The Coming of the Next American Republic
James DeLong‘s book, Ending ‘Big SIS’ (The Special Interest State) and Renewing the American Republic is that rarest of books, the kind which tells you things you’ve long suspected about big government but had never systematically put together. DeLong does from the perspective of both a scholar and practicioner. A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School, member of the bars of the District of Columbia, the State of California, and the Supreme Court of the United States, and with long and wide experience inside and outside Federal bureaucracies, DeLong is now a Senior Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
His message is simple. The US Federal Government has become exactly what the the Founders feared the most and designed the Constitution to prevent: a Special Interest State.
The thesis of this book is simple. It is that U.S. politics has gone astray by losing this fundamental insight of the Founders. Rather than maintain a government designed to prevent and control the power of faction, we have allowed a wide variety of factions to capture parts of the government and then use the government’s powers to spend, to tax, to legislate, and to regulate for their own purposes. The term “factions” is not commonly used now, but “special interests” is a reasonable synonym. Thus, we can call our current political structure “Big SIS”, which is short for “the Special Interest State”.
The Founders were under no illusions that native-born Americans would be any different from the British bureaucrats against whom they had rebelled. They too in time would become like their like their tyrannical and corrupt predecessors within the imperial bureaucracy, handing out privileges to cronies and selected groups, which they had lately fought to end.
Their key defensive idea was simple. The Constitution would be designed to pit one set of politicians against the other. “If faction could not be prevented, it had to be neutralized. Even better would be to harness faction to provide stability to the republic.” To that end powers were carefully parceled out and enumerated; checks and balances were established, from time to time augmented by amendments which even more radically circumscribed government. The extent to which the the Founders would go to keep the special interest or “factional” beast contained is illustrated by the Second Amendment.
Judge Alex Kozinski recently put it as follows: The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed—where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees.
Yet as in some real life, historical Jurassic Park, all efforts at containment failed. Government, especially in Washington, has become nothing but faction, each hard at work finding some new public money or authority to pounce on for the benefit of their constituents. It would be as if the Founders returned to inspect the enclosures in which they had optimistically thought to contain factions, only to find these cages smashed and the T-Rexes and Raptors in charge of the Park, funneling visitors into their maws.
The website Open Secrets shows 12,193 registered individual lobbyists dealing with Congress as of 2011, down from a high of 14,869 in 2007, and up from 10,406 in 1998. The number of associations of all kinds has grown like kudzu. … In the late 1920s, 400 lobbies were in the Washington telephone book. By 1950, there were 2000. The 2011 edition of the Encyclopedia of Associations claims there are 24,107 nonprofit organizations in the U.S. Not all of these engage in lobbying—included are athletic groups and fan clubs—but thousands do…
Anyone who does not believe that such capture happens is naïve. The classic example, repeated many times in our history, is the alliance between police and prosecutors and a particular criminal gang that controls gambling, drugs, prostitution, and, in the 1920s Prohibition Era, booze. In this bargain, the state enforces the gang’s monopoly by busting rivals in exchange for a cut of the loot, a lid on violence, and an operation kept in a low-enough key to avoid offending the middle class.
The catastrophe happened, DeLong says, because the Founders forgot that factions could cooperate as well as compete through log-rolling as well as a host of other mechanisms. The interest groups had become despite their differences, what Leo Linbeck has called the Party of Incumbency and more broadly what Angelo de Codevilla termed the “court party” or the New American Ruling Class. They realized it was in their common interest to cooperate in order to put themselves collectively in charge of literally everything. DeLong writes:
The number of federal government agencies is countless, literally. The official list at USA.gov contains 479 distinct departments and agencies, but no standard exists for classifying parents and subunits and sub-subunits and so on. In the Government Manual’s index of agencies that appear in Code of Federal Regulations, the Department of Agriculture alone lists thirty-two distinct regulation-issuing subunits. Clearly, hundreds of federal agencies have the power to issue regulations having the force of law. States and municipalities echo the federal structure, with California alone listing over 500 agencies that employ more than 350,000 people. Add in all the states and cities and the number of rule-making entities mounts into the thousands.
Along the way the special interest coalitions progressively discredited the Old Republic idea that factions were a bad thing. That is now a quaint idea superseded by the notion that there is nothing special interest lobbying cannot solve. A compliant media has convinced the public that to every problem there is an agency and a rule for every purpose under heaven.
The media has learned to craft “compassion trap” stories in which heart-rending problems can be fixed by yet another government bureaucracy whose creation only the cruel could refuse to fund. What DeLong calls “a powerful bootleggers-and-Baptists coalition” has written the narrative of modern times. Together they have created a “ratchet” and the wheel winds only one way.
In consequence, learning how to manipulate the system became the key modern skill. As DeLong notes that any damn fool can learn to make a million dollars, but only someone who understands Washington can get you into the real big time. “Many venture capitalists can make money by shrewdness, but there is only one Al Gore; by adding him to your team, you can collect half a billion dollars in government subsidies for an electric vehicle.”
Governance became a one sided contest between the part-time public, who “yearning to rule themselves rather than be ruled by others” were consequently “rationally ignorant” of politics at court and professional activists, who wanted to work the system rule others and made it their full-time occupation and consequently became “rationally knowledgeable” in the strategems of manipulation. “The Washington saying is, ‘Be at the table or be on the menu.’”
The consequence is that almost everyone who actually does something productive is on the menu for those who do nothing but redistribute the wealth.
Regarding these leeches, DeLong asks, why should they want to abolish themselves? What else would they do, besides suck blood? “Many second-and third-generation members of the class make a similar claim: they must command because they are not trained to do anything else.” Come to think of it, that is true. And yet leeches are progressively losing their legitimacy because everyone is suffering from the mess they have made of things.
We should not kid ourselves. Americans believe in the Mandate of Heaven as much as anyone else in the world. We do not tolerate unremitting failure, and if the individual leaders thrown up by the system are incompetent, the people will decide that those leaders lack legitimacy and must go …
The past few years have not been kind to the claim of the Ruling Class that it possesses the Mandate of Heaven, as one policy after another has been exposed as nonsense and rapacity—housing; financial regulation; sellouts to government employee unions; expansions of tort liability; energy regulation; and the government takeover of the medical system …
The likelihood that our rulers, of either party, can reclaim legitimacy through successful micromanagement of the economy is zero. Everything they attempt is too riddled with special-interest favoritism to constitute a rational approach to anything …
The argument can be made that we will continue to limp along. What this overlooks is that we have been limping along; the structural flaws of Big SIS have been eroding the foundations of our polity for decades. Bad outcomes have been postponed by external events, such as the fall of the Soviet Empire, the information revolution, and the basic grit and competence of the American people. The time borrowed is up.
What happens when a system loses its legitimacy? Unless another source of legitimacy is found, then the strongest and most brutal often inherit the wreck, which may be happening in crisis-ridden Europe, where extreme left and right wing parties are on the rise. There have been too many sad examples of this in history to risk running down that road. DeLong argues that for America to survive it must rediscover popular sovereignty.
“The initial goal should be to recapture a collective recognition of the wisdom of the principles of the Old Republic … that these checks against capture by factions be effective even while the people are busy with their own lives and are not focusing on their government.” “The only cure,” he argues, “is to reduce the value of the prize.”
The way back to legitimacy is to make government smaller; to accept that it ought to have limits; a notion which may seem quaint to modern ears. The key step is to put the “rationally ignorant” people back in charge of solving societies problems through their rational and deep knowledge of the physical and productive world. As for government, it has its place. But only a place.
Can it be done? DeLong closes with a challenge from the Ben Franklin. “A Republic, if you can keep it”. But Franklin thought it was possible, and his contemporaries answered for their generation.
I have often…in the course of this session … looked at that … without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting; but now at length I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting sun.
