The Confessions of a Confused Misfit
The Rich
I confess I never admired John Edwards — and used to argue with the late Christopher Hitchens about the blow-dried lawyer’s suitability for president. I didn’t think much of Al Gore or John Kerry, well before the “he lied!” vein-bulging fits and the wind-surfing spoofs. I was not surprised when Susan Rice just disclosed that she is worth considerably over $30 million — and has money in Keystone no less. Are they all part of the “one percent”? Did they pay “their fair share”? Do they “spread the wealth”? At what point in his life did Al Gore know that he had made enough money (before barreling ahead and making more)?
Why do a Timmy Geithner and John Kerry preach about raising taxes while trying their best to break the law to avoid them? I remember the Clintons seeking write-offs for the donation of their underwear, Tom Daschle not counting limo service as income, and Hilda Solis with a lien on her husband’s property. Why wouldn’t the above pay too much rather than too little? If Barack Obama did not get free government everything, and made several millions on his serial memoirs, with his mansion, prep schools, and Martha’s Vineyard vacations to pay for, would he still preach that guys like him need their taxes raised?
Of course, I accept without much worry that government service can lead to the contacts that lead to big money. Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld made millions in the private sector in between D.C. jobs. I grant too that old-boy networking is lucrative. George W. Bush’s Texas Rangers small fortune came from having powerful friends in the right places. No doubt Colin Powell and Bill Clinton are multimillionaires. Bravo to them both.
But what we cannot stomach is all the sermonizing about “fair share” and “play by the rules” and “the one percent” from those who seek to be exempt from their own rhetoric. Can’t Warren Buffett keep quiet and just leave his $50 billion to his heirs — and let the wonderful federal government do what it must with a $30 billion estate tax on his earnings? Can Bill Gates’ people really manage the Buffett $50 billion better than HUD or HHS? And if so, why a HUD or HHS? His estate will dodge more tax liabilities than what millions of his proverbial overtaxed secretaries pay. Why isn’t George Soros one of the despised money speculators of the sort that Occupy Wall Street was enraged about? Isn’t trying to break the Bank of England a bit too much money-grubbing? So weird what constitutes good and bad riches!
I guess the rub is not big or small money, or what you must do to get it and keep it. No, the lesson instead is what you say when you get it. If I were to advise a young rich man, I would promote entering politics or the media and talking up the liberal redistributionist state, the model being a sort of Chris Matthews, Katie Couric, Nancy Pelosi, Jon Corzine, or Jay Rockefeller. You may meet and marry a rich person, while all sorts of doors will open that allow you to keep and compound what you garner — and you will feel wonderful in the bargain.
Prejudicial Immigration
I also confess as a misfit that I was one of the few who never understood the rhetoric of illegal immigration. Of course, “undocumented worker” leaves millions out of the definition who are not working and never applied for, or ever had any, documents to begin with, in a way that the damnably exact “illegal alien” does not. “The borders crossed us” did not make sense, given that 99% of present-day illegal aliens could not cite a California residential pedigree back to 1900.
If we add all the contradictory declarations and try to sort out a common theme, then, it would, to be honest, go something like the following: “I am leaving my home in Latin America and crossing the border illegally into the United States, because I have that right since my cheap labor is going to be exploited. But if I do not work or cease working or go on public assistance or get arrested, I still have that that right to ignore the law to enter illegally because the American Southwest was once the land of my forefathers. True, I am leaving one land of my forefathers for another land of my forefathers that interlopers have changed. I don’t particularly like what they have done, but by all means I must go there and not return to the more pristine and unsullied land of my forefathers.”
For immigration to be fair and without prejudice, race and skin color must alone count — not biased skill sets and education levels. Do you think an immigrant who needs public assistance and does not speak English is any less valuable to America than one with a PhD in electrical engineering, English fluency, and $10,000 in the bank?
So the present discrimination is fair when it prejudices those by ethnic affiliation, but bad when it is color blind and adjudicated through merit-based education and skills. There is no longer such an arcane thing as a federal law that says you must enter the United States legally. Instead it is de facto assurance that if you wish to enter the U.S. with an advanced degree or capital, and if you are not crossing into the United States across the Mexican border, then you must get in line and wait years while we adjudicate your dubious case. Latino politicians who demand amnesties for illegal immigrants from Latin America are disinterested and fighting bias; all others who favor legal immigration from all countries on racially blind considerations of education and expertise are racist.
I think that sums up the debate and will explain why the Dream Act is the beginning, not the end, of amnesty — and why a return to merit-based legal immigration will be fought most of all.
Taxes
Given that the president does not wish to return to the Clinton-Gingrich spending cuts, or even the Clinton-Gingrich tax hikes across the board, and given that he does not wish to embrace his own Simpson-Bowles commission’s recommendation, and given that he wishes to tax only those who make over $250,000 to reduce the deficit by 7% — and has no real plan to find the other 93% other than through new capital gains hikes, estate taxes, and commercial taxes, then all the other wisdom about making and saving goes out the window.
Why would one farmer scrimp and save to pay off debt or bypass a new tractor or pickup to ensure that one day his heirs receive his 80 acres free and clear — only to have his survivors pay 55% of any value over $1 million to the more deserving government? Would it be all that much worse to live it up, spend, enjoy life, and leave them a farm tax-free, with a $500,000 bank debt on it? Is the man of debt morally preferable to the man of capital — the former a noble victim with the right non-monetary values, the other a suspect Scrooge hell-bent on private lucre? Will my grandchildren one day brag, “I thank my ancestors that I had no inheritance and now have zero net worth, and I thank God that I managed to keep my income under $250,000”?
Why would anyone get another degree at night school, work weekends for another $20,000 a year, add 30 more patients, or seek to expand a sales route if it put you over the dreaded us/them limit of $250,000? Or, conversely, why would anyone on unemployment or disability or food stamps go out to find an entry-level job that paid less than government receivables?
As I understand the Obama message, it goes something like the logic of illegal immigration: The free market quite illogically and wrongly sets salary levels. Education levels, specialized skills, experience, hard work, character, luck, accidents, good health — and all the other criteria that arbitrarily factor into one man making $250,000 and another $50,000 — are just too random and unfair.
Therefore, a well-educated Ivy league technocracy, with lofty moral intentions, can fix what the market broke. Simply tax those who make too much at a level where they live about like those who unfortunately make too little and pay no federal income taxes. That way everyone but the technocracy can live about the same, and the economy will not be dragged down by all those unnecessary things that too much disposable income buys — from private swimming pools and assault rifles to jet skis, crew cab pickups, and Hummers. Why, though, do we not stop tax breaks for Hollywood, or have a 70% surtax on incomes over $5 million (per picture), or tax incomes of those in government who go into the private sector at 80% for the first two years of the revolving door?
In any case, I hope there are enough Volts, Solyndra-like jobs, loan forgiveness programs, and new Fannie and Freddie mortgages to go around. I also hope that enough self-employed Californians of the despised group stay around who will soon pay 39.5% on large portions of federal income, 15.3% in SECA taxes, and from 10.3% to 12.3% in state taxes, as well as the regular sales and property taxes and assorted “user fees.” Let us hope that our schools, freeways, courts, and parks are exceptional enough for them to offset the cost of remaining a Californian.
Race
I have been studying the recent national conversations on race — from the Susan Rice matter to Joseph Lowery’s whites-in-hell rant — and talking to as many minority friends as I can. I think I have almost figured it out.
There are two things going on: affirmative action and diversity. In the first case, it is not a matter of minority or majority populations. Here in California, so-called Latinos are a majority. Nor it is necessarily a matter of skin color. Rather, finding an edge as a deserving group eligible for federal and state advantage hinges on one thing: self-identification as a Latino, African-American, or Native-American who has historical claims against the collective white majority. Elizabeth Warren taught us that one can land a Harvard professorship not by a proven Indian pedigree, but by assertion now and then of “high cheek bones” — and by association the inherited trauma from Wounded Knee to the Trail of Tears. I am still confused, however, as to why Ward Churchill, who went to so much trouble to adopt Indian dress, nomenclature, and tribal affinities, was ostracized as a rank faker (inter alia), while the multimillionaire, elegant Warren pulled it off, with blond hair and business suits to boot. True, Churchill fudged federal affidavits, but so must have Warren, who never quite had a law license to boot.
