Brave New World
The New Normal
When did 7.8% unemployment become the new normal? After 49 months above it? What happened to a “jobless recovery”?
Are we always to borrow $1 trillion a year? Will the national debt always rise, never decline? Did $4 a gallon gas become the new normal — a small price to pay for more windmills and solar panels?
Suddenly, college is not the pathway to the upper-middle class, but a risky 50/50 proposition that just as likely can lead to a $100,000 plus, 8% student loan debt, no job, and five years in the parents’ spare bedroom. Who ever objected to tuition climbing at twice the rate of inflation? One day there were sparse dorms, and the next rock-climbing walls; one day deans and provosts who at least taught one class, the next diversity czars with scores of assistants. The more kids can’t pay for college, the more college looks like Disney World.
The new America is a society where 50% pay federal income tax, and for 50% April 15 is an occasion for a tax refund or credit. I grew up with my parents dreading the date; now I see signs offering all sorts of “tax refund” sales. When did disability insurance merely become an extension of unemployment insurance?
There Is No Media
About four years ago, the media just dissipated. Gone, buried. Did we notice our newsreaders are virtual government employees? The media is a Ministry of Truth where spokespeople vie for superlatives — a living “god,” a man who creates tingles in our legs and is pictured as a “messiah” on our magazines. Each sermon is a new “Gettysburg Address,” each gesture is Lincoln’s, each new Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton part of the new Lincoln’s “Team of Rivals.”
Journalists are now Photoshoppers of news: Guantanamo once bad, now good; we all grew to stop worrying and to love Predators; renditions, the Patriot Act, and preventative detentions must have gone with George W. Goldstein.
Those noisy free-for-all press conferences are now like Xerxes’s court at Persepolis, where toadies compete with kowtows. “Investigative reporting” is how some reactionary, enemy-of-the-people hacks dig up dirt on a progressive like Sen. Menendez or Susan Rice. The video maker sitting in jail and the 16-year-old American who was vaporized were reactionary troublemakers — and that is all ye need to know.
Brave, New World
Panta rhei — “everything is in flux” — Heraclitus says. The world we knew is not the one we wake up to after a short nap. January 2009 now seems like a far-off dream, in a way that 2016 may be a nightmare.
Also read: Why It’s in Everyone’s Interests that the Hagel Nomination Be Defeated
(Thumbnail on PJM homepage assembled from multiple Shutterstock.com images.)
131 Comments, 50 Threads
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Look, it’s like in England, I mean GB, where there are government committees about why there aren’t enough women or black doctors and highly-paid lawyers, but nobody for a minute thinks about, say, doing something the large number of black soccer players or white tennis players compared to their number in the population, or about how many black vs. white people are in the top of the pop charts.
You see, when it comes to something unimportant — the law, medicine, fighting in a war, etc. — then “diversity” trumps all else, and there must be an exact representation of the large population in the professions, in the army, etc., etc. But when we are talking about something SERIOUS — professional sports, popular music — all the “diversity” requirements are thrown away, since THOSE are fields where one cannot seriously sacrifice quality for diversity.
After all, in the law or medicine or the army, bowing to diversity instead of quality might, at most, mean a few thousand people will unnecessarily get killed, or die, or sent to prison for life despite being innocent. But in professional sports, giving an undeserving person a top spot in the name of diversity can easily mean a big championship game will be blown in the last minute. Such a possiblity can be very worrying indeed.
And highly visible.
It is mistaken to think that “the Left” is responsible for diversity training. It was rather upwardly mobile petit bourgeois radicals like POTUS. I laid out their strategies here, with lots of links to blogs on multiculturalism. See http://clarespark.com/2012/12/01/petit-bourgeois-radicalism-and-obama/.
My soon to be son-in-law just graduated college. Of the companies he interviewed with, two were European. Both told him he must be VERY impressive because he was a white male, and they were on a diversity in hiring push. If ever there were a more significant indicator of the unintended consequences of “social engineering” it was that. He took a job with one of these two companies knowing that for at least the beginning of his career path, he will be viewed as “exceptional”.
You see, when it comes to something unimportant — the law, medicine, fighting in a war, etc. — then “diversity” trumps all else, and there must be an exact representation of the large population in the professions, in the army, etc., etc.
I’m afraid you’re wrong about that, at least in some jurisdictions. Here in Ontario, Canada our provincial government mandates that minorities are to be represented among government employees by 2% MORE that their presence in the general population. Therefore, if 5% of the Ontario population is homosexual, 7% of government employees must be homosexual.
Don’t ask me the reasoning behind this 2% “premium” but I was told this some years ago by a career civil servant in the provincial government.
You want different? I moved to Israel after not having been there for 30 years, broken only by two recent visits. I expected a thrid world country, got a first world one. (“We don’t need a car”, I told my wife, “no-one has a car in Israel”. Hah!)
Strange. I don’t remember our cars (2008 when we last had some) being so reliable. Of course, you may have had better cars or better weather (or take better care). One difference is that people don’t stop to help anymore, because they assume you have a cell phone.
People have always envied the rich, considered them the enemy. (Hey, you’re the history guy.) The 1% is entirely PR from Occupy, and $250,000 is from Obama’s figures.
Hypocricy became possible when TV destroyed the newspapers back in the 60′s. The major media no longer gave a diversity of opinion. Probably the 60′s movement and journalism school also helped. The truth is, no matter how conservative the medium, the reporters are still lefty. To some extent this goes back as far as the Scopes trial, but it certainly hit its stride in the 60′s. Fox radio news has a left-wing slant, if anything.
Along these lines, since when did Conservatives use terms like “sexist” and “homophobic”. And when did the latter becoeme something negative?
The culture VDH speaks of, where you fixed your old things instead of buying new ones, is coming back. I keep getting offers from my car dealer to buy my old 2005, because it’s a “highly sought after year.” People want used and old, not trusting the new any more. Those who can tinker and fix old electronics or engines, which used to be the average man in the past, have it made.
The broken trust with media, and it’s collusion with the political class in obliterating honesty and reality, is the starting point of decay. Press independence was a lynchpin of our freedom, both personal and political. It reminds me of Pope John Paul’s refrain, that Man’s freedom is anchored in truth. Without truth, man can’t be free. Philosophical, personal and social freedom must rest on truth, or it’s ephemeral. As VDH elaborates, it can mean anything at anytime, depending on the whims of the rulers, and therefore becomes meaningless. (See John Paul II and the Truth about Freedom, by Avery Dulles.) Small children who live in such dysfunctional households are often driven insane, because they aren’t afforded the basic dignity of a solid anchor of truth to cling to in a crisis.
When the truth doesn’t matter, hypocrisy abounds. Yet, the hypocrisy itself doesn’t matter, because the truth-slayers simply ignore it, or present it as something else. As that dysfunction, writ large, deforms society, human dignity — and freedom — are lost. Therein lies the rot of leftist progressivism and Marxist materialism. Take away the moral constants, and you can get the people to do or believe just about anything.
gee i remember if you changed your oil you got 3-300,000 miles on a car bot you on had maybe 15-20.000 miles on tires it’s a wonder all the tire makers didn’t go bk and you could not put $5 IN GAS IN A CAR
Congratulations! That’s the most incoherent post I’ve seen here in quite some time. I have no idea what you were trying to say.
The madness about which Hansen writes is symptomatic of the lunatic left and the policies and world view they have chosen to implement in their “blue” state enclaves, such as his native California. It is time for the “red” states to cast off the crazies in the “blue” states and build a better, saner world in those parts of the country that still value liberty and freedom in a reconstructed Constitutional Republic. We must finally recognize that there is no hope for the “blue” states and embrace the concept of nullification and secession as the only possible future for a free people.
It would be nice if that could actually happen. However, all but 14 States have at least one Democratic senator and, given VDH’s predictions, you can see that number shrinking. Most States are headed to pink, blue or deeper blue. Plus, the extension of Federal tentacles into so many aspects of American life enables them to apply nearly irresistible extortion and coercion when they need to.
Things will get bad financially and liberties will be lost. However, the Progressives will keep playing the blame game in the fine tradition of “freedom fighters”, dictators and autocratic regimes throughout history – Chiang Kai-shek, Mao, Castro, Kim Jong-il. There will always be someone to demonize and somewhere to deflect criticism until the hold on power is absolute.
As the author implies, we are napping and we won’t like what we see when we wake up.
