History Is Negotiable
We sent our first delegation to the services marking the bombing of Hiroshima. Fine, but will we do the same with the Philippines, Manchuria, South Korea, and all the other places where the Imperial Japanese Army by early 1945 was killing on average well over 5,000 a day in its occupied co-prosperity sphere? To understand why Hiroshima, understand 50,000 American casualties, 100,000 Japanese dead, and 100,000 Okinawan dead at the conclusion of Okinawa ten weeks earlier, and then multiply it by a factor of 10 for the upcoming Japanese homeland invasion.
The Rising
At home, a huge mosque near Ground Zero in Manhattan will rise up before the new World Trade Center (maybe Bruce Springsteen can do a sequel to “The Rising”?). To suggest this is bad taste is bigoted. To suggest that we don’t know the where, how, and why about the funding, or why a self-proclaimed ecumenical group of Muslims wants to build ties by picking this provocative spot, or who exactly is behind the idea (or where exactly the promoter now is) is the worst sort of Neanderthal right prejudice.
No problem. We can assure the 3,000 dead that their passing was marked by the enlightened harmony of a mosque preempting a new tower. What we do know is that in about a year, all over the Middle East, al-Qaeda videos will have photo-shopped “strong horse” posters and CDs of the ruins of 9/11 in the shadow of a towering mosque, with the accustomed boilerplate about how Atta et al. knocked down the looming towers in order to have Islam’s shrine rise up in their place. It all sort of reminds one of the nasty reception the president’s envoy on Islamic outreach just got from a Muslim audience in India. He was “shocked” at his reception — or translated into Valley Girl parlance: “Like, I can’t believe this is happening to me.”
I don’t think the polls quite capture the present public anger, which in not abating. Everything seems to channel into a general furor: Michelle’s movable feast from Costa del Sol to Martha’s Vineyard; the president suing Arizona and counting on a judge to nullify the public will, as part of a larger effort either by judicial nod or administrative fiat to get amnesty for 15 million future voters who will reciprocate at the polls; politicians bragging about handing out another $100 billion of someone else’s money here, another $200 billion there; the constant assumption that popular expression is retarded, and those who go to a tea party rally, vote to enforce immigration law, want to see marriage as it has been for millennia, want to cut federal spending, or are tired of identity politics are Palinesque clingers.
The Best and the Brightest
The common denominator? If one were to survey the elite campuses around 1975 and talk to those in law school, poly sci, or the humanities, then imagine them 35 years later as our elite leaders in government, the media, the universities, the foundations, and the arts, one could pretty much expect what we now have.
The present symptoms that characterize both our popular culture and current governance — shrill self-righteousness; abstract communalism juxtaposed with concrete pursuit of the aristocratic good life; race/class/gender cosmic sermonizing with private school and Ivy league for the kids; crass and tasteless public expression; a serial inability to take responsibility for one’s actions; the bipartisan mega-deficits; the inability to cut pensions and social security for the baby boomers — from the trivial to the fundamental, all derive from a bankrupt cohort that came of age in the sixties and seventies.
We see the arrested adolescence and hypocrisy that come from that sermonizing generation, whether in Al Franken’s puerile face-making, the ideologically driven suicide at Newsweek, the steady destruction of the New York Times, John Kerry’s tax-avoiding yacht, the Great Gatsby Clinton wedding, Michelle on the Costa del Sol, Nancy Pelosi’s jet, Tim Geithner’s tax skipping, or the constant race-card playing of a Charles Rangel and Maxine Waters. Yes, one walk across the Yale or Stanford campus circa 1975, and one could see pretty clearly what sort of culture that bunch would create when it came of age and was handed power. If that is reductionism, so be it.
Dr. Hanson:
Quite so. I’d add only that Obama’s meteoric plunge to the 30% approval range in less than two years is far more remarkable than one might imagine. It took George W. Bush six years to reach the same lows, but that was six years of pursuing difficult wars, and six years of unremitting hostility, lies and sheer venom on the part of the mainstream media. Never before in history was the media so blatantly partisan, so little concerned with truth and fact, and so totally focused on “the narrative,” a narrative of destruction toward George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove in particular, and republicans and conservative philosophy in general. One might even be forgiven for wondering why it took so long for Mr. Bush’s approval ratings to plummet with such powerful forces arrayed against him 24/7/365. Remember too that Mr. Bush did not, as a rule, respond, or respond in kind, to the most blatantly irrational and unfair calumny on the part of the political opposition (One certainly would be wrong to use the term “loyal opposition”) and the media. That Obama won the presidency is hardly surprising. A ham sandwich might have won, so long as it was a democrat, in 2008.
On the other hand, Mr. Obama has had every advantage that complete control of Congress, the media and virtually every lever of power that could be bullied, bought, sued or threatened could provide. It would be hard indeed to imagine a media that was more favorably disposed to a politician and his every idea and utterance than our current journolistic cesspool. In fact, the fourth estate has, by and large, given up even the most feckless pretense of objectivity and has actually praised Obama as a god, and as a god-like action hero for, of all things, swatting a fly during an interview. For the media, Obama is the narrative, and they have invested themselves body and soul (to the terribly limited extent that the current morass of ink-stained wretches may be said to possess souls, having sold them, very cheaply indeed, long ago). Recall, if you will, the female reporter during the Clinton years expressing her willingness to provide services for the presidential, ahem, staff, for his protection of abortion. One shudders to imagine the services such reporters would be willing to provide The One.
Yet despite all of these advantages, and more, Mr. Obama has squandered far more than his approval rating and at a warp speed clip. Indeed, Dr. Hanson, some historian might want to write a book on this topic. I believe you have some experience in that area? I’ve often said this, but we will be fortunate indeed if all he does is bankrupt the nation.
Brilliant analysis.
Lenin, 1917: Class-based International Socialism
Hitler, 1933: Race-based National Socialism
Obama, 2008: Class- and Race-based Post-National Socialism
Wow. That is brilliant! if in nothing else than perfect simplicity.
While the Obama crowd certainly mouths all the socialist false-isms, much of its motivation is plain old greed. The government then becomes a tool to feed the greed at everyone else’s expense.
If all this lawless confiscation and bullying did not accrue to the Obama crowd’s bottom line, they’d be much less obsessed with doing it.
To make this “short and sweet”, obama and his gangsters are my countrys and my own enemy. I will deal with this situation as soon as the 2nd American Revolution starts.
Don’t forget the Nobel Peace prize. What the hell was that for? The Left needs there cult of personality to help them focus, stay motivated and they got it rolling with Obama.
obama did not squander his opportunities/approval
…he is accomplishing his goals so it is not relevant.
destroy the america he despised as a youth.
I keep seeing in the definition of a narcissist (and obama is a narcissist) that they don’t have emotions (I agree they don’t have normal ones) …they have hate and lots of it. It must require a lot of hate to destroy the hopes and dreams of millions of people for ones own selfish ego. (ego requires something in the emotion department too)
Flies get drained of their energy very quickly when they’re trapped indoors. It was probably moving at like a 1/5 of it’s normal speed.
Mike. I hope that you and Dr. Hanson may someday sit down together.
A bright light will shine in the West.
Mike,
I would submit a ham sandwitch did win the White House in 2008…
Ham? Not even for an apostate Muslim. Falafel, maybe.
The only section of Mr. Hanson’s piece I could have done without is the “nerd-geek, etc.” section. That is sinking to the level of Al Frank and his “Big, Fat Limbaugh” level. I get the feeling of the “jocks” against the “inept” and it makes me uncomfortable.
Sorry – should have been Franken. typo.
Professor, once again you’re on target, so continue to fire your rhetoric at will. One terrible thought I’ve got is what if President Obama, or Messiah Obama, might realize the game is up this coming November 2nd and do something really stupid, even for him. The current outrage is civil so far and it needs to remain that way. Yet, my fear is that it won’t if the populace is further provoked by this administration if President Obama goes too far regarding our elections this fall.
Doug. I fear the worse going into November. I am afraid that our ruling class will do anything to keep their power. Maybe… “arrange” an attack. Maybe bio, maybe chemical. Kill a few thousand people in the process. That would be a reason to put off and cancel the elections.
Of course, maybe they just go into the lame duck period and force the rest of their programs through.
Either way, these are very scary times for our country.
Unlikely that our masters would arrange an attack. The public might reach the opposite conclusion that the political class wants them to, and that Democrat incompetence was to blame.
I think the following is far more likely. As they showed in the US Senate elections in Minnesota and Virginia, and the governor’s election in Washington, Democrats can simply steal enough close elections to stay in power. ACORN and SEIU have received a bit of bad publicity, but they still operate just as before.
In much of our nation (such as inner cities) elections have become a Third World joke. Beteween racialist politics and rampant election fraud, Democrats have a good 70-90 House seats already locked up using Democrat machines in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Houston, etc. Add to that the growing fascist tendencies of blue states like Vermont, New York, California, and Illinois, Democrats can gain almost half of the House and Senate seats in any given election without really breaking a sweat.
Keep in mind that ACORN and SEIU have been operating for the last two years with the Obama Administration’s help. If you though the 2006 and 2008 elections were crooked, you ain’t seen nuttin’ yet.
they did that in Spain
We’ve passed into civil war… again, except we’re not shooting yet.
Oops.
Wrong on that point.
True that.
Short stocks.
Short gold.
Forget Real Estate
Buy bullets.
Canned food and ammo.
Ever notice how when this boomer generation of swine were in college, the demand was for universal free tuition? Now that they are in the “Edumacation” bidness, the call is for ever increasing tuition to fund their IRA’s and retirement funds. The kids?; well, apparently, they should be content to go into debt they will NEVER be able to pay off just for the privilege of basking in the faded glory of this swinish bunch. Has a worse group of pigs ever existed in a civilized society?
Easy there, Mike. There are a lot of us who served – and many more who most vehemently do not agree with the direction in which our perfumed prices are taking us. There’s no call to tar and feather an entire generation for the sins of some of their members.
Mike, as a member of the 60′s generation – I have long apologized for the disaster our generation has wrought. Please realize that then as today the RADICAL left only represented 10% or less of the population, but they have polluted the institutions VHD has so eloquently chronicled.
Although I was a member of that generation I was not a part of the trash, but alas, “when good men do nothing EVIL prevails”. Today as a terrorist (according to Janet Napolitano), Viet Nam vet, gun owner, tax payer, faithful husband and father and worst of all a Tea Party activist, I am doing what should have been done 40+ years ago, standing up and speaking out and doing what I can to VOTE THEM OUT OF OFFICE. It will not be easy or quick, but don’t loose heart and be willing to accept the evil that will be aimed at you.
68 vet – like you I am a member of the 60′s genereation. I was not a member of the radical opinion but did lean somewhat in that direction, in later years I discovered that my radical views were generaly in regard to subjects I knew very little about. On most of those issues I was against whatever the “establishment” was. On the issues that I actually knew something about I always took a very traditional view. When I listen to the rhetoric of our current class of politicians I’m reminded very much of my earlier approach to subjects I didn’t understand. Having run a number of businesses and having had to layoff over 50 people in the last two years I look at our current political and economic situation and can only say “what have we wrought”.
Mike,
don’t quit your day job, if you have one. Bloggin is not your deal.
If folks seem angry now, wait until it sinks in that those on the same campuses now are even worse. It’s “now or never” time for anyone who wants to keep this nation and its’ Constitution so we’re going to need all that anger to stay the course.
Dr. Hanson:
“Yes, one walk across the Yale or Stanford campus circa 1975, and one could see pretty clearly what sort of culture that bunch would create when it came of age and was handed power. If that is reductionism, so be it.”
Do you know if there is an army of Reductionists forming anywhere? Just asking because I’d like to volunteer my services.
And I’d still like to see you run for the presidency in 2012. A choice, not an echo?
“… one walk across the Yale or Stanford campus circa 1975, and one could see pretty clearly what sort of culture that bunch would create when it came of age and was handed power.”
Our leaders and politicians are immoral or amoral, power-seeking, money-grubbing, pandering, illogical, elitist or stupid (or both!), and willing to trash our Constitution and our freedoms. But, they are only a symptom of a serious and probably fatal disease.
In our political elections, most people vote for candidates who will put the most slops into the voters’ troughs, or for whomever looks and sounds best, or for whomever makes the best promises. If you have done this, then be angry with yourself. If your family, friends, or neighbors have done this, then be angry with them. Focusing anger only on the symptom (bad politicians) does little to fix the serious disease: greedy or foolish voters.
Our representative democracy will fail, and our nation will fall, if voters do not get their heads out of their asses and elect intelligent, sensible, and moral politicians. Unfortunately, people usually get the government they deserve, and our current government is well-deserved, given the selfishness and foolishness of the past two generations of voters. Therefore, if our anger does not get channeled into more sensible voting, then we are doomed.
You hit the nail right on the head! We, the voting public, have enabled our own destruction by voting in the same politicians over and over. And is there any real difference between the Republican and Democrat party regulars? David Stockman commented yesterday that both parties have become the party of the “free lunch”. The upcoming Congressional elections are crucial. If the public does not vote them out we are doomed and if the Dems retain control of the House and Senate they and Obama will say that they were doing the peoples’ will all along and they will be right.
Our electorate is made up of stupid people with barely elementary-school educational levels (even if they are high school or college graduates). Our schools have been dumbed down and infiltrated with left-wing ideas and notions. Kids are taught not how to think but what to think. Thomas Jefferson said that, for our republic to survive, people must be educated and knowlegeable. The progressives have been working for decades (50-60 years) to ensure that nobody is educated or knowlegeable. Dumb sheep are easier to lead and influence than people who have knowledge and can think for themselves. We won a victory in May in the textbook fight in Texas. Now we need parents to go to their children’s schools, attend school board meetings, monitor what their kids are being taught in the classroom (e.g., carbon dioxide, an essential chemical compound without which every plant, animal, and human would be dead, is now being presented in the classroom as a poison that must be eradicated, thanks to the EPA). Parents must fight back and demand that their kids learn the true history of the U.S.A., authentic scientific facts, English grammar and sentence structure (it hurts kids’ self-esteem to be corrected, you know), the science of logic and reasonable thinking skills, math done with paper and pencil instead of calculators, geography and what physical location on this planet means in relation to politics and societies. We need to get rid of every namby-pamby program that promotes self-esteem over all else. If we don’t take back our schools, then we’re stuck with more future generations of dolts who will be malleable and concerned with only what is between their waists and knees, just like the current generation of young people. This is exactly what the progressives want–a nation of pliable idiots, who are only concerned about pop culture and their own genitals. If we don’t tackle the problems in our schools, then there is no hope for America. (Note: I am a retired elementary school teacher.)
Dead on about our schools.
WE MUST TAKE BACK THE SCHOOLS! PERIOD.
No matter what happens in Nov and 2012…if we dont get the schools back to the local communities(parents) then all will be lost in the long term!!!
Ive been banging that drum for years.
The children are the future. Education allows others to indoctrinate your kids.
Home Schooling.
School Choice, Privatization, Vouchers Funded Statewide that Follow the Child
Additionally, we need to go back to pre-bowdlerized textbooks, in which the American and Europe West Christian haters, Feminists, and Racists, came in a scrubbed our history of things they dont like and purged them. Thought control.
Wake Up for Christ’s sake!
Who needs re-education when you can just educate the children and wait for the parents to die out.
I so very much agree. Having been educated in Germany, I am astounded at the ideas my 15-year old granddaughter is being fed in school. It does not surprise me that at 15 she has no serious goals, no wish to make this a better world for herself and others. Why is cheer-leading more important to her than math, or a foreign language?
Education in the US seems to be solely based on passing students through the system with the least amount of resistance – and the least amount of cost. How in the whole wide world can the US expect to maintain her leadership in everything when she keeps cutting the school budget?
The school budget is not the problem. It has grown faster than inflation for years. The education standards for our students have not advanced along with it. The problem is what is being taught and by who. In years past Rush Limbaugh had several examples of tests and test questions from high school in the early 1900s or late 1800s if memory serves me correctly. I do not think most children graduating high school now could do very well on those tests, further I doubt most college graduates could do well on them either.
Our education system has become a joke all the way through college. Over-funding it has become the problem not lack of funds. It might be a good thing if all grants and student loans were eliminated as well as cutting the state funding by 30% of all state funded schools. A huge drop in tuition costs as well as the elimination of all the dead wood programs would be the result. Administrators would no longer be needed for financial aid as there would not be any. With in 6 months college would begin to be affordable again. And while we are at it lets eliminate the athletic scholarships as well. We can then turn college back into a learning institution instead of an entertainment venue. The sports teams will then actually be made up of students.
