A Tale of Two Cités
Guest column by Leo Linbeck III
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. But what “best” for some is “worst” for others, and vice-versa.
Today, President Obama was sworn in for his second term. This event was a “best” for his stalwart supporters, such as Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, and is a sign of a bright future:
The Houston congresswoman said she is confident that the diverse faces of Texans in Washington for the second inauguration of President Barack Obama will “build the new era of Texas Democrats.”
For thousands of demonstrators at “High Noon” rallies across the country, it might not yet be the “worst of times,” but the sense was clear that Frank Miller and his gang were on the noon train:
In Connecticut, a rally for gun rights drew about 1,000 people at the state Capitol, where lawmakers have reacted to the Newtown shooting with proposals to tighten gun-control rules, including limiting access to assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.
That did not sit well with gun owner Jessie Buchanan, who attended the rally in Hartford.
“They could take away the 10-round magazine today and tomorrow it would be the five-round and the next day it would be the whole thing,” Buchanan said.
One suspects that many of these ralliers viewed the Second Inauguration as a sign of the “worst of times,” at least with respect to the Second Amendment.
Interestingly, in the same article we find out that gun-control advocates had their own plans:
On Sunday, gun-control advocates plan to hold a National Gun Prevention Sabbath, where they say 150 houses of worship will call on the faithful to advocate for an “actionable plan to prevent gun violence.”
And that’s not all. We have Sen. Charles Schumer calling the NRA a “fringe group”:
Sen. Chuck Schumer told HuffPost Live Friday that the National Rifle Association has become a very extreme group that “doesn’t even represent average gun holders.”
“They sure are a fringe group,” Schumer said, “but whether enough of my colleagues are ready to admit that, I’m not sure.”
Standard fare in today’s caustic and hyper-partisan environment, right?
Perhaps. But these articles expose the fundamental tension in the United States today. We have two different visions of America, two views on the way it should work, two different meanings of the word “community.” And, alors, they’re both French.
One vision is Rousseau’s. The late Robert Nisbet, in his magnificent book The Quest for Community, put it this way:
Rousseau’s community, however, is a political community, one indistinguishable from the State and sharing all the uniformitarian qualities of the State. It is, in his mind, a moral unity, but it is a unity conferred by the sovereign will of the State and directed by the political government. The same centralization of control existing in the human body must dominate the structure of the community; unity is conferred by the brain, which in Rousseau’s analogy represents the sovereign power. The General Will is the analogue of the human mind, and as such must remain as unified and undiversified as the mind itself. The volonté générale as he is careful to indicated, is not synonymous with the voluonté de tous, the will of all. It is the will of the political organism, an entity with a life of its own quite apart from that of the individual members of which it is built.
Our political superiors in Washington DC define the General Will, and all of those bitter clingers in the hinterlands must accept it, and comply. If they’ll only do that, they’ll be happy. Even better, they’ll be free.
This was Rousseau’s genius: he re-defined freedom as acting in accordance with the General Will. Which is defined by the powers that be. Orwell understood how this worked.
That is the spirit in which Sen. Schumer says of the NRA, “they are a fringe group” – which is just his rough English translation of Ceci n’est pas un volonté générale.
It is the same spirit in which former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm spoke on ABC’s This Week:
Today on ABC’s This Week, after Rick Santorum explained that Americans are protective of their right to buy guns because they “want to feel safe,” former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm offered a reassuring sentiment: Americans needn’t worry about protecting themselves, because they have President Obama, and “he sees himself as protector-in-chief.”
Here we see Rousseau’s vision in total clarity: there is no need for all of the annoying mediating institutions of society, those that have traditionally been the wellspring of security — the family, the neighborhood, local government. No, we have the all-powerful centralized State. We have the protector-in-chief. I’m sure that we can rely on Washington DC to respond in days when seconds count.
The other vision, the other cité, is described by Tocqueville. It is a vision of strong and flourishing mediating institutions, each with its own scope, identity, and role. Tocqueville describes these associations in his magisterial Democracy in America:
The political associations which exist in the United States are only a single feature in the midst of the immense assemblage of associations in that country. Americans of all ages, all conditions, and all dispositions, constantly form associations. They have not only commercial and manufacturing companies, in which all take part, but associations of a thousand other kinds — religious, moral, serious, futile, extensive, or restricted, enormous or diminutive. The Americans make associations to give entertainments, to found establishments for education, to build inns, to construct churches, to diffuse books, to send missionaries to the antipodes; and in this manner they found hospitals, prisons, and schools. If it be proposed to advance some truth, or to foster some feeling by the encouragement of a great example, they form a society. Wherever, at the head of some new undertaking, you see the government in France, or a man of rank in England, in the United States you will be sure to find an association. I met with several kinds of associations in America, of which I confess I had no previous notion; and I have often admired the extreme skill with which the inhabitants of the United States succeed in proposing a common object to the exertions of a great many men, and in getting them voluntarily to pursue it…
Nothing, in my opinion, is more deserving of our attention than the intellectual and moral associations of America. The political and industrial associations of that country strike us forcibly; but the others elude our observation, or if we discover them, we understand them imperfectly, because we have hardly ever seen anything of the kind. It must, however, be acknowledged that they are as necessary to the American people as the former, and perhaps more so. In democratic countries the science of association is the mother of science; the progress of all the rest depends upon the progress it has made. Amongst the laws which rule human societies there is one which seems to be more precise and clear than all others. If men are to remain civilized, or to become so, the art of associating together must grow and improve in the same ratio in which the equality of conditions is increased.
These associations, of which the NRA is but one example, are the muscle of the American body politic. Tocqueville sees them as essential; Rousseau sees them as competitors, even enemies, of the General Will, and so must destroy them.
In other words, Rousseau doesn’t attend Tea Parties.
The real conflict in today’s America is the conflict between those who want to undermine all of the mediating institutions in our society and leave the individual, unfettered but also unprotected, at the mercy of the political State, and those who wish to cultivate and strengthen those institutions as bulwarks against both the all-powerful, all-knowing State and the lonely, unconnected life of the atomized individual.
That is one reason why I find the pro-gun-control rally so quaint and touchingly clueless. Over the past 100 years, Rousseau’s American acolytes have systematically enervated religion in our society. Like Rousseau himself, they have been hostile to, and jealous of, whatever power churches wielded over the minds and actions of their followers. But now, having marginalized, even demonized religion to the best of their ability, they’re turning to them for “moral support” in their efforts. God, it seems, is not without a sense of irony.
I’ll give the last word to Tocqueville, as he describes the way he expects despotism to emerge from modern democracy:
Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances: what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living?
Thus it every day renders the exercise of the free agency of man less useful and less frequent; it circumscribes the will within a narrower range and gradually robs a man of all the uses of himself. The principle of equality has prepared men for these things; it has predisposed men to endure them and often to look on them as benefits.
After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.
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I appreciate the opportunity to make an occasional post here at the Belmont Club. I have long admired Richard’s writing, and have at various times participated in the commentariat that riffs on the themes he develops. There is no way I can match his output or his erudition, but I hope to make some meaningful contribution from time to time. It is a privilege, and I will treat it as such.
The Belmont Club still belongs to Richard; my posting here does not, and will not change that fact. However, I am solely responsible for what I post; the reader should not assume that I speak for either Richard or PJ Media. I am a guest in their establishment.
Well said, Leo.
Rousseau was a jerk though. I understand he had 5 children that he sent to an orphanage. What kind of man would do that? Speaks volumes about his true character.
Obama sees himself as protector in chief? Tell that to the dead at Benghazi.
The dead at Benghazi should have felt HONORED at being given the privilege of dying for Obama that way!
Okay, I saw Quo Vadis again yesterday. Nero (wonderfully played by Peter Ustinov) kept trying to make the same point to his Praetorians, but they still deserted him in the end. Imagine that.
Leo, it’s pleasing to find you doing a guest post, and doubly so on account of the great job you have done.
Normally I’m not one to cite the bible for a number of reasons. But, throwing that aside with abandon now, here’s a passage that seems appropriate:
When they said, “Give us a king to judge us,” Samuel considered their demand sinful, so he prayed to the Lord. But the Lord told him, “Listen to the people and everything they say to you. They have not rejected you; they have rejected me as their king. They are doing the same thing to you that they have done to me since the day I brought them out of Egypt until this day, abandoning me and worshiping other gods. Listen to them, but you must solemnly warn them and tell them about the rights of the king who will rule over them.”
Samuel told all the Lord’s words to the people who were asking him for a king. He said, “These are the rights of the king who will rule over you: He will take your sons and put them to his use in his chariots, on his horses, or running in front of his chariots. He can appoint them for his use as commanders of thousands or commanders of fifties, to plow his ground or reap his harvest, or to make his weapons of war or the equipment for his chariots. He can take your daughters to become perfumers, cooks, and bakers. He can take your best fields, vineyards, and olive orchards and give them to his servants. He can take a tenth of your grain and your vineyards and give them to his officials and servants. He can take your male servants, your female servants, your best young men, and your donkeys and use them for his work. He can take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves can become his servants. When that day comes, you will cry out because of the king you’ve chosen for yourselves, but the Lord won’t answer you on that day.”
The visions are both French, but only one is of France.
The old freedom-of (press, religion) versus freedom-from (hunger, danger). The first is a freedom of action – of good guys, the second is a constraint on action – of bad guys. The second one too easily becomes an absurd claim that it is a constraint on nature, making even bad luck against the will of the state such that all remedies must come from the state. As in the hurricane Sandy relief bills.
Tocqueville was amazing, as was Rousseau in another way entirely.
