Leftism: ‘Forget It, Jake. It’s Chinatown.’
I went shopping with my family on New Year’s Day at the “premium” outlet mall in Cabezon, California, outside Palm Springs — the kind of place where you traipse around for hours in the hopes of scoring a $225 Prada tie for 30 bucks, or a $700 Versace sweater for $135.
A large number, possibly a majority, of the shoppers there are well-heeled Chinese who have flown over to binge on Yves Saint Laurent, etc. products — many of which were made in their home country in the first place. Dressed in designer clothes, these mostly young and trendy Chinese are the privileged scions of the Communist Party. Their parents and grandparents are the ones who played along and did their best not to make waves, even cooperated, throughout the mass murders of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.
Now, they and their kids are reaping the harvest of their modern state capitalist system that still flies under the banner of communism, a false flag operation if ever there was one. Ironies abound, and those same ironies provide a snapshot of what constitutes “leftism” in our own culture.
Idealism is not the point, nor has it been for ages.
Leftism has devolved into a kind of scam run not only on others but also on the self. Leftists are brilliant at convincing themselves of their own altruism and then broadcasting it to the public, thus providing cover for the most conventionally greedy and selfish behaviors. We see that in our society all the time: the quondam Marxists of Hollywood, the media, and the academy blathering on about economic equality while living lives the Medici could not have dreamed of.
Part of this construct is a “prevent game,” a public persona and system erected so privilege cannot be questioned or undermined. A nomenklatura more successful and sophisticated than anything ever conceived in the Soviet Union. The result of this is a highly stratified society. As is well known but scarcely reported, blacks and Latinos have actually done worse under Obama than other groups. Normally, that would be unconscionable, considering the rhetoric. But as we know, it’s all about the rhetoric. Reality is unimportant — an inconvenience.
Relatively unbridled capitalism has always been the best way out of this, the best way to true social mobility, but our nomenklatura doesn’t want to admit this because it might threaten them and their perquisites. It would blow their cover.
I suspect those Chinese shoppers knew this better than anyone, having lived through a similar experience ratcheted up to the nth degree. Although I was too polite to do it, I wanted to question them. I would have loved to know what they say to each other in the privacy of their own homes, not that they would be likely to tell me.
But there was something to learn from watching them. I felt like a detective and it made me think of Roman Polanski and Robert Towne’s Chinatown. I also thought of myself, of the way I was when I was a leftist. Yes, I drove a Porsche then (a used one). And had a house in the Hollywood Hills. And ate at gourmet restaurants. And there were plenty like me. I was part of a class. I felt safe and protected for many years, though finally I just left it. I couldn’t stand the hypocrisy anymore. Or maybe I just lost the ability to convince myself of my own altruism.
Whatever the case, when it comes to the truth about leftism, it’s about the cover it gives. Or, as Bob Towne put it: “It’s Chinatown.”
I have spent many years in work and recreation in places like New England, especially eastern Massachusetts and Cape Cod, Philadelphia, and less frequently around New York City. Boston and eastern Massachusetts folks are the exemplars of the modern nomenclatura and privileged professional elites: academics, educators, nonprofits, professionals, investment types in particular.
They talk about justice and fairness and warm and cozy liberal values, yet their own lives belie those stated principles. I learned more shady tax avoidance schemes from friendly dinner conversations than I did in rigorous tax law seminars, it seemed none of these folks wanted to actually be subject to those righteous tax rates themselves.
Their charity consisted of demanding new government programs paid by others, not private charities other than libraries, NPR, or university projects for which they could get something on campus named for them or their family. Minorities, especially blacks, were given profuse lip service in the abstract, while in the particular I heard the worst kinds of slurs.
The Boston area up to date elites seem to particularly despise the local Portuguese population, particularly after a cocktail or two or more (they also tend to drink liberally), more than once I was disdained after offering a cheerily favorable story about some lovely Portuguese seasiders I had known and socialized with. I thought some business associates in the Carolinas were egregious in some of their racial attitudes, but they had nothing on the smarmy and two-faced sophisticated Northeasterners in their smug leftist cocoon.
They would fit right in with the crony corporatists in present-day China.
I kind of feel like we’ve moved to the phase where those Leftist Elite types know that we know, and the enjoyment they get comes from pointing and laughing at us and telling us that there’s nothing we’re going to do about it.
“the enjoyment they get comes from pointing and laughing at us and telling us that there’s nothing we’re going to do about it”
And why do ya think they all hate the Second Amendment so much,constantly calling it dirty names and trying to bury it?
They wont be able to let out that last, final sigh of utterly complacent relief, until they DO
They will not succeed in getting rid of the 2nd Admendment but they will succeed in starting civil war and a revolution rolled into one. And they’ll fall just like the aristocratic French, Russian, etc ad nauseum have done throughout history. History has apparently taught them nothing.
You hit the nail on the head. I always get frustrated with Dennis Prager when he talks about the naive liberal who places equality above all other ends. I don’t know anyone like that. I live on the west coast and every liberal I come into contact with is smug. They acted that way when Clinton committed his felonies and they act like it now. When I point out to my liberal friends how they are hypocritical for supporting expensive social policies and higher taxes for the rich, and then they spend lots of money on tax professionals to not just reduce, but in some cases, almost entirely eliminate their tax liability.
Smugness is the hallmark of modern liberalism. They don’t believe any of their own bs and they think is funny when you call them on their inconsistencies because they think they can get away with it. They aren’t naive, liberals are cynical and petulant and couldn’t care less about the damage they are doing to our standard of living. They just want to win the argument and they think it is funny when conservatives play by the rules and pay the taxes that they avoid. They love it when I point out their inconsistency on preemptive war waged by Clinton in Serbia/Kososvo and Obama in Libya vs Bush in Iraq. They smirk when I point out that Obama has carried out more drone attacks than Bush, with more fatalities and collateral damage, and they don’t say anything about it.
This is about a group of people with similar personality traits who are reaching the point where they can accurately be called nihilists. Our country will never be the same and they don’t care as long as Obama can smugly go on television and gloat about his victory over the Republicans on the fiscal cliff or any other issue.
I like to refer to them as “the doucheousie.” (Not my neologism, alas – first saw it in a comment over at David Thompson’s place, IIRC.)
