotten to be quite predictable to the point where you can pretty much bet on them coming down on the wrong side of any issue of substance 98% of the time.
In the final scene, Higgins (Cliff Robertson) implies that Turner (Redford) is naive for believing that the NYT will print the “CIA within the CIA” story, complete with all the gory details of assassinations, corruption & coverup. I have come to agree with Higgins but not for the reasons Higgins has in mind. Higgins is implying that the NYT will sell out if the government tells it to sell out, because the NYT will be rightly afraid of the government. (The same govt that created the “CIA within the CIA.”) In the movie’s world, the NYT is puppet to the federal government pulling the strings, and the federal government itself is puppet to the greedy oil companies seeking to make obscene profits in the Middle East. (Come on, this *is* a Pollack/Redford movie, you knew there had to be an evil businessman behind it all.)
Where I differ with Higgins is that I don’t think the NYT has needed government pressure to sell out. The NYT, whadda ya know, along with most of the American journalist establishment, sold out all on its own. And not because they were righties at heart but precisely because they were lefties. The NYT’s commitment to progressivism is Reason #1 they folded like a cheap tent with regard to printing the truth. From Duranty on they have been shills not for the likes of the CIA but for the likes of the KGB. Now they are so addled with the syphilitic consequences of their whoredom that they truly don’t know what the truth or reality is.
So of course they won’t print it. Unless it’s by accident.
Instapundit excerpted a blogger the other day who said something to the effect that the preemptive and enthusiastic surrender of the American news media to leftism, without having any experience or pressure of actually living in the terrible conditions of a Stalinist regime, is historically remarkable. And morally reprehensible. But of course this selling out of historic proportions will go unremarked on by the Words For Sale crowd. Not flattering to their Woodward & Bernstein heroic image of themselves.
Early in the Obama administration I left a number of comments here about the centralization of Power in Washington and the Development of what I called “The DC Power Circuit.” The Power Circuit includes a more homogenized (in terms of beliefs) ruling class but also networks of power relationships that snake out into the country from the center.
This is part of a comment from a little over a year ago where I described my thinking as regards this emerging system:
At the center of the DC Power Circuit is the Democrat Controlled Congress and Executive. But these do not control the DC Power Circuit, they are rather important nodes and, when the DC “PC” is in full control, will be controlled by it. The new system may not feature a Politburo in the old Soviet sense, but there will be an apparatchik class — a self recruiting elite that moves freely from government to “the Private Sector.”
Other important nodes are various Cartels with national reach. The Education Cartel is well established. More recently we’ve seen the establishment (or strengthening) of Cartels in Finance, Health Care, the automotive industry and, soon, Big Alternative Energy. More generally big business and major institutions (professional organizations, unions, Foundations, Major Universities) are maneuvering to capture a “node.”
The DC Power Circuit functions by draining power, money, resources and control from “Middle America” and redistributes it through the various “nodes.” Money is taken directly from pay checks, control is taken from businesses, and stockholder interest are ignored in favor of phantom “stakeholders” (basically, everyone — by which they mean The DC “PC”). This is done through the threat or application of force (though masked by a smile, with well meaning regulation its more benign appearing form).
More and more this looks like larceny (which it is) so the role of the media is very important. They are the Shamans who magically turn theft into benevolence. After all, the DC “PC” produces nothing and cannot redistribute what it has not first confiscated — deducting shipping and handling cost at every juncture (and there will be a lot of those). For this the victims need to feel grateful — until they feel cowed.
The DC Power Circuit values loyalty to the system over any other virtue (and most certainly over basic competence). Responsibility now means “to take the blame” and the blame is magically assigned and withheld by the Shamans of the PC Media (that is their role and I think adequately explains there often bizarre “logic”).
In short, the DC Power Circuit drains power and authority from the citizen and returns charity. It takes the wrecking ball to the “contractual” relationships of the Free Market/Free Enterprise system, which has produced so much prosperity. Even the Supreme Contract of Secular America, The Constitution, is easily warped. Instead of the Old America, we will get a slick version of the poverty producing system of Patron-Client Relationships — where those made weak will seek the protection of the powerful — that have been the feature (as well as the bane) of much of human history.
Douthat is what I call one of the ‘blind dogs’ along with David Brooks, David Frum and a handful of others. (no explanation of the term needed, right?) the very use of the word progressive in it’s context in his article betrays too much about his notions of what the word ‘principled’ means. But even in this case, he thinks he’s found the bone, but instead has turned up a rock, of course. Pseudo-conservatives and liberals both misunderstand the importance of the big tipping point in government expansion. The defenders of free enterprise will do so for as long as free enterprise works to their basic self interest, and most of the time even further to protect those (the young) that don’t yet realize the importance of that liberty. However, at some point, the Big Tipping Point, the self interest of the doer will trump the what he knows is the best philosophy of government and society because, let’s face it, these fools who vote for those fools are getting what they deserve and I’m going to do what I have have to do. Ambition and greed are not legislated away by centralized government. Eventually, I will look out for number one, or get dragged down with the rest of the hoard. Perhaps it’s the flip side of the same coin. Like the governing class, I propose to know what is the best for the rest of you… But in my case, it doesn’t involve me telling you what to go do with yourself. If that’s a moral equivalent…. Eh…. I can live with that. Onward, Comrades!!
Hdgreene – “Instead of the Old America, we will get a slick version of the poverty producing system of Patron-Client Relationships”
This is precisely what animates the narco-terrorist oligarchy of Mexico. It is no wonder that the richest man in the world made his gold on the backs of an impoverished nation. For those who think the elite wouldn’t destroy wealth this is your sign. Being the king of the poor beats being a peer amongst the rich, power is an end to itself, but more importantly, it is the beginning of all terror.
She’s not there
She may be out in front, singing “See What the Boys in the Back Room Will Have”– Marlene Dietrich, from Destry Rides Again (1939):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BOVDv-NSMM
(Refrain: “See what the boys in the back room will have,
And tell them I died of the same.”)
I’ll have to disagree a bit with Mr. Cost. The problem isn’t the back rooms or the caucuses; those things have been with us since, well, since humans started organizing into groups. There are even a few cases where the back room is beneficial or even essential for the smooth operation of any organization; such as such as dealing with inter-party some issues or in meting out appropriate discipline for minor or special infractions. The problem, instead, is the concentration of power that makes these caucuses so, for lack of a better term, inviting. In other words, it’s not the back room or the caucus that’s the problem, per se, but rather when the back room turns into a star chamber that poses the true danger.
Ross Douthat — he was described on Journolist as one of the “respectable” conservatives — one they’d never find a need to falsely accuse of racism.
He can’t see the ruling class because he keeps looking out the window to try to find it. Hey, Ross — YOU’RE ONE OF THEM.
Wretchard suggested: “2010 and 2011 are not going to decide the answer; they are going to determine the question.”
Could be. But I would not bet against both question & answer being rendered irrelevant by an outbreak of “events, dear boy”. While Western political elites have debates about who’s inside & who’s outside & whether it matters, political elites (or dictators, as we call them) elsewhere in the world are pursuing their own interests — vigorously!
We are likely in the period which some future Churchill will write about under the title, “While the West Slept”.
“But Obama’s penchant for doubling down bids fair to achieve the opposite. At some point he may may bet the entire casino and then the chips as such, will lose their value.”
Make’s you wonder how bright he actually is. The big Dawg switched gears(recognized reality)rather quickly and never looked back(Hilary may have).Palin quit when sued into a corner.
He’ll double down of course, if he had any sense he’d pull a Clinton.Then again if he had any sense he wouldn’t be a marxist in the first place.
He and his crew seem to think that if they set up conditions like Clinton’ 94 the same will happen for them.Cargo cults or children playing dress-up.
They should have read Sun-Tzu, their hubris may very well wreck the Democratic Party for a generation , being a wannbe Lincoln or FDR, isn’t a strategy.
Wretchard,
Douthat’s analysis is foggy and contradictory to me. Just try to divine this sentence’s deliberate meaning:
Three remarks:
1. As rebuttals go, this one is obtusely aligned with the target of its refutation. Douthat admits that there is an American “overclass” and that this class, by virtue of including the nations’ elites in its ranks, “thus[ly]” trends Left (which was Codevilla’s point, wasn’t it?). But then he does a 180 degree turn, and inexplicably asserts that this overclass “sits to the right” of the American electorate on “economic issues.” The number of these supposed issues on which the overclass “sits to the right” of the electorate is crudely left in the ether. CAFTA, NAFTA, Bush’s tax cuts…this class opposed all three as I recall.
2. Also, left ill-defined is Douthat’s overclass’s opposite, its underclass. Douthat leaves hanging the default notion that “the country as a whole” is somehow separate from, and subject to, this “overclass” (again, this is exactly Codevilla’s point, only lit from behind). Douthat could have been more explicit but chose not to. Why?
3. And Douthat moors his rebuttal to a qualifier that has the solidity of smoke. What does “Clintonian” mean? He administered the corrupting CRA, sheltered FanMac, lied to a grand jury, pardoned a tax-cheat and was disbarred in AR. To understand how the overclass might be “centrist,” Douthat must define his term “Clintonian.” It demonstrates his presumptuousness (and, perhaps, his fealty to his “overclass”) that he doesn’t.
If Codevilla’s agrument is “overdrawn,” then Douthat’s reposte is un-drawn. Which may be on purpose. When I was in college I was charged with writing a piece in opposition to an essay I fully agreed with. To get around my agreement while maintaining the appearance of being adversarial to my foil, I relied on fudge words, omissions and vague qualifiers ending with ‘-ian.” I’m getting the impression Douthat was given the same assignment here.
-S
I saw a man upon the stair
A smiling face and well-coiffed hair
Bearing every lefty ware
Intent on spending cupboards bare
But then again we must be fair
They do not rule but only care
Call them lefties if you dare
But the thorns of life they bear
Heavy burdened, patience rare
Breathing noble freedom’s air
Dragging sinners from their lair
Climb aboard, you’ve paid the fare
Flag draped clothing they may wear
Constitutions they may tear
We’ve seen the man upon the stair
Though some would say he isn’t there
Wretchard says: that’s the problem with backrooms. We don’t know who is in them because they are in back.
It also leaves open the possibility of backrooms within backrooms, so to speak; witness the ongoing debate as to whether Obama speaks for himself or whether he is the puppet of George Soros (or some other Moriarty). The recent sudden bipartisan piling-on on Charlie Rangel raises that kind of question, too. “There can be no question that Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, would dearly like the Democrats to fight November’s elections without Rangel flapping for air in the barrel full of fish into which Republicans are training their fire. . . . There will be resistance to Rangel’s departure, primarily from members of the Congressional Black Caucus, for whom Rangel is, for all his flaws, a revered elder statesman. But Rangel is now indefensible, and not merely because Pelosi wants to show him the door: His is a style, a method, a politics from an age when it was simply not done to ask uncomfortable questions of a black politician, lest that politician (and his supporters) retort that the questioning was racist. That protective smokescreen of ‘racism’ was good to men like Rangel, allowing them to go about their merry ways blithely, and untroubled.”
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-07-23/charlie-rangel-will-resign-next-week-predicts-tunku-varadarajan/?cid=tag:all1
I’m excited that there continues to be conversation about Codevilla’s essay. While it is not perfect, it could emerge as the modern-day equivalent of Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense.”
One of the greatest dangers of the behavior of the Ruling Class is that it will delegitimize government. Now I’m sure there are some hard-core libertarians who would view that as a feature, not a bug, but in the real world, government is really important. The courts, for instance, have to be viewed by the people as neutral arbiters of disputes who act in accord with the law, not social reformers who seek to impose their views on the public. Legislatures must be viewed as creating a stable framework designed to benefit the common good, not the most powerful or aggressive special interest. And public sector officials – from governors to census takers – need to be viewed as servants of the people, not their overlords.
But when government over-reaches, when it pre-empts the private sector, when it confounds private and public goods, when it picks winners, when it rewards friends and punishes enemies – it loses its legitimacy.
And this is bad for America. We need legitimate government. We need the government to play its proper and important role, and the limits established by the Constitution (especially in the 9th and 10th Amendments) are as essential for the long-run sustainability of the public sector as they are for the long-run sustainability of the private sector.
For proof of the danger of our times, then, we need look no further than Scott Rasmussen’s poll showing that only 21% of the American people believe the government has the consent of the governed. This state of affairs is not good for our nation.
Even more alarming, and confirming of Codevilla’s thesis, are two other polls:
- The crosstab from the above poll showing that 63% of what Rasmussen calls the “Political Class” (roughly equivalent to Codevilla’s Ruling Class) believes that the the government has the consent of the governed, versus 6% of Rasmussen’s “Mainstream” (cf. Codevilla’s Country Class).
- In a recent poll, again from Rasmussen, the Political Class prefers a centrally managed economy to free markets by 44% to 37%. On the other hand, 90% of Mainstream voters prefer markets.
The Ruling Class needs to realize that the American people will not allow them to rule. But they keep trying to force their outdated and discredited governance model, a hip, modern feudalism, hoping that they can enact permanent change. And the American people resist.
So it’s not surprising, then, that the Ruling Class gets bitter, they cling to race or political correctness or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-American sentiment or anti-religion sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
L3
Back rooms? Just copied this off the web today (can you say “National Socialism”?):
Just after Obama’s inauguration, GE CEO Jeff Immelt wrote that “the government will be a regulator; and also an industry policy champion, a financier, and a key partner.” Immelt told shareholders, “GE’s broad technical portfolio positions us as a natural partner as the role of government increases in the current crisis.”
True to his word, Immelt has positioned GE to benefit from all sorts of Obama initiatives — and of course, GE’s league-leading lobbying squad has worked Capitol Hill to support and craft these initiatives.
But that’s just one company working, largely, in one sector. I mean, sure, ConocoPhillips and Shell, the two biggest oil company lobbying companies are also shoulder to shoulder with the administration on “cap and trade”, but maybe that’s all an aberration. Maybe the administration is just behind in this sector because it’s been ever so busy doing battle with the devious hordes of special interest lobbyists on other fronts, like health care and key Senate races.
Or not.
The top three trade lobbies — lobbying groups that represent single industries — are all health-sector lobbies that vocally and repeatedly supported Obama’s health care overhaul.
The American Medical Association was first among single-industry lobbies last quarter, followed by the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) and the American Hospital Association.
Not only did these groups help push Obamacare across the finish line, they have also rallied behind Obama’s controversial Medicare chief Donald Berwick. PhRMA has run campaign ads supporting Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and the group’s new president was an Obama donor.