Tocqueville could never have imagined that the US Census would be weaponized against the polity by the resident Power.
Today is but a self-coronation by a self-selected, resident, regnant.
Tocquewille, and the Founders, could never have foreseen the danger to the citizens enabled by data-mining and media perversion. It was impossible for any entity to oligopolize American politics in their time.
We now live in an age when the central government and the states have co-opted each other — establishing an obfuscated fusion of purse and purpose. Instead of thwarting mendacious creep, todays media complex advances and ornaments Stashist memes.
Thus, we are enthralled to the Teleprompter in Chief.
Godless at the core, this new bishopric of pagans projects Man over God — and insists that Western heritage is so inherently oppressive that it must be redrafted anew — history must be revised — for the children — for the ‘New American Person’.
(Any imagined correlation to the New Soviet Man or the Ideal Aryan Man is a Thought Crime; indicating, perhaps, how such politically incorrect notions still require media re-education — and consequent emotional redirection towards state enemies — even for the you.)
(Get with the programming!)
————
The transitory ability to issue International-Money in fiat engenders financial narcosis among the polity — particularly the Spendist/ Stashist Class.
There will be no rise in the interest rate curve while the Fedsury hyper-inflates to cover the Congress and the Pink House.
In such environments, central government spending = taxation — which, for the Fedsury — is leveled on a planetary scale. We are extracting a Wealth Tax on all US Dollar holdings — including those overseas.
This latter fact is fulsomely realized by the other guys. At this time, we are no longer selling Fedsury debt overseas any faster than it is coming back for redemption.
Dollarization of alien internal economies has, for the most part, ceased.
The next level of alien rejection of the US Dollar will see astonishing reflows — looking for redemption in tangible assets: this is already underway in certain American real estate markets. ( Hot Asian money boomed into America during the 1980s Japan-is-number-one phase. Prices went ballistic. Then the Japanese took a beating when the trend reversed. They, themselves, had become the buyer of every resort.) ( First, last, and golf. )
Texas and North Dakota look to be set.
Oil, baby, oil.
To W (or Leo)
nice word play in the title
SF
4. Cowboy
Spot on selection of scripture to illuminate the point of this excellent guest article.
It allways amuses me to see statists appeal to scripture to justify increasing their power.
The only form of government God Himself ever designed would look like anarchy to the modern mind, because it was no government in the sense that we understand it.
Likewise the fearmongering of liberals over the church establishing a Theocracy is equally invalid. Theocracy is literally the rule by God, not the rule of man in Gods name. God does not need a king, prime minister, army or navy or court of law.
There has only been one theocracy in mans history; In ancient Israel God ruled with no government up untill the people went to the prophet Samuel and said;
“Give us a king to judge us,”
LIII:
Well put. The liberals have the advantage in having set a tender trap that so many of us have taken, accepting government goodies in seemingly insignificant ways until all of a sudden the government is patron and we are client. It’s a slippery slope and we are all far down it — federal highway funds, education assistance, food stamps, social security, medicare — the list goes on and on. Schumer and his ilk delight in reminding us that we have taken the King’s shilling and our soul is his. I have little respect for the man — he’s an opportunist of the worst sort — but he has political clout and (more importantly) the adoration of a lot of journalists. Some days I despair of ever getting ahead of these guys, then I remember de Tocqueville’s thoughts on private associations and I am encouraged. But only a little. . . Mostly, I’m scared for America’s future.
Harlan Ellison : ” God is an Iron ”
After witnessing four years of the “Prog Spring” rape of Rights and Religion, they ask us to believe that they are now returning to an acceptance of the ideas and institutions they have striven to eliminate from the public space ?
If the State turns humans into sheep then they will need shepherds. A shepherd, either two or four footed, must have certain moral qualities. It must be Other Directed and willing to sacrifice. Where do those qualities come from? For the four footed by nature. As an aside Socialists/rentiers strike me more as cat or toy dog than shepherd people. The two footed gain the moral qualities needed through, wait for it, associations other than the State. The State by eliminating powers and associations other than itself drains society of the qualities needed by the State in order to function. All become debased selfish and immoral.
The singular will of the Autocrat or Fuehrer cannot guide anything more complex than a small tribe. More when even maternity has been debased as a rival to the State how will the Sovereign find those moral qualities needed to care for their flock?
I don’t always agree with you, but welcome and thanks for the post.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/gold-continues-be-money-cme-europe-now-accepts-gold-clearing-collateral
Hmm… Gold still seems to be money… in some quarters.
George Jonas recently remarked that Liberals in the 18th and 19th centuries believed in individual freedom. Liberty was to die for and Liberalism was a force for liberty. Nowadays Statism rules in all western democracies including America. Liberalism has mutated into a force for capturing the coercive powers of the State. Once captured the State has become a way of forcibly implementing “progressive” ideas. Now, instead of protecting individuals from the State, liberalism protects the “progressive” State from attacks by reactionary conservatives.
But conservatives are also Statists. They just claim to believe in a smaller, less coercive state than do liberals. The contest now is between Rousseau’s all powerful State which bullies and nannies us all our living days and a more humble conservative State which simply annoys and leans on us. Because liberals have captured the institutions and bureaucracies of state, even a nominally Conservative State will robotically act to protect its “progressive” nature from attacks by individuals who desire liberty.
Make no mistake, the Liberal State and the Conservative State place their own well being before that of the individuals who make up the citizenry. That is why America suffers from Bully Government no matter which political party is in power. The State has become a permanent coercive force for implementing “progressive” ideas.
Statists know and understand all this but they don’t care a lick about it. It do get up one’s nose though; don’t it.
Blast From the Past (#11) I believe Ben Franklin said it better “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.” We (America) Destroy our seed by the million, We take others Happiness and Liberty and give it to those who neither deserve or earn any of it, America’s Government is as Evil as any has ever been, her actions directly conflict with its founders! Today’s American Christian has little understanding of the Truth, absolute ignorance which borders on stupidity, they are followers of false shepherds.
If you think about it, governments are really instituted to resolve disputes, and the law is one big dispute-resolution system. We know we need rules, so we agree to a process for setting the rules, and the rules are then written, so when there’s a conflict we go to someone to resolve the conflict according to those rules.
The key to the design of a successful system is whether the loser accepts the outcome – not the winner. The winner has every reason to accept the judgment, but the loser either continues the fight or engages in extra-legal activities to address the perceived injustice.
That’s one reason why centralized authority is a bad design in general, and the General Will is a lousy idea in particular. When we resolve a conflict in Washington DC, we make it winner-take-all. This both increases the intensity of the conflict (e.g. hyper-partisanship), and decreases the likelihood that the loser will accept the outcome and move on.
Of course, the design of the US system is supposed to leave most decisions about the commons to the states. The federal government is supposed to only handle national defense, international relations, coining money, state vs. state conflicts, and a few other items. Viewed in this light, the US Constitution is just the Mother of All Dispute Resolution Systems.
But over time, and through lobbying, political pressure, and creative lawyering, its writ has expanded dramatically, and with that expansion of authority came an expansion of revenues. (Another place where Republicans are missing the mark; they focus on cutting spending, when they should be focusing on reducing federal pre-emption and forcing states to compete.)
Atop all of this sits Congress, the President, and the Supreme Court: 545 people who are supposed to settle disputes. Instead, they keep trying to do things like restructure federal entitlements or reform the health care system, changes that impact 300+ million people. Rather than resolve conflict, they feed it.
The tragic reality is that the major problems facing us today can’t be solved at the federal level. Can’t. Be. Solved. But they keep trying. And when they reach an impasse, they don’t give up and say, “This is not solvable; let’s let this be decided closer to the people.” Instead, they concentrate power further, either in a 12-person “Super Committee” or a 15-person IPAB, or some similar group of “experts.” Those small groups are then supposed to determine what’s best for the people, and issue their orders.
Rousseau would be proud; Tocqueville, not so much.
Cheers,
L3
The state desire to control our minds, but first our ability to defend ourselves, e.g., repeal the 2nd. We keep and bare arms, but not for food to eat or protection from others, but for revolution against the state. Those who truly believe and are willing to sacrifice will win. I pray it’s not so, but one must prepare. The fight for our minds is waged each day by the forth estate, but many Americans have seen this road before and these Americans won’t bend. They don’t eat dog shit! Don’t ever give in, never, never, never give in, said Churchill to those good English people who overcame that small man with a mustache. A sea change is coming.
On Gun control, quoting Grover Norquist:
“The D’s keep coming back to this. This is so visceral to them. Again, it’s an expression of contempt for Middle America. They don’t like you and yours and don’t think you should be in charge of the capacity to take care of yourself. They know they can’t do this for you, but they’ve hired these nice people to draw chalk outlines of your kids, and that’s supposed to make you feel better.”
Mr. Linbeck offers a very thoughtful summation of the contrast in modes of thinking and being for free men. And Steve Smith @ 14 is right; we are prisoners of both the Right and Left that both worship the State, just to varying degrees.
How we regain our freedom, liberty and justice for all is a mystery, short of a bloody armed conflict (which I believe the acolytes of Rousseau would approve of), which I certainly would abhor.
Most Americans know viscerally that something is wrong, but are too quick to blame it on “the other guys”, when really we should look to ourselves and wonder why we let ourselves get bullied and distracted from protecting our own liberty.
And ultimately, most Americans are philosophically disarmed when confronted with the various soft tyrannies confronting us from different levels of government. Most people take the path of least resistance and want to avoid trouble at all costs – and that path leads down to where we are all apparently headed.