I know a lot of proverbial Bob Smiths these days with Latino mothers. They look no different than Italians or Armenians. They have a rougher time proving aggrieved status than do Juan Lopezes whose mothers are Anglos. Two of my students married Mexican-Americans and divorced, and kept their names to apply (successfully) as minorities for fellowships. And why not? After all, do we want to get in the racial pedigree business to determine that the applicant Linda Martinez is actually Welsh and Linda Jones is actually one-half Mexican-American — if we can’t tell by talking to them or examining their bank accounts?
Ethnic emphasis of any sort helps — a trill, accent, native dress, or exotic spelling. Self-identification is important, along the lines of a pony-tailed Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell that conveys quite a different notion that being born one Benny Campbell. I saw a bumper sticker the other day for Cuesta JC. It now reads Cuésta College — a little PC flair is all it takes. Had I only been name Thor, with a middle name Ragnar, and changed my spelling a bit — Thor Ragnar Hansson — I think I could have pulled off the Swedish exotic thing. I once had a used Volvo 544 and a used Electrolux, and ate Rye crackers.
Diversity is another matter. My Punjabi friends, far darker for the most part than Latinos or Native Americans, complain that they get no help, even as diverse peoples. Even rich Portuguese can piggyback onto the Latino edge. But there is nothing for Pakistanis or those of the Hindu faith. I investigated all this on numerous occasions for students (one of my Egyptian students got caught, against my advice, checking “African-American” — too literal or too northern). Armenians, Greeks, or Arabs don’t qualify. So skin color, appearance, and economic status matter little.
Still, honorific diversity is a consolation prize. There is a larger community of hyphenated Punjabis, Japanese, Koreans, and Arabs who don’t receive affirmative action and who by name and race count as “diverse,” which in the words of liberal post-election commentators meant that they are not old white guys and thus the stuff of a new coalition in America. That was the brilliance of Obama and ultimately his legacy: he redefined America by uniting rich Japanese-American orthodontists, affluent Cuban-Americans, Oaxacan illegal immigrants, African-American students, Indonesian taxi-drivers, and all sorts of others as “us” and not “them” — with the even more brilliant qualifier that for the shrinking white majority there was still one last opportunity for salvation by loudly announcing one’s Obama sympathies and deploring rampant racism. At least I think that was what all the “civility” was about — “punish our enemies,” “nation of cowards,” the Trayvon Martin and Skip Gates commentary, “my people,” “put y’all in chains,” “got your back,” white people in “Hell,” and on and on.
Still, don’t ask me for consistent rules about who is qualified for affirmative action, or about who is part of the diverse community, given that even universities can’t figure it out: again, just note Senator Elizabeth Warren — now our first Native American female senator.
The upshot is…America truly is a very racist society.
It is also extremely biased against certain religions.
It is completely gender biased.
It is wholly age biased.
Frankly, it has a very strong dislike for Judeo-Christian, white, older males.
And, if one of them is heard to complain…it evokes a vicious and hateful response.
It also despises success of such people. No matter if you were born in an orphanage, adopted by lower-middle class working parents and paid for your own education…you will be vilified for any success you achieve….because you are one of “them”.
“Redistribution” is simply a misspelled word. “Retribution” is what is intended.
America is now merely a place to pay penance for “them” whose ancestors were the “white devil” for whom God should “damn America”. These are her chickens coming home to roost.
By any means necessary.
Including: theft by taxation of accumulated wealth, a DOJ that will not enforce their civil rights, a requirement to pay for non-citizens border crashing and forming gangs, murdering, raping and robbing, running guns to drug cartels, reduced freedoms especially those providing for their own healthcare, and a reduction of our national security.
The ONLY way to avoid being one of the despised…is to mount the Liar’s Pulpit and begin sermonizing a self-loathing and vacuous homily about the evils of your fellow “them’s” OPPRESSION. Sanctimonious breastbeating and spilling bile about all the “them’s” …assuring everyone within earshot that you are NOT “one of THEM”.
Reverend Ike in “white face”, this reverse minstrel act let’s you amass…and keep…your fortune. “Be like Ike” is the slogan. You can wear diamond pinkie rings as long as you mount the Liar’s Pulpit.
Ted Kennedy can commit vehicular manslaughter, Edwards can be a cad of epic proportions, Kerry can be a Winter Soldier slanderer, Gore can be a global hoaxer. It’s all fair game if you don the robes of treason and shout epithets at “them” from the Liar’s Pulpit.
Don’t expect Republicans to save you either. Eric Holder had that buffoonish team in mind when he called them cowards to their faces and dared them to stop him and Obama from ripping the Constitution to shreds. You are on your own.
Makes one want to root for the Mayan calendar.
Right, right, and right again. You deserve your own PJM column, cfbleachers.
You call it the Liar’s Pulpit. Those who use it for fun and profit call it “white skin privilege,” my current favorite popular BS.
It’s actually hilarious when you push to find out what constitutes “white skin privilege”. The closest I’ve come to a definition is “society is organized to favor what white males are good at” — pushing on that, the clearest definition I’ve heard is “society rewards promptness, future-planning, dedication, discipline”.
I dunno about you, but I wasn’t born with those traits; they’re not innate. They’re learned — and learnable by ANYONE, regardless of their ancestry.
(They are DIFFICULT to learn, which is why good parents try to start the teaching on them from a young age…)
Yeah, why don’t we insist on a little more racial diversity on pro football teams?
No, you were born with them, as most white people are. Inherent traits, such as intelligence, impulse-control, and long time-horizons are genetically determined and inherited, by whites. Blacks, not so much. Look around you, use Occam’s Razor, and see.
No, I was not. Impulse control and future planning are learned behaviors.
If you still don’t agree, I recommend you talk the matter over with Allen West, Walter Williams, and Clarence Thomas.
Reply to Rob Crawford @ 2:46
Allen West, Walter Williams, and Clarence Thomas are the exceptions not the rule. Statistics don’t lie.
The truth is always the best defense. This is touchy subject and you are correct. And statistics don’t lie on it. What I hear from the “chosen race” is triumphalism with Obama re-elected, illogic, emotion, revenge, redistribution, something for nothing.
Dang it’s hard being an oppressor, I’ve had such a smooth ride as a White Devil.
My dad was a hillbilly of dubious parentage abandoned at birth in Covington, Kentucky. He was adopted but grew up with a hole in his soul. He spent three years in North Africa and Italy fighting the real white devils. Before the war, he and his best friend were going to go to law school. The friend died on Anzio Beach in the first wave of army rangers. So my dad came home and went to work in a chemical factory and drank to forget what might have been. My mom, a legal Canadian immigrant was always there for him.
I watched my dad come home from the factory with caustic soda ulcers in his legs and I watched him die at 49 of a likely occupational cancer.
I struggled as an aimless teenager growing up without a father’s counsel and started drinking at 15. I spent my 19th birthday in War Zone C in Viet Nam and came home to ten years of addiction hell. It took a lot of pain and struggle and the grace of God and the love of a strong beautiful woman, but I made it home to scrape my own living out pounding nails. We have raised four children with morals and values and an understanding that all men are made in the image of God.
Now the world is reeling and devils of all colors are sharpening their knives and I can’t wrap my mind around what went wrong. We’ll just live and laugh and love and hug the ones we love.
God bless you and yours and have a Merry Christmas
trangbang,
Thanks for your service.
Thanks for your sacrifice.
Thanks for your inspiration.
Ditto
My God …you are one brave and honest man. And must be commended for baring your soul.
All I can say is…from one honorable vet to another…..Thank you for your service and for staying with us.
