Long before counterinsurgency theorists discovered the phrase, Hollywood was already practicing asymmetric warfare. This occurs when two dissimilar protagonists collide, each more implausible than the other. First there was the Wolfman vs Dracula. This was followed, in no particular order by King Kong vs Godzilla, Abbott and Costello vs Frankenstein and Billy the Kid vs Dracula. The trend intensified rather than declined over the years. Now we have Alien vs Predator, Cowboys vs Alien and various teenage movies depicting werewolves versus vampires.
You might say it’s crazy but billions of box office dollars have been made off of such improbable contests. But now the trend has spread to politics — and things have, if possible, gotten worse — and commentators are watching, with growing fascination and horror the match-up between the Stage Curtain and the Three Stooges.
It all began when President Obama made a strange discovery. People like him better when he’s not there. Victor Davis Hanson explains this bizarre phenomenon:
President Obama went into a deep slumber in December. When he woke up this January, he found himself back even in the polls, with neither a press conference nor another overhyped presidential televised address to be heard. Sleep, quiet, and solitude — all that appears wiser than campaigning, visibility, and speaking, both for Obama and Americans. In short, the president has really hit on something: an Obama going into a Rip Van Winkle somnolent state might just mean waking up again as president …
While the Republicans were tearing each other up in Iowa, to the delight of the liberal media, Barack Obama said not much at all from Hawaii. He did not have to, given that no Republican was offering a simple anti-Obama plan to drill for gas and oil as never before, repeal Obamacare, balance the budget, reform the tax code, and redo Social Security and Medicare. Instead his would-be opponents argued over who voted for what fifteen years ago.
In other words the president found that the audience liked things better when he was offstage and all they could see was the stage curtain. Then the press, like a Greek chorus chanting offstage, could take the audiences imagination into flights of fancy about what the Great Obama was thinking in Hawaii or while walking on the 17th fairway. They could let the spectator’s minds fill in the rest — essentially turning Democratic presidential politics into a radio play played against the backdrop of the stage curtain. In the meantime the Republicans performed a creditable imitation of the Three Stooges. It was a live action performance which went something like this:
Moe: Is there anything you won’t bet on?
Larry: Yeah, a winner.
Curly Joe: Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk!
Unsurprisingly some of the audience found the imaginary drama preferable to the slapstick antics of the players that they could actually see. You would think that President Obama would let the Stage Curtain keep thrashing the Three Stooges. But no. As John Podhoretz argues, the President’s ego was too big for that. He won’t leave well enough alone and wants to step into the limelight again and give his best impression of Lawrence Olivier. And this, Podhoretz explains, could be a problem.
President Obama’s executive power-grab this week — making four “recess” appointments when the Senate isn’t in recess — is a mark not of his strength, but of his relative weakness. He is asserting an authority he does not possess through the Constitution because he has precious little personal authority left to assert.
He had it and he lost it, and he can’t figure out how to get it back — so he’s just going to take it.
“When Congress refuses to act, and as a result hurts our economy and puts people at risk, I have an obligation as president to do what I can without them,” Obama said Wednesday as he trumpeted his installation of Richard Cordray as head of his new consumer-activism bureau.
Podhoretz argues that the President actually can’t believe the stage curtain is beating the Stooges. And so he’s planning his comeback. This may actually be a bad move because the audiences will once again get to see the actor for the disastrous ham that he was. But like most bad actors, he and his manager, David Axelrod, would be the last to know.
So the president is going to come back under the tag line: This Time, No More Mr. Nice Guy. Having failed as Messiah and President, how about as an imitation of Hugo Chavez?
“Maybe it’s the best hand Obama has to play, but it’s not a very good hand. For one thing, the voters who have turned on him don’t think he has exercised too little power, but rather too much — so bragging about doing things without congressional sanction may not play well.” But it might bomb, then the The Stooges aren’t going to look too bad by comparison.
Victor Davis Hanson thinks the President should just go back to playing golf. That way he looks better. “Do Americans sort of like Barack Obama the more that they do not see or hear much of him — at least while they hear too much of the Republicans ripping each other apart?” Well it’s a good question.
After all, in 2008 with no record or much knowledge of his past, Obama The Idea was adored; in 2011 with a record and a fledgling history, Obama The Flesh and Blood was not. Why then not go into deep sleep, do nothing, let his surrogates loose, and let voters’ imaginations run wild with past fantasies and dreams — especially in comparison to the screeching of fratricidal Republicans that for now precludes any reexamination of a mostly disastrous presidential record since January 2009?
But of course that’s not going to happen. The President’s self-esteem is five sizes too large to accept the idea that his absence is actually better than his presence. After all, he’s already described himself as at least the fourth greatest president in American history, after Lincoln, FDR and LBJ. So with that kind of talent, he’s going to do exactly what Podhoretz describes: grab some more power and show them. “Here, hold my beer.” It’s sounds like a plan.
I’ve always wanted to share my own my favorite asymmetric matchup, Zombies versus Ninjas. You may say that it’s nothing much. But wait till you compare it to the spectacle of politics.
The Three Conjectures at Amazon Kindle for $1.99
Storming the Castle at Amazon Kindle for $3.99
No Way In at Amazon Kindle $3.99, print $9.99
What’s the old phrase: “Better to be silent and let others think you a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt”, or something like that?
Honestly, when current economic and geo-political reality is as bleak as it is, who can blame people for wanting to fill in the blanks with their own comforting fantasies. Perhaps Obama’s best play is to let them.
Didn’t Obama describe himself as a blank slate unto which people can project their own visions of what he represents?
It is no longer completely silly to believe that many people are stupid enough to be fooled by him again. The utter ideological illiteracy that I’ve observed even among actual PHDs is appaling. I’ve heard Obama referred to as — in all sincerity — a “conservative” by what would ordinarily be considered intelligent, thoughtful people.
Perhaps I suffer from another form of “illiteracy” and naivete in judging what constitutes intelligence and thoughtfullness. In this aspect I may be the fool.
Just thinking further on the theme of fiction/fantasy vs.reality:
Between now and November, better prepare yourself for the greatest, most strenuous excercise in collective turd-polishing ever witnessed as the media struggles frantically to portray Obama presidency as a success.
Witness today’s optimistic (and fictional) unemployment statistics.
“Witness today’s optimistic (and fictional) unemployment statistics.
DOW reacts downward because at the same time November stats were adjusted down. Fewer people are beleiving the statistics and nobody with a stake in the game.
Dysfunctional family circus. He’s really grasping at straw men now. Uncouth, petulant, catch-me-if-you-dare, tactless Jack-ass material. The rot has set in.
So the president is going to come back under the tag line: This Time, No More Mr. Nice Guy. Having failed as Messiah and President, how about as an imitation of Hugo Chavez?
“Maybe it’s the best hand Obama has to play, but it’s not a very good hand. For one thing, the voters who have turned on him don’t think he has exercised too little power, but rather too much — so bragging about doing things without congressional sanction may not play well.” But it might bomb, then the The Stooges aren’t going to look too bad by comparison.
Or it could be that we are witnessing the time when Buraq Hussein believes he has no more to fear. He may have his own plans for November, and they may not include letting the voters voice an opinion whether he has exercised too much or too little power.
Consider that throughout his regime he has ignored the law, the Constitution, the budgeting power of Congress, and court rulings. Just ignored them. And has never been called on it.
….
One of the key points in a coup is getting established long enough that those who seize power are considered to be the “new normal”. The Executive Branch has established a longstanding precedent that ignoring the law and Constitution is the “new normal” and the most that is being mustered against it are a few quickly ignored press releases.
There is nothing to indicate that this marks the outermost boundary of Obama and the Left’s ambitions, nor that acquiescence in this will sate him.
Subotai Bahadur
Clinton’s impeachment was greatest gift GOP ever gave to Democrats, effectively removing it as a weapon against any future donkey president, at least within media memory time frame. Add in fact that BHO is a person of color, and he is almost literally invulnerable.
You know, one of Jimmy Peanuts’ big failings is he couldn’t keep his stupid mouth shut either. He seem compelled to lecture us periodically about our failings and what we needed to do to live up to his version of reality – like Obama, I think he also believed his ideas were foolproof so if they weren’t working, there was something wrong with us and he was gonna explain to us what it was. It really may have been that he lost his reelection bid because the country got tired of listening to his blather. But, in his mind, he is always right and he’s still babbling on today, 30 years later.
Carter’s ego was a blessing in disguise for it likely helped tilt the scales so the country relieved itself of the jerk. May Obama’s Achilles Heel gift us similarly.
“given that no Republican was offering a simple anti-Obama plan to drill for gas and oil as never before, repeal Obamacare, balance the budget, reform the tax code, and redo Social Security and Medicare.”
This is factually inaccurate. There several candidates with that plan, they just got ran off by serious personal attacks. The MSM slaughtered the messenger, in hopes of killing the message. The only candidate left with that message is Rick Perry and he is talking ’bout quitin. The establishment has controlled the selection yet again.
The plane is in a verticle dive to the ocean but so long as the stall buzzer is buzzing, the Control stick stays forward.
6. Subotai Bahadur
It looks like there is nobody in Congress with the balls to call for impeachment. It seems as if they are waiting for the election out of fear of a constitutional crisis.
The day after Mitt loses, boner will go to his office and find the door locked and a cop standing there.
#10 stoicheion
I don’t think he would get that far, if such comes to pass. If he somehow manages to transit from his home to the capital unimpeded, I would expect that there would be a cab rank of Black Marias parked outside. National Defense Authorization Act, Title X, Sub-Title D ["Counter-Terrorism"], Sub-Sections 1021 and 1022.
And probably not a cop, but a Union thug.
Subotai Bahadur
If Boehner should come up missing would anyone notice?
I think Obama and company is shitting in their own nest. The bubble they live in is shrinking and their defenders are starting the slow fade. I see more and more quotes from the ZeroHedge site at other blogs and even some of the MSM show evidence of nervousness. Their favorite crony capitalist are doing alright but some of the other big buck outfits are feeling pain and are getting upset.