This is fun:
http://www.wired.com/underwire/2013/01/hobbit-contract-legal-analysis/
It is an analysis of the contract between Bilbo Baggins and the Company of Dwarves from the film The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.
Contracts are creatures of the law; they’re written to document the agreement between two or more parties. In many ways, they’re very Tocquevillean; they are entered into voluntarily, and they operate at a small scale.
In other ways, however, they’re instruments of the State. The State has the power to alter their effect by changing what is allowed. And as we saw in the case of Chrysler’s creditors, just because you have a written agreement doesn’t mean it will be honored if the General Will determines that it’s unfair to some politically powerful or connected entity.
It’s hard to imagine that contracts would be very popular in The Shire. There, everyone knew everyone else, and if you agreed to do something and didn’t do it, word would spread in the community and you would be shunned. The desire to belong to the hobbit community was far stronger than the potential gain from breaking your word. Classic repeated game.
Bilbo, of course, ended up signing the contract. But it didn’t really matter. He was committed to the success of the adventure, and his fellow adventurers. It didn’t appear that he consulted his attorney before sneaking up on the trolls.
The modern tyrannical State, according to Tocqueville, “covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd.” But those rules, like Bilbo’s contract, have little binding force when it matters. It’s character that counts when the chips are down.
A man will not accept death to protect an indemnity clause. But he will gladly give his life for his family, his church, or his platoon.
That is why Tocqueville will win in the end. And that’s a comforting thought.
Cheers,
L3
The tragic reality… is that your conclusion of their behavior bears the earmarks of a feature rather than a bug and too few fight it AS that (certainly not the GOP).
With your avid reading of Tocqueville, how is it you overlooked one of his most telling observations?
Yes, I know Tocqueville said it could not happen here. It appears however that our despots, in their selfish craving for power, have perfected the ways to provide those divisions.
So please consider my revision to your closing line at 16:
Rousseau would be proud; Tocqueville would be astounded and sad that we could squander what we had.
If he was right, then patching up the divisions should be a key priority to beating back the despots.
EFF the community.
Pascal @20,
There’s little doubt that Tocqueville would be sad about the state of affairs in America today. But I’m not so sure he’d be astounded. He clearly saw the American system as extraordinary, and you often get the sense that he could hardly believe it actually existed, even when he saw it with his own eyes. One reason why his descriptions are so detailed and extensive is because he didn’t think anyone back in France would believe it either. So the fact that it has steadily eroded since his time would probably not surprise him.
Although you may be right about the craving for power, I’m not convinced that it’s quite that simple. My observation is that the structure of the system drives legislators to centralize power, far more than their individual preferences. Lemme give you an example.
In Texas, our P-12 public education system is governed by Title 2 of the Texas Education Code. If you look in Subtitle G, Section 38, Subsection D, you will find 6 pages of legislation dealing with the “PREVENTION, TREATMENT, AND OVERSIGHT OF CONCUSSIONS AFFECTING STUDENT ATHLETES.” In this subsection, you will find language like:
Now, I know that concussions and chronic traumatic encephalopathy are serious issues. But is this really a matter for a state to regulate? Is it beyond solution at lower levels of government, or by parents?
I don’t know whether those questions were ever raised during hearings or debate in the legislature. But the bill passed 127-7 in the House and 31-0 in the Senate.
Why? Well, imagine that you’re a legislator. School districts want you to pass this, because then they won’t have to go to the trouble of figuring out what to do, and they’ll be able to tell local opponents “it’s beyond my control; the state has mandated it.” (Most state mandates are supported by local administrators, just like most federal mandates are supported by state administrators. Every bureaucrat likes hiding behind orders from their superiors.) So then the question you’re asked is simple: are you pro-brain-damaged-kids, or anti-brain-damaged-kids? After all, you ran and were elected to do something.
So you do. And the principle is established that the state has an interest in regulating football injuries. Soon enough the state will use that principle to justify further expanding its scope, you can be certain.
Republicans and Democrats voted to pass this legislation. And the goal of trying to minimize head injuries is a good one. But why should the state make that decision? In Tocqueville’s model, a local group of families, physicians, coaches, whatever, would get together and figure out what to do. Instead, we have have education administrators, local officials, physicians, and parents asking state legislators to step in and act.
I think Tocqueville would be sad to see a state like Texas pass yet another in a series “small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate.” It is well-meaning initiatives like this that centralize power and control, and undermine mediating institutions. So I think legislators rarely set out to undermine our system of dispersed power; but the incentives are such that their good intentions have exactly that effect. It’s not a craving for power and desire for conflict, but rather a craving for adoration and desire for peace operating in a flawed governance structure.
Rousseau would be encouraging the President to issue an executive order, as it is clearly the General Will to protect our children from brain damage. In his mind, those children belong to the State anyway…
Cheers,
L3
@13.Grr
The Germans are getting nervous about their gold stored at the NY Fed.
So now they tell us that we are already broke!
I recognize the example you gave. I’ve had to withstand exactly such pressure in various venues in my life. Sometimes I insisted on doing the right thing and got expelled for being principled. So more often I was pragmatic, adopting the view that I couldn’t do as much outside as in. In every instance that I relented, I now regret it. But I also know that there is a power bloc that tends to drive that consensus, and it knows how to play rough. My failing (and that of others) was not joining forces or try creating an opposition bloc of my own — primarily because the recognition that the bloc was ruthless came too late. So my current conclusions have come at a price. Smart enough to learn but not smart enough to see have seen it coming. My warnings are for the next generation who will face what I did; indeed must face up to it now.
For a lighter view: In short your explanation is that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The devil is not only in the details, he’s in the system as you describe it. And both those expressions should be hung above the door and recited before every legislative sessions — but for the devilish view that they’re too trite. And no man running for office has the courage to seem trite.
Warning homilies are behind the times, but government excess is progressive. Besides who can be expected to withstand peer pressure when so many have been indoctrinated by that P-12 system to go along? We don’t have leadership training anymore; we have management training. The difference is the problem we face. To beat the bureaucrats we need leaders who sincerely care for their people not managers who wear the face of caring up until their underlings are no longer useful.
Sorry for the digression into that. What I find so striking is the demonization and marginalization of the individuals who dare disagreeing with consensus. That’s the telling part, the mark of despots. They’ll do it smoothly in most cases, but they will expel with prejudice. Can’t have any aspects that align with Natural Law be remembered when the chief has made his executive decision and people to whom he’s accountable. And no TEA Party member of congress need apply for a committee chairmanship.
“And the principle is established that the state has an interest in regulating football injuries.”
A radio host bragged about predicting the issue. Who do you think created it then- Heritage maybe? Obviously the people now fighting it wrote every word of those regulations. That’s only fair since the opposition has been making up massacres at temples and Amish school houses. They are trying to establish their principles so Joe Biden can brag he was there.
Who cares where he was golfing, when it plain didn’t happen…
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jan/18/bidens-claim-brush-gun-massacre-questioned/
It’s an extra pleasure to see Leo writing here.
One thing I think Tocqueville muddled – by necessity, if not also by lack of British knowledge – was the question of sameness/difference in the associational cultures of Britain and America. Back in the day, when I studied the history, it was quite surprising to learn how vast was the generation of British voluntary associations, starting in the late seventeenth century and blossomiing in the eighteenth. This cannot be simply explained, as Tocqueville implies – in Leo’s quote – as the articulation of aristocratic leadership in a new age of commerce and industry. In many respects it was the self-representation of tradesmen among others, facing a need for, creating a desire for, new kinds of institutions. One can say, most simply, that all this was a response to the British civil war, the unravelling of the old order, just as so much of American associational culture seen by Tocqueville was a response to a second British civil war, or the first American civil war, known as the Revolution.
Today, America witnesses another kind of civil war. But it is not one I think will have an obvious victor. The state that Wretchard so well personified in the figure of President Creosote is less something to be contested by would-be successor emperors of left and right as a balloon that surely cannot grow much more, the tumescent parasite having destroyed the host. So we are left in years to come to see an unravelling and the need to pick up the pieces by whoever can.. This will, I hope, be an occasion for a whole new generation of associational culture to emerge, precisely in the need to reverse the dis-assembling that is the current civil war. This new associational culture will have to forego the current rhetorical divides in order to find a common attention and desire to build new local institutions to pick up the pieces of Creosote’s explosion/implosion. One thing I have admired in Leo’s writing is his recognition, it seems to me, that the future will demand less a reconquista of the central power by the right than imperatives to create new scenes of attention that can join erstwhile left and right in the piecemeal localization and privatization of Creosote state’s former dominions.
Thanks, Leo. Toqueville was a genius, wasn’t he? He and Orwell.
I just went to a gathering that was addressed by former NY Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey, author of “Beating Obamacare,” a book detailing the coming Brave New World our Insect Overlords [in Homer Simpson-speak] have planned for us.
It reminds me of a cut-rate version of the 1976 movie Logan’s Run. A grim business (check it out: a cautionary tale for our times).
McCaughey has read, and studied, the Whole Thing. Brought the HUGE binder to the event. She warned us that:
–buying major medical/”catastrophic” insurance policies will no longer be Allowed; nor will private policies: all will become The State Policy. NO exceptions, except the rich who can buy medical care a la carte
–the State will decide what kind of medical care we are allowed, even within their framework some will be denied “covered” services if they see fit
–old people on Medicare will be thrown to the dogs, because the new laws have harsh punishments for hospitals and doctors who spend money on old folks (CAPITATION is baaaack, folks! but its old foes are all for it, now)
–the State will have a Little List of prying questions that have naught to do with health, for your doctor to ask you; the answers they will be forced to relay back to the Insect Overlords
–all private health insurance policies will be forced to cover a full Rolls-Royce menu of services, including stuff like acupuncture, which you will have to pay for whether you like it or not
–there is a BS distinction between “Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum!” policies, but the only difference will be the copays you pay: it’s the same menu on each
And there’s a lot more, all bad. An advisory board of these Insects will be deciding whether you, at age 70, “are worth spending” the money for a hip replacement/angioplasty/cataracts/kidney replacement/etc. Remember the National Socialists’ policies of killing off “mental defectives” and people with birth defects? their benefit to The State was deemed Insufficient; they were a Burden; they Had to Be Killed.
