As Predictable As the Sun Rising
Giddy About Remaking America
If we assume that Obama & Co. wish to radically remake the United States — along the lines of a European socialist society, or perhaps to the left even of a Belgium or Denmark — then the past 14 months were as predictable as the sun rising.
To transmogrify a center-right country into a liberal utopia, certain things follow: higher taxes on the better-off to pay for redistribution and to bring “fairness” to society (e.g., called “redistributive change,”“spread the wealth,” “patriotic,” “paying your fair share”); increased government coercion to force the reluctant to conform (e.g., new IRS agents, more regulations and government intrusion, mandatory new fees); a growing constituency to administer and receive entitlements (e.g., I never really heard much about ACORN or SEIU until the Obama ascendancy); a public relations campaign to demonize the skeptical as enemies of civil society, starting with “selfish” and “greedy,” escalating to “racists,” and finally reaching the dangerous level of “terrorists” who “threaten officials” (those who used to court Michael Moore, or snooze about books and movies suggesting scenarios of killing George Bush are suddenly worried about uncivil discourse); a new neutralist foreign policy to match defense cuts on the horizon and to adjust our stature abroad with our new more revolutionary profile at home (cf. the treatment of an Israel or Britain to the new efforts at winning over Iran and Syria; or our shrinking Navy and Air Force); a highly educated, urban technocracy not subject to its own new protocols and dependent on an ever growing bureau (e.g., Geithnerism, or the strange career of Van Jones); and a new euphemism in language (there is no “terrorism” any more, liberals disappeared and were replaced by “progressives,” we have no more enemies from the radical Islamic world, etc.)
Taxes and Spending
As these nearly two trillion dollar annual deficits mount, as the combined local, state, federal, and payroll taxes approach 60-70% on the top brackets and yet do little to meet the shortfalls, we will have to either cut programs or tax the middle class or both — or implode.
We are floating huge amounts of debt at historically cheap interest. One can borrow $ 11 trillion at the price of what would be borrowing $20 trillion in the old days of interest, as rates hover around 2-4% rather than the old 6-10%. But this is a fool’s delusion; any spike in inflation will almost immediately turn this mortgaging into an unsustainable disaster, sort of like those old 1980s adjustable mortgages at 3% that drew buyers in to purchase enormous homes only to climb within a few years to 15% and insolvency, or like those introductory credit card offers that offer 6 months at 3% only to climb to 19% when you are maxed out. (As a rule, all interest rates climb as borrowing increases [ask a petulant Greece]).
If we cut some spending, as in the Clinton years, it will eventually fall mostly on defense — fewer planes, armor, divisions, personnel. Etc. If we continue to increase taxes, we will see some sort of federal sales, VAT, or special user taxes on the tens of millions who are now tax exempt. The untaxed will be taxed and told they are not taxed (sort of like poor George Stephanopoulos in his interview with Obama, being bewildered by the president’s postmodern linguistic gymnastics, and thus reduced to looking up “tax” in the dictionary, only to be ridiculed by Obama that Stephanopoulos had to rely on a dictionary in the first place.)
There are simply too many new entitlements and too few left now to pay for them. Note — it is not as if we were extending novel universal health care to a 1920s self-reliant and much poorer populace, but rather to the most affluent, most leisured and most taken care of generation in the history of civilization. It is not as if those without health insurance plans either get turned away from the emergency room or are bereft of cell phones and flat-screened TVs.
No, entitlements subsidize the good consumer life of both the poorer and the middle class. Go to the poorest section of a poor county in a bankrupt state (e.g., 2 miles from my residence), and the electronic and warehouse discount stores are crammed with the shopping “poor” — poor maybe in comparison with the contemporary wealthy, but in a way rich compared to most in the world today or to Americans a generation ago. Cheap interest, the welfare state, 1 billion Indians and Chinese working night and day, high-tech, and instant communications and entertainment have made life not as it was. Today’s Selma resident not far from this farm has access to “things” that an earl or duke could only dream of 50 years ago.
So we are screwed? I think we all know that Victor.When I came back from Vietnam my father said that this generation(mine) were a bunch of pu$$ies, I dismissed it as an old mans rumblings. Now I know he saw the trees through the forest.
Great post, Dr. Hanson,
I agree that vilification is a bull market. Opponents to Obamacare are now… the villain. Anyone, anybody against statism is… THE VILLAIN!
Anyone who doesn’t GROUPTHINK, well… that’s a VILLAIN! So many judges, so little time! All these vilifiers avoiding the examined life, avoiding logic, avoiding perspective. At the bottom of it, vilifiers avoid…. protecting their own sanity. They shall vilify and vilify and vilify until they become completely insane themselves. Many vilifiers are already brain and soul dead. They are surprised by their own fear.
What, I wonder, might God think about all this vilification?
To wit:
You Vilify Well
By Robert Winkler Burke
Of inthatdayteachings.com
Copyright 8/13/09
You vilify My tongs,
You vilify My anvil,
You vilify My hammer,
You vilify all I can ‘til…
I have no more patience,
And that’s really something,
I have unlimited everything,
But for this really dumb thing:
You vilify your spouse,
You vilify your friend,
You vilify the beginning,
Even the end!
I AM the beginning!
I AM the end!
Don’t vilify Me,
And call Me friend!
You vilify yourself,
And yourself only,
To avoid rebuke,
And keep pride crony!
I allow trouble and not blessings,
To remove pride from you,
You vilify everything and body,
Too bad for you!
Too bad you can’t see,
My hard treatment is love,
You vilify what you can’t dominate,
You vilify: LOVE.
When you vilify love,
You vilify Me,
And all who’ve paid dearly,
That in them I be!
You crucify Me,
And My own,
That in you Satan,
Makes his home.
But you don’t see it,
Having no eyes to see,
You enlist courts and police,
Lest the good be free!
I had to make and expand hell,
To put rebellious nabobs like you,
Oh human, what do you do?
Make heaven empty to vilify well.
Well stated as usual VDH. No disagreements here.
Too true: “We can’t say they are in any way culpable, so we blame either the system or you who are better of.”
The Supreme Court, out of noblese oblige or out of respect for America’s institutions, did not rush to defend itself against the ignorant, rude, crude, and false accusations of a President who was supposed to be speaking about the state of the union. They did not rise as a body and leave Congress, as I so avidly wished they would.
Anyway, this same court has ruled that corporations are now free to speak in defense of corporations. They will be circumspect in so doing, not wanting to annoy customers who may be in a state of Obama-thrall. However, corporations will now be able to respond thoughtfully to the goofy librul officials’ attacks on them, and by indirection on their employees, who who spend their working hours providing what Americans want and need. It will be interesting to watch for these messages.
It’s something a little more than melodrama. It’s nostalgia.
As usual Professor, a reflection of my own thoughts and also as usual I appreciate very much your ablilty to enhance, add-to and communicate them. The country needs you…(not to run for office but to reflect and tell).
I’m still angry at NBC, CBS, ABC, MSNBC, NPR, CPB, Newsweek, Time and the big newspapers who are blind followers and who blind their followers by hiding knowledge.
I feel something sinister. They can’t be stupid enough to think they’re not destroying the country with debt and entitlements.
We get nowhere if we wait for leadership. By the time leadership emerges, it’s too late. (Note that the Republicans still haven’t figured out completely what has just happened. If they make accomodations or compromise, their very existence as an opposition party is doomed.)
We have to take responsibility for our freedom ourselves–get involved to reject this. Ccomplacency will be the death of us. The Left is relying on complacency, ignorance, bribery, lies and oppressive, freedom-stifling, legistation to keep us from taking back our country.
I’m wondering what kind of black market economy is going to grow and thrive through all this….
One thing that has struck me is how Obama is appealing to people in order to get them to accept his progressive agenda. The method seems to be to vilify the so-called rich and demonize the gap between the rich and the so-called poor. He is promoting a culture of envy, but no one seems to notice. Envy used to be considered a vice. Now, envy is promoted as a virtue. It is good to not only covet others’ wealth, but to steal it through taxation so it can be used to supposedly level the standard of living.