Oh. Oh, dear. And we can also toss in the AARP, which dished out over $4 million to get Obamacare passed and its CEO, who maxed out his personal contributions to the President.
The problem for the Democrats is that now the majority of the electorate “perceives” that there is an elite leftist ruling class that wants to “rule” and rob from them. They and their mouth pieces have lost so much credibility that their protests are losing effect. A somewhat extreme example of that can be found here:
http://naturalfake.wordpress.com/2010/07/24/i-dont-care-if-the-candidates-a-kitten-rapin-human-skin-drapin-cannibal-hillbilly-if-hes-republican-im-voting-for-him-possibly-nsfw/
The Democrats can throw up an October Surprise but I have my doubts on how effective one will be.
When you work in DC you find that every company wants to be subsidized, to be protected from both domestic and foreign competition, and conversely, to “get the government off its back” even when its customer is the government. One article in the Washington Post even quoted a young woman who had started a cookie company and wanted both less government regulation and new laws passed requiring private firms to buy her product.
It is all too common for an entrepreneur to come up with an idea that requires as a first step the government give him something for free, guarantee him a market, or suspend the rules just in his case. Various special interest groups seek special deals. And those in government who seek to create those deals usually try to conceal the fact via obtuse language in legislation or simply out and out secrecy.
All of these people are what Prof VDH would call counter-revolutionary in that they seek exceptions to the basic concepts inherent in the founding of the USA. They wish a return to those thrilling days of yesteryear when a gift to a king or fawning over a minor royal would produce favorable circumstances.
Where you stand depends on where you sit: at the feet of royalty seeking favor or as a free man in your own chair minding your own business. That is what defines your association with the Ruling Class.
Ross Douthat: “It’s essential to recognize that there are economic issues on which the American overclass — which, after all, includes the corporate as well as the political and intellectual elite, and thus tends to be center-left and Clintonian rather than deeply left-wing — sits to the right of the country as a whole.”
That is a lie. The American overclass is today both Marxist (government intellectual elites who exercise ownership of enterprise and private property with re-dsitribution to the tax-eating proletariat class – in return for votes) and Fascist (government intellectual elites who exercise control of enterprise and private property). Both Marxism and Fascism are far to the left of our American Revolution – far to the left of our Declaration of Independence and Constitution – far to the left of the country as a whole. We should not speak of Marxism as “Left” and Fascism as “Right” – both are “Left” – and we should refer to them as the Marxist Left and the Fascist Left.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7M-7LkvcVw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEFA4uOPnV8&feature=related
“Contrary to the Marxists, the Nazis did not advocate public ownership of the means of production. They did demand that the government oversee and run the nation’s economy. The issue of legal ownership, they explained, is secondary; what counts is the issue of control. Private citizens, therefore, may continue to hold titles to property – so long as the state reserves to its self the unqualified right to regulate the use of their property. If “ownership” means the right to determine the use and disposal of material goods, then Nazism endowed the state with every real prerogative of ownership. What the individual retained was merely a formal deed… which conferred no rights on it’s holder. Under Communism, there is collective ownership of property de jure. Under Nazism, there is the same collective ownership de facto.” Leonard Peikoff
http://www.peikoff.com/lr/chapter1.htm
http://www.peikoff.com/lr/review_rand.htm
If John Fund is correct, the natives in the back room may be getting restless (sorry for the mixed metaphor):
“How nervous are liberals about the November election and how angry are they at conservatives? Plenty, to judge from this year’s Netroots Nation gathering of 2,000 liberal bloggers and activists.
At last year’s Pittsburgh gathering, I saw a group of cheerful and upbeat folk assemble a full-fledged alternative convention for the Democratic Party. This year’s meeting, in contrast, is characterized by angst and confusion. In Pittsburgh, I was treated with civility and even kindness. This year, three liberal bloggers surrounded me with video cameras within minutes of my arrival. They followed me into the media room, endlessly repeating questions about my articles on ACORN. Finally, they had to be asked to leave by other reporters there.
Signs that all is not well showed up in other places. Many of those in attendance openly expressed concern that President Obama is losing momentum in pushing their causes. ‘I’ve definitely never heard more cursing by speakers at a political conference than at Netroots Nation,’ Philip Klein of the American Spectator told me. Markos Moulitsas, the founder of the liberal website DailyKos, railed against ‘bullshit Democrats’ at last night’s kickoff event. . . .
Mr. Moulitsas was preceded by Ed Schultz, the liberal host who appears daily on MSNBC. He divided his speech between appeals to liberals to ‘stick it’ to ‘ruthless, callous, rotten-to-the core Republicans’ and raging about his disappointment with the Obama administration. ‘The White House has a war room. I think they have a sissy room too,’ he told attendees. . . .
Mr. Schultz charged that the Obama administration wasn’t using progressive media effectively. ‘I thought our network did a hell of a job fighting for health care,’ he revealed, but mournfully admitted: ‘[The Obama White House] reacts to Fox, they don’t go to us. . . . We’re not winning right now, got to change some plays here.’”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703294904575385221258338304.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion
Interesting that the Netroots meeting is being held in Las Vegas, the city that Obama dissed on several occasions last winter: http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/feb/02/obama-dont-blow-cash-vegas-during-tough-times/
Well, let’s see – Mr. Douthat went to Harvard and Mr. Codevilla went to Rutgers and Notre Dame…splains it for me Lucy. Geez, life is so simple
#19 RWE”
Ah yes, even in Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations” he comments on business men who become successful in the market turning to the Crown and asking for monopoly status.
Things just keep coming around it seems.
#22 Ammo Guy
Mr. Douthat went to Harvard
So did Wretchard; that’s where he picked up “Belmont” as the name for the Club.
I would not be at all surprised that the elite are found to be, generally speaking, slightly or somewhat to the right, economically speaking, of the rest of America. You go to a Union hall and try telling those guys that free trade is a good thing. You will get along famously with them when talking about social values and guns but drop a hint of economic conservatism and all of your other talk will be very quickly forgotten.
Having now had a chance to read Jay Cost’s piece, I have to express strong disagreement with his perspective.
The issue is not the “closed room.” There have always been closed rooms, and they are absolutely necessary for the proper functioning of a democratic republic. Why? Because they lower the cost of changing elected officials.
Think about it. If you want to get rid of a politician, right now the only way to do it is by beating them in an election. But the vast majority of races are in gerrymandered districts, so you have a real problem fighting in general elections. Do you really think that any Republican can beat Charlie Rangel? It has approximately the same odds as Montreal Canadiens winning the World Series.
That means you need to beat incumbents in the primary. But the incumbent politicians control the party, and therefore control the nominating process. And if you do decide to take on an incumbent in the primary, you’ll have the entire party establishment and fighting against you because the parties serve the incumbents. They control the patronage, the fundraising, the staffing, etc.
So, the cost of changing politicians is very high. And high barriers to entry limit competition.
In addition, there’s a psychological dimension as well. A politician will fight tooth and nail to preserve their ego, and nothing is more humiliating to a politician than losing a primary election. They will do anything to avoid that – just look at Charlie Crist, who is willing to leave the party and run as an independent to avoid being beaten in a primary.
“Smoke-Filled Rooms” are, surprisingly, a way to bring the Ruling Class to heel.
In the 19th Century, the SFR was the way that politicians were kept under control. When a politician stepped out of line, they were summoned to the SFR and told that they were not going to be renominated. They could still “run” for the seat, but they had no chance. Facing such a situation, they always “stepped aside to allow other good party members to have their opportunity to be of service to the nation.” This was possible because the decision was made in private.
This system was also the way in which party leaders maintained their policy of “forced rotation.” This kept parties strong and politicians weak, which meant that elected officials worked for the party, and by extension for the people.
(As an aside: the practice of SFR-driven forced rotation also means that the Congressional Research Service consistently underestimate how often incumbents were unseated in the 19th Century. They do not treat “retirements” as “defeats” in their turnover statistics – they ignore retirements, thus making it look like incumbents lost at about the same rate in the 19th Century as they do today. This is utterly misleading.)
So, I disagree with Cost. The issue with SFRs is not that they are closed. The issue is how its occupants are selected.
When they functioned well, parties had a hierarchical structure. There were block captains, precinct chairs, county leaders, etc. Each level had a say in who represented them at the next level of the party, and a hard-working and dedicated member who was aligned with his neighbors might well rise up high in the party hierarchy, regardless of their social or economic status. So by active involvement of the people, leaders were selected who best represented the people’s views. As a result, they had a legitimacy that was essential to their proper functioning.
This approach also worked well for the American Revolution. Town hall meetings elected delegates to state conventions, which in turn sent representatives to the Continental Congress. Legitimacy flowed up the hierarchy, so that decisions were considered binding, even though the debate and deliberations were conducted in secret. It was precisely through this sort of process that men of talent – Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Hancock, Franklin, etc. – were selected. It was not luck that the Founding Fathers were thrown together. The process to select them worked beautifully.
Anyway, parties for the most part functioned well in selecting for leaders who were aligned with the people’s interests, and the party held those leaders accountable for their actions. And both the selection process and the accountability process was private. In fact, a publicly-expressed desire for office was considered a disqualifier.
Where things started going wrong was when business interests figured out ways of corrupting the process for their own benefit. It was this “political capture” process that incensed the American people, and led to the populist spirit that cross-bred with Bismarck’s statism to form the Progressive Movement.
It is a similar outrage today that is fueling the call for defenestration of the Ruling Class. The Federal Government, Big Business, the Academy, and the Mainstream Media have teamed up (both implicitly and explicitly) to undo the American Revolution and re-establish a European feudal order. Bismarck rises again.
Why? For the same reason that Tammany Hall was created: it’s good to be the King.
But to fight back, it is important that we properly diagnose the problem. Being closed is not the problem. And that means that opening up the process won’t fix it. In fact, it will probably make it worse.
The solution is to restore the mediating institution that provided a process for the people to select good leaders, and hold those leaders accountable for their actions. And, like it or not, private meetings are often essential for the proper function of mediating institutions.
One final point. Cost speaks disparagingly of caucuses. But it is worth noting that the only Senate incumbent this cycle who was defeated in the primary was Bob Bennett of Utah, and he lost because the Republican Party there uses a caucus to select their nominee.
Sometimes, the best decisions are made in a SFR, so long as the people in that room are accountable to the people.
L3
Leo Linbeck III: “The Political Class prefers a centrally managed economy to free markets”
George Orwell explains why the Political Class (the Marxist Ruling Class – the Pigs of Animal Farm) prefer a centrally (communal – collectivized) economy.
“It had long been realized that the only secure basis for oligarchy is collectivism. Wealth and privilege are most easily defended when they are possessed jointly. The so-called “abolition of private property” (Communist Manifesto) meant in effect the concentration of property in far fewer hands than before… In the years following the Revolution it (The Socialist Party of Oceania) was able to step into this commanding position almost un-opposed because the whole process was represented as an act of collectivization… It had always been assumed that if the Capitalist Class were expropriated Socialism must follow; and unquestionably the Capitalists had been expropriated. Factories, mines, land, houses, transport, everything had been taken away from them; and since these things were no longer private property it followed that they must be public property. Ingsoc (Socialist Principles of Oceania), which grew out of the earlier Socialist movement and inherited its phraseology, has in fact carried out the main item in the Socialist program with the result; foreseen and intended beforehand, that economic inequality has been made permanent.” George Orwell – 1984
One more comment on Cost’s piece.
He conflates “patronage politics” with Tammany Hall. But not all patronage is corrupt. In fact, our system would be a whole lot better off with more patronage, not less.
I’m sure this sounds absolutely absurd. But stick with me for a moment. Hear the argument before you decide.
There are only two ways to staff government functions: with elected and appointed officials (“politics”), or with career civil servants (“bureaucracy”).
In the 19th Century, many, many more government jobs were filled through elections. You ever hear the expression, “I wouldn’t vote for him if he were running for dog catcher.” Well, it used to be that dog catcher was an elected position. It was an admittedly low level position, but the party found someone to run for the job, and if elected they spent the next 2 or 4 years running around chasing dogs.
And the jobs that weren’t elected were political appointees. They were not permanent jobs, but subject to re-appointment if your patron was re-elected.
(Note that at this time, there was no Australian ballot. The parties printed the entire ballot, with the names of all the party’s nominees, and you dropped it in the ballot box. The party, then, had complete control over the nomination process. Nominations often were announced only a couple of weeks before the election. And balloting was not secret; each party printed their ballot in a different color, so that party poll-watchers knew who you voted for. This forced additional accountability upon the parties – they found out who switched parties, and they found out why. This led to a more responsive environment, at least until business interests purchased them…)
Under this system, there was not really a permanent bureaucracy. If the government wasn’t doing a good job, you voted out the entire party, and the government jobs went to the other party. This was a pure patronage system, and it had strong accountability to the people. It also provided a way for parties to reward supporters with jobs, a key to maintaining the strength of parties, and their control over elected officials. And it provided a lot more motivation for folks to get involved in politics. (This system still exists for the rich, of course, but they don’t get bureaucratic jobs: they get ambassadorships.)
The Progressive Movement changed all this. They gutted the parties, and in their place put in a Bismarckian civil service. The percentage of political appointees shrunk steadily, to the point where Washington jobs are virtually all filled by career bureaucrats. Very little changes with an election. The blob stays put.
Meet the new bureaucracy. Same as the old bureaucracy.
Me, I’d much rather see a complete replacement of the entire bureaucracy when there is a change of parties than the pig lipsticking that is the current system. At least you can get rid of the bums by voting out their patrons.
Patronage >> Bureaucrats
L3
“Make’s you wonder how bright he actually is.”
I don’t wonder.
Let me suggest that there is substantial common ground between Codevilla’s and Cost’s views. What Codevilla calls the ruling class wants to set the rules for who can sit in the back room, and what can be discussed there.
Everything else that Codevilla says can follow from that small adjustment. The back room sets the terms of the discussion, the issues that are (and are not) legitimate for public resolution. That is where the strategic choices are made. Then, the small people (to use the BP chair’s infelicitous translation of “little people” into Dutch and back again) can chose how fast they want to go in the allowed direction.
Just like in the EU, which, after all, is the aspiration of our betters. Certainly the UK, where the “Conservatives” run on a platform that they can run the NHS better than Labour. Serious reform or restructuring of UK health care is not open for discussion.
Marcus @ 25:
Like you, I concluded that Douthat was referring to unionized labor when he said that what Codevilla calls the ruling class is to the right of, say, the working-class population of Little Rock.
But I disagree with Douthat on definitions here.
