The Surrealistic States of America
As I look around at what is happening in the formerly United States of America, I feel the chill wind of disorientation. Are we not, in our fiscal incontinence and pullulating political correctness, piling up our own funeral pyre? Have not our politicians surrendered to a horrible venality as they struggle above all to maintain the reins of power, even to the point of allowing political calculation to trump their duty to save the lives of those diplomats who were murdered in Benghazi? Will the festering swamp of mendacity that surrounds that event ever be drained? The Obama administration has been on overdrive since September 11 to spin the event, lying, covering up, triangulating, and otherwise endeavoring to distract the public’s attention from this extraordinary attack on sovereign U.S. territory — our consulate in Benghazi — and the brutal murder of an American ambassador and three aides. What does it all mean? And what do the revelations about David Petraeus’s amorous adventures and pseudo-revelations about General Allen portend? Does anyone believe that it was a coincidence that they surfaced when they did?
I am not alone, I know, in sensing a fateful shift in the temper, the emotional weather, of America. I cannot pretend to know what it portends. In the course of his infamous speech, Powell quoted Euripides: “Those whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.” He focused on Britain’s insane and self-destructive immigration policy. We have before us florid examples of other sorts of insanity. I sense the formation of a steely reaction to our present madness. Whether it will be too little too late is impossible to say. I hope not. But hope, like possibility, is a cheap commodity — the last evil in Pandora’s box of tricks, according to some. This much is clear: a great deal that we have taken for granted in this blessed country — about opportunity, about prosperity, about liberty and the tenor of social relations — is about to change. Whether we’ll manage to restore our former innocence is up for grabs. I’ve retired from the betting game, so I will refrain from offering a prognostication.
Does the public at large even care about Benghazi or Petraeus? It’s been promised its bread and circuses and it’s getting them . . . at present.
I don’t think the shift in the temper of America is being propelled at the top but at the bottom.
See, that’s a big problem, right there. According to the election results, the public at large does NOT care about Benghazi. Or General Petraeus. Or FEMA’s response to Sandy. Or having a president who bows to tyrants. Or one who forces the nationalization of our healthcare.
The president kills terrorists using drones? Good! He kills an American citizen using drones, without a trial or anything? Who cares?
The locusts have spoken, and the ants are outvoted.
OK, I don’t care about the latest ginned-up crap that you think is so gosh-durned important. How about Susan Rice? Am I supposed to care about her now, too? And, about Obama never going to Israel? Oops, just saw him with a white Kippah. Next?
No, you are not supposed to care about Susan Rice. You are only supposed to care that she is a black woman. And, if you do not care about that, you are a “racialist” and a “sexist.”
It’s voter fraud that led to the results of the election, not the will of the people. Ask yourself this: How is a president able to legitimately win re-election when he won exactly zero voter ID states?
That also reminds me: As early as 2014 (which is when elections for Congress are due), assuming we win a conservative majority, we should create a new constitutional amendment that states that, in addition to the Electoral College and Popular Votes, the candidates MUST win at least one voter ID state before they can at least have their votes count towards them winning. If they win no Voter ID states, then even if they won both the popular vote and the electoral college, they are automatically disqualified as they most likely cheated to get that amount of votes. Also, we’ll also need to implement a law that prevents people from trying to manipulate electronic ballots by switching votes without the voter’s consent. We must do EVERYTHING to ensure that elections in the future are at least largely clean so we don’t have a repeat of what Obama pulled, and that’s assuming we even have any American elections left by 2016. I won’t be surprised if Obama manages to keep himself in power and cancel elections.
A “bottom” that is being augmented daily by floods of “undocumented” immigrants who tend to vote left. Thanks to the Hero of Chappaquiddick, among others, for what we’re becoming now!
Not to forget your hero of Chappaquiddick was for the larger part of his life known as the “Father of the Senate”. Having relinquished his chance to follow in elder brother’s footsteps after wounds suffered from his heroism at Chappaquiddick – but enough of that things change and we all move on.
As “Father of the Senate” the major Founding Father of New Age America? To secure the Kennedy Dynasty beginning in Camelot?
No surprise then that Obama during 2008 campaign was, in addition to Messiah, also called by his cheerleaders and enablers The New Kennedy.
Women are naturally hardwired to vote for socialism. This includes women who vote Republican (this merely results in the GOP moving leftward).
Conservatives like to denounce the ‘moochers’ as an abstraction, but until one realizes that the majority of the mooching attribute in society arises from women, conservatives back down and instead grovel to these women.
Women are hardwired to want socialism. No country can avoid socialism after 3-4 generations of women voting. Look around the world for exceptions.
Those are the ‘politically incorrect’ facts. Conservatives will not be able to confront moochers without coming to terms with the fact that most moochers are women.
Oh, deary me, what a way for this libertarian chick to find out she’s not a woman. And I have the right equipment and everything — just checked.
Perhaps if American women weren’t taught they’re special by reason of their vagina they wouldn’t be so socialism-inclined.
Hard wired my FOOT. The things people say!
“Poetic license” is the freedom allowed to writers for achieving literary effects by deviating from facts, conventional logic, or standard grammar and spelling.
“Political license” is the freedom allowed to politicians to make statements deviating from facts, logic, principle, or consistency to achieve electoral effects. Although sanctioned for politicians by long practice, this freedom is denied to ordinary mortals. When they say something silly, they expose themselves to immediate contradiction, derision or rude guffaws.
+ 5 for word smithing
Well said John.
“’Political license’ is the freedom allowed to politicians to make statements deviating from facts, logic, principle, or consistency to achieve electoral effects.”
I’ve noticed that too. I’ve often wondered how they manage to maintain a life in the real world – managing a home, a family and a budget, or even being to escape a wet paper bag – given the serial idiocies they regularly declaim as part of their “jobs.” Perhaps they don’t, and maybe that’s why so many of them wind up as apparently complete imbeciles by the end of their careers.
I suspect that most of them are less than honest and have a somewhat below genius level intellect to begin with.
The problem is that they’re (left, right and center) very, very good at convincing other people that they are honest geniuses.
What that says about us, the people who keep electing and re-electing them, over and over again, is another matter.
Warren – They are humans – people.
And half of the people are below average.
There has been much hand wringing over why Romney lost the election. Powell provides the answer: “What in normal society would constitute shameful duplicity is, by a modern politician, executed shamelessly … Retreating from principle, bending, concealing or sometimes even abandoning the truth are normal, everyday activities.”
Romney liked mandates — and then said they violate the 10th Amendment. He was pro-choice — but declared himself against abortion rights because Roe v. Wage had “gone too far.” He favored indexing the minimum wage to inflation — but then said minimum wage laws cause job loss. As Governor, his signature achievement was Romneycare on which Obamacare was based — but made repeal of Obamacare his highest leadership priority once elected to the White House. He touted his father’s courageous stands on civil rights and support of Martin Luther King, Jr. — but then falsely accused Obama of gutting welfare-to-work legislation to get out the black vote, even though more whites than blacks are receive welfare benefits.
The list goes on.
More than anything else, the voters seek authenticity in a candidate. Romney was precisely the kind of unprincipled weather vane Powell describes. That is why he lost and Obama won.
“More than anything else, the voters seek authenticity in a candidate. Romney was precisely the kind of unprincipled weather vane Powell describes. That is why he lost and Obama won.”
Riiigggghhhhttttt; Obama won because he was principled and authentic. My god, how could anyone say that with a straight face….
Abady must be a politician,
Those of us who hold to principles certainly recognize that Obama is/was not a principled man. But the majority of the voters do not hold to any principles, and thus were easily duped into thinking that Obama was a man of principle.
Obama IS a man of principle; it’s just that his principles are evil.
…and his principles are largely undisclosed, and unknown to most who think they understand why they support him.
Bingo!
By contrast, suggesting that Obama won because he is somehow a principled leader not only strains credulity, but is outright laughable. The only leadership he’s shown is petty covetousness and how to improve one’s golf scores.
Oh riiiight.
Like, Obama’s a principled politician? He’s never retreated from principle, bended, concealed, or abandoned the truth?
Hmmm, his normal, everyday activities seem to involve all of the above.
Oh and you think Obama’s not some kind of unprincipled weather vane?
He promised to halve the deficit, then doubled it.
He called Bush “unpatriotic” for passing the deficit on to our children, yet doesn’t seem to care about adding $1T per year.
Promised the most transparent administration in history. How’s that working out?
Railed against executive power then went into Libya without even the pretext of congressional approval.
Promised to close Guantanamo, then didn’t.
Railed against Bush’s war on terror policies, then doubled down on virtually all of them.
Was adamantly against health insurance mandates, until he was for them.