Agree some colleges (most NCAA Div. 1) are too dependent on their Athletics Departments’ revenue. Don’t know if the scholarships are the cause or the result of the dependency though.
What I’m wondering is when the education system’s fundamentals began to wither? Maybe with the creation of the Department of Education whose 2011 budget will be more than double the 2009 budget?
VDH is an American-made Cincinnatus, and exactly who the US needs for President.
JK your post is spot on – while the education department should be permanently retired, perhaps Dr./President Hanson could persuade you to become his advisor?
That is, if we still have control of our children after 2012. The newest incarnation of The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, if ratified, would set a precedent that places parental rights under the jurisdiction of the ‘international community’. (Senator Jim DeMint has a resolution in the works to try to ensure this doesn’t happen. The Senator has also introduced a joint resolution, proposing a constitutional amendment to protect parental rights.)
Re: the monstrosity mosque near the WTC site, please, please read VDH’s brilliant response to Alan Dershowitz’s support for the 9/11 mosque, including the responses of each after the main article. When it comes to arguing for our civilization, there is no-one better than VDH.
http://frontpagemag.com/2010/08/06/dershowitz-vs-hanson-on-the-adl-and-the-ground-zero-mosque/?utm_source=FrontPage+Magazine&utm_campaign=937f1a1443-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email
Apropos Cordoba House, an excellent post by Iowahawk reflects the sad state of affairs, both here in Canada and in the US, and even manages to do it with a sort of exasperated humour. Worth reading here: “Undocumented Imam’s Refusal to Perform Interracial Gay Handicapped Wedding Leads to Charges of Racism.”
http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2010/08/wedgeapalooza.html
You are not wrong. But I have a hard time putting all the blame on the voters; in what recent election have you had a good choice on a ballot?
The selection is always between two or three candidates, absolutely none of which are interested in representing the needs and wants of mainstream Americans. It’s beyond the old quip of “voting for the least bad candidate” – *all* the candidates are members of the Ruling Class. There are two political parties, perhaps with one being marginally less corrupt than the other, but no choices at all to actually represent our views.
What is a voter to do? My best answer so far is to get involved at the grass roots, in local politics, and try to get momentum for candidates (even perhaps becoming candidates) that will represent our interests.
However, I’m pessimistic. The party infrastructure of both parties is so corrupt that someone who truly did want to make a difference would not get far? What does that leave? Third parties (not a great track record of success)? Revolution (more painful, and less likely to have a truly good outcome, than many making brave comments on the internet seem to think).
I’m genuinely at a loss as to how to correct this problem.
True Retro, but voters didn’t have to play on such a field made horrendously uneven by corrupt media and ignorantly willing rotating candidates from both parties. I’ve watched their two party compost pile cancer decompose and metastasize right under their lofty noses for nearly fifty years from congress to local politics while refusing to vote for either of “the least of two evils”. Their “conspiracy nut” and “wasted vote” echo comments are finally blaring in undeniable clarity and may even be audible to formerly deaf ears in spite of mass media spin effect.
The deportation of aliens by the action of three former presidents solely to provide jobs for citizens is totally ignored and would currently described as harsh by ideologue media and white house talking heads with the common agenda of the ruling class. The danger of unregistered voters has always been counted and certainly considered either a potential friend or foe but only with an honest vote count. Flirting with alien votes is equally as dangerous as the metastasized cost of race block vote buying in the 1960s now being touted as ‘slave descendant reparations’ and revived suppressed farm initiative.
Few may be as elated as I am to finally see their smoldering target of disgust burst into fire that can consume the political dung heap. The revival of interest in the character of candidates has become rampant with record search for evidence other than that which the previously sold out political media portends .
Don’t ever think that your pessimism can rain out the parade. Continue your grass roots activity but never lose sight of recent railroaded events in congress and lower courts that surely will require more of the same. Representative government has not stopped the travesty and neither will the judicial branch appointees scooped from the pile.
If you feel out numbered, just let it compound your determination to push the lever and flush out the corruption. Revolution is obviously in progress and the enemy’s agenda is undeniable except by those blinded by the mask of justice hiding the imbalance of the scale thereof. If November is not immediately productive, then one may only have the choice to concede defeat or stand and be counted as were men so determined over two hundred years past. Keep the faith as long as the internet is alive
True Retro, but voters didn’t have to play on such a field made horrendously uneven by corrupt media and ignorantly willing rotating candidates from both parties. I’ve watched their two party compost pile cancer decompose and metastasize right under their lofty noses for nearly fifty years from congress to local politics while refusing to vote for either of “the least of two evils”. Their “conspiracy nut” and “wasted vote” echo comments are finally blaring in undeniable clarity and may even be audible to formerly deaf ears in spite of mass media spin effect.
The deportation of aliens by the action of three former presidents solely to provide jobs for citizens is totally ignored and would currently be described as harsh by ideologue media and white house talking heads with the common agenda of the ruling class. The danger of unregistered voters has always been counted and certainly considered either a potential friend or foe but only with an honest vote count. Flirting with alien votes is equally as dangerous as the metastasized cost of race block vote buying in the 1960s now being touted as ‘slave descendant reparations’ and revived suppressed farm initiative.
Few may be as elated as I am to finally see their smoldering target of disgust burst into fire that can consume the political dung heap. The revival of interest in the character of candidates has become rampant with record search for evidence other than that which the previously sold out political media portends .
Don’t ever think that your pessimism can rain out the parade. Continue your grass roots activity but never lose sight of recent railroaded events in congress and lower courts that surely will require more of the same. Representative government has not stopped the travesty and neither will the judicial branch appointees scooped from the pile.
If you feel out numbered, just let it compound your determination to push the lever and flush out the corruption. Revolution is obviously in progress and the enemy’s agenda is undeniable except by those blinded by the mask of justice hiding the imbalance of the scale thereof. If November is not immediately productive, then one may only have the choice to concede defeat or stand and be counted as were men so determined over two hundred years past. Keep the faith as long as the internet is alive
Few may be elated as I….. to read this fine post. (I particularly liked this paragrah). Thanks a million. To the judicial and legislative dung heap I keep my bayonet fixed- to say nothing of the heaphead-in-chief and his calavanting she-thing.
Get involved on the local level as a Precinct Captain. This position only usually requires 20 or so signatures, and is one of the positions that allow you to put your vote in for your local and state Republican officials. The officials at the local and state level are responsible for finding good candidates for office. You can be part of that, if you want. The precinct committeeman/captain only has to attend some meetings, and poll watch on election days. If you want to learn more, call your local RNC office for details. If you want to learn how it works from a former outsider, go to Redstate, and read Cold Warrior’s diaries. He has spearheaded the precinct committeeman project on there.
The current system is no longer tenable. Congress originally represented the people, with no representative originally representing more than 60,000. Senators represented the State governments. Due to changes in the law, there is now one representative for 660,000 people. Whereas the one formerly balanced the other, now both houses of Congress now represent the cartels and interest groups that put them there – NO ONE REPRESENTS THE PUBLIC.
I would like to see personal representation in Congress. I want to choose my own Representative who will vote on my behalf the same way shares are voted at a shareholder meeting. However many supporters a representative has, that’s how many votes they can vote.
Then the Senators should go back to representing the State governments.
But I’m doubtful anything will change.
(BTW, on the discussion about schools – I believe our public schools are so bad that we would do better without any schools at all.)
Spectacular post professor. Nerds. Wimp table. This is the best blog.
Dont’ forget “Best and Brightest”. Love it.
1. Michelle Antionette Obama’s million dollar vacation in Spain (as in Europe) cements the ruling class metaphor.
2. Rumor is that on August 17 Fannie and Freddie will reduce the principle on millions of mortgages.
Obama would only do this if he thought it would help him, but he is so out of touch that he will be shocked when that is the event that drives him under 40% approval.
The first attempt at the rewarding of the irresponsible was the act that began the tea parties. This will light a wildfire.
In 1972, I had a medical student on my surgical service who came straight from the nerd table. He had a messy pony tail, of course. He insisted the patients call him “Doctor Mickey.” Medical students were discouraged from calling themselves “doctor.” I have a number of Doctor Mickey stories but my favorite, that makes the point here, was when he did his history and physical exam on a patient who had been admitted for an aortic valve replacement. The medical students were usually allowed to watch complicated surgery and, on simple cases, even assist. Doctor Mickey, however, announced that he wanted to do the surgery. When we gently explained that medical students (We did not mention how much more forcefully that applied to dumb ones) did not do surgery, let alone open heart surgery, he became upset and went back to tell the patient not to have the surgery.
That was 38 years ago and I expect he is just about the age to hold a responsible position in the Obama administration’s health care reform program.
I would’ve hoped that such childish and unprofessional behavior would’ve deep-sixed this clown’s medical career on the spot. If he had any brains, he could’ve gone into medical research. Oh, BTW, you certainly can judge a book by it’s cover. People with tattoos, ponytails (guys), sloppy clothes, and other anti-social signals, can safely be excluded from responsible positions. Sure, you’ll dump a good one here or there, but you’ll more than make up for that by keeping the hordes of six-month-olds out of everyone’s way. They can find food and shelter in academia, non-profit foundations, and government jobs, like the rest of the square pegs. If anyone invents a time-machine, I’d vote for the abortion of Dr Benj Spock as task #1. He’s probably most responsible for the failure of most baby-boomers to mature beyond the toddler stage.
I recently saw an article that claimed that having prominent piercings and/or tatoos and/or odd hair colors and/or unusual hair styles no longer hurts job applicants. I laughed aloud for almost a minute. Perhaps the writer believes that employers in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and a few Florida tourist-trap villages are representative of all employers in the USA.
‘Never trust a man whose hair is too long, or too short.’
That was old news when I first heard it in 1975.
Left and Right Wingnuts are equally untrustworthy.
Brilliant article, Dr. Hansen, and, the last paragraph summerizes everything quite nicely. All we need now are some dancing girls to welcome all of them home from their various duties of checking out Spa’s, and, various Golf Courses and Ladies Nights, all the way to California.
Tell. It. Like. It. Is. You go, Doc!!!!!
Is it possible that this country is being deliberately pushed toward civil conflict?
It seems all too fantastic to be happening. Surely it is a dream.
An arrogant, belligerent, barely-suppressed communist daily lecturing the citizens of the greatest country in history about racism, honor, economics, our system of government, calories and common decency while his wife rubs our faces in the dirt by partying ostentatiously at the most expensive resort in the world, paid for by ourselves truly, as our own wealth is wrenched from our hands. We are the people who liberated the slaves, multiplied the wealth of the world, and crushed the Nazi and Communist menaces. And WE are lectured daily about our SINS.
Our allies of generations are snubbed, insulted, flipped off, threatened, lectured and abandoned.
They lie about every detail that slithers out of their mouths. The form, substance, background, data, interpretation, projection and meaning of every single detail. They lie about his birth, his associates, his appointees, his policies, his activities, his thoughts, his family, everything. It’s as if they can’t speak a word without turning it into a dozen lies. Does anybody truly believe he has been a citizen from birth and only and an American citizen forever. Does anybody truly believe that he rejects the venom of Wright, Ayers, Jones, and hundreds of others, including his own spouse? Does anybody truly believe that he loves this country and wants the best for its people?
It’s impossible to believe that this nightmare is happening by accident. It’s hard to believe that they don’t sit in their sick little cabals feverishly plotting what insult can top the last, what virus can be more deadly than the prior one, what confiscation can set a new standard. There seems to be a limitless army of sick minds bursting the very seams of Washington.
Could the people’s will be any more clear? In order: Virginia, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Hawaii, California and Missouri. How can a thousand polls be rejected? How can unanimous 2×1 disagreement with every single policy be dismissed if their intent is not to drive a peaceful people to violence.
They want us to rise up before the electoral process erodes their ability to contemptuously impose their will on us. That is their goal.
There can be no other explanation.
What once read as conspiratorial nonsense now reads as a roadmap to understanding the Obami…
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/barack_obama_and_the_strategy.html
I think that this administration really does mean what it says when it professes to ‘fundamentally transform’ America.
The problem is that 52% of the electorate was so enthralled with the messenger that they did not listen to the message.
Now, when you listen to the message, there can be no doubt that what Obama seeks is to overthrow the Constitutional Republic that we have enjoyed for the past 200 years and replace it with his version of a socialist nirvana (a nirvana for him and his, that is) by undermining our social pillars, such as marriage, our economic pillars, such as mortgages and corporate bonds, and our ethical pillars, such as the death panels that they insist do not exist except by another name.
I said long ago that Barack Obama was a very dangerous man who must never be President of the United States. I am sad to say that I was only right by half. If we do not get this man out of office through impeachment as soon as possible, we might not have a nation by the time 2012 comes around.
Thanks for the link to AT. It’s a must read for everyone.
We will know that we are in trouble when the government starts training special police units that will be willing to fire upon ordinary Americans who are expressing their dissatisfaction with being imposed upon. When “Taxation without Representation” ceases to be meme upon which we can all agree, then the country is done for in terms of why fought our Revolution.
As a side point, granting same-sex couples the same rights as married couples is an expensive proposition. If the country views that expense as unwarranted, it should have nothing whatsoever to do with denying the right to put your genitals where you want to. Under the current direction of legalizing such private behavior, I predict that one day it will be possible to have a small harem of sheep deducted from taxes as marriage partners and have their veterinarian bills paid for by the human’s employer.
You can go to Berkley and find the same opinions. In the 90′s a collage roommate told me the unabomber was doing “the lords work”. This was right after a forest company exc was killed.
Good points proreaon.
With the benefit of the wide perspective from this side of the Atlantic I predicted the slide towards civil unrest and conflict in the days immediately following the inauguration.
One small thing however. Michelle is not in the most expensive resort in the world. That distinction belongs to Monte Carlo with Cannes not far behind.
Rest assured though, people like the Obamas would not be allowed in (nothing to do with colour, they attact too much media attention for the liking of reclusive billionaires). At least we can still rely on snobbery.
You are correct.
The current administration is simply applying Subversion 101: they do everything they can to divide the Country in two opposite fields, to spread chaos, to push for violence.
I always express the hope that nobody will fall into the subversives’ trap, but we must be certain that if no “white angry man” will give them the reason to (further) restrict our Freedom, the subversives will come up with some provocation to reach the same goal.
Therefore, we MUST keep spreading the truth, fight the fight with ideas AND we MUST be extremely vigilant.
ANYONE pushing for a violent counterrevolution MUST be considered an agent of the commies.
VOTE in November, vote against the “democrats” who are building a socialist regime, protect the voting polls (BY CALLING THE POLICE).
And be ready to fight, with ideas, against any “October surprise”.
And get ready for the longer electoral battle, to kick out this whole subversive administration in 2012.
IT’S OUR LONG MARCH !!!
This aint gonna be solved in 2 election cycles, get real!
You give them too much credit; They did not create
the coming crisis, they merely intend to take advantage
of it to establish the sort of State found in Argentina:
A narrow layer of productive people sandwiched between
a Ruling class which taxes away their wealth, and a mob
which consumes it.
I believe the country was pushed into its first Civil War. You had extremists – rabid abolitionists (represented by radical Republicans) in the north and the Slave Power (represented by southern Democrats) in the south – in a winner-take-all ideological struggle, facilitated by a highly-partisan newspaper industry. They’d been building up to it for almost fifty years. I think all these parties WANTED those first shots fired at Ft. Sumter. I think there are people like that in our country today.
Until the cultural rot is arrested and reversed we will not begin to set this wonderful country back on the right path.
I think Old Glory will be a little redder,a little bluer and a little whiter on November 3,2010.
If there are elections…
This slide into tyranny will eventually trigger many armed, violent, and un-civil outbreaks. When the government thumbs its nose at the law what else can be expected from the populace? And when elections are either called off or nullified (as just happened in CA) the only response left to those who want to live free is to forcibly throw off the chains. That means killing the oppressors. Sorry but I don’t think rational discussion with the leftists is possible any longer.
The Left has no way to enforce its illegal takeover
of the states, _unless_ the people give them one by
engaging in literal armed rebellion, and forcing the
US military to intervene; Vote in November, support
the legal challenges of the states by keeping and
bearing arms, but keep your finger off the trigger.
Check out the Michael Ledeen thread on Peggy Noonan.
Ledeen hits the nail squarely on the head with”
“doing their damndest to punish us for our lack of adulation”.
That sure describes things, doesn’t it.
“doing their damndest to punish us for our lack of adulation”.
Absolutely, this describes things, including my workplace. I worry about our nation’s competitiveness when patronage is rewarded more than hard work and ingenuity. A race to the top for the perks instead of the opportunity to serve. The tension among the baby boomers is higher than I’ve ever seen it.