The ruling class is open borders. This is NOT necessarily the same thing as being a hard-core principled believer in free markets. It could be that. OR it could be (1) the progressive tactic of trying to “get a new people” (ie Dem voters) via massive waves of immigrants looking for social programs and government handouts, or (2) businesses looking for ridiculously cheap labor, nevermind the nation’s immigration laws or the social or political consequences of massive waves of immigrants driving down labor prices and destroying the ability of the marginally skilled to get entry-level jobs to improve their skills (not to mention pay the rent, eat, etc).
Related to what I mentioned in the last thread, a free market is not an anarchic market, is not a lawless market. Just because the government shouldn’t intrude into, say, minimum wage practices is not the same thing as saying the government shouldn’t enforce our border laws. Limiting immigration to manageable (assimilate-able) levels, and especially stopping the tide of illegal immigration, is (1) a duty of the federal government, which is charged with maintaining national sovereignty via our borders and stop us from being invaded, (2) a matter of national security these days, and (3) a socio-political issue, preserving order also being a governmental duty.
To say that a staunch believer in the free market is therefore obliged, out of intellectual consistency’s sake, to advocate open borders, is balderdash. There are three very good and important reasons to control the borders and restrict immigration. All three are related to primary duties of the government. All three involve one of the few things that the government is Constitutionally charged with actually DOING, as opposed to keeping its grubby paws off of.
Only when, and not until, the nation’s workforce is composed of American citizens and legal residents, does the actual free market of domstic labor negotiations begin. When the government fails to stop illegal immigration and/or bungles legal immigration levels, and most especially when government does this intentionally, it is in essence putting its thumb on the scale of the domestic labor market. And it is weighting the scale AGAINST several subsets of American workers.
As far as NAFTA and free trade agreements are concerned, once again you have to check definitions. Is it *really* “free trade” if American businesses are, from the outset, smothered in costly regulations that drive the unit price of producing a widget up to five or ten times what less regulated (and frequently subsidized) Chinese or Mexican widgets cost? IOW the issue of the government’s role in whether free trade is genuinely free or not begins loooooong before Congress deliberates a tariff bill on Chinese & Mexican widgets. It begins with the laws Congress drafts regarding environmental impact statements, the permitting process for the American widget factory, the umpteen czars and their bureacracies and the myriad regulations they impose on the American business owner.
Clinton signed NAFTA but he’s not a principled free marketeer. He had/has other reasons for wanting Chinese & Mexican widgets to flood American store shelves (actually, the flooding of American store shelves is incidental to his real aims), and those reasons have virtually nothing to do with Adam Smith’s invisible hand.
Douthat is smart enough to recognize he’s obfuscating on definitions. One is left to wonder WHY he is doing that when he knows better, and when he must also surely recognize that in the level of readers he draws, a fair percentage will also be smart enough to figure out his smoke & mirrors.
Leo (#28):
An immovable bureaucracy is more obnoxious than an immovable Parliament!
The elite, by and large, are not devoted to free enterprise, free markets or free trade.
They are for centralized control and direction of the economy. Since free trade often interferes with government control, they are not particularly devoted to free trade. That is why the trade talks have stalled. And, in any case, these talks now concentrate on making the inefficiencies the elites want to impose on their own countries global in scope. So they recommend an international bank tax, and demand trade treaties be about exporting regulations (environment, health, safety etc.) to the rest of the wrold. They want to make “cap and trade” global.
The real problem for US workers is not free trade but the wildly out of Kilter “Balance of Trade.” This is mostly the flip side of high government deficits. The Treasury borrows dollars off of foreigners who get those dollars by selling goods to Americans and putting the dollars they receive in treasury bonds — instead of buying US manufactured goods. So perhaps elite devotion to free trade is just a reflection of their need for foreign capital — and as added leverage for increased international regulations.
I would also suggest that if JournoList were just reporters from places like The Nation and Mother Jones, with no representatives from WaPo or other mainline media outlets, and no politically active Peter Orszags, it wouldn’t be much of a story. The story is not, as Cost seems to believe, that journalists have opinions and those opinions may affect their coverage… it is that this happens in teh “straight” coverage at organizations whose entire claim to relevance is objectivity, and is clearly acted upon by the writers and editors and tolerated or more by management.
The journalists who want to base their work on their opinions should be on the editorial page or at avowedly partisan or agenda-driven places. Then it wouldn’t be an issue.
As it is, it’sd just one more reason to ignore WaPo, NYT, CNN and all the rest. Although, it will be a challenge to care less about them than I already did.
#31 Bogie,
While the Union hall guy was the easiest guy to describe here, I am not certain the generalization we are discussing pertains only to him. Bill O’Reilly is often characterized as a conservative but he is not.
When it comes to economics he is definitely non-conservative and his motto is an offense to conservative values. There are a lot of people like him out there and they can be all “free marketeers” but boy it sure is a good thing Sarah stuck it big to those oil companies in AK.
Interestingly enough, a lot of Dems are bigger fans of capitalism and free enterprise than what we give them credit for. Look at Lurch with his yacht moored in Maryland instead of his home state of Massachusetts. My representative made a bundle off of stuff the FDA essentially called quackery (unfortunately, no epiphany was forthcoming on my rep.s part). They sleep with the free market at night but beat it during the day.
As far as back room dealing goes, I just don’t see how one can get rid of such. Any organization is going to have a number of dedicated members who are going to be willing to take the lumps and a number of members who want to be associated with the effort but will not do much one way or the other.
The thing the dedicated know is they will be insulted and castigated by the general membership for not doing things well enough or not consulting the membership adequately, but we all know what happens when the dedicated members attempt to reach out. They are told, “We’re too busy to tend to that”, “I have no clue about the matter, do what you think best”, etc etc etc. So, even if things are being conducted in an open manner the difference between “the back room” and the board room are very minute.
L3 – Clara Barton was one of those 19th-century political appointees whose job fortunes rose and fell with political administrations. She got a job in the Patent Office during the Pierce Admin, lost it under Buchanan and moved back Massachusetts, and got the job back when Lincoln was elected.
That she was living in Washington D.C. and therefore saw firsthand the condition of Union soldiers staggering back from the First Battle of Bull Run, and having seen it firsthand was moved to do something about prioritizing the treatment of wounded soldiers on the battlefield, was quite providential.
In the two decades following the Civil War, the name “Clara” increased in popularity by about 20%. How many of those thousands upon thousands of veterans whose lives were saved or touched by Clara Barton named their little girls after her, do you think?
#29 WWS
rhetorical comment
the real question is who’s pulling his strings?Soros,Daley,Ayers,GE, BP,- i’ve always thought of him as a vacuum tube but Andrew Klavan had a 21st century way of describing him – a living hologram.if he’s not doing the thinking/planning , then who is?
The worst things this Administration are doing consist not of any specific piece of legislation but of the transformation of procedure and the degradation of standards of what is permitted and what is not. They are doing this with the enthusiastic collusion of the media, most universities, and even elementary and high school level education. Constitutional niceties are trampled. Journalistic ethics have long ago disintegrated. Intellectual honesty and the integrity of debate, on life support for decades, is flat lined in most elite institutions.
The genius of our American Constitutional System is to push everything toward the center, to require consensus and compromise, and to observe certain decency barriers knowing that when the other side takes over, they may use the same deviations from the rules against us. The imperfection of the two parties that not only allows for but actually encourages broader coalition building, used to allow for the occasional RINO and DINO on both sides but also assured that neither side could bully the other to excess. Those swings from ideological purity from one election to the other were more characteristic of Europe. But things have morphed in highly disturbing ways.
Furthermore, the tension arc implied in the opening sentences of our two founding documents created a unique and successful system hitherto unprecedented. When the Declaration states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,” the basic unit is the individual pursuing the self-interest of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
When the Constitution states, “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America,” we are emphasizing those aspects of life that lean more toward the collective. We provide for the COMMON defense and promote the GENERAL welfare.
This tension between the individual and the general or collective is part of the genius of America. Most of the time pursuit of individual liberty and happiness should animate our lives, but occasionally concern for the general welfare must trump those. When a company or industry pushes for benefits that help them in the short run but hurt the country in the long run, the general welfare is damaged. But most of the time the general welfare is maximized when individuals have maximum liberty to pursue success and happiness.
Likewise, transparency is usually desirable, but there are times when hard decisions and candid debates can only take place behind closed doors. It is not the closed doors per se but the distortion of that individual/general welfare tension arc that is the most destructive. The country has too many Esau-like elites who are willing to sell the American birthright for a short-term bowl of red stew.
What are the chances this trend can be reversed? I am pessimistic. Two or three generations of bad education, deconstruction, relativism, and ignorance of what made America truly American, have crippled the ability of large numbers of voters to think clearly. That and the constant drone of misinformation and disinformation from the MSM still dwarfs places like The Belmont Club.
Furthermore, even if the current Administration is defeated in 2010 and 2012, will its successors truly be agents of Restoration? Or will they just nibble at the problem, tackling a few details while leaving the decay of the system itself untouched? For those who recognize and value the uniqueness of the American idea, the fact that we are twenty to forty years behind the curve is a harsh truth we cannot deny.
The fight is at the ballot box, to be sure. But that is only the retail part of it. The deeper parts – education, culture, the return of logic and meaning and standards – these are the supply lines that the left has broken or taken over against us. Has our own pursuit of happiness contributed to taken our eye off the ball here?
And when we do prevail (for a while) at the ballot box, can we have the vision and the will for a program of real Restoration or will it once again be marking time? When I look at our “bench” of leaders, I get mighty discouraged.
Thanks for this useful post.
Afaic one of the Codevilla piece’s virtues is that he bluntly states that the Republican Party may be part of the problem instead part of the solution. Among the ways that the coming election could go awry is that discontented voters will realize it’s not worth the effort to replace Harry Reid with, as it were, Trent Lott; another way is that Harry Reid will be replaced by Trent Lott; yet another is that a majority of the electorate, whatever they may say, behaves in a manner that preserves the present system.
But with Paul Ryan’s budget plan–which the GOP is trying hard to ignore–and Codevilla’s manifesto, the Tea Party’s discontent is acquiring structure and focus.
I believe Heine said it best:
know the tune, I know the words,
I also know the authors.
I know they secretly drank wine
While publicly preaching water.
Marcus @ 35 –
Agreed about O’Reilly. The guy is not an intellectual to begin with, so trying to hold him to standards of intellectual consistency or thoroughly-thought-through principle is, uhhhhh, probably expecting too much of him. I think he’s an entertainer first and foremost, and mostly a populist after that, as a semi-distant second.
The classic union hall guy is becoming less and less important in the overall economic picture. Union membership in the private sector has been declining steadily for decades and is now somewhere around 12% or 13%.
By contrast, union membership among public sector workers is at 37.4%.
These two statistics set side by side are as clear a message as any, I would think, that the Democrats are NOT the party of private-sector anything, and that includes private-sector unionized labor. Lip service is still paid for the sake of union legacy voters (read: suckers, of which we have plenty here in the Pittsburgh region, alas), but the trend is that if the federal government has to put private-sector union members on the altar to save Big Government, they will do just that. Some might argue (with some merit IMO) that this has already been happening for years now.
The interesting thing about Kerry & the yacht tax is (certainly not John Kerry! – *rim shot*) that two things are revealed about human nature:
The first is that regardless of the (D) or (R) after the name, the vast, vast majority of people are going to make choices that either put or keep more money in their own individual wallets. (Note that free market principles are consistent with this aspect of human nature, while socialism pretends it either doesn’t exist or can be beaten or starved out of stubborn kulaks while apparatchniks can do as they please.)
The second is that while everyone from Kerry to the shoe-shine guy may be tempted/inclined to use the levers of government power to feather his own nest more than his neighbor’s or competitor’s, only the Kerrys of the world are able to do so. The shoe-shine guy recognizes this and so requests an equal application of the law to everyone.
It’s not that the shoe-shine guy is necessarily a committed free marketeer on the level of high principle, but that he’s got enough horse sense to recognize that if there is dealing from the bottom of the deck going on, HE is going to be the one who loses the card game.
This is why equality before the law is indispensible to a free market system. Keeping the government out of the role of deciding marketplace outcomes is the only way to get the system trusted by most of the shoe-shine guys. The minute the little guy senses that the laws consistently help the rich and hurt him, he’s going to chuck all the “let’s play fair” credos by which he has been trying to live his life (a non-confrontational attitude being the sort designed to avoid the gaze of the rapacious and vindictive rich — let them eat each other), and he is going to start fashioning shivs in his garage. IOW if he’s going to be screwed no matter what by the system then he’s going to take someone down with him.
This is the tragic irony of what the progressives are doing to our American way of life. This is one of the few countries in the world, perhaps the only one, where they could have had as much as they wanted, just as long as they did not want it all for themselves. But they did want it all for themselves. And now the shoe-shine guys are eyeing the lathes in the workshop.
Does that include Natural Law? Aristotle declared such worthies would know better. But it seems that ours know better still. For our supermen continue to speak as if natural law has fallen in obeisance to them even as the world around falls to pieces.
It’s as if the nihilists, formerly obscure pawns of the puppet masters, have crossed the board and risen to rule their hands.
Wow! Who could have foreseen it?
Josh @ 1, Yep: “They don’t listen.” In fact, if Harry Reid has his way, he’s planning on achieving cloture on the Disclose Act this Tuesday so that you cannot even speak.
Not long ago I’d have given Reid’s scheme only a very slight chance of succeeding. But that was before we saw how 0Care was passed.
Therefore, before we lose the chance to comment on our ruling class’ many irrationalities, please consider adding at least one telling observation to Irrationality Topples Kings. Help build a list so large that the most virulent apparatchik not a nihilist can’t help but have their eyes opened. Remember what happened at the Bastille?
L3 #16
“a hip, modern feudalism”. I love it. A great, succinct description of their philosophy.
Tonight While Wretchard was composing, I listened to Ed Morrisey for most of an hour, videoblogging from the VENETIAN casino (same Las Vegas (?) location as the gathering of famous leftward-scuttling lizards.)
During this period he was visited by several folks, beginning with Kerry Picket of the Washington Times.
People seemed to be just wandering by and plopping down to chat… Next up was Anita MonCrief- the young lady whose experiences following her insider exposé of ACORN prompted her to establish the website EMERGINGCORRUPTION, previously linked by Wretchard.
Next, Kevin Jackson, who started http://www.theblacksphere.net…
Finally, Representative Michelle Bachmann talked about the organizing she’s done in the last few weeks, gathering together some 20 Reps to serve as a conduit for ideas and input from Tea Party folks around the country (NOT to try to lead them.)
It was an hour very well spent. That judgment is coming from someone who can get enough mental stimulus and challenge from Belmont to keep me mulling things over for a week.