But that question must be put and re-answered anew in every time. Whether the present is up to the task is an open question. Perhaps putting the question is itself the single most crucial step. And there is no better guide for understanding it than James DeLong’s book. It is invaluable in understanding the current crisis and I unhesitatingly recommend it, at least to all who hope to gaze at the rising and not the setting sun.
How to Publish on Amazon’s Kindle for $2.99
The Three Conjectures at Amazon Kindle for $1.99
Storming the Castle at Amazon Kindle for $3.99
No Way In at Amazon Kindle $8.95, print $9.99
Unfortunately for all of us, Wretchard, it CANNOT be done. Which faction is going to give up its share of the loot for the common good? None. Do you really believe the beneficiaries of food stamps will want less? Will the elderly agree to reductions in “their” social security and medicare? Will those who benefit from affirmative action or any other sort of special priviledge from government agree that it is better for the country if they no longer have it? I think not.
What we are seeing is the reality of that old saying, by someone whose name escapses me for the moment: “democracy cannot endure as a permanent form of government. Democracy can only endure until people learn to vote themselves largess from the public treasurey. After that, they will continue to follow whomever promises the most largess. The result is always the same: economic collapse followed by dictatorship.”
We already see a chief executive assuming for himself executive and legislative powers, deciding for himself which laws will and will not be enforced. We see government agencies auditing and other wise making life difficult for supporters of the opponent of the cheif executive, while those responsible for maintaining the checks and balances of the government do nothing.
The road we are on leads to the end of the republic. What sort of dictatorship may replace it no one knows.
Lobbying is protected by the 1st amendment. Receiving remuneration for lobbying is not.
The State cannot regulate sex, they can and do make charging for sex illegal. Why should lobbying be any different? I can argue that lobbying is socially more harmful then prostitution. That and ending the requirement that congress meet in Washington would end about 75% of the corruption in the federal Government. For a while. Crooks are drawn to politics and crooks being crooks would find a way around, over or under any law. It would buy breathing room.
What we really need is a Constitutional Convention. Things have changed over the last 236 years. Time for a national dialectic.
Wretchard, this post pretty much says it all.
Our only hope is that many previously blinded will finally get a clue. I meet many, left, right and center, who know that the government is out of control and no longer acting in the interests of the people. Buraq’s latest Illegal’s deportation executive order finally tears down whatever was left of the curtain hiding how our government really operates these days.
There is no longer any excuse to vote for or defend the Ruling Class. Anyone who tries should be figuratively, and if justice was served, literally, ripped to shreds.
In response to Stoi and BoP,
We can restore the Republic. Under the present circumstances a Constitutional Convention would more than likely just a vehicle for the Ruling Class to consolidate their rule. Not a good idea. The Constitution has all the provisions necessary to restore the Republic; we just have to enforce them.
Some major reasons for our sorry state are:
• The loss of an opposition Party.
• A concerted effort by the Ruling Class to marginalize those with opposing and truthful views.
Both those reasons are intertwined. The Truth has been thrown under the bus, and those who dare utter the truth are forcefully and immediately attacked. Witness the Repub response to Buraq’s latest Illegal Deportation travesty. Where is the united front demanding an immediate revocation of that Executive Order? All we have heard are a few lonely voices and mostly crickets from the Repub party. Every single Repub in Congress should be demanding an immediate meeting with our would be dictator Obama to end this order.
What is necessary is to tell the truth to everyone you find. No more cowering. If the people really heard the truth, the Ruling Class would be the ones to cower.
The likelihood that our rulers, of either party, can reclaim legitimacy through successful micromanagement of the economy is zero. Everything they attempt is too riddled with special-interest favoritism to constitute a rational approach to anything …
If they cannot reclaim legitimacy, then by logical extension they have already lost it. Most citizens willingly comply with the laws of the land, even if they often don’t wish to, voluntarily submitting to a social contract that requires everybody play by the same rules. But as recognition approaches critical mass that the rules depend on who you are or who you know, then voluntary compliance will become an increasingly rare thing.
The proposition that the government that rules least is the government that rules best is already a quaint and outmoded notion. One corollory to it would suggest that the populace that wishes not to be ruled in a despotic manner will do something about it. I suspect the initial response will be widespread disdain for and passive resistance to whatever laws strike the individual as outlandish. That will lead to an ever-increasing level of unwilling compliance or outright non-compliance to governmental laws and decrees. And eventually, that will lead to trouble, if not war, between the factions of the governing and the governed.
I don’t know how this plays out, but I think I know it doesn’t end well. Even if in the best case it does, there is ikely before then going to be bloody Hell to pay.
Re 1., the quote is from Alexander Tyler, writing around 1800.
Richard, thanks for this informative and hopeful post. I’ve ordered the book.
Paying taxes is a lot like voting… it only encourages them.
Thanks, Wrechard, for the suggestion. I’ve ordered it. I hope he has some good ideas what to do, that he’s not just preaching to the choir.
We are at the point where the various factions will be in competition with each other. There no longer is enough money to give each group what they want, neither here nor in Europe. We can no longer maintain welfare AND continue paying public employee pensions AND support Social Security and Medicare.
Real soon now, there will be conflict among the groups, providing an opportunity to get rid of them all.
Battle @ 1 & Rick @ 6 – that quote is often ascribed to Alexander Fraser Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee, but is considered to be unsourced because the exact original citation has not been determined.
Term Limits for Congress
Subsidiarity
Federalism, and devolution of power of the central government back to the states
A balanced budget amendment
A line item veto
And most importantly, a change in federal civil service rules to make it easier to fire federal employees for cause – and an end to the unionization of public employees
You can call me a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.
Term limits, a balanced budget amendment and a line item veto would require Constitutional amendments. But they could be done. And an alarmed populace, alarmed by the ridiculous level of financial malfeasance perpetrated on the people by the permanent Ruling Party, and just might pass them. Do we live in “revolutionary times”?
Or we could just start electing people that swear to limit their own terms of office (Tom Coburn did), and who promise to not spend more than is taken in.
I’m for going back to the 1:30,000 representation as provided in the original constitution.
In the electronic age it is reasonable. There really is no reason for them all to be in D.C.
Among other things constituents would likely know their Representative on a first-name basis. It would be very difficult to build factions. It would be very expensive for lobbyists to buy each Representative. It would be much easier to ascertain if a Representative was voting against the best interests of their constituents. It would be very difficult to get any legislation passed.
In short the incentive structure to act on behalf of the constituents would return.
And since there really wouldn’t be in any money in it, people would serve…as they should.
“Under the present circumstances a Constitutional Convention would more than likely just a vehicle for the Ruling Class to consolidate their rule. Not a good idea.”
What is often ignored is that the Convention only proposes amendments just as Congress can today. It still requires a super majority of states to ratify anything sent to them. The very issues that challenged the first convention (ie a few Big States vs many Small States) will reappear with new vigor. The special interests of big city dominated states will suddenly find its influence diminished. I suspect that suddenly in the mix of negotiables at such a convention will be issue of federal ‘mandates’ which impose upon the states forced expenditures. The states in self interest will seek to unbind themselves from these dictates and with the money will go the power.
Big Sis Napolitano gets BHO to order her not to do her job, so it is easier for Scandal of the Week Holder to not do his job. This in an administration where the Commerce Secretary is unemployable.
Big SIS government is worse than a parasite, it is a dinosaur, it is a clanking rusty machine grinding its gears and poisoning all around it. How can they order anyone to do anything if they lack the money to fill their gas tanks and come get you or they can’t pay a phone bill so they can’t issue orders from their desks?
If the House says “No” then there is no money. If any judge, there must be one honest one somewhere, issues a writ ordering Napolitano to enforce immigration law or issues a writ prohibiting paychecks from being issued to departments operating outside of the law and without a constitutionally passed budget then what would Obama do?