This is the reason free markets are so important. A private businessman can hire all of the relatives and friends that he wants. But if they can’t do the job, he goes out of business. This is also the reason socialism is doomed — there’s no penalty for mistakes when there’s no need to make a profit. In our pre-socialist present, it’s the reason the government has to force the same business paractices on everyone — otherwise, those stupid enough to comply with govt regs would bankrupt themselves. You have to make everyone comply to eliminate the disadvantages of complying with the govt rules. This is why racial engineering is so important. Way back after WW II, the VA required restrictive covenants on their mortgages, as houses in ‘mixed’ neighborhoods went way down in value. The elites can jabber all day about how racial discrimination is bad for business, but nobody in their right mind can believe it. The only way to keep this sorry train on the track is to enforce it on everybody. Want to guess what the value of a middle-class home would be in a whites-only neighborhood, compared to the free-for-all we’re in now? What they’ve done is to make racial segregation dependent on income instead of race. If you’re rich enough to live in a ‘burb where housing prices keep minorities out, you’re fine. It’s your lower-middle-class cousins who end up in crime-ridden neighborhoods with lousy schools. This is probably one reason why white race-consciousness is so attenuated in the US.
Very good as usual and spot on.
I have seen several comments on GW Bush. He was “of that generation” but was treated differently by most of his generation and the media, etc. Could it be the hippies, yippies and others decided to gang up on the fraternity boy? I don’t mean that despairingly (I was a sorority girl, myself). But, could it be that trivial and childish? Bush loved his parents, his wife, his ranch, God and his country; from his fellow Yale and Harvard co-eds that were in the coffee houses, that was so traditional and “establishment” they could not have stood it.
Dubya and I are from the same neck of the oilpatch. People from the Permian
Basin are inherently annoying to the (self) annointed. Even more so than the rest of Texas.
Dubya thought that as POTUS he needed to ignore/mollify their self-induced hysteria. His efforts proved futile.
My style is to deliberately go after the s.o.b.s and see how mad I can make them. I have found that if they are not in position to send a gang out to do you great harm, they put their tails between their legs and howl their way into oblivion. This necessitates my being face-to-face with them. The tea party manages to get around that problem, Thank Heaven.
This shows that we need to challenge them continuously and make them either run away or actually fight. This way is not without risk, but it is the prudent course so far as I can see.
We can’t forget that the “O” has his own army training here in the USA…Says it’s more fierce than our own military. I saw one video about that….now it’s gone. They’re VERY fierce and hate this country. Most of us know nothing about how they are dispersed throughout.
Just a note of awareness.
The key event that has destroyed the west is clearly the infantile indulgences of May 1968. Clearly that had filtered across the ocean to Stanford by 1975 but, by then, it was also destroying Europe.
The people in charge of Europe were all teenagers in 1968, no doubt seduced by the idea of sleeping with some hot french girls (or boys). Sadly this “idealism” has been converted into destroying the old continent, swiftly followed by the new.
great read VDH
I feel one important steps to repair the damage being done to individual rights and freedoms is to halt all government funds to higher education.
ALMOST all the evil is coming from these institutions.
University education should not free or even subsidized by the public purse.
They are the breeding grounds for subversive thought and subsidized by the very people who’s rights are being trampled by these progressive who think they are more intelligent then others and should therefore be allowed to discriminate for the “greater good” as defined by them.
History suggests that any people can be conditioned to view its political elite as a superior group, a class above and apart from the hoi polloi it’s been appointed by God to shepherd. Franklin D. Roosevelt did it, after all. The Obamunists’ error wasn’t in thinking it could replicate that mindset among Americans; it was in getting the sequence of events wrong.
The groundlings-to-nobles mindset must be in place before the elite assumes aristocratic airs and behavior. That requires the steady — “progressive,” if you will — application of two sets of measures:
1. One set must be designed to induce majority reliance on the government for all its needs and desires. That is, it must erect a welfare state so expansive and all-embracing that the common man comes to look first to the State for just about everything.
2. The second set, which should proceed in tandem with the first, must elicit a background buzz of fear of “them,” against whom the State is the only defense. Every identifiable community of interest must have a “them” to fear. This is merely the application of the Roman maxim Divide et impera, which our under-educated populace has mostly never learned of.
Instead, the Obamunists have taken an America which is overwhelmingly still self-reliant and has treated it like a helpless welfare client. They’ve appealed to racial, ethnic, and sectional suspicions and hostilities that, while not wholly illusory, aren’t nearly strong enough to support their ambitions. And they’ve taken on the behavior of lords and ladies of exalted rank, including several lordly and unwise counterblasts against conservative lese majeste, that few Americans are inclined to grant them.
Had they been in less of a hurry to award themselves the perquisites of aristocrats, they might well have succeeded in implanting themselves in our consciousnesses as exactly that. But they heeded neither Tacitus nor Orwell, and have reaped the whirlwind thereby.
Let’s pray that their ideological successors won’t learn from their mistakes.
Francis.
I believe that you are correct. I have a friend who says daily “We are circling the drain”. I don’t believe that. There are simply too many of us who will NOT go down without a work strike, a gun fight or an all out revolution (pray that the latter two do not happen). We did it once, I will certainly be there for whatever it takes. These new ‘rulers’ WILL NOT win out and cannot win. Their message goes against the grain of everything we have stood for. I won’t live under their rule and I know many others who are of the same mind set. Thanks
Set 1 creates the Underclass, which must be kept
passive by an _uninterrupted_ flow of State Welfare;
When that goes away, the Left will have the most to fear
from its clients, who will be ready to vote for anybody
who will supply them with the necessities of life when
they complete their escape from the Rustbelt to the
Sunbelt.
Dr.Hanson
Your piece is one of the best I’ve seen in quite sometime. I commend you and ask that you will continue to defend the nation against the kind of people you have so eloquently described .
“Unfortunately, people usually get the government they deserve, and our current government is well-deserved, given the selfishness and foolishness of the past two generations of voters.”
<<>>
For 60 years voters wanted more, bigger, better, faster and cheaper and make the next generation pay for it. What we see around us is the result.
Its not a single administrations fault, nor DEMO or GOP. It was an entire political system forcing an economic system to give without taking, to produce without cost. It was ( and is) completely out of balance, forced to support a population refusing to pay the bill.
The US Dollar is the Biggest export America has. Think about this, the US is in such desperate situation that the Nation begs people to use its dollar, which continues sinking to new lows year by year.
China and the European Union, along with Russia and the Middle east are in negotiations to end use of the USD ( actually Petro dollar since 1973) and install either a basket of currencies or trade direct their own currencies for international trade.
Until recently, a Nation that wanted to buy petroleum or Wheat, soy, cars, etc, would need to purchase US Dollars as the medium of exchange. This meant they needed to keep large amounts in the NYSE and within US banking system to maintain liquidity and quick access to large amounts of USD.
The US Dollar has been allowed to collapse so badly Nations are circumventing and creating a separate exchange system. As they do, they move their assets out of the NYSE and US banks to the exchange being set up to replace the old and battered USD.
This will be the next leg of US economic downturn, loss of confidence in the USD.
This is not due to lack of resources or ability, but resentment of anyone on the other side and refusal to work along side them. We literally watch politicians destroy a good program, for fear it might actually work. Instead of a solution there is posturing for the next election and we reward that behavior.
The Nation will recover when people figure out there is cost to benefits, the US Dollar must be controlled by the US government not the Federal Reserve, and if a good idea comes from the other side of the aisle, support it.
Its not a single administrations fault, nor DEMO or GOP.
While I understand your point about the public at large bearing most of the blame, your comment regarding the Demo and GOP is absolutely wrong. The democrat party has always been the party that claimed the right to rule over the masses whether they were claiming the right to own slaves or claiming the right to repeal measures put in place by popular vote. They are indeed the most guilty group of politicians whether the rabble responded with stupidity enough to believe their lies or not. You cannot say that their treacherous goals are not to blame just because they packaged those goals in an alluring, deceptive, wrapper that enticed so many to give in to unreality. Especially when the democrat leftists have run the education institutions as brainwashing centers for several generations.
The democrat party and those who support it must not be given a pass. They need to be destroyed as a national political force and many of them need to be held accountable for their outright criminal actions while in office. The people of this country have for far too long simply ignored the democrat crimes once they were out of office only to be held hostage by those same democrats again when they’re appointed to new offices where they can continue with the actions that turned the voters against them. We’re way, way, beyond the point at which we can deny the outright anti-Constitutional goals of the democrat party and say, “they’re all the same”. They’re not all the same and you cannot say that a Republican who sees the tenor of a public who believes democrat lies and compromises in order to remain in office and attempt to halt at least the most extreme abuses is the same as the democrat who plans with malice aforethought to undermine and ignore the Constitution.
No more forgive and forget. No more going along to get along. No more denying the nature of the enemy. No more Mr. Nice Guy.
“Its not a single administrations fault, nor DEMO or GOP.”
Certainly correct but not for the reasons implied.
The progeny of the greatest generation did not ooze into a self-pitying blob of socialistic goo because their partents were too generous, or because they were overly educated, or spoiled, or because the stresses of the modern world were too great to bear, or because of new diseases that rose up to strike them down, or because of the massed military power of too numerous enemies.
This country is at brink of a marxists niagra falls because it was subverted, pure and simple. Once they brushed Eugene McArthy aside, the runway was clear to conquer academia, the news media, the entertainment media, teachers and the unions, including the very union that subverts the beauracracies as we speak. It isn’t happenstance. It’s not coincidence. It’s a deliberate strategy that has been in progress for over 60 years.
Barack Obama is the masterpiece produced by 4 generations of subversives. Multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-national, multi-sexual. He’s like the dream of a comic book Shakespeare.
The Balkanization of our country is complete. The king of the balkans sips his Dom Perignon in the White House.
All that remains is to see whether the serfs will reach the guillotines before the Ruling Class clamps its claws around the leaders of our police and military. If the guillotines fall in time, the country survives. Otherwise, introduce your children to survival techniques in the new Dark Ages.
That was the soviet’s plan to subvert the US, by
encouraging human weakness; It will not work any
better than their other plans.
“He was “shocked” at his reception — or translated into Valley Girl parlance: “Like, I can’t believe this is happening to me.””
That line is hysterically funny.
I know, I almost fell of my chair with laughter!
“3. PM
We’ve passed into civil war… again, except we’re not shooting yet.
Oops.
Wrong on that point.”
Err. Uhh. Do tell.
The Professor embraces every right wing smear in the book. Get out of the way, Western civilization is going to crash on your head.
1. A fifteen story culture center and mosque in downtown Manhattan, a district of 50+ story office towers; local control of zoning–Community Board votes 29 to 10 in favor, Landmarks votes 9 to 0 in favor, Mayor in favor. “Local Control” is a left wing politically correct idea.
2. Michelle takes a vacation to Spain. In a few days the price tag has gone from $375,000 to $1,000,000. Is Michelle the wife of the head of State of the United States of America? “Check into Motel 6, Michelle where you belong.”
3. The civilians of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not the Japanese imperialists, they were the civilians of Japan. President Truman was reportedly unaware of the Nagasaki bombing until after the event.
4.) Smash the safety net! Smash the welfare state! “Is is bad for your character.”
The Professor’s John Birch Society induced rant passes for scholarship and common sense? When are you, sir, going to remove your head from the common gutter?
As our dear Mayor Michael Bloomberg says, “SHAME ON YOU!”
And you, Lawrence, parrot the same ol’ Re-, er, Progressive conventional wisdom …
1. Local control, aided and abetted by the political correctness and tacit approval of national Progressives, who have been telling us all about their “smart diplomacy” … how “smart” is it to play into the hands of the enemies of life and liberty, as Mr. Hanson describes? Not to mention that it will be dang-near-impossible to reverse this … and will it not need to be reversed if this center (whose backing we know little about, and whose leadership has shown signs of support for extremism) becomes an outpost for Islamofascist extremism.
2. Two words … Camp David. How tone-deaf can the Best and Brightest be?
3. The civilians of Hiroshima and Nagasaki would have been facing us down, right along with the rest, had we had to invade Japan. Those bombs probably saved a lot of the lives of the rest, by forestalling that invasion. And would you care to cite the source re: Truman not knowing about Nagasaki until after the fact? Being that it took Presidential authorization to drop the first bomb, I find that hard to believe.
4. Ever consider that the provision of social assistance should NOT be handled by the Federal Government, where the combination of bureaucratic detachment, and simplistic application of the doctrine of equal protection under the law, work against the effective and efficient allocation of resources to those who really need them? When people I know can go to Social Services and get assistance, while still carrying unlimited cell-phone coverage for their family and the Gold cable-TV package in my area, in large part because of Federal involvement, something is not quite right here.
And your parrottage of Re-, er, Progressive conventional wisdom pass for true wisdom? When are you going to think for yourself, instead of merely repeating what your “betters” are saying?
As Ritchie the Riveter would say …Lawrence wanna cracker?
And you, sir, attempt to justify and defend the actions you noted with the standard socialist/statist lines from your “book”:
1. “A fifteen story culture center and mosque in downtown Manhattan, a district of 50+ story office towers.”
In sight of the World Trade Center site; to be called the ‘Cordoba House’, in poorly-veiled reference to the former business center of Moorish Spain, symbolic of Muslim conquest of European civilization; board votes that reflect the current progressive attitude that full acquiescence is the only way to deflect fundamental Islam’s ‘righteous anger’.
2. “Michelle takes a vacation to Spain. In a few days the price tag has gone from $375,000 to $1,000,000.”
Michelle Obama is indeed the First Lady of the United States, but that does not give her the right to have a sorority party on the Spanish Riviera on the public dime. The actual figure does not matter so much to me, more the utter lack of restraint and recognition that her subjects are not having as good a time as her.
3. “The civilians of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not the Japanese imperialists, they were the civilians of Japan. President Truman was reportedly unaware of the Nagasaki bombing until after the event.”
First, what does Truman’s awareness of the bombing have to do with it, true or not? Second, why have we never sent a delegation before? There have been plenty of chances for progressive presidents to do the ‘right thing’. Are you saying that JFK, LBJ, Carter, and Clinton were insufficiently progressive to understand the deep need for our country to apologize for everything ever done by our side during wartime?
4.) “Smash the safety net! Smash the welfare state! “’Is is bad for your character.’”
Continual dependency does indeed depress one’s initiative, as numerous studies and the most basic horse sense will tell you. It seems clear to me that the root of the current problem is the fact that our government has worked too hard for too long to prevent their ‘constituents’ from feeling the pain of the business cycle, and now there’s no more morphine in the medical bag. Pain must come, it must be felt, people must suffer. (I am not rich; I’m trying to keep my mortgage current on a 1,500 square foot Cape Cod in the lower-middle class part of town, so don’t accuse me of fat-cat tendencies).
When, sir, are you going to come *down* to the “common gutter”, as you call it, and see that wonderful theories and good intentions are no match for dealing with the realities of life in a logical way, instead of reflexive emotional sympathetic responses?
Lawrence Gulotta:
How about reading ETAB at #33. You can read can’t you?
Your claptrap RANTING leaves some doubt.
You have no sense of irony, Lawrence. The very fact that you cite the decisions of zoning boards and mayors as sufficient reason for us to shut up means that you don’t get what’s going on. As for Bloomberg, he isn’t even a RINO, but a Democrat who switched so he could get elected. Oh, and calling him “Dear Mayor” smacks of N. Korea. You are truly inept and clueless in making your case sir.
And please, enough with the sorry revisionist crap about Hiroshima.
“The constant assumption that popular expression is retarded, and those who go to a tea party rally, vote to enforce immigration law, want to see marriage as it has been for millennia, want to cut federal spending, or are tired of identity politics are Palinesque clingers.”
Perhaps that is the worse thing about the socialists now in power. They can tolerate anything EXCEPT people who disagree with them. And what makes socialists and liberals so pathetic is that none, not one, of their social-welfare schemes have succeeded ANYWHERE. Europe, the social-welfare nirvana of the west, is broke or going bust and can’t afford all of the financial promises it made to its own people. The bill finally came due and they’ve finally realized that someone is going to have to pay it. Not enough “rich” people out there to soak, don’t ch’ya know, so now they’re screwed and racing to borrow even more money to prevent insolvency and support a lifestyle they can’t afford. And this is the financial model we want to emulate? Are they crazy?
Yet this is exactly what we are doing. For the “ME” generation, there is nothing a big, bloated, federal government can’t do. It is one giant trough from which all of the liberal pigs can feed from and there never seems to be an end to other people’s money to spend. And, like the Europeans, they want to keep spending as long as some other generation or Congress gets stuck with the bill. What a bunch of selfish children.