These monsters, instead, will just let you die. Miserably. And, if that despicable Napoleon Bloomberg has his way, In Great Pain, because sh*t, you might give extra meds to some drug addict.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? Wake up, America!
See BetsyMcCaughey dotcom to see more deets about the coming tsunami of wretched consequences from this unmitigated disaster. (No, I don’t work for the lady.)
It’s much worse than you think. And the Flying Monkeys of the Dark Side have been after her in droves for speaking truth to power.
They keep pushing and pushing and pushing, trying to provoke resistance, but when someone finally snaps and fights back it always gets spun as “right-wing violence/angry white male/conservative gun nut” etc., etc.
I write my Representatives and my Senators. I do it because I feel like I should do something although I feel it’s almost a complete waste of time. The worthless Democrat Senators in my state no longer even bother to respond. I truly believe they–Codevilla’s Ruling Class–know the vast majority of us out here loathe and despise ALL of them–from both parties–for their corruption. They know it and they simply don’t care. They know they’re offending us and many of them do it deliberately. Schumer certainly does, as do Pelosi and Reid among others. I think that is why Jim DeMint quit. He was one of the very few decent ones and I think he just got tired of fighting a losing battle. The rest, they think they’ve got us on the run and we have no choice but to submit or die in a shootout or jail.
Every time I see an American flag these days I feel an overwhelming sadness at what we’ve lost. I won’t sing the anthem anymore. We’re no longer the land of the free and the home of the brave, and I won’t pretend we are. Most Americans don’t seem to care. I have such contempt for people who voted for Obama that I simply refuse to even mention politics to anyone in person now. I don’t have words to accurately describe how much I hate what has happened to this country. It just makes me almost sick to think of it.
I have learned one thing: I now understand very well how Americans from different sides could have wanted to kill each other with cold steel at places like Antietam and Gettysburg. Each thought the other was TWANLOC too, and they were right. The true miracle was that the division was ever able to be patched up afterward. If we come to that again, I don’t think there will be any way to repair the rift. Certainly not in my lifetime.
REPLACE REGULATORY AGENCIES WITH PRIVATE ASSOCIATIONS!
The truth is that governments merely codify (write into law) that which is developed within private associations. I can give you myriad examples, but let’s start with safety codes.
The local building code starts with the National Building Code http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_building_codes , which in turn is a creation of a private association.
So creation of the Code in outside the purview of the government, the proper limit on the state’s power is to inspect to confirm the work conforms to the private association’s code.
Take away the government inspector’s power to punish and you put the power back in the hand’s of the experts who wrote the code, with the courts as the venue for conflict resolution.
A clear example of this would be the ASME Boiler Code http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASME_Boiler_and_Pressure_Vessel_Code_(BPVC)
and the National Board http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Board_of_Boiler_and_Pressure_Vessel_Inspectors
The public safety is assured by using the collective wisdom of the true experts to write the code, and true experts to inspect actual installations for conformance to that code, with the economics dictated by the insurance underwriters setting the rates for the owners, with the courts available to settle any disputes.
Electrical safety? The National Electric Code http://www.nfpa.org/aboutthecodes/AboutTheCodes.asp?DocNum=70&cookie%5Ftest=1 by the NFPA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Fire_Protection_Association and insurance rates for products conforming to UL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwriters_Laboratories .
Government regulation does not assure public safety. PERIOD.
And yet, the Left has no shortage of civic organizations of their own. They have managed to hijack vast numbers of important organizations (e.g., universities). Any thoughts this dynamic.
Josh #5:
“The second one too easily becomes an absurd claim that it is a constraint on nature, making even bad luck against the will of the state such that all remedies must come from the state.”
Radio talk show host Gene Burns used to say that freedom is nonexistent unless it includes the freedom to fail. That is something that the professoriate and the NPR-listening pseudointellectual class doesn’t understand and probably never can. Beset as they are by a complete lack of knowledge of how real wealth is generated or how growing government destroys it, they actually believe that a society can parasitize wealth creators to the extent that those who have failed for EVERY reason, including dishonesty, laziness, and incompetence, can simply be bankrolled into “success” by the apparatus of state taking ever more and more from producers and directly dispersing it to people who don’t work productively and have no plans and/or ability to do so.
Realize that our apparatus of state is now being run by a coalition of union thugs, government employees, amoral financial skimming industry rent-seekers, college professors, and entertainers who literally believe private sector producers who believe in things like limited government or firearms freedom or God are untermensch in the same manner Germans in the ruling elite felt towards untermensch in 1930′s Germany. They have twice voted for a man for president who called people subhumans (the exact term was “bitter clingers’, but the intent was the same). Think about that. Think about the danger of that. Think about the fact that the same people are eager to reduce the ability of private individuals to defend themselves with guns. Can anyone reading this guarantee that they will not do the same thing to their appointed untermensch here in the U.S. that their elitist forbears did to the untermensch of that era in Weimar Germany?
You have perpetually adolescent people in their 40′s, 50′s, 60′s and 70′s reading the NYT, watching/listening to NPR and watching Stewart and Colbert, and it is the sensibilities of such as these that are driving the ship of state. Ponder this. A sixty year old watching Jon Stewart and telling herself that this makes her hip, cool, cutting-edge, and more informed than those awful conservatives who are really filthy animals to whom she is superior – she is in charge. Reading and watching and listening to all this and telling herself the lie that doing so makes her “well-informed” when all it does is reinforce her narrative without ever presenting her with any facts which show the failures of her political heroes or the policies of left-of-center government, because NPR and PBS and the print media I mentioned excise any stories or facts which cast a negative light on any issues of substance precious to the left.
And these are the people who style themselves the “elite” and who are now running the government along with their union thug friends.
Leo, thank you for a terrific read. Right after Florida 2000, I wrote something about how the arguments of David Boies and other Gore advocates were really arguments to the General Will – that the Democrats had begun to rationalize the argument that actual arithmetical counting of votes did not, could not, confer legitimacy, since however the ballots added up, the voters, or the People, or something, actually WANTED Gore to win.
I thought, and still do think, that a fully developed General Will position will lead to genocide. It is very worrying that the gun controllers arguments almost always include words like “old”, “white”, “Southern”, or “men”, often in various combinations.
I did not anticipate, however, that technology would be used so brilliantly to manipulate the arithmetical process. Perhaps the appearance of legitimacy of our new masters can be maintained through voting after all, though it will be a different SORT of voting.
mac @ 29: “The worthless Democrat Senators in my state no longer even bother to respond. I truly believe they–Codevilla’s Ruling Class–know the vast majority of us out here loathe and despise ALL of them–from both parties–for their corruption. They know it and they simply don’t care. They know they’re offending us and many of them do it deliberately. Schumer certainly does, as do Pelosi and Reid among others”.
They ARE taking a risk, though.
“It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonoured by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice; ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government; ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would, like Esau, sell your country for a mess of pottage, and, like Judas, betray your God for a few pieces of money.
Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess? Ye have no more religion than my horse; gold is your God; which of you have not barter’d your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth?
Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defil’d this sacred place, and turn’d the Lord’s temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices? Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation; you were deputed here by the people to get grievances redress’d, are yourselves gone! So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors. In the name of God, go!”
If insanity is defined as doing the same thing and expecting different results…. http://preview.tinyurl.com/b4goyl6
Wasn’t Admiral Allen’s recommendation as the most valuable lesson learned, that if the President and his Cabinet were going to stick their oars into an ENGINEERING problem, that as a minimum qualification they would need to have participated in an oil spill drill beforehand?
So with Cabinet secretaries dropping like flies in view of all those IG investigations, will there be even one with the needed qualifications, today, Inauguration Day? Or are the people of New Orleans left with a bunch of incompetent government bureuacrats in charge AGAIN!
REMEMBER KATRINA – HANG RAY NAGIN!
REMEMBER THE GULF OIL SPILL – HANG STEVEN CHU! TAR AND FEATHER MARCIA MCNUTT!
P.S. Treason is a capital offense! Usurpation is treason.
Pour encourager les autres
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwThVQTNeAo
gokart-mozart #32:
“I thought, and still do think, that a fully developed General Will position will lead to genocide. It is very worrying that the gun controllers arguments almost always include words like “old”, “white”, “Southern”, or “men”, often in various combinations.”
That’s the point I was trying to make in the latter half of my post. The language is eliminationist, violent, and genocidal. To a person they would deny that they are the same as Bolsheviks or Nazis and they become indignant at such comparisons. Yet they have a blind spot when they do not realize that their rhetoric is identical to those movements. How many of them can we trust to reach a point where the scales will fall from their eyes and they will realize, like Alec Guiness’s character in Bridge over the River Kwai that they have done a bad thing and will rally to the opposition?
Will not the bulk of them, steeped as they are in the angry and condescending hatred of all things center/right, instead be either indifferent to those on our side being carted off to the camps, or, more likely, cheer on the trains?