No Justice, No Peace 13,
The provision of one Representative for every 30,000-60,000 voters is feasible. Note that I did not say per person but per voter. Apportionment among the states should be according to the number of eligible and properly registered voters present within each state and divided into districts. Eligible voters should be self supporting citizens, including both spouses of families not dependent on the public treasury. Enlisted members of the military should count but civil servants should not. A similar restriction should deny the vote to those dependent on a state treasury. Congressional districts containing 30-60,000 self sufficient voters each would ensure a stable democracy and a functioning Republic.
To take the optimistic view — mankind has developed working democratic political systems on several occasions, most notably the Roman Republic, the British Parliament, and the US Constitution. To take the pessimistic view — two of those three have already failed, and the US Constitution is rapidly becoming a dead letter.
Back to the optimistic view — human beings will try again! Maybe this generation of Europeans will finally climb over their murderous past to create a society which values the individual. Maybe this generation of Americans will successfully revitalize the Constitution. But if this generation fails, as it may, future generations in other places will keep trying. History tells us there is good reason to be long-term optimists about the human race.
Unfortunately, history also tells us that we may have to go through some very dark passages to get back into the light. Today, we need to make conscious efforts to document the lessons learned from the post WWII marriage of Big Intrusive Government and the Tragedy of the Commons. We need to bequeath to future humans — whether ourselves after the coming global economic collapse or distant generations in far places — a clear exposition of what worked, what didn’t, and how to do limited government better the next time.
And thanks for the book recommendation, Richard.
The quotation by Battle of the Pyramids sounds very much like Alexis deToqueville in DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA published in 1835. It still makes a lot of sense.
While at the Pentagon I found that it was essentially everyone’s job there to scrutinize the directions from the Congress and figure out what the hell they really meant. The directions often were deliberately obfuscated for the purposes of deniability. And every year I found something that we were told to do that no one else caught.
I came to realize that the whole mess was so incredibly complex that if you were independently wealthy and had the option to do nothing but make it your job – 8 hours a day, 5 days a week – to find all of the laws and regulations and understand how they affect you, personally, perhaps write a short paragraph on its impact on you – you could not do it.
It was too massive, too complex, too difficult to discover, too hard to understand, changed too much every year – and finally, was subject to the interpretations of government lawyers who are capable of distorting the will of Congress until it means the exact opposite of what was intended. You could never comprehend it all, even as it relates to you and only you. In fact they probably would not even allow you to do so – in some cases because those responsible for it did not understand it themselves.
In the EU they tried to write a constitution – and produced an abortion. Because they had to put so much of this stuff that is buried under the concept of Federalism up front and in writing. In our case it is even more complex but it is not up front.
Thanks for pointing us to a great book. I now have it on Kindle.Present company excluded I see no hope for our culture. “The New Leviathan” by Laksin and Horowitz shows the scope of the problem.
It is so sad that Romney is the only alternative.
Sirius #5:
“I suspect the initial response will be widespread disdain for and passive resistance to whatever laws strike the individual as outlandish.”
I’m already there. Have been for years. Where the hell are the rest of you?
But realize that also I place on myself restrictions and requirements that go far beyond what the Government requires.
Stoichioen #2:
“What we really need is a Constitutional Convention.”
Good idea. Then we can drop a bomb on it. We’ll kill far more of Them than of Us.
Again, in the end it will come to guns.
#15 Blast From the Past
If the House says “No” then there is no money.
We have not had a real budget for 3 1/2 years. The regime has figured out how to finance itself with the Federal Reserve Bank printing money and using it to buy T-Bills which it uses as collateral to print more money; all backed by unicorn farts and the “full faith and credit” of the United States of Obama. When they reach the limit of their ability to issue T-Bills, the Institutional Republicans cave and give them whatever they ask for.
I am not saying that your way is not how it should but that in the absence of a House that will EXPLICITLY lay down the law [or in this case Article I, Section 9] to the regime and stand its ground; it is not likely. The current Republican House caucus being both goolie-less and gormless.
If any judge, there must be one honest one somewhere, issues a writ ordering Napolitano to enforce immigration law or issues a writ prohibiting paychecks from being issued to departments operating outside of the law and without a constitutionally passed budget then what would Obama do?
1. Argue that whoever brought the action does not have “standing”. Pretty much that disqualifies everyone.
2. Appeal to higher courts, multiple higher courts to get conflicting decisions.
3. Stall and drag his feet overall.
It takes 4 plus years to get a case through the Federal courts, assuming that you have indisputable standing. 2 years if it is on an expedited basis.
And at any point in the process, up to and including after the Supreme Court, he has the option of refusing to accept and obey any decision he does not like. That is what, after Friday’s decree, I more than half expect to have happen if the Supreme Court strikes down Obamacare in whole or part.
If the Constitution does not in fact restrict and bind the actions of the Executive Branch with anything other than the Executive’s own retroactively revocable, voluntary acceptance of any such restrictions; we have interesting times coming up in the short term. If parliamentary and electoral politics are foreclosed, that does not end the matter; if human history is any guide.
Der Krieg ist eine bloße Fortsetzung der Politik mit anderen Mitteln.
Subotai Bahadur
It took 20 years for Join Or Die to become Don’t Tread On Me. Perhaps the snake was better off in pieces than coiled into Sauron’s rings. The survival urge makes twisted fools out of people, and all this talk of revolution is just more of the same – it’s “hope and change” coiled the other way.
Bah. {spits}
There are some on the left who are getting nervous about Obama’s use of Exectutive Orders. Some can see how future President of a different party could really make their lives miserable.
I also notice there is more buy in from the left for the idea that Obama has some kind of mental illness such as narcissistic-personality-disorder to explain his recent spate of tone deaf gaffes. I suspect they are starting to go with this rather than admit that they bought media lies or that “socialists” ideas don’t work.
Some of the comments here sound pretty sanguinary. I hope it doesn’t come to that.
As for “Der Krieg ist eine bloße Fortsetzung der Politik mit anderen Mitteln“, well, my guess is that the Ruling Class, when push comes to shove, will kill as many people they deem necessary to keep the system chugging along.
Subotai Bahadur,
Or as Mao said; “Politics is war without bloodshed, War is politics with bloodshed”. I don’t really agree, since this lowers the threshold of what is war.
Eventually “swatting” will lead to a firefight. Is that a war?
Both Mao and Clausewitz see War as a branch of politics. So did Machiavelli. Can’t argue with those folks.
So I forward this discussion to a history professor.
She writes back:
“The solution is not to make government smaller. That will never work.
To get the results you and Wretchard et al want you need to make the COUNTRY smaller.”
History may be on her side.
However, she always takes the wrong position when we discuss the War of Northern Aggression.
Subotai Bahadur@22 is on the money. This Leviathan that is our federal government has no internal check on its growth. There is however a practical limit to the size of any organism and when it gets there it usually dies because it is unable to maintain homeostasis or because the environment is not longer able to support it. That is why we don’t have T Rex running around any more.
Government has now grown to a size where the costs of maintaining it exceed the benefits and still there is no internal or external checks on its growth other than the aforementioned environmental and physiological ones. Don’t expect some magical legal or constitutional to reverse its growth and don’t expect that a factionalized electorate to suddenly decide to act in the common interest. Things will change but only as a result of system collapse.
I have said before and will say again we ought not be thinking how to reform this constitution but rather what the next should look like because there will be a next and defending this one is probably an act of treason at this point.
BTW our first constitution the articles of confederation was never legally repealed which sort of makes the current one illegal.
Langley @ 27
…you need to make the COUNTRY smaller.
We already have that: It’s called the 50 states. It is the states that need to starve the beast and then take up the slack where needed.
Here’s a lovely little idea: Fund the feds according to whatever the states are willing to part with.
Here’s George Washington’s view of the matter (you know, the Father of Our Country, whose birthday is NO LONGER celebrated).