When did our flag become the “wrong kind of patriotism?”
When did we sit in church and listen to the thunder from the pulpit bellow out “God Bless America? NO, God DAMN America!”
When did our PRESIDENT go around the world saying that we are no more exceptional than…the Greeks”
When did our first lady say that she has never been proud of her country before?
When did our Secretary of State hold phony Winter Soldier meetings and meet with sworn enemies of state to slander our men in uniform?
When did our Supreme Court justices tell the world to model their Constitution after one other than ours?
When did our Justice Department announce that it would run guns to gangs, only prosecute race crimes for non-white people, and refuse to enforce voter fraud?
When did an attack on our home soil become “chickens coming home to roost?, instead of a reason for solidarity?”
When did a Presidential campaign become a breeding ground of admiration for Che Guevara and Mao?
When did “journalistic ethics” become a punchline and an oxymoron?
When did NBC start editing material evidence out of its broadcasts, CBS begin forging documents, Newsweek begin photoshopping covers, the LA Times begin holding evidence hostage, Reuters and AP begin staging pictures of known false images?
When did “he’s a devout Christian” become a pejorative?
When did the self-made man find out he “didn’t build that?”
When did the American people no longer need to see a budget for how THEIR money was being spent?
When did lawmakers decide that we could find out what was in massive legislation after we read its passage?
When did our government decide to sue our border states for trying to protect themselves against border crashing?
When did we start leaking national defense secrets to the Daily Duranty?
I’ll tell you when. When the men of this country got so metrosexual that they wouldn’t stand up to tyranny. When the men of this country became so easily cowed that they wouldn’t stand up to propaganda. When the men of this country became so weak that they wouldn’t stand up for their country as she was being slandered daily.
I’ll tell you when.
When we passed into the eighth ring of hell.
The seeds of cultural marxism and decay slowly but steadily sown in many of our institutions over the last several decades are finally bearing their vile fruit.
I’ll tell you when. When the men of this country got so metrosexual that they wouldn’t stand up to tyranny. When the men of this country became so easily cowed that they wouldn’t stand up to propaganda. When the men of this country became so weak that they wouldn’t stand up for their country as she was being slandered daily.”"
Beautiful, spot on. There are few of us men left in this country and we are being betrayed daily. The fight will get more intense, but I will not relent until my body is stopped. BTW is there someplace similar to Thermopyle, in the US?
It happened a lot earlier than that, vet. It happened when Constitutional government was replaced by the progressive agenda. Progressives don’t just seek power in government; they seek power in UNLIMITIED government.
What VDH laments has all come to pass because “We the People” have allowed it to happen.
Yes, there is a place. There have been two townhalls, one in New York state, and one in Illinois I believe, on local gun control where audiences full of men, straining at the bit, draw a rare, solid line and dare their representatives to cross it. It was startling because it’s been so long since we’ve seen men take a stand that it’s hard to recognize. In one, a military man speechifies on fighting for rights, and protecting the 2nd amendment. So not all American men have been thoroughly demoralized by our new, brave culture, many even not bothering to vote anymore in 2012. (These can be found on Youtube.)
There’s a Society of the Cincinnati in DC on Mass Ave., a hereditary society begun by George Washington and Revolutionary War officers to preserve the values of the Revolution, and explain their reasons for fighting. It’s a fascinating look into the enlightenment, where eighteenth century men put together that being autonomous and self-determining was as critical to their lives as food and water. At the end of the war, they felt a need to explain their motives and their vision for the country, out of a “decent respect for the opinion of mankind.” They have archived writings and period militaria there as well. There’s a French chapter as well.
Mind you, these are simply reminders of how we came to be Americans. The time for that kind of fight is long past, but the values and spirit haven’t. We have the gift of a political, electoral system in place that can work, if people participate in it, in a way that they did not in Nov. 2012.
Hahah. Well said. Looking at the basic world view and concerns of progressive liberals, it shouldn’t be surprising to find it doesn’t really diverge all that much from Dorner’s crazy manifesto. That’s why libs were behind the now gratefully dead dope.
It’s been a slippery slope pal: From “Howl” and Kerouac to the ultimate politically correct giant ball of twine, President Obama. Disagreement on normal politics used to be one thing, but liberals today are so crazy that Obama has become a litmus test. Anyone who’d vote for him is no American and certainly either a racist welfare-stump or naive moron.
What can you say about people who put slavery in today’s headlines?
One of your better ones, CFB. Could not agree more.
My thought that maybe Nov. 2010 we had awoken from our long slumber and began to turn the corner was smashed in a picosecond by a weeping Speaker of the House wailing something about his most humble beginnings.
I wanted to slap the hell out of him and scream, “Act like a man!!!”
50% of the population has been completely subverted. You might as well be speaking Greek, they just won’t understand you. To them the rest of us are dinosaurs,racists, relics or simply don’t exist. It’s gotten bad out there. When Michelle said we need to re-write history, she meant it (it’s happening in real-time). Watch how information gets scrubbed from the internet. The MSM is complicit in causing confusion around any current event out there until the regime zeros in on a narrative that works. Tagged information assets disappear. Watch how FB has begun to ban certain posts with links to unacceptable news or opinion sources. We have entered a Brave New World…and the slaves enjoy their fate–“A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude.” – Aldous Huxley
Haven’t seen a post lately from you. Glad you’re OK.
What would you have us do? The slow steady erosion leaves little for the “real man” to fight. Being informed, voting, and donating has had little effect. We have been betrayed by those we sent to represent us and those that run for office.
Another issue is that we are at war and nobody seems willing to admit it. The Left has been waging war for decades while Conservatives snooze. We see the left as ignorant and misguided, the Left sees us as evil and something to be destroyed. We are fighting with kid gloves while the left fights to the death.
We hesitate and fumble when the Left gets caught in wrong doing leaving them with a slap on the wrist, the Left crucifies Conservatives, burns their house down, and attacks their family over even the hint of scandal. How do we respond when doing so can lead to accusations of racism, sexism, etc. that will destroy our careers and our ability to provide for our families?
I see many people talking loud yet saying nothing, we grumble, we complain, yet in the end we are impotent.
We need leadership, not the craptasitic politicians we have in the GOP. We need to support those leaders and each other, so we can speak our minds without fear of retribution by the Leftists. Yet we are divided, divided because fical conservatives don’t trust social conservatives and vice versa and both fiddle while America decays.
Amazing. You are talking about my beloved “betamales” haha. Love, Stole and put on facebook. Sure to piss everyone off. Don’t fret…I didn’t take credit for your brilliance
Let me add another big thing that’s changed. In just a couple years gay marriage has gone from something that was being voted against in virtually every state where it was up for a vote to a virtual fiat-acompli today. Does anybody really doubt that there will be nationwide gay marriage sometime in the next 5 years, probably before Obama leaves office? Whether it’s approved by the voters, mandated by executive order, or, more likely, foisted on us by the courts, it will happen whether the people like it or not. Know why that is? Because the media/activist machine has become so rabid about tearing down anybody who even timidly dares to voice an opinion contrary to the “acceptable” one. Exhibit A is the manufactured Chick-fil-a scandal. The CEO simply stated on some Christian show that he believed marriage was between a man and a woman. That’s all, just voiced a personal opinion on a current issue. In response, in addition to the usual media slander and howling from activists, we had the mayors of Chicago and Boston railing against him and pledging to use the powers of their office to run his business out of town. Now just stop and think about that for a minute. This man was only expressing his personal opinion, and in response the government pledged to use its power to harass and if possible shut down his business. That’s mind blowing, forget whatever he said, what happened to the first amendment? Talk to most members of my generation and they love it. The narrative is still just that he’s a “homophobe” and deserved more. Did even a single reporter bring up the issue of the first amendment and a man’s business being threatened by the government for his opinion? One guy my age even expressed that he wished the chick-fil-a on the NYU campus had been burned down as a protest. This is open and standard fare in progressive circles, he said it without even thinking like it was the most normal thing in the world. They feel like they’re winning on this one and don’t just want to win, they want to personally destroy anybody who doesn’t openly praise the homosexual lifestyle. To literally make people afraid to speak against them on the issue. And you know what? That tactic seems to be working. When a man receives death threats and direct threats from the government for timidly expressing a view contrary to the “acceptable” one, are we really that far away from the European countries where nobody dares to say anything remotely critical of favored minorities, especially homosexuals, for literal fear of being arrested, tried in a kangaroo court, and thrown in jail for “hate speech”? Where some guy walking down the street doing nothing more than holding a sign with a direct quote from the bible is imprisoned? Look what they did to that model who very politely gave her opinion when asked. In my hometown a lesbian couple deliberately sought out a Christian photographer and demanded he photograph their wedding ceremony. When he politely declined, the sued him. This isn’t in the “culture war” phase anymore, it’s moved into the extermination that takes place afterwords, where people are sought out, targeted, and destroyed for their personal beliefs.