Doucheocrat
9 up, 10 down
Douche bag + Democrat = Doucheocrat. A zealous big-government-loving member of said political party. Doucheocrats can be typically characterized as surly, condescending, authoritarian-minded douche bags who think that their anti-individual political beliefs are the be-all and end-all of humanity. A doucheocrat suffers from a certain psychological disorder, sometimes described as LWA (left-wing authoritarianism). Because of their self-absorbed nature, doucheocrats frequently make retarded statements like “Jimmy Carter really was a great president” or “you’re gonna get your national health care, like it or not, you dumb hicks!” or “we should invade Darfur and convert those people to veganism”.
Doucheocrats will twist reality, undermine civil liberties, common sense and every moral boundary in their lust for expanding government and grabbing power over “the sheeple”. A doucheocrat will wrap this lust for world domination in syrupy, do-gooder rhetoric and label anyone who stands in their way as “lacking compassion” or “bigoted”. Doucheocrats believe in taking innocent people’s money and giving it to corporate gangsters, bureaucratic whores and sleazy women. Through extensive social engineering and heavy taxation, doucheocrats aspire to make every man woman and child a homogenized, uncreative zombie living completely dependent upon their pagan establishment.
Paul Krugeman, Barney Frank, the staff of the New York Times
“man, my congressman is a real doucheocrat. All he does is vote to raise my taxes and impose more laws upon me! Why can’t he realize that I would just like to have my hot girlfriend and be left alone?!!
Couldn’t agree more Roger. Such hypocrisy, such self-delusion.
But help me here: how in heaven’s name do we engage the culture when so much of the culture is simply a sham? My suggestion for PJMedia this year is to give concrete examples of people who are breaking the mold and successfully engaging in the culture wars.
For example, how do I engage Kayne and Kim—as his heroic baby mamma when all I feel is disgust for this role modeling?
Just asking.
Who are Kayne and Kim?
No, seriously, who are they?
Jersey Shore cast members? Or the kinds of people that voluntary viewers of that show would know (and even admire?)
Kanye West.
Kim Kardashian.
Lee, that’s a great question. My short answer is I don’t know who they are. Two people the world follows unrelentingly but I have no idea why. The woman is on some reality show which I’ve never seen. However, they are in our faces online all the time and now that she’s his ‘baby mamma’ seems to be a heroine to the masses. To me it’s all so low life.
Yes, his “baby mama” now carrying his child while she is not yet divorced from her husband that she was married to for only 72 days. I am ashamed to admit I know this BUT only because, like you said, it is shoved down our throats as some type of “news” all over the internet.
No; please no. The various ‘big’ sites do that and I find them a bore. I’d rather talk about big ideas and cultural currents than some so and so said such an such.
But anyway; its already being done. Just on other sites.
I was just thinking about this the other day. For the liberals it’s all about spewing the leftist rhetoric, then doing whatever the hell you want to do. As long as you publicly proclaim the gospel of progressivism, you can be as capitalistic, chauvanistic, racist, and elitist as you want. Just make sure you make all the proper mea culpas to the lib establishment if you’re exposed as the hypocrite you are, and you’ll do fine. There’s really only one crime for liberals and that’s not being a liberal.
This is their religion. They remind me of the stereotypical southern preacher–full of fiery sermons about his parishoners’ sinful nature.
One day the preacher sees an attractive teenage boy in the congregation. That day’s sermon excoriates the congregation for their feelings of sinful lust. And he condemns the whole world to hell for its tolerance of homosexuality. The preacher himself is thus cleansed of sin.
So? A good preacher is always preaching to himself first.
Roger, just the fact that you converted (saw the truth) gives me hope that others in Holywood may aquire some humility and see what hypocrits they are.
They mock Capitalism ,the hand that feeds them. Where is the logic?
Hollywood = Hollywon’t .
And Hollywood just got hundreds of millions in pork/corporate welfare in the fiscal cliff negotiations.
I once had a man who owned a 44-ft. powerboat anchored in the canal behind his Boca Raton home tell me that he thought it offensive when I stated over dinner that a cherished American goal is to “strive for prosperity.” He and his wife found the word “prosperity” odious.
So, I asked, if not “prosperity,” then what should Americans strive for? “Adequacy” was the reply I got back. You heard right — adequacy. And they didn’t mean “adequacy” to include a 44-ft. powerboat tied up behins their $750K Boca Raton home either. Assholes. They weren’t even at the level of affluence that Roger has mixed in, and yet they had pretensions of “liberal” “idealism.”
I once had a man who owned
What the . . . . ? Sorry folks — I’ve never “had a man” as that is not my orientation
I meant I once “knew a man, etc . . .”
“Typing while distracted” . . . . sigh . . . .
it’s OK dl, we understand it’s a shorthand for, “once upon a time we had an example I’m going to tell you about, this man who …”
one can quibble the tenses a bit, but the meaning is clear.
GMTA!
Though I should have come up with a catchier title for this one:
Our mortal enemies: Environmentalists and the New Class Elite
Your powerboat owner is threatened by the ambitions of others, simply because he cannot stand the idea that someone else is doing well. This petty resentment is the basis for much that is called “liberalism” nowadays. Nothing terrifies this man and people like him quite so much as the idea of other people doing well in life. People like him want others to strive for “adequacy” because doing so is the surest path to mediocrity. This allows him to win his game of covert one-upsmanship by default.
Some people foolishly try to keep up with the Jones. This guy and his ilk spend their effort trying to keep the Jones down.
You got it!
This ties into something that I realized a couple of years ago, which is that leftism is basically a politized form of narcissism. Leftists have a very strong need to convince themselves that they are morally and intellectually superior to everyone else. One of their most effective tactics for doing so it to make it politically unacceptable to question them.
Leftist are basically feudalists.
Yes, the New Feudalism.
They will live in huge heated mansions with servants and we will freeze in the dark. They will have armed guards to protect their children and we will have to take our chances.
As a matter of fact, some of the most ardent leftists I know are heavily involved in the Society for Creative Anachronism because they long for a medieval society in which there is a place for everyone and everyone knows their place. Of course, they do not envision themselves as peasants but as members of the tiny ruling elite.
