November, 2012
A message from a long-time commenter, Leo Linbeck, entered two posts back, here reproduced verbatim.
The President ran a brilliant campaign. He ran overwhelmingly negative ads, early and focused and targeting the battleground states. He was able to define Romney, and his messaging was perfectly calibrated for his target audiences. Given his first term record, he really had no other choice, and his execution was first-rate.
But now he will reap what he sowed. His pretense of being a uniter, someone who can reach across the aisle and work together to solve pressing problems, lies in ruins. Whatever reservoir of goodwill and trust that existed in January 2009 is now bone dry.
So, yes, he won. But it will almost certainly be a Pyrrhic victory. He chose to divide the country deeply to win his second term. He will find that the nation he will again lead is not governable by him, and he may have tipped it to where it is not governable by anyone. He is so deeply despised by so much of the country that he will never be able to do what needs to be done (assuming he even wanted to, which does not appear likely).
The reaping will begin sooner than he probably expects. The ship of state is heading toward the Scylla and Charybdis of the fiscal cliff (in 2012) and Obamacare (in 2013). At work, we have been looking at the impact of Obamacare, and all I can say is that the average person has absolutely no idea how enormous the impact will be on their life. It will be an enormous shock to the system, and it will hit almost everyone in the country.
I still have hope, but it is in the states and local communities. The governors and state legislatures must step up and stop acting like subsidiaries of Washington. Those that do will thrive; those that don’t will slouch toward their demise.
So let me be perfectly clear: we must restore self-governance. That was true before this election, and it remains true.
I want to encourage everyone to keep trying to preserve the republic. We have been blessed to be a part of this great American experiment, and we owe it to those who have paid in blood and treasure to not give up. It is a duty we should not fear, but relish. And if you don’t think you can do that where you live, come on down to Texas. We may be the last, best hope of the last, best hope on earth.
Godspeed to you all, and may God bless the United States of America.
L3
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
come on down to Texas. We may be the last, best hope of the last, best hope on earth.
According to Jeb Bush Texas will be a “blue state” as early as 2016: link
I agree with the above. The voting public has demanded four more years of Obama. And now they’re going to get him good and hard and unlubricated.
Problem for Obama is, he now has no more excuses. Indeed, any attempt on his part to blame Bush for our economic woes (and anything else for that matter) will be a plow that won’t scour.
“Those whom the gods would destroy, they first reelect.” My money says that by this time next year, erstwhile Obama voters will looking into their bathroom mirrors every morning, spitting at their reflections, and muttering, “What the f*** was I thinking when I voted for Obama again?”
Problem for Obama is, he now has no more excuses.
He didn’t before. He’s not the problem. The morons who voted for him are.
2. MarkJ: The only problem is that the voters you think will be having remorse for Obama in another year voted for him 4 years ago and have no remorse, now.
I also think that there has been an echo chamber not only here, but in many conservative websites wherein we hear what we want to hear; that Mitt has momentum, that Obama is unpopular, that Obama could lose Michigan, or Pennsylvania, or Virginia, or Ohio, or Florida, or whatever. That people are going to re-elect Scott Brown, or give the Senate to the R’s with candidates like Richard “Rape is God’s Will” Mourdock, or George “Second Time Will Go Better” Allen.
We are in the minority, and we don’t have friends we can gratuitously piss off, or piss away.
The electorate has changed, like it or not.
And I voted for Romney this time and McCain the last, and maxed out on my financial donations to each. I am not a troll pretending to be one of you.
Sorry.
I want to encourage everyone to keep trying to preserve the republic.
Oh, I suppose I will, cuz it’s all I know how to do.
But dude, it’s over, the First American Republic, is over.
How does “Atlas Shrugged” end, when the lights go out in Manhattan? Dude, that was last week.
Apocalypse now.
I just hope the rapture comes first.
Sorry, that’s just the way I feel now.
We don’t even know the destruction Obamacare is going to impart on everyone ..one way or another.
But it doesn’t matter because the Republicans won’t be able to run anybody that can beat the Dem/liberal… that’s just the way it is.
This election was huge and will have a negative impact for years to come .
It is too late to try and stop the leviathan of the federal government. This election was our last shot. The Tea Party came 2 administrations too late. We had a real chance 10 years ago but we stood by and let Bush Junior drop his drawers for fiscal expediency. The best we can do is admonish our leaders to tap the brakes and hope the country sees the light before we turn into Greece – but we may already be too late.
And the best possible braking I can see is to refuse to stop the the train from barreling over the fiscal cliff we are fast approaching. Refuse to extend the debt limit – see how far you can get without being able to borrow. Refuse to negotiate on the Bush Tax cuts – all or nothing. Refuse to negotiate on Sequestration – real significant cuts to spending or else. Obama wants 4 more years to show us he can lead? Well let him lead us out of this one!!!
Honestly, I feel hopeless. The electorate has indeed changed; the Republic is indeed over. Obama has no problems. None of the bad things that are going to happen will affect him. The people who voted for him will be miserable, but they won’t understand why their world is falling apart. Damn them to hell, all of them.
I have a feeling that the lefties who voted for this criminal have no idea just how badly many conservatives truly hate them. I can’t imagine that 1860 was any worse than this level of loathing.
JMH@3 – You are absolutely right. Obama is not the problem. The problem is the folks who voted for him or as Pogo so aptly put it, “We have met the enemy and he is us!”
The economy is falling apart. Freedom is shrinking and our stature in the world is shrinking at an alarming rate and the media and so called intelligentsia allowed this election to be about Big Bird and lady parts and class warfare.
Well it is what it is and there is no going back, no righting of the cart. This is an inflection point not a set back. The old world is dead. Mourn if you must but not for long. Things that cannot stand will not stand and a Republic divided and living beyond its means does not look very stable to me.
To paraphrase Mencken; they voted for this, let’s give it to them, good and hard. I’m all for productive Americans going on a soft strike. We have to starve the beast as much as possible by shrinking our own lifestyles down to “just getting by” levels. Save if you can, but put it in hard assets and hopefully out of sight of the Eye of Sauron. Look out for you and yours, and send anyone else looking to mooch off of your hard work to Buraq.
Fortunately for me, thanks to the hard work Obama put in during his first term, I’m already most of the way there.
Going to have to work harder on creative ways of supplementing the family “income”.
MarkJ@2,
Nah, they’ll be gleefully proclaiming: more free phones, EBT, and welfare!
mac@10
“I have a feeling that the lefties who voted for this criminal have no idea just how badly many conservatives truly hate them.”
It’s not that simple. The majority of Americans still self-identify as “conservative.” That tells me that a good many of those guys voted for Obama, but why?
The following might be illustrative. I have three good friends from back in my Army days, one female and two males. They’re all white, college-educated (two went to West Point) veterans of multiple combat tours, in their early 30′s. All are married with families, go to church, and are generally what I would consider conservative in their outlooks on life. And yet, I know they all voted for Obama last time and did this time as well. Why? That is the question that needs answering.
The conservative establishment in the U.S. is clearly missing the boat when they can’t even attract support from the kind of people I’ve just described above.
You can’t just blame it on “lefties,” there’s something going on here that the GOP and conservative establishment have missed completely. That’s why you had just about every major conservative pundit and publication predicting a Romney win.
The Republic is not lost, but it will be if the conservative establishment in America doesn’t do some serious soul searching before 2016.
Wretchard is right concerning socialized medicine. If one only has a minor ailment, it can be handled. But if it is serious, only God can help you. We will have few doctors and those will be imports from third world countries. Our constitution forbids involuntary servitude, so doctors cannot be forced to work nor should they be. If you are over 65, you will just have to die; you won’t have any treatment the gov considers expensive. Your life is now in the hands of a totalitarian gov. There will be waiting lines for any treatment and I trust the Obama voters will always be at the end of that line! I do not forgive them for what they have done to our country.
Remember too, that socialized medicine is idolatry. One is turning one’s life over to the gov to decide if one lives or dies.
You can’t hate the world or other people for not agreeing with you or for going in a different direction. But what you can do — must do — is act in your own freedom for your life. People didn’t vote for Obama because they were “bad”. They voted for him because they chose him.
Now that may benefit him and all of us. Maybe he is the Messiah, in which case we’ll find that out in due time. But supposing he’s not then I for one am determined to escape the crash which I sincerely believe he is leading us into.
If you have confidence in the correctness of your judgment then you really have nothing to fear. I have learned, just now, that what I thought was true was not in fact completely true. So I can no longer hew to that. For whatever reason that’s how things are.