Now if we want to talk hypocrisy, let us remember that when he was running for election in 2008 Barak Obama claimed to have exactly the sentiment expressed by the unfortunate CEO. Was he called a homophobe? no. Why not? Because everybody knew he was lying and would change his stance as soon as it became convenient. And they celebrated it. Now ponder on that for a second. When a president’s supporters know many of his stances are lies to trick the people into giving him power, and laugh about it with a nod and a wink, what does that say about the future of our Republic? Now consider that this man who proudly “evolved” on this issue that he so vehemently denied before, with a nod and a wink, is now telling us that he really believes in the 2nd amendment as he works against it? Don’t p*ss on us and expect us to believe you when you tell us it’s raining.
I think the main point is the fact that we are talkign abotu this at all. Before this we were talking about homosexual rights. Someone moved the goalposts.
Now we are condemning the Moslems for opposing a practice – a serious issue in the ME that approaches pedophelia in the classic case – that the Bible (both of them) strongly opposes.
To be honest I think the goalpost has always been mainstreaming homosexuality rather than tolerance or marriage. A way it was explained to me was that they’re trying to stuff the Christians in the closet the way they once were, i.e. give anything less than full approval of the homosexual lifestyle the same stigma that being gay used to carry. I had never looked at it that way, but it made sense. If you don’t get the distinct impression that in many places today it would be dangerous to do anything other than nod your head and keep quiet whenever the topic of gay marriage comes up you’re either not paying attention or are lucky enough to live in an enclave. I personally don’t really care either way if they get married, but the growing media, political, and social clout to outright silence one side of the debate it disturbing. How many news stories have we seen in the last couple years where some fairly unremarkable guy, some CEO or parent or pastor or small time politician gets pilloried in the media for some anti-sodomite comment they made, even privately or to a select group? How long until some anti-gay comment on Facebook gets you fired from your government job or gets intense pressure laid on your private employer to fire you? In Europe a Christian couple was prohibited from adopting a child under the rational that “their Christian religious beliefs might prejudice them against the child if he turns out to be a homosexual”. They’ve turned the tables all the way on the Christians in Europe, and many would gladly do the same here, it remains to be seen if the first amendment can stand up to the challenge.
Your point about the Muslims is interesting. The left has a long precedent of granting special protections to the Muslims as being one of their special “victim” groups. When the gays and the Muslims clash, who will the left support? Anecdotal evidence from Europe suggests they’ll just ignore the homophobia of the Muslims while persecuting that of the Chrsitians, ignoring the hypocrisy and dissonance as they do with regard to so many other issues.
Well, it started a long time ago when people felt bad for people with the problem and decriminalized it. Now we have the reverse, where a religious man problem with the problem cannot get help; it’s actually illegal in California.
Instead of what was presented, the idea of leaving people alone, we just get intrusive laws, but based on a different philosophy. Eventually we get the reversal – traditional religious life gets banned.
But isn’t it hypocritical for us to attack the Moslems on that basis? I know, the U.S. is a Christian country, and Christians have the stories of Jesus and the Adulteress (although I think they are misinterpreted), but didn’t Christians use to punish adultery in any case? And if you believe God wrote the Jewish Bible, he must have meant something by it, no?
I’m not referring to attacking people because they have issues or act “strange”, and certainly not those who punish women for rape, a practice vociferously attacked in the Bible.
Actually, one of the first case of someone fired for not being PC was back before facebook, blogs, and maybe even the web, when an employee at Sun (I think it was) was fired because of continual such postings on email lists (or newsgroups). I recall the particular comment had to do with saying that it was just promiscuity, which way back when, before the reaction to STD’s, may have been factual.
TPM, can you please use paragraphs and form proper sentences. You may have good things to say, but they are practically illegible.
Once again, proof that out problem is teachers, teachers, teachers.
“Once again, proof that
outour problem is teachers, teachers, teachers.”FTFY.
Actually more like proof that I wrote that at 4am after doing an assignment for one of my engineering classes. I already felt guilty when I realized how much time I wasted just typing it out, never mind going back and editing. It’s already probably better written than half the articles over at CNN.
“If you don’t get the distinct impression that in many places today it would be dangerous to do anything other than nod your head and keep quiet whenever the topic of gay marriage comes up you’re either not paying attention or are lucky enough to live in an enclave.”
In some cases you’re expected to celebrate or face punishment.
Yes, especially in schools and universities. It is not being tolerated but very actively promoted and “celebrated” there. I think there was a recent case where a public school was having some sort of homosexual celebration day and a girl wore a shirt with the words “be happy, not gay” on it and got suspended. The left feel like they OWN the schools, at all levels, and can dictate what beliefs are acceptable there. Did you hear the case of a teacher who, around the time of the election, tore a Romney/Ryan shirt off a boy in her class and called him a racist (she was black)? This sort of thing is becoming more common, they’re pulling out all the stops to put some real teeth into political correctness. It’s one thing to tell them to go to hell when you’re an adult, but what’s an elementary or middle school student supposed to do?
A particular favorite cable channel HGTV has really upped the anti on (gay) programing. What once was interesting is now becoming unwatchable.
Excellent posts.
Glad that you took a break from your engineering homework to write them.
And yes, its terrible on the issue of homosexuality, and they love it, they want to make us cower whenever they can.
They are attempting not only to hijack the narrative and the language on their particular issue, but the basic concept of decency as well.
Are we always to borrow $1 trillion a year? Of course not, that will increase over the next 4 years to about $1.5 trillion at the end of 4 more years.
Did $4 a gallon gas become the new normal — a small price to pay for more windmills and solar panels? Of course not, that $4 WILL become $5 then $6, $7, $10, $20, $50 as 4 more years of Print and Spend work their way into the commodities market.
We will see $7 at the end of 4 more years.
Hypocrisy as a concept exists only in theory in the liberal world. It is something only the other guy does.
In fact one cannot detect such things without a principle, something liberals have abandoned in favor of skin and gender and class. Without a guiding principle, making even simple comparisons becomes impossible.
How can an umpire call balls and strikes when the strike zone contracts and expands like a weather vane in a hurricane according to the skin color and gender of who’s batting and who’s pitching?
Black is right, white is wrong, female is right, male is wrong, gay is right straight is wrong – automatically and without thought. These are the guiding “principles” of the modern day Dem Party.
Liberals, aka progressives, do have principles. Or at least a principle. It’s called the pursuit of power over everybody else.
All their “avowed” principles are nothing but clubs they use to beat everyone else into submission.
Which their “favored groups” will find out, the hard way, once they are no longer needed to be those clubs.
clear ether
eon
Exactly what I was thinking.
When though does our side start really fighting back? My fear is that it’s due to a pattern of caving all too easily to the desire to “be liked” & to “fit in.” Truly discouraging.
Many years ago, when such a thing was still possible, I sent Dr Hanson a direct email from a link in an article of his, published by National Review Online, in which I referred to him as “The Smartest Man in the World”.
I actually received a personal reply from him in which he politely declined the title.
I hereby repeat my contention.
Seconded!
Indeed!
Perhaps “wisest” would be more appropriate.
Our Civilization – that of the West in general,birthed from the Renaissance & Enlightenment, and the peculiar manifestation of Western civilization represented by the USA (which could be said to be the shining example of the peak possibilities of Western civilization as well as it’s leader since, arguably, the 1770′s) – is in it’s death throes.