I remember an old cartoon which shows one rat speaking to another on a wheel who is covered with specks being told, “How many times have I told you not to take a dump when you are on the wheel.
“Sat Cong”
Annoy Mouse @ 4 said:
“DOW reacts downward because at the same time November stats were adjusted down. Fewer people are believing the statistics and nobody with a stake in the game.”
Does anyone believe these bogus statistics? Normally they publish the bogus number to provide the MSM with the 30 second sound bite justifying why the PPT ramped up the bogus stock market. It amuses me that they even bother to adjust the numbers one or two months later. The “error” is almost always in the same direction, e.g. the unemployment numbers are adjusted upwards and the GDP numbers are adjusted downwards.
If you want to get extra depressed, check out the following:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/sc/south_carolina_republican_presidential_primary-1590.html
Gingrich’s popularity is collapsing in South Carolina. **IF** the opinion polls can be trusted, it’s looking like Romney has the nomination in the bag. I will vote for whoever runs against Obama but Romney is NOT the right guy to be our next president.
The Three Stooges are but a distant memory, though elections bring out all the Stooges who think they should be in the Oval Office. It need not have been that way, at least not this year, but the Republican first team decided not to play and so we are left with the second string and jayvees. Obama may have a plan to cancel the election, but I don’t think he needs to. All he needs to do is give the stage to the three stooges and stay out of sight until November.
Those right wing guys are truly nuts
To think that that Obama putz
Will cancel the election with a wink
And rule by Diktat with a smile
And honeyed words that will beguile
The masses as they hail their new found Kink
And yet the signs are everywhere
That for the polls he does not care
He acts as though it’s in the bag for sure
He sleeps and golfs and appoints czars
As though it’s written in the stars
That he will be the prez another four
The curtain’s closed, the stage is dark
But in the wings a whispered “Hark!”
As in the dark the Stooges tiptoe in
And then to everyone’s surprise
Moe’s fingers stick in Curly’s eyes
And thus another Stoogie does begin
The audience consists of one
Obama laughs at all the fun
The Stooges just give him a laughing fit
And no it isn’t Larry, Moe
That sends Obama laughing so
It’s Stooges named Ron Paul and Newt and Mitt
Yes, Obama is even again in the polls. Maybe it is because he kept quiet over the holidays. But can the man remain quiet and keep his ratings up for an extended period? Or to put it more controversially: Just how long can a narcissistic keep his mouth shut?
Bambi vs. Godzilla
http://tinyurl.com/33avxz
Meaning nothing really, except it is extreme asymetric warfare.
Y’know, I can really understand this, it’s basically a vote for none-of-the-above, or please-all-of-you-go-away.
Maybe we can have a contest for which candidates can stay out of the public eye most effectively.
ON THE OTHER HAND it ain’t over till it’s over, and we have yet to put Samuel Goldwyn’s maxim* to the test, maybe all this Republican hubbub will pay off a little later.
–
http://www.despair.com/lithographs.html
Maybe we can negotiate a special BC discount.
(I was going to post a pointer to just one of these (on another site), but there are so many good ones to choose from, and no, I have no personal interest in the site other than a depressive appreciation)
–
So, Mitt, huh?
Well, politically, perhaps it will work, he is generally bland enough to get elected, and just as a placeholder if he lets the Republicans win back the Senate, that would be something.
If nobody can see the Republicans getting to 60 seats this time around, Obambus’ arrogant illegalities and Congressional Democratic support for it has given the impetus for the majority party to “use the nuclear option” to eliminate the pathological recent use of the “filibuster” to require a supermajority to move anything in the Senate. Could be the news item for Feb 2013.
Gonna be a bumpy road getting there, tho.
–
eggplant, thanks for the bit about Lausanne and such on the last thread, it does make for some thought.
–
*In case that attribution is wrong, as a quick Google check suggests it might be, I meant “There’s no such thing as bad publicity”, with the corollary, “Just spell my name right”.
There are two candidates with actual positive accomplishments running in the Republican primaries, Gingrich and Perry. Yet it is the non-accomplished candidates, Santorum, Romney and Ron P#OWS who have rallied those who listen to what a candidate promises rather than looking to what they have done.
We voters are ripping our noses off our faces once again. The establishment must be grinning from ear to ear.
MSO @ 19: I’d say Romney, in business and in government, is more “accomplished” than Perry. On an absolute scale he’s maybe not what I’d hope for, but on the curve, he’s not eclipsed by anyone else.
Meanwhile: Iran, Israel and US plan Gulf exercises
Have to check my map to see just what gulf Israel is on, but maybe there’s more to it than meets the eye. And as to Iranian exercises, it will be good to know in advance where all their forces are going to be, ifyouknowhatImeanandIknowyoudo.
This sounds less like the Stooges than Marxian economics.
with all due respect to our host
‘Wolfman vs Dracula.
King Kong vs Godzilla
Abbott and Costello vs Frankenstein
Billy the Kid vs Dracula
(The trend intensified rather than declined over the years)
Alien vs Predator,
Cowboys vs Alien
(and various teenage movies depicting werewolves versus vampires).
(eg: Why My Fellow Christians Need to Embrace Twilight:
(http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2012/01/05/why-my-fellow-christians-need-to-embrace-twilight/)’
the latest one is
”US Rescues Iranian Sailors Held By Pirates”
see: http://news.sky.com/home/world-news/article/16143960
regards
SF
Careful Subotai, you might be mistaken for a Ron Paul supporter or at least sympathizer. The ‘Ronulans’ as they’re called by the troll swarms at the Tatler at least have noticed the NDAA and SOPA…along with their candidate, irrespective of his other flaws.
Santorum? Romney? Bueller? What have the hell have they said about those atrocious bills authorizing censorship on a pretext whim and locking people up indefinitely if The Won says they’re terrorists? I think Newt’s mentioned Fast and Furious maybe once or twice. Romney? Nada. Perry? Maybe once, about as many times as he’s dared to bring up the Fed.
Have they even been asked about NDAA/SOPA?
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheAlexJonesChannel?blend=1&ob=video-mustanginstant#p/u/0/0TMC-FGBGzc
watch from 12:40
Full disclosure – I’ve just spent a day falling on my head in deep heavy snow – but there’s no way that Americans would suffer a Dictator, whether it’s Obam-bus or any other means of transportation. Americans will not allow anyone to be their dictator. Not for one New York minute; not for a Southern second; not for a Texan timeout. No frigging way.
I thought in 2007/8 that if Obama was elected it’d be time to head for the hills. Nothing that has happened since has been in any way reassuring, and there’s worse to come unless the United States finds a way to be more united on the home front, and more assertive in foreign policy – up to and including trashing Iran, as should have happened any time from 2003 onwards – some would say 1979!
The present political and media scene is so divided, and the present administration so limp, I don’t have much hope for the future. Can the Emirs of Incumbency (as Mark Steyn calls the ossified congress) or the Lefty Love Media get smart and start acting in the nation’s interests instead of purely tribal interests?
Thank you westerncanadian. Glad to know our northernmost Texas county has a glimmering of human intelligence in it.
Matter of intentions and capabilities. Obamaroid intentions are very bad.
Obamaroid capabilities not so hot.
I heard much the same gloom and doom back in H2Ogate days. Bad things did not come to pass then and they won’t now. Why? “Drunks, little children and the USA”. We are subject to get the pants scared off of us but we shall pull through like we always do—–by the skin of our teeth.
Westerncanadian@ 24, “there’s no way . . .”
On the other hand, you have to admit that we’re doing a good impression of a country that would suffer a dictator.
Maybe there’s a silent majority out there waiting to rear its head, but from this juncture the Tea Party movement is beginning to look like a short-lived flight into health.
The only solace is that what the usual suspects are trying to control can’t be controlled, and that they will fail. But the history of their failure is not pretty. The places in which these same ideas have tanked in the recent past, Russia, Europe, Africa, Central and South America, are now mostly dysfunctional shells. That’s what leftism tends to leave behind.
Keeping in mind that it took leftism close to a century to drain the life out of Europe and Russia, I see no reason for optimism that the same long, slow slide has not begun for us. At this point, it looks like it will take a miracle for the patient to recover, and to my way of thinking such intervention would have to be deserved, which looks not to be the case from where I sit.
#23 Viktor (Not that Victor)
Shudder!
Me? A Ron Paul supporter? Let me clarify. On a good day, with a downhill run, and a blazing tailwind; Ron Paul is a freaking squirrel. He seems to be an anti-Semitic squirrel at that. Like any squirrel, he finds an occasional nut. Mostly on domestic policy. Yeah, I’d like to see the Federal Reserve audited to a fair-thee-well, and prison sentences handed out if appropriate. But that is coincidence, and not political support. If he is taking after the NDAA and SOPA, more power to him. I don’t know, because I tuned him out a while ago. Just because he notices when the current regime tries to destroy the Constitution, doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. Because he and his acolytes are far from the only ones noticing.
I agree about asking the candidates and the Institutionals about them. They are busy trying to pretend that they are not happening and that all is well even in the face of blatant evidence; which is why on November 7, Patriots need to start working to get out of the Republican Party and into their own. The Institutionals have stabbed us, and the country, in the back way too many times.
#24 westerncanadian
You know it. I know it. But I think that the enemy believes that we have been sufficiently cowed that we can be made to suffer it. And they will force the issue to the point that they will have to be completely convinced in the only way possible. We can do that, convincingly and permanently. But it will cost horrendously.
And the refusal of the Institutionals to stand up and fight politically, materially contributes to the carnage. They won’t stand up and fight with bloodless words and legislative votes; forcing us to count down through the 4 boxes [soap, ballot, jury, and that which shall not be named].
Subotai Bahadur
…Western Canada said it all. Those who dream of a dictator don’t know our people. The cops and the military would lead the way in removing him/her. As much as we despise our Congress, we own our Republic. We pledge to the Constitution.