That requires adaptation. A plan B which must be validated by reality. One cannot go through life insisting on is right when one is losing. I have to start winning otherwise I’m just kidding myself.
“Come to Texas”? That’s exactly what the useful idiots who voted this menace into a second term will do when their home pastures dry up, and, yes, turn the Lone Star State as blue as Massachusetts, because that’s what they do. There will be no escaping this plague of locusts, unless the more prudent states *gasp!* secure their borders within the US.
So what happens to the dwindling minority of Constitution-loving Americans (whom I had been assured many times by a respected pundit outnumbered the dog-wagging Proggy tail of our electorate, if we’d only get out the vote)? What happens to those of us who remain self-reliant, productive, and jealous of our liberties?
I’m of a mind to turn Cloward-Piven on our “leaders” and accelerate the process for my own part, and get some of those free goodies in which the Left will be “investing” my tax dollars. I can’t exactly go Galt, not without some kind of “Gulch” into which I and mine could disappear. So, why the hell not? Not pride, surely; I have little left of that, now that the American Dream has been voted down in favor of a candidate who, thirty, even twenty years ago, would have been laughed out of his primary race, and over a candidate, to quote Shakespeare, “…that was to this Hyperion to a satyr.”
If I chose to accept the results of this election as legitimate, and thus lay blame on the majority of my fellow citizens for their entirely lawful choice, would I be obligated to accept that America is still the same nation? Because I do not. What vestiges exist of that nation, scattered in states, cities, even boroughs, of this soon to be “fundamentally transformed” country are now but the quaint and reviled relics of a time and values our fellows would as soon see buried, even forgotten. And they will pursue that goal with vigor and relish.
I am bitter, and the only thing I have left is the hope that those who brought us to this place suffer more for it than I do. Or, that a newly “more flexible” Obama will, in his aggrandized hubris, commit a crime against our more durable laws so outrageous that there will be no avoiding the consequences.
Good luck to one and all, but the last, easy step is far behind us, now. When a majority of citizens, in some cases abetted by fraud which they probably not only condone, but applaud, reject a candidate like Governor Romney in favor of one like the incumbent, I see no hope of ever doing better.
I am now a foreigner in the land of my birth. =-[.]-=
I think election fraud, on a scale we’re not comprehending, is the culprit. Dunno if we’ll ever learn the facts. Sure, we’re spending more time among our “own kind” online and in the real world. But there’ve been way too many signs that we’ve been noting all over, the many Romney campaign signs vs. the fewer Obama campaign signs, the voting machine irregularities we’ve heard about just in the last couple of days, and the huge, huge crowds at Romney events compared to Obama events. And there are even more indications than those. So I think it’s fraud plain and simple.
It is interesting that on the NYT “big board”, both Obama and Romney won every state they were predicted to win. Yet every swing state went to Obama, by a few percentage points.
To rub salt in the wound, we also have the utter drubbing of the GOP in the Senate races, Allen West and Mia Love seem to have lost even though they were polling fairly well, and the execrable bigot Alan Grayson is now back in the House. Not that I’m particularly enamored with the GOP (I’ll be happy to see them sink into irrelevancy now), but it is distressing to see some of the more bright lights get snuffed out. Given what I have read of from the House Speaker, the
WhigsRepublicans intend to graciously work with Obama. One can only assume because of the massive mandate he was just handed in winning by 1-2 percentage points.The Republican party got what it deserved for its betrayal of Ron Paul and his supporters. But it doesn’t matter anyway because even if Romney had won the country is far past the point of no return.
I should add that the Romney-Ryan team made the mistake of thinking that simply because their opponents were despicable they were therefore doomed to lose. The working assumption of R-R was that they were on the side of right; that elections are won essentially be exhibitions of consent. The energy and enthusiasm they witnessed at every turn mentally calculated as a vote.
On the other hand Barack Obama knew from Chicago that votes are not determined by what people think of you, but what you can get away with tallying. It is no use to complain that this is unfair. The British in Singapore complained the Japanese were unfair. They were unfair on December 7 too. But fair had nothing to do with it.
Obama approached the problem of re-election very differently from Romney. For him it was all about overpowering the enemy with mobilization, machinery and propaganda. This is cynical, uncivil and barbarous. But Obama won with it.
Its effectiveness surprised me. I had access to my own data on Florida. It showed an enormous Romney margin. And I was not fiddling with it. And yet it never showed up. I won’t complain about that; I should have known. Fair has nothing to do with it.
But as Leo pointed out, winning that dirty is a Pyrrhic victory. It’s ultimate cost is civil society. One is tempted to say: from now on fair is stupid. But how do we square this with saving the Republic? It seems as if the very requirement of effective resistance means adopting the same means as the opponent. It’s mutual abolition of democracy; a mutual extermination of the Republic that can be justified only by arguing: it’s dead Jim.
Yet fighting Chicago with Chicago won’t work anyway. Ultimately the best way to fight City Hall is the indirect approach, which Leo refers to, as well as starving it out. The Romney campaign was always a last chance for the establishment. A Romney victory would be problematic, because you would be tempted to buddy him along for alliance’s sake. Right now it’s a clean battlefield.
The battleships are gone. All we have left are the aircraft carriers.
removed by author
The world could use a few how-to-videos, which can be posted on a YouTube channel and incidentally earn you a few bucks. For the more instructional type of material, I recommend the free CamStudio recorder, which captures your video screen. If you have Powerpoint you can do a whole lecture with one of those.
Norm is right, based on enthusiasm alone, Romney should have won and won handily.
There’s something afoot here that ain’t right. Remember how many times someone here at BC over the years would point out that the Obama administration was acting as if they already had it in the bag and there were no negative consequences to their actions? The Dems knew something we obviously didn’t.
Part of the problem is the Democrat zombies. No matter what you say to them, and no matter all the things wrong they themselves acknowledge, they cannot break with their masters. It is more than just about the free cheese. It’s a deep psychological thing. They are brainwashed to their core to vote Dem no matter what.
Maybe the world has to collapse all around them before the spell will break. It’s interesting that in France, the populace overwhelmingly voted for the collectivist Hollande and within just six weeks in office, enduring his collectivist destruction, his approval ratings had tanked through the floor, even among the thoroughly brainwashed French. Maybe something like the Holland collapse has to happen here before the zombies here get a clue.
Speaking of the collapse- I’m surprised it hasn’t happened already. Every small business I know has had their line of credit closed down. I have several clients whose commercial properties ( ones fully rented and with a low LTV) -have had their loans called by the government agent banks and then offered loans with an appraisal of only one third their true values and horrid, confiscatory terms. This kind of crap can only go on for so long before everything turns to sheet. And that’s before the regulatory and fiscal cliffs looming dead ahead. This economy I fear is only being held together with illusion and band aids. Once the fall starts, it could be a long way down.
L3, I have the utmost respect for you and your efforts. But I fear that you are in part missing what is happening.
That sounds close to what Krauthammer said tonight, to the effect that due to the lack of a mandate, he would have to moderate his conduct and work with the Republican opposition in Congress.
Buraq Hussein Obama never in his life had any intention of either “working together” or “solving problems”, pressing or otherwise. Nor do those I refer to as TWANLOC. They do not need a “mandate”; any more than Iosip Vissarionovitch Djugashvili needed one to impose his will. The Coercive Organs of the State were quite an effective substitute for a mandate. And if the Stalinist reference does not seem to be on track, one can substitute any of a number of historical figures of whatever motivating ideology or psychosis who destroyed an older order to bend people to their will.
Interesting times are upon us.
#8 SShiell presents a form of resistance, bringing down the temple in a form of Samson Option. And I can see that, but it presupposes that there is an actual power base in Congress. Already, keep in mind, that the regime ignores Congress, operates without a Constitutional budget, and has for its entire existence [and a legislature without the power of the purse is a debating society], ignores the courts, laws, and Constitution at will, and is ready and eager to rule by decree and regulation.
By all means, I can see and would support such defiance. Mind you, I just can’t see it out of the spineless Institutionals led by Boehner. But if a miracle happened and they did hold their ground; it would only result in their being suppressed, prorogued, or dispersed. If they were lucky enough not to be disappeared.
This would have practical benefits. From what I can see, and noting the severe problem of what happens afterwards; the open discarding of the forms of the Constitutional Republic may recall some [and hopefully enough] to their Oaths. That would be the best chance for the simplest and least deadly form of restoration. And even if it turns out that the Oath is forgotten or broken by those who swore it; there would be a long term positive benefit.