Our creative minority – the industrialists of the late 1800′s and early 1900′s such as JP Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, Dupont, Ford, Rockefeller, etc etc, artists (including actors, directors, musicians, playwrights and other entertainers) such as Frank Sinatra, Lee Marvin, Clint Eastwood, TS Eliot, Eugene O’Neill, Duke Ellington, Tommy Dorsey and so many others, and even inspirational and skilled political leaders like Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy, all entertainers, businessmen and politicians who actually understood what it was to have dirt under your fingernails and sweat on your brow, people who could directly relate to the Average Joe as being the kind of folks they grew up with, worked with, went to school with, served in the army with – all of them have been replaced by the likes of Lady Gaga, Justin Beiber, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, George Clooney, Sean Penn, Tom Cruise, Rihanna, Chris Mathews, George Soros, Warren Buffett and Jeff Immelt, all people who believe that the way to make it big in business is to have the laws protect and support your position and bite deep into the public trough, that the citizenry needs to be lectured to about what is best for them, that they, as Illuminati, stand above the teeming, stinking masses of the proletariat because of their success and inherently possess wisdom, enlightenment and moral & intellectual superiority based on their position or wealth or both.
In short – we have lost our creative minority, and have seen it replaced by a dominant minority. Government organizations which had been set up to promote the public good and protect the rights and freedoms of the citizenry now dictate the public good and believe that the rights and freedoms of the citizenry are theirs to bestow or deny whenever they deem it in the interests of the state and the good of the people AS THEY SEE IT. The enormity of the perversion of these once sacred governmental bodies stems from the idolization of persons, socio-economic philosophies and mass marketing/propaganda techniques that were intended to promote an ephemeral egalitarianism best defined as ‘social and economic justice’ and create a ‘new’ and more ‘perfect’ man free from all the ‘iniquities’ of the past and their heretic/pagan philosophies and principles. From this enormity has followed the crumbling of innovation and creativity in our civilization, as evidenced by the flight of industry and technology overseas and the degeneration of art and entertainment to the targetting of the basest instincts of 14-18 year olds. From a nation that, thru it’s optimism, inspiration and belief in the possibilities of the individual, subdued a wild and virgin continent, built railroads and highways across it, invented the automobile, the aircraft, mass industrialization, the internal combustion engine, the transistor and the laser, split the atom and WALKED ON THE MOON, we have now become a society where despite both parents working (where an intact family is still present, which is only 50% of the populace nowadays)they have a lower standard of living (adjusted for inflation) than their GRANDPARENTS did in the late 40′s and early 50′s and can expect nothing but a CONTINUING decline – a crystal clear example of an internal proletariat, or more accurately a mass of economic SERFS, lorded over by a Dominant Minority that is supported by it’s picked intelligensia (the MSM and the highly compensated worker bees on Wall Street and the halls of Washington DC.)From a nation that served as a beacon of light leading the world into a bright and promising future, we have become a shaken state on defense and under threat from barbarian warbands in the Dar Al Islam, supported by emerging and reborn states (China and Russia) that believe their time has come to assume THEIR RIGHT to exercise their growing strength over the world. From a culture that went to church, served in the military, paid it’s taxes and gave vast time and funds to charity, while at the same time supporting the most vibrant world of art, entertainment, literature and science the world has ever seen, a society so creative and yet so orderly and peaceful that in the 1950′s there were THREE policemen available to respond to every ONE complaint, we have degenerated into a society where flash mobs are considered passingly amusing, where modesty and self sacrifice are thought to be for losers and cowards, and abandonment to one’s immediate needs and desires no matter what the personal cost or collateral damage is considered to be the only sensible and reasonable way to enjoy life, where there is now on average only ONE officer to respond to every NINE complaints, where publicly crude behavior, lewd acts, offensiveness, rudeness and the flaunting of convention and even law (as evidenced by rampant drug use, pornography, protection of illegal aliens to the point of government encouragement of their safe haven status and participation in the social safety net of welfare entitlements, and even the loud acclamation, admiration and praise heaped upon a deranged policeman who acts out his personal and career frustrations and fantasies of persecution by going on a murderous rampage and crime spree)are treated either as normal events or behaviors to be admired. We have replaced self control with self indulgence and abandon, martyrdom with truancy, devotion and civic duty with moral drift and sin without personal fault or consequences, style and elan with promiscuity and vulgar indulgence & display. All around us we can clearly see a vulgarity and barbarism in manners which the creative minority of the past inspired us to rise above, but which today’s dominant minority, seeking to deter and deflect the possibility of revolution and their own overthrow, pacify the populace by adoptingand emulating these same vulgarities to the point of even deepening them thru nauseating examples of shocking excess.
And today, we have in Obama the supreme symbol of this civilizational collapse in the form of the self proclaimed Philosopher King who professes to lead us into a self-transcending future where all perceived wrongs will magically be made right, while he plays golf, lines his pockets and those of his supporters, financiers and fiercest acolytes, and pats himself on the back for the beneficence of his Messianic presence.
Toynbee showed us the roadmap – a road travelled by other peoples and societies over two dozen times thru human history. But history’s lessons are always forgotten.
But the death of the western world will not be a quiet one. Look at the current struggle between China and Europe over controlling resources in Africa. The overthrow of Qaddafi had zero to do with his extinct and long renounced terrorist affiliations, and everything to do with Libya’s high grade oil used as a key industrial lubricant – coveted by a Europe that courted Qaddafi for over a decade, and China thru 30,000 workers and 100′s of Millions of infrastructure projects. Does anyone truly believe that France is in Mali to help out a former colony having trouble with jihadists, purely out of the goodness of their heart? Mali is actually chock full of unexploited or barely exploited mineral resources, including gold, diamonds, copper, iron, phosphates and bauxite. Africa is the battleground for WW3, folks. Count on it. Turns out George Orwell was a bona fide prophet.
Our nation is utterly bankrupt in its finances for both the public and private sector. Public debt for DC is $16.4T if you don’t count the net present value of interest payments, continuing debt growth projections and the rising costs of medicare and social security. If you DO count all those at NPV using GAAP rules, it tops out around $230T (yes, you read that right.) Add another $11T+ for state and local debts, $60T-$70T for corporate, consumer and financial sector debts, and an astonishing derivatives trade liability for Wall Street of $760T (yes, truly), and you can see how hopeless our economic situation is, especially since we have effectively been de-industrialized. What do we have to fall back on? Well, we’re still a breadbasket for the world, and the tar sands and shale oil fields hold promise. But agriculture and raw materials are the hallmarks of very busy THIRD WORLD economies.
Welcome to the new dark ages, folks.
and use more paragraphs, willya?
There may have been some useful information in that comment, but I didn’t bother to read it.
LMAO
I surely erred in not making more paragraphs, but I put a ton of effort into that post. Belittling it is offensive.
Learn to be offended.
Thank you for inadvertently proving my point.
You made some good points…just hard to read. lighten up it was a joke (I hope)
Thanks :-)
Don’t bother to be offended- the belittlers are not worth the effort. I read your post, as I am sure many others will. There is no doubt that we are in the shit up to our eyeballs, and even beyond., but, what are we to do? When does the actual fight start? I am not talking the philosophising of Dr. Hansen et al, but the actual on-the -ground, dirty physical street fighting start? Unless we are ready to do that , all else is moot.
Your prescription is dangerous, although street fighting has been one of the weapons in the Left’s arsenal of success. But they have had the urban mobs at their disposal, going all the way back to the union goons.
Conservatives as individuals tend to be more self-disciplined and less prone to explosive envy. Still, as in 1775, patriots can be pushed only so far. The Bill of Rights may become the line in the sand.
The fighting has already begun, in terms of the movement and positioning of units – note the MSM and the actions of the parties, especially on the left. Since the progressives have the upper hand, it’s important to NOT confront them directly, because one does not throw strength against strength, but strength against weakness – that is the secret of victory. Hence, it’s important to focus on efforts at the local level. Guerilla warfare won the Revolutionary War. We must do the same at the media and political level. It would behoove all of us to do things locally – finding like minded individuals and forming local seperatist parties, getting involved in local government to institute ordnances and laws which ensure and protect constitutional liberties, and eventually expanding that activity to the state level with an eye towards secession. For instance, I will be moving to a red state before memorial day. I am also studying the possibility of putting up my own blog, and have already laid the groundwork for getting involved and active with the local community at the new town where I intend to settle.
The MSM and the Progressives simply can’t be everywhere at once – they have strength only when they focus their resources, and that focus will remain at the level of large urban centers, primarily on the east and west coast. That is the weakness to exploit, by creating pockets of tea party/libertarian resistance away from those urban centers, growing them organically and spreading seeds to other locales. Once the base is solidified, one can expand up to the state and regional level.