You’re father fought in WWII? Hoe did not fight “real White Devils”. He was duped into fighting ethnic kin, simply trying to fend off what was done to Russia, and what has been done to America. The REAL Devils are the authors of the meltdown of Western Civlization. Start seeing what’s in front of your face. We’ve bene warend for centuries. You and your father were played.
John 8:38-44. King James, ‘natch.
Denise, don’t defame the passing WWII generation by saying they were duped.The Nazis were devils as were the Communists. (I feel like I’m talking to a ten year old. Are you really that stupid?)Don’t defame anyone’s service with your crackpot racialist theories.
Hi trang, thank you for sharing an interesting life experience. Whatever skin color you have, it doesn’t sound like it delivered much privilege unto you. But you overcame what was in your path. That’s the lesson we all need to learn.
“We’ll just live and laugh and love and hug the ones we love.” FIGMO
Well done Trang Bang, from Long Thanh
Thanks Bro
Testify!! Merry Christmas to you and your family
Your thoughtful exegesis is spot on good sir. In a word.. Brilliant!!
Put another way: What we now have is broken beyond easy repair — and a half-assed approach to ‘mend it don’t end it’ won’t avert a terminal mess.
As for the Mayan calendar, an End-times PSA for any who missed it: a space race in Raptureworld is imminent. A fleet of alien rockets is due to land outside a small village in France on Dec 21. Camping space in the village field starts at $500 a night. ‘Apocalypse pizza’ and ‘End of the Word wine’ are available, extra. Hey, charge it all and go first class, who cares?
Detail here: http://tinyurl.com/bvuqpgz
The time has come for the scapegoat. And it is us.
Scapegoated for 50 years in the “Studies Departments,” which we have paid to launch a hostile hatefilled intellectual assault on us. Pays well too, with job security and lots of perks and bennies.
It is time to put away childish things(ideas). The tribe needs to re-organize for the protection of it’s individuals, families, culture, society, history, existence.
Social psychologists allied with the New Deal have long recommended scapegoating in order to maintain social cohesion. This is not widely known. I wrote about it here: http://clarespark.com/2011/09/29/the-abraham-lincoln-conundrum/.
Paragraph 3: “Brave to them both.”
How ’bout “bravo,” instead?
Three things that every American must have going forward: a legitimate disability, a spouse with a federal job, and a protected minority status. A disability isn’t too difficult to figure out, and that comes in handy. The federal job might be tough without #3 above, and if it cannot be managed, don’t marry, but have your baby momma and kids live off the system while you rent them room in your house. I strongly suggest we do all we can to push homosexuality as a protected minority status; anyone can claim to be a homosexual when billions in gov’t largesse is being doled out. Otherwise, just change your surname and come up with a fanciful account of your family history; it doesn’t matter if it’s true, just as long as you believe it long enough to get your kids through school. If there is going to be a trough and there are going to be pigs at the trough; be the biggest pig at the trough.
urbur: “A disability isn’t too difficult to figure out, and that comes in handy.”
However, I suggest one of the modern ‘stress disorders’ or other mental/emotional disabilities. The physical ones are too easily exposed.
A friend of mine made a living as a kind of private detective by surreptitiously taking videos of the disabled in athletic or heavy-lifting mode. For example, one of his video’s was of a 100%er with a very, very bad back moving the furniture of a neighbor of his from the first floor up to the second. His good neighborliness cost him his disability, poor sod.
Another example dodge, as an aid to pick perfectly legal fruit from a government tree, is to use a non-Fitz or non-O’ Irish name, such as Malloy, to claim to be Hispanic, descended from sailors of the Armada washed ashore by a storm off Ireland. In Ireland Malloy came from Dominguin [not really].
Here is a much more reasonable and doable approach to living in the Transformed Amerika. Applicable to anyone regardless of heritage or color. I am most of the way toward full enjoyment of this lifestyle. Live in a small rural community where farming, logging, or ranching and the Wal-Mart is a big deal. Own an affordable and easily maintained home. Avoid debt. Drive or own a rebuilt CJ or similarly efficient SUV. Get to know your neighbors and help those with real needs. Join a rifle and pistol club and spend time at the range. Garden, can food, hunt, fish, hike and introduce your kids to the same activities. Read good books (such as VDH authored books), enjoy good music whether it be blue-grass or classical, and share fun hobbies with others. Don’t, however, become small-town and small-minded. Keep your brain busy and bless the Creator and observe His works. Turn off the damned TV and leave distant trips to the malls to the mall-rats. Take nothing from the government that you haven’t earned. Regardless of your financial wealth just live small, simple, and free. Live to be an observer of the coming collapse and not a victim. And when you encounter a liberal ask them “how’s the socialism going?”.
I’m trying to do the same thing in a midsize Midwestern state capital after bailing California. It’s a good life.
Yooper, that pretty much describes the life my wife and I have carved out here in GA after we left crazy, overpriced socialist CA two years ago, right down to the gun club and the old Ford truck. It is a good life, and we are glad to be here. People around here will be largely self-sufficient no matter what happens.
Remember the old Limbaugh schtick about the male lesbian – a woman trapped in a man’s body who liked other women? That would appear to apply to all men. The converse of a female homosexual would also be accurate and darn near impossible to disprove. Cheers -
The existential question, Doctor Hansen, is where do we go? We white Americans no longer have a home and no longer have any control over our descendants and the culture they will have. I am a first generation American and at one time tried to fit in; boy that was a mistake. I am fortunate enough to have received dual citizenship through my father’s birth certificate. Do we flee to Canada, they are more politically correct than the US is? Do we return to Europe; not sure we want to be Islamized in the next twenty years? Do we stay here and fight and hope that the whole corrupt rotten govenment core collapses from its own perversions? Perhaps Russia might be the answer; it is a country that is Christian friendly and a country which believes in its own nationalism and culture. Russia historically held back the onslaught of Islam into the European mainland. Maybe there is some hope there. The bottom line is that we are without a country. The English novelists Evelyn Waugh who decried the collapse of traditional Western culture back in the post war period was once asked how he could face life every morning knowing what he did. He replied that he once had an English country home and constantly worried about keeping it up and doing the repairs an old house required. He then sold the house and then when he walked through it he no longer had any cares because as he put it “it is not my house anymore” So to us European Americans it is not our house any more let the roof collapse who cares?
A thoughtful and poignant position for a first generation American, but what of the tenth or twelfth generation. I have no ties to Ireland or Germany, mine are the ties of revolunary South Carolina, Republic of Texas and the Confederacy. We do not seek a hiding place but a redoubt in Louisiana, we will fight from within, they are a house of cards, we will eventually blow them away.
The South shall rise again….as the saying goes.
Yes, it’s their country now.
Panama? Uruguay? Western Redoubt? Southern Utah?
This economic and political template has a name–the Fair Shares Society. I found the footnote that led me to the blueprints while I was tracking down Goodwin Liu’s Social Citizenship rewrite of the 14th Amendment http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/morphing-the-common-core-into-a-new-rewritten-us-constitution-by-mandating-false-beliefs/. No wonder he was sought for the 9th Circuit before returning to California after his failure to gain confirmation. Not “a rigid requirement of national levelling” and “economic inequality is not inherently at odds with equal citizenship” still take us back to FDR’s Second Bill of Rights territory. And especially this idea that the minimum standard of guaranteed income is predicated on the maximum lifestyles lived by others.
Historian Robert Conquest calls it “postjudice”, not prejudice to criticize with facts ideas that have a tragic history. At this point in time such a guarantee by the government of limited inequality is such an idea. It means a future role by politicians and bureaucrats that is not the least free or equal.
All of these changes being sought in the name of Diversity and Inequality are designed to gain an Electoral Majority of Clients that can then just impose their will and druthers. That’s not hard to see or appreciate from history. The part that is harder to see is how hard the state is working now through the accreditation agencies, federal DoEd, teachers unions, media, the music industry, and friendly foundations to change each person’s filtering Mindset. Their World-view. The assumptions, values, attitudes, and beliefs that guide your perception’s of reality. If they can be remade, even if they are false, they guide future behavior.