I think this quote from Winston Churchill’s puts it well: Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.
Another thing that bugs me is how Obama’s education has been sorely neglected. It appears that no one ever read him Aesop or taught him the moral of the tale about the dangers of killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. His heedless greed to implement his agenda will kill our nation.
1. VDH and Charles Krauthammer are my two favorite pundits. Krauthhammer also predicted the VAT and a legalization push.
2. I say, bring on an amnesty bill. That will add even more fuel to the fire. And Obama is so, so arrogant that he’ll probably try it.
3. Steve Hayes in The Weekly Standard wrote about BHO’s desire to be a transformative leader. Spot on.
4. Yesterday on C-span, the Conservative Party leader just skewered Gordon Brown for unemployment, debt and crazy predictions of growth. It was nicely done and applied to the US.
5. Get a Sirius/XM subscription, no radio commercials.
VDH, it is high time to cease believing that issue spotting is persuasive. We no longer can point at the bloodless coup d’etat and conspiracy/propaganda by the entrenched media.
It is time to call the question.
The leftists and their co-conspirators in the entrenched media have seized control over the government and they are making it in their image against the will of the voters, I believe.
They did not run on this platform. It was concealed and propagandized as something entirely different.
We should not fear asking to call the question. Do we wish to unravel our free market enterprise for socialist/communist/Maoist or any other type of leftist system? If we do, then we have to live with what our countrymen vote for…or leave, I suppose.
If we do not, we should not endure a stealth takeover of the system. We need transparency and we need to call it what it is. We need to stand in accusation against the conspirators and shine a light on them. We need to call the question.
There is no other answer. We can endure this fraud no longer.
My worst fear is that the words of wisdom from Dr. Hanson will fall with no effect on the ears of the uncaring, unconcerned,satisfied,ignorant and ,of course, the star struck and the true believer come next November and that a minority of voters will then vote to throw out the threat to our Republic.
“I’m wondering what kind of black market economy is going to grow and thrive through all this….”
Many Americans will be traveling to Mexico for their medical care. Companies will go out of their way to have a contractual agreement with a worker instead of adding them to the payroll. A large number of angry Americans will be enraged when their companies are forced to dump them onto the government health care system. The fun is just beginning. Rush Limbaugh just told his audience that he is going to find countries offering better health care to frustrated Americans.
I live in the formerly golden state of California. My wife, an accountant has suggested that we simple hunker-down until we move out. (Were 50). Making more that a $100,000 in CA is not worth it.
It doesn’t make sense to grow my small business anymore or hire anyone. With increased capital gains looming, a faultering real estate market, and the negative aspects of new income thru rent, we have decided not to invest in California real estate with our nest-egg. Working (private sector) and investing in California is unattractive and we will have to look elsewhere if there is any elsewhere left when Obama gets done with the U S o A.
Obama is putting the nail in the coffin of free-enterprise with his tyrannical rule.
Well, I can say that, in Canada, we’re way ahead of you now. The statists have had their day, and specifically, healthcare in this country is so messed up, it’s essentially broken, and noone has any reference point to know any better. The standard has been so destroyed, for so long, most wouldn’t know if they were being well cared for or not.
It’s normal to wait for hours with a 2 year old for a regular appointment, and months (and I’m talking minimum 3, and typically 6 – 9 months for things like MRI’s and other procedures).
And still, there are many who carry on about how superior this system is, and obviously are ignorant of any other way of being beyond being cared for by the central planners.
Until there is enough pain, it won’t change.
That said, it is now beginning to change here … it is now not illegal to go to a private medical practice. All this is under the radar, and is out of the MSM’s sights, but it’s taken decades.
Here’s to hope and change in November… and saying that, I get the sense of being deflated, and I’m not even American. You all have my sympathies, and on with the battle. And it is a battle. Good luck!
It’s also amazing how well the poli/press juggernaut has managed to quash all dissent by characterizing resistance in any form as “Racism”. We can’t afford all the entitlements we’ve created? You’re racist. The health-care bill is a bankrupt sham? You’re racist. You are questioning immigration policy in any manner other than to support blanket amnesty? You are a racist.
And why, oh why, are people positively giddy about the new government takeover of healthcare, when the exact same people will admit that the DMV absolutely sucks? The analytical view of government-run anything is always pushed out the door in favor of anything that punishes “The Rich” – er, sorry – anything that makes them pay their “Fair Share” – whatever that is, since we don’t really know or care about the specifics. Go get those rich people!
As Dennis Prager wrote the other day, we are now in a non-violent civil war.
http://townhall.com/columnists/DennisPrager/2010/03/23/its_a_civil_war_what_we_do_now
The progressives have indeed crossed the Rubicon and are committed to pushing the nation hard to the Left using whatever means necessary. They are ‘all in’, and having staked everything, they will not shrink from any underhanded tactic to see their agenda through. They have chosen a grand destiny for themselves. In their hearts they know they’re doing it for self-aggrandizing reasons, but it’s bothersome to actually have to admit that, even to themselves. And I imagine some of the most callous and cynical take secret delight in it. Either way, it is a species of madness (literally). The ship is being steered by madmen and women, prepared to sail the razor’s edge between a forced, radical ‘transformation’ and total chaos. It is a crisis unlike anything the nation has ever seen. What have we learned?
They are planning several steps ahead. Shaping the battlefield and anticipating our responses.
They are counting on our inability to fully fathom their scheme in time for us to respond. Keeping one step ahead and forcing us to react to current proposals so that we miss the big picture and are unprepared for what comes next.
They are wielding their full arsenal: the mainstream-media, academia, the Hollywood propaganda machine, street level organizations (ACORN etc.), unions etc. in an integrated and coordinated fashion.
They have a coherent narrative, though it quickly falls apart under scrutiny: ‘Bush and the reactionary, antiquated worldview he represents are the sources of all our troubles. Reject them and embrace our highest therapeutic ideals and all will be well.’ It strikes emotional chords and causes many to stop thinking. But it is paper thin and has already started to unravel.
What can we expect?
It would be foolhardy (as VDH suggests) not to assume an immediate barrage of new, equally sweeping statist legislation, passed through equally underhanded means. Caution and uncertainty held them back for a while; no longer. They feel they have some momentum now. Indeed my greatest concern is that many Republican politicians and conservative commentators only partly grasp this. Yes, the repeal of healthcare must be pursued, but this is only one piece of a much wider program, and it is that program which must be assailed in toto. We must attack individual legislation, but we must also paint the broader picture in explicit terms. It used to seem outlandish to say that Obama et al. were radical socialists, now it seems at least plausible to most.
The Dems will seek to foment a measure of civil strife, believing this will facilitate their task. They do not necessarily seek total civil and economic chaos, just enough to demonize the right and provide cover for their sweeping unilateral restructuring of America. However they are prepared to accept total chaos as the necessary price of their great transformation. You can take that to the bank.
They are counting on one thing above all: our apathy and sense of resignation. (That is why demonizing all opposition – only weeks after Obama called Republican concerns ‘sincere’ and ‘well intended’ has become a top priority for them.) In this I think they have badly miscalculated.
You have to hand it to them though, they have planned their revolution well. Though I still think their healthcare ‘victory’ will, in the long run, prove more costly than they realize.
What do we do now?
Prager offers some good advice. In a nutshell, we must all become political activists now. Engage everyone you know nonstop until November. Make political agitation the top priority of your daily life. (I know, the thought is odious to me too.) Talk to your conservative and moderate friends and family about it all the time. Keep reinforcing that sense of urgency. Discuss together how you can mobilize votes, reach out to conservative groups in your community and keep these issues front and center all the time. Open your pocket-books. Plan and participate in as many events as you can, small and large, rallies and marches, tea-parties and townhalls. That is the great power of democracy. Use it (while you still can), it is a decisive weapon.
