The Whirlwind Is Here
I have to admit something. Unlike most of my PJM colleagues and many in the right punditocracy, deep down I never thought Mitt Romney would win.
I’m not bragging here, not in the slightest. I’m no Nostradamus of any sort and I wish to God it had been otherwise. But if you look back at the collective prediction post of the other day, you will see that mine was very short, almost terse. I was hiding behind Michael Barone, a friend whose knowledge I respect immensely, relying on his views and obfuscating my own, almost willing them away.
Also, I thought maybe it was my DNA – seeing Storm Troopers behind every door – that made me think that way. I didn’t want to be a kill joy.
Still don’t, but analyzing what occurred in any but the bleakest manner is to be Dr. Pangloss times ten. Anyone who continues to think America is a center-right country is chugging so much Kool-Aid he or she is in danger of turning into a blimp and floating off into space. (That includes me for listening to and believing my good friend Hugh Hewitt when he said this repeatedly.)
A country with 8 or who knows what percent real employment, headed for insolvency in a global meltdown, with a national debt reaching to Alpha Centauri, just voted for more of the same. Romney did worse than McCain in many areas.
Boy, have we got work to do.
I don’t blame Mitt Romney. He wasn’t the greatest candidate, but plug in any of the others who were competing and it likely would have been worse. Imagine how Rick Santorum would have dealt with the bogus and repellent “war on women” and imagine an electoral map almost exclusively blue. And that’s just for starters. There was little anyone could do. The electorate had already been brainwashed (more of that in a moment).
Yes, the president has luck that makes the Irish seem like failures: A hurricane arrives in the nick of time to save him from his Libya lies (not that the media wasn’t already covering up for him, but still). And he gets a boost from a Republican governor more interested in his own survival than the country’s.
But even with that luck you would think the electorate would have the brains (self-preservation really) to put him out of office.
So we have a problem with democracy. It’s not working or, more specifically, has been turned on its end, with the masses manipulated against their own self-interest, creating power elites similar to those described in Milovan Djilas’ The New Class.
How did that happen? I think many of us know there are three pillars of our own destruction: the educational system, the media and entertainment (the popular arts).
Those three areas are so corrupted those who legitimately are on the center-right (or anywhere close to it) will increasingly find themselves swimming upstream against a current so great who knows where it will take them. (Think Hayek, Orwell, etc.) We must address ourselves to these three immediately before it is too late. In many ways, it already is. Culture is the mother of politics and mother is turning into Medea.
If it sounds as if I am depressed, I am. Extremely. We are indeed riding the whirlwind. The America we thought we knew was not there. The face of the globe just changed as well. The enemies of democracy are laughing.
There is only one thing left to do: roll up our sleeves. All the way.
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Thumbnail image courtesty shutterstock / Daniel Loretto
I’ve been saying this for years. Education, media, entertainment. It is hip to say that music/tv/film does not influence people, but it most certainly does.
Our political system is not broken. The people are uninformed, apathetic and or ignorant. They are unwilling to do the research and only focus on finding sound bites and facebook pictures that prop up their uninformed emotions. We face truly serious mathematical issues, yet they vote based on sound bites, comedy sketches, etc.
The press has continuously suppressed negative Obama news while glorifying negatives about all Republicans. The press has done everything it can to suppress the Bengazi story and protect the president. News executives all over the nation have chosen not to air negative stories, they have chosen not to pursue actual journalistic research, except in cases where they want to find dirt about Republicans. How can we expect an ADD population to have all of the facts when their main sources of information are filtering reality? How valid is the vote when it is based on misinformation?
The internet is making us dumber, not smarter.
The problem with the political right here in America is that it is intellectually bankrupt. You have no real philosophers or significant thinkers. You have a second rate high school book written by Ayn Rand, a woman who lived contrary to what she wrote. In other words, she was a fraud. Yet, you still have people on this very message thread parroting “go Galt.” Paul Ryan makes it required reading for his staffers, I hear, which is utterly laughable.
We voted last night and we want no part of
For the sake of argument, I will grant you EVERYTHING in your post. Just for now, it’s all true.
I would still take that over the left every day of the week and twice on Sunday – socialism is the most destructive, murderous ideology in the history of mankind.
Since there is no intelligentsia of the right, so to speak, they fill that vacuum with things like this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=T-ZebWUzSlg#!
The epistemic bubble of the American right suffered a serious crack last night. Time to come out and pick up the pieces.
You’re kidding, right? Romney was our LAST choice! He is/was a mushy middle of the road guy that was foisted upon us by a seek and kill media that killed all our “1st, 2nd, and & 3rd” choices. PLUS, the guy we REALLY wanted to run (Allen West) said he wasn’t ready.
As of today I propose we draft Allen West as president as the 1st president of the New Republic of Conservative States. Because this old union is dead!
@ Cynical Wonder
God, you people are scary. You define your opposition not by what they say but how you choose to. You justify it by claiming telepathic abilities. You rely on interpretations of the subconscious mind like a gypsy using tea leaves. Your thoughts so absolutist that they permit no disagreement lest you be relegated to enemy of the earth, the state, humanity, you name it. And who could be an enemy of the earth? Well they MUST be evil people. Your kind have been around since the witch hunts hundreds of years ago. After all, who could be an enemy of God?
Your ignorance of our beliefs is so profound you make a fool of yourselves whenever you open your mouths. Your claims of a higher intelligence and you conceit and bombast defended by the hilarity of self-defined “intelligentsia” is itself based on nothing but a handful of politically correct novels, ignoring the extremely complex study of economics, and blinding yourselves to the intricacies of the modern world with lazy explanations like, “its GREED!!!”
Your politics is based on fear of others and respect for those who truely can intimidate you, falling directly into Stockholm Syndrome when the Twin Towers fell. Thinking we must understand the “religion of peace,” when it is by its very writings an advocate of those belief in diametrical opposition to your own. Think about it: every religion today requires interpretation in order to make it palatable to modern thinking: the wrathful God of the Old Testament, the bloody-minded, racist thoughts of Mohammed. The one that does not require interpretation of any kind? Christianity. The religion you have chosen to be the most dangerous of all. And I’m not even a Christian, but I can see that.
Why do you make the choices you do? Fear and small-mindedness, I suspect. Other than being approached by some recent high school grad to discuss theology on the street, Christianity offers little threat. Islam, plenty. So the cowards you are, you cozy up to the most dangerous of all. The United States you feel free to confront with impunity, knowing that you are fully protected by its very laws. And then point at yourselves and say how courageous you are for sticking it to the gentle giant.
And now–after the election is over and your side has won-you decide to come over to the opposition to stick it in the eye of the losers. Not courageously while they’re up, but dishonorably in their darkest moment.
And none of you recognize or have any idea of what you do. You are not what I recognize as fully developed modern people. You are, perhaps, what we all once were but–thankfully–some developed away from.
I submit for your consideration:
Al Gore, Ward Churchill, Van Jones, Valerie Jarret, Elizabeth Warren, Cynthia McKinney, William Jefferson, Frederika Wilson, Bobby Rush, Sheila Jackson Lee, Raul Grijalva, Maxine Waters, Teddy Kennedy, Barbara Boxer… theoretical physicists, all. Shall I continue?
Cyn (aka Bob in Bridgeport): “Time to come out and pick up the pieces.”
I got one of your pieces right here: from now on your President will be known as Barack ‘Bengahzi’ Obama, the Lie-on of the Desert.
Thank you Keith.
Rod Blagojevich made a deal
http://illinoispaytoplay.com/2012/11/08/1161/
So if the right has no intellectual heavyweights, where pray tell are the intellectuals on the left? They have fewer on the left than we do, yet they seem to be doing just fine.
Two words for the intellectuals of the left:
“Obama Phone”
Very true Root, I saw being an alternate judge in my precinct (because it voted democrat)here in Arlington Texas. I saw many blacks showing up to vote with and they all had an Iphone. lots of the blacks claimed they had moved just recently, surprise they all got to vote.I was the only White person in the election leadership out of 8.
…Crickets…from Cynical Wonder in response to your point. Don’t pay any attention to “all you know is Ayn Rand” charge. They bring up the same meme in every comment on a righty blog. TPM or someone starts that and they parrot it endlessly like good little robots.
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it — good and hard. H.L.Mencken
And now half (plus a fraction) of the common people are going to get what they say they want for four years, and bad cess to them. The trouble is that the rest of us, me included, are going to get it too, and I don’t want it. Worse, after four years some of it is going to be irrevocable, or damn near, and some fraction of our freedoms will be gone glimmering. We will no longer be allowed to fail in certain ways, which means we will no longer be able to succeed in others. No society can be called successful if the only field one can succeed notably in is politics.
Just because you like to drink poison doesn’t mean that (1) it is a good practice and (2)you have any moral authority to disparage those of us who do not think it is a good idea. In fact, it would be preferable if you went far away and drank your poison somewhere else. We non-poison drinkers were here first.
As opposed to the political left, which has proven to be the home of academic frauds in almost all disciplines?
An accurate recap of this elections is: Our highly educate liberal fools and their useful idiots assure themselves that they have a special kind of smart and are well-meaning enough that they know how to do this without repeating the history of failure and collapse that always follows like night follows day, while their carefully recruited masses of takers see only today and are not smart enough to care what comes tomorrow because they have their Obama Phones and are assured that the loot will keep flowing from Obama’s Stash even as the producers are slowly shut down and grind to a halt. That is what slow motion suicide of a nation looks like.
“The problem with the political right here in America is that it is intellectually bankrupt”
No. Just not as creative as the political Left.
Yes! We need the equivalent of a Liberal Arts (read: liers) Degree!
Leftists need creativity because the only way to pay for their “compassion” is with fiction.
Exactly. I guess we’re creatively bankrupt. We need to get a foothold in the three areas aforementioned. I would sometime in the next four years like to see a conservative version of “West Wing”, as a start.
Ayn Rand has nothing to do with what is happening to Americans, your cynicism aside.
Us?
How about most every major urban school district. Union. Spends $20-25,000 per youth per year, and half or more don’t graduate, and half of those that do, can’t finish a year in community college of the lowest standards.
Nothing but mental death factories.
But union, Democrat. For generation, and the future.
So, what’s the big Democrat idea, other then pay the union?
What you say is only too true. The current American voter cannot be known for intelligence, or entrepenurial success, or even energy. How many Americans invent new things. They blindly “follow” on facebook or twitter or the fan magazines or the sitcoms on television. People are famous because of their lifesrtyles not because they have ever done anything.
I’m disgusted and if I weren’t so old, I would move……somewhere.
Forget about left and right for a moment. You have reelected a president who put a man in jail on a flimsy pretext for offending Muslims, who left American diplomats to die for political gain, who apologizes to the world when Americans exercise their rights, who makes blatantly illegal recess appointments, whose attorney general will not grant equal protection of the laws to all citizens, who refuses to defend DOMA – the law of the land – in court, who grants countess valuable waivers to favored businesses, directs government agencies to award contracts to favored supporters, who ignores the clear language of the Freedom of Religion Restoration Act to persecute Catholics, who stirs up racial animosity time and again. etc, etc, etc.
You sir, have failed in your duty to defend our political order against this vicious petty tyrant.
What political gain was Obama expecting from misleading people about what happened in Benghazi?
Were you even paying attention last night?!? He got re-elected, that was his political benefit.
Obama’s coverup of Benghazi protected him from the public revelation that his entire foreign policy concerning the Global War on Terror and the so-called “Muslim Spring” was a failure, and a dangerous failure. With the help of his news media allies and some opportune distractions, Obama stalled for time and won. Now he will escape blame for it completely, unless the Jihadis stick it too him (and us) louder and bigger. (They may too, since the whole world knows Obama intends to slash defense spending and will not willingly protect Americans and American interests abroad.)
One of the mantras of the left in this country for some time has been that we spend way too much on defense, that nobody out there is a real threat to us, that we by our excessive military presence around the world provoke countries like Russia and China into heavy defense expenditures themselves. I recall this undertone in Democrat politics as early as George McGovern (RIP) and certainly in Jimmy Carter’s campaign. Basically they want the defense money for other purposes and have to downplay the foreign threat to justify taking it. Carter got jerked short by the Russians and that put paid to the leftist anti-defense myth for a while.
Obama and his minions are now in power, and their motivations are no different. The world was supposed to stop hating us just because he had ascended to the presidency and made a trip to the middle east to “explain his new attitude” and apologize for his predecessors actions. All was then supposed to be well, by the script.
Except it wasn’t. Then came Benghazi and the demonstrations throughout the Arab and Muslim world on the anniversary of 9/11. Perhaps believing their own imaginations, perhaps just trying to keep the lid on, the administration refused to provide additional security to the consulate; refused to send help when it was (perhaps … we don’t really know yet) available, then when the thing blew up anyway; propagated the myth that the video was the cause of all the violence, even past the point when everybody in the country who cared to know understood that an organized attack rather than a spontaneous demonstration had occurred.
But no, we can’t have that. If there are really bad people out there who have it in for us and the Annointed One cannot make it go away by soft cooing, why then we might not be able to cut defense, and maybe shouldn’t try all those guys in Gitmo in civilian courts, and .. well, you can figure out the rest.
Witty!
Can we take it the medium is the message, Vladimir Estragon?
Cynical Wonder, you wouldn’t know a real problem if it smacked you upside your little pinhead. You and all of the sheeple like you will be the big losers and you don’t even understand how that could be. Come back in about ten years, if you must, and give us your insights about intellectual bankruptcy. I am sick of you and all of the other microcephalic idiots who don’t get the simple idea of freedom. Go to hell!
He will come back, and the answer will be: “It’s Bush’s Fault(tm)”
16 trillion in debt.
Check
The entire “stimulus” used for nothing but to buy votes…
Check
Young kids in droves with the promise of relieved student loans, a financial debacle that will dwarf the housing bubble.
Check
Hispanics encouraged by a continued open boarder, free social services, citizenship and “the Dream Act”, all for simply walking in without knocking first.
Check
Women reduced to vaginabrotionpill junkies
Check
But the question is, if EVERYONE in the country now owes the Chinese $286,000 apiece to buy that election, how do you expect to PAY for all those votes?
Oh, that’s right….youre not too good at math
Success is rather simple. It’s enabled by an expansive and pragmatic view of the world that pierces through the perceptual traps that dogged old Europe. Conservatism does not require overthinking, overrefinement and great philosophers. It requires clear eyes.
Reducing conservatism to Rand is a child’s game. America was a conservative and breathtakingly successful nation long before Rand. Rand was simply one of the early ones who sought to stem the tide engender by the morons in the band, Kerouac, Burroughs and Ginsberg. If those are great artists and thinkers, you can have them.
If you think you’ll be a success marrying your sister, thinking splatters by a drunk is art, making up countless theories as to why everything from the Palestinian Arabs to black American culture is a failure, and robbing the goose that laid the golden egg to uplift some Bolivian, good luck.
Cynical Wonder we have less ” intellectuals ” in the Conservative Movement because we haven’t lowered the bar as to what constitutes intelligence, as those in the left have done.
And the book we cherish was not written by Rand, it was written by G-d.
What do you mean “we”, Paleface? You won by the very slimmest of margins. For every 1 of you, there are 0.99 of us. You are performing your victory dance on a platform made of eggshell.
I’ll bite. Please explain how Obama will solve the economic and fiscal problems of America. We all would love to know. Unless of course you believe there are no problems which is what Obama seems to have been saying.
Not really. There are many conservative writers and scholars, one might point out Victor Davis Hanson right here at PJM. The problem is that they’re never heard outside of the conservative crowd, since the Progressives have largely seized control of the universities (unless you go to to Hillsdale College) and the news media.
Pleae, tell me who is the intellectual of/on the left? Could you name one, please? Throwing words into the discussion without any substential meaning is the position of the left. Mud slinging, character assasination, ridiculing as in “Romnisia” – is that what you call intellectuals? 4 years without budget, ObamaCare that buncrupted the nation, manufacturing exodus, 16 trillion in debt, the list goes on and on. The left has graduated from pros-titutes to wh-ores. All you want is FREE stuff. Well, I got news for you – free is cheese in mousetrap, and even that is for the second mice. I was born in socialism, I lived for 30 years through it. Once the freedom and libery and fredome of choice is lost, it will take a great amount of blo-od to take it back. And believe me, I Know what I’m talking about.
Wish you well.
Skydiver – thank you. Exactly right – we have one party preaching personal responsibility and individual initiative, and another one giving away free stuff. Guess which one wins? It’s a sad indicator of what has happened to the country. The worst part is that there may be no way to reverse the trend.
What do you mean “free stuff”?
Remember nothing is for nothing, nothing is for free. Or there’s no such thing as a free lunch, even when it’s re-named “redistribution of the wealth”.
Somebody, somewhere, somehow pays.
No intelligentsia of the right? Do you mean people like Edmund Burke, Russell Kirk, William F. Buckley, Thomas Sowell, Erich Hoffer, Mark Steyn, Victor David Hanson, Charles Murray, Paul Johnson, Newt Gingrich, Whitaker Chambers, etc. Let me ask you? Who are the intelligentsia of the left? Karl Marx, Lenin, Saul Alinsky?
Chris Matthews, Markos Moulitsas, Ariana Huffington, Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann.
The problem with the right is it’s intellectually bankrupt….says the man who embraces Keynesian economics and the socialism that was debunked last century. No…numbers we don’t have but ideas the left doesn’t have. Unfortunately the hell storm on the way will likely consume us all.
Well,then have no part of her (Ayn Rand). No one is asked you to have any part of her.
What I don’t want is any part of you, but you and you champions will force yourself upon me nevertheless. That’s the rub, my little Brown Shirt.
You are very wrong to suggest that the right is intellectually bankrupt. That is simply foolish. There are many compelling right wing thinkers from Frederich Hayek to Richard Weaver (as well as more modern thinkers, such as Melanie Phillips. Perhaps Ayn Rand is the only one you have read. Even there, perhaps you should read her again. She is a skilled writer, but more importantly, she puts forward a stunningly logical argument. If you have read her biography, you will know that she was brilliant — even as a child — and part of the reason she remains an important thinker is that her writings are deeply connected to the reality of the Communist experience in Russia. She lived that — and uses her writings to explain why Communism is destined to fail. The fact that Rand continues to sell books (breaking records these days, as I understand it) suggests to me that she has something interesting to say — even if you disagree with her. In Ryan’s defense, I would say that at least his staff can read.
“Atlas Shrugged” has sold over 100,000 copies (qualifies as a best seller) since its first publishing in 1958, and is due to sellover 350,000 copies this year. She wrote scores of essays and self-published a newsletter for over ten years.
I can’t find a single Leftest writer with that kind of success.
Listen, once and for all, all you Rand haters… None of the greatest Left-political European writers — not Koestler, Malraux, Orwell, nor Serge — do what Atlas Shrugged does. First, it itemizes the character types and strategies of the kind of socialist takeover we are now in the throes of. Secondarily, the book espouses a formula — repeated by Gault in his radio address — which de-conditions and releases any well-intentioned person from the diseased socialist logic holding the West in thrall.
Which suggests we need State firewalls to protect our freedoms within a Constitutional framework. States – not to secede – but to give freedom a safe haven. No IRS agents permitted if the State determines the Federal government will use the money in unconstitutional ways. No jurisdiction for the US Supreme Court if the State determines it retains the final say according to the Constitution.
Significant political thinkers and philosophers of the right: Cicero, Edmund Burke, John Locke, Charles Montesquieu, Alexis de Tocqueville, Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, and brilliant economists such as Milton Friedman, Thomas Sowell, and Walter E. Williams.
Significant political thinkers and philosophers of the left: Plato, Thomas More, Thomas Hobbes, Karl Marx, Engels, Saul Alinsky–utopians one and all.
These are some I can think of off the top of my head. I’m sure there are more.
Your comment shows a staggering ignorance about history and classical writing.
Re. “Karl Marx, Engels’ were only partially utopians. Their societal and economic analysis was right on. It is their synthesis that sucks. But, they did not kill anybody. Probably they simply didn’t have a chance, I do not know, but their followers, WOW! Countless millions and counting.
However you cannot fault them for trying to extrapolate their analysis. People do it all the time in all hard sciences. In hard sciences, of course, you always try to verify your analysis against real world. Various societal busybodies for more than a century also are eagerly experimenting. The only difference is they are experimenting with other people lives and money and the repeated bloody failures always give them a thrill.
BTW, get ready for a sustain assault on 2-d amendment.
Hayek-Sowell-Friedman-Bloom-Goldwater-our founding fathers-Locke. That is who I look to for my political economic and social philosophy-as a conservative libertarian leaning guy.
Name your deep thinkers less these; Hitler-Mao-Stalin-Lennin-Marx-Engels-Mussilini-W. Wilson-FDR-LBJ. Wilson was the brightest bulb of these socialists, and he just loved what the others were doing with their societies. He wanted to do the same but the dang constitution kept getting in the way!!