Churchill’s line about fighting come to mind. A 1940 speech:
“If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.”
Was Winston speaking about 2012?
A second quote that seems appropriate:
“Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win
without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure
and not so costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to
fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for
survival. There may be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is
no chance of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as
slaves.”
Words for today.
News today: 200,000 jobs created in December. I wonder what number that will be revised down to, when Christmas firings finish.
the same cops that looted in NO (after katrina)?
the same cops that let a wounded teacher bleed out in Columbine?
the same cops that supported union thuggery in Madison?
and don’t count on the military stepping up either, they are just another group of pols. those lesbians selected for the home-port kiss tell you all you need to know about political courage in the military. let’s see how many of our heroic generals and admirals resign over obama’s latest outrage; i predict none.
23. Viktor (Not that Victor)
Dude. You really need to upgrade your shtick. You keep flogging the same horse over and over. Newsflash: it’s dead.
Last night I saw upon the stair
A little man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
Oh, how I wish he’d go away
@ 23 alright Subotai, at least recognizing that The Man might be preparing for a nasty social collapse is a good start. That’s getting somewhere. It would be nice if Roger Simon and co. could follow suit now that the hated ‘nor laup’ threat has been beaten back — temporarily, or the GOP will find a way to totally demonize him and marginalize him any way it can.
And Roughcoat — Ron Paul is not my ‘horse’. It’s about a movement, not a candidate. But since you brought it up, I think the Iowa State GOP more or less pulled Rick Santorum out of their a@@es at the last week with a ‘he’s really gaining in our polls’ self-fulfilling prophecy, only to save themselves the horror of a Paul win. And they did it after every anti-Romney flavor of the month melted down. They pulled out a lousy 4,000 vote margin in a glorified straw poll that didn’t require photo IDs, and where Fox News quoted Karl Rove saying Romney and Santorum delegates came to a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ about the vote tally in one precinct (coincidentally, one near ISU in Ames). Was that enough to make Paul first? I doubt it. But I suspect all the padding was going either Romney or Santorum’s way and all the shaving Paul’s way, not to mention some heavy promises to pastors to get their sheeple flocks out for Santorum.
At any rate, there’s a reason the GOP breathed a sigh of relief when thanks to this DOJ redistricting suit Texas’ primary got pushed way back into April by which time nobody would care. Imagine the panic and sheer insanity that would break out should Texas be on the same Super Tuesday as it used to be and Paul narrowly beat out Romney with a huge amount of votes from Paul’s stronghold of Austin.
The trouble for the GOP ‘conservative’ Establishment types who want to avoid it coming down to Romney versus Paul at all costs is those pesky requirements to actually get enough signatures on the ballot. The Tatler says Santorum can’t get on the ballot in a boatload of Super Tuesday states, as that actually requires warm bodies outside of Iowa and is harder to fake (see Gingrich, Newt).
I never expected Paul to win, I only wanted him to stay in the race long enough to at least force even the plastic Romney to go on the record on the Fed, and to point out that Santorum’s top issue isn’t values but pandering to the neocon warmongers. And Papa Paul is building an impressive small donor list and a national set of issues for Rand to ride to victory in 2016 — if we still have elections in 2016.
And lastly on Iran, I don’t get why these people think in the extremely unlikely event Ron Paul getting elected will somehow ‘let’ Iran have a Bomb. At least one Lite Colonel mil analyst interviewed by Fox says the Iranians already have a Bomb. But other analysts say the covert war against Iran has already begun, so how’s Ron Paul gonna stop that while he’s on the campaign trail? The Won can start the bombing any time he pleases, as Subotai says maybe he isn’t worried about getting reelected. And The Weekly Standard will cheer him and say he’s Churchillian. Because they’re war whores first and last, they could give two @hits about the rest of conservatism, whatever that means these days.
Ergo, it appears we’re in a situation with Iran similar to that of what’s happening with Pakistan, where we don’t even know what’s really going on, only that we’re being lied to six ways from Sunday.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QDIxhaEPN0&feature=player_embedded
26. Dave
“Glad to know our northernmost Texas county has a glimmering of human intelligence in it.”
Thank you for the Texas reference and I know it’s meant as a compliment but like millions of other Canadians, I have the same simple unsophisticated love for my
Texas countyCountry – Canada – that you do for America. That’s how I know that Americans will not submit to a dictator – because we wouldn’t either.I daresay that many BC’ers are treading water, and have been doing so for a long time. I think most here fear not for themselves but for our posterity and the nation’s future.
Good thoughts one and all.
And yes, Western Canadian the last time I took the Oath of Office it was to a way-of-life, an idea, an ideal -I imagine that 40% will forget their duty, I pray it isn’t the logisticians.
@23. Viktor (Not that Victor)
I was thinking of posting the same thing about Subotai. When he talks about “Institutional Republican “leadership” in the House and Senate” he is essentially conceding that Ron Paul is the only Republican candidate who is not one of these “Institutionals”, but he cannot bring himself to admit it. Why not? The MIC is a bigger threat to the well being of America than Iran. The MIC owns the “intitutionals” and the MIC pushed for NDAA and SOPA like all the other large fascist-corporatist corporations. These guys own congress and they don’t want the rule of law and a constitutionally constrained government.
Just look at all the BC old timers, Wretchard included. They like to go on about rule of law and the constitution until it starts to limit their favored extra-constitutional activities by the legislative or executive branch. Undeclared wars in Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, are all okay as is the “war on drugs” for most of these guys. To them, Ron Paul is weak on “defense” when he wants to bring troops home from all their forward “preventative” deployments.
Obama has one year to produce a progression of escalating crisis in order to take advantage of. In the end America will be glad to allow him to burn the constitution just like FDR, Wilson and Lincoln did before him. The lesson is clear, in war the executive can steal power and no one will stop it and these stolen rights never have to be returned.
This is why Ron Paul is so correct when he says we don’t need a war with Iran. We don’t, and if we have one then we will certainly get 4 more years of Obama and you all will watch the last bits of the constitution get sucked down the toilet bowl.
Finally, one last plug for Ron Paul. Notice how in all these candidates post Iowa speeches every one panders to the audience in their typical god and america tropes. Well Ron Paul doesn’t do that type of political pandering and it says a lot about him.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-january-4-2012/indecision-2012—the-corn-identity—top-tier-candidates
I’m not a Paul supporter, but I’m glad he’s in the race. Somebody has to speak up for libertarian and constitutional issues. Without him, this election would be a choice between Big Government of the Left vs. Big Government of the Right.
I’m basically a libertarian with conservative leanings; and reading conservative blogs, it’s lately become apparent to me that a lot of conservatives despise libertarians. It’s not just their opposition to Paul, but also the way they mock and ridicule his supporters as “Ronulans” and “Paulbots”. Sarah Palin said the other day, “The GOP had better not marginalize Ron Paul and his supporters.” That’s damned good advice. Will the GOP listen?
It’s also occurred to me that the Republican candidate who would win the most votes among independents and disaffected Democrats is none other than Ron Paul. Of course, he would lose the election since Republican voters would stay home in droves. We’d find out just how serious the people crying “Anyone but Obama!” are, wouldn’t we?
ConfederateH: I’ve also predicted that there’s a good chance that Obama will manage to get us into a major war before the election. It’s a natural tendency of patriots to rally around the President in a time of grave national crisis. During the 1930s Republicans despised FDR, but their opposition melted away when the bombs fell on Pearl Harbor. Hell, even Democrats did that after 9/11, for a couple of weeks at least.
Properly timed, a war or terrorist attack could give Obama enough of a temporary bump in support to put him over the top. Alternatively, it could also give him the excuse he needs to declare a state of emergency and cancel the election.
I’ve voted for every conservative or Republican since 1974. Not this year. Romney could have Reagan or even Jesus Christ (or in his case a corrupt man named Smith) come back from the dead and endorse him, and I won’t cast my vote for him. If Romney is the nominee, the GOP is finished, over, done with, terminally ineffective and useless.
I’ll be looking for a third party candidate, or maybe I’ll even cast my vote for Obama if it makes a difference, but I sure as hell will not vote for the man that 75% of the GOP CANNOT STAND, just because the RINO’s are smarter enough at the political game to rig it.
Romney, even if he did win, would simply rearrange the deck chairs on a ship already awash at the gunnels. He would NOT roll back public spending, and would accelerate “progressive” social change, and would appoint judges who WOULD NOT use the Constitution as their guide.
Between Romney and Obama, the only choices is how long I want to remain above water after the thugs slit my throat. It’s no choice at all.
The RINO’s are in for one hell of a surprise if they think the GOP rank and file will support Romney.
O.S.
Is that Face from A-Team?? Also, anyone who appreciates asymmetric warfare cannot help but love this stuff: http://www.reddit.com/r/bugwars
Despite Ron Paul’s twenty years in Congress, I have been unable to identify any substantial legislation stewarded by him that has passed into law. Combine that lack of leadership with his refusal to recognize that everywhere in the world is only hours away from everywhere else and there exists ample reason to reject his candidacy. Paul’s advocacy of the Austrian school of economics is welcome; his advocacy for smaller government is welcome; so is Rush Limbaugh’s, but I wouldn’t nominate Rush for President.
Romney’s major accomplishment was healthcare with a mandate for the individual while Governor of Massachusetts. He defends the mandate as being legal and that the majority liked it. Nowhere does individual choice enter into his calculations. I don’t think it necessary to flop his flips yet again.
Santorum made a contribution to welfare reform in the ‘90s, but has entangled himself repeatedly in religious legislation. We do have a culture problem in this nation brought about primarily by the tendency to look to government for our moral leadership. Both the left and the right encourage this governmental role arguing only over the details. This, in my opinion, is a mistake.
Perry has successfully managed one of our largest states as Governor of Texas. He has had the advantage of a particularly independent and resourceful population supporting him. Not being familiar with Texas politics and issues, I don’t know where the credit belongs; I suspect it belongs to the Texans as well as the Governor. There is an old saying that while you can’t make your luck better, you can surely screw it up. Perry has avoided that problem.