Also, engage with the centre-left and moderate Dems you know and meet. Discuss the issues, humanize your concerns in a non-confrontational manner. Plant the seeds of doubt and keep watering them. I personally know several Liberals (some of them fairly far to the Left) who are badly disappointed by Obama, a couple are even angry, feeling betrayed by his high-handed about face on bipartisanship and transparency, and wary of healthcare. I’m certain that if elections were held today, several would refrain from voting for him again. Keep working those angles. Uncomfortable as it may be (especially with family members) bring up the unsustainable debt and the sweeping statism in sincere, non-confrontational tones… and keep at it. Even if 1 in 10 have a change of heart, then it is a worthwhile effort.
Also, gird your loins for we will take more hits. Each one will be painful, but convert that into the will to act and it becomes useful. Make them feel it come November.
As for leadership, that is that great X factor. Has anyone heard from Gen. Petraeus yet? The buzz is that he is thinking of running. On the Republican ticket? (I don’t know why but I get the sense that there is a deep reverence for the Constitution and all it represents in his soul.) I think a Petraeus-Palin ticket might be a killer combo. He has the gravitas, experience, leadership, tactical and strategic savvy, eloquence, knowledge and trust of the nation to be formidable candidate. Sarah has the charisma, political cojones and popular appeal to go with that. A winning combo in very many ways. We need some GALVANIZING leadership soon (or at least to see some on the horizon), otherwise energy and will will turn to frustration.
Our weekly reminder that every day is a chance to finally, proactively heed Santayana’s inescapable truth.
Of course, the prerequisites involved are a knowledge of who he was and the past he referred to.
This week’s Democrat hysteria – aimed at focusing anger on an entire social group – is reminiscent of machinations we haven’t seen since Germany in the ’30s. Surrounding those people’s imprudence, we have a faltering national credit rating, a housing market entering into double-dip decline, double-digit unemployment, unsustainable debt and a total breakdown of law and order at the highest levels of government.
America is looking at a Perfect Storm, and soon.
Wow. So perfectly expressed. When I feel like beating my head against a wall, one of your excellent essays helps me channel the rage effectively. Thanks.
Ok, question: can you recommend a strategy to get through this?
On a related subject:
Have you seen this?
Unions want Washington’s help with pension funds
Private businesses could take hit from labor
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/25/unions-eye-new-pools-for-pensions/
Never forget,
There are more of us then there are of them.
Remember remember
This Fall to dismember
Obamacare, treason and plot
Tyranny’s the reason
Democrat treason
Shall ne’er be forgot!
There is a hard core 10-20% – no one knows for sure the percentage – that would openly welcome communism in America. The vast majority of the remainder would not. Unfortunately that 10-20% has a disproportionate voice and influence over the rest of us. And the reason for that, in my opinion, is because of the media megaphone that magnifies their views and thus distorts our perception of their numbers, strength and influence. The true enemy here is the American Media, which for the most part has chosen to become Pravda to the Democratic Party and the leftist cause. Journalists today are committing gross malpractice and act as a Propaganda Ministry that would make Joseph Goebbels envious. We should turn our wrath on them first. I should add that they are worse than Pravda, because one could argue that Pravda’s writers were under duress, facing death or imprisonment if they strayed from the Party line. Our journalists spew their lies and distortions happily and voluntarily. They need to be taken down with a wrecking ball.
“Sooner or later you run out of other people’s money” Margret Thatcher
“Tax the rich
Feed the poor
Untill there ain’t
No rich no more
Tell me where is sanity?”
Alvin Lee – Guitarist of Ten Years After
“In America’s case, the flight will be psychological rather than material (where else could one wish to go?)”
I am in agreement with most of what you have written Doctor Hanson, but I do differ in the above statement. You yourself have seen the wealthy leaving your state. It is not to much of a strecth to see them leaving the country within the next decade, and taking along their wealth.
Many islands in the Carribean, those owned by the Dutch, French and English, would more than welcome them with open arms. Also, many of the South Pacific islands, New Calidonia, being one that comes to mind immediately, would probably suffice as well.
I would suspect that even the ultra-wealthy, yet hopelessly liberal hollywierd crowd would eventually hit the road too. Once they see those paychecks being taxed at nearly 70% (or more perhaps)they likewise will begin to realize that utopia is not all it’s cracked up to be indeed.
So, where will the burdens fall. I’d say the middleclass but by then that group may become as extinct as the do-do bird. The burden will however have trickled down to the poor. Who will recieve less, then less than less, then substantially less than less, to basically nothing at all. Those old photos of people standing in bread lines in the former USSR, will no long be something that has happened, but something that will become current news.
History does indeed repeat itself.
You forgot: The rich do not work for free: The rich will stop “building” and employing if they can not keep the money! The rich will retire or find other ways to make money without employees.
One could add to the last paragraph the comment of leftists’ favourite economist, J. M. Keynes – in the long run we are all dead.
17. I agree; we are now in a cold civil war. It could turn hot at any time. How many Americans do you suppose will have to die to atone for the blood of 50 million babies murdered with the government’s approval? It cost over 600,000 lives to atone for chattel slavery.
“Our weekly reminder that every day is a chance to finally, proactively heed Santayana’s inescapable truth.”
The postmodernist believes there are no real lessons of history that need be heeded. It can safely be ignored. The new utopian age will bring about men and women who are liberated from their past chains. They will now be authentic and embrace the values of the Ivy League educated elites.
Our opponents are truly anti-intellectual. Empirical evidence is scorned. Madness is the inevitable result. If we refuse to be “nudged”—these folks will not hesitate to eventually slam us to the ground. Of course, they will claim that this must be done for our own good.
I sort of figure we’ll get this rolled back, things will turn around, and then those who rolled it back will try to put themselves in place semi-permanently in order to avoid it happening again. While that’ll be much, much, more popular, it’ll still end the Republic as we know it even though it will reverse the economic slide for a while.
Regards
“cfbleachers: They did not run on this platform. It was concealed and propagandized as something entirely different.”
In fact they did run on this platform, much as they have been since at least FDR’s day. Most readers of this site and every other conservative or libertarian leaning websites saw this coming. Pretty much every lefty knew this was coming as well. The only people who seem to be genuinely surprised that Obama and his ilk are not really centrists seem to be those wishy-washy “independents” and “undecideds,” and other assorted swing voters who have no ideological backbone. I suppose those who hold no fundamental principles (as opposed to say progressives who hold largely evil ones) number in the tens of millions. But the rest of us, we knew exactly what was coming down the pipeline.
Pretty much every aspect of Obama’s campaign was textbook leftist psyops and propganda–as transparent and glaringly obvious as when Goebbels or the Soviets did the same things. Obama ran with every bit of the same haughty, arrogant, smug, narcissistic, and disdainful attitude that he is displaying now. That he appealed to a generation of kids raised to have the exact same attitude by teachers who have the exact same attitudes isn’t a big surprise. So yeah, THIS was exactly what he campaigned on–destroying America.
Many argue as to whether or not Obama is a socialist. It doesn’t matter because one thing is certain, he believes that profits are a distasteful byproduct of capitalism. That makes him an economic illiterate. An economic illiterate and a socialist is a distinction without a difference.
30. rashputin — I agree, that even if we get this stopped, those stopping it will exploit the crisis similarly, grant themselves draconian powers, and ruin the Republic in their own way.
A few short years ago America was all about the billions being made by Bush and Cheney and their oil barons while our citizens suffered from neglect as they ruined our land filling it with moral and financial bankruptcy.
Now, we have a government that “really cares” and provides its citizens with proper health care.
And the insurance executives are now crying themselves to sleep at night hugging their teddy bears…boo hoo…
So, now the American People are winning. No going back.
And that … is what change looks like. Take a good long look, and get used to it…cuz we can no longer go back… for a good long time….
Dont you agree?
VDH can you see that we are now engaged in a Civil War or War Between the States. Only this time the carnage could be worse; it will start in the big cities controlled by Obama where there is already a complete collapse of order;videlicet; Philadelphia now has a regular occurence of mob riots in its center city area. The American State is falling down; the result will be terrible to behold. The good lack all conviction; the evil are filled with passionate intensity. There might still be time to escape but time is running out America est perdita.
I’m going to take a bubble bath.
We are in the prequal to the movie Postman.