I could keep typing for hours, but you get the point. The only real principles Obama holds are the radical leftist ones he does his best to keep from coming out too openly. For every flip-flop Romney made, there’s a broken promise or policy change, or other hypocrisy, from Obama. The real problem is that whenever Romney changed his position on something the media jumped all over it as a flip flop, but whenever Obama did the same thing it was called “evolution”. Remember how Obama was for Gay marriage earlier in his career, then became against it for the 2008 election, then became for it again for the 2012 election? When he did that he got put on the cover of magazines with a freaking halo on his head. The problem was the media’s double standard, not Romney.
Now there’s a theory.
Mr Authentic won because Mr Inauthentic changes his positions.
When they came up with the term “low informatiion voter”, they hadn’t encountered this guy yet.
You are just wrong about welfare to work. The work requirement was changed to include cleaning a friend’s apartment or getting a massage. Work no longer means getting a job. Worse, the agency had no authority to make this change, but since we are now governed mostly by the administrative state no one cares. And California has more welfare recipients than anywhere else so I’m guessing many are immigrants — kind of proving the point — importing masses of unskilled workers into a country with high unemployment to begin with just increases the tax burden. So the govt raises taxes, imports more welfare recipients and the whole cycle repeats while tax payers & businesses move away, necessitating the need for new types of taxes & taxes on more people until … complete bankruptcy. But at least u got to vote for Obama before the whole system collapses & people wind up eating each other to survive.
The thing is, we all know Obama was unprincipled rogue because we are paying attention and know to ignore the fawning media. What about the folks that only pay attention once in awhile? They here negatives about Romney and glowing about Obama and best case they right them off as both corrupt and they dont vote.
The conservatives need to do better at getting the message out to the low attention span voters.
They should start with re-editing political debates into pop-up video type presentations. Make the pop-ups funny and true any release it before the morning after the debate and you will get higher ratings than the debate itself. And be able to call out lies and misrepresentations.
Low information voters should not be able to pass the NEW voter testing.
Am I racist for this stance?? WHO CARES!!
I tend to bust the teeth out of libs that are within arms reach when they call me names. Got the scars from teeth embedded in my knuckles to prove it.
VOTER TESTING, VOTER ID, NO NET TAXES PAID, NO VOTE, anything else is insane and culturally suicidal. WE CANT wait to convince the stupid and insane, they must be made to comply. Frankly I hope they DON’T like it. F-em.
“…more whites than blacks are receive welfare benefits.”
How is this possible when 90% of the country is black?
Oh…wait.
As for the rest, nice try. Obama won because the Marxist Socialist Media spent the last 4 years propagandizing for him at every turn.
Mitt lost because a majority of the electorate finds conservative policies lacking. The truth is, in spite of all the silly positions and over the top rhetoric, there is only one thing Republicans do consistently, without fail. They cut taxes for rich people. That and that alone is the solution to every problem. People decided they had enough. They stood in line for up to six hours in some places not just to vote for Obama but to vote against the Republican. Republicans are unable to process this information so they lash out. At the media, at the left, at the candidate. You can stop looking for scapegoats. it’s not like a tweak here or a twist there would have made any difference. People are just so sick and tired of being played for fools. They are past the dog whistles and the scandal mongering and the wedges that have worked for Republicans in the past. Conservatives will have to evolve. Enough of you will learn the lessons of this election and hopefully make some positive changes in both policy and direction. Others will not. There will always be a vocal opposition pining for a time that never was and an America that never existed in real terms.
No. Conservatives are not going to follow you and “dissolve”.
You practice what you accuse other of doing. You do realize that yes? The socialist policies will fail and everyone will be worse off. How many people on food stamps today? Employment? Wait until sociliazed medicine kicks in. You are being played. Hard.
The next time some liberal clown flings that “known fact” at you about more whites than blacks receiving welfare, refer them to the U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services, Office of Family Assistance, Table 8 (2009 is latest year I could find): Under Clinton’s 1996 Welfare to Work Program, now called “Temporary Assistance for Needy Families”…..of the 1,726,560 families receiving public assistance, 33.3% were African-American and 31.2% were caucasion. Considering that blacks make up only 13% of the nation’s population, their disproportionate use of other people’s money is staggering, not to mention perfect testimony to liberalism’s total ignorance of human nature. Democrats don’t have constituents, they have dependents, thus assuring votes for more of the same.
But your comment suggests that “liberals” know everything they need to know about human nature.
They get what they want in trade with those humans who want what they offer. Power in exchange for leisure 24/7/365 with all rights of those not part of the trade. Those not part of the trade pay the bills, always and in all ways.
Votes in exchange for the right to live off the labours of others cheap at the price. In a democracy in which the only requirement for voting for the people who decide the direction of the nation is existence of a certain age.
Liberals need know no more than that about human nature.
In my place of work I refused to sign a letter to The Times, condemning Powell’s speech. That was the beginning of the end of a promising career.
Never mind: my new one was much more stimulating!
You were given the same treatment all who deny Obama is wrecking our country and voted for him deserve. Oh wait! Most of the moochers who voted for Obama were on welfare! Good luck with your dear leader.
Don’t worry, Brian. The rest of us got it. Glad it ended up well for you.
“I’ve retired from the betting game, so I will refrain from offering a prognostication.” — That’s just as well, Roger, especially after the recent election(s). The ways of stupidity and the proud grandstanding that displays it are manifold. Moreover, serendipity is also manifold in systems as complex as societies or microbial cells. There REALLY IS NO PREDICTING long-term consequences of short-term folly, clairvoyant Enoch P. notwithstanding. It’s the butterfly-wing form of pop chaos theory. What is clear, though, is that social suicide is the opposite of stochastic. History demonstrates that IT IS THE RULE, especially for the great and fortunate society. In light of that, you and I are optimists.
Politics has known a lot of Cassandras who got their careers ruined by speaking uncomfortable truths. Britain had Powell, the US had Joseph McCarthy and Israel had Rabbi Meir Kahane, to name just three examples. All were vilified, all predicted the events we now see.
We kill our prophets…
Until today, I knew only one person capable of inventing such an unbelievably good pen name as yours.
And the content of your comment would be something she would write.
Is that you ?
I hear you, and here is my “I told you so” to Conservatives everywhere:
We need now a fighter, and we don’t have one.
We did have one, Sarah Palin.
She was not good enough for anyone – except us normal people, us good and decent Americans. She was fearless. In hindsight, better to have lost with her than Romney. She’d at least have rallied the troops and clarified the case. She would NEVER – not in a million years! – have taken the slander Obama through at Romeny for months while he did not respond at all. That timidity cost him an election and it cost America its…..I can’t even say the worst.
From now on, my vote is that we recruit fighters. That no one who lacks the spirit of say, Churchill, should even be considered.
Churchill is our minimum requirement. Just to get an interview. The we can work out a plan to beat the b*&tards back.
Palin is still around, alive, well and standing tall amid the devastatingly inept wreckage of GOP brahmins, kingmakers and toadies. What her plans are is anyone’s guess — one would like to see the visitor’s list to her suite at the GOP convention — but she is an important part of future solutions.
She just has to say ‘GOP snobs’ and you’ll hear deafening support from coast to coast.
Roger that. But don’t underestimate the strain of taking a beating in the MSM every day for what you say that resonates with us folks. It’s hard to say what effect it might have had on Romney since he is a soft spoken type to begin with, but it eventually battered George Bush 43 into irrelevance in his last two years in office.
That’s my point.
Dubya, McCain and Romney shared me trait in common – they wanted to be gentlemen first and to a fault.
How can is say this…..
WE DO NOT NEED FREAKING GENTLEMEN!!!!
What we needed were fighters. America was at stake. Street fighters only need apply next time.
Palin was always a better man than McCain.
Turns out she was re manly than Romney too. Neither Romney nor McCain was willing to do what was require. They were gentlement, but, sorry, they wee cowardly gentlemen.
Yes, I said it. In context, they were cowards. America is the greatest thing there ever was. They did not fight hard enough for her.
Plain – never even a hint of a doubt about that one.
Romney – not only did he not respond to the attacks, he never took any initiative on his own.
What should he have done to get his case heard? He should have marched naked down Broad Street in Philly if that was what it took to get coverage,
And I exaggerate not a bit. Stark naked down Braod Street just to say “My plan is so important, this election is so important but you MSMwon’t cover it so I’ ll force you to.”
He lost anyway!
You do what it takes. You punch their lights out. You put your fingers in their eyes. You kick them and you bite their ears off. You stop when you have won or you are dead.
The stakes were way to high and we nominees who would not fight all the way.
We must never make that mistake again, if we get the chance.