Obedience to the State is couched in many peoples’ minds in terms of obedience to Constitutional forms. If it is made plain that the Constitution does not hold, then the power of the State to demand obedience will be reduced to brute force. And Newton’s Third Law will obtain eventually.
Short of resort to Newtonian physics, you do have it right. State and local government can become the focus of legitimacy and loyalty, being under the control of the people. But eventually [and that is a pretty short term eventually] the Centralized State will be a jealous and vengeful Deity and demand its due. And one or the other will fall.
So definitely, band together at the local level with like minded Patriots. It is what we have left.
#18 Norm
Yes, fraud [electoral and otherwise] is at the heart of our failure yesterday, along with many other contributing factors. High up amongst them is the fact that those who commit that fraud, those who threaten, those who attack us; do so absolutely free of risk of harm for their actions. The are not only safe from the law, they are protected and guided by those whose job is to enforce the law. A government without equal protection under the law, is tyranny. And Justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done.
A few days ago I had a talk with my Congress-Critter [who is one of the good guys; so much so that his own Republican party tried to defeat him in the primaries a couple terms ago because he would not play nice with TWANLOC]. I pressed that point with him for after the election. And he agreed. But since last night, we can expect absolutely no Justice from the regime, just all the arbitrary law we can handle, and then some.
That leaves to us the task of Justice. It can come in many forms. If someone you know is a Lefty supporter/voter, do not do business with them. [Voter registrations are public record, and tracking local business owners may be worthwhile.] And spread the word. Especially in small communities, and the hard times to come, make them share in the misery. If they are in need, leave them to beg from the State that they worship. If Leftist vandals are attacking, you know that the police and the DA will do nothing. Group defense to make them pay a price for their acts [Leftists are good bullies, but they are not so good at receiving the same treatment they mete out to others.] can be considered. Make them pay a price for supporting tyranny and thuggery. Wherever possible, draw the line between TWANLOC and ourselves. Reaching across the aisle to them just enables them to victimize you.
Now, it is late and it has been a really long and depressing day. I’m going 10-7 for a while.
Subotai Bahadur
“But it will almost certainly be a Pyrrhic victory”
No, the victory is total. Romney, West, Love; even in Utah the people rejected the old ways for the new, shining path of Obamunism.
The greying youth of America have won out. The Boomers have destroyed the old AmeriKKKa.
The trend line is clear.
For the past eighty years, given a choice, the American people vote more regulation, more taxes, more centralized control; in a word, more Communism. And they will get it. Tough luck on the racists (who like the Founding Fathers), the sexists (who like Shakespeare), the homophobes (who like God), and climate deniers (who like reality).
21 @w
But as Leo pointed out, winning that dirty is a Pyrrhic victory. It’s ultimate cost is civil society. One is tempted to say: from now on fair is stupid. But how do we square this with saving the Republic? It seems as if the very requirement of effective resistance means adopting the same means as the opponent. It’s mutual abolition of democracy; a mutual extermination of the Republic that can be justified only by arguing: it’s dead Jim.
My God, Wretchard. You’re absolutely right. And I know we’re nowhere near the horror of Col. Kurtz, but for some reason I keep thinking of that diamond bullet hitting me right in the forehead.
Krauthammer should be replaced by L3.
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Obama victory means four more years with no hope of change
WASHINGTON — All that for nothing. It was the billion-dollar election that did not decide one single damned thing.
Republicans control the House. Democrats control the Senate. And the White House remains in Democratic hands with absolutely no mandate whatsoever.
Another four years with no hope of change.
In this environment with this economy and all the gravely important matters pressing against the very existence of this country, it should have been a tsunami election. It should have been a landslide that sent President Obama into dust heap of failed presidencies. Instead, the election was about Big Bird.
It was the rape election. The contraception election. The binders full of women election.
It was about who was born where and whether she really could claim to be a Cherokee Indian.
It was about former president George W. Bush. And it was about gay marriage.
It was about the 1 percent and the 99 percent and the 47 percent.
It was about dancing freaking horses, for crying out loud!
Just about the only thing the election wasn’t about was the economy, which everyone agrees was the only thing voters actually cared about. People tend to really care about the economy when real unemployment reaches double digits, welfare rolls fatten by one-third, politicians rack up $16 trillion in debt and the largest tax hike in the history of the world looms just weeks away.
Yet that obviously is not what decided this election. Politicians were too busy talking all about Big Bird, rape and dancing horses.
The most disturbing issue of the election was how President Obama managed to win re-election in places like Ohio and Pennsylvania and Michigan by talking about the highly unpopular bailout of General Motors.
By taking billions of dollars in hard-earned money from taxpayers during a deep recession and giving it to a couple of huge companies, Obama managed to buy the votes he needed to eke out re-election. Taxpayers remain on the hook to the tune of $25 billion.
This is the Achilles heel of a democracy. Politicians simply tax those who do not support them and give the money to those who do. Or give the money to those they would like to have support them. It is the end of the line. Game over.
The weeks to come will feature endless finger-pointing and blame about how Republicans do not know how to speak to non-white voters and women and all that non-sense.
What happened last night is the same thing that has been happening for decades in America. Politicians deploy all this highly precise technology to slice and dice voters into little micro-groups and then talk to them all about dancing horses or Big Bird.
The result is you have all these states vote for one side and all these other states vote for the other side and it all comes down to Florida and Ohio. You could have given me a lot less than a billion dollars and I could have told you that.
The only way this gridlock is finally broken is when politicians grow up and decide to put away Big Bird and dancing horses and seriously address like adults the $16 trillion in debts they have racked up on our credit card.
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…for our children and our country to deal with.
—
The Warren Court will seem like the Golden Years of Responsible Judicial Oversight.
…look at the two clueless Ideologues already installed.
Those Dead White Men will be re-toasted in Hell.
By characterizing this as a “pyrrhic victory” that doesn’t mean we can laugh it off. We are headed for very hard times. If you look a couple of threads back I put the choices as “every man for himself” or “keep resisting” and argued they were the same thing.
The hard times are inescapable now. Know however, that the same difficulties are going to overtake everyone including the regime’s minons. This will also drive the engine for renewal, but the soft landing option is gone. The main challenge is to survive and survive better than the minions of the regime.
Norm is right.
Just by the facial expressions and mood of Barry — he expected to lose. Hence, all of the pre-voting nostrums to buck it up and hope for the last hour.
You never hear that kind of talk from a campaign that expects to win handily — which is what the electoral tally shows.
Further, the ‘final vote’ is statistically miles away from the best polls money could buy — and where budgets for same were astronomic.
And then, there’s the delayed vote tabulations — consistently — from Democrat machine bastions at a time when automation and computers make it a snap.
The MSM media stroke the public with tales of ballot by ballot cross checking…
With tallies into the millions, such assertions are up there with Santa Claus.
The fact is that by sending mega money to the public sector unions our king bought their loyalties. The thought that a moderate Republican would necessarily chip away at their purse has caused them to, collectively, commit a ‘blood-money’ attack upon the dollar.
The economy will now contract until morale improves.
———–
WRT L3′s Obamacare burden: the ONLY way that a going concern can hack that choker is to recalibrate all employee expense burdens, upwards. This will cause the less productive to be placed on ‘the bubble’ — and terminated as soon as possible.
The half way solution will be to cut back employment hours until we’re a nation of dual incomes PER PERSON. Every common man will have to have multiple jobs since no-one will be able to eat Obamacare.
As for the Latino vote: Obamacare takes from European Americans and gives to Latinos. Period. Stop.
Down the road, Texas and Arizona will be Democrat ‘locks.’ There is now, no chance that Obamacare will be repealed.
Instead, the entire government will go insolvent first.
We’ve done it before: in the Revolution and later Articles of Confederation era the Continental Dollar was ‘blown up.’ Hence:”Not worth a Continental.”
State/Colonial debts were also busted out. Creditors were stiffed for as much as forty years. (!)
———-
Folks, the economic engine is already smoking. The addict will up the dosage.
So, if you want to save your skin, study up on Wiemar Germany.
Move out of the US Dollar. Everyone else is.
Pump prices will not be falling back much — if at all. I should expect Barry to impose ADDITIONAL road taxes during 2013.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Fourth-Turning-American-Rendezvous/dp/0767900464
The Fourth Turning is a must read or reread.
This next period will feature Barry taking the world into the abyss, as he stands frozen on the controls, with his eyes bugging out with his Punahou Death Stare.
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And, no, he didn’t win the election. It was stolen straight up.