Lots of good stuff happening.
I hope someone claims the prize from Mr. Breitbart right away, and I’ll be glad to send him a contribution.
For the last years I’ve been using the word “Traitors” for the Mainstream Media in general, and sensing they’d gone to the dark side since the 1960′s.
I am sick of the arrogance of the Media, their unmistakably deliberate refusal to cover events and issues which contradict the liberal narrative, and the unvarnished lies and smears they’ve been fobbing off as fact.
Sure, the internet has a lot of unprofessional reporting, and a huge number of stories that have NOT been fact-checked and need to be… But I am satisfied that it’s a 50/50 proposition AT BEST that anything I read in a mainstream source will be riddled with lies and distortions. Sometimes it looks like only a few random facts wriggled past the political officer.
Today, I spent some time doing my own fact-checking. Thought it would be fun to “Google” the paranoid list of alleged FEMA concentration camps around the country for a laugh. I looked at some of the places on Google Earth, found nothing suspicious. In fact, what I found with just a handful of tries was that 20 minutes of searching roundabout the markers that were placed showed NOTHING that had been described by the paranoid lister. (I looked at just 6 or 7 military bases; They looked exactly like the bases where I lived as a Navy Brat…)
Then I checked some of the hysterical sites dedicated to the proposition that FEMA has been given the power to take over all transportation, communication ,etc. Just a half hour into it, I’d found the Thomas.gov original executive orders going back to the Kennedy administration in 1961-63, which had been superseded and revoked by 1970.
And the Legislation characterized as empowering FEMA to set up every de-commissioned military base as a concentration camp is H. R. 645 (111th CONGRESS, 1st Session) Here’s a link to the Thomas.gov site: “National Emergency Centers Establishment Act”
The bill is sitting in committee. I wouldn’t put it past certain extremists in the administration to be scheming in the wings, but this act seems to be intended to provide alternatives to expensive hotels for displaced persons in emergencies such as Hurricanes like Katrina, Andrew, and other disasters.
Of course, we’ve seen how bastards in office have been abusing powers for ends that were never intended.
Like the Endangered Species Act.
Time to flex some muscles.
I agree with Leo Linbeck III:
After all, this is supposed to be a REPUBLIC, not a democracy. We are supposed to be able to select a representative for a community, who is delegated to convey to the Legislature the WILL of the community.
Instead, what we’ve been getting is a pack of lying bastards who tell us they’re all for one thing, when in fact they are diametrically the opposite of what they admit to.
Sorry for stating the bleedin’ obvious: We have to be able to trust the people who govern to do the right thing when no-one is watching, whether they’re in their office in D.C., or their office in their state, or on a plane, or in a back room.
Character matters.
The democrats lost me when they continued to elect and celebrate the worthless sack of maggots who left Mary Jo Kopechne to drown.
Americans have tolerated the elite’s clubhouse because life has gotten better in America in the last 40 years. Now the elite can’t deliver because, like an old aristocracy, it’s mired in privilege and unchallenged, sclerotic notions of how things work. Despite their claim of “expertise,” they still think Reagan’s policies had nothing to do with the economic boom lasting from 1984 to 1998.
Americans aren’t Britons; they don’t “muddle through.” They get pissed and take action. No incumbent will be safe until the economy hums again.
Change is coming, and conservaties need to ride it into Carthage carrying buckets of salt. That can take many forms, but if nothing else we need to constantly connect economic misery with Democratic Socialism. It’s a lesson that could last a generation.
#46 Salt Lick
Salt Lick, I have wondered often over the past three decades just how long it would take for people to realize that after the oil shocks of the ’70s the never-ending revolution of rising expectations of the ’50s was over except in the imagination.
Sadly, the reality was that as long as the trinkets and the lifestyle and the status and the income stream security were there, vast swathes of the public, like drugged zombies, vegged while their freedoms eroded. In reality, they voted for the notion that the stuff was more important than freedom. Bad on us.
Now that said revolution is TRULY over, the cold wake-up slap has been administered. Many have snapped out of it, a few are still in denial, thinking the economy will bounce back by Christmas or some such nonsense, but by this time next year the result of the cold slap will be nearly universal. No. More. Money.
So yes, the pissed-off call to action phase is upon us. And you are absolutely correct about the bucket of salt. Retribution is functionally and morally necessary.
wretchard wrote:
“The desire to debate government bureaucrats who have “deep expertise” in health care rationing does not interest those who believe they lack the power to impose rationing at all.”
If you were to add that we also believe that they lack the moral authority to impose rationing, this would be perfect.
It all boils down to that, as several commenters have said. The debate isn’t over how well a particular person or party can do bad and unconstitutional things, it’s over how we can stop doing them at all. If that means lost jobs and petty empires, so be it.
Which is more serious – misleading a court by giving false evidence about, say, a traffic infringement, or misleading the whole electorate by giving a false representation of political matters?
One is punishable by law as “attempting to pervert the course of justice”. You only need to do it once in order to be charged and perhaps convicted, whoever you are.
But misleading the electorate, even repeatedly, attracts nothing more than the slings and arrows of outraged observers. America, you’re standing in it; perhaps you’re falling in it.
#47 no mo uro — …after the oil shocks of the ’70s the never-ending revolution of rising expectations of the ’50s was over except in the imagination.
With respect, nmu, I don’t think the rising expectations need be over, and I think a (reconstituted?) GOP can win big if it gets behind this.
Nuclear power for cheap and clean energy for a prosperous and environmentally sensitive future;
border control as a way of maintaining prosperity and security for those already here, with the benefit to the world of a stable America;
a call to return to America’s founding principles of individual liberty and responsibility, not a division of racial spoils and apportionment of racial blame via tribal “inclusiveness;”
and smaller government.
America is ready to hear this trumpet call. The elites know this. It’s why they savaged the one political outsider who managed to take on her state’s old-boy party network and oust them. I’m not pushing her for POTUS, just noting why she gets them all wee-weed up.
Cheers,
I recall a post by LifeofMind that said that recent immigrants from Eastern Europe tend to seek seek any method they can to game the system. Hillary Clinton’s quid pro quo for pardoning a group of NY orthodox Jewish people charged with defrauding the government by applying for various grants and credits comes to mind as an example.
That is where the Special Deals ultimately lead you. When the government by definition owns everything then gamning the system is the only game in town. The Stimulus Package, the grants to ACORN, and all of the other Special Deals so favored by the Left represent an approach that differs from Government Owning The Means of Production only in degree – and in cases such as that of GM not even much of a degree.
blogstrop (#48): “misleading the electorate, even repeatedly”
Is that possible? (Let us take a moment to remember the predecessor.)
RWE (#50):
As a wise man once said, you reap what you sow. One hopes the angel still rides.
“Me, I’d much rather see a complete replacement of the entire bureaucracy when there is a change of parties than the pig lipsticking that is the current system.”
No, you wouldn’t. Read up on what led to the civil service act. IIRC, that is what the law concerning the Bureaucracy is called.
Talk about corruption.
No, as bad as the current system is, it is waaaaaaay better then what went before it. I do agree that the current system is due for an overhaul. New tires, at least.
Something else to address at the Chapter V convention.
Slightly OT, maybe…. It seems to me that the JornoList thingie is sort of like the West Anglia data dump, ie; Climategate. If so, is this the start of a trend? If it is, I like it. Instead of whistle blowers, who can be silenced or shouted out (out shouted?), data dumps just sit there and give off factoids. Not much those that were dumped on can do about them.
For those members of the Bar, is journogate evidence of conspiracy? Does slander cross the threshold for criminal conspiracy?
hdgreene @ 33: “The real problem for US workers is not free trade but the wildly out of Kilter “Balance of Trade.” This is mostly the flip side of high government deficits.”
No, the trade deficit is not caused by government deficits. Japan has big government deficits and runs a trade surplus.
Nor are US deficits a function of high US wages — Germany & Japan are high-wage countries and both run massive trade surpluses.
US trade deficits are a symptom of a deeper problem — a consequence of US environmental & legal policies which make it very difficult to build anything in the US. Which raises yet another interesting real world conundrum — Germany & Japan are not highly polluted hell-holes, yet they manage to have robust manufacturing industry. The implication is that the regulations created by the US Political Class are a failure on every level — they destroy jobs, deprive the government of tax revenue, create an unsustainable balance of payments problem, and don’t even do much for the environment or social justice or whatever else those regulations are supposed to do.
The advocates of sustainability have created a truly unsustainable situation.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/07/23/intelligence asks why the Post’s series on the intelligence complex sank like a stone, and answers that Congress has no desire to shut down a system that makes them rich.
#15 PA Cat – ” 15. PA Cat
Wretchard says: that’s the problem with backrooms. We don’t know who is in them because they are in back.
It also leaves open the possibility of backrooms within backrooms, so to speak; …”
There are always three groups – above average, average, below average. In the “above average” group, there are the above average, average, and below average…etc etc etc.
Hence, in any back room society, there are those who make things happen, those who go along for the ride, and those who wonder what happened. Among those who make things happen are the above average, the average…well- you get the point.
So, yes – there are back rooms within back rooms.
Salt Lick #49
“With respect, nmu, I don’t think the rising expectations need be over, and I think a (reconstituted?) GOP can win big if it gets behind this. “
If you are asking “Can a particular individual over a period of time have a chance to do betterand therefore entertain rising expectations?” then I would say you are correct. If, however, the question is “Should the expectations of improvement need to be perennial and constant and apply to everybody?”, then I would disagree in the strongest terms. This is what has been described as the “revolution of forever rising expectations”. It has no historical context prior to the last century. Sensible people always knew there would be good times and bad times. This “revolution” is one of the most corrosive memes that has infected the American public in our history.
Every year can’t be better than the last ad infinitum. In the absence of government intrusion economies do not just go up, they go up, then down, then up again. Government intrusion and government guarantees of income stream merely keep things going up until they crash hideously; better that we weave up and down slowly then do the Icarus thing.
Until about eighty or ninety years ago this was something that everyone from billionaire to pauper knew instinctively.
Then the “Progressives”, the New Deal, the Great Society, and the public itself (through this revolution of always rising expectations) tried to craft a world where the difference between people in terms of their material standard of living was not meaningfully different from person to person. Without regard to their intelligence, work ethic, or the usefullness or oversupply of their skill set, people could have chickens in pots, new Chevrolets, an owned house (see CRA and Barney Frank), and things that would be considered only for the very rich in times not that far into the past. Yeah. Right.
Pretty much evrybody came to believe that it was OK for everyone (regardless of their skills and abilities) to desire – no, DEMAND – a standard of living that bore no resemblance to how people at that level of productivity had any justification for deserving on such a huge scale.
The idea that anything – including a reinvigorated and truly conservative GOP and a more sensible economic plan like the one you describe, both things that I long for just as you do – can create a society where everybody can and should expect an owned house, top-notch medical care, reliable always new high-quality transportation, fancy vacations, and upper tier education for all of their children simply by existing or going to any job is simply wrong. You’re absolutely right, Salt Lick – we need a reinvigorated, small-l libertarian small-c conservative center right political option, and we need, as you say:
“Nuclear power for cheap and clean energy for a prosperous and environmentally sensitive future;
border control as a way of maintaining prosperity and security for those already here, with the benefit to the world of a stable America; a call to return to America’s founding principles of individual liberty and responsibility, not a division of racial spoils and apportionment of racial blame via tribal “inclusiveness;”
and smaller government.”
But in addition to those things, we need, as a people, to stop believing that we get more “stuff” every year, too.
On a similar subject at Fred Pruitt’s Rantburg site, I posted the following just last week:
“Instead of deriving all your satisfaction from owning houses and stuff and never having to worry about your job, relearn what Americans knew for most of our history in terms of the joy of community and religion and avocations and the freedoms we enjoy (even in the age of Obama). You can persist in wanting the 4000 square foot house with the fancy eyebrow windows over the garage and a new car every three years and the vacations you can brag about by the water cooler and the money to send all you kids to college (even the ones who probably shouldn’t go) so that you can puff your chest out and feel good about yourself. Or you can get a grip and realize that the idea that 300 million of us can all have it all, all at once, was a dangerous and impossible dream. The good stuff in life isn’t there. Time for America to relearn that.”
And another commenter posted:
“But expectations matter. It’s in the nature of Americans to expect that each generation have a better life than the one preceding it.
Perhaps one way to preserve this American sense of improvement/progress/uplift while accepting the freakishness of our post-WWII era hegemony and the consumer paradise it enabled would be to redefine success– away from the amount of stuff owned or the square footage of one’s house, and toward the strength and depth of our families and communities and the richness of our culture.”
There’s a lot more to life than the “stuff”, and because we’ve forgotten that in our pursuit of the rising expectation revolution, we’ve forgotten that in the economic realm what is great about America is the OPPORTUNITY to do better, not the guarantee. We’ve also forgotten that in the end the economic realm isn’t the greatest thing about America, the realm of freedom is far more important. All those Americans who were poor dirt farmers before our rise as an industrial giant were richer by far in may respects, despite not having shiny material things that we seem to think are a birthright.
At any rate, Salt Lick, I support the changes you suggest even though I don’t think they will result in forever rising material standards of living.
37. reg – “the real question is who’s pulling his strings?Soros,Daley,Ayers,GE, BP,- i’ve always thought of him as a vacuum tube but Andrew Klavan had a 21st century way of describing him – a living hologram.if he’s not doing the thinking/planning , then who is?”
This is not too hard to discern – who is writing his speeches and his legislation, and who benefits?
#52. Skip_this_post
Does slander cross the threshold for criminal conspiracy?
Nope. But there is such a thing as “civil conspiracy.” It is not a tort in and of itself but rather a mechanism for spreading liability. For example, lets say that you, me, and Wretchard cook up a scheme to put the screws to X by making false representations that X is a convicted pedophile (which is wholly untrue, and we all know its untrue). Due to circumstances only you make those slanderous accusations. Nevertheless, if X sues you for slander and he finds out that Wretchard and I conspired with you to make those statements we too can be sued if X can show that we all did indeed conspire to maliciously slander him.
I have wondered if this will be tried in respect to the JournoList crowd. If nothing else it would be a mechanism to bring the full archives to the public light. It is very unlikely that all of the JournoList crowd would be held liable, but as the saying goes, you might beat the rap but you can’t beat the ride.
And I strongly suspect that the Journolist is merely one of the poisonous weeds out there, the tip of the iceberg so to speak.
~~~Disclaimer–I haven’t practiced law in over twenty years. I got disgusted with it and started working in the semiconductor industry.~~~
It matters little where the deals are made and by whom if there is no accountability for what is wrought. One of the reasons that the J-list is a bigger deal than the members wish to admit is that their actions prove that the left has discarded, by choice some of its ability to police itself.