No, I disagree. They did not “…want to remain gentlemen”, rather they wanted to keep the game of politics, favors and pay-offs in place as it has been at least since FDR was a pup. They did not want to upset the apple cart because ‘business as usual’ is what fills their pockets, massages their unhappy and narcisstic psyches and keep them in office year after year after dreary year. The fundamental issues in current politics arise because of one simple fact: the ruling class in America is made up of people who went to the same schools, read the same books and listened to the same professors, attended the same social functions and whose daddies (and mommies in some cases) were in politics. They will close ranks to exclude any genuine reform, no matter their political party, because ruling the ruins of this nation is preferable to their being excluded from rule over a prosperous and free nation. Many of them don’t even understand what their policies will create and those who do understand don’t care. Gentlemen? Really??
Civilizational suicide is never pretty.
History has vindicated Enoch Powell.
Per Yale Law Professor Amy Chua’s “Day of Empire”:
>>>
The 1965 Immigration Act abolished the racially and ethnically discriminatory national-origin quota system instituted in the 1920′s. Immigration rates exploded, from roughly 70,000 a year during the [preceding] quota years to about 400,000 a year by the early 1970s, 600,00 a year by the early 1980s, and over 1 million in 1989. Between 1990 and 2000, approximately 9 million immigrants arrived in the United States, more than in any other decade except the heyday of Ellis Island at the century. [p. 258-259]
<<>>
Borrowing a page from its own early history and from all the pre-modern hyperpowers, the United States today should pursue a much more aggressive, incentive-based strategy for identifying and attracting immigrants with high-value skills, training, and know-how. At the same time… the United States should leave an avenue available to immigrants of all classes and education levels, holding open a significant number of immigration slots in a first-come-first-served or lottery-like system. [p. 338 - 339]
<<<
Vik. Romney agreed with you. He proposed selecting migrants based on high value education or skill levels.
This position was cited by Hispanic voters as one of the reasons they voted AGAINST Romney.
I read that nine out of eleven new Californians are on welfare. Many, of course, are infants. The author pointed out that California’s overall population count has altered little, however. It’s just more taxpayers are leaving and fewer taxpayers are arriving.
We are reaping the bitter fruit of being unmoored from the Constitution. It was a 100 years of walking away from it, but walk we did. What is truth? Or we we just get a “story”, “talking points”, “spin” or ” disembling”? Does anybody care? Will they get their heads out of the cell phones, tv’s, IPods, Ipads and computers long enough to notice? Or will they just get their “news” from John Stewart or Oprah? Will the last honest person please turn out the light?
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” – John Adams
The problem is bottom-up, from the people, not top down, from the government, although you can thank the government, especially Democrats like Ted Kennedy, for changing, via immigration, the character of the people faster than natural decadence would have done.
Yep. Which is why the Hedonism and Nihilism of Libertarianism wont work as order for society.
I’m calling bullshyt in this one, Libertarianism in America has been maligned by inclusion and infestation with anarchists, most of whom were thrown out of the party several years ago, but you republican party hacks who thought Romney was the bees knees can byte my@$$, you were wrong, this time and the last 3 times you put up the sycophant “who’s turn it was”.
IF the Republican party survives the next 10 years it will be because it embraced the TEA principles, either that or they join the whigs in a dusty history book. The behavior of the GOP toward the Ron Paul people showed MANY people the GOP is as corrupt as the Dem’s, and must go for the same reasons, TREASON. I’m NOT a “Paulbot”, I’m a loyal American with a high IQ and massive amounts of reading behind me who respects the Constitution more than I respect anyone living or dead.
As someone who finds libertarianism seductive, I have to agree on your take of that ideology. I have noticed that it doesn’t matter what form of government a nation has if a critical mass of its people are amoral and undisciplined, and lacking in initiative. “Liberty” can only really take hold in a sober, adult-acting society.
Per Yale Law Professor Amy Chua’s “Day of Empire”:
>The 1965 Immigration Act abolished the racially and ethnically
>discriminatory national-origin quota system instituted in the
>1920′s. Immigration rates exploded, from roughly 70,000 a year
>during the [preceding] quota years to about 400,000 a year by the
>early 1970s, 600,00 a year by the early 1980s, and over 1 million
>in 1989. Between 1990 and 2000, approximately 9 million
>immigrants arrived in the United States, more than in any other
>decade except the heyday of Ellis Island at the century. [p. 258-259]
That’s a 10-fold increase, from 70,000 to close to 1 million per year. Seeking to absorb so many new immigrants, it’s no wonder our nation is undergoing such hardship.
Here is Chua’s recommendation for US immigration policy:
>Borrowing a page from its own early history and from all the
>pre-modern hyperpowers, the United States today should pursue a
>much more aggressive, incentive-based strategy for identifying
>and attracting immigrants with high-value skills, training, and
>know-how. At the same time… the United States should leave an
>avenue available to immigrants of all classes and education
>levels, holding open a significant number of immigration slots in
>a first-come-first-served or lottery-like system. [p. 338 - 339]
Well yes, not only did they discover (they think) that they can vote themselves the keys to the Treasury, they also discovered (they think) that they don’t even have to live in this country to do so.
And yes, mendacious is about the most flattering thing you can say about our politicians, who would be more accurately described as psychotic vipers bent on enriching themselves at the expense of the destruction of the world, if that it what it takes. They make the normal terms of Liar, Con Men, Scam Artists, Criminals, Thugs and Traitors blush with inadequacy. We don’t have a lexicon to describe them, just as we don’t have a lexion to describe the trillions of dollars that draws them to Washington as surely as nectar draws the bees.
But what the ordingary pickpockets, legal and illgal, with their eye on the Treasury don’t realize is that the blushing Thugs will damn well make sure that THE THUGS get every last drop of honey. Oh for a few year, the pickpockets will get some scraps to placate them and trick them to “vote” multiple times for the the thugs. But at the end of the day, the pickpockets won’t fare any better than the rest of us.
Road to Serfdom in triple time.
At the gates of hell Dante informs that we must abandon all hope, yet he does not mention abandoning humor.
Let us look at the post election fiscal cliff, “political licensing” upheaval as a massive data test to see just how stupid is the American public. First tell a lie or provide an amazing promise, then watch for fall out. Second, if that polling seems to work, throw out another tax, a meme, a delusion, a blame and see if that works. How far down can they dummy down the public?
It seems to be the sensation of the theater that gets the applause, not the substance. What else explains California budgeting, the ‘insure 30 million people to lower health care costs,’ vulture capitalism, and the presidential popularity rating versus debt and unemployment. The audience wants bling not boring jobs and bland responsibility.
a great deal that we have taken for granted in this blessed country — about opportunity, about prosperity, about liberty and the tenor of social relations — is about to change
Amen to that which is why it is so important for those of us who are steeped in history and who get the likely consequences of this dramatic shift away from the legitimacy of the individual to speak out. To relate the places and the results from the past. To cut through the Orwellian language designed to obscure Bad Ideas before they gain full implementation and thus a political constituency.
I don’t think Americans are prepared for a country where the government accepts no obligations to its own Ambassadors in a War Zone but then argues that citizenship is an obligation full of duties and responsibilities.
Those of us who recognize that the Long March is nearing the Finish Line will have to acquaint those who were never concerned with who Gramsci is. And why it matters.
It is a time for even more reading to be able to explain the Consequences of the Winds that are shifting.
I cannot help but think of the great Winston Churchill, who in the midst of the German onslaught against England said”…never, never, never give up.” He was a man who knew well what he was talking about and whom we should pay tribute to by following his exhortation.
History has been the conveyor of information about the nature of reality – what works, what does not work. By “work,” I mean from our own point of view, our own expectations, what we’re accustomed to as Americans.
History has pretty starkly shown us the winners and losers in terms of nations and culture. Conservative thought generally accepts history’s verdicts, at least in terms of an awareness of them as expressions of competence. In other words, they use their eyeballs to see that water is wet and sand dry. Conservatives do not necessarily pounce on the weak as a result; conservatives are humans and humans have compassion. Our Bill of Rights speaks to this. But that Bill of Rights speaks to opportunity, not deliverance. Success is offered, it is not guaranteed.
Liberal thought on the other hand rejects history as some kind of an anomaly. Like conservatives, liberals see history as a competition and rightly judge the losers. But liberals come to a far different conclusion, one based on woulda, coulda, shoulda.
To a liberal, success has become a racial and gender-based expression of oppression. Success to a liberal is associated with immorality and a lack of fair play. Failure is conversely associated with morality and the righteous. Since failure is usually an expression of reality, this little dust up can have splints applied to it forever. Even were England to become entirely black, blame would still fly. It does in Haiti.