Hugo led the way.
LIII, I would appreciate suggestions on what to do with the money I have in mutual funds. I am very much disinclined to continue to let the crooks in the government play with it for the benefit of the 47%, point to it as an example of how well they are running the country – and then tax me again on the false gains, which then disappear into thin air when its time to suffer the inevitable consequences.
My first inclination is to cash it all in Right Now, but a more sober and educated response is the proper thing to do.
I think that someone should create some Red States Mutual Funds. Not only have the Red States proved to be better investments but, as I have said before, we need to wage economic guerilla warfare.
The USSR got better and better every year, until it fell apart. The USA is improving at an even brisker pace.
Constantinople has fallen. Now the pillage begins. (It’s already begun four years ago, of course; but now it REALLY gets started.)
I agree with so much of what was said above–the only comment I’d make is that personally I do feel as though I’m in mourning. I’m glad my father and mother and other ancestors aren’t alive to see this.
I’m sure massive vote fraud occurred. I’m sure it will be hushed up.
As a Catholic, I’m disgusted with American Catholics and the hierarchy, that let things go this far. The Church(es) will now face real persecution. We’ll find once again the that blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church, I’m afraid.
I’ve a strong Protestant friend who tells me I, as a Catholic, should read Augustine’s “The City of God”; to which I reply: “How’d that work out for the city of Hippo?” Or Constantinople, for that matter, or for anyone?
I’m glad I’m in Europe, too, and not at home, to see this.
And I’ve been thinking of taking Irish citizenship, too. The Irish government is miserable, of course, corrupt as Chicago and as Leftist as it can be, but the physical land of Ireland is what I relate to, and a handful of people there, essentially my tribe.
But of course that’s a pipe dream. I’ve lived in Ireland; I know what it’s like.
I also agree with Dag Walker’s comments in the previous thread–we take our Americanism with us wherever we go. It is an idea, after, the fulfillment of the best maturation of the Ancient Greeks, etc. The United States of America is no longer “the West”, really. But the world has a lot of us “Westerners” scattered about. We can use our wits to our advantage. For a while.
As a kid, I used to dream of being a deep-space explorer, and now, after this, I’m in deep-space, all right. But as so many have said, it’s now down to taking care of yourself and yours. As things continue to fall apart, that’s “the prime directive” now.
An Préachán
PS I’ve not looked at Whiskey’s site in ages, but I suppose he’s saying, “I told ya so.” Check out Mark Steyn’s comments on the “pasty-faced” New Hampshire people who’ve gone along with Obama.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/332836/live-free-or-die-mark-steyn
We’ve truly lost the country.
A possible alternative, courtesy of Bill Whittle:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s02SypCcYIc
If you can’t beat ‘em, don’t play the game. It’s worth the watch. =’[.]‘=
Do not give in to despair, but understand the trajectory of the times. We have not awakened to a dawn of a new and wonderful world, but a decline of the blessings of liberty. This nation will see economic and military decline.
One of the most critical tests of courage and inner strength is realizing that you sometimes cannot follow the crowd. In times like these, the crowd is going in the wrong direction.
There will be retribution and discrimination for those who oppose. Bitter clingers will be ridiculed and punished in ways both subtle and overt.
If you are a believer, then understand that your nation is being taken to the woodshed for apostasy and rejection of biblical standards. What to do? Critically examine your own life and beliefs. The problem with the nation is not sin of any kind, but rejection of God and his principles of establishment for nations.
Intensify your efforts to learn doctrine from a competent source, someone with the spiritual gift of pastor-teacher. Study to show thyself approved. Then apply the doctrine.
If you are unbeliever, then you have much larger issues than loss of human liberty. You are part of the problem, no matter what your political leanings. Simply put, you are not a child of God. God would have spared Sodom if it had contained 10 righteous people.
Is it a time to stock a bunker with survival supplies? Well, tend to your survival as you see fit, but give priority to learning enough doctrine to deal with national disasters.
Daniel, you recall, was carted body and soul to a foreign land, Babylon. They changed his name to Belteshazzar, to honor a pagan god. Notice that he did not object to this. It was not an issue in his interpretation of doctrine. Only when obliged to eat meat offered to idols, which was a direct violation of Mosaic Law, did he refuse. He came up with a plan. It failed on first try. He revised the plan and went up one level in the authority structure. It succeeded.
There is a lesson there for all believers. We often are distracted by crusades against moral issues (homosexuality, abortion, etc.) The issue for unbelievers is only this – unbelief. After that comes spiritual growth and discernment of moral issues.
I think we’ve experienced the Deem version of Stuxnet. Just alter a few percent of the votes cast in critical locales.
Machines miscasting/misreporting votes must be a s/w glitch.
I voted in Seminole County, FL. Mark the ballot and scan it into the voting machine. No feedback, no screen or printout to verify its done its job accurately.
I asked the election official about the lack of feedback and he said: We can all be assured the machine is working correctly.
Really? How can we know?
Deleted my comment; somewhat OT.
Geoffgo, I live in NE Florida. We used paper ballots. I’m firmly of the belief that election fraud in south Florida threw this election.
The 47% have spoken. They still want their free stuff and have no problems making other people pay for it.
Norm @18
After I got over the shock, I too concluded that fraud must have played a decisive role. How else to explain the indications you listed?
So many sober people on the right – all wrong? So many worried lefties – all wrong?
But, what is to be done? Anyone who has been cheated or ripped off knows how hard it is to get justice, particularly in a multicultural state where bedrock words take on completely different connotations.
My guy didn’t win either if it makes people feel better. We’re in the same boat.
Anyway, I don’t think this is over until the Syria stuff plays out. People say Obama’s an actor like that’s an insult- but start taking it literally… Give him and Axelrod credit.
Comes the Revolution. It’s going to be a long winter and a violent spring, and blood will run in the streets as Gimmee Nation discovers that there really IS no more money. The world that desired to see America in flames, without realizing that without our military at their backs, their own wrecked countries will follow. Next year will be something you have never seen before. Save that those days be shortened, no man will survive.
Voter fraud????? what are you guys smoking?
http://www.nbcchicago.com/blogs/ward-room/Jesse-Jackson-Jr-Wins-Reelection–175717941.html?dr
Democrats don’t need to rig the election when they simply line up and vote (a landslide) for a guy who has been on the government paid vaction for months and states in his acceptance speech that he doesn’t know when he will return to work. Isn’t democracy great?
The fault squarely falls on the Republican Party as a whole, the Congressmen in the House, Senate and Mitt himself. 0bama and Eric Holder are now free to do as they please, 0bama has already shown he cares not a whit what anyone thinks, 0bama will go around Congress as he has already done knowing they will put up little fight! God has most certainly turned his back upon America but only because America long ago turned its back on God. Most of us can see this and it will only become more evident in the coming days. The days of Noah have been slowly returning, the vortex will certainly speed up the change.
#31 RWE, suggest you read Aftershock, it will suggest some ideas on what to do with your money before the SHTF.
As the title suggests the dollar, debt, housing, will fail starting in 2013. The US will default on it’s debt.
I have to agree with KWB @42.
Not that it isn’t understandable to accuse the winning side of cheating when you’ve taken a drubbing, but voter fraud is simply too easy of an answer.
These election results simply confirm what many of us have feared – that the values we once held dear have been abandoned by a majority of our countrymen, for good.
And any rational predicton would have the stock market drop 6,000 points this week. Tell me again why it should go up?
Bargaining
@ 43: “0bama and Eric Holder are now free to do as they please”
Our future is not Greece. It’s Venezuela.
Wretchard in post #21, to be clear, are you alleging fraud or just plain GOTV dominance? I do think voter fraud happens but to the extent to tip an election this much–sounds like something I’d like to tell myself to feel better. But in fact, how more comforting is it to think that 48% or 49% of the country is hopeless vs. 51%?
We don’t teach our children to love liberty; we don’t explain how our government works or how it differs from other “free” countries like Sweden or Belgium; we don’t require basic economics in high school. The left has captured all major American cultural institutions, and so we reap what we sow. What did we expect?
“I voted in Seminole County, FL. Mark the ballot and scan it into the voting machine. No feedback, no screen or printout to verify its done its job accurately.
I asked the election official about the lack of feedback and he said: We can all be assured the machine is working correctly.”
I had the same experience. Stuck my ballot in, the machine said “ballot cast”. I asked the election worker who looked to be at least 80. “How do I know it voted for the guy I wanted? I’ve heard there were problems in Nevada.” She pointed to the digital screen “Ballot Cast”. I said “What was wrong with pulling the handle?”