Here’s your “honest” man, Professor. Sen. Max Baucus explains it all:
…this is also an income shift. It’s a shift to leveling to help lower income, middle income Americans. Too often…in the last couple of years the maldistribution of income in America has gone up way too much. The wealthy are getting way, way too wealthy and the middle income class is left behind. Wages have not kept up with the increase in income of the highest income Americans. This legislation will have the effect of addressing that maldistribution of income in America because health care is now a right for all Americans…
But, hey, don’t you dare call these redistributionists socialists or Marxists. No, they’re merely fulfilling our Founders’ promise of the American Dream. Yes, they are. Yes, they can. Yes, they did.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY4Qbv7gPbo&feature=player_embedded (via Hugh Hewitt)
poor citizen
let us known when obamas 16,000 new healthcare IRS agents finaly give you a band aid or asprin. we will spend 2-300 bilion before that happens. Remember serfs are paid last.
Rue
@34. Poor Citizen: – Now, we have a government that “really cares” …
Hands down, the most delusional commenter on this or any other site.
Don’t you agree?
#6
“I feel something sinister. They can’t be stupid enough to think they’re not destroying the country with debt and entitlements.”
Ron, your instincts are correct. They are employing the Cloward-Pevin strategy, which is to manufacture crises so as to destroy capitalism while expanding the government. The left-wing of the Democratic party has fully embraced this strategy and has been using it for nearly 45 years now.
They should be removed from power in November and kept out of power permanently.
Will America be too consumed with concern over its own forced transformation to even notice when Iran nukes Israel? I new all this was going to happen when Obama was elected — his record was very clear to those who bothered to look at it. But I still can’t quite get my head around it…
VDH:
“As Predictable As the Sun Rising”
What is predictable about the current liberal agenda is its fear and ignorance. Obama tries to avoid his fear of failure by getting encouragement from his peers, who offer no perspective because they are only reflecting what Obama wants to be true. The result is that Obama and liberals are choosing to beignorant. They must believe that Obamacare will work, though it is fully contingent on the unknown rather than any reproducible, certain, or inevitable events.
Most working citizens, whether they belong to a union or not, are aware that money does not grow on trees, and that someone must pay for public spending. An alternative is to print money, but that has certain and dire consequences. Regardless of what approach is taken to satisfy the government’s hunger to spend, history shows that ‘upper classes’ will find a way to get the ‘lower’ classes to pay. This ‘fact’ is not the fault of the upper classes — it is actually the result of favoritism and corruption that is enabled in Washington.
The extent of corruption in Europe — from Greece to Italy and beyond — is not fathomable in the US, but we should be prepared for it here given the current course of the country. The federal government now directly or indirectly controls over 50% of the economy (including GM, Fannie, Freddie), and no one can police a government that has become so large. It is up to citizens to demand the dilution of the concentration of power in Washington. There is only one party who can succeed at this task — conservatives.
I note the mention in VDH’s excellent article of currently low interest rates and the effects they would have if they were to be raised. It is a disaster in the making.
However, the low interest rates are part of the Hope and Change ideology. We must all understand that interest is based upon invested accumulated wealth. Thus, certain people have been able to live off the interest earned on their savings. This is quite unfair to those who never managed to acquire wealth and so interest must be kept at zero or close to it in order to even things out. The real cost of money is unimportant when measured against the value of a “fairer society.”
The truth is that for every dollar earned in interest, the government acquires .15 to .38 cents for its coffers. The low interest rates means higher taxes to compensate the government for that loss. Look at that! The society is equalized twice for the same stupid economic theory.
TQ, it’s not what people believed, it’s what was sold.
If you have read any of my comments over the past couple of years, you will know precisely what I believed was looming.
However, my point is that the stealth legislation, the usurping of all rules, the distortion…requires a full unveiling.
To suggest that one “should have known” and calling independents wishy-washy doesn’t get us any closer to where we need to go, in my opinion.
People got fooled. For me to thump my chest now and say “but, not me”…doesn’t help this country one iota. I wasn’t fooled. I was pretty vocal about it all along.
People wanted to believe in the fairy tale. They got scammed. And the entrenched media made certain that the long con nailed quite a few marks. They are still doing so. It’s vile.
Ok, so a large portion of the “independents” were suckers and I was not. Now what? Spotting the con game and pointing at the conspirators, the shills, the set-up men, the grifters is all well and good. But it is not enough.
We need to call the question. Get it out in the open. Tell the story and not shirk from telling the story. They will scream “McCarthyism”, they will scream “racist”, they will scream “paranoid”, they will scream “tin foil hatters”.
How is that any different from what they are doing already?
This was a con game. They did NOT run on this platform. The media hid their intentions and once in the game, they went all in. It’s time to call the question.
All this, make one wonder, “Does anyone in Washington DC understand what they are doing to the American Freedoms and overall welfare of the economy to the country”.
If not, why are there no statesman left.
There is not one U.S. senator I would like to meet. Maybe Scott Brown.
Cannot understand why every Democrat Senator would fall in line behind Obama and Harry Reid. Makes no reason, that not one guy would be in favor of free market in health insurance and understand the enonomic growth principles of low tax rates for corporations, small business and individuals. NOT ONE.
Poor Citizen
When the government starts really caring, then you are not any more a citizen, you are subject at best, a slave at worst. Free men and women decide their fate, owns their property and helps their neighbors. You see, Poor Citizen, this country is a Republic and the government is our servant. This a country of laws not of men. I have seen how government really cares about it’s people. They have two sets of laws, one for them and one for us. In their piety, they suffer for us by having the best medical care, the best bankers and lawyers money, power and influence can buy. They suffer for the poor by eminent domain, taking the property of others to build for somebody else. They are pained when they raised their own salaries 50% higher than the people they were elected to served. So tell me, Poor Citizen, why are you afraid of the free market?? Because you are failure or because you are moral coward, coveting other people’s hard work, unable to compete because you don’t want to try. So spare us about the poor, the suffering and the needy because if you are concerned for them, you should have been willing to sacrifice first your total treasure and time rather than offering ours which we didn’t ask nor offer.
You have a gift, Mr. Hanson, a true gift. Keep on, for the rest of us.
VDH:
“If Obamism is carried to its logical conclusions, we will start to see Californization or Hellenization.”
If that’s all it becomes, we should thank the Almighty for Mercy.
It looks a lot more like Zimbabwefication from where I sit.
You HAVE been the fellow chronicling the plight of the Central Valley farmers for the sake of the Beloved Guppy,(or whatever the hell the name is of that baitfish that the treehuggers are so enamored of out there), haven’t you?
But, most important, and left unsaid:
How does all this come about?
You’re the best bemoaner, VDH. And there is a deep satisfaction in predicting a train wreck and then seeing it play out.
But what to do? Play Cicero to the noble end? Hunker down to nurse and preserve the remnant? Buy gold and build a bunker?
If I didn’t have kids, this would be exhilarating. But I do have kids.
Anything – and I do mean anything – which impairs, reduces or destroys the middle class is a danger to the Republic – the republic which we have known and relied upon for 200+ years.
Anything which reduces us to the point of one of those South American states with a tiny pool of oligarchs at the top of the pile, a desperate and barely-hanging-on middle class, and a huge class of peasants – that is not a good idea. I know Kipling is not fashionable, but he was observant and brutally logical about a lot of social and political phenomenon – http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_copybook.htm
So what, Sir? These points have been made by thousands of bloggers for thousands of times ove the past year and a half.
We aren’t really the boss of these 535 “non-representing representatives” plus the guy referred to as the “POTUS” – no matter what people say or want you to believe.
What “boss” in what company would wait for “employees” with a 10% approval rating for more than a year now to fulfill their “contract” time? The ones I know would instead fire them on the spot. But we can’t do that, can we?
We aren’t really the “boss,” but instead the subject of their jokes. And if you buy into this idea that “November is coming,” then you might better wait till December – when for sure Santa will be here.
Now, there’s this “wait till November” (which sounds like the Doc’s: take these pills and “wait till your next test” to see what happens). Oh yes, even better, I will wait till December, when Santa comes to town.