Some of this liberal thought can be chalked up to normal human compassion for those less fortunate than themselves. But when that misfortune is formalized into a dogma of identity-based excuse and blame, it becomes a form of madness, which is what political correctness is. The West has become a suicide cult, a victim of its own overrefinement and success.
That madness focuses today on increasingly bizarre and arcane theories meant to explain, mitigate and lay blame. So-called “white privilege” is a perfect example of a circular argument from which there is no escape once applied. That is because “white privilege” is a non-existent form of clever stupidity that mimics logic while never quite attaining to it.
Failure is its own explanation. Obama is his own explanation. It’s one thing to agitate for swings at the plate and quite another to ferret out the secrets of fractal geometry and actually have a brain in your skull. It is not only the meek (failure) that are inheriting the Earth, but the stupid. And their sole weapon consists of one word that has the entire world on the run: “racist.”
Every moron on Earth utters this word and people scurry.
It is no coincidence this all started with societal oddballs like Kerouac, Burroughs and Ginsberg, liberal heroes all. Those men didn’t seek justice, but some sort of sarcastic revenge on that they couldn’t be a part of. They became con men who promised rain, and liberals the now corrupted Fremen.
In a country where failure will now always be blamed on anything but itself, and so no solutions possible, we are undone.
Thanks, Fail Burton.
Welcome to the United States of Levelling:
“Gender levelling” is coming to engineering departments of US universities. It’s not legal, of course, but Department of Ed Arne Duncan said this past summer that any university which doesn’t make strides to alter (and improve) its gender ratios in math, engineering, science, and technology admissions will be looked on unfavorably by Washington when research grants are awarded.
Sounds like a Chicago-style shakedown to me, but hey, what do I know?
I AM FEMALE. I HAVE A MATH DEGREE, CUM LAUDE (1971). I studied in high school, a lot. I studied Mathematics for four college years – it took a lot of time, and my friends sometimes did things I didn’t have time to do.
Young Americans of all ethnicities, genders, races, religions, etc: here’s my advice. Study in school. Put extra effort into Math, you might like it. I did.
or Whine. Somebody make it fair for me, sob. All I can say is, if Washington wants to force universities to give degrees to people who stumble over Math problems, it will have to live with the results. Even millionaire politicians like the electricity grid to work, and think if electrical engineering degrees are handed out with little regard for talent.
No doubt the primary reason why Enoch Powell has been demonized is political expediency.
And yet, did he not expose himself by taking up a lost cause?
In his speech, he worried about immigration from the Carribean — but were there enough people in the British Carribean to potentially swamp Britain?
I respectfully suggest that he should have saved his political capital for speeches on more worrying sources of immigration.
He could be forgiven for that focus, his famous speech was in 1968, when Islamic invasion wasn’t on the radar. I’m sure he’d have made a speech or two on the muzz today, and won himself the title of Islamophobe as well as Raaaaaciss.
Translation, don’t say anything negative about Black people, because they are totems of magical goodness.
Britain (was) special, a place of between 85 and 75% Celtic peoples, linguistically, ethnically, and culturally unified, though with significant variations in culture and language, that deserved preserving. It WAS unique, fairly idiosyncratic, seen from everything from the Spitfire to Double Decker Buses to Police Boxes.
Dropping in a bunch of Black people, with eternal resentment of Whites (which will never, EVER cease) was national suicide. Just as dropping in a bunch of Pakistanis is the same, only accelerated. Black people, on average, just can’t connect to Robin Hood, King Arthur, Sherlock Holmes, Shakespeare, Queen Elizabeth I, the Battle of Britain, or Dunkirk. On average, they just can’t — because none of them were ever involved in the first place. That goes double for Pakistanis, who felt affinity for the other side.
A nation is NOT just logic, rules, and a random set of people dropped into it, like Hollywood likes to argue, and most people here view. It is emotion, a genetic pull, a shared mystic memory enhanced by the fact that the people sharing it are distantly related cousins. Not complete genetic strangers, and THAT is hard-wired into people genetically, as genetically based as being Gay or straight men desiring nubile women.
Taken to extremes, “blood and soil” becomes destructive. A sensible society will tolerate SMALL numbers of outsiders but limit their numbers, and demand they assimilate to the majority culture, which includes intermarriage and eventual absorption into the mass of people.
Think of it this way — extreme outsider views are like a person who ALWAYS takes the side of outsiders against the family. This is suicide for the family and the person. Extreme family views leads to ultra-clannishness and destruction: Sicily, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Scottish Highlands. A balanced way, being open to outsiders in small amounts, while retaining family loyalty, is crucial.
Imagine every family where women abandoned their sons and daughters to care for outsider’s kids, and favored the outsider’s kids with every bit of love, while disparaging and neglecting their own. That is essentially Western society, which INCLUDES most so-called Conservatives today.
Sorry but you completely missed the point.
Good article.
Just about the storm: you might end up waiting quite a while for repairs. This area gets hit by hurricanes not infrequently. It is not uncommon to see houses with tarps on the roofs for months or even a year or more. There was one house around the way that was like that and even had some contractor’s gear there for months before the place was finished, the roof anyway I don’t know the condition of the interior. I suppose a lot of it depends on the severity of damage, if it is life threatening or renders the house unlivable, how honest your insurance company is and maybe how well you know the contractors.
At the risk of repeating myself, you should check out a portion of a book written circa 55 a.d. on how/why a nation dissolves. It is strikingly similar to our present age.
Find here: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans%201:18-32&version=NASB
Yep.
Check out Jeremiah 50, 51 and see if that doesn’t describe our situation, a dual prophecy…ancient Babylon being to the East of Israel, and it described in these verses as “north”.
Revelation 18 further elaborates on the events described above. We have arrived, it seems, at the ‘end times.’
” I sense the formation of a steely reaction to our present madness. Whether it will be too little too late is impossible to say. I hope not. But hope, like possibility, is a cheap commodity — the last evil in Pandora’s box of tricks, according to some. This much is clear: a great deal that we have taken for granted in this blessed country — about opportunity, about prosperity, about liberty and the tenor of social relations — is about to change.”
It already HAS changed, Mr. Kimball.
When Barack Obama exhorted his partisans that “voting is the beast revenge”, he sounded a dog-whistle of class warfare, racism and sexism so loudly that even his own partisans knew we the targets of their “Revenge” would hear.
That no-one has demanded that Barack Obama elucidate exactly WHOM he meant his voters to revenge themselves upon should surprise nobody.
We are close…very close to Sarajevo writ in the millions and tens of millions.
Has there been another sitting President who openly calls for volunteers in a political proxy for race and class and ethnic war?
If it’s a nightmare they mean to have, then let us get on with it. The quicker and more violent the paroxysm, the sooner we get past it. Shall we pass the cup on to our children or grandchildren?
The text of Powell’s speech:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/3643823/Enoch-Powells-Rivers-of-Blood-speech.html
I would highlight:
“But while, to the immigrant, entry to this country was admission to privileges and opportunities eagerly sought, the impact upon the existing population was very different. For reasons which they could not comprehend, and in pursuance of a decision by default, on which they were never consulted, they found themselves made strangers in their own country.
They found their wives unable to obtain hospital beds in childbirth, their children unable to obtain school places, their homes and neighbourhoods changed beyond recognition, their plans and prospects for the future defeated; at work they found that employers hesitated to apply to the immigrant worker the standards of discipline and competence required of the native-born worker; they began to hear, as time went by, more and more voices which told them that they were now the unwanted. They now learn that a one-way privilege is to be established by act of parliament; a law which cannot, and is not intended to, operate to protect them or redress their grievances is to be enacted to give the stranger, the disgruntled and the agent-provocateur the power to pillory them for their private actions.”
Indeed, Mr. Powell…we that grew up in the decades after this speech know this state of affairs at firsthand.
The solution to the Gordian Knot lay in the blade of a sharp sword. I’m afraid that it still does.
Prepare yourself for what you must do, and do not forget the identities of those who sold us out to our enemies.
Finally, someone has climpsed the future, Yugoslavia writ large. It won’t be pretty when it happens. I both dread it and am eager for it. The once greatest country in the world has been destroyed by the ones who voted their greed and resentment. It’s time to get rid of them.
Agreed, bring it sooner rather than later.
Later we will be too impoverished to resist as effectivly.
Also the enemy has wisely waited until most of America with combat experience is too old to actualy fight, a few more years and they will be too old to lead in the field.
The diversity of regional populations, increasing urbanization, economic mobility, and direct localized concern with, and control of, the objectives of public education among other factors provided the United States with social structures capable of assimilation of substantial immigration.
Many elements of that capacity and those factors have diminished as additional cycles of immigration have continued. The result has been that we have reached the equivalent of a point of no return on assimilation. The best we can hope for is a period in which new found commonalities(many actually those that were the basis of civil and social cohesion from the past) will be reestablished in sufficient measure to provide a base for the return to the civil society that was the strength of the United States and its people.