LLIII includes the word “accountable” in the closing sentence of one if his posts above. It is an important word and concept in regards to policy making and politics in general. No lawmaker much less Speaker of the House should be able to stand astride a microphone and insist that “this bill is about jobs, jobs jobs” and not be called on it by “journalists”.
Our political climate has become so corrupt that there must occur a reckoning before any effective accountability may be applied.
During the next 100 days there will be many politicians out kissing hands and shaking babies, should you run across one, please advise them that if they reach office with or without your vote, you will hold them accountable.
Will this fall be a season of reckoning?
LL III,
That the civil service industry is was and forever shall be a function of the executive branch, was a matter not lost on President Lincoln’s hand shake. And the reforms enacted post Tea Pot served to keep the tempest on low heat opposed to a full boil. While I agree with the sentiment, that civil service needs reforming. The efforts to reform the Pentagon, CIA and even the State Department demonstrates the huge battle now looming. The influence peddling cannot stop, it is a function of our government I suppose, but the means by which power is collected and then projected, demands more not less scrutiny. As the back rooms are populated with people who are no longer in the front hall or dining area even perhaps taking advantage of the bed room, getting a handle on who will not be present in the back room is perhaps just as important as determining who is back there. That’s a big slab of meat to tackle in just one sitting.
No Mo Euro, I don’t know if he counts as an outlier or not, but John Brown had a major impact on the course of our history.
“Although not prepared to make a statement, Brown stood up and, in a mild and composed manner, addressed the court.
He stated that he had never intended to kill, or destroy property, or incite slaves to rebellion. He referred to the Bible. “[T]o have interfered as I have done,” he stated, “. . . in behalf of His despied poor, was not wrong, but right.”
John Brown was hanged one month later, on December 2, 1859.
In immediate aftermath of the civil war, AKA the war of northern aggression in some circles, a middle class of mainly former slaves, began to grow and find expression in political as well as other community affairs. It was the carpet bagging schemes,(whose modern equivalents are IMO tort law, the NAACP, and the NEA/SIEU) that served to re-enslave without masters, those whose the I find it freedom was earned in blood.
So the irony of gun toting abolitionists is nearly as telling as the thought of the Kennedy clan supporting claims of economic or social justice.
Something about intentions and paving a road somewhere.
Kinuwhatever #53
A statistic I recall from 1972:
To build a nuclear power plant in the U.S. costs $10B and takes 15 years.
To build a nuclear power plant of the same capacity in Japan – to stronger standards than those in the US – takes 5 years and $5B.
The difference is in regulations and litigation. Things are no doubt much worse now.
Part of this is due to what I call the Smoke Detector Principle. W hen something becomes possible the bureaucracy eventually makes it required. Everyone here grew up without smoke detectors in their home but when I went to sell my first house, on the West Coast, I was told that I had to have one installed in order to sell it. When I went to sell my 2nd house, on the East Coast, I was told that I needed two smoke detectors installed in the house. It was pretty obvious that those municipalities were headed toward requiring two smoke detectors in every room of every house.
Back in 1973 the FAA made Emergency Locator Transmitters a requirement for all aircraft. Then a couple of years back the FAA made new installation of the older type ELTs illegal and required the use of the new and much more expensive digitally encoded UHF models. But you could still use the old ones if they were already installed. This year the FCC has made the operation of the older ELTs illegal. FAA says you can still use them; FCC says you can’t operate them. This kind of crap goes on all the time.
It is not that smoke detectors or ELTS are bad, any more than guns are bad, but the governmental reaction to their presence is what becomes oppressive.
Leo #28 and Whaddamean #60
Blame Al Gore for part of the problem. His Reinventing Government Act in the 1990’s mandated a 30% reduction in the Federal civilian workforce. That sounds good on the surface but the DC bureaucracy turned it into a “Peanut Butter Spread” across the entire workforce rather than targeting the organizations that needed to be cut most, like Education, Energy, Commerce, Congress itself, NASA, IRS, etc. That in turn ensured that the Federal Civilian workforce became focused on their individual careers rather than the job.
Tcobb #58:
Are what you are saying is that we should use that infamous tool of the Left and the Ambulance Chasers: the Civil Lawsuit accompanied by the Discovery Process?
Joe Buzz, #59: Will this fall be a season of reckoning?
Let’s just say that I’ll see Wretchard’s Rod Argent and raise him with Blue Öyster Cult:
This ain’t the Garden of Eden
There ain’t no angels above
Things ain’t what they used to be
And this ain’t the Summer of Love
no mo uro #56 There’s a lot more to life than the “stuff”…All those Americans who were poor dirt farmers before our rise as an industrial giant were richer by far in may respects, despite not having shiny material things that we seem to think are a birthright.
Yes, and I agree with the totality of your post. That philosophy is what made Ron Dreher’s “Crunchy Con” interesting for a while.
But how to find a way to get the people to live non-materialistic, family-centered lives without government force? How to do it without the elite, which gains its sense of self-importance from saving the world while reserving comfort for itself, forcing everyone to go without AC and bath only once a month?
Me, I come down on the side of letting the fat, stinky, stupid, Jerry-Springer-watching, Danielle-Steele reading, up-to-their-#ss-in-debt, Obama-voting, union-supporting nitwits learn from experience, not through government power. People like Dave Ramsey, etc, are making headway, along with the threat of bankruptcy, of course.
Ah, but “events” aren’t nearly as important as how society reacts to them. Or in the case here, how well the reaction of the back rooms goes over with the voters. Given the general incompetence of the big players in those back rooms, odds are their reaction will be idiotic and badly received.
SL #64
“Me, I come down on the side of letting the fat, stinky, stupid, Jerry-Springer-watching, Danielle-Steele reading, up-to-their-#ss-in-debt, Obama-voting, union-supporting nitwits learn from experience, not through government power.”
That would be my choice as well.
And it’s happening right now!
62. RWE
Are what you are saying is that we should use that infamous tool of the Left and the Ambulance Chasers: the Civil Lawsuit accompanied by the Discovery Process?
Exactly. It would also be an exquisite case study in game theory regarding the Prisoner’s Dilemma. Sue and ask for, in light of the apparent scope (we won’t know the true scope until we have discovery) for punitive damages on the order of a billion dollars for a starter. See how many of the little rats will squeal on their co-conspirators to avoid being financially fed to the cat. Its amazing how “Progressives” can abandon their publicly stated morality when financial stress will follow from doing so. John Kerry comes to mind as a recent example.
Well they tell me of a pie up in the sky
Waiting for me when I die
But between the day you’re born and when you die
They never seem to hear even your cry
So as sure as the sun will shine
I’m gonna get my share now of what’s mine
And then the harder they come the harder they’ll fall, one and all
Ooh the harder they come the harder they’ll fall, one and all
–Jimmy Cliff
In Douthat’s article, I could swear I heard the background noise of Ross sputtering “but, but, Codevilla is saying CEOs and government bureacrats are on the same side! Perposterous! Dogs and Cats stuff! Sputter, sputter, sputter…”
I’m astounded that presumable intelligent and educated people continue to make this mistake. They get things flipped around and think the labels given define the people and actions, rather than the other way around. Jeffery Immelt is a CEO, therefore he must be a free market guy. Ha.
The defining characterist of the overclass isn’t where they went to school or how much money they have, or what they do for a living. The defining characteristic is that they think they’re owed the right to make decisions for other people. Whether out of naked greed or an overinflated opinion of their own morality doesn’t matter much, since both ultimately lead to the same place and the same policies.
One says “A great guy like me deserves to skim a little off the top in return for my wise leadership, and to use whatever force is needed to get the shirkers to do what’s good for them.”
The other says “If those sheep are too stupid to see the scam I’m pulling on them, they don’t deserve any better, and frankly probably need me to do their thinking for them.”
Both boil down to “I’m better than them so it’s okay for me to take their stuff and rule their lives.”
That’s the overclass.
68. JMH
BINGO!!!
#56 no mo uro: The insanity of expecting perpetual sunshine as a right was definitively encapsulated by a classic Peanuts conversation between Charlie Brown and Lucy:
Charlie Brown: “Well Lucy, life does have it’s ups and downs, you know.”
Lucy: “But why? Why should it? Why can’t my life be all UPs?
If I want all UPs, why can’t I have them?…..Why can’t I just
move from one UP to another UP? Why can’t I just go
from an UP to an UPPER-UP?……I don’t want any Downs!
I Just want UPs and UPs and UPs and UPs!”
ZF’s @ #3 experience with his mayor and city council sheds a great deal of light on our Ruling Elite problem, of which there are many facets. Just a few of the many issues:
• Too many of our elected representative bodies on all levels of government are not even remotely accountable. L3 is correct that part of the problem is how they are selected. But the problem is much more than that. The game has been so thoroughly rigged in so many ways that it is hard to know where to begin. Just one example, here in California, a functioning model for the Progressives everywhere, our State Assemblymen represent almost a half a million people, State Senators- a million, my County Supervisor- over two million, and my City Councilman- three hundred thousand. This level of representation is not remotely close to the concept “close to the people” our founders envisioned and it shows in the way California has gone down the toilet. This is just one example and there are many others where incumbents are insulated and protected from voter retribution. Because the game is so rigged, these representatives feel they can be rude, haughty, arrogant and completely unresponsive to their constituents whenever they feel like because effectively they are, from an electoral point of view, bulletproof.
• The idea that the government should solve every problem, no matter how minute, has become so ingrained in the mind of the collective bureaucracy, too many politicians and far too much of the general public. The impulse to intervene everywhere has got great traction. The first thought all too often is “there ought to be a law”. No thought is ever given to the consequences.
• Of the more pernicious methods of our ruling elite is to give a so called “neutral” commission and/or department the power to make regulations and enforce them. This way the most controversial elements of the Progressive/Ruling Elite agenda can be enforced from a far without having to take any blame. Once these unelected bodies are given the “Power” over their little piece of society, the inclination is for those appointed to go power mad and dictatorial. There is often little check on their power, and the thinking kinda goes like ” they wouldn’t have created our board if they didn’t want us to use our power to the fullest”.
• Our educational system has so poorly educated our people in the rights, obligations and responsibilities granted to them in the Constitution that when a right is abused it is rarely prosecuted because so few will even recognize there was an abuse of the Constitution in the first place.
Much of our Ruling elite have been educated and yes, brought up to rule in an unconstitutional way. No back rooms are really necessary. The Socialist mindset is preprogramed. The predisposition is to grab and fiercely protect as much power as you can, and to intervene as much as you can in the lives of the people thereby increasing the market share of what you control.
Why not? It’s only right! After all, the Ruling Class is better than the rest of us, or so they have told for so long by all the Right People.
#68 JMH Brilliant post!
“The defining characterist of the overclass isn’t where they went to school or how much money they have, or what they do for a living. The defining characteristic is that they think they’re owed the right to make decisions for other people. Whether out of naked greed or an overinflated opinion of their own morality doesn’t matter much, since both ultimately lead to the same place and the same policies.”
Spot on, and as exhibit A I would present the fact that Wall Street financial types gave money to the Obama campaign at a 5 to 1 clip over the campaign of McCain.
Batman / 38
The General Welfare mentioned in our Constitution refers to those Federal government powers which equally serve all American Citizens – thus the term “General Welfare.” Our military services are authorized by the Constitution, and our military serves and protects us all equally. The Post Office and Post Roads are authorized by the Constitution, and notice how that serves all Americans equally. Most of the services now doled out by Federal government divide our people into tax-paying worker and tax-eating recipient classes who vote themselves the fruit of other men’s labor – this is class-specific welfare – not General Welfare. Class-specific welfare is Marxism – the so-called Proletariat class (and the Marxist Ruling class) riding on the labor of the laboring Middle class.
“The proletariat (tax-eating, non-disabled poor) will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital (property) from the bourgeoisie (tax-paying middle class), to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state (tax-eating Marxist Government)… Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic (unequal) inroads on the rights of property. You must, therefore, confess that by “individual” you mean no other person than the bourgeois, than the middle-class owner of property. This person must, indeed, be swept out of the way, and made impossible.” Karl Marx
http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html
Marx understood that a Democracy can be perverted into totalitarian government. This occurs when enough of a population goes over to the Proletariat Class – hands out – voting for the Party which will rob the laboring Middle class. Eventually the Middle class is worn down – exhausted and demoralized by what amounts to slave labor. When the Middle class finally succumbs there will be a dramatic fall off in production of food and other goods and services – anarchy ensues – and who “comes to the rescue” but the Marxist Pigs of Animal Farm who robbed the workers to buy the votes of the lazy in the first place.
“We have seen above that the first step in the revolution by the (non) working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy… they labor everywhere for the union and agreement of the democratic parties of all countries.” Karl Marx
http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html
“They are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose. To consider the latter phrase not as describing the purpose of the first, but as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which may be good for the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please…Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them. It was intended to lace them up straightly within the enumerated powers and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect.” Thomas Jefferson; Letter to Congress, 1791
The curse of the modern age is that the focus has shifted from the “what” to the “why.” The Nazis and the Soviets did much of the same thing. Functionally they were equivalent. It was only the public reasons for indulging in barbaric behavior that differed, as did the perceptions of folks that sympathized with one group or the other. Shooting a harmless old man was okay when side X did it, but a horrible atrocity when the other side did. Ideology and insanity are Siamese twins.
The “what” of it was that you shot a harmless old man. That is the bottom line no matter who you are or how pure you pretend to be. Explanations mean nothing, but seemingly in this day and time they mean everything.
It is the act rather than the rationale that matters. I’m sure that the people who nailed Jesus to the cross had a multitude of good reasons why they did so. So what?
But what we seem to focus on today is the “why,” and this is usually a scam. The “why” is the right hand of the street hustler that captures your attention. The “what” is his left hand which is picking your pocket while you’re watching the right hand.
JMH #68:
I have observed for some time that the CEOs of major corporations in most cases clearly feel much more affinity with the Ruling Class than they do with their own companies. One reason you give. Another is related to my comments on how all companies want subsidization while “getting the government off its back.”
And still another is that they think themselves superior intellectually not only to all the poor dumb Joe Sixpacks down below but also to all the others in the Ruling Class as well. They seem to think “These guys are idiots. I have to respect their power but I’m sure I can roll these bunch of dummies them easily.”
And I can tell you that based on my dealings with Congressional Staffers, the GAO, etc, I was never in the least bit impressed by either their knowledge or their mental skills, either. If they are not dumb to start out with the organization makes them dumb; to work there they have to believe six impossible things before breakfast.