Aren’t people tired of reading and listening to these same points, over and over again for a year and a half now?
Your perceptive comments are frightenlingly accurate. What is one to do when the entire government is controlled by a party so intent on destroying America in order to remake it into their own distorted image of what is right? I’ve been to numerous Tea Party events (including the biggee in DC), continually written e-mails and made calls to Congressmen in both parties, and yet the insanity persist. Is it any wonder that people are angry? How does one compete with a media that seeks to demonize everything I do? My only hope rests in the fact that there is One who is above all this injustice and will ultimately put it all right.
Poor Citizen, a government that “really cares,” and by extension, you who support such a government, is a government of busybodies. The busybodies are intolerable, and they need to be told to butt out, and compelled to do so if they refuse to comply.
Essential vdh
None of this happened overnight. 50 years or more of infiltration by Marxist Communists into the Unions, school systems, expressed as AA and PC has dumbed down the population and the creation of a welfare state and mentality means this is no longer the America we all think it is.
We are now on the road to Utopia via BHO and his PC, AA, revolutionaries who do not realize as idiot parasites that they are also the losers and of course will not remain and be there when the smoke clears.
And the story goes: “Once upon a time, people thought that they’re the bosses, and that the ‘elected representative’ worked for them.”
Well, some reality check here is overdue; do you know any business and any boss that has “employees” with a 10% approval rating from the “boss,” for more than a year now, and still have these employees still employed? Or even more, still be in business? Please, let me know if you do – I would love to “work” for that “company/boss.”
goy (40):
@34. Poor Citizen: – Now, we have a government that “really cares” …
Hands down, the most delusional commenter on this or any other site.
Don’t you agree?
Yes. What I can’t figure out is if he’s simply a poorly educated person or a deliberate provocateur.
LGoPs (24) points out that:
There is a hard core 10-20% – no one knows for sure the percentage – that would openly welcome communism in America. The vast majority of the remainder would not.
Actually – as with the Revolutionary war and Royalism – there’s about 20% that would welcome communism and 20% that are educated enough to fight on the conservative side. The remaining 60% haven’t a clue as to what’s going on. Unfortunately, our educational system has been subverted to the point that if you try to explain “President Obama’s a Socialist” to them they stare at you as if you were trying to claim that the Earth is hollow. Socialism is something that crazy Russians did in the 19th century, not something that 21st century miracle presidents do.
Victor Davis Hanson is a dangerous right-wing extremist and terrorist who seeks to undermine America’s right to the pursuit of happiness through healthcare for all.
Selfish and greedy, this racist refuses to share his wealth with documentally challenged and other brown people.
Soon the Health Squad will be giving his kind a new start in the North Dakota Health, Education and Equal Rights Federal Training Territory.
The self-centered and narcissistic Julius Caesar met retribution at the hands of the Roman Senate.
The French Revolution’s Marat died in his bath courtesy of Charlotte Corday.
Napoleon retreated from Moscow into the harsh Russian winter losing a large part of his army to cold and starvation.
General Lee began his long retreat to Appomattox Courthouse after ordering the disastrous Pickett’s charge at Gettysburg.
Custer received his reward at Little Bighorn.
Hitler had his Stalingrad.
All of these excesses of political or military arrogance resulted in well deserved defeat. Thus ever to tyrants!
We are about to witness a re-birth of freedom. Our current mourning will soon, once again, be “morning in America.”
The Rubicon image is apt. What we have is Caesarism.
The first time I crossed the California border in 1955 on my way to my duty station at NAS North Island, the ag inspectors at the border told me there were 2500 people a day flocking into the “Golden State.” Now, it is 55 years later and even more are leaving every day.
Is there any better example that illustrates the ruinous policies of progressivism?
You are teaching the lesson, but how many are listening? Methinks we will get the answer in November.
In the Fall of 1973 I took a graduate course at U. Penn, on “Economic Planning” from the Econ Department; the Professor was someone by the name of Levine (I don’t remember much else about him, except the first joke he cracked during the first day of class); he had just come back from a trip to the Soviet Union (quite a feat back then, a time when Soviet Jews wanted to leave the USSR, and had a hard time getting the chance to do so).
During his trip, he had met a poor soviet steel worker named Ivan, he related, who confided to him that “he was born in St. Petersburg, he grew up in Petrograd, and that now (back then in 1973, that is) lives in Leningrad; and that he hopes to die in St. Petersburg.” Levine added, although poor Ivan conveyed it as an aspiration, Levine took it as a very apt joke about the Soviet system.
When I first heard it, I agreed, it was a very witty joke – so much so that I have been telling it for 37 years to my students and friends alike (with appropriate attribution always); especially since 1991, when the addition of tremendous foresight by Ivan added an extra twist to it.
But it is now, here in this US of A under Obamarule, that I really get how funny it is, and yet so tragic: I’m simply too old now to wish that one day I would like to die in America, for I know it won’t happen.
It’s all true, and yet there are still people in Europe, the U.N., China, Russia, and everywhere who manage to accumulate vast amounts of wealth. Mrs. Pelosi married wealth as did Senator Kerry. How does this happen if Socialism really does what it claims? That’s all that needs to be answered. We know that the Clinton’s weren’t very wealthy until after Bill left office. Now they’re millionaire’s many times over. Does anybody believe that the Obamas, Harry Reid or Mrs. Pelosi will leave office and ever need to work again? The latter are already beyond retirement age, and they’ll be well cared for by us taxpayers.
How is it that these icons of spreading the wealth around all seem to be hanging on to theirs?
We should worry about the sum of excessive debt, unfunded entitlement liabilities, and unsustainable federally mandated spending imposed on states already on the brink of bankruptcy becoming the incontrovertible justification for raising taxes to a level that leaves nothing but subsistence discretionary income In our pockets, seizing businesses that were not already owned by unions, freezing all financial assets to prevent their transfer abroad, and making every one of us a dependent, if not an employee of the state. What world-citizen collectivist would not deliberatively pursue policies with the purpose of fomenting this colossal financial crisis inside the world’s only free-market super-power in order to reach such an outcome?
Though, often we are reminded to respect our enemy’s strength, yet we should remain circumspect of their invincibility and especially of their wisdom. Is it conceivable that our historic first Islamic apostate president could remake America into a banana republic?
More likely, he and his wily cohort of centralizing collectivist authoritarians are simply precipitating the collapse of the already untenable pyramid of promissory notes along with the discrediting of the delusional contemporary assumptions about human nature here and abroad in an amount of time shorter than the non-world-citizen career politicians would have used, allowing some us to witness what we might have otherwise, by passing on, missed: the renaissance in America of the Western way of life.
The Republican elite only care about Wall St. and money. Unless conservative voters realize the Republican elite is as much their enemy as the stealth marxists controlling the Democrats then they’ll remain trapped between the two groups.
#26 Jay; we are already doing that! More to come.
VDH: Thanks as always, yours are the descriptions of the sane versus the insane. We all know the definition of insanity. History repeats itself yet again and again and again.
What we have now is the full exposure of the man of sin. The sane are now forced to reject the insane for which the sane are vilified.
There is no way out for the man of sin except the payment. May the sane and the innocent be spared the coming destruction? The Rev. Wrights chickens will find their way home. How appropriate
28. Let’s pray it doesn’t come to that. Most of Obama’s flock are boutique socialists unwilling to take up arms for their half-baked cause. There are some ACORN / SEIU thugs who would mix it up, that’s about it. The rest would quickly cave. The big question is which way the military would break (and don’t forget our honored veterans.) I have little doubt it would break to the right. They are by and large the finest among us and know in their bones the difference between Liberty and Tyranny.
30 – 33. Up to us to make sure it doesn’t happen like that.
45. Agreed.
To all who think November is too far off. Patience. Things are still playing themselves out. We have a stronger hand than it seems. And there is much you can do in the meantime. Yes, the ‘Social Democrats’ are moving quickly, but in a way that is good for it removes all doubt about their intentions. It’s true that they may try and alter the rules of the game before November, then we will have to adjust accordingly. But until then do everything you can to hand the Dems a whopping defeat. That is still the best cost to benefit analysis.
