Second-Term Reckonings
A rule of the modern age: all confident, reelected presidents trip up in the second term. LBJ was sunk by Vietnam. Reagan faced Iran-Contra. Bill Clinton had his comeuppance with Monica. George W. Bush was overwhelmed with the Iraqi insurgency and Katrina. And Obama will have his as well, obsequious media or not.
Supposedly fundamental partisan swings of an era usually prove transitory: LBJ’s landside led to Nixon four years later, whose landslide then led to Carter in 1980, whose supposed new politics of humility and apology led to Reagan, whose small government-paradigm shift nonetheless by 1992 gave us Clinton, whose “middle way” after only eight years gave us Bush, whose “compassionate conservative realignment” ended with Obama. And so on until the end of the republic.
Why these second-term reckonings? Partly, presidential hubris leads to a natural correction, as Nemesis kicks in; partly, one can dodge mishaps for four years, but the odds catch up after eight; and partly, the media and voters grow tired of a monotonous presidential voice, appearance, and manner, and want change for the sake of change. To the degree a president walks softly, understands his second-term dilemma, and reaches out, he is less vulnerable.
But Obama either has misread his reelection as a mandate (e.g., Republicans maintained control of the House and the majority of state governorships and legislatures; Obama, unlike most second-term presidents, received fewer votes than in 2008), or he believes that his progressive legacy lies in ramming through change by any means necessary to obtain results that are neither possible through legislative compromise nor supported by majorities of the American people.
Consider the reckoning Obama will soon have in the following areas:
Guns
Americans are as outraged over the Newtown shootings as they are baffled by how to stop such mass murders — given the difficulty of legislating away human evil. They have a vague sense both that someone should not be able to fire off 30 rounds in seconds, and yet that prior assault-weapons bans and comprehensive gun control have not done anything to curtail the incidents of gun violence. The more the Obama legions try to push curtailments of the Second Amendment, the more pushback they will encounter. Voters sense rightly that ultimately Obama is angry not so much at the “clingers” and their guns, but at the Second Amendment itself.
And yet they sense that Obama himself — and most celebrities — quite rightly count on the guns of their security guards to protect them from evil.
James Madison did not write that amendment just as a protection for hunters or to ensure home defense, but rather as a warning to an all-powerful federal government not to abuse its mandate, given that the citizenry would be armed and enjoy some parity in weaponry with federal authorities. That is why a militia is expressly mentioned, and why the Third Amendment follows, emphasizing further checks on the ability of the federal government to quarter troops in private homes (made more difficult when, thanks to the Second Amendment, they are armed).
For Obama to win over public opinion following Newtown, he would have to make arguments that strict gun control leads to decreased shootings in places like Chicago, or that a prior assault weapon ban stopped Columbine, or that Connecticut’s strict gun control mitigated the effects of Newtown. The president would also have to explain, if he were to go ahead with executive orders curbing gun access, why not equally so with knives — which are used in more killings than assault weapons — or ammonium nitrate fertilizer that can lead to something like Oklahoma City. And he must demonstrate that playing a sick video game for hours in a basement, or being part of a pathological culture that produces schlock like Natural Born Killers, or expanding the First Amendment to such lengths that the violently insane cannot be forcibly hospitalized are minor considerations in comparison to the availability of semi-automatic weapons.
In lieu of all that, for now Obama is fueling liberal outrage over Newtown, locating it against a demonized gun-owning class, and hoping to start another us/them war (in the fashion of the 2012 wars of feminists versus sexists, greens versus polluters, gays versus bigots, Latinos versus nativists, blacks versus racists, unions versus capitalist parasites, and the young needy versus the older greedy) of the educated and civilized against the supposed rednecks in camouflage.
Jack up outrage, identify the “enemy,” demonize him, and then lead the mob to a new law. But most Americans value the right to buy guns; they are not convinced that new laws will abate violence; and they will resent any effort to prune the Second Amendment by executive order. If I am wrong, then we will see purple- and red-state Democratic senators and representatives, up for reelection in 2014, jump onto the Obama-Biden-Feinstein-Pelosi-Reid restrictionist bandwagon.
Obamacare
In 2013, there will be new taxes levied, from charges on medical devices to Medicare tax hikes on the culpable who make more than the dreaded $250,000. Already insurance premiums are rising in anticipation of Obamacare implementation in 2014, when health care exchanges begin, and employers and the uninsured will be forced to either buy health insurance or to pay a fine — the details of which are unclear even to the architects of the law. If Obamacare were car insurance, you could buy it retroactively after a major collision, and could not be charged too much due to your prior driving record — facts that will make premiums for others soar.
So far, Obamacare has been just a rhetorical topos. In 2013 it will cost people real money, and in 2014 it will change the way millions of Americans deal with and pay for their doctors. Those who will like the new entitlement are natural Obama supporters; those who will not like it may have been in 2012 but might not be in 2014.
Taxes
Americans want as many government freebies as possible as long as the distant fat cats pay for them. But there are two problems with Obama’s cynical attempts to created an even greater constituency of dependents, reliant on the taxes from a demonized upper wealthy class. First, there are not enough rich to squeeze out sufficient funds to pay for the vast increases in federal spending. We saw that with the 2013 payroll tax hikes on the middle class and the president’s willingness to go over the cliff, which would have raised taxes on everyone.
Obama’s war has never, as he claimed, been between the 1% and 99%, but rather is an existential struggle of the 47% who do not pay federal income tax and receive lots from the government against the 53% who dread April 15 and receive less. That divide will become clearer as the economy sputters along, the debts mount, and the government searches for revenue.
Second, while the majority of those who make above $250,000 probably voted for Obama, they did so on the premise that the super-wealthy (e.g., those who make more than $1 million a year), not themselves, were in Obama’s crosshairs. In 2013 they will come to learn that new Obamacare taxes, a new loss in deductions, new blue-state income tax hikes, and changes in Medicare taxation are aimed at themselves — and that Obama prefers a Bill Gates, Jeffrey Immelt, or Warren Buffett to a middle-level executive, doctor, or lawyer making $200,000. It is one thing to blast the Koch brothers and claim that news coverage of Obamaphones is a racist trope; quite another to pay another 10% of your income for others to have free things that are superfluous — and be derided in the process.
Debt
Jack Lew can insist that borrowing $1 trillion a year is not adding to the deficit. Paul Krugman can demand that we borrow even more to achieve the proper Keynesian stimulus. Obama can maintain that spending is not the problem. But $16 trillion is $16 trillion, and the trajectories of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, food stamps, disability, and unemployment insurance suggest that there is no end to the borrowing in sight. The economy is not growing much; unemployment has been higher in every month of the Obama administration than in any one month of his predecessor’s eight years. Not even slashing defense and upping federal and state income taxes on the fat cats will bring the solution, since it is mathematical and not political. Even Obama cannot issue an executive order outlawing the laws of physics.
The public very soon will see that there is to be less free stuff and lots more taxes — and yet that will still not be enough, as the new regulations, higher taxes, and constant demonizing of the private sector hamstring the economy.
Honesty
There is still only a vague appreciation that Obama has contradicted much of what he said in the past — to a degree more manifest than what was normal for a Reagan or Clinton. He no longer thinks deficits are unpatriotic as they were under Bush, and he most surely never planned to cut them in half by the end of his first term. He voted against raising the debt ceiling in 2006 when the debt was much smaller than it is now, and he now claims that for others to do what he did is little short of subversive. Obama once loudly and in detail warned against doing away with the filibuster that his lieutenants now seek to stop — and he once warned in the process about the sort of partisan abuse behind such an effort that he now embraces. He derided recess appointments that he now employs, and railed against the abuse of the executive order that he now has used to avoid legislative opposition on immigration, environmental regulations, and perhaps soon the Second Amendment.
Obama has praised public financing of presidential campaigns, and yet was the first candidate in the history of the law to renounce it. Renditions, tribunals, the Patriot Act, Guantanamo, and preventative detention at one time or another were all demagogued by Obama as either useless or illegal — and all embraced or expanded by him without either a nod of thanks to Bush or a small admission that he had reversed course. He has blasted big-money fat cats on Wall Street for both taking federal bailouts and receiving huge bonuses for their incompetence, and yet nominated the very emblem of that hypocrisy — Citigroup’s Jack Lew — as his new Treasury secretary. An act analogous to lecturing about the need for the well-off to pay “their fair share” while appointing a tax-dodger as the prior Treasury secretary.
Obama’s past sermons about transparency, the revolving door, and the abuse of big money in campaign donations are now at odds with his practice. He blasted the waterboarding of three confessed terrorists, and then had nearly 3,000 suspected terrorists vaporized by Predator drones, apparently on the rationale that an OK from former Yale Law Dean Harold Koh and reading Augustine and Aquinas while selecting the hit list made it all liberal and thus correct.
All of the above is mostly unknown to the average voter and ignored by the media. But the untruths and hypocrisy hover in the partisan atmosphere and incrementally and insidiously undermine each new assertion that we hear from the president — some of them perhaps necessary and logical. Indeed, the more emphatically he adds “make no mistake about it,” “let me be perfectly clear,” “I’m not kidding,” or the ubiquitous “me,” “my,” and “I” to each new assertion, the more a growing number of people will come to know from the past that what follows simply is not true. Does this matter? Yes, because when the reckoning comes, it will be seen as logical rather than aberrant — and long overdue.
Abroad
Most Americans are tired of Afghanistan, as they were of Iraq, as they were of Vietnam — the cost in lives and money, the lack of clear victory, the endlessness of the commitment, the ingratitude of our allies, and the barbarity of our enemies. But as in the case of the withdrawal from Vietnam, with time comes reflection that after a huge investment of blood and treasure Americans had won the peace in Iraq, and could have ensured it with a small watchdog force, and the same might have been true of Afghanistan.
Obama will be credited with ending both wars that George Bush started (though the violence in Iraq was mostly over when Obama assumed power), but the ultimate fate of both countries will be in his hands — and they may not be pretty when the Taliban starts taking reprisals on female doctors, gays, and any who are seen as Westernized. (Vietnam at least had a coast for the boat people; Afghanistan is landlocked). Expect serial interventions of the sort we now see with the French in Somalia, when Afghanistan returns to an Islamist state that harbors al-Qaeda, hangs women in its soccer stadium, and begins murdering thousands who were tainted by the West.
For now we talk of the hyper-sensitive “Jewish” or “Israeli” lobby that “went after” Chuck Hagel. We are assured that the new distance from Israel is just a neocon talking point. But soon we shall see the multiplying effect of Obama/Kerry/Hagel/Brennan upon our strategic relationship with Israel, and it may well be during a war rather than mere talking points about settlements at a time of peace. The Arab Spring was sold as one thing; but should Syria and Egypt, along with Libya, end up as Sunni versions of Iran, then Americans will begin to ask why and how. (Who “lost” not just North Africa, but the entire Middle East?)
In short, this is the time when a careful Obama should be calling for bipartisan implementation of the recommendations of the Simpson-Bowles commission, redoing a Gingrich-Clinton compromise, seeking non-polarizing appointments of the Panetta/Gates sort, and cooling his presidential partisan rhetoric.
Unfortunately, he had done the opposite, and so a reckoning is on the near horizon. Let us pray it does not take us all down with his administration.
To channel the “Lord of the Rings” terminology, America has fallen into shadow.
Don’t worry. It’s always darkest right before it goes pitch black.
Indeed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitch_Black_%28film%29
Our world nears its eclipse, and who knows what will happen in the darkness ?
I am too old to sleep on the ground and pee behind trees so I will be leaving for Costa Rica when the school year ends. My wife is a Costa Rica citizen and we are both sick of schools that extol Martin Luther King and ignore Mr. Patrick Henry. As a matter of fact, if one did not know better, one would suppose that Blacks are wholly responsible for every advancement civilization has made. The United States as we have known it is finished. It is now the domain of self-hating faux-educated Yankee swine and their minority minions and they all richly deserve the fate that awaits them.
Great analysi by VDH. The section on “honesty” incredible eye-opener for me. [The media sickens me by closing their eyes]
“Abroad” was as well, even more so having just read Belmont Club’s “Creosote President.” Dreadful times for Israel and for our fighting men.
Could these possibly be deliberate .. Cue the Twilight Zone theme as I entertain thoughts of conspiracies and deceit.
All of this is reviving a very powerful image from the Madeline L’Engle Time Quartet books. My family used to listen to these wonderful YA scence fiction audiobooks bout fourteen or so years back when my son was a small boy.
I think it was in “A Wrinkle in Time.” The children, looking back at tEarth, see it is partially engulfed be a black mass, almost half the planet is covered. What’s more frightening is that blackness is sending tendrils out and stretching its reach across the Earth. It is explained to them that Earth is engaged in a terrible struggle between good and evil and they are looking at that struggle made visible. For someone who usually visualizes the story as I read or listen, that image of blackness wrapping itself around Earth still feels eerie and holds an awesome power to me.
Especially for these times.
FYI The Wiki on that marvelous series: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Quartet ( L’Engle’s otherworldly creatures can be anything from Seraphim to mitochondrial phanygilae (sp?) and the parents are these stay-at-home scientists … the more I think back the more I lwill recommend them…the audiobooks are good fun for smaller children…and the author treats the young adult reader as if expecting that reader is a person who can think. ) sorry to dump this book recommendation in, but we still have children to raise.
That is indeed what we are confronting. It is a belief system that has engulfed half the world before, resulting in hundreds of millions murdered and millions more lives destroyed. It is impervious to reason, highly contagious, subversive and toxic. With time it results in a psychotic break with reality in those it posesses.