‘Washington put it in simpler terms in a letter to a friend: “I think the Parliament of Great Britain hath no more Right to put their hands into my Pocket, without my consent, than I have to put my hands into your’s, for money.” Indeed, my “Nature . . . recoil[s] at the thought of Submitting to Measures which I think Subversive of every thing that I ought to hold dear and valuable” — and “the voice of Mankind is with me.” ‘
Washington would weep with rage.
I asked a sophisticated Dutchwoman of my acquaintance today what she thought of the Greek debacle. She said, “I think that cutting them off will guarantee their collapse. Something has to be done.”
“But what? Who will pay? Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Ireland are also in trouble: who will pay for them?”
“I know. But someone will HAVE to pay: we can’t just let them collapse.”
“We [Americans] are in deeper debt from the last three years than we were for decades previously: we can’t do it.”
“I know, but someone will have to pay,” she stubbornly insisted, then changed the subject. I was tempted to ask her if Santa Claus or Tinkerbelle would step in, but I let it lie.
There is that terribly childish illusion the socialists all have: that there is, SOMEHOW, a Source of All Money that, fairylike, can conjure up all the cash we need. For everything. Forever.
What are they counting on? That’s the question Ayn Rand asked, too, and answered that they’re counting on us Atlases to keep holding up the damn world on our shoulders, no matter what.
s @ 29: We already have that: It’s called the 50 states.
That’s my hope. Start freeing up the states. Let someone get it right.
Then sell California to the Chinese for $1 cash and they assume liabilities, but they have to tow it across the Pacific within ten days.
@31 Beverly,
But she means “someone will have to pay” in the other sense, the blame sense.
It has to be someone’s fault. It’s not acceptable that promises were made that were mathematically impossible. Someone must have stolen the money; some one (else) must be responsible for it not being there. They are to blame. If they can’t pay in money, they will have to pay some other way.
Our states’ pension crises are going to go the same way. the states I unions more scream they were looted. It was a crime, someone took it all. they will blame the Jews, or the bankers, or the whites, or the blacks, or the Chinese, or the Martians. But they will find someone the blame. And that will make the violence very difficult to Stop.
That many lobbyists? So, then, anyone want to bet what percentage of them are lawyers? Anyone willing to bet 99% or less? Anyone?
“First, we kill all the lawyers.” – Shakespeare
Can this be fixed? No. We had a slim chance with this election. We had the chance to choose someone who was not someone who actually wanted to undo this stuff, rather than go along with it. Even the so-called Conservative voters fell for the usual Media mountains-into-molehills brainwashing.
Michelle Bachmann had “crazy eyes”. Or something. Held to some impossible standard. Nevermind that she bravely stood against raising the debt limit and many other things. She was too “extreme”, when extreme is what we need.
Herman maybe had dalliances. Dubious. He was a naif, yes. Would he have tried to change some things? Absolutely. But we focused on the smaller things and ignored the bigger things.
Santorum went along with some of the Party stuff when in office. He also sponsored and advocated some really big change stuff. Oh, but he is some “extreme” SoCon. Can’t have that! Better we go down in a ball of fiscal flame than have some SoCon (who won’t actually be able to do anything about SoCon stuff). Here’s a tip for you anti-SoCon folks: I do not see any difference between Santorum’s SoCon positions and Reagan’s.
So it went for all the Conservatives. So, we ended up with Romney. Does anyone really think he will actually change the trajectory of government? We’ll just grow government more slowly.
It is impossible to fix all this, because the voters are too conditioned to react in certain ways. Those who see more clearly are too few.
RWE @20
Good on ya RWE. I’ve been there for a while too.
Big SIS and her army of blood-sucking leeches have systematically broken the social contract codified in the Constitution. Consequentially, I meet their every exhortation to submit to some new BS edict with whatever scorn and resistance I’m able to muster while still maintaining the safety and viability of my family.
It has been said before but I’ll say it again: A people who will not live by Ten Commandments, will be ruled under ten thousand.
…Meanwhile, there have been two (and counting?) blackouts this evening from our lovely government-run power ‘authority’ and some poor road-tax-paying citizen blew the hell out a tire a couple hours ago in one of the many suspension-bending pothole down the street…And I sit here -after unplugging the generator…Again- wondering what has become of the 400,000,000 American Recovery & Reinvestment Act bucks that have been
allottedredistributed to the official redistributers of our local community of 105,000 souls, ’cause I can’t see any-damned-thing that money might have touched.I really hope there is change afoot as all the Hope & Change is killing us.
Anyway, happy [Founding] Fathers day y’all.
Back in 2008 I was calling Big SIS “The DC Power Circuit” which I thought a catchy term but it never caught on. The organizational principle I identified was the politically controlled Cartel which was developing in Banking, Health Care and, through Cap and Trade, would soon encompass all industry and every Utility.
At the time I suggested that Government at all levels spend no more than 30 percent of the Gross National Product because that amount is consistent with long term prosperity as well as more efficient government. Forty percent plus (where we are at now) is consistent with slow growth and fifty percent (where we are headed) with long term stagnation, decline, and fall. There have been a number of studies on this through the years. Right now our situation may be worse because of hyper regulation. In effect, the DC Power Circuit controls industry and the CEO and upper management are just administrators for the Power Circuit. That is why they want them paid like administrators — and administrators paid like CEO’s. It is the new Socialism. It preserves plausible deniability for failure by keeping a few Capitalists out front to take the blame for Socialism’s flops.
#26 stoicheion
Eventually “swatting” will lead to a firefight. Is that a war?
It will be the moment one further condition is met.
On April 19, 1775 British troops marched through Lexington Common, in passing killing 8 and wounding 10 members of Lexington’s “Trained Band” militia and scattering the rest. That was not yet war. Later that day, at Concord’s North Bridge, 400 militia attacked 70 British Regulars between them and the town; which they believed other British troops were burning. The Regulars broke and ran, but that was not yet war, but people defending their very homes. Self-defense is not war.
The British force retreated back up the road they had arrived on. About 1/4 of the distance back to Lexington, at a place called Merriam’s Corner, it became a war. At that point, the militias of the surrounding villages arrived at about noon. And the fight was on. It was not a matter of defending homes and immediate families. It was a matter of defending their own people from what was viewed as an outside aggressor. An attack on one, was an attack on all.
Technically, legally, they were all subjects of His Britannic Majesty, George III Rex. And those Redcoats were his Army, and therefore in theory their Army. But in the minds of the men, women, and children of Lexington and Concord; in the minds of the men, women, and children of the villages of Menotomy, Waltham, Lincoln, Watertown, Medford, Maiden, and Winnissimmet, these were enemies as much as the Indian tribes of the frontier or the Armies of the French. And that feeling spread as fast as the news of the battles.
We were then two peoples, two nations. There was OUR army of militia, and there was the enemy Army of the Crown.
There will be “SWAT-tings”, there will be raids. There will be attempts to confiscate arms, ammunition, currency, precious metals, hoarded food, seditious materials, or things we have not yet thought of that displease “Teh Won”. There will be attempts to silence those who speak thoughts that are not favored by the Regime. There will, I am sure, be attacks on religious faiths not favored by the powers that be. And they will succeed, for the most part, for a time.
The tipping point will come some day when the Security Organs of the State come for someone who the neighbors do not believe to be guilty of a crime under the common law; but rather a crime against the State. And it will turn on what his next door neighbor does. What the people down the block do. What the people 3 blocks down, and across town do. No individual house and family can hold out against the forces of the State surrounding them. No forces of the State can survive against a force of the people surrounding them.
And THEN it will be a war.
“And what will be the outcome? Only the Great Blue Sky Tengri Nor knows.”
Subotai Bahadur
“Democracy cannot endure as a permanent form of government. Democracy can only endure until people learn to vote themselves largess from the public treasurey. After that, they will continue to follow whomever promises the most largess. The result is always the same: economic collapse followed by dictatorship.”
Events have progressed into a realm unimaginable to the author of that quote. In fact, James Delong may be trying to close the barn door after the horse has bolted.