Besides, what are the alternatives? A coup? An armed march on DC? That would plunge the country into total chaos for who knows how long… It should be avoided at almost any cost. Certainly we are not there yet. Let’s exhaust our existing options. Besides, November will come quickly enough. What have you done to defeat a Democrat today?
Hank
Probably not right away, only after they roll this back, finally do something about the nations’ infrastructure that’s falling apart, and hove everyone so damn happy they can’t see straight. Getting to that point is still possible, IMHO, given what will probably be happening elsewhere and the US investing in capital assets instead of social programs that are impossible ponzi schemes at heart. But, if the democrat party collapses as it should, those with a love of power for powers sake will go where else, but the winning party. Those that rise for that reason will have a better plan than these unrealistic boobs still panting after an unworkable social agenda.
Regards
I agree with John Shuh’s comment on the Rubicon. Historians will mark this as the beginning of the Imperial Age. They don’t even pretend to be following the law. They’re just making it up as they go along.
VDH, This statement makes no sense:
“One can borrow $ 11 trillion at the price of what would be borrowing $20 trillion in the old days of interest, as rates hover around 2-4% rather than the old 6-10%.
“We are floating huge amounts of debt at historically cheap interest. One can borrow $ 11 trillion at the price of what would be borrowing $20 trillion in the old days of interest, as rates hover around 2-4% rather than the old 6-10%.” VDH
Doc, WADR I believe you got your trillions back to front…
More to the point, Doc, the head of the Medusa has to be faced, debated, defeated and then hacked off…and you’re just the man, come Sept/Oct 2012, to do just that, LIVE, ON EVERY TV CHANNEL, for the world to see…You against Barry, Doc, face to face, debating the fate of the Nation! A Scholar of Antiquity, such as you are Doc, has to appreciate the grandeur of such a moment!
How about it Doc? It’s time to throw your hat in the ring or get off the pot!
TO VDH:
With my earnest plea, please allow this comment to be published without censorship. I really do believe that it doesn’t contain any libelous materials. Many thanks.
Is 0bama smarter than everyone in America?
Then why does he want the U.S. to be the next Greece?
Is 0bama a genius way above the pay grade of Einstein?
Then why does 0bama want to beat a dead horse?
Communism in Russia is dead and buried; KAPUT to the Nth degree of infinity. And yet, and yet, 0bama wants to bring a dead Russian horse to America!!! LOL !!!
For 74 years, Russia tried to make a go of it; but no dice. It was too Utopian and ran counter to their hopes and dreams of a better, brighter tomorrow.
BTW, Communism is an economic system characterized by the collective ownership of property and by the organization of labor for the common advantage of all its members. But hey!!; organized labor is very, very strong in America, right?
Be that as it may, the Russians were so traumatized by the brutal repression of Comrade Stalin in his pursuit of the ideals of Communism such that it is bruited about that around 20 million Russians (this figure is from The Internet) were TERMINATED WITHOUT PREJUDICE by Comrade S. WOW !! WOW !! WOW !!
Even so, I appeal to everyone to please pray that Communism won’t happen in America and the very thought of this is giving me “nightmarish nights !!!”
0therwise, GOD bless us all !!!!!
I am not an American, but what is happening south of the border nevertheless fills me with hopelessness and dread. The USA is the final redoubt of freedom, and when it goes, we will all be lost. I want to believe that there will be a huge groundswell of opposition to Obama’s freedom-destroying agenda come November, and with it a return to common sense. But I am not at all confident of this. The left has in the past decades become just too skillful at turning things upside down and eating away at freedom.
The problem is, is the Left and the Democrats have sold the people on their flawed ideology. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard “The Democrats are for the Little Guy”, and of course most people consider themselves little guys. Democrats get elected, implement their flawed ideology, things get worse… on and on. Until we can somehow break this cycle, things will continue to get worse. A perfect example is #67. Most of the brainwashed lefties are like him/her.
I don’t know: Bush made us look stupid, evil and fumbling to the world at large; Obama is doing just the opposite.
64. A fateful Joke: And well and heartfully told.
I understand. I left and ‘went galt’ in 1969. Still gone, but still pay taxes even though I’m under the so-called poverty line. Americans in America making more than me get all kinds of goodies for their taxes. Not me.
But I live free like my ancestors meant me to be.
@Poor Citizen
The answer is very simple: I am not a child nor am I a prostitute. I don’t need nor want the government to be my parent nor is my character and independent thought for sale. If you listen to what Mr. Obama said yesterday you will realize that he thinks you are a child prostitute. He believes that people and bussiness won’t want to give up the crumbs he just stole for you with this legislation. And maybe many Americans have become child prostitutes – but I am not. There is the difference.
1984 has come and gone.
Now we have Darkness at Noon.
Crap- you guys have just given me heart-burn. I just got into a debate with a distant 25 year old cousin. His Dad is a DR. and a lawyer. He has a law degree and works for gulp..La Raza. He had a cold sarcasm that I could not break through. I was reminded of the “The Gulag Archepelego” when Russian citizens began to turn on each other. I think we are very close to a similar divide. They never thought that their fellow citizens would force the into slavery either. 70 million dead.
60. Marlin
You’re new here. I haven’t seen your name before. I wonder if you’re a hit-and-run type or if you’ll return, continue to read what’s written and learn.
But you don’t know VDH at all. There is no reason to what you’ve said.
I think William Gibson, said it best, when he described it as a ‘cold civil war’, being on the other end of the argument, and the parallels are closer to Catiline than to Caesar
I read as much as I could read of the comments – most all shaking my head in a agreement. Some very well read, very smart comments here and the usual well-written VDH article which I find no fault. But that doesn’t change the fact of what to do.
The days of the wailing and gnashing of teeth need to come to an end; not word, but action is now required.
Our delay only empowers both a President and Press that believes it has won. I would suggest that we gird up our loins, act as men, and do what is necessary or accept the inevitable. I am not interested in “fixing”, or “moderating”, or “negotiating”. I am ready to fight for what is right.
If we don’t act soon, all of the great articles, all of the great commentary, will be for naught.
Ladies and gentlemen – as I sit on my ass here this morning as I do most mornings reading in disgust of what has transpired, it has become a waste of time rehashing the obvious grievances.
I’m neither irrational or a domestic terrorist, though I have been branded as much for being truthful. But the time is long overdue to try to stop and reason with the irrational mind. I’m open to suggestion as to how to proceed. But let us proceed…
Here’s another history lesson.
In 1954 the President of the United States was able to deport over 1,000,000 illegal aliens.
If we could do that again, wouldn’t that be a good thing?
The United States put a man on the moon. Surely, we should be able to do this.
How can a country survive if about 5% of its population is illegal?
Yes Poor Citizen we know you prefer communism.
It still comes done to feel good laws with no idea of the actual effects, with no idea of the real cost, with no idea of how actual working people will react.
Health care could have been optimized for everyone through capitalism and reasonable regulations but now it will be minimized by bureaucrats. This wills be the map for all the politicians with no historical perspective for all their efforts for the next 2 years.
We now know that many of the “moderate” Democrat congressmen can be bought.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2010/03/26/13365521-ap.html
Well, it looks like Sarah Palin will lose support amongst the Tea Party brigades, because of this.
She wasn’t the first, nor the last, to be seduced by what might be, as long as the Establishment holds onto the degree of influence it possesses.
22. Steve C:
“Never forget,
There are more of us then there are of them.”
But they are ensconced in the seats of power; we are not. Do we have time to wait to get to the ballot box before too much damage is done? Time will tell.
Greying Wanderer (67):
The Republican elite only care about Wall St. and money….
I don’t think that this is really true. The real problem is that the Republican Elite view politics as a (rich man’s) hobby, to be played according to Marquis of Queensbury rules and never treated as a true life-or-death situation. Since they have sufficient money, they seldom have to suffer the consequences of their actions/inactions.
I want the Republicans to start playing according to Prince Machiavelli’s rules: ruthlessly (albeit according to conservative principles) and with an eye to win. They need to start learning to handle the media, to start viewing the large picture, and to be unafraid of being called names.