Your teams pool of thinkers is more like a mud-puddle. C’mon wonder boy-name your intellectual heroes!!
What kind of garbage is this? “Rand” was not a Conservative at all; she was close to a Libertarian. However, she was dead on in economics and the morality of Capitalism; anyone who can’t see Atlas Shrugged in our own situation is willfully blind. Also, she’s been dead a while, so you can take any of her contemporaries.
Philosophers? I’m fine with the founders, although what America really means to me is found in George Washington’s letter to the Touro Synagogue. Your side embraces murderous anti-semitic pogrom artists, as long as they belong to the ethnic group du jour.
Bill Buckley said it best, “I would rather be governed by the first 100 names in the Boston(*) phone book than the entire faculty of Harvard”.
(*) Boston has changed. I’ll take my own neighborhood in Flatbush, which rejected one of their own and elected a Republican.
The right is intellectually bankrupt? Apparently you’re not watching this website to which you are subscribed. Andrew Klavan, Allan Barton, Bill Whittle, Scott Ott, Alphonzo Racheal, Steve Green,(and whatever happened to Bill Hicks?) Which one of these guys would you not vote for?
Where were all the TEA Party conservatives, and angry white guys? Obama’s vote total crashed from 69 million in 2008 to 59 million in 2012 or 14.5%, but Romney’s crashed from McCain’s total from 60 million in 2008 to 57 million for a 5% loss. The Total vote was depressed by 10%, people decided they didn’t like Romney/Ryan even as much as McCain/Palin, and they really didn’t like Obama/Biden, so they didn’t vote at all. The Voters said “A Pox upon both their houses” and I think it was because of all the negative advertising. Romney was a rotten bastard in the primaries, and he didn’t get much better for the main event, and Obama spent $300+ million on spewing hate.
I suspect that anti-Mormon bigotry had something to do with the drop in the Republican vote.
I doubt it, the Mormons aren’t sillier than Catholics, footwashers, snakehandlers, or any one else.
We EAT God-in-the-form-of-a-water-cracker, they think men are gods on their own planet when they die. Yeah, I think it’s a wash on the weirdness factor.
Didn’t 2/3 of the evangelicals stay home? This may sadly be true. It took a while for people to get used to Catholics.
(Don’t ask me, I’m a proud Pharisee.)
Take this into consideration:
“Every 4 years about 3 million people age into the voting group and 3 million Americans pass away. In the space of just 4 years, the voting age population changes by 24 million and by an incredible 48 million or about 30% in 8 years.
Demographic changes in the American family are not the only thing that matters in elections by any means. But they are the single, biggest force in American politics.”
http://johnhanger.blogspot.de/2012/11/stunning-fact-every-8-years-electorate.html
I think you need the Latino vote, and they are conservative.
I think we need to stop all immigration. Let someone here argue to me there is a shortage of human beings in America.
Well, that is simply not going to happen. Have you got a plan B?
No immigration indeed. You are a twit, Sir. I waited 25 years to be in a position to immigrate to the USA legally; was naturalized on the first day that I became legally eligible to do so; employ Americans who are legally eligible to work; pay taxes; buy my supplies from other Americans; live with a Dem who voted “O” and I voted “R” in my first US election because anything else was way too much like the place I left behind: CANADA.
I know what’s coming. I’ve lived it in the UK and Canada for the last 55 years. Why the hell do you think I started over, at age 50, in the midst of the worst recession in 70 years if I didn’t believe in the American Dream?
I know that’s not going to happen. Immigration is in our national psyche. We act like it’s 1912.
Plan B is the eventual demographic overthrow of America. In 50 years whites will be half the country, down almost 50% from 50 years ago. Unfortunately there is this reality: those-who-must-not-be-named have created all the institutions and inventions the rest of the world loves at the same time they deny the source of them.
That is a fatal disconnect. Asia, Africa and Latin America will come to dominate American politics, but without the actual ability to make America any better than the polities they originally came from. America will become irrelevant. Without new tech to copy, countries with the greatest populations will become great powers. With an irrelevant America standing on the sidelines, empire-building will overcome Africa, the middle east and Asia. China will recreate the Japanese Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Nigeria will conquer its neighbors. The middle east and the Balkans will be co-ruled and squabbled over by Turkey and Egypt. Israel will be gone. India, caught between two empires, will shrivel and fall back into itself.
The lights will go out in America and Europe as they ethnically bicker for ever dwindling pieces of a pie. They too will fall back into themselves.
That is Plan B.
Irrelevant. Even if you could stop all immigration, and you can’t, Latino citizens are a growing demographic. You can’t deport American citizens.
It’s all about vote fraud.
The turnout appeared to be low because so many of our ballots were never counted.
It’s as simple as that.
Were the people ignorant and apathetic when the Republicans won the mid-terms just two years ago? Or is the simple truth that when my side wins, the voice of the people in its wisdom has been heard, but when my side loses, it just goes to show you how stupid people are.
The voice of the people has voted for another 5+ trillion of debt, the continued debasement of the dollar, government run health care and an executive with the power to arrest and imprison indefinitely without charges or trial, as well as the power to kill anyone, again without charges or trial. This is not America, it is not our constitution and it is certainly not wisdom . And yes this is just my opinion just as 2+2=4 is just my opinion.
I find this whole thread fascinating, if not deeply disturbing. My primary take away is that left and right talk right past one another, and actually seem to have the same fundamental fears associated with their characterization of one another. Both somehow think that the other wishes to intrude into their lives, both somehow feel that the other hates “real freedom,” both feel that the other is speaking from a perspective of ignorance and hatred. In fact, each side seems to be starting from a similar desire to resolve problems, if we’ll actually pay attention to the content, rather than the media-promoted bullet-point rhetoric and knee-jerk presumptive biases about the irrational self-destructive insanity of the “other.” And both sides have policy approaches that are un-self-consciously internally contradictory. For instance, on the debt question – both sides actually want it reduced, they just have very different proposals for doing so. Each side laments the poor education system, but the right refuses to shift revenue there and the left refuses to hold unions accountable for defending bad teachers. There is neither historical precedent for, nor justifiable strategic argument for, not reducing defense spending as two wars end. At the same time, there is no excuse for not streamlining a top-heavy public roll in terms of government jobs, benefits, and spending. States rights are conveniently embraced or disregarded depending on the social issue. The left ignores its own scientific argument in defending unlimited late-term abortions and the right ignores common sense with respect to waiting periods and registering of fire arms. Both submitting to some conspiratorial bogey-man image of a government about to suddenly go fascist or communist dictatorial from one moment to the next. This rhetoric is not only miles from any reality, it’s inherently destructive to our society. Democracy is based on informed disagreement, broad participation, and the willingness to accept what the society decides…knowing that the pendulum swings and returns. It keeps us centered, rational, and relevant to the needs of the times. The interpersonal invective in these posts is remarkable – primarily for the absence of authentic and self-reflective discourse, despite the use of a very broad vocabulary by many posters – suggesting a high level of education and a group of active thinkers. Bush was our president, believed in aggressive foreign policy and giving the wealthy more leeway for investing. Obama is our president and believes in a stronger safety net to support movement into the middle class and a more discursive engagement with those that might be turned to moderate allies against radicalized anti-Western forces. They were both wrong and right in their own manner. But neither hates America, neither is a fascist or socialist dictator. We are a nation with a diversity of ideas and a passion for what we think is correct. And we are falling into the worst kind of demonizing of one another – to the point where many reject a part of our own American society as “anti-American.” Since when was democratic debate, participation, and public service anti-American? The very “market of ideas” that it represents is perhaps most exclusively manifest in America. It is, actually, the most particular characteristic of our “way of life.” And that, above all, should be held as important and defended.
“…the right ignores common sense with respect to waiting periods and registering of fire arms.”
Despite an otherwise rational and thoughtful essay, this line was… how should I put it delicately… stupid. Waiting periods don’t even give criminals a momentary pause – they’re already fully armed. But, when you become witness to a gangland murder case, or your unbalanced ex starts stalking you, you don’t want to risk becoming a statistic waiting to protect yourself. Far fetched or rare? In a nation of 300 million, a lot of people frequently find themselves in such situations. It happened to me. Prior to that event, I thought as you do.
I learned the hard way that you should never willingly give up any freedom you have just because you have not yet had reason to exercise it. The same holds true in the abortion debate. Back in the days when clinics were being widely protested, there were many stories about staff who would find themselves ushering in the penitent father, with daughter in tow who got knocked up by the football captain or some other dude, who had been helping carry the signs just weeks before. I know personally of just such a case in my hometown, which I learned about at my 10th year high school reunion.
Life is hard, with unexpected twists and turns. Don’t back yourself into any corners before you know what it has in store for you.
I am interested in how the Left is talking past me. I feel that I hear their arguments and do have rebuttals / solutions but am never allowed to speak it. Last night I listed to a friend talk to his Colombian girlfriend about taxes. She would not let him finish his thought and would cut him off. When she would make a point he would say “I understand” or “I agree”.
But before the last election, I have been betting my future on Americans, now I feel that I should be betting against them. This scares me.
Midterm election tend to focus on issues. Presidential elections involve a lot more attention and money and focus more on slogans and commercials and emotions.
I agree. I’ve been around universities for way too long now and I have seen the students and the way they think, what there values are. And I’ve seen way too many faculty members whose way of interpreting and living in the world are so different from mine that I think they are a different species. So deep in my psyche I’ve had a very strong intuitive feeling that critical mass has been achieved: there are just too many people who cannot see what is wrong with Obama or his supporters and worshippers. I thought maybe there were enough of us have seen through this fraudulent, dangerous, fatuous man to vote him out. But we are too small in number. So the educated are blithely unaware of the disaster for this countrythey are abetting and the fifty percent who are semi-literate and so ignorant they, too, don’t even know how many states we, form a group who will serve and praise Obama happily forever. What next for the US? I’m not sure I want to know.
What happened to that poor US Ambassador in Benghazi is the perfect metaphor of what will happen to the US in the years to come. A few of you mentioned the lack of cogent, intelligent discourse on the right. TRUE. Barry Goldwater, Hayek, Friedman, left no replacements we can use at this our. We are left with a VP candidate who reads Ayn Rand, and with a presidential candidate that belong to a (otherwise very respectable) creed that affirms that Native Americans are Jews who crossed the Atlantic hundreds of years before Columbus after wandering from Babylon. Not a great intellectual depth there. Good people they are, philosopher kings they are not.
The dominant culture allowed her children’s souls to be poisoned by teaching them political correctness rather than independence, self reliance and love of country. And now we reap the whirlwind having produced the taking / entitled society that will be with us now, and growing, going forward.
And the corrupt media has been the ignored elephant nt then room at conservative media. Romney had only one or two chances to make a direct impression, unfiltered by the decadent media. Not enough for those voters unfamiliar with him. He even quipped about it at the Alfed E Smith dinner… and I paraphrase … I don’ make claims that the media is biased. They have their job to do and I have mine. My job is to lay out a vision of prosperity and leadership for the country, and their job is to make sure no one finds out about it.
Education, media, entertainment: Yes, but you left out the fourth horseman of the progpocalypse: Big business, specifically Wall Street. It’s well-known that the heads of some of the largest corporations and financial houses are lefties who write big checks to O and the Dems.
Also: unions. Check out how much the public-sector unions, in particular, put behind O’s re-election. They use taxpayer money to fund (via dues) the further exploitation of taxpayers. As a resident of New York state, where the public employees operate the government as a wholly owned subsidiary, I can tell you that the unions want more, more, more: taxes, regulations and expenses. They paid good money for them, and they’ll get them.
True about big business – my husband retired from a Fortune 500 company last year, and the brainwashing that went on was nothing short of mind-altering. It took a strong will and the ability to see the truth to withstand it. I’m not saying people are necessarily stupid, though there’s enough of that, but that many otherwise intelligent people are incredibly weak-minded.
If you would dominate an election first you must dominate the media. Shut up and get to work.
If there is any right-wing media at all, why wasn’t Claire McCaskill asked about abortion for sex selection?
Freedom: 1776-2008. R.I.P.
What freedoms did you have in 2008 that you do not have today?
Go talk to some small business people. Do you know any? Those thousands of extra pages added to the federal register aren’t blank. If not, consider me as an individual. Ever heard of Obamacare? You know that mandate thingy?
The freedom to post a film like “Innocence of Muslims” on youtube.
I used to have the freedom to not purchase health care if I so chose.
I used to have the freedom to not have a government agent poking his putrid nose into my personal health information.
That’s enough.
I hope Chief Betrayer John Roberts rots in hell for what he did to us.
I wonder if John Roberts will get a special honor from the Federalist Society for his great fortitude in standing up for principle and the Constitution.
I think John Roberts will come to realize that was his biggest mistake that he ever made, and will live to regret it, having sunk his own beliefs, in cowardice of Marxist vitriol.
I wonder if Chief Justice John Roberts has a little affair that the Obama controlled FBI also has been keeping track on just in case Roberts decided he was a real Conservative?
We’ve lost the freedom to freely exercise our religion in the public square. Oh, we can still worship as we please within the walls of our churches; but we can no longer behave economically in accordance to our religious beliefs about abortion or birth control. The HHS mandate has forced a dilemma on practicing Catholics. We can remain faithful to our beliefs or we can hire employees. We can’t do both.
.
Now to be fair, the First Amendment has never given citizens the right to exercise their religion in ways that harm the public good in significant ways (polygamy or desertion in wartime,for example; but to force employers to provide a service that is readily available on the open market is an assault on the very idea of religious freedom.
How about the HHS mandate that takes away freedom of religious conscience? That’s a biggy. We will see our religious freedom wiped out if we don’t fight back.
Americans apparently care more about emotional issues, not basic infrastructure issues. If our country is a house suffering a foundation problem, America just voted to repaint the bedroom and swap out the curtains. Binders of women, dog carriers, mocking the rich and the faithful, and of course, the wonderfully emotional issue of the faux war on women… this is what matters to a growing population.
CNN exit poll: Who do you blame for our economic problems. 51% blame Bush, 40% blame Obama. Seriously? Four years and Obama supporters are still unable to apply any blame or responsibility to their man. And who can blame them? A massive portion of our population grew up during a time of shrinking values, where making fun of one another, where bullying and practical jokes and disrespect of authority are praised and rewarded. We went from a nation of children raised on values and respect to a nation of children raised to be perceived as equals with their parents, taught to lie, mock and worry more about winning than playing fair or working hard.
The Great Depression went on for years, but it certainly wasn’t Roosevelt’s fault that it happened. Bush didn’t cause the crash all by himself: it was thirty years of deregulation with the enthusiastic support of both parties.
It was, indeed, Roosevelt’s fault that it lingered so long. It was only after key New Deal policies were suspended for the War effort, and finally the repudiation of Truman’s attempt to reinstate them with the “Fair Deal”, that the economy really turned the corner.
What deregulation? Be specific.
Which crash do you attribute to Bush? The majority of the economic problems in the country can be attributed to
A) excessive government spending on social programs (of which, admittedly, Bush was guilty, but has only increased under Obama)
B) the forcing by the government (via Freddy Mac and Fannie Mae) of the mortgage originators to issue mortgages to sub-standard, high-risk applicants in an effort to fight “redlining”
C) The further purchase of securities based on these substandard mortgages by the government in an effort to prop up the banks
D) the use of public funds to bail out GM and Chevy, in support of union campaign donors, thus negating any benefits that may have come from bankruptcy court
E) The use of the EPA to enforce a “green” agenda, thus wreaking havoc on U.S. industries, especially the energy producers.
F) The implementation of ObamaCare, which – together with the Democrat’s taxing policies – has effectively and efficiently put a brake on the growth of small business in this country. (I know two small-business owners who have said that they will not expand, or will minimize expansion, because of Obama’s re-election. Why should anybody try to make more money if the government is only going to demonize them?
Vladimir,
Please, explain your thesis about de-regulation.Throwing words in the air does not work. We also not stupid. And we know history and the actions of the government as well as you do – maybe even better, methinks.
Dollar is not backed up by gold, but by oil( and gas and coal) in other words, by energy potential.
Now, explain to me de-regulation again.Please.
The repeal of Glass-Stegall let the banks get into the speculation-investment game, which eventually led to the housing bubble with all the junk mortgages and finally the Lehman Bros. collapse. Both the Clinton Administration and the GOP pushed for this deregulation in the 1990s.
So explain this to me: if banks hadn’t been able to invest in mortgage-backed securities, all those sub-prime loans that Fanny and Freddie bought would still be sound and earning interest?
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The purchase by banks instead of other financial firms of all the bad debt floating around was not the source of the collapse. It was the perception by lenders that they would not suffer if those loans went bad. Whose fault was that?
It was the deomocras, all by themselves, who caused the housing market crash. It was started by Jimmy Carter signing into law The Community Reinvestment Act and Bill Clinton propping it up and reinforcing it during his tenure.
Bush tried multiple times to get legislation that would rein in Fannie and Freddie, but was unsuccessful. Blame Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, not Bush.
Are you aware that Hoover raised taxes on the rich?
The Great Depression was very nearly 100% Roosevelt’s fault. The Stock Market crash and initial downturn occurred on Hoover’s watch, and he reacted wrongly, which made the situation worse. FDR didn’t let a crisis go to waste. As long as the people believed in cared about them, he could reign over the wreckage until he died in office.
God these tears are so delicious. I’m sorry, I’m trying to help myself.
Really, Dylan?
What are the takeaways from this election (besides Mitt not being a closer)?
1. Bogeyman Bush is no longer available to blame. It’s all on Obama now.
2. The election turned on Obama working the redistributionistas into a lather for more government goodies.
What are the facts on the ground?
1. We will see a steady drumbeat of city bankruptcies, busted pension funds, debt-ceiling crises, tax increases, retrograde job, growth and housing numbers, monetary easing and inflation, etc. etc.
2. European socialism is convulsing and Islamists are emboldened by Western weakness and decadence.
If you see any path to a win for Obama and you progressives in that, please tell me how. In fact, if you see any path that doesn’t end up ugly, let me know. I’m afraid the major tears will eventually start falling on your side (not that we’ll be happy to witness the mess you are about to make).
That is not entirely accurate. Now that the election is behind him Obama is free to print money to bail out his cronies. Those who are not his cronies will not be bailed out but will be hit with cripling taxes and regulations that will shut down their major employers.
Dylan, shutting up would work.
By the way, stay classy pal.
And I, Dylan, feast on your silly mockery. Yum yum.
I have always said the main problem the Republicans have is that they fail to SELL their message. We assume everybody knows what it is, but the truth is as W. F. Buckley wrote in 1955 in “God Man and Yale” the educational establishment has for many years now tearing down the principles our nation was based upon. We are no longer a nation of ideas, but an electorate of tribes. As the media breaks it down it’s “the whites” against the women and the coloreds.
The government then is the middleman who apportions benefits to the favorites. The stakes become higher and the fights more bitter, until finally naked power plays become common.
We have to start re-educating the American public about the constitution, what it means, and the values it reflects. And it will be a loooong process.
This!
I heartily agree with every point in your post. I’d only add that well actually need to back up and start at a far more remedial and elementary level. First we have to teach them how to read with comprehension, and how to think straight.
So, our sales force needs to be re-trained. The messaging and placement are wrong and the consumers are idiots.
It has nothing at all to do with the product?
I’ve seen this movie. They replace the sales force and the board of directors get replaced…and the company goes bankrupt, anyway
(Hint: If consumers aren’t buying the product, you gotta change the product.)
When the product is faring poorly, yes. But, when it is 49% to 51% against the competition, which spends furiously on advertizement, it is a better strategy to even the playing field on that score, rather than revamp your production line to offer a “lite” version of their product.
Create lots of new product, within a stable marriage. Then either find a good private school or homeschool them (the second option would involve less taxable income). If they go to college, carefully choose it (I can heartily recommend George Mason’s School of Economics).
Or, rather, new consumers for it
When things get bad enough, and the Democrats decide to pick whatever group can be demonized enough to justify confiscation and extermination, they will likely have no great difficulty creating a thin majority that will either support it, or not object to much. Does that mean that Republicans should join the program?
There are things that are right and wrong, and just because it is easy to get a majority in support of wrong doesn’t make it right to follow into the sewer.
Ricardo, it is worse than that… much worse.
Even though it’s general, there’s really only one reason for this outcome.
Fox News reports that right ON election day, the most popular search on Google was not for where do I go to vote or what time do the polls open… but “who is running for president”.
In short… not enough Americans are paying enough attention.
And there will be no real re-educating of the American people until we see conservative money becomes a much larger part of our culture and gets together to buy up a network like ABC, CBS or NBC, and a major movie studio and form a few privately run and growing national K-12 school francises.
As long as these institutions remain in the present-day hands, there will be no real reform in America.
And tragically, Obamacare has now become irreversible. There will now be a bureaucrat who will come between you and your doctor… unless of course you’re one of the luky wealthy few.
See who is paying attention. Those whose job is to use their brains to preserve and grow capital.