The urban centers are inherently weak, as they are no longer a focus of industry and growth. Urban dwellers are no longer families, but composed primarily of young singles who look to the urban environment for entertainment. Their wealth is ephemeral – stemming from con artist financial schemes of the big banks and Web 2.0 silliness. Money, and thus power, will revert to agriculture and mineral resources, which are all out in rural areas. Hence the need to focus on rural efforts for building social, political, communications and economic strength.
we suck now. that is our thing. bye………
Stallion,
difficult to read but well worth the reading nonetheless.
Indeed, the Democratic Party’s demographic is now almost exclusively the low-information voter, and the State Media is expanding that demographic as fast as it can.
People who can think, who have knowledge of history, who understand economic reasoning – that is, the sort of people Obama has avoided all his life – are of no interest to this administration.
Oh they’re interested in us. Interested in tearing us down, demonizing and denigrating us, exploiting us. Without a cash cow and a scapegoat their whole rotten system would come tumbling down and the parasites who put them in office would turn on the hand that once fed them the bread of others.
Another difference between 2008 and 2013 is that Paul Ehrlich announced in August 2012 that we were now more than 5 Years into an attempt at a near total revision of human behavior. http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/now-more-than-five-years-into-an-attempt-to-help-organize-a-near-total-revision-of-human-behavior/ . Unprecedented spending on behavioral science via the National Science Foundation and many colleges and universities with federal and foundation grants. The UN Secretary-General saying there need be no more treaties because the UN’s education initiatives can take us the rest of the way.
And yesterday we hear that the same tech companies who say let’s use the data being generated to centrally plan and manage the economy around Sustainability met at the White House in January to discuss a 10 year project to figure out how the human brain works and the nature of consciousness itself. Now doesn’t that seem a bit coincidental? Especially since the brain project is under John Holdren’s Office of Science and Technology? Especially since Consciousness is precisely what every totalizing ideology wants access to. And ultimately the reading and math wars were about what abstract symbol systems do to nurture consciousness and independence of thought.
People ask me if this is 1984 or Brave New World. Honestly it seems more like a comic book or a bad science fiction plot. Except it is very real. I don’t think most of us appreciate the value of the information we are throwing off now in our daily lives. But every Statist and would be nomenklatura knows precisely the value if we can only be made sufficiently meek and malleable. Which is where those real definitions of College and Career Ready come in. And the social and emotional learning curricula being readied for preschool. And then there’s the Reggio Emilia one that already has been.
And being used in publicly funded preschools in California already. We are in the midst of a Fundamental Transformation where Knowledge itself is about to be at a premium.
Right you are. The article mentions texting while driving, but far more terrifying is the fact that most people can now be tracked in real time through their smartphones and most think nothing of it. The microphone can be turned on, by the government, and used as a remote listening device even when the phone says it’s off. Most people don’t even know that. People reveal more and more about the intimate details of their lives and think less and less of it. In a decade we’ve gone from where the concept of something like Facebook would be considered creepy to the point where I’m the weird one now for not having one. Where things like the PATRIOT act and warrantless wiretapping are now no longer even debated, just accepted as normal. Where your ISP records a complete record of your internet usage history and does god knows what with it. Where the digital footprints people thoughtlessly shed follow them for life. Where, when given the tradeoff between privacy and convenience, a population that has lost all respect for the value of privacy will choose convenience and perceived safety every time. Knowledge is power, and the kind of information that technology is putting in the hands of those with ill intent is truly terrifying. I just do not see this ending well.
Just some food for thought:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/
TPM-
Harvard B School profs have compared this level of info to Jeremy Bentham’s Panipticon. How’s that for a chilling insight? So good to know that the same profs are also working with the Ed School and then their Cambridge Cousins so interested in Systems Thinking and Cybernetics over how to get us to behave closer to the computer models.
Julian Jaynes wrote a book about the will and volition genuine Consciousness involves. As opposed to the Life Skills of Psychosocial Competence (renamed more alluringly now as 21st century skills necessary for a new envisioned economy) that are to be the actual focus of the new classroom in pursuit of Learning for All. So we are targeting research into a topic at precisely the same time all the education “reforms” globally are trying to shut down anything that nurtures independent will and volition. Somewhere BF Skinner must be smiling that the heyday of operant conditioning is finally upon us.
But whereas we can use education to change the future and the economy and maybe what motivates people themselves, we cannot design any of those things to get the future envisioned. We are just throwing out what works. In favor of theories. And action research.
I keep marveling that so many well-educated people could be so ignorant of history and its eternal lessons.
Remember, this is just the stuff that people are voluntarily sharing on the internet. Many probably don’t realize it’s all being compiled in some database somewhere, most probably don’t care. This hasn’t even gotten to the true panopticon yet, CCTV cameras on every corner, in every public place, connected to computers armed with facial recognition software. Look up the ANPR system in the UK for a little preview. Think it’s not coming? What do you think they’re doing with all those billions of photos people have naively “tagged” on facebook? Drawing a little box around a person’s face then attaching a name, and repeating this process for many different photos from different angles and in different conditions is the textbook perfect way to train a facial recognition database. I haven’t used Facebook in years, but according to people who use it today you can upload a picture and it will match the faces in it, even those of people you don’t know. That’s downright scary, and the government would be stupid not to get in on the action. Couple this sort of information with the CCTV networks they already have in Europe and major US cities, maybe throw in some software that analyzes posture and patterns of movement to detect emotions (they’re working on it) and you have a power over the people terrible to behold. Something not even Orwell could’ve envisioned. Not only do the last vestiges of privacy vanish, and with them the societal value and expectation of privacy at all levels (goodbye 4th amendment) but you give central planners exactly the tools that can convince them “it’ll work this time”. My biggest fear is that they’re able to use this sort of information to implement any policy they want. They’ll know exactly what strings to pull on the population, what sorts of propaganda to run, what incentives and penalties to give, what hopes and fears to prey on, exactly how many dissidents will have to be “liquidated”, and exactly where to find them.
You’re dead nuts on. As an experiment I’ve posted articles that validate what you say on FB. I don’t get much response from people but I know they saw newsfeeds, until the links were hidden by FB from the timeline. Ostensibly they are still there ‘somewhere’. Pictures are used for subliminal marketing as well. We do live in a Brave New World, but the subverted seem perfectly content….and will until the malthusians like Ehrlich institute the master plan.
your post content has been made into a movie
http://youtu.be/IzryBRPwsog
It’s pretty hard to not throw off information in this age. I enjoy your blog. I actually read this one a couple weeks ago. Not many understand the implications of the ‘change’ we’re experiencing.
Tis a horrible thing to stand here in Bulgaria & watch our nation die. Rule of law has ended. “Policy,” PCness, executive orders by the Anointed One, completely biased reporters that are both brain dead & simply zombified liberal hacks,& worthless & bloated gov’t agencies rule the roost.
No longer will ordinary people in America be able to get ahead. We will be strictly punished for attempting to do so via new outrageous taxes, foolish laws & a deep liberal and gov’t hatred of anything good. Namely, Christianity and conservatives.
I pray for our nation. But, frankly, yours truly sees absolutely NO evidence that the uninformed masses, or the ruling class will repent. America is simply in the crapper. And,the hard fact is that we are just waiting for some new financial, moral & gov’t crisis to flush it. May the good Lord have mercy on America for turning her back on Him.
It makes me wonder about the missing McCain voters this time out. ALL THEY HAD TO DO was vote but they didn’t. We are literally going to hell and people just don’t care. *sigh* Great article, great comments..
What are you talking about???
Romney got a million *more* votes than McCain did.
McCain, 2008: 59,948,323 votes
Romney, 2012: 60,929,152 votes
This urban myth about “missing McCain voters” got started because many folks made the mistake of comparing Romney’s *preliminary* vote total the morning after Election Day, to McCain’s *final* vote total from 2008. They forgot that there were still tens of thousands of more ballots yet to be counted in the days following Election Day. Romney’s vote total increased substantially once all the ballots had been counted.
This urban myth refuses to die, because folks like you don’t check their facts.
We are the same country we were in 2008.
A lot of conservatives just weren’t paying attention as long as the GOP controlled the White House, and as long as talk radio and various assorted GOP consultants were telling them what they wanted to hear.
The few conservatives (like myself) who did try to get more attention paid, were furiously attacked.
As a historian, Mr. Hanson should be aware that:
“Soak the rich” wasn’t invented by Obama. It probably dates back to Huey Long.