Gingrich has a proven track record of leadership with his welfare reform and balanced budget successes as Speaker of the House. His was the best conservative success in the modern political era.
Accomplishments speak volumes; words not so much.
Doug Casey describes how Obama (and likely Romney or Santorum) would use the next terrorist attack. At a time when 93 senators vote for the NDAA it is critical that the executive not be occupied by an “institutional”.
“…Let’s state the obvious: opponents of the US Empire are now concentrated among the world’s over one billion Muslims. The new enemy won’t model themselves after past icons of insurgency, like Mao, Che or Ho Chi Minh; those men were guerrilla theorists, trying to supplant one type of nation-state with another. The jihadis’ model will, instead, be Osama, himself a creation of Washington in Afghanistan. And he’s an ideal model for them. Osama clearly stated not only why he was fighting (foreign troops in Muslim homelands, US support of corrupt puppet regimes and US support of Israel – reasonable points). But he clearly stated an attainable objective – the bankruptcy of the US Empire. And he clearly specified a practical method of attaining the objective – terrorism. The US has fallen into his trap.
The US Empire is acting like an enraged giant dinosaur in its death throes and is irrationally cooperating in its own demise. Think, for instance, of the destruction of wealth and freedom that Homeland Security even now causes, in the face of a de minimis terrorist threat. Yes, every year they make a spectacle out of a ridiculous underwear bomber, or they talk some halfwit into fomenting a transparent plan of some sort so they can arrest him and produce some security theater to justify their existence. However, eventually (soon) they will provoke some real and serious terror strikes, perhaps after provoking a real war with Pakistan or Iran.
What form will it take? Perhaps massive systems disruption, which is quite simple to do in an advanced country. Blowing up a bunch of electrical substations would be easy. Poisoning municipal water supplies would create chaos. Or perhaps RPG attacks on refineries and oil tank facilities. Or explosive attacks on large computer server farms.
That’s just scratching the surface. It would be easy to replicate what happened in Mumbai in 2008; a dozen men, equipped with simple weapons, could shut down a city. Or, if they wanted to be more subtle, they could copy the two snipers who, in 2002, operating from the trunk of a car, caused mass hysteria in Washington; they were only caught by accident. The anthrax scare, the Unabomber – anyone with a couple hours of idle time and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s could come up with a score of viable terrorist schemes. The key words are easy, cheap, effective, unpredictable and unstoppable. Leave the rest to the US government, which, because it needs to “do something,” would lock down the country like one of its numerous new prisons.
I doubt the attacks will be gloves-on, like those of the IRA in the latter years of its war against the British. To oversimplify the matter, the IRA was a response to (what it perceived as) the British Army’s occupation of Northern Ireland. At first, like today’s Muslim jihadis, they fought a war against the actual soldiers occupying Ireland and their local collaborators. They eventually came to the conclusion that, even though it was gratifying, it was not only an inefficient use of resources but even counterproductive.
The IRA, intelligently, recognized that you shouldn’t make your home into a free-fire zone just to keep out unwanted guests; so it stopped producing violent incidents in Ireland. Why antagonize people where you live? Second, it figured out its real enemy wasn’t so much the troops in Belfast (they were just pawns), it was the British government in London; so that’s where it redirected its attacks. Third, it made sure not to harm innocents; before it set off a bomb in London, it would alert the media, so that the area could be cleared. They changed their image from mad dogs to aggrieved citizens in the tradition of Jefferson and Franklin and achieved many of their objectives. They used terror tactics but totally changed their image, thereby largely defusing the moral objection to terror.
Unfortunately, when the jihadis bring terrorism to the US, it won’t be the measured version the IRA deployed against the British government. Why should it be? Unlike the IRA, their real demands will be secondary; instead, they’ll be looking for pure revenge. And, certainly after Washington hits a place like Iran or Pakistan, millions will feel the US deserves some real payback. The attacks will be sloppy, nasty and structured for maximum casualties. At that point, it’s completely predictable that the US government will lock the country down. In fact, we may finally find out whether those rumors about FEMA camps are real. In any event, they’ll overreact, which is one of the objects of terrorism, and the reason why it can be so much more successful as a tactic today than it ever was under the Romans or Tamerlane. There’s a good chance, at that point, that the US will go wild and use nuclear weapons against the Muslim world, and Boobus americanus will predictably and thoughtlessly support it.“
I don’t know who Doug Casey is, but I can tell you that his observations concerning the IRA are wrong. In IRA-controlled neighborhoods (e.g., in Derry, West Belfast) and counties (South Armagh) they ruled with a rod of iron. If the lads didn’t often resort to violence it was because they didn’t have to: they terrorized the populace into obedience, and silence. But get out of line, speak against them, show defiance, and the response was usually (after a warning) swift, sure, and violent. At the least, a beating; or a knee-capping; or, in extreme cases, execution. Now that that the IRA has pretty much given up the political struggle, the Hard Men have turned to dealing drugs and racketeering and battling with Prot para-military groups which are engaged in the same activities. They are acting, in other words, like an old-fashioned mafia; except, a mafia that’s very well armed with supposedly decommissioned weapons and highly organized. In terms of violence and threats of violence, they may be even worse than before.
I speak from first-hand experience. And I’m a Catholic Irish-American, btw.
Dave D @ 29: “As much as we despise our Congress, we own our Republic.”
Deep words! Isn’t it interesting that in the longest-lasting democratic Republic in the world, one can say that Congress is despised — and be unquestionably right? After all, lots of us vote for these people 80% of us despise, don’t we?
Incumbency makes democracy dysfunctional. Since the Incumbency is incumbent, there are only two ways to defeat it — render it irrelevant by actively ignoring it (a la Greece), or terminate it with extreme prejudice (a la Madame Guillotine).
I used to believe as westerncanadian does, that Americans “never, never, never will be slaves”, but now I’m more on maineman’s side. Far from “not standing for” a dictator, Americans seem more intent on defining away dictatorship. As long as Obama doesn’t grow a square moustache, it seems to me he’ll go on doing whatever he wants and Americans will just continue to hit the snooze button. What exactly does anyone have in mind to DO to prevent a dictator from arising? Think holy thoughts about George Washington and the Constitution? There seems to be a fantasy that somehow a massive “consciousness” will just arise, and then poof! Everything bad will disappear! There’s sure no hint that anyone will do anything physical – merely mentioning the word “gun” within 2 pages of “Obama” is likely to lead to harrumphs about alerting the Secret Service. Everyone is far too eager to prove their harmlessness to ever, ever think about shoving back. Those who brag the loudest about “stocking up on ammo” are going to do…what? Shoot the mailman as he comes down the drive? Big blow against the federal leviathan there. I’m inclined to agree with Mr. Rochester:
“I am sure, sir, I should never mistake informality for insolence; one I rather like, the other nothing free-born would submit to, even for a salary.”
“Humbug! Most things free-born will submit to anything for a salary.”
http://www.ftportfolios.com/blogs/EconBlog/2012/1/6/all-the-emperors-are-naked
“It’s not that Democrats and Republicans can’t work together. It’s because they are working together. Getting something done is a religion in DC. The House passed this bill by unanimous consent. Not one (1) single member objected.”
Can it get any worst, yes vote them out. Vote in this primary and future primaries. We must find
ethical people to run our government! Please pass this info on to your friends. Where is our major press
reporting on this?
“Humbug! Most things free-born will submit to anything for a salary.”
Exactly, and the promised payoff of the current hour will of necessity be the (false) promise of security. Most Americans seem to sense that there is something deeply wrong but have little idea what that really is. That’s why the messiness of a democratic system such as ours – epitomized by our impotent congress — begins to look like a bad deal alongside someone who says, “Just give me the keys to the kingdom and I’ll fix this mess up for you.” Is this not just one version of the oldest ruse in all of history?
Now, the depth of confusion over what’s wrong looks to be epitomized by Ron Paul’s candidacy. I guess the pull is that he’ll try to reign in or eliminate the Fed as well as a fantasy based solution predicated on isolationism. I may have him all wrong because I can’t take him seriously as a possible leader. But why isn’t that just trying to tune up the engine on the Titanic?
To me, the problem with Paul is simple: he’s a libertarian. Why isn’t libertarianism just an extreme form of liberalism and why isn’t it therefore just another prescription for the tyranny of relativism that is at the root of our troubles?
This is exactly what happened to usher in the horrors of the last century. Johnson, in “Modern Times” does a wonderful job of describing a world adrift as the 20th century began, cut free from the moral, philosophical, theological and cultural anchoring that had underpinned the West for 2,000 years.
What that left as the primary ordering force was the will to power. If history repeats itself, how is it that we’re not looking down into the same abyss again?
Here! Here! Old Salt, I too will never vote for Romney. I will not vote for my own demise.
A couple of weeks ago Romney came out for a VAT tax. A VAT would give the Progressive/ Corporatists/Institutionals a huge reliable new revenue source to grow government beyond your worst fears. That is it’s purpose. And that’s why Romney supports it.
Romney is a Progressive. He has supported a long litany of Progressive causes always to the detriment of Conservatives. He has never expended political capital supporting a conservative one. EVer.
The difference between Obama and Romney is that Obama is a spent force. His ratings go up because the people hate everything he does. Obama has no chance of future legislative accomplishments. That said, Buraq of course will not stop trying to take this country down, and is still very dangerous.
Romney may be more dangerous. He could forge an unstoppable Rino/ Progressive coalition to enact fashionable Progressive legislation like the VAT, the Dream Act and who knows what else. The Rino’s have clearly shown that they are all too willing to join hands with the Progressives on a myriad of Progressive causes to sell out this country.. With the cover of a Romney Presidency, they would have the opportunity of going whole hog “bi-partisan”. The bailouts will continue and grow, heaps of more regulation will be tacked on to the overwhelming oppressive ones we now have and the Depression will become permanent. Conservative opposition would be totally neutered as it sometimes was under Dubya. The Republicans could become just like the Conservatives of Britain – a protector of the ever growing all powerful Nanny State. And we will become tightly controlled serfs.