The United States are at dire risk of becoming a massive Potemkin Village as the virus that cares its victims to death spreads its pox across the face of the land. The progressive vanguard of nannies who deign to rule over us would see Theresienstadt reborn upon the banks of the Potomac. A facade of the land of the free.
Vast state-captured swathes of the polity have seen fit to trade in all the joys and responsibilities of individual Liberty for mere scraps of the wealth expropriated from the purposefully diminished producers who have long borne a disproportionate share of the ‘progressive’ tax burden…Instead of restraint; “Arbeit Macht Frei” for thee has become the essential mantra mouthed by the agents of our insatiable leviathan as they engorge themselves upon the fruits of our labors.
The naked ‘democratic’ emperors who’ve been elevated to lordship over we the people have turned their backs on the Republic having discovered the devil’s collective bargaining chip: “…the voters discover[d] that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury.”
175 years after Tocqueville’s seminal work on American Democracy was published reveals that the veneer of “democratic paint” is worn through to show the true [red] color of an undead aristocracy of ‘betters’ who know best how to run our lives for us. They bestow upon us “rights” that are so important as to require a fine to ensure compliance. Rule. Plain and simple.
La démocratie est mort, vive le Roi!
The “Gregalogue” segment of Fox’s Redeye (host Greg Gutfeld) always ends the same way: “If you disagree with me, you must be a racist homophobe who (fill in the blank).”
Worth adopting; such in-your-face sarcasm is the only rational response to the left.
Paul @90;
It is also worth noting that registered Republicans donate about 2:1 more % of their income to charity than registered Democrats.
So who “cares only” about themselves?
what comes next are the games where men destroy each other for the amusement of the people, with free bread given away to feed the hungry masses. how did Rome get that way? we some how forget that Nancy Pelosi is from your neck of the woods,small wonder that Calif. is the way it is. strangulation of business is triangulation, what kills business is overhead. they are experts in raising the cost of business in Calif.
Short of the next American Civil War – and we may get that anyway – I believe that a gentleman named Tom Baugh may have the best approch to dealing with the Gramscian, Machiavellian Marxists who now have the upper hand: starving the monkeys. His website where his book of the same title can be found is starvingthemonkeys.com.
What will all the dirty little collectivist monkeys do when there’s nothing left for them to loot or mooch?
As eloquent as Victor David Hanson is, we cannot explicate ourselves out of the upcoming financial meltdown, and hoping that things are going be reversed after the 2010 congressional elections is unfortunately more about wishful thinking than genuine rescue. Now is the time to begin serious planning for a near-term future in which hyperinflation will destroy the illusion of stored monetary wealth, and the necessities of everyday living will become a challenge. Begin now to purchase and hoard basic commodities. As best you can, try to anticipate what goods and services will become scarce after a financial collapse. Then pick out one of these and acquire the knowledge, skills, equipment, and resources needed to provide this good or service. The days of hanging up a small business shingle and trading with your neighbors is about to re-emerge.
@1. Pedro
“Now I know he saw the trees through the forest.”
Thank you for your service. My father was there with the 25th INF and I am an Desert Storm vet.
Your father was right. I shake my head to what is to come.
#69 “The big question is which way the military would break (and don’t forget our honored veterans.) I have little doubt it would break to the right. They are by and large the finest among us and know in their bones the difference between Liberty and Tyranny.”
My husband is active Army Guard, and has sworn that he “will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic . . .” I would wager that most members of the military would uphold this oath, no matter the cost. Thank goodness.
Essential vdh
Communism, Marxism, and or progressivism is a product of limited and purely intellectual minds. It by definition is not a result of experience and learning feedback.
It is a product of dreams that “Utopians” have had for centuries and it highest and best use is to underwrite revolutions and takeover of societies. To no good end.
It has been tried many times. For those idiots like the BHO’s it represents the culmination of their psychotic dreams and indoctrination by blank stare intellectuals who could not pass a sane test.
TO #77 BC:
You certainly are easily impressed…. by the most shallow and meaningless bits of info. What the Pew Research center shows is that with the election of Obama, the French and Germans now think America is just dandy. Well color me underwhelmed. So we have the approval of the two most worthless and sniveling “allies” of the modern era; both decaying and enervated with crushing debt, birthrates that are way below replacement level; being governed by a crippling nanny state with combined military might that couldn’t defeat Argentina.
So tell me, what has this good “feeling” actually brought us in terms of something concrete?
“the unions, as in Greece, as in California, will turn on each other, and on us the taxpayers who never quite give enough (I expect something like the 6th century Nika riots next in Greece).”
Really? The Nika Riots? Whoa… I get a little nervous when Chris Hedges and VDH come to the same conclusion from opposite ends of the spectrum. There is no hope until we learn to be honest with ourselves.
#36 Kate, well said.
82 Ron Kean:
Learn to recognize sarcasm.
It is one of our best weapons against the Left.
“right now the future lies somewhere between the certainty of decline and the probability of catastrophe.” – Mark Steyn
He’s right. We’re screwed.
This punk doesnt want Belgium or France. This punk wants NORTH KOREA or IRAN. Obama is a communist whos worse than even Breznev or Khrushev. This guy is Stalin amd Mao at there worse. Look who his pals are. Bill Ayers once told an FBI informant 25-30 MILLION Americans would need to be “eliminated” for the “revolution” to succeed. Rashid Khalihi has DIRECT contacts with HAMAS. Even now, is it any coincidence Gates and Im a Dumb Jihad are in Afgahistan at the same time? This man and his syncophats need to be REMOVED. Bottom line, the POS now in the white house is no american. Im betting when he loses Congress this November, dont put this POS past declaring some form of Martial law.
On February 22 of this year, the Office of the Comptroller General of the United States released a report entitled The Federal Government’s Long-Term Fiscal Outlook: Fall 2009 Update.
The report is not encouraging. In the statement transmitting the report to the President and Congress, the following is included in the summary:
In addition, our most recent long-term simulations for all federal government programs show that absent policy changes, debt held by the public as a percentage of GDP could exceed the historical high reached in the aftermath of World War II in a little over 10 years. Absent a change in policy, under this scenario, the interest costs on the growing debt together with spending on major entitlement programs could absorb 92 cents of every dollar of federal revenue in 2019. Clearly, this is not sustainable. The federal government faces increasing pressures yet a shrinking window of opportunity for making policy changes regarding these challenges.
Not only is this not sustainable, spending of this magnitude will destroy our economy along with many of the economies of the developed world. Also note that the 92% of GDP the report estimated does not include all federal spending, just the major entitlements that existed prior to the passage of “health care reform” plus the interest on the debt. Defense spending, highways and infrastructure, and everything else are excluded from the analysis. Unless we act now, our fiscal situation is about to enter the crisis zone. One decade is not much time to address the serious structural deficiencies that exist.
To a rational person, this report would be seen as a dire warning that it is. Obviously, rationality is not a trait possessed by the White House or the Congressional democrats. The ink has hardly dried on the report and we have passed a new entitlement program. Like every other major entitlement enacted by Congress, the only thing that we can be certain of is that the cost projections by the White House and the CBO will not hold. The 92% of GDP will probably be a low estimate and the date of 2019 is probably optimistic. Not content with wrecking the health care system, we will now move on to amnesty for illegal immigrants, massive new taxes on energy, and a VAT that will result in higher costs and lower employment. Any deficit reduction program that will work must address the spending side of the equation.
I’m starting to believe that our leadership is either insane or they are engaged in an intentional act of destruction. November may be our last chance. We all need to wake up.
Yeah. I wouldn’t get too caught up in VDH’s slippery-slopism. “If Obamism is taken to its logical conclusions….” That’s like saying Reaganism taken to its “logical conclusions” leads to a theocratic military dictatorship. The American people want a balance between a vibrant, growing capitalist economy and safety nets for the less fortunate. All we are arguing about is where that balance lies.