Absolutely. Liberals are narcissists and their political affiliation is one of the primary outward manifestations of their false sense of superiority. They want to believe that they are better, smarter, more moral, etc. Their political affiliation is their way of showing these false beliefs to the world. That is why they get so personally offended if you have the temerity to criticize the government or a public policy they favor. Again, Dennis Prager told a story recently about when he started as a public speaker 20-30 years ago, he was shocked when liberal members of he audience would inevitably come up to him afterwards and tell him that they were personally offended by what he had said. Prager said he never singled out individuals or groups for criticism at that point, he would scrutinize ideas and policies. Yet, these liberals took his criticism personally.
I also remember noticing this when Clinton was talking about Reagan’s famous quote “”In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” At the time I was struck by the fact that Clinton was really angry about this, red faced. It wasn’t in any way referring to him. However, Clinton is the ultimate narcissist and he cannot countenance anyone questioning the policies and beliefs that upon which his false sense of superiority rest.
Excellent observation!
This also explains their revulsion for facts and logic, which would expose them as the hypocritical poseurs they are.
Since leftists are always congratulating themselves on how smart they are, I would add this corollary to your thesis:
Liberalism allows people to feel intelligent without actually having to be intelligent.
That’s a good point, Chris. Most of today’s self-styled “intellectuals” are actually nothing of the sort.
totally; it goes back to the whole marxist thing. They have these [magic] books they played up as being so impenetrable and brilliant only geniuses, like them, could get it.
Anyway; I even give Marx more credit than most conservatives… but still; they treated his work as a talisman so they could play themselves up for reading it.
“leftism is basically a politized form of narcissism”
You have captured it exactly. If you read up on NPD (Narcissistic personality Disorder), you will find described there most of the extreme liberals that we see daily in politics, in the MSM and even among our acquaintances. In fact here in the USA, I think we have somehow created a young population with decidedly narcissists tendencies – and this does not bode well for our future.
Congratulations Cousin Dave! Politicized narcissism is exactly what liberal thought, advocacy boils down to. That explains completely why Obama, or whoever he is, is such a “King”, in the Elvis sense, among the liberal elite. He is the most grand example since the fellow that gave the personality disorder its name. The last thing a narcissist wants is attention taken away. Agreeing with or even giving potential credence to any idea at odds with his belief nicks the self-love. Can’t have that.
The whole point of being a leftist is that you get to play God while looking down on your supposed inferiors.
Chinatown or the Wizard of Oz? Toto … I mean Roger, you just pulled up the curtain.
Excellent column, Roger. Keeper.
Can’t add a word to it.
However on a slightly related note, I’ve been half-listening to Rush Limbaugh all morning and thought he was mostly a bit rusty from his vacation, but he finally got around to what I think is a cogent and related thought, that through this entire kerfuffle on “fiscal cliff”, NOBODY is talking about helping the economy, actually building stuff or even having jobs. The Democrats think that the economy comes from government largesse, and the Republicans don’t seem able to turn the concepts into arguments or actionable legislation.
The pumps don’t work cuz the vandals took the handles.
Re:
“The pumps don’t work cuz the vandals took the handles.”
…excellent.
We all know that is a line from Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” right?
This is what it looks like when a society divorces itself from God. The worst and most selfish impulses are excused (sure have sex with a barnyard animal, just sell the meat to a neighbor) as long as you mouth public pieties.
Doing the genuine hard work of loving your neighbor as yourself gets outsourced to a large, impersonal, faceless other of government.
I don’t want to live under a theocracy, but I also don’t want to live in a Godless society.
I think that is the undercurrent of VDH much commented on essay.
Hilarious and true. Have sex with a barnyard animal, just don’t wear its hide and remember to buy a PETA calendar. I can’t follow the logic of liberals and stopped trying a few years ago.
Is there a point when moral relativism looks a lot like immorality absolute?
History records that it always ends the same….Canibalism.
Ann Coulter famously summed up the fullness of Leftism as being a Solar Powered Abortion Machine.
The hilarity of that visual is tempered by the fact that Taxpayers will of course pay for all of it.
I look forward to the day after the day it all comes crashing down.
I will take a deep breath, roll up my sleeves, and go to work feeding and nourishing whomever is in my home on that blessed day.
Until then? Chin up. The lunatics have overtaken the assylum and it won’t be long now.
Jenny Hatch
Strange. Why didn’t the darling Miss Coulter say “Windmill Powered Abortion Machines”?
Now that’s a visual!
Of course you don’t want it to be windmill powered: Windmills kill lots of innocent birds.
So, in order to protect innocent lives, you’ve got to have solar power for your abortion machine…which is designed specifically to kill innoc…
Ah, never mind!
I knew an ultra-ultra liberal girl way back in the 90s who went to an upscale, left wing liberal arts college. She explained how one of her professors had been championing cannibalism, and had explained to the class that eating humans was no different from eating pizza.
The ultra-ultra liberal girl thought it was “interesting,” and really “made you think.”
She’s an ACLU lawyer now.
Cannibalism! You really need the 2nd amendment to protect you from these leftist inspired Zombies!!!!
I think that students at these universities should start surreptitiously recording the antics of these genuinely crazy professors. Pull a James O’Keefe on them. Record who and what they truly are then release it to the public, very slowly. Drip…drip…drip the story out while they try to lie themselves out of it.
” Is there a point when moral relativism looks a lot like immorality absolute? ”
I’m going to have to quote you. Brilliant. Maybe
Moral Relativism = Immorality Absolute
The Cult of Human Omniscience, whose members are also know as Leftists and Progressives, is far more likely to impose their flavor of theocracy upon us, than anyone in the Religious Right.
They already have jamming their socio-economic morality down others’ throats with fundamentalist zeal, down pat.
Very good point. I just sent out a similar
post to my friends. The elete classes sense to entitlement is pervasive.
I don’t think those were Chinese tourists,Rodger.I do home repair in Irvine,Ca.There is a huge influx of Chinese moving here(some renting/some buying) .There are 2 churches on Jamboree that I never used to see people at. I’ve seen hundreds there lately. I often do home inspections for my customers looking to buy here. During walk-thru’s,there are always several Chinese couples/leaving coming. Just my observations.(some Japanese too) There’s an interesting story here.
P.S. How do I know they’re Chinese? Language-I don’t speak Mandarine or Cantonese but know the sound.I hear it all kinds from my customers-Turkish/Lithuanian Russian/Thai/Persian/Viet/Tagalog,,,etc. Have a bit of an ear for such.