Related to this discussion, the following article has been posted at American Thinker:
Ron Paul Supporters Are Worth Talking to Amicably
Alas, some of the commenters beg to differ, which reinforces my point in #38. Evidently, some conservatives are more interested in purging the GOP of libertarian influence than they are in defeating Obama.
Well, here’s the trial balloon de jure for Obambus 2012:
White House to Promote ‘Insourcing’ of Jobs Back to America
That is EXACTLY the right issue to focus on, but what can Obambus do about it since he personally represents the overregulation and high taxation that is at least half the problem?
(the other half of the problem is the truly lower cost of doing things overseas, and the fact that Americans selling out their country to foreign competitors can pocket a commission for doing so, effectively liquidating the American infrastructure)
I don’t expect Obambus can accomplish anything at all in this area, but even naming the problem accurately is a huge step forward. And here’s the thing, if the Republicans take a knee-jerk opposition to this and start yammering about Ricardo and free trade, so help me I will vote for Obama. The only solutions to this are going to be bi-partisan, and are going to require a whole lot more input from Republicans and business types.
Now, let’s see if Obambus can even keep his own troops in line, since even Paul Krugman doesn’t agree that this is the prime issue or even important at all.
30 presbypoet: “News today: 200,000 jobs created in December.”
Those were department store and mall Santas being hired for the season.
#49 Rickl….the ‘Conservatives’ interested in purging libertarianism influence are the bastard ‘Trotsky’ Conservatives that infest the pages of Nat Review and were given legitimacy by none other than the tool of statist, WFBuckley. Wake up and smell the crappy coffee.
See, Josh, the Krugman angle tells the tale. When you hypothesize a bipartisan solution, you’re basically saying the way out is to negotiate with evil or to include error as part of the equation. I’m just stating the problem, I know, and have little idea about the solution.
For that matter, isn’t Obie’s naming the problem just coming from his Johnny One Note thing of blaming the rich so he can plunder them and destroy the middle class? How is that a step in the right direction?
Seems to me that the problem is that we’ve become a fat, lazy, and self-absorbed society. When we stop trying to find heaven on earth, we’ll start producing and growing again. How is legislation going to help with that? That’s what you achieve by going to the school of hard knocks.
I’m not a Paul supporter, but I’m glad he’s in the race. Somebody has to speak up for libertarian and constitutional issues. Without him, this election would be a choice between Big Government of the Left vs. Big Government of the Right.
I’m basically a libertarian with conservative leanings; and reading conservative blogs, it’s lately become apparent to me that a lot of conservatives despise libertarians. It’s not just their opposition to Paul, but also the way they mock and ridicule his supporters as “Ronulans” and “Paulbots”.
A few points in response:
1. Unless there is a monolithic characterization to those who like Ron Paul, I think it’s fair to say that there are “supporters” and then there are SUPPORTERS!!!!, aka “fanatics.” The latter can be easily identified by their frequent use of hyperbole and melodramatic rhetoric (“Ron Paul is the ONLY ONE who __________”), their casting of a Paul presidency in quasi-messianic terms (Ron Paul and Ron Paul alone saves the Republic), and their refusal to acknowledge the downsides (some would argue, substantial) to Paul’s candidacy, esp. in a general election matchup vs Obama.
I get the impression it’s the SUPPORTERS!!!! who are being labeled “Ronulans” and “Paulbots” by the un-fans (conservatives and others).
Truly, after the appalling spectacle of 2008, you would *think* that people would know better than to indulge in hyper-emotionalism and messianic claims about other people who are running for president. Reasonable people (and there are certainly those among the Paul supporters[non-caps]) realize, I think, that all the candidates have “cons” (some way more serious and numerous than others), and that there won’t be “a man on a horse” in this election, and even if there were, we really would do wise to steer clear of that person. Because the problem with the man on the horse is that he’s, well, the man on the horse. He not only delivers you from something, but he delivers you *to* something as well. Too few people stop to think about what that “to something” actually is. They prefer the endorphins produced by their Happy Thoughts of Deliverance, and they plop their finger on the Diebold screen accordingly.
I don’t see any good outcomes from that mentality in our current circumstances. The worse one’s situation, the more critical it is to keep a clear head and avoid excessive emotion in either direction — hyper-optimism and hyper-gloom.
Personally, I believe our problems are beyond a human, esp. a political, solution. Politics is downstream from culture. Culture is downstream from worldview. Worldview is downstream from spiritual condition. We are swimming in sludge thinking that the problem is in our stretch of the river. It is not. The problem is way, way, way upstream.
The problem can only be cleaned up at its source.
2. I’m a conservative with libertarian leanings. I don’t despise libertarians. However, I think their approach to political philosophy and practical governance has at least one serious, deal-breaking flaw. And that is their dismissal of the importance of culture (or “society,” if you will) in the political equation.
I’ve addressed this before on Belmont Club, but I think it has been 2 or 3 years since I said this, so I will repeat for new readers and those who have forgotten since the last time:
I’m a conservative because I believe there are three parties in the political equation: the state, the individual, and society (“everyone else” who, in their capacity as citizens, is neither “the state” nor “the individual”), and a successful nation requires all three of these for balance, i.e., like a three-legged stool. Take away any one and things devolve fairly quickly into a country where few want to live and which cannot sustain itself long-term.
The importance of society is thus: When the individual fails to self-regulate, there needs to be a mechanism or entity that will compel the individual to regulate before the iron fist of the state enters the picture. This entity has traditionally been, in America, “society”: the family, the community, the culture, the religious and civic institutions.
Strong families and communities, and a conservative culture (one that encourages tradition rather than transgression), act as a brake on statism, because families, communities and conservative culture act as natural suppressants on deviant behavior, keeping it both off the police blotter and the nightly news. The point is to correct and amend the anti-social personality before he becomes a bonafide law-breaking criminal. But to correct and amend the anti-social personality, you need the firm hand of pro-social (NOT “pro-state”) forces.
Where I part company with libertarians, and emphatically so, is over this issue of society and culture.
You think conservatives “despise” libertarians?
Well, I think it is pretty clear that libertarians, most of ‘em anyway, “despise” (or pick a verb close to that) conservative culture. They do not just throw their lot in with leftists in trashing conservative culture, they do so with *glee.* Mind you, the expressions of culture-trashing can often be wickedly funny … but, they are also often very sophomoric. “South Park,” anyone?
I liken it to being at a party with a bunch of 12-year-old boys. It’s a blast to try absolutely everything you can get away with, and, yeah, at 2AM, *all* fart jokes are funny, as are the ridiculous bragging, the pseudo-humiliation rituals and the kabuki violence. …. But in the end, the basement is an unholy stinking mess of Cheeto crumbs, spilled soda and at least one broken piece of furniture. And guess who has to clean the place up? You got it. Mom and Dad.
See, knocking things down is easy. Making a mess is easy. Building and cleaning, not so much. That is sweat work.
I think libertarians’ love of individual liberty is a great thing.
But liberty is not license.
And therefore the love of liberty is an incomplete passion, and, as a political philosophy, potentially ruinous if not coupled with the awareness that (a) people are gonna be idiots and crapweasels and destructors, and you have to have a way to deal with them that does not involve calling the cops and spinning out 54,682 laws per annum, and (b) given that people are gonna be idiots, crapweasels, and destructors, it therefore generally helps NOT to encourage them.
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” — John Adams
Every time I look at a picture of Romney, I could swear I’m seeing an older version of Jon Hamm.
Don Draper for President?
No thanks.
unsk – “Here! Here! Old Salt, I too will never vote for Romney. I will not vote for my own demise.”
I made it known by everyone I knew that I would not vote for McCain then in the end held my nose and voted for him anyway. Looking back, GWB was a big government nightmare that was fueled by 911. I think progressives furtively envied Bush for his position of absolute power, able to breath new institutions and dollars into existence like a Hindu god, growing government by multiple factors and doing so with the full support of both sides of the house. But as I and others have previously suggested, Obama would have been the greatest president ever if he merely maintained status quo, rather than trying to bend the will of the nation to his grand plans. The economy was elastic enough that it would have bounced back and the big ‘O’ could have taken full credit for it. Instead he infused more uncertainty.
I fear Romney far less than I fear a second Obama administration. Obama has terrorized this nation with scant support and with key allies in congress resorting to parliamentary tricks to do his bidding. I dare not imagine what he’d do with a “mandate” from the American people. The damage would be irreversible, that is for sure, 100% sure. Romney is a risk but he is a 50% risk in my mind. Business cannot operate without a plan and cannot plan without stability. With regulations coming down the pipe at the beck and call of whimsical conspiracy nuts, AGW, MENA meddling, etc., there is no safe bet. He has business sense, hopefully enough to calm markets and to stabilize government radicalism. I am rolling the dice on this one.
And here’s the thing, if the Republicans take a knee-jerk opposition to this and start yammering about Ricardo and free trade, so help me I will vote for Obama.
What you mean is, if the Republicans take a knee-jerk opposition to insourcing, you will take a knee-jerk opposition to the GOP.
Please see my note above in #54 about avoiding emotional reactions in times of dire circumstances.
You are a more rational guy than this, Josh.
You KNOW what Obama is. You KNOW he will never, ever, ever do anything intentionally that will in the long run make this country stronger and better, more prosperous, more competitive internationally. At a bone-deep level, he hates American prosperity and he loathes American power.
Giving this man your vote is like flinging sand at the other kid in the sandbox because he just called you a poopyhead. Irrational and counterproductive.
I’m not saying you have to vote for the GOP nominee.
But voting for Obama?
That is wicked stupid. And you are better than that.
Great comment, bogie wheel (#54). I don’t dispute any of it, except I would substitute “many of ‘em” for “most of ‘em”. You are correct that many people who call themselves libertarians are more accurately described as libertines.