And you wonder why Americans are mad? You wonder why they are upset with a government that doesn’t listen to them, let alone believes anymore in a “representative republic?” You’re lucky the White House isn’t being overrun right now by people carrying pitchforks and torches. It’s a tribute to how much crap the average American can eat before they shout “ENOUGH!” I have this feeling, though, that after November 2 the people in Washington and the elites around the country will finally get the message.
It would be refreshing to listen to the annointed one recite this essay before Congress in place of the usual teleprompted platitudes at the next State of the Union oration. Because, indeed, this is what we’ve become.
Ione: Why let George Bush off the hook? He launched us on this trajectory by being the biggest spending president since LBJ. Like the earlier Texas loudmouth, he couldn’t bring himself to force a choice between guns and butter, and his ineptitude and the revulsion it spawned gave us John (“It’s his turn”) McCain and the Oprah-style celebrity candidate who was the fondest dream of the Harvard/Hollywood/S.F. axis.
I don’t believe I was letting GW Bush “off the hook”. I didn’t agree with many things he did, or policies he supported. But, I do believe the “blame Bush” hysteria was beyond anything I have ever seen. I believe it was to the point of psychotic on the media and other’s part, quite frankly. I also believe he was “just human” and the attacks (though he tried to hide it) did get to him and in some cases and may have caused him to make more mistakes than he would have otherwise
My point was; I had thought the reason the media disliked him was because he was from Texas, or his speech pattern or that he was a Republican. Mr. Hanson’s article made me wonder if it was because he was from a traditional, “establishment”, family which has been the target of his entire generation. Boomers usually stick together. Yaleies, Harvard and Ivy League types usually stick up for their own. But, not in the case of GW Bush nor the other “frat boys” and girls. They must be utterly destroyed as the “Establishment” by the likes of the coffee house crowd.
Someday, when the hot iron hate of GW Bush has cooled a little, a more objective view of GW Bush might be seen. I for one refuse to let the media tell me what to think of the man. Just like I didn’t let the media tell me what to think of McCain or Obama.
Of course the cherry on top of this vile cake is the Mosque at ground zero, no doubt a sign of Islamic victory in the west. As with the current administration it is a big f-u to the Christian West and all things we consider sacred such as the rule of law. This isn’t just a civil war, it is a world war, only very few will admit it but until we do admit it, we lose.
Another bang-on observation by Mr. Hanson. He touches on the role of a rotten philosophy (without naming it) in a nation and its culture, and that if it isn’t corrected, it will inevitably have poisonous consequences. “If one were to survey the elite campuses around 1975 and talk to those in law school, poly sci, or the humanities, then imagine them 35 years later as our elite leaders in government, the media, the universities, the foundations, and the arts, one could pretty much expect what we now have.” Which is an administration with totalitarian yearnings, one, together with Congress, as corrupt and venal as that of Mainland China — or North Korea‘s, or Cuba‘s, or Iran‘s, or Saudi Arabia‘s. It’s a good sign that Americans are “revolting” against this incipient hubris and arrogance, but they are philosophically rudderless and leaderless. They need to be told that they are right, that their lives are their own, not government property to be sacrificed for some nebulous “greater good” (while politicians and unions and other politically-connected groups make out like the bandits they are).
Let’s not forget that Obama hasn’t worked since his birthday last Wednesday. He has partied in Chicago, golfed with HIS bff’s and had a barbecue in his own honor, all the while collecting “birthday presents” in the way of cash donations. Yes, we are very angry and with good cause!
FTFY
Who REALLY knows when Obama was born there’s no Vault BIRTH CERTIFICATE been shown. A COLB is NOT a Birth Certificate.
Obama’s Bin Lyin’
Victor – you have out done yourself. One of the best summaries of the current political, economic, social and cultural morass we find ourselves in. You are so right about the university of the 70′s. I was there and one of those useful idiots. It a couple of years after school to get smart.Along the way, I lost a lot of friends and who would later become Obama supporters. A lot of work left to do, first November and then 2012.
I would love to see an article – or series of articles – from Dr. Hanson on how we might reclaim our universities and colleges from the far left so that future generations of graduates would be a little more balanced in their views. Some people have said that those institutions are now irrevocably lost but I have to admit to some skepticism on that. At least, I certainly HOPE that this is wrong, although I’m at a loss to think of many ways to improve the situation.
At first glance, some kind of oversight committee at each university that ensures a reasonable balance of views among at least new hires sounds like an idea with potential. On further thought though, that sounds a little too much like the Guardian Council of Iran, which has the same approximate function of ensuring orthodoxy of belief among prospective elected representatives.
I had another idea that approaches the problem from a different angle. Given that most university professors are singularly out of touch with reality and have only got their own education as a background, wouldn’t it be a wonderful thing if anyone seeking a university appointment had at least a couple of years of life experience completely outside of academia? For instance, some time working in the private sector or a couple of years of military service would tend to be a terrific antidote for many people’s intellectual myopia. I remember one individual on a newsgroup who was known for her strident far left views – interspersed with strange outburts of racism – responding with extreme revulsion at the idea of ever working ANYWHERE outside of a university setting. Apparently, she would have thought herself – and presumably anyone else – a total sellout if she were anywhere other than a university.
There’s an old saying with several variations that says: “If you’re not an idealist when you’re twenty, you haven’t got a heart. If you’re not a realist when you’re thirty, you haven’t got a brain.” I can’t help but think that saying is based on normal people who go to university, have some leftist notions as a result of their professors but then grow out of it when they get some exposure to reality once they graduate and start living in the real world. Unfortunately, most of the academics never get exposure to the real world so, while their students largely move on to the real world, they themselves stay in the same ideological rut for the rest of their careers, infecting whole new generations with their nonsense. (And of course, some of these academics move into government which is not much closer to the real world than their universities but gives them more scope to directly and immediately influence government policy with untried notions.)
I truly think that insisting that university and college teaching staff spend a couple of years in the real world would do those institutions a great deal of good. I’m just not sure if there is any realistic prospect of making that happen. Perhaps Dr. Hanson or others with experience in academia could comment?
I wouldn’t worry too much about reclaiming our universities and colleges from the far left. I was one of those social science students back in the mid-1970s. A goodly part of our radicalism was rebellion against our parents and our professors, who were of the WWII generation. Today’s college students are still rebelling against their parents and their professors who are now from the Boomer generation. Perhaps it was always thus.
Whatever the reason, I’m very pleased to report that the young college graduates of my acquaintance are much more conservative and more patriotic that I was at their age. Meanwhile of course most of us with any brain have long ago grown out of our campus radicalism.
“My grandpa notes the world’s worn cogs
And says we’re going to the dogs.
His grandpa in his house of logs
Said things were going to the dogs.
His grandpa in the Flemish bogs
Said things were going to the dogs.
His grandpa in his hairy togs
Said things were going to the dogs.
But this is what I wish to state:
The dogs have had an awful wait.”
I tend to agree. There is no doubt we are facing a horrendous fight over the next few years, but ultimately, the 20-somethings of today will end up leaning conservative. At that age, political viewpoints are pretty fluid, so the formative experiences of those years set their voting patterns. They are learning first-hand that liberalism is an utter failure. They are the ones who will pay the price of Obama’s largess (and yes, Bush, too, though he was downright conservative compared to Obama).
If you want to know what tomorrow’s leaders will bring, look to your state houses. They are swinging away from liberal/progressive policies. No choice, since those policies have bankrupted the states. The aforementioned 20-somethings are also being forged to be libertarian when their time to govern arrives.
I agree. I’d like to see Dr. Hanson lay this one out. He has made some comments about it in the past, like offering five-year contracts that would be renewed at the end of the term.
Myself, right now, I’d take away the faculty’s ability to hire and fire people and their ability to set the curriculum. They’d still be able to have input on these matters but these matters would be reported to a group outside of the university community that would consist of people appointed to these positions so that the faculty would have to justify their decisions. It’s a shame it has come to this but I’m afraid that the universities cannot be trusted anymore on these matters.
Does that mean they could no longer tout the text books they have written as being required by the curriculum?
Physics formulas don’t change over time, nor do chemical reactions. History adds but one year annually to the possible textual material. Yet new ‘revisions’ are published and placed on the required list almost annually, thus destroying any residual value in used text books.
tomw
Dr. Hanson, thank you so much for such a well-written and informative expose. I’m sure everyone has seen this short history of political correctitude by now:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8630135369495797236#
What we have, I think, is a two-headed Cerberus as government.
One head, Obama, is a pathological narcissist with no interest in issues, policies, analysis of results and futures, and no committment to or interest in America but with a psychological need to control people.
The other head, the backroom gang who run Obama, are hardcore socialists whose only interest is in inserting a statist infrastructure into the US.
Each head is using the other. For Obama, the move from community organizer to politics could only be within a socialist camp, because socialism functions by setting up an elite set of rulers vs the population – who are ruled. This is, of course, in direct contradition to the Constitution which is based on rule of, by and for, the people. But Obama’s pathology – and it is a pathology and not a mild neurosis – requires that he control, totally control, other people.
The backroom gang obviously planned to use Obama’s smiles and charm and manipulative skills to wheedle the hapless population into accepting statism.
It isn’t working very well. The people have been rejecting The Obama Plan. I suspect that in an era without the internet and cable, without blogs and youtube and facebook – the propaganda of the Obama Gang might have been more overwhelming. After all, as has been pointed out, the MSM, with its members raised in the 60s, belongs to the Left and Obama.
My question is – how do these two agendas, which both involve total control over, and rejection of, the Will of the people – function in the next months? Neither head is going to give up its agenda. Obama will certainly not become open to collaboration, equality of interaction; he’ll remain with his absolute need to control others.
The radical gang aren’t going to give up their statist agenda. Both heads may resort to the use of different tactics.
I suggest Obama will become more dictatorial, aloof, and focused on campaign exhortations (where no-one can say a word of dissent)…and racism. With his fragility of psyche, he can’t handle criticism or dissent, and his handlers are going to remove him, more and more, from direct contact with questions.
I predict race will be his chief bulwark for the next months. His fight with Arizona, after all, has nothing to do with his duty to secure the borders, but with an appeal to hispanics to vote for him. A vote for Obama means, to him, that he controls them. He’ll use race in other areas as well. He can’t run on his record, as people are rejecting it; therefore, he has to persuade people to ‘be his’ by manipulation.
The Gang will move him to Executive Fiat. That is, my concern is that the Democrats will allow Congress to take the fall for dissatisfaction with the Obama Agenda. Obama has no respect for or interest in Congress anyway and considers ‘the people’ an interference in his need to control. So, they’ll let Congress take the fall. Obama will then set himself up as a Victim of an obnoxious Congress..and attempt to insert that statist agenda…by Executive Fiat.
The October surprise hasn’t happened yet. That’s when they will show how desperate they are. They were happily willing in September 2008 to destroy the lives of a generation, bring the economy to its knees and the world to the brink of the Dark Ages to get their contender on the throne. I expect they will be willing to do even more this time. Amnesty, blanket mortgage forgiveness, and Marshall Law against the Tea Parties have all been mentioned. N. Korea must seem a like a tasty morsel to them, and now may be the time to send the bombers into Iran. What’s a little nuclear chicken when the Senate and House are at stake, after all? Whatever happens, be assured that there will be one and only one purpose…..continuation of their tyrany.
But I love your analysis, Etab, of the two factions in the regime. Obamassism vs Marxism. It’s spot on to me. I have long thought that the moron was virtually powerless at the start, but merely being in the most powerful position in the world (with the additional advantage of being totally amoral) has now positioned him to challenge his old puppet-masters, and perhaps even emerge victorious. If he does, it will be interesting to see if he evolves into Josef Stalin or Nero. Nero, I think, is the early favorite.
“Education system”? Ha!
Anyone truly educated can observe these subjects being coddled and indoctrinated for their ‘usefulness’. These subjects shall make prime muslims and partake of the drug of islam in copious amounts.
May I add that while I’m extremely disturbed that al-Bama and the Cultural Marxist are trying to scuttle the country (and Western Christendom in general), I think that it was inevitable and a necessary development to get things back on track. If you borrow from their model of how history works, it is an anti-thesis that fits into the Hegelian dialectic that needs to be refuted and expunged.
Cultural Marxism has been growing like a malignant tumor for decades and now has surfaced for everyone to see. Had McCain won (yes, I held my nose and voted for the apologetic RINO) this disease would have continued to spread beneath the surface. Now we all know what the Cultural Marxists want for everyone: total servitude to the State and their “superior” intellect. Their Obamessiah campaigned as a moderate (as Democrats always do), but now everyone can see him and his entire party for what they are: extreme secular socialists. My hope is that now they can be CRUSHED for at least a couple of generations before they climb back out of Hell’s slime heap. Or, to quote the great Chesty Puller: “So they’ve got us surrounded, good! Now we can fire in any direction, those bastards won’t get away this time!”
Re: proreason
“Is it possible that this country is being deliberately pushed toward civil conflict?”
More than a few people have been mulling that possibility over for the past 18 months. Much of what Team Obama (include here the MFM) has said and done seems designed to deliberately provoke an irrational response. This tactic backfired. The Tea Party response a year ago was the the Wimp Crowd’s undoing: they were passionate but civil. Michelle Antoinette is not vacationing, just sulking. How could Alinsky be so wrong?
Let her sulk all she wants. Just another piece of the puzzle falling into place. Mafeesh mushkela. No problem, as the Arabs say. It’s the will of the Almighty that they self-destruct, and act the way aristocrats always have when the guillotines are being constructed.
When the picture’s complete, with all the little pieces fitting perfectly together, what it shows is obvious. That’s not reductionism, just common sense.
I’ve said it on another post and I will say it here. The Dems will lose some seats but not all. They will still maintain some control. It will be because of two things. The stupidity of the electorate and massive voter fraud. With the combined help of the massive propaganda machine of ABC,NBC,CNN,MSNBC,Bloomberg,NYT and the other newspapers outlets, they will do all they can to twist, turn and obscure the truth as much as possible. They will red meat give to all the “Lindsay Lohan” loving public. To address the voter fraud, in Nov. ’08 I encounterd what was definitly voter fraud. I informed my local authorities and they fowarded it to the election board of my county. So far nothing has been done to address this criminal act. And I suspect they won’t. All stops are off this election year. Thay will use every crooked toll on their arsenal this election. So don’t watch the news on Nov. 3. Watch on Feb 1 2011 when they will unleash their furor on those Americans who do not follow their doctrine. We are living in 17th century France, with they likes of “Baron Von Reid”, “Marie Antonitte Pelosi” and the “Sun God” himself Barack Obama. Long love the U.S. You had a great run.
Another very good article. However, day after day and site after site we continue to read these very well reasoned articles that lay out the many problems facing our country which have been broght about by the left. Our would bet many now how a much better understanding of history since 1865 than we received in public schools and universities…since we are not the elite that attend private schools and colleges.
That said…WHAT DO WE DO ABOUT IT. Do we roll like the President who said of the judge (can’t remember his name)”he made his ruling now let him enforce it” or do we just work within the political process while the other side uses it against us? We are delusional if we think that somehow the US is immune to more than one civil war…how many have European countries had? In spite of the mnay different manmade reasons for divisions among humans it always reduces down to self proclaimed rulers and everybody else period and the further down that road a culture goes the more violent the correction.
So agian I asked…what do we DO continue to describe the problem or act to correct it and if action what form does it take since it appears that the Repubs may have as many elitist as the Dummycrats.
The triumvirate of Obama, Pelosi, and Reid are playing for keeps and they have no intention of abating until the common citizen has been pressed to the breaking point. This is their goal and we cannot talk our way out of this problem. The upcoming elections will begin a process of reversal, but we the best we can hope for in the near term is stalemate. Rollback will have to wait until 2013 at the earliest. Now is the time to start thinking several steps ahead. Survive the hardship. Be vigilant.
What we conservatives or traditionalists want from our politicians is people who will get themselves elected so as to put themselves out of work. I used to believe the Left had no understanding of human nature, but now I can’t help wonder…
Another fine post Dr. Hanson.
The likely mosque at/near Ground Zero is most disturbing on my scorecard.
I knew some of the UAL Flight 93 aircrew from my days at DIA. As well as having a colleague who’d been a passenger in one of the 2 tower aircraft.
Bloomberg’s limp wristed response, accountability of said mosque and its dubious finances leaves me nauseated with disgust.
Then again, he’s the same Bloomberg who TRIED to deflect blame from extremist Muslims to Tea Party-minded individual(s) as the suspect(s) in the botched NYC bombing.