Unfortunately the fact that they are stupid in all ways except in the workings of the bureaucracy is not a bug but a feature and not an opportunity but a threat. A government that is powerful enough to mandate the use of wind power is powerful enough to think it can make the wind blow where and when it wants.
And finally, there are those that seem to think “I am better than all the rest of them because, unlike them, I believe in equality.”
The elites have power because they have money. Right now the elite existence depends on borrowed and printed money.
The financial elites, Wall Street would no longer exist but for the Treasury and Fed bailing them out. Imagine. GE, General Motors, all the great Wall Sreet firms. Gone.
The government elite, either the bureaucracy or the political class would have no clout, no influence, often no position at all except for the $1.5 trillion borrowed every year.
The elites of Media are almost gone. Journolist was interesting from a business perspective. These young turks have no idea what people pay them to do. They conspired to lower the quality of their offerings, conspired to be mediocre. These folks will probably be out of jobs in short order, unless the government bails them out.
This is why the deficit is such a dangerous issue. It was in Canada. The promises of politicians lose their sheen when the voters have to pay for them. All the great icons of progressive politics become insulting when people for example pay a lifetime for Social Security to find a pittance in the end. Or pay dearly for government health to find themselves in a nasty game of outliving the waiting times.
When taxpayers are squeezed they have vehement reactions to corruption and vote purchasing.
Without being able to borrow, any corporate welfare action becomes very costly politically.
The Elites blew it. This financial crisis demonstrates the foolishness of the financial leadership. The deficit shows the utter craven incompetence of politicians. This stuff isn’t over yet, and will either call up a number of great men and women who face the issue with courage, or diminish the political class to what we see in places like Michigan and California.
The Elites have had their way, and we are suffering the consequences.
Derek
“It’s not a smoke-filled room, smoking ain’t allowed in DC, it’s all right in the open and it doesn’t listen and it doesn’t work and the people have every right to be aggitated, except that they voted it in.”
I recall that smoking is allowed in rooms in Congress. They exempted themselves from anti-smoking ordinances. Big surprise, that.
nmu @ 72: Wall Street financial types gave money to the Obama campaign at a 5 to 1 clip over the campaign of McCain
I keep trying to understand that, just as I keep trying to understand why even today so many Jews continue to support the Democratic party. And of course there is some overlap there.
Best I can come up with (on the financial types) is that this generation on Wall Street knows they have been engaged in unprecedented levels of greed and fraud. Which a younger McCain was hardly proof against, btw, while the older one seems to want to make up for it.
And guess what, Wall Street has been correct, even the supposedly leftist Obama has by and large stayed in their pocket.
dt @ 77: “It’s not a smoke-filled room, smoking ain’t allowed in DC, it’s all right in the open and it doesn’t listen and it doesn’t work and the people have every right to be aggitated, except that they voted it in.”
I recall that smoking is allowed in rooms in Congress. They exempted themselves from anti-smoking ordinances. Big surprise, that.
Ha. No doubt, that, but my point is that it’s still all out in the open. I suppose they do worse things than politics, in the smoke-filled rooms.
oh btw, our man and poster boy for the hyperthyroid association Tim Geithner has been on the teewee all weekend talking up various absurd administration points and I think revealing how it is he’s managed to stay in office so far, it appears to me he may be the point man on trying to keep the Bush tax cuts for those making under $250k.
Which is well and good, if he gets a few attaboys and brownie points for spearheading this I guess he can look at himself in the mirror except that it too is then perverted into more of a political act than an economic one, as I don’t guess that the four percent on the upper incomes really brings in much of the money anyhow, still is counterproductive in any number of ways, and is just the Obamanation mau-mauing for its base.
Wretchard, I fear your divisions between insiders and outsiders, Left and Right, are far too simplistic to accurately describe the jumble of current ideological division, whether among the elites or the public. If backrooms are the new enemy, then where is the Tea Party outrage over four billionaires making up 97% of the Karl Rove’s astroturf organization “American Crossroads”??
http://www.salon.com/news/karl_rove/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2010/07/23/rove_group_billionaire_donors
American Crossroads, insiders or outsiders? So too with ideologies such as supply-side economics. Who is really pushing such a discredited theory, either among the elites or the “grassroots”? Who does supply-side benefit, and how would we know?
Here’s the British economist Martin Wolf, who’s gotten more than a few calls right in the past ten years:
http://blogs.ft.com/martin-wolf-exchange/2010/07/25/the-political-genius-of-supply-side-economics/
“My reading of contemporary Republican thinking is that there is no chance of any attempt to arrest adverse long-term fiscal trends should they return to power. Moreover, since the Republicans have no interest in doing anything sensible, the Democrats will gain nothing from trying to do much either. That is the lesson Democrats have to draw from the Clinton era’s successful frugality, which merely gave George W. Bush the opportunity to make massive (irresponsible and unsustainable) tax cuts. In practice, then, nothing will be done.
[.....]
Supply-side economics transformed Republicans from a minority party into a majority party. It allowed them to promise lower taxes, lower deficits and, in effect, unchanged spending. Why should people not like this combination? Who does not like a free lunch?
[....]
This is extraordinarily dangerous. The danger does not arise from the fiscal deficits of today, but the attitudes to fiscal policy, over the long run, of one of the two main parties. Those radical conservatives (a small minority, I hope) who want to destroy the credit of the US federal government may succeed. If so, that would be the end of the US era of global dominance. The destruction of fiscal credibility could be the outcome of the policies of the party that considers itself the most patriotic.”
Doubthat is a mediocre intellect. I’[ll leave it at that.
RWE @ 50: “When the government by definition owns everything then gaming the system is the only game in town.”
Which is why government should never be allowed more power to award money than the specific, enumerated constitutional powers.
Get the feds out of the money-dispensing (graft-dispensing) business!
Perhaps I am the dullest tool in the shed here, but I get the impression that a lot of people are just not getting the point. There has always been a ruling class throughout history. What is unusual now, at least in western civilization, is (1) how homogeneous their beliefs and values have become, and (2) how disconnected they are from the values of the people they rule.
It used to be that there was quite a difference in the attitudes between, say, a Senator from Wyoming and a Senator from New York. This is no longer the case. And once upon a time elected representatives used to reflect the values of the populations who elected them. This is no longer the case for the most part. Despite rhetorical camouflage there is very little difference between the current crop of ruling Democrats and Republicans. Look at what they do, not at the reasons they give for doing them.
We have ceased being a Republic. By hook or by crook we have been reduced to a state where we merely get to choose which aristocrat will rule us, and one is almost indistinguishable from the others. The waste stinks. Its time to flush the commode.
Learned Fist @ 81: “Here’s the British economist Martin Wolf, who’s gotten more than a few calls right in the past ten years”
It would be interesting to learn what calls Martin Wolf has got right in the last 10 years — or ever. While the photo of Wolf on his blog makes him look like a tired old man, he writes like the dumbest kind of over-privileged mis-educated left-wing trust-fund college kid.
There is only one point on which Wolf is close to correct — he has a very low opinion of Congressional Republicans. But who doesn’t? On matters of economics, Wolf is at best a useful idiot, a running dog for the Neo-Stalinist Ruling Class.
The Brit Ruling Class has managed only one economic feat in the last few decades: they have reversed the centuries-long emigration of people from Ireland to England. Maybe we should be looking for the opinions of Irish economists?
tcobb @ 84: Perhaps I am the dullest tool in the shed here, but I get the impression that a lot of people are just not getting the point. There has always been a ruling class throughout history. What is unusual now, at least in western civilization, is (1) how homogeneous their beliefs and values are now, and (2) how disconnected they are from the people they rule.
I dunno, “Let them eat cake!” seems pretty disconnected, but the hereditary French royalty did not make any pretentions to being the people’s representatives and the people’s servants. The hypocrisy is new, not the attitudes nor even the sanctimony.
Learned Fist, wouldn’t the “radical” conservatives be the ones (as opposed to the tax-cut-but-no-spending-cut RINOS) who are in favor of the spending cuts Martin Wolf purports to desire? Shouldn’t you and Wolf be in favor of said radicals?
How precisely is our “credit” helped by high levels of taxation? Conversely, how do radical spending cuts harm said credit?
Is the only form of fiscal responsibility and balancing budgets raising taxes? Which nonmilitary budgets cuts could be enacted to get things in line which would not result in howls of indignation by folks like you? Before tax increase are even discussed, where, precisely, can you suggest that spending cuts can and should be done?
Also, in light of the failure of the stimulus, how do you justify Wolf’s call for more stimulus money?
Was the Clinton era one of “successful frugality”, or was he merely lucky to be in office when the IT industry took off, bringing trillions of dollars into the U.S. to mask and overwhelm the effects of his tax increases (without significant spending cuts, it should be pointed out) which would have, absent the IT revolution and computer/software sales, destroyed the economy?
Why do a few rich guys contributing to a conservative think tank qualify as “astroturf” and give you the vapors, enough to post here, yet you’ve never posted regarding before George Soros or tides.org or ACORN or Journolist, etc?
Grownups want to know.
Bogie Wheel @41: The first is that regardless of the (D) or (R) after the name, the vast, vast majority of people are going to make choices that either put or keep more money in their own individual wallets. (Note that free market principles are consistent with this aspect of human nature, while socialism pretends it either doesn’t exist or can be beaten or starved out of stubborn kulaks while apparatchniks can do as they please.)
Said so well! And constantly needs to be repeated in hopes of benefitting the masses of oblivion. For the Stalinists who know what they’re doing, dying abed is crashing injustice.
#85: Briefly: see his past reporting/blog post or lectures on the internet bubble (P/E ratios in particular), the housing crisis, and the labor disputes and the resultant wage raises in China. I take it you don’t read the FT?
#87: Depends on the spending cuts, and I wouldn’t speak for Wolf. Our national credit would benefit from a reduced deficit, and that can’t be done without raising taxes. See Alan Greenspan’s recent argument on the need to let the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy expire or the startling revelatons of Greg Mankiw, George W. Bush’s chief economic adviser:
http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2007/07/on-charlatons-and-cranks.html
The stimulus has been a partial success, sparing about 1 million jobs. Look at the data yourself:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/17/business/economy/17leonhardt.html
Clinton also signed many a cut, and the IT boom would not have lead to a surplus if Clinton hadn’t (barely) passed a modest increase on the top marginal tax rate. That’s how the gov’t tapped the rising incomes of Silicon Valley and Wall St. Surely, you don’t believe the Bush tax cuts worked?! See Greenspan and Mankiw above.
Soros et al. have been well-covered by PJM. But when 97% of a Karl Rove PAC is made up from four billionaires, not a word. Why?
LF @ 81 wrote:
then where is the Tea Party outrage over four billionaires making up 97% of the Karl Rove’s astroturf organization “American Crossroads”??
Yes, and when did you stop beating your wife?
I would suggest that if you genuinely want an answer to a question, then ask an honest question. Not one in which you pre-pack your own answer into the question.
“Is Senator Grimes a yellow-bellied puppy killer?” is, at least structurally, an actual question, even if it’s an inflammatory one. “Are you aware that Senator Grimes is a yellow-bellied puppy killer?” is a question only in the slightest technical sense. The asker isn’t really interested in a reply. He just wants to get his talking points across before the mic is cut.
BTW, there is no such thing as “THE TEA PARTY.” There is a Tea Party movement. And there are Tea Parties, and Tea Partiers. But the movement, such as it is, is neither centralized nor monolithic. Political looters from both parties would love to make it centralized and monolithic, the better to destroy or neutralize it. But so far it ain’t been herded like that.
#86. Josh
Perhaps I should have said “in Republics or Democracies in western civilization.” And even back in the feudal days the aristocracy would protect the serfs from the depredations of outsiders. Its sort of like the notion that “I can beat on my sister and that’s okay. If anyone else beats on her I’ll kill them.” If you have a sister you probably know what I’m talking about.
And as far as that “let them eat cake” attitude goes, how is the King of France doing these days?
Tcobb @ 91: Even there, the French “democratic” governments have always been far more elitist, centralized and top-down, than the US.
And as far as that “let them eat cake” attitude goes, how is the King of France doing these days?
It’s all part of the great circle of life.
Of course, this was famously the comment of the Queen.
OTOH, there was often an alliance, or a claim of one, between the crown and the people, if the nobility was mean to their own serfs, there might be an appeal and an override by the King (or the Church). Western society has always been pluralistic, at least since the fall of Rome.
Learned Fisty #89
“Surely, you don’t believe the Bush tax cuts worked?!”
Oh, the outrage! I can just feeeeel your self-righteous indignation through my monitor! “He DARES to believe the unthinkable, that which the NPR cognoscenti have declared evil and wrong!”
Man up, fer chrissakes. What Bogie Wheel said, in comment #90. In spades.
But just to deal with your inquiry and sham vivacity (where did you learn this tone, on the high school cheerleading squad?) – my only disappointment with those tax cuts is that they weren’t matched by spending cuts in the form of completely cut departments like Education, many, many fired public sector workers, and an across the board pay cut for the remaining public sector of 15-20%. Should the tax cuts have been matched with the spending cuts I mentioned? Sure. Feel better, now?
The NYT article you quote has been so thoroughly debunked by so many people (including some Democrats and other even left-of-center Times columnists) in the FIVE MONTHS since it has been out that linking to it here tells a great deal more about your personal motivations and affiliations than it does about the issue at hand. Nice try. No serious person believes the assertions in that article any more.
As far as the Mankiw article goes, if you had read the whole thing, he very clearly and unequivocally states that while he is not terribly in favor of the entire supply-side program, he is very much NOT in favor of the types of changes you and Mr. Wolf advise. Go back and check it out.
I’m still trying to make sense of your assertion that the Clinton tax increases somehow created more private sector money for the economy, but since that is, after all, a physical and mathematical impossibility I’d be wasting my time. Again, if Clinton had put through the massive tax increases he did (the niggling little tax cuts he did were statistically insignificant by comparison) and there was no IT explosion, the result would have been a massive transfer of private sector money to the government without any concomitant jobs or increase of money circulating to make the economy move. Also, the election of a Republican Congress in 1994 contributed mightily to the confidence of the private sector in terms of capital expenditures – the chance of even more tax increases, at that point, was basically zero, so businesses could feel free to invest in themselves in a safe and stable environment. Hence jobs and recovery. Tax increases do not produce real wealth.
The IT economy plus a Republican congress inimical to any further tax increases pulled Clinton’s chestnuts out of the fire and prevented the collapse that would have occurred, and that’s the truth of it.