Here’s a thought. People have voted themselves so much borrowed largesse that National Governments are about to become powerless because they are now at the mercy of global creditors. Just days ago Obama threw up his hands and said he was powerless in the face of the global economy. Powerless democratically elected national governments, even if followed by dictatorships, will be followed by dictatorships who are also indebted to global creditors and therefore are without national power.
Until Western nations reduce their debt to global creditors, stop pouring unearned borrowed money down the throat of the global economy and start building asset based wealth, they will not regain their power as truly sovereign nations. All other considerations, including constitutional ones, pale into insignificance besides the looming power of the global creditors and global users of Europe’s and America’s borrowed, but unearned, money.
It’s the spending, stupid.
Wretchard – Well done. I have not yet read the comments, but you voice the concerns of my heart. Thank you!
RWE wrote: “I came to realize that the whole mess was so incredibly complex that if you were independently wealthy and had the option to do nothing but make it your job – 8 hours a day, 5 days a week – to find all of the laws and regulations and understand how they affect you, personally, perhaps write a short paragraph on its impact on you – you could not do it.”
Well of course! If you could understand it yourself you wouldn’t need the army of lawyers and functionaries to “explain” it to you. So this situation is not some “accident”, it is the entire Point of the system! When it is impossible to understand the law, then in effect there IS NO LAW, there is only Power. The people who hold it will tell you what to do, which in practice always turns out to be whatever they want.
and that, in a nutshell, is the wonderful system we live under today.
Subotai Bahadur
I think you’re correct. Some minor event will snowball out of control. Most Americans have no idea how fragile our society is. No city in America has more then 3 days of food on hand. Those that keep their pantry stocked will eat, those that don’t won’t. Food stamps don’t work when the store is empty. When you get down to basics, the divide in America is the ancient Urban/Rural split that has existed since the first cities were built. City Folks have different values for the most part.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Peasants%27_War
Most of the time the Rural side loses. Population density. I’m hoping for a different outcome this time. First step in that is not giving the military a reason to intervene on the side of the Usurper.
Re. #38 (stevesmith): Precisely. But the global creditors are in fact banks, which have mutated from something carrying out a useful function (taking in people’s money, lending it to others for investment) to a bloated, vampiric monster serving nothing but itself (or themselves).
What would prevent the US Government (for example) from saying to various Wall Street bloodsuckers: “Sure, we owe you five trillion dollars. No, we aren’t going to pay you – or even pay the interest. The debt is cancelled. Whatever your response is, please give it to the commander of the company of troops outside your front door. Better make it the right response; the firing squad is already selected.” ?
Joe Hill @28
“Things will change but only as a result of system collapse.”
As bleak as that statement is, I have to agree. And that’s why I’m actually hoping that Obama pulls it off in November in order to hasten the crisis necessary to change the direction of this ship. Romney is nothing more than a placeholder. That guy has “status quo” tattooed on his forehead and anyone that thinks ol’ Mitt is going to be a game-changer is delusional.
Watch carefully what happens to California, it’s a litmus test for how things will go with the nation over the next few years. Unfortunately, I predict (more) chaos coming soon to my beloved Golden State.
Subothai Bahadur #37:
“There will, I am sure, be attacks on religious faiths not favored by the powers that be”
“Will” be?
Methinks you got the verb tense wrong…..
Beverly #31:
I recall an AIDS advocate in the US saying exactly the same thing over 20 years ago. “We’ll find the money to fight AIDS. We have too. We’ll find it somewhere; we always do.”
So we found the money. And then we found out that we didn’t, really.
Vanderlun #21:
Well, we have already “come to” the guns, in the sense that the Left and various bureaucracies have decided that they don’t want us to have them. But I am hopeful that, like nuclear ICBMs, the mere fact of their existence will be sufficient to prevent the necessity of their actual use, at least on a National level.
Orwell said, “The gun hanging on the wall of the citizen’s home is a symbol of freedom. It is our job to make sure it never has to come down off that wall.” Then it becomes more than just a symbol.
Marc Malone #34:
I am hopeful about Romney. I don’t think he is looking for wealth and power, or fighting for the rights of some “class” or another. Of course, neither are Gingrich, Cain, or Santorum. Romney has said that if he gets done what he wants to do and then is voted out of office, he’ll be satisfied. I think he really believes that. The issue is how do we convey to him what he is going to have to do.
A recent Rasmussen poll showed some starting results. Romney was 3 points ahead of Obama. But 65% said they were unsatisfied with the candidates. That 65% included Obama voters, too.
To see a new tomorrow, the first step is to realise the body is diseased with a malignant growth. The symptoms manifest in the escalating baggage, the clutter of government. Rid the body of the carriers of statist collectivism and then treat the disease. If necessary by surgery.
How to do that under present circumstances when individual citizens, corporations, universities, unions etc are mewling infants clinging to and competing for place at federal and state udders.
The USA has been genetically one of the healthiest and most robust complex social entities ever known. Until the middle of the 20th century when things went wrong. When the genetic bases mutated from the head, the Capitol, of the organism.
The “Head”(brains) tampered with the genetic anlage of this robust organism that could and did rise to any challenges. The model for the world of social justice, fairness, equality, strength, flexibility and stamina. Errors in the adherence to equality later, at great cost in treasury and blood corrected, perhaps over-corrected. Based on the protections embedded in the Law of the dignity and value of the individual, the State as “necessary evil” to ensure those protections.
The original change in the 1930s “improved” with election of a glamourous, articulate “Star” in the first election after the Soviets launched the “space-race”. with propagation of the seeds of the Soviet organism into the West and USA. To grow “secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city…”.
So just about a century to finalise CHANGE of the USA. Because she was prize prey, the organism that provided the greatest good for the greatest number since her birth.
Using every dirty trick in the book seduced Americans to become babies to be coddled, if they behaved themselves, by government. To replace proud, dignified and personally capable, disciplined adults. Not mentioning that government has no money, Can act only as dispenser of moneys expropriated from productive adult citizens. Which dispensation these Anti-american disease carriers call ” distribution of wealth”.
Oh yes, the health of America/Americans so tampered with by the disease carriers resides in their double helix, their DNA. The two documents referred by Dr. Delong, the Declaration of independence and Constitution of this USA.
Having just finished Charles Murray’s “Coming Apart” I’m inclined to think that social cons have a very valid point. It is impossible to sustain a representative republic without a culture of personal responsibility (to brutally abbreviate Murray’s thought).
I doubt that anything will be settled without an economic collapse. As long as the beast can batten on taxes and borrowing it will. Once it can no longer sustain its operations, they will collapse. Once collapse has occurred those whose lives are now sustained by the SIS will find themselves thrown back to being responsible for themselves, which will likely take the form of widespread predation. An armed society will make short work of that in the absence of a paid police force.
41. stoicheion “First step in that is not giving the military a reason to intervene on the side of the Usurper.” Surely you jest. Government is force, and the military is the preeminent instrument of that force. They will not need a reason to intervene on the Usurper’s side, they will be given direct orders (there may be reason to believe, as I do, that those orders have already been written awaiting only their issuance). Whether they will obey those orders of not is another question, some will, some won’t. How well that will work in the face of the aforementioned armed society remains to be seen.
Calm down everyone, have you not heard, the can has again been kicked down the road and we have till the middle of July now. it does look like the “can” is getting bigger and bigger as we go, the distance kicked is getting shorter and shorter…
Ah, Democracy! The Greeks kinda, sorta choose a minority government which promises that les bon temps will continue to roule, although no-one is quite sure how. The Egyptians elect the Muslim Brotherhood guy as president, who will somehow deal with the issue that (like the Greeks) the money has run out. And the French give the Socialists a majority in their parliament, so that the French (like the Greeks and the Egyptians) can continue to live the good life.
We, the People, are getting the governments we deserve — all over the world.