ROGER, I don’t want to burst your bubble, but I need to point out a problem that throws your conclusion into a loop. First, you must know that I’m very familiar with the Cabazon outlets you visited (it’s not “Cabezon”, as you stated). I’ve shopped there no less than 20 times over the last few years and have driven by it no less than 500 times in the last 10. It’s true that Asians of all types shop there in droves. Try visiting Cabazon on a Sunday; you’d think you were in a the Far East. They’re bused in on tour buses. Now, here’s the problem with your thesis: the vast majority of Cabazon Asian shoppers are not of Chinese ancestry….they’re mostly Japanese. Who, I may not need to add, have never been Commies.
But I don’t know if your overall thesis is totally incorrect. I am now confused and shall smoke some pot to clear my mind…..it’s basically legal in California.
Well, I’m not sure if you’re not living in the past, LE. I too remember Cabazon overflowing with Japanese. No more. It’s China now. Even the loudspeaker broadcasts in Mandarin.
Rog, am I correct here in guessing that the reason the Chinese princelings fly across the Pacific to shop is because of crushing Value Added Taxes and such back in their home country? And massive tariffs on whatever gets imported?
That said, liberalism IS feudalism. Just like the memoirs of those who grew up under communism that I recall from my youth. Ironclad social stratification indeed. All about your political pedigree and that of your parents. All about who you knew and how well you proved your loyalty to the regime. Talent, smarts and hard work came a distant third, fourth and fifth. I’m sure in a few years parents will be admonishing their kids not to talk politics to people they don’t know and trust. Hell, we do that already. No doubt in a few years visiting websites like PJM, National Review, American Spectator or Free Republic will magically guarantee a person is mysteriously unable to find anything but s**t jobs, if any….Just like the dissidents of old Eastern Europe.
Look on the charmed career of Chelsea Clinton, ye ambitious…and despair.
Rewarding your friends and punishing your enemies did not originate with Comrade Obama. Any place that government is a significant player in the economy runs on who you know, not what you know. The Republican/conservative initiative to outsource some government activities has made it worse. The Democrats lost the battle but won the war; most to the businesses and non-profits to which governments outsource are Democrat-owned and many of them are little more than money laundries to move money from state and federal treasuries to Democrat constituent groups and clients.
Our esteemed host seems to have more than his share of insights.
It’s not about marxism. Never was. Not about social justice, or even real justice. Not about fairness or equality, or spreading the wealth, and least of all about freedom.
It’s about power, and behind power, wealth. Everything else is the shell game to trick the rubes. Just like when they declared themselves gods 5,000 years ago, and when that wore out, the spokesmen of the gods, and then, when that too wore out, the ones chosen by the gods, and when that wore out; well, you get it.
And the rubes are, thousands of years later, still falling for the latest con. Now we live in a world of rubes with iphones.
Lots of hot air here. Cut the crap because leftists and especially this administration are by definition, classic “grifters”. Their entire lives are spent scamming others.
The rubes are the ones who make those Hollywood lifestyles possible.
If people are that upset about lefties, how about hitting them in the pocketbook? Avoid their movies and appearances and products whenever possible. As long as we pay the price to see their garbage, they’ll laugh (at us) all the way to the bank.
It’s like the people who complain about how low our culture has fallen, yet watch 2-1/2 Men like clockwork every week. I guess the moral decline isn’t as important as being mocked by your friends and coworkers for being out of the cultural loop. You gotta have the guts to turn off the TV or stay home and miss the social bonding and references.
It’s like the mother on Rikki Lake today who complained that her young teen daughter dresses inappropriately and doesn’t listen when her mom tries to tell her that her shorts up to here and exposed clevage down to there sends the wrong message. Who buys her clothes asked Ms. Lake. I do, replied the mom.
Done dude. I only a see a few movies a year… for way over 10 years now…
Same here. And absolutely nothing with a lefty agenda. So it’s always popcorn movies for me!
Roger Simon;
Leftism is based totally and completely on contempt for the “regular” folks by the self-anointed intellectual aristocratic elites.
These arrogant, conceited hypocritical elites have no problem driving SUVs, owning several homes (mostly big ones), flying first class, avoiding taxes, etc., – essentially living like royalty – as long as this lifestyle is confined to themselves and those who think and act like them.
The average Joe and Jane (e.g., the Walmart crowd, fly-over country, etc) does not deserve to live or have any of life’s better things because, in the eyes of the self anointed sophisticates, they are merely untermensch, an inferior species of humanoid whose manner of dress, speaking, manners, hobbies, education, life style and world view are on par with apes.
Look at how Castro, Kim Jong, Ceaucescu, Honnecker, Stalin, Ortega, Lenin, Mao the Hollywood uber rich commies, Pelosi, Obama, Kerry, Kennedy, etc., deny or wish to deny all the material things in life that they themselves enjoy. Clearly, these “superior” beings have no problem with wealth and power and all the material benefits that accompany wealth and power, yet they ACT, SUPPORT and PROMOTE policies to prohibit OTHERS from living likewise.
The socialist/progressive/communist in essence wishes to re-establish the social and economic structures that existed in 18th century Europe, where the aristocracy governed and lived like royalty and the peasants existed to serve the aristocracy. In those days long gone, the aristocracy truly believed they DESERVED AND WERE DUE the better things in life and the peasantry was simply cannon fodder.
Every communist nation was/is organized of, by and for the ruling elites. Even today in socialist France, Germany, Spain, etc. the ruling elites live by their own rules (tax free, very high paid govt. jobs, chauffeured limos, special access to their “own” doctors, etc), while the average Euro citizen must pay taxes out their anuses. Lenin, Kim Jong, Castro, Ortega, Kennedy, Pelosi, Michael Moore, etc., live(d) as they wish – like royalty. But they will deny you and me the OPPORTUNITY to live likewise.
Leftism, communism, liberalism, socialism has never, ever been about idealism. It is merely a more recent, more “acceptable” way to re-define aristocracy, royalty and the tyranny of the ruling elites.
Our founding fathers were well aware of the dangers of a ruling elite and they agitated for and succeeded in separating from aristocratic England. And our government today, in the here and now, has become a tyranny of the ruling elites.
It appears that today the only hope in re-establishing a nation of, by and for the people is for individual or for several states to commence the process of seceding from the union.