The government “tapped” rising incomes? Do you have any idea how that sounds? Is that what Obama is attempting now? You forget the first rule of successful parasites.
Soros and the other I mentioned have been “well covered” by the MSM? As the saying goes, what color is the sky in your world?
People of Rove’s flavor of conservatism are far removed from power right now, the new organizations that comprise the MSM savaged him daily when he was in the WH and would certainly be savaging him if he were in power.
Learned Fist @81,
American Crossroads, insiders or outsiders?
Don’t know what this question is really asking. Both W’s post, and Codevilla’s essay, deal with the Ruling Class and everyone else. Not insiders and outsiders.
If your question is, “American Crossroads, Ruling Class or everyone else?”, then the answer is simple:
Ruling Class.
The Ruling Class wants the ring of power. Everyone else wants the ring to be destroyed. American Crossroads wants to bring Republicans back to power. They are Boromir. They think they can do good with the ring – don’t pay attention to the massive growth of government from 2000-8. They want the ring. That is a the mark of the Ruling Class. QED.
The importance of this distinction his hard to overstate. It is a fundamental conceptual shift from current ways of understanding politics. If you have not made the shift, much of what has been discussed here of late – like the posts from no mo uro, Unsk, TCobb, bogie wheel, Kinuachdrach, RWE, Mad Fiddler, JMH, RWE, Marty, Marcus Aurelius, and many others, and, of course, our esteemed host Wretchard himself – will not make sense.
So think about the problem differently. Take what we’re saying at face value, and don’t assume that we’re Republican rumps. Because we’re not.
It’s like debits and credits in accounting. When I was first learning accounting, I thought in terms of increases or decreases to accounts, because that’s the way my checking account worked. But when I did that, I kept making mistakes because debits and credits are not the same thing as increases and decreases.
Once I let get of my preconceived notions, it made perfect sense, and I learned a whole new way to understand the world.
I encourage you to do the same. Free your mind.
The good news is that you’ve come to the right place to figure this out. The Belmont Club is the Green Dragon of the next phase of American self-governance.
Cheers,
L3
So how can a group itself divided be a conspiracy?
Easy. They may be divided on the issues, but they are not divided on what to talk about. They may be divided into groups, but they agree upon how to divide the world. They may disagree on policy, but they stack positions of power with their own.
If one thinks in terms of “econationalism” (people of the plains, people of the forest, people of the desert, people of the tundra, et cetera), one will necessarily at odds with those who categorize people by language, those who categorize people by skin color, or some other criteria.
What if the difference isn’t between “big government” or “small government”, but rather a disagreement on which parts of government ought to be big and which parts of the government ought to be small? There are some radical leftists who would love to eliminate the Department of Defense, the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, et cetera. Does that mean they are against “big government”? Likewise, there are conservatives who want increased border security, which would necessarily require larger government expenditure.
It is easier to talk of a “ruling class” because it refers to a class that rules. To talk of an “elite” implies that the so-called “elite” really is better in some manner than the rest of humanity, whereas “ruling class” implies no such superiority.
Part of rulership is maintaining hegemony over key offices, and that would be part of the ruling class. The other part of rulership consists of maintaining hegemony over the political narrative. I think the most important part of rulership is controlling the narrative, defining the narrative, and propagating the narrative. If someone is loudly proclaiming that blue is better than green, an inverted narrative would be someone else proclaiming that green is better than blue. Someone else may shift the narrative, claiming that red is better than both green and blue. Yet, that is very different from changing the narrative, such as asking someone if he would like to eat steak tonight.
Inverting the narrative does no good when people are tired of the song. Sometimes, people want a different singer. Sometimes, people want a different song.
After all, this is supposed to be a REPUBLIC, not a democracy.
There is one aspect of classic democracy we should have more of. Perhaps we should conscript more citizens into jury duty, not merely to try judicial cases, but also to make policy decisions for local communities. Selecting random juries for making local policy might be an improvement over relying upon elected officials to do the same thing.
Perhaps more New England style townhall meetings would be helpful too.
It is easy to blame elected officials for how they behave, but the reason they get away with their behavior is because their constituencies let them. Citizenship has all too often been regarded as a right, and often the right to loot the treasury of somebody else. Instead, citizenship ought to be treated as a responsibility, a sacred responsibility, even a burden.
One advantage of making political decisions by jury or by townhall meeting is to put more responsibility into the hands of ordinary citizens and out of the hands of elected officials. There are times when representative democracy works best, but I’m not so sure that it is the best form of government at the local level.
A little off topic:
So there is supposed to be a new “list” for journalists who are progressives, that is supposedly one quarter the size of the old one and will have tighter security…..Why do I have this urge to buy some more popcorn and soda and wait for it to be pealed open??
Cavuto reports that big biz says O is making things worse
Cavuto: CEOs Grow Increasingly Nervous
Flopping Aces reports that O has a history of making things worse.
Obama Has Always Left Destruction In His Wake
Backroom deals across the pond: the NHS that Donald Berwick is so in love with and wants to transplant over here is instituting cost-cutting measures: “NHS bosses have drawn up secret plans for sweeping cuts to services, with restrictions on the most basic treatments for the sick and injured.”
“An investigation by The Sunday Telegraph has uncovered widespread cuts planned across the NHS, many of which have already been agreed by senior health service officials. They include:
* Restrictions on some of the most basic and common operations, including hip and knee replacements, cataract surgery and orthodontic procedures.
* Plans to cut hundreds of thousands of pounds from budgets for the terminally ill, with dying cancer patients to be told to manage their own symptoms if their condition worsens at evenings or weekends.
* The closure of nursing homes for the elderly. . .
The Sunday Telegraph found the details of hundreds of cuts buried in obscure appendices to lengthy policy and strategy documents published by trusts. In most cases, local communities appear to be unaware of the plans.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/7908742/Axe-falls-on-NHS-services.html
Oh Boy, pol_sci 101.
ALL societies have elites. It is safe to say that societies can be sorted by how those elites propagate.
Monarchies use the tried and true two backed beast method. So you wind up with Kings, Dukes, Earls, Barrons, etc. Theocracies end up with Somebody that hears ‘god’. With underlings that also have ‘god’ whispering in their ear. In theory, Democracies are a form of meritocracy. Merit being determined by those who count the votes, of course.
Over time any Democracy becomes a monarchy.
That is because of the natural inclination for humans to try and provide their children with a better life.
So those that are deemed elite by the vote counters send their children to the same schools, clubs, bars, cocktail parties, etc. that the vote counters send their children to. They cross bred and eventually, you have a hereditary elite.
Voters can upset this process by keeping an eye on the vote counters AND expecting their children to have a better life also. Once those expectations of a better life for their children die, the voters/citizens/ become serfs. Then the vote counters take over, and the elites stop with the pretense of elections.
That is why to stay America, Americans MUST hold to the Constitution. The self styled Elites have slowly corrupted the Constitution over the centuries. Right now their is no real difference between the parties. This POTUS went to Haaavaaard. The POTUS before him went to Yale. Whoopie! Viva La Difference.
Not sure what the solution is. I hope that a black swan election will change things, but I fear that the vote counters have to firm a grip on the counting process. I mean, look at the Frankin “election” ( yes, those ARE sneer quotes). Somewhere in America, there is a tractor trailer full of ballots waiting for a judge to order them counted.
Which basically leaves us with the cartridge box. There is no mistake when counting votes by bullets. You can vote as often as you want. When both sides are voting with bullets, the issues is always resolved. A judge that orders a re-count will get it with his back against a wall and a blindfold, if he is lucky and there is time.
The problem with cartridge box elections is that the winner isn’t real keen on holding another one. So you end up in pretty much the same place, only with a different definition of “elite”.
As a rule of thumb, a .308 doesn’t care where you went to school or who your daddy is.
The only non-violent way I see out of this mess is a Constitutional Convention (section V convention is another term, I think). IIRC, it only takes 26 States, and there are 22 right now that support Arizona. Get 4 more and protect our BORDERS. And while we are at it, tie the vote counters and their elite children over the barrel and ‘pulp fiction’ them.
Off topic – what about Afghanistan?
In sum, Obama’s lack of resolve has, not surprisingly, produced a lack of resolve in Karzai. Under these circumstances, God only knows where ordinary Afghans are supposed to find their resolve.
Lack of resolve begets lack of resolve in Afghanistan
What about the “open hand” offered so freely?
A source close to the Senate inquiry said: “The (LeBaron) letter is embarrassing for the US because it shows they were much less opposed to compassionate release than prisoner transfer.”
Last week, a succession of British politicians – including Mr MacAskill, Mr Salmond and former justice secretary Jack Straw – delivered a diplomatic snub to the senators by refusing to fly across the Atlantic to answer questions at the Senate’s hearing on Thursday (US time) about their role in Megrahi’s release.
White House backed release of Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi
To add a touch to the Clinton history so well outlined by No_Mo_Uro, Clinton actually DID make one very important tax cut, which was the cut to the top rate of capital gains from 28 to 20 percent. This cut happened in 1997 (and was pushed by Republcans). Hmmm, what incredible wealth-generating phenomenon happened right about that time? Yup. The so-called “dot com boom” was, in fact, a venture capital boom, brought on by the sudden ability to make a lot more money investing in companies. Heritage Foundation reports:
In 1995, the first year for which these data are available, just over $8 billion in venture capital was invested… By 1998, the first full year in which the lower capital gains rates were in effect, venture capital activity reached almost $28 billion, more than a three-fold increase over 1995 levels, and by 1999, it had doubled yet again.
We tend to think that all the Clinton years were like the late 90s, but they weren’t. The late 90s were like the late 90s. Other goodies that spilt forth:
The economy averaged 4.2 percent real growth per year from 1997 to 2000–a full percentage point higher than during the expansion following the 1993 tax hike. Employment increased by another 11.5 million jobs.
When you have 11.5 million new jobs in a few years, that’s 11.5 million new income streams pouring into the government, not to mention 11.5 million people sucking less on the government teat.
On top of this, you had a Republican Congress which, for a year or two anyway, actually DID cut spending, or at least held it at bay. You had welfare reform. And on the bad side, you had the much touted (by the State Media) “peace dividend,” which in reality meant starving the military — which we would pay dearly for in years to come — but which further reduced government spending, albeit on just about the only thing they should be spending money on.
So this crackpot notion that Clinton’s tax increases created the boom is simply taking two things that happened in rough sequence and saying one caused the other. It is akin to claiming that “No Country for Old Men” winning Best Picture in 2008 led the way to the Yankees’ World Series victory in 2009.
peterike @ 120: the boom was totally unexpected, and happened in spite of, certainly not because of, Clinton tax hikes.
But the Internet bubble was an onset of new technology, neither was it triggered by a cut in capital gains. Though I’m sure that didn’t hurt!
Finally, taking things in sequence and attributing an undeserved causality is one of my favorite logical fallacies, post hoc propter hoc.
Richard Fernandez says
“If the left — or whatever anyone wants to call it — continues to press for the re-architecturing of American society it must follow that the conservatives will act not only to roll things back but act to break the power of the so-called revolutionaries. “
I think the point is that there is basically one political class of which both Democrats and Republicans (both parties) are members playing the game and working the controls of government to advantage empower and aggrandize themselves (and their client subclasses) by pushing and pulling the nation at times in progressive directions and at times in conservative directions. Having such a political class can work as long as the political class can be restrained in the means and the access which it is allowed. Things have reached the point where the only actions which can constitutionally impose these restraints are term limits for both houses. Only this will stop the mutual degradation of both parties lest they both continue weakening the nation with their client-operative game-playing and their strategic and tactical excesses to retain power as members and parties of a semi-permanent political class.
Alexis @ 95: “To talk of an “elite” implies that the so-called “elite” really is better in some manner than the rest of humanity, whereas “ruling class” implies no such superiority.”
You are correct that our self-selected “elites” are anything but. And you make a powerful case for calling the bozos the “Ruling Class” — but what do we call the so-called journalists who see no (Democrat) evil? And what about the corrupt academics who spread disinformation about Alleged Anthropogenic Global Warming from their taxpayer-funded international conferences in exotic locations? Those kinds of people don’t rule, but they do play important roles in covering for the actual Ruling Class.
That’s why I prefer the term “Political Class”. It is more inclusive — and Political Correctness tells us that (certain kinds of) inclusiveness are good. It is more diverse — and we know how PC loves (certain kinds of) diversity. And best of all, Political Class invokes the same disgust in most people as Ruling Class.
This is a good description. Aside from anything else, politicking is all these people are generally good at. Whatever their actual job – elected rep, CEO, Ivy League Dean of Psuedoscientific Baloney, urinalist (funny, I could have sworn ‘journalist’ had a j in it somewhere) Union exec, K-street lobbiest – whatever field they work in the only real skills they have are political skills. Schmoozing, glad-handing, horse-trading, strategic back-stabbing, brokering the back-room deal. To a large extent, they are glorified con-men, using social maneuvering to help themselves to a bit of someone elses productivity.
PA Cat: Those propsed NHS cuts are (IMO) NOT for saving money. They are for maintaining and enhancing population control. Hence all the dysfunctional micromanagement.
If the idea was to cut out unsustainable spending, the way to go about it would be
to take each hospital/clinic and give it a checking account with a year’s worth of
reduced outlays in same. (If possible, make that two years as two year budgeting is
much more accurate.) The let the people working in those hospitals figure out how the available funds are to be spent. And how to charge patients enough to make up
shortfalls. Give outside accountants signature authority over the checking accounts
plus have independent auditors look over their shoulders. This is just enough control to to prevent fraud and embezzlement. If medical personnel do not know how to run things this way they are going to learn in a big hurry. On a worst case basis they won’t kill any more patients than is already happening. Less than what they are about to.
However, this would defeat what I believe to be the real but unadmitted purpose of having an NHS to start with.
As to Berwick: think we can arrange for him to have a consulatation with Kervorkian?
Fist (#81):
From your Salon link (and how about I start sending you to The American Conservative?): “The IRS filing of American Crossroads, an outside 527 group that was conceived by Rove and ex-RNC chair Ed Gillespie, gives a good taste of who is funding the GOP effort to make big gains in the House and Senate come the fall.”
Pay heed, Belmonters: if the GOP makes big gains, it will be because of its buying the election.
Turning to your imperfectly phrased “question”, given that American Crossroads is a mere 4 months old, is it any surprise that a large portion of its money is still composed from its start-up seed?
Turning to your Wolf quotes:
“since the Republicans have no interest in doing anything sensible, the Democrats will gain nothing from trying to do much either.”
Ah. So if the GOP pursues mistaken/evil policies, it’s because they’re mistaken/evil. If the Democrats do so, it’s because the GOP is mistaken/evil.