So what I am seeing is a misrepresentation of the Constitution, what history tells us, how the world works, metaphors turned in a decade into “factual” social science theories that must be implemented. We are through the Looking Glass, but our Mindsets are still guided by reason and logic. We need to continue to use those best tools of the Enlightenment to help educate others on what is being attacked now and why it matters so much.
Promoting diversity including through legislative fiat, actually accelerates the change in power dynamics, where Leftwingers, those hostile to the majority and the country historically, are promoted into positions of power in all instiutions….who then hire accordingly, as well as determine new policies based on that hostility and beholdeness to Leftwing political ideologies like Maoism and Marxism, to name 2 flavors.
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” —Martin Luther King Jr.
I have always been fond of this quote.
Yeah, but if you were a Southerner you knew he didn’t really mean it. Southerners remembered the days of “bottom rail on top now, Massa” and fought a decade long guerilla to end those days. The phrase “dog whistle” could have been coined in response to the “Dream” speech; it sounded very different to Southern ears. Yankees heard soaring aspirational rhetoric, Southerners heard provocation; telling a Southern white man in ’63 that some day little black boys were going to sit down with his little white girls or that blacks and whites were going to eat together at a time when most whites wouldn’t let a black come in through their front door was virulently and brilliantly provocative.
” that some day little black boys were going to sit down with his little white girls or that blacks and whites were going to eat together at a time when most whites wouldn’t let a black come in through their front door was virulently and brilliantly provocative.”
What a pity they were that small-minded.
They needn’t have worried. Black people generally don’t want to socialize with us. They never have wanted to. They seem to have their own peer pressure to avoid socializing with us.
You should already know this. It’s been going on for many decades. When’s the last time you ever looked at the tables in a school or college cafeteria, or for that matter, a company dining room?
I dunno; the rich black guys, the atheletes, actors, drug dealers, entertainers, gangstas, etc. sure seem to like the company of blonde haired white girls. My soldier son has a nicely pejorative name for those women; “snicker lickers.”
Taxing success while subsidizing sloth insures poverty for all.
but it gets votes.
Why you still raising raisins man? Jump on the bandwagon, and those visitors won’t be stealing your copper pipes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvaEJzoaYZk.
Let’s sponsor plane loads of Christians from Islamic countries to emigrate to the U.S. We can get our voters in before the amnesty happens. You know Juan McLame and Lindsay Gramnesty are just itching to sponsor such legislation because they are part of the globalists’ agenda. And these Christians won’t look “too white” so they’ll fit in nicely. I’m willing to chip in $100/per month for operation Christian relief. And we need people because the birth rates have plummented. Its a win/win situation.
They may be Christian, but they’re not Westerners. They haven’t the practice of limited government or free market capitalism.
Not to mention that they share many of the prejudices and folkways of their host societies. True, Coptic Christians don’t commit honor killings, but ask Coptic men about the proper role of women in society, or better yet, what they think of Jews and sub-Saharan Africans.
Why go all exotic on us? Great swathes of Africa were colonized by Europeans. South Africa, Namibia, Mali, are the names that come to mind. The peaceful countries in Africa were in the Lutheran diaspora. In Asia, too. South Korea was heavily, heavily evangelized after ww1, by the Church of England, and the Lutheran church.
Gangnam Style is able to be international in a way that japanese pop music cannot, because it has been tinctured with western christian notions. John Woo, for film-makers, is more popular here than more native Asian film-makers, b/c the shadows and bones of his work are in the Christian catacombs.
I’d love it if the camp counselor from Namibia could move here. He speaks several languages, his family owns a productive farm, he’s devoutly religious, healthy, a nice guy, and handsome as a movie star. He thought he needed to be careful to get on the plane to go home, rather than travel in the US for a few weeks.
Germany is trying to regulate, harass and tax young families. Denmark is some sort of regulated nightmare for home-schooling families. England, England is just heartbreaking, right now. Why not invite them over to our Western states? We’ve got room.
America is in decline. We are racing towards the lowest common denominator. Up until jut a few years ago we were making slow but steady progress. Something fundamental has changed our society. The change is not for the good. We hve become dying star; spectacular for a while, but ultimately doomed. Oh, nevermind.
Socialist governments usually only last 60-70 years, max. If our quasi-socialism started in the 40′s with FDR, the pendulum is likely ready to stall and turn back in our lifetimes. Our government can remain in gridlock because we are not officially broke yet. But once the checks stop going out that will change. On what is coming, the following piece is highly recommended. It long–ten pages–but well written, easy to read and extremely thought provoking, in short well worth setting the time aside for: http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Future-tense–X–The-fourth-revolution-7395
Good article, with lots to think about as we ready ourselves for painful changes. Aw man, I hope the dustbin is overtaking the Democrats!
In the article’s comments readers bring up all the things the author didn’t mention, but they don’t change the conclusions. Go ahead and read it, folks. Informative, hopeful if we look at it right, and not too long a read for one sitting.
Thanks for offering that link.
Nighthorse not Lighthorse.
I’ve had employees like these politicians; Screw up an assignment bad enough that they will not be tasked with it the second time.
This is a social science experiment being performed by retards.
No matter how smart you make them think and feel they are, they’re STILL retards.
So….. what do you call the people who elected them and continue electing them?
To a surprisingly large extent, I would call those voters members of the Deceased-American community.
I wish to hell I were joking, but I am not.
It appears that the phrase ‘white man’s burden’ has been stood on its head, from the time of Kipling to today. This is what happens when you try to help the ‘oppressed’ – eventually they turn upon you as the ‘oppressor’ to cover their own faults and inadequacies. But, alas, they bring only ruin, not a better day.
And they always become far more bloody and tyrannical than their former “oppressors”, real or imagined.
Everything Victor has described is to hold the democratic coalition together. One day in the future if the Punjabi community was strong enough to swing a state, then you would see there racial predilection catered to.
The Obama coalition is made of parasites and fools. The cure is to balance the federal budget any way possible. Spending cuts would kill off the parasite wing. Tax increases would wake-up the fools.
I work in a Bay area pharmaceutical company. A new Berkley BS in chemistry would find themselves in the top 40% of wage earners. PhD top 25%. I have been yelled at by these people as a liar when I mention the great society tax rates of 70% or New deal of 90%. Obama borrows $4k every year for every man woman and child in the US. My coworkers need to pay an extra $12-20k a year to balance Obama’s spending.
Obama wont raise taxes that much. He is going the Latin American way of printing money. The fed has his back. This will hold the Obama coalition together for a few more elections.
The only thing protecting us is the 22nd Amendment and M. Obama’s distaste for the white house.
The Bushes destroyed our party.
I’ll let you in on a secret. Printing money is a tax, a tax on savers whose savings are denominated in US dollars. On the other hand, if you have debt, you get a big break. Debt will be inflated away. But savings will be worth less and less. We don’t have inflation yet, but already low interest rates mean that your parents’ safe 4% income from their CDs is a thing of the past. Stay tuned and watch what happens.
Well, Victor, as a rant, that wasn’t too bad. Rambled a bit, byt most rants ramble somewhat.
The question is:
What’re ya gonna do about it?
Besides rant.
Interesting rant there, Thomas Paine, but what are you gonna do about it?
I’ve already done it (put my life on the line as a US Marine). Spent every penny I had, or would ever hope to have, on activism for political causes. Ruinded my health in the same. Gave up any aspirations as to what good people might think of me, including my family, in the same activism for freedom and liberty.
When you or VDH (a Democrat by the way) do the same, and stop spouting nonsense, then you can rail against me. There’s a reason you’re ‘confused misfits.’ Your talk doesn’t match your actions.
“Our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.” I was dumb and naive enough to take it seriously.
Neither you nor VDH have taken it seriously…yet.
I was affiliated with the Army for about eight years: four ROTC, two active duty Lt. of Inf., reaching the exalted rank of 1st Lt., two more years active reserve. I didn’t have a fortune to pledge. Sacred honor? I can only hope so. Don’t tell me what I take seriously.