Our govt. no longer represents the people and has managed the citizen’s finances in a criminally, negligent manner. It is systematically and inexorably eliminating our individual rights and imposing usurious tax burdens upon the citizenry that amounts to a form of slavery. We have a government largely run by bureaucracies that make laws and enact edicts and that are accountable to no one.
Congress has ILLEGALLY not passed a budget in years and has abrogated it’s responsibilities by allowing the FED and the dozens of Federal agencies to run roughshod over the citizenry. Congress has exempted themselves from many of the laws they impose upon the citizenry and have voted themselves perquisites that they deny the citizenry. Congress has BANKRUPTED THE CITIZENRY and no longer has a legal right to govern.
SECESSION IS A RIGHT AND OBLIGATION OF THE CITIZENRY WHEN THE GOVERNMENT NO LONGER HAS A MORAL CLAIM TO GOVERN AND HAS ENGAGED IN CRIMINAL AND ILLEGAL ACTIONS. A government that does not adhere to the constitution is an ILLEGITIMATE government and has no constitutional claim to govern; it is simply a tyranny.
LIVE FREE OR DIE.
But how then does one explain that while Congressional approval levels hover around 18%, incumbent reelection rates hover around 90%? Is it possible that our governing elite is responding almost perfectly to what Americans want, which is lots of generous government programs, and very low taxes. About 40 cents of every Federal dollar spent is borrowed, which means we enjoy lavish government programs and benefits at 60% of list price! Republicans and conservatives who insist that spending is the problem–which it obviously is–will nevertheless not be able to win that argument when we continue to get the government we have at fire sale prices. Of course if Americans were actually prepared to pay for the government they get and were taxed accordingly, well, then . . .
> But how then does one explain that while Congressional approval levels hover around 18%, incumbent reelection rates hover around 90%?
That’s easy to explain. They like the guy who is getting them goodies. They hate folks who are forcing them to pay for goodies for other people.
Being led to believe that you CAN’T get ahead without the intervention of your leaders, even though they are incompetent, also contributes to this apparent dissonance.
Most tyrannies install themselves by lying and misleading the people, and that is no different here in the USA.
Our govt. officials and their very, very effective propaganda arm, the mainstream media (a gaggle of uber rich, socialists and communists) are excellent liars and have been doing a fantastic job of spreading the lies of the government.
It is this reason that the voters of the USA are voting for a collective suicide and we will not be the first nation on earth to do this.
I believe that here in the USA, for the first time ever in world history, our “independent” media has voluntarily and intentionally become the propaganda arm of the government. Usually a dictator has to kill, imprison or otherwise remove media folks that will not trumpet the government lies. Joseph Goebbels and Stalin and Lenin must be rolling over in their graves wondering why they were not this lucky.
The destruction of the citizenry by the govt can now only be stopped by a break-up of the nation to render the corrupt, criminal government powerless. Secession is our only option.
There’s evidence that the German newspapers weren’t taken over in the 1930′s but were cheerleaders to Hitler’s ascendency. However I find a dearth of research on how the German press reported on Hitler. Probably because the Germans wanted to pretend that they had no culpability in Hitler’s rise to power and tossed most of that information down their collective memory hole. I think most American scholars prefer to stay with the meme that everyone was blindsided by Hitler’s power grab, lest people like me start making comparisons.
We would probably find the newspapers of the era warming up to the Nazis (remember they were the National SOCIALIST party, and journos loved it then as they love it now). We can see the parallels in how a free society willingly gives up their freedom to a power hungry elite here and now in the United States. The media is given a bone to became a lapdog.
There won’t be any takeover of the media when the progs’ transformation is complete. The propagandists are already in place to tell you what a wonderful thing it is to become a peasant. I’m sure it was that way in 1933 in Germany as well. All they have to do is get rid of the token conservative voices and shut down the non-approved alternative media on the Internet. Which I’m sure will be surprisingly easy. The media won’t care because they will be part of the ruling elite.
That’s well said, ja! All I can add to your summation is this: both aristocrats and most peasants appear to have accepted the class arrangement at face value. I believe the most intelligent, clear-thinking, ambitious people among the peasantry looked around themselves with open eyes and questioned the arrangement, (which included, by the way, ownership of land reserved almost exclusively for the aristocracy,) packed up, and left for America.
That’s at least as well said, ja, all those capital letters aside.
I have a hunch we who believe in and love America will either secede before the “liberal” or “progressive” oligarchy that’s supplanted our original republic collapses beneath the weight of its own incompetence and hatred of America and Americans, or else secede in the aftermath of that collapse. Economic and social disaster looks everything short of inevitable to me, if only because looters and arsonists and rapists and armed robbers and high beneficiaries of the Chicago way are destroyers and grossly psychologically defective individuals, not builders or managers or realists.
Shall we replace the long neglected, weather-rotted roof and siding and window frames now, or replace them after additional rot has wrought still worse havoc with the house’s interior ceilings and walls and floors? Better sooner than later, I believe, though I daresay it’s only reasonable to assume the oligarchs would be less than delighted to watch citizens absent themselves from serfdom.
Great post! And you just gave me an idea. I have been wondering why a lazy poorly educated grifter like Obama could be such a formidable opponent, seeming to tear the country apart with ease. But he lies and cheats, constantly plays the race card, or more often, the media does it for him, and has an army of ill informed and entitled followers. So what is obama’s Achilles heel?
Maybe a relentless campaign to portray him as a filthy rich ordinary politician, who is living like royalty, as are his cronies.
Lets remind people over and over that it costs 1.4 BILLION dollars PER YEAR just to keep this clown in wagu beef and top shelf vodka and other expensive accoutrements that very few average Americans would spend the money on, even if they did have the money.
So let’s spread the story of the lavish lifestyle and complete disdain for the taxpayers shown by this man and his odious wife. He lives like a king. He acts like he’s king. He believes he’s king when he takes a break from believing he’s god. Lets let everyone see obama’s “shared sacrifice” just never seems to apply to him or his buddies. America doesn’t seem to care that Obama is an idiot, but they probably won’t stand for a king. Americans don’t like royalty. Obama is not only acting like royalty, he resents the peasantry. Tell it!
You know, that’s an excellent point. We always hear about his little foursomes at golf. What’s the cost of an outing like that?
After all you have to shut the course down I assume. Security has GOT to be an issue, no? Would 50K seem out of line? I don’t know, I’m asking. I think that if all of his little perks and hers as well were priced out and put on the front page somebody would be pissed.