In almost every case, once it takes hold among a significant proportion of a given population, civil war is the result, followed by totalitarian rule. JFK said: “For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence–on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations.” He was referring to the Soviet conspiracy to implement Communism globally. Though it has been rebranded, this project remains ongoing, and we are the primary target. In fact our government has been over-run by members of the conspiracy – and they are now trying to bring things to a head. This is the greatest challenge our Republic has faced since the Civil War, yet sadly very few even seem to be aware of the true scope and nature of the threat. If they succeed, they will usher in an era of world slavery unlike anything humanity has experienced. On the other hand, if they miscalculated (I believe they did), they are in for a rude awakening.
“Voters sense rightly that ultimately Obama is angry not so much at the “clingers” and their guns, but at the Second Amendment itself.”
Many voters more than just sense Obama’s anger, and a whole lot more, but most haven’t a clue, or like it as long as they think they selfishly benefit, as demonstrated in the last election.
I believe you are thinking much too small, to the point of being rather naive. I think he takes pretty much the whole United States Constitution as a personal affront, especially the Bill of Rights. He is not so much coming after our guns as he is coming after us.
It’s obvious that Obama has nothing but contempt for anyone that disagrees with him. He becomes more narcissistic every day, thinking he is the new messiah that will lead the people to a promised land (willing or not). And why shouldn’t he? Every day the apostolic press praises him as the second coming of Jesus (if they believed in such a thing).
It’s time for the Republicans to quit playing nice. They really can’t be demonized worse than this administration and the media already do. It’s time to be as obstructionist as possible. Use the legal system. File a lawsuit on EVERY executive order. File suits against every appointee who oversteps their position. More congressional investigations. It might be surprising what falls to the ground if you actually shake the tree.
Above all, the Republicans need to understand that no matter what you do to please the liberals (read media), that when election day comes they will still support the worst Democrat on the ticket rather that support a Republican.
Also Repubs can forget about winning another national election. The
Exec orders and lack of voter I’d laws will insure 30 million+ illegals will
Vote Democap forever(even if they don’t actually vote- absentee ballots. Early voting)
Wake up America before its a new murder spree by the Marxists !
“the Constitution is a charter of negative rights”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2012/09/23/why-the-fuss-obama-has-long-been-on-record-in-favor-of-redistribution/
While not a communist (or a socialist), he is a marxist (governing in a fascist manner) in that he views the state as above the citizen. His world view cannot accept “that all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights” which was the synthesis of the Enlightenment and a rejection of feudalism.
I agree with rbj that Obama is ruling in a fascist manner, and raised that possibility here, a turn of events that has not been widely addressed in the press or even in conservative commentary. See http://clarespark.com/2013/01/05/american-fascism-and-the-future-of-english-and-american-literature/. The teaching of the humanities has always been ideological, assuming that literature is taught at all, but this administration has drastically upped the ante with its new rules for teachers. I can’t wait to see how many teachers defend the chief tenets of their profession.
For some time I’ve been trying to decide if the Administration were PERONISTA’s
Czarist Oligarch’s. I can see a strong case for both. Or perhaps it’s more a combination of the two. Peronismos (Obamaismos) leading to Czarism (an hereditary aristocracy{the liberals who survived the Victory Purges} on top. With hereditary serfs bound to the plow. And a small merchant class in between greasing the gears.
It’s too true. This was or should have been evident almost 50 years ago when the sassy assertion that most Americans “just don’t get it” implied clearly that any deliberative democratic politics was in the cross-hairs: why listen to the voters (and The People) since most of them ‘just don’t get it’?
Nowadays, there are many who refuse to ‘get it’ and refuse to give in to the assorted revolutionary agendas and demands. But there is now an increasingly large chunk of persons (citizens and otherwise) who have been nicely roped into a dependent client-politics (so similar to later imperial Rome) and don’t think much beyond the next entitlement or preference ladled over them by the government like sauce over a soup-rabbit.
For that matter, that image from the 1970s novel “Watership Down” – between the raggedy but free rabbits and the sleed, fatted but caged soup-rabbits – now comes to have acute relevance to our present national condition.
Considering that Obama displayed his real feelings towards democracy when he tried to force a dictator upon Honduras it would appear that you are right.
I expect to see a lot of race card fatigue.
Honesty, integrity and repecting the Constitution are “racist,” you know.
So you think Feckless Won is going down for the count – and sooner than later? I guess he’ll be able to blame it all on George Bush eh? After all it was he that singlehandedly caused the ‘almost great crash’ whereby we stood on the precipice – ready to crash into oblivion at any moment. And through the smoke and ruin of the ‘almost crash’ came one man – on a mission of ‘hope and change’.
From where I sit it looks like he’s going to get most of what he wants. I don’t see any big movement in this country to oppose his fundamental transformation.
But we can dream – can’t we VDH?
That almost sounds cynical. I mean, I was pretty sure the dog eater wouldn’t win his first term, but he won anyway. And I was certain Obamacare wouldn’t pass, and it did. And then, it surely wouldn’t be held up by the Supreme Court, and it was.
Nope. Not cynical at all.
Agreed, P-C.
Dr. Hanson states, “All of the above is mostly unknown to the average voter and ignored by the media.” I ask who shall make all of the above apparent to the average liberal who presently wallows with joy in their willful ignorance? Any attempt to make any of “all of the above” apparent to any liberal of my acquaintance is always met with anger, hostility, and denial. For that reason it seems highly doubtful that as VDH further states, “…..when the reckoning comes, it will be seen as logical rather than aberrant — and long overdue.” Not with any of the liberal “Bush did it” boneheads that I can think of.
Seems that “….a reckoning is on the near horizon. Let us pray it does not take us all down with his administration” is a most apt assumption.
Below is the list of countries with the most vibrant economies, and which also rate themselves as happy. Do you notice the USA is missing? Obama should see social democratic governments as a model, and that might be what he’s aiming for, to his credit.
The World’s Happiest Countries:
1. Norway
2. Denmark
3. Sweden
4. Australia
5. New Zealand
6. Canada
7. Finland
8. The Netherlands
9. Switzerland
10. Ireland
Happiness means having opportunity – to get an education, to be an entrepreneur. What’s more satisfying than having a big idea and turning it into a thriving business, knowing all the way that the harder you work, the more reward you can expect? the list above are countries that are viewed by economists as having those opportunities
Oh, please. This kind of list is meaningless. By whose definition are they the “happiest”? Happiness is not something quantifiable, or even, for that matter, easily definable. It is completely in the eye of the beholder. This is a non-argument since there isn’t a single verifiable FACT associated with it.
You don’t give the source for that list. I suspect it’s because examination of the methodology would show that a huge part of the score was whether the people of those countries got lots of free stuff from their governments. In other words, a perfectly sound syllogism…
M. Socialism makes a country happy.
m. These countries are socialist.
C. Therefore, they are happy.
… based on a bogus major premise. With circularity thrown in in the further conclusion you draw.
To say nothing of the racialist nature of your post. All those countries are 90+% white. Therefore, you’re also saying that “only white countries are happy”. My god that’s racist. Why can’t Zimbabwe be happy. Kenya?
What? Because of ongoing tribal warfare where they kill one another simply because they’re in a different tribe? What? They have an AIDS problem that makes our issue with the healthcare system seem like a picnic? Hmmm. (must be missing something) They should be happy too. I mean..they’ve got their governments in control, right? That should breed all kinds of happiness.
Why can’t Iran be happy? Zaire? Turkey or Pakistan? Gosh…I know there’s a reason…it’s on the tip of my tongue. Wait…don’t tell me.
(sarcasm, for those in Rio Linda)
Canada is the most ethnically and racially diverse country in the world.
OK, fine. And it is also as profoundly socialist as the rest of the nations on the list.
Hurray for you.
And, at least according to Wiki, it’s predominantly white in population.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Canada
Somewhere between 95.7% for New Brunswick and 13.6% for Nonavut with the vast majority of provinces being above 70% white.
Not sure where you’re getting your information.
If you get your news from Jon Stewart, it was pretty clear who to vote for. But as America continues to degrade, even the low-information voter will begin to notice.
Truth will out.
I think that we need to recall the biggest flaw of liberalism- it simply doesn’t work. If progressivism – high taxes, massive government, crushing micromanaging regulations, Keynesian spending, secularism, moral relativism, political correctness, incoherent foreign policy, etc, etc, actually made things better for most people, we would see the improvements that such a system would bring. But liberalism is just a path to totalitarianism, and it was never meant to work as advertised, any more than a Ponzi scheme makes everyone rich.
We’ve had 4 years of progressive policy from obutthead, and look at the shape we’re in. America will recover when the Kenyan hi+ler, leaves. Until then even liberals are going to start noticing that, beyond harvesting their votes, Barry doesn’t does give a sh!t about them either.
However, the average socialist of which you speak will never condemn the ideology, only the ideologue because the utopianism is paramount and everlasting. They will never condemn Obama either because to do so is to condemn themselves to the pits of racism that they accuse the right of on an hourly basis. Either that or it would force them to admit that the right was correct all along.
No, with socialists, they plug along and only remit their leaders when the nirvana fails to arrive and replace them with another leader who makes better promises. Carter replaced Johnson, Clinton replaced Carter…Obama replaced Clinton…but only because Clinton couldn’t be president for life.
The sad irony is that all the socialists truly hate one another. They freely crucify each other behind closed doors but they adhere to boot-licking protocol to keep their place at the trough. Hitlery hates the fact that she’s having to suck up to captain nobody and she hates him because he’s black, first and foremost and second because he’s a he.
The chameleonesque nature of socialist politics is well-documented in books from Russia, Germany and other places where one must adhere to “the code”. But they can appear to be personable, friendly even. But it’s all part of the choreography of being a socialist.
It’s too late, the country has changed and either does not care or believes this man. And why not? His rhetoric is brilliantly crafted for this age (where a third of the country belives in Santa Claus and another third merely emotes) and smoothly delivered; and, of course, everything bad is someone else’s fault
I have always believed that American Presidents are the people who are the most reflective of American culture. Obama is the personification of collectivist ideals that our society has, apparently long ago, decided to accept as its basis. Our founders rejected this mantra in the preamble, but 5-6 generations later, the culture seemingly believed in a “social conscience”, whatever that ephemeral concept could really be. I say there is no such thing as any consciousness found outside of the mind of each individual. “Social conscience” is nothing but a linguistic construct and has nothing to do with the natural state of the human mind. That we are able to feel empathy towards our fellow human beings is a near miracle. We must construct unnatural moral values in order to even have a chance of living in societies larger than family clans. It is natural behavior for human beings to fight, slay, and enslave the survivors representing any alien human clans. It was a moral construct, (some say it was when Moses went to the mountaintop and was delivered the Ten Commandments) for us to decide that if we want to live in large societies, we would have to make up non-instinctive moral values for all members of a larger society to share. Communists are in the business of trying to destroy as many of those constructs as they can so that they can in order to break down the large society, isolate individual opponents, and impose their “enlightenment” on the entire world. They know they can’t make Communism work on any level larger than a tribe, so they are going for the whole enchilada and presuming for the unwitting that they can make it work only if they are in control of all human societies at the same time. Problem for me is that I can’t see how controlling the whole world will make life inside the largest imaginable human society be anything more than a life of servitude for all but our Communist betters. I see Communism as a direct threat to any kind of organized larger society because they have to tear down the only moral values that can support large societies in order to gain control of them. President Obama is cute and clever and a real reflection of where we are in this whole collectivist movement back towards our most primitive and instinctual roots. God will have to intervene to alter this march into the abyss and, being a man of very little faith, I feel nothing but increasing despair for humanity as I watch this witless charlatan perform. Dr Hanson successfully adds more doom to my gloom with each of his well written opinions because he has a grasp of our relation to our history and derives from that.
“And yet they sense that Obama himself — and most celebrities — quite rightly count on the guns of their security guards to protect them from evil.”
I think they need protection from justice more than from evil.
Folks,
Soon it won’t matter.
Events have begun taking their own courses, regardless of what Obama and his fellow cynical connivers and leftist ideologues want. The Bill Is About To Come Due.
Case in point: Germany has been hinting for a few weeks that it might want to repatriate its gold reserves from vaults overseas. They’re not the only ones – central banks for nations worldwide are stocking up on gold and pulling it out of vaults in the western sovereign/central banks, in anticipation of economic instability everywhere (the USD and Euro on a printing streak to pay for federal debts and/or to bail out national ‘too big to fail’ banks, with China, Japan, Korea and Russia all now committed to supporting their export – driven economies with their own printing so as to stay price competitive in a world where international trade is still settled with a devaluing USD.) As part of this repatriation move, Germany has now formally asked the Federal Reserve to return the 300 tons of german gold in it’s alleged 6720 ton stockpile to German territory. Today’s answer from the Fed? “We can deliver it, but only if you give us SEVEN YEARS.”
Please consider that statement very, very, very carefully. When you figure out the implications, you’ll have a surge of genuine panic.
I anticipate that Germany will now begin treating America like a danger and quasi-enemy, and will take steps to cozy up to Russia and China (who have been courting the Bosch for a while now), perhaps telling them that if they want a new order to emerge with Germany in it, they’ll have to help Bonn get it’s gold back from America.