Interesting rant there, Frederic Douglas, but what ya gonna do about it?
Ya missed the point, Army. (Typical fer Army. With two brothers who served in the Army and a Nephew with ‘em in Iraq, I oughta know.)
It seems that their argument is that if I’m not VHD, I have no right to question anyone, esspecially VDH, because I’m not…VDH, who’s done *MUCH MORE* for this country than I -or Veterans like you- ever have..
That’s their argument, not mine.
My counter argument to that foolishness is that, like yourself, I’ve put my life on the line for this nation. Which is substantially more than VDH has ever done. That’s just to start with.
If I can’ question VDH’s presmises and assumptions, wth did I serve for? So that some jerk can tell me – or you – to shut up, sit down and worship at the altar of a political pundit? pffft. That’s the same thing the left does with Obama. Don’t critize the Holy One.
Warren: “Typical fer Army. With two brothers who served in the Army and a Nephew with ‘em in Iraq, I oughta know.
Now I know you’re impatient [PO'd?] with me, Warren, but why attack your brothers and the Army? See to do that is to ask for retaliation, like this: If you want to conquer a small island, you should call in the Marines. If you want to conquer a very large island or continent, you should call in the Army.
BTW my son was a Marine. After completing his first year of college, he came to me and said he wanted to go into the Marines. I said fine but I hope you will come back to finish college if you decide to leave them after your tour. He did and he did. I have great respect for the Marine Corps.
Interesting rant there, Jonathan Swift, but what y’all goan do ’bout it.
Boner never does anything, just accuses everyone else of not doing anything.
Hahaha. Interesting, if rather short, rant there, Rob, but what are you gonna do about it?
Perhaps this reply, though quite old and school-yardish, should from now on be called Boner’s Retort.
So…the sacrifice of a soldier in Iraq doesn’t count as much as the sacrifice of a marine? And I’ll bet Bonesteel served his entire career during peacetime.
And as a typical marine, I guess he was never informed that the most dangerous occuption of all among U.S. servicemen in WW II was that of bomber crewman in the European theatre. And even more dangerous was the job of merchant mariner(civilian).
What am I going to do about it?
Keep working my ass off.
BoneHead;
Dr. Hanson has already done more than you could do with a committee.
So much for your assumptions and premises, there, chief.
A tour a a US Marine (E-5), raising a family, working for a living, paying taxes, and then over twelve years as an activist for not only conservative causes, but for fredom and liberty.
KMSWA, you arrogant jerk.
Way to pat yourself on the back for living an ordinary and unremarkable life and attempting to knock a man of high achievement. Not even a good try leftist troll.
PS. I don’t return to read responses so flame away.
Major BoneHead, sir;
You’re not a disabled vet? With the limp you think with, you should apply for some mental disability. Or run for office.
The intent is not to punish all whites or to empower all minorities. The intent is to destroy the “Rule of Law” and replace it with the “Rule of Liberal Men.”
Just ask Condi Rice, Alan West, Marco Rubio or Nikki Haley. Liberal bureaucrats can award Buffet, George Kaiser from Solyndra and Pelosi’s husband with millions in crony capitalist theft while screaming “shut up” because Obama, Holder and Rice are disenfranchised and it makes them happy to pay off their friends.
The ultimate game was revealed by Ron Bloom in that “power mostly comes from the barrel of a gun” (Mao).
There is no legal definition of hispanic (like there is for Indian). Everybody just needs to claim to be hispanic.
My kids are going to do so for their college applications as at some point in their genealogical history I am relatively sure that some distant blood relative (over say the last 5000-10000 years) lived in South American and/or Spain/Portugal. Therefore my kids are hispanic.
To summarize: giving away other people’s money to the little people works pretty good no matter how much champagne you bath in.
Well, at least we have Hanson. Historical shifts are not usually sudden. Decline takes time, even though the recognition of that decline can be abrupt. Ask the Brits. Or the Soviets. In our case, democracy is not a system for the timid. It requires a certain set of traits, values, e.g., diligence, hard work, discipline, the capacity to postpone gratification, i.e., having to save for tomorrow what we might otherwise prefer to consume today. We in the U.S. have gone well beyond this formulation: for some time now, we have decided not only to consume today, but to do so with money borrowed from those who come after us, among others. Our failure is moral and systemic; it infects the entire country, whose citizens (a quaint term) are perpetually entitled; and it has taken the combined cynicism of both political parties to make it possible, but of course they answer to us and reflect our demands, do they not? The change, if it comes at all, will be hard. And restorations are not usually successful.
Posting this again because people sometimes read from the bottom up! An excellent article putting our political impasse in historical perspective and suggesting the possibility of a political revolution. http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Future-tense–X–The-fourth-revolution-7395
Highly recommended read.
“Recognition of that decline can be abrupt.” How true that is. After returning for a visit to my beloved Southern California after emigrating some 14 years ago, the decline is so very tragic.
After reading your thoughts for some years now, I’m beginning (ha ha) to get your frustration with the way things are going in this country.
Why, only last night I was looking forward to seeing a movie about the Clinton years, “The Hunting of the President”, thinking it was to be a sort of “2016”-like expose. And, what do you know? As soon as I saw it was from a book by Joe Conason, I almost turned it off, because I knew it would be full of lies.
But, I stayed the course, and endured the pain of seeing most of the bad old suspects, AGAIN, like David Brock, Carville, Begula, on down the line. I psyched myself into pretending it was a comedy, and really got into reliving my own time spent following the Whitewater-and-on national soap opera.
What a trip! What a bevy of con artists!
My point? Dr. Hanson regularly provides his extensive details of the current American scene, especially the political circus in DC, and his learned analysis thereof (and, along the way, provides hooks for some of us, such as the mention of Cuesta JC, where I took a philosophy class back in 1969, while finishing my army “career” at Camp Roberts). And, STILL, there exists the previous history of the Clinton clan, which is altogether buried in the relevant awareness of 99% of Americans.
If I imagine myself in 1959, just hanging out with my parents, and tell them that by 1992 we’d have all things Clinton and in 2012 all things Obama, they’d have said that we would be over, as a free country. That is, they’d have to say that by 1992 America would be PAST the tipping point.
Well, here we are, almost into 2013—is we make it past December 21st, 2012—and I’d say we should start looking ahead for what comes AFTER the tipping.
First, you tip OVER, and start rolling down, down, down—
My recommendation—watch the cult classic movie, “The Vanishing Point”.
THAT’S my point!
A whole lot of vanishing is ALREADY going on. That’s the key conclusion I make when I combine all the words from Dr. Hanson AND the implication of the Conason flick.
Adios, America.
Oh, yes, what made the Conason movie a comedy was seeing Carville, Begula, et al complaining that the MSM was out to get Clinton!
The red places in America, not coincidentally also the majority white places, are in the same place that The South found itself after the 1860 election; they can govern the Country without us, without even considering our interests. This realization is what led to the secession of the seven Lower South states. The union that had been held together by the efforts of truly great men such as Clay and Calhoun, by the tortured compromises of 1820 and 1850, and by measures such as the Wilmot Provisio was rent by the election of a President and Party that received NO support in The South and which obviously had no further need for the measures that had held the union together.
The Obamunists have no need for the measures that have held the US together. They have demonstrated that they will, and more importantly can, govern without regard to the laws and The Constitution; who you gonna call when they violate them? In the Red States our choices are simple, acquiesce or fight. And by fight I don’t mean secession or revolution, I mean challenge all improper uses of federal authority and we have only a short window in which to do this; one probably and two certainly Obama appointments to the USSC and the US as we traditional Americans have known it ends de jure, not just de facto. If these challenges to improper use of federal authority lead to open conflict or even armed conflict with the US, so be it, but be it on their heads to start it; US history would have been written very differently if the hotheads in Charleston had held their fire. We have 30 governorships and 3/5s of the Nation challenging federal authority will force the US’ hand. We may not like the outcome of such a challenge, but at least there will be an outcome, not the slow steady inexorable fate of the frogs as the temperature slowly rises.