I’m sure the MSM will be on top of that story immediately. And once Obama’s educated supporters watch the blatant hypocrisy displayed on their $2000 televisions, they’ll turn against him.
I’m sure the MSM will cover up that story, not cover it, as they have all the others we are lucky to read about in Drudge, etc.
Well expressed.
Gee,you’d thnk that with this degree of catastrophe in America more thinking people would have turned out to vote against Obama.
But no.
I think succession is a wonderful idea. Maybe then we can form a new government based on the Constitution all over again and not see government this corrupt and tyrannical for a few hundred years. Better yet, can’t wait until this vicious cycle ceases when the Ultimate Ruler returns for His Kingdom and grinds these powermad, narcissitic, parasitic, bottom feeders under His heel once and for all.
ROGER: I was there last week! And the language over the speakers was Cantonese!
All kidding aside. I really think that on different days you will find Asians of differing ancestry. I bow to you and humbly ask for your forgiveness Simon san!
“Nihau, shoppers!”
The very idea that these so called progressives, Hollywood liberals et al. see no contradiction between the words that spill out of their mouths and their own lifestyles is a profound indication of cognitive dissonance bordering on mental illness.
We’ve got a president who spews “green” while flying around the country (not to mention the world) nearly nonstop on AF1, especially during the past year. Just returned to Hawaii, roundtrip $7 million, total Hawaiian junket for the fam likely costing around $15 million, borne in large by a country in dire financial straits.
One tiny tip of the iceberg for the whole ugly mentality.
As I noted back in the days of The Swimmer Ted Kennedy, the entire shtick is nothing more than posturing for a political agenda.
And the useful idiots bite every time.
Versailles consumed 90% of the wealth of France for decades.
Didn’t bother the Sun King of that era one little bit. Like our own, he rubbed the serfs’ noses in it.
Some things never change.
Let’s see, that was in about 1675 and it took 215 years before the rubes lopped their heads off.
I think things are speeded up about 10 times nowadays, so depending on whether you start counting Jan 21, 1993 or Jan 21, 2009, the time for real justice is between 2014 and 2030.
Can’t come soon enough for me. I’ll sell the farm for the thrill of being there when it happens.
whoops, math bug. It only took 115 years between the expansion of Versailles and the French Revolution, so lopping their heads off should occur between now and 2020.
That’s even better. Most of us should live to see that unless we starve to death or are killed by fat teacher union mobs demanding more health benefits to negate their cake-induced diabetes.
With these buttholes, it has always been how something SOUNDS, not what it IS.
Their rubber has never met the road, and , since they have conveniently enslaved us to do their bidding (and it IS slavery, my friends, differing from the Antebellum variety only in, perhaps, degree. Stealing another’s labor for your benefit is “slavery” under any definition)it never needs to.
They claim more and more, we get less and less of our own product. WE HAVE BECOME THEIR SLAVES.
I think there’s an amendment somewhere that prohibits it, but apparently Harvard has done away with it, and who are we mere troglodytes to dispute it?
Slavery has long been a touchy subject; gun sales are booming. So, I guess everything’s alright, then.
Of course it is.
Out here in flyover country, we know them as chickenshits.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=chicken%20shit
Here in the south they’re known as yella-bellied sapsuckers.
Bob Owens, in the interview with Glenn Reynolds, says that today the Country Class (my words borrowed from Angelo Codevilla) are preparing for a new, coming, Civil War.
If that happens, the Nomenklatura will not do well, and neither will our new media and entertainment aristocracy.
We don’t even need to talk about the pols, they’re toast.
“They’re toast” . . . but they have the drones. In any new Civil War (which hopefully doesn’t happen . . . just peaceful secession), the flyover states can’t be taken in conventional warfare. But the “progressive” states have all the big stuff.
Great post, Roger. It is all just power and elitism — same old story all through the centuries of this world.
Please consider:
“Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: 2 “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. 3 So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. 4 They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.” (Matt 23: 1-4)
Then compare with Mr. Simon’s words:
“Leftism has devolved into a kind of scam run not only on others but also on the self. Leftists are brilliant at convincing themselves of their own altruism and then broadcasting it to the public, thus providing cover for the most conventionally greedy and selfish behaviors.”
Pretty much the same idea but the carpenter was a bit more eloquent (IMHO). The question is : how to deal with them? And furthermore, why do they always seem to gain such power over us?
The Carpenter’s idea was a whip of small cords and flogging.
But I suspect that was because He knew the general populace didn’t have access to AK47s.
The Carpenter also taught that charity was up close and personal … he didn’t tell us to render unto Caesar so that Caesar could cut a welfare check and send it to a poor person on our behalf, the way the Cult of Human Omniscience preaches.
Why do they have power over us? Because too many of us were led to believe that we CAN’T get ahead without their intervention … and have outsourced our personal initiative and personal responsibility to the elite “experts” … particularly in government, but also in business, in unions, in academia, and anywhere else that impressive credentials and socio-political connections can substitute for competent performance.
“We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.” – Barack Obama
We are our own gods, and therefore the state we create is the god that the unwashed must depend upon. The choice is clear; dependence upon the almighty state or dependence upon God Almighty.
“[W]hy do they always seem to gain such power over us?”
Because, while both you and the Leftists differ in the particulars of your respective politics, you SHARE the same altruist ethics — that is, you both believe in the idea that we are our brother’s keeper. What else do you think is the basis of socialism?
The socialists have one major benefit over you, though, that enables them to keep the moral upper-hand: they’re more consistent in their application of their ethical ideal than you are. And in a situation where both sides hold the same FUNDAMENTAL ideals, the one that is more consistent wins.
The ownership of private property and individual achievement are inherently selfish pursuits, which “conservatives” claim are worthwhile goals. But only up to the point where it is “necessary” for the government to fund “legitimate” programs for the: elderly, the poor, the infirm, the oppressed, the disadvantaged, the..well, you get it. Thus, the “conservatives” think the individual is fine up until the “needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few”.
The socialists, on the other hand, believe that private property and individual achievement are evils BECAUSE they are pursuits of the individual. And their entire politics is devoted toward the enshrinement of collectivism. Hence, they’re much more consistent in their approach to altruism than are the “conservatives”.
Get it?
” Why do they gain power over us? ” Man’s fallen nature because we are all infected with sin. ” How do we deal with them? ” The same way we always have done, we overthrow them.