What a despicable, inept ‘leader’.
To explain a certain force motive to Bloomberg’s support of the Ground Zero Mosque:
Bloomberg, the company, sells trading and information terminals and ultra high speed updates on financial information. As a class of clients the Saudis and other well-wealthed purist Muslim Arabs are major.
bvw
“To explain a certain force motive to Bloomberg’s support of the Ground Zero Mosque:”
Do you happen to know the “force motive” that propelled Barack Hussein Obama’s endorsement of the Mosque he wants to see built next door to Ground Zero and why that particular location?
“My fellow Americans, in response to the current emergency, I as your President, find that I must postpone and reschedule the 2010 elections to a time more appropriate and secure. This is for the security of this nation and our Government. This future date to be determined by the sitting House of Representatives.”
Subtext:
” And if the Supreme Court wants to interfere, well ‘…How many canons has the Chief justice? How many battalions? If the Chief Justice would rule, then let HIM enforce it.”
And all of the ‘Constitutional Defenders’, those with Oath’s ‘Registered in Heaven to ‘Protect, Preserve and Defend, the Constitution Of The United States’. All of the armed first responders, are off chasing goat herders through the mountains of Afghanistan. Or Nation Building in Iraq.
I don’t sleep very well lately.
zeprin
You forgot Nanking. One should not forget Nanking.
Great essay, of course, but your own relative youth betrays you. The gang of brats running things today did not come from 1975 campuses, but 1958 continuously onward.
That means we now have THREE full indoctrinated generations.
That means it’s over.
The geriactric brats have the power and the backing (Saudis, Russia, China) to stay in power and mandate anything they’re led to mandate. They can even get sacrificed like pawns because they’re followed by ranks and ranks of worse.
Any overt moves by the ‘last angry man’ in America, and they’ll start shooting — using Reichstag Fire style surrogates, of course, which will further cement their power.
When Rangel gets on his high horse about “old English Anglo-Saxon procedure” someone ought to ask him about this performance by Whitney Houston in South Africa
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JksJXjaKesg
As far as GWB’s popularity vs Obama’s, don’t forget that the whole nation rallied around GWB after 9/11 AND the real estate bubble expanded helping the economy to be (relatively) good.
Of course, what might be helpful would be to have a student of American History attempt to put our current problems in perspective. Instead we get VDH talking about the kids who sat at the nerd table at his high school. How helpful is that? Where would Bill Gates have been sitting? GWB would not even have been AT his high school but sitting in the dining room at some swank private school (not that there’s anything wrong with that.)
I am sorry that VDH is so depressed and angry, but he’s not contributing much, either. OK, he is in the tradition of the provocateur/pamphleteer, but there is not exactly a shortage of such blather these days.
What the hell; let’s take away or cut pension costs by 20%. Suddenly people are going to have jobs and start buying stuff again? I will grant you that how to create jobs and have the economy grow is baffling everyone right now, but what will probably happen is that the Progressives will keep people barely afloat for another year or two with bandaids and life rafts; eventually righties will get more power and cut taxes and the economy will start up again.(if we are lucky). Some hint of inflation would prompt all those sitting on their huge cash pools to invest them so that they would not shrink. Timing is everything
The deficit will probably not come down, but we will just buy some stuff, and promise to fix it later. Been there; done that.
The prospect of changing retirement troubles me. Because one of the top targets is likely to be military pensions…and historically, a military organization being shorted in the paycheck frequently turns on the paymasters.
@15. ione: - Could it be the hippies, yippies and others decided to gang up on the fraternity boy?
The rhetoric leading up to the day Al Gore failed to carry his own home State in November of 2000, and the endless river of lies, propaganda and wartime treason which followed Joe Wilson IV’s serial prevarication suggest otherwise.
Whether it was or not, GWB’s election – a quintessential example of WHY we have an Electoral College – was perceived by the hard-core left as a refudiation of Bill Clinton and his social(ist) policies. Those were policies the left has been ramming down the throats of Americans for decades and – like Reagan and the Republican majority elected in the ’90s – GWB at first represented an interruption of that process. And so the Bush Administration was treated by the left and their shills in the media as the moral equivalent of the Viet Nam War. That relentless media assault gave us an economy-destroying Congressional majority in 2006 and a nation-destroying President in 2008.
Dr. Hanson has hit on the problem precisely when he writes of “arrested adolescence“. But this is not a symptom of the leftist mindset. Rather, it’s becoming clear that this arrested mindset is the cause, that is, the source of attraction to a serially discredited ideology. Research into moral psychology and the associated (replicated) clinical evidence have shown the reasons.
The left’s collective(ist) refusal to accept the repeated failures, excesses and genocidal lethality of socialism is grounded in a retarded moral maturity – one which emphasizes Utopian and egalitarian ideals and trivializes other intuitive ethics necessary for the function of a healthy, prosperous, sustainable society.
In the contemporary left we face a social cancer that is, ironically, engendered by the very success and elevated quality of life afforded by republicanism and capitalism. That cancer is represented by the post-modern, narcissistic demagogue – a mind shaped by society’s unhealthy fixation with nurturing unwarranted self-esteem and epitomized by our current President – who has matured in most other ways and whose positions, therefore, appear to deserve thoughtful consideration rather than a trip to the woodshed. We continue to ignore this reality at our peril, and that of our Republic.
Well done, VDH. On point!
“The present symptoms that characterize both our popular culture and current governance — shrill self-righteousness; abstract communalism juxtaposed with concrete pursuit of the aristocratic good life; race/class/gender cosmic sermonizing with private school and Ivy league for the kids; crass and tasteless public expression; a serial inability to take responsibility for one’s actions; the bipartisan mega-deficits; the inability to cut pensions and social security for the baby boomers — from the trivial to the fundamental, all derive from a bankrupt cohort that came of age in the sixties and seventies.
We see the arrested adolescence and hypocrisy that come from that sermonizing generation, whether in Al Franken’s puerile face-making, the ideologically driven suicide at Newsweek, the steady destruction of the New York Times, John Kerry’s tax-avoiding yacht, the Great Gatsby Clinton wedding, Michelle on the Costa del Sol, Nancy Pelosi’s jet, Tim Geithner’s tax skipping, or the constant race-card playing of a Charles Rangel and Maxine Waters. Yes, one walk across the Yale or Stanford campus circa 1975, and one could see pretty clearly what sort of culture that bunch would create when it came of age and was handed power. If that is reductionism, so be it.”
Brilliant.
I was in college around that time (’78). I am ashamed at what our generation is now doing to this country as compared to what we got from this country.
What we got was more opportunity and privilege than any generation in the history of the universe, and that’s a fact. No one ever before and maybe never again will be given the freedom, the wealth, the work opportunities, the ease of life and leisure that we were given.
What we did with it is a cruel joke. We whined, complained, made things less free, made life less enjoyable. We had peace and strength given to us, and we turned the world over to tyranny one country at a time and made the US progressively weaker. We found people free, and started building chains for them. We invented the monster of PCism, and let it run unfettered through society destroying everything it touched – and it now touches everything. We opened our borders and announced bu fiat that marriage was a toy or a status symbol only. We said ‘No’ to life even though so many of us were given the best life possible.
You want your nemesis? We got your nemesis action here on an entire generation, and it won’t be a pretty thing to watch.
My hope? The next generation rises up and repudiates its parents. That would make them normal and moderately grateful for all the good they have.
you are correct ..we have had the greatest opportunities for the greatest number of people EVER.
……and now the clowns in control of the government are denying the next generations of it.
it is a giant fraud being perpetuated on the american people. the worst type of schoolyard bullsh!t I could have ever imagined.
“The present symptoms that characterize both our popular culture and current governance — shrill self-righteousness; abstract communalism juxtaposed with concrete pursuit of the aristocratic good life; race/class/gender cosmic sermonizing with private school and Ivy league for the kids; crass and tasteless public expression; a serial inability to take responsibility for one’s actions; the bipartisan mega-deficits; the inability to cut pensions and social security for the baby boomers — from the trivial to the fundamental, all derive from a bankrupt cohort that came of age in the sixties and seventies.
We see the arrested adolescence and hypocrisy that come from that sermonizing generation, whether in Al Franken’s puerile face-making, the ideologically driven suicide at Newsweek, the steady destruction of the New York Times, John Kerry’s tax-avoiding yacht, the Great Gatsby Clinton wedding, Michelle on the Costa del Sol, Nancy Pelosi’s jet, Tim Geithner’s tax skipping, or the constant race-card playing of a Charles Rangel and Maxine Waters. Yes, one walk across the Yale or Stanford campus circa 1975, and one could see pretty clearly what sort of culture that bunch would create when it came of age and was handed power. If that is reductionism, so be it.”
Brilliant.
I was in college around that time (’78). I am ashamed at what our generation is now doing to this country as compared to what we got from this country.
What we got was more opportunity and privilege than any generation in the history of the universe, and that’s a fact. No one ever before and maybe never again will be given the freedom, the wealth, the work opportunities, the ease of life and leisure that we were given.
What we did with it is a cruel joke. We whined, complained, made things less free, made life less enjoyable. We had peace and strength given to us, and we turned the world over to tyranny one country at a time and made the US progressively weaker. We found people free, and started building chains for them. We invented the monster of PCism, and let it run unfettered through society destroying everything it touched – and it now touches everything. We opened our borders and announced bu fiat that marriage was a toy or a status symbol only. We said ‘No’ to life even though so many of us were given the best life possible.
You want your nemesis? We got your nemesis action here on an entire generation, and it won’t be a pretty thing to watch.
My hope? The next generation rises up and repudiates its parents. That would make them normal and moderately grateful for all the good they have.
Simply put (that’s why they want it): were I a Muslim, the mosque at Ground Zero would tell me that terrorism pays; there could be no better propaganda for armed jihad.
Bravo to VDH for this and the incredibly articulate and intelligent commentors. I envy all their ability to put into words what I feel but cannot express. Simply reading all of this is satisfaction enough.
Proreason – is it deliberate?
Are there people in smoke-filled rooms plotting every move? No.
However, the one item the article does not deal with is the Frankfurt School, Gramsci et al. and
the outcome of the “long march through the institutions” . What we see now is deliberate in the
context of the communist thinking of the early 20th C. It is the inevitable outcome of that
philosophy.
I am not sure where it will end………….
In disaster, for all concerned.
” 11. proreason: Is it possible that this country is being deliberately pushed toward civil conflict?”
The left would love nothing more than to have the right “fire the first shot”. Actually we have only not with a violence force they would use. We are using our brains, this fact is lost on them.
That’s right, the best thing we can use is our brains in a very respectible manner instead of an uncontrolled violent outrage. The left only understands something uncontrolled and want us to act uncontrolled to place the blame on us.
Quite right that there is anger, but don’t forget the disgust; there is plenty of that as well. Our entire leadership class are clowns.
I tried to get the sentiment across in this song:
http://www.youtube.com/?v=GFp_qngx8J8
Lyrics:
You told us all a tale you would turn the tide.
You sang a pretty song, said you’re on our side.
It took you little time to betray our trust.
You joined the frikking jokers and the joke’s on us!
Hey hey hey hey hey it’s another clown!
Just another clown for the clown show!
I see you shoving money into the machine.
I see a string of zeroes running off the screen!
The Ministry of Plenty still demanding more,
The freaking same old folly that has failed before!
Hey hey hey hey hey it’s another clown!
Just another clown for the clown show!
Another clown!
Another clown!
Another clown!
Hey hey hey hey hey it’s another clown!
Just another clown for the clown show!
And so the mask has slipped, you are just the same:
A carbon-copy con man with a different name.
To listen to your lameness should we laugh or cry?
In debt inside your dreamworld ’til the day we die!
Hey hey hey hey hey it’s another clown!
Just another clown for the clown show!
Count down to the first poster to play the racism card as a reply …
…three … two … one …
Is it just me, or does the Journolist equally look like the “crazyradicalJewisheggheadlist?” The same names and faces that keep pushing for open borders, gay marriage, racial set-asides, raising taxes for the ever-growing entitlement state (that they think they can control), and demanding American foreign policy take steps to a phony peace in the ME–a peace that will guarantee that Israel will be put in a position of weakness and then attacked once again by Muslim hordes. You know, it also looks like the faculty of any elite university in the US as well.
This idiocy has bee rampant in Washington D.C for decades. Senators and Congressman have been stealing and scamming the system without serious penalty for most of the last century. Go to prison? No big deal their pensions are not even interrupted mush less forfeited. Pay sales tax on my boat? How dare you!! So what if my car was parked free for years, don’t you know I am at least a minor god! Why pay income tax on my income in the Dominican Republic? Didn’t I exempt myself when I wrote that law? The list goes on and on.
One judge overruling the majority of a democratic republic and about 3000 years of human civilization by changing the definition of a word that exists in every language in the world. Quite an accomplishment, your “honor.” You must be very proud.
But there is an answer for you. We should not let you win. All we have to do is insert the word true or real in front of the words related to marriage when we speak or write it referring to a woman/man marriage. Thus: “Yes, my daughter was true-married to a fine young man last Saturday.” Or, “You know I went to a real wedding last week.”
Let’s see some “honorable” Harvard judge rule that this way of speaking is unlawful hate speech, for this is the way we are headed. Hear that Kagen?
As long as we keep paying these people and their minions to abuse us they will. Both the Ds and the Rs play this game just in differing degrees and with the benefits accruing to slightly different tribes but always w/ the Big Government tribe the Big Winner. Solution? (1) Drastically curtail the flow of money. (2) Strict term limits. (3) Break up the propaganda cartel called “public education”.
When the populace becomes famished it begins to eye sacred cows in the public sector as food, not idols.
I would love to think that we will have a “civil” war to retake our country, but I fear that is not the case. The mere fact that the ruling class abides by the axiom that “there are none so blind as those who will not see” pretty much guarantees that the uprising will be swift and violent if the ruling classe tries to steal the election November 2.
G.W. Bush also cordially despised the elitists among his fellow Yale and Harvard co-eds his entire adult life. It was subtle, but it was there…and they knew it.
Leave it to Rangel to whine about the very old white institution that made him wealthy in the first place. Getting caught cheating is also part of the deal, Charlie.
Dropping the A-bombs on Japan saved many millions of lives – mostly Asian lives.
The Japanese would not have surrendered – it was not in their history and culture to do so. The fight would have continued despite continued fire-bombings by American B-29s and the new B-32s. Thousands of Japanese planes and manned suicide aerial bombs awaited the arrival of American and British naval forces.
The Japanese had a two million man army in China/Manchuria when the Soviet Union declared war on Japan. Stalin had moved the Red Army from Germany to face the Japanese forces; the Red Army would have rolled over the Japanese who, out of desperation and panic, would have started killing anything not Japanese. Chinese civilians would have been massacred by the millions and Japanese soldiers would have died by the hundreds of thousands under the treads of the Red Army tanks. Stalin would have demanded, and gotten, a larger partition of Japan – imagine Tokyo a divided city under multi-national occupation.
For anyone to claim that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not save millions of lives is to speak from an almost total ignorance of World War II in general and the Pacific and China theaters in particular.
After the war, one of the Imperial Japanese Navy officers who planned the attacks on Pearl Harbor and Midway became a United States citizen. He was asked if Japan had the A-bomb, would they have used it. He said they would have used it.
Truman saved a lot of lives by his decision. He knew that an invasion of Japan would have been costly which is why he said that he never lost an hour of sleep over the bombings. Many more lives were spared than were lost.
“If one were to survey the elite campuses around 1975 and talk to those in law school, poly sci, or the humanities, then imagine them 35 years later as our elite leaders in government, the media, the universities, the foundations, and the arts, one could pretty much expect what we now have.” I think that a certain Ayn Rand did exactly that, only perhaps a decade or so sooner.
***
I still say that these cats are mostly Kantians, and all of this is the [il]logical product of that: that they can mold reality to fit both their whims and warped metaphysics. But, reality bites.
Lets us wait until the nov 3rd elections to see what the magnitude of vote fraud is before we start opening up with weapons fire.
The liberals need to keep in mind 2 important facts:
1. The military is sworn to uphold the constitution. not politicians or judges.
2. the majority of people in the armed and law enforcement areas are not liberals. They are our fathers, brothers, sisters and mothers.
plus which, the governments of the successful states
_will_not_ be run bankrupt trying to support the failed
states; They will challenge the Federal initiatives in
court, and perhaps by ignoring unconstitutional laws.
Another Classic Hit from Mr. Hansen!!