Too many people, both pro-libertarian and anti-libertarian, think that “libertarianism = drug legalization” and go no further. To my way of thinking, proper libertarianism must include strictly circumscribed government as well as free-market economics. An individual would be free to be a libertine if he wants, but neither government nor the larger society would be under any obligation to bail him out of the mess he creates for himself. And of course, his liberty ends where he begins to create a mess for others.
I agree with your #57 too. Voting for Obama in 2008 may–may–have been excusable, but in 2012? No. Not under any circumstances. In fact, that would be a useful yardstick if things turn really ugly. Anyone who voted for Obama twice would be a self-defined enemy of the United States, and should be dealt with accordingly.
m @ 53: See, Josh, the Krugman angle tells the tale. When you hypothesize a bipartisan solution, you’re basically saying the way out is to negotiate with evil or to include error as part of the equation. I’m just stating the problem, I know, and have little idea about the solution.
maineman, the problem is arithmetic, it is structural, it is that if you move 100% of the jobs to China, then we have $0 to buy anything they make, and that is neither in China’s interest nor ours. OK, dynamic theory says therefore it will never go THAT far, but the same dynamic theory says that systems tend to overshoot equilibrium and get into strange attractor basins that are hard to escape, and that’s pretty much what has happened to us already.
No, I don’t particularly see this as wealth envy, neither Marxist nor populist. What one should fear is that the Democratic take on jobs will be hijacked by the unions, who from time to time have made slight efforts at protectionism for their members, and this danger is greatest if the issue is left (sic) to the Democrats.
So how about a little Christian charity for the opposition here rather than the Manichean outlooks? Even Paul Krugman may be saved, or so we are supposed to pretend, and to pray for.
You are this far right (correct), in that there IS no “compromise” between arithmetic and wishful thinking, either the numbers work, or they don’t. That is why the Democratic whining about the Tea Party “not compromising” is so putrid, the Tea Party is, at its core, just about the arithmetic, and that there are no taxes so high that the money can’t all be wasted or stolen and then some. So the compromise HAS to be for them (Dems) to come to us, for the most part. BUT if we do not take the right position in the first place, if we cede the proper goal to the other side because we are lazy or stupid (or both), what then? That’s more what I am afraid of, since right now, NOBODY is taking the proper position, NOBODY sees the structural problem, that is NOBODY in Washington, since Donald Trump sees it clearly in New York and rants about it regularly on Fox News, and Jay Leno sees it clearly in Burbank and jokes (!) about it regularly on the Tonight Show. Nice of Obambus to finally catch on. Now, how about the Republicans?
(I have some vague recollections that Newt or Mitt or others may have blurted out a sentence or two about bringing back jobs (aka businesses) from China, but not in any particularly focused or urgent way)
The idea that Obambus will pick up this proper idea and that the Republicans will reject it, turns my stomach worse than anything that has come before in this social, political, economic meltdown, since I don’t see ANYONE in the Democratic party capable of making any headway on it, don’t trust the Axelrod/Jarrett axis as capable of anything positive. Must be how the Romans felt under Caligula and Nero, not just the pathologies of the individuals but of the system that put them there.
Newt the Genius? Romney the Businessman? LuapNor the Mxyzptlk? Santorum the Saintly? Where are they on this? Nowhere.
Gaaaaaaaah.
–
for those who are worried about my soul when I talk about actually voting for Obama, well, thanks I guess. I suppose my fate is going to be to hold my nose and vote for Romney this November, but I see how many others here ranting about how they can’t or won’t, and it just might go even further with me, depending on just which side even PRETENDS to have a clue. better they all stay behind their respective curtains and let us vote for whatever we project on them, huh?
Josh, I won’t rule out voting third party (i.e., Libertarian), and in fact I’m currently leaning in that direction. But I would gnaw my own hands off before I’d pull the lever for Obama.
Whoops, I think I’ve hit the four comment mark. That may be a first for me here.
50. Josh
Before disappearing down the rabbit hole of Protectionism wherein millions of unwanted Lada automobiles can be found, I suggest reading Protectionism by Jagdish Bagwati
Protectionism is no way to compete.
Yeah, but Josh, what I’m getting at is not the arithmetic but what is being calculated and why. What would we do with prosperity if we could recapture it? What would Krugman do, the Democrats who now inhabit the party, the Republicans, you, me?
I submit that we handled it poorly before and that the liberals among us, which once included me, bear more of the guilt than those who have believed in tradition and the existence of morality.
My mother employed an old, black Pentacostal woman from South Carolina when I was a kid, and one day she said to me, “Greggry, you better get your mind right with God or God is gonna whup you, and you don’t want God to whup you.”
I think we’re in the process of being whupped.
I don’t know if this helps, but in those lists, it’s hard to find any one of the two opponents that I would root for over the other- c.f. “dracula vs. the Wolfman”, one’s a bloodsucker, the other a crazed killer on ergot (moldy bread). What language do politicos speak such that they can’t fool us (any longer) into thinking that one candidate wants something different from what the other guy and his party want?
Another structural problem previously mentioned in this thread. If someone, a president steps out of line, goes unconstitutional, the recourse is….the court? And, as the example stated, it would get held up for years in various limbo courts waiting for the supreme court to rule.
That mentality frames most perceptions of government. Congress is perceived as a non-stop assembly line of “new legislation!” and the courts take on the role that was once attributed to the senate, that of stopping a frenzy of bills coming out of House of Representatives.
Yet, there have been bills of repeal that have passed in the House, and that is the future for congress, to re-re-define (back) it’s role of enforcing the constitutional limits to power from the executive office as well as the legislative branch (the courts be damned!). So, I look to leadership in the House as a make or break opportunity this year. Or else it will be a missed opportunity.
Boehner has been very good on defense, and/but, the only way to take the offensive is to proceed, at some point, with impeachment proceedings in the House (this year). But, timing is everything. Impeachment proceedings must be initiated late enough so that votes to impeach are completed on or about election day, November sixth. Removal from office is not only not necessary, but irrelevant. Senate votes to remove from office following (successful) impeachment in the House. Leave that for a post election lame duck senate session. Either the voters see the resident as a sympathetic figure hounded by republicans who dare challenge his “authoritay” or the voters will remember what they, their community and their economy have been put through and that Davis slashed and burned his way through all the goodwill he was ever going to get at least a year ago. We have to take this gamble. That’s the way Davis is playing it from his end, chicago style hardball- any usurpations that go unchallenged amount to tacit approval as far as this administration is concerned.
You fight the war you have. And it’s also been said that “…there’s already laws on the books!“. Terrific. Let’s start enforcing them. Or else the law will mean little else than selective enforcement based on whether one is privileged or un-privileged, the slant flipping in the breeze of whatever party holds sway. Pretty much the way it is now.
Party leadership has to face this challenge or kick this can on down the road (again) promising yet again that somethings will be done once we get the upper hand again. Been there done that. Heard that! One too many times too many.
And to refer back to the premise? Republican party too often has griped and complained about “power grabs” “abuses” etc from democrat party but only too happy to use them once they “return to power” (*cough*cough*Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry) . People are fed up with this. It all looks so “shared” between the two.
We need an ‘either or’ proposition facing the electorate. Only way to enforce the idea that one party represents one thing, and the other party represents another thing, and that the choice here lies with the consent of the governed.
P.S. …at least in “Abbot and Costello vs. Frankenstein” they’ve double-teamed Frankenstein.
…Doctor Paul has captured a large part of the youth vote who seem to be especially devoted to him personally…a cult of personality. They crave the respect of others, but routinely engage in gaming the system and perverting polls. Many Paulites go out of their way to insult and denigrate Conservatives and conservative beliefs. Doctor Paul having endorsed Cynthia McKinney for President in 2008, as well as reserving to himself the option of running as a third party candidate, makes it all the harder for Conservatives to take him seriously.
…I don’t think Doctor Paul can direct the mass of his supporters, even if he wanted to, to support any of the Republican candidates. They won’t do it. I believe they will vote for him in some manner or fashion, regardless. If I’m right, and Doctor Paul is not the Republican nominee, his supporters votes are gone from the system. Null, as all the votes of all the fringe candidates have always been in our winner take all system.
…So why should the other Republicans show anything but disrespect to Doctor Paul and his followers. If they get good and mad, they’ll take their votes and go home, as they’ve done before. Or vote for another ‘Micky Mouse’, besides Doctor Paul.
Too many people, both pro-libertarian and anti-libertarian, think that “libertarianism = drug legalization” and go no further. To my way of thinking, proper libertarianism must include strictly circumscribed government as well as free-market economics. An individual would be free to be a libertine if he wants, but neither government nor the larger society would be under any obligation to bail him out of the mess he creates for himself. And of course, his liberty ends where he begins to create a mess for others.
Agreed, rickl, but again (wearing my conservative cap here), I think your description of “proper libertarianism” falters when it comes to the question of when and how to respond to Messes Created.
If we wait until the addict is a slobbering homeless person or a house-burglaring criminal to discuss “to bail out or not to bail out,” then we have already lost the battle in most of those cases, i.e. a high percentage of those people will never, having sunk so low, recover a level of being a productive member of society. The time to apply pressure on deviant behavior is much, much earlier, and it has to be done with a lot more force than we are applying now, given what I think most would agree is an unacceptable rate of dysfunction (people who cannot or will not work, feed, clothe or think for themselves) in the American population.
Again, I am talking about socio-cultural pressure and socio-cultural force here. Not pressure and force from the state.
Go back to my quotation from John Adams in #54. Rephrasing it, what he means is, ONLY a moral and religious people (society, culture) can be governed by a system of limited government (i.e. the hands-off federalist approach of the US Constitution). To take it one-step further, ONLY a moral and religious people can sustain a free-market economic system. Otherwise, anti-social economic behavior (greed, exploitation, cheating and manipulation) will eventually create so many economic disasters and inequities that people will clamor for, guess what, strong government regulation. (as if, as Milton Friedman observed wryly, the government is just full of selfless angels waiting to do justice, with nary a thought for themselves or their buddies)
Let the culture be religious and moral, so the government may be limited.