And the biggest PIG out there who personifies it all is Michael Moore.
Michael Moore’s armed bodyguard declared his weapon at Kennedy Airport before a flight — and was promptly arrested because he was not registered to carry a gun in NY.
Only in this broken culture could a multimillionaire capitalist make a movie demonizing capitalism and concentration of wealth.
“Relatively unbridled capitalism has always been the best way out of this, the best way to true social mobility, but our nomenklatura doesn’t want to admit this because it might threaten them and their perquisites.”
Actually, PURE unbridled capitalism would be the best way out of this — but then, that’s the problem with “conservatives”. You see, “conservatives” will acknowledge that the one of our major economic problems is the deficit, and thus, entitlements. But the “conservative” answer is not to do away with socialist institutions — the sacred cows of Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, for example — but to “modify” them (thus, enabling them to abide by the Laws of Bureaucracy and inevitably metastasize again), rather than privatize them.
The alleged defenders of capitalism need to question themselves regarding their own version of altruist beliefs.
So what is the root cause of economic issues in the USA..? We can whine and moan about the current situation, but nobody is able to point out simple cause and effect..?
The USA had a growth engine the world envied from the 50′s-90′s, people working at a Gas Station could buy a House. Tax rates were much higher, but effective taxes were lower. Steady Employment was assumed, since your father typically retired from the same job he worked at his whole life.
The US economy was solid because the US Dollar was solid, it was backed by Hard assets and stable. The world Bought our goods because we protected our patents and Made in USA meant something, Our manufacturing was respected the world over. The U.S. Banking system was a ROCK.
In 1971 a curious thing happened..Nixon replaced asset backed US Dollar with a Petro Dollar. This had many effects, but main ones were to uncouple spending from responsibility, allow inflation to run rampant, and dilute the value of the U.S. Dollar. Since 1971, the US dollar has lost 92% of its value.
In 1994 NAFTA / GATT was passed, allowing US corporations to effectively move their operations offshore and still operate as if the manufacturing facilities were within US Borders. This decimated US manufacturing industry.
In 1999 the US government thought it wise to rescind the glass stegal act of 1934. This allowed banks to once again create debt to loan themselves, Something they could not do since 1934 when congress reviewed causes of great depression and vowed to never again allow banks to manufacture their own credit lines and create credit bubbles.
We saw what happened to the Banking system Since 1999, but few people know Debt Derivatives created by the Banking system have gone from non existent in 1999 to 700 TRILLION dollar level today. This 700 Trillion is held by Banks on their general ledger accounts, making Taxpayers liable for their losses. The next great Bubble are Debt Derivatives, and this will be the end game for American banking. We will not go out with a bang but with a whimper.
The U.S. made serious errors in judgement for 50 years, over and again, its not wonder that things are bad, its a wonder the US economy still exists.
The economy was doing fine into the 2000′s. There was a bubble from the late 40′s until the rest of the world rebuilt, and then growth rates became more normal. The US didn’t just prosper because the rest of the world was flattened, but also because Americans worked hard, took risks, and were creative. The mistakes of the Nixon and Carter years were largely corrected by Reagan, and the burst of creativity from the internet revolution (which was certainly spurred on by the deregulation of telecom and the breakup of AT&T), overcame the advances the Japanese had made and put the US back on top.
The repeal of Glass Stegal was a mistake, but the Community Reinvestment Act dwarfed that error. When the government forced banks to do uneconomic things it put a chain reaction in place that became a catastrophe. You simply can’t make loans that you know up-front won’t be repaid and expect anything less than a disaster. But the Republicans, who knew it all the time, only made half hearted efforts to correct it. Banks, encouraged by the feds tried to hide the mess with derivatives, but that didn’t last long. The crisis was inevitable.
I don’t think monetary policy had anything to do with it. NAFTA and free-trade didn’t either. Countries can protect industries for a while, but at a price. It’s better not to try, except to preserve the ability for defense. If China’s labor costs are 1/10th costs in the US, there is simply no way low-skill industries are going to stay in the high-cost country for long. The US was actually navigating very successfully with the high-tech boom and there is no reason to believe that there has to be an end to technology advances. However, another severe mistake was for the country to allow the major universities to move from science and engineering to nonsensical ethnic studies and the equivalent. That may be the systemic issue that seals the demise.
But it doesn’t matter now. We have converted to fascism where the all-powerful government dictates what will be done economically. If that isn’t overturned by a revolution within ten years, the United States will go the way of every country in history that allowed corrupt and stupid central planners to control the economy.
Congratulations for now observing the obvious, but this country has been falling apart at the seams since approximately 1964. It was going to crap before, but that was the year it started to show.
Up until 1964, my Father had no lock on his door on Brooklyn. By 1967, all his tools were stolen at least once a week.
This country has been going straight to hell for over 50 years, perhaps 100.
Welcome to the club, Some of us have been waiting for you for a long, long time.
Liberals count on our basic decency, while they have absolutely none. The time has come to make them pay. Nicey nicey ain’t gonna do it. They wish to enslave you and your descendents to their glory.
How would you deal with Hitler, say 1932, with what you know now?
Act accordingly.
The topic was the economy not the country, so other than your understandable desire to vent, I’m not sure why you responded.
Personally, I agree that the country is in far worse shape than the economy. The economy could rebound in a few short years with some very simple corrective actions, but the country is probably over the damn. When a fraud like obama can be elected twice, despite the overwhelming evidence that he is, at best, incompetent, and, more likely, bent on destroying America as a world force, then there really isn’t much reason for optimism. I’m in the let it burn camp, and hope that a secession movement gathers steam before it’s too late.
Thanks, Roger!
A “eureka” moment.
I always like to point out to liberals that the song “Imagine” was copyrighted.
“Politicians, ugly buildings and whores get respectable the older they get.”
John Huston, Chinatown
When I was a very young man I fell in love with a beautiful Yemenite girl. Her family was financially poor. Her mother cooked on two electric burners. The children, six, all slept on mattresses on the floor that were out back into closets the next morning. One bathroom and a tiny yard.
The food was the most delicious I ever ate.
No matter if a guest arrived unannounced or not every morsel of food was put on the table.
The apartment was clean as a whistle and neat as a pin.
You have never seen such happiness. Such a boundless enthusiasm for life.