Negotiating with the colonists, indeed.
The European’s as opposed to Anglo European Americans have a more difficult task. Negotiating with the North African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian Islamists. That negotiation will end predictably in genocide and ethnic cleansing.
The USA was forged by people with a culture. The immigrants who streamed into this nation came from various cultures. Knew and accepted that culture. That it was anglophone was not important to the immigrants. They learned insofar as possible the language and the “rules”. It was the promise as The Land of Opportunity that drew them.
The Land of Opportunity, the chance to pursue their own dreams and goals without interference from self-appointed betters, imperials and royals. Those immigrants looked to America with HOPE to CHANGE their lives via their own ingenuity, creativity, persistence and willingness to perservere whatever the hardships. It did not generally include gangster government.
Very different from many of today’s immigrants who come in droves, many illegally, from nations with tribal cultures for better or worse. They look for and get dependendcy on a great father – the government – and are promised to be cared for at the expense of unfavoured tribes.
The new tribalism dressed in words, affirmative action, fairness, equality and social justice to pit citizen against citizen. A cold civil war contrived by the best and brightest whose goal is attainment and maintenance of civic power indifferent to the damage to “The Lives of Others”. Consistent with wolfish behaviour of man. An Old power play as Ben Franklin knew in his “we must all hang together or most assuredly we whall all hang separately”.
Who are the dependents promised care and sustenance? The immigrants – no fools they – who stream into the “land of free money” with no intentions or encouragement to assimilate to the base culture OR the big daddies who promise and TAKE the wherewithal from the people who earn it with their ingenuity, creativity, labours, persistence and perseverance in their individual goals?
Tribal warfare contrived by the best and brightest called liberals/democrats compassionates and their collaborators in all civic institutions AND government.
ALL dependent on government largesse expropriated – taxed – materials, good and services of the creative and labouring citizens. CONTINUOUSLY ESCALATING.
The Road to Serfdom indeed.
According to an August Washington Times article, 43% of immigrants are still on welfare after 20 years. Sounds like we are importing socialists.
Eric Hoffer dissected the mind of the true believers and found them all to have a desire to do good, above all, a good they could not even define or really cared to because it was, in the end, important only to belong to a cause that gave them the best exchange rate for their souls, an intolerable burden in the brave new world.
Progress! You guys are getting closer to simply admitting that you’re a bunch of fascists. The bad news for the rest of us is that fascism is very attractive to many people.
Tribalist socialists = fascists.
That is the base of the Democrat Party.
So, does your ignorance exceed your mendaciousness, or vice versa? Hard to tell. Obama calls for the establishment of a paramilitary under his control, names his political organization for a racial slur, ignores the law at every opportunity, showers taxpayer money on his cronies, calls for “revenge” against an unnamed Other — and you see “fascism” in his opposition.
Fascists, eh Jim? So… Are you just trolling, or are you going to actually back that up with evidence? Specific evidence would be nice, if you’re capable of providing it. Which I doubt.
I suspect you don’t even know what fascism is. To far too many it simply means “bad people.”
‘I suspect you don’t even know what fascism is. To far too many it simply means
“bad people”“people I don’t like.”’FTFY
It is attractive indeed. It just got a failed President reelected by urging appeals to revenge against race and class enemies.
More insults? Still pimping your lame blog Jimbo?
Appropriate name for it, though…
Face it bucky, we care what you think even less then you care about what WE think. Proof??? You come to OUR website, we dont go to yours. WE dont care what you think, or what you say, it’s ALL the barking of mad dogs. yap yap yap.
I take it English isn’t your natvie tongue?
Real quality followers you got there Jimbo. Keep pimping that blog of yours. heh
From the cut “Graham Greene,” from John Cale’s immortal “Paris 1919,” my favorite album of all time:
“According to the latest score
Mr. Enoch Powell is a falling star
So in the future please bear in mind
Don’t see clear, don’t see far…”
BTW, Abu Moishe, you have the greatest Interwebz callsign of all time.
Heh. As a kid I once nearly choked on a gefilte fish at my grandmother’s, so the handle is really an “I coulda been a contendah” statement.
It’s unlikely anyone appalled by the viciousness and factual inaccuracies of the ads against Romney will ever forget them. Team Obama went nuclear with the dirtiest of ad campaigns to suppress the vote. No true conservative will ever again be under the illusion about where these people are coming from or that Obamanoids aren’t some species of moral retard. Republicans in Congress should know by now that they have nothing to lose by going nuclear in kind.
I met Enoch Powell as a kid in the UK (pre-Thatcher) when he was a guest at my parent’s table and I read this book when it was first published when still living in Ontario, Canada. Powell was a very bright man. He was appointed a university professor of classics in Australia while still in his mid twenties and he was at one time the youngest Brigadier General in the British Army. His uncanny ability to use classical history as a template for modern society reminds me very much of Victor Davis Hansen. He was also one of a coterie of philosemitic (that’s a lover of Jews, for those who know little ancient Greek) and pro-Zionist British Army officers who served in pre-state Israel, the most well known of whom is surely Orde Wingate. He was a realist with a deep understanding of the human condition. He knew how to think in terms of other people’s religion and outlook (I won’t grace everyone’s outlook with the complimentary word “culture”).
I completely agree with commentator #8 above: “Civilizational suicide is never pretty. History has vindicated Enoch Powell.”
Many years of activity in a line of work where I meet “the common person” convinces me that most immigrants leave their country of birth to improve themselves in their new country. Most immigrants don’t want to see the bad habits of their native country introduced into their new one: for example, honor crimes against female family members, or systemic criminality or ethnic based gangsterism.
It would behoove those in the political and law enforcement communities to understand this fact of life, and to promptly squash those folks who do not want to adopt American mores and norms with the full extent of the law. Worry less about offending the big talkers in immigrant communities and work harder to gain the votes and moral support of the silent majority.
C’mon Roger, Powell was brave enough. Give us a guess on how you think this book ends. I think the system crashes, and the conservatives that follow the constitution, and advocate for free markets and states rights will be put in charge. 2016 I hope, but if the US goes down…so might the world. So there is that!
Not just a ‘classics scholar, military man, and consummate orator’ but also an accomplished linguist speaking eight or nine languages including, most usefully today, Arabic and Pashtun.
The guy simply had higher standards than the rest of us. Like every prophet without honor in his own land, the denunciations were loud and vicious, led — unsurprisingly and relentlessly and continuing to this day — by the BBC and The Guardian.
The chances we can find an equivalent with Powell’s intellectual heft and courage are about zero. In recent times, only DP Moynihan comes close. Both were the scourge of louche academics everywhere — they were simply smarter — but neither could overcome the unending hatred of the MSM. The difference today, and a source for optimism, may be that media deities have now lost (some) control over their self-annointed roles as gatekeeper and nanny. And many a national pundit will now forever be associated with the horse’s ass
You can be pretty confident we have to compromise to make progress, though the bar must be set high. Who among you will now argue that Romney was the right tool for the job? The guy couldn’t sell turds to a toilet. Powell could put lightning in the sky.
Enoch Powell’s “Rivers of Blood” speech was indeed prescient. But there have been many warnings since that time, all which have been ignored. Here is a definitive writing on the consequences of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 which was written in 1990 by Lawrence Auster.
http://www.jtl.org/auster/PNS.pdf
If we are to ever reclaim this country from from the death grip of liberalism, we must, at minimum, push for a moratorium on immigration until such time that we produce a policy that is more sensible.
No matter how much we reach out to Blacks and Hispanics, they will NEVER vote Republican!
We are in trouble, up the creek, screwed.
TO: Roger Kimball, et al.
RE: Heh
Are we not, in our fiscal incontinence and pullulating political correctness, piling up our own funeral pyre? — Roger Kimball
Don’t you just LOVE IT, when a ‘Plan’ comes together?
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Be Prepared.....]
I sense a certain unforgiving mood right now – I know I recognize it within myself.
The other side as a group has sold us all into slavery to the state, and did so with a smile on their faces content in their opinion they have not only done right but have succeeded in doing right in their own minds, and even now take a great deal of joy in their victory.
To them, they have won and now all is well and they think things will just go on, that no negative repercussions will occur, and that the losing side (us) were wrong in our warnings. They will smile and think to themselves that we will just get over it, that no grudges will be held. It’s just politics. We’ll come around to their way of thinking if it is just forced down our throats far enough.
In their happy world, they cannot imagine how furious we are.
My perplexity at how brother could fight brother with deadly intent 150 years ago has now been resolved.