I wonder what people from other countries who read this and other like-minded forums must think of our current straits. Marie-Claude, if you are reading this, what are your thoughts? Do you make any effort to spread the word amongst other French people you know of this cold civil war that is happening here (which could turn into a hot one with very little provocation right now) and if you do spread the word, what do your fellow French citoyens think?
Superb writing, Leo! Ummm, where’d I put my tie?
I believe the Left has knowingly offered a deal: We will protect you against your choice of lifestyle. All else flows from that.
And frankly, people who adopted certain lifestyles have no business having guns, or for that matter, sharp things you can stick people with. A recently famous example is the murder-suicide of a certain football player; it’s not the amount of money nor the access to guns not the choice of professions – it’s the lifestyle you embrace.
So much of regulation is designed to protect people from their choice of lifestyle. That has progressed to protecting people against the fact that other people have different lifestyles and the unpleasant recognition that theirs may be more inherently successful than yours.
“That is why Tocqueville will win in the end.”
The USSR got better and better until it collapsed from too much improvement. I fear it will come down to that the people with guns will win in the end.
WHAT’S WITH ALL THE WUSSINESS? WHERE ARE THE WINTER SOLDIERS??
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_Line_Mutiny
Which one of YOU is fit to rip John Kerry a new one?
Tocqueville: “Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.”
My friends see the latest cover of the New Yorker, featuring Obama as shepherd, replete with crook, and find it the most clever and satisfying of images.
Hobbes and Rousseau purposely avoided, and Locke only grudgingly acceded to, the existence of Natural Law as the ultimate basis for the flourishing human community. They differ among each other only in the degree of absolutism each will concede to the State.
The idea of a Social Contract among cooperative human beings sounds good on paper, as did the Soviet constitution, but the human experience is itself proof positive that paper human rights are not worth the paper they are printed on.
Dred Scott (1857) was a unanimous SCOTUS decision, not unpopular at the time, that established as the law of the land (the General Will) that dark skinned people with African ancestors were not human beings. Dred Scott is noteworthy because the justices found no such humanity in the paper rights of the U.S. Constitution. Like Hobbes and Rousseau the justices purposely failed to look to reason and Natural Law.
Without Natural Law as the basis of human community, democracy can vote out segments of the community as human beings, and courts can legalize every form of indignity and harm, all for the Common Good.
When politicians and their cohort start talking about the Common Good and For the Children tell them to stick it where the sun don’t shine and start thinking instead about preserving the dignity of each human being from conception to natural death.
If the State turns humans into sheep then they will need shepherds. A shepherd, either two or four footed, must have certain moral qualities.
Nah. The shepherds need no moral qualities other than a sufficiently low number on their Party membership card, and perhaps a hint of a murder or two to prove the steel.
LL-III 15. ‘Instead, they concentrate power further, either in a 12-person “Super Committee” or a 15-person IPAB, or some similar group of “experts.” Those small groups are then supposed to determine what’s best for the people, and issue their orders.
Rousseau would be proud; Tocqueville, not so much.’
I would have noted Karl Marx, Lenin and the WWII European duo, along with the Cambodian ALL wanted things decided centrally, rather than locally.
22. LL-III. ” So then the question you’re asked is simple: are you pro-brain-damaged-kids, or anti-brain-damaged-kids? After all, you ran and were elected to do something.
So you do. And the principle is established that the state has an interest in regulating football injuries. Soon enough the state will use that principle to justify further expanding its scope, you can be certain.
…
In Tocqueville’s model, a local group of families, physicians, coaches, whatever, would get together and figure out what to do. Instead, we have have education administrators, local officials, physicians, and parents asking state legislators to step in and act.”
Thing happening is “SOMEONE must be responsible”, and the legal system has found a lot of deep pockets. To gain protection from being sued, officials want to transfer the liability to committees far removed from their area of responsibility. Similar to the ‘no tolerance, no leeway’ regulations that regularly put kindergarten age kids in the clink for pointing their fingers or toys at each other… “SOMEONE should pay ….”
The message here should be:
Take responsibility for your actions. Accept that things are not perfect, and you will not always find someone to blame. Life happens, get used to it.
Our Political class has glommed onto the idea that we must “DO Something” whenever there is a perceived problem, and realized that is their ticket to riches and power. It is a one-way ratchet.
Stevesmith @14,
Well said.
It’s getting harder and harder to shoe-horn Liberty’s foot into either established party’s shoe. Either she’s gotten fatter, or they’re selling us too-small shoes.
Liberty’s been on a diet in the USA of late, so it’s probably the latter.
tomw @ 41: “Our Political class has glommed onto the idea that we must “DO Something” whenever there is a perceived problem, and realized that is their ticket to riches and power. It is a one-way ratchet.”
Nothing was a discouraging as listening to the Republican NY Senate leader defending the latest atrocity, which many Republican senators voted FOR.
He babbled on and on about having to do “something”, and how if they had not gone along the “something” would have been worse, and the “NRA” and lots of other nonsense.
Honestly, although this was a MAN, and not only that a MAN WITH MAJOR RESPONSIBILITIES, it sounded like I was listening to a five-year old girl. Awful, and scary at the same time.
LIII @ 22:
Much as I like de Tocqueville’s comments about American associations I recognize a major flaw — the state’s ability to require its own sanction of the association.
Thus a nonprofit corporation I and some friends tried to register 6 months ago still awaits IRS approval in order to receive nonprofit donations. State government registered us in a month, but the IRS approval is still pending. Such federal foot-dragging appears to be the new norm: I am told an FAA certificate I recently renewed will be in my hands in 60-90 days instead of the 30 days it formerly took. And a nephew who applied for a brewery license from the BATF waited 118 days instead of the 53 he was told to expect. So the government gets in the way, until (as is frequently the case in the Third World where I lived nearly 30 years) a class of “facilitators” grows up, offering to use their skills or special contacts to intervene in our interaction with government regulatory bodies.
So much for associations. When the government inserts itself into the process and slows it or dilutes its effectiveness, they become less useful and we become less able to accomplish what we want to without big brother doing it for us. And having worked for the USG I can tell you, delay is always possible. Some of it might be increased responsibility (the IRS has all those Obamacare duties to take on, after all) but I think a lot is just plain foot-dragging. And so an association we are forming that will do good works languishes because the IRS cannot put its rubber stamp on our application. Alas. . .
Our political superiors in Washington DC define the General Will, and all of those bitter clingers in the hinterlands must accept it, and comply. If they’ll only do that, they’ll be happy. Even better, they’ll be free.
Speaking of undermine all of the mediating institutions in our society and leave the individual, unfettered but also unprotected, at the mercy of the political State, there’s a brand-new ‘mediating institution’ among us, precisely dedicated to undermining its competitors and merging the General Will with that defined by Obama’s campaigns of the next four years.
It’s called Organizing for Action, and is a simple rebranding of Obama’s campaign organization with all its hierarchy, management, databases and data-mining capacities fully intact, with Obama the individual – not any party organization – atop of it. It’s now a 501(c)4 org, meaning it can accept unlimited donations, from donors who can remain anonymous. Per its announcements, it will lobby and mobilize activists to support Obama’s initiatives to turn America into ‘what it should be’.
Not a bottom-up grassroots organization, and capable of major influence on legislators, and perhaps on the rest of us once their acolytes hit the streets.
L3 @ 16: The key to the design of a successful system is whether the loser accepts the outcome – not the winner.
Not true.
There is a strong tendency in civil litigation to split the baby, leaving both sides, and justice, unsatisfied.
You are well up to Mr. Fernandez’ standard.
Thank you for your presentation.
Rousseau vs. Toqueville is a queer place on the landscape.
Like the way your mind works.
Thank you, JWesten
Gadfly (#23) The Fed has no real worries about Gold availability, it is as simple as 0bama doing as his former peer FDR did and outlaw the possession of Gold by Americans, set an arbitrary value (well below the current value) and make every American sell it to Uncle Sam! More than enough Gold to give to the German’s with much more to spare…. (next will be our retirement funds)
mac (#29) I use to think Abraham Lincoln was a great man but was he? Since reading the unofficial history books and untold stories of the real run up to the Civil War the only thing that I admire about President Lincoln now was he ended Slavery, even the fact that Lincoln considered Blacks of inferior intellect, it was still monumental (And the Right thing to do), I believe President Lincoln killed America as the land of the Free and was the lunching point for the Federal Government to become the center of all power!
Karl Marx sent several letters to Lincoln complementing him on the take over of the Government. Karl should know.
Tocqueville combined a kind but merciless eye to asses truths. He was amazed and delighted at what he found in America. But he also warned of the pathway to its destruction.
“When I stepped ashore in the United States, I discovered with amazement to what extent merit was common among the government but rare among the rulers. Men of moderate desire commit themselves to the twists and turns of politics…it often comes about that only those who feel inadequate in the conduct of their own business undertake to direct the fortunes of the state. It is not always the ability to choose men of merit which democracy lacks but the desire and inclination to do so.”
“What strikes the European traveler in the United States is the absence of what we call government or administration. In America, written laws exist, and one sees that they are executed daily; although everything is in motion the engine behind it is not visible. The hand which controls the social machine is nowhere on view. For Americans, the force behind the state is much less regulated, enlightened, or prudent but a hundred times greater than in Europe. It is no good looking at the United States for uniformity and permanence of attitude, minute attention to detail, or perfection of administrative procedures. What one does find is the picture of power, somewhat wild perhaps, but full of strength; life liable to accidents but also full of striving and activity. What is meant by a republic in the United States is the slow and quiet action of a society upon itself.”