Let the culture be religious and moral, so the economy may produce the most prosperity for the greatest number of citizens.
Unfortunately, our culture, in the form of most of its popular entertainment, sneers at the Church Lady. Ridicules her. Portrays her as a laughable, humorless scold, a hypocrite, even. She commits the cardinal sin of the Boomer era: that of being Uncool.
And witness the result of our anti-religious (anti-Judeo-Christian, to be specific) and immoral culture: family disintegration, social decay, vulgarization of just about everything (esp. language in public), increased dysfunction, rampant growth of the state.
The lesson should be clear but, alas, isn’t to too many people: If you don’t live amicably alongside the Church Lady, you *will* eventually live under Big Brother. This is just reality. There is no third option. As Bob Dylan put it, “you’re gonna have to serve somebody.” The Devil or the Lord. Choose one.
Libertine producers of cultural products, and libertine consumers of same, currently command the cultural heights in this country, and they are crapping downhill on the rest of us.
I would be delighted if non-libertine libertarians aided non-statist conservatives in the battle against both cultural implosion and runaway government. Such an alliance, however, needs at least this much from each side: libertarians have to stop allowing (participating in and/or egging on) the trashing of conservative culture, i.e. Judeo-Christian traditions and public expressions of faith by observant Jews and Christians; and conservatives have to make a hard, hard break from any and all impulses to seek political “solutions” to cultural crises, esp. at the federal level.
The Framers’ vision was that the American people be moral and religious, so that the American governnment would not have to play priest.
Alas, what we have now is, to our detriment, quite the reverse: an immoral and anti-relgious culture, and a highly religious government. Where the religion is that of The State.
As you might expect, The State is a jealous god, and his priests and acolytes, all militant monotheists. Thou shalt have no other gods before The State.
Ya gotta serve somebody.
Turns out the Devil’s price is a lot higher than the Lord’s.
Who’da thunk?
maineman @62:
I think we’re in the process of being whupped.
Yes. I believe the biblical term is “chastening.”
Which BTW is an expression of God’s *mercy.* If He wants to destroy a nation, He can and will (and has).
My prayers for the United States of America is that we suffer chastening but not destruction. There is no way, utterly none — as in zip, zilch, nada — that we will escape without either. It is one or the other.
Pray for chastening, folks. Those of you who do pray, at any rate.
4/4 for me
seems inevitable that the country is partioned.
Partitioned? Yikes! Do you know where that would leave me?
As for chastening, if we can go from meaninglessness to mission then we’ll be alright at the end of the day.
Confederate:
I don’t recall Wretchard touting the glories of pimply faced death from above delivered from a guy with a joy stick 6,000 miles from Pakistan in Nevada or better yet automated drones coming to U.S. skies and farmlands near you; nor Obama’s Kinetic Military Action removing the Duck of Death from behind…getting to be Bush by overthrowing an Arab dictator of an oil-rich country but not having to be uncool like Bush was.
If anything, Wretchard displays a profound disquiet, because he knows what the Islamists are, and if start killing kids as he wrote in a recent comment we will have become the Salafist/Islamist monster we’re trying to slay. From his breakthrough with “The Three Conjectures” on, Wretchard has always said the fault lies not in the Islamists doing what they’ve done for 1,400 years but in ourselves. While Byznatium was strong it held back the Islamist tide, but once that culture decayed into a love of luxury and corruption, and various Russian and European states descended into dynastic feuding, they were overwhelmed. Wretchard is NOT a neocon but a theocon if I’ve understood him correctly for the past few years.
Furthermore, I would think given all the rampant, dialed up and apparently coordinated fortnight of on Paul hate here at PJM (Newt sponsored?) that Confederate would be glad that Wretchard and Glenn Reynolds, the two bloggers who account for the lion’s share of PJM’s traffic, conspicuously abstained. Wretchard merely noted that Ron Paul’s supporters want to kill an already dying Leftist/corporatist Status Quo off and start over with the Constitution and sovereign states. That may be utopian given how much the culture has degraded (per Bogie Wheel’s comment @ 54 and @ 66) but to the extent that it’s about a movement not a man and could let a hundred thousand L3s bloom, I’m all for it.
I don’t include Glenn linking to Alan Dershowitz’s hysterical screed in the Jerusalem Post calling Paul an anti-Semite for refusing to scour the Internet for any white supremacist (or fake, planted) racist pro-Paul quotes. Glenn has earned the benefit of the doubt that I wouldn’t take that as an endorsement as he’s quite friendly with plenty of Paul friendly folk in Tennessee and backed Rand’s campaign in 2008 in neighboring Kentucky.
Kudos to BCers for realizing Romney is as fake as a three dollar bill and is the old ‘Rockefeller Republicans’ once again shoving Wall Street’s preferred pick down GOP voters’ throats. Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater were the only exceptions to this GOP nominee rule, going all the way back to Eisenhower.
Confederate if you want to debate with some people that hate Russia and other foreign powers more than they love America, including a bunch of foreigners that want to tell America how to run her foreign policy, go here:
http://www.streetwiseprofessor.com
“Pray for chastening, folks. Those of you who do pray, at any rate.” Would the neocons be able to stomach what David Goldman quoted Lincoln as saying, “The judgements of the LORD are true and righteous altogether.” including judgement on this nation?
http://www.blackfive.net/main/2012/01/seal-sniper-punches-jesse-the-body-ventura.html
And as for this: the mil-blogs appeared to have been corrupted as part of a coordinated campaign. I hate to say this, but it looks like it was run by the same asshats who turned PJM into the 24-7 Paul hate blog.
Enter this Fox News Sniper hero who goes around wearing a death’s head emblem (hmmm…don’t want to go there who that reminds me of) says he punched old Jesse ‘The Body’ Ventura. First of all, why is punching a 60 something year old man whose body is shot from a pro-wrestling career a praiseworthy thing, even if he is making remarks that you find offensive? And second, Jesse is denying that he ever said any such thing that this clownish guy who claims to be a real SEAL says he did.
Somebody is lying, and I’ll take the ex-Minnesota Governor’s opinion over this clownish guy’s any day, even he can drill me from 300 meters.
Viktor, i saw the interview with the seal that punched jesse, and he is not clown-like at all — which is more than i can say for you. i have produced farts that are more profound than anything you have ever posted here. shut the hell up and go copulate yourself.
Of course cjm, real men all wear a death’s head like the SS. You need a ban hammer. I’m out of posts here. Notice once I say this crap is coordinated with the book roll out and Blackfive is facilitating five year old libel against a guy who just coincidentally is outta cell phone range in Mexico this weekend (Ventura), the trolls come out of the woodwork. That means I’ve hit my target.
Viktor, I stand by what I said above about your need to upgrade your shtick. I was not referring to Ron Paul when I mentioned the dead horse you keep flogging but rather to the repetitive nature of your messaging. You’ve been writing essentially the same post, saying pretty much the same thing, for going on several months. I’m not judging the content of your posts or the merits of your views. The content is good in terms of being well written and your views have merit even though I disagree with you on most points. But you keep telling us the same thing over and over and over and over. You’ve become the BC equivalent role of a cocktail party bore. We get it, already. Now, I’m going to the bar to order another drink. Maybe if I get real, real drunk I can continue to read/listen to you.
When we were kids we’d think up funny contests that were actually asymmetrical and not just weird or classic match ups.
That would be like The Wasp vs. Galactus or Robin vs. The Fantastic Four or Pippi Longstockings vs. King Kong.
The only thing more funny than hearing about Jesse Ventura getting punched in the face would be seeing video of the same thing happening to Nor Luap.
I’ll bet he always got his head shoved into the toilet bowl when he was in Jr. High.
To put it mildly, Boehner has been THE major disappointment of what looked like new possibilities for a moment.
59. Josh – (I have some vague recollections that Newt or Mitt or others may have blurted out a sentence or two about bringing back jobs (aka businesses) from China, but not in any particularly focused or urgent way)
There’s no magic formula that can overcome the difference in labor costs without protectionism, and due to partisan constraints there are only a couple of items in the Republican toolbox to fix things: regulation and taxes. Opportunity creates markets, markets create producers, producers create jobs, jobs create wealth, wealth creates consumers, consumers create opportunity, repeat…it seems as though adding momentum to any point on this cycle would be beneficial, counteracting the recent negativity of market crash, jobs lost, wealth evaporated, etc.
But Chinese labor is a background issue of permanence now, like climate change as opposed to the earthquake of the bank bailout period. I know Americans who own and run a company in Shanghai and their Chinese dept. head from the US Midwest branch. I don’t exactly like this but it’s hard to argue against: they are established but not large, competition with multinationals is a factor, and without sales, they have no jobs for anyone, period, never mind an American shop. This state of affairs was years in the making.
So I understand those not saying we’re going to bring manufacturing jobs back, because it’s unlikely at the moment, and I don’t think Obama is doing much besides making the right noises – what exactly does he mean? He has a partisan toolbox as well, and focuses on union and government jobs while kowtowing to corporations in ways that some find abhorrent. I would love to see jobs returning, but I think it will be more like rewarding Target Corp. or Verizon for dropping their Indian call centers. Not pretty.
I will need more evidence before believing his ideas are the right ones.
When I was a kid, any adult – any responsible adult – would not hesitate to challenge any kids they saw being “naughty”, hurting an animal, shoplifting, vandalizing stuff, mis-behaving.
As a famously naughty kid – and brother to another – I can confirm this amply.
Adults would take kids, find their parents, drop them off at the parents’ homes and report on exactly what had gone on. The only place I’ve heard of this sort of community enforcement continuing is in the Society for Creative Anachronism!
Fast forward through several decades of Comintern Agitprop, Madeleine Murray O’Hare, ACLU, The Warren Court, Hollywood infiltrated by cocaine-snorting perverts, the pill, Rowe-v-Wade, Timothy Leary, etc.