My thanks to Richard for such a flattering assessment. I am especially pleased because I am a great admirer of his, and rather in awe of his ability to turn out so many high-quality essays with such rapidity.
For those who want to delve more deeply, the book is supported by a website — http://www.SpecialInterestState.org. At the REFERENCES section, my web developer is putting up links to all the books and articles cited in ‘Big SIS’, including many that are not well-known. Be warned, though, that some extremely interesting people dwell there — John Joseph Wallis; Barry Cushman; Howard Gillman; David Axelrod; William Poundstone; Mancur Olson; Jonathan Rauch –as well as the more familiar paladins of conservative legal and political thought, such as Richard Epstein, Randy Barnett, Todd Zywicki; John Eastman; David Bernstein. You can get pleasurably absorbed quite easily. (I do not have a completion date for this work yet – it is a slow process.)
One of my goals in writing the book is to reach beyond my own circle of thank tankers and political junkies and out to Tea Parties and interest citizens generally. Suggestions on how to achieve this will be gratefully accepted. I can be reached at SpecialInterestState@gmail.com
All this hand wringing and not one mention yet of the bottom line? We have become a culture of moral depravity, and that takes with it personal responsibility, humility, selflessness, and reason.
An inalienable right is not, as most seem to think, one that cannot rightfully be taken away but one which CANNOT BE GIVEN UP. It is ours, whether we want it or not and whether the state tries to take it away or not. It comes from something beyond us, and by forgetting the existence of that something, whatever you choose to call it and however you choose to think of it, you/we/they are literally divesting ourselves of our humaneness.
Look around you. We are every bit as heathen as the Romans were 2000 years ago, and that regression has only taken a half century, although the seeds were planted 300 years ago.
If there is any reason at all to do good, to choose right over wrong, to seek the truth rather than to choose an opinion, then these realities are worth dying for; but that can’t be done by sinking beneath them and adopting the same kind of “off with their heads” posturing that has sown this rancid crop. It is imperative that enough of us stand for what is right or we will just sink further into the darkness, the same as has happened to them.
And Fletcher, is there no one on that side of the pond that hasn’t drunk the Occupy cool aide? When I go to the bank, they give me cash. Last year they loaned me 30 grand to put in new windows at a rate that didn’t increase my monthly outlay. The picture you paint of the banks has a whiff of leftist hysteria about it. Sure, there is corruption there. How could there not be in a culture so riddled with corruption. But it’s the corruption of the state that we must worry about most of all.
maineman (#50) Re-Run TV had Billy Graham on it was his 1985 Sheffield, England. (United Ground at Bramhall Lane Rugby Field) Revival, Billy spoke of the end, the days of Noah, evil in every mans thoughts… everywhere he turned evil (Sin) was being bombarded on him, thru TV shows, Radio, Newspapers, Magizines, etc. Billy said we are being brain washed into wrongful thought from the time we get up till we lay down to rest! And that was before the “Internet”! that was Nineteen Eighty Five!
I think it was Rush who correctly identifies the “public employees” as government workers. We might all use his more accurate definition in our conversation.
geoffgo 52,
I disagree with Rush on this. Calling them “workers” grants them more credit than they deserve. If you want to split the difference and call them “government employees” that would work for me. Better yet, how about we try using “Uncivil Servants?”
mainman 50,
Second your point regarding the populist socialism masquerading as conservatism.
jojo 46,
Is it a language problem or is there something very wrong that needs professional help?
My hope is that Romney will govern like an adult. Not only is it not in his nature to make barn burning speeches but the trust he built by not doing so is what got him where he is. While the people here may have preferred another candidate they all failed and Romney won. To a considerable extent it wasn’t because he was seen as more moderate in policy but in temperament.
Now if Romney came out in favor of repealing the XVIIth Amendment that would completely blindside the Progressives and fire up the conservative base. Doing so would not be seen as threatening in the first iteration. The MSM would have to play catch up and strain to put a “raaaacism” label on it.
“Government is force, and the military is the preeminent instrument of that force.”
Not in America. here we have dozens of federal police types that are used as the naked hand of power. Those police focus on crime and criminals. They are not trained nor equipped to deal with insurrection. The army is. They are very good at it. Maybe best in the world.
The right can beat the left, even with the left getting help from the police. Nobody can beat the army. So the first order of business for any attempt to restore the constitution is to keep the army on the sidelines. Since we can’t force the Army to do anything, we have to influence them. We do that by giving them no reason to get involved.
Later on, a few years into the Civil War, it won’t matter so much. Once the collapse gets underway, I expect the Army will end up split into small chunks. Easier to find food, fuel, etc. that way.
To think that government is now controlled by factions is a complete misunderstanding of the revolution of 1933. Factions are now contolled and protected by government. In some cases they are invented by government.
The Obama Gang has not destroyed the Republic. However, they have successfully dissipated the illusion that we still have a republic. Perhaps the fortuitous, and unintended, legacy of the Obama Gang will become the public acknowledgement that merely changing riders to beat a dead horse truly is delusional behavior.
John Adams wrote a detailed history of republics and the lessons that wise men could learn from their administration and their demise. http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=2102&chapter=159849&layout=html&Itemid=27
Notwithstanding all their individual and collective faults the Founders well understand human nature and expressed this understanding in their unanimity of opinion that when provided with the opportunity, avaricious men would certainly group together to use the government to beggar their neighbors. Adams suggested how to avoid this catastrophe:
“There are but two ways, either by a monarchy and standing army, or by a balance in the constitution. Where the people have a voice, and there is no balance, there will be everlasting fluctuations, revolutions, and horrors, until a standing army, with a general at its head, commands the peace, or the necessity of an equilibrium is made appear to all, and is adopted by all.”
The U.S. Constitution adopted the rather naive view that all would recognize and adopt the “necessity of an equilibrium” in our public affairs. Maybe they really didn’t and just hoped they could get their families through a generation or two before the SHTF.
The bigger question is do we fracture or centralize? Is there an Augustus that can put Humpty Dumpty back on the wall or is there an Odoacer who don’t need no stinkin’ emperor no more?
#45 RWE I recall an AIDS advocate in the US saying exactly the same thing over 20 years ago. “We’ll find the money to fight AIDS. We have too. We’ll find it somewhere; we always do.”
So we found the money. And then we found out that we didn’t, really.
James DeLong, who comments in #50 made the point in his book that the Special Interest State, like a science-fiction xenomorph, had an unusual biology. It’s entire body was constructed in reverse order, with bones and muscle uppermost and the fat protected in the core.
Thus any attempt to cut government to the bone winds up cutting the bone first. This is sometimes known as “the Washington Monument defense” — whenever the Park Service’s budget is reviewed, they offer to cut the Washington Monument from funding first.
In Greece, for example, cancer patients and the homebound disabled have not been paid their stipends. The desperate people, and sometimes their carers who are children or aged spouses, are driven to suicide. But of course the corruption remains untouched. Again it is the bone that protects the fact in the xenomorphic biology.
The special interest state is the world’s largest hostsge taker. It is defended by millions of human shields — the famous “children” for example — you cannot easily get to it without going through this layer of hostages. Therefore any strikes against SIS have to be nonlinear.
What was striking about the school voucher movement for example, and probably the reason it was attacked so fiercely, is that it separates the bone and muscle from the fat. Maybe tax rebates and cuts are also methods of putting money in the pockets of people that they earn already. To avoid the Washington Monument defense you have to find some way to separate the hostage from the hostage taker; the bone from the fat. Otherwise there is no way of striking through this xenomorphic biology.
E2 @ 43
Hoping that Obama wins!
Are you nuts? This is the revolutionary’s and the progressive’s delusion: that collapse is the only way forward. It didn’t work when medieval doctors drained patients of blood. It didn’t work in France in 1787. It didn’t work in Russia in 1917.