“Those radical conservatives (a small minority, I hope) who want to destroy the credit of the US federal government”
So those “radical conservatives” (nice oxymoron) not only want to limit spending and/or the deficit, but they are actually traitors who want nothing less than “to destroy the credit of the US federal government”. And it’s not even clear that those traitors are a minority.
But do tell us how you’re interested in a true dialogue.
Tcobb (#84):
Angelo de Codevilla, the Reader’s Digest version.
Skip_this_post (#100): “As a rule of thumb, a .308 doesn’t care where you went to school or who your daddy is.”
Of course it does.
What’s that? “Who’s your Daddy?” is a rhetorical question? Never mind, then.
“what do we call the so-called journalists who see no (Democrat) evil?”
Wanna-be elites. Ignoring malfeasance by those elites currently in power is sort of table stakes to get in the game. They are trying to earn a place in the vote counting booth.
Elites come in all different shapes, colors and sexes. What they have in common is the feeling of entitlement and self interest. Actual politics vary and are something they work out between themselves.
Afghanistan. The ‘stan is undergoing mission creep. The Original mission was to bounce AQ out. That was accomplished but the elites got no glory from it.
The military has an elite system as well developed as any. More so then most in America. It is easier to get into Haaaarvard or Yale then West point or Canoe U. ( Annapolis military academy). All you need for the civi schools is test scores and money. Money is pretty easy to come by in a society dedicated to producing wealth. For a trade school (military academy), you need better scores, some money and political pull as well as intro into the ‘old boy’ system. 3 out of 4 at a minimum.
Take McCrystal. He was the son of a General and IIRC the grandson of a General. That is why he got so many ‘plum’ assignments during his career. Afghanistan was/is the worlds foremost military opportunity. History records millions of Generals. ONLY Genghis Khan conquered Afghanistan, or at least the people in what is now know as Afghanistan. He did it by killing 90% of the population and enslaving the other 10%. So any American General that conquers Afghanistan gets famous. Immortal in a way. The military elite were not happy about less then 100 CIA and a few bombers conquering Afghanistan. It was a direct threat to the very existence of the Army and the Army elite.
So now we have a new battle in Afghanistan, one that allows some of the elite to gain glory and get a shot at immortality. That is why the mission was changed. Petreaus IS NOT part of the military elite. He has risen to the top by merit ( Yes, it still happens).
The Army elite will leave him alone. He sort of scares them. Plus they know that the quickest way to balance the budget is by cutting the military beyond the bone. So if Petreaus gets the new mission accomplished, they will take as much of the credit as they can. If he doesn’t, he will get ALL the blame. Heads you lose, tails I win.
The rational for mission creep in Afghanistan is that if we go, the Taliban and AQ will return. So What?
We will just send in another dozen or so Special Forces and a few dozen bombers and bounce them out again. There is no legit military reason to keep 100,000 plus troops in Afghanistan. If you are what the greatest US military soldier ever called a ‘perfumed prince’, IE; a General with a pedigree and entrenched in the old boys system, Afghanistan is your only chance for glory. Glory for a general. No glory for that Private regaining consciousness in a burning HMMWV with his leg blown off.
Aside from anything else, politicking is all these people are generally good at. Whatever their actual job – elected rep, CEO, Ivy League Dean of Psuedoscientific Baloney, urinalist (funny, I could have sworn ‘journalist’ had a j in it somewhere) Union exec, K-street lobbiest – whatever field they work in the only real skills they have are political skills. Schmoozing, glad-handing, horse-trading, strategic back-stabbing, brokering the back-room deal. To a large extent, they are glorified con-men, using social maneuvering to help themselves to a bit of someone elses productivity.
They often learn this through student government in college. Student fees pay for it. If you want to reform the political system, a good place to start may be student government. For example, Australia has instituted Voluntary Student Unionism, which means students are not required to pay student fees for organizations they don’t approve of. Other possible reforms would to require each student to sit on a random committee for university governance or replacing student senates with student participation in university senates.
Glorified con artistry is a large part of what student government teaches.
“…And if even it were, it is by no means monolithic in its views.”
I thought part of de Codevilla’s theme was that, in fact, the elites were MORE diverse in the past; and the current lot are more monolithic because they are all products of the same bad education.
Skip_this_post writes: “History records millions of Generals. ONLY Genghis Khan conquered Afghanistan, or at least the people in what is now know as Afghanistan.”
That is patently false. Alexander took Afghanistan, and more recently, the Brit Empire conquered it twice. Many have conquered.
Few have held onto it; the attrition of possession has always been (and is) a steep price.
subpather/113
Correct, it was called Bactria then and Alexander married Bactrian princess. Not only for alliance porpoises, rumor had it she was real purdy.
Former Bactria was doing relatively ok under buddhism, but became a hellhole after Arab conquest. Applicable also to many parts of India subcontinent. Mongols were a nasty bunch, but they gave the cities or states a choice of tribute or skull pyramids. Arabs went for skull pyramids right away. During their campaign between 1100 and 1400, they massacred nearly 2/3 of the population of India, Afghanistan and Kashmir. The mountain range in northern India is called Hindukush. It means Hindu slaughter.
So what to do with them lefties? Hungarians kinda knew. If the overbearing Russian bear did not intervene, Magyarorszag would have been a different country. They had to wait for another turn 33 years, though lefties were lucky at that point, anticipating things well ahead and genuflecting and bending in all declinations “we are sooo for this democracy thing”.
Two by’s Dream Machine
1941: Rear mounted V-8, Streamlining, 3 Headlights, what’s not to like?
“The Europeans have always had a big interest in them, the Americans never had and the Czechs were never able to afford them,” Mr. Greenstein said of Tatra, which has made only trucks in recent years. “But now, the Czechs can afford them, the Europeans are still really hot for them and the Americans are going, ‘Hey, those are kind of cool.’
81. Learned Fist
I looked at your link.
Martin Wolf doesn’t show any sign of being familiar with the Laffer Curve. At the same time that he terms tax cuts as Keynesian he dismisses the possibility that tax cuts could create more economic activity and thereby generate more tax revenue.
The data we currently have suggest that “over the past 100 years, there have been three major periods of tax-rate cuts in the U.S.: the Harding-Coolidge cuts of the mid-1920s; the Kennedy cuts of the mid-1960s; and the Reagan cuts of the early 1980s. Each of these periods of tax cuts was remarkably successful as measured by virtually any public policy metric.”
This history suggests that tax cuts up to a certain point do create more tax revenue. Why? — Because tax cuts create more economic activity–which generates more tax dollars. Therefor you would have to agree that Martin Wolf doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Of course you don’t have to do that. But then you’d need to argue that tax cuts don’t create more economic activity and therefor don’t provoke more tax dollars. To do that you’d need some data to make your case. (That is within the boundaries set up by the laffer curve linked to above.)
112. WAKE UP
“…And if even it were, it is by no means monolithic in its views.”
I thought part of de Codevilla’s theme was that, in fact, the elites were MORE diverse in the past; and the current lot are more monolithic because they are all products of the same bad education.
………..
Yes that’s my understanding too.
Does anyone else shudder when the left accuses the conservatives of (yet) another distasteful behavior? Seems the more we see their past behaviors exposed the more it appears the left is projecting their own dealings, actual and as observed among other leftists, on the conservatives. (I have a hard time of thinking of exceptions.. save statements like “they take their direction and moral compass from their God.”)
Vast right wing conspiracies, MSM in league, talking-points from whomever, etc.
Sad. And a bit frightening given what else they have been saying about conservatives.
Answer is to disestablish the center. Anything worth doing nationally (on the domestic front) is worth (deciding and) doing locally. If it’s a bad idea we’ll know locally a lot faster (and correct) than anything decided by a centralized monolith that’s spending $10B a day, obligating $10B more, and directing the spending (thru regulation) of $10B more. Give it back to the people. If the left is unwilling, it’s clear they don’t trust the people (and Codevilla carries the argument).
Period.
OK, I’m tired and lazy today, so back to the real world for one more comment:
From an email floating around:
Joe Legal works in construction, has a Social Security Number and makes $25.00 per hour with taxes deducted.
Jose Illegal also works in construction, has NO Social Security Number, and gets paid $15.00 cash per hour “under the table”.
Ready? Now pay attention…
Joe Legal: $25.00 per hour x 40 hours = $1000.00 per week, or $52,000.00 per year. Now take 30% away for state and federal tax; Joe Legal now has $31,231.00.
Jose Illegal: $15.00 per hour x 40 hours = $600.00 per week, or $31,200.00 per year. Jose Illegal pays no taxes. Jose Illegal now has $31,200.00.
Joe Legal pays medical and dental insurance with limited coverage for his family at $600.00 per month, or $7,200.00 per year. Joe Legal now has $24,031.00.
Jose Illegal has full medical and dental coverage through the state and local clinics at a cost of $0.00 per year. Jose Illegal still has $31,200.00.
Joe Legal makes too much money and is not eligible for food stamps or welfare. Joe Legal pays $500.00 per month for food, or $6,000.00 per year.. Joe Legal now has $18,031.00.
Jose Illegal has no documented income and is eligible for food stamps and welfare. Jose Illegal still has $31,200.00.
Joe Legal pays rent of $1,200.00 per month, or $14,400.00 per year. Joe Legal now has $9,631.00.
Jose Illegal receives a $500.00 per month federal rent subsidy. Jose Illegal pays out that $500.00 per month, or $6,000.00 per year. Jose Illegal still has $ 31,200.00.
Jose Illegal receives a $280.00 per family member/ month federal CASHAID for four family members . Jose Illegal has $ 43,200.00.
Joe Legal pays $200.00 per month, or $2,400.00 for insurance. Joe Legal now has $7,231.00.
Jose Illegal says, “We don’t need no stinkin’ insurance!” and still has $ 43,200.00.
Joe Legal has to make his $7,231.00 stretch to pay utilities, gasoline, etc.
Jose Illegal has to make his $ 43,200.00. stretch to pay utilities, gasoline, and what he sends out of the country every month..”actually Jose illegal doesn’t pay for most utilities in many states as he gets county assistance to pay the bills and his late fees”
Joe Legal now works overtime on Saturdays or gets a part time job after work. “and pays a higher tax rate if he earns above a certain amount”
Jose Illegal has nights and weekends off to enjoy with his family.
Joe Legal’s and Jose Illegal’s children both attend the same school. Joe Legal pays for his children’s lunches while Jose Illegal’s children get a government sponsored lunch. Jose Illegal’s children have an after school ESL program. Joe Legal’s children go home.
Joe Legal and Jose Illegal both enjoy the same police and fire services, but Joe paid for them and Jose did not pay.
Do you get it, now?
—————-
While I have not checked the numbers for Texas it looks about right, except that Jose has to get a job and pay SS and taxes after a few months. That is if he wants to be in the system under a stolen SS number, which few do. Most prefer to work under the table and just be invisible to “the man”.
Many do that and are – to the “system” – do not exist and are not here. If they come in and are legal, this never happens. Well, except for side jobs where cash or barter is used outside of their regular jobs. But everyone else does this too.
I don’t know how other states do it. But here in Texas, the mother which is usually a young girl with three [3] or more kids – who gets a portion of her child care paid for while she works – never admits that her husband or boy friend is even around, in fact she says she has no other support from any family.
I know many girls like this, and one is my part time house keeper. NO I have never mentioned or declared her.
I’m too poor to do so. I would have to pay taxes on her and she would be investigated and lose her money for her kids.
I guess I’m working against the system or maybe contributing to the problem. Sorry about that, but I’m old enough to know and accept that sometimes life is what it is – not what it should be.
That way she gets food stamps, Medicare, other state aid such as free other foods and milk [forgive me, I can't think of the name of that program right now]. Plus she gets Medicaid for herself. This is regardless if she is legal or illegal. She states that her children were born in America. She has the birth certificates, even if they are counterfeit and false, the [mostly Mexican] State Health workers working for the Texas Health and Human Services… never question them or the false documents.
OH – In order to get a job with Texas Health and Human services or most other State Jobs you must be bilingual. And on top of that…They don’t check very well to document that you are even a legal resident of the U.S.
Of course if you don’t get the job and your white or whatever, it will be only because you don’t speak Spanish.
It is indeed a mess and even if we want to fix it will take years and years.
Disclaimer. I live in the middle of illegals, in fact, yestersday I took my girls to a kids 1st birthday party.
According to law he is an American kid and a citizen. We had a good time, cake, ice cream, one of those blow up jumper things and the girls had a blast with a slide into a blow up water pond. Then we all had b-b-que American style with some Mexican food on the side. Lots of beer and Tequila. A good time all around.
I’m glad all I had to do to get back home is walk.
This is where I live and how it is.
Gotta go for real now.
Papa Ray
Of course, the ruling class has to sort out its internal issues. They don’t agree on everything. Increasingly our political culture and mechanisms are just ways for members of the ruling class to come to some actionable state. Of course we need our elites – we just need to be able to continue to replace them without killing them by defenestration, firing squad, or hanging.
In American democracy, we expect that our officers of state deliberately seek less power while using the power we grant them.
The best and first example was George Washington. He was offered the kingship but, by rejecting it, achieved the first presidency. We need more people like that.
How many elected officials of either party could be trusted with the same choice Washington was given?
Doug/116
An excellent car! My father was driving one in mid/late 50′s. It just flew. T600′s and later T603′s that replaced it weren’t as cool.
Tcobb (84): Indeed. Somebody (might have been a commenter here, I can’t remember exactly though) really caught my attention by writing something, along the following lines, about his congressman: “During the congressional break, I went to visit the fellow who represents Washington to us…”
twoby…
According to the article, your dad must have been far better off than the average Czech in those days to be able to afford that ride.
Are we to assume you were born with the proverbial Silver Spoon?
2×4@114,
In my parents’ 1943 Encyclopedia Britannica the article on Ibn Batuta indicates that he may have been the one to give that name to the region — “Hindu Kush.” (Persian for slaughter or carnage is “Kushtar”, for the verb to kill is “Kushtan” – so says Wikipedia.)
Seems to me he traveled through there in the 14th century A.D., some two centuries after the Muslims had slaughtered millions of hindus between about 750 – 1250 A.D.
(Yeah, yeah. The politically correct “brights” use the “CE” acronym. Poop on that, sez I.)
Good News: http://michellemalkin.com/2010/07/27/stop-the-special-interest-speech-squelching-disclose-act/
“DISCLOSE Act fails on 57-41 cloture vote.”
Schumer: “And we will go back at this bill again and again and again until” the GOP
cavesvotes as determined rulers should.