I posted this on a previous thread and expanded it a bit here, but, one thing that concerns me with the idea that:
“after four more years of this administration and the damage it will have done to our country, that surely, the American people will come to their senses,”
Unfortunately, the opposition gets a vote too. With enough immigrants where entitlements are given to buy their vote, the media’s complicity, and the shifting of blame to Republicans in congress – e.g. If they don’t pass budget or tax increases because of military cuts, Obama can have 1 or 2 positive things in there and say its the republicans who refuse to pass them.
Most Americans will buy this manure. I see the situation only getting worse. So, my question is if you are in Congress, what are non-negotiables. Taxes? I am afraid that raising taxes will destroy any economic recovery, but let that fault be Obama’s. I think the real non-negotiable is defense spending. We must keep up as strong a military as we can get. Every other issues that we conservatives hold dear is subordinate to that in the long run. I am not saying we shouldn’t continue to fight, but keeping our military strong is more important than not raising taxes.
The next 4 years are going to suck. But the damage to not having a strong military is irreversible.
Wait, let’s backtrack a bit. Why should the US have a strong military? Maybe it’s really time to pull in your horns a bit, cut back on that military spending? The Founding Fathers would have been appalled at the sheer size of the modern US military and its activities.
Yes, the rest of the world may, and probably will suffer. That includes me too. But we rooted for Obama, many of us (virtually all my FB friends, sigh). So we deserve to get what we wanted, just as long and hard.
What’s a world without the benevolent but iron grip of the US military? What if it was replaced by China? We might be about to find out.
Came across this excellent short fic yesterday about the dissolution of the Union.
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.sg/2012/10/how-it-could-happen-part-five.html
The scenario seems entirely possible. How many conservatives feel estranged and ready to announce for seccesion? Higher than ever before?
It’s gonna be a wild ride.
RWE @31,
I would appreciate suggestions on what to do with the money I have in mutual funds.
Well, my suggestion is to not follow advice from me on anything related to investing in the stock market. I have learned the hard way that knowing how to run a business is very different than knowing how to make money in the markets. As a result, I stay pretty much completely away from the public equity markets, and only own debt securities to the extent that I have no other choice.
We are going into a difficult period, but I think we all underestimate just how much money can be pumped into the US economy before the balloon bursts. Americans are still shockingly productive relative to the rest of the world; we have one of the most stable legal systems, particularly our property law (which is what attracts capital); we have a much higher standard of living; and we have a huge natural resource base. These facts and others should continue to allow us to monetize our debt for some time to come. Sure, it will eventually catch up with us, but Japan has run at zero interest rates for more than 15 years. It could be a while.
So from an investment standpoint, you probably want to spread your wealth around (to coin a phrase
). Diversification has even more value when volatility increases, and we are likely to see more volatility. And by diversification, I don’t just mean diversifying financial assets; you probably need to be thinking more broadly, and include things like real estate, commodities, precious metals, etc.
As I think about it, you probably need to think even more broadly than that. As W alludes to above and I’ve discussed in previous posts, the most valuable asset that we need to protect is our civil society. So investing in human capital, human relationships, and human institutions (especially local ones) might make more sense than owning stock. After all, if things really get rough, would you rather own electronic entries of paper shares of some company, or have the skills and equipment to drill a water well? Or a strong friendship with a welder who needed a loan to purchase a new welding machine? Or a vibrant church community in your local parish? Those may be the “assets” that really matter at the end of the day (although even referring to them as “assets” exposes the flawed ontology at the root of the homo economicus model – but that’s a topic for another time…).
Sorry that I can’t be all that helpful, but I wish you all the best.
Cheers,
L3
Leo, your Tea Party friends in East Texas wish you would consider running for governor next time. We need someone with your intelligence and vision who is outside the party establishment to help fight DC from Austin.
w @ 21: I should add that the Romney-Ryan team made the mistake of thinking that simply because their opponents were despicable they were therefore doomed to lose.
I don’t know what they thought. The cliche about Republicans is that they simply think they deserve it, as rich white guys, that the party chooses the candidate who has the most service points regardless of objective merit. Maybe, when it comes down to it, that’s all they thought, and they were wrong.
rwe @ 31: I would appreciate suggestions on what to do with the money I have in mutual funds.
Here’s the thing, we are still in Bernankeville today as we were yesterday. At least 30% of the current value of your funds, is Bernankebux. The financial press is making squeaky noises this morning as if the election of Romney would somehow have changed that. I dunno. Can’t think of anything Romney ever said on the subject. Dow is down 240 points right now. I’m sure Bernanke and the PPT had been holding it flat for the last 90 days, waiting for the election. And now, post election? Dunno. No fundamentals are changed, and certainly not for the better. If anything, the Bernanke control of financial markets will need to strengthen now. So at last to the point: one can argue that the equities markets are among the *safest* places to store value right now, with a conservative cast and a little active management – that one would hope a good mutual fund would provide. Me, I prefer individual equities, not that I have any great success to show for it.
But yeah, have at least a little physical gold, for the value and emergency utility. And as much other survivalist imperatives as your personal karma would seem to support.
Subotai Bahadur @25,
I wasn’t actually meaning to imply that the President would “moderate his conduct and work with the Republican opposition in Congress.” I don’t actually have any idea how the President will behave; after 4 years in office, I still can’t fully discern whether he is a visionary (which may or may not be considered a compliment), a megalomaniac, a lightworker, a lazy poseur, a pathological narcissist, a genius, an idiot, or any of the other various possible interpretations.
So I don’t know what he’ll do. He may, per Krauthammer, moderate. He may also triple- and quadruple-down on Obamacare, Dodd-Frank, and so on.
My point was that he cannot govern as a uniter. In the prisoners’ dilemma of politics, he has chosen to defect. So the potential reward payoff is no longer on the table; there can be no repeated game. We are back to playing a one-shot game, and the structure of that game makes mutual defection the only rational strategy.
A shame, really. But it is what it is. No use pining for what might have been.
What this means is the conflict will intensify, the outcomes will worsen, and life for most of us will get a little more solitary (as the state displaces local, voluntary associations), poor (as monetization displaces productive investment) , nasty (as shouting displaces debate), brutish (as power displaces law) , and short (as a centralized medical bureaucracy displaces the doctor-patient-family relationship).
But I remain hopeful that as we go through this process, the core will survive, and then thrive. After all, it has in the past. No reason to think it won’t in the future. I may or may not live to see it, but if I remain committed to that core in my own life and conduct, I will have done my duty.
And that’s a comforting thought, although perhaps not a profitable one…
Cheers,
L3
Many here have assigned blame to changing demographics, negative campaigning, fraud, and a variety of other factors. I think these reasons are more akin to symptoms of the problem, rather than the cause.
As Thomas Jefferson so famously noted, democracy cannot survive without the consent of an informed electorate. We no longer HAVE an informed electorate. Our knowledge and understanding of the true impact of political policy and economic principles are the only things that can protect us from the tyranny of those more interested in maintaining/expanding power than the well-being of the nation.
I may be entirely wrong, but it’s difficult for me to believe that if (for example) the majority of black voters were truly aware of how poorly their particular ethnic group has fared under Obama, that they would have so readily voted to re-elect the man. It’s difficult for me to believe that if many on the left truly understood economics, that they would think that Obama’s policies had any chance of revitalizing our economy, and kick-starting economic growth. The majority has been persuaded to vote against their best interests.
This is what I find most depressing. This election showed me two things. American voters no longer have the facts, and are no longer interested in digging them out. We, as a society, are so distracted and easily misled, that it’s difficult for me to see a recovery or return to fiscal sanity in the foreseeable future.
I spoke briefly to the CEO of my company this morning about last night’s outcome. He agreed that it’s a new America, one which bears little resemblance to the America we grew up with, and which we always thought would be there.
Leo Linbeck is wrong! 0bama did not run a great campaign, the MSM elected 0bama by share propaganda and refusal to cover all the criminal acts committed by 0bama administration, just as the MSM refused to cover any of the personal history of 0bama prior to his first election, this is why we have gone over the tipping point already and very few even realized it than, maybe more do now but it’s going to take a sever shock such as “Sandy” on a national scale to open enough eyes to make any real difference. Darkness is descending.
The left has captured all major American cultural institutions, and so we reap what we sow.
That’s because leftists patronize artists. When right wingers learn how to patronize art that expresses their point of view, they will effectively challenge leftist control over American cultural institutions.