Think of these days as like those in Greece where, after the Persians were finally defeated, a series of diplomatic maneuvers began to take place between Athens, Thebes, Corinth, Sparta, Argos and the smaller states – maneuvers which soon led to the Peloponnesian War, and the crushing defeat of not only Athens, but Sparta as well, followed by endless war and constantly shifting alliances until the Romans squashed them all.
” When you figure out the implications, you’ll have a surge of genuine panic. ”
What are the implications?
As he said: war.
The gold is GONE. LOOTED.
Quite likely, but the real theft has been the continual deflation of the dollar by the Federal Reserve. Dollars don’t have a basis in much actual wealth anymore. Your 401K will be a 101K before you get to spend what is left of it, I says.
The implication is that the gold reserve is simply not there. It’s been sold off, ‘re-hypothecated’, leased out, etc etc….
This is not a trivial matter. Consider that the Federal Reserve has been charged with storing THOUSANDS of tons of gold that belongs to OTHER NATIONS. These stores are property that represents real wealth, and apparently IT-IS-ALL-GONE.
Thus, the concrete implications are:
1. The United States financial sector is not to be trusted in financial matters and is, in fact, criminal in it’s dealings.
2. The values that have been reported by various financial and corporate institutions that depend on the gold stores in the Federal Reserve system are false. Considering that the gold stores have not only been likely leased more than once (re-hypothecation is the official term), it means that there are likely $100′s of Billions (and perhaps even $Trillions) of non-existent assets on various commercial & central bank balance sheets, as well as other financial institutions and corporate interests, that will soon have to be reported as total losses. This will travel like a SHOCK WAVE thru the world economy.
3. Without gold to back up the value of the USD, it’s just paper that’s accepted for trade with ‘full faith and credit.’ However, with the de-industrialization of the USA, the moribund state of it’s financial sector (essentially a corpse on life support), and it’s debt situation which is targetted for ‘correction’ thru fiat currency expansion, the ‘faith and credit’ of the currency is poised to VANISH. This means the USD is now on the hairy edge of total collapse, exactly like the Deutschemark under the Weimar Republic. It also means that there is simply NOTHING for the USA to fall back on, since it’s gold reserves are apparently G-O-N-E.
We are facing economic collapse as a society. Not recession or depression, but total and utter annihilation. Recovering from that will be a decades-long process, and the recovery itself will not be particularly promising. We don’t have heavy industry anymore, and are left with agriculture and natural resources (with shale oil and rare earths in california, idaho and nebraska the leading commodities.) In other words, our recovery in 20-40 years means that we will have moved UP into………THIRD WORLD STATUS.
Yes. It’s that bad.
So the Fed pulled a “Jon Corzine” on the Germans ?
No. Worse.
Corzine bet MF Global’s entire balance sheet on a derivatives play – basically he was gambling and thought he had the odds fixed when he didn’t. The Federal Reserve, on the other hand, had a fiduciary obligation to protect all the gold deposits it had from foreign nations who were relying on them for safekeeping. Instead, the Fed sold it – in fact, it seems they probably sold these deposits several times over. That’s both fraud and theft, on a scale that makes anything Corzine, Milken, Boesky and Madoff did look like a back room poker game using penny stakes.
It could also potentially be construed as an act of war.
Thanks to the cynicism, narcissism and nihilism of the current power brokers in the financial and political sphere in our once great nation, we are headed towards an imposed isolationism and a financial apocalypse which, when we recover, will leave us a third world nation. I wouldn’t be surprised if our standard of living goes back to that of the 1930′s, or perhaps a bit more. In truth, if you discount the value of the US Dollar by yearly inflation, and use the measuring standards employed by the federal government up until 1981 (after that time, the govt elected to drop energy and food prices from inflation measures and began adding in all sorts of creative ‘adjustments’), the US standard of living rose from the 1930′s until the mid 80′s, and then began to decline rather steeply. Despite the fact that we have big screen tv’s and cellphones, our per capita standard of living is already back to that of the late 1940′s – and it’s going to get MUCH worse in the next several years.
Truthfully, I think it will get to the point where most people don’t turn on their air conditioners in the summer except for at most 30 minutes during the day, and rarely turn on the heat during the winter because of the cost; also, men will resume shaving by filling the sink with warm water, and people will take showers with only 2-3 minutes of warm water, again because they’re so worried about the cost.
Don’t forget too that the Socialist Hitler head of the National SOCIALIST German WORKERS Party , more commonly known by their acronym NAZI’s, had a plan for a post war Europe. It was to be a Union of Socialist Nation States controlled both financially and politically by German.
And that Ladies and gentlemen is the EU in a nutshell.
With all due respect, Professor Hanson, it comes to me that you and I and many other readers have been waiting for Nemesis to kick in for going on four years now. As a classicist you are likely to have Nemesis ‘ number. If so, could you please text her and ask her to get off her ass and make it happen?
Thanking you and her in advance.
Quidem!
I hear your pain, Vanderleum. I worry now, however, that we as a Citizenry are going to enter into that state of mind that characterized the French in the mid-1930s: “Pour qui et pour quoi?” – for whom and for what should we exert ourselves at this point?
And while we here are not faced with the problem of Danzig – “Mourir pour Danzig?” – we are faced with the Question of how (and at this point, I admit, it is a stunningly difficult challenge) to recover the “genius” (in the Latin sense) of the Framers and the Problem of contemplating the consequences of a general consensus that the federal government has – how to put this politely? – “lost the Mandate of Heaven” (as the ancient Chinese would tactfully put it).
Your always brilliant list VDH typifies why I believe calamity must befall the United States before we can begin to turn the corner, if we can turn the corner. I have worked through my mind numerous times trying to protect my own assets in our current state, and can’t find a soft financial landing for myself or this country.
One does not need to be a policy wonk, an MBA or Economic PHD, a MENSA candidate, even a full-fledged Obama critic, myself believing the current President nothing more than entitled useful idiot, born again tyrant with nice smile, and grievance hustler from the cradle. By every fair measure Obama is liar, failure and fraud.
Yet most excuse the failure, the lies, the charlatan nature. The problem isn’t really D.C.. It’s the millions of clueless imbeciles, believing America too big to fail – hypocrisy and double standard of both President and media be damned.
When these imbeciles and/or dependents can’t even recognize Obama’s boasts as bull, Obama’s promises as post-racial President and uniter a disgrace, the impossibility of projections that can’t possibly be fulfilled, then frankly I have given up on the majority of America. Like a parent to spoiled child provided every unearned privilege returned with spit in my face and ridicule, reasoning has been abandoned and I will no longer try to save the imbeciles from their excesses. In fact, I hold them in contempt.
But more to your point of Second Term reckonings. How many Benghazis and thumbing the nose at Constitutional Amendments did we need first term to even justify a chance at a second? I believe Obama can be as crooked, nasty, divisive, and fascist as he wishes with majority approval, stoked by a corrupted media, until the well runs dry.
So let it run dry.
“Most Americans are tired of Afghanistan, as they were of Iraq, as they were of Vietnam — the cost in lives and money, the lack of clear victory, the endlessness of the commitment, the ingratitude of our allies, and the barbarity of our enemies.”
As you yourself said with regard to Obama (although I don’t know if that’s ever going to happen with a majority), eventually people catch on to the obvious.
“But as in the case of the withdrawal from Vietnam, with time comes reflection that after a huge investment of blood and treasure Americans had won the peace in Iraq, and could have ensured it with a small watchdog force, and the same might have been true of Afghanistan.”
1) Vietnam.
“Indochina is devoid of decisive military objectives and the allocation of more than token US armed forces in Indochina would be a serious diversion of limited US capabilities” (Joint Chiefs of Staff, 26 May 1954).
“The United States could not have prevented the forcible reunification of Vietnam under communist auspices at a morally, materially, and strategically acceptable price.” (The US Army War College Quarterly, Winter 1996-97).
Congress basically gave authorization for the Vietnam War with the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, a resolution based on ‘events’, part of which were highly exaggerated and part of which never happened. 50,000 more Americans then went on to die for nothing.
2) Iraq.
We still have thousands of personnel there. The State Department has what ammounts to a small army. Our involvement in Iraq resulted in the ethnic cleansing of 2/3 of Iraq’s Christian population, resulted in a whole lot of bowing to Islam and Koran kissing, created an Iranian ally with a cost of over 4,000 American troops killed and more than a Trillion Dollars. All-in-all a Cluster Frack even for the government.
3) Afcrapistan.
All our being in Afcrapistan, after the first few months, has accomplished is to use out troops as Human Sacrifices on our Mad Hatter General’s Alter of COIN/”Winning Muslim Hearts and Minds”/”Partners in Peace” for their Trillion Dollar Bridge to Nowhere but Insanity. The eleven plus years staying in Afcrapistan makes Vietnam look brilliant by contrast – certainly no easy feat.
Americans rarely, if ever, eventually catch on to almost anything. Trust me. And if by chance they ever begin to then Hollywood takes over and cements the fairy tales.
Obama support reminds me of when the real estate bubble was “about to pop”. Most thinking people knew it had to happen … soon now … soon now … OK, well soon now this time, and finally POP! and prices collapsed. It all feels so similar, only it is our freedoms that are collapsing, not Obama’s support, because as Tex Taylor says above “these imbeciles and/or dependents can’t even recognize Obama’s boasts as bull, Obama’s promises as post-racial President and uniter a disgrace, the impossibility of projections that can’t possibly be fulfilled”.
The real-estate bubble…we noticed and got out just in time.
Have you noticed the increase in advertisements for Art Colleges and Film Colleges and Basket Weaving Colleges on tv lately? And the woe-is-me editorials about college grads with degrees in Womyn’s Studies not being able to find jobs to pay of their tens of thousands of dollars in student loans?
Those advertisements for those “colleges” make sure they point out that “financial aid is available”.
Does that sound familiar? That financial aid is from the taxpayer.
It’s kind of like Fanny and Freddy backing up mortgages with taxpayer money for people who shouldn’t be getting them.
That kind of sounds like a bubble waiting to happen.
Dr. Hanson, you seem to believe that Nemesis can be delivered, at least in part, by electoral means. From my admittedly lesser position, I do not see it. I do not see any intention for Obama to leave in 2016, electorally or Constitutionally. Indeed, I do not believe that it is possible to honestly win an election anymore with vote fraud being beyond the margin that can be delivered by legal electoral means.
The 2012 election turned on 407,000 votes in 4 states. All of which were sites of massive vote fraud. My own state of Colorado was one of them. We have 64 counties. 17 of them have significantly more registered voters than they have total people of voting age. Remember, normally only about half the eligible people register to vote. The voter rolls nationwide have been compromised, and not only is there no attempt to remove the issue of vote fraud; we find that the Republican party [which as of January 2 I am no longer a part of] long ago signed a Federal Court consent decree agreeing not to take any measures to prevent vote fraud or to ensure ballot security nationwide. Much is explained.
We are beyond the Constitution and consent of the governed. And the Republican leadership knows it and is seeking an accommodation. Since the election, Boehner has been giving victory to the Democrats by leading his personal coterie of about 40 of his followers to vote with the Democrats; making the other 170 or so Republicans functionally the minority party. John Boehner is Nancy Pelosi’s Speaker pro tem.
The Constitution is under constant attack, with the support of the media and the courts in Obama’s pocket. Nemesis may come to Obama, but it is going to come by strictly non-electoral means. It may be aggravated by economic collapse, foreign attack, and who knows what else. But honest elections are not going to be part of it.
The function of the Legislative in the end is based on the power of the purse. Our legislative branch has not only lost the power of the purse, they have given it over to the Executive with both hands.
The Judicial branch is to keep citizens and those who govern within the bounds of the laws made by the Legislative branch and the Constitution. They have failed in their function. Justice Roberts, in his sudden reversal of position on Obamacare ruled that even though it was unconstitutional, since it was framed in terms of a tax it could remain even though unconstitutional. Any violation of the Constitution can and definitely will be framed as a tax, and the Constitution ceases to hold. The courts have become the protector of those in power. In any case, even the most blatant violations of law or ethics by the powerful fails to get a hearing in court because they rule that no one has standing to go to court.
And the Executive Branch is itself exempt from the law, and grants and withholds exemptions from the law based on political and financial support. Our Executive departments are run by those who have profited the most illegally and who despise the people.
If our government resembles anything in history, it is Rome a couple of generations after Augustus. The old forms of governance from the Republic are still there, but powerless and filled with privileged, worthless individuals. All real power is centered on the Emperor, and his will is unbound by anything in this life. And when that life ends, the succession is not by any regular means.
If the mood of at least a significant portion of our people resembles anything, it parallels either 1775 or early 1861. This is not a stable condition.
The Republic is gone, and the form of Nemesis is shaped by those facts.
Subotai Bahadur
“If the mood of at least a significant portion of our people resembles anything, it parallels either 1775 or early 1861. This is not a stable condition.”
Over 3 million firearms were sold to US citizens in November and December. As my European acquaintances mentioned when hearing this tidbit on the news, “the Americans are preparing for war.”
We’re due.
And it’s time for each of us to do THIS.
“Boehner has been giving victory to the Democrats by leading his personal coterie of about 40 of his followers to vote with the Democrats; making the other 170 or so Republicans functionally the minority party. John Boehner is Nancy Pelosi’s Speaker pro tem.”
The Democratic party culture, like Muslims, don’t play fair but to win. Islamic terrorists don’t care about the Geneva or any other conventions (even Islam’s own doctrine on suicide, for example). The goal is TO WIN. Period. That the Repubs don’t get all the dirty schemes and illegal actions by their Dem colleagues should be mindboggling; if I was a conspiracy theorist, I’d say given how the Dems “play” they have the dirt on Boehner et al and are blackmailing them. No other explanation makes sense, as the country moves towards chaos and the Repubs conduct themselves (with a few exceptions) the way they currently do.