“The overwhelming characteristic of public administration in the United States is its extraordinary decentralization. I have made the distinction between two types of centralization; the one called governmental, the other administrative. The first exists solely in America; the second is almost unknown (there). There is a high level of government centralization in the United states, but we have seen that no administrative centralization existed in the United States. Administrative centralization only serves to weaken those nations who submit to it, because it has the constant effect of diminishing their sense of civic pride. In the United States, the majority, which often has despotic tastes and instincts, still lacks the most developed tools of tyranny. If the direction American societies (took)…combined the right of total command with the capacity of total execution…freedom would soon be obliterated in the New World.”
“Those who support centralization in Europe maintain that the government is better able to administer localities than they can themselves. That may be true when central government is…..accustomed to command and they to obey. One can, moreover, appreciate that with the increase of centralization, this dual tendency increases so that the capacity of the one and the incapacity of the other become more striking. It must not be forgotten that is especially dangerous to enslave men in the minor details of life. Subjection in minor affairs…does not drive men to resistance, but it crossed them at every turn, till they are led to surrender the exercise of their own free will. In the United States it was never intended for a man in a free country to have the right to do anything he liked; rather, social duties were imposed upon him more numerous than anywhere else. How can liberty be upheld in great matters amongst a multitude which has not learned to make use of it in small ones? Where you see in France the government and in England a noble lord at the head of a great new initiative, in the United States you can count on finding an association. The only way opinions and ideas can be renewed, hearts enlarged, and human minds developed is through the reciprocal influence of men upon each other.”
29. mac
Every time I see an American flag these days I feel an overwhelming sadness at what we’ve lost. I won’t sing the anthem anymore. We’re no longer the land of the free and the home of the brave, and I won’t pretend we are. Most Americans don’t seem to care. I have such contempt for people who voted for Obama that I simply refuse to even mention politics to anyone in person now. I don’t have words to accurately describe how much I hate what has happened to this country. It just makes me almost sick to think of it.
I have learned one thing: I now understand very well how Americans from different sides could have wanted to kill each other with cold steel at places like Antietam and Gettysburg. Each thought the other was TWANLOC too, and they were right. The true miracle was that the division was ever able to be patched up afterward. If we come to that again, I don’t think there will be any way to repair the rift. Certainly not in my lifetime.
I agree 100%. I quit flying my flag after Election Day, after flying it upside down for one day. There are certain people who I refuse to associate with any longer.
Josh @47,
There is a strong tendency in civil litigation to split the baby, leaving both sides, and justice, unsatisfied.
Confirms my point. This tendency generates outcomes that are more acceptable to the loser, meaning that the loser stops fighting and moves on. Not more satisfying, not more just, but more acceptable.
A system which had the tendency to generate winner-takes-all-and-then-some outcomes would make it much harder for the loser to accept. Such a system would encourage irrational risk-taking, as risk-seeking increases when there is the hope for a getting a big gain or avoiding a big loss. (Gamblers Anonymous can confirm this fact.)
This behavioral characteristic of humans is yet another reason why centralized power in large scale organizations is a bad idea. It motivates players to take irrational risks by converting the game into winner-takes-all.
Cheers,
L3
@23…
The slow tempo exists because of the ‘physical’ — Berlin wants all of its bullion recast — and remarked with its sovereign seals.
All of it performed at the level of purity and precision now demanded takes time. Their are only a handful of bullion foundries deemed acceptable by their central bank.
Beyond that, Berlin has to construct new facilities to properly hold her bullion, almost certainly in Berlin, itself. Berlin is a warren of easy digging, and is still crammed with Nazi tunnels — particularly in the central ‘government zone.’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiUTfTQ0m9M
Further, unlike New York City, Berlin has foundation issues with every, truly heavy, building.
Lastly, Berlin does not want the transfer to occur in a circus of publicity — or create a market panic globally by creating a stink in the market reputation of its counter-parties.
ZeroHedge feels exactly the opposite. Indeed, one might imagine that that website is a Direct Action front for the First Directorate. Notably, the black-marked Russian running it NEVER has anything negative to say about Moscow, Russia or Putin — in anyway shape or form.
More than that, ZeroHedge is overrun with Libertarian posters/ sock puppets. The foundational purpose of the Libertarian Party was to disestablish the Department of Defense and to advocate Isolationism. Not surprisingly, the First Directorate has found that ambit absolutely wonderful — and has done all that is possible to promote what had been an extremely obscure crank into a national philosophical force.
Todays Libertarians don’t even know of its roots — and assume it’s a ‘Personal Freedom Party” — sort of a Reefer Gladness Party.
As for the bullion in America — far, far more than the public is led to believe, it consists of unmelted specie — 0.900 pure coinage — that was never melted down by FDR. Away from the cameras, it was a lot cheaper and quicker to just rack up the old coins. Coinage metal lost due to street wear would not have to be recorded as shrinkage during processing. Any such a figure would’ve been politically damning to FDR at that time.
( How would a new president explain how he’s losing 4% of the gold during its conversion from specie to bullion — all performed at great expense — while the average Joe is starving in the streets? )
Those who’ve worked there admit that most of the Fort Knox vaults have been sealed for years on end. Many hold bullion at 0.995, some hold bank/mint bags of gold coins, some hold bullion that is bullion at 0.99.
None of these, previously acceptable, purities is acceptable to Berlin today.
Which is why every single ounce is being recast and re-certified before it is accepted as good delivery.
And, lastly, America and Canada are the #2 and #3 gold producers at this time. ( Red China is #1 !) At the tempo required, there’s no metal shortage.
Paradoxically, the number one gold sink is India. New Delhi is trying to stop the Indian thirst for gold — and silver. With 5,000 years of wealth tax legacy — there’s no chance of throttling that.
Thanks for the Nisbet excerpt. It helped me to see the connection between Rousseau’s “community” and the Star Trek phenomenon – “the Borg”. They’re the same. I wonder if the Star Trek creator’s knew it.
Mac #29
I agree wholeheartedly. In the past four years I have come to loathe half of my fellow Americans. I folded my American flag and put it in the closet on Obama’s first inauguration day. Today I threw it in the garbage, disgusted as I am with what it has come to represent for me: a ravenous, tyrannical, arrogant, ignorant government beast. Before I do, I will say a prayer for all those who have died and been injured for that flag. I will also pray for those who are still in harm’s way on our behalf. How they can do it still, I have no idea.
@52 rickl, run that flag back up the flagpole Brother. Do not let them make you strike the Colors. Or, for no other reason than the mere sight of will piss off all the right people.
” … Today I threw it in the garbage, disgusted as I am with what it has come to represent for me: a ravenous, tyrannical, arrogant, ignorant government beast.”
Please reconsider! The flag is not the government; it represents America.
L3, could you please expand on your idea in 16 that the system depends on the acceptance of its authority by the loser? Not in the defend the hypothesis sense but implications of accepting that as a premise sense. Would be interested in others opinions as well, but am most curious to hear how L3 thinks that is likely to shake out, as in which event, which entity, which subject will start the rejection of the ever expanding federal leviathan. And of course whether it will ‘work’ or be crushed.
For example, for all multitude of tensions leading to the American revolution, it was ultimately an attempt to control firearms, specifically gunpowder, that sent that fateful column marching out of Boston, and caused the heavily outgunned and outmanned minuteman to fire the shot heard ’round the world. And something very similar darn near happened in Virginia except the Brit General had it explained to him in no uncertain terms that it would be war…and he listened.
Is it gun control again? Health care? War on drugs/incarceration rates/prosecutorial discretion? Economics/taxes/ hyperinflation? Is it an individual (like Aaron Swartz, or Mohamed Bouazizi) or corporation or state (TX?) that makes the stand? And are they crushed by leviathan or do they triumph over the Russeauian state?
56. PD Quig
To me a nation’s flag is like a woman. Whatever the state of one’s relationship with her, she should never be stuffed in the garbage can.
DM @59
I subscribe to the notion that the American Revolution was the result of the leaders realizing how good it was to be free versus being a subject in the Old Country. The British tyranny was stopped in its tracks.
I’ve been to court many times in a long career. Sometimes when you lose it it hard to swallow. Take a big gulp and move on with your business knowing that you may have been wrong.
Paying Protection Money to Those Who Will Not Stay Bought http://preview.tinyurl.com/adczkhp
“Oil for Food” corruption trial begins in Paris. Defendants include Total S.A.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_S.A.
The alleged crimes took place two decades ago, and are just now coming to trial.
Justice delayed is justice denied.
I suspect that I am one of the few and maybe the only one here that has done contract formation and administration and dispute resolution in the truly marxist world of public sector collective bargaining. Thirty or forty years ago, the loser would accept the loss; the union and the employer each wanted the best deal they could get and they took what was on the table and went on with life. You could “motherf**k” each other at the bargaining table or in an arbitration all day and adjourn, often along with the arbitrator or mediator, to a nearby watering hole for an “after action analysis.” Those days are no more.
For me the change came when the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, (AFSCME), AFL-CIO decertified the independent employee association that represented the bulk of my State’s employees in 1988. Fortunately, as a State, we were flat broke. We had a Democrat governor who’d been elected with strong union support but when he took office and got a look at our finances not colored by the election propaganda of his predecessor, also a Democrat, called a presser and said, “All bets are off.” While his Democrat inclinations made him more amenable to the communists from AFSCME than he should have been, we still didn’t have any money to give them and we had enough Republicans and even Democrat fiscal conservatives/small business people to rein in the worst excesses. There ensued an almost two decade war between the State of Alaska and AFSCME. It still goes on, but with different players and a different dynamic.