“The common denominator? If one were to survey the elite campuses around 1975 and talk to those in law school, poly sci, or the humanities, then imagine them 35 years later as our elite leaders in government, the media, the universities, the foundations, and the arts, one could pretty much expect what we now have.”
Very true. I was a member of this crowd. Graduated from UVa in 1977 and shared the same political leanings. Leaving the womb of college and trying to seek out a job and a future in the Carter years was a big head adjustment, but letting go of my lefty politics took another decade. I remember the cognitive dissonance of seeing and appreciating Reagan’s success and trying to reconcile it with what my peers and the popular press said about him. Finally I shook off those old assumptions.
I don’t think I’m alone. Boomer’s were ideologically split from the get go between the working class who served in Vietnam (about 3 million) and those who went to elite schools. So there is a ruling class but also a savvy working class who sees through the elitism and hypocrisy. An interesting story readers would like to hear is how an academic like you chose the road less traveled by.
Anyway I’m looking forward to Iraq and Afghanistan vets returning and taking leadership roles in this country. They are worldly, sophisticated beyond their years, and are pragmatic.
One of the greatest ironies of our would-be aristocracy is that the original European aristocracies actually provided protection from foreign enemies in exchange for submission to the lord, whereas our would-be aristocracy is incapable of providing defense and seeks only to weaken the country.
This administration is not going to end well. If they’re lucky, the Democrats will simply be out of power for a generation. If they’re not, as Phil Gramm put it, we’ll be hunting Democrats with dogs within a decade.
It is obvious the Professor plays the tune of the John Birch Society and other ultra radical right wing hate mongers.
The Professor is associated with the Hoover Institution at Stanford. Of course, the Hoover Institution is your run of the mill community college, right? There is likely no more elitist, corporatist Institution in the United States, but it serves the Professor well. Attack the elites? Victor Davis Hanson is the elite, fools.
It is not the responsibility of the federal government to promote or advance Christianity.
The crooks are advocates of “progressive culture?” What a joke.
“There is no law other than a mandated equality of result.” Hanson should tell this to the Supreme Court of the United States.
Obama is a socialist? No, Obama is a Communist? No, Obama is a Nazi? No, Obama is the devil and the anti-Christ! Yes. 100%, you go to Stanford and the Hoover Institution.
The Professor has become a shameful propagandist of the John Birch Society. He has crossed the line into hatred and fear mongering. He is not “spot on” in his analysis, he is an arrogant polemicist on a tear.
The wingnuts dream about the Second Civil War. The neo-Confederates proclaim “nullification.” The libertarians (sic) want to repeal sections of the Civil Rights Act because it violates private property rights. Second Amendment intimidation and armed scare tactics aimed at elected officials. There has been a dumb down in the country and it can be found in the States of the old Confederacy and the wild Southwest.
Every word Hanson uses is designed to inflame the electorate, promote fear, smear the Obama Administration and generally inspire ultra-nationalism and hatred.
Shame on you, Mr. Hoover Institution elite snob, David Victor Hanson. Robert Welsh would be proud.
I suppose you’re free to leave here and hang out at your favorite love-mongering websites, where strings of adjectives add to the weight of arguments and socialism, communism & fascism have enormous gulfs separating them.
Your mom is calling. Time for lunch.
What argument did you make? None? Oh… do tell, how well does this “he is an arrogant polemicist on a tear” apply to yourself?
OH NO, Mr. Anonymous! When I went to high school, back in the mid-70′s, there was a terrible event that happened that many people seem to have forgotten. It was forced-busing in the uber-liberal city of Boston,Ma. A liberal judge said that the black and white community need to get along alot sooner than a generation or two. So, this honorable judge “forced”, do you read, “forced” the black community to bus their children to another community, even if it was several miles away. A black mother stated,”Why are you doing this to us, at least we know where our children are!” It destroyed the black community in Boston to the point that it never recoverd. What the media did not show was the white kids getting there rear ends kicked,one almost stabbed to death,every day,as well as the black kids also. That is liberalism to me. If you don’t like what we do, we will FORCE you to do it. We know much better than you. This did not happen in the South. This happened in the Hub of The Liberal Universe. Also add to the mix is the fact that Liberals are closet racists. I have had my share of speaking to white Liberals and have the feeling that they were talking down to me.
Why Lawrence, I see you’re back on your perch … wanna cracker?
This is the second troll who brings up the “John Birch Society.” What is up with that?
Birchers have been out of the loop (does the Society even exist anymore?) for half a century and these limpdicks bring the specter of them up?
Did you guys go to the same troll school with antiquated textbooks?
Anonymous,
If the “president” were doing such a great job, his numbers wouldn’t be looking to head south of 40%. He is a turd. A fraud. A counterfeit. A hustler. A thug.
But he’s common political trash.
there are many like him. We need a reset in our country. A return to what made us great. A rejection of redundancy, a rejection of the social engineering crap, back room drug deals, corrupted media, jerry-mandering, vote farming via illegals and their anchor babies. etc.
The courts and the legislators, the police, and the media, the academia, are COMPLETELY out of touch with the people.
We are not your beasts of burden. We tolerate your silliness – to a point. That point has passed. There will be a reset.
We arent trying to tear up our country, we are trying to get it back from those that are destroying it. The parasites among us. You’re welcome to leave while you still can – you know you don’t have the spine to fight for anything. Go find another host.
Pass the blow wouldja.
Oh noes!!11!11 Teh John Birch Society! Hide!
VDH, my cyberhero…I don’t know what Selma High was like in 1970, but in 1971 in my high school I did notice a number of things that formed the germinating seeds of today’s destruction:
1)There was the beginning of the “smear” campaign. “Dumb jocks” were painted as Troglodytes, roaming the hallways looking to assault and batter the “intelligentsia student body” due to their mouth-breathing tendencies toward violence and reactionary attitudes.
Except, the truth is this: We never picked on anyone, in fact, the “dropout crowd”…angry and bitter all the time…were the ones into violence and rage. My best friends from the football team went on to Columbia (captained both teams there), Penn, Yale and on the baseball team, our shortstop became a neurosurgeon, the first baseman went to Wake Forest and became a CEO and I went on to law school.
Not only did we not fit the “narrative”, we didn’t even resemble the “contrast” that the “rage against the man” types were trying to portray. We were more into taking each person at face value, following rules, being a team.
One might look at the young men and women in our armed forces and see much the same. They are portrayed in the “inner sanctum” of JournoLies as warmongering, mouth-breathing, stupid, craven, evil. (this became much more sub rosa in the past couple of decades, it is the OFFICERS who are to be smeared, with the faux “concern” for the grunts…behind closed doors, the veneer of “concern” gets stripped away as so much lead paint)
2)My high school, VDH was completely integrated. Blacks made up much of our state championship football team as well as the state champion and record setting track team. (they did not, oddly…make up much of our state championship baseball team…more on this later)
We were also state champions in bridge, debate, chess, and band.
Yet, the school newspaper invariably wrote 95% of the articles about bridge, debate, chess and band accomplishments. And…about the black kids and how they “overcame” to stand out in track…or why they didn’t seem to be on the baseball team.
The “slant” on these articles, was that there was “something” causing them to “avoid” the baseball team. (read: racism) This is insane. My two best friends and I played football AND baseball. There was NO difference in attitudes, friendships, being teammates…it was only that the BEST football players/athletes who were black…ALSO SET STATE RECORDS IN TRACK. They liked track better and focused on it. There were no white sprinters, no white relay team members…nobody wrote about that.
It wasn’t prejudice, it was God-given talent that drifted the best black athletes toward track. And track and baseball were played in the same “season”. Spring semester. And that, and only that…was the reason that there were “less” blacks on the baseball team. But, that didn’t fit the “narrative”. The Journalism types, who went on to become the JournoLies TYPES…created a false narrative to suit their “needs”.
It was the “let’s you and him fight” instigators…dreaming about pushing a few of us “through plate glass windows”, for sentiments we never held, for offenses we never committed, for inadequacies we never possessed. But, it suited their purposes.
Left to our own devices, we were the closest friends with the black athletes, because we interacted with them on a daily basis as teammates. We were the “anti-bullies” because we had the belief system in right and wrong, we were the rules followers and we were among the best students. But we were not to be portrayed that way, from that day to this.
THAT…is who makes up the TEA PARTY. The lifelong smeared. And that, is who voted for (in large part) this administration 18 months ago. The anger is that once again, it was more important for the “arrested adolescents and hypocrites” to smear those who hoped to prove they weren’t the “fake image” Troglodytes…and who got fooled into believing that the day had come when they would “show” it.
They could never “show” it, because the narrative won’t allow it. And, they are lining up and getting ready to play a game that has been coming for a long time, against the opponents who have been smearing them for 40 years. I, for one, can’t wait for the opening whistle to blow. We are good people…and now…we have a uniform to wear …on the same team…we will be pushed around no longer.
One of the Pakistani officials opined that he’d rather have more U.S. soldiers because he reckoned that U.S. soldiers liked to fight, (forgive me for not quoting; Ive long since forgotten where I heard that). In Europe, this adminisration would have succeeded in 2 weeks…but we are Americans that like to FIGHT. Fear is a tactic used by commies to subjugate; much like the Islamists. THIS whole debacle is a dynamic; a dynamic and not something demonic; and as such, we should welcome the fight no matter how uncomfortable, no matter what it looks like. Evidence? Just look at the corruption that has been exposed in the last couple of years; it speaks volumes and it is a GOOD thing. We are Americans and we cannot be deterred by a bunch of weak progressives. Let’s remember what Patton said, “Being a Democrat in the U.S.A. is like being a Nazi in Germany”(close enough!).
These people that mean to rule, they operate from one place and one place only; deception. Who is the “father of lies”?They forget, that even the least educated of Americans have 1000X more common sense than they do.
We take this monster head-on…. …
“If one were to survey the elite campuses around 1975 and talk to those in law school, poly sci, or the humanities, then imagine them 35 years later as our elite leaders in government, the media, the universities, the foundations, and the arts, one could pretty much expect what we now have.”
Go out and find a DVD (or Videotape) of the movie The President’s Analyst (1967) with James Coburn and Godfrey Cambridge, and after watching see if you don’t agree, that movie came to the very same conclusion.
Going to Yale in the late 60s and early 70s, I saw many of the type of student you mention in this article. My dislike for them is what turned me into a conservative. These same students supported the Yale campus strike in the spring of 1970 when, among other things, a radical from outside Yale came to our college dining hall and told us to go home and kill our parents. Six years after graduation, the student leader of the campus strike wrote the alumni magazine to tell us how much he enjoyed practicing corporate law with a large firm.
Good recap of where we are in relation to Obama administration misdeeds. The mood of the country is indeed beyond sour.
Yet this morning on “Fox News Sunday” some panel members expressed surprise at Bill Kristol’s assertion that Republicans will be sixty strong in the Senate after its ten new senators are sworn in. But much of the chattering class, who went to school with people now in government, remains in denial about dems prospects, preferring instead to conjure up and argue unpersuasively for an imaginary dem triumph this November.
People around the country who did not go to school with people from this benighted generation have had enough of its politicians and it media people. They want commonsense and restraint restored to government and if they don’t get it after the new Republicans are sworn in they will turn their anger on them. This is the only positive thing dems can look forward to in the real world.
No, socialism has never worked, but what the Left is doing now is combining socialism with the patronage system, which has ruled some of our major cities for decades.
I grew up in Chicago. Here’s how it works. First you make so many laws that everyone is in violation of something, but you don’t enforce them until you need to. You’re running against the alderman? We need to shut down your restaurant for health code violations. Your newspapers wants to report on corruption? The fire marshall found problems with your wiring.
Next you get enough workers, police, fire, streets, sewer, garbage to depend on you for jobs and to go out on election days and bring in the votes. Finally you have an army of precinct captains who can take care of any problem that comes up. Lost your job, got a DUI, need a permit, we’ll take care of it, as long as you are a party member. It works. When is the last time Chicago had a Republican mayor?
Wasn’t there a move to make all police members of one national union? Wouldn’t that be sweet for the party in power! And didn’t Obama want a civilian force equal to the military? This is what they need to get one-party control.
And the government agencies have made everything illegal, from selling children’s toys at garage sales to emitting CO2. SF even makes you sort your garbage under penalty of law.
I’m starting to lose hope. I’m no longer proud of my country. It is being destroyed from within. I’m not sure there are enough individuals left who don’t want everything to be taken care of for them. The next two elections are crucial.
I am SO glad to see that @xsssx comment looks to have been removed. He/she typed: “….That means killing the oppressors. Sorry but I don’t think rational discussion with the leftists is possible any longer.”
Many other posters have responded with similar, if not as blatant, incitements to violence. I’m appalled by this.
The guidelines for this forum state “4. Threats are treated seriously and reported to law enforcement.”
Do you only mean threats to the blogger? Because I would think threats of this nature are more dangerous to the commonwealth. I hope the Pajama Media folks report those comments as well.
When people here talk about standing up, rising up, taking back the Constitution and America… and then say the left are the ones perpetuating and threatening violence… you’ve already lost your argument.
I don’t believe it matters what side of an issue you are on. The Civil War cost America more lives than any other conflict (I think all added together, but I might be wrong on that one), do we really want to go there again? REALLY?
I think you are wrong if you believe that this is the point the country is at. Write a letter. Vote. Get yourself elected to public office and impact your community. Shooting at people fixes nothing. It is the underlying system that should be considered, IMO.
Americans should not exist in fear of our fellow Americans. *That* would be a national nightmare.
I will make this short and sweet
When Good becomes bad, and Bad becomes Good
Houston, we have a HUGE problem
America selected a mirror image of its worst self to govern and now Americans are shocked and displeased from the consequences of electing a self indulgent narcissist.
PROREASON wrote,
“Is it possible that this country is being deliberately pushed toward civil conflict?
It seems all too fantastic to be happening. Surely it is a dream.”
why do you think Obama wants to bring the troops home from the middle east?
dlb
.
We have an example of Islamic triumphalism at Ground Zero, we have an invasion from a corrupt state to our south, we have a government that seeks total control of its people; all true and real dangers to a once-free country. Then, thrown into this is an example of why the Founders feared democracy, a majority vote to prevent a small percentage of the people from sharing the legal benefits given by law to couples of the majority’s sexual orientation; and a ludicrous example of high school “nerds vs jocks” cafeteria seating, as if there was some recognized right for the “nerds” to be physically assaulted for the crime of being weaker, or the folly of preferring reading to social climbing in the school’s cliques.
I usually enjoy reading your work, Dr Hansen. I did expect better of you. I am not homosexual but I can recognize that they have historically had the heavy hand of the law against them, which should not be in a free country that proclaims all men are created equal. I will admit to having been a “nerd” before the term was in popular use, and suffered for it in the peer jungle that was high school. Are those groups not welcome in the Tea Party? Do you want a party consisting only of heterosexuals who were popular in high school? I hope not. I pray not. It will take every freedom-loving person in this nation to turn this country around, and I pray that no one is rejected from the quest for liberty because of social bigotry.
Let Freedom Ring!
Mr. Hanson may miss the salad days of George W. Bush and his fealty to Big Oil and Wall Street, his shredding of the Constitution, his torture and imprisonment of political dissenters, and his ravaging of our economy, but I sure don’t.
Hey, you left out Halliburton…
Hope to see right-minded folks at next Saturday’s armed Restore The Constitution rallies:
RTC EAST – Greensboro, NC
RTC EAST Flyer
RTC WEST – Capitan, NM
RTC WEST Flyer
Oink, Oink, A Parable for Our Times
This is an oldie but a goodie. It’s a little parable on the inherent dangers of dependence on government largesse which in itself is a contradiction since governments really have no money to dispense, throw away, or use to buy votes. All funds that governments possess come from the people they govern or mis-govern:
HOW TO CATCH WILD PIGS
“You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground. The pigs find it and begin to come every day to eat the free corn. When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they are used to coming.
When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again and you put up another side of the fence. They get used to that and start to eat again. You continue until you have all four sides of the fence up with a gate on the last side.
The pigs, which are used to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat that free corn again.
You then slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd. Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They run around and around inside the fence, but they are caught.
Soon they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it that they have forgotten how to forage in the woods for themselves, so they accept their captivity.”
I was wearing a T-shirt one day that read in part, “Freedom Isn’t Free” and my 10 year old grandaughter sassily said, “That doesn’t make any sense!” . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1832)
They are national arsonists and they are burning our house down.
“Victor Davis Hanson is the elite, fools.”
Elitism is a state of mind, fool. Hanson doesn’t qualify, but. . .
“There has been a dumb down in the country and it can be found in the States of the old Confederacy and the wild Southwest.”