Blackmail with videos is the only thinkable reason.
One other logical conclusion is that they know the Republic is finished and they are helping themselves to the spoils – as politicians have always done, with precious few exceptions.
Soap box: Swept away by a radicallized, “progressive” Main Stream Media pushing one overarching agenda.
Ballot box: Neutralized by thuggish third world ballot stuffing and fake voter scheme.
That leaves only one box…
GMTA! This was my prognostication in November, and it still stands.
Second-term reckoning? Wishful thinking.
The people in general will listen only to the (legacy) media.
All is well. In their minds.
Historians would be well reminded of the economists’ phrase:
“Past performance is no guarantee of future results.”
That’s not an economists phrase, its a lawyers.
With all due respect to VDH, I think he under-estimates or ignores what we learned on November 6, 2012: this is no longer a “center-right” nation.
Prior to that day, I would have agreed that Obama’s reckoning would come. I thought it would be on November 6, but like VDH I had no doubt the American people would turn on this spiteful, lying, manipulative demagogue.
Guess what? The American people, or at least 51% of them, now believe they are entitled to Free Stuff, and that any problem in their life, including an inadequate supply of Free Stuff, is due to someone else not paying Their Fair Share for that Free Stuff.
A now-popular corollary for the majority of voters who picked Obama is the idea that government should provide everything, and giving up freedom for security is not only acceptable, but preferable to being responsible for yourself.
The only way to reverse this trend is going to be painful, as people need to learn the hard way that there is no such thing as Free Stuff. The next few years are not going to be pleasant, but we need to let it burn to the ground before we can rebuild.
Guess which political party produced these tenants?
1) We ask that the government undertake the obligation above all of providing citizens with adequate opportunity for employment and earning a living.
2) The activities of the individual must not be allowed to clash with the interests of the community, but must take place within its confines and be for the good of all. Therefore, we demand: … an end to the power of the financial interests.
3) We demand profit sharing in big business.
4) We demand a broad extension of care for the aged.
5) We demand … the greatest possible consideration of small business in the purchases of the national, state, and municipal governments.
6) In order to make possible every capable and industrious (citizen) the attainment of higher education and thus the achievement of a post of leadership, the government must provide an all-around enlargement of our entire system of public education. … We demand the education at government expense of gifted children of poor parents. …
7) The government must undertake the improvement of public health — by protecting mother and child, by prohibiting child labor … by the greatest possible support for all clubs concerned with the physical education of youth.
8) (We) combat the … materialistic spirit within and without us, and are convinced that a permanent recovery of our people can only proceed from within on the foundation of The Common Good Before The Individual Good.
If you said the democrat party, you are wrong, but you are close.
I’m not sure why this was a reply to my point about the realities of the US electorate in 2012.
But anyway, what the Republican Party of 90+ years ago, or rather its “progressive” wing, said about “child labor” has no bearing on what modern day advocates of limited government such as myself believe today.
Theodore Roosevelt, who endorsed the plank above, would today be a liberal Democrat in the vein of Tom Harkin of Iowa: relatively “conservative” on a few issues such as gun control out of necessity, and deep blue on pretty much everything else.
“I’m not sure why this was a reply to my point about the realities of the US electorate in 2012.”
If you can’t understand his point, you’re just as blind as your ideological opponents on the left.
In short, America abandoned The Constitution a long, long time ago. Both major political parties, and their followers, share the blame. We’ve been living under a weird oligarchic tyranny (of the majority) for a couple of generations, now. Yeah. We all drank the Koolaid.
Returning to the Founder’s intent? That’s an alien world to you and to most Americans. When anyone talks about such freedom, even conservatives compare it to anarchy. Hell, they even think of such freedom as living in a third world shit hole. (e.g. Small standing army. Not getting involved in any way in the business of other nations. Local militias w/ required service by any man of military age, from sixteen to sixty. An all but powerless federal government…)
In short, many people who claim to love freedom…don’t have any idea what freedom really is. Not when they compare it to third world dictatorships and anarchy.
Time to re-examine our premises.
“Blind” to the erosion of the Constitution as the law of the land? I think not. My whole original post assumes that.
Nor am I blind to smugness masquerading as profound thought.
If memory serves, you quoted the NSDAP party platform, on or about 1932? NSDAP stood for “National Socialistic German Workers’ Party”. Close enough to today’s Democrats, right?!
Why ‘The National Socialists’ aka Nazis. I have read “Mein Kampf”.
The Prof said: “Bill Clinton had his comeuppance with Monica.” Is THAT what they call it now?
There’s a lot more than just this nation that is going to “burn to the ground”.
I doubt Free Stuff had much to do with Obama’s victory. Voting for Obama was fashionable. Or as Prof. Hanson noted in a previous essay, voting for Obama was the “hip” thing to do.
Humans are herd animals sadly.
“Germans who wish to use firearms should join the SS or the SA– ordinary citizens don’t need guns, as their having guns doesn’t serve the State.” –Heinrich Himmler (And look how all that ended.)
Himmler’s words may be the ringing true, since the latest in illegal executive “orders” and the attitude of the administration seem to say exactly that. Actually, “lots of people with big ears are famous” (mouse to Dumbo); somebody tell Obama he’s famous enough already!!!
Bud and Lou’s “Who’s On First” has morphed into Bo and Lew’s Who’s Been Farced.
The national debt and the deficit, with our crack addict dependence upon China to live off a communist credit card that our children have to pay down…”eventually” is so sick and twisted from a moral, ethical, fiscal and governing perspective, that nothing, nothing can be said to give it respectability or sanity.
Nothing honest, that is. Which immediately and by current definition leaves out leftist Democrats and their operatives in the media, Hollywood and academia.
For the brain dead and now drooling twits who adhere to leftist pap like suckling zombies, the destruction of our information stream goes unnoticed and without a scant backward glance.
This crowd doesn’t like our Constitution and only a handful of its Amendments. Why in the world would they care if we lived in Propaganda Hell, where truth is a trifling thing and our founding principles are merely a suggestion box of equally ignored and broken “old ideas”.
As long as the Propaganda Hell has its flames licking the feet of the “enemies”, shovel another heap of coal and pass me a doobie, they say.
Not all of them are as open about their betrayal as Sean Penn or as anarchist as Michael Moore. But, make no mistake. Betrayal is afoot.
Obama is not a “liberal” nor a “progressive” in any meaningful definition of the terms. This also isn’t “big government” vs. “small government”. (NEITHER of our political parties would line up neatly in the respective camps)
It is small c communism vs. free market self-governance. We tremor and tremble at the very thought of saying that out loud. We avoid the topic like the plague. And fail to address it, skimmimg and skipping around the fringes of the treason it takes to seize our country by the throat and throttle our scrawny and puny necks.
We are not made of stern enough stuff to form a respectable resistance. We instead become John Boehner’s…The Grim Weeper of our demise. Token resistance followed by limp-wristed capitulation.
We don’t understand small c communism because we don’t care to understand betrayal. We desperately cling to the rotary phone and buggy whip notion that “liberals” are “well intentioned” but wish “big government” to “solve problems”.
Don’t make me laugh. That mask has fallen.
Guns are fine in the hands of drug dealers…hell, we’ll supply them. Guns are fine in the inner cities and in the hands of gangbangers. Because anyone who supports the “revolution” isn’t truly an “enemy”.
The logic of “gun control” would focus on where the victims truly are and the shooters really are, if it was otherwise. Since NONE of the attention is focused on the 97% of “gun crimes”, then it MUST be a subterfuge.
But, we won’t talk about that. It doesn’t fit the “narrative”.
And, that “narrative” comes from Propaganda Hell. Our broken, busted, toxic, information stream. Yet, we don’t care enough to realize and admit…THAT is our seminal problem in this land of ours. We can’t get facts and truth to the people.
And nobody cares.
“And nobody cares.”
I don’t think it’s so much that but a matter that not enough people have the money or resources that would enable them to fight back effectively. Without these, there is no access to the proverbial “low-information” masses that are virtually hermetically sealed off by the small c’s who run the MSM. Better it would be for those who don’t want to live under small c domination all band together & figure out a way to forge a new nation. To say that such a thing would be a tall order is a huge understatement.
Great rant, cf, but I must point one false meme, that is the notion that our children will have to pay our debt. They cannot and they will not. As in the past, it will be the bondholders and the shareholders that will suffer the losses. That is where the money is (like Willy Sutton said).
Make no mistake about it, bk…our children will pay. They are paying now for our weakness.
As this government needs to confiscate more and more, it will.
As this government treats more and more of its citizens as “enemies”, those “enemies” will pay for being on the “wrong” side.
As this government drifts toward tyranny, our children and grandchildren will pay a price that we have been too timid to confront.
There is an Athens in our future, but it won’t be an Athens, Tennessee. We won’t march on corruption and tyranny. We will mumble, bow and shirk from it. Those brave WWII vets stood up to the abuses of absolute power. We are made of much softer stuff.
You are both right. Our children will pay, but they aren’t going to pay the debts.
Only a few things I’d disagree with. First, Michael Moore isn’t an anarchist, rather the most committed sort of statist. I could agree with a real anarchist on maybe a bit less than half of what he says, Michael Moore on the other hand is the sort of person who in a sane society would be too unpopular to hand out $100 bills in times square on the fourth of July instead of getting rich peddling his lies and poison.
I don’t think the American people are too cowed and timid to form an effective resistance. A lot of them have a strong inkling that something is deeply wrong. Americans have purchased millions of guns in the last month. You simply cannot find a battle rifle, magaizine, or standard calibers of ammunition on the shelves anymore. I recently had to pay $80 for 40 rounds of premium match grade ammunition because it was the only .223 I could find anywhere. I’ve also had to take to manufacturing my own 30 round magazines on my 3D printer. That’s not the behavior of a bunch of timid slaves, but rather that of those gearing up for war. People would not be buying $1500 weapons if they had any intention of turning them in if a ban passes.
Look at it this way. It’s not secret that the liberals would like a European style ban where they just demand that everyone turn them in, but even in the 1994 “assault weapon ban” they had a grandfather clause for existing weapons. Why would they add a grandfather clause if they weren’t scared of the consequences of trying to forcibly confiscate weapons? I think the new bans have one too, and for the same reason, those guns would not be peacefully collected but rather hidden or turned on the people trying to collect them. The fact that our politicians don’t feel safe enough to quite fully act like the European tyrants they so badly want to be should be heartening.
1) I would submit that instead of the guns protecting them from evil, that the guns are protecting evil itself
Second, I will place myself firmly in the camp of those who believe the Republic already gone, now floating in mid-air like Wyle E. Coyote, defying gravity with a “Yikes!” sign in one hand.
2) I believe we are already in the days of revolution, that is if I correctly understand what I am reading.
True patriots, those who seek the truth about our Republic and its principles, rightly understand that the Second Amendment has nothing to do with hunting, target shooting or personal protection – although those are a very welcome consequence of the amendment’s true purpose.
The Second Amendment is the final bulwark against a tyrannical government that is operating outside of the plain words of its charter. The Founders wrote extensively on this and it does not take a Constitutional Scholar to figure it out. It is elementary American History.
Citizens are buying up as many firearms as humanly possible, and with every INTOLERABLE ACT of this administration (I’ve taken to calling the machinations of this administration as INTOLERABLE ACTS) more and more firearms go out the door. We are armed to the friggin’ teeth.
On the other side, you have Obama, he of the “Civilian National Security Force… just as powerful, just as well funded as the US Military.”, who is doing a Riverdance upon the graves of 20 innocent children shot to death in Newtown, CT not to forward legislation to protect children from gun violence (he could instead have lead us towards having armed teachers in the school that would have shot that attacker long before he had a chance to kill 20 kids – armed security guards and Secret Service details for the Obama kids, Gun Free Zones for the little people) but rather to effect a disarming of the citizenry.
When the first Federal Officer pulls out his badge and in the name of the state seeks to confiscate the first firearm, this powerkeg is going to blow sky high.
Just as Obama wants it to. This entire crisis is of his evil design, his malicious intent and his black heart.
More likely than an open revolution you will see that
(1.) the Pax Americana ends as we are no longer able to afford it
(2.) the world begins to flame with wars that we have been dousing (e.g. India/Pak, Arabs/Israel)
(3.) American’s natural patriotism rallies them to their government
(4,) the wars eventually merge like brushfires turning to a conflagration.
At that point bio-warfare is an overwhelming odds-on as is nuclear exchange between smaller players. The real trick will be avoiding total nuclear launch by the major powers – that’s anybody’s guess.
I arrive at the above by the application of Le Chatelier’s principle, “A system under stress will react in a direction to relieve the stress.”
I don’t think there’s much danger of a full nuclear launch by the major powers, although Obama is doing his absolute best to ensure we’ll be as unprepared as possible if that does happen. India and Pakistan may have a go at it, but I think that too is somewhat unlikely. The only likely nuclear exchange I see is Israel facing either a nuclear Iran or another coalition of Islamic states (emboldened by Obama’s policies) and then being forced to burn them all off the map.
“Just as Obama wants it to. This entire crisis is of his evil design, his malicious intent and his black heart.”