Northeast liberals who brought slavery to our shores and demanded its immediate end, regardless of its economic impact. Who ignored Jim Crow and only replaced it with mindless welfare and now applaud redistribution. They ridicule conservative southern intellect and browbeat us with endless clams of racism. Nullification can and will replace chivalrous belligerency, which of course proved to be ruinous and counterproductive. The rule of law and the US Constitution are worth fighting for, with ethical christian sensibilities.
This is what I was thinking right after the skinny little freak took office: http://www.redstate.com/achance/2009/03/05/defense-of-the-republican-homeland/
Hate to have been so right!
you know, you make it look like a lot of fun.
have you read Molly Ivins’ biography? the biographer made it sound so fun and cuddly- left-wing journalists going camping with government officials, drinking, smoking weed- mind you, in a state with the Tulia scandals- and the biographer had no idea how entirely enraging it was, to anyone outside of that special, magic, sparkly progressive circle of fabulousness.
Even Bill Hobby’s biography, where his daddy is backroom-dealing with power-players- and BH inherits his job- is supposed to sound positive.
Poor Rick Perry- being white trash with cash- going up against righteous democrats in power. I have no idea if he’s any good, or worthwhile- I like the state, but I don’t know him- but he has had to live with them his whole political career.
It is a lot of fun if you’re high up enough to actually have some say in what gets done and are working for in an administration that you like. It is an absolute misery in an administration that you don’t like and when you’re tasked to do things that you think are wrong. Lots of high-level jobs in government are done only by government, so if you decide you’re not willing to do what they ask you, you’re sentencing yourself to usually much lower earnings or unemployment for at least the rest of the administration.
Of course that didn’t even get a single comment at redstate. What a joke community. Great post
It got a lot of comments at the time; RedState was a very different place back in ’09 before it became solely dedicated to the self-promotion and greater glory of Erick Erickson and his puppies. The archived diaries often have jumbled comments and some browsers won’t display them at all, e.g., older versions of IE. There used to be some very good colloquies between the posters there, actually much more interaction than you find here.
I and a couple others could put a diary in the ten most recommended list most any time we published one and 100 – 200 substantive comments, not including the troll comments, weren’t uncommon. I could get a lot more whenever I felt like poking at the Palin sycophants. I “test ran” a lot of excerpts from my book for comments on RS. Most of the good diary writers have either been banned (me, Vasser Bushmills, several others) or just left on their own. Some expatriate RSers have set up an alternate site called “Unified Patriots.” UP is a good site but doesn’t have the corporate backing and get the hits that RS does. Another called “The Minority Report” is mostly RS expatriates and some of us are working on another site soon to be up and running called “Incredulous Basterds.” I’ve been going in and trying to rescue some of my diaries from their archives with a thought to re-publishing some of them on one of the other sites. The only writer remaining at RS that I read at all is Moe Lane and I prefer to get his stuff from his own site and not give RS the clicks.
It is going to be so “interesting” to see what happens when Detroit well and truly hits the fan. Guess we all will have to bail them out. Hmmm. Next up? Probably California. Hmmm. Stay tuned.
It’s long past time.
Powerful essay. Describes the illogical and destructive outcomes of liberal policies. Do conservatives do a better job of analyzing where the trend lines are headed than do liberals? I think so. I remember watching the tube on election night — all those celebrating, laughing, happy people in the auditorium, knowing their guy won. I wonder if they’ll someday tell their kids and grandkids, “I was there at the tipping point.”
I hate to say it, but you were giving your Egyptian student bad advice when you told him *not* to check “African-American” (assuming, of course, that the American part was justified). I have a white friend from South Africa with a white American wife whose daughter checked “African-American”, and it helped her to get into Harvard. In my case, I’m white, and my wife (who is also white) was born in Morocco. No less an authority than the admissions director at the University of Virginia told my daughter that she should check “African-American” on the application.
The government continues to print money and hold down interest rates at the same time. My 401K is fast becoming a 101K instead. I am a mostly white retired male who had the temerity to be born in the USA. Which oppressed minority do I get to be a part of? I am running out of time and I need a couple of breaks to get to the end of the proverbial road. Surely, out of the myriad of hyper-sensitive minority tribes in America, at least one of them could decide to include me. America, a free country of imbeciles, won’t last much longer and it won’t make a tinker’s damn what color, sex, ancestry, or even sexual preference any of us pretend to have. And that is what I am looking forward to. “Beam me up Scotty…..”
not to be flip,but I’m thinking a pressure-cooker for beans is maybe the best christmas present, ever, for anybody. I thought they’d gone away, after the 70′s.
I hope you had kids. I hope they have big houses with extra bedrooms and more than one front door. It’s, more or less, my husband’s final plan. Invest in the kids, and hope they come up roses.
“America, a free country of imbeciles…”
OK, you’ve established that you’re a bigot. So why should we listen to a word you say?
The voters certainly are.
In more ways than you can imagine.
To my point. If being a bigot meant voting against comrade Obama, I would be a part of that group. Your tribe, the Self Righteous Collective, will soon be queued up in line with all of us aforementioned bigots hoping for your own small sack of potatoes. Why would I care whether you listen to me?
I’m having my child learn Russian from his mother just in case he has to leave the US because whites can no longer live in the country. I’m learning it too. Russians are wisely xenophobic enough to understand peoples’ true nature and never drank the enlightenment Kool-Aid: “All men are rational and only the content of our character matters, blah, blah, blah.” Politics is about groups, whether class, ethnic, linguistic or racial. It’s about dominating other people and getting what your group wants. Get over it. I think you have to be middle-aged to completely understand this.
You are a historian Mr. Hanson, any examples of multi-racial democracies that lasted?
Who wants a democracy? This is a Republic.
What’s with all the love for Russia? (see Johann, comment #5) Have you even glanced at their history? Do you understand the mindless suffering they’ve brought upon themselves and others?
As for modern Russia, why would you praise a country where criticizing Putin gets you a bullet in the head? Where immigrants are beaten to death on videotape? Where women are abducted and sold as sex slaves?
They are sociopaths with excellent vodka.
Cfbleachers, you are a racist bigot to take issue with the mores of the communist, leftist, ceaselessly corrupt puke thuggery that drips from the top of the Obama administration like scum from the tallest scum trees.
You are a threat to the values and ideals of American traitors.
Dr. Hanson, if you’re confused, even in the land of irony, how do you expect the rest of us to make sense of living life under the neo-Hitler regime known as Obamanism to poor folk like me.
Even though my leftist and rightest well meaning friends, assure me that it’s a tactical mistake to compare Barack Obama to Adolph Hiler, my mind is so stupified by the last election which convinces me this nation is chock full of the type who would have been cheering Hitler from the rooftops in 1939 that the fact I see Hitler and Obama more congruent than a xerox copy of the pentagon and another xerox copy of the same visual.
Not only are they great speakers, but they’re great cheaters.
If you played Monopoly with Obama and Hitler, they’d win every time. They’d buy Park Place and Boardwalk on the first play by simply moving their pieces there; then argue you’re a racist when you point out they’re cheating. Unless you’d take a stand and physically move their pieces to the correct position, Hitler and Obama would take all the good land, steal all the money and accuse you of the worst kind of cheating.
Are you getting my drift?
Running our nation is a corrupt cheater. Running Germany three quarters of a century ago was a corrupt cheater. Both of global proportions.
And if they didn’t like your game play, they’d likely in the end kill you, or have you killed. Barack drones people to death without due process. Adolph cooked them in his ovens. Distinctions without differences.
Whoops, I’s being called to dinner. So I’ll just close. Thanks for taking the time to read this. My intention is to share my feelings about Obama; that Obama’s more dangerous than the head of the SS; a dastardly, corrupt, cockroach of a puke traitor who nobody should trust. I mean, even if he’s lining your pockets with gold from Ft. Knox, eventually, he’ll see you as the enemy and arrange your and your family’s unfortunate demise.