I see how it must feel good to throw up your hands and think total collapse will force people to face “reality.” Unfortunately, when a system collapses, the reality that varying groups face is different so they respond differently than what your bird’s eye view might indicate. If you are assuming that certain “essentials” will remain notwithstanding the collapse, remember, there is no guarantee of anything in a system collapse.
Be careful what you wish for.
42. Fletcher Christian
“What would prevent the US Government (for example) from saying to various Wall Street bloodsuckers: “Sure, we owe you five trillion dollars. No, we aren’t going to pay you – or even pay the interest.”
In that case, the U.S. would be then called Argentina.
Then sell California to the Chinese for $1 cash and they assume liabilities, but they have to tow it across the Pacific within ten days.
I have to take exception to writing off California. I know it’s meant as a joke to disengage California from the rest of the country, but if we’re going to have flippant fantasies about that state, I would rather we had a “demographic/sociological” cleansing of California, and took it and all its resources and other advantages back. All that offshore oil? The great climate, the university network that would be a dynamo if revived? Giving up on and throwing away California would only be the beginning of throwing away America.
This is also known as in other forms as the Gold Watch ploy or the President’s Pacemaker defense. In response to a budget cut, offer up an acquisition program that has been praised by the lawmakers as an example of excellent management. Or offer up a cut that will be utterly unacceptable, like turning off the President’s pacemaker.
One example from some years ago was that the Commerce Dept responded to a budget cut by saying it would have no choice but to lay off all of the customs inspectors rather than any of the bureaucracy
My favorite ploy was to offer up a cut of something that Congress wanted done but that you did not ask for, some pork of some kind. The bad part was that this inevitably got the funds sequestered by the OSD Comptroller and no one got to use them until the issue was resolved.
And perhaps the School Vouchers example offers a pathway to cutting real fat. They say they’ll have to close the Washington Monument, then direct them to have a private firm to operate the site at its own expense.
When the Air Force said that budget cuts would mean the retirement of the A-10 force, then Congress told them to transfer the airplanes to the US Army. The Air Force kept the A-10’s
#41 stoicheion
Agree with your analysis, and note that there are strategic and operational implications that should drive tactics.
#44 no mo uro
To clarify, I meant military and paramilitary type attacks. There are already legal, legislative, and Agit-prop attacks, of course. We have not yet seen bishops taken away in chains, sermons interrupted by a SWAT-ting, or religious property taken away by the State.
Actually, I expect that if the Regime retains power by whatever means, that the forced imposition of Obamacare will mean that the large fraction of US hospitals owned by churches who will refuse to provide abortions will shut down. One trigger point may well be that they will be seized by the State, and legal sanctions will be imposed on medical personnel who refuse to work in them.
For the record, not being of the Judeo-Christian persuasion, my analysis is not driven by allegiance to any one church’s doctrines.
Subotai Bahadur
54. Blast From the Past
My dear departed mother used to call Civil Servants “Civil Serpents”.
dr @ 61: I have to take exception to writing off California.
I know, I’m sitting in it. I had planned about now to abandon ship myself for a red state somewhere, if not a red country somewhere, but when it comes right down to it the positives still outweigh the negatives, there are elves when you want them, and if there was really a sanctuary anywhere else on Earth it would already be oversubscribed.
Not only that, my Chinese is even more feeble than my Spanish.
But the reality-defying politics of the place cannot go on forever, and it will get ugly, and I will just be sitting there right in the middle of it with a pitcher of margueritas and an AM radio, waiting to see my own fate.
–
se @ 66: Ron Paul to be a key member of his cabinet with the express purpose of auditing and ending the federal reserve system. Make Palin energy secretary and Bolton secretary of state and its all over but the counting.
All over yes, OMG, I’ll be departing for comet city Abraxas on the next available SpaceX launch. The problem being even that cabinet couldn’t get anything through the Congress without a Republican supermajority, unless you envision Romney ruling by fiat.
To bring this fight, and show the disconnect of government, locally I submit the following. I pay property taxes but fire service is considered extra because I live just outside of the city. IOW, I pay taxes for things I do not need, like schools, city management, etc, but have to pay additionally, ala carte for something I may really need. To really see the rot in the system, our water is a seperate entity but the city fire department recently used OUR county water (I checked to make sure) to fill their trucks when responding to a fire in the county. The county was NOT repaid for the water used, again, I checked. Talk about having your cake and eating it. Why doesn’t someone care? Simple, it isn’t their money, the rubes pick up the tab.
The only way to save the union is through the same method in which was founded, the individual states. The states could, and should, be responsible for their citizens in all aspects NOT ennumerated by the Constitution- as it was intended to be done. Citizens should refuse to pay Federal Income Taxes (probably the biggest over-reach of federal government) and pay only state taxes. That way taxpayers have direct control on what is spent and how. I don’t see any way back to our founding principles except through a resurgence of state control.
Romney could cinch the presidency AND reassure the populace by asking Ron Paul to be a key member of his cabinet with the express purpose of auditing and ending the federal reserve system. Make Palin energy secretary and Bolton secretary of state and its all over but the counting, provided there is not a soft coup.
stevesmith@ 38: “Powerless democratically elected national governments, even if followed by dictatorships, will be followed by dictatorships who are also indebted to global creditors and therefore are without national power.”
Au contraire! Governments with actual power (dictatorships or otherwise) will make short work of your “global creditors”.
The future looks dark all right – but darker for none than for the global creditors.
maineman @ 51 “although the seeds were planted 300 years ago”
I make it 363 years ago, 324 at the latest…
Fun fact, or at least I think it is, regarding the first iteration of the SA80 – which for those who don’t know is the standard issue rifle of the UK armed forces particularly the Army. As background, this weapon was developed and produced by Royal Ordnance, which was a company owned wholly (at the time) by the UK government. And the first weapon was a disaster; the stoppage rate was ridiculous. Of course, this was blamed on the users but eventually the entire stock was gradually brought in for rework. The cost was approximately three times what the cost of throwing them away and buying some decent rifles would have been, but of course that action might have meant someone not getting promoted.
Anyway, I’m told that the slang term among users of this weapon was the Civil Servant. As in; doesn’t work and you can’t fire it.
gokart-mokart – I agree completely. Speaking of the UK; IMHO any bankers in the higher levels of management of banks based in the UK, who happen to be UK citizens, are traitors. Quite literally, and they ought to be treated as such. And probably, sooner or later, will be.
Why? Simple. The damage these bloodsuckers have done to the UK would, if done by a national government, be tantamount to an act of war.
Why do I feel so strongly about it? Because I’m one of the victims. I had a business, once. Now, I’m going to spend the rest of my life paying off debt. Whether I ever succeed in getting a half-decent job or not; this is unlikely, as 53-year-old white heterosexual men in poor health who have been out of paid employment (working for others, that is) for 25 years aren’t exactly prime job material.
Blast @53,
I prefer Civil Serpents … who are employed in the Silly Service. When I was there one of my particular nemeses was the mandatory “Paperwork Reduction Report”, detailing the mindless paperwork we had eliminated, of which we were allowed to eliminate nothing at all, since it was all mandated by Central Office, including the additional paperwork to report the Paperwork (not) reduced. You cannot make up this sort of silliness.
Subotai @37 and Stoi,
I think it has ever been the case that major rebellions and wars begin from small, and inadvertent incidents.A respeced village elder objects when the king’s man tries to steal his cow or fondle his daughter and the neighbors come to his assistance. The Russian First Revolution of March/February 1917 was completely unplanned and unexpected. A simple protest march on International Women’s Day spooked some older reserve troops who fired into the crowd killing several. That night the troops decided they would not again fire on their own people, and a week later Russia had a Provisional “Government”. Harking back to an earlier theread, I believe this is what will, what must, happen here. The Bonus Army may not repeat itself the same this time.
To Wretchard and Mr. DeLong:
If ‘SIS’ is to be brought under control by “separating the fat from the bone,” the hostage from the hostage-taker, then it must be up to the hostage to break free or have the cops allied with the hostages—not with the takers—break down the door to arrest the hostage-taker. What would be the ‘crime’ which the hostages could have their police enforce?