I don’t think we are going to have a hard and sudden cultural collapse, but in the long run I fear we may end up at the same place. As prognostications of the end of the world as we know it do not clearly and concisely come to pass, they will point to this as proof of our error in judgement and laugh at those preparing for the future.
Just like the ant and the grasshopper.
It may now just be a matter of time, and there will be no clear physical borders or battle lines to distinguish one side from the other, though certain states/areas will be more predominantly one side or the other.
This time it will be literally neighbor against neighbor, and it will devolve over a period of years into a hot mess. Those of like political views will begin to associate more exclusively based on those views, furthering the divide.
With such a diametric opposition in views, how can it be any other way?
Those who dragged the rest of us kicking and screaming into their darkness will refuse to accept responsibility for what happens, and indeed will likely blame us as society becomes ever more unpleasant for being “obstructionist”.
Some of those who are preparing for the worst will become complacent when no sudden negative shift happens, or will question their own judgement and believe the other side was correct after all, and will therefore find themselves ultimately just as unprepared as those who are blind to what is happening when the ultimate end game begins.
I suggest we prepare for the worst anyway, yet begin planning our lives for this shift as it occurs to ride it out to it’s inevitable conclusion over a period of years. We cannot withdraw from society because there is no realistic place to withdraw to, therefore we must figure out how to survive within the chaos that will occur.
TO: Scottch and Other ‘Furies’
RE: Remain Calm
In their happy world, they cannot imagine how furious we are. — Scottch
Don’t fall into that trap. It only (1) aides them and (2) fouls up rational thinking.
Things are going to get VERY bad. And relatively quickly. And when they do, a cool head is going to be a BIG help.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[IF you can keep your head;
While all those around you are losing theirs;
And blaming it on you..... -- Rudyard Kipling, If]
Chuck,
I get what you are driving at, but would suggest that a cold-hearted, calculated fury may be one of the most useful emotions one can possess through the coming years.
It can drive the will to continue down a path chosen regardless of the consequences or the naysayers who accuse you of being a fool, and can stoke the passions long after the offense has supposedly grown cold in the minds of others.
Being angry does not automatically translate into going mindlessly berserk.
It does mean that all compassion is lost when that liberal is wondering to you how they are going to feed themselves or their family, even as you recall the food in your pantry or the money in your wallet – and resolve to keep grimly silent.
TO: Scottch
RE: The Nature of ‘Fury’
Not opposed to the ‘cold’/calculating form. Usually works better than the hot and hasty form.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Revenge is a dish best served 'cold'.]
TO: Scottch, et al
RE: Oh? Really?
As prognostications of the end of the world as we know it do not clearly and concisely come to pass, they will point to this as proof of our error in judgement and laugh at those preparing for the future. — Scottch
In truth, the indicators of the proverbial End Times are already passing us by.
[1] Chernobyl translates from its native Ukrainian to English as Wormwood. (See Revelation 8:10-11, notice the description therein (1) uses the proper noun form of the word, (2) that a form of wormwood is the plant that thrives in the vicinity—something I learned from an emigre from the area—and (3) consider how a man of the first century would describe to his contemporaries a runaway nuclear reactor.)
[2] Operations DESERT SHIELD/DESERT STORM (Gulf War 1), 1990-91. (See Revelation 9, the first half describes the five months of the Locust, which is a verse by verse description of the AH64 Apache attack helicopter, which arrived in the Arabian Peninsula in mid-August with the deployment of the 82d Airborne Division to protect Saudi Arabia. Again, consider how a man of the first century would describe such a technology to his contemporaries. The second half is a good job of describing modern armored combat from that same perspective.)
People may deny it all. They’ve been denying it to me every time I’ve pointed it out to them. But just because they don’t like to hear it doesn’t mean it isn’t the truth.
At any rate, as you suggest later in your comment, those other people will blame it all on Conservatives. Most especially the Christians, as in REAL ones. And some damned evil idiot will suggest that getting rid of them will solve all their problems.
It’s going to be ‘interesting’….
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Whereas Good can tolerate the existence of Evil. Evil cannot tolerate the existence of Good, as Good will continually be pointing out Evil's faults. Therefore Evil must always try to destroy Good.]
Ever see one of the older USMC Cobra gunships? Same description would work.
I recall making this same observation myself as a bored young kid sitting through sermons and reading the Bible on my own to pass the time – back during the early 1970′s.
Yes, Revelations can be interpreted as describing a modern day battlefield.
As pi$$ed off as I am right now over what I see as a coming catastrophe (albeit in my mind one that literally takes years to play out), I am personally not yet convinced that the biblical Armageddon is just around the corner so much as it is a national calamity grinding things down in slow motion.
Plenty of other people thought the same as you did at various times in history and were all proven wrong.
The best response I guess I have is to reference how the Bible instructs that no man knows the day or hour of the end – and thus we have to continue living our lives as if it is NOT the end of the world, but still comport ourselves in a manner that leaves us prepared for it if it does happen in our lifetimes.
Whether in reference to a national failure of epic proportions, or being prepared for meeting my maker, I consider myself to be woefully ill prepared for either eventuality.
As such, I can only try to care for and protect my family as best as I can, and God will judge me on my actions….
TO: Scottch
RE: EXCELLENT!
I’ll have to get back to you in reply to your post. I’m currently up to my eyeballs in preparing a feast. [NOTE: Some time back I went to this 'spa' the Army operates out of Benning School for Boys. It's called the Ranger Course. I came in at 170 lbs and able to run flat out for 5 miles in combat boots. I came out looking like an escapee from Asuchwitz....with a VERY BAD attitude. Ever since then my love of food has been a significant aspect of my life. Adverse effects didn't appear until I hit the age my Father—God rest his soul—plumpted out. Something to do with genes, I suspect.]
But you’ve brought up some excellent points. I’ll attempt to deal with them after the bird is in the ‘box’…..
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[There is no more sincere love than the love of food.]
TO: Scottch, et al
RE: Sea Cobras
I’m familiar with them. However, never worked with them. Rather worked with the Army skinny snakes and Apaches.
As for the observation that lots of other people expected the prophecies to be fulfilled in their lifetime….I’m well aware of that, e.g., sting in their ‘tail’, for B29s. Regarding the report that the flight of these ‘locust’ sounded like ‘chariots rushing to battle’….I did two tours in the 82d Airborne: one enlisted, one commissioned. I had some experience working with helicopters. BUT the most interesting, with regards to this was when I was leading my battalion soccer team to victory in the divisional competition. There, on the field near XVIII Airborne Corps HQ, we were duking it out on the field when suddently the Aviation Brigade decided to do a fly7-over. Almost fifty of them overflew the soccer field. It sounded EXACTLY like the Ben Hur chariot race scene….thundering hoolves….
Tell me…..did you ever go through a course like CGSC, the Army’s Command and General Staff Course? If not, I’m likely speaking to someone who hasn’t got much of a ‘clue’ here.
The ‘trick’ is to be able to coorelate information from various sources, sometimes of questionable value, to form a complete and accurate picture.
They teach that sort of stuff at the Army’s Command and General Staff College. It’s referred to as Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield (IPB). And, based on a couple of decades of experience in the Army and the corporate and political world, the techniques can be applied to even the religious world, as well as all of the above.
As for your ‘disbelief’, that sounds like to me, what we call in the Army A Personal Problem.
I would suggest that you at least TRY to keep an ‘open mind’. It would also help to keep an eye out for what Army intell pukes call ‘indicators’.
Hope that helps.
Now back to Big Bird….
The distaff has brought up the stuffing makings. Time for me to ‘do my thing’…..
Regards,
Chuck(le)
You comment in bold about something being my “personal problem”, apparently because I don’t agree with your assessment of the situation…..
Why the confrontational response? Much of the rest of your response was along those same lines and is quite the change from previous comments.
I stated what my personal opinion was, noted that others have laid claim that various signs were portents of the end of the world – but the entire time I disagreed and gave my reasons for such, I never displayed any disparagement towards your views.
I also gave even a biblical reference that stated much the same thing. The Bible even warns AGAINST listening to those who predict when the end will occur. You see, as that same kid in church I heard these same predictions over 35-40 years ago, and it also referenced helicopters, and they also referenced what they claimed as signs back then.
We’re still here.
Sigh…..I started to respond in more detail, but it’s not necessary to prove anything.
If you wish to argue more heatedly, I can certainly accomodate you – but I also feel it would be a waste.
Your choice. You can believe what you wish, as can I.
Perfect diagnosis.
And perfect therapy (be prepared).
Let us pray.
Indeed!
Powell’s wisdom is an echo of another great and much maligned Englishman:
Yep. Balkanization is the bitter fruit we have left our children, and they dont even know what’s coming.
Here is another gem from Kipling.