==========================
US stocks extended losses, with all three major stock indexes dropping more than 2 percent and the S&P 500 falling below 1,400 for the first time since September 4, a day after the re-election of President Barack Obama, as comments by European Central Bank President Mario Draghi weighed on sentiment.
The Dow Jones industrial average was down 292.25 points, or 2.21 percent, at 12,953.43. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index was down 31.18 points, or 2.18 percent, at 1,397.21. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 69.60 points, or 2.31 percent, at 2,942.33.
European shares extended losses too, as relief over the US election result was eclipsed by concerns over the US “fiscal cliff” of automatic American tax hikes and spending cuts.
The FTSE Eurofirst 300 index of top European shares closed down 1.4 percent, its biggest drop in two weeks, at 1,099.35
Earlier, Japan’s Nikkei recouped early losses, with Nissan Motor Co and Sumitomo Metal Mining rallying after they cut their earnings forecast less than feared and as the market priced in the re-election of US President Barack Obama.
The Nikkei ended down 2.26 points, or 0.03 percent, to 8,972.89 after falling as much as 0.6 percent at the start of the afternoon session as the expectations of an Obama victory gathered momentum.
http://www.buenosairesherald.com/article/116261/global-stocks-plunge-on-fiscal-woes-after-us-vote
Yes, but shares of Smith & Wesson and Sturm, Ruger & Co. are way up.
W.F. Buckley was one of few anomalous individuals. We don’t have people of his stature any more. We need to re-educate The People but first they will have to taste the bitter fruits of collapse. I don’t think anyone will be buying our national debt bonds past October of 2013. In fact it is amazing that some still do. Watch the markets for next Tuesday 13. Those who voted for the victor may as well enjoy this moment because there is no revival coming and if some apparent economic peak happens due to pent up forces it will be brief and followed by a huge valley. I honestly wish I am wrong but unfortunately I learned the hard way and I learned my lessons well. We won’t become Greece, we are becoming Argentina, only bigger.
There is a book (available at http://ferfal.blogspot.com/ ) and also a series of web postings about surviving in Argentina after a currency event(default). http://www.rapidtrends.com/surving-argentinas-economic-collapse-part-1-3/ gets you to a couple of chapters . It is so sad to realize that that this may well be our countries future.
The “cultural question”, far more than the “handout question” is why R’s are losing with nonwhites. You can see this with East and South Asians, who would seem to be natural Republicans, given their entrepreneurial nature and strong families, but are sadly trending Democrat.
From talking with them, I gather that it’s largely “cultural” perception: the R’s are seen by them as a party for old Christian whites who like wars, while the D’s are seen as the party for hip, sophisticated people who like peace. New immigrants learn about American politics from movies and TV, often before they come to the US, and it isn’t too hard to figure out that most “bad guys” in American movies are nasty, white, big-biz (or evil CIA) Republicans.
By “talking with them”, I mean talking with my coworkers, friends, and family while living in Silicon Valley…
Curiously, that is also, IMHO, why the GOP is losing upper-middle class white professionals, urban ones in particular. They understand they will be in trouble if we go down the Greek path, but the GOP is just too odious in its current incarnation to be taken seriously as an alternative. Win some of them back (Reagan and Bush I both won them in huge numbers) and the GOP could be a contender in at least 47 states.
41% of our children are born as nearly hopeless bastards who are consigned to a life of dependency on a government that cannot hope to take care of them. Say again how this is to be overcome?
These “urban professionals” tend to be “personally” socially conservative (in that they tend to get married, don’t have children out of wedlock, etc), but are extremely averse to anything that smells “judgmental”. This partially explains their extreme aversion to anything that smacks of religious politics.
The word is “fubar”. Did you actually insinuate that I am bringing up a religious argument? The truth may hurt or be repellent to many people but that doesn’t make the messenger judgmental. You can talk all day about these upwardly mobile professionals and I will say that they are not even a targeted voting block. They will always be useful idiots and that is what that crowd has been since I was in grammar school. but the ever growing number of children being born to single women(was that mild enough) is becoming our biggest dysfunctional demographic. These people are ten times more likely to grow up in poverty and they are much more likely to not even graduate from high scrool. Since mom is always either working or seeking work or doing drugs instead, these people are not being shown any example that can guide them to make better decisions affecting their own futures. They grow up without decision making skills and instead of being taught these skills, our schools are offering free lunch programs and inexpensive day care. No attempt is made to teach them anything because mom is too busy or too tired to care whether that gets done. Unwed motherhood is a cultural disaster and looks very little like “Murphy Brown” and much more like “Honey Boo Boo” with more real anger involved. When a growing percentage of our kids come from these environments, how can you expect anything beyond an adult population of criminals, misfits, and at the least dependents on government hand outs. The Obama presidency is all about converting misfits into dependency and then collecting payback in the form of votes. That may be closer to why I mentioned the 41% of bastard child births as being near the root of our problems and the reason why freedom loving Americans have obviously become a minority. Giving away contraceptives at other peoples expense is not a solution to this problem. Before worrying about the judgmental connotations you attach to the word bastard, maybe you should look it up in the dictionary. I can’t find a more direct word that applies to this situation. Mind you, this isn’t the only reason for the rise of political collectivism, but it is one of the most significant reasons and so I stated it. I hope I haven’t gone overboard on you but I am obviously not in the mood for political correctness today. The Communist still occupies our White House and I am pissed off at a whole world of full of idiots.
Methinks they will start becoming a little less averse to judgementalism when the economic collapse cant be staved off anymore.
They will have to learn the hard way, and drag all of us with them. At heart, they are cowards.
Simple.
If you collect a welfare check, you are temporarily STERILIZED, and, since I have to pee in a bottle to work at my job to make the money given to you, you do as well..
That’s a little too judgemental Steve! Parasites are people too, and should enjoy their freedom to do and be whatever they want, whilst pulling us all down with them.
Even in your depression I sense defiance…that’s good. That’s maybe all we have today. Defiance and a very small kernel of hope.
Go Galt
They only survive on what they can extort from you anyway; no lifeblood = no survival and the end of the Progressive project.
Heading that way right now. If printing more dollars could make a country more prosperous, Zimbabwe would be the richest country on the planet. I will spend what I have on durable goods and try to sell them at higher prices later. I am retired and that is my only remaining choice. I will never produce anything for them to steal from me again.
The only way to ‘go Galt’ is to emigrate. Let the left-wingers suffer in a hell of their own making. My choice for “going Galt” is New Zealand, an English-speaking nation with more freedoms and less government intrusion (though it does have socialized medicine).
Agreed. It always was something of a stretch to think it could happen but…damn it.
Honestly I think we’re screwed. Romney would never have been able to turn the economy around to the point where the electorate would sign on to mentality required to kill over a century of debt which would require multiple terms with presidents and bodies of the same mentality.
This was a coup d’etat, effected by a totalitarian media and the replacement of America’s historical population with reflexively socialist and anti-white third-worlders. There is really no work to be done. There is only revolution, or nothing.
Yep! Revolution, or nothing. That is all!
Ah, the reason for the defeat that none of the conservative pundits are willing to speak aloud; the racism of the Democrats. The simple truth is, whites in America today are — by and large — tolerant and non-racist, whereas non-whites in America today are largely anti-white racists. Generations of race-baiting have turned African-Americans into the most solid of Democratic voting blocs, and they’re doing the same thing to Hispanics and Asians.
And forget all the attempted morale-boosting happy-talk from most of the conservative talking heads; this leftist victory is HUGE and will cause PERMANENT, CRIPPLING damage to the nation.
Bingo.
It starts with the promotion of overt European Christan identity politics. The tribe must gather to protect itself.
Maybe it’s a Jewish Republican thing Roger. I thought Obama was going to win as well. Though prayed I was wrong. I’ve seen, just among my own friends and family members, too many people who like taking other people’s money, without even admitting that is what they are doing. Health care costs for my 13 year old have quintupled so that 25 year old “children” can stay on their parent’s health insurance. It is makers vs takers and the takers like it.
Go Galt!
There’s something you’re missing in the “makers vs. takers” paradigm.
The ‘takers’ aren’t so much happy about receiving things as they are high off of the schadenfreude of watching it get forcibly ripped out of YOUR hands, with you unable to do anything to resist it.
Punishment, Social Vengeance, Schadenfreude.
Those are the driving factors.
In a word, REVENGE.
It will get far, far worse. Within four years, the various entitlement progrmas will be so underfunded, the meltdown will make Greece look pleasant.
All of you who voted for O, when the following things happen during the next 4 years:
-when gas reaches $9/gallon..
-when we have rolling blackouts, because coal-fired power are forced to shut down…
-when electricity rates skyrocket…
-when your favorite retires early because of Obamacare…
-when unemployment reaches 15% and higher…
-when food prices skyrocket, because farmers can’t afford new EPA regulations…
…remember, you voted for it.
“when gas reaches $9 per gallon…….” Last year, the USA was a net exporter of petroleum based products for the first time since the early 1960s. Production of oil is now over 10 million barrels per day and maybe going higher.
“when we have rolling blackouts…….” And what are you basing that on, pray tell. Coal is losing big time in the marketplace to natural gas, which is a much cleaner fuel and is much cheaper. In fact, there is a glut of gas in the marketplace, driving prices down and causing some wells to be capped.
“when unemployment reaches 15% or higher…….” Yes, unemployment is too high right now for the comfort of most people. But there also are 3.6 million job vacancies that employers can’t fill. If even half of those positions got filled, unemployment would drop under 7%.
I suppose it’s a matter of one getting enough information in order to develop informed opinions, vs. living in the Rush Limbaugh echo chamber.
” Last year, the USA was a net exporter of petroleum based products for the first time since the early 1960s”
Which has absolutely nothing to do with the price of gasoline. Petroleum is a commodity product, and is traded in dollars. It doesn’t matter, except perhaps to the refinery engineers, where a barrel of crude comes from – they’re all the same price. What does drive up the price of crude is the inflation of the dollar. Our monetizing of our debt by printing more currency (or magically making it appear in the Fed’s computers, which is pretty much the same thing) drives our inflation rate, which in turn drives up the price of oil.
The other driver for the price of gas is taxes. Gas prices in Europe aren’t $10/gallon because of the price of crude, it’s set that high deliberately by the governments as an income generator and a social control.
“the price of crude is the inflation of the dollar”
Believe it’s the “deflation” or devaluation of the dollar.
That’s “petroleum based products”, not “petroleum”. We are still importing the petroleum to make those petroleum based products. Try to read in-between the spin.
“when we have rolling blackouts…….” And what are you basing that on, pray tell ?
Rolling blackouts are caused by peak electrical demand exceeding supply.
Demand is going up with population, supply is going down as coal fired
plants are taken off line faster than they can be replaced – by design.
Now zoom out and look at our entire national infrastructure;
Overage, overloaded, on the point of catastrophic cascading
failures. When the world economic collapse occurs, the shock
will shatter it like a Glass Goblin, and the shards will be
lethal to millions of Americans. But not to worry; Blame Bush.
How true the USA’s infrastructure is Third World quality it has simply not been invested in and the snails pace of power restoration to the devasated North Eastern States stands as proof positive of that. No modern technological country in the world continues with overhead electricity distribution any more but it is virtually the only way it is done in the USA. Thats where the bail out dollars should have been spent not on Car Companies which were GIVEN to UNIONS and which are now in just as much trouble as they were before the bailout.
I’m intrigued at how they will manage to continue to blame Bush in 2016. Poor Barack.
I’m intrigued at how they will manage to continue to blame Bush in 2016.
They’ll find a way.
During the 1992 DNC convention, Tom Harkin got a huge ovation when he denigrated Bush Sr. as “George Herbert Hoover Bush.”
Think about that one. Hoover had been dumped from office 60 years earlier, and had been dead for 28 years, but the Dems were still using him as their tar baby/whipping boy. The only reason they won’t be doing the same to Bush the Lesser 56 years from now is because the US will have collapsed and broken apart long before then.
easy… the same way they did it last 4 years: look you in the eye and lie with faked sincerity that comes to them naturally.
…look you in the eye and lie with faked sincerity that comes to them naturally.
They can also count on a little help from their mainstream media propaganda arm.
You are supposed honor thy father and mother.
Tues I heard my dad say out loud that of course he respected the 1st amendment, but that it was obvious to him that the Koch’s should be restricted in pushing their propaganda.
???!!!
Who should I honor who says such a thing?
Honoring someone and agreeing with them are two very different things….just saying.
He has well earned my open contempt. The above is not the only idiocy he spewed that day.
They will aim against the Congress. Soon they will have a communist SCOTUS, just like now they have the Senate. Congress is the last barrier in their way.
I guess they will do something like this:
1.- Take over the SCOTUS
2.- Do some de facto measure (illegal, anti-constitutional, show-of-force, whatever) against a “delegitimized Congress” and take over it.
3.- Whatever legal fight ensues, they already have the SCOTUS.
They do need to do even that. Bohner will gladly sit and give a paw when told.
double grrr!!!
He’s already offering a paw without being told!
They will blame the Republicans and the Tea Party. They don’t even have to come up with any real budget or plans. In fact, unreasonable plans which a Republican House must reject are the best for the Democrats. Then they can say “those evil people refuse to behave properly”.
You left out White Europeans.
They have always done this. Haven’t you noticed that there are thousands of fathers of every success, while every failure seems to be a bastard.
I’m of the mind that there is nothing we can do except make it a point to survive the coming crisis.
Only when the basic unworkable underpinnings of the current economy and federal budget implode will things get bad enough on the lemmings for them to question their basic assumptions.
Only when they question what they thought they know will we even begin to have an intelligent conversation about how to turn this around.
It will take a crisis for most Americans to realize what they have wrought. And then they will blame someone else.
To paraphrase Churchill, the average man, when confronted with reality, has the remarkable ability to pick himself up off the ground, dust himself off, and continue on his way.
Buy gold and necessities.
Sadly, I’m not sure our citizen would qualify up to the level of what Churchill would consider “average”…
Sadly, most do not know who Churchill was, never mind how intelligent he was.
No, buy your precious metals in the form of little brass containers that hold some form of powdered nitrocellulose, sealed with lead….
Understand that if (and when) a crisis hits, the socialists will be the first one’s at your door looking for help. Socialists will get no help from me.
Most socialists understand this – which is why they’ll eventually show up with guns (in the hands of their police)under the color of law.
I think it’s important to decide now about how much of your resources you are going to devote to helping others, i.e. people outside of your family.
Personally, my charitable donations end TODAY, and that includes donations to my church (catholic). The “poor” will be coming for my resources soon enough. The church has failed miserably in guiding its flock away from the godless evil of socialism and, even worse, allowing socialism to flourish in the clergy in certain areas.
They needn’t come to my door. My official answer is I have nothing to spare.
That goes DOUBLE for charity for those northern areas hit by Hurricane Sandy. Let the government take care of them since they think the government does such a great job.
As far as I am concerned, I’m taking care of me and mine.
Good thing global warming is here, so they won’t get cold this winter!
Same here. Not one red cent from me. Especially after electrical workers drove all the way up there from Alabama to volunteer their services, only to be told to get lost because they weren’t unionized!
AFAIC, those yankee socialists can freeze in the dark.
Hosea 8:7 “For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind. The standing grain has no heads; it shall yield no flour; if it were to yield, strangers would devour it.” Just to complete the thought.
President Snarky set the new tone for the new normal, and now “snarky” is our best appeal for the presidency.
When we submit our children to Caesar (public schooling and/or television) we should not be surprised when they are molded in Caesar’s image. We have been doing this for decades and it may well take decades to undo.
I hope Christie enjoyed his photo op with The Prez. When the cleanup efforts slow down and the rebuilding of the shore stalls and people are demanding their FEMA checks, it’s all going to fall to him, because Obama will not be there to help him…
Why wouldn’t Obama help Christie? Obama has a track record of returning favors with other peoples money. If the money runs out, he’ll just have the fed print more; or give a speech of solidarity with the Republican governor. The press will praise Obama for his “bipartisanship” and Obama will gain a governor toady.
Sure that will probably depress the GOP voters in New Jersey, but lets not kid ourselves that New Jersey is in any way a GOP state. There is no way Obama will lose by supporting Christie. He will either cause enough Democrats to vote for Christie in the future (GOP Toady=Obama Win) or Christie will lose to a Democrat (Democrat Governor=Obama Win).
Obama doesn’t need Christie. He doesn’t have to pander to the Clintons anymore, either. He can do whatever his owners want.
But, who are his owners? Who has the ability to hide his entire paper history, manufacture two fake (and contradictory) certificates of birth, get him a fake social security number (previously belonging to someone else), arrange for best-selling ghost-written “autobiographies,” and turn him into a rock star for having done absolutely nothing?
Who has the ability to shut down every legal challenge (dozens) to his office qualifications in multiple courtrooms, even with judges sympathetic to the challengers? Who has the ability to turn a hostile Supreme Court justice 180% from his known historical positions into an Obama protector?
No cabal of wealthy businessmen could do this. Only the Government itself, or, rather, certain agencies within the government.
As for those of us who voted and noted the lines and crowds were far larger than last time around, how could the total drop by fourteen million? How did Obama know he was going to win months in advance, and how did the outrageously skewed polls from the left-wing media magically match the final count?
I don’t think the American Public is quite as stupid as the results suggest. I think something more ominous is at play.
YES!! Somebody finally SAID IT!! I didn’t think anybody was going to! Do you believe those results? Are they REASONABLE? Do they agree with what you saw and heard with your own eyes?
A lot of posters at Breitbart.com are finally saying it, too. The numbers don’t add up. The numerous massive Romney and Ryan rallies vs. the puny Obama and Biden rallies (even with famous rock stars) make the election results beyond credible. Obama couldn’t even fill a moderate auditorium for his last pre-election rally (it was half empty), and his earlier rallies drew crowds often far smaller than reported (in some cases, the MSM-reported numbers were many times those of the actual number of seats in the auditoriums or arenas, and these seats were never all filled).
I sincerely hope the FBI or SOME law enforcement agency was monitoring, secretly, the actual votes for comparison against the reported numbers. I think millions of Romney voters had their votes erased, and millions more had their votes changed. In my part of town, I only saw one Obama yard sign in the weeks before the election (four years ago, there were hundreds), but countless Romney signs.
It’s important to keep in mind that millions of Romney voters were not voting for the Republican Party or its platform, but for the man. Every Independent I know, as well as my favorite Democrat, voted for Romney (I’m an Independent, too). I voted early, and still had to wait in line for forty minutes at 11:00 on a Friday morning. The lines were like that twelve hours a day for an entire week of early voting, and similar crowds were reported throughout the country. The lines were even longer on Tuesday. So how come the total number of votes counted is fourteen million fewer than last time around?
It was a revolting sight was it not? What I could not understand, there were no recriminations for not holding the storm back….stopping the waves and the tides. Just saying I was shocked myself!
My main post-election concern is how do I replace the dollar? I believe my home state of Texas can figure out basic government functions after the social welfare state fails, but how does new nation get a new currency off the ground quickly?
Research what happened after the breakups of the USSR, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. Those new nations seemed to make the transition with little trouble.
As for what to do now, IMHO the answer is to be found at the state level. Any assault on our remaining liberties, especially by executive fiat, must be met with state nullification. Not resolutions, laws, complete with severe criminal sanctions against federal agents attempting to enforce Obama’s diktats. Contrary to what the stupid crime shows on TV try to portray, the feds are not invincible, omnipotent beings (like the Q Continuum). Nor are they supremely dedicated to “the cause.” The vast majority of them are clock punchers, in it for the fat paycheck now and the fat pension later. The specter of hard time in state prison will make them think twice about their career choice. If enough of them turn in their badges, Leviathan loses its teeth and becomes a paper tiger. For that matter, the inevitable economic calamity will cause a torrent of resignations and desertions, since the feds (like everyone else) will refuse to work for very long with little or no pay.
If nullification fails, the final step is secession. Just one state declaring independence (most likely Alaska) would start the dominoes falling.
The problem is, when other countries fell, they had the dollar to fall back on. See Prof. Thomas Rustici’s lecture: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQ4PGr0WBBc
Alaska ain’t declaring independence! First, we’d starve; historically the landmass never even supported 100K people, now we have almost 800K totally dependent on a 1500 mile two lane bad road through Canada, the Port of Tacoma, and federally regulated airplanes. Rumor of a West Coast dock strike empties the grocery shelves here almost immediately. The Canadians would close the road under any US pressure and it would be easy for the US to make Alaska a “no fly” zone; there’s plenty of F-22 Raptors here to enforce it.
One US warship off Alaska and no tankers come to enable us to sell oil on the World market. We have many tens of billions in the Permanent Fund and in other reserves all under control of the US which would freeze or confiscate them immediately. And finally, the federal military and civilian presence here is huge and a stroke of the pen would have us looking down the barrels of M-16s and saying Yes, Sir to our new military governor.
If your food position is that precarious, you might want to check out this web site:
http://3rlighting.com/
Grow your own food indoors hydroponically. If nothing else, it might be nice to have some fresh veggies in the dead of winter.