There is a sick and sad irony to all of this. If the Tea Party had spent even a tenth of its energy in an all-out push to infiltrate and conquer public broadcasting stations, those stations would have become mouthpieces of conservative-rightism rather than mouthpieces of liberal-leftism.
One key problem is that conservatives don’t even try to fight for control over cultural institutions; they sulk, they hide, and they try to ignore leftist dominance of cultural power. Broadcasting corporations are vulnerable to boycotts and activist stockhiolders, while public broadcasting stations are vulnerable to coups. Likewise, newspapers are also vulnerable.
Artists and musicians are amazingly easy to persuade. Patronage works, and that is precisely how Mr. Obama has been able to get so many of them on his side. Then, there are the universities. Conservatives have an erroneous notion that universities are impreganable citadels of liberalism. Not so. Leftists are merely the loudest voices, and their control over university politics is tenuous at best. If student fees were completely eliminated (as they are in Australia), this would defund many leftist organizations on campus.
Leftist cultural power is overstated. At a distance, it may look like a raging tiger, but upon closer inspection it is merely made of paper.
Yashmak@57,
On the contrary, I think they know exactly how badly they have fared. And voted for Obama anyway. Bros before hos. Ethnic solidarity above all.
And besides, most people are too stupid to understand economics. It gets worse when most of the economics taught is just plain wrong.
I can tell you why last night happened, people in general despise the GOP and do not trust it in any way or measure; it is a busted brand and dead nationally. You can thank GWB for that.
Going forward, it’s Weimarica all the way baby, followed by the American National Socialist Party. And once the hard left has total political power, who do you think is going to be taking that long last train ride? Here’s a hint, they speak ebonics.
The pendulum of history is always moving and it’s futlie to think you can affect it’s momentum or trajectory.
18. Norm
I think election fraud, on a scale we’re not comprehending, is the culprit. Dunno if we’ll ever learn the facts.
No Norm, sorry. While there has been fraud and intimidation going on, it was not the chief cause. The sobering fact is: our fellow Americans are no longer a serious people. It isn’t even changes in ethnic demography; whites are still the overwhelming majority. A majority of Americans are hapless noobs when they enter the voting booth. We must all get it through our heads that the popular narrative drilled into the American psyche for at least half a century is against us.
61. cjm
I can tell you why last night happened, people in general despise the GOP and do not trust it in any way or measure; it is a busted brand and dead nationally. You can thank GWB for that.
Yes, good point and on the money. There are people who are uneasy about Obama and his crew, but they can’t bring themselves to switch votes, even in secret. They are conditioned to ignore their instincts. The GOP and conservatives never got this. They’ve always thought that the solution was to control the levers of government. Their enemies control the levers of the institutions of the country.
republican, democrat same animal.
I would not doubt the whole charade wasn’t planned four years ago, just so the first black president would get two terms. History and a racist nation and all that jazz.
The American Jew, the blacks and gay folks if at first you get what you ask for then after you will get what you so richly deserve.
Pay your taxes they may yet hit 75% of your income.
Pay your gas bills it may yet hit $8.50 per gallon.
The American Jew may yet get to see Israel burn want to bet on who burns the place down?
As for me, I’m gonna do what I always do, feed and hay my horses, shovel manure in a wheel barrow and dump it in the compost heap.
I’m already riding a bicycle everywhere it’s good for my health and I don’t pay into the system with gas buys which is lost revenue for the feds I am saving the earth of the future though for any chillern’s what don’t get aborted.
Bonnie Blue.
” I can say is that the average person has absolutely no idea how enormous the impact will be on their life.”
Neal Boortz was just saying that a friend of his who owns a business decided last night that he has to get out from under Obamacare and plans to do so by reducing his workforce. So this morning he called in 5 of his full time employees and told them they were being let go. He chose the 5 employees who have Obama bumper stickers on their cars.
Then he called in 8 of his part time employees and and told them they were being cut from 30 to 25 hours a week in order to escape the Obamacare mandates in that respect.
This will be happening over the entire country in multiple forms of business. “We have 7.9% unemployment, do we hear 8.9%? Sold to the man in the back with the dark suit and the big ears!”
LIII #53: In fact, as I said on the next thread I am going to go and personally thank the two people came by canvassing the neighborhood for Romney, and tell them I appreciate their work and ask if I can ever do anything for them. Maybe we will form a militia.
Actually, I’m already in a “militia” of sorts. I hang out with guys at the airport who are mostly Vietnam Vets with considerable combat experience. And are also gun collectors.
I woke up thinking about the scene in Tom Hanks’s movie Cast Away, the movie having been aired a few days ago, where Hanks dives off the raft to rescue his volleyball that had begun floating away and, it being just out of reach, chooses to grasp for the rope and return to the raft. Last night, America chose Wilson. A psychological dependency had to be maintained, no matter the cost.
Perhaps some remnant of Americans returned to the raft. Perhaps we must mourn what has been lost, and look for a new future. I never understood the final scene before, with Hanks at the crossroads wondering which direction to go, with the camera zooming in for a closeup of him beginning to smile. I realized this time around that though the camera showed empty roads behind him he had turned toward the direction of the woman in the truck, the truck with a representation of the wings he had relied upon for strength while a castaway.
St. John of the Cross wrote about giving up every thing that becomes an idol for us, even sentimental attachments. “Nada, nada, nada, y aun en la cruce de caminos, nada” If I may be permitted. Whilst composing this little message I found this First Things article and offer it in hope. http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2006/08/st-john-of-the-cross All the best to you all.
My house being now at rest.
In the happy night, In secret, when none saw me,
Nor I beheld aught, Without light or guide, save that which burned in my heart.
This light guided me More surely than the light of noonday,
to the place where he (well I knew who!) was awaiting me—
A place where none appeared.
Consider the fact that Romney/Ryan received 3million less votes than McCain did in 2008.
@ #3
Exactly. Found this on Facebook which I believe sums up the issue nicely, one that I had been saying for a while, but not nearly as well:
“This quote came from the Czech Republic. Someone over there has it figured out. It was translated into English from an article in the Prague newspaper Prager Zeitungon:
“The danger to America is not Barack Obama, but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails America. Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The Republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is, after all, merely a fool. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools, such as those who made him their president.”
Many of us have been made stupid slaves, and should Space Aliens come tomorrow and kidnap Obama and Biden tomorrow, along with the Democrats in Congress, a majority of the populace who will replace them readily. We can’t even trust many Republicans to preserve the Republic.
Look, I am far for the most prescient, and I am not calling for Civil War, but I am thinking we are moving toward one, inexorably. Unless Americans in the middle and right are willing to submit to the new order, there is going to be a clash, particularly when things fall apart, and I don’t see how they won’t at this point.
Given how badly Obama handled things the last 4 years, he should have been tossed out, but instead he won handily. Does anyone think that next election cycle it will be any better unless thing get so bad it puts the hurt on everyone?
Sorry, not trying to be defeatist, but a realist. A friend of mine commented this morning that he was going to take the advice of his dear, departed mother and read up on Roman History. I told him that, eventually, it did not end well. He replied, “I know. I just don’t want any surprises…”
RWE, 64 Please do what needs to be done.
No. 14. E2
I was interested in your anecdote:
“It’s not that simple. The majority of Americans still self-identify as ‘conservative.’ That tells me that a good many of those guys voted for Obama, but why?
The following might be illustrative. I have three good friends from back in my Army days, one female and two males. They’re all white, college-educated (two went to West Point) veterans of multiple combat tours, in their early 30′s. All are married with families, go to church, and are generally what I would consider conservative in their outlooks on life. And yet, I know they all voted for Obama last time and did this time as well. Why? That is the question that needs answering.”
What’s going on here? You know these people, and told us their story — part of it anyway. But what do you think about it? Why would such people find Obama worth their votes? I genuinely don’t understand it — I don’t see Obama’s appeal at all, but I’m over 50 and a white male. These past five or so years, I feel like I’ve landed on Mars, and I have no clue what makes the Martians tick.
14. E2
mac@10
“I have a feeling that the lefties who voted for this criminal have no idea just how badly many conservatives truly hate them.”
The following might be illustrative. I have three good friends from back in my Army days, one female and two males. They’re all white, college-educated (two went to West Point) veterans of multiple combat tours, in their early 30′s. All are married with families, go to church, and are generally what I would consider conservative in their outlooks on life. And yet, I know they all voted for Obama last time and did this time as well. Why? That is the question that needs answering.