The Beginnings
1914-1918
“Mary Postgate” (A Diversity of Creatures)
It was not part of their blood,
It came to them very late
With long arrears to make good,
When the English began to hate.
They were not easily moved,
They were icy-willing to wait
Till every count should be proved,
Ere the English began to hate.
Their voices were even and low,
Their eyes were level and straight.
There was neither sign nor show,
When the English began to hate.
It was not preached to the crowd,
It was not taught by the State.
No man spoke it aloud,
When the English began to hate.
It was not suddenly bred,
It will not swiftly abate,
Through the chill years ahead,
When Time shall count from the date
That the English began to hate.
Ah, yes – the Mary Postgate story. Quite terribly chilling.
http://www.online-literature.com/kipling/diversity-of-creatures/14/
I am mostly English – and I am beginning to feel that cold hate.
For you who still read Kipling without filters from “compassionate liberal Left” remember? “The Gods of The Copybook Headings”.
The past century development of the anglophone countries beginning with “The Guns of August” is encapsulated within that writing.
We’re all Enoch Powell, now.
Roger,
I first noticed the change in America during the 1990s. Americans had no ambition except to get “what they were owed!” John Kennedy’s prescription for America ran out of refills, and our current crop of self-serving power-obsessed professional politicians care nothing for the country at all. Bill Clinton may have been our last president to believe in Kennedy’s vision of America.
Either America’s revolutionary phase is now concluded, or there will be a second revolution. Perhaps the Civil War really was about Federalism as much as it was about slavery. Perhaps we’d had our run and this is no longer the “home of the brave.”
I have been to China several times recently, and I feel that they believe in their future and they know that to have a good future everyone has to pull together for the common good. They think that America’s time as the sole superpower has been wasted, because America used its strength only to indulge itself. They do not plan to make that mistake or many of the others they think are apparent.
I admit that I didn’t see this coming at all. The change has been dramatic. America has created a majority “mob” that must be fed bread and circuses. It’s ironic that “poor” Americans are among the fattest people in history, but it is a direct result of the bread and circuses system that now perpetuates itself.
Since the 1990′s? Progressives have been discouraging the antidote to indulgence … the responsible exercise of personal initiative … for a century now, in favor of subordinating that to the “wisdom” of the Powers That Be who are so much better equipped to solve our problems FOR us.
As for China … while they have far fewer problems with the indulgent … if they persist with subordinating personal initiative to the “wisdom” of their leaders through authoritarian rule, they will reach a point of diminishing returns in their efforts … because their leaders are neither omniscient nor infallible, and because they are not tapping into the distributed intelligence of 1.3 billion people by insisting on doing things their way.
But if they ever figure that out, give their people full freedom to exercise that initiative, AND their people exercise that initiative responsibly instead of indulgently as so many of us have, then we will be left in the dust behind them.
I don’t think the danger from China growing ever more powerful is from their people learning to innovate and think outside of the box, and it’s not really even from the technology they’ve learned how to use, it’s from their warped sense of nationalism that seeks to absorb – or at the very least control – nations surrounding them.
Then of course, they will feel the need to control the nations that then border on those that they have absorbed or co-opted as satellite states.
Then again…and again….
As a people, they seem to have bred out the DNA that resists tyranny from their gene pool, and as human wave tactics in Korea, their so called “Great Leap Forward”, their one child policy, etc., have shown – they are more than capable of subordinating the interests and freedom of the individual to the interests of the state, even to the point of their personal demise.
That kind of cultural mindset does not lead to cutting edge technological advances, but rather to stagnation.
You look at their top of the line fighter planes and they are all basically copies of old Soviet designs (which pi$$es off the Russians quite a bit). You look at their Blue Water navy efforts and they are building it on old Soviet ship designs.
I understand they have a space program – how many decades ago we were putting men on the moon?
These are not the actions of a people with the underlying technological expertise and individual philosophy that does great things, this is a people still trying to play catchup and marveling and basking in the new found praise they feel they are receiving from every pundit eager to prognosticate as to who will be the next great country that dominates the world.
Doesn’t mean they won’t kill and bury you – just that their growing
technological development needs to be looked at with a realistic eye.
I once had the misfortune of sitting down for lunch next to a group of three, two American businessmen and one voluble Chinese woman (even wearing the conical straw hat!). She was lecturing them on how you don’t need freedom to have economic supremacy.
It was most enlightening….if she is representative then that people don’t value freedom or liberty very much, and this is the opposite of what Americans believe (I hope!).
A greater concern is what that country will do as they all get gray haired. Their demographics, based upon that one child policy that ends up with a seriously out of kilter male/female child ratio, sucks.
I have heard a prediction that as a nation they will get old before they get rich, and I think this is an accurate assessment.
Toss in a worldwide recession that even now doesn’t seem to be resolving itself and it retards their economic development and expansion even longer.
What they do at that point, when their population starts to rapidly age (think baby boom effect on social security – but on steroids) before they attain the true superpower status they crave, is anybody’s guess….
One sign of our current madness is that the illegality of ILLEGAL ALIENS is not offensive to most people.
Rule of Law is racist.
Nice post, Roger, and good comments. I’ll just add a touch of pop history. Enoch Powell’s speech was instantly memorialized in one of the biggest pop songs of the 1960′s: “Get Back” by the Beatles. In the studio, John and Paul bantered about the speech and ad libbed lines while slamming G and C chords. The song went through several iterations, captured on bootlegs, and included lines such as, “Enoch Powell said to the immigrants you better get back to the Commonwealth” and “Don’t want no Pakistanis taking all the people’s jobs … Get Back to where you once belonged.” These early Get Back versions are called “Commonwealth” and “No Pakistani.”
Thanks for that.
A comment:
Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
This is known as “bad luck.” Robert Heinlein
I remember the speech well; in fact I remember, despite its excoriation in the press, then reading its full text and being impressed by its common sense and clarity– even though I was a hippie antiwar activist at the time. After all these decades his words now have the chilling quality of a Sybilline prophecy.
But let’s be very clear; it’s not immigration that’s causing the social collapse of the United States– it is in fact the agenda of the leftists who pilloried the speech in the first place, now matured into a media guerilla movement based since the ’60s inside the Vietcong tunnels of academia (I should know; I was one of them), that has brought about our decline and now-imminent fall. Allowing immigration is one thing; using welfare entitlements to transform them into a permanent dependent voting machine to ratify the cause du jour– mostly leading to even greater entitlements– is quite another.
You’ve described the problem well … it is not just the lack of incentives to assimilate, encouraged by lax immigration policies, that is the problem … it is the culture immigrants are being assimilated into, which is looking more and more like the corrupt, connection-driven hierarchies many of these immigrants come from.
A culture that is the result of millions, encouraged for decades by our social/cultural/academic/political leadership, outsourcing their personal responsibility and personal initiative to said leadership under the assumption that individuals lack the ability to develop and implement solutions to life’s challenges, and that only such “experts” can solve their problems.
Is it just as simple as the answer to this question: Are we cursed?
http://spartachurch.wordpress.com/2012/11/15/cursed/
Roger Kimball: “He (Enoch) focused on Britain’s insane and self-destructive immigration policy. We have before us florid examples of other sorts of insanity.”
That may be true, but our immigration policy is equally insane and self-destructive if not more so. I haved lived in Latin America for many years, and those (non-Latin) Americans, i.e. United Statesians, who celebrate the USA becoming more like Latin America are completely insane and culturally suicidal. Their celebration is nothing more than self-hatred, conscious or not. This is not a moral judgment against Latinos.
Now, if you are a man in the USA you are even more completely screwed by the system that is shaping up. Read this by Michael Minter. Beta male Obama is going to continue to hand it all over to the women who will have no use for you as a self-respecting American man. If you are a man in the USA you better declare right this instant that you will be nobody’s slave and nobody’s fool, and then you better to take action to protect yourself and your assets. http://rationalmale.wordpress.com/2012/11/07/system-failure/
Roger, you did such a good job predicting the outcome of the election (NOT!). I should take your prediction of “piling up our own funeral pyre” seriously because why?
If I were to hazard a guess, I think that even Obama is more than a little surprized at the supine press and the apathetic American public. It is a smorgasbord of political opportunity. I seriously doubt that Obama knows how to capitalize on the opportunity completely. But I garrantee you that there are wolves out there who DO know how. They are already here.
Bill Ayers, Valerie Jarret
I don’t want America to return to its former innocence. I want America to smarten up, and harden up, and forcibly take back the freedom that is rightfully ours by dint of our people who have fought and died for it.
<>
Decades ago, former Colorado gov Richard lamb said about the same thing. Lamb warned about an influx of people alien to our culture, language, customs, and laws, and dependent upon our government for support. They are now here.