There are two aspects of Alaska declaring independence that you are overlooking.
1) Alaska has enough oil that it would not have to defend itself any more the Saudi Arabia or Iran has to defend itself. It can offer sweet-heart deals to nations with military machines strong enough to make recovery of Alaska no longer a laughably easy military exercise (China, Russia anyone?) Alaskan rebels could justify this move by saying they had seen the flaws of unfettered democratic vote-buying and now had more sympathy with the world’s more authoritarian nuclear powers.
2) Any serious armed rebellion against the US government would immediately trash the US government’s credit rating, bringing the current borrowing spree to a quick end or leading to immediate and massive inflation — or both. The US government might quickly find that a rebellious Alaska was a problem of limited urgency, especially if its independence was backed by China, Russia (see point 1 above).
In the vastly unlikely event the Alaskans seceded on recognizably Constitutional principles, the feds would find they couldn’t move war material through the CONUS.
It wouldn’t stay Alaska only.
“In the vastly unlikely event the Alaskans seceded on recognizably Constitutional principles,”
@Tom -
Since all of my lineal ancestors served in the Army of Northern Virginia, I have some personal knowlege of arguments about secession. I can make a very good argument for secession for any of the former Confederate States that were British colonies and which participated in the Founding and the ratifications of the Articles and the Constitution. I can’t make the same argument of voluntary association for the states formed from territory bought or conquered by the United States. Alaska cannot assert an independent sovereignty that it never had. Alaska was a Russian colony sold as chattel to the United States and governed as a military district for its first 50 years, a territory for the next 50, and really only had statehood conferred in response to Soviet pressure about the US denying full citizenship rights to citizens of its territories. If Alaska renounced its status as a state of the United States, it reverts to being merely a real estate investment of the United States; not quite the same status as Virginia or Georgia and the states formed from their colonial era territory.
A) No, you cannot make any case for the legal secession of any territory from the union, whether whole state or not, without an amendment tot he constitution authorizing it.
B) You, having said the constitution is just a code word for legalized pot, you can’t tell me anything. Hope you like your albatross, you ass.
Since logic, reason, and facts are wasted on idiots like you, I’m not wasting much. Some huge majority percentage of the people who find a way to say “Constitution” or “Constitutional principles” in every third sentence or either idiots, dopers who want legal dope, or both. Deal with it. The rest of the argument is FAR beyond your pay grade.
Instead of secession, which is constitutionally dubious (states get admitted through act of Congress, and presumably they can only leave via the same procedure), why not consider its complement: expulsion. Can we get enough states together to demand the expulsion of, for starters, CA, NY? Reduce them to “territory” status. They might not even object. We’d get their electoral votes out of our hair and they’d get to elect Michael Moore or whoever as territorial governor.
I don’t know what Obama has planned but let’s face it the Republicans will put up a show fight then roll over and show him their belly’s so that they can continue to go to the cocktail parties.
If a majority maintain their backbone ( doubtful ) then I expect a lot of executive orders, and maybe even a “National Emergency” to force compliance once things start to shake apart.
Texas can’t stand alone and I believe that Obama will neutralize you and a few other key states as quickly as possible, you have four fronts to fight on, the MSM, liberals in your state, the fed’s, and eventually one way or the other the Mexicans.
I love Texans and did a lot of my training at Lackland and Shepard and was always amazed at your warmth and toughness but I don’t think you have the numbers to win. Perhaps Obama will open the borders but most likely he will find a way to help the cartels import more violence than you can handle.
We live in crazy times, God help us all
Oh, please. Whenever an election is lost (on either side) suddenly democracy is “not working”. Democracy is working just fine. If the party’s ideology isn’t attracting voters then adapt.
I see, win at any cost, even if the cost is your soul
Good luck with that
You need to wake up. A majority of Americans have voted for Marxism. That’s not “left of center”, my friend, it’s the death of the republic.
If you want to stay asleep, that’s your business, but don’t lure others into joining you.
Bingo, but no one here wants to hear that the current Republican religious-social agenda of anti-abortion and anti-homosexuality might have brought down the ship. They will instead blame Mitt, the Media, dumb electorate, government education, RINOs, everything but the main reason we lost.
You epitomize the problem. We on the conservative side, being students of history and viewers of reality, realize that no society that has promoted socialism, endorsed homosexuality, promoted abortion, and/or tried to redefine marriage has stood. We are actually following very closely in the path of the Western Roman Empire (and I fully expect to have a Caesar in the next decade or three). Before you start condemning us for objecting to these things you might want to study where we’re coming from. Are you going to endorse slavery next (The Republicans fought that, the Democrats supported it)?
No one on the Republican side ran on social issues like abortion. The issue was never even mentioned. The Republican candidates that fussed over it did not survive the primaries. Romney never spoke about anything except the economy and jobs. The Dems created an entirely fictional “war on women” straw man, and apparently lots of single females fell for it. What exactly is a Republican supposed to do to overcome that kind of abject stupidity? Do we even want people that dumb in our party? I hear a lot about single women and Hispanics. While we can and should have done better with the latter, were those groups really critical in the crucial swing states? It doesn’t matter what California or New Jersey Latinos did, as those states were deep blue already without them. Were Latinos the deciding factor in Ohio, Wisconsin, or Virginia? Or was the real problem that for whatever reason Republican turnout was just lower than expected? Just asking. Did “Sandy” keep Mitt off the tube for a whole week, thereby making Obama’s ads and media accomplices the only source of information about Romney in the crucial final days? Romney did, after all, have substantial polling leads 8-10 days out, which evaporated during that final week. How do we distinguish and measure with precision the effect of actual ideological shifts versus an electorate that is politically disinterested, ill-informed, gullible, and/or easily swayed by cheap emotional arguments? Is it fair to accuse the electorate of being addicted to handouts in the middle of an extended period of high unemployment? Aren’t a lot of people taking “handouts” right now with heads hanging in shame, who would resume working in a flash if jobs were available?
Your error is that we have a democracy. We don’t. We have a constitutional republic and that’s quite a different thing than a democracy. Better bone up on our form of government.
I understand completely. And yet…
We all should have some perspective. Any of us who recall the Soviet Union of the 1970′s and early 80′s know what this feels like. You walk around with a sense of dread for your country and for your children. There’s never any assurance of victory, not then, not now. We worked then to stop the forward movement of an evil, and we must do so now.
This reminds me of the hard work done by men like Orwell, Whittaker Chambers, and James Burnham. They weren’t sure they would prevail. Some of them believed they would eventually be eclipsed by communism, but that the only ethical choice was to fight on. Giving up gets you exactly nothing.
Our choice must be to suck it up, stand up straight and show our kids what right looks like. It won’t be easy or satisfactory in the short term, and will certainly not be everyone’s most preferred strategy, but it is what is right. It is what we must do.
Beautifully put, JS. We need to keep soldiering on for the truth, no matter what the cost.
Maybe we should take the long view:
It took nearly 800 years for the Spanish to expel the Moors.
It took nearly 400 years for the Spanish to be expelled from Latin America.
It took over 300 years for Christianity to triumph over the pagan Roman Empire.
It took 250 years for slavery to be finally abolished on the North American continent.
It took nearly 100 years for Jim Crow laws to be eliminated.
Compared to the above, and for my money, we won’t need much time at all to undo what’s been wrought by the Obama regime.
Obama regime is a symptom, not the cause. The cause is at least half of the population with “gimmi” mentality + a good chunk of idiots brainwashed into believing that only Dems will save them from the wolfs.
And the “gimmis” will soon become “dhimmis” of the government, and “dhimmis” of radical Islam.
This is even closer than could be imagined: there are already quite a few islamists in sub-higher echelon of the gov. The poor slob is still in jail for his amateur video. 1-st amendment anyone? And since there is not even a ripple of objection it is now the perfect time for them to go after the 2-d one.
Is this long term view supposed to give us any comfort? We need to get busy trying to save our children’s and grandchildren’s future asap… today is a sad day indeed!
I’m leaving. I am literally leaving. Forget rolling up my sleeves. I’m sticking around for one more year to finish my degree and then I’m immigrating to New Zealand. I’ve already started planning it with my wife. My wife wants to leave now. I had to talk her into staying until I finish my degree.
The reason: She lost her job due to Obama’s policies forcing layoffs. Now she doesn’t think she’ll get another job.
I was considering moving to a foreign country, too, but I woke to discover I’m already in it.
You’ll hate New Zealand.
They have universal health care and abortion is legal.
At least they don’t have the hypocrisy of calling it “the land of the free” the left has made that claim here.
If you haven’t noticed, abortion has been legal here for a long time now. In fact, now it is mandatory, which I’m sure is not the case in NZ. Here, no one is allowed to operate a hospital without providing abortions on demand. Doesn’t matter what the doctors or owners of the hospital want. Doesn’t matter that there are twenty abortion clinics right down the street. If you don’t do abortions immediately when asked, you can’t practice any medicine at all. I guess the entirely imaginary “right” to abortion trumps the actual constitutional right of free association and the (Republican) amendment banning involuntary servitude.
Of course it has New Zealand just like Australia is run by the self same Left Wing Socialist moonbats who have destroyed Europe.
I knew it. too. The first debate made me sit up and take notice, but I knew we would lose from reading my “friends” on Facebook. This is NOT 1980. Period. It is a brave (or maybe uninformed) new world and it is NOT going back. Morality is turned upside down. And they are viscious. Oh my, you should read some of what they have had to say on FB today- I will post some of it later when I get home. Really scary stuff. They are going to criminalize our deeply held beliefs. Trust me. I am not full of hyperbole here. They WON and yet, they are still posting the meanest, snarkiest stuff ever. The cruelty knows no bounds. I wrote a post congratulating them. Very simple and dignified. I eventually had to take it down because of the awful, disrespectful stuff that was being said. Scares the you-know-what out me.
Query: why are you “friends” with these people? Are you that desperate? You might want to read Mrs. Instapundit’s assessment this morning, for an official shrink’s reaction.
Why the tone? Why be hurtful to me? Why are they my friends? Well, some of them are my daughters’s friends. Some are my relatives. It is more complicated than just defriending people. And as for being a weanie – well – I have enjoyed FB for many reasons, picture sharing, finding old friends from grade school or my favorite, my deaf sister’s ability to be one of crowd like she never has been in her entire life. Why the mean comments directed at me? Why?
So you weren’t looking for sympathy when you wrote that original post? For someone to pat you on your pointy little head and say, “there there, you really are superior and how good of you to put up with it all”. Either way, it’s pathetic. Did you go read Mrs. Instapundit, like I recommended, or did you just dissolve into morose woe-is-me swoons? Which is *NOT* helpful when you’re looking into the abyss.
She’ll be one of the first to go, WTSHTF
Clue:
FB is for weenies.
FMJ (and JHP) are for people with character
Wow, the responses you got were absolutely vitriolic. I know the election results suck, but we shouldn’t descend to tearing each other apart like the leftists. Thats what they want us to do.
I agree with you, it is very scary. I will get very sick of the left’s gloating over the next four years, and their absolute intolerance and hatred. So much for the people’s party of tolerance and acceptance.
Keep on fighting the good fight, I’ll stand with you fine folks any day over the vile left.
Another huge problem I see to ever overcoming this trend is the degeneration of political thought to branding. Like Foobarista said, the Democrats have been genius at branding themselves as the cool kid everyone wants to hang out with and selling that as the pinnacle of political discourse. In my district, our Representative was reelected with >70% of the vote. He never (to my knowledge) actively campaigned, he never discussed policy, he never debated with his opponent, nor did he have any meaningful accomplishments in Congress (other than representing one of the most depressed areas in the State and conducting more international travel than the vast majority of his fellow Congressmen). But he still won easily, coasting on that (D) after his name. More than anything else, the degeneration of politics to little more than being a sports team’s fan will doom the Republic. How do you convince a Yankees fan that it makes more sense to root for the Dodgers?
We all need to read and act on the ideas presented in the two biographies (on the lives of Bonhoffer and Wilberforce) by Eric Metaxas. Leading from a spiritual-logos-practical basis from the perspective of Judeo-Christian tradition – like Ronald Reagan. Following a deeply spiritual and practical model based on faith in God and the common man done for the common good. Work. Like the abolition of slavery that started with an idea, it is hard work to bring about a conversion in thinking and acting of the anointed to do something to assure long-term improvement in community and family – for the common good. Romney may have tried to convey the positive Reagan ideas but he seemed to lack enthusiasm for the common man and small business man and family on Main Street. The MSM carried so little of the Romney campaign that we don’t know unless we attended a number of his events… even YouTube does not have much posted of full-text Romney except the NAACP event which was great. Someone should have been working with Romney to get all his events on line through YouTube and other social media. 20/20 hindsight, like hope, is not a strategy. We need to get busy and hope the constitutional structures hold after the combined damage done by Bush-Obama…
-Old Gringo in Jalisco
I hate to be the bearer of bad news but Bonhoffer was a liberal Protestant whose theology assisted in bringing in the ugliness that murdered him. Just like with the liberal Protestants in this country which has in essence brought us to where we are now. Liberal Protestant churches are not growing, they are decreasing, why? Because who needs God when you got the state? So intent on building Heaven On Earth, they became as gods themselves, and some fell on their faces and worshiped.
Israel asked for a king and they got it.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was not a “liberal protestant”, he was a Lutheran. Big difference. The Nazi’s hated Lutherans just as much as they hated Catholics.
Dude.
Double Face Palm – When one face palm just isnt enough.
Your essay was short on specifics. Exactly what kind of “work” do you suggest? Telling us that you are bummed out is not exactly providing any intellectual leadership.
Well, I give some specifics. Start with the three key areas of our culture. Almost everyone has some brush with the educational system. Begin by trying to get differing (i.e. other than “liberal”) views presented in class. That may be the most important ultimately. Then there’s the media (go after them however you can) and the arts (this is more difficult, because you need some talent yourself – but doable). There’s lots more, which we can all discuss in the weeks to come. This article was written in a hurry, obviously.
Re. ” Begin by trying to get differing (i.e. other than “liberal”) views presented in class.” I think it is a little too late, actually about half a century late. My op. is that the Soviet’s long term targeting educational system payed beyond their wildest imagination.
It is not too late.
I agree that it is not too late. But it will require some sacrifice.
If you have a master’s degree, there is likely a community college nearby that will hire you to teach in your subject. You do not even necessarily need to be a spectacular teacher; community colleges regard adjuncts as interchangeable cogs, and we get paid like replaceable pieces of machinery. But you will get a chance to present a point of view that almost never gets covered by the other interchangeable cogs.
Traditionally, conservatives have not been visible among those teaching college, because the pay is awful. But since there is no longer any real demand where I live for software engineers, leading to pay that would have been unimaginably bad ten years ago, the miserable pay for adjunct faculty is no longer much of an obstacle. I suspect that in a few years, there will be many conservatives who will find even teaching at a community college more attractive than, “Would you like fries with that, sir?”
Roger, my wife and I are doing our part — we both are adjunct faculty, teaching English and History, respectively, at a community college. I like to think we are having an impact. My students in Western Civ know that climate change has been a big part of history for thousands of years, and that the current warming (since about 1970) is not without precedent, nor is it even particularly unusual.
The fact is that we are fighting an uphill struggle on this because what most kids “know” about the world and history is learned from movies and television. Yes, education matters, but the culture matters even more, because much of the population is functionally illiterate. (They can read, but they choose not do so, unless required for a class.) Until conservatives can find a way to raise enough money to make movies that entertain AND educate on a regular basis, we are spitting into the wind.
Do you realize you are fighting entropy?
Been a while since you took chemistry? We are all fighting entropy.
Actually, what we are fighting is worse than entropy. Entropy is mindless. This is enemy action we’re fighting.
Roger, you say that culture is difficult, because talent is required. Actually, I think money is what is required. While I see talented leftists making movies and music, I also see a lot of really dreadfully untalented stuff finding an audience as well. Until we can find a way to raise the money required to make mass market films and music that sells our message, a shortage of talent is not the limiting factor.
A good place to start making things better would be to have every single human alive on earth give the US Government $2000.00. That would pay off the current debt. Of course it would just go back up again. But I know we can win the future.
Let’s think a little bigger picture, Roger. Republicans now control 33 statehouses and those state governments have education, both K-12 and the public colleges, by the short and curlies. I was a ‘crat for a long time, long enough to know that if you have a ‘crat by his budget, his heart and mind follows. I don’t care how liberal the secretary/commissioner of education is, if the Governor says “Heel” and yanks sharply on his budget, he’ll heel. Likewise the university chancellors. Many of those states have appointed state boards of education and boards of regents. The typical Republican looks at those as an afterthought and appoints some retired teacher or the wife of some rich friend thus leaving control over curricula to the “academics.” If you control the legislature, do away with all the silly statutory protections for “academic freedom.” A public school teacher has no 1st Am. rights in his/her teaching capacity; s/he IS the government speaking and doesn’t need protection from government interference in speech. Where that sort of silliness is a part of education department or university policy, just hold their budget hostage until they find enlightenment. And if you have to take a teacher or university instructor/professor strike over it, so what; the kids aren’t learning anything we want them to learn from the schools. And finally in those 33 states ATTACK union and Democrat front group spending and revenue. Stupid Republicans feed the hands that bite them by funneling state and local money to all sorts of front groups and letting unions illegally collect and spend dues. Even if your state is non-union, the unions can and do spend compelled dues from other states on political activities in your state; sue them! I can go on awhile, but the problem is most Republicans are so anti-government that they haven’t a clue how it works, what powers it has, and how to use those powers for Republican purposes. Had he won, the biggest problem Romney and his appointees would have had would have been that they’d have been led to their offices and shown the restrooms and light switches by a Democrat.
Art,
I’ve read your posts for about a year now, and I think you should do some long distance consulting for conservative officials on how to deal with Unions.
Bill Whittle did a pretty long stratosphere lounge episode last night. I didn’t see all of it, but your skills and my suggestion above made me think of it.
Seriously, there aren’t many people who understand the “roll up your sleeves and slug it out” perspective that you seem to have with respect to Unions.
Project Veritas might also benefit from some of your insight.
Your ideas and experience are too good to be left solely on message boards. Earn some money from it, or don’t, but your expertise is needed at many levels.
Thank you for the kind words! There are only a handful of us in the Country that have been a part of a Republican government in a unionized state. When I was Alaska’s head of labor relations, Swartzenegger’s guy in CA and I were the only Republican appointees doing state-level LR work in the Country.
If they’ve got the money, I’ve got the time but generally Republican elected and appointed types don’t like people like me; controversy seems to come around wherever I am.
You might find this interesting: http://www.amazon.com/Red-Blue-Establishing-Republican-ebook/dp/B005M784HW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1352353288&sr=8-1&keywords=red+on+blue+establishing+republican+governance
Holy Cow, I didn’t realize you had a book!
It is definitely on my immediate purchase list. Along with my disaster prep gear.
On needn’t teach to influence academia. Take a class. Instead of taking for credit, audit the class. Its cheaper, too. Then drive your points home when you can. I did that in several econ classes. Even boldly called out professorial PC in class. That was much fun.
One semester I went in kind of quiet and was asked of the prof. to liven it up. He got what he asked for, good and hard.
Hi Roger. I agree with your assessment of education, media and entertainment but I believe and have been telling anyone who’ll listen (my wife) that the problem can be distilled even further to just education and entertainment. Higher education feeds the bureaucracy, the professions including journalism, primary educators, etc. I believe the Progressive movement got it’s start in the USA over 100 years ago by first penetrating higher education and entertainment and did so with a very long term view for their project. I believe if we address education and entertainment the other areas will take care of themselves. What I don’t know is how we would go about doing that. I also agree that in parallel we could be going after the media but the job would be that much more difficult if the true root cause is not addressed first.
The USA is too large, and obviously the citizenry is quite severely divided (almost 50/50) re broad political worldview. It’s time for an amicable divorce, peaceful separation, whatever. I’ve never understood the deep longing for artificial “unity” and “union” between or among those with radically different perspectives, particularly concerning the individual, the state, and the use of coercive government power. They don’t understand us, we certainly don’t understand them. We’re willing to leave them alone to do their thing, but they want to control us, our property, our livelihoods, our health. So: It’s time to file papers. The “old” USA could keep the left coast, Hawaii, the northeast, the lower half of Florida, a bit of the west and midwest; New America could have the south, north Florida, most of the west, Texas, Alaska, and a bit of the midwest. Divide the debt and military assets. Be done with it. Let’s see which nation prospers, the old or the new.
Cheaper solution and much more practical:
Reinstate the Constitution. The Federal government was never envisioned to have this much power. Give it back to the states where it belongs.
Leave the Federal government to handle common trade issues, the military, diplomatic issues, coin the currency, post office and that is about it.
“There is only one thing left to do: roll up our sleeves. All the way.”