Such individuals who lack ulterior motive have traditionally been referred to in layman’s terms simply as a variation of a pyromaniac. Most such maniacs lack conscious motivation although they are fully aware of the acts they are failing to stop or they themselves are committing. Typically they will feel intense pleasure, gratification, or relief when causing destruction or when witnessing or participating in the aftermath. Motivation is also classified as pathological and non-pathological. Some research suggests that feeling such joy at horrific situation is pathological. Other research suggests that some motivation for this comes from rational thought. Taking joy in horrific situations for envisioned gains in political power and/or the concealment of the imposition of devious plans are examples of supposed rational decision making.
I must say in conclusion that history has repeatedly and harshly proven that elevating such a profoundly disturbed man to the highest office in any country is never a good idea. Unfortunately it is a lesson that must be learned first hand in every nation and some of those nations survive and some do not
Wow, for a second, I thought VDH said “Second Term Wrecking (Havoc)”.
Do NOT underestimate how much damage a second term Obama can unleash on us.
With yesterday’s 23 “proposals” (i.e. EO) for example, people might think it all sounded ‘vanilla bland’, a reasonable push to reduce gun violence. Details, people. Trust absolutely nothing from this t^rd.
His past four years’ record clearly showed contempt for our system, malevolence towards ‘not his people’, dissing our allies abroad, and greatly assist Moooooooslem Brotherhood/whatever you call them.
IF ONLY Obama in the past had attempted to purchase a gun, we might know more about his background then.
Obama is clearly going after not just the 2nd Amendment but the Bill of Rights presumptions generally that it is the citizens who are autonomous with the ultimate sovereignty under the Constitution. He wants to use education as well as federal spending generally to reverse that presumption. He wants to create a widespread false belief that it is the citizens with an obligation to government. And whatever prosperity they enjoy comes from government.
The constant deliberate monitoring and assault on what students may believe and whether they can think rationally is so constant throughout Obama’s K-12 and higher ed education “reforms” it sent me scurrying back to what the definition of property was when the Bill of Rights was written. http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/if-the-system-seeks-to-destroy-the-ability-to-think-can-james-madison-save-us/
Likewise, the insistence that the public schools can determine the desired values and insist that the concept of spirituality is their domain too as long as the JudeoChristian tradition gets to only participate makes a mockery of the First’s separation of Church and State. Yet that is a big part of what is meant by Education as Transformation.
The government wants “head, hearts, and hands” to be within its domain of control. If you had read, as I have, exactly what lies within the domain of intended human development and measured Student Growth, you would recognize the extent to which Obama and UNESCO elsewhere are taking us on a huge social engineering journey that cannot end well.
It’s just a matter of when and how.
You forgot to mention Libya. I still think that whole shameful episode will explode in Obama’s face. It certainly will make Hillary look bad, but there is no escaping that Obama STILL, to this day, does NOT want to comment on what HE was actually doing in the White House while the consulate was being attacked in Benghazi. And absolutely no mention has been made of what he and the national security council (as well as the Secretary of Defense and the Director of the CIA) did as the events were unfolding in Libya, not to mention their lack of action in the aftermath of the killing of the ambassador and the subsequent armed assault on the CIA annex at Benghazi. NOBODY is talking about any of this and this is one issue where I think the Republicans (especially in the Senate) have Obama. And you know why Obama and Clinton are as guilty as hell in this? Because both of them want it to so badly go away and be forgotten. THAT is when you know you have them.
I think everyone has underestimated our President. Did you see him hugging the children at the signing of the presidential directives of gun control. He certainly has won the hearts of all the mothers and fathers of this country by making our schools safe. I think he is aiming for a third term, and I wouldnt be surprised if he succeeds.
We don’t know what happenen at Newton. We had three days of contradicting media reports that included completelt fabricated stories. The police quickly released a suspect who ran into the woods, never identified or referred to by officials. We have yet to see a phto of the crime seen nor a video of the shooter evtering the front door. It looks like a hoax, mfant to pave the way for a confiscation of gun. Check it out for yourself.
Ogletree’s comment is crazy even for PJM, and that’s goin’ some.
While I’m not sure I agree with his position he has a point. We had surveillance footage of the Columbine shooters. SHE was also supposed to be up to date in terms of security systems where is the footage of Adam Lanza entering the school?
While I have no evidence to suggest it was a hoax or false-flag operation beyond conflicting media reports, and I do not at this time believe that to be the case, I do believe that this administration is perfectly capable of that sort of thing to further their agenda. Something like this would be ridiculously easy to pull off.
Good article.
It will be interesting to see what happens when millions of people drop their insurance policies because Obamacare has made them unaffordable and start paying that 8%, which at the rate premiums are increasing will be a LOT cheaper than actually having a policy. I imagine they will have to come up with some new scheme like they are with the gas tax: the gas tax isn’t bringing in enough money because people are driving less so they are looking to new gimmicks.
Of course Obama wants to take away guns, all dictators do.
Taxes and Debt? Neither can ever be high enough for government. Governments have routinely spent themselves to death going back well before the Romans. Our government could tax 100% of all income from everyone and still not manage to pay for much more than a month of operations.
Honesty? Seriously? We’re talking about politicians here and the US has some of the lowest quality politicians in the developed world.
Things are a mess abroad. Afghanistan could have been a victory but it was botched because of Vietnam Syndrome and the buildup for Iraq. Because of that screw up and the foolishness of nation building, we got stuck in a quagmire. Iraq was a mistake that never should have happened but, as Bush said: Saddam threatened my daddy (referring to an alleged assassination plot to kill Bush senior). The whole invasion plan was a mess sketched out on a napkin in the greasy spoon in DC. They went in light to “save money” and were unprepared to secure the country after the invasion. The first civilian authorities sent over to help the Iraqis were in far over their heads and at least one hid under his bed until he was sent home out of sight of the cameras in disgrace. We’ve since run our military into the ground with big ticket items like transport planes and vehicles falling apart. Our national prestige is shot and Islamists, China, Russia and others are getting bold because of it.
Lastly, the Confederate Constitution gave the President a single 6 year term. That sound like something we should adopt since it would limit to a degree the mischief they can get up to but also spare us the horrors of re-election campaigns. If they prove to be totally incompetent, there is always impeachment and nullification.
Well the answer to the Obamacare question is easy. Premiums will double, then double again, and so forth. The goal was never to truly fix the system, it was to wreck it so badly that even people who are against the idea of government run healthcare would be screaming for single payer just to make the pain stop. They insurance companies are there to serve as convenient whipping boys to blame all the obviously foreseeable problems on. Will the people be dumb enough to fall for it? So far I haven’t seen anything to suggest they won’t be, especially with lots of help from the media.
At this point in our history I want to encourage any actions that make Blue states bluer and Red states redder. So if Blue states want to raise taxes, implement green energy schemes, grant in-state tuition to illegals, and any other crazy, Leftist idea I say let them.
The faster we can cause the population to physically divide itself politically, the sooner we can divide the country literally into two separate countries. One for the Socialists and their parasitic voters, and the other for we Constitutionalists.
Red states need to be hostile territory for Liberals and liberal ideas.
We can’t allow any more Red states to turn like NC has been turned due to an invasion from Blue states.
My plan …
http://www.redstate.com/derkrieger/2012/11/26/the-war-is-lost-time-to-establish-a-red-state-redoubt/
What kind of a script could one create about Obama and his buds? Is it a story of “get even with Whitey?” Could it be “I am a muslim loving, Jew hating metrosexual?” Perhaps this: “Capitalism is wrong, neo-marxism is the only right way to go!” Don’t forget “America needs to learn some hard lessons and I’m the guy to teach such!” Or “it’s time the beta people run the show!”
A generation of narcissists won’t leave the stage until they play out their final act. It’s all about me, silly people!
Will Obama go down the path his dear ole daddy took, dying young, in trouble, dispirited over failure to meet inner expectations…another Hamlet story?
I don’t really care except for how much damage will be created and how hurt my family will be…and this is where the worm turns for me.
Obama and his buds are pure evil and history stands by my view in this, only it would appear such a view is an American minority perspective.
All cancers start as something really small, hidden from one’s reality till that moment when the brain communicates “something is really wrong here!”
I knew this years ago when first seeing and then hearing Obama-Mao! It wouldn’t surprise me if he does not finish his second term, not at all…hopefully.
What a mess these people have made…
Sorry but I think Nemesis drank the kool-aid in 2008. Maybe she’ll sober up during the next D(em/umb) administration. The media will install a female president causing a cat fight with Nemesis.
As tidbits trickle out about his 2d inauguration and its symbols (MLK/Lincoln bibles, the attempt to rise to Lincoln’s stature through mere speech, etc.), I am struck by Obama’s obsession with symbol over actual content. His entire presidency is treated merely as a platform to elevate the man into a godhead – an immortal. Does this monstrous jackass actually think his web of hollow overblown rhetoric and bullying demagoguery are the same as genuine leadership or historic greatness???
Obama appears more and more to be a dangerous and delusional psychopath. I don’t think he gives a damn if the ME falls to Muslim nazism or if America itself topples, as long as his endless self-promotion leveraged a claim of immortality and greatness.
Totalitarian regimes must have a superman in order to exist. That superman is the symbol of the party itself and its ideology. This symbol is important because totalitarianism appeals not to reason but to animalistic level emotions and desires. Facts, figures, essentially reality are anathema to totalitarianism which has to use empty words and the fewer the better (thus “move forward” became “forward”), mass gatherings and big shows and lots of emotional rhetoric, anything to kill rational thought and dissolve the individual into the mass.
So yes, they ARE trying to make Obama into a godhead just as they did with Clinton. Obama will be the superman of the totalitarian regime that is taking over the US. He will serve as the ultimate symbol and purveyor of free stuff that will draw the mindless and especially the envious to the party where they will be taught to hate the opposition.
This is nothing new. You can see it with Chavez, Castro, in Argentina, Russia, and many other places just as it happened in Germany, Italy and Russia more than 60 years ago.
If you like, try reading Hannah Arendt’s book “Totalitarianism: part 3 of the origins of Totalitarianism.” It details how such regimes rose in the 1930′s and it is very similar to what is happening today.
Of course he wants to emulate Lincoln, Lincoln wiped his arse with the Constitution and we hail him as one of our greats.
When the states signed the Constitution they entered a contractual agreement in which they VOLUNTARILY gave up aspects of their sovereignty. When the Southern States decided that they no longer wished to be a part of the Union Lincoln invaded and subjugated them using methods that today would have had him and many of his generals charged with war crimes, forcing them to involuntarily give up their sovereignty.
Lincoln didn’t do one unconstitutional thing. But the South did.
They got what was coming to them.
Obama will get his.
At what point did the Romans recognize their empire had fallen? It certainly wasn’t the day when a Gothic chieftain showed up in Ravenna and removed a boy king from the throne. AD 476 is historical shorthand for a process that took centuries. Except as a symbolic event the day was otherwise meaningless to the average Roman citizen (or what was left of them).
At what point will historians declare the American republic fallen? It’s difficult to say while you’re living through the event. Unlike an empire the maintenance of a republic depends on civic virtue. The culture corrupts first and the political institutions follow.
Barack Obama is not the cause; he is merely a symptom of societal decay. How else do we explain the election (and re-election!) of a semi-educated man, motivated by malice, with a pathological sense of his own importance? In the manner of the Caesars he’s even been deified by his minions. History repeats first as tragedy and then as farce. Indeed.
I’ve heard VDH say that Rome fell when the citizenry forgot what it meant to be Roman. Can we honestly say today that Americans remember what it means to be American? Leftism has infected the body politic and left it unable to reason. How is it that Paul Krugman, Maureen Dowd, and Chris Mathews have any public standing? In a healthy society they would be driven from the public square under a hail of sticks and stones.
Nemesis may someday feed on the bones of the pretender, Barack Hussein Obama, but we are the ones who will be left to deal with the wreckage. Students of history can remember the name of the last Roman emperor, but how many remember the two or three who came before him? I’m suggesting that our current president will fill the same niche in the annals of the American Republic. If we’re lucky.
Great post. Little more need be said than what you posted correctly about the state of affairs.
Just pondering here…
I awoke to the fear this morning, I may indeed be in the midst of a banana Republic, we’re already there and I only now noticed though most have not. Perhaps it is just me, but my worst fears appear to be quickly coming of age and we have not even made it to the inauguration yet. And what of my children? And how did this happen?
Is it really possible we’ve moved from a term of gross incompetence to the budding of tyranny in ten weeks?
Yes, I was disappointed on November 6th. I thought America better than that, smarter than that, the previous four years simply a reprieve from a nation tired of war in 2008, poorly informed and irrationally fearful of exactly why the market had tumbled. However, people didn’t even bother showing up last November.
And I was lying to myself as the Lewinsky scandal demonstrated. Why is a man of Bill Clinton’s nature, a clear weasel and proven liar so admired?
I have no doubt there is rampant voter fraud. But it shouldn’t have mattered in the outcome – the vote should not have even been close. I have no doubt most Americans too ignorant to understand what it means to be American.
But what to do about it? When do we move from identifying the problem which many of you have covered in full, to planning how defeat it?
I have one suggestion for anyone in the military, or affiliated with the military. Because the verdict and outcome, may I say the future road for America may come down to a simple proposition.
Do our fighting men and their machines believe Barack Obama’s ideals are America’s best interests and original intent? Or is it that mom and dad are correctly interpreting the intent of our Founders?
The continuity:
Arrogance
Incompetence
Deceit
For those who care, the Travis letter “to the People of Texas & All Americans in the World” from the Alamo is going home to the Alamo for the fist time since it was written. On display from February 23, to March 7, 2013. (about 250,000 are expected, so plan accordingly).