Again, I would take VDH with a big grain of salt. He is, after all, the same prophet who wrote a column called the Impending Obama Meltdown — just two weeks after Obama took office. An excerpt: “We are quite literally after two weeks teetering on an Obama implosion.”
How’d that prediction work out for you?
I guess Obama recovered his balance. Since then we’ve had stimulus, healthcare, START, a surge in Afghanistan; certainly, one of most substantial and consequential first terms for any president in the last century. And it’s not even halfway over. Face it. You could be looking at one of the most successful presidents in American history. And yes, historians will write that you were the knuckle draggers on the wrong side of social justice. But they are products of a liberal education, so ignore them.
Republicans only care about the rich, do not care about the poor and middle class.
Republicans and Tea Party members are extremists.
Republicans and Tea Party members are terrorists.
Republicans and Tea Party members are racists.
Republicans and Tea Party members are obstructionists.
Republicans and Tea Party members are against health care reform.
Republicans and Tea Party members are spoiled children.
Republicans and Tea Party members encourage hate.
Republicans and Tea Party members have no decency, no morality, no ethics.
Republicans and Tea Party members offer nothing but fear, hypocrisy, lies, and violence.
Republicans and Tea Party members are slaves to talk radio and Fox News.
Republicans behaving as if they are rabid beasts.
Republicans are committing treason.
Republicans and Tea Party members incite riots.
Republicans are a party of southern whites and Christian extremists.
These are some of the kinder, gentler descriptions of Republicans and Tea Party members printed in the columns and comments, and commentary from show hosts on MSNBC, CNN, and most other liberal news outlets who are in agreement with the Democrat, liberal side of the aisle. This, from the side who has supposedly protected the proletariat from Republicans who want to destroy the constitution and take away our civil rights. This, from the side who were the originators of civil disobedience, bombers of buildings, killers of policemen, rioters, building occupiers, fire bullets into buildings, trash campaign offices, vandalize vehicles, and a litany of other offenses that go unreported by the MSM.
We keep hearing the cry for civility and meaningful dialogue between the factions. We heard from Obama that he reached out to Republicans but brought back a bloody hand. The hand Obama extended to Republicans was made into a clenched fist, not an open hand of friendship. He shook it in the face of anyone who opposed his agenda and he still does it today. He and a super majority in congress have been relentless in an effort to reshape America into a more socialist state and so far, their campaign has paid off.
Propaganda success depends on a willing media to do its part. So far, the MSM in America has been as successful in promoting Obama’s agenda as the press did in pre-WWII Nazi Germany. The press is painting Republicans, Tea Party members, conservatives, Christians, and pro-lifers with the same brush the Nazi controlled press in Germany used on Jews, Some have predicted another “Night of the Long Knives” event in America only this time, Jews won’t be the target. The target will be those who are in opposition to the liberal/progressive/socialist agenda of the current administration.
We are truly living in dangerous times. All you have to do is read the rhetoric and comments on the liberal side of the web and writers for the news and political commentary and remember, except for a few places where conservatives can express themselves, the majority of outlets is under total control of the left.
77. BC:
Your slobbering need to service you messiah is truly vomit provoking. That thing between your shoulder blades is a backbone, try giving it a test run sometime, worm.
@90 and 93
Big business wants unlimited cheap labor. They support unlimited mass immigration just as much as the cultural marxists. They also tacitly support marxist political correctness because PC is their weapon to destroy any resistance to unlimited mass immigration.
The Republican elite are bought and paid for by big business.
Either conservatives completely retake the Republican party while excluding big business or they create a third party. Anything else will lead to the same elite betrayal that’s been going on since 1965.
The current and future generations of our children are going to be pampered, petulant and provocative spoiled brats who believe that they are entitled to any and all they demand and the government of Obambi or of the Obambi successor will bow to their demands. Of course I’m painting with a broad brush and of course there will be some who do not demand anything from the government. But when you have a generation of kids (ha!!) who can live at home with mommy and daddy and suck off the governments health insurance teat until they are 26 years old what will be their incentive to grow up and become responsible adults. Now I’ve heard that Cali is considering making marijuana legal, not just medical pot but for everyone. So we’re going to have a generation of stoned kids who won’t work, won’t compete, and won’t move out of mommy and daddy’s house and that is EXACTLY what Obambi wants. This county is screwed.
Many of us hold VDH in high esteem, but were somewhat bemused by his frequent suggestions to our rulers on how to back pedal from the impending doom by scrubbing the floor back out through the door of the extermination chamber they are building before it closes.
Tenacious he is and he will not let go of each piece of evidence of leftist collusion among the various classes of the apparatchiki (believing to be exalted Bolsheviks in their own little hermetic world but who are the Mensheviks in the greater realm of all of America) with his relentless exposés of their self-serving double standards. His perseverance is a model of steadfast obstinacy for the cause of the greater good and in defense of our Western, Judeo-Christian creed. Never falter, never quit!
It is worth our time to listen to his 5-part interview currently featured on NRO. It provides many examples of why he is a preeminent proponent of the American way of life (don’t miss his comment on being the laughingstock of neighbors for being a newly minted Sanford PhD out pruning grapevines on the family farm).
Aaaaaah, pardon me? Does anyone know where I can find the road to Utopia?
Yes! I know! You turn left and drive off a cliff….
“That’s like saying Reaganism taken to its “logical conclusions” leads to a theocratic military dictatorship. ”
Let’s take a look at this.
Please explain how the policy for limited government would “logically” lead to a military dictatorship.
Please explain how respect for the Constitution as written in 1787 would “logically” lead to a theocracy.
***
The problem with leftists and with people who consider themselves “moderate” is that they really do not think it through.
Conservatism is BY DEFINITION balanced. There is a balance of power in the government, intended to limit what government can do to its citizens. There is a bill of rights to protect the individual from the tyranny of the majority. There is freedom of speech so that no one, certainly not the government, is in charge of the truth. There is respect for the will of the individual to make his or her own life decisions rather than be bossed around by bureaucrats monkeying around with free enterprise.
None of these principles lead to tyranny. They are in fact consciously designed to prevent tyranny.
***
I am really really sick of propaganda about “right-wing extremism.”
Dana Loesch made a remarkable statement in a PJTV podcast: we need to call it the Health Control law, and drop the Health “Care.”
John Dingell’s accidentally truthful comment to Detroit radio’s Paul W. Smith– “it takes time to control the people” — is the true goal.
Thousands of new IRS agents, hundreds of thousands of yet-to-be-written regulations interpreting this “starter house” of a 2,700-page monstrosity.
Call it what it is: Health Control
goy
Sorry, but someone who is a coward, fraud, and a liar cannot be taken seriously. In the article linked below:
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/high-drama-amid-obamacare-threats/#comments-72
you were caught lying several times. The worst time was in post #72 where you suggested that you are a veteran. I’ve asked you repeatedly to name when and with what unit you served. You’ve repeatedly refused to answer those questions. A real veteran would be able to do so. It’s pathetic that you could be so cowardly as to pretend to be a veteran. Your comments cannot be taken seriously.
Dr. Hanson,
I enjoyed your description of the state of the state (Kahleefourneeah). It reminds me of the reason we retired and moved to Oregon: The Law of Unintended Consequences. Instead of calling it Californiazation, the native Oregonians used to say: “Don’t Californicate Oregon!”
Just so you’ll know, there were no terrorists flying planes into the WTC Towers on 9/11. What the public saw were SFX, computer generated fake planes broadcast by a complicit media.
Watch September Clues: http://www.septemberclues.info
…or remain clueless.
(those who used to court Michael Moore, or snooze about books and movies suggesting scenarios of killing George Bush are suddenly worried about uncivil discourse)
Hysterical isn’t it ? and not hysterically funny.
You wonder how such hypocrites can look at themselves in the mirror. They never seem to make any sort of parallel between their own past behaviors and words and their contrived, faux outrage of the moment.
Must all be from Mars or Stepford People.
With this crowd, it doesn’t seem to matter that you say one thing today and another thing tomorrow
(I agree with C. Krauthammer that Obama’s little coterie of people “studying” how to pay for things will be recommending a VAT)
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