If you’re wondering what happened to the old SDS, look no further than the staff of the big wall-to-wall public employee unions like AFSCME. Those that aren’t sitting by the pool happily retired in Palm Springs are holding appointments in Democrat state governments, the Soros Junta, or are still plying their trade with the unions. They are communists to the core and some of them even know it. The AFL-CIO’s Meany School training for union activists is straight out of Saul’s “Rules.” Signing a contract is just the place where real bargaining begins. Their word is meaningless. Their signature on a contract means, (h/t Lenny Bruce) There’s a signature on that contract. They have no intention of living by it and the only way you can make them is by force. Force takes many forms, but you have to make sure they’re scared of you. A mentor of mine from my days long ago on the union side told me that the key to success was to “always make them think about what you’ll do about it before they do anything.” It is a good, good rule, and one the unions really hate to have applied to them. They really don’t care what they agreed to, any agreement was procured by coercion in their view, so they have no obligation to observe it. In fact, they aren’t much on that obligation stuff in any circumstance.
In the contract administration and dispute/grievance resolution area, they try to use arbitration to get what they failed to get at the bargaining table and to defend f**kups who are loyal to the union. The leadership cadre is organized around the f**kups that the union has protected in some fashion. The insiduous thing is that since most of the union states are irredeemably Blue, the arbitrators are almost irredeemably corrupt. In the Blue states Democrat governors use the labor arbitration process as a charade to give the union what it wants while pretending to put up a good fight. They can then blame the property tax increase on the guy who just departed the airport. I’ve literally had to get in some major league arbitrators’ faces and tell them that they’ll rule for the union when I run out of courts to appeal them to. They really don’t like being appealed and reversed and some of them really didn’t like Alaska during my tenure.
So, to the major point; the Obamunists run like public employee unions. They organize around the f**kups, they ram whatever they can down the throat of the opposition by brute force, and only respect those with the power to hurt them. If they call you names, you’re doing something right. They never forgive or forget. Much of Comrade Obama’s ardor for the “assault weapon ban” is based on the fact that they had it and lost it; it’s their lost pocket knife and they won’t rest until they get it back. Our legislature refused to fund a 3.6% wage increase for the unions in ’86; I’ll guarantee you that I couldn’t get half an hour into a meeting with a union rep without hearing about how that 3.6% increase was “taken away” from them. I got some pretty significant concessions from them over the years and they never once accepted the bargain; they tried through politics or grievance arbitration to get it back in every way and at every opportunity. Oh, and they LIE!
L3 @ 53: There is a strong tendency in civil litigation to split the baby, leaving both sides, and justice, unsatisfied.
Confirms my point. This tendency generates outcomes that are more acceptable to the loser, meaning that the loser stops fighting and moves on. Not more satisfying, not more just, but more acceptable.
I think it does not confirm your point, for it allows many bogus claims to be rewarded and the loser does NOT find that acceptable but starts rejecting the system, for it does not after all reflect the wisdom of Solomon. OTOH it leaves many winners dissatisfied as well.
Is it an optimal game theory result after all? I dunno. You can have many endless philosophical discussions about it. My minor experiences with it have all been negative. And that doesn’t even count the exorbitant costs of even attempting to get a judgement, for settlements tend to be even more problematic, and the overhead of the process tends to eliminate justice for the innocent.
One of my favorite moments in the series “The Practice” is when Dylan McDermott at some point emotes, “The most terrifying thing for a defense attorney is when he has a defendant who is actually innocent!” Game theory at the individual level is never as favorable as real justice.
The “Dred Scott” decision was not unanimous. Justice Benjamin Curtis strongly dissented.
Peter Boston:
Justice Benjamin Curtis dissented from Chief Justice Roger Taney’s majority opinion.
Justice Benjamin Curtis strongly dissented from Chief Justice Roger Taney’s majority decision; Chief Justice Taney’s decision against Mr. Scott was not unanimous.
Justice Benjamin Curtis dissented from Chief Justice Roger Taney’s majority decision, so the vote was 8-1, not 9-0.
Great to see you here, Leo, hope you do one on education.
Do you know much about Arizona’s system?
Private Schools don’t have to muss with local school boards.
There is a thriving private Christian school system there, can’t remember the name of the largest right now, will try to find it.
(Sacred Hearts Academy, I think.)
nope that’s here
—
Industrial Scale Gun Confiscation in Australia
Armed robberies up 69 percent
Assaults with guns up 28 percent
Gun Murders up 19 percent
Home invasions up 21 percent
Home invasions in Britain ten times USA, according to Coulter.
“Sacred Hearts Academy competes in girls’ air riflery, basketball, bowling, canoe paddling, golf, soccer, softball, tennis, sailing, track and field and volleyball. The school is a member of the Interscholastic League of Honolulu (ILH), Catholic School League (CSL) and Christian Schools Athletic League (CSAL). Sacred Hearts Academy joined with Punahou School as a magnet program for United States JROTC.”
—
Hewitt recently had a guest who said half the schools these days have no PE!
…and 2/3 of the population is obese or quite overweight.
A hearty _yes_ to LeoIII on recognition of the high importance of institutions.
An hearty _recalcuation_ of institutions’ part in our next scenario. For now, many of them appear for our part. Are they sure? Do they serve as mere hiearchies of many(s), now headed this way, by these, now headed that way, by others; more precisely, by an other. Surely, unless it is founded upon the Rock, it will be shaken. For our future, it may serve as a mere building block, a brick in the wall; a mere tool in the hands of coming delusion. A tsunami of solutions crying out from problems, carefully connived to cascade from problems.
Deception is an issue of lawlessness; either there be law or there be prelude to the other.
2 Thes. 2:1…
of our gathering together unto him,
that ye be not quickly shaken in mind, nor be troubled, neither through spirit, neither through word, neither through letters as through us, as that the day of Christ hath arrived;
let not any one deceive you in any manner, because — if the falling away may not come first, and the man of sin be revealed — the son of the destruction,
who is opposing and is raising himself up above all called God or worshipped, so that he in the sanctuary of God as God hath sat down, shewing himself off that he is God — [the day doth not come].
Do ye not remember that, being yet with you, these things I said to you?
and now, what is keeping down ye have known, for his being revealed in his own time,
for the secret of the lawlessness doth already work, only he who is keeping down now [will hinder] — till he may be out of the way,
and then shall be revealed the Lawless One, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the manifestation of his presence,
[him,] whose presence is according to the working of the Adversary, in all power, and signs, and lying wonders,
and in all deceitfulness of the unrighteousness in those perishing, because the love of the truth they did not receive for their being saved,
and because of this shall God send to them a working of delusion, for their believing the lie,
An excellent analysis of Obambus second immaculation screed. In this context, consider it to be all about the Obamanation’s attempt to force judgement on all sorts of issues without a trial, neither claims nor defense:
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2013/01/21/the-significance-of-obamas-inaugural-address/
“A tsunami of solutions crying out from problems, carefully connived to cascade from problems.”
Well said,
Sounds like the Evil Genius Behind Obama, Mr. Alinsky.
—
“ Every aborted baby is like a slave in the womb of his or her mother. The mother decides his or her fate ”
Martin Luther King, Jr.
(don’t hear that one much these days!)
-
The Case Against Abortion
Abortion, by the numbers, is a racist institution. That’s not to say that all or even most of those who support abortion are racists. Nor does it imply that there are no racists among those who oppose abortion. This statement has nothing to do with agendas or intent. It has everything to do with the simple, undeniable reality that in the United States, abortion kills minority children at more than 3 times the rate of non-Hispanic, white children. The rate is even worse for black children. The Reverend Clenard H. Childress calls this phenomenon “black genocide”, and has built a national ministry around the exposure of what he calls “the greatest deception [to] plague the black church since Lucifer himself”. Alveda C. King, daughter of slain civil-rights leader A.D. King and niece of Martin Luther King, Jr., quotes her uncle often when outlining her opposition of abortion. She writes:
[Martin Luther King, Jr.] once said, “The Negro cannot win as long as he is willing to sacrifice the lives of his children for comfort and safety.” How can the “Dream” survive if we murder the children? Every aborted baby is like a slave in the womb of his or her mother. The mother decides his or her fate.
—
BlackGenocide.org | The Truth About Margaret Sanger
http://www.blackgenocide.org/sanger.html
Jan 20, 1992 – Planned Parenthood’s legacy of racism and eugenics is firmly established through its founder Margaret Sanger.
Doug…
It’s unspeakable, but many gals figure that abortions are ‘post-entrapment birth control.’
That is to say, it’s their particular romantic policy to pursue Mr. Alpha-enough by making him a prospective father.
If and when that doesn’t pan out, the gal is in need of Big Government’s ultimate in pre-natal care — a D&C.
This goes a long way to explaining the skew.
Another factor is that a shocking number are still of High School age.
This type of ‘accidental’ pregnancy is far, far, more common among NAM gals. Once that bias is removed, the ‘racist bias’ pretty much evaporates. It is not the case that Americans of an African lineage are dying off for lack of maternal exertion.
The race that is evaporating is that of European lineage. It is projected that California will have less than half of its residents hailing from European bloodlines no later than 2014. The way Jerry and Barry, moonbeam and sunbeam, are running them off; it’s little wonder.
“I’ll give the last word to Tocqueville, as he describes the way he expects despotism to emerge from modern democracy:
‘Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances: what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living?
Thus it every day renders the exercise of the free agency of man less useful and less frequent; it circumscribes the will within a narrower range and gradually robs a man of all the uses of himself. The principle of equality has prepared men for these things; it has predisposed men to endure them and often to look on them as benefits.
After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.’”
Funny you should mention that.