There is much topos here and across the board concerning the totalitarian state whose birth we are seeing being created before our very eyes. I think the Travis letter is a rallying cry for those seeking absolution for what is obviously becoming a necessity to stop the tyrannical revolution being waged against us.
“To the People of Texas & All Americans in the World:
Fellow citizens & compatriots—I am besieged, by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna—I have sustained a continual Bombardment & cannonade for 24 hours & have not lost a man.
The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion, otherwise, the garrison are to be put to the sword, if the fort is taken—I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, & our flag still waves proudly from the walls. I shall never surrender or retreat.
Then, I call on you in the name of Liberty, of patriotism & everything dear to the American character, to come to our aid, with all dispatch—The enemy is receiving reinforcements daily & will no doubt increase to three or four thousand in four or five days.
If this call is neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible & die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor & that of his country—Victory or Death.
William Barret Travis
Lt. Col. comdt
P.S. The Lord is on our side—When the enemy appeared in sight we had not three bushels of corn—We have since found in deserted houses 80 or 90 bushels & got into the walls 20 or 30 head of Beeves.
Travis”
Here’s what is really important in our American world: Elton and his husband/wife have announced the arrival of another child via surrogate. It’s important to know that Jodi Forster is gay…Jessica says she is not married due to getting knocked up by her man. Kim and Kanye don’t care if she is still married. Eva had her gown drop lower than she wished…or did she?
Then again, there’s really great news: Lance has been dethroned and now comes up for some reality air…even though he never failed any doping tests as others charged with being on the cutting edge of spotting “doping” failed to catch him. Reminds me of Smokey Yunick storing a little extra gas in the roll bar of his Nascar race vehicle…who cares if it is a game and rules exist…
Let’s tear down all totems of our society…begin with the Pope…oh, that has already been going on for years…
John Kerry is a coward, Chuck Hagel may have picked “point” knowing that ambushes often wait till the middle group comes into the kill zone before going into action…
Let’s all get scattered on this American battlefield and see what happens. Where’s Roy Rogers when you need him? I miss Michelle’s James Brown hairdo…
Even Colon Powell has black angst every now and then. Charo…take us out!
Smokey…and Curtis : http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1080891/1/index.htm
GRUP,
Thanks for the article, a great read to say the least! Reminds me when I used to watch ole Earnhardt race at Bowman Gray in Winston during the early sixties!
Ever wonder the depths of acquired knowledge Hanson’s readers bring to the table?
And the Protocols engine drones on,
the rumbling being lost in the chaotic noise of the world,
President Obama is not interested in his touted programs. He is interested in causing a crisis in whatever way he can. If through the crushing debt, fine! If through the emasculation of the military, fine! If through the rise of the “You owe me” class, also fine. It does not matter. All this condemnation I read here is a waste of time and effort, no matter how erudite, no matter how accurate, no matter how beautifully phrased. No one is willing to confront him. Why? Because they will be blamed for causing the crisis that he is endeavoring to create. Our leaders support their families through the government, so they naturally lack courage. Our leaders are no different than welfare recipients only on a grander scale.
I am beginning to believe that Americans are dumb, including those who post to this site. It is just a useless exercise to explain, criticize, demand action, condemn, or cry.
West Coast farmers, like VHD, should prepare their passports and store money overseas. No place is like America, but Australia, Canada, and New Zealand would seem somewhat familiar to us. Denmark, Israel and Switzerland speak different languages, but some people may be able to adapt to their distinctive ways, if they will let usin. The daring might wish to consider The Czech Republic. Another possibility is to move a few million of us to another country and simply Americanize it. South Africa is a real possibility if American immigration is large enough. It still has a functioning middle class.
At some point we may be able to return to our beloved land, but not until those remaining here can agree to a philosophy that sees large government as a danger to itself and others. Large government, large banks, large corporations are all accidents waiting to happen – and they will. These disasters will happen on their own without Mr. Obama. With him we may shorten the timeline to a disaster to within the next four years. Disaster will not come as a Black Swan. We can see it coming, if we just raise our eyes from our navels.
Do something for your families NOW!
“James Madison did not write that amendment just as a protection for hunters or to ensure home defense, but rather as a warning to an all-powerful federal government not to abuse its mandate, given that the citizenry would be armed and enjoy some parity in weaponry with federal authorities. That is why a militia is expressly mentioned….”
Sorry prof, but this was settled by the Civil War. And the position of the militia – i.e., the National Guard – was further settled in the 1950s when Ike nationalized the Arkansas Guard.
There’s a law against advocating the violent overthrow of the government. It was one of J. Edgar Hoover’s favorite.
And as for Obamacare (aka Romneycare)…
When Romney was pushing for it Massachusetts, he referred to those who didn’t buy insurance but depended on free emergency room services as “free riders.” True then, true now.
The analogy with car insurance is bogus, unless I’m unaware of a vehicle emergency room that will repair a car for free.
Sorry, but your dubuious assertions about what was settled and when have no bearing on what the Founders intended with the Second Amendment.
Furthermore, using Romney to prop up Obamacare is weak tea indeed.
And Obamacare’s pre-existing conditions clause is exactly like allowing people to obtain car insurance only when they have an accident. Whether or not anyone offers free garage repairs is beside the point – people dumb enough to carry car insurance all the time will be forced to pony up for “free riders” (I call them deadbeats, aka Obama & the Dem Party’s natural constituency) who routinely show up for repairs without insurance.
In other words, health care premiums, like energy costs, will “necessarily skyrocket” under Obama.
One other note: if you’re going to condescendingly dismiss someone’s argument, don’t do it by ignoring their point, misconstruing it, or presenting non-relevant “facts” that aren’t really facts. Maybe you should try using strawman tactics like your leader, Obama. Please note I didn’t say “our leader.” That was intentional.
Pay no heed to the useful idiot HillelA, a simple-minded and clearly weak propagandist for the Obama enablers. The kind of lame individual not coordinated enough for the goose step but errand boy for the cause.
What a feast os asininity DRay has provided!
While believing he’s refuting Obamacare, he’s actually supporting it:
‘…people dumb enough to carry car insurance all the time will be forced to pony up for “free riders” (I call them deadbeats….’
This is exactly Obama’s (and Romney’s) point: When ALL people are compelled to buy insurance and when insurance companies are compelled to provide it, there will be no deadbeats, as DRay refers to them.
The rest of DRay’s post, like Tex’s, is just wingnut blather and not worth responding to.
HillelA,
There is nothing ‘wingnut’ about simply pointing out you’re clearly an Obama sycophant and lackey, inept and inane, having little concept of the historical and zero concept of result, choosing to ignore the present and undeniable failure that is your philosophy, which is your Dear Leader.
This denial places you out of your element here as much as Obama the Witchdoctor is out of his element speaking about the practice of medicine.
I should have added, for those who need things underscored, that the “deadbeat” situation DRay describes and which I quoted is precisely the situation that prevails today before Obamacare kicks in.
And Tex just keeps on babbling.
“Babbling” on noise like this, lackey – as the bell tolls:
History would record you HillelA as coward and fool, but you’re too irrelevant to matter. Better you to be dust in the wind.
Actually, compelling people to buy health insurance (which the law doesn’t do – it forces you to pay a “penalty” or a “tax”, whatever – in lieu of insurance) and compelling insurers to provide coverage for everyone, especially regardless of pre-existing conditions, drives up costs for health care, insurers, and ultimately the American citizen…which is exactly what is happening. And it will get worse.
Hell, Obamacare is so stupidly put together, the penalty for not having insurance is too low to compel people to buy insurance. I can tell you I’m already planning to drop coverage next year.
Of course, you could attempt to contain costs by rationing. That’s on the way, too. Hello, death panels – and hello, long waits for doctor appointments. That happened in MA too, BTW.
One *more* note – accusing other people of posting blather that isn’t worth responding to usually means you’re not capable of mounting a counter-argument because the other person is right and you’re wrong.
Don’t feel bad – it must be tough work being a Democrat sycophant and defending the indefensible.
“not worth responding to”. . . . and yet, you responded.I wonder, troll, whose pyroll you are on, and what will you do when the money dries up? maybe John Boner could use a speechwriter. . .
“When ALL people are compelled to buy insurance” then I and millions like me who do not go crying to a doctor for trivia, or have living wills so that they cannot be “sustained” to a last pathetic breath, will be forced to pay for the millions who do, or who just can’t let mama die because they have not resolved issues from their childhood.
What the f**k kind of justice is that?
Except that Obamacare doesn’t actually make most of the deadbeats actually pay any more. Most of the people who don’t pay for what they use now will get such massive subsidies from the government that it effectively just shifts the burden to taxpayers. People who are too wealthy for subsidies now still had to pay before, hospitals do go after collections you know, Emergency room service was never free its just that people without assets didn’t pay, if you had money you had to deal with the bill. Obamacare makes insurance wildly more expensive as we’ve seen with premiums in the last couple years, forces people to pay for a bunch of crap in their insurance packages they neither want nor need, and encourages companies to stop providing policies. The fact that you can buy insurance after the fact, coupled with the rapidly rising premiums, is going to encourage people to just pay the mandate fine and sign up the moment they need it, thus sheltering them from both the outrageous premium cost and the collections agency. Hell, as a healthy young male who probably uses less than $100 in a given year I may do exactly that if I find myself in the private market. And why not? I don’t feel guilty for not buying a policy designed to subsidize Sandra Fluke’s birth control. There will be a cohort who don’t use healthcare regularly who now will just pay the fine, then sign up if they need it, for a lower net cost. They won’t have to risk going bankrupt like they did before. Then there will be a cohort who were limited to what they could extract from ER services (then turned out ASAP) now who will get full access to their diabetes and AIDS treatment paid for by the taxpayer for whom this is a great deal. In short it means very expensive premiums that ultimately price them out of the range of most Americans, but then that was the point wasn’t it? Just collapse the system so badly that people who were against government healthcare will be screaming for single payer just to make the pain stop.
Your jab against Romney was well founded though. I was furious when the Republicans nominated the grandfather of Obamacare. Mass premiums skyrocketed and stayed above the national average after Romneycare, so they decided to apply that brilliant model to the rest of the country.
“Settled” by force of arms ?? So Gaza and W B were “settled” in ’73 and no further discussion is allowed ? Remember Checkpoint Charlie ?
IIRC, the Second Amendment as first drafted had the militia clause placed in second position. Would be interesting to see the minutes of the debate when that order was reversed.
The actual ignition point of 1775 was the attempted confiscation of infantry type weapons and supplies. It should be noted that the first responders to the Redcoats were a minister ( who was hiding a couple of Patriot leaders ) and the nearby members of his congregation. Further, in several critical battles, it may be the case that the local forces had better weapons than the British, enabling victories even when the regular Continental units were at best a poor equipment match to the Redcoats.
Yes, Ike, a Republication President did even more than N G action. And Republicans passed the CRA 64 over the stonewall opposition of the Democrat Solid South.
The current enabling legislation on N G is just that, legislation, and could be changed by Congress. The Second Amendment, however, can only be changed through the full Amendment process.
It would behoove those who value First Amendment rights to strongly defend Second Amendment rights. GBUSA
@HillelA The only pertinent question is, “Do we need to protect ourselves from the government?” Do we wish place our trust in goodness and benevolence of those who sit in Washington? Shall we collapse when ordered to do so?
1) Suppose the government policy is to inflate the dollar to pay off the debt. In order to be fair, the government must now collect all the gold purchased by individuals to avoid the consequences of such an action. They may come door to door ransacking your house to find your hidden coins or jewelry.
2) Suppose the government policy is to tax IRA distributions in excess of your marginal tax rate. Though that was not part of contract under which we saved our pennies, that’s OK, right?
3) The government has already impoverished the foolish Americans who saved their money in an FDIC insured institutions, since they now receive no interest for storing their money there, because the government has made it unnecessary for the banks to pay any individual saver a penny.
4) The government “death squads” under Obamacare are not quite so dramatic as portrayed, until you or a loved one will face death by medical care starvation. Death isn’t dramatic unless you make a fuss about it.
I can go on about vicious government overrunning individuals who did not expect that kind of behavior from their elected officials, because individuals were supposed to be protected from just such predations of the more powerful collective entity. Do not accept that government is your friend to whom you owe fealty. Government was supposed to be the servant of the people. We are allowing ourselves to be royally screwed – or should I say, “Screwed by royalty”.
Thanks for this thought-provoking essay. I have been seeking to understand our situation for several years and as a result have read just about every economics book since Adam Smith, followed by economic histories of different countries. However, when I explored the depths of the USSR, I discovered Gaidar’s books on Russian history. “Russia: A Long View” provides not only insight into their history, but ours as well. One example: Serfs were part of the agrarian age, and serfs in Russia had no more rights than slaves in the Americas. It was a thousands-of-years-long model that ended with the industrial age. Looking at the US in the 19th Century, you see an industrial age north and an agrarian age southeast. The conflicts were many, culminating in the war that killed more Americans than all other wars combined. Gaidar’s gift is that he has no political slant, just objective facts.
My search to understand Latin American economic history led to several recent books, including Enrique Krauze’s “The Redeemers”. I found what I had suspected, and facts were also backed by Colombia’s president’s book on fighting the marxist guerillas. The Soviets funded communism there and here as well. The seat of this was the universities. It fed off the Latin American fear of the US after T. Roosevelt’s Spanish American War in which the US grabbed territories from Spain. We still have them, including part of Cuba. What “The Redeemers” reveals is that many people in the world view the US as like the Roman Empire. We see this mindset in Hollywood, the radical left in universities and the president.