Obama is the devil. Treat him as such.
The devil is a bodiless power that acts through people. I suggest that Obama is THIS.
Any man who believes he is “We are the one the world has been waiting for” promises “to stop the rise of the Oceans and begin the cooling of the Earth” is to say the least an individual of staggering arrogance or more likely an individual with serious mental problems.
Why anyone continues to support this incompetent, lying, petulant, whining, blaming, sulking, narcissist is hard to understand!
But then look how many adored Hitler and screaming “Hail Hitler, Hail Hitler” Here the brainless cult members Scream “Yes We Can, Yes We can” during his Coronation.
Years go by but left wing socialist promising to take from them that will work and give to them that refuse to work, spewing lies and manipulating the idiots that support them remain the same the world over!
The LAST ELECTION PROVES IS A WORLD POPULATED BY IDIOTS THAT SPROUTING NONSENSE AND PROMISING OTHER PEOPLE MONEY STILL WORKS!
Must say I am glad I have survived these 67 years, and have not been a member of a victim class. Perhaps I should just sit back, enjoy what we have left and wait for the Death Panel to call.
Oh, Wah, Wah, Wah… looks like Ol’ Vic-Dave is in a bad mood. Don’t blame him. Missed his chance to be Presidential Historian in the Romney administration. So, rest easy Meacham and Beschloss and the “Team of Rivals” lady… they’re all MAKING MORE THAN YOU… ha.
Phil, sorry little turd aren’t you? What are you a Senate staffer , a useless overpaid bureaucrat? Barnie Frank’s boyfriend? Dr. Hanson is a farmer and classical scholar, what are you but another Beltway buffoon.
Don’t give him so much credit- he’s probably a waiter in some liberal hangout in Alexandria, or the waitress’ boyfriend.
How is the value of a man measured by the amount he is currently being paid (or whether or not he is being paid) by corruptocrats?
Think about it.
The young people of France see what future and inheritance the Baby Boomers have left to them….and are organizing.
Generation Identitaire
Video on the link…
http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2012/10/generation-identitaire.html
The Economic message was never going to carry the day in the 2012 election. The GOP strategy should have been to mount a full on assault on this hypocritical bunch using many of VDH’s points and perspectives and those of others like black economists Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams. Still would probably have lost but at least we would have called them out. The MSM, Hollywood and the Warren Buffets of the world just want to walk around feeling good about themselves for being so caring while maintaining their privileged positions in society. Perhaps we could have made them just a little uncomfortable and this would have been more than we ended up with.
Dear VDH & Friends,
Excellent posts all.
I suppose this is what happens when our Supremes are not so supreme, scarecrows who can’t scare up a cogent thought? (By majority, anywho.)
If Madison & Founders said that since there are no angels to organize society, society must be organized into separate factions that keep each other’s ability to tyrannize in check… wherein did that checkerboard get tossed? And how, dear God, do we find it and get the players back in place and abiding by the board game’s sacred, tested-by-the-blood-of-our-heroic fathers’ rules?
If Western Civilization ascends toward sanity, and barbarity destroys same… then hasn’t the war been long lost?
If, by trial, by fire, by vote, by fraud, by all tests of time, by all ends justifying all means… sanity loses to insanity every cotton-picking time, what other than hell is going on, and how can its fires ever be put out?
If sanity snuffs the flames of logic-less passion, but popular insanity pours gas on the fire, how can anybody be a fireman who puts out fires and live to tell the story?
What profit sanity, if lying thoughts avail the world’s blessed resources and truthful trails engender tears & trials.
Read Tom wolfe’s “back to blood” re modern race relations. Very good and very funny.
Fortunately, with the 2012 election the bar for proving minority status has been lowered significantly. Elizabeth Warren claimed 1/32 status was adequate for minority status and there were no liberals or minorities of significance that argued differently. And of course, her liberal defenders in the media also agreed to the 1/32nd standard. I would bet there are very few “white males” that could not find some way to meet the 1/32nd standard. This is particularly true using the the Elizabeth Warren “family folklore” method of proving minority status.
“Given that the president does not wish to return to the Clinton-Gingrich spending cuts…”
Howard Dean has the right idea. Embrace the so called “Fiscal Cliff”. The hell with the whole mess. For all we know this is THE plan. They want to spread the pain around, this is the way to do it. The Buffet’s, Gates & Romney’s have been getting rich off of the Bush tax mess, it’s time to pay the piper. Why does the newly graduated computer programmer in the housing unaffordable Silicon Valley shoulder a massive tax burden with no tax breaks while the Wall Street Casino traders pay a marginal 15% rate on their unearned gambling receipts? The Social Security “Payroll Tax” holiday is a massive joke on you. Romney doesn’t pay a “Payroll Tax”, the young programmer does. Yet what should have gone in Al Gore’s lock box was frittered away everything from Wall Street bailouts to Bush’s unnecessary wars. Bush’s cuts did not stimulate trickle down growth, they are bankrupting us. Cut the defense budget. Let the German’s, Japanese, French, English, Indian’s, Taiwanese, Israeli’s, etc, pay for their own security. If people don’t like it then they are welcome to move Texas or India. Real Estate is a lot cheaper there.
White as can be. I was raised in a Latin country. However, as a law student I would
never consider joining the Hispanic group, or the immigration group,
though I am the only person in my class who actually grew up in Mexico.
I’m proud to be American. But I must confess, that as I look across
my classroom and realize I am one of the few actually paying full
tuition, (100k +) I want to throw up.
The natives in Mexico, all from political families, told me repeatedly
(as did my teachers) that soon they would send their poor, criminals and
mentally incapacitated over the border and into the states. It was
a firm plan to take advantage of American compassion and to break Americans
financially. Looks like they achieved their goal. My heart breaks for the theft
of the country I love.
Apparently windsurfing was a deep character flaw in John Kerry, but what the hell is wrong with windsurfing? ATV’s are good, but windsurfing is bad? As with so many things, Kerry could not effectively sell his windsurfing or his swiftboating, but someone with better communication skills could have taken the exact same life experiences and made them positives. But then, maybe I too am just a confused misfit.
As you surely know, Dwight, there is nothing wrong with windsurfing; there is, or was, plenty wrong with Monsewer “Frenchie” Kerry. Veterans hate him. Why (you don’t need to ask)? Because’ after “trying” and “convicting” everybody who served during the Viet Nam war, Kerry went before Congress and said they were all war criminals and rapists. So windsurfing is to Kerry as tanker helmet is to what’s his name from Mass, Dukakis.
Do you think Democrats really care that people, jobs, and taxes are leaving Calif. and the blue States are getting poorer and deeper in debt every day and the quality of life is decreasing and the misery index is increasing?
That is their plan!
The ones leaving are for the most part educated, tax payers and in many cases Republicans the ones they have been importing for years are Criminals, Uneducated Undocumented Hispanics and Welfare Democrats.
The Democrats policies that have reduced the Black Race to welfare bondage, with a high crime rate, anti-education, high school drop out rate, high breeding rate, high gang joining rate, high homicide rate, etc. and the most dependable Democrat voters is not a accident!
The Illegal Hispanic,s that Democrats love so much, share and exceed many if not most of the worse characteristics as the blacks, in other words they have the prefect profile for a Welfare Democrat voter!
Normal people thinks no one would be diabolic and sick enough to purposely use policies to reduce the Nation and its population to a state of Poverty, Crime, Misery and Corruption, but you would be wrong!
That is exactly the Democrat plan for this Nation!
The more Democrats can decrease Education achievement,, Reasoning ability and increase the Liberal idealogy, Poverty, Welfare and the Entitlement mentality the more Democrat voters they make and the closer they get to a Third World Socialist Food Stamp Paradise controlled Lock, Stock and Barrel by the Democrat party!