The results are indeed depressing, but your last sentence reminded me of this Onion picture that is funny, no matter who you are.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/romney-rolls-sleeves-all-the-way-up-over-his-head,30187/
Janetoo, I considered writing a polite congratulatory post on FB this morning but decided not to for reasons you describe. No way would it have been taken as anything but an invitation to crow, gloat, insult, and spit. Behold the tolerant left.
I wrote on FB a concessionary note and the kind of crow dish I might enjoy best. So far all responses from my D friends are written with graciousness and class. Even had one very strong D say my concession note gave her new hope in finding a mate someday.
Spot on Roger, all the way around… and we cannot give up…
“Success is the result of moving from failure to failure wthout loss of enthusiasm.” I saw it attributed to Churchill, who knew a thing or two about failure and overcoming!
It’s somehow comforting to “cry in our beer”… but the comfort (if that is what it is) only lasts so long. So, take 48 hours to gather yourselves folks, then pick yourselves up.
“Success is the result of unremitting attention to purpose.” – Benjamin Disraeli — get the theme? We don’t get to give up, we keep on — it’s part of the hero’s journey (are we at the “death of the vision” part?).
Be resolute, there are a A LOT of people on our side to admire, take heart in them, support them, give them some of your energy. Our House Reps are going to need support – keep calling and encouraging. Keep writing here and where you can — be upbeat, be an ecourager. This election was a gut punch, take it and get past it, and help others get past it. Now, more than ever, Liberty needs you.
Thanks, Roger, for your part in all this! You are appreciated, and pass that around to your collegues, you all are noticed, your efforts and work on our behalf.
Battles ebb and flow, this may be a low point but we cannot let it be the end point. The brilliance of this Nation cannot be left to fade away, we owe it to our forefathers to pick-up our broken tools and rebuild.
I am inclined to chalk up yesterday’s man-made and self-inflicted disaster to mass insanity. A culture that values acts like Jay Z and Madonna and Lady Gaga and Cohen Brothers Movies cannot be sane.
Cultural suicide is never pretty.
The situation is all too reminiscent of the Greens and the Blues of the Byzantine Empire.
Interesting comment and probably spot on. The Byzantine Empire, how many in this country even know about that period of history. Kudos.
And most of what little is known is from a very biased Western European/Roman Catholic viewpoint. The Byzantines held off the Muslims for over 500 years and a couple hundred more even in their much diminished state after the sack of Constantinople by the 4th Crusade.
If they know from such a biased standpoint, I do not know where from. Byzantine Empire gets essentially no popular attention. Both the textbooks that I have used for my Western Civ class (Spielvogel’s and the one by Lynne M. Hunt and a cast of thousands) are actually quite good on their coverage of the Byzantine Empire and its efforts to hold back the Muslims.
From the soundbite one gets in a Western Civ class in HS or college; the Eastern Roman Empire is some wierd, hopelessly corrupt thing over there in the wierd hopelessly corrupt East. In fact, it was one of the richest and most powerful empires that ever arose, but to say that makes the West and the dregs of the Western Empire look bad.
The astonishing thing to me was simply how long they went on in the face of tremendous odds. Some Empires die very slowly.
The Byzantine Empire enjoyed the advantage that it was mostly fighting Muslims…who seem to look for any opportunity to fight each other.
Thank you Roger.
Having an opportunity to communicate with like minds here has been the only salutary aspect of this whole mess.
Apparently, we now have a nation where a preponderance of the population has little to no clue as to how and what this nation was conceived to be.
And/or doesn’t care.
“America’s founding ideal was the principle of individual rights. Nothing more – and nothing less.” – Ayn Rand
I do blame Romney, he failed to close the sale. It does take two to make a sale, the seller and the buyer, but it looks like Romney was trying to soft-sell a tough sale. The Romney campaign always avoided blaming Obama, and hence his voters in 2008, which made a tough sale even tougher. Obama’s message of “it’s Bush’s fault” really is masterful since it excuses the voters from voting for a total failure. Ultimately, Romney presented a timid case against Obama and a tepid case for himself.
If this is the predominant reaction, remeber too, its the McCain epilogue
Deep down, I never really believed Romney would win either, Roger, mainly because some smart money guys—-who actually voted for Romney—-kept telling me that over the past 6 months. Then there was INTRADE if you really wanted the wind knocked out of your hopeful sails.
We are living in a post-democratic/post-constitutional world and how we each adjust remains to be seen. I will say I think many of us will focus our time and efforts in our states and fortunate is he or she who lives in Texas or Tennessee—which just got redder overnight—and other more sane red states.
Besides the fiscal cliff, there are going to be many battles involving federalism and enumerated powers in the next few years. And it’s not going to be pretty. Expect there to be quite a lot of civil unrest and that’s putting it nicely.
Why don’t you move PJMedia to Knoxville, or Austin and hunker down with us Scots-Irish brethren?? There’s room for an Israeli or two…but please bring some AK-47s…..
There is nothing left to save. America heard the voice of the whirlwind and went baa. They wanted it and they got it.
I was right about the voice of the whirlwind and what the masses heard, BUT , I was wrong in my way of handling it. They want to be sheep? Fine I’m eating mutton. Screw those that want to steal what I’ve worked so long to earn. This is my country and she ain’t done yet and neither am I!
So we have a problem with democracy.”
Faulting democracy for this election cycle is like blaming arithmetic because your checkbook does not balance. Democracy simply reflects choices people make, much as the free-market does.
The real culprit here is human nature and the inability of rationalistic human institutions (such as positive law) to curb venality and cupidity.
Abolish democracy and the thief and liar still prosper. If you seek a return to American civil society, look to the experience of our early years when the Judeo-Christian ethic furnished a firm foundation for interpersonal relations.
Jews must take the lead from here. If you will not defend the Law and the Prophets, why expect a defense from G*d when it’s time to reap the coming whirlwind?
Agreed.
We’ve been worshipping the Constitution.
We need to worship God, Judeo-Christian God.
The Constitution was merely supposed to allow for an orderly society so that we could worship God. It is a brilliant, divinely inspired document. But it is the means to an end. It is not the point. God is the point.
I truly think we are headed to a California/Illinois situation. One party rule. Higher and higher taxes, food costs, gas costs. Thought police. No Halloween. Christmas hushed up… Sometimes I giggle thinking about it. It will be interesting to see the infighting when there are no Republicans to demonize.
One could call this election the victory of Bill Ayers. He realized that bomb-throwing was unproductive and dangerous. Instead he became a professor of Education, worked the high end goverment/foundation grant angle to get rich, moved into a posh Chicago neighborhood and cultivated a likely young Hawian-Kenyan from down the block.
Like McCain, Romney wanted to be mr nice guy. He let O off the hook during the last debate because the moonbat media said he should. Keep pickin’ those moderates Repubs!
Roll up our sleeves and do what exactly, Roger?? I’m asking because I have no idea what you mean. Are we supposed to man up…against an infantile majority wanting everything and wanting it NOW? Over half of our population has no idea what hard work and delayed gratification are, nor do they care. I’m at sea here, and my boat is sinking.
We turn them against each other.
Subsidized birth control for single women will mean lower benefits for school aged children.
More Obamaphones will mean less tuition subsidies for college kids.
The issue has always been Hermann Goering’s “guns or butter”.
Make the choice “(his)butter or (your)bread”.
A lot of state-level GOP plebiscites pitting one group of DemocRat constituencies’ interests against another DemocRat constituencies’ interests.
Plebiscites so that when a moonbat has to do without because some other moonbat got theirs, they will know at whom to direct their envy.
h/t: Macchiavelli
I never thought Obama would lose either; the electoral deck, a perfect storm as lucky as Sandy, was stacked. So, like the French thoughts of America in the early 19th century, my disdain preceded the facts.
I agree whole-heartedly about why the deck is further stacked. Pop arts/entertainment, education, and the news media.
Princeton reportedly gave 99% of its contributions to Obama. John Scalzi, the head of the Science Fiction Writers of America, writes a racist article about “white privilege” and there is little push-back in the SF community, and loads of agreement. The HuffPo is little more than Soviet-era Pravda and has no problem publishing racist articles about “frighteningly white” cities. MSNBC is more biased and blithely anti-American and un-American and far more racist than Al Jazeera, and I mean that literally.
One could list a who’s who of American journalists in the tank for Obama. Sesame Street has been indoctrinating kids with PC offend-no-one garbage for decades. Pretty much anything before 1960 in America is considered brutally stupid, ignorant and racist and the Dem Party touts the GOP as being wistful for that era, if not the antebellum South.
This is not a battle that Conservatives are losing on a political level, far from it. It is a battle Conservatives are losing on the most fundamental cultural level. The cult of cool which drives an infantilized America today has long since decided the GOP is out.
Today in America, lib pop art produces work that is little more than Ninjy Mutant Turtles, Hee-Haw and Larry the Cable Guy, while it proudly proclaims it is exactly NOT that. Libs are the new rednecks AND the new racists.
All is not lost; it was a close call yesterday, at least in the pop vote. The problem is the the Dem Party, rather like the old East India Company was in terms of numbers, is successful out of all proportion to the failure that is practically endemic to their politics. The cult of cool and false narratives built around cool makes up for the rest; it is delusion and denial built around the other great current in lib culture: blame and excuses.
The problem with denial, blame and excuses is that failure, and even destruction, can become far advanced before a solution is applied, if ever. Our inner cities have been destructive hell-holes for a half century at least and nothing has been done because the blame is pointed in every direction but where it belongs.
Alongside this liberal mindset that is failure oriented, we have the other great destructive force looming in America’s future that is not a failure of perception only as it is with libs: immigration. 90% of immigrants have come from failed Third World nations in the last 10 years, and that does NOT include illegals. The Third World is not a failure because of the way it thinks, but because it simply cannot compete with the First World. Why? I don’t know. It just can’t. Look up the wiki about the invention of time-keeping at sea and extrapolate out. We’re importing the Dark Ages.
As someone who’s spent 8 years in 15 Third World countries, I can tell you those populations themselves have no illusions about their future and competence that goes much beyond pride and overweening arrogance. It’s like me saying I’d win 10 Superbowls if I were an NFL coach. I look at who DOES win competitions, not who coulda, woulda, shouda, based on racism and colonialism. Liberalism does the exact opposite and has infected the Third World.
The East India Company, Cortes and England itself had no welfare or Affirmative Action. Success needs none. Success is success. It is not an idea or a might-be but a fact. History shows what is fact. That history would be our future if we didn’t lie about it and feel shame over it.
Yesterday, racist bigots who make a living calling others racist bigots won. Welcome to 1984.
Bingo! We have another winner. The left here is doing exactly what the left in Britain admitted to; importing a new culture to replace ours with one they “think” they can control.
Incisive, excellent post.
I read somewhere recently that people who know something about economics tend to vote conservative. Maybe a concerted effort to educate high school students in that area might be productive.
Personally, I’m going to polish up my schadenfreude reaction so I can gloat rather than sympathize when “those people” lose more and more of their little jobs as the economy continues to contract.
I also have no intention of giving up my own job, or retiring, so a younger person can go to work.
And finally, since it’s the thing to do, I will take full advantage of social security, medicare, whatever iteration of Obamacare we end up with, and other gimme entitlements in an marxist-approved fashion. Where do I sign up for food stamps. And how much can I get away with on my income tax returns.
We are divided into two camps…permanent wards of the state and the milk cows to feed them. I don’t see this ending well. You can never give people enough “free” stuff to keep them happy, but that’s the Democrats permanent map to permanent control. Nothing short of catastrophe will change the dynamics and it is only a matter of time until we have such a catastrophe.
now it’s time to recognize that we conservatives do not represent the culture at large, but live at odds w/it. we are, in fact, adversarial regarding the national moment in which we now live. it was comforting to tell ourselves that the country is really where we are when the mists clear, but it isn’t. i’m a conservative in liberal arts academia, so i am used to living and working in an environment which doesn’t represent me and which i don’t identify with. lefties like to tell themselves they are ‘marginalized,’ or ‘subversive,’ but in fact they are the establishmentarians now. we are the outsiders. that can be an opportunity if we remain true to ourselves. times change for better and for worse.
This.
We are the outsiders, the hated and despised, minority. Time we started acting like one. We need to build identity and infrastructure, group cohesion and solidarity, and then demand that we will be listened to, or there will be no peace. Not necessarily violence, but lawfare, protests, boycotts, marches, etc.
We have the playbook, it is the identity politics of the Left for the last half century.
Time to organize, outside the institutions, creating new institutions for ourselves. And then threaten other groups peace and prosperity, so that they will have to come to terms with our demands.
I actually did think Romney would win — but I also knew I was really really was hoping for it. So I kinda sorta expected the worst: Obama wins AND Mia Love doesn’t.
You are so right about culture, media, education.
On education, vouchers. Parental choice for their children; an equal amount from the gov’t that goes to the school of the parents choice.
On culture: call the Democratic Party the Jim Crow Party. The Party that used to have Affirmative Action & Segregation for Whites, and now has it for Blacks, and a bit for Hispanics, and also a bit for women…
Affirmative Action is racism because it judges a person more as a member of a tribal group, than as an individual.
The media, you’re doing a great job, Roger. Just … not good enough.
To paraphrase Woody “Tell news better”. You’re trying, but not yet succeeding enough.
Finally, Tell funnier jokes — about Obama. And Democrats. Not liberals, not leftists, but Democrats.
A car was keyed? Probably a Democrat. Voting for more stupid gov’t? Must be a Democrat.
What’s a democrats favorite European economic model country? Greece.
(Not funny enough, I know.)
I have to admit, over the last couple of weeks I thought “the guy who lost to the guy who lost to Obama” might just pull it off. Silly me.
So, will this teach the GOP central committee that it must actively go out, find, groom, and promote better candidates? Or will the next guy in line, Santorum I’m guessing, be stood up like a bowling pin in 2016? My guess is it will all be blamed on hard headed libertarians instead of a poor group of candidates, poorly chosen in open primaries (how stupid is it to let states like MA and CA pick GOP candidates?).
I have to say I’m relieved my worst fear didn’t materialize. That Hildabeast would remove O by “other means” and run on an anti 2nd amendment platform. She may be a bullet we’ve dodged. Now that the election is over O doesn’t need her or Billy Bob anymore so she’ll go right under the Benghazi bus to shore up his “legacy”.
If there isn’t a shit to libertarianism in the GOP my prediction is that in 2016 Santorum will loose to a female candidate on the Dem side, one who is already living in the White House.
Sorry, that last line should be “. . . isn’t a SHIFT to libertarnism. . . “
I would just say that I would have preferred a Hillary presidency to 8 years of Obama. Hillary is a lefty, sure. But would probably governed more like Bill, which was definitely more moderate, co-opting Republican issues and taking credit for them.
I completely disagree. Hillary was and is more dangerous, she’s smarter, and unlike O she knows exactly how to boil a frog. Had she been elected last time there would be no TEA movement because she would not have over reached so soon and so openly. O’s naive bumbling at least kept the sentries awake.
A lot of good the “sentries” did. Hillary is mostly law abiding. Obama is a thug. The next four years are going to be hell.
Not sure what libertarianism would do to make the Republicans more attractive: there was nothing libertarian about free contraception mandates, civil punishments for failing to photograph same-sex “commitment ceremonies”, or Obamacare. Of course, you could drive out the 20% of so of Americans who are serious social conservatives, and another 15% who sympathize with them — and peal off 5% of Obama’s voters.
My son didn’t like Romney because he wasn’t consistently in support of limited government — but I am quite sure he voted for Obama instead. If the logic of that escapes you, it escapes me too.
Thanks for highlighting the roll Chris christie played in all of this. The man is a political thug and an utter disgrace to the republican party. I won’t be surprised if he turns democrat or independent to try and win reelection in New Jersey ala Charlie Christ and Arlene Spector.
I like big fat men. They make more noise when they fall.
You’ve got to re-examine your own premises…and fully embrace constitutional constructivsm, without caveat or limitation. e.g. Gays getting married, let alone living together, is none of your business, let alone the government’s business. The operative question should be: Why is government in the business of regulating and licensing marriage to begin with? That’s a legitimate query about big government, not about your personal beliefs or religion. Does The Constitution the government to regulate private behavior sic. individual freedom and liberty when that behavior is little or no threat to the lives and liberties of other Americans? …or are you choosing to force your religious beliefs upon others through government imposed sanctions and regulations? If so, you’re as bad, if not worse, than your ideological opponents. They also use the government to impose sanctions against priate behaviors they find to be objectionable on a personal basis – i.e. through the concept of a living constitution. iow, you play the same game as they do, but dishonestly call it something else.
Until you start asking yourselves questions like this, and answering honestly and rationally, even logically, you’ll keep losing the big elections and the big policy decisions.
You’ve got to stop the personal attacks on those who disagree with you. Just because people like myself say something on a website that you don’t like doesn’t make us trolls, losers, users, welfare moms or a part of the foodstamp nation. You’ve alienated half the nation through those tactics…and wonder why you keep losing the big elections and the big issues. In this, you are no different than your ideological opponents, demonizing anyone who disagrees with you, dehumanizing them…and refusing to recognize their inalienable rights and freedoms.
Show up. From education to cutting-edge technology, left wingers dominate. The right doesn’t even show up, let alone compete, except through echo-chambers like this one.
You’ve become the people sitting in Plato’s Cave…refusing to come out into the light, and refusing to see reality, as it is. …and you can’t understand why you keep losing elections and policy decisions…’cause, you know, you’re on the side of the angles, and you simply cannot be wrong…in anything you do or say. It’s always someone else’s fault that you lose.
The people pushing for gay marriage are the ones who want to make it “government’s business”.
Who is looking to pass a law preventing two people of the same sex from sharing a house or hotel room contingent on what they might possibly do inside it?
Great post. Most won’t listen, but it’s a great post.
The Left routinely lies and attacks conservatives. The Left says we’re all racists, Islamophobes and that we long for the antebellum South and hate women. Expect insults back.
That’s a given. But the real take away from this debacle is the damage done by the bungling GOP establishment. They went out of their way in Florida to Gerrymander Allen West out.
The left’s venom for those who proclaim unwavering and unabridged support for the Constitution is no more poisonous than that of coastal republicans who have no problem at all with cities and states tramping the second amendment and seek ever bigger, more privately invasive government.
As a follow up, besides West, look at the behavior of Christie and Bloomberg. Hell, look at Romney’s own words while he was governor of MA. The “Rockefeller” wing needs to be amputated.
If you’re going to amputate anything, get rid of the worn out old white guys who insist on trying to decide what young women do in their private lives. Names like Todd Akin, Richard Mourdock, Tom Smith (PA) ring any bells?
Get rid of those insist that one can’t be a true conservative unless you accept Jesus as your savior. Isn’t it finally time for personalities like Pat Robertson, Tony Perkins (Family Research Council), James Dobson, etc. to make a graceful exit? Go ahead and preach all you want to your own congregations. But quit trying to impose your personal religious views on the entire nation and then demonizing those who dare to disagree with your religious agenda.
Democrats again took over the Colorado legislature yesterday. The biggest reason was the refusal of the Republican house speaker; who has fundamentalist Christian beliefs; to allow a civil unions bill to go to the floor for a vote last May, even though several Republicans spoke in favor & were going to vote for it. Yes, there are consequences that end up in elections.
Read Warren B.’s comments in #47. I don’t agree with everything he says, but he’s making much more sense than most of the people replying to Roger’s post.
Demonizing and ostracizing Christians, the road to the White House, foolish libertarian edition.
What we need are two parties which strike all mentions of God and Jerusalem out of their platforms. Then we will certainly be putting our country on the path to success and prosperity!
Godless Hedonism is the path to destruction, my friend. Your embrace of nihilism isnt much better than Cultural Marxist promotion of it. Who is the greater fool? The fool or the fool who follows the fool?
Im sure this all went right over your head. Which is probably offers insight to our current calamitous zeitgeist.
I kind of think Warren might have a point. I see flaming on conservative-leaning sites of those simply expressing a liberal view. It doesn’t help.
But then Warren does ignore the flaming that goes at left-leaning sites of those expressing a conservative view. The words they use are a lot worse than “troll” or “loser”.
“Gays getting married, let alone living together, is none of your business, let alone the government’s business.”
As others have pointed out, it is the left that insists that this is the government’s business, not conservatives.
As others have pointed out, it is the left that insists that this is the government’s business, not conservatives.
As usual Cramer you’re on the wrong side and backwards. Who’s fiddling with the law again? Gays are asking for equal rights, that’s it. Meanwhile it’s the bible beating social “conservatives” who are organising ballot initiatives to amend state laws to prevent gays from being able to marry; e.g. “Vote YES to amend MN law to define marriage as…” If you clowns would simply mind your own godd*mned business, none of this would be a problem. I don’t know what you think gives you the right to dictate to others, but merely believing in a deity doesn’t automatically convey any rights whatsoever.
In sum, jerk: mind your own damned business and leave people alone.
No law in any jurisdiction prevents a church wedding of a gay couple. Ihat is and has always been a constitutional right. Its when that couple wants into the civil right/government beneifts that we come at loggerheads.