It has caused me to reflect on what happened to us that eroded the charter laid down by the Constitution. When Ron Paul spoke up on this in favor of the constitution, everyone villified him. However, the more I study the more respect I have for his vision. Now we police the entire world, expecting to change cultures? We have gradually morphed from a free republic into a statist central government where elites rule, dominated by about 5 blue states due to population.
Gaidar’s “The Collapse of an Empire” details the end of the USSR and the effects of the end on its former states. It was chaotic because there was no rule of law or property rights. However, 21 years later, former states are now continuing to move toward free markets. When the US finally succumbs to its central planning by elites, either through destruction of the currency or bankruptcy, states will do fine without Washington. Treaties work fine in defense, based on the history of NATO…(Look at a map and see that our states compare in population and geographical size with European countries.)
Here is an article entitled Barack Obama: Conceited in Chief. It fits right in with VDH’s analysis and deals with, among other things, President Obama’s pretensions to know better than Israeli PM Netanyahu (and hence than the Israelis who will probably once again make him their PM) what’s good for Israel.
The Stateless Equilibrium Mises Daily: Thursday, January 17, 2013 by Predrag Rajsic
https://mises.org/daily/6339/The-Stateless-Equilibrium
You place way too much faith in the media to push any stories….or for the millions of Obamaramanites to actually care. At this point, you could run a story of how he likes to drink puppy blood for breakfast every day, and those drones would say “well, look at how much he loves puppies”…..and then three days later, he could come out at say “I never did that”…..and then his drones would turn on everyone who remembers him drinking puppy and say we’re making it up. It’s already happening, and I have to listen to it all the time.
Data not accounted for in your thesis: A complicit opposition party not interested in pursuing truth or justice. If I read “Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” correctly, this problem helped a Hitler to metastasise in German politics.
We are living in a Cainite Moronocracy. Obama has said often he wants to be his “brothers’ and sisters’ keeper” echoing the words of the first murderer, Cain. Obama is succeeding in that goal. The book “Outing the Moronocracy: Ending the Rule of the Blind, the Stupid, and the Disgraceful in American Society” identifies the six pillars of today’s ruling Cainite Moronocracy. I recommend it.
There is always Pride before the fall . the fall is coming !
History, like her sister Mother Nature, is a BITCH.
And a mean one at that.
Semi-OT warning to all Hansonites:
GATES OF VIENNA IS DOWN. Recover any bits of it you can from the Wayback machine now, before blogspot decides to get rid of those too.
Post that killed them is here.
Holy crap! I like to think I play a mean game of Spot the Hissy Fit Trigger, and this one stumped me. Unless it’s the mention of, among other victims of genocide, a (non-European) white-skinned people.
Either, that, or a statement in one of the footnotes:
“You cannot and should not atone for the murder of six million Jews by self-kneecapping through the import of 25 million profoundly alien Muslims three generations later.”
Maybe not a stretch to the easily offended PC mind, but a stretch …
It’s not really a surprise that Obama continues to stoke hatred and division, at during times of grave importance…
http://obamaprincetonthesis.wordpress.com/
After reading snippets of his wife’s thesis, I can’t help but imagine what asinine statements Nerobama must have written when he was unscripted and unfiltered. Perhaps part of his fall will be the unsealing of his records. I’m sure there are a host of friendly statements towards all races in there.
He’s already designated the scapegoats. History repeats itself.
FeralCat wrote: ” He is not so much coming after our guns as he is coming after us.”
That’s the best and most accurate assessment of BHO I EVER heard! BRAVO!
“(e.g., Republicans maintained control of the House and the majority of state governorships and legislatures; Obama, unlike most second-term presidents, received fewer votes than in 2008, fewer in fact then John McCain received)”
2008
Obama – 69,498,516 52.9%
McCain – 59,948,323 45.7%
2012
Obama – 65,899,660 51.0%
Romney – 60,929,152 47.2%
So according to Wikipedia, which we all know is never wrong especially on political issues, in 2012, Obama did receive less votes than in 2008 but still more than McCain
I’m not so sure. The US has huge energy reserves, and when push comes to shove, even the committed Modern Liberal will not want to surrender their cherished lifestyle. Their maintenance of their lifestyle trumps all.
Their position and money will be nothing without motive power. And couple of raids from the LA low lands on Beverly Hills will quickly bring them around.
I’m tempted to look forward to the day the police have access to their less legally protected Betty Ford treatment records. By the way, where are the president’s protected health information records?
It’s vital to know who your opponent or enemy is.
After four years, MAYBE people will begin to fathom how deep Obama’s wallowing in ideological excrement is. Consider the following take on Hitler’s Table Talks, with my words in parenthesis—
“The ‘magic spell’ that Hitler (Obama?) cast over his listeners has been acknowledged many times. This fascination—‘the strange magnetism that radiated from Hitler in such a compelling manner’—rested indeed ‘on the fanatical belief of this man in himself’, on his pseudo-authoritative judgments about everything under the sun, and the fact that his opinions—whether they dealt with the harmful effects of smoking or with Napoleon’s policies—could always be fitted into an all-encompassing ideology.
Fascination is a social phenomenon, and the fascination Hitler exercised over his environment must be understood in terms of the particular company he kept (Which is why we need to note WHO Obama is now choosing for his high powered minion, like Kerry, Hagel, et al). Society is always prone to accept a person offhand for what he pretends to be, so that a crackpot posing as a genius always has a certain chance to be believed (Hence, the 2008 and 2012 election of The One). In modern society, with its characteristic lack of discerning judgment, this tendency is strengthened, so that someone who not only holds opinions but presents them in a tone of unshakable conviction (Then there’s even a Rush Limbaugh) will not so easily forfeit his prestige, no matter how m any times he has been demonstrably wrong (When has Obama EVER been right?). Hitler, who knew the modern chaos of opinions from first-hand experience, discovered that the helpless seesawing between various opinions and ‘the conviction … that everything is balderdash’ could best be avoided by adhering to ONE of the many current opinions with ‘unbending consistency’. The hair-raising arbitrariness (With Obama, though, there is NO arbitrariness—he’s a true blue socialist, at least) of such fanaticism (But, BHO IS a fanatic!) holds great fascination for society because for the duration of the social gathering it is freed from the chaos of opinions that it constantly generates. This ‘gift’ of fascination, however, has only social relevance; it is so prominent in the Table Talks because here Hitler plays the game of society and was not speaking to his own kind but to the generals of the Wehrmacht, all of whom more or less belonged to ‘society’. To believe that Hitler’s successes were based on his ‘powers of fascination’ is altogether erroneous; with those qualities alone he would never have advanced beyond the role of a prominent figure in the salons (Just so with Obama—his successes were surely aided by his “fascination”, but IMHO they are actually due to the “totalitarianism” of the MSM) .” Page 305, “The Origin of Totalitarianism”, Hannah Arendt 1951
That’s from “The Origins of Totalitarianism”, not the “Origin”.
Please sign my petition to return federal lands to the states!!!
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/return-federal-lands-states/lGGcYkS6
Not only is Obama “doomed” to a second term comeuppance, as you note all the ways—domestic and foreign—he has “made his bed”, but we must begin to recognize the “elephant in the (world) room”, the putative religion of Islam.
Herewith some prescient words, with my comments inside parenthesis—
“The great danger arising from the existence of people (Moslems) forced to live outside the common world is that they are thrown back, in the midst of civilization, on their mere differentiation. They lack that tremendous equalizing of differences which comes from being citizens of some commonwealth and yet, since they are no longer allowed to participate in the human artifice, they begin to belong to the human race in much the same way as animals belong to a specific animal species. The paradox involved in the loss of human rights (especially for Moslem women and gays) is that such loss coincides with the instant when a person becomes a human being in general—without a profession, without a citizenship, without an opinion, without a deed by which to identify and specify himself—AND different in general, representing nothing but his own absolutely unique individuality which, deprived of expression within and action upon a common world, loses all significance (except for Moslems who glory in jihad suicide).”
The danger in the existence of such people is twofold: first and more obviously, their ever-increasing numbers (see Mark Steyn re the Moslem high birth rate) threaten our political life, and human artifice, the world which is the result of our common and co-ordinated effort in much the same, even more terrifying, way as the wild elements of nature once threatened the existence of man-made cities and coutrysides. Deadly danger to any civilization is no longer likely to come from without. Nature has been mastered and no barbarians threaten to destroy what they cannot understand, as the Mongolians threatened Europe for centuries. Even the emergence of totalitarian governments is a phenomenon within, not outside, our civilization. The danger is that a global, universally interrelated civilization (The caliphate) may produce barbarians from its own midst by forcing millions of people into conditions which, despite all appearances, are the conditions of savages (Consider the average life of a Moslem—what a low tech life).” Page 302 “The Origins of Totalitarianism” by Hannah Arendt, 1951, revised 1966
While HillelA may or may not overstate the case when he writes: “Sorry prof, but this was settled by the Civil War. And the position of the militia – i.e., the National Guard – was further settled in the 1950s when Ike nationalized the Arkansas Guard.
There’s a law against advocating the violent overthrow of the government. It was one of J. Edgar Hoover’s favorite.”
He does make the point that armed citizen insurrection will be dealt with as a crime and sometimes by the militias which the Feds will nationalize…or send to Afghanistan. One of the major reasons the Constitution was deemed necessary was because of the armed insurrection of Shay’s Rebellion and the perceived weakness of the Articles of Confederation to be able to deal with it. The fact that the Bill of Rights was added a year later only somewhat qualified the impetus of the move to defeat armed insurrections. So what do you have? A compromise.
So many of the posters here can’t accept VDH’s common sense assertion that a second term President runs into troubles and the cycles of politics play on. What we have are hard-headed beleeevers, who go nuts because they lost an election. Yes, they would have many of the same concerns with Romney, but they wouldn’t be driven over the edge by a election LOSS. Losses hurt so much at the fact that Romney got almost half the vote no longer seems to matter any more. The whole Republic is lost. So, they are quite ready to throw out (or so it sounds) the democratic electoral process because it is not going their way. As usual, it becomes clear that a certain personality type is at play here. People who refuse to accept that politics is a “you win some, you lose some” process which makes government possible. They also speak with continual melodrama, because they need to show us that they have an even worse scenario in their fevered brains than the next.
At any rate, if buying guns and ammo serves as good therapy, God bless you. Spend your money during this current gun bubble on more and more firearms, but the ease with which the NRA and far loonier types let the phrases “protection against an over-reaching central government” fill their literature and their speech when it comes to the Second Amendment, takes a half truth and tries to turn it into an ABSOLUTE truth, but then, the type of person described above thinks that way and the internet magnifies the tendency.
But it couldn’t be our fevered brains think $1,200,000,000,000 per year in additional debt + interest accrued is bad physics, or Obamacare the biggest overreach destroying health care, or duplicitous twits like you a part of the problem, or…. OH wait, that was the common sense of assertion of VDH as opposed to Dwight’s omniscience.
Clearly another Obama lackey, masquerading.
I think that the huge debt is bad policy. I voted for Romney, but I am not going crazy because an election was lost. I do recall the kind of debt and inflation/stagflation that we had after Vietnam, but eventually the Republic righted itself after a couple devaluations (gasp) of the dollar under Nixon. One could expect that something similar will eventually happen again. One deals with it WITHIN the democratic electoral process, not with Bill Ayers types of rants and mutterings.
Guys like you remind me of my local, leftist rag in the reddest of red states. Once every four years, they predictably roll out the Republican endorsement. If the Republican wins, they spend the next four years tearing him down. If the Democrat wins like Obama, they can find no fault. But they will predictably endorse the Republican every go around. Got watch those circulation numbers.
Buddy, if you think 1968 or 1972 was the economic equivalent of 2013, it’s no wonder you got the warm fizzies about Obama.
If you had said 1980, I might have given you the nod minus about $15,000,000,000,000 of debt, one is six drawing food stamps, and declining middle class wages of 8.2% over the past four years. Throw in the lowest labor force participation rates on record for grins.
But this time, we voted for another round of Jimmy Carter – best case scenario. I guess that escaped you too, hey?
Come on now, take it easy on D-White. He’s simply trying to maintain his life style in the most “rational” way he can.
“Life’s just much too hard today”, I hear every mother say
The pursuit of happiness just seems a bore
And if you take more of those, you will get an overdose ($17 trillion)
No more running for the shelter of a mother’s little helper
They just helped you on your way, through your busy dying day, hey!
Hey! 9th and 10th amendments! Why?
Dwight,
I haven’t seen many folks who are stunned and dismayed that Romney lost.
People are stunned and dismayed that Obama _won_.
The consequences are significant. Pretend if you like that there is little real difference. Many believe otherwise.
I pray that the day of reckoning is such that it sours Americans on what the democrat party has become…CPUSA. In fact, Webb, the CPUSA president, stated publicly that Obama is implementing every facet of their manifesto, so there is no longer any need to run a serious candidate in opposition. Try to tell this to friends though, and I get screamed at. “THERE ARE NO COMMUNISTS HERE!” This is no exaggeration.
But, as I was saying, I do pray the actions of this president and all his lackeys finally awakens America to the true intent of their policies. I pray that it is soon. I pray that it is such an awakening that the left will not be able to successfully put it down, or fraudulently win again in 2014, 2106, and on.