The American public was furious with the financial sector for crashing the U.S. economy in September 2008. (And no, Fannie and Freddie were not the main culprits. Most of the subprime mortgages were issued by private firms like Countrywide Financial. The American people know that, since they were the ones holding those mortgages!)
Hispanics were the fastest growing voting bloc, even back in 2008. And even back then, it was known that white Christians were declining as a percentage of the electorate.
After fighting in Afghanistan for 7 years, and after fighting in Iraq for 5 years, the American people were frustrated that we had achieved so little for so much effort.
All of that was known.
It’s probably why Obama won the White House.
But too many conservatives chose to ignore those realities and dismiss Obama’s first term as a one-time aberration. So now they’re shocked, shocked to find out that it wasn’t.
Obama has done a poor job as President.
But those realities I mentioned, aren’t going to disappear with him.
And perhaps housing prices were simply too high and had to come down? Why must everythign be someone’s fault?
Housing prices were indeed too high.
And guess why: Because the Fed–backed up by *liberal* economists like Paul Krugman–kept demand for housing artificially high by keeping mortgage interest rates artificially low.
The Fed has tried to mask the hollowing out of the U.S. economy by propping up the economy with loose money. But unlike a factory or an office building, a home is not a productive asset (except for those few self-employed people who work out of their homes). It doesn’t employ people. It doesn’t create new wealth.
Well, you were supposed to put down 20%, or at best 10% (10-10-80). But that was a bit much for me at the prices then going, and I refused to use “magic”.
If people used “magic”, weren’t they responsible?
Is 5% really so low? Pre-Carter, it was about 6%. For a long time, under regulation, you received 4% from a bank and paid 5%. Then it want up a bit, but not that much. Worked for a long time, I think. I recall sitting in my bank and picking up the annual report, where they bragged about the difference between what they paid and what they charged.
Here in Israel, rates are even lower, but the economy is pretty good. Course, Stanley Fisher (Berencke’s teacher) makes you put down a ridiculous percentage.
This Progressive Party, now apparently majority, will collapse upon itself one day and not due entirely to running out of other people’s money.
It consist of a strange brew of serial womanizers (like Clinton and Menendez) heavily supported by NOW and NARAL; females wanting to be males and male feminists; the “fer the children” crowd working in conjunction with perverts like NAMBLA; Code Pinko and other perverted pacifists laboring for the Drone President; abortionists killing mostly there own progeny; black and Latinos who otherwise riot in the streets and schools to murder each other; Secular Jews and Muslims bound together; Asians who escaped Communism sprinting toward returning to communism with small ‘c’; prancing homosexuals dancing with bat wielding union goons; college flunkies partnering the academicians who straddled the students with debt they cannot repay…and about a thousand other contradictions in terms.
I would call that a very thin veneer of integration. From here, it certainly doesn’t look like a long term plan for success.
I give the Devil his due.
Their hatred for the “bitter clinger” white male conservative is greater than their hatred for eachother. As long as the Democrats can continue to divide people into nice neat little interest groups, whip up imagined grievances, and scapegoat old whitey as the devil incarnate those groups will put aside their differences to fight their “common enemy”, so focused that they don’t realize or care that they’re being played like a fiddle. Any cracks that do emerge will be smoothed over by a media desperate to hold the coalition of natural enemies together at all costs. Remember, they don’t need to hold together forever, just long enough to finish off the GOP, then they can fracture into a center-left party and a socialist party like they have in Europe. That’s their long term goal, turn us into Europe where non-lefties have nobody viable to vote for. I sincerely hope they F*ck up badly before then and fail.
““Soak the rich” wasn’t invented by Obama. It probably dates back to Huey Long.”
Long was president once? I didn’t know that.
Yes a president taking sides in local police affairs was very common. Sure, sure. A president attacking on a daily basis large corporations for being successful? Sure Abe Lincoln did that, Hanson didn’t build that on Obama’s head.
A president telling the Justice Department not to enforce laws passed by Congress, yeah Ike did that all the time…at least as often as Obama shoots skeet.
Sorry A was I.
Remember this president?
“When I speak of high finance as a harmful factor in recent years, I am speaking about a minority which includes the type of individual who speculates with other people’s money—and you in Chicago know the kind I refer to—and also the type of individual who says that popular government cannot be trusted and, therefore, that the control of business of all kinds and, indeed, of Government itself should be vested in the hands of one hundred or two hundred all-wise individuals controlling the purse strings of the Nation.
“High finance of this type refused to permit Government credit to go directly to the industrialist, to the business man, to the home owner, to the farmer. They wanted it to trickle down from the top, through the intricate arrangements which they controlled and by which they were able to levy tribute on every business in the land. ”
That speech could have been written for Obama to give.
But it was given by President Franklin Roosevelt.
The progressive tradition of opposing big business goes way back in American history. Obama certainly didn’t invent it (or anything else).
As I said, it’s only shocking to people like yourself because Obama is the first doctrinaire liberal president you’ve lived under. Me, I’m old enough to remember when LBJ was president. (I watched the 1964 Democratic National Convention on TV.)
Obama is just the latest in a line of successful and unsuccessful left-wing Presidential candidates. Adlai Stevenson II. Eugene McCarthy. Obama is quite similar to those two.
That struggle mentioned in the first book of the Bible, the struggle that men and women have been having since creation…
Let me tell you a story…
As every slave owner says to his/her slaves: “Don’t worry, I will give you everything you will need, teach you everything you’ll need to know, and protect you from every harm, just trust me.”
What every slave owner knows but may not mention: “Do what I demand or I’ll sell you, kill you or whatever I choose to do!”
It’s time to get even…
Women in combat is just another “trick” to weaken any military system.
Can’t wait to see Michelle wave as her two daughters take the bus to boot camp; right next to the granddaughters of Hillary and Bill signing up for combat duty.
I feel your pain…suckers!
The enemy has been “in the wire” for some time. Kerry’s hair looks so fine…
Putting women in infantry combat and special ops roles flouts common sense
Which event are you referring to?
When you line it all up so neatly, it all looks pretty dark, Vic. As Bugs Bunny might say: “Death, where is thy sting?”
The real tipping point will come in 2014. This list of negative reactions will manifest itself in individual nullification starting with refusal to pay taxes. The response will then dictate what will be either armed conflict or speedy withdrawal to saner government dictated by the election in 2014. I predict escalation, liberal mindset will not go quietly into the night.
During the historical reign of terrors of the French Revolution, the Hitlerite National Socialist reign, and the Maoist great leap forward there was no difficulty for the Obama like leaders to recruit millions of executioners who would gladly carry out the millions and millions of murders that these tyrants ordered. There is no doubt in the former USA there are millions of people willing to kill and build the guillotines and concentrations camps that will be needed in order to fundamentally change our society. Just listen to the leaders of the American labor unions, the leaders of the American universities, the various talking heads on TV, and the producers and actors who dominate the American entertainment industry and you will discover that they are more than willing to carry out the orders of the modern American Jacobins. We live in dangerous times and the country which we once thought we knew no longer exists. Evil is bloom.
Khrushchev said “We will bury you”. We laughed. He was right. They did bury us. So now what? Give up, immigrate, or fight back?
I give you the 2 most dangerous words ever uttered: “moral relevance.”
And I give you a third and a fourth: multiculturalism and diversity.
“At some magical point, the rich became not the successful, the skilled, the well-inherited, the lucky, or the hardworking, but “them”: the suspect, the damned even, even as the lifestyles of the rich and famous became ever more sought after.”
But isn’t this what communism is all about? Wasn’t that what happened in Russia, when people like Lenin and Stalin and Trotsky all deamonized anybody who had any money and said that they and they alone were the source of every problem in the nation? And in the end, you know what happened. Since THEY were the problem, THEY had to be eliminated.
Hatred and envy never go away but always need feeding. And liberals are happy to feed this monster if it helps their political ends. What they don’t get is that this is how revolutions begin and their horrible desire for political power is tearing this nation apart. It is also creating a majority of the population that no longer thinks it has to work for a living and that the government will supply them with everything they need in life. Trouble is, those same people never say who is going to pay for all of this. Oh, that’s right, it’s the “evil” rich. Let’s take everything away from them and give it to people who don’t do anything in life. Hmmm, there’s a word for that. Isn’t it COMMUNISM?
Does anybody here study history any more?
Anticapitalist populism has a long history in America, a history that goes back to the mid 19th century at least.