She writes: [Martin Luther King, Jr.] once said, “The Negro cannot win as long as he is willing to sacrifice the lives of his children for comfort and safety.”
Google mocked M.L.K. today, made him blue like Avatar.
They took it down already!
I guess Silicon Valley runs on Eastern time.
Law splits the difference, per Leo III:
Via Drudge
“JUNEAU, Wis. (AP) — Two dancers at an exotic club in Juneau have been cited after they allegedly brawled over a dollar bill.
A Post-Crescent of Appleton report says one of the women is pregnant.
Dodge County deputies say they were called to Silk Exotic last week to break up a fight. They say it started when a customer tried to give a dollar to one of the dancers but the other dancer took it.
The sheriff’s report says both women began to brawl. They tussled on the floor, punching, slapping and pulling each other’s hair. Other dancers and customers separated the two.
Both women were cited for disorderly conduct.”
Now that’s the kind of legal procedure I’m used to seeing from Law Enforcement Officers — pretty much all my life.
If it’s Corzine — nothing happens when billions evaporate.
If it’s landlord vs tenant — officer goes with tenant — and makes civil decision on the spot — unless it’s a woman with tears — then anything goes.
If it’s two untouchables ^^^^ then they are both damned.
If the malefactor is the head of government — then armies of sycophants jump on blades of glory — awaiting their day of pardon.
———
I think that the biggest American failure is our post-modern government without morality.
I understand that Britain now wants their cadets to swear, not to God, but to the collective.
They’re back to worshiping golden calves; their own values and achievements, really.
No wonder Moses had to take the long trek. He had to take the institutionals on a long march.
Doug @ 70 – “Sacred Hearts Academy competes in girls’ air riflery, basketball, bowling, canoe paddling, golf, soccer, softball, tennis, sailing…
I’d bet my GRRRLs can beat their GIRLS in sailing! They have all taken and passed “The Swim Test” in 60 degree water where you cannot see the bottom of the lake.
Art,
Excellent analysis at your #63!
Your observation that union leadership appears to revolve around the “f_ck-ups” mirrors mine. CYA appears to be the glue that binds “Blue” governing quorums together.
In these committees, a “pure,” untarnished electee is often bullied into leaving. In my case, a false complaint was lodged by a friend of an officer, prompting me to resign in disgust at the tactic. Or he is cajoled into “joining” the CYA by tarnishing himself, too. I was subjected to an attempt to strong-arm me into signing a conflict-of-interest contract (for award to a sitting officer’s company) as my first act as Treasurer of the board.
I said, “No,” and the rest is history.
Freemen can jar these quorums into reforming, but it requires the courage to stand and speak to a hostile board, signal a willingness to play hard-ball back, and some strategizing on message. Some key advice given to me on this last point was: “Pick your battles!”
An aside: you’ll know you’re getting traction when the CYA-er’s hire investigators to snoop in your privates, and you hear third parties you have never met are berating your person on FB, chat-boards or in emails.
These guys play for keeps, and hired PI’s, anonymous tip-lines to law-enforcement, attempts to up-end private contracts (here, counties’ Registrars of Contractors – who are nothing more than union representatives for licensed contractors, or adverse building inspectors’ reports are at their disposal), and malicious gossip are their favorite tools for preventing Freemen from doing their diligence. When you see these tools in use on you, it means you’re hitting a nerve.
Thanks for sharing your valuable experience with me at Wretchard’s site.
Leo, I think what is driving the state into deciding these matters, rather than at lower levels, is fear of prosecution. Take the concussion issue; If the coaches and doctors and schools bench a child because of a possible concussion, you would have some parents suing because the student missed playing time, had lower stats and did not get a scholarship offer. If he plays and suffers more severe trauma, they sue again. Even if you give parents the final say, you can be sued because the parent is not a doctor and will say it should not have been left up to them to decide. The problem is everyone wants guaranteed outcomes. I wish I had a solution but I do not.
With regard to national politics, I agree the problem is with both parties but I hold the Republicans to blame as they should know better. I can no longer call myself one. I admire what you have been doing in the primaries but you are just feeding into the rigged game, with all due respect. The only way conservatives will be effective again is by rebranding as Constitutionalists. Every issue should be viewed through a strict interpretation of the constitution. I believe it would broaden the appeal, stealing away a large chunk of Democrats even, because it provides the most freedom for all involved. Republicans have allowed the far right Christian movement to ruin their brand- and I personally have no animosity toward Christians myself. People do not want others defining them or telling them how to live beyond basic human rights. Take same-sex marriage for example. A Constitution Party candidate would say, “Marriage is outside the purview of the federal government so as president I would neither ban it or champion it, that should fall to the states to decide. If you are Christian as I was taught, God alone sits in judgement of men, not politicians or even parties. And God gave men and women free will.” See, you don’t have to compromise your own moral values, just don’t dictate them to others.
I apologize for the length but I have been holding this in since Romney’s loss.
Blert, Doug and folks,
Around five years ago Arizona’s state government disowned its role in establishing and funding fire-departments in Arizona, an act which I thought was revolutionary at the time.
IIRC, this was our state legislature’s work-around for the “Civil Service Union Problem.” Arizonans don’t care if you want to join a union just so long as we don’t have to pay for it. So, rather than fight the unions in court, we just cut-em loose on the expansive NGO markets to ply their peals alongside public radio, school bake-sales, Sally Struthers and Amnesty International.
This means the folks who want to exploit growth in the civil service ranks have to put their own money where their mouths are. Property-owning citizens still have plenty of exposure to property-tax takes at the county level, as county FF-departments get a tick out of the county tax take every year. But, we can take that on in county government elections.
‘Not sure how they run things in other states, but our state’s organs relating to firefighting were essentially “privatized” and, in one felled swoop our State AG got to dodge the unwanted law-suits and tax-payer shake-downs that government-unions exert on a state’s treasury. And the Arizona tax-payer wins twice!
Interestingly, the newly amalgamated state organizations for fire-fighters won one, too. Word is the Arizona Association of Firefighters exceeded its funding goals in its first year of independence,and that recruitment is up. Signs are, cutting the Firefighters’ associations’ umbillical-cord to the state capitol has been good for all involved.
Josh #72
An excellent analysis of Obambus second immaculation screed
I have a better one, Josh, and in only three sentences:
We are the Borg.
You will be assimilated.
Resistance is futile.
You will be assimilated.
On the contrary. The “immense tutelary power”, the volunté généralez is weakening daily. Leo has correctly identified the central role played by the will of the state. Just now the president has restated Leo’s prescient proposition in a remarkable way. He said “preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action”. The only way you’re going to keep your freedom is to redefine it.
Wow that sounds like the Borg. But all this Borg has is a boullion cube. If you hurry now you can order one by Obamaphone. How powerful is the volunté généralez these days? It exists largely in myth. It now turns out that Obamacare will bring no cost savings at all — that we were lied to, probably from the start.
The Weekly Standard explains that Obama’s Red Line on Syrian chemical weapons was fake. “In sum: The White House wouldn’t know if Assad were about to use chemical weapons, couldn’t be sure if he had used chemical weapons, and in any case isn’t going to do anything about chemical weapons until Assad leaves. In reality then, the president has no red lines for Assad.”
It was a fake red line. Most of us guessed it at the time, probably even the President’s supporters did. But they hoaxed themselves.
The Washington Post’s Tom Ricks says that General James Mattis is being ousted because he answered the administration back. He questioned their reasoning in a hard professional way. Therefore he is out.
Forward. In each case, forward. Even if everything is fake. Even if even Beyonce’s rendition of the national anthem is lip-synced. Why is the will of the state, though supposedly omnipotent, largely fake? Because the volunté généralez‘s physical manifestation is the Blue State system which as Walter Russell Mead has pointed out is bankrupt.
So we “end a decade of war”. Yet still the war continues. And all that our great leaders have done is declare victory via press releases. No VJ day. Just V-fake day. And they’ll need you to pull it off.As Leo pointed out above, the gun control crowd are appealing to the mediating institutions, like the churches that they’ve destroyed. They’re appealing to “community” only after having demonized it. I mean, you really don’t want the white males to have community do you? It sounds too much like the NRA.
But I think in the end it is the mediating institutions that will inherit the earth. After it the volunté généralez, it will be down to the old things. Your friends, your family. The ashes of your fathers and the temples of your gods.
Yes, if they survive their predispositions to embrace their previous choices however that they succumbed to being misled. For whatever reason, their ears are closed to your voice.
There are those among us on the Right (and even in this club) who have bought the Malthusian view no matter how many neo-Malthusians have been proven to be wrong. Maybe they’re misanthropic in their bones, and the Sustainability movement simply provides succor to their consciences. I don’t really know. I just know that the silence is not only on the Left.
What I do know is the complete and utter silence by most all of today’s rulers of what once was called the West. They say nothing about the relentless suggestion that accompanies all that claims to be green: “let it all burn down baby because whatever the few in number who survive will give Earth a second chance.”
Here are two more headlines currently at Drudge that provide evidence that “ordinary” humans cannot trust today’s rulers.
Find me a world leader who will excoriate these advocates and useful idiots of the death cult. Those who remain silent tell us what they will rarely admit. (The Japanese minister is an oddity) C’mon. Give me 5. I’ll even let you look for them among the religious institutions that began as the antidote to human sacrifice. Talk about undermining institutions!
The real answer comes from the older values as you say Wretchard. But even amongst your own wider family I bet you have members who see you as a threat because what you write will only inflame those rightwingers.
So seek out leaders you can trust who will band you against all those who would treat you as one of many overabundant commodities (Precautionary Principle) rather than sacred human life.