With this statement you do. BTW, the JBS was founded in Boston and is currently headquartered in Wisconsin. I don’t believe they’ve been a factor in American politics for about four decades. And, you forgot to mention clingers and religion. Oh, wait. . .
“It is not the responsibility of the federal government to promote or advance Christianity.”
Right you are. How exactly does that relate to Hanson’s article?
We do understand the Constitution as we’ll make apparent in November by voting out those who have violated its provisions.
“Every word Hanson uses is designed to inflame the electorate, promote fear, smear the Obama Administration and generally inspire ultra-nationalism and hatred.”
Every word Obama uses is designed to inflame the electorate, promote fear, smear the Bush administration and generally inspire class division and racial hatred.
I could go on, but what’s the point. A tool like you is not going to sway anyone here, and a tool like Obama is not going to fool the country the next time around.
There are still tax breaks available at http://www.gvmtaxshelter.com for those who always complain and do nothing about it. Be sure to click on Tax Shelter Explanation.
There is no way to guess what comes next from an administration that is never held accountable for its actions. Everyone is afraid of what will come next and that is why there is this anger.
I remember studying this in history. The citizens of that time lived in towns, cities and even homes that they had built with their own ‘sweat equity’, working within the rules and laws of the government. Those laws, in their eyes, fit one of three categories: A) Fair, B) Fair, because even though it doesn’t help me, Uncle Joe was able to take advantage of it; so be it, and C) To be tolerated because, hey – the government’s got to survive somehow.
Until more and more of those laws shifted away from A and B, and more and more laws in the C category replaced them. More and more of these mandates, taxes and orders benefited the few within the emerging ‘ruling class’, and hurt the average business and citizen more and more.
So, as they were promised, they stood up to their government and used their voice. They spoke out to the lawmakers, demanding that they be allowed the rights they’d been promised, and that when the majority of the population spoke the same way on a certain topic, that speaking should be listened to and acted upon. Their ‘voice’ was ignored, looked over, laughed at, and even in some ways punished. Even when a certain law or act was repealed, another more damaging act was moved forward to replace it. The government had to have money – there were programs to support, wars that must be paid for, and the ‘big machine’ needed payroll for numerous government employees.
Things became more violent after this – more mass protests, which the government cracked down on by issuing warrants, arresting protesters, and even stripping them from rights and property, in certain cases. This continued until, eventually, war erupted between the citizens and the government.
Gee. Sound familiar? Amazing how 1760-1773 America sounds like 2000 – 2010 America, isn’t it?
Or is it just me?
77. MarkInFla
“First you make so many laws that everyone is in violation of something, but you don’t enforce them until you need to.”
That’s happened at the federal level as well, made worse by Congress writing vague and uninterpretable laws. I’m not a lawyer, just someone getting up to speed on this problem via the Volokh Conspiracy website.
Can’t thank Al Gore enough for inventing the Internet. Best source of information and commentary ever. Where would conservatives be without it?
Understand the country WILL be without it when the time comes. The illustrious Senator Lieberman has already introduced a bill enabling The One to shut down the Internet for 4 months in the event of a National Emergency. I would hope that patriots would be intelligent enough to promptly shut down the Media’s transmitters and presses if that situation occurs.
Good overview VDH. Now that the problem is so well defined how about listing your immediate and short term actions to be taken by those who agree ?
Talk/whining, however powerful, is still cheap. Wake up America. The shooting war has all but started. Next Obama will be forming his “Red Guard” and has essentially started the process with Holder’s support of the Black Panther thugs at the polling places. WAKE UP !!!
Anonymous: please see #87 below.
Don Rodrigo: I think Soros U offers a PD (Peoples Degree) in Trolling. Just memorize a few lines from Rules For Radicals and you qualify. Based on the way things are going for the Libs, they might want to update their primary reader. Either that, or get a life.
I vividly remember saying once to lefties back in the ’70s that the next war was going to be about religion (Islam). All were struck dumb at the utter stupidity of that remark, but, were I to meet and remind any one of them now of that occasion, “I don’t remember hearing that,” would be the reply.
Since 9/11, even among friends or acquaintances, hardly anyone sees or thinks as I do today.
71.) Ritchie the Riviter:
“And would you care to cite the source re: Truman not knowing about Nagasaki until after the fact? Being that it took Presidential authorization to drop the first bomb, I find that hard to believe.”
I’m sure you find the historical truth hard to believe, Ritchie. Do try to read a little history before you go off to dreamland. See Michael Gordin’s “Red Cloud at Dawn: Truman, Stalin and the End of the Atomic Monopoly.” Michael Gordin is professor of the history of science at Princeton University. You can listen to his book launch presentation on C-Span2′s BookTV: http://www.booktv.org/Program/11052/Red+Cloud+at+Dawn+Truman+Stalin+and+the+End+of+the+Atomic+Monopoly.aspx
The first Hiroshima Bomb was Truman’s call. Prof. Gordin states that Truman had no idea the second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. It was a surprise to him. The second atomic bomb was “not his call.” After he learned of the Nagasaki Bomb, he issued a STOP ORDER. Truman stated that all future bombs would require Presidential approval. You can hear the question asked of Prof. Gordin and his response at 50:00 minutes on the video.
Salviati:
“Michelle Obama is indeed the First Lady of the United States, but that does not give her the right to have a sorority party on the Spanish Riviera on the public dime.”
First Lady Michelle Obama and First Daughter Sasha are staying at the Hotel Villa Padierna, a Ritz-Carlton hotel with rates from $500 to $2,500 a night.
WH Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters that the Obamas will pay for their own personal expenses, as will their friends who are traveling with them.
However, the most costly part of the trip is the full-time Secret Service and entourage, which is all covered by taxpayer money.
TLM
“I don’t believe they’ve been a factor in American politics for about four decades.”
The John Birch Society is making a come back. It was a “Co-Sponsor” of the 2.18-20.2010 Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington D.C.
Birch Society Director of Marketing Larry Greenley said: “After just a half day working in the exhibit, it’s hard to believe that we’ve taken so long to have an exhibit at CPAC. We’re meeting a lot of attendees that already have a lot of connections with JBS, but more importantly a lot of young people are stopping in and learning what the JBS is and does. The new literature piece ‘Discover The John Birch Society,’ that we created for our CPAC exhibit is very well received. It provides an excellent way for our booth personnel to quickly introduce what the mission, principles, and major campaigns of the JBS are.”
The Birch Society is pleased with Glen Beck’s recent programming claiming it is an strong echo of the Birch Society’s long term efforts to educate the American people, They are also enthusiastic over Dr. Ron Paul’s campaigns and political activities in Congress.
Yes, the Birchers are making a comeback and the Tea Party is their arena of action. Nut jobs like Sharron Angle is a Birch Society clone:eliminate the US Department of Education; United States withdrawal from the United Nations; Angle favors the privatization of Medicare and Social Security. She has voted against fluoridation of drinking water. All Angle’s positions are straight out of the Birch Society program.
The Birch Society is the godfather of the Tea Party.
Tell me Trolls, egoist,Ritchie the Riviter, PM and TLM and Don Rodgigo: “Did your mothers give you a name?”
“The Birch Society is the godfather of the Tea Party.”
That’s a stretch, and one not supported by anything said in your rant. The JBS is a has-been organization, always has been actually, though if they make you and your fellow Leftists a little more paranoid they’re at least good for a laugh.
You post as an anonymous troll, get ID’ed by someone and then demand to know everyone else’s name? Good luck with that approach.
Is that like Tom Daschle repaying every dirty penny of the taxes that he owed…after he was outed as a cheat and hypocrite?
Akatsukami:
The amount of pro-American news coverage she is receiving in Spain and Europe is priceless.
I see you head is also in the gutter.
“Law Enforcement” are the Great Enablers for all this swill. In spite of their oath of office to “…preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution…” they instead spit on it, bow and scrape before their Masters, and then do whatever they’re told. When the time comes, remember first and foremost that THEY are the enemy who have used their nightsticks, Tasers, and guns to destroy this country. Be sure to thank them appropriately for the OUTSTANDING job they have done!
If someone is continually poking you in the chest, how long is it before you finally take a swing at them? The Left has been poking the middle class for at least 40 years now and our patience is becoming very frayed.
The Middle Class has been destroyed by multi national corporations… Perot warned of the giant sucking sound of jobs offshore…
don’t blame the left… they wanted the jobs to stay here… AND protectionism for American products.
Hmmm, the angry people gather, angry enough to start shooting? Cheap, but essentially harmless spouting…or sedition? You make the call. Need we wonder any longer why some see irrational anger in the Tea Party? I don’t want to legitimize this stuff by paying too much attention to it, but it seems that a greater number than usual of the snipers and bomb-throwers have emerged. Long-held grudges and grievances are flowing forth. Not good.
The issue i have is just about everyone on this site see’s the problem as “socialist”, “communist”, “left Wing”…the same applies to the other side of the aisle. Seeing the nation in terms of right/left clouds the issue and allows continued corruption of the Constitution and this Government.
it is based in Economic system, the politics be damned. Unless and until the nation Demands and takes back control of its own banking system, it wont matter who is in the white house; GOP, DEMO, etc…they are still trying to operate within a rigged system that borrows from, and Pays interest too, European Banking families. Do Bankers care if a president is Republican or Democrat..?, no, they don’t. what they care is their Cash Cow, the US taxpayer, continues to live in ignorance and allows them to continue picking their pockets.
Deny Ignorance.
There is much about US history that people don’t want to believe; Senator McCarthy went after what he perceived as Communists in the Nations Capital, but what he touched upon was Nazi intelligence structure the Dulles Brothers ( directors of the CIA and various banking / commercial institutions) imported wholesale from Germany to administer the newly formed CIA, and then NSA and other US agencies.
( operations PAPERCLIP, OLSOS and TICOM, and others).
Senator McCarthy was made to look the fool, but he discovered this shadow government created by Dulles Brothers within the US Government, accountable to no one. If he had let go of his obsession with communism and viewed this organization for what it was, history would have changed completely, and for the better.
Later in his life counter intelligence Spy James Angleton also uncovered this structure, and wrote about it.
Nobody listened.
Its not Liberal or conservative beliefs that cause problems, its the playing board. It has been rigged since congress abrogated their constitutional responsibility and handed control of the Nations economy to the Federal Reserve. ( they are as much a part of US government as Federal Express) in 1913.
President Nixon added fuel to the fire removing the US Dollar from Gold standard and replacing it with the Petro Dollar. This allowed unfettered access to the US Taxpayer, who is the collateral for all loans to the US Government by the Federal Reserve.
If the board is fixed, who cares what side the players are on..?
Keep it up, keep focusing on any sort of conspiracy except the one staring you in the face, the democrat party. Shoot, the democrat party will even help keep you busy by spinning new conspiracy theories monthly so you won’t be bored and start thinking things through.
#97 IS QUITE RIGHT; WHITE NATIONALISM AND REACTION IS ON THE RISE. THE DISTRUST AND HATRED FOR THE GOVERNMENT AND LEGAL SYSTEM IS AT THE HIGHEST LEVELS IN MY LIFETIME.
Yep, “98. Dwight”.
That’s ALLLLLLLL I think about day in and day out is “LOCK -n- LOAD”. I don’t think about my survival or my future or my daughter’s future or my grandchildren’s future. Nooooo. I just think about tearin’ it up for the sake of being a blood-letting JERK.
OH NO! Wait. That’s the LEFT’s modus operandi. Ayers ring a bell?
Try harder, Dwight, baby.
Don’t worry, while I’m busying myself to survive the worst of you PUNKS, you’ll be crying in your clogged sewers when the SHTF.
Good luck hating the people who coddled your cozy little ass into this wonderful United States for which you love to hate.
Prepare yourself when you’re the only shmuck left standing with his hat in his hand and there are no more hand-outs to be had. SUCKA.
Yeah, “Dwight” just drips Alynsky. From the mention of sedition which the Daily KOS was ridiculing Conservatives about in 2006 but now sees as a useful tool against the Tea Party, to his use of ridicule just like his KOS buddies, he’s an obvious gem. At least a few of the other try to be less obvious.
My supposed Alinsky connection is humorous and somewhat indicative of the paranoia involved here. There are a lot of things abut modern “liberal/nanny state” society that I don’t care for, but when I hear people muttering about takin it to the street, shooting, blah, blah. I make it a point to avoid those people. Is that simple enough for you? When such people start clustering around a certain post, I also take note. Ayers was obviously a similar kind of lunatic in his day. There are lunatics on the left, lunatics on the right; I avoid both. Obama had such lunatics like Ayers and Wright in his past, but it is also obvious that he is moving toward the center. It is like lefties being blinded to how much of a centrist GWB actually was, because they were made crazy by the war. You guys have been made crazy by something else and are far more vocal about armed rebellion than I ever heard any lefties being back then. Do threats of armed rebellion craziness trump lefty craziness? Hard to say, because swaggering in a loud voice, but not actually doing much is one basic trait of human nature.
So bottom line: the more people actually would actually follow up on the armed lunacy talk, the closer one is to sedition. I believed that righties used the word treason to apply to lefty undercutting of the Iraq war effort. So we have treason on the left, sedition on the right, and exaggeration everywhere.
“There are lunatics on the left, lunatics on the right; I avoid both. Obama had such lunatics like Ayers and Wright in his past, but it is also obvious that he is moving toward the center.”
Too facile by half. In one breath, you admit to the types of people Obama has surrounded himself with, and in the same breath, you contend it doesn’t matter because “it is obvious that he is moving toward the center.”
Not obvious at all. And yes, those and others as amoral as they are his compatriots. Once you realize this (if ever), you will not be nearly so sanguine as to brush it all aside.
You have it worked out neatly and comfortingly in your mind, but I’m afraid it’s not the reality.
#101, Delia, Don’t worry, while I’m busying myself to survive the worst of you PUNKS, you’ll be crying in your clogged sewers when the SHTF.
Good luck hating the people who coddled your cozy little ass into this wonderful United States for which you love to hate.
Prepare yourself when you’re the only shmuck left standing with his hat in his hand and there are no more hand-outs to be had. SUCKA.”
————–
You would be making my point here.
Oh? I seem to recall the “assassination porn” that left-wing writers and movie-makers created when fantasizing about murdering George Bush – and won awards for. Then there are the beatings by the SEIU jackboots, whose members are not exactly Tebaggers. Then there are the Democrats who call opponents of their policies “racists” and Nazis” and physically assault them. One of your own (Thomas Friedman) has even fantasized about turning the US into China – concentration camps and all. And I have not even begun to quantify the eliminationist hate rhetoric that is a staple of left-wing blogs.
Dwight, what you have is a serious case of what psychiatrists call projection. You are projecting your own violent thoughts and actions onto others. I beg you to seek professional help so that you can turn your life around.
The people elected the present incumbent and need to remember that they share the responsibility for the fiasco.
What America now needs is a person who will listen to the people and I can see only one candidate to do that.
Sarah Palin must get into the White House ASAP.
Sarah Palin must get into the White House ASAP.
People need to read this and get involved, then they can make the Republican party the Constitution Party and change will faster than many think.
http://theprecinctproject.wordpress.com/
Sedition. Funny, but predictable.
Funny because the Daily KOS was bitching about the very idea that a new sedition law was needed back about 2006 when conservatives had reasonable cause to use the term but the same folks who run the KOS now think the expansion of sedition laws is a good thing.
Predictable because you can just see the Alynsky dripping off of some posters
Retrograde, “However, I’m pessimistic. The party infrastructure of both parties is so corrupt that someone who truly did want to make a difference would not get far? What does that leave? Third parties (not a great track record of success)? Revolution (more painful, and less likely to have a truly good outcome, than many making brave comments on the internet seem to think).I’m genuinely at a loss as to how to correct this problem.”
Retro, humbly-offered, herewith are my ideas… which have a snowball’s chance in you-know-where of happening, of course!
1. A choice between two idiots on a ballot is no choice at all. The electorate should have the ability, via a binding “none of the above” option, to reject all candidates and vacate a given ticket, until suitable candidates are put forth and one wins a plurality.
2. Both parties are in a race to the bottom. Without a legitimate liberal branch, the political left has been hijacked by radical leftists, marxists, communists, feminists, and other assorted detritus of the 1960s and 1970s. The GOP, absent many real conservatives, feels free to act as “left lite.”
Since the shell game is rigged to have only two choices, the insiders and elites of both parties know that their game is the only one in town; there is no incentive to act honorably or even less-venally. The solution is to force the system to accept a viable third party. How this is to be accomplished is problematical, but there is a way somehow. “Third-way” organizations like the Tea Party movement may offer an option, if the TP can avoid being co-opted by the GOP or the left.