In the 19th century, the American public turned against big business when they saw how big business had lobbied state and federal governments for favors. The Transcontinental Railroad had involved a lot of corruption and scandal.
The Sherman Antitrust Act was enacted in 1890, to prevent businesses dealing in important national assets like oil and railroads from becoming monopolies.
President Theodore Roosevelt became famous for being a trust-buster. He broke up Standard Oil. He broke up dozens of other big companies as well. He signed into law legislation that regulated the railroads and allowed the Federal Government to set shipping rates by edict. Etc.
And he was very popular with the public.
Obama is NOT some Marxist Manchurian Candidate. He is the latest exponent of a left-wing populist philosophy that goes back more than a century in American history. He only *seems* radical and bizarre because a) most Americans are too young to remember other doctrinaire liberal Presidents; and b) sadly most Americans are ignorant of their own country’s history.
The world used to have a much higher species for their corrupt dictator class. I don’t think Stalin or Hitler or Mussolini or Mao ever paid $1,000 for an hour of gold lessons or $43,000 for a watch.
Meant golf, not gold. Must have been a Freudian slip of some kind.
That’s one of the things that gives me hope. Despite whatever dark ambitions they surely harbor they are hopefully simply too incompetent to carry them out with the same sort of success those dictators enjoyed. Think sneaky malicious stuff like “fast and furious” that backfires.
Another excellent essay. I’m not so sure that Congress wants to legalize millions of illegals. The folks don’t want it and the chattering classes’ chatter can’t change this highly charged political reality. Of course, Preening-O will be Preening O and will try to by-pass Congress again, but this trick has an expiration date.
The Constitution-shredder-in chief is plunging headlong toward his own day of reckoning and we are all going to watch it unfold live on Fox and only on Fox because, if Crazy Joe is right, the “legitimate” media will ignore it.
Don’t forget Hussein Obama’s Tag Team for the Destruction of America partner, Marco Rubio
Now that’s a really dumb thing to say. Whatever you feel, obviously not think, about Rubio, putting him in the same class as the big O is silly.
If each righteous man and woman does what they must
The overreaching tyrants will be turned into dust
Our Lady of Justice will possess them in her breathtaking, hair raising bed
She will tingle each spine as she captures each heart and each head!
I do not plan on “retirement” in the old adage that everyone else goes by.
My father was born in 1938, owns his own business, goes to work everyday, networks, and leaves the office everyday at lunch to play a round of golf, unless there is a big job to finish. He has done this religiously since the early 1970′s when he went out on his own. He was able to put me and my three brothers through college and grad schools.
His father left the WI dairy farm to go into a non-agrarian life. He kept that as a trade though, spreading the info to his grandchildren on how to grow vegetables, etc. He worked his whole life, building a business from a small two-man outfit to a multistate organization. His last task was completed when he was 89. Then he retired. He passed five years later.
I plan to meet or exceed these feats. I have no desire to follow a foolish pipe dream that when I am 60, I begin to stay home, pull from savings, wear a jump suit, and wonder why I am out of money when I am 80 and living in a retirement home being abused by the kids whose future was robbed by the unionized government sector employee….
Not to mention a country where actual murders–thousands of them each year, including many children–are daily occurrences which we appear powerless or unwilling to stop, while a six-year-old boy who playfully points his finger like a gun and shouts “pow” is suspended from school. Whatever moral calculus the nation once possessed as a shared inheritance has been shattered.
The overall violent crime rate has been dropping for decades, the current hysteria over children being murdered is pure media propaganda designed to whip up support for their gun control schemes. Don’t believe their lies and disinformation, so called “gun violence” is not a crisis in this country, but steadily declining.
Well after all, Barack Obama, he’s an ordinary liberty grabbing fascist man
Who desires nothing more than an ordinary chance
To make all people live exactly as he wishes, and do precisely what he wants…
An average fascist man is he, of no especially clever whim
Who wants to control everyone else’s life
While he goes golfing or on yet another royal vacation with his ugly wife
With everyone supinely doing whatever he commands
Well… just an ordinary fascist man is he …
BUT!
Let some real Americans take action against his destructive schemes and his serenity will be through
They’ll destroy his grand controlling plans, from the cellar to the dome
And then go on to the enthralling fun of piece by piece eviscerating him…
There was a time in America when a man’s character was the measure of his virtue. A man was judged by his deeds. We live today in an era of moral exhibitionism. Public figures are judged for the ideals they profess, but never for the results of their actions. Moral confusion reigns like madness. How is it the public can reject a morally upright man like Mitt Romney and then turn around and embrace a psychotic killer like Chris Dorner? Is this not the definition of insanity? The left, quite literally, can no longer distinguish between right and wrong. Moral relativism eventually leads to muddled thinking and amoral behavior. It is useless to point a finger at the ruling class and cry “hypocrite!” Scoundrels do not care as long as they can fill their pockets with filthy lucre. It’s all a scam, you see, a scramble by the looting class to pilfer the wealth of a nation before the entire edifice collapses (ask Jesse Jackson, Jr.). Greed remains the motivation of base souls, and human nature does not change.
Agreed, thought I would change “moral exhibitionism” to “immoral exhibitionism” and follow up with “enforced immorality”. Not only do they want to flaunt their support of wicked practices, they want to influence others to do so, or if they cannot do this, shun them or mock them for being “square”.
“thought” should be though…
Dr. Hanson, I’ve had a sick stomach since 2009. Sometimes it subsides temporarily, but it always comes back. After reading your article, it came roaring back this morning. The fact that that man in the Oval Office (I can’t bring myself to call him “the president”) has been able to effect such damaging change in our society in four short years flabbergasts me. Is it really this easy to take over a country and an entire society? Especially a society and country that have individual liberty as their foundation?
Condoleeza Rice gave a brilliant speech at the republican convention. The part that struck me most was when she talked about the American character and how America had never been a nation of envy. When I was growing up I learned about the Seven Deadly Sins and was encouraged to banish them from my life. We now have a man in charge who openly and often encourages the deadly sin of envy. Likewise, he promotes the deadly sin of sloth. Shame on those nasty people who provide jobs and make a profit. Sit back, put your feet up, and enjoy the fruits of the makers in this country. You don’t need to get up early, get to a job, and work all day to get your daily bread. The makers will provide you with everything you need.
I often wonder that if success is something so bad and deserving of our ridicule, is failure the new goal of our society? If one thing is bad, its opposite must be good, right?
The whole world has been turned upside down. I am so glad that I was born in “The Window,” that period of time in which I had freedom, reason, common sense, logic, opportunity, and a modicum of affluence. I’m 65 now and realizing that I’m exiting “The Window.” My last years will be spent in the hellhole that America is becoming. I pray that I’m wrong, that something will happen to knock us off the course we’re on, but I don’t see it coming.
Our book club has just completed A War Like No Other by VDH. Thank you for a cracking good read, which I recommend to all.
My take on the news media – Any reporter who dares to say anything negative our our fearless leader will be accused of racism and bounced out of his job.
If you wanna get thru the years, It’s high time you played your card
If you live in this world, You’re feelin’ the change of the guard
Steely Dan c1972
What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
Ecc 1:9
Paradox rules.
All of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again.
Battlestar Galactica,
Just a matter of time before our 401k plans come under government ownership under the auspices of Dear Leader Barack – for the good of our country, each according to their needs.
Wonderful article, thank you.
We passed from the “Age of Aquarius” to the age of aquarium.
It is the year of the ‘snake’ donchaknow.
I got a chuckle watching the Red Dawn remake a while back. Aside from being a very bad movie, the premise was so wrong. As it turns out, they didn’t need an airborne invasion, they just got themselves elected.
“It is almost rare to see anyone on the street who is not stumbling about, networking or texting. Yet most of us are scarcely aware of the collective effect of that odd habit repeating itself millions of times over each day, of millions of books not read, of “hellos” not offered, of brains wired to screens rather than the physical world about them.”
But, isn’t that the goal? Doesn’t that make these people MORE Than Human?”
And we will continue to sleep, in the manner that we will soon whisper: “Wow, Iran finally got their bomb, after all”; or “Hmmm, that Korean missile got sorta, kinda close to Maui”; or “Wouldn’t you know it — they’re back to hanging female doctors from light poles in Kabul”; or “Whoa — 550 shot in Chicago this year?”
Or, how about, “NYC is rounding up all of the mentally ill. Just like Hitler did in 1939. Wow, AWESOME!”