How about Fiduciary Fraud Against The Taxpayer? Any rent-seeking that does not encompass all of the American people–not just sugar growers or corn farmers or green energy firms–is the crime of Fiduciary Fraud Against the Taxpayer. If lobbyists and politicians faced jail time for the practice of rewarding the few at the expense of the many, you could shrivel SIS down to manageable size.
But then, as Leo Linbeck would be the first to note, such legislation is impossible in the current ‘structure’ of governance built by the duopoly. The key to politics for every politician is not getting elected the first time; it is in getting re-elected ten or twenty times. The ‘structure’ built by the duopoly since 1972-1974 assures incumbency after winning election, and no change in the SIS is possible unless a new structure is put in place that addresses how to reward incumbency.
In a flip of the structure built in the Progressive Era, the present structure rewards partisanship and punishes bipartisanship. Another way of putting it for conservatives and Left-liberals to consider, is that the SIS has been built since 1972-1974 by rewarding ideological extremism and punishing moderation. Every ardent Republican and Democratic scream for ‘loyalty,’ or sneering contempt for RINO’s and DINO’s and centrism feeds the SIS, not intentionally, but because that’s how the ‘structure’ fixes how incumbents practice politics, rewarded by re-election.
Until the structure is reformed to return to the early 20C concept of rewarding incumbency by practicing bipartisanship and moderation–instead of punishing them–then the SIS is likely “locked in” until the collapse of the republic. The collapse will likely occur because the rate of growth of the national costs of government outstripped the rate of growth of national income to pay for it. The hostage-takers will win because in America since the mid-1970′s, extremism and partisanship are valued more in our politics than moderation and bipartisanship.
Sneer all you want at ‘moderates’ and ‘independents’ and ‘centrists,’ but understand, then you are perpetuating the newer structure’s reward of incumbency for extremists who achieve re-election by their skills at satisfying special interests’ rent-seeking. If conservatives are serious about solving the SIS, they will first have to take a hard look at themselves, and what degree of ideological purity they demand of their politicians.
Effectively, the unintended consequence of mid-70′s structural partisan loyalty is: the more partisan we are, the more the SIS will grow. This fact of our politics will continue so long as the duopoly mutually benefits from the structure they both created. The only practical means of creating a new structure is to form a viable third voice to take on the other two; how to reward incumbency is the key.
The idea we need to kill is that of ‘the public good.’ Somehow, my paying more taxes every year for studies on the sexual behavior of fruit flies is better for me than anything I could have purchased for myself. There is no accountability for the taxes being spent on our behalf anymore. No longer are taxes an honest charge for services rendered that enrich me personally but an unaccountable slush fund for friends of those in power. Why should states like Alaska or Texas, who grew around 50% of new jobs- nationwide, be funding failing states where the public treasuries are plundered by the employee’s unions? Bottom line, we need to make public service a service to the public again and not a self-serve cookie bar.
A primary difference beyond the 1st Amendment, is the ultimate trump card; the ability to defend oneself. The 2nd Amendment will virtually assure that once and for all, the time will come when Americans tire of the nonsense from DC, and will simply quit participating. This challenge to the beltway bubble’s perceived superiority, will be their undoing. It is already mainifesting itself with the TEA party. Americans are not predisposed to tolerate a slide into mediacrity aka “the managed decline.” If this is not reversed in November 2012, then Obama will double down on simultaneous stupidity and anti-Americanism, and he will sow a civil war from it, from which the lefties will surely lose very badly.
Societies don’t generally blow up, they usually shrivel up. Don’t expect Lexington and Concord or Fort Sumter. What happens in the SIS society is that it winds up costing more to fill the pothole then the benefit of a pothole free stretch of road is word. By the time the rent seekers are through arguing whether the water filled pothole is really a pothole or a wetland and analyzed the impact of the fill material on the nearest estuary and hired the Davis Bacon prevailing wage ditch digger to shovel a little macadam into the pothole that stretch of smooth roadway has cost more than a mile of interstate might have 60 years ago.
The net result is Leviathan can no longer maintain the infrastructure nor keep it free of highwaymen. Commerce withers, standards of living decline, trade and productivity decline, and the society withers away or parts break off. People turn to somebody else to provide what Leviathan no longer can – that is where the mafia or the Sons of Anarchy come it or a Mexican Drug cartel.
Leviathans collapse is a Dark Age not a heroic one.
Part of preparing to resist tyranny is preserving essential wisdom and the skills of self reliance.
In the period we call “The Dark Age” much wisdom was kept safe in private libraries and the archives of numerous Monastic orders. Even while forests and meadows cloaked the cobbles of forgotten Roman roads, ideas were simmering and percolating and maturing. Individuals corresponded and groups of correspondents weighed and nurtured and refined not just ideas, but whole philosophies and systems.
Someone once pointed out that all the paved roads and parking lots can be seen as preserved farmlands, for later generations to till after the asphalt and concrete are moved aside to make rubble walls.
Why do you rob banks? Because that is where the money is.
This is why deficits are evil. They allow this type of nonsense to happen without costing anyone anything. At least until it is too late.
There are two trends which muck out government, and we will see them take their inexorable effect. They start when the ability to borrow and spend runs out. The automatic reaction of politicians, pushed by the rent seekers, is to raise taxes. What happens is a rise in taxes brings in less revenue. It was fascinating to see the shock and horror and disbelief when this happened in Canada a while ago. All the signs of grief; denial, anger, bargaining, depression then finally acceptance. Europe is in the bargaining stage right now, if only… The US is in denial.
The second trend starts biting. It is that the populace, having put up with the inevitable pay more for less cycle start demanding value for money. Politician says this program will do wonders, voters ask how much it costs, politicians prevaricate, voters say no. If someone, a lobbyist, a contractor is padding his pockets, there is a direct link between that money misallocation and a shrinking of benefits from government. If I don’t get unemployment insurance, or my knee replaced in a timely way, damned if someone is going to get bags of cash through some back door.
So take heart. What is happening in Washington will come to a very nasty end sooner than later. Sure the Washington monument will be closed on national holidays, but on tuesday the administrator will be fired.
It is quite simple. Most of the problems go away once the ability to borrow money disappears. If it doesn’t, there isn’t anything worth saving anyways.
The Founding Fathers never whould have dreamed of purposely dumbing down our children, and misfeeding them information.
Or looking to other countries for preferred precedence to gainsay The Constitution.
It’s very hard from here to see how the monstrosity is taken down. The best thing that I’ve seen in a long time was Gov. Walker’s election, reforms and recall survival in Wisconson. That is a sign of hope.
But the Federal Beast is much stronger and more craftily constructed than any state monster. The interlock of legislature, the judicial branch and all those federal bureaucrats is a powerful one.
You also have 50% of America living on some form of government aid, be it semi-earned like a military pension, or completely un-earned like food stamps and Section 8 housing.
Now, try to imagine the political group that says it is going to end Food Stamps, or Section 8 housing, or WICK. (The food counters at WalMart have “WICK approved” on them..) There is an entire culture bulit around Free Bread, just like in Rome.
At another site I frequent the author likes to talk about “the day the EBT card ends”, but I maintain that day will *never* come. In fact at some point the EBT card will be more valuable than a private pension, as the government will continually re-adjust the value to counter the inflation that the Fed is producing, where as many old people on private fixed income pensions don’t…
The government will favor it’s favored clients over the recalcitrant private economy hold outs. It will favor blacks over racist whites, and there is something inherently racist about private pensions, 401Ks and other non-government supplied income. You see this mindset already creeping in around the edges.
I don’t believe in the day the EBT card ends, or the SHTF day, or any other catastrophic failure. I think we’ll just see a slow, inexorable decline in the quality of everything, for a really, really long time.