Let’s see…all of military background, must know about the travesty of Benghazi, and still voted for Obama?
Clearly leaving their buddies behind is no longer a matter of honor or integrity for them. Understanding that clear implication, it is not at all surprising that they voted for Obama.
They clearly are among the prior service officers that will gladly violate their oath “to defend the Constitution against all enemies, both foreign and domestic.”
Part of the value of Obama’s victory is that the more I learn of some of his benefactors and the fact that they may have served “combat tours” is that the current crop of military officers may not share the bond of brotherhood that I used to presume of them.
That is useful information and a good heavy metal brush wiping away some of my silly naivete. That will greatly change how I may respond to those military usurpers also ignoring posse comitatus when they come to disarm the populace.
But I agree with Wretchard when he responds to the charge that some change that violates what you used to consider a matter of honor – is now “unfair.” Ain’t no such-a-thing as “fair” or “unfair” any more – just is or ain’t. I’m crestfallen about that, but I can learn, and will.
We are going to become a tad rougher with each other in the near future. I won’t label it fair or unfair. I’ll label it “tragic” because in that world I will no longer have brothers and sisters for whom I previously gave priveledge.
Simple now. You are or you ain’t. Pity if your opposite number mistakes you for pure TWANLOC.
The Republic is dead.
The empire of beggars is upon us. Long live the empire!
I do not understand how a population that has had the opportunity to digest ‘Mein Kampf’ and its aftermath cannot come to terms what has happened here.
There’s a very good reason the only writings by or about Barak Obama existent are hagiography.
“Fundamental Change” is just that. Listen to the words. Don’t just hear them. LISTEN.
Reid is going after filibuster. And Boehner has rolled over and shown his belly.
Good luck.
I want to focus on trying to restore a government in this country based on the US constitution as it is written, not as some bunch of black-robed idiots claim that it is. I have purchased the following domain names. Which one do you like best?
re-constitution.us
restore-usa-constituion.com
restoreconstitution.com
Nice thought, Walter, but who’s gonna enforce that?
There is nothing to enforce. I am trying to create a forum for discerning a way forward out of this mess.
Here in Siliconvalleyistan, several tax increases passed, but shockingly, in the Santa Clara Unified School District board race, two candidates from the “accountability faction” won their races to take a majority of the 7 member board. One of the winning candidates was relentlessly targeted with a negative campaign from the “union / status quo faction” unlike anything I’ve seen. There was a full-fledged Campaign to Stop Chris Stampolis with direct mail, ads and a web site. The single “Heh!” for me from Tuesday.
america as we knew it is toast. a rotting corpse of a nice past.
the majority of the american people today are worthless trash.
welcome to hell.
I am sorry. It was a bad idea. I have cancelled the domain names. As you were.
This looks like a battle of the Can Do’s vs the Do Nothing to get Free Stuffers. The only way that we can get out of this mess is to let the consequences hit the DNFS. Only trouble is that the collateral damage is tremendous. But that I believe is how it will play out. Damn.
Your investment advice to RWE struck a strong chord with me, L3, since creating diversifying investments that support human institutions is my goal.
This new diversifying asset class would support human institutions by letting churches, museums, schools, etc., offer their artworks and other tangible valuables as financial investments jointly-owned with folks from their communities. Artworks generate capital appreciation that these human institutions can’t use as long as they hold them — and they may hold them in perpetuity — but folks in their communities can use that same capital appreciation on artworks for long-term savings. If those folks can buy and sell a joint interest in an artwork they own with their church, they can eventually apply the artwork’s gains in value to fund their school or retirement or housing. In turn, that church can collect interest, dividends, rents, etc., on the cash that their community’s investors put into their artworks, helping to fund their mission.
As you note, diversification has even more value when volatility increases, and including church and museum and school artworks and tangibles in RWE’s portfolio would not only offer that financial diversification but would add vibrancy to the church community in his local parish, and to museums and schools and so forth. Those aren’t the only “assets” that really matter at the end of the day — you’ve got to have businesses too, like the welder and her equipment — but mobilizing all the idle wealth tied up in church and museum and school holdings as active investments for their communities can strengthen communities by funding their human institutions with cash generated by real investments that households make to put their savings in jointly-held tangible assets (and I don’t think treating jointly-held artworks, etc., as “assets” exposes any flaw in the ontology at the root of the homo economicus model – but again, that’s a topic for another time…).
In response to the comments @69 & 70 –
I have a theory as to why my comrades in arms vote the way they do. To simply write them off as “not willing to protect the constitution” is BS. Do you really think that a vote for Romney was one to “defend the constitution?” I’m pretty damned conservative and I’m not convinced that Romney wanted to defend anything but his own political ambitions. Some goes for McCain, which is why I didn’t bother voting for either one of them.
(While I’m at it, I’m also going to lob a grenade or two at those who believe that our Defense Department is made up of righteous individuals who sacrifice all to defend the country. Ordinary service members, yes, give them the respect they’re due. But the DoD is nothing but a giant self-licking ice cream cone, just like every other major department in the U.S. these days. To believe otherwise is simply naive. But I digress.)
Anyway, back to the topic of why my friends vote the way they do, it might be somewhat territorial. They all hail from Mass, NJ, and North Dakota. The first two areas make sense and in the case of the guy from NJ, he told me once that his whole family was made up of pro-union Blue Dog Democrats. Tradition can be hard to break. The ND one, I still can’t figure out. But I don’t think that’s entirely it. I could write a book on this topic, but here’s my overarching theory:
First, it has to do with education. And the problem is not necessarily what you think. In my experience, the biggest failure of our education system is not that students have been fed lefty propaganda for the last 3-4 decades. It’s more about the actual culture of our public school systems, which has elevated sports, social activities, and other non-academic pursuits above all other things. Most kids I knew in high school in the 90′s were more concerned about how popular they were, what sport they played, and how to get a prom date than they were about their studies.
Because college entry standards had dropped so much by then, you really could do the bare minimum in school, get okay grades, and make it into a decent university. And in university, the pattern continues. You go to college for the parties and sex – the degree is secondary. Everybody knows that. But back to high school; students that were academic, who did strive to be deep thinkers, to challenge their teachers and fellow students in class were ridiculed and ostracized. Being smart and bucking trends was not, I repeat NOT cool. And peer pressure was, and still is, a b*tch. And that was 15 years ago. Things have only gotten worse. Perhaps Obama gets the votes from the 45 and under crowd because he’s simply the cool kid. And our entire culture has elevated “cool” above all other virtues. The biggest cult in America is the cult of cool, and the Democrats have successfully made themselves the cool party.
And because of this, and a lack of good parenting at home, we stopped producing adults about 30 years ago. Most people I know under 45 still act like they’re in high school. Back when I was in the Army, I sometimes felt like the only adult in the unit – and that includes my last battalion commander. You would not believe how much ridiculous, childish behavior I saw from so-called adults during my 7 years in the military. As an officer, I often had to sit people down (including my fellow officers) that were in their 30′s and 40′s and tell them to stop acting like 15 year olds.
So, to sum up, my theory is that our younger generations have been infantilized to the point where high school “values” still reign in their worlds, no matter what stage of life they’re at. Study up on the issues that face our country? Nah, that’s not cool, dude. The attitude seems to be, “I want all my friends to know that I voted for the cool black guy.” Don’t even get me started on how Facebook and other social networks exacerbate this problem.
As for my military friends, I still have the utmost respect for them. Despite having grown up in our messed up culture, they still raised their hands and volunteered to serve, something most of their peers would never consider. Unfortunately, it seems they have still been somewhat brainwashed into joining the “cult of cool.”
So, this gets me back to my original question, how do we reach guys like this? Do you try to un-brainwash them, or simply try to come up with a “cooler” alternative? All I know is that the GOP and conservatives in general need to come up with some solutions to tackle the “youth” (are people from 25-45 really “youths?”) problem if they hope to ever win another election.
WE LOST. Turn out appeared high. I worried on election day who was turning out. Romney was good candidate and he did well but still lost. McCain was not a good candidate.
The 2008 electorate turned out for Obama and the 2010 electorate did also and there was more of the 2008 electorate out there. That means that those who voted for Obama are not convinced that conservative principle are good for them or the country. That is a problem. Several decades of liberal thinking in schools have turned out liberals. They used fear and whatever they could to convince the minority targeted blocks to vote for Obama.
We need to sell our brand and we failed. So back to the basics . Too few conservatives in the schools to teach children why conservatism is the best.