The last piece to achieve their goals is nearly in place. Amnesty for the 12 to 30 million criminals and uneducated invading Illegal Aliens. That with chain Immigration for the ones still left in Mexico and Latin American and with a Prolific breeding rate will assure a Democrat majority forever and a Third World Slum here of Crime, Corruption, Poverty and Misery modeled on Mexico and controlled by the Socialist/Democrat party of Northern Mexico!
It is all about Power, Control and the Democrat party and how to use lies, false compassion and the people,s tax money, to achieve their Sick and Treasonous goals!
Sorry Blacksaint. You perpetuate the myth about California. Not to pick on Mitt but he and other wealthy types aren’t going anywhere. Sure they don’t reside in Bakersfield or Fresno. But don’t expect them to leave Los Altos or La Jolla for Austin. Some of them reap huge benefit from the grossly unfair Prop 13 property tax imbalance.
Illegals are necessary for the dirty hard cheap labor. They are in every state. Unfortunately misfit Hanson is one of the few pariah’s willing to discuss the issue.
Victor;
Great piece, as usual. This time not only deliberate & sober but sprinkled w/ tongue-in-cheek humor; very refreshing, e.g, the Thor & used Volvo shtick.
I’ve been saying it all along that hypocrites like Buffett, hollywonks, limo-libs, ad nauseam, should write the gov a huge check & leave the rest of us alone.
This article & comments reminded me of a long forgotten incident 20 years ago.
I’ve been giving freedom speeches, performances & freedom firesides for 30 years for free. Just to express my gratitude to live in the US & trying to wake up the sheeple from apathy. After several assemblies in public schools in the early 90s (along the Rockies are many conservative, patriotic teachers), one principal told me that there is a fed multi-culti program that pays 25$/h since I enhance the speech w/ a performance of Bohemian/Czech music. I applied for it in order to bring Bohemian/CZ music to US kids. The reply from the diversity commissars was swift & unyielding. In order to be allowed to perform Bohemian/CZ music in public schools & be paid for it, I’d have to be black or Hispanic. I kid you not!
To all vets/active duty, thank you for your service. let us fight the enemy not each other.
Folks,
There’s nothing left to do but Go Galt.
The 44 and under group are majority Obama/socialism/soft fascism/’correct thought’/Church of Progressivism. There’s enough of their ideological supporters in the over 44 group that they now have a distinct majority. They cannot be convinced thru logic, reason or evidence of any kind that they are on the wrong path. The only chance they have to learn is when they find their ideology/theology destroings them and everything around them – and a number of them won’t learn even from that experience.
So:
It’s time to move to a state where things make sense. Pick well; look at NH as an example of a former sensible state that has gone the way of Vermont and Massachusetts.
Once you get there, find and/or organize a political movement that holds America’s founding ideals to it’s heart, and see if you can get the rest of the folks in the state to agree to SECEDE.
You can’t save America; the 50 states of the red, white and blue are now history. All you can do is save yourself and your loved ones. Look at Detroit as an example of the future for Blue states – and I don’t mean a distant future, either. California is clearly moving towards Detroit class very, very rapidly. So are NJ, Illinois, Massachusetts and New York.
This flight will be painful for a number of you. But it’s necessary. You have to realize it’s just a matter of time before the ‘correct thought’ policies of the blue states where some of you reside (including me, though that will change soon) will be forced onto your children and grandchildren, and you will be ostracized and perhaps criminally prosecuted for resisting the indoctrination. Furthermore, the ‘correct thought’ ideology will move beyond the MSM and claim all of literature as a target of ‘cleansing.’ It’s already well underway with history. Anything which contradicts the canon of the Church of Progressivism will come under attack and will be changed or discarded, further disarming you as you try to protect future generations of your family from this totalitarian theology. If you think Farenheit 451 and the Nazi book burnings can’t come to a blue state neighborhood near you, you’re mistaken. Even if it’s not done publicly, it will be done behind closed doors and is, in fact, already well underway.
We’re going to have to break away and seek our own destiny. In fact, over the next few years, such a decision may easily be forced on us.
No, I’m not crazy or a conspiracy theorist. I simply prefer looking Reality square in the face, because I hate surprises – especially nasty ones.
Dr Hanson
I really enjoy your work. This article is a bit surprising, though. It is the least organized and comprehensive article I’ve seen from you, and the most emotional. A cri de couer (sp- I don’t know French), a cry from the heart?
We live in a time when we can hardly comprehend one outrage before another is foisted upon us, and you have been outstanding in your efforts to point them out and attempt to apply reason to that which is unreasonable. When I see an article like this from you, I worry.
Are we reaching the point of no return. I hate the talk of revolution, violence, secession and civil war some seem all too ready to bring us to. As a career soldier and retired lawyer, with an interest in history, I dread seeing the ruin that such ideas really mean. I dread even more an end to a nation based on the God given dignity of every human soul and the rule of law. Are we really reaching the point where the choices will be an end to that nation, or to live through that ruin?
You have , I believe, mostly filled the role of the historian here. An observer and reporter, not a problem solver so much as one who clarifies the issues. Perhaps it’s time to offer a possible solution, or, like a good staff officer, a clear choice of options.
One option that I see- that it is time to consider at least a temporary retreat from your increasingly, from your articles, untenable position in the valley to a more tenable position elsewhere. You wouldn’t have to sell your beloved homestead, but maybe it’s time to rent the land and fall back? I know that it is presumptuous for me to suggest it-though I’m not the first here, but your knowledge and insight are too rare to be be right on the front lines.
That’s a good slogan, Patrick Henry, but what are you going to do about it?
(We have already had this discussion, Dave. Your side lost. This schoolyard challenge has a new name. It is called the Boner Retort!)
Cuésta College
Adding ignorance to the equation, since, in Spanish, words with the stress on the second syllable ending in a vowel do not get a written accent.
But, hey, not even basic grammar is safe in the altar of diversity.
Thank you VDH, again. I do not overlook any of your discourse or that of Thomas Sowell. Lately I have been reading Rules for Radicals and find it to be pretty much Obama’s “bible”. I am not through yet, can only stand a little at a time…makes me sick, really. In it Saul defines Haves, Have Some Wants More and Have Nots as the major sectors of society. If appears that the Haves and Have Nots are (and have been) ganging up on the Have Some Want More group. The truly wealthy Haves use the Have Nots as “useful idiots” to hold on to power while taking all they can from the Have Some Wants More crowd to keep them from moving up and competing with the Have folks. There appears to be some alignment in this triad with our major political parties. One place he defines organizer as revolutionary…seems right. He dedicates it to Lucifer no less. If you think you can stand to read this junk I bought it at Amazon for a few bucks. Go slow though, I started to underline stuff and found whole pages were important in understanding our situation.
Susan Rice is very thrifty. She saved $40,000,000 on a salary of $80,000/year. Although in the last 4 years she made over $150,000/yr. All her jobs were government jobs.
I have been wondering ever since I heard about Susan Rice’s net worth why the MSM feels absolutely no compunction whatsoever to investigate this even cursorily. Either they are the most useful of idiots ever to appear on the face of the earth, or they are directly in on the game and reaping magnificent benefits from it.
Grey Eagle
After a quick check, if she started with $80k/yr, got 3% raises to get to $163k/yr after 25 yrs and her net worth was all from salary and savings she would have to have saved 33% of her salary over the 25 yrs and made 33% on her savings acct to get to $40M in this simple system and paid no taxes either. Seems pretty near impossible to me. Maybe she was exposed to some very profitable investments like are so common around D.C. Could be she was shown some tricks by Harry Reid, I hear he has done well too.
You have an ad for GREEN COFFEE BEANS which is the source of a very vicious virus. Please tell us the name, street address, zip of the advertiser. A picture would be nice.
You guys are way to hard on the rich. I remember reading that during the occupy protests, several movie stars, most notably Barbara Streisand, set up a card table, sat down and started cutting the protestors checks to cover their student loans. When she was complimented for her generosity having just spent $5,000,000.00, Mzzz. Streisand noted that it was just pocket change to her.