Ted kennedy, a man raised in wealth and privilege, who never worked a day in his life, so hated America that he opened our shores to the third world.
Until recently, those who immigrated to America wanted to become American and did so lawfully. More than that, they quickly assimilated into our culture, learned English and even changed names to conform with easy pronounciation. They brought about the “Greatest Generation” that won WWII and ran the machinery of prosperity.
Today’s immigrants demand we learn their languages, adopt their laws that may differ sharply with our Biblical and Common Law principles and expect working citizens to provide for them.
Do they know the opportunities they’ve missed? Do we know what we as a nation have discarded?
Yes, it’s probably wise that Mr. Kimball refrain from prognostications for a while. He certainly came a cropper in our most recent unpleasantness (otherwise known as Decision 2012).
I’ll give him this much. All the sentimental wistfulness to one side, he is right that the United States that we grew up with and loved is passing away. It will not return without a great economic upheaval and an awful war to break the SocDem spell.
What Roger fails to mention is that, throughout the entire life of this land of liberty, there have been periods of deep self-doubt and fears of national suicide. Consider the Civil War, for one.
However uncertain our future now appears, however disoriented we Americans feel as we lurch into new territories, however fast things may seem to be changing, we Americans shall adapt with principles intact. Of that I have no doubt.
But that is to miss the point.
What we should be asking is whether we shall survive the next 50 years as human beings, given the accelerating rate of change in biotechnology, nanotechnology, robotics, artificial intelligence, etc. Of that I have my doubts.
The only hope is secession from the entity known as the United States and the establishment of a white state or states in those areas that are presently clear majority white. This is not reductionism. Call it racism if you like but it is not reductionism because the passion for liberty exists in whites (a significant percentage of whites) only, it does not exist at all in blacks, browns or yellows. Since secession will most likely not be allowed by the federal government – but will its armed forces go into battle to subdue the secessionists? – the denouement may well be bloody. But the alternative is a dark future without end for whites. By the way, I expect serious moves toward secession to be well underway by 2013 and to come to fruition in 2014. If nothing else, the blatant war on whites waged by a now unrestrained Obama & Co. ensures those swift reaction times.
Well, the problem is the white people I know are lazy and will want to import brown people for the dirty work. I am not kidding. That attitude has essentially destroyed the culture of this country. Cheap imported labor is a cancer.
I grew up on a farm and I’m white.
Don’t think anyone has ever accused me of being lazy….
So I take it that my associates who are black, hispanic, and phillipine are not welcome in your new utopia – even though they are Romney voting republicans?
I’d suggest if one wants to be pickier about their associations that they dwell on character and political philosophy rather than skin color.
Even in the Confederate States military there were red, black, brown, and yellow service members who served and fought valiantly for their own secessionist views – who are you to demand differently?
Don’t expect folks to line up to join your little secession movement based on skin color. I certainly have no interest in it, and I’d say I have about as positive a view of the political secessionist theory as anyone posting here.
No doubt democrat party loyalties are deeper in certain ethnic groups, but it is still a mistake to judge every single member of those ethnic groups by stereotype.
Consider, for instance, Germany’s loss in the emigration of Einstein prior to WWII. Fortunately the US wasn’t as picky, and as a result we ended up with a very powerful nuclear weapon.
Same with the conservative and libertarian inclined movements now – we need all the assets we can bring to bear in this age of all encompassing federal authority.
That’s spelled “Philippines.” And the overwhelming majority of us are conservative. 20 pct unemployment with no welfare or food stamps. “Free stuff” comes from family or the church. Yet we smile a lot and love life. Don’t believe the propaganda about our muslims (almost all in the far south). They, too, are the best that islam has to offer, if there is such a thing. Kidnappers and pirates only scream muslim after they are caught.
LOL…I was typing away on my phone keyboard while multi-tasking. I figured I was getting it wrong but didn’t have time to look it up and suspected the point would get across anyway.
TO: Scottch
RE: Racism
Funny. In my high school days in Lousisana, c. late 1960s, I was accused by my contemporaries as being an N-gger Lover, because I didnt’t have the same ‘feelings’ for their kind as my ‘contemporaries’ did.
Later, in my ‘coming of age’, the guy down the street from our house, ran for the school board on an integration platform. Two days AFTER he lost the lection his car was fire-bombed.
Life is ‘interesting’ Especially amongst the REAL racists…..
Sadly, the present state of the country is deeply divided, even within families. We are as good as separated in beliefs about the purpose of this nation. Since the election debacle of 2000, there have been adamant desires for divorce. What would a marriage counselor say about the state of our relations with each other ? Would there be hope for reconciliation ?
I think not.
“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion…Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
John Adams
There exists other forms that are perfectly suited to a sacrilegious and immoral people. They are typically repressive, despotic and bereft of religious freedom and liberty. This is no accident. The right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are embedded in our constitution because they are granted by God and therefore inalienable. A simple perusal of History will document that a sacrilegious and immoral people inevitably will be ruled by a government not restrained by any such “quaint” concepts. The “self-governance principles the founding fathers wove into our constitution are not exclusively an electoral process but extend from the personal conduct of a “religious and moral” individual. In short: “A people will get the government that they deserve!”
The Democrats, Atheists, promoters of gay “rights”, pandering politicians, the ACLU and now a self-declared muslim president are sadly correct in their claim that: “America is not a Christian nation”. Now this nation is declining in every measure (other than the number of people on welfare rolls and masses of undocumented democrats pouring across our borders). As Adams stated, the governmental structure that he and the other founding fathers gave so much to create is “wholly unsuited”. The resultant social and and economic collapse we are mired in now spawns a concerted attack by a perverted government on the God-given rights and liberties that has been the foundation for the unprecedented success of this nation. If this nation is ever again to become the world’s beacon of liberty and freedom, we must return to the Grace of God or we must separate from those who will not. We absolutely will not survive on this road of moral decay and political corruption now being promoted and accelerated by the highest office in the land.
It is relevant to point out that the Constitutional clause prohibiting congressional regulation of religion was placed there to preserve the individual colonies’ right to continue the worship of God as they had came to this continent to do (not to allow a free rein for terrorists to operate under the guise of religion: koran 9-5 & 9-29) Those early European Protestants who were forced by conviction to separate from corrupt and morally decadent despotic governments, founded under the words of Christ the most remarkable nation ever to exist on His creation. We who still value God’s word now find ourselves in a similar situation.
This past Democratic National Convention was startling in the revelation of its’ true disregard for Christ. For those of you who did not witness it: On national television, three times by voice vote the democratic national delegates voted to exclude the word: God from the official wording of the party platform. It is frighteningly reminiscent of Christ’s prediction of : “Three times ye shall deny me”. It is past time that those in this nation who still value the word of God and a constitution based on them separate and allow the godless to create their own nation (Sodom & Gomorrah?) where they can sink into their own mire (and invite the wrath of God). Do not doubt it, the alternative is absolute failure and dissolution of this nation.
There was a study done at the end of World War ll wherein it was asked of America’s fighting men why they were so willing to give so much. The answers took many forms but in essence it was the love they held for their family and the consequences to them if they failed.
This nation was created and preserved by the blood of people who did not doubt that they had the God-Given right to determine their own fate and possessed the moral fiber to to defend that right. I pray that there still remain enough of us still willing to hold forth the Declaration of Independence and do the hard work that now must be done.
Well said, Tom Layman.
RE: Men Against Fire
Men in combat do support the ideal that they do it for their families. In truth, they do it more for their comrades-in-arms.
Look at Band of Brothers. The paratroopers sent to hospitals for wounds keep sneaking back to their units so that no one would think they were wussing out. Even ‘popeye’, who got shot in the butt on D-Day.
RE: Why We Fight
Those of us who took our oath as soldiers seriously, will gladly continue to abide by it. And it IS about families we’ve established. They need a good environment to grow and thrive. This ain’t no damned ‘It Takes a Village’. It takes a family to raise a child. And Hillary be damned for suggesting it takes any government activity.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
P.S. Villages help, but not as much as the basic unit…..the family…..
Invest in Brawndo futures now.
RE: Brawndo
Airborne-Ranters don’e need Brawndo. We ARE brawn do[h]….
That should read….
….”Airborne-Rangers“.
Fat fingers on an iPad external keyboard that doesn’t want play well with PJM interface.
Here is the lesson. The election was fraudulent, Obama stole the election and he himself is a fraud. Whenever it is sufficiently vetted by the people that free and fair elections are not occurring and in fact cannot be held, civil war always follows. Its coming… Here endith the lesson.
“In the course of his infamous speech, Powell quoted Euripides: ‘Those whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.’”
Nowadays it’s “Those who make Democrats mad they would first destroy.”