“Heraclitus says. The world we knew is not the one we wake up to after a short nap. January 2009 now seems like a far-off dream, in a way that 2016 may be a nightmare.”
Bah!! Heretic! The smartest of the smart (who must remain unnamed) won’t let the future become a nightmare …. at least, not for themselves.”
I am convinced that we will stumble along with the new normal until there is an event.
The new normal consists of the following: $4-$5 per gallon gas, food price inflation, unemployment of 7%-8% and a general decline in the standard of living. We become a poorer America unless you have a niche or are part of the liberal elite.
On the social front, I would be surprised if the Supreme Court favored gay marriage but it all rides on Justice Tony Kennedy’s vote. A 5-4 vote is assured but the result could go either way.
Amnesty for illegal immigrants seems a forgone conclusion either this year or within the next four.
Hillary inherits the throne after Barack.
What, if anything, can we do? Or will it take some traumatic event to reverse our course of decline?
Early on I thought 1984 was a sci-fi novel, now I see it was a prophesy. Just missed the date by 28 years. (With apologies to George Orwell, our ending …”And I looked at a photograph of Barack Obama and two tears of love rolled down my nose.
It’s funny that so many will seemingly force the perspective of the change in the world through the prism of politics only. A 16 year old in high school, potentially a future leader in the world, is not concerned with liberalism or conservatism, that is unless their parents have driven it into them (but that is not the point I’m after). The point is that these changes in traditional macro-institutions and symbols are a symptom of the decay of American culture. World culture writ large.
The stumblingblock of the world is the amount of information and ability to traverse our environment with ease and at our finger tips. This is not to say such resources are evil, but that they are stumblingblocks, because humans are inherently prone to do what is most convenient. And now that things become more and more out of control on the ground level the governments of the world step in to force their forms of control with a greater sense of encompassing as much and as variabled a problem may present itself as. Throw in to boot the fact that probably all of the world’s governments and so many of the world’s population are now ardent in the belief that they are evolved from a “lower” species and can “control” their “evolution”, being aware now as it were, and we can begin to see the makings of our current situation.
What I think is a major driver of cultural decay in society is a blase attitude for what is evil. Skulls and wickedness dominate the symbiology of artwork admired by the youth like no other time. Popular music is mostly ugly and/or hedonistic based largely on themes of rebellion, drugs, promiscuity. Adults and children alike remain immature and find entertainment in the likes of raunchy cartoons and other violent and obscene outlets. What could possibly bring people’s hearts and minds back to God, and away from such things in this time of greatest luxury?
In the Bible Jesus speaks concerning that current time saying, “For if the people do these things when the tree is green, what will they do when it is dry?” We are in our green tree, and all the talk of the tyranny, the civil war of people turning on their neighbors to come will not come until this tree becomes dry.
I do not offer a solution, but it is not because I am without hope. I, in fact, will probably be castigated in the minds of “conservative” people on this site because I think evolution is not only a very extensive sham, but a great evil. I’m done arguing politics, and trying to find a scapegoat to everything wrong. What’s wrong is the world is turning it’s collective back on God and the Bible, and embracing a culture of sin.
Do you whiny old farts ever stop complaining about iphones?
Has it occurred to you yet that every single person you see on an iphone is connecting with another human being?
No, no, the old way is better; let’s go back to the golden era of YOUR time, with huddled, blank-faced people mindlessly shuffling past each other on crowded sidewalks, each in their own tiny bubble of isolation. Where nobody did any talking or even any THINKING from the morning commute to the ride back home at the end of the day.
Go gnaw on your bone, caveman. We’ll try not to frighten you with the shiny lights and buzzers.
Either you commented on the wrong post or you have totally lost your mind. Either way. Good day to you.
Carol, it is always darkest before the dawn. Take heart and stand up to the line.
And…buy more ammo!
Papa Ray
West Texas
How did you learn how people engaged in ‘our time’? from a movie (lol). Prime example of a failed ed system. Iphone users are either texting, playing games or searching the net for trivia. I’ll bet you don’t know much about the history of the tech you use much less how it works.
I’m in the process of detaching myself from these larger concerns. It’s evident that the world has more or less passed me by, and I don’t really want to be a part of it in its current state. I have the luxury to do that.
I do worry about my kids, and am doing my part to prepare them for a much more uncertain life than the one I’ve experienced (thus far). Part of this is advice and part of it is squirreling away assets to help them in the future, once the evisceration of the upper middle class has been completed.
The elites will always need the middle class and poor to service, vote and do their work for them. The upper middle class is the threat, as it always has been, and we’re about to get stamped out.
I am in a similar position. I was not fashioned to persist under the current Zeitgeist, and so, while timorous at the prospect, I cannot count my surely-not-too-distant death as an unmitigated disaster. My son, however, that’s a different story. He may survive financially, since he is employed in one of those endeavors favored by the current regime, but already his world-view has been distorted. He is married, but since his wife is also employed in a favored institution, they have not yet begun a family. Of this I am of two minds. I should dearly love to see a grandchild before I slip into the void, but I fear for kind of country which it would inhabit.
In the mean time, I am endeavoring to work through Antigone in Greek. It seems like a timely tragedy: the right of the family clashes against the right of the state.
SNL Skit from 2008 – CNN Obama debates Hillary Clinton:
Moderator: “Senator Obama, are you comfortable? Can I get you a pillow?”
Obama: “No thanks, I’m fine.”
Read more: http://www1.whdh.com/features/articles/hiller/BO147671/bill-murray-and-snl-writer/#ixzz2LNDzVVlq
Following up on kbg’s comment.
“–I’m done arguing politics, and trying to find a scapegoat to everything wrong. What’s wrong is the world is turning it’s collective back on God and the Bible, and embracing a culture of sin.”
While I am old and am only staying around because I want to be able to take care of my two grand daughters as long as possible, and because I am ornery and determined to fight the liberals and commies as long as possible, I want all of you to read what I wrote a few years ago.
http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2010/07/04/the-third-of-july/#comment-114154
After reading that you might understand the way that I was “raised” and grew up to be who I am and how I believe.
I am also not without hope and believe that in the near future we will finally drive out the last of the liberals, restore our economy and refresh and renew our belief in our Constitution and Bill of Rights.
To all of those that agree with me, I wish and hope for our success, for those who do not, I promise you much disappointment and pain.
Papa Ray
West Texas
This reminds me of all the Gothic mercenaries the Romans accepted during the late Empire. It can’t be too long before an Odoacer comes on the scene demanding the depleted Romans pay up. But this time he may not receive “no” for an answer and so may not have to conquer by open force.
Cheerful today Dr. Hanson.
I think my liberal friends would be blind to your long list of accurate observations. They’re not stupid, so there is hope.
Keep the fire burning.
Donald
There are many ways to wage war. We have had a war going on inside of this country for the past century. Just because most didn’t realize it doesn’t mean it isn’t so. And we have almost totally lost the war at this point….
Great article, but you’re dead wrong about the unlikelihood of a female quarterback in the NFL. Rules forbid touching the quarterback now; women with good arms will be most welcome.
Maybe all the people with time on their hands to post and grumble or rant or mock (like yours truly) can do a study of old fart grumbling from one generation to the next. We can’t quite decide if there is nothing new under the sun or always something new, but “when was that any a bar to any a watch they (we) keep?” ;-)
Don’t be fooled by the liar Marco “Teddy” Rubio The Borker or you are the biggest fool of them all.
http://www.nationalreview(dot)com/articles/340962/borking-immigration-hawks-mark-krikorian
Remember this?
Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the government, and the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens.
The high-immigration Right has borrowed not only its immigration-policy views from Ted Kennedy, but now his political tactics as well. Grover Norquist, Linda Chavez, American Conservative Union president Al Cardenas — and Senator Marco Rubio — have launched a campaign to Bork those on the right who disagree with President Obama’s immigration plans.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/340962/borking-immigration-hawks-mark-krikorian
Re: Bernanke and the “Fed” (It’s NOT) – good old Adolf tossed the Bernanke’s out of finance, and banking, when the Bernanke’s and Jame Dimon’s and Lloyd Blankfiend’s caused Germans to literally starve in their own streets. with their financial shenanigans. The German economy took off like a rocket, when the Vampyres were driven out.
Research what really happened in the 20th Century. Stop swallowing the Kosher Krap.