3. Establish parallel organizations which by-pass the government or neutralize the damage it inflicts. Home-schooling is a prime example. Many conservatives have long-recognized that public education has been corrupt and a poor influence on their children, and does not impart a decent education. Yet, powerless to fight city hall, they saw a way out – educate their children themselves. Barter in the face of the debased USD is another possibility we may see very soon. Some may scoff, but barter and the underground economy have long been a reality. The IRS is certainly taking it seriously, and various federal agencies, under the banner of protecting food safety, have tried to outlaw growing your own food or raising your own livestock.
4. Resilient communities – as the federal govt. becomes less-and-less able or willing to provide for the general welfare, or protect the interests of its citizens, we the people will have to do those things ourselves, often on a local level.
5. Our govt. exists and is legitimate (to the extent that is still true) because we the people invest our trust and support in it. If enough Americans opt out of that trust and support, well… you do the math.
As you note, revolutions have a mixed record of success, especially violent ones, c.f. the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, et al. However, please note that the above acts, while revolutionary, are non-violent. Recent history shows, i.e., the 1989 Velvet Revolution in then-Czechoslovakia, that non-violent movements can and do have a record of success. This is to say nothing of civil disobedience which brings about widespread change, c.f. the American civil rights era, without full-blown civil disorder, violence or the general collapse of society. In short, there are a variety of means to bring about “change” (that word so beloved of the left these days) w/o picking up a weapon. As all readers of this site doubtlessly know, violence plays right into the hands of those who want to expand govt. power, and it gives them the perfect pretext to do so, perhaps even thereby suspending civil liberties or declaring martial law.
Our best weapons in preserving our liberties are knowledge, the vote, and persuation – along with, of course, vigilence.
Only when all other options are exhausted, should a free people resort to violence in protection of their liberties. Once that Pandora’s Box is opened, it is not easily closed. Robespierre started the reign of terror, and end up feeling the “breath of the guillotine” himself.
This is a much more reasoned approach about taking action.
Political parties do die and new ones are formed (although nit recently), but it is difficult to see that happening right now unless the Tea Partiers undercut the GOP so much that they suffer another crushing defeat. Out of those ashes, a new party might arise, but it is more likely that the GOP will gain a lot of power, but not with a particularly focused agenda, other than NOT Obama. Newt & Co gained a lot of clout, UNTIL they pushed to hard. It’s one thing to have 70% of the people tell a pollster that they are against Obama health care, and quite something else to give up or lose their Social Security and Medicare. If Obama can shift a la Clinton, he will be a one term President, but I think that he has shown the ability already to shift to the center, and you can’t beat something with nothing.
Personally, I would like to see a new party emerge in the center, but what I would like does not have much to do with what is likely to happen. So it goes with reality.
That would be, if Obama CANNOT shift…
Ike (#102), “The people elected the present incumbent and need to remember that they share the responsibility for the fiasco.”
I do not view the current occupant of the WH as legitimate; he ad his operatives stole the election via fraud at the ballot box, accepted hundreds of millions in illegal foreign campaign donations, and engaged in an attempt to alter the election via force, with the NBPP and their clubs at the polls. BHO is also of questionable provenance, not having proved his constitutional elgibility to this voter’s satisfaction. The fact that our spineless political class have colluded to shove the constitutionality of Obama under the rug, hoping it will go away, does not prove he is either legitimate or legal as POTUS.
My fear is that having opened the door – the legal precedent having been set by his “election” – all sorts of barriers put in place by the founders to protect the republic, will fall.
“If someone is continually poking you in the chest, how long is it before you finally take a swing at them? The Left has been poking the middle class for at least 40 years now and our patience is becoming very frayed.” Well-said, Glen (#97), and very true.
77. MarkInFla “I grew up in Chicago. Here’s how it works. First you make so many laws that everyone is in violation of something, but you don’t enforce them until you need to. You’re running against the alderman? We need to shut down your restaurant for health code violations. Your newspapers wants to report on corruption? The fire marshall found problems with your wiring. Next you get enough workers, police, fire, streets, sewer, garbage to depend on you for jobs and to go out on election days and bring in the votes. Finally you have an army of precinct captains who can take care of any problem that comes up. Lost your job, got a DUI, need a permit, we’ll take care of it, as long as you are a party member. It works. When is the last time Chicago had a Republican mayor?”
Mark, as a longtime (hopefully not too much longer) resident of the Chicago area, I have seldom seen such a well-done analysis of how patronage works. Kudos to you, and keep such good posts coming…
Yes, things have remained sort of ‘semi-civil’ in our society to date, but; things are starting to go down hill at an ever increasing rate of speed. Been to a local ‘Knife & Gun Show’ lately? You can hardly move through the aisles for all the people in attendence. More folks seem to be buying than not and many are not the type of people that that you would expect to be buying a firearm. “Gee, I wonder why that sweet looking little grey haired grandmother type buying that .357 magnum pistol?” Been to one of the sporting goods outlets that sell ammunition lately? Noticed all the voids (empty spaces) in their stocks of ammunition? Your neighbors are buying ammo like there is no tomorrow. Maybe there won’t be! Has anyone heard that tomorrow has been cancelled?
For years now I have watched in shocked amazement as our national debt has continued to rise ever higher and higher. It’s currently at 13+ TRILLION $ and going ever higher as I write! We have shipped most of our reasonable paying manufacturing jobs overseas so now there is no tax base left to sustain even the interest payments on this debt.
Just wait until the month that the system finally crashes and the welfare, food stamps, Section 8 Housing, medicade, and government pension/retirement checks, etc. don’t hit the mailboxes or the electronic fund transfers aren’t made.
Civil??? Is that as in CIVIL WAR????? It damn sure won’t be civil as in civility!!! Better get ready boys & girls! BOHICA ….. soon ………. REAL SOON!
I agree that the US is a very angry place these days – very cacophonous, full of accusation and hatred as well. It may have the best political system on earth, but in societal terms it has become a harsh, flinty place in many ways.
Be sure to make it to the polls this Nov.. No matter the result,the day after voting:
a) Apply to the local militia in your state.
b) Start laying in supplies of canned goods,seeds,
chickens or other livestock, ammunition,booze,water,etc..
c) Gather family closer,seek alternative means of communication such as short wave,c.b. radio,walkie talkie.
d) keep cash on hand and horde hard assets
e) Peruse all the survival sites on your p.c. as possible.
f) Ask the local law enforcement where they stand as regards the state vs. the people.
h) have a plan to deal with emergency’s such as fire
and lack of electric power.
i)stockpile as many medications as possible and have
a full medical emergency kit.
Be prepared for the worst, and keep your powder dry.
The real problem is that the middle class is being taught that voting doesn’t count and laws don’t apply… and that there is no legitimate way for the paying majority to express their will.
But the people ALWAYS determine their state – as per Machivelli.
Thus, deprived of the lawful and customary and legitimate public means???
You do the math.
There is a LOT of Hope in the younger Generation..
I have told my children that for every dollar I earn, “some” form of Government takes 50 cents of it.
That was an eye opener for them.And they want none of it.
They know they were sold a bill of goods.
Most kids in College have likely come to that conclusion..
We all need to keep cool and focused and win this in the ballot box.
The above posters who are concerned about being provoked and the Govt stepping in as an excuse to really retard liberties are right on target..Do not give them that.
If it comes to that, what sort of country will we have?
Stay cool, focused and educate the naive.
The Repubs are not the answer. They squandered their chance.
I think we need all new folks in DC and in Statehouses..
Personally, I am liking the Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana, from what I see and hear so far and Chris Christie of NJ.
I believe a great essay for Dr. Hanson would be one wherein a comparison was made between the Obama Presidency and the Orwellian dystopias as depicted in 1984 and Animal Farm.
The current use of propaganda, surveillance, disinformatiion and adulation of the ruling elite, as respectable political tactics. The routine use of doublethink, doublespeak, and newspeak to maintain an absolute disconnect between reality, political proclamations (spin) and main stream media reporting.
But one thing that bothers me about these books is that the “good guys” didn’t win.
I agree with mikemcdaniel, the first poster here.
Obama had it all and blew it faster than any President. He’s an empty suit Socialist. It’s fun to watch the mainstream media turning on him.
Black, white, yellow or brown, I don’t care what color he is. Replace him with Thomas Sowell, Herman Cain or any number of smart capable black guys.
Someone, please lead us. If you don’t step up, I will be forced to run!!
When do we get to know the result of 2010 Census?
The perceived fairness of election outcome is utmost important in our democratic system.
There should never have any hint / appearance of shenanigans with large metro area cancelling out true honest votes.
My politics: A. I told all I could not to vote for GWB in the pubby primaries. ‘He is his daddy’s boy and cannot even spell conservative. B. I have wished for and advocated secession as the only way to save this country going on four or five years now. We must come out from among them and let them destroy themselves. We can stitch the geography back together later. In the ensuing debate as to what to do about the new land’s constitution I would advocate the one we already have although much pared down. Only tax paying men would have the vote.
My prediction: Western man is inextricably caught up in a suicide death spiral. The cause is spiritual. The Father of Lies is in control. There is no Washington or Lincoln on the horizon and the American voter would not tolerate one if he showed up. We have sewn. We are about to reap. If you think what we are presently experiencing is anything like anything that has happened before in the history of this land you are deeply deluded. Rome actually took centuries to decline and fall. We are about to do it in under a hundred. I date the beginning of the fall to 1950. One could easily argue 1940.
It is a generational conflict.
I’m an early Xer. Divorced family at an early age, parents from upper middle class backgrounds who inherited wealth from parents who actually created wealth the hard way– then proceeded to blow it all and end up as bankrupts. My wife’s story the same. Now I’m a father, husband and breadwinner. And I’m appalled at the puerile way my people squandered everything given to them, both personally and generationally. It was NOT the way my grandparents viewed wealth. Everything achieved was hard won and was to be respected. Wealth is no longer respected, nor those character-based attributes that ultimately create it (things like trust, honor, commitment, etc).
My generation knows it will have to work harder to restore basic truths. We take it for granted. And we have no choice but to have to face it. We’re well into our child rearing years and prolly far enough into our careers to understand some realities. It is now all too important to just let it go on like this.
Prof, I went to university in the 80s. There was the next gen of women’s studies majors et al…but there were also the engineering students, the finance students and even the reality-based “old school” english/history major like me. We laughed at the weenies then and we’ll laugh them out now…
I’m optimistic. November….faster please! : )
I am keeping my pitchfork on the back porch who is bringing the torches? We really need to replace these useless self centered leaches this November. We also need to keep on doing so for what may take the next two decades to begin the gradual shift back from the wrong side to the right side.
116. Ex-pat in Oz:
I think you set the right tone here. We are “A Rather Angry America”, but conservatives/middle America/Tea partiers are winning the battle for the heart and soul of this country. Your generation will carry on that battle and rectify the stupidity of mine.
For the posters who seem to threaten violence, a few words of caution:
1. Not knowing who you are, some of us may assume you’re working for the opposition, trying to give this site a bad rep.
2. Don’t interfere with the Left deconstructing itself. They’re losing now, they’ll be turning against each other here shortly and if they wish to implode, by all means let them.
3. It’s a bit farfetched that, having lost the battle of ideas, the Left will try open confrontation, or abrogate the Constitution, or some other extra-legal means of holding on to power. As VDH notes, these guys have always been wimps, and lazy ones to boot. There are no Lenins or Trotskys in that crowd. As we all know, they excel at talking, not doing.
4. Finally, IMO it’s unnecessary to openly threaten violence to protect the Constitution. For the heretofore “silent majority”, that’s always been the implicit understanding of what the Constitution allows. If the radical Left doesn’t get that, then they don’t understand this country.
I think it is obvious that the ‘international socialists’ are winning. Check out Bush’s spending numbers, Reagan’s – go down the line and look at deficit explosion since going off the gold standard. Fiat currency – the friend of the Federal Reserve and the Too Bigs. While you weren’t looking Wall St. hijacked DC – the Nov. elections mean nothing as long as things like the Patriot Act get approved by the conservative community. We’ll all be under the same yoke if we aren’t careful.
Bill Cooper was right.
“a serial inability to take responsibility for one’s actions”
Thomas Szasz, a psychiatrist, blames this on, guess what?! – - –
Psychiatry!
The “greatest generation” failed at it’s most important job. Transferring it’s values to it’s children. My generation is, in general, selfish, self absorbed, short sighted, and clueless. Particularly the college educated ones. I was fortunate to land with the engineers, foresters and ag folks mostly. But the other side of campus, liberal arts, political science, “journalism” and all the “XXX studies” was crazy and chaotic.
In general, the “greatest generation” abandoned it’s families, it’s children and it’s responsibilities at home at an astounding rate. The results, as you note, are obvious.
I voted Obama. I hated Bush, although I was a Republican until Bush the younger.
the reasons for Obama’s sinking numbers are that Republicans aren’t giving him credit for his CENTRIST, go along to get along style –
He’s hardly the commie Muslim America hating scum you portray him as…
But the left is furious that he didn’t clean up Washington and run the corporatists out of town.
So he’s getting it from both sides.
Obama doesn’t deserve the attacks from the right, considering what a centrist he really is…
Progressives hate him for working with the GOP — and the GOP doesn’t give him any credit for same.
Gmarks, centrist really! you are certainly a poster child for public education. Obama is a corporatist you dufus, who do you think wrote the healthcare bill?
Obamacare is centrist? Thats a new one.
Since my previous comment [#102] I came upon this by someone else. He is a regular Swampland Commentator and has a similar idea to Mister Hanson though he expresses himself somewhat strongly.
http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2010/08/09/by-the-balls/
But it is an interesting view.
Thank You, Mr. Hanson! I read all of your articles, without fail. This one, as usual, is brilliant. It should be required reading for every man, woman and child. Éamonn, Dublin, Ireland.
Great article! There are several things we must avoid in order to become financially stable and not retire broke. An interesting article on this subject is:
Worse Financial Decisions You Can Make To Guarantee Bankruptcy During Retirement!
Once again we are lectured in this thread that the only “rainbow” group with any rights to be angry is the regressive left. They are always angry, no matter how much absolute or barring that, majority power they acquire, they are angry. No matter what their grifters procure through sheer avarice, guess what? Hey, they’re really angry, and it’s their exclusive domain, so shut up! Some pretend the hackneyed ruse, “I was a republican- until Bush…” (So give us a few more chapters about what ) “inherited”, like say, how the budget deficit was 161 billion dollars in 2006, and by 2008 it was 500 billion dollars, before 0 became resident. So it has nothing to do with 0.) They are angry that those who pay the bills have only come up with only one quarter of what these covetous grifters plan on spending. Their angrier than you are because you dare question their regressive spoils system of power and money consolidation into the hands of their crackpot gummit/religion. Oh, they’re angry, they’re angry, they’re angry…. Well, they’re goming to hear from all of us soon. I can see november from my house. That is, if these thieves don’t steal that too- “For our own good”. Patronizing feudal pseudo-monarchical jerks.
Although you yourself tend a bit toward sermonizing, your diagnosis is essentially excellent. It seems that few people have any interest in even having the kinds of serious conversations that might provide solutions to some of the problems we face. Without being glib or hopefully too cynical, I have to say that it’s hard to imagine that democracy can survive here in anything like the form to which we have become accustomed. The crazy stew of economic disaster and debt and anger and hatred and racism and greed and the vomit of sick, liberal university professors and sick, greedy Republican elitists and a childish, foolish, demented media has begun to boil over. The reasonable people and the people who really want to protect America from itself have been drowned out. It would still take a lot to really create chaos, but it’s not difficult to imagine how it could happen. 20 years ago, I would have thought this situation was impossible in my lifetime. I figured it would happen eventually, but I thought I would be long dead. Now. Sigh. Somebody has hit the accelerator and there may be no turning back until we hit the wall.
By the way, how strange for someone in the comments to attack Thomas Ssasz. Szask may be extreme at times, but he is a strong advocate for taking responsibility and not just using psychiatric drugs to treat every supposed mental condition. He is more helpful than harmful in my opinion.
The Obama family’s stupidity may be our salvation, in that it reveals to the world the vapid selfishness that they are all about. So Michelle needs a three-week vacation every two weeks because she has to take a “break” from playing Marie Antoinette in DC.
To me, and everyone I know, a “break” means running to the washroom and then to the break room to get my water bottle from the refrigerator, then finding a folding chair to get off my feet and either make a call on my flip phone or simply sit and do nothing, so as to get some rest for another ten minutes or so.
These people have noooooo clue…
What do you expect of a culture founded on sex, drugs and Rock ‘n Roll?
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