Its not the right to marry the gays are seeking. Its the financial beneifts. There’s no right to that. Those are democratically endowed.
Its not the right to marry the gays are seeking. Its the financial beneifts.
Yes. And what’s the problem with equal rights?
You will notice that the vast majority of “same sex marriages” were the result of court orders, not votes of the people. Your assertion of an equal right to marriage is based on your desire to believe it, not the Constitution.
Talk about dictating: we aren’t the ones telling state legislatures what the law must be.
Great post Roger.
I expected Romney to win especially after the debates. I think we are dealing with serious hate on the other side.
“Revenge”
I roll my sleeves up everyday.
This country had many chances to turn back. It did not. The Supreme Court will not further limit the President’s powers. The constitutional republic is gone and has probably been gone for awhile.
The experiment concieved by our founders began to be seriously damaged by T Roosevelt. It was finished off by a slim majority of the American voters last night.
America will quickly lose it’s financial authority, that probably has been gone for a while too. We now live in a soft dictatorship where the central state is the supreme power. We are federal in name only.
When it all unravels, it will be every man for himself. If you want to know what that looks like, take a careful look at Staten Island today.
“There is only one thing left to do: roll up our sleeves. All the way.”
To do what?
For those who didn’t build their businesses, stop worrying about meeting pay rolls. Spend your money to enjoy life. It’s stupid to work your ass off and have your hard earned profits taxed away. Forget your pride, claim disability benefits.
Revive Republican earmarks so we can claim a “fair share” of the taxes we pay to finance the parasitic govt.
I’m with you Roger. Sleeves up and chin up too. The nation is going to have to have this thing play itself out and it may turn very ugly if we have worse unemployment and massive inflation. The one thing those of us that still love the Constitution can do is never watch CBS, NBC or ABC. What would happen to their ad revenue if half the nation never watched them? The educational system is gone for good. History shows that it may never be right again. As for entertainment, what if people started entertaining themselves like previous generations did?
“How did that happen? I think many of us know there are three pillars of our own destruction: the educational system, the media and entertainment (the popular arts).”
Ding! Ding! Ding! Bingo!
This is it exactly. Don’t blame Christie or the hurricane or Bain or the GOP not being true to its values. Too many Baby Boomers have passed their ’60s & ’70s view point to their kids, now of voting age. Boomers run the schools, the media & entertainment. Our kids have been spoon fed Jim Crow, Japanese Internment, Viet Nam & the Democrats as saviours of these evils; robber barons, Watergate, Clear Channel & Halliburton, WMDs & Katrina are what Republicans are all about. There is nothing Romney or the GOP could have said or done to change the millions of minds that are taught & encouraged to ignore “racist/sexist/corrupt/reactionary/choose-your-favorite-pejorative Republican lies.” Think long & hard about why Bill Ayers became a professor of education.
We obviously lack a critical mass of citizens who understand how wealth is created, and why limited government is desirable. Why don’t people with money and people who are good at creating effective media get to together and figure out how to educate the American people on these vital ideas?
The appeal of leftism is that YOU aren’t responsible for anything, including rational thought. Besides thinking is work , look at the new fields of study that infest our universities. Gender studies, Puppetry, “Education” all fields requiring no intellectual abilities whatsoever. Government funding will almost certainly politicize the sciences, as it already has HIV research , “Climate Science” and (via a different mechanism) Economics . Consensus science isn’t science at all. I think John Galt will come for the scientists and mathematicians first . Unfortunately you have to possess the ability to think rationally to see rational thoughts’ value . Texas, Tennessee, Canada or Israel(after Netenyahu nukes Iran) ?
Before the election I was apprehensive about Israel attacking Iran; now I am looking forward to it. I hope no American servicemen/women have to die in the aftermath but I want the Jews to defend themselves as they see fit.
I’m afraid that you have that backwards. It is Iran via Hezbollah, that will nuke Israel
This is their chance and they know it.
They can also nuke Riyadh, mine the Strait of Hormuz, and slam 25,000 RG’s onto the Eastern Slope of the Kingdom, with a follow on of another 50,000.
Might take ‘em a week.
Saudi has ALWAYS been their target, Israel has been a cat’s paw to keep the Sunnis divided.
Most Saudis will run away.
And then Iran sits on the Arabian oil fields, makes passage of Hormuz impossible to merchant ships, and will have vanquished the hated Zionist entity.
Game Over.
hey bilgeman….go pull the strainer
Hi, Roger. So let’s say you wanted to make a difference in literature. How would you go about breaking through the leftist stranglehold on fiction publishing? Thought you might have some insight into this one based on your background and experience. Thanks.
Republicans better take the lead on immigration reform, or we will never win another national election again, ever. Bush knew this. He tried, and he failed because of resistance from his own party. What rank and file Republicans fail to understand is that the system really is broken. We need to make it easier to immigrate to this country legally, and more difficult to live here illegally. We need to offer a path to citizenship for parents(and siblings)of children who are American citizens. We need to cut the red tape and bureaucracy that makes it nearly impossible for good people to become American citizens. And we need to deport non-citizen criminals. In other words, we need to re-write and reform our immigration laws, and then enforce them.
If President Obama and the Democrats get the credit for passing immigration reform, they will not only screw it up, but they will also own the Hispanic vote for a generation. Marco Rubio needs to write the legislation, and present it to the American people. If he’s successful he might just save the Republican Party.
The Democrats are masterful in the art of the straw-man argument, and in the vilification of their opponents. I don’t know how we get past that without stooping to the same deceitful tactics.
It’s a big problem.
I, too, felt that he would lose due to the media bias and the successful branding of the Dems as the “cool” team. The “cool” factor is illustrated by my brother-in-law from MA who actually liked Romney and thought he was a good governor but had to vote for Obama because he’s a Dem. Trying to get him to identify any policy or program other than Obamacare as a reason to vote for Obama was like trying to pin jello to the wall. Voting has become a team sport, not an intellectual weighing of policy options, which explains a lot of the gloating and viciousness.
And can we please put to rest the canard that Palin destroyed McCain’s chances in ’08? Palin motivated the base and brought out those missing 14 million voters that kept McCain from losing in a landslide but just sat home this time.
Your not alone in feeling depressed. This was such a shock it will be a long time for me to get my senses back. Vote for “love of country” became vote for me who will lead the charge on class warfare. Socialism.
My thoughts today have been along the lines of:
1) Stand with God
2) Uphold self-defense
3) Get out of the blue states
4) Defend freedom in the red states
5) Educate your own children
6) Push the trades rather than liberal arts degrees
7) Get alternative currencies
8) Fight the welfare state and the slavery of nondischargeable student loans
9) Prepare for the destruction of Rome when the bloated machine inevitably implodes
The last couple of years, only two things really show up here that offer hope:
1) Breaking the unions in Wisconsin
2) The astonishing number of celebrities that came out and endorsed Romney.
Is it really possible that we can take back our schools? Maybe if we continue the fight against the teachers’ unions.
Do the celebrity endorsements give us a glimmer of hope about taking popular culture?
I’ll do all I can from my red state, but either way, I get the sinking feeling that Michael Barone is right. We now have two Americas, and they’re not on speaking terms. One America is for individual effort and freedom, and the other is for European-style socialism. Come out from among the wicked, and touch not the unclean thing.
From the “land of the free”, to the land of the freebee.
That might be a little harsh. People are really hurting right now, for those who have a job, real income is way down. Young people can’t get jobs. Older ones can’t afford to retire. They are scared, and angry about someone who would diss them as the 47%, when they may not want to be- or may be afraid that they will end up on the dole despite their best efforts.
And I say that as a Romney supporter. Have been for many, many years. But that was a stupid, stupid remark.
The problem is, Conservatives have done a very poor job of defending capitalism in terms of what it means for the little guy. People just think it has to do with rich people, instead of the thing that makes the whole world turn as the economic foundation of individualism and democracy.
Excuse me for feeling cynical this morning. I lost my job shortly after Obama became President. I’m employed now, but I’m making about half of what I made before. So I do understand. As to making the argument for capitalism, may I suggest we use the term “free enterprise” instead. It has a warmer ring to it, and brings to mind the entrepreneur, rather than the rich fat cat.
The strategy of destroying America’s power can now proceed without problems.
There will be judges to be nominated, at the Supreme Court too.
Forget about oil, coal and gas, the regulations will crush every resource.
Debt will skyrocket and the dollar will be worth nothing.
Big taxes, and the capitals will run.
The gimme gimme crowd will be starving, soon.
Very very sad.
I appreciate your words very much, Roger. Last night was the first time in years that I had to hold my wife in my arms as she cried herself to sleep. The last time was when her sister died. Now her country has. We don’t blame her murderers – the mindless, brainwashed gimme drones that voted disaster upon us and themselves. “Forgive them for they know not what they do.” We can only blame ourselves – we have all been too complacent and unaware of what was really happening all along in our beloved USA.
In one area we have been blissfully blind to is fascism. Fascism may have been defeated militarily, but not intellectually. The plant was cut. The roots spread and flourished. Those fascist roots always were in the post-modern intelligentsia – their ideas became the foundation of the dogma foisted upon the innocent gullible minds through pop culture and academia. How many conservatives are aware that the intellectual founders of post-modernism – Nietzsche, Heidegger, Paul du Man – were all either proto-Nazis, or open Fascists? How many conservatives understand that Fascism starts with moral relativism, subjectivity over reasoned discourse, the destruction of language, and trivialization of politics, religion, truth and man himself? Most conservatives still have the cartoonish view of fascism with swastikas and jackboots, and ignore the roots that far more resemble a Madonna, a Bill Maher, a hip hop rapster. Fascism has been above, below and around us and we never knew it.
The other area we have been negligent in is the spiritual. The darkness we all feel encroaching upon the nation goes beyond the hordes of mindless Iphone ladies and Bill Maher fans. It is truly something beyond ideology and culture, and our true hope lies only there – in God. “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7:14.)
Middle eastern mythology has done quiet enough harm in today’s world, thank you very much. We’re either going to be the party of logic and reality of mysticism. If the later, thee is zero chance most will choose it over the mysticism of the left.
Fascism was and is based upon the rejection of transcendence. The hatred for the Jew was really more a hatred for the Jewish God and the civilization that sprung up around the worship of Him. Fascism was and is a rejection of both God and rationalism, for there is no dichotomy between them. Fascism is atheistic romanticism or mysticism if you will. The fascists considered themselves advanced, scientific and on the cutting edge of intellectual enlightenment.
Bmoon, that was a heck of an assessment of fascism. I hope you are a teacher since such clear analysis is hard to come by.
BS, the hatred of the Jew was woven into the fabric of European culture by the Christian church, very noteworthy that it wasn’t hatred of the Italians who actually did the execution. Fascism is an economic model that adapted pomp and circumstance akin to religion to appeal to the masses who prefer mindlessly following.
JustAL, hatred for the Jew indeed preceded Fascism, but it took on a new virulent metastatic form when combined with the philosophical trends of the 20th century – the Romantic idealism of Rousseau and Nietzsche, the materialism of Hegels and Marx, the trivialization of man with Freud and Darwin, the moral relativism of Heidegger, ETC. Long before it became an economic expression, it was a toxic brew of multiple ideological currents all agreeing with the destruction of objective morals, values and meanings. Mussolini said it this way:
“Everything I have said and done is these last years is relativism, by intuition. From the fact that all ideologies are of equal value, that all ideologies are mere fictions, the modern relativist infers that everybody has the right to create for himself his own ideology, and to attempt to enforce it with all the energy of which he is capable. If relativism signifies contempt for fixed categories, and men who claim to be the bearers of an objective immortal truth, then there is nothing more relativistic than fascism. (Diuturna,1921)
Fascism was hatred for western civilization itself – and the roots of it – the Jewish God.
your problem Al, is that you are stupid. Ignorance can be educated but stupid is forever.
Oh golly, I’m a cradle Catholic so my Biblical knowledge is kinda shaky, but I’m pretty sure there have been several other groups of people who’ve historically had serious issues with Jews. Currently, it seems like Europeans have more issues with Jews than Americans do, and Americans are more likely to be Christian than Europeans.
So, by your flawed logic, anyone who rejects belief in your mythological creature of choice is a “Fascist”. How very convenient for you. And I’m sure your make believe pal agrees.
Not at all Al, that is a non-sequitur (undistributed middle error)- your flawed logic, not mine. I did not say that. I have already mentioned multiple ingredients that went into the toxic stew, the main one consisting of rejection of objective moral truth. Many atheists believe in objectivity and moral absolutes.
But the sad truth is that most Atheists and agnostics are moral relativistic hedonists who rage against God, just like Al here.
By and large, the fascists (as well as the communists) agreed with you completely on the pernicious role of belief in God–indeed, this agreement with you was one of their core principles (at the intellectual level, not necessarily at the propaganda level). And it got results!
In my opinion, their track record is maybe an order of magnitude or two worse than that of the Judeo-Christian tradition, more if you index for wealth and scientific knowledge, or if you distinguish serious Christian belief from pious-fraud political manipulation. (Hard to carry out pogroms against enemies if you follow Jesus’ commanded us to love our enemies; very easy if you think that’s pernicious Middle-Eastern mythology).
In this vast failure of our two-party political system, we now must learn to spell “austerity measures” as they are surely to loom on the American horizon. Oh, what has this great country of ours come to?
I’m listening to Rush Limbaugh on the radio as I write this. He is wringing his hands (i.e., bitching and moaning) about our current state of affairs. Are you doing the same thing? Is doing more of what we have already done going to fix anything? Some of us want to fight. Fighting is quite unpleasant. Dig?
Time to fight the powers, rise up!
Maybe it’s just time to start swimming downstream.
I’m curious to know more about our “brainwashed” population. Were they not brainwashed two years ago when the Republicans won the midterms? Were they brainwashed two years before? And two years before that? Do they keep all the brainwashed people in camps under the Rocky Mountains and just let them out occasionally?
Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that there is right and wrong, and that wrong appeals to most voters. Does the opposition party now try to find a formula to become as wrong as the party in power? No quite as wrong? Wronger yet?
This is the dilemma for those with principles who want to attract voters without first convincing those voters to adopt those principles. As we see, shortcuts using clever tactics flop.
For Democrats there is no right or wrong. They are immoral. The problem for the minority of us that are moral humans is that we would have to be anti-democratic (i.e., against the majority will) in order for morality to prevail. Dig?
It’s defeatist to assume that moral people will always be such a minority. But if moral people keep bowing to expediency, their victory will be delayed.
Bob, you are correct that it is defeatist to assume immorality prevails. Unfortunately, it has happened often in history (e.g., communism and nazism). Luckily, the immorality has been temporary (although communism is still around). The successful answer for moral people has always been the same…war against immorality! The unsuccessful answer has always been appeasement or acceptance of the lesser evil.
There are several studies out there that show self-identified conservatives outnumber self-identified liberals (or “progressives”) 2:1. But both sets of “bases” are minorities. The voters who don’t identify as either are legion.
Both parties pander to their bases. The Republicans lose, pretty consistently, because they try to persuade the uncaring to adopt their conservative principles. The Democrats win, pretty consistently, by pandering to the unprincipled legion’s appetites.
Excellent insight, alas.
The American right is self-limiting with its commitments to honesty, fiscal discipline, and self-denial in the name of impartiality (no crony capitalism, minimal earmarks–so goodbye contributions, goodbye extortion). Those are all great qualities in a person and a society, but highly disadvantageous for a real-world politician.
Voters _say_ they want all those things, of course, but there’s a natural human tendency to want those things with respect to others, but then to want freebies and corruption for ourselves (“As a non-taxpayer, I demand that the rich pay their fair share!”). The Democrats understand this–and win. (Some Republicans understand this and win, too, obviously, but principled conservatives don’t like them.)
In an age of idiocracy and overwhelming Progressive social control in media and education, this is an even higher hurdle to jump in a political race. Figuring out how to do this without becoming as corrupt and cynical as the Democrats is no easy task, but it’s critically important.
Obama is a huge hit because he makes genuinely rotten people feel good about themselves. After all, if the President himself supports (fill in the blank), opposes (fill in the blank), and engages in (fill in the blank), then these wretches must be on the right track, even if their consciences say otherwise. He takes away their guilt, and replaces it with sanctimonious smugness. What a deal!
I don’t think you can turn this around.
I WILL NOT COMPLY.
Don’t comply; JOIN. You don’t know the POWER of the Dark Side…
Culture may be the mother of politics, but religion is the mother of culture. The Democrat party has evolved into a combination child-sacrifice-and-sex cult, and Marxism.
“[Russia] will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred; the Holy Father will have much to suffer; various nations will be annihilated”. Anyone who believes in G-d might want to reflect on whether we’ve been placing our hopes in politics, or Him. We won’t win elections until we win hearts.
That’s why there is hope. The religious will inherit the earth, but it’s going to skip a generation.
And I’m not sure if it will be worth having by then.
Communism is a religion. Its adherents are doing their best to inherit this Earth.
I think it’s a cult, more specifically. After reading Bella Dodd’s description of her “deprogramming” recently, I thought the process sounded a lot like what I’ve come across with ex-Moonies and ex-Regnum Christi members.
The rest of the prophecy in my previous post goes like this, btw: “In the end, my immaculate heart will triumph”. So if all else fails, you might want to ask Jesus’ mom to help.
The same things have been cool now for a long, long time while many of the industries promoting the idea of what is cool are having problems holding audience share. This suggests a change is already overdue.
Look at how many people effectively home school. Then consider that soon it is probably going to be possible to receive a more advanced education without having to encounter the corrosive influences of a college campus. Look at how it is so much easier for an author to get published these days because e-publishing has fewer costs associated with it. Look at how it also seems to be easier to easier to produce and get films into the hands of viewers. Then look at the huge number of people who have completely tuned out pop culture as tawdry and juvenile. In other words, the battles Roger talks about are already being fought. Part of the problem is not everyone fighting these battles know about the other participants.
The stock market has voted, and it is one of “No confidence.”
The government is broke, and broken, and the only way out is through a strong private sector. Even big-government advocates must admit that we can’t tax what isn’t there.
I don’t think most Americans realize it, but they just elected the one person who is mostly likely to kill the goose that lays the golden egg.
It’s true that most people can’t go Galt, but investors can. Companies have mountains of cash (individuals, too). And that’s where it will stay, on the sidelines, where at least it won’t be taxed. And the poor will go on wondering why there are no jobs.
I agree with many of the comments posted that too many of us have become dependant “takers” of government handouts. Many don’t even realize it. A major example is social security. Almost everyone I know is planning on applying for social security when elegible. Their argument is that the govenment owes them that money. My position is, “two wrongs don’t make a right”. Just because the government took money from you and me by force and gave it to others doesn’t give us the right to take money from the government that is taken by force from our children and neighbors. The same goes for medicare, medicaid, college grants, and every other transfer payment program.
Well, since we got off the gold standard, the money is not taken from anybody, since it is not real. Sovereign governments just print more when they need it. Not a bad thing, if the level of economic activity provides value to the currency. If there is too little value in the economy (i.e. Zimbabwe) massive inflation results. There is no chance we will be following Zim down that path, nor will we end up like Greece.
Your last sentence I would be careful to so boldly assert, because…
That depends on four things:
1) The speed of printing money.
2) The total accrued volume of this “toilet paper”.
3) The rate at which someone will still be building “crappers”.
4) Whether the Gov’t will permit installation and use of said “toilets”.
The government which we have come to “appreciate” these past four years has been seen to have “problems” with all four of these key activities. The recent past, including today’s stock market slide, have not been encouraging!
Government is force, and when it enters upon a course of theft, theft becomes robbery, and no real or alleged “noble motives” can change that beast’s moral quality.
Immorality is usually punished, generally by the destruction of its perpetrators. So long as “we the people” have consented to, even “demanded”, this behavior, we will equally be held to account for it. Sometimes, that can take quite a long time. Printing more money will not save us. Spending less, and repaying our debts, and not demanding more value than we produced, just might.
” The rapid changes on both a technological and sociological level will result in a great social upheaval. The cataclysmic changes will result in considerable suffering, often referred to as the Hevlei Mashiah or Birthpangs of the Messiah. If the Messiah comes with miracles, these “birthpangs” may be avoided, but the great changes involved in his coming in the manner adopted by Maimonides may make these terrible travails inevitable.
Since in a period of such accelerated change parents and children will grow up in literally different worlds, traditions handed from father to son will be among the major casualties. The Talmud describes at length how there will be general dissatisfaction with the values of religion-in such a rapidly changing world, people will naturally be enamored with the new and dissatisfied with the old. Thus, the sages teach that neither parents nor the aged will be respected, the old will have to seek favors from the young, and a man’s household will become his enemies. Insolence will increase, people will no longer have respect, and none will offer reproof. Religious studies will be despised and used by nonbelievers to strengthen their cause, the government will become godless, academies will be places of indiscretion, and the religious will be denigrated.