By the time I’d hit 20, courts and the police were not even waiting for an “offended” parent to complain about having their precious kids constrained from any behavior by teachers, familiar adults, or strangers. People were being arrested and CONVICTED of assault, trespassing, et cetera, and subjected to insane civil suits for trying to stop kids doing vicious acts. Child Protective Services were empowered to jail parents and snatch their kids, on the whiff of suspicion that the parents had imposed any sort of physical discipline, much less sexual abuse.
It was clear by that time our culture had been turned on its head. Even if these outrages were rare enough they still were newsworthy the current had turned from a force that flushed sewage out of the bay, to a tidal bore of pestilence creeping relentlessly upstream.
It’s easy to draw the line at folks who machine-gun girls for going to school, who throw acid in the faces of insufficiently modest women, who hang homosexuals from industrial cranes lining the public thoroughfares, who shoot down political protesters in the streets, and on and on.
It’s less easy to know how we properly resist who in our own society defend and enable those outrages. It looks increasingly that the present ruling coalition is determined to provoke a bloody conflict precisely because they think they can prevail. I believe they repeatedly mistake civility and forbearance for weakness.
Preparedness and steadfastness are great virtues now.
37. ConfederateH
@23. Viktor (Not that Victor)
………….
37. ConfederateH talking about ron paul sounds like a real american ron paul guy which smartens up the board
@23. Viktor (Not that Victor) talking about ron paul sounds like a fsu/kgb guy which dumbs down the board.
70. Viktor (not that Victor)
Somebody is lying, and I’ll take the ex-Minnesota Governor’s opinion over this clownish guy’s any day, even he can drill me from 300 meters.
…….
Most americans would think you have this backwards.
Russia has an upcoming election. you sound like a putin guy. you would smarten up the board by arguing why putin is a better pick than Medvedev–in terms of Russian interests and sympathies-.- now you would naturally sound like a Russian state organ guy so you will conflate the Russian state with the Russian people. You will not sound like a Russian small town guy so you wouldn’t make Russian small town arguments in the way ron paul guys make American small town arguments. that’s ok. people will understand. all you have to do is leave room for Russian small town arguments.
@69. Viktor (not that Victor)
“Wretchard is NOT a neocon but a theocon if I’ve understood him correctly for the past few years.”
For better or worse, the word “Neocon” has been tied to the “Jews” and I am sick of all the smears of “racist” and “anti-semite”, so I don’t use it.
BC from the beginning has had a very “interventionalist” stance and it is reflected by the large numbers of law enforcement and veterans in its membership who generally are very pro military. I apologize to Wretchard if I am wrong on this.
Even during the first weeks of the Iraq invasion I believed that the good intentions of the troops could over power any corrupt motives of the politicians. Whether it is mood of the country, the character of the military or something else, I cannot say, but I am convinced that any further ME intervention is definitely far more corrosive to America and its interests than costs of non-intervention.
At the core the issue is fiat money and the control of it by the worlds bankers. These interventions never would have happened without loads of freshly printed world’s reserve fiat currency, and America would be better off if the banks had never gotten control of the money machine and made it all possible. We still don’t know how much the Fed pumped into the worlds banking system in 2008, but it has got to be over $10T. This is all money stolen from those holding dollars, the primary of which is the US middle class but it also includes much of the worlds middle classes.
IMO, the MIC is just as guilty of plundering these dollar holders as are Freddy and Fannie, EPA, etc; and it is just as bloated and corrupt. To rely on the MIC to combat the islamists or even to morally redeem our culture is now clearly the height of folly. The only possible fix lies in a massive purge of the entire federal government including DOD. And it won’t happen even if Paul is elected. But at least he recognizes the core issue, that the middle classes (okay, call it the 99%) need an uncorruptable medium to store their wealth in. Ron Paul would work to do the following for the American middle class.
- Make gold and silver legal tender
- Audit the Fed
- Audit the gold
- Eliminate the Fed
- Eliminate income taxes
#77 Tee: “…there are only a couple of items in the Republican toolbox to fix things: regulation and taxes.”
And a third thing – greatly reducing the size of government overall, which is what, something like 40% of GDP now? That’s an eternally no-growth, insurmountable drag on the economy, but I don’t hear any candidates talking about it. If they have, and I’ve missed it, then I don’t believe they really mean it. In fact, I really can’t see that 40% figure doing anything but increasing from here on out. Or at least from here on until it all finally collapses. Barring a cataclysmic WWIII or something equally devastating, we can probably tread water for quite a long while, enduring years of stagnation and a standard of living that gradually and continuously diminishes over time. I think TPTB will do everything possible to try to ensure the slide downward *will* be somewhat gradual – it wouldn’t do for it to be too sudden. If they can pull that off, Americans will go on hitting the snooze button.
#66 Bogie: “Let the culture be religious and moral, so the government may be limited."
Too many Americans don’t see the connection there. Not only do they fail to see the connection of “a religious and moral people” and a limited government (which they don’t want anyway), they don’t even see a connection between being religious and being moral.
During the hard times of the 1930′s, accepting charity was often considered a disgrace. Now it’s not charity; it’s not even welfare, but an entitlement.
I think we’re losing the thread here.
Principles are (well, can be) wonderful things; but as in the words of one of America’s greatest philosophers:
“If you can’t be with the one you love….”
The current administration must be removed—legally—from office. (If you aren’t yet convinced of that, then just wait a few more months).
And if it’s Romney that’s got to do the “removing,” well then….
And if it’s Rick….
And if it’s Ron…
Etc.
It might not be terribly exciting. It might not capture the imagination. But beware of “exciting” and watch out for less than meaningless catchy slogans.
File under: Bland faith
All I want to see is a return to the rule of law. To my knowledge, all of the Republican candidates believe in that. Barry, on the other hand, has unwittingly stated that he doesn’t and, more obviously, acted in such a way as to reaffirm that fact.
I don’t know if anyone here watched the Republican debate last night but it was the first I watched and China and jobs were discussed as well as the size of government versus GDP. It was pretty good and it put me more at ease after having my nerves spooled up by reading all of the doom and gloom and no hope agitation that has been put forth above. Any one of these candidates with a Democrat controlled house and senate would be worthy of our support. With Republican control I think the big turd that is glutting up the US economy would pass. You don’t have to do the opposite of what Obama is doing, but anything other than what that devout Marxist does is good enough up to and including doing nothing.
Romney’s main drawback for me is his tax plan. He doesn’t cut the top personal rate, and cuts off breaks at $200,000. And his “rich can take care of themselves” comment would be appropriate for a Democrat. He must know better.
My guess is he’s doing it to protect himself against attacks in the general election. I doubt it will work. I would bet, though, that if he wins the congress will produce a better tax bill, and Romney would sign it.
The Reps are odds-on to win the Senate even if Obama gets reelected. But Obama would veto a repeal of ObamaCare, and it couldn’t be overridden in the Senate.
A Republican House and Senate with a Dem president should restrain some spending, though. Republicans controlling all three don’t have much history of spending restraint, though I don’t see how they could be worse than the last few years.
oldsj
The best example of asymmetric warfare is Big Washingtom vs. the Taxpayers. the winner is yet to be determined.
“All I want to see is a return to the rule of law. To my knowledge, all of the Republican candidates believe in that.”
Yes but whose law?
“The current administration must be removed—legally—from office.”
Once again…Whose law?
Law as a noun is very fuzzy. That is why ‘ell is knee deep in former lawyers. All of whom were quite happy to argue that a clients version of the law was the correct one.
So whose law? Obama’s version, Bill O’reily’s version or your version. Yeh, I know they write all that stuff down. Read the First amendment and find the word ‘expression’.
Once again…Whose law?
81. ConfederateH
I think you’ll find that the dollar will form a secular low this year and start a slow rise in 2013 if obama remains in the white house and a fast rise if any pubbie is elected. the fed for their part will pull dollars out of the system if the economy heats up too much. fiat money works both ways.
there’s a lot of central bankers that switched to gold in the last 12 months that are going to feel awfully stupid when they realize they bought at the high.
why the rise in the dollar? all energy independent countries have strong currencies. the USA is on track to be energy independent in 10 years or less. if the pubbies get the white house, they’ll quickly drop federal deficits to 0 which will greatly strengthen the dollar.
To start anew, you must begin at the beginning.
So for the U.S. it would be the original Constitution and the Ten Commandments.
Our country cannot stand without both. Think of this experiment as a three legged stool. Constitution, Ten Commandments, Virtuous Man.
Remove one and the stool falls over.
Here comes the floor. . .
30. Presbypoet :+100
31. cjm : The military has no say in the matter, they don’t make law they follow orders unless those orders are illegal. See how that works?
45. Dr. Mabuse: Speaking entirely for myself, I am waiting to see if the legal system of government will right itself. I will support and defend the Constitution as long as it exists and for as long as it still stands for freedom FROM government. Threats and bluffing are for fools. It should be pretty easy to know when legal means are no longer viable means and civil war is required. Until then, stay informed, inform others and participate in the process. Those who stay at home during elections are cowards. They only participate when they are guaranteed a win. They disgust me.
54. bogie wheel :Amen. IMO, Libertarians want freedom without responsibility. Freedom without responsibility is anarchy.
65. Dave D.: I suspect the yutes are only interested in the legalization of marijuana. Ask some of them about how to fix _________, and you will get nonsense.
Who ever said this above: “….and Paul narrowly beat out Romney with a huge amount of votes from Paul’s stronghold of Austin.” Knows not a damn thing about Austin. Austin, Texas is known as ‘Moscow on the Colorado’. It has UT which is decidedly liberal. It is a sanctuary city whose denizens are alike to the worst of the rust belt minority thugs. Mexican cartel gangs and liberal squishes run the place. The place is Obama country pure and simple.
And anyone saying that Subotai is off in his assessments needs to revisit their cognitive abilities. Most of my Redneck friends are of the same opinion, that we may not see an election in the fall. NDAA + SOPA = NSDWP.
And don’t you dare make fun of them…or it’s raaaaacist!
The Sun King does not like being questioned!