I went to schools in the 1970′s and I lived in a liberal society. This was the time of detente and trying to remake thinking that discrimination was bad and that appealed to us young humans. I started to read Heinlein and the disconnect jarred me. I finally resolved my thinking and became a conservative. However at that time I was calling myself an individualist not a conservative. I saw that liberalism was very paternalist and that it would evolve in telling us what to do.
Nanny state behavior is not just a problem in liberal circles. That petty tyranny is normal behavior among humans and has to be fought constantly.
The basis of capitalism is the concept of private property and what is mine stays mine. Conservative principles flow from that. They also apply to ourselves.
Many liberals were scared by the religious right that abortion was going to be stopped. I saw that fear being pushed and even though that battle was won 40 years ago it worked.
Most people see the network or cable news. Most do not read much. Liberal thinking is every where in the culture.
There was no disconnect to the Philly people about having a mural to Obama in the polling place. They never thought that was wrong. Why? Because the Philly schools are mostly black and they celebrated the black President by having a mural there. The school was the polling place. It was not placed there to influence voters but there every day to influence the kids.
Some of the best teachers and strongest believers in conservatism and the ideals of America are immigrants from communist countries. Think about that.
About the defeat and Obama’s win . The anger is real and the desire to make sure the idiots that voted him in will suffer the ills that will come. Laudable but not a good idea. All suffer when civilization dies. Personally I think the GOP should stand firm and let us run over the fiscal cliff. However when a country crashes it usually choose a strong leader no matter how despotic as a person to save them, Stalin, Hitler as examples. So I don’t believe that the electorate will learn from the coming crash. We failed to teach why socialism is bad and just saying that Obama is a socialist does not work and was not believed. They have to know that socialism is not good. We need to teach people what America was about Reinstill the concepts of private property, capitalism , freedom . Unless our generations are taught that , learn when young it is hard to fight against the idea that life should be fair and the government can make it so.
So Breitbart was right about the culture and how we have ceded that ground to the liberals.
We need to start earlier.
The question is how.
First families are the basic block of strength and they were shattered decades ago. It started in the black communities with welfare and dependency destroying the family unit. Then government schools.
The basic idea of a man and woman being married and have children and they control what the children are taught. That has been fought against for some time. Gay marriage and homosexuality is trying to destroy the basic unit of man and woman . Abortion destroys the product of the union of man and woman. Children are taught that it is Ok with murdering their own offspring.
Please note that three states approved gay marriage. That is the war on the church and marriage. That is destroying a basic unit of society.
Libertarians don’t like the idea that gay marriage is there to destroy marriage. Many libertarian are against marriage. The concept that marriage is a a trap to an emancipated woman has been pushed from the feminists for a while. Men now believe marriage is a trap for them also.
The culture conflicts are real and not just in the entertainment and arts.
So the family unit and their power needs to be strengthened. The idea that they control the day care not government paid and controlled. Then home schooling to conteract the public schooling. Then conservatives need to be parents, teachers, in the school boards.
We can not retreat to a red state to achieve these goals. We have to be in the center of liberal area and thinking. We can not retreat to a separate area. The government will eventually use force. The Mormans tried to retreat and stay separate and they were slaughtered by the government. Morman doctrine is family strength and education.
They decided to intergrate to a degree and propagate with lots of children.
Many conservatives are not religious and worry about submitting to an alliance with a Church. They worry about church doctrine over their private lives. But the values the church push are family, individual responsibility, freedom and private property
So how to we win back dominance over liberal culture?
1) protect the family unit. That means marriage between man and woman.
2) Protect against the government day care and schools.
3) INFILTRATE THE SCHOOLS AND LOCAL COMMUNITY BOARDS TO PUSH CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLES AND DOCTRINE. PUSH AGAINST ANY GOVERNMENT CONTROL OVER THE COMMUNITY AND NANNY THINKING
This is long war we are fighting. Liberal, socialists etc. have been working to destroy capitalism for a over a 100 years. They started over a hundred years with the Dewey idea of public schooling.
The war on marriage , the current battle over forcing the Church’s to submit to abortificant is a front on this war of the State versus Church and individual.
I really don’t think most conservatives realize how long this war has been occurring. They are almost ascendent now.
It is a lethal fault of socially conservative Americans to dredge up the abortion issue.
For starters: it’s a DEAD ISSUE. Until far more is done to under-pin morals, the political center of the nation will remain so far to the left that the US Supreme Court justices will be chosen by 0bama, et. al.
Abortion law, per se, has been effectively high jacked by the Supremes. The citizens don’t get to even elect them. As for other abortion matters — they are decided at the state level. The only issue that is decided by Congress is the level of funding for this or that Quango. While I abhor federal funding of abortions, even should it get cut off, the abortion mills will keep on rolling.
In the meantime, social conservatives are causing the nomination of candidates that have to make crippling declarations in the primaries that Democrats can pillory them with in November. The result is that the candidate to most benefit from their ire is their worst foe. 0bama, comes to mind.
Abortion foes also don’t figure on they, themselves being ‘gamed’/played by cynical operatives for purely monetary gain. That is: the whole abortion fight is a mock battle entirely sustained for mercenary purposes by lobbyists — as a career, if you will. Neither side being at all interested in really moving the ball. It’s so much more profitable if the front line is a scrum.
(In this logic, it represents the annuity potential past known and associated with railroad bankruptcies from the Great Depression. Such gambits lasted forty-years and more, enriching entire careers for this or that attorneys. The absolute worst result for them would’ve been resolution — and a final discharge from bankruptcy.)
I’ve dragged this out because it represents such a chronic albatross in every national election I’ve ever witnessed. Abortion foes refuse to see that they’re being played for fools. They’re fighting their battle in the wrong battlespace. And, they’re having their strings pulled by their more sophisticated political foes, too boot.
To have any positive impact at all abortion opponents have to stay quiet — shut up — and direct their energies in more fundamental ways towards restoring morality in our polity.
———-
Which gets us to the bizarro ‘instruction’ that passes for education, K-16, these days.
Even the term ‘capitalism’ makes me cringe. The proper term of art is individualism/ a society of personal rights — both property and expressive.
‘Capitalism’, the term, was most promoted by Marx — IIRC he concocted it, to sully individualism.
So, it’s really a befouling term. He was able to morph ‘personal liberties’ into ‘a corruption of the public good.’
Once that canard is swallowed, much else goes down as well.
Blert, I agree. People who say “Romney wasn’t conservative enough, nominate a REAL conservative to win” may mean in many cases “nominate someone who will overturn Roe V Wade” or “nominate someone who will keep marriage safe from the queers”. This is a complete sideshow from the one thing that is going to destroy America: a central government that is going to take everything away from you, be it now or later (by destroying the currency), and take away your liberty.
Look at Romney’s vote returns versus those darlings of the fringiest of the Tea Party.
Indiana: Romney won easily, Mourdock lost by several points.
Missouri: Romney won easily, Akin lost by several points.
Florida: Romney within a point of Obama, Mack loses by several points
Arizona: Romney won easily, Flake barely gets 50%
Texas: Romney wins in high 50′s, Cruz gets about a point less.
Ohio: Romney loses with ~48%, Mandel has about 45%
Maryland; Romney loses with 37%, Bongino gets ~22%
I don’t have the exact percentages, but the principle is in conservative red states, Romney won big, but the “true conservatives” lost or barely eeked out the win. In states where Romney was close to victory, the “true conservatives” were not. In states where Romney lost, the “true conservative” stood NO CHANCE.
I am distressed that two easy layup Senate wins were just thrown away like a used condom because the “true conservative” had to jack his jaw about “true rape” and “God’s will”. Remind me what was wrong with Richard Lugar, besides being old and moderate? Do you think that he would have lost in Indiana? Really? And for Mourdock to step in it the way he did, one month after Akins stupidity, was an inexcusable, unforced error. I undertand that the Dem who won was “pro-life” and may not have any substantial difference in position on that point than Mourdock, but he didn’t make stupid remarks about God’s will and rape. I live in Maryland, and I knew about Mourdock only because I am from Indiana and follow events there. Nobody in MD had heard of him until this crap, and all I heard was “look at what those idiot Republicans are saying” and the radio ads that said Mourdock was the only Senate candidate Romney cuts ads for. It didn’t matter in MD, which is terminal blue, but you know that the party brand was dragged down elsewhere by association. Played right into the carefully crafted “war on women” trap laid by the media and the Dems.
Leo Linbeck III, I hope you consider vetting your primary challengers sufficiently well that they don’t lose us the Senate from inability to avoid obvious traps.