In the generation when the Messiah comes, young men will insult the old, and old men will stand before the young [to give them honor]; daughters will rise up against their mothers, and daughters-in-law against their mothers-in-law. The people shall be dog-faced, and a son will not be abashed in his father’s presence. It has been taught, R. Nehemiah said: In the generation of the Messiah’s coming impudence will increase, esteem be perverted. [Sanhedrin 97a]
The Wisdom of the learned will degenerate; fearers of sin will be despised; and the truth will be lacking. Youths will put old men to shame. [Sotah 49b]
Judaism will suffer greatly because of these upheavals. There is a tradition that the Jews will split up into various groups, each laying claim to the truth, as the Talmud says, “Our truth shall be divided into flocks” (Sanhedrin 97a). This will make it exceedingly difficult, almost impossible, to discern true Judaism from the false. This is the meaning of the prophecy, “Truth will fail” (Isaiah 59:15).
Maimonides, in his Epistle to Yemen even predicted that many will leave the fold of Judaism completely, without mali ciously intending to do harm to the Jewish people, and the nation shall suffer immensely as a result of their actions. This is how our sages interpret the prophecy, “The wicked shall do wickedly, and not understand” (Daniel 12:10)..
Of course, there will he some Jews who remain true to their traditions. They will realize that they are witnessing the death throes of a degenerate old order and will not be drawn into it. But they will suffer all the more for this, and be dubbed fools for not conforming to the liberal ways of the premessianic age. This is the meaning of the prophecy (Isaiah 59:15), “He who departs from evil will be considered a fool” (Sanhedrin 97a).”
http://www.moshiach.com/topics/what/the-moshiach-in-our-time.php
Thus, the sages teach that neither parents nor the aged will be respected, the old will have to seek favors from the young, and a man’s household will become his enemies. Insolence will increase, people will no longer have respect, and none will offer reproof. Religious studies will be despised and used by nonbelievers to strengthen their cause, the government will become godless, academies will be places of indiscretion, and the religious will be denigrated.
No disagreement from our end.
Well-played, gentlemen, well played.
Batten down the hatches and trim the sails, we have some rough seas ahead of us.
For they {the electorate] have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind…
Viewing the United States from afar (as an American living in Canada), I also didn’t think Romney had much of a chance. And, just as Roger notes — it’s those three pillars working against the GOP. (I find pop culture particularly decadent and appalling. It is a corrupting force, as is the media.) And yes, so much work needs to be done…
Like Mr. Simon, I figured Obama was going to be re-elected back during the primaries.
Unlike Mr. Simon, I DO blame Mitt Romney. There was an article at pjmedia on election day entitled (something like, I can’t remember the exact wording) “Shut the Hell up and vote for Romney”. A candidate so inspiring that even his supporters were being told to shut the Hell up.
But Romney only got the nomination because the field was so awful! Newt Gingrich? Rick “Three Departments” Perry? Michele Bachmann? Rick “I’m the last not-Romney standing” Santorum? Does anyone see a winner in that lineup?
Romney was a poor candidate chosen from a terrible field. Part of the reason was that some sat out 2012 so they could run in 2016 (I wouldn’t bet much on Chris Christie being the nominee in 2016 though). A better candidate could have been found (Rubio? I think he needs seasoning, but he’d have won Florida).
But the thing that worries me in the long-term isn’t Obama’s victory. America is a tough nation. Unlike those who have no faith in America, I think the country will survive and thrive after Obama is gone. The following does scare me. This morning I have read three statistics that even though the numbers vary from source to source, all say the same thing.
Hispanic Vote:
George W. Bush 2004: 35%
John McCain 2008: 30%
Mitt Romney 2012: 27%
This is seriously not good.
Well, now that Obama was re-elected, and the Dems actually increased their functional control of the Senate, we will have Obamacare enacted in full. Not to mention the fact that Obama may have a chance to appoint up to 3 or 4 additional Supreme Court Justices, in addition to the 2 statist liberal hacks that he has already foisted on the Republic. With these two items considered, one can see that Obama has the ability to have one of the most consequential presidencies in American history. Never mind that the consequences will be disasterous. But his legacy could permanantly alter the nature of this country for decades, if not permanantly.
Not to mention the fact that with 4 more years of a Holder ‘Justice’ department, the coercive power of regulatory agencies, and endless executive orders, I am not as sure as many that we have seen the last of BHO. After all, the 22nd Amendment is clearly racist in its effects at keeping the first black president from getting his 3rd term. Assuming this recent election wasn’t rigged, we may have just seen our last mostly free and fair election.
Excellent comment. I thought Rubio’s speech at the convention was sublime.
There’s been talk about that all over the web. How do you reach the Hispanics? They are the least educated minority group and they are heavy users of government. That’s why they vote democrat, not on account of immigration. Since the US is the brokest country in the history of the world (as Steyn puts it) it’s a little hard to make a lot of promises to them.
Brokest country in the world ever? How about Japan, with a debt that is 220% of GDP? Stateside, the Treasury can still sell billions in bonds for a paltry return of a percent or two. These mega investors aren’t worried. The well-known Democrat, er Republican, Dick Cheney famously said “Deficits don’t matter” Maybe he was right.
I think the difference between the US and Japan is that most Japanese debt is held by Japanese citizens. A lot of ours is owed to foreigners. Also, when you add in unfunded liabilites – medicare, social security, other pensions – I think we got Japan beat by a mile.
Yes, deficits don’t matter at all until they do,
Good grief, use common sense. Printing money leads to inflation, and the only reason the political class isn’t worried about it is that they’re paid by force and their pensions are defined benefit, not defined contribution. So they’re inflation-proof. Unlike the real economy.
If and when the economy picks up, all this printing of money will come back to bite very hard. But it will only bite the real economy, not the government economy, so our Progressive Masters and their willing subjects will come through just fine. The life of a taker is a good one: much more stable income, much less stress. Maybe we can _all_ be takers!
No it’s not good. The Dem Party has been very successful in radicalizing and politicizing people by race, and Hispanic activists are only too happy to help it along. We need a moratorium on immigration; that’s all there is to it.
You didn’t list the good candidates. There were several.
PJ Media, Breitbart, the TEA Parties and FOX are all new kids on the block.
This may well be what a good start looks like.
Keep writing, Roger. I for one am very appreciative of you and the many writers at PJ Media who have kept me informed during these dark days. I have linked to many of these articles on my Facebook page, with the effect that I have now been blocked by most of my progressive acquaintances; I guess it’s impossible to reach those who refuse to listen. You, Barry Rubin, Ron Radosh, J. Christian Adams, Andrew Klavan, Robert Spencer, Andrew McCarthy, Victor Davis Hanson, and David Goldman are now personal heroes of mine. May you all continue to speak the truth as you can best discern it. We are now fighting a rearguard battle for a lost position. I’m afraid that in the rest of my lifetime I may not experience an America that is as wonderful as the America that I grew up in. But if we keep the ideas of liberty and personal responsibility alive in our hearts and make an effort to transmit these values to our children, then perhaps somewhere down the line liberty can make a comeback. I’m afraid we may have to go through a terrible time before the renewal can occur.
Roger…You are wrong. There is no return from this election. The demographics no longer favor small govt. Indeed, the best thing the Republicans could do would be to step out of the way and let Obama have everything he wants. The only cure for this desire for socialism is to give it to the electorate lock, stock, and barrel. Just like making a kid smoke the whole back of smokes after getting caught with one.
It’s not going to happen anymore than your misguided belief that the culture can be re-captured. No, the only way this ends now is with bloodshed. Sad as that is to say….
Agreed – round up the minimum number of republican house members needed to get Obama’s program through the house. Minimal participation, that way it’s all Obama’s show. Don’t engage in any “grand bargain” negotiations. That’s what he wants to lay blame on REpublicans. Tell the media when they ask what the house plan is “go ask the president for his plan”.
I totally agree. Let them own it. Why prolong the agony. The wheels are going to fall off sooner or later in any case.
Welcome to California everyone. I have felt like a foreigner in my own state for years. Now I feel like one in the whole country.
This will not be solved by electing more good men. Crash and burn–then pick up the pieces.
A student told me today that she voted for Obama because she got her education loan interest reduced, and also because she got her health insurance last year. When I asked her about Bengazi, she said that that didn’t matter for her.
This is just one example that the future of this country is defined by schools, media, and the government that bribes young people with this kind of things.
I saw a truly horrific post on Facebook from a girl I knew in college who was STRONGLY against Mitt Romney (her words) because he was a Mormon and she didn’t believe a Christian should vote for a Mormon president. Seriously. I always thought that girl was at a little intelligent.
I truly wonder how many evangelicals and Catholics didn’t vote for Mitt because of his faith, not because of principles. And that sickens me.
Actually, one thing that pleased me was how little Romney’s religion mattered.
I read left and right wing sites (you have to know how your opponents think). Neither side seemed to care very much that Romney was a Mormon. I’m sure there were mainstream Christians that didn’t support Romney because of his religion. I’m also sure there was some sniping on the left. But I didn’t see any of it.
I am an agnostic. Frankly, I don’t see any difference between any of the Christian based religions. I’m sure if I studied the subject I’d see more differences between Catholics (Roman and Orthodox), Protestants (too many variations to mention) or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I know these variations matter to the believers just as they did in Russia back in the 17th Century when a civil war killed millions over the vital question of whether you crossed yourself with two fingers or three.
I have much criticism of Mitt Romney. He tried playing both sides of the fence so much that nobody could trust him. He ran a terrible campaign with one exception (he worked very hard to win the first debate and it showed). He failed to outline what he would do (saying he’d create 12 million jobs without saying how doesn’t help you). He was a weak campaigner and his choice of VP was a weak campaigner too.
But I really don’t think Romney’s choice of how to worship his God was a factor one way or the other.
That’s really how it should be.
Also, the number one immigrant group in terms of new arrivals to the US is not who you think it is.
It’s Asians.
And that trend will continue, what with the Asian economies stalling out big-time. The ones who can get out, are, and they’re bringing their talents and money with them. And yet, illegal immigration from Mexico has really slowed to a trickle.
I don’t know exactly what that means yet but I don’t think a lot of them are going to be voting Democrat.
Hi Dana;
I married a lady from Shanghai three years ago. She came fully equipped with a then-17-year-old male child. Through the courtship and marriage I’ve been to Asia several times. He attends a major university here.
The Chinese have been coming here [LA]since the late 70s. Like most Americans of that same period, they have been given a Liberal education in the best schools and local High Schools and JCs. They tend to vote, think and act along Democrat lines.
Our educational system, entertainment industries and media are all tilted to the Left. The people that are new here learn form all of it.
Education has long been the Achilles heel of our democracy. I remember back in the ’80s and the release of the report ‘A Nation at Risk’. It plainly laid out the problems we were facing way back then. The classic line from the report was that (I paraphrase) ‘If a foreign power had done this to our nation we would consider it an act of war.’ Having been in education for a lot of that time, I can tell you it has only gotten worse since then. So, being forewarned we did not do anything about it. On the other side, when Bill Ayres decided to put away his bombs, he went into ‘educating the educators’, thereby helping to indoctrinate successive waves of our nations students. If we can’t expunge this pervasive leftism that is involved in the entire educational experience, all else is lost.
The best way to do that is to go around public education via school choice, privatization, and vouchers funded statewide that follow the child.
The road block is the Teachers Unions and the Democrat Establishment.
This is the last straw for my white ‘tolerance’ in the USSA.
I have become completely disgusted with the majority of minorities and obese ‘poor people’ in this country as well as a good portion of women of all races in this country. I spit on all of you lazy @ss clowns, pot heads and loosey goosey whores who would have this country turned into a third world banana republic just so you don’t have to work and can get stuff from the people who do toil and labor before everything collapses.
People sucking off the gov teat should get dirty looks every time they whip out an EBT card because obviously people have no shame at all any longer when it comes to being parasites.
You low-life, no good for nothing, low i.q., brainless, brainwashed leftards should all be corralled into a holding pen and summarily aborted. I look forward to your collective, inept gray-matter circling the drain.
Bet that made you feel better too. Because about 10:00 PM last night, I was muttering about the same thing. Would have said out loud, but my wife would have booted me to the couch.
We need to talk to our audience and craft a simple message. And by that I mean we need to distill down a couple of basic messages – not in policy wonk terms but in plain old English. Because that’s what most of the people we’re trying to target understand:
1) “I never got a job from a poor man”. This is so common sense that even a college aducated youngster will understand it. And it will go a long way towrards inoculating against the Lefts “Kill the Rich” message.
2) “The government creates zero wealth. All it can do is confiscate and redistribute. Period”. Many if not most people are economically illiterate and literally think that government money comes at no cost. This basic statement, repeated often enough will counter the Left’s message that all good things come from government.
We need to start re-educating the American public and it needs to be done using simple, easy to articulate – and hard to refute – thoughts.
I think you have the right idea. Put some money into communicating very simple things – I mean really dumb it down as though you were talking to a 6th grader. Put it all over facebook. Maybe on television. I don’t know how you reach these young stupid women and explain to them that Uncle Sam is tapped out. My grandmother was an uneducated immigrant but she had common sense and readily comprehended that a government going bankrupt is a bad thing, and so is printing a lot of money.
Looking for a sugar daddy is second nature to women. Now, instead they can just have the state confiscate all men’s money and they can sleep around with who they want, abort babies to their hearts content, and generally destroy Western Civilization, with their Hedonism…unshackled from nature. Of course in Europe the new immigrants that are to replace the children that they didnt bother having so that they can keep the bennies flowing will have them wishing for the good ole days of the Christian order….but alas…
^This^
People don’t want to make the effort to do what’s right any more (referring to resentful “victims”). Being good means effort – Romney exemplified that, and he was rejected, maligned and despised for being a strong and accomplished person. There is no more media literacy, and no more decency, no more wisdom or desire to possess it.
“A country with 8 or who knows what percent real employment”
I think that’s UNemployment.
A country with 8 or who knows what percent real employment”
I think that’s UNemployment.
————————————————–
Just give it 4 more years.
Killjoy. Don’t worry. There is no joy left to kill.
I wonder if getting rid of the Electoral College has its merits. Then the candidates would have to make their arguments to the entire country and not just the swing states. I think the caucuses at first may have their points, retail politicking at its best, but we hardly saw any candidates in Minnesota in the general election until the ending, the popular vote shows a very close race and a divided country, the Electoral numbers dont tell us much, I agree the Republicans need to be better explainers than repeaters of mantras about free enterprise, but their audience needs to be bigger! But on the other hand, if all the left has to do to win is destroy the candidate!s character, arguments may not matter. Alinsky tactics obviously work. Republicans have to learn how to defend against these things, because they clearly work.
I believe that the conservative intellectual class is exhausted. And I blame it for continuing to apply its conventional wisdom concerning this country and its politics for two full decades after its sell-by date. (I’m not including Roger among these folks.) But I do blame people here like Roger Kimball, Andrew McCarthy, Michael Ledeen and Ron Radosh. And I especially blame the folks (all of them) at National Review and the Weekly Standard. You’ve all been living off the heritage of William F. Buckley and his crew from the 1950s. It must renew itself. It needs a new William F. Buckley or even a Disraeli to resurrect it. It’s time for our punditocracy to review these election results carefully and to re-imagine conservatism.
For example, Andrew Breitbart repeatedly said that the media needed to be completely discredited and perhaps destroyed before conservatism or even common sense could take hold. But every one of these conservative intellectuals acted like they need to wear gloves and a mask when they were near him. Instead they should have heeded his call to #WAR.
If we do not take back the universities and colleges, we will never be able to influence government again. Period.
Granny, I agree with you, but there is a more pressing issue. We are quickly running out of time – we don’t have a generation because we are spending $4,000,000,000 more a day than we have.
Indeed. That is the central conundrum. I think Im just not going to worry myself about it, and try to enjoy life as much as possible till the collapse comes.
Only then can we rebuild from the ashes. Let em have at it, let em own it. Let them totally discredit themselves to the point that Leftwingers are ostracized like Nazis are today.
Send your kids only to the “right” universities.
I think Chris Christie signed his death warrant with the national Republican party by chumming up to and with Obama in the wake of Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy. If Christie thinks he’s still got a shot at the GOP nomination for president in 2016, he’s inhaling something else besides oxygen.
No, Mike Pence will be ready by then.
Indeed.
I still see a quite a few delusional Christie supporters though…The Only Man that Can Save America! You know what Im saying.
I know, right? I only voted for Mitt Romney because my vagina didn’t know whether Barack Obama is The Only Man Who Can Save America, or Chris Christie!1!! Can I have a new iphone?
IMO, the best candidate for the Presidency with regards to the well being of the USofA was and is Sarah Palin.
Shame on me, but I haven’t voted since 1980, when I voted for RR. I knew this election was critical, especially since I live in a swing state. So I went and voted for Romney. There was a very, very long line at the polling place. I saw very few people that looked like me, or appeared to have a professional job as I do. By time I pushed the final touchscreen to cast my vote I knew it was lost cause.
Bullseye, Roger. Never before has such decisive action been required of the American people, not since the civil war anyway, and they came up short, seduced by a manana attitude to a perilous financial situation and (it’s impossible not to glumly agree) numbed by the idiocies of their education, the oversimplifications of the MSM and the soft banality of a frequently corrosive popular culture.
It’s shocking for an outsider to observe, watching Americans cut loose the virtues that made them great and their country powerful. When you contemplate the crooks, spivs, cheats, murderers and grubs who rule the roost outside the world’s sad, faltering democratic enclave, you realise that America is still the last best hope of the world . . but that hope is fading.
In a funny sort of way this moment recalls to my mind the shock I felt at the age of 16 when the US cancelled what remained of the Apollo program, with nothing to replace it. Here was an achievement like no other in history: the US had put a man on the moon from scratch in less than ten years! And yet by 1972 the country was exhausted and its adventurous spirit so emasculated that there was no equally grand vision – a permanent base, for example – to replace it. I thought then, and think now, that there was something almost eerie about this – a bizarre loss of confidence . .
Good luck America, because all sensible people everywhere in the world are as deeply concerned as all you sensible Americans are.
I would be a little more optimistic. At some point Obama will fail big time. There will be weak economic growth and most of it will be in the red states. There is no way O will do anything other than impede real economic progress in favor of his leftist fantasies.
O’s foreign policy will be an even bigger disaster. Benghazigate is about to explode.
The blue state model has been on life support and there isn’t much more the Federal government can do to keep it alive. But it will keep trying.
It will still be blamed on Bush and it will be successful. If that doesn’t work it will be “congress” who’s at fault. You know those mean republicans who won’t go along with Obama’s agenda.
Completely agree, James. Four years from now, we won’t be hearing Bush’s fault as much the overreaching Republican House that is thwarting Obama’s economic policies.
If these folk are deluded enough to call a debt rating downgrade not too much debt, can’t possibly be that, but lack of cooperation from an obstinate Congress, they’re dumb enough to believe anything.
These are the same folk who think Obama is doing yeoman’s work for Sandy support while people are begging for help in the streets and FEMA is no where to be found. The same folk who turn a blind eye to Ambassador’s death – they’ll call that a witch hunt if Obama charged. The same people that aren’t furious at a sitting President perjuring himself, but are mad a serial philanderer and rapist is being condemned for behavior.
There is half of America I have completely given up on and not worth saving. Barnyard animals are smarter, less helpless and more moral.
The electoral map shows that medium sized and larger cities vs the rest of us is what won the election. In Kentucky when viewing the US Rep District map there is a small blue dot which is Louisville. The other 5 districts are Republican.
It is up to small cities and towns to compete against the bigger ones. We can provide non-union labor that is cost efficient if we raise the academic standards at our elementary and high schools. Community Colleges which can teach a trade are also advantages for rural America. It is us against them, if you do crime in our areas you will be punished. We talk about the cost of Federal Government who has 2.9 million employees + .6 mil Post Office. State Gov 2.6 mil + 2.5 mil education and Local Gov 6.2 mil + 7.9 mil education. We have to leaner in every way so we can be competitive against the big city bretheren. It is appalling that Obama received 7.8 million less votes and still won because Romney got 1.1 mil less than McCain. In the swing states Romney gained 468,779 more and Obama had 1,216,649 less. WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL THIS VOTER ENERGY???
I would like to make a radical suggestion. The Republican Party never takes my suggestions, so I am sure as this cuts across the grain of conventional party wisdom, it will be summarily discarded. I’m going to give it shot anyway. What do I have to lose?
Why don’t we allow a measure of flexibility for our Republican House Representatives and this one time, call Obama’s bluff? Hear me out.
Obama may have won, but he’s out of bullets concerning the economy. Let Obama raise the marginal tax rate of the “rich” to 39.6%. Yes, for a small time it will cause a measure of pain for small business and high wage earners. House Republicans can frame it as their wish to be “bipartisan.” But…
A 4.6% tax increase isn’t going to scratch the surface of Obama’s ballooning debt. It probably will slow growth further for a period of item. It most certainly won’t fix what is ailing the economy. And it takes away the only economic soundbite these feckless libs used so effectively in the campaign.