Whatever happened, good or bad, was answered with a blessing.
There is so much more to life than most are aware. So many waste their time on what has really little value.
Monkeys reaching for what sparkles.
Many people ask me what it is like to live in Israel. Going from a large house to an apartment. Going from every member of the family having a car to no car at all. From all the creature comforts of New York to a simpler life of more self reliance.
My answer has always been the same for people old enough to remember what it was like to have only a black and white television. Living here is like getting your first color TV again and again and again.
Most people need less than they think and more of what they never do – Give of themselves.
They hate us because we remind them of how decadent they are.
My female parent supported every fashionable liberal cause and made sure that everyone knew each and every detail of her monetary donations to all the correct organizations and how deeply she cared about fairness and for the world’s unfortunates. This was a deliberate smokescreen to hide her malevolence and hatred of everyone, especially members of her immediate family. It worked. Most people – not all, but most – accepted her act at face value and she pretty much got away with it until she died. Liberalism does have its practical uses.
Yeah; its funny. The lefty target has gone from the prep school elitist to the fly over country lower middle class Palin type person. While the lefty ideal has moved from working class to Davos jet set type. They have a reverse Horatio Alger tale. Spend enough on your elite education and you can be a government insider / planner like us Clintons and Gores… all the while the people who bough it tend to have a lower standard of living, due to education debt, than many of their parents.. they still see themselves as a sort of intellectual elite… so much more intelligent than the other side…
On the other hand; conservatives are still middle class and the ideal is still a middle class life for everyone… and they do best in areas with a large middle class.
I’ve got a sister-in-law, artsy to the max, went to Center For Creative Studies here in Motown, while the younger siblings ate white bread, chicken on special, and Jello for dinner.
She ‘Creates’ dolls and quilts, has been in both crafts’ periodicals ‘profiles of special people’ and is Full-Blown Progressive.
Thinks Barry is the Be-all and End-all but cannot tell you ‘why’ for the life of her. {It’s HER Opinion,and that is all that there is to it.}
She lives down in Naples, Florida {where reality reigns suprmeme} and just left us from a holiday visit. She had the audacity to declare that Barry was a ‘winner’ and the primary reason he “Won”, was that a majority ‘thought so’, and voted for him simply because they saw him as being ‘a winner’.
Convoluted? Hugh Betcha’. Misguided, or even vacant? Ditto.
On one of her last days here she went down and participated in a 5 K walk on an Island Park in the Detroit River known as Belle Isle. On one side is Windsor, Ontario, Canada, clean, neat and nary a hair out of place.
On the other is Detroit , whose River Face is gettin’ better but walking around in the zone of the interior would not be condusive to her health, and is not to most other living things.
I asked her about what she saw and ‘percieved’ when she got back, and got no responses. She was gone the next day and never said squat about her Spot Visit to anyone at all.
Think she is re-visiting ‘her meaning’ of ‘Winning’? There is always Hope, but It’s doubtful.
the projection is strong in this one
I’ve had the privilege of escorting several different Chinese groups on shopping sprees in places as diverse as Berlin and LasVegas. The key to their motivation to buy stuff is the need for it to have come from anywhere else than from China. The fact that it can all be bought at home, but without any means of validating its authenticity (to anyone else who sees it), they only have “I got this in Berlin.” Paying list, if necessary, only adds to the bragging rights. I’ve seem them pop for a $50k watch, because they think the boss will be favorably impressed when they deliver it.
It is always the case in our history that the denial and hypocrisy of our elitist cabals has resulted in the blood and/or vast sufferings for big parts of the rest of our country (and only occasionally said elites) … usually after the elites had convinced enough of the rest of us that their moronic ideals were reality.
Europeans were trying to reconquer America from Mexico (and there was a whole lot of land that we needed to take away from them to stop it).
They were making life better for dark-skinned brutes by turning them into property and bringing them here as cheap labor and breeding them at will (WOW THAT ONE HAS NEVER CHANGED).
Barbarian tribesman are threatening innocent white women and children for the “sin” of bringing progress to the Wild West (the native lands – which happened to have all kinds of wealth and uses to be exploited). Those tribes would live far better “protected” on reservations … on whatever land thy could continually be related from if something valuable was discovered there.
A whole lot of Racist utopia’s from Wilson’s enlightened economics and views on nationalism, to followers of Hitler, Stalin, AND the Weather Underground (which is a battle we are fighting right now with Obama PLUS Roosevelt’s idiocy).
The ideas that Roosevelt had: evil capitalists were ruining the world and a new command economy could be created from DC by enlightened intellectuals who could manage EVERY aspect of our people’s lives in a more “fair” way … AND as a sideline for foreign policy that a nation of little yellow men didn’t have an equal stake in a modern world (being repeated with China).
Creating a stranglehold of impediments for business that go far beyond a balanced regulation seeking environmental purity would NOT cost us jobs.
Obliterating morality would eliminate judgmental-ism AND bring about equality and order.
Overthrowing various governments of other countries and then letting the people select a new government ESPECIALLY WHEN THE ONLY ORGANIZED GROUPS IN THAT COUNTRY ARE MADE UP OF RABID FANATICS DEDICATED TO KILLING US will result in an outcome that is a benefit to the civilized world.
Need I go on?
As for someone who currently has the misfortune of living in China, it’s great being able to see the air, as well as being a liberal I can tell you first hand you don’t know what the heck you’re talking about on this issue. The so-called liberal agenda that you holler about is nothing like the bs the people here have to contend with in real life.
You scream about unions destroying America sorry but they are illegal here. Obamacare is so evil yet if you don’t have money here the hospital will let you bleed to death on their door step. I have a student whose father was a simple village farmer required surgery for his broken leg. He is now a cripple unable to properly walk because he couldn’t pay the hospital the admission fee.
Sorry but there is no comparison between a liberal and a communist state regardless of what fox news tells you. If you sat down talked with folks instead of just saying deluded everyone else is you might find that out. Comparing a Liberalism to a Communism is just as foolish as someone comparing a Conservatism a Nazism.
China has morphed from a communist, centrally planned economy to a fascist, market-based ecnomy closer to Nazi Germany. As such, Chinese racism, oops, excuse me, “nationalism,” fits snugly into their world-view.
At the end of the day, though, they are socialists, through and through. Their Potemkin “capitalism” simply allows them to advance their deception.
Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Chopstick.