Buy a gun to protect yourself during the collapse and the resulting chaos. You will need to defend your property, life and limb against the maurading hordes. And its obvious that Boehner and the boys (plus a few girls) will not stop the spending binge. So they play the game of we’ll pretend that we are going to stop the spending (next time, next crisis)but in reality, the parties are just two faces of the same coin. Both corrupt, both liars and thieves. Both can’t be trusted.
More likely math will intrude before history. Propably George Soros will trigger it by causing a currency stampede. Most likely he was behind the 2008 collapse. He and his merry little band of Marxists plan to usher in their new world order and by looking at the way the gov’ment is behaving, a currency collapse is the ticket. Then Barack can use all those shiny hollow points and fill up those FEMA camps.
Get ready and keep the lamp of freedom burning in your heart. And don’t forget God, because you’re going to need him, really bad.
Who is more culpable, the destroyer or the dupes who put him there?
I’ve been saying a variant of that a lot lately:
If you get bitten by a snake, whom do you blame? The snake, or the person who put him in your boot?
“led to Reagan, whose small government-paradigm shift nonetheless by 1992 gave us Clinton”
I respect and adminre you Victor, and I so seldom disagree with anything you write – However I Absolutly disagree with the above.
“READ MY LIPS” and the subsequent reniging on that led to Clinton in 1992.
I firmly beleive had Bush the 1st stood his ground he would have been Re-Elected in 1992.
And I firmly believe that if ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we would all have had a Merry Christmas.
I did not get involved in the housing bubble of the last decade; I scrupulously avoided all the riches that seemed to be accruing to everyone who dove in head first. I knew that it was wrong-headed and it would eventually collapse in a heap. Lots of other people thought so, too. But one year lead into another without any sign of problems – I began to wonder if I was wrong. Even no less than Ben Bernanke said so. But I stayed out.
And then one day, almost without notice… CRASH! Sure, there were signs of a break that were obvious in retrospect and those who were crafty enough to recognize them profited handsomely. Even so, most of them surely had some jittery moments as the circus continued for a while after they had bet against it. I didn’t know when or how, I just knew that it would happen. I was glad to have profitted by not getting creamed like so many others.
My point is that I believe VDH is correct – we may not think it is possible, we don’t know when or how, but the reckoning is likely to occur. There are too many messes festering in too many venues for it not to. It will probably come as a surprise to most of us but it will be obvious in hindsight. Just hope we can stand far enough aside when the crash comes so we don’t get creamed.
Another good article Dr. Hanson. The bottom line is that obama is a duplicitous liar. No surprise there for people who have been paying attention. But that is perfectly acceptable to the true believers, the useful idiots, anti-Americans, and the BAMN crowd.
No one is worthy of his company. Surely (hopefully) this will lead to his demise?
I am always amazed by what the American people are supposed to buy into,as well what they do buy into. Case in point: When Bill Clinton raised taxes almost everyone said it was a good thing, When Geoge W. Bush lowered taxes,we were told it was a bad thing. When Obama continued those tax cuts,we were told its a good thing. When the Republican congress resisted tax increases ,we were told it’s a bad thing. Now comes Obama with higher taxes on those who are high achievers,when in reality he is raising taxes on everyone through Obamacare and it is supposed to be a good thing. Now he wants to leave so called assault weapons ONLY
in the hands of criminals(who could care less about laws) and law enforcement.
What happened to logical thinking in this country????????
I generally agree with you Dr. Hanson but in this instance I do not. Obama is untouchable and the press will maintain that untouchability at any cost and at least half this country’s voters will go right along with it. They have a vested financial interest in his transfers of wealth or at least the appearance of such. We have passed a moral line in the sand and too many have no hope of their lives being any better. The only future they see for themselves is one of living on government handouts and numbing their lives with drugs or alcohol. In fact, don’t be surprised if a constitutional amendment comes very near passing that will allow him to have a third term.
The only thing I see that will change the political climate in this country is if things get so bad people start suffering very real hardship like being hungry or cold and the government can no longer borrow enough to pay the bill. Then there will be chaos and that may cause the end of our democracy as we know it.
I agree with your prediction. Poor America………..
So what if Obama will make a complete mess of his second term. Unless it is perceived as that by the voters it won’t make a bit of difference. The press certainly won’t tell them. Unless enough feel real pain, and know that it is due to Obama nothing will change. Image dominates over substance unless there is pain.
Remember pictures of Argentines mobbing grocery stores because they were hungry even though Argentina is one of the richest countries in the world. I wonder if that is America’s fate. And if it is who do you think people will vote for, someone who promises an improved economy or someone who promises everything now?
Perhaps I’m too influenced by the mentality that dominates South East Michigan, but it seems to me that reason, rationality, facts, contradictions, lies, ignorance, economic illitarcy, the lack of curiousity (that was unfairly tarnished George W. Bush who actually reads book) have no consequences for this president or its administration. He can simply do or say whateve he wants and not only the media but the world yawns or fawns. That isn’t to say that there won’t be a backlash, but it will come from the unseen or banished-from-view quarters in America. Even here in SE Michigan that has been a bi-partisan disgust for years that the various establishments refuse to acknowledge. What will this backlash look like? I’m not sure, but I can’t imagine it will be pleasant. The country is broken in two. As is the Church for that minority of Catholics who are paying attention. The two aren’t unrelated. But as for accountability or personal consequences for this president? Nah.
To this excellent discussion of Obama’s weaknesses going into his second Administration, I would add climate change and the US energy policy. Currently our nation has adopted a two pronged policy: either suicide, or bankruptcy. The only prime fuels that can sustain our economy are uranium and carbon. Both usages have been persecuted for decades. The people who are highly skilled in using them are getting old, or are dead. Our nation is not producing energy engineers for one good reason.
All of the current green careers rely on massive subsidies, and the day they end, careers will end. There are no real jobs and these people are smart. Why spend decades learning to design a power plant that has not been approved for forty years?
Obama, and we, face an unsolvable dilemma. If carbon is really bad, our nation, and maybe man kind can not survive. If it is not bad, we should fire many people in the EPA, their subsidized buddies in academia, then dig, drill and burn (and creat millions of jobs). America has run out of time; we must decide.
The outcome of this dilemma will destroy nations. The question is which ones, or all of them.
Add it to the list.
Its me. Screwed up again. Busy day.
I think it’s suicide by bankruptcy, not “or”.
Maybe.
What I fear is a collapse of the grid, or a big portion of it, for years. It will cause utter devastation in our industry. And without a robust industry, over time, our military superiority will corrode. What happens to the world when we have the second best military on earth? Whatever it is, bankruptcy will not be our major concern.
My point: America’s energy policy is suicidal. We can be conquered.
What many people did not listen to was Obama wanted to fundamentally change America. Well that’s exactly what he’s doing. The media and Hollywood have played a huge part. We all need to step up and bring back honesty and integrity to this once great country.
I felt a chill travel down my spine when I heard obama utter those words…what arrogance, what hubris. That statement told me all I needed to know about him. That being said, I am not so sure that we can recover our country. I would point to the progressives’ total control of the media propaganda machine, to our dumbed down electorate, and to the result of the last two Presidential elections (although I do not discount the effects of massive voter fraud and of many conservatives staying home. I hope I am wrong.
Friendly amendment: “LBJ’s landside led to Nixon four years later, whose landslide then led to Carter in 1980…” That should be “Carter in 1976.”
“And Obama will have his as well, obsequious media or not.”
I’m not sure I agree anymore. I believe we may have come across the first nemesis-proof man in history.
The connection to the horrific shootings to our drug obsessed culture has yet to be made. Some of these young people are being given psychotropic drugs just because they don’t quite fit into the mold we wish to cast them in. Who knows what the side effects are to some of these drugs. We take drugs for everything now. A manifestation of our therapeutic culture that wishes to deny that along with the good we must suffer a little here and there in order to grow as human beings and citizens of a free society. Not everyone is created equal but there is always a right place for everyone who wishes to add to society.
Fooling around with the Second Amendment isn’t going to accomplish anything. In reality the Diane Feinstein’s are uncomfortable with the world they have created. Do they think disarming the unwashed masses will make Pacific Heights safer? And East Oakland? Even Jerry Brown knows better. Our kids need a future not drugs and EBT cards. Give that wiggly young boy a hammer, a saddle or tractor not a dark basement, ghoulish video games and Ritalin. WTF is the matter with this society?
So very true.
Wherefore the 2nd Amendment? Chew on this:
http://truth-out.org/news/item/13890-the-second-amendment-was-ratified-to-preserve-slavery
Ouch!! But it did pass and it is the law.
The most interesting aspect of Obama’s reelection is that this is the first time since Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe that we have had three consecutive two-term presidents. The first group of three were of significantly greater calibre than the recent set.
Like most conservative boards, the consensus is that America’s world is coming to an end. To me, that means the opposite is true, as it has proved to be during my long past. We are resilient, and we will prevail; the pendulum that always goes too far to the Left or Right will turn back. Obama has tried to make his foolish policies painless to those whose votes he bought. It will take pain for the fools that believe him, and willfully cover their eyes, to finally admit that life has gotten worse for them. When the wife or kids get their hours cut, their medical insurance and taxes raised, jobs lost and seniority diminished by fewer opportunities, their cities trashed and unsafe, and the schools dangerous and almost worthless, it will dawn on them. One by one, they will come to realize that the “free lunch” is too expensive. The Repubs better get out of the firing line for Obama plans to blame them, They better have a good defense ready and their heads down. Romney will feel lucky he lost, believe me.
As VDH said, the second term is no picnic and Obama has planted a minefield without a map that he must navigate. Once it become popular to deride him, the MSM will join in the crucifixion, and he may very well become “ill” and try to escape. Biden, god help us, may be experienced enough to ask for Repub help.
Do not give in to despair, and don’t respond to the discouraged cries for violence; there is no telling where a revolution will go. The community organizer-types are most adept at taking power in the tyranny that usually follows revolutions. Perhaps, VDH will remind us of that terrible history.
Regards,
Yep.
The Progtards like to force us to think a specific way, THEIR WAY for us I mean: That the “pendulum” swings left and right. However…
I may be wrong but Mark Levin says Liberty is like the top of 12 o’clock, tyranny at the bottom: 6 o’clock. Suppose we are about at America’s bottom: 6 o’clock. The Progtards love it, because by insisting we think of a pendulum analogy, we can go left to 7 o’clock, and still be thoroughly soaked in tyranny… or go right to 5 o’clock and still be in brain-rape tyranny country.
And what is brain-rape? And how do Progtards insist we think THEIR way… a way in which we always lose? Consider:
NO ARGUMENT will Obama or Cuomo or any Mandarin in America today will stoop low enough to consider that THEY don’t have a right to high-capacity magazines and semi-auto military style rifles in defense of THEIR persons… while at the same time ….
NO ARGUMENT will Obama or Cuomo or any Mandarin in America today will stoop low enough to consider that WE 313 million Americans do have a right to THE SAME high-capacity magazines and semi-auto military style rifles in defense of OUR persons.
Why, anyone who actually thinks and speaks critically… must be a “reactionary.” It is the word Communists-in-Charge used to IN FACT: use high-cap magazine semi-autos to execute citizenry in a FASHION THEY BELIEVE JUST.
I have enjoyed VHD’s writings for many years, but sitting around waiting for Nemesis to put down her television remote and go to work is about as useless as swaying to a gospel beat and singing about Jubilee day. Neither event will happen.
Things don’t get worse until they get better; things get worse and then they morph into something else. We’ve morphed; hence the glum dispositions of those who realize this is what has happened.
We are now a multilingual collection of savage grievance groups, roughy 50 percent of whom take from those who work, and who in four years will vote in an Eric Holder or whatever other gangster this machine chooses as its successor.
This machine will never let go, and will never be held accountable. Has the media ever brought down the Chicago machine despite the many obvious opportunities over the past eighty years? No, it is awed and charmed by its shamelessness.
It’s not about pendulums or cycles or lost elections. It’s the realization that the current is now the new normal, and that’s what’s behind the fatalism.
True. But slapping gun control on West BY GOD Virginians, Alaskans, Texicans, etc. reminds me of the 2012 Avengers movie… (Hope I’m not wrong, here.)
Perhaps one of Obama’s or Cuomo’s advisers might whisper this in their great Mandarin Progtard’s ear:
“Humans… They are not the cowering wretches we were promised. They stand. They are unruly, and therefore cannot be ruled. To challenge them is to court death. “
RE: Chicago Machine
Here in Crook County Illinois (the worst state in the Union), people are beginning to wake up, though too late. Here both the Republicans and Democtats are in bed with each other, while the state goes down in flames. Everyone who can will leave the county and state for other less crooked and tax happy states, pushing the state over the edge. The common refrain is that Chicago is the next Detroit. As mentioned in other posts we have allowed this to happen to ourselves and have no one to blame but ourselves. Good luck to all of us, we are going to need it.
Dear Dr. Davis, There will be no personal day of reckoning for this man. The country will probably fail, but his syncophants in the press and the academy will never dare hold him accountable nor objectively seek explanations. In fact, they will cover for him. Even after the countyr fails (and collapses), Obama will be held up as a “savior.” No, there will be no reckoning.
For those of you following on the ongoing debacle in Washington known as Raising the Federal Debt Limit And Budget Cuts this video offers a fairly decent explanation of some of the process involved. I’ve personally lost all hope that Congress and the President can manage to stop increasing the debt level of the United States and find a way to live within a balanced budget.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIbkoop4AYE&feature=player_embedded