We are dealing with bleating sheep with the same attention span. How many times did we hear the lines or hear the commercials…”The same failed policies that got us here?”
Now, I don’t know about you guys, but I certainly didn’t hear Mitt Romney say he was going to reinstitute credit default swaps with corrupted banks as his economic plan. Everybody on PJMedia is probably smart enough to recognize that absolute inanity of Obama’s claim.
But to bleating sheep, American Idol Marionettes, useful idiots, the deluded and unhinged?
Man, Obama has a great plan!
We need to quit trying to raise the level of discourse and dialogue and take some ebonics to the masses, gang. A five second soundbite of Republicans being able to use…”The same failed ideas that got us into this Obama mess….”
That’s golden in Rubeville.
I agree I think the republicans in congress should vote present for the next two years. Let them do whatever they want and own it.
It’s probably the only way to avoid being blamed…just go golfing. I just hope we don’t get nuked in the process….while the inner circle watches on video.
I come to you all as a soon to be small business man. I just wanted to tell you all this. I had hope, we all did, and deep down I still have it. It came to me today at work around 10:00. I had been depressed as all of us were at the election, but I suddenly found this new feeling rising up in me. I don’t care if he’s the president. I don’t care how powerful he is and how much of Hollywood is on his side. I intend on making my business go, and working my ass off until it’s a huge success, and I intend on doing this in spite of Obama!! Living well is the best revenge, someone once said, and I intend on making my business so successful that I can do that.
So, thank you President Obama, you gave me the inspiration I needed to get myselg going.
Matt,
What kind of business do you have? I have a small embroidery shop. Need any logo apparel?
I don’t actually have a business yet, though I’m currently in the saving up money process and hopefully will launch within the next year. My business is called “Tank’s Famous Cookies and Deserts” And will start out as selling unbaked cookies to various restaurants. The goal is to eventually work my way up to selling directly to the consumer. Maybe open my own shop someday.
Desserts. Unless you want to compete with the Sahara.
Good point, I don’t want people to think I sell cookies and sand.
Read this somewhere. Conservatives believe what they see. Democrats see what they believe. Something to think about.
These are the words that inspired Ted Kennedy. He liked them so much he had them enscribed on a plaque and hung it on his Senate office wall.
In the spectrum of the definitions of just exacly what insanity is, this is only one of two that passes the smell test.
The other one was from Eistein (to paraphrase):
“The definition is repeating the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result.”
Get ready for end times…
“A country with 8 or who knows what percent real employment,” — you meant “unemployment.” Why don’t you employ a copyeditor?
So now, we watch the “Republicans” give in on the Tax Increases, so as to avoid the fiscal cliff. And, the Democrats and Obama will never reduce the excessive spending. Just continue as the past 4 years.
Yep! That is their plan.
Starting with Dr. Spock and continuing through Madeline Murray O’Hare [no school prayer], pass-fail for core curriculum courses, bi-lingual education [LAUSD teaches the 3Rs in 140 languages now], illegal immigrants, preferential placement in education and jobs based on ethnicity [racism], and more, our institutions of government have moved away from the principles that are necessary for a democratic republic to work. We have been educated away from individual performance and concern for our fellow man. Our leaders and religions are mocked by millionaires like Bill Maher on the one hand, and Rush Limbaugh on the other.
Our middle class is being starved by the top 1-3% [Soros and the Kochs]who keep excessive profits rather than pay a salary that would permit a head of household to support that household with a stay-at-home-mom [if she chooses], send the 2.3 kids to college with no loans, buy a house and buy a car. This nation has not been able to say or do that since 1974.
We in the middle pay most of the tax revenue that runs this greedy pigpile called a government.Yet, we were not represented at all by either candidate.
The very poor and the very rich have long enjoyed great representation by both Red and Blue parties.
This malaise has its roots in economics, but the bitter fruit is in the absense of a parent at home. The result is that kids today grow up a little closer to sociopathic because of this. Look at the young people in the shopping malls, on the Blue Line train, on the subway, on the campus, in the jobsite. Now, look at the drug use, tattooes and crime rates. These are the people who will make the decisions soon.
There is no reason for it. Except for greed at the top, and greed at the bottom in the form of cottage-industries set up along ethnic lines to fleece the middle class through federal programs and grants designed to lead the recipients out of poverty but in reality teach them how to game the system.
It will end when the great middle class stands up and says, “No.” ‘No’ to the top, and ‘not so much’ to the bottom.
I don’t hear that and I certainly don’t see it— even a long way off. And Alan West is only one man.
It’s going to be rough. Chris Rock hit it right on the head when he said a re-elected Obama will be an Obama on crack.
Stay aware.
Wrong. we’re raising eight kids on one salary, eight tuitions this year, no real vacations, no real wardrobe, crappy cars. Greed comes in all sizes, even middle-class. We were able to buy a nice large house this year because other people had to dump their unaffordable McMansions over the past few years, and it put a nice damper on prices. We don’t earn much so we aren’t taxed much and we don’t spend much.
Just read where West has filed a lawsuit and is demanding a hand recount of all ballots from his race in St. Lucie county, FL.
I’ve been harboring the thought all day and guess I’ll just always wonder if Romney’s concession was premature.
I’m sure it was. It should have been contested just to discourage future mischief.
In my heart of hearts I’ll never believe this “win” wasn’t obtained fraudulently.
As Paul Gable points out in his essay linked at No. 132 below, “Master Plan to Steal an Election,” things just don’t add up. They’re counting on us not having the guts to pursue it to enable them to hide in plain site, just as they have with all the other instances of blatant fraud we’ve let them get away with.
I’m so glad West is a fighter. Wish it were contagious.
Yep.
Nice guys finish last, when facing the Chicago machine. Mr. Smith isnt going to Washington.
The problem is much deeper and not easily recoverable. The problem is that the modern western society does not need too many working people, handful percent at best. The remaining population gets liberal arts degrees etc, and survives by doing nothing useful for society. The wealth created by those working few cover needs of everyone, spread by elaborate tax system.
Those receiving, however, have more votes than those working. They naturally vote for more socialism as this is what they are interested in. The workers will flee (today it is from CA to TX) and the society will crash. To prevent this, you need workers to outnumber the receivers, but this is impossible: with today’s productivity their output will be impossible to consume.
You cannot cure this with education: more socialism means immediate gain for receivers, and trying to obscure this by brainwashing is futile. The system is fundamentally unstable, so probably at this level of productivity one needs something different from democracy (or at least universal voting) for the society to be stable.
Universal enfranchisement is problematic in and of itself….not dependent upon productivity levels.
What we are seeing is the natural result of universal enfranchisement. The Founders discussed this, this isnt some unperceived hiccup.
We do indeed have a lot of work to do and no better time to start than the leadership at the top of the party. We knew the democrats were not going to have the turnout that they had in 2008. That turned out correct. Obama polled about 10 million votes less. The Republicans were supposed to have the energy this year…chomping at the bit to get out and vote. What happened? Romney got 3 million less votes than McCain….3 MILLION…..in an election year when everything should have lined up for a victory. Someone needs to pay for that debacle.
Roger, you and many others today have called it correctly, the education system, the media, and the arts are now driving the agenda, and they are far to the left of the majority.
I’m a Canadian, and now very scared and truly unhappy with yesterdays result. I’m with Mark Steyn, America was the last hope and it is now clearly headed down the slippery slope to the failed European socialist model.
I read recently on one of the many great blogs a critique of O for doing so many events at college campuses, I would suggest that looking at the poll results by age reveals how smart that plan actually was.
And if you are sad down there about the apparent demise of conservatism, consider that O would have won by 80-20 here in Canada, and our young folks have been completely cut off from reality, a friend of my daughter, both in 4th year university and doing very well academically, tweated yesterday that they should consider suicide if Romney won, as he was going to outlaw not only abortion but all forms of birth control as well. When I asked where she had heard this, she said from her Sociology prof!, who said our PM Harper would be only to happy to immediately follow suit as he is a closet Republican! WoW, it will take a great deal of leg work and I’m afraid very many years to root this out. Good luck to us all.
Like it or not conservatives will need to start tackling the Left at its roots. The Jewish Conservative knows the Jewish Liberal is beholden to Europe and its caste system and not to America and I am sure many of us sees minorities now making the same miserable mistake. The Left is about accepting 2nd class citizenship status if someone else gets 3rd or 4th class status. Minorities in America are creating an elite among themselves and will be left out in the cold. This is the message we need to spread. We need to not say are you with us or against us but instead are you someone’s willing slob. I saw Democratic Party voter fraud yesterday but it was not against the Republicans but against the Working Families Party. The win was in sight and now the local politicians were fighting for their own. We never revealed Obama’s mother and grandfather. We never showed how he is a front for those who would make Europe king again. We should start now.
I am an avid reader of this site from another country, and we have the same problem where the people here have a “freeness mentality” and are not willing to work hard and better themselves. I was watching the results on the television network here and I am telling you, your MSM takes the cake, I could not find one neutral person on the set, you know who they were rooting for. To tell you the truth, I wanted Mr. Romney to win as he seems like the best person to take US out of the rut but it seems like an uphill task to get him elected.
I find that this generation of young people likes what can the government gives me and not what can I do to help to build my country. Give them “sweet words” with no meaning and they will gravitate towards it. Give them the raw truth of the state the country is in and what needs to be done, and they will do not want that. So I would not say Mr. Romney was a bad choice, just that the people do not want to hear that they have to work hard to help build the country.
To them freeness is a benefit and an entitlement just like what I am experiencing here. I really wish you all the best and hope and pray that the US does not reach the way of Greece. This is my opinion.
Great site.
I had the same feeling for about 3 weeks now. I could just feel that Obama would steal the election, the Dems have been stealing votes for 230 years, no need to stop now. They are nothing but a vote-buying voter-fraud criminal syndicate and always have been since they called themselves Anti-Federalists.
I fought that feeling tooth and nail. I’ve been reading everything I possibly could to convince myself I was wrong, but it never went away. I’ve been repeating over and over that the American people aren’t that stupid, surely the poor folks know that they’re going to cut their own hours by 25% once Obamacare becomes law. The working poor just voted to give themselves a 25% pay cut. Who’d a thunk it? How can it be?
But the reason is easy to understand. Obama offered nothing in his campaign except lies that stoked resentment and hate. The Democratic base is all about hate, they’d rather suffer themselves than allow their foes to win. Without their resentment it might be necessary to look in the mirror and recognize the failure there. The reason for the lack of success is poor choices, whether drink, drugs, getting someone else or getting pregnant without marriage, etc. It’s so much better for the self-esteem to pretend that it’s all the fault of mean old conservatives, and without that resentment their empty, meaningless lives would be even more empty. So they voted themselves a pay cut, not one of the working poor will have a 40-hour work week in a year or so. Part-time forever.
But at least they’ll still have their hatred to keep them warm.
Hatred won. Remember that. McCain and Romney were ‘nice’ guys who lost. Remember that. The Republican Party is dead. What we need is a conservative party that is willing to fight. Fighting is dirty, bloody, deadly, etc. It is not for the lazy or complacent.
That the election was about “the economy” was a head fake that most people bought. Group identity trumps fundamentals every time. Obama started with a 20% advantage with black and Hispanic voters considering him as one of their own. America ceased to be a melting pot long ago, it’s time to put that hallowed myth to rest. From now on it’s a tail-wagging-the-dog situation. (As a Canadian I’m painfully aware of this dynamic with regard to Quebec.)
A friendly tip to my American friends: If you want to keep your country and your traditions quit importing millions of foreigners from a different culture. It might not be too late if you build that fence now.
Have you guys solved your Paki problem since I lived there? Our problem is a growing dependency on government by people of all stripes. I am still hopeful that, after exhausting all other possibilities, we will get this mess straightened out.
We’ve still got several large clumps of poorly assimilated immigrants in the major cities. However, they have not resolved into significant voting blocks, either because of numbers or inclination. By way of evidence I would point out that we’ve had a Conservative government for the last six years and it’s current mandate extends to 2015.
Immigration reform has been underway for a while now and is largely uncontroversial. The new criteria require skills that are in demand, language competence, application through the proper channels, etc. The old days (i.e. Liberal Party) of admitting extended third-world families are over.
Admittedly, this is easier for us to do than for you. Apart from the occasional rusty bogus refugee ship that makes it across the Pacific, new arrivals pretty much have to come in through the airports. Walking across the border is not really an option.
I don’t mean to sound smug. The proportion of ignorant and self-deluded voters in Canada is probably as high as in the U.S. However, the parliamentary system only requires a plurality of seats to form government and the largest chunk of votes has gone to the Conservatives over several elections now. (They currently have an actual majority, which is why progress has been faster of late.)
Canada still has 90% European population. There is hope for Canada still.
Bingo Jim303.
The Chinese and Japanese have had their ups and downs, but they still survive and thrive. Importing colonists from foreign and hostile cultures is a path for self destruction. Not only will you be down, but out for good. There is no bouncing back.
White Europeans have to grow some balls and impose their interests and cultural dominion in the face of vitriolic hatred from minority groups. It’s as simple as that.
Well, now we are almost at war! within our boarders. Anyone without to much of a stretch can see “US” battling in one of the (so called) great cities prior to 2016. Likely a union strike that gets really out of hand, say New York, with the Nanny Mayor, or LA again. There will likely not be any reaching across any isle. “O” is diminished, GOP. our dollar, our personal values. My fellow citizens voted to keep their stuff. I’m old enough to remember and know “Stagflation” and its not good. Forget the stock market, look at the cost of milk, bread and peanut butter. Commodities will tell the tale and rather quickly. Roger can roll his sleeves way up, for me I purchasing more .556 because I am afraid of my government and what its capable of
I still think we as a nation are in deep trouble thanks to last night’s debacle, but I’ve had a little time to think about it, and what might, just might, save us yet.
The “culture war” over gay marriage and abortion is lost, even if the social conservatives don’t want to admit it. I’ve felt this way for some time, but I really believed that Obama’s horrible economic record would trump that fact.
What I’ve read and heard both before and after last night shows that I was wrong. The supposed Romney-Ryan campaign against abortion was a Big Lie, and people who believed it were ill-informed idiots. Anyone who votes based on gay marriage, not trillions in debt, higher taxes, and oncoming economic armageddon is an idiot, but those idiots, known as the under-thirty voter, still have the right to vote.
The GOP needs to change with the times, and that means dumping the emphasis on social issues. They worked great for Reagan, and they got W over the line, but their usefulness as an electoral tool has expired.
I’m a social libertarian anyway, so the above suggestion is easy to make. A harder pill for me to swallow is the likelihood that the GOP may have to change its stance on immigration. We need to start getting a larger slice of the Hispanic vote, and we may have to take a second look at some sort of amnesty for illegal aliens. That sucks, but I see it as a necessary price to pay for avoiding the financial disaster coming if the Democrats remain in power.
Abortion has been lost twice over.
Not just whether it should be legal or not, but ALSO if people getting them should be held responsible for paying for them.
Might I suggest the GOP treat family planning as what it is, one of the most important economic decisions women and men make. Enough of those gestures that imply to women that a GOP-filled court will not only reverse RvW, but a conservative administration will handover HHS and other agencies to anti-contraception ideologues. And, firmly call out a sex-tourist like Limbaugh when he equates young women having sex with being a voracious slut.
Maybe we should all do a Pliven and go on welfare, get food stamps, free cell phones, gov’t Spam and cheese and overload the system.
Shove the spam and cheese in the gas tanks of the secret service and IRS.
That’s even better than the ol’ banana in the tailpipe trick!
Hey, Delia.
Don’t be scarce.
Mr. Simon, better late than never. You are making the very same point that Weyrich and Lind made with their 2009 book, “The Next Conservatism,” namely – that in the contest between politics and culture, the latter always trumps the former. Since the Reagan Revolution in 1980, the GOP has won election after election, but still America has become more and more leftist. Why? Because popular culture is leftist to its core, and culture trumps politics. In truth, the GOP surrendered in the culture wars years ago, and are difficult to distinguish from the left at this juncture. If real conservatives hope to change that state of affairs, it means either building an alternative to the GOP or tearing it down and rebuilding it from within. We’re tried the latter the last two elections, and it hasn’t worked. The GOP is finished as a national force. The real question is – what comes after it?
I seem to have lost my country. Has anybody seen it?
Try history.com.
Where where the voters? How could the “one” lose 10 million and still win? How could Romney get fewer votes than John McCain who barely ran a campaign? How could the 5% of the former Obama voters – 3,000,000 who switched not help the challenger? We have more problems than message. People don’t think anything is all that bad, it will self correct – they live in a bubble too.
Roger,
I totally agree. In that vein I’m thinking a quirky movie about Drudge and the Drudge report would be a good start. Hollywood continues to show the right as the entrenched establishment and the left as the more moral ‘rebels’ and whenever I see a movie like that I’m so confused – since it’s so obviously the opposite now. So how about an “All the President’s Men” for the new generation? I’d be happy to write it:)
Our only alternative is investigating and prosecuting the Benghazi slaughter.
I’m sad. I had predicted a 330 Romney win and a 50/50 senate. I’m 53 years old. The America I knew is over. Business will go Galt for the next four years. Why bother trying to grow when Ø is there grinning ready to sweep away your wealth to buy votes with it? Why bother indeed.
Oh come on Roger, I doubt your position was so much different from mine. It was obvious that Romney never caught fire, he sure as hell wasn’t 10 points ahead, and we didn’t trust the MSM polls with their big Democratic pluralities – even when some of them said they chose randomly and just ended up with that many more Democrats, time after time. That itself was a result. Still, it looked like there might be some chance on election night, and we’d been pleasantly surprised before.
So yes, we did so think Romney might win, and had both subjective and objective reasons for thinking so.
What hit last night is that it ALL went for Obama. It wasn’t that Romney lost, that was at least not a shock. But that it wasn’t even close. That hurts on the facts, and it hurts as a surprise, and it hurts because it energizes the brainless leftwads, and finally it hurts because it presages a world of hurt for our country and the world, the likes of which it is hard to imagine without being shocked at our own comments.
But we don’t need revision and denial on our own thoughts.
On the other hand, maybe that’s exactly what we need, and a case of scotch.
It is time to give the Dems lots of rope. They were able to blame the House for “stonewalling” progress over the last election cycle. Don’t give them that excuse again. Make sure our defense capabilities don’t go in the toilet but let the Democrat crazies play their game. The rest of the country better get used to this. We have seen these unfunded promises becoming supercharged in CA for over a decade. It will not end pretty, actually very miserably, but it is what the voters voted for. Some future leaders will have to pick up the pieces if that is possible.
It’s probably just a temporary thing, but for today anyhow, I’m inclined to agree. Give the Dems whatever they want, tax increases, tariffs, green energy subsidies, cap and trade, ever more regulation, student loan forgiveness, expanded welfare, home mortgage forgiveness, debt ceiling increases, annual trillion plus dollar deficits, the horrors the EPA is poised to unleash, whatever. As Prof. Reynolds is wont to remind us, what can not continue will not continue. We’ll be in world-wide depression in no time. Addicts often need to hit bottom. Let’s introduce them to bottom. And sooner rather than later.
America has abandoned reason for hand-outs (that were stolen from their fellow Americans)
Move to Texas, folks. The shiz is going to hit the fan.
The heck with overcoming the margin of fraud. The real task is to overcome the margin of government cheese.
Work doing what? Trying to tell a bunch of lazy moochers there simply ain’t no such thing as a free lunch? That things that cannot go on forever, won’t? That you cannot borrow your way out of debt, any more you can tax your way into prosperity?
These people are morons. The American electorate are stupid for picking this miserable clueless jerk as its president, for a second time. He could not even bring greater racial harmony about, and they still voted for him.
Its lost, its over. The crash is coming. There are too bloody many of them and they simply do not believe the teats will dry up. Screw it. When the bus is heading off the cliff, the best thing to do is make your way to the rear and get a parachute ready. You can’t save them from themselves.
The fraud is right in front of us; we just don’t want to be laughed at for pointing to the obvious. “Master Plan to Steal an Election” at http://www.brushfires-of-freedom.com/steal-an-election.html
Culture is the mother of politics and philosophy is the mother of culture. A country’s ideas determine its fate.
The abandonment of faith in God is at the root of all our troubles. From belief in and relationship with the Almighty, humans rightly order their activities on earth. Without God, they kill unborn humans and give in to base desires, trampling one another in the process. The only hope for America is a return to faith in God. Yes, some may be morally upright without faith in God, but He is the source of all moral good, whether those without faith in Him but with good morals realize it or not.
I think the Republicans should vote yes on every single thing that Obama and Reid propose. Let the fools who voted this man in reap what they sow. You won. Now choke on it.
Please stop responding to Vladimir Estragon, he’s a leftist troll who used to write for the Village Voice, back in the 70′s when it was a hippie paper. He had a column called “Waiting for Dessert” it was a cute food